News Abroad

Obama's Wrong about Unilateral Military Action—Just Ask Abraham Lincoln

by David Gray Adler

The one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter has triggered renewed interest in the constitutional issues that emerged during the Civil War.  The examination has been anything but antiquarian; indeed, from coast to coast, participants in discussions and debates have wondered at the lessons and implications of the Civil War for constitutional government, American institutions, the management of national security crises and the war on terror and, particularly, executive power.  The Civil War continues to resonate in our collective consciousness in a manner that surpasses our interest in the other great wars that have engulfed and defined our nation.On March 21, President Barack Obama informed Congress that, two days earlier, U.S. forces, “at my direction,” had launched military operations against Libya to “assist an international effort authorized by the United Nations Security Council.”  President Obama later announced at a news conference that Libyan leader, Moammar “Qaddafi needs to go.”  Over the next several weeks, U.S. forces engaged in a series of strikes against Libyan air defense systems and military airfields for the purpose of establishing a no-fly zone.

The Palestinians Have Nothing, So Why Shouldn't They Seek UN Recognition?

by Juan Cole

Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gave a major speech Friday making it clear to the Palestinians that the PA will seek membership in the United Nations at this year’s General Assembly meeting.The Palestinians (or more precisely the Fateh faction that controls the ever-shrinking Palestinian parts of the West Bank) are not going to the UN, as is often charged, to make an end run around negotiations with Israel.  Abbas knows very well, and acknowledged in his speech, that only through negotiations with Israel can there ultimately be a change in the status of the Palestinians as largely stateless persons, a significant proportion of them descended from refugees created by Israel ethnic cleansing campaigns in 1947-48.The reason for seeking recognition as a member nation of the UN is simply to gain moxie in those negotiations.

Ten Years After 9/11, Jihadis are Winning the War

by Walid Phares

A decade after the jihadi strikes against America’s military and financial centers at the hands of al-Qaida, the question remains:  Have we won the war?  In the ongoing, debate, we see three camps. One states that we were defeating the enemy until Washington changed direction three years ago, and another boasting that America was losing the war until three years ago when a change of direction brought victory in sight.The third maintains that we never changed direction, and that victory has resulted from staying the course.Some really believed that the years following the attacks have brought the free world and democracy to an inch from victory.  Others among us believe that thanks to today’s policies, we are finally better than ever before.

Anna Hazare Isn't Gandhi, But His Movement is What India Needs

by Vidyadhar Date

Anna Hazare is a simple man, barely able to speak English, from a rural area with little formal education. He used to drive trucks in the Indian Army.  But this simple man has shaken India to the core with his uncompromising anti-corruption crusade.  His strength lies in his zest for public welfare, his deep personal honesty, and his Gandhian values of non-violence and simplicity.  He just brought the Indian government, headed by Cambridge-educated economist Manmohan Singh, to its knees.  And rallying behind him are tens of thousands of young people, not to mention the middle class of India.Unlike other prominent Gandhians, Hazare does not have an upper-class background.  Lest we forget Mahatma Gandhi himself studied law in London and was a practicing attorney in South Africa, where he began his non-violent struggle.  Hazare, however, has very humble origins, and he maintains this by living a Spartan bachelor’s life in a room in his village temple.  His recent thirteen-day-long fast in New Delhi kept news channels busy twenty-four hours a day, and the Indian Parliament was forced to agree to pass a law curbing the rampant corruption in India’s public life.

Muammar Qaddafi: A Retrospective

by Daniel Pipes

The world's longest ruling head of state, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi (the correct transliteration of his name), would have been ruler of Libya for exactly 42 years on Sept. 1. As he leaves the scene, his wretched reign deserves an appraisal. On taking power, Qaddafi was one of the most handsome of public figures.Qaddafi took power at the age of 27 in the waning days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the immensely influential pan-Arab leader of Egypt, and saw himself as Nasser's acolyte but with a greater ambitions: whereas Nasser dreamed of a single Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf as an end in itself, Qaddafi saw Arab unity as the first step to Muslim unity. Although Qaddafi failed to achieve any sort of unity, and his "Third International Theory" detailed in the 1975 Green Book proved a total bust, he did have an early and marked impact on two major developments.

Nevermind the Bullocks—The UK-U.S. Special Relationship is Here to Stay

by Alanna O’Malley

In 1979, Henry Kissinger that the Anglo-American special relationship was “an extraordinary relationship because it rested on no legal claim; it was formalized by no legal document; it was carried forward by succeeding British governments as if no alternative were conceivable.  Britain’s influence was great precisely because it never insisted on it; the ‘special relationship’ demonstrated the valuable of intangibles.”  Not only have successive British governments championed the close and intimate connection with the United States, but the “special relationship” provides a means by which Britain can bolster perceptions of her international prestige, belying what may be termed her status anxiety, through intense and fruitful cooperation with the U.S. in key areas such as nuclear, defense and intelligence sharing. For their part, the State Department has, in Britain, a solid and dependable ally with whom there is a shared language, diplomatic culture, history and tradition. However, what may have begun as an alliance of equality during WWII, has now become very much a partnership of polarity in terms of relative power as the disparities in economic, military and international prowess have deepened the divide between the two nations.  Yet the rhetoric and mysticism of a ‘special relationship’ said to exist between the two nations prevails.

Europe and America: Hissing or Kissing Cousins?

by Peter Baldwin

One presidential administration is a long time in trans-Atlantic relations.  Four years ago, the chasm between Europe and the U.S. seemed unbridgeable.  Bush was the anti-Christ in European eyes, the swaggering Texan who had invaded Iraq while blithely presiding at home over a sharp-elbowed, inegalitarian society.  Europeans in return were viewed by conservative Americans as under-worked, over-taxed, molly-coddled spongers, oblivious if not skeptical of the dangers American soldiers and tax payers were protecting them from.  To punish them we stripped our favorite food—French fries—of any association with the perfidious continentals, just as during the First World War frankfurters were Americanized as hot dogs, lest the Krauts fondly imagine we still thought of them while ordering lunch.

Turkey Has Big Plans for the Middle East—But It Needs to Reckon with Its Genocidal Past First

by Taner Akçam

It looks like the countdown to regime change has begun in Syria, and Turkey may end up having the final say regarding the international intervention that’s increasingly likely to occur.  It will pay for Turkey, however, to engage in some sober deliberation before getting involved.  For most in the Middle East, any action taken with Turkey’s participation will not be perceived as one in which Turkey is fighting to create free and democratic regimes in the region.  One should never forget that the peoples in the region view themselves through a window that’s been framed by Turkey’s imperial history. 

Daniel Pipes: Uncertain Times in the Middle East

Ali Moore, presenter: American writer and often controversial commentator Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum and is visiting fellow of the Hoover institution of Stanford University. He's currently in Australia as a guest of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. He joined me from our Brisbane studio a short time ago. Daniel Pipes, welcome to Lateline.Daniel Pipes: Thank you.Ali Moore: If we can go straight to those overnight attacks in Israel. Hamas denies involvement but Israel has already carried out airstrikes over the Gaza strip, Hamas has vowed revenge. Are we now looking at a potential major military escalation between Hamas and Israel?Daniel Pipes: Indeed. And it has further complications because for the first time in many years the Sinai Peninsula, which is next to Israel, seems to be anarchic. And it appears the Egyptian government is not fully controlling it. And so this could be the first of many attacks, perhaps from Gaza, perhaps from Sinai itself, perhaps from Hamas, perhaps from other groups. So there is potential for much more trouble here.

The UK Riots Show the Bankruptcy of Conservative Policies

by Deepak Tripathi

War came to Britain’s streets two weeks ago in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and other urban centers.  The country has seen protests against the Iraq War, against cuts in pensions for local government employees and teachers, and against dramatic increases in student tuition fees.  The events of recent days, however, have been the worst social unrest in a generation.  They've been a reminder of the 1980s, when urban riots shook British society to its core.

The Great Tripoli Uprising

by Juan Cole

As dawn broke Sunday in Libya, revolutionaries were telling Al Jazeera Arabic that much of the capital was being taken over by supporters of the February 17 Youth revolt.  Some areas, such as the suburb of Tajoura to the east and districts in the eastern part of the city like Suq al-Juma, Arada, the Mitiga airport, Ben Ashour, Fashloum, and Dahra, were in whole or in part under the control of the revolutionaries.Those who were expecting a long, hard slog of fighters from the Western Mountain region and from Misrata toward the capital over-estimated dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s popularity in his own capital, and did not reckon with the severe shortages of ammunition and fuel afflicting his demoralized security forces, whether the regular army or mercenaries.  Nor did they take into account the steady NATO attrition of his armor and other heavy weapons.

White House Weasel Words in the Middle East

by Daniel Pipes

The White House engaged in two furtive gambits last week that painfully exposed the Obama administration's amateurish, deceitful Middle East-Islamic policies.The first case concerned the thorny issue of Jerusalem's legal status in American law.  In 1947, the United Nations ruled the holy city to be a corpus separatum (Latin for separated body) and not part of any state.  All these years later and despite many changes, U.S. policy holds that Jerusalem is an entity unto itself.  It ignores that in 1949 the Government of Israel made western Jerusalem its capital and in 1980 it declared the whole of Jerusalem to be the capital.  The Executive Branch even ignores U.S. laws from 1995 (requiring a move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem) and 2002 (requiring that U.S. documents recognize Americans born in Jerusalem as being born in Israel).  Instead, it insists that the city's disposition be decided through diplomacy.Challenging this policy, the American parents of Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky, demanded on his behalf that his birth certificate and his passport list him as having been born in Israel.  When the State Department refused, the parents filed a lawsuit; their case has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Canada Helped Feed Europe's Children—Now It Needs to Feed Africa's

by William Lambers

Determination.  We hear that word often in sports and in business.  But what does it mean when it comes to saving lives?  Amid harsh, rainy weather conditions on April 29, 1945 on an airfield in Great Britain, we found out.It was World War II.  A flight crew of seven boarded a Royal Air Force plane on a mission.  Five of the men were from Ontario, Canada.  One of them, the pilot, Robert Upcott of Windsor, made final preparations for take-off.  Only these men were not taking part in an enemy raid.  They were on a mission to bring food to starving people in Nazi-occupied Netherlands.  Millions of Dutch citizens were enduring what is known as "The Hunger Winter" of 1944-1945, as they awaited the final defeat of the Nazi Germans by Allied, particularly Canadian, forces.

The Norway Attacks and the Paranoid Mindset

by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi

It has emerged that Anders Breivik- who is suspected of killing at least 76 people in two attacks in Norway on Friday a week ago– was an avid user of online so-called “counter-jihad” forums. At one such site called document.no he claimed in 2009 that he was now working “full time to develop/promote further the Vienna school of thought that Fjordman, Bat Ye’or…and many others have already contributed so much to.” (For more on this issue see this post.) This connection raises the question of whether some conspiracy theories pose a threat to the public, that is, whether they constitute a clear and present danger of promoting violence, because of the way they are formulated.The “Vienna school of thought” refers to the outlook promoted by the blog “Gates of Vienna” (GoV), which is the most avid advocate of the “Eurabia” thesis first formulated by Bat Ye’or and promoted in detail by an anonymous Norwegian blogger known as “Fjordman.” (Eurabia is the daft idea that Europe is going swiftly to become a continent dominated by radical Muslim regimes). On multiple occasions, Breivik has advertised Fjordman’s work, most notably in describing his article “Defeating Eurabia” as “the perfect Christmas gift for family and friends.”

Norway's Terrorism in Context

by Daniel Pipes

Scandinavia may look idyllic from a distance, what with royal families and prime ministers almost without security, but it has endured its fair share of violence, from the assassinations of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme and foreign minister Anna Lindh to two school massacres in one year in Finland, one killing eight, the other ten. Anders Behring Breivik's rampage, in other words, was hardly unprecedented.In the past, one had the cold comfort of knowing that deranged acts such as his were carried out by individuals under the sway of extremist ideologies. Not so Behring Breivik. This terrorist lists among his favorite authors George Orwell, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Ayn Rand, and William James. The disconnect between Behring Breivik's mainstream political conservatism and his psychological derangement presents a shocking new dilemma and challenge.Behring Breivik plagiarized the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. That said, there is no reason to think that Behring Breivik has a single follower, that any other mainstream political conservative will emulate him and massacre socialists. This has never happened before and will probably never happen again. This is a gruesome, freakish exception.

Famine Strikes Again in Africa. America Needs to Respond

by William Lambers

Children are starving to death in East Africa.  Famine has overwhelmed aid agencies.  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says that more than 11 million people desperately need life-saving food aid. Will Americans respond?  History suggests that they will. America has a long and deep humanitarian tradition of responding to the cries of the hungry, wherever they may be.  We saw that in Haiti following the massive earthquake there in 2010.  But American humanitarianism has a history that reaches much farther back. Ninety years ago an appeal for help came from famine-ravaged Russia.  Russia had been struck by a massive drought.  Millions were forced to flee their communities in search of food, but there was little to find.  A letter published by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky pleaded for bread and medicine for children. Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, responded. Hoover quickly gained support from Congress to buy surplus corn from American farmers to send to Russia.  He also rallied the support of charities across America.

Playing Ball With the Pentagon

by Andrew J. Bacevich

Fenway Park, Boston, July 4, 2011.  On this warm summer day, the Red Sox will play the Toronto Blue Jays.  First come pre-game festivities, especially tailored for the occasion.  The ensuing spectacle -- a carefully scripted encounter between the armed forces and society -- expresses the distilled essence of present-day American patriotism.  A masterpiece of contrived spontaneity, the event leaves spectators feeling good about their baseball team, about their military, and not least of all about themselves -- precisely as it was meant to do.

We Live in an Age of Violence

by Deepak Tripathi

Just after the invasion of Iraq, historian Eric Hobsbawm noted there being an unprecedented world situation. “The great global empires of the past,” Hobsbawm wrote, “bear little comparison with the present United States empire. “A key novelty of the U.S. imperial project is that all other empires knew that they were not the only ones.” Nor did they aim at global domination.  The demise of the Soviet Union, however, left the United States as the only superpower.  The emergence of a ruthless, antagonistic flaunting of U.S. power in the post-Soviet world is hard to understand, he wrote, all the more so since “it fits neither with long-tested imperial policies nor the interests of the U.S. economy.”  Despite this, a public assertion of supremacy by military force was dominant in the policymakers’ thinking in Washington.  The question Hobsbawm asked was whether it was likely to succeed.

How Not to Make Friends in the Greater Middle East

by Tom Engelhardt

In the method, there is madness; in the comedy, nightmare; in the tragedy, farce.And despite everything, there’s still good news when it comes to what Americans can accomplish in the face of the impossible!  No, not a debt-ceiling deal in Washington.  So much better than that. According to Thom Shanker of the New York Times, the U.S. military has gathered biometric data—“digital scans of eyes, photographs of the face, and fingerprints”—on 2.2 million Iraqis and 1.5 million Afghans, with an emphasis on men of an age to become insurgents, and has saved all of it in the Automated Biometric Information System, a vast computerized database.  Imagine: we’re talking about one of every 14 Iraqis and one of every 20 Afghans.  Who says America’s a can’t-do nation?

Empower Iranians vs. Tehran

by Daniel Pipes

How should Western governments deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Washington labels "the most active state sponsor of terrorism"?Iranian aggression began in 1979, with the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the holding of some of its staff as hostages for 444 days.  Major subsequent attacks included two bombings in Beirut in 1983:  at the U.S. embassy, killing 63, and at a U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241.More recently, U.S. secretary of defense Leon Panetta stated, "We're seeing more of those weapons going in [to Iraq] from Iran, and they've really hurt us."  Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, "Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shiite groups, which are killing our troops."