Dr. Obama & Mr. Hyde

Normally during their second term U.S. presidents reveal their true ambitions. Without the pressure of having to win a re-election at the end of the term, they have their hands free to implement all those unpopular policies that in their first term would have been suicidal but that are the ones that forge a presidential legacy.

For Obama, it was going to be hard to accomplish more than in the first four years. Obamacare and the closing chapter of Osama Bin Laden were a hard act to follow. All this, however, has gone out of the window. His legacy might be rather murky in the end.

Picture: Obama's twitter

The revelation of secrets involving the US government spying its own citizens has dented the image of the country both abroad -and this is the novelty- and within the US. Foreigners were already suspicious; Americans are now on board that train too. All this has made Obama into a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

It is remarkable to see the different opinions that held candidate Obama and President Obama. Several online videos illustrate how both Obamas could have perfectly had a debate with completely opposing views. As an example, take this video. There is another one that puts Obama to debate with Biden.

The truth is that the US President has promoted laws to protect those who leak information to the press. But at the same time, he has ensured that no one can do it without being considered a traitor. To get an idea, it would be like legalizing the use of hands to play soccer while banning at the same time touching the ball at all. And while Obama is defending the whistleblowers that are working towards building up the freedoms of citizens, his team also removed from the memory of his electoral program the mentions to all promises working on that line.

Obama's speech isn’t contradictory only when talking about whistleblowers. Take the global war on terrorism, for example. Obama has put a deadline on the military intervention in Afghanistan and he has decided that the conflict is over, just to have the Pentagon saying straight after that it actually will be around for 10 or 20 years more -which is like saying that it will never end.

That’s without mentioning other flops like Guantanamo, still there. Or the policy of use for drones, whose operations have grown exponentially since Obama is in the White House. There even have been ad-hoc laws created to legalize the targeted killing of Americans who belong to "associated forces" of Al-Qaeda, which in practice is a blank check to blast out anyone anywhere.

But undoubtedly the cases of Manning and Snowden are the ones that seem to have started the ball rolling at home. Manning has been held incommunicado for weeks, months, years, without knowing his future. Today he finally knew it: he will be considered a snitch, not a traitor. The saga is not over yet. There are 20 more charges that could lead to a more than 120 years sentence.

For Snowden it is more poignant. The journalist who he leaked the information to is facing already voices calling for his prosecution and a smear campaign. It’s a declaration of intentions and a warning to the press in general. It effectively coerces journalists who might land in the future on leaked information. They know what they must adhere to. Snowden, meanwhile, lives in an airport at the moment and probably he will never again have a normal life.

But neither will American citizens -or the rest of the world. Giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook have been involved in a case that threatens something Americans defend to death: privacy.

Snowden’s support among American citizens is far greater than the one for Manning, basically because this time Americans rights are the ones that got violated; not some foreign people’s. PRISM has done far more damage to the Obama administration that the supposed dangers it was trying to protect them from.

Obama might be remembered as the president who killed bin Laden. Or the one who won a Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps as the one who created the basics of an egalitarian health system or the one who rescued the car industry. But he also might be remembered as the tyrant who spied, tortured and killed other Americans. And there isn’t any Nobel Peace Prize capable of cleaning that.

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Old habits die hard

We live in a world radically different to the one from the Cold War era. In fact, that is a period of time that has been left behind by all of us. No more fear of a nuclear holocaust. In Hollywood, the bad guys are now Arab terrorists, not communist soldiers.

Even the age of the arms race has been overcome. Not only we are reducing our nuclear arsenals –except for you, Kim. The armies in general are shifting their priorities. The United Kingdom doesn’t put its emphasis anymore on nuclear submarines. The Russians are going the same way with their subs.

War has changed. You do not need large armies to fight with other nations’ big armies. Now different weapons are in demand. Remotely controlled drones, armored vehicles that resist homemade mines and guerrilla tactics for compact armies; those are the tactics generals want now.

Not even the United States wants to be a policeman of the world anymore. Its intervention in Libya was on par with the French. In Mali it only provided auxiliary forces. And when it comes to Syria, it's been trying to stay out of it for as long as it has been able to.

Of course, one thing is to want to abandon old habits and quite another one to do so. There are still vestiges of the Cold War that are very active. The most interesting one is the case of old fashion espionage.

During the 90s, the advancement of technology made spy agencies decide to spend less on information from human sources and more on their digital eyes. Satellites in orbit were giving all the information they felt they needed. However, 9-11 changed the paradigm and since then the human spies are living a second youth.

The latest episode, including the capture of an American CIA spy in Moscow, illustrates that little has changed. He wore various wigs, a compass, a blocker for radio signals (tin foil) and as the only element of the 21^st century, a mobile phone.

It is not the only recent espionage case. In London, the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has led some to believe that his former bosses were behind the poisoning with polonium.

Anna Chapman

Much more striking was the capture of Anna Chapman and nine other Russian spies in the United States. Chapman went immediately on to become a celebrity.

But there is one side of the resurgence of the Cold War times much less reported: the revival of reconnaissance flights. During the '60s, '70s and '80s, American and Russian aircrafts occasionally poked or even went into foreign airspace. It was a sort of cat and mouse game, whose purpose was to check whether the other’s defenses were alert or not.

Russia has returned to this game several times since 2012. Long-range bombers sporadically poke the Arctic and tested the patience of its neighbors. In this regard, Sweden has failed the test. It was not the first time that Russian aircraft entered its airspace and Swedes have failed to respond in time.

This strategy is probably part of another covert war that is beginning to take shape: the battle for the Arctic. But that's a story for another day.

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Boston conspiracies or the triumph of human stupidity

Sooner or later it always happens. After any tragedy -or feat- created by man there is always a group of people waiting to jump to talk about conspiracies. It happened and happens whether with 9-11 or the Moon landing. The Boston bombings weren’t going to be less and in the Internet age, just in a week we have all kind of theories.

Personally, I am very skeptical of the skeptics. For others, it is easier to see conspiracies.

A website has compiled “evidence” that, according to the author, shows that everything that happened in Boston was orchestrated. There are some that are based on physical similarities, such as arguing that Jeff Bauman is actually a double amputee Iraq veteran named Nick Vogt. However, beyond a certain physical resemblance, they are two clearly different individuals.

Others say that the Chechen eldest brother was alive when arrested. As proof, they show a video posted online in which they say the naked person being escorted by police is the oldest of the Tsarnaev.

This however conflicts with the testimony of dozens of neighbors. And a very obvious fact: Tamerlan Tsarnaev had a hairy chest (seen both in old photos and in post-mortem pics distributed by the police), while the guy in the video is shaved.

Other theory suggests that a private security company (Craft International) is the one that planted the backpack-bombs. Some even claim that the same three individuals of that company who were in Boston were also in Sandy Hook after the shooting that killed several children and adults in a local school.

If so, these three men would be doing a lot of overtime. It is hard to believe that a security firm has only three men in charge of doing all the dirty work of conspiracies.

On the other hand, is not so hard to believe that just as in the case of Bauman-Vogt it is just a physical resemblance. Nor is it hard to believe that in the birthplace of capitalism it is normal to hire external companies to do the work of the police and take over part of the security of a public event.

Quite another thing is to think that there are private security companies that want to cash in the misfortune of others. That's not a conspiracy; it's as real as life itself. Vultures are everywhere, but taking advantage of disasters does not mean they want to nor have the ability to provoke them.

There are many more theories. Like the one that puts a wounded Saudi citizen as a terrorist involved in the attack who spoke to Michelle Obama at the hospital, implying it was all a Government plot and a false flag attack.

Conspiracists forget to mention that the First Lady also visited many more people wounded in the attack in the same hospital as part of a visit by the President and her. Maybe the President and the First Lady visiting wounded people in a terrorist attack seems like a weird thing to these conspiracists too.

But even if we accept for a moment that any of the theories raised could be plausible –which they aren’t-, to do this for the simple fact of doing it, for fun, would make no sense. The question to ask is not who, but why. The motive behind the actions is what gives us more information about an event in itself.

Who wins here? Not the Obama administration, for starters. The bombers didn’t use assault weapons but handmade devices, which does not serve to promote legislation for gun control as the U.S. government wants to do.

It has not been either an enemy country behind the attack, no matter how Muslims are the Chechens. In fact, in the past Chechnya has been a great tool to poke Russia and Putin in the eye, for their violent handling of the problem. Russia has told many times America to mind their own business and let them take care of their “internal affairs” alone.

It makes no sense to organize this now and be forced to agree with Russia that the Chechens are terrorists, nor is viable an invasion in Chechnya (Russian territory).

In the end, many of the conspiracy theorists, and many of those who jump on the bandwagon with them, are the same who commit serious blunders in other matters. From using the attack to defend their personal causes (such as the possession of firearms or the legality of torture of detainees) to order the stupid idea of an invasion of the Czech Republic (which forced the Czech ambassador to issue a statement reporting that Chechnya and the Czech Republic are in fact two different entities and geographically separated).

The youngest of the brothers, now that he has begun to talk, will certainly further clarify things.

Meanwhile, I personally find the tinfoil hatters have a vast the imagination. But in the end, in these cases it is best to apply Occam's razor: the correct solution is the simplest. In this case probably the brothers Tsarnaev were lone wolves acting alone.

A possibility, by the way, that should be even more frightening. In a more or less organized group, even if it is based on cells, it is easier to control what will happen. If we are fighting lone wolves that can act independently and at any time, everything gets much more unpredictable and dangerous.

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Nuclear diplomacy

From time to time we hear about the imminent threat that Iran posses to the West. It is usually coming from Israeli or the US. Being Iran as cheeky as it usually is when it comes to its nuclear program, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Like in a game, the IAEA inspectors and Iran are constantly playing out each other. So far Iran wins. They managed to fool the International Agency several times and with a wide array of tricks. Either by undisclosing secret facilities built buried inside a mountain or plain lying about the program, they have earned a reputation of dishonesty.

Yet the constant nagging about Iran meets always strong arguments against that premise more often than not. In fact, it is usually within the US Pentagon that we get reminded that Iran is not a threat, nor it will be in a near future.

We have so many eyes on the country that building up enough uranium to make a bomb under our noses would be impossible. More precisely; it would be possible, but we would know it.

If that was the case and Iran decided to go ahead and set hell loose, it still wouldn’t be a matter of a blink of an eye. It would take at least a year for that to happen. The last few steps made by the Persian country set them back rather than forward. 

Ahmadinejad talking nuclear/Reuters

Even more, according to analyst Meir Javedanfar from The Diplomat, building a bomb could be a bad move for Iran. Unlike North Korea, who has made of isolation and nuclear diplomacy an art, Iran needs the world and does not need a bomb.

Actually, getting a bomb would mean more sanctions for the country. For an oil-exporter like Iran, difficulties to export oil are very damaging for its economy. And sanctions are amongst the biggest difficulties.

This scenario would mean a bigger strain on the already weak economy of Iran and a more discontent population. That, trouble at home, is what North Korea doesn’t have to worry about but Iran does. And it is what ultimately would deter Iran from seeking the bomb.

It is interesting, however, that while the rest of the world is forced to comply with the sanctions, a selected group of countries are allowed by the USA to bypass that and get the much needed Iranian oil.  

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Will it be war in Korea?

Kim Jong-un seems to be finally wearing his father’s shoes. He is even surpassing the boldness of his predecessor. The young one is pushing an escalation of the nuclear diplomacy the North Koreans have mastered for years. However, the dangers come from the lack of knowledge about the new leaders more than from what it may actually happen in the end.

Most of what is happening now has happened before to some degree. The US and South Korea usually have drills in the region. North Korea usually responds harshly to it. And North Korea usually tests every new Prime Minister of the South when they access the office. That is all according to the script.

It wouldn’t even be the first time they exchange fire. As recently as in the past three years, North Korea shelled a South Korean island, which retaliated. The North also -allegedly- sank a South Korean corvette, an act that didn’t have a military response from the South.

There are, however, too many changes to be able to know what will happen next. There are new leaders in both Koreas and in China. The latter, only ally of the North Koreans, recently distanced from them by sanctioning the Kim regime in the UN for their last nuclear test.

But being more isolated is where NK’s strength resides. The Kim dynasty has made of isolation a weapon and it is partially the reason it has survived for so long. A society open to the world, like Iran’s, wouldn’t have been so forgiving of the difficulties it is going through in exchange for nukes.

The speech of threat to the South forms part of that strategy too. Despite the recent lack of food and famine due to a poor harvest, Kim has been able to keep the North’s society united around the leadership by crying wolf in the form of the US and Seoul.

By keeping a constant message of fear, Kim manages to maintain cohesion among North Koreans. This may be more needed than ever before if the rumors of an attempted coup that surfaced on March 13^th are true.

Kim Jong-un, however, has gone a step further with that speech of threat since he accessed the office. He has surpassed his father successfully launching a satellite, test firing another long-range rocket (that failed) and resuming the nuclear program.

These last successful trials (the satellite launch and the nuclear test) may have encouraged the young Kim to impatiently launch threats his country cannot fulfill, like attacking mainland America. The latest moves have been cutting communications with the south, banning access to the joint factory park of Kaesong and pointing the batteries of missiles and artillery to the south.

The truth is no one really wants war. South Korea’s capital, Seoul, would be likely carpeted from the north and little could be done to minimize it. Only during the first hour of conflict, 500,000 rounds of artillery could hit the capital. Conservative estimates suggest a death toll of at least 100,000 casualties only in the city.

North Korea also knows that they would have only 24 hours, maybe 48, until they would be obliterated by the US. The use of nuclear weapons so close to its own population would be suicidal for the north without the intervention of the US. Both Koreas would have too much to lose and little to gain.

Jean Lee, the Pyongyang AP bureau chief and one of the few Western reporters on the ground, said that even amid the latest threats, “Inside Pyongyang, much of the military rhetoric feels like theatrics.”

Business was going as usual and, she noted, “in a telling sign that even the North Koreans don’t expect war, the national airline, Air Koryo, is adding flights to its spring lineup and preparing to host the scores of tourists they expect.” Forcing the south and the US to the negotiation table is what is worth for the North Koreans.

Photo AP

The rest of the actors aren’t any keener to go to war. Japan doesn’t want to be again the target of a nuclear attack and they know they are within the range of North Korean missiles. The US, on the other hand, is fairly safe North Korea can’t hit its territory. But being in withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, it doesn’t make sense to get involved in what could be the bloodiest conflict since 1945.

On the other side, China is not interested in a conflict in the area. Focused on the economy, a war in the region would threaten the growth of the country. An influx of refugees inside its north-eastern border is an added problem. Added to that, if North Korea is annihilated, it could mean US troops on its border while Kim’s regime is now a firewall that would be disadvantageous to lose.

All things considered, recent history tells us it is not likely this will escalate into a full blown war. But as Foreign Policy puts it, “for half a century, neither side believed that the benefits of starting a major war outweighed the costs; the worry is that the new North Korean leader might not hold to the same logic, given his youth and inexperience”. Kim Jong-un is not crazy as some draw him, but our best bet is hoping he is not suicidal either.

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France in trouble

France knew it was stirring a hornets’ nest when it invaded Mali earlier this year. So did the USA and the EU. Yet they pushed through and eventually, together with several African nations’ troops, managed to achieve victory. François Hollande even went to Mali to get a photo-op on the trail of that moment.

But that photo and that victory are as close to reality as George W. Bush’s photo aboard a US carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him. To be honest, the difference is that this time they know it. And they fear it.

Winning is easy. Keeping the spoils of war is much more difficult. Ask the Americans in Iraq. That is precisely what France is trying to avoid, getting into another Vietnam -yes, they have the same example in their history books too.

Even for the invasion, France had to stretch its forces. It needed the support of the USA and other European allies if only to fill auxiliary roles. Holding the ground, even just leading a coalition of African forces, is proving more challenging.

The land to patrol is vast -as demonstrated by the attack on the gas refinery in Algeria. The Islamists are also well armed; these are not Syrian rebels. They have powerful friends and some of them were armed by Gadaffi to fight against the same French and Americans they are fighting now just a few months ago.

Even the fighting is not over yet, as demonstrated by the recent deaths of African and French soldiers in combat missions. Not in ambushes, combat missions. And even a really weak al-Qaeda is being able to maintain a guerrilla war.

French convoy in Mali/Reuters

That is why France wants out. And they want it fast. Hollande’s Government is pushing the UN to create a rapid reaction 10,000-strong multinational force, heavy armed and under French leadership if needed. But under the UN flag and with bigger contributions from other nations.

However, those other nations are likely to be African or Asian. The US, the UK and other European countries pledged only support aid. Canada has already ruled out combat roles for its forces. A picture that sounds all too familiar.

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Syria and the diplomacy game

Syria has become a broken toy no one wants to get their hands on. Truth be told, the situation has escalated and it is way more complicated now. What used to be black or white has now dozens of shades of gray in between. The Balkanization of the conflict has derived in a war with dozens of splinter cells with targets too different between themselves.

There is no more a homogeneous opposition. Some groups want to oust Assad. Others just want to defend their neighborhoods. The Kurds are happy taking care of their own business watching the rest killing themselves. And then there are the ones looking for a Yihad. For those ones, the -theoretically- socialist and laic regime of Assad is as good as a target as anything else.

That is why steps are given carefully. Slow and shy attempts on all sides. Take for example Russia, who started championing Assad. Now they are rather looking for a golden retirement for him and his family in a third country.

We have as well the Arab states of the Gulf. They are between a rock and a hard place. On one hand they would love nothing more than getting rid of Iran’s friend in the region. On the other hand, they are frightened a revolution like that could caught them at home.

In a similar place is Israel, whose is irritated by Assad but fears who could come after him. They have the bad experience of Egypt, where Mubarak was a manageable leader that didn’t give them too many problems. Things have changed with Morsi, if only on the public arena.

Photo: Facebook group

The last one to risk a move has been the USA, announcing they will help directly the Syrian opposition. With a clear red line: no weapons or training. Just medicines and food to avoid future problems.

The Americans don’t want another Afghanistan or Libya. In the former they helped the Taliban; in the later they helped the Gadaffi opposition. Both groups turned their backs on America, one of them in a war still going on, the other one with the attack on Bengazhi’s embassy and Mali.

The Syrian opposition however thinks that all that about food and medicines is good intentions but nothing more. A video uploaded to Facebook shows how much they esteem the help provided by Washington.

However, the lack of a pipeline of weapons from the West isn’t stopping Syrians of getting armed. Recently some images of what looks like Chinese surface-to-air missiles appeared online. How they got there is a mystery. But even without sponsors, Syrians have demonstrated a high dose of imagination. One of them is a Playstation-controlled tank they created out of scrap pieces. That is bringing the game of Libya to a whole new level.

France and the UK have been trying to solve that. They are the top supporters of lifting an EU-embargo on Syria. They are even considering going freelance and arm the rebels themselves, even if that means defying the European Union.

Several Gulf states, however, keep funding and arming rebel groups. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among them. This, again, could turn counterproductive in the end for the Americans. Without a direct control on the arms pipeline, those weapons could end up in the hands of groups that aren’t so worrying for those Muslim states, like al-Nusra. And this would be the same problem all over again, only that way closer to strategic allies like Israel.

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Wasting Money

Over 12% of the Money spent in rebuilding Iraq has been wasted. That is the conclusion reached by the latest enquiry on the matter by the USA. And it could be worse.

Nothing is more painful for Americans than paying taxes. That is why the “taxpayer’s money” is scrutinised so closely. And the quantity wasted this time is considerable: more than $8b.

An estimation, by the way, that could be short. Stuart Bowen, head of the committee redacting the document, told Wired that the total could be much more because they only could audit superficially the account. An account that only includes money spent on reconstruction, not the overall military operation cost which ascends to $800b.

To the 12% of the $60b for rebuilding Iraq, we should add the unknown amount wasted in Afghanistan already. Last year an independent investigation by the BBC revealed that a “significant portion” of the $400m invested in 2011 alone was going to be lost.

Photo: US Army

One thing you can’t deny them is creativity when it comes to useless spending. Sometimes it was in the form of unfinished projects. Sometimes by paying contractors that then didn’t meet the requirements. There is even a case of a school that wanted $10,000 for refurbishment works and got $70,000 without knowing well why.

Probably the case of the “Sons of Iraq” program is especially relevant. It was seen as a expense to avoid expenses. Planned by the now villain Gen. Petraeus it focused on paying of Sunni groups in Iraq to work for the Americans instead of against them. Bribe them, one could say. Those bribes added up to $370m between 2007 and 2008. But worst of all, without being clear if it was a success, they exported the system to Afghanistan.

It is impossible not to think other uses that money could have had. $8b is a lot of money. Enough, for example, to pay for five more missions of the space shuttle. Or for almost a whole year of the Environmental Agency’s budget. Instead they are collecting dust in some warehouse in the middle of the desert.

Published first on Iniciativa Abierta in Spanish

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Asia and Africa dwarf Europe and America in peacekeeping missions

How the US, the UK and France spend most of their forces in private wars

After several weeks of war in Mali, the United Nations has decided to discuss the possibility of sending a contingent of peacekeepers to the African country. France, which has so far led the offensive, has been willing to actively participate in a hypothetical multinational force whose mission would be to keep the peace in the region.

That is not the norm. According to the latest UN report on peacekeeping missions, none of the G8 countries are among the top contributors of personnel. They are the biggest money donors, as several of them must endow an extra amount for being on the UN Security Council -which approves and oversees all missions. But soldiers from other countries, mainly from Africa and Asia, are the ones that put their lives at risk on the ground.

The first strong economy on the list appears at number 11 and it is Brazil, which contributes nearly 2,200 soldiers. In the 15^th position we find the first member of the Security Council (China, contributing 1,869 soldiers). We need to dig until the 20^th position to find the first member of the G8, Italy (1,127 soldiers). Behind the Italians are France in the 26^th (968 soldiers) and way behind the United Kingdom in 45^th place (283 soldiers) and the U.S. in 57^th place (128 soldiers).

One of the main reasons for the lack of Western troops as peacekeepers at the UN is that the organization always tries to implement local solutions to local problems. For example, most of the peacekeepers in Somalia right now are African, while in the missions from the 90’s and 2000’s in the Balkans, European troops were the core of the contingent.

Photo: AP

However Pakistan and Bangladesh, the two biggest net contributors for armed personnel, are present far away from their area of ​​influence. More precisely they are present in Africa -in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Darfur (Sudan) and Congo- despite having a serious problem close to home with neighboring Afghanistan and tensions with India (another top contributor). Nepal, also in the top 10, has nearly a quarter of its troops in Lebanon, a country with which it shares no cultural, religious or historical ties or even a similar climate.

Meanwhile, European countries seem to have a predilection for the Middle East. 98% of Italian troops at the UN, 97% of Spain’s, 91% of France’s and 77% of Germany’s are in the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. 97% of British blue berets are deployed in Cyprus. On the other hand, the Americans have 67% of their staff in Haiti.

These figures contrast with the number of troops that all these countries have deployed in Afghanistan. Even after sending home 33,000 soldiers in 2011, the U.S. has 68,000 troops still on Afghan soil, two thirds of the total of peacekeepers deployed by the UN worldwide.

France has deployed around 2,500 troops in Mali. Along with more than the 500 it has in Afghanistan, they make a total of three times the number of boots that the country dedicates to peacekeeping missions. Both Mali and Afghanistan are considered scenarios on the global war on terror against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

In fact, the countries with the largest contingents in the so-called war on terror (the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain), have a total of about 90,000 soldiers fighting in a frontline that stretches from Afghanistan to Mali and Somalia. That number does not include some personnel that do not appear on the books, as the pilots of American drones. Furthermore, none of these operations is supported by the UN, but by NATO.

The total number of UN peacekeepers is a similar figure of 94,090. However, between the six countries mentioned before (the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain) they only add 3,400 soldiers to the UN-led operations -less than 3.5% of the total. They provide, however, 59% of the funds for peacekeeping missions, without which none of these operations would be possible. A formula -the world powers pay the bill; let others do the fighting- reminiscent of certain aspects of the theory of dependency and colonialism.

In the event that finally a UN mission to Mali is approved, and providing France finally gets a prominent place, it would be a significant change of policy for the big countries. France would become the only country that currently forms part of the G8, the UN Security Council and a significant contributor of troops to the UN.

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Dissecting Mali

The year started strong with a French air and ground offensive in Mali. Although many cannot help but see parallelisms between what is happening in Africa and what happened in Iraq, the fact is that they are two different realities.

For starters, France had been called in by the Malian government itself and has the support of the UN and regional countries. However, it is not like they have a lack of reasons to be interested in rescuing them. From the rich uranium mines that feed the French "nuclear deterrence" to the fact that if al-Qaeda succeeds in the Sahara they would have a base of operations in Europe's backyard, just three hours away by plane. It all adds up.

To avoid greater evils, France has gone with almost everything they have in their arsenal, short of the very best. Apart from its aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons or tanks, everything else is represented in Mali. And despite that, they already got a slap in the face, with the death and display of the bodies of two French marines, a la Black Hawk Down in Somalia.

Photo: Joe Penney/Reuters

There is no wonder that Somali touches seep into Mali. Actually the West African country is just another front in a war that extends several thousand kilometers. It is a covert war, far from the newspapers’ leads, that has been fought for a decade and in which Mali becomes the third front. (See map below)

Starting in the east, the French base in Djibouti is also the home of several multinational squadrons fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia. What is less known is that it also has American drones that daily pound al-Shabab and other Islamist groups’ positions in Yemen and Somalia, even more frequently than they do it in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is quite something.

A little further west we have a UN mission in Darfur, another one in the newly created South Sudan and one more in Chad, all of them with the presence of European or American soldiers. The later have created a vast intelligence network over the past five years, deployed in the area with their eyes put on Boko Haram.

Click to enlarge

Back in Mali, both Boko Haram al-Shabab are present, advising and assisting the rebels. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is actively coordinating with them and other Islamist groups like Ansar Dine.

Its potential danger is palpable and there are facts that confirm it, such as the recent kidnapping in Algeria of a gas plant and killing of hostages in the subsequent rescue operation. Sites part of UNESCO’s Human Historical Heritage like Timbuktu have been severely damaged by the religious extremism of these groups, in actions reminiscent of the blowing up of the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Culture is not the only victim of these groups. After the war in Libya, the Tuareg -under the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) - decided to join Ansar Dine and conquer northern Mali. After they got it, the Islamists ousted them from power and imposed Sharia law in the region.

The creation of an Islamist state in Mali is what most worries the West. After the withdraw in Iraq and Afghanistan -both left in a precarious state-, and the growing popularity of religious groups in Egypt, Libya and the Syrian revolution, the vision of a Sharia ruled belt ranging from Yemen to Mali both terrifies Washington, Paris and London and makes the wettest wildest dreams of the radical Islamists.

However, for now the U.S. and the EU have left France alone at it. The conflict can easily get stalled and nobody wants another Afghanistan now that they are getting out from there. The most they have committed is to provide transport planes, tankers and drones.

Moreover, the French have a better understanding of the area and it isn’t the first time they have gotten involved there. If someone has to go, it is just the natural thing to let the French do it.

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More: From the BBC, who is who in Mali.

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A second golden age for contractors

Three name changes, dozens of legal problems, two major disputes with the governments of Iraq and the United States and the resignation of its founder, would mean a disaster for any company. Not for Academi.

The company previously known as Xe and Blackwater -now bearing the “boring name” of Academi- has a bright future ahead. Or at least that is what one would think reading the report from an independent commission on the attack to the US embassy staff in Benghazi.

Both the independent commission and a Senate hearing have stated that the main problem was that the guards were foreign and unreliable. And both recommended either increase considerably the State Department personnel or hire external guards to take care of US diplomatic security abroad.

Considering the current austerity wave around the world, the first option is unlikely. That leaves the contractor option as the only one. Which in turn it means Blackwater -and other contractors. 

Blackwater guards

And it is a big cake to share: anything between $2.2 billion and $1.3 billion, depending on who you listen to -either the commission or Clinton talking to the Senate.

But that is not the only market for armed guards. Despite a widespread call against the NRA’s suggestion of putting armed guards in schools to prevent mass shootings, some Councils are already discussing the option. 

If passed, most towns don’t have the resources to pull police officers to patrol schools and it would mean another source of income for contractors. Even if it is only a matter of training guards and teachers, Blackwater may be in a good position to take advantage of it.

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The gun country

After the last mass shooting in Newtown the debate about gun control has jumped to the frontpages again. And again, the people who never want to talk about it are saying that it is insensitive to talk now. “Too soon” they say.

The problem is that the shootings are pilling up. And just when the mourning period for the one in Portland was about to expire -and according to the NRA timeframes, it was ok to talk about it- Newtown came in.

As many people have pointed out, it is not that it is too soon to talk about it. In fact, it is too late. That should have been discussed before. One would think that after a Congresswoman was attacked, politicians -and the people- would have taken the matter more seriously. Nope.

Probably many people against gun control are afraid of the government taking the guns from their hands. But they need to understand, gun control doesn’t mean no guns, just a tighter and more controlled access to them and their use. And there are plenty of reasons to apply gun control.

A very common argument is that other factors like a deficient mental healthcare is to blame for mass shootings. Interestingly, many of the people who oppose gun control are closer to Republicans than to Democrats -not all- and they opposed as well Obamacare. Imagine what they would have to say about taxpayers’ money going into universal mental healthcare. Or into public schools so teachers and staff are more prepared to identify possible psychopaths.

It is not the only contradiction for Republicans. They resist the government control over gun ownership yet they insist in controlling communications, women’s bodies, gay marriages or immigrants. Selective freedom, it seems.

It is also interesting to note that while one isolated shoe bomber made widespread airport controls the norm, no matter how many mass shootings there are to convince people of the need for a debate on the issue.

Foreign examples of Switzerland and Israel are often cited as countries with lax gun control but both recently tightened the access to firearms. Australia long ago applied gun control and numbers talk for themselves. Japan's number of deaths are down to almost zero. 

The only other example of a country with permissive laws on the matter is Finland, who is the second -after the US- on mass shootings by civilians.

It is understandable the need for a militia -and therefore, the Second Amendment- in the post-independence America, but now it is just an anachronism. In my European mind it is impossible to conceive how citizens of the country with the biggest and most advanced army in the world feel so unsafe to be compelled to buy guns to defend themselves. Let alone, the need for semi-automatic weapons. 

Furthermore, if no one but the ones who must maintain the law and order were allowed to carry guns, there wouldn’t be a need to carry a gun for self-defense.

“That wouldn’t stop someone who wants to harm of doing it” say as another excuse pro-guns lobbies. Well, I have to agree with that one. Nothing, not even the tightest laws, will stop a determined enough lunatic. But at least the damage, the chances for it to happen or the frequency of the attacks wouldn’t be so great.

Take a firearm away from a psycho and they will find another way to do harm. But probably it will be a less harmful one, like a knife. Or a frying pan. Just on the day of the massacre a guy with a knife assaulted a school in China, stabbing 22 children. All survived.

So, how many more shootings until someone acts? Well, just today there was another one in Colorado with four people dead. And in the meantime, sales of firearms soared like previous times with the media not precisely playing a shoothing effect.

It's too soon after Lincoln's assassination to be talking about gun control.
— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) December 15, 2012

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Calling wolf (again)

Last week we woke up to the unsettling news of Al Assad cooking sarin-filled ammunitions. It is not that we didn’t know that Syria has chemical weapons. We knew it. But some intelligence reports suggest now that the regime of Assad may be loading them on the delivery recipients.

Immediately, the US stated that using chemical weapons would be a “red line” that if crossed would carry “consequences”. It is easy to imagine those consequences in the form of a Libya-style intervention.

If the reports are true it would show significant weakness for the Assad regime. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The rebels are closing the gap with Damascus' airport and fighting for its control, with flights having to be cancelled for hours at some points in the past few weeks. For now, the airport is open but the road to the city is a battlezone.

The recent blackout of the Internet seemed also like a desperate measure by the Syrian government to cut the leaking of videos and information from within Syria. Mixing the sarin and loading them onto the delivery recipients would be the prelude of another desperate measure. Because if done, it all becomes way more complicated.

Photo: TRDefence

While separate on their active ingredients, it is somewhat stable and relatively easy to store. But once mixed, and considering the decades-old technology employed by Syria, it must be used immediately or there would be risks of leaks and deterioration.

It is also more difficult to store, due to the sarin being extremely corrosive. Add to that the degradation of the quality of the gas. In fact, to avoid all these problems, Iraqi soldiers -who used the same tech when attacking the Kurds in the 80’s- mixed the gas on the spot just before firing the ammunitions or loading them onto the bombs.

However, some people see on these reports more of a remake of the Iraq invasion than a real threat. Calling wolf on weapons of mass destruction to fuel their own interest -whatever they could be. And it is not only the Russians, who have a clear conflict of interest with Syria, but also activists among the rebel ranks.

Those rebels, or at least some of them, are what several analysts have said we should be worried about. They are talking of a proper nightmare scenario. If the Assad government fails, all those chemical weapons that do really exist could end up in the hands of the rebel groups, some of them linked to al-Qaeda. And those rebels have already stated that they want those weapons, while their methods aren’t always that different from what they say to be fighting.

This isn’t a new problem. The US came up with a solution to a similar problem in Pakistan, setting a back-up plan in case the government failed to secure the nuclear stockpile of the country. However, Syria is not Pakistan. There are no dollars to put into Assad’s account to shield the sites storing the weapons -for now, Assad just keeps moving them around- and it is unlikely Russia would see with good eyes an intervention on Syrian soil by American soldiers -that was the plan B in Pakistan. 

Instead, the Americans are hoping to train Syrian rebels to secure and handle those weapons. But that plan can only work if those rebels arrive before al-Qaeda linked groups to the sites and if Assad’s government cooperates to some degree. Two very big if’s in a very volatile environment.

Either that or call the Israelis in.

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Definition of "scary"

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Friendly fire 19/10/09

Going green to be greener.

Iran to Russia: where are our missiles?

NK boosts its special forces.

In honor to Jordan: no more 23s.

Sarah Palin still on the frontpages. Literally.

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Friendly fire 05/10/09

- Iraq combat deaths near record low.

- After a deadly month in Pakistan, Islamabad offers Taliban bounties.

- Tehran set to lose status as Iran capital.

- An excellent data collection about the piracy around the world: all the attacks by pirates in 2009 (raw data)

- Inside the Army’s Far-Out Acid Tests. Dude, that's awesome...




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Obama an the secret warehouse

So this is warehouse shown in Indiana Jones IV where the US keeps the Arc and all those treasures. I guess.



Via the White House flickr account.


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Non stop

Last 48 hours chaos reigned again in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the north, an attack on a UN guest house in the centric Sherpur neighbourhood of Kabul ended up with at least 13 casualties, six of them workers of the organization.

The incident affected too several near embassies, among them the Spanish embassy, where some bullets got into the staff rooms. This is just another brick on the wall that makes more nervous American allies. Public opinions at home are more and more difficult to please. In the last NATO meeting, European members pledged to hang on there, but any increase of troops was took out of the table. “Guarantees of stability”, ask sarkozy and Merkel before committing with more soldiers. And of course, the fact of Karzai’s brother being as corrupt as his relative, plus a drug lord and in the CIA payroll is not a stability proof.

Pakistan, continues the push against the Taliban in South Waziristan at the same time that a bomb exploded in the middle of Peepal Mandi market. It was the worst terrorist attack since 2007 with more than 90 casualties and over 200 wounded.

The attack, by the way, was a few hours after American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton landed in Islamabad to hold several meetings with local authorities. She insisted once again Pakistan is not alone in this fight. In fact, this week we knew via LA Times that American drones are helping the Pakistani army in their offensive in South Waziristan. Of course, both the US and Pakistani governments quickly denied that. And reasons for it are clear.

Since the beginning of the drone wars, the US and Pakistan have had a don’t ask-don’t tell policy. This way, Pakistani government could criticize occasionally the Americans in a wash up over the Americans in order to maintain the precarious balance inside the country.

But everything has its limits, and that same population is starting to grow tired of the Predators. They have good reasons. Since 2006, it’s calculated that around 350 civilians have dead in drone attacks. Some other numbers are higher, as much as double that. It’s anyway a high amount. Even just one could be a lot. Ask a tribal clan leader, and he could tell you this.

Now, maybe international legality will be on their side too. The UN has warned that drone attacks may be out of the frame of humanitarian rights. Of course, that’s only a warning from the UN, and all of us know the effect of that. Plus I unsure who would be more benefited from a halt in the drone attacks, the US or the Taliban. Both desire to continue it. For America, is a great way of fighting without risking lives or having to extend a complex network inside Pakistan. For the Taliban, is the perfect propaganda weapon and a great recruitment method.

Predator drone
Photo: Doug Pritchard



 
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