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We’ve been talking about the importance of making your privileges transparent in order to be able to say something political. It’s something I learned from reading about intersectionality, which is a way to analyze power by looking at its different categories— gender, race, class, sexuality— and how they interact. Before we started making this album, after not having worked together for a long time, we were interested in getting deeper into feminist and queer theory. So we read post-colonial feminist and anti-racist theory, and with this comes intersectionality. It’s important to see your own position on the scale.
Being brought up in a white wealthy family in a Western country, we were privileged. And we have a privileged position as people being able to make music and study and get asked about what we think about the general political situation. This brings responsibility. When we see people listen to what we have to say, it makes us think about how we can use this attention in the best political way and how we can change our own working process by thinking norm-critically when making choices about who we employ, how we work, what salaries we pay.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- The resignation of Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib troubles the movement. although they’ve told him he cannot resign.
- Colonel Riad Al-Asaad, founder of the Free Syrian Army, lost his leg in a car bomb in an assassination attempt. He is recovering at a hospital in Turkey.
- The Syrian opposition government will represent the country at the upcoming Arab League summit in Doha.
- The Syrian opposition has opened its first embassy, in Qatar.
- A former US soldier who served from 2000-03 was arrested upon his return to the US from Syria, where he allegedly took up arms with the Al-Nusra brigade, considered a terror group by the US.
- Israel destroyed a machine gun nest inside Syria after troops in the Golan Heights were shot at twice.
- Human Rights Watch reports on the mass sexual violence and other abuse faced by internally-displaced Somalis.
- Interethnic violence in Nigeria killed at least 27 on Wednesday.
- The UN approved a new combat force, called an intervention brigade, in the Congo.
- Former Congolese rebel commander Bosco Ntaganda, known as “The Terminator,” appeared before the ICC for the first time on charges of rape, murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
- A coup in the Central African Republic and a dissolution of its constitution puts power in the hands of rebel leader Michel Djotodia.
- An appeals court in Bahrain overturned the convictions of 21 medics for treating protesters two years ago.
- The US ceded control of Bagram prison to Afghanistan.
- Russia is currently in negotiations with NATO to set up military bases in Afghanistan after the US departs.
- AP’s Kathy Gannon interviews Afghans who have fled their homes in an attempt to escape the American drones.
- The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan have threatened the life of former President Pervez Musharraf.
- Pakistan estimates the human losses for its country in the war on terror at 49,000.
- Authorities raided the offices of the Russian headquarters of Amnesty International. This is the latest in a set of moves by the Kremlin to harass and pressure NGOs.
- British police continue to search for clues in the death of Russian tycoon-in-exile Boris Berezovsky.
- Thailand has begun peace talks with southern rebel group Barisan Revolusi Nasional.
- The US and South Korea have signed a pact outlining their communication policies and responses to potential North Korean aggression.
- North Korea has ordered artillery and rockets into ‘combat posture,’ threatening to target US bases in Hawai’i, Guam and the mainland.
- North Korea is cutting off communication with South Korea.
- Iran, Syria and North Korea blocked the arms trade treaty in the UN. Britain and others have requested that the Secretary General put the draft resolution to a vote in the GA to bypass the blockade.
- Newly-released court documents show that Somali Shabab commander Ahmed Abdelkadir Warsame, captured in 2011, has pleaded guilty in a closed court proceeding in Manhattan and has been cooperating by disclosing intelligence on Shabab and Al-Qaeda.
- The US has sentenced Chinese national and former L-3 Communications employee Liu Sixing of exporting military information to China.
- “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” a visually stunning and well-designed interactive about every drone strike in Pakistan and their victims.
- Photographs taken by Charles Haughey, who served in Vietnam and took photographs for the Army and the press, have been rediscovered and put on display.
- According to a Harvard study, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ultimately cost taxpayers between $4 and 6 trillion.
Photo: Manama, Bahrain. A girl holds the flag at a rally in solidarity with imprisoned activist Nabeel Rajab. Mohammed Al-shaikh/AFP/Getty.
(via mehreenkasana)
)No one would doubt Madonna’s commitment to gay rights but more importantly, few would doubt that she’s an archetypal American liberal. This is underlined in this speech to GLAAD, the American body which is widely seen (outwith American liberal circles, anyway) as the hobby horse of privileged white men. The American version of Stonewall, if you will, and as such hugely averse to radicalism and any meaningful discussion of inequality and the use of power. Madonna’s speech pushes all the right buttons in this regard: the American enemies of the great and the good gathered in the room are religious bigots who fixate on sexuality; some truth to this, of course, but neatly feeding the sense of victimisation which many of these people thrive on while obscuring wider and more complex inequalities.
If Madonna has restricted her comments to the Boy Scouts and religious bigotry in America, however, there would have been little wrong with this speech. Where it becomes worthy of criticism is when she moves onto the wider world with some banal but damaging observations on inequality and oppression. Israeli apartheid becomes a question of two mothers sitting down to speak to each other, the pervasive and pernicious fiction that the conflict is one of two equal ‘sides’ rather than one of oppressor and oppressed. Worse, there is a throwaway reference to “an Iranian gay man being hanged for falling in love with a man.” This is a favoured trope of liberals, even in situations where there is absolutely no evidence to support it, and it is unforgivable as it serves to increase the drumbeat for ‘intervention’ in Iran while completely ignoring America’s own complicity in and hypocrisy regarding the Iranian regime (and indeed support of regimes seen to be even more oppressive).
The reference to Malala Yousafzai and the Taliban at first seems straightforwardly ‘good’ - who could have an issue with this, after all? Yet it undeniably further serves American fantasies of promoting equality and justice in the world against dangerous, dark, barbaric enemies. It’s easy to be horrified when the Taliban attempt to kill a child - it’s braver to use your platform to draw attention to your own government murdering hundreds (at least) of children with its drone strikes and sanctions.
Indeed, the sense that you should hold your own government to account before deigning to wag your finger at others looms large in one inexcusable omission from Madonna’s speech. She speaks of Putin and Pussy Riot - again, a worthy cause but one which flatters Western notions of superiority. It is ‘insane’, she says, that Pussy Riot have been locked up ‘because they criticised the government’. Further, she notes that she doesn’t ‘know many brave people’ and draws attention to the line in ‘Nobody Knows Me’ which observes that “it’s so hard to find someone to admire”. You have to wonder, then, if Madonna (and indeed GLAAD) is aware of Bradley Manning, a truly brave (gay) American who has spent over 1000 days in prison and faced torture precisely because he wanted to draw attention to his government’s horrendous abuses of its power. I’ve written before about the silence of ‘Gay Inc’ on Manning and it is truly inexcusable for this room to loudly whoop and applaud their sense of righteousness over Pussy Riot while they continue to turn a blind eye to their own government’s persecution of someone who courageously spoke up. It’s possible to go further still, as Glenn Greenwald does here in a piece on Anwar Awlaki, an American citizen who was subject to extrajudicial assassination (ie murder) by the CIA. Greenwald argues that:
What prompted my opposition from the start to the attempted killing of Awlaki was that it was very clear he was being targeted because of his anti-American sermons that were resonating among English-speaking Muslim youth (sermons which, whatever you think of them, are protected by the First Amendment), and not because he was a Terrorist operative. In other words, the US government was trying to murder one of its own citizens as punishment for his political and religious views that were critical of the government’s policies, and not because of any actual crimes or warfare. (my emphasis)
You may have to read that a few times to fully take in its shocking message - one which completely demolishes liberal fantasies of a superior, secular America which can afford to cast its eye over the abuses of other governments and find them wanting.
Predictably, Madonna’s speech is proving popular with many; it’s being described as ‘courting controversy’ and ‘brave’. Yet what was difficult or shocking about it? It flattered the egos of everyone present, assuring them that they were on the side of ‘right’ and ‘good’ while still facing oppression from wicked religious people. The man the speech honoured is a mainstream journalist who waited until he was firmly embedded at the top of his profession before choosing to come out and there seems to be little that is truly ‘brave’ about his overwhelmingly conventional views. What would have been truly brave, truly shocking, truly controversial, would be if Madonna had challenged the smug complacency of GLAAD and, indeed, of the wider American liberalism and exceptionalism which she so perfectly embodies.
Yep. See also this.
![thepoliticalnotebook:
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
A member of the EU’s Syria delegation was killed in a rocket attack.
A report from the charitable organization Save the Children details the murder, rape, torture and trauma inflicted on the children of Syria. [PDF] UNICEF released a statement calling this generation of Syrian children a “lost generation.”
Rebels released 21 UN peacekeepers on Saturday.
Ankar Kochneva, a Ukrainian journalist captive for several months in Syria, has escaped.
Syria has increasingly lost control of the border with Iraq.
The Guardian investigates why 110 bodies washed up in the river running through Aleppo.
The UN has disputed the claim that BBC video editor Jehad Mashshrawi’s baby son was killed in an Israeli rocket attack. The BBC is challenging this counterclaim, saying there is little evidence that the rocket was instead a Hamas misfire.
Hazem Kandil on deadlock in Cairo in the LRB.
An unemployed man who self-immolated in Tunisia’s capital died on Wednesday.
Journalists are on strike in Mali to demand the release of Boukary Daou, editor of the Le Républicain.
Kurdish rebels released 8 Turks in a promising move for the peace process.
Western weapons are the tools of a crackdown in Azerbaijan.
Seymour Hersh notes the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Iraq.
The Guardian tracks down the stories from the most iconic images of the Iraq War.
The New York Times’ Lens Blog reprints Dexter Filkins’ introduction to Photojournalists at War, an oral history of the war from the photojournalists who saw from the front lines.
The family of Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American former Marine who has been held in Iran for the last 19 months, is pleading for his release.
On the two year anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention, clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted in Bahrain.
The USAF is no longer reporting drone strike data from Afghanistan.
The Atlantic In Focus has a collection of stunning black and white photos (like the one above) taken of anti-Taliban militia activity in Afghanistan.
Mazar-i-Sharif is facing a wave of suicides, particularly young women.
A suicide bomber detonated at a buzkashi game on Wednesday in the province of Kunduz, killing ten.
Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for American troops in Afghanistan: 5 soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in the east.
Over this weekend, Staff Sgt. Bales will begin a court-ordered sanity review.
Parveen Rehman, a well-known Pakistani aid worker and the head of the Orangi Pilot Project to help people escape poverty, was killed by four gunmen on Wednesday.
Former President Pervez Musharraf will return home to Pakistan after four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai.
Gunmen kidnapped two Czech tourists in southwest Pakistan.
Peace talks may have begun with FARC and the economy may be looking up in Colombia, but the Afro-Colombian population seems to have been left behind.
A Chilean court has ordered the exhumation of Pablo Neruda as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned following the 1973 military coup that replaced Salvador Allende with Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Remembering when journalists became part of the story during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the chief of the newly-created Cyber Command, testified before Congress this Tuesday alongside top intelligence official James R. Clapper Jr.
Court documents from the failed federal prosecution of Blackwater reveal a previously secret CIA past.
Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch asks what rules ought to govern drones.
Listen to Bradley Manning’s leaked court statement.
Secretary Hagel has ordered a review of the overturning of a jury conviction of an Air Force Lt on charges of aggravated sexual assault.
Senators like Kirsten Gillibrand grilled military leaders over this case and sexual assault in the military in a Senate hearing.
If you would like to receive this round-up as a weekly email, you can sign up through this form, or email me directly at torierosedeghett@gmail.com.
Photo: Logar Province, Afghanistan. Farzad Akbari, the young son of anti-Taliban militia commander Farhad Akbari, poses armed for a photograph. Vikram Singh.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/439add47d69c32041aced22e71401ac8/tumblr_mjnazrC38P1qchhhqo1_500.jpg)
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- A member of the EU’s Syria delegation was killed in a rocket attack.
- A report from the charitable organization Save the Children details the murder, rape, torture and trauma inflicted on the children of Syria. [PDF] UNICEF released a statement calling this generation of Syrian children a “lost generation.”
- Rebels released 21 UN peacekeepers on Saturday.
- Ankar Kochneva, a Ukrainian journalist captive for several months in Syria, has escaped.
- Syria has increasingly lost control of the border with Iraq.
- The Guardian investigates why 110 bodies washed up in the river running through Aleppo.
- The UN has disputed the claim that BBC video editor Jehad Mashshrawi’s baby son was killed in an Israeli rocket attack. The BBC is challenging this counterclaim, saying there is little evidence that the rocket was instead a Hamas misfire.
- Hazem Kandil on deadlock in Cairo in the LRB.
- An unemployed man who self-immolated in Tunisia’s capital died on Wednesday.
- Journalists are on strike in Mali to demand the release of Boukary Daou, editor of the Le Républicain.
- Kurdish rebels released 8 Turks in a promising move for the peace process.
- Western weapons are the tools of a crackdown in Azerbaijan.
- Seymour Hersh notes the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Iraq.
- The Guardian tracks down the stories from the most iconic images of the Iraq War.
- The New York Times’ Lens Blog reprints Dexter Filkins’ introduction to Photojournalists at War, an oral history of the war from the photojournalists who saw from the front lines.
- The family of Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American former Marine who has been held in Iran for the last 19 months, is pleading for his release.
- On the two year anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention, clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted in Bahrain.
- The USAF is no longer reporting drone strike data from Afghanistan.
- The Atlantic In Focus has a collection of stunning black and white photos (like the one above) taken of anti-Taliban militia activity in Afghanistan.
- Mazar-i-Sharif is facing a wave of suicides, particularly young women.
- A suicide bomber detonated at a buzkashi game on Wednesday in the province of Kunduz, killing ten.
- Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for American troops in Afghanistan: 5 soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in the east.
- Over this weekend, Staff Sgt. Bales will begin a court-ordered sanity review.
- Parveen Rehman, a well-known Pakistani aid worker and the head of the Orangi Pilot Project to help people escape poverty, was killed by four gunmen on Wednesday.
- Former President Pervez Musharraf will return home to Pakistan after four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai.
- Gunmen kidnapped two Czech tourists in southwest Pakistan.
- Peace talks may have begun with FARC and the economy may be looking up in Colombia, but the Afro-Colombian population seems to have been left behind.
- A Chilean court has ordered the exhumation of Pablo Neruda as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned following the 1973 military coup that replaced Salvador Allende with Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
- Remembering when journalists became part of the story during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
- Gen. Keith Alexander, the chief of the newly-created Cyber Command, testified before Congress this Tuesday alongside top intelligence official James R. Clapper Jr.
- Court documents from the failed federal prosecution of Blackwater reveal a previously secret CIA past.
- Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch asks what rules ought to govern drones.
- Listen to Bradley Manning’s leaked court statement.
- Secretary Hagel has ordered a review of the overturning of a jury conviction of an Air Force Lt on charges of aggravated sexual assault.
- Senators like Kirsten Gillibrand grilled military leaders over this case and sexual assault in the military in a Senate hearing.
Photo: Logar Province, Afghanistan. Farzad Akbari, the young son of anti-Taliban militia commander Farhad Akbari, poses armed for a photograph. Vikram Singh.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
Notice: This Week in War, both the post and the newsletter, will be on hiatus next Friday.
- French photographer Olivier Voisin died on Sunday of wounds sustained in Idlib, Syria last Thursday.
- More than 40,000 people flee Syria every week, and the UN says that the total number of refugees is set to reach a million within the month.
- The US will more than double its support of the Syrian opposition and offer “non-lethal aid.”
- Saudi Arabia has funneled a large amount of infantry weapons purchased in Croatia to rebels in Syria in hopes of ending the stalemate.
- The Syrian opposition claims to have captured a former nuclear site.
- Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat died in prison over the weekend. Palestinian officials have claimed torture, as evidenced in autopsy findings, which Israel disputes. He was given a hero’s funeral this week.
- Two Palestinian prisoners have ended their hunger strikes.
- A Turkish draft plan to end the 28-year Kurdish insurgency has met with promising response. Jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan has promised to withdraw militants by August if the promised reforms are pushed through in Ankara.
- Tunisia has captured their suspect in the murder of Chokri Belaid.
- A Swiss woman held for a year by armed tribesmen in Yemen has been released.
- Qatari poet Muhammad al-Ajami’s life sentence for encouraging the overthrow of the government has been reduced to a fifteen year sentence.
- Discussions resumed over Iran’s nuclear program for the first time since July.
- Lawmakers introduced harsh new Iran sanctions to Congress on Wednesday.
- The National goes inside Tehran’s Evin prison.
- According to the UN, Iran has stepped up arrests, torture and executions of prisoners.
- Former Iranian prosecutor and Ahmadinejad ally Saeed Mortazavi has been charged with being an accessory to murder in the deaths of anti-government protesters.
- Farmers in Esfahan province clashed with Iranian police sent to provide security for a pipeline destroyed last week amidst a water dispute between Esfahan and Yazd.
- Karzai ordered US special forces out of Wardak province due to allegations against the special forces of disappearances and torture.
- What kind of merit do these allegations have? Nobody seems able to cut beyond rumor and the US isn’t being forthcoming.
- A joint Afghan-NATO inquiry will explore these claims.
- The Wall Street Journal obtained access to an internal UN report which says that the UN Development Program has allowed procurement fraud to flourish in its $2.5 billion Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, which bankrolls the Afghan police.
- On Tuesday, Taliban militants poisoned and then shot 17 people in a government outpost in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
- Recently reported statistics on drops in Taliban attacks were apparently incorrect due to a clerical error.
- Gunmen killed veteran Pakistani journalist Malik Mumtaz in north Waziristan. The Tehreek-e Taliban have denied involvement in his murder.
- Founder and former leader of militant group Lashkar e-Jhangvi Malik Ishaq was detained by Pakistani police.
- The groundbreaking for a Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, which has been in the works on and off since 1994, will be March 11th.
- Thailand has agreed to talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional rebel group.
- Dennis Rodman and Vice Mag have had just a lovely time visiting North Korea.
- Mexico estimates that 26,000 people have gone missing since 2006.
- A rule of law argument against a “drone court.”
- Confirmed and sworn in, Hagel has begun his duties as Secretary of Defense.
- One of the documentaries given an Oscar nod last weekend was Invisible War, which seeks to shed light on military sexual assault.
- Former Air Force recruit Virginia Messick is speaking out about her assault at age 19 by Staff Sgt. Luis Walker.
- A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assault has been planned.
- Returning female veterans face a growing problem with homelessness, PTSD and substance abuse.
- CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou reported to prison yesterday to begin his 30-month prison term.
- Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to ten charges on Thursday and offered a defense and explanation of his actions.
- Earlier this week, the Pentagon bowed to pressure and released 84 previously unpublished trial documents from the ongoing Manning proceedings. Here are the documents themselves.
- A New York Times Room for Debate section on what an act of cyberwar might actually be.
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which broadened the government’s eavesdropping abilities. This shows the difficulty in challenging anti-terrorism measures in court, and probably means that the Supreme Court will never take up consideration of FISA’s constitutionality.
- An interesting new Gallup poll results show that although most Americans (more Republicans than Democrats) think that it’s important that the US have the number one military, only 50% of the country thinks we actually are number one militarily. This is a significant drop from 2010, when 64% thought we were.
Photo: A Bahraini protester waves the national flag at demonstrations sparked by the funeral of teenager killed during protests in the village of Jabalat Habshi. Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP.
lazz:
The 85th Academy Awards will, as every year, be a boring, overlong, masturbatory tribute to mediocre cinema. For decades now, the Oscars have predominantly celebrated middle-brow films that embrace shallow evocations of gravitas over anything approaching creativity. One thing about owners, about the old, rich, white and powerful, is that when it comes to art they are deeply stupid: confusing seriousness with artistry, the emotive with the emotional, realism with profundity. But when it comes to control, strategy, and power, these confusions become assets, foundational aspects of bourgeois subjectivity, of obedience and self-ignorance.
White House Press Secretary Says Obama Administration Banned Him From Speaking About Drones
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, discussing the Obama administration’s transparency regarding the controversial drone program, said on MSNBC on Sunday that he was effectively under a gag order on the program while working for the Obama administration. Gibbs said his bosses barred him from acknowledging its existence or discussing it in any way while he was press secretary.
“When I went through the process of the press secretary, one of the first things they told me was: ‘You are not even to acknowledge the drone program. You are not even to discuss that it exists,’” Gibbs said, explaining why he could not be more candid with reporters on the issue.
He added that he did not think the administration did itself any favors by stonewalling reporters on the issue.
“Our denial of the existence of a program when it’s obviously happening undermines peoples’ confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs likened the official line from the administration on the program to the “Wizard of Oz” idea of “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
Related: Justice Department Says Obama Administration Can Kill American Citizens
In non-Oscars-related news. Not that anyone cares about the Yemenis, Afghans, Somalis and Pakistanis killed by US drone strikes but, hey, it’s ‘legal’ to kill ‘threatening’ Americans too now.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
Please take a moment to register your support for A Day Without News, a just-launched initiative to address the targeting of journalists in armed conflict. The launch marks the anniversary of the deaths of Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik.
- Thursday was the deadliest day for the city of Damascus since the war began: 83 were killed in a series of blasts, the biggest of which killed 61.
- A UN-commissioned inquiry released findings that the conflict is “increasingly sectarian.” The 131-pg report offered evidence of war crimes on both sides (mostly Assad’s forces, but both sides) and urged The Hague to take action on prosecution.
- A rocket attack in Aleppo, Syria on Monday killed at least 31 people.
- Qatar provided $100m in support to the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.
- According to Turkish intelligence, the Syrian government has fired more than 40 Scud missiles at rebel targets in northern Syria.
- Photos of the Free Syrian Army’s reliance on DIY weaponry.
- An Israeli soldier posted an Instagram photograph of a Palestinian child in his crosshairs.
- Israel released part of a report on the death of “Prisoner X,” the prisoner who committed suicide in solitary confinement in Israeli prison in 2010, recently identified as Australian-Israeli Benjamin Zygler.
- Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners went on a one-day fast in solidarity with four long-term hunger strikers (one of whom has been refusing food intermittently for more than 200 days). Protests in the West Bank have also been fueled by solidarity with these prisoners in Ofer.
- Tunisian PM Hamad Jabali resigned after failing to form a coalition government to try and calm the political crisis following the death of Chokri Belaid. On Tuesday, Standards and Poors downgraded Tunisia’s credit rating as a result of political upheaval.
- The AP found a photocopy of an Al-Qaeda tip sheet on avoiding drone strikes in a vacated building in northern Mali.
- Thousands of Egyptian protesters shut down the road to a major port in Port Said on Wednesday. The shutdown occurred on the 4th day of general strike, refusing to accept Morsi’s attempts to placate them.
- A Lebanese military court charged former information minister Michel Samaha and Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk with conspiring to assassinate political and religious leaders.
- Security forces in Aden, Yemen, fired on protesters demonstrating for southern independence, killing at least 4.
- Saudi Arabia swore in 30 women to the formerly all-male Shura council.
- NASA reports on findings of freshwater losses in the Middle East.
- Iran has begun installing high-tech machines at their uranium enrichment sites, which puts them closer to nuclear warhead capabilities.
- The annual UN report on civilian casualties shows that they have slowed for the first time in six years in Afghanistan as the war winds down.
- The use of drone strikes in Afghanistan, however, has risen dramatically (posing an American threat to civilians even as the war draws down).
- Senator Lindsey Graham openly cited the figure of 4700 dead from US drone strikes, the first time a government official has done this.
- NATO is seriously considering funding a 350,000-strong Afghan security force through 2018.
- Afghans have arrested senior Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir Mohammed.
- The deaths of 89 people in a bombing in Quetta, Pakistan lead to protest and demonstration by 15,000 Shi’ites demanding action be taken against the militants targeting them.
- A unit of the Chinese military has been connected to the bulk of cyberattacks on the US. The American computer security firm Mandiant released this 60-page, detailed report on PLA Unit 61398.
- The BBC posted a photo by Patrick Baz from Sarajevo in 1992 on its website and Vladimir Vrnoga, now living in California, recognized himself as the 17-year-old in the photo.
- “El Chapo” Guzman, the most powerful and most wanted drug lord, may have died yesterday in a shootout in a Guatemalan jungle.
- According to Human Rights Watch, Mexican security forces have participated in some way in more than half of the 250 disappearance the watchdog group has documented during Calderon’s time in office. It says Mexico has failed to properly investigate these disappearances.
- Three Birmingham men have been found guilty of terrorism charges.
- The judge presiding over the 9/11 war crimes tribunal is granting defense lawyers access to Camp 7, the secret section of the prison where their clients are held.
- Marine Gen. John Allen is retiring, declining the position of supreme allied commander in Europe. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove is said to be the likely choice for the position.
Photo: Ramallah, West Bank. Palestinian protesters demonstrating in solidarity with four hunger striking prisoners in Ofer shield themselves with a car seat during clashes with Israeli soldiers. Bernat Armangue/AP.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- The death toll climbs to an estimated 70,000 in Syria.
- Syrian opposition fighters captured the eastern town of Al-Shaddadeh. They also made notable victories by seizing the country’s largest dam and a small military base in Aleppo.
- An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander was killed inside Syria by opposition forces.
- “How to start a battalion (In five easy lessons).” Ghaith Abdul Ahad reports from Syria for the London Review of Books.
- Israel has given final approval for 90 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank.
- Erin Cunningham on violence and suspicion in Morsi’s Egypt.
- Libya has appealed the ICC’s order that it give Abdullah Senussi, Gaddhafi’s former intel chief, to the Hague to be tried.
- One of the last Arabs in Timbuktu (most have fled for fear of reprisal based on assumed association with Islamists) was arrested by the military just hours after giving an interview to political scientist Pierre Piccinin de Prata.
- On February 8th a Reuters photographer and 2 France-24 journalists and two TV5 Monde journalists were detained in Bamako for several hours and had their equipment confiscation.
- French journalist Nadir Dendoune, who was arrested in Iraq on January 23rd for taking photos in restricted areas, has been released after an outcry from activists and the French government.
- A teenager was killed, and many more were injured, in security forces’ clashes with protesters during second anniversary of the revolution demonstrations in Bahrain.
- Iran made an effort to get 100,000 specialized magnets for use in centrifuges, a signal that they may be gearing up for an expansion of their nuclear program.
- Two daughters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi were detained by Iranian authorities on Monday.
- Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi, a professor at Rutgers who is running for the Iranian presidency, did a Reddit AMA.
- At least ten civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
- An Afghan government panel acknowledged that abuse of detainees is widespread but refused to consider it “systematic torture.”
- A local official submitted a report to the Peshawar High Court in Pakistan stating that 894 lives have been taken in Waziristan in the past five years as a result of the US drone program and 211 injured.
- President Obama in his State of the Union announced the withdrawal of 34,000 troops from Afghanistan by early 2014.
- An interview with Huang Qi, the man behind China’s first human rights website.
- North Korea carried out its third nuclear test.
- The 13th-15th of February mark the anniversary of the Allied firebombing of the German city of Dresden, where at least 25,000 and as many as 100,000 were killed. The occasion is a cause for both remembrance and demonstration in Dresden. This year a 10,000-strong demonstration of anti-fascists blocked a 800 person neo-Nazi protest by forming a human chain.
- President Obama signed an executive order on Tuesday on policies related to cybersecurity and combatting cyberattacks and cyber-espionage. Here’s a deep read of the order by the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Marc Rotenberg.
- The centenary commemorations of World War I will include recreations of the Christmas truce football games between British and German troops.
- Former Italian intel chief Niccolo Pollari and one of his deputies were each sentenced to ten years by an Italian court for participation in the CIA rendition of an Egyptian cleric. Three Americans, including CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey Castelli, were convicted in absentia but aren’t likely to ever serve those sentences.
- Defense lawyers at Guantánamo Bay discovered FBI bugs inside what were thought to be smoke detectors in the compound. The military command is claiming no prior knowledge, but lawyers are questioning whether their private conversations with their clients were being listened to.
- Chilean police have clashed with protesting Mapuche Indians in a continuation of an escalating land dispute.
- Rep. Shellie Pingree of Maine and Rep. Jon Tester of Montana are introducing a bill to help survivors of military sexual assault get the appropriate support and benefits.
- Gen. Allen has turned down the nomination to be senior NATO commander but has been urged to take time to think about it.
- A new medal has been created called the Distinguished Warfare Medal, to be awarded to those who may be “directly affecting combat operations who may not even be on the same continent as the action” in an acknowledgment of “the changing face of warfare.”
- Republican Senators have blocked Hagel’s confirmation, delaying it by another week.
- You can read a transcript of Thursday’s live chat on the ethics of drones hosted by The New Yorker with Princeton professor emeritus Michael Walzer, Rutgers professor Jeff McMahan and New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer.
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Photo: Idlib, Syria. Opposition forces in a tank taken from Assad’s forces. Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- This morning: a suicide bomber has detonated in the Malian city of Gao in the north. This is the first incident of its kind in Mali, according to military sources.
- France wants the current African-led mission in Mali to be replaced with a UN-led peacekeeping mission by April.
- “A decade of missteps” in US counterterrorism policies in Africa.
- According to the UNHCR, 5,000 Syrians flee every day.
- CJ Chivers profiles Hajji Marea, a Syrian rebel commander.
- On Saturday, the leader of the Syrian opposition council. Sheikh Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, met separately in Munich with representatives from the US and Russia.
- The Sunday Times has told British war photographer Rick Findler not to submit any more photos out of Syria in order to not encourage freelancers to put themselves at risk for a photo.
- A former English teacher in Aleppo has become known as Guevara by some and by others as simply “the female sniper.”
- 23 members of Hamas, three of them lawmakers, were arrested by Israel in the occupied West Bank on Monday.
- The 12th summit of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation opened in Cairo Wednesday.
- The Egyptian opposition is claiming that the police tortured 28-year-old activist Mohammed El-Gindy to death.
- Jailed Moroccan rapper El Haqed (Mouad Belghouat) is on hunger strike to protest the conditions of his imprisonment.
- The assassination of leading Tunisian opposition figure Chokri Belaid has led to protests and clashes and a greater sense of threat for the nation’s pro-democracy movement.
- Today: gunmen in Kano, Nigeria, killed two health workers administering polio vaccines.
- The UN-backed tribunal in Rwanda overturned two 2011 genocide convictions for two former ministers: Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza, who were sentenced to thirty years in prison.
- According to a new report, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army killed far fewer civilians this year than in the past two years. 51 seems like a pretty sizable number of civilians, but that’s the lowest that number has been since 2007. In 2010 and 2011 it was 706 and 154 respectively.
- The US widened its sanctions on Iran this week with actions that included blacklisting the state broadcasting authority.
- Iran has rejected the idea of direct nuclear talks with Washington while sanctions remain in place.
- Iranian President Ahmedinejad is involved in a feud with one of the country’s notable families.
- Vietnam jailed 22 people for “subversion.”
- North Korea released a YouTube video which depicted a young man dreaming of a destroyed US set to an instrumental version of “We Are the World.”
- A new report from the watchdog group Open Society Justice Initiative reveals that 54 countries aided in 136 CIA renditions (the transfer of a detainee by the US to another country for interrogation).
- From NBC, the DOJ’s white paper justifying the overseas drone strike program.
- The release of the Obama administration’s own legal analysis and justification of the drone program has created a serious public debate over the validity of those arguments and of the drone program.
- David Cole took part in that dialogue with his NYRB response “How We Made Killing Easy.”
- David Cole also has 13 questions for John Brennan.
- Drone strikes also dominated the discussion at Brennan’s rocky confirmation hearings for director of the CIA.
- The CIA runs a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia, established two years ago. Media outlets knew about the base, but refrained from reporting on the request of the administration.
- A secret legal review has asserted the President’s broad powers to order a pre-emptive strike if there is credible evidence a major incoming cyberattack.
- A new lawsuit asserts that the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims violates rules against spying that were created in the 60s and 70s to protect political activists.
- Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that torture was unnecessary to the discovery of bin Laden’s whereabouts.
- According to a new GAO report, the US has spent $97 million in Central America over the past 4 years to fight the war on drugs. It’s questionable how much success that money bought.
- The UK has plans to install spy devices throughout the country’s telecoms network, surveilling citizens’ uses of overseas services like Twitter. These “probes” are part of a larger eventual scheme to track everything the Brits do online.
- Canada is considering changing its laws to allow the possibility of revoking Canadian citizenship for those dual citizens who commit acts of terrorism.
- Slain French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik’s work is on display as an exhibition titled “Revolutions: Photographs of the Arab Spring by Rémi Ochlik” at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University through February 22nd. Ochlik was killed in Syria last year.
- Listen to Iraq war vet Brian Turner, a soldier-poet, read some of his poems for NPR.
- What does Richard III’s body tell us, not just about him, but about the Battle of Bosworth and war in general?
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Photo: Damascus, Syria. Insurgents run for cover during fighting. Goran Tomasevic/Reuters.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- 106 people reported killed by Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Homs on Tuesday.
- Dozens were killed when a blast hit Aleppo University.
- Jari Lindholm on discovering a hasty mass grave in Aleppo.
- A translated interview with Medecins Sans Frontières’ Fabrice Weissman on the state of hospitals in Syria.
- The Syrian battle for the airports.
- There are splits and infighting between the jihadists and the more secular revolutionary Free Syrian Army.
- Despite a cable reported on in Foreign Policy which offered evidence that Syria had used chemical weapons in Homs in late December, a State Dept investigation is saying that evidence does not show this to be true.
- Netanyahu pledged over the weekend to follow through with settlement plans in the E-1 area of the West Bank after Palestinians were evicted.
- The sentences of seven Omani bloggers convicted of insulting the king were upheld in court.
- France has intervened in Mali, conducting operations against Islamists in the north.
- Militants in Algeria seized hostages, including Americans, in retribution for the French military assault on Mali. Algeria launched an assault on the militants, which freed some captives but left others dead. The fate of the individual hostages remains unknown.
- The US officially recognizes Somalia’s government.
- The US has continued to sell arms to Bahrain amidst its bloody crackdown on protesters.
- Iraq released hundreds of prisoners, conceded to Sunni protesters.
- Luke Mogelson embeds with Afghan soldiers tracking down the Taliban.
- The US will no longer send detainees to certain Afghan prisons based on fears of abuses.
- The US will sell Afghanistan unarmed aerial vehicles, but not, the Pentagon insists, drones of the killer variety.
- India and Pakistan agree to a de-escalation in Kashmir.
- Pakistani cleric/activist Tahir ul-Qadri ended his four days of protest after his party was granted input in the country’s electoral process.
- A court issued an arrest order for PM Raja Pervez Ashraf, but the anti-corruption chief refused, saying there was not enough evidence.
- Karman Faisal, the man investigating the graft case against PM Raja Pervez Ashraf, was found dead in Islamabad this morning.
- Der Spiegel looks into corruption, mistrust of the government and a massacre in Kazakhstan.
- Flag riots and sectarian violence continue to plague Northern Ireland as the loyalist/Protestant working class youth erupt.
- Bombs were detonated in the homes of five Greek journalists last weekend. The responsibility was claimed by anarchist group Lovers of Lawlessness.
- Teju Cole tweeted seven very short stories about drones: “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Pity. A signature strike leveled the florist’s.”
- Steve Coll reviews Zero Dark Thirty.
- Here’s an electronic briefing book compiled by the The National Security Archive of all the available documents on Operation Neptune Spear (the mission to take down bin Laden).
- There were as many as 349 military suicides in 2012 (239 confirmed, 110 under investigation). That would be the highest since 2001, when the Pentagon first started compiling detailed stats.
- US special operations forces are preparing to be sent to expand the training of Mexican commando teams in the war on the drug cartels.
- Sorry, no Death Star.
- Former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearings for Sec. of Defense are set for Jan. 31.
- Current Secretary of Defense Panetta says the only people who need armor-piercing bullets are the military, backing the president’s call for an assault weapons ban.
- Former US Army staff sergeant Clinton Romesha will receive the Medal of Honor next month, becoming the fourth living recipient.
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Photo: Azaz, Syria (north of Aleppo). A bloody Free Syrian Army fighter walked down the street after a missile attack. Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
Read full script here. [Via CSM]
