Monday, September 30, 2013

The Surveillance Issue: The Fulcrum of the 2014 Election?

I've come to believe that the 2014 midterms will be crucial for the movement for peace and liberty. The more I think about it, the more I think the surveillance issue will be the fulcrum in 2014.

I've been thinking a lot about what it would take to have a "scorecard" that would enable us to evaluate who is doing a good job of representing us in Congress . . . and who needs to lose their seats.

The public debate that stopped the attack on Syria helped clarify my thinking:  it was clear that constituents DO care about certain issues  . . . and their representatives WILL listen -- at least, if they want to keep on being their representatives.

A message in code . . . ?
So what are the peace and liberty issues that will matter in 2014?

In my opinion, we need to focus on issues that the broad public feels a visceral connection to. Clearly, the public felt a visceral connection to the possibility of a U.S. attack on Syria. We should dig deeper into what that was all about. I can't think of a bigger learning opportunity for us in the days ahead.

At the same time, I think we need to admit that sometimes the issues that we feel the most moral urgency around are not striking a chord with the general public at the moment.  When this is the case, we need to be really thoughtful about how we present those issues and be really strategic about the expectations we set for ourselves and other members of our movement. For example, I personally feel very strongly about the flagrant disregard for the rule of law in the U.S. policy of detention and Guantanamo -- but I need to be realistic about whether that issue will determine what happens in the 2014 midterms.

We face many tough questions.  Does the general public really care about whether the U.S. government is violent? Do people care about the amount of money being spent on war? What really gets their attention?

One issue that has a key place in this, I believe, is surveillance.  With each passing day, I am hearing more and more people say that the surveillance issue is something that a wide spectrum of people are deeply upset about. That includes people on the right as well as people on the left -- people who don't usually talk with each other, much less work together for positive change!

Is it possible that the fight against U.S. surveillance will be a key component in bringing people together on a broader agenda of peace and liberty?

Related posts

Edward J. Snowden has forced us to confront what we all knew already: our government is running wild and we can't get our privacy back, short of some kind of very extreme change . . . . We have a problem with our government. It sees opportunities for power in every bit and byte of our personal data, and it's time to call it what it is: wrong.

See Fed Up With Being Spied On

Re-reading George Orwell's 1984 recently made me see at least 15 ways 2013 is like the world he describes in the book . . . .

See 2013 = 1984 ?



Isn't now a moment when, instead of falling back into our existing habits of trying to change America's war-making ways, we should put our recent experience under a microscope? And ask what we can learn from this experience? Can we make 2014 the year that we sort the wheat from the chaff in Congress? And get the control over war and peace back into our own hands?

See Election 2014: The Moment of Truth for the US Antiwar Movement?

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Syria - Strange and Dangerous? or Familiar and Beautiful?

Great Mosque, Aleppo
When we held a vigil in Logan Square in Chicago in the days of highest tension around a possible U.S. attack against Syria, my friend John stood at the microphone and reminded all of us, "These places in Syria are the places we read about in the Bible every Sunday -- like Paul going to Damascus -- so how can we be thinking of them as strangers that we want to bomb?"

In fact, there had been an article in The New York Times that same day about people in the Syrian town of Maaloula, who still speak the same language -- Aramaic -- that Christ would have spoken. That description made me feel a sudden connection to people in Syria.  And it made me wonder why it sometimes takes something like that to suddenly make me see people as more human than I did just moments before.

I also remembered my friend Steve's trip to Syria a few years back. At the time, I was surprised that he went there. "Syria? But isn't that a dangerous place?" And when Steve got back, I was astounded by his photographs, showing the incredible beauty of Syria.  The pictures he shared helped me start to think of Syria as someplace familiar and beautiful, rather than strange and dangerous.  I'm grateful to Steve for opening a window to Syria for me ... and I'm posting some of his pictures here for you to enjoy, too.

Window detail - Ulmayyid Mosque - Damascus

(Come to think of it, wasn't it during an archaeological expedition to Syria that T.E. Lawrence fell head over heels in love with the Arab world?)

I've probably heard many times that some of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the world are those in Syria . . . but now I'm working to get my mind around what that really means.

Barbara Tuchman wrote an important book -- Bible and Sword -- about the way in which the Christian West formed an attachment to the Middle East (the "Holy Land") and that attachment has dictated the terms of the West's heavy-handed engagement with that part of the world ever since. I wonder if we can harness the fact that we feel a connection to the Mideast to some good purpose.

Nargile - Old Town Damascus

Speaking of connectedness, a few years ago I wrote a post about how often it is some ephemeral detail and/or a specific person that helps us form a connection to a place and to a large cause. In my case it was a small coincidence having to do with Rachel Corrie that focused my attention on Palestine.

In the souq - Damascus

I've also been startled at how a simple think like a movie can help me connect to the humanity of people in a country like Iran.

How are we going to form the connection that we need to feel in order to restore our empathy for the Syrians who need our help today?  How are we going to start a new day?


Palmyra - Sunrise

Related posts

I often refer to how important the films of Iran have been in helping me open my mind to the possibilities of a peaceful relationship with that country.  I have been fortunate to be able to go see some of the best films from Iran every year at the wonderful Siskel Film Center in downtown Chicago. The will be another Festival of Films From Iran showing there in February, 2014.

(See A Force for Peace: Getting to Know Iran Through Film)




Is this the perfect moment for all of us to step outside our comfort zones? I've started to think: maybe we can encourage many more people to see things in a new light. Maybe this is the meaning of a "mass movement" -- a large number of people moving a little, rather than just a few people moving a lot.

(See Read a Poem - or Eat a Peach - for Peace)





Ever since I went there to study Chinese as a junior in college, I've considered Taiwan my "second home."


(See Taipei c. 1979 )

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Read a Poem - or Eat a Peach - for Peace

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.
(from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot)
We are in a phenomenal moment right now. There are numerous opportunities for all of us to think differently -- and to change the world by doing so.

In particular, I keep asking myself, "What would happen if people opened their minds about Iran?" The presence of the new president of Iran, and his peace overtures at the UN, are creating the perfect moment for all of us to step outside our comfort zones.

It's made me stop and think: maybe we can encourage many more people to see things in a new light. Maybe this is the meaning of a "mass movement" -- a large number of people moving a little, rather than just a few people moving a lot.

I'm reminded of T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I identify strongly with the timid Prufrock, for whom little steps are momentous ("Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?"). Doing new things -- and thinking in new ways -- is difficult.

I wish I were more of a revolutionary. But it helps to know that one of my heroes - Duane Allman - had similar thoughts. "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I eat a peach for peace." (See the article about the Allman Brothers album Eat a Peach" on Wikipedia.)

I guess this is what Robert Greenwald had in mind with his Rethink Afghanistan project. His invitation was simple: Maybe there's a different way to think about this. (That was one of the first things that got me really active in the antiwar movement.)

Let's face it: what we all really want is for our lives to have meaning -- ideally BIG meaning, meaning in really cosmic ways! Or, as Eliot said,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question
That is, to bring on some high, life-and-death drama!
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
But doesn't it all start with a little, nearly insignificant, opening of the mind?

Go ahead . . . that mermaid is singing to you!


RELATED POSTS

Should we think differently about Hollywood entertainment and the stories it tells our young people?

See  "Ender's Game" and the Militarization of Youth: Can We Talk About This?





Have you started to take it for granted that your life is an open book?

See Fed Up With Being Spied On






We can now entrust all the dirty work -- including war -- to robots. (Or can we?)

See A Modest Proposal: Debate the Drones 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Zombie Alert! (How Government Secrecy Seduces Congress to Support War)

Rep. Thomas Massie
I saw Rep. Thomas Massie (R, KY) on TV last night and he gave a convincing explanation of why Congress always ends up supporting the President's wars.

During a segment on the Campaign for Liberty Conference on the Russian news channel RT -- the irony of which I will address in some future blog post! -- they showed a clip of Massie explaining how it works:
Step 1: Members of Congress get constituent input telling urging them to vote against war.

Step 2: The member lets it be known that s/he is a "no" or "leaning no."

More on Congressional
zombies and permawar
Step 3: The administration pulls them into a classified briefing.

Step 4: The member turns into a zombie and votes the way the administration wants.

The Ellsberg Connection

This dovetails closely with the description provided by the heroic whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg in the film The Most Dangerous Man in America. In the film, Ellsberg recounts his advice to Henry Kissinger, when Kissinger first went to work at the Nixon White House. Ellsberg hold him that he would be receiving classified briefings, and that a four-step process would ensue:
First, he would feel exhilaration -- to have access to all this "inside" information.

Second, he would feel foolish -- realizing how little he had known all along.

Third, he would begin to view everyone else as fools -- because they don't have the classified briefings.

Fourth, you stop listening.
It was startling to me to hear this at the exact moment the Syria debate was going on, and the administration was starting its arm-twisting in Congress.  For instance, on September 5, I listened to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D, CA) speaking to the press, and explaining that, yes, her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" about military intervention in Syria, but "they don't know what I know; they haven't heard what I heard" -- i.e. they didn't have the inside scoop that she had because of classified briefings.

Even members of Congress who are critical of the Administration and highly analytic don't seem to fully grasp that it's not enough for the sharing of information to stop with Congress. Take, for instance, the New York Times op-ed "On Syria Vote, Trust, But Verify" by Rep. Alan Grayson (D, FL): his demand for full disclosure is valid ("We have reached the point where the classified information system prevents even trusted members of Congress, who have security clearances, from learning essential facts, and then inhibits them from discussing and debating what they do know. And this extends to matters of war and peace, money and blood. The 'security state' is drowning in its own phlegm.") but he gives the impression that it's enough that he and other members of Congress are fully briefed ("I need to know all the facts").

The U.S. government is addicted to secrecy, and that feeds its addiction to permawar. The only solution is to get the information into the hands of the people.


Related posts

A person may not feel that s/he is another Daniel Ellsberg ... or Paul Revere ... or Otto and Elise Hampel ... or Ai Weiwei ... or Bradley [Chelsea] Manning. But these are heroes we can aspire to emulate.

(See I am (I will become) Bradley Manning )








The Gospels are full of provocations to confront this paradox: people are forever saving up and guarding against a future that is never going to come, while throwing away the present that they do have. ("You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" Luke 12:20)

(See Edward J. Snowden: The 365-Day Man )



Edward J. Snowden has forced us to confront what we all knew already: our government is running wild and we can't get our privacy back, short of some kind of very extreme change . . . . We have a problem with our government. It sees opportunities for power in every bit and byte of our personal data, and it's time to call it what it is: wrong.

(See Fed Up With Being Spied On )









Isn't now a moment when, instead of falling back into our existing habits of trying to change America's war-making ways, we should put our recent experience under a microscope? And ask what we can learn from this experience? Can we make 2014 the year that we sort the wheat from the chaff in Congress? And get the control over war and peace back into our own hands?

(See Election 2014: The Moment of Truth for the US Antiwar Movement? )

Monday, September 23, 2013

Rouhanimania!

Mahmoud Rouhani
I've been writing for quite a while about the need for some attitude adjustment about Iran. I never imagined how easy it would be for one grandfatherly mullah to break the ice.  
They're calling it "Rouhanimania" - the hope and curiosity and enthusiasm surrounding the visit of the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Rouhani, to the U.S. for the UN General Assembly meeting.

It seems like a perfect time to reflect: we all know something about Iran -- something, that is, besides the negative stereotypes and fears that have fed the conflict between the U.S. and Iran in the last half century -- so isn't now a time to do some remembering . . . ?

About films from Iran that show us how much we have in common?

. . . including certain graphic novels that have been turned into a film?

What about the poetry of Iran that has captured the Western imagination in decades past?

 . . . or about our own personal connections to Iran?

There's a lot more to Iran than we've been exposed to by the U.S. foreign policy narrative.


Traditional Iranian tile


Rouhanimania . . . and maybe even Iranmania? . . . an idea whose time has come . . . .


Mahmoud Rouhani, president of Iran, meets the press


Related post

Hillary Clinton signaled the beginning of her 2016 presidential campaign with a spread in People magazine in June . . . not to mention the publication of a memoir, Hard Choices. It's a campaign full of "get tough" posturing.

(See One Little Word That Will Sink the Hillary Clinton Presidential Run ("Obliterate") )












A list of resources that might be used during Feb 4 "No Iran War!" actions and teach-ins scheduled around the U.S. and around the world.

(See Feb 4 - Resources About Iran)








Women Without Men is a recent movie by the artist Shirin Neshat, based on the novel by Shahrnush Parsipur.. The first time I saw it, at the end I walked straight to the ticket window and bought another ticket and walked right back in and watched it again. The film contains haunting scene after haunting scene, and it makes it clear that Iran is a place where people are able to ask questions about patriarchy and about what it is going to take to overcome it.

(See Women Without Men as a US-Iran Cultural Bridge)


As the Obama administration prepares in the days ahead to pivot from its focus on Syria to something truly startling -- talking to Iran! -- it is important that the American public devotes some time and energy to learning and thinking about Iran, the history of the U.S.-Iran relationship, and what the U.S.-Iran relationship means in the larger context of the effort to reduce the risk of war and violence in the world.

(See IRAN: 3 Reality Checks on the Emerging U.S. Narrative)


If we are going to stave off a U.S. war against Iran, we are going to have to have some very difficult conversations with other Americans. Some people are extremely hostile. It's confusing and a bit frightening, but we're going to have to confront it.

(See Why Does Iran Arouse So Much Hostility?)

Friday, September 20, 2013

IRAN: 3 Reality Checks on the Emerging U.S. Narrative


As the Obama administration prepares in the days ahead to pivot from its focus on Syria to something truly startling -- talking to Iran! -- it is important that the American public devotes some time and energy to learning and thinking about Iran, the history of the U.S.-Iran relationship, and what the U.S.-Iran relationship means in the larger context of the effort to reduce the risk of war and violence in the world.

Here are three "reality checks," which I offer as counterweights to what will certainly prove to be the emerging U.S. narrative.


(1) The Real Lesson of Syria for the US-Iran Dialog

The Obama administration has already begun to characterize the context of the upcoming Iran talks: the U.S. and Russia, together with other countries, they say, were able to compel Syria to do what they wanted. This showed Iran they have the power to tell Iran what to do, forcing Iran to negotiate. (See The New York Times, September 15, 2013 - "In Wake of Syria Deal, Kerry Emphasizes Iran")

The real lesson of the confrontation with Syria is that the U.S. president does not have the power to unilaterally attack another country, and that the American people can and will use democratic processes to stop him from doing it.

Here in Illinois, where I live, it was very clear that the general public was taking control of the situation, telling their congressmen and congresswomen in no uncertain terms that they did NOT want an attack on Syria. The same thing happened across the country. Obama got the message.

February 4, 2012 - "No Iran War!" rallies nationwide
About 18 months ago, at the last high tide of U.S. talk of attacking Iran, the general public got the message to the government in a slightly different way: with street demonstrations in about 80 cities across the country. Obama got the message that time, too.

So . . . the assertion that Iran is entering into negotiations with the U.S. now because the U.S. has sent a clear "OR ELSE!" message is the opposite of the truth. Iran is entering into negotiations with the U.S. now precisely because they are not being forced, but rather because they now have an increased expectation of the support of the world community for negotiations in lieu of threats and violence.


(2) The Real Hostility That Has Hindered US-Iran Dialog

The U.S. portrays Iran as unremittingly hostile to our country. I would argue that the feelings of hostility flow much more in the other direction.

U.S. military bases surround Iran
It is important that Americans do some soul-searching about why we, as a nation, find it so easy to be convinced to feel hostile toward Iran.

Beyond the realm of feelings, there are concrete ways in which the U.S. expresses its hostility toward Iran: sanctions, for instance, and a circle of threatening military bases and the presence of U.S. warships off the coast of Iran at all times.

More than anything else, the thing that opened my eyes to this fact was the pronouncements of U.S. military officials who -- seemingly alarmed at the cavalier way threats were being made over and over again toward Iran -- pointed out that you can't constantly threaten someone and then be surprised if they eventually strike back.


(3) The Real Threat to World Peace and Safety

The card that American officials love to play is "nuclear proliferation": Iran is a menace because they might get nuclear weapons, they say.

U.S. Trident D5 missile is launched from
an Ohio-class submarine
The best corrective to this line, and one that is tied fully to the current context of negotiations with Iran, is the book by Mohamed ElBaradei, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times. ElBaradei, writing from the vantage point of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, makes it very clear that the threat posed by nuclear weapons is broadly dispersed and most definitely includes the existing nuclear states and their large arsenals. Moreover, he gives a close-up view of how negotiations take place, and how they are undermined by the enormous power that existing nuclear states wield and the threat they post of unilateral action.

After considering the situation from the standpoint of someone like ElBaradei -- i.e. a neutral facilitator whose only interest is in reducing the overall threat -- the only conclusion I could come to is that the U.S. is the real threat to world peace and safety, and that the apparent U.S. determination to be the "last man standing" with nuclear weapons is an utterly bankrupt policy.


Now is the time for all of us to find ways to help our friends and colleagues, and our local communities, engage in some reality checks about Iran, and about the U.S. behavior toward Iran, and about the prospects for a peaceful relationship between the U.S. and Iran.


Related posts


I often refer to how important the films of Iran have been in helping me open my mind to the possibilities of a peaceful relationship with that country.  I have been fortunate to be able to go see some of the best films from Iran every year at the wonderful Siskel Film Center in downtown Chicago. The will be another Festival of Films From Iran showing there in February, 2014.

(See A Force for Peace: Getting to Know Iran Through Film)



If we are going to stave off a U.S. war against Iran, we are going to have to have some very difficult conversations with other Americans. Some people are extremely hostile. It's confusing and a bit frightening, but we're going to have to confront it.

(See Why Does Iran Arouse So Much Hostility?)





 Nuclear disarmament isn't the only current focus of UN efforts at resolving conflict.

A new U.N. report makes it clear that the U.S. has to report fully on all its drone attacks.

(See 2014: The Year of Transparency (for U.S. Drone Use)?)

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The REALLY Big Short: The Jig is Up with Oil Companies

Bill McKibben
[UPDATE October 31, 2013:  Al Gore seems to agree with me that the carbon bubble is the next big thing. Scar(r)y indeed!]

I've been intrigued ever since hearing Bill McKibben talk last year at this time about his article in Rolling Stone (Global Warming's Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is) and the ensuing "Do the Math!" tour -- is it possible that world energy companies (especially including the "big seven") have a "valuation problem"?

The campaign by McKibben and 350.org to get universities (and others) to divest their oil investments seemed to sag in the ensuing months -- in part, I think, because of the analogy that they made to the campaign to divest from South Africa in the '70s*. This new campaign has sounded a bit too much like a morality play and not enough like a financial move.  Let's be clear: it is most decidedly the latter.

I noticed an article in the New York Times a few weeks back (A New Divestment Focus on Campus: Fossil Fuels) that indicated that the the notion of the divestment campaign seems to be getting some attention -- but unfortunately the emphasis is still principally on divestment as a "socially responsible" stance and not enough on the financial fundamentals.

Here's how it seems to me (and Bill): Oil companies are valued by the market based on their reserves. The problem with this approach is that the total reserves claimed by the oil companies is FIVE TIMES what can possibly be burned without driving up the temperature of the atmosphere up by a catastrophic amount and, as McKibben puts it, "breaking the planet." How can the value of oil companies be a function of reserves that can never be used?

I thought that perhaps I (together with Bill) was oversimplifying the situation. A quick Google search, however, confirmed that there are plenty of people who really understand these things who see it the same way. (e.g. Climate News Network, April 19, 2013 - "Fossil fuels ‘risk being wasted assets’"; The Guardian, August 2, 2013 - "This gamble on carbon and the climate could trigger a new financial crisis: There is little evidence that institutional investors have recognised that they are sitting on a carbon-asset timebomb)

Harvard Management Company, Inc.
So, quite apart from any moral stance on owning oil company shares, it seems that, at a minimum, institutions should be seeking to protect themselves from the risk that their investments are - ahem - overvalued, and, at a maximum, seeking to profit from the coming reckoning in energy stocks. Perhaps even a short selling strategy of the sort described by Michael Lewis in The Big Short?

Of course, as Lewis makes clear, one of the difficulties of forging a short strategy is that, no matter how manifest the current wrongheadedness of the market and current valuations, it can still be a devil of a problem to determine when the world at large will wake up and the market will make a massive "correction" (i.e. crash).

But getting it right would sure pay for a lot of dorms and test tubes.

And what's intriguing is that one would think that universities would be in a unique position to pioneer breakthrough theories of valuation of the sort that would be needed to correctly deal with energy stocks in the new era we face.

So I ask: isn't 2013-2014 the year that university investment funds should get the jump on the coming shake-up in energy stocks? Will this be the year of the REALLY "big short"?

*    *   *

* PS - Not that I have anything against campus demonstrations for socially responsible investing . . .



student protesters at Harvard . . .
There were demonstrations like that, full of long-haired kids demanding divestment from South Africa, when I was in college . . .






long-haired radical . . .
In fact, I was one of those long-haired kids demanding divestment from South Africa when I was in college . . . 

:-)







Related posts


It has been announced that China and the U.S. will hold a top leadership meeting at the beginning of June. If the past is any indication, we will get a lot of cautious, lukewarm pronouncements about cooperation that don't begin to address the reality. It's time for activists in the U.S. and China to join hands and start to militate for radical change. We need a zero-carbon USA and a zero-carbon China. Anything less is planetocide.

(See #chinaEARTHusa - Radical Change? or Planetocide? )


It was a beautiful day in Chicago yesterday. Sunny, cool . . . . "Maybe everything's gonna be okay?" I thought. "Who worries about the climate crisis on a day like this?" And then it struck me: "Don't believe it. Just 'cause it's not miserably hot, people had better not think for a minute that the climate crisis isn't for real."

(See 5 Fundamentals on the Climate Crisis)


We need to confront the fact that, as things stand now, neither the U.S. nor China has an ethics that is powerful enough to cope with a species that is hurtling toward self-destruction. THAT is what our shared dialog should be about.

(See Climate: China's Response to the West )









What was striking to me was that, despite the U of C's reputation as a center of economic research and thinking and teaching, all four of the panelists appeared singularly uninterested in the central economic problem of the climate crisis: how will the supply and demand of goods and services change as a result of society's understanding of the climate crisis? and how will the market react to signals about such changes?

(See EXTRA! Climate Economics Confound U of C Profs! )











Just like a family that has extra rooms in its house which inevitably become filled with stuff, the U.S. has thousands of bases -- here, there, and everywhere -- that inevitably create the "need" to spend.

(See What Will "Strategic" Mean in Our Children's Lifetime?)






Other related links

October 16, 2014 - Economist Jean Tirole on the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2014. His work on asset bubbles has defined three conditions necessary for a bubble to occur: durability, scarcity, and common beliefs. While Tirole has a significant bibliography relating to climate change and social measures necessary to address it, I wonder if it is time for him to specifically re-examine how "common beliefs" are impacting the current carbon bubble.

Meanwhile, columnist Thomas L. Friedman provides a tour d'horizon "behind the drop in global oil prices: "A Pump War?" (October 14, 2014).  Friedman enumerates nearly every tree imaginable, but misses the forest -- the carbon bubble.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

September 5 in Pakistan: Another Day, Another Drone Killing

Now that a date -- October 25 -- has been announced for the report by the UN special rapporteur on US drone killings, it seems like a good time to pause and remind ourselves of why the U.S. program of drone murders in Pakistan is so insidious.

On Sunday, September 7, 2013, the New York Times ran an account of a drone strike that had occurred the previous Thursday: U.S. Drone Strike Kills 6 in Pakistan, Fueling Anger . This short account is a case study in what is wrong with the U.S. drone wars.


(1) No due process

The most obvious fact is that people were killed by the U.S. using drones without due process of law. This can only be understood as an extrajudicial execution, i.e. a war crime.

The most prominent victim of the drone strike was Sangeen Zadran -- a "senior militant commander" who was "implicated in a long-running kidnapping drama involving an American soldier" -- Bowe Bergdahl.

We are told "the Americans had been after [Zadran] for a long time." It is very tempting to use the media to try, convict, and execute someone accused of being involved in the capture of a U.S. soldier. That is, however, exactly why we need to continue to insist on due process.

(I'm focusing here on the legal issues that affect the individual. The violation of national sovereignty -- including the implication that Pakistan is complicit in U.S. violations -- will be the subject of an entire separate post.)


(2) False witness
Sangeen Zadran
(Source: Long War Journal)

The New York Times account repeats unsubstantiated -- and unattributed -- characterizations of the victims in a way that tends to imply that they "had it coming."

The sources for the story are "Pakistani officials and militant commanders" including "a senior Pakistani official who agreed to discuss Mr. Zadran on the condition of anonymity" -- but there is no identified source.

I'm sure the New York Times imagines that it is merely reporting "facts" in an even-handed way, but what it fails to recognize -- in this as in all of its other drone war reporting -- is that it uncritically passes along characterizations of people in a way that is damning. It is a deeply immoral course of conduct, and one that readers of the the Times should, at a minimum, absolutely resist imitating and, at best, protest loudly about.

[UPDATE: This has now been stated in more formal language in the report of UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns:
75. . . . The claims that drones are more precise in targeting
cannot be accepted uncritically, not least because terms such as “terrorist” or
“militant” are sometimes used to describe people who are in truth protected
civilians.
(See full 24-page report: Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions)]

You can read the web of allegations in more detail on the website of the Long War Journal.


(3) Collateral damage -- as always

Untitled
by Alfonso Munoz
In addition to the "main" victim, nine other people were killed. This is buried in the middle of the article.

Presumably, those other nine were guilty by association with the main victim? Or guilty by dint of geography? (The site of the drone strike was Ghulam Khan, "an area bordering Afghanistan in North Waziristan, the main hub of Qaeda and Taliban militancy.")

Again: are we engaging in false witness when we -- even unintentionally and/or unconsciously, explictly or implicitly -- pass along the suggestion that these victims "were probably guilty of something" or "had it coming"?


(4) The "network" trope

The New York Times account is propelled by the notion of the "networks" that the victims were involved in.  The victim was a "leading figure in the Haqqani network."

In this context, this language has no clarifying power, but only serves to add to the imputation of guilt to the victims and to the perpetuation of a broader set of myths about the global "threats" against the U.S. that justify the "global war on terror" and all manner of unilateral and arbitrary U.S. violence.


(5) Significance of the public funeral

The one positive aspect of the article is the description of the very public funeral provided for the victims. The victim's funeral "was attended by about 2,000 people."

Alert readers will respond to this account by realizing that, whatever their other attributes, the victims were part of a community and the injury done to them is recognized as a harm to that community.

In fact, we are told that the victim was "the Taliban’s shadow governor for Paktika, the neighboring Afghan province." Are we supposed to hear this as more evidence of the victim's "liability"? Or should it instead give us pause?


(6) What is the social function that "militant" leaders provide in Pakistan/Afghanistan?

One man's "militant" . . . (Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf --
second from left -- with Hamid Karzai.)
It is time for us to start to try to understand more about the social function of "militant" leaders -- many of whom were U.S. allies in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is noteworthy that Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf has been identified by Hamid Karzai as a possible successor in Afghanistan. He is a "militant leader" of extreme potency with whom the U.S. has been in a range of relationships over the past two decades. When is a "militant leader" an ally? And when is he someone the U.S. kills with a drone? And does any of this bear any relationship to the role of these people in their local society/polity?


(7) Are we just feeding the real source of the problem?

Most important of all, when we read accounts such as these, we should ask ourselves: "Isn't this exactly what feeds hatred against the United States abroad? How can this possibly be suggested as a way to make Americans safer and the world a better place?"

Eternal Scream by Michael Schwartz

Related posts


The U.S. has a modus operandi for conducting military strikes while slipping past any genuine public accountability. It's worth a look at the Tuesday, October 29, 2013, New York Times account of a drone strike in Somalia the previous day: "Pentagon Says Shabab Bomb Specialist Is Killed in Missile Strike in Somalia." It's a case study in what's wrong with the U.S. drone wars.

(See October 28 in Somalia: Another Day, Another Drone Killing)


A new U.N. report makes it clear that the U.S. has to report fully on all its drone attacks.

(See 2014: The Year of Transparency (for U.S. Drone Use)?)








Five big realizations I'm taking away from the 2013 CODEPINK Drone Summit "Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance" in Washington, DC.

(See The 2013 DC Drones Conference: 5 Big Takeaways )