Did the Bush Administration Look the Other Way on War Crimes in Afghanistan?

That the U.S. may have worked with and supported a war criminal in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 does not surprise me, but that doesn't render this story any less depressing:

After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations.

American officials had been reluctant to pursue an investigation — sought by officials from the F.B.I., the State Department, the Red Cross and human rights groups — because the warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, was on the payroll of the C.I.A. and his militia worked closely with United States Special Forces in 2001, several officials said. They said the United States also worried about undermining the American-supported government of President Hamid Karzai, in which General Dostum had served as a defense official.

Dostum is accused of having overseen the murders of hundreds and perhaps thousands of Taliban prisoner of war deaths. The report mentions FBI documents from 2003 in which detainees back up the allegations of being crammed into overstuffed containers and left to die or being shot. Dostum himself admits that there were around 200 under his watch, but that they were due to "combat wounds and disease." And satellite pictures and human rights groups have uncovered evidence of a massive grave in the area.

All of this combines to paint a grim picture of the actions of a man the U.S. openly supported during the Bush administration. Which of course brings the question around to Bush officials: if the administration was paying and openly supporting a war criminal, and if that war criminal gets convicted, could Bush officials be more likely to face charges? Of course, the landscape of this case could change, but right now, it doesn't seem like Bush or Cheney are directly tied to Dostum. Even if the administration announced its diplomatic support for a war criminal, that (unfortunately) doesn't translate into being charged as a criminal oneself, as the U.S. has proven time and again in the second half of the 20th century.

But things get a bit chippier once we get into the Department of Defense, under Rumsfeld at the time.

In 2002, Physicians for Human Rights asked Defense Department officials to open an investigation and provide security for its forensics team to conduct a more thorough examination of the gravesite. “We met with blanket denials from the Pentagon,” recalls Jennifer Leaning, a board member with the group. “They said nothing happened.”

Pentagon spokesmen have said that the United States Central Command conducted an “informal inquiry,” asking Special Forces personnel members who worked with General Dostum if they knew of a mass killing by his forces. When they said they did not, the inquiry went no further.

“I did get the sense that there was little appetite for this matter within parts of D.O.D.,” said Marshall Billingslea, former acting assistant defense secretary for special operations, referring to the Department of Defense.

I admit openly that I don't know enough of the details of international law to fully know what constitutes a "cover-up" of a known war crime, but this does seem to be pushing the envelope of the definition of a "cover-up." Blanket denials to investigate the matter independently and taking at face value the word of people who worked together with the alleged war criminal in order to close the investigation look suspect, to put it lightly. What role, if any, Donald Rumsfeld may have had in this is unclear for now, but one can't help but think he knew something, given that one of his deputy secretaries, Paul Wolfowitz, was more than aware of the problems:

Another former defense official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, recalled that the prisoner deaths came up in a conversation with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense at the time, in early 2003.

“Somebody mentioned Dostum and the story about the containers and the possibility that this was a war crime,” the official said. “And Wolfowitz said we are not going to be going after him for that.”

In an interview, Mr. Wolfowitz said he did not recall the conversation. However, Pentagon documents obtained by Physicians for Human Rights through a Freedom of Information Act request confirm that the issue was debated by Mr. Wolfowitz and other officials

Again, it's no surprise that Wolfowitz's stench would be attached to this particular case - he was actively involved in some of the darkest parts of the Bush administration's foreign policy. The documents confirmed by the FIA request indicate Wolfowitz knew exactly what had happened and what the allegations were, and was simply not interested in going after Dostum for the crimes. Given that position, plus the "blanket denials" the Pentagon issued, Wolfowitz comes out looking particularly bad. It seems to early to say if he looks "war criminal" bad, but if nothing else, he is attached to yet another despicable act of support for an open criminal, all in the name of furthering the Bush administration's misguided, inept, and downright destructive foreign policies.

Of course, if this case gains greater traction, the wingnut talking points are easy to predict: "It was a state of war! After 9/11! The Taliban was teh evil!" Many may agree with this, but it doesn't take away from a central tenet codified in such quaint documents like the Geneva conventions: "war criminals" of any stripe are tried and sentenced for their crimes in courts. They are not summarily executed, and they are certainly not thrown into overcrowded containers to slowly die (if they aren't shot) and then be dumped in a mass grave. What Dostum's men did, with or without his orders (and it would seem from the report that he was more than aware of those actions), constitutes a violation of the Geneva conventions and a war crime.

It's too soon to know where this will end up - probably at most with Dostum facing some level of ostracization, but not enough to be completely deprived of any power. I'd like to be proven wrong, but this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that will snowball a la the Pinochet case. And as for those in the administration who tied themselves, directly or indirectly, to this kind of war criminal, it will mark just one more file in the case that should be filed against the Bush Administration's own criminals, but never will be.

The Mid-Range Consequences of Bush's Foreign Policy Taking Shape in South Asia

Even before his departure, there was plenty of talk from both Bush's supporters and his opponents about what his "legacy" would be. Since Obama's inaugural, we've already seen some of the immediate short-term consequences of Bush's administration - most notably, the economic collapse and the emergence of the issue of torture, but also other matters like Obama having to try to repair the U.S.'s reputation in Latin America after 8 years of arrogance and ignorance.

It seems we can add to that Bush's foreign policy's effects on the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the possibility of the Taliban gaining access to nuclear materials in the case of the latter. By rushing the U.S. to war in Iraq in late 2002 and 2003 under the banner of 9/11 without actually focusing on the country that actually was home to bin Laden is undoubtedly one of Bush's most egregious foreign policy blunders. The issue of whether the war in Afghanistan was "just" or not is not necessarily relative here; the fact is, by prosecuting a half-hearted effort from the White House while putting all the efforts on Iraq and then having to spend the past 6 years trying to clean up the mess, the Bush administration undoubtedly left the door open for the events that we're seeing now in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What is more, the bullying and indefnsible aggression of Bush not just in Iraq, but in talks about Iran, Hamas, and other groups has most likely made us even more enemies in Southern Asia, perhaps aiding the Taliban's efforts and giving it even more support than it would have gained had we actually had an intelligent leader employing actual diplomatic intelligence and reason.

Things are certainly too unclear to attempt to accurately predict what will happen in Afghanistan, and especially Pakistan. But while people's freak out because over 1000 people out of over six billion are sick worldwide, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is becoming more precarious. With over 6 years passed now since the war in Iraq began, it's undeniable that the Iraq War deterred the employment of resources to Afghanistan, while our constant support of Pervez Musharraf even in the face of eroding support endeared us to very few in Pakistan. Thus, while things are still in movement right now, we're already beginning to see the potential long-term damage of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Seeing Evo Morales Speak

This past Tuesday, I had the enormous privilege of seeing Evo Morales speak at Columbia University as part of the World Leaders forum that Columbia hosts every year. It was a fantastic opportunity, and Morales didn't disappoint, talking for about 55 minutes and then spending another 30 minutes answering questions.

The first thing that struck me is how dynamic, charismatic, and well-spoken he is. I realize "eloquent" can and often does carry all kinds of racist connotations, but "eloquent" is exactly what he was. His detractors in Bolivia and elsewhere often call him an "uneducated Indian" (this was a common refrain among the right in Brazil), but anybody who's seen him speak could attest that it's far from the case. He did an excellent job discussing life in Bolivia, his path to the presidency, foreign policy and politics, and some of what he's done as president and what he still wants to do, but he did it all extemporaenously. It may have been a speech he's given before and been able to rehearse, but that didn't detract from its excellence. If Morales is "uneducated," then George Bush is a nobel laureate.

As for the actual content of his speech, it was also excellent, and quite thought provoking. In discussing his campaign for the presidency, he called the American ambassador to Bolivia his "best campaign manager." Apparently, in 2005 as the campaign went on, the U.S. ambassador repeatedly spoke out in public as saying that Morales was a terrible, terrible choice, going so far as to make the hyperbolic and ridiculous claim that Morales and coca growers were "just like the Taliban." Morales was clearly amused by and grateful for these claims, obviously believing that the U.S. ambassador's opposition and, by extension (as the ambassador is just the state's spokesperson for the government s/he represents), Bush's opposition, were key in making Morales a popular choice among many Bolivians who may have been hesitant towards Morales but had a rather low opinion of Bush's beliefs and attitudes. In short, Morales felt that at least some of his votes probably came from the fact that some Bolivians felt that if Bush believed Morales was a bad choice for Bolivia, then Morales clearly must be a good choice.

This humorous observation was amusing, but it also was great point that really got me thinking about how ineffective the Bush government has been at foreign policy. It's not just that Bush has pretty much taken the perfectly wrong path in dealing with the world (even before it threw away the goodwill we got for 9/11); it's that he has consistently, repeatedly, and clearly made the wrong choices in how he deals with countries again and again, yet he continues to try to bully the world expecting different results this time. His claims against countries have repeatedly emboldened them and made their leaders more popular at home, and yet he continued to speak but against these leaders, expecting the population to suddenly say, "hey, Bush is right!" The administration's refusal to dialogue with anybody and its stubbornness, perfectly embodied by Bush himself, has not only alienated the U.S. from the rest of the world, but that Bush's tactics have helped lead to exactly the results he may have wanted least (condemning Morales so strongly only helping the referendum further being an example). In other words, Morales's anecdote really encapsulates just how much the Bush administration's foreign policy has been equally arrogant and blockheaded - it's not just that it assumes an air of superiority that disregarded what sovereign nations might think is best for them; it's that it continued the same mistakes again and again in dealing with those nations and their peoples.

Morales also stressed the importance of dialog in international relations, and in this regard, he really reminded me of Lula. Morales made clear that he wasn't ideologically aligned with or against anybody, but was simply interested in trying to make the best political and economic negotiations he could for his own country. If there were breakdowns (as in the case of the U.S.), it wasn't through failed dialogue, but through the absence of dialogue, not from Bolivia's side, but from other countries. While he avoided explicitly mentioning Bush, he did say he looked forward to meeting with Obama at some point, and it wasn't difficult to read between the lines of his statements that he clearly thought that the U.S. really had a better chance in foreign policy with Obama than with Bush. However, he also raised the interesting comparison of Obama to himself, insisting that nobody compare the two, because Obama never had people spitting on him, he didn't face a societal structure in which it was difficult financially and socially for him to gain access to higher education, and he never had to lead strikes and face the threat of prison and abuse from police forces in the way Morales and indigenous leaders in Bolivia did. While that comment could have come off as arrogant and belittling, it didn't, instead serving as a strong reminder that, while Obama has indeed made enormous strides in arriving to the presidency, the contexts matter greatly in making such comparisons.

Another thing I noticed, and that I thought was of tantamount importance, was the complete absence of any mention, explicit or tacit, of Hugo Chavez or Venezuela. The U.S. media tends to always lump those two together when discussing Bolivia, and Morales often comes off as little more than a subservient follower of Chavez's "Bolivarian mission." Nothing could be further from the truth, and Morales's talk hammered home exactly what Morales is: a former poor, indigenous farmer who rose to the presidency of Bolivia and who only wants to see see Bolivia improve and to see the majority of Bolivians who have historically and perpetually been kept in poverty and away from national sources of power (political and otherwise) and wealth gain fair access and have a chance to succeed, too. And the goal of making life better for all Bolivians is not only a fair goal, it should have been done centuries ago. That Morales is finally doing this doesn't make him some some dangerous "communist" leader who follows Chavez around out of a lack of any convictions of his own and a little-brother-like devotion; it just makes him a president who has his own population's interests in mind, and is working to improve life not for some wealthy minority, but for the majority of his country's citizens. In that regard, given Bolivia's history and the functioning of a very small political/economic aristocracy there, and the changes Morales has brought about (including, hopefully, a fairer and just constitution this January), he's been hugely successful.

One final thing that struck me was what was in one way the relative "conservatism" of Morales in terms of fiscal policy. In discussing the conditions Bolivia was facing domestically when he was inaugurated, he stressed that, since 1940, there had not been one year where Bolivia was operating at a surplus. Simultaneously, the previous (neoliberal) governments had done little to actually help Bolivia financially (as opposed to helping themselves and the political elite), so that in 2004, the year before Morales's victory, Bolivia was pulling in $300 million in revenues from natural resources. In contrast, Bolivia had a net gain last year of over $2 billion, and while the rise in oil prices explains some of that increase, it's also aided by Morales's nationalization projects that, among other things, demanded fair prices for Bolivia's resources (rather than selling them off at discounts to foreign companies and pocketing the money), as well as the fact that, by nationalizing some industries, the money provided income for the state that had previously gone into the pockets of foreign national businesspersons who were already rolling in money. Yes, Morales has expanded some state programs to help the poor gain better access to good schooling, resources, food, health care, etc., but he has done so because he's created a budget surplus that allows the state to provide those services (as it should). That's hardly a "destructive" or "communist" vision.

To be clear, I'm not a Morales hagiographer, and I had some problems with some things he said, particularly in how he staked out the economic successes of the future in Bolivia. He paid lip service to the understanding that oil would not be there forever, nor could Bolivia stake its financial futures only on natural resources that would have a diminishing market, but then he went on to say how promising oil was for at least the next few decades. What is more, he then went on to discuss Bolivia's lithium deposits and how much they would help Bolivia in the future as lithium-powered batteries for cars increased even while oil demand decreased. However, that comment was completely disconnected from his previous line that Bolivia couldn't stake its economic future to exhaustible resources either for which the market would eventually wear down or the resources would disappear. In short, he claimed that Bolivia couldn't rely strictly on finite natural resources for its own financial well-being, yet he offered no alternatives that weren't natural resources that Bolivia could exploit.

That said, it was a really good talk with a good audience (it was clear that, while he had some adoring fans in the audience, he also had some pretty fierce oppponents). Ultimately, what emerged from his presentation was that the U.S. media (and what population does know about him) has virtually no understanding about the man or about what he is doing as leader of his own country. People may have their criticisms about him (and they certainly do, in Bolivia, Brazil, the U.S., and elsewhere), but by and large, those criticisms are baseless and completely out of touch with what Morales himself does, how he sees politics and society in Bolivia, and what he wants for his country.

Oh my god...Change.

Via hilzoy at Obsidian Wings:

"Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team." (from WashPost)

The specific changes said to be under consideration include lifting limits on embryonic stem cell research, lifting the ban on international family planning groups counseling women on abortion, "the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles", and "declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, following an EPA task force recommendation last December that Bush and his aides shunned in order to protect the utility and auto industries."

These are wonderful changes. After the last eight years, the very idea that they might occur not as the result of a long drawn-out battle, but just like that, is amazing.

Just yesterday I read this post at Hoyden About Town about the One Thing that Obama should do right away. Yep, the Global Gag Rule. And to think that they're already preparing to do that.

I don't think it's a small thing to say that every bit of time I spent volunteering on this campaign will be worth it for just that one thing. Throwing in more?

This cartoon may just be right:



(cross-posted)

Plan Colombia: Another Example of Failed U.S. Foreign Policy

Jens Erik Gould thoroughly eviscerates the U.S. anti-cocaine campaign in Colombia in the new edition of The American Prospect. What a disaster. Has the U.S. done anything right in the War on Drugs? It has helped perpetuate the civil war in Colombia? It has militarized the Andes. It has completely failed to stop supplies from entering the country or depressing consumption. It has helped create massive corruption and violence in the nations where the cocaine is smuggled through to the U.S. Wow--this is almost as successful as the war in Iraq!!!

How successful is Plan Colombia, intended to dampen production by destroying coca from the air? Well, according to Gould, cocaine prices fell from $200 to $140 a gram between 2003 and 2006 while purity rose from about 60 to 70%. Hmmm...not so good. The real people Plan Colombia affects are poor coca farmers. They find their fields destroyed and their ability to survive compromised. Gould points out that Plan Colombia has actually increased farmers' dependence on coca because the herbicide used kills food crops as well.

For those of you who protest that the U.S. needs to destroy drug supplies before the reach our borders, let me ask a couple of questions. First, what in the world are these farmers supposed to do? Do you have any good ideas? If the U.S. government wants to subsidize their products to the prices they would get for the coca, great. I would support that. But it is impossible to combine the War on Drugs and neoliberalism and expect any other outcome than this. Sure, maybe these farmers can grow cassava. Think they can make as much on that as coca? Didn't think so. Second, the U.S. hasn't even begun to develop real programs to dampen consumption of these products. I don't even think they should considering it is a giant waste of money. You can convince some people to not use drugs but you can't convince all people. Look at cigarettes. Smoking rates declined a good bit thanks to all the anti-smoking ads. But they haven't declined lately, especially among young people. There's no reason to think that anti-drug ads for any other drugs will do any better.

And hey--at least all this money will keep Colombia solid as the last remaining U.S. ally in South America!