At Tahrir Square. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS

By Amanda Ufheil-Somers
WASHINGTON, Jan 5 2015 (IPS)

For a moment, four years ago, it seemed that dictators in the Middle East would soon be a thing of the past.

Back then, it looked like the United States would have to make good on its declared support for democracy, as millions of Tunisians, Egyptians, Bahrainis, Yemenis, and others rose up to reject their repressive leaders. Many of these autocrats enjoyed support from Washington in return for providing “stability.”

Yet even the collapse of multiple governments failed to upend the decades-long U.S. policy of backing friendly dictators. Washington has doubled down on maintaining a steady supply of weapons and funding to governments willing to support U.S. strategic interests, regardless of how they treat their citizens.

Four years after Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, for example, the country once again has a president with a military pedigree and an even lower tolerance for political opposition than his predecessor.With a new year upon us, it’s our turn to face down fear and insist that another path is possible.

Mass arrests and hasty convictions of political activists — over 1,000 of whom have been sentenced to death — have reawakened the fear that Egyptians thought had vanished for good after Mubarak was ousted and democratic elections were held.

When the Egyptian military — led by now-president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi — deposed the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the Obama administration wavered about whether it would suspend military aid to Egypt, which U.S. law requires in the case of a coup. Yet despite some partial and temporary suspensions, the U.S. government continued to send military hardware.

Now that Sisi heads a nominally civilian government — installed in a sham election by a small minority of voters — all restrictions on U.S. aid have been lifted, including for military helicopters that are used to intimidate and attack protesters. As Secretary of State John Kerry promised a month after Sisi’s election, “The Apaches will come, and they will come very, very soon.”

In the tiny kingdom of Bahrain, meanwhile, the demonstrations for constitutional reform that began in February 2011 continue, despite the government’s attempts to silence the opposition with everything at its disposal — from bird shot to life imprisonment.

Throughout it all, Washington has treated Bahrain like a respectable ally.

Back in 2011, for instance, just days after Bahraini security forces fired live ammunition at protesters in Manama — an attack that killed four and wounded many others — President Barack Obama praised King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s “commitment to reform.” Neither did the White House object when it was notified in advance that 1,200 troops from Saudi Arabia would enter Bahrain to clear the protests in March 2011.

Since then, there’s been a steady drip of troubling news. A State Department report from 2013 acknowledged that Bahrain revokes the citizenship of prominent activists, arrests people on vague charges, tortures prisoners, and engages in “arbitrary deprivation of life.” (That’s bureaucratese for killing people.)

And what have the consequences been?

Back in 2012, international pressure forced the United States to ban the sale of American-made tear gas to Bahraini security forces. And last August, some U.S. military aid was cut off after the regime expelled an American diplomat for meeting with members of an opposition party.

But that’s it.

Delaying shipments of tanks, jets, and tear gas amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist when the Fifth Fleet of the U.S. Navy remains headquartered outside Bahrain’s capital. And Bahrain’s participation in air raids against the Islamic State has only strengthened the bond between the regime and the White House.

Indeed, the crisis in Iraq and Syria has breathed new life into the military-first approach that has long dominated Washington’s thinking about the Middle East. Any government willing to join this new front in the “War on Terror” is primed to benefit both from American largesse and a free pass on repression.

People power in the Middle East must be matched by popular demand here in the United States to shake the foundations of our foreign policy. With a new year upon us, it’s our turn to face down fear and insist that another path is possible.

This story originally appeared on Otherwords.org. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

The two-week long conflict has claimed the lives of more than 620 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including over 230 women and children, and over 3,700 wounded, while the Israeli death toll is 27 soldiers and two civilians. Credit: Syeda Amina Trust Charity/cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 23 2014 (IPS)

The overwhelming Israeli firepower unleashed on the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the ongoing battle in Gaza is perhaps reminiscent of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962) when France, the colonial power, used its vastly superior military strength to strike back at the insurgents with brutal ferocity.

While France was accused of using its air force to napalm civilians in the countryside, the Algerians were accused of using handmade bombs hidden in women’s handbags and left surreptitiously in cafes, restaurants and public places frequented by the French."Unless you have been on the street facing Israeli troops in Gaza, or sleeping on the floor under an Israeli aerial assault, as I have several times while delivering aid in 1989, 2000, and 2009, it's impossible to imagine the total disproportion of power in this conflict." -- Dr. James E. Jennings

In one of the memorable scenes in the 1967 cinematic classic “The Battle of Algiers,” a handcuffed leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF), Ben M’Hidi, is brought before a group of highly-partisan French journalists for interrogation.

One of the journalists asks M’Hidi: “Don’t you think it is a bit cowardly to use women’s handbags and baskets to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?”

The Algerian insurgent shoots back with equal bluntness: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on unarmed villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims?”

Then he delivers the devastating punchline: “Of course, if we had your fighter planes, it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our handbags and baskets.”

In the current conflict in Gaza, a role reversal would see Hamas armed with fighter planes, air-to-surface missiles and battle tanks, while the Israelis would be hitting back only with homemade rockets.

But in reality what is taking place in Gaza is a totally outmatched and outranked Hamas fighting a country with one of the world’s most formidable and sophisticated military machines, whose state-of-the-art equipment is provided gratis – under so-called “Foreign Military Financing (FMF)” – by the United States.

According to the latest figures, the two-week long conflict has claimed the lives of more than 620 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including over 230 women and children, and over 3,700 wounded, while the Israeli death toll is 27 soldiers and two civilians.

Speaking of the military imbalance, Dr. James E. Jennings, president of Conscience International and executive director of U.S. Academics for Peace, told IPS, “Unless you have been on the street facing Israeli troops in Gaza, or sleeping on the floor under an Israeli aerial assault, as I have several times while delivering aid in 1989, 2000, and 2009, it’s impossible to imagine the total disproportion of power in this conflict.

“I saw boys who were merely running away shot in the back by Israeli soldiers with Uzi [submachine guns] and arrayed in body armour, and in 2009 and 2012 at Rafah witnessed Israel’s technological superiority in coordinating sophisticated computers, drones, and F-15s with devastating effect,” he said.

The repeated missile strikes ostensibly targeted youths scrambling through tunnels like rats to bring food and medicine to the trapped population, but often hit helpless civilians fleeing the bombing as well, said Jennings.

He also pointed out that in terms of the imbalance in the number of casualties in this so-called “war”, statistics speak for themselves. However, numbers on a page do not do justice to the up-close reality.

“In my work I have visited wounded women and children in hospitals in Rafah and Gaza City and helped carry out the bodies of the dead for burial,” Jennings said.

When military capabilities are that asymmetrical, he said, shooting fish in a barrel is the best analogy.

As for the largely homemade Qassam rockets launched by Hamas, their ineffectiveness is apparent in the statistical results: over 2,000 launched, with only two unlucky civilians killed on the Israeli side.

“That is far less than the eight Americans killed accidentally last year by celebratory rockets on the 4th of July,” Jennings noted.

The billions of dollars in sophisticated U.S. weapons purchased by Israel are under non-repayable FMF grants, according to defence analysts.

Israel is currently the recipient of a 10-year, 30-billion-dollar U.S. military aid package, 2009 through 2018.

And according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Israel is also the largest single recipient of FMF, and by 2015, these grants will account for about 55 percent of all U.S. disbursements worldwide, and represent about 23-25 percent of the annual Israeli military budget.

Nicole Auger, a military analyst who covers the Middle East and Africa at Forecast International, a leader in defence market intelligence and industry forecasting, told IPS Israel imports practically all its weapons from the U.S. – and this largely consists of sophisticated equipment it does not produce domestically, or equipment it finds more expedient to buy with U.S. assistance funding.

She said despite a proposed shift in emphasis from air and naval power to ground strength, Israel continues to place priority on maintaining air superiority over all its regional neighbours.

The emphasis on air supremacy and strike capability has resulted in an additional order for F-15I fighters to serve as the lead fighter until the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is brought into service with the Israeli Air Force (IAF), she said.

Along with its 25 long-range strike F-15Is (Ra’ams), the IAF also has 102 multirole combat F-16Is (Soufas) purchased under the Peace Marble V programme in 1999 (50 platforms) and 2001 (option for a further 52 planes), Auger said.

The F-15I and F-16I jets, some of which are being used for aerial bombings of Gaza, are customised versions of the American fighters tailored to specific Israeli needs.

Israel’s military arsenal also includes scores of attack helicopters.

Auger said the Sikorsky CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter fleet was just upgraded with the IAI Elta Systems EL/M-2160 flight guard protection system, which detects incoming missiles with radar and then activates diversionary countermeasures.

Israel has also completed a major upgrade to its fleet of Bell AH-1E/F/G/S Cobra attack helicopters and its Boeing AH-64A Apache helicopters has been converted to AH-64D Longbow standards.

The middle layer of defence is provided by the upgraded Patriot PAC 2 anti-missile system (PAC 3) and the air force is also armed with Paveway laser-guided bombs, BLU-109 penetration bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) kits, and GBU-28 bunker busters.

In terms of vehicles, she said, Israel manufactures the majority of its own.

Jennings told IPS two facts are largely missing in the standard media portrayal of the Israel-Gaza “war:” the right of self-defence, so stoutly defended by Israelis and their allies in Washington, is never mentioned about the period in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes and pushed off their land to be enclosed in the world’s largest prison camp that is Gaza.

Secondly, the world has stood by silently while Israel, with complicity by the U.S. and Egypt, has literally choked the life out of the 1.7 million people in Gaza by a viciously effective cordon sanitaire, an almost total embargo on goods and services, greatly impacting the availability of food and medicine.

“These are war crimes, stark and ongoing violations of international humanitarian law perpetuated over the last seven years while the world has continued to turn away,” Jennings said.

“The indelible stain of that shameful neglect will not be erased for centuries, yet many people in the West continue to wonder at all the outrage in the Middle East,” he added.

Unmarked graves of victims of Colombia’s half-century civil war, like this one in La Macarena in central Colombia, are scattered across the country. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Adam Schaffer and Gimena Sanchez
WASHINGTON , Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

After half a century, Colombia may put an end to its conflict—if the U.S. will allow it.

Colombia has been the host of some of the most extreme and brutal violence in Latin America’s history. The country’s half-century long conflict has taken the lives of almost a quarter million women, men, and children, and displaced nearly six million more.

The United States has financed much of the conflict in recent years, investing nine billion dollars since 2000 – much of it to bolster Colombia’s security forces.

Yet peace may be near. On May 16, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest guerrilla group, signed a preliminary accord on the third of five negotiating points in their ongoing peace talks in Havana, Cuba: illicit drugs.

The agreement offers a viable plan for the FARC to end its involvement in the Colombian drug trade, alternatives for small-scale cultivators of crops destined for illicit drug markets, and meaningful policy reforms at the national level for addressing issues of drug consumption and public health.

Hope too lies with an announcement that came earlier the same day. Following national and international pressure – including an inter-parliamentary letter signed by 245 representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland – the FARC announced a unilateral ceasefire.

While the government maintains that it will not end military operations until an agreement is signed, and though the FARC’s temporary ceasefire ended on May 28, this act is encouraging because it significantly decreased violence and will likely increase confidence at the negotiating table.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hundreds of thousands of Colombians continue to be affected by the conflict every year. Ensuring that all parties respect international humanitarian law is essential and will likely help to advance the peace talks.

Domestic political shake-ups, though, threaten to disrupt this progress. In the first round of Colombia’s presidential elections on May 25, sitting President Juan Manuel Santos, who began the talks to the dismay of many former political allies, came in second to conservative hardliner Oscar Ivan Zuluaga.

Zuluaga, who is allied with former president (and current senator-elect) Alvaro Uribe, has made clear his scepticism towards the talks.

While he has now softened his stance in advance of the runoff election, his long-time opposition to the process remains concerning. Santos and Zuluaga will face off in a second-round vote on Jun. 15.

A step closer toward meaningful drug policy reform

The accord on the drug issue – declared a “partial agreement,” as no individual agreements are final until all points on the agenda have been agreed upon – is little short of historic.

The language, which was agreed upon by both parties, reflects a significant shift away from the prohibitionist approach to drug policy.

Adopting some of the proposals of the growing community calling for drug policy reform, the accord acknowledges that “evidence-based alternatives” to current policies are needed to address problems that may be associated with drug consumption, and distinguishes between the cultivation of crops for the illicit market and drug trafficking.

Furthermore, it calls for the expansion of crop substitution programmes, recognising that many rural communities rely on coca and opium poppy cultivation for their economic livelihoods.

However, it stipulates that “supportive measures…will be conditioned to…agreements on substitution and no-replanting,” implying that cultivators would be required to cede their earnings from crop cultivation before they see the benefits of alternative crops.

Experience in Latin America has shown that conditioning assistance on total eradication harms the chance of developing lasting alternatives, as cultivators lack a successful bridge between when the cultivation of crops for the illicit market ends and alternative livelihoods become sustainable.

Not surprisingly in these circumstances, many growers return to the cultivation of coca and poppy crops. A more effective model would be to offer a phasing out period and/or subsidies to cultivators until meaningful alternative livelihoods are actually in place.

Yet while proper sequencing on reducing crops for the illicit market will need to be reviewed, the parties get it right on local involvement. Opting for what one Colombian analyst described as “building the state from below,” the development programme would rely heavily on, and actively engage with, local communities to ensure their participation – and hence the programme’s sustainability.

The most monumental point came with the government’s concession to de-prioritise -though not entirely retire – the destructive and ineffective aerial herbicide spraying of coca crops, opting first for alternative development and manual eradication before spraying crops.

In more than a decade of its use in Colombia, aerial spraying has served only to disperse coca crops, destroy poor farmers’ livelihoods, and engender local distrust for government authorities, as the only contact many communities have had with the state has been the occasional visit of a plane spraying crops.

The agreement also addresses drug consumption, an issue generally thought to be outside the purview of the peace talks. While details here are scant, linking this issue to the peace talks will help continue regional debates on drug policy reform. Recognising that drug policy should be based on respect for human rights and public health is a valuable contribution.

But a full agreement, if eventually signed, will not be a panacea. Taking the FARC out of the cultivation and trafficking business will not independently solve the drug issue or the associated violence.

As long as there is worldwide – and particularly U.S. – demand for drugs, criminal organisations will find a way to supply them. Furthermore, an accord will likely leave a power vacuum in rural regions of the country as the FARC demobilises and cedes those territories.

There is a good chance that right-wing paramilitary successor groups and criminal gangs will try to fill it. Establishing a positive state presence and providing basic services will be a major challenge, especially in regions where the armed forces have been the primary face of the state.

Supporting peace from Washington

Because of these continued challenges, the United States has an important role to play in the implementation phase, both in supporting Colombia financially and in granting the Colombian government political space to implement the accords – even when they contradict U.S. policy priorities.

A State Department communiqué on the drug policy agreement, which highlights the continuation of forced eradication, raises questions about whether the United States will help or hinder the advancement of the peace process.
Nearly two of every three aid dollars destined for Colombia goes to the public security forces. Will the U.S. government be willing to shift aid to build peace rather than continue war?

Achieving durable reductions in poppy and coca crop cultivation for illicit drug production will require implementing alternative livelihoods and connecting long-forgotten rural areas with the national infrastructure.

After decades of waging a largely ineffective “war on drugs” in Colombia, will the United States allow its long-time ally to break with the prohibition-focused model and explore alternatives to the current militarised approach? Some of the most revolutionary agreements in the accord, such as all but ending aerial spraying, would challenge the existing U.S. approach.

These questions, and the many more that will be raised as the talks progress, will likely dismay hardliners in the U.S. government who are not ready to shift drug control tactics.

But with little progress to show after decades of violence and billions of dollars spent, the Colombian and FARC negotiators have made an important step toward ending decades of violence. The United States should stand ready to support Colombia, both financially and politically, in the coming months and years – and it should know when to stand down.

Adam Schaffer is an analyst with the Drug Policy and Colombia programme at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which promotes human rights, democracy, and social justice by working with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to shape policies in the United States and abroad.  Gimena Sanchez is a Senior Associate for the Andes at WOLA. This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.