meta-roj

after 24 years of operations in afghanistan, through the russian operations, the warring warlords period, and the taliban, medecins sans frontieres has decided that afghanistan is too dangerous and they will leave.

this will presumably result in the pullout of some 80 foreign personnel and the unemployment of some 1400 local workers.

Médecins Sans Frontières to leave Afghanistan [guardian, july 28, 2004]

MSF today angrily blamed the Afghan government for failing to protect aid workers, and US forces for “co-opting” humanitarian relief programmes for its own ends. More than 30 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2003.

“After having worked nearly without interruption alongside the most vulnerable Afghan people since 1980, it is with outrage and bitterness that we take the decision to abandon them,” Marine Buissonnière, MSF’s secretary general, said in a statement

…

The agency also claimed the US-led coalition in Afghanistan had “consistently sought to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political ambitions”.

It cited a leaflet distributed by US-led forces in southern Afghanistan in May that told locals they would need to give troops information about the Taliban and al-Qaida if they wanted to keep receiving humanitarian assistance.

i suppose this could be msf playing politics to drive some sort of agenda, but the organization’s integrity and reputation is fairly solid. maybe candidate bush was right when he suggested that the united states wasn’t very good at the whole nation-building thing.

i guess we’re stuck in a situation where the united states is going to have to step in and fill in the humanitarian gap, or we’re just going to ignore those people and hope nobody notices.

just before going on vacation, congress took a moment away from the other important issues before it, and issued a concurrent resolution on the matter of sudan.

senate concurrent resolution 124 and house concurrent resolution 467

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress–

(1) declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide;

(2) reminds the international community, including the United States Government, of their international legal obligations, as affirmed in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(3) urges the Bush Administration to call the atrocities being committed in Darfur, Sudan by its rightful name: `genocide’;

(4) calls on the Bush Administration to lead an international effort to prevent genocide in Darfur, Sudan;

(5) urges the Bush Administration to seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act;

(6) demands that the Bush Administration impose targeted sanctions, including visa bans and the freezing of assets of the National Congress and affiliated business and individuals directly responsible for the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan; and

(7) calls on USAID to establish a Darfur Resettlement, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Fund so that those driven off their land may return and begin to rebuild their communities.

bummer about all the troops being tied up in the hunt for bin laden and the weapons of mass destruction…. erm. i mean, nation [re-]building…

governor george w. bush, october 3, 2000 presidential debate

…even though we’re the strongest military, that if we don’t do something quickly, we don’t have a clearer vision of the military, if we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.

well, at least there’s some contention between branches of government now. seems that congress thinks sudan is a serious problem. we like it when the branches of government aren’t in lock-step.

it seems that tony blair has is own troubles with math….

PM admits graves claim ‘untrue’ [the observer, july 18, 2004]

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that ‘400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves’ is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq’s mass graves.

maybe this goes some distances toward explaining the special relationship between the united states and united kingdom…

just a tiny little blip on the radar, and something that was quickly spun out of the news with the latest iran-scare, but i thought i’d go ahead and mention it….

House Votes to Block Aid for Saudi Arabia [reuters, july 15, 2004]

The House voted 217-191 to remove $25,000 in the $19.4 billion 2005 foreign aid bill earmarked for Saudi Arabia.

The funds were designated for military training but approval would have triggered millions of dollars in discounts on hardware and other military training, lawmakers said.

you’ll have to engage someone significantly more involved in the political machine and creative accounting than i to understand how $25,000 can “trigger millions of dollars in discounts” and still be just $25,000…

of course, saudi arabia really doesn’t need american tax dollars, but there’s much much more political capital than monetary capital in this issue. the fact that a $25,000 line-item in the congress made the news at all says a lot about the symbolic value of those dollars.

this has to be politics, because there just isn’t any other way to explain this maneuver….

U.S. Removes Peacekeepers Over War Crimes Court [reuters, july 1, 2004]

The U.S. military is pulling small numbers of troops out of two U.N. peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Africa because they are no longer exempt from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

A seven-member team will be removed from a U.N. mission assigned to keep peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia and two liaison officers will be removed from the world body’s mission in Kosovo, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told reporters.

…

Nations ratifying the treaty can turn their own citizens over to the court and those from other states for a crime committed on their soil. Neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea has ratified the treaty.

it would seem that the stated reason – because the icc exemption expired – isn’t entirely valid. that mean that either our pentagon or our state deparment is having another round of planning difficulties, or there’s another reason for this and the icc exemption expiration just happens to be good political cover.

the full briefing transcript is available.

Annan attacks US immunity move

I think in this circumstance it would be unwise to press for an exemption, and it would be even more unwise on the part of the Security Council to grant it. It would discredit the Council and the United Nations, which stands for the primacy of rule of law. That blanket exemption is wrong.

senator joe biden [D-DE, June 8, 2004]

there’s a reason why we sign these treaties. to protect my son in the military. that’s why we have these treaties. so when americans are captured, they are not tortured.

the full transcript of the hearing is available from the washington post.

[this is a follow-up on a previous post here].

World military spent $956 billion [ap via the toronto star]

The $956 billion spent on defence costs worldwide represents 2.7 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product, according to the annual report.

the annual report is produced by the stockholm international peace research institute, and it’ll cost you 80GBP.

so, that works out to roughly 150 dollars per person… are you happy with how your 150 dollars were spent in 2003?

btw… world’s gross domestic product? do we have trade agreements with mars now? 🙂 another nit to pick is this in the ap article:

World military spent $956 billion [ap via the toronto star]

Military spending rose 11 per cent in 2003, up 18 per cent from 2001, the last year for which figures were available.

in contrast with this:

Highlights from the SIPRI YEARBOOK 2004

World military spending in 2003 increased by about 11 per cent in real terms. This is a remarkable rate of increase, even more so given that it was preceded by an increase of 6.5 per cent in 2002. Over two years world military spending increased by 18 per cent in real terms, to reach $956 billion (in current dollars) in 2003.

i mean… it is an annual publication….

update: it helps when you do the math right. geez. that’s 150 dollars, not 15 cents. i’m surprised nobody picked my nits.

in the telegraph, some news of potential conflicts in the diplomats letter story from a few days ago…

Diplomats failed to disclose their own Arab links [the daily telegraph]

The letter failed to disclose, however, that several of the key signatories, including Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador to Libya who instigated the letter, are paid by pro-Arab organisations.

Some of the others hold positions in companies seeking lucrative Middle East contracts, while others have unpaid positions with pro-Arab organisations.

does this invalidate the points made? which came first? did these people take work at “pro-arab” organizations because of their positions on policy, or did they adopt positions on policy because they got paid?

good morning, europe