Posts Tagged ‘sovereignty’
Iraq celebrates U.S. withdrawal – of course
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a new dawn on Saturday as Iraq celebrated the departure of American troops at a ceremony held amid tight security and without Maliki’s key political rivals…
Saturday marked the end of the 2008 security pact agreed by then-President George W. Bush and was the last day for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and allowed the Shi’ite majority to take power.
Except for a small military contingent attached to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the last of the American troops departed nearly two weeks ago.
“I declare this day, the 31st of December, on which the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq is complete, as a national day,” said Maliki in a televised ceremony, surrounded by security officials in dress uniforms.
“It is Iraq’s day. It is a feast for all Iraqis. It is the dawn of a new day in Mesopotamia … Your country is free.”
Maliki said he would work to maintain freedom and “respect political, intellectual and religious diversity…”
Learning the wrong lessons from 9/11 — if you learned any at all
Before 9/11, we may have allowed ourselves to be cynical about Western governments and their leaders, but we took it for granted that, faced with rising terrorist threats, they were not just hoping for the best but planning for the worst.
It turned out that nobody was.
The intelligence community saw warning lights flashing, but nobody took preventive action. Then airport security failed. Then the jets failed to scramble. Institutions that were supposed to protect us were asleep. In an instant, we discovered that no one was looking out for us.
The fire crews, the police and the emergency medical service teams who were called to the scene that September morning tried to make up for the failure of institutions with raw courage. The men and women in uniform who climbed upward into the fire displayed that virtue beyond measure or praise. But courage is no substitute for sovereigns that fail.
A sovereign is a state with a monopoly on the means of force. It is the object of ultimate allegiance and the source of law. It is there to protect, to defend and to secure. It is there to think the unthinkable and plan for it.
A sovereign failed that morning…
Pakistani General admits to effectiveness of U.S. drone strikes
In an unusual briefing, a top Pakistani general leading troops in the volatile North Waziristan region has acknowledged the effectiveness of the American drone strikes against foreign militants…
Publicly, the Pakistani government and the powerful military condemn the drone strikes, though privately they acknowledge their utility. It is rare for civilian or military officials to give any nod to the effectiveness of the campaign, and the controversy surrounding the drone strikes has become a staple of the national debate. Opposition political parties and Islamists call the drone attacks a violation of the country’s sovereignty and question their legality.
Dawn, considered the country’s leading English-language daily, quoted Maj. Gen. Mehmood Ghayur of the army’s Seventh division in North Waziristan, as saying that “myths and rumors about U.S. Predator strikes and the casualty figures are many, but it’s a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizable number of them foreigners.”
The general was briefing a group of local Peshawar-based journalists on a rare trip to Miram Shah, the main city in North Waziristan.
According to details listed in the general’s briefing and quoted by Dawn, militants of several nationalities have been singled out in drone attacks. The diverse nationalities of the militants show the extent to which Pakistan’s tribal regions straddling the border with Afghanistan have been infiltrated by foreign fighters, mostly affiliated with Al Qaeda.
This is the second time in recent memory that statements about the military usefulness of drone strikes, the range of extra-national terrorist forces based in tribal areas, the strength of Al Qaeda in frontier regions of Pakistan has been acknowledged. At least by voices inside Pakistan.
I’m not certain there is as much clarity inside the Washington Beltway.
Afghanistan begins shutting down private security firms
US history in the region
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Afghanistan has begun disbanding private security companies operating in the country, shutting down eight firms and seizing over 400 weapons…
The move is part of President Hamid Karzai’s ambitious plan to take over all Afghan security responsibilities from foreign troops by 2014. Since Karzai’s decree in August, a plan has been drawn up for the process which is expected to be complete by the end of the year, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The United Nations and NATO-led International Security Assistance force had given it their support, he added…
The first targets are illegal armed groups operating as private security firms, companies with temporary permits and those who provide security escorts for foreign forces and have been engaged in criminal acts and security breaches…
General David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said late last month that Karzai was…prepared to allow companies operating from some fixed sites, including power plants, to continue their work…
Employees from the firms can join the Afghan security forces if they wish…
Kabul estimates that up to 40,000 Afghans are employed by these firms, seen as a parallel security operations outside government control. Their heavily armed guards forcing a route through traffic is a common sight on Afghan streets.
Many Afghans see them as operating with impunity, and they have been accused of a series of killings, crimes and scandals, but have rarely been convicted.
Ah, yes, a sovereign nation trying to impose sovereignty.
United States admits Iroquois passports legit – UPDATED
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
A spokeswoman for the Iroquois lacrosse team says the U.S. government has agreed to allow the team to travel abroad under passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.
Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a member of the Onondaga Nation who works with the team, says the U.S. State Department dropped a demand that the team travel using higher-security U.S. passports…
The team needs to get on a Wednesday flight to make a Thursday evening game in the World Championships.
The players say being forced to accept U.S. passports would be an attack on their identity…
The Iroquois Nationals executive director Percy Abrams said he believed they would make it to the World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester, where they are set to play the England team tomorrow evening…
The match, he said, was “the equivalent to the World Cup” of lacrosse and they would not give in to travel requirements from US authorities.
He added, “The general consensus is that the Iroquois are the inventors of the game and it would be like having the Olympics in Greece and not having the Greeks there.”
Anyone surprised at [1] the intransigence of TSA flunkies; [2] our State Department having to be pressed to recognize treaty rights of Native Americans; [3] bureaucrats issuing regulations without the least thought for law or existing international treaties.
BTW, the World Championships would not recognize the Iroquois Nation team unless they entered under the passports of their own sovereign nation.
UPDATE: As of Thursday morning, the Brits are proving to be as reactionary, hidebound and incompetent as the TSA. They are refusing to accept Secretary Clinton’s official guarantee of status for the Iroquois team as sufficient to grant visas.
Sudanese rally to support leader
Thousands of people have rallied in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, in support of their President, Omar al-Bashir. The protests followed reports that Mr Bashir is about to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Darfur…
Meanwhile, Sudanese government spokesman Mahjoub Fadul Badry said the indictment of Mr Bashir would violate Sudan’s sovereignty.
“If an international organisation or the organisations working in the humanitarian field are behind such an indictment of the head of state, our symbol of national sovereignty, then no-one should expect us to turn our left cheek,” Mr Badry told al-Arabiya television.
The UN estimates that some 300,000 people have died because of the conflict but Sudan’s government says the scale of the violence has been exaggerated.
Can you imagine living in a nation so politically backward that overwhelming world opinion considers their president a criminal who should be brought to justice – and the citizens react by turning out in hordes to support him in the name of patriotism.
Oh!
