US To Pay Taliban To Switch Sides
The US military in Afghanistan is to be allowed to pay Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul. The move is included in a defence bill which President Obama is set to sign.
Such payments have already been widely used by US commanders in Iraq, but it is the first time the system is being formally adopted in Afghanistan.
Early on Wednesday, Afghan troops were engaged in a shootout with suspected militants at a house in Kabul.
A day earlier eight US soldiers were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.The deaths make October the deadliest month for American forces in the eight-year war in Afghanistan.
President Obama is yet to decide whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan. Mr Obama has said he will not risk their lives “unless it is absolutely necessary”.
The latest attacks come amid heightened tension in Afghanistan in the run-up to the second round of a presidential election marred by widespread fraud in favour of incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
‘Re-integration’ programmes
The Commander’s Emergency Response Programme, or Cerp, was set up to give the US military the means to clear roads, dig wells and provide other urgent humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, the BBC’s Richard Lister in Washington says.
But in Iraq, the money can also be given to insurgents provided they switch sides. Backers of the Cerp scheme say it enabled some 90,000 formerly hostile Iraqis to form local militias and protect their towns from militants, our correspondent says. He adds that now the same authority is being given to US commanders in Afghanistan.
A clause in the annual defence appropriations bill says they can use the money to support the “re-integration into Afghan society” of those who have renounced violence against the Afghan government.
Although $1.3bn (£691m) has been authorised for the fund as a whole, no specific sum has been allocated to the re-integration programmes, our correspondent says.
The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin, has said he envisages the money being used to pay former Taliban fighters to protect their communities. BBC News
Humble Beginning
Barack Hussein Obama was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii. Obama’s parents were separated when he was 2 years old and later on divorced.
Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. In his early teens, he was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy and graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side. During this time, Obama said he “was not raised in a religious household”. Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988.
In February 1990, he was elected the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991. On June 3, 2008 he won the Montana primary election giving him enough delegates to become the first Black American presidential candidate to win a major political party’s presumptive nomination for the office of President of the United States, which later on became the first African-American president in America. President Obama also became the first president to light a ceremonial Diya at the White House to mark the observance of Diwali, the “festival of lights.” And in that occasion he sign a new initiative aimed at expanding opportunities for Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage. Gays and lesbians which are still struggling for acceptance and equal rights in the United States, and President Obama has told them “I’m here with you in that fight”.
Moreover, among of Obama’s policies were laid out during his weekly radio and Internet address, Mr Obama said too many small business owners remain unable to get credit despite administration steps to jump-start lending, which was virtually frozen when the financial crisis took hold last year. “These are the very taxpayers who stood by America’s banks in a crisis, and now it’s time for our banks to stand by creditworthy small businesses and make the loans they need to open their doors, grow their operations and create new jobs,” Mr Obama said. Further he stressed that “It’s time for those banks to fulfill their responsibility to help ensure a wider recovery, a more secure system and more broadly shared prosperity.”
Furthermore, President Barack Obama says overhauling the health care system, while helping millions of people, also will test whether policy makers can “serve the national interest despite the unrelenting efforts of the special interests.” The administration is building momentum for the president’s overhaul effort after the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 this week for a bill that would extend health care coverage to millions of people. One Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, supported the bill, and the measure faces considerable opposition from the health care industry, labor unions and large business organizations.
To date, there is no doubt that President Barack Obama deserves the Nobel peace award. His prominence as a world leader, with a distinct and clearly defined posture toward attaining some semblance of peace on this earth, is being recognized by the Nobel Committee. His efforts have been sincere and gallant, against fiercely formidable odds. Receiving a Nobel Peace award is not meant to be an indication that the recipient has attained peace throughout the world, but in recognition of the potential impact of that individual’s effort towards that end. To keep you abreast of recent developments, just visits the above mentioned for more details and information’s.
Illegal Attack By Georgia Launched War With Russia
An illegal military attack by Georgia on its breakaway region of South Ossetia triggered last year’s war with Russia, an international report said yesterday.
Russia was also guilty of breaking international law by invading deep into Georgian territory in response to the attack, the European Union-backed investigation into the causes of the five-day conflict concluded.
The report deals a severe blow to Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has repeatedly argued that he ordered troops into South Ossetia as a defensive action in response to a Russian invasion. Moscow insisted that it sent forces to South Ossetia to repel a Georgian attack.
The nine-month inquiry led by a Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, said that the war was triggered by “a large-scale Georgian military operation” against the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali late on August 7, adding: “Operations started with a massive Georgian artillery attack.”
Ms Tagliavini said in a written statement: “None of the explanations given by the Georgian authorities in order to provide some form of legal justification for the attack lend it a valid explanation.”
Her inquiry rejected as not “sufficiently substantiated” Georgian claims of a Russian incursion into South Ossetia prior to the outbreak of the war. But it noted “an influx of volunteers or mercenaries” into South Ossetia from Russia and said that some Russian troops were in the war zone earlier than the Kremlin had claimed.
The Russian air force also bombed targets in Georgia hours before Moscow said that it had begun military operations at 2.30pm on August 8.
The inquiry concluded: “There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia, beginning with the shelling of Tskhinvali during the night of 7/8 August 2008, was justifiable under international law. It was not.
“It follows from the illegal character of the Georgian military assault that South Ossetian defensive action in response did conform to international law in terms of legitimate self-defence.”
The report said that there was also no justification for Georgian attacks on Russian peacekeeping forces based in South Ossetia. It went on: “There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation. Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive on 7/8 August could not be substantiated. It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack.
“Consequently, the use of force by Georgia against Russian peacekeeping forces in Tskhinvali in the night of 7/8 August 2008 was contrary to international law.”
The inquiry condemned Russia’s response to the fighting, however, as going “far beyond the reasonable limits of defence”. It said that the Kremlin broke international law in justifying its actions and in recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia’s other breakaway region, as independent states after the war.
Initial Russian defensive actions in South Ossetia were legal, but subsequent military occupation of large parts of Georgia – tanks came within 25 miles of the capital Tbilisi – was not “even remotely commensurate” with the threat posed to its peacekeepers.
Russia’s invasion broke international law and continued destruction of Georgian territory after a ceasefire negotiated by President Sarkozy of France “was not justifiable by any means”. The report added: “In a matter of a very few days, the pattern of legitimate and illegitimate military action had thus turned around between the two main actors Georgia and Russia… It must be concluded that the Russian military action outside South Ossetia was essentially conducted in violation of international law.”
The report rejected the Kremlin’s assertion that it had acted in defence of Russian citizens in South Ossetia, most of whom hold Russian passports. It said that people in South Ossetia and Abkhazia remained Georgian citizens under international law and it condemned Russia’s “passportisation” policy as “an open challenge to Georgian sovereignty and an interference in the internal affairs of Georgia”.
The inquiry described Russian claims that Georgia was committing “genocide” against South Ossetians as “neither founded in law nor substantiated by factual evidence”. It noted that Russia reduced to 162 its initial claim that 2,000 South Ossetians had been killed by Georgian troops.
It accused Georgian and Russian soldiers as well as South Ossetian militias of committing atrocities that amounted to “war crimes”. But the similarity of weapons used by all sides made it difficult to attribute responsibility for particular acts.
The report condemned Russia for failing to control South Ossetian irregulars who it said were guilty of ethnic cleansing of Georgian villagers from their homes in the conflict zone. Georgia’s use of Grad missiles and cluster munitions in its night attack on Tskhinvali amounted to “indiscriminate attacks” on the civilian population.
While Georgia’s attack on Tskhinvali marked the start of the war, the inquiry said that it “was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents” involving Russia and separatist leaders in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Assessments of the war had to consider “a great power’s coercive politics and diplomacy against a small and insubordinate neighbour, together with the small neighbour’s penchant for overplaying its hand and acting in the heat of the moment without careful consideration of the final outcome”.
The Kremlin welcomed the report. Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to the EU, said: “It confirms what we’ve know all along – who started the war and who bears responsibility.”
Georgia insisted that the inquiry proved that Moscow had been plotting a war for a long time. Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia’s Minister for Reintegration, said: “The report proves that Russia was all the time preparing this war and August 7 and 8 were the culmination. The report is not about who started the war; the war did not start on August 7 or 8.”
The inquiry said that Georgia reported 228 civilians killed and 184 soldiers dead or missing in the war. Russia said that 64 of its troops died and 162 South Ossetian civilians.
More than 100,000 people became refugees during the conflict. Several thousand South Ossetians remain homeless and some 25,000 Georgians have been unable to return to South Ossetia. By Tony Halpin, The Times.
Himalayan Conflict Centres On Tibet
A resurgent dispute over an Indian state that China claims as its own is threatening to explode into a bloodier fight. There is perhaps no country more feared and less understood in India than China. In recent weeks Delhi newspapers and television have been awash with stories about the People’s Liberation Army crossing the Himalayas to daub rocks with Chinese characters, making daredevil helicopter raids to drop (stale) tinned food on hapless farmers and trading fire with Indian soldiers.
India’s Kashmir state government, apparently, said its territory was being taken “inch by inch” through such incursions. Ominously, authorities last week in Kolkata impounded a plane carrying arms from the Middle East to China.
While the foreign ministries in both countries play down the reports, there are concerns that left unchecked, things could spiral out of control.
The spat began in June. Chinese bloggers vented their fury when India abruptly announced that it would be sending 60,000 troops to bolster tens of thousands of soldiers to Arunachal Pradesh – an Indian state that Beijing claims as its own. One online poll in China claimed that 90% of respondents thought Delhi’s actions posed a “threat”.
At the heart of this dispute lies the Tibetan question. Historically, China says Arunachal Pradesh’s 35,000 square miles was part of “outer Tibet”. In a short bloody war, Chinese troops overran Indian positions in the Himalayas in 1962 before retreating. Since then the two sides have tried to discuss their way out of a problem. More than dozen rounds of talks have yielded little.
For years the dispute has rumbled on, attracting little international attention. However, that changed this summer with the arrival of fresh troops – and an Indian airforce squadron of advanced fighters – which analysts say were needed to cope with China’s rising military might, especially in Tibet.
The Indian defence magazine Force points out that the PLA could mobilise four divisions – about 50,000 men – in 24 hours to the Sino-Indian border. “Awesome military projection capability by any standards,” says the magazine in its latest edition.
To get a taste of how difficult things might be for India, in a diplomatic first, China “internationalised” the issue of Arunachal Pradesh, highlighting its disputed status in July. Beijing formally objected to a $60m loan for India because it would fund irrigation projects in Arunachal Pradesh. Although the loan was later approved, Chinese experts say there is still “room to change” the project.
Arunachal Pradesh has been slowly integrated into the Indian state since Delhi sent troops in 1950 carrying papers signed by the Tibetan government in Lhasa, which transferred 35,000 square miles of the Himalayas to India. Beijing rejects Delhi’s claim, saying the region was subject to a crafty piece of real estate theft by British imperialists in 1914 when China was in chaos.
A solution has always been in sight: Beijing relinquishes its claim to Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi gives up its demand for 15,000 square miles of stragetically important Chinese-held mountainous land bordering Kashmir.
But Arunachal Pradesh for China is not just a territorial issue but an existential one. The state is home to the town of Tawang, birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, where Tibetan Buddhism’s biggest monastery, after the Potala palace in Lhasa, sits.
Tawang is also the repository of perhaps the last vestige of a Tibet submerged by China’s rise – sustaining the idea of religious freedom for the diaspora and keeping alive a centuries-old culture and language. In conversation, the Monpa people who dominate the local area will tell visitors that Tawang could be Tibetan Buddhism’s new Rome, a base from where to spread the faith.
China is alarmed by such talk. Beijing sees Tawang not as a place of serenity but as a spiritual spy camp – ultimately challenging the ruling Communist party’s control in Tibet. These feelings were heightened when the Indian government said this week it would allow the Dalai Lama to travel to Tawang, adding he was “free to go anywhere in India”.
The present Tibetan leader has not been a regular visitor to the town. He passed through when he fled Tibet in 1959 but he has only been allowed back twice since: once in 1982 and then again 2003. This time around he will open a hospital he funded.
The Indian backing to the Dalai Lama comes at a critical time. The Obama administration said this week that the president would not meet the Tibetan leader during his upcoming trip to Washington – a break with tradition. George Bush and Bill Clinton met the Dalai Lama when he arrived in the American capital. Afraid that the White House was now kowtowing to Beijing before the president’s visit this November to China, Tibet’s government in exile openly said even the US was now “appeasing” China. This is a breakthrough for China – which is unafraid of criticising any head of state for meeting the Dalai Lama, who they see as a man determined to “split the motherland”. So far 170 countries out of 193 in the United Nations have acceded to China’s demands.
This leaves India in a difficult, lonely position. It already sees Chinese ports and military bases strung across the Indian Ocean – the so called “string of pearls” strategy designed to check Indian influence in its backyard. Delhi has been outbid for vital oil and gas resources by its bigger, richer neighbour. On most measures of hard power – number of nuclear weapons, economic size, population – India lags behind.
China is not afraid to flex its muscles: it blocked India’s bid for a UN security council place and tried to shoot down a groundbreaking US-India nuclear deal.
Delhi says it is in the nature of development for the two large Asian nations to compete and co-operate for resources, cash and technology. China is India’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade volumes crossing $50bn in 2008. The two countries, which are both home to millions of poor people, have worked together in trade and climate change – fending off advances from the advanced nations.
For both, Tibet makes it easier to be antagonists rather than collaborators. Unless both manage to work together to resolve their differences there is a chance the two populations will get bogged down in adversarial nationalism. The media war could then explode into bloodier conflict on the roof of the world. By Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian.
Karzai Backers Wants Troops
Senior Afghan officials, alarmed by the Obama administration’s reappraisal of its Afghanistan strategy, said an increased U.S. military commitment is needed to roll back an emboldened insurgency.
They also cautioned about what they said would be dire consequences of any U.S. attempts to edge out President Hamid Karzai. Results from a presidential election last month gave Mr. Karzai a majority, but allegations of widespread ballot-stuffing have stalled the confirmation of his victory and undermined his credibility in the eyes of many Afghans.
These admonishments come after the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, warned that the war here may become unwinnable unless troop levels are raised and the momentum of insurgents is reversed in the next 12 months.
The Obama administration has yet to endorse these findings, and has called for a review of the U.S.-led war effort before making a decision on troop levels. Vice President Joe Biden in particular has expressed skepticism about the proposed troop increase. Senior administration officials said the review was necessary because the war plan that President Barack Obama announced in March was based on the assumption that the election would give Mr. Karzai new legitimacy.
As the war in Afghanistan becomes increasingly unpopular in the U.S. and Europe, one policy option under review in Washington advocates reducing ground forces and relying instead on surgical airstrikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
This would be a recipe for failure, warned one of Mr. Karzai’s senior associates, Education Minister Farooq Wardak. “Airstrikes alone cannot be a strategy to defeat the insurgency and the Taliban. If the air attacks are not followed up by ground operations, they do not yield the results one expects,” he said. “We need additional troops — but not forever.” According to Mr. Wardak, it will take five years before the Afghan army and police can fight mostly on their own.
Parliament member Mohammed Mohaqeq, a powerful former warlord representing the Hazara ethnic minority who backed Mr. Karzai’s re-election bid, offered a similar assessment.
“The current number of soldiers is not enough to defeat the Taliban,” Mr. Mohaqeq said. Should the U.S. start reducing its forces in Afghanistan — currently over 60,000 — “the country will go back to civil war,” he added. “The Taliban are capable of recapturing the capital and the government.”
Mr. Karzai’s spokesman welcomed Gen. McChrystal’s report and said he had no comment on the Obama administration’s review of policy options.
The Taliban’s recent advances to previously secure areas of northern and western Afghanistan were made possible, in part, by growing public anger over the incompetence and graft in Mr. Karzai’s administration, many analysts say.
This anger was reinforced by reports of large-scale fraud in favor of Mr. Karzai in the election on Aug. 20. According to a preliminary count, he won with 54.6% of the vote. That tally can change depending on a review of results from 12% of Afghanistan’s polling stations that was ordered by the Electoral Complaints Commission, a United Nations-sponsored watchdog.
On Thursday, representatives from the ECC, the Afghan government’s electoral commission, and the presidential candidates met in Kabul to choose a random 10% sample from the disputed polling stations. Recounting this sample is expected to take a couple of weeks, compared with months needed for a full recount.
If Mr. Karzai’s final vote tally falls below 50% he will face a runoff against the leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.
Time is of the essence: Such a runoff election will be virtually impossible after snowfall makes many rural roads impassable in early November.
Some Western officials called for flanking Mr. Karzai with a powerful chief executive who will run the government, while others have pushed for a unity government that would include Dr. Abdullah.
But the president’s allies cautioned that any foreign effort to disempower Mr. Karzai could plunge the country into more bloodshed. “Let’s be practical — what is the alternative to Karzai?” said Mr. Wardak. Any U.S. move against Mr. Karzai, he said, “will be seen by the Afghan population as no different from the U.S.S.R. occupation” — and trigger a similar response. By Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal.