Crackin’ Down

So yesterday Obama announced that he had signed an executive order targeting people and entities who use technology to help authoritarian governments crack-down on dissidents.

Obama stated in his speech on Monday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington that:

“Technologies should be in place to empower citizens, not to oppress them,”

Ultimately these new penalties are aimed at pressuring authoritarian entities that use information technology to commit human-rights abuse. But the US in its statement specifically signaled out and targeted Iran and Syria for condemnation. The U.S. treasury department has already slapped sanctions on six Iranian and Syrian companies & government branches along with the head of Syria’s intelligence directorate. The sanctions implemented will freeze any of the assets they hold in US jurisdiction whilst also simultaneously banning any US citizen from doing business with them.

Now I am not one to criticize any steps made to help inhibit any authoritarian regimes crackdown on its people. After all, it is true what Obama has said, technology should be used to benefit the human race rather than crush it. But where my contention lies is in the selectivity of this policy. As is made clear, the policy is aimed at Iran and Syria, two regimes that aren’t or have never been in the good graces of the West. With the daily protests and rising death toll in Syria its emphasis in the statement makes sense topically as well as politically since the UN is at loss at how to best ‘discipline’ the regime’s wanton violence. But some may frown at the inclusion of Iran. If we are looking at the crackdown on dissidents, unlike places like Syria it is not going through an abnormal uproar of dissent. So why was it included? Two words… Nuclear Weapons. These sanctions fit nicely into the US’s Iran agenda and hence their integral inclusion in the statement is explained.

Now don’t get me wrong, that isn’t to say there isn’t any dissent or human rights abuses taking place in Iran. On the contrary, its record on human rights is as bleak as any paranoid authoritarian’s regime. My point isn’t that Iran shouldn’t be included on the list, just that it should have been joined by the likes of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc. Its inclusion and especially Bahrain’s exclusion is comical. Bahrain has been spotlighted in the news lately due to the ongoing heavy-handed crackdown on protesters as the F1 race is held on its shores.  The silence on Bahrain doesn’t surprise me, though. It fits nicely into the current US stance on it, i.e. Turn a blind eye.

But another interesting thing to note is the statements focus on ‘technology’. One might wonder why stop at technology that facilitates the authoritarian governments to locate these dissenters, why not also ban the weaponry these regimes use to crack down on these dissenters? After all, knowing who your dissenters are isn’t the same as having the means to punish them. So what’s the hold up? The US is the hold up. It is the biggest arms trader in the world. Awkward to say the least. Don’t want to be seen to be shooting oneself in the foot. It seems the US’s moral compass on those who aide authoritarian regimes is lost when it comes to weaponry. Technology? No No, Dear God No. Guns & Bombs you say? How many you want?

To view this hypocrisy one simply needs to look at any of the many events that have transpired in the Middle East’s revolutionary up-heavel.  An example of this would be that during the crackdown on Egypt’s pro-democracy movement the protesters in Tahrir square were being told that the US stood by them (Regardless of how timid and late this stance was) in their battle for democracy… whilst they had tear gas canisters being fired at them daily with the words ‘Made in the USA’ proudly embezzled on the side. Hypocrisy, you’re doing it right USA.

The point I’d like to stress is the fact that this policy isn’t and shouldn’t be viewed as one void of US interests. Iran and Syria have abused their positions of power and have wronged their people and therefore should be punished no question about it. I applaud the step towards holding to account those who help authoritarian regimes wrong their people, but what I don’t applaud is an inherent selectivity and bias in these steps. It’s poignant that Obama made this speech in front of the Holocaust memorial. After all, it wasn’t technology that simply led to the devastating events of the holocaust, but weaponry.

People are not blind to hypocrisy and those who make grand overtures of being the ‘world’s police force’ should remember that. As the protests in the Middle East have shown us, eloquence of words and speeches from above do not make-up for the hollowness of in-action below.

Simply stated it should be: Accountability of all, in the interest of everyone instead of the few.

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Oblivious Bernie

Bernie Ecclestone yesterday finally put rumors to rest and declared that the F1 race would definitely take place in Bahrain this year. He also claimed in his statement that everything is peaceful and quiet in Bahrain and that everybody is happy with the outcome of this decision. There had been much debate and deliberation prior to his announcement over whether or not the F1 race would be pulled from Bahrain due to the government’s ongoing heavy-handed repression and discrimination of its pro-democracy protesters. The reasons to why the people are protesting are varied and have been covered in this previous post so I wont recite the points again. But bear in mind since my post there have been have been a plethora of abuses of human rights and injustices that have occurred.

In hearing the news of the commencement of the F1 race as scheduled Amnesty responded criticizing the decision stating that:

“as the country prepares to host the Grand Prix, daily anti-government protests continue to be violently suppressed by the riot police that uses tear gas recklessly with fatal results.”

Not only that but on the same day as the announcement was made a young 14 year old boy was shot in the chest by government forces during a protest.

So peaceful and quiet Bernie says. If this is quiet and peaceful I’d like to see his idea of violent. Armagaddon is probably a walk in the park for this Hard-as-nails character. This race should not be held in a country which continues to ignore and repress the cries of its people.

But there are those who argue that the other side of the argument should be given some recognition. This side claims the F1 race will bring in revenue through tourism and jobs. To this I say yes it would, but right now ‘revenue’ is not what the country needs. Instead ‘Justice’ is what it should be seeking as the seeds of discontent and division continue to be sown. And anyway, whatever way you look at it, Bahrain is NOT exactly struggling economically. Fact: It’s not a picture of poverty and depravity. If it has survived countless years without the F1 race, I am sure it will manage to survive this year and the many more years to come without it. After all, this F1 race isn’t exactly going to be a constant yearly fixture on the Bahrani calendar.

Instead the Race should be cancelled. A message should be sent, however small, that no government who serves its needs over its peoples will be rewarded, be it with something as superficial as an international F1 race.

Injustice should not be Ignored, let alone rewarded.

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Trial: Country vs. Detainees

On April 4^th 2012 the Pentagon finally approved the charges brought forth against 5 Guantanamo bay prisoners accused of playing a part in the terrorist attacks that rocked America on September 11^th. Amongst these 5 prisoners is Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who admitted during a military hearing to being the ‘mastermind’ behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They are expected to stand trial in a U.S base in Cuba in front of a military Judge in May of this year. If convicted of the charges of murder and terrorism brought forth against them, they may find themselves facing the death penalty.

11 years on and there is ultimately no clear verdict on these men’s fate and the other men like them who are still holed up in Guantanamo Bay. In this lengthy time there have been questions dogging the administration over how to try them, where to try them (civilian or military courts) and when to try them. There have also been countless questions surrounding the legality of detaining them in Guantanamo bay, with promises that Obama had made to close this controversial site down being ultimately scrapped early on in his first term in office due to ‘logistics’. Throughout all this, questions of legality and the breach of Human rights have been paramount in the highly contentious debates about both Guantanamo bay as a compound and its detainees.

But these men, who are accused in partaking in one way or another in the act which single handedly ignited America’s new age of warfare against the ever impending threat of ‘terrorism’, have been given a lengthy sentence in purgatory. A long time some would say, but even longer considering that it only took the U.S administration less than a month to declare its war on Afghanistan. The war on Afghanistan started October 7^th 2001 and this was, in the eyes of the administration, ample enough time for them to launch a full-fledged war on a country which had been historically ravaged time and time again by many different foreign forces. From the Brits to the Soviets to the Mongols, everyone it seems had tried and failed to stably secure this land under their military guise. Yet this did not seem to deter the U.S administration in their quest to seek ‘justice’ for the attacks on their soil.

As of April 3^rd 2012 there have been 2,853 coalition deaths in Afghanistan with the casualty figures of Afghan civilians in the tens of thousands. Unlike the deaths of coalition forces, the deaths of Afghan civilians are unfortunately not afforded the same prompt and detailed records so the estimates vary depending on which source you rely on. Afghanistan as a state is ravaged with internal conflict, corruption, lawlessness and injustice. Opium production has drastically risen since the war began contrary to the wishes and aims of the U.S. administration. The faux guise of democracy afforded to Hamid Karzai’s government also does not hide the chronic underlying problems facing the government’s structure and base, that it is weak and dysfunctional. One cannot deny that the state Afghanistan is currently in is less than ideal, but some argue nonetheless it is better than what it had before the war. I will not contest this claim but what I will contest is the idea that Afghanistan should have to settle for ‘slightly better than worse’. The reason why Afghanistan is in such a bad state is the simple fact that not enough (or hardly any) time was spent dealing with the logistics of the aftershock of war.

The issue here isn’t that people shouldn’t be given a fair and just trial regardless of how long it takes, but that this same logic of justice and more importantly time, is also afforded to the people whose lives you will ultimately change and affect when you finally decide to ‘drop that bomb’ for whatever cause. When you declare war you are ultimately passing judgment on thousands of people’s lives, be it troops and their families, or Afghan civilians and their livelihoods and lives. The balance we afford to one life over another is ironically dependent on some part on their geographic placement in the world. In our custody and on our soil the ideals of democracy, justice and fair trail are extolled in defense of what, at times, may seem like the indefensible. While the lives of the soldiers and civilians whose fate inextricably lie with the administration’s decisions, seem to be all too easily written off as ‘collateral damage’.

The logistics of war it seems are easier to handle than the logistics of the Guantanamo bay detainees. Wars are waged too easily without a thorough enough thought given to the consequences and aftershocks that it will inevitably bring. Invading and occupying a country is never going to be easy, lest one with as much of a troubled past as that of Afghanistan. Every action has its opposite reaction and consequences are born out of actions. As the U.S. has found in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, you might have won the battle but the war has clearly not been so easily won.

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