Libya : the case for arming the rebels to save lives overall and end Gaddafi's dictatorship

Given the level of propaganda coming from all sides in Libya – and the many uses of it in past “humanitarian interventions”, whether by the US government in Kosovo or Iraq or the Russian government in Chechnya and Georgia, it is impossible to know for certain what is true and what isn’t in reports from Libya (the amount of propaganda has been so huge over such a long period that I’m making a separate post on it). However while we may not be getting to see and hear everything that’s going on there, we do know that seems to be partly because Gaddafi’s forces are preventing foreign journalists and aid agencies including the International Committee of the Red Cross, from entering any areas of cities they hold, which means they probably have something to hide (1) – (3). That makes reports from protesters,  opposition groups and from Egyptian migrant workers that Gaddafi’s forces are targeting and killing civilians more credible; as well as reports from the ICRC that they have targeted paramedics and ambulance teams and that Arab journalists working for the BBC were tortured by Gaddafi’s forces (4) – (12). So instituting a no-fly zone and arming the rebels – as they have requested - may be justified. (Though even Amnesty International has sometimes been taken in by propaganda in the short term until it gets to investigate further)

Egyptian migrant workers who had escaped from Zawiya in western Libya told Human Rights Watch that Gaddafi’s forces were opening fire on anyone who left their house. The International Committee of the Red Cross also says Red Crescent ambulance paramedics and clearly marked ambulances were shot by Gaddafi’s forces as they tried to treat the wounded (13) – (14). These are war crimes like similar actions by US forces in the assault on Fallujah in April 2004, when snipers also targeted both civilians and ambulances (15) – (16).

Gaddafi’s forces preventing any foreign journalists or aid organisations entering areas they hold – and opening fire on them, taking them prisoner or torturing them or killing them if they do enter them - suggests that they want to hide the targeting of civilians,  like Sharon’s government in Israel during it’s targeting of Palestinian civilians in offensives in the West Bank ; US forces in Fallujah ; and US missile strikes on the headquarters of Al Jazeera in both Kabul and Baghdad  (17) – (21). (An alternative or additional motive could be fears that spies for the US government and others might pose as journalists – but remember that there is no free media in Libya. There are only state controlled newspapers and TV stations – with journalists who criticise Gaddafi jailed or killed.)

Gaddafi is also a dictator who we know, over decades, has jailed people without trial, “disappeared” them Pinochet style, tortured them and had them summarily executed without fair trial – as well as sending agents to murder exiled dissidents across Europe and banning independent trade unions and any media free of state control. We also know of at least two massacres committed by his forces before the recent reports. In June 1996 around 1,200 prisoners from the Abu Salim prison in Libya were killed. In July 1996 his forces killed around 50 people after there was a pitch invasion of fans shouting anti-Gaddafi slogans at a football match in Tripoli. These events have all taken place long enough ago that if they had been made up we would know by now, just as the false story about Kuwaiti babies thrown out of their incubators by Iraqi troops in 1990 was initially repeated by the Kuwaiti Red Crescent and Amnesty International in their reports, but corrected within months when Amnesty staff got to talk to doctors at the hospital involved (see my next post on this ) (22) – (27)

I distrust the motives of the US government and it’s allies, but remember that Gaddafi’s regime was happy to not only co-operate with them when it suited it, but to co-operate in “extra-ordinary rendition” with the CIA. Ibn Al Sheikh Al Libi, was said by his Libyan jailers to have “committed suicide” after Human Rights Watch volunteers talked to him. He told them that he was “Curveball”, the source used by the Bush administration on Saddam’s supposedly active WMD programmes – and that the CIA tortured him until he told them what they wanted to hear (28). So cold blooded murder to protect arms and oil deals is a part of the Gaddafi government. (Another Iraqi exile claiming to be Curveball then conveniently turned up and claimed he’d lied without having to be forced to).

Since there is already a rebellion against a dictatorship with a history of executing people without trial, disappearing them and massacring them, we should support the rebels.

We don’t know what kind of government they will institute or whether they might kill civilian supporters of Gaddafi if they win. The rebels include the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, some of whose members helped collect intelligence for Al Qa’ida for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa – and who attempted, with MI6 support, to assassinate Gaddafi in 1996. Hundreds have been released from jail by Gaddafi’s regime after they renounced violence – including 110 after the first day of protests, so it seems unlikely he thought they were likely to join any armed insurgency against him (29) – (30). While many of those opposed to Gaddafi are Islamic fundamentalists, most will probably not be nearly as extreme as the LIFG though and no-one knows whether the Islamic fundamentalists are a majority or not. In February 2006 there were serious riots over rumours of the publication of a Mohammed cartoon in a Danish newspaper and 11 people were killed, suggesting Islamic fundamentalism is fairly influential in Libyan society (31).

We do know for a certainty though that Gaddafi has had civilians killed though and that given his past record that he is far more likely to have anyone who has opposed him jailed or killed than forgiven – and that includes protesters, not just those who took up arms against him. The Libyan people should also get whatever system of government they want, not one imposed on them by a dictatorship, whether that system ends up being a democracy most of us would approve of or not.

We also know the fate of those who have criticised or opposed Gaddafi in the past – usually long jail sentences or summary execution or their “disappearance”. Already in Zawiyah after Gaddafi’s forces’ victory an ITV journalist reported that ‘Troops are going house to house, according to one resident, rounding up dozens of suspects. We talked to one man who said: "People are being arrested for no reason, people who stayed in their homes for the whole seven days of the fighting. You cannot imagine what is happening here."’ (32)

Similarly, while some rebels say they think they will have no problem getting arms promised to them by the governments of Qatar and others – and the US is thought to have already requested that the Saudi government airlift arms to the rebels in Libya, this would be a very risky operation while Gaddafi’s air force still controls the skies. The Obama administration most likely wants to avoid being criticised later for arming rebels against Gaddafi if it later finds itself fighting or under attack from Islamic fundamentalist groups it has armed. However the risk of using the Saudis as a proxy is that they are likely to arm some of the most hardline Islamic fundamentalist groups, just as CIA co-operation with Pakistan’s military intelligence in the 80s to arm the Mujahedin saw arms go almost entirely to the most fundamentalist groups – and later to ISI support for the Taliban’s rise to power. If western governments armed some rebel groups themselves they could maybe ensure both that Gaddafi was overthrown and that the most extreme groups among the rebels didn't form the new government (not that their record here is very good - just look at it in Haiti, Nicaragua or El Salvador) (33) – (36).

Arming the rebels involves serious risks - including the possibility of a long and bloody civil war as in Congo or Somalia, the possibility that they might committ atrocities themselves if they win (though the fact that the rebels allow doctors in hospitals in areas they control to treat the wounded of both sides is hopeful here) ; and the fact that some factions like the LIFG have been allied to Al Qa'ida in the past and could try to sieze power (37). The alternative is almost certainly many thousands executed and thousands more disappeared by Gaddafi's military and secret police though.

There are many examples of past claims used to justify going to war which turned out to be propaganda, to make us uncertain of what is true and what isn’t in Libya ; and of hypocrisies by many of the governments calling for intervention and potential problems (covered in my next post), but if we wait until we have complete and definite information, by that time Gaddafi’s forces may well have wiped out the rebels and “disappeared” anyone who supported them or is suspected of supporting them. Most decisions must be taken without the full and certain facts. (That doesn’t mean we have to adopt what American journalist Ron Suskind called Cheney’s “one per cent doctrine” that we treat a 1% chance of something happening as a 100% chance – that would be treating a 99% chance that something is not happening as a 100% chance that it is (38))

CORRECTIONS AND UPDATES 14^th March :

I've not found any report saying the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are involved in the current fighting. There are claims from Gaddafi's government that various "Islamic Emirates" groups are involved like the Islamic Emirate of Barqa  (39)

Al Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib has said it supports the rebels (though whether it's provided any support beyond words is not known) (40)

There are also some reports that Gaddafi has offered rebel fighters who surrender and hand over their weapons an amnesty (41)

(1) = Channel 4 News 08 Mar 2011 ‘Libya Unrest : Zawiyah’, http://www.channel4.com/news/libya-intense-fighting-as-gaddafis-forces-use-air-strikes (3rd video on page – journalists refused access to areas where fighting between rebels and Gaddafi’s forces continues)

(2) = Channel 4 News 09 Mar 2011 ‘Gaddafi ramps up military action against rebels’, http://www.channel4.com/news/last-rebel-held-city-in-west-set-to-fall-to-gaddafi-troops ; See from 4 minutes 31 seconds to 4 minutes 45 seconds on journalists being turned away from Zawiya by Gaddafi’s forces ; See from 5 minutes 0 seconds to 5 minutes 30 seconds on reports of Gaddafi’s snipers shooting anyone who moves

(3) = ICRC 10 Mar 2011 ‘Libya: urgent to apply the rules of war’,http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2011/libya-news-2011-03-10.htm ;The ICRC president expressed disappointment over the organization still not having access even to those areas where the clashes have been heaviest. "It's unacceptable that, 24 days after the fighting started, a major part of the country remains effectively cut off from humanitarian aid," he said. "Our greatest challenge right now is to reach the areas hardest hit by the fighting in order to help treat the war-wounded and follow up on people who have gone missing, as we've been doing in the east of the country since we arrived on 27 February."

(4) = Human Rights Watch 26 Feb 2011 ‘Libya: Security Forces Fire on Protesters in Western City’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/26/libya-security-forces-fire-protesters-western-city (includes eye-witness accounts by Egyptian migrant workers)

(5) = Amnesty International 04 Mar 2011 ‘Libyan paramedics targeted by pro-Gaddafi forces’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-paramedics-targeted-pro-gaddafi-forces-2011-03-04

(6) = Channel 4 News 09 Mar 2011 ‘Gaddafi ramps up military action against rebels’, http://www.channel4.com/news/last-rebel-held-city-in-west-set-to-fall-to-gaddafi-troops ; See from 4 minutes 31 seconds to 4 minutes 45 seconds on journalists being turned away from Zawiya by Gaddafi’s forces ; See from 5 minutes 0 seconds to 5 minutes 30 seconds on reports of Gaddafi’s snipers shooting anyone who moves

(7) = Sydney Morning Herald 07 Mar 2011 ‘How the West can end Gaddafi's slaughter’, by Geoffrey Robertson,http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/how-the-west-can-end-gaddafis-slaughter-20110306-1bjgs.html

(8) = Amnesty International 20 Feb 2011 ‘Libyan leader must end spiralling killings’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-leader-must-end-spiralling-killings-2011-02-20

(9) = Al Jazeera 22 Feb 2011 ‘Fresh violence rages in Libya’, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122261251456133.html

(10) = Reuters 22 Feb 2011 ‘Gaddafi defiant in face of mounting revolt’,http://www.polity.org.za/article/gaddafi-defiant-in-face-of-mounting-revolt-2011-02-22

(11) = AP 17 Feb 2011 ‘20 reported killed in Libya 'day of rage'’, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41638452/ns/world_news-mideast/n_africa/

(12) = Guardian.co.uk 08 Mar 2011 ‘Assault on Zawiyah - live updates’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/arab-and-middle-east-protests-libya#block-1 ; Sky News, whose correspondent Alex Crawford and her crew were trapped in Zawiyah over the weekend, said it witnessed Gaddafi forces firing on unarmed civilians and ambulances. These accounts were corroborated from Tripoli by the Guardian's Peter Beaumont, who reports: "Residents described a hail of bullets with women and children being killed and families trapped within their homes by the ferocity of the fighting."

(13) = Human Rights Watch 26 Feb 2011 ‘Libya: Security Forces Fire on Protesters in Western City’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/26/libya-security-forces-fire-protesters-western-city (includes eye-witness accounts by Egyptian migrant workers)

(14) = Amnesty International 04 Mar 2011 ‘Libyan paramedics targeted by pro-Gaddafi forces’,http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-paramedics-targeted-pro-gaddafi-forces-2011-03-04

(15) = Guardian 17 Apr 2004 ‘'Getting aid past US snipers is impossible'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/17/iraq

(16) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Falluja siege’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(17) = guardian.co.uk 09 Mar 2011 ‘BBC staff 'arrested and tortured in Libya by Gaddafi forces'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/bbc-staff-arrest-torture-libya

(18) = guardian.co.uk 10 Mar 2011 ‘Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in custody, Libya officials confirm’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/10/guardian-journalist-ahad-custody-libya

(19) = Al Jazeera 12 Mar 2011 ‘Al Jazeera staffer killed in Libya’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/2011312192359523376.html

(20) = Amnesty International 2002 ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories - Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/143/2002/en/dom-MDE151432002en.html ; (for more on this see this post )

(21) = Guardian Media 23 Nov 2005 2p.m update ‘Bush claim revives al-Jazeera bombing fears’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/23/pressandpublishing.iraq , ‘The Baghdad bombing of 2003 was the second attack by American forces on the offices of al-Jazeera. In 2001 the station's Kabul office was hit by two "smart" bombs in an attack that almost wrecked the nearby BBC bureau. Al-Jazeera said it had given the location of its offices in both Kabul and Baghdad to the authorities in Washington, but it had still been attacked.’

(22) = Geoff Simons (2003) ‘Libya and the West’ Center for Libyan Studies, Oxford, UK, 2003, Chapter 6 , especially pages 103 -115 (also cites summary executions of Libyans stopped at road blocks etc)

(23) = Ronald Bruce St. John (2008 ) ‘Libya – From Colony to Independence’ , Oneworld books, Oxford, UK, 2008, pages 165-171, 256-257 of paperback edition; on football match shootings see page 223

(24) = Geoff Simons (1996) ‘Libya – The Struggle for Survival’ 2^nd edition, paperback edition, MacMillan, London, 1996

(25) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2011 – Libya,http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/libya ; There are still dozens of unresolved disappearance cases in Libya, including those of Libyan opposition members Jaballa Hamed Matar and Izzat al-Megaryef, whom Egyptian security arrested in 1990 in Cairo. Their families later learned that Egypt had handed them over to Libyan security officials, who detained them in Abu Salim prison. Prominent Lebanese Shia cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr disappeared in Libya 32 years ago; his fate remains unknown.

(26) = Amnesty International 2010 World Report – Libya,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=156; Hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and other human rights violations committed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s remain unresolved, and the Internal Security Agency, implicated in those violations, continued to operate with impunity.

(27) = Human Rights Watch 28 Jun 2006 ‘Libya: June 1996 Killings at Abu Salim Prison’,http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/06/28/libya-june-1996-killings-abu-salim-prison

(28) = HRW 11 May 2009 ‘Libya/US: Investigate Death of Former CIA Prisoner’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/11/libyaus-investigate-death-former-cia-prisoner

(29) = Mark Curtis (2010) ‘Secret Affairs – Britain’s collusion with Radical Islam’,Serpent’s tail books, London, 2010, chapter 13, pages 225-231 of paperback edition

(30) = Al Jazeera 16 Feb 2011 ‘Libyan police stations torched’, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/20112167051422444.html ; ‘Meanwhile, a local human rights activist told Reuters news agency that the authorities have decided to release 110 prisoners jailed for membership of banned organisation, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.The prisoners to be freed on Wednesday, are the last members of the group still being held and will be set free from Tripoli's Abu Salim jail, Mohamed Ternish, chairman of the Libya Human Rights Association said.Hundreds of alleged members of the group have been freed from jail after it renounced violence last year.’

(31) = Ronald Bruce St. John (2008 ) ‘Libya – From Colony to Independence’ , Oneworld books, Oxford, UK, 2008, page 257 of paperback edition

 (32) = Guardian.co.uk 10 Mar 2011 ‘Zawiya town centre devastated and almost deserted’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/10/zawiya-town-itv-regime-battle ; They are sweeping through Zawiya, rounding up young men they suspect might have been involved in the rebellion…Troops are going house to house, according to one resident, rounding up dozens of suspects. We talked to one man who said: "People are being arrested for no reason, people who stayed in their homes for the whole seven days of the fighting. You cannot imagine what is happening here."… We left the square to go to the hospital where doctors had told me on Sunday they believed Gaddafi was guilty of war crimes, including killing doctors. I hoped to talk to them. At the gate where we had been stopped by soldiers I saw one of the doctors. He made a sign with his hand warning me not to acknowledge him. He was clearly scared. He knows he treated rebels. He also treated government soldiers.

(33) = guardian.co.uk 09 Mar 2011 ‘Libya's war intensifies but Nato shows no sign of intervening’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/libya-gaddafi-ras-lanuf-zawiya

(34) = The Independent 07 Mar 2011 ‘America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html

(35) = Coll, Steve (2004) , 'Ghost Wars : The secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden' , Penguin , London, 2004,  Prologue, page 12 of paperback edition

(36) = Ahmed Rashid (2001) ‘Taliban’, Tauris books, London ,2001 – especially p132 of paperback edition

(37) = Sky News 08 Mar 2011 ‘Special Report: Rebel-Held Town Under Siege’,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Libya-Sky-News-Witnesses-Zawiyah-Rebels-Battle-Gaddafi-Soldiers-In-Bloody-Fight-For-Control-Of-City/Article/201103215948211?lpos=World_News_Top_Stories_Header_1&lid=ARTICLE_15948211_Libya%3A_Sky_News_Witnesses_Zawiyah_Rebels_Battle_Gaddafi_Soldiers_In_Bloody_Fight_For_Control_Of_City (see videos)

(38) = Ron Suskind (2006) ‘The One Percent doctrine’, Simon & Schuster, London, 2007

(39) = AFP/ Sydney Morning Herald 21 Feb 2011 ‘Libyan Islamists seize arms, take hostages’,http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/libyan-islamists-seize-arms-take-hostages-20110221-1b19c.html

(40) = CNN 24 Feb 2011 ‘Al Qaeda's North African wing says it backs Libya uprising’,http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-24/world/libya.qaeda.statement_1_libyan-islamic-fighting-group-islamic-maghreb-al-qaeda?_s=PM:WORLD

(41) = guardian.co.uk 02 Mar 2011 ‘Muammar Gaddafi offers rebels an amnesty’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/02/muammar-gaddafi-offers-rebels-amnesty

Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran and Christian fundamentalism in the US

One argument used by those saying a transition to democracy in Egypt would lead to “instability” is that there are too many Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt and so the US government must back a supposedly benevolent dictatorship there, as democracy would allow these irrational people too much influence over government policy, possibly leading to war with Israel.

The fact that this hasn’t happened between Israel and Iran in over 30 years since the Iranian revolution, due to Israel’s immensely stronger conventional military and it’s possession of nuclear weapons, makes this unlikely anyway.

However it’s also a weak argument as Christian fundamentalists exist in their tens of millions in the US and are very influential in US elections and on US governments’ foreign and domestic policy, so if having a lot of religious fundamentalists means you’re not ready to be a democracy, the US wouldn’t be ready for democracy either.

Pew Research found in 2003 that

‘Fully seven-in-ten white evangelicals (72%) say Israel was given to the Jews by God, a figure that rises to 77% among those evangelicals with a high degree of religious commitment.’ (1)

So 72% of white American evangelical Christians believe in the literal truth of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament – which has to qualify as religious fundamentalism.

Pew found in 2010 that “the religious composition of the electorate is largely unchanged” compared to 2004, which means that the proportion of fundamentalists in the population is likely similar too (2).

A Pew Poll of American Christians in 2009 found that 79% of them believed there would be a second coming of Jesus, which suggests, if anything, an increase in the proportion of fundamentalists (3).

Other Pew polls show white evangelicals made up about 23% of the American electorate in 2004 (4).

The US Census Bureau gives the population of the US at roughly 310 million people.

So, at a rough estimate (i.e including only white evangelicals and not other Christian fundamentalists, but assuming they are the roughly the same percentage of the electorate as they are of the population) 72% of 23% of Americans – or about 16.5% of Americans (around 51 million people) - are Christian fundamentalists.

Over the longer term the percentage of Christians in the US has fallen from 86% in 1990 to 76% in 2008, but there was only a 1% drop between 2001 and 2008, so the drop between 2003 and the present is unlikely to be more than 1% (5).

There is little debate that Christian fundamentalists were crucial in winning George W. Bush the 2004 election and they are also extremely influential in congress.

They also have great influence in the military – partly because a higher proportion of recruits come from poor, religious families with little education and few other career options.

 When US troops went into Fallujah in 2004 with orders to target civilians and ambulances, one of their officers, a Colonel Cardl, told journalists that “the enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him.” (6). Evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General William G Boykin similarly made speeches claiming that the enemy in “the war on terror” was “Satan” ; and, in reference to a Muslim militia chief in Somalia, that “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” (7)

The fact that American Christian fundamentalists share positions with the Israel lobby in the US on US foreign policy in the Middle East makes them even more influential in that area of policy.

(This is based partly on their bizarre belief that when the day of “the rapture” comes all Jews are meant to have “returned” to the ‘Holy Land’ and will be forced by God to convert to Christianity or be destroyed – though it’s also based on their ignorance of the fact that many Palestinians are neither Muslims nor ‘Marxists’ but Christians; not to mention the failure of right wing Christian fundamentalists to explain how God’s commands to the Israelites to massacre every man, woman and child who doesn’t follow the right religion in the Old Testament can be reconciled with the teachings of tolerance, love for all and forgiveness in the New Testament, without deciding the latter must replace the former).

Pew’s poll of Egyptian Muslims gives mixed results on how fundamentalist they are.

‘A 59%-majority of Muslims in Egypt believed that democracy was preferable to any other kind of government..... Among Muslims in Egypt, 48% said Islam played a large role in their nation's political life while a nearly equal 49% said it played only a small role.’ (8)

This sounds fairly moderate – and is reflected in Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood statements backing multi-party democracy and coalition government (9), but the poll results go on to say that

‘At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion.’ (10)

This certainly sounds like a majority for a fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law based on the Quran.

Since Pew also found 94.6% of Egyptians are Muslims this majority for Sharia law is also a majority of all Egyptians, though hopefully representative democracy might moderate it a bit (11). In the UK most polls show a majority for the death penalty, but it was largely abolished in 1969 here.

However when the US made it’s declaration of independence from the British Empire many even of the founding fathers were so backwards and uncivilised that they still enslaved other people – yet no American would argue that they should have been kept under the tutelage of a supposedly benevolent foreign backed dictatorship until they became more civilised.

So it’s a bit hard to accept the argument that Egypt “isn’t ready” for democracy and requires benevolent foreign backed dictators to civilise it, even as these dictators have people tortured in horrific ways and murdered. If anything dictatorships and military occupations are the pressure cookers in which extreme fundamentalisms and nationalisms come to the boil.

Egypt would be likely to make far more progress towards civilised values and laws under a democracy than it has under dictatorships – and only democracy will stop the shift towards political Islamic fundamentalism and even worse terrorist groups.

Coptic Christians in Egypt have suffered prejudice and murders for centuries and these continue to the present day, with some police dying to try and protect them. However there is no reason to think a transition to democracy in Egypt would necessarily make minorities like Coptic Christians better or worse off, though a transition to a Sunni version of Iran’s semi-theocratic government certainly would mean they were even more persecuted.

Today Christian pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir (‘freedom’) Square were surrounded by Muslims as they prayed – the Muslims saying they would stand between them and anyone who would attack them.

In Egypt elected AKP Islamic party governments have restrained the military to some extent in it’s brutal campaigns against Kurdish separatists (though serious human rights abuses continue and the Kurds are mostly Muslims). Since the Iranian revolution anyone not of the majority Shia Muslim religion faces persecution. In India the results of democracy for the large Muslim minority in a mostly Hindu country have varied according to which party was elected. Under the Hindu nationalist BJP they suffered the Gujarat massacres, while under Congress governments they have been much safer.

(1) = Pew Research Center 24 Jul 2003 ‘Religion and Politics: Contention and Consensus - Public Opinion on Religion and Public Life’ – Part III – Contention and Concensus,  http://pewforum.org/PublicationPage.aspx?id=622

(2) = Pew Research 11 Aug 2010 ‘Much Hope, Modest Change for Democrats - Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election’, http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Much-Hope-Modest-Change-for-Democrats-Religion-in-the-2008-Presidential-Election.aspx

(3) = Pew Research 9 Apr 2009 ‘Christians' Views on the Return of Christ’,
http://pewforum.org/Christians-Views-on-the-Return-of-Christ.aspx

(4) Pew Research 6 Dec 2004 ‘Religion and the Presidential Vote - Bush's Gains Broad-Based’,http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=103

(5) = Religious identification: How American adults view themselves – Quotations - ARIS polls of 2001 & 2008. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2a.htm

(6) = BBC News 23 Nov 2004 ‘Hunting 'Satan' in Falluja hell’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4037009.stm

(7) = BBC News 17 Oct 2003 ‘US is 'battling Satan' says general’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3199212.stm

(8) = Pew Research 02 Dec 2010 ‘Most Embrace a Role for Islam in Politics - Muslim Publics Divided on Hamas and Hezbollah’,  http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/

(9) = guardian.co.uk 30 Jan 2011 ‘Egypt protests: Cairo prison break prompts fear of fundamentalism’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/30/muslim-brotherhood-jail-escape-egypt

(10) = See (7) above

(11) = Miller, Tracy, ed. (2009) , ‘Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population’, Pew Research Center , October 2009, http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/Muslimpopulation/Muslimpopulation.pdf

Groundhog Day of Fear of Iran and its nuclear programme – Part II

Obama administration and Israeli government plans to destroy Iran with sanctions and bombing &ndash

including depleted uranium bunker busters and tactical nuclear weapons

‘Tell every child in the arms of it’s mother

The F-15 is a homicide bomber’

Michael Franti – Yell Fire

An early tactical nuclear weapon designed to be dropped as a bomb from a plane in the 1960s - photos of more recent versions remain hard to come by

In my last post on the Iranian nuclear issue I focused on the risks of the US developing an effective means of defending itself against long range nuclear missiles – and so being able to consider using nuclear weapons on other countries without fear of nuclear counter-attack, as it did against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

This of course misses out the evidence for the much more immediate risk of deaths from sanctions and air strikes against Iran by the US and Israel (their plans being to use ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons dropped by planes).

Many see the US-Russian strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty as promoting peace and avoiding the risk of unnecessary wars and deaths –yet it’s also being used as propaganda for sanctions or war on Iran (if it seeks a single nuclear deterrent weapon compared to the reduced complement of over 1,500 each for the US and Russia (1) – (2))

I covered the likely effects of Obama’s plans for “stronger” sanctions on Iran, comparable to those previously enforced against Iraq, in my last post – large numbers of civilian deaths due to hunger and lack of medical supplies. However, as with Iraq sanctions may also be a softening up process for another invasion and ‘regime change’ (3) – (4).

The Obama administration’s new policy on nuclear first strikes has been widely praised, yet it permits nuclear strikes on countries which the US deems to have breached the non-proliferation treaty – like Iran – the exact wording being:

“The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”(5)

Of course the US alleges that Iran is not in compliance with the Treaty (though Iran was one of the first countries to sign it).

According to the renowned American journalist Seymour Hersh, Obama’s Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who served in the same position under Bush, travelled to Europe in 2007 to try to persuade the British government and other NATO allies to back the idea of tactical nuclear air-strikes on Iran, targeting suspected nuclear programme sites (6).

Former CIA counter-terrorism officer Phillip Giraldi told journalists that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had opposed the idea, but that the plan included “a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons”(6)

Israel has similarly had plans for using tactical nuclear weapons in airstrikes on Iran since at least 2007 (7).

A US tactical nuclear missile in Germany

In March this year President Obama ordered large quantities of bunker buster bombs delivered to the US air base at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands (8). The Chagos Islands are British dependencies (former colonies) in the Indian Ocean, previously inhabited by the Chagos Islanders, but the US and British militaries forcibly deported them from their homes in the 1950s to make way for the US military, navy and air-force bases.

If the ‘bunker busters’ are anything like the ones the US supplied to Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war they’ll also include Depleted Uranium, dust from which causes high rates of cancers for decades afterwards – and so effectively ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (9) (more on this later).

Diego Garcia was one of the staging posts for the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

Some see this as preparation for US airstrikes on Iran, others claim the original destination for the bombs was Israel, with Obama sending them to Diego Garcia a sign that he wouldn’t back Israeli airstrikes on Iran (10), (11).

It could mean that Obama plans to make the operation an American one though.

Dan Plesch, the Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at London University, told reporters
“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran...US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours” (12).

A US F117 Nighthawk stealth bomber drops a 'bunker buster bomb' in military tests in Utah

During the 2008 Presidential election Obama made a campaign pledge in a speech to AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee):

“I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That starts with aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions... we cannot unconditionally rule out an approach that could prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” (13)

In other words it starts with “aggressive principled diplomacy” and then goes on to sanctions, then military action.

Like Bush before him he made clear in his AIPAC speech that the main function of diplomacy is to get international support for “action” against Iran :

“Our willingness to pursue diplomacy will make it easier to mobilize others to join our cause. If Iran fails to change course when presented with this choice by the United States”

Obama’s description of Iran in his speech could have come from Bush or Cheney :

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

The false claims are identical to the ones made by the Bush administration. First that there is definitive proof that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. There isn’t any. Second that if Iran got nuclear weapons it would give them to terrorist groups, which is as ludicrous as Bush administration claims that Saddam would give nuclear weapons to Al Qa’ida or Palestinian terrorist groups if he had them. In fact when Saddam did have WMDs in the form of chemical warheads for his Scud missiles - and was at war with the US in 1991 - he neither used them on other countries nor gave them to terrorist groups, because the first would have been personal and national suicide and the second would have been national suicide by proxy. His only attacks on Israel and Kuwait with scuds used conventional warheads. (14).

The same holds for Iran’s government. It’s current top officials – Supreme Leader Khameini, Guardian Council chairman Rafsanjani and then Revolutionary Guard Officer Ahmadinejad, were all involved in persuading Ayatollah Khomeini (not noted as a great moderate either) to make peace with Iraq in 1988 rather than risk total defeat if the US joined the war directly on the Iraqi side (15) - (16).

If some in Iran’s government want a nuclear weapon it’s almost certainly for the same reason most countries want one – to possess a deterrent in order to deter attack from countries with stronger conventional forces – and to avoid being in the situation Japan faced in 1945 when it couldn’t deter the US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, massacres of civilians exceeded only by the Holocaust itself, the Turkish genocide of the Armenians and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Michael Axworthy, a former British diplomat who was in Iran many times from the 1970s till 2000 and is an expert on the country’s politics, agrees:

“Important Iranian religious leaders have declared that nuclear weapons, and all weapons of mass destruction, are immoral and unacceptable, and this matters. We should take those statements seriously (not least because, during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran refrained from retaliating with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used those weapons against Iranian troops, and against civilians. Many Iranian veterans are still suffering the after-effects of those weapons).

The NIE [US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran] concluded last November that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003. But western governments have good reason to believe that at various points they have pursued a nuclear weapon program. The explanation for this apparent contradiction could be that the Iranian leadership has wanted to develop a capability, short of an actual weapon, that would still serve as a deterrent. In other words, to have all the elements ready to produce a weapon if necessary, but not the weapon itself. The only practical value of nuclear weapons is as a deterrent, as is well known.” (17)

Michael Axworthy, a former diplomat and expert on Iran

Ahmadinejad did not say he would “wipe Israel off the map” either. He made the same speech Khomeini had made every year since the Islamic Revolution against the Shah’s dictatorship in 1979, in which he said that he hoped that the “illegal regime which rules over Quods [in Jerusalem] will be erased from the pages of history” (18) – (20).

That is fairly clearly a call for “regime change” rather than a threat of nuclear Holocaust – and Ahmadinejad in interviews with French television channels compared Israel to the former Soviet Union, pointing out that the people of the Soviet Union had overthrown their government and the country no longer exists as a result. Israel and the US, both of which actually have nuclear weapons and actually plan to use them to attack Iran, are never accused of calling for a “nuclear Holocaust” against Iran when they talk of nuclear air strikes or “regime change” (18) – (20).

Even foreign policy hawks like Michael O. Hanlon and former CIA officer and adviser to the US government Bruce Reidel say airstrikes could not stop Iran developing nuclear weapons and would set back support for reformists (though they don’t make the obvious comparison of September 11^th boosting the Bush administration and weakening support for progressives in the US for several years) (21).

They don’t point out that air strikes (especially nuclear ones) might well end any divisions in Iranian politics over whether to build a nuclear deterrent or not and ensure that they produce them as a deterrent to further attacks if they weren’t making them before.

Admittedly they go on to call for wider sanctions but “focusing on high-technology goods and weapons transfers”, which sounds less bad than those on Iraq – but then US governments frequently misrepresented how extreme sanctions on Iraq were.

O’Hanlon and Reidel say that “the option of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities...has nonetheless survived the U.S. presidential transition as a last resort should diplomacy and economic sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to put its nuclear programme back under proper restrictions and inspections.”

They also point out that if the US or Israel attacked Iran then Iran could increase training and supplies to America’s opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan – and to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza to target Israel.

If, as seems to be the case, nothing will be accepted by the Israeli government , US Republicans or many right wing Democratic members of congress as evidence that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, this policy, if followed to it’s logical conclusion, can only result in bombing Iran, just as the Bush administration’s demand that Iraq give up its WMD programmes while refusing to accept the mountain of evidence from UN inspectors and others that it largely had inevitably led to war.

Nor is there any reason to believe, from the past behaviour of the Iranian government, that it would risk a nuclear counter-strike by initiating nuclear war on Israel or any other ally of the US directly or by proxy through terrorist groups, any more than Saddam would have.

If air strikes targeting suspected nuclear facilities go ahead civilian ‘collateral damage’ is guaranteed, both due to missing targets – and more commonly due to wrongly identifying civilian targets as military or nuclear programme facilities. In the 1991 Gulf War the US dropped ‘bunker buster’ bombs like the ones Obama is storing at Diego Garcia. One took out what US commanders believed to be a ‘command and control centre’ that might contain Saddam Hussein. In fact the Al Ameriyeh bunker in Baghdad contained hundreds of civilians, using it as an air raid shelter – and 408 were killed.

A modern 'bunker buster'

Hundreds more cases of civilian deaths due to wrongly identified targets (and even targeting of civilian targets) took place in the Gulf war and continued in ‘patrolling the No-Fly Zones’ between 1991 and 2003, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused directly and indirectly by bombing (22) – (24). They continued in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, in the Iraq war and in airstrikes in Afghanistan from October 2001 to present.

If tactical nuclear weapons are used then a legacy of radiation sickness, still births, illnesses, high rates of fatal cancers among infants and deformities may result for decades, as for decades after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and in the years since US and British forces used depleted uranium (DU), napalm and compounds with similar effects and white phosphorus in Iraq from 1991 on (24) – (32).

The most recent examples have come from Fallujah where the rates of birth defects among newborn babies have increased massively since the April and November 2004 assaults by coalition forces employing DU and white phosphorus (33) – (36).

A girl in Fallujah , Iraq , who was born without a left hand - one of the less distressing of the huge number of birth defects among children born there since the 2004 Coalition assaults

Given Obama’s own words and his retention of Gates as Defence Secretary plus another extremely aggressive Israeli government – and their plans for tactical nuclear strikes on Iran - there is much more risk of Iranians being the victims of a nuclear attack than of them initiating one.

As the number 10 petitions website is down for the period of the election i’ve created an international online petition calling for no wide ranging sanctions, military strikes or war on Iran, to be delivered to the US, British and Israeli governments if it gets a decent number of signatures. Please take a moment to sign it if you agree.

 (1) = BBC News 26 Mar 2010 ‘US and Russia announce deal to cut nuclear weapons’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8589385.stm

(2) = BBC News 04 Apr 2010 ‘Global map of nuclear arsenals’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7979757.stm

(3) = CNN 30 Mar 2010 ‘Obama, Sarkozy discuss Iran sanctions, global economy’,  http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/30/obama.sarkozy/index.html

(4) = BBC News 30 Sep 1998 ‘'UN official blasts Iraq sanctions',http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

 (5) = Guardian 06 Apr 2010 ‘Barack Obama's radical review on nuclear weapons reverses Bush policies’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/barack-obama-nuclear-weapons-review

(6) = Independent 02 Oct 2007 ‘US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-plan-for-air-strikes-on-iran-backed-by-brown-395716.html

(7) = Sunday Times 07 Jan 2007 ‘Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290331.ece

(8) = Sunday Herald 14 Mar 2010 ‘Final destination Iran?’, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/final-destination-iran-1.1013151

(9) = Independent 28 Oct 2006 ‘Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-mystery-of-israels-secret-uranium-bomb-421960.html?cmp=ilc-n

(10) = See (8) above

(11) = DEBKAfile 08 Apr 2010 ‘Obama recalls bunker-buster bomb kits to bar Israeli strike on Iran’,http://www.debka.com/article/8665/

(12) = See (8) above

(13) = US National Public Radio 04 Jun 2008 ‘Transcript: Obama's Speech at AIPAC’,http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432

(14) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216 (Nye is a former CIA officer)

(15) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, hardback edition - pages 170-174

(16) = Pollack, Kenneth M.(2004), ‘The Persian Puzzle', Random House, New York, 2005, paperback edition - pages 231-233

(17) = Los Angeles Times 05 Jun 2008 ‘IRAN: Writer says war won't stop nuclear program’, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-writer-say.html

(18) = Takeyh, Ray (2006), ‘Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, Times Books, New York, 2006, (hardback edition)

(19) = Guardian Comment Is Free14 Jun 2006, ‘Lost in Translation’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

(20) = Iranian Television Broadcasts President Ahmadinezhad's Interview With French TV "Exclusive interview" with Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad by David Pujadas of French TV's TF2 Channel on 22 March 2007 – recorded Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 Sunday, March 25, 2007 (reproduced as second item below article on Professor Juan Cole’s website at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

“(Ahmadinezad) Let me ask you this question: where is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now? Was it not wiped off (the map)? How was it wiped off? We have a totally humanitarian solution for Palestine. We have said that all the Palestinians should take part in a free referendum so as to end the 60 year old war. The outcome is clear from now. It is because of the same outcome that America and Britain are refusing to yield.

(David Pujadas) Let us clarify everything. Do you really wish to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Do you have a plan for this job or are you in fact making such a prediction?

(Ahmadinezhad) Look, I told you the solution. I think the people of Palestine also have the right to determine their own fate. Let them choose for themselves, the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims. That is, all the Palestinians who belong to that land can participate in the referendum. I think the outcome of such a referendum is already clear. We saw what happened in last year's elections (when they voted for HAMAS).”

(21) = Financial Times 28 Feb 2010 ‘Do Not Even Think About Bombing Iran’, by Michael E. O'Hanlon, Director of Research and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy  & Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0228_nuclear_iran_strategy_ohanlon_riedel.aspx,
(an editorial for the Financial Times reproduced on the Brookings Institution’s website, as only registered members can read archived FT articles)

(22) = Bennis , Phyllis & Moushabeck  , Michael (Editors) (1992)  ‘Beyond the Storm’  ; Canongate Press , London , 1992, paperback, pages 326 – 355

(23) = Lee , Ian (1991) ‘Continuing Health Costs of the Gulf War’, Medical Educational Trust , London , 1991

(24) = Pilger , John (1998) ‘Hidden Agendas’ Vintage , London , 1998, pages 29-30 ,49-53 ,614

(25) = BBC News Online 30 Jul 1999 ‘Depleted Uranium ‘threatens Balkan cancer epidemic’’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/408122.stm

(26) = BBC News 27 Aug 1999 ‘Depleted uranium study 'shows clear damage'’,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/431817.stm

(27) = Independent 25 Jan 2000 ‘The evidence lies dying in Basra’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-evidence-lies-dying-in-basra-727276.html

(28) = Independent 10 Jan 2001 ‘These children had cancer. Now they are dead. I believe they were killed by depleted uranium’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/these-children-had-cancer-now-they-are-dead-i-believe-they-were-killed-by-depleted-uranium-705543.html

(29) = BBC News 18 Mar 2003 ‘US to use depleted uranium’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2860759.stm

(30) = Independent 25 Mar 2003 ‘Robert Fisk: The shocking truth about 'shock and awe'’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-shocking-truth-about-shock-and-awe-592285.html?cmp=ilc-n

(31) = BBC News 01 Nov 2006 ‘Depleted uranium risk 'ignored'’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6105726.stm (confirms US and British forces in Iraq still using Depleted Uranium in 2006 despite WHO study finding link with high cancer rates, especially among children)

(32) = Independent On Sunday 10 Aug 2003 ‘US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-admits-it-used-napalm-bombs-in-iraq-589508.html

(33) = BBC News 04 Mar 2010 ‘Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8548707.stm

(34) = CBS News 04 Mar 2010 ‘Docs Blame U.S. Weapons for Fallujah Birth Defects’,http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-6266684-503543.html

(35) = guardian.co.uk 13 Nov 2009 ‘Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/falluja-cancer-children-birth-defects

(36) = Today Programme 04 Mar 2010 ‘Child deformities 'increasing' in Falluja’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8548000/8548926.stm