gsm's blog

Posted: Thursday, March 11, 2010
Author: Andrew Baer

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that a Pennsylvania woman is being charged for plotting to kill a person in a foreign country and providing material support to terrorists. Colleen LaRose, dubbed ‘Jihad Jane’, was arrested in Philadelphia on October 15 after she and five unindicted co-conspirators were caught recruiting individuals through the Internet, according to the Justice Department, “to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe.”

Colleen LaRose’s indictment alleges that the conspiracy began in early 2008 when she made contact with the other conspirators through Youtube and various forms of electronic communication. According to the statement, LaRose used the Internet to recruit, raise funds, and develop plans to support alleged terrorist acts. Furthermore, officials indicate that LaRose was plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist for caricaturing Mohammed. If convicted, LaRose could face life behind bars and a million dollar fine.

Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Author: Elise Hogan

In a 22 to 23 vote last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution condemning the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in Turkey as genocide. The Bush administration lobbied aggressively to prevent a similar bill from reaching the house in 2007 for fear of alienating Turkey as an ally in Iraq. In two similar votes (1975, 1984) Congress also shied away from going so far as to use the term genocide. Consistent pressure from Armenian lobbyists along with the traditional presidential address on the topic each April makes this resolution a timely response to Obama’s campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in at the last minute on Wednesday to sway the committee against voting, but to no avail, as some members of the committee were not even aware of the top-down pressure as late as the next morning. Clinton urged the committee to forgo voting on the resolution as it could jeopardize relations between Turkey and Armenia, but this reasoning is not wholly satisfying. In a CNN interview, Fadi Hakura, Turkey Analyst at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, points to U.S. Security interests as the real motivator for intervention.

Posted: Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Author: Sarah Khederian

Greece is the most recent victim of the global economic downturn, with its economic woes creating concern over the value of the euro. Reports at the beginning of the year of Greece’s massive debt (larger than its entire economy) began to fuel skepticism and fear in international markets over the possibility of a national default being the “bank bailout” equivalent of 2010. The concerns were based on Greece’s inability to shore up its economy or even pay interest on its loans, demonstrating a potential imminent collapse of its economy. In recent weeks, attention has turned toward the international political environment surrounding the crisis, and exposed some nasty European Union rifts and discontent.

A euro to dollar rate decline and other raw economic indicators have stoked inflammatory intra-EU politics and recent domestic political protests. Calls for other EU members to guarantee Greece’s loans were met with mixed reviews, making the enactment of a singular Euro zone policy nearly impossible. For those nations that can barely afford their own deficits (Portugal, Italy and Spain), aiding Greece is out of the question. This leaves those nations with stronger economies (France and Germany) the obvious candidates to foot the bill. But reluctance by the EU economic leaders to pay up has led to challenges to the “too big to fail” doctrine that guided the U.S. response to its own crisis. The counter-argument is that though the 27 European Union nations are united under one treaty, that treaty outlines that each nation is still individually responsible for its own actions.

Posted: Thursday, March 4, 2010
Author: Sarah Khederian

The United States seems to be facilitating some important talks of late , most recently the beginnings of what could become another round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. In May 2009, King Abdullah of Jordan stated in an interview with UK Times Online that “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there’s going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12 to 18 months — as sure as the other conflicts happened.” And sure enough, Chief of the Arab League Amr Moussa stated that “despite a lack of conviction over Israel’s seriousness, [Arab foreign ministers] will give indirect talks a chance, for the final time, in order to facilitate US efforts, within four months…”

The decision to permit and recommence peace negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors was made yesterday at a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers. The last set of serious negotiations ended in 2008 with Israel’s invasion of Gaza; since then, members of the league have been hesitant to reengage Israel for several reasons including distrust in Netanyahu and a lack of support from the Arab public. The Arab League’s decision is a result of George Mitchell’s (US envoy to the Middle East) serious shuttle diplomacy over the past year.

Posted: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Author: Andrew Baer

At a news conference in London on Tuesday Sheikh Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri issued a fatwa condemning suicide bombing and decrying terrorism as a perversion of Islam. The 600 page religious ruling by Dr. Qadri, a renowned moderate Islamic scholar, emphasized the Imam’s overarching declaration that “terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it”. Dr. Qadri hopes his fatwa will serve as precedence for future rulings as “the world needs an absolute, unconditional, unqualified and total condemnation of terrorism."

The Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in the UK, stated that the fatwa was “arguably the most comprehensive” refutation of terrorism to date. The 600 page edict cites Quranic text, Hadiths, and other examples within Islam to solidify the anti-terror stance. Although numerous fatwas have been issued since 9/11, Dr. Qadri’s is the first to declare terror as an act of ‘kufr’, or disbelief, which disqualifies a terrorist from even being able to consider themselves Muslim. The fatwa will be circulated in numerous languages worldwide, including a version in Urdu to be released in Pakistan next month, a nation where many clerics have been assassinated by radicals for speaking out against terrorism.

Posted: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Author: Elise Hogan

GQ magazine cheekily named 2009 “The Year of the Apology,” pointing to famous apologies from the likes of David Letterman and John Edwards. While GQ may not be an authority on defense policy, the publication keenly picks up on the power of apology and uses it to great effect in eviscerating the insincere amongst their examples. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stopped briefly in Kigali, Rwanda this week as part of a larger tour of Africa. While in Rwanda, Sarkozy met President Kagame and visited a genocide memorial. Sarkozy admitted that France made “grave errors of judgment” regarding the 1994 Rwandan genocide but did not offer a formal apology. There is still widespread belief in Rwanda that France helped arm the Hutu militia, the Interahamwe, although a parliamentary commission absolved France of involvement in arming Hutu soldiers in 1998. Sarkozy has vowed to call another commission together to review the 1998 results and new intelligence that has surfaced in the last twelve years. In 2006, nine aides to Kagame were charged with shooting down the plane of Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994. These charges inflamed anti-French sentiment and resulted in the severance of diplomatic ties between the two nations. Diplomatic relations were only restored following a three year hiatus and are still tenuous. Sarkozy’s visit is the first by a French head of state since the genocide.

Posted: Friday, February 26, 2010
Author: Sarah Khederian

With Iraqi elections a little over one week away, we’ve complied an analysis of the debates on some of Iraq’s most contentious issues including whether the country will revert to sectarianism, what role Iran is playing in the elections and what the US should prepare itself for post-election.

A return to Sectarianism?
The decision by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to rehire 20,000 army officers who were ousted in the 2003 De-Baathification process might confuse some, who thought that the recent banning of several hundred politicians from participating in the upcoming elections was a political move made by the Shiite dominated Iraqi government to oust its Sunni opponents. But given the parliamentary elections will be held in a little over a week (March 7), Maliki’s motives make a bit more sense: this move is just a last attempt to broaden support for his Dawa party before the election says Gregg Carlstrom. Though there is agreement that this is a rather transparent act in political campaigning, the De-Baathification bans this month have created an onslaught of debate over the reemergence of 2006 style sectarian violence.

Posted: Thursday, February 25, 2010
Author: Sarah Khederian

In what some are calling a “first step” and what others are calling “formal talks,” the foreign ministers of both India and Pakistan met after almost a year and a half of silence to discuss a wide range of security issues including Pakistan’s alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, India’s unsustainable use of rivers flowing into Pakistan from the Himalayas, and the ever contentious issue of Kashmir.

Peace negotiations between India and Pakistan came to a screeching halt with the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, negotiations which could have secured Pakistan’s eastern border with India and Indian Kashmir. Reports of today’s discussion state that Indian Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao and Pakistani Foreign Minister Salman Bashir both used their meeting as a chance to discuss key issues. Unfortunately what is important to India (investigation of and retribution for the numerous terrorist attacks) and what is important to Pakistan (Kashmir) are two different issues (coincidentally, neither of these issues are what the US finds most significant, which is both India and Pakistan’s role in securing Afghanistan). But these differences could serve as the deciding factor in whether or not the talks continue, and if they do, how productive they will be. This seemingly random decision to reinitiate discussion after 15 months, when both sides still remain highly suspicious of one another and can barely agree on the issue at hand, may make more sense in light of recent US events in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Posted: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Author: Andrew Baer

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has just returned from Saudi Arabia though his condition remains unknown. Yar’Adua landed in Abuja early this morning and was met by an ambulance outfitted with intensive care equipment. Spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi stated that the President’s health “has greatly improved” but “while the president completes his recuperation, Vice President Jonathan will continue to oversee the affairs of the state.”

Three months ago President Yar’Adua was flown to a hospital in Saudi Arabia for his diagnosed heart problem, pericarditis. A month later calls for a transfer of power were filed through the Nigerian court system, as designated by the constitution, but only recently was Vice President Jonathan formally recognized as the acting president. Concern surrounding the sustainability of Yar’Adua backed initiatives, such as the clemency program with delta militants, as well as the political stability of the state itself continued to mount during this trial period. Calls for Jonathan to revert many Yar’Adua policies, including the refusal to establish an independent electoral commission, also created friction within the governing apparatus. The fact that Nigeria did not fall into a state of disarray reflects positively on both the Nigerian political and military institutions as well as the Nigerian people themselves, though a number of issues remain.

Posted: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Author: Elise Hogan

Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, recently passed a decree granting him the power to appoint all 5 members of the U.N.-backed electoral watchdog group, the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). Three of the ECC current members had been appointed by the United Nations, but the new decree, which went into effect February 13th, grants Karzai power to appoint all five ECC members after consulting the chief justice and heads of parliament. Karzai passed the decree while Parliament was in recess, which prevents the decree from being overturned and makes the maneuver seem all the more calculated.

The five-member ECC led efforts to eradicate fraud in the August 2009 elections; efforts that included an inquiry into ballot-stuffing, which stagnated international involvement in Afghanistan and eventually forced Karzai into a runoff. His opponent, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, soon withdrew from the race citing the impossibility of a fair election. Free and fair elections are integral to building a democratic Afghanistan and require a legitimate and practiced government capable of overseeing such elections. The ramifications of Karzai’s ECC decree are yet to be fully realized but many in the international community are already strongly reprimanding this untimely move.