Friends:

I like Roger Cohen of the NY Times. He sees a global world.
This is a good article on the good things happening in the world.
Certainly there are still challenges we face, much work to do.
But there is also tremendous progress being made in the world as the reach of globalization continues to reach the ‘disconnect’.

Take the example of Iraq. It is a country that has experienced tremendous damage during the transition of the reign of the brutal genocidal murderer Saddam Hussein, then it experienced the sectarian violence and civil strife (call it a civil war if you wish), in which Al Queda was successful for a time of turning Iraq to its tribal and religious roots of Shia and Sunni. But it went deeper with Shia against Shia, Shia against Sunni. A basic mess for a few years.

But put in the context of Iraqi history, that country was never a rose garden under the reign of Saddam. By the UN’s own estimates some 1M Iraqi’s went missing during his murderous reign. The Shia in the south were mis-treated as were the Kurds in the North where some 180,000 perished in the systematic Arabization campaign in which over 2000 Kurdish villages were obliterated by chemical and biological weapons.

Now Iraq has a chance, there is life in the cities, the people are out in the parks, in the markets, coffee shops and restaurants are open and thriving.

It’s true that several millions of Iraqi’s are displaced. It is also true that there is a lot of work to be done. NGO’s need to keep the spotlight on the needs to stimulate the new voting process in that young new representative government. Is it perfect, heck no! Is it hopeful, YES!

Looking at Africa, one can look at the negative, or one can look at the incredible progress that has been made and the additional work that needs to be done. In both cases the peoples of those countries are starting to be in a position to deal with their internal problems.

I find it interesting how are highly polarized political debate has cast aspersions on the Iraqi’s and not making political reconciliation progress. The fact is they have made progress. There are indeed some outstanding issues around central and regional government rights and responsibilities, but the process is fully engaged.

So the question is ... Do you see the glass half empty or half full?

Enjoy!
Dan

August 21, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
News Good Enough to Bury

By ROGER COHEN
I got an e-mail the other day from a friend at the New America Foundation, a Washington public policy institute, inviting me to participate in a panel on “whether the media can handle good news — whether it’s on Iraq” or whatever.

I accepted, although there’s not much to discuss: the news media are lousy at good news (a virtual oxymoron).

In my lifetime, conditions have grown immeasurably better, freer and more prosperous for a majority of humanity, yet hand-wringing about the miserable remains the reflex mode for most coverage of planet earth.

Nowhere more so than in Africa, from which I’d just returned when the e-mail landed. During a short stay in Ghana, which will hold free elections in December, Vodafone had bought a majority stake in Ghana Telecom for $900 million (entering a fiercely competitive mobile-phone market) and I’d heard much about 6 percent annual growth, spreading broadband and new high-end cacao ventures.

Accra, the capital, is buzzing. Russian hedge funds are investing. New construction abounds. Technology enables people in the capital to text money transfers via mobile phone to poor relatives in the bush.

I don’t think that picture is exceptional these days for Africa, where growth averaged close to 6 percent last year and I sense a fundamental change in attitudes to governance, trade, the private sector and political accountability.

Sure, corruption is still rampant; Omar Bongo has been ruling Gabon for 41 years; Robert Mugabe wants to emulate Bongo; and a commodity boom has helped the numbers. But if averages meant anything, Africa would be a good-news story these days.

Not least, because Africans care about democracy. They know tyranny too well to be tempted by the so-called new authoritarianism.

We’ve heard much — what with the Russian incursion into Georgia and China’s Olympics — of authoritarianism resurgent. It sure doesn’t look that way from Africa.

In fact, I don’t buy the new authoritarianism, any more than I buy a new cold war. Technology-driven opening, interconnection and sociability are the fundamental currents of our age.

But a new cold war has a ring, as does agonizing Africa. So the Africa debate is stuck with Darfur, AIDS, hunger, disease, violence. An alternative view would be that Africa is going to be the big success story of the next half-century. Just watch its agriculture, which is about to boom.

As it happened, the e-mail was followed by one from Dexter Filkins, my New York Times colleague whose brilliant book on Iraq, “The Forever War,” will be published next month. Filkins had just arrived back in Baghdad after a long break.

“It’s extraordinary,” Filkins wrote, “a changed world. Not recognizable. I just went for a run in the park in front of the house, the dead, dying place that you probably remember. At sundown, there were no less than 3,000 Iraqis walking around.”

I must have been distracted because I’ve not clocked that startling image of hope in all the words devoted to whether a “surge” in American troops and shift in their strategy brought decisive change over the past year.

But then the American Iraq debate has never really been about Iraqis. Most people with a strong opinion about the place never bothered to take a look at it.

After all, seeing Iraq might raise too many questions or even provoke the thought that velvet ends to murderous despotism are the exception rather than the rule.

Yes, I remember that park. On my first Iraq visit in 2003, a kid smiled at me. By 2006, all smiles had vanished. In between, I’d watched the United States military spend a lot of money landscaping the park. Only for it to become a “dead, dying place” that was a monument, like much else in Iraq, to the bungled American effort.

Now, it seems, the tide has turned, at least enough for Iraqi families to meander down the Tigris. That’s cause for — unequivocal — celebration.

While I was in Ghana, I read a paper called The Daily Graphic. One day, it had two ads on successive pages, the first about broadband Internet becoming available in the central city of Sunyani from a company called Care 4U, the second about the “high incidence of open defecation in Ghana.”

“Most affordable! Feel the speed!” said the first ad. The second, from a Ghana sanitation monitoring agency, estimated that “more than four million people in Ghana defecate in the bush, open drains, water bodies, or fields” and suggested means to stop the practice.

Two images of an African nation — modernizing or primitive: I know which comforts the continent’s stubborn stereotypes. Africa Ascendant is not yet a slogan that sells. It will be.

And, oh, by the way, the cold war’s over, dead, buried and unlamented. Europe is free, and Georgia will be part of it.

Blog: www.iht.com/passages

Dissident Watch: Mohsen Marzouk

by Scott Carpenter
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1973
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When Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali extended his term in 2004 for another five years, making him effectively president-for-life, Mohsen Marzouk realized that for change to occur not only in Tunisia but also in other North African police states, it would be necessary to mesh internal Tunisian networks with ideas and activists from outside the country.

Born in July 1965 and raised in a poor, working-class neighborhood in Sfax, Marzouk has long been politically active. When he was thirteen, he joined a student movement aimed at challenging the rigid control of the governing party. At fourteen, authorities expelled him from his high school for his "political activities."

At his parents' urging, Marzouk ultimately reentered and finished high school in Sfax before entering the University of Tunis. There he became involved in student politics and ultimately became one of the student movement's national leaders. In his final year, 1987, Tunisia's secret police arrested him for political activities. He was held for a number of days somewhere in the Ministry of Interior headquarters complex where he was interrogated and tortured. Authorities later transferred him to a forced labor camp in the southern desert of Tunisia where he spent a year doing "military service."

Even after his release, Marzouk remained active in student politics, working to reconstitute the long-moribund Tunisian Students' Union and eventually being elected to its executive bureau. Tolerated as a nuisance by the government, Marzouk ultimately found some protection by joining the El Taller Foundation, an international nongovernmental organization affiliated with Nelson Mandela, as director of its Arab region program, focusing primarily on human rights and civil society development.

Today, Marzouk believes that the sterile opposition in which he has participated is not the answer. "Opposing the outdated regimes only verbally while the very structures of civil society are vulnerable and ill-formed amounts to nothing," he says. "Tunisian civil society should change its methods and strategies if it is to contribute to starting and sustaining the democratization process."[1]

To advance political reform beyond Tunisia, Marzouk established the Al-Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center, an organization to link regional democracy activists with other like-minded people from around the world; its goal is to professionalize the next generation of democracy activists so that when change comes, these individuals are ready for it. "Arab democrats need to learn to read geopolitical maps and need to stop being naïve and non-strategic. What we need is a new breed of activists who are at the same time committed and experts."[2] Marzouk leads that new breed.

Scott Carpenter is the Keston Family Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[1] Mohsen Marzouk, e-mail interview with author, Dec. 21, 2007.
[2] Ibid.

source: CRJ

Dear Reader,

What happened in Tskhinvali on the night of August 7? The extent of casualties and damage under heavy Georgian fire that night, three days before the Russians retook the city, instantly become the center of a propaganda battle between the two countries. Russian officials announced that 2,000 South Ossetians had been slaughtered by bloodthirsty Georgians. Tskhinvali, they said, lay in ruins. Georgia disputed the tally and tried to turn the world's attention toward Georgian villages in South Ossettia, where they said  that Ossetian militias were engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, burning, and looting.

Enter Russian blogger/journalists, like Dmitry Steshin, who posted video that he took throughout the city and wrote: "To all you people blowing hot air about the totally destroyed or barely touched Tskhinvali, I report: I shot thirty rolls of tape ... I filmed people exhuming the grave of a woman and two children, buried in the garden. I filmed a car in which two kids burned alive. I filmed the rancid cellars of the city hospital. I think these should make an impression on you...."

Julia Ioffe reports on CJR.org, the Web site of the Columbia Journalism Review. We hope you enjoy it.

The Editors
CRJ

INDIA: ARRESTS, REVELATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

On Aug. 17, an Indian court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, remanded nine suspects to police custody for 14 days. The nine were accused by the police criminal branch in Ahmedabad of involvement in a string of 17 explosions that rocked Ahmedabad on July 26, leaving more than 50 people dead. Among those arrested was Mufti Abu Bashir, who Indian authorities claim masterminded the attacks and who reportedly admitted his involvement during interrogation.

On Aug. 19, police in Rajasthan announced that they have detained 13 people in connection with the May 13 attacks in which seven improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were used to strike soft targets in Jaipur that killed 68.

Both the Ahmedabad and Jaipur attacks, as well as attacks involving eight IEDs that occurred July 25 in Bangalore, have been claimed by an organization calling itself the Indian Mujahideen. In a series of e-mails sent to the Indian press, the organization stated that the operations were intended to demolish the faith of the "infidels in India." They also claimed that the attacks were in retaliation for the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat in which more than 1,000 (mostly Muslim) people were killed. The e-mail claiming responsibility for the Ahmedabad attacks was sent to news outlets just minutes prior to the attacks -- underscoring the claim's veracity.

Indian authorities believe that the Indian Mujahideen is really a pseudonym used by the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), although some reports suggest that it is in fact a militant faction that broke away from the more moderate wing of the SIMI organization. Other sources have suggested that the Indian Mujahideen is actually a cooperative effort between Kashmiri militant groups, SIMI and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) or Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HUJI).

Any of these three explanations could be the truth. Kashmiri groups have traditionally used a number of names in an attempt to sow confusion -- confusion further aided by the fact that the Kashmiri militants tend to be a fractious bunch. Furthermore, in general, people arrested by the police for violent undertakings who are part of a particular organization will commonly deny membership in an effort to protect their fellow members from government action. This murky milieu makes it very difficult to sort out the true identity of the group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen.

What we do know, however, is that some people who were at some point affiliated with SIMI do appear to be connected with these attacks and that the attacks were claimed by the Indian Mujahideen. We also know that some SIMI members have been closely linked to other Kashmiri militant groups such as LeT and HUJI.

Indian authorities have made a number of arrests of high-ranking SIMI members over the past several months that appear to be connected to the Indian Mujahideen and this string of related bombing attacks. Information provided by these men during interrogations suggests that there are a number of operational cells scattered throughout the country including trained bombmakers.

The recent arrests in Ahmedabad and Jaipur are a step in the right direction, but the Indian authorities have a long way to go before they will be able to defang the indigenous threat posed by the SIMI/Indian Mujahideen.

Operational Similarities

In addition to the claims of responsibility, there are a number of operational similarities that tie the Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Bangalore incidents together. These attacks also share a number of characteristics with a failed July 29 attempt to attack the city of Surat, Gujarat, with more than 20 IEDs.

First, the attacks all involved a number of small devices that were concealed in small boxes or bags and directed against soft targets such as crowded markets and bazaars -- busy locations with lots of people and lots of places to stash the devices. The devices were all hidden and left in place to detonate by timer and not by command. Furthermore, the devices all contained shrapnel such as nuts, bolt and ball bearings. This is a clear indication that although they were small, they were intended to kill and not merely attract attention. Some of the devices were hidden in containers and attached to auto rickshaws or bicycles that were left in public places; others were placed inside automobiles that had been stolen and then parked on the street. The attacks also involved improvised explosive mixtures or commercial explosives rather than the military-grade RDX usually associated with past Kashmiri militant attacks in India.

However, in spite of the similarities, there were some differences in the construction of the unexploded devices recovered in Ahmedabad and Surat, indicating that there may have been a different bombmaker involved in those two cases. For example, a few of the devices recovered in Surat had small gas canisters affixed to them, an element not seen in the other attacks. Additionally, the timers employed in the Surat devices were reportedly stand-alone integrated circuit timers, whereas the Ahmedabad devices used simple mechanical timers. Judging from the total failure of the Surat devices, either the timers had a critical flaw or the bombmaker responsible for them made a critical error while assembling the devices. Normally, a bombmaker will test his components prior to assembly -- so either a test of the timers was not conducted, or the problem lay in the assembly of the devices' components and not the timers themselves.

Some have suggested that the Surat devices were dummies intentionally constructed not to explode, but we do not buy that theory. If a group really wanted to achieve that result, it could have done so with one or two hoax devices. The group would not have taken the effort and risk of constructing and planting more than 20 devices. Adding shrapnel to such hoax devices or attempts to enhance their effectiveness by adding fuel canisters also would not have been necessary. From the number and design of the Surat devices, it is clear their designers clearly wanted them to function and ultimately cause casualties.

This modus operandi of using multiple, small devices hidden in bags or boxes, placed in congested areas and activated by timers has also been seen in several other attacks in India in the recent past, such as the May 2007 and November 2007 attacks in the Uttar Pradesh cities of Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow, and an August 2007 attack in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

This operational profile is very different from the attacks we are seeing in Pakistan or Afghanistan, where militants tend to use much larger devices activated by suicide operatives. It is, however, similar to tactics we have seen previously employed in Bangladesh, where one militant attack in August 2005 involved more than 400 small IEDs. This similarity may not be mere coincidence. As security along the Indian-Pakistani border has tightened in recent years, militants have increased their use of the porous border with Bangladesh to move in and out of India.

Interrogations Shedding Light on SIMI

In November 2007, Indian police caught a break when they arrested a man named Riazuddin Nasir, alias Mohammed Ghouse, in India's southern Karnataka state. Nasir was initially collared for vehicle theft, but authorities later learned that he was stealing vehicles for use in terrorist attacks. According to Nasir's interrogation, he was a SIMI activist who helped recruit and train activists at a remote camp in Hubballi, Karnakata. Nasir further relayed that 40 militants had gathered for training there and that at least 15 of them were trained to construct IEDs. After training ended, the militants were sent out to different parts of the country to conduct operations. Based on Nasir's information, Indian Intelligence Bureau officials increased their focus on SIMI. As a result, their efforts enabled Indian officials to track down some, but not all, of the men who were allegedly trained militants.

One of the alleged militants swept up by the authorities in March 2008 was Safdar Nagori, the general secretary of SIMI, who Nasir identified as participating in the training. Nagori led police to a second training camp in Choral, Madhya Pradesh, where they uncovered a cache of explosives. According to Nagori's interrogations, the camp in Choral was used to train classes of 20 militants at a time and had graduated five such classes in 2006 and 2007.

The Aug. 17 arrest of Mufti Abu Bashir was a further blow to the organization. Bashir was a madrassa teacher in Hyderabad who claims to have been recruited into SIMI by Nagori. Bashir has admitted to masterminding the Ahmedabad attacks and, during interrogation, reportedly told Indian authorities that he assumed a leadership role in the organization following the arrest of Nagori.

Another IT connection

Indian authorities say that their interrogations of Bashir revealed the identity of the man who sent the e-mail from the Indian Mujahideen to the Indian press just prior to the Ahmedabad attack. They claim that Taufique Bilal, also known as Abdul Subhan Qureshi, a Mumbai-based militant, was tasked by Bashir with sending the message. The authorities say they now believe that Bilal hacked into the wireless Internet connection of an American living in Mumbai to send the message.

Bilal apparently came to the attention of the authorities after the July 11, 2006, Mumbai train bombings, but, at the time, they reportedly did not have enough evidence to charge him. That has since changed, and police in Gujarat have obtained a warrant for his arrest in connection with the Ahmedabad attack. Indian police also claim that, In addition to sending the e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack, Bilal obtained the explosives and timers used in the incident and that he met on several occasions with Bashir to plan it.

The American whose system was hacked by Bilal is an employee of the Navi Mumbai-based IT firm Campbell White. He does not appear to have been involved in the case and has since left the country, although controversy did arise over his leaving because he has not yet been officially cleared by Indian authorities.

Bilal was also connected to the IT industry, and apparently earned a degree in electronic engineering. Bilal reportedly worked in the IT hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad before moving to Mumbai. He appears to have worked for the IT firm Wipro from 1996 to 1998. The Times of India is reporting that Bilal may have worked for as many as three IT companies.

Using an American expatriate's computer to send the note was not only a handy way to disguise the identity of the author, and a display of operational flair, but it also underscores an awareness on the militants' behalf of the importance of the IT sector to the Indian economy and the significant role that international companies play. It is clearly a shot across the bow.

Other Implications

The operational similarities in the attacks we have seen in 2007 and 2008, and the involvement of SIMI members such as Bashir, make it highly likely that these attacks were conducted by the network that was trained at the camps identified by Nasir and Nagori. While the Indian authorities have arrested many of these people, there are still others, perhaps hundreds of them, still on the loose. The arrests of senior SIMI officials do not appear to have affected the network's operational ability; in fact, the tempo of militant activity seems to have increased following the arrests of Nasir, Nagori and others late 2007 and early 2008.

The SIMI/Indian Mujahideen militants may be encouraged and inspired by al Qaeda (as materials recovered from their training facilities have shown), but they appear to be a uniquely Indian phenomenon. So far, their operations appear to have been planned and conducted by Indian citizens who were trained and directed by other Indian citizens using materials procured inside their own country. According to the interrogations of captured leaders, the group has been able to recruit and train hundreds of militants inside India.

It will be very hard for the Indian government to pin these connected attacks on the Pakistani Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its extensive network inside India. While all leads in Indian counterterrorism investigations normally point to Islamabad, that does not seem to be the case this time. In fact, even if the ISI were to somehow drop its support for Kashmiri militants -- something we do not see happening -- this particular organization would not seem to be affected. This group's operations have been small scale and relatively inexpensive to conduct. Such attacks are sustainable and do not require extensive outside funding. If the ISI is backing this group, it has done a very thorough job of hiding its hand.

Indeed, the Indian press recently reported that, according to the interrogations of Nagori, SIMI was experimenting with peroxide-based improvised explosives at its training camps inside India. The group was apparently concerned that the Indian government would clamp down on its ability to obtain commercial explosives and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. This is a clear indication that the militants are not anticipating future shipments of high-explosives from a sponsor such as the Pakistani ISI. Peroxide-based explosives are notoriously fickle, unstable and downright dangerous. Palestinian bombmakers gave peroxide-based explosives such as triacetone triperoxide (TATP) the nickname "mother of Satan" for good reason. Militants would certainly not bother with such unreliable and dangerous improvised mixtures if they had any hope of receiving military-grade explosives from a state sponsor.

Some Indian media outlets have claimed that the presence of electronic components from Southeast Asia in the timers used in the Surat devices indicates that there is a connection to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Indonesian-based al Qaeda franchise. However, electronic components such as integrated circuits manufactured in Southeast Asia can be found in nearly every part of the world, including India. It is, therefore, very tenuous to try to draw a link to JI based on that fact. Plans for integrated circuit timers are widely available in jihadist literature and are not difficult to assemble -- though, as previously noted, the timers fabricated for the attacks in Surat appear to have somehow been botched.

The strategic objective of these attacks has been twofold. The first objective was to incite communal riots between Hindus and Muslims and to inflame political tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi. Meeting this objective would allow these groups to highlight any grievances Indian Muslims have with the Indian government and expand their support base within the country by radicalizing Muslims -- and Muslim youth specifically. The second objective was to damage the Indian economy. Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat are important commercial centers, and Jaipur is a popular tourist city.

To date, these attacks have not been successful in achieving these objectives, though the ease with which the network was able to recruit and train young militants may be a sign that the militants are making progress in their efforts to radicalize Muslim youth. However, with elections coming up and Hindu nationalist political parties stepping up their activity, the network has a prime window of opportunity in which to incite communal violence. Recently, protests by members of Hindu national party Shiv Sena in Gujarat and Maharashtra have included marches through Muslim neighborhoods, with protestors demanding that all madrassas be closed -- partly in response to the recent attacks.

While there have been a number of significant arrests, it will be difficult for the Indian government to stamp out this domestic, self-replicating network. As an indigenous organization, however, the operational abilities of the network will be limited. Without outside assistance it will likely continue to conduct simple attacks against soft targets. This militant network has not yet begun to conduct large al Qaeda-type attacks or to use suicide operatives, but this could change should the network fall further under the sway of the international al Qaeda movement.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com.

Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

The Russians Doing Joint Ops Right

Posted by Paul McLeary at 8/19/2008 11:32 AM CDT
The name of the game in modern warfare is “jointness,” or joint operations that combine elements of land, air and sea power with an effective media campaign to try, at best, to sway public opinion to your side, or failing that at least get your side of the story to the public before the enemy does.

While American and NATO forces have been making huge strides in this regard in Iraq and Afghanistan, it looks like in its operations in Georgia, the Russians just might have, in some respects at least, one-upped us. An unnamed Pentagon official recently told the International Herald Tribune’s Thom Shanker that in Georgia, the Russians

“seem to have harnessed all their instruments of national power — military, diplomatic, information — in a very disciplined way… It appears this was well thought out and planned in advance, and suggests a level of coordination in the Russian government between the military and the other civilian agencies and departments that we are striving for today.”

Shanker points out that

So along with the old-school onslaught of infantry, armor and artillery, Russia mounted joint air and naval operations, appeared to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on Georgian government Web sites and had its best English speakers at the ready to make Moscow's case in television appearances.

(I’d suggest reading the entire Shanker piece. He outlines the weaknesses of Russian air assets, and the way in which American counterinsurgency training might have in some way actually hindered the Georgian response.)

But back to joint ops. Last week, during a conference call with military bloggers, I had the chance to ask Thomas Mahnken, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, about the National Defense Strategy 2008 document released on July 31 by the DoD—which is the first update of the Strategy since 2005—and how joint operations fit into future plans.

“You know, one of the things that the strategy talks about is the need for an expanded conception of what jointness is all about,” he said, adding that this should encompass “not only the armed services but civilian capabilities within the Defense Department, other departments and agencies, and our friends and allies. And it's really that integration of all the elements of national power and being able to bring them to bear on the security challenges we face that's an imperative.”

Obviously, this kind of thinking is critical for waging successful counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as the Russians have just shown us, it’s pretty effective in conventional operations, too. Mahnken agrees, saying that “it is equally applicable to other security challenges that we face now and will face in the future. It's one of the reasons why Secretary Gates has been such a vocal proponent of greater funding for, you know, the nonmilitary instruments of national security, if you will, particularly the State Department, USAID and others.”

Now, no one is suggesting that the Russians are doing anything like bringing in a USAID-type organization, but the point stands.