Category: Key Players

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Chuck Spinney: Investigating NATO’s War Crimes Against Libya

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, DoD, Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

Investigations Around Libya

NATO’S Craven Coverup of Its Libyan Bombing

by VIJAY PRASHAD, Counterpunch, March 15, 2012

Ten days into the uprising in Benghazi, Libya, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council established the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. The purpose of the Commission was to “investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya.” The broad agenda was to establish the facts of the violations and crimes and to take such actions as to hold the identified perpetrators accountable. On June 15, the Commission presented its first report to the Council. This report was provisional, since the conflict was still ongoing and access to the country was minimal. The June report was no more conclusive than the work of the human rights non-governmental organizations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch). In some instances, the work of investigators for these NGOs (such as Donatella Rovera of Amnesty) was of higher quality than that of the Commission.

Due to the uncompleted war and then the unsettled security state in the country in its aftermath, the Commission did not return to the field till October 2011, and did not begin any real investigation before December 2011. On March 2, 2012, the Commission finally produced a two hundred-page document that was presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Little fanfare greeted this report’s publication, and the HRC’s deliberation on it was equally restrained.

Nonetheless, the report is fairly revelatory, making two important points:

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NIGHTWATCH: SWIFT Banking Attack on Iran

05 Iran, Blog Wisdom

Iran – European Union – Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift): Swift, the communications provider for secure financial transactions for more than 10,000 financial institutions and corporations around the world announced it will disconnect Iran's banks from the system.

On its home page, SWIFT published the following news item:

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NIGHTWATCH: China Trends

02 China, Blog Wisdom

China: Special Comment: A day after Premier Wen Jiabao delivered his valedictory address to the National People's Congress, the Communist Party's Organizational Department announced that Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai had been replaced by Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang.

Chongqing (previously Chungking) is one of five national core cities – with Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou — and a major inland industrial center, in southwestern China. The city is a modern metropolis and the municipality has more than 28 million people.

International analysts of Chinese leadership trends, such as those writing for the Financial Times, have provided excellent insight into the misdeeds of Bo that brought him down. All cite his flamboyant, charismatic personal leadership style as out of step with the sober men in dark suits who are the members of the standing committee of the Communist Party Politburo that rules China.

Bo was something of contradiction in modern China. He behaved like a western style grip-and-grin politician, but used authoritarian Maoist, or even imperial, tactics, including torture, to root out organized crime. He is quoted as having said, “If only a few people are rich, then we are capitalists. We've failed.”

Bo seems to have been a true believer. He instituted in Chongqing songfests featuring the revolutionary songs his father, Bo Xilai who was a colleague of Mao Zedong, taught him as a child. As a son of a revolutionary hero, he was on a fast track to higher positions, until a recent scandal gave his factional opponents, including Premier Wen, an excuse to demote him.

For six years, NightWatch has maintained a theory of contradictions that limit China's advancement. The contradictions are longstanding, unresolved issues that work against each other to limit China's potential.

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Berto Jongman: Humanitarian Aid & Forgotten Conflicts

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of Peace, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Policies
Berto Jongman

Some important connections drawn between aid, corruption, and positive change; and also important omissions — conflicts out of the news where paying attention could make a difference.

Singling Out Forgotten Conflicts

The ISN Blog, 15 March 2012

A popular method for identifying which conflicts necessitate more attention from the international community is to estimate the difference between supply and demand of humanitarian assistance in these conflicts. Supply and demand, however, are very hard to measure in emergencies. This has led to the development of several indicators used to measure ‘forgotten conflicts’.

These indicators are often applied on an annual basis and are intended to generate media attention (to increase donations) and/or support donor operations (to comply with impartiality). Have these efforts been successful? Have they effectively singled out and buttressed forgotten conflicts? Looking back on the past decade, in this blog post I’ll assess which conflicts received the least (and most) attention from international actors.

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DefDog: China Tries Real Name Registration Online

02 China, 11 Society, Government, IO Impotency
DefDog

Real-Name Registration Threatens the Lively World of China’s Microblogs

WIRED.com, 15 March 2012

The timeline on Sina Weibo, China’s popular Twitter-like service, is filled with pithy comments about “Beijing Fashion Week,” chronicling the comings and goings and sartorial choices of the elite.

But the commenters aren’t fashionistas, and they aren’t talking about supermodels or design stars. They are referring, in not-so-secret code, to Communist Party officials.

“Beijing Fashion Week” is a thinly veiled, sarcastic commentary on the Communist Party’s annual summit, now under way in the nation’s capital. And many of the assembled are making it easy to be ridiculed by showing up in luxury garb — a far cry from the staid image they aspire to project.

Click on Image to Enlarge

. . . . . .

And all this may change in the face of a new, more stringent policy designed to clamp down on free expression where other methods have been less successful. In a move to exert greater control on citizen speech online, the government is requiring that Sina Weibo and China’s other microblogs register the real names and identification cards of users in several cities. Those who do not register this week in many major cities like Beijing will not be allowed to share or forward posts; after a period of testing, the policy will go into effect nationwide.

Read full article.

Graphic Source (separate posting)

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NIGHTWATCH: Syria Update

08 Wild Cards

Syria: The Syrian army seized Idlib and rebels, activist Noureddin al-Abdo said on 14 March. Al-Abdo said fighting stopped on the night of 13 March, the Free Syrian Army has withdrawn and regime forces are performing house-to-house searches. News reports also reported the start of another army sweep operation in Dara'a, at the opposite end of Syria from Idlib.

Comment: Once again the location of this action provides insight into the threat to the al Asad regime. Idlib is near the border with Turkey. As long as army units are operating on the borders, the government is not threatened.

In this instance, the quick sweeps in Idlib after the success in Homs reinforce the judgment that the army remains effective and responsive to the government.

The opposition rout from Idlib was accompanied by two more senior defections from the opposition's leadership council because of its disorganization and authoritarian management practices. Several news accounts described the opposition as now in disarray.

For the opposition, possibly the only positive lesson from the recent operations is that the Syrian army's logistics system looks limited. It appears unable to support more than one major push at a time. The army seems to have no shortage of effective leaders and combat forces, but the logistics system appears one dimensional. Nevertheless, the opposition demonstrates no capability to take advantage of this army vulnerability.

Syria-Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia closed its Damascus embassy and withdrew its diplomats on 14 March due to the current events in Syria, a Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said, the Saudi press agency reported.

Comment: This action is further evidence that the fighting in Syria is primarily a proxy fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

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See Also:

NIGHTWATCH on Syria at Phi Beta Iota

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