The age of high-tech war: after Libya

Paul Rogers, 09th September 2011

There is intense rethinking in the Pentagon about the “war on terror”. The outcome of the Libyan conflict will reinforce its principal trends.

When Donald Rumsfeld was appointed George W Bush’s defence secretary in 2001, he had the clear aim of fighting wars with minimal “boots on the ground”. From that point, the United States would fight its enemies mainly from the air and the sea. This vision of a high-tech military age saw armies as increasingly redundant.

9/11, and the lost decade

Paul Rogers, 08th September 2011

What are the principal lessons of the ten years of war since the 11 September 2001 attacks? Paul Rogers, whose first openDemocracy column was published a few days after 9/11, responds to three questions.

About the author

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies [10] at Bradford University. He has been writing a weekly column [10] on global security on openDemocracy since 28 September 2001, and writes an international-security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group [10]. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror [10] (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century [10] (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

What has been the biggest single impact of 9/11 on the public and political world?

Don’t Be Spooked by Pakistan

From Foreign Policy

A CIA veteran’s prescription for how the United States can get along with an ally it doesn’t trust.
BY MILT BEARDEN | JULY 11, 2011

More than two months after the raid by U.S. Navy SEALS on the Abbottabad compound of Osama bin Laden, the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is at its lowest point in the almost six decades of a rocky, on-again-off-again alliance. The United States has suspended some $800 million in military aid, and the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is traveling to Pakistan this week for what is certain to be a chilly meeting with his counterpart, Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

After the bin Laden Raid

Shuja Nawaz | June 27, 2011
For the second time in the life of the current government a parliamentary session has produced a unanimous “feel good” resolution, after what must have been serious prodding by the military.
Private discussions again leaked badly to the media, making it difficult to ascertain what was really said, given that we cannot judge the motivations of the leakers. If the past is any guide, nothing substantive will result from this exercise as individual political parties go their own ways and there is no cohesive action by parliament or the government to follow up on the main points of the resolution.

Talking to the Taliban

By Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Published: June 26, 2011

The writer is professor of political science at LUMS rasul.rais@tribune.com.pk

When, how and on what terms will the Afghan war end? If we go by the political rhetoric of the warring sides, the Taliban and the United States and its Nato allies, there will be no solution until each side achieves its central objectives. The problem is that both sides in any conflict cannot achieve their objectives until they reach some middle ground by recognising that the other side has some legitimate concerns, interests and can be acknowledged as a party with whom some political business can be done.

Opportunity in South Asia

By Dr Mubashir Hasan | From the Newspaper

THE current politico-economic-security situation in South and Southwest Asia presents a long-awaited opportunity for India and Pakistan to work towards establishing, on a long-term basis, peace and democracy in the region. The opportunity arises out of the global warlike situation.

Killing of Osama and its Implications for Islamic World

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective May 16-31, 2011)

The United States has claimed, through its own President Barak Obama that Osama  bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, was killed on 1^st May 2011 at the dead of night in his hiding place in Abbotabad, near Islamabad, Pakistan’s own capital. This news has been broadcast, telecast or published all over the world. However, the President also claimed that as per Islamic rites we buried him in the sea without loss of time as in Islam it is not allowed to keep the body for long. He also claimed that his photographs (with disfigured face) were not shown as it would not satisfy the skeptics and instead, would incite feelings among radicals.

Now That Bin Laden Is Dead, Can We Have Our Freedoms Back?

AlterNet.org

Let’s remember once again who we are, and begin to rebuild our confidence in ourselves – starting with our system of justice.

Osama bin Laden’s death removes the single focal point that has dominated American foreign affairs – and much of American politics at home – for a decade. And certainly, the United States and the world can breathe a sigh of relief that a dreaded enemy no longer needs to be countered. But the removal of bin Laden also opens up some space for thinking – not just for perpetual reaction, which has been the singular characteristic of the American version of the “war on terror”.

The Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill

By Garance Franke-Ruta

The early narrative of the assault on Osama bin Laden had him using his wife as a human shield and firing from behind her. Now we learn he wasn’t armed.

The White House Tuesday blamed “the fog of war” for conflicting statements in its recounting of the events surrounding the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, but the history of misstatements from U.S. government officials about various combat operations raises questions about whether briefers also were subjecting us to a counterterrorism strategy and not just completely confused in their initial statements.

Obama snatches defeat from jaws of victory

By Yvonne Ridley

As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death filtered out onto the streets of America it triggered unsightly scenes of undiluted hysteria, chest-thumping and back-slapping which has sadly become a trademark of the vengeful ‘hang’em high’ lobby that emerged from the rubble of 9/11.

7 Deceptions About Bin Laden’s Killing Pushed by the Obama Administration

This week we are going to publish a series of articles written by Americans themselves  about Bin Laden’s death. Bloody shame on those servile bleeding heart complexed Pakistanis who dare not raise a finger or a question.

As the week wore on, many of the details of the historic raid were “revised.”

May 5, 2011

The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unravelled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that’s par for the course: “the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.”

Osama Bin Laden: Alternative views

This week we are going to publish a series of articles written by Americans themselves  about Bin Laden’s death. Bloody shame on those servile bleeding heart complexed Pakistanis who dare not raise a finger or a question.

[Awaam]

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

By Noam Chomsky

May 07, 2011

It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them.