21 November 2014

UAEphoria: Friedman does Dubai

Middle East Eye

Back in 2011, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman—imperial warmonger, Orientalist, Israeli apologist, and possessor of a host of other unbecoming attributes—studiously compiled a list of “not-so-obvious forces” behind the Arab uprisings that began with the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi the previous year.
The forces consisted of Barack Obama, Google Earth, Israel, the Beijing Olympics, and then-Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. According to Friedman’s brain, each of these five entities had somehow contributed to a mass Arab realisation that life might be more edifying under less oppressive political arrangements.
In her priceless response to the selection, British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr suggested various additions to the list of forces, such as the website of the Home Shopping Network and Friedman’s own mustache. Commenting on the particularly ludicrous inclusion of Israel, Carr wrote: “[I]f Egyptians are in any way inspired by anything that happens in Israel, it is their ability to identify with Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.” READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.

18 November 2014

Guantanamo on trial

Middle East Eye

Let’s say the government of North Korea was operating a maximum-security prison camp on South Korean territory, where it regularly detained individuals without charge and tortured them both physically and via more creative methods such as prolonged exposure to Sesame Street music.
Most of the detainees had been cleared for release - many of them for years - and the United Nations had deemed the operation in violation of international humanitarian law.
Were this the case, odds are there’d be a bit of a sustained fuss about it among the members of the political establishment in the United States.
Not so with Guantánamo Bay, despite the fact that all of the aforementioned hypotheticals, in fact, describe the reality of the infamous offshore detention facility. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.

12 November 2014

Guilt in Guantanamo: Will there be a verdict?

Al Jazeera

When I recently met up in Beirut with James Connell, the defence attorney for 9/11 suspect Ammar al-Baluchi, he recalled his August 2013 visit to Guantanamo Bay's clandestine Camp Seven as follows: "In the most secret picnic of all time, Ammar was our host."

Connell is the only lawyer to have ever been permitted to meet with a client in the facility, which houses five 9/11 suspects in addition to 10 other "high-value" detainees. The "picnic" came about when the detainees learned that Connell and two colleagues were going to be without food for the duration of their 12-hour incursion.

The prisoners promptly donated their own meals, and Baluchi advised Connell on which components were more edible than others and which could be improved with lemon.

It's nothing short of remarkable, of course, that someone subjected to intensely dehumanising treatment over a long period of time hasn't had every ounce of humanity leached out of him. Abducted by the United States in 2003 in Pakistan, Baluchi was held at one or more "black sites" abroad, where he underwent torture by the CIA prior to being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

02 November 2014

25 years of Taif

Middle East Eye

On 22 October, the Taif Agreement celebrated its quarter-of-a-century birthday.
Negotiated in the Saudi Arabian city of Taif in 1989, the agreement served as the basis for ending the 15 year-long Lebanese civil war. While there’s no doubt the accord deserves credit for putting a stop to mass bloodshed, it was in many ways an exercise in wishful thinking, starting with its introductory assertion that “Lebanon is a sovereign, free, and independent country.”
It’s a bit tricky, of course, to claim sovereignty for a country condemned to play perennial battleground for foreign powers, not merely during the civil war - a reality underscored by the fact that both Israel and Syria continued to occupy the place for over a decade after Taif.
Syria was even tasked in the agreement itself with “thankfully assist[ing] the forces of the legitimate Lebanese government to spread the authority of the State of Lebanon” over all Lebanese territories. This arrangement came equipped with the blessing of the United States, as well as – obviously - the kingdom that played host to the negotiations. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.