Tag Archives: war on terror
Ethiopia Rides the Tiger
The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, must have been studying the magnificent successes of the U.S. preemptive invasion of Iraq and Israel’s recent foray into Lebanon. He has clearly decided to emulate them. His argument is exactly that which was given by George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert. We must attack our neighbor because we have to keep Islamic terrorists from pursuing their jihad and attacking us.
In each case, the invader was sure of his military superiority and of the fact that the majority of the population would hail the attackers as liberators. Zenawi asserts he is cooperating in the U.S. worldwide struggle against terrorism. And indeed, the United States has offered not only its intelligence support but has sent in both its air force and units of special troops to assist the Ethiopians.
Still, each local situation is a bit different. And it is worth reviewing the recent history of what is called the Horn of Africa, in which countries have switched geopolitical sides with some ease in the last forty years.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Ethiopia was a symbol of African resistance to European imperialism. The Ethiopians defeated the Italian colonial troops at Adowa in 1896 and the country remained independent. When Italy tried again in 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie went to the League of Nations and pleaded for collective security against the invasion. He received no help. Ethiopia then became the symbol of Africa throughout the Black world. The colors of its flag became the colors of Africa. And at the end of the Second World War, Ethiopian independence was restored.
In the difficult genesis of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, Haile Selassie used his prestige to play a key role as intermediary between differing African states. The OAU established its headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. But if Ethiopia served this symbolic role throughout Africa, it also had an oppressive and aristocratic state machinery. And when acute famines began to plague the country in the 1970s, internal discontent mounted rapidly. In 1974, an army officer, Mengistu Haile Mariam, led a revolution against the “feudal” monarchy and established a military government which soon proclaimed itself Marxist-Leninist.
Before Mengistu, relations between the United States and Ethiopia had been warm. Ethiopia’s neighbor, Somalia, had strained relations with the United States. It also had a military government under Siad Barre. However, it called itself “scientific socialist” and had fairly close relations with the Soviet Union, offering it a naval base. After the 1974 coup, when Mengistu proclaimed his government Marxist-Leninist, the Soviet Union dumped Somalia and embraced the larger and more important Ethiopia. So the United States embraced Somalia in turn, and took over the naval base.
To understand what happened next, a few words of ethnic analysis of the two countries is needed. Ethiopia is an ancient Christian kingdom, long dominated by Amhara aristocrats. There is another large Christian group, the Tigre, who speak a different language. There are also two other quite large groups in the country – the Oromo (half of whom are Muslim) and the Muslim Somalis. In addition, at the end of the Second World War, Ethiopia absorbed the coastal Italian colony of Eritrea. Under Haile Selassie, only the Amhara counted, and Eritrea was waging a war for its independence. Without Eritrea, Ethiopia is landlocked.
Somalia was quite different. There had been two colonies – Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland. Italian Somaliland became independent in 1960 in the course of liquidating Italian colonies, and British Somaliland was added onto it. In the 1960s, when ethnic conflicts began to plague many African states, it was commonly said that the one African country that would never know ethnic conflict was Somalia, since almost everyone in the country was ethnically Somali, spoke Somali, and was a Muslim.
People in both countries chafed under the respective dictatorships. And when the Cold War ended, neither government could survive. Both Mengistu and Barre were overthrown in 1991.
What replaced Mengistu was a Tigre liberation movement, which at first spoke a “Maoist” nationalist language. As a way of distinguishing itself from the Mengistu regime, it acceded to Eritrea’s independence, only to regret this later. Christian (if not Amhara) dominance soon became the major theme of the new government and Oromo and Somali uprisings began. Human rights activists do not consider Zenawi’s government much better than Mengistu’s.
In Somalia, the “perfect” ethnic state fell apart, as Somali clans began to fight each other for power. After 1991, the United States began to embrace the new leader of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, who abandoned his “Maoism” altogether. Somalia was left out in the cold. When the United States sent in troops on a “humanitarian” mission to quell disorders, the United States got the brutal drubbing we now call “Blackhawk down,” and it withdrew its troops. A long multi-sided civil war continued. In 2006, a group called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took over the capital, Mogadishu, and expelled the feuding clan leaders, restoring relative peace for the first time in more than a decade.
The United States saw the UIC as a replica of the Taliban and allied to Al-Qaeda. So did Zenawi. So Ethiopia decided to invade, oust the UIC, and prop up the powerless central government that had existed on paper since 2004 but had been unable even to enter the capital city. There we went again. Of course, Ethiopia (with the United States) has won the first round. The UIC has abandoned Mogadishu. But the Somalis aren’t welcoming the Ethiopians as liberators. The clan leaders are fighting each other again, and Mogadishu is again in turmoil. The Ethiopia government is facing troubles not only in Somalia but now increasingly at home as well.
As Israel had to withdraw from Lebanon, and as the United States is going to have to do in Iraq, so Ethiopia will have to pull back soon from Somalia. The situation within Somalia will not have been improved because of its preventive attack. Preventive attacks are always a potential boomerang. Either one wins overwhelmingly or one loses badly.
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From ACAS Bulletin 77
Immanuel Wallerstein teaches at Yale University and is a board member of ACAS. This commentary originally appeared in Commentary No. 201, Jan. 15, 2007, and is distributed by Agence Global.
Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein.
In Pursuit of al-Qaeda in Somalia: A Critical Analysis of U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Somalia
In an attempt to monitor and curb terrorist activity in East Africa, the United States launched an aggressive campaign against the Union of Islamic Courts—a rising political force in Somalia, including a direct invasion, which ensued a failed attempt by the CIA to defuse the movement. In this effort to weave the Horn of Africa into this ever-exhaustive war on terrorism, there has been a tendency to demonize the UIC and portray the organization as another menacing and monolithic Islamist movement without doing justice to the complexity of Somali politics. It is often the case that the UIC is inappropriately linked with other Islamist movements, such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. Such allegations have largely been reported as fact in media outlets even though supporting details remain weak. Publications and news stories with headlines, such as, “The Hunt for al-Qaeda in Somalia,”[1] “Al-Qaeda Threat Seen Looming if Government Fails,”[2] and “U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters,”[3] dominate media discourses and perpetuate the idea of a menacing movement emerging in Somalia. Additionally, much of the existing representations of the UIC in Western media invoke an alarmist sense of urgency to act and dismantle the group. In this paper, I argue that the U.S. approach to Somali politics has largely been shortsighted and uncritical. I deepen this argument by examining the tactics employed by the U.S. and the ramifications of such policies.
U.S. Policy in East Africa
In general, U.S. foreign policy towards Somalia is characterized by strong disapproval of UIC. This condemnation manifests itself in two forms. The first is an aggressive military campaign, which developed into support for the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. The second is a propaganda assault in which there exists strong demonization of the UIC in political, and consequently media circles. Somalia became an area of interest after senior members of the Bush administration conveyed that instability in Somalia posed a significant terror threat for the United States,4 and on May 2006, a U.S. spokesperson openly confirmed that the president would not allow Somalia to exist as a safe haven for terrorists.[5] U.S. officials also conveyed that five al-Qaeda operatives, including some connected with the U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania were in Mogadishu.[6] This was perhaps the beginning of the formal declaration of opposition against alleged terrorist elements in Somalia. Though the U.S. openly expressed concern regarding Somalia’s status as a failed state and also regarding the question of the five al-Qaeda operatives, it became clear that there was more anxiety over the increasing popularity of the UIC and the existence of Islamist politics in Somalia. Instead of pursuing a more surgical approach to the issue of the al-Qaeda operatives or attempting to mediate collaboration between the UIC and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for a more stable Somalia, the U.S. took a different course.
On February 2006, Washington began its campaign to exert political pressure on the UIC through the CIA funded “Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in Mogadishu” (ARPCT). The alliance created a coalition of warlords to monitor and defuse Islamist politics in the capital.[7]This network was eventually defeated by the UIC, and this defeat was followed by a deepening of U.S. involvement in Somali politics via neighboring Ethiopia. In recent months, Ethiopian presence on ground has escalated. As early as July 2006, Ethiopian forces were seen crossing into the country and in October, Meles Zenawi declared that the state was “technically at war” with the UIC.[8] In November, the UIC conveyed that Ethiopia was shelling a town in Bandiradley[9] and the UIC launched an attack in response. Ethiopia does not admit fighting until December 24, 2006, and then claims that it was an act of “self-defense,” as the states actions received little criticism from abroad, in addition to the blessing of the U.S. government. Aside from the green light Washington gave to Ethiopia, the U.S. itself has actively participated in air strikes in the south. The attacks by foreign elements and those by the national army have been dismissed by the United Nations. The internationally recognized and U.S. and Ethiopia backed Somali president, Abdullahi Yusuf, has openly expressed that his troops will shell civilian areas in order to eradicate rebel forces. Even so, Yusuf has been free of adequate criticism by international governmental bodies and human rights organizations alike.[10] The latest assault on the Somali people is the utilization of Ethiopian prisons. Nowadays, it seems that carrying out the “war on terror” includes the service of interrogators and the use of detention centers; the conflict in Somalia is certainly no exception. But given the disturbing history of prisoner abuse in Ethiopia, the future of hundreds of individuals captured from Somalia and Kenya is a grave concern for Somalis.[11]
The collective impact of these various pressures has been the most draconian events to ensue since the Somali Civil War. Since the initiation of ground combat, chaos has unfolded in the capital. Hundreds of Somalis have perished in the hands of Ethiopian troops and TFG soldiers. Mass displacement continues to spillover neighboring countries and towns, and many of the city’s two million inhabitants are seeking refuge elsewhere. Astonishingly, the reverberations of the human suffering of this conflict have yet to be experienced beyond the regional borders Somalia, with the exception perhaps of the vibrant Somalia Diaspora abroad. This disregard can perhaps be attributed to the framing of the discussion. The tragedy that results from this propaganda assault is that the death of the other suddenly becomes justified, as the conflict is seen as a necessary component to the greater “war on terror.” Instead of mourning for the dead, a lost life suddenly becomes “collateral damage.” And since the culmination of the Cold War, politicking in this era of globalization has replaced “the enemy” from the communists to the Islamists. More recently, the events on 9-11 invoke a sense of urgency and fear that has not previously existed. By effectively using the rhetoric of post 9-11 discourse, it becomes easier for individuals to accept the fall of Mogadishu and the loss of Somali life. Likewise, U.S. approach to the political factions in Somalia has relied heavily on the exploitation of the fear of the Muslim other. Moreover, by creating false binaries, such as, “good, secular Muslim” versus “bad, extremist Muslim,” and imagining an al-Qaeda connection that did not exist, the rhetoric against the UIC becomes a powerful political and military tool. Ultimately, the construction of such a polarizing factions leads to unchecked power and uncritical alliances.
U.S. Policy and the Miscalculation of Intra-Somali Politics
The recent attacks on Somalia, although largely labeled “successful,” were shortsighted, as it failed to do justice to the political context in Somalia and socio-economic realities that Somalis face. The excursion achieved the shallow objective of ousting the UIC temporarily from one area without establishing stability or eliminating any of the existing condition, which plague the Somali populace. The fighting did not draw out peace, security or order. In fact, since the direct invasion of Ethiopian forces, Mogadishu has returned to its anarchic—post bellum status quo and the U.S. has chosen to unconditionally align itself with an unpopular force.[12] In addition to the resurfacing symptoms of the old anarchy, Somalia has recently experienced its first suicide bomb, in addition to an overall escalation in what some identify as insurgency attacks. Despite that, the bombardment on civilians and the destruction of the city is indeed contributing to the resistance that the TFG and Ethiopian forces confront. Although many Somalis did not initially embrace the UIC or its policies, even more are fundamentally opposed to the Transitional Federal Government for its ineffectiveness and corruption. Members of the TFG parliament include ruthless warlords previously supported by the U.S. Additionally; its membership can be deduced to clanmanship—a dangerous practice for a country already torn by tribal loyalties.[13] Furthermore, Prime Minister Gedi and the TFG have no authority in Mogadishu; they have long attempted to command Somalia from Nairobi, Kenya. For leaders who until recently did not dare reside in the country they supposedly rule, it’s clear that they are disconnected from the vast majority of the people.
Since the recent events, the Somali populace is understandably skeptical of this regime, which allowed Ethiopia to destroy the infrastructure of its own country, especially given the context of the historically bloody border between Ethiopia and Somalia—a history that is without a clear reconciliation process. The decision to embrace Ethiopian troops at the expense of Somali lives is not well received by Somalis. In addition to this skepticism, there is the fear of Ethiopian influence in the country. And while this influence does exist, the mere presence of this perception of power and influence brings about tremendous outrage. This is perhaps most evident in the riots and protests against the TFG, Ethiopia and the Americans that have been erupting in Somalia’s capital,[14] and as articulated previously, the inception of newer resistance in Mogadishu.
Both political figures and the media exploited what Maxine Rodinson refers to as theologocenrism—a term used to describe how some professionals wrongfully use Islam to explain and describe the actions of Muslims. I contend that the actions and the debate surrounding the UIC as a whole demonstrate a promotion of Orientalist notions about Islam, specifically an attempt to manufacture a monolithic Islam. The term theologocenrism refers to a Western school of thought, which discusses all observable events about Muslims to Islamic theology.[15] The practice of this approach narrows the rise of the UIC to a strictly religious development; it ignores the context of lawlessness in Somalia and the role of the UIC in establishing a nationalist and more effective alternative to the TFG. It’s ignores the crucial context from which the UIC emerged. The UIC was able to glean support from Somalis for pragmatic reasons. The organization quickly becomes known for its honesty, as well as its success in providing much needed security. The UIC launched a strong weapons confiscation campaign, reopened the airport and seaport and established policies that attempted to limit drug use.[16] The UIC essentially established order and governance that has not existed since the fall of the Siad Barre regime. Regrettably, the smear campaign against the UIC not only fails to consider the diversity within the UIC or recognize the UIC as a popular, nationalist movement, but it rationalizes the unsubstantiated assaults on Somalia from various forces. Ultimately, such discourse prevents critical diplomacy from taking course.
Conclusion
I maintain that the exaggerated fears and the shortsighted incorporation of Somalia by the U.S. into the “war on terror” not only pushes the state near total collapse, but also compromises the prospects of regional stability, in addition to breeding more radical elements of discontent and advancing the U.S. towards an increasingly isolated world. The flagrant human rights violations, from the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian neighborhoods to the existence of detention centers in Ethiopia mimic the failed policies the U.S. employs in Afghanistan and Iraq. To avoid similar conditions in Somalia, it behooves the U.S. government to work towards a more neutral approach in the region. For a sustainable Somalia, it’s crucial to win hearts and minds—something the TFG, Ethiopian officials and the U.S. have yet to achieve from this military venture. When waging the “war on terror” exceeds the boundaries of democratic values and pushes struggling nations further collapse, it’s important to question how proportional such strategies are, especially as U.S. foreign policy continues to engage in destructive interventionist campaigns in the broader Islamic world.
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From ACAS Bulletin 77
Ramla Bile immigrated to the United States with her family in 1989. She is finishing a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies and Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She served on the editorial board of The Minnesota Daily where she currently works as a columnist. Ramla is also on the board of directors of the Arab American arts organization, Mizna.
Jeff Koinange, Barbara Starr, Jim Clancy, and Ralitsa Vassileva. The Hunt for al-Qaeda in Somalia (2007, January 13). In Inside Africa. CNN International.
2 Sands, David (2007, January 12). Al-Qaeda Threat Seen Looming if Government Fails. The Washington Times, World, A13.
3 Worth, Robert (2006, November 15). U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters. The New York Times. International.
4 Menkhaus, Dr. Ken (2007, February 6). “Exploring a Comprehensive Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Counter-terrorism Strategy for Somalia.” Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.
5 Kelemen , Michele (2006, June 7). Islamist Militia Seizes Capital of Somalia. In Day to Day . National Public Radio.
6 Jeff Koinange, Barbara Starr, Jim Clancy, and Ralitsa Vassileva. The Hunt for al-Qaeda in Somalia (2007, January 13). In Inside Africa. CNN International.
7 Menkhaus, Dr. Ken (2007, February 6). “Exploring a Comprehensive Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Counter-terrorism Strategy for Somalia.” Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.
8 Ethiopia is ‘technically at war’. (2006, October 25). BBC News, Africa.
9 Ethiopia accused of Somalia attack. (2006, November 28). Al Jazeera, Africa.
10 Lee, Matthew (2007, April 06). Bombing of Civilians Justified by UN-Supported Somali President, War Crimes Questions Raised. Retrieved April 10, 2007, from Inner City Press: Investagative Reporting from the United Nations Web site: http://www.innercitypress.com/somalia040907.html
11 Mitchell, Anthony (2007, April 4). U.S. agents interrogating terror suspects held in Ethiopian prisons. International Herald Tribune, Africa & the Middle East.
12 Gettleman, Jeffrey (2007, February 20). In Somalia, Violence is Status Quo. New York Times.
13 Menkhaus, Dr. Ken (2007).Somalia: The Back-up Plan. CSIS African Policy Forum.
14 Ethiopia accused of Somalia attack. (2006, November 28). Al Jazeera, Africa.
15 Abu Khalil, As’ad (2006, March 20). “The Bush Doctrine: Assumptions and Realities in the Arab World.” Rice University . Fansworth Pavilion.
16 Mire, Amina (2007, January 2). Return of the Warlords. Counterpunch.
US War on Terror: Reactions from Morocco’s Civil Society
Introduction
‘Terror’ and ‘civil society’ are two highly controversial concepts that lack analytical precision. Both are highly value laden, terror is inherently negative and often used to defame one’s opponent;[1] civil society is inherently positive, originally associated to the self-image of European bourgeois society in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Both concepts are analytically related, as the successful implementation of ‘civility’ in societies negates or, at least, reduces the possibility of the use of terror as a means to an end. It is therefore not a surprise that the so-called War on Terror included an instrumentalist approach aimed at democratization of the Middle East and North African (MENA) region by strengthening civil society. This was not only because of civil society’s idealization as a bulwark against terrorism, but also as the lack of democracy, and US support to authoritarian rulers in the Middle East as part of its traditional containment policy, have been identified as one of the underlying reasons for the rise of terrorist groups in MENA. The result has been the ‘hybrid character’ of the Bush administration’s foreign policy toward the Middle East since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, as Singh so well observed:
Metaphorically, Jacksonianism and Wilsonianism had been melded into a new hybrid, one unafraid to project American power and American values – indeed one that saw the combination as inextricably linked for the preservation of American security. In this regard, the traditional biases of foreign policy approaches were subverted. The Bush Doctrine embraced liberal idealists’ faith in (American) values, agreeing that the form of domestic regimes bore directly on their foreign policies and that ‘democratic peace’ proponents had it right.[2]
Especially in MENA, this Wilsonian twist of the ‘Bush doctrine’ was reinforced with what Singh called ‘hardheaded, realist means to yield idealism without illusions,’[3] referring to the US willingness to use force and unilateral action if necessary.
This short essay seeks to illustrate that it may not necessarily be the inconsistency of the US approach to fight terror that is likely to lead to failure, but the particular character of the Middle East international system where both strategies have been applied. The reason is that both aspects of the War on Terror met a particularly fragmented regional system marked by what international relations scholars termed a long history of penetration by European colonial forces before the rise of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and by the US since the early 1990s.4 A particularly weak state system meant that suspicion if not hostility to increasing US ideological and military penetration which the War on Terror entails, is not so much articulated by weak state leaders and regional alliances (such as the Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council, Arab Maghreb Union). Rather societal organizations that often make the penetration of the Arab system by the US and its traditional ally Israel their main mobilizing force, have become the main protagonists of this resistance using Islam as their main ideological resource (Hizb’allah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and other emerging Islamic parties and movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt). Ironically, as this article seeks to illustrate using Morocco as an example, this also includes those organizations that the US is primarily interested in promoting, civil society and pro-democracy organizations that are crucial in supporting the Wilson-inspired democracy promotion agenda.
Moroccan Civil Society and the War on Terror
In Morocco as elsewhere in the Arab-Muslim world, the confusion of the so-called War on Terror with anti-Muslim, anti-Arab policies is paramount, especially as they relate to US policies towards the Arab-Israeli conflict and US policies in Iraq. When Richard Perle, a leading Republican figure and former assistant secretary of defense mentioned as early as in November 2001 Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Somalia and North Korea as possible target countries, included in ‘phase two’ of the War on Terror (after Afghanistan), all but one of these countries were either Muslim or Arab.5 The religious and civilizational connotation of this observation has been crucial. In addition, the rhetoric of human rights as part of universal values that the US now projects, as well as ‘democratic transitions’ as part of its War on Terror, smacks of hypocrisy when secret prisons are reported to have operated in Morocco, the European Union, and elsewhere, not to mention conditions in US run prisons in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay – beyond national or international protection and control.
On the other hand, the attitude of Morocco’s civil society towards the War on Terror goes beyond simple anti-American rhetoric and is multifaceted: First, Morocco’s foreign relations have been constructed as generally pro-Western and moderate, rendering Morocco a natural US ally. In addition, Morocco experienced acts of terror in May 2003, which traumatized not only a secular elite but large parts of the population, rendering Moroccans hostile to ‘terrorism’ – loosely defined. Second, a large number of Moroccan nationals were involved in terror acts in Madrid and elsewhere, raising questions as to Morocco’s strategy for preventing its nationals from being involved in acts of terror. The Moroccan government reacted with an important public relations campaign that has at its core ‘Ne Touches Pas A Mon Pays’ (Don’t Harm My Country), creating an internal enemy that transcends Morocco’s ‘civil’ society. The aim was to first discourage Moroccans from being involved in acts of terror, second to create consensus concerning the punishment of transgressors – those 2,000 Islamists that had been kept in prisons without fair trial in the aftermath of May 16, 2003, the date of the Casablanca bombings that killed more than 40 people. As a result, it should have been fairly easy to build upon pro-US sympathies in its War on Terror. However intrinsic problems of US foreign policy have prevented this from materializing.
The main problem with post-9/11 US foreign policy – the Bush doctrine – remains its core assumption that rules such as multilateralism that apply to the rest of the world need not apply to US foreign policy. Although this has been a constant in US foreign policy, the idea that the world needs a strong US that leads it, regardless of criticism or inconsistency, has been given even more importance by the Bush administration: As President George W. Bush put it to the graduating cadets at West Point in 2002 ‘America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge – thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.’[6] From the perspective of MENA countries, this meant that the US military hegemony is being regarded as a significant threat to national sovereignty and nationalist sentiments, reinforced by the occupation of Iraq and the virtual military hegemony that Israel has enjoyed with the isolation and then occupation of Iraq since the early 1990s. The irony of this is that ultimately, the US continues to rely on partners and therefore multilateralism, even if it has the power to impose its views more so than other states. This is illustrated by its long-term strategy of dealing with global terror.
As part of its War on Terror, the US uses a two-fold partially inconsistent strategy of targeting a potential Islamist anti-American resurgence by repression – thereby lending support to authoritarian states – and creating a civil space inside Arab-Muslim countries in which conflicts can be articulated. Strengthening civil society, an independent media, as well as constructive dialogues between Islamists, state actors, and secular organizations has become part of a strategy of creating civil, ultimately less unruly, controllable space.
To achieve the latter, more long-term objective, the Bush administration significantly increased development budgets including projects that aim at ‘democratization.’ Although Morocco has traditionally figured high on the list of US aid recipient countries in the Arab world, second only to Egypt, towards the end of the 1990s US Overseas Development Aid (ODA) was at the same level as that of Germany, accounting for approximately 4.5 percent of overall ODA that Morocco received.[7] The increase of the budget from US $ 10.250 million in 2000, to US $ 19.107 million in 2006 illustrates that especially after the Casablanca attacks of May 16, 2003, Morocco has moved higher on the list of US preoccupations. This includes the democracy promotion agenda as for the first time USAID prioritizes ‘Government Responsiveness for Citizens’ in its 2004 Strategic Plan for Morocco.8 In 2006, ‘Government Responsiveness for Citizens’ (read democracy promotion) takes with US $ 6.440 million about one third of overall US ODA.
It is here that civil society’s response to the US War on Terror is crucial: as recipients of increasing aid, organized groups outside of the immediate reach of the state – the independent media, Islamic groups and political parties, as well as human rights organizations – are highly sensitive and critical to US strategies in the Middle East but at the same time attracted to the increasing attention with which the US is wooing them. In addition, despite constant official reaffirmation that the Moroccan-US friendship agreement dating from the late 18TH century is the longest, unbroken of such treaties that the US has with any other foreign country, the Moroccan population is very influenced by anti-American sentiments due to events in the Middle East.
A short survey of the Moroccan press indicates this point: Out of 100 articles reviewed by the French embassy that appeared in the Moroccan press in 2006 – using two keywords: ‘International Affairs’ and the ‘United States’ – around 60 percent of all articles deal with Iraq, Israel, prison conditions in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and are generally hostile to US policy in the Middle East including its War on Terror. Articles that are not related to these topics deal with a Free Trade Agreement that Morocco signed with the US, a visit by the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in February 2006, increasing security co-operation between the US and Morocco, or the US ‘manipulation’ of Morocco’s electoral process by publishing a pre-election survey that grants the Islamist Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD) 47% of votes.[9]
What is striking is that the US receives very little or no attention by the media if it does not relate to Arab-Islamic affairs, i.e. Iraq, anti-Islamism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, or to issues that involve Morocco directly. This means that US Middle East policies that strengthen the US presence in the Middle East ultimately undermine US policies as they relate to its more long-term strategy of its War on Terror, including its aim to officially support Morocco’s democratization process. Whereas former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared to the Moroccan media that ‘the voice of His Majesty Mohamed VI is that of reason, modernization, and tolerance’, adding that ‘reforms in Morocco illustrate that democracy and tolerance are perfectly compatible with Islam,’[10] protests in front of the parliament organized by Morocco’s leading human rights organization Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH) brandished the visit with the following slogans: ‘No To Morocco’s Integration In The US Imperialists’ Security And Military Plans’, and ‘Guantanamo: A Crime Against Humanity.’[11] Interestingly, both articles appeared in the same issue of the government newspaper Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb, indicating high level disagreement with US policies in the Middle East.
In addition to these possibly predictable protests by human rights organizations that are outside of the established political field (and subject to repeated repression by the Moroccan state), broader criticism also includes more integrated groups with links to the government. In September 2006, a government circular to foreign embassies in Morocco asked for the end of support for civil society organizations other than those that are officially sanctioned by the Moroccan state as public utilities (utilités publiques). Programs that include support to civil society should be run by the Moroccan state. Although details of the circular have not been spelled out, and it has caused great confusion among local NGOs, in its initial response the Moroccan journalists’ union Syndicat National de la Presse Marocaine (SNPM) advocated greater control of embassies’ involvement in civil society, as the risk of manipulation was seen as great. Its secretary-general Younès Moujahid specifically targeted the US embassy and an important aid program with which journalists should be better trained and supported. In his opinion, the US was ‘infiltrating’ the Moroccan media in order to improve the image of the US in Morocco, and to use Moroccan journalists against the Moroccan state in disputed issues. According to the newspaper At-Tajdid, the journalists’ union SNPM and the Moroccan human rights association AMDH prepared a document that calls for a boycott of the US embassy in Rabat in order to limit their impact on the autonomy of civil society.[12]
Conclusion
From this account, it seems clear that the long-term strategy of increasing civil space and associated moderate discourse inside Arab-Muslim countries is about to fail even in a country that has historically known little anti-Americanism due to its moderate official ideology and its comparative distance from the Arab-Israeli conflict. Increasingly, activities that are financed by the US are met with suspicion if not hostility. Civil society’s ‘independence’ from the state – a highly celebrated characteristic among local activists in Morocco – ever more includes independence from actors that have a strategic interest in increasing the very same actors’ visibility in the Moroccan political scene. Visits of US officials such as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that frequently praise Morocco’s ‘civil’ society and the King’s position as that of ‘reason, modernization, and tolerance’ ultimately undermine the credibility of US efforts to support Morocco’s reform process.
This means that the recent US democracy promotion strategy is being perceived as just another aspect of overall US Middle East Policy and therefore another facet of the Middle Eastern state system’s penetration. It is rejected as it is associated with US and Israeli military hegemony in the Middle East, highlighting the importance of pan-Arab and pan-Islamic sentiments that continue to be prevalent in MENA. Officially the Moroccan state as most other Arab states, continues to be part of a pro-US alliance against terror; a Free Trade Agreement with the US came into force in 2005 despite Morocco’s disagreement with the US invasion of Iraq. However, the underlying tensions are now being expressed by social groups with arguably larger margins of maneuver. The implication of this has been aptly pointed out by Ehteshami: The result of the US democratization drive seems to be that it de-democratizes the MENA even further, as its double standards only help to embolden radical and conservative forces, whilst it undermines the moderate and progressive reformers. If, as in the case of civil society organizations and other ‘democrats’, policies aim at strengthening their visibility, the first action undertaken is ‘to condemn the US superpower for its occupation of Iraq, for the behaviour of its troops and political agents there, for its unconditional support for Israel and blatant disregard for international law and norms in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and for its continuing support for many of the region’s authoritarian regimes’[13]
A last point concerns this above mentioned linkage of US Middle East policies and its War on Terror. The US made a point before the overthrow of the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein that it first needed to install a viable, democratic state in Iraq before pressuring Israel to allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state. The reasoning behind this logic was that it would be easier to pressure Israel once its ultimate threat, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, had been eliminated.[14] In fact, this policy of sequencing proved illusionary not only for the creation of a functioning Palestinian state: It only supported an Israeli position framed as fighting terrorism in the Palestinian territories, thereby lending support to the election of Hamas and increasing violence in the occupied territories. It also proved illusory because the US continues to underestimate the importance of a viable Palestinian state for its overall policy of fighting terrorism, including its instrumentalist view of civil society to achieve this aim.
(From ACAS Bulletin 77)
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James N. Sater gained his Ph.D. in 2003 from the University of Durham / United Kingdom. He is an Assistant Professor of International Studies at Al Akhawayn University, Morocco, where he teaches Middle East and North African politics and international relations. He is the author of Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco (New York and London: Routledge, 2007) and has contributed to The Journal of Democratization, The Journal of North African Studies, Mediterranean Politics, and The Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights with research on civil society, human rights, gender, and political participation in North Africa.
1 . David J. Whittaker: The Terrorism Reader. Second Edition. (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 8.
2. Robert Singh: ‘The Bush Doctrine’ in Mary Buckley and Robert Singh: The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism; Global responses, global consequences (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 18.
3. Ibid.
4. See Raymond Hinnebush : ‘The Middle East Regional System’ in Reymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami : The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder and London : Lynne Rienner, 2002) pp. 29-53.
5. Anoushiravan Ehteshami : ‘The Middle East : Between ideology and geo-politics’ in Mary Buckley and Robert Singh: The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism; Global responses, global consequences (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 110.
6. Robert Jervis : ‘Understanding the Bush Doctrine’ in G. John Ikenberry: American Foreign Policy. Theoretical Essays. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005), p. 584.
7. http://www.usaid.gov.
8. USAID – Morocco Country Strategy Plan 2004-2008, pp. 37-46. Available at
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDABZ612.pdf.
9. See http://www.ambafrance-ma.org/presse/index. cfm.
10. Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb, February 13, 2006.
11. Ibid.
12. At-tajdid, September 13, 2006.
13. Ehteshami, 2006, op.cit. p. 117.
14. Hall Gardner : ‘Preclusive War with Iraq : Regional and Global Ramifications’ in Hall Gardner (ed): Nato and the European Union. New World, New Europe, New Threats (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004), p. 282.
The Algerian Civil War: Washington’s Model for ‘The New Middle-East’
’Washington has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism.’
—U.S. undersecretary of state William Burns [1]
’This is a prescription for intra-Muslim civil war throughout the Middle East. Those involved would be seen as proxies tearing the Muslim world on behalf of Israel and the US.’
— Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui [2]
The American invasion of Iraq has clearly failed to produce the domino effect that would, as the architects of the war promised, bring all US enemies into line, and create a new Middle East where democracy would flourish. The invasion of Iraq, like Israel’s failed invasion of Lebanon in 2006, has made it clear in Washington, London and Tel-Aviv that conventional military power and hi-tech weaponry are impotent in the face of popular insurgencies. While this fact is widely accepted by experts on low-intensity warfare, hawks in the American, British and Israeli governments preferred to test its validity for the twenty first century. Now that they found out, at a great price one should add, a significant shift in US war strategy is in place. Analysts and government officials are calling this shift “The Redirection.”[3]
According to media reports, the US is now convinced that the biggest threat to its interests in the Middle East is the increasing influence of Shia Iran and its allies Syria and Lebanese Hizb’Allah. With the help of the Saudi government, Washington is currently funding and arming various Sunni fundamentalist groups to confront Iran’s influence. Civil war scenarios are already unfolding in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. It is obvious that the United States is setting Islamist groups against each other. What has been less obvious is the fact that the only time Islamists movements were fought by proxy through other Islamist movements is Algeria’s civil war of the 1990s. If that is the case, then Algeria’s civil war is Washington’s model for the “New Middle East.”
I. The “Redirection”?
Reports have confirmed that the US has intensified covert operations in Iran using the obscure Sunni group Jundallah.[4] In Lebanon, the US has been funding and arming Sunni fundamentalists with links to al-Qaeda, like Fatah al-Islam, and actively promoting a confrontation between them and Hizb’Allah.[5] In Palestine, the United States has been arming and training factions of Fatah loyal to Mohammed Dahlan in the hope of provoking a confrontation with Hamas. In Syria, the US has been funding Abdel Halim Khaddam and the Muslim Brotherhood in the hope of provoking a confrontation with the Syrian regime. US Marines have been supervising the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, and US covert operations are now underway in the African desert, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Analysts and government officials are openly calling this shift in strategy the “redirection.” Encouraged by Saudi Arabia, the United States has apparently decided that the biggest threat to its control of the Middle East are Shia groups in alliance with Iran and Syria like the Lebanese Hizb’Allah and the Iraqi Mehdi Army. As a result, the “redirection” would consist of using Saudi Arabian money and its standing in the Sunni world to do a rerun of the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, this time against Shia, “Safavid” Iran. The truth of the matter is that Saudi standing in the Sunni world is not what it was in the 1980s. The vanguards of Sunni resistance groups, whether it is al-Qaeda, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, do not consider Iran a bigger threat than America and Israel. They are also unlikely to consider Saudi Arabia and America as “protectors” of Sunni Islam. Here is how Ayman Zawahiri reacted to this idea:
Some have claimed that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are protectors of the people of the Sunnah. Allah suffices us and He is the best of protectors. Since when are those who helped America to blockade Iraq and kill a million of its children protectors of the people of the Sunnah? Since when are those who supplied American forces with provisions and materiel, and provided them with bases, airports and storerooms to attack Afghanistan and Iraq helpers of the people of the Sunnah? From where did the planes which bombed Afghanistan and Iraq take off? From where did the forces which invaded Iraq set off? Who was it who agreed to the international resolutions to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq? Who was it who recognized the puppet regimes of apostasy and treason in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who was it who pursued and combated everyone who wanted Jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who was it who recognized Israel and approved its usurpation of Palestine? Who is it who tortures and punishes the Mujahideen and sets up secret prisons for America? And who, and who, and who? Yes, they are protectors of the American way (sunnah), Crusader way (sunnah) and Zionist way (sunnah). As for the way (sunnah) of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), they are its enemies and the ones who combat it.[6]
The quote is long but it shows how many obstacles the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have to overcome before they can claim to be defenders of anything besides American interest. Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, too, have always had better relations with the Syrian and Iranian governments than with those of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. If the US and Saudi Arabia want to organize a Sunni jihad against Shia ascendancy, as they once did against the Soviet Union, they will have to contend with the fact that the vanguard groups of Sunni jihad are categorically opposed to it. No wonder the US and the Saudis are working with obscure groups like Iranian Jundallah and Lebanese Fatah al-Islam.
An interesting aspect of this “redirection” effort is the fact that it is essentially run by deputy national-security adviser, Eliot Abrams, and the Saudi national-security advisor, Prince Bandar. Abrams and Bandar were both involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, and observers have noted that the “redirection” involves a rerun of the US war on communism in Latin America. Joseph Massad compared the way Palestinian Fatah has been collaborating with the US in toppling the elected Hamas government to Chile’s General Pinochet collaborating with the CIA in the early 1970s.7 While the comparison is to some degree accurate, it ignores the fact that when fighting communism, the US had the added advantage of dealing with a Western ideology. Islamic political ideology is indigenous to the global south and, as such, it is still incomprehensible in the West and still largely seen through Orientalist (even Medieval) stereotypes.
If the US is promoting a civil war scenario in the Muslim world, and if this civil was is supposed to dispose of groups and states that oppose US dominance in the Middle East, then they need more expertise than what they used in Latin America in the 1970s. The only country where a civil war scenario was engineered (literally) to get rid of an Islamist opposition, and which the US government would consider a success story is Algeria. The Algerian civil war was the only precedent for fighting Islamist movements by proxy through other Islamist movements. Rather than a counter insurgency, Algerian generals called the civil war they engineered and have been running for over fifteen years now a “counter Jihad.” That is exactly what the United States seems to be doing.
II. The Relevance of Algeria
If the era of casualty-free wars through aerial bombing and hi-tech weaponry is over, as Hicham El Alaoui notes, then the new battles are for the control and the allegiance of populations. The recent electoral victory of Hamas in Palestine, and the extent to which Hizb’Allah, the Mahdi Army and the Sunni insurgency have all entrenched themselves in the electoral politics and the societies of their countries, have made it clear to US war planners that they can either accept defeat and withdraw (as Israel did last summer), or change strategy. The US chose the second option. It is here that the Algerian civil war experience comes in.
The challenge that Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hizb’Allah, the Sunni resistance in the Anbar province of Iraq, and the Mahdi Army in the south of Iraq represent for United States and Israeli ambitions is not of the kind of challenge that al-Qaeda and its affiliates have represented so far. The latter have exclusively been a fighting force of at most few thousands, and have showed no interest in electoral politics or even in governance. The challenge that Hamas, Hizb’Allah, the Mahdi Army, and the Sunni resistance of Iraq constitute for American and Israeli ambitions in the Middle East is of a different kind. These Islamist movements have a large popular base and a mass following that allows them considerable share in state power. This type of Islamist challenge manifested itself concretely for the first time in Algeria when the Islamist Salvation Front used legal means to get to power in 1991.
Before the end of the twentieth century, Algeria was the only Arab-Muslim country where an Islamist movement managed to mobilize a grassroots movement and win a landslide electoral victory. By the late 1980s, only Iran and Sudan saw the coming of an Islamist movement to power. But while Sudanese Islamists overthrew the existing regime, and while Iranian Islamists rode a popular uprising to power, Algeria’s Islamists were the first to win a parliamentarian majority through legal means. The Algerian military, back then, refused to recognize the popular mandate of the FIS. They took power by force, and fought fiercely for the control of the population. The US and Israel today, too, refuse to accept the popular mandate of these groups. They are trying to take power by military force, and are embarking on a clandestine adventure to control the populations. The objective of the US and Israel, and one should not forget the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, is the “eradication” of these Islamist movements in a military sense of the word. The one Muslim country that has pursued an existential civil war with a grassroots Islamic movement with the purpose of “eradicating” it is Algeria.8 While media reports have often noted the Bush administration recurrent interest in “learning” from the Algerian civil war, the nature and extent of that interest have generally been kept out of public view. As it was the case with the Algerian civil war, the real story will have to be reconstructed by comparing, as they say, yesterday’s leaks with today’s lies.
Since the invasion of Iraq, Analysts and government officials have often cited Algeria as a useful case and a relevant precedent to learn from. As soon as it became obvious that the Iraqi resistance was there to stay, Pentagon officials got interested in the Algerian war of national liberation. The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon was screening Gillo Pontecorvo’s classic film The Battle of Algiers.9 For the US military, the Algerian war of liberation provides the closest parallels and the most useful lessons on the strategies, the strengths and the weaknesses of a popular resistance movement facing a Western occupying power.
More recently, it was reported that George W. Bush was reading Alastair Horne’s classic A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62. Henry Kissinger had apparently recommended it to the president.[10] After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Algeria was also one of the first countries the United States turned to in order to learn how to fight Islamic militancy. Washington, as undersecretary of state William Burns put it in December 2002, “has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism.”[11] It did not matter that the Algerian government had acquired one of the worst human rights records on earth, or that its security forces have been heavily implicated in some of the worst massacres of civilians. Torture techniques that were notorious in the basement of the Chateauneuf police station and the garage of the Cavignac police station in central Algiers (sexual violence, chemical suffocation, blowtorching of faces and bloating with salted water) soon started showing up in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.[12] There is reason to believe, today, that Washington is not only borrowing torture techniques from Algeria, but the whole sinister program of eradication that the Algerian junta has used for fifteen years to terrorize its populations, especially the poor. The Algerian generals who devised and run this program routinely referred to it as “counter jihad.”
III. Counter Jihad: The Counterinsurgency of “Eradication”
The rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algerian politics in the late 1980s was swift and unexpected. By the time France, the United States and Britain realized what was going on, the FIS had already won the local elections by a landslide and was set to win the legislative elections. Before those elections took place, though, the Algerian army took power by force, cancelled the elections, and banned the FIS. French and American reactions were diverse and inconsistent. At first, France could not condone the coup d’état or publicly support it, but it clearly saw it with a willing eye. As President Mitterand said, “fundamentalism does not appear to be the surest way to reach democracy.”[13] Up until 1993, the French administration was not sure, though, that the generals of Algiers could halt the tide of Islamism sweeping Algeria. While Mitterand and his foreign affairs minister, Roland Dumas, quietly supported the generals, they were also bracing themselves for the possibility that Islamists might win the civil war. Similarly, when the Clinton administration allowed Anwar Haddam to represent the FIS freely in Washington, it was obvious that the US did not want to be left out in the event of an Islamist victory in Algeria.
Until 1994, the Algerian junta was still finding it hard to control the Islamist insurgency. The country was paralyzed by its massive foreign debt, and international donors were requesting the introduction of constitutional structures before approving new loans. To get the funds it needed to “eradicate” the Islamists, the junta decided to show that Algerian Islamism was primarily a threat to the West. To that end, the Algerian secret services created their own Islamist groups. Instead of a counterinsurgency campaign, Algerian generals appropriately called it a counter jihad. The fact has been clearly established that some of the notorious Islamic Armed Groups (GIAs) were creations of the Algerian secret services (DRS). On the domestic front, their purpose was to commit atrocities in the name of Islam that would discredit the FIS. On the international front, the aim was to convince the West that Islamism needed to be “eradicated.” These are the groups who came out with a takfiri ideology (excommunication), and declared civilian populations, intellectuals, musicians and artists to be legitimate targets. These are the groups who smashed babies against walls, hacked defenseless civilians, and put toddlers in ovens. These are the groups who raped, pillaged, and massacred entire villages undisturbed, while the screams could be heard from large military barracks nearby. Not once, as is well known, did the army intervene to rescue those people who sometimes were only few hundred feet away. It was not an accident that the terrorized communities always happened to be the ones that massively voted for the FIS in the 1992 elections.
After fifteen years, the Algerian junta has left a trail of evidence and countless contradictions that have allowed analysts to piece together their eradication strategies. A wave of defectors in the ranks of the Algerian military and security services, many of them wrote accounts of their involvement, allowed a very precise corroboration of the evidence.[14] Many atrocities that were committed between 1993 and 1998, allegedly by Islamists, turned up to be covert operations of Algerian secret services (DRS). A few high profile cases would be enough to establish the point. In 1996 seven French monks were kidnapped in the Medea region south of Algiers. Betraying their contempt for Algerian sovereignty, the French secret services (DST) attempted to contact the Islamist kidnappers directly. What they discovered was the shocking evidence that the Algerian government was engineering the civil war. Jamal Zitouni, the notorious leader of one of the main Armed Islamic Groups (GIAs) – the one that kidnapped the monks and was responsible for other gruesome atrocities – it turned up, was an agent of the Algerian government. The suspicion is strong still, today, that when Zitouni decided to murder the monks, the Algerian junta was actually punishing France for going over their head to contact the kidnappers.[15]
Another high-profile case was the slaughter in 1994 of seven Italian seamen. They were found with their throats cut on board their ship (the Luciana) at the port of Jenjen, east of Algiers. The massacre happened, conveniently for the junta, on the eve of the G7 summit in Naples, and was predictably blamed on “Islamic extremists.” Numerous defectors from the Algerian security forces told Le Monde and The Observer, though, that the crime was planned and instigated by Generals Mohammed Mediane, aka “Tewfik,” and Smain Lamari. Again, defectors’ accounts have corroborated each other and the details matched. Primary investigations also showed the port to be under heavy control of the Algerian army. It would have been impossible for an Islamist group to kill the seamen, steal tons of merchandise, and escape unnoticed.16 The terrorist bombings in Paris in 1995 – one at the Saint Michel metro station and one at the Maison Blanche – were also the work, it turned up, of the Algerian shadowy Directorate of Infiltration and Manipulation and the Directorate of Information and Security.[17]
With the spectacularly gruesome massacres of civilian communities that had massively voted for the FIS, especially in the towns of Bentalha and Rais, the West was ready to give the junta enough billions and weapons to “eradicate” the Islamists.[18] Counter jihad, as a form of counterinsurgency, had borne its fruits for the Algerian Junta. The Algerian population was debilitated by the intensity and gruesomeness of the violence, international public opinion was outraged against the Islamists, and Western powers were ready to send the IMF and World Bank. What’s more, most of the violence that the Islamists were being blamed for was actually targeting what was left of the legitimate Islamist resistance, and the population at large who supported it. Many birds were hit with one same stone.
From 1994, the French government threw in its lot on the side of the Algerian junta once and for all. The hard-line idea of eradicating Islamism triumphed. Roland Dumas, the French foreign minister at the time, declared France’s “political backing of the leaders of today’s Algeria.” He pledged France’s economic support “as well as the backing of Algeria on the international scene.” “Friendship,” he said, “must be expressed otherwise than just with words.”[19] Socialist leader Claude Cheysson spoke for most French liberals when he said that democracy in Algeria, as a result of the army coup, “was safe for the time being.”[20] Western intellectuals (and westernized Algerians) who embraced, condoned and defended the unsavory military junta were legion in the nineties. Little did they know that they were providing precious cover for a massive military onslaught on a largely poor and unarmed population of Algeria.[21] Little did they know that they were victims of a murderous, depraved and reactionary maneuver that some generals devised in order to stay in power.
By Western standards, the coup and the civil war in Algeria were a success. Algeria was “saved” from falling into the hands of Islamic “extremists.” The idea of Jihad was turned against itself, and Islamist groups were pitted against each other. The Islamic party that won the elections (FIS) was the primary target of this violence. The other main target was the population that massively voted for them. Islamism was demonized in the eyes of both the Algerian population and of the populations of the West. Western governments were forced to support the illegal coup and the junta behind it. In exchange, Algeria’s large reserves of gas and oil kept flowing freely and cheaply to the West. The civil war also disposed of what French public opinion routinely refers to as “Algeria’s demographic excess.” Equally important, it paved the way for IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programs. In short, Algeria remained a safe French (and now American) backyard.[22]
IV. The Algerian Model in Washington’s “War on Terror”
It is clear that the unintended consequences of the invasion of Iraq include the spread of Iranian influence in Iraq and the Middle East. The unintended consequences of the failed Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July-August 2006 include the emergence of Hizb’Allah as an undisputed champion of Islamic causes and a formidable and highly disciplined guerrilla group. The hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv are convinced now that the United States should shift its war strategy in the Middle East. The central component of the new strategy, as Seymour Hersh and others reported, is the large-scale use of clandestine operations throughout the Muslim world. These operations aim at bolstering various shadowy Sunni fundamentalist groups and the Palestinian group Fatah to provoke various civil wars scenarios in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. To work around congressional oversight, the architects of this strategy are using Saudi funds and the billions that have been unaccounted for in the budgetary chaos of Iraq.
Inside the Bush administration, the key players in this adventure are Dick Cheney, the deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams, and the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador) Zalmay Khalilzad. Dick Cheney’s office is coordinating these operations behind the back of Congress and the CIA. Outside the United States, the shadowy Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, is the main coordinator. Abrams and Bandar were both involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Back then they helped the Reagan administration illegally fund the Nicaraguan Contras from secret arms sales to Iran and from Saudi money. Prince Bandar brings considerable Saudi funds to the table. He also brings useful Saudi connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups. He was also involved, it should be remembered, in coordinating the effort of Arab fighters who joined the Mujahedeen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Saudis have apparently assured the White House that they will keep a very close eye on the fundamentalists this time. The White House, as an intelligence official put it to Seymour Hersh, are not against the “Salafis throwing bombs”; they just want to make sure they throw them at the right people: Hizb’Allah, the Mahdi Army, Iran, and Syria.[23]
In Lebanon, the United States has already pledged two hundred million dollars in military aid and forty million dollars for internal security. The money is intended to bolster the government of Fouad Siniora against the Hizb’Allah led opposition. As it was the case in the early phase of the Algerian civil war, many obscure and radical Sunni groups are emerging in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. The US is now providing these groups with clandestine military and financial support in the hope of provoking a confrontation with Hizb’Allah. One notable Sunni extremist group that is now the recipient of US clandestine support is Fatah al-Islam. The group is based in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, and has recently been offered money and weapons “by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government interests – presumably to take on Hizb’Allah.”[24]
Saad Hariri, the Sunni majority leader of the Lebanese parliament and a US ally, has already spent thousands of dollars to bail members of Sunni fundamentalist groups from jail, many of whom are known to have trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Hariri also used his influence to obtain amnesty to twenty-nine Sunni fundamentalists, some of them suspected of plotting bombs in the Italian and Ukrainian embassies in Beirut. “We have a liberal attitude that allows al-Qaeda types to have a presence here,” a senior official in Siniora’s government told Seymour Hersh. Hariri also arranged a pardon for the Maronite Christian militia leader, Samir Geagea, who has been convicted of many atrocities against civilians as well as four political murders, including the assassination of Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987.[25] Geagea is already on the offensive. He held a press conference, last week, to say that Hizb’Allah has become a burden on the Lebanese state.[26]
In Palestine, the US has been intensely promoting a coup against the democratically elected government of Hamas. With the “friendly” governments of Jordan and Egypt, the US has been providing military assistance to faction of Fatah loyal to security chief and CIA man Mohammed Dahlan. Israel has been helping by arresting members of Fatah who oppose confrontation with Hamas.[27] Besides burning the building of the Palestinian Legislative council, shadowy Fatah operatives also burned the prime Minister’s office, shot at his car, and burned offices in different ministries and harassed Hamas ministers. In a move very reminiscent of Algeria’s dirty civil war, undercover thugs burned Palestinian Christian churches during the controversy surrounding the Pope’s racist comments on Islam. Those who sanctioned the arson were obviously hoping, as did the Algerian generals who sanctioned the killing of the French monks in 1996 and the Italian seamen in 1997, that the world would blame the Islamist. As I write, the AFP is reporting that a Christian library in Gaza has been bombed in a strange pre-dawn attack.[28] Reuters is reporting that a completely unknown group by the name of Tawhid and Jihad has executed kidnapped BBC reporter, Alan Johnston.[29] Hamas has duly condemned these attacks and has consistently provided protection to Palestinian churches and helped release kidnapped foreign journalists.
The United States is also providing clandestine support to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005. Again, the goal here is to undermine the Syrian government of Bashar Asad.[30] At the same time, the US is funding and arming the shadowy Sunni fundamentalist group, Jundallah, to mount a bombing campaign inside Iran.[31]
Much like the Algerian junta, Washington is creating its own Islamist groups and developing its own “eradication” program. All the pieces seem to be in place for a large-scale campaign of sabotage, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations whose aim it would be to discredit the resistance movements in the Islamic world and demonize them in the eyes of the public. Unlike Algeria, though, the scope of American counter-jihad includes the entire Muslim world. The atrocities, slaughter and mayhem are likely to be far bigger than they were in Algeria. It remains to be seen whether civil societies, the intellectuals, the media, and the genuine Islamist resistance groups will fall into this insidious trap that latter-day colonialism seems to be putting the final touches on.
From ACAS Bulletin 77
_____________
Fouzi Slisli is Assistant Professor at St. Cloud State University. He received his MA and PhD from the University of Essex (UK). His writings on the Middle East and North Africa have appeared in Race and Class, Al Ahram Weekly, openDemocracy.com, Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, and Mizna.
1. U.S. undersecretary of state William Burns, in Barry James, “Arms Sales Overcomes Rights Record Qualms: US Enlists Algeria in Terror Battle,” International Herald Tribune, (December 10, 2002).
2. Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui, “And the Winner is … Iran,” Le Monde Diplomatique, (February, 2007).
3. Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection.” The New Yorker (March 5, 2007).
4. William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Terror in Iran,” The Telegraph (UK), (February 25, 2007).
5. Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection.”
6. Speech of Ayman Zawahri (February 12, 2007). Retrieved from: <http://video.google.com/video play?docid=2933856766506011354> on April 16, 2007.
7. Joseph Massad, “Pinochet in Palestine,” Al-Ahram Weekly, (November 9-15, 2006).
8. “Eradication” is how Algerian generals who opposed dialogue with Islamists described their policy in the mid 1990s.
9. CNN “The Situation Room,” (January 12, 2007). See also Maureen Dowd, “Aux Barricades,” The New York Times, (January 17, 2007).
10. CNN “The Situation Room,” (January 12, 2007). See also Maureen Dowd, “Aux Barricades,” The New York Times, (January 17, 2007).
11. Barry James, “Arms Sales Overcomes Rights Record Qualms: US. Enlists Algeria in Terror Battle,” International Herald Tribune, (December 10, 2002).
12. The torture practices of the Algerian security forces have been extensively documented. See, for example, Robert Fisk, “Witness from the Front Line of a Police Force Bent on Brutality,” and “Lost Souls of the Algerian Night: Now their Torturers Tell the Truth,” The Independent, (October 30, 1997); “Conscripts tell of Algeria’s Torture Chambers,” The Independent, (November 3, 1997); Robert Moore and Francois Sergent, “Hands that Wield Algeria’s Knives,” The Observer, (October 26, 1997); John Sweeny, “The Blowtorch Elections that Shames Britain,” The Observer, (May 25, 1997).
13. Quoted in Camille Bonora-Waisman, France and the Algerian Conflict: Issues in Democracy and Political Stability, 1988-1995, (Ashgate, 2003), p. 44.
14. See especially Nesroulah Yous, Qui a tué à Bentelha? (Paris: La Découverte), 2000; Habib Souaïdia, La Sale guerre: Le Témoignage d’un ancien officier des forces spéciales de l’armée algérienne, (Paris: La Découverte), 2001; Salima Mellah, “Le Mouvement islamiste algerien entre autonomie et manipulation,” Committee Justice pour l’Algerie, (Dossier No. 19, May 2004), <http://www.algerietpp.org/tpp/pdf/dossier_19_mvt_islamiste.pdf > Retrieved on April 16, 2007.
15. See Arnaud Dubus, “Les sept moines de Tibhirine enlevés sur ordre d’Alger,” Libération, (December 23, 2002). The extent of French implication in the affair has been illustrated by René Guitton, Le Martyre des moines de Tibhirine, (Paris: Calmann-Lévy), 2001. The victims’ families are still demanding an official investigation, but neither the French nor the Algerian government would reveal what they know of the affair.
16. See John Sweeny, “Algeria’s Cutthroat Regime Exposed: Name the Killers, Demands Italy,” The Observer, (November 16, 1997).
17. See John Sweeny, “‘We Bombed Paris for Algeria’,” The Observer, (November 9, 1997). See also Naima Boutelja, “Who Really Bombed Paris,” Red Pepper, (September 2005). <http://www. redpepper.org.uk/europe/x-sep05-bouteldja.htm>.
18. Salima Mellah, “Le Mouvement islamiste algerien entre autonomie et manipulation”; Nesroulah Yous, Qui a tué à Bentelha?
19. See Camille Bonora-Waisman, France and the Algerian Conflict, (p. 56). See also Pablo Azocar, “Dumas Visit is Shrouded with Tension and Suspicion,” Inter-Press Service, (January 8, 1993).
20. Julian Nundy, “Paris in Two Minds about Algiers Coup,” The Independent, (January 17, 1992).
21. Bernard Henry Levy led the way, on the side of the French, and Rachid Boujedra and Khalida Massoudi led the way, on the Algerian side. Incidentally, Boujedra who wrote FIS de la haine, (Paris: Gallimard, 1994) happens to be touring American universities as these lines are being written. The tour, according to the leaflet distributed in Macalester College (MN), lists the French Embassy as one of the sponsors. One cannot help but note that the intellectual who helped justify eradication policies in Algeria in the 1990s is being paraded in the United States now when Washington is in need of solid justifications for its “redirection” policies…
22. See Fouzi Slisli, “The Western Media and the Algerian Crisis,” Race and Class, (Vol. 41, No. 3, 2000), pp. 43-57.
23. Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection.”
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Mirella Hodeib, “Geagea launches Broadside at Nasrallah,” The Daily Star, (April 11, 2007).
27. Joseph Massad, “Pinochet in Palestine,” Al-Ahram Weekly, (November 9-15, 2006).
28. “Christian Library, Internet Café Bombed in Gaza,” AFP, (April 15, 2007) <http://news.yahoo. com/s/afp/20070415/wl_mideast_afp/mideastunrest>, retrieved on April 16, 2007.
29. Nidal al-Mughrabi, “BBC ‘concerned’ by Claim Gaza Correspondent Killed,” Reuters, (April 15, 2007)< http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070415/ wl_nm/palestinians_journalist_dc> Retrieved on April 16, 2007.
30. Warren Strobel, “US. Steps up Campaign against Syrian Government,” McClatchy Newspapers, (March 30, 2007); see also Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection.”
31. William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Terror in Iran.”