America’s Foreign Policy Fiasco

September 29, 2011 "The Diplomat" --- US President Barack Obama is piling up the foreign policy disasters.


In at least three areas crucial for world peace and US interests – Arab-Israel tensions, Afghanistan-Pakistan and Yemen-Somalia – he’s pursuing a course that can only be described as foolhardy. Indeed, the anger and hate towards the United States that he’s generating could take a generation to dispel.
Obama’s abject surrender to Israel on the Palestine question has shocked much of the world and gravely damaged the United States’ standing among Arabs and Muslims. In what is seen by many as an effort to court the Jewish vote at next year’s presidential election, Obama has thrown into reverse the policy of outreach to the Muslim world that he expressed so eloquently in his 2009 Cairo speech. If he’s now driven to use the US veto at the UN Security Council to block the application of a Palestinian state for UN membership, he will have been defeated by the very forces of Islamophobia he once hoped to tame.

Obama’s policy in Afghanistan is equally perverse. On the one hand, he seems to want to draw the Taliban into negotiations. But on the other, some of his army chiefs and senior diplomats apparently want to destroy the Taliban first. This is hardly a policy likely to bring the insurgents to the table. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Crocker, the new US ambassador to Kabul, actually said that the conflict should continue until more of the Taliban are killed. Who, one wonders, is in charge of US policy?

In a message on the occasion of the Eid at the end of Ramadan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban, seemed to hint at his readiness for a comprehensive negotiation. ‘Every legitimate option can be considered,’ he said,’ in order to reach the goal of an independent Islamic regime in Afghanistan.’ He urged foreign powers to withdraw their troops ‘immediately’ in order to achieve a lasting solution to the problem. In a gesture to his local opponents, he stressed that the Taliban didn’t wish to monopolize power and that all ethnicities would participate in a ‘real Islamic regime acceptable to all the people of the country.’ More >>>

Location:Islamabad

Pakistan PM: 'We won't be pressured by US' on Haqqanis

Adm Mullen has described the Haqqani group as a ‘veritable arm’ of Pakistan’s spy agency.





Pakistan will not bow to US pressure to step up its fight against militancy, its prime minister has said.

Yousuf Raza Gilani told a rare meeting of political and religious parties that relations between the two countries should be based on mutual respect.
Relations have hit new lows since the top US military officer said Pakistan backed the Haqqani militant group in Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan rejects.

Correspondents say many Pakistanis see the US comments as a threat of war. Washington wants Islamabad to sever links with the Haqqani group, which analysts say has roots deep inside Pakistani territory. US officials say they are close to deciding whether to label the group as a foreign terrorist organisation.

“Pakistan cannot be pressured to do more,” Mr Gilani told the meeting in Islamabad. More >>>

Location: Islamabad

UNITAR is pleased to announce its new online courses

UNITAR is pleased to announce its new online courses on:
Drafting and Adopting United Nations Resolutions (in English), which will take place from 3 to 28 October 2011.

Chairing International Conferences (in English), which will take place from 10 to 21 October 2011.


These courses target members of the diplomatic community as well as government officials, staff of international and non-governmental organizations, professionals from the private sector, and post-graduate students. We would be grateful if you could share this information within your diplomatic academy and with your colleagues who may be interested in taking this course.

More information about the course content, fee, and registration is available at:

http://www.unitar.org/event/drafting-2011

http://www.unitar.org/event/chairing-international-conferences-oct11



Should you need further information, please contact the Multilateral Diplomacy Programme Team at: mdp-elearning@unitar.org

Location:Cayman Islands

Back to square one

The diplomatic battle over negotiations for a treaty banning the production of bomb making nuclear material will shift next week to the UN’s General Assembly in New York.


The GA’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security will be the venue for renewed debate over how to get discussions started in the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on a Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT).

These discussions could set the stage and give a direction to what happens next year in the CD. For now Pakistan’s demand that the proposed treaty should include reduction of fissile material stockpiles and not just ban future production – a position supported by many nations – has halted talks in the world’s sole multilateral negotiating body on disarmament.

The upcoming debate in the First Committee will take place against the backdrop of a diplomatic climb down by the US, which had for the past year or more, been threatening to take the FMCT negotiations outside the CD if the stalemate persisted. More >>>

Location:Islamabad

The Economy, Peak Oil and Permaculture

Richard Heinberg- Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute is a Permaculturist.


His latest book describes The End of Growth- isn't looking for when the recession will end and we'll get back to "normal". He believes our decades-long era of growth was based on aberrant set of conditions- namely cheap oil, but also cheap minerals, cheap food, etc- and that looking ahead, we need to prepare for a "new normal". The problem, according to Heinberg, is our natural resources just aren't so cheap and plentiful anymore, and he's not just talking about Peak Oil, Heinberg believes in Peak Everything (also the title of one of his books). Heinberg thinks for many, adjusting to a life where everything costs a bit more, could be very hard, but he also thinks the transition to a new normal might actually make life better. "Particularly in the Western industrialized countries we've gotten used to levels of consumption that are not only environmentally unsustainable, they also don't make us happy. They've in fact hollowed out our lives. We've given up things that actually do give us satisfaction and pleasure so that we can work more and more hours to get more and more money with which to buy more and more stuff- more flatscreen tvs, bigger SUVs, bigger houses and it's not making us happier. Well, guess what, it's possible to downsize, it's possible to use less, become more self sufficient, grow more of your own food, have chickens in your backyard and be a happier person." This is not all theoretical. In the backyard of the home Heinberg shares with his wife, Janet Barocco, the couple grow most of their food during the summer months (i.e. 25 fruit & nut trees, veggies, potatoes.. they're just lack grains), raise chickens for eggs, capture rainwater, bake with solar cookers and a solar food drier and secure energy with photovoltaic and solar hot water panels. Their backyard reflects Heinberg's vision for our "new normal" and it's full of experiments, like the slightly less than 120-square-foot cottage that was inspired by the Small Home Movement. It was built with the help of some of Heinberg's college students (in one of the nation's first sustainability classes) using recycled and natural materials (like lime plaster). Heinberg admits it's not a real tiny house experiment since they don't actually live in it- his wife uses it as a massage studio, he meditates there and sometimes it's used as a guest house (though that's hush hush due to permitting issues). But their tiny cottage points to the bigger point behind why a transition to a less resource intensive future could equal greater happiness. "Simplify. Pay less attention to all of the stuff in your life and pay more attention to what's really important. Maybe for you it's gardening, maybe for you it's painting or music. You know we all have stuff that gives us real pleasure and most of us find we have less and less time for that because we have to devote so much time to shopping, paying bills and driving from here to there and so on. Well, how about if we cut out some of that stuff and spend more time doing what really feeds us emotionally and spiritually and in some cases even nutritionally." http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=cl8ZHDQQY7I

Shades of George Bush: You are either for us or against us

Pakistan must do more in al Qaeda fight, Biden says

Pakistan has been an unreliable ally of the United States in the war against al Qaeda and other extremist organizations, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview set to air in full Monday night.



Biden, who spoke to CNN's John King on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, said Pakistan has failed "on occasion" when forced to choose between the United States and al Qaeda.

The price of Pakistan's choices has been the "loss of life of American soldiers in Afghanistan," the vice president said. Islamabad has "been very helpful in other times," he added. "But it's not sufficient. They have to get better. We need a relationship that is born out of mutual interest. And it's in their interest that they be more cooperative with us." "We are demanding it," he said. More >>>
"Mutual interest" is usually beneficial for both sides, so is the Vice President confused? Editor?

Location: Islamabad

Amano's Influence and the IAEA Fall Meetings

This month the two decision-making bodies of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the Board of Governors and the General Conference—will convene back-to-back meetings in Vienna.


On the agenda will be a range of pressing issues, including the Middle East, Iran, North Korea, and the aftermath of the nuclear accident in Fukushima.

In a Q&A, Mark Hibbs explains that the deliberations will underscore the weakness of the IAEA’s leadership compared to its 151 member states. They—and not Director General Yukiya Amano—will call the shots on all important agenda items. More >>>

Location: Islamabad

The Peak Oil Crisis: Efficiency is the Solution

If there is a way to get through the loss of fossil fuels, it lies in developing new and more efficient ways to generate renewable energy and more efficient ways of utilizing the fossil fuels we have left.


Renewable sources currently provide only 16 percent of our energy in the U.S. and 11 percent of our electric power. Unless the production of these renewables can be increased substantially in the next 50 years and the efficiency with which we use energy increased many fold, then the world is going to become a very dark and stagnant place.
There is running debate going on between people who believe all is lost without copious supplies of fossil fuels to power the global civilization and those who believe that the conservation and efficiency that will come with very high fossil fuel prices will provide a recognizable future for civilization. The great unknowns in all this is whether there will be sufficient financial and other resources available to effect the transition and whether or not the damage wrought by a changing climate will be so serious that a global transition to renewable energy will be difficult if not impossible.

For the immediate future, however, much of what life in the future will be like will depend on the technologies that will enable civilization to continue while using only a fraction of the energy that is consumed today and to develop the technology to produce large quantities of cheaper renewable fuels. The manner in which our fossil fuels are being used is so wasteful of the energy contained in fossil fuels that major reductions can be made with little real impact on the activities that consume energy. The prime examples of this waste is the internal combustion engine which uses only 14 percent of its fuel to turn the wheels while wasting most of the rest. Huge central power plants waste most of the energy that devours coal and natural gas, and produce much waste heat that is dumped into the air or local water bodies or in line losses. Without the massive waste, the fossil fuel age could last a lot longer. More >>>

Location:Amman, Jordan

"Was War the Only Answer to 9/11?

September 05, 2011 "Nation Of Change" -- This is the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world.


The impact of the attacks is not in doubt. Just keeping to western and central Asia: Afghanistan is barely surviving, Iraq has been devastated and Pakistan is edging closer to a disaster that could be catastrophic.
On May 1, 2011, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan. The most immediate significant consequences have also occurred in Pakistan. There has been much discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden. Less has been said about the fury among Pakistanis that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor had already intensified in Pakistan, and these events have stoked it further.

One of the leading specialists on Pakistan, British military historian Anatol Lieven, wrote in The National Interest in February that the war in Afghanistan is “destabilizing and radicalizing Pakistan, risking a geopolitical catastrophe for the United States – and the world – which would dwarf anything that could possibly occur in Afghanistan.”

At every level of society, Lieven writes, Pakistanis overwhelmingly sympathize with the Afghan Taliban, not because they like them but because “the Taliban are seen as a legitimate force of resistance against an alien occupation of the country,” much as the Afghan mujahedeen were perceived when they resisted the Russian occupation in the 1980s.
More >>>

Location: Islamabad

US drone strike kills 7 in NW Pakistan

A non-UN-sanctioned US drone attack has killed at least seven people and wounded several others in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region.
The causalities come after US drones targeted suspected militants in an area of North Waziristan tribal region, Xinhua reported.


The US frequently carries out such attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas. Attacks by unmanned American planes have left dozens of people dead in the volatile region over the past weeks.

The aerial attacks, initiated by former US president George W. Bush, have been escalated under President Barack Obama. Washington claims the attacks target al-Qaeda-linked and pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. However, locals insist that the strikes kill mostly civilians.

The issue of civilian casualties has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington. Pakistan has repeatedly condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, asserting that such attacks have proven counterproductive in the so-called war against terrorism.

The United Nations says the US-operated drone strikes in Pakistan pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law.

Philip Alston, UN special envoy on extrajudicial killings, said in a report in late October 2010 that the attacks were undermining the rules designed to protect the right of life. Alston also said he feared that the drone killings by the US Central Intelligence Agency could develop a “playstation” mentality.
More >>>

Location: Islamabad

Iran Moves to Shelter Its Nuclear Fuel Program

Iran is moving its most critical nuclear fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it is less vulnerable to attack from the air and, the Iranians hope, the kind of cyberattack that crippled its nuclear program, according to intelligence officials.


The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Fereydoon Abbasi, spoke about the transfer in general terms on Monday to an official Iranian news service. He boasted that his country would produce the fuel in much larger quantities than it needs for a small research reactor in Tehran that produces l isotopes.

The fact that Iran is declaring that its production will exceed its needs has reinforced the suspicions of many American and European intelligence officials that Iran plans to use the fuel to build weapons or to train Iranian scientists to produce bomb-grade fuel. More >>>

Location:Amman, Jordan