OPCW Statement on Syria Investigation

Statement on Syria Investigation 21 March 2013

The Secretary General of the United Nations hasmade an announcement that he wishes the OPCW to be part of an investigation into an incident which according to Syrian authorities might have involved the use of a chemical munition.

The OPCW stands ready to extend its full support to the Secretary-General.

While allegations of this nature are not new to conflict situations, they are nonetheless serious, especially in the context of Syria which is not a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. This remains a matter of serious concern.

As indicated by the Secretary-General, a mission of this nature, especially given the security situation inside Syria, requires careful planning. The OPCW will work closely with the United Nations in the establishment and conduct of this mission. More

 

Privatization Leads To Catastrophic Loss Of Cambodia’sTropical Flooded Grasslands

Around half of Cambodia's tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity. It is a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people.

Research published today in the journal Conservation Biology quantifies for the first time the area's catastrophic loss of tropical flooded grassland.

The grassland area spanned 3349 km² in 1995, but by 2005 it had been reduced to just 1817 km² -- a loss of 46 percent.

Despite conservation efforts in some areas, it has continued to shrink rapidly since, with a further 19 percent lost in four years (2005-2009) from the key remaining grassland area in the southeast of the Tonle Sap floodplain.

Factors include intensive commercial rice farming with construction of irrigation channels, which is often illegal. Some areas have also been lost to scrubland where traditional, low-intensity agricultural activity has been abandoned.

The research has been led by Dr Charlotte Packman from UEA's school of Environmental Sciences, in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia Program and BirdLife International. It was funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

Dr Packman said: "Tropical and flooded grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems globally. The area around the Tonle Sap lake is the largest remaining tropical flooded grassland in Southeast Asia. It is hugely important to both biodiversity and the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest communities. Our research shows that these grasslands are disappearing at an alarming rate.

"These unique grasslands are home to many threatened birds including by far the largest remaining population of the critically endangered Bengal florican -- the world's rarest bustard. This bird has experienced a dramatic population decline of 44 percent in seven years due to the destruction of its grassland habitat. Other birds under threat in this area include sarus cranes, storks, ibises and eagles.

"Rural communities have been left vulnerable to land-grabbing and privatization of communal grasslands. Traditional, low-intensity use of the grasslands by these communities, such as burning and cattle-grazing, help to maintain the grasslands and prevent scrubland from invading.

"Intensive commercial rice production by private companies, involving the construction of huge channels and reservoirs for irrigation, is denying local communities access to the grasslands on which their livelihoods depend and destroying a very important habitat for threatened wildlife. More

 

Climate change and water mismanagement parch Egypt

Climate change, a fast growing population, ill-designed infrastructure, high levels of pollution and lack of law enforcement have made Egypt a country thirsty for water — both in terms of quantity and quality.

The River Nile, which is considered poor by many experts and hydrologists, lies at lower altitude than the rest of the country. Massive electric pumps extract the water from the river’s bed and canals and direct it to industry, agriculture and for individual water use.

A significant portion of the water contained in Lake Nasser’s 5,000 square kilometer basin is lost to evaporation, while old networks of leaking pipes also deprive the country of satisfactory access to its most important resource: water.

In order to debate water scarcity in Egypt, its causes, and how climate change makes the issue more pressing than ever, as well as looking to solutions, a panel of experts were invited to participate in the 13th Cairo Climate Talk last week entitled “Growing Thirst: Sustainable Water Solutions for Egypt.”

Tarek Kotb, the First Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, and a member of the panel discussion, talked about the dwindling water share per capita with a sense of urgency. “Every year, the Egyptian population grows by 1.8 million, while the annual quota of Nile water allocated to Egypt, 55 billion cubic meters, has remained unchanged since the 1959 Nile Water Agreement,” he says.

While Egyptians in the 1960s could enjoy a water share per capita of 2800 cubic meters for all purposes, the current share has dropped to 660 cubic meters today—below the international standard defining water poverty of 1000 cubic meters.

Kotb estimates that Egypt is gradually going to leave the stage of water scarcity and enter a phase of drastic water stress in the next 40 years, if no sustainable water management is put in place.

“By 2050, there will be about 160 million Egyptians and only 370 cubic meters of water per capita,” he says. While Egypt has other options for its water needs, such as tapping into groundwater basins and desalinating sea-water, the bulk of water is still extracted from the Nile, leading to longstanding tensions with the other Nile basin countries.

The treaty signed under colonial rule in 1959 granted Egypt and Sudan most of the Nile water share, while upstream countries were given access to a very small allocation of water. Lama al-Hatow, a hydrologist and one of the founders of the Water Institute for the Nile (WIN) condemns Egypt’s historical and ongoing hydro hegemony, by which the country claims its entitlement to benefit from most of the Nile water.

“A lot of science has been published on how not to lose water if the Ethiopian Millennium Dam is built, but it is not given much attention by the politicians,” Hatow says. “The upstream countries have the right to develop,” she says, “and there are ways to make it happen without Egypt losing water.”

She adds that preventing water evaporation in Lake Nasser could even increase Egypt’s water share.

Kotb responding to her remarks, saying that Egypt is investing millions of dollars in Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia to overcome losses due to evaporation in marshes and basins. “We don’t deny these countries’ right to development; actually, we help them,” he said.

Claudia Bürkin, the Water Sector Coordinator for the German Development Cooperation and Senior Programme Manager at KfW Development Bank, explains that Egypt’s water resources face two main challenges: water loss and bad quality.

“Egypt loses about 50% of its freshwater through poor maintenance of supplies and distribution problems, and the water is polluted,” she says, stressing that a significant number of diseases are water borne. Polluted water also affects the ecosystems’ balance, the soil quality, and seeps into the aquifers. “Egypt needs to set up strong standards for water quality and control the drainage nutrients, pesticides and waste found in the water.”

Kotb admits that while most of the issues and potential solutions have been identified by the government, much needs to be done in terms of implementation of existing laws and stronger cooperation between ministries.

“Water management is not the mandate of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation exclusively, which makes the implementation process so much harder,” he says.

A National Water Resource Plan was established a few years ago, Kotb says, to curb the amount of pollution in the Nile emanating from cruise boats, factories, industries and villagers deprived of a waste management system. As part of this, he explains, factories located close to the Nile or the canals have been moved further away from the water streams, and new industries will be prevented from setting up a plant within 20km from the water.

“Law 48 on pollution has been reviewed and the penalties will be tougher,” he says. Meanwhile, Hatow argues that enforcing stronger penalties is not the solution to prevent farmers from polluting.

“Instead of punishing them, we should give farmers incentives to make better use of water, and provide them with premium crops,” she says.

The conversation then shifted to the effects of climate change, which can already be felt in the Northern part of the Delta and in the Mediterranean coastal cities of Damietta and Rosetta. The gradual rise in sea levels taking place turns fields into barren land unfit for agriculture, and the sea water that infiltrates the Nile is reaching further and further away from the coast.

“In order to keep a good yield and maintain agricultural production,” says Kotb, “we need to use more fresh water to combat rising temperatures.”

Lama’s take on how to combat climate change is quite different from this. “We need to study community based resilience techniques to figure out how local and indigenous knowledge can provide answers and climate resilience.”

- See more at: http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/climate-change-and-water-mismanagement-parch-egypt#sthash.NavKkkxR.dpuf

 

Satellite Tracking of Middle East Aquifers Points to the End of ‘Data Denial’

Jay Famiglietti, one of the authors of an important new study on the rapid depletion of aquifers under the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, has posted an excellent overview of the work and its context for policy, and noted that he and other authors are preparing for a two-week “water diplomacy” tour to discuss their findings in the affected region.

The project shows how improving systems for observing and analyzing environmental trends are brightening prospects for better management of resources and risks in struggling regions — even when governments might not want the information revealed. This is as true for forests as it is here for water supplies.

Here are some notable excerpts from Famiglietti’s post, which is particularly notable given President Obama’s planned visit to the Middle East this spring:

Worse to come:

Our team’s expectation is that the water situation in the Middle East will only degrade with time, primarily due to climate change. The best available science indicates that the arid and semi-arid regions of the world will become even more so: the dry areas of the world will become drier (while conversely, the wet areas will become wetter). Consequences for the Middle East include more prolonged drought, which means that the underground aquifers that store the region’s groundwater will not be replenished during our lifetimes, nor during those of future generations.

Management and transparency:

We cannot reverse climate change and its impact on water availability, but we can and must do a far better job with water management, including the modernization of national and international water policy. Our research and its implications point to the following critical needs, not only for the Middle East, but in all regions of the world where groundwater resources are in decline.

First, it’s high time for groundwater to be included under the water management umbrella. In most of the world, groundwater pumping is unmonitored and unregulated.

It is as true in much of the U. S. as it is in the Middle East. That’s no different than making withdrawals from a savings account without keeping track of the amount or the remaining balance: irresponsible without question, and a recipe for disaster when multiple account holders are acting independently.

Second, since nearly 80% of the world’s water resources are used to support agriculture, continued improvements in agricultural and irrigation conservation and efficiency should be an important focus for research, development, investment and cooperation. In the Middle East, some countries, notably Israel, are pioneers of efficiency, while others are less advanced. Much of the technology is in place. It just needs to be disseminated and embraced across the entire region.

Third, our report and others that have preceded it clearly demonstrate that satellite technology has advanced to the point where a reliable assessment of regional hydrology can be produced with little access to observations on the ground. Our 2009 study of groundwater depletion in India is yet another example of current capabilities. My point is that data denial policies amongst nations will ultimately be rendered obsolete. It will be far better to share key measurements now, to enhance and fully utilize the satellite picture for mutually beneficial water management in the long term.

For more on efficient water use in agriculture in dry regions, click back to my post on the pioneering work on drip irrigation by Daniel Hillel and read about how solar-powered pumping systems and drip irrigation are improving incomes and lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

Another relevant resource is this 2009 World Bank publication: “Water in the Arab World: Management Perspectives and Innovations.” More

 

Inside Story Americas : Are US drone strikes a war crime?

Inside Story Americas : Are US drone strikes a war crime?

Published onOct 27, 2012byAlJazeeraEnglish

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A special unit is being set up to investigate the legality of US drone strikes but the White House appears unapologetic. Is the White House trying to buffer and widen its scope of targeted killings with controversial new legislations? Shihab Rattansi speaks to Greg Miller, and Hina Shamsi.

Drones: A Non-Issue in U.S. Presidential Debate Riles Pakistan

It was something both candidates could agree on. Near the end of the last debate between President Barack Obama and his opponent Mitt Romney on Monday, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the Republican presidential candidate where he stood on the U.S.’s “use of drones.”

Predator drone, Southern Afghanistan

Romney voiced his support for the President’s ongoing policy of using unmanned weapons to attack terrorist targets, saying the U.S. should be ready by “any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world.” In a conversation that ranged from U.S. education to trade with China, Obama and Romney saw eye to eye on a several foreign policy points, but none generated as little debate as the Obama Administration’s increased dependence on drone technology, which has proved to be such a nonissue in this presidential race that it merited only a few words from Romney, and none at all from the sitting President.

But if Schieffer were to bring up drones among politicians in Islamabad today, a few more sparks might fly. The U.S. has been using drones to target parts of the country that lie on the border with Afghanistan since 2004 in an ongoing campaign to root out militants working against U.S. troops and interests. Many in Pakistan say that its governments in the past eight years have been complicit in — if not covertly supportive of — the campaign, if simply by dint of the fact that it has not taken up what’s a clear breach of sovereignty with any international legal body. Most of the drone strikes take place in parts of Pakistan that are both physically and socially remote from the rest of the country. Few journalists have been permitted to go into these specially administered areas to see what the drones do firsthand, and while compiled reports from groups like the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism put the total number of people killed in drone strikes as high as 3,365, including 176 children, these figures have been questioned by parties both inside and outside Pakistan in the absence of official data from either government.

Pakistan’s domestic debate over drone attacks gained momentum last year, when relations between the country and the U.S. soured after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad. It has become even louder still in recent weeks, after cricketer turned politician Imran Khan staged a widely publicized demonstration against the strikes. Khan’s plan was to march all the way to Waziristan, a border area where most of the drone strikes are reportedly happening. Though the military stopped his thousands-strong rally from entering the area on security grounds, the campaign did bring the conversation back into the spotlight, and forced others in Pakistan’s political arena to take a position on a subject that many would prefer to avoid. “All over the country, resistance has been building to drone attacks,” says Javed Hashmi, the president of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. “Drones are killing children and creating suicide attackers. You can’t win a war this way. Now international resistance is growing, even in the U.S.”

He’s right about that. A recent Pew Global Attitudes survey found that in “17 of 20 countries, more than half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders and groups in nations such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.” And in Pakistan, many suggest that the drone campaign, while it may be fulfilling an immediate objective of picking off militants who support the fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, is actually working against America’s long-term interests in the country. As reports continue to emerge of the strikes’ negative impact on civilians in the border area, people all over the country are beginning to feel fed up. “When everybody turns against [the strikes], they lose their political purpose,” says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst in Lahore. “It contributes to anti-Americanism in Pakistan.” More

 

 

The Great Transition, Part I: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy

The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way. As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about pollution and climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging.

The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced with an economy powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The Earth’s renewable energy resources are vast and available to be tapped through visionary initiatives. Our civilization needs to embrace renewable energy on a scale and at a pace we’ve never seen before.

We inherited our current fossil fuel based world energy economy from another era. The 19th century was the century of coal, and oil took the lead during the 20th century. Today, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the principal climate-altering greenhouse gas—come largely from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Coal, mainly used for electricity generation, accounts for 44 percent of global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions. Oil, used primarily for transportation, accounts for 36 percent. Natural gas, used for electricity and heating, accounts for the remaining 20 percent. It is time to design a carbon- and pollution-free energy economy for the 21st century.

Some trends are already moving in the right direction. The burning of coal, for example, is declining in many countries. In the United States, the number two coal consumer after China, coal use dropped 14 percent from 2007 to 2011 as dozens of coal plants were closed. This trend is expected to continue, due in part to widespread opposition to coal now being organized by the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

Oil is used to produce just 5 percent of the world’s electricity generation and is becoming ever more costly. Because oil is used mainly for transport, we can phase it out by electrifying the transport system. Plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars can run largely on clean electricity. Wind-generated electricity to operate cars could cost the equivalent of 80-cent-per gallon gasoline.

As oil reserves are being depleted, the world has been turning its attention to plant-based energy sources. Their potential use is limited, though, because plants typically convert less than 1 percent of solar energy into biomass.

Crops can be used to produce automotive fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Investments in U.S. corn-based ethanol distilleries became hugely profitable when oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The investment frenzy that followed was also fueled by government mandates and subsidies. In 2011, the world produced 23 billion gallons of fuel ethanol and nearly 6 billion gallons of biodiesel.

But the more research that’s done on liquid biofuels, the less attractive they become. Every acre planted in corn for ethanol means pressure for another acre to be cleared elsewhere for crop production. Clearing land in the tropics for biofuel crops can increase greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing them. Energy crops cannot compete with land-efficient wind power. More

 

Earthquake-Causing Fracking to Be Allowed within 500 Feet of Nuclear Plants

Nuclear Plants Vulnerable to Earthquakes

The American government has officially stated that fracking can cause earthquakes. Some fracking companies now admit this fact The scientific community agrees. See this, this, this, this and this.

Earthquakes can – of course – damage nuclear power plants. For example, even the operator of Fukushima and the Japanese government now admit that the nuclear cores might have started melting down before the tsuanmi ever hit. More here.

Indeed, the fuel pools and rods at Fukushima appear to have “boiled”, caught fire and/or exploded soon after the earthquake knocked out power systems. See this, this, this, this and this. And fuel pools in the United States store an average of ten times more radioactive fuel than stored at Fukushima, have virtually no safety features, and are vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks. And see this.

Indeed, American reactors may be even more vulnerable to earthquakes than Fukushima.

But American nuclear “regulators” have allowed numerous nuclear power plants to be built in earthquake zones:

And they have cover up the risks from earthquakes for years … just like theJapanese regulators did. For example:

• The NRC won’t even begin conducting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing is complete in 2013, because the NRC doesn’t consider a big earthquake “a serious risk”

• Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)

• We have 4 reactors in California – 2 at San Onofre 2 at San Luis Obisbo – which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis

For example, Diablo Canyon is located on numerous earthquake faults, and a state legislator and seismic expert says it could turn into California’s Fukushima:

On July 26th 2011 the California Energy Commission held hearings concerning the state’s nuclear safety. During those hearings, the Chairman of the Commission asked governments experts whether or not they felt the facilities could withstand the maximum credible quake. The response was that they did not know.This is similar to what happened at Fukushima: seismologists dire warnings were ignored (and see this.)

Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t even take earthquake risk into account when deciding whether or not to relicense plants like Diablo Canyon. More

 

What the drones protest march in Waziristan aims to achieve

Sports star turned politician Imran Khan and civil rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith will highlight US drones' innocent victims

The British civil rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and international cricketer turned politician Imran Khan will begin a peace march on 7 October into Pakistan's Waziristan region. Their aim is to highlight the plight of innocent people killed or injured by US drones.

Smith took the precautionary measure of writing to President Obama and his CIA director, David Petraeus, informing them about the march. In the letter, he requested that the president ensure the names of him and the other marchers would not be on the weekly kill list the president reviews, along with security officials, in the White House situation room. Smith wrote:

"Please remember that you and I are both lawyers from the same tradition, and it would be unseemly (as well as being both illegal and upsetting for my family) if you were to authorize my assassination."

Like the sealed corridors in which the top secret kill list nomination process occurs – an account of which was reportedly leaked by theObama administration to the New York Times – Waziristan has, until now, remained in the shadows, a place about which very little is known or reported. It is hoped the march will help open the area to public scrutiny by taking media there to gather independent information.

Smith's letter also highlighted problems with the president's drone strategy, such as using the same intelligence that populated Guantánamo Bay. I think it's fair to assume intelligence-gathering has improved – one certainly hopes so, considering 88% of Guantánamo's 779 detainees were cleared for release. But of greater note is how Obama campaigned against President Bush by criticising his policy of imprisoning without trial – yet has chosen to kill individuals without trial.

There's no evidence those in Waziristan deemed America's enemies have either the will or ability to threaten America from thousands of miles away, Smith wrote. The region's threat extends, at most, to Pakistan, which should be allowed to resolve its own problems – as those such as Imran Khan argue that it is capable of doing. But on this point, I sympathise with Obama, since the Pakistan government has mastered the art of emitting mixed signals and behaves as an unreliable ally. Eyebrows that were raised over Osama bin Laden being found next to the Pakistan military academy in Abbottabad have yet to find reason to be lowered.

Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove doesn't come close to matching that logic for war room farce.

US concern over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is also understandable, and Smith's letter acknowledged that further radicalization of Waziristan is a threat to Pakistan and global security. But the US's chosen course of action undermines its objective, resulting in damage to its reputation, a failure to win hearts and minds – evidenced by research showing 97% of Pakistanis opposed to US action within their territory – and culminating in what Smith calls the "desperate failure of US policy". Wailing Iraqi mothers and maimed Afghan children whom I saw during operational tours with the British army vouch for that. More

 

Extrajudicial Drone Assassinations

Unnecessary and Disproportional: The Killings of Anwar and Abdul Rahman al-Awlaki

One year since the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki CagePrisoners publishes a report which reveals what role he really played in the Al-Qaeda leadership

“As for my husband who was assassinated by a US drone exactly one year from today, I believe strongly that his killing has nothing to do with the allegations by the US that he has links to terrorist attacks, but rather to silence him because of his influence on Muslims in the Western world as a Muslim scholar and preacher…the drone programme is wrong and illegal because it kills a lot more civilians than so called [high] valuable targets.”– Gihan Mohsen Baker, wife of Anwar al-Awlaki

Exactly a year ago, American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike carried out by the US in Northern Yemen – only one of scores that are dying as part of a programme of extrajudicial killings.

On the anniversary of his killing, CagePrisoners releases its report “Unnecessary and Disproportional: The Killing of Anwar and Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki”.

This report analyses and challenges the narrative developed by various governments and media outlets to justify the assassination of the Muslim cleric, presenting him as a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the mastermind behind several attacks against the USA. The report also highlights how dangerous such a narrative can be as it extends to include the targeting and killing of Awlaki’s 16 year old son, also an American citizen, a few days later.

With only a few weeks left until Election Day, most people will be focused on the election campaigns of President Obama – few will remember that it is under Obama’s leadership that the policy of targeted killings has intensified and expanded.

This report will throw light on the legal and moral inconsistencies that appear as a Nobel Peace Prize winning President continues developing his drone programme enabling him to carry out extra-judicial killings across the globe, picking off targets on a ‘kill list’ once a week.

Through the case study of Anwar and Abdur Rahman al-Awlaki, questions are also raised about the UK’s involvement in targeted killings as more evidence emerges of British citizens that have been killed in drone attacks including evidence to suggest that British authorities actively assist the CIA in its drone programme.

CagePrisoners demands complete transparency in relation to the process by which individuals are placed on President Obama’s ‘kill list’, independent investigations into civilian deaths and injuries during drone strikes and the end to British complicity and the complicity of any other States, with US drone strikes. More

Download full report here

 

Drone Warfare's Deadly Civilian Toll: A British Drone Pilot Speaks Out

I find myself caught between the need to follow the drone debate and the need to avoid unpleasant memories it stirs. I used drones – unmanned aerial vehicles – during the nadir of my military career that was an operational tour in Afghanistan.

I remember cuing up a US Predator strike before deciding the computer screen wasn't depicting a Taliban insurgent burying an improvised explosive device in the road; rather, a child playing in the dirt.

After returning from Afghanistan at the end of 2009, I left the British army in 2010. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between myself and the UK, leaving to study in America (where I still reside). By doing so, I inadvertently placed myself in the country that is spearheading development in drone technology and use, highlighted by each report of a drone strike and the usual attendant civilian casualties.

Political theorist Hannah Arendt described the history of warfare in the 20th century as the growing incapacity of the army to fulfil its basic function: defending the civilian population. My experiences in Afghanistan brought this issue to a head, leaving me unable to avoid the realization that my role as a soldier had changed, in Arendt's words, from "that of protector into that of a belated and essentially futile avenger". Our collective actions in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 were, and remain, futile vengeance – with drones the latest technological advance to empower that flawed strategy.

Drones are becoming the preferred instruments of vengeance, and their core purpose is analogous to the changing relationship between civil society and warfare, in which the latter is conducted remotely and at a safe distance so that implementing death and murder becomes increasingly palatable.

Hyperbole? But I was there. I sat in my camouflaged combats and I took the rules of engagement and ethical warfare classes. And frankly, I don't buy much, if any, of it now – especially concerning drones. Their effectiveness is without question, but there's terrible fallout from their rampant use.

Both Pakistan and Yemen are arguably less stable and more hostile to the west as a result of President Obama's increased reliance on drones. When surveying the poisoned legacy left to the Iraqi people, and what will be left to the Afghan people, it's beyond depressing to hear of the hawks circling around other theatres like Pakistan and Yemen, stoking the flames of interventionism.

I fear the folly in which I took part will never end, and society will be irreversibly enmeshed in what George Orwell's 1984 warned of: constant wars against the Other, in order to forge false unity and fealty to the state.

It's very easy to kill if you don't view the target as a person. When I went to Iraq as a tank commander in 2004, the fire orders I gave the gunner acknowledged some legitimacy of personhood: "Coax man, 100 meters front." Five years later in Afghanistan, the linguistic corruption that always attends war meant we'd refer to "hot spots", "multiple pax on the ground" and "prosecuting a target", or "maximising the kill chain".

The Pentagon operates about 7,000 drones and asked Congress for nearly $5bn for drones in the 2012 budget. Before retiring as air force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz was reported as saying it "was 'conceivable' drone pilots in the air force would outnumber those in cockpits in the foreseeable future". That's not a brave new world, far from it.

The encroachment of drones into the civilian realm is also gaining momentum. President Obama signed a federal law on 14 February 2012, allowing drones for a variety of commercial uses and for police law enforcement. The skies above may never be the same. As with most of America's darker elements, such as its gun culture, there's profit to be made – the market for drones is already valued at $5.9bn and is expected to double in 10 years. More

 

A Nuclear Deal Helps Human Rights in Iran

No diplomatic deal to solve the Iranian nuclear standoff will be possible if it does not allow Tehran’s leadership to proclaim some measure of victory—most probably a recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium for civilian reactors. This creates a profound dilemma for the United States and other Western powers who deplore the Iranian regime’s repression of democracy and human rights.

Anything that benefits the Iranian regime must be bad, right? Wrong. A nuclear deal that averts war (which would cause even greater human suffering in Iran) need not betray Iranian democrats nor preclude U.S. advocacy of their cause.

Ronald Reagan and other American presidents made arms control deals with the Soviet Union while still seeking an end to its totalitarian empire. So, too, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney could negotiate verifiable measures to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons without undermining Iranian human rights and democracy advocates.

The objective of negotiations is—as it was with the Soviets—to eliminate risks of nuclear proliferation and war in the wider Middle East. The United States and Iran can continue to denounce each other’s political systems, counter each other’s power projection in the region, and seek history’s vindication of the relative merits of each other’s cause, but within a framework that precludes terrorism and hot war.

Iranian democrats and human rights activists are long-suffering. After the United States and the United Kingdom overthrew nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, Iranians experienced three decades of repressive rule under the U.S.-backed Shah. The 1979 revolution brought early hope, but the forces of democracy and modernity were soon crushed by acolytes of the Ayatollah Khomeini. More

 

WB for international cooperation on river basins for food, water security

ISLAMABAD: Against a backdrop of increased volatility in international food prices and energy supply, due in part to water availability, a new World Bank report calls for greater international cooperation on 80% of the world's rivers that cross national boundaries.

"Overcoming barriers to international cooperation on river basins is critical for future food, energy and water security" says the new report released this week at World Water Week in Stockholm.

With water scarcity increasing in many parts of the world, governments must find ways to maximize the use of water for multiple, often competing uses: growing populations requiring food security; rapid urbanization increasing domestic and industrial demand; the ever-increasing need for clean electricity; tourism and recreation; and environmental management, the report says.

"Within a nation, any two of these multiple interests can be at odds," said World Bank Vice President for Middle East and North Africa Inger Andersen.

"Add international boundaries and the complexity grows substantially. The key challenge - and opportunity - for riparian nations is to manage perceptions of risk, and benefit from lessons of experience where cooperation has worked demonstrably, benefiting countries and supporting their efforts to reduce poverty and protect the environment."

The new World Bank report, Reaching Across the Waters: Facing the Risks of Cooperation in International Waters reviews the experience of cooperation in five international river basins (Eastern Nile, Ganges, Niger, Syr Darya, and Zambezi), focusing on the perceptions of risks and opportunities by decision makers as they consider prospects for cooperation on international waters.

Today, 40% of the world's population lives in international basins which account for 80% of global river flow. Despite this and the proven benefits of cooperation, such as reduced chances of conflict, improved river sustainability, and access to external markets, 166 of the world's 276 international basins have no treaty provisions covering them.

Moreover, many multilateral basins are subject to bilateral treaties that preclude participation by other riparian countries. More

The report Reaching Across the Waters: Facing the Risks of Cooperation in International Waters can be downloaded here

 

As Afghanistan Turns

In a raucous session that brought lawmakers to blows this month, the Afghan parliament passed a no-confidence vote against the country's top security officials: the ministers of defense and interior. With Afghanistan struggling to take on more challenging pieces of its own defense burden from international troops, the decision came as an ill-timed surprise. Just as surprising was President Hamid Karzai's quick agreement that the two should go.

It is always hazardous to claim to see through the complexities of Afghan politics, but the ousters were clearly rooted, at least in part, in a fierce struggle for positioning in a post-America Afghanistan that may well implode.

One reason cited by officials and the media for the no-confidence vote is that the lawmakers had grown exasperated by the security forces' inability to stem or respond to artillery fire that has been pummeling Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. It's certainly true that people are frustrated by the shelling, but whether that is the reason or the excuse for the vote is less clear. Short of a declaration of war on Pakistan, an eminently political decision that would require at least some international coordination, it's not clear what the army could do.

A second reason cited for the ousters is that Karzai wants to demonstrate that he is at last taking action against corruption in his government, and the record of police and military personnel is particularly poor. However, having worked for two commanders of international military forces as well as for the Joint Staff on anti-corruption policy in Afghanistan, I have not observed Karzai, since 2003, make a good-faith move to address the institutionalized graft that plagues his country. Rather, he has obstructed anti-corruption efforts, directing ministers to shut down investigations, ordering detained suspects set free, and reportedly helping arrange the 2010 escape from Afghanistan of a former minister of religious affairs indicted on charges of corruption. It seems unlikely that high-mindedness is motivating the president now. More

 

Climate change is wild card in water security – SEI analysts

We can think creatively about water management, but unknown large global threats could cause a fundamental reorganisation of life on Earth, according to a water expert with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

“A doomsday scenario would be that if the Greenland ice sheet melts, and then there’s six metres of sea-level rise — all bets are off,” said David Purkey, a senior scientist who heads SEI’s Northern California office. “I think we’ve got bigger problems than water scarcity at that moment.”

“What happens when L.A. has to evacuate, when New York has to evacuate? At that point, I wonder whether rational conversations about water management will be what we’re having.”

In a separate interview, Arno Rosemarin, senior research fellow at SEI’s EcoSanRes (ecological sanitation research) programme, told AlertNet that water security problems will be compounded by global population growth, expected to hit 9 billion by 2050.

Rosemarin cautioned that climate change could also have an unknown impact on vulnerable urban populations in ever-expanding cities.

“We aren’t going to have enough water,” Rosemarin said. When you add factors like weather changes, drought and flooding — you can’t manage — it’s like a monster and that’s not water supply that’s a disaster.”

Treating greywater and sewage to be re-used in urban agriculture — using less water, more efficient taps and appliances — even choosing to eat fried food instead of boiled, are just a few water-management tactics Rosemarin recommends.

To read the interviews, please visit AlertNet, and for more stories about water, visit the Battle for Water page.

Picture caption: Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers place sandbags to block a breaching dyke after heavy rainfalls hit the Fangshan district of Beijing, July 25, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer