A deadline for long-time foes Ethiopia and Eritrea to agree their shared border is to expire at midnight.
The date was set a year ago by the Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Commission which was created following a bloody border war between the two countries.
The commission says if it fails to hear anything it will consider the line it has drawn as the official border.
Both sides say they accept its ruling, but neither has moved their troops to their own side of the new boundary.
Some 80,000 people died during the 1998-2000 war.
The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of 1,700 charged with monitoring a security buffer zone.
The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, says the commission can hardly be said to have succeeded.
TENSE BORDER
Dec 2000: Peace agreement
Apr 2002: Border ruling
Mar 2003: Ethiopian complaint over Badme rejected
Sep 2003: Ethiopia asks for new ruling
Feb 2005: UN concern at military build-up
Oct 2005: Eritrea restricts peacekeepers' activities
Nov 2005: UN sanctions threat if no compliance with 2000 deal
Its imminent disappearance leaves the two armies glaring at each other across a still unresolved border.
What was meant to be a demilitarised border is now thick with troops and bristling with weapons and representatives of the commission have not been able to get in to set up border markers, our correspondent says.
The two sides will not talk to each other and there is no obvious way to move the issue towards a more satisfactory conclusion, she says.
In the past few weeks there has been talk of UN involvement and perhaps the appointment of a facilitator to work with the two sides.
But so far no such initiative has been announced.
Ogaden denial
The Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afewerki respectively, were allies until after Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
Their rebel movements had fought together to overthrow long-time Ethiopian ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam.
The 1998-2000 war was ostensibly fought over the dusty town of Badme, which was subsequently awarded to Eritrea by the border commission.
But to this day the settlement remains under Ethiopian administration.
Meanwhile, Mr Meles has denied accusations made by separatist rebels in the south-east of Ethiopia that his troops have committed massive human rights abuses against civilians.
The rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front accused government forces of executing local residents during counter-insurgency operations in the region.
Mr Meles said such violations would not take place because his government respected human rights.
He said that given his own experience as a former rebel leader he knew that harassing civilians was the gravest mistake a government fighting an insurgency could make.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Rice to visit Ethiopia in rare Africa trip
By Sue Pleming
Thu Nov 29, 3:53 PM ET
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday.
Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming secretary of state in 2005. She has previously been to Liberia, Senegal and Sudan but canceled a trip to Africa last July.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice would be in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on December 5 to attend a meeting of leaders from the African Great Lakes region -- Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
"(They) will discuss issues of regional peace and security," he said.
After her brief Africa trip, Rice will travel to Brussels on December 6 for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers to discuss Afghanistan, Kosovo and other issues, McCormack said, before she returns to Washington on December 7.
McCormack had no details on whether Rice planned to offer any new proposals on how to curb violence in lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a conflict that has brought in the vast central African country's neighbors.
The conflict in the eastern province reflects the political and ethnic tensions behind Congo's 1998-2003 war in which six neighboring countries, including Rwanda, invaded Congo to plunder its vast mineral wealth.
Congo's President Joseph Kabila met President George W. Bush in Washington last month and appealed for U.S. help in trying to stabilize his country. Kabila has been battling to forcibly disarm soldiers in North Kivu province in the east, loyal to renegade Tutsi Gen. Laurent Nkunda.
The United States plans to help train a Congolese army rapid reaction force to tackle the rebels, and the State Department has been negotiating terms of a training contract.
During her two-day visit, Rice will also discuss Somalia and Sudan with African Union members, the United Nations and east African ministers, said McCormack.
In addition, the top U.S. diplomat will meet officials from Ethiopia, which cooperates closely with the United States on counter-terrorism issues.
Tensions have been rising in recent months between Ethiopia and its neighbor Eritrea over its disputed border, with Eritrea accusing the United States of siding with Addis Ababa.
Thu Nov 29, 3:53 PM ET
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday.
Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming secretary of state in 2005. She has previously been to Liberia, Senegal and Sudan but canceled a trip to Africa last July.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice would be in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on December 5 to attend a meeting of leaders from the African Great Lakes region -- Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
"(They) will discuss issues of regional peace and security," he said.
After her brief Africa trip, Rice will travel to Brussels on December 6 for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers to discuss Afghanistan, Kosovo and other issues, McCormack said, before she returns to Washington on December 7.
McCormack had no details on whether Rice planned to offer any new proposals on how to curb violence in lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a conflict that has brought in the vast central African country's neighbors.
The conflict in the eastern province reflects the political and ethnic tensions behind Congo's 1998-2003 war in which six neighboring countries, including Rwanda, invaded Congo to plunder its vast mineral wealth.
Congo's President Joseph Kabila met President George W. Bush in Washington last month and appealed for U.S. help in trying to stabilize his country. Kabila has been battling to forcibly disarm soldiers in North Kivu province in the east, loyal to renegade Tutsi Gen. Laurent Nkunda.
The United States plans to help train a Congolese army rapid reaction force to tackle the rebels, and the State Department has been negotiating terms of a training contract.
During her two-day visit, Rice will also discuss Somalia and Sudan with African Union members, the United Nations and east African ministers, said McCormack.
In addition, the top U.S. diplomat will meet officials from Ethiopia, which cooperates closely with the United States on counter-terrorism issues.
Tensions have been rising in recent months between Ethiopia and its neighbor Eritrea over its disputed border, with Eritrea accusing the United States of siding with Addis Ababa.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Can the War on Terror Be Won?
Philip H. Gordon
From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2007
Less than 12 hours after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush proclaimed the start of a global war on terror. Ever since, there has been a vigorous debate about how to win it. Bush and his supporters stress the need to go on the offensive against terrorists, deploy U.S. military force, promote democracy in the Middle East, and give the commander in chief expansive wartime powers. His critics either challenge the very notion of a "war on terror" or focus on the need to fight it differently. Most leading Democrats accept the need to use force in some cases but argue that success will come through reestablishing the United States' moral authority and ideological appeal, conducting more and smarter diplomacy, and intensifying cooperation with key allies. They argue that Bush's approach to the war on terror has created more terrorists than it has eliminated -- and that it will continue to do so unless the United States radically changes course.
Almost entirely missing from this debate is a concept of what "victory" in the war on terror would actually look like. The traditional notion of winning a war is fairly clear: defeating an enemy on the battlefield and forcing it to accept political terms. But what does victory -- or defeat -- mean in a war on terror? Will this kind of war ever end? How long will it take? Would we see victory coming? Would we recognize it when it came?
It is essential to start thinking seriously about these questions, because it is impossible to win a war without knowing what its goal is. Considering possible outcomes of the war on terror makes clear that it can indeed be won, but only with the recognition that this is a new and different kind of war. Victory will come not when foreign leaders accept certain terms but when political changes erode and ultimately undermine support for the ideology and strategy of those determined to destroy the United States. It will come not when Washington and its allies kill or capture all terrorists or potential terrorists but when the ideology the terrorists espouse is discredited, when their tactics are seen to have failed, and when they come to find more promising paths to the dignity, respect, and opportunities they crave. It will mean not the complete elimination of any possible terrorist threat -- pursuing that goal will almost certainly lead to more terrorism, not less -- but rather the reduction of the risk of terrorism to such a level that it does not significantly affect average citizens' daily lives, preoccupy their thoughts, or provoke overreaction. At that point, even the terrorists will realize their violence is futile. Keeping this vision of victory in mind will not only avert considerable pain, expense, and trouble; it will also guide leaders toward the policies that will bring such a victory about.
THE LAST WAR
One of the few predictions that can be made about the war on terror with some confidence is that it will end -- all wars eventually do. Such an observation might appear flip, but there is a serious point behind it: the factors that drive international politics are so numerous and so fluid that no political system or conflict can last forever. Thus, some wars end quickly (the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 famously lasted for 45 minutes), and others endure (the Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years). Some wars end relatively well (World War II laid the foundation for lasting peace and prosperity), and others lead to further catastrophe (World War I). But they all end, one way or another, and it behooves those living through them to imagine how their conclusions might be hastened and improved.
Where the war on terror is concerned, some of the most instructive lessons can be drawn from the experience of the Cold War, thus named because, like the war on terror, it was not really a war at all. Although the current challenge is not identical to the Cold War, their similarities -- as long-term, multidimensional struggles against insidious and violent ideologies -- suggest that there is much to learn from this recent, and successful, experience. Just as the Cold War ended only when one side essentially gave up on a bankrupt ideology, the battle against Islamist terrorism will be won when the ideology that underpins it loses its appeal. The Cold War ended not with U.S. forces occupying the Kremlin but when the occupant of the Kremlin abandoned the fight; the people he governed had stopped believing in the ideology they were supposed to be fighting for.
The Cold War is also an excellent example of a war that ended at a time and in a way that most people living through it failed to foresee -- and had even stopped trying to foresee. Whereas for the first decade or so the prospect of victory, defeat, or even nuclear war focused minds on how the Cold War might end, by the mid-1960s almost everyone, leaders and the public alike, had started to lose sight of an end as a possibility. Instead, they grudgingly began to focus on what became known as peaceful coexistence. The policy of détente, initiated in the 1960s and pursued throughout the 1970s, is sometimes retrospectively portrayed as a different strategy for bringing the Cold War to an end. But détente was in reality more a sign of resignation to the Cold War's expected endurance than an alternative way of concluding it. The primary objective was to make the Cold War less dangerous, not to bring it to an end. Ultimately, détente served to soften the image of the West in Soviet eyes, to civilize Soviet leaders through diplomatic interaction, and to lead Moscow into a dialogue about human rights that would end up undermining its legitimacy, all of which did contribute to the end of the Cold War. But this was not the main goal of the strategy.
Détente's critics were also caught by surprise by the end of the Cold War. President Ronald Reagan, it is true, denounced accommodation in the 1970s and 1980s and began to talk about defeating communism once and for all. But even Reagan's vision for burying communism was only a "plan and hope for the long term," as he told the British parliament in 1982. Reagan himself admitted that when he declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" in Berlin in June 1987, he "never dreamed that in less than three years the wall would come down." Reagan and his supporters, moreover, saw the Soviet Union of the late 1970s and early 1980s not as a failing empire in its final stages but as a threatening superpower whose expansion had to be checked.
By the end of the 1980s, when signs of the Soviet Union's internal rot and external softening were finally starting to become apparent, it was those who later claimed to have foreseen the end of the Cold War who most steadfastly refused to accept that it was happening before their eyes. Even as the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to undertake the reforms that would lead to the end of the confrontation with the United States, Americans and others had become so used to the Cold War that they had trouble recognizing what was happening. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote in a 1987 Atlantic Monthly essay, the Cold War had become such a "way of life" for more than two generations "that it simply does not occur to us to think about how it might end or, more to the point, how we would like it to end." Hard-liners such as the Reagan administration defense official Richard Perle were warning that Gorbachev had "imperial ambitions and an abiding attachment to military power," while "realists" such as Brent Scowcroft, President George H. W. Bush's national security adviser, were "suspicious of [Gorbachev's] motives and skeptical about his prospects." As late as April 1989, the Central Intelligence Agency, whose job it was to identify important geopolitical trends, was still predicting that "for the foreseeable future, the USSR will remain the West's principal adversary," a view that was shared by the American public at large. When asked by pollsters in November 1989 -- just after the Berlin Wall fell -- whether they thought the Cold War had ended, only 18 percent of respondents said that it had, while 73 percent said it had not. It was only when the vast majority of Americans had finally given up on ever seeing the end of the Cold War that it actually came to an end.
Is it possible to do any better anticipating how, when, and why the war on terror might end? The war on terror will probably also last for a considerable amount of time. But assuming that it will not go on forever, what will the end of that war look like when it comes? And what does a realistic assessment of what victory in the war on terror might look like say about the way it should be fought?
ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
Just as it was once possible to imagine the Soviet Union winning the Cold War, one possibility to be considered today is the victory of al Qaeda. Those in the United States may not have an agreed theory of victory or a path to get there, but Osama bin Laden and his cohorts certainly do. Bin Laden's goal, as he, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others have often articulated, is to drive the United States out of Muslim lands, topple the region's current rulers, and establish Islamic authority under a new caliphate. The path to this goal, they have made clear, is to "provoke and bait" the United States into "bleeding wars" on Muslim lands. Since Americans, the argument goes, do not have the stomach for a long and bloody fight, they will eventually give up and leave the Middle East to its fate. Once the autocratic regimes responsible for the humiliation of the Muslim world have been removed, it will be possible to return it to the idealized state of Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. A caliphate will be established from Morocco to Central Asia, sharia rule will prevail, Israel will be destroyed, oil prices will skyrocket, and the United States will recoil in humiliation and possibly even collapse -- just as the Soviet Union did after the mujahideen defeated it in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden's version of the end of the war on terror is unlikely to be realized. It is based on an exaggeration of his role in bringing down the Soviet Union, a failure to appreciate the long-term strength and adaptability of U.S. society, and an underestimation of Muslim resistance to his extremist views. But if these scenarios are misguided, they are also worth understanding and keeping in mind. If bin Laden's adversaries fail to appreciate his vision of how the war on terror will end, they could end up playing into his hands -- by, for example, being drawn into the very battles that bin Laden believes will ruin the United States and inspire Muslim support. This is the error that has led to the United States' unenviable position today in Iraq.
In the long run, the United States and its allies are far more likely to win this war than al Qaeda, not only because liberty is ultimately more appealing than a narrow and extremist interpretation of Islam but also because they learn from mistakes, while al Qaeda's increasingly desperate efforts will alienate even its potential supporters. But victory in the war on terror will not mean the end of terrorism, the end of tyranny, or the end of evil, utopian goals that have all been articulated at one time or another. Terrorism, after all (to say nothing of tyranny and evil), has been around for a long time and will never go away entirely. From the Zealots in the first century AD to the Red Brigades, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Tamil Tigers, and others in more recent times, terrorism has been a tactic used by the weak in an effort to produce political change. Like violent crime, deadly disease, and other scourges, it can be reduced and contained. But it cannot be totally eliminated.
This is a critical point, because the goal of ending terrorism entirely is not only unrealistic but also counterproductive -- just as is the pursuit of other utopian goals. Murder could be vastly reduced or eliminated from the streets of Washington, D.C., if several hundred thousand police officers were deployed and preventive detentions authorized. Traffic deaths could be almost eliminated in the United States by reducing the national speed limit to ten miles per hour. Illegal immigration from Mexico could be stopped by a vast electric fence along the entire border and a mandatory death penalty for undocumented workers. But no sensible person would propose any of these measures, because the consequences of the solutions would be less acceptable than the risks themselves.
Similarly, the risk of terrorism in the United States could be reduced if officials reallocated hundreds of billions of dollars per year in domestic spending to homeland security measures, significantly curtailed civil liberties to ensure that no potential terrorists were on the streets, and invaded and occupied countries that might one day support or sponsor terrorism. Pursuing that goal in this way, however, would have costs that would vastly outweigh the benefits of reaching the goal, even if reaching it were possible. In their book An End to Evil, David Frum and Richard Perle insist that there is "no middle ground" and that "Americans are not fighting this evil to minimize it or to manage it." The choice, they say, comes down to "victory or holocaust." Thinking in these terms is likely to lead the United States into a series of wars, abuses, and overreactions more likely to perpetuate the war on terror than to bring it to a successful end.
The United States and its allies will win the war only if they fight it in the right way -- with the same sort of patience, strength, and resolve that helped win the Cold War and with policies designed to provide alternative hopes and dreams to potential enemies. The war on terror will end with the collapse of the violent ideology that caused it -- when bin Laden's cause comes to be seen by its potential adherents as a failure, when they turn against it and adopt other goals and other means. Communism, too, once seemed vibrant and attractive to millions around the world, but over time it came to be seen as a failure. Just as Lenin's and Stalin's successors in the Kremlin in the mid-1980s finally came to the realization that they would never accomplish their goals if they did not radically change course, it is not too fanciful to imagine the successors of bin Laden and Zawahiri reflecting on their movement's failures and coming to the same conclusion. The ideology will not have been destroyed by U.S. military power, but its adherents will have decided that the path they chose could never lead them where they wanted to go. Like communism today, extremist Islamism in the future will have a few adherents here and there. But as an organized ideology capable of taking over states or inspiring large numbers of people, it will have been effectively dismantled, discredited, and discarded. And like Lenin's, bin Laden's violent ideology will end up on the ash heap of history.
WHAT VICTORY WOULD LOOK LIKE
The world beyond the war on terror will have several other characteristics. Smaller, uncoordinated organizations capable of carrying out limited attacks might still exist, but the global al Qaeda organization that was able to inflict such destruction on September 11, 2001, will not. Its most important leaders will have been killed or captured, its sanctuaries destroyed, its financial sources blocked, its communications interrupted, and, most important, its supporters persuaded to find other ways to pursue their goals. Terrorism will not be over, but its central sponsor and most dangerous executor will be.
After the war on terror, U.S. society will be better able to deny the remaining terrorists the ability to reach their primary goal: terror. The risk of attack will still exist, but if an attack takes place, it will not lead to a foreign policy revolution, an erosion of respect for human rights or international law, or the restriction of civil liberties. Like in other societies that have faced terrorism (the model being the United Kingdom in its long struggle against the Irish Republican Army), life will go on and people will go about their daily business without inordinate fear. The terrorists will see that the result of any attack they carry out is not the overreaction they sought to provoke but rather the stoic denial of their ability to elicit a counterproductive response. Put in the hands of the U.S. legal system and locked away for years after due legal process, they will be seen as the heartless criminals they are rather than as the valiant soldiers they seek to be. Over time, the risk of terrorist attacks will diminish even further because they will no longer be serving their intended purpose.
After the war on terror, the nation's priorities will come back into balance. Preventing terrorism will remain an important goal, but it will no longer be the main driver of U.S. foreign policy. It will take its place as just one of several concerns, alongside health care, the environment, education, the economy. Budgets, speeches, elections, and policies will no longer revolve around the war on terror to the exclusion of other critical issues on which the nation's welfare depends.
That world is a long way off. The political and economic stagnation in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other conflicts from Kashmir to Chechnya continue to produce the frustration and humiliation that cause terrorism, and with the right conditions, it only takes a small number of extremists to pose a serious threat. But although the end of the war on terror will not come tomorrow, the paths that could lead to it can already be seen. The destruction of the al Qaeda organization, for example, is already under way, and with determination and the right policies, it can be completed. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are now living like fugitives in caves rather than like presidents or military commanders in compounds in Afghanistan. Other al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured, and the organization's ability to communicate globally and to finance major operations has been significantly reduced. Al Qaeda is trying to reconstitute itself along the Afghan-Pakistani border, but with so much of the world -- now including the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- sharing an interest in suppressing the group, it will have great difficulty becoming once again the global terrorist enterprise that was able to take the United States by surprise on 9/11.
There are also signs of a Muslim backlash against al Qaeda's use of wanton violence as a political tool -- exactly the sort of development that will be critical in the long-term effort to discredit jihadism. After al Qaeda's suicide attacks at two hotels in Jordan in November 2005 -- which killed some 60 civilians, including 38 at a wedding party -- Jordanians poured out into the streets to protest in record numbers. Subsequent public opinion polls showed that the proportion of Jordanian respondents who believed that violence against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified jumped from 11 percent to 43 percent, while those expressing a lot of confidence in bin Laden to "do the right thing" plunged from 25 percent to less than one percent. Similar Muslim reactions have followed al Qaeda attacks in Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. In Iraq's Anbar Province, there are also signs that locals are getting fed up with Islamist terrorists and turning against them. Sunni tribes from that region who once battled U.S. troops have now joined forces with the United States to challenge al Qaeda militants. Tribes that once welcomed al Qaeda support in the insurgency against U.S. forces are now battling al Qaeda with thousands of fighters and significant local support.
This is why Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer who has studied Islamist terrorist movements, argues that support for jihadists will eventually erode just as it did for previous terrorist groups, such as the anarchists of nineteenth-century Europe. In the long term, Sageman argues, "the militants will keep pushing the envelope and committing more atrocities to the point that the dream will no longer be attractive to young people." The terrorism analyst Peter Bergen believes that violence that kills other Muslims will ultimately prove to be al Qaeda's Achilles' heel. Killing Muslims, he argues, is "doubly problematic for Al Qaeda, as the Koran forbids killing both civilians and fellow Muslims." After the 9/11 attacks, wide segments of the Arab public and the Arab media expressed sympathy with the victims, and prominent clerics (including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Islamist firebrand with a wide following on satellite television) issued fatwas condemning the attacks as contrary to Islam and calling for the apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. That type of response is what will have to happen if Islamist terrorism is to be discredited and discarded -- and it is what will happen when the terrorists overreach and fail.
Fundamentalist Islamism also has poor long-term prospects as a broader political ideology. Indeed, far from representing a political system likely to attract increasing numbers of adherents, fundamentalist Islamism has failed everywhere it has been tried. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Iran under the mullahs, in Sudan under the National Islamic Front, different strains of Islamist rule have produced economic failure and public discontent. Indeed, the Taliban and the Iranian clerics are probably responsible for creating two of the most pro-U.S. populations in the greater Middle East. Opinion polls show that there is even less support for the kind of fundamentalist Islamic government proposed by bin Laden. "Many people would like bin Laden ... to hurt America," says the political scientist and pollster Shibley Telhami, "but they do not want bin Laden to rule their children." Asked in Telhami's survey what, if any, aspect of al Qaeda they sympathized with, 33 percent of Muslim respondents said none, 33 percent said its confronting the United States, 14 percent said its support for Muslim causes such as the Palestinian movement, 11 percent said its methods of operation, and just 7 percent said its efforts to create an Islamic state. Fundamentalist Islamism has not yet run its course and cannot be expected to in less than a generation. Communism, after all, was a serious competitor to the capitalist West for more than a century and survived in the Soviet Union for more than 70 years, even after its failings became clear to those who once embraced it. In the long run, fundamentalist Islamism is likely to suffer a similarly slow but certain fate.
Finally, there are good reasons to believe that the forces of globalization and communication that have been unleashed by changing technology will eventually produce positive change in the Middle East. This will especially be true if there is successful promotion of economic development in the region, which would produce the middle classes that in other parts of the world have been the drivers of democratization. Even in the absence of rapid economic change, the increasingly open media environment created by the Internet and other communications technologies will prove to be powerful agents of change. Although only around ten percent of households in the Arab world have access to the Internet, that percentage is growing rapidly, having already risen fivefold since 2000. Even in Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed and conservative societies in the world, there are over 2,000 bloggers.
Cable news stations such as the independent Qatar-based
al Jazeera and the Dubai-based al Arabiya reach tens of millions of households throughout the Arab world, often with information or perspectives the repressive governments in the region would rather not be heard. According to the Arab media expert Marc Lynch, "The conventional wisdom that the Arab media simply parrot the official line of the day no longer holds true. Al Jazeera has infuriated virtually every Arab government at one point or another, and its programming allows for criticism, and even mockery. Commentators regularly dismiss the existing Arab regimes as useless, self-interested, weak, compromised, corrupt, and worse." Lynch points out that one al Jazeera talk show addressed the issue "Have the existing Arab regimes become worse than colonialism?" The host, one of the guests, and 76 percent of callers said yes -- "marking a degree of frustration and inwardly directed anger that presents an opening for progressive change."
That sort of progressive change is unlikely to take place in the near future, and it is true that the region's autocrats seem ever more determined to prevent it. But even if the priority for Middle Eastern leaders remains what it has been -- to keep a grip on power -- at some point it will become clear that the only way to hold on to power is to change. The next generation of leaders in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria might conclude that in the absence of change, their regimes will fall to fundamentalists or their countries will be surpassed by regional rivals. There do not appear to be any Gorbachevs on the horizon at present, but that was also true for the Soviet Union as late as 1984. Gorbachev's two immediate predecessors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, did not seem to be harbingers of radical change when they passed through the Kremlin, but that is exactly what they were. A new, dynamic, and determined leader of a major Arab country who opens up political space and embraces economic reform can -- by providing prosperity, respect, and opportunity for his or her citizens -- strike a greater blow in the fight against terrorism than anything the United States could ever do.
THE RIGHT WAR
This sort of victory in the war on terror may not come for quite a long time. On the calendar of the Cold War, which began in 1947, the sixth anniversary of 9/11 puts us in 1953 -- decades before its denouement and with plenty of setbacks, tragedies, mistakes, and risks still ahead.
The point of imagining the end of the war on terror is not to suggest that it is imminent but to keep the right goals in mind -- so that leaders can adopt the policies most likely to achieve those goals. If they fall prey to the illusion that this is World War III -- and that it can be won like a traditional war -- they risk perpetuating the conflict. Even if Americans were somehow prepared, as in World War II, to mobilize 16 million troops, reinstate the draft, spend 40 percent of GDP on defense, and invade and occupy several major countries, such an effort would likely end up creating more terrorists and fueling the hatred that sustains them. It would unify the United States' enemies, squander its resources, and undermine the values that are a central tool in the struggle. Certainly, the U.S. experience in Iraq suggests the perils of trying to win the war on terror through the application of brute military force.
If, on the other hand, Americans accept that victory in the war on terror will come only when the ideology they are fighting loses support and when potential adherents see viable alternatives to it, then the United States would have to adopt a very different course. It would not overreact to threats but instead would demonstrate confidence in its values and its society -- and the determination to preserve both. It would act decisively to reestablish its moral authority and the appeal of its society, which have been so badly damaged in recent years. It would strengthen its defenses against the terrorist threat while also realizing that a policy designed to prevent any conceivable attack will do more damage than a policy of defiantly refusing to allow terrorists to change its way of life. It would expand its efforts to promote education and political and economic change in the Middle East, which in the long run will help that region overcome the despair and humiliation that fuel the terrorist threat. It would launch a major program to wean itself from imported oil, freeing it from the dependence that constrains its foreign policy and obliging oil-dependent Arab autocracies to diversify their economies, more evenly distribute their wealth, and create jobs for their citizens. It would seek to end the large U.S. combat presence in Iraq, which has become more of a recruiting device for al Qaeda than a useful tool in the war on terror. It would stop pretending that the conflict between Israel and its neighbors has nothing to do with the problem of terrorism and launch a diplomatic offensive designed to bring an end to a conflict that is a key source of the resentment that motivates many terrorists. It would take seriously the views of its potential allies, recognize their legitimate interests, and seek to win their support and cooperation in confronting the common threat.
If the United States did all that, Americans would have good reason to be confident that in the long run they will prevail. Ultimately, extremist Islamism is not an ideology likely to win enduring support. Terrorism is not a strategy with which Muslims will forever want to be associated, and eventually it will create a backlash within Muslim societies. With time and experience -- and if the United States and its allies make the right choices -- Muslims themselves will turn against the extremists in their midst. Somewhere in the Muslim world, at some point possibly sooner than many realize, new Lech Walesas, Václav Havels, and Andrei Sakharovs will emerge to reclaim their people's future from those who have hijacked it. They will seek to put their civilization on a path toward restoring the glory of its greatest era -- when the Muslim world was a multicultural zone of tolerance and intellectual, artistic, and scientific achievement. The agents of change might come from above, like Gorbachev, who used his position at the top of the Soviet hierarchy to transform the Soviet Union and end the Cold War. Or they might rise up from below, like the protesters in 1989 in Budapest, Gdansk, and Leipzig, who stood up against tyranny and reclaimed their future. If the United States is strong, smart, and patient, they will come. And they, not the West, will transform their world -- and ours.
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From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2007
Less than 12 hours after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush proclaimed the start of a global war on terror. Ever since, there has been a vigorous debate about how to win it. Bush and his supporters stress the need to go on the offensive against terrorists, deploy U.S. military force, promote democracy in the Middle East, and give the commander in chief expansive wartime powers. His critics either challenge the very notion of a "war on terror" or focus on the need to fight it differently. Most leading Democrats accept the need to use force in some cases but argue that success will come through reestablishing the United States' moral authority and ideological appeal, conducting more and smarter diplomacy, and intensifying cooperation with key allies. They argue that Bush's approach to the war on terror has created more terrorists than it has eliminated -- and that it will continue to do so unless the United States radically changes course.
Almost entirely missing from this debate is a concept of what "victory" in the war on terror would actually look like. The traditional notion of winning a war is fairly clear: defeating an enemy on the battlefield and forcing it to accept political terms. But what does victory -- or defeat -- mean in a war on terror? Will this kind of war ever end? How long will it take? Would we see victory coming? Would we recognize it when it came?
It is essential to start thinking seriously about these questions, because it is impossible to win a war without knowing what its goal is. Considering possible outcomes of the war on terror makes clear that it can indeed be won, but only with the recognition that this is a new and different kind of war. Victory will come not when foreign leaders accept certain terms but when political changes erode and ultimately undermine support for the ideology and strategy of those determined to destroy the United States. It will come not when Washington and its allies kill or capture all terrorists or potential terrorists but when the ideology the terrorists espouse is discredited, when their tactics are seen to have failed, and when they come to find more promising paths to the dignity, respect, and opportunities they crave. It will mean not the complete elimination of any possible terrorist threat -- pursuing that goal will almost certainly lead to more terrorism, not less -- but rather the reduction of the risk of terrorism to such a level that it does not significantly affect average citizens' daily lives, preoccupy their thoughts, or provoke overreaction. At that point, even the terrorists will realize their violence is futile. Keeping this vision of victory in mind will not only avert considerable pain, expense, and trouble; it will also guide leaders toward the policies that will bring such a victory about.
THE LAST WAR
One of the few predictions that can be made about the war on terror with some confidence is that it will end -- all wars eventually do. Such an observation might appear flip, but there is a serious point behind it: the factors that drive international politics are so numerous and so fluid that no political system or conflict can last forever. Thus, some wars end quickly (the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 famously lasted for 45 minutes), and others endure (the Hundred Years War lasted for 116 years). Some wars end relatively well (World War II laid the foundation for lasting peace and prosperity), and others lead to further catastrophe (World War I). But they all end, one way or another, and it behooves those living through them to imagine how their conclusions might be hastened and improved.
Where the war on terror is concerned, some of the most instructive lessons can be drawn from the experience of the Cold War, thus named because, like the war on terror, it was not really a war at all. Although the current challenge is not identical to the Cold War, their similarities -- as long-term, multidimensional struggles against insidious and violent ideologies -- suggest that there is much to learn from this recent, and successful, experience. Just as the Cold War ended only when one side essentially gave up on a bankrupt ideology, the battle against Islamist terrorism will be won when the ideology that underpins it loses its appeal. The Cold War ended not with U.S. forces occupying the Kremlin but when the occupant of the Kremlin abandoned the fight; the people he governed had stopped believing in the ideology they were supposed to be fighting for.
The Cold War is also an excellent example of a war that ended at a time and in a way that most people living through it failed to foresee -- and had even stopped trying to foresee. Whereas for the first decade or so the prospect of victory, defeat, or even nuclear war focused minds on how the Cold War might end, by the mid-1960s almost everyone, leaders and the public alike, had started to lose sight of an end as a possibility. Instead, they grudgingly began to focus on what became known as peaceful coexistence. The policy of détente, initiated in the 1960s and pursued throughout the 1970s, is sometimes retrospectively portrayed as a different strategy for bringing the Cold War to an end. But détente was in reality more a sign of resignation to the Cold War's expected endurance than an alternative way of concluding it. The primary objective was to make the Cold War less dangerous, not to bring it to an end. Ultimately, détente served to soften the image of the West in Soviet eyes, to civilize Soviet leaders through diplomatic interaction, and to lead Moscow into a dialogue about human rights that would end up undermining its legitimacy, all of which did contribute to the end of the Cold War. But this was not the main goal of the strategy.
Détente's critics were also caught by surprise by the end of the Cold War. President Ronald Reagan, it is true, denounced accommodation in the 1970s and 1980s and began to talk about defeating communism once and for all. But even Reagan's vision for burying communism was only a "plan and hope for the long term," as he told the British parliament in 1982. Reagan himself admitted that when he declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" in Berlin in June 1987, he "never dreamed that in less than three years the wall would come down." Reagan and his supporters, moreover, saw the Soviet Union of the late 1970s and early 1980s not as a failing empire in its final stages but as a threatening superpower whose expansion had to be checked.
By the end of the 1980s, when signs of the Soviet Union's internal rot and external softening were finally starting to become apparent, it was those who later claimed to have foreseen the end of the Cold War who most steadfastly refused to accept that it was happening before their eyes. Even as the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began to undertake the reforms that would lead to the end of the confrontation with the United States, Americans and others had become so used to the Cold War that they had trouble recognizing what was happening. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote in a 1987 Atlantic Monthly essay, the Cold War had become such a "way of life" for more than two generations "that it simply does not occur to us to think about how it might end or, more to the point, how we would like it to end." Hard-liners such as the Reagan administration defense official Richard Perle were warning that Gorbachev had "imperial ambitions and an abiding attachment to military power," while "realists" such as Brent Scowcroft, President George H. W. Bush's national security adviser, were "suspicious of [Gorbachev's] motives and skeptical about his prospects." As late as April 1989, the Central Intelligence Agency, whose job it was to identify important geopolitical trends, was still predicting that "for the foreseeable future, the USSR will remain the West's principal adversary," a view that was shared by the American public at large. When asked by pollsters in November 1989 -- just after the Berlin Wall fell -- whether they thought the Cold War had ended, only 18 percent of respondents said that it had, while 73 percent said it had not. It was only when the vast majority of Americans had finally given up on ever seeing the end of the Cold War that it actually came to an end.
Is it possible to do any better anticipating how, when, and why the war on terror might end? The war on terror will probably also last for a considerable amount of time. But assuming that it will not go on forever, what will the end of that war look like when it comes? And what does a realistic assessment of what victory in the war on terror might look like say about the way it should be fought?
ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
Just as it was once possible to imagine the Soviet Union winning the Cold War, one possibility to be considered today is the victory of al Qaeda. Those in the United States may not have an agreed theory of victory or a path to get there, but Osama bin Laden and his cohorts certainly do. Bin Laden's goal, as he, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and others have often articulated, is to drive the United States out of Muslim lands, topple the region's current rulers, and establish Islamic authority under a new caliphate. The path to this goal, they have made clear, is to "provoke and bait" the United States into "bleeding wars" on Muslim lands. Since Americans, the argument goes, do not have the stomach for a long and bloody fight, they will eventually give up and leave the Middle East to its fate. Once the autocratic regimes responsible for the humiliation of the Muslim world have been removed, it will be possible to return it to the idealized state of Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. A caliphate will be established from Morocco to Central Asia, sharia rule will prevail, Israel will be destroyed, oil prices will skyrocket, and the United States will recoil in humiliation and possibly even collapse -- just as the Soviet Union did after the mujahideen defeated it in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden's version of the end of the war on terror is unlikely to be realized. It is based on an exaggeration of his role in bringing down the Soviet Union, a failure to appreciate the long-term strength and adaptability of U.S. society, and an underestimation of Muslim resistance to his extremist views. But if these scenarios are misguided, they are also worth understanding and keeping in mind. If bin Laden's adversaries fail to appreciate his vision of how the war on terror will end, they could end up playing into his hands -- by, for example, being drawn into the very battles that bin Laden believes will ruin the United States and inspire Muslim support. This is the error that has led to the United States' unenviable position today in Iraq.
In the long run, the United States and its allies are far more likely to win this war than al Qaeda, not only because liberty is ultimately more appealing than a narrow and extremist interpretation of Islam but also because they learn from mistakes, while al Qaeda's increasingly desperate efforts will alienate even its potential supporters. But victory in the war on terror will not mean the end of terrorism, the end of tyranny, or the end of evil, utopian goals that have all been articulated at one time or another. Terrorism, after all (to say nothing of tyranny and evil), has been around for a long time and will never go away entirely. From the Zealots in the first century AD to the Red Brigades, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Tamil Tigers, and others in more recent times, terrorism has been a tactic used by the weak in an effort to produce political change. Like violent crime, deadly disease, and other scourges, it can be reduced and contained. But it cannot be totally eliminated.
This is a critical point, because the goal of ending terrorism entirely is not only unrealistic but also counterproductive -- just as is the pursuit of other utopian goals. Murder could be vastly reduced or eliminated from the streets of Washington, D.C., if several hundred thousand police officers were deployed and preventive detentions authorized. Traffic deaths could be almost eliminated in the United States by reducing the national speed limit to ten miles per hour. Illegal immigration from Mexico could be stopped by a vast electric fence along the entire border and a mandatory death penalty for undocumented workers. But no sensible person would propose any of these measures, because the consequences of the solutions would be less acceptable than the risks themselves.
Similarly, the risk of terrorism in the United States could be reduced if officials reallocated hundreds of billions of dollars per year in domestic spending to homeland security measures, significantly curtailed civil liberties to ensure that no potential terrorists were on the streets, and invaded and occupied countries that might one day support or sponsor terrorism. Pursuing that goal in this way, however, would have costs that would vastly outweigh the benefits of reaching the goal, even if reaching it were possible. In their book An End to Evil, David Frum and Richard Perle insist that there is "no middle ground" and that "Americans are not fighting this evil to minimize it or to manage it." The choice, they say, comes down to "victory or holocaust." Thinking in these terms is likely to lead the United States into a series of wars, abuses, and overreactions more likely to perpetuate the war on terror than to bring it to a successful end.
The United States and its allies will win the war only if they fight it in the right way -- with the same sort of patience, strength, and resolve that helped win the Cold War and with policies designed to provide alternative hopes and dreams to potential enemies. The war on terror will end with the collapse of the violent ideology that caused it -- when bin Laden's cause comes to be seen by its potential adherents as a failure, when they turn against it and adopt other goals and other means. Communism, too, once seemed vibrant and attractive to millions around the world, but over time it came to be seen as a failure. Just as Lenin's and Stalin's successors in the Kremlin in the mid-1980s finally came to the realization that they would never accomplish their goals if they did not radically change course, it is not too fanciful to imagine the successors of bin Laden and Zawahiri reflecting on their movement's failures and coming to the same conclusion. The ideology will not have been destroyed by U.S. military power, but its adherents will have decided that the path they chose could never lead them where they wanted to go. Like communism today, extremist Islamism in the future will have a few adherents here and there. But as an organized ideology capable of taking over states or inspiring large numbers of people, it will have been effectively dismantled, discredited, and discarded. And like Lenin's, bin Laden's violent ideology will end up on the ash heap of history.
WHAT VICTORY WOULD LOOK LIKE
The world beyond the war on terror will have several other characteristics. Smaller, uncoordinated organizations capable of carrying out limited attacks might still exist, but the global al Qaeda organization that was able to inflict such destruction on September 11, 2001, will not. Its most important leaders will have been killed or captured, its sanctuaries destroyed, its financial sources blocked, its communications interrupted, and, most important, its supporters persuaded to find other ways to pursue their goals. Terrorism will not be over, but its central sponsor and most dangerous executor will be.
After the war on terror, U.S. society will be better able to deny the remaining terrorists the ability to reach their primary goal: terror. The risk of attack will still exist, but if an attack takes place, it will not lead to a foreign policy revolution, an erosion of respect for human rights or international law, or the restriction of civil liberties. Like in other societies that have faced terrorism (the model being the United Kingdom in its long struggle against the Irish Republican Army), life will go on and people will go about their daily business without inordinate fear. The terrorists will see that the result of any attack they carry out is not the overreaction they sought to provoke but rather the stoic denial of their ability to elicit a counterproductive response. Put in the hands of the U.S. legal system and locked away for years after due legal process, they will be seen as the heartless criminals they are rather than as the valiant soldiers they seek to be. Over time, the risk of terrorist attacks will diminish even further because they will no longer be serving their intended purpose.
After the war on terror, the nation's priorities will come back into balance. Preventing terrorism will remain an important goal, but it will no longer be the main driver of U.S. foreign policy. It will take its place as just one of several concerns, alongside health care, the environment, education, the economy. Budgets, speeches, elections, and policies will no longer revolve around the war on terror to the exclusion of other critical issues on which the nation's welfare depends.
That world is a long way off. The political and economic stagnation in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other conflicts from Kashmir to Chechnya continue to produce the frustration and humiliation that cause terrorism, and with the right conditions, it only takes a small number of extremists to pose a serious threat. But although the end of the war on terror will not come tomorrow, the paths that could lead to it can already be seen. The destruction of the al Qaeda organization, for example, is already under way, and with determination and the right policies, it can be completed. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are now living like fugitives in caves rather than like presidents or military commanders in compounds in Afghanistan. Other al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured, and the organization's ability to communicate globally and to finance major operations has been significantly reduced. Al Qaeda is trying to reconstitute itself along the Afghan-Pakistani border, but with so much of the world -- now including the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- sharing an interest in suppressing the group, it will have great difficulty becoming once again the global terrorist enterprise that was able to take the United States by surprise on 9/11.
There are also signs of a Muslim backlash against al Qaeda's use of wanton violence as a political tool -- exactly the sort of development that will be critical in the long-term effort to discredit jihadism. After al Qaeda's suicide attacks at two hotels in Jordan in November 2005 -- which killed some 60 civilians, including 38 at a wedding party -- Jordanians poured out into the streets to protest in record numbers. Subsequent public opinion polls showed that the proportion of Jordanian respondents who believed that violence against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified jumped from 11 percent to 43 percent, while those expressing a lot of confidence in bin Laden to "do the right thing" plunged from 25 percent to less than one percent. Similar Muslim reactions have followed al Qaeda attacks in Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. In Iraq's Anbar Province, there are also signs that locals are getting fed up with Islamist terrorists and turning against them. Sunni tribes from that region who once battled U.S. troops have now joined forces with the United States to challenge al Qaeda militants. Tribes that once welcomed al Qaeda support in the insurgency against U.S. forces are now battling al Qaeda with thousands of fighters and significant local support.
This is why Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer who has studied Islamist terrorist movements, argues that support for jihadists will eventually erode just as it did for previous terrorist groups, such as the anarchists of nineteenth-century Europe. In the long term, Sageman argues, "the militants will keep pushing the envelope and committing more atrocities to the point that the dream will no longer be attractive to young people." The terrorism analyst Peter Bergen believes that violence that kills other Muslims will ultimately prove to be al Qaeda's Achilles' heel. Killing Muslims, he argues, is "doubly problematic for Al Qaeda, as the Koran forbids killing both civilians and fellow Muslims." After the 9/11 attacks, wide segments of the Arab public and the Arab media expressed sympathy with the victims, and prominent clerics (including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Islamist firebrand with a wide following on satellite television) issued fatwas condemning the attacks as contrary to Islam and calling for the apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. That type of response is what will have to happen if Islamist terrorism is to be discredited and discarded -- and it is what will happen when the terrorists overreach and fail.
Fundamentalist Islamism also has poor long-term prospects as a broader political ideology. Indeed, far from representing a political system likely to attract increasing numbers of adherents, fundamentalist Islamism has failed everywhere it has been tried. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Iran under the mullahs, in Sudan under the National Islamic Front, different strains of Islamist rule have produced economic failure and public discontent. Indeed, the Taliban and the Iranian clerics are probably responsible for creating two of the most pro-U.S. populations in the greater Middle East. Opinion polls show that there is even less support for the kind of fundamentalist Islamic government proposed by bin Laden. "Many people would like bin Laden ... to hurt America," says the political scientist and pollster Shibley Telhami, "but they do not want bin Laden to rule their children." Asked in Telhami's survey what, if any, aspect of al Qaeda they sympathized with, 33 percent of Muslim respondents said none, 33 percent said its confronting the United States, 14 percent said its support for Muslim causes such as the Palestinian movement, 11 percent said its methods of operation, and just 7 percent said its efforts to create an Islamic state. Fundamentalist Islamism has not yet run its course and cannot be expected to in less than a generation. Communism, after all, was a serious competitor to the capitalist West for more than a century and survived in the Soviet Union for more than 70 years, even after its failings became clear to those who once embraced it. In the long run, fundamentalist Islamism is likely to suffer a similarly slow but certain fate.
Finally, there are good reasons to believe that the forces of globalization and communication that have been unleashed by changing technology will eventually produce positive change in the Middle East. This will especially be true if there is successful promotion of economic development in the region, which would produce the middle classes that in other parts of the world have been the drivers of democratization. Even in the absence of rapid economic change, the increasingly open media environment created by the Internet and other communications technologies will prove to be powerful agents of change. Although only around ten percent of households in the Arab world have access to the Internet, that percentage is growing rapidly, having already risen fivefold since 2000. Even in Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed and conservative societies in the world, there are over 2,000 bloggers.
Cable news stations such as the independent Qatar-based
al Jazeera and the Dubai-based al Arabiya reach tens of millions of households throughout the Arab world, often with information or perspectives the repressive governments in the region would rather not be heard. According to the Arab media expert Marc Lynch, "The conventional wisdom that the Arab media simply parrot the official line of the day no longer holds true. Al Jazeera has infuriated virtually every Arab government at one point or another, and its programming allows for criticism, and even mockery. Commentators regularly dismiss the existing Arab regimes as useless, self-interested, weak, compromised, corrupt, and worse." Lynch points out that one al Jazeera talk show addressed the issue "Have the existing Arab regimes become worse than colonialism?" The host, one of the guests, and 76 percent of callers said yes -- "marking a degree of frustration and inwardly directed anger that presents an opening for progressive change."
That sort of progressive change is unlikely to take place in the near future, and it is true that the region's autocrats seem ever more determined to prevent it. But even if the priority for Middle Eastern leaders remains what it has been -- to keep a grip on power -- at some point it will become clear that the only way to hold on to power is to change. The next generation of leaders in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria might conclude that in the absence of change, their regimes will fall to fundamentalists or their countries will be surpassed by regional rivals. There do not appear to be any Gorbachevs on the horizon at present, but that was also true for the Soviet Union as late as 1984. Gorbachev's two immediate predecessors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, did not seem to be harbingers of radical change when they passed through the Kremlin, but that is exactly what they were. A new, dynamic, and determined leader of a major Arab country who opens up political space and embraces economic reform can -- by providing prosperity, respect, and opportunity for his or her citizens -- strike a greater blow in the fight against terrorism than anything the United States could ever do.
THE RIGHT WAR
This sort of victory in the war on terror may not come for quite a long time. On the calendar of the Cold War, which began in 1947, the sixth anniversary of 9/11 puts us in 1953 -- decades before its denouement and with plenty of setbacks, tragedies, mistakes, and risks still ahead.
The point of imagining the end of the war on terror is not to suggest that it is imminent but to keep the right goals in mind -- so that leaders can adopt the policies most likely to achieve those goals. If they fall prey to the illusion that this is World War III -- and that it can be won like a traditional war -- they risk perpetuating the conflict. Even if Americans were somehow prepared, as in World War II, to mobilize 16 million troops, reinstate the draft, spend 40 percent of GDP on defense, and invade and occupy several major countries, such an effort would likely end up creating more terrorists and fueling the hatred that sustains them. It would unify the United States' enemies, squander its resources, and undermine the values that are a central tool in the struggle. Certainly, the U.S. experience in Iraq suggests the perils of trying to win the war on terror through the application of brute military force.
If, on the other hand, Americans accept that victory in the war on terror will come only when the ideology they are fighting loses support and when potential adherents see viable alternatives to it, then the United States would have to adopt a very different course. It would not overreact to threats but instead would demonstrate confidence in its values and its society -- and the determination to preserve both. It would act decisively to reestablish its moral authority and the appeal of its society, which have been so badly damaged in recent years. It would strengthen its defenses against the terrorist threat while also realizing that a policy designed to prevent any conceivable attack will do more damage than a policy of defiantly refusing to allow terrorists to change its way of life. It would expand its efforts to promote education and political and economic change in the Middle East, which in the long run will help that region overcome the despair and humiliation that fuel the terrorist threat. It would launch a major program to wean itself from imported oil, freeing it from the dependence that constrains its foreign policy and obliging oil-dependent Arab autocracies to diversify their economies, more evenly distribute their wealth, and create jobs for their citizens. It would seek to end the large U.S. combat presence in Iraq, which has become more of a recruiting device for al Qaeda than a useful tool in the war on terror. It would stop pretending that the conflict between Israel and its neighbors has nothing to do with the problem of terrorism and launch a diplomatic offensive designed to bring an end to a conflict that is a key source of the resentment that motivates many terrorists. It would take seriously the views of its potential allies, recognize their legitimate interests, and seek to win their support and cooperation in confronting the common threat.
If the United States did all that, Americans would have good reason to be confident that in the long run they will prevail. Ultimately, extremist Islamism is not an ideology likely to win enduring support. Terrorism is not a strategy with which Muslims will forever want to be associated, and eventually it will create a backlash within Muslim societies. With time and experience -- and if the United States and its allies make the right choices -- Muslims themselves will turn against the extremists in their midst. Somewhere in the Muslim world, at some point possibly sooner than many realize, new Lech Walesas, Václav Havels, and Andrei Sakharovs will emerge to reclaim their people's future from those who have hijacked it. They will seek to put their civilization on a path toward restoring the glory of its greatest era -- when the Muslim world was a multicultural zone of tolerance and intellectual, artistic, and scientific achievement. The agents of change might come from above, like Gorbachev, who used his position at the top of the Soviet hierarchy to transform the Soviet Union and end the Cold War. Or they might rise up from below, like the protesters in 1989 in Budapest, Gdansk, and Leipzig, who stood up against tyranny and reclaimed their future. If the United States is strong, smart, and patient, they will come. And they, not the West, will transform their world -- and ours.
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Ethiopia and Mexico Leading the Global Campaign to Fight Climate Change
NAIROBI (AFP) — More than one billion trees were planted around the world in 2007, with Ethiopia and Mexico leading in the drive to combat climate change through new lush forest projects, a UN report said Wednesday.
The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the mass tree planting, inspired by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, will help mitigate effects of pollution and environmental deterioration.
"An initiative to catalyze the pledging and the planting of one billion trees has achieved and indeed surpassed its mark. It is a further sign of the breathtaking momentum witnessed this year on the challenge for this generation -- climate change," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a statement.
"Millions if not billions of people around this world want an end to pollution and environmental deterioration and have rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty to prove the point," he added.
UNEP said the total number of trees planted is still being collated, but developing countries top the list with more than 700 million and 217 million planted in Ethiopia and Mexico respectively.
Ethiopia's high demand for fuel wood and land for cropping and grazing has slashed its forest cover from about 35 percent of its landmass in the early 20th century to just 4.2 percent by 2000, environmentalist say.
Others planters include: Turkey 150 million, Kenya 100 million, Cuba 96.5 million, Rwanda 50 million, South Korea 43 million, Tunisia 21 million, Morocco 20 million, Myanmar 20 million and Brazil 16 million.
Maathai's Green Belt Movement planted 4.7 million trees, double the number it had initially pledged, according to UNEP. The army has participated in re-afforestation drives in Kenya and Mexico.
Indonesia, which will next month host the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is expected to plant almost 80 million trees in one day alone in the run up to the Bali climate meeting.
UNEP said China, Guatemala and Spain are expected soon to announce new plantings of millions of trees.
Experts says that trees help absorb carbon contained in the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, which are largely generated by human activity and are one of the most perilous environmental challenges in the modern world.
The UNEP report sends a powerful message ahead of the December 3-14 meeting in Bali of the UNFCCC, a panel charting the path for negotiating pollution cuts to be implemented after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.
"We called you to action almost exactly a year ago and you responded beyond our dreams," said Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace prize for her campaign to plant tens of millions of trees to counter tree-loss and desertification in Africa.
"Now we must keep the pressure on and continue the good work for the planet," Maathai said in the statement.
The Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), which co-organised the campaign, said the success indicated that environment can be rescued by afforestation.
"This milestone shows clearly that the global community has the spirit and the substance to unite in achieving ambitious targets to create a better environment for all," said ICRAF Director General Dennis Garrity.
The UNEP, citing its credible tracking system, said 1.56 billion trees have been planted around the world, but had so far received pledges of 2.24 billion trees.
The mass planting, carried by governments, communities, corporations and individuals, will continue despite surpassing the one billion mark, the agency said.
UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall was asked why the most enthusiasm for the worldwide initiative seemed to have occurred in developing countries.
"There is no clear answer, however it may be that communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America recognise more clearly the impact of climate change already on the way," he told AFP.
"Perhaps also they more intimately understand the wider benefit of the forests from stabilising water supplies and soils up to their importance as natural pharmatives as well as the importance of trees in combatting global warming."
The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the mass tree planting, inspired by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, will help mitigate effects of pollution and environmental deterioration.
"An initiative to catalyze the pledging and the planting of one billion trees has achieved and indeed surpassed its mark. It is a further sign of the breathtaking momentum witnessed this year on the challenge for this generation -- climate change," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a statement.
"Millions if not billions of people around this world want an end to pollution and environmental deterioration and have rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty to prove the point," he added.
UNEP said the total number of trees planted is still being collated, but developing countries top the list with more than 700 million and 217 million planted in Ethiopia and Mexico respectively.
Ethiopia's high demand for fuel wood and land for cropping and grazing has slashed its forest cover from about 35 percent of its landmass in the early 20th century to just 4.2 percent by 2000, environmentalist say.
Others planters include: Turkey 150 million, Kenya 100 million, Cuba 96.5 million, Rwanda 50 million, South Korea 43 million, Tunisia 21 million, Morocco 20 million, Myanmar 20 million and Brazil 16 million.
Maathai's Green Belt Movement planted 4.7 million trees, double the number it had initially pledged, according to UNEP. The army has participated in re-afforestation drives in Kenya and Mexico.
Indonesia, which will next month host the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is expected to plant almost 80 million trees in one day alone in the run up to the Bali climate meeting.
UNEP said China, Guatemala and Spain are expected soon to announce new plantings of millions of trees.
Experts says that trees help absorb carbon contained in the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, which are largely generated by human activity and are one of the most perilous environmental challenges in the modern world.
The UNEP report sends a powerful message ahead of the December 3-14 meeting in Bali of the UNFCCC, a panel charting the path for negotiating pollution cuts to be implemented after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.
"We called you to action almost exactly a year ago and you responded beyond our dreams," said Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace prize for her campaign to plant tens of millions of trees to counter tree-loss and desertification in Africa.
"Now we must keep the pressure on and continue the good work for the planet," Maathai said in the statement.
The Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), which co-organised the campaign, said the success indicated that environment can be rescued by afforestation.
"This milestone shows clearly that the global community has the spirit and the substance to unite in achieving ambitious targets to create a better environment for all," said ICRAF Director General Dennis Garrity.
The UNEP, citing its credible tracking system, said 1.56 billion trees have been planted around the world, but had so far received pledges of 2.24 billion trees.
The mass planting, carried by governments, communities, corporations and individuals, will continue despite surpassing the one billion mark, the agency said.
UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall was asked why the most enthusiasm for the worldwide initiative seemed to have occurred in developing countries.
"There is no clear answer, however it may be that communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America recognise more clearly the impact of climate change already on the way," he told AFP.
"Perhaps also they more intimately understand the wider benefit of the forests from stabilising water supplies and soils up to their importance as natural pharmatives as well as the importance of trees in combatting global warming."
Ethiopian Prime Minister and Starbucks Chairman Discuss Ways to Support Ethiopian Coffee Industry
thiopia and Seattle Wash.; November 28, 2007 – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Starbucks Corporation (Nasdaq: SBUX) chairman Howard Schultz today reaffirmed their commitment to making Ethiopia a leading force in the global specialty coffee marketplace. Schultz and Prime Minister Meles said their discussions reflected a deepening relationship between Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, and Starbucks, one of the world’s largest specialty coffee companies.
The Prime Minister and Schultz discussed ways to expand the branding and marketing of Ethiopia’s world-renowned fine coffees in order to achieve better prices for farmers and improved opportunities for the millions of Ethiopians who depend on coffee for their livelihood.
Schultz announced that the company will open a Starbucks Farmer Support Center in the Ethiopian capital in 2008. The facility, the first in Africa, will enable Starbucks to work collaboratively with Ethiopian farmers to raise both the quality and production of the country’s high quality specialty coffees.
“We will be working closely with Starbucks to bring badly needed investment and technology to our coffee industry, as well as brand recognition and promotion for our high-grade Arabica beans,” said Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. “These measures will afford Ethiopia new leverage in the global coffee market. I am extremely encouraged that Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz shares our belief in a bright future for Ethiopia’s coffee economy.”
Earlier this year, Starbucks signed a distribution, marketing and licensing agreement with Ethiopia and has agreed to assist in expanding consumer awareness of Ethiopia’s famed coffee brands -- Sidamo, Harar/Harrar and Yirgacheffe.
In addition to meeting with Prime Minister Meles, Schultz and other top Starbucks executives will have a roundtable discussion with government officials, coffee farmers, exporters and other coffee stakeholders to share ideas on how to strengthen the partnership and improve the Ethiopian coffee industry. On Friday, Schultz will address leaders of the Ethiopian business community and young entrepreneurs.
The Starbucks Farmer Support Center in Addis Ababa will provide resources and ongoing support to coffee communities with the goal of improving coffee quality and growing practices and increasing the number of farmers participating in the Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, Starbucks’ sustainable coffee buying guidelines.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity for Starbucks to continue to partner with the Ethiopian coffee community to support their efforts to produce some of the world’s finest coffees. We have always recognized that coffee farmers play a critical role in Starbucks success and we are proud to help expand the audience and demand for Ethiopian specialty coffees. Prime Minister Meles has a deep understanding of the global coffee business and is genuinely committed to forging public-private partnerships to ensure a bright future for Ethiopian farmers.” Schultz said.
Between 2002 and 2006, Starbucks increased its Ethiopian coffee purchases by nearly 400 percent. Today, Ethiopian coffee can be found in nearly all of Starbucks’ U.S. stores. In 2008 Starbucks plans to intensify its promotion of Ethiopian coffees.
As part of Starbucks’ expanded economic investment in the region, Schultz also announced that the company is negotiating with an Ethiopian apparel factory to manufacture its Starbucks black aprons, worn by approximately 27,000 Coffee Masters worldwide. Starbucks also invested in school and bridge infrastructure projects in Ethiopia as well as partnered with CARE and WaterAid on projects to improve the economic and educational prospects in the coffee-growing regions of Ethiopia.
Schultz is joined in Ethiopia by Cliff Burrows, president Starbucks EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Dub Hay, Starbucks senior vice president of Coffee & Global Procurement, and Sandra Taylor, Starbucks senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility.
The Prime Minister and Schultz discussed ways to expand the branding and marketing of Ethiopia’s world-renowned fine coffees in order to achieve better prices for farmers and improved opportunities for the millions of Ethiopians who depend on coffee for their livelihood.
Schultz announced that the company will open a Starbucks Farmer Support Center in the Ethiopian capital in 2008. The facility, the first in Africa, will enable Starbucks to work collaboratively with Ethiopian farmers to raise both the quality and production of the country’s high quality specialty coffees.
“We will be working closely with Starbucks to bring badly needed investment and technology to our coffee industry, as well as brand recognition and promotion for our high-grade Arabica beans,” said Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. “These measures will afford Ethiopia new leverage in the global coffee market. I am extremely encouraged that Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz shares our belief in a bright future for Ethiopia’s coffee economy.”
Earlier this year, Starbucks signed a distribution, marketing and licensing agreement with Ethiopia and has agreed to assist in expanding consumer awareness of Ethiopia’s famed coffee brands -- Sidamo, Harar/Harrar and Yirgacheffe.
In addition to meeting with Prime Minister Meles, Schultz and other top Starbucks executives will have a roundtable discussion with government officials, coffee farmers, exporters and other coffee stakeholders to share ideas on how to strengthen the partnership and improve the Ethiopian coffee industry. On Friday, Schultz will address leaders of the Ethiopian business community and young entrepreneurs.
The Starbucks Farmer Support Center in Addis Ababa will provide resources and ongoing support to coffee communities with the goal of improving coffee quality and growing practices and increasing the number of farmers participating in the Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, Starbucks’ sustainable coffee buying guidelines.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity for Starbucks to continue to partner with the Ethiopian coffee community to support their efforts to produce some of the world’s finest coffees. We have always recognized that coffee farmers play a critical role in Starbucks success and we are proud to help expand the audience and demand for Ethiopian specialty coffees. Prime Minister Meles has a deep understanding of the global coffee business and is genuinely committed to forging public-private partnerships to ensure a bright future for Ethiopian farmers.” Schultz said.
Between 2002 and 2006, Starbucks increased its Ethiopian coffee purchases by nearly 400 percent. Today, Ethiopian coffee can be found in nearly all of Starbucks’ U.S. stores. In 2008 Starbucks plans to intensify its promotion of Ethiopian coffees.
As part of Starbucks’ expanded economic investment in the region, Schultz also announced that the company is negotiating with an Ethiopian apparel factory to manufacture its Starbucks black aprons, worn by approximately 27,000 Coffee Masters worldwide. Starbucks also invested in school and bridge infrastructure projects in Ethiopia as well as partnered with CARE and WaterAid on projects to improve the economic and educational prospects in the coffee-growing regions of Ethiopia.
Schultz is joined in Ethiopia by Cliff Burrows, president Starbucks EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Dub Hay, Starbucks senior vice president of Coffee & Global Procurement, and Sandra Taylor, Starbucks senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility.
Desperate Somalia
Washington Post
November 27, 2007
DARFUR has engendered less international attention but no less misery in recent months: Violence is still rampant, and aggression by the Sudanese army continues. But there is at least the hope of relief in the planned deployment early next year of 19,000 more peacekeepers under a U.N. mandate. That can't be said for nearby Somalia, a failed state where another nasty war is escalating, another major humanitarian crisis is building -- and the United Nations, together with most of the rest of the world, has written off any rescue.
Some international aid officials are arguing that the suffering in Somalia is now greater than in Darfur, and they may have a point. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the capital, Mogadishu, to live in camps along roads, where they have little food. A failed harvest has brought the rest of the country close to famine. In the capital there are regular bombings and ambushes by insurgents and occasional flare-ups of all-out combat; more than 80 people were killed in one week this month. Hundreds have drowned in recent months trying to flee the country by boat.
A year ago there was hope that Somalia could be stabilized for the first time since 1991, after Ethiopian troops routed the forces of the Islamic Courts movement, which had installed a fundamentalist administration in Mogadishu and harbored terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. But the Western-backed coalition government that the Ethiopian forces carried into Mogadishu proved incapable of broadening its base to include powerful clans whose support was needed to pacify the capital. A plan to transfer security from the Ethiopians, who are widely disliked in Somalia, to an African peacekeeping force fell through. The remnants of the Islamic Courts force regrouped to wage war against the Ethiopians, with the help of allied clansmen. Ethiopian forces have been guilty of indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods where insurgents are based.
Not only Somalis stand to suffer in this crisis. The war could escalate into a conflict between Ethiopia and its bitter enemy Eritrea. If the Islamists win, Somalia could become a base for al-Qaeda and a staging point for attacks in East Africa and Europe. Yet the will and resources for an international intervention seem nonexistent. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, struggling to manage nine peacekeeping operations in Africa, recently said there was little chance of one in Somalia. The United States, which was driven out of Mogadishu in 1993, has unsuccessfully sought to act through surrogates -- first local warlords, now the beleaguered and undisciplined Ethiopians.
If there is a chance for improvement, it may lie with the 68-year-old humanitarian who last week was named prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein. Since Somalia descended into chaos 16 years ago, Mr. Hussein has worked for the Somali Red Crescent, helping to provide health services and build hospitals. Encouragingly, he said in his first speech that "consultations will be my first priority." If Somalia is to be saved from another catastrophe, the solution will have to begin with a home-grown political bargain
November 27, 2007
DARFUR has engendered less international attention but no less misery in recent months: Violence is still rampant, and aggression by the Sudanese army continues. But there is at least the hope of relief in the planned deployment early next year of 19,000 more peacekeepers under a U.N. mandate. That can't be said for nearby Somalia, a failed state where another nasty war is escalating, another major humanitarian crisis is building -- and the United Nations, together with most of the rest of the world, has written off any rescue.
Some international aid officials are arguing that the suffering in Somalia is now greater than in Darfur, and they may have a point. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the capital, Mogadishu, to live in camps along roads, where they have little food. A failed harvest has brought the rest of the country close to famine. In the capital there are regular bombings and ambushes by insurgents and occasional flare-ups of all-out combat; more than 80 people were killed in one week this month. Hundreds have drowned in recent months trying to flee the country by boat.
A year ago there was hope that Somalia could be stabilized for the first time since 1991, after Ethiopian troops routed the forces of the Islamic Courts movement, which had installed a fundamentalist administration in Mogadishu and harbored terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. But the Western-backed coalition government that the Ethiopian forces carried into Mogadishu proved incapable of broadening its base to include powerful clans whose support was needed to pacify the capital. A plan to transfer security from the Ethiopians, who are widely disliked in Somalia, to an African peacekeeping force fell through. The remnants of the Islamic Courts force regrouped to wage war against the Ethiopians, with the help of allied clansmen. Ethiopian forces have been guilty of indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods where insurgents are based.
Not only Somalis stand to suffer in this crisis. The war could escalate into a conflict between Ethiopia and its bitter enemy Eritrea. If the Islamists win, Somalia could become a base for al-Qaeda and a staging point for attacks in East Africa and Europe. Yet the will and resources for an international intervention seem nonexistent. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, struggling to manage nine peacekeeping operations in Africa, recently said there was little chance of one in Somalia. The United States, which was driven out of Mogadishu in 1993, has unsuccessfully sought to act through surrogates -- first local warlords, now the beleaguered and undisciplined Ethiopians.
If there is a chance for improvement, it may lie with the 68-year-old humanitarian who last week was named prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein. Since Somalia descended into chaos 16 years ago, Mr. Hussein has worked for the Somali Red Crescent, helping to provide health services and build hospitals. Encouragingly, he said in his first speech that "consultations will be my first priority." If Somalia is to be saved from another catastrophe, the solution will have to begin with a home-grown political bargain
Humanitarian situation in eastern Ethiopia has improved, says U.N. humanitarian chief
KEBRIDEHAR, Ethiopia: (AP) The U.N. humanitarian chief urged officials to allow freedom of movement and more aid agencies in the eastern Ethiopian region of Ogaden, where a low-level insurgency has escalated.
John Holmes, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief, visited the remote region Tuesday. In recent months, Ethiopia has expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres from Ogaden. But in recent weeks the government has allowed 19 non-governmental organizations to return to work in the Ogaden, where the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April, killing 74 people.
In May, the Ethiopian military began counterinsurgency operations, hurting commercial trade and making it difficult to deliver food aid. The rebels, along with several aid and human rights groups, say the military has burned villages and blocked aid and trade into the region. The government denies those accusations.
Holmes said the situation was difficult to assess, but urged local officials to remove transportation barriers and increase the number of non-governmental organizations in the region to 40.
"My impression is it's better than it was," he said. "If there was freedom to move and to trade and to buy and to sell there really wouldn't be a problem."
But, he added, "you can only learn a limited amount from a short visit, obviously. But there is clearly a risk of a serious humanitarian situation here .... We need to make a difference in the next three months."
In the town of Kebridehar, there are signs humanitarian aid was getting through and having a positive effect.
Women thronged a bustling food distribution point, joyfully lugging sacks of wheat and cans of oil to their homes.
"There was some malnutrition before the food distribution, but now we're OK," said Nasra Nadif, 42, a mother of eight. She attributed the lack of food to poor rains in recent months.
Abdi Gani Yusuf, the head of security for the zone, said the government had caught 250 Ogaden National Liberation Front fighters in the past six months. He did not say where the fighters were held.
"These days the security situation is very calm," he said. "There are no security problems these days."
In the zone's only major hospital — a decrepit place with sagging and broken beds — a few patients lounged listlessly in the midday heat. The pharmacy shelves were empty, though Dr. Dereje Seyoum said the hospital's supplies had not been affected by recent transportation prohibitions.
The ONLF is fighting to overthrow the government for what it says are human rights abuses and to establish greater autonomy in a region being heavily explored for oil and gas. The government accuses the rebels of being terrorists funded by its archenemy Eritrea.
John Holmes, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief, visited the remote region Tuesday. In recent months, Ethiopia has expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres from Ogaden. But in recent weeks the government has allowed 19 non-governmental organizations to return to work in the Ogaden, where the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April, killing 74 people.
In May, the Ethiopian military began counterinsurgency operations, hurting commercial trade and making it difficult to deliver food aid. The rebels, along with several aid and human rights groups, say the military has burned villages and blocked aid and trade into the region. The government denies those accusations.
Holmes said the situation was difficult to assess, but urged local officials to remove transportation barriers and increase the number of non-governmental organizations in the region to 40.
"My impression is it's better than it was," he said. "If there was freedom to move and to trade and to buy and to sell there really wouldn't be a problem."
But, he added, "you can only learn a limited amount from a short visit, obviously. But there is clearly a risk of a serious humanitarian situation here .... We need to make a difference in the next three months."
In the town of Kebridehar, there are signs humanitarian aid was getting through and having a positive effect.
Women thronged a bustling food distribution point, joyfully lugging sacks of wheat and cans of oil to their homes.
"There was some malnutrition before the food distribution, but now we're OK," said Nasra Nadif, 42, a mother of eight. She attributed the lack of food to poor rains in recent months.
Abdi Gani Yusuf, the head of security for the zone, said the government had caught 250 Ogaden National Liberation Front fighters in the past six months. He did not say where the fighters were held.
"These days the security situation is very calm," he said. "There are no security problems these days."
In the zone's only major hospital — a decrepit place with sagging and broken beds — a few patients lounged listlessly in the midday heat. The pharmacy shelves were empty, though Dr. Dereje Seyoum said the hospital's supplies had not been affected by recent transportation prohibitions.
The ONLF is fighting to overthrow the government for what it says are human rights abuses and to establish greater autonomy in a region being heavily explored for oil and gas. The government accuses the rebels of being terrorists funded by its archenemy Eritrea.
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