Canada’s new brand of ‘terrorists’ — British MPs

During my 14 weeks of training as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) a few years ago, I spent countless hours memorizing what, according to the law, constitutes terrorism — a definition that was somewhat altered following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. There were those who had committed terrorist attacks, those who were planning to commit a terrorist attack, and those who abetted, or helped, others in the commission of, or planning for, a terrorist attack.

The main difference in how the law interpreted what constitutes terrorism was that prior to 9/11, an individual, or group, needed to have committed an act of terrorism to face charges of terrorism, whereas after the legal changes (promulgated in Bill C-36), intent and support were now sufficient to investigate and prosecute someone on terrorism charges. What this meant was that someone who donated money to a terrorist organization, raised funds for it or provided material support, could now be accused of engaging in terrorism, provided, of course, that a proper investigation by intelligence agencies determined that one had indeed engaged in such activities. At an extreme, the new law meant that the more than 100 Canadians who in recent weeks have chipped in to purchase a plane ticket for terror suspect Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Sudan-born Canadian national who has been stranded in Sudan since 2002, could technically be accused of aiding a terrorist. (Abdelrazik has been cleared of terrorism charges by Canadian and Sudanese authorities, but remains on the 1267 UN watch list, which targets individuals associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Ottawa has yet to provide him with a passport).

Pushing the definition of what constitutes terrorism one step further, the Canadia Border Services Agency (CBSA) in early March barred British MP George Galloway, an outspoken critic of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, from entering Canada, on grounds that he represents “a threat to national security” — a decision that was not overruled by a Federal Court judge on Monday.

The main fault of Mr Galloway, who was scheduled to give a speech at a “Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar” forum in Toronto on Monday, was that on March 11 he, along with about 50 British and Scottish volunteers, delivered money, humanitarian aid and vehicles to war-torn Gaza directly rather than through a recognized international aid agency or the UN. By doing so, Galloway sought to demonstrate that it was possible, despite the Israeli/Egyptian blockade imposed since 2006 — which the UN and aid organizations say has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the territory — to deliver aid. In other words, he refused to abide by a state-sponsored system that has ensured that, despite Israel’s claims to the contrary, Palestinians remain in a state of destitution.

In a letter dated March 20, Ottawa said that during his visit to Gaza, Galloway gave Hamas — listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the European Union and Canada, among others — US$45,000.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that those who support, promote and help terrorist organizations should not be allowed to come to Canada.

The problem with the CBSA and the Federal Court’s decision is that Galloway has denied the charges that he supports, promotes and helps terrorist organizations, and no investigation has been launched by CSIS or other Canadian intelligence agencies to prove him right or wrong. In other words, beyond the questionable wisdom of branding Hamas a terrorist entity, an assumption of guilt underlies the Canadian government’s decision to bar him entry, which contravenes the presumption of innocence that lies at the core of the Canadian legal system. Based on my experience at CSIS, if there is any intelligence supporting the claim that Galloway gave money directly to Hamas, it came from a single-thread, or “uncorroborated,” Israeli source of questionable credibility — which sadly is often enough to convince allied agencies to act.

It is therefore quite feasible that Mr Galloway was denied entry into Canada not because he is a terror suspect or, risibly, poses a threat to national security, but rather because he has been a supporter of the Palestinian cause, has been critical of Israel, and opposed the neo-imperialistic interventions in Iraq — which Ottawa ostensibly opposed — and Afghanistan, where more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers have been deployed since 2001. The decision is also reflective of the position the Conservative Stephen Harper administration (as has the Liberal opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff) has taken on Israeli aggression against Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in December and January, which was overwhelmingly supportive of Jerusalem’s actions.

By twisting anti-terror legislation and disregarding the process by which an individual can be accused of engaging in terrorist activity, the Canadian government has with Mr Galloway’s case entered the realm of preventing free speech and once again shown its disregard, if not contempt, for the fate of ordinary Palestinians.

He said it'd be OK to kill my wife

We met when I worked as an intelligence officer in Canada, part of an organization that at times risked making racism and hatred for the “other” — in that case, mostly Arabs and Muslims — a normal policy. After nearly three years in that suffocating environment, whose siege mentality I could no longer bear, I resigned, choosing to abide by the values of humanity and inclusiveness that I cherished and believed defined me as a Canadian.

Throughout the long, difficult months that preceded my decision, my partner, a Taiwanese, was always supportive and helped me in uncountable ways, as did other members of her family.

Soon afterwards, we left Canada — her adopted homeland — and moved to Taiwan, where I sought to build a new life and write a book about what I had gone through at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

What immediately struck me in Taiwan was the warmth, friendliness, selflessness and generosity of its people, at a level I had possibly only encountered in Cuba on my two visits there [...]

Op-ed on Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), hatred, ethnic divisions and the series of vitriolic articles he wrote under the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽), continues here.

Book Review: It's war in the Taiwan Strait

The year is 2012. In Taiwan, a charismatic new leader named Yo Tuan occupies the Presidential Office — and he is filled with ambition to make his county independent. Across the strait, president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has been replaced by Wei Ching-chun, an inexperienced and somewhat stoic leader whose ability to steer the Chinese Community Party (CCP) remains unproven. In Washington, President Jocelyn Adams, an African-American woman, succeeded George W. Bush in 2008 and is seeking re-election in a country weighed down by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and severe water shortages that are threatening to create domestic instability.

For my review of William E. Cooper's novel Flashpoint China, published today in the Taipei Times, click here. (.pdf format).

Education key to future of China’s economic ‘miracle’

China’s economic “miracle” has pulled 200 million people out of poverty in the past two decades, a feat largely generated by the “necessary evil” of migratory workers. But as the birthrate — pulled down by the “one child” policy and women entering the workforce in larger numbers — drops, China will soon face a series of new challenges: higher salaries, greater demand, and fewer workers. To deal with this, Beijing will have to turn to one often overlooked spoke in the great development wheel: education.

Despite its “rise,” China’s education system — especially in rural areas — remains mostly primitive, underfunded and weighed down by rampant poor health. And yet, the government does not appear to be making the investments and adjustments that will allow future generations of Chinese workers to maintain the country's industrial competitiveness.

Stanford University’s Dr. Scott Rozelle, a specialist on agriculture and rural development in China, was in Taiwan to address Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University on the above challenges. He also spoke at Taipei American School, which I covered for the Taipei Times. The article can be accessed here.

‘Ultranationalists’ versus ‘terrorists’

News broke out on Tuesday that Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to strengthen the position of his minority Likud party in parliament, had brought into his “unity government” Yisrael Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman, who, in Reuters’ words, is “a far-right politician whose policies have raised Arab ire and international concern.”

In its coverage, Agence France-Presse referred to the future Israeli foreign minister Lieberman — who among other things supports continued illegal settlements in the West Bank (he is himself a resident of one, Nokdim) as well as law that would force Arab Israelis to sign an oath of loyalty to Israel or lose their citizenship — as an “ultranationalist,” a “controversial firebrand” and, quoting his detractors, a “racist.” The Associated Press, for its part, also used the designation “ultranationalist” and “racism” in describing him, while the Guardian newspaper called him an “outspoken far-right Israeli politician” and “unashamed hardliner, adding that the former nightclub bouncer from Moldova had resigned from the government in protest at the resumption of peace talks with Palestinians.

The New York Times, meanwhile, referred to Lieberman as a “nationalist” and “often indelicate and outspoken politician whose threatening language aimed at Arabs arouses suspicion and some trepidation abroad.”

Five news organizations. One “ultranationalist” whose party — which would also handle the internal security, infrastructure, tourism and integration of new immigrants portfolios in the “unity government” — undeniably stands against peace. The question is, what kind of adjectives would the same five news organizations have used if the individual in question, rather than be an Israeli politician, had been a new member in the Palestinian Cabinet advocating the same policies? Would he have been an “unashamed hardliner,” an “ultranationalist,” a “firebrand” or a “racist”? Of course not. He would have been characterized as an “extremist” and “terrorist.”

This is not to say that the news organizations sampled above did not do a good job raising questions about Lieberman’s political stance (in fact, the Guardian did a pretty decent job). But they still couldn’t bring themselves to use language with the kind of even-handedness one would expect from professional and supposedly “impartial” media. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that had any one of those organizations catalogued Lieberman as an “extremist” or “terrorist,” the Anti-Defamation League and other Israeli lobby organizations would have screamed “anti-Semitism.”

Where the f*** is ‘Chinese Taipei’ anyway? [UPDATED]

As I was searching the Web for data on Taiwan’s accomplishments for a book I am working on — provisionally titled Democracy in Peril: Taiwan’s struggle for survival from Chen Shui-bian to Ma Ying-jeou — I came upon the following passage:

Gender Equality in Chinese Taipei

It is perhaps easiest to consider the situation of women in Chinese Taipei in comparison with that of women in mainland China (PRC). While Chinese Taipei has adopted a Western civil and capitalist legal system over the past century, its Civil Code retains strong paternal characteristics whereas PRC legislation upholds the principle of gender equality …

The site, Wikigender.org, shows the Nationalist flag with the caption “flag of Chinese Taipei.” The About page informs us that Wikigender is a project initiated by the OECD Development Centre to “to facilitate the exchange and improve the knowledge on gender-related issues around the world.” One listed source, APEC Gender in Chinese Taipei, Chinese Taipei Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC, links to http://gender.wrp.org.tw, a page on the Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC, which also refers to Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei.”

Given China’s weight at APEC and its bullying of member states on the question of Taiwan, it is not surprising that the designation “Chinese Taipei” would be used, and it is in fact the name under which Taiwan has participated at its meetings. But at a project initiated by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development? (It should be noted that while China is not an OECD member, it is what is called an “enhanced engagement country.”)

This bodes ill. Little by little, the name Taiwan (or even Republic of China) is being effaced and replaced with the name “Chinese Taipei.” The global commons of free information is being exploited to cultivate future generations of people who will have no clue that there once was this place called Taiwan. On the gender equality question, which I wanted supportive data on, the great accomplishments that the people of Taiwan have made on that front — Taiwan is second to Japan in all of Asia — are being ignored by the designers of the Wikigender site and the OECD. The Taiwanese architects of that great success are being replaced by people in that odd place that doesn’t exist called “Chinese Taipei,” as if Taiwanese didn’t even have a right to be proud of what they’ve achieved. By rebound, this creates the impression that China — or part of China, as “Chinese Taipei” must be — would be capable, under the current government there, of such social accomplishments.

I have written to the designers of the Wikigender site to complain. As always, if they bother to respond (or, less likely, correct the error), I will keep readers informed.

[UPDATE] Wikigender responded today in a short e-mail: “Based on OECD agreements with the Chinese Authorities, the Development Centre (as the creator of Wikigender) is equally obliged to follow this denomination.

After filing an application for observer status at the OECD in September 2003, Taiwan was granted “ad hoc observer status” in December 2004 under the name … “Chinese Taipei.” OECD sources at the time, however, said the designation was a “temporary arrangement” rather than a “formal status.” Regardless of whether the deal was made with Taipei or Beijing, it coincides with China’s strategy of removing the name “Taiwan” from international institutions. Four-and-a-half years on and with presumed pressure from Beijing (the so-called Chinese Authorities mentioned in Wikigender's reply to me, presumably), the “temporary” arrangement risks congealing into something more permanent; in other words, it is turning more into a “status.” All OECD documents and publications, it should be noted, refer to Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei.”

Not a time for a nation of sheep

Since dialogue between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was initiated following President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) taking office in May, Beijing has made no secret of its ultimate intentions regarding Taiwan. In speech after speech, the Chinese leadership — including President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) on the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) — has been surprisingly transparent about the fact that cross-strait talks and various agreements are a means to an end, the stepping stones toward the great goal of “reunification.”

It is puzzling, therefore, that the Ma administration would continue to argue that an ECFA and other pacts with China are nonpolitical and will not undermine the sovereignty of the nation. And yet, despite the unequivocal signals from Beijing, this is what the administration keeps harping about, vaunting the economic benefits of closer ties with China and the alleged security benefits attendant to cross-strait dialogue.

Op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

A professional military by 2014? A pipe dream

On Monday, the Ministry of National Defense said that starting in 2011, the Taiwanese military would start replacing military conscripts with professional soldiers at a rate of at least 10 percent annually, with conscript measures ending in 2014. At present, all men above the age of 20 are required to do one year of military service.

The idea of a professional army is not a creation of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), nor is it the result of supposed reduced tensions in the Taiwan Strait. In fact, plans to create an all-volunteer or “partial” all-volunteer military were first floated during the first term of the Democratic Progressive Party administration.

Given the increasingly sophisticated weapons systems soldiers have to operate in a modern combat environment and the relatively short period of training conscripts receive during their one-year compulsory service, attracting motivated career soldiers who can be fully trained and upgraded as systems and concepts change makes perfect sense. In fact, under the current conscription system, one could be excused for doubting that young Taiwanese fresh out of compulsory service would be able to defend the nation if China attacked. Aside from the month or so they spend in boot camp, the great majority of conscripts spend time pushing paper in a stuffy office and cannot wait to resume their civilian life.

The problem with the ministry’s announcement on Monday, however, is that it comes amid cuts in the military budget by the KMT government, which has used the illusion of warmer ties with Beijing to justify the reduction. Taiwan’s overall defense budget for 2009 is US$10.17 billion, or NT$10.4 billion (US$301.4 million) lower than the 2008 level.

As studies have shown, creating a fully professional army is a costly endeavor. One initial estimate, mentioned in Bernard D. Cole’s Taiwan’s Security, was more than US$4 billion, or NT$138 billion, while the initial cost for a “partial” professional army was set at US$400 million. To put things in perspective, creating a fully professional army would cost Taiwan about one third of its overall defense budget for 2009. Even if this is spread over a five-year period, the project represents a major investment.

Without an increase in defense spending or special budget allocations, the creation of a fully professional army by 2014 will be financially impossible. And yet, when the ministry made the announcement on Monday, it did not mention any increases in defense spending. Nor has it said anything about raising soldiers’ salaries (about US$1,000 a month presently) to make the military an attractive employer for young Taiwanese. Absent career opportunities and remuneration that can compete with what is offered in the private sector, or even in academia, there is no way the military will manage to attract the talent, in large enough a quantity, it needs to meet its requirements.

What this means is that either the professional military will be anything but — a botched job — or the number of professional soldiers that current budgets allow for would be so low as to make Taiwan’s military unable to defend the nation. Either way, this bodes ill for Taiwan’s future ability to defend itself.

A Beijing conveniently forgetful

As I wrote in my article “A parade to end all parades,” published today in the Taipei Times, China is in a celebratory mood this year, what with the upcoming 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet next month and, in October, the 60th anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Another key date that Beijing has been conspicuously silent about, however, is Feb. 17, 1979, which is when Chinese forces invaded Vietnam in response to the latter’s invasion of Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge regime.

Today in China, not a single state-run newspaper carried news of the 30th anniversary, while a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman limited himself to comments to the effect that the past should be left alone and that “China and Vietnam had an unhappy period in history.”

Unhappy indeed, as the People’s Liberation Army invasion, which led to low-intensity warfare through most of the 1980s, resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both side. To this day, study of the conflict is banned in Chinese schools.

This refusal to acknowledge the past may have something to do with the fact that there was no clear-cut outcome to the costly war, which for the PLA in effect became a smaller version of the US’ own debacle in Vietnam, or that of the Soviets in Afghanistan around the same time. Defeat simply has no room in PRC history books, especially in times of economic crisis when the state hopes to maintain the illusion of Communism’s great achievements. Through this filter, the invasion of Tibet is refashioned as a “liberation,” while the birth of the PRC, which came on the heels of the defeat of Nationalist forces, conveniently omits mentioning the years of devastating civil war that preceded it. Like everything else in China, negatives are twisted into positives, and when doing so is impossible, things are just ignored.

At a time when Beijing faces accusations, mostly from the West, that its massive, no-questions-asked investments abroad are propping up repressive and genocidal regimes (Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, North Korea, to name a few), CCP cadres would probably also want us to forget that 30 years ago, Beijing was an ally of the homicidal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who killed millions of his own people.

China’s parade to end all parades*

Amid news that millions of migrant workers are roaming the Chinese countryside unemployed, a severe drought affecting eight breadbasket provinces and state authorities admitting that 2009 could be a year of unprecedented social unrest, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials must be looking left and right these days for ways to retain their grip on power. After all, much of the CCP’s legitimacy rests on its ability to promote economic growth and pull millions of Chinese out of poverty, which in the past two decades or so it has managed to accomplish with some success.

However, failure to sustain such growth, the pessimistic theory has it, could result in serious social unrest, rebellion and, in the worst-case scenario, the fragmentation of the country.

Op-ed, published on Tuesday in the Taipei Times, continues here.

* Unfortunately the article refers to the 60th anniversary next month of the Tibetan uprising. In reality, it will be the 50th anniversary of the March 1959 uprising. Apologies for the error.

Book review: ‘Bob of Arabia’ explores the ills of our troubled times

How does one review a book by a man who has spent the past three decades reporting on the world’s bloodiest conflicts, who has interviewed Osama bin Laden and who, by Air France calculations, travels more frequently than any Air France crew member? Robert Fisk’s journalistic resume is impressive, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Israel’s own invasion of Lebanon, Iran after the overthrow of the Shah to the US-led invasion of Iraq, as well as the killing fields of Algeria, Syria, the Occupied Territories and other trouble spots in the Arab world.

Book review of Robert Fisk’s The Age of the Warrior continues here.

Some Tibetan lessons for Taiwan

Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As Beijing — and purportedly all Tibetans — ready themselves to rejoice in the festivities surrounding “Serf Emancipation Day” on March 28, people in Taiwan would be well advised to turn to the history books.

For starters, the so-called liberation of Tibet did not occur in 1959, but rather nine years earlier, when the PLA made its first incursion into Tibet. Along with thousands of soldiers, the liberators brought the Seventeen-Point Agreement, a document that was purportedly intended as a blueprint for the “modernization” of “backward” and “barbaric” Tibet by a benevolent China and which called for the ouster of “reactionary governments” and “imperialist” forces that had thrown Tibet “into the depths of enslavement and suffering.”

Op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

O Canada, land of double standards

In recent weeks, Ottawa has sounded as if its speeches were written by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League or B’nai Brith, a Canadian Jewish advocacy organization. First, during Israel’s bombing of Gaza in December and January, Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Kent said that the escalating number of Palestinian being killed was solely Hamas’ fault. Then it was Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff, who on Jan. 8 also blamed Hamas for everything, as if Israel — which was killing more than 100 Palestinians for every Israeli killed in the one-sided war, and was using weapons, such as phosphorus shells, in violation of international law — did not share at least part of the blame for the bloody catastrophe or for creating the conditions that led to it.

On Feb. 3, Kent justly condemned vandalism against the Mariperez Synagogue, the main synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela, calling the “act of anti-Semitic vandalism … an assault on the freedoms that Canada and all democratic nations cherish.”

“The scourge of hate-filled bigotry must be confronted and rejected whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Canada denounces this act of anti-Semitism and all acts of anti-Semitism around the world,” Kent said, calling on Caracas to launch an investigation.

About fifteen people broke into the synagogue on Friday night, tying the security guards, destroying scriptures and spraying graffiti, which among others included references to former US president George W. Bush, the Star of David and the Swastika.

As a multicultural country that takes pride in its ideals of justice, Canada and its government should always, in the bluntest terms, deplore acts of hatred targeting a people for their ethnicity or religion, and in that regard Kent’s outrage was perfectly justified.

The problem, however, is that when similar acts are committed against non-Jewish religious centers, Kent and Ottawa tend to remain silent. To wit, as the Observer newspaper reported on Jan. 4, the 12 Palestinians killed — six of them children — when an Israeli missile struck the entrance to the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque in Beit Lahiya, Gaza.

“The Israeli military has destroyed several mosques during its week-long offensive in Gaza,” the British newspaper reported at the time. In all, McClatchy Newspapers wrote on Jan. 23, Israel damaged or destroyed 23 mosques during the 22-day war.

Not once did Kent, Ignatieff or other Canadian politicians who ostensibly oppose “the scourge of hate-filled bigotry” react to the destruction of Muslim religious institutions in Gaza. In Ottawa’s political book, graffiti inside a synagogue is blasphemy that warrants strong condemnation. But when bombs and missiles, rather than spray paint, deface or altogether vaporize a mosque, all we get is silence, even when, unlike the sad incident in Caracas, people — innocents — are killed in the act.

If Canada really stood by its vaunted ideals, Kent’s comments would have read as follows: “… act of racist and discriminatory vandalism … an assault on the freedoms that Canada and all democratic nations cherish … The scourge of hate-filled bigotry must be confronted and rejected whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Canada denounces this act of racism and discrimination and all acts of racism and discrimination around the world.”

Perhaps this goes beyond Kent’s ability to see clearly, but deploring discrimination only when it affects a specific group while ignoring it when it concerns another is, in and of itself, racist — in this case, anti-Muslim. Surely this goes against the Canadian values of freedom and justice.

Hamas is responsible, but …

Outgoing, corruption-haunted and altogether discredited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Sunday that Israel would respond “disproportionately” to the continuing, albeit sporadic, firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip. In the long, sad and bloody history of disproportionate responses by Israel, Olmert’s comment may actually set a precedent, in that the Israeli leader no longer even attempted to hide the fact that his country’s military is breaking international law. Put through the political doublespeak filter, what Olmert essentially said was “we shall break international law.”

Two additional ironies marked the warning.

First, despite an intense 19-day bombing campaign in Gaza to “end” the firing of rockets into Israeli territory, causing about US$2 billion in damage to the Gaza infrastructure, killing 1,300 Palestinians and injuring thousands, rockets are still being fired, a humiliation of Israel’s military that is reminiscent of similar adventurism in Lebanon in 2006.

Second, while Jerusalem and its shrinking list of equally discredited supporters have blamed Hamas for the rocket attacks and, with odd logic, the devastating response by Israel, the latest rocket attacks (which caused no damage or injuries) were claimed by a wing of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group belonging to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. In Israel’s book (and likely in US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton’s, as well as special envoy’s George Mitchell’s), Hamas are the bad guys, while Fatah (or at least Abbas) are the “moderate” Palestinians, the ones that “peace” can be negotiated with.

Now that the “good” guys — the “good Arabs” of the non-“terrorist” sort — are also firing rockets into Israel, who will Israel talk to? Quite the quandary, indeed. Could it be that Olmert’s latest disproportionate response in Gaza in December and January managed to anger even the portion of Palestinians it thought it could deal with? Could this mean that Israel’s US-backed blunt approach to peacemaking is finally backfiring, proving that “peace” at the end of a cannon, “peace” that isn’t accompanied by justice and respect for international law, can turn even one’s “friends” into enemies?

Can Obama’s shift on terror succeed?

But a few days in office and already US President Barack Obama has moved to undo some of the most nefarious monsters former president George W. Bush unleashed in his “war on terrorism.” This included, on Thursday, the signing of executive orders calling for the closure, within no more than a year, of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facilities and other secret prisons, an end to questionable interrogation techniques used by the CIA (such as “waterboarding”) and a rapid drawdown of US forces from Iraq.

These early moves are cause for celebration and optimism, and Obama should be commended for making them so early after entering the White House. He promised change, and so far seems to mean it.

Full article, published in CounterPunch, continues here.

Lies, lies, lies (Part II)

I find it heartening to see that in recent weeks demonstrations against Israel’s military aggression in Gaza have been held in countries with little history of caring about the issue. Such demonstrations were not only held across the Muslim world, where thy are expected, or in Europe and the US, but also in Japan and South Korea. Even Taiwan, which as far as I know has no history of such protests, has held its own.

After protests on Friday (pictured above), a second, smaller one was held on Tuesday in front of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), where about 70 demonstrators called for an immediate end to US weapons sales to Israel and a complete pullout of Israeli troops from Gaza. Shoes, now a global symbol of resistance, were also lobbed at a poster of an outgoing US president George W. Bush donning the Hitler mustache.

In response, the Israeli representative to Taipei, Raphael Gamzou, justified his government’s actions by saying that Israel had “abided to a policy of restraint in the last eight years while Hamas, a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist group, relentlessly sought to destroy Israel.”

Restraint? I wouldn’t call the killing of more than 1,200 people — about half of whom were civilians — restraint, nor has this been the only instance of “restraint” on Israel’s part in the past eight years. As for Hamas’ “relentless” efforts to “destroy” Israel, while its leadership uses that ill-advised and disgusting rhetoric, the group’s performance defending Gaza in the past three weeks — with 10 Israeli soldiers killed altogether, some by Israeli soldiers — should put at ease those who still believe Hamas has the ability to do so. Note, too, the inevitable addition of “terrorist” by Gamzou.

AIT officials, meanwhile, couldn’t be bothered to come out, but in an e-mail statement, AIT spokesman Thomas Hodges had this to say:

Hamas has held the people of Gaza hostage ever since their illegal coup against the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas, the legitimate president of the Palestinian people. We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against innocent Israeli civilians and hold Hamas fully responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza.

A few things about Hodges’ comments. First, Hamas did not hold an “illegal coup.” It was elected on Jan. 26, 2006, winning 74 seats (to Fatah’s — Abbas’ party — 45). Secondly, Abbas is no longer a“legitimate” Palestinian president, as his pro-Western, capitulation-leaning party has long been reviled for its corruption, which largely contributed to Hamas’ electoral victory (although to be fair, a government — Hamas — that claims “victory”after more than 1,200 of its own people are killed and the civilian infrastructure destroyed also has no claim to legitimacy). Lastly, while Hodges fully blames Hamas for the bloodbath in Gaza, he gets his facts wrong, as it has been documented that it was Israel — on two occasions (on Nov. 4 and Nov. 17) — that broke the ceasefire.

Sadly, without the necessary caveats, those official comments risk being mistaken for facts and those brave demonstrators (including at least one Jewish expatriate, who asked to remain anonymous) who defied the rain and gathered in front of AIT today will likely be seen as troublemakers, or friends of “terrorist” Hamas. Kudos to them, shame on the officials.

Lies, lies, lies

Bloomberg today carried a piece headlined “China Security Improved in 2008 With Taiwan Ties,” a headline that on its own should have left anyone who knows anything about the situation in the Taiwan Strait feeling high on some hallucinogenic drug. The story opens with the following paragraph:

Security improved in 2008 as relations across the Taiwan Strait warmed, a [Chinese] Ministry of National Defense spokesman said, as the government released a report showing the slowest defense budget annual growth in three years … “Relations across the Taiwan Strait have seen unprecedented and tremendous changes,” Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Hu Changming [胡昌明] told reporters at a press conference in Beijing.

Now of course Bloomberg is doing what any good Confucian would do and uncritically regurgitated whatever the authorities said at the press conference. More responsible journalism, however, would have qualified the spokesman’s statement, which creates (sadly not for the first time) a false moral equivalent in the Taiwan Strait.

Let me clarify this. When it comes to China’s security in the 21st century, improved ties with Taiwan are not a variable, as unlike the period from 1949 until the 1980s Taiwan does not threaten China militarily, neither with its posture nor with the type of military hardware that it possesses. The US — Taiwan’s almost sole source of weapons — only sells Taiwan weapons that are defensive in nature and has exerted pressure on Taipei whenever it sought to acquire or develop offensive weapons. The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense’s announcement this weekend that it was considering troop cutbacks also has no incidence on the threat level for China, as those troops are also part of a defensive posture.

Furthermore, improved ties with Taiwan does not lessen the threat to China from Taiwan’s main ally, the US, as Washington has made it clear that it would only consider using force in the Taiwan Strait to help Taiwan defend itself from aggression. In other words, the US military posture in the Asia-Pacific region is a non-threatening one to China.

The conclusion that China was “safer” last year as a result of improved ties with Taiwan, therefore, is an altogether misleading one. Ironically, while the Chinese defense ministry (and Bloomberg) wax enthusiastically about a “safer” China, the threat to Taiwan remains undiminished — despite the warming relations between Taipei and Beijing. We have seen no troop reduction across the Strait, no removal of the 1,300-plus missiles the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) points at Taiwan (which to its credit Bloomberg mentions), and no change in Beijing’s plan to use force should Taiwan attempt to change the so-called “status quo” or allow its people to decide their own future. Anyone familiar with the brief “honeymoon” that followed the PLA’s “liberation” (read invasion) of Tibet knows that Beijing niceties and “peace” notwithstanding, the knife is ever drawn behind its back and ready to come slashing down.

By linking Chinese security with Taiwan, Beijing (and Bloomberg) are providing a false depiction of the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait and portraying Taiwan as an aggressor rather than a victim of aggression. There simply is no moral equivalence in the Taiwan Strait, period.

Only fools wouldn’t see a developing pattern

Not once, not twice, but on three occasions calendars meant for distribution by government offices across the country included Chinese holidays such as Reunification Day and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) birthday, or substituted the Republic of China (ROC) flag with that of the blood-drenched People’s Republic of China (PRC). Every time, government officials blamed printing companies or, in an insult to our intelligence, black-and-white samples that had ostensibly prevented proofreaders from seeing clearly, for the mishaps.

Now, anyone who has worked in publishing or ever pored over black-and-white proofs could be excused for recoiling in shock at such asinine explanations. Black-and-white or in color, the ROC and PRC flags certainly do not look the same — unless, of course, the printing company used so much black ink that it should be sued for environmental damage. And let’s be honest — black-and-white or color, the anniversary date of a mass murderer who starved millions of his own people is exactly the same.

Op-ed continued here.

CIA reviews my book — my response

In the Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf, the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence (vol. 52, No. 4) had a short review by Hayden B. Peake of my book, Smokescreen: Canadian security intelligence after September 11, 2001. Peake:

Former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analyst Michael Cole felt an “urgency in writing this book” that was “exacerbated by the increasing signals in 2007 that the United States was readying itself to wage war against Iran.” (xiv) This confession of analytic prowess, gained after 29 months of service “amid the dullness and the ugliness that an intelligence officer deals with on a daily basis,” (xv) — service he found boring — sets the tone of SMOKESCREEN. It is a critical chronicle that runs from his deficient training — ”death by PowerPoint” — to his strategic world view — that America, not al-Qaeda, has made the world a more dangerous place after 9/11. In between he complains about CSIS tolerance of incompetence, ingrained institutional racism, the high value placed on “spineless intelligence officers” (70), and the lack of a foreign intelligence collection mission. He also finds that the “need-to-know-principle” is self-defeating and that there is a need for more oversight (undefined). He concludes that the “US intelligence Community remains a mess.” The corrective, he suggests, citing some wisdom found in “The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf” (92), is with people [,] not organizations, though he is not optimistic of success. Nevertheless, in chapter six, “Fixing the System,” Cole presents pages of recommendations for improvement. There is nothing profound or unexpected there, just common sense. But nowhere in his book does Cole address a key issue: why he wasn’t willing or able to stay and help correct the deficiencies. Instead he moved to Taiwan.

Coming from an institution that I certainly do not spare in my criticism of Western intelligence, Peake’s review, though not flattering, is surprisingly fair and neutral (with the exception, perhaps, of the snipe about “analytical prowess” regarding the coming war with Iran, which hasn’t happened — yet). Given the institutional mindset that prevails at CSIS, the CIA and their like, the reflex would be to discard criticism — especially criticism by “outsiders” — without giving it a second though, a practice that I saw time and again while at CSIS.

Peake concludes by taking me up to task on my being unwilling or unable to stay and help correct the deficiencies and instead moving to Taiwan. The question is a fair one, and one that I attempted to answer in a previous version of my book before that section was cut out in the editing process. Before I answer it here, however, I must qualify his reference to my moving to Taiwan, which could give the impression that I eschewed my responsibilities and ran away. The reason for my decision to relocate to Taiwan — and those who know me are already fully aware of this — is that it offered promising career opportunities and I had had a longstanding interest in the Taiwan Strait issue, which, after graduating from the War Studies Masters program at the Royal Military College of Canada, I felt like studying first-hand. What’s more, I’ve become, as a journalist, a participant in it. (Another reason, I must add, is that this beautiful country is the birthplace of the woman that I love.)

Let us now turn to Peake’s question. Why did I leave? A very good question indeed, one that haunted me for months, with much to-ing and fro-ing before I made the decision in fall 2005. In a previous iteration of my book I stated my disagreement with the great (and sadly late) Edward W. Said of Columbia University, who (I think it was in his book Representations of the Intellectual) said that academics should never work for government lest it risk polluting their minds and integrity. With all due respect to Said, a great mind if ever there was one and an intellectual who has had tremendous influence on my worldview, I argued that in fact every intellectual should work for government for a while, otherwise how can one understand how it works, how can one experience its deficiencies if one does not partake of the dullness, the pervasive ossification, the detrimental hierarchy, the careerism? Ironically, Said’s argument played a role in me decision to leave, as an intellectual who had spent almost three years in government. I felt that I’d learned enough about the system — not just CSIS, but the community of which it was part — to write about it. In fact, having been on the inside, I felt it was my responsibility, as someone who felt a great sense of alarm at what was going on and with the direction our government had chosen, to write about it, something I could not have done had I remained at CSIS, given the Security of Information Act that barred me, as an intelligence officer with the highest security clearance in the country (Top Secret, NATO Umbra Orcon), from speaking out publicly.

An equally valid reason why I chose not to stay was that I did not think one could bring about change from the inside — at least not as quickly as I believed it should. With Ottawa (first Liberals, and then the Conservatives) falling in step with US/Israeli policy, waging war in Afghanistan and supporting Israel’s criminal war in Lebanon in 2006 (and again today, in Gaza), I felt someone had to do something before it was too late. Again, there were far too many constraints on the inside. God knows I tried, raising the issue of our self-defeating support for Israel, our lack of criticism regarding allied intelligence (often single-thread, or uncorroborated), the danger of racism and all that on a number of occasions, only to be shot down, insulted by superiors and treated like an idiot. I was soon made to understand that people like me were a cancer within the system and that the surgeons at the top — from the director to the DO to the DDO to the chiefs and heads — would not hesitate one second to use the scalpel on me, to excise my thoughts. Sadly, it is my firm belief that CSIS has worked in isolation for far too long, has developed enough antibodies to critical thinking, for it to be changed from within. But in fact, CSIS is only a reflection of our government’s strategic worldview, and if CSIS is to become a better, fairer and more accountable service in future, how Ottawa views and engages the world in general will have to change. As long as Ottawa remains a participant in empire, as long as it myopically supports Israeli war crimes and colonialism in the Middle East, as long as Ottawa remains a willing participant in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition system and as long as it maintains what is — let’s say it — a racist view of the world, CSIS will have carte blanche to do everything I criticize in my book.

Was it worth it? That has yet to be seen. But one thing I can tell you: It is being read, it is provoking reactions. It is now in public libraries and is on the reading list of a course on intelligence in the modern age at Carleton University in Ottawa, where, I hope, its inclusion will help prepare more critical minds to serve Canadians. Readers, some of whom are involved in cases past and present, have even contacted me. Oh, and it is at the Info Center at CSIS as well, being read by intelligence officers, perhaps helping them ask the questions they long should have been asking.

That, in a nutshell, is why I left. I didn’t flee, as those experiences remain part of who I am — I just chose not to stay.

Live from Sderot

Every day, as part of my job on the copy desk at a newspaper, I scan news and pictures from the global wire agencies my paper subscribes to. In the past two weeks, I have paid special attention to pictures from Gaza as it is relentlessly pounded by the Israeli military, scenes of carnage and destruction that starkly show how uneven this battle has been from the onset (the latest body count is about a dozen Israeli soldiers killed — mostly from “green-on-green” incidents — to about 1,000 Palestinians, between one quarter and one half of whom were civilians).

Then something caught my attention. Amid the bloodied corpses, collapsed buildings, infernal explosions and anti-Israel protests worldwide were a handful of pictures of a bald Caucasian male standing some distance from a burning Gaza. I turned to the picture caption, which informed me that the individual in question was one Joseph Wurzelbacher, a “reporter” sent by the conservative US-based Web site pjtv.com to report on the daily lives of ordinary Israelis during the conflict.

Now, there is no doubt that a conflict of this scope and complexity requires the best journalistic minds, people like Robert Fisk of the Independent, the late Ze’ev Schiff and Amira Hass, both of the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper, or the handful of Western reporters who still take their work seriously. (Of course, it would help if Israel stopped barring such reporters from entering Gaza because of their alleged “bias.”)

So who is this Joseph Wurzelbacher? For those who followed the interminable US election last year, he is better known as Joe the Plumber, the man who famously asked then-candidate Barack Obama about his tax plan, who supported candidates John McCain and his stark-mad running-mate Sarah Palin — and who agreed to the statement that one vote for Obama was a vote for the death of Israel.

I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry. Joe the Plumber, a man with no journalistic credentials whatsoever, a former unlicensed plumber who “owes taxes” and who now promotes digital converter boxes for analog television. Yeah, that’s what the public needs to stay informed on matters such as conflict in the Middle East, a conflict that with every invidious, murderous day that passes further angers and radicalizes the half on the “wrong” side of history — Muslims. At best, Joe the Plumber-Turned-Digital-Converter-Box-Advocate-Turned-War Correspondent will provide something else that increasingly (and dangerously) characterizes how many in the West regard and receive news — as entertainment. It would now seem that it’s OK for credible, seasoned war correspondents to be barred by governments from covering war, and that it is equally OK to minimize the horror of war by turning it into farce, a cheap form of entertainment that would be merely a terrible waste of bandwidth were the props not real human beings getting disemboweled and burned to death and crushed in the smoldering background. Oh, and if I were a Palestinian (or a Muslim), I’d be angry as hell and insulted to see this ludicrous personage dispatched in my backyard as a “correspondent.” First F-16s, Apache helicopters, cluster bombs and a variety of US-made bombs. Now Joe the Plumber. Ugh.

I wouldn’t even trust this man to fix my plumbing, let alone have him “inform” thousands of watchers on the “realities” of the Middle East. But some will. Some will…