Warren's space

Those of you interested in this subject might find the following letter to the editor of the Economist of interest. The conclusion is that because the convicted bomber Mr. Megrahi withdrew his legal appeal of his conviction just before being released from prison, our chances of ever knowing the truth of who bombed Pan Am103 over Scotland years ago are small. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14400737

 

Background

Guards and driver Wahid and I outside IMF guesthouse in Kabul

Foreign Wars

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” says my friend Bob Gregorio with reference to the NATO bombing near Kunduz of two hijacked fuel tankers that may have killed 120
people including maybe two dozen civilians (the numbers keep changing). This
observation contains a profound lesson for those contemplating foreign wars and
no place more so than here in Afghanistan.

An Afghan friend here in Kabul gave me two videos to watch
and then spent over an hour downloading all the viewers and right CODEXes to
make sure I could watch it on my laptop. So I felt obligated to watch all two
hours of “The Road to Guantanamo” about three British Pakistani boys who flew
from London to Karachi to get married, traveled into Afghanistan to see if they
could help their Taliban “brothers” in November 2001, were captured by the
Northern Alliance forces (largely Tajik Afghans fighting Pashtun Taliban) in
December 2001 (a few weeks before I arrived in Kabul), were turned over to
American forces and spent the next four years in Guantanamo before being
released with no charges every having been made against them. If that didn’t
leave me sickened, the other, thankfully shorter, video certainly did. In it a
female journalist travels with a U.S. Army unit (I forgot its name) north of
Kandahar through remote villages looking for Taliban. Working with local
village chiefs they do their best. The journalist then returns on her own to
the same villages for further interviews. While I do not find the claims of the
villagers that American solders abused them credible (demanding that men strip,
face the wall, and then groped them), just seeing the American invasions of
their homes from the eyes of humiliated, poor Afghanis, even if used for
propaganda purposes, tells us a lot about the futility and foolishness of
bringing democracy to foreign lands by force. How can our 19, 20 year old
solders, with their human strengths and weaknesses, possibly succeed (at what?)
in such environments. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, indeed.

I really cringe when I hear well-meaning Americans praising
our brave boys overseas. How dare we send them into such bewildering and
foolish danger? These fellow American’s have no idea what they are asking. If
they did, they wouldn’t do it. President Bush, for all of his faults, at least
had a clear purpose in attacking Afghanistan—to kill Ben Laden. Too bad he
failed so miserably as a result of the disastrous Iraqi diversion. My respected
friend Robert Schadler (a senior official in the Reagan administration’s now
defunct United States Information Agency) makes some important observations
about such situations in response to my earlier note on this bombing:

Dear Warren,

My sense, without ever having traveled there, is that our notion of  “who they are” is
very different than their own.

We say: “Saddam viciously committed genocide on his own people.” He says, “They
were Kurds and Shi’a. None were from Tikrit. They were not “my people”; they were my enemies.”

Similarly, the Afghans who are pleased with the bombings [in Kunduz] probably don’t view those who were killed as “fellow Afghans” but some barbarous tribe who happen to also live in a place called Afghanistan.

That’s only one layer. Western analysts are trained, by Aristotle, Anselm and others, to avoid obvious contradictions in thinking and feeling. As a counter, I recall a story that
baffled and amused my mother for most of her life. She had lived in Turkey during the last days of Ataturk. A rather sophisticated neighbor of hers, a Turk, was very proud of the fact that Turkey had such a strong leader — not like the weak-kneed European leaders at the time. Yet, minutes later, she said she expected Allah to strike down Ataturk for his vicious efforts to rid Turkey of various traditional Islamic practices — Arabic script, Friday holidays, forbidding the fez, etc.

Another layer yet is telling the powerful — and Westerners are often deemed powerful and the conquerors — what they want to hear or, more accurately, what they think the Westerners want to hear.

As for the policy shift in Afghanistan: the US had about half a million “boots on the
ground” to push Saddam out of Kuwait — a very small country. Figuring out who was who and where Kuwait ended and Iraq began did not require a lot of sophisticated intelligence and cultural awareness.

Protecting Afghans — from all mean, vicious and armed thugs or just the Taliban-inspired ones — means at lot more than another 20K  or 30K troops. Training the
Afghans to police themselves ….  Training them is the minor problem. Getting them to view members of other tribes and themselves as Afghans first and foremost is the tough challenge. And it’s one I’m dubious our Marines, however fine they may be, is something they signed up to do and have been properly trained to accomplish.

The political problem at home is only somewhat related. The original mission in Afghanistan was to kill or capture bin Laden. This mission was an utter failure. It needed to be done quickly, in any case, to send the message that attacks such as 9/11 have dire
consequences. The message now received is that these attacks can be carried out and, with a little cleverness and close loyalties, can escape punishment. There was virtually no dissent over the goal of killing or capturing bin Laden. Had the Taliban government “given him up” the US would not have gone into Afghanistan.

Today, the mission cannot be clearly stated. I heard Gen. Zinni  last week (at the New
America Foundation). While he was against going into Iraq, he is against pulling out of Afghanistan — for reasons of credibility. He agreed al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan. “Protecting the Afghan people” is hardly a policy — given the dozens of the 192 countries have populations that need “protection.” “Keeping Karzai in power” or “Keeping the Taliban out of power” would be palatable only if it could be connected to some larger, important, America-centric purpose. And if the costs were plausible vs other uses of those resources.

Bush was famously inarticulate, but “bin Laden dead or alive” was vivid, clear and
arguably worthwhile. Obama, famously articulate, has said, “Afghanistan is a war of necessity” and the “important war”. But it is doubtful he’ll make his reasoning plausible. For that reason, it is deemed he was saying these things simply because he wanted to avoid being a “weak on security, McGovernite Democrat”.  And that mission was
accomplished — at least during the pre- election period.

Best,

Bob

I believe in the value and virtues of “nation building.”  That is why I am here and why I worked in such places as Iraq, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, to name a few. By “nation building” I mean sharing the accumulated wisdom of successful, productive, and human societies with those not yet as successful for their people. It only works as a long slow process of education and persuasion within the context of the existing social
and political structures, even when the goal is to change them. Our solders don’t help. We should keep them home and spend the money and lives saved on keeping our economy and society strong (the source and basis of our military strength). How best to withdraw from the messes we have created and are now in is another and more complicated matter. It will involve a lot of Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. And damned those who seem to like sending our youth on fools’ errands with little understanding or regard for the lives disrupted or destroyed around the world, all with good intention, of course.

It has not escaped my attention that I am leaving
Afghanistan on 9/11.

 

The President’s speech to students is wonderful, and appropriate and one hundred percent American at its finest. Make sure you see it and that your kids see it.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

Saturday, September 5, 2009

U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has wisely refocused on
protecting Afghans rather than killing Taliban and increasing the resources for
training and equipping Afghan solders and policemen (vastly cheaper than
financing additional NATO forces, though they will be needed for a while as
well). This means exposing NATO solders to increased risks as they hunt down
the Taliban in order to reduce the prospects of killing innocent civilians.
General support of the population is obviously essential if the NATO backed
government is to gain and maintain control of the country.

Thus the apparent death of about 70 Afghanis, which may have
included a significant number of civilians, in the northern city of Kunduz on
Friday seems a set back for the new strategy. The story reported here in Kabul
was that one of the two NATO fuel tanker truck hijacked by Taliban became stuck
crossing a river. The local villagers rushed to fill cans and bottles with the
fuel so that when German NATO troops in the area call for a U.S. air strike,
local villagers where killed along with many Taliban. According to an AP report
today it is still “unclear how many were militants and how many were villagers
who had rushed to the scene to siphon fuel from the trucks.”

I was discussing this with my Afghan driver on the way in to
the central bank this morning when he surprised me with the following comments
(as well as I can remember them): “Bombing that tanker and the Taliban was a
good thing. If villagers were killed along with Taliban they deserved it. Good
Muslims don’t steal – especially during Ramadan.” Ramadan is a month long
period for spiritual purification achieved through (day time) fasting,
self-sacrifice and prayers

The AP report goes on to say: “At least one local official
supported the allied bombing, saying it would help drive the insurgents from
the area. ‘If we did three more operations like we did yesterday morning, the
Kunduz situation would be peaceful and stable,’ said Ahmadullah Wardak, a
provincial council chief.”

I have no idea.

Here is the latest development in the May 2007 kidnapping in Baghdad of one of my BearingPoint colleagues and his four security guards:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8235088.stm 

I received very interesting comments about the Lockerbie
bomber from some of you. Thanks. I should add that my Edinburgh host lost a
student on that fight and one of my IMF colleagues missed it and thus is still
with us. He is a Lebanese Palestinian and no he didn’t miss it on purpose.

 

Warren,

In 1988 I was serving as a flight attendant for Pan Am,
regularly crossing the Atlantic on flights from Washington.  I had
joined the company in January of that year, and during training had met and
befriended an extraordinary young woman whose (short term) goals were the same
as mine – take advantage of a rare opportunity to go places and see things that
we might not have otherwise have been able to do. 

She opted to transfer to the London base in the fall of
that year, and, as fate would have it, decided to work Pan Am 103 on December
21st – a flight she was not originally scheduled to work.

I do not know whether Mr. Al-Megrahi is guilty or
not.  Nor can I know whether he was truly released for humanitarian
reasons.

What I can say is that when I think back to that December
day I remember the wonderful woman I met, thought so fondly of, and
whose bright life was stopped tragically short….along with so many people
just like her.  

 

Bill (Moore, Falls Church, Va)

 

****************

Hi Warren,

 

Interesting.  I had
forgotten about the Iranian airliner.  But you piqued my interest in
suggesting Libya had no motive for bombing the Pan Am.  The link below may
be of interest.  It includes the other hostile actions between US-Libya,
notably, the US bombing of Tripoli, which killed one of Gadafi’s children and
injured two others.  Two years later the Pan Am was bombed.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Libya

 

Regards,

Bob (Gregorio, Arlington Va)

 

***************************

Pretty disgusting is what I make of it. Really no shame.
If the Scots wanted to be humanitarian they could have flown in his friends and
relatives for the final weeks of his life. How humanitarian were the Libyans by
holding on totally trumped up charges these French and Bulgarian nurses for I
don’t know how long?

 

Jan Willem van der Vossen (IMF colleague)

 

****************************

A very nice man
therefore. Oddly enough I heard about Megrahi many years before Lockerbie from
my Milano friend. Ing. Franco Giugovaz was a contractor in Libya who fell out
with his local partner, who called in his secret police friends, in the usual
way. Megrahi threatened to have him killed if he did not leave the country
& all his equipment behind. Megrahi also personally took Franco’s
hand-made 4×4  desert SUV with all sorts of gadgets. It is still parked in
front of his house. Do pay a call on Megrahi when next there and ask him where
he got it from.

 

Edward (Luttwak, Washington,
DC)

 

*****************************

No doubt there is plenty more to the investigation than
a history of clothing, but it makes me wonder if a man should be nervous should
clothing go missing from his wardrobe, and whether a man should ever give used
clothing to charity for fear that a stray hair will make him the object of
enthusiastic detectives.

 

David (Garland, Roanoke, Va)

 

*******************************

Bravo, Warren, for a bit of level-headed commentary.
When one considers that the circumstantial evidence which led to al-Megrahi’s
conviction was supplied by a Maltese shopkeeper who was paid for his evidence
by the Americans and taken fishing by the Scottish police afterwards, the
security of the conviction does indeed become questionable. And the witness
statement that the baggage room at Heathrow was entered, and, possibly, another
case added, was never admitted to the court for examination. Much has been made
by the “guiltyists”, to coin a term, of the fact that he has never expressed
any remorse. Well, he has always maintained his innocence, so why should he? No
one is arguing that he is a nice guy, but it seems plain, as you suggest, that
our dear governments have been busy with something else in the background.

Cheers

 

Martin (Anderson, A Scotsman living in London)

 

*******************************

 

Warren–

 

That is a very thoughtful and balanced letter.  It
should be run in the LA TIMES and San Francisco Comical.  You might have
mentioned how unreliable eye witness testimony is, as well.  Forensic
evidence is no better than eye witness testimony when it is coupled (as here)
with it.  I hope that the covered up evidence of the "railroad"
is forthcoming.

 

Bill (Hulsy, Santa Anna, CA)

 

The sight of the convicted Lockerbie bomber arriving home in
Tripoli to a hero’s welcome is repugnant to anyone who believes Mr. al-Megrahi
is guilty. My friend Tom Lauria asks: “What are we to make of al-Megrahi’s
official hero’s welcome? It is so offensive to me for Libyans to be cheering
the murderer of 270 innocent people. I will never comprehend the Arabist
mentality.” Be careful. Why assume that Libyan’s were cheering someone they
thought was a murderer? Most of the families of the victims here in Britain think
Megrahi is innocent and are angry that the killer(s) have never been brought to
justice. Here is a BBC interview of the father of one of those who died over Lockerbie:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8212475.stm.
In this context did Libyans behave any differently than American’s would if,
say, the Iranian’s released an American we believed to be innocent?  

I arrived in Edinburgh yesterday to the news that the
Scottish government was about to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted
of killing 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie in 1988, on
compassionate grounds. Mr. Megrahi is expected to die of cancer within three
months. I am staying here in Edinburgh with the former dean of the Law school
of the University of Edinburgh and his medical doctor wife. To my surprise my
law Professor friend had been involved in the Megrahi case. He provided me with
the most fascinating background and speculations on the case and these most
recent developments. They provide a very different picture than gained from the
headlines.

 

The explosion of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie precipitated the
largest criminal investigation in British history. Impressive forensic investigations
traced clothing in the suitcase carrying the bomb to a shop in Malta. The
identification of Megrahi from pictures by the Maltese shop keeper many months
later as the person who bought the clothing—the primary evidence against him—has
been the subject to much debate. When the U.S. and Brittan issued indictments
against Mr. Megrahi he was home in Tripoli. Libya refused requests to extradite
Mr. Megrahi for trial in the U.S. or U.K. on the grounds that, as is the case
of all civil law countries, its constitution and practice did not permit it to
extradite its citizens for trail abroad. President Gaddafi offered to try
Megrahi in Libya. This offer was refused and the West imposed economic sanctions
on Libya for its “lack of cooperation.” My host became involved as a result of
the growing dissatisfaction of western commercial interests and of Middle
Eastern government’s with the economic sanctions and isolation of Libya. Every
one wanted to find a face saving way to allow Megrahi to be tried in a way all
sides could agree to. My host developed a plan that Gaddafi indicated he would
accept for a trail conducted in the Hague by the International War Crimes
Tribunal. As the crime had occurred over Scotland, Scottish courts had jurisdiction.
My hosts too easy and too cheap plan was rejected in favor of a $200 million
plan to build a court on an unused Scottish air base in the Netherlands and try
Megrahi there (technically on Scottish soil from the Scottish perspective)—I am
not making any of this up. Mr. Megrahi was convicted by a court of judges rather
than a jury of peers but his alleged accomplice was acquitted on the grounds of
insufficient evidence.

 

One of many problems with the conviction of one and the acquittal
of the other was that Libya had no motive for such a crime. The most plausible alternative
scenario involves Iran outsourcing the crime to Syrians in Damascus as revenge
for the American Air Force shooting down an Iranian commercial passenger plane
and killing all (several hundred) passengers under the mistaken belief that the
plane was military and heading toward an American ship—surely one of our bigger
embarrassments. The British families of those killed in the crash largely
believe that Mr. Megrahi is innocent and the American families largely believe
the opposite.  

 

My host pointed out that Mr. Megrahi’s second appeal was
underway. He is of the view that the appeal was likely to reveal very embarrassing
improprieties in the investigation and efforts of the authorities to obtain a
conviction. If Mr. Megrahi died in prison the appeal would have to go forward.
However, as part of Mr. Megrahi’s release the appeal was dropped. If the facts
would have been embarrassing, the American and British authorities will now be
spared that embarrassment forever. His release may have had nothing to do with
compassion. Today’s The Times (of
London) states on its front page: “Last week, al-Megrahi abandoned his appeal
against conviction amid allegations that a top-level cover-up had been agreed
to prevent the exposure of a grave miscarriage of justice.” 

 

I think it is time to go enjoy the Festival. The Lady Boys
of Thailand are performing in the park near by next to the tent of the Moscow
Circus.