Broken states never heal themselves and can only be put back together with the prolonged involvement of outsiders working together to end the violence, impose peace and rebuild societies and states.

By Gerard M. Gallucci*

The international response to the crises in the Middle East is splintered, uncoordinated and getting nowhere. The crises arose from misguided Western reactions to the so-called Arab spring and from the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Like a bull in a china shop, the American effort – to bring democracy and human rights to countries barely held together at all – broke it all into pieces. Now those pieces must somehow be picked up and put right.

Efforts to address regional instability include continued US military involvement in Afghanistan. There President Obama has decided to retain US troops to help limit the resurgence of the Taliban that George Bush drove out of power. In Iraq, Washington continues to try to prop up the weak government of Prime Minister Abadi without using ground forces and while supporting the essentially independent Kurdish entity and its troops. In Syria, the US has defaulted to its preference for bombing, special ops, covert action and support for a favored local combatant (the Kurds again). The Western European allies participate in the bombing with France doubling down since mostly native grown terrorists attacked Paris.

Russia has intervened in Syria as well with its own bombing and special forces campaign while choosing its local “allies” from the pro-Assad, pro-Iranian Shia. The Gulf states – chiefly Saudi Arabia – have supported anti-Assad Sunni rebels which may have at one time – and still? – included jihadists within ISIL. (Saudi Arabia – the main exporter of Wahhabi fundamentalism – is also involved in the internal conflict in Yemen, a state that perhaps should never have been created in 1990.) Turkey opposes Assad and has just shot down a Russian plane but mostly prefers attacking Kurds. ISIL itself may have been losing territory but remains a force on the ground in its Sunni areas and a jihadist brand (and organization?) with proven international reach.

Mirroring the confused military response, the reaction to the refugee crisis has been fragmented and dysfunctional. Even before Paris, Europe was deeply divided over how to handle the flood of Mid-Eastern IDPs reaching its shores. Since Paris, most of the European states (including those still kept outside the EU) have been building walls, closing borders and refusing to take any Brussels-imposed “quota.” Germany – the prime refugee goal – has been trying to maintain its approach to accepting large numbers while focusing on what the EU must do to gain Turkish support for stopping the flow. After years of delay – Western Europe did not want to be invaded by poor Turks – Berlin at least recognizes a deal must be struck in order to stop those poor Syrians. (Erdogan seems intent on making the EU now pay his price including the long-delayed move toward membership.) The US – the “bull” – is doing nothing to help with the refugees as the Republican candidates for president and many Democrats balk at accepting President Obama’s modest proposal to receive 10,000 in 2016.

The human species has a long record of Us vs Other conflict. Indeed, homo sapiens is the only surviving species from a long period in which various other kinds of humans shared the evolutionary record. We emerged the victor and have succeeded ever since in seeking to eliminate, replace or enslave the Other throughout our recorded history. The conflicts of the last century have been mainly of this type, primarily over identity: ethnic, tribal or religious. They have spun from control when the regimes that ruled over multi-ethnic states have fallen or been seized or overthrown. Once identity conflicts begin, they quickly turn zero-sum. Violence begets violence and the possibility of achieving a political solution recedes beyond the horizon.

So, what is to be done? Nothing easy. Broken states never heal themselves and can only be put back together with the prolonged involvement of outsiders working together to end the violence, impose peace and rebuild societies and states. Some broken states might be better left in pieces. (Getting people to accept living next to each other in peace may be more achievable than pushing them to live together in the same entity.) If there is to be outside involvement in repairing the damage done in the Mid-East, it must address basic political, social and economic issues as well as find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The role of the militaries in such an effort must be to constrain the combatants sufficiently to bring them to negotiations and to neutralize any spoilers who refuse political solutions. Diplomacy must lead such efforts and begin with the major powers from inside and outside the region agreeing on a framework for reaching a mutually acceptable and viable outcome.

If the international community cannot bring itself to do this, then better perhaps to leave those at war to settle things among themselves without outside military involvement or support. Such involvement without coordinated, agreed-upon political objectives will only sustain the violence. First do no harm.

*Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat and UN peacekeeper. He worked as part of US efforts to resolve the conflicts in Angola, South Africa and Sudan and as Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008 and as Chief of Staff for the UN mission in East Timor from November 2008 until June 2010. He now works as an independent consultant and as adjunct professor for national security policy at the Daniel Morgan Academy in Washington, DC.

Historical experience, archipelagic geography, and strategic imperative make submarines a critical asset for Indonesia’s naval defence in spite of financial and other constraints. Overambitious submarine projects, however, are perilous.

By Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto*

In September 2015, Indonesia decided to cut its defence budget for the first time in five years by 6.3 percent, or IDR7 trillion (US$490 million), to IDR95.8 trillion. Slower economic growth and declining rupiah value are cited as the main reasons. As a result, reductions in military procurements are expected. Amid these constraints, however, the government remains firm to endorse ‘big-ticket’ purchases, including submarines. If that’s the case, why do submarines seem central in Indonesia’s naval modernisation programme and broader naval strategy?

Southeast Asia’s underwater strategic environment is getting more crowded. IHS Jane’s predicted in 2011 that regional countries would acquire at least 13 submarines by 2020. Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam have acquired submarines in the last two decades or so, while Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines have declared their intent to follow suit. Given this strategic trend, it’s tempting to conclude that regional countries are simply playing ‘catch-up’ as a reason behind their submarine acquisitions.

Strategic Imperative

While the necessity to keep abreast with the prevailing strategic trend is common behind any procurement decisions, it is not always that simple.

Submarines are not new to the Indonesian Navy. After Thailand decommissioned its Matchanu-class in 1951, Indonesia became the first Southeast Asian submarine operator with the Whiskey-class boats acquired from the Soviet Union in 1959. Given the absence of other regional submarine operators at that time, Indonesia then clearly did not tailgate others.

The adverse strategic environment at the time, with the Dutch in control of Indonesia-claimed West New Guinea, WNG (West Papua), and the Indonesian Confrontation against the British-backed Malaysia, submarines became a strategic imperative. Underlying this imperative is the archipelago’s location at the crossroads between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but also the maritime gaps between the islands along Indonesia’s periphery providing foreign maritime powers access into the inner part of the archipelago, known in Indonesia’s naval parlance as the ‘strategic funnels’ (corong strategis).

The importance of strategic funnels lies in their proximity to neighbouring countries, relatively abundant marine resources, or contested maritime space. They include the Sulawesi and South China Seas, where other countries have laid claims on some portions of the two areas, respectively called the Ambalat and Natuna. Reflecting this concern, a new naval base is under construction in the natural harbour of Palu in Sulawesi to support submarine patrols along the Makassar-Lombok Straits axis.

Submarines could play a decisive role when deployed in these sensitive areas. Their stealth and concealment can make them a potent intelligence-gathering platform in peacetime and sabotage in wartime. Although they never saw real combat, Indonesian submarines intensively conducted intelligence gathering and covert special operations ranging from the 1962 WNG dispute to the 1999 East Timor Crisis. In October 1965, two submarines even sailed to Karachi and conducted exercises with the Pakistani Navy in support of the latter after its war against India.

Operational perils

Given their long service history, submarines have become deeply inculcated into Indonesia’s naval traditions. The importance and contributions of the Submarine Service are highly regarded. Its retention becomes even more critical at present when Indonesia’s neighbours are also acquiring and developing their submarine fleets.

Indonesia’s military modernisation plan, the ‘Minimum Essential Force’ (MEF), aims to procure twelve submarines within 2010-2024 timeframe. Currently, Indonesia operates two submarines, the German-built U-209 KRI Chakra and KRI Nanggala. Although refurbished in early 2000s, they were originally built in 1980-81, thus raising doubts about their current effectiveness. In December 2011, Indonesia purchased three South Korean Type-209 Chang Bogo boats with the first induction to begin by 2018, while Russia and France have respectively declared their Kilo and Scorpene bids to supply for the five to seven remaining boats.

On the flip side, the Indonesian submarine experience has revealed a list of mishaps and pitfalls to learn from. While strategically critical, submarines are financially expensive and technically complex to maintain and operate, at least to Indonesia’s standards. Its technological sophistication demands enormous lifecycle costs, which strains the limited naval budget. And this influenced Indonesia’s submarine procurement decision. In 2011, the preferred yet costlier Russian Kilo-class and improved German U-209 were rejected in favour of the cheaper yet less sophisticated South Korean Type-209s.

In addition, technical incompetence plagued submarine construction, operations, and maintenance. The Whiskey-class experience was replete with technical faults and near-accidents, and the fact they were not tropicalised undermined the crews’ morale. Proprietary issues also inhibit the South Korean-Indonesian project to jointly assemble the Type-209s at the latter’s PT PAL shipyard, since the project does not include the original German manufacturer.

A cautionary tale

Although Indonesia wishes to expand its submarine fleet, it is clearly not aimed to outmatch others already in the game. Conservative estimates posit that it would be a long while before Indonesia acquires all twelve submarines, possibly beyond 2024, due to the gestation period in the acquisition process. Even then, they would only reflect the number of Whiskey boats Indonesia originally had. Questions must also be asked about the proficiency of submarine crews and the maintenance support team, the required training and basing infrastructure, and the supply availability of vital provisions, including fuel, spares and ammunitions.

However, the strategic environment in which new Indonesian submarines would be inducted—whenever that is—is going to be different. They would arrive when there would be more submarines already roaming Southeast Asian waters, yet with more novice operators. The history of Indonesia’s Submarine Service—especially its mishaps and pitfalls—presents a cautionary tale about the risk of overambitious submarine projects. Amid a climate of mistrust and tensions surrounding regional disputes, especially in the South China Sea, the introduction of submarines would add uncertainty on regional commitments to a peaceful resolution.

While submarines could add deterrence to individual countries, collectively they could increase the risk of accidents at best, and inadvertent conflicts at worst. This makes it necessary for Indonesia to advocate for greater naval cooperation at bilateral and multilateral levels in order to help mitigate mistrust between submarine-operating countries. Bilaterally, Indonesia maintains regular exercises and patrols with eight countries, while it has increased participation from three to eleven major multilateral exercises since the 1990s.

In the subsurface realm, however, more needs to be done. Indonesia could include more submarine participation in exercises with partner navies. Not only would this improve Indonesia’s own submarine proficiency, but it could also develop interoperability in times of distress, such as a submarine accident, and familiarise Indonesian submariners with others’ doctrines and experiences. Taken together, these efforts are necessary to ensure that submarines remain a potent and reliable war machine.

*Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is Indonesian Presidential PhD Scholar with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. He was previously an Associate Research Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Given the reputation ISIS has earned as the largest and most violent terrorist organization of this era, it’s difficult for many observers to fathom why anyone — especially someone who has enjoyed the privileges of growing up in America — would choose to join this death cult. Surely it could only appeal to individuals suffering from some underlying pathology or profound social dysfunction?

A newly published study by researchers at George Washington University, ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa, examines the cases of 71 individuals who have been charged with ISIS-related activities since March 2014, of whom 56 were arrested in 2015 alone — the highest number of terrorism-related arrests in the U.S. since 9/11.

While ISIS has found foreign recruits in much larger numbers in other countries, such as Tunisia, Russia, and France, support in the U.S. is widespread and significant.

U.S. authorities say there are 250 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria/Iraq to join ISIS and there are 900 active investigations against ISIS sympathizers in all 50 states.

As public support for expanding military action against ISIS increases, in tandem with a widening sense that Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria is the “lesser evil,” perhaps the most significant finding in the new study is this:

In many cases examined by our research team, an underlying sense of sympathy and compassion appeared to play an important role in initially motivating young Americans to become interested and invested in the Syrian conflict. Many were outraged by the appalling violence Bashar al Assad’s regime used to suppress the Syrian rebellion and the subsequent inaction on the part of the international community. Pictures and videos capturing the aftermath of civilian massacres perpetrated by the regime, displayed widely in both social and mainstream media, rocked the consciences of many — from those with an existing strong Sunni identity to those who were not Muslim — and led some to take the first steps to militancy.

From the vantage point of the ISIS leadership in Raqqa, the prospects for finding new recruits in the U.S. have probably never before looked so promising.

After years of disinterest in the war, American public sympathy towards Syrian refugees briefly spiked in September in response to a photograph of a single drowned infant, but just as quickly largely evaporated after the Paris attacks — even though the perpetrators were mostly European.

Russia’s intervention in Syria has, among other things, had the effect of removing the modest amount of pressure the Obama administration has long faced to impose a no-fly zone.

The Paris attacks have put ISIS at the top of the international agenda, reinvigorating the broad rallying cry that “ISIS must be destroyed.”

Those who once imagined that they could go to Syria to fight for defenseless Muslims in a territorially-defined war, are now even more likely to embrace the ideology which believes in a global war against Muslims, in response to which Muslims are called to take up arms wherever they are.

If the military campaign to contain, degrade and destroy ISIS, also has the ancillary effect of consolidating the Assad regime’s hold on power, the weakening of ISIS’s territorial base will no doubt lead to the expansion of its international operations.

The price we are likely to pay for imagining that the disaster in Syria was something we could comfortably ignore, separated as we are by a vast ocean, is that the war will open on new fronts most often discerned only after the fact.

As the Syrian writer and political dissident, Yassin al-Haj Saleh, recently said:

the Syrian struggle is not something confined to Syria, it is a global issue. And because the world did not help Syria change for better, I think that Syria is changing the whole world for worse.

The Climate Conference in Paris offers the globe a chance to arrive at a firm action plan—and underpinning this chance are advances in solar and electric vehicles technology. If the Paris talks focus on making such technology and related finance available to countries like India, we can move closer to achieving climate goals

By Amit Bhandari*

India has gone into the Paris climate talks after having declared its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC).[1] The key aspects of India’s INDCs are a higher share of non-fossil fuel energy (40%) and a reduced energy intensity of GDP—that is, less use of energy for the same economic output.

This is a positive and powerful change, and marks a departure from India’s argument in the past, which has focused on climate justice. India has so far said it should not have to pay to address a problem (climate change) largely created by the unchecked carbon emissions of developed countries and China.

But the two top global polluters—the U.S. and China—agreed in November 2014 to cut down their carbon emissions as a part of their climate commitments.[2] The emissions of European Union countries have also been falling for the past few years.[3] With the top global economies thinking on similar lines, firm action on climate change is now more likely than any time in the past.

What has changed? The likely answer is that in recent years, technology has advanced to a point where clean and green have become financially viable. Solar power is now a feasible alternative to coal, and electric vehicles to petroleum-dependent vehicles. Coal and electricity, so far the major fuels in use globally, emit the bulk of carbon dioxide. But solar power is now already cheaper than nuclear energy and hydropower, and is closing in on coal.[4] And electric vehicles (EV) offer better energy efficiency and lower maintenance costs compared to oil-fuelled cars.[5]

The U.S., which leads the world in renewable technology, is already starting to witness a shift. In the second quarter of 2015, a total of 1,393 megawatts (MW) of solar power capacity was installed in the U.S.—of which residential users accounted for 33.9%.[6] The large numbers of residential installations indicate that solar power works well in a decentralised manner, and that it has reached a point where retail consumers see it as a cheaper alternative to grid electricity. During 2015, solar power is expected to have been 40% of the new generation capacity installed in the US.

Electric car sales in the U.S. currently average around 10,000 per month—just 0.6% of the market so far.[7] But that’s not bad, considering they are competing with a technology that has over a century’s head-start. These numbers should go up as EV technology improves and the associated infrastructure comes up.

In India, as the economy grows, so will the demand, on a large scale, for electricity and for automobiles. In such a scenario, solar energy and EV offer a way to grow without polluting. A cleaner path to development, unlike the West and China’s, can be a big win for the environment.

However, India currently lacks a significant manufacturing base in solar technology and electric vehicles. Both these technologies are relatively expensive—solar power is still costlier than coal, while EVs have a higher upfront cost than petrol-run vehicles. This hinders adoption.

A lack of consumer finance is also an issue. For solar and EV to be more widely adopted at the retail level, banks have to finance these products just as they provide home loans and car loans. The Reserve Bank of India, in April 2015, included household solar installations in priority sector lending, and banks must now design consumer-focused products for this.[8]

But because Indian banks have a high percentage of bad loans and cannot undertake large-scale consumer financing,[9] they have started to raise ‘green bonds’. The proceeds of these bonds will be used to fund pro-environment projects.[10]  However, these amounts, which add up to less than $2 billion, are trivial compared to India’s need for green finance—pegged at $2.5 trillion by the Ministry of Environment.[11]

These two problems—of expensive technology and poor financing—need to be sorted out at Paris. Developed countries had committed to providing $100 billion in climate finance to the developing world by 2020. During 2014, climate finance reached $62 billion,[12] though this number may be hugely overstated, as pointed out by the Indian Ministry of Finance.[13] For instance, of $9.4 billion worth of projects reported as climate finance by the World Bank in 2014, projects worth only $3.4 billion had significant climate benefit.

Given that India alone will need $2.5 trillion of green finance, this amount is insufficient for the developing world—and it must be revised by the developed world. Secondly, clean technology such as solar power and EVs need to be made available to the developing world at a low cost.

One way of mainstreaming these technologies in India is through specialist consumer finance companies such as Dewan Housing Finance, Repco Home Finance, Muthoot Finance, and Manappuram Finance. These companies have created viable niche businesses in such segments as home loans, and the same model can be made to work for solar and EV technology.

Additionally, India must set up specialist clean energy finance companies that will fund only small scale (household) solar panels and electric vehicles, or combinations of both. Small-sized loans such as these will be better handled by small, nimble firms, and will be an alternative to the big banks’ approach of funding mega projects. These green finance companies will require equity and debt, which can come from foreign institutional investors and via green bonds. Easy consumer financing will increase demand, which in turn will allow manufacturers to invest in capacity and products.

Access to appropriate technology and finance are therefore tied to India’s climate change mitigation strategies—and this access is especially critical for a country that accounts for 17.5% of the global population. The West must acknowledge this and act on it. A give and take such as this is the only way to ensure the success of the Paris climate talks.

About the author:
*Amit Bhandari is Fellow, Energy & Environment Studies, Gateway House.

Source:
This feature was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

References:
[1] Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Enviornment and Forest, Government of India, India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions – Towards Climate Justice, 2 October 2015, <http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=128405> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[2] Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, Government of the United States of America, U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change, 25 September 2015, <https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/25/us-china-joint-presidential-statement-climate-change> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[3] Statistical Review, British Petroleum, BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015, <http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[4] Bhandari, Amit, ‘Quiet Burial for the Nuclear Deal?’, Gateway House, 5 November 2015, <http://www.gatewayhouse.in/quiet-burial-for-the-nuclear-deal/> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[5] Fuel Economy, Government of the United States of America, Fueleconomy.gov Top Ten, 2015, <https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/topten.jsp> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[6] Research and Resources, Solar Energy Industries Association, Solar Industry Data, <http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[7] Inside EVs, Monthly Plug in Sales Score Card, 1 November 2015, <http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[8] Times News Network, Times of India, RBI Changes Priority Sector Lending Norms, 24 April 2015, <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/RBI-changes-priority-sector-lending-norms/articleshow/47034036.cms> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[9] Bhandari, Amit, ‘Huge, Growing Crisis in Public Sector Banks’, India Spend, 17 February 2015, <http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/huge-growing-crisis-in-public-sector-banks-39870.> (Accessed 29 November 2015)

[10] Desai, Umesh, ‘Companies Boost Green Bond Offerings on Government’s Clean-energy Push’, Reuters, 28 November 2015, <http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/27/india-bonds-environment-idINKBN0TG10A20151127> (Accessed 29 November 2015)

[11] Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Enviornment and Forest, Government of India, India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions – Towards Climate Justice, 2 October 2015, <http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=128405> (Accessed 29 November, 2015)

[12] OECD, ‘Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 Billion Goal’, 7 October 2015, <http://www.oecd.org/env/cc/Climate-Finance-in-2013-14-and-the-USD-billion-goal.pdf> (Accessed 29 November 2015)

[13] Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Climate Change Finance, Analysis of a Recent OECD Report: Some Credible Facts Needed, November 27 2015, <http://pibphoto.nic.in/documents/rlink/2015/nov/p2015112901.pdf> (Accessed 30 November 2015)

That the current crisis in relations between Russia and Turkey should affect Muslim states in Eurasia and Muslims within the Russian Federation is no surprise, but it may not have occurred to many that this conflict threatens to have negative consequences for the Orthodox in both Russia and Ukraine.

That is because it has already disrupted relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Universal Patriarchate and casts doubt on whether the scheduled All-Orthodox Assembly will take place in the spring in Constantinople or whether it might be shifted to the Universal Patriarchate’s “reserve” base in Chambesy, Switzerland, or even postponed altogether.

And these problems in relations between the two patriarchates could have an impact on the possibility, long sought by Ukrainian churchmen, that Bartholemew, the universal patriarch, might bless the idea of Ukrainian Orthodox autocephaly in deference to Turkish government interests and hostility to the pretensions of the Moscow Patriarchate.

In an article in the new issue of “NG-Religii,” Oksana Kotkina and Vladislav Maltsev point out that “the deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations is putting a number of issues before the Russian Orthodox church, first and foremost whether to take part in the All-Orthodox Church Council in March 2016 (ng.ru/ng_religii/2015-12-02/1_conflict.html).

The church’s Office of External Church Ties has said that Moscow Patriarch Kirill has not yet cancelled plans to attend, but Metropolitan Ilarion, who heads that office, put off a planned trip to Istanbul for negotiations with the Turkish government and presumably the Universal Patriarch as well immediately after the Russian plane was shot down.

Archdeacon Andrey Kurayev, an independent Orthodox commentator, suggested that the Universal Patriarch could easily move the meeting to Chambesy in Switzerland where he maintains offices if the situation between Russia and Turkey deteriorates. He expressed “surprise” that Ilarion had cancelled his visit.

According to Kurayev, the upcoming meeting appears unlikely to take up and decide any major questions, although it is possible that Bartholemew, who is ill, might use the occasion to make one or another dramatic move, quite possibly on Ukrainian autocephaly or indeed on the more general issue of “canonical territories.”

The archdeacon said that the only obvious casualty from a cancellation would be Russian Orthodox pilgrimages to Turkish religious sites. But that is not a serious issue: “Pilgrimates are not a bad thing, but there is no necessity for them. We aren’t Muslims, and Turkish holy places aren’t Mecca.”

Another Russian commentator, Boris Knorre, a specialist on religious affairs at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, suggested that it was likely that the assembly would simply be postponed, especially given the militant comments of some in the Moscow hierarchy who have talked about the need for “a holy war” against Muslims and Turkey.

By Anne Daugherty Miles*

Authorities are tracking numerous individuals involved in the deadly assault in Paris on November 13, 2015. According to one report, “a rogues’ gallery of homegrown terrorists with links to Islamist groups has become large enough — and is acting stealthily enough — to make tracking them increasingly difficult for the region’s intelligence agencies.” (See CRS Insight IN10209, European Security, Islamist Terrorism, and Returning Fighters, by Kristin Archick and Paul Belkin.)

While CRS has found no specific evidence of encrypted communications linked to the Paris attacks cited in news reports, some are using the Paris attacks to highlight the difficulties of collecting intelligence when communications data can be encrypted—an issue called “going dark.” On November 16, 2015, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan stated:

[O]peratives and terrorist networks … have gone to school on what it is that they need to do in order to keep their activities concealed from the authorities…. [T]here are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now that make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence and security services to have the insight they need to uncover it.

“Going Dark”

Technology changes have impacted law enforcement capabilities to access (1) communications in transit between devices and (2) stored data within devices. Companies such as Apple and Google have announced that they cannot unlock their devices for anyone under any circumstances, not even for law enforcement (because they do not maintain a key to decrypt messages sent between their devices.)

Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes explains the encryption problem this way:

It’s about data at rest on devices, data that is now being encrypted in a fashion that can’t easily be cracked when those devices are lawfully seized. And it’s also about data in transit between devices, data encrypted such that when captured with a lawful court-ordered wiretap, the signal intercepted is undecipherable….

Initial recruitment may take place on Twitter, but the promising ISIS candidate quickly gets moved onto messaging platforms that are encrypted end to end. As a practical matter, that means there are people in the United States whom authorities reasonably believe to be in contact with ISIS for whom surveillance is lawful and appropriate but for whom useful signals interception is not technically feasible.

Issues for Congress

A number of hearings have focused on the subject of “going dark.” On July 8, 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held separate hearings with James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey framed the core question:

“Once all of the requirements and safeguards of the laws and the Constitution have been met, are we comfortable with technical design decisions that result in barriers to obtaining evidence of a crime?”

Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are vocal in their opposition to any action that might weaken encryption technologies. According to the ACLU: “Such proposals threaten privacy and place an improper burden on private entities to build the government’s surveillance infrastructure, decrease cyber and national security, and are unnecessary given current law enforcement access to electronic information.”

In commentary on the Paris attacks, Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director of the CIA and currently Senior Counselor for Beacon Global Strategies LLC, said, “We have … had a public debate [about encryption]…. defined by Edward Snowden … and the concern about privacy. I think we’re now going to have another debate … defined by what happened in Paris.” (In 2013, Edward Snowden’s release of thousands of classified National Security Agency [NSA] documents prompted demands for greater privacy protections primarily within the context of intelligence counterterrorism and law enforcement activities.)

The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 (9/11), prompted a new look at legislation related to surveillance and search provisions. Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978 to provide a statutory framework regulating when government agencies may gather foreign intelligence through electronic surveillance or physical searches. A number of laws passed after 9/11 amended FISA to enable the government to obtain information in a greater number of circumstances. (Major revisions are associated with P.L. 107-56, P.L. 108-458, and P.L. 110-261.) Most recently, the USA FREEDOM Act (P.L. 114-23) was signed into law on June 2, 2015. The principal focus of the legislation was to address the bulk collection of telephone metadata by the NSA. (See CRS Legal Sidebar WSLG1278, USA FREEDOM Act Reinstates Expired USA PATRIOT Act Provisions but Limits Bulk Collection, by Edward C. Liu.)

Some have dubbed the Paris attacks the “French 9/11.” Intelligence and law enforcement communities across the globe have expressed concerns about the “going dark” problem. The attacks may create a difficult challenge for Congress: experts note that surveillance laws will have to balance current concerns about emerging technologies with the need to keep Americans safe and protect American privacy and civil liberties.

Recent events may spark renewed debate concerning surveillance provisions in FISA (or other laws authorizing electronic surveillance, such as the Communications Access for Law Enforcement Act [CALEA, P.L. 103-414]). For more on “going dark” and CALEA, see CRS Report R44187, Encryption and Evolving Technology: Implications for U.S. Law Enforcement Investigations, by Kristin Finklea.

The Paris attacks illustrate that the United States is not alone in its efforts to balance privacy and security. FBI Director Comey’s testimony points out the global nature of this challenge:

It is clear that governments across the world, including those of our closest allies, recognize the serious public safety risks if criminals can plan and undertake illegal acts without fear of detection…. We should be clear that any steps that we take here in the United States may impact the decisions that other nations take…. In addition, any next steps we identify will be more effective if we are working together with our allies, and made more difficult if we are isolated.

About the author:
*Anne Daugherty Miles, CRS Analyst in Intelligence and National Security Policy

Source:
This article was published by CRS as CRS Insight IN10400 (PDF)

Russia has begun delivery of S-300 defense missile systems to Iran, says Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian presidential aide for military-technical cooperation.

TASS reports Kozhin confirmed that “The contract is in action” and that the delivery has begun. Meanwhile, Iranian ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanai confirmed in late November that Iran has received the first S-300 system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier lifted the ban on the sale of the defense system to Iran.

Although the agreement to purchase the defense system was signed back in 2007, in 2010 then-Russian president Dmitri Medvedev put a ban on such sales in accordance with international sanctions against Iran.

Following the finalization of nuclear agreement between Iran and the 5+1, Russia announced that it will now go through with the agreement and deliver the defense systems to Iran.

US President Barack Obama addressed the nation on Thursday with regard to yesterday’s shooting in San Bernardino, California. Following the complete transcript of that address, as released by the White House.

*****

THE PRESIDENT: Yesterday, a tragedy occurred in San Bernardino, and as I said in the immediate aftermath, our first order of business is to send our thoughts and prayers to the families of those who have been killed and to pray for a speedy recovery for those who were injured during this terrible attack.

I had a chance to speak with Mayor Davis of San Bernardino and I thanked law enforcement in that city for their timely and professional response. I indicated to Mayor Davis that the entire country is thinking about that community, and thanked him and his office for the way that they’ve been able to manage an extraordinarily difficult situation with calm and clarity, and very much appreciated the coordination that’s been taking place between local law enforcement and the FBI investigators.

At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred. We do know that the two individuals who were killed were equipped with weapons and appeared to have access to additional weaponry at their homes. But we don’t know why they did it. We don’t know at this point the extent of their plans. We do not know their motivations.

And I just received a briefing from FBI Director Comey, as well as Attorney General Lynch, indicating the course of their investigation. At this point, this is now a FBI investigation. That’s been done in cooperation and consultation with local law enforcement. It is possible that this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know. It’s also possible that this was workplace-related. And until the FBI has been able to conduct what are going to be a large number of interviews, until we understand the nature of the workplace relationship between the individual and his superiors — because he worked with the organization where this terrible shooting took place — until all the social media and electronic information has been exploited, we’re just not going to be able to answer those questions.

But what I can assure the American people is we’re going to get to the bottom of this and that we are going to be vigilant, as we always are, in getting the facts before we issue any decisive judgments in terms of how this occurred.

More broadly, as I said yesterday, we see the prevalence of these kinds of mass shootings in this country and I think so many Americans sometimes feel as if there’s nothing we can do about it. We are fortunate to have an extraordinary combination of law enforcement and intelligence and military that work every single day to keep us safe. But we can’t just leave it to our professionals to deal with the problem of these kinds of horrible killings. We all have a part to play.

And I do think that, as the investigation moves forward, it’s going to be important for all of us — including our legislatures — to see what we can do to make sure that when individuals decide that they want to do somebody harm, we’re making it a little harder for them to do it. Because right now it’s just too easy. And we’re going to have to, I think, search ourselves as a society to make sure that we can take basic steps that would make it harder — not impossible, but harder — for individuals to get access to weapons.

So there will be, I think, a press conference later today led by the Attorney General. Director Comey will continue to brief not only the press but also members of Congress about the course of the investigation. Our expectation is, is that this may take some time before we’re able to sort it all through. There may be mixed motives involved in this, which makes the investigation more complicated. But rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this.

And in the meantime, once again, I want to offer our deepest condolences to those who’ve been affected by this terrible tragedy. And for those who’ve been injured, we hope that they get well quickly and that they’re able to be back together with their families.

Thank you very much, everybody.

You know the country has really gone to the dogs when Washington’s main allies in its war on Syria are the two biggest terrorist incubators on the planet. I’m talking about Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both of which are run by fanatical Islamic zealots devoted to spreading violent jihad to the four corners of the earth. Not that the US doesn’t have blood on its hands too. It does, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that if you’re trying to sell your fake war on terror to the public, then you might want to think twice about lining up with Grand Sultan Erdogan and King Chop-Chop of Riyadh. The optics alone should have sent the White House PR team running for cover. I mean, couldn’t they have hired squeaky-clean Iceland to join the fray just to persuade the public that the ongoing proxy war wasn’t a complete sham. Which it is.

It all goes to show that no one in the administration really gives a rip about appearances anymore. Obama is going to do what he wants to do, and if you don’t like it: Tough!

Isn’t that the message?

Of course it is. But just look how that apathy transfers itself into other areas of governing like, let’s say, strategic planning. Take Syria for example, where the think tank pundits were given the task of coming up with a plan to topple a secular regime without: 1–triggering a violent insurgency.  2–igniting massive antiwar demonstrations around the world and, 3—producing hundreds or thousands of US casualties. In other words, our esteemed leaders didn’t want another Iraq which is understandable.

Anyway, that was the basic assignment. So the think tankers came up with this brilliant plan to enlist Sunni militants that the CIA would fund, arm, train and deploy into Syria to shoot the place up, raise holy hell, and then topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.  That was the plan, at least.

Four and half years later, the place is a worse mess than Iraq.  Half the population is either dead or internally displaced, the civilian infrastructure is a shambles, and nothing has been achieved. Nothing.  Assad is safely tucked away in Damascus, the jihadi proxies are on the run, and everyone hates the US more than ever.

Great plan, eh? Where’s the downside?

The downside is that now Washington finds itself backed against the wall with precious  few options that don’t involve a direct confrontation with Moscow. Of course, all of this could have been avoided had the White House been more eager to negotiate a settlement to the conflict months earlier in Vienna. But, instead, the bullheaded Obama team decided to stick with its dreary “Assad must go” mantra which put the kibosh on any long-term agreement or ceasefire proposal. So now, the Russian-led coalition has made significant gains on the ground, retaking numerous key cities, highways and airbases in the west and south while sending US-backed terrorists fleeing eastward towards Raqqa.  These developments have forced Washington into a fallback position that will likely entail air-support for Turkish ground forces who will be deployed to Northern Syria to take and hold area sufficient for a “safe zone”, which is an innocuous sounding moniker the media invokes to conceal the fact that Turkey plans to annex sovereign Syrian territory which, by the way, is an act of war.

Now fast-forward to last week:

Some readers may have noticed disturbing headlines like this in the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Urges Turkey to Seal Border”

Or this Reuters piece that popped up on Monday:  “NATO allies act to strengthen Turkey’s air defenses”

Why, you may ask, does Obama want Turkey to close the border now when the horse has already left the barn? What I mean is that the White House has known for over 3 years that the bulk of the jihadis were transiting Turkey on their way  to Syria, just like they knew that ISIS’s oil was being transported across Turkey. They knew it all because they have their damn spy satellites and  AWACs circling overhead. In fact, they could probably tell you how many bumblebees crossed the border at any given time, so they sure as heck saw the throngs of bearded roughnecks moving southward in droves.  So why is it so urgent to close the border now, after all, the damage is already done, right?

Could it have something to do with the fact that Putin’s legions are moving north to seal the border? Could there be an alternate objective, for example, could the US and Turkey be setting the stage for an incursion into Syria that would secure the land needed for the glorious safe zone?

That’s what most of the analysts seem to think, at least the ones that haven’t been coopted by the mainstream media. But why is NATO suddenly getting involved? What’s that all about? After all, Putin was reluctant to even commit his airforce to the Syrian conflict. It’s not like he’s planning to invade Turkey or something, right?

Of course he’s not thinking of invading Turkey. That would pit Russia against NATO in a planet-incinerating fight-to-the-death. That might please some of the crackpots in Washington, but just about everyone else would rather avoid the mushroom cloud scenario.

So, what’s really going on?

For that, we turn to Moon of Alabama that provides this excellent summary in a recent post titled:  “The Real “Terrorist Sympathizers” Want To Wage War On Syria … And Russia”. Here’s an excerpt:

 “Who initiated this sudden rush within major NATO governments to get parliamentary blank checks for waging a long war on Syria? Not only in the UK but also in France and Germany?

The German government turned on a dime from “no military intervention in Syria ever” to “lets wage a war of terror on Syria” without any backing from the UN or international law. .. Who initiated this? A simple, medium size terror attack in Paris by some Belgians and French can not be the sole reason for this stampede.

Did Obama call and demand support for his plans? What are these?

I smell that a trap is being laid, likely via a treacherous Turkey, to somehow threaten Russia with, or involve it in, a wider war. This would include military attacks in east-Ukraine or Crimea as well as in Syria. Obama demanded European backing in case the issue gets out of hand. No other reason I have found explains the current panic. The terrorists the “west” supports in Syria are in trouble. The real terrorist sympathizers need to rush to their help. It is a start of all-out war on Syria and its Russian protectors.” (“Terrorist Sympathizers” Want To Wage War On Syria … And Russia“, Moon of Alabama)

Is that what’s going on? Has Turkish President Erdogan figured out how to hoodwink the NATO allies into a confrontation with Russia that will help him achieve his goal of toppling  Assad and stealing Syrian territory?

It’s hard to say, but clearly something has changed,  after all, neither France, nor Germany nor the UK were nearly as gung-ho just a few weeks ago. Now they’re all hyped-up and ready for WW3. Why is that?

Ahh, Grasshopper, that is the mystery, a mystery that was unraveled in an op-ed that appeared in the Tuesday edition of the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News. Here’s the excerpt:

“The increase in military cooperation within NATO countries against ISIL and the piling up of NATO forces near Turkey’s border with Syria take place in parallel with the recent deal between Ankara and the Brussels over Syrian refugees and the re-activation of Turkey’s EU accession bid.” ….(“Western forces pile up on Turkey-Syria border“, Hurriyet)

Okay, so Erdogan worked out a deal with the other NATO countries. Why is that such a big deal?

Well, check out this blurb from the Today’s Zaman:  “Erdogan’s advisor, Burhan Kuzu, summed it up even more succinctly saying: “The EU finally got Turkey’s message and opened its purse strings. What did we say? ‘We’ll open our borders and unleash all the Syrian refugees on you,’” Kuzu stated in his controversial tweet… ” (“EU bows to Turkey’s threat on refugees says Erdoğan advisor“, Today’s Zaman)

Blackmail? Is that what we’re talking about, blackmail?

It sure sounds like it.

Let’s summarize: Erdogan intentionally releases tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into Europe to put pressure on EU politicians who quickly lose the support of their people and face the meteoric rise of right wing parties. And then, the next thing you know, Merkel, Hollande and every other EU leader is looking to cut a deal with Erdogan to keep the refugees in Turkey.

Isn’t that how it all went down? Except we’re missing one important factoid here, because according to the first op-ed “The increase in military cooperation within NATO… and the piling up of NATO forces near Turkey’s border”…took  place in parallel with the deal between Ankara and the Brussels.”

Get it? So there was a quid pro quo that no one wants to talk about.  In other words, Germany, France and the UK agreed to support Erdogan’s loony plan to conduct military operations in Syria, risking a serious dust-up with Russia, in order to save their own miserable political careers.

Boy, if that doesn’t take the cake, than I don’t know what does.

Rising temperatures and late summer dryness are teaming up to push some types of forests beyond their ability to cope with stress, according to a new analysis of forest response to climate change across the Pacific Northwest.

Particularly vulnerable forests include those in drier areas such as the east side of the Cascade Range, the Blue Mountains and the Rocky Mountains of northeast Washington. High-elevation forests in these areas are poorly adapted to increasingly hot, dry conditions. Sensitive species include lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, spruce and mountain hemlock.

Over the last decade, increasing stress has peaked in August and September as greater water deficits and rising temperatures combined to affect forests across the region. This has created conditions potentially lethal to trees in some highly vulnerable areas, according to a report published this week in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment.

In those two months, the region’s extensive Douglas-fir forests saw an increase in the area subject to stressful conditions, from about 1 percent in August to almost 8 percent in September, said David Mildrexler, a doctoral student in the Oregon State University College of Forestry, and lead author of the report. Areas of high Douglas-fir vulnerability were largely concentrated in the southern portion of the Oregon Coast Range and western Cascade Range.

In ponderosa pine forests, the area of vulnerability rose from 5 percent in August to 33 percent in September. These forests are more adapted to drought but could be affected if prolonged stress continues.

Instead of focusing on air temperatures — the numbers commonly heard in daily weather reports — the analysis uses the actual temperature of surfaces, such as leaves and soil. Trees cool themselves by pumping water from the ground through their leaves, much as humans reduce heat stress by sweating on a hot summer day.

When moisture is lacking, that natural air conditioning shuts down.

“As soon as that stops, the canopy starts to heat up,” Mildrexler said. “When there is no water available to cool the leaves, at about 104 degrees Fahrenheit photosynthesis starts to decline in many plant species. At about 122 degrees, we start seeing effects that are lethal, even with fairly short time exposure. Higher temperature droughts really start to stress trees fast. And it’s projected to get much worse in the future, pushing more forests to the edge.

“You don’t see many places on Earth where forests get that hot,” he said. “It’s why forests are so important for cooling the Earth. With their deep roots that can access groundwater, forests help regulate high temperatures in the summer. The increasing dieback of forests globally is very concerning for this reason.”

In their analysis, Mildrexler and his colleagues tracked the month-to-month difference between water availability and surface temperature starting in 2003, using data from the Terra and Aqua satellites launched by NASA. These two satellites generate images of the entire Earth’s surface every day.

The scientists created a mathematical model — what they call the forest vulnerability index — that captures the relationship between water and temperature trends from one month to the next. In the Pacific Northwest, late-summer stress shows up clearly across the region.

In areas where seasonal dryness occurs regularly, forests have evolved mechanisms to cope with these conditions. Drought in the West isn’t that unusual, but the combination with higher surface temperatures makes this trend a concern, said Mildrexler.

By providing a way to monitor forest stress, the research will help managers in government agencies and private companies focus their efforts on vulnerable areas. Among the options that forest managers can pursue are removal of less drought-tolerant species such as grand fir from drier forests, and prescribed burning to improve fire- and drought-adapted stands.

Other actions include improving water retention in soils, retaining streamside vegetation and restoring beavers, whose dams can raise water tables and retain summer water flows.

“This monitoring method allows managers to better prioritize their activities,” Mildrexler said. “Right now, it isn’t always so clear, but we’re showing where on the landscape vulnerability is increasing and how it varies in each forest type. There is a lot of forest land out there, and the Forest Service has limited budgets for treatments across the landscape, so there’s a real need to get the maximum benefit for what they are doing.”

By Bhaskar Roy

The “unstructured” structured 160 seconds meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (Nov.30) on the side lines of the Climate Change Meeting (COP21) in Paris may have kindled some hope in both countries for resumption of dialogue in this tension ridden relationship.

The two prime ministers certainly did not discuss the weather. But they certainly did touch on the climate between the two countries. While the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman did not go beyond saying that the two leaders only exchanged courtesies, Mr. Sharif gave a glimpse into the brief conversation. Mr Sharif commented to reporters after the brief meeting that the talks “were good”, and “doors of dialogue should open”. Mr. Sharif is also reported to have told Mr. Modi that, “we have lots of concerns in Pakistan about terrorist activities and that we need to talk about it”, according to Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn.

Dawn also quotes a Pakistani official present at the meeting that, “for optics, it looked like PM Modi was more keen on talking and since he was the one who approached our PM, then may be the India-Pak dialogue might just get back on track, given the recent halt in talks”.

Optics was important for both sides but for Pakistan, it was more important. Mr. Sharif had to show his people, especially the hardliners that he had not buckled. Mr. Modi did walk up to Nawaz Sharif who was sitting in the hall, by himself, not in conversation with other leaders mingling there. He was waiting for Mr. Modi. Almost all Pakistani newspapers have carried the report that the Indian Prime Minister walked up to Mr. Sharif.

For the Indian side, this was not much of a concession to make. If the gesture massaged Pakistan’s ego, so be it. Everybody is happy, as it should be. After the failure to work on the Ufa declaration between the two sides, bilateral relations took a sharp dip, and the borders heated up. This did not help either side. In India, there was some criticism of the government’s approach to the dismantling of the Ufa declaration by opposing the Pakistani National Security Advisor’s delegation meeting the Kashmiri Hurriyat Conference leaders before the NSA delegations meet in New Delhi. But Pakistan was also severely criticised for demanding a meeting on the Kashmir issue. Simultaneously in contravention of the Ufa declaration where “Kashmir” had no mention, Pakistan insisted on bringing Kashmir to the table. On the other hand, the Pak military held Mr. Sharif and his NSA Mr. Sartaj Aziz’s feet to the fire for this concession to India.

Of course, this “accidental” meeting between the two leaders was not an accident but arranged. It had to be done this way to ensure that critics in both the countries did not jump into the ring and queer the pitch in advance.

India should consider positively Pakistan’s invitation to Foreign Minister Ms. Sushma Swaraj to attend a multilateral meeting on Afghanistan in Islamabad. If she does not, it would not be a wise move. If she does, she will have an opportunity to discuss important bilateral issues on the side lines. It will also be an extension of the Paris meeting since most of the work will have to be done at levels below PMs. Will these help remove the post-Ufa freeze? It will take some time, but the block has to be lifted with some urgency.

It goes without saying that there would have been some quiet American “advice” to bring about the Paris meeting. PM Sharif’s Washington official visit and meeting President Barack Obama and other senior officials of the US administration made a beginning. Mr. Sharif would have certainly briefed Army Chief Raheel Sharif (no relation of Nawaz Sharif) on his return from the US. Next was Gen. Sharif’s self-invited visit to the US. He was roundly lectured by his American interlocutors, demanding a pull back on support to groups like Haqqani network, the Afghan Taliban as well as the LET.

The Pak military is the country’s power centre, and will remain so for a long time unless the political leaders close ranks and desist from using the military in their political fights. The people of Pakistan do prefer interference by the forces in the interest of stability because the politicians have disgraced themselves. But the army also has to heed the Americans because they remain the biggest arbitrators and aid giver.

China’s encouragement to Pakistan to break the ice with India cannot be ruled out either. It is not in China’s interest either to have an India-Pak military flare up where Pakistan’s use of tactical nuclear weapons is increasingly becoming a possibility. Pakistan’s foreign secretary recently confirmed that they have deployed tactical nuclear weapons on the Indian front against a possible Indian conventional attack. Pakistan’s apprehension is that if another terrorist attack like the Mumbai “26/11” takes place, India may not hold back.

To restart meaningful talks between the two countries, Pakistan has to take some steps. To start with, the main perpetrator of the “26/11”, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi should be rearrested. The case must be restarted in the Pakistani court earnestly and without prejudice. The evidence in the case provided by India to Pakistan was not “Literature”, but hard evidence. The onus rests on Gen. Raheel Sharif.

*The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com

By Richard Orange*

A prosecutor in Sweden is seeking a life sentence for the man accused of shooting a dissident Uzbek imam. The trial included bombshell testimony that appears to link the Swedish incident to the murder of another Uzbek cleric in Istanbul.

Yury Zhukovsky stands accused of attempting to kill an Uzbek cleric living in exile in Sweden, Obidkhon Qori Nazarov, at the behest of Uzbekistan’s security services. Chief prosecutor Krister Petersson characterized the alleged crime, which occurred in the remote Swedish town of Strömsund in 2012, as an attempted “execution on behalf of a foreign state.”

“It is a particularly serious crime with very clear political or religious overtones,” he said. “I believe that the murder attempt has as its cause the victim’s activities as an imam in Uzbekistan, which made him an uncomfortable element which needed to be eliminated.”

The judge in the case ordered Zhukovksy to remain in detention until December 15, when the verdict is expected to be announced, Petersson told EurasiaNet.org.

The trial featured testimony that alleged Zhukovsky’s Moscow associate, Tigran Kaplanov, with whom he was jailed in Russia for illegally possessing two pistols and a hunting rifle, was being investigated by Turkish police for possible involvement in the murder of another Uzbek imam, Abdullah Bukhari, who was gunned down in Istanbul in 2014.

Nazarov had been a high-ranking cleric in Uzbekistan until the mid-1990s and at one point had been considered a possible candidate for the position of mufti. But he was forced to flee the country in 1998 in the wake of investigations into alleged links to radical Islamists. Human Rights Watch has cited people close to Nazarov as saying his troubles with the authorities stemmed in part from his refusal to serve as an informant for the security services. The cleric continued to criticize the Uzbek regime after gaining asylum in Sweden in 2006.

The incident at the heart of the trial occurred in February 2012, when Nazarov’s nine-year-old grandson found him lying in a pool of blood on the stairs outside his apartment. He had been shot from behind as he set off, shortly after midday, for the Swedish mosque where he served as imam.

On the trial’s fourth day, Johan Rainer – the lawyer representing Nazarov, as well as the cleric’s son, David – informed the court that he had received new evidence possibly linking the Strömsund shooting to a 2014 murder in Istanbul. “We got the information during the night that Tigran Kaplanov also figures as a suspect in the assassination plans against a group of Uzbek opposition figures in Turkey in December [2014],” Rainer said.

Rainer told EurasiaNet.org that he had been in contact with an exiled Uzbek dissident, Muhammad Solih, who had allegedly been targeted by assassins in Istanbul. Solih informed Rainer he had been told by Turkish police officers that Kaplanov was a person of interest in the Turkish investigation into Abdullah Bukhari’s killing. Rainer acknowledged that he had not yet been able to confirm Solih’s testimony directly with Turkish authorities.

During the Swedish trial, Rainer showed a passport photo to Zhukovsky, and the defendant testified that the man pictured was the same Kaplanov with whom he worked in Moscow, and who had sent him money while he was in Sweden.

Zhukovsky earlier stated during police interviews that he had been sent to Sweden by a man called Umidbek Aminov to track down a debtor. In court, Zhukovsky testified that Aminov and Kaplanov were one and the same person.

David Nazarov, the wounded imam’s son, told EurasiaNet.org that he hoped the new information would be sufficient for Swedish authorities to issue an international arrest warrant for Kaplanov. Rainer said that the fact that Kaplanov is listed as a Russian citizen, rather than an Uzbek, on his passport would complicate any potential effort to prosecute him in Sweden. “They [Russian officials] don’t extradite their own citizens,” he said.

During the trial, David Nazarov told the court that Evgeni Dyakonov, an Uzbek journalist exiled in Norway, had recorded a call from a police colonel in Tashkent warning him that if he did not moderate his critical articles about Uzbekistan, he risked ending up “like the imam in Sweden.”

In his defense, Zhukovsky claimed that he had been set up. He argued that the abundance of DNA, phone evidence, travel documentation and payment slips tying him to the scene proved he had made no effort to hide his movements. “I’d like to point out that all my visits to Sweden have been completely open, with genuine ID documents, my credit card, and my real phone number as contact information, both in the rental car contract and when I bought my ferry tickets,” he told the court.

Defense lawyer Jorge Concha argued that the bag found in the snow outside Nazarov’s apartment building, which showed traces of Zhukovsky’s DNA both inside and outside it, and which held a Russian Nagant revolver, would never have been discarded by a professional killer.

“If he was a hired gunman, why would he leave the bag, with his DNA and everything, five meters from the apartment? It’s not rational, it’s not logical,” Concha told EurasiaNet.org.

He also argued that the absence of fingerprints or DNA on the weapon itself supported the theory that it had been planted afterwards in the bag, which Zhukovsky claimed he was asked to leave in an Internet café in a nearby town.

“The weakest point is that they don’t have any fingerprints on the weapon. We don’t even know if it is the weapon that was used,” he said. “Not even the bullet can be related to this crime.”

In his summing up, Petersson, the chief prosecutor, noted that the main reason why the bullet could not be tied to the weapon was that it remained lodged in Obid Nazarov’s brain.

Zhukovsky’s story, the prosecutor argued, would require the person or persons framing him to steal toothpicks and a cellphone charger holding his DNA and then leave them in the bag along with the revolver.

“You’ve got to think about the law of probabilities,” he said. “Nothing he has said has been able to explain those finds.”

*Richard Orange is a freelance journalist based in Malmö, Sweden, and previously worked as the Central Asia correspondent for The Daily Telegraph.

Gold worth almost R3 million was confiscated at the King Shaka International Airport (KSIA) in KwaZulu-Natal, said the South African Revenue Service (SARS) on Thursday.

The gold was found in the pockets and a moneybag of a male passenger who was hiding it under a kurta worn over his clothing last week.

“The luggage of the passenger, disembarking from Dubai, was searched in the common search room after being profiled by the customs passengers team. Although nothing untoward was found in his luggage, the “bulging pockets” under his kurta convinced an alert official to inspect further.

“He found 48 gold bars weighing 5.6kg in the passenger’s pockets and a money bag wrapped around his waist,” explained the revenue service.

The case is still in an investigation stage, and the man has not yet appeared in court.

Also in Durban, as part of a random search at the Customs Mail Centre, customs officials scanned an airmail parcel posted in the Netherlands to a Durban address.

The content was declared as a “car cover/ plant cover/ dog bag E130”.

The parcel was selected for further investigation after the scan showed what appeared to be a large amount of tablets in square packages.

Officials subsequently found several packets of white tablets taped to the products that were mailed.

The tablets were stuck onto brown and black sticky tape to form two packages, which were glued to the inside of both the car cover and plant cover, and thereafter folded neatly into plastic bags with outer advertising packaging confirming the products to be a car and plant cover respectively.

“The tablets have since been confirmed to be methylenedioxy-methamphetamine [Ecstasy tablets]. The packets containing the tablets weighed 1.8 kg, and has a street value of about R310 000. It was detained for hand-over to the South African Police,” said SARS.

The United States strongly condemned Thursday the recent deadly suicide bombings and “callous” attacks in Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon by Boko Haram.

“Through these senseless acts of brutality, Boko Haram terrorists are depriving the people of the Lake Chad Basin region of their fundamental right to live in peace and security,” said Mark C. Toner, US Deputy State Department spokesperson. “We extend our condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of these terrible attacks”.

Toner said the US continues to support the governments and people of the Lake Chad Basin region as they confront Boko Haram and the violence it inflicts.

“We remain committed to this effort through a number of security and counterterrorism assistance programs, including providing advisors, intelligence, training, logistical support, and equipment to the governments of Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Benin to aid their fight against Boko Haram,” Toner said.

“We will also continue to provide critical humanitarian support to those who have been internally displaced or forced to take refuge in neighboring countries because of Boko Haram’s senseless acts of terror,” Toner added.

The leader of the Islamic Revolution has once again addressed western youth, who either for the most part are misinformed about Islam because of the bias in media and society in favour of Israel and Zionism, or are Muslim but living in a climate of Islamophobia and in desperation have drifted to the militant jihadist movement which began in Afghanistan in 1979 with US blessing, and is now a permanent feature of world politics. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls on them to “reconsider the threat of terrorism in the world, its roots and to find a deep insight into Islam.”

The tone of the Ayatollah’s reflections is calm and friendly, the content intelligent and at the same time heartfelt. You can feel his spirit of universal love and his anguish at the suffering that terrorism brings. It is sad to note that western media and politicians have an obsession against Iran, despite Iran’s constant reaching out and attempts to help the West fight terrorism. The reasons, of course, are Iran’s staunch support for Palestine and its refusal to submit to the dictates of imperialism. Both unforgivable ‘sins’.

These are not rational reasons. Following 9/11 Iranian intelligence shared information with US intelligence–until President Bush found out and put a stop to it. Iran made intelligent proposals to resolve the nuclear energy stand-off for the past decade, all rejected by the US. The world is blessed by Iran’s support for Palestine, as the Arab states are just not up to the task.

Like his earlier appeal, once again the Ayatollah calls for dialogue on the most painful matters to “create the grounds for finding solutions and mutual consultation”, or the situation will continue to spin out of control.

For the Ayatollah, each life is important and each unnatural death is a tragedy. “The sight of a child losing his life in the presence of his loved ones, a mother whose joy for her family turns into mourning, a husband who is rushing the lifeless body of his spouse to some place and the spectator who does not know whether he will be seeing the final scene of life — these are scenes that rouse the emotions and feelings of any human being … whether they occur in France or in Palestine or Iraq or Lebanon or Syria. The Muslim world shares these feelings and are revolted by the perpetrators”.

The supreme leader explained that Muslims have suffered far more than anyone else due to colonial occupation and the trauma that Israel inflicts daily on Palestinians. Westerners mourning the French tragedy should pause for a moment. “If the people of Europe have now taken refuge in their homes for a few days and refrain from being present in busy places — it is decades that a Palestinian family is not secure even in its own home from the Zionist regime’s death and destruction machinery. What kind of atrocious violence today is comparable to that of the settlement constructions of the Zionist regime?

“This regime … every day demolishes the homes of Palestinians and destroys their orchards and farms. This is done without even giving them time to gather their belongings or agricultural products and usually it is done in front of the terrified and tear-filled eyes of women and children who witness the brutal beatings of their family members. Shooting down a woman in the middle of the street for the crime of protesting against a soldier who is armed to the teeth — if this is not terrorism, what is? This barbarism, just because it is being done by the armed forces of an occupying government, is it not extremism? Or maybe only because these scenes have been seen repeatedly on television screens for sixty years, they no longer stir our consciences.”
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The Ayatollah laments the ongoing invasions and violation of the Muslim world by the West, “another example of the contradictory logic of the West. The assaulted countries, in addition to the human damage caused, have lost their economic and industrial infrastructure. Their movement towards growth and development has been thrown back decades.”

The Ayatollah looks to the youth of today, who he hopes will be educated to understand the beauty of Islam, its compatibility with both Christianity and Judaism, its long history of peaceful relations, its rejection of imperialism and colonialism. They must “discover new means for building the future and be barriers on the misguided path that has brought the West to its current impasse.”

The Iranian leader optimistically assumes that people in the West mostly understand of the true nature of modern politics. That westerners understand the role of the US in “creating, nurturing and arming al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their inauspicious successors, [that] these forces behind terrorism are allies of the West, while the most pioneering, brightest and most dynamic democrats in the region are suppressed mercilessly.”

I wish his words reflected the reality that I see around me in Canada. People are willfully ignorant about these matters, not wanting to see their governments as guilty of nuturing terrorism. My goal in writing is to inform people in these matters, but it is hard to get the message out. It is primarily time-servers who are welcomed by the mainstream media to ‘inform’ citizens.

I admire the Iranian leader’s honesty in pointing out that it is western ‘culture’ that promotes “aggression and moral promiscuity”, and tries to destroy other cultures. “The western world with the use of advanced tools is insisting on the cloning and replication of its culture on a global scale. I consider the imposition of western culture upon other peoples and the trivialization of independent cultures as a form of silent violence and extreme harmfulness.”

He does “not deny the importance and value of cultural interaction, but warns against “inharmonious interactions”. That conjures up the image of westernized youth sneaking into a Russian Orthdox cathedral or a Tehran public place and loudly promoting a western ‘human rights’ agenda, with western photo-journalists on hand, waiting to send some distorted image out on the internet. The upshot is either Russophobia or Islamophobia, whereas the real violation is of national dignity.

This shows that western culture is in fact nonculture, and promotes apathy, decadence, or nihilism, which oppresses us all today. But, disillusioned as I am with western media and its brainwashing, I was heartened after the Paris bombings to hear sensible Canadians reject the jihadists’ plan to promote Islamophobia, forcing Muslims to join them in their will-o’-the-wisp caliphate. There are many Muslims in Canada now — eleven of them are members of Parliament in the ruling Liberal Party. A 30-year-old Afghan woman Maryam Monsef is Minister of Democratic Institutions. Muslims are first rate Canadians — hard working, quiet, educated, devout. They are slowly transforming Canada for the better, including acting as examples of what Islam can do to benefit society.

I am also encouraged by the election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, ousting the ultra-Zionist Iranophobe Stephen Harper. Muslim Canadians voted for Trudeau en masse. All eleven Muslim MPs are Liberals. He has a silver bullet against terrorism: the only way to fight ISIS responsibly is to ‘do the right thing’, and expose their policy of violence as bad for Muslims, bad for everyone. Already thousands of communities across the country have pledged to sponsor Syrian families and are busy hosting fundraisers.

Terry Nelson, Grand Chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization, says Manitoba’s plans to bring refugees in from other countries should not be impacted by events in Europe. “There’s been an invitation for 2,500 Syrian people to be here in Winnipeg,” he said. “They should not be judged by a small minority of people that are terrorists. We live in the greatest country in the world. The most peaceful country in the world. We are blessed.”

The article appeared at MEHR News.

By Matthew Barrett and Allan English*

There have been more deaths by suicides in the Canadian Armed Forces since 2002 than mission deaths in Afghanistan. In the twelve years that Canada was engaged in the War in Afghanistan, 158 Armed Forces members were killed. During the same period, 178 members died by suicide, of which some might have been attributed to Operational Stress Injuries (OSIs).2 In addition to being personal and family tragedies, suicides constitute a significant loss of personnel to the CAF, and a loss to Canadian society as well.

Recent political and media attention surrounding the issue of suicide in Canadian military and veteran populations is not a new concern. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Canadian government, veterans’ groups, and the public-at-large confronted the problem of soldier suicide in the context of contentious debates over pensions and rehabilitation for returned men. Just over a decade after the end of the war, Colonel G. S. Rennie, the former commander of No. 2 General Hospital, observed: “These men become despondent and we read in the newspapers every week or even sometimes more frequently that one of these men, despondent, out of work, ill and unable to get a pension, has committed suicide.”3 Although the number and details of suicides in Canadian military and veteran populations is not well documented, a number of cases have come to public attention, especially those during or immediately after a major conflict in which Canada has been involved.

This article uses two case studies as a preliminary examination into Canadian attitudes toward suicide in the military: Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Simpson Sharpe (1873–1918), and Major Michelle Mendes (1978–2009). After introducing the cases, we examine how public attitudes towards suicide and mental stress injuries in the Canadian military changed during the course of each conflict—the First World War, and Afghanistan. We then assess how de-stigmatization efforts might be improved by using historical evidence, and how this knowledge could be leveraged to help facilitate a more productive and open dialogue about mental health and suicide in the military.

Four key perceptions have influenced public attitudes towards military suicide: (1) Perceptions of the military itself—what is the role of the military within society? (2) Perceptions of the conflict—how is the mission interpreted by the Canadian public? (3) Perceptions of mental illness—what are the prevailing cultural beliefs concerning mental illness? (4) Perceptions of place of death—the significance of where a soldier dies reflects the values the public associates with the military, the conflict, and mental illness. Examining this issue from an historical perspective indicates which societal attitudes towards suicide in the military have been more durable, and which have been more susceptible to change. Identifying these attitudes will assist in shaping how stakeholders pursue de-stigmatization and suicide prevention strategies.

First World War: Lieutenant Colonel Sam Sharpe

Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Sharpe

Lieutenant Colonel Sam Sharpe was a sitting Member of Parliament for Ontario North who commanded the 116th Battalion for eleven months on the Western Front. In a letter to the widow of one of his officers in October 1917, Sharpe admitted that if he began to contemplate the misery and suffering he had witnessed, “I would soon become absolutely incapable of ‘Carrying on.’”4 Three months later, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to a hospital in England with a diagnosis of general debility. On 25 May 1918, shortly after returning to Canada on convalescence leave, Sharpe jumped to his death from a window in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.5

During the early phase of the First World War, many military leaders and doctors believed that suicidal soldiers were predisposed to suffer from depression and delusions due to hereditary weakness and innate cowardice. Viewing self-harm as a symptom of lack of discipline, armies tended to treat soldiers who attempted to kill themselves as deserters.6 Late-war reassessment of mental stress injuries as legitimate war casualties resulted in a growing sense that sufferers overwhelmed by suicidal depression or traumatic stress were not necessarily responsible for their conduct.7 Greater awareness of the war’s psychological effects resulted in sympathetic reports of soldier suicide in the press.8 At the time of Sharpe’s death, changing perceptions of shell shock and the patriotic mood of the country caused many to emphasize his courage and sacrifice as opposed to his tragic end. The Toronto Globe for example treated Sharpe’s death the same as a combat fatality, noting significantly, “He gave up his life as truly ‘on the field of honor’ as if he had fallen in action.”9

During the First World War, and since, commentators have used the expression ‘field of honour’ to memorialize and respect dead soldiers. Death on the ‘field of honour’ associated the fallen with righteousness and higher significance, thereby legitimizing their sacrifice and memory.10 The experience of the First World War illustrated a shift in how the “field of honour” could be applied to military dead. In the course of the conflict, the phrase assumed an egalitarian meaning that could encompass all individuals who had died in the course of the conflict. Symbolically grouping all casualties as “dead on the field of honour” could include soldiers killed in direct enemy action, killed by accident, died from disease as well as died by suicide. Rather than stigmatize a suicidal soldier such as Sharpe, many Canadians could accept that the “death was the result of service in France.”11

Recently, Sharpe has received greater recognition from the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, Erin O’Toole, as “a teaching device” in the campaign to bring awareness to the issue of mental health in the military.12 O’Toole, who represents the same region of Ontario as Sharpe did as an MP, hosts the annual Sam Sharpe Breakfast with former Senator and retired CAF Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, “ … in part to show that we are making progress,” but the Minister also notes, “We still have a long way to go …”13

War in Afghanistan: Major Michelle Mendes

A century after the First World War, the challenge of mental strain and wartime stress among service members continues to confront stakeholders in the government, the military, the medical profession, veterans’ groups and the Canadian population in general. On 23 April 2009, Major Michelle Mendes was found dead in her room at the Kandahar airfield. She had been serving a second tour of duty in Afghanistan as an operations officer with the Kandahar Intelligence Fusion Centre. Initial media reports inferred suicide and military investigators later determined she had died by self-inflicted gunshot.14

Just as the early phase of the First World War, during the “Decade of Darkness” of the 1990s, a state of “blissful ignorance” existed about some of the precursors of suicide as Canadian policymakers and military leaders lacked sufficient data on the nature of OSIs. In the public’s mind, peacekeeping missions of the day were not perceived as combat operations. Consequently, few resources were allocated to mental injuries and the problem of OSIs was largely interpreted as a disciplinary issue.15 The recent experience of Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan has placed greater focus on issues of mental health in the military. This emphasis on mental health care reflects the public’s focus on the Canadian soldier as a heroic national symbol.16

On 26 April 2009, Mendes was repatriated to Canada along the Highway of Heroes as the 118th Canadian fatality in Afghanistan. In media interviews, one observer who watched the procession emphasized, “It’s still a soldier … She (was) still doing her job in Afghanistan for all of us.” Another explained, “We try and treat them with the same respect, if it’s combat or not combat.”17 In an official statement, Defence Minister Peter MacKay connected the death to “our important mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Afghanistan.”18 In public commemorations and tributes to Mendes, civilians and government officials drew no clear distinction between a death by suicide and a serviceperson killed in action.

Comparison of 1918 and 2009

DND photo

The cases of Sharpe and Mendes represent two snapshots in time to illustrate changing perceptions of OSIs and military suicide. Whereas pre-war attitudes in 1914 and in the 1990s often portrayed suicidal actions and mental stress as a discipline issue, in both instances, the experience of each war resulted in greater public attention and concern for mental health in the military. By 1918, after four years of war, there was willingness in the press to acknowledge Sharpe as a wartime casualty and attribute the cause of his mental instability to his battlefield experience. By 2009, after four years of Canada’s combat role in Afghanistan, media reports of Mendes’ death treated her as casualty of the mission. Positive press coverage indicated a desire to recover meaning in the tragic deaths by emphasizing higher ideals of duty, honour, and sacrifice, rather than stigmatize the individual and the actual cause of death. For the Canadian public in each era, it seemed self-evident that Sharpe and Mendes had died on the field of honour, even though they were not technically in the combat zone at the time of death.

De-stigmatization, Contagion, and Commemoration

Despite this inclination to treat soldiers who die by suicide in a time of war as causalities, the nature of the deaths continues to produce certain taboos and silences. At the close of the investigation into Mendes’ death in August 2010, the military police were, for instance, not proactive in making their conclusions public. Media outlets observed that the reluctance to disclose the cause of death seemed at odds with the goal of reducing the stigma of mental illness.19 The situation is further complicated by the fact that service members who died by suicide in Afghanistan are counted as mission causalities, whereas returned soldiers and veterans who kill themselves in Canada are not.

The differing viewpoints articulated by former Chief of the Defence Staff, General Tom Lawson, and former Senator Roméo Dallaire represent two of the conflicting approaches in confronting how military suicides are understood by the public and reported in the media. These perspectives represent what we term “contagion” versus “commemoration.” In February 2014, General Lawson stated, “…actually stigmatizing the act of suicide is probably a very good thing in our society.” He added, by embracing those who might have suffered mental stress injuries, “… we may have brought a slight honour to the act of suicide.”20 In December 2012, Dallaire stated, “It is already catastrophic enough that we are not recognizing these individuals on our monuments as true casualties …We are not even doing that, and so the stigma is still there.”21 General Lawson’s comment reflects a concern that increased public attention or sympathetic media coverage may result in a suicide contagion effect, thereby exacerbating or exaggerating the problem of suicide in the Canadian military.22 By contrast, Dallaire’s statement reflects a concern that lack of public attention and muted coverage may result in more instances of suicide by service personnel due to negative stigmatization.

The tension between anxiety over a contagion effect and a desire for commemoration in turn influences how suicide cases are presented to the public. The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) has specified guidelines for the media to follow when reporting suicides. Citing evidence-based literature that suggests forms of reportage might trigger additional suicides in certain at-risk populations, the SPRC has advised media outlets not to romanticize and glamorize a person who died by suicide, nor to include detailed descriptions of method and location of death.23

By presenting soldiers like Sharpe as heroic casualties of war, Canadian press reporting during the First World War era would have certainly violated current procedures and restrictions about romanticizing death by suicide. Consider the case of one of Sharpe’s officers in the 116th Battalion, Lieutenant C. V. V. Coombs, who suffered shell shock and shot himself in December 1919. The Toronto Globe not only explained, “Everybody feels that it is as if he had died at the hands of the enemy,”24 a news correspondent paid tribute to the soldier “ … who feared not to end the life which battle wounds had made unbearable.”25 In the cases of Sharpe and Coombs, contemporary newspaper coverage showed greater interest with commemorating the dead and highlighting their bravery and dedication than an anxiety that such tributes might “ … bring a slight honour to the act of suicide.”26

As indicated by General Lawson’s statement, modern government and media institutions are more sensitive to the possible negative effect of detailed or subjective suicide coverage. However, as Senator Dallaire observed, when applied to the issue of suicide in the military, restrictive guidelines might serve to reinforce stigmatization. This point reflects Senator Dallaire’s concern about the perceived lack of recognition for service members who died by suicide outside of Afghanistan, even if the cause of their death might have been an OSI incurred during their tour in Afghanistan.27 The ways in which the public interprets the mission and perceives the soldiers involved will affect how resulting mental injuries are regarded and treated.28 If military personnel who died by suicide outside of the combat theatre are not considered part of the overall mission, their deaths may be perceived as less worthy of recognition than combat fatalities. Consequently, the mental difficulties and OSIs that could possibly have contributed to some of the deaths may not be identified as a vital concern because the public perceives the deaths to have occurred at home, and not in the war.

The contagion perspective necessarily entails an aspect of stigmatization that prevents this kind of inclusion on the field of honour, and it maintains a clear distinction with those killed in action overseas. Had Sharpe died by suicide in Canada today, outside of the combat theatre, he would not be included in the total number of war casualties. In the same way, had Mendes’ death occurred in Canada, she would not have been included in mission casualties, either. This point highlights the central question of how Canadian society has defined the place of the field of honour in relation to different types of casualties, both psychological and physical.

The field of honour has often literally described the actual combat zone—the Western Front or Afghanistan—but it has also been represented as a symbolic metaphor. While every death of a Canadian Forces member to occur in Afghanistan is counted as a mission casualty, in certain instances, a mission fatality could also take place at home. Master Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud, the son of the 2014 Silver Cross Mother, Gisèle Michaud, had been wounded by an IED in Afghanistan in June 2009. He was transported to a city of Québec hospital where he died only a few days later as the 122nd mission casualty.29 In this case, the field of honour could be expansive to include Canada; just as for Sharpe in 1918, the field of honour had been a Montréal hospital. Consequently, the field of honour has also been a flexible symbol for how Canadian society has identified certain causalities as honourable and worthy of commemoration.

Narrow or expansive definitions of the field of honour influence how stakeholders will prioritize certain types of injuries—physical and psychological—as well as what the Canadian public believe constitutes an honourable casualty. The ways in which Canadians think about the field of honour is directly related to de-stigmatization because, historically, public attitudes toward soldier suicide have tended to be more sympathetic when the individuals were considered to be engaged in the overall mission, as in the case of both Sharpe and Mendes. This commemoration viewpoint suggests that de-stigmatization efforts might benefit from removing supposed distinctions between a service member who died by suicide, died of wounds, or was killed in action. At the same time, stakeholders in the government, military, and medical profession need to consider Lawson’s concern about bringing “a slight honour” to the act of suicide as possibly leading to a contagion effect.30 It is possible that a commemoration approach might risk a contagion effect, but it is nevertheless vital to recognize that the contagion viewpoint restricts commemoration.

Conclusion

By conducting an historical analysis of two selected case studies nearly one hundred years apart, this research has identified some attitudes towards suicide in Canadian culture that have historically hindered or aided de-stigmatization. However, some attitudes appear to be more durable than others. A significant durable attitude in the Canadian military is the stigmatization of the act of suicide, but not necessarily the person. Whereas, a belief subject to change is that, in certain circumstances, soldiers who have died by suicide can be considered wartime casualties. Based upon the two case studies of Sharpe and Mendes, it is hypothesized that efforts to de-stigmatize durable attitudes towards suicide in Canada’s military and veteran population will require more time, effort, and resources than less durable attitudes. Historically, even if suicide as an act has been stigmatized as social taboo, military fatalities of suicide have not always been burdened with the same stigma. This historical evidence may help inform the priorities and strategies that stakeholders pursue in reducing incidents of suicide.

This article has argued that an inclination to de-stigmatize suicide and commemorate service members who have killed themselves as war causalities often rests in opposition to a fear that such normalization could trigger suicide contagion in some at-risk populations. In confronting how the issue of soldier suicide is discussed and interpreted by the public, government officials, military leaders, media commentators, and medical professionals need to identify which strategies will be prioritized. An approach that emphasizes commemoration too strongly risks obscuring the actual cause of death and the underlying mental health issues. An approach that focuses upon contagion might similarly reinforce silences that stigmatize the individual. Only by balancing an awareness of contagion triggers with an expectation for appropriate commemoration can public sympathy for all military casualties be leveraged to facilitate a more open and productive dialogue about mental health and suicide prevention in the Canadian military.

About the authors:
*Matthew Barrett is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Queen’s University in Kingston. His research focuses upon public perceptions of shell shock during the First World War, and the history of suicide in the Canadian military.

Allan English, CD, PhD, served for twenty-five years in the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Forces. He teaches Canadian military history in the History Department at Queen’s University. Allan has served on committees that advised Veterans Affairs Canada, the Department of National Defence, and the RCMP on operational stress injuries. He is a member of the College of Peer Reviewers of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research.

Source:
This article was published in the Canadian Military Journal Vol. 15, No 4.

Notes:

1. This article is based upon a presentation made at the Military and Veteran Health Research Forum, Toronto, 24-26 November 2014.
2. Statistics current as of 31 March 2014. “Military Suicides Outnumbered Deaths in Afghanistan, New Stats Show.” Kingston Whig Standard (16 Sept 2014), at http://www.thewhig.com/2014/09/16/military-suicides-outnumbered-deaths-in-afghanistan-new-stats-show
3. Canada. House. Debates, 16th Parliament, 4th Session, Vol. 1 (27 February 1930), p. 122.
4. Sam Sharpe to Muriel Hutchison. 21 October 1917 (courtesy of the Ontario Regiment Museum: Oshawa, Ontario).
5. “Col. Sharpe Dies at Montreal,” in Toronto Globe (27 May 1918), p. 7.
6. Patricia Prestwich, “Suicide and French Soldiers of the First World War: Differing Perspectives, 1914-1939,” in John Weaver and David Wright, eds. Histories of Suicide: International Perspectives on Self-Destruction in the Modern World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 137.
7. Peter Barham, Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; 2004), pp. 129-133.
8. Jonathan Scotland, “Soldier Suicide after the Great War: A First Look,” in Active History (24 Mar 2014), at http://activehistory.ca/2014/03/soldier-suicide-after-the-great-war-a-first-look/
9. “The Last Measure of Devotion,” Toronto Globe (27 May 1918), p. 6.
10. For more on the postwar patriotic mythology, Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997), pp. 100-101.
11. F. C. Mears, “Fallen Soldier M.P. Honored in Bronze,” in Toronto Globe (27 December 1923), p. 1.
12. Quoted in Lee Berthiaume, “O’Toole hopes to change story on government’s treatment of veterans,” in Ottawa Citizen (25 February 2015), at http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/otoole-hopes-to-change-story-on- governments-treatment-of-veterans
13. Canada. House. Debates. 41st Parliament, 2nd Session (11 May 2015).
14. Christie Blatchford, “A Soldier’s Story: Did we push her too much?” in Globe & Mail (20 June 2009), at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ did-we-push-her-too-much/article4277429/?page=all .
15. Sydney Dale-McGrath and Allan English, “Overcoming Systematic Obstacles to Veteran Transition to Civilian Life,” in Alice Aiken and Stephanie Belanger(eds.), Beyond the Line: Military and Veteran Health Research (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), p. 257.
16. Allan English. “From Combat Stress to Operational Stress: The CF’s Mental Health Lessons from the Decade of Darkness,” in Canadian Military Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2012), p. 9, at http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vol12/no4/doc/English-pages917.pdf
17. Quoted in Steve Petrick, “Body of Canadian soldier found dead on Kandahar base returns home,” in Winnipeg Free Press (26 April 2009), at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Body-of-Canadian-soldier-found-dead-on-Kandahar-base-returns-home.html
18. Peter MacKay, “Statement by the Minister of National Defence on the death of Major Michelle Mendes,” (24 April 2009), at http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=statement-by-the-minister-of-national-defence-on-the-death-of-major-michelle-mendes/hnps1upn
19. Murray Brewster, “Forces closes book on officer’s suicide, but troubling questions persist,” in The Canadian Press (10 August 2010).
20. Quoted in Lee Berthlaume. “Outcry over Military Suicides…,” in National Post, (14 February 2014), at http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/02/14/public-outcry-over-military-suicides-may-actually-have-brought-a-slight-honour-to-the-act-canadas-defence-chief-says/
21. Canada. Senate. Debates, 41st Parliament, 1st Session. Vol. 148, No. 131 (13 December 2012), at http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/Sen/Chamber/411/Debates/131db_2012-12-13-e.htm#48
22. For more on “media contagion effect,” see Amanda Edwards-Stewart, Julie T. Kinn, Jennifer D. June, and Nicole R. Fullerton, “Military and Civilian Media Coverage of Suicide,” Archives of Suicide Research, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2011), pp. 304-312.
23. Ibid, p. 305.
24. Harold Steevens, “As If He Had Died at Hands of the Enemy,” in Toronto Globe (29 December 1919), p. 2.
25. Harold Steevens, “Capt. Coombs Rests in Soldier Grave,” in Toronto Globe (3 January 1920), p. 2.
26. Quoted in Berthlaume, “Outcry Over Military Suicides…”
27. Canada. Senate. Debates, 41st Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 148, No. 131 (13 December 2012).
28. Dale-McGrath and English, pp. 256-257.
29. “Legion announces memorial (Silver) Cross Mother for 2014-15,” in Legion (31 October 2014), at http://www.legion.ca/article/legion-announces-memorial-silver-cross-mother-for-2014-15/
30. Quoted in Berthlaume, “Outcry Over Military Suicides…”

The Serbian Government hosted on Thursday the 22nd Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in which this year’s main focus was to rebuild a consensus on European security.

On this occasion the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić, encouraged in his opening address every official delegation to engage in a candid, open and constructive dialogue that could bring a solution to issues of mutual concern.

This ministerial council was attended by over forty Ministers of Foreign Affairs together with hundreds of top level diplomats from the 57 OSCE member nations as well as eleven representatives of International Organizations.

According to the Serbian Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vučić: “it is important that, in the period ahead, we make our best efforts to protect the fundamental values enshrined in the principles and commitments that the OSCE is based upon.”

Moreover the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Ilkka Kanerva, a former member of the Finish Government, emphasized in his statement the need to apply further reforms to the organization: “We must modernize the OSCE. Let me encourage all of us to consider the array of suggestions the Assembly has offered this year for the kind of reform that is essential, including the modification of consensus-bound decision-making to enable swifter action; increasing investment in our field presences; and more openly addressing human rights issues.”

Unfortunately the two afore mentioned leaders of the OSCE in their official statements have failed once again to prioritize, bring an immediate end to the Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict and raise awareness in front of the international community about the desperate need to secure the integrity and territorial sovereignty of the Republic of Azerbaijan, an independent nation that has been invaded by the Armenian Armed Forces for over twenty seven years.

To make things more cynical and skeptical, the OSCE leaders and the majority of Foreign Ministers called “for further measures to strengthen ceasefire in Ukraine” and maintained silence towards the decades long armed conflict of Nagorno–Karabakh, they even went one step further this time by articulating the following requirement in the ‎Joint Statement by the Heads of Delegation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Countries: “We emphasize that the Minsk Group remains the only accepted format by the sides and has the full confidence of all OSCE participating States.  Any attempts to blame the Co-Chairs for setbacks in the negotiation process only mask the primary obstacle to peace – the lack of political will in Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach a negotiated settlement.”

In other words other significant international players and credible organizations have no right to engage and contribute towards reaching peace and stability in the Caucasus Region, more specifically: to engage in a highly efficient manner in order to bring peace and ensure a full withdrawal of Armenian Armed Forces from the sovereign and internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Aside from the OSCE Minsk Group Statement, it is evident the hesitation of the OSCE leaders to make additional remarks about the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, it demonstrates clearly their intention to maintain the current status quo and not explore other mechanisms that could be more effective than the OSCE Minsk Group. As a result the OSCE, an organization in charge of ensuring the overall security of Europe and despite the similarities that exist between the Ukraine crisis and the Nagorno-Karabakh protracted conflict, emerges as an opaque entity (over the last years) that is prioritizing the crisis of Kiev and is turning a blind eye towards the war mongers of Yerevan who keep violating three resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, kill innocent Azerbaijani civilians, violate the International Laws and continue to engage in a daily routine of armed provocations against the Azerbaijani Border patrols in the contact line.

As if this attitude would not be enough, the OSCE had refused to send its observers to participate in the Parliamentary elections that took place throughout Azerbaijan on November 1st, 2015.

On the other hand the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Mr. Elmar Mammadyarov underlined in his statement that: “the inherent balance of three dimensions of OSCE’s comprehensive security is undermined today. Prevailing attempts to misuse the human dimension as a tool of pressure have only aggravated the crisis of trust within the OSCE. Ignorance to violations of mandates and serious deficiencies in activities of the OSCE executive structures and field presences question their relevance. If a participating State flags a serious violation of the mandate by an executive structure, such a case should be addressed and resolved for the interests of the OSCE.

In this context, I would like to refer specifically to the situation emerged as a result of the refusal by the OSCE/ODIHR to cooperate with the participating State requesting its assistance with regard to the elections. Such a violation by the OSCE institution of its mandate cannot go without seriously undermining the prospects of our future cooperation with the ODIHR. In this connection, we are of the strong view that this situation must be addressed and proper procedures should be put in place to prevent re-occurrence of such incidents in the future.”

Minister Mammadyarov’s concerns are legitimate and should have received a major attention in the ministerial council; OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier should give a special priority to the proposal presented by the government of Azerbaijan, swiftly address these concerns raised by Baku and implement the necessary changes in the reformulation of operational policies of the OSCE in the field and its headquarters. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the OSCE on purpose maintains silence on the occupied territories that belong to the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan; there are more than 400 square kilometers that are currently under Armenia’s full control, in violation of the Kars and Moscow treaties.

Foreign Minister Mammadyarov continued with his statement emphasizing that “the protracted conflicts in the OSCE area remain the major threat and challenge to peace and security on the European continent. I regret to inform the Ministerial Council that no substantive progress has been achieved in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict since the last Ministerial Council meeting in Basel. Armenia continues to disregard the calls of the international community, including the Presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries to start result-oriented negotiations on a peace agreement. The leadership of Armenia imitates the engagement with a view to consolidating the volatile status-quo created through the unlawful use of force and ethnic cleansing. So-called “balanced” or undifferentiated attitude to the aggressor and the victim will never produce a desired outcome. The policy of appeasement only emboldens the aggressor. As an example, I need to mention the ongoing efforts by Armenia towards consolidating the occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan through implantation of settlers, infrastructure changes, as well as exploitation of and illicit trade in assets, natural resources and other forms of wealth in the occupied territories, in clear violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. In this context, it is critical that the OSCE participating States demonstrate a principled position in defending the principles and values that this Organization is striving for in order to keep the prospects of political settlement alive.”

Armenia’s repeated and multifaceted violations against the nation of Azerbaijan, is tragically affecting the innocent civilian population of Azerbaijan, propelling the largest numbers of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) – in the territory of Azerbaijan invaded by Armenia – since the early medieval times, making Azerbaijan the number one country in the world with the highest numbers of IDPs per capita in the world.

Only this unquestionable fact and Minister Mammadyarov’s highly eloquent statement above must encourage the leaders of OSCE to pursue one of the two options: 1. Condemn the belligerent attitude of Armenian leaders, call to an end of Yerevan’s rogue state attitude, pressure President Sargsyan to immediately withdraw Armed troops from the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan; 2. OSCE must be dissolved as an organization or should fundamentally change its mission and vision, therefore cease to exist as a leading security organization in Europe.

It will not be a surprise anymore to see Ambassador James Warlick (Co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group) issue a twitter on the occasion of Armenia’s Army Day on January 28th (as he did last October 8th for Armenia’s 24th Anniversary of Independence) and not make a twitter reference or celebrate the May 28th Republic Day of Azerbaijan.

If you learned that 93 percent of non-pediatric primary care physicians took Medicare patients and 94 percent took patients with private insurance, you would likely conclude that Medicare is doing just fine.

Unfortunately, such data do not describe physicians’ behavior at the margin, which is what will determine future access to Medicare. The Kaiser Family Foundation/Commonwealth Fund 2015 National Survey of Primary Care Providers also asks which physicians are not accepting new patients. Its answer: 21 percent are not taking new Medicare patients, and 14 percent are not taking new privately insured patients. That is, the proportion not taking new Medicare patients is 1.5 times greater than the proportion not taking new privately insured patients.

I would encourage the Kaiser Family Foundation and Commonwealth Fund to add a little more detail to the survey, by breaking down Medicare into traditional Fee-For-Service (in which physicians are paid according to a fee schedule dictated by government) and Medicare Advantage (in which they are paid fees negotiated with private insurers), and by breaking “privately insured” into categories (especially patients on Obamacare exchanges).

It would also be interesting to learn whether or not the physicians who are saying “enough” to new Medicare patients are more likely to be in new payment models (Accountable Care Organizations) which frustrate them. (Another survey reports a wide dispersion of opinions about such reforms among physicians.)

Nevertheless, the survey is illuminating even with its current level of detail. It indicates baby boomers aging in to Medicare will have increasingly difficult access to care. One consequence seems clear: the idea of premium support (whereby Medicare beneficiaries receive subsidies to choose lightly regulated private plans) should become more politically acceptable – if not unavoidable.

This article appeared in The Beacon.

“We will fulfill our duties and responsibilities with honesty towards all the citizens of the country as well as for the future generation to build a prosperous country with a strong economy, while strengthening national reconciliation in the country and ensuring a non-recurrence of the past events that led to the conflict,” said Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena in his speech regarding the budget 2016 at the Parliament on Thursday.

Expressing his views regarding the proposed budget expenditure of the Presidential Secretariat, Sirisena said that he reduced the number of employees of the Presidential Secretariat to 700 from 1700 and distributed vehicles belongs to the Presidential Secretariat to other state institutions. “We end the era of corruption where even public funds were stolen from purchase of flower wreaths for funerals, he said.

Sirisena also said that he will not blame former President for all these and further said that it is the responsibility of the President to look into the affairs of his own staff and prevent such corrupt practices.

British Premier Mr. David Cameron assured that he would intervene to end our issues in the fisheries sector and the GSP+. He also stated that he would give us the required assistance through the six billion fund, which has been established in this regard.

I like to note that I would be committed to perform my duties to alleviate the mistrust and suspicion and to create friendship among communities in the North and the South. I also will understand what is in their hearts and make every effort to move forward with them emphasizing the importance to work together with them with brotherhood, understanding the national and cultural sentiments with regard to religions and languages.

By Ryan Opsal

There has been some revealing new information coming out recently regarding the strategy against ISIS. One aspect many find troubling is the apparent failure of U.S. and coalition forces to sufficiently target and destroy oil infrastructure located in ISIS territory, which accounts for a significant portion of the terror group’s annual income. The argument goes, if we want to impact their operations, we should target their primary sources of income, and choke off their operational funds. So, why does ISIS oil infrastructure still stand? Is this the result of an intelligence failure? Negligence? Or, is there a more purposeful reason?

Using data from the Department of Defense, we can see the targeting of oil infrastructure has indeed been a relatively low priority. Buildings and military positions receive the bulk of coalition attention, and only 260 oil-related targets have been destroyed since operations began, out of 16,075 targets damaged or destroyed. And, we now know just how many of these oil-related targets remain. So, what reason could coalition forces have for holding off?

We now know with a high degree of certainty that ISIS receives the majority of its oil income selling unrefined crude, at the pump. There was some idea this was the case, but now it is more certain. This means the ISIS oil trade goes as far as pumping oil from the ground, and then selling it to a long line of waiting tanker trucks that are typically not affiliated with the group. And, while ISIS used to run some marginal refining operations, that appears to no longer be the case. Additionally, we now know the organization’s largest market is not from exports, but through sales to its local, monopolized market in northern Syria. The fact that most of the income is local, and not from exports is even more fascinating when you learn that not only does this oil find its way to local civilians that need fuel for power generation, but that much of the fuel finds its way to Assad’s government forces and the various rebel groups that are arrayed against ISIS itself.

We also now have a better understanding of the extent of ISIS’ diverse revenue stream outside of oil. For instance, last year, in the midst of the chaos in northern Iraq, the terror group turned to robbery, and stole well over $500 million from Iraqi banks. They also onerously tax the locals that are unfortunate enough to live under their rule. And, most surprising are the large revenues garnered from farming on very fertile Syrian and Iraqi land. These sources are far more important than the oft-reported revenues from hostage taking and the selling of sex slaves. This tells us oil is important, but not a silver bullet to disrupt operations.

So, a possible reason for not decisively interrupting oil operations could include preservation of infrastructure for rebuilding after the conflict. This certainly has precedent, since coalition forces have tried this in Iraq and Afghanistan most recently, and territorial shifts occur rapidly in this current conflict. Consider this a lesson learned from Kuwait in 1991.

Another possibility is the US does not want to cause any environmental damage in the surrounding region, having learned another hard lesson from the First Gulf War. This is possible, but highly unlikely. In the face of open war and killing enemies, it is extremely difficult to imagine any government placing environmental concerns over decisive strikes against an enemy. This approach does not have precedent.

Another scenario, which may be the be most plausible, is a play for local fighters to turn on ISIS, prevent further humanitarian issues in the region, and to maintain supplies to rebel groups fighting both ISIS and Assad. A loss of fuel in this region would be extremely detrimental to the local population, which relies overwhelmingly on generators for power, fueled by ISIS oil. The same goes for all the groups fighting ISIS – they all receive fuel from their enemies’ oil pumps. Without fuel, this could hamper the war effort on the ground, and even draw the local population into further compliance with ISIS. Since oil provides the lifeline for many civilians under ISIS rule, this must be taken into account for any long-term strategy in the region.

Some might mock the fact that the U.S. Air Force, before a recent strike, dropped pamphlets on the oil transport vehicles giving the occupants 45 minutes to vacate their tankers before air attacks would commence. This is simply a recognition of how crucial a local population is to combatting insurgencies and terrorist groups. We know the tanker drivers are most likely not affiliated with ISIS in any way, and might even despise the terror organization. They might even be retrieving fuel to be delivered to the very forces that are fighting against ISIS.

It’s incredibly important to keep in mind the limits of military power when waging counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations, a fact not lost on top military officials in Washington. Our understanding as to how to effectively combat terror groups has grown immensely in recent years, and key aspects of this are to allow for the creation of divisions in the territory and the terror organization itself and to ultimately draw in the local population to your side. The former involves containing the group and allowing those divisions to bubble to the surface over time.

This is a key point by terrorism expert Daniel Byman, where he makes the case for “containment” and “de-legitimation” in a scholarly work from 2007. In a sense, this was U.S. counterterrorism strategy globally before 2001. The other component is key, and was effectively used in Iraq in 2006-2007, when the Sunni Awakening went into effect after local tribal groups cut deals with U.S. forces, and turned on al Qaeda. This was a vital juncture in the campaign in Iraq ushering in relative calm in a turbulent part of the world.

It’s important to note that the available information provides a conflicting picture and we can’t be entirely clear on motives at this point. However, the evidence does plausibly point toward forcing realignment of local tribal groups against ISIS, and the maintenance of crucial supplies to resistance groups throughout the region, both corroborated with past actions by U.S. and coalition forces, and counterterrorism strategy. It also remains to be seen if the United States is forced to abandon this strategy given recent attacks and Russian involvement in the region. It may now simply be untenable, for any reason, to forgo attacks on oil infrastructure in the region.

Article Source: http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Why-Is-The-US-Reluctant-To-Bomb-ISIS-Oil-Fields.html