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Obama Extends Nation's Longest War to 2016, Leaving Afghan Civilians in U.S.-Taliban Crossfire
President Obama has announced the longest war in the history of the United States will last another two-and-a-half years. On Tuesday, Obama said that the United States will maintain almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after its formal combat mission concludes at the end of this year. The United States will eventually withdraw troops until only a small residual force remains after 2016. By then, the war will have lasted more than 15 years. We are joined by Anand Gopal, author of the new book, "No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes." A journalist and a fellow at the New America Foundation, Gopal has spent years reporting on Afghanistan.TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Obama has announced the longest war in the history of the United States will last another two-and-a-half years. On Tuesday, Obama said that the U.S. will maintain almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after its formal combat mission concludes at the end of this year. Obama said the U.S. will eventually withdraw troops until only a small residual force remains after 2016. By then, the war will have lasted over 15 years.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: America’s combat mission will be over by the end of this year. Starting next year, Afghans will be fully responsible for securing their country. American personnel will be in an advisory role. We will no longer patrol Afghan cities or towns, mountains or valleys. That is a task for the Afghan people.
Second, I’ve made it clear that we’re open to cooperating with Afghans on two narrow missions after 2014: training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was President Obama speaking Tuesday, one day after he made a surprise Memorial Day visit to Afghanistan. During the ceremony, he paid tribute to more than 2000 U.S. soldiers who have lost their lives in the war.
Meanwhile, the second round of presidential elections in Afghanistan is scheduled for June 14th. The frontrunner in the race is former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who won almost 45 percent of the vote in the first round, while ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani came second with over 31 percent.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Afghanistan, we’re joined by Anand Gopal, author of the new book, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes. He’s a journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation, has spent years reporting on Afghanistan.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Anand. Talk about the president’s announcement.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, it wasn’t really a surprise, because the Pentagon had been asking for around that number of troops, and this is what he delivered. But it’s important to realize that the war is not going to end even after 2016, because the U.S. has allied with power brokers, warlords, also the Afghan army, who are going to be continuing to fight the war on terror on the U.S.’s behalf.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But even after 2016, even if—will it only be Afghan warlords who will be fighting, or will Special Operations forces remain?
ANAND GOPAL: No, after 2016, it will only be Afghan warlords. But for the next two years, it will be Special Operation forces. And when he says "counterterrorism operations," what he means is night raids, targeted killings and allying with these warlords.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about mercenaries? What about private contractors?
ANAND GOPAL: Yeah, I mean, when I say "warlords," I mean private contractors, because the U.S. is paying for them, essentially. They are mercenaries. They’re paramilitary forces. There’s hundreds of thousands of them around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: And they will leave also, at least according to this plan, by the end of 2016, or continue?
ANAND GOPAL: No, they will continue. These are Afghans, actually. These are—these mercenaries and private security contractors, unlike Iraq, they’re mostly Afghans. They’re mostly people who the U.S. has been paying unofficially over the last 10 or 15 years. They’re going to continue. So it’s going to look like a proxy war, essentially, of Afghans who are being paid by the U.S. to fight against the Taliban.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So do we have an idea, of these 9,800 troops that will remain in Afghanistan, how many of them will be Special Operations forces, special forces?
ANAND GOPAL: It’s unclear at the moment, but we can expect a sizable number to be special forces, because you don’t need a lot of advisers.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you explain, what is the distinction between special—what do they do as against regular military personnel?
ANAND GOPAL: So the Special Operations forces, these are the ones who are doing what are called counterterrorism operations, which means, for example, night raids, so that’s going into people’s houses, taking people who are suspected to be Taliban or al-Qaeda, sending them to Bagram. In previous years, they were sending them to Guantánamo. It also means targeted killings, so there’s a list of people, list of Afghans who are supposedly enemies of the United States, who will be targeted through drone strikes or through conventional types of attacks.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this election that is taking place and what the two major candidates represent? What is the role of Hamid Karzai?
ANAND GOPAL: Both candidates actually have a surprisingly similar platform. There’s really not much that’s different between the two of them. Both have pledged to sign the agreement that would keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the next two years. Both are considered to be very pro-American. They both recognize that without the U.S.'s support, financial support particularly, they wouldn't be able to exist. The Afghan government wouldn’t be able to exist, because the U.S. actually pays for the government to function.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And in your reporting in Afghanistan over the course of the work that you’ve done there, what did you find was the effect among Afghans of the kinds of operations that you suggest the special forces will continue to carry out?
ANAND GOPAL: Well, you know, Afghanistan is complicated because the war is only being fought in about half the country. And in that half of the country where these raids are being carried out, people are very angry and have been angry at the U.S. forces. If you talk—if you ask somebody, "What you think about the United States?" in these areas, they will say, "Oh, these are the people who come and kick our doors down in the middle of the night and take our loved ones away." And so, in those areas, they’re happy that by 2016 this will hopefully be over.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the people you profile in your book. You have spent years reporting from Afghanistan. You look at three major figures.
ANAND GOPAL: Yeah, that’s right. I look at three Afghans, and I follow their lives from 2001 to today. One is a Taliban fighter, and he’s somebody who had been a major Taliban commander in the 1990s during the Taliban government, and then he quit in 2001, tried live a civilian life but for various reasons, mostly because of the warlords that the U.S. had supported, couldn’t, and so he was driven back into the insurgency.
The second is a warlord that the U.S. has supported over the last 10 years. He’s somebody who rose from obscurity to become a very rich and powerful person. And it’s symbolic of many of the types of warlords that we’ve supported over the last decade.
The third is a Afghan housewife. She’s somebody who grew up in Kabul and fled to the countryside. And she was very interesting, for me, to be able to get a sense of how this war looks like from the point of view of Afghan women.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about how they will each fare now, what they are doing. Give us more about the way you flesh them out in these profiles in your book.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, the Taliban fighter—his name is Akbar [Gul]—he’s somebody who’s very interesting because, as I said, he had quit the fight in 2001. And he wasn’t alone in this. In fact, most Taliban had actually quit when the U.S. had invaded. They tried to switch sides. So, what ended up happening is you had no Taliban, essentially, that were fighting, and you had no al-Qaeda, because al-Qaeda had fled the country, as well. And so you had the U.S. forces on the ground without an enemy to fight. And that’s where the alliances with the warlords came in, because the U.S. allied with all sorts of shady characters, and they would accuse people of being Taliban or al-Qaeda, and a lot of people got wrongfully arrested and sent to Guantánamo. And he, this Taliban fighter, was one of the people who was wrongfully arrested, a couple of times. He was beaten. And through this, he actually ended up back into the insurgency.
AMY GOODMAN: And the housewife?
ANAND GOPAL: And the housewife is—she grew up in Kabul. She was somebody who’s—was educated.
AMY GOODMAN: What is her name?
ANAND GOPAL: Heela is her name. And she fled to the countryside in the 1990s when there was a civil war. Basically, the U.S.-backed mujahideen, who were the warlords and Islamic fighters that we had backed in the 1980s, when they were fighting against each other, basically reduced Kabul to shreds. So she fled to the countryside. And for the next 10 years, she was essentially locked in her house. That included when the Taliban was in power and when the U.S.-backed regime was in power. She had very little chance to go outside of the house. And so, a lot of the book is—details her travails under the circumstances and figuring out how she can get out of the house and how she could find a way back to her home in Kabul.
AMY GOODMAN: And the warlord and how a warlord will fare after the U.S. leaves?
ANAND GOPAL: Well, the warlords are really the ones we’ve empowered. If we want to ask, "What is the American legacy in Afghanistan?" it’s that we’ve taken people—some of these people were obscure figures before. For example, this warlord, back in the '70s, he was a school janitor. After the CIA had backed a lot of mujahideen fighters and after the last 10 years when we backed warlords, people like him became extraordinarily wealthy and powerful. And what we've left Afghanistan with is a countryside full of these warlords. A lot of them are drug traffickers. A lot of them are human rights violators whose record is really no better than the Taliban that they replaced. And he is an example of that. Now, he was killed, and that happens—what happens at the end of the book, but there are many others like him who are really the real power in the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And you point out in a recent article that you’ve written, and it’s also suggested in your book, that the war in fact could have ended much earlier than it did. So what is it precisely that U.S. policy produced that allowed the war to go on to this day and, you know, two-and-a-half years hence?
ANAND GOPAL: Well, we have to go back to the mood at the time in 2001, 2002, which was: You are either with us or against us. So, Bush essentially divided the whole world into two categories. And so, when the U.S. came, invaded in 2001, they expected to find either good guys—in other words, people that supported the U.S.—or terrorists. But the reality in Afghanistan was much more complicated. As I said, the Taliban had completely surrendered. So all of the Taliban, from the rank and file to the senior leadership, had given up their weapons, and they were sitting at home. And they weren’t doing this because all of a sudden they became pro-American or pro-peace. This is sort of how Afghanistan has functioned over 30 years, where people learn to switch sides very often to survive. And so, the U.S. forces didn’t have any enemy to fight. But because they allied with warlords and because they saw that there’s—you were either with us or against us, whoever the warlords said was an enemy, that became the U.S. enemy, and so a lot of innocent people got caught up in that.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip of President Obama’s speech Tuesday.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think Americans have learned that it’s harder to end wars than it is to begin them. Yet this is how wars end in the 21st century, not through signing ceremonies, but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and, ultimately, full responsibility. We remain committed to a sovereign, secure, stable and unified Afghanistan. And toward that end, we will continue to support Afghan-led efforts to promote peace in their country through reconciliation. We have to recognize Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not America’s responsibility to make it one. The future of Afghanistan must be decided by Afghans. But what the United States can do, what we will do, is secure our interests and help give the Afghans a chance, an opportunity, to seek a long-overdue and hard-earned peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, if you could respond to that. He also compared leaving Afghanistan, like we—the U.S. government has left Iraq.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, I think that’s setting a pretty low bar, because Iraq is pretty violent today. And Afghanistan is going to continue to be violent. I mean, we say that the war is going to end. Actually, in Afghanistan, for Afghans, the war is going to continue. There is no end in sight. The Afghan government and the Afghan army are going to be entrenched in the cities. The Taliban are going to remain in the deep countryside. Neither side is going to be able to defeat the other or dislodge the other. So we’re really going to see the status quo, which is war continuing basically in perpetuity.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Anand, could you explain the significance—you have written recently about the Haqqani network. Who is the Haqqani network, and how has it grown?
ANAND GOPAL: The Haqqani network is a—one of the factions that makes up the Afghan insurgency. And they were considered for many years America’s greatest foe—in fact, even a bigger enemy than al-Qaeda. They had engineered many suicide bombs in Kabul. They had attacked many U.S. soldiers. And they have been the main target of the drone campaign in the border areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about this. I mean, the title of the piece that you did in The Huffington Post is very interesting: "How the U.S. Created the Afghan War—and Then Lost It." And you relate it to Haqqani.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, and this is an extraordinary history, because if you listen to the U.S., you will think that the Haqqanis were a natural enemy of the U.S., and that’s why we have to go and fight them. In fact, back in 2001, the leader of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, actually tried to cut a deal with the United States. And, in fact, he has a history going back to the ’80s. He was an old CIA hand. And he tried to cut a deal to come to join the Afghan government, but because the U.S. had allied with a different warlord who was an enemy of this person, Haqqani, essentially, that deal was rebuffed. And the U.S. enacted upon a campaign to kill Haqqani and, in the process of it, killed a hundred or 200 civilians and drove him and his followers into Pakistan, where, in subsequent years, they regrouped and launched the insurgency that we see today.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So how common is that trajectory, in fact, Jalaluddin Haqqani’s trajectory, from a mujahid during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and then to the Taliban?
ANAND GOPAL: It’s very common. In fact, everybody in the Taliban—or, most people in the Taliban were mujahideen in the 1980s. They were low-level; they weren’t big warlords like Haqqani. But they were all people who, in one way or other, benefited from the CIA’s aid to the mujahideen in the 1980s. They later became the Taliban. Then they tried to join the Americans again in 2001, and they were rebuffed, and then they went back and started fighting.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the numbers of Afghans who have died during the war? Today, in all the U.S. media, they’re talking about the number of U.S. soldiers, which is well over 2,000, but I don’t know that we have that sense of how many Afghans have died.
ANAND GOPAL: And we don’t. And, in fact, we don’t even know how many numbers—what the numbers are, because it’s very difficult to account, and Afghans who are killed by the Taliban tend to be counted, but Afghans who are killed by American-backed forces aren’t always counted. But what we do know is that tens of thousands of Afghans have died in this conflict and continue to die. You know, what it means to be an Afghan today is that, on the one hand, you run the risk of hitting roadside bombs or being caught by the Taliban or, on the other side, being caught by pro-American warlords. They get summarily executed. There’s grave human rights violations from all sides in the countryside. That’s what it means to be an Afghan today in the countryside.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And before we conclude, Anand, could you talk about in—on June 14th, the second round of the presidential elections will be held. Now, both the leading candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have said that they will sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States. Could you talk about the significance of the bilateral security agreement? And there’s also a status of forces agreement; is it the same thing? Will both be operational? Are both candidates amenable to signing?
ANAND GOPAL: The status of forces agreement applies to NATO. The bilateral security agreement applies to the U.S. forces. But essentially they’re the same thing. The idea is that U.S. troops or foreign troops would be allowed to stay in Afghanistan after this year, and they would be given immunity from prosecution in local courts if they commit a crime. So that’s what it’s about. But ultimately what it’s about is the idea of sovereignty. That’s why Karzai didn’t want to look like he was signing this over, because he’s sensitive to the fact that a lot of Afghans feel that the Afghan government is a client state for the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, the surge that happened in 2009 where something like 100,000 U.S. soldiers were there, as you reflect back on it, and you were reporting on it there in Afghanistan, what effect did it have?
ANAND GOPAL: Well, if the surge’s goal was to defeat the Taliban and leave Afghanistan as a state without terrorism and without the sort of everyday deprivations that we see, then the surge failed. What it has done is it’s—like I said, it’s kept the Taliban in their villages, and it’s kept the Afghan government in the cities, and Afghans in between these two sides. And if you’re an Afghan, it’s very difficult to—you can’t be neutral. If you live near the cities, you have to support the government; if you live in the villages, you have no choice but to support the Taliban. And that’s, unfortunately, the legacy of the U.S. war.
AMY GOODMAN: Anand Gopal, thank you so much for being with us. The title of his book, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes. Anand is a journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation. Thanks for joining us.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll talk about the nearly 300 schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Nigeria. What’s happening now, and will the crisis there be used to justify increased U.S. militarization in Africa? Stay with us.
In Aiding Rescue of Kidnapped Schoolgirls in Nigeria, Will U.S. Expand Military Foothold in Africa?
In a speech today, President Obama is expected to lay out a U.S. foreign policy approach that avoids large wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, and shifts instead to partnering with countries on counterterrorism efforts. This comes as The New York Times reports the Obama administration has launched a program to train "homegrown African counterterrorism teams" in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali. Just last week, the United States also deployed a battalion of 80 marines to Nigeria to help search for the nearly 300 missing schoolgirls there. The head of Nigeria’s military has said the military now knows where the abducted girls are being held, but has ruled out using force to rescue them for fear of endangering their lives. We discuss the situation in Nigeria and the growing fears that the schoolgirls’ kidnapping could be exploited to further U.S. militarism in Africa with two guests: Dayo Olopade is a Nigerian-American journalist and author of "The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa," and Carl LeVan is an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and author of the forthcoming book, "Dictators and Democracy in African Development: The Political Economy of Good Governance in Nigeria."TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In a speech later today, President Obama is expected to lay out a U.S. foreign policy approach that avoids large wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, and shifts instead to partnering with countries on counterterrorism efforts. This comes as The New York Times reports the Obama administration launched a program last year to train, quote, "homegrown African counterterrorism teams" in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali. Just last week, the United States also deployed a battalion of 80 marines to Nigeria to help search for the nearly 300 missing schoolgirls there. Meanwhile on Tuesday, the group responsible for the kidnapping, Boko Haram, attacked a Nigerian military base and killed more than 30 people in the state of Yobe, not far from where the militants killed 59 students at a boarding school in February. All of this follows a nearly year-long military offensive that critics say strengthened the group and made it a threat to security in the whole region.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, Nigeria’s chief of defense staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, said the military now knows where the abducted girls are being held, but he ruled out using force to rescue them, for fear of endangering their lives.
AIR MARSHAL ALEX BADEH: The good news for the girls is that we can—we know where they are, but we cannot tell you. OK, we cannot come and tell you military secrets here. Just leave us alone. We are working. We will get the girls back.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Meanwhile, Nigerians in the capital city of Abuja continued to call for more to be done to secure the release of the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram. This is Musa Rafsanjani with the Civil Society Group.
MUSA RAFSANJANI: Now the speculation about knowing where those girls are is now put to rest now, since the army have confirmed that they have discovered where they are. So we are happy with this development. The next step is we want to see how the army could help to rescue these girls safely and alive and bring them back to their parents. That’s what we expect the Nigerian army to do. If they do that, surely they will restore confidence on Nigerians and the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on the situation in Nigeria and the newly revealed U.S. program to train so-called homegrown African counterterrorism teams in Libya, Niger, Mauritania and Mali, we’re joined by Dayo Olopado [sic]. She is a Nigerian—sorry, Olipade. She is a Nigerian-American journalist and author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
DAYO OLOPADE: Thank you so much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Talk about the latest.
DAYO OLOPADE: You know, I think just looking at those clips and hearing folks express confidence in the Nigerian government and the Nigerians’ military’s ability to rescue these girls rang a bit false to me. I think this has been a problem for upwards of five years with respect to Boko Haram. And earlier in this debacle, the Nigerian government claimed that they had found the girls. So, unless there’s really some sort of hard evidence that they really have managed to track the girls down and they really do have the capacity and the willingness to rescue them, I would take some of these assertions with a grain of salt.
And I think, in general, that’s been one of the more frustrating elements of this dynamic, where, you know, the most basic definition of a state is to have a monopoly on violence and monopoly on force. And the Nigerian state, not just in northeast Nigeria but throughout, has presided over a feeling of insecurity in the part of many citizens—economic insecurity, educational insecurity, and certainly sort of physical insecurity, particularly in the neglected areas in these regions that border Niger and Chad, where you’re seeing a lot of these attacks take place, beyond the police attack in Abuja this week, but just—you know, more than 1,500 people have been killed this year by Boko Haram. So it’s a real problem that they have not managed to get a handle on.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And many commentators suggest, in fact, that Nigerian military and security forces operations in fact bolstered the group Boko Haram from 2009 to the present. Could you say a little about that and how that happened?
DAYO OLOPADE: Right. I mean, the incentives simply are not aligned. I think the Nigerian military spends a lower percentage of its federal budget on military policing than almost any of the other countries in West Africa. And this is, ironically, in a country where the military has been—is enormous compared to its neighbors, does a lot of policing on behalf of the African Union all throughout the continent. And so, the soldiers are underpaid. What’s more, the soldiers, at least some of them, are predominantly Muslim, and some subsection of those soldiers are also part of the ethnic group that makes up Boko Haram. So, when I say the incentives are misaligned, it is not always clear where the allegiance lies between the military group, a religious sort of community and an ethnic community. And I think, you know, looking at the Times piece, it was about the American effort to engage soldiers in sub-Saharan Africa and to train them. The problem that happened in Libya, that was discussed in that article, was one where the incentives were not aligned, where it was not clear to which community these soldiers were actually pledging allegiance. And I think you see that replicated in other regions where the U.S. has attempted to make these kind of training efforts, where it really does require a lot of trust and a lot of capacity building. And in Nigeria, certainly, there are complicated political incentives and complicated ethnic, religious dynamics that make it such that the Boko Haram threat has been somewhat neutralized.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think needs to happen in Nigeria right now in terms of these schoolgirls?
DAYO OLOPADE: You know, I think it’s a really difficult issue. I think, as I mentioned, you have more than 1,500 people who have been killed by Boko Haram this year. Since 2009, the number leaps. And what’s really more frustrating is that we don’t necessarily—this is a different situation than a bombing. It’s a kidnapping. It’s a hostage situation. And the position of both the Nigerian government and the American government and most governments around the world is that you do not negotiate with terrorists. And they’ve been—at first, there was a kidnapping without an ask. It was just sort of a nihilistic act in which these girls were taken overnight. And then, suddenly, there was an ask for a prisoner exchange, where folks who had been imprisoned by Goodluck Jonathan administration were asked to be set free. And that deal, as I understand it, sort of evaporated in the last week.
And so, now I do think the United States, for what it’s worth, is a useful partner for this kind of complicated and delicate hostage situation. I think Nigerian forces and many forces across the continent may not have the kind of—the training, the intelligence, the sophistication, the personnel and the weaponry to enact, you know, the kind of extraction that we think would be necessary in this case. So the U.S. has sent helicopters, and they’ve sent drones, as we do, to try and deal with the situation.
And, you know, I don’t—I will wait and see. I mean, I don’t know. It’s not a hopeful situation. Hostage situations rarely are. But certainly, the world community’s attention to the issue, the fact that it’s become a kind of global cause, certainly allows for more transparency and more care than might have been shown, you know, in the weeks before it became public, or globally public. And so, in that case, I hope for something like a resolution soon.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Could you say a little bit more about the group Boko Haram? It started in 2009 in Nigeria, but it’s now spread to some neighboring countries—Chad and Niger, etc. Who—how many people are in the group? What is their constitution, their goal, if you could say a little about that?
DAYO OLOPADE: Yes. Well, Boko Haram, I mean, we don’t have exact numbers. I think the most important thing to know about Boko Haram is that it is an extreme manifestation of a kind of shared frustration among many young people all across sub-Saharan Africa, right? I mean, Boko Haram is a terrorist group, but a terrorist group that was initially driven by a sense of disenfranchisement, a sense of disinvestment, a sense of being on the periphery of a central government that wasn’t taking care of it. A lack of employment opportunities also drove this. And that’s something that you see replicated across sub-Saharan Africa, which is why the rise of Boko Haram has been so dangerous, because it’s the kind of thing that—the International Labour Organization tracks youth employment statistics. It’s all over the world the highest it’s been since they started taking these measurements. And so, the combination of disenfranchisement, religious fundamentalism and, in the wake of the invasion in Libya, arms floating around across the Sahara to the south, in Mali, in Niger, in Chad, and now in northern Nigeria, you have just a really dangerous combination.
And so, Boko Haram was an Islamist group that—again, the name is often misconstrued. It’s not anti-religion—or, sorry, anti-Western, but it’s mostly about the Western-educated elites who ran Nigeria for many years and who disenfranchised the north of Nigeria, which still has high rates of poverty, high rates of illiteracy, high rates of unemployment. It has—since 2009, as a result of the Nigerian government’s overcorrection, they killed the leader in a sort of a very bloody and public fashion, and killed, you know, more than 700 folks. It was a very—it was a crackdown that radicalized the group beyond what we had seen in the past. And so, since then, it’s been, you know, just one series of attacks after another, and in a part of Nigeria that is incredibly porous and lots of weapons infiltrate the area, and so it’s a really difficult problem to solve. The root causes, of course, are just the same things you see everywhere, which is underemployment, poverty, idleness, lack of education.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Dayo Olopade, who has written a new book; it’s called The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa. We’re also joined by Democracy Now! video stream by Carl LeVan, assistant professor at American University School of International Service, author of the forthcoming book, Dictators and Democracy in African Development: The Political Economy of Good Governance in Nigeria, last week wrote an op-ed for The Christian Science Monitor headlined "Six Ways to #BringBackOurGirls in Nigeria." Welcome, as well, to Democracy Now!, Carl. Can you talk about the—what are those six ways, but also whether you see what’s happening now, the crisis, being used to further militarize Africa?
CARL LEVAN: Great. Thanks for having me on the show, Amy.
Well, I wrote this op-ed with one of the #BringBackOurGirls organizers, because we felt like that the response to the kidnapping of the girls was becoming politicized, actually, on both sides of the Atlantic, and that there were some really important and urgent steps that could be taken right now that didn’t require new laws or expensive new policies or even large-scale international cooperation.
One idea was to establish what we described as solidarity schools in the north. And that is, in addition to these girls who have been kidnapped, there are tens of thousands of girls who would like to go to school, but it’s too dangerous for them or too complicated for them. And so we proposed this idea of solidarity schools in the northeastern states, where they could go to nearby places that are safer, and that this would also facilitate national integration. One of the wealthiest men in Africa, Dangote, has proposed a similar idea recently.
Also, you know, we proposed that the political parties, who are gearing up for a major election next year in February 2015, could simply invite more women to run for office. In some parts of the country, there are actually no women who are officeholders. For example, in the northeast, in the six northeastern states in 2011, not a single woman was elected to state assemblies.
A third issue was the widespread problem of internally displaced persons and now refugees. And this is not solely a problem to be blamed on Boko Haram, although Boko Haram certainly bears the brunt of this problem, but it’s also because of the government’s heavy-handed response to Boko Haram. As they say in Africa, when the elephants fight, the grass suffers. And this is the situation. The Nigerian Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, just a couple of days ago, outlined that there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced. And this is a problem that has been neglected somewhat by the international community and, on the domestic front within Nigeria, really needs an urgent and politically neutral humanitarian response.
So those are some of the ideas that we were outlining. The last one that I’ll just mention briefly, because it’s very relevant to developments since yesterday, is that the government could do much more to coordinate its information and simply hold a press conference every day. The Nigerian government, since yesterday, has not even sent consistent signals about whether it’s negotiating through back channels or otherwise with Boko Haram.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Carl LeVan, you were in Nigeria when these girls were abducted?
CARL LEVAN: That’s correct. I was in Nigeria for my second trip there this year in April. And even before the protests erupted in Abuja, it was clear that there was a shift in the public mood, that for a long time people were angry and scared of Boko Haram, and frustrations were actually building towards the government, where they said—where people were starting to say, "How is it possible that we have this much insecurity in three states that are under a state of emergency? How is it possible that nearly 300 girls can be driven down rural roads?" There’s only about a thousand kilometers of paved roads in Borno state, the state where the girls were taken. And this is a state that has been under a federally declared state of emergency for over a year. How do you move that many people in a state that’s under federal military state of emergency?
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to this, Dayo?
DAYO OLOPADE: I think, you know, Nigerian government is characterized by a lack of capacity and a lack of willingness on so many levels, for some of the reasons I described with respect to the makeup of the military. I think you’re very right to point out that the Nigerian elections next year feature prominently in a sort of looking the other way. I think the need to build coalitions amongst the traditional power-sharing agreement between north and south, Christians and Muslims, certainly drives some of the—the light touch that the military and the Jonathan government has taken with respect to the states that are under emergency.
I think it’s really frustrating that citizens taking to the streets—which, I would just like to underscore, is very unusual in Nigeria. It is very unusual to see—I mean, there has been no African Spring, I think, for a reason. In my reporting for the book, and all across sub-Saharan Africa, people are much more likely to try and go about their daily business, to try and fill in the holes the government has left, with their own ingenuity, with their own family networks, with technology now. So, to see people, first during the Occupy Nigeria movement, which was a response to rising petrol prices, which is the sort of neoliberal government strategy at this point, as well as this more recent #BringBackOurGirls, was really unusual, really unusual, and, I think, represents, I think, a hopeful reclamation of the narrative from Boko Haram at the extreme end, again, to a shared complaint, which is that the government does not provide the most basic services to the 170 million citizens of Nigeria. So, to the extent that these protests are a civil—civil society movement that may have more lingering effects in terms of building the sort of "enough is enough" sensibility amongst the population, then I would actually count it as a positive thing, because for the most part Nigerians have been like, "What have you done for me lately?" And often the answer is: "Very little." But in this case, perhaps, we’ll be able to see more responsiveness.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Carl LeVan, this issue of U.S. militarization in Africa?
CARL LEVAN: Right. Well, this is very important, because—for a number of reasons. One is because when the United States Pentagon organized its Africa Command starting around 2007, 2008, there were all of these grand promises that it was going to be a different kind of command and that it was going to show a kinder, softer, gentler side of the United States military, and it was going to engage in a lot of nonkinetic missions and a lot of humanitarian and development. This, of course, made the development community in the United States and elsewhere quite nervous. And, you know, there was a debate about whether it was an effort to build military bases. President Bush, in one of his more eloquent moments, called this, quote-unquote, "baloney."
And so, now with the recent revelations by Eric Schmitt’s excellent reporting that the United States has been secretly expanding military assistance to Libya, Mauritania, Niger and Mali—$16 million to Libya; $29 million to Mauritania; $15 million for counterterrorism assistance in Niger, where, by the way, the United States last year just established a separate drone base that it’s been using for overflights into Mali—all of this confirms that much of this thrust was, after all, about expanding military operations on the continent. And to some extent, some of the governments, as I have written about and researched, are open to this kind of cooperation, especially with this sort of crisis. But that presents a real problem where you have governments of questionable legitimacy.
And this is where the grassroots organizations that your guest is outlining are so important. And the only other time in recent memory that this happened in a significant way, other than Occupy Nigeria, was in 2010, just before the 2011 elections. And the government at that time was very responsive, as well, to grassroots pressure. And so, you know, there’s a new wave of grassroots pressure among the organizers, the original organizers of the #BringBackOurGirls movement. For example, they have a Change.com petition pleading with President Obama and other officials, "We want peace, not bombs," that if you really want to address Boko Haram, you need a demilitarized solution to address the long-term issues that you’ve already outlined.
AMY GOODMAN: Dayo, very quickly, we have 30 seconds.
DAYO OLOPADE: Oh, I just wanted to point out that, you know, when I was living in Kenya, while I was reporting The Bright Continent, it is so often African citizens who are bearing the blowback from the U.S.'s light footprint in Africa. They're prosecuting a war in Somalia, Ugandan and Kenyan troops, but the Westgate Mall attack, as among many different attacks, was an example of African citizens paying the price for an extension of the American war on terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain that a little further.
DAYO OLOPADE: Well, I mean, they’ve been—the United States has been supporting the invasion into Somalia with everything but troops. It is African troops that are in Somalia, and it is Somalis who are attacking Africans in retribution because they’re on the ground there. And so, the Westgate Mall attack, which we all watched in horror, in Nairobi was a direct effect of the fact that Somali militants are retaliating for a war on their soil, funded by the United States, but prosecuted by African troops.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, Dayo Olopade. Her book is The Bright Continent, Nigerian-American journalist, the subtitle, Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa. Carl LeVan, thanks for being with us, assistant professor at American University.
CARL LEVAN: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: That does it for this segment. We are going to move to another part of Africa, to Egypt, in a moment. Sharif Abdel Kouddous will join us from a polling place in Cairo. Not many people are turning out. Stay with us.
Egyptian Regime Scrambles to Boost Low Turnout in Election Sealing General Sisi's Grip on Power
Egypt’s presidential election has been extended for a third day in an apparent bid to boost voter turnout. The outcome is believed to be a foregone conclusion with former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi widely expected to win. But the conspicuously low voter turnout threatens to undermine the credibility of the election and has led the military-backed government to take desperate measures. On Tuesday, the government declared a public holiday to encourage voter participation. It also waived public transportation fares, encouraged shopping malls to close early, and threatened to fine Egyptians who did not vote. Local politicians took to the airwaves to repeat messages from Muslim and Christian leaders about a "religious duty" to vote. If Sisi wins the election as predicted, he will become the sixth military man to run Egypt since the army overthrew the monarchy in 1952. He led the ouster of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi last year. Some Islamic and liberal political groups have urged Egyptians to boycott the election, arguing that the vote is unfair and illegitimate. We go to Cairo to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous.TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Egypt’s presidential election, which has been extended for a third day in an apparent bid to boost voter turnout. The result of the election is believed to be a foregone conclusion, with former Army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi widely expected to win. But the low voter turnout threatens to undermine the credibility of the election.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we go right to Egypt, where we’re joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent in Cairo, joining us from a polling place. Can you describe where you are, Sharif, and the significance of the extension of the election and making yesterday a national holiday so people would turn out?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, that’s right, Amy. I’m speaking to you in front of a poll station in Dokki, a district in Cairo. As you can see behind me, there’s very few people lined up. In fact, there’s no line outside the polling station. And this has been the case for the past two days. There was a much lower-than-expected turnout for this election, which had the authorities desperate to boost people coming to the polls. So, initially, they extended voting hours on Monday by an hour. Then they declared Tuesday a holiday for both state and private employees. They closed the stock market. They suspended fares for the train and the metro to facilitate people getting to the polls. And they even had the Justice Ministry saying that people were going to get fined if they didn’t go to vote. It also spurred many of the hosts on—pro-military hosts on television, that dominate the airwaves, were in hysterics last night, criticizing people for not turning out, having a lot of elite disdain for the Egyptian people, one host calling people traitors for not voting, another telling business owners to check their employees’ hands to see if there was ink proving that they voted. So, there was really, I think, a lot of shock by the authorities at the level of turnout.
Now, some of the reasons for this lower-than-expected enthusiasm for this poll, there’s many, but one may be voter apathy. I mean, we have seen three—seven elections. This is the seventh poll in Egypt since the ouster of Mubarak just over three years ago. None of the people in office right now have been elected by any of those polls. And when those—when we did have elected officials, much of the political elites spent their time discussing issues over identity rather than issues, the deep—discussing the deep social and economic problems that plague Egypt. So, the electoral process has been increasingly dissatisfying and alienating for many Egyptian voters.
Another reason is, of course, the certainty of the outcome of this election. Unlike the 2012 poll, which had candidates from across the political spectrum, this election just has two candidates, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Hamdeen Sabahi, both of which espouse different brands of the same ideology, Nasserism. And Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is a candidate that’s backed by the state, he’s backed by the business elite, and is widely expected to win. And so the certainty of the results may have played into people not bothering to come.
And certainly, there is an active boycott. We have to remember that the largest political group in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood, is not taking part in this election. They’ve been the subject of an incredibly harsh crackdown. Many of their rank and file have been killed. Their leaders are jailed. And so they have refused to take part, as have groups like the April 6 Youth Movement. So, again, officials are saying the turnout is somewhere between—in the mid-thirties, but that is a much lower turnout than we saw in the runoff that elected Mohamed Morsi in 2012, which had 52 percent.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Sharif, el-Sisi is so guaranteed to win that he hasn’t even made one public appearance during his campaign?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That Sisi has not appeared publicly once himself during this campaign, even though his images are ubiquitous throughout the country?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Sorry, Nermeen, it’s cutting a bit, but I—from what I understand from your—what your question is, about Sisi’s campaign. He has run a very, very controlled campaign. He has not had any public appearances, preferring instead to meet people and officials at his campaign headquarters, or do events by video link to other parts of the country. He’s done very few media appearances, and those have been very managed, with very easy questions. And he’s made very clear that he’ll have no civilian oversight of the military; when he was asked bluntly this question, he refused to answer. And his electoral program is shrouded in mystery. He has said that the crisis, or what they call the war on terrorism, is his program.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, we’re going to have to leave it there. That does it for the show. Sharif Abdel Kouddous reporting from Cairo.
Headlines:
•Obama: U.S. to End Afghan Occupation in 2016
President Obama has announced the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan will continue until the end of 2016. On Tuesday, Obama said that the United States will maintain almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after its formal combat mission concludes at the end of this year. The United States will eventually withdraw troops until only a small residual force remains after 2016.
President Obama: "At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 9,800 U.S. servicemembers in different parts of the country, together with our NATO allies and other partners. By the end of 2015, we will have reduced that presence by roughly half, and we’ll have consolidated our troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield. One year later, by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in Kabul, with a security assistance component, just as we’ve done in Iraq."
By the time the United States fully withdraws, the war will have lasted more than 15 years — the longest in U.S. history.
•Thousands Gather for Shooting Vigil at U.C. Santa Barbara
Thousands of people have gathered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in a day of mourning for the victims of Friday’s shooting and stabbing rampage. Elliot Rodger killed six people and then himself after posting a video online saying he was seeking revenge against all women for rejecting his sexual advances. UC Santa Barbara students joined together to remember their classmates.
Rebekkah Scharf: "I know it hit home for some students here, and I felt like we needed a space to recognize that."
Jimmy Tran: "When one part of the body hurts like we all hurt, and like if UC Santa Barbara is going through this tragedy, like we’re going through it, too."
•Father of Slain Victim Urges Pressure on Congress for Gun Control
The shooter in the University of California, Santa Barbara, killings had three semiautomatic handguns, all purchased legally. The father of one of the slain victims is now vowing to continue speaking out in favor of gun control. Richard Martinez, whose 20-year-old son Christopher was killed, made headlines immediately following the attack after calling out the National Rifle Association and politicians who stand in the way of gun reform. On Tuesday, Martinez said he rejects condolences from lawmakers, saying: "I don’t care about your sympathy. … Get to work and do something." Martinez says he is calling on all Americans to send a postcard to Congress demanding the passage of gun reform laws. Speaking at Tuesday’s memorial, Martinez read a letter from another grieving parent.
Richard Martinez: "My dearest son Weihan David: Mom and Dad are very proud of you. Your sacrifices weren’t in vain. Your sacrifice will wake the power and authority of America. It’s time to stop the gun violence. Our children deserve a land free from fear. Son, you will be at peace in the hands of God."
According to the Gun Violence Archive, firearms have killed more than 4,100 people in the United States since January 1 of this year.
•Obama Delays Deportation Policy Review to Prod GOP on Immigration Reform
President Obama is delaying a review of his administration’s controversial deportation practices until after the summer. Obama had ordered U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to look into legal ways to scale back deportations amid rising pressure from civil rights groups who have dubbed him the "deporter-in-chief." Proposals have included limiting the deportations of undocumented immigrants who do not have criminal records, who account for some two-thirds of the two million people Obama has deported. But the White House now says Obama wants to put off any potential reforms to avoid angering House Republicans and dooming chances of passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year. House Republicans have refused to take up immigration reform despite the Senate’s passage of a bipartisan measure offering a path to citizenship, one year ago next month. A top White House adviser says Obama plans to give Republicans one more chance to negotiate a compromise measure.
•Ukraine in Control of Donetsk Airport Following Deadly Clashes
Ukraine says it has taken control of the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk following fierce clashes with separatist rebels. The Ukrainian government says 48 people were killed, nearly all rebel fighters. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has announced it has lost contact with four monitors who were in Donetsk during the airport standoff. The violence followed Ukraine’s election of billionaire candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko in the country’s first presidential vote since the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych.
•Dozens Killed in New Boko Haram Attack; Ex-President Reportedly Involved in Kidnap Talks
More than 30 people have been killed in the Boko Haram’s latest attack in Nigeria. Militants struck a military base in the state of Yobe, killing dozens of government forces. The attack comes amidst rumors of talks between government and Boko Haram representatives over freeing the more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls. Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has reportedly met with figures close to the Boko Haram. The Nigerian government has ruled out formal talks but has not denied that some form of discussion is underway. The head of Nigeria’s military has said the military now knows where the abducted girls are being held, but has ruled out using force to rescue them for fear of endangering their lives.
•Hacker Turned Informant "Sabu" Avoids More Prison Time
A computer hacker who led a series of cyber-attacks on governments and corporations before turning FBI informant has avoided more time in prison. Hector Xavier Monsegur, known by his alias "Sabu," walked free on Tuesday after being sentenced to time served, the seven months he has spent behind bars. Sabu was once a key member of Anonymous and LulzSec, launching cyber-attacks that caused an estimated $50 million worth of damage. But he later turned on his cybercomrades. Working for the FBI, Sabu allegedly directed his friends to carry out more cyber-attacks while feeding investigators enough incriminating evidence to indict them. Defense attorney Peggy Cross-Goldenberg said Sabu hopes to put his past behind him.
Peggy Cross-Goldenberg: "It has been a long and hard three years for Mr. Monsegur. We’re very pleased that the judge recognized both what an extraordinary person he is and the extraordinary efforts that he has gone through in the past three years to turn his life around and to make up for his conduct and really to, as she said, use his skills to do good. Those who know him know that he is a smart, diligent, loyal, hardworking person, and Mr. Monsegur and his family are looking forward to putting this behind them and moving on with their lives to do good things."
Sabu also played a key role in the government’s arrest of computer hacker Jeremy Hammond, who was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor. Hammond has accused Sabu and the FBI of using him to attack the webpages of foreign governments.
•Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida Law Restricting Death Row Challenges for Mentally Disabled
The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a law that limited how death row prisoners can prove they are mentally disabled. Federal law bans the execution of the mentally impaired. The law said prisoners must have an IQ below 70 before being allowed to present any additional evidence to prove their case. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court ruled the law violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
•Conyers Back on Primary Ballot After Signature Mishap
Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan has won a place on his district’s upcoming primary ballot after facing the threat of exclusion. The Wayne County elections clerk had initially ruled Conyers was not eligible for the primary because his campaign failed to collect enough valid signatures and one of his staffers was not properly registered to vote. But a federal judge has ruled the missteps by Conyers’ staff were the result of "good-faith mistakes," wrongly believing they were in compliance. First elected in 1964, Conyers is the House’s second-longest-serving incumbent.
•Snowden Gives First TV Interview to U.S. Network
The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has spoken out in his first interview with an American television network. Speaking to NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Snowden rejected government attempts to dismiss his views by painting him as a "low-level analyst."
Edward Snowden: "What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I’ve done that at all levels, from — from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top. Now, the government might deny these things; they might frame it in certain ways and say, 'Oh, well, you know, he's a low-level analyst.’ But what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to use one position that I’ve had in a career here or there to distract from the totality of my experience, which is that I’ve worked for the Central Intelligence Agency undercover overseas, I’ve worked for the National Security Agency undercover overseas, and I’ve worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency as a lecturer at the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy, where I developed sources and methods for keeping our information and people secure in the most hostile and dangerous environments around the world. So when they say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say it’s somewhat misleading."
The full interview airs Wednesday night on NBC in a one-hour special.
•Former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: Bush Committed War Crimes
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, the nation’s former top counterterrorism official has said he believes President George W. Bush is guilty of war crimes for launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Richard Clarke served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism during President Bush’s first year in office. He resigned in 2003 following the Iraq invasion and later made headlines by accusing Bush officials of ignoring pre-9/11 warnings about an imminent attack by al-Qaeda. On Tuesday, Clarke spoke to Democracy Now! in an interview that will air next week.
Amy Goodman: "Do you think President Bush should be brought up on war crimes [charges], and Vice President Cheney and [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld, for the attack on Iraq?"
Richard Clarke: "I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes. Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have. But we have established procedures now with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where people who take actions as serving presidents or prime ministers of countries have been indicted and have been tried. So the precedent is there to do that sort of thing. And I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not it would be useful to do that in the case of members of the Bush administration. It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes."
Tune in to Democracy Now! next week for our full interview.
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