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Tomorrow's Battlefield: As U.S. Special Ops Enter Syria, Growing Presence in Africa Goes Unnoticed
The recent U.S. deployment of special operations forces to Syria expands a global U.S. battlefield that is at a historic size. This year, special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries—75 percent of the nations on the planet. It’s a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries. Those shocking numbers are revealed by our guest, the journalist Nick Turse. For years, Turse has been tracking the expansion of global U.S. militarism for the website TomDispatch and other outlets. His latest book, "Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa," focuses on one particular American military battlefield that often goes unnoticed. Turse says the U.S. military is now involved in more than 90 percent of Africa’s 54 nations.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: After announcing the deployment of special operation forces to Syria earlier this month, President Obama denied breaking his pledge not to put U.S. troops on the ground.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Keep in mind that we have run special ops already, and really this is just an extension of what we are continuing to do. We are not putting U.S. troops on the front lines fighting firefights with ISIL. But I’ve been consistent throughout that we are not going to be fighting like we did in Iraq with a—battalions and occupations. That doesn’t solve the problem.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The White House says a team of less than 50 special operations forces is being sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria to help fight the Islamic State. It’s the first sustained U.S. troop presence in Syria since President Obama launched a bombing campaign against ISIL in September 2014. Although 50 might seem like a small number, the deployment adds Syria to a global U.S. battlefield that is at historic size. This year, special operations forces have been sent to a record 147 countries—that’s 75 percent of the nations on the planet. It’s a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries.
AMY GOODMAN: Those shocking numbers were revealed last month by our guest, the journalist Nick Turse. For years, Nick has been tracking the expansion of global U.S. militarism for the website TomDispatch and other outlets. His latest book focuses on one particular American military battlefield that often goes unnoticed: Africa. Since 2007, the U.S. has operated AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. U.S. generals have maintained AFRICOM leaves only a "small footprint" on the continent, with just one official base in Djibouti. But Nick Turse says the U.S. military is now involved in more than 90 percent of Africa’s 54 nations. The U.S. presence includes, quote, "construction, military exercises, advisory assignments, security cooperation, or training missions." According to Turse, AFRICOM carried out 674 missions across the African continent last year—an average of nearly two a day, and a 300 percent jump from previous years. Nick Turse’s new book is called Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa. Nick joins us right now.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Nick.
NICK TURSE: Thanks so much for having me on.
AMY GOODMAN: First, comment on the new announcement of special ops forces on the ground in Syria, and then we will move on, well, to the rest of the world.
NICK TURSE: Sure. Well, you know, as we heard from President Obama, he sees this as just a continuation of U.S. special operations in Syria. But I think, you know, that’s basically spin. You know, he said, unequivocally, no boots on the ground. He’s right that there were some short-term missions, night raids that went on, but I think this is a significant departure—talking about 50 boots on the ground to start, and generally U.S. special operations deployments don’t end there. They have a tendency to expand.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, the most that Americans know about our government’s activities in Africa might be from the Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips recently. But what about the expansion throughout the region of what’s happening there?
NICK TURSE: Sure. You know, as I reported at TomDispatch, we’re talking about, you know, an exponential increase in U.S. ops on the continent—674 missions in 2014. These are anything from night raids that have been launched recently in Libya and Somalia. There’s a drone campaign. I worked on a series at The Intercept called "The Drone Papers," where we outline this proliferation of drone bases now that dot the African continent. There’s a shadow war that’s going on in Somalia. And we also see it elsewhere. There’s just been an announcement of a new drone base being set up in Cameroon to go after militants from Boko Haram, because that force is also spreading across the continent. And the U.S. has seen this, I think, as, in many ways, a growth area for special ops and for U.S. military missions writ large.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us where else these drone bases are in Africa.
NICK TURSE: Sure. You know, I should say, first off, that AFRICOM, U.S. Africa Command, claims that there’s, as you said, only one base on the continent.
AMY GOODMAN: Djibouti.
NICK TURSE: Yes, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. They have actually set up recently a new drone base in Djibouti at Chabelley Airfield. I did a follow-up report for The Intercept on that. They’re running at least—there’s takeoffs or landings of, say, 16 drones per day from Djibouti right now, perhaps more. They’ve—
AMY GOODMAN: Where are they attacking?
NICK TURSE: Well, a lot of these are surveillance drones, but the ones that are armed are generally conducting the war in Yemen and also in Somalia. You know, these attacks sort of ebb and flow over time, but that’s where the armed attacks are. There’s also drone bases that are supposedly set up in Somalia now, two of them; in Chad; Ethiopia; Niger—they’re flying out of the capital, Niamey. And they’re in the process right now of setting up a new drone base at Agadez. So there’s expansion all across the continent, east to west.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to turn to AFRICOM commander, General David Rodriguez, speaking to Gail McCabe of Soldiers Broadcasting News. When asked about the effects of U.S. training on African militaries, Rodriguez says African partners now better serve their governments and their people.
GEN. DAVID RODRIGUEZ: You can look at all the effectiveness that has been increased in the African partners, so the troop-contributing countries in AMISOM, which we support the Department of State as they prepare those forces. They have had some significant success against al-Shabab. And those troop-contributing countries have performed well.
GAIL McCABE: As I understand it, the idea was to help the African militaries establish themselves so that they could take care of crisises on the African continent without our help.
GEN. DAVID RODRIGUEZ: Right. And it’s just—it’s about being a professional force in a democracy. Many of our African partners have increased their abilities as militaries, but also, and probably more importantly, to serve their governments and their people.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What about this issue, that this training is helping these African governments modernize and professionalize their military forces?
NICK TURSE: It sounds very good when General Rodriguez says it, but, unfortunately, if you look at the effects on the ground on the continent, it’s been rather dismaying these last years. One example is the case of Mali, where you had a U.S.-trained officer who overthrew the democratically elected government there just two years ago. You know, this was—Mali was supposed to be a bulwark against terrorism. It was supposed to be a stable success story. Instead you have that occurrence. Then, last year, a U.S.-trained officer overthrew the government of Burkina Faso. You know, this is—I think it’s troubling.
And you hear the talk about professionalism of the military and that they’re instilling values, human rights, these sorts of things. But, yeah, in reality, what we’re seeing on the continent is very different. And if you look at the groups that we’re training on the continent, the militaries we’re training, and then you compare them to the State Department’s own list of militaries that are carrying out human rights abuses, that are acting in undemocratic ways, you see that these are the same forces. The U.S. is linked up with forces that are generally seen as repressive, even by our own government.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the U.S. interest in Africa?
NICK TURSE: Well, it’s difficult to say for sure. I think that the U.S. has viewed Africa as a place of weak governance, you know, sort of a zone that’s prone to terrorism, and that there can be a spread of terror groups on the continent if the U.S. doesn’t intervene. So, you know, there’s generally only one tool in the U.S. toolkit, and that’s a hammer. And unfortunately, then, everywhere they see nails.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you most surprised by in "The Drone Papers" that you got a hold of, a kind of—what’s been described as perhaps a second Edward Snowden, this project of The Intercept that you wrote about, particularly when it came to Africa?
NICK TURSE: Well, I think it’s really just how far the proliferation of drone bases has spread on the continent. You know, I’ve been looking at this for years, but "The Drone Papers" drove home to me just how integral drones have become to the U.S. way of warfare on the continent. You know, I think this feeds into President Obama’s strategy, trying to get away from large-footprint interventions, you know, the disasters that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s leaned heavily now on special operations forces and on drones. And so, I think that’s probably the most surprising aspect.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the reports that we get here, you basically—there’s either news about Boko Haram or al-Shabab or the disintegration, continuing disintegration, of Libya. To what extent have these special operations focused on these areas, and to what extent have they had any success?
NICK TURSE: Well, I think that Libya is actually a—it’s a great example of the best intentions gone awry by the U.S. The U.S. joined a coalition war to oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi. And I think that it was seen as a great success. Gaddafi fell, and it seemed like U.S. policies had played out just as they were drawn up in Washington. Instead, though, we saw that Libya has descended into chaos, and it’s been a nightmare for the Libyan people ever since—a complete catastrophe.
And it then had a tendency to spread across the continent. Gaddafi had Tuaregs from Mali who worked for him. They were elite troops. As his regime was falling, the Tuaregs raided his weapons stores, and they moved into Mali, into their traditional homeland, to carve out their own nation there. When they did that, the U.S.-backed military in Mali, that we had been training for years, began to disintegrate. That’s when the U.S.-trained officer decided that he could do a better job, overthrew the democratically elected government. But he proved no better at fighting the Tuaregs than the government he overthrew. As a result, Islamist rebels came in and pushed out his forces and the Tuaregs, and were making great gains in the country, looked poised to take it over.
The U.S. decided to intervene again, another military intervention. We backed the French and an African force to go in and stop the Islamists. We were able to, with these proxies—which is the preferred method of warfare on the African continent—arrest the Islamists’ advance, but now Mali has descended into a low-level insurgency. And it’s been like this for several years now. The weapons that the Tuaregs originally had were taken by the Islamists and have now spread across the continent. You can find those weapons in the hands of Boko Haram now, even as far away as Sinai in Egypt. So, now, the U.S. has seen this as a way to stop the spread of militancy, but I think when you look, you see it just has spread it.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month, during the first Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton defended the U.S. military intervention in Libya.
HILLARY CLINTON: I think President Obama made the right decision at the time. And the Libyan people had a free election, the first time since 1951. And you know what? They voted for moderates. They voted with the hope of democracy. Because of the Arab Spring, because of a lot of other things, there was turmoil to be followed. But unless you believe the United States should not send diplomats to any place that is dangerous, which I do not, then when we send them forth, there is always the potential for danger and risk.
AMY GOODMAN: If you could respond to what Hillary Clinton said, and then talk about how Benghazi birthed the new normal in Africa, the secret African mission and an African mission that’s no secret?
NICK TURSE: Sure. You know, again, the idea was that—you know, the best of intentions there in Libya, but things just haven’t worked out that way. And it’s been the case again and again on the African continent that the U.S. has thought that, you know, sort of fighting wars on the cheap, you know, using proxy forces, would work out for them, but again and again, it just hasn’t.
You talked about the "new normal" concept. Because of the tragedy of Benghazi, the loss of life there, the U.S. has used that as, you know, some might say, an excuse to expand its footprint on the continent. As a result, there are now 11 of what they call contingency security locations, CSLs, spread across the continent. These are basically very austere bases that can be ramped up in very—very quickly. The U.S. maintains rapid response forces in Spain and in Italy. And these forces are designed to deploy to these 11 CSLs across the continent so that the U.S. can respond in the event of another Benghazi-type crisis. I think they’re seen as an insurance policy against it. But again, whenever the U.S. puts boots on the ground, whenever it builds bases, these things have a tendency to morph beyond their original—what they were originally set up to do. So I think in the future you’ll probably see them as launching pads for other types of missions.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the situation in the Horn of Africa, specifically Somalia, which has always—now, for years—been a source of problems and concerns for the United States, what’s going on there?
NICK TURSE: Well, just this morning—you know, it’s not something I reported on, just something I’ve been following on the news—we see that Kenyan forces that we’ve been backing have set up extensive smuggling networks in Somalia. They seem to have been putting down roots themselves in bases. I noticed that one of them is Kismayo, where the U.S. is supposedly flying drones out of and has a special operations base. That’s now apparently a smuggling hub for the Kenyan military, in league with the terrorist group al-Shabab. They seem to be working in concert to smuggle sugar. There’s also been charcoal smuggling in the region. So—and this is a force that the U.S. has been backing. And yeah, the U.S. has funded the Kenyans so that we wouldn’t have large numbers of troops on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Nick, we haven’t even gotten to the U.S.-Chinese competition over control in Africa, and so I’d like to ask you to stay after the show. We’ll do a post-show and post it online at democracynow.org, as you cover a little-covered story in this country. Nick Turse’s latest book is called Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa. We’ll bring you Part 2 at democracynow.org.
This is Democracy Now! But when we come back, we head upstate New York to Ithaca College, where thousands of students and faculty and staff have been protesting, calling for the ouster of Ithaca College’s president. We’ll find out why. Stay with us.
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In Nationwide Student Revolt over Campus Racism, NY's Ithaca College is Latest School to Erupt
In a week that began with a victorious revolt by African-American students at the University of Missouri and brought solidarity rallies to campuses around the country, a similar protest has erupted at Ithaca College in upstate New York. On Wednesday, thousands of faculty, students and staff staged a walkout to call for the resignation of President Tom Rochon. The protesters accuse Rochon of responding inadequately to racist incidents, including one where an African-American graduate was repeatedly called a "savage" by two white male fellow alumni. We are joined by Ithaca College Student Body President Dominick Recckio and Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, a professor of international and African politics at the school.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Colleges across the country are seeing a wave of protests. On Thursday, students at more than 100 schools coast to coast rallied against institutional racism and mounting student debt. The week began with African-American students forcing the ouster of two top officials at the University of Missouri over a lax response to racist incidents. On Thursday, student protesters at California’s Claremont McKenna College won another victory when Dean Mary Spellman resigned amidst similar protests. Two Claremont students had declared hunger strikes, just as student Jonathan Butler had at the University of Missouri.
AMY GOODMAN: Now Ithaca College in upstate New York has joined the list of campuses in revolt. On Wednesday, up to 2,000 faculty, students and staff staged a walkout to call for the resignation of President Tom Rochon. The protesters, led by students of color, lay down on the rainy walkways in a mass die-in. They expressed solidarity with students on other campuses across the country.
BRITTANY GARDNER: All over the nation, both on and off college campuses, we have seen those young and old fighting against injustice. We stand here in solidarity. Our hearts are heavy with the pain of Mizzou and Yale and Smith and every person of color on a college campus simply because of the color of their skin and the texture of their hair or their ancestry. This is a problem of the nation. However, how can a campus dedicated to preparing us for the real world not actively foster growth to our consciousness of oppression and privilege?
AMY GOODMAN: The Ithaca College protesters accuse Ithaca College President Tom Rochon of responding inadequately to racist incidents, including one where an African-American graduate was repeatedly called a "savage" by two white male fellow alumni. On Thursday, the Ithaca College Faculty Council announced it will hold a no-confidence vote on Rochon later this month. Rochon has rejected the protesters’ demands, saying he will not step down.
For more, we’re joined in Ithaca by two guests. Peyi Soyinka-Airewele is a professor of international and African politics at Ithaca College. And Dominick Recckio is the Ithaca College Student Body president.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Dominick, let’s begin with you. What are your demands?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: I think our demands are certainly that the students vote no confidence in President Rochon and that the students express what they think. We would certainly like President Rochon to resign, but I think going through with our democratic process of no confidence is our goal right now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your decision to link those demands also with the issue of the pay of college workers, as well?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: Yeah, I think that everyone deserves higher pay. Living wage in Ithaca, New York, is very important.
AMY GOODMAN: What sparked this specifically this week, Dominick Recckio? Was it the University of Missouri, feeling those students, feeling their power?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: Yeah, the University of Missouri students certainly empowered and inspired the students at Ithaca College. It showed that this is an issue where we have students all across the nation that stand by us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, could I ask you also about the historical situation at the college? What has been the attitude of administrators historically to racial issues there?
PEYI SOYINKA-AIREWELE: Thank you, Juan. I think the crisis we have at Ithaca College is certainly a long-standing historical struggle with President Rochon, who faculty, students and staff have found to be unaccountable, unresponsive, and alienated leadership. And so, this has been a long-standing struggle with the administration to create a community that is inclusive, not only of race, but of student voices, faculty input and staff input. And so, we’ve had many incidents over the past few years, since Rochon has been in office, that describe and show eloquently that he has absolutely no regard for the contributions of members of the community. So it is not simply about racism. What we’re seeing here at IC is the crisis of a lack of governance, a lack of leadership and a lack of vision. President Rochon was the first president in IC’s history to create a ban on media freedom. He listed about 84 administrators in 2012 who he gagged, effectively. Student journalists would have no access to deans and administrators without permission from an office that he set up. So this has been a long, drawn-out struggle to re-create the kind of leadership that we need at Ithaca College.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to the clip from a panel discussion in October, one of the few incidents that have come under scrutiny. Ithaca College alumna Tatiana Sy said she had a "savage hunger" to succeed. J. Christopher Burch, the chief executive of the investment firm Burch Creative Capital, also an alum, then repeatedly called her a "savage," saying, "I love what the savage here said." In this clip, you also hear the panel moderator, also an alum, former NBC News correspondent Bob Kur, pointing to Burch and saying, "You are driven," then telling Sy, "You’re the savage." The clip starts with Tatiana Sy.
TATIANA SY: That was only because I was—I had like this savage hunger to make it happen, but it wasn’t without learning the risky lesson of balance.
J. CHRISTOPHER BURCH: Look, we have a girl here who, like, just the word "savage hunger."
BOB KUR: Yeah.
J. CHRISTOPHER BURCH: And so, we’re not—we have to understand, actually, that the two people sitting here, maybe myself, are driven, internally driven, by a message which says "don’t stop." One, we have to continue as a university or an organization to bring in kids with savage hunger. I love what the savage here said.
BOB KUR: You’re driven and have been driven since college. You’re the savage, and you were driven.
J. CHRISTOPHER BURCH: What empathy means is actually caring deeply for other people’s personal pain, and so as this young—as this savage sits here—
TATIANA SY: All right, I mean—
J. CHRISTOPHER BURCH: It’s a compliment. I’m really complimenting you, because I think she’s an amazing—she’s an amazing young woman.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there you have this clip. They’re discussing the Blue Sky—the future of Ithaca College. It’s quite amazing. Professor Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, can you respond?
PEYI SOYINKA-AIREWELE: You know, I was at that program, Amy, and like many other faculty and students there, we were distressed not only by the way in which Ms. Sy was treated, both during the program and afterwards. The administration refused to speak to her, to apologize. It was quite clear to the faculty and to the entire community that this was another, you know, symbolization of President Rochon’s disregard for minority members of the community. It was as a result of protest and repeated agitation that he finally, grudgingly, would call Ms. Sy, days after the incident, days after faculty had written a letter of protest. Many of us spoke to him privately. And I think it was in tune with his method of imagining diversity as a way of pandering to a very corporatist sense of the institution, where minority members are brought in as a way of enhancing the competitiveness and the need for, you know, big donors and students who are the majority population. So, in some ways, I think this distressing incident and the reaction of the administration really represented what we’ve been living with for many years at Ithaca College.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, could you talk about the coming together of the various student groups, this new people of color coalition that developed, and then the faculty allying with them, the process that has occurred now over the last several weeks?
PEYI SOYINKA-AIREWELE: I’m intensely proud of our students at Ithaca College and of the student government leadership. These different groups involved groups like the African Students Association; PODER, the Latino/ Latina association; ALS; CSA. And so, as they had fought over the past few years to get the administration to respond to their needs, they gradually began to form a united, more united, voice. And I think what you’re seeing here is a very representative body. The students are in POC at IC, are trying to create for us a model of what, you know, a representative campus body of students would look like. And what they’ve done is not only to come together as students of color, but they have hundreds of students who have joined them as white allies and are embraced and welcomed in this growing body that is talking about shared governance, is talking about social justice, is talking about a society that could well represent the beloved community of which Martin Luther King Jr. spoke. And so, I feel that they have created for us a kind of access, pushed faculty to look back at the grievances that they’ve had over time, and to begin to create a new network that I think could well speak to the future of Ithaca College as, you know, one of the new models for an invigorated civil society. And so that’s why we’re really excited about what the students are doing at the moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor, you mentioned POC IC, the People of Color at Ithaca College. I want to turn to a clip from the interview Ithaca College President Tom Rochon had on Thursday with staff from the student-run newspaper, The Ithacan. He was asked why his removal as president is being suggested as a significant step to addressing issues on campus.
TOM ROCHON: I don’t know the answer to that question and wish I understood it better. I do want to say, I just couldn’t disagree more with that part of the analysis. Our culture is composed of every interaction among students, staff, faculty that happens—millions of interactions that happen every single day, and the assumptions and the biases that underlie those interactions. One person does not change that. Now, leadership has responsibilities, and leadership has ultimate accountability. But it would change so little, in my view, to change who is the president without changing anything else. Far more powerful to change a lot of other things, which is why my sole focus right now is: What can we do to take advantage of this moment and make a real difference for the campus?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ithaca College President Tom Rochon. Dominick Recckio, you’re the president of the Ithaca College Student Body. As one president to another, what would you say to the president right now? How do you respond? And is your movement around racial insensitivity, racism on campus merging with this other mass protest across the country, that we reported on in headlines, around student debt and other financial issues?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: So, for the most part, our movement has stayed out of student debt, so I can’t specifically speak on that. But what I would tell the president is that he has shown myself, other student government leaders over the years, other students and faculty members, a complete disregard and a complete misunderstanding or complete dis-understanding of what happens on campus each and every day. So he cites those every interaction starting to build our culture. Most of the culture that’s been created at Ithaca College is a culture of fear, and it’s a culture of fear because of what he’s done. It’s a culture of fear because he has corporatized our Board of Trustees. It’s because he hasn’t listened to student voices. It’s because he allows events like the Blue Sky initiative to happen with no input.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dominick, were you surprised by the faculty support that you’ve gotten?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: I, at first, was very invigorated by the faculty support I’ve gotten. And it’s been pretty spectacular so far. In the student government bill to call for no confidence, I asked the faculty to do the same. And they have, and I’m really proud of that.
AMY GOODMAN: And the cross-racial organizing that’s going on at Ithaca College, Dominick?
DOMINICK RECCKIO: Yeah, the organizing is amazing. I’m seeing a lot of allies stand up, and I’m seeing a lot of people become allies and become truly educated in the classroom and outside of the classroom because of this. This movement has taken over the complete educational landscape of the entire institution. It has framed everyone at Ithaca College’s educational experience and will continue to do so.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll continue, of course, to follow what takes place at Ithaca College and schools across the country. I want to thank you both for being with us, Professor Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, professor of international and African politics at Ithaca College and, I have to add, the daughter of the great Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And thanks so much to Dominick Recckio, Ithaca College Student Body president, senior majoring in communication management and design.
That does it for our broadcast. We have a job opening at Democracy Now! We’re hiring a development director to lead our fundraising efforts, an on-air graphics operator, as well. We’re also accepting applications for our internship program. Find out more at democracynow.org.
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Beirut Bombings: Dozens Killed as ISIL Continues Attacks on Foes Outside Its Territory
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for one of the worst attacks to hit Beirut in years. On Thursday, at least 43 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in a double suicide attack on a civilian neighborhood in Beirut. The bombers struck during rush hour in an apparent bid to maximize the civilian death toll. The blasts are seen as an ISIL attack against the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah. This marks the second time in two weeks the Islamic State has taken credit for targeting its enemies outside Syria with deadly attacks on civilians. ISIL’s Egypt affiliate says it was behind the downing of a Russian passenger plane that killed over 224 people in the Sinai last month. We are joined by Rami Khouri, columnist at the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin in Lebanon, where the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for one of the worst attacks to hit Beirut in years. On Thursday, at least 43 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in a double suicide attack on a stronghold of the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah. The bombers struck during rush hour in an apparent bid to maximize the death toll.
AMY GOODMAN: This marks the second time in two weeks the Islamic State has taken credit for targeting its enemies outside Syria with deadly attacks on civilians. ISIL’s Egypt affiliate says it was behind the downing of the Russian passenger plane that killed over 224 people in the Sinai last month. Both Russia and Hezbollah back Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who counts the Islamic State among his many foes.
For more on the Beirut bombings, we’re joined by Rami Khouri, founding director and senior policy fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He’s also a syndicated columnist at the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper and a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
Rami Khouri, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what took place yesterday?
RAMI KHOURI: Well, what took place yesterday is a continuation of a trend or a process that has been going on for some years now, and it has several different concentric circles. The most immediate one is the fighting in Syria between the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and foes of Bashar al-Assad who are trying to bring him down, including Islamist groups like ISIS or like Jabhat al-Nusra or Ahrar ash-Sham and dozens and dozens of other militants, many of whom are Islamists, others are nationalists and secular Syrians. And Hezbollah in Lebanon has joined that fight to support Assad, as have the Iranians. And what you’re seeing is a continuation of battles between Hezbollah in Lebanon and also Hezbollah in Syria against some of these Islamist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which is linked to al-Qaeda, and others. And there have been tit-for-tat bombings and killings going on between these two groups for about the last two years, maybe more.
The troubling thing is that this is now coming back into the center of Beirut and in the area that is heavily Shiite in the southern suburbs of Beirut. This area had been traditionally a red zone, off limits for people to attack Hezbollah. But that was shattered about two years ago when several bombings in that area took place, including an attack on the Iranian Embassy. And there were tit-for-tat attacks then. People killed the Lebanese former minister, Mohamad Chatah, who was a close ally of the Hariri Future group in Lebanon. That killing was done in the heart of western Beirut. So, the symbolism two years ago was very clear, that no area in Lebanon is out of bounds, nobody is safe. Then there was an agreement in Lebanon which pretty much calmed things down for the last year and a half. And this is now a resumption of that process. So, the immediate issue is the Hezbollah versus the militant Islamists, ISIS and others, but the other concentric circles are the wider Syrian conflicts, the many different conflicts that converge in Syria.
And the third one, most troubling, is how ISIS apparently now is targeting targets outside of Syria and Iraq. Whether they brought down the Russian airplane in Sinai is possibly one issue we have to look at, now this bombing in Lebanon. So it’s possible that ISIS is looking to carry out more such attacks against targets. They’ve threatened to go after Russia now in a communiqué two days ago. And this is a troubling trend, because you have now al-Qaeda, a rejuvenated al-Qaeda, and ISIS, who are the two fastest-growing brand names in Islamic—Islamist militancy and terror in the region. They’re growing, with groups all over the place pledging allegiance to them. They’re gaining more territory. Al-Qaeda now has huge lands in South Yemen, in the southern parts of Yemen, and ISIS is established in Iraq and Syria.
So, you have to look at all of these things together. And the Russian involvement in Syria opens up new dimensions of ISIS’s retaliation against the Russians, against the Americans and French and British and others for their attacks against ISIS, against Hezbollah for its attacks against ISIS. So what we’re getting is more widespread warfare, using terror tactics. But this is targeted warfare, so they’re—people are bombing each other’s targets, like—it’s like Mafia warfare in Chicago years ago, where somebody would take out somebody, and somebody else would take them out in revenge. They haven’t reached the stage yet where they’re indiscriminately bombing hotels and beaches and places all over Lebanon, but that’s a fear that people have.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Rami Khouri, what do you make of the increasing involvement of Russia in the region and in these conflicts? What’s been the reaction among the Lebanese, but also across the Arab world, from what you’ve been able to see?
RAMI KHOURI: Well, Lebanon and the entire Arab world are very pluralistic societies with a wide range of views. There is no single view. People have very ideological views, political views, that are linked to their positions within their own country or regionally and globally. So you have some people who are very happy that Russia is involved in supporting the Assad regime in Syria; other people are much more critical of that.
But the fascinating thing is that even traditional foes of Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, like, for instance, the Saudi Arabians or the Iranians or the Egyptians, are getting closer to Putin now. Putin just—it was announced, I think last night, that he’s going to make a visit to Iran. The Saudis, the Egyptians have been meeting regularly with Russian officials, high-level meetings at the foreign minister level and others. So the Russians clearly are trying to use Syria to expand their contacts, their leverage, their relationships all around the Middle East, in political, military and nuclear energy terms. And they’re using Syria because that’s the place where they have already a small foothold. They’ve been allies of the Syrians for 30, 40 years or so, and they want to leverage that.
The people—some people think the Russians want to maintain their military base in Tartus on the Mediterranean, in Syria. I think that’s pretty nonsensical, because I don’t see the Russians fighting naval battles across the Mediterranean with anybody. I think what the Russians want is to show that they’re good allies, help their ally Assad stay in power, maintain a foothold in Syria from which they can develop greater ties with other people, and basically, possibly, have some trade-offs with other issues in the region or internationally, for instance, with the Ukraine.
And finally, they are trying to—the Russians are trying to present themselves as effective leaders in fighting terror, unlike the United States, which has fought the global war on terror now for the last, I don’t know, 12, 15 years or something. And as the global war on terror continues, we’ve only seen the expansion of al-Qaeda and the birth and expansion of ISIS. So there’s something wrong with the American-led global war on terror, which is being fought with autocratic Arab allies, and the Russians are trying to present an alternative. Not very many people take them seriously, but this is an interesting political avenue that the Russians are opening in the region. And so—
AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, let me ask you about the Syrian talks that are supposed be taking place in Vienna this weekend. Russian documents circulated at the U.N. proposed a constitutional reform process in Syria lasting 18 months, to be followed by presidential elections. It’s unclear what that would mean for Assad. And in your view, does a long-term resolution to the Syria conflict involve Assad stepping down?
RAMI KHOURI: Well, I wouldn’t take Russian suggestions of constitutional reform very seriously. They don’t have a great track record of constitutionalism that is very respected around the world, unfortunately. They have a good track record on other things, but not constitutionalism.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the Vienna talks or any political discussions that come out of it to move ahead with an agreement on Assad stepping down. It’s just impossible for him to do that. And I don’t think the Iranians and Russians, who are his strongest allies, would accept that. So I think there has to be some change in the balance of power on the ground, with the military forces fighting against Assad and those supporting him. He’s supported by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, primarily. Those are three very strong actors, very strong-willed, very capable militarily. They’ve been making some gains recently. They have just liberated an air base in the north of Syria. They’ve regained some territory around Aleppo. But so has ISIS made some gains in the north, as well. So, the movement on the ground is moving back and forth. Different people are gaining ground and losing ground. If there is no change in the balance of power on the military battleground, I don’t see any chance of a real political breakthrough in the negotiations.
The external drivers of the war—the U.S., Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, primarily—seem more willing to keep pumping money and guns and diplomatic support to their allies and proxies than they are willing to actually force their proxies to come to some kind of agreement. So it’s not a very good outlook for the resolution of the Syria conflicts in a peaceful manner. And I say "conflicts," because there’s about eight or 10 different battles going on in Syria between local, regional and international protagonists.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what do you make of the continued, growing influence of ISIS, especially in view of the fact that you’ve got these powers that normally would be or are competitors or antagonists of each other—Russia, Iran and the United States—all attempting to join with other local governments to squash ISIS?
RAMI KHOURI: Well, this is the critical step that has to be taken to defeat ISIS, which is collaboration and cooperation on the ground, as well as from the air, between the many different local forces in the region, whether they’re governments, like Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, or nongovernmental forces, like the various Kurdish—there’s three or four major Kurdish militia. You have the Iran-supported popular forces in Iraq, you have Hezbollah. So there’s—most of the fighting going on now is actually between nongovernmental military forces. So, when ISIS and the peshmerga—well, peshmerga is the Kurdish government, but the other Kurdish forces, the PKK and the YPG and others, or Hezbollah are fighting each other, or militias in Iran or Syria, these are nongovernmental groups, and they are the major protagonists now.
I don’t see any possibility of formal public collaboration between Iran, Russia, the U.S. and others to fight ISIS, but I think we absolutely will see informal, indirect cooperation, because everybody realizes now, especially with the downing of the plane in Sinai and the Beirut bombings, that this is a serious threat that has to be addressed. It’s not an existential threat. ISIS is a nuisance more than it is an existential threat to anybody. I mean, these guys are pretty much a bunch of amateurs and not very effective political governors, either. They only govern by military force and by threatening people and terrorizing them. But they’ve been able to gain ground mainly because of the weakness of the Syrian government, the Iraqi government, and the lack of will among all the other governments in the region, to the point where nobody was able to do anything when they started moving north a year and a half ago, until the Americans came in with their—with their Air Force.
So, I think the real story of ISIS is the incompetence, corruption, mismanagement and almost universal lack of political legitimacy among most of the political leaderships in the Arab countries, who are totally unable to do anything unless Washington comes in and does it for them. So that’s really the long-term issue in the region, which is reform of Arab political structures and power systems, as well as defeating ISIS militarily. The military defeat of ISIS is the easiest thing to do, if the local forces on the ground and foreign air forces work together. We saw it in Kobani. We’ve just seen it in Sinjar in the north. When local Kurdish forces and American and other air forces work together, ISIS pulls back and goes away, because these guys are a bunch of amateurs riding around on Toyota pickup trucks, and they just don’t have any serious military capability if they’re confronted.
AMY GOODMAN: Rami Khouri, we want to thank you for being with us, founding director and senior policy fellow of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, also a syndicated columnist at the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper and a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we speak with Nick Turse about special operations around the world, from Syria to Africa. His new book, Tomorrow’s Battlefield. Stay with us.
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U. of Illinois to Pay $875K Settlement to Steven Salaita After Firing Him for Tweets About Gaza
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