The story the New York Times published this week on Hamid Karzai's drug-dealing brother Ahmed Wali and his ties to the CIA is very revealing, considering it comes just few days before Afghanistan's run-off election; however, it is not the real news. It has been rumored for years that Wali has been involved in opium trafficking and has been receiving payments from the CIA. The big story is the United States' government plan to buy out the Taliban -- officially, so to speak.

On Wednesday, President Obama signed a $680 billion defense appropriations bill, which is supposed to cover military operations in the 2010 fiscal year. The bill includes a Taliban reintegration provision under the Commander's Emergency Response Program. Don't you love the terminologies used by government bureaucrats? Call it buyout, bribes, protection money, but please don't call it integration.

The idea, according to Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is to separate local Taliban from their leaders, replicating a program    used to neutralize the insurgency against Americans in Iraq. If you can't beat them, buy them!

Afghanistan though, is not Iraq. Unlike al-Sahwa in Iraq (the Sunni Awakening), when Iraqi tribe members took up arms against al-Qaeda and foreign insurgents, the Taliban are an integral part of Afghanistan, and they are not foreign fighters. They are the brothers, cousins and neighbors of ordinary Afghans. The US government might be able to temporarily buy out some Taliban members from attacking its troops but it will not be able to buy loyalties.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on President Obama to authorize the sending of more troops to Afghanistan. According to a recent Associated Press report:

"There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security  forces and police. It adds up to a 12-to-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory."

The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000 according to the same report. Yet, we have witnessed their devastating attacks in Kabul and other areas. The number of American deaths in Afghanistan has reached a record for the third time in four months. Some military experts say that an increase in US troops is no guarantee to reduce US fatalities and that it might only work in a negative way. The US army is not equipped to fight guerrilla warfare.

The new US strategies to be implemented in Afghanistan are nothing new; they are basically a redux of Iraqi ones. Their success rates are both short term, with the surge in Iraq only working temporarily, as the recent attacks in the country show. Paying for protection can only work against foreign insurgents and will only work as long as you keep paying.

In the meantime, on the news, I keep watching those who are gung-ho for sending more troops to Afghanistan insist that the U.S. has learned from the Soviets' mistakes. No one asks if it has learned anything from its mistakes in Iraq.

Original article published in the Huffington Post.
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If someone is caught cheating in the Olympics or another sporting event, the athlete is immediately disqualified, and it is seen as a disgrace. In the case of the recent election in Afghanistan, however, cheating has been rewarded and even praised by no less than the President of the United States himself.

President Obama said that he contacted Hamid Karzai shortly after the Afghan president said he would abide by the results of a presidential election held in August.

"I wanted to congratulate him on accepting the certification of the recent election," Mr. Obama said.

How quickly have we forgotten how many Western leaders hailed the August 20th vote as an example of "democracy," a democracy mired with fraud. And we're not talking here about a few hundred "hanging chads," but rather more than one million ballots (cast on August 20) that were discounted due to the "coefficient of fraud," as the Electoral Complaints Commission refers to it. Mr. Hamid Karzai now says he wants a better and cleaner presidential election run-off in November to bring stability to Afghanistan at a time when Taliban violence is at its worst in eight years of war. The Afghan leader has played down fraud allegations but bowed to international pressure by ordering a run-off as a way to bolster the election's credibility at a time when Washington is weighing whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.

"Now that we are holding the second round in two weeks, I want it to be better than the first round," Karzai said.

Why isn't Mr. Karzai being held responsible for this blatant act of election fraud? And who can guarantee that a repeat of the fraud won't happen? Or that all hell won't break loose during the run-off? Since the August 20 vote, five suicide bombs alone have ripped through the capital Kabul.

Meanwhile, as President Obama ponders sending more troops to Afghanistan, and anxiety and anticipation are building up over the run-off, a recently released UN report says that Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium. The equivalent of 3,500 tons leave the country each year, fetching more than $65 billion to fund global terrorism. The Taliban's direct involvement in the opium trade allows them to fund a war machine that is becoming technologically more complex.

The report also says that every year, opium kills five times more people in NATO countries than all the NATO lives lost in eight years of fighting against the Taliban. So here is something to think about: according to the CIA's World FactBook, Afghanistan's entire GDP in 2008 was $22.27 billion. President Obama's decision to send 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to bolster security earlier this year has failed, and the country is just as unstable as ever. Would 40,000 additional troops help? Perhaps for a short while, but with the Taliban and Afghan warlords earning this kind of money from the opium trade, not only can they buy politicians, but they can also keep this war going for a hundred years. Afghanistan is not the "good" war.

Original article published in the Huffington Post.
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It’s been over a month since the Goldstone Report was published on September 15, 2009. I’ve written about this topic in the Huffington Post, and since then a myriad of reactions and repercussions to the release of the report have occurred. We’ve learned for example that there was a conspiracy by the Palestinian Authority to prevent the report from being submitted to the UN, and that the Israeli government was preparing itself to fight war crimes trials. Just today, an article in Haaretz addressed this very thing:

“The prospect that Israeli officials could face war crimes trials abroad led the political-security cabinet on Tuesday to form a committee to deal with the international legal consequences of the Goldstone Commission's report on the Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised a lengthy battle to "delegitimize" the findings of the United Nations commission, also instructed government officials to draft proposals for changing international laws of war.”

The coverage of the story has been all over the place – starting in Israel, where the lead investigator Richard Goldstone has been accused of anti-Semitism and of being out to get Israel, even though Mr. Goldstone is a South African Jew. Arab media has been celebrating the report and neglecting to mention that Hamas was also held accountable.

Last Friday, Al Jazeera’s Listening Post aired a report exploring the 575-page hot potato-  causing controversy with the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and the global media. I was invited to contribute my two cents…the saga continues.

It's amazing what a little controversy can do to the ratings of a mediocre television show: it drives them up through the roof. And that's exactly what happened to what used to be a "barely-watched" Turkish drama series called Ayrilik: a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead" on the Gaza Strip. The show, which airs on Turkey's state-owned TRT television, depicts Israeli soldiers murdering innocent Palestinian civilians. One particular segment showed images of Israeli soldiers shooting a smiling young girl in the chest, steamrolling a tank through a crowded street and lining up a firing squad to shoot at a group of Palestinians.

Ayrilik's producer owes some gratitude and thanks to Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who has recently complained to the Turkish government over its airing when he said on Wednesday that, "broadcasting this series is incitement of the most severe kind, and it is done under government sponsorship." Since then the show has been making headlines in both Turkish and global media, drawing more audience to TRT television and curiosity-seekers to YouTube to watch clips of the show.

This is not the first time a Turkish drama has caused a buzz in the Middle East. Last year a cheesy series called Noor (light) became a phenomenon when it captured an audience of 85 million viewers when it aired its last episode. The show's popularity increased when some Muslim Imams accused it of violating Islamic values and the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa against watching it.

The saga between Israel and Turkey is not about a television drama, although in reality it has unfolded like one ever since the rise of the Justice and Development Party in 2002. Turkey's ties with Israel have been deteriorating rapidly since Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter, which left hundreds of Palestinian civilians dead. However, tensions between the two allies hit a peak after Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stormed out of a conference during the Davos summit this year where he confronted Israel's President Shimon Peres over the Palestinian civilian casualties during its offensive on Gaza. Wagging his finger at Peres, an emotional Erdogan accused him of "murdering children on beaches" -- an outburst that made Erdogan a hero in the Arab world.

Adding more fuel to the fire, Turkey has recently banned Israel from an international air exercise in protest against its actions in Gaza, then announced that it will hold military exercises with its nemesis Syria. The announcement came after officials from Ankara and Damascus held the first meeting of a new co-operation council in the Syrian city of Aleppo aimed at ending years of tension between the two neighbors.

For decades Turkey has been looking to the West. It has been eager to please the United States, Europe, and NATO. It has been obsessed with membership to the EU, though snubbed thus far. What's more interesting is the fact that the Turkish military, which usually determines the country's strategic path, even when it goes against the will of the people, is keeping mum about the political decision which could signal a major shift in Turkey's future alliances.

For decades, Turkey has been Israel's closest ally in the Muslim world. It was the second Muslim majority country (after Iran) to recognize the State of Israel. The Islamic Revolution ended Iran's ties with Israel, and although Turkey's ties with Israel will not be severed, they have been permanently damaged.

Article first published in the Huffington Post.

It is not the first time Palestinians have called for the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas. When Hamas swept to victory in the Palestinian Parliamentary Elections in January 2006, angry mobs from the defeated Fatah party staged rallies in the Gaza Strip, calling for his resignation. Many gathered outside the parliament in Gaza City, setting fire to government cars and firing shots into the air.

Today, the anger is more subtle, but more poignant. Palestinians from all wakes of life have been stunned and disappointed by Abbas, who withdrew Palestinian support for a vote in the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to have the Goldstone report sent to the U.N. General Assembly for possible action, the first of many steps towards possibly establishing war crimes tribunals to investigate Israel's alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Just a few days before Abbas suspended action on the Goldstone report, a poll showed the Palestinian president with a 55 percent approval rating compared to 32 percent for Gaza's Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. A new poll has not been conducted yet, but one thing is certain, Abbas today will be lucky to receive double digits. Across the board, Palestinians have been calling for his resignation.

"He is a traitor. He sold the land [to the Israelis] ... now he sold our blood," says Abed M. from Qalandia Refugee Camp just outside of Ramallah.

Abed's sentiments are not unique. Posters which first appeared in Gaza showing Mahmoud Abbas with a black X across his face and the words, "To the trash heap of history, you traitor, Mahmoud Abbas," have made their way to West Bank and even to East Jerusalem.

A few days ago, Gaza professors threw shoes at his defaced image and Hamas has called Abbas' decision "a betrayal of the blood of the martyrs."

Meanwhile, rumors have been spreading like wildfire in the West Bank and Gaza. A news segment aired on al-Aqsa TV, a Hamas-controlled satellite station broadcasting out of Gaza, featured a guest analyst who claimed that Israel threatened to release a video tape showing Palestinian leaders urging Israel to be tougher on Hamas during the Gaza offensive unless the PA backed down over the Goldstone report. Another story circulating on the Palestinian street is about Abbas' children and their investments with Israeli partners. The Israeli government has reportedly threatened the PA that it would refuse to license a new Palestinian mobile phone company, partially owned by one of Abbas' sons, if the PA pushed for the adoption of the Goldstone Report in Geneva.

On Wednesday one senior Palestinian Authority figure, Yasser Abed Rabbo, conceded the move was a "mistake."

"A mistake?" fired back former Knesset member Azmi Bishara on Al Jazeera TV. "A mistake is when I press the wrong floor on the elevator."

Just an hour after the Goldstone debacle erupted, when I called a colleague of mine (who shall remain anonymous) working in Ramallah as a stringer for a foreign news agency to ask him whether this issue will have a lasting damage on the Palestinian Authority, he quickly corrected me and said, "You mean the Vichy Government of Palestine."

Article first published in Huffington Post.