Audio on Hiding Gaza, Hiding Israel: The Jailing of Cynthia McKinney (and 20 Others)

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(An audio interview with Huwaida Arraf of the Free Gaza Movement, one of two activists released, and with Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who is still in jail, follows the opening paragraphs of the story.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkPvzSZRuDo[/youtube]

On Tuesday, the news broke on Twitter: a freighter, Spirit of Humanity, carrying three tons of medical supplies, cement, olive trees, and children's toys for Gaza, had been intercepted and boarded by Israeli naval personnel. Twenty-one passengers, including former US Congressman Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and activists from Britain, Ireland, Bahrain, and Jamaica were detained. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said, "They will be released as soon as they are checked." However, McKinney, Maguire, and 17 others remain in custory because they refuse to sign a deportation order that says they were "trespassing" in Israeli territorial waters.

As of Friday morning, here is how many column inches The Washington Post has given to the story: 0

(The Post website has a short account on Tuesday from the Associated Press but that never made it into print.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj5YLhMz_pI[/youtube]

And here is the attention span of The New York Times: 3 sentences, tucked away at the bottom of a story today on the Amnesty International report on "war crimes" in the Gaza War of December-January.

(The three sentences are from a longer story on the Times website, but that is not in "Today's Paper". It can only be found through a search of the "World" section on the site.)

I appreciate that the story broke at a busy time --- on Tuesday, we had one eye on Iran, another on Iraq, and if we could have borrowed someone else's eye, we would have turned that on Afghanistan-Pakistan. Others were riveted by the coup drama in Honduras. Still, you would have thought that 72 hours later, the leading US newspapers would have caught up with the drama of a freighter seized at sea and 21 international activists tossed into Israeli holding cells.

In part, the explanation may be that McKinney, stigmatised as an "extremist", a "radical", and a dangerous-to-know person during and after her time in Congress, is poison for some newspaper editors (conversely, it's probably far from incidental that Fox News, which has long targeted McKinney as a figure of derision, has been in the media lead on the story). Part of the reason might be that the drama was muted by the lack of photos and footage.

I suspect, however, there is a wider, more significant reason. Paying attention to the story also means paying attention to the cause: the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And acknowledging the scale of the continuing economic deprivation and social destruction in that besieged territory, led by a Hamas Government that a lot of people do not want to recognise, is a step too far.

To be fair, from time to time, a Times or Post reporter will drop by the territory to file a story. It's far different, however, to link that coverage to the immediacy of political protest. So, as McKinney and others continue to refuse deportation, no doubt hoping that their jail stay will eventually be noticed, and as Israeli authorities just hope the incident will disappear, expect the Times and Post to ignore a story that is not fit to print.

Afghanistan Strategy: Obama "WTF?" to His Military

Earlier this year we paid close attention to the conflict between White House advisors and military commanders over the latter's request for increased troop levels to "win" Afghanistan. The dispute was resolved in the short-term by a compromise plan to send more than 20,000 additional personnel, and it has been overshadowed recently by the change in command in Afghanistan. It was only a matter of time, however, before the bottom line --- is a force level of more than 60,000 (compared with 38,000 at the start of this year) going to be enough? --- was going to be resurrected.

Today it appears that the Obama camp has made a move to pre-empt additional military demands.

Bob Woodward reports in The Washington Post, "National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here [in Afghanistan] last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict."

There are a number of levels to Jones' message and its appearance in a report by Woodward, investigative reporter turned trusted White House insider. The first is that this has the Presidential seal of approval: "Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, 'My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops.'" The second is that the White House is putting out the message that non-military measures have to take priority in any long-term resolution:

"This will not be won by the military alone," Jones said in an interview during his trip. "We tried that for six years....The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed."

The immediate message, however, is that Obama does not want the military taking the lead on this issue or --- as they did in the first weeks of his Presidency --- working the media to undercut him. Conscious that, in January, the generals tried to lock Obama by putting completed reviews on his desk, Obama despatched Jones to Afghanistan as the new US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is conducting a 60-day evaluation of "all the issues in the war". Now it is the military, not the President, who will be locked in:

Jones has told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they should focus on implementing the current strategy, completing the review and getting more Afghan forces involved in the fight before requesting additional U.S. troops for Afghanistan.

The battle in Washington and in the field will continue, "One senior military officer said privately that the United States would have to deploy a force of more than 100,000 to execute the counterinsurgency strategy of holding areas and towns after clearing out the Taliban insurgents." However, as the balance of the article makes clear, the White House will be pointing its military towards bringing in more Afghan forces rather than coming back with requests for additional US boots on the ground. Here is the message, brought by Jones to the generals and by Woodwardian anecdote to the US public:

During the briefing, [Marine Brigadier General Lawrence D.] Nicholson had told Jones that he was "a little light," more than hinting that he could use more forces, probably thousands more. "We don't have enough force to go everywhere," Nicholson said.

But Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan."....Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army.

"They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000

Now suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel?
Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to WTF -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What the [expletive]?"

Nicholson and his colonels -- all or nearly all veterans of Iraq -- seemed to blanch at the unambiguous message that this might be all the troops they were going to get.

Jones, speaking with great emphasis to this group of Iraq veterans, said Afghanistan is not Iraq. "We are not going to build that empire again," he said flatly.