MURDER: AN ACCEPTED TOOL OF FOREIGN POLICY

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BRITISH Foreign Secretary David Miliband says it is "outrageous". The French foreign ministry has expressed its "deep concern". Even the Americans appear to be gearing up for a major diplomatic protest. And the cause of all the outrage? Not the murder, almost certainly by the Israelis, of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai. Rather, it's that the murderers used forged British and French passports - or in America's case, that they used a United States credit card to book flights to Dubai for six members of the hit squad.

Forging passports is certainly a bad thing - but is it worse than murder? To judge by the international reaction to the killing of Al Mabhouh, it is much worse. Yet it was not all that long ago that it was thought to be, well, indecent for a government to go around assassinating its enemies. When the British government sent a group of Special Air Service officers to murder suspected members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Gibraltar, there was an enormous international outcry. Britain was hauled before the European Court and severely admonished. Would there be such a response today? Only if the killers forged their travel documents.

In the 1980s, one element of the British Army routinely helped Loyalist death squads kill suspected IRA men in Belfast. A group called the Force Research Unit handed out names, addresses and photographs of those who were thought to be on active service for the IRA to Loyalist assassins. In those days, the whole thing had to be kept secret. When one officer referred obliquely to the practice in court, his claims were very quickly denied. But the officer concerned was never tried or even admonished - in fact, he was promoted.

The United States had, and indeed still has, a presidential Executive Order, which has the force of law, stating that "no person employed by or acting on behalf of the US government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination". During the first Gulf War, General Michael Dugan was sacked as US Air Force Chief of Staff because he suggested that America was trying to kill former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. That, he insisted, was the point of most of the bombing raids on Iraq: The bombs were being dropped on places where Saddam was thought to be.

No US official advocating assassination would face the sack today. It has become an essential part of policy: America routinely uses unmanned drones to kill those it thinks are important figures in the Taliban. Only last week, a drone killed Mohammed Haqqani - the brother of a senior Afghan Taliban commander - in Waziristan. No one has objected: There hasn't even been an outcry about the additional deaths caused by these weapons, which don't discriminate between the good, the bad, and the women and children.

There is, of course, a critical difference between targeting Saddam and targeting Haqqani or Al Mabhouh. Saddam was a head of state. The others were not: They were merely members of terrorist organisations.

There is an unspoken rule that no leader should order the assassination of another. The rule is self-enforcing: Heads of state, particularly in democracies, are visible targets and even the most diligent security service cannot guarantee their safety. Aware of their own vulnerability to a determined assassin, presidents and prime ministers are eager not to establish a precedent that leaders are fair game.

Lesser mortals, however, obviously are. When Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, was murdered by what almost everyone now believes was one of Russia's state security organisations, the British government contented itself with a relatively mild protest, and the expulsion of a few diplomats when Russia refused to extradite the chief suspect. That was it.

This apparent international consensus that assassination is a legitimate tool of foreign policy is a very sinister development. State-sponsored murder is still murder. And murder is still a worse offence than using forged passports. The Daily Telegraph

From TODAY, Monday, 22-Feb-2010

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US weapon-makers look overseas as the Pentagon cuts back

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WASHINGTON - With the United States looking to cut defence costs and rethinking the way it fights wars, many American defence contractors are looking for international buyers for the big, pricey weapons the Pentagon no longer wants or needs.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing to sell fighter planes to countries such as India and Brazil. Boeing is trying to spark international interest in its C-17 cargo plane. Middle Eastern nations fearful of threats from Iran are bulking up on missile defence equipment from Lockheed and Raytheon.

"This is a world market right now,'' said Boeing's president of military aircraft, Chris Chadwick.

Globalisation is nothing new for many US industries, which often use overseas operations and sales to tap into fast-growing areas like China and as a hedge against domestic downturns. But the defence industry is closely tethered to one primary buyer, the American government.

It has been a lucrative relationship. Defence spending is up more than 40 per cent over the past eight years, fuelled in part by spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the US military is cutting back on weapon spending. Last year, the US military spent US$164 billion ($237 billion) to buy weapons. For the 2010 fiscal year, the Pentagon proposes spending only US$131 billion.

Overseas arms sales represent a relatively small segment of defence contractor sales. But many are turning to the global markets for growth now that the appetite for big and expensive weapons is waning in the US.

The push is helped by countries worried about security threats from nations such as North Korea and Iran. Many European allies need to upgrade their ageing equipment, and are turning to American firms as likely suppliers.

New markets have also emerged. Iraq was the second largest potential buyer of US military equipment last year, behind Israel, according to a March report by the Arms Control Association, a Washington think-tank. AP

From TODAY, World –Monday, 15-Jun-2009

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White House seeks more funds vs A(H1N1)

06/03/2009 | 10:37 AM

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday night asked Congress for $2 billion to help prepare for a possible swine flu pandemic — a request that came on top of up to $2 billion already pending in House-Senate talks on a huge war funding bill.

President Barack Obama also sent lawmakers a request for $200 million in humanitarian aid to Pakistan, where 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes, in large part because of the government's campaign against insurgents.

The requests, if granted, would likely bring the cost of Obama's funding bill for military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $100 billion.

Republicans in the House are lining up to oppose the war-funding bill if Democrats insist on including in it a new line of credit for the International Monetary Fund.

Democrats may have to scramble to pass the bill in the House, where Republican votes are likely to be needed to make up for about 50 anti-war liberal Democrats who opposed it last month.

At the core of the tentatively priced $98.8 billion House-Senate measure is $79.9 billion for the Pentagon, a figure that's also rankling House Republicans since it represents an almost $5 billion cut from the version that passed the House last month. That measure did not include funding for the IMF.

Responding to media reports that House Democratic negotiators have agreed to include a new $100 billion line of credit to the IMF — a top priority of President Barack Obama — the top Republican in the House said Tuesday he would oppose the bill.

"Let's be clear: a troop-funding bill should fund our troops, period," said Minority Leader John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio. "Weighing down this critical legislation with nondefense spending will only drag this process out further and cost it essential Republican support needed for passage."

Obama promised the IMF money at April's G-20 summit to help developing countries deal with the troubled global economy. About $8 billion for an earlier commitment for the IMF will be included. - AP

From GMANews.tv; see the source article here.

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