Global Security
Global Security
Fair Observer's analysis of issues in governance, constitution, law, enforcement, and justice both nationally and internationally.
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360° Analysis / Barack Obama / David Fisher / Geneva Convention / Guantanamo Bay / Michael Morell / North America / Osama bin Laden / Torture / United States / waterboarding / Zero Dark Thirty / International SecurityBy David FisherIs the US willing to accept the moral consequences of a society that institutionalizes torture? In Zero Dark Thirty, enhanced interrogation techniques — so-called torture-lite of the kind practiced at Guantanamo Bay and various CIA black sites — are shown being used to extract information about Osama bin Laden's courier, known as al-Kuwaiti. In the film, this information is a crucial link in a long and complex detection chain, with information gleaned in other ways and from other sources, which helps track down bin Laden to the house in Abbottabad where he is killed by US Seals on May 2, 2011. The movie has provoked a lively debate in the US, with many critics claiming that...
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360° Analysis / Afghan Mujahideen / al-Qaeda / Armed Opposition / Bashar Al-Assad / CIA / Hezbollah / Jabhat Al-Nusra / malaysia / North America / Pakistan / Syria / Syrian Civil War / Syrian Islamic Front / Taliban / United Kingdom / United States of America / US Foreign Policy / International Security / Middle East & North AfricaImparting war-fighting skills to Syrian insurgents might backfire. Training and supporting insurgents against one’s adversaries has been a cost effective strategy since the late 20th century, when states co-opted their adversaries’ enemies as proxy forces, avoiding the monetary cost of deploying their own soldiers and the political cost of casualties. The recent announcement that the United States is considering deploying its forces to train Syrian rebels en masse in a friendly third country, in a bid to improve the insurgents’ capability to counter the Syrian military, suggests that Washington might be heading down that path. This might backfire badly. Short-Term Logic It...
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African Union / al-Qaeda / al-Shabab / Annette Weber / Candida Splett / Ethiopia / Jihad / Kenya Somalia / Nairobi / Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik / Focus Article / International Security / AfricaWhat are the origins of Somalia's al-Shabab? Radical Islamists killed at least 67 people in Kenya, while dozens are still missing. Annette Weber talks about the history, structure and ideology of the al-Shabab militia, which is responsible for the terrorist attack in a shopping mall in Nairobi. Candida Splett: Somalia’s al-Shabab militia claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Nairobi. What is this group we are talking about? Annette Weber: The al-Shabab militia was founded in 2006. Back then, it was the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that ruled Somalia from June to December 2006. The ICU’s regime had then been the reason for Somalia...
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360° Analysis / Arab Spring / Bashar Al-Assad / Chemical Weapons / Citizen Empowerment / Diplomacy / Egypt / John Kerry / North America / Russia / Sergei Lavrov / Syria / Syrian Civil War / Tartus / Tunisia / United Nations / US Foreign Policy / Yemen / Europe / International Security / Middle East & North AfricaToo many Syrians have been killed for a deal to contain chemical weapons. Quite apart from the current fury in the West over the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Civil War has been the latest chapter in the continual collapse of ersatz national sovereignties in the Middle East since the notion of the nation-state was first imposed upon them a hundred years ago. In a political rendition of "if the right fist don't get you, the left one will," the eminent transnational forces of Islam and Facebook have taken to leap prescribed country borders in a single bound. All this while Big Oil still maintains a series of overweight...
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360° Analysis / Ba'athism / Barack Obama / Bashar Al-Assad / Chemical Weapons / Ghouta / Iran-Iraq War / Jeffrey Laurenti / John Kerry / Military Intervention / North America / Saddam Hussein / Sergei Lavrov / Syria / Syrian Civil War / United Nations / US Congress / Vladimir Putin / Europe / International Security / Middle East & North AfricaSyria's appalling civil war must come to an end. The agreement that US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently hammered out in Geneva will, if implemented, prove a milestone in the century-long effort to contain the horrors of modern war. For the first time, the world community will have compelled a country that has used weapons of mass destruction within its own borders in suppression of an armed insurrection to relinquish them to international control and destruction. It had taken Saddam Hussein's defiant annexation of Kuwait, and a war to expel his forces, to subject Ba’athist Iraq to such measures; no one in major capitals much...
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360° Analysis / al qaeda / Barack Obama / Detainees / George Bush / Guantanamo Bay / National Security / North America / obama / Scott Fenstermaker / terrorism / Terrorist / Torture / US Government / War on terror / Washington DC / International SecurityThe US government has created a “law-free” custodial environment at Guantánamo Bay. This is the last of a two part series. Read part one here. Important in understanding the War on Terror’s true purposes is the fact that, in light of the US government’s tactics in waging the war, it is very difficult to conclude that it will ever end and in which geographic areas it will be fought, both now and in the future. After all, the tactics the government is using — to include seemingly indiscriminate unmanned drone attacks in multiple Muslim countries, detentions without trial or end, torture, renditions, and the continuing erosion of personal privacy here in...
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360° Analysis / Alex Siddall / climate change / Egypt-Ethiopia / Environment / Euphrates River / India-China / international security / North America / River Nile / Scarce Resources / Turkey-Syria / Water Scarcity / Water Security / International Security / Middle East & North Africa / Africa / Central & South Asia / Asia PacificBy Alex SiddallWater scarcity is a key threat to world peace. Within the last decade, climate change has become a hotly debated topic. Many people struggle to imagine what the effects of climate change will be and whether the danger is real. At the heart of climate change, however, there are some very real and imaginable effects that may be seen within the near future. Perhaps the most prevalent of these is a threat to the global supply of fresh water. Ban Ki Moon recently stated at the United Nation's International Day of Biological Diversity: “We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards....
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360° Analysis / Alawites / Ba'athism / Barack Obama / Bashar Al-Assad / Chemical Weapons / France / intervention / Iraq War / Niall Ferguson / R2P / Russia / Syria / Syrian Civil War / UN Security Council / United Kingdom / International Security / Middle East & North AfricaThe quest for stability in Syria will determine the outcome of the conflict. Historian Niall Ferguson holds that order is always the best argument in favor of the empire. Precisely, territorial order or stability is taken by Richard Falk as the bedrock of state sovereignty. Historian Eric Hobsbawm, for his part, links the human need for such an order to people being subjects before becoming citizens. The outcomes of the Syrian conflict are contingent on the different ways that stakeholders’ quest for stability and order in the territory unfurl. A unilateral decision to attack Bashar al-Assad’s order-undermining regime was taken by the US after an alleged chemical weapons attack...
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360° Analysis / Bashar Al-Assad / Chemical Weapons / China / Ghouta / Incapacitating Agent / Iran / Military Strike / Non-Persistent Agents / Persistent Agents / Russia / Sergei Lavrov / Syria / Syrian Civil War / United Nations / International Security / Middle East & North AfricaBy Paul AshleyIt is essential to assess what type of chemical weapon was used in Syria. On August 21, 2013, reports of chemical weapons being used in Syria rocked the world, as it saw news footage of people suffering from what appeared to be the effects of a chemical attack. News reports filtered in from various news agencies along with film footage that could not be verified of people in obvious discomfort and later of dead corpses. It then transpired that the Syrian military was carrying out an operation in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the reports of a gas attack were stemming from. However, the Syrian government denied that it had used any chemical weapons. Not the First Time This...