Is our society changing into a panopticon?

In 1785, the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham[1] described his 'Panopticon'[2], which is essentially a prison where all of the prisoners are under surveillance.

Not much in that description that makes if differ from your everyday prison.

However, the beautiful (or disturbing, depending on the eyes of the beholder) thing about Bentham's construction is that it is not just ordinary surveillance. The central idea of the panopticon is that the prisoners cannot see the person(s) who is/are keeping them under surveillance. Thereby the prisoners never know whether or not they are actually being watched, and it "gets into their heads", so to speak, and gives them the feeling that they are under constant surveillance.

This means, litteraly, that in a perfect panopticon, the prison guard can go out for lunch without worrying about, say, a prison riot.

Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791

Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791

The French philosopher Michel Foucault also worked with the panopticon and used it to describe parts of society:

[...] the design was invoked by Michel Foucault (in Discipline and Punish) as metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and their pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. Foucault proposes that not only prisons but all hierarchical structures like the army, schools, hospitals and factories have evolved through history to resemble Bentham's Panopticon. The notoriety of the design today (although not its lasting influence in architectural realities) stems from Foucault's famous analysis of it.[3]

In his 2005 novel, 'The Traveler'[4] , John Twelve Hawks[5], outlines, continuing Foucault's trail of thought, a society essentially build upon the very idea of the panopticon.

That means constant, or so it would appear, surveillance of the public – either via cameras around the country or on the net, tracking their every move; when they go to the library and check out a book, when they pay with their credit cards, when they receive treatment in a hospital etc. Here applies the core rule of the panopticon: The average citizen never truly knows if he/she is currently being watched, but will have to assume it, and therefore will avoid trouble and a probable arrest.

Meet 'Carnivore'
Part of the surveillance in 'The Traveler' is a system/software hunting for illegal information/communication dubbed 'Carnivore' (after an early version of the system) by the people trying to escape surveillance.

When I read an article, 'Defending a New Domain'[6] by William J. Lynn III from the current edition of Foreign Affairs, I came across this description of an actual system, currently in use, which made me think of Hawks' system:

The National Security Agency has pioneered systems that, using warnings provided by U.S. intelligence capabilities, automatically deploy defenses to counter intrusions in real time. Part sensor, part sentry, part sharpshooter, these active defense systems represent a fundamental shift in the U.S. approach to network defense.

They work by placing scanning technology at the interface of military networks and the open Internet to detect and stop malicious code before it passes into military networks.[7]

This is not far from what Hawks describes in 'The Traveler': A system that works on its own in discovering risks and threats and taking measures against them, all by itself.

Actually 'Carnivore' was as actual name given to a system developed and implemented by the FBI[8]:

Carnivore was a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. It used a customizable packet sniffer that can monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. Carnivore was implemented during the Clinton administration with the approval of the Attorney General.

The system was eventually cancelled, due to the commercial products on the marked becoming increasingly better[9]. As a matter of fact, Carnivore is thought to have been replaced by the NarusInsight[10] software – which is also being used at the NSA. This relates to the above quote from Lynn's article in Foreign Affairs, since what he describes is at the core of what Narus' software does.

Narus logo

Narus logo

NarusInsigt is available in four different solutions:

  • Cyber Protection Solution[11]
  • Solutions for Traffic Intelligence[12]
  • Traffic Management (Grey VoIP) Solution[13]
  • Development Kit (complete configurable)

So, the obvious question is: Do we, at the present time, have a 'Carnivore' running at, for example, the ISP level (one of the clients, NarusInsight is designed for) of the internet, scanning for malicious code, certain sentences and words plus other various bits of information? Yes, we probably do. Of course, the present is probably (hopefully) nothing like what is being outlined in Hawks' book, where everyone who's even remotely differing from the views of the system and general public are being surveillanced and recorded.

The AT&T and NSA surveillance of the San Francisco routing center
As individuals we have to believe that we are not under surveillance as long as we are not planning terror attacks or committing other forms of crime. Yet, as the 'Hepting v. AT&T' class action lawsuit[14] from 2006 shows, we cannot be sure that we are not under surveillance.

The story in brief: According to a former AT&T technician, AT&T and the NSA implemented a "splitter" at their San Francisco routing center, in 'Room 641A'[15],and copied all of the traffic passing through it[16].

Illustration of the AT&T and NSA surveillance at San Francisco internet switch (source: eff.org) | Click for larger size

Illustration of the AT&T and NSA surveillance at San Francisco internet switch (source: eff.org) | Click for larger size

There's also a timeline of the events[17]. PBS has done a documentary on the NSA surveillance[18].

The software and computer system used by AT&T was, allegedly, built by (you guessed it) Narus. According to statements, the box operating at the AT&T internet backbone switch is a Narus Semantic Traffic Analyzer (STA) 6400, as seen in the PBS documentary.

And who has built a system allowing ISPs to do 'Deep Packet Inspection' (DPI) on the packets of informations their client recieves to, among other things, create directly targed marketing?[19] Yes, Narus.

The panopticon, reversed
So, what we essentially have on our hands is a "reverse panopticon", where we assume that we are not under surveillance (Echelon[20] rumours aside), but cannot say for sure.

Maybe we'll someday experience a true panopticon, where we wouldn't doubt for one second that we are under constant surveillance – even though that may actually not be true. If stories like the AT&T-NSA-Narus eavesdropping keeps popping up, we might get there sooner than we think.

In June this year Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano[21] said that the U.S. government needs to monitor internet traffic in order to protect the American public from terrorism:

Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday.

As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.[22]

Well, there's the blueprint for the probably biggest panopticon ever seen. Somehow I come to think of this guy.

George Orwell, author of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

George Orwell, author of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

Notes:
  1. Wikipedia: Jeremy Bentham [↩]
  2. Wikipedia: Panopticon [↩]
  3. Wikipedia: Panopticon [↩]
  4. Wikipedia: The Traveler (novel) [↩]
  5. Wikipedia: John Twelve Hawks [↩]
  6. Read the 'Defending a New Domain' article at ForeignAffairs.com [↩]
  7. Foreign Affairs September/October, Volume 89 – Number 5, p. 103 [↩]
  8. Read about the Carnivore system at Wikipedia [↩]
  9. Read about why the FBI cancelled Carnivore | Associated Press [↩]
  10. Read about Narus and their software at Wikipedia [↩]
  11. Read more about NarusInsight Cyber Protection Solution [↩]
  12. Read more about NarusInsight Solutions for Traffic Intelligence [↩]
  13. Read more about NarusInsigt Traffic Management (Grey VoIP) Solution [↩]
  14. Read about Hepting v. AT&T at Wikipedia [↩]
  15. Wikipedia: Room 641A [↩]
  16. Read a summary of the surveillance at the San Francisco switch, PDF [↩]
  17. View the timeline of the events leading up to the AT&T surveillance [↩]
  18. Watch the PBS documentary on the NSA eavesdropping, 2007 [↩]
  19. Read about Deep Packet Inspection as a means of doing behavioral marketing, PDF [↩]
  20. Wikipedia: Echelon (signals intelligence) [↩]
  21. Wikipedia: Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Secretary [↩]
  22. Associated Press: "Napolitano: Internet Monitoring Needed to Fight Homegrown Terrorism" [↩]

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Published:
September 29, 2010 – 10:44 am
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Is the UN's Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine doing its job?

If you're not familiar with the UN's 'Responsibility to Protect' (shortened 'R2P' or 'RtoP') protocol/doctrine, Wikipedia is a good place to start:

  1. A State has a responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing (mass atrocities).
  2. If the State is unable to protect its population on its own, the international community has a responsibility to assist the state by building its capacity. This can mean building early-warning capabilities, mediating conflicts between political parties, strengthening the security sector, mobilizing standby forces, and many other actions.
  3. If a State is manifestly failing to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures are not working, the international community has the responsibility to intervene at first diplomatically, then more coercively, and as a last resort, with military force.[1]

Basically the doctrine says, that if a genocide is approaching, or happening, and the state itself does not manage to prevent it from happening, the international community has to intervene.

R2P was unanimously endorsed by the UN five years ago, back in 2005. Half a decade later it's worth looking at whether it is actually working or not. And that is precisely what Lloyd Axworthy[2] and Allan Rock[3] do in their article entitled 'The unfulfilled promise of UN protection' in The Globe and Mail[4] .

They both "played a role in the conception of R2P (through the establishment of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty) and then its adoption (by leading the Canadian advocacy and negotiation efforts at the 2005 UN World Summit in New York)".

In the article they are both encouraged and disappointed with the way R2p is working. Encouraged because the doctrine has been reaffirmed by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. Disappointed because the doctrine has failed to "fulfill its promise in places such as Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Theoretical advances are of no comfort to defenceless civilians savaged by lawless militias or wicked regimes".

The responsibility to protect's main objective is to keep tragedies like Rwanda and Srebrenica from happening again, yet is has apparently failed to to so. The two authors propose to suggestions:

  1. Stop being shy about invoking R2P. Faster reaction can save lifes.
  2. More tools are needed, for intance an early warning system which was agreed upon back in 2005 has yet to be implemented.

On this subject it is also worth remembering that at Srebrenica, during the genocide, UN troops were present on site and there was communication with the upper levels of the UN. Yet the UN did far from enough to save the lifes of the more than 8.000 men and boys who lost their life.

It still has to be seen whether a theoretical protocol can manage to do what the troops and the entire UN system did not, despite being stationed at the very scene of the crime.

Notes:
  1. Read the 'Responsibility to protect' article at Wikipedia [↩]
  2. Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister. [↩]
  3. Allan Rock is president of the University of Ottawa and a former special adviser to the United Nations on Sri Lanka. [↩]
  4. Read 'The unfulfilled promise of UN protection' at theglobeandmail.com [↩]

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Published:
September 19, 2010 – 3:33 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Wars in graphics

Since I wanted to try out Excel 2007 which came with my new work PC, I decided to pick up a spreadsheet I did a while back, update the numbers and experiment with the graphs in Excel. The wars included are chosen by random/memory – so don't get stuck on trying to figure that out.

As you can see from the last graph, you can't use 3D charts when working with two axis (duration and death toll), so that's a rather big minus, since it doesn't look that good.

If anyone knows a great tool for plotting data into neat graphs, feel free to email me.
Anyways, here goes:

Update: I decided to to a quick pie chart on the death toll (adults/children) in the Chechen wars based on numbers in Wojciech Jagielski's "Towers of Stone – The Battle of Wills in Chechnya" (total=250.000, children=100.000):

Update (again): Now with some World War 2 and Holocaust pie charts (source) – plus some experiments with surfaces:

Update: You probably know Oskar Schindler (you've probably seen "Schindler's List"), who saved 1.200 Jews from the Holocaust. But have you heard about John Rabe?

Published:
September 7, 2010 – 6:12 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

America and the World – conversations between Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft

Just finished reading the marvelous 'America and the World – Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy'[1].

It's basically 275 pages of transcripts from conversations between Zbigniew Brzezinski[2] (former National Security Advisor to President Carter) and Brent Scowcroft[3] (former National Security Advisor to Presidents George H. W. Bush (Bush I) and Gerald Ford) with The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius as the moderator.

The main point on the agenda is the current state of the world outside the US, and the possibilities and obstacles there are for the (at the time the book was written, 2008) next president.

There are several good points and views in the book, way too many to list them all here. Therefore I will just mention the – for me – most imporant ones. Hopefully just enough to entice you to buy the book.

One of the recurring trends that appear throughout the book is how globalization is affecting and changing the international political picture. Brzezinski states very early on that he disagrees with the at the time current president, George W. Bush, regarding his views on the war on terrorism:

I was struck the other day that the president, in his State of the Union message[4], said the war on terror is the defining ideological challenge of the century. And I said to myself, "Isn't that a little arrogant?" This is the year 2008, and here we are being told what the defining ideological challenge of the century is.

Suppose in 1908 we were asked to define the ideological challenge of the twentieth century. Would many people say right wing and left wing, red and brown totalitarianism? Or in 1808, the challenge of the nineteenth century, how many people would say on the eve of the Congress of Vienna, a conservative triumph, that the nineteenth century would be dominated by nationalist passions in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and throughout Europe?[5]

Instead, he argues, three major changes are going to define the ideological challenges in the 21st century:

  1. Global awakening. For the first time in history all of humanity is politically active/activated. For instance peasants in far corners of the world are now much more aware of what's going on at higher levels and not just in their own village.
  2. The center of global power is shifting from the Atlantic world to the Far East.
  3. The surfacing of common global problems, climate and environment but also poverty and injustice.

The first point, powered by globalization, puts a serious strain on those nations seeking to occupy more land. When talking about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 compared to the American invasion of Iraq, Brzezinski delivers this to-the-point quote:

You cannot pursue a successful imperial policy in the postimperial age, in which the masses of the world are politically activated.[6]

He goes on:

Imperial policies worked because you could work within traditional societies. You could use relatively little force, which was more advanced, against not very united resistance. And you could manage.

Today, you are dealing with aroused, radicalized, sometimes fanatically driven populations, which resist. That's what the Israelis discovered in Lebanon. That's what we're discovering, painfully, in Iraq.[7]

Scowcroft also outlines how globalization makes it more and more meaningless to talk about poles in the world (the Cold War being in a bipolar world) and how it creates proxy conflicts[8].

Iraq
On the subject of Iraq, Scowcroft is asked what the first President Bush would have done, had he had another term as a president. Judging from Scowcroft, he certainly wouldn't have invited Iraq. Ignatius asks Scowcroft why he or the president, decided that it didn't make sense for the United States to go to Baghdad in 1991. Scowcroft mentions three reasons:

  1. The coalition, which was significantly Arab, was not about to march into Iraqi territory.
  2. There was a UN mandate to liberate Kuwait. Scowcroft explains that they were very aware not to step outside of the boundaries provided by the UN mandate, since what would have "destroyed the world we were trying to build."[9]
  3. The most fundamental reason, according to Scowcroft, is that the US knew how to do what they were planning to do:
    "We could've gone to Baghdad almost unopposed. But it would've changed the whole character of the conflict into one where we were occupiers in a hostile land. Our troops would've been subjected to guerilla activity. And we had no strategy for getting out. And that was a situation which I thought would be a disaster to get into."

Notice that the last quote actually describes the situation that US soldiers found themselves in following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

As you may have figured out, both Brzezinski and Scowcroft were against the invasion of Iraq led by George W. Bush in 2003. Prior to the invasion they both published articles warning on the risks of going into Iraq. Brzezinski published 'If We Must Fight' in The Washington Post, while Scowcroft published 'Don't Attack Saddam' in The Wall Street Journal.

According to Scowcroft, the US has two militarily tasks in the near future (bear in mind, this was written/said in 2008):

  1. Control the level of violence. The Iraqi army can't do it alone right now.
  2. Since the Iraqi army depends on the US for logistic and operational support, the United States need to develop the Iraqi army's ability to expand into areas such as movement, supplies, intelligence.[10]

Cold War world institutions in a post Cold War world
The two former statesmen also discuss the issue of the current world versus the world that existed during the Cold War, and how many of the institutions creating during the Cold War, and World War II for that matter, still are being used – and maybe aren't living up to their potential.

Scowcroft mentions the United Nations as an example of an institution that needs to be reformed – rather than demolished and built again. Scowcroft actually believes that if the UN did not exist, the world as of now would not[11] or could not[12] create it.

Another example is the division of domestic and foreign intelligence between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, and the Central Intelligence Acency, CIA. Scowcroft:

In the cold war that was fine because most of our intelligence collection was overseas. But terrorism makes that differentiation meaningless. Part of the problem we saw with 9/11 was that we had two different agencies, with very different philosophies about how to do things, trying to pass information across a bureaucratic barrier.[13]

Brzezinski visions a task force based organization to handle this 'new situation' (text in bold indicates my highlighting):

It involves essentially three presidential task forces that are not functionally organized like the Department of Sate or Defense, but are mission oriented. And each would be headed by a presidential delegate who would be a senior person – equal or even superior to cabinet members – assigned to deal with the task force's issue: global climate, environment, or what have you.

[...]

I would do the same [...] with two other problems that require immediate attention and much more initiative than we're capable of generating from our current structure. One of the two issues would be the Middle East [Arab-Israeli dispute and Iran and Iraq]. [The other would be] dealing with alliance relationships. How do we deal with Europe? How do we involve countries like Japan and South Korea in some of the Atlantic Alliance's undertakings?[14]

Peace in the Middle East
Naturally a book about the future of American policy needs to touch the subject of the Middle East. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Brzezinski sees 4 general parameters for negotiating between the two:

  1. No right of return for the Palestinians to Israel.
  2. Real sharing of Jerusalem
  3. The 1967 borders, with mutual adjustments.
  4. A demilitarized Palestinian state.[15]

The two also talk about the, unfortunate, way the the people in the Middle East looks at the United States and what has to be done to 'fix' it.

Europe and Russia
Two chapters of the book focus on US relations with Europe and the new post-Sovjet Russia. Among other things how the United States should treat Medvedev. As the president of Russia or a subordinate to Putin.

Here they also talk about moving Russia nearer to Europe, and the US. Brzezinski believes that 'adopting' countries like Ukraine and Georgia into Europe (first the Euroean Union, and then maybe NATO) would make Russia move more towards Europe[16], a view that Scowcroft doesn't share[17].

Regarding Europe, Brzezinski sees four main interests for the United States in Europe:

  • A bigger Europe
  • A more politically defined Europe
  • A Europe that is more militarily capable
  • A Europe allied with the United States[18]

Both of them believe the United States and Europe should continue to be allies, and Scowcroft believes that the Europeans are still in some pain following the two world wars in the 20th century:

My sense is that the Europeans are strategically exhausted. In the twentieth century they fought to grueling, lengthy wars that have taken a toll on their populations, their politics, their whole outlook. And they can't bring themselves to see the need for strong military force, especially since we have so much.

So while I agree it would be useful if they did more militarily, it seems to me that for some time, while they recover their élan [momentum], we should accept a division of labor in which we do more of the military part and the Europeans do the things that they do well, which includes rebuilding and reorganizing states in the way that they do to bring them into the European Union.

We should work very closely with them but recognize that hectoring them about the need for more forces is not going to be helpful.[19]

Other issued in the book
Brzezinski and Scowcroft also give their views on the current situation in Iran, arguing against military intervention in Iran, and talks about the internal relations in Pakistan – a country that exist thanks to the three A's: Allah, America and the army.

They also talk about how the fact that the Americans have surrounded themselves with an environment of fear has been "deadly" (Scowcroft's words)[20], and Brzezinski believes that the United States need to avoid stigmatizing others:

I fear that a great deal of our talk about Islamic terrorism has unfortunately created more hostility towards us among the largest religious formation in the world.

We have to be careful. If we were to use the same terminology, let's say, about the Irish Republican Army and keep talking about how they're trying to establish a papacy in the western Europe, that this is a Catholic conspiracy, that this is a Catholic crusade against us, we would certainly alienate most Catholics, including the sixty-five or seventy million Catholics in this country.

So we have to be sensitive about the language we use.  ((Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 234))

And with that thoughtful quote I'll stop and tell you to buy the book if you want to know more about the problems and possibilities that President Obama faces in the world outside the US borders. It's well worth the money, whether you agree with Brzezinski and Scowcroft, one of them or none of them.

Book facts:
'America and the world – Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy'
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, David Ignatius
Basic Books, 2008
291 pages

Those of you that can understand Danish can read my notes from the book.

Notes:
  1. The book is available from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com [↩]
  2. Read more about Brzezinski at Wikipedia [↩]
  3. Read more about Brent Scowcroft at Wikipedia [↩]
  4. Read the entire 2008 State of the Union address at 'The Presidency Project' [↩]
  5. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 2 [↩]
  6. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 25-26 [↩]
  7. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 25-26 [↩]
  8. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 26-27 [↩]
  9. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 12 [↩]
  10. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 54-55 [↩]
  11. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 28-29 [↩]
  12. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 231 [↩]
  13. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 254 [↩]
  14. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 257 [↩]
  15. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 81 [↩]
  16. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 174 [↩]
  17. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 180 [↩]
  18. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 200-201 [↩]
  19. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 204-205 [↩]
  20. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, 2008: p. 239 [↩]

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Published:
August 27, 2010 – 3:13 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Danish School of Media and Journalism looking to strengthen ties with the Middle East

Good news: The Danish School of Media and Journalism has today issued a press release saying that the school is starting a coorperation with the American University in Beirut and the American University i Cairo[1].

This means that students at the three schools can be exchanged and do a semester in either the Middle East or in Denmark.

The cooperation has been made possible by a 1,2 million Danish kroner (roughly 200,000 US dollars / 160,000 euro) grant from the Danish Foreign Ministry's 'Arabian Initiative'.

I can't stress enough how important it is to have partnerships like this. It improves the coverage the Middle East gets in the Danish media. At that's precisely the point according to Anne-Marie Dohm, rector at the Danish School of Media and Journalism:

The Middle East is a large part of the Danish media's foreign coverage these years. And it won't get any smaller. If you, as a journalist, are to cover the Middle East, its culture, inhabitants and events it's necessary to have insights into it's history, society and values. And we can now offer that fantastic option to our students.

Part of the program is also to exchange teachers to give guest lectures. Neat.

Notes:
  1. Read the press release (in Danish) [↩]

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Published:
August 25, 2010 – 2:44 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Dutch UN commanders related to Srebrenica might end up in court

On August 20, three days ago, Reuters published the telegram 'Dutch prosecutors to probe Srebrenica killings'[1]. The story is, in short, that Dutch lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld has "requested an investigation into the actions of three Dutch military commanders, including Thom Karremans, commander of the Dutch troops, and his deputy".

The charge relates to when the Dutch UN soldiers serving in Srebrenica during the July 1995 genocide (labeled 'Dutchbat 3') handed over Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) to the Serbs, who killed the men and the boys.

There are however doubts if a probe is probable:

Alexander Knoops, a professor of international criminal law at Utrecht University, said it is not certain whether the prosecutor would initiate a criminal investigation.

"The legal criteria for allegedly aiding and abetting genocide seem not fulfilled here. The mere fact that civilians were handed over to the Bosnian Serbs is not sufficient for criminal liability," he said.

Zegveld represents "the relatives of an electrician who assisted the Dutch, and the troops' interpreter", the interpreter most likely being Hasan Nuhanović whose book 'Under the UN Flag - The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide' I have previously mentioned[2].

More than 8000 Bosniak men and boys lost their lives at the Srebrenica genocide in the summer of 1995[3].

Notes:
  1. Read 'Dutch prosecutors to probe Srebrenica killings' at Reuters.com [↩]
  2. Read my post about Mr Nuhanović book on the Srebrenica Genocide [↩]
  3. Read about the Srebrenica genocide on Wikipedia [↩]

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Published:
August 23, 2010 – 11:20 am
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Under the UN flag in Srebrenica

Photo (not from Srebrenica): doegox / Philippe Teuwen (Flickr Creative Commons)

Photo (not from Srebrenica): doegox / Philippe Teuwen (Flickr Creative Commons)

The tragic story of the genocide in Srebrenica is known to most of us[1]: Bosnian Serbs had the town and UN "safe area" (I put that in quotes for obvious reasons) under siege. On July 11 1995 the attackers breached through the defenses and the slaughter of more than 8000 Bosniak men and boys followed, while the UN soldiers stationed in Srebrenica ('Dutchbat 3') did nothing.

Could this story be any sadder?  Could it be that the Dutch soldiers did something much worse than nothing? Alas, yes. In his book 'Under the UN Flag – The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide'[2] Hasan Nuhanović[3], who worked as a local UN interpretor for the UNPROFOR forces[4], does a truely eminent job listing the events that led to the mass murder of thousands of civilians. And it's not pretty, especially when we're looking at the role of the Dutchbat soldiers. The list of UN errors and omission according to the book is far too long to list here (to get the full story you need to read the book), but just to mention a few:

  1. When the UN troops draw their initial map of the area they only draw one line, instead of 3.
  2. The UN soldiers placed their observation posts rather deep in the enclave, leaving Bosniak civilians between the UN and the Bosnian Serb forces[5].
  3. During the entire siege and slaugther the Dutchbat 3 forces did not fire one single shot at the attacking Bosnian Serbs.
  4. The UN troops forced the civilians who had taken refuge in the UN base to leave the base, only to be handed over to the Bosnian Serbs.
  5. While the Bosnian Serbs were moving the refugees placed both inside and outside the UN base in Potočari[6], UN soldiers actively assisted with segregating the men and boys from the rest.
  6. In the days following July 13 1995 the UN had  a number of meetings with the Bosnian Serbs (General Mladic amon others). These meetings went on for several days while the Bosniaks were being killed in the surrounding area.
  7. Both the Dutch debriefing report and the UN report on the Srebrenica genocide[7] have serious errors and omissions, and the two reports contradict each other at times.

As mentioned above I won't begin to name all the examples of negligence mentioned in the book but it is an alarming read which remains relevant even though we just passed the 15 year mark.

Mr Nuhanovic names reasons for the misconduct of the UN soldiers, for example the fact that they longed to get back home and a prejudice against (male) Muslims. Another serious issue which also needs to undergo serious study, is how much the UN persons on site forwarded to higher UNPROFOR and UN levels. Judging by this book: Not a lot. Plus, some information was forwarded to the UN headquarters in New York which grossly understated the seriousness of the attack.

Hasan Nuhanović believes that certain UN personnel need to answer some of the most central questions in a court, so the Bosniaks and international community can learn and understand the full story behind the Srebrenica genocide. Questions that (still) need answers The book raises some serious questions and issues that the UN, and NATO, need to consider – to get the final debriefing on the Srebrenica "incident" but also because an international blackout like that must never happen again.

  • Why did the Dutchbat forces do nothing to help the Bosniaks in the enclave?
  • Why was there never called for 'close air support' or larger airstrikes that could have hampered the siege?
  • Why did UN and the other international organisations not do more to find the thousands of men and boys who did not reach their destinations after getting in the busses driven by the Bosnian Serbs?
  • On July 12, Dutch forces saw what could only be the execution of 9 Bosniaks. Why was nothing done to stop the deportations?

These are just some of the questions that need to be answered if the UN and the other international organisations want to step out of the Srebrenica shadow.

Book facts:
‘Under the UN Flag – The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide’
Hasan Nuhanović
DES Sarajevo
567 pages
Available at amazon.co.uk

– Additional material on the Srebrenica genocide –

Read: The Human Rights Watch report on the Srebrenica genocide published in October 1995 – one of the first documents daring to mention some of the errors by the UN. From the conclusion in the HRW report:

One cannot speak about the protection of human rights with credibility when one is confronted with the lack of consistency and courage displayed by the international community and its leaders. [...] Crimes have been committed with swiftness and brutality and by contrast the response of the international community has been slow and ineffectual. [...] The Dutch battalion present within the “safe area” at the time of its fall did little or nothing to prevent the commission of war crimes, and allegations of misconduct by U.N. forces within the enclave persist.

Let us hope that the mistakes and omissions from Srebrenica will never be forgotten but serve as a constant reminder of how not to conduct international peace-keeping missions.

Watch: The documentary 'Srebrenica – A Cry from the Grave' (Google Video, 1:44:21) about the genocide. Read: The Srebrenica Genocide Blog (CAUTION: Features videos and photos which might be considered offensive by some)

Read: Interview with Hasan Nuhanović

Read: Questions asked by Hasan Nuhanović after the release of the Dutch NIOD report

Notes:
  1. If you don't know about the massacre, read the Wikipedia article on the Srebrenica genocide [↩]
  2. Available from amazon.co.uk [↩]
  3. Wikipedia's article on Mr Nuhanović [↩]
  4. Read more about UNPROFOR at Wikipedia [↩]
  5. See chapter 'Deployment of UN Observation Posts, page 45 [↩]
  6. See the UN base in Potočari on Google Maps [↩]
  7. Read the UN report on the Srebrenica genocide [PDF] [↩]

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Published:
August 21, 2010 – 11:11 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category:

Foreign Affairs' Reading Lists will make you poor – but clever

If you, like me, enjoy reading books – whether it's for entertainment or in search of knowledge and understanding, you know that one of the biggest challenges is to find out which books are good, meaning "worth reading".

The internet is an enormous helping hand; you can Google "[book title] review" or browse through the user reviews and Amazon. But wouldn't it be even better if someone with expertise categorized books by subject for us knowledge-hungry people to find and use?

Well, that's just what Foreign Affairs[1] are doing. Foreign Affairs is a magazine published by the American thinktank Council on Foreign Relations[2].

There's even an RSS feed[3], making it easy for you to keep up with what is worth reading from your favorite feed reader.

These list will no doubt assist you in your quest for knowledge – and route to poverty.

In their 'Reading Lists'[4] sections they group books that are worth reading by subject. So, if you for instance want to find good books about, say, the Middle East peace process[5], Foreign Affairs will have you covered.

>> Visit Foreign Affairs' Reading Lists

Notes:
  1. Visit Foreign Affairs' website / Wikipedia: Foreign Affairs [↩]
  2. Council on Foreign Relations' website / Wikipedia: Council on Foreign Relations [↩]
  3. View the readling list RSS feed [↩]
  4. View Foreign Affairs' Reading Lists [↩]
  5. View the reading list on the Middle East peace process [↩]

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Published:
August 21, 2010 – 7:34 pm
Author:
By The Open Mode
Category: