As major Arab and African opposition to the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir emerges, the wisdom of the indictment - and the Court’s power to enforce it - have been called into serious question.

At its recent summit in Libya, the African Union announced that it will not cooperate with the ICC to arrest al-Bashir. This move represents an escalation from a previous request by the AU to the UN Security Council to postpone the indictment. It also brings the AU’s position into line with that of the Arab League, which rejected the ICC decision at its summit in Qatar earlier this spring.

Not all African countries approve of the AU’s stance; Botswana, for example, has reiterated its support for the ICC’s indictment, as has Chad. From AU and Arab League statements, however, it’s clear that strong opposition to al-Bashir’s arrest exists from Capetown to Damascus, with echoes in Beijing. Spoken opposition - and its manifestation in (lack of) deeds as al-Bashir travels abroad unimpeded, undermines the ICC’s authority.

In May, Mali and Algeria began preparing to get tough on AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). For much of the past six weeks, however, AQIM appeared to be on the offensive. In Mali, an AQIM affiliate executed a kidnapped British citizen, Edwin Dyer, and appeared to be behind the assassination of Colonel Lamana Ould Cheikh, an army officer with responsibility for hunting militants. Meanwhile, militants claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Algeria.

Mali and Algeria are responding in different ways. Today, Malian forces captured an Al Qaeda base in the Sahara near the border with Algeria, killing “at least twelve” while losing five of their own soldiers.

For its part, Algeria is considering offering amnesty to militants who renounce violence:

The plan is to widen a limited amnesty already on offer to include the leaders of Algeria’s insurgency — excluded from previous offers on the grounds they had too much blood on their hands after nearly two decades of violent attacks.

A similar amnesty was used in Saudi Arabia as part of a strategy that helped defeat a three-year al Qaeda campaign there to destabilise the ruling family, and Yemen is trying to implement a similar scheme.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has raised the possibility of a wider, “general” amnesty in the past few months but statements from senior aides and members of the ruling elite indicate the idea is now closer to being implemented.

“Any measure, including a general amnesty, that could help to stop violence is welcomed,” Abdelaziz Belkhadem, influential leader of the ruling National Liberation Front and personal representative of Bouteflika, said earlier this month.

An upsurge in violence in the past few weeks showed the militants, operating under the banner of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), are still able to threaten stability in Algeria, an OPEC member and the world’s fourth largest gas exporter.

The group this month killed a British hostage, Edwin Dyer, it had been holding in Mali, to the south of Algeria. In Algeria itself, insurgents killed five paramilitary gendarmes southwest of the capital and a week later shot dead nine soldiers.

Overall though, security analysts say the number of attacks has declined sharply in the past few years and security forces have been gaining in strength.

The thinking behind the amnesty is that against this backdrop, many militants are ready to surrender if they are offered immunity from prosecution.

Potentially, these strategies can complement each other. It seems the problem of AQIM has at least two sources: lawlessness in the Sahara and political crisis in Algeria. Perhaps a show of government force in Mali will address the issue of lawlessness, while some form of amnesty in Algeria could supplement ongoing security efforts in Algeria and help resolve the political animosity there.

To read more about religion and politics in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, visit Sahel Blog.

Heavy fighting in Wahbo in central Somalia between pro-government Islamists and anti-government Islamists claimed over one hundred lives this weekend. Rumors flew that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a major Islamist rebel leader, was among them. Rebel spokesmen, however, denied Aweys’ death. On Sunday, AFP reported that Aweys was alive.

Here at America’s Future Now, I attended a panel this morning on Afghanistan featuring Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films and Rethink Afghanistan, Dr. Roshak Wardak (whom I interviewed yesterday), Anand Gopal and Ann Jones.

Gopal, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor, discussed three myths about troop increases that we will hear this summer.

1. Troops Bring Security

The reality, Gopal said, is that troop increases over the last few years have brought more violence and, in particular, more civilian casualties.

2. More Troops Can Prevent Civilian Casualties by Lessening Dependence on Airpower

The claim is often made that with more troops on the ground, the dependence on lethal airpower will lessen. The reality, Gopal said, is that American troops operate in small, mobile units. When they are ambushed, the units frequently call in air support, which in turns causes civilian casualties. Thus more troops actually means more air strikes and more civilian deaths.

3. Afghans Want More Foreign Troops

The reality, Gopal said, is that in some part of Afghanistan, where no major combat operations are taking place, Afghans may welcome the troops who assist in development operations. But in areas where real fighting is taking place, people are simply tired of fighting and being caught in the crossfire or in reprisals from insurgents.

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Ann Jones, a development practitioner who spent four years in Afghanistan, also offered some thoughts about the conditions for Afghan women. According to Jones, life for rural women did not change after US invasion, and in some cases became worse: many women were displaced through violence or widowed. Nor have Afghan women attained equal rights in Afghan politics. Despite language promising equality in the Afghan constitution, Jones continued, Afghan patriarchy continues in full force, often propagated not just by the Taliban but by elected Afghan politicians and government officials.

Learn more about Afghanistan at Rethink Afghanistan.

Yesterday Jason and I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Roshak Wardak, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament who is attending the America’s Future Now conference in Washington DC this week. Dr. Wardak will speak later this morning on a panel with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films and Anand Gopal of the Christian Science Monitor. Following the panel, the same presenters will hold a congressional briefing this afternoon entitled “Rethink Afghanistan: A View from the Ground.”

Our conversation with Dr. Wardak began centered on politics and violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We began by discussing the upcoming presidential elections this August, when Hamid Karzai will face some forty challengers from across Afghanistan, very few of them serious. Dr. Wardak seemed to think an upset of Karzai was possible, but not likely.

When I asked whether the elections would bring an uptick in violence, Dr. Wardak said that much depends on the trajectory of the fighting between Pakistan’s government and the Pakistani Taliban. That conflict, she said, is keeping Taliban forces busy in Pakistan when otherwise they would be continuing to cross the border and reinforce their compatriots in Afghanistan. Dr. Wardak believes in the short term that the Pakistani military will overwhelm the Pakistani Taliban, but warned that the Taliban have enduring appeal in tribal regions, possibly making them a long-term threat. Her greatest fear, she said, is that the Pakistani Taliban would gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal - in which case, she believes, nuclear weapons would not be used against India or Israel, but rather against NATO forces in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, she seemed to view the collapse of Pakistan as unlikely, and only foresaw a military coup in the event that the situation in Pakistan began to completely unravel.

Building from the idea that the war in Pakistan is keeping militants out of Afghanistan, Dr. Wardark argued that the solution to violence in Afghanistan would be two fold: use international forces to seal the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and invite the Afghan Taliban into negotiations and, ultimately, the electoral process. Regarding the first point, she decried the tendency of international forces to remain in big cities near big bases, only making occasional forays into rural areas and, in her view, leaving the border essentially unmanned. She believes that international forces in conjunction with Afghan forces could prevent most cross-border movement, crippling Taliban military operations.

Yet Dr. Wardak also believes that international forces should leave Afghanistan in the near future, and she stressed their deep unpopularity among residents of her province and throughout the country. For that reason, she holds that negotiations should take place between the Afghan government and the Taliban. If Taliban leaders are granted safe passage and removed from what she calls the US “blacklist” (which I assumed to mean the State Department’s list of terrorist groups, but could refer to another list), she believes the Taliban would participate in negotiations and, ultimately, participate in multiparty elections. The Taliban are tired of fighting, she says, and though they would not settle for having no say in Afghanistan’s future, they might settle for simply having a seat at the table. This perspective, of course, echoes Karzai’s offer to guarantee Mullah Omar’s safety if he participated in talks.

Above all, talking to Dr. Wardak brought home to me once again how intertwined the situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan are. This point cannot be stressed enough. Dr. Wardak spoke at length on how Pakistan is desperate to keep Afghanistan under duress and desperate to prevent Indian influence in Afghanistan. One of Pakistan’s great fears, she said, is having to cede land to Afghanistan in a border dispute concerning the validity of the Durand Line as a border between the two countries, and so long as Afghanistan remains in chaos the possibility of a border change remains remote. Thinking about the complexity of Pakistan’s interests in and attitudes toward Afghanistan, I concluded once again that America’s “friendship” with Pakistan is bringing us a lot of trouble, and that we are likely deluding ourselves if we believe that Pakistan’s interests and our interests can truly align.

In sum, the conversation with Dr. Wardak confirmed some of my feelings about the situation in Afghanistan and also gave me a lot more to think about. I encourage you to visit Rethink Afghanistan to learn more about her visit to the US and about the war.

This post is part of a National Media Day of Action on Afghanistan. See Jason’s post for more.

In Afghanistan, the months ahead will likely offer more of the same: more civilian casualties, more drone strikes and, potentially, more American troops. In fact, as tensions ramp up before the election in late August, violence may increase further. Meanwhile, the administration does not appear to be any closer to achieving its stated goals of defeating Al Qaeda.

At, however, opposition to escalation is growing among the public. And some policymakers are growing increasingly skeptical about the tactics we’re using in South Asia. In a high-profile dissent, David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, prominent COIN thinkers, denounced drone strikes in Pakistan and advocated their abandonment. If Kilcullen and Exum feel that way, you can bet others, less vocal, are also questioning our policies toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Congress, skepticism is growing as well. Sixty Representatives recently voted against a war funding supplemental, while Rep. James McGovern’s bill demanding an exit strategy for Afghanistan drew upwards of seventy co-sponsors. That may sound like an ignominious defeat for the skeptics - but to put it into perspective, roughly one-sixth of the House of Representatives is raising severe doubts over a war that supposedly enjoyed universal support just four months ago.

Opposition to escalation really has nowhere to go but up. One reason is that in many quarters, support for escalation was never strong to begin with. With only preliminary oppositional efforts from activists and national politicians, already nearly half of Americans oppose the war. And given that the news coming out of Afghanistan is rarely good, it is my belief that the more Americans know about the situation there, the weaker their support for escalation will become.

That’s why actions like this media day are so important. If support for the war is already wavering, imagine how strong the opposition will be after a few more months of public education and outreach.

I hope you’ll get involved, and if you’re still making up your mind about Afghanistan, check out Get Afghanistan Right and Rethink Afghanistan.

This week the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is conducting a straw poll of grassroots progressives on the following question:

“Should a Draft Sestak movement be created to take on Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary?”

Here’s why I encourage you to take the poll, and why I voted yes:

I believe Democrats should welcome anyone who wants to join us - but that does not mean newcomers should take or keep high positions without working for them and showing a genuine commitment to the party and its principles. Arlen Specter might prove to be a great Democrat and a great Democratic senator. But let him start by proving that to Pennsylvania Democrats in a contested primary.

Congressman Joe Sestak is not a perfect progressive. Supporters from his own district have criticized his behavior in Congress on issues like the war. Friends of mine have indicated disappointment with Sestak’s stances on health care and other domestic priorities.

But Rep. Sestak is a Democrat in more than name, and with a strong background in elected office, military service, and national security, he has the credibility to challenge a sitting senator. Sestak speaks effectively about his doubts regarding Specter, and the themes of a solid campaign are already taking shape: Pennsylvania needs a real Democrat. Or as Sestak said: “Too many jobs have been lost for us to worry about somebody else’s job who’s switched parties.”

I can imagine multiple positive outcomes if Sestak enters the race. I do not know if he can win, but I am confident that he can scare Specter - hopefully enough that Specter will move left on key issues like health care and the Employee Free Choice Act. The rigors of a primary may also solidify Sestak’s progressive leanings. If Sestak wins, then, Pennsylvania may not only get a real Democrat as a senator, but a real progressive.

The key ingredient in insurgent victories seems to be time. If grassroots activists can convince each other that this is a worthwhile investment of time, money, and energy, and if activists can convince Sestak to enter the race at an early point in the cycle, chances of victory will increase dramatically. With national attention focused on the Pennsylvania Senate race and struggles going on within the Republican party even despite Specter’s departure, progressives have a chance to make their mark in a dramatic way. Netroots donations can provide the seed money, and activist bodies can fuel the bottom-up enthusiasm necessary for a game-changing campaign.

Major challenges exist, like Specter’s high approval rating among Pennsylvania Democrats. An insurgent campaign won’t be easy. But the potential gains outweigh the risks. I believe the straw poll will show major enthusiasm for a primary challenge - and that enthusiasm can overcome many obstacles, even incumbency, big donors, and big name supporters. With Sestak himself showing real energy to mount a challenge, it’s time for the grassroots to show our energy as well.

I encourage you to weigh in with your opinion.

Courtesy of Brave New Films and, of course, Cpl. Reyes himself:

Robert Greenwald and Zack Pelta-Heller have more.

If being a “responsible progressive” means backing bad policies out of cheap political calculations, count me out.

The Center for American Progress and Lawrence Korb are feeling some heat for advocating escalation in Afghanistan. The Nation asks

Where is the memo from the Center for American Progress outlining the case against giving the president “a blank check for endless war”?

Korb responds, arguing that “responsible” progressives endorse escalation, while others oppose all war out of naivete.

Hiding behind the President, he makes the good war/dumb war distinction. But the President was referring to the buildup toward war in Iraq - not to an occupation that has lasted more than seven years without clear success. As Bob Herbert says,

The time to go all out in Afghanistan was in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks. That time has passed.

The question is not whether Afghanistan is a “good” or “dumb” war, but rather whether escalation will make America safer. Korb’s assertion that “Afghanistan was and still is a war of necessity” needs to be evaluated against present national security interests. Korb only identifies three:

First, despite some setbacks, Al Qaeda and its affiliates have regained a strategic safe haven within Afghanistan and Pakistan. Second, a failed Afghanistan would threaten the stability of Pakistan and the region. Finally, Afghanistan’s opium revenues fund regional and international terrorists.

None of these points provides a clear rationale for escalation.

First, the New Republic, of all places, has problematized the idea that we must eliminate safe havens:

The emphasis on destroying “safe havens”…establishes a tricky rationale for our presence in Afghanistan. Even if we succeed in spreading effective governance to southern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, are we then prepared to go to wherever the transnational terror groups relocate? Are we prepared to clear out the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon? Or provide governance to the Horn of Africa? The new Obama plan is a dangerous precedent. If the reason we are staying in Afghanistan is to deny al-Qaeda the use of safe havens, where are we going next?

Second, the US military presence is destabilizing, not stabilizing, Pakistan.

Our attempt to seal off Afghanistan undermines [Pakistan's] stability in several ways. First, our favored weapons of choice in Pakistan–Predator drones–kill civilians, devastate communities, and cause popular outrage against the United States. Just as dire, the drone strikes generate rage against the Pakistani government for being unable or unwilling to stop the strikes. The former helps our opponents recruit and expand and find safe haven; the latter destabilizes a fragile civilian government still struggling to bring its military to heel. That in turn drives Pakistani populations to withdraw their support for chasing down the opponents of the U.S. inside their territory.

That’s why Pakistani citizens, journalists, military experts, and leaders vehemently object to American policy in the region.

Third, disrupting terrorist financing and fighting a drug war does not justify or require occupation of a foreign country. The drug war is, moreover, another problem escalation can’t solve. Just ask journalist Scott Wilson about the lessons we can draw from Colombia’s experience. As Lance says,

Although [Scott] balks at rejecting escalation in so many words, reading between the lines we can extract the following; more troops will have a negligible impact; building up state institutions, not killing insurgents, is one of, if not the, most important task; and protection of civilians is paramount.

We can undertake that kind of work, as we do in countries around the world, without injecting more troops.

Given how weak Korb’s arguments are, his attacks on antiwar progressives seem to have more to do with politics than policy. Perhaps Democratic elites think escalation in Afghanistan will prove that Democrats are tough guys too. But the satisfaction of calling antiwar progressives naive will quickly evaporate if escalation fails to bring about a decisive victory in Afghanistan.

But don’t take it from me - I’m just a blogger too ideological to know a “good war” when I see one. Take it from the experts lining up to oppose escalation: former Ambassador Dan Simpson, the Carnegie Endowment’s Gilles Dorronsoro, Andrew Bacevich, NSN’s Les Gelb, Col. Sam Gardiner (ret.), and a growing number of other Americans who demand real responsibility in policymaking.

This post is part of Get Afghanistan Right’s Break The Silence campaign.

Presidents can’t just snap their fingers and make policy - they maneuver within constraints. So even though I was disappointed by the strategy review on Afghanistan, I don’t blame Barack Obama.

I blame the “experts” - some of them from our side - who not only give the President bad advice, but also reduce the space he has to make tough choices about a conflict with no military solution.

We need to break the silence on Afghanistan - and that includes shining a spotlight on some of the players in the current “debate.”

On the right, we see some familiar characters. John McCain and Joe Lieberman recently called Afghanistan “our must-win war” and urged an open-ended counterinsurgency campaign there. With McCain as their ringleader, neocons at AEI, the brand new Foreign Policy Initiative (better known as PNAC 2.0), and Max Boot also urge escalation.

I’m sure all those right-wingers have President Obama’s - and America’s - best interests at heart.

Turning to the left, we also find a chorus of supporters for escalation - including some who tacked to the right of the administration.

The President said that our strategy is “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” He laid out goals for the next two years, and said that “we are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future.”

Lawrence Korb at the Center for American Progress, however, calls for a ten-year commitment to Afghanistan, and for giving the Pentagon the full number of troops it requested. CAP’s recent panel on Afghanistan consisted of Korb (a former Republican), Frederick Kagan (a neocon), Fred Kaplan (a journalist), and Ali Jalali (former Interior Minister of Afghanistan and a rumored presidential candidate). Do these men really represent a center-left American perspective on war?

Meanwhile, the progressive organization VoteVets has consistently supported escalation. Taking a shot at our Get Afghanistan Right coalition, Jon Soltz proclaimed that “Obama Got Afghanistan Right” in the strategy review (who knew all it took to “get it right” was a speech and a white paper?).

Such an array of voices backing the same policy - neocons, Republican leaders like McCain, “moderate” independents like Lieberman, veterans’ organizations, and center-left think tanks - might suggest that the debate on Afghanistan is over. With “liberals yet to roar” on the war (subscription required), many antiwar groups silent, and an “expert” consensus forming, one might assume that ordinary Americans share in that consensus too.

Except that’s not true. Polls say Americans are deeply divided on Afghanistan, depending on how you frame the questions. Comment sections on progressive blogs and newspaper websites pulse with debate about escalation.

Moreover, there is no “expert consensus.” More and more people with deep knowledge and experience, from former Ambassador Dan Simpson to the Carnegie Endowment’s Gilles Dorronsoro to Andrew Bacevich to NSN’s Les Gelb are saying that we can achieve President Obama’s main goal - defeating Al Qaeda - without a costly and counterproductive escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Politicians are debating the war too. A fierce debate took place within the administration regarding strategy in Afghanistan, with Vice President Biden and others arguing for a more limited set of objectives than what we see in the finished product. The 77-strong Congressional Progressive Caucus is holding a series of forums on Afghanistan with the aim of making formal recommendations to the administration. Some members of Congress have gone further, sending a letter asking the President to reconsider escalation.

It is important that Americans - especially progressives - recognize that despite the seeming unanimity among experts from the right and left, there is vigorous debate and dissent around Afghanistan policy. As Jason said earlier this morning:

So, please join me and speak out with your opinion on escalation in Afghanistan. You’ll be in good company - today, bloggers on Daily Kos, Firedoglake, here at The Seminal, and numerous other outlets are expressing their views as well. So please, take a moment and write a blog post on Oxdown Gazette.

And when you’re done, continue your activism. Sign a petition for oversight of the Afghanistan war by Congress. Call your representatives in Washington and share your views directly. And tell your friends about Get Afghanistan Right so more people can get involved.