World roundup: January 28 2021
Stories from Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Poland, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
January 27, 1944: The Soviet Red Army finally ends the 872 day Siege of Leningrad by driving off the last German forces still remaining in the vicinity of the city. Whether you go by the highest estimates, which put the death toll north of 5 million; the lowest, which put it around 1.2 million; or somewhere in between, Leningrad was one of the longest and deadliest military encounters in recorded history. Soviet casualties alone have been estimated at greater than the combined US and UK casualties suffered during all of World War II.
January 27, 1973: The United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese Provisional Revolutionary Government all sign the Paris Peace Accords, marking the end of the Vietnam War. The deal called for the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam and the imposition of a ceasefire, plus the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Laos and Cambodia. The ceasefire failed almost immediately, but the US was in no position to stop the eventual fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
January 28, 1077: Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV’s humiliating journey to the Castle of Canossa to beg forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII ends when the pope agrees to grant him an audience. Henry’s penitence was a highlight of the “Investiture Controversy,” during which the emperor and the pope got crosswise over the issue of which of them should have final say over the appointment of bishops in imperial cities. Long story short, Gregory excommunicated Henry, who was forced to trek to the pope’s winter residence at Canossa to beg forgiveness. This didn’t end the controversy, though, and Gregory excommunicated him again in 1080. This time Henry invaded Italy with an army and put his own pope (OK, anti-pope) in power. Meanwhile German nobles attempted to replace Henry and the empire descended into civil war. The Investiture Controversy wouldn’t be resolved until the Concordat of Worms in 1122, which affirmed the Church’s right to choose its own officials but allowed imperial authorities to have some diminished influence on the process.
January 28, 1846: A British East India Company army under Sir Harry Smith defeats a somewhat larger Sikh force at the Battle of Aliwal. The Sikhs lost somewhere around 2000 men, many in a disorganized retreat after the British captured the village of Aliwal and were able to attack the Sikh line from two directions. The victory is seen as crucial to the British victory in the 1845-1846 First Anglo-Sikh War, because it eliminated a Sikh threat to the EIC’s supply lines and allowed its main army to undertake the decisive offensive that brought the conflict to an end.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for January 28:
102,005,726 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (25,961,573 active, +595,497 since yesterday)
2,199,120 reported fatalities (+16,175 since yesterday)
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
13,885 confirmed coronavirus cases (+62)
906 reported fatalities (+6)
Al-Monitor’s Khaled al-Khateb reports that several Iranian-aligned militia fighters in eastern Syria have defected, though they haven’t exactly switched sides. According to Khateb these fighters have quit their Iranian-backed factions and gone over to the Russian-backed “Fifth Corps.” Why, you ask? Well, Iranian-aligned militias get bombed a lot, whether by Israel or the US (or both), and Russian-aligned militias do not. Seems reasonable. And since Russia and Iran are ostensibly on the same side, these fighters don’t actually have to change their pro-government orientation. Of course, Russian and Iranian interests in Syria only overlap to a point, but presumably the areas where they diverge, to the extent they’re relevant at all, aren’t very relevant to these paramilitaries.
TURKEY
2,457,118 confirmed cases (+7279)
25,605 reported fatalities (+129)
The pirates who attacked a cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria over the weekend and carried off most of its crew—the majority of whom were Turkish nationals—have reportedly made contact with the ship’s Turkish owners with an eye toward negotiating a ransom. The 15 crew members in custody are said to be in good condition. One crew member was killed during the attack and three more crew members remained on board and brought the vessel into port.
IRAQ
617,202 confirmed cases (+943)
13,024 reported fatalities (+6)
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kahdimi announced on Thursday that Iraqi security forces have killed Abu Yaser al-Issawi in “an intelligence-led operation.” Issawi was reputed to be the Islamic State’s commander in Iraq, so if true he’s a pretty big fish and may put a dent in IS’s recent Iraqi resurgence. It may not be true, though, given how often these sorts of things get misreported.
LEBANON
293,157 confirmed cases (+3497)
2621 reported fatalities (+68)
Protests in Tripoli continued for a fourth straight day on Thursday, fueled in part by the death of a protester who’d been shot by police overnight. Another 220 people were injured in the overnight violence. Demonstrators, angry over a weak economy that’s been further battered by the pandemic, targeted the homes of local political figures for protest on Thursday.
IRAN
1,398,841 confirmed cases (+6527)
57,736 reported fatalities (+85)
Robert Malley, who served on Barack Obama’s National Security Council and has been running the International Crisis Group for the past several years, is expected to become the Biden administration’s new Iran envoy in the next day or two. I don’t really feel like we have the time or space here to litigate every complaint that’s going to ring out from the “Bomb Bomb Iran” echo chamber over the next several months/years, but Malley’s potential appointment has really thrown that crowd into a temper tantrum. Murtaza Hussein has recounted much of it for The Intercept, and Peter Beinart commented on the fuss earlier this week at his Substack:
At one level, the venom is absurdly overblown. Malley has exhibited neither “sympathy” for the Iranian regime nor “animus” toward Israel. In fact, as veteran Middle East hand Aaron Miller has noted, “Malley’s views on Iran parallel [other] senior folks” Biden has hired.
But dig deeper and you can understand why people like Cotton are worried. Because Rob Malley has shown the capacity to do something Beltway militarists find deeply threatening: See beyond America’s self-congratulatory self-conception and grasp how the US and its allies look to their victims. That’s what makes Rob Malley special.
Maybe as his first order of business, Malley could try getting the Pentagon to stop flying B-52s over the Persian Gulf. Those needlessly provocative overflights serve no purpose beyond empty swagger.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
539,387 confirmed cases (+1910)
11,514 reported fatalities (+64)
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of Ahmed Omer Sheikh, who had been on death row over his role in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl back in 2002, along with three other people who had been sentenced to life in prison for playing lesser roles in the killing. All were acquitted by the high court in Sindh province back in April but were kept in custody pending the government’s (unsuccessful, clearly) appeal. As you might expect, this development has not been well received in Washington, where White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the court’s decision “an affront to terror victims everywhere.” US officials have suggested they could seek Sheikh’s extradition, but the likelihood of securing it is vanishingly small.
MYANMAR
139,152 confirmed cases (+350)
3103 reported fatalities (+14)
Myanmar’s election commission ruled on Thursday that there had been no significant fraud related to November’s general election. The Myanmar military—or more precisely the military’s political front, the Union Solidarity and Development Party—had challenged the results of that election, which gave Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy 83 percent of the available seats in parliament. The election was questionable, but largely because several districts were excluded from voting due to security concerns. Had those districts participated it seems unlikely it would have benefited the USDP to any significant degree. It remains to be seen how the military will take this ruling.
AFRICA
ERITREA
2085 confirmed cases (+0)
7 reported fatalities (+0)
The US State Department told the AP on Thursday that it has “pressed” the Eritrean government at “senior levels” over its (alleged) involvement in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. While Eritrean officials continue to deny involvement in, eyewitness accounts not only put their army in the middle of the Tigray war, they implicate Eritrean soldiers in some of its worst (alleged) atrocities. Concerns are now growing about the possibility that these Eritrean forces may refuse to leave the region even, presumably, if asked by the Ethiopian government. Needless to say a scenario like that would take the Tigray war in a whole new and very unwelcome direction.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
22,322 confirmed cases (+144)
665 reported fatalities (+4)
Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga said Thursday that he accepts parliament’s no confidence vote in his government and will step down without making a fuss. Ilunga’s departure is a blow to former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, whose Common Front for Congo coalition had controlled Ilunga’s government, and an opportunity for current President Félix Tshisekedi to appoint his own PM and solidify what he says is now an overwhelming parliamentary majority. Tshisekedi is claiming to have the support of 391 National Assembly members (out of 500) for his own coalition, the “Sacred Union.” His success in ousting Ilunga offered some evidence to support that claim, and he’ll now have the chance to prove it fairly conclusively.
Tshisekedi’s political success may distract from a new Human Rights Watch report excoriating his government’s human rights record:
President Felix Tshisekedi’s administration in the Democratic Republic of Congo has increasingly cracked down on the media and activist groups during its two years in office. Despite some initial steps to advance a human rights agenda, the government has threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained, and prosecuted several dozen journalists, activists, and others deemed critical of the government.
“People in Congo shouldn’t have to fear harassment or arrest for criticizing or peacefully protesting government policy,” said Thomas Fessy, senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Two years on, Tshisekedi’s commitments to respecting rights are starting to sound like broken promises.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 83 people by phone between January 2020 and January 2021, including victims of abuse, lawyers, activists, and journalists. The researchers found at least 109 cases of arbitrary arrests and harassment over the past year. Many victims were journalists, who faced intimidation, threats, and sometimes beatings. Intelligence agents from the National Intelligence Agency (Agence nationale de renseignements or ANR) were involved in at least 16 cases.
EUROPE
POLAND
1,496,665 confirmed cases (+7156)
36,443 reported fatalities (+389)
An estimated 400,000 people turned out in several Polish cities on Wednesday night and into Thursday, protesting against the official imposition of a near-total national abortion ban. The Guardian has video of the demonstrations:
SERBIA
390,637 confirmed cases (+1592)
3965 reported fatalities (+21)
The Serbian government may be vaccinating people in northern Kosovo against COVID-19, which would be fascinating if true since it doesn’t have the Kosovan government’s permission to be doing so. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić made comments late last year that suggested his government would begin a vaccination program in that predominantly Serb region, but nobody seems to know if he’s followed through or is planning to follow through on them. At this point there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that he has or is, but it would probably be a good idea to figure it out for sure, along with other little details like which vaccine, if any, the Serbs are using. Needless to say this bizarre situation has not charmed the Kosovan government at a time when these two countries are supposed to be settling their various grievances in order to advance their European Union membership applications.
GERMANY
2,194,562 confirmed cases (+14,883)
56,220 reported fatalities (+862)
New US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on Thursday that “Germany is highly valued as a station and that American soldiers feel very comfortable here.” Or in other words, you can probably expect the Biden administration to roll back the Trump administration’s decision to redeploy thousands of US soldiers out of Germany.
AMERICAS
UNITED STATES
26,338,607 confirmed cases (+162,574)
443,769 reported fatalities (+3908)
Joe Biden has taken a few more foreign policy-related executive actions over the past couple of days. On Wednesday he signed a number of orders dealing with environmental issues, including a moratorium on oil and gas exploration on federally owned land that is not retroactive and therefore may have no practical effect given how many exploration contracts the Trump administration doled out. On Thursday he rescinded the “global gag rule,” which barred US foreign aid from going to any organizations that are not strictly anti-abortion. That rule, which was rescinded by Barack Obama and then restored—and enhanced—by Donald Trump, substantially undermines any US funding for programs and organizations that deal with women’s health, so good riddance until the next Republican administration I guess.
Finally, at TomDispatch, Mandy Smithberger and William Hartung make the case for rebuilding civilian control over the US military and, thereby, over American politics:
At a time of acute concern about the health of our democracy, any such rethinking must, among other things, focus on strengthening the authority of civilians and civilian institutions over the military in an American world where almost the only subject the two parties in Congress can agree on is putting up ever more money for the Pentagon. This means so many in our political system need to wean themselves from the counterproductive habit of reflexively seeking out military or retired military voices to validate them on issues ranging from public health to border security that should be quite outside the military’s purview.
It’s certainly one of the stranger phenomena of our era: after 20 years of endless war in which trillions of dollars were spent and hundreds of thousands died on all sides without the U.S. military achieving anything approaching victory, the Pentagon continues to be funded at staggering levels, while funding to deal with the greatest threats to our safety and “national security” — from the pandemic to climate change to white supremacy — proves woefully inadequate. In good times and bad, the U.S. military and the “industrial complex” that surrounds it, which President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned us about in 1961, continue to maintain a central role in Washington, even though they’re remarkably irrelevant to the biggest challenges facing our democracy.
These days, it’s completely normal for military and defense officials to weigh in endlessly on what once would have been civilian matters. As the Biden years begin, it’s time to give some serious thought to how to demilitarize our democracy.