Syria.......
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/syrian-regime-jets-pound-rebels-after-intelligence-general-killed
The wall and fences around the town are decorated with the three stars graffiti, which means that the territory is controlled by the Free Syrian Army and forces loyal to the government can’t enter.
In 2011, the Yabroud residents were among the first to support the campaign against Syrian president Bashar Assad. Since then it has been cut off from the capital Damascus and run by the rebels.
Maria Finoshina says she had to cover her head when she entered the town as it is governed under Islamic law.
“For two years Yabroud has been liberated. We have civil and local councils. We have sharia law tribunals and normal courts. We have muftis and lawyers - they carry out justice. We run the town by ourselves,” Majed Jumaa, Yabroud Revolutionary Civil Council president, told RT.
“The army can’t enter. And even if they try – we are ready to resist and defend our land,” he added.
The self-styled Free Syrian Army fighters don’t cooperate with other militants, functioning instead as an autonomous armed brigade. They live in abandoned houses, sleep and pray together and claim fighting Bashar Assad is their only goal.
The rebels aren’t only fighting Assad, but also compete with each other – even for media attention - being among journalists is considered to be prestigious.
But for some militants the press is just a source of income, with at least 15 foreign journalists currently being held hostage in Syria. The latest incident, on Thursday, saw a team from Sky News Arabia going missing.
With so many rebel groups in their town, the Yabroud’s locals – especially, those of Christian faith – are paying the bills for the opposition’s food and weaponry.
“We as Christians pay so-called taxes. This is our input into society. We go to church and pay taxes. Muslims also pay,” Wassim Bara, chief of the Revolutionary Tribunal, explained. “We pay for the internal security brigades and for relief, aid and courts. They appeared because of the revolution – and they need money.”
Yabroud's Christians families are forced to pay a tax $35,000 per month to the Islamist rebels, Patriarch Gregorios III, the leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, said earlier this week.
Local dentist, Hani Akil, said that there’s “a shortage of food and everything,” while he and other residents“feel besieged” in their own town.
With over 100,000 dead in two years of civil war in Syria, the situation in Yabroud indicates that factions involved in the bloody conflict and their goals are increasingly diverging.
Jamaa had previously served as a top Syrian military official in Lebanon, and was blacklisted by the US Treasury Department in 2006 after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, though he was never charged with involvement in the death.
http://www.debka.com/article/23370/Obama%E2%80%99s-potential-release-of-12bn-of-frozen-Iranian-assets-would-be-followed-by-35-billion-from-Europe
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources: This plan offers Barack Obama a way to ease sanctions on Iran, while avoiding political and diplomatic fallout in Congress and from Jerusalem that would result from an attempt to get the sanctions legislation repealed or amended.
Ahead of the next round of talks on Nov. 7-8, the Obama administration hopes to warm world opinion to the proposition that Iran’s leaders, especially President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his deputy Abbas Araghchi, need more incentives for concessions. They must be able to show their doctrinaire colleagues at home that diplomacy and smiles win more than intransigence.
Asked by CNN what Szubin was doing there, senior US negotiator Undersecretary Wendy Sherman said:
Most of all, Obama is set against allowing himself to be persuaded by Netanyahu’s arguments of the terrible danger posed by a nuclear Iran.
Foreign Minister Zarif put his oar into the conflict between Washington and Jerusalem Friday with this comment: “There is a high possibility that the talks will be disturbed by various efforts on the part of Israel,” he said. “This reflects Israel’s frustration and warmongering.”
Under the plan, Iran would agree to a full stop of its 20 percent uranium enrichment, and would convert all of its existing stock to fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), the US-built medical isotope reactor. All enrichment at Fordo would end, and the underground facility would be converted into a research center. Natanz would remain open for enrichment, though the negotiations are discussing the level and scope of that enrichment still.
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/syrian-regime-jets-pound-rebels-after-intelligence-general-killed
Syrian regime jets pound rebels after intelligence general killed
BEIRUT // Syrian jets bombarded the eastern city of Deir Ezzor on Friday after heavy overnight clashes and the killing of a top military intelligence officers.
General Jamaa Jamaa was shot dead on Thursday by snipers in the middle of a battle with rebels including forces linked to Al Qaeda, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
His death, celebrated by rebels and opposition activists, marked a significant setback for Bashar Al Assad’s bid to retain a hold over the city, capital of the eastern oil-producing province.
A death notice published on Facebook said Jamaa’s body was being flown back for burial on Friday in his home village of Zama in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean, the heartland of Mr Al Assad’s Alawite sect.
Syria’s two-and-a-half year uprising began with peaceful protests but has descended into civil war with sectarian dimensions. Syria’s Sunni majority has largely joined the revolt against four decades of Assad family rule. Minority sects such as the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, have largely stood behind the president.
Jamaa, 59, had served as Syria’s top military intelligence officer in Lebanon until Damascus withdrew its forces under intense international pressure in 2005.
The withdrawal followed the February 14, 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Al Hariri, a killing widely blamed at the time on Syria, and for which Jamaa was investigated by a United Nations team.
Jamaa was then appointed chief of military intelligence in Deir Ezzor, a prominent and sensitive position because of the flow of Sunni militants across the border into Iraq where insurgents were fighting US and Iraqi Shiite forces.
In August 2011, five months after protests first erupted against Mr Al Assad, the European Union imposed sanctions on Jamaa for his role in “repression and violence against the civilian population”.
Activists say dozens of rebels and pro-Assad forces have been killed this week in heavy fighting around Deir Ezzor.
The observatory reported clashes overnight in several districts of the city and said rebels from the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al Nusra executed 10 soldiers they captured in the Rashidiyah district, where Jamaa was killed on Thursday.
While rebels had made progress and launched an attack on the nearby military airport, they were unlikely to achieve a speedy and complete victory in the strategic region which borders Iraq, the observatory’s Rami Abdulrahman said.
Although much of Deir Ezzor province is under rebel control, some tribes remain loyal to Mr Al Assad and control of the city itself is shared between rebels and loyalists, he said.
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 110,000 people and divided the Middle East between Sunni Gulf states and Turkey which mostly support the rebels, and Shiite Iran and Hizbollah which have backed Mr Al Assad.
International efforts are growing to convene peace talks in Geneva next month, encouraged by rare agreement among global powers over the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons after sarin gas attacks near Damascus in August.
But the United States and Russia, responding to Syria’s announcement that the talks would go ahead in Geneva on November 23-24, said on Thursday that no date had yet been set.
The international envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is due to hold talks in the region next week to try to prepare for the negotiations, his spokeswoman Khawla Mattar said.
Brahimi will start his tour in Cairo on Saturday, meeting Egypt’s foreign minister. Iran and Syria are expected to be among the stops on Mr Brahimi’s itinerary.
While Mr Brahimi is in the Middle East, Mr Al Assad’s international opponents will gather in London on Tuesday. The office of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he will travel to Britain for the meeting, which will be attended by the US secretary of state, John Kerry.
Even if the long-delayed Geneva talks do go ahead there is little prospect of forging a political deal on which Mr Al Assad and his foes could agree.
George Sabra, head of the Syrian National Council which is a prominent party in Syria’s broad opposition coalition, said on Friday that Mr Al Assad must step down as a precondition for the talks in Switzerland on political transition in Syria.
“We want an announcement in advance that Bashar Al Assad and his ruling clique ... form no part of the political life in Syria in the transitional stage and in future,” he said. “The transitional body that results from the meeting should have full powers including those of the presidency.”
Mr Al Assad has said he will not step down before presidential elections next year in which he may seek a third term. He has ruled out a ceasefire with rebels he dismisses as terrorists and says there can be no talks with any opposition figures who support foreign military or political intervention in Syria.
and......
Besieged on their own land: RT goes to rebel-held Syrian town of Yabroud
The locals in the Syrian town of Yabroud are paying a high price for antagonistic opposition groups controlling their land. They live in fear and payhigh taxes to provide the Islamists with food and arms, RT’s Maria Finoshina reports from the scene.
The town of Yabroud near the Syrian-Lebanese border is just 80 kilometers from Damascus, but it's more like a state within a state, with its own police, security forces and even an army.
The wall and fences around the town are decorated with the three stars graffiti, which means that the territory is controlled by the Free Syrian Army and forces loyal to the government can’t enter.
In 2011, the Yabroud residents were among the first to support the campaign against Syrian president Bashar Assad. Since then it has been cut off from the capital Damascus and run by the rebels.
Maria Finoshina says she had to cover her head when she entered the town as it is governed under Islamic law.
“For two years Yabroud has been liberated. We have civil and local councils. We have sharia law tribunals and normal courts. We have muftis and lawyers - they carry out justice. We run the town by ourselves,” Majed Jumaa, Yabroud Revolutionary Civil Council president, told RT.
“The army can’t enter. And even if they try – we are ready to resist and defend our land,” he added.
The self-styled Free Syrian Army fighters don’t cooperate with other militants, functioning instead as an autonomous armed brigade. They live in abandoned houses, sleep and pray together and claim fighting Bashar Assad is their only goal.
Twice a week, the rebels hear an Islamic lecture from a young man, who everybody calls the Sheikh – he’s taken part in the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and studied The Koran in Saudi Arabia.
“Every Monday and Thursday we discuss the revolution, the latest military developments as well as our daily routine. We discuss what's halal and what's proscribed or forbidden by Islam,” the Sheikh said.
When asked if they are connected to Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated radical Islamic group openly operating in Syria, the rebels said: “No, no, no, no!”
“The Al-Nusra is linked to the outside, any decision they take comes from outside. They follow Al-Qaeda and, for decisions, they revert to their Amir or even Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s leader. We have normal relations with them,” one of the FSA fighters explained.
The Yabroud area, supposedly run by opposition fighters is, in fact, in the hands of a large number of separate brigades, armed groups or just lone rebels with different ideologies.
“Every Monday and Thursday we discuss the revolution, the latest military developments as well as our daily routine. We discuss what's halal and what's proscribed or forbidden by Islam,” the Sheikh said.
When asked if they are connected to Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated radical Islamic group openly operating in Syria, the rebels said: “No, no, no, no!”
“The Al-Nusra is linked to the outside, any decision they take comes from outside. They follow Al-Qaeda and, for decisions, they revert to their Amir or even Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s leader. We have normal relations with them,” one of the FSA fighters explained.
The Yabroud area, supposedly run by opposition fighters is, in fact, in the hands of a large number of separate brigades, armed groups or just lone rebels with different ideologies.
The rebels aren’t only fighting Assad, but also compete with each other – even for media attention - being among journalists is considered to be prestigious.
But for some militants the press is just a source of income, with at least 15 foreign journalists currently being held hostage in Syria. The latest incident, on Thursday, saw a team from Sky News Arabia going missing.
With so many rebel groups in their town, the Yabroud’s locals – especially, those of Christian faith – are paying the bills for the opposition’s food and weaponry.
“We as Christians pay so-called taxes. This is our input into society. We go to church and pay taxes. Muslims also pay,” Wassim Bara, chief of the Revolutionary Tribunal, explained. “We pay for the internal security brigades and for relief, aid and courts. They appeared because of the revolution – and they need money.”
Yabroud's Christians families are forced to pay a tax $35,000 per month to the Islamist rebels, Patriarch Gregorios III, the leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, said earlier this week.
Local dentist, Hani Akil, said that there’s “a shortage of food and everything,” while he and other residents“feel besieged” in their own town.
With over 100,000 dead in two years of civil war in Syria, the situation in Yabroud indicates that factions involved in the bloody conflict and their goals are increasingly diverging.
Rebel Snipers Kill Key Syrian General
Gen. Jamaa Slain in Deir Ezzor
by Jason Ditz, October 17, 2013
Syrian Major General Jamaa Jamaa, the top military intelligence officer for Deir Ezzor Province, was assassinated today in the province by rebel snipers, according to Syrian state media.
Jamaa had previously served as a top Syrian military official in Lebanon, and was blacklisted by the US Treasury Department in 2006 after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, though he was never charged with involvement in the death.
Deir Ezzor is a key province in eastern Syria, and clashes were reported between military and rebel forces in several parts of the oil-rich province. The details surrounding the assassination are unclear, though it was said to happen in the capital city’s Rashdiya District.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory claimed Jamaa was shot in the middle of a battle in which the military was fighting against al-Qaeda forces. That hasn’t been confirmed by any other outlets yet.
| Russia, US Deny Date Set for Syria Peace Conference |
Iraq.......
Iraq Eid Attacks: 76 Killed, 229 Wounded
by Margaret Griffis, October 17, 2013
Although the Eid al-Adha holiday began rather quietly, militants unleashed a torrent of violence today that left 76 people dead and 229 more wounded. The capital suffered several bombings, but so did towns in the ethnically diverse north. Also, fugitive vice president Tareq al-Hashemi offered to return to Iraq if the European Union will help guarantee him a fair trail. Hashemi fled after, what many claim, was a politically motivated campaign to take power away from Sunni politicians.
In the Baghdad region, the terror began at sunset. A bomb killed 11 people and wounded 22 more in the northern suburb of Husseiniya. Eight people were killed and 15 more were wounded in a blast in the mixed Christian neighborhood of Garage al-Amana. A car bomb exploded next to a Gareat restaurant, killing seven and wounding 14 more. A second bomb was reported. Four people were killed and 12 more were wounded in a blast in New Baghdad. A suicide bomber attacked a Douracheckpoint, where he killed five people and wounded nine more. A bombing in Shurtaleft three dead and 12 wounded.
In Allawi, a bomb killed two people and wounded 13 more. One civilian was killed and seven more were wounded in a bombing in Bayaa. A blast in Maamil wounded 13 people. Five people were killed and 16 were wounded in Sadr City where a car bomb was detonated next to a playground.
At least 15 people were killed and 60 more were wounded near Mosul in the Shabakvillage of Moufaqiya, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car at 6:00 a.m.
In Mosul itself, a bomb targeting a home belonging to a Shabak family left one child dead and three other people wounded. Gunmen killed a policeman and wounded another in separate attacks.
A suicide bomber set off his vest inside a cafe in the predominantly Turkmen city ofTuz Khormato where at least four people were killed and 27 more were wounded.
In Wadi Hajar, gunmen blew up four homes belonging to policemen. The attacks left four people dead and two children wounded.
Gunmen killed one policeman and wounded another in Falluja.
A policeman was gunned down in a Ramadi drive-by shooting.
A bomb at the home of the head councilman of Karbala province managed to onlywound one policeman.
In Kirkuk, a policeman was wounded during a shooting at the home of an officer.
Iran.........
Tehran stands to gain access to nearly $50 billion if the Obama administration decides to free up $12 billion of frozen Iranian assets in the US, inevitably followed by Europe’s release of another $35 billion. The White House was reported Friday, Oct. 18 to be weighing a proposal to offer Iran access to these funds “in installments” against "steps to cut down on its nuclear program."
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources: This plan offers Barack Obama a way to ease sanctions on Iran, while avoiding political and diplomatic fallout in Congress and from Jerusalem that would result from an attempt to get the sanctions legislation repealed or amended.
US lawmakers and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continue to call for harsher measures against Iran, after the Geneva conference last week failed to achieve any breakthrough in the controversy on Iran’s nuclear program.
Although its delegation avoided any pledge to suspend uranium enrichment and offered no plan to dismantle its enrichment facilities, US officials complimented the Iranian position as “more candid and substantive” than in previous diplomatic encounters.
Indeed, according to our sources, the Iranian delegation advised the six world powers on the opposite side of the table to simply accept Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fatwa as an ironclad pledge of the Islamic Republic’s commitment to refrain from developing a nuclear weapon and continue to pursue a peaceful program.
As for a substantial proposal to cut back on their nuclear operations, the Iranian negotiators said firmly: Sanctions relief first; concessions only at the end of the road.
As for a substantial proposal to cut back on their nuclear operations, the Iranian negotiators said firmly: Sanctions relief first; concessions only at the end of the road.
Ahead of the next round of talks on Nov. 7-8, the Obama administration hopes to warm world opinion to the proposition that Iran’s leaders, especially President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his deputy Abbas Araghchi, need more incentives for concessions. They must be able to show their doctrinaire colleagues at home that diplomacy and smiles win more than intransigence.
Even before the Geneva conference, the White House was already putting in place the plan for relieving sanctions by the release of frozen funds - which is why the US delegation included for the first time the Director of the OFAC (the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control), Adam Szubin.
Asked by CNN what Szubin was doing there, senior US negotiator Undersecretary Wendy Sherman said:
“The purpose of having our sanctions team here with us is because … Iran wants to get sanctions relief. But they also have to understand what the range of our sanctions are, what they require, how they work, what it takes to implement sanctions relief, what sanctions we believe need to stay in place.”
Even this gesture failed to elicit from the Iranian delegates any concrete concessions. The obviously fed-up senior Russian delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, summed up his impression of the conference by commenting sourly that it was “…better than Almaty" (where the last round of talks took place in April) but offered “no guarantee of future progress.”
Nevertheless, President Obama is determined to keep up his strategy of appeasing Tehran and showing Congress and the Israeli prime minister that they are wasting their time by trying to stop him easing sanctions on Iran, because he will bypass them with presidential decrees.
Most of all, Obama is set against allowing himself to be persuaded by Netanyahu’s arguments of the terrible danger posed by a nuclear Iran.
Foreign Minister Zarif put his oar into the conflict between Washington and Jerusalem Friday with this comment: “There is a high possibility that the talks will be disturbed by various efforts on the part of Israel,” he said. “This reflects Israel’s frustration and warmongering.”
Details Emerge of Iran’s Nuclear Proposal
Finalizing Deal Could Take Months
by Jason Ditz, October 17, 2013
While the proposal itself remains confidential among the nations involved in this week’s conference, details of Iran’s nuclear proposal to the P5+1 have leaked into the regional press, with many things we had already assumed, and some that hadn’t been discussed previously.
Under the plan, Iran would agree to a full stop of its 20 percent uranium enrichment, and would convert all of its existing stock to fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), the US-built medical isotope reactor. All enrichment at Fordo would end, and the underground facility would be converted into a research center. Natanz would remain open for enrichment, though the negotiations are discussing the level and scope of that enrichment still.
Regarding previous reports of Iran offering additional transparency above and beyond that required by their current safeguards agreement, the report now is that Iran will ratify the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which governs more stringent reporting requirements.
Serious discussion is also being had about the still-under-construction Arak reactor, with Iran agreeing to leave handling spent fuel at the site to the IAEA. This is important because the spent fuel would contain plutonium, and with reprocessing could be weaponized (though Iran has no such reprocessing facility either existing or planned).
Officials have to a man expressed optimism about the negotiations, though Western diplomats sought to tamp down expectations that a deal could be finalized at the November 7-8 meetings, saying there’s much more discussion before a deal is done.
That’s in keeping with Iran’s position as well, as they have reportedly sought to finalize a deal within six months, and a lot of details about timetables and sanctions easing have to be worked out, which will take time.
Afghanistan......
Kerry’s claim that Afghanistan’s U.S. forces deal is ‘under the same standard’ as Japan or Korea
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai (R) shakes hands with Secretary of State John F. Kerry after a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul (REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin/Pool)
“With respect to the jurisdiction issue, we have great respect for Afghan sovereignty. And we will respect it, completely. And that is laid out in this agreement. But where we have forces in any part of the world, and we unfortunately have them in a number of places in the world – in Japan, in Korea, in Europe, in other parts of the world, Africa. Wherever our forces are found, they operate under the same standard. We are not singling out Afghanistan for any separate standard. We are defending exactly what the constitutional laws of the United States require.”
– Secretary of State John F. Kerry, news conference in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Oct. 12, 2013
The rating on this column has been updated.
This is a bit of a complex issue, but an important one. The United States and Afghanistan are negotiating a “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA), which sets the rights and privileges of U.S. personnel in a country, that would allow the presence of 5,000 and 10,000 U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, to advise and train troops, after combat troops leave for good in 2014. The talks have been difficult, but Kerry last week announced a preliminary accord after making an unannounced visit to Kabul.
The question is: Is Kerry correct that Afghanistan is being held to the same standard as Japan, Korea, Europe and Africa?
The Facts
As the Congressional Research Service noted in an interesting 2012 report on SOFAs, there is no standard document but almost all such agreements address whether a country has criminal jurisdiction over U.S. personnel. Some may be as short as one page while others have exceeded 200 pages. The U.S. has signed more than 100 such agreements, almost all bilateral, though an important multilateral agreement is with NATO. The NATO agreement actually extends to 50 countries because 24 are subject to the terms of the NATO SOFA because they participate in a junior NATO called the Partnership for Peace.
Regarding civil and criminal jurisdiction, the CRS report that there are also big differences.
“The United States has entered agreements where it maintains exclusive jurisdiction, but the more common agreement results in shared jurisdiction between the United States and the signatory country,” the report says. “Exclusive jurisdiction is when the United States retains the right to exercise all criminal and disciplinary jurisdiction for violations of the laws of the foreign nation while the individual is present in that country. Shared jurisdiction occurs when each party to the agreement retains exclusive jurisdiction over certain offenses, but also allows the United States to request that the host country waive jurisdiction in favor of the United States.”
Generally, depending on how solid a country’s judicial system is, the SOFA is either tougher or weaker. Mongolia, for instance, can request that the United States waive jurisdiction in cases concerning criminal behavior unrelated to official duty but the United States is only required to give “sympathetic consideration” to the request. In the now-expired SOFA for Iraq, the United States offered the illusion of jurisdiction by saying it could be claimed if a soldier acted “outside duty status” but in fact service members always have duty status.
By contrast, the NATO SOFA provides for shared jurisdiction, in which jurisdiction is granted in certain circumstances, such as an offense is punishable by a country’s laws. Japan and South Korea, two other countries Kerry mentioned as being equivalent to Afghanistan, have tried U.S. soldiers for criminal offenses, even though the service members sought refuge in the U.S. courts to thwart the legal actions; their efforts were rejected, including in one case by the U.S. Supreme Court.
With these facts in hand, legal experts we consulted said Kerry’s statement was incorrect, though few were willing to go on the record, perhaps in an effort to preserve relations with the State Department. Karzai has said he would submit the issue of whether U.S. soldiers can be exempted from trials in Afghan courts to a traditional loya jirga meeting and the Afghan parliament, so the issue is not quite settled yet.
“To the extent there is a general norm, in terms of countries with a significant U.S. troop presence, Europe, Japan and Korea, the structure is very different than that in the U.S.-Afghan security agreement,” said Christopher Jenks, director of the criminal justice clinic at SMU Dedham School of law, who defended SOFA cases while in the U.S. Army JAG Corps. “There is no country in the world in which the U.S. has 10,000 + service members and that country not have primary jurisdiction over those U.S. service members in the vast majority of crimes. Afghanistan would be the one and only.”
In response to The Fact Checker’s queries, Kerry spokesman Alec Gerlach issued this statement:
“Secretary Kerry’s absolutely right that it’s the United States’ negotiating position to seek exclusive criminal jurisdiction in status of forces negotiations. This was the leading reason we were not able to achieve a SOFA in Iraq, and it’s a position shared by this and the previous Administration. The United States always aims to protect the right of American citizens to due process under our Constitution. As the Secretary reiterated, ‘we don’t subject United States citizens to that kind of uncertainty with respect to their rights and lives.’ With almost no exceptions in recent times, our SOFAs provide for exclusive U.S. criminal jurisdiction over our personnel. We aim to ensure that the constitutional rights of U.S. personnel, including the right of due process, are protected equally abroad as at home.”
Essentially, the State Department is asserting that when Kerry referred to the “same standard,” he was speaking broadly about SOFAs, not differences among them.
“State is responding to what Kerry perhaps should and could have said, not what he did say,” Jenks said. “I spent a year in the legal adviser section at State and represented [the Department of Defense] at the Poland SOFA negotiations, so I empathize with Kerry. But only to a point. And which he, and the [Department of State] response, are well beyond.”
In particular, Jenks said, “where the U.S. has significant numbers of troops in foreign countries, those foreign countries have primary jurisdiction over U.S. troops in the vast majority of crimes. And those are the countries/regions Kerry listed, Japan, Korea and Europe. So for Kerry to list those countries and claim an equivalency between the SOFA standards there versus Afghanistan is flat out wrong.”
The Pinocchio Test
This comes down to a question of what Kerry actually said — versus what he meant to say. Precision in language is not necessarily his strong point, but Kerry did make these remarks standing next to Karzai, expressing strong support for Afghan sovereignty while at the same time pushing for a criminal jurisdiction regime which would deprive Afghanistan of criminal jurisdiction in Afghanistan over crimes against Afghans.
At the very least, Kerry’s claim that Afghanistan would be under the “same standard” as Japan, Korea or Germany is certainly open to misinterpretation, if he indeed was referring only to the concept of a SOFA.
We wavered as to whether this statement merited Two or Three Pinocchios, but ultimately settled on Two, given that legal issues are not always clear-cut. But if the Afghans somehow were convinced they got the same deal as Japan or Korea, they should probably check the fine print.
Update, 8:30 am: In an interview on NPR that aired shortly this column first appeared, Kerry repeated the claim (note section in boldface):
“[There] is the question of who maintains jurisdiction over those Americans who would be there. Needless to say, we are adamant it has to be the United States of America. That’s the way it is everywhere else in the world. And they have a choice: Either that’s the way it is or there won’t be any forces there of any kind.”
In light of Kerry’s new statement, we are revising this rating to Three Pinocchios.
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