EnMasse

[elmateo]

The "success" of the surge in the media has been presented as a result of an increase in troop levels. In the imaginations of Americans this likely brings pictures of friendly American youths patrolling the streets, giving out candy, accepting flowers. But this isn't the reality. The picture we should be seeing is much more like Alfonso Cuarón's dystopic vision of London in Children of Men - or a more historical one from the Warsaw ghetto. Baghdad is no longer a city, it is a series of enclosed neighbourhoods with restricted access in and out. Think the "Green Zone" without golden toilets and luxury hotels. Actually don't think the Green Zone, since the only thing these areas share is large concrete walls and an occupying army - the rest of the way people live is likely much more horrific and poor. In this world the mark of success is isolation. The method is to put whole populations with solitary confinement - the epitome of American prison culture. The Iraqis, the thinking goes, are too uncivilized to live together therefore they get to live with no one.

But what kind of city would this be? What kind of people are being created? What all happens, as a result, when the Americans eventually do leave and the walls come down?

For Baghdad these are scary questions. But this is a model not just for Baghdad, but for the world. Rapid urbanization has been driven by the largest human migration in the history of this planet towards the cores of elite wealth in the global south - slums are becoming the homes of millions of new urbanites in cities like Mumbai, São Paulo, Rio de Janerio, Bogotá, Mexico City, Lagos, and the list goes on. From the movie City of God western culture has been informed of the violence in Rio's infamous favelas, reinforced by news of streetwars between gangs and the police. It is clear that the slum as a model for urbanization is failing. But as these areas erupt with violence and anger - now too close to home for elites - the Baghdad model is a possible candidate for the world's cities.

Raúl Zibechi describes this model as it spreads across the global south in his article The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries:

[elmateo]

Another aspect that worries me a lot about the militarization of urban areas is the rise of paramilitary groups. It isn't new to have armed thugs running neighbourhoods, but for a period this kind of social management was on the decline as the idea of a cohesive state being the only legitimate source of violence. In many places in the world this was not possible and in some cases it wasn't legitimate (for example I would not say that Argentina's use of violence was legitimate and I would have a difficult argument to say it was not just to organize defensive violence against such a state).

In current conflicts - Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, many countries in Africa (not an area of the world I know much about, I'll leave that discussion for someone with more knowledge), and central America- there is an increase of paramilitary activity in the form of insurgencies, rebel factions, drug gangs, and rightwing death squads.

In Afghanistan, I have heard some developmentalists argue that NATO should give up on trying to establish the state's sole legitimacy of force - it isn't possible. I am inclined to agree as there has never been a centralized state in the western model. But what shape the nongovernmental violence takes is open for discussion.

That takes us to what is happening in Iraq. The US government has been arming Sunni paramilitary groups who have now taken up security patrols in many Sunni parts of Iraq. Similarly there are Shia groups like Sadr's Mahdi Army. Amongst this mix there is also the paramilitary forces of American contract mercenaries. For the American media this unholy balancing act of armed groups has been a success - part of the surge's larger success in bringing down attacks on US troops and less car bombings in Baghdad. But the long term picture of stability is less clear as the balance is very precarious and the capacity for violence of all the actors in Iraq has been greatly increased.

This model of urban violence is one that is being played out in urban slums in Latin America as well by rival drug gangs and rightwing paramilitary groups. While some sort of day-to-day semblance of order has been established in cities like Colombia's Medellin by a very similar balancing act of armed thugs - the number of political assassinations carried out with impunity has increased. This is a worrisome trend for leftists as the violence that before was chaotic and what appeared to be random for the general public has become directly focused against dissent.

The monoploy of force and violence in these situations is no longer in the hands of the "state" but paramilitary groups that promise "security and order". Urban violence under this model becomes more discriminate and directed, more oppressive and facist. And in the bleakest of pictures there is no clear end to this kind of violence as paramilitary groups operate outside of any controlled social structure with the sole source of legitimacy in their ability to maintain "order" - an order that they and their political allies decide the character of.

Medellín: The Peace of the Pacifiers
http://news.nacla.org/2008/01/23/medellin-the-peace-of-the-pacifier...

Gender Savagery in Guatemala
http://news.nacla.org/2007/08/13/gender-savagery-in-guatemala/

Corporate Murder in Brazil: Land Activists Shot by Militia Linked to Multinational
http://news.nacla.org/2007/10/29/corporate-murder-in-brazil-land-ac...

Colombia’s New Urban Order

[elmateo]

Here is a sick example of the new militarism:

The US commissioned a new warship made from salvaged "9/11 steel". Instead of building, I don't know a school or hospital, they build a warship? And they wonder why they were attacked? Or why they are leading the world into a period of exceptional violence?

[elmateo]

On a different scale, the militarism of societies through small arms to paramilitary groups - particularly rightwing death squads and drug traffickers who have very little interest in ideas of equality and a lot in using fear and violence to maintain their own power in a country - are a horribly destabilizing force, promoted by death-based capitalism. Important to note that this is one area where the US continues to be a net-exporter to the world, and as global economic turmoil continues the economy of insecurity is one area of "growth" for the US.

In Latin America, small arms are a serious plague. Urban violence is a serious problem in every major city, the worst cities being in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. All of these countries have had their fair share of paramilitaries and drug-based organizations. Their nefarious past has not made these groups less likely to receive arms from the purveyors of liberty, in fact most ironically, it is in fact their nefarious nature that makes them the ideal candidates - they have money.

Colombia and Brazil: Deadly Diversions 02 Apr 2008
by Pablo Morales

[munroe]

Elm, I just wanted to thank you for these posts. Truly a well constructed and interlinked story.
_________________
Out of Afghanistan, NOW!

[elmateo]

A missing piece of the narrative has been the collapse of the surge in Iraq as the Iraqi government targeted Sadr's militia in Basra and Baghdad. The use of violence to wipe out political opponents is frightening, in a country like Iraq it means the long term instability and fragility of any path forward. There are strong interests in maintaining a culture of violence, political instability, and general fear amongst the populace. Primarily it fuels an economy of gun and bullet sales. In the case of Iraq, as an example, it serves American and ruling political elites to maintain the threat of violence as a source of political instability as it legitimates the killing of potential political opponents to the overall "goal" - in Iraq's case the partition, separation, isolation, and exploitation of natural wealth.

In Colombia the civil war is used to make a President look good, suppress alternative political movements, cause political crisis in the region, and perpetuate an ongoing economy of drugs, guns, and death.

As the global economic instability begins to deeply effect peoples lives, particularly the poor, the potential for the manipulation of violence and fear by political elites increases - desperation on all fronts as uncertainty roams in the minds of those in power and hunger in the stomachs of those without.

Another interesting article along these lines, missed it a few weeks back:
Military Crisis in South America: The Results of Plan Colombia
Written by Raúl Zibechi

[SwimmingLee]

[elmateo]

It is a bit of a stretch of the premise, but still part of the increasing militarism lead by the US.

The US is going to re-establish its Latin American/Caribbean Navy after 50 years.

[TS.]

An American carrier battle group has enough firepower to probably single-handedly take on any nation in South America. Elmateo, you have it right on, as there is only one possible need for a carrier: to project power on the state level. For drug enforcement and anti-terrorism operations (though I have seen no evidence of any kind of current terrorist activity in Latin America beyond the Shining Path, Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the FARC, none of which have ever made any attack on the United States, or have any interest beyond the borders of their countries) existing US forces in the region are more than sufficient, after all the Coast Guard has been patrolling the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Florida for decades, and the US has military bases in Colombia and Panama. This is all about intimidating hostile states in the region.
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[elmateo]

The US is losing its airforce base in Ecuador. Political reasons, I think, they do not want to put a base in Colombia... it would also be a target there for the conflict. Paraguay is now not looking likely (and a little far from the action).

I think this, more than any other reason, is the cause of this (right now). But a carrier is much less constrained.

[elmateo]

If there is any doubt that this urban militarism is not a frightening prospect, the Real News articulates the horror of the violence of Sadr's city and the American example for dealing with the world's poor.

[elmateo]

The upcoming sporting events in Brazil are going to be a dramatic experience of urban militarism (anyone read up on the plan for Vancouver 2010? That is in Vancouver!) - particularly the Olympics in Rio. The World Cup 2014 is going to be an interesting and difficult to analyse experience. I want to write something on Rio, responding to an excellent faultlines (Al J Eng) documentary on the security issues in the city, but I just made a quickly written response to 'development' as part of the World Cup 2014, focused on Porto Alegre. A city I had a brief experience of last year. I think the urban militarization and bourgeois development plans is a key and important link to be made when urbanized spaces become exclusive and strongly divided along class lines. Different spaces become exceptions for state-violence in the name of security, while others become formally or informally regulated and controlled - effectively privatizing those spaces. If a city like Porto Alegre has problems along these lines during the World Cup, then many of the other host cities will be in much worse shape. Porto Alegre is, after Curitiba, the most 'developed' city as a whole hosting in the World Cup (Rio and São Paulo clearly have exceptionally rich areas but also much more extreme poverty) and thus is the 'optimal' case-study for the potentials of the World Cup having beneficial results for Brazil in terms of 'development' (I do not know what this word really means so I put it in quotations for someone else's definition).

This will link up to the overall theme in this thread through the follow-up on Rio, a city I did not have a chance to visit, but provides a much more clear example of securitization of urban spaces and ideas of 'development' from massive sporting events.