New US commander in Afghanistan assembles team of assassins
By Bill Van Auken
Confirmed Wednesday as President Barack Obama’s new commander for the widening war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, General Stanley McChrystal has been given extraordinary powers to assemble his own staff.
According to press reports published Thursday, in forming a permanent war council-dubbed the Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell-McChrystal is drawing heavily from a super-secret assassination squad that he commanded under the Bush administration.
That unit, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), was formed in December 1980 in the wake of the military’s abortive operation to free US hostages in Iran. Comprised of the Army’s Delta Force and Navy SEALs, the command directs Special Mission Units that carry out classified operations, often in collaboration with CIA squads.
Commanded by McChrystal between 2003 and 2008, JSOC has been linked to assassinations in over a dozen countries as well as abduction and torture. Under the Bush administration, it was reportedly used to carry out covert operations inside Iran, which included the abduction and assassination of officials suspected of aiding Iraqi militia groups.
Earlier this year, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who is writing a book on the subject, termed the command “an executive assassination wing.” He said that it was tasked with “going into countries...finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.” Hersh added that, under the Bush administration, the unit reported to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.
According to the New York Times, McChrystal “has been given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans.” The newspaper attributed the “extraordinary leeway” granted to the general to the Obama administration’s concern over the war, which over the past year has registered the highest levels of violence since the US invasion of the country in October 2001 and has seen the Taliban and other insurgent elements gain control over much of the country.
Citing Pentagon figures, McClatchy News reported, “The first five months of this year have seen a 59 percent increase in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, a 62 percent increase in coalition deaths and a 64 percent increase in the use of improvised explosives compared to the same period last year.”
Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the sudden ouster of Gen. David McKiernan and his replacement by McChrystal, a move that reflected increasing desperation in Washington. The shakeup followed the findings of a Pentagon task force headed by McChrystal in May that reported in relation to Afghanistan that the “security situation in key areas is poor, stalemated or deteriorating.”
Tapped to serve as McChrystal’s deputy and assigned to oversee day-to-day operations in Afghanistan is Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was chosen last year by Defense Secretary Gates as his personal military assistant. Rodriguez is reportedly a longtime friend and protégé of McChrystal.
McChrystal has selected Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as his intelligence advisor for Afghanistan, the Times reported. Flynn, who is currently director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, had previously served as McChrystal’s intelligence chief in the shadowy operations of JSOC.
Chosen as commander of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell is the longtime special operations officer Gen. Scott Miller, who as a captain commanded Delta Force troops in the US military’s “Blackhawk Down” debacle in Mogadishu, Somalia.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the so-called coordination cell is “modeled on a system Gen. McChrystal put in place in Iraq, when he commanded the Navy Seals and other Special Operations personnel.”
The units that he commanded in Iraq are reported to have carried out an assassination program in that country aimed at eliminating suspected leaders of Iraqi insurgent groups hostile to the US occupation. Personnel under his command also ran a detention and interrogation center near the Baghdad airport known as Camp Nama, where prisoners were subjected to systematic abuse amounting to torture. The motto of the unit running the camp was “No Blood, No Foul,” meaning that any form of abuse that did not draw blood was acceptable and would not result in investigations or prosecution. Soldiers assigned to the facility have reported that McChrystal was a regular visitor.
Given this background, it is noteworthy that the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee subjected McChrystal to no serious or sustained questioning during his confirmation hearing last week. The committee’s chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, disposed of the torture issue at the outset by helping McChrystal to lay the blame on then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and on orders from Washington.
The right-wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal gloated over the Democrats’ failure to make an issue out of torture, writing on June 4 that it assumed this was the case “because General McChrystal happens to have been nominated by President Obama, not President Bush.”
In the end, the only obstacle placed in the way of McChrystal’s nomination was general procedural foot-dragging by the Republicans.
To break the logjam, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went to the Senate floor Wednesday and made a dramatic announcement that he had received a telephone call from Adm. Mike Mullen. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman had told him, Reid said, that McChrystal had to fly to Afghanistan that very night and was “literally waiting by an airplane,” because there was no commander on the ground in Afghanistan.
“Let’s get the man approved tonight so he can go,” Reid said. Senate Republicans responded by moving to confirm McChrystal and two other military nominees.
Media coverage of McChrystal’s confirmation and the changes in war strategy surrounding the creation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell has centered on innocuous suggestions that the planned rotation of this core group of 400 between the war in Afghanistan and Afghanistan-related planning in Washington would allow these personnel to “accumulate expertise.”
McChrystal’s military career and those of the chief officers he is selecting as his aides, however, suggest that what is being prepared is a dramatic escalation of the killing in Afghanistan, through the utilization of the type of methods employed during Operation Phoenix in Vietnam or the death squad killings during the US intervention in El Salvador.
Speaking to reporters during a flight to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Defense Secretary Gates reiterated the repeated warnings from senior military officials that, as the US continues to build up its forces in Afghanistan to a target of nearly 70,000 troops by the end of the year, the bloodshed will grow accordingly.
“We've been very upfront about the fact that as we send in more troops, and go into areas that have not had an Afghan government or ISAF International Security Assistance Force presence yet, that there will be more combat and the result of that will be more casualties,” Gates said.
In its escalation of the US war in Afghanistan, and its increasing extension across the border into Pakistan, the Obama administration has chosen as its senior commander an officer who is among those most deeply implicated in the criminal operations carried out under Bush and Cheney. This appointment, and its confirmation by the Democratic-controlled Senate, is a clear warning that the ruling establishment in Washington is pursuing a consensus policy that will involve even greater war crimes against the Afghan people, as Washington continues its attempt to assert hegemony in Central Asia by military means.
Original article posted here.
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Friday, June 12, 2009
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
Our criminal allies and our global drug complicity
Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, in 2001. Both say accusations of drug trafficking are politically motivated.
WASHINGTON — When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.
Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.
Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.
The assertions about the involvement of the president’s brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.
Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan’s second largest city, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.
“I am not a drug dealer, I never was and I never will be,” the president’s brother said in a recent phone interview. “I am a victim of vicious politics.”
But the assertions about him have deeply worried top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money, several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have intensified as American troops have been deployed to the country in growing numbers.
“What appears to be a fairly common Afghan public perception of corruption inside their government is a tremendously corrosive element working against establishing long-term confidence in that government — a very serious matter,” said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, who was commander of coalition military forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is now retired. “That could be problematic strategically for the United States.”
The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week.
Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai, including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief and their British counterparts, American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, said several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks.
“We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there,” one official said. But President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. “We don’t have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment,” a White House official said. “That allows Karzai to say, ‘where’s your proof?’ ”
Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president’s brother.
Several American investigators said senior officials at the D.E.A. and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter. But White House officials dispute that, instead citing limited D.E.A. resources in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan and the absence of political will in the Afghan government to go after major drug suspects as the reasons for the lack of an inquiry.
“We invested considerable resources into building Afghan capability to conduct such investigations and consistently encouraged Karzai to take on the big fish and address widespread Afghan suspicions about the link between his brother and narcotics,” said Meghan O’Sullivan, who was the coordinator for Afghanistan and Iraq at the National Security Council until last year.
It was not clear whether President Bush had been briefed on the matter.Humayun Hamidzada, press secretary for President Karzai, denied that the president’s brother was involved in drug trafficking or that the president had intervened to help him. “People have made allegations without proof,” Mr. Hamidzada said.
Spokesmen for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
An Informant’s Tip
The concerns about Ahmed Wali Karzai have surfaced recently because of the imprisonment of an informant who tipped off American and Afghan investigators to the drug-filled truck outside Kabul in 2006.
The informant, Hajji Aman Kheri, was arrested a year later on charges of plotting to kill an Afghan vice president in 2002. The Afghan Supreme Court recently ordered him freed for lack of evidence, but he has not been released. Nearly 100 political leaders in his home region protested his continued incarceration last month.
Mr. Kheri, in a phone interview from jail in Kabul, said he had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and United States intelligence agencies, an assertion confirmed by American counternarcotics and intelligence officials. Several of those officials, frustrated that the Bush administration was not pressing for Mr. Kheri’s release, came forward to disclose his role in the drug seizure.
Ever since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, critics have charged that the Bush administration has failed to take aggressive action against the Afghan narcotics trade, because of both opposition from the Karzai government and reluctance by the United States military to get bogged down by eradication and interdiction efforts that would antagonize local warlords and Afghan poppy farmers. Now, Afghanistan provides about 95 percent of the world’s supply of heroin.
Just as the Taliban have benefited from money produced by the drug trade, so have many officials in the Karzai government, according to American and Afghan officials. Thomas Schweich, a former senior State Department counternarcotics official, wrote in The New York Times Magazine in July that drug traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. “Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government,” he said.
Suspicions of Corruption
Of the suspicions about Ahmed Wali Karzai, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has focused on the Afghan drug problem in Congress, said, “I would ask people in the Bush administration and the D.E.A. about him, and they would say, ‘We think he’s dirty.’ ”
In the two drug seizures in 2004 and 2006, millions of dollars’ worth of heroin was found. In April 2006, Mr. Jan, by then a member of the Afghan Parliament, met with American investigators at a D.E.A. safe house in Kabul and was asked to describe the events surrounding the 2004 drug discovery, according to notes from the debriefing session. He told the Americans that after impounding the truck, he received calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai and Shaida Mohammad, an aide to President Karzai, according to the notes.
Mr. Jan later became a political opponent of President Karzai, and in a 2007 speech in Parliament he accused Ahmed Wali Karzai of involvement in the drug trade. Mr. Jan was shot to death in July as he drove from a guesthouse to his main residence in Kandahar Province. The Taliban were suspected in the assassination.
Mr. Mohammad, in a recent interview in Washington, dismissed Mr. Jan’s account, saying that Mr. Jan had fabricated the story about being pressured to release the drug shipment in order to damage President Karzai.
But Khan Mohammad, the former Afghan commander in Kandahar who was Mr. Jan’s superior in 2004, said in a recent interview that Mr. Jan reported at the time that he had received a call from the Karzai aide ordering him to release the drug cache. Khan Mohammad recalled that Mr. Jan believed that the call had been instigated by Ahmed Wali Karzai, not the president.
“This was a very heavy issue,” Mr. Mohammad said.
He provided the same account in an October 2004 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Mohammad said that after a subordinate captured a large shipment of heroin about two months earlier, the official received repeated telephone calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai. “He was saying, ‘This heroin belongs to me, you should release it,’ ” the newspaper quoted Mr. Mohammad as saying.
Languishing in Detention
In 2006, Mr. Kheri, the Afghan informant, tipped off American counternarcotics agents to another drug shipment. Mr. Kheri, who had proved so valuable to the United States that his family had been resettled in Virginia in 2004, briefly returned to Afghanistan in 2006.
The heroin in the truck that was seized was to be delivered to Ahmed Wali Karzai’s bodyguard in the village of Maidan Shahr, and then transported to Kandahar, one of the Afghans involved in the deal later told American investigators, according to notes of his debriefing. Several Afghans — the drivers and the truck’s owner — were arrested by Afghan authorities, but no action was taken against Mr. Karzai or his bodyguard, who investigators believe serves as a middleman, the American officials said.
In 2007, Mr. Kheri visited Afghanistan again, once again serving as an American informant, the officials said. This time, however, he was arrested by the Karzai government and charged in the 2002 assassination of Hajji Abdul Qadir, an Afghan vice president, who had been a political rival of Mr. Kheri’s brother, Hajji Zaman, a former militia commander and a powerful figure in eastern Afghanistan.
Mr. Kheri, in the phone interview from Kabul, denied any involvement in the killing and said his arrest was politically motivated. He maintained that the president’s brother was involved in the heroin trade.
“It’s no secret about Wali Karzai and drugs,” said Mr. Kheri, who speaks English. “A lot of people in the Afghan government are involved in drug trafficking.”
Mr. Kheri’s continued detention, despite the Afghan court’s order to release him, has frustrated some of the American investigators who worked with him.
In recent months, they have met with officials at the State Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking to persuade the Bush administration to intervene with the Karzai government to release Mr. Kheri.
“We have just left a really valuable informant sitting in jail to rot,” one investigator said.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Meanwhile NATO is threatening Russia . . .
| Sarkozy Heads to Afghanistan Following French Troop Deaths | |
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Bryant report - Listen (MP3)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy traveled to Afghanistan Tuesday, after 10 French troops were killed and 21 wounded in the deadliest attack in several years on French forces deployed abroad. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA.
The French troops were killed in a battle with Taliban insurgents, who, officials say, attacked NATO forces on Monday about 50 kilometers east of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
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| French President Nicolas Sarkozy (file) |
Daniel Korski, a London-based defense specialist for the European Council on Foreign Relations, says the attack is the latest example of resurgent violence in Afghanistan.
"It's an incredibly dangerous mission that both French and other NATO allies are on, and what we've seen since 2007 is an increasingly capable Taliban insurgency - able to hit not just at civilian targets and the reconstruction efforts, but also against NATO soldiers," he said.
Korski says the French government is serious about its commitment in Afghanistan. But the troop deaths may fan doubts on the part of ordinary French about putting their soldiers in the line of fire - doubts that have been voiced in other European countries with troops in Afghanistan.
"The bigger problem is going to be with the French public," he said. "The mission in Afghanistan hasn't received much publicity - perhaps deliberately. And I think to a large extent, the number of deaths we're now talking about may spark the debate that has taken place in Germany, in Britain, in many other European countries - but hasn't really taken place in France yet."
The killings in Afghanistan amount to the deadliest attack on French forces since 2004, when nine French troops were killed in northern Ivory Coast, during the civil war in that West African country.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
How's that Afghanistan war workin' out for ya?
Taliban winning the war of words
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - In the first week of July, several people were killed in a village in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar by international forces. The US-led coalition forces described the operation as a precision air strike which had killed militants. Locals said they were civilians. Claims. Counter-claims. It seemed business as usual until investigations revealed that the air strike had in fact bombed a wedding party, killing 50, including the bride.
Though the incident was reported widely with concern for the civilian casualties, there was less attention on the other "collateral damage" it caused - the casualty of credibility.
The war of words between anti-government militants and pro-government forces has become so routine that little attention is paid to the contradictions in the claims. In the process, the anti-government insurgents are gaining, a dangerous situation when the government's legitimacy is already under question.
The power of the militants' propaganda is evident from a new report published by the Brussels-based independent International Crisis Group (ICG) this week. The report, "Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words", argues that the Taliban are "successfully tapping into the strains of Afghan nationalism and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul government and its international backers". The result, it says, "is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban".
A boom in independent media, with the help of generous donor support, began in 2001 following the ouster of the Taliban. As media houses mushroomed, however, little attention was paid to the efficacy of the communication strategies of the government and the international community.
Despite considerable funding of the offices of the communications departments of various ministries and high-level offices, little in the way of accountability has been sought from them. While media houses have had to "perform or perish", the communication wings of most government institutions bumbled along.
Take for example access to the media. The presidential spokesman (of Hamid Karzai) and the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior are arguably the two most important offices which give the government's viewpoint on major events. Yet among the media based in Kabul, these two are reliably known as the least accessible and their spokesmen are always "in meetings". Their offices, by relying on single individuals to impart information, are largely mute in their absence.
While spokesmen for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force are available and provide regular updates to the media, the office of the OEF is outside Kabul at the Bagram military base while the NATO media office is based in its headquarters in the capital.
Both bases are heavily fortified, making them difficult to access. The international forces also fail to provide transcripts of their press conferences, even though entering the military compounds is a tedious process which forces many journalists to opt out of attending the regular meetings.
Though the Taliban are understandably not easy to access, they provide ready updates on information and operations and their own claims. According to the ICG, the Taliban's rudimentary website is updated several times a day and the Taliban are able to put out their story rapidly, though its messages are sometimes contradictory.
The speed of the Taliban in communicating with the media is "much easier when spokesmen do not need to establish facts", the ICG states. However, the credibility that could compensate for the pro-government forces' lack of speed is also missing. Attuned to a military culture in which information is just part of propaganda in a situation of conflict, the international forces feel justified in presenting their version of the truth in the ongoing war. Unfortunately, this impacts not just on the military forces, but on the entire international community and the government.
Rather than step up their efforts to communicate, the pro-government forces are relying more on efforts to contain and control the media. Local journalists are from time to time issued "guidelines" on their content. A new media bill that is still on hold has invited fierce opposition from local journalists as it seeks to impose greater curbs on media content.
Journalists are also detained both by the government's national security apparatus and the international forces. While journalists cannot expect automatic exemption from the processes adopted by security agencies, the failure to charge the detainees or to produce any evidence leads to the assumption that the journalists were detained in connection with their professional work - an issue raised by the International Justice Network in Kabul last week.
When tasked with their lack of credibility or media savvy, pro-government spokesmen are prone to compare their efforts with those of the Taliban. However, this comparison is usually counter-productive since it invites the media to view the two "sides" as equal contending parties who need to be evaluated by the same yardstick, rather than automatically distancing the pro-government forces from the Taliban on the basis of a higher moral ground.
"The Taliban are adept at exploiting local disenfranchisement and disillusionment," the ICG report points out, emphasizing that "the Kabul administration needs to ensure it is seen as one worth fighting for, not least by ending the culture of impunity and demanding accountability of its members".
The ICG argues that the Taliban's propaganda is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban. The Karzai government and its allies must make greater efforts, through word and deed, it says, to address sources of alienation exploited in Taliban propaganda, particularly by ending arbitrary detentions and curtailing civilian casualties from aerial bombing.
"Whatever the military benefits of arbitrary detentions, they are far outweighed by the alienation they cause. The effectiveness of aerial bombardment, even if strictly exercised within the bounds of international law, must be considered against the damage to popular support," it says.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
Original article posted here.
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - In the first week of July, several people were killed in a village in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar by international forces. The US-led coalition forces described the operation as a precision air strike which had killed militants. Locals said they were civilians. Claims. Counter-claims. It seemed business as usual until investigations revealed that the air strike had in fact bombed a wedding party, killing 50, including the bride.
Though the incident was reported widely with concern for the civilian casualties, there was less attention on the other "collateral damage" it caused - the casualty of credibility.
The war of words between anti-government militants and pro-government forces has become so routine that little attention is paid to the contradictions in the claims. In the process, the anti-government insurgents are gaining, a dangerous situation when the government's legitimacy is already under question.
The power of the militants' propaganda is evident from a new report published by the Brussels-based independent International Crisis Group (ICG) this week. The report, "Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words", argues that the Taliban are "successfully tapping into the strains of Afghan nationalism and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul government and its international backers". The result, it says, "is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban".
A boom in independent media, with the help of generous donor support, began in 2001 following the ouster of the Taliban. As media houses mushroomed, however, little attention was paid to the efficacy of the communication strategies of the government and the international community.
Despite considerable funding of the offices of the communications departments of various ministries and high-level offices, little in the way of accountability has been sought from them. While media houses have had to "perform or perish", the communication wings of most government institutions bumbled along.
Take for example access to the media. The presidential spokesman (of Hamid Karzai) and the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior are arguably the two most important offices which give the government's viewpoint on major events. Yet among the media based in Kabul, these two are reliably known as the least accessible and their spokesmen are always "in meetings". Their offices, by relying on single individuals to impart information, are largely mute in their absence.
While spokesmen for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force are available and provide regular updates to the media, the office of the OEF is outside Kabul at the Bagram military base while the NATO media office is based in its headquarters in the capital.
Both bases are heavily fortified, making them difficult to access. The international forces also fail to provide transcripts of their press conferences, even though entering the military compounds is a tedious process which forces many journalists to opt out of attending the regular meetings.
Though the Taliban are understandably not easy to access, they provide ready updates on information and operations and their own claims. According to the ICG, the Taliban's rudimentary website is updated several times a day and the Taliban are able to put out their story rapidly, though its messages are sometimes contradictory.
The speed of the Taliban in communicating with the media is "much easier when spokesmen do not need to establish facts", the ICG states. However, the credibility that could compensate for the pro-government forces' lack of speed is also missing. Attuned to a military culture in which information is just part of propaganda in a situation of conflict, the international forces feel justified in presenting their version of the truth in the ongoing war. Unfortunately, this impacts not just on the military forces, but on the entire international community and the government.
Rather than step up their efforts to communicate, the pro-government forces are relying more on efforts to contain and control the media. Local journalists are from time to time issued "guidelines" on their content. A new media bill that is still on hold has invited fierce opposition from local journalists as it seeks to impose greater curbs on media content.
Journalists are also detained both by the government's national security apparatus and the international forces. While journalists cannot expect automatic exemption from the processes adopted by security agencies, the failure to charge the detainees or to produce any evidence leads to the assumption that the journalists were detained in connection with their professional work - an issue raised by the International Justice Network in Kabul last week.
When tasked with their lack of credibility or media savvy, pro-government spokesmen are prone to compare their efforts with those of the Taliban. However, this comparison is usually counter-productive since it invites the media to view the two "sides" as equal contending parties who need to be evaluated by the same yardstick, rather than automatically distancing the pro-government forces from the Taliban on the basis of a higher moral ground.
"The Taliban are adept at exploiting local disenfranchisement and disillusionment," the ICG report points out, emphasizing that "the Kabul administration needs to ensure it is seen as one worth fighting for, not least by ending the culture of impunity and demanding accountability of its members".
The ICG argues that the Taliban's propaganda is weakening public support for nation-building, even though few actively support the Taliban. The Karzai government and its allies must make greater efforts, through word and deed, it says, to address sources of alienation exploited in Taliban propaganda, particularly by ending arbitrary detentions and curtailing civilian casualties from aerial bombing.
"Whatever the military benefits of arbitrary detentions, they are far outweighed by the alienation they cause. The effectiveness of aerial bombardment, even if strictly exercised within the bounds of international law, must be considered against the damage to popular support," it says.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
Original article posted here.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
American genocide
Death Made In America
By: Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, PhD
Wondering if your conscience is still anesthetized...
A LITTLE TERRORIST:
ENJOY YOUR HANDIWORK USA.
I took this photo on the last day of my journey: one of triplets.
Afghanistan is has become the disaster words could not describe, hence, I decided to illustrate this disaster via these photos of babies born deformed.
On many occasions, I pointed out that we need funds to build a research institute and the linked monitoring stations. Unfortunately, majority of you simply brushed off my request. I wonder if these photos could elevate your humanity that has been overwhelmed by your comfortable life and materials desires.
Again, it is up to you, to do whatever you think is human; that should not be too difficult. The funds for the research institute are very small price you have to pay after all your tax dollars have created this disaster. Whether you like it, admit or deny it, it does not absolve you from the indirect complicity in these war crimes.
If everyone visiting this web site pays the amount they spend on soft drinks in a month, we would have the funds to build our research facility:
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OH A FEW MINOR DETAILS ABOUT SITUATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN:
URANIUM MUNITIONS
Due to the use of massive amount of uranium munitions used by the US forces in the initial bombing and subsequently, massive amount of congenital deformities occur all over Afghanistan. The rate of various cancers has gone up significantly. Leukemia and esophageal cancers are very high among children. According to doctors at maternity and children hospitals in Kabul, the rate of various congenital deformities have increased by many folds since the US invasion. In fact, the magnitude of man made isotopes was established by the Uranium Medical Research Center after their investigators made to trips to Afghanistan and collected urine and soil samples. They established that the rate of man made isotopes was gone up 2000 times in some subjects located near the bombed areas.
Since uranium used in the weapons have a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the US forces ensured that generations of Afghans suffer from cancers and deformities. This is certainly not development. In fact, it is the biggest crime ever committed by anyone in the history of humanity.
RECONSTRUCTION
There has been a lot of talk of reconstruction and rebuilding, but this issue could only be understood if one compares the substance against the rhetoric and the large amount of money allocated for the so-called reconstruction. Of all the whooplas made of reconstruction, the US and its client regime has only inaugurated the truck route-highway-between Kabul and Kandahar. This hallmark of achievement that the US brags about was completed 40 percent during the Taliban government. While the highway is inaugurated, it still needs significantly additional work to remain intact. The inauguration of the highway was a political ploy aimed to convince the critiques that the reconstruction has been going smooth. It is hardly so.
When I entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, the lack of achievement was evident. For the past three years, there have been construction efforts underway to pave the road from Torkham, the entry point from Pakistan to Afghanistan, to the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Pakistani contractors are more interested to have their tea breaks rather than to do any rebuilding. I brought up this issue with the authorities in Kabul, but to avail.
After reaching Jalalabad, I was further surprised to see the roads in the city with massive potholes, unpaved roads, hence, tremendous amount of dust blown in every direction. The reason for the lack of work in Jalalabad, as is the case almost every where in Afghanistan, corrupt officials eager to make money than to worry about the welfare of the people.
If a Mayor is appointed to a town or city, the would be mayor has to pay $40,000 bribe since he would be making more than $400,000 in selling government land to the highest bidder.
The magnitude of corruption is not limited to a province, but rather officials in the central government in Kabul are equally complicit in massive corruption and inefficiency which I would discuss shortly. Since the main road to Kabul is under construction for the past three years-we had to take a mountain pass called Lataband, which is a very rugged mountain terrain with huge rocks and massive potholes widespread for miles on. Once I reached Kabul, I stopped complaining about the Lataband road-after all Lataband is a mountain pass-Kabul the capital city lacked paved roads with exception of very few. The government in Kabul has not done anything of substance whether it pertains to infrastructure, housing, sanitation or drinking water. These are the essential elements of survival in any city. There are several reasons for the lack of progress. Some of the reasons are fundamentally flawed while others are bureaucratic hurdles and corruption. The fundamental flaws are situated in the free market approach superimposed on Afghanistan. There are two aspects of the free market that impedes the reconstruction of basic infrastructure in Kabul, one is the idea that money spent has to be invested with a return in mind, second, basic development should be contracted to private sector. Both of these issues have impeded the rebuilding of infrastructure.
In the first half of the 20th century, the Afghan government asked for a loan from the US government to build basic infrastructure-paved roads in Kabul, the government and the bank refused the loan on the ground that building roads in Kabul is not profitable investment. The government in Kabul at that time, argued that for any profitable enterprise to succeed basic infrastructure has to be built. So there is very little amount allocated for rebuilding basic infrastructure. It is worth noting that part of the blame goes to the international reconstruction aid as it is dispersed in such a way that some amount is allocated to the government in Kabul while the rest goes to the countless NGOs. Since the first problem, namely investment with a profit in mind, does not materialize in the construction of roads, efforts are made to resolve that problem through contracting out construction of roads to private sector. Thus, contracting out roads to private sector would mean money for contractors, hence, compensate for the lack of profitability associated with paving roads. This created another problem.
Once a road is contracted out, the private contracting firm resort to delaying tactics associated with feasibility study and other related issues in order to fatten its return. This delayed tactic does not serve peoples' needs and the roads remain unpaved. For example, the road from Kabul's airport to the presidential palace was contracted out three years ago it was still not built. This practice of contracting out projects adds to unemployment. Had the government adopted a different method, perhaps by hiring local laborers and using machinery, the chronic unemployment would be reduced, thus, people would have some food on the table.
Three weeks ago, Karzai announced that the road in the Dasht-e-Barchi area repaired and built. The allocated funding is $10,000000 ten million dollars. This is an outrage. Ten million dollars could repair all the roads in the capital, Kabul if only the function is taken over by the ministry of public works.
The Free Market Nonsense:
In order to please the US administration, the regime in Kabul advocated the notion of 'free market' as if this would become a panacea for the national economy. On the contrary, the so-called free market scheme had been tried in the past-the 1930s-- that resulted in fruitless consumerism of imported goods, which otherwise would have been produced domestically. Moreover, the consumption of luxuries received more priority than investment in productive sectors of the economy. A handful of businessmen and investors became rich while the rest of the country remained poor and destitute. Today, in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, the consumption of goods such as television sets and satellite dishes are more important than worrying about clean water and proper schooling. After all, as long as capitalism had brought the culture of corruption and entertainment, other necessities become secondary. Meanwhile, people with money import these goods, pocket their profits and leave. The desire of the installed regime to collect custom duties contributes to the perpetuation of underdevelopment.
Corruption also plays a significant role in the continuation of import than investment in productive infrastructure. For example, for the past 2-3 years over 100,000 tons of cement is imported while the construction plans of four cement factories collect dust. The official reason is that the country does not have a mining law. This year alone 380,000 tons of cement is imported this year alone. The question is how long does it take to formulate a mining law; it has been three years. The profit margin for dealers has skyrocketed while the long-term development prospects have waned down with every imported bag of cement.
AMERICAN CRIMES AND ORGANIZED CRIMES
With the collapse of Taliban, a very profitable, yet nasty sector of the economy has risen to new heights. Organized crime is an extension of what used to be warlords and their armies of bandits. With the warlords and other officials of the Northern Alliance occupying official positions, their former foot soldiers are equipped with new weapons and Toyota trucks, Landcruisers, with only one aim to kidnap people from diverse backgrounds for large sums of money. Once the money is secured, the government officials, who are also leading these bandits, keep 80 percent for themselves and 20 percent for their men.
The Italian aid worker, who was kidnapped in Kabul in broad daylight, was a victim of these organized bandits. After she was released, the government claimed that it secured the release of the aid worker through negotiation, but the truth is otherwise. The kidnappers received 5 million dollars. Those poor souls that can not afford paying ransoms end up dead.
Other groups of criminals kidnap children for money as well as for their organs. This is an epidemic that people sought Talibans' assistance for in the mid-1990s, however, it appears that this is no longer an issue for the US occupation force and their puppets after all when it comes to crimes what could be more criminal that using WMD against civilian population. The US forces have used uranium weapons against the people of Afghanistan, and continue to commit crimes that dwarf what the organized criminals are doing. The followings are some of the examples of the brutality of the US forces in Afghanistan:
Rape and Murder by the US forces
In the Bagrami area of Kabul, the US forces assaulted a small enclave of nomads. The US forces flew over this enclave and saw nomad women near their tents. They landed their helicopter and kidnapped these women by gunpoint. Subsequently, the US soldiers flew away with these women to some location, where these women are gang-raped. After these women were raped and died in the process, the soldiers flew them back to the community from where they were kidnapped. However, this time the helicopter did not land, instead, the women were thrown down from the helicopter. This is not unique for the US forces since they committed similar crimes in Vietnam. American forces are too much of cowards to have landed because they knew they would be shot in revenge.
Another incident occurred when a US helicopter spotted an old shepherd grazing his animals. The shepherd was 70 years old but this did not appear to matter to the US forces. The helicopter landed and raped the old man. His relatives told me that on the one hand we are furious about the crime committed by these beasts, but on the other hand we are curious "what kind of rotten people Americans are."
In another incident, a truck driver was driving his truck north from the Kabul, passing the US base in Bagram when the US patrol stopped him. In the passenger seat of the truck a young boy was sitting. This young man wanted to learn driving a truck, but tragically for him, the Americans noticed him and asked him to step out. The young man stepped out and the soldiers took him away from the truck and gang raped him. When the boy returned to the truck, he was crying and furious. Later that day, he committed suicide. This is another gift of the US's democracy.
In the American military base Bagram, north of Kabul, 15 translators while working for the US forces were gang raped by the very forces for which they worked. Although I have no sympathy for those that work for the US forces, however, no one should be subjected to such extreme cruelty. One of the translators said,
"Around 25 to 30 American soldiers enter the area where we were sleeping and started raping us. I was conscious until to the third soldier started raping me and then lost consciousness." (Hamid-translator for the US forces, June 2005)
In Badakhshan province, the US soldiers had taken forty (40) women and extracted their teeth for oral sex. One member of the parliament, who is a close supporter of Karzai, said:
"The issue of these women treated in such a miserable way was about to get some publicity, however, the US officials made sure that this does not happen." (Parliament member--I can not reveal his name)
In another incident, the US forces were searching local houses between JalaAbad and Kabul, when they entered and tried to search the house, they came across the woman of the house, since she was very beautiful, the soldiers decided to take her to the US base. The husband was not at home. When he returned from Peshawar, he went to get his wife. He told his wife,
"To me you are now my mother and sister, I can not touch you any more, but tell me if they have violated your dignity? 'They raped me by force, I was conscious for the first three men, then lost consciousness'." (The husband whose name I can not reveal his name. He joined Taliban afterward and I do not blame him.)
A young man committed suicide in the Laic-e-Mariam in KairKhana area after the Americans in an NGO raped his sister.
These are some of the very few examples of the many crimes committed by the US forces in Afghanistan, but unfortunately, the coward officials of the puppet regime call it reconstruction. To add insult to injury, the two American soldiers, who murdered two detainees at Bagram airbase, received only 2 and 3 months in jail for crime ruled homicide by the US medical examiners. The two detainees were beaten at their legs while hanging from the ceiling until their legs "pulverized". The term "pulverized" was used by the medical examiner to articulate the magnitude of the fatal injury and the inhumane way of murdering. When one of the victims asked for water, the soldier poured water over his face; subsequently, the poor man died. This is American reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Life for Ordinary People
There is absolutely no hope for the Afghans. The billions of dollars of development aid did not benefit ordinary Afghans. Abject poverty is the rule of the day. Orphans and widows roam the streets to make a living. The NGOs and foreign advisors enjoy life to the fullest. They are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, enjoy luxury vehicles and houses, while ordinary Afghans die from homelessness, hunger and disease.
In light of the London donor conference, which would amount to nothing considering the legacy of so-called reconstruction in Afghanistan; it is prudent to make some points.
It is a tragedy of immense proportion that no one even dare to address the abomination that is called life with inevitable demise at every corner resulting from the massive amount of uranium munitions used by the American forces and their allies. Our so-called Afghans self-sold surrogates are more than happy to jump on the bandwagon and express their gratitude for the token thrown at our people when in fact their entire existence is put in question by the massive use of weapons of mass destruction. Let the progress of the Bonn agreement tell the children of Tora Bora and Shah-e-Kot suffering from Leukemia and Esophageal cancers, or the massive number of sudden abortions occurring among women and animals in those areas.
Another legacy is the corruption of bribery and sheer robbery by the officials of this puppet regime eager to make dollars. Unfortunately, they do not even accept Afghan currency but rather demand dollars. According to an Afghan commission, the amount of bribes paid in Afghanistan ranges from 20 Afghani to 15,000000 Dollars. In a country where an experience medical technologist is paid $40/month, the millions of dollars paid in bribe point to the magnitude of profit individuals and companies expected to enjoy.
Abject poverty is every where and hopes of revival are no where. The billions of dollars donated went into the pockets of NGOs and powerful government officials, while the poor remains poor.
Another problem is Americanization of the system, namely whole sale firing of professionals with decades of experience under the pretext of making hospitals and offices efficient. The truth is the US wants to implement capitalism in Afghanistan and bring open market when in fact no has food to eat or money to pay for healthcare. The shortage of physicians and health technicians is ignored for the sake of this garbage called free market. Now there are no private companies to hire these professionals with decades of experience. It would have been nice if other opportunities existed, but there are none.
Today in Afghanistan, there are a few very rich and the rest extremely poor thanks to the United States of America.
Afghan Resistance and US losses:
The Afghan resistance fighters consist of Pashtuns, entirely. The East, Southeast, South and Southwest, West and part of Central area of Afghanistan are the most volatile. The US forces have lost a lot of soldiers there. In fact, ordinary Afghans used to wondered about the US losses and started to believe a myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan must come from orphanages in the US, hence, their death is not missed by anyone. To the Afghans, it does not make sense when so many soldiers lose their lives and yet there has not been any outrage on the part of the families of those soldiers. Thus, ordinary Afghans started this myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan are from orphanages since this was the only rational explanation they could find.
Before going to Afghanistan, different sources claimed that American dead were kept refrigerated on board ships in the Arabian Sea and at US bases in the Middle East. When I went to Afghanistan, many people within the Afghan Ministry of Defense told me similar stories that American dead are stored in refrigerated containers on board ships and at the US bases in the Middle East. In fact, one translator, who was working with the US forces, told me that he had seen refrigerated containers filled with dead US soldiers. The following two incidents should give a glimpse into the US losses and lies about those losses there.
Around June 12, 2005, an Afghan resistance fighter rammed an explosives laden vehicle into the US military convey in Kandahar. The result was severe losses for the US military. Initially, the media reported that five American soldiers were killed, then later that figure was abandoned and replaced with only four wounded. However, the truth was completely different. An eyewitness, Haji Habib told us an entirely different account of the losses:
"A suicide bomber slammed his vehicle into the US convey. The vehicle must have been full of powerful explosives because the explosion was really loud and shattering. After the dust and smoked settled, I counted the charred bodies. There were 39 charred bodies. The American cleanup team came with cranes and picked the destroyed armored vehicles and dead bodies before anyone could take photographs." (Haji Habib: June 14, 2005-my first trip)
In another incident around the 22nd of May 2005, the US forces lost 75 soldiers along with three tanks and three armored vehicles in Helmand province in Southwestern Afghanistan. This occurred when the US unit went to the province and arrested a former Mujahideen commander. The eyewitness, a translator, who witnessed and counted the dead bodies at Kandahar airport after being transported from Helmand described the operation as follows:
"The Americans went to Helamd to arrest a former commander. When they arrested him, his villagers and former Mujahideen fighters blocked the retreat of the US forces. The US forces fired at the men standing in their way, killing six of them. Since the rest of the fighters had already taken positions, the Americans were bombarded with RPG-7 grenade-launchers and heavy machinegun fire. In the firefight, the arrested commander was also martyred but also 75 American soldiers were killed, three of their tanks and three armored vehicles were also destroyed. When the American reinforcement arrived, all the Mujahideen fighters were long gone. Instead, the US helicopters bombed civilian areas." (Abdul Ali-eyewitness to the fight)
At the end of February 2006, in Uruzgan province an American convey was ambushed and 29 American soldiers were killed, while officially they admitted only four. These are just few of the many unreported losses of the US soldiers in Afghanistan.
FINAL NOTE
For those of you who would make the argument that we were attacked by Bin Laden and the Taliban refused to hand him over even though we refused to show his involvement, here is a piece of information revealed by Vice President Cheney. His answer to a question from the Tony Snow Show via telephone, and the link below is that of the White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html
Q: I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there -- that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.
So the US bombed Afghanistan and killed tens of thousands of people and turned the country into a uranium hellhole on a hunch?
Obviously so, and that is why, they could never produce an ounce of proof of his complicity in the attacks.
Original article posted here.Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The cat is out of the bag about what Bush's Democratic Revolutions really mean
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| Explosively False Propaganda Bush's Middle East legacy |
| by Muhammad Sahimi |
| No part of the world, not even the United States, has been more deeply affected by George W. Bush's presidency than the Middle East. From the lofty goals of starting a "democratic revolution," making a "new Middle East," and helping the Palestinians to have their own independent state, to the bogus "war on terror," invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and meddling in Lebanon, Bush's Middle East policy has been simply one disaster after another. The reality is that the Middle East is of utmost strategic importance to the U.S. U.S. involvement in that region will not end after Bush leaves office in January 2009. Therefore, as the president's second term is coming to an end, it is important to consider the results of his Middle East policy, with the hope the next president will learn valuable lessons from Bush's many blunders and devise a more constructive Middle East policy. So let us consider his legacy. Iraq If there is one minor positive outcome of Bush's Middle East policy, it has to be the removal of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party from power. But at what price?
As if the price that the Iraqis have paid so far is not enough, the Bush-Cheney administration has demanded the following in secret "negotiations" with Iraq's government :
The last one the U.S. also demanded of Iran in the early 1960s, which sparked the June 5, 1963, uprising in Iran, which eventually led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. As Ayatollah Khomeini said at that time: "Capitulation means if we kill the dogs that the Americans bring to Iran, we will be jailed, but if they kill us, our spouse, or our children, or destroy our homes, they will not be even prosecuted in Iran." Bush's Iraq legacy? A destroyed country, only nominally unified, and probably a quasi-colony of the U.S. for the foreseeable future. Afghanistan After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there was an ocean of good will toward the U.S., and great support for destroying al-Qaeda. What happened? Afghanistan was attacked, even though the U.S. knew that the al-Qaeda leadership had already escaped to the border region with Pakistan, and Donald Rumsfeld reportedly said that "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan." The Taliban were overthrown. But where is Afghanistan now?
Bush's Afghanistan legacy? An economic basket case that needs vast amounts of international aid to barely survive and will not be a viable state for decades, if ever. Pakistan Since 9/11, the U.S. has given Pakistan $11 billion in aid, in addition to forgiving its previous debts. Eighty percent of this aid has gone to the military to supposedly fight al-Qaeda. What has happened?
Bush's Pakistan legacy? An unstable nuclear nation with a large number of radicals in its military intelligence (the ISI) who support the Taliban. Lebanon After the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005, and the subsequent Cedar Revolution, Bush pushed for democratic elections in Lebanon. These were held in spring 2005, but the results were not to Bush's liking. Not only did Hezbollah receive a significant fraction of the votes and send 14 representative to the parliament, but its partners in the March 8 coalition also received significant votes, and Hezbollah joined the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in July 2005. Condoleezza Rice's "directed democracy" project was a failure. But Bush did not stop meddling in Lebanon's affairs. He constantly provoked Siniora against Hezbollah and its allies, notably Michel Aoun, the Maronite ex-general. The result: Complete paralysis of the government. Then came the summer 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah began the war, and was rightfully condemned by the world. But Hezbollah had carried out several such small operations in the past, and each time there was a quick cease-fire. Not this time. With strong support by Bush and Cheney, Israel started a full scale war. Meanwhile, the U.S. prevented the United Nations Security Council from reaching any consensus regarding a cease-fire, buying time for Israel to supposedly crush Hezbollah. Condi Rice promised a "new Middle East," one in which Hezbollah would be defeated and Iran would be attacked. Twelve hundred Lebanese (1,000 of them civilians) and over 150 Israelis (40 of them civilians) were killed, and the infrastructure of Lebanon was greatly damaged by Israel's bombing. Hezbollah, however, won the war. Although a U.S. official told Seymour Hersh that the Israelis viewed Lebanon as "a demo for Iran," the Pentagon had to revise its plans for attacking Iran. After seeing the types of weapons used by Hezbollah, Gen. John Abizaid, then the Centcom commander, said the Iranians "have given us a hint about things to come." Hezbollah remained intact, its popularity in the Arab world greater than ever before. This was the second time it had won a war with Israel. The first time was in 2000 when, after fighting with Israel for 15 years, Hezbollah forced Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982. Bush, however, continued his meddling. He provoked Siniora to sack the security chief of Beirut's airport, allegedly a Hezbollah member, and shut down Hezbollah's optical communication network, which had played a crucial role in its victory over Israel. The result: Hezbollah swiftly took over West Beirut and routed forces loyal to Siniora. It demanded restoration of its communication network, giving the security chief his job back and veto power over all the government's decisions. Siniora had taken action against Hezbollah, counting on U. S. aid. The aid never came. Bush blinked. Siniora blinked. The result: Hezbollah got all of its demands and more. Michel Suleiman, a general with whom Hezbollah has good relations, is now the president. Hezbollah is more powerful than ever. Bush's Lebanon legacy? An organization that the U.S. has labeled as terrorist has won impressive strategic victories over both the U.S. and Israel and is in the driving seat. Iran Iran provided significant help to U.S. forces when it attacked Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. It opened its airspace to U.S. aircraft and provided intelligence on the Taliban forces. The opposition forces that it had been supporting for years, the Northern Alliance, were the first to reach Kabul and overthrow the Taliban government. Then, during the UN talks on the future of Afghanistan, after the Taliban's ouster, in Bonn, Germany, in December 2001, Iranian representative Mohammad Javad Zarif met daily with U.S. envoy James Dobbins, who praised Zarif for preventing the conference from collapsing because of last-minute demands by the Northern Alliance [.pdf]. Thus, the National Unity government led by Karzai could not have come to power without Iran's help. How was Iran rewarded? Two months later, President Bush made Iran a charter member of his imaginary "axis of evil." Then, in early May 2003 Iran made a comprehensive proposal to the U.S., offering to negotiate on all important issues, recognizing Israel within its pre-1967 war borders, and cutting off material support to Hamas and Hezbollah. The proposal was never taken seriously. What have been the results of Bush's belligerence toward Iran and his constant demonizing of that nation?
Bush's Iran legacy? A nation on the verge of achieving uranium enrichment and becoming a regional power. Palestine/Israel When Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, the Israelis and the Palestinians were tantalizingly close to a peace agreement. Today, the probability of peace is practically nil. No other U.S. president has supported Israel as blindly and one-sidedly. He is also the first U.S. president who actually recognized Israel's policy of building and annexing settlements in the West Bank, giving Israel a secret letter committing the U.S. to such a policy. With Bush's support, Israel "evacuated" Gaza but created the largest jail on Earth: Gaza's land, sea, and air borders are all controlled by Israel. It attacks Gaza at will, and when it kills innocent women, children, and old men, what does Bush say? "Israel must defend itself." Bush and Rice pushed for democratic elections among Palestinians. The radicals actually wanted such elections too! What happened? The elections were held and certified as democratic by Jimmy Carter, but Hamas won. It received more votes than any other group, including Fatah, and took control of the Palestinian parliament. As usual, Rice was shocked. "Nobody saw it coming," she declared. (No secretary of state has made more trips to Israel and Palestine than Rice without having anything to show for it.) So what happened? Instead of trying to work with Hamas, which has never been a threat to the U.S., Bush began punishing the Palestinians by cutting off all aid and pressuring others to follow the U.S. lead. Hamas responded to this by routing the Fatah forces in Gaza, taking full control there. Bush has paid lip service to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In his recent speech before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Bush promised the Palestinians that they would have a state of their own "over the next 60 years." Some promise. Bush's Israel/Palestine legacy? Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is more farfetched than ever. The Middle East In addition to all the above, here is the rest of Bush's legacy in the Middle East:
Bush still refuses to face the realities of the mess that he has created in the Middle East. His overall Middle East legacy is EFP, explosively false propaganda, through which he still tries to sell his fantasies to the public. Yes, Mr. President, contrary to what you said recently, there is such a thing as "objective short-term history," and you have failed its test miserably. |
Monday, June 16, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The day the NATO definitively but unofficially lost the war in Afghanistan
Insurgent attack frees hundreds from Kandahar prison
Canadian forces and other NATO troops have been deployed to Kandahar after the main prison in the southern Afghan city was attacked by militants, who set most of the prisoners free.
Maj. Jay Janzen, a spokesman for the Canadian Forces, said troops were on the scene and had established a security perimeter in the vicinity.
"We believe the situation is under control,” Janzen said, without elaborating.
Around 10 p.m., Taliban insurgents drove a car filled with explosives up to Sarposa prison's main gate and detonated it, destroying the gate and surrounding shops and killing 10 police officers in the vicinity.
Afghan officials also said Taliban insurgents fired several rockets at parts of the prison.
A Taliban spokesman said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked the prison. Qari Yousef Ahmadi also claimed that hundreds of Taliban prisoners were freed in the assault.
There were reports that 150 to 200 prisoners were still in the prison, with the rest having escaped.
But Wali Karzai, president of Kandahar's provincial council and the brother of President Hamid Karzai, said "all the prisoners escaped. There is no one left."
About 1,170 inmates were believed to have been in the prison and may now be roaming the streets of Kandahar city, Hunter said.
Canadian Forces are in command of Kandahar, and most of the roughly 2,500 Canadian troops in Afghanistan are stationed there.
The prison, the largest detention facility in Kandahar province, housed both common criminals and captured Taliban militants who had been fighting NATO troops and the Afghan government.
"It's a big blow. It's a very significant development," said CBC's Susan Ormiston, who visited the prison last April.
Suspected Taliban members detained by Canadian soldiers and turned over to Afghanistan officials are sent to the prison, located in the outskirts of the city.
Canada has spent $1 million on improvements to the facility, including new cell blocks and new windows.
Ormiston said Canadian officials were hoping the prison would become a model for other prisons in the region.
Original article posted here.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Consequences of a lost war
Afghanistan moves to center stage
By M K Bhadrakumar
Three or four seemingly unconnected statements within the space of the past week, and the "war on terror" in Afghanistan acquires new shades of meaning. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the holy city of Qom that the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq "under the pretext of the September 11 terror attack".
A day earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who was on a visit to London, publicly expressed skepticism over the conduct of the Afghan war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He warned that NATO is "courting disaster". On Monday, addressing a student gathering in Beijing's Tsinghua University, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian help in stabilizing Afghanistan. But in the ultimate analysis, it is
the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban that makes nonsense of the battle lines of the Afghan war.
The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. The "lameduck" George W Bush administration in Washington faces an uphill task to gain mastery over the equations developing on multiple levels.
Meanwhile, some questions arise. Are these statements and public stances essentially more prudent and prophylactic than provocative? Do they stem from a genuine concern in the region that the US is simply unable to forge ahead in the war? Or do they signify the stirrings of a concerted regional challenge to the US mission?
Ahmadinejad's statement is the first time that Tehran has questioned frontally at the highest level of leadership the raison d'etre of the US intervention in Afghanistan. He suggests that terrorism is the pretext rather than the reason for the US intervention. The Iranian leader alleges that the US intervention was more geopolitical. Considering that Iran (under former president Mohammed Khatami) had provided logistical support for the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Wednesday's statement signifies an important rethink in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has implicitly absolved the Taliban regime of any role as such in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Compared with the nuanced Iranian statement, Babacan has taken a stance from the perspective of Turkey being a major NATO power. Babacan said in an interview with the London-based Telegraph newspaper that NATO is courting disaster by relying too much on force to defeat the Taliban. He distanced Ankara from the US counterinsurgency strategy by stressing that the shift to a "more militaristic approach would backfire and ultimately undermine the Afghan government".
Babacan forcefully rejected the US criticism that Turkey has refused to deploy troops in the troubled southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. He insisted on the continued logic of Turkey's Afghan policy, which focuses on reconstruction activities aimed at "winning their [Afghans'] hearts and minds". Significantly, he warned that Afghans could "start to perceive the [NATO] security forces as occupiers" and that the situation would become "very complicated". But he, too, avoided any criticism of the Taliban as such.
Interestingly, Babacan made these remarks in an interview in which he underlined Turkey's growing alienation from Europe. Also, on Monday, another round of Turkish-Iranian consultations were held in Ankara regarding bilateral cooperation in regional security, which is already quite substantial.
Musharraf has gone a step even further. He expressed the hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could play a role in stabilizing Afghanistan. He added, "If the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with NATO." SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as "observers".
Musharraf is famous for making impromptu remarks, but the fact that he made such a statement in Beijing merits attention. Pakistan has been seeking full SCO membership. The indications are that Beijing is, in principle, supportive of the Pakistani claim. Reports had also just appeared that Washington is pressing for an intrusive role to monitor the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Musharraf has virtually endorsed a call by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov at the recent NATO summit meeting in Bucharest (April 2-4) to the effect that the "Six plus Two" format of the 1997-2001 period (with the "six" being the countries bordering Afghanistan and the "two" being Russia and the US), which aimed at bringing about intra-Afghan reconciliation between the Taliban and its opponents, be expanded into a new "Six plus Three" format that would now include NATO, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the US.
Moscow and Tashkent have a coordinated approach in this regard. Washington finds itself in a quandary to respond to the Uzbek offer of cooperation with NATO, which would mean virtual abandonment of alliance's plans to expand into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.
However, in a hard-hitting speech on Monday at Maxwell-Gunter air force base in Montgomery, Alabama, which was devoted entirely to the US strategy in Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice precisely invoked the great Cold War icons - George Marshall, Harry S Truman, George Frost Kennan and Dean Acheson. She sent a stunning message to Moscow that NATO's victory in Afghanistan is "not only essential, it is attainable".
Rice pointed out, "Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent terrorism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO."
Rice coolly ignored the Russian-Uzbek offer of cooperation. Against the above background, this week's statement in Kabul by the top leadership of the erstwhile Northern Alliance (NA) merits close attention.
The NA leaders enjoy the support of Russia, the Central Asian states and Iran - and Turkey to an extent. Sayyed Agha Hussein Fazel Sancharaki, spokesman of these groups which now come under the umbrella of the United National Front (UNF), revealed to the Associated Press (AP) that former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and the top NA commander from Panjshir, Mohammed Qasim Fahim (who also holds the position currently as a security advisor to President Hamid Karzai) have been meeting Taliban and other opposition groups (presumably, the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) during recent months for national reconciliation. He claimed these meetings have involved "important people" from the Taliban.
Indeed, Fahim (who was the chief of intelligence under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud) and Rabbani (who belonged to the original "Peshawar Seven" - mujahideen leaders based in Pakistan in the 1980s) would have old links with Hekmatyar and top Taliban leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani. Rabbani told AP that the six-year war must be resolved through talks.
"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said. Rabbani added that the opposition leaders would soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team for holding talks with the Taliban. He found fault with Karzai for not pursuing dialogue with the Taliban. "I told Karzai that when a person starts something, he should complete it. On the issue of negotiations, it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back. This work should be continued in a very organized way."
It stands to reason that regional powers - especially Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran - will be watching closely the intra-Afghan dialogue involving the UNF and the Taliban. What gives impetus to this dialogue is apparently that the NATO summit in Bucharest came up with only small troop increments, which puts question marks on the viability and prospects of the NATO operations. But is that all?
These various strands can be expected to run concurrently for a while until some begin to outstrip others. It seems the geopolitics of energy are already taking an early lead. Musharraf last Friday aired with Chinese President Hu Jintao the topic of a gas pipeline connecting Iran and China via Pakistani territory; Iran is pressing for SCO membership; a gas cartel is about to take shape at the seventh ministerial meeting of the gas-exporting countries scheduled to be held in Moscow in June.
China's National Offshore Oil Corporation has confirmed that talks are indeed progressing on a US$16 billion gas deal involving Iran's North Pars gas field, close on the heels of the $2 billion agreement signed in March between the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and Iran for developing the latter's Yadavaran oil field.
A prominent expert, Igor Tomberg of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote recently, "Iran and Russia should probably not compete against each other but rather join hands on the gas market. The Iranian president has more than once suggested to his Russian colleague that their countries coordinate their gas policies and possibly divide gas markets. Moreover, there could be an agreement under which Russia will continue to supply gas to Europe, while Iran will export its gas to the East. This would undermine plans to diversify supply to Europe, which heavily depends on the United States."
Afghanistan is a key hub of resource-rich Central Asia and the Middle East. To use the words from Rice's Montgomery speech, "Let no one forget, Afghanistan is a mission of necessity for the US, not a mission of choice."
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Original article posted here.
By M K Bhadrakumar
Three or four seemingly unconnected statements within the space of the past week, and the "war on terror" in Afghanistan acquires new shades of meaning. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the holy city of Qom that the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq "under the pretext of the September 11 terror attack".
A day earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who was on a visit to London, publicly expressed skepticism over the conduct of the Afghan war by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He warned that NATO is "courting disaster". On Monday, addressing a student gathering in Beijing's Tsinghua University, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf urged Chinese and Russian help in stabilizing Afghanistan. But in the ultimate analysis, it is
the sensational revelation by erstwhile Northern Alliance leaders about their ongoing contacts with the Taliban that makes nonsense of the battle lines of the Afghan war.
The United States' monopoly of the Afghan war is beginning to come under serious public challenge. The "lameduck" George W Bush administration in Washington faces an uphill task to gain mastery over the equations developing on multiple levels.
Meanwhile, some questions arise. Are these statements and public stances essentially more prudent and prophylactic than provocative? Do they stem from a genuine concern in the region that the US is simply unable to forge ahead in the war? Or do they signify the stirrings of a concerted regional challenge to the US mission?
Ahmadinejad's statement is the first time that Tehran has questioned frontally at the highest level of leadership the raison d'etre of the US intervention in Afghanistan. He suggests that terrorism is the pretext rather than the reason for the US intervention. The Iranian leader alleges that the US intervention was more geopolitical. Considering that Iran (under former president Mohammed Khatami) had provided logistical support for the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Wednesday's statement signifies an important rethink in Tehran. Ahmadinejad has implicitly absolved the Taliban regime of any role as such in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Compared with the nuanced Iranian statement, Babacan has taken a stance from the perspective of Turkey being a major NATO power. Babacan said in an interview with the London-based Telegraph newspaper that NATO is courting disaster by relying too much on force to defeat the Taliban. He distanced Ankara from the US counterinsurgency strategy by stressing that the shift to a "more militaristic approach would backfire and ultimately undermine the Afghan government".
Babacan forcefully rejected the US criticism that Turkey has refused to deploy troops in the troubled southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. He insisted on the continued logic of Turkey's Afghan policy, which focuses on reconstruction activities aimed at "winning their [Afghans'] hearts and minds". Significantly, he warned that Afghans could "start to perceive the [NATO] security forces as occupiers" and that the situation would become "very complicated". But he, too, avoided any criticism of the Taliban as such.
Interestingly, Babacan made these remarks in an interview in which he underlined Turkey's growing alienation from Europe. Also, on Monday, another round of Turkish-Iranian consultations were held in Ankara regarding bilateral cooperation in regional security, which is already quite substantial.
Musharraf has gone a step even further. He expressed the hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could play a role in stabilizing Afghanistan. He added, "If the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with NATO." SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members and Iran and Pakistan as "observers".
Musharraf is famous for making impromptu remarks, but the fact that he made such a statement in Beijing merits attention. Pakistan has been seeking full SCO membership. The indications are that Beijing is, in principle, supportive of the Pakistani claim. Reports had also just appeared that Washington is pressing for an intrusive role to monitor the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Musharraf has virtually endorsed a call by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov at the recent NATO summit meeting in Bucharest (April 2-4) to the effect that the "Six plus Two" format of the 1997-2001 period (with the "six" being the countries bordering Afghanistan and the "two" being Russia and the US), which aimed at bringing about intra-Afghan reconciliation between the Taliban and its opponents, be expanded into a new "Six plus Three" format that would now include NATO, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the US.
Moscow and Tashkent have a coordinated approach in this regard. Washington finds itself in a quandary to respond to the Uzbek offer of cooperation with NATO, which would mean virtual abandonment of alliance's plans to expand into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.
However, in a hard-hitting speech on Monday at Maxwell-Gunter air force base in Montgomery, Alabama, which was devoted entirely to the US strategy in Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice precisely invoked the great Cold War icons - George Marshall, Harry S Truman, George Frost Kennan and Dean Acheson. She sent a stunning message to Moscow that NATO's victory in Afghanistan is "not only essential, it is attainable".
Rice pointed out, "Successes in Afghanistan will advance our broader regional interests in combating violent terrorism, resisting the destabilizing behavior of Iran, and anchoring political and economic liberty in South and Central Asia. And success in Afghanistan is an important test for the credibility of NATO."
Rice coolly ignored the Russian-Uzbek offer of cooperation. Against the above background, this week's statement in Kabul by the top leadership of the erstwhile Northern Alliance (NA) merits close attention.
The NA leaders enjoy the support of Russia, the Central Asian states and Iran - and Turkey to an extent. Sayyed Agha Hussein Fazel Sancharaki, spokesman of these groups which now come under the umbrella of the United National Front (UNF), revealed to the Associated Press (AP) that former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and the top NA commander from Panjshir, Mohammed Qasim Fahim (who also holds the position currently as a security advisor to President Hamid Karzai) have been meeting Taliban and other opposition groups (presumably, the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) during recent months for national reconciliation. He claimed these meetings have involved "important people" from the Taliban.
Indeed, Fahim (who was the chief of intelligence under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud) and Rabbani (who belonged to the original "Peshawar Seven" - mujahideen leaders based in Pakistan in the 1980s) would have old links with Hekmatyar and top Taliban leaders like Jalaluddin Haqqani. Rabbani told AP that the six-year war must be resolved through talks.
"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said. Rabbani added that the opposition leaders would soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team for holding talks with the Taliban. He found fault with Karzai for not pursuing dialogue with the Taliban. "I told Karzai that when a person starts something, he should complete it. On the issue of negotiations, it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back. This work should be continued in a very organized way."
It stands to reason that regional powers - especially Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran - will be watching closely the intra-Afghan dialogue involving the UNF and the Taliban. What gives impetus to this dialogue is apparently that the NATO summit in Bucharest came up with only small troop increments, which puts question marks on the viability and prospects of the NATO operations. But is that all?
These various strands can be expected to run concurrently for a while until some begin to outstrip others. It seems the geopolitics of energy are already taking an early lead. Musharraf last Friday aired with Chinese President Hu Jintao the topic of a gas pipeline connecting Iran and China via Pakistani territory; Iran is pressing for SCO membership; a gas cartel is about to take shape at the seventh ministerial meeting of the gas-exporting countries scheduled to be held in Moscow in June.
China's National Offshore Oil Corporation has confirmed that talks are indeed progressing on a US$16 billion gas deal involving Iran's North Pars gas field, close on the heels of the $2 billion agreement signed in March between the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and Iran for developing the latter's Yadavaran oil field.
A prominent expert, Igor Tomberg of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote recently, "Iran and Russia should probably not compete against each other but rather join hands on the gas market. The Iranian president has more than once suggested to his Russian colleague that their countries coordinate their gas policies and possibly divide gas markets. Moreover, there could be an agreement under which Russia will continue to supply gas to Europe, while Iran will export its gas to the East. This would undermine plans to diversify supply to Europe, which heavily depends on the United States."
Afghanistan is a key hub of resource-rich Central Asia and the Middle East. To use the words from Rice's Montgomery speech, "Let no one forget, Afghanistan is a mission of necessity for the US, not a mission of choice."
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Original article posted here.
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