Lamar W. Hankins : How George W. Bush Aided the Terrorists

Mission accomplished! Have Bush's (and Obama's) policies boosted terrorist recruitment? Photo from Reuters.

How George W. Bush aided the terrorists
(According to the government)

Bush’s bogus war in Iraq; the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and “black site” prisons; waterboarding and other uses of torture; and the civilian death toll from drone strikes have all served as recruiting tools for Al Qaeda and the terrorists.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / August 14, 2013

Peter Hart, from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, recently discussed the provocative idea that George W. Bush, as well as others in his administration, aided terrorism. This idea arises as a result of evidence introduced at the trial of whistleblower Private Bradley Manning.

To show that Manning’s unauthorized release of information about American actions during the war in Iraq had harmed the U.S. by encouraging attacks against the West, the prosecution did the following, as reported by The New York Times:

A prosecution witness in the sentencing phase of the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning told a military judge on Thursday that Al Qaeda could have used WikiLeaks disclosures, including classified United States government materials provided by Private Manning, to encourage attacks in the West, in testimony meant to show the harm done by his actions... The witness, Cmdr. Youssef Aboul-Enein, an adviser to the Pentagon's Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism, said that WikiLeaks materials showing that the United States had killed civilians, for instance, could help Al Qaeda.

Aboul-Enein said, "Perception is important because it provides a good environment for recruitment, for fund-raising and for support for Al Qaeda’s wider audience and objectives.”

Hart suggests that “the potentially most damaging part of Manning's disclosures was that the war kills civilians -- and that U.S. enemies could use that fact to recruit others.”

The standard, then, appears to be, as Hart wrote: “the killing of civilians might rally people behind the cause of Al Qaeda.” Hart identifies the invasion of Iraq itself as the cause of all of the killing, but that just scratches the surface of the disclosures of horrendous acts that inflame hatred of the U.S. and lead to enhanced recruitment of people by Al Qaeda to commit acts of terrorism against both the U.S. and its allies.

When the horror of Abu-Ghraib was revealed, Bush’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could not stop talking publicly about how horrible such practices were, always blaming anyone but the administration for the “stuff” that happens in war.

In his 2011 memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld seems to admit that Abu Ghraib atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers harmed the U.S. once they were revealed. Of course, Iraqis who were abused eventually would have been released and passed stories around of their horrendous treatment by U.S. troops, or their families would have revealed their abusive treatment.

It was the Bush administration that opened the prison in Guantanamo that has been one of the greatest aids to terrorist recruitment in the modern world, largely because the U.S. tortured the prisoners at that facility and held many who had done nothing wrong or adverse to U.S. interests. Earlier this year, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said that the Guantanamo prison “has become an ideal recruitment tool for terrorists.”

In an April article in The Atlantic magazine, Thérèse Postel, a policy associate in international affairs at The Century Foundation, wrote: “Guantanamo Bay has often been the focus of jihadist media and propaganda... Guantanamo Bay has become a salient issue used in jihadist propaganda.”

Of course, the jihadist use of Guantanamo as a recruiting tool can now be attributed to the Obama administration, which is responsible for the prosecution of Manning. Irony and hypocrisy know no bounds when it comes to government tyranny and abuse of power.

And we should never forget the “black site” prisons located in strategic places around the globe where U.S. prisoners were tortured at will (and still are). In 2005, the Washington Post reported:

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement... The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

Other black sites have been identified as located in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. CIA interrogators in such overseas sites used "enhanced interrogation techniques," some of which are prohibited by the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and by U.S. military law.

Among the techniques used is "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he is drowning. For a time, waterboarding became a household word in the U.S. and around the world as the morality of the practice was debated. Although the U.S. is a party to the U. N. Convention, it has blatantly violated it, giving more reasons for Al Qaeda to attract new jihadist recruits.

Especially destructive to U.S. interests is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, known widely as drones, which can be armed with weapons to kill enemies. They have been used by the U.S. since 2001 when they were launched from Uzbekistan and Pakistan. One of the unfortunate effects of drone use has been the killing of civilians in large numbers. Attacks have been launched from drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

In 2009, a report from the Brookings Institute said that 10 civilians are killed for every militant killed in Pakistan drone attacks. Pakistani authorities have claimed that in 2009 alone, over 700 innocent civilians were killed by drone attacks and many more injured.

Armed drone use has grown dramatically since drones were first employed by the Bush administration. The killing of civilians by drones is widely acknowledged as a significant recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups.

If “the killing of civilians might rally people behind the cause of Al Qaeda,” then the worst perpetrator of actions that might harm U.S. interests is the government of the U.S. Of course, the government will not prosecute itself for aiding the enemy, but it will torture and punish low-level personnel like Bradley Manning for actions that it claims do what it has done.

But we know that governments can be far worse than what I. F. Stone said about them -- that all governments lie. We know, if we pay attention, that the U.S. government is duplicitous, sanctimonious, and deceitful, as well as given to lying on a regular basis.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Lamar W. Hankins : Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki is Assault on the Constitution

Genghis Khan (R-Mongolia). How much progress have we made? Image from the genghis kahn.

An assault on the Constitution:
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki

It is hard to see that we have made much progress beyond the world of Genghis Khan nine centuries ago.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / October 4, 2011

If the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki (along with several other people in Yemen on September 30 by two air strikes from U.S. Predator drones) does not at least trouble you, there is probably no reason to read this essay.

I am searching for a rational explanation for al-Awlaki’s killing that will satisfy the values with which I grew up -- values based on America’s laudable conduct dealing with Nazi war criminals after World War II and with the U.S. Constitution that I learned about in law school.

I’ve read the glib assurance from Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas who specializes in national security law, that he believes the killings were legal. His opinion is not comforting. The opinions of law professors and legal advisers are purchased, either literally or figuratively, as easily as are the opinions of a barber.

The Constitution seems to mean whatever any Humpty Dumpty legal scholar wants it to mean. (“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.” -- Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass.)

What we do know with reasonable certainty is that Obama Administration officials have confirmed that the Yemeni-American Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by the U.S. government. The administration claims that al-Awlaki was a terrorist, though no evidence has been presented to prove that claim.

We do know that he was a U.S. citizen, born in New Mexico. As a citizen, al-Awlaki was entitled to the rights afforded by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects his right to abhorrent opinions. His apparent delight in the Ft. Hood killings two years ago expressed in email correspondence with the Major accused of those slayings makes al-Awlaki a terrorist sympathizer at the least. But that does not negate his citizenship, nor his rights to the protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment provides:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The exception found in the Fifth Amendment as quoted might be used to justify the killing of al-Awlaki if we assume that he was chargeable with a capital or infamous crime, but without such a formal charge, the exception applies only “in a time of War.”

We are not at war in Yemen, where al-Awlaki was living and working before he was killed. We have been presented with no evidence that al-Awlaki was creating a public danger, but if he were, he was not engaged in “actual service” in a military so far as anyone has claimed. And the U.S. government has not made any claim that his killing falls within an exception found in the Fifth Amendment.

In fact, the Administration seems to think it owes no explanation at all.

What our government was permitted to do under our system was to have al-Awlaki indicted for any alleged crimes he might have committed. The government chose not to do so. Had it done so, al-Awlaki, as a U.S. citizen, would have been entitled to the protections of the Sixth Amendment, which provides:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

An effort was made by al-Awlaki’s father to prevent al-Awlaki’s killing after it became known a short while ago that al-Awlaki was on a U.S. government list of terrorists targeted to be killed or captured. This past summer, a federal court, based on procedural grounds, would not allow the father’s case to go forward.

In our post-9/11 world, not even the courts will protect citizens from being summarily executed by the government. Previously, the authority to kill American citizens has been restricted to clearly defined geographical boundaries of military conflict at a time when the U.S. was at war with a clearly identified enemy. This was not the case with al-Awlaki.

Glenn Greenwald, who is a constitutional law attorney and legal writer for several publications, had this to say about the killing of al-Awlaki:

Anwar al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen. He was ordered assassinated by the President of the United States without presenting any evidence of any kind as to his guilt, without attempting to indict him in any way or comply with any of the requirements of the Constitution that say that you can’t deprive someone of life without due process of law.

The president ordered him killed wherever he was found, including far away from a battlefield, no matter what it was he was doing at the time. And if you’re somebody who believes that the president of the United States has the power to order your fellow citizens murdered, assassinated, killed without even a shred of due process, without having to have charged him with a crime or indict him and prove in a court he’s actually guilty, then you’re really declaring yourself to be as pure of an authoritarian as it gets.

To emphasize the extraordinary action of our government in killing al-Awlaki, Greenwald continued:

Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversations without warrants. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process, and yet many Democrats and progressives, because it’s President Obama doing it, have no problem with it and are even in favor of it.

To say that the President has the right to kill citizens without due process is really to take the Constitution and to tear it up into as many little pieces as you can and then burn it and step on it.

Greenwald put the whole matter in even more stark relief when he said,

The problem is that American political culture is such that evidence doesn’t make a difference. Trials and due process are very pre-9/11. What we believe is that if the president stands up and says someone is a terrorist, that’s all we need to know; (he is) therefore guilty because the leader has accused him of being that, and as long as the Aides then go and leak to the media, which they have done, that he played a significant operational role and was a big Al Qaeda leader, we won’t need to see evidence. We’ll just stand up and blindly click our heels and accept it’s true, and then cheer the fact he’s been murdered based on unproven claims.

It is well-known that al-Awlaki was a fierce critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Of course, as a U.S. citizen, he had First amendment rights to speak his mind about U.S. policy. If anything he said could have been construed as treason, once again, he could have been indicted for such alleged treason, rather than being summarily executed.

But after the recent spectacles of Americans (all apparently Republicans) cheering the death of a medically uninsured man who “chose” not to have health insurance or could not afford it, cheering the execution of people who may have been innocent of any capital crime, and booing a gay serviceman who spoke out about an end to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military, I don’t expect many Americans of either political party to be concerned about the extra-judicial killing of al-Awlaki and his unnamed companions.

Since 9/11, Americans have largely acquiesced in the curtailment of their constitutional rights with minimal push-back against the government. But with this action, President Obama has doubled down on the corruption of American values destroyed by the Bush-Cheney band of rogues.

The only just remedy for what Barack Obama has done is for impeachment charges to be introduced in the House of Representatives. If ever there was a high crime, killing an American citizen without even a veneer of due process is such an offense warranting impeachment.

That may be the only way for the American people to learn the whole truth about this reprehensible action of a U.S. president. If evidence of a stain on a dress was grounds for impeachment in 1998, evidence of a stain on the Constitution should be even more compelling grounds in 2011.

But impeachment will not be discussed because the House of Representatives is controlled by the Republicans once again and the Republican leadership, as much as or more than the Democratic leadership, favors an American government that can engage in such extrajudicial murder. It shows that we are strong and beyond the control of any law or treaty. It also appeals to the macho mentality of American culture.

Our constitutional system is failing, and that failure started long before 9/11, as we engaged in illegal and covert military actions wherever we pleased. Perhaps it has failed already to the point that it cannot be renewed or rejuvenated. If our civilization rests on such dishonoring of our constitutional foundation, the sooner we can be done with it and start anew, the better the world will be for it. It is hard to see that we have made much progress beyond the world of Genghis Khan nine centuries ago.

My greatest regret as I near the end of my life is that my generation and those that have followed have left such a dismal future for my granddaughter and the other children of our youngest generation. I fear that these children will live on a far worse “Desolation Row” than the one imagined by the songwriter.

When Americans refuse to stand up for what is right, and just, and moral, the decay of American civilization will produce a stench worse than any other cesspool known to humankind. Already it is not good to breathe too deeply.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Curbing John O'Neill : The Pipeline and the Saudi-Al Qaeda Connection

The late John P. O'Neill, former assistant director of the FBI, saw threat of bin Laden early on. O'Neill's attempts to investigate connections with Saudis were thwarted.

John O’Neill, the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline:
The Saudis, the Bushes and bin Laden

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / November 13, 2009

The terrorist attack on the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001, was successful in part because of flaws in this nation’s counterinsurgency efforts. There was a deliberate policy of avoiding careful scrutiny of what Saudis were doing in the United States.

Saudi ties to Al Qaeda were not examined closely. Friendship with Saudi Arabia was considered crucial for a number of reasons. One important priority was obtaining Saudi help in advancing an American controlled pipeline to bring Caspian natural gas to Pakistan and India.

Al Qaeda and the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline

The U.S. had obtained a report written by Mohammed Atef, head of military operations for Al Qaeda. It stated that the terrorist organization was alarmed by secret Taliban negotiations with the American oil companies who wanted to build the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline, fearing it would increase U.S. influence in Afghanistan. The August 1998 bombing of the two embassies in Africa was most probably an effort to end the Taliban-U.S. talks about the pipeline. It was clear that Al Qaeda had great influence within the Taliban and that it was working against an American-controlled pipeline.

This made it essential that the U.S. obtain the help of the Saudis, who were pumping money into Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia was in a position to help the United States bring about the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline, The Saudis had a standing interest in moving oil across Afghanistan going back to their funding of the Taliban in the 1970s and 1980s. They were doing this even before the U.S.

Later, the American companies used the Saudi intelligence people to begin talks with the Taliban. Enron served as a consultant for Unocal. Price Turki, head of Saudi intelligence, made several trips to Afghanistan on behalf of the energy firms. He was close to the Bin Laden family and it is said that he promised them the construction contract in return for a kickback for the Saudi royal family. Some link his firing to the breakdown of pipeline talks in August, 2001.

Red Herring magazine reported that George W. Bush and his father were not in agreement on the importance of keeping close ties to Saudi Arabia and that they argued about this at Kennebunkport. After this, the Boston Herald, prompted by friends of the young president, ran an expose of the ties of some White House officials to Saudi Arabia and called it an “obscene conflict of interest.” The expose was part of a debate going on at the highest levels of government. There were also leaks from the White House about Saudi ties to terrorism.

Cheney succeeded in changing the president’s view of the Saudis perhaps by pointing out all his family’s ties to the Saudi royal house. King Abdullah’s visit to the Bushes demonstrates that a shift had occurred. The angered Israelis started leaking information on Saudi ties to terrorism.

George W. Bush with Saudi King Faisal.
'Hands-off' investigating the Saudis

Since the administration of George H.W. Bush, there had been a policy of not looking closely into the activities of Saudis in the United States. In 1998, Clinton backed away from that policy; he permitted the FBI to examine the activities of Saudis in the U.S. and Saudi ties to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration reverted to the “hands off” policy and strengthened it. An American intelligence source told the Guardian that the “hands off” order was necessary to prevent it from becoming public that some Saudis were paying protection money to bin Laden.

According to Greg Palast, an American journalist working in London, “A group of well-placed sources -- not-all-too-savory-spooks and arms dealers -- told my BBC team that before September 11 the U.S. government had turned away evidence of Saudi billionaires funding Osama bin Laden’s network.” He continued, “we got our hands on documents that backed up the story that FBI and CIA investigations had been slowed by the Clinton administration, then killed by Bush Jr. when those inquiries might upset Saudi interests.” Another reason was allegedly “Arbusto” and ”Carlyle,” terms that refer to the Bush’s business ties with Saudis.

John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who claims to have sources within the intelligence community, claimed that Vice President Cheney ordered the FBI and intelligence agencies not to investigate Al Qaeda from January to August because these probes might endanger efforts to negotiate a pipeline deal with Afghanistan. Loftus also reported that Enron was involved in these investigations. Unfortunately, we only have the former prosecutor’s word for all this. We do know that after the brief U.S. War in Afghanistan the pipeline project was again alive and well and slated to terminate at a Pakistan city not too far from an Enron power plant in India that was in desperate need of cheap fuel.

The Guardian obtained FBI documents that indicated there were restrictions on investigating possible terrorist plots. Shown on the BBC television program NewsNight, the file was coded “199,” which was a designation for national security cases. The material indicated the FBI could not investigate two of bin Laden’s relatives who lived in Falls Church, Virginia. Abdullah and Omar bin Laden were associated with a suspected terrorist organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) which had an office there. Abdullah was the director of the U.S. branch of WAMY.

Two of the September 11 hijackers used a false address several blocks away from the office. The public statements of two Chicago-based FBI men indicate that from the late 1990s on there was a policy of not opening criminal investigations of potential Islamic terrorists or the financial networks that supported them. It seems clear that the White House had put counterterrorism planning on the back burner.

John P. O’Neill’s Frustrations

The late John P. O’Neill was the most active FBI agent in investigating Al Qaeda. He eventually rose to the rank of assistant director. Earlier than almost anyone else, he saw Osama bin Laden for what he was -- a great threat to the security of the United States. He was obsessed with Bin Laden and told anyone who would listen about the terrorist and his vile network.

In 1997, O’Neill was special agent in charge of national security programs in the New York office. Working around the clock, he coordinated the effort to catch Ramzi Yousef. When ABC News interviewed Osama bin Laden, the producer formulated questions based on discussions with O’Neill. His messy personal life and tendency to bend the rules slowed his advancement. O’Neill could be brutally honest and his direct ways alienated people. When returning from an unsuccessful trip to Saudi Arabia with Director Louis Freeh, he said, “ They didn’t give us anything. They were just shining sunshine up your ass.”’ The director had said it was a successful operation, and did not speak to O’Neill for the next twelve hours of flight.

O’ Neill was aware of the Mohammed Atef document, which made it clear that Al Qaeda did not want a U.S.-dominated dual pipeline crossing Afghanistan. He thought concerns about oil led the administration to prevent investigations of Saudi activities in the U.S. John O’Neill resigned shortly after an article criticizing him appeared in the New York Times. He had already been removed from the fast career advancement track, and he thought that interim director Tom Pickard planted the article because incoming director Robert Mueller wanted to replace O’Neill with a minion of the Bushes. O’Neill became director of security at the World Trade Center and died trying to save lives on September 11. The truth of O’Neill’s claims about the Bush administration’s quashing of anti-terrorist activities may have gone to the grave with him.

John O’Neill’s knowledge of the Mohammed Atef document would have led him to see the connection between oil and terrorism and to focus on the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaeda connection. He later confided to French investigators that concern for oil was behind the Bush Administration’s reluctance to do much about possible terrorism.

His investigations were continually shut down, and he began seeking information from French intelligence by using two reporters, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Both journalist cutouts were experts on oil and terrorism and were consultants for French intelligence. They later wrote The Forbidden Truth. Perhaps the French government permitted O’Neill to learn more because it had been cut out of the Caspian oil deals. O’Neill and another dissenter Robert Baer of the CIA would be forced into retirement in part due to their efforts to probe Saudi ties to terrorists. Much relevant information in Baer’s book, See No Evil, was blacked out by the CIA.

From 1995, the FBI and CIA operated a computer program called “Alex” that tracked Al Qaeda communications. O’Neill was the chief CIA link to the program and Michael Scheuer, was the key CIA figure in “Station Alex” at Langley. They soon learned that Al Qaeda was involved in the diamond trade, drug and arms smuggling, and teen sex businesses. Scheuer and his CIA people, in the words of an O’Neill associate “despised the FBI and they despised John O’Neill.” A CIA officer added that the working relationship with the flashy O’Neill was often very poor.

Osama bin Laden’s father, Mohammed bin Laden, with Faisal al-Saud, the Saudi king in the middle of the 20th century. Photo from CNN.
When O’Neill began to learn too much about Al Qaeda, his access to Alex information was lifted. O’Neill took to asking French intelligence to monitor Al Qaeda telephone calls. Scheuer resigned when he decided that the Bush administration was not doing enough about Al Qaeda. Soon the Bush Administration shut down Alex, just as it closed its military counterpart, “Able Danger.”

O’Neill had learned that his own agency continually stymied his investigative leads and he had taken to relying on the DEA and French intelligence for help. His frustrations began to mount when he was sent to Aden in 2000 to investigate the attack on the USS Cole. He received little cooperation there from local authorities and was ordered out of Yemen by the U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who gave him the cold shoulder from the outset. Bodine wanted him to dismiss his bodyguard even though O’Neill thought Mossad might move against him because he was open to the possibility that Israel was behind the Cole incident.

O’Neill foolishly spoke openly about Abu Nidal, leader of Black September, probably being a Mossad operative. She did not back him when the Yemeni authorities refused to let him interview the people who saw the explosion, to see the hat of one of the alleged attackers, or to sample sludge in the area. He wanted an explosives analysis done on the mud beneath the ship and a DNA study of hat of one of the two alleged bombers. One former FBI agent believes O’Neill was removed out of fear that he would discover that the ship had been hit by an Israeli missile. In 2001, he wanted to return to Yemen but Bodine would not give him a clearance. In February, 2001, the Yemeni Minister of the Interior announced that he had found no evidence linking the attack to Al Qaeda.

It was natural for O’Neill to rely upon the French because they had the best information in the West on Arab terrorists. They had concluded that an Arab team of 10 under a Yemeni was trained to assault a ship in 1999 at Al Qaeda’s Darounta, Afghanistan base. However, the team did not use its training and was not responsible for the Cole bombing. O’Neill probably learned this from them.

The French looked into two of their nationals who were at the Darouta training camp and found that these people worked with Muslim rebels in Bosnia. The insurgency was largely supported by western intelligence agencies and many of the funds came from the Riggs Bank account of the Bosnian Defense Fund, which was operated by American Neo-Conservatives. Much of their money came from the Middle East, including the Saudi and Egyptian governments. Some of these funds spilled over to Al Qaeda, which had operative in Bosnia working with the Islamic insurgency.

Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill took steps to dry up Al Qaeda funds and was putting pressure on Middle Eastern governments to provide information on how money from that region reached Al Qaeda. It is likely that these investigative activities generated enough opposition to result in his ouster. David D. Aufhauser, Treasury’s General Counsel, soon followed O’Neill into the private sector. He has spearheaded the effort to look into Al Qaeda financing.

In 2000, John O’Neill joined 150 other FBI agents in attending a retirement seminar in Orlando. His briefcase was stolen there, and it contained classified e-mail and a report on anti-terrorist activities. Ninety minutes after he missed the briefcase, it turned up in another hotel. A cigar cutter, a lighter and pen were missing, but the sensitive material was there. It had to be assumed that this information could have been copied.

The bureau investigated the matter and cleared O’Neill of all charges of negligence. It also said the documents had not been touched, but it is hard to imagine how that could have been established. Still, his reputation had been badly tarnished. The loss of the briefcase was used to force him to go through with retirement, and the story was later leaked when there was a chance that he would replace Richard Clarke as the new Bush administration’s chief anti-terrorism advisor. Clarke and O’Neill were friends and allies, and Clarke wanted O’Neill to be his replacement. The FBI refused to investigate the leak, despite a request to do so from the bureau chief in New York City. As it turned out, Clarke remained at the NSC but with a less important title.

The briefcase also had information that showed that O’Neill knew about Michael Dick’s investigation of Israeli agents, working for a moving company in New York and New Jersey. Dick was also aware of the Israeli agents who came to the United States under the cover of marketing art. They were shriveling all sorts of federal facilities, especially those of the DEA. They were also spying on DEA agents and FBI agents. The “Israeli artists” also followed Arabs who would later be accused of involvement in the 9/11 plot.

By 2000, he was busy trying to find Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, but he was soon taken out of action and assigned to deskwork. Janet Parker, a Seattle veterinarian and O’Neill friend, said that O’ Neill’s superior, Tom Picard, prevented O’Neill from getting a wire tap on Shadrack Manyathella, who was tied to probably double agent Ali Mohammed and Mohammed Atta, possible ring leader of 9/11. Parker and O’Neill were keeping track of one cell through her foster daughter, who had previous ties with the terrorists.

John O’Neill resigned soon after the second Bush took power. O’Neill told two respected French investigators, “All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia. ” O’Neill was extremely frustrated by the Bush administration’s approach to terrorism, claiming the administration had also made it more difficult to investigate Saudis.

O’Neill retired on August 22, after thirty years of service. He immediately took up his duties as head of security at the World Trade Center on behalf of Kroll Associates and occupied his office on the 34th floor of the North Tower. While trying to rescue people in the South Tire, he lost his life. In November 2001, weapons inspector Richard Butler told TV investigator Paula Zahn, “The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan."

It is now nine years later, and the American mainstream media still has not investigated what Butler called “the most explosive charge.” Were there, and are there restraints on the way intelligence people and the FBI deal with Saudi and Pakistani ties to terrorists? If we knew more about how important the gas pipeline is to the .US., we might be in a better position to understand why so many people in power insist on escalating the present war in Afghanistan.

[Sherman DeBrosse is a retired history teacher. Sherm spent seven years writing an analytical chronicle of what the Republicans have been up to since the 1970s. The New Republican Coalition : Its Rise and Impact, The Seventies to Present (Publish America) can be acquired by calling 301-695-1707. On line, go here.]

Also see:

• Sherman DeBrosse : Pipeline Politics and the Afghanistan War by Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / Nov. 6, 2009

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Drone Attacks: Killing Civilians at the Rate of Fifty to One

60 drone hits kill 14 al-Qaeda men, 687 civilians
By Amir Mir / April 10, 2009

LAHORE -- Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.

Figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities show that a total of 701 people, including 14 al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed since January 2006 in 60 American predator attacks targeting the tribal areas of Pakistan. Two strikes carried out in 2006 had killed 98 civilians while three attacks conducted in 2007 had slain 66 Pakistanis, yet none of the wanted al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders could be hit by the Americans right on target. However, of the 50 drone attacks carried out between January 29, 2008 and April 8, 2009, 10 hit their targets and killed 14 wanted al-Qaeda operatives. Most of these attacks were carried out on the basis of intelligence believed to have been provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen who had been spying for the US-led allied forces stationed in Afghanistan.

The remaining 50 drone attacks went wrong due to faulty intelligence information, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children. The number of the Pakistani civilians killed in those 50 attacks stood at 537, in which 385 people lost their lives in 2008 and 152 people were slain in the first 99 days of 2009 (between January 1 and April 8).

Of the 50 drone attacks, targeting the Pakistani tribal areas since January 2008, 36 were carried out in 2008 and 14 were conducted in the first 99 days of 2009. Of the 14 attacks targeting Pakistan in 2009, three were carried out in January, killing 30 people, two in February killing 55 people, five in March killing 36 people and four were conducted in the first nine days of April, killing 31 people.

Of the 14 strikes carried out in the first 99 days of April 2009, only one proved successful, killing two most wanted senior al-Qaeda leaders - Osama al Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Both had lost their lives in a New Year’s Day drone strike carried out in the South Waziristan region on January 1, 2009.

Kini was believed to be the chief operational commander of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and had replaced Abu Faraj Al Libi after his arrest from Bannu in 2004. Both men were behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dares Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others.

There were 36 recorded cross-border US predator strikes inside Pakistan during 2008, of which 29 took place after August 31, 2008, killing 385 people. However, only nine of the 36 strikes hit their actual targets, killing 12 wanted al-Qaeda leaders. The first successful predator strike had killed Abu Laith al Libi, a senior military commander of al-Qaeda who was targeted in North Waziristan on January 29, 2008. The second successful attack in Bajaur had killed Abu Sulayman Jazairi, al-Qaeda’s external operations chief, on March 14, 2008. The third attack in South Waziristan on July 28, 2008, had killed Abu Khabab al Masri, al-Qaeda’s weapons of mass destruction chief. The fourth successful attack in South Waziristan on August 13, 2008, had killed al-Qaeda leader Abdur Rehman.

The fifth predator strike carried out in North Waziristan near Miranshah on Sept 8, 2008 had killed three al-Qaeda leaders, Abu Haris, Abu Hamza, and Zain Ul Abu Qasim. The sixth successful predator hit in the South Waziristan region on October 2008 had killed Khalid Habib, a key leader of al-Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army.

The seventh such attack conducted in North Waziristan on October 31, 2008 had killed Abu Jihad al Masri, a top leader of the Egyptian Islamic group. The eighth successful predator strike had killed al-Qaeda leader Abdullah Azzam al Saudi in east of North Waziristan on November 19, 2008.

The ninth and the last successful drone attack of 2008, carried out in the Ali Khel region just outside Miramshah in North Waziristan on November 22, 2008, had killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubair al Masri and his Pakistani fugitive accomplice Rashid Rauf.

According to the figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities, a total of 537 people have been killed in 50 incidents of cross-border US predator strikes since January 1, 2008 to April 8, 2009, averaging 34 killings per month and 11 killings per attack. The average per month killings in predator strikes during 12 months of 2008 stood at 32 while the average per attack killings in the 36 drone strikes for the same year stood at 11.

Similarly, 152 people have been killed in 14 incidents of cross-border predator attacks in the tribal areas in the first 99 days of 2009, averaging 38 killings per month and 11 killings per attack.

Since September 3, 2008, it appears that the Americans have upped their attacks in Pakistani tribal areas in a bid to disrupt the al-Qaeda and the Taliban network, which they allege is being used to launch cross border ambushes against the Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The American forces stationed in Afghanistan carried out nine aerial strikes between September 3 and September 25, 2008, killing 57 people and injuring 38 others. The attacks were launched on September 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 15, 17, 22 and September 27. However, the September 3, 2008 American action was unique in the sense that two CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters landed in the village of Zawlolai in the South Waziristan Agency with ground troops from the US Special Operation Forces, fired at three houses and killed 17, including five women and four sleeping children.

Besides the two helicopters carrying the US Special Forces Commandos, two jet fighters and two gun-ship helicopters provided the air cover for the half-an-hour American operation, more than a kilometre inside the Pakistani border.

The last predator strike on [April 8, 2009] was carried out hardly a few hours after the Pakistani authorities had rejected an American proposal for joint operations in the tribal areas against terrorism and militancy, as differences of opinion between the two countries over various aspects of the war on terror came out into the open for the first time.

The proposal came from two top US visiting officials, presidential envoy for the South Asia Richard Holbrooke and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. However, the Pakistani military and political leadership reportedly rejected the proposal and adopted a tough posture against a barrage of increasing US predator strikes and criticism emanating from Washington, targeting the Pakistan Army and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and creating doubts about their sincerity in the war on terror and the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Source / International / The News

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Cleaning Up the Guantanamo Mess: Worthington Provides Some Valuable Details

How Cooking For The Taliban Gets You Life In Guantánamo
By Andy Worthington / February 01, 2009

Those of us who prefer justice to arbitrary and unaccountable detention without charge or trial were delighted when, last week, Barack Obama fulfilled a long-stated promise and issued a presidential order stating that Guantánamo will be closed "as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order," and establishing an immediate review of the cases of the remaining 242 prisoners to work out whether they can be released.

A year is a long time, of course, if you're unfortunate enough to have been imprisoned in Guantánamo for up to seven years with no way of asking why you're being held, but some of us were prepared to give the new President the benefit of the doubt, and to consider that perhaps he didn't want to make a rash promise that he might find himself unable to fulfill, such as pledging to close the wretched place in a matter of months.

Recent events, however, have demonstrated that, although President Obama has set in motion a policy that addresses the prisoners' future, their long desire to have an opportunity to question the basis of their detention is currently being addressed not in the White House but in the District Courts, following an epic, four-year struggle between the Supreme Court and Congress to grant them their wish. Since the justices of the Supreme Court decisively ended this struggle last June, by ruling that Congress had acted unconstitutionally when it stripped the prisoners of the habeas corpus rights that the Supreme Court had granted them in June 2004, a raft of previously marooned habeas cases has been making its way through the District Courts.

Justice and the habeas reviews

Although frequently becalmed by pleas from the Justice Department, whose lawyers have had the nerve to claim, after seven years, that they are having trouble rustling up any evidence, a handful of these cases have actually made it to the point where a judge has ruled on their merits. The results have been a vindication for those who have struggled for years to get the prisoners a day in court, and, of course, for the prisoners themselves, because in 23 of the 27 cases reviewed to date, the judges have dismissed the government's evidence for being empty and unsubstantiated -- in one case comparing it to a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- and have ordered the prisoners to be released.

Sadly, the impact on the prisoners has so far failed, for the most part, to match the significance of the rulings. In the case that drew comparisons with Lewis Carroll -- that of Huzaifa Parhat, a Uighur from China's oppressed Xinjiang province -- the government lodged a miserable and unprincipled appeal to stop Parhat and his 16 compatriots from settling in the United States, after District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled in October that their continued detention in Guantánamo was unconstitutional. In November, Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of George W. Bush, ordered the release of five Bosnians of Algerian origin, after he concluded that the government had failed to establish that, as alleged, they had intended to travel to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces, but to date only three of the men have been repatriated, and the other two still languish in Guantánamo, as the Bosnian government wrangles over their status. The last case is that of Mohammed El-Gharani, a Chadian national and Saudi resident who was just 14 years old when he was seized in a raid on a mosque in Pakistan. Two weeks ago, Leon comprehensively demolished the government's supposed evidence against El-Gharani, but he too remains stranded, pending a possible appeal.

To be or not to be (an enemy combatant)

In many ways, however, these prisoners are the lucky ones. In four other cases, the scales of justice have tipped the other way, into an alarming arena in which it has become apparent that the Supreme Court failed to address whether, in cases where the government is judged to have produced sufficient evidence to indicate that prisoners were "enemy combatants," it is justifiable to continue holding them indefinitely.

The problem, as these other four cases have revealed, is that, according to the definition accepted by Judge Leon, an "enemy combatant" does not have to be someone who actually engaged in terrorism or in combat against the United States, but rather someone who was "part of or supporting Taliban or al-Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its coalition partners," which "includes any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces" (emphasis added).

What this means in reality is that Judge Leon ruled in November that Belkacem Bensayah, the sixth Bosnian Algerian, was an "enemy combatant" not because he had been involved in a specific al-Qaeda plot, and not because he had raised arms against the United States in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but because the government provided what Leon regarded as "credible and reliable evidence," establishing that he "planned to go to Afghanistan to both take up arms against US and allied forces and to facilitate the travel of unnamed others to Afghanistan and elsewhere," and that he was "link[ed]" to a senior al-Qaeda operative (identified elsewhere as the mentally troubled training camp facilitator Abu Zubaydah, whose specific links to al-Qaeda have been questioned by the FBI).

This may be sufficient evidence to put Bensayah on trial, although it is surely not adequate to warrant his indefinite detention in Guantánamo, but in the cases of the other three men the noose-like nature of the "enemy combatant" definition was even more pronounced. On December 30, Judge Leon ruled that two more prisoners -- the Tunisian Hisham Sliti and the Yemeni Muaz al-Alawi -- were also correctly detained as "enemy combatants;" in Sliti's case because, despite being a cynical and dissolute drug addict, he was associated with individuals connected to al-Qaeda, and, in al-Alawi's case, because, although he had traveled to Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks and was not alleged to have raised arms against U.S. forces, he "stayed at guest houses associated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda ... received military training at two separate camps closely associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban and supported Taliban fighting forces on two different fronts in the Taliban's war against the Northern Alliance."

Cooking for the Taliban

This ruling in particular cried out for an immediate overhaul of the "enemy combatant" definition, but yesterday the absurdity of holding prisoners as "enemy combatants" who were associated with the Taliban before the 9/11 attacks but never raised a finger against the United States was highlighted even more forcefully when Judge Leon ruled, in the case of the Yemeni Ghaleb Nasser al-Bihani, that he too was an "enemy combatant."

Leon based his ruling on the fact that the government had established, primarily through interrogation, that al-Bihani had worked as a cook for the Taliban. Concluding that it was "not necessary" for the government to prove that he "actually fire[d] a weapon against the U.S. or coalition forces in order for him to be classified as an enemy combatant," Leon declared, "Simply stated, faithfully serving in an al-Qaeda-affiliated fighting unit that is directly supporting the Taliban by helping prepare the meals of its entire fighting force is more than sufficient to meet this Court's definition of 'support.'" He added, "After all, as Napoleon was fond of pointing out, ‘An army marches on its stomach.'"

Al-Bihani listened to Leon's ruling in a teleconference call from Guantánamo, but was cut off before hearing Leon's line about Napoleon. His lawyers, Shereen J. Chalick and Reuben Camper Cahn, of the Federal Defenders of San Diego, said that they would take a rush transcript of the ruling to al-Bihani, adding that he would be "disappointed" with the decision, but the reality, I can reveal, is that al-Bihani gave up on U.S. justice many years ago.

"I am definitely an enemy combatant"

In 2004, at his Combatant Status Review Tribunal at Guantánamo -- a toothless administrative review that was designed, essentially, to confirm that, on capture, he had been correctly designated an "enemy combatant" -- al-Bihani was acutely aware of Guantánamo's failings, and addressed all the issues raised yesterday by Judge Leon. Firstly, he admitted that he had traveled to Afghanistan in April or May 2001 "to fight the jihad with the Taliban" against Ahmed Shah Massoud (the leader of the Northern Alliance), and added, "There is nothing wrong with that in our religion. Is it acceptable for Americans and not for us?"

He then disputed an allegation that he "was an associate of the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda," pointing out that he had admitted "many times" that he was with the Taliban, but that the statement as it stood "suggests that you are [not] giving me a choice between Taliban and al-Qaeda," and also denied an allegation that he participated in hostilities against the United States, explaining, "I went to Afghanistan before the Americans. If I wanted to fight the Americans I would have gone there after the Americans arrived."

It was, however, at the conclusion of his hearing that he demonstrated what can now be seen as a prescient awareness of the inescapable bind in which he found himself. With evident sarcasm, he stated, "I am definitely an enemy combatant. There is no question about that. I am sure that you will find me as an enemy combatant. Nobody has been found to not be an enemy combatant. Everybody has been found to be an enemy combatant. I am certain that I will be found to be an enemy combatant."

If you want a final demonstration of the ongoing absurdity of Guantánamo, compare the case of Salim Hamdan to that of Ghaleb al-Bihani. Last August, Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, was tried at Guantánamo in the Military Commissions conceived by Vice President Dick Cheney and his advisers, sentenced and sent home in November to serve the last few weeks of a five-month sentence delivered by a military jury. Hamdan is now a free man, whereas al-Bihani, a man who never met Osama bin Laden, let alone driving him around, has just been told, by a judge in a U.S. federal court, that the government is entitled to hold him forever because he cooked dinner for the Taliban.

If President Obama is genuinely concerned with justice, he needs to act fast to tackle this squalid state of affairs, which does nothing to undo the previous administration's disdain for and mockery of the laws on which the United States was founded.

[Andy is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison. His website is: www.andyworthington.co.uk.]

Source / ZNet

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Memo to Obama : We Must Rethink Afghanistan Policy

Afghani Taliban: closer ties with Al Qaeda.

Americans need an open and full discussion of the grim situation in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration needs to set very limited objectives. The public needs to know that the situation in Afghanistan is far worse and more complicated than that in Iraq.

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / January 21, 2009

Barack Obama and progressives were correct to say that the war in Afghanistan was a necessary war because Al Qaeda’s headquarters are there or in nearby northwest Pakistan. The problem is that it was the necessary war in 2003, but the situation has since spun out of control. The Bush administration effort lost momentum when it failed to use American troops to nail Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Then it diverted crucial resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Americans need an open and full discussion of the grim situation in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration needs to set very limited objectives. The public needs to know that the situation in Afghanistan is far worse and more complicated than that in Iraq.

The regime we installed in Kabul is a vast kleptocracy, that is despised by the people. There was so much talk about helping the country on to the path of democracy and modernity. Now they execute people for converting to Christianity, and the role of women has only improved slightly. War lords regained power in the provinces, and narcofarmers and others restored the poppy crop that the Taliban outlawed. A reinvigorated Taliban now taxes the crop. Forget about nation-building there.

There has been a revival of the Taliban, and the new Taliban are not just seminarians; they are rebels of all sorts, bandits and ethnic rebels. They effectively employ roadside bombs, suicide bombers and other Iraqi tactics. Once seemingly revived by the ISI, the Pakistani Intelligence agency, or by rogue elements within it, the Afghan Taliban recently have begun working in concert with Taliban from the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. These elements now take on Pakistani forces and Afghan forces in small formations of 500 or 600. President Hamid Karzai has offered to open talks with Mullah Omar, but the Taliban leader did not respond affirmatively.

Now there are tribal insurgencies in the south that the Karzai regime cannot contain. In all, there are fourteen important insurgent organizations in Afghanistan. The country is a little over half Pashtuns (which includes the Taliban), and other large groups re the Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Tajiks. Warlords are the traditional leaders, and they are now fighting over control of the drug trade.

The situation there now has so deteriorated that it cannot be greatly improved by the application of American military might. Afghanistan has all the ingredients of a major military disaster. There is no silver bullet military solution; the rugged terrain is a guerilla’s paradise. Remember the British experience there in the late 19th century and the Russian military’s meltdown there in the 1980s. There are multiple factions, unbelievable geographical obstacles, and very tough logistical hurdles. American abuse of detainees and bombings has turned much of the population against us. Obama correctly noted the counterproductive effects of the bombings.

There are now 32,000 American troops there as well as another 30,000 allied troops. Our NATO allies are becoming discouraged and impatient, and their continued presence cannot be expected. We need to persuade NATO to remain longer and to consider introducing troops from Muslim nations, such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. The United States is now repositioning another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, which should satisfy Obama’s pledge to send more troops there.

Long-term pacification would take between 200,000 and 400,000 troops over a ten year period. The allies will not remain there that long. It is almost impossible to imagine how this option could be carried out.

Our goal cannot extend much beyond buying enough time for one last shot at bringing some stability to the country. The best approach would be to address it as part of a regional diplomatic effort that would bring greatly improved relations between India and Pakistan, give Afghanistan a coalition government, and mend our relations with Iran, because they are in a position to see that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be very painful. Hamid Karzai may have to be replaced with someone more acceptable to Pakistan, who almost inevitably will plan a major role in Afghan affairs. This optimum solution would require some help from Russia, China, and the “-stans.”

The ideal regional solution may well not be possible, and the US may have to settle for simply weakening the insurgencies enough to allow what passes for a central government to keep security manageable. Warlords must be bought off and not be rearmed. Far more Afghan troops must be recruited and trained. Corruption must be sharply curbed or the current regime will not even be able to hang on to Kabul.

The Biden-Lugar-Obama Bill, that promises $1.5 billion a year in developmental aid for ten years should be passed and vigorously implemented. That annual amount is much less than we spend there per month. This exercise of soft power should emphasize training teachers and nurses and building schools and health centers. These activities should be focused in the areas where the US plans to build twin gas and oil pipelines. Economic development money should also be spent in these areas.

This exercise of soft power should emphasize training teachers and nurses and building schools and health centers. Economic development money should also be spent in these areas.

A foundation stone of our policy there should be Obama’s comment that , " …the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped organize Afghanistan and [the] government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence." If the corruption does not end and the regime cannot win over the populace by providing a multiplicity of services, nothing the US attempts will work.

While we are there in reinforced numbers, American special forces can use the secret base the US is building in Pakistan to launch multiple operations against Al Qaeda. It should not be used for attacks by Americans against Taliban forces in northwestern Pakistan. It is paramount that we avoid creating supporters for Al Qaeda. Clearly, it would be beneficial to Al Qaeda if the US prolonged its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing the level of bombings that injure civilians is also a way of creating more Al Qaeda recruits. We are now seeing signs of closer ties between Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- something experts thought could not happen. The US must find ways to avoid bringing them together.

It also must be kept in mind that Pakistan is an even greater problem -- prone to violence and instability. We must do nothing to destabilize her more. Pakistan faces a radical Islamic insurgency and there is the remote possibility that nuclear weapons and/or the technology of A.Q. Khan could fall into the hands of Wahabi radicals. Pakistan has a strategic reason to gain the upper hand in Afghanistan, as it needs influence in that country as part of its regional strategy of counterbalancing India. For that reason we have to assume that the ISI, or elements within it, are assisting the Taliban. There will be no increase in stability until Pakistan gets what it wants there.

Some European writers complain that the Afghan national forces are rarely used in the south, where most of the Taliban is. It is also said that there is very little coordination between Allied forces and Pakistani forces on the other side of the border. Brits complain that the US might want them out of their old sphere of influence in Pashtun country. They suggest that the US wants to continue the instability there so it can use Afghanistan as a base for continuing US influence in Central Asia. It is probably more likely that the Afghan national army is simply not ready. As for dreams of being a Central Asian power -- we should look at our finances, manpower problems, and the logistical difficulties of keeping a large force there over an extended period.

Dreams of greatly expanding US power in Central Asia are unrealistic. To obtain assistance from Russia and China in bringing a settlement to Afghanistan, the US must reconsider its plans to disrupt the Collective Security Treat Organization (CSTO), led by Russia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Given our present economic circumstances, there are strong reasons to work out an amicable arrangement with the China-led SCO. The price for Russia’s help might be pulling back on NATO membership for Georgia, a move many of our allies would applaud. In both cases, there should be ways to see that the US gets its share of Caspian energy.

[Sherman DeBrosse, the pseudonym for a retired history professor, is a regular contributor to The Rag Blog and also blogs at Sherm Says and on DailyKos.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...