Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade

By Glen Ford

Created 11/24/2009 - 20:18

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The U.S. set the stage for the Afghan (and Pakistan) war eight years ago, when it handed out drug dealing franchises to warlords on Washington's payroll. Now the Americans, acting as Boss of All Bosses, have drawn up hit lists of rival, "Taliban" drug lords. "It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol."

American Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

"U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists."

If you're looking for the chief kingpin in the Afghanistan heroin trade, it's the United States. The American mission has devolved to a Mafiosi-style arrangement that poisons every military and political alliance entered into by the U.S. and its puppet government in Kabul. It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists [2], marked for death or capture. As a result, Afghanistan has been transformed into an opium plantation that supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin.

An article in the current issue of Harper's magazine [3] explores the inner workings of the drug-infested U.S. occupation, it's near-total dependence on alliances forged with players in the heroin trade. The story centers on the town of Spin Boldak, on the southeastern border with Pakistan, gateway to the opium fields of Kandahar and Helmand provinces. The chief Afghan drug lord is also the head of the border patrol and the local militia. The author is an undercover U.S.-based journalist who was befriended by the drug lord's top operatives and met with the U.S. and Canadian officers that collaborate with the drug dealer on a daily basis.

The alliance was forged by American forces during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and has endured and grown ever since. The drug lord, and others like him throughout the country, is not only immune to serious American interference, he has been empowered through U.S. money and arms to consolidate his drug business at the expense of drug-dealing rivals in other tribes, forcing some of them into alliance with the Taliban. On the ground in Pashtun-speaking Afghanistan, the war is largely between armies run by heroin merchants, some aligned with the Americans, others with the Taliban. The Taliban appear to be gaining the upper hand in this Mafiosa gang war, the origins of which are directly rooted in U.S. policy.

"It is a war whose order of battle is largely defined by the drug trade."

Is it any wonder, then, that the United States so often launches air strikes against civilian wedding parties, wiping out the greater part of bride and groom's extended families? America's drug-dealing allies have been dropping dimes on rival clans and tribes, using the Americans as high-tech muscle in their deadly feuds. Now the Americans and their European occupation partners have institutionalized the rules of gangster warfare with official hit lists of drug dealers to be killed or captured on sight – lists drawn up by other drug lords affiliated with the occupation forces.

This is the "war of necessity" that President Barack Obama has embraced as his own. It is a war whose order of battle is largely defined by the drug trade. Obama's generals call for tens of thousands of new U.S. troops in hopes of lessening their dependency on the militias and police forces currently controlled by American-allied drug dealers. But of course, that will only push America's Afghan partners in the drug trade into the arms of the Taliban, who will cut a better deal. Then the generals were argue that they need even more U.S. troops.

The Americans created this drug-saturated hell, and their occupation is now doomed by it. Unfortunately, they have also doomed millions of Afghans in the process.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com [4].

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [5]. 

[6]

• Afghanistan Heroin
• Afghanistan occupation

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[1] http://media.libsyn.com/media/blackagendareport/20091125_gf_AfghanDrugs.mp3
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102303709_pf.html
[3] http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082754
[4] http://www.BlackAgendaReport.com/
[5] mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
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In Praise of Matthew Hoh

The following article appeared on the Huffington Post website on November 27, 2009. Both authors have experience in the US foreign service. They praise Matthew Hoh, now former diplomat in Afghanistan, for the courage and conviction he expresses in his resignation from the US State Department on Sept. 11, 2009. Hoh resigned over what he saw as the folly of US military policy in Afghanistan.

You can find Matthew Hoh's resignation letter on many internet sites. Here is one: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13944018/Matthew-Hoh-Resignation-Letter

Bob Sheak

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Roger Morris and George Kennedy

"Matthew Hoh speaks grim truth to power"

The rare resignation on principle is always telling in American government. When Matthew Hoh recently left the State Department -- a Marine Captain in Iraq who became a diplomat in Afghanistan -- his act was significant far beyond the first reports.

Hoh speaks grim truth to power. His message is that to pursue the Afghan war policy in any guise -- regardless of the troop level President Obama now chooses -- will be utter folly, trapping America in an unwinnable civil war in the Hindu Kush, and only fueling terrorism.
An advisor in southern Afghanistan, Hoh knew the malignancy of want behind the war. Eight years after the U.S. invasion and a third of a trillion dollars spent, half the nation faces starvation on 45 cents a day, half the children die before five, and half the surviving young have no schools, part of a torment Afghans plead in poll after poll to be understood as the core of their conflict. He knew well the source of that scourge in the U.S.-installed Kabul regime, a kleptocracy of war- and drug-lords holed up amid American bodyguards in "poppy palaces," while clan-based "security forces" loot the countryside, sodomize its sons, and swell insurgent ranks. "We're propping up a government," Hoh said last week, "that isn't worth dying for." So pervasive and profound is that corruption, so entwined with the private exploitation and official graft of the U.S. occupation regime -- including kickbacks or extortion payments from both the American military and civilian aid programs to both the new Kabul plutocracy and the multi-layered Taliban -- that the morass makes every other issue of policy moot.

The 36-year-old diplomat brings unique authority to public debate. An insider confirming outside critics dispels the myth that classified information redeems a failed policy. He also speaks to and for many in government, infusing honesty where folly feeds on wary quiet and fraudulent unanimity. "There are a lot of guys, not just in the Foreign Service but in the military, who are looking at this thing and they don't understand what we are doing there," he told one audience. "I get mails all the time from junior and mid-level officers telling me, 'Keep it up. This makes no sense to us.'"

Whatever this protest says outwardly, its deeper meaning is devastating. The sheer contrast between Hoh and senior officials -- seeing the same reality, the same reports -- exposes some dirty little secrets of policy haunting the Obama presidency.

With the 8-year enormity of waste, venality and oppression since the invasion of 2001, ravages Hoh saw climaxed around him, went the knowing silence if not collusion of a succession of U.S. diplomats and officers responsible in the defiled occupation of Afghanistan. There is a troubling legacy, too, in the policy process. In the grip of experience irrelevant in Afghanistan, a generation of military commanders comes with a crudely recycled but promotion-rich creed of counter-insurgency, avenging what some as young officers in the 1970s saw as a false defeat if not home-front betrayal in Vietnam. They are allied with the lucrative in-and-out careerism of powerful if publicly faceless civilian Pentagon officials, what State Department rivals call the "COIN-heads" of counter-insurgency dogma. Those currents run like a murky subterranean river beneath the doomed policy Hoh silhouettes.

Most telling may be the disparity between Hoh -- the serious student of Afghan culture -- and Washington's decision-makers. To deal with one of the most complex settings on earth, the Obama administration relies on key figures -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Af-Pak Special envoy Richard Holbrooke and NSC Advisor James Jones -- whose careers in politics or the bureaucracy (like those commanding generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal) are bereft of any substantive knowledge of a people they are supposed to master. It leaves them all dangerously dependent on staff, and prey to the absence of dissenters like Hoh among aides whose credentials are hardly more impressive than their own.
That intellectual vacuum, a mirror of Vietnam decision-making, explains the shock and hostility that greeted recent cables of US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry opposing added U.S. troops backing an irredeemable regime. As Hoh exemplifies, actual knowledge of Afghanistan is rare -- and the lack scarcely recognized -- in a war council prone to flippant lines like Clinton's recent "There are warlords and there are warlords," or Holbrooke's definition of success, "We'll know it when we see it."

At the heart of Washington's decision-making dysfunction, of course, is always a president in thrall to the hoary fears and myths of national security, the most important realm he governs and in which most take power least prepared. For Barack Obama, only historic courage and insight can surmount the multiple corruptions of policy he is heir to.

Hoh embodies that bravery. Implored by Eikenberry to stay, he chose to forgo a prized career to speak out. We know that agony. There is no easy course ahead in Afghanistan. US policies a half century before 2001 account for much of the politics now so deplored in Kabul, a breakdown inflicted as well as inherent, and a blood debt added to the toll of occupation and war.

The gruesome truth of that history is that our sacrifices so far have been largely in vain. It is Matthew Hoh's heroism to try to stop the inseparable casualties of lives and truth.

Roger Morris and George Kenney are both Foreign Service Officers who resigned on principle -- Morris at the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, Kenney in 1991 over policy in the Balkans -- both writers are award-winning authors. Morris's Between the Graves: America, Afghanistan and the Politics of Intervention, will be published by Knopf in 2010. Kenney produces and hosts a podcast at electricpolitics.com while on the Board of Editors at In These Times.

Copyright (c) HuffingtonPost.com, inc.

One view on the "least bad" approach to Afghanistan quagmire includes a plan of withdrawal of troops

The Guardian editorial from November 18, 2009, rejects the arguments for continuing the "war effort" in Afghanistan and proposes a three-part process for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts.

Bob

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Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Another way out of the mire

Editorial The Guardian, Wednesday 18 November 2009

The case for continuing the war effort in Afghanistan is buttressed by negatives: the west can not afford to cede al-Qaida the space to regroup; there will be a civil war if foreign troops leave; Pakistan's fight against the Taliban would be undermined; Afghanistan would be abandoned for the second time in eight years. We can say what our forces are fighting against, but not what they are fighting for. Is it a second term of Hamid Karzai, whose inauguration tomorrow the west will endorse? The most devastating description of his government was provided by a former US marine captain, Matthew Hoh, who resigned as a US foreign serviceman in Zabul province. He described the government's failing as legion and metastatic: glaring corruption; a president whose confidants comprise drug lords and war criminals; provincial and district leaders who live off US handouts ; an election dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout.
He pulls only one punch. He omits to acknowlege the involvement of international organisations in Kabul in hiring the militias of drug dealers and warlords. Even if Karzai is flanked by the US ambassador on one side and the British ambassador on the other, his continued presence in power gives little reassurance. If the US and its allies are not fighting for the president, are they fighting for the state? The rate at which Afghan soldiers and policemen are being trained, there will soon be one member of the security forces for every 32 citizens. This is an enormous number, and impossible for a poor state to maintain. It creates the perfect conditions for a military coup. The attrition rate of policemen in the areas where they are needed most, which US and British troops have cleared and held, is 25%. And yet a national army and police force represent the only exit tickets for Nato troops.

The same mistakes

Pressed to say what the exit strategy is, the US envoy Richard Holbrooke speaks of leaving with a C minus. By which he means the tactical use of counterinsurgency principles for two or three years in the hope that elements of the Taliban would be prepared to talk about peace. The carrot of talks and the stick of counterinsurgency would put maximum pressure on them. A Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, would then be called, to which reconciled elements would participate and the constitution rewritten to accommodate them. There are two problems with this approach. First, far from softening up the Taliban, three more years of fighting could harden them. Second, if Mr Holbrooke acknowledges that the Taliban can not be defeated militarily, why wait three years? Why not work for peace now? Why continue making the same mistakes – the assumptions that Karzai can deliver; that anything of substance can be built in the spaces that the US and its allies attempt to hold. And why assume that a surge of up to 40,000 troops will make things better rather than worse?

Ceasefire

The international community is attempting to shore up an inherently defective government while trying to fight an increasingly effective enemy. It should concentrate on one thing at a time. First, it should stop the fighting by offering the Quetta Shura, the Taliban HQ, a ceasefire. Progress should not be contingent on a ceasefire. The Shura have said they will only stop fighting when the foreigners leave. But this is a matter of sequencing, if a ceasefire entails, as it must, a commitment to leave. Second, a Loya Jirga should be called to which the Taliban leadership should be explicitly invited. This will rewrite the constitution and redivide the political spoils. Third, an internal Afghan settlement must be guaranteed by its neighbours, principally Pakistan, Iran, and India, but also regional powers with substantial influence – Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.

There are as many pitfalls to this plan as there are to any other. The obvious question is: will the fundamentalist Taliban leadership bite? Why talk when they are doing so well at fighting? And who exactly would talk, when this religious movement lacks a Sinn Fein, a political arm doing the thinking? The Quetta Shura would have a make a choice, and it is not guaranteed that they would make the right one. But if they fight on, they know the most they would achieve is control over Pashtun areas. They could never recapture Kabul or Afghanistan as a whole. The Tajik militias and the mainly non-Pashtun army are too well armed. Pressured by their fundraisers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, they might not dismiss out of hand an offer of a place at the high table. They would at least have to think seriously about it.

The Taliban is very far from being a homogenous force. The current strategy presupposes that wedges can be driven into the movement and that "moderate" Taliban can be bought off. But reconciliation based on limitless amounts of cash (the budget for the euphemistically-named Commander's Emergency Response Program is $1.2bn for 2010) and limited amounts of intelligence (the Foreign Office has 95 local Afghan staff but only five UK staff who speak Pashtu) is surely less stable than reconciliation based on hard politics – a share of power in return for an end to the war. But what about the Pakistan army's fight to the death with Tehrik-i-Taliban in South Waziristan? Would we not merely be undermining that ? Only if you assume that the Pakistan's militants can be blown off the map of the tribal areas. The best that can happen is establish a new set of ground rules between militants and the Pakistani state. The leaders of the Afghan Taliban warned against the Pakistani Taliban mounting attacks against their own state, precisely because they were mindful of the continuing links between the Quetta Shura and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence security agency. If these links are real, a political settlement guaranteed by the Pakistani state, which also means its army, would use those links, not work against them.

Not in our image

The offer would be made to the Taliban, not to al-Qaida, against which counter-terrorist operations would continue. But if it worked, resettled Talibs could have every incentive not to invite the Arab fighters back, because they would have a stake in the state and its resources to protect. There are elements and echoes of this plan around – in Gordon Brown's idea to call an international conference to set a date for withdrawal; in the FCO paper calling for a strategic reconciliation with the Quetta Shura. But neither of these set talks in the context of a political dialogue. It would be dishonest to claim that an all-out drive for a political settlement would not risk grim consequences, not least for Afghan women. But it would be dishonest, too, to pretend that their rights at present are not sliding under the Karzai regime, where women are still being imprisoned for "moral" crimes. The challenge is now to find the most effective way of stopping the slippage of human rights.

The perfect can no longer be the enemy of the least-bad. The last best hope is to improve social attitudes through political and financial engagement. The military tactic has failed. As many schools should be built and as much infrastructure should be put in place before a settlement is reached. This is not a recipe for turning our backs on Afghanistan, but for continuing to work in it and with it. As it is, we are trying to erect tents in a sandstorm. That storm has to finish before anything will stand up. And when it does, it will not be in our image.

Published on guardian.co.uk at 00.05 GMT on Wednesday 18 November 2009.

Guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

China outmaneuvers US in gaining access to Afghanistan's copper and mineral resources

The Karzai government opened up its copper and other energy and mineral resources to foreign investment in 2008. China is out-bidding investors from other countries for these opportunities, including out-bidding a US corporation. From China's perspective, these are not large investments, but they are substantial for Afghanistan and too expensive for US corporations. China has ample means to invest in resources virtually anywhere, as she has been doing in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. One of the principal points in the following article by Nicklas Norling is that, without putting any troops into Afghanistan, China is investing in Afghanistan's "large energy and mineral resources, particularly in copper...." Not much oil, though. And not an oil pipeline. If this investment would be combined with investment from somewhere in sustainable agriculture and other rural projects, then there would be a real encouraging story. In the meantime, China is outmaneuvering the US/NATO. And, not the least of it, this is another indication of America's relative decline and counterproductive military policies that drain limited US resources for no productive purpose. Better to develop a green economy in the US.

See article that follows.

Bob Sheak

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Published on Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Analyst (http://www.cacianalyst.org)

THE EMERGING CHINA-AFGHANISTAN RELATIONSHIP

By Nicklas Norling (05/14/2008 issue of the CACI Analyst)

China showed little interest in Afghanistan throughout the 20th century but its growing energy and natural resource demand combined with increasing Afghan openness to foreign investors have alerted Beijing of the country’s potentials. This growing interest was particularly manifested with Beijing’s giant $3.5 billion investment in Afghanistan’s Aynak copper field late last year, the far largest foreign direct investment in Afghanistan’s history. Reports from Kabul also indicate that additional Chinese investments are underway. Although these investments may be the engine in Afghanistan’s economy, the Chinese piggy-backing on ISAF’s stabilization effort is bound to be unpopular in the U.S. and Europe, though not necessarily with the Afghan government.

BACKGROUND: China showed little interest in the reconstruction of Afghanistan following the overthrow of the Taliban. Bilateral assistance and aid have thus far been extremely limited, even if bilateral trade has steadily increased. According to some sources, China has now, together with Pakistan, emerged as a main exporter to Afghanistan while a few Chinese companies were also active in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Operation Enduring Freedom.

For example, Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei partnered with the Afghan Ministry of Communications to implement digital telephone switches, providing roughly 200,000 subscriber lines. China has also taken part in the Parwan irrigation project, restoring water supply in Parwar province, as well as the reconstruction of the public hospitals in Kabul and Kandahar. Moreover, the EU has hired Chinese firms for various construction projects in Afghanistan, including road restoration activities.

The political ties between China and Afghanistan also have been relatively cordial since 2001, and President Karzai has publicly reiterated his ambition to emulate “America’s democracy and China’s economic success”. China and Afghanistan have signed a number of agreements for the establishment of bilateral business councils and other similar institutions devoted to the development of bilateral ties.

Notwithstanding that China has increased its activities in Afghanistan gradually since 2001, Afghanistan figured overall as a relatively peripheral concern to Beijing up until 2006. In contrast to China’s rapid emergence in neighbouring Siberia, Central Asia, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia, Afghanistan has remained a rather untouched square in Beijing’s Eurasian hopscotch. Indeed, this disinterest could be observed throughout the entire 20th century, perhaps partly accounting for the complete disregard of China as a potential future investor in the World Bank’s 2005 Investment Horizons: Afghanistan.

Some eyebrows were therefore raised when in 2007, China’s Metallurgical group launched a $3.5 billion bid and won the tender to develop Afghanistan’s Aynak copper field in Logar province. The copper field is estimated to be the largest undeveloped field in the world and has been virtually untouched since the Soviet invasion in 1979. The investment is the far largest in Afghanistan’s history and involves not only mining but also the construction of a $500 million electrical plant and a railway from Tajikistan to Pakistan to support exploration. The mine will be in full operation in around six years, lead to the employment of 10,000 Afghans, while $400 million of royalties will accrue the Afghan government yearly – more than half of the present yearly state budget. The mine is also estimated to generate millions of dollars in taxes and $200 million in annual shareholder revenues. Furthermore, the shallow Aynak field is comparatively easy to develop, which speaks in favour of a fast materialization of this project.

As could be observed elsewhere in the developing world, Chinese state-owned companies launch bids almost doubling those of their foreign rivals. The mine was estimated to go for $2 billion but the Chinese far outbid the competing Strikeforce (which is part of Russia’s Basic Element group), Kazakhmys Consortium, Russia’s Hunter Dickinson, and the U.S. company Phelps Dodge.
The tender forms part of Afghanistan’s national privatization program which has resulted in international tenders for most of the major state-owned companies during 2007-2008, while legislation is continually being adjusted to allow for foreign investments. Will this giant investment be the starting shot of a serious Chinese emergence in Afghanistan or will the hitherto disinterested approach to Afghanistan continue?

IMPLICATIONS: There are plenty of factors suggesting that China is set to increase its investments in Afghanistan in the near future. Afghanistan has unexplored reserves of oil and natural gas in the northern parts of the country. The Afghan oil reserves were recently upgraded 18 times by a U.S. geological survey, estimates standing at a mean of 1,596 million barrels, while Afghanistan’s natural gas reserves were upgraded by a factor of three, standing at a mean of 15,687 trillion cubic feet (Tcf).

Afghanistan also has large iron ore deposits between Herat and the Panjsher Valley, and gold reserves in the northern provinces of Badakshan, Takhar, and Ghazni. Major copper fields also exist in Jawkhar, Darband, and in abovementioned Aynak, located around 30 km southeast of Kabul. All of these resource-rich areas are also situated in the relatively stable northern and northwestern regions.

Moreover, China’s iron-ore demand increased close to 15 percent in the first 8 months of 2007, while copper demand surged by almost 35 percent in the same period. Natural gas demand has also increased rapidly, and China is desperately looking for overland energy supply diversification in the neighboring states in Central Asia, and potentially also in Afghanistan.
Apart from complementarity in supply and demand, the institutional development in Afghanistan is also entering a stage when it is becoming more and more prepared for hosting foreign companies; the Chinese also seem set to enter now when the time is ripe, and the state-owned companies are up for international tender. A similar timing of market entry has been demonstrated by Beijing in African countries.

China enjoys a comparative advantage to most other foreign companies, since the roof of spending is virtually limitless in sectors of strategic interest, which also speaks in Beijing’s favor in Afghanistan. However, the Chinese free-riding on U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan while simultaneously outmaneuvering U.S. companies such as Phelps Dodge has been met with resentment in American policy-making and military circles.

Pentagon officials reportedly stated that “the Afghan government’s recent decision to award a copper mining contract [Aynak] to a Chinese company is worse than first reported.” These concerns may be warranted, considering the lackluster Chinese contribution to the Afghan stabilization effort.

On the other hand, it will also generate invaluable massive foreign investments to Afghanistan which will generate employment, infrastructure, and an enhanced state budget which, in turn, is essential to provide state services and maintain central control over the country. Indeed, a number of studies, including the World Bank’s 2004 report “Mining as a Source of Growth” have also identified the mining sector to be a potential engine in Afghanistan’s state-building effort.
CONCLUSIONS: China remained disengaged in Afghanistan until Karzai’s government recently opened up its energy, mineral, and raw materials to foreign investors. The Chinese exploration of Aynak copper field is likely the start of Beijing’s drive to seize as large a share as possible of Afghanistan’s natural resources. The Chinese government will likely be successful in these endeavors considering China’s good standing in Afghanistan, ability to distort the market, and fiscal wherewithal to outbid its competitors.

Afghanistan has large energy and mineral resources, particularly in copper, but they should at the same time not be exaggerated. China is likely to emerge as a large investor in the country, for better or worse, and Beijing’s interest in Afghanistan is likely to increase. It will nonetheless continue to be overall peripheral to China’s strategic concerns compared to Pakistan and the Central Asian countries.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Nicklas Norling is a Project Coordinator with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, based in Stockholm.

Source URL:http://www.cacianalyst.org/?q=node/4858

GRAIN: The soils of war

The soils of war The real agenda behind agricultural reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq GRAIN In this Briefing, we look at how the US's agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and the surrounding regions. Seen together with the growing clout that the US and its corporate allies exercise over donor agencies and global bodies – such as the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres, which influence the food and farm policies adopted by the recipient countries – this is an alarming development. These are not unique cases born from unusual circumstances, but constitute a likely template for US activities overseas, as it continues to expand its "war on terror" and pursue US corporate interests. Asia has seen its fair share of disasters in recent years, both man-made and natural – floods, cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, war. After each calamity, efforts are made to put the pieces back together. But "aid" from outside often comes with a political or even a military agenda that aims much more to refashion countries to satisfy powerful interests than actually to rebuild the affected communities. Humanitarian aid is regularly conditional on the adoption of neoliberal policies, and, perhaps more troubling, there has been a recent trend in the case of war to interweave this aid, classified as "reconstruction", closely with the military machinery of the invading powers. In Afghanistan, where US President Obama is sending an additional 17,000 US troops, and Iraq, the testing grounds for this militarised aid, the distinction between the US's civilian and military activities has been completely, and deliberately, blurred. Afghanistan: food and bombs When the US began its campaign of bombing Afghanistan in 2001, one of its first targets was the Soviet-built Shindand airfield in the west of the country, near the border with Iran. A year later, the US took control of the airfield, one of the largest in the country, amid accusations that it intended to use the site as a possible base for operations against Iran. Today the area around Shindand remains a scene of intense warfare between US/NATO and Taliban forces, with civilians caught in the middle. On 21 August 2008, US planes taking off from the Shindand airfield bombarded a village in Shindand District, killing at least 88 innocent civilians. When protesters later took to the streets of the regional city of Azizabad, the Afghan National Army opened fire on the crowd, leaving several people wounded. The protest had erupted after officials from the central government came with food aid for the affected families. "They destroyed our houses, killed dozens of people and they still send us wheat?" said Hamidullah, a local resident who took part in the protests. [1] In the war in Afghanistan, bombs and food are a package deal. At the very airfield from which the US planes launched their deadly attack, US forces had established an agricultural training centre just months before. "The agricultural centre has many positive effects for both the troops and the local population," says a leader with the US Special Forces civil affairs team. "This allows us to build a rapport with the villagers through education and employment; therefore, they are given a reason to think twice about allowing the anti-Afghan forces to step in and influence their lives in a negative way. The presence of this agricultural centre is a security measure in and of itself." [2] Its explicit objective is to give a positive spin to the US occupation. The US officials say that the centre will eventually build up agricultural production for export in the area and wean local farmers away from producing poppies – a crop that still provides more security and income to farmers than the millions of dollars in foreign aid, so little of which trickles down to them. The centre is equipped with laboratories, classrooms, several fish ponds with hatcheries, vineyards and orchards. A weather station and drip irrigation system are planned. All of it is run by the US military. Box 1: The Agricultural Advisers Since 2003, 25 USDA-funded Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) have been deployed to train Afghans in farming techniques. The following number of USDA agricultural advisers has been working with the PRTs:   No. of advisers No. of months deployed 2003 3 6 2004 10 6 2005 10 6 2006 8 9 2007 8 9 2008 13 13 Source: USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service To the south-east, USAID contracted the US firm Chemonics Inc. to build an agriculture centre outside Lashkar Gah, a city in the province of Helmand, another area of intense conflict with the Taliban. Chemonics is an international firm that specialises in private sector development and agriculture, and operates under the slogan "to catalyse agribusiness". [3] It was founded in Washington in 1975, and since then USAID has been its major client. [4] According to its president, Richard Dreiman: "We at Chemonics are proud to be part of Afghanistan's agricultural and agribusiness renaissance." [5] Chemonics says that the location originally chosen for the agriculture centre, in a farming area, was rejected; they were instead "instructed" for "strategic military and security considerations" to establish it at the Lashkar Gah airfield, which is under the control of the UK military. [6] It is clear that the line between the military and aid objectives has been blurred – and purposely so. Thirty years ago, when Afghanistan was a net exporter of food, Helmand was the country's breadbasket. The US proclaimed after the invasion that by 2007 it would once again make the country self-sufficient in food. Today in 2009 that goal is as distant as ever, with Afghans still dependent on food imports and foreign assistance. This is largely because the war has continued, devastating the country's agriculture. Rather than genuinely helping Afghans to recover their old farming skills, the agriculture centres provide a veneer of agricultural reconstruction to a military mission that is destroying Afghanistan's food systems. They are an attempt to legitimise the military bases of an occupying power. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that the UK and US deploy in the Afghan countryside with increasing frequency serve a similar purpose to the agriculture centres. A PRT typically consists of 60–250 military personnel, a USAID field officer and a US State Department political officer. USAID says that there are about 25 PRTs currently operating in Afghanistan. According to USAID: "PRTs in Afghanistan are key instruments through which the international community delivers assistance at the provincial and district level. As a result of their provincial focus and civilian and military resources, PRTs have a unique mandate to improve security, support good governance, and enhance provincial development. The combination of international civilian and military resources also allows the PRT to have wide latitude to implement their mandate.... PRTs seek to establish an environment that is secure and stable enough for the operation of international and Afghan civilian agencies to provide development support. Due to their unique composition, PRTs are also able to deliver development and support to less secure areas. USAID's programs attempt to work with PRTs to deliver services in less secure or underserved areas of Afghanistan." [7] Box 2: Ramping up US companies in Afghanistan In 2003, USAID launched a project called Rebuilding Afghanistan's Agricultural Markets Program (RAMP), a three-year project to be carried out in 13 provinces. It had two main objectives: to increase agricultural productivity and to link villages to markets. This programme clearly reflects the thinking behind "rebuilding": it is understood as a process for integrating Afghan agriculture within the global trading system and for developing basic skills and tools for agribusiness. RAMP's immediate beneficiaries were US companies. As a USAID brochure stated brazenly: "[RAMP] provides an excellent opportunity for U.S. equipment and service providers. Since a majority of funding is expected from U.S. sources, U.S. companies will definitely be given preference under RAMP. It is very important for U.S. firms to find good local Afghan companies to partner with under this activity."1 One US private company to win a big contract under RAMP was Chemonics International Inc. Chemonics was charged with the construction of the airfield and agriculture centre in Helmand province and another series of contracts, worth a total of US$600m, for "socio-economic assessment" and "food security" in Afghanistan. Even though the latter was the largest contract the US government publicly awarded for work in the country, Chemonics was reluctant to provide details of the tasks it was contracted to undertake. The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based centre for investigative journalism, was unsuccessful in its repeated attempts to get Chemonics to provide it with copies of the contracts.2 RAMP's projects are typically supplied and serviced by US firms, such as Valmont Industries Inc., which won contracts to supply mechanised irrigation equipment, and CDM, which served as a technical resource for water and irrigation projects in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2004. They also favour contract farming and foreign investment. Parwan Dehydrates Company, a vegetable exporting factory established through RAMP in Afghanistan's Parwan province, has contracts with 1,200 farmers for the supply of dried vegetables. It is a joint venture between Development Works Corps (DWC), Canada, which holds 60 per cent of the equity, and the yet to be established Parwan Growers' Association, which will hold the remaining 40 per cent. DWC is a member of USAID–RAMP.3 Aside from RAMP, Chemonics is carrying out another project for USAID – the Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program (ASAP) (2006–10). The programme seeks to strengthen the role of private capital in agriculture and to develop the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture to support it. As is stated in the programme, the emphasis is on "market-led solutions that help farmers and companies capitalize on new economic opportunities".4 1 - http://www.export.gov/afghanistan/pdf/construction_3-ramp.pdf 2 - The Center for Public Integrity, Windfalls of war: Chemonics International Inc., 31 March 2004, http://tinyurl.com/cqwm8o 3 - See Kenneth E. Neils, "Case Study: Vegetable Dehydration and Processing Factory in Afghanistan". http://tinyurl.com/b9lb9v Another such venture is one focused on major replanting campaign targeted at revitalising Afghanistan's formerly world-renowned table grape industry. Under initiatives designed with Roots of Peace, U.C. Davis shipped 4,000 grapevine cuttings to Afghanistan under a US$10-million contract from USAID. 4 - See Chemonics' website: http://tinyurl.com/dmdusz Some of the PRTs are called Agricultural Development Teams, and they have a specific agricultural mission. Aside from the ridiculous intent to teach Afghan farmers about how they do things in Iowa or Texas, and the provision of free wheat seeds to convince farmers to abandon poppy cultivation, these teams, composed mainly of soldiers from the National Guard, also make critical contributions to military operations. "It helps in the military kinetic part because it involves cooperation of the local population, and intelligence resources can be brought to bear", explains Army Major-General King E. Sidwell. "It makes friends when you might not otherwise be able to make friends." [8] Agribusiness grows on the battlefield The support between the military and agricultural work runs both ways. While agricultural reconstruction facilitates US/NATO military operations, the military operations push forward the agenda of US and other foreign-based agribusiness corporations by creating a context where they can easily put pressure on the government to adopt neoliberal policies. The war provides these corporations with both a lucrative short-term market in the blossoming "reconstruction" industry (see Box 2) and an opportunity to integrate Afghanistan into their global production networks and markets in the long term. Seeds are at the centre of these processes. Those "rebuilding" Afghanistan's agriculture zoomed in on exactly that. In 2002 a global multi-partner exercise with 34 organisations was brought together under the banner of the CGIAR, with US and Australian funding. This Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan (FHCRAA) lasted about a year, within which time it imported and distributed several thousand tonnes of wheat seed from Pakistan and set up seed multiplication programmes for varieties of other crops that it brought in from the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Syria. [9] The Consortium and other CGIAR-led initiatives have completely bypassed the rich heritage of farmers' varieties in Afghanistan, which would have provided the basis for genuine agricultural reconstruction. According to an ICARDA survey conducted in 2002, neither rain-fed rice varieties nor rain-fed and irrigated wheat varieties that have been supplied by the aid organisations have included any Afghan genetic materials. The authors of the survey concluded that Afghan wheat farmers are "on their own when it comes to replicating and reselecting local variety seed". [10] Afghanistan has instead been deluged with all manner of foreign seed varieties, some of which have come through projects with foreign seed companies seeking to test their varieties in a potential future market (see Box 3). Concerns were raised early on about the indiscriminate importing of seeds and the disregard of local seeds, prompting the FAO, [11] ICARDA [12] and the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture to propose a Code of Conduct for seed aid in 2002. But any concern for farmers' seeds has been overrun by the insistence of the US and EU on crafting a seed industry in Afghanistan allied to their larger political agendas. Essentially this means building up a few local seed companies that can initially serve as a conduit for seed aid, and later, if the US wins the war, open the door to foreign seed companies and agribusiness. As in the rest of the world, a private seed industry in Afghanistan requires a legislative framework that creates a commercial seed market. This is done through laws that make proprietary seed sale the norm, forcing farmers to buy rather than save or share such seeds, with little protection for farmers' own local varieties and seed practices. [13] Thus, on 13 September 2005, by way of a process led by the FAO and the EU, the Agriculture Ministry adopted a National Seeds Policy which, while seeming to defend the seed-saving rights of farmers, endorsed monopoly rights for seed companies that would make it illegal for farmers to exchange or sell commercial seeds: "Farmers will maintain their right to use, exchange, share or sell their farm-saved seed between themselves without any restriction and will have the right to continue using any varieties of their choice without being hampered by the system of compulsory registration provided they do not commercialise production emanating from proprietary varieties." [14] A national seed law soon followed, the draft of which prohibits the sale of non-certified seeds unless they conform to minimum standards of germination, purity and labelling. As small farmers might find it difficult to comply with these requirments, it could affect the sale and exchange of farmers' seeds. [15] Box 3. Multinational companies move into farming Soya has never been grown in Afghanistan and it doesn't form part of the country's culinary tradition, but a new programme, supposedly devised to combat malnutrition, plans to change all that.1 USAID has funded Nutrition and Education International (NEI), set up by Nestlé, to teach Afghans to sow and eat soya beans.2 NEI is linked to the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH),3 which was founded by the American Soybean Association (ASA) in 2000,4 to organise the distribution of free soya milk to pregnant women and infants throughout the developing world. WISHH works with the North American Millers' Association (NAMA), whose members include global giants ADM, Bunge Milling and ConAgro. In Afghanistan NEI works with Stine Seed Company, Iowa, and Gateway Seed Company, Illinois, both of which supply it with genetically modified Roundup soya and Roundup-Ready herbicide to be sold on to the farmers. According to NEI, it distributed two tonnes of genetically modified soya seed in Afghanistan in 2005. Stine and Gateway aren't the only multinational seed companies to have moved in. In 2002 the German seed company KWS established a public–private partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Foods and Light Industry and a group of private Afghan investors to re-establish sugar beet cultivation in the Baghlan area, 250 km north of Kabul, and to reopen the old Baghlan Sugar Factory, once the centre of Afghanistan's small domestic sugar industry.5 Private companies from Germany, Iran and Russia supplied "high-yielding" sugar beet varieties, along with fertilisers. Plans have also been drawn up to use by-products from the sugar refinery processing plants – molasses and beet pulp – to produce feedstock for industrial ethanol. But not even this project, the New Baghlan Sugar Company, could escape the war: it was in the news in November 2007 when a bomb exploded at the inauguration ceremony. Even so, the partners are pressing on with the modernisation. In 2007 KWS and Monsanto introduced in the US sugar beets genetically modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, despite concern that the beets would contaminate other crops.6 There is now a risk that GM crops such as these could be used in Afghanistan, triggering off another kind of warfare with local biodiversity. The International Potato Center (CIP) has been preparing the way for the entry of Technico Pty Limited, an Australian multinational.7 CIP has imported into Afghanistan Technico's varieties for trials. USAID has funded the infrastructure for a potato market, and a CGIAR team has developed a certification system. Three US multinational companies – Chemonics, Development Alternatives Inc.(DAI),8 and Planning and Development Collaborative International (PADCO) – are carrying out a series of USAID-funded Alternative Livelihood Programs (ALPs), which aim to provide poppy farmers with another way of earning their living.9 Their big success to date is the export of pomegranates flown out on US military planes to a Carrefour supermarket in Dubai.10 1 - Nutrition and Educational International (NEI), "Final Report, 2004 Soybean Production Experimentation in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh Province, Afghanistan". http://tinyurl.com/cgvxyx 2 - See NEI website, http://www.nei-intl.org/index.html 3 - See WISHH website, http://www.wishh.org/ 4 - See American Soybean Association website, http://www.soygrowers.com/international/wishh.htm 5 - FAO Newsroom, "Restarting sugar production in Afghanistan", 17 December 2004, http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/52501/index.html 6 - See the Organic Seed Alliance website for more information, http://www.seedalliance.org/index.php?page=SugarBeetJune2008 7 - See Technico's website, http://www.technituber.com.au 8 - DAI is an international business development consulting firm. http://www.dai.com 9 - See PADCO's AECOM International Development website, http://www.padco.aecom.com/ 10 - "Afghans seek image change with anar", FreshPlaza: Global Fresh Produce and Banana News, 24 November 2008. http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=33728 With this legal framework in place, the first private company producing and selling wheat seeds was inaugurated in Bamyan province in Central Afghanistan in August 2006. [16] Other companies have since followed, and in October 2008 an Afghanistan National Seed Association (ANSA), headed by the chief executive of a private Afghan seed company, was created in Kabul with FAO support. [17] To call it a national industry is a bit of a stretch. Afghanistan's private seed companies are kept afloat by outside donors. In 2008, for instance, USAID and the UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) contributed US$3 million each to an EU Seed Project that provides loans for the purchase of certified wheat seed. What is more, the main activity of the seed companies is to produce seed for the foreign donor programmes or military operations. Most if not all of their seed sales are through contracts with foreign agencies, as part of poppy eradication programmes or military PR exercises. ANSA is not the only game in town. The Taliban runs its own seed supply networks, with a similar strategy of winning the loyalty of local farmers. The US Army claims that the Taliban control a large wheat-seed farm in Ghazni province and distributes seed to farmers in areas under their control. A US National Guard Agribusiness Development Team told the Dallas Morning News that it plans to build another wheat-seed farm nearby to "free Ghazni's wheat farmers from Taliban-approved suppliers". [18] Either way – Taliban seed or US Army seed – the seed is certainly not "free". Both come with heavy political agendas, backed by armed forces, that have little to do with the interests of Afghanistan's small farmers. Getting their own seeds back into the hands of these farmers is the only real way that they will find their freedom. One justification for introducing a range of cash crops is to provide alternatives to the cultivation of opium poppies for the global drug trade. But, while poppy farming is flourishing, few farmers seem interested in the alternatives. It is not hard to understand why: a poppy farmer makes much more money – approximately ten times more – than a wheat farmer. One possible solution, which is being promoted by an Australian scientist from the Canberra-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, jointly with the US San Diego State University's Homeland Security Programme, is to legalise the production of poppies for biodiesel production. Farmers would plant a variety of poppy seed that has been genetically modified to have a high oil content and not to contain narcotic properties. Leading donors are also pressing for more economically viable "alternative" crops and "improved" varieties to offer farmers (see Box 3). Rebuilding Iraq It is ironic that any mention of rebuilding food and farm systems in Iraq – known as the cradle of agriculture – has to begin with numerous references to the US. However, in today's context it is important to point out that Iraq has long been important to the US as a market for its agricultural commodities. While it is true that the US has long-term interests in developing such a market in Afghanistan, Iraq is already the number one destination for its hard red winter wheat exports and a top destination for its rice. [19] It is a US$1.5bn market that wasn't accessible to US companies before the invasion, because of the sanctions. [20] Indeed, controlling the development of Iraq's agriculture and food systems was so important to the US that in the early years of its occupation it brought in Dan Amstutz, an ex-Cargill executive and a veteran insider with US trade delegations, to be in charge of this sector. [21] The US came into Iraq with a heavy agenda for reforming all sectors of its economy, not just agriculture. However, the US's Coalition Provisional Authority could not enforce its neoliberal reform programme as rapidly as it wanted to, because it was subject to a series of constraints: the laws of the Geneva Convention, the practical problems of a lack of interest by investors, and the desperate need for some form of organisation to cater to the basic needs of the Iraqi people. Even so, the CPA managed to enact a harsh set of neoliberal policies that had a major impact on the country. [22] Indeed, the impact of the reforms, combined with the continuing war, has been so catastrophic that by January 2009 the Chairman of the Iraqi Union of Industries confirmed that 90 per cent of the country's industries had closed since 2003. [23] Box 4: Parked in the Bay The US administration deployed two US Naval ships with 3,500 marines on board to the waters of the Bay of Bengal for humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations in Bangladesh after that country was hit by Tropical Cyclone Sidr in 2007. In the words of the US Charge d'Affaires in Bangladesh, US is "(h)ere for the long term … to assist with recovery and rehabilitation".1 These Department of Defense operations come under a joint plan of the US Department of State and USAID. One of the ships, USS Kearsarge, has also been used between 2003 and 2005 in "Operation Iraq Freedom" and the "Global War on Terror". Many local voices were raised in protest in Bangladesh. 1 - US embassy, Dhaka, press release, 7 December 2007, http://tinyurl.com/c2kmpb, see also Indo-Asian News Service, "Islamists protest US naval presence for cyclone relief", The Earth Times, 24 November 2007, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/147173.html In respect of the agricultural sector more specifically, the US has implemented a blueprint similar to the one already described in relation to Afghanistan, albeit on a larger scale and with more flagrant profiteering by US companies. In one of its orders, the CPA abolished agricultural subsidies and opened up the agricultural market. Not surprisingly, the country was flooded with cheap imports and local food production collapsed. Just as in Afghanistan, changes in seed laws were seen as crucial. However, whereas in Afghanistan it was at least the central government that enacted the new laws, in Iraq farmers' rights to save seeds were struck down by the infamous Order 81 during the last days of the US's Coalition Provisional Authority's rule.24 Dan Amstutz was put in charge of the USAID's Agriculture Reconstruction and Development Program for Iraq (ARDI). This work, which was managed by one of USAID's most trusted private contractors, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), focused on accelerating "the transition from a command-and-control production and marketing system to a market-driven economy where farmers and agribusinesses are able to take risks and realize profits". [25] At the top of ARDI's list was wheat, Iraq's most important food crop. In the field, ARDI's work with wheat focused on the import, multiplication and distribution of certified wheat seed. [26] Those efforts seem to have had little impact. During ARDI's three years, Iraq's national wheat production dropped from 2.6 million tonnes in 2002 to 2.2 million tonnes in 2006 (despite a doubling in the area sown to wheat) and the national average yields for wheat plunged over those same years from 1.6 tonnes per hectare to 0.6 tonnes per hectare. [27] But ARDI was also playing a political game with wheat that was part of a larger US shock-therapy strategy for the Iraq economy and likely to have been of more interest to US agribusiness: its central objective was to liberalise and privatise Iraq's wheat sector, and its Public Distribution System in particular. [28] While the chaos following the US invasion made an immediate sell-off or dismantling of Iraq's wheat sector impossible (and illegal under the Geneva Convention), ARDI tried to push the Iraqis down the alternative path of neoliberal reforms that could arrive at the same ends while sidestepping political sensitivities and immediate practical problems. [29] Some of this privatisation is now being implemented in Iraq through the "International Compact with Iraq" – a five-year plan negotiated by the Iraqi government with the World Bank, the US and other major donors. [30] Whatever the eventual outcome, the combined devastation of Iraq's wheat production and the opening of its wheat markets to US imports, both brought about by the US invasion, has yielded billions of dollars for US grain companies. When ARDI came to a close in 2006, USAID launched two new programmes – a US$343 million Inma Agribusiness Program [31] and Izdihar (Iraq Private Sector Growth and Employment Generation). [32] Both programmes are being carried out by the Loius Berger Group Inc., one of the world's largest infrastructure and development consultancies, and they are designed to prepare the way for agribusiness investment in the food industry. Yet, like similar programmes in Afghanistan, these agriculture reconstruction programmes also serve a military function and are immersed in military operations. Of the US$250 million of "reconstruction" funds that the US has so far spent on the 581 agricultural projects that it has either proposed, planned or completed since the beginning of the invasion, more than 97 per cent of the projects have been paid for with funds from the Commanders' Emergency Response Program (CERP), which is managed by the "Multi-National Corps-Iraq". Only 2.4 per cent of these projects have been funded by the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, which is supervised by the US's Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. CERP was initially funded by way of the cash and assets that the US military seized from the former Iraqi government. After the US military had spent these seized funds by early 2004, just before the Coalition Provisional Authority came to an end, the US decided to keep CERP going with appropriations from the US government. Of the 552 agricultural reconstruction projects the US has started in Iraq, the Multi-National Corps-Iraq have managed 536, the US Army Corps of Engineers have managed six, and USAID has managed only ten. [33] Funding for agriculture reconstruction in Afghanistan is also dominated by a similar CERP, meaning that, in both cases, it is the military that ultimately decides which projects get done. "We have two new best friends in the rice industry, the director general of the ministry of trade from Iraq and the director general of the Iraqi Grain Board," said Stuart Proctor Jr., president and chief executive officer of USA Rice Federation in 2004 after a meeting with both of these men. [36] The USAID and other so-called civilian programmes in Iraq work with Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) – modelled on the PRTs that were first set up in Afghanistan. According to the US Embassy in Iraq: "Established in Iraq in 2005 and inaugurated by Secretary Rice in November that year, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) initiative is a civilian–military inter-agency effort that is the primary U.S. Government interface between U.S., Coalition partners and provincial and local governments throughout all of Iraq's 18 provinces." [34] A December 2008 report by the United States Institute of Peace, "an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress", [35] provides more details about how the PRTs relate to the US military mission in Iraq, and is worth quoting at length: "PRTs tend to play a supporting, advisory role for the military, providing them with civilian expertise they would not otherwise have access to and offering suggestions on how to shape operations. As one member of a PRT working in a counter-insurgency environment in Baghdad said, 'The military is the blunt instrument; we provide the fine tuning.' Nonetheless, in counter-insurgency environments, the military has the unambiguous lead, and freely ignores PRT's advice if, in their judgment, security concerns dictate.… PRT's report to Baghdad and Washington about political, economic and security developments in their provinces – an obviously beneficial but rarely discussed function. Senior policymakers and military officials highly value the information they get from the PRTs. On a political level, these officials analyze winners and losers and project trends for political development in their provinces. PRT members also monitor security flashpoints and scout for the military, a particularly useful role in areas where the military has a light footprint. On an economic level, officials in Baghdad said that were it not for the PRTs, they would have little idea of how much money was being spent by Iraqi ministries. (The Iraqi Ministry of Finance, for both technical and political reasons, is unable or unwilling to provide this information, but this information is readily available to the PRTs.) … PRTs are valuable diplomatic representatives to provincial governments. It is highly unusual, if not completely unprecedented, for the U.S. to have independent diplomatic contacts with such low-level and numerous governmental entities in a foreign country. In the current environment in which many U.S. interests depend on the course of Iraqi political development, it is valuable for the U.S. to have these points of diplomatic contact to nudge Iraqi politics in a direction that serves Washington's interests." [37] Box 5: Another way is possible The experience of disaster-ridden regions with aid from abroad and from their own governments does not mean that assistance is never needed. Indeed, help can be meaningful and extremely important, if it enables communities to help themselves. Peasant organisations such as La Via Campesina1 have shown a way forward. After the tsunami they routed relief directly to communities' right across the affected region: "In Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia, where La Via Campesina has member organisations, farmers launched relief operations to support the survivors of the catastrophe, they gave out rice and vegetables to feed the people affected, and several fund-raising activities were organised to channel national and international contributions towards small peasants and fisherfolk's organisations. La Via Campesina also immediately publicly raised important issues affecting small producers such as the origin of food aid (local or imported food), the type of reconstruction policies implemented (agribusiness or family based production) and people's participation in the process."2 1 - International Secretariat of La Via Campesina, "20 months after the Tsunami: Looking back at La via Campesina relief operations", 4 July 2006, http://tinyurl.com/b6ftfg 2 - Peter Rosset and María Elena Martínez, "The Democratisation of Aid", in Red Pepper, February 2005, http://www.redpepper.org.uk/The-democratisation-of-aid It now seems likely that, under President Obama, the PRTs importance to the US mission will greatly expand. According to a report in the New York Times on 3 December 2008, "Pentagon planners" are proposing "relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 're-missioned', their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis". [38] As a result of this ploy, the Pentagon intends to keeps as many as 70,000 troops in Iraq beyond 2011, which is the date established in the US–Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for the complete withdrawal of all combat troops. If this ruse goes ahead, the distinction between the military and aid workers will be completely blurred. Moreover, by agreeing to this subversion of SOFA, the US President Obama has, in practice, given up on his electoral pledge to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months. [39] This is hardly a clean break from the policies of the Bush administration. It is a huge challenge for farmers to organise in such a setting where choices are limited and where farmers are not themselves in control of their own futures. Both the Oil-for-Food programme, which banned purchase of local produce, and the large-scale importation of food after the invasion when the markets were opened up to cheap imports devastated Iraqi farmers. Moreover, farmers' organisations are now being set up by occupying forces to facilitate their "reconstruction" work. In Iraq, the US Army is directly involved in re-establishing the "farmers' unions" that were formerly under the control of the central government and in using these unions to distribute its aid, such as seeds, pesticides and machinery. [40] Conclusion It would be dangerous to see the integration of the US military operations and aid work in Afghanistan and Iraq as an aberration. The same merging of "hard" and "soft" power under the military in Afghanistan and Iraq is happening with US overseas programmes in other parts of the world. For instance, a coalition of US groups has accused the newly launched United States Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, of seeking to bring humanitarian work previously done by the State Department and USAID under the Department of Defense directive, an accusation that AFRICOM denies. [41] But it is hard to deny the overall trend: today the United States spends approximately 30 times more on military operations globally than it does on diplomacy and development under the State Department and USAID. Moreover, the Pentagon now controls more than 20 per cent of US Official Development Assistance. [42] According to Betty McCollum in the US House of Representatives, the fact that USAID has to have an office of military affairs to communicate with the Pentagon "means that something has gone horribly awry". [43] It is essential for people around the world to stop aid being hijacked in this way. Aid policies and practices need to be rethought. Some people are calling for an International Agreement on Aid to make aid real and accountable.44 This has to go hand in hand with demanding demilitarisation and an end to the wars in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq. No matter how good aid work is, it will not contribute towards genuine reconstruction if it is also being used to reinforce the military interests of the principal donor country and to maintain its hegemonic dominance. Going further Reality of Aid - http://www.realityofaid.org/ FACTSHEET: How does food aid work? http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/11268811061.htm References 1 - Najib Khelwatgar and Ahmad Qurishi, "Afghan Army open fire on Shindand pro-testers, Karzai worried", PAN, 23 August 2008: http://tinyurl.com/42z5mr 2 - A US Special Forces civil affairs team leader, quoted in Anna Perry, "Afghan Agricultural Center Contributes to Better Security", American Forces Press Service, 3 July 2008. http://tinyurl.com/br3zlc 3 - To get a sense of the nature and extent of Chemonics' interventions, see "Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Program (RAMP) Afghanistan: Fiscal Year 2006 Work Plan. http://tinyurl.com/bva5ap Among the USAID partners in this is the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE – www.cipe.org). See also "Windfalls of War: US contractors in Afghanistan & Iraq", on the website of The Center for Public Integrity. http://tinyurl.com/bwra93 4 - See "Chemonics International", Washington Post, Post 200 – Top DC area businesses, http://tinyurl.com/dds7eh 5 - "Chemonics announces scholarship at Afghan AgFair", Chemonics' website, 20 February 2009, http://tinyurl.com/ddvsqd 6 - Chemonics International Inc., "Lashkar Gah Bost Airport and Agriculture Center, Helmand Province, Afghanistan: Environmental Assessment", October 2008. http://tinyurl.com/ajn8ze 7 - USAID: Afghanistan, "Provincial Reconstruction Teams", http://tinyurl.com/akn2qb 8 - Quoted in Army Staff Sgt Jon Soucy, "Missouri Guard's Agricultural Mission Grows in Afghanistan", American Forces Press Service, 23 December 2008, http://tinyurl.com/couxfb 9 - See ICARDA's web page about the FHCRAA, http://tinyurl.com/c8793l 10 - J. Dennis, A. Diab and P. Trutmann, "The Planning of Emergency Seed Supply for Afghanistan in 2002 and Beyond", a draft concept paper prepared for the Tashkent Conference, 2002, http://www.afghanseed.org 11 - FAO Newsroom, "Code of conduct on seeds for Afghanistan reached", 30 May 2002, http://tinyurl.com/3sphbl 12 - See also ICARDA website's "Seed for Afghanistan" section, http://tinyurl.com/b44kba 13 - GRAIN, "Seed laws: imposing agricultural apartheid", Seedling, June 2005, http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=337 14 - National Seeds Policy of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2005 (emphasis added). 15 - A copy of the final draft of the Afghanistan Seed Law (August 2006) can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/cpy3sn 16 - AfghanMania, "Private Seed Enterprise opens in Bamyan", 21 August 2006, http://tinyurl.com/b3jrjd 17 - SeedQuest, news section, "Message from the President of the newly formed ANSA", 24 October 2008, http://tinyurl.com/b9to3g 18 - Jim Landers, "Texas troops combat Afghan insurgents with farming plan", Dallas Morning News, 1 February 2009, http://tinyurl.com/af98d5 19 - See Suleiman Al-Khalidi, "Iraq buys 200,000 t of Russian wheat from Glencore", arabian Business.com, 25 September 2008, http://tinyurl.com/bngmlv 20 - Policy Archive, "Iraq Agriculture and Food Supply: Background and Issues", June 2004, http://tinyurl.com/br6dmd 21 - Cargill, the biggest global trader of agricultural commodities, is a multinational corporation registered in the US, http://www.cargill.com/ 22 - See "Iraq's Closed Factories," The Ground Truth in Iraq (blog), 15 January 2009, http://tinyurl.com/acv6q7 Bassam Yousif, "Economic restructuring in Iraq: intended and unintended consequences", Journal of Economic Issues, March 2007, http://tinyurl.com/dmjfl2 23 - "More than 90% of Iraqi industries are halted", IRAQdirectory.com, 10 January 2009: http://tinyurl.com/ad2hnr 24 - Focus on the Global South and GRAIN, Against the grain, "Iraq's new patent law: A declaration of war against farmers", October 2004, http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6 25 - See DAI – Projects: ARDI, "Revitalizing Iraq's agricultural sector", n.d. http://tinyurl.com/b739o6 26 - It should be noted that since the invasion the US has sought to dismantle former public programmes which provided subsidised inputs, including seeds, to Iraqi farmers, and that the provision of seeds by US forces is seen as a temporary measure before a "free-market" seed system takes over. 27 - These are FAO figures, available from FAOSTAT. http://faostat.fao.org/site/291/default.aspx 28 - Robert Looney, "Neoliberalism in a Conflict State: The Viability of Economic Shock Therapy in Iraq", Strategic Insights, Vol. III, No. 6, June 2004, http://tinyurl.com/ah4zvc 29 - See Rich Magnani and Sawsan Al-Sharifi, "Reform and Rehabilitation of Iraq's agricultural sector: The case of the Iraqi wheat sector", USAID–Iraq, 2005, http://tinyurl.com/dgllqr and http://tinyurl.com/afh7ml See also "Iraq Private Sector Growth and Employment Generation – The Potential for Food Process-ing in Iraq", USAID–Iraq, 15 March 2006, http://tinyurl.com/ck4rn6 30 - See the annexes to The International Compact with Iraq: Annual Review, May 2007–April 2008, which show progress against benchmarks, http://tinyurl.com/atv6lr 31 - "Inma" means "growth" in Arabic. The Program's website can be found at http://tinyurl.com/bq7oyn 32 - "Izdihar" means "prosperity" in Arabic. The Program's website can be found at http://www.izdihar-iraq.com/index.html 33 - USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Information Management Unit, "Iraq Agriculture and Irrigation Overview," July 2008, http://tinyurl.com/bjxozk 34 - US embassy, Baghdad, press release, "Fact sheet on Provincial Reconstruction Teams", 17 December 2007, http://tinyurl.com/yygq7l 35 - According to "USIP's Missions and Goals" as described on the institute's website. See http://www.usip.org/aboutus/index.html 36 - Doreen Muzzi, "Iraq trade deal pleases rice industry", Farm Press, 13 March 2004, http://tinyurl.com/absdp5 37 - Rusty Barber and Sam Parker, "Evaluating Iraq's Provincial Reconstruction Teams While Drawdown Looms: A USIP Trip Report", USIPeace Briefing, December 2008, http://tinyurl.com/5okaaa 38 - Tom Shanker "Campaign promises on ending war in Iraq now muted", New York Times, 3 December 2008, http://tinyurl.com/cab7jy (The Pentagon is the military headquarters of the US Department of Defense.) 39 - Gareth Porter, "How Obama Lost Control of Iraq Policy", Agence Global, 2 January 2009, http://tinyurl.com/azl36z 40 - See Erik LeDrew, "Artillery Troopers Plant Seeds of Reconstruction in Iraq", US Dept. of Defense, Defend America, October 2004, http://tinyurl.com/bvnbmq See also Michael Molinaro, "For Jiff Jaffa farmers, democracy and fertilizer go hand in hand", Operation Iraqi Freedom: Official Website of Multi-National Force – Iraq, 13 September 2006, http://tinyurl.com/cnkqsf See also Michael Molinaro, "Farmers in Iraq Hold Elections to Select Board", US Department of Defense, Defend America, 18 August 2006, http://tinyurl.com/d8w8kb 41 - "AFRICOM: The Militarization of U.S.–Africa Policy Revealed", Africa Action, 6 February 2008, http://tinyurl.com/atbve3 and Karen DeYoung, "U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations", Washington Post, 1 June 2008, http://tinyurl.com/3mprad 42 - Beth Tuckey, "Congress Challenges AFRICOM," Foreign Policy in Focus, 23 July 2008, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5398 43 - Ibid. 44 - ActionAid International, Real Aid – An Agenda for Making Aid Work, June 2005, http://tinyurl.com/dm8loa   Ref: briefings|agrecon2009

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Printed from: http://www.grain.org/briefings/index.cfm?id=217

Afghans Detail Detention in ‘Black Jail’ at U.S. Base - NYTimes.com

November 29, 2009

Afghans Detail Detention in 'Black Jail' at U.S. Base

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29bagram.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

KABUL, Afghanistan — An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still holding inmates, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base.

The site, known to detainees as the black jail, consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day. In interviews, former detainees said that their only human contact was at twice-daily interrogation sessions.

"The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place," said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who said he was detained there in June. "They don't let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray."

The jail's operation highlights a tension between President Obama's goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under the Bush administration and his stated desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, it did not also close this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces.

Military officials said as recently as this summer that the Afghanistan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq were being used to interrogate high-value detainees. And officials said recently that there were no plans to close the jails.

In August, the administration restricted the time that detainees could be held at the military jails to two weeks, changing previous Pentagon policy. In the past, the military could obtain extensions.

The interviewed detainees had been held longer, but before the new policy went into effect. Mr. Hamidullah, who, like some Afghans, uses only one name, was released in October after five and half months in detention, five to six weeks of it in the black jail, he said.

Although his and other detainees' accounts could not be independently corroborated, each was interviewed separately and described similar conditions. Their descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site.

While two of the detainees were captured before the Obama administration took office, one was captured in June of this year.

All three detainees were later released without charges. None said they had been tortured, though they said they heard sounds of abuse going on and certainly felt humiliated and roughly used. "They beat up other people in the black jail, but not me," Hamidullah said. "But the problem was that they didn't let me sleep. There was shouting noise so you couldn't sleep."

Others, however, have given accounts of abuse at the site, including two Afghan teenagers who told The Washington Post that they had been subjected to beatings and humiliation by American guards.

A Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said Saturday that the military routinely sought to verify allegations of detainee abuse, and that it was looking into whether the two Afghan teenagers who spoke to The Post had been detained.

Without commenting specifically on the site at Bagram, which is still considered classified, Mr. Whitman said that the Pentagon's policy required that all detainees in American custody in Afghanistan be treated humanely and according to United States and international law.

All three former detainees interviewed by The New York Times complained of being held for months after the intensive interrogations were over without being told why. One detainee said he remained at the Bagram prison complex for two years and four months; another was held for 10 months total.

Human rights officials said the existence of a jail where prisoners were denied contact with the Red Cross or their families contradicted the Obama administration's drive to improve detention conditions.

"Holding people in what appears to be incommunicado detention runs against the grain of the administration's commitment to greater transparency, accountability, and respect for the dignity of Afghans," said Jonathan Horowitz, a human rights researcher with the Open Society Institute.

Mr. Horowitz said he understood that "the necessities of war requires the U.S. to detain people, but there are limits to how to detain."

The black jail is separate from the larger Bagram detention center, which now holds about 700 detainees, mostly in cages accommodating about 20 men apiece, and which had become notorious to the Afghan public as a symbol of abuse. That center will be closed by early next year and the detainees moved to a new larger detention site as part of the administration's effort to improve conditions at Bagram.

The former detainees interviewed by The Times said they were held at the site for 35 to 40 days. All three were sent there upon arriving at Bagram and eventually transferred to the larger detention center on the base, which allows access to the Red Cross. The three were hooded and handcuffed when they were taken for questioning at the black jail so they did not know where they were or anything about other detainees, they said.

Mr. Horowitz said he had heard similar descriptions of the jail from former detainees, as had Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer with Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization that has tracked detention issues in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The International Committee of the Red Cross does not discuss its findings publicly and would not say whether its officials had visited the black jail. But, in early 2008, military officials acknowledged receiving a confidential complaint from the I.C.R.C. that the military was holding some detainees incommunicado.

In August, the military said that it had begun to give the Red Cross the names of everyone detained, including those held in the Special Operations camps, within two weeks of capture. But it still does not allow the group face-to-face access to the detainees.

All three detainees said the hardest part of their detention was that their families did not know whether they were alive.

"For my whole family it was disastrous," said Hayatullah, a Kandahar resident who said he was working in his pharmacy when he was arrested. "Because they knew the Americans were sometimes killing people, and they thought they had killed me because for two to three months they didn't know where I was."

The three detainees said the military had mistaken them for Taliban fighters.

"They kept saying to me, 'Are you Qari Idris?' " said Gulham Khan, 25, an impoverished, illiterate sheep trader, who mostly delivers sheep and goats for people who buy the animals in the livestock market in Ghazni, the capital of the province of the same name. He was captured in late October 2008 and released in early September this year, he said.

"I said, 'I'm not Qari Idris.' But they kept asking me over and over, and I kept saying, 'I'm Gulham. This is my name, that is my father's name, you can ask the elders.' "

Ten months after his initial detention, American soldiers went to the group cell where he was then being held and told him he had been mistakenly picked up under the wrong name, he said.

"They said, 'Please accept our apology, and we are sorry that we kept you here for this time.' And that was it. They kept me for more than 10 months and gave me nothing back."

In their search for him, Mr. Khan's family members spent the equivalent of $6,000, a fortune for a sheep dealer, who often makes just a dollar a day. Some of the money was spent on bribes to local Afghan soldiers to get information on where he was being held; they said soldiers took the money and never came back with the information.

In Mr. Hamidullah's case, interrogators at the black jail insisted that he was a Taliban fighter named Faida Muhammad. "I said, 'That's not me,' " he recalled.

"They blamed me and said, 'You are making bombs and are a facilitator of bomb making and helping militants,' " he said. "I said, 'I have a shop. I sell spare parts for vehicles, for trucks and cars.' "

Human rights researchers say they worry that the jail remains in the shadows and largely inaccessible both to the Red Cross and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has responsibility for ensuring humane treatment of detainees under the Afghan Constitution. Manfred Nowak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, said that the site fell into something of a legal limbo but that the Red Cross should still have access to all detainees.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company