Five points stand out in David Sirota's essay below. One, U.S. scientists have confirmed that Afghanistan has vast mineral resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Two, this information has long been known. Three, it is being tauted now as a possible additional justification for keeping U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan longer than otherwise - indeed, indefinitely. Four, the American people may have warmed up to the idea that foreign wars are worth figthing for valuable resources that the country needs. Five, if the later point is valid, then the Pentagon can count on public support for an increasing number and longer wars in the near future.
Michael T. Klare has written extensively about how the global economy is being increasingly shaped by competition for resources. Goggle his name for a host of his article and check out his two most recent books: Resource Wars: The News Landscape of Global Conflict and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.
By David Sirota, AlterNetPosted on June 19, 2010, Printed on June 20, 2010http://www.alternet.org/story/147259/
Excerpts:
Point one: ...."New York Times headline – "U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan" – many probably wondered how this information was being presented as "news" in 2010."
Point two: "After all, humanity has long been aware of the country's vast natural resources.... This 'discovery' in fact is ancient history tracing back to the times of Marco Polo."
Point three: ..."the Pentagon is probably trying to bolster Americans' support for the flagging Afghanistan campaign by "publicizing or re-publicizing valid but already public information about the region's potential wealth."
Point four:... "Remember, the idea that the U.S. invades countries to pilfer natural resources was once written off as an inflammatory insult and/or an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.... This manufactured construct, though, began eroding as soon as George W. Bush started turning the "war for oil" aspersion into a proud clarion call."
....
"Whereas it was previously considered uncouth for anyone to even suggest that economic hegemony might motivate U.S. military action, our leaders are now boldly selling wars as commendable instruments of such profit-focused imperialism."
Point five: "Importantly, this revised message relies on the new assumption that the public now sees resource conflicts not as detestable – but as worthy and even admirable. And should that assumption prove true, it would mean that this latest exercise in martial propaganda represents more than mere marketing innovation. It would signal a disturbing change in what the population thinks is – and is not – a just reason for war."
David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover and The Uprising. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Value of Afghanistan's minerals is questioned
The following item is from Just Foreign Policy, http://www.justforeignpolicy.org, June 18, 2010. It cites a "business insider" who raises a serious question about the reported estimated value of Afghanistan's minerals.
Writing in Business Insider, Louis James of the investment advising company Casey Research says the New York Times had no basis for reporting a figure of $1 trillion for the economic value of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. No responsible geologist would circulate a valuation figure at this stage of the process in Afghanistan. In fact, if a public company put out a press release like this story in the NYT, the exchange would likely reprimand them severely and require a retraction.
Writing in Business Insider, Louis James of the investment advising company Casey Research says the New York Times had no basis for reporting a figure of $1 trillion for the economic value of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. No responsible geologist would circulate a valuation figure at this stage of the process in Afghanistan. In fact, if a public company put out a press release like this story in the NYT, the exchange would likely reprimand them severely and require a retraction.
Malalai Joya - the unrepresentative Afghan government, the occupation, warlords, and Taliban are all the enemies of the people
Malalai Joya talks about her hopes for her country, her heroes and the London conference
The US government doesn't want a democratic Afghanistan, so it counts on its puppets who are anti-democracy and anti-woman to the marrow of their bones.
Interview by Mehdi Hasan
What is your earliest memory?
I was only four days old when the coup of 27 April took place and the Russian puppet regime was installed in Afghanistan [in 1978]. One of my earliest memories is of clinging to my mother's legs while police ransacked our house, looking for my father. They turned it upside down searching for clues, emptying everything out of drawers, ripping open mattresses and pillows.
Do you still hope to return to the Afghan parliament?
Yes. I have challenged my illegal suspension in court, although in two years there has been no progress. My case is being followed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, but it is also deeply fed up with the Afghan parliament, as it only makes empty promises.
I knew from the very first day in parliament that it is a meeting place for the worst enemies of the Afghan people. The majority are warlords, drug lords and human rights violators. The parliament in occupied Afghanistan is a show of democracy. It has not brought anything positive to the Afghan people in the past five years and it will not do anything for my people in future. They have only passed laws that are anti-democratic and anti-woman.
When I was in parliament, these brutal men and women gave me a hard time. They regarded me as an obstacle to their sinister plans. My suspension was a political conspiracy. But I still want to return to this defamed and undemocratic parliament, as I regard it as a good platform from which to raise the voice of my voiceless people and expose the parliament's reactionary nature from within. There, I can challenge the brutal and powerful warlords, so they cannot pass their laws easily, far from the eyes of the Afghan people.
Who are your political heroes?
I don't want to name a specific person. My people, the suppressed millions, are my heroes. They are the real source of any positive change in Afghanistan and their power is stronger than anything else. And anti-war protesters around the world, those who are standing against the destructive policies of world powers. There is a superpower in the world besides the US government -- world public opinion.
What inspires you to keep going?
The suffering of my people, especially women.
Do you live in fear, or hope?
Both. I fear that I will not live to see freedom for Afghanistan and a joyful life for my people in a democratic and just society. But I have great hope that we will eventually be free, democratic and prosperous and that this can be achieved by the men and women of my own country.
In the past 30 years of conflict, we lost everything in Afghanistan. But it also taught us many things. Our people's political consciousness and awareness were raised and they do not accept the domination of national and foreign invaders or criminal forces. This is a great asset in the Afghan people's struggle for liberation and it gives me hope for a bright future.
What do you believe the Afghanistan summit in London can achieve?
I don't expect anything positive from the London conference at all. Since 2001, there have been a number of conferences. They have only pushed Afghanistan further into the hands of the occupying forces and their local agents.
The Afghan government begs for funding from the international community in the name of its people, but the billions of dollars poured into the country are looted by warlords, drug lords, national and international NGOs and government officials. Much of it goes back into the pockets of the donor countries.
According to US government sources, more than $60bn in aid has been given to Afghanistan since 2001. Such a huge amount could have turned Afghanistan into a paradise, if it were properly spent. But that money did not reach the needy people, so I am sure that any other amount sent in future will have no impact on poor Afghans and will only widen the gap between rich and poor.
Over 70 per cent of Afghans are living below the poverty line, but the Afghan government spent $4.2m on a luxury apartment in the Trump World Tower in New York for Zahir Tanin, the permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations. This is one small example how the international aid is wasted.
The conference will prepare the ground for the return to power of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Islamic Party [Hezb-e-Islami]. The Afghan government says it will ask the world leaders there to remove the name of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, from the Security Council's blacklist. Ordinary Afghans have no faith in such conferences.
What is your opinion of Hamid Karzai?
Among Afghans, a king called Shah Shuja is hated for being an agent of 19th-century British rule. When the Russians installed Babrak Karmal, he was called the second Shah Shuja. The US and its allies have tried hard over the years to portray Hamid Karzai as a powerful leader but, for Afghans, his government is the most corrupt and unpopular in our modern history. Karzai is the third Shah Shuja -- a US puppet who has also joined hands with our internal enemies.
His own brothers have been accused of involvement in the drugs trade. Ahmed Wali Karzai, his half-brother, is allegedly on the payroll of the CIA.
What about Barack Obama?
It is now clear to many people around the world that Obama is a warmonger, no different from Bush. The big hopes that the US people had for him are gradually turning into despair. His popularity is dropping faster than any previous US president's at this stage of office.
Obama is making the world more unjust and insecure by waging new wars in Pakistan, Iran and Yemen, and also by increasing troops in Afghanistan. While billions of people around the world and inside the US are living in poverty, he is increasing the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708bn, which is ridiculous. Spent in the right way, this huge amount could ensure peace and prosperity around the world
Those who supported Obama as a hope for change should have reviewed his past. During his time in the US Senate, he voted for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he voted for the Patriot Act, he refused to support a bill for single-payer health care, he supported the death penalty, and so on. He came to power with corporate backers. They want him to continue the US's militarism and he obeys.
I hope Obama will be a lesson to the US people that, as long as the current political system is in place there, no president, white or black, will bring any major "change". In the best case, they will cause some cosmetic changes, nothing more.
How has Afghanistan changed since the fall of the Taliban?
The US and its allies occupied Afghanistan after 11 September 2001 under the banner of bringing peace, democracy and women's rights. But they replaced the barbaric Taliban with the brutal Northern Alliance -- who look different but are mentally similar. This act betrayed human rights.
Afghanistan is not only a safe haven for terrorism today, it is a mafia state and is ranked at the top of the most unstable countries in the world. Afghanistan produces 93 per cent of world opium and even some ministers and Karzai's family have been implicated in the dirty business. Turning Afghanistan into the world capital of opium was part of the US's and Nato's hidden agenda and they have reached their goal.
The situation for women is as catastrophic today as it was before. In some big cities, some women and girls have access to jobs and education, but in most provinces women's lives are hell. In rural areas, most women do not even have a human life. Forced marriages, child brides and domestic violence are very common. Gang rape is becoming more common day by day in Afghanistan, more common than it has ever been in the history of our country. Self-immolation is at a peak. Every day, we receive news of women who burn themselves to death to get out of their awful destitution and plight.
What was the last book you read?
Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam by Robert Dreyfuss. Reading this book, one can better understand that the current "war on terror" is a hoax -- a family issue between the US government and its fundamentalist creations. I do not agree with certain points in the book, but I recommend it to everyone who wants to know about the hidden, dirty games played by the US and its allies in Afghanistan over the past decades. It will be an eye-opener for those who regard the Taliban, Iran's fascist regime and other fundamentalist forces as "anti-imperialist".
What security precautions do you have to take, now that your life is under threat?
Since I was expelled from parliament, life has been very difficult for me inside Afghanistan. I have been restricted from free movement and meeting people in different parts of Afghanistan, so I have tried to advance my efforts on international platforms. I change homes often and can't have an office. I wear a burqa outside and travel with bodyguards, and I don't attend public meetings. But I still don't feel safe. I receive threats.
Do you think the majority of Afghan women support your view of the Karzai government?
Yes, I am very sure they do. I am talking about women who are suffering and have no voice, those women who mostly live in the countryside, deprived of everything. They are completely ignored by the media, too.
Your critics say you don't represent them.
ost of my critics are warlords, Taliban or US puppets. Many of the women in the Afghan parliament are critics, as they are, unfortunately, female warlords. The US government has a handful of Afghan women in Kabul who are used as showpieces: they are given awards, featured by the western mainstream media and sent to important international meetings as representatives of Afghanistan. Such women try to whitewash the wrongdoings of the US and its puppet regime and justify the US occupation of Afghanistan.
They comprise a small minority, living luxurious lives in Kabul or other major Afghan cities, and have not experienced the brutalities of recent years. From the occupation, they have gained wealth and fame, and they are afraid to lose it from the withdrawal of the US troops. It is natural that such Afghans rise against me.
What are the chances for a better life for Afghan women while foreign troops are still in the country? Do you believe that is part of their purpose in being there, as they say it is?
"A Woman Among Warlords", a book by Malalai Joya.
Only some cosmetic and symbolic changes have been made. Most of the 68 women sent to the parliament are pro-warlord; the women's ministry has done nothing for women at all.
We Afghans know well that the US and its allies occupied Afghanistan for their own strategic, economic and regional interests and don't care about the wishes of our people. So the "liberation" of Afghan women was never part of the real agenda. It is just a lie. The so-called freedom given by the US to Afghanistan is enjoyed mainly by the warlords and drug lords, who are free to commit their crimes and do their drug trafficking.
Don't polls show Afghan support for the western military presence?
This is not only a military war, but also a war of propaganda. A recent BBC survey said that 70 per cent of Afghans think that the country is headed in the right direction and 71 per cent support Karzai. Even animals make fun of the figures! If Karzai is so popular, why did he have to win the election by fraud? Unfortunately, the western mainstream media are playing a very negative role. It is not honest to the Afghan people.
You want foreign forces out -- but what then?
Afghans face three enemies: the occupying forces, the Taliban and the warlords. When the US pulls out, the Taliban and the warlords will lose their guardian. It will be easier for Afghans to unite and crush these internal enemies.
The US government doesn't want a democratic Afghanistan, so it counts on its puppets who are anti-democracy and anti-woman to the marrow of their bones. Today, friends of the US in Afghanistan are dark-minded, criminal people.
Afghanistan will never see democracy and freedom when such dirty elements are real power-holders and policymakers.
Can democracy ever flourish in a tribal and conservative society like Afghanistan?
We are living in the 21st century. The world has turned into a global village. Years of conflict have changed Afghanistan and its people's political knowledge has increased. It is the US and its puppets who try to give a bad name to democracy in Afghanistan.
Our people want democracy but now know that occupation will never bring democracy for them. Because democracy without independence has no meaning. When Afghan people raise their voice for independence, western forces call them "tribal" and "anti-democracy", while those barbaric warlords and Taliban who have accepted the US occupation and are in the parliament are called "democrats"!
What would you like to forget?
The cheap attacks of my enemies.
Are we all doomed?
No. We can change our destiny by our struggle and efforts.
This interview is originally published in the New Statesman Magazine on January 25, 2010
Category: Taliban, Women, US-NATO, HR Violations, Corruption - Views: 3435
The US government doesn't want a democratic Afghanistan, so it counts on its puppets who are anti-democracy and anti-woman to the marrow of their bones.
Interview by Mehdi Hasan
What is your earliest memory?
I was only four days old when the coup of 27 April took place and the Russian puppet regime was installed in Afghanistan [in 1978]. One of my earliest memories is of clinging to my mother's legs while police ransacked our house, looking for my father. They turned it upside down searching for clues, emptying everything out of drawers, ripping open mattresses and pillows.
Do you still hope to return to the Afghan parliament?
Yes. I have challenged my illegal suspension in court, although in two years there has been no progress. My case is being followed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, but it is also deeply fed up with the Afghan parliament, as it only makes empty promises.
I knew from the very first day in parliament that it is a meeting place for the worst enemies of the Afghan people. The majority are warlords, drug lords and human rights violators. The parliament in occupied Afghanistan is a show of democracy. It has not brought anything positive to the Afghan people in the past five years and it will not do anything for my people in future. They have only passed laws that are anti-democratic and anti-woman.
When I was in parliament, these brutal men and women gave me a hard time. They regarded me as an obstacle to their sinister plans. My suspension was a political conspiracy. But I still want to return to this defamed and undemocratic parliament, as I regard it as a good platform from which to raise the voice of my voiceless people and expose the parliament's reactionary nature from within. There, I can challenge the brutal and powerful warlords, so they cannot pass their laws easily, far from the eyes of the Afghan people.
Who are your political heroes?
I don't want to name a specific person. My people, the suppressed millions, are my heroes. They are the real source of any positive change in Afghanistan and their power is stronger than anything else. And anti-war protesters around the world, those who are standing against the destructive policies of world powers. There is a superpower in the world besides the US government -- world public opinion.
What inspires you to keep going?
The suffering of my people, especially women.
Do you live in fear, or hope?
Both. I fear that I will not live to see freedom for Afghanistan and a joyful life for my people in a democratic and just society. But I have great hope that we will eventually be free, democratic and prosperous and that this can be achieved by the men and women of my own country.
In the past 30 years of conflict, we lost everything in Afghanistan. But it also taught us many things. Our people's political consciousness and awareness were raised and they do not accept the domination of national and foreign invaders or criminal forces. This is a great asset in the Afghan people's struggle for liberation and it gives me hope for a bright future.
What do you believe the Afghanistan summit in London can achieve?
I don't expect anything positive from the London conference at all. Since 2001, there have been a number of conferences. They have only pushed Afghanistan further into the hands of the occupying forces and their local agents.
The Afghan government begs for funding from the international community in the name of its people, but the billions of dollars poured into the country are looted by warlords, drug lords, national and international NGOs and government officials. Much of it goes back into the pockets of the donor countries.
According to US government sources, more than $60bn in aid has been given to Afghanistan since 2001. Such a huge amount could have turned Afghanistan into a paradise, if it were properly spent. But that money did not reach the needy people, so I am sure that any other amount sent in future will have no impact on poor Afghans and will only widen the gap between rich and poor.
Over 70 per cent of Afghans are living below the poverty line, but the Afghan government spent $4.2m on a luxury apartment in the Trump World Tower in New York for Zahir Tanin, the permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations. This is one small example how the international aid is wasted.
The conference will prepare the ground for the return to power of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Islamic Party [Hezb-e-Islami]. The Afghan government says it will ask the world leaders there to remove the name of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, from the Security Council's blacklist. Ordinary Afghans have no faith in such conferences.
What is your opinion of Hamid Karzai?
Among Afghans, a king called Shah Shuja is hated for being an agent of 19th-century British rule. When the Russians installed Babrak Karmal, he was called the second Shah Shuja. The US and its allies have tried hard over the years to portray Hamid Karzai as a powerful leader but, for Afghans, his government is the most corrupt and unpopular in our modern history. Karzai is the third Shah Shuja -- a US puppet who has also joined hands with our internal enemies.
His own brothers have been accused of involvement in the drugs trade. Ahmed Wali Karzai, his half-brother, is allegedly on the payroll of the CIA.
What about Barack Obama?
It is now clear to many people around the world that Obama is a warmonger, no different from Bush. The big hopes that the US people had for him are gradually turning into despair. His popularity is dropping faster than any previous US president's at this stage of office.
Obama is making the world more unjust and insecure by waging new wars in Pakistan, Iran and Yemen, and also by increasing troops in Afghanistan. While billions of people around the world and inside the US are living in poverty, he is increasing the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708bn, which is ridiculous. Spent in the right way, this huge amount could ensure peace and prosperity around the world
Those who supported Obama as a hope for change should have reviewed his past. During his time in the US Senate, he voted for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he voted for the Patriot Act, he refused to support a bill for single-payer health care, he supported the death penalty, and so on. He came to power with corporate backers. They want him to continue the US's militarism and he obeys.
I hope Obama will be a lesson to the US people that, as long as the current political system is in place there, no president, white or black, will bring any major "change". In the best case, they will cause some cosmetic changes, nothing more.
How has Afghanistan changed since the fall of the Taliban?
The US and its allies occupied Afghanistan after 11 September 2001 under the banner of bringing peace, democracy and women's rights. But they replaced the barbaric Taliban with the brutal Northern Alliance -- who look different but are mentally similar. This act betrayed human rights.
Afghanistan is not only a safe haven for terrorism today, it is a mafia state and is ranked at the top of the most unstable countries in the world. Afghanistan produces 93 per cent of world opium and even some ministers and Karzai's family have been implicated in the dirty business. Turning Afghanistan into the world capital of opium was part of the US's and Nato's hidden agenda and they have reached their goal.
The situation for women is as catastrophic today as it was before. In some big cities, some women and girls have access to jobs and education, but in most provinces women's lives are hell. In rural areas, most women do not even have a human life. Forced marriages, child brides and domestic violence are very common. Gang rape is becoming more common day by day in Afghanistan, more common than it has ever been in the history of our country. Self-immolation is at a peak. Every day, we receive news of women who burn themselves to death to get out of their awful destitution and plight.
What was the last book you read?
Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam by Robert Dreyfuss. Reading this book, one can better understand that the current "war on terror" is a hoax -- a family issue between the US government and its fundamentalist creations. I do not agree with certain points in the book, but I recommend it to everyone who wants to know about the hidden, dirty games played by the US and its allies in Afghanistan over the past decades. It will be an eye-opener for those who regard the Taliban, Iran's fascist regime and other fundamentalist forces as "anti-imperialist".
What security precautions do you have to take, now that your life is under threat?
Since I was expelled from parliament, life has been very difficult for me inside Afghanistan. I have been restricted from free movement and meeting people in different parts of Afghanistan, so I have tried to advance my efforts on international platforms. I change homes often and can't have an office. I wear a burqa outside and travel with bodyguards, and I don't attend public meetings. But I still don't feel safe. I receive threats.
Do you think the majority of Afghan women support your view of the Karzai government?
Yes, I am very sure they do. I am talking about women who are suffering and have no voice, those women who mostly live in the countryside, deprived of everything. They are completely ignored by the media, too.
Your critics say you don't represent them.
ost of my critics are warlords, Taliban or US puppets. Many of the women in the Afghan parliament are critics, as they are, unfortunately, female warlords. The US government has a handful of Afghan women in Kabul who are used as showpieces: they are given awards, featured by the western mainstream media and sent to important international meetings as representatives of Afghanistan. Such women try to whitewash the wrongdoings of the US and its puppet regime and justify the US occupation of Afghanistan.
They comprise a small minority, living luxurious lives in Kabul or other major Afghan cities, and have not experienced the brutalities of recent years. From the occupation, they have gained wealth and fame, and they are afraid to lose it from the withdrawal of the US troops. It is natural that such Afghans rise against me.
What are the chances for a better life for Afghan women while foreign troops are still in the country? Do you believe that is part of their purpose in being there, as they say it is?
"A Woman Among Warlords", a book by Malalai Joya.
Only some cosmetic and symbolic changes have been made. Most of the 68 women sent to the parliament are pro-warlord; the women's ministry has done nothing for women at all.
We Afghans know well that the US and its allies occupied Afghanistan for their own strategic, economic and regional interests and don't care about the wishes of our people. So the "liberation" of Afghan women was never part of the real agenda. It is just a lie. The so-called freedom given by the US to Afghanistan is enjoyed mainly by the warlords and drug lords, who are free to commit their crimes and do their drug trafficking.
Don't polls show Afghan support for the western military presence?
This is not only a military war, but also a war of propaganda. A recent BBC survey said that 70 per cent of Afghans think that the country is headed in the right direction and 71 per cent support Karzai. Even animals make fun of the figures! If Karzai is so popular, why did he have to win the election by fraud? Unfortunately, the western mainstream media are playing a very negative role. It is not honest to the Afghan people.
You want foreign forces out -- but what then?
Afghans face three enemies: the occupying forces, the Taliban and the warlords. When the US pulls out, the Taliban and the warlords will lose their guardian. It will be easier for Afghans to unite and crush these internal enemies.
The US government doesn't want a democratic Afghanistan, so it counts on its puppets who are anti-democracy and anti-woman to the marrow of their bones. Today, friends of the US in Afghanistan are dark-minded, criminal people.
Afghanistan will never see democracy and freedom when such dirty elements are real power-holders and policymakers.
Can democracy ever flourish in a tribal and conservative society like Afghanistan?
We are living in the 21st century. The world has turned into a global village. Years of conflict have changed Afghanistan and its people's political knowledge has increased. It is the US and its puppets who try to give a bad name to democracy in Afghanistan.
Our people want democracy but now know that occupation will never bring democracy for them. Because democracy without independence has no meaning. When Afghan people raise their voice for independence, western forces call them "tribal" and "anti-democracy", while those barbaric warlords and Taliban who have accepted the US occupation and are in the parliament are called "democrats"!
What would you like to forget?
The cheap attacks of my enemies.
Are we all doomed?
No. We can change our destiny by our struggle and efforts.
This interview is originally published in the New Statesman Magazine on January 25, 2010
Category: Taliban, Women, US-NATO, HR Violations, Corruption - Views: 3435
Thursday, June 17, 2010
RAWA statement: peace jirga dominated by criminals of war
The key point made by RAWA in the following statement is that representatives of the ordinary people of Afghanistan are not included in the peace jirga called by President Karzai. We have included articles that have called for negotiations with Taliban leaders to lead to the end of violence. However, RAWA believes that negotiations between warlords and Taliban will perpetuate the misery and domination of the majority of Afghanis. This is also the position of Malalai Joya, in which she articulates a position very similar to that of RAWA. (You can see statements by Joya on this site.)
“Consultative Peace Jirga”
http:// www.rawa.org/rawa/2010/06/01/peace-with-criminals-war-with-people.html
By inviting criminals like the Taliban, the leaders of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s party and other “Jehadi leaders” to be part of a “Consultative Peace Jirga,” Mr. Karzai is committing yet another treason against the Afghan people. Like any puppet, anti-people ruler, he initially compromised with all the murderers associated with April 27th 1978 (former Russian puppets) and April 28 1992 (the Northern Alliance warlords) and installed them in key posts of his government. He then went to the extent of assigning the two most notorious warlords Karim Khalili and Qasim Fahim as his vice presidents. Now, he calls the Taliban and Hekmatyar party terrorists “Afghan sons” and tries to either share power with them, or offer them the opportunity of asylum and amnesty to their leaders in any country of their choice. He is also offering jobs to their gunmen so he can prolong his mafia-style rule with ease of mind.
A known terrorist from Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party called Farooq Wardak has been awarded the responsibility of running the Jirga. Additionally, the delegates from Hekmatyar’s blood-thirsty party in Kabul were received like showbiz celebrities with local Afghan media being offered in their service. The infamous criminals Mullah Wakil Ahmad Motawakal, Mullah Zaef, Humayun Jarir, Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, Sabaoon, Mullah Rocketi and many other such terrorists of the Taliban and Islamic Party have had their reputations sugarcoated in the past few years. All these things not only illuminate the true nature and goal of this Jirga, but also constitute an insult to our people who have sought their liberation in the prosecution and punishment of Khaliqi, Parchami, Jehadi and Taliban criminals, but instead still feel the heavy load of these brutal enemies on their wounded bodies.
Without receiving a green light from their US masters, the puppet government of Afghanistan could never raise a hue and cry about this “Consultative Peace Jirga.” It could also not consider making peace with the Taliban and Islamic Party assassins while they are apparently still on the “Black List” of the US government. This in itself proves that the US doesn’t just want a puppet government, but also a stable and efficient government to easily change Afghanistan into a strong military base in Asia, extend its grip on the oil and gas of the Central Asian Republics and maintain its supremacy in competition with rivals such as China and other regional powers. For the US and allies, the deeply criminal, treacherous, anti-democracy and anti-independence essence of this puppet regime has no significance at all. Apart from a handful of sold-off intellectuals of Afghanistan, this reality is crystal clear to even our children that the claim of the US about bringing “democracy” and “women’s liberation” to Afghanistan was the biggest lie of the century. In fact, it was even more striking than the claims of the US about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and more comic than its pretence of having an opposition to fundamentalist bands and governments.
At the height of a piercing outcry over a “Peace Jirga,” the Taliban intensified their inhuman brutalities by killing school children, teachers, men, and women of Kabul and other cities, but Karzai and his spokesmen expressed with detestable indifference that, “Inshallah, with national unity soon we will emerge from these problems”! If their own sister, mother or daughter were raped, killed publicly or torn to pieces by suicide bombings, would they still call these killings “problems” they have with Taliban, their “disaffected brothers”? But considering the power-lust and impunity of the ruling mafia, they may still not call the Taliban criminals, and their acts as crimes, because despite having some differences, in the final stage they regard themselves from the same ranks and deem it necessary to become united in order to run the state machinery in front of people’s wrath. Both the Taliban and the ruling mafia know well that the day US/NATO occupation forces leave Afghanistan; all the tribes of Afghanistan will consider unity amongst themselves to topple their bloody rule.
While the US is trying to unite its lackeys through the “Peace Jirga” and other means, it is afraid of unity and integration among Afghan people. Therefore, through its puppet government and Northern Alliance agents, the US is trying hard to sow disruption and animosity among the different tribes of Afghanistan. For example, in Behsood and Daimirdad they inflamed fighting between Hazaras and Nomads and similarly in Northern Afghanistan among Tajiks, Pushtoons and Uzbeks so they can continue the occupation of a divided and disarrayed nation.
The so-called intellectuals of Afghanistan who directly or indirectly hope that the Taliban will end the US occupation, are carving a dark mark of history on their forehead. They are like those who rely on the US and the bloodthirsty Iranian regime to emancipate them from the yoke of the Taliban. If such people are not foolish, then they are spineless because they neither remember the marks of the Taliban flogging our mothers, sisters and fathers nor the beheading of our children and poor women (in the name of rooting out “spies”), or the spraying of acid on innocent school-girls. If they believe that by relying on tribal issues, corruption, and looting of the puppet regime they can find an argument for their support of the brutal Taliban, then by what trick can they ignore the ISI-born nature and medieval mentality of the Taliban? Can they point out any example anywhere in the world of such an anti-democratic and anti-women group dominated by drug lords and dependent on the intelligence agency of a foreign country that dares to struggle for independence and liberation? The intellectual supporters of the Taliban are possibly agents of the US CIA and other agencies who by upholding the Taliban and calling them a “resistance movement” want to pave the way for their joint domination with President Karzai and the “National Front” mafia.
In the past, through the meddling of Zalmay Khalilzad and Hamid Karzai as representatives of UNOCAL, the US dealt with the Taliban and pumped tens of millions of dollars into their pockets. Today if the Taliban once again comes to power, the US will easily “work” with them and prefer their bloody and suffocating rule of Afghanistan to an independent, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights government, because the US counts on them as the most loyal group to safeguard its interests in the region. The Taliban also will not forget that the US was their creator, trainer and mentor through Pakistan’s ISI god-fathers.
The current conflict between the US, Taliban, and Northern Alliance is in fact a family matter between them which will be solved sooner or later. When that happens, the ranks of friends and enemies of our people will become clear and the illusion spread by pro-Taliban, pro-April 27 and April 28 treacherous intellectuals will be countered. Under such conditions, it is the duty of pro-independence, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights intellectuals to increase their organized efforts for a coordinated uprising of our people against all traitors to Afghanistan.
Let the puppet mafia government of Karzai bring together all its agents in the “Peace Jirga” and similar ridiculous shows and by organizing luxury meetings, dance over the dead bodies of our innocent people, but the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), alongside the aggrieved Afghan people thinks that such deceitful games mean throwing salt on the wounds of our people caught in the US/NATO bombings, insecurity, poverty, unemployment and desperation all over Afghanistan.
Shame to the “Peace Jirga” of criminals with criminals!Neither USA, Nor Taliban and the National Front murderers!An independent and democratic Afghanistan!
Category: English, RAWA Documents
Peace with Criminals, War with People!
Statement of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on
“Consultative Peace Jirga”
http:// www.rawa.org/rawa/2010/06/01/peace-with-criminals-war-with-people.html
By inviting criminals like the Taliban, the leaders of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s party and other “Jehadi leaders” to be part of a “Consultative Peace Jirga,” Mr. Karzai is committing yet another treason against the Afghan people. Like any puppet, anti-people ruler, he initially compromised with all the murderers associated with April 27th 1978 (former Russian puppets) and April 28 1992 (the Northern Alliance warlords) and installed them in key posts of his government. He then went to the extent of assigning the two most notorious warlords Karim Khalili and Qasim Fahim as his vice presidents. Now, he calls the Taliban and Hekmatyar party terrorists “Afghan sons” and tries to either share power with them, or offer them the opportunity of asylum and amnesty to their leaders in any country of their choice. He is also offering jobs to their gunmen so he can prolong his mafia-style rule with ease of mind.
A known terrorist from Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party called Farooq Wardak has been awarded the responsibility of running the Jirga. Additionally, the delegates from Hekmatyar’s blood-thirsty party in Kabul were received like showbiz celebrities with local Afghan media being offered in their service. The infamous criminals Mullah Wakil Ahmad Motawakal, Mullah Zaef, Humayun Jarir, Abdul Hadi Arghandewal, Sabaoon, Mullah Rocketi and many other such terrorists of the Taliban and Islamic Party have had their reputations sugarcoated in the past few years. All these things not only illuminate the true nature and goal of this Jirga, but also constitute an insult to our people who have sought their liberation in the prosecution and punishment of Khaliqi, Parchami, Jehadi and Taliban criminals, but instead still feel the heavy load of these brutal enemies on their wounded bodies.
Without receiving a green light from their US masters, the puppet government of Afghanistan could never raise a hue and cry about this “Consultative Peace Jirga.” It could also not consider making peace with the Taliban and Islamic Party assassins while they are apparently still on the “Black List” of the US government. This in itself proves that the US doesn’t just want a puppet government, but also a stable and efficient government to easily change Afghanistan into a strong military base in Asia, extend its grip on the oil and gas of the Central Asian Republics and maintain its supremacy in competition with rivals such as China and other regional powers. For the US and allies, the deeply criminal, treacherous, anti-democracy and anti-independence essence of this puppet regime has no significance at all. Apart from a handful of sold-off intellectuals of Afghanistan, this reality is crystal clear to even our children that the claim of the US about bringing “democracy” and “women’s liberation” to Afghanistan was the biggest lie of the century. In fact, it was even more striking than the claims of the US about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and more comic than its pretence of having an opposition to fundamentalist bands and governments.
At the height of a piercing outcry over a “Peace Jirga,” the Taliban intensified their inhuman brutalities by killing school children, teachers, men, and women of Kabul and other cities, but Karzai and his spokesmen expressed with detestable indifference that, “Inshallah, with national unity soon we will emerge from these problems”! If their own sister, mother or daughter were raped, killed publicly or torn to pieces by suicide bombings, would they still call these killings “problems” they have with Taliban, their “disaffected brothers”? But considering the power-lust and impunity of the ruling mafia, they may still not call the Taliban criminals, and their acts as crimes, because despite having some differences, in the final stage they regard themselves from the same ranks and deem it necessary to become united in order to run the state machinery in front of people’s wrath. Both the Taliban and the ruling mafia know well that the day US/NATO occupation forces leave Afghanistan; all the tribes of Afghanistan will consider unity amongst themselves to topple their bloody rule.
While the US is trying to unite its lackeys through the “Peace Jirga” and other means, it is afraid of unity and integration among Afghan people. Therefore, through its puppet government and Northern Alliance agents, the US is trying hard to sow disruption and animosity among the different tribes of Afghanistan. For example, in Behsood and Daimirdad they inflamed fighting between Hazaras and Nomads and similarly in Northern Afghanistan among Tajiks, Pushtoons and Uzbeks so they can continue the occupation of a divided and disarrayed nation.
The so-called intellectuals of Afghanistan who directly or indirectly hope that the Taliban will end the US occupation, are carving a dark mark of history on their forehead. They are like those who rely on the US and the bloodthirsty Iranian regime to emancipate them from the yoke of the Taliban. If such people are not foolish, then they are spineless because they neither remember the marks of the Taliban flogging our mothers, sisters and fathers nor the beheading of our children and poor women (in the name of rooting out “spies”), or the spraying of acid on innocent school-girls. If they believe that by relying on tribal issues, corruption, and looting of the puppet regime they can find an argument for their support of the brutal Taliban, then by what trick can they ignore the ISI-born nature and medieval mentality of the Taliban? Can they point out any example anywhere in the world of such an anti-democratic and anti-women group dominated by drug lords and dependent on the intelligence agency of a foreign country that dares to struggle for independence and liberation? The intellectual supporters of the Taliban are possibly agents of the US CIA and other agencies who by upholding the Taliban and calling them a “resistance movement” want to pave the way for their joint domination with President Karzai and the “National Front” mafia.
In the past, through the meddling of Zalmay Khalilzad and Hamid Karzai as representatives of UNOCAL, the US dealt with the Taliban and pumped tens of millions of dollars into their pockets. Today if the Taliban once again comes to power, the US will easily “work” with them and prefer their bloody and suffocating rule of Afghanistan to an independent, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights government, because the US counts on them as the most loyal group to safeguard its interests in the region. The Taliban also will not forget that the US was their creator, trainer and mentor through Pakistan’s ISI god-fathers.
The current conflict between the US, Taliban, and Northern Alliance is in fact a family matter between them which will be solved sooner or later. When that happens, the ranks of friends and enemies of our people will become clear and the illusion spread by pro-Taliban, pro-April 27 and April 28 treacherous intellectuals will be countered. Under such conditions, it is the duty of pro-independence, pro-democracy and pro-women’s rights intellectuals to increase their organized efforts for a coordinated uprising of our people against all traitors to Afghanistan.
Let the puppet mafia government of Karzai bring together all its agents in the “Peace Jirga” and similar ridiculous shows and by organizing luxury meetings, dance over the dead bodies of our innocent people, but the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), alongside the aggrieved Afghan people thinks that such deceitful games mean throwing salt on the wounds of our people caught in the US/NATO bombings, insecurity, poverty, unemployment and desperation all over Afghanistan.
Shame to the “Peace Jirga” of criminals with criminals!Neither USA, Nor Taliban and the National Front murderers!An independent and democratic Afghanistan!
Category: English, RAWA Documents
US goal of creating a "client state" in Afghanistan not achievable
Counter Punch
June 17, 2010
Echoes of Vietnam
Washington's False Promise in Afghanistan
By RON JACOBS
One of the predominant rationales put forth by US civilian and military officials regarding the nature of the insurgency categorized as the Taliban in Afghanistan is that their support is derived from coercion. Pronouncements from these officials stating this belief as objective truth are obediently parroted in media reports and repeated by politicians. Yet, according to US Army General McChrystal, there is not enough support among Afghans for his proposed pacification effort in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan. “When you go to protect people, the people have to want you to protect them," are the words McChrystal used when asked about why he was delaying the proposed operation. In other words, the Afghans do not see the US military as its protector and want nothing to do with them and their plans.
While one must acknowledge that McChrystal's honesty is a welcome rarity from the Pentagon, the more appropriate question is how long will it be before Washington decides that it doesn't really care whether or not it has Afghan support and launches its Kandahar operation anyhow. After all, there is a supposed deadline in 2011 that McChrystal is operating under that requires him to be able to at least say things are different for Washington in Afghanistan than they were in summer 2009. Of course, that deadline becomes more nebulous by the week, just like those deadlines always do without popular pressure in the US demanding an end to a particular military operation.
Let's go back to that recruitment by coercion supposition that the Pentagon is operating on at least in public. Despite the seeming impossibility of a recruitment effort based primarily on coercion to raise a devoted guerrilla force capable not only of survival for ten years under fire, but also of expanding its reach and numbers, that is exactly what Washington wants us to believe is occurring with the Taliban. It's as if the military and political establishment found an old playbook from the 1960s, scribbled out the words "Viet Cong" and replaced them with "the Taliban." For example, here's a quote from a CIA cable dated October 5, 1961.
The Viet Cong live upon locally produced food which they either grow themselves or levy upon villages. They meet most of their currency needs by taxing areas under their control, by robbery, or by blackmail.
Newspaper accounts that reported on the war echoed this interpretation of events in southern Vietnam. Stories of torture and execution style shootings by Viet Cong cadre were given as reasons for Vietnamese support for the National Liberation Front (NLF). The refusal or inability of the Pentagon and its supporters to see and understand that the bombing raids, search and destroy missions, and the removal of entire populations from villages under Operation Phoenix by US troops made any such transgressions by the NLF forces minor by comparison.
Other misunderstandings were of a more philosophical nature. In a column on February 2, 1968, while the Tet offensive raged on, New York Times columnist James Reston described the men and women fighting for the NLF as essentially suicidal given the armed might arrayed against them and wondered when these "men (and women) whose religion teaches them that death is preferable to life" would come to their sense and accept the greater power of Washington's forces. When one reads articles speculating as to the motivations of the Afghan insurgents (or the Iraqis in that unresolved war of the very recent past), a phrase about "seventy virgins" is never far from being repeated. Without getting into a debate about whether or not Buddhism or Islam teaches that death is preferable to life any more than Christianity does, this barely qualifies as motivation to leave one's family just to go and fight other people. Indeed, perhaps the motivation has much more to do with the desire to chase invaders from your village and homeland. or maybe you just want to battle those who have killed your family members.
There is a current of thought in the United States that believes Washington had its chance in the early months of the Afghan occupation to achieve its goal of an obedient Afghan nation. According to this line of reasoning, Washington failed because the Bush White House invaded Iraq. leaving its mission to founder in Afghanistan. I am unconvinced of this argument's veracity. After all, the stated intention of the invasion of Afghanistan was the capture of Bin Laden and the destruction of the Taliban. The invasion did not achieve either of these stated goals and the years since that day in October 2001 when the troops first landed have erased much of the memory of those goals. Instead, the world has watched while foreign militaries under the direction of the Pentagon have attempted to create a client state whose real leadership is in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the continued failure of the US to perceive the elements of the Afghan insurgency as homegrown forces intent on keeping the invaders out of their homes and villages insures its continued inability to achieve its goal of pacifying the Afghan people under a government chosen by Washington.
Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net
June 17, 2010
Echoes of Vietnam
Washington's False Promise in Afghanistan
By RON JACOBS
One of the predominant rationales put forth by US civilian and military officials regarding the nature of the insurgency categorized as the Taliban in Afghanistan is that their support is derived from coercion. Pronouncements from these officials stating this belief as objective truth are obediently parroted in media reports and repeated by politicians. Yet, according to US Army General McChrystal, there is not enough support among Afghans for his proposed pacification effort in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan. “When you go to protect people, the people have to want you to protect them," are the words McChrystal used when asked about why he was delaying the proposed operation. In other words, the Afghans do not see the US military as its protector and want nothing to do with them and their plans.
While one must acknowledge that McChrystal's honesty is a welcome rarity from the Pentagon, the more appropriate question is how long will it be before Washington decides that it doesn't really care whether or not it has Afghan support and launches its Kandahar operation anyhow. After all, there is a supposed deadline in 2011 that McChrystal is operating under that requires him to be able to at least say things are different for Washington in Afghanistan than they were in summer 2009. Of course, that deadline becomes more nebulous by the week, just like those deadlines always do without popular pressure in the US demanding an end to a particular military operation.
Let's go back to that recruitment by coercion supposition that the Pentagon is operating on at least in public. Despite the seeming impossibility of a recruitment effort based primarily on coercion to raise a devoted guerrilla force capable not only of survival for ten years under fire, but also of expanding its reach and numbers, that is exactly what Washington wants us to believe is occurring with the Taliban. It's as if the military and political establishment found an old playbook from the 1960s, scribbled out the words "Viet Cong" and replaced them with "the Taliban." For example, here's a quote from a CIA cable dated October 5, 1961.
The Viet Cong live upon locally produced food which they either grow themselves or levy upon villages. They meet most of their currency needs by taxing areas under their control, by robbery, or by blackmail.
Newspaper accounts that reported on the war echoed this interpretation of events in southern Vietnam. Stories of torture and execution style shootings by Viet Cong cadre were given as reasons for Vietnamese support for the National Liberation Front (NLF). The refusal or inability of the Pentagon and its supporters to see and understand that the bombing raids, search and destroy missions, and the removal of entire populations from villages under Operation Phoenix by US troops made any such transgressions by the NLF forces minor by comparison.
Other misunderstandings were of a more philosophical nature. In a column on February 2, 1968, while the Tet offensive raged on, New York Times columnist James Reston described the men and women fighting for the NLF as essentially suicidal given the armed might arrayed against them and wondered when these "men (and women) whose religion teaches them that death is preferable to life" would come to their sense and accept the greater power of Washington's forces. When one reads articles speculating as to the motivations of the Afghan insurgents (or the Iraqis in that unresolved war of the very recent past), a phrase about "seventy virgins" is never far from being repeated. Without getting into a debate about whether or not Buddhism or Islam teaches that death is preferable to life any more than Christianity does, this barely qualifies as motivation to leave one's family just to go and fight other people. Indeed, perhaps the motivation has much more to do with the desire to chase invaders from your village and homeland. or maybe you just want to battle those who have killed your family members.
There is a current of thought in the United States that believes Washington had its chance in the early months of the Afghan occupation to achieve its goal of an obedient Afghan nation. According to this line of reasoning, Washington failed because the Bush White House invaded Iraq. leaving its mission to founder in Afghanistan. I am unconvinced of this argument's veracity. After all, the stated intention of the invasion of Afghanistan was the capture of Bin Laden and the destruction of the Taliban. The invasion did not achieve either of these stated goals and the years since that day in October 2001 when the troops first landed have erased much of the memory of those goals. Instead, the world has watched while foreign militaries under the direction of the Pentagon have attempted to create a client state whose real leadership is in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the continued failure of the US to perceive the elements of the Afghan insurgency as homegrown forces intent on keeping the invaders out of their homes and villages insures its continued inability to achieve its goal of pacifying the Afghan people under a government chosen by Washington.
Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Skepticism about the timing of story on Afghanistan's potential mineral wealth
Timing of Afghan Mineral Story Wealth Evokes Skepticism
by Jim Lobe,
June 15, 2010 - http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/2010/06/14/timing-of-afghan-mineral-wealth-evokes-skepticism
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Antiwar Forum
The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan’s soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon, which released the information.
Given the increasingly negative news that has come out of Afghanistan – and of U.S. strategy there – some analysts believe the front-page article is designed to reverse growing public sentiment that the war is not worth the cost.
“What better way to remind people about the country’s potential bright future – and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans – than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region’s potential wealth?” wrote Marc Ambinder, the political editor of The Atlantic magazine, on his blog.
“The way in which the story was presented – with on-the- record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM [Gen. David Petraeus], no less – and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense [Paul Brinkley] suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war,” he added.
The nearly 1,500-word article, based almost entirely on Pentagon sources and featured as the lead story in Monday’s “Early Bird,” a compilation of major national security stories that the Pentagon distributes each morning, asserted that Afghanistan may have close to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits. These include “huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial metals like lithium,” the story said.
Afghanistan’s total annual gross domestic product (GDP) last year came to about $13 billion.
One “internal Pentagon memo” provided to the Times‘ author, James Risen, predicted that Afghanistan could become “the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberrys.”
“There is stunning potential here,” Petraeus told Risen in an interview Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant,” he said of the conclusions of a study by a “small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.”
The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose recent efforts to begin a reconciliation process with the insurgent Taliban have been criticized by the Pentagon, quickly seized on the report.
In a hastily arranged press briefing Monday, Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the report was “the best news we have had over many years in Afghanistan.”
Other commentators, however, suggested the news about Afghanistan’s underground wealth was not all that new.
As noted by Blake Hounshell, managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) already published a comprehensive inventory of Afghanistan’s non-oil mineral resources on the Internet in 2007, as did the British Geological Survey. Much of their work was based on explorations and surveys undertaken by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The nearly trillion-dollar figure is based on a simple tabulation of the previous estimates for each mineral according to its current market price, according to Hounshell.
So, the question for many observers was why the article, which dominated much of the foreign news in the network and cable broadcast media during Monday’s news cycle, was published now.
Risen himself suggested an answer in his story, noting “American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan.”
Indeed, U.S. and NATO casualties have risen sharply in recent weeks; a four-month-old counterinsurgency offensive to “clear, hold, and build” in the strategic region around Marjah in Pashtun-dominated Helmand province appears to have stalled badly; and a planned campaign in and around the critical city of Kandahar has been delayed for at least two months.
The latest polling shows a noticeable erosion of support for Washington’s commitment to the war compared to eight months ago, when President Barack Obama agreed to the Pentagon’s recommendations to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to bring the total U.S. military presence there to around 100,000 later this summer.
Moreover, what little support for the war remains among the publics of Washington’s NATO allies – never as high as in the U.S. in any event – is also fading quickly. NATO and non-NATO countries, excluding the U.S., currently have about 34,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.
On the eve of a NATO ministerial conference in Brussels last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that Washington and its NATO allies had very little time to convince their publics that their strategy against the Taliban was working – a message that has since been strongly echoed the coalition’s commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and by Petraeus himself.
Indeed, the administration is committed to a major review of its strategy in Afghanistan at the end of the year, and Obama himself has pledged to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July 2011.
Obama is already coming under pressure from right-wing and neoconservative media – some of which have been cultivated by Petraeus, in particular – and Republican lawmakers to delay that date.
That view was seconded last week by former Petraeus aide, Lt. Col. John Nagl (ret.), a counterinsurgency specialist who is now president of the influential Center for a New American Security.
Nagl worked closely with Petraeus in authoring the much- lauded 2006 U.S. Counter-Insurgency Field Manual, which stressed the importance of efforts to influence media perceptions in any counterinsurgency campaign.
“The media directly influence the attitude of key audiences toward counter-insurgents, their operations, and the opposing insurgency,” they wrote. “This situation creates a war of perceptions between insurgents and counter-insurgents conducted continuously using the news media.”
In that respect, the appearance of the Times story Monday looked to many observers like part of an effort to strengthen the case for giving the counterinsurgency effort more time.
In an interview with Politico’s Laura Rozen Monday, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani said he had commissioned the assessment of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. “As to why it came out today… I cannot explain,” he said.
(Inter Press Service)
by Jim Lobe,
June 15, 2010 - http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/2010/06/14/timing-of-afghan-mineral-wealth-evokes-skepticism
Email This Print This
Share This
Antiwar Forum
The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan’s soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon, which released the information.
Given the increasingly negative news that has come out of Afghanistan – and of U.S. strategy there – some analysts believe the front-page article is designed to reverse growing public sentiment that the war is not worth the cost.
“What better way to remind people about the country’s potential bright future – and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans – than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region’s potential wealth?” wrote Marc Ambinder, the political editor of The Atlantic magazine, on his blog.
“The way in which the story was presented – with on-the- record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM [Gen. David Petraeus], no less – and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense [Paul Brinkley] suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war,” he added.
The nearly 1,500-word article, based almost entirely on Pentagon sources and featured as the lead story in Monday’s “Early Bird,” a compilation of major national security stories that the Pentagon distributes each morning, asserted that Afghanistan may have close to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits. These include “huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial metals like lithium,” the story said.
Afghanistan’s total annual gross domestic product (GDP) last year came to about $13 billion.
One “internal Pentagon memo” provided to the Times‘ author, James Risen, predicted that Afghanistan could become “the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberrys.”
“There is stunning potential here,” Petraeus told Risen in an interview Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant,” he said of the conclusions of a study by a “small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.”
The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose recent efforts to begin a reconciliation process with the insurgent Taliban have been criticized by the Pentagon, quickly seized on the report.
In a hastily arranged press briefing Monday, Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the report was “the best news we have had over many years in Afghanistan.”
Other commentators, however, suggested the news about Afghanistan’s underground wealth was not all that new.
As noted by Blake Hounshell, managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) already published a comprehensive inventory of Afghanistan’s non-oil mineral resources on the Internet in 2007, as did the British Geological Survey. Much of their work was based on explorations and surveys undertaken by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The nearly trillion-dollar figure is based on a simple tabulation of the previous estimates for each mineral according to its current market price, according to Hounshell.
So, the question for many observers was why the article, which dominated much of the foreign news in the network and cable broadcast media during Monday’s news cycle, was published now.
Risen himself suggested an answer in his story, noting “American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan.”
Indeed, U.S. and NATO casualties have risen sharply in recent weeks; a four-month-old counterinsurgency offensive to “clear, hold, and build” in the strategic region around Marjah in Pashtun-dominated Helmand province appears to have stalled badly; and a planned campaign in and around the critical city of Kandahar has been delayed for at least two months.
The latest polling shows a noticeable erosion of support for Washington’s commitment to the war compared to eight months ago, when President Barack Obama agreed to the Pentagon’s recommendations to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to bring the total U.S. military presence there to around 100,000 later this summer.
Moreover, what little support for the war remains among the publics of Washington’s NATO allies – never as high as in the U.S. in any event – is also fading quickly. NATO and non-NATO countries, excluding the U.S., currently have about 34,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.
On the eve of a NATO ministerial conference in Brussels last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that Washington and its NATO allies had very little time to convince their publics that their strategy against the Taliban was working – a message that has since been strongly echoed the coalition’s commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and by Petraeus himself.
Indeed, the administration is committed to a major review of its strategy in Afghanistan at the end of the year, and Obama himself has pledged to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July 2011.
Obama is already coming under pressure from right-wing and neoconservative media – some of which have been cultivated by Petraeus, in particular – and Republican lawmakers to delay that date.
That view was seconded last week by former Petraeus aide, Lt. Col. John Nagl (ret.), a counterinsurgency specialist who is now president of the influential Center for a New American Security.
Nagl worked closely with Petraeus in authoring the much- lauded 2006 U.S. Counter-Insurgency Field Manual, which stressed the importance of efforts to influence media perceptions in any counterinsurgency campaign.
“The media directly influence the attitude of key audiences toward counter-insurgents, their operations, and the opposing insurgency,” they wrote. “This situation creates a war of perceptions between insurgents and counter-insurgents conducted continuously using the news media.”
In that respect, the appearance of the Times story Monday looked to many observers like part of an effort to strengthen the case for giving the counterinsurgency effort more time.
In an interview with Politico’s Laura Rozen Monday, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani said he had commissioned the assessment of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. “As to why it came out today… I cannot explain,” he said.
(Inter Press Service)
Questions about the potential value of Afghanistan's mineral wealth
Juan Cole raises questions about whether Afghanistan's mineral wealth is easily accessible and it's true marketable value. Note that at the end of the article, he refers to articles in The Atlantic and Politico that provide further details on the story. One implication of Juan's post and the two magazine stories is that the alleged potential mineral wealth of Afghanistan might distract from how poorly the US-led military offenses are going and provide a rationale for extending the occupation and war. There is no doubt that the White House and the Pentagon have the resources to promote whatever propaganda they favor. And there are other disturbing aspects of the possibility of gigantic mineral extraction industries. They are environmentally distructive, create terrible work conditions, contribute to global warming, and are likely to consolidate the power and wealth of a few. So does war. So, the Afghanistan war would remains a losing proposition for most of the Afghan people and a continuing drain on the resoures of US citizens.
Meh story about $1 Trillion in Minerals in Afghanistan
Posted on June 15, 2010 by Juan Cole
The report that geologists have found $1 trillion in mineral wealth in Afghanistan is less important than it seems..
That Afghanistan has minerals is not in fact news. But none of the sort of research that would be necessary to place a value on them has been done, so no one actually knows what they are worth of if they are worth anything after expenses.
Then, for a country of 34 million, it isn’t that much money even if the minerals could easily be extracted and actually exist in the imagined quantities. If you mined $100 billion a year, that would be a lower middle class income for the country, but only for 10 years. And, then back to grinding poverty.
In contrast, the nominal gross domestic product of the United States is on the order of $14 trillion, year after year.
It is silly to say that $1 trillion in hard-to-mine minerals in a landlocked Afghanistan make it like Saudi Arabia. The latter has 267 billion barrels of petroleum that is fairly easy to get at and to export, which at today’s prices is worth over $18 trillion. Not to mention its natural gas.
The US will likely end up spending $1 trillion destroying things in Afghanistan.
So even if the whole benefit of the minerals went to the US, it would be in the hole.
Hype.
—
See also The Atlantic and
Politico.com.
Meh story about $1 Trillion in Minerals in Afghanistan
Posted on June 15, 2010 by Juan Cole
The report that geologists have found $1 trillion in mineral wealth in Afghanistan is less important than it seems..
That Afghanistan has minerals is not in fact news. But none of the sort of research that would be necessary to place a value on them has been done, so no one actually knows what they are worth of if they are worth anything after expenses.
Then, for a country of 34 million, it isn’t that much money even if the minerals could easily be extracted and actually exist in the imagined quantities. If you mined $100 billion a year, that would be a lower middle class income for the country, but only for 10 years. And, then back to grinding poverty.
In contrast, the nominal gross domestic product of the United States is on the order of $14 trillion, year after year.
It is silly to say that $1 trillion in hard-to-mine minerals in a landlocked Afghanistan make it like Saudi Arabia. The latter has 267 billion barrels of petroleum that is fairly easy to get at and to export, which at today’s prices is worth over $18 trillion. Not to mention its natural gas.
The US will likely end up spending $1 trillion destroying things in Afghanistan.
So even if the whole benefit of the minerals went to the US, it would be in the hole.
Hype.
—
See also The Atlantic and
Politico.com.
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