The terror of a just peace

By Jawed Naqvi

Nothing could unnerve the Netanyahus, the Chidambarams and the assorted AfPak ideologues more than the terror of a just peace. —AP/File Photo

PROF Marc Gopin and Rajmohan Gandhi among other contemporary pacifists belong to the tradition of Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu et al. Gopin is an American rabbi and a university teacher.

In his extensive work on the Middle East conundrum, he has argued that Yasser Arafat would have been a successful leader had he not put emphasis on the pistol in his holster. In other words, a Gandhian resistance to Israeli racism or colonial-imperialist machinations would have got him greater Jewish and American support, which would really count for a lot for the Palestinian cause, than the bloodshed that has been produced.

It is, of course, debatable as to how much really the pacifists of yore managed to succeed in implementing their agenda of a peaceful transition from an unequal society, fraught with racism and colonial habits, to an approximate world of their dream.

From South Africa to the United States to India, their liberating contribution to society has spawned scrutiny and research. Unremitting racism in the US, persistent social inequality in South Africa and the brutalised state that India is hurtling towards have all put a big question mark on the durability of the pacifist experiment.

However, the alternate armed route to resistance has invited even more bloodcurdling repression both by imperialism and its comprador allies who rule the tributary states. Pacifism has another image handicap to overcome to appeal to victims of state violence. Increasingly unleashed on the exploited citizens in India is the nation state’s mindless quest for lucre often on suicidal terms. Comprador states are not averse to advocating cola factories for people parched with drought and water scarcity.

Gandhian pacifism is seen as a status quo worldview in this regard. In its zeal to bring rapprochement it is often said to underplay, if not entirely ignore, the reasons for the origins of a specific strife. These may include economic deprivation of large swathes of people and the forcible violation of their dignified plea to be spared economic development so often a euphemism to uproot lives and the homes of the already dispossessed.

It may not be a coincidence that a satellite view of South Asia would show up the neo-con models of ‘development’ sharply and unambiguously. From Balochistan in the west to Nagaland in the east, it is the tribespeople – the native inhabitants of the regions who had largely remained unaffected by any discourse of nationhood, its success and failures – that are being hunted. The response too is a violent one.

What if we take out violence from the equation and see if a peaceful petition can deliver the message of their protest to their tormentors?

Take India. Among the most brutal campaigns taking shape in South Asia is the one about to be unleashed on the so-called Maoists in Chhattisgarh, a predominantly tribal region, which is rich in untapped mineral resources. Its people are struggling to stall mineral-hungry multinational companies from uprooting their lives. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram represents lobbies that have a huge stake in tapping the region’s resources.

The Maoists live in a time warp. Their brutal and excessively violent methods of resistance have isolated them from mainstream democratic politics. Suppose we take away their guns. Let us defuse their claymore landmines and woo them with the promise of a fair transparent democratic dialogue between the state and India’s impoverished people.

In other words, let us bring in the Rajmohan Gandhis and Marc Gopins to pre-empt a massacre that could otherwise make the anti-Taliban campaign look like a picnic.

What are the Maoists saying they should not be saying? The Indian Express recently carried excerpts from their pamphlet, which quoted the prime minister and the home minister as declaring them as the biggest threat to India’s security.

Said the pamphlet: ‘This is a very important point to note since the stress is on police action and military solution. The so-called development is to be done only after establishing [the] peace of the graveyard. Chidambaram also said some of the paramilitary forces from Kashmir would be withdrawn and redeployed in our areas.

‘We have to understand that our revolutionary war is a cruel class war. The reactionary forces can go to any extent, committing mass murders, tortures, arrests, abductions, illegal detention, mass rape of women, use of private armed militias and vigilante squads, rendering lakhs homeless and carrying out a psychological war.’

Let us assume for a moment that the Maoists have been disarmed. Would that change the nature of the problem they rather accurately describe?

The Maoist pamphlet lauded ‘militant uprisings’ in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. ‘The reactionaries led by [the] US have unleashed [a] brutal fascist offensive in the economic, political, social and cultural spheres using brute force. West Asia resembles a burning volcano with Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine engulfed in [the] flames of national liberation. The fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting heavy losses on imperialists.’

Surely the unexpected solidarity with fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan ‘inflicting a heavy loss on imperialists’ cannot but be a reference to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Their affinity with reactionary religious zealots makes for strange bedfellows and it does not bode well for the region. On the other hand, their Marxian view could be looking at the AfPak strife through a more rational prism.

One of the Maoist critiques is well grounded in history and logic. After all before the advent of foreign intervention in Afghanistan, for centuries its Muslim rulers and Muslim citizens had preserved the Bamiyan statues, even flaunted them to visitors. At some point dynamiting the Buddhist statues became a symbolic retribution for the foreign inroads into an otherwise placid, traditional, slowly waking-up conservative society.

After all, the regressive features of the neo-fanatics, be they of the Al Qaeda or the Taliban, were originally enshrined in the state of Saudi Arabia. Who can deny that women were and to an extent still are treated as second-class citizens there? The idea of secular education is far-fetched, as it would seem to be in Swat. Beheading, blinding, maiming, torturing of convicts, traits common to Al Qaeda and Taliban, were carried out routinely in the state of Saudi Arabia. Yet, it was embraced by the world as a moderate Muslim state.

This duplicity legitimately instills the familiar doubt that there is perhaps something other than their fanaticism that makes the Taliban–Al Qaeda duo the target of the world’s most powerful military machine.

Suppose some day, by a miracle, the pacifists of the world succeed in disarming the residual militants in Palestine, the Taliban surrender their arms, Al Qaeda is disbanded and the Maoists in India adopt Gandhian methods. My hunch is that nothing could unnerve the Netanyahus, the Chidambarams and the assorted AfPak ideologues more than the terror of a just peace.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Russia says it will join sanctions against Iran

President Obama’s biggest foreign policy gamble appeared to pay off last night as Russia opened the door to punishing new sanctions on Iran to halt its nuclear programme. Emerging from his first meeting with Mr Obama since the Eastern Europe missile shield was scrapped, President Medvedev of Russia conceded that “in some cases, sanctions are inevitable”. Mr Obama went into the meeting, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, ready to press Russia to support sanctions if Iran refused to address concerns about its nuclear activities. He emerged saying that Mr Medvedev had agreed that “serious additional sanctions” must be considered if diplomatic efforts fail. That stance was reiterated later by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who emerged from a meeting of foreign ministers from the E3 + 3 countries – Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and China — to declare a united front on a policy of diplomacy and sanctions. Mr Miliband called for a “serious response” from Iran at talks scheduled for October 1 if it wished to avoid sanctions. Mr Medvedev’s – admittedly lukewarm – support for sanctions is seen as payback for Washington’s decision to move its defensive missile shield from Poland and the Czech Republic to the Mediterranean. China was the only remaining Security Council power opposing sanctions on Iran, but the statement from the E3 + 3 suggested that it too was ready to consider them. In his address last night, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, failed to mention the nuclear issue but sparked a walkout by a handful of Western countries, including Britain, when he slammed Israel as racist and denounced Jewish influence in the world. There had been speculation that he would use even harsher rhetoric to deflect the focus from his disputed re-election and mounting allegations of human rights abuses. Diplomats said that the date of October 1 had been set to give world leaders time for bargaining during the Assembly. Western officials were pressing Arab leaders to get behind the effort. They met delegates from the Gulf Co-operation Council to discuss how to target Iran’s energy sectors. In 2006 the UN Security Council voted to ban the supply of nuclear- related technology and materials to Iran and to freeze the assets of key individuals and companies related to the enrichment programme. Two years later, the EU voted to impose financial sanctions. New sanctions under consideration range from a ban on foreign investment and the encouragement of capital flight to put pressure on Iran’s currency to a ban on the export of equipment or technology for oil and gas exploration. A ban on refined petroleum exports is being considered. Arab states have expressed alarm at Iran’s nuclear capabilities but do not want to ally themselves with Israel. Saudi Arabia is trying to lure Russia into cancelling its S-300 anti-missile system deal with Iran in return for buying $2 billion of its arms. Inducements such as oil deals and jobs for migrant workers could help to persuade China that their interests lie west of Tehran. In his address to the assembly, President Sarkozy of France warned Iran that it would be making a “tragic mistake” if it underestimated worldwide concern over its nuclear ambitions. He said later that December was the deadline for Iran to prove that the diplomatic track was worth pursuing. Mr Ahmadinejad indicated in an interview, however, that he planned to stretch out the negotiations. He insisted that he only wanted uranium enriched to 20 per cent — well below the 90 per cent required for weapons grade — for a small research reactor. Until now, Iran has produced only low-enriched uranium. If his request is refused, it could use this as a pretext to produce highly-enriched material.

Americans see a change in the air in Pakistan

Americans see a change in the air in Pakistan

By Dr Shahid Masood

WASHINGTON: Americans see a change fast, but smoothly, coming in Pakistan in the wake of loss of credibility of the man at the helm, following some domestic legal developments.

After meeting top political and defence decision-makers here in the US capital, where I was invited by the National Defence University (NDU) for a two-day seminar on the anniversary of 9/11, I was told in unambiguous terms that a change in Pakistan was inevitable for US policy interests, although Washington does not intend to disrupt the system.

Several important Pakistani political players have also been conveyed the same message by the US political and defence establishment, including the MQM and recently the ANP, whose chief is travelling with President Asif Zardari in New York.

The main problem being faced by the US administration, which it may never admit publicly, is that the present set-up with Asif Ali Zardari as the de facto ruler, has no credibility at home and no ability to deliver on the promises he makes, either on the military side or on the war on terror or on governance issues.

“Zardari has also abandoned the idea of political consensus which he had started to follow in the early days after the February elections,” one official said on background. “He appears to be non-serious in government and lives in perpetual fear and insecurity, preferring to stay out of the country.”

The US side thinks that they had made a sensible move by pushing an alliance between late Benazir Bhutto and General Pervez Musharraf as this team would have provided all the ingredients of a stable and cooperative Pakistan to Washington. She would have provided the political support while Musharraf would have used his military muscle against the terrorists and extremists in a stable environment.

They say Zardari has failed to provide that environment, rather he has involved himself in day-to-day business and administrative matters while his political coalition and parliament have been left looking like dumb and dummies.

Many officials say Zardari has been asking the US administration to bail him out on too many issues and too many occasions. He has sought the US help to tame the Army, keep his alliance partners, especially the opposition of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N in check, directly or through the Saudis on sensitive issues like Musharraf’s or cutting his own constitutional powers.

All these demands are way beyond the capacity of any US administration to deliver while Zardari has almost left everything to us to handle, an agitated official said. “If we have to handle everything, his own credibility within the country will sink and has sunk to the lowest low.”

Other officials I met were even blunter. They say the US abhors corruption, kickbacks and commissions anywhere in the world as a matter of policy.

Another official said the US would keep track of the parties or persons involved and money transaction in the Pakistan’s rental power venture. There are still no roadmaps or any modality work sheets in Washington on how a change in Pakistan would occur, but the US capital is keeping its fingers crossed as to what comes out of the NRO case pending with the Supreme Court.

The impression gathered from the words of these top Americans is that the US would not intervene if the apex court starts hearing the case. The view is that if the NRO was discussed and details of who benefited, who made what deals and how serious crimes were committed and then whitewashed, start to be revealed in the SC, the moral authority of the NRO beneficiaries would erode fatally. In this scenario, the NRO beneficiaries may themselves throw in the towel seeking a safe exit.

In several informed US and Pakistani circles I moved in for several days in Washington, the same scenario was repeated, often exactly in the same tone and sequence.

A Pakistani, who knows a lot about developments in Pakistan and the US scene, said that apart from this purely legal and domestic scene, there were four possible ways through which Zardari could exit. These ways were repeated by others who had nothing to do at all with the previous source. They are: one, impeachment; two, voluntary resignation in the wake loss of credibility; three, ‘natural’ or man-made elimination of the president, and, four, an Army coup. The impeachment and coup scenarios are considered non-starter and impossibility.

US and some Pakistani circles said that a resignation after enough dirt is thrown in the public domain when the NRO case details begin to unfold is a favourite way out, as it would not, being an outcome of the legal process, disrupt the system.

I was asked many times whether a coup is a possibility in the current situation and I always said no, but the question kept surfacing again and again.

This is probably because there was some loose talk of a shuffle in the military hierarchy by President Zardari in which Army chief General Kayani was to be replaced by some other pliant general who could ensure continuity and stability for the Zardari regime.

This scenario was shot down in Washington instantly as an impossibility, since it had information that the Pakistan Army considered a coup or intervention as a total no-go area and could have brought back another October 12, 1999 type of situation. It is so also because of the fact that Gen Kayani has established, through words and deeds, that he is all for democracy.

With all these scenarios being discussed, the growing feeling is that not much time is left for the current status quo and it will lead to a period of political turmoil in Pakistan if President Zardari continues with his ways any longer.

The sudden emergence of a top MQM delegation in Washington for talks with the policy makers, officials and think tanks of Washington has also raised many questions as the official Pakistani diplomatic channels were totally cut off and I gather that this was done at the insistence of the US side more than the MQM leadership.

Not even a courtesy meeting between Governor Ishratul Ebad and Ambassador Husain Haqqani was held until four days after the arrival of the MQM delegation and meetings with top strategists, including Bruce Riedel, John Negroponte, Richard Boucher, and current State Department officials, including Richard Holbrooke.

A similar exercise has now been planned with the ANP chief while he will be here in the presidential entourage.

What happened in these meetings is known only to the MQM leaders and the US side but the tone and tenor of MQM in the coming weeks and days will give the first hints of whether the course of the PPP-MQM alliance is changing in stormy waters in the middle of the sea. How the ANP reacts is also to be seen but already Asfandyar Wali is said to be very happy with the praise for his party’s governance in the NWFP by US officials as well as the promises to give them direct financial aid. With the MQM and the ANP almost on board, I will be eagerly waiting for the first signs of the new US strategy unfolding in the days and weeks to come.

Militants and Military Forces Both Pound Mehsud Territory

[Clearing civilians from battle zones, or clearing witnesses from the actors' stage?]

Mass exodus from S Waziristan continues

MIRAMSHAH: Scores of families continued shifting to safer places due to the ongoing clashes between the militants and security forces in Mahsud-inhabited areas of South Waziristan Agency.

Tribal sources said that 450 families started shifting to safer locations via Mir Ali and Razmak routes from Makeen, Ladha and others areas in South Waziristan after militants fired several rockets on these places during Eidul Fitr.

They said the security forces also continued artillery shelling on these areas and the residents, including men, women and children, were compelled to leave their homes and migrate to safer places.

Eyewitnesses said that people in Razmak area were providing shelter and food to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the tribal agency while the political administration had been registering the dislocated at Kajori checkpoint.

They said the security forces based in Dosali and Razmak areas of North Waziristan were targeting the militants’ positions in South Waziristan with artillery. They said the members of Torikhel and Borakhel tribes in Razmak had left the area and shifted to safer places due to artillery shelling by security forces and firing of rockets by the militants. Meanwhile, the displaced people were being fleeced by transporters with both hands as Rs25,000 was charged for the journey for Mir Ali town from Makeen.

More from Pak’s New War

Extremists kill 7 tribal chiefs in Bannu

Extremists kill 7 tribal chiefs in Bannu

BANNON: Extremists killed seven tribal chiefs in Bannu.

According to sources in Jani Khel area of Bannu District, extremists have killed seven tribal heads.

The dead bodies of the assassinated tribal chiefs were found from various parts of Bannu today morning.

Meanwhile four dead bodies have been moved to Bannu District Hospital and investigations are underway.

Pakistan’s Lashkar/Taliban War Gets Underway

19 killed as Qaumi Lashker clashes with extremists in Bannu

Bannu: Nineteen peoples have been killed in clashes between Qaumi Lashker and extremists.

According to sources extremists opened fire on a peace Jirga in Jani Khel area of District Bannu.

In the attack the Chief of Jani Khel tribe and six other elites were killed, while five others including a child sustained injuries.

The dead bodies of the deceased have been moved to District Hospital Bannu.

The Qaumi Lashker of Jani Khel tribe decided to kill the extremists on sight starting action against such elements in Jani Khel.

So far 12 people have been killed in clashes between Qaumi Lashker and extremists including four citizens, six extremists and two members of the Qaumi Lashker.

China Firms Selling Fuel to Iran as U.S. Sanctions Loom

By REUTERS

Published: September 23, 2009

Filed at 4:07 a.m. ET

BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) – State-run Chinese companies are selling gasoline to Iran, a move that could undermine U.S. pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear programme, traders and a newspaper report said on Wednesday.Although some sources said the trade had been quietly ongoing for at least a year as Chinese companies joined a handful of global oil traders and Indian refiners who regularly sell to Iran, the revelation of this flow comes at a time when Western powers may consider target Iran’s fuel imports if it refuses to enter talks over its disputed nuclear programme.

Iran is the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter but imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline as it lacks the refining capacity to meet domestic demand.

State-run Chinese firm Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the world’s largest Iranian crude buyer by company and among the first to heed Tehran’s call to pay in euros instead of U.S. dollars, has been shipping a cargo or two each month to Iran for at least a year, two trade sources familiar with the company told Reuters.

The Financial Times, citing traders and bankers familiar with Iran’s purchasing, reported on Wednesday that China supplies Iran through intermediaries. Oil sources contacted by Reuters said it was also possible that Chinese trading companies were buying spot gasoline cargoes from elsewhere to sell to Iran.

“We estimate, based on what we are hearing in the market, that 30,000-40,000 barrels a day of Chinese petrol is making its way from the Asian spot market to Iran via third parties,” the newspaper quoted Lawrence Eagles, head of commodities research at JPMorgan, as saying.

The United States has agreed to take part in talks on October 1 between Iran and the so-called “P5+1,” which includes the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany.

The meeting is seen as a move toward President Barack Obama’s pledge during last year’s U.S. presidential campaign to try to improve relations with Iran through more direct contacts. The two countries have not had diplomatic ties since 1980.

DATA SHOW NO CHINA GASOLINE TO IRAN

Traders at both Sinopec Corp and PetroChina, China’s dominant oil refiners and trading firms, told Reuters that they are not selling any gasoline to Iran.

“We used to be a regular, direct supplier to Iran back in between 2001 and 2004, when we had lots of surplus barrels for export and there was no credit/embargo problems as we are having now,” said a Sinopec trader.

Official customs data issued on Tuesday showed that none of China’s gasoline exports this year have been shipped directly to Iran, although overall sales have surged. Nearly half its gasoline is shipped to Singapore, Asia’s main trading and storage hub, much of which is likely then sold on.

Whether the gasoline is produced in China or not, the trade is further evidence of the growing energy ties that bind China, the world’s No. 2 crude oil consumer, and Iran, which holds the world’s second-largest crude oil reserves and desperately needs investment in order to develop them.

Iran’s oil minister said last week the country was ready for any fuel sanctions and had signed deals with other countries to purchase more gasoline.

Iranian state media has also reported that Iran will begin importing diesel again by the end of this month.

Zhuhai Zhenrong, which has been lifting Iranian crude for more than a decade, extended its agreement with National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) to import 240,000 bpd of crude for 2009.

While selling fuel to Iran isn’t illegal or in violation of any specific international sanctions, it is becoming an increasingly popular way to pressure Tehran.

The U.S. Senate in July voted to ban firms that sell gasoline to Iran from also receiving Energy Department contracts to deliver crude to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Privately owned Indian refiner Reliance Industries, once a mainstay supplier of fuel to Iran, has curbed shipments this year, just as it starts up a massive new facility and begins to make efforts to sell more fuel into the U.S. market.

While gasoline continues to be shipped regularly to Iran, the trade has become increasingly complex due to the reluctance of Western banks to finance letters of credit, reducing the number of companies willing to take the risk, traders say. (Reporting by Daniel Fineren in London, Chen Aizhu in Beijing; editing by Andrew Roche )

Rockefeller Defends Globalization, the Cause of the Crash

[The mouthpiece of The Beast here on earth wants Obama to stop trying to protect America.  His tired old forked tongue really thinks the world wants to hear his claptrap about global trade being the solution to the de-industrialized nation we have become because of the actions instigated by Rockefeller and all his little minions.  Any fool can see that every item that must be imported, instead of made here, carries a high extra cost of all that unnecessary  shipping and handling.  The devil's best disguise is one of friendship and benevolence.  Anybody who reads a paper can see the effects of listening to this man and all the thousands of little demons who worship at his feet.  If this Nation is to survive it will be through a national re-industrialization program dedicated to full employment, health care for all, and non-interference in foreign affairs.]

Present at the Trade Wars

By DAVID ROCKEFELLER

Published: September 20, 2009

AS if he needed another policy concern to distract him from the health care debate, President Obama now finds himself embroiled in a quarrel with China over his imposition of a steep tariff on automobile tires from that country that is to take effect this week. The Chinese have responded by threatening to impose higher tariffs on American chicken. This may seem like a petty dispute, but the controversy could endanger the global economic recovery if the underlying issue — the rise in protectionism —is not resolved quickly and forcefully. Perhaps Washington has justification for increasing tariffs in this particular case, but in general it sets a bad precedent.

President Obama should resist the desire to accommodate the forces of protectionism from unions, environmentalists and cable television pundits alike. Giving in to their demands may be politically astute, but it would send the wrong message to

our trading partners and, more important, inflict damage on the already weakened American economy. Despite the recent rally in the stock market, the next two or three years could still be very painful.

I lived through the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it, and I saw that there was no direct cause and effect relationship. Rather, there were specific governmental actions and equally important failures to act, often driven by political expediency, that brought on the Depression and determined its severity and longevity.

One critical mistake was America’s retreat from international trade. This not only helped to turn the 1929 stock market decline into a depression, it also chipped away at trust between nations, paving the way for World War II.

In late 1929, intense protectionist pressure from farm, labor and business groups prodded the Republican-dominated Congress to pass the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which increased rates on imported goods to historically high levels. President Herbert Hoover signed it into law in June 1930, and in doing so raised the prices of more than 20,000 items produced abroad.

The results were devastating. Our trading partners retaliated by raising their own tariffs on American goods. From 1929 to 1933, imports from Europe into the United States declined by almost two-thirds and our exports were more than halved. From 1929 to 1934, overall world trade declined by some 66 percent. The tariffs took a toll on the domestic economy as well. When trading partners reciprocated with tariffs of their own, American importers found their goods priced too high to sell, while exporters experienced depressed demand. In both cases, American workers lost jobs. The unemployment rate rose from around 9 percent in 1930 (a bit lower than it is today) to close to 16 percent a year later and a staggering 25 percent in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. We could be at a similar crossroad today.

The high level of economic anxiety is, quite understandably, fueling protectionist sentiment and economic nationalism both here and abroad. Quite a few Americans believe that defeating new trade agreements and gutting existing ones would protect American jobs and stabilize our economy. In reality, those actions would be damaging and counterproductive, and repeat the mistakes of the 1930s.

It’s not too late to get back on the right path. President Obama should use the meeting of the Group of 20 this week in Pittsburgh to argue the case for the expansion of world trade. He should also condemn the subtle protectionist measures — subsidies and domestic content legislation, for example — already used by the United States and many of our trading partners. President Obama should also urge Congress to pass free-trade agreements with Panama, South Korea and Colombia that would truly open those markets to our products. He should also ask Congress to renew “fast track” authority for Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative. This would signal our strong commitment to fair and equitable international trade, as well as our willingness to act quickly on future agreements.

Some will ask why the president should stress trade expansion at a time when our domestic economy is in the doldrums. The reason is that our economy is richer as a result of globalization. At a time when economic growth is flat at best and unemployment is approaching 10 percent, we need every instrument available to stimulate job growth.

President Obama should recognize the critical need for a free flow of trade and finance across the world’s borders, especially our own. He must help Americans understand that the fate of workers in Chinese tire factories, and that of poultry farmers in Arkansas, is inextricably intertwined with their own.

David Rockefeller is the former chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank.

Protests, rally before G-20

Amid its tightest security ever, Pittsburgh set for world leaders.

By James O’Toole and Dennis B. Roddy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH – The limos will roll past Flagstaff Hill this evening as the leaders of nations representing 85 percent of the world’s wealth officially open the Pittsburgh summit, the long-awaited gathering of the Group of 20.

In separate dinners at the Phipps Conservatory, the heads of government and their finance ministers will begin their discussions of the world’s economy. Tomorrow, the conversations shift to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, amid the tightest security Pittsburgh has ever experienced.

As has become traditional in such gatherings, the world leaders were being greeted with demonstrations ranging from the whimsical to the confrontational.

Protests began at midmorning yesterday with a daring stunt by Greenpeace, the environmental organization known for sometimes confrontational tactics.

Two squads of Greenpeace activists tried to rappel simultaneously down the sides of the Fort Pitt and West End Bridges. Police nabbed the five activists on the Fort Pitt Bridge, but eight protesters at the other bridge managed to unfurl an 80-by-30-foot banner proclaiming

“Danger: Climate Destruction Ahead,” while dangling above the Ohio River as police waited them out.

By early afternoon, those protesters climbed back up and were all arrested, along with a ninth team member who remained on the bridge to assure police that the activists were peaceful and were experienced, equipped climbers.

All 14 demonstrators were taken to the Allegheny County Jail.

But Greenpeace was stymied in later attempts throughout the day to unfurl other banners from atop city structures. A plan to drop a banner at the Andy Warhol Museum ended when a crew arrived to find National Guard troops inspecting the site and a phalanx of state police in a nearby side street.

A bicycle ride by Critical Mass, a group that occasionally takes over downtown streets on weekend rides, brought a disappointing turnout, with city bicycle police outnumbering the protesters.

Stronger stuff is anticipated today when a yet-to-be-determined number of protesters gather at Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville for an unpermitted march downtown toward the convention center.

Representatives from various protest groups gathered last night at the headquarters of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project, an umbrella group of anarchist organizations that has provided a gathering point.

The council, which was closed to the media, was expected to be the site at which various groups indicate which of a myriad of corporations and other locations they expect to hit in “direct action.” That could range from a protest to a sit-in to attempts to close the location, as well as to block city streets.

City police acknowledged yesterday that they had kept several locations and groups under surveillance.

The security presence, in addition to the 900 officers of the Pittsburgh police force, includes federal agencies ranging from the Secret Service to the Coast Guard, along with 1,200 state troopers. Pittsburgh police also have help from officers from scores of other departments across the country.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl yesterday swore in about 1,000 visiting law enforcement agents in a ceremony at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum.

Yesterday evening, hundreds of people gathered at the downtown Point State Park for a pro-green-jobs rally backed by the Alliance for Climate Protection, a group founded by former Vice President Al Gore; the United Steelworkers union; and a Steelworkers-Sierra Club coalition. The event included performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and other musical artists.

De-Brainwashing the Sheeple

Change won’t come to America without prior de-brainwashing By Ben Tanosborn Online Journal Contributing Writer Sep 22, 2009, 00:17

American progressives don’t appear to grasp the implications behind the fact that only slightly over half of those who voted in the last presidential election (53 percent) did so for Barack Obama, presumably to bring change for Americans as individuals, and also as a nation. And that the counter-reformists, who comprised a lion’s share of the remaining vote (47 percent) did so to maintain the status quo, one in which the elite among them holds 80 to 90 percent of the nation’s wealth, influence and power that run government, make most significant corporate/business decisions, and hold most key positions in the full spectrum of American institutions.

To argue, or even begin to discuss, the need or virtuosity for change, however self-evident and overwhelmingly good for society, can turn out to be an exercise in futility . . . unless one is prepared to recognize where the seat of power truly resides. Without a significant shift in the number of Americans from the ranks of those who now choose the status quo to the ranks of those clamoring for change, the reformists would be left with three choices: (1) convince at least one-third of the counter-reformists to switch sides since, often for the worse, people ultimately decide on issues not based on facts and logic alone, but on their sense of belonging — allegiance and identity — to a given group; (2) surrender to the desires and designs of the elite; or, (3) take up arms in a revolution or, more appropriately, a civil war.

Accepting a priori that such elite has shaped for generations much of the thinking and conduct of Americans — a most effective form of brainwashing — it follows that unless de-brainwashing takes place there is little or no room for change or reform. That calls for reevaluation of past ideas relating to peace-and-war, to blind adherence to a socio-political-economic system, and also to the role government should have in the well-being of people, making de-brainwashing force majeure to precede change or reform.

De-brainwashing America in terms of peace and war is a monumental task not likely to be accomplished until civil discourse rules the day and existing predatory capitalism is exiled and replaced with a system not in conflict with the aspirations of most Americans, nor with the legitimate aspirations of people around the globe.

Nowadays, the concept of empire assigned to the United States, softened somewhat by what is perceived to be the existence of a non-oppressive Pax Americana — a cruel joke for those nations under American occupation, or the prospect of occupation — is defined more by military decisions taken at the Pentagon than by proclamations made at the State Department. It would be naïve to think any incoming president, particularly one with liberal leanings, as capable of starting a de-brainwashing process with the brass at the Pentagon, or the senior career diplomats carrying the baton at State, or the sordidly-independent group that makes up the Central Intelligence Agency.

Obama, in order to maintain tenure — and possibly his personal safety — is obliged to walk the narrow path determining peace and war for the American empire. For now, that includes acceptance of the impossibility of peace in Palestine, a permanent accord between Israelis and Palestinians, unless and until Israel initiates and consents to it. Also, the termination of Iraq’s occupation (a lost war) as the Pentagon decides what’s in the empire’s best geopolitical interests so as to keep in check Shiite power in Iran and Syria, and the current fluid situation in Afghanistan; this latter, a dire predicament after eight years of occupation (a war being lost). And finally, without exiting the region, the disarray which the US has helped create in Pakistan, first with Pervez Musharrad in power, and now its successor regime (a war which may yet occur).

In less than a decade, the empire has created havoc in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, upsetting the lives of over 100 million people (populations of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Northwestern border of Pakistan), being responsible for up to 1 million people dead in the region, over 5 million people uprooted from their communities, and upwards of 1 trillion dollars in destroyed infrastructure and wasted resources.

But in matters of peace and war, regardless of recent lessons received, Obama will have no choice but to do exactly what the entrenched military-industrial complex wants him to do . . . and absolutely nothing else.

And just as the US president, through his actions, pledges symbolic allegiance to the powers that rule the land — powers not readily identified in civic or history books — he must also do the same with all the institutional forces that jointly represent a socio-political-economic system that equates predatory capitalism with democracy, and accepts nothing short of complete adherence to it.

Americans have been indoctrinated for generations to repudiate any other ism which may be in conflict with capitalism, refusing to learn or tolerate ideas which they are told to be foreign to their blessed land; ideas not acceptable in the American Catechism that has been coauthored by the extreme Economic Right (an elite representing fewer than 5 percent of the population) and a fundamentalist Religious Right (probably approaching 25 percent of the population). And so, concepts such as socialism, unionism, Marxism, anarchism, libertarianism and any other isms denounced in the catechism’s dogma are pejoratively and prejudicially dismissed before they are even understood. Americans have been, and continue to be, kept in extreme ignorance under the guise they are different and unique by divine choice . . . above the doctrines, systems and theories of the outside “inferior” world.

Obama could certainly opt to start the de-brainwashing process to change this state of opprobrious ignorance; however, by so doing, he would self-immolate and become a sacrificial lamb with little prospect of representing his own party in the next presidential election. One cannot imagine this president assuming that role.

But just as Obama’s hands appear manacled in dealing with issues pertaining to peace and war, or upgrading Americans’ understanding of a world other than their own, he has a last resort for impact in the domestic front. His administration could certainly take steps in helping determine the role of government in the well-being of the citizenry — leave an imprint at the very least in defining the commons in American civil society. And no better place to show that he is at least a minimal reformer, and not just another articulate president, a la Bill Clinton, than by directing the overhaul of a healthcare system which is drowning the American economy while a source of embarrassment.

There are many industrialized nations — even some developing countries — that have systems of healthcare superior, certainly more equitable, than that in the US, affording universal coverage for their people at a fraction of the US cost, in relative terms to their nation’s GDP. For Congress to disregard or dismiss existence of such successful programs elsewhere, and not try to learn from them, could be considered just one more sign of arrogance; however, it is just a way of admitting that in the US the legislature is a self-serving political body at the beck and call of special interests which in this case happen to be insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the AMA, and affiliated/kindred for-profit groups.

For Obama to settle for and not veto legislation that will allow this nation to continue with an inferior and far costlier system of healthcare than that of other first world nations would be an affront to a society that prides itself for justice and compassion. Moreover, it would tell the nation, and the world, that Obama is incapable of loosening himself from the corporate yoke.

Baby steps in de-brainwashing could start, if Obama is worth his mettle, right here in the creation of a comprehensive system of healthcare modeled after those systems that work around the world. America need not reinvent the wheel; only acknowledge that it is round.

Americans won’t have long to wait before they find out if there is change in the air, even if small. And neither does the rest of the world.

© 2009 Ben Tanosborn

Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at ben@tanosborn.com.

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G-20 PROTESTS – March for Jobs

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‘The Obama Administration Has Completely Failed’

Tina Monshipour Foster, 34, is a New York-based lawyer who began representing Guantanamo inmates in 2005. She realized that many of them had spent time in Bagram prison and had been seriously abused there. In 2005, she travelled to Afghanistan for the first time. There, she met hundreds of relatives of Bagram inmates who asked why the world was interested in Guantanamo but nobody seemed to care about abuses at Bagram. Since then she has worked exclusively with Bagram detainees.

Human Rights Lawyer on Bagram Prison

‘The Obama Administration Has Completely Failed’

Human rights lawyer Tina Foster talks to SPIEGEL about detainee abuses in the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan and her disappointment with the Obama administration.

SPIEGEL: Right after taking office, US President Barack Obama announced his plan to close Guantanamo. It looked like he would reverse the human rights policies of the Bush administration. Will the detainees the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan now be given legal rights?

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Foster: Unfortunately, the US government did not change its position on Bagram when Obama took office. The government still claims that our clients are not entitled to any legal protections under US law. It maintains that even those individuals who they brought to Bagram from other countries, and have held without charge for more than six years, are still not entitled to speak with their attorney, and they are arguing now that they are not entitled to have their cases heard in US courts.

SPIEGEL: But there has been an important legal decision stating that detainees in Bagram have the right to legal representation.

Foster: The April 2 decision of Judge John D. Bates, a George Bush appointee, was that our clients were entitled to have their cases reviewed by the court. That was a huge success.

SPIEGEL: Is the Obama administration complying with the Bates decision in providing each detainee a representative?

Foster: Before we could present any evidence or proceed in their cases, the Obama administration appealed the decision to the court of appeals, and is now arguing that it should be overturned. The announcement was intended to generate a positive media spin on the “new” procedures at Bagram, which were announced at this time because the government’s filing in the court of appeals was due the following day. If you look at the actual procedures, you will see that the detainees will not be given any legal representation. Instead, the Department of Defense is saying that it will send non-lawyer “representatives” to question the detainees and look into their cases. Those individuals are not officers of the court, and have no duty of confidentiality or loyalty to the detainee.

SPIEGEL: But what then is the difference between the Bush and Obama administrations?

Foster: There is absolutely no difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration’s position with respect to Bagram detainees’ rights. They have made much ado about nothing, in the hope that the courts and the public will not examine the issue more closely.

SPIEGEL: Is it true that the human rights situation has gotten much better at Bagram in the last 18 months?

Foster: Some of our clients have been at Bagram since its early days, and they still are not being told what the charges are against them, or given the ability to challenge those allegations in any fair legal proceeding. Moreover, several of our clients were brought to Bagram from outside of Afghanistan. For example, Amin Al Bakri — a Yemeni gem trader who was kidnapped while on a business trip in Thailand, rendered to secret prisons, tortured and finally ended up at Bagram — is still being held incommunicado and without access to his attorneys. We believe he was tortured in CIA secret prisons before being transferred to Bagram, which is why I believe the government does not want to allow us to speak with him. It’s a cover up. Amin has been at Bagram for more than six years. It’s hard to imagine any other reason why the government would not allow him a simple hearing in a US court.

SPIEGEL: What about the case of Jawed Ahmad, which received a certain amount of media coverage?

Foster: Our client Jawed “Jojo” Ahmad was a young journalist working for the Canadian television network CTV. He was also taken into custody by the military and held without charge for more than a year before the US government finally released him. This all happened in 2007-2008 — in other words, fairly recently. That “mistake” by the US government cost Jojo his life. We were eventually able to convince the US government that he was innocent, and happily he was released. Jojo committed his time after he got out of prison to exposing other injustices at Bagram and beyond in Afghanistan. He helped us with the cases of other innocent people who are currently being held at Bagram, and was essentially our star witness in this litigation. This was all cut short earlier this year, when Jojo was shot and killed in broad daylight. His assassins have never been identified. It was one of the most terrible moments of my life. He was a great person and a friend.

SPIEGEL: Can you compare the human rights situation in Bagram with that in Guantanamo?

Foster: What most people don’t realize is that Bagram has always been far worse than Guantanamo. One thing that has not been stressed enough in media accounts regarding Guantanamo is that much of the abuse that the Guantanamo prisoners suffered actually happened at Bagram. Many of our former clients were subjected to sexual humiliation and assault akin to Abu Ghraib-style torture. In terms of torture and abuse, Bagram has a far worse history than Guantanamo. There are at least two detainees who died there after being tortured by US interrogators. One of them was strung up by interrogators by his wrists, and then beaten until his legs were “pulpified,” according to the military’s own autopsy report. Our clients who have been released more recently report exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation and other torture that is still ongoing. Bagram has always been a torture chamber — there is no way that the United States will ever be able to rid it of that reputation unless it discontinues the practice of holding detainees incommunicado and in secret.

SPIEGEL: Major General Douglas M. Stone, who was charged to investigate Bagram, has been quoting as saying that many of the detainees in Bagram are innocent.

Foster: I think General Stone’s report confirms what we have learned over the years from our clients — most of the people at Bagram are being imprisoned unjustly. General Stone reviewed the military’s own records and determined that, of the 600 current detainees at Bagram, there are 400 innocent people that the US government should not be detaining. It’s obvious that the procedures that the military is using to determine who to imprison and who to release are completely flawed. What is completely baffling is why these 400 innocent individuals have not been released. It doesn’t make sense to hold innocent people in our custody — it’s completely counterproductive and undermines the entire war effort.

SPIEGEL: You worked on the Obama campaign last year. Do you regret that now?

Foster: I voted and campaigned for Obama, like all the other folks here in the US who wanted to see this country recover from the illegal and unjust policies of the Bush administration. When I heard Obama’s announcement to close Guantanamo, I breathed a sigh of relief that perhaps this extremely ugly chapter of American history was finally being put to an end. Unfortunately, since then, the Obama administration has completely failed in delivering the change that was promised. For a time, we believed that perhaps it would just take the new administration time to shift its policies. The reality is that the Bush and the Obama administrations have the same position on the rights of detainees in Bagram.

Interview conducted by John Goetz

New Missile Defense Plans Much Bigger Than Bush’s Primitive Program

Source: Pravda.Ru

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in New York today to appear in front of the UN General Assembly and conduct negotiations with his US counterpart Barack Obama.

One may presume that the two leaders will pay special attention to the recent decision of the US administration to shelve missile defense system plans in Poland and the Czech Republic and discuss the drastic changes of the US approach to the issue on the whole.

Medvedev stated shortly before the visit to the United States that Mr. Obama’s decision was obviously a positive sign. The Russian president added that Russia would listen to the USA once the USA listened to Russia. At the same time, Medvedev said that Russia would not be making primitive compromises. He emphasized that the missile defense system must be created though international, not individual effort.

Needless to say that the United States is not ready for it. Moreover, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said September 20 that Obama’s decision was not a concession that the USA had made to Russia.

Obama stated later that the new plans would become an advantage to Russia only if she conducts a much closer cooperation with the USA on the Iranian nuclear program.

Nevertheless, the new missile defense plans of the United States may still contain a significant threat for Russia.

“In the first phase, to be completed by 2011, we will deploy proven, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles – weapons that are growing in capability – in the areas where we see the greatest threat to Europe,” Gates wrote in his essay.

“The second phase, which will become operational around 2015, will involve putting upgraded SM-3s on the ground in Southern and Central Europe. All told, every phase of this plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles, as opposed to the old plan of just 10 ground-based interceptors. This will be a far more effective defense should an enemy fire many missiles simultaneously – the kind of attack most likely to occur as Iran continues to build and deploy numerous short- and medium-range weapons,” he continued.

Therefore, the USA will use dozens of SM-3 missiles instead of only ten interceptor missiles that were stipulated in the previous missile defense program. In addition, the radar station, which was supposed to be deployed in the Czech Republic, will be replaced with air-based, sea-based and ground-based detectors.

“The new approach to European missile defense actually provides us with greater flexibility to adapt as new threats develop and old ones recede. Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting what we are doing,” Gates concluded.

It just so happens that the new concept of missile defense system in Europe is not a concession to Russia at all. The new system, which Robert Gates described, can be a lot more dangerous than what George W. Bush was intended to make.

Let’s take a closer look at the new plans of the US administration. At least two or three cruisers and destroyers with SM-3 missiles on board will be patrolling the European waters of the North and the Mediterranean Seas from 2011.

The vessels will provide the missile shield for Europe for the period until the USA and its allies finish the deployment of the ground-based missile defense system (SM-3 missile launching systems) on the continent.

One vessel equipped with the Aegis system is capable of taking up to 100 SM-3 missiles on board. A Ticonderoga class cruiser of the US Navy has 122 containers with missiles installed in the vertical launching systems. The Arleigh Burke destroyers may have 90 and 96 containers. Eighteen of 80 vessels (equipped with the Aegis system) of the US navy are currently fit to fulfill the missile defense tasks. Sixteen of those vessels are based on the Pacific regions.

The Aegis system is a state-of-the-art integrated naval weapons system. Ticonderoga cruisers and Burke destroyers are capable of detecting, tracking and destroying hundreds of air, ground and surface targets with the help of this system.

The SM-3 missile (Standard Missile-3) is a ship-based anti-ballistic missile used by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. The 500-km range missile is 6.55m long and 0.34m in diameter.

The US initiative also contains a geographical constituent. Albania, a Balkan state, or Turkey are already being evaluated as possible locations for the ground-based elements of the missile defense system.

Turkey is an influential regional state. Therefore, building the system in Turkey would mean great success for the White House. Turkey, just like the Balkans, is situated very close to Russia.

George W. Bush was outspoken in his intentions. His policies evoked irritation and rejection. Obama’s administration is more diplomatic. However, Russia should not underestimate the danger that might be hidden in the new missile defense doctrine.

In El Salvador, An Invasion of American Agriculture

For the poor in every country, it is always about having no water, women and children carrying pots long distances to bring water.

I see it as a symbol of how globalization promises so much economically, but impoverishes us by stealing our soul. Right now, the culture of globalization is more about having stuff just for pleasure, hedonism, and power.” Rosa Chavez called this a ”diabolical cycle.” Many Salvadorans fled the instability at our hands to work in the United States at high legal risk, often on dangerous jobs and at poverty wages to provide the high life for Americans and a higher life for Salvadorans at home. ”Globalization might help some people,” Rosa Chavez said, ”but we also have Salvadorans in the US who never buy new clothes, go to the worst schools, and who send money home to people who purchase the most expensive shoes, and shop for the biggest televisions in the malls in El Salvador. It ends up being poor dollars sent by poor people, and for what?” – Derrick Jackson

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Published on Saturday, April 29, 2006 by the Boston Globe

by Derrick Z. Jackson

When the US-backed government and military of El Salvador brutally repressed their people in the 1980-92 civil war that took 75,000 lives, Gregorio Rosa Chavez was one of those who pleaded to the outside world, ”We don’t need bullets; we need beans.”

Today, he still pleads for the beans.

To understand why, one can start with a 2003 article by the US Department of Agriculture, titled ”El Salvador Offers a Balmy Climate for US Agricultural Exports.” Written as the United States pushed for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, it said, ”Some 20 percent of El Salvador’s population regularly purchases US food items. . . . With more women joining the labor force and fewer domestic employees to assist in food preparation, the demand for convenience and fast foods is increasing. . . .

”Generally, people living in urban areas consume more bread and meats than tortillas and beans. Urban Salvadorans are very familiar with US-style food, and most US fast-food franchises have outlets in El Salvador. Food courts in shopping malls are popular and viewed as a perfect place to socialize. . . . US foods such as hot dogs and hamburgers are preferred by the younger generation.”

Rosa Chavez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, said this is not his idea of globalization.

”It is taking away our identity,” he said last week in Cambridge, where he received an award from the Latino immigration advocacy group Centro Presente. He spoke through an interpreter. ”I talked to a girl recently who was born in the US but whose parents are from El Salvador. She told me that she felt at home on her first visit to El Salvador because she saw McDonald’s. I see it as a symbol of how globalization promises so much economically, but impoverishes us by stealing our soul. Right now, the culture of globalization is more about having stuff just for pleasure, hedonism, and power.”

El Salvador was the first nation to implement CAFTA, which was not surprising because of our continued long reach into its affairs. It has adopted the dollar as its national currency. President Tony Saca won office in 2004 with haunting support from the United States. US envoy Otto Reich — notorious for his covert propaganda in Iran-Contra — warned Salvadoran journalists that he was ”concerned” what a leftist presidency would do to the ”economic, commercial, and migratory relations with the United States.”

El Salvador is the last Latin American nation to still have troops in Iraq, 380 of them. Its reward is an invasion of American agriculture. Under CAFTA, tariffs are eliminated on one of the staples of fast food, frozen fries. Tariffs on red beans, black beans, and peas will be phased out over 15 years. ”We are going to have many peasants who do traditional Salvadoran farming who will be driven off their farms and forced into factories because of American goods,” Rosa Chavez said.

In return, President Bush says Salvadorans will benefit with cheaper and better US goods and industrial investments. But 48 percent of the people remain in poverty, the cost of living has gone up, and the gap between rich and poor is widening, according to data from the Congressional Research Service and even the US Agency for International Development. That poverty would be worse if Salvadorans were not receiving nearly $3 billion a year in remittances from relatives in the United States. That cash accounts for 17 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, according to the State Department.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 28 percent of adults in El Salvador receive remittances from the United States. During the civil war, the United States spent an average of about $500 million a year to prop up a regime that a United Nations-sponsored truth commission judged responsible for 85 percent of the deaths. Today, we give a mere $40 million a year to help that country come to life.

Rosa Chavez called this a ”diabolical cycle.” Many Salvadorans fled the instability at our hands to work in the United States at high legal risk, often on dangerous jobs and at poverty wages to provide the high life for Americans and a higher life for Salvadorans at home.

”Globalization might help some people,” Rosa Chavez said, ”but we also have Salvadorans in the US who never buy new clothes, go to the worst schools, and who send money home to people who purchase the most expensive shoes, and shop for the biggest televisions in the malls in El Salvador. It ends up being poor dollars sent by poor people, and for what?”

McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan

By Bill RoggioSeptember 21, 2009 4:17 PM

Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal’s team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn’t given sufficient resources (read “troops”) to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan:

Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn’t ready for it.In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion “premature.” Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “time is not on our side”; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public “to take a deep breath.”

…

In Kabul, some members of McChrystal’s staff said they don’t understand why Obama called Afghanistan a “war of necessity” but still hasn’t given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.

Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he’d stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.

“Yes, he’ll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far,” a senior official in Kabul said. “He’ll hold his ground. He’s not going to bend to political pressure.”

On Thursday, Gates danced around the question of when the administration would be ready to receive McChrystal’s request, which was completed in late August. “We’re working through the process by which we want that submitted,” he said.

The entire process followed by the military in implementing a change of course in Afghanistan is far different, and bizarrely so, from the process it followed in changing strategy in Iraq.

For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague “AfPak” assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal’s assessment hit President Obama’s desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration.

Contrast this with Iraq in the fall of 2006. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired just one day after the elections in early November. The Keane-Kagan plan for Iraq was submitted to President Bush shortly afterward, and encompassed both the assessment of the situation and the recommended course of action, including the recommended number of troops to be deployed to deal with the situation. General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey in early February 2007, and hit the ground running; the surge strategy was in place, troops were being mustered to deploy to Iraq, and commanders on the ground were preparing for and executing the new orders. The first of the surge units began to arrive in Iraq only weeks later, in March.

Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration’s commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration’s waffling on Afghanistan.

You Can’t Trust A Tortured Brain: Neuroscience Discredits Coercive Interrogation

ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2009) — According to a new review of neuroscientific research, coercive interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration to extract information from terrorist suspects are likely to have been unsuccessful and may have had many unintended negative effects on the suspect’s memory and brain functions.

A new article, published in the journal, Trends in Cognitive Science, reviews scientific evidence demonstrating that repeated and extreme stress and anxiety have a detrimental influence on brain functions related to memory.

Memos released by the US Department of Justice in April of 2009 detailing coercive interrogation techniques suggest that prolonged periods of shock, stress, anxiety, disorientation and lack of control are more effective than standard interrogatory techniques in making subjects reveal truthful information from memory. “This is based on the assumption that subjects will be motivated to reveal veridical information to end interrogation, and that extreme stress, shock and anxiety do not impact memory,” says review author, Professor Shane

O’Mara from the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. “However, this model of the impact of extreme stress on memory and the brain is utterly unsupported by scientific evidence.”

Psychological studies suggest that during extreme stress and anxiety, the captive will be conditioned to associate speaking with periods of safety. For the captor, when the captive speaks, the objective of gaining information will have been obtained and there will be relief from the unsavory task of administering these conditions of stress. Therefore, it is difficult or impossible to determine during the interrogation whether the captive is revealing truthful information or just talking to escape the torture. Research has also shown that extreme stress has a deleterious effect on the frontal lobe and is associated with the production of false memories.

Neurochemical studies have revealed that the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, brain regions integral to the process of memory, are rich in receptors for hormones that are activated by stress and sleep deprivation and which have been shown to have deleterious effects on memory. “To briefly summarize a vast, complex literature, prolonged and extreme stress inhibits the biological processes believed to support memory in the brain,” says O’Mara. “For example, studies of extreme stress with Special Forces Soldiers have found that recall of previously-learned information was impaired after stress occurred.” Waterboarding in particular is an extreme stressor and has the potential to elicit widespread stress-induced changes in the brain.

“Given our current cognitive neurobiological knowledge, it is unlikely that coercive interrogations involving extreme stress will facilitate release of truthful information from long term memory,” concludes Professor O’Mara. “On the contrary, these techniques cause severe, repeated and prolonged stress, which compromises brain tissue supporting both memory and decision making.”

---

Journal reference:

1. O’Mara et al. Torturing the Brain: On the folk psychology and folk neurobiology motivating ‘enhanced and coercive interrogation techniques. Trends in Cognitive Science, September 21, 2009

Adapted from materials provided by Cell Press, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

McChrystal Fingers Pakistan and Iran

U.S. says Pakistan, Iran helping Taliban

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, in particular cites the ISI and the Quds Force.

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are being aided by “elements of some intelligence agencies,” Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in a detailed analysis of the military situation delivered to the White House earlier this month. (Manan Vatsyayana / AFP/Getty Images / August 21, 2009)

By Greg MillerSeptember 22, 2009

Reporting from Washington -

The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says he has evidence that factions of Pakistani and Iranian spy services are supporting insurgent groups that carry out attacks on coalition troops.

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are being aided by “elements of some intelligence agencies,” Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in a detailed analysis of the military situation delivered to the White House earlier this month.

McChrystal went on to single out Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency as well as the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as contributing to the external forces working to undermine U.S. interests and destabilize the government in Kabul.

The remarks reflect long-running U.S. concerns about Pakistan and Iran, but it is rare that they have been voiced so prominently by a top U.S. official. McChrystal submitted his assessment last month, and a declassified version was published Sunday on the Washington Post website.

The criticism of Pakistan is a particularly delicate issue because of the United States’ close cooperation with Islamabad in pursuing militants and carrying out drone airstrikes in the nation’s rugged east.

“Afghanistan’s insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan,” McChrystal wrote, adding that senior leaders of the

major Taliban groups are “reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan’s ISI.” The ISI has long-standing ties to the Taliban, but Pakistani officials have repeatedly claimed to have severed those relationships in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

More recently, the ISI has been a key U.S. partner in the capture of a number of high-level Al Qaeda operatives, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But U.S. officials have also complained of ongoing contacts between the spy service and Taliban groups.

U.S. frustration peaked last year when Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other U.S. officials secretly confronted Pakistan with evidence of ISI involvement in the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

Since then, U.S. officials have sought to avoid public criticism of the Pakistani service as part of an effort to defuse tensions in the relationship. Indeed, U.S. officials in recent months have said that the ISI had become more committed to the counter-terrorism cause after one of the service’s own facilities in Lahore was the target of a suicide bombing.

McChrystal’s comments are the first public indication in months that the United States continues to see signs of ISI support for insurgent groups. Experts said elements of the ISI maintain those ties to hedge against a U.S. withdrawal from the region and rising Indian influence in Afghanistan.

“There is a mixture of motives and concerns within the ISI that have accounted for the dalliances that have gone on for years” with insurgent groups, said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA counter-terrorism official.

Iran has traditionally had an adversarial relationship with the Taliban, and McChrystal’s report says that Tehran has played “an ambiguous role in Afghanistan,” providing developmental assistance to the government even as it flirts with insurgent groups that target U.S. troops.

“The Iranian Quds Force is reportedly training fighters for certain Taliban groups and providing other forms of military assistance to insurgents,” McChrystal said in the report. The Quds Force is an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard that carries out operations in other countries.

McChrystal did not elaborate on the nature of the assistance, but Iran has been a transit point for foreign fighters entering Pakistan. Experts also cited evidence that Iran has provided training and technology in the use of roadside bombs.

U.S. intelligence officials said Iran appears to calibrate its involvement to tie down U.S. and coalition troops without provoking direct retaliation.

Iran’s aim “is to make sure the U.S. is tied down and preoccupied in yet another theater,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. “From Iran’s point of view, it’s an historical area of interest and too good an opportunity to pass up.”

greg.miller@latimes.com

Obama Prepares to Make His Biggest Mistake, Listening to Biden

Obama Considers Strategy Shift in Afghan War

By PETER BAKER and ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: September 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said.

The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.In looking at other options, aides said, Mr. Obama might just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from General McChrystal. But the review suggests the president is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well.

Although Mr. Obama has said that a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the United States, some advisers said he was also wary of becoming trapped in an overseas quagmire. Some Pentagon officials say they worry that he is having what they called “buyer’s remorse” after ordering an extra 21,000 troops there within weeks of taking office before even settling on a strategy.

Mr. Obama met in the Situation Room with his top advisers on Sept. 13 to begin chewing over the problem, said officials involved in the debate. Among those on hand were Mr. Biden; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; James L. Jones, the national security adviser; and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They reached no consensus, so three or four more such meetings are being scheduled. “There are a lot of competing views,” said one official who, like others in this article, requested anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.

The Americans would accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban. But the emphasis would shift to Pakistan. Mr. Biden has often said that the United States spends something like $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 in Pakistan, even though in his view the main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan.

Mr. Obama rejected Mr. Biden’s approach in March, and it is not clear that it has more traction this time. But the fact that it is on the table again speaks to the breadth of the administration’s review and the evolving views inside the White House of what has worked in the region and what has not. In recent days, officials have expressed satisfaction with the results of their cooperation with Pakistan in hunting down Qaeda figures in the unforgiving border lands.

A shift from a counterinsurgency strategy to a focus on counterterrorism would turn the administration’s current theory on its head. The strategy Mr. Obama adopted in March concluded that to defeat Al Qaeda, the United States needed to keep the Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan and making it a haven once again for Osama bin Laden’s network. Mr. Biden’s position questions that assumption.

Mrs. Clinton, who opposed Mr. Biden in March, appeared to refer to this debate in an interview on Monday night on PBS. “Some people say, ‘Well, Al Qaeda’s no longer in Afghanistan,’ ” she said. “If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast Al Qaeda would be back in Afghanistan.”

At the time he announced his new approach, Mr. Obama described it as “a stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy,” and said “to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you.” The administration then fired the commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, and replaced him with General McChrystal, empowering him to carry out the new strategy.

But the Afghan presidential election, widely marred by allegations of fraud, undermined the administration’s confidence that it had a reliable partner in President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden already had raised doubts about Mr. Karzai, which were only exacerbated by the fear that even if he emerges from a runoff election, he will have little credibility with his own people.

“A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That’s in doubt now,” said Bruce O. Riedel, who led the administration’s strategy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year. “Part of the reason you are seeing a hesitancy to jump deeper into the pool is that they are looking to see if they can make lemonade out of the lemons we got from the Afghan election.”

Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent Mr. Obama a six-page letter arguing the case for more troops for General McChrystal. “There is no strategy short of a properly resourced counterinsurgency campaign that is likely to provide lasting security,” he wrote.

Mr. Obama now has to reconcile past statements and policy with his current situation.

“The problem for President Obama is he has made the case in the past that we took our eye off the ball and we should have stayed in Afghanistan,” said former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. But now that he is in charge of the war, Mr. Cohen said, Mr. Obama is discovering “he doesn’t have much in the way of options” and time is of the essence.

Mr. Cohen added, “The longer you wait, the harder it will be to reverse it.”