Russia could take revenge with assault on Caucasus

[Moscow could decide to roll-back the "Islamists" and their American backers in a surprise repeat of last year's anti-Georgia operation.  Come to think of it, it would also be a good time to roll over Saakashvili.   Consider where we would be right now if Putin and Medvedev had not thwarted American and Israeli power plays last year to seize the vital pipeline region and to seal-off the Roki Tunnel, which would have blocked  Russian forces beyond the Greater Caucasus Mountains.  Think about what would have come next, Bush would have remained in power and Israel would have obtained  a clear route to bomb Iranian reactors.  If Russian forces move to secure their positions once again, don't  look for them to stop until they secured both the Caspian and the Black Seas.]

more about “Russian tanks enter South Ossetia“, posted with vodpod

The site of the Nevsky Express train derailment near the village of Uglovka, about 400km northwest of Moscow, on Saturday. Photograph: Konstantin Chalabov/Reuters

OPINION: Suspicion over Friday’s train bomb is focused on militants from the strategic region, writes DANIEL McLAUGHLIN

THE SHOCK-WAVES from Friday night’s bomb attack on the Moscow-St Petersburg express will be felt far beyond Russia’s two main cities.

Twenty-five people were killed, almost 100 injured, and many more are still missing, feared dead, after the Nevsky Express was hurled from the rails in remote woodland as it sped north from Moscow to Russia’s old imperial capital.

Investigators have found traces of explosives at the site, and another smaller device blew up on Saturday while rescue teams were still working on the wreckage of the train, which is the most luxurious of its type in Russia and regularly carries politicians and business executives.

No group has claimed responsibility for the atrocity, but suspicion is already focused on militants from the North Caucasus region, whose attacks on Russian targets are becoming more frequent and more audacious.

In the first nine months of this year, more than 420 people were killed in rebel attacks in the neighbouring republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, four times the number killed in the same period last year.

This year’s victims include senior police and army officers, local politicians and judges, and the militants came close to killing the Kremlin-appointed president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, in a car bomb attack in June.

Chechnya, the main Caucasus battleground of the last decade, is arguably now calmer than Ingushetia and Dagestan, but security service personnel and rebels are now dying daily across the region in clashes that make a mockery of previous Kremlin claims to have full control over the republics.

After prematurely declaring anti-terrorist operations over this spring, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev admitted in this month’s state-of-the-nation address that the situation in the Caucasus was the “most serious domestic political problem for our country”. “The level of corruption, violence, and clan dominance in North Caucasus republics is simply unprecedented,” he said.

The candour of Medvedev’s comments fuelled talk of an impending crackdown in the Caucasus, as did a sudden hardening of the mild-mannered lawyer’s rhetoric. He has called the rebels “terrorist scum” who must be eliminated “without emotion or hesitation”, words that called to mind the order of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, that Chechnya’s militants be killed wherever they are hiding, and even “whacked in the outhouse”.

Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, made that demand 10 years ago, shortly after a series of devastating apartment bombings in Moscow and southern Russia killed more than 200 people in their homes.

The attacks spread fear throughout Russia and brought the insurgency on its southern, mountainous fringe into the “heartland” of the country, convincing people that Chechnya’s separatists had to be crushed and that the tough-talking Putin was the man to do it.

The myriad unanswered questions about the apartment bombings prompted allegations they were carried out by Russia’s security services to provide a pretext for a new Chechen war, which Putin was in the process of launching when the bombs exploded. Several people who made such claims, or investigated the attacks, have been jailed or have died in mysterious circumstances, including agent-turned-whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko.

While there is no suggestion of state involvement in Friday’s Nevsky Express explosion, it could have a similar impact to the apartment bombings of a decade ago.

Russia’s most prestigious train was targeted because it carried some 700 passengers between the nation’s biggest and most important cities, its political, economic and financial powerhouses, the home of its elite. Putin and Medvedev both hail from St Petersburg, and they have brought many allies from their home town to rule with them in Moscow.

The Nevsky Express was a soft target that carried considerable symbolic weight for Russians, and its destruction will feed political and public calls for severe measures against those responsible.

Ultranationalist groups have been mentioned as possible suspects, but they have never launched an attack on this scale. If, as expected, Caucasian rebels are ultimately blamed, then we may soon see Russian forces surging back into the region to crush them.

Earlier this month exiled Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev said Moscow was preparing to deploy an “enormous” number of troops to the North Caucasus, to establish an iron grip on the region before the nearby resort of Sochi hosts the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“They want to solve the Caucasus problem before the Olympics and tell the world they have eliminated terrorism,” he said. “This will also put the North Caucasus in their hands.”

Renewed large-scale military operations in the region would be a disaster for its people, thousands of whom have died and disappeared in fighting between Islamic militants, clans, organised crime groups, separatist rebels, Russian security forces and local Kremlin-backed leaders whose militias are infamous for their brutality and corruption.

The Kremlin is determined to remain the dominant player in the Caucasus, which is a vital route for exports of oil and gas from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia.

Russia strengthened its hand considerably last year by crushing Georgia in a six-day war and by recognising the independence of two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgians now fear Moscow will use trouble in the North Caucasus as a pretext to launch a new offensive, and senior Russian security officials recently accused Georgia of harbouring rebels in its remote Pankisi Gorge region, which borders Chechnya and Dagestan.

Another war between Russia and Georgia would further damage the latter’s reputation as the West’s most stable and solid partner in the Caucasus, and undermine its place at the centre of US and European Union efforts to create an energy pipeline network that bypasses Russia. For Russians facing a renewed terror threat, the people of the Caucasus who fear a backlash, and western powers with major strategic interests in the region, the fate of the Nevsky Express may be a grim portent of even worse to come.

Trigger-happy security complicates convoys

Trigger-happy security complicates convoys

By Sean D. Naylor

HUTAL, Afghanistan — Ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces, say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials.

The security guards are responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in Maywand district alone, said Mohammad Zareef, the senior representative in the district for Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

Highway 1, the country’s main east-west artery, runs through Maywand and is the route taken by logistics convoys moving west from Kabul and Kandahar to coalition bases in Helmand province. The Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand says the men hired to protect the convoys are heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

The contractors’ actions are frustrating U.S. military leaders in Maywand and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition.

“They’ll start firing at anything that’s moving, and they will injure or kill innocent Afghans, and they’ll destroy property,” said Lt. Col. Jeff French, commander of 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment and Task Force Legion, the main coalition force in Maywand since mid-September. French has vowed to take tough action against contractors involved in violent acts against civilians.

AFGHAN PERSONNEL

The problem of out-of-control security contractors operating at cross-purposes to the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy is similar to the one that dogged the U.S. military and its allies in Iraq, with one major difference: unlike Iraq, where there were a series of high-profile incidents involving U.S. security personnel, here the guards causing the problems are Afghans.

About twice a week convoys up to 50 vehicles long pass through Maywand en route to coalition bases in Helmand carrying fuel and other bulk goods coming from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, said Capt. Casey Thoreen, commander of 2-1 Infantry’s B Company, which operates from Combat Outpost Rath, located less than 100 meters from Highway 1 in the town of Hutal.

Although the convoys sometimes carry U.S. military vehicles and represent a vital lifeline for the coalition effort, no Afghan, U.S. or other coalition military forces accompany them. Instead, each convoy is protected by Afghan security guards armed with AK-series assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in sport utility vehicles — “black 4Runners, full of guys in these tan uniforms, with lots of guns sticking out of them,” Thoreen said. “These guys are like gun-toting mercenaries with probably not a whole lot of training. … They’re just light on the trigger finger.”

Haji Obidullah Bawari, the Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand, rendered an even harsher judgment. “Most of them are addicted to heroin,” he said.

Until recently, the identities of the companies for whom the security guards worked remained shrouded in mystery, even from the coalition headquarters whose troops they are supplying. French said he requested information on the companies through his higher brigade headquarters — 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division — but had yet to receive any word back.

An International Security Assistance Force spokesman said the convoy security workers are employees of the logistics contractors running the convoys. Those contractors work for one or several of the ISAF, NATO or 26 countries operating in Afghanistan. As a result, he said he did not know how much is spent on the security firms or which companies had hired them.

Asked about allegations of heroin use and improper conduct, ISAF spokesman Col. Wayne M. Shanks said that while neither ISAF nor Regional Command-South has a vetting role in the selection of the security guards, “all credible allegations of improper actions by contractors are fully investigated.”

Over the past several weeks, local leaders have voiced complaints about the security contractors, prompting French to ask more questions about the contractors’ behavior. He said the answers he received troubled him.

OUT-OF-CONTROL GUARDS

“They roll through, and if they see something that seems like a threat to them, or they feel that they’re under attack, the local Afghans are saying that they just start to lase and blaze,” French said. “They don’t stop, they don’t wait for the police to come and do an investigation or anything; they just take off.”

Among incidents this year involving the security guards in Maywand, according to Zareef, the NDS chief:

• On May 9, contractors shot dead an Afghan National Policeman manning a checkpoint on Highway 1, then drove away.

• Contractors left their broken-down car for a night at a gas station and found the next morning that insurgents had burned it. In their anger, the security guards turned their guns on the local population. “They started shooting and killed a kid,” Zareef said.

• On March 28, speeding contractors killed a local man and his wife, and injured their child, when the security guards’ SUV hit the motorcycle on which the family was riding.

• Afghans arrested a convoy security guard for the March 4 killing of a kuchi, or nomadic herder.

Zareef’s accounts were consistent with the reports received by U.S. commanders.

“We’re getting fairly consistent complaints about them,” Thoreen said. “Everybody knows somebody who’s been shot by the contractors.”

When the Taliban hit their targets, the security guards show little compassion for their wounded, French said.

“They will literally dump them on the road out here,” he said. Those who come to the base seeking medical aid get it and “on several occasions” the U.S. forces medically evacuated them to more sophisticated coalition medical facilities.

“There’s no give-a-s— factor in them when it comes to their employees,” he said. The firms’ attitude was: “Good luck — it sucks to be you. You’re in Maywand. We’re kicking you to the curb.”

TAKING ON THE PROBLEM

French said he is planning to turn the issue to his advantage by taking a hard line with the convoy escorts, demonstrating the value of coalition and Afghan security forces to the local population. He said that at a “shura” meeting called to discuss security issues with local leaders, he committed himself to trying to solve the contractor problem.

French told the local leaders that he had ordered his troops that if they received credible reports of security guards shooting at civilians, they were to move immediately to the site and investigate the incident by talking to Afghan security forces, local civilians and the convoy escorts.

“If … we feel that they were acting inappropriately and endangering people in this district, my intent is to basically take control of those individuals in that convoy, bring them back to Ramrod and lock them up in here … call their company, make sure we can get some kind of an understanding regarding their operations, and then my guys will personally escort them out of Maywand district,” French said.

On Nov. 15, French was able to back up his words with action. After receiving word of shooting from the vicinity of Highway 1 as three convoys were rolling through Maywand, 2-1 Infantry’s quick reaction force set up a checkpoint on the highway outside the battalion’s headquarters at Forward Operating Base Ramrod and pulled over two of the convoys at gunpoint before taking the two convoys’ security chiefs into the base for questioning.

One security chief, Fidal Mohammed, claimed to have 48 men under arms. He said he worked for a company called DIAK, said 2-1 Infantry’s executive officer, Maj. Dave Abrahams, who conducted the meetings. Mohammed also gave Abrahams the names of several other companies that work the convoy escort business along Highway 1. The other security chief, who gave his name as Lalai, said he worked for a company called Angar and commanded 52 armed men.

Abrahams said he told each man that Task Force Legion would not tolerate misconduct by security companies along Highway 1 and that “any reports of security convoys firing on civilians or indiscriminately into the villages will be investigated and wrongdoers will be punished.”

Speaking before the Nov. 15 episode, French said he was hoping to achieve “multiple effects” by confronting the contractors. “Most of the positive effects will be the populace seeing us taking action to protect them,” he said.

Obama warns Pakistan to Stop Using Our Strategy of Using Insurgents

Stop using insurgents as strategic tool, Obama warns Pak

AgenciesTags : US, Pakistan, terrorists, al Qaeda, Lashkar e ToibaPosted: Monday , Nov 30, 2009 at 1134 hrsWashington:

In his letter to Zardari, President Obama has warned Pak that its use of insurgent groups for policy goals ‘cannot continue’.

In a stern message to Pakistan, the United States has asked it to shed its policy of "using insurgents" like LeT as a strategic tool and warned that if it cannot deliver against terrorists, the US may be impelled to use "any means" at its disposal.

The message, which has been conveyed in a letter from US President Barack Obama to his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, also includes an offer by him to try to "reduce tensions" between India and Pakistan, media reported here.

The two-page letter, hand-delivered by National Security Adviser General (retd) James Jones when he visited Islamabad early this month, offers Pakistan enhancement of strategic partnership if they act as wished by the US, besides additional military and economic aid.

In his letter, Obama has also warned Pakistan that its use of insurgent groups for policy goals "cannot continue" and called for closer collaboration against all extremist groups.

He named five such groups – al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Tehrik-e-Taliban.

"Using vague diplomatic language, he said that ambiguity in Pakistan’s relationship with any of them could no longer be ignored," the ‘Washington Post’ reported.

Jones did some straight-talking with the top Pakistani leadership, the daily said. "If Pakistan cannot deliver, he warned, the US may be impelled to use any means at its disposal to rout insurgents based along Pakistan’s western and southern borders with Afghanistan."

The Post said US officials have long referred to Pakistani military and intelligence officers who are sympathetic to or actively support insurgent groups fighting in Afghanistan as "rogue elements".

Spies for Hire: New Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractors

by Tim Shorrock, Special to CorpWatch
November 16th, 2009

CorpWatch Releases Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractors
Joint project with SPIES FOR HIRE author Tim Shorrock
Now available at SPIES FOR HIRE.org

Contacts:

•   Tim Shorrock: E-mail: timshorrock [at] gmail [dot] com
Tel: +1-901/361-7441

•    CorpWatch: Tonya Hennessey: E-mail: tonya [at] corpwatch [dot] org
Tel: +1-650/273-2475

SPIES FOR HIRE CorpWatch press release-FIN.pdf

For immediate release
November 16, 2009
WASHINGTON – Starting today, journalists, activists, and corporate researchers will be able to use the Internet site SpiesForHire.org to track the nation’s most important intelligence contractors.
Increasingly, secret drone attacks in Pakistan, CIA prisons in Guantanamo, and domestic surveillance of American citizens, have drawn public scrutiny to U.S. intelligence. These and other policies have triggered calls for criminal investigations and congressional commissions to investigate possible abuses in the post-9/11 “war on terror.”
But there’s a big piece missing from the national debate about spying: the role of private intelligence contractors. After journalist Tim Shorrock’s 2008 investigation, U.S. officials confirmed that 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget goes directly to private companies working under contract to the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies. With the U.S. intelligence budget estimated at $60 billion a year, the outsourced business of intelligence is a $45 billion annual industry.
To help the public and media understand this new phenomenon, CorpWatch is joining today with Shorrock, the first journalist to blow the whistle on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, to create a groundbreaking database focusing on the dozens of corporations that provide classified intelligence services to the United States government.
This database expands on Shorrock’s 2008 book, SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.
SpiesForHire.org’s detailed descriptions and histories of the companies that make up this new class of mercenaries will make it your guide to the new U.S. Intelligence-Industrial Complex.
Included are defense giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon; lesser-known but still influential companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, and CACI International; and dozens of Beltway Bandits that have set up shop in D.C. and environs to feed the government’s insatiable appetite for contract intelligence.
These contractors, database users will find, do it all:
•    At the CIA, they conduct interrogations at Guantanamo, run stations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hotspots, and help transport suspected terrorists— including some later found innocent—to countries known to practice torture.
•    At the NSA, they work alongside agency employees at listening posts in Maryland, Georgia, Hawaii, the UK, and elsewhere to monitor telephone calls and emails between U.S. citizens and targeted foreigners.
•    From bases in Nevada and Virginia, they control the military and CIA Predators that launch missiles at suspected terrorist bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
•    Contractors also run covert operations, write intelligence reports that are passed up the line of command all the way to the president, and advise agencies on how to spend taxpayer dollars.
SpiesForHire.org is a component of CorpWatch’s existing Crocodyl database on global corporations. Based on Shorrock’s research for his book and for CorpWatch, Salon, Mother Jones, and other publications, the site will feature essential information ab0ut each major contractor, such as its key executives for intelligence operations, its major intelligence clients, and an analysis of its role in the U.S. intelligence system.
The database is an ongoing project. Starting from a base of a dozen companies and intelligence agencies, it will eventually include all the major private sector players in the business of U.S. government spying. Each profile will be regularly updated. Unlike Crocodyl, which registered users can augment, SpiesForHire.org will be edited exclusively by Shorrock and the CorpWatch staff, who will also vet and fact check any volunteer or whistleblower contributions.
Since 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government’s use of private sector contractors for tasks of war has made headlines: Halliburton’s lucrative Iraqi reconstruction contracts, CACI International’s civilian interrogators at Abu Ghraib, and Blackwater’s (now Xe) shooting of noncombatants in Baghdad—to name a few. Less well known is U.S. contractor involvement in Latin America, for example in executing the U.S. war on drugs in countries like Colombia.
This site will, for the first time, expose the size and scope of the private sector’s influence on U.S. intelligence agencies—and the government’s unsettling efforts to hide the facts.
ABOUT CORPWATCH and CROCODYL (http://community.corpwatch.org)
A global community of non-profit, independent investigative research, journalism and advocacy around issues of multinational corporate accountability and transparency, the CorpWatch community of sites provides tools and resources for critical vigilance and advocacy through a global effort of NGOs, journalists, activists, whistleblowers and academics. Through its family of websites and social media, we seek to expose multinational corporations that that profit from war, fraud, environmental, human rights and other abuses, and to provide critical information to foster a more informed public and an effective democracy.
CorpWatch.org provides non-profit investigative research and journalism to expose corporate malfeasance and to advocate for multinational corporate accountability and transparency.
Crocodyl.org is an evolving compendium of critical research, posted to the public domain as an aid to anyone working to hold corporations increasingly accountable. Crocodyl enables disparate groups and individuals to pool our knowledge about specific corporations in order to reduce the high cost of corporate research.
ABOUT TIM SHORROCK
Tim Shorrock is an investigative journalist who has spent a quarter-century researching the intersection of national security and business. SPIES FOR HIRE, his groundbreaking book on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, was published to great acclaim in 2008 bySimon & Schuster, and released in paperback in May 2009. Shorrock’s work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Mother Jones, Harper’s, Inter Press Service, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive, The Journal of Commerce, Foreign Policy in Focus, and Asia Times. He appears frequently as a commentator on U.S intelligence and foreign policy, and has been interviewed on Pacifica’s “Democracy Now,” Air America, and CBS Radio. Shorrock grew up in Japan and South Korea, and now lives in Washington, D.C., where he researches government contracts for an AFL-CIO union representing federal employees.

The Grand Illusion That America Represents an Economic “Safe Haven”

Benign neglect may turn the dollar from a safe haven to a dangerous place to be

The US government is shouldering a vast $12 trillion debt pile – that’s 12, followed by 12 zeros.

By Liam Halligan

The trade deficit of the world’s biggest economy also remains huge. How much longer can the dollar defy gravity?

Last week, America’s currency fell to a 15-month low against the euro, cutting through $1.5050. Against a trade-weighted currency basket, the dollar was also at its weakest since July 2008. The greenback plunged to parity with the rock-solid Swiss franc, then hit a 14-year low against the yen.

The dollar’s weakness is based on fundamentals – not least America’s jaw-dropping debt. It’s a long-term trend. From the start of 2002 until the middle of last year, the dollar lost 30pc on a trade-weighted basis.

It was during the summer and autumn of 2008, though, that the sub-prime debacle entered its most vicious phase (so far). The rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, America’s quasi-state mortgage-lenders, followed by the Lehman collapse, sent shock waves around the world. For six months or so, Western investors piled into what they knew, liquidating complex positions and buying plain dollars. The greenback became stronger, spiralling upward during the so-called "safe haven rally".

All that has now changed. The trade-weighted dollar has lost 22pc since March. One reason is that, since the spring, the Federal Reserve has been printing money like crazy – both to bail out Wall Street and service America’s rapidly growing debt.

Sophisticated investors have also been exploiting America’s ultra-low 0.25pc interest rate to borrow cheaply in dollars, switch these borrowings in currencies where returns are higher, then pocket the difference. This so-called "carry trade" has flooded foreign exchange markets with US currency.

The dollar fell particularly sharply last week, though, as traders were reminded of the patently obvious – that the White House actually wants the dollar to fall. US Treasury officials have lately taken to staring into the TV cameras, puffing out their chests, then stating: "We are committed to a strong dollar." That’s nonsense, of course, because a weaker currency boosts US exports and lowers the value of America’s external debt.

When the minutes of the Fed’s latest policy meeting were published on Tuesday, describing the dollar’s decline as "orderly", the markets rightly took that as confirmation of America’s "benign neglect" approach – with intervention to support the dollar unlikely. The minutes also showed the Fed’s key committee members voted "unanimously" to keep interest rates at rock-bottom for "an extended period" – another reason to sell.

In addition, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the fund that safeguards US bank deposits, warned that the number of "problem" banks grew in the third quarter, leading to speculation it could seek a credit line from the US Treasury. That would mean more borrowing and money-printing, concerns which sent the dollar even lower.

Yet "benign neglect" is fraught with danger. A weak US currency makes commodities more expensive (seeing as they’re priced in dollars). It was when the dollar hit an all-time low of $1.60 against the euro during the summer of 2008 that oil soared to $147 a barrel. Expensive crude damages the economy of the world’s biggest oil user. And as the dollar falls, America’s huge commodity imports cost more, making the trade deficit even worse.

On top of all that, a falling dollar makes it even more difficult for the US government to meet its massive borrowing needs. Just to service existing debt, America must sell $205bn of Treasuries this year, a total set to hit more than $700bn a year by 2019 – even if annual budget deficits shrink. Selling long-term sovereign debt, in a currency expected to fall, is not easy.

Almost every American economist I know dismisses these concerns. Several have contacted me over the last 48 hours, gloating that the dollar has just put on a renewed "safe haven" spurt in the midst of fears about Dubai.

Yet the state of the dollar poses enormous dangers. For one thing, America’s currency depreciation trick could backfire if "the rope slips" and a steadily dollar decline turns into free fall. The cost of US imports would soar, with the Fed being forced to sharply push up rates. The world’s largest economy would then be caught in a stagflation trap – a slump, but with high inflation.

A more immediate concern is that a blind rush into the US currency could cause the carry-trade to go badly wrong – with those who’ve borrowed in dollars suddenly owing more, while their dollar-funded investments elsewhere are worth less.

A rapid "unwinding" could cause major losses at financial institutions, posing renewed systemic dangers. Far from being a safe haven, the dollar is the likely source of the next financial crisis.

• Liam Halligan is chief economist at Prosperity Capital Management

The End of the Line

Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

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

American Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go towww.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted atGlen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

POLITICS: Tajik Grip on Afghan Army Signals New Ethnic War

[In a sick and unnecessary replay of the original Afghan Civil War created by Pakistani/American efforts through the original Taliban, Afghanistan is about to enter a new phase in its war that no force can stop.  The only solution would be to forget the American offensive and either get between the Pashtun and Tajiks, or disarm the army it has created.  Will the world allow America to escape blame this time, considering what we have done to the global economy in the process of destroying Afghanistan and Iraq?]   Written by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Nov 28  (IPS)  - Contrary to the official portrayal of the Afghan National Army (ANA) as ethnically balanced, the latest data from U.S. sources reveal that the Tajik minority now accounts for far more of its troops than the Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group.

AFGHAN-NATIONAL-ARMY

The massive shift in the ethnic composition of ANA troops in recent years is leading to another civil war between the Pashtuns and a Tajik-led anti-Pashtun ethnic coalition similar to the one that followed the fall of the Soviet-supported regime in 1992, according to some observers.

Tajik domination of the ANA feeds Pashtun resentment over the control of the country’s security institutions by their ethnic rivals, while Tajiks increasingly regard the Pashtun population as aligned with the Taliban.

The leadership of the army has been primarily Tajik since the ANA was organised in 2002, and Tajiks have been overrepresented in the officer corps from the beginning. But the original troop composition of the ANA was relatively well-balanced ethnically.

Gen. Karl Eikenberry, then chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan, issued guidelines in 2003 to ensure ethnic balance in the ANA, according to Chris Mason, who was a member of the Afghanistan Inter-agency Operations Group from 2003 to 2005. Eikenberry acted after then Defence Minister Marshall Mohammed Qasim Fahim had packed the first group of ANA recruits to be trained with Tajiks.

The Eikenberry guidelines called for 38 percent of the troops to be Pashtun, 25 percent Tajiks, 19 percent Hazaras and eight percent Uzbek.

Since then U.S. officials have continued to put out figures indicating that the ethnic balance in the ANA was in line with the Eikenberry guidelines. As recently as 2008, the RAND Corporation was given data showing that 40 percent of the enlisted men in the ANA were Pashtun and that Tajiks accounted for less than 30 percent.

The latest report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, issued Oct. 30, shows that Tajiks, which represent 25 percent of the population, now account for 41 percent of all ANA troops who have been trained, and that only 30 percent of the ANA trainees are now Pashtuns.

A key reason for the predominance of Tajik troops is that the ANA began to have serious problems recruiting troops in the rural areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces by mid-2007.

At least in the Pashtun province of Zabul, the percentage of Pashtuns in the ANA has now been reduced to a minimum. In Zabul province, U.S. officers embedded in one of the kandaks (battalions) reported earlier this year that they believed only about five percent of the troops in the entire brigade are Pashtuns, according to a report by Army Times correspondent Sean D. Naylor published in the Armed Forces Journal last July.

The brigade commander in Zabul is a Tajik.

Meanwhile, Tajiks have maintained a firm grip on the command structure of the ANA. . Marshall Fahim put commanders from the Tajik-controlled Northern Alliance in key positions within the Ministry of Defence as well as the ANA command.

Mason recalled that the United States thought it had an agreement with President Hamid Karzai under which the command structure of the ANA would be reorganised on the basis of ethnic balance, starting with the top 25 positions.

But Karzai never acted on the agreement, Mason said.

Even after Fahim was stripped of his government and military positions by Karzai in 2004, his appointee as ANA chief of staff, Gen. Bismullah Khan, remained as head of the army. Tajiks have continued to occupy the bulk of the positions in the Ministry of Defence.

A United Nations official in Kabul estimated that, as of spring 2008, no less than 70 percent of all kandaks were commanded by Tajiks, as reported by Italian scholar Antonio Giustozzi.

Even in overwhelmingly Pashtun Zabul province, there are only two Pashtun kandak commanders out of a total of six, Matthew Hoh, the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul until he submitted his resignation in September in protest against the war, told IPS in an interview.

Mason views the process by which the ANA is coming to be seen as an increasingly Tajik institution as making a civil war between the Pashtuns and the Tajiks and other ethnic minorities virtually inevitable.

”I believe the elements of a civil war are in play,” Mason told IPS.

Mason said the refusal of Pashtuns in the south and east to join the ANA is part of a ”self-reinforcing spiral”. The more Dari, the language spoken by Tajiks, becomes the de facto language of the ANA, said Mason, the more Pashtuns will see it as an alien institution.

”The warlords have already started rearming,” said Mason.

Although the United States ”has done as good a job as it could have” in trying to make the ANA mirror the broader society, Mason said, it can only ”attenuate” rather than prevent such a war in the future, even with a larger troop presence.

Hoh believes a civil war between the Pashtuns and a Tajik-led alliance of ethnic groups has already begun but could get much worse. ”It is already bad now,” he said, but unless U.S. policy changes, ”we could see a return of the civil war of the 1990s.”
To avoid that outcome would require putting priority on political reconciliation in order to ”integrate all elements of society into the Afghan government and security forces”, said Hoh. That, in turn, would require an international framework, probably involving the United Nations, he said.

Hoh recalled a scene he witnessed in Zabul suggesting that Tajik commanders view the ANA as belonging to the Tajik-led Northern Alliance. At an Afghan independence day event at a military base Aug. 19, attended by hundreds of ANA and national police, the large photograph adorning the wall was not of President Karzai but of the Tajik commander of the entire Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al Qaeda two days before the 9/11 attacks.

The previous civil war between Pashtun and Tajik-led armies was triggered by the disappearance in 1992 of the national army of the Soviet-supported Najibullah regime, which had maintained a tenuous balance between the two major ethnic groups.

The collapse of the Najibullah regime and its army was followed immediately by fierce fighting between the Northern Alliance, which had gotten to Kabul first, and the forces of the Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had previously been allied with the non-Pashtun mujahedeen against the Soviet-backed regime.

In a sign that Tajik commanders don’t trust Pashtuns in the south and east, the Tajik senior ANA officer in Zabul, Maj. Gen. Jamaluddin Sayed, dismissed the locally recruited national police in the province as being under Taliban influence and called for recruitment of police from outside the province.

”If we recruit ANP [Afghan National Police] people from Zabul province, probably they have some relationship with the Taliban,” Jamaluddin told Army Times reporter Naylor.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, ”Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

Nothing But A Darker Shade Of Doom

Disclaimer:
Thomas Segel is responsible for this content, which is not edited by the Wilson County News or wilsoncountynews.com.

Thomas D. Segel
November 25, 2009 | 19 comments
Harlingen, Texas, November 25, 2009: There is a daily blare of trumpet alerts from our ruling elite. We hear the sounds everywhere calling out to us about loss, danger, gloom, catastrophe, suffering, pain, and fear. There is not a ray of sunshine in anything coming out of Washington. Yet, we keep electing the same old mental misfits, fakes, frauds and fools to positions of trust and leadership.
Obama campaigned on a theme of “Hope and Change”. He didn’t tell us we would all start to hope this negative commentary out of Washington would end, or that the change we were to experience would be massive misery.
Without a doubt, the American people rank high on the list of the world’s politically ignorant people. The left has had decades to make sure of this by waging an unending war against the quality education of our people. They know that they can only rule by fear and misdirection. It seems to be impossible for them to join in the community of meaningful debate.
The liberal left has knowing spent decades making sure that the United States citizenry was "dumbed down" into an easily controlled population. Today we have a body of young people who can tell you the lyrics of any pop culture song, but can’t recite the Preamble to the Constitution. They know every Hollywood celebrity, but can’t name more than one or two members of the Supreme Court. They vote religiously on American Idol, but have never cast a ballot in a local or national election.
With this unknowledgeable electorate making up half of the population, is it any wonder that they readily embrace the politics of fear and defeat? Look at how many rushed to climb aboard the global warming fear train.
Even when Al Gore was proven to have produced a climate change film loaded with wrong-headed assumptions and misinformation, he was applauded, given prizes for his work and increased his wealth by millions of dollars, all at the expense of a duped public.
Even after eleven months, when Barack Obama blames all of his political miss-steps and failed policy on the Bush Administration, the public praises his efforts and refuses to understand he is attempting to gain even further control of the country by practicing the politics of fear.
More than one political writer has warned us about accepting the overkill on cries about such things as the Swine flu, bad vaccine, melting ice burgs, floundering economy, global conflict, dangerous Christmas toys and bad foreign governments. Politicians know these are hot button issues that cause great anxiety among various segments of the population. With that anxiety comes an opportunity for them to make devastatingly bad policy. With more 2,000-page laws on the books, they can control more and more of the population.
People will also note that many of the federal laws are just plain stupid. To make matters worse, at the federal level they are increasingly making laws that should be left to the individual states. These same elected miscreants know they do not have the authority to impose such laws, so they always add a provision, which punishes states for not enforcing those new directives by using a threat of withholding federal funds.
We sadly remember that not too far into our past we used to hear words of praise, hope and encouragement from Washington D. C.
Perhaps you remember hearing “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.”
Maybe you recall, “America has begun a spiritual reawakening. Faith and hope are being restored. Americans are turning back to God. Church attendance is up. Audiences for religious books and broadcasts are growing. And I do believe that he has begun to heal our blessed land.”
Those of us with enough years on our frames to remember, still hold fast to pronouncements such as “I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.”
These were all words of encouragement, of positive belief, that were passed on to an American public who embraced and advanced those meaningful themes. In case you have forgotten, President Ronald Reagan spoke them. Is there an enlightened voice such as his, anywhere in our future or will we continue to hear nothing but a darker shade of doom?

Occupation Reenactment Disturbs Shoppers

Anti-war protest shakes up holiday shopping

KOMO-TV STAFF

A bizarre scene unfolded amid the festive holiday atmosphere at Westlake Center on Saturday, as men in U.S. military uniforms stormed through the crowd, tossing civilians to the sidewalk and handcuffing them.

It was all part of a "street theater" style anti-war protest staged by opponents of the proposed troop surge in Afghanistan.

The uniformed men and civilians were all acting out their parts, and no bystanders were actually hurt in the holiday crowd.

But many people were caught off-guard by the unorthodox scene only a few steps from Westlake Center, where lines of young kids waited their turn to ride the carousel and shoppers hurried by with their bags.

As the "soldiers" screamed profanities at the "civilians" on the ground, many frightened young children were asking their parents what was going on. Meanwhile, some adult shoppers walked by – seemingly oblivious to the freaky scene.

The protest’s organizers, a group called "The World Can’t Wait," say they’re trying to show what a military occupation is like by re-enacting scenes of soldiers mistreating civilians.

"A troop surge means nothing but suffering, killing … and it’s not in the interest of people living in Afghanistan or the people living in this country," says Emma Kaplan, one of the organizers.

She claimed that President Obama is planning to announce a troop surge on Tuesday that will send 34,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, and that it is up to the American public to stop it.

"People living in this country have a responsibility to stop the crimes of their government no matter who the president is," she said.

Protest Obama’s Troop Surge Tuesday at West Point

Activists to protest Obama’s troop-surge plan for Afghanistan

BY KHURRAM SAEED • KSAEED@LOHUD.COM

WEST POINT — Peace activists plan to hold a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Military Academy on Tuesday shortly before President Barack Obama is expected to announce that he will send more troops to Afghanistan.

Obama, scheduled to speak at 8 p.m., will detail plans to send up to 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which the United States invaded a month after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Activists are planning to begin gathering at 6 p.m. at Veterans Park on Main Street in Highland Falls. The park is just outside the campus.

Following speeches and a rally at 6:30 p.m., participants carrying candles and flashlights will march a quarter mile to West Point’s Thayer Gate to show their opposition to what they consider the occupation of Afghanistan before they return to the park.

”We’re there to demonstrate to President Obama and the world that there’s a huge sense of disappointment at increasing these troop levels in Afghanistan,“ said Nick Mottern, a member of the WESPAC Foundation, a social justice group in White Plains.

”We believe people in that region need to be left alone to resolve their own problems, and come to their own political balance without the United States“ interfering, Mottern said Friday.

A Hastings-on-Hudson resident who served in the Navy in Vietnam, Mottern said all of the troops should be removed because the government had misled the public about the military’s purpose for being there. A majority of Americans, according to recent polls, are growing weary of the war, which may cost taxpayers up to $75 billion a year.

The following organizations are sponsoring Tuesday’s vigil: WESPAC, Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice, the Orange County Democratic Alliance, Peace Action of New York State, World Can’t Wait, Peace and Social Progress Now, the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Troops Out Now, ANSWER and Military Families Speak Out.

Obama has said the United States must ”finish the job“ against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and he also is expected to announce an exit strategy from the war-torn nation.

On Tuesday, Obama predicted the American people will support his strategy once they understand the stakes.

”I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive,“ he said at a news conference.

”We know the whole world is going to be watching President Obama giving the speech and is also going to pay attention to our response, the American people’s response,“ said Nancy Tsou, an organizer with the Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice.

”It looks like the quagmire of the Vietnam War is looming large for us,“ said Tsou, of New City.

Like the war in Iraq, Tsou said greater American presence on the battlefields of Afghanistan will worsen homeland security.

As for dismantling terror networks along the Afghan-Pakistan border, Tsou cited Paul Pillar, a retired CIA analyst, who has noted the 9/11 attacks, which killed 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, were conceived and planned in Western cities.

”If they want to attack us, they can plan it anywhere,“ she said.

The vigil is scheduled to go on rain or shine. Speakers will include Cheryl Wertz, executive director of Peace Action of New York State; Jose Vasquez, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Michael Sussman, an Orange County civil rights lawyer; regional activist Jack Smith; and Elaine Brower, of Military Families Speak Out.

Anyone interested in carpooling to the vigil from Westchester County is asked to call WESPAC at 914-449-6514.

Those interested in carpooling from Rockland County are asked to meet no later than 5 p.m. Tuesday in front of Panera Bread in Nanuet.

For more information, send an e-mail to info@rocklandaction.org.

Did Helping Iran Skirt Sanctions Lead to Dubai’s Demise?

The Geopolitics Of The Dubai Debt Crisis: It’s Iran vs. The United States

John Carney

The role of Iran may be the most overlooked in the Dubai debt crisis.
Of all the states of the United Arab Emirates federation, Dubai has maintained the closest ties to Iran. Indeed, as international pressure has built on Iran over the past decade, Dubai has prospered from those ties. It provides critical banking and trade links for Iran, often serving as the go-between for European or Asian companies and financial firms that want to do business with Iran without violating international sanctions.
Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest member of the UAE and a close ally of the US, may be pressuring Dubai to limit its links to Iran. Indeed, this pressure may be behind statements coming from Abu Dhabi about offering “selective” support for Dubai. Companies or creditors thought to be too linked to Iran could find themselves shut out of any bailout.
The United States government, which has remained somewhat taciturn throughout this crisis, is no doubt encouraging Abu Dhabi to apply this pressure. In part because of Dubai’s connections to Iran, US financial institutions are not among the biggest creditors to Dubai World.
It’s not all Iran, of course. The problems in Dubai, the member of the United Arab Emirates that has found itself in a dire financial crisis, closely mirror those behind the global financial crisis. 
Over the past decade, the country attempted to diversify its economy away from dependence on its declining oil reserves—and largely succeeded. But, like a Wall Street investment bank attempting to overcome the decline of its traditional businesses by becoming heavily invested in leveraged real estate products, Dubai accumulated huge debt obligations—estimated to amount to some $80 billion. Much of Dubai’s assets were dependent on tourism, shipping, construction and real estate—which have been in trouble during the global economic downturn.

Like its fellow members of the UAE, Dubai is ruled by an expansive royal family. In this case, they are called Al Maktoum family. Exactly what counts as the personal property of ruling family and what is government owned in Dubai is more than a bit fuzzy. The Dubai government owns three companies: Dubai Holding, which is run by Mohammed Al Gergawi; Dubai World, which is run by Sultan bin Sulayem; and the Investment Corporation of Dubai.

Abu Dhabi has been trying to put pressure on Dubai to cut ties to Iran. The split between Abu Dhabi and Iran is in part rooted in an older territorial dispute, fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, religious differences between Shiites and Sunnis, and—importantly—Abu Dhabi’s close ties to Washington, DC.
The UAE is close to reaching a nuclear power cooperation deal with Washington, a move that many regional experts say would challenge the traditional Saudi hegemony in the Gulf.  One sticking point in the negotiations with Washington has been concerns that Dubai could share US nuclear technology with Iran.

This power struggle between Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia is also playing a role. In May, the UAE May pulled out of a proposed Gulf monetary union over Saudi insistence that it would host the regional central bank.
Dubai, which is a very open and tolerant place compared to Iran, is viewed by many Iranians as a place to let their hair down. It has a thriving Iranian ex-pat community. Iran is Dubai airport’s top destination, with more than 300 flights per week.
More importantly, Dubai is a major exporter to Iran and a major re-exporter of Iranian goods. The trade between Iran and Dubai is one of the principal sources of Tehran’s confidence that it can survive US-led sanctions. Iranian investment in Dubai amounts to about US $14 billion each year. US intelligence officials have long suspected that the Iranian government uses Dubai based front companies to get around sanctions.
Some of the banks said to have the largest exposure to Dubai debt have in the past been linked to Iran. Notably, HSBC, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered came under investigation and pressure from US authorities in recent years to cut ties to Iran. Some US officials have quietly protested that these banks just shifted to doing business with Iran through Dubai. The US may want to see these creditors take losses from their Dubai exposure.
Make no mistake: the US government does not want to see the financial ruin of Dubai. Apart from its ties from Iran, Dubai is widely viewed as a model Islamic country. It has a relatively clean government, and there is a remarkable level of  religious tolerance and progressive attitudes toward women for the region. American diplomats have held up Dubai as their model for a new Baghdad—progressive, tolerant, and capitalist.
What is most likely happening is more nuanced. The US and Abu Dhabi are hoping to use Dubai’s financial troubles as a way of finally severing the close ties to Iran. For years, Dubai has enjoyed the benefits of walking the line between its military and economic alliance with the US and economic benefits from banking and trade ties to Iran. The price of a bailout from Abu Dhabi may be having to finally choose to give up the Iran connection.

Workers Treated for Tritium Exposure at Indian Kaiga Power Plant

Kaiga NPC radiation – Crew hospitalized

By Our Correspondent – Karwar

Karwar, November 28, 2009: At least 30 persons were hospitalized for radiation activity at the Kaiga Nuclear Power Corporation at Kaiga near here. Though the incident happened on Friday the news trickled out only on Saturday.

According to information received from the Nuclear Power station director J.P.Gupta “Nuclear Power Corporation of India has set up four Units of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors each of 220 MWe capacities at Kaiga.  The first three units – Units-1, 2 & 3 are already operational and the fourth Unit is being commissioned.

Kaiga Unit-1 is in Biennial shutdown for routine maintenance works since 20th October 2009.  Kaiga Generating Station Units-2 and 3 are operating normal.

On 25th November 2009, Tritium contamination of some of the radiation workers was indicated by their routine bioassay.  Thorough survey of the plant areas did not indicate any heavy water leak from any of the reactor systems and the general radiological conditions were found to be normal in the plant areas indicating the tritium uptake of these persons was not due to plant system conditions.

Further investigations indicated that the source of tritium uptake is due to drinking of water from one of the water cooler, was found to be contaminated.  The water cooler was isolated and put out of use.

As an abundant precaution bioassay samples of all the persons working in that area were analysed.   Based on the analysis results, a few personnel were advised to visit for routine medical consultation as per laid down procedures and are attending to their normal duties.  The event of contamination of water cooler is being investigated.

Following the incident the Director of Nuclear Power Corporation Mr. Nageshwar Rao  and the a seven member team of atomic energy regulatory board of India rushed to Kaiga from Mumbai on Saturday and are camping in Kaiga taking stock of the situation and trying to extend expertise.
Tritium is a low beta emissioning material and if the quantity exposed to the atmosphere was high then it may lead to many dangers such as cancers in surrounding area.
The intelligence and the police are now looking into many angles that have led to the accident. One of the theories that is going around in the Karwar city is that the one that alleges theft of Tritium. This is volatile material and could be used for putting together a triggering mechanism in a thermonuclear fusion. Tritium is also an isotope of the hydrogen and is the main element used in the hydrogen bombs it is said. Tritium is also used in maintenance of nuclear weapons.
Though the Kaiga NPC officials tried to keep the incident tucked in high secrecy blanket the news got out following large number of people being hospitalised in Mallapurm township which is just 7 kilometers from the Kaiga plant. All that emanated from the NPC Kaiga was a press release giving a brief account of the incident as narrated in the first few paragraphs of this story.

ClimateGate – A Comprehensive Archive

[Environmentalism is a diversion, designed by the ruling elite to distract the antiwar movement.  It is much easier to defend the planet than it is to go after the military-industrial-complex that is destroying it.  Any movement that embraces the Pentagon as a leading force for environmental awareness, even though it is the environment’s greatest enemy, is a movement based on hypocrisy.]

STEVE WATSON, PAUL WATSON

On Thursday 19th November 2009, news began to circulate that hacked documents and communications from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) had been published to the internet.

The information revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change.

The documents and emails illustrated how prominent climatologists, affiliated with the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, embarked on a venomous and coordinated campaign to ostracize climate skeptics and use their influence to keep dissenting reports from appearing in peer-reviewed journals, as well as using cronyism to avoid compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Here follows a compendium of articles and videos on what was quickly dubbed as "ClimateGate".

The Backstory:

CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?

Hiding the Decline:

Hacked E Mails: Climate Scientists Discuss “Hiding Decline” In Temperatures

Mike’s Nature Trick

McIntyre: The deleted data from the “Hide the Decline” trick

Hide The Decline – Climategate

Bishop Hill’s compendium of CRU email issues

The Codified Smoking Gun:

Forget The Emails, Code Discusses “Artificially Adjusted” Temperatures

Climategate: hide the decline – codified

CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story

Hijacking The Peer Review System:

"Climategate": Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists

Climate Expert: "Compromised" UN Scientists should be excluded from IPCC, Peer-Review Process

UK Scientist: ‘Case for climate fears is blown to smithereens…whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed’

British climate change scientists ‘conspired to keep skeptics in the dark’

Calls For Investigations:

Call For Independent Inquiry Into Climategate as Global Warming Fraud Implodes

Global Warming On Trial: Inhofe Calls For Investigation Of UN IPCC

US Congress investigates Climategate e-mails: this could be the beginning of the end for AGW

Congress may probe leaked global warming e-mails

Government petition started in UK regarding CRU Climategate

Calls For Criminal Prosecutions:

Another Prominent Scientist Calls CRU Scientists “Criminals”

ClimateGate: People need to go to jail

Lord Monckton: Prosecute the Climate Change Criminals

Author Points To “Climategate’s Perry Mason Moment”

Denying Email Deletion

Skeptics Vindicated:

Climate Alarmists Finally Admit The Debate Is Not Over

The New ‘Deniers’

TV Environmentalist Goes Nuts Over ClimateGate

Global Warming Meltdown: Climategate!

U.S Fallout:

Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws

Australian Fallout:

Ripples of Climategate? Liberal MP’s desert Turnbull in Australia over emissions trading scheme

Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax

New Zealand Fallout:

New Zealand Climate Data Shows Clear Evidence Of Fraud

Climategate: the scandal spreads, the plot thickens, the shame deepens…

Woeful Mainstream Media Coverage:

BBC Climate Correspondent Was Forwarded CRU Emails Five Weeks Before They Were Made Public

Climategate: how the MSM reported the greatest scandal in modern science

Climategate: Monbiot makes it all suddenly OK through medium of satire

Climategate: BBC website still thinks it’s a story about computer hacking

Climategate: How Faine censored the skeptical news

CNN Sucks: Climategate Never Happened

CNN Finally Does Their Propaganda Piece On Climate Gate

NYT Tackles Damning Global Warming Emails, But Reveals Own Hypocrisy

NY Times reporter whitewashes Climategate story he is part of

Alex Jones Coverage of ClimateGate:

Emergency Viral: ClimateGate Fraud Exposes Dirty Tricks Agenda For Global Government

Alex Jones on Climategate: Hoax of all time a global Ponzi scheme

Alex Jones Tv:How to Expose The Climate Fraud!!

Alex Jones TV: Hacked Emails Show Blatant Climate Change Fraud

Dr. Tim Ball on Alex Jones Tv 1/5: Myth on Global Warming & The CRU Hacked Documents

Marc Morano on Alex Jones Tv 1/2:The Case For Al Gore’s Climate Change is Falling Apart

Alex Jones Tv: Climate-Gate " THE E-MAILS ARE REAL!!!"

Pakistan’s president hands over nuclear powers

Mr Zardari benefited from the 2007 corruption amnesty deal

President Asif Ali Zardari has handed control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to his prime minister, in an apparent bid to ease political pressure.

The move was a "giant leap" forward that empowered the PM and parliament, Mr Zardari’s spokesman said.

But analysts said it was an attempt to placate political and military critics, as an amnesty protecting Mr Zardari from possible prosecution expired.

The amnesty gave him and several others immunity from corruption charges.

The presidency announced that control of the National Command Authority, responsible for nuclear weapons, had shifted to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

"The president has handed over his power regarding the national command and control authority to me and has issued an ordinance," Mr Gilani was quoted by news agency AFP as saying.

Turmoil fears

Thousands of politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats are said to have benefited from the amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

It was introduced by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2007 as part of a proposed power-sharing plan with Mr Zardari’s late wife, Benazir Bhutto.

But the amnesty was challenged in the Supreme Court, which told Mr Zardari to get approval of all decrees issued by Mr Musharraf by 28 November – something he has been unable to do.

Correspondents say the expiration of the amnesty threatens political turmoil at a time when Pakistan is battling Taliban and other militants along its border with Afghanistan.

The opposition wants lawmakers covered by the NRO to step down.

And while Mr Zardari has additional immunity from prosecution as president, his opponents want the Supreme Court to declare his election illegal.

Mr Zardari is currently very unpopular and observers say devolving more power to parliament could be a way of bolstering support.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the transfer of the National Command Authority was "a giant leap forward to empower the elected parliament and the prime minister".

Mr Zardari was "giving up the dictatorial powers that Gen Musharraf – as an unelected leader – needed to keep himself in power", another spokeswoman said.

But critics dismissed the move as "window-dressing". Rasool Bakhsh Rais, a political science professor at Lahore University of Management Science, told the Associated Press news agency that it was a "survival strategy" to retain his position.

The sponge of terror

Aditya Sinha

Another 26/11 would bring immense public pressure on the government to retaliate, which would be matched by American pressure to remain unprovoked.

US pressure has worked earlier, notably after the 2001 attack on Parliament when India mobilised its military along the Pakistan border in 2002’s Operation Parakram. It annoyed the US no end because Pakistan moved 60,000 troops to the border, allowing so many al-Qaeda and Taliban types to slip into Pakistan and escape post-9/11 US military action in Afghanistan. The CIA learned that India was planning a brigade-level commando raid into PoK; the US, along with Britain and Germany, in June publicly withdrew all but essential diplomatic staff, delivering a veiled threat to India. The government started looking for a way out and declared Operation Parakram over after the successful J&K elections in August 2002.

Then there was last year’s siege of Mumbai.

The then foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, made some angry noises prompting former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to read the riot act to Pakistan; Islamabad retaliated with extortion when “unnamed military officials” said that any confrontation with India would hamper Pakistan army operations on the Afghan border. The CIA again noted two Indian Air Force violations of Pakistan airspace, as well as IAF preparations to hit terrorist camps in PoK, so the US vise on India was tightened.

The pressure to not retaliate was enough, perhaps, for the prime minister to require a multiple-bypass heart operation, but he had already told Parliament that war was not a solution, letting Pakistan off the hook.

You cannot help but wonder what happens after the next terrorist strike. With a pro- America prime minister who does not directly face the electorate and who gets visibly thrilled by grandiose American pronouncements about India-on-the-global-stage (notice no one making such lofty declarations ever makes promises about India becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council), there are no prizes for guessing whose pressure will be more effective. India is likely to remain, in the words of Ashley J Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at a US Senate hearing earlier this year, a “sponge that protects us all”. To quote Tellis: “India’s very proximity to Pakistan… has resulted in New Delhi absorbing most of the blows unleashed by those terrorist groups that treat it as a common enemy along with Israel, the US, and the West more generally”.

None of us wants to be a “sponge”. When the next terrorist strike comes, many of us will want to see some “payback”, even if it is a token muscular gesture. So let us examine what may initially seem an absurd proposition: why not leave Pakistan alone (for these days it is the bigger “sponge” for terrorism, to the extent that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate is repeatedly hit), and why not start talking of hitting targets in Saudi Arabia? Naturally no one would ever touch the holy places and of course the government should never do anything to distress or incite Indian Muslims. Also, Saudi Arabia is not a weak country; it has powerful allies.

Yet in the post-9/11 cacophony Pakistan is repeatedly called the epicentre of terrorism while no one talks much about the House of Saud’s role in promoting Islamism whether for religious reasons or geopolitical ones.

(Actually, several people pointed out that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi of Yemeni descent, and Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 911 explored the nexus between Saudi oil wealth, the Bush dynasty and terrorism).

When one gentleman, the venerable Ram Jethmalani, pointed out at a conference last Saturday that Wahabism was responsible for terrorism, the Saudi ambassador to India, Faisal-al-Trad walked out in protest; Law Minister Veerappa Moily had to sweettalk him into returning, saying that Jethmalani’s was not the government’s view.

There is something to what Jethmalani says, however. We have heard ad nauseam about how for decades the Wahabis have been promoting through petro-dollars their literalist and austere interpretation of Islam.

It is now a historical fact that most of today’s Islamists were spawned in the mujahideen resistance to the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979; that resistance was funded evenly by the Saudis and the Americans.

What people seem to overlook is that Saudi intelligence deliberately encouraged the growth and the agenda of the ISI during the resistance against the Soviet Union, according to Steve Coll’s excellent Ghost Wars; that the Saudis were never interested in moderates in the resistance; and that after the US abandoned Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the USSR, the Saudis encouraged the ISI to back extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar over others. And as radical Islam grew, the Saudis hint that they had to turn a blind eye to it so that the monarchy could be protected; that, however, does not explain the Saudis’ wilful support to the ISI’s agenda of promoting radical Islam, an agenda that combined two Pakistani strategic objectives: keeping India off-balance in Kashmir and controlling Kabul.

When the Taliban swept into power, they fulfilled these objectives perfectly; the ISI became more powerful and the Saudis more supportive, to the extent of pressing the Taliban case with the Americans. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan were the only countries to recognise the Taliban government (the Taliban showed its gratitude by allowing Saudi and UAE royals to hunt for bustards in the southern Afghan desert), knowing fully well that the Taliban could not care about governance or the welfare of its citizens; and when it came to the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t even pay its half of the bill for the Kabul-Kandahar road, leaving the US to pick up the tab (in contrast, several Indians have died building Afghan roads). The Saudis have always turned a blind eye to the Harkat- ul-Ansar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Toiba; it is no secret that the Saudis dislike India. No wonder their immense wealth is directly responsible for the ISI’s growth, nurturing and evolution.

Saudi Arabia is the benefactor and sustainer of the ISI in the same way that the ISI is the benefactor and sustainer of the LeT and other lethal anti-India groups. Saudi Arabia finances the global growth of Islamist ideologies, from which spring extremism and terrorism. So while some may argue that to get at the root cause of terrorism in India, one has to get at the ISI, this column would go one step further: for getting at the root cause of the Frankenstein called ISI, one has to start talking about getting at Saudi Arabia.

And next time there’s an attack on India, we could respond to US pressure by pointing the finger at the House of Saud. Or we could continue being the sponge for terrorism.

editorchief@expressbuzz.com

Unearthed Files Include “Rules” for Mass Mind Control Campaign

Jurriaan Maessen

Hacked into by a person or persons unknown, the unearthed material out of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit’s main server reveals a 62 megabyte zip file confirming that which was already blatantly obvious, namely that the data has been fudged to convince unsuspecting audiences that ‘the debate is over’.

The intruded central computer was not only filled to the brim with obvious and attempted ostracizing of scientists who don’t blindly follow the leader, the files also reveal that the folks of the IPCC made use or considered making use of a disinformation campaign through a ‘communication agency’ called Futerra.

The agency describes itself as “the sustainability communications agency” and serves such global players as Shell, Microsoft, BBC, the UN Environment Programme, the UK government and the list goes on. The co-founder of Futerra, Ed Gillespie explains:

“For brands to succeed in this new world order, they will have to become eco, ethical and wellness champions.”

The document included within the climategate treasure-chest is called ‘ Rules of the Game’ and shows deliberate deception on the part of this agency to ensure that the debate would indeed be perceived as being settled. When facts do not convince, they reasoned, let us appeal to emotions in order to get the job done.

Outlining the ‘rules of the game’ in regards to climate change communication strategies, Futerra considers these rules as a “first step to using sophisticated behaviour change modelling and comprehensive evidence from around the world to change attitudes towards climate change.”

“We need to think radically”, proclaim the authors, “and the Rules of the Game are a sign that future campaigns will not be “business as usual.””

First Rule as outlined by Futerra is called “Blowing away Myths”. Pressing the point that any company wishing to sell global warming must be cautious in using the fear-card:

“Fear can create apathy if individuals have no ‘agency’ to act upon the threat. Use fear with great caution.”

Arrogantly stating to “Forget the climate change detractors”, the document goes on to say that “Those who deny climate change science are irritating, but unimportant.” Futerra also stresses that “There is no ‘rational man’” and “Information can’t work alone.”

The second Rule all should abide by is “a new way of thinking”. “Once we’ve eliminated the myths”, the report goes on to say, “there is room for some new ideas.” These include:

“Climate change must be ‘front of mind’ before persuasion works”, Futerra says. “Currently, telling the public to take notice of climate change is as successful as selling tampons to men” and “people don’t realise (or remember) that climate change relates to them.”

Another one: “Use transmitters and social learning”. Futerra proposes targeting ‘trendsetters’ to persuade people to acknowledge climate change as a genuine threat to them: “people learn through social interaction, and some people are better teachers and trendsetters than others. Targeting these people will ensure that messages seem more trustworthy and are transmitted more effectively.”

Under the header of the third ‘Rule’, “linking policy and communication” it is stated that “everyone must use a clear and consistent explanation of climate change” and “government policy and communications on climate change must be consistent.” Indeed. If the lie is to be sold effectively, they must all communicate the same lie. How to best sell it?

“Create a trusted, credible, recognized voice on climate change.”

“Use emotions and visuals: another classic marketing tool: changing behaviour by disseminating information doesn’t always work, but emotions and visuals usually do.”

It seems that people have been listening. The advertisement of global warming is thick with apocalyptic visuals, ranging from polar bears crashing to their doom and a large family of hurricanes plaguing the continental United States.

Last but not least, the old Edward Bernays-trick is being proposed, the power of repetition:

“The communications must be sustained over time: all the most successful public awareness campaigns have been sustained consistently over many years.”

Indeed they have. The good news is that with the unveiling of the recent e-mails and documents the lies are being exposed in such a quick pace, the propaganda will be hard pressed to keep up.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Source: http://www.infowars.com/unearthed-files-include-rules-for-mass-mind-control-campaign/
Illustration: http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs099.snc1/4743_113885924147_742194147_2744996_500003_n.jpg

Russia train crash ’caused by bomb’

more about "Russia train crash ’caused by bomb’", posted with vodpod

Are These The Advanced Weapons of Foreign-Backed Militants?

Large quantity of explosives recovered in Chaman

Seized weapons and ammunition recovered during military operations against militants are displayed on the ground at the Sherwangi Tor village in South Waziristan. – Reuters

Is it really India?

By Pervez Hoodbhoy

FOREIGN Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says that Pakistan is “compiling hard evidence of India’s involvement” in terrorist attacks on Pakistan’s public and its armed forces.
If he and the interior minister are correct then we must conclude that the Indians are psychotics possessed with a death wish, or are perhaps plain stupid. While India’s assistance for Baloch insurgents could conceivably make strategic sense, helping the jihadists simply does not.
As Pakistan staggers from one bombing to the other, some Indians must be secretly pleased. Indeed, there are occasional verbalisations: is this not sweet revenge for the horrors of Mumbai (allegedly) perpetrated by Lashkar-i-Taiba? Shouldn’t India feel satisfaction as Pakistan reels from the stinging poison of its domestically reared snakes?
But most Indians are probably less than enthusiastic in stoking fires across the border. In fact, the majority would like to forget that Pakistan exists. With a six per cent growth rate, booming hi-tech exports and expectations of a semi-superpower status, they feel that India has no need to engage a struggling Pakistan with its endless litany of problems.
Of course, some would like to hurt Pakistan. Extremists in India ask: shouldn’t one increase the pain of a country — with which India has fought three bloody wars — by aiding its enemies? Perhaps do another Bangladesh on Pakistan someday?
These fringe elements, fortunately, are inconsequential today. Rational self-interest demands that India not aid jihadists. Imagine the consequences if central authority in Pakistan disappears or is sharply weakened. Splintered into a hundred jihadist lashkars, each with its own agenda and tactics, Pakistan’s territory would become India’s eternal nightmare. When Mumbai-II occurs — as it surely would in such circumstances — India’s options in dealing with nuclear Pakistan would be severely limited.
The Indian army would be powerless. As the Americans have discovered at great cost, the mightiest war machines on earth cannot prevent holy warriors from crossing borders. Internal collaborators, recruited from a domestic Muslim population that feels itself alienated from Hindu-India, would connive with jihadists. Subsequently, as Indian forces retaliate against Muslims — innocent and otherwise — the action-reaction cycle would rip the country apart.
So, how can India protect itself from invaders across its western border and grave injury? Just as importantly, how can we in Pakistan assure that the fight against fanatics is not lost?
Let me make an apparently outrageous proposition: in the coming years, India’s best protection is likely to come from its traditional enemy, the Pakistan Army. Therefore, India ought to now help, not fight, against it.
This may sound preposterous. After all, the two countries have fought three and a half wars over six decades. During periods of excessive tension, they have growled at each other while meaningfully pointing towards their respective nuclear arsenals. And yet, the imperative of mutual survival makes a common defence inevitable. Given the rapidly rising threat within Pakistan, the day for joint actions may not be very far away.
Today Pakistan is bearing the brunt. Its people, government and armed forces are under unrelenting attack. South Waziristan, a war of necessity rather than of choice, will certainly not be the last one. A victory here will not end terrorism, although a stalemate will embolden jihadists in south Punjab, including Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad. The cancer of religious militancy has spread across Pakistan, and it will take decades to defeat.
This militancy does not merely exist because America occupies Afghanistan. A US withdrawal, while welcome, will not end Pakistan’s problems. As an ideological movement, the jihadists want to transform society as part of their wider agenda. They ride on the backs of their partners, the mainstream religious political parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Ulema-Pakistan. None of these have condemned the suicide bombings of Pakistani universities, schools, markets, mosques, police and army facilities.
Pakistan’s political leadership and army must not muddy the waters, especially now that public sanction has finally been obtained for fighting extremism in Swat and Waziristan. Self-deception weakens and enormously increases vulnerability. Wars can only be won if nations have a clear rallying slogan. Therefore the battle against religious extremism will require identifying it — by name — as the enemy.
India should derive no satisfaction from Pakistan’s predicament. Although religious extremists see ordinary Muslims as munafiqs (hypocrites) — and therefore free to be blown up in bazaars and mosques — they hate Hindus even more. In their calculus, hurting India would buy even more tickets for heaven than hurting Pakistan. They dream of ripping apart both societies, or starting a war — preferably nuclear — between Pakistan and India.
A common threat needs a common defence. But this is difficult unless the Pakistan-India conflict is reduced in intensity. In fact the extremist groups that threaten both countries today are an unintended consequence of Pakistan’s frustrations at Indian obduracy in Kashmir.
To create a future working alliance with Pakistan, and in deference to basic democratic principles, India must be seen as genuinely working towards some kind of resolution of the Kashmir issue. Over the past two decades India has been morally isolated from Kashmiri Muslims and continues to incur the very considerable costs of an occupying power in the Valley. Indian soldiers continue to needlessly die — and to oppress and kill Kashmiri innocents.
It is time for India to fuzz the Line of Control, make it highly permeable and demilitarise it up to some mutually negotiated depth on both sides. Without peace in Kashmir the forces of cross-border jihad, and its hate-filled holy warriors, will continue to receive unnecessary succour.
India also needs to allay Pakistan’s fears on Balochistan. Although Pakistan’s current federal structure is the cause of the problem — a fact which the government is now finally addressing through the newly announced Balochistan package — it is nevertheless possible that India is aiding some insurgent groups. Statements have been made in India that Balochistan provides New Delhi with a handle to exert pressure on Pakistan. This is unacceptable.
While there is no magic wand, confidence-building measures (CBMs) continue to be important for managing the Pakistan-India conflict and bringing down the decibel level of mutual rhetoric. To be sure, CBMs can be easily disparaged as palliatives that do not address the underlying causes of a conflict. Nevertheless, looking at those initiated over the years shows that they have held up even in adverse circumstances. More are needed.
The reason for India to want rapprochement with Pakistan, and thus end decades of hostility, has nothing to do with feelings of friendship or goodwill. It has only to do with survival. For us in Pakistan, this is even truer.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad