Nato contractors ‘attacking own vehicles’ in Pakistan

By Riaz SohailBBC News, Karachi

Nato supply convoys travelling through Pakistan to Afghanistan have regularly come under attack in the past, but following Pakistan’s decision to block their route through the Khyber Pass, they now face an even bigger security threat.

Hundreds of tankers and trucks have been left stranded on highways and depots across Pakistan, with little or no security.

Taliban militants have regularly been targeting the convoys, even when they are heavily protected.

But many believe it is not just the militants who pose a security threat to the convoys.

The owners of oil tankers being used to supply fuel to Nato in Afghanistan say some of the attacks on their convoys are suspicious.

They say there is evidence to suggest that bombs have been planted in many of vehicles by the “Nato contractors” – individuals or companies who have been contracted by Nato to supply fuel and goods to forces in Afghanistan.

The contractors subsequently hire the transporters who then carry the goods.

Selling fuelDost Mohammad, an oil tanker owner from Nowshera district, said a Nato contractor had recently been caught trying to plant a bomb in an oil tanker.

Contractors say there is little or no security for the supply convoys

“This happened in the area of Paiyee, when he was putting the bomb under the vehicle.”

“At that time, a few men also opened fire on the tankers. The deputy later told the police that he had been told to plant the bomb by the contractor.”

Dost Mohammad said the contractor had apparently sold off the fuel first.

“Only 2,000 litres from the original 50,000 litres had been left in the tanker to cover up the crime,” he said.

Dost Mohammad said it is a win-win situation for the contractors.

“If an old vehicle is burnt, Nato gives them money for a new vehicle. In addition, they receive compensation for all the fuel lost as well.”

We are very scared at the moment – we are an open target for the militants”

Israrullah ShinwariAll Pakistan Oil Tankers Association

But the Deputy Minister for Interior, Tasneem Ahmed, dismissed the transporters’ claims.

“We have no such information that the Nato contractors are themselves setting the tankers on fire,” he told the BBC.

“No such complaints have been lodged, to my knowledge.”

The BBC also spoke to a Nato contractor, who was similarly dismissive of the allegations.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said Nato insured all the goods being transported and the vehicles carrying them.

“Nato pays the premium and bears the relevant charges with the local companies who provide the schemes. The transporters are then reimbursed on the basis of their actual losses,” he said.

But he said the policies were only valid within Pakistan.

Driver arrestsBut Nowshera’s police chief, Nisar Tanoli, had a different account of events.

Khyber Pass• Up to 80% of Nato supplies for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan

• Majority are driven 1,200 miles (1,931km) from port of Karachi to Kabul via Khyber Pass

• 1,000 container lorries and tankers travel daily through the pass to Kabul

• Khyber Pass is 53km long (33 miles) and up to a height of 1,070m (3,444ft)

• About 150 lorries go via the southern supply route through Chaman to Kandahar.

Talking to the BBC, he confirmed that at least two attempts to blow up oil tankers had taken place in the district.

“One took place in Paiyee, and the other in the area of Watak near Akora Khattak,” he said.

“In both incidents the tankers were parked in the area for a couple of days. During this time, bombs were made in nearby houses and then used on the tankers.”

He said the contractors were “in a hurry” to get a copy of the initial police reports into the incident and were “not interest in prolonging the investigations”.

“The insurance agents also showed up a few days later,” he said.

Mr Tanoli says the police carried on their investigations and the facts eventually came to light.

“We have now arrested some drivers and their helpers,” he said.

“The people behind them are not residents in the district, but we have issued warrants for their arrest.”

He added that there have been incidents in which fuel for aircraft has been sold off.

“The contractors later said it had leaked, or the tanker caught fire.”

‘Open target’All, then, is not as straight forward as it seems, as far as the threat to the Nato supply route is concerned.

Pakistan’s intelligence and security apparatus may be encouraging the attacks by looking the other way”

Security analyst

But despite these additional concerns, the main danger continues to come from the Taliban.

“We are very scared at the moment – we are an open target for the militants,” said Israrullah Shinwari, a spokesman for the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Association.

“Since the blockade was enforced, we have 3,000 tankers stranded across Pakistan.”

“The blockade itself has cost us tens of millions of rupees in losses. This does not include the damages suffered in the attacks.

“The Taliban have openly declared they will target the tankers, but we have been provided with no security.”

Since 2007, the militants have destroyed or captured dozens of Nato transport vehicles, especially in the Khyber tribal region.

But a security analyst said the latest move was “tantamount to encouraging the militants to have a real go at the convoys”.

“The fact that government ministers are calling the attack an expression of public anger shows that some may just be payback,” he said.

“Pakistan’s intelligence and security apparatus may be encouraging the attacks by looking the other way. In fact, there are suggestions that agencies may themselves be behind some themselves.”

Additional reporting by Riffatullah Orakzai, BBC News, Peshawar

Kirghiz, tired of his anarchy

[Kyrgyzstan represents an entirely new phenomenon, an entire country for sale.  It seems that in the great drive to privatize the former Soviet Union, which was accomplished by selling state enterprises to the highest bidder, a.k.a. the "oligarchs," Kyrgyzstan may have sold its soul.  Dictatorship and organized crime were a natural outcome of treating this impoverished state as the equivalent of so much "bad debt," making Kyrgyzstan just another "junk bond."  It was an important instrument for laundering all the drug money which funneled through the state.]

“We look forward to when the Russian return and will induce our order.” Part 1

Quarters of the largest in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh, destroyed in the spring of 2010 during the ethnic massacres. Surviving inhabitants remains mourn his property and lost relatives.

Photo: Paul GROMSKY

This Sunday in Kyrgyzstan will be hot again – will hold an election in the local parliament. Report Darya Aslamova

Daria Aslamova – 08.10.2010

Special correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda Daria Aslamova tried to understand why so Kirghiz like to arrange revolution and whether this “fragment of the USSR” a chance to become a stable country.

UNITS BAB OF SPECIAL PURPOSE

What is the cost of the revolution?Expensive, when it comes to traditional country with a slow hard conservative outlook and sluggish temperament. (To shake, for instance, Germany, needed a furious Hitler’s charisma and all the power of the banking and military-industrial capital.) Billions of dollars flew to the West “flower-fruit” of the revolution in Eastern Europe. Revolution (or coup d’etat – to choose what to like) anywhere in Africa is no more expensive second-hand Mercedes. (Curiously, there is a revolutionary accountants? The Bolsheviks put, they were.)

The more often a revolution in the individual states, so they are bloodier, more rapid and less expensive. Kirghiz, residents of a small Asian country of Kyrgyzstan gullible, twenty years shaken by demonstrations, coups, riots and pogroms, assure that the next Kyrgyz revolution will cost a brand new Zaporozhets. Cheap and cheerful. In Kyrgyzstan, there are no unsuccessful revolutions, sometimes a little vodka. The scheme is simple as cut-glass: in some village festival is held, “one”, which brings together much of the kind of half-two thousand men, old and young hot horsemen. Slaughtered sheep, customize bus (!) With vodka. Thane (local politician) says a pep talk on “How long?”. The meat is eaten, drunk vodka. Zonked on alcohol crowd loaded into buses and driven to the rally at the main square in Bishkek. You can still drink rabble from the outskirts of the city, to collect the cream of scum and distribute all of 200 soms (about four dollars) and take the same rally. Or to drive Obono – bab unit of special purpose “(local political know-how, which Kirghiz secretly proud of). A crowd of vociferous, noisy, energetic peasant women in colorful rags bursts into any government department and for the same 200 soms a skirt requires truth, justice and peace throughout the world. Or scream “Ketsin!” (“Go!”) The next boss. No matter what to scream. It is important that cameras are working, women screamed, the government hesitates, protection surrenders. Do not shoot well in fact, in the Bab?

More fun. The masses move toward the “White House” and already on the approaches to it appears weapons (it is distributed, captured, or planted – depending on the revolutionary situation). ”Fuck-max-max! The next president escapes, and the crowd goes together loot shops and set fire to Turkish, Chinese, – said ex-deputy of the disbanded parliament Iskhak Masaliyev, who had to sit in jail after the April revolution. - Well, what you do not revolutionary romanticism? “

Daria Aslamova convinced – a revolutionary devastation in Kyrgyzstan in no hurry to clean up. Why? Suddenly, again, a revolution? ..

“All of our revolution are made on aesthetic grounds – tasteful says journalism professor at the Faculty of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Dr. Alexander Katsev. - We were brought up in the spirit of the coup of 1917: the revolution must be done by opening the gates to the palace. And then the historical: “The guard is tired.” Here are all our revolutionaries, and run to the “White House” seize, throwing computers out of windows. Then hang a poster: “Dirty Jews! Get out! “Well, who else may be to blame but us Jews?Then wet Uzbeks or desecrate the Orthodox cemetery. Normal psychology of the pogrom. And, of course, robbery. I was told a charming story about the latest revolution: the family from the suburbs, where they live samozastroyschiki, and there is no light, no water. Male robbed a computer shop, and his wife – a boutique of French lingerie. I can just see this picture: she puts on a French knickers, he opens the laptop, but there is no electricity at the same time! And both feel rich. “

The desire to get something for nothing, and is the driving force of all revolutions. But the revolution by giving bonuses and tilting causes of popular discontent, is not in itself becomes a creative force. Destroying is easy, it is difficult to build. On the eve of new parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan, many years raving drunk freemen and slightly sobered. It has become clear: the third revolution of the state will not survive. Standing on the brink of civil war, the country fondly wished for painkiller – “strong and honest government.” Just where is it from?

Failed states

Kyrgyzstan – a poor little mountainous country in north-eastern Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan – the temperamental freedom-loving people, vynyrnuvshy of the night, where fires flickered nomads, and managed to create a primitive form of tribal democracy. In theory – the Muslims, in practice – a secular nation without religious prejudice, with pagan traditions and the frenzied lust for life. Islamization, so successful in the sedentary Tajiks and Uzbeks, Kirghiz have seriously failed. Russian came to the civilizing mission in the middle of the XIX century, but 140 years of their rule and have not managed to instill the idea of the Kirghiz State and raise their sense of tribal, clan-consciousness to consciousness nationwide.

“When at the beginning of perestroika began to drive the foreigners here, the first thing they asked: Kyrgyzstan – Sunni or Shia? - Says Professor Alexander Katsev. - I answered them: the Kirghiz interpretation of Islam. Nobody wants to read the Koran. Everyone thinks that they already know it. Same with our statehood. Nobody wants to learn to manage: we – the nation Losers. We have forty birth, and flags forty golden rays. And all these forty births should be a little povlastvovat.

“Kyrgyzstan as a state has not yet taken place, – said local political analyst Mars Sariev. - We have, and no state before the arrival of the royal, and later Soviet rule. The tribes gathered at the Congress that, in essence, is the parliament. Was a nomadic military democracy, the alliance of tribes, which united under the Khan. But that Khan, who was elected tribal leaders, it was possible at any time to remove, if he did not answer anyone’s interest.Actually, what we now do with the next president objectionable. It’s a throwback, deja vu.Kirghiz live in a very strong corporate, tribal and clan interests as opposed to the Uzbeks, who have been through Khiva and Bukhara Khanate. Power has been built, and their mentality is stuck. “ ”So, the Soviet authorities did not teach you to statehood?” – I ask. ”None. The central government in the face of Moscow not fit in tribal affairs. Yes, Moscow put at the head of the republic the right person, and all local positions (heads of regional administrations, the chairmen of collective farms, and others) have been farmed out to the clans. It was Europe’s packaging with the old Asian contents. During the Soviet era (and still) a tool that normalized relations within the clan, were first funeral where collected the maximum number of members of the genus and to decide all major issues. In essence, as it was then ruled by 200 families, and now ruled, and the struggle of old and new elites does not stop even for a day. And until we break this scheme, we come to the state in the European sense of the word. “

How do they live

Despite the fact that the average salary in the country 150 – $ 200, the Kyrgyz lived a lot of fun. Country who do not believe in tomorrow, spends money easily and beautifully. Million migrant workers working in Russia and Kazakhstan, regularly sent home from 800 million to a billion dollars a year. With electricity napryazhenka, but nightclubs, full of prostitutes, shine until dawn. In restaurants in Bishkek in the evening no room to swing a cat. Entire table directly in the form of sit cops and customs officers. Widespread gambling, which are so greedy idleness and crime. The audience plays as before Judgement Day. Casinos, slot machines, and luxury housing. At whose expense this feast?

“For 20 years, with five million inhabitants Kyrgyzstan has received 2 billion 800 million dollars of loans – says ex-MP from the Communist Party Iskhak Masaliyev. - Given the fact that no plant or factory, we are not working, it is easy to understand: we just ate the money and do not intend to return. ”New Kyrgyz” good eating, driving in jeeps, own large houses. We, like Greece, are living beyond their means. And when we are ill, we ask for money from Russia – where they get simpler than that in Europe, there are sympathizers. We’re still brothers! “

“Our first president, Askar Akayev said in the 90′s: Give me three years of presidency, and I’ll make Kyrgyzstan the second Switzerland! - Tells the doctor of economic sciences Zhumakadyr Akeneev. - We are the first of the Soviet republics joined the WTO as much in 1998! We have been invited as an “island of democracy”. We, Kyrgyz, is an expression: “Heroes without anything.” It was an economic “feat”: close breast recess bunker where no chance of survival there. We have gone from the Customs Union with Russia and Kazakhstan, broke away from its economic center and are in splendid isolation in the post-Soviet space. Left in isolation, we have turned the country into a thoroughfare. All countries – WTO members have the right to import goods to us in any number of customs duty no higher than 8 per cent (actually five).And next to China! For comparison: the customs duty in Russia on the import of tons of cane sugar is 300 euros – nearly 50 percent of the cost. Since Russia was protecting its sugar beet producers. By joining the WTO, we killed Kyrgyz manufacturer.

But then our people are not confused. They spit on our own production and began selling Chinese goods, official statistics grossly distorting: China shows that deliver the goods to us by 10 billion dollars, and we show 800 million. See the difference? Customs takes on the weight of the goods, no matter the machine comes with television or with rice. From this figure to pay the tax – 12% VAT and 5% duty, and on the idea of these 17% should be charged with $ 10 billion. 1,7 billion dollars annually is lost at the border! The same Klondike, fabulous source of enrichment! Customs Committee reports directly to the President. To get to the customs office at least six months, people pay fortunes. Because they know: sustained for six months and not caught, therefore, provide a family life. But when will earn the Russian-Kazakh customs union from which we once proudly refused, with the resale of Chinese goods will have to pay duty.

Kyrgyz police are always ready for new “popular rebellion”. But for some reason still can not stop them. Photo: AP

GOLD HOLE

It was us and the Soviet legacy: 18 businesses that we economists offered to pay under the jurisdiction of Russia for 3.5 billion dollars in installments. Where there is! Businesses have decided to nationalize. Stopped deliveries of components, have been migrating Russian specialists. All the plants slowly rastaskali, sold everything they could, and machines were taken to scrap the Chinese and the Iranians. So we’ve lost industry. Remains our pride and joy – gold deposit Kumtor. In the story will go down as a scam of the century, but for us poor Kirghiz scam millennium! In 1992, Kumtor given without tender (!), A Canadian company for $ 20 (not kidding). Given that only the Soviet Union spent $ 150 million for exploration of gold, roads and electricity. Under Akaev, the contract was signed: Canadians pay 66%, but not of the gold, and of the profit! Of course, every year, it turned out that the poor Canadians are working almost at a loss. Business “Roofing” the two presidents. Kumtor – Locked Thread.Neither the National Committee nor the tax office, nor the deputies – no one could have for years to break into the mine to look that Canadians get up there. According to official statistics produced for all years of 240 tonnes of gold (not verified the figures). With an average gold price of $ 20 per gram (and today all 43) produced goods to 4.8 billion dollars!Kyrgyzstan has received a maximum of 250 million of this vast sum.

Gold, rare earth metals, electricity is stolen – in Kyrgyzstan all becomes a shadow economy.But the main part – of drug trafficking.

COUNTRY RED HEROIN

In Kyrgyzstan, large families are not uncommon, especially in the south. Prudential parents have traditionally sent one or two sons serve in the police or customs, the other – in the drug business, which provides impunity and prosperity for the whole family. The Great Silk Road, an ancient road of merchants and conquerors, and now works smoothly, delivering to Russia from Afghanistan through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (northern route) is not silk, and about 60 tons of heroin a year. Business ancient and inevitable, like death. The price of issue – 30 000 young lives lost each year by Russia. (For comparison: in the ten years of war in Afghanistan, we lost 15,000 people.)

- When you say we, say, extortion or destroy the drug mafia, do not believe talkers: we are opposed to a powerful, negatively charged social phenomenon that can not be destroyed – said the director of the Central Asian Centre for Drug Policy, Alexander Zelichenko. - You can only talk about how the state controls the situation, ie, finger on the pulse. Among professionals there is an opinion: the most effective service to combat drugs in the world withdraws no more than 10 percent (this is the highest efficiency), otherwise the business would be unprofitable. But the worst problem is not drug trafficking, and narkokorruptsiya - it blurs all foundations. We introduced the term “red” heroin. This heroin belongs to law enforcement agencies (as opposed to “black” – a criminal), which is sold at “red” as Cop pits.In 2008, the personal orders of former President Bakiyev without explanation was closed office of the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry to combat drug trafficking. The following year, abolished the Drug Control Agency. As a civil servant, I have no right to comment on these actions.Draw your own conclusions. More than a year in the country there was a complete vacuum control drug flows. Only now decided to recreate the old service.

Bakiyev’s regime made a last brilliant washing machine to launder money – Agency for Investment and Innovation, which was intended to attract funds from all over the world, not interested in their ancestry. As soon as the money goes to gosschet Kyrgyzstan, any bank in the world will accept them now as legitimate. You see how many in Kyrgyzstan, a country with low income, casino, expensive restaurants, luxury housing, and all it finds a buyer and consumer. Any expert in the field of money laundering will tell you: a construction boom, casinos, gambling of all kinds – a clear sign that there is a large “wash”. Russia in this situation – the injured party: the traditional Russian alcohol addiction were added and the sharp increase in deaths among young people. In Russia as a victim has the right to intervene, to ask questions and demand decisive action.

Ending in the next issue.

American Electrical Company and Soviet Power Equipment

Region filament

Galina Vologda, Ust-Kamenogorsk

Mired in scandals, an American energy company AES Kazakhstan threatened to London arbitration. It hurt the statements of the antimonopoly authority Nurlan Aldabergenova that Americans do not fulfill commitments investobyazatelstv and that the contract with AES should be reviewed.

Doinvestirovalis

“We comply fully with the agreement – announced recently the regional director of AES Johnagan Michael (pictured). - If not found an understanding with the government, we will go to arbitration. “

Well, just look at the company’s business. Here, for example, “achievements” of the East Kazakhstan Regional Energy Company (REC).As told to “Caravan,” in the regional management of energy in an average year the company repaired … 0,4 percent of the entire length of the transmission lines. Wear, experts say, has reached 60-85 percent, fully developed half-life power substations. The past winter was exemplary.According to employees of most public utility commission in the days of hard frost, they were afraid even to touch the equipment, which at any moment might begin to fall. And it rained, and how!According to official data recorded almost 3,5 thousand outages, due to the threat of emergency situations on life-support facilities. Consumers got less 1.9 megawatts of electricity. The amount of damage over 36 million tenge. Completely (!) Abolished office of rural electricians, at the height of the cold localities were without electricity for weeks. But he wrote in his act Gosenergonadzor: “Emergency state networks and substations – the result of endless reorganization and unnecessary redundancies enterprise. No conditions, and therefore the departure of experienced professionals. “ According to the plan until the year 2015, total investments in the development of networks have been exceeded a hundred billion tenge – an average of 11 billion annually. But in a program of such investments in this and next year will amount to 908 million tenge. At 11 times less! In this case, as acknowledged by regional officials, the leadership of AES possibility of financial participation in the reconstruction and modernization of networks and substations are not considered. “

Carcasses light

Not less than “achievements” has collected and energosnabzhenets “Shygysenergotrade. According oblupravleniya energy organization almost from the first day got in debt to KEGOC, provoking these limitations in energy supply. Last winter’s unprecedented blackouts from January to March covered the entire region. The last “surprise” nearly ended in tragedy in Semey – without current were urban hospitals and maternity. In September of debt “Shygysenergotrade” before KEGOC reached 180 million tenge. ”The company can not really control the situation,” – stated in the provincial Governor’s office.

Pay for all this have to ordinary users are left without light. The scheme is simple and cynical. The company requires competition authority approval for tariff increase, and allegedly due to lack of funds starts off. Agency for Regulation of Natural Monopolies fare increases and punish the company for off fines. She says the shortage of funds to pay the fine, and requires consent for a new round of fare cutting off to the credibility of consumers. And so on.

The other day East Kazakhstani finally heard in Parliament. One of the deputies even demanded to give “Shygysenergotrade” state property. Only if that resolves the problem? May, at first is to change the law to beat on penalties to owners corporation and not in the pockets of ordinary consumers?

A very profitable business

According to the most AES, in the past year, her department had paid fines amounting to 1,8 billion tenge. The new fee, which Antimonopolschiki prepared to present “Shygysenergotrade” could reach 500 million tenge. And the Competition Protection Agency have repeatedly called the amount of outstanding obligations energokorporatsiey – 459 million dollars!

We have already given interesting data from the official website of AES.While in 2005 net profit of the company (with business in 27 countries) amounted to 9.5 billion dollars, while in 2008 only from units in Ukraine and Kazakhstan – $ 4 billion!According to experts, AES will try to “shake off” the power supply organizations “Shygysenergotrade” state. ”The organization has accumulated a huge debt to their same” family “of AES, – experts noted. - Pay off the entire amount is unrealistic. If the trader will be transferred to the State Power Plants on the budget may require the return of all debts, including through increased tariff. “

The first step for this is already made. Americans really asked akimat of East Kazakhstan pick “Shygysenergotrade” in their property.

It turns out that the profit goes into the pocket of the investor while losses are still state and population.

In the theme
READY MONEY

Since the new year in East Kazakhstan may increase the tariff for electricity. Supply authority has notified that he was preparing the appropriate application.

“If these costs, as well as funds for the purchase of an additional amount of energy in the winter will not be taken into account, we can not guarantee stable power supply in the new year” – said the regional director of AES Michael Johnagan.

Kazakh Residents Sentenced for Attempted Sale of Uranium Pellets

Vendors uranium pellets in Pavlodar received by the court 2 – 3 years imprisonment

Five residents of Pavlodar, Astana, Shimei, and Ayagoz accused of selling a half kilograms of uranium pellets, from which we get fuel for nuclear reactors, the Pavlodar City Criminal Court number 2 was sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to three years, told news agency Novosti Kazakhstan a law enforcement source area.

 

The Manufacturing of the “Islamist” Peril–August 27, 1992

The Making of a “Peril”

August 27, 1992

The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly popular with some segments of the American foreign policy establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments who, for reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam confrontation. The result is the construction of the new peril, a process that does not reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless has its own logic, rules and timetables.

The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious “sources” and unnamed officials who leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect debates and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then augmented by colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media end up finding corroboration from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and help the press uncover further information substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys.

In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their publication is followed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press briefings. A governmental policy debate ensues, producing studies, working papers, and eventually doctrines and policies that become part of the media’s spin. The new villain is now ready to be integrated into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a new crusade. In the case of the Green Peril, that process has been under way for several months.(13)

A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is already beginning to shape U.S. agenda and policy. Congress is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism.(14) The Bush administration has been trying to devise policies and establish new alliances to counter Iranian influence: building up Islamic but secular and pro-Western Turkey as a countervailing force in Central Asia, expanding U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia, warning Sudan that it faces grave consequences as a result of its policies, and even shoring up a socialist military dictatorship in Algeria.

Regional Powers Exploit U.S. Fears

Not surprisingly, foreign governments, including those of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, India, and Pakistan, have reacted to the evidence of U.S. fear. With the end of the Cold War they are concerned about a continued U.S. commitment to them and are trying to exploit the menace of Islamic fundamentalism to secure military support, economic aid, and political backing from Washington as well as to advance their own domestic and regional agendas. The Gulf War has already provided the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, and Israelis with an opportunity to revive the American engagement in the Middle East and their own roles as Washington’s regional surrogates. Now that the Iraqi danger has been diminished, the Islamic fundamentalist threat is a new vehicle for achieving those goals.

Pakistan, which lost its strategic value to the United States as a conduit of military aid to the guerrillas in Afghanistan, and India, whose Cold War Soviet ally has disintegrated, are both competing for American favors by using the Islamic card in their struggle for power in Southwest Asia. That struggle involves such issues as the Kashmir problem and an accelerating nuclear arms race.(15)  [read HERE]

The War in Afghanistan: The legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Volatile Situation in Pakistan

by CAN ERİMTAN*

In a previous piece on the war in the Hindu Kush, I indicated how the involvement of the Reagan administration shaped the Afghan opposition to the Soviet presence in the country.

But scrutinizing the information available, it turns out that American involvement in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets in fact predated the ascendancy of the conservatives in the White House. During the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977-81), the role of the national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, cannot be underestimated in this context. Brzezinski, as an American of Polish descent was then a rabid anti-Communist, and upon his appointment he immediately set up the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming ethnic tensions among subject Soviet peoples, primarily targeting the Islamic populations living under communism. He seems to have been particularly involved in the situation in Afghanistan, which wasn’t even part of the USSR. In an interview conducted by the well-known French journalist Vincent Jauvert, published in Le Nouvel Observateur (Jan. 15-21, 1998), Brzezinski made some astounding claims: “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahedeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul and that very day I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” He then qualifies his hyperbole somewhat: “We [the US] didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”The Carter administration thus willingly seems to have supported the mujahedeen and their foreign allies — the “Afghan Arabs” — in a bid to precipitate the Soviets’ intervention and their ultimate demise. The notorious Charlie Wilson famously exclaimed at the time, “We had 58,000 dead in Vietnam, and we owe the Russians one.” Upon Jauvert’s query regarding the Islamic blowback and its effects on contemporary society, Jimmy Carter’s one-time national security adviser simply retorted: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” In his fervor to defeat the Soviets, President Carter’s national security adviser did not shy away from fanning the flames of Islamic fundamentalism. Mixed relations with the conservative Reagan administration Following his stint in the Carter administration, Brzezinski had mixed relations with the conservative Reagan administration. As a result, he has since pursued a more academic line. Currently, Brzezinski is a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. As an academic, he has been quite prolific, and in the context of the war in Afghanistan and the much-vaunted TAPI project, his 1997 opus “The Grand Chessboard” is most revealing. The book reads like a blueprint for the execution of what we could call an “American Empire Project,” an expression used as the title of a book series published by Metropolitan Books. In his opus, Brzezinski put forward his contention that American world dominance is only feasible if Eurasia, “the center of world power,” is firmly in the grip of the US. He literally states that this area is “central to America’s capacity to exercise global primacy.” In the Eurasian landmass, Brzezinski insightfully foresaw that the “Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin” were to be of major importance in the 21st century, given their “reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea.” Towards the end of the 20th century, Brzezinski suggested that the “oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard … provides the setting” for what he called “the game.” This game, so Brzezinski posited, is vital to “American hegemony” which manifests itself through “the exercise of decisive influence,” arguably leading to commercial benefits and monetary gains. Quite coincidentally, the great man was in İstanbul just a few days ago to attend the second Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum (Sept. 29-Oct. 1), an event organized by the Atlantic Council, and this time also supported by the Turkish Ministry of Finance and the Prime Ministry. Former US Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson hosted the event, and according to Today’s Zaman’s report, he explained that “the forum’s primary aim is to develop best policy solutions to help the region become a center for economic cooperation, investment and trade.” This is a position that seems to be a corollary to Brzezinski’s plan for American preponderance in the Eurasian theater. In 2008, President Carter’s former national security adviser publicly endorsed the candidacy of Barack Obama. And he subsequently became an adviser to the Obama campaign. In December 2008, Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama presidential campaign, declared that “Brzezinski is not a day-to-day adviser for the campaign, he is someone whose guidance Sen. Obama seeks on” Iraq and foreign affairs. Already the previous year, then-candidate Obama’s reliance on Brzezinski’s thinking seemed apparent when he urged “to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Brzezinski continued to play an advising role into President Obama’s first year in office. ‘New Great Game’ Brzezinski’s “game” can easily be equated with Ahmed Rashid’s “New Great Game.” And at the moment, the US is clearly pursuing this competition in Afghanistan by means of their sponsorship of the TAPI pipeline project. America’s rival here could be understood as China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia. A successful pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to India would deprive the Chinese and other SCO members of important gas imports. But the Middle Kingdom always plans for the long-term and had already secured the construction of the Turkmen-Kazakh-China pipeline in 2007 — 7,000 kilometers of steel pipe at a staggering cost of $26 billion. In a way, one could say that the Chinese seem to have preempted America’s move by three years. In spite of these strategic concerns hovering in the background, President Obama does not talk about any kind of “game” or about an economic motive in the pursuit of “American hegemony.” Instead he stresses the need to establish a stable Afghanistan in order to keep the US safe from terrorist plots, while simultaneously speaking of the virtues of a “just war.” During the speech he gave on the occasion of his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2009, President Obama stated the following: “And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a ‘just war’ emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense, if the force used is proportional and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.” In view of the recent spike in drone attacks in the north of Pakistan, his words sound shrill to say the least. Since Sept. 25 the US has kept up a daily barrage of rockets fired by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have supposedly killed numerous militants but also undoubtedly taken their toll on the civilian population. On Thursday, Sept. 30, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) even conducted a cross-border helicopter attack into Mandato Kandaou in the Ali Mangola area of Upper Kurram Agency of Pakistan, allegedly killing three Pakistani soldiers and injuring three others. In Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, Hussain Afzal and Iftikhar A. Khan wrote that the Frontier Corps “retaliated with rifle fire to indicate that the helicopters were crossing into Pakistan’s territory. Instead of heeding the warning, the helicopters fired two missiles, destroying the post.” The government of Pakistan’s patience has now finally run out and authorities have closed down a key supply route for US-led forces in Afghanistan — the Torkham route that furnished 80 percent of American needs, including all the fuel used in Afghanistan. On Iran’s English-language broadcaster Press TV, the eminent specialist Dilip Hiro remarked that the “only other place [the Americans] are getting something comes through from Uzbekistan and goes to [the southern Uzbek border city of] Termez. The supply comes through a rail road and goes to Bagram on the road. That is the only other inlet and this particular inlet cannot replace the 80 percent supply that comes from Pakistan.” In the past days the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP]) has carried out four attacks on NATO convoys in the country. Azam Tariq, a TTP spokesman, told a foreign wire service on Monday, Oct. 4, that the TTP “accept responsibility for the attacks on the NATO supply trucks and tankers.” It seems that in aggressively pursuing the legacy of Brzezinski’s Afghanistan policy, President Obama’s reliance on drone attacks has now unleashed a volatile situation in Pakistan, a situation that could seriously backfire and badly hurt America’s interests in the region and further afield in the weeks and months to come. *Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent scholar residing in İstanbul. He has a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of theBalkans and the wider Middle East. His publications include the book “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles.

All I Want is Some Truth Tribunal Webcast–Live from NY

Do Something This Weekend in New York City:
Documentary “Budrus” Opens This Weekend at the Quad Cinema
“One of the most moving, hopeful and powerful
documentaries I’ve seen this year …”
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Kent State Truth Tribunal

All I Want is Some Truth

Kent State Truth Tribunal webcast to begin at 10:00 am ET
live from New York City… Stay tuned…

Just Gimme Some Truth
“It would be wonderful if Terry Norman would come clean at this point.”
– former Akron Beacon Journal reporter Janis Froelich

‘This Should Go to the Department of Justice’
Forensic audio expert Stuart Allen will explain his discovery
this weekend on MichaelMoore.com

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New analysis of 40-year-old recording of Kent State shootings reveals that Ohio Guard was given an order to prepare to fire

John Mangels, The Plain Dealer

Sarah Rice, Special to The Plain DealerForensic audio experts Stuart Allen, seated, and Tom Owen, discuss the contents of a tape that captured the events leading to the May 4, 1970 Ohio National Guard shootings at Kent State University.The Ohio National Guardsmen who fired on students and antiwar protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 were given an order to prepare to shoot, according to a new analysis of a 40-year-old audio tape of the event.

“Guard!” says a male voice on the recording, which two forensic audio experts enhanced and evaluated at the request of The Plain Dealer. Several seconds pass. Then, “All right, prepare to fire!”

“Get down!” someone shouts urgently, presumably in the crowd. Finally, “Guard! . . . ” followed two seconds later by a long, booming volley of gunshots. The entire spoken sequence lasts 17 seconds.

View full sizeJohn P. Filo, Valley Daily NewsMary Ann Vecchio cries for help as she kneels by the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller, who was shot by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970. The gunfire volley from the Guard killed four and wounded nine.The previously undetected command could begin to explain the central mystery of the Kent State tragedy – why 28 Guardsmen pivoted in unison atop Blanket Hill, raised their rifles and pistols and fired 67 times, killing four students and wounding nine others in an act that galvanized sentiment against the Vietnam War.

The order indicates that the gunshots were not spontaneous, or in response to sniper fire, as some have suggested over the years.

“I think this is a major development,” said Alan Canfora, one of the wounded, who located a copy of the tape in a library archive in 2007 and has urged that it be professionally reviewed. “There’s been a grave injustice for 40 years because we lacked sufficient evidence to prove what we’ve known all along – that the Ohio National Guard was commanded to kill at Kent State on May 4, 1970.”

“How do you spell bombshell?” said Barry Levine, whose girlfriend Allison Krause was mortally wounded as he tried to pull her behind cover. “That is obviously very significant. The photographic evidence and eyewitness accounts of what took place seemed to suggest everything happened in those last seconds in a coordinated way. This would be the icing on the cake, so to speak.”

This excerpt from a copy of Terry Strubbe’s Kent State recording contains the order for the Guard to prepare to fire. The word “Guard!” can be heard at 9.3 seconds. “All right, prepare to fire” begins at 19.5 seconds. “Get down!” is spoken at 22.3 seconds. The final “Guard!” is at 23.7 seconds, and the gunshots begin at 26 seconds.

The review was done by Stuart Allen and Tom Owen, two nationally respected forensic audio experts with decades of experience working with government and law enforcement agencies and private clients to decipher recorded information.

Allen is president and chief engineer of the Legal Services Group in Plainfield, N.J. Owen is president and CEO of Owl Investigations in Colonia, N.J. They donated their services because of the potential historical significance of the project.

Although they occasionally testify on opposing sides in court cases hinging on audio evidence, Owen and Allen concur on the command’s wording. Both men said they are confident their interpretation is correct, and would testify to its accuracy under oath, if asked.

Experts have long history of deciphering sounds of crime

Kent State comes of age 40 years after shootings

Observance of shootings is part rememberance, part political rally

More Plain Dealer coverage of the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings

The original 30-minute reel-to-reel tape was made by Terry Strubbe, a Kent State communications student in 1970 who turned on his recorder and put its microphone in his dorm window overlooking the campus Commons, hoping to document the protest unfolding below.

It is the only known recording to capture the events leading up to the shootings – including a tinny bullhorn announcement that students must leave “for your own safety,” the pop of tear gas canisters and the wracking coughs of people in their path, the raucous protest chants, the drone of helicopters overhead, and the near-constant chiming of the campus victory bell to rally the demonstrators.

Strubbe has kept the original tape in a bank vault, andrecently has been working with a colleague to have it analyzed, and to produce a documentary about what the examination reveals.

The Justice Department paid a Massachusetts acoustics firm, Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., to scrutinize the recording in 1974 in support of the government’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prosecute eight Guardsmen for the shootings. That review, led by the company’s chief scientist, James Barger, focused on the gunshot pattern and made no mention of a command readying the soldiers to fire.

Barger still works for the company, now known as BBN Technologies. When told Friday of the new findings, he said via a spokeswoman that in his 1974 review he “did not hear anything like that.”

Someone made a copy of the Strubbe tape in the mid-1970s for use in the civil lawsuits that the shooting victims and their families filed against the Guardsmen and Ohio Gov. James Rhodes, who had sent the reserves to restore order at Kent State.

One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers donated the cassette copy of the Strubbe tape to Yale University’s Kent State archives. Canfora, one of the wounded students, found it while doing research for a book. The Plain Dealer commissioned an analysis of a digitized version of the Yale tape.

View full sizeSarah Rice, Special to The Plain DealerStuart AllenUsing sophisticated software initially developed for the KGB, the Soviet Union’s national security agency, Allen weeded out extraneous noises – wind blowing across the microphone, and a low rumble from the tape recorder’s motor and drive belt — that obscured voices on the recording.

He isolated individual words, first identifying them by their distinctive, spidery “waveform” traces on a computer screen, then boosting certain characteristics of the sound or slowing the playback to make out what was said. Owen independently corroborated Allen’s work.

For hours on Thursday, first in Allen’s dim, equipment-packed lab in Plainfield and later in Owen’s more spacious, equally high-tech shop in nearby Colonia, the two men pored over the crucial recording segment just before the gunfire. They looped each word, playing it over and over, tweaking various controls and listening intently until they agreed on its meaning.

View full sizeSarah Rice, Special to The Plain DealerTom Owen”That’s clear as a bell,” Owen said at one point as he and Allen replayed the phrase “Prepare to fire” on two large wall-mounted loudspeakers.

The two audio engineers didn’t add anything to the recording or fundamentally alter its contents. Instead, they boosted what was present to make it easier to hear. “It’s like putting on eyeglasses,” Owen said.

In addition to the prepare-to-fire command, the segment just before the gunfire contains several curiosities.

• There is a sound fragment milliseconds before the gunfire starts. Allen believes it could be the beginning of the word “Fire!” – just the initial “f” before the sound is overrun by the fusillade. Owen said he can’t tell what the sound is.

• The frequency of the voice giving the command changes as the seconds pass. “I’m hearing a Doppler effect,” Allen said, referring to the familiar pitch change that occurs as a siren passes. “It’s as if he was facing one way and turned another,” Owen said. That’s consistent with eyewitness accounts that the Guardsmen spun around from the direction they had been marching just before they fired.

• The 1974 Bolt Beranek and Newman analysis concluded that the first three gunshots came from M1s, the World War II-vintage rifles carried by most of the Ohio Guardsmen. The M1 is a high-velocity weapon with a high-pitched gunshot sound.

But Allen and Owen said the initial three gunshots sound lower-pitched than the rest of the volley. “It suggests a lot of things, but we’re not certified ballistics examiners,” Owen said. Pistols typically are lower-velocity, lower-pitched weapons. Several Guard officers carried .45 caliber pistols, but the Bolt Beranek and Newman analysis identified .45-caliber fire later in the gunshot sequence, not among the first three shots.

As author William Gordon reported in his exhaustive 1995 book on the Kent State shootings, “Four Dead in Ohio,” several witnesses told the FBI they saw a Guardsman with a pistol fire first, or appear to give a hand signal to initiate the firing. Gordon believes the firing command probably was non-verbal. A few students and Guardsmen claimed at the time that they heard something that sounded like an order to fire, but most of the soldiers who acknowledged using their weapons later testified that they acted spontaneously.

“This is a real game-changer,” Gordon said Saturday of the new analysis. “If the results can be verified, it means the Guardsmen perjured themselves extensively at the trials.”.

Without a known voice sample for comparison, the new analysis cannot answer the question of who issued the prepare-to-fire command.

Nor can it reveal why the order was given. Guardsmen reported being pelted by rocks as they headed up Blanket Hill and some said they feared for their safety, but the closest person in the crowd was 60 feet away and there is nothing on the tape to indicate what prompted the soldiers to reverse course, and for the ready-to-shoot command to go out.

Most of the senior Ohio National Guard officers directly in charge of the troops who fired on May 4, 1970 have since died. Ronald Snyder, a former Guard captain who led a unit that was at the Kent State protest but was not involved in the shootings, said Friday that the prepare-to-fire phrasing on the tape does not seem consistent with how military orders are given.

“I do know commands,” Snyder said. “You would never see anything in training that would say ‘Guard, do this.’ It would be like saying, ‘Army, do this.’ It doesn’t make sense.”

Whether the prepare-to-fire order could lead to new legal action or a re-opened investigation of the Kent State shootings is unclear. A federal judge dismissed the charges against the eight indicted Guardsmen in 1974, saying the government had failed to prove its case. The surviving victims and families of the dead settled their civil lawsuit for $675,000 in 1979, agreeing to drop all future claims against the Guardsmen.

The federal acquittal means the soldiers could not be prosecuted again at the federal level, although a county or state official potentially could seek criminal charges, said Sanford Rosen, one of plaintiffs’ attorneys in the civil lawsuit.

The legal issues would be complex, he said. The presence of a command could give rank-and-file Guardsmen a defense, since they could argue they were following an order.

The command’s significance may be more historical than legal, Rosen said. “At very least, it puts new [focus] on the training and discipline of the Ohio Guard, and provides a lesson of how things should be done correctly when you are faced with civil disorder, particularly when you bring in troops.”

In Pittsburgh, Doris Krause has been waiting 40 years to find out who killed her daughter Allison, and why. Now 84 and widowed, she said Friday the presence of the prepare-to-fire order doesn’t surprise her.

“It had to be,” she said. “There’s no other way they could have turned in unison without a command. There’s no other way they could fire at the same time.”

She is frustrated, though, that the recording can’t identify the person who gave the order. “I wish there was better proof,” Krause said. “We have to find a man with enough courage to admit what happened.

“I’m an old lady,” she said, “and before I leave this earth, I’d like to find out who said what is on that tape.”

Revelations of Possible Provocateur Before Kent State Shootings May Prompt Congressional Inquiry

Revelations from Kent State audio tape prompt congressional inquiry

John Mangels, The Plain Dealer

KSU News ServiceMoments after he has handed his .38-caliber pistol to a police officer, Kent State student Terry Norman describes being attacked by protesters on May 4, 1970.

KSU News ServiceTerry Norman, wearing his gas masks, takes photos on the Kent State campus May 4, 1970.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is launching a congressional inquiry into an altercation and apparent pistol fire that occurred about 70 seconds before Ohio National Guardsmen shot students and antiwar protesters on May 4, 1970.

The violent clash and four shots from a .38-caliber revolver were captured by a student’s tape recorder, placed in a dormitory window. The sounds of the altercation recently were discovered by Stuart Allen, a forensic audio expert who analyzed the 40-year-old tape at The Plain Dealer’s request. The newspaper reported Allen’s findingsFriday.

Kucinich, who chairs a House sub-committee with oversight of the FBI and Justice Department, said the paper’s account prompted his inquiry.

“Kent State had such a grave effect on this nation, we owe it to the American people to have a thorough inquiry,” he said in an interview. “This story about new evidence makes it mandatory that we gather information and ask questions.

In a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Kucinich asked the bureau to produce documents that might shed light on its relationship with, and knowledge of, a Kent State student named Terry Norman.

Norman’s actions on May 4, 1970, are the object of much speculation and dispute, and some people contend Norman may have triggered the Guard to fire.

Some details of the altercation on the tape match elements of a scuffle the pistol-waving Norman was involved in, although he insisted it took place after the Guard’s gun volley, not before, as the recording indicates. Norman also told investigators he did not fire his weapon.

KSU News ServiceTerry Norman, wearing his gas masks, takes photos on the Kent State campus May 4, 1970.

Norman was on campus the day of the protests, wearing a gas mask and and a .38-caliber pistol for protection. He was photographing demonstrators and said he regularly sold the photos to the FBI and the Kent State police department.

Some witnesses claim they saw Norman fighting with several students and waving or pointing his gun, although no one reported seeing him shoot. Accounts differ on whether the confrontation happened before or after the Guard gunfire.

TV footage shortly after the shooting shows Norman running toward a cluster of Guardsmen and police, pursued by a man who yells that Norman has a gun and has shot someone. The TV film shows an emotional Norman hand his pistol to a Kent State patrolman and describe an assault by protesters.

The TV reporter and sound engineer say they saw a Kent State detective open the pistol’s cylinder and heard him exclaim off-camera that it had been fired four times. Officers’ written statements contended it was fully loaded and unfired.

An FBI ballistics test reportedly determined the gun had been fired since its last cleaning, but could not pinpoint when.

Kucinich, a Democrat whose district includes Cleveland, has asked the FBI to provide any employment and payment records involving Norman, the results of any ballistics tests of his pistol, and any evidence that might indicate the bureau helped him get a job.

Several months after the Kent State shootings, Norman began working for the Washington, D.C., police department as a narcotics agent. His precise whereabouts today are not known.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said late Friday the bureau would review Kucinich’s request and “respond accordingly.”

Kucinich said he will ask the sub-committee’s attorneys to locate and interview Norman, and that he may be asked to testify if there are congressional hearings. “What we find [from the FBI] may determine whether we go forward with a hearing,” Kucinich said.

The audio tape also contains what Allen and fellow forensic acoustics expert Tom Owenbelieve is a command ordering the Guardsmen to prepare to fire.

A Plain Dealer report on that discovery in May prompted wounded Kent State student Alan Canfora to request that the Justice Department re-investigate the shootings.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department’s civil rights division said by email Friday that the division is “currently reviewing” that request.

Terry Gilbert, a Cleveland attorney who is advising Canfora, said their primary interest is the apparent order for the Guard to fire, but that the new revelations about the confrontation and pistol shots “add an interesting dimension because of the role the FBI might have played in the chain of events.”

“Now, more than ever, we need to get to the bottom of it,” said Gilbert, who hopes to meet with the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, when Perez speaks at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law next Tuesday.

Laurel Krause, whose sister Allison was one of four students killed by the Guard gunfire on May 4, also supports a new review examining all aspects of the case.

“Let’s put together all of the pieces of the puzzle,” said Krause, who will take part in a live,webcast “Kent State Truth Tribunal” in New York this weekend. “I think all the right things are going to happen, for once. There have been a lot of wrongs. It’s time.”

US wants aid to Pak linked to results of ‘execution by soldiers’ video probe

[The anti-Pakistan elements in Washington have just been given the keys to stopping all aid to Pakistan.  Leahy will be tempted to use the threat of aid cut-off to force Pakistani cooperation in Obama's project to dismantle the nation.  I cannot imagine them not using this weapon, especially now when Obama's political fate rests on the bet that he has placed on the table.]

Islamabad, Oct 9 (ANI): In the wake of video clips showing Pakistani soldiers executing a group of blindfolded men in civilian dresses circulating on the Internet, the chairman of the US Appropriations Subcommittee for funding foreign aid programs has stated that he expects action from Pakistan in this regard.

The chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who is also the author of the law prohibiting military assistance to rights abusers, has sought to link the recent incidents in Pakistan to additional aid to be provided by the US, the Washington Post reported.

“Given what’s happening in Pakistan, with the closing of the border, the attacks against U.S. supply vehicles, and the reports of executions of civilians by Pakistani soldiers, I want to know what changes will be made before we provide additional aid,” Leahy said.

In addition to the execution video, Leahy’s reference was to the US-Pak standoff over the deaths of at least two Pakistani soldiers killed last week by missiles fired by ISAF helicopters flying across the border from Afghanistan, retaliating against which, Pakistan has kept a key crossing into Afghanistan closed to NATO convoys for over a week now.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani has ordered a probe into the video footage, apparently shot by cell phones, saying, “It is not expected of a professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying to guard against the scourge of terrorism.”

While he also warned that the shooters in the video might be militants disguised as soldiers to “malign” the military or to mask their identities,Obama administration and US military officials, under pressure fromCongress to address Pakistani military abuses, have urged action.

Pentagon and State Department officials briefed House and Senatestaffers on the Pakistan human rights issue on Capitol Hill. The US law prohibits assistance to any foreign military units shown to have committed rights abuses, unless the government involved takes action against the guilty.

Pakistan human rights activists have raised doubts over the inquiry announced by Kayani, noting that past army inquiries into alleged extra-judicial killings and abuses had held no one accountable.

“We hope that this will in fact be a meaningful inquiry and not a sham perpetrated to assuage international concerns,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, talking about the latest probe.

There are two clips- the longer one lasts five minutes and 39 seconds and shows what appears to be a group of Pakistani soldiers, fully armed and in uniform, guiding the blindfolded men to a wooded area in front of a wall and lining them up next to one another. They are then shot.

A voice is heard saying “finish them one by one”. A soldier then walks over to the men and shoots them again.

The second clip lasts 53 seconds and shows only the executions. (ANI)

Most-wanted terrorist loses control over his militants

Extremist militants based in the Chechen Republic have split from those operating in other regions of southern Russia. Experts believe that their days are numbered.

In a statement published online on Thursday, the warlords said they have renounced their oath of allegiance to Russia’s most-wanted terrorist Doku Umarov and have elected a new leader. Their new commander is Hussein Gakaev, a man with a US$330,000 bounty assigned for his capture, reports Kommersant daily.

The statement also says Chechen extremists would become united again with those operating in neighboring regions if they renounce Umarov as their leader.

This follows a public conflict among the extremists. It started on August 2 with a video statement by Umarov, in which he announced his retirement. On the following day, Umarov said the statement was leaked on the Internet without his consent. He also sacked his spokesman Movladi Udugov.

On August 15, Gankaev, who is a prominent figure among Chechen-based militants, said they will no longer tolerate Umarov as their commander. He also said Umarov demonstrated a lack of respect to militant envoys and followed foreign commands when he revoked his retirement.

The split gangs’ days are numbered, believes head of the research center “SK-Strategia” Abdullah Istamulov. “Militants, who are now disenchanted with [international] jihad, could stick to the idea of an independent Chechnya, but has little support in the Chechen society,” he explained in an interview to Kommersant.

Meanwhile Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov believes the split is nothing but a public stunt, which has little to do with reality.

“The bandits have long lost any central command, they have no political or religious goals and think only about saving their lives,” he said.

“Not seasons of year, nor weather, nor the 1,001st statement on militants’ unification or split will affect the firm decision about their total destruction,” Kadyrov added.

Doku Umarov is suspected of masterminding several high-profile terrorist attacks in Russia. He claims to have organized the deadly Moscow Metro bombings in March of this year. In July, the US added him to its terrorist blacklist.

‘A Completely Lawless Place’

Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country

By Erich Follath and Christian Neef in Osh, Kyrgyzstan

AP

In the wake of ethnic violence in June that killed almost 2,000 people, Kyrgyzstan has been plagued by violence and lawlessness. Now the country is to become the first parliamentary republic in Central Asia. But is it ready for democracy?

Editor’s note: This feature is the first of a series on Central Asia that will be running on SPIEGEL International in the coming weeks. You can read more about future installments in the series here.

The sun is high in the sky, directly above the Taht-I-Suleiman, a giant rock in the middle of the city where the Biblical King Solomon was once said to have preached. In fact, the sun is so unrelentingly bright that the snow-covered peaks of the Tian Shan have disappeared behind a curtain of flickering heat. Somewhere in the city a muezzin is calling the faithful to prayer.

On the surface, Osh seems almost idyllic.

But that impression is misleading. On this morning, four girls were found dead in the cellar of a mosque in Osh, covered with debris. Their bodies, wrapped in carpets, had been completely burned and some had even been beheaded. They were Kyrgyz girls from Osh. Soon afterwards, 13 bodies, including that of a pediatrician, were brought to Osh from Andijan, a city in nearby Uzbekistan. The bodies, their hands bound and, like the four girls, horribly disfigured, had floated down the Ak-Bura River and across the border into Uzbekistan. The 13 dead were also Kyrgyz from Osh.

For the men and women gathered in the tent cities near the large white regional administration building, the case is clear. “The murderers were Uzbeks,” says Gumira Alykulova, a 35-year-old Kyrgyz. Uzbeks, though an ethnic minority in Kyrgyzstan, form the majority in Osh. They own most of the city’s markets, restaurants and much of the surrounding farmland and, as angry citizens believe, they are determined to drive the Kyrgyz out of the city.

A Wave of Pogroms

Since the bloody four days of violence in June, the small tent city has been one of the main sources of news in Osh — from the Kyrgyz perspective, that is. Anyone wishing to hear the other side’s version of the truth has to drive two kilometers farther down the road to an Uzbek neighborhood like Shark.

Shark looks like it has recently been carpet-bombed. The district was completely burned down, with nothing but blackened foundation walls remaining where many buildings, including the schools, once stood. The Uzbeks in Shark blame the Kyrgyz.

According to official figures, more than 370 people died in the pogroms, when the Kyrgyz went on a rampage against the Uzbeks and the Uzbeks against the Kyrgyz. But the true figure is probably upwards of 2,000. More than 75,000 people fled to Uzbekistan. The news coming out of the city shocked people around the world.

What happened in Osh? Why are no officials, including the mayor, the provincial administrator, the chief of police and the head of intelligence, willing to say how the killing began? Why are the newspapers avoiding the issue?

The silence that has descended on Osh after the so-called incidents has instilled fear in the residents of a city that was cosmopolitan for centuries, a peaceful trading center and a crossroads on the legendary Silk Road.

Osh is 3,000 years old, even older than Rome. Caravans from China once passed through the city, and even Alexander the Great is believed to have stopped at theTaht-I-Suleiman en route to India.

A Lawless City

But since June this city of 250,000 has been only a shadow of its former self. The four days of violence left behind a broad trail of destruction. Major thoroughfares like Kyrgyzstan Street are devastated, with all of the businesses on the right side of the street, as well as cafés, restaurants and a Muslim hospital, burned to the ground. The left side, where the Kyrgyz live, remained unharmed.

This is one version of the events: Uzbeks attacked a student dormitory at the University of Osh and raped female Kyrgyz students. This prompted the Kyrgyz to retaliate.

According to another version, the rapes never occurred and the riots were deliberately provoked.

Osh is now a lawless city. At night, men wearing camouflage uniforms without shoulder insignia rule the pitch-black streets, during hours of revenge and violence. Some 3,000 ethnic Uzbeks have reportedly been arrested, while others have been abducted or simply disappeared. All Uzbeks in government positions were let go.

What is happening in Osh is not some provincial drama. Osh has become a warning sign — for an entire country and perhaps even an entire region.

The pogroms were a consequence of the most recent change of power in the capital Bishkek. After bloody protests in April, the corrupt president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was ousted and forced to flee the country. The government that replaced Bakiyev also no longer exists. Transitional President Rosa Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister and then a member of the opposition, rules the country with decrees. She intends to hold parliamentary elections on Oct. 10, but protestors have already returned to the streets in Bishkek, the police are back to using teargas, and opposition members are being arrested once again.

A Decline of Historic Proportions

Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous Muslim republic with a population of only 5.3 million, has become ungovernable. This would be a footnote in world history if this country, where the towns have names like Toru-Aigyr and Kurkurëu and the people are called Momun and Oroskul, were not at the center of a region that has alarmed the world’s powerful.

The country’s decline is one of historic proportions. In the early Middle Ages, the Kyrgyz were the largest power in Central Asia. But then came the invasions led by Genghis Khan, followed by the Chinese and, in 1876, the Russians. Stalin drew the borders of the later Soviet republic straight through areas settled by Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Kyrgyzstan is a poor country today. It exports gold and uranium, but the average monthly income is only €60 ($82).

A country without leadership is an ideal haven for extremists and criminals. Fundamentalists fighting the government in neighboring Tajikistan are in the country, as are Uighur activists from China’s troubled Xinjiang Province. Drug traffickers use Kyrgyzstan as an important transport route, which passes from Afghanistan straight through Osh. For the world’s major powers, Kyrgyzstan is a dangerous weak link in the region.

But the foreign powers also need this small country. China hopes to use Kyrgyzstan to satisfy its demand for natural resources. Moscow needs the region as a buffer zone against the advances of fundamentalist Islam, and the United States uses it as the site of a resupply base for its war against al-Qaida and the Taliban. Chaos and anarchy in Kyrgyzstan are the last thing the Americans, Russians and Chinese need. Ironically, the Western press only recently referred to this country as “the Switzerland of Central Asia.”

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• Next

• Part 1: Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country
• Part 2: A Paralyzed Country
• Part 3: ‘We Are Turning this Country into another Afghanistan’
• Part 4: Minority Groups Increasingly Referred to as Parasites

Universal Human Rights in Progressive Thought and Politics

Part Four of the Progressive Tradition Series

SOURCE: UN Photo

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt holds a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By John Halpin, William F. Schulz, Sarah Dreier

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About the Progressive Tradition Series

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

— Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

These two elegant sentences from the opening article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or UDHR, constitute a clear and compelling statement of progressive values and represent the culmination of centuries of philosophical thought about the rights and duties of humanity.

Although the primary ideas of freedom, equality, and solidarity expressed in this document arise from multiple sources and contexts, American progressives in the 20th century played a defining role in turning the concept of full and equal rights for all into a tangible expression of international opinion and concern. Leading progressives from Jane Addams and W.E.B. Du Bois to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—who chaired the committee that drafted and passed the UDHR—built on the political thought of the nation’s founders and the activism of abolitionists, suffragists, and civil rights leaders throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. These activists led the charge to enshrine the core belief that all people, by virtue of their common humanity, are guaranteed certain rights, freedoms, and opportunities necessary to lead meaningful and secure lives.

The 30 articles of the UDHR, unanimously adopted by 48 countries in the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948, spell out in concise detail the consensus foundations for all free and democratic nations. These principles— nonbinding goals rather than concrete laws—include explicit rights to life, liberty, and self-determination; fair and equal legal treatment under law; freedom of thought, expression, and movement; and a range of social and economic goods including employment, equal pay, food, housing, health care, and education.

The notion that all people enjoy inherent rights by virtue of being human beings may seem self-evident to most Americans today. But for the bulk of human history, and much of our own nation’s past, most people lacked guaranteed political, social, and economic rights. The great majority of human beings throughout time have been consigned to some form of slavery, serfdom, oppression or autocratic rule in practice, even with major religious and philosophical traditions defending the inherent dignity and worth of individuals. This remains true, unfortunately, for significant numbers of our fellow human beings living in authoritarian or unjust societies today.

Social movements across the world, including the progressive movement in the United States, rose up to help turn the ideals of human equality and guaranteed liberty into practice.

World opinion eventually shifted from a view that defended the priorities of the privileged above all others toward explicit guarantees of individual liberty under government with the rise of Enlightenment thinking about the rights and duties of man, and the revolutionary wars for independence successfully fought in America and France. Social movements across the world, including the progressive movement in the United States, rose up to help turn the ideals of human equality and guaranteed liberty into practice through efforts to eliminate slavery; to ensure civil rights for all regardless of gender, religion, or belief; to protect the vulnerable; and to establish the social and economic means for the least well off to fully enjoy these rights.

A new global consensus emerged after the world collapsed into chaos, aggression, and mass slaughter during World Wars I and II that lasting peace required the protection of individual rights and freedoms in all countries. The global community took strong steps to turn this consensus into institutional practice first by creating the League of Nations, which was mostly ineffective and eventually failed with the rise of German aggression and economic depression in the 1930s, and later the United Nations.

In the 50 years since its signing, the UDHR and subsequent treaties and covenants designed to implement its vision have been a guiding source for social and political movements seeking individual rights and emancipation from oppressive governments and mistreatment by other groups. One document obviously did not eliminate future crimes against humanity or eradicate political persecution, but it did set in motion a wave of political reforms that would ensure that such behavior would face the full collective scrutiny and combined action of free peoples across the globe.

The UDHR, effectively a list of enumerated rights and privileges accorded to all people equally as human beings, does not specify a set of concrete policy steps or political approaches to secure these ideals (see Appendix for all 30 articles in theUDHR). The preamble to the document, however, concludes by explicitly endorsing “progressive measures” and education to help secure these political, economic, and social rights:

Now therefore, the General Assembly, proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States and among the peoples of the territories under their jurisdiction.

Progressives have taken these challenges to heart in trying to design and implement a political order that meets the highest ideals of America and the global community. As Eleanor Roosevelt stated before the signing of the document, “This Universal Declaration of Human Rights may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere. … comparable to the proclamation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the French people in 1789, the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the United States, and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries.” Although the work of securing true liberty and equality for all presents numerous diplomatic, humanitarian, and military difficulties, it remains the duty of progressives to defend these ideals and to help turn them into reality for people everywhere.

The rest of this paper will explore the origins of human rights principles in religious, philosophical, and political contexts; examine the ongoing challenges progressives face in turning this inspirational vision into reality; and finally, discuss some of the contemporary debates about human rights from a domestic and international perspective. Our goal is to provide a concise summary of the relationship between human rights and progressivism rather than a comprehensive explication or defense of a particular system of thought, as with other essays in the Progressive Tradition series. We have provided a list of key sources at the end of the paper for those interested in exploring these ideas in more detail.

About the Progressive Tradition Series

With the rise of the contemporary progressive movement and the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, there is extensive public interest in better understanding the origins, values, and intellectual strands of progressivism. Who were the original progressive thinkers and activists? Where did their ideas come from and what motivated their beliefs and actions? What were their main goals for society and government? How did their ideas influence or diverge from alternative social doctrines? How do their ideas and beliefs relate to contemporary progressivism?

The new Progressive Tradition Series from the Center for American Progress traces the development of progressivism as a social and political tradition stretching from the late 19th century reform efforts to the current day. The series is designed primarily for educational and leadership development purposes to help students and activists better understand the foundations of progressive thought and its relationship to politics and social movements. Although the Progressive Studies Program has its own views about the relative merit of the various values, ideas, and actors discussed within the progressive tradition, the essays included in the series are descriptive and analytical rather than opinion based. We envision the essays serving as primers for exploring progressivism and liberalism in more depth through core texts—and in contrast to the conservative intellectual tradition and canon. We hope that these papers will promote ongoing discourse about the proper role of the state and individual in society, the relationship between empirical evidence and policymaking, and how progressives today might approach specific issues involving the economy, health care, energy-climate change, education, financial regulation, social and cultural affairs, and international relations and national security.

Part one examines the philosophical and theoretical development of progressivism as a response to the rise of industrial capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Read part one »

Part two examines the politics of national progressivism from the agrarian populists to the Great Society. Read part two »

Part three examines the influence of social movements for equality and economic justice on the development of progressivism. Read part three »

Part four of the series examines the important role of human rights in the development of progressive thought and activism both domestically and globally. Read part four »

Part five examines the relationship between progressivism and America’s founding. Read part five »

Part six examines the religious roots of progressivism. Read part six »

Read the full report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf)