Pakistan at Sixty

Tariq Ali ("Pakistan at Sixty") has as usual given us a valuable insight into the situation in Pakistan, one of the world's most conflicted and worrisome countries. But this time he is unusually pessimistic. One wonders what can become of a country like this. The most astonishing statement in the article is that even some Pakistanis are thinking that the formation of the country was a mistake. The Indians have been thinking this for years, but not the Pakistanis. And given the mess that Pakistan has now become there is no way that India could even want it. This region was in British times one of the continuing problem areas of the subcontinent; now its problems are compounding. That Washington still cannot think creatively about what to do about Pakistan compounds the problem.
Some selections from the article follow:
RLC
[Click on the title for the original and complete source]

Pakistan at Sixty

Tariq Ali

"In private, of course, there is much soul-searching, and a surprising collection of people now feel the state should never have been founded."

"Can Pakistan Survive?"

"The country is here to stay. And it's not religion or the mystical 'ideology of Pakistan' that guarantees its survival, but its nuclear capacity and Washington."

"The European and North American papers give the impression that the main, if not the only, problem confronting Pakistan is the power of the bearded fanatics skulking in the Hindu Kush, who as the papers see it are on the verge of taking over the country. In this account, all that stops a jihadi finger finding the nuclear trigger is Musharraf. Alas, it now seems he might drown in a sea of troubles and so the helpful State Department has pushed out an over-inflated raft in the shape of Benazir Bhutto."

"There is no possibility of a takeover by religious extremists unless the army wants one"

"There are serious problems confronting Pakistan, but these are usually ignored in Washington"

"The lack of a basic social infrastructure encourages hopelessness and despair, but only a tiny minority turns to jihad"

"Corruption envelops Pakistan. The poor bear the burden, but the middle classes are also affected"

"The resulting moral vacuum is filled by porn films and religiosity of various sorts. In some areas religion and pornography go together: the highest sales of porn videos are in Peshawar and Quetta, strongholds of the religious parties"

"Nor should it be imagined that the bulk of the porn comes from the West. There is a thriving clandestine industry in Pakistan, with its own local stars, male and female"

"Meanwhile the Islamists are busy picking up supporters. The persistent and ruthless missionaries of Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) are especially effective. Sinners from every social group, desperate for purification, queue to join."

"Another triumph was the post-9/11recruitment of Junaid Jamshed, the charismatic lead singer of Pakistan'sfirst successful pop group, Vital Signs. He renounced his past and now singsonly devotional songs – naats."

"some younger male recruits, bored with all the dogma, ceremonies and ritual, are more interested in getting their hands on a Kalashnikov."

"Many believe that the Tablighi missionary camps are fertile recruiting grounds for armed groups active on the Western Frontier and in Kashmir. The establishment has been slow to challenge the interpretation of Islam put forward by groups such as Tablighi. Musharraf advised people to go and see Khuda Kay Liye ('In the Name of God'), a new movie"

"This may not help the film, or the moderate Islam it favours, given that Musharraf's popularity ratings currently trail Osama bin Laden's"

"After the Supreme Court insisted that 'disappeared' political activists be produced in court and refused to dismiss rape cases, there were worries in Islamabad that the chief justice might even declare the military presidency unconstitutional ... The general and his cabinet decided to frighten Chaudhry by suspending him ... But instead of caving in ... the judge insisted on defending himself, triggering a remarkable movement in defence of an independent judiciary."

"There was something delightfully old-fashioned about this struggle: it involved neither money nor religion, but principle."

"The judge was due to visit Karachi, the country's largest city, on 12 May. Political power here rests in the hands of the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement/United National Movement), an unsavoury outfit created during aprevious dictatorship"

"On Islamabad's instructions, the MQM leaders decided to prevent the judge addressing the meeting in Karachi. He was not allowed to leave the airport. His supporters in different parts of the city were assaulted. Almost fifty people were killed."

"A devastating report, *Carnage in Karachi*, published in August by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, confirmed in great detail what everyone already knew: the police and army had been ordered to stand by while armed MQM members went on the rampage."

"The fact is that jihadis are not popular in most of Pakistan, but neither is the government."

" The Red Mosque episode raised too many unanswered questions.Why did the government not act in January? How did the clerics manage to accumulate such a large store of weapons without the knowledge of the government? Was the ISI aware that an arsenal was concealed inside the mosque? If so, why did they keep quiet? What was the relationship between the clerics and government agencies?"

"Back in the heart of Pakistan the most difficult and explosive issue remains social and economic inequality. This is not unrelated to the increase in the number of madrassas"

"A general election is due later this year. If it is as comprehensively rigged as the last one was, the result will be increased alienation from the political process. The outlook is bleak. There is no serious political alternative to military rule."

Devices of Contemporary World Leaders: cheap virtue and political fantasy

One of the most troubling features of our times is the deliberate manipulation of information, which places the media in compromising positions. The media is blamed when in fact various interested parties are deliberately using the huge power of the modern media to forward their own interests. In virtually every case the issue is not the truth but the control of “truth” so as to control vested interests.

It is sickening to see a Democratic Congress, for no reason in particular, decide to condemn the Armenian genocide just now (why now?) and then, since the Turks are rattling their saber over the matter, backing down. It is not truth or uprightness or virtue that drives this behavior, merely the search for more reasons to justify their existence. Cheap virtue is the coin of politics.

The same seems to be operative among the Republicans, some of whom have now gotten the global warming religion, creating a problem for the rest: If enough of the party would just get together on this issue, perhaps they could stop global warming from taking place after all [!]. Mind over matter.

The crisis in Darfur, information on which is likewise controlled by interested parties, remains deadly; real people are being really killed while, in the mean time, some officials publicly wonder if Sudan even cares about the crisis. A member of the African Union says that “people are now becoming very skeptical” about whether the government is “interested in peace.” Really? After so much brutality against Sudanese civilians, he thinks maybe the Sudanese government is not serious about protecting their own people. In fact, for the governments of the world to acknowledge what is taking place, that will constitute an obligation, a responsibility that hardly anyone out there, out here, wants to face. It can cost real money, perhaps the lives of their own folks as well as those of the locals. Again we note the ancient wisdom: "Men loved darkness because their deeds were evil; they would not come into the light lest their deeds be exposed."

It is not truth that the world lives by, but myth, and whoever controls the mechanisms of mythical promotion has all the advantages. So what we get from our leaders is cheap virtue and political fantasy.

Sanchez: Why isn't he accountable?

"Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management of this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty."

So says General Ricardo Sanchez. More and more people are asking that question. But it is old news now: virtually everyone in sight has pointed to the blunders of the current administration. Why didn’t those like Sanchez who were well positioned at the time, raise these kinds of questions before the disastrous actions were taken? The only surmise that makes sense to me is the fear of being summarily fired as General Shenseki was for raising such questions. Could the military leadership not have joined in common cause to resist – no, condemn – disastrous policy? At some point the military leadership must accept responsibility for their failure to expose the folly of the Bush administration’s agendas. There really was scarce evidence for a preemptive war and yet a small cabal within the administration made it happen. Scary. And not only that, a small cabal has encouraged a whole series of faulty decisions that the American public and the world are now burdened with: warrentless wiretaps on American citizens, torture of prisoners, or remanding of prisoners to countries already used to torturing its own citizens, renunciation of the Kyoto treaty, tax cuts for the super-rich – not to mention the assignment of incompetent cronies to important positions of responsibility. Etc.

Anthropologists helping the military in Afghanistan?

It is interesting how many people have written me notes about the news that anthropologists are working with the military in their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. All of them are asking whether this is a good idea.

Because I care about the Afghans I am pleased to think that perhaps there is some interest in trying to relate to the Afghan people as people – at least that's better than beating a house door down first and asking questions later. Of course none of us wants anthropology to be tainted by its connection with government activities. We anthropologists see ourselves as serious scholars wanting to know the truth as we can best discover it, whereas governments always have an interest in what is to be “known” by the public. Not only governments, of course; everyone involved in a situation has an interest, of course. The anthropologist’s task is to discover not only what falks are saying – what their rhetoric is -- but also what their respective interests are and their interests relate to their public pretensions. That means we have to be good listeners and good interpreters of what we hear and see, not just stenographers.

American anthropologists are more sensitive about how they relate to government than anthropologists in some countries [like France, it seems to me, for instance], and that goes back to Boas's quarrel with anthropologists during WWI over the use of anthropologists as spies, and in the Vietnam war, in which anthropologists seemed to have been used to collect information about the “enemy” [again, as intelligence agents]. I am hoping that in the Afghanistan case, at least, the services of anthropologists to the military are useful and uncorrupted by the connection. For them to help the army become more aware of the sensibilities and problems of the local populations would seem to be a great service -- anyway, if anthropologists have anything to contribute to the world this has to be it. So far, what I have read about anthropologists in Afghanistan sounds like they have actually helped the military deal usefully with the problems of the folks on the ground. So, good for them.

Of course, the truth eludes us – all of us, including anthropologists. We get lied to, told stories for reasons of effect, given claims that are entirely self interested, etc., etc. – so anthropologists, for all their claims, have problems of their own. So their utility is only as good as their ability to discern information. Lets hope these guys are good.

I do think the "anthropologists" involved [whatever their background is matters a lot: how good their grasp is of the language, how well informed they are on local customs, etc.] may be taking a risk, because it is easy for all of us to take self-righteous stands that provide no real help to anyone. The AAA has done so many times, sometimes foolishly, in my opinion.

For now, I think we should withhold judgment; at least give this policy a chance. It would be great if in fact anthropologists could help the military resolve some of the problems on the ground. If there is to be a winning of “hearts and minds” this could help. Anyway, it is a better approach than bombing households about which we know almost nothing and taking offensive action whenever in doubt. RLC

White House leaked classified info to FOX News, tipped off al Qaeda to secret surveillance, destroyed year-long spy effort

If, as Joe Sudbay says on Americablog, the White House leaked classified info to FOX News, tipping off al Qaeda to secret surveillance and destroying a year-long spy effort, then as he says someone should go to jail. It is hard to believe that things could consistently go bad in this administration. But there is another part of the situation that worries me: Many folks in our country are indifferent to the blunders of this administration; I think many of them cannot believe that the situation could be as bad as it seems. They want to believe the best in people and the best in this administration. The consequences of such a cascade of errors could be devastating when the day of reckoning comes.
RLC

Pakistan's Thug

Alvaro Vargas Llosa has said about "President" Musharraf what one might surmise about any dictator: that he is loath to relinquish power. Here is a person the American government considers strategic to their interest who as it happens holds power by usurpation and seems now willing to relinquish some power merely because he must. If he is to hold on for now, he must make concessions, or at least seem to do so, given the demonstrations by thousands of lawyers against him in the streets, some of the demonstrations having gone on for more than a month, and given the evident reluctance of the Supreme Court to legitimate his persisting attempts to rule. I know we must all hope, and undoubtedly changes of importance are taking place for the time being. But will they actually constitute a turning point in Pakistani affairs? Will the new changes lead to stability? And how will the Islamist groups figure in the future of the country? Tune in. . . . RLC

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa

The Independent Institute

"The idea behind Musharraf's support was that his authoritarian army would crush religious terrorist groups. Instead, the influence of fanatics in Pakistan's political and military institutions has grown under his watch."

"The general is now making a mockery of any notion of the rule of law in order to remain president and head of the armed forces. By stepping over institutions such as the Pakistani Supreme Court, he has unleashed precisely what his macho rule was supposed to prevent?chaos and civil strife."

"Military rulers cannot govern without making some sort of alliance with key civilian groups. Musharraf,whose party basically is a spinoff from the Pakistan Muslim League, has allied himself with Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of Muslim political organizations with close ties to fundamentalists. Furthermore, the organization that he has placed in a position of absolute power, the army,is disproportionately made up of Pashtuns, an ethnic group that is dominant in the tribal areas in which al-Qaeda is active."

"By heavily repressing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League, the current government rid itself of the few available means that Pakistan had of diluting fundamentalism in Pakistan's society."

"For the umpteenth time in history, a military ruler who promised to bring order has generated worse disorders than those he set out to correct."

"Leaders in Washington, London and other Western nations have now belatedly realized that dictatorship was not the solution to the problems that had been incubated during Pakistan's democratic period. They should have known better."

Pakistani Taliban besieged, but confident

This report by Suzanna Koster on the Taliban reveals the continued confidence and zeal of the movement: her informant tells her "everybody is on the road to get training in suicide attacks . . ." The culture -- the conventional practices produced by those organizing the Taliban -- have made suicide seem natural to the foot soldiers, the right thing to do by upright people. One wonders if any of them ever has any doubts. Despite the popular images of culture it is pliable, always changing, always manipulable (although not always successfully). We can see it elsewhere.
In our own society, how many doubts do folks have about practices that seem to becoming conventional here, the practice of "remanding" prisoners to countries that torture, indeed the practice of torturing our prisoners even within our borders? American culture is changing before our eyes and scarcely anyone notices.
Click on the title for a link to the whole article.


By Suzanna Koster

Christian Science Monitor

"The 26-year-old Pakistani pro-Taliban militant Majnoon used to openly vice patrol in his hometown ... But since a peace agreement in his area ended two months ago, the Pakistani Army is after him, and he says he can no longer go after those who violate Islamic social norms. But he still wants to continue his struggle for an Islamic state in Afghanistan.'Now the training camps over here are shunned, and everybody is on the road to get training in suicide attacks and other tactics inside Afghanistan,' says Majnoon"

"the NATO and US forces in Afghanistan now face more threats from Pakistani pro-Taliban militants than before a controversial peace agreement was broken."

"Pro-Taliban militants and the Pakistani government signed a heavily criticized peace agreement in February 2005 and September 2006. The Pakistani Army agreed to reduce its presence in tribal areas if the militants would stop attacking the Pakistani Army and forces in Afghanistan.But many analysts and observers said that the peace agreement provided free cross-border movement for Taliban fighters, thereby increasing violence and instability."

"Last July, the agreement came to an end following a standoff between the Pakistani military and militants in Islamabad's Lal (Red) Mosque."

"Indeed, a new United Nations report shows an upsurge in violence"

" It ... said that 100,000 troops and 1,000 military posts were put along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.But militants maintain that crossing the border is easy"

Russia’s year round seaport

For more than a century the western powers, mainly the British in the nineteenth century and the Americans in the twentieth, have taken comfort that Russia (and the Soviet Union) had no year-round seaport, a limitation that some geopolitical experts took to be reason for a Russian urge to the sea – one reason for Jimmy Carter’s worry about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

But the situation seems to be changing. If, as they say, the warming of the earth will dissipate the Arctic ice-cap, then Russia will at last have its year-round port on the open sea, maybe several -- through the Arctic Sea, of course, where many ports could be developed if the Sea warms up. (However, it can be argued that, even then, the Arctic Sea is itself enclosed, with few outlets.)

This emerging opportunity comes along with Russia’s strategic position, for it lies between the great population centers of the east (China) and west (Europe), both starving for fossil fuels, of which Russia and its Central Asian neighbors are abundantly supplied. Strategic location in Eurasia, better access to the sea -- Russia seems likely to have an even more dominant position in the world later in this century. The world’s geostrategic configuration may look very different a few decades from now.
RLC

Iran Draws Up Plans to Bomb Israel

Mark Weiss of the Jerusalem Post is predicting that war between Israel and Iran is imminent. He says he has been predicting this for a long while. His latest prediction appears to be a response to an article by AP reporter, Ali Akbar Dareini, in Tehran. The most significant part of Weiss's article, I think, is his prediction that the war between Israel and Iran will draw in Pakistan. He does not elaborate on the reasons for that and how it would work, but he states what seems ever more evident, that Pakistan enshrines many dangerous contradictions. One wonders if a single spark could create a devastating conflagration, devastating to the Pakistani people, yes, but also to the rest of the world, for this country has the bomb.

The main elements of Dareini’s article are summarized by Tom below, followed by Weiss’s comments. [Click on the title for a link to Dareini's whole article ]

RLC

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

Associated Press

"The deputy commander of Iran's air force said Wednesday that plans have been drawn up to bomb Israel if the Jewish state attacks Iran"

"The announcement came amid rising tensions in the region, with the United States calling for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program and Israeli planes having recently overflown, and perhaps even attacked, Iranian ally Syria."

"Iran has said in the past that Israel would be Iran's first retaliatory target if attacked by the United States"

"Many in the region fear Israel could launch airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon."

"A top Revolutionary Guards commander said this week that Americans could be found all around Iran and that they were legitimate Iranian targets if the U.S. takes military action."

Email from Mark Weiss:

In the last four years, I have twice argued that a confrontation with Tehran is imminent. This is because the United States will not tolerate any person or entity to have any say over the supply of oil. Because the Middle East supplies the rest of the world, any disruption in the supply of oil affects the United States economy.

Although the Iraq invasion is not won militarily, the United States gained a valuable base in the heart of the Middle East. This was the most significant act of the Bush-Rumsfeld presidency. To prevent the negative repercussions from an imminent pull back from Iraq, the United States will not allow Tehran to gain any foothold in Iraq or its surrounding.

However, what policy makers do not understand is that a decisive response to an attack on Tehran will come from reneged Pakistani military officers. Pakistan is on the verge of disintegration. Regardless of the Bhutto-General alliance and return to pseudo democracy, the crux of the Pakistani society and military remain fiercely anti-American. To state that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under safe and secure control of the American trained and loyal Generals is to argue that death only comes at an old age. Yes it does, but young people die too.

The Pakistani people have taken refuge in the arms of fatalistic religious groups who have perverted the teachings of the Prophet. This refuge is fueled by the growing resentment that the Pakistani people feel due to lack of any social mobility. For the first time in its young history, the very religion that the nation was founded on is being used in a vicious struggle to challenge the power and prestige of the Generals who dominate the country.

The religious groups have run enough roots in the Pakistani society and will not be forced to change course because of pseudo democracy. For too long they have sat on the sidelines and allowed the Generals to use them as bulldogs.

Thus, a confrontation of decisive nature is imminent on both sides of Afghan border. Afghanistan will suffer enormously if such a bleak scenario happens. The Afghan leaders must prepare for a prolonged disruption of channels of commerce both in the east and west side of the country.

M. R. Weiss

New military leaders question Iraq mission

McClatchy papers are reporting that the new military leaders in the Pentagon are questioning the way the extant "mission" in Iraq is conceived. These are the guys who have replaced General Pace and the others who went along with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. (We still wonder if those generals had been intimidated by the way General Shinseki was treated when he challenged Rumsfeld's plans.) Anyway, this is good news, although little remarked so far. RLC

Click on the title to link to the whole article.

By Nancy A. Youssef and Renee Schoof

McClatchy Newspapers

"Four and a half years after the nation's top military leaders saluted and fell in behind President Bush's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, their replacements are beginning to question the mission and sound alarms about the toll the war is taking on the Army and the Marine Corps."

"The change at the Pentagon is striking but little-noticed, in part because Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a longtime veteran of the CIA, is quiet where his predecessor Donald H. Rumsfeld was not."

"top officials ... are concerned that the war may be crippling the military's ability to respond to other crises"

"Although Democrats in Congress have been powerless to halt or even slow the war, six developments have combined to produce growing resistance"

"1. The Democratic takeover of the Senate and the House of Representatives last January.
2. Bush's choice of Gates to replace Rumsfeld, one of the main architects of the war. Gates was a member of the independent bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which called for the United States to reach out to Syria and Iran and 'strongly urged' a drawdown in Iraq.
3. A shift, completed this week, in the military's top uniformed leadership from administration loyalists to officers who are more concerned about the growing strains on the military.
4. Mounting evidence, in a variety of official reports in recent weeks, that Iraqi forces won't be prepared to take over from American troops in significant numbers until late next year at the earliest, and that Iraqis have made little progress toward political reconciliation.
5. Mounting evidence, most recently in a United Nations report, that the war against al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan is faltering, in part because Iraq is tying down so many U.S. troops.
6. Bush's low approval ratings and popular discontent with the Iraq war, which have prompted some legislators to reconsider their support for the president's policy as next year's elections approach."

"the change in outlook among many senior officials is unmistakable."

Tehran a paradox of rich and poor

It is true enough, as one of the speakers in this article, that Americans don’t understand Iranians, but what strikes me is how the old dichotomy between north Tehran and south Tehran is still so evident. Evidently the rich have not faired badly under the current clergy-managed regime. It was that difference that Khomeini and his followers exploited in the revolution against the Shah in 1978-1979. It is hard to conceive such a revolution – or rebellion – as that was could take place today. All the more reason to wonder what the Bush administration thinks it is doing if it actually does attack strategic sites in Iran, as some Neocons are recommending.
RLC
[Click on the title above for the whole article.]

Associated Press
"TEHRAN, Iran - The shops are full of Western pop music and movies — the latest Harry Potter film, even "The Simpsons." Young women stroll the streets in skinny jeans and short coats, their heads barely covered, arm-in-arm with boys in muscle shirts and spiky hair."
"This is affluent north Tehran, where clerics are rare, lifestyles are relatively liberal and Iran's growing isolation from the world is a source of deep anxiety."
"Not far to the south, though, in a dilapidated bureaucratic building near the city's government center, and farther to the south in Tehran's sprawling poorer neighborhoods, things are different."
"It is the paradox of Tehran today — a city and people surprisingly cosmopolitan and far different from Western stereotypes, paired with an ultraconservative government working to consolidate its power and at sharp odds with the West."
"Yet, whether modern or strictly traditional, many Iranians share one thing: A strong national pride and desire for respect from the outside world, sharpened by their sense of being under siege"
"The bulk of protests and street fighting surrounding the revolution occurred in the city's center, especially around Tehran University and the long boulevard now called Vali Asr, but supporters of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini recruited many of their 'foot soldiers' from Tehran's southern neighborhoods. And Khomeini, on his return to the country from exile, based his headquarters there."
"the northern neighborhoods have remained something of a haven for the more liberal and well-off _ with modern freeways, new and often graceful high-rise apartment buildings and green parks."
"Only miles to the south, however, many women still wear the long, enveloping black chador as they go out to shop or take children to school"
"And hard-line figures like Hossein Shariatmadari, close to Khamenei, cast Iran's differences with the United States as an unending ideological struggle between their Islamic theocracy and a plundering, arrogant America."
" 'We simply want to control our own resources, run our own affairs,' he said. 'The mistake that the U.S. administration makes is to threaten Iran ... They don't understand the Iranian nation'."

Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran

Seymour M. Hersh’s article in the latest New Yorker [Oct 8, 2007],“Shifting Targets, The Administration’s Plan for Iran,” adds to our confusion, puzzlement, and anxiety about this administration. When friends have expressed worry that the administration will concoct a war with Iran, as they did with Iraq, I have confidently assured them that the government could not be that stupid. Anyone would know, on many grounds, that that makes no sense. But if Hersh is right, we do in fact have reason to wonder if, to the multiple blunders for which this administration will be infamous, they might just add another, or rather, some more. God save us.


Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran
by Seymour M. Hersh

"In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran."
"the White House ... requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran ... The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack ... Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps"
"The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq." "The difficulty of determining who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq can be seen in Basra ... Over the course of this year ... the region became increasingly ungovernable, and by fall the British had retreated to fixed bases. A European official who has access to current intelligence told me that 'there is a firm belief inside the ... intelligence community that Iran is supporting many of the groups in southern Iraq that are responsible for the deaths of British and American soldiers.' "
"A June, 2007, report by the International Crisis Group found, however, that Basra’s renewed instability was mainly the result of 'the systematic abuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism...' ”
[regarding the possibility of an attack on Iran, a former intelligence official said] “Do you think those crazies in Tehran are going to say, ‘Uncle Sam is here! We’d better stand down’? ... The reality is an attack will make things ten times warmer.”

Right wing advocacy group proves that Washington can be bought

If power corrupts, what does huge amounts of money do? We can see in the case of Russia what happens when individuals in power positions establish close ties with the super-rich -- some of whom are rich through ignoble deals. The "mafia" are established and operating rather freely in many parts of the old Soviet Union, beneficiaries of government attempts to sell off state assets. Most of the beneficiaries are former bosses in the Soviet system whose connections gave them special access at the critical time when properties were being sold off. Now, in Russia the new wealthy turn out to be, in many cases, the same folks people who had strategic positions in the Soviet Union.

What worries me about the way wealth is being deployed in the United States lately is that large amounts of money have been deployed to finance misrepresentations of truth: the "Swift Boat Boys" are now infamous for their unverified claims that were plausible enough to sway an election. The news (article below) that one more well-funded political "Swift Boat"-supporting organization has been founded gives reason worry.

The Pakistanis call what they are about to do a "democratic process" and we in the US call what we do a democratic process, even if in these instances it turns out that lies are being promoted in order to subvert the spirit of the democratic process. When lies are promoted to shape the course of affairs by misleading the public true democracy is compromised.

I pray that the truth will not be compromised in the forthcoming elections. The American people and the world have already been exploited and misled enough by big money interests. Could our system be as fully subverted as that in Russia? Some of us have felt helpless for years as our country has been run into cataclysm. Is that how those in Russia feel who long for a just society?
RLC


Big Coffers and a Rising Voice Lift a New Conservative Group
By Don Van Natta Jr.
The New York Times

"Freedom’s Watch, a deep-pocketed conservative group led by two former senior White House officials, made an audacious debut in late August when it began a $15 million advertising campaign designed to maintain Congressional support for President Bush’s troop increase in Iraq."
"Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives, the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense wealth of its core group of benefactors, its intention to far outspend its rivals and its ambition to pursue a wide-ranging agenda. Its next target: Iran policy."
"Next month, Freedom’s Watch will sponsor a private forum of 20 experts on radical Islam that is expected to make the case that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States, according to several benefactors of the group."
"One benefactor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group was hoping to raise as much as $200 million by November 2008. Raising big money 'will be easy,' the benefactor said, adding that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million."
"Mr. Blakeman and Mr. Fleischer said they intended to turn Freedom’s Watch into a permanent fixture among Washington advocacy groups, waging a 'never-ending campaign' on an array of foreign policy and domestic issues."
"Several of the group’s spots suggested that Iraq, rather than Al Qaeda, was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, even though the independent Sept. 11 commission investigation and other inquiries found no evidence of Iraq’s involvement. But in August, when the organization rolled out the advertisement with Sergeant Kriesel to two focus groups in Pennsylvania, its upbeat, patriotic message was well received, even causing a few viewers to weep, Mr. Blakeman said."
"The campaign was seen as a way to head off any momentum in Congress toward halting the financing for the Iraq war. The group’s advertisements, placed in nearly 60 Congressional districts in 23 states, targeted wavering moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats."

What to do about Iraq now? I wonder

A friend has asked me to comment on a statement by Seymour Hersh who has said “We've basically Balkanized” Iraq, “building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites.” (Interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE).

My response: I am deeply troubled over what the Bush administration has done, but as you say, we are now at a point where enough has been said about the blunders of the past. And of course none of us has clever solutions. The one thing I do think is that the American supposition that ethnic distinctions should be the basis of political recognition in the new government has made the extant distinctions in Iraq more politically viable and the differences more inflammatory than necessary. Consider what it would do to this country if representatives of the American public were chosen by the religious communities: Catholic, Protestant (several kinds?), Muslims, Jews, etc. The way the American government encouraged identities to be represented in Iraq has made the religious divisions among them, which were already serious problems for administration, even more politically electric. Dangerous business, I think. It would be nice if they could back away from that, for it will continue to provide a rich moral vocabulary for representing vested interests, even ignoble interests.

Progress Report: Worse Than Abu Ghraib

The reports on the Blackwater affair in Iraq underline the risks of hiring mercenaries to fight our wars. Mercenaries have little interest in the policy concerns that drive conflicts and so no interest whatever in the moral entailments of their behavior in conflict. They are hired guns whose first interest is to shoot first, whatever the issue, so as to survive. Self-interest pervades the whole relationship: to make a lot of money, to protect themselves so they can live well later. There is no interest in the long-term consequences of what they do so long as they can get out with the loot. The moral entailments on a proper military [to represent the long term interests of their government in what they do] are flagrantly abandoned. Again, our government -- our country -- will pay a huge price for a policy that was supposed to save money.

RLC

"A shooting at a busy Baghdad intersection nearly two weeks ago that killed 11 Iraqis and wounded 12 has focused much-overdue attention on the role of American private security contractors operating in Iraq. A comprehensive investigation by the Iraqi Interior Ministry concluded that the contractors hired by Blackwater USA fired 'an unprovoked barrage' on the Iraqis, 'while the company says its employees, who were working for the State Department, were responding to an attack on an American diplomatic convoy.' "

" Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently dispatched a five-person fact-finding team to Iraq that concluded 'military commanders there were unclear about their legal authority' over contractors."

"Yet, while the Pentagon is cracking down, the State Department -- under whose authority Blackwater currently operates -- has not taken similar action, opting to side with Blackwater's version of the story while merely hoping the rising tensions will resolve themselves."

"Blackwater, a North Carolina-based company, has 'gained a reputation among Iraqis and even among American military personnel serving in Iraq as a company that flaunts an aggressive, quick-draw image that leads its security personnel to take excessively violent actions to protect the people they are paid to guard.' "

"The shootings of 11 Iraqis have prompted the Iraqi government to aggressively assert its sovereignty. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has 'referred its investigation of the Sept. 16 incident to a magistrate for possible criminal charges.' Moreover, Iraqi officials announced on Tuesday that they were drafting a new law to control private security contractors, which would make them 'subject to Iraqi law' and 'monitored by the Iraqi government.' "

"Blackwater 'enjoys an unusually close relationship with the Bush administration.' It has received 'government contracts worth more than $1 billion since 2002.' And now, it is being protected by the State Department, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA). The department has ordered Blackwater not to provide Congress with documents that might shed light on its operations."

Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented

U.S. Effort More Extensive Than Previously Known

By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post

"The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials."

"The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country."

"But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged."

"Edward Hasbrouck, a civil liberties activist who was a travel agent for more than 15 years, said that his file contained coding that reflected his plan to fly with another individual. In fact, Hasbrouck wound up not flying with that person, but the record, which can be linked to the other passenger's name, remained in the system. 'The Automated Targeting System,' Hasbrouck alleged, 'is the largest system of government dossiers of individual Americans' personal activities that the government has ever created.' He said that travel records are among the most potentially invasive of records because they can suggest links: They show who a traveler sat next to, where they stayed, when they left. 'It's that lifetime log of everywhere you go that can be correlated with other people's movements that's most dangerous,' he said. 'If you sat next to someone once, that's a coincidence. If you sat next to them twice, that's a relationship.' "

" 'But DHS Trip does not allow a traveler to challenge an agency decision in court, said David Sobel, senior counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued the DHS over information concerning the policy underlying the ATS. Because the system is exempted from certain Privacy Act requirements, including the right to 'contest the content of the record,' a traveler has no ability to correct erroneous information, Sobel said."

" 'Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about 'politically charged' opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, 'they had them printed out on the table in front of me.' "

A new site examining Torture

We have recently added a link to "The Interrogation Diaries" from this site. The author is addressing a significant and worrisome issue in our country, the apparent practice of torture of our prisoners. She asks how much the academy has been involved in this practice and so far, thankfully, has not found much evidence that anthropologists have been involved.

Anthropologists however have been involved in some heinous practices, notably in Nazi Germany. Gretchen Schafft [Anthropology Newsletter Jan, 1999, and elsewhere] has written about what anthropologist were doing under the Third Reich. They developed a "racial science" on the basis of which they were sorting individuals into types: "racially pure", "racially acceptable," "racially unacceptable," and "life unworthy of life." On the basis of these categories the government determined the lives and destinies of individuals.

The original context of this tradition was the eugenics movement, which supposed that racial stock was the basis of social progress. In fact, the Rockefeller Foundation had been funding the study of "German race" in the 1930s. In 1934 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, with Rockefeller money, was giving a year long course to SS doctors on "racial biology".

The author of "The Interrogation Diaries" supposes that anthropologists can say something to the practice of torture in our time. I would hope so. But whatever the discipline has to say, I think we as individuals, as human beings, need to be ready to renounce the pretentious of scholars who claim to have reasonable grounds for torture. Torture is a moral issue, and without regard to the pretentions of science, it should be renounced and condemned.

It is a shame and embarrassment that an administration that claims to have a commitment to religious ideals would ever hold an ambiguous position on torture.

Some clarity on the structures of power in Iran

Michael Slackman, in the NYTimes [“U.S. Focus on Ahmadinejad Puzzles Iranians”] points out that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has less control of affairs in Iran than Americans think he has. The focus on Ahmadinejad, as with Mohammad Khattami, conceals the real structures of power in the system. Ayatollah Khamenei is in fact the "real power" in this system, but even he has to be responsive to another "real force" in the system, the powerful wealthy elite that is benefiting from the present system. It turns out that money, as elsewhere, has a grip on a state that claims to be essentially driven by ideological concerns. Here are some choice quotes from Slackman.

. . . Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up. … in Iran, what matters is ideology — Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular revolt, Iran’s supreme leader also holds title of guardian of the revolution. . . . Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders, to move beyond Iran’s revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible. There are plenty of conservatives and hard-liners who take a more pragmatic view, wanting to retain “revolutionary values” while integrating Iran with the world, at least economically. But they are not driving the agenda these days, and while that could change, it will not be the president who makes that call. … “Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States,” the Iranian political scientist said. “It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure.” … while ideology defines the state, the revolution has allowed a particular class to grow wealthy and powerful. … His talk of economic justice and a redistribution of wealth, for example, ran into a wall of existing vested interests, including powerful clergy members and military leaders. . . . In the long run, political analysts here say, a desire to preserve those vested interests will drive Iran’s agenda. That means that the allegiance of the political elite is to the system, not a particular president. If this president were ever perceived as outlasting his usefulness, he would probably take his place in history beside other presidents who failed to change the orientation of the system. . . . . Iranians will go to the polls in less than two years to select a president. There are so many pressures on the electoral system here, few people expect an honest race. The Guardian Council, for example, controlled by hard-liners, must approve all candidates. . . . “The situation will get worse and worse,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economist and former government official. “We are moving to a point where no internal force can change things.”

Iraq attacks signal start of Ramadan offensive

We might expect that those who are planning suicide attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan would be anxious to do it during this month of Ramadan, so expect a "surge" on their side of attacks against the American and other Coalition forces. Despite the talk in Washington, the various groups that pose themselves against the Coalition powers could make this an even more bloody month.
RLC

By Kim Sengupta
The Independent (UK)

"Bombs, mortars and gunfire left dozens dead and injured in Iraq within hours of insurgents announcing a Ramadan offensive. The attacks, three of them in Baghdad, came just days after US General David Petraeus's report said violence had fallen and President George Bush declared 'ordinary life was returning to the country'."
"Iraqi police said nine were killed and 12 injured in shootings at Mansour, one of the busiest parts of Baghdad ... Those shootings followed a car bomb outside a store on a street crowded with shoppers, killing three and wounding seven. Soon after, a mortar landed at the Shaab stadium near the city centre, killing two men ... a booby-trapped bicycle exploded outside a café "

"The Sunni insurgent group, the Islamic State of Iraq, which is said to be linked to al-Qa'ida, had announced it would carry out 'offensive operations' during Ramadan"
"Meanwhile, the US military captured Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli, a suspect in the assassination of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a key US ally, in Anbar province last Thursday. The Islamic State of Iraq group threatened to hunt down any other tribal leaders co-operating with the US. It said it had formed "special security committees to trace and assassinate prominent [leaders] of agent tribes" who co-operated with the Americans."

Murder of two Christian workers in Pakistan

The murder of a Pakistani Christian minister and his wife in cold blood in Islamabad has dimensions that make one wonder if it has some kind of connection to the deal the Korean government made with the Taliban. The key fugitive has fled to Wana, it is said, the center of Taliban and AlQaeda support and possibly the base of those in the Taliban that negotiated for a bundle of money to release the prisoners. Perhaps I have been thinking like a Pakistani but like them I can't believe all is what it seems to be.

The other curious thing about these murders is that they seem to have garnered little interest in the press. Is it because these were missionaries? That the man was himself Pakistani? If they had been expatriates might they have gotten a little more notice?

Another version of Sleeping with the Devil?

In various postings on this site I have noted how conflicted Pakistani society is. And for that reason, given the access of the regime to nuclear power, it has been rightly called “the most dangerous country on earth.” As’ad AbuKhalil [Battle for Saudi Arabia: The Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power] regards Saudi Arabia as also conflicted and unstable despite its huge largess of riches. He describes Saudi society as “under attack”, but it turns out that the attacks it is under are coming from two directions, outside and inside. For one thing, an "attack" comes from folks in the West who question the loyalty of the Saudis, or at least some of them, because of their connections with those who fund Al Qaeda. The country is also “under attack” from within, because of the growing disparities among the Saudi populations, some of whom are being exploited and in some cases abused, and others of whom, the Wahhabis, are intensely opposed to the continuing drift of the Saudi families toward Western interests and Western practices (many of them, such as the use of alcohol, secretly). So the Saudi family has little legitimacy with the key local social element, the Wahhabis, with whom they must share power.

Despite the abuses of human rights by the Saudi regime and the evident support of some of them for Al Qaeda, the American government continues to support the regime, deliberately overlooking what is actually taking place. The Wahhabis of course are not overlooking the Saudi family's growing connections with Western interests.

AbuKhalil wonders how long this situation can continue. His message is similar, then, to Robert Baer’s Sleeping with the Devil. The close intermesh of interests among the wealthy of Saudi Arabia and the wealthy elites of the West have expanded the contradictions implicit in Saudi Arabia so as as to implicate the elites of the West, whose interests cannot be extracted from the interests of the Gulf. At the same time the Wahhabis within Saudi Arabia who continue to support Al Qaeda are linked into the same Saudi families who are being drawn toward cultural practices like those of the Western elites. The Saudi families thus constitute a nexus of relations connecting in both directions, creating an embarrassing relation between the elites of the West and the eminent authorities, motivators and funders of Al Qaeda.

The Saudis embody the contradictions of the Middle East and Central Asia. And because they have strong connections in Western society their particular contradictory relations bear upon all of us, bringing us all into the various "attacks" on Saudi Arabia, from multiple directions.

A Rich Saudi as a "Libel Tourist"

I append below, without comment, a report from last August 3 on Hotair.com. The statement speaks for itself; see also my brief note on the topic, "Risks of Litigation," IJMES, 2006 38:345-347. RLC

[AUGUST 3, 2007 (Los Angeles, CA) — Jeffrey A. Stern, President and Publisher of Los Angeles-based Bonus Books, Inc., is speaking out about this week’s decision by Cambridge University Press to destroy all unsold copies of their 2006 book, “Alms for Jihad,” by American authors Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, in response to a libel action brought against them in British courts by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim A. Bin Mahfouz. In just one of a series of heavy-handed libel suits against American and British journalists and publishers filed in British courts in recent years, Mahfouz claimed that “Alms for Jihad” wrongly implicates him as having had a significant role in aiding terrorism. // In a similar attempt to halt the distribution of such claims, libel tourist Bin Mahfouz also filed a libel action in British courts against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, after Bonus Books published her 2003 book “FUNDING EVIL: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.” Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, also alleged Bin Mahfouz of backing organizations with alleged ties to terrorism, a charge that Mahfouz, formerly president of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, continues to deny. But Ehrenfeld stands behind her research, and publisher Stern stands by his author.

“I find it utterly appalling that any publisher—let alone one with the history and perceived credibility of Cambridge University Press—would allow themselves to be bullied into making such a decision,” Stern said. “Clearly they must have supported the material before they agreed to a publishing deal with (U.S. authors) Collins and Burr. It’s only now, after being slapped with a suit in the U.K. by the likes of Bin Mahfouz, that they have suddenly decided to concede to demands to pull the book. What’s worse, they have not only agreed to pay damages but they have even gone so far as to issue a formal apology on their website, completely discrediting their authors as having made ‘defamatory allegations’ to which there was ‘no truth whatsoever.’”

“Alms for Jihad” authors Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and J. Millard Burr, a retired employee of the U.S. State Department, who were not personally named in the libel action, have refused to endorse their publisher’s settlement. // “What happened to freedom of the press?” Stern said. “We’re talking about two very credible American writers here. The very idea that these authors could be silenced in the U.S. by a British court is not only outrageous and fraught with frightening journalistic implications, it’s simply un-American.”

After several copies of the U.S.-released FUNDING EVIL happened to be purchased online by UK buyers, Bin Mahfouz filed suit against Ehrenfeld in Great Britain, where outdated libel laws still put the burden of proof on the defendant. Ehrenfeld was ordered to pay £114, 386.52 in fines and expenses, publish an apology and physically destroy her books. Because she is a U.S. citizen who writes and lives in New York City, Ehrenfeld did not acknowledge the British court. Instead, she filed suit in New York, seeking to block enforcement of the judgment, citing it as contrary to the free speech protections that Americans enjoy. In June, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor, finding that Ehrenfeld’s claim CAN be brought before a U.S. court. The decision was hailed by prominent U.S. civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate as one of “the most important First Amendment cases” of the last quarter century. As a result, every American-based writer and publisher in similar “libel tourism” situations can now seek a U.S. court decision, requesting that a foreign decision not be enforceable in this country. // In a recent Washington Times editorial about the Ehrenfeld case, scholar and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer noted the release of a September 13, 2001 note from France’s foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE (General Directorate of External Security). He stated that French news site Geopolitique.com obtained the note in late June, revealing that in 1996, Bin Mahfouz was known to be one of the architects of a banking scheme constructed for the benefit of Osama bin Laden. The report also claims that both U.S. and British intelligence services had knowledge of this. “This is just the latest addition to the mountain of evidence from which Miss Ehrenfeld constructed her case in ‘Funding Evil,’” Spencer writes. “Even if this evidence is all mistaken, the British libel judgment against Ehrenfeld appears all the more fantastic and unjustifiable in light of the fact that French intelligence agents had documents allowing them to come to the same conclusion she did.”

Ehrenfeld, who is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Committee on the Present Danger (www.fightingterror.org), told the Chronicle of Higher Education on Monday that she finds Cambridge University Press’ decision “despicable,” and that as she understands it, they “caved immediately.” If and when the New York Court of Appeals decides that there is jurisdiction over Bin Mahfouz, Ehrenfeld’s case would proceed on its merits—allowing Ehrenfeld to conduct pre-trial “discovery” of Bin Mahfouz’s financial activities to further confirm the accuracy of her claims against him.

“We commend Rachel Ehrenfeld for being strong-willed on this issue,” Stern said. “Allowing this sort of ‘libel tourism’ to continue stands to negatively impact every writer and publisher and the U.S.—not to mention the public, who is effectively being forced to fall victim to an insidious and unacceptable form of censorship.” http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/02/hot-air-audio-how-one-wealthy-jihad-supporter-is-using-uk-courts-to-killl-american-free-speech/

Is China quietly dumping US treasuries?

by Ambrose Evan-Pritchard

The Telegraph (UK)

"A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable."
"Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone."
"David Powell ... pointed the finger at Beijing as the main suspect in the sudden bond flight this summer."
"The scheme is part of the government's plan to diversify it $1,340bn reserves from bonds (mostly in the US) to a broader portfolio of investments and a better yield."
"If so, the switch comes at a very delicate time, just as tempers flair on both sides of the Pacific over China's policy of holding down yuan by currency intervention. A bill in Congress calls for punitive tariff sanctions of 27.5pc against Chinese imports, and there has been a growing outcry over contaminated pet food and lead-tainted toys."
"Two top advisers to the Chinese government gave strong hints in August that Beijing should use its estimated $900bn holdings of US Treasuries and agency bonds as a 'bargaining chip', words taken as an implicit threat to trigger as US bond crash if provoked."

Losing our economic future and civil liberties, are we on the verge of enserfment?

Paul Craig Roberts would seem to be qualified to comment on the state of the American economy: he was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. What he has to say, however, is very sobering.

American Economy: R.I.P.
by Paul Craig Roberts

"The US economy continues its slow death before our eyes"
"In August jobs in goods-producing industries declined by 64,000. The US economy lost 4,000 jobs overall. The private sector created a mere 24,000 jobs, all of which could be attributed to the 24,100 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders, and the government sector lost 28,000 jobs."
"In the 21st century the US economy has ceased to create jobs in export industries and in industries that compete with imports. US job growth has been confined to domestic services"
"The lack of job growth in higher productivity, higher paid occupations associated with the American middle and upper middle classes will eventually kill the US consumer market."
"The unemployment rate held steady, but that is because 340,000 Americans unable to find jobs dropped out of the labor force in August. The US measures unemployment only among the active work force, which includes those seeking jobs. Those who are discouraged and have given up are not counted as unemployed."
"When US companies offshore their production for US markets ... foreign labor is substituted for US labor, resulting in a shriveling of career opportunities ... US Gross Domestic Product is turned into imports ... Simultaneously, imports rise by the amount of offshored production, and the supply of exportable manufactured goods declines by the same amount."
"The US now has a trade deficit with every part of the world"
"What is striking about US dependency on imports is that it is practically across the board. Americans are dependent on imports of foreign foods, feeds, and beverages in the amount of $8,975,000,000."
" Americans are 3.4 times more dependent on imports of manufactured consumer durable and nondurable goods than they are on OPEC. Americans no longer can produce their own clothes, shoes, or household appliances"
"Americans are consuming $800 billion more than they are producing"
"They pay for it by giving up ownership of existing assets ... America used to be a creditor nation. Now America is a debtor nation ... When foreigners acquire ownership of US assets, they also acquire ownership of the future income streams that the assets produce. More income shifts away from Americans."
"The ability of a population, severely impacted by the loss of good jobs to foreigners as a result of offshoring and H-1B work visas and by the bursting of the housing bubble, to continue to accumulate more personal debt is limited to say the least."
" The ability of the US dollar to retain its reserve currency status is eroding due to the continuous increases in US budget and trade deficits."
"Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment"

Somber reflections on what is "real" versus what is claimed

In a world in which American policies have been a series of blunders, one upon another, when now one more General is telling us that we are doing well in Iraq – again “the enemy” is on its last throes -- on a day when we remember tragic events that awakened the world to a new and threatening situation, let us consider some simple statistics.

Here are some population figures on the key states in Central Asia, a region of strategic importance to not only Americans but also the rest of the world because of the vital resources there (oil, gas, and the other vital product of the region, heroin).

IRAN

Population:
68,688,433 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 24.8 years
male: 24.6 years
female: 25 years (2006 est.)

AFGHANISTAN

Population:
31,056,997 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 17.6 years
male: 17.6 years
female: 17.6 years (2006 est.)

PAKISTAN

Population:
165,803,560 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 19.8 years
male: 19.7 years
female: 20 years (2006 est.) PAKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

Population:
7,320,815 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 20 years
male: 19.7 years
female: 20.4 years (2006 est.)

UZBEKISTAN

Population:
27,307,134 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 22.7 years
male: 22 years
female: 23.3 years (2006 est.)

TURKMENISTAN

Population:
5,042,920 (July 2006 est.)

Median age:
total: 21.8 years
male: 20.9 years
female: 22.7 years (2006 est.)

So, roughly half the folks growing up in these countries are under the age of 21. They will grow up and form their understandings of the world in circumstances of repression (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan), civil war (Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan), internal tensions over governance (Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), rising claims of Islamism (all over). What kind of world will they have to deal with as adults?

These numbers tell a tale that I scarcely want to think about. On the one hand I worry about a bumbling, truth-distorting, evidently incompetent administration managing the one dominant power in the world, an administration that justifies what it is doing in the Middle East and Central Asia by aspiring to grand achievements that exceed any reasonable possibility. On the other hand, there is a world with properties that have their own inherent force, exerting constraints on the course of affairs that will have their effect no matter what we, any of us, are imagining. History tells us that when the imagination of nations strays too far from reality they face disaster.

And here is another statistic worthy of concern, not unrelated to the above: In Pakistan there are 200,000 graduates of degree granting institutions who cannot find work. And in the mean time, Islamist groups are providing “a salary, a mission and a purpose in life, the prospect in the long run of a better life and in death the joy of martyrdom” (H. Abbas 2005, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p106). A young man arrested for his involvement in bombing plots in Pakistan had this to say about himself: “I was doing nothing, walking around, playing cricket and football,” adding in reference to a senior cleric: “The maulavi sahib talked to me and showed me a cassette, so I got involved. They were talking on the cassettes and telling us to do this and that, telling me to kill Americans. … I heard from the clerics there that if you fight jihad, you would go to paradise,” he said. "There are cassettes there and they say: 'There is jihad against non-Muslims.' ” (NYTimes C. Gall Feb 15, 2006)

Today we are faced with promises made by officials in power; at the same time the world has properties that exist no matter what we try to tell ourselves. Granted, we don't exactly know what they are, and will never know all the forces at work on our society.

But I wonder, not only what could be in store for those young people growing up all across Central Asia: But what is in store for us?

The Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq

Andrew Tilghman of the Washington Monthly has reminded us that Al Qaeda's apparently huge reach across the world may be in part a creation of our imagination. Tilghman, at least, is reminding us, again [as some other writers have before], that Al Qaeda may not be as powerful as we have supposed. In fact, there are many lethal forces operative in the Middle East and in the absence of effective state control they have had plenty of room to operate.

"Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong."
"In March 2007, a pair of truck bombs tore through the Shiite marketplace in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing more than 150 people ... U.S. Army General David Petraeus publicly blamed [al-Qaeda in Iraq]"
"Yet there's reason to doubt that AQI had any role in the bombing. In the weeks before the attack, sectarian tensions had been simmering [after a report that a Sunni woman had been gang raped by Shiite Iraqi army soldiers] ... multiple insurgent groups called for violence"
"This scenario has become common. After a strike, the military rushes to point the finger at al-Qaeda".
"[A]l-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence ... may also be overstated."
"[I]nstability on the ground stems from multiple sources ... [such as] Shiite militants, often connected to, or even part of, the Iraqi government ... opportunistic criminal gangs ... homegrown Iraqi Sunni religious groups."
"Malcolm Nance ... a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq ... believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency."
"So how did the military come up with an estimate of 15 percent?"
"When the White House singles out al-Qaeda in Iraq for special attention, the bureaucracy responds by creating procedures that hunt down more evidence of the organization."
"With disproportionate resources dedicated to tracking AQI, the search has become a self-reinforcing loop."
"This is not to say that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't pose a real danger ... Today multiple Iraqi insurgent groups target U.S. forces, with the aim of driving out the occupation. But once our troops withdraw, most Sunni resistance fighters will have no impetus to launch strikes on American soil."

Click on the title for the whole article.

Apologies to Harpviken

I am embarrassed that in my list of recent works on the Hazaras I forgot to mention the work of Kristian Berg Harpviken, ["Political Mobilization among the Hazara of Afghanistan: 1978-1992," (Oslo:Institutt for Sosiologi, Universistetet i Oslo (M.A. Thesis, 1986)]. Harpviken's thesis has to be one of the most important reports on the Hazara experience during the period 1978 - 1986. I have corrected the earlier post with a proper citation to his work. My own article "New Trends among the Hazaras" was indebted to his fundamental contribution. And there is much more there than I referred to in my article.