Renditions row after CIA plane lands in UK

Dandelion Salad

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent
Telegraph
2:04am GMT 25/02/2008

A fresh row erupted over the use of British air bases by US authorities as it emerged a plane used by the CIA has landed at an RAF airstrip in the past week.

A Gulfstream IV jet, identified by Amnesty International as a plane linked to the US intelligence agency, landed at RAF Northolt in west London.

The jet, registration N134BR, which flew from Morristown, New Jersey, to Britain, landed on Wednesday and returned on Friday. It was also seen at Luton airport in January.

…continued

h/t: CLG

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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U.K. used for Extraordinary Rendition Flights! (vid) + CIA confirms rendition flights to Brits

A possible Guantanamo on UK soil + More probes into Diego Garcia ‘rendition’ (videos)

Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated by Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor

Western Involvment in the Rwandan genocide by Andrew G. Marshall

by Andrew G. Marshall
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Feb. 24, 2008

This report examines the Rwandan genocide in a geopolitical context including the roles of Western powers, multinational corporations and International Financial Institutions.

Setting Up Base in Central Africa

Political History

Uganda was for decades a colony of the British Empire until it achieved independence in 1962. At this time, “Uganda’s was one of the most promising economies in sub-Saharan Africa, with a sound agricultural base, developing industries, and a significant mining sector. Agriculture was an important foreign exchange earner through the export of coffee, cotton and tea while at the same time providing basic self-sufficiency in food. The manufacturing sector produced inputs for the agricultural sector and consumer goods, and was becoming a significant source of foreign exchange through the export of textiles.”[1]

In 1971, Idi Amin came to power in Uganda. Amin, widely considered a brutal dictator, lasted until 1979, when the Tanzanian army and the United National Liberation Front ousted him. In December 1980 Milton Obote assumed power for the second time. The economy was in a deep crisis and infrastructure was severely damaged from the war.[2]

IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustments

Obote looked to the International Financial Institutions to help reconstruct the economy This “led to the introduction of an economic reform package in mid-1981, a typical IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Program with considerable donor support. The centrepiece of the Program was a massive devaluation of the Ugandan shilling, from 7.80 to US$1, to 78.00.”[3] By 1984, the shilling was devalued to be worth USh (Ugandan Shilling) 270 for every US dollar.

Following these actions, Uganda again plunged into financial crisis. “Eighteen months after the collapse of the IMF program and the subsequent military coup, the National Resistance Army (NRA), which had been involved in a civil war, took over control of the Ugandan capital, and its political wing, the National Resistance Movement(NRM), established a government with a platform of national unity and broad-based economic reform.”[4]

Debt and Military Spending

Yoweri Museveni, head of the National Resistance Council (NRC), was sworn in as president on January 29, 1986. Museveni’s government “agreed on a new policy package with the IMF and the World Bank in early 1987, formalized in an Economic Recovery Program introduced in May 1987,”[5] and in October of 1987, Museveni met with US President Ronald Reagan and then Vice-President George HW Bush at the White House.[6]

Uganda’s economic ‘recovery’ program had the aim of giving the International Financial Institutions a strict hold on the country. The external debt spiraled overnight, increasing almost threefold to 3.7 billion by 1997.”[7] By 1997, Uganda’s debt to the World Bank was 2 billion dollars, as the loans to the country “had been tagged to support the country’s economic and social reconstruction.”[8]

With World Bank oversight, the money that was supposed to go toward programs promoting social and economic growth was diverted into funding the United People’s Defense Force (UPDF) that was involved in military operations in Rwanda and the Congo. Uganda became a proxy state for US covert actions in East Africa. The IMF and World Bank ensured adequate Ugandan military funding.

The Rwandan Genocide

Rwanda’s Colonial Past

The Rwandan genocide occurred in 1994, but rose out of events in the late 80s and early 90s relating directly to Rwanda’s economy. This event was triggered by the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana in 1994, who was President during the1990 to 1993 civil war.

Due largely to its colonial past Rwanda’s economy is highly dependent on coffee exports and widespread divisions exist among its people. Most notable is the division fostered between the Hutu and the Tutsis, which began in 1926[9] as part of a Belgian strategy to “fuel inter-ethnic rivalries as a means of achieving political control…”[10] The Belgians favoured the Tutsis over the Hutu.

In 1962 Belgium gave up Rwanda and the Tutsis lost their monopoly of power, giving rise to Hutu control. Many Tutsis were expelled from office.[11] “In 1973 Hutu military leader, Juvénal Habyarimana and a group of his followers, executed a successful coup. Habyarimana and the Hutu elite led Rwanda through almost two decades of economic prosperity.”[11]

Economic Problems and Structural Adjustments

In the late 1980s, economic problems arose for Rwanda’s monoculture coffee economy. This started in 1987, when “the system of quotas established under the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) started to fall apart and world prices plummeted.” Rwanda’s state controlled fund that promoted coffee price stabilization became massively indebted.[12]

Deliberations were undertaken between Habyarimana’s government and the IMF and World Bank. The World Bank sent a group to Rwanda in 1988 to “review Rwanda’s public expenditure program,” and they implemented a Structural Adjustment Program with many conditions.[13]

This coincided with the start of the Rwandan Civil War (1990-1993), which formed as the Hutu aristocracy became divided against each other,”[14] and at the same time, a “guerilla group comprised of a majority of Tutsi refuges trained in Ugandan camps, [the] Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), invaded Rwanda and attempted to reach the capital Kigali,” which had the result of weakening Habyarimana’s regime and led to the civil war.[15]

The Structural Adjustment Program was implemented in this politically unstable context and required a 50 percent devaluation of the Rwandan franc, carried out in November 1990. This was “barely six weeks after the incursion from Uganda of the rebel army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).” The economic shock exacerbated the civil war and resulted in massive inflation and significant increases in the price of fuel and food.[16]

Societal Collapse

“State enterprises were pushed into bankruptcy and public services collapsed,” including health and education.[17] In 1992, during the height of the civil war, the IMF ordered a second devaluation, which led to further price increases. In a single year coffee production tumbled by another 25 percent. Because so much land was dedicated to coffee there was not enough available to produce food.[18]

Widespread famines followed, which in turn led to the implementation of a World Bank and IMF Structural Adjustment Program requiring the liberalization of trade, economic deregulation, and cheap food imports and aid, which destabilized local markets.[19]

Under the Structural Adjustment Program Rwanda signed onto with the donor institutions, large loans were given to the Rwandan Central Bank for importing commodities. Many of the loans were “diverted by the regime (and its various political factions) towards the acquisition of military hardware (from South Africa, Egypt and Eastern Europe).”[20]

Western Military Backing

The years of the Rwandan Civil War and the genocide itself took place during a time when Madeline Albright was Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to the United Nations and Kofi Annan was the head of the UN’s peacekeeping operations. Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen alleged in his book, Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, & Big Oil, that Albright and Annan ignored evidence that the US backed Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was responsible for the April 6, 1994 terrorist missile attack on the aircraft carrying the Hutu president of Rwanda.[21]

Madsen explains that the initial RPF invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, “had the military backing of the first Bush administration [1989-1993], including Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney,” and that the aim of the RPF was to overthrow Rwanda’s Hutu president.[22] Madsen exposed how the RPF deputy leader, Paul Kagame was trained at US Army installations in the United States and when, during the 1990 invasion of Rwanda, the RPF’s leader was killed, “Kagame became the head of the guerrilla army, and his ties with the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department became closer.” Classified UN documents revealed that Annan and Albright were aware of this information.[23]

It came out in a French National Assembly inquiry that, “the U.S. even supplied the RPF with the Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles that were used to shoot down the Rwandan presidential aircraft,” and that a UN investigation team got a hold of information that, “a company linked to the CIA leased the warehouse used to assemble the missile launchers.”[24] However, the investigation was closed down once the relationship to the US was realized.

It was in 2004 when a French investigation was completed on the shooting down of the plane, and as Madsen explained, those who were close to the investigation had revealed a disturbing connection to what Madsen describes as a “shadowy organization” composed of powerful political and oil interests, commonly known as the “International Strategic and Tactical Organization.”[25]

Debt Repayment

Less than a year after the 1994 massacres Rwanda’s creditors approached the Tutsi-led RPF government regarding the debts of the former regime that had been used to finance the bloodshed. “The Tutsi-led RPF government, rather than demanding the cancellation of Rwanda’s odious debts, had welcomed the Bretton Woods institutions with open arms,” because, “They needed the IMF ‘greenlight’ to boost development of the military,” which is exactly where the new loans went.[26]

The genocide was successful in its intentions, as the French-supported Hutu Habyarimana government was replaced with a US-supported Tutsi Paul Kagame government, with the aid of US special forces and CIA. The situation should in fact be viewed as, “an undeclared war between France and America.”[27]

The aim was to “install an Anglo-American protectorate in Rwanda,” which, “enabled the US to establish a neocolonial foothold in Central Africa.” This was successfully achieved, as the language of the private and government sectors switched from French to English.[28]

Endnotes

[1] John K. Baffoe, Structural adjustment and agriculture in Uganda. International Labour Organization, March 2000: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/

[2-4] Ibid

[5] John K. Baffoe, op cit

[6] BNET, Elizabeth Bagaaya Nyabongo of Toro. UXL Newsmakers, 2005: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5221/is_2005/ai_n19136333/pg_4

[7] Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, 2nd ed. Global Research: 2003, page 112.

[8] Ibid, pages 112-113

[9] Ibid, page 104

[10] Ibid

[11-12] Moise Jean, The Rwandan Genocide: The True Motivations for Mass Killings. Emory Endeavors in World History Volume I: March 2007, page 6

[13] Michel Chossudovsky, op cit, page 103

[14] Ibid, page 107

[15-16] Moise Jean, op cit, page 7

[17-21] Michel Chossudovsky, op cit, page 107-109

[22-24] Wayne Madsen, Jaded Tasks – Brass Plates, Black Ops, & Big Oil: The Blood Politics of Bush & Co. TrineDay: 2006, page 2

[25] Ibid, page 3

[26] Ibid, page 6-7

[27] Michel Chossudovsky, op cit, pages 115-116

[28] Ibid, pages 118-120

Obama’s Populism versus McCain’s Free Trade by Walter C. Uhler

Dandelion Salad

by Walter C. Uhler
Posted 20 February 2008

In the wake of their recent presidential primary victories in Wisconsin, Barack Obama and John McCain appear destined to wage a fight for the office of President that not only will pit an advocate for “change” against a defender of many of George W. Bush’s discredited policies (especially his war in Iraq and his tax cuts for the rich), but also pit a young, vibrant (perhaps cocky) 46 year old black upstart against a hot-headed, expletive-spewing war hero and old white man (previously disgraced as one of the Keating Five and now, perhaps, once again by revelations of past romantic ties with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, for whom he wrote letters to government regulators) who will be 72 years old by the time he’s sworn into office. The election seems destined to become a choice between America’s future and America’s past.

With this contest in mind, it seems appropriate to contrast Senator Obama’s economic populism and Senator McCain’s steadfast defense of free trade in the context of a new book by David Cay Johnston, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill).

America’s highly productive work force has contributed greatly to the country’s immense national wealth. According to David Cay Johnston, “For each dollar per person in 1980, the economy in 2006 generated $1.68.” [p. 10] Yet, notwithstanding the wealth they’ve created, the average income of the bottom 90% of Americans actually has withered — from a peak amount of $33,001 in 1973 to a modest $29,143 in 2005 (after adjustments for inflation).

If you look at the bottom 50% of the population, the picture is even worse. In 1980 their average income was a pathetically low $15,464. Yet, by 2004 it had fallen to $14,149. Sure, their taxes were lower in 2004. But all that did was reduce the amount of income they were losing each week from $25 to $15. The question is: “Why should they be losing income when the country’s wealth has been growing by leaps and bounds?”

Mr. Johnston provides part of the answer: “Autoworkers have begun working under new contracts in 2007 that cut the wages by as much as $13 per hour. That is a pay cut of more than $26,000 annually. Compounding the pain are cuts in retirement benefits and health care. Together these throw workers who had reached the middle rungs of the income ladder back down into the lower half.” [p. 44]

Such givebacks are not an accident. They come in the wake of “tens of thousands” of jobs lost to “the rigged game the politicians, and their donors, call ‘free trade.'” [pp. 43-44]

Rigged game? Yes, in addition to the obvious inducement to relocate factories overseas — the immense difference in wages and benefits that might cost a factory in Indiana $40 per hour for labor, but only 25 cents in China [p. 46] — the U.S. Congress and U.S. Presidents, at the behest of corporate socialists and their lobbyists, have rigged the tax laws to subsidize the already lucrative business of shipping U.S. jobs abroad.

Mr. Johnston explains how it works in China. “After President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, American oil companies sought to explore there. Right off, they asked the Chinese to enact a corporate income tax.”

“With a Chinese corporate income tax,” argues Johnston, “the taxes they [U.S. corporations] owed to the United States would go down for two reasons.” First, “American business profits earned overseas are not taxed so long as the money stays offshore.” Second, “the United States allows American companies to reduce taxes on their profits by the amount they pay to foreign governments. This is not the usual deduction worth 35 cents on the dollar, but a dollar-for-dollar credit.” [p. 40]

(Note: It was Andrew Mellon, in his capacity as Treasury Secretary during the 1920’s, who “persuaded Congress to adjust the corporate income tax to give oil companies – and any other companies earning profits overseas – the dollar-for-dollar credit against taxes due to Washington.” [p. 41])

Moreover, “the corporate income taxes paid in China are not like those in the United States. Instead of going for the general support of the government, money paid to Beijing is often used to benefit the company that pays. Taxes may finance a new road or a railroad spur or police presence and other services the company requires.”

“But wait, there’s more.”

“A company with operations in the United States and another country can borrow money at home, deducting the interest and thus lowering its American taxes. At the same time it can earn interest on untaxed cash it keeps overseas. So when an American company closes a factory here and moves it to China, provided it meets some technical rules, it can deduct the interest charges on its United States tax return while building up profits offshore that may never be taxed.” [pp. 41-42]

Thus, Mr. Johnston’s sobering conclusion: “Under current government rules, destroying American jobs and creating jobs overseas is the single most effective way for manufacturing companies to increase profits. From the point of view of shareholders and executives, any policy other than moving equipment and jobs offshore as fast as possible is a waste of corporate assets.” [p. 47]

As to the common assertion by free trade advocates that it brings new investment to the United States, Mr. Johnston notes that such investment is not helping to create jobs here. “The net effect of insourcing by foreign-owned companies [between 1990 and 2003] was the elimination of 3.4 million American jobs. While insourcing creates some jobs, the constant pressure to move even those jobs offshore is the inevitable result of how our current government rules encourage this labor arbitrage.” [p. 47]

Speaking in Houston on February 19, 2008, Senator Obama declared: — “I want to take away those tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. We’re going to give them to companies that invest right here in America.” Senator McCain did not address the issue during his February 19 victory speech, but he’s on record for asserting: “It sounds like a lot of fun to bash China and others, but free trade has been the engine of our economy. Free trade should be the continuing principle that guides this nation’s economy.” [2007 Republican debate in Dearborn, Michigan Oct 9, 2007]

Free trade might very well be “the engine of our economy,” but that engine hasn’t done much to drive the average annual income of the bottom 90% of American workers. On the other hand, it has proven to be enormously lucrative for the financiers and factory owners who arrange the overseas deals.

As David Cay Johnston sees it, the tax laws subsidizing the free trade that impoverishes American workers or causes them to lose their jobs is just one aspect of the corporate socialism that has taken hold of America since the election of Ronald Reagan. Under the guise of fostering the so-called invisible hand of the market economy through deregulation and privatization, taxes paid by the bottom 90% on the income ladder have been lavished upon the corporate elite as subsidies.

According to Johnston, “Sam Walton practiced corporate socialism. As much as he could, he put the public’s money to work for his benefit. Free land, long-term leases at below-market rates, pocketing sales taxes, even getting workers trained at government expense were among the ways Wal-Mart took every dollar of welfare it could get. Walton had a particular fondness for government-sponsored industrial revenue bonds, which cost him less in interest charges than the corporate bonds the market economy uses to raise money.” [pp. 99-100]

Mayor Rudy Giuliani gave “an unannounced gift of $25 million in public funds” to both the New York Yankees and the New York Mets during his last days in office. That is, he “let each team hold back $5 million a year on their rent for Yankee and Shea stadiums, which the city [taxpayers] owns, and use the money to plan new stadiums.”

“The Yankees used some of this money to hire lobbyists to arrange a further taxpayer subsidy for their new stadium.” According to the Independent Budget Office for the city, the taxpayers’ subsidy to the Yankees amounted to $275.8 million. When Johnston confronted Yankees President (and former Giuliani aide) Randy Levine about the morality of taking money from taxpayers who have far less money than George Steinbrenner, Levine not only conceded “that taxes are taken by threat of force,” but also that “gifts from taxpayers to those who invest in big projects ‘are the way government works today.'” [p. 72]

According to Johnston, when the Supreme Court refused to even hear the case of citizens from Toledo, Ohio — who had their businesses and homes seized by the city, in order to give Chrysler the land it needed to rebuild its Jeep plant — it “sent a clear signal that the policy of the United States is that the government can take from the many to give to the few – and those who object will not have their grievances heard by the courts” [p. 93] In the face of such legally sanctioned corporate socialism, the most effective response would be a widespread taxpayer revolt.

Finally, as if to guarantee that it’s the taxes of the bottom 90% that are used to subsidize their wealth-creating enterprises of the corporate socialists, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress pushed through tax cuts that not only gave 53% of the savings to the top ten percent of income earners in the United States, but also 15% of the tax savings to the 300,000 people who constitute the top tenth of one percent on the income ladder. In 2005, their average annual income was $25,726,965.

On February 19th, Barack Obama asserted that “we’re going to rollback those Bush tax cuts that went to all the wealthy people, and we’re going to give tax cuts to ordinary families, people who are making less than $75,000. We will offset your payroll tax.” Like Obama, Senator McCain once opposed Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. But, he’s flip-flopped during his run for President and now will uphold them if elected.

Consequently, if David Cay Johnston is correct when he answers the question, “Why are the rich getting so much while the middle class struggles and the poor fall behind?” by concluding that “the elites have captured the government and are milking it for their own benefit” [pp. 22-23], then free trading, tax cut flip-flopper John McCain hardly seems to be the candidate to roll back corporate socialism’s assault on the bottom 90% of the income ladder.

Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Bill Moyers Journal: Clinton, Obama, King & Johnston + more (video)

“Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Govt Expense (& Stick You with the Bill)” (must see video)

Can He Deliver? Obama and Global Trade By Paul Craig Roberts

Delusional Hope: The Obama Rapture By Joel Hirschhorn

Can He Deliver? Obama and Global Trade By Paul Craig Roberts

Dandelion Salad

By Paul Craig Roberts
February 23, 2008
CounterPunch, February 21, 2008

Unique among the contenders for the presidential nominations, Barack Obama has raised the issue of US job loss from US corporations moving operations abroad in order to lower their labor costs and, thereby, boost profits. As reported by the Financial Times, Obama proposed a lower tax rate for US companies that maintain or increase their US workforce relative to their overseas workforce. [Obama seeks Ohio’s blue-collar vote, By Edward Luce, February 19 2008]

Economists, who have crawled out on a limb in defense of jobs offshoring, quickly denounced Obama’s plan. As the US economy continues to lose relative ground, economists hold more tightly to their misconception that a country benefits by moving high value-added, high income jobs abroad and replacing them at home with low value- added, low income jobs. This view, which places the rights of capital far above the rights of labor and the duties of citizenship, is economically nonsensical as well. Whatever the defects of Obama’s plan, it shows more serious thought than can be found among Washington policymakers and the economics profession.

Obama’s concern is shared by Ralph Gomory, one of America’s most distinguished mathematicians and co-author with William Baumol, past president of the American Economics Association, of the most important book on trade theory in 200 years, Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests. Gomory has pointed out that corporations break the link between their interests and America’s interest when they offshore their production for US markets. By producing abroad, they raise foreign GDP and lower US GDP. By producing abroad, they raise the productivity of foreign labor and lower the productivity of US labor. By producing abroad, they increase the productivity capabilities and trade position of other countries at America’s expense.

What can be done? Gomory suggests that one solution would be to replace the US corporate income tax with a tax based on the value-added of a corporation’s US employees. The higher the value-added of a corporation’s US work force compared to its industry, the lower the tax rate. Such a tax system would encourage corporations to keep high productivity, high-value added jobs in the US and to increase them.

The aim would be to set the tax to counteract the advantage to the corporations of producing with less expensive labor abroad. Large under-utilized labor forces in China and India permit US corporations to hire abundant labor at wages substantially less than the workers’ contributions to profits, resulting in a shift of high value-added jobs abroad. Gomory’s scheme would provide an incentive for corporations to increase the value- added component from the US work force instead of capitalizing on cheap foreign labor.

Gomory’s idea deserves thought. In the meantime, we are faced with pressures from a massive trade deficit that cannot be closed as long as US corporations are moving their production offshore. Offshored products for US markets reenter the US as imports, thus widening the trade deficit, already a world record. The continual widening of the trade deficit will eventually erode away the dollar’s value and its role as world reserve currency. Currently we are covering our trade deficit by giving up the ownership of our existing assets.

Another smart man, Warren Buffett, has proposed a way to bring US trade into balance. Exporters would be awarded import certificates in the dollar value of their exports. The certificates would be sold in a market to importers, who could import goods in the dollar amount of the certificates. This way imports cannot exceed exports. Moreover, as the certificates would be profit to exporters, it encourages more exports. Free trade theory never intended for economies to be in permanent trade disequilibrium. The US experience of a worsening disequilibrium over a quarter century is outside the bounds of trade theory.

The US has serious economic problems and cannot afford to continue to pile up debts and to sell off its assets to pay its bills. David Walker, head of the US Government Accountability Office, has put the unfunded liabilities of the US government (principally Social Security and Medicare benefits) at between $50 and $60 trillion. Official statistics show no growth in real median family incomes in many years. The dollar’s value has declined dramatically in relation to other traded currencies. The United States simply cannot afford to stand by blindly while its corporations shift US GDP growth to China, India, and elsewhere abroad.

The unfunded liabilities of the US government amount to $500,000 per American household. As no more than one or two percent of American households can come up with this kind of cash, the US government is essentially bankrupt. The bankruptcy will worsen as offshoring moves more US GDP abroad while simultaneously raising the trade deficit and indebtedness of the country.

American hubris produces gigantic delusion not only among the people and the politicians but also among the economists. President Obama and his Secretary of the Treasury, Ralph Gomery, are our last best hopes.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Delusional Hope: The Obama Rapture By Joel Hirschhorn

Barack Obama: The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing + His Puppetmasters (vids)

Obama And Hillary Exposed! + Corruption (videos)

Outsourcing Will Ultimately Lead to Fascism in America by Richard Backus

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Delusional Hope: The Obama Rapture By Joel Hirschhorn

Dandelion Salad

By Joel Hirschhorn
Thomas Paine’s Corner
2/24/08

Never have so many hoped for so much because of rollicking rhetoric and pulsating platitudes. A tsunami of hope has plunged America into electoral euphoria. In its path is the wreckage of critical thinking about what ails the US and what bold, revolutionary actions are needed. Barry Obama has accomplished semantic alchemy, turning justified but grim distrust and outrage with government and politics into hallelujah hope. But most hope never materializes and is a terrible predictor of reality.

Think about the prevalence of hope: sports teams heading into a championship game, research scientists envisioning a Nobel Prize, people in the criminal justice system awaiting trial, entrepreneurs starting a new business, people starting off on a long-awaited vacation, American Idol contestants, college seniors dreaming of becoming superrich, and all those supporters of Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and other presidential candidates that will not reach the White House.

Hope produces far more losers than winners. Hope is enjoyable until failure hits. But most people do not give up on hope, just move on to the next hope.

Obama hoped that he could tap into the national desire for change from the awful conditions produced by the Bush administration by selling hope to voters rather than his experience and accomplishments. Like a political medicine-man he has succeeded as a compelling seller of hope, better than the best infomercial charlatan.

Like a self-fulfilling prophesy, his proof that hope works is his life story and political campaign. This resembles a con man selling a real estate scheme by showing pictures of his yacht, estate and Rolls Royce. Millions of consumers succumb because of their hope that riches can be obtained by following the quack’s advice and formula. Such false hope succeeds because people buy into wrong or deceitful information. False hope can be revealed through objective examination of the facts, assumptions or promises used by the hope purveyor.

Delusional hope is much more insidious. The trick behind delusional hope is that recipients of the hope message supply their own justifications and rationalizations for taking ownership of the hope. As much as delusional hope comes from the hope messenger, it is also self-inflicted to a large degree. In fact, the hope messenger may be honest and authentic, like Obama, truly believing in his hope message. Those who embrace the hope message have many possible reasons and motivations for doing so.

It may be therapeutic by offsetting depression, stress or anger. It makes people happier, feel good and have something positive to look forward to in an otherwise dismal world. It provides comfort and some sense of security. Delusional hope is exactly like a placebo medicine, producing an apparent positive result without any valid reason for doing so, except satisfying the desire for a positive result.

Obama has produced an epidemic of contagious delusional hope for a population rightfully disgusted with ordinary politics and politicians. Like an excellent magician, people are mesmerized by the trick of promising to turn YOUR hope into HIS success.

What happens if president Obama does not actually deliver any real, substantive changes and reforms in government and public policy? Who will be blamed? Hope-happy Obama or a nation of hope-losers for electing him?

This mass delusional hope befits our delusional democracy with its delusional prosperity. Rather than the usual lies, Obama offers hope for change, as if the ruling plutocracy will fade away and stop using their considerable influence over government to funnel an obscene fraction of the nation’s income and wealth to the richest Americans and corporations.

Money is key to seeing Obama for what he really is – an insider politician. He has backed away from his clear promise to use public financing for the general election, as John McCain also promised to do. His broken commitment results from his ability to raise enormous sums from hope addicts. Besides many small contributors, he has received enormous financial support from a number of business sectors. He provided about $700,000 to other politicians in the past year to get their support. When it comes to money, Obama seems much too much like an ordinary politician.

What is the audacity of hope? The confidence that most Americans will eat the political narcotic – hook, line and sinker. Welcome to the Obama rapture.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Barack Obama: The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing + His Puppetmasters (vids)

Obama And Hillary Exposed! + Corruption (videos)

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Iraq: Unemployment Too Becomes an Epidemic by Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail

Dandelion Salad

by Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail
Global Research, February 23, 2008
Inter Press Service

BAQUBA, Feb 21 (IPS) – For a few, salaries have soared. For the rest, unemployment has

Many Iraqi workers enjoyed huge salary increases following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But unemployment rose more sharply under policies introduced by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

CPA head L. Paul Bremer decommissioned the Iraqi military, leading to overnight unemployment for hundreds of thousands of military personnel. And that was not all. The ministries of culture and information also saw drastic layoffs, some through privatisation.

Almost a year into the occupation, defence ministry employees, many of them ex-military, started to receive monthly payments of about 100 dollars as “donation of emergency”.

“This payment does not meet 10 percent of the monthly needs of many families,” ex-soldier in the previous Iraq army Muhsin Aboud told IPS in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad. “It’s unfair to leave us without jobs.”

Still, the unemployed are lucky. Many employees of the abolished offices were accused of being terrorists, and imprisoned.

“One day, a group of American soldiers stormed into my house while I and my family were sleeping,” Abd al-Joburi, an officer in Iraq’s former military told IPS. “They tied my hands and put a plastic bag on my head and forced me to lie with my face down. It was because I’m an ex-officer, and Sunni.”

Al-Joburi was imprisoned for nine months after the raid that took place in March of last year. “Nobody asked whether my family have any salary or income. Since I was released, I have not had a job.”

Now, the sectarian practices of politicians and the government are adding to unemployment for whole sections of people, particularly Sunni Muslims.

“I applied for a job in the directorate-general of police of Diyala province four times,” a former intelligence officer told IPS. “All of my applications were rejected. All the Shia ex-officers’ applications were accepted, regardless of their experience and specialisation. Now they are officers in the police and army.”

The ex-officer added, “I am now working as a grocer.”

Violence has made unemployment even worse; it has led large numbers of people to quit the jobs they had. Most people in Baquba are today either forced to stay at home, or to leave the city, and if they can, the country.

“I closed my restaurant,” said a local businessman in Baquba. “Two militants came and killed the owner of the shop next to my restaurant. We had no choice.”

“The owners of prominent shops, restaurants, car shops, rich people, heads of the offices, owners of buildings, traders, businessmen…all of them became targets of the militants,” said a resident, who like many others, did not wish to give his name. “As a result, all of them quit. Just think how many people could be employed in all these fields.”

Meanwhile, reconstruction and rehabilitation projects that could have employed some people have come to a standstill.

“I dismissed more than 50 employees in my company because of the stoppage of work,” a manager with the Dolphin company for general contractors told IPS. “Work has stopped for more than two years.”

The owner of a plastic pipes factory said threats forced him to close his factory. “I received a message asking me to pay 50,000 dollars, or I would be killed.”

Unemployment in Iraq has been between 60-70 percent over the last two years, according to the government in Baghdad. This is nearly twice what it was in the period of the sanctions in the 1990s.

Most worrying is what is happening in the food business. The Diyala Food Company, the largest in the province, closed last year.

“A group of militants came to kidnap the owner’s son,” former employee Aziz Khamis told IPS. “The son and two of his bodyguards were killed, and the father was wounded. This big company has closed its doors, and thousands of employees are now stuck at home.”

The reasons for losing jobs are endless. “I was fired for being a member of the Ba’ath party,” Nasir Uwayid told IPS. “After a period of occupation, low ranking members were allowed to get their jobs again, but heads of offices who were members of the party were forced to retire or leave the city.”

And sectarian displacement has brought its own unemployment. Tens of thousands of people have left their homes and jobs in Baquba because of the sectarian violence. Many have tried to start again in other cities, but few have been successful.

In 2002 Baquba had a population estimated at 280,000; in 2003, Diyala province had a population of roughly 1.2 million. Baquba is roughly 70 percent Sunni, while Diyala province is about 90 percent Sunni.

Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq’s Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region.
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com
© Copyright Ahmed Ali, Inter Press Service, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8166

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In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims by Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail

Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone (video; 07)

Where’s The Iraqi Voice? By Noam Chomsky

Fort Hood soliders breaking the silence in war in Iraq (video link)

Bush’s Dirty Secret: Bribing Iraq Insurgents Not to Fight By Paul Craig Roberts

In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims by Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail

Dandelion Salad

by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
ICH
02/23/08
BAGHDAD, Feb 22 (IPS)

What the U.S. has been calling the success of a “surge”, many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where U.S. forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence.

And when U.S. forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.

Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the U.S. military, riding the “surge” in security forces and their activities.

The death toll is high, according to the website icasualties.org, which provides reliable numbers of Iraqi civilian and security deaths.

In January this year 485 civilians were killed, according to the website. It says the number is based on news reports, and that “actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site.”

The average month in 2005, before the “surge” was launched, saw 568 civilian deaths. In January 2006, the month before the “surge” began, 590 civilians died.

Many of the killings have taken place in the most well guarded areas of Baghdad. And they have continued this month.

“Two car bombs exploded in Jadriya, killing so many people, the day the American Secretary of Defence (Robert Gates) was visiting Baghdad last week,” a captain from the Karrada district police in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS.

“Another car bomb killed eight people and injured 20 Thursday (last week) in the Muraidy market of Sadr City, east of Baghdad, although the Mehdi army (the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr) provides strict protection to the city,” the officer said. “There is no security in this country any more.”

Unidentified bodies of Iraqis killed by militias continue to appear in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The Iraqi government has issued instructions to all security and health offices not to give out the body count to the media. Dozens of bodies are found every day across Baghdad, residents say. Morgue officials confirm this.

“We are not authorised to issue any numbers, but I can tell you that we are still receiving human bodies every day; the men have no identity on them,” a doctor at the Baghdad morgue told IPS. “The bodies that have signs of torture are the Sunnis killed by Shia militias; those with a bullet in the head are usually policemen, translators or contractors who worked for the Americans.”

The “surge” of 30,000 additional troops came to Iraq, mostly Baghdad, in February of last year. The total current number of U.S. troops in Iraq is approximately 157,000. They were sent to end violence, and with a declared aim of helping political reconciliation.

But where peace of sorts has descended in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital city of six million (in a population of 25 million), it comes from a partitioning of people along sectarian lines. The Iraqi Red Crescent reports that one in four residents has been driven out of their homes by death squads, or by the “surge”.

According to an Iraqi Red Crescent report titled ‘The Internally Displaced People in Iraq’ released Jan. 27, 1,364,978 residents of Baghdad have been displaced.

The Environment News Service reported Jan. 7 that “many of the capital’s once mixed areas have become either purely Sunni or Shia after militias forced families out for belonging to the other religious branch of Islam.”

Some of the eerie calm in areas of Baghdad comes because togetherness has ended. Sunnis and Shias who lived together for generations are now partitioned. This is not the peace many Iraqis were looking for, surge or no surge.

On Jan. 8, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond announced that there were at least 2.2 million Iraqis internally displaced within the country, and that at least another two million had fled the country altogether. This, no doubt, would make many areas quieter.

The U.S. military has erected three to four metre high concrete walls around several neighbourhoods, forcing residents to choose either Sunni or Shia areas in which to live. Such separation has brought large-scale displacement, and protests.

Sunni Muslims seem to have the worst of it. Many Iraqis are outraged by the number of Sunni detainees the “surge” has taken.

Residents of Amiriya district of western Baghdad demonstrated Feb. 11 against mistreatment by U.S. and Iraqi forces involved in the “surge”. The “surge” aims to eradicate al-Qaeda from Iraq, but this has meant that most military operations have been carried out in Sunni areas like Amiriya.

“We are here to protest against the unfair arrests and raids conducted against the innocent people of Amiriya,” Salih al-Mutlag, chief of the Arab Dialogue Council in the Iraqi government told IPS at the demonstration. “This has gone too far under the flag of fighting terror.”

Al-Mutlag said they were also demonstrating against arrests in the western parts of Baghdad, despite an apparently peaceful situation there as a result of residents’ cooperation with Iraqi army units. Large numbers of residents came out in the Dora region of southwest Baghdad to protest against the U.S. military for arresting 18 people, including an 80-year-old man.

“We are the ones who improved the situation in western parts of Baghdad without any interference from the Americans and their puppet Iraqi government,” former Iraqi Army Major Abu Wussam told IPS in Amiriya. “We negotiated with our brothers in the Iraqi national resistance who agreed to conduct their activities in a different way from the traditional way they used to work.

“It seems Americans did not like it, and so they are punishing us for it, instead of releasing our detainees as they promised.”

Some of the apparent peace on the street is a consequence of rising detentions. In November last year Karl Matley, head of the Iraqi branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross, declared that more than 60,000 prisoners and detainees are held in prisons and other detention centres. A large number of these were taken during the “surge”.

By August 2007, half a year into the “surge”, the number of detainees held by the U.S.-led military forces in Iraq had swelled by 50 percent, with the inmate population growing to 24,500, from 16,000 in February, according to U.S. military officers in Iraq.

The officers reported that nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody were Sunni Arabs.

Given that the majority of the detained are Sunnis, the “surge”, rather than bridging political differences and aiding reconciliation between Sunni and Shia groups, appears to have had the opposite effect.

And yet, there could be more dangerous reasons to doubt such success of the “surge” that is claimed.

Among the recent arrests in Baghdad, the U.S. military counted six members of the Sahwa (Awakening) forces. This is a force of resistance fighters now ostensibly working with the U.S. military. The U.S. pays each member 300 dollars monthly. More than 80 percent of about 70,000 Sahwa members are Sunni.

The arrest of some Sahwa members is indication of U.S. military doubts about the loyalties of some of these Sahwa fighters. Shia political parties and militias already accuse them of being resistance fighters in disguise. Many believe that large numbers of Sahwa forces are resistance fighters simply riding the “surge”.

“How come Sunni parts of Baghdad became so quiet all of a sudden,” says Jawad Salman, a former resident of Amiriya who fled his house in 2006 after Iraqi resistance members accused him of being a government spy. “It is a game well played by terrorists to divert the fight against Shia groups. I lived there and I know that all residents fully support what the U.S. calls the terrorists.”

The Sahwa strategy has brought down the number of U.S. casualties – for now. But the U.S. strategy seems to have done less for Iraq than for its own forces.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East) (FIN/2008)

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone (video; 07)

Where’s The Iraqi Voice? By Noam Chomsky

Fort Hood soliders breaking the silence in war in Iraq (video link)

Bush’s Dirty Secret: Bribing Iraq Insurgents Not to Fight By Paul Craig Roberts

It’s the End of the World as We know it and I feel FINE #28

Dandelion Salad

stimulator

http://stimulator.tv

1. $100 again
2. Presidential Peak Oil Silence
3. Tha muthafuckin tar Sands
4. Victory in Vancouver Island
5. Pig Mobile Piñata
6. The Coup
7. Boots Riley

Interview of David Earnhardt on Election Fraud in 2004, 2006, and 2008

Dandelion Salad

After Downing Street
Feb 20, 2008

Here’s an interview with the producer of the film Uncounted discussing the possibility that the next election will be stolen. Listen here.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Uncounted – The New Math of American Elections (video)

Ohio’s primary and election reform – the good, the bad and the ugly

The Election That Might Not Happen

Matt Gonzalez at the Fighting Bob Fest in 2005

Nader did not “spoil” the 2000 election (videos)

BlackBoxVoting: Election Reality TV – First in series

Narco Aggression: Russia accuses the U.S. military of involvement in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan

Dandelion Salad

by Vladimir Radyuhin
Global Research, February 24, 2008
Frontline

Global Research Editor’s Note

The global proceeds of the Afghan drug trade is in excess of 150 billion dollars a year. There is mounting evidence that this illicit trade is protected by the US military.

Historically, starting in the early 1980s, the Afghan drug trade was used to finance CIA covert support of the Islamic brigades. The 2003 war on Afghanistan was launched following the Taliban government’s 2000-2001 drug eradication program which led to a collapse in opium production in excess of 90 percent.

The following report, which accuses the United States of using military transport planes to ship narcotics out of Afghanistan confirms what is already known and documented regarding the Golden Crescent Drug Trade and its insiduous relationship to US intelligence.

February 23, 2008

Russia, facing a catastrophic rise in drug addiction, accuses the U.S. military of involvement in drug trafficking from Afghanistan.

Could it be that the American military in Afghanistan is involved in drug trafficking? Yes, it is quite possible, according to Russia’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov.

Commenting on reports that the United States military transport aviation is used for shipping narcotics out of Afghanistan, the Russian envoy said there was no smoke without fire.

“If such actions do take place they cannot be undertaken without contact with Afghans, and if one Afghan man knows this, at least a half of Afghanistan will know about this sooner or later,” Kabulov told Vesti, Russia’s 24-hour news channel. “That is why I think this is possible, but cannot prove it.”

Afghan narcotics are an extremely painful issue for Russia. They first hit the Russian market during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s when Russian soldiers developed a taste for Afghan heroin and smuggled it back to Russia.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991 threw open the floodgates of drug trafficking from Afghanistan across Central Asia to Russia and further west to Europe. Afghanistan’s narcotics struck Russia like a tsunami, threatening to decimate its already shrinking population. According to the Federal Drug Control Service, 90 per cent of all heroin sold in Russia comes from Afghanistan. Russia today has about six million drug-users – a 20-fold increase since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a huge figure for a country of 142 million people.

The Federal Drug Control Service said earlier in January that as many as 30 to 40 million people in Russia may have tried drugs at least once. Annually, some 80,000 Russians die of drug-related causes. One in five crimes committed in Russia is related to drugs. The illegal drug turnover in Russia is estimated at between $10 and $15 billion, discounting transit trafficking.

Narcotics have become an integral part of the youth subculture in Russia. In Moscow alone narcotics are sold at about 100 discotheques and cafes frequented by young people, the city drug control service reported in December. About 45 per cent of Russian university students use drugs, according to Russian Minister for Education and Science Andrei Fursenko. He described the situation as “critical”. The Moscow city government plans to introduce mandatory drug tests for all students in the Russian capital this year. Schoolchildren may be next in line for screening: some surveys indicate that four out of five young Russians are familiar with drugs. The Russian Parliament is planning to discuss a law to allow compulsory treatment of drug and alcohol addicts.

President Vladimir Putin has described the drug abuse problem as a “national calamity”. The catastrophic rise in drug addiction in Russia has been spurred by the painful transition from socialism to capitalism that Russia has been going through since 1991. Millions lost their jobs and were reduced to abject poverty during Russia’s worst-ever economic meltdown in the 1990s. But external factors have played a crucial role in the spread of drugs. Last year Putin bluntly stated that Russia and Europe had been victims of “narco-aggression”.

When the Soviet Union broke up into 15 independent states, Moscow overnight lost control of nearly 5,000 kilometres of former Soviet borders in Central Asia and the Caucasus. At the same time, nearly 8,000 km of what used to be internal nominal boundaries between ex-Soviet republics became Russia’s new state borders.

In 1993, Russian border guards returned to Tajikistan in an effort to contain the flow of drugs from opium-producing Afghanistan. In 2002 alone they intercepted 6.7 tonnes of drugs, half of them heroin. However, in 2005 Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, hoping to win financial aid from the U.S., asked the Russian border guards to leave, saying Tajikistan had recovered enough from a five-year civil war (from 1992-97) to shoulder the task. Within months of the Russian withdrawal, cross-border drug trafficking increased manifold.

Turkmenistan, another major opium route from Afghanistan, threw out Russian border guards in 1999. Since 2000, Turkmenistan has reported no drug seizures to international organisations. President Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last year, claimed his country had no drug problem. However, independent surveys indicate that up to half of Turkmenistan’s male population use drugs. In 2002, the country’s Prosecutor-General Kurbanbibi Atadzhanova was arrested for operating a drug-trafficking ring.

Seventeen years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, borders between the newly independent states are still porous and travel is visa-free. Air passengers arriving from Central Asia are routinely screened for drugs in Russian airports, but if drugs are shipped by land, there is only a remote chance that they get intercepted.

Afghanistan under the U.S.

When Russia backed the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to crush the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the post-9/11 scenario, the last thing it expected to happen was that drug trafficking from Afghanistan would assume gargantuan proportions under the U.S. military. Since 2001, poppy fields, once banned by the Taliban, have mushroomed again. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan produced 8,200 tonnes of opium last year, enough to make 93 per cent of the world’s heroin supply.

The U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] forces in the country have not only failed to eliminate the terrorist threat from the Taliban, but also presided over a spectacular rise in opium production. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Afghanistan was on the brink of becoming a “narco state”.

Narco business has emerged as virtually the only economy of Afghanistan and is valued at some $10 billion a year. Opium trade is estimated by the U.N. to be equivalent to 53 per cent of the country’s official economy and is helping to finance the Taliban.

“Unfortunately, they [NATO] are doing nothing to reduce the narcotic threat from Afghanistan even a tiny bit,” Putin angrily remarked three years ago. He accused the coalition forces of “sitting back and watching caravans haul drugs across Afghanistan to the former Soviet Union and Europe.” As time went by, Russian suspicions regarding the U.S. role in the rise of a narco state in Afghanistan grew deeper, especially after reports from Iraq said that the cultivation of opium poppies was spreading rapidly there too.

“The Americans are working hard to keep narco business flourishing in both countries,” says Mikhail Khazin, president of the consultancy firm Niakon. “They consistently destroy the local infrastructure, pushing the local population to look for illegal means of subsistence. And the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] provides protection to drug trafficking.”

U.S. freelance writer Dave Gibson recalled in an article published in American Chronicle in December what a U.S. foreign intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told NewsMax.com in March 2002 of the CIA’s record of involvement with the international drug trade. The official said: “The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences – the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA. The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years, so I guess they just want to carry on their favourite business.”

Now Russia has joined the fray accusing the U.S. military of involvement in the heroin trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. The Vesti channel’s report from Afghanistan said that drugs from Afghanistan were hauled by American transport aircraft to the U.S. airbases Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and Incirlik in Turkey.

The Ganci Air Force base at the Manas international airport in Kyrgyzstan was set up in late 2001 as a staging post for military operations inside Afghanistan. The Kyrgyz government threatened to close the base after neighbouring Uzbekistan shut down a similar U.S. airbase on its territory in 2005, but relented after Washington agreed to make a one-off payment of $150 million in the form of an assistance package and to pay $15 million a year for the use of the base.

One of the best-informed Russian journalists on Central Asia, Arkady Dubnov, recently quoted anonymous Afghan sources as saying that “85 per cent of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by U.S. aviation.”

A well-informed source in Afghanistan’s security services told the Russian journalist that the American military acquired drugs through local Afghan officials who dealt with field commanders in charge of drug production.

Writing in the Vremya Novostei daily, Dubnov claimed that the pro-Western administration of President Hamid Karzai, including his two brothers, Kajum Karzai and Akhmed Vali Karzai, are head-to-heels involved in the narcotics trade.

The article quoted a leading U.S. expert on Afghanistan, Barnett Rubin, as telling an anti-narcotics conference in Kabul last October that “drug dealers had infiltrated Afghani state structures to the extent where they could easily paralyse the work of the government if decision to arrest one of them was ever made.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke said in January that “government officials, including some with close ties to the presidency, are protecting the drug trade and profiting from it.”

In an article carried by Washington Post, the diplomat described the $1-billion-a-year U.S. counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan as “the single most ineffective programme in the history of American foreign policy.”

“It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan,” Holbrooke wrote in the The Washington Post in early January.

It is an open question whether the Russian charges of U.S. complicity in drug trafficking are based on hard evidence or have been prompted by Moscow’s frustration at Washington’s failure to address the opium problem in Afghanistan. But it is a fact that the U.S. and NATO have stonewalled numerous offers of cooperation from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a defence pact of six former Soviet republics.

Nikolai Bordyuzha, CSTO Secretary-General, quoted a Pentagon general as telling him: “We are not fighting narcotics because this is not our task in Afghanistan.”

Instead of joining hands with the SCO and the CSTO in combating the narcotics threat, the CSTO chief said, the U.S. was working to set up rival security structures in the region. Washington is working to “drive a geopolitical wedge between Central Asian countries and Russia and to reorient the region towards the U.S.”, Bordyuzha said last year.

With the U.S. and NATO rebuffing their cooperation offers, Russia, China and the Central Asian states have to rely on their own forces in combating the narcotics threat from Afghanistan. The CSTO has been running a wide-ranging aid and military assistance programme for Afghanistan, which includes training Afghan anti-narcotic police.

Last year, the SCO joined in signing a cooperation protocol with the CSTO, which is aimed, above all, at curbing drug trafficking. At its summit in Bishkek, the Kyrgyzstan capital, last August, the SCO decided to set up jointly with the CSTO an “anti-narcotics belt” around Afghanistan.

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com
© Copyright Vladimir Radyuhin, Frontline, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8180

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NATO’s Reign of Terror in Kosovo by Michel Chossudovsky

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, February 25, 2008

The following text was written in the immediate wake of the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Kosovo by NATO troops.

It is now well established that the war was waged on a fabricated humanitarian pretext and that extensive war crimes were committed by NATO and the US.

In a bitter irony, the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague is controlled by those who have committed extensive war crimes. It was not President Milosevic, who was poisoned in his prison cell, but NATO who started the war in Yugoslavia.

According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, the ultimate war crime consists in starting a war. According to William Rockler, former prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal:

“The [1999] bombing war violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent “Polish atrocities” against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.”

According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, NATO heads of State and heads of government are responsible for the supreme crime: “the crime against peace.”

Reagan’s NSDD 133 (1984) “Secret and Sensitive”

There is evidence that the US administration in liason with its allies took the decision in the early 1980s to destabilise and dismantle Yugoslavia.

The decsion to destroy Yugoslavia as a country and carve it up into a number of small proxy states was taken by the Reagan adminstration in the early 1980s.

A “Secret Sensitive” National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133) entitled “US Policy towards Yugoslavia.” sets the framework for the destabilization of Yugoslavia’s model of market socialism and the establishment of a US sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe.

Yugoslavia was in many regards “an economic success story”. In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the rate of literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years.

NSDD 133 set in motion a series of covert intelligence operations which consisted in creating and supporting secessionist paramilitary armies. These operations were combined with the destabilization of the Yugoslav economy, which ultimately led to the destruction of its industrial base, the demise of the workers’ cooperative and the dramatic impoverishment of its population.

The record of US-NATO war crimes is important in assessing recent developments in Kosovo.

From the outset of their respective mandates in June 1999, both NATO and the UN Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK) have actively supported the KLA which from the outset of the NATO occupation has been involved in numerous atrocities. It is important to understand that these atrocities were ordered by the current and former prime ministers of the Kosovo “government”.

Since 1999, State terrorism in Kosovo has become an integral part of NATO’s design. The present government of prime minister Hashim Thaci (a former KLA Commander), is an outgrowth of this reign of terror. It is not a government in the common sense of the word. It is remains a terrorist organization linked to organised crime. It is instrument of the foreign occupation.

Michel Chossudovsky, 23 February 2008

NATO HAS INSTALLED A REIGN OF TERROR IN KOSOVO

by Michel Chossudovsky

10 August 1999

This text was presented to the Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against The People of Yugoslavia, International Action Center, New York, July 31, 1999.

PART I: MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS IN KOSOVO

While the World focusses on troop movements and war crimes, the massacres of civilians in the wake of the bombings have been casually dismissed as “justifiable acts of revenge”. In occupied Kosovo, “double standards” prevail in assessing alleged war crimes. The massacres directed against Serbs, ethnic Albanians, Roma and other ethnic groups have been conducted on the instructions of the military command of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

NATO ostensibly denies KLA involvement. These so-called “unmotivated acts of violence and retaliation” are not categorised as “war crimes” and are therefore not included in the mandate of the numerous FBI and Interpol police investigators dispatched to Kosovo under the auspices of the Hague War Crime’s Tribunal (ICTY). Moreover, whereas NATO has tacitly endorsed the self-proclaimed KLA provisional government, KFOR the international security force in Kosovo has provided protection to the KLA military commanders responsible for the atrocities. In so doing both NATO and the UN Mission have acquiesced to the massacres of civilians. In turn, public opinion has been blatantly misled. In portraying the massacres, the Western media has casually overlooked the role of the KLA, not to mention its pervasive links to organised crime. In the words of National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, “these people [ethnic Albanians] come back … with broken hearts and with some of those hearts filled with anger.”1 While the massacres are seldom presented as the result of “deliberate decisions” by the KLA military command, the evidence (and history of the KLA) amply confirm that these atrocities are part of a policy of “ethnic cleansing” directed mainly against the Serb population but also against the Roma, Montenegrins, Goranis and Turks.

Serbian houses and business have been confiscated, looted, or burned, and Serbs have been beaten, raped, and killed. In one of the more dramatic of incidents, KLA troops ransacked a monastery, terrorized the priest and a group of nuns with gunfire, and raped at least one of the nuns. NATO’s inability to control the situation and provide equal protection for all ethnic groups, and its apparent inability or unwillingness to fully disarm the KLA, has created a serious situation for NATO troops…2

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), confirms in this regard that:

“more than 164,000 Serbs have left Kosovo during the seven weeks since… the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province… A wave of arson and looting of Serb and Roma homes throughout Kosovo has ensued. Serbs and Roma remaining in Kosovo have been subject to repeated incidents of harassment and intimidation, including severe beatings. Most seriously, there has been a spate of murders and abductions of Serbs since mid-June, including the late July massacre of Serb farmers.”3

POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS

The self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK) has also ordered assassinations directed against political opponents including “loyalist” ethnic Albanians and supporters of the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL). These acts are being carried out in a totally permissive environment. The leaders of the KLA rather than being arrested for war crimes, have been granted KFOR protection.

According to a report of the Foreign Policy Institute (published during the bombings):

“…the KLA have [no] qualms about murdering Rugova’s collaborators, whom it accused of the `crime’ of moderation… [T]he KLA declared Rugova a `traitor’ yet another step toward eliminating any competitors for political power within Kosovo.”4

Already in May [1999], Fehmi Agani, one of Rugova’s closest collaborators in the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL) was killed. The Serbs were blamed by NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea for having assassinated Agani. According to Skopje’s paper Makedonija Danas, Agani had been executed on the orders of the KLA’s self-appointed Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.5 “If Thaci actually considered Rugova a threat, he would not hesitate to have Rugova removed from the Kosovo political landscape.”6

In turn, the KLA has abducted and killed numerous professionals and intellectuals:

“Private and State properties are threatened, home and apartment owners are evicted en masse by force and threats, houses and entire villages are burned, cultural and religious monuments are destroyed… A particularly heavy blow… has been the violence against the hospital centre in Pristina, the maltreatment and expulsion of its professional management, doctors and medical staff.”7

Both NATO and the UN prefer to turn a blind eye. UN Interim Administrator Bernard Kouchner (a former French Minister of Health) and KFOR Commander Sir Mike Jackson have established a routine working relationship with Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and KLA Chief of Staff Brigadier General Agim Ceku.

ATROCITIES COMMITTED AGAINST THE ROMA

Ethnic cleansing has also been directed against the Roma (which represented prior to the conflict a population group of 150,000 people). (According to figures provided by the Roma Community in New York). A large part of the Roma population has already escaped to Montenegro and Serbia. In turn, there are reports that Roma refugees who had fled by boat to Southern Italy have been expelled by the Italian authorities.8 The KLA has also ordered the systematic looting and torching of Romani homes and settlements:

“All houses and settlements of Romani, like 2,500 homes in the residential area called `Mahala’ in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, have been looted and burnt down”.9

With regard to KLA atrocities committed against the Roma, the same media distortions prevail. According to the BBC: “Gypsies are accused by [Kosovar] Albanians of collaborating in Serb brutalities, which is why they’ve also become victims of revenge attacks. And the truth is, some probably did.”10

INSTALLING A PARAMILITARY GOVERNMENT

As Western leaders trumpet their support for democracy, State terrorism in Kosovo has become an integral part of NATO’s postwar design. The KLA’s political role for the post-conflict period had been mapped out well in advance. Prior to Rambouillet Conference, the KLA had been promised a central role in the formation of a post-conflict government. The “hidden agenda” consisted in converting the KLA paramilitary into a legitimate and accomplished civilian administration. According to US State Department spokesman James Foley (February 1999):

“We want to develop a good relationship with them [the KLA] as they transform themselves into a politically-oriented organization, …[W]e believe that we have a lot of advice and a lot of help that we can provide to them if they become precisely the kind of political actor we would like to see them become.'”11

In other words, the US State Department had already slated the KLA “provisional government” (PGK) to run civilian State institutions. Under NATO’s “Indirect Rule”, the KLA has taken over municipal governments and public services including schools and hospitals. Rame Buja, the KLA “Minister for Local Administration” has appointed local prefects in 23 out of 25 municipalities.12

Under NATO’s regency, the KLA has replaced the duly elected (by ethnic Albanians) provisional Kosovar government of President Ibrahim Rugova. The self-proclaimed KLA administration has branded Rugova as a traitor declaring the (parallel) Kosovar parliamentary elections held in March 1998 to be invalid. This position has largely been upheld by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) entrusted by UNMIK with the postwar task of “democracy building” and “good governance”. In turn, OSCE officials have already established a working rapport with KLA appointees.13

The KLA provisional government (PGK) is made up of the KLA’s political wing together with the Democratic Union Movement (LBD), a coalition of five opposition parties opposed to Rugova’s Democratic League (LDK). In addition to the position of prime minister, the KLA controls the ministries of finance, public order and defence. The KLA also has a controlling voice on the UN sponsored Kosovo Transitional Council set up by Mr. Bernard Kouchner. The PGK has also established links with a number of Western governments.

Whereas the KLA has been spearheaded into running civilian institutions (under the guidance of the OSCE), members of the duly elected Kosovar (provisional) government of the Democratic League (DKL) have been blatantly excluded from acquiring a meaningful political voice.

ESTABLISHING A KLA POLICE FORCE TO `PROTECT CIVILIANS’

Under NATO occupation, the rule of law has visibly been turned up side down. Criminals and terrorists are to become law enforcement officers. KLA troops which have already taken over police stations will eventually form a 4,000 strong “civilian” police force (to be trained by foreign police officers under the authority of the United Nations) with a mandate to “protect civilians”. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien has already pledged Canadian support to the formation of a civilian police force.14 The latter which has been entrusted to the OSCE will eventually operate under the jurisdiction of the KLA controlled “Ministry of Public Order”.

US MILITARY AID

Despite NATO’s commitment to disarming the KLA, the Kosovar paramilitary organisation is slated to be transformed into a modern military force. So-called “security assistance” has already been granted to the KLA by the US Congress under the “Kosovar Independence and Justice Act of 1999”. Start-up funds of 20 million dollars will largely be “used for training and support for their [KLA] established self-defence forces.”15 In the words of KLA Chief of Staff Agrim Ceku:

“The KLA wants to be transformed into something like the US National Guard, … we accept the assistance of KFOR and the international community to rebuild an army according to NATO standards. … These professionally trained soldiers of the next generation of the KLA would seek only to defend Kosova. At this decisive moment, we [the KLA] do not hide our ambitions; we want the participation of international military structures to assist in the pacific and humanitarian efforts we are attempting here.” 16

While the KLA maintains its links to the Balkans narcotics trade which served to finance many of its terrorist activities, the paramilitary organisation has now been granted an official seal of approval as well as “legitimate” sources of funding. The pattern is similar to that followed in Croatia and in the Bosnian Muslim-Croatian Federation where so-called “equip and train” programmes were put together by the Pentagon. In turn, Washington’s military aid package to the KLA has been entrusted to Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) of Alexandria, Virginia, a private mercenary outfit run by high ranking former US military officers.

MPRI’s training concepts which had already been tested in Croatia and Bosnia are based on imparting “offensive tactics… as the best form of defence”.17 In the Kosovar context, this so- called “defensive doctrine” transforms the KLA paramilitary into a modern army without however eliminating its terrorist makeup.18 The objective is to ultimately transform an insurgent army into a modern military and police force which serves the Alliance’s future strategic objectives in the Balkans. MPRI has currently “ninety-one highly experienced, former military professionals working in Bosnia & Herzegovina”.19 The number of military officers working on contract with the KLA has not been disclosed.

PART II. FROM KRAJINA TO KOSOVO: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

A FORMER CROATIAN GENERAL APPOINTED KLA CHIEF OF STAFF

The massacres of civilians in Kosovo are not disconnected acts of revenge by civilians or by so-called “rogue elements” within the KLA as claimed by NATO and the United Nations. They are part of a consistent and coherent pattern. The intent (and result) of the KLA sponsored atrocities have been to trigger the “ethnic cleansing” of Serbs, Roma and other minorities in Kosovo.

KLA Commander Agim Ceku referring to the killings of 14 villagers at Gracko on July 24, claimed that: “We [the KLA] do not know who did it, but I sincerely believe these people have nothing to do with the KLA.”20 In turn, KFOR Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson has commended his KLA counterpart, Commander Agim Ceku for “efforts undertaken” to disarm the KLA. In fact, very few KLA weapons have been handed in. Moreover, the deadline for turning in KLA weaponry has been extended. “I do not regard this as noncompliance” said Commander Jackson in a press conference, “but rather as an indication of the seriousness with which General Ceku is taking this important issue.”21

Yet what Sir Mike Jackson failed to mention is that KLA Chief of Staff Commander Agim Ceku (although never indicted as a war criminal) was (according to Jane Defence Weekly June 10, 1999) “one of the key planners of the successful `Operation Storm'” led by the Croatian Armed Forces against Krajina Serbs in 1995.

General Jackson who had served in former Yugoslavia under the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was fully cognizant of the activities of the Croatian High Command during that period including the responsibilities imparted to Brigadier General Agim Ceku. In February 1999, barely a month prior to the NATO bombings, Ceku left his position as Brigadier General with the Croatian Armed Forces to join the KLA as Commander in Chief.

FROM KRAJINA TO KOSOVO: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

According to the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Operation Storm resulted in the massacre of at least 410 civilians in the course of a three day operation (4 to 7 August 1995).22 An internal report of The Hague War Crimes Tribunal (leaked to the New York Times), confirmed that the Croatian Army had been responsible for carrying out:

“summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and “ethnic cleansing” in the Krajina region of Croatia….”23

In a section of the report entitled “The Indictment. Operation Storm, A Prima Facie Case.”, the ICTY report confirms that:

“During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, including but not limited to, shelling of Knin and other cities… During, and in the 100 days following the military offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared. …In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs.” 24

US `GENERALS FOR HIRE’

The internal 150 page report concluded that it has “sufficient material to establish that the three [Croatian] generals who commanded the military operation” could be held accountable under international law.25 The individuals named had been directly involved in the military operation “in theatre”. Those involved in “the planning of Operation Storm” were not mentioned:

“The identity of the “American general” referred to by Fenrick [a Tribunal staff member] is not known. The tribunal would not allow Williamson or Fenrick to be interviewed. But Ms. Arbour, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, suggested in a telephone interview last week that Fenrick’s comment had been `a joking observation’. Ms. Arbour had not been present during the meeting, and that is not how it was viewed by some who were there. Several people who were at the meeting assumed that Fenrick was referring to one of the retired U.S. generals who worked for Military Professional Resources Inc. … Questions remain about the full extent of U.S. involvement. In the course of the three yearinvestigation into the assault, the United States has failed to provide critical evidence requested by the tribunal, according to tribunal documents and officials, adding to suspicion among some there that Washington is uneasy about the investigation… The Pentagon, however, has argued through U.S. lawyers at the tribunal that the shelling was a legitimate military activity, according to tribunal documents and officials”.26

The Tribunal was attempting to hide what had already been revealed in several press reports published in the wake of Operation Storm. According to a US State Department spokesman, MPRI had been helping the Croatians “avoid excesses or atrocities in military operations.”27 Fifteen senior US military advisers headed by retired two star General Richard Griffitts had been dispatched to Croatia barely seven months before Operation Storm. 28 According to one report, MPRI executive director General Carl E. Vuono: “held a secret top-level meeting at Brioni Island, off the coast of Croatia, with Gen. Varimar Cervenko, the architect of the Krajina campaign. In the five days preceding the attack, at least ten meetings were held between General Vuono and officers involved in the campaign…”29

According to Ed Soyster, a senior MPRI executive and former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA):

“MPRI’s role in Croatia is limited to classroom instruction on military-civil relations and doesn’t involve training in tactics or weapons. Other U.S. military men say whatever MPRI did for the Croats and many suspect more than classroom instruction was involved it was worth every penny.” Carl Vuono and Butch [Crosbie] Saint are hired guns and in it for the money,” says Charles Boyd, a recently retired four star Air Force general who was the Pentagon’s No. 2 man in Europe until July [1995]. “They did a very good job for the Croats, and I have no doubt they’ll do a good job in Bosnia.”30

THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL’S COVER UP

The untimely leaking of the ICTY’s internal report on the Krajina massacres barely a few days before the onslaught of NATO’s air raids on Yugoslavia was the source of some embarrassment to the Tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour. The Tribunal (ICTY) attempted to cover up the matter and trivialise the report’s findings (including the alleged role of the US military officers on contract with the Croatian Armed Forces). Several Tribunal officials including American Lawyer Clint Williamson sought to discredit the Canadian Peacekeeping officers’ testimony who witnessed the Krajina massacres in 1995.31

Williamson, who described the shelling of Knin as a “minor incident,” said that the Pentagon had told him that Knin was a legitimate military target… The [Tribunal’s] review concluded by voting not to include the shelling of Knin in any indictment, a conclusion that stunned and angered many at the tribunal”…32

The findings of the Tribunal contained in the leaked ICTY documents were downplayed, their relevance was casually dismissed as “expressions of opinion, arguments and hypotheses from various staff members of the OTP during the investigative process”.33 According to the Tribunal’s spokesperson “the documents do not represent in any way the concluded decisions of the Prosecutor.” 34

The internal 150 page report has not been released. The staff member who had leaked the documents is (according to a Croatian TV report) no longer working for the Tribunal. During the press Conference, the Tribunal’s spokesman was asked: “about the consequences for the person who leaked the information”, Blewitt [the ICTY spokesman] replied that he did not want to go into that. He said that the OTP would strengthen the existing procedures to prevent this from happening again, however he added that you could not stop people from talking”.35

THE USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN CROATIA

The massacres conducted under Operation Storm “set the stage” for the “ethnic cleansing” of at least 180,000 Krajina Serbs (according to estimates of the Croatian Helsinki Committee and Amnesty International). According to other sources, the number of victims of ethnic cleansing in Krajina was much larger.

Moreover, there is evidence that chemical weapons had been used in the Yugoslav civil war (1991-95).36 Although there is no firm evidence of the use of chemical weapons against Croatian Serbs, an ongoing enquiry by the Canadian Minister of Defence (launched in July 1999) points to the possibility of toxic poisoning of Canadian Peacekeepers while on service in Croatia between 1993 and 1995:

“There was a smell of blood in the air during the past week as the media sensed they had a major scandal unfolding within the Department of National Defense over the medical files of those Canadians who served in Croatia in 1993. Allegations of destroyed documents, a coverup, and a defensive minister and senior officers…”37

The official release of the Department of National Defence (DND) refers to possibility of toxic “soil contamination” in Medak Pocket in 1993 (see below). Was it “soil contamination” or something far more serious? The criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) refers to the shredding of medical files of former Canadian peacekeepers by the DND. In other words did the DND have something to hide? The issue remains as to what types of shells and ammunitions were used by the Croatian Armed Forces ie. were chemical weapons used against Serb civilians?

OPERATION STORM: THE ACCOUNT OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN REGIMENT

Prior to the onslaught, Croatian radio had previously broadcasted a message by president Franjo Tudjman, calling upon “Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity… to remain in their homes and not to fear the Croatian authorities, which will respect their minority rights.”38 Canadian peacekeepers of the Second Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment witnessed the atrocities committed by Croatian troops in the Krajina offensive in September 1995:

“Any Serb who had failed to evacuate their property were systematically “cleansed” by roving death squads. Every abandoned animal was slaughtered and any Serb household was ransacked and torched”.39

Also confirmed by Canadian peacekeepers was the participation of German mercenaries in Operation Storm:

“Immediately behind the frontline Croatian combat troops and German mercenaries, a large number of hardline extremists had pushed into the Krajina. …Many of these atrocities were carried out within the Canadian Sector, but as the peacekeepers were soon informed by the Croat authorities, the UN no longer had any formal authority in the region.”40

How the Germans mercenaries were recruited was never officially revealed. An investigation by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) confirmed the that foreign mercenaries in Croatia had in some cases “been paid [and presumably recruited] outside Croatia and by third parties.”41

THE 1993 MEDAK POCKET MASSACRE

According to Jane Defence Weekly (10 June 1999), Brigadier General Agim Ceku (now in charge of the KLA) also “masterminded the successful HV [Croatian Army] offensive at Medak” in September 1993. In Medak, the combat operation was entitled “Scorched Earth” resulting in the total destruction of the Serbian villages of Divoselo, Pocitelj and Citluk, and the massacre of over 100 civilians.42

These massacres were also witnessed by Canadian peacekeepers under UN mandate:

“As the sun rose over the horizon, it revealed a Medak Valley engulfed in smoke and flames. As the frustrated soldiers of 2PPCLI waited for the order to move forward into the pocket, shots and screams still rang out as the ethnic cleansing continued. …About 20 members of the international press had tagged along, anxious to see the Medak battleground. Calvin [a Canadian officer] called an informal press conference at the head of the column and loudly accused the Croats of trying to hide war crimes against the Serb inhabitants. The Croats started withdrawing back to their old lines, taking with them whatever loot they hadn’t destroyed. All livestock had been killed and houses torched. French reconnaissance troops and the Canadian command element pushed up the valley and soon began to find bodies of Serb civilians, some already decomposing, others freshly slaughtered. …Finally, on the drizzly morning of Sept. 17, teams of UN civilian police arrived to probe the smouldering ruins for murder victims. Rotting corpses lying out in the open were catalogued, then turned over to the peacekeepers for burial.”43

The massacres were reported to the Canadian Minister of Defence and to the United Nations:

“Senior defence bureaucrats back in Ottawa had no way of predicting the outcome of the engagement in terms of political fallout. To them, there was no point in calling media attention to a situation that might easily backfire. …So Medak was relegated to the memory hole no publicity, no recriminations, no official record. Except for those soldiers involved, Canada’s most lively military action since the Korean War simply never happened.”44

PART III. NATO’S `POST CONFLICT’ AGENDA IN KOSOVO.

Both the Medak Pocket massacre and Operation Storm bear a direct relationship to the ongoing security situation in Kosovo and the massacres and ethnic cleansing committed by KLA troops. While the circumstances are markedly different, several of today’s actors in Kosovo were involved (under the auspices of the Croatian Armed Forces) in the planning of both these operations. Moreover, the US mercenary outfit MPRI which collaborated with the Croatian Armed Forces in 1995 is currently on contract with the KLA. NATO’s casual response to the appointment of Brigadier General Agim Ceku as KLA Chief of Staff was communicated by Mr. Jamie Shea in a Press Briefing in May:

“I have always made it clear, and you have heard me say this, that NATO has no direct contacts with the KLA. Who they appoint as their leaders, that is entirely their own affair. I don’t have any comment on that whatever.”45

While NATO says it “has no direct contacts with the KLA”, the evidence confirms the opposite. Amply documented, KLA terrorism has been installed with NATO’s tacit approval. The KLA had (according to several reports) been receiving “covert support” and training from the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) since the mid-nineties. Moreover, MPRI collaboration with the KLA predates the onslaught of the bombing campaign.46 Moreover, the building up of KLA forces was part of NATO planning. Already by mid-1998, “covert support” had been replaced by official (“overt”) support by the military Alliance in violation of UN Security Council Resolution UNSCR 1160 of 31 March 1998 which condemned: “…all acts of terrorism by the Kosovo Liberation Army or any other group or individual and all external support for terrorist activity in Kosovo, including finance, arms and training.”

NATO officials, Western heads of State and heads of government, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan not to mention ICTY chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, were fully cognizant of General Brigadier Agim Ceku’s involvement in the planning of Operation Storm and Operation Scorched Earth. Surely, some questions should have been asked…

Yet visibly what is shaping up in the wake of the bombings in Kosovo is the continuity of NATO’s operation in the Balkans. Military personnel and UN bureaucrats previously stationed in Croatia and Bosnia have been routinely reassigned to Kosovo. KFOR Commander Mike Jackson had previously been responsible as IFOR Commander for organising the return of Serbs “to lands taken by Croatian HVO forces in the Krajina offensive”.47 And in this capacity General Mike Jackson had “urged that the resettlement [of Krajina Serbs] not [be] rushed to avoid tension [with the Croatians]… while also warning returning Serbs “of the extent of the [land] mine threat.”48 In retrospect, recalling the events of early 1996, very few Krajina Serbs were allowed to return to their homes under the protection of the United Nations.

And a similar process is unfolding in Kosovo, ie. the conduct of senior military officers conforms to a consistent pattern, the same key individuals are now involved in Kosovo. While token efforts are displayed to protect Serb and Roma civilians, those who have fled Kosovo are not encouraged to return under UN protection… In postwar Kosovo, “ethnic cleansing” implemented by the KLA has been accepted by the “international community” as a “fait accompli”…

While calling for democracy and “good governance” in the Balkans, the US and its allies have installed in Kosovo a paramilitary government with links to organised crime.

The foreseeable outcome is the outright “criminalisation” of civilian State institutions and the establishment of what is best described as a “Mafia State”. The complicity of NATO and the Alliance governments (namely their relentless support to the KLA) points to the de facto “criminalisation” of KFOR and of the UN peacekeeping apparatus in Kosovo. The donor agencies and governments (eg. the funds approved by the US Congress in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions) providing financial support to the KLA are, in this regard, also “accessories” to the de facto criminalisation of State institutions. Through the intermediation of a paramilitary group (created and financed by Washington and Bonn), NATO ultimately bears the burden of responsibility for the massacres and ethnic cleansing of civilians in Kosovo.

STATE TERROR AND THE `FREE MARKET’

State terror and the “free market” seem to go hand in hand. The concurrent “criminalisation” of State institutions in Kosovo is not incompatible with the West’s economic and strategic objectives in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the massacres of civilians, the self-proclaimed KLA administration has committed itself to establishing a “secure and stable environment” for foreign investors and international financial institutions. The Minister of Finance Adem Grobozci and other representatives of the provisional government invited to the various donor conferences are all KLA appointees. In contrast, members of the KDL of Ibrahim Rugova (duly elected in parliamentary elections) were not even invited to attend the Stabilisation Summit in Sarajevo in late July.

“Free market reforms” are envisaged for Kosovo under the supervision of the Bretton Woods institutions largely replicating the structures of the Rambouillet agreement. Article I (Chapter 4a) of the Rambouillet Agreement stipulated that: “The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles”. The KLA government will largely be responsible for implementing these reforms and ensuring that loan conditionalities are met.

In close liaison with NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions had already analysed the consequences of an eventual military intervention leading to the military occupation of Kosovo: almost a year prior to the beginning of the War, the World Bank conducted “simulations” which “anticipated the possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the tensions in Kosovo.”49

The eventual “reconstruction” of Kosovo financed by international debt largely purports to transfer Kosovo’s extensive wealth in mineral resources and coal to multinational capital. In this regard, the KLA has already occupied (pending their privatisation) the largest coal mine at Belacevac in Dobro Selo northwest of Pristina. In turn, foreign capital has its eyes rivetted on the massive Trepca mining complex which constitutes “the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, worth at least $5 billion.”50 The Trebca complex not only includes copper and large reserves of zinc but also cadmium, gold, and silver. It has several smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, a power plant and Yugoslavia’s largest battery plant. Northern Kosovo also has estimated reserves of 17 billion tons of coal and lignite.

In the wake of the bombings, the management of many of the State owned enterprises and public utilities were taken over by KLA appointees. In turn, the leaders of Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK) have become “the brokers” of multinational capital committed to handing over the Kosovar economy at bargain prices to foreign investors. The IMF’s lethal “economic therapy” will be imposed, the provincial economy will be dismantled, agriculture will be deregulated, local industrial enterprises which have not been totally destroyed will be driven into bankruptcy.

The most profitable State assets will eventually be transferred into the hands of foreign capital under the World Bank sponsored privatisation programme. “Strong economic medicine” imposed by external creditors will contribute to further boosting a criminal economy (already firmly implanted in Albania) which feeds on poverty and economic dislocation. “The Allies will work with the rest of the international community to help rebuild Kosovo once the crisis is over: The International Monetary Fund and Group of Seven industrialized countries are among those who stand ready to offer financial help to the countries of the region. We want to ensure proper coordination of aid and help countries to respond to the effects of the crisis. This should go hand in hand with the necessary structural reforms in the countries affected helped by budget support from the international community.”51

Morever, the so-called “reconstruction” of the Balkans by foreign capital will signify multibillion contracts to foreign firms to rebuild Kosovo’s infrastructure. More generally, the proposed “Marshall Plan” for the Balkans financed by the World Bank and the European Development Bank (EBRD) as well as private creditors will largely benefit Western mining, petroleum and construction companies while fuelling the region’s external debt well into the third millennium.

And Kosovo is slated to reimburse this debt through the laundering of dirty money. Yugoslav banks in Kosovo will be closed down, the banking system will be deregulated under the supervision of Western financial institutions. Narcodollars from the multibillion dollar Balkans drug trade will be recycled towards servicing the external debt as well as “financing” the costs of “reconstruction.” The lucrative flow of narcodollars thus ensures that foreign investors involved in the “reconstruction” programme will be able reap substantial returns. In turn, the existence of a Kosovar “narco State” ensures the orderly reimbursement of international donors and creditors. The latter are prepared to turn blind eye. They have a tacit vested interest in installing a government which facilitates the laundering of drug money.

The pattern in Kosovo is, in this regard, similar to that observed in neighbouring Albania. Since the early 1990s (culminating with the collapse of the financial pyramids in 1996-97), the IMF’s reforms have impoverished the Albanian population while spearheading the national economy into bankruptcy. The IMF’s deadly economic therapy transforms countries into open territories. In Albania and to a lesser extent Macedonia, it has also contributed to fostering the growth of illicit trade and the criminalisation of State institutions.

ENDNOTES

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© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2008
The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8168

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On the Issues: Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

Nader for President 2008

On the Issues

Twelve Issues that Matter for 2008.

	Nader	Obama/Clinton	McCain
Adopt single payer national health insurance	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
No to nuclear power, solar energy first	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Open up the Presidential debates	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Adopt a carbon pollution tax	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Impeach Bush/Cheney	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Put an end to ballot access obstructionism	On the table	Off the table	Off the table
Work to end corporate personhood	On the table	Off the table	Off the table

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Ralph Nader Announces Candidacy (video)

Road Trip for Ralph

The Audacity of Revolution VS The Hope of Chumps by Manila Ryce (video)

An Unreasonable Man (must-see videos; Nader) Parts 1-4

Nader-Ralph

www.votenader.org/

Ralph Nader Announces Candidacy (videos) (updated)

Dandelion Salad

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Meet the Press

Feb. 24, 2008

Barack Obama: The Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing + His Puppetmasters (vids)

Dandelion Salad

THEYLIVE2012

Road Trip for Ralph

Dandelion Salad

votenader08

Ralph can’t do it alone – he needs you! The Nader Campaign is looking for Road Trippers. Travel around your city, your state, and the country meeting new people, learning new skills, helping get Ralph on the ballot in all 50 states, and making a real difference. We guarantee it will be an adventure you’ll never forget. If you really want to “spread democracy,” here’s your chance! Please sign up at http://votenader.org Tell your friends! Help Ralph Nader help America.

February 23, 2008

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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Ralph Nader Likely to Announce Presidential Run On Sunday

Riz Khan – Ralph Nader: Saint or spoiler?

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