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Developments in Egypt.

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US authorized teaqr gas to Egypt during protests

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DEA drug money laundering Mexico

DEA agents launder drug money from Mexico to try to gets leads on the traffickers.

NWFZ

Israeli Jews are in favor of a NWFZ at 65%, including Israel and Iran.

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US in Afghanistan until 2024http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Karzai is bowing to the US, which wants to stay in Afghanistan until 2024.
The report from the Daily Telegraph is here.

Eurasian Economic Union

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DEA on narco-terrorism in Afghanistan

From:
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct021204.htm

DEA Congressional Testimony
February 12, 2004

Statement of

Karen P. Tandy
Administrator

Drug Enforcement Administration

Before the

Committee on International Relations
U.S. House of Representatives

February 12, 2004

"United States Policy Towards Narco-Terrorism in Afghanistan"

Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member Lantos and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to testify today on the important issue of opium production in Afghanistan and its potential links to terrorism.

Overview

Afghan drug production is a priority for the DEA that guides our enforcement strategy in the region. As you know, opium production in Afghanistan has resumed over the last two years, although it is still lower than the highest level reached under the Taliban. While we expect that only a small portion of the resulting opium and heroin will ultimately reach the United States, these drugs are of great concern because they increase worldwide supply and have the potential to fund terrorists and other destabilizing groups. Because the situation inside Afghanistan presents unique challenges to law enforcement, the DEA has successfully acted with neighboring countries to control the spread of Afghan opium and heroin through Operation Containment.

I have just returned from Kabul where Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles, other senior officials representing the United States, and I participated in discussions with Afghanistan Transitional Authority President Hamid Karzai, United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Director Antonio Costa and other representatives from Afghanistan and the European Union on the challenges posed by Afghan drug production. The international drug control community shares our view that concerted multilateral efforts will be required to effectively address these problems. I look forward to discussing each of these important issues with the Committee.

Afghanistan Poppy Production and the U.S. Response

Significant Opium Production Resumes

Afghanistan is a major source country for the cultivation, processing and trafficking of opiate products. It has historically produced significant quantities of opium, and accounted for over 70 percent of the world's supply in the year 2000, when the United States government estimated Afghan opium production at 3,656 metric tons. In 2001, the Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppy. The DEA believes that the ban was likely an attempt by the Taliban to raise the price of opium which had fallen significantly due to the abundant supply produced in years prior to 2001. Regardless of intent, production plummeted to 74 metric tons in 2001.

With the fall of the Taliban, Afghan growers resumed cultivation despite renewal of the ban on poppy growth by the Karzai government. Opium production has returned to its historically substantial amounts, although it is important to emphasize that it has not yet reached the level of poppy recorded in 2000. In 2003, the United States Government officially estimated production of 2,865 metric tons of oven-dried opium from 61,000 hectares of poppy cultivation.

Afghanistan: Estimated Annual Potential Opium Production (Metric Tons)

2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996
2,865	1,278	74	3,656	2,861	2,340	2,184	2,099

Heroin Production and Movement

The opium produced in Afghanistan is readily made into narcotics to be sold on the international market, much of which eventually reaches users in Europe. While Europe is the primary destination for Afghan heroin, much of the opium remains in Southwest Asia for local consumption. Laboratories convert the opium into morphine base, white heroin, or one of several grades of brown heroin. Large processing laboratories are located in southern Afghanistan; smaller laboratories are located in other areas of the country, including the Nangarhar Province. In addition, morphine base produced in Afghanistan is shipped to traffickers based in Turkey and converted to heroin.

Transporting converted opium from Afghanistan is no easy task. Larger than the State of Texas, Afghanistan is landlocked, forcing traffickers to rely on challenging overland routes to move drug shipments out of the country. In addition to the traditional smuggling routes through Iran to Turkey, our intelligence reports indicate continued movement of heroin shipments north from Afghanistan through the Central Asian States, notably Tajikistan, to Russia. Some of the heroin is consumed in Russia, while a portion moves on to other markets. Afghan heroin also moves through India enroute to international markets and continues to be trafficked through Pakistan, where heroin is smuggled out through airports and vessels leaving the Pakistan coast.

DEA intelligence suggests that relatively little Afghan heroin is ultimately destined for the United States, although we continue to monitor carefully the market for potential new trends. Through the Heroin Signature Program (HSP), the DEA Special Testing and Research Laboratory analyzes samples from seizures at ports of entry and other randomly selected sources to determine their purity and geographic origin. In 2002, Southwest Asian heroin (which includes Afghan heroin) accounted for ten percent of the weight of all samples analyzed. Preliminary data for 2003 indicate that Southwest Asian heroin was eight percent by weight of the sample, although the 2003 survey is not yet complete. Similarly, the Domestic Monitor Program (DMP), which examines samples bought undercover on American streets to monitor their characteristics, showed that Southwest Asian heroin represented four percent of samples in 2002 and five percent in 2003. Neither HSP nor DMP results should be equated with market share, but rather suggest availability over time.

The DEA's Response Inside Afghanistan

Opium production in Afghanistan nonetheless is a significant concern and a priority for the DEA because of its impact on worldwide drug supply and its potential, as I will discuss later, to provide financial support to terrorists and other destabilizing groups. In assessing strategies to control and respond to this production, it is important to understand the significant operational obstacles we face in Afghanistan. Three decades of civil war and unrest have left the criminal justice system in disarray. Outside of Kabul, the country is not uniformly controlled by the central government. DEA has no national or local drug enforcement counterparts and Afghanistan lacks many of the most basic elements of its criminal justice institutions. Due to security constraints, DEA's presence in Afghanistan is limited to two agents, whose movement and ability to conduct traditional drug enforcement operations are severely restricted.

The DEA's Kabul Country Office, reopened in February 2003, nonetheless is making superb contributions under these difficult circumstances. DEA agents continue to gather and disseminate intelligence to U.S. and British law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We have made the collection and analysis of drug intelligence a priority within Afghanistan and Central Asia and are supporting a Department of Defense initiative to open an intelligence "fusion center" for multinational information sharing. Our country office also continues to debrief confidential sources in Kabul and supports domestic and foreign drug enforcement operations.

The DEA also works with other federal agencies on law enforcement matters in Afghanistan. Three months ago, DEA's Kabul Country Office personnel assisted the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the U.S. Army, traveling by convoy from Kabul to Kunduz to recruit police officers and soldiers for the Afghanistan Police Force and to conduct a site survey for a new Regional Law Enforcement Training Center to be funded by the United States. The mission was successful: for example, the Konduz RTC will be operational in March.

Operation Containment

The challenges to law enforcement within Afghanistan strongly suggested the need for a simultaneous, concerted effort to control Afghan drugs in neighboring countries before they can spread to broader markets. Operation Containment is a large-scale, multinational law enforcement initiative begun in early 2002 under the leadership of the DEA and with special support from Congress. Emphasizing coordination and information sharing among nineteen countries from Central Asia, the Caucuses, Europe and Russia, the program aims to implement a joint strategy to deprive drug trafficking organizations of their market access and international terrorist groups of financial support from drugs, precursor chemicals, weapons, ammunition and currency. It has been enormously successful, and I would like to thank the Committee for its strong support for this initiative.

The DEA supports Operation Containment worldwide, particularly in Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, and Central Asia. We have expanded existing offices in Europe and Southwest Asia and opened a new office in Uzbekistan. The DEA has assigned Special Agents to its Kabul, Ankara, Istanbul, Tashkent, Moscow and London Offices to support Operation Containment. In addition, one Intelligence Specialist and one support position are assigned in Ankara and one support position is assigned in Tashkent to support Operation Containment. DEA is also seeking approval to assign two Special Agents to Kyrgyzstan and additional agent and intelligence personnel to Uzbekistan and Brussels for Operation Containment.

Another key element is the Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU), a program that has been highly successful in other regions of the world. An SIU is made up of host nation law enforcement personnel, who are individually screened to protect against corruption and then specially trained and equipped to DEA standards. We have established a new DEA SIU in Uzbekistan, and the DEA SIU in Pakistan has made several significant seizures. These DEA-lead units provide critical and valuable assistance to anti-drug efforts in their countries.

Intelligence sharing is also a priority, with the initiative supporting regional intelligence sharing centers in Bucharest, Romania and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and a short-term Fusion Center program in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. DEA has temporarily assigned an Intelligence Analyst to the Bucharest intelligence center.

Operation Containment has been a great success. Since March 2002, it has resulted in 23 significant seizures of narcotics and precursor chemicals and led to the dismantlement and disruption of several major distribution/transportation organizations involved in the Southwest Asian drug trade. These include the disruption three months ago in Istanbul of the Galip Kuyucu transportation group, which was one of the most significant heroin traffickers in Turkey and a Justice Department international priority target. The Turkish National Police, working with the DEA and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, seized 495 kilograms of heroin, and disrupted this organization, which was regularly transporting similarly sized amounts of drugs throughout Western Europe. This investigation also led to the arrest of Urfi Cetinkaya, a major source of heroin supply with direct ties to Afghan drug traffickers.

Another significant success for Operation Containment was the arrest of 15 members of the Attila Ozyildirim heroin trafficking organization and the seizure of 7.4 tons of morphine base in Turkey during March 2002. This is the largest seizure of morphine base ever made. To put the magnitude of this seizure in perspective - the amount seized was more than four times greater than the total worldwide morphine base seizures made in 2000. Morphine base can be converted to heroin at a ratio of 1:1.

Drug Enforcement Training

The DEA is also working to build law enforcement capability and cooperation in Afghanistan and throughout the region. During October 2002, we participated along with officials from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in a United Nations International Narcotics Control Board conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan regarding Operation Topaz. Operation Topaz is intended to bring together law enforcement in several nations to detect and seize suspicious and unauthorized shipments of acetic anhydride, the primary precursor chemical used in the production of heroin.

We have particularly emphasized training for foreign law enforcement agencies, including a three week seminar conducted last September in the United States for high-level police managers. General Hilaluddin Hilal, Afghanistan's Deputy Interior Minister of Security Affairs, attended the course, which took place at both DEA Headquarters and the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia. I participated in this seminar personally as did members of the DEA's senior management, and we believe that it helped to begin and improve important partnerships with and among DEA and the international agencies involved.

During 2004, the DEA plans to conduct Drug Unit Commander training courses in Turkey and Uzbekistan. These one-week courses are funded through Operation Containment and are geared for supervisors of operational drug units. We anticipate that five to ten participants from throughout Afghanistan will attend each school. In addition, DEA is expanding its training efforts throughout the region during 2004, with training courses scheduled in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Thailand and India.

Links between Terrorism and the Afghan Drug Trade

DEA's Role in Fighting Terrorism

Mr. Chairman, the Committee has also asked me to address the potential links between terrorism and trafficking of Afghan opium and heroin. Last September, President Bush thanked DEA agents in a speech at Quantico, Virginia. He said "By keeping drug money from financing terror, you're playing an important part of this war." And we will continue doing so.

A narco-terrorist organization is an organized group that is complicit in the activities of drug trafficking to further or fund premeditated, politically motivated violence to influence a government or group of people. Although the DEA does not specifically target terrorists, some of the powerful international drug trafficking organizations we have targeted have never hesitated to use violence and terror to advance their interests. As of October 2003, the DEA has identified seventeen Foreign Terrorist Organizations, as designated by the Department of State, with potential ties to the drug trade. More generally, we know that drugs and terror frequently share a common ground of geography, money, and violence.

Our headquarters is only about 700 yards from the Pentagon, and DEA shook, literally and figuratively, when the terrorists attacked on September 11, 2001. DEA mobilized resources immediately, lending more than one hundred Special Agents to the Sky Marshal program, supporting the FBI investigation through the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) and fifty loaned Intelligence Analysts, and debriefing all of its Confidential Sources in an attempt to gain any available information on the attacks. Since the attack, EPIC has processed well over 200,000 terrorism inquiries.

During December 2001, the DEA formed a Special Coordination Unit at its Special Operations Division. This multi-agency unit coordinates all DEA intelligence and investigations having a possible nexus to terrorism and shares information with agencies responsible for coordinating terrorist intelligence and investigations. DEA drug investigations have generated such narco-terrorist related intelligence and investigations both domestically and internationally. DEA also has assigned personnel to various FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country and maintains liaison with the Department of Homeland Security.

Evaluating Links between Drugs and Terrorism

Past domestic investigations have shown the clear potential for drug money to fund terrorist groups. In October 2001, a joint DEA/FBI investigation targeting two heroin traffickers in Peshawar, Pakistan led to the seizure of 1.4 kilograms of heroin in Maryland and identification of two suspected money launderers, one with suspected ties to al Qaida. Similarly, Operation Marble Palace in 2001 determined that several members of a targeted heroin trafficking organization had possible ties to the Taliban and that a connected bank account had been used to launder proceeds to alleged Taliban supporters in Pakistan.

Based on that demonstrated potential, many have suggested that there must be financial ties between drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan. At this time, we do not have evidence capable of sustaining an indictment of direct links between terrorism and narcotics trafficking groups within Afghanistan. To the extent that allegations have been raised based on more than speculation, they generally come from single sources. Clear corroborating evidence of such sources has been difficult to obtain, in part because many traditional investigative techniques cannot be used within the country for reasons I have previously explained.

Raw intelligence and uncorroborated confidential sources continue to indicate possible relationships between drug traffic and terrorist groups within Afghanistan. The DEA will continue to assign the highest priority to investigating any information linking drugs to terrorism. We will do so in cooperation with our law enforcement and intelligence partners, and we will aggressively work to gather and document intelligence relating to drug activity that may finance terrorism.

The Drug/Financial Fusion Center recently created by Congress will use the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force's architecture to enhance capabilities to uncover links between drug trafficking and terrorism. Investigative links between drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and known terrorist organizations will be shared with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department and the intelligence community. Additionally, our intelligence programs continue to work closely with law enforcement and the intelligence community to identify and anticipate emerging threats posed by the links between drug trafficking and terrorism.

Conclusion

Mr. Chairman, control of drug production in Afghanistan and its potential ties to terrorism is an agencywide priority for the DEA. I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify before the Committee today. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Economy

Interesting piece by Paul Craig Roberts on the dollar, debt, etc.

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Article on the blurring of counternarcotics and terrorism cases by the DEA since a few years.

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The US is expanding its efforts in Mexico's counternarcotics campaign, now sending CIA officials and former military officials to Mexico to train Mexicans in counter-drug operations.

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Nick Turse on the Pentagon's JSOC forces that conduct operations in 120 countries.

UK torture

The UK condoned torture, as revealed by new documents.

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Jeremy Scahill on the CIA's secret sites in Somalia.

Congress doesn't care about nuclear terrorism

The House of Rep moved to slash budgets to secure nuclear facilities in the US and overseas that contain radioactive materials.

Argentina default

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Obama FTAs

Obama is pushing free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Mexico drugs

Mexican drug cartel members are apparently paid informants of the US.

HRW torture report

New HRW torture report on the crimes of the Bush administration.

Euro

Good article by Mark Weisbrot on the euro, arguing that EU monetary policy is more right wing than in the US.

John Walker Lindh

John Walker Lindh's father wrote a long detailed description of his son's adventures.

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Charles Bowden interview on economics, drugs and mexico and the war on drugs.

Suicide rates up in Europe

Suicide rates are up in Europe and particularly in countries affected by the economic crisis most severely like Ireland and Greece.

Europe to privatize assets everywhere

Guardian has a good summary of what is on the privatization lists of various European countries.

Mexico heroin cannabis

Article on heroin and poppy production in Mexico and one on cannabis.

Greece

Greece has plans to privatize a lot of its public assets to raise money.

Greece bailout

Article saying how the EU authorities are imposing colonialism on Greece through bailout and austerity measures.

Obama rendition

Has rendition disappeared under Obama?

Pipeline politics in central asia

Article on pipeline politics in central asia.

Greece debt germany

Der Spiegel interview with professor says Germany has been the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century in relation to WW1 and World War 2 in which reparations to say Greece were forgotten.

Afghanistan mujahideen

The US kept funding the mujahideen after 1989 as says Robert Parry.

Iran Pakistan Afghanistan

Iran is trying to undermine US influence in Afghanistan by trying to form alliances with Pakistan. For example the IPI pipeline is discussed.

Drug War Juarez

Al Jazeera video on the war on drugs in Mexico and Juarez.

Drug war failing reports

The Drug war has failed say two new reports from the US government.

US energy eurasia

US plans at the geopolitical and geoeconomic levels in Afghanistan and the region of eurasia.

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Article written by a US soldier about poppies and drugs in Afghanistan.

Drug war Latin America

US is using drug wars as pretexts to build military bases in Latin America.

War on drugs report

Martin Wolf on the failed war on drugs and the latest global report.

Obama Middle East speech

Article showing that Obama's speech was contrary to his policies.
Article describing how
neoliberal policies caused the economic and unemployment crisis that led to protests in Tunisia and Egypt.

US Middle East arms

Nick Turse on US sales of weapons to the Middle East.

Canada in Iraq War

Article based on wikileaks documents showing that although Canada officially stayed out of the Iraq War, it made some contributions to it. For example some high-level Canadian soldiers were involved in the planning.

NATO SCO Afghanistan

Excellent article by Bhadrakumar describing the geopolitics in Central Asia and Afghanistan pitting the SCO and NATO against one another.

Greece crisis euro

Weisbrot has a good article with many good links on Greece's possible exit from the euro.

Mexico drugs money laundering

Mexico and drug money laundering article here, with US "efforts" against it.

Working hours in the world

Mexicans work the most hours in the world and the Belgians the least.

Mexico drugs europe

Article saying that Europe must do more to help Mexico's drug problem.

bin Laden Taliban offers

Gareth Porter shows how the Bush administration rejected diplomatic proposals by the Taliban to catch bin Laden before and after the bombing started in October 2001, and also how it basically focus no military attention to catching him as he was escaping from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Another article is here.

Torture and bin Laden

Good article showing that torture of detainees did not lead to clues about where bin Laden was.

Al Qaeda and Guantanamo files

Jason Burke discusses three myths on Al Qaeda based on the Guantanamo files.

Iraq Media

The Iraqi government of Maliki, backed by the US, is cracking down on press freedom. The article also has links to NSA documents that say that the US attempted to control the media in collaboration with the Maliki governement in the wake of the removal of Saddam, and there's also a link to a recent report on the media in post-Saddam Iraq.

Oil companies Iraq

New memos from before the Iraq War (2002) reveal that British oil companies and the UK government lobbied for a share of Iraq's oil in the wake of the war.

Libya

Good Q&A on Libya from Zmag.

Drug money laundering by US banks

Excellent article telling the story of how a US bank, Wachovia, laundered billions of dollars of drug money from Mexico. There are among other things some good paragraphs at the end on the failure and disinterest to tackle banks' money laundering activities on the part of the regulatory community.

15,000 deaths from nuclear testing

Nuclear testing has led to cancers and deaths, at least 15,000.

CIA in Libya

The CIA and MI6 are in Libya helping the rebels.

Dean Baker TARP

Dean Baker refutes the Washington Post's analysis of TARP (Robert Samuelson's analysis):

Robert Samuelson's Troubled TARP Arithmetic

We know that arithmetic is not the strong suit of the Washington Post and Robert Samuelson drives this point home again today with his discussion of the TARP. Samuelson tells us that TARP is now projected to cost just $19 billion and that the final cost may actually be lower. He also tells us that the alternative to TARP, bank nationalization would have been far more costly. And, he said that without TARP the unemployment rate "would be 11 percent or 14 percent; it certainly wouldn’t be 8.9 percent."

Okay, let's take these in turn. First, the idea that the TARP cost almost nothing is based on some very shoddy accounting. Samuelson apparently does not understand the idea of money carrying an opportunity cost.

Suppose the government lent me $1 trillion for 10 years at 1 percent annual interest. In the Robert Samuelson world, the government is earning a $100 billion profit on this investment ($10 billion a year for 10 years). Economists familiar with opportunity costs would instead see this as a huge loss to the government, since it is giving me an enormous loan at an interest rate that is several percentage points below the market rate.

We saw how this worked with the TARP when Warren Buffett reported earning twice the money on his investment in Goldman Sachs which was half of the size of the investment from Treasury. Buffett got the market rate of return on his investment, the difference was a subsidy from taxpayers to the shareholders and executives of Goldman. The same story was true with the other TARP loans, as well as the even larger amount of money lent through the Fed as well as the guarantees provided by the FDIC.

This gets back to the comparison with the option of nationalizing the bankrupt banks, which Samuelson asserts would have been far more costly. Each year, the large banks are pulling over $100 billion a year out of the economy in profits. They also pay their executives tens of billions of dollars each year. Let's say that this sum comes to around $150 billion a year in total or 1 percent of GDP.

This money would not be pulled out of the economy if the banks had been nationalized. This is money that would have been available for other purposes (e.g. it could have paid for higher wages for ordinary workers) rather than supporting the consumption of bank shareholders and executives. The way this would work practically is that the Fed could stimulate the economy more with lower interest rates (think of some future point when the economy is closer to full employment) allowing for workers’ wages to raise, because we do not have $150 billion or so in consumption by these shareholders and executives.

If we take the discounted value of this sum over the next thirty years it would come to more than $3.5 trillion. This can be viewed as the cost of the TARP and related rescue programs compared with nationalization. (Samuelson tells us that nationalization would have been complicated, so was TARP. Life's tough.)

Finally, Samuelson tells us that without the TARP unemployment would be "11 percent or 14 percent: it certainly wouldn't be 8.9 percent." This is incredibly bad logic. These numbers are based on a counter-factual in which the government and the Fed let the financial system collapse and then did nothing by way of response. These are undoubtedly reasonable projections of the unemployment rate under such circumstances, however that is not a plausible counter-factual.

If Samuelson paid attention to what he was writing he would note another possible response, bank nationalization. If the Fed had taken over the bankrupt banks and then flooded the system with money (as it did with the TARP and related Fed liquidity programs) then we would not have seen the rise in unemployment from these projections.

Samuelson's analysis would be comparable to noting that a particular fire hose was used to put out a school fire, saving dozens of children. Samuelson would then tell us that this fire hose saved dozens of children. While this would literally be true, if that particular fire hose did not exist, the firefighters would have extinguished the fire with the other one they had on the truck. In other words, the alternative was not that the children would die, the alternative was that they would use a different hose.

In the same vein, the alternative to TARP was not that we sit around with a collapsed banking system waiting for the economy to sort itself out on its own. The alternative was a different set of monetary actions to boost the economy. It is silly to tout this no-hose story as the counter-factual to TARP.

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Rolling Stone article on the "kill team" of US soldiers in Afghanistan and how they executed unarmed Afghan civilians. Also two videos and many pictures.

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A link to some academic studies which find that intervention by Western states as in Libya doesn't lead to democratization.

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We hear a lot about how facebook etc. helped democratize the Arab world, but less so about the fact that Western corporations have also provided technological tools to the dictatorships to monitor communications and censorship.

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Article here from a Libyan rebel leader saying some fighters have links to Al Qaeda.

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Article on US oil companies' operations in Libya, which have for the most part been suspended due to the airstrikes.

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Wikileaks cables reveal how the US pressured India to vote against Iran to refer it to the UNSC in February 2006. Among other things it states:
Even after India's second vote, the leaked cables suggest there was no lessening of the pressure to tow the American line on Iran. And the fate of the civil nuclear agreement was the bait. “India is clearly rattled by Iran's refusal (after the IAEA votes) to confirm the preferential price for the sale of five million tonnes of LNG per year, and perceives that some conciliatory motions would help salvage its important energy relationship,” a March 27, 2006 cable ( 58266: confidential) noted. “However, we have made clear to the GOI that dallying with Iran is not only dangerous for regional stability but also puts at risk Congressional support for the civil nuclear deal.”

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Interview with Chomsky on the Arab world protests and in Iran too. Libya and oil is discussed.

Libya and oil intervention

Good article pointing out that Gaddafi has threatened a few days ago that Libyan oil would not be for the EU anymore but for China, Russia and India.

Disconnect on Afghanistan

A good example of the disconnect between popular opinion and the elites in government. The US House just voted at 93-321 to reject a resolution to end the war (so 75% of the House wants to continue the war), but US popular opinion is the opposite: 73% say the US should withdraw a substantial number of US troops from Afghanistan this summer, while 64% think the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting (see Questions 24 and 25).

Afghanistan civilian casualties

Good article saying that the way the UN counts civilian casualties in Afghanistan underplays the number killed by US/NATO forces.

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Article on drug production and consumption in North Korea, which is now mostly done privately. Raw materials are often imported from China, and China has also become a major market for North Korean drug manufacturers.

ICG on Libya

From the International Crisis Group:

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW MEDIA RELEASE

Open Letter to the UN Security Council on the Situation in Libya

Brussels, 16 March 2011:

Excellency,

In light of the grave situation in Libya, we urge Security Council Members to take immediate effective action aimed at achieving a ceasefire in place and initiating negotiations to secure a transition to a legitimate and representative government. This action should be backed by the credible threat of appropriate military intervention, as a last resort, to prevent mass atrocities.

We welcome the steps taken thus far by the Security Council, including an asset freeze, arms embargo and the threat of prosecution for war crimes. These were adopted in response to widespread abuses against civilians and were meant to prevent a humanitarian disaster. But the situation has now evolved into a full-scale civil war. The most urgent goal now must be to end the violence and halt further loss of life, while paving the way toward a political transition, objectives that require a different response.

Imposing a no-flight zone, which many have been advocating, would, in and of itself, achieve neither of these. It would not stop the violence or accelerate a peaceful resolution. Nor would it materially impede the regime from crushing resistance. Government forces appear to be gaining the advantage mainly on account of their superiority on the ground, not air power. In short, a no-flight zone under existing circumstances would not address the threat of mass atrocities it purports to tackle. The debate over this issue is inhibiting the necessary reflection on the best course of action.

If the objective is, as it should be, first and foremost to end the killing, there are only two genuine options. One is an international military intervention explicitly on the side of the revolt with the avowed goal of ensuring its victory or, at a minimum, preventing its defeat. Given widespread lack of knowledge of the situation on the ground, it is unclear what it will take to achieve this. At a minimum, however, this would involve providing the rebel forces with substantial military assistance and taking action against Qaddafi's forces. Should those measures not suffice, it could well require direct military involvement on the ground. It is incumbent on those pressing this view to think through its logical imp lications;2 0it would be reckless to enter a military confrontation on the optimistic assumption that it will be ended quickly, only to see it turn into a bloody, protracted war.

Although there are legitimate arguments for a swift and massive military intervention on the opposition's behalf, it presents considerable risks. Besides the obvious downsides entailed in what could well come to be viewed as another Western military engagement in a Muslim country and the Middle East and North Africa region, it could also lead to large-scale loss of life as well as precipitate a political vacuum in Libya in which various forces engage in a potentially prolonged and violent struggle for supremacy before anything resembling a state and stable government are reestablished. Such a situation could lead to wider regional instability and could be exploited by terrorist movements, notably Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The alternative option, which Crisis Group has advocated, is to engage in a vigorous political effort to achieve an immediate ceasefire in place to be followed by the prompt opening of a dialogue on the modalities of a transition to a new government that the Libyan people will accept as legitimate. To that end, we urge the Council to delegate a regional contact group composed of officials or respected personalities drawn from Arab and African countries, including Libya's neighbours, to initiate discussions with the regime and the opposition without delay. Their mandate would be to secure agreement on:

• An immediate ceasefire in place, which respects international humanitarian law;
• Dispatch of a peacekeeping force drawn primarily from the armed forces of regional states to act as a buffer, operating under a Security Council mandate and with the support of the Arab League and African Union;
• Initiation of a dialogue between the regime and opposition aimed at definitively ending the bloodshed and beginning the necessary transition to representative, accountable and legitimate government

To enhance the credibility of the threat to use all necessary means -- including military steps beyond the imposition of a no-flight zone – to protect against mass atrocities, member states should begin planning for such an eventuality. The Security Council has a responsibility to live up to its commitments, even and especially if a member state does not.

Crisis Group’s proposal addresses head-on the overwhelming priorities of stopping the bloodshed and initiating the necessary political transition in a way that avoids the dangerous prospect of a political vacuum and is in line with both the African Union’s proposal for African mediation and the Arab League’s recognition that Arab countries have a role to play. It further backs up the vital and long overdue political effort we have called for with the only kind of military deployment that can help end the violence rather than aggravate it. We urge the Security Council to adopt this proposal and to take immediate steps to put it into effect.

Sincere regards,

Louise Arbour
President and CEO
International Crisis Group

Mexico drugs

The US is using unarmed drones in the war on drugs in Mexico. That in addition to training the Mexican military and police etc.

Haiti

Good article on Haiti explaining how the US/West opposed Aristide's return.

Weisbrot guardian

Good column by Mark Weisbrot on Wisconsin and attacks on labor in the US since the 1980s, including some discussion of health care costs.

US staff influences Afghan Interior Ministry

Almost 300 foreign (mostly US) staff works in the Afghan Interior Ministry, and hundreds more work in other government departments. Of course this leads them to influence decisions. For ex:
Another former senior Interior Ministry official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that Afghans wanted to develop the police as a law enforcement force, but that American advisers, holding the upper hand because they also held the purse strings, pushed through training the police as a counterterrorism force instead.

US prisoners make missiles

US prisoners paid as little as $0.23 make parts for the Patriot missile and other goods for the US Army.

Mainstream view

A perfect article by David Ignatius to look at the mainstream coverage of the Middle East protests is here. Ignatius says that Obama is a global community organizer, which is about as detached from reality as you can be: "This is the president as global community organizer - a man who believes that change is inevitable and desirable, and that the United States must align itself with the new forces shaping the world."

US agents let guns into Mexico

US border agents let guns into Mexico, and the directive goes all the way up to the Justice Department. The claimed purpose is to track those guns into Mexico to investigate the war on drugs, but the result is more violence across the border.

European arms exports to Libya

Dataset on Europe's arms exports to Libya here.

Egypt run up to protests

Good article on the 10 years of strikes and protests that led to the recent protests and ouster of Mubarak.

Bahrain

Good article on Bahrain and the US role there, in historical perspective.

Libya and oil and US intervention

The US and Europe want to intervene in Libya because of its oil, which could be grabbed for their companies. Good article on this here.

Academy political views

An article and report on the views of academics: are they liberal or conservative?

US inequality

Great charts on inequality in the US from Mother Jones.

Tzipi Livni article

The leader of Israel's Kadima party and foreign minister during the attack on Gaza in 2008-09, Tzipi Livni's article is certainly one of the most filled-with-non-sense pieces I've seen today. There must be one contradiction or idiocies per line.

Ireland hotel workers wages attacked

Article on how hotel workers are seeing their minimum wage attacked thanks to the measures put in place by the Irish government to force ordinary people to pay for the bankers and developers' mess.

Egypt revolution

Excellent article explaining the activist strategies that have made Egypt's protests so successful.

US Korea FTA

The US-Korea Free Trade Agreement will lead to quite negative consequences for Korea, attakcing its agricultural, health care, environmental, etc. sectors.

Egypt workers

Excellent article on the role of the strikes and workers in Egypt.

Canada Afghanistan warlords

Canada has spent $41 million over four years on hiring militias and warlords in Afghanistan.

US military aid to Israel

Very good article explaining the links between the US and Israel and Egypt on the military aid front. US military aid to all countries is a gift to American military corporations since a lot of that aid must be legally used to buy US-made weapons. So the US government takes American taxpayers' dollars and gives it to US corporations straight away.

Labor at center of Mid East protests

Juan Cole says that the labor movement is at the center of the protests in Egypt and Tunisia.

Egypt

So for anybody who wasn't yet convinced that world governments are a bunch of elites together with international bodies, here it is. Many world bodies have taken a weak stance on the Egypt protests, or remained silent.

Egypt military tortures, Secret Services trained by US too

Article saying the Egyptian military is not neutral as so many mainstream commentators are saying, but arrests protesters and tortures them.
Another one saying the FBI has trained the State Security Service, involved in torture too.

Middle East protests repressed

Protests across the Middle East are repressed by governments.

Opinion polls on defense spending

Good article linking to many polls on public opinion on defense spending. The public wants to cut defense spending when it knows how much the US actually spends.

Taliban reconciliation attempts in 2002

Good article on Taliban attempts at reconciliation with the Karzai regime from 2002, rejected by the US.

EU weapons sales to North Africa

Article on EU weapons sales to North Africa. EU countries have dramatically increased their arms sales to north African countries in recent years, from €372m to €2bn, according to the European Network Against Arms Trade.

Police and Taliban equally mistrusted in Afghan South

A survey says that in the south of Afghanistan, the population distrusts the police about as much as the Taliban.

400 war criminals in the UK

Article here saying that there's no political will to get them.

Baker on debt

Dean Baker on debt: must be paid when the little people owe it but not when the government owes it in the form of pensions.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera and how the US tried to bomb it and killed some of its journalists.

Baker economic crisis articles

Some good articles here on the economic crisis in the references at the bottom of this article.

And the original by Dean Baker: Ireland should do an Argentina.

Military technology

Nick Turse on military technology and DARPA.

Academic writing

Nick Cohen says academics write badly and that's why they've lost support.

Spain

Mark Weisbrot on Spain's economic troubles caused by joining the euro.

US made gas canisters

The tear gas canisters used by the Egyptian authorities against protesters are made in USA.

The US has also given some funding to "democracy promotion" in Egypt but the amounts are much much smaller than those for military aid to the regime. Some of the democracy funds are even given to the government instead of real democratic orgnizations.

US and Middle East revolts

Stephen Zunes writes that:

Regarding Tunisia, the U.S. government was silent during the first weeks of protests despite savage repression by the government. Less than a week after the uprising began, Congress voted for an addition $12 million in security assistance to Ben Ali’s regime. Tear gas canisters lobbed at pro-democracy demonstrators were inscribed with the words “Made in USA,” a reminder of whose side Washington was on in the struggle against the dictatorship. By early January, the State Department began issuing mild criticism of the Ben Ali regime for firing live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators but was equally willing to blame the pro-democracy activists. While the movement was largely nonviolent, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley chose to characterize it by its most unruly components. He stated that the Obama administration was "concerned about government actions, but we're also concerned about actions by the demonstrators, those who do not have peaceful intentions."

He also has links to a Freedom House study that says that after examining the 67 transitions from authoritarian regimes to varying degrees of democratic governments over the past few decades, concluded that they came overwhelmingly through democratic civil society organizations using nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance. Such transitions did not result from foreign invasion and came about only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary, elite-driven reforms.

And in another study on civil resistance of more than 300 struggles for self-determination against colonialism, military occupation, and colonial rule over the past century, Maria Stephan and Erica Chenowith noted that nonviolent struggles were more than twice as likely to succeed as armed struggles.

In short nonviolent uprisings work:
Throughout the world, in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries, in recent years there has been a dramatic growth of the use of strategic nonviolent action. In contrast to armed struggles, these nonviolent insurrections are movements of organized popular resistance to government authority. Either consciously or by necessity, they eschew the use of weapons of modern warfare. Unlike conventional political movements, nonviolent campaigns usually employ tactics outside the mainstream political processes of electioneering and lobbying. These tactics may include strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, the popular contestation of public space, tax refusal, destruction of symbols of government authority (such as official identification cards), refusal to obey official orders (such as curfew restrictions), and the creation of alternative institutions for political legitimacy and social organization.

Middle East protests

Juan Cole at Tom Dispatch on the recent events in Tunisia and other countries in the Middle East.

NYT wikileaks

Some propaganda against Wikileaks and Assange by the NYT in the form of a little video.

Sayyaf

Karzai appears to be backing Sayyaf, a former warlord/mujahideen, as speaker of Parliament. The new parliament, like the previous one, is packed with warlords etc.

Coca leaf

Bolivians want to amend international drug laws (the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs) to allow them to chew coca leaves, but only the US opposes them. As of now, the Convention calls on countries to eradicate the practice.

Bank bonuses UK

George Monbiot on bank bonuses in the UK.

US isolates Karzai

Excellent article at Asia Times saying the US is moving to isolate Karzai because he is too nationalist and tries to organize good regional links and to reconcile with the Taliban. The US wishes to establish a long-term military presence more and more though.

Nader Paul alliance

Ron Paul and Ralph Nader seem to be in a political alliance.

Wikileaks haiti

Wikileaks cables show that the US wants to keep Aristide out of Haiti.

Colombia trains anti-drug Mexico

Colombia is training Mexican police and military to fight drugs. The training takes place mostly in Mexico but also in Colombia. The US is paying for it. Some American and Canadian officials are also there.

Irish crisis

Good article illustrating the frenzy of Irish real estate bubble.

Tunisia example

Tunisia has set a demonstration effect into process, as reported by the NYT:

it is "the power of the Tunisian example", as 6 North Africans have now set themselves on fire to protest in various countries.

Afghan opinion

Paper on the perceptions of Afghans of US and NATO troops in Kandahar. Locals don't trust the troops. Excerpts:

In informal discussions with villagers and residents
of Kandahar city and surrounding districts it was evident that locals don’t really understand
the purpose of this so called ‘surge’. Most believe it will end like previous operations in the
south, in failure, bringing only more grief and sorrow to their homes and villages. Indeed,
many Kandaharis have come to believe that coalition military operations result only in the
death, injury, arrest and dishonouring of innocent Afghan civilians who have nothing to do
with the Taliban.
This said, nor do Kandaharis want the coalition to leave. They see a role for coalition military
forces in the province, albeit one that focuses less on active military operations and more on
stabilisation and peace-building ones.

If there is, however, one overriding reason why locals have little confidence in US-led
operations in Kandahar it is the continued failure of American and coalition forces to
understand local context and dynamics and the impact of their stalled operations on the local
population.

Afghanistan media

A report from the US Institute of Peace on the media in Afghanistan and its problems. They suggest many media programs that would be better, some of which are things like reality tv shows. The report is, of course, not critical.

Taliban ideology

A paper on the Taliban's evolving ideology, which is less fundamentalist than the 1990s' Taliban.

Gaza Youth Manifesto 2

A second Gaza Manifesto is here.

Wikileaks Pilger

Good article on Wikileaks and interview with Assange by John Pilger.

Mexico drug war death data

The Mexican authorities have released extensive data on drug war deaths which can be downloaded here.

Conservatives and Afghanistan

The number of conservatives who think the US should get out of Afghanistan or reduce troop levels there is quite high: 66% according to this poll.

NYT freedom of speech wikileaks

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told readers in an online exchange that the newspaper has suggested to its media partners and to WikiLeaks what information it believes should be withheld.

"We agree wholeheartedly that transparency is not an absolute good," Keller wrote. "Freedom of the press includes freedom not to publish, and that is a freedom we exercise with some regularity."

The article also explains how wikileaks cables are released and redacted by the media organizations.

Krugman Europe crisis

Krugman on Europe's crisis, he talks a lot about Ireland.

US empire of bases

Excellent article by Nick Turse who tries to count the overseas US military installations, which can reach over 1,000 depending on what is counted and what is not.

Stuxnet

AN ISIS paper about the Stuxnet virus and its possible impacts on Iran's nuclear program.

MEK

Glenn Greenwald has a good article on the meeting of Republican officials with the MEK, a terrorist group according to the US.
And David Cole has a good article on the same subject.

First Gulf War wikileaks

Wikileaks has released a cable from Glaspie describing her meeting with Saddam on July 25 1990.

US Latin America

US foreign policy in Latin America and Colombia.

Gaza Youth's Manisfesto for Change

A group of University students from Gaza has a manifesto denouncing Hamas, Israel, the US, etc.