new
Posted Wednesday, February 18, 2007, 23:10
pm
Still on the
subject of Afghanistan, I noticed that NATO commanders gleefully inform us when
they manage to slaughter a few tens or a few hundred "Taliban" (I use
quotation marks, because I think there are many non-Taliban Afghani who oppose
the occupation). Whether they are Taliban or not, they are most likely a bunch
of fully or partly analphabet, poor and desperate peasants.
Isn't there another
way of handling them? We are supposed to be there solely on moral grounds, we
are defending the Afghani people against a return to a bloody dictatorship,
right? Couldn't we talk to these people and try to convince them that Taliban
did wrong deeds, and that we mean well for Afghanistan, and we will leave soon,
etc. Even the hated communists of the past, including a senile Mao Tze Dun
during the Cultural Revolution, were in favor of "re-educating" the
enemies. If we refuse a dialogue with these people, it means we are as
intractable as we describe them to be.
In one of your
articles, you mentioned that the US policies may return the world to barbarism.
Are you aware that some of my and your ancestors called the ancestors of Mr.
Bush "barbarians"? I'm wondering if anything has changed in 2000
years.
Dorin
new
Helping Women through War?
Posted Wednesday, February 7, 2007, 09:05 am
Sarah
Chayse argues that the women need us there [in Afghanistan] in force.
It's a
tough call, but I'd have to say, too bad.
There's
an old fable about the sun and the wind arguing which was the most important.
During this lively discussion, the impetuous wind rushes to suggest something
that will prove his superiority. Noticing a man walking below, he boasts that
he could blow the coat right off of him. Goaded by the sneers of the sun, he
huffs and puffs, but of course the man just grabs his coat tighter. The sun
offers to show him how, and beams and beams until the man is more comfortable
with it off.
We're not
going to save the women of Afghanistan with war.
Russ.
new
Posted Wednesday, February 7, 2007, 00:33 am
Another
excellent article. Indeed the participation of Canadian and NATO troops in the
occupation of Afghanistan, may allow the Americans to commit atrocities against
other countries, like Iran or Syria. I see absolutely no benefit in the
continued occupation of Afghanistan. All foreign troops should leave shortly to
allow the Afghanis to solve their problems without outside interference. If Mr.
Karzai's administration will not manage to hold to power in spite of having
much better weaponry (given by the US and NATO) and having control of the news
media, etc, then it simply means that they don't enjoy the trust and support of
the Afghanis.
To
prevent a return to the situation during the Taliban rule (from what I heard,
Taliban executed lots of people, didn't allow women to go to school, etc), the
UN should make it clear that Afghanistan, as a UN country, must respect the
UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights; if their government doesn't do so,
then they will be swiftly removed from power by UN troops.
But the
best way to protect peoples' rights is to educate all the people, including the
potential abusers, instead of slaughtering them (that's not a good example of
upholding human rights). Also, in order to succeed, it's important not to show
double standards. If Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper would show that they also care
about the rights of Palestinians, Lebanese and Iraqis, then they'd have a much
better chance of putting the Afghanis on the right path.
Otherwise,
preaching human rights to Afghanis, Chinese or Cubans is simply an act of
impertinence and hypocrisy.
Dorin
new
The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI)
Posted Tuesday, February 6, 2007, 13:22 pm
Ah, yes,
the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI), the other main reason why the US is in
Afghanistan. Except that Unocal, the US oil company involved in the original
pipeline agreement in 1995, withdrew in 1998. And in response to the
announcement in 2002 by the Karzai gov't that TAPI was back on the table,
Unocal said that it was not interested and had since become a partner in a
Caspian pipeline. Nothing has happened since 2002, and whatever is keeping the
Americans in Afghanistan today, it is not likely to be the prospect of a gas
pipeline ending up in Pakistan .
Pierre
_________________
Answer
from R. T.
First of all, I did
not mention Unocal in my blog.
This does not mean
that the story of the trans-Afghan pipeline is not a
very complicated one. Initially, it was not Unocal which was involved in the
project, but the Argentinian oil company Bridas Corporation. In November of
1996, it signed an agreement with General Dostum of the Northern Alliance and
with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Then, the American
company Unocal (aided by an Arabian company, Delta Oil) tried to obtain
exclusive control of the trans-Afghan pipeline. In its conflict with Bridas,
Unocal hired a number of consultants: Henry Kissinger, Richard Armitage (former
Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration), Zalmay Khalilzad (a
signer of the PNAC letter to President Clinton in 1998) and Hamid Karzai.
Unocal tried to have the Taliban government cancel the Bridas contract, but did
not succeed.
In 1997,
Turkmenistan forged a consortium with oil companies, led by Unocal, to build
the trans-Afghan pipeline. The $1.9-billion project hit snags because the
Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan’s territory. By 1998, it is true,
construction plans collapsed and Unocal withdrew from the CentGas consortium.
In 2001, after the
U.S. invasion, Hamid Karzai, the former Unocal
consultant, was installed as head of an interim government in Afghanistan.
Subsequently Karzai was elected President of
Afghanistan. In this capacity, he welcomed the first U.S. envoy, Mr. John J.
Maresca, the Vice President of the Unocal Corporation who had implored Congress
to have the Taliban overthrown. Mr. Maresca was succeeded by Mr. Zalmay
Khalilzad — also a former Unocal consultant. (Mr. Khalilzad has since
become Ambassador to Iraq, and has now been nominated to replace John Bolton,
his PNAC colleague, as the ambassador to the UN.)
After
Bridas sued Unocal in the U.S. courts for contract interference, it won, in
2004, overcoming the law firm of Mr. Richard Ben Veniste. That firm had multibillion-dollar
interests in the Caspian Basin and shared an office in Uzbekistan with the
Enron Corporation. After its misadventures in Afghanistan, Unocal has announced
that it doesn’t plan to get involved in Afghanistan again and has shifted
its resources to other world regions.
But the trans-Afghan pipeline project is far from being
dead. On February 8, 2002, Presidents Karzai of Afghanistan and Musharraf of
Pakistan met and signed an agreement for a new trans-Afghan
pipeline. On February 23, 2003, an article in
the trade journal "Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections" announced
that three US federal agencies stood ready to finance the prospective pipeline:
the U.S. Export/Import Bank, the Trade and Development Agency, and the Overseas
Private Insurance Corporation. The article also stated that "...some recent reports
... indicated ... the United States was willing to police the pipeline
infrastructure through permanent stationing of its troops in the region."
After the U.S.
Congres frustrated China's attempt to spend some $18.5 billion to buy Unocal,
in 2005, Unocal was bought up by the Chevron
Corporation and the Bridas Corporation is now part of BP/Amoco.
As I said, because of
the Taliban insurgency, the construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline has been
delayed, but it is far from being cancelled. Indeed, according to U.S.
Ambassador Tracey Anne Jacobson, other American oil companies stand ready to
replace Unocal and join in the new project.
As for the maze of
oil pipelines in Iraq, they are 24/7 under U.S. military surveillance through
satellites and with helicopters. And remember, the only Iraqi buildings
protected during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq were those of the Iraqi
Department of Energy.
Those who keep repeating that oil and gas had nothing to do with the
military invasions of both countries have their heads deeply buried in the
sand. Instead, both are deeply related to energy
geopolitics. For that, they only have to read Dick Cheney's May 2001
Energy report about the need for the U.S. to take control of the energy
reserves in that part of the world. By the way, this is all well explained and
documented in my book "The New American Empire" which has just been translated into Turkish,
under the title of "Yeni Amerikan †mparatorlu›u."
new
Posted Tuesday, February 6, 2007, 15:41 pm
Let's not
put all this on Harper's shoulders.
Haiti is
another example of Canada acquiescing in an imperialist request, or maybe just
playing at being an imperial adjunct power. Joining the attack on Haiti's
democratically elected government, and the subsequent occupation of that
country, were the responsibility of the previous Canadian government, not
Harper's. Harper may be the Canadian version of Bush, but aren't the Liberals
just a Canadian version of the Democrats?
Indeed,
what the world needs now are a couple of Western democracies to start bucking
the corporate state imperialist system, and not only refuse to cooperate within
the imperial system, but to actively oppose and defy it. Pretty much every
Western government is towing the imperialist line at the moment despite Western
people being mostly anti-imperialist.
Not much
hope until then.
Blue
_____________________
Answer from R. T.
These comments are
well taken.
Things got worse when
Paul Martin took over from Jean Chretien as Liberal Party leader and as Prime
Minister. Keep in mind that the Chretien government did refuse to involve
Canada in the Iraq war. With Martin as Prime Minister, because of his close
links to the pro-Israel Lobby, he most probably would have involved Canada in
that illegal war, just as I think a Harper government would have done.
Political scientists have yet to study thoroughly what were the interests
behind the ousting of Jean Chretien from his position of leader of the Liberal
Party of Canada.
It is also true that
the 26 governments of the NATO nations seem to have embraced Bush's imperial
agenda. We shall see if NATO can survive in this new imperial and colonial
role.
new
Posted Monday, February 5, 2007, 15:30 pm
I've
recently discovered your blog and I am enjoying what I read there very much. I
especially enjoyed your article 'Why Are Canada...' of February 5.
I've been
saying (to myself, of course; who would listen?) that the Afghan adventure is
just a repeat of the Boer War and it smacks of the Korean debacle, as well.
Your
article is the first time I've seen the Afghan adventure compared to the Boer
War. One of my first childhood memories is of being taken by my father to our
little neighbourhood church, just north of Sherbrooke Street near Benny Farm,
to attend the funerals of Korean War dead. They were brought to the Church on horse-drawn gun carriages, their
caskets draped in flags. It makes me so angry to realize that nothing has
changed.
But in
all fairness to the execrable Mr. Harper, he did inherit the Afghan War from
the Liberals. They are as much to blame as the Democrats in the U.S. who gave
Bush a blank cheque to wage aggressive war. Which serves as a good illustration
of the first principle of our democratic state: we can have any politician we
like but we can have only one policy.
It's
beginning to appear more and more likely that Canadians will soon have the
opportunity to join the war against Iran. One imagines that Mr. Harper can't
wait.
Peter
new
Posted Monday, February 5, 2007, 11:53 am
This article is not
without interest, though I wonder what proof there is for the suggested
imperial reasons for invading Afghanistan - or Iraq (I don't understand what is
meant by "illegal and immoral war", but it reads good and presses
buttons).
But the criticism
begs the question, what would the writer, and other critics of Canada, Britain
and the US' actions, do? And further back, what would they have done after
9/11, after finding that the attack was planned from Afghanistan? And re: Iraq,
what would they have done after Saddam had failed, for 12 years, to comply
with the terms of the ceasefire after the war that resulted from his invasion
of Kuwait?
As a footnote; I
accept that it may have been unwise from a practical point of view, to invade
Afgahnistan, give the history of foreign interventions by the British as well
as the Soviets, and better knowledge of the divisions within the Moslem world
might have led to second thoughts about invading Iraq, if one was not prepared
to be as ruthless as Saddam - just as Nixon may have been right to disengage
from Vietnam, which was escalated by Kennedy and Johnson, but I cannot accept
that it was "morally or legally" wrong, just as I can understand
educated white kids not wanting to scrifice themselves in Vietnam, but am
unsympathetic to their cloaking their selfishness with other arguments.
_____________________
Answer from R. T.
The answers to your
questions are consigned in my book 'The New American Empire'. See: www.thenewamericanempire.com/
Regarding the
immorality and illegallity of the Iraq war:
This war has been waged against the
Charter of the United Nations which precisely forbids 'wars of aggression'
against a sovereign state and makes it a crime. Twenty-one nazi leaders were
tried and twelve were hanged in Nuremberg in 1946 for such a crime. As the
chief U.S. prosecutor, Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) put it: "We must make clear to
the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not
that they lost the war, but that they started it."
The United Nations defines a war of aggression as
"the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial
integrity, or political independence of another state." —The crime of
a war of aggression is also listed in Article 5.1 of the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (RSICC) as one of the four most serious
crimes of concern to the international community, and it falls within the
jurisdiction of the new International Criminal Court (ICC).
In 2002, Bush and Blair tried to obtain a
resolution to proceed with the military invasion of Iraq from the UN Security
Council, but failed. This makes it a criminal war.
It
is also immoral according to the 'Just war doctrine', because it is being waged
principally to take over the resources of another country. In other words, it
is stealing. How do we know that?
First,
Dick Cheney said it in his Energy report of May 17, 2001, and second,
ambassador Paul Bremer's first step as US Viceroy in Iraq was to denationalize
the Iraqi energy industry as soon as he got to Baghdad, in 2003. Now, American
oil companies stand to own in Production Sharing Agreements (PSA) large chunks
of Iraqi oil fields. That's why this war is both criminal and immoral.
About Afghanistan and
Iraq. After 9/11, the UN Security Council passed two resolutions to have the
al-Qaida camps destroyed in Afghanistan. This was done. The resolutions did not
authorize a take-over of the country for ever. That is what the mission has
turned out to be, from a police mission, it has turned into a colonial mission,
just as the Soviets did in 1979.
Regarding Iraq:
The Hussein
government was contained militarily and American and British planes controlled
the Iraqi air space. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and could hardly
feed its people because the sale of oil was severely curtailed. Everybody knows
that Bush's claim that Iraq had 'weapons of mass destruction' was a huge lie.
Well, I could go on
and on about all the other lies and deceptions. Please go to my blog and click
on 'Archives' and you can read specific articles dealing with sub-topics:
www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog
_____________
Answer from
Christopher
I don't
agree with all your points, though they are well and clearly put. But, more
importantly, I am genuinely grateful and impressed that you bothered to reply.
I have often wondered whether it is worth sending comens to the media since it
they are almost never even acknowledged. Your taking the time to reply - and
your specifically backing up your argument - make me more inclined to
re-examine the matter.
Christopher
PS. I am doubly impressed since while I love much about
France and French culture and enjoy bumbling along in French, I feel there's
something chauvinistic in its political history, and that probably applies,
albeit in a lesser degree, to Quebec as well (though again, I loved the few
days I spent in Montreal some years ago).
So again, I need to re-examine my opinions!
Answer from R. T. :
As you
know, France and Great Britain used to be empires. After WW II, they opted for
democracy at home and dropped their imperial ambitions abroad, although the French
had to be kicked out of Algeria and the British out of India.
In the
case of Quebec, it went straight from being a French colony to being a British
colony in 1760. When Americans in New England revolted in 1776, Ben Franklin
came to Montreal to persuade French Canadians to join the American revolution.
The first US Constitution, art. 11, says that if Canada (at that time, Quebec)
wanted to join, they could do so on the same conditions as the other 13
colonies. However, the clergy in Quebec feared the American Protestants, and
chose rather to obtain from the British, through the Quebec Act, a large
measure of religious and political autonomy.
By the
way, Montreal is the best place in the world during the month of July, during
which there are many festivals and public shows.
new
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007, 23:04 pm
Thanks
for your article on NATO and Afghanistan which is on the Canadian Dimension
website.
RE
"I do not think the Canadian people will stand for such an open-ended
imperial adventure in a remote land for much longer. "
I
sincerely hope you are right.
We
have had two elections in which Foreign Affairs was kept off the agenda. Let us
hope that, important as it is, "The Environment" will not
push Foreign Affairs off the agenda once again.
Marjorie
_______________
Answer
from R. T.
People
are not as well informed about the real reasons we have soldiers over there, as
they should be.
A majority
of Canadians are opposed to that war, but it seems that only the NDP is opposed
to it. The Bloc seems to be confused, the Liberals are opportunistic and the
Conservatives are happy to transform Canada into a US colony.
R. T.
new
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007, 22:51 pm
An
in-depth look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the events leading up to
them, and the players who made them possible
In the
Caspian Basin and beneath the deserts of Iraq, as many as 783 billion barrels
of oil are waiting to be pumped. Anyone controlling that much oil stands a good
chance of breaking OPEC's stranglehold overnight, and any nation seeking to
dominate the world would have to go after it.
The
long-held suspicions about George Bush's wars are well-placed. The wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq were not prompted by the terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington. They were not waged to spread democracy in the Middle East or
enhance security at home. They were conceived and planned in secret long before
September 11, 2001 and they were undertaken to control petroleum
resources………
The Bush
Administration was drawing a bead on Iraqi oil long before the "global war
on terror" was invented. But how could the "capture of new and
existing oil fields" be made to seem less aggressive, less arbitrary, less
overt?
For the
full article with facts, figures, dates and names go to: [By Richard W. Behan,
AlterNet]
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/47489/
new
Posted Monday, February 5, 2007, 10:30 pm
I printed
a copy of the blog and sent it to my MP Paul Dewar.
He is a
New Democrat member of Parliament.
Gordon
new
Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007, 13:50 pm
"But
the radical Taliban made the mistake of supporting the terrorist organization
of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, with which they had been allied in
fighting the Soviets. This led to the Islamist attacks of 9/11 and the
overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, by a U.S.-led military
invasion."
With the
exception of the statement "this led to the Islamist attacks of
9/11", I agree entirely; but I feel that to portray that statement is to
play into the hands of those who do not wish a true and comprehensive
investigation into the events of 9/11.
I
confess: what initially appeared to be a direct result of US foreign policy,
and I might add, "justifiable in many respects"; I now view as a
planned incident to further the cause of Complete American Dominance of the
globe (PNAC). The evidence does not support al-Qaida being any more than a
patsy: an identifiable group, conveniently positioned to which anger can be
focused. The common enemy; for those who understand the
"recipe" for a cause.
Well, I
suppose that I should do my "duty", turn on the TV, watch 20 minutes
of a mind numbing game spread over 3 hours of indoctrination, and months of
distraction, discussing the important things (Janet Jackson being "Sheriff"
for 3 seconds) while Carl Rove and the gang pull another fast one.
Anyway,
enjoyed the majority of the article, and did send it to the one person I know
who might actually care enough to read it. She's uphill all the way!
Doug
P.S.:
The
Atheist's Prayer:
"Dear
Lord, save me from those who believe in you.
Save
me from those who, so irrationally, believe they will be saved."
(Home: TheNewAmericanEmpire.com)