Pepe Escobar, "Kashmir: Ground zero of global jihad," Asia Times, July 17, 2009.

[Further evidence that US/NATO "strategy" in Afghanistan is really "shooting in the dark."

If our leaders know why the war on terror is being fought, where and against whom, they aren't letting on. It's a war of retaliation for 9-11, joined by NATO because of the Three Muskateer clause in the NATO treaty, one of the treaties that the US takes seriously, or expects others to take seriously.

But unending wars of revenge don't play well on the evening news and revenge never was quite the point anyway. So efforts to portray it as a war to liberate Afghan women, or a nation-building war, or a war to extend the writ of the corrupt Afghan puppet government outside the capital continue.

There have been short-lived efforts to portray the war as a school-building, well-drilling form of social work that only coincidentally entails calling in an air strike on a wedding or a village. The violence enters into it because we can't have countries offering themselves up as havens for terrorists--even though the 9-11ers came from Saudi Arabia, met in Germany and trained in the US. Pick a purpose you can support. Any purpose will do.

At least we know it's a war against the Taliban. Some kind of Taliban. Last year it was not the old-time Taliban, but the neo-Taliban, or the bad Taliban--not, of course, the good Taliban. Actually, it's not a war against the Taliban at all. The Taliban was at one time a bunch of nationalist redneck students with no foreign policy to speak of and no capacity whatever for constituting a threat to the US or Canada or NATO or even their own neighbors.

We have helped to change all that with our shooting in the dark. However, the real enemy is--or was--Al Qaeda--though that grouping may not exist any more. Osama bin Laden is dead, or might be dead, or insignificant anyway as long as we keep firing in the dark. The guys on the other side have goals and they change their OODA loops so fast that "Rethinking Afghanistan" has become a permanent posture on this side of the divide.

Two years ago, we knew that this war was in Afghanistan. But now we're worried that the real enemy is the Pakistani Taliban from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (mainly Waziristan), or now it's the Swat Valley and the Northwest Frontier Province. Of course regular foot soldiers can't be expected to keep fighting when they don't know where the fight is or who it's against. So we send drones in to Pakistan so the feudal democrats who replaced Musharraf can pretend they don't know about it. Western leaders have some difficulty remembering that this is someone else's home and that the people the drones are taking out elect representatives to the local government.

Drones may provide the best reason probably anyone could think of why the Taliban should get a foreign policy and soon. Nothing you can do against one drone will inconvenience the guy in Missouri who is flying against you. The Red Baron can't come to the phone right now, but you can leave a message. Your call is important to him.

Seriously, if you want to put an end to drone attacks on your neighbours, you will have to get some box cutters to your people in Missouri. That means having people in Missouri. And it shoves the nationalist redneck Taliban into the loving arms of the internationalist Al Qaeda. We are fighting the shadows of our own self-fulfilling misconceptions.

Pepe Escobar is not easily fooled by the spectacle of shooting in the dark--nor by the rhetoric intended to give the impression that we know very well what we are doing thank you very much. This is Escobar's interview with Arif Jamal who thinks the real war on terror has been in Kashmir all along. The NATO/US public version of events will have difficulty making it seem that they knew this all along.

The catch is that Kashmir/Jammu is another Israel/Palestine, i.e., another combustible regional pivot this time with two nuclear armed enemies, another remnant of the mess the European empires (the British in this case) left behind the last time they were driven out.

There is no guarantee that the inability to learn from experience won't be terminal. Likely Goliath will never be wise, or even smart. But his enemies have learned that with a little attention to detail, they can hurt him and make him spend a ton of money on stuff that only makes him more enemies. It's messy, but it's a strategy, and you don't need very good domestic policy to make it work. -jlt]

Arif Jamal is arguably the leading Pakistani expert on the jihad in Kashmir. He is the author of Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir, a groundbreaking, gripping account of the interminable, key conflict between India and Pakistan, based on interviews with hundreds of militants over the years.

The book is essential reading for understanding, among other issues, how the United States-friendly Pakistani army trained nearly half a million jihadis; how United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) money ended up financing the jihad in Kashmir; and how closely interconnected is the situation in Kashmir with the endless turmoil in Afghanistan and the global jihad.

...even former ISI officers tend to deviate from the given script and spin out of control.

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Carlotta Gall, "US faces resentment in Afghan region," the venerable NYT, July 2, 2009.

[Resentment! It took the Marines to figure this out. Wait till they find out about Pakistan. -jlt]

Related story: The warlords casting a shadow over Afghanistan

LASHKAR GAH — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.

Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.

People from Marja said that foreign troops carrying out counter-narcotics operations conducted nighttime raids on houses, shot people dead inside their homes and used dogs that bit the occupants.

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Murray Brewster, "Not up to Canada to criticize Karzai's warlord appointment: Day," Canadian Press, June 12, 2009.

[Is someone setting Karzai up for a fall? There has been a lot of dissatisfaction with him both at home and in the US. He has been unable to persuade his international patrons to let him decide how to spend the aid money (frequently described in the press as "investment.") But Day is beginning to sound like a wishy-washy Liberal. Nothing wrong with that I guess. Is his position an expression of ethics? or pragmatism? or confusion? all of the above? none? I'd like to hear more about community radio in Afghanistan. -jlt]

OTTAWA — Canadians may wince about President Hamid Karzai's choice of a unsavoury warlord as a vice-presidential candidate but Ottawa has no place condemning it, says the minister in charge of the Afghanistan file.

The choice of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a former militia commander, has been condemned by diplomats and human-rights workers as major step backward.

But International Trade Minister Stockwell Day, who chairs the cabinet committee on Afghanistan, said Thursday that Canadians should have faith in the Afghan people and the fledgling democracy in that country.

...an independent media is on the rise in Afghanistan, including 372 private newspapers or magazines and 16 private television stations.

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Glen Ford, "Obama's 'Af-Pak' War: destabilizing a nuclear nation," Black Agenda Radio, June 4, 2009.

President Obama has succeeded in putting his mark on Afghanistan and Pakistan, in ways that will come back to haunt the U.S. Two million people have been displaced by the Pakistiani army's scorched earth campaign against the Taliban - actions demanded by the Obama administration. "The Pakistani people are universally aware that their army was browbeaten, bullied and coerced, superpower-style, to launch a scorched earth attack on Taliban-influenced regions." The administration is destabilizing Pakistan, and deepening its people's hatred for the U.S.

Pakistani troops patrol a street in Mingora,
the main town in Swat valley
June 3, 2009. REUTERS/Aamir

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"4 Americans investigated in Afghan death," Associated Press, May 17, 2009.

KABUL - Four U.S. contractors for the private security company formerly known as Blackwater are accusing the company of holding them against their will in Afghanistan following their involvement in a shooting this month, a lawyer said Saturday. A spokeswoman for the company denied the allegation.

An Afghan died and two others were wounded in the May 5 shooting, which followed a car accident in Kabul, said Lt. Col. Chris Kubik, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul.

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Jerome Starkey, "Rumsfeld's renegade unit blamed for Afghan deaths," Independent, May 17, 2009.

Special Forces group implicated in three incidents that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians / MarSOC was set up by former defence secretary despite opposition from within the Marine Corps

A single American Special Forces group was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents, The Independent has learnt, raising fundamental questions about their ongoing role in the conflict.

Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children – as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.

The three-week military inquiry ultimately spared the Marine unit from criminal charges.

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Mike Innes, "The occidental guerilla," Weblog of The Complex Terrain Laboratory, May 15, 2009.

Soldier, scholar, linguist, adventurer. David Kilcullen, a former Australian special forces officer with a PhD in political anthropology, is unique in the level of influence and cachet he wields in Washington. A career soldier-scholar, his portfolio derives from a wide range of military appointments, combat operations, and scholarly research. As a senior counterinsurgency advisor to Gen. David Petraeus and counterterrorism advisor to the State Dept., that expertise was tested and refined in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As an Australian in D.C., he cuts an almost exotic swath: appealing, no doubt, to a distinctly American appreciation of rugged individualism in any form, Kilcullen’s latter day renaissance man is a romantic figure, a throwback, it would seem, to days of empire when orientalist advisors could be brought in from abroad.

It isn’t much of a stretch to suggest that Washington’s attraction to this straight talking foreigner is symptomatic of a loss of faith in itself: that it has ceased, over the last eight years, to trust many of its own, has acknowledged the need for intervention, and worships the source of its deliverance from self-doubt. But it would also be a mistake to dismiss Kilcullen as a colorful anachonism or merely the object of another singularly American trait, a tendency towards political personality cults and military hagiography. He has written some of the most influential articles on modern counterinsurgency published over the last few years, and has the credibility that comes from long immersion in his subject. Based at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), he is well positioned to continue channelling his hard earned wisdom directly to senior levels of the US government and military, where it most needs to be heard.

Which is why his timely new book, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Oxford University Press in North America, Hurst Publishers in the UK, 2009) is so important. An astute work of synthesis, it was amassed, Kilcullen tells us, “between combat operations, research trips, diplomatic meetings, scholarly conferences, and policy planning sessions; on long-haul flights in commercial airliners, corporate jets, and military transports; in hotels, apartments, and cafes, library reading rooms, earthen bunkers, and armoured trailers, on the couches and at the kitchen tables of friends and relatives.” Location, location, location, he seems to be suggesting. Indeed, on the trail of insurgents and terrorists from Southeast Asia to Northwestern Europe, he manages to pinpoint the political shear between minority existential threats to US interests and the majority of locally invested guerrillas who just want to be left alone.

Instead of fixating on the imputed threat of communities in which terrorists thrive or the places where they live, Kilcullen argues that we should treat them as subversive, exploitative actors, and work from there.

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Sayed Salahuddin, "Afghanistan wants law to curb foreign troops," National Post, May 11, 2009.

[According to Steven Staples at Ceasefire.ca, the Canadian military "is engaging in a lobbying campaign to have a squadron of our CF-18 Hornet fighter bombers deployed to Afghanistan." The Afghan parliament (Wolesi Jirga) is calling for an arrangement that differs from arrangements called "Status of Forces Agreements" which normally guarantee that American soldiers in foreign countries will be tried by American tribunals. Deaths of civilians caused by airstrikes have been an issue since American planes bombed a wedding in July 2002. Outrage for the same reason is has been growing in Pakistan since the Bush administration started sending drones across the border. The war has taken on an increasingly American focus since January. The northern part of Afghanistan is supposed to be relatively secure, but two mass poisonings at girls' schools in the northern town of Charikar during the last two weeks have raised questions about just how secure that may be. Police refused to comment. The war is not going well. -jlt]

KABUL -- Afghan lawmakers on Monday demanded legal restrictions on foreign forces fighting in their country, to prevent further civilian deaths, then closed for half a day to protest the latest casualties from U.S. air strikes.

The attacks on homes packed with civilians, during a protracted battle last week, have damaged ties with Washington and stoked popular anger about the presence of western troops, over rising non-combatant deaths.

"When a foreign soldier acts contrary to the law of Afghanistan, he should be prosecuted according to Afghanistan's law," Abdul Sattar Khawaasi Secretary, Wolesi Jirga

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"A giant US military base emerges in Afghanistan," AFP, May 8, 2009.

[This clearly means two things: 1) more airstrikes and, therefore, more civilian casualties. Harper is jumping on this bandwagon by sending Canadian F-18s to assist in the carnage. 2) More of the supply chain will be airborne. Someone has entertained the idea that movement through the Khyber Pass will slow to a trickle and the alternative through Uzbekistan may not materialize (because of strategic American objectives limiting the movement of SCO troops).The only real question is how much damage must be done--to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and don't forget the corrosive domestic effect on the US and its foolhardy allies--before we realize that the achievables have been achieved and we have overstayed whatever welcome we may have had. Obama is already committed to an "open-ended mission." The pragmatic Mr Harper may be willing to do an about face on his signature economic ideology, but he's a keener about this war. -jlt]

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (AFP) — In the forbidding Afghan desert, US engineers are carving out a sprawling military camp as part of a dramatic American troop build-up designed to confront Taliban insurgents.

The desolate plain in southern Helmand province that Afghans call the "desert of death" has turned into a hive of frenetic activity, underscoring President Barack Obama's decision to expand the US military commitment to the war.

The camp, which is being built next to a smaller outpost dubbed "Bastion" that has served British troops, will include a vast airfield that eventually will be home to 55 helicopters and other aircraft

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Murray Brewster, "NATO slaps restrictions on media in Kandahar," Toronto Star, April 28, 2009.

[Someone in NATO's new imperial army wants to hide. -jlt]

OTTAWA – NATO has imposed tough new restrictions on foreign journalists covering the war in southern Afghanistan, changes that could affect how much Canadians see and hear from war-torn Kandahar.

The new measures, imposed in early March, mirror the way the U.S. military manages reporters in Iraq.

Canadian soldiers were required to escort newly arrived journalists everywhere on the airfield, including to the dining hall and showers.

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Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay, "Events in Pakistan, Afghanistan overtake Obama's strategy," McClatchy, April 24, 2009.

[American big shots don't like Pakistan's elected government any better than they liked Musharraf. Yet Pakistan's renewed obsession with India may have something to do with the nuclear deal the Bush Administration negotiated with India. Note the absence of quotations in this article from any sources outside of Washington. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has passed a resolution against Afganistan's infamous "marital rape" law. -jlt]

WASHINGTON — Events in Pakistan and Afghanistan are already overtaking the Obama administration's month-old strategy for the two countries, and it needs to be modified even before it's been implemented, U.S. officials and experts said this week.

As Islamic militants continue their advance in Pakistan and press their attacks on overstretched U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, many U.S. officials fear that the administration is running out of time to defeat what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week called a "mortal threat" to the world. Failure in either place, these officials argue, would guarantee failure in the other.

Quotation Author

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Robert Fisk, "Galloway a Victim of Canada's Baffling Approach to Fighting Terror," Independent, April 1, 2009.

[Fisk might be expected to oppose the Canadian government's gutless attempt to hide from George Galloway, but he does ask the question no one can answer, too. -jlt]

"Come out and debate with me like a man," the old bruiser shouted over the video-link to Toronto. "Let's book the biggest hall in Canada and you and I will debate these issues of war and peace and freedom of speech and censorship... If we don't achieve a political settlement (in the Middle East), we're in for war. If there's no justice, there will be no peace for Palestine."

It was, of course, the old scallywag himself, George Galloway, fuming about the Canadian Immigration Minister James (sic) Kenney's refusal to allow him to speak in Canada on the grounds that he – Galloway – was involved in "terrorism". The Scottish-born MP was talking from an important centre of "world terror" – New York City.

Only a few days ago, another Canadian Muslim told me how he was whipped with steel cables in Damascus as his torturers read out questions from the Canadian embassy.

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"US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai," The Guardian, March 23, 2009.

[While the White House is crafting "a more dependable figure" to work alongside Karzai, let's ask them to find another one to host the Harper/Ignatieff show. Meanwhile, get ready for the beginning of a really big escalation in Afghanistan. -jlt]

The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.

The idea of a more dependable figure working alongside Karzai is one of the proposals to emerge from the White House review, completed last week.

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Paul Rogers, "The "AfPak" war: Washington’s three options," openDemocracy, February 23, 2009.

The United States decision in the closing months of 2008 to send an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan was largely in response to an escalation in Taliban activity that has now lasted through the current winter. Those troops, from the 10th Mountain Division that has repeatedly been deployed in Afghanistan since the start of the war in October 2001, are now installed in Logar and Wardak provinces south of Kabul (see "Afghanistan's critical moment", 6 February 2009). President Barack Obama announced on 17 February 2009 that he is deploying 17,000 more US soldiers, many of whom will attempt to limit the free exchange of paramilitaries between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the past two weeks there has been a much greater media focus in the United States on the deterioration in security in Afghanistan, much of it prompted by the decision to send the extra troops. This has even made headlines across the domestic news-channels, occasionally even displacing the dominant concern with the economy; but this rare focus on an international story is accompanied by commentary that tends to underplay impact of more troops on the wider strategic environment. Indeed, one result of the Republican efforts to define a narrative of victory in Iraq around the effects of the 2007-08 "surge" has been an assumption that what "worked" there will have a similar effect in Afghanistan.

...a fundamental and long overdue reassessment of Afghanistan policy may yet take place in the coming months.

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"Flora's Bamiyan Review," Future Generations Canada, July 2007.

[CBC News Sunday aired a segment on Flora MacDonald's Future Generations Canada project in December (Flora's Mission Dec 28 08). -jlt]

Solar Engineers Mohammad Ashaq and Shikh Mohammad, trained in the village by Future Generations, with Afghanistan Prince.

In March of 2001, with the Taliban still in control of the country, Afghanistan was a place where fear reigned. Transportation for most of the population was by donkey or on foot – motor vehicles didn’t exist except for top Taliban officials and key military personnel. Food was scarce in the aftermath of seven years of country-wide drought. Women seldom ventured outside their homes, unless totally wrapped in the ubiquitous burqa and accompanied by a close male relative. Girls were forbidden to attend school. Almost four million Afghans had fled their country to seek refuge in Pakistan and Iran – many others remained in Afghanistan in large refugee camps for the internally displaced. Few children were to be seen.

Six years later, a lot has changed. While there is still ongoing conflict in the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan, paved roads now connect the four key cities of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazir. In these cities signs of progress are clearly visible – schools, clinics and markets exist where previously there were only shelled ruins. Motorized traffic has increased 100-fold. Streets are clogged; pollution is omnipresent.

Even in remote villages the roof of each little mud-brick hut now sports a solar panel....Wind-power and small hydro-electric dams are being utilized to increase the battery-stored electric power. And its uses are many: power-generated lamps, hot water for tea, and the basic dish of yogurt made in a hygienic aluminum pot.

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Amy Goodman, "Obama's Afghan trap," truthdig, February 11, 2009.

President Barack Obama on Monday night held his first prime-time news conference. When questioned on Afghanistan, he replied, “This is going to be a big challenge.” He also was asked whether he would change the Pentagon policy banning the filming and photographing of the flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he was reviewing it. The journalist who asked the question pointed out that it was Joe Biden several years ago who accused the Bush administration of suppressing the images to avoid public furor over the deaths of U.S. service members. Now Vice President Joe Biden predicts that a surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan will mean more U.S. casualties: “I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be. There will be an uptick.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press recently cited a classified report drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommending a shift in strategy from democracy-building in Afghanistan to attacking alleged Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

And the campaign has clearly begun. Days after his inauguration, Obama’s first (known) military actions were two missile strikes inside Pakistan’s frontier province, reportedly killing 22 people, including women and children.

“There is no military solution in Afghanistan. There is an economic-development solution, but I don’t see that coming." Cherif Bassiouni

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"Kyrgyzstan to close U.S. base used to supply Afghanistan," Yahoo/McClatchy, February 3, 2009.

MOSCOW — In a setback to the escalating U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan , the president of Kyrgyzstan said Tuesday that his government will shut down the American air base in his country.

The Manas installation is viewed as "the premier air-mobility hub" for U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan, with about 1,000 military personnel from America, Spain and France stationed there, according to a US Air Force Web site.

U.S. officials say that the Manas Air Base is vital to plans to send an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan , a linchpin of President Barack Obama's efforts to pacify the country.

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Karzai faces a wave of Western criticism

Three quarters of aid to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2006, a figure corresponding to about USD 11 billion, was spent directly by donors without proper coordination with the Afghan government.

"'Incompetent' Hamid Karzai's political future in doubt," The Times, January 30, 2009.

US officials have been particularly angered by persistent allegations that Mr Karzai's half-brother is involved in the drug trade, and by the President's repeated criticism of US raids that cause civilian casualties, the sources said. One US official said that Afghanistan was becoming “a narco-state”, providing 90 per cent of the world's illegal opium, while Mr Karzai appeared unable to govern outside Kabul or provide services to his citizens....

Speculation about Mr Karzai's political demise mounted last week when it was reported that an unofficial delegation of four potential candidates for the Afghan presidency had visited Washington.

The delegation reportedly consisted of Dr Abdullah Abdullah, a former Foreign Minister; Dr Ashraf Ghani, a former Finance Minister; Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former Interior Minister; and Gul Agha Sherzai, Governor of the eastern province of Nangahar. The four men have neither confirmed nor denied the meeting.

"Karzai sucking up to the Russians," The Newshoggers, January 30, 2009.

Afghanistan and Russia are now engaged in what appear to be cordial and mutually beneficial negotiations to improve Afghanistan's defense, at the same time shoring up Karzai's increasingly shaky position and providing a counterweight to the United States' domination of the region.

"Challenge to Karzai's right to rule after poll date is delayed," The Independent, January 30, 2009.

The palace insists Mr Karzai can rule on. Article 61 of the constitution states: "The presidential term shall expire on 1st of Jawza [22 May] of the fifth year after elections." But election officials insisted last night that the document was flawed and impossible to follow.

Critics of the government claimed the IEC, which has been accused of covering up widespread voter registration fraud, should be "renamed the Karzai Re-election Commission". One analyst said: "If this doesn't precipitate a crisis, at the least it will serve to prolong the President's term in office, which could further his chances of re-election."

Hussain Sancharaki, the main opposition spokesman, said: "After the 1st of Jawza the Karzai government will have no legitimacy."

"Will Obama support Karzai's re-election in Afghanistan?" McClatchy Newspapers, January 30, 2009.

U.S. and European officials say they've grown frustrated by Karzai's failure to curb corruption, cronyism and incompetence, and they say he's refused to crack down on powerful officials, allegedly including one of his brothers, who are involved in the world's largest opium trade.

Karzai has grown increasingly angry at the mounting civilian casualties in U.S.-led military operations and has long complained that Washington has failed to push Pakistan to halt secret support for the Taliban . He said that his policies have been undermined by warlords the U.S. paid to keep order while U.S. troops were diverted to Iraq .

"Why Karzai is worried," The Spectator, January 31, 2009.

The appointment of the hard-charging Richard Holbrooke as Afghan envoy has not been universally welcomed. One person who is particularly concerned about it is Hamid Karzai, the current Afghan president, who will probably win re-election later this year. Their first, secret meeting was apparently quite frosty.

"Afghan Leader Plays Public Blame Game With West," NPR, February 1, 2009.

Lawmaker Ahmad Behzad, who serves on the international relations committee in the Afghan parliament, ... says if Americans can elect an African-American like Obama to be president, then they ought to engage Afghans of all ethnic backgrounds to move the country forward.

"Afghanistan hits back at Western critics over aid," Reuters, February 1, 2009.

Another dark reality of how taxpayers' donations are spent is that many nations, especially the United States, direct reconstruction work through sub-contracts that utilize international expertise or western consultants - a means to channel the money back to the donor nation. [Known as "tied" aid. About 50% of Canada's aid is "tied." -jlt]

"Defence chief attacks ‘weak’ Afghan leader," The Sunday Times, UK, February 1, 2009.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of defence staff, saya “This mission is, essentially, all about governance and there is no doubt that there is a lack of capacity within Afghanistan.”

"Pakistan, mother of all problems for the US," South China Morning Post, January 30, 2009.

[But the war in Afghanistan is not separate from Pakistan where a number of players accused of corruption are faced with a serious threat to their sovereignty in the form of US assaults on Pakistani territory by Predator drones. The South China Post article articulates a version of the American line on Pakistan. -jlt]

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Permanent contraction of the debt industry?

Philosophical Interlude

What I'm hearing is that we already have a smaller debt than many other countries, so we're laughing. Plus, we're just little guys. So we're not responsible for the bad news. We can sit back, do a relatively half-baked version of the spending out way out of the recession (five additional weeks of EI), and wait for the US, China and Europe to pull us out of the ditch. Not exactly a responsible position for a G7 country (or an OECD country or a NATO country projecting power).

Al Jazeera's report on Davos (Jan 29 09) puts more emphasis on emerging economies though China is on their list too.

The economies of India, China and Russia, which have been experiencing rapid growth in recent years, have taken precedence at the forum.

Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University, said emerging markets are almost overshadowing the importance of the US economy.

"What is really striking to me about this Davos, is the lack of a sense of a new beginning with Barack Obama," he told Al Jazeera.

"That is not what we've been hearing about in the last 24 hours, we've been hearing about China, about Russia, about India, about emerging economies, and that I think is a very significant fact.

"It's not just the American investment banks that have gone down, it's America's own soft power, and ability to lead that has been badly damaged by the crash."

Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egypt's minister of trade and industry, said there would be a rush towards emerging markets.

"People understand today that there will not be growth in developed countries for a long time to come, the growth will continue to be in emerging markets, even more than before," he told Al Jazeera.

Personally, I don't think we're looking at just another dip in the business cycle. It's too big for that, and too much of it is made up of subjective factors-- confidence, trust, herding behaviour, recessionary psychology, and America's ability to lead. I do think we are looking at a permanent contraction in the range and depth of the debt industry.

I say this cautiously because I know that I have a tendency to underestimate the resilience of capitalism. I've been kicked in the head before after forgetting that, resilient or not, the greedy bastards will be fighting back.

While the CBC reports a $33.7 bn deficit for this year, the staid Conference Board adds in a figure for economic prudence, tax cuts and what it calls "a collapse in projected revenues, particularly in fiscal years 2009–10 and 2010–11" to arrive at a figure of $76.5 bn over the next three years.

"This will drive up the federal debt to $542.4 billion, erase 10 years of debt payback, and push up interest payments required to service that debt by $9.7 billion per year within three years." (My emphasis).

In the near future, banks and secondary lending institutions will be slow to consider quite such a large cohort of suckers as their legitimate prey. The suits and ties are not as keen at the moment to lend to anyone, any where, any time although payday loans are still available on mainstreet Nelson and equity loans can be had just around the corner.

Borrow money and your loan might end up on some household version of a black-op vulture fund's list for legal action and rendition. Is that paranoid? Maybe, but it's smarter than trusting an institution that regards the commodification of debt (including my own personal debt) as a legitimate financial innovation. I've had the vultures on my own telephone. So thanks, but no thanks. I'll be signing up for that vicious coalition of the thrifty.

What are we supposed to do? Go out and buy up more useless shit just to keep the economy going? Buy one car, get one free. Buy three and go down faster. Take out a loan to keep the land fill in business. We are already bailing out the nitwits (and their union) who celebrated the plan (in just 2007) to start building a new generation of muscle cars in Windsor. I'm frankly maxed out in the useless shit and bad idea department. I won't be needing to go into hock for more--not for a long time.

But contraction of the debt industry is just part of the picture. Stimulating demand seems to be one of the big mysteries for economists struggle with. Then there's that collapsing-government-revenue piece of the puzzle that seldom makes it onto the evening news. Yet another story is the continued attack on pay equity, an especially expensive irony as long as Conservatives insist on using the Canadian Forces to teach Afghans how to treat women. The economic crisis also serves as another (large) milestone in the evolution of a multipolar international order that began, I believe, with Bush's abrogation of the ABM Treaty. But more on all that another time. Recommend this Post

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Peter Dale Scott, "Martial law, the financial bailout, and the Afghan and Iraq wars," he Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 2-4-09, January 10, 2009.

It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.

...members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law.

The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.

According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.” [1] In addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.” [2]

Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed. [3]

This article is documented with numerous live links in the biblio =>Recommend this Post

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