Afghanistan: War, Power and Illusion

Canadian LAVs, Afghanistan, by isafmedia

This week, Project Censored has released its annual list of top 25 censored news stories in a volume entitled Censored 2011: The Top Censored Stories of 2009-2010.  An astounding article published by The Nation on November 11, 2009; How the US funds the Taliban, resurfaces as the main source for the 10^th ranked censored story on the list.  Perhaps Project Censored and The Nation, and as usual the general public, have misunderstood the implications of what this story uncovers; that the West’s war and nation-building effort in Afghanistan is an exercise of utter self-deception and a complete failure. 

Recent coverage of the war in Afghanistan has surrounded revelations from the USG cables leaked by Wikileaks, which paint an endless landscape of deceptions, divided loyalties, corruption, depravity and laughable optimism in the face of virtual anarchy.  The incremental release of these documents by Wikileaks provides an ongoing stream of tidbits and fodder for headlines and public debate, especially as they concern Afghanistan; however, they so far have failed to create the mass of public interest and scrutiny required in the West to bring an end to the war.  That is a tragedy in light of the ongoing situation described a year ago in the Nation, which in spite of official representations, effectively demonstrates that NATO and the Karzai Government exert no authority anywhere in Afghanistan outside their fortified bases and government offices.

The article is entitled How the US funds the Taliban, and examines two sides of the same coin: “The first is the insider dealing that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and the second is the troubling mechanism by which "private security" ensures that the US supply convoys traveling these ancient trade routes aren't ambushed by insurgents.”

While the corruption that defines the first of these realities is worth examination and condemnation, it is the implications of the second which are inescapable and final in their depth. 

The piece begins with a short bio of Ahmad Rateb Popal who is cousin to Hamid Karzai, a former Taliban official, mujahedeen fighter and a convicted drug trafficker who was released from Prison in the US in 1997.  He is now, along with his convicted drug-trafficking brother Rashid Popal, principally in control of the Watan Group, which is a consortium of communications, logistics and security companies in Afghanistan.  The Popal brothers are just the article’s introduction to the characters which fill positions of official and effective power in Afghanistan: “Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.”

Private security firms in Afghanistan are most importantly charged in the defence of highway convoys which supply NATO’s network of bases with every last thing needed in the war effort; food to fuel to ammunition to toilet paper.  “The epicenter is Bagram Air Base, just an hour north of Kabul, from which virtually everything in Afghanistan is trucked to the outer reaches of what the Army calls "the Battlespace"--that is, the entire country.”

Private Afghan Security, by isafmedia

The article states, “The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is ensuring security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders.”  It quotes an American executive: “The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money;” Project Manager Mike Hanna, for trucking company Afghan American Army Services: “You are paying the people in the local areas--some are warlords, some are politicians in the police force--to move your trucks through... We're basically being extorted. Where you don't pay, you're going to get attacked. We just have our field guys go down there, and they pay off who they need to;” A veteran American manager who has worked as a soldier and a private security contractor in the field: “What we are doing is paying warlords associated with the Taliban, because none of our security elements is able to deal with the threat;” Transportation entrepreneur: “Two Taliban is enough... One in the front and one in the back.  You cannot work otherwise. Otherwise it is not possible.”

Apparently the term ‘private security company’ has in Afghanistan become something of a euphamism for Warlords and militia drawing from the deep well of Western taxpayer cash ‘intended’ to fund the stabilisation and reconstruction of the country.  “Every warlord has his security company,” is the way one executive put it to the article’s author, Aram Roston.  These ‘companies’ run by Afghan strongmen who find themselves in the favour of the corrupt Karzai administration, having divided loyalties and ulterior motives, must themselves hand over money to local powers to make the way secure along this or that highway. 

These private firms are so mistrusted by the US and Karzai, both because of their affiliations with the enemy and their own private interests which conflict with those of the Karzai family, are prohibited by law from arming themselves beyond AK-47 rifles.  In the face of Rocket-Propelled-Grenade attacks from insurgents targeting massive caravans of trucks, this seems much like trying to use brass-knuckles to protect a pack of antelope from attacking lions.

This problem is universal in Afghanistan, extending even to the most important highway there, aptly named highway 1.  The previously mentioned Watan group, run by the Popal brothers, is charged with securing this highway, the virtual jugular of the West's war complex in Afghanistan, which runs between Kabul and Bagram Airforce Base in the east; south-west toward Kandahar and the southern half of the country.  According to the article's author, "Watan's secret weapon to protect American supplies heading through Kandahar is a man named Commander Ruhullah.  Said to be a handsome man in his 40s, Ruhullah has an oddly high-pitched voice.  He wears traditional salwar kameez and a Rolex watch.  He rarely, if ever, associates with Westerners.  He commands a large group of irregular fighters with no known government affiliation, and his name, security officials tell me, inspires obedience or fear in villages along the road.  It is a dangerous business, of course: until last spring Ruhullah had competition--a one-legged warlord named Commander Abdul Khaliq.  He was killed in an ambush.  So Ruhullah is the surviving road warrior for that stretch of highway.  According to witnesses, he works like this:  he waits until there are hundreds of trucks ready to convoy south down the highway.  Then he gets his men together, setting them up in 4x4s and pickups.  Witnesses say he does not limit his arsenal to AK-47s but uses any weapons he can get.  His chief weapon is his reputation.  And for that, Watan is paid royally, collecting a fee for each truck that passes through his corridor.  The American trucking official told me that Ruhullah charges $1,500 per truck to go to Kandahar.  Just 300 kilometers."

This is clearly an extortion racket which reveals the true balance of power in Afghanistan, with the various and shadowy forces at large in the country playing the role of competing mafias and NATO that of the fearful barbershop owner, dutifully paying 'protection' money to the people who would otherwise pop his kneecaps and put him out of business.  In this strange case the Barber contends publicly that he has the extortionists on the run. 

The overarching fact is that the West’s ostensible war and reconstruction effort is impossibly dependent on collusion with the forces it is pretending to fight.  The need for local payoffs 8 years after the war began points to a reality that the US, NATO, and the Karzai government they support have established Zero effective control over the country outside of the fortified city-bases of Kabul, Kandahar, and a precious few others.  This fact is so simple it is difficult to conceptualize.  The issue is not that paying the enemy is against principle, nor that it bolsters the enemy’s resources and perception of itself, but that it is in fact direct proof of failure.  To what purpose are any efforts in Afghanistan, when Western armies have not even secured the single-most important and fundamental logistical objective of warfare, which is to secure supply lines?  NATO forces have no logistical control of Afghanistan.  They cannot even eat without the approval of those they pay off.  Is there in fact a war there?  Or are NATO’s forces just part of a complex, factionalised Western/Afghan kleptocracy, wrestling with itself as its parties secure their interests and consolidate their power against each other?  The military goals of the West seem quite unclear given that its forces cannot move anywhere without corrupting themselves by paying the enemy. 

If the publicly-stated objective of the West’s mission is in fact peace, security and freedom, it would seem that this would begin by securing freedom of movement and safe passage throughout the country.  Freedom of movement is paramount to building a free nation where goods, services and ideas can reach out and address the poverty of mind, means and opportunity that exists in Afghanistan’s isolated countryside.  If this has not been achieved, than what has been done?  Rather, there is a far-flung network of multi-billion-dollar bases providing security in provincial capitals for unpopular and fraudulently elected governments; completely dependent on payoffs to unscrupulous and opaque power structures for the maintenance of supply lines.  One can only speculate as to the exact nature of the conflicting goals existing in the strange association of interests at work in Afghanistan; an association which ties together a dizzying myriad of Western government policy and taxpayer money, billion dollar contracts, executives, bureaucrats and politicians; Afghanistan’s proximity to Iran, Russia, Pakistan and its geopolitical importance as a bottleneck for Central Asian Trade routes; as well as its mujahedeen, the Taliban, Tribalism and the Karzai family.  Western polls show a majority, even in militant America, that public opinion is against the war.  To what depths must Afghanistan’s interminable corruption, murderous war, poverty and the (sometimes self-) deceptions of Western officials descend before the Western public not only oppose, but refuse to cooperate in it?  

Read 'The Nation' article and more:

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-us-funds-taliban?page=0,3

http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2010/04/27/national-payingtheenemy.html

http://rotikapdamakaan.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/the-top-25-censored-news-stories-of-2009-2010/

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-us-funds-and-supports-the-taliban/

Russia, Violence and Protest: What it is and what it is not

Reports and video footage of violent demonstration and criminality by ultra-nationalist and racist organisations in Russia this week are forming an interesting juxtaposition to recent political protests in the West. 

If one is interested in what ‘violent thuggery’ actually looks like, witness this week’s outburst of unrest in Moscow:  Rampaging gangs seeking racist revenge against non-Slavic Russians after Moscow police failed to hold in custody four suspects in the murder of a Moscow Spartak football hooligan, who died in a post-match brawl with immigrants from the North Caucasus region.  These ‘thugs’- in the true sense of the word- are affiliated with nationalist ‘football firms’ and are quite used to attacking police at football games as a matter of sport.  The firms collectively have thousands of members across the country and are loosely organised and armed: mostly with edge weapons; sticks and truncheons; in some cases tazers.  They have over the past many days readily engaged police en-masse in Moscow and attacked bystanders who were of Central Asian or similar ethnic extraction.  An ethnic-Kyrgiz man has been stabbed to death in revenge, and dozens of innocent ethnic minorities were ruthlessly beaten by the crowds, videos showing police attempting to protect bystanders, not incriminate them by kettling them with demonstrators for hours until they are provoked into active resistance by hunger, exhaustion, confusion, claustrophobia and police taunts, as has been seen in Pittsburgh, Toronto, and very recently London.  

The scenes in Moscow reveal what it looks like when police attempt to contain and quell throngs of actually violent citizens, not the notional ‘thugs’ of Western political description.  Pale in comparison are the so-called ‘violent protests’ in the West; rather the recent demonstrations in London and Toronto set next to the type of violence in Moscow (as seen in the video embedded below- watch from 0:40) seemingly depict Western police as aggressive, well-trained and highly equipped paramilitary forces acting on marching orders to illegally suppress freedom of movement, expression and peaceful demonstration.
 

The ‘football firms’ of Russia that brought the fight to Moscow this week are largely populated by unemployed or otherwise economically marginalised ex-soldiers steeped in a culture of racism and violence; while the demonstrators jailed and humiliated in Toronto were a mish-mash of peace and anti-poverty activists, political agitators, trade unionists, students, professionals and public employees.  There are virtually no women in the ranks of the Moscow rioters; perhaps the fairer sex in Russia refuses to take part in such sinister activities. In contrast, thousands of peaceful female demonstrators hit the streets of London and Toronto, scores of whom were illegally detained, strip searched and sexually humiliated; in some cases by female police indoctrinates.  So much for feminism. 

Western leaders have taken to characterizing political demonstrations in their countries as ‘violent thuggery’.  In light of the actual ‘violent thuggery’ witnessed in Moscow this week, this terminology seems a crude semantic deception for media consumption, considering there is virtually never intent of violence on the part of Western demonstrators, only occasional acts of vandalism by ideologically motivated dissenters and the occasional dilettante or working class person feeling at odds with the system.  There is a well established legal differentiation in the West between breaking heads and breaking windows, a distinction which should never be blurred. 

The BBC reports: “Simon Hardy, of the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts, said police "kettled" and beat some protesters and then accused anyone who tried to resist of being violent,” while the police justified such tactics, saying that “officers acted with professionalism and selflessness and that, if they had not, the consequences would have been ‘unthinkable’.”  (Watch kettling at the Toronto G20 Protests in the video embedded below) Apparently within the realm of ‘thinkability’ is the provocation of thousands of demonstrators by truncheon beatings, mounted police charges and overturning disabled protesters in their wheelchairs.  In Russia, there is no organised statement of purpose or ethic among the perpetrators of the violence beyond confused bigotry, while interestingly Vladimir Putin is on record admonishing both the criminality in Moscow as well as the negligence of the police in letting the murder suspects go free; the event that sparked the violence.  While the politics of relations between the government and the right-wing football firms-cum-street militias is fraught with allegations of corruption and social subterfuge, there is a clear distinction between the government’s recognition of racism and social problems in Russia and Western governments’ us vs them attitude; their blind support for and unwillingness to inquire into police abuses, and their complete denial of any validity in the concerns of its citizens who are willing to put their personal safety at risk to make their voices heard.   

All arguments and justifications of belligerents aside, there is clear and immense contrast between the hemorrhaging violence in Russia and the demonstrations typical of Western protest movements, in spite of the similar language that media and government outlets use to characterize them; ie. 'criminal' 'violent' 'hard-core', etc.  Furthermore, Russian police appear decidedly less confrontational set next to Western police forces, who appear increasingly prepared, trained, armed and willing to employ violence against non-violent demonstrators and witnesses, for no other obvious reason than to discourage corroborators and media onlookers, to silence public opposition to government policies and to quash expressions of democratic freedom which manifest at peaceful anti-war, anti-globalisation, anti-privatisation and anti-austerity demonstrations.  

The first embedded video above depicts at 0:40 Russian police corralling minorities at a van who have been beaten by the mobs, who eventually chase them down and continue to attack the bewildered and defenceless victims even while they are in protective custody.  Also depicted is a pitched battle between the rioters and police.  The video was obtained from youtube, and can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8wj_69OkHo, where links to other videos can be located.  The second video depicts 'kettling' by Canadian Police of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in a large square and the tightening of a kettle around a few dozen others.  This video is also hosted on youtube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=280hrwKUqKg&feature=related

One story from inside the smaller Kettle depicted in the video above:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/a-look-inside-the-g20-kettle-at-queen-and-spadina/article1787949/page3/

Read recent reports about the violence:

December 09, 2010

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/article/police-let-furious-fans-rally/425927.html

December 14, 2010

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/russia/101213/soccer-hooligans-far-right-violence

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/14/36832719.html

December 16, 2010

http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4705957

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101216/161804042.html

Riots and Disparity: Rome, London and Toronto

International headlines in the last two weeks have reported a massive amount of social unrest and unsettling news across the developed world, including riots and economic data which on the surface may appear discordant and unrelated, but are united as part of larger political and economic trends. 

Fees Protest, by Andrea_F

Days of protests and rioting in London have seen the metropolitan police employing illegal crowd control tactics such as kettling, assault, and the use of horseback police charging at canter to provoke demonstrators who could not disperse to areas already cordoned off by police.  The protesters themselves have attacked government buildings and corporate franchise outlets, as well as molesting Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, who demonstrated an incredible lack of forethought in their failure to associate themselves with the objects of the 50,000 protesters’ anger when they ventured into downtown London for an evening at the theatre, their car being attacked with billiard balls, sticks and paint amid shouts of “Shame... Your government fucked us,” and “Off with their heads!” 

by Andrew Moss Photography

The London ‘fees riots’ have been precipitated by public anger over the government’s decision to allow university tuitions to rise by as much as threefold, or more precisely, the betrayal of campaign pledges and promises made by the Liberal-Democratic Party to oppose any attempt by a government to increase tuition fees.  This week the party made a fantastic U turn by abandoning this key point in their manifesto, and providing the swing vote the government needed to push the measure through; in so doing, perhaps a generation of middle-low income youth have been simultaneously denied an affordable post-secondary education and disabused of the notion that their government functions as a credible democracy.  With the perception that they have lost any means of redress or democratic expression and that the government exists to serve financial and corporate institutions after tax-payer funded bailouts, the students have lashed out against government and corporate property, and responded with violence against police who have attempted to pacify demonstrators with violence of their own.  While British papers polemicise as to whether the police and/or demonstrators have been criminally violent, it is not difficult to understand on a sociological level how such a reaction could occur when teens and twenty-somethings have had the image of their own futures swept out from under them by a duplicitous group of politicians.  After all, revolution is for the young. 

Bandana Bianco by surfstyle

Similarly, riots in Rome erupted this week after Silvio Berlusconi managed somehow to maintain his control of the office of Prime Minister by defeating 2 no-confidence votes, in the Senate and lower-house.  Berlusconi has long been something of a controversial playboy figure in Italian politics, he is a multi-billionaire, ranked by Forbes as the world’s 74^th richest man, and has always been unabashed and opinionated, endearing himself to a wide base of the Italian population; his tenure as Prime Minister being the second-longest in Italian history.  However, many Italians, have throughout his career decried his virtual monopoly of control over the state and private media, as well as his many moves to change Italian law in his favour; in one instance he changed a statute of limitation to quash conflict-of-interest charges levelled against him.  He has employed his personal fortune to mire his opponents in law-suits, more recently to allegedly hire dozens of girls for a bunga-bunga-orgy-party.  His office has lied to police in the attempt to get a 17 year-old belly dancer/prostitute released from custody, with the absurd story that she was a relative of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and his wife divorced him last year stating publicly that she “cannot remain with a man who consorts with minors” and “is not well.” 

Va fa'n... by Alessio85

Beyond the litany of credible allegations of corruption and solicitation of prostitution spanning his career, which one must wonder if he has throughout maintained his office only by his control of Italian media, there are the recent revelations in the leaked cables by Wikileaks that Berlusconi has moved in an attempt to curb freedom of expression on the Internet in Italy to silence his critics; that he has personally profited enormously through his nation’s rapprochement and energy deals with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and that his long hours of partying have a narcoleptic effect on his meetings with US diplomats.  That Italy’s elected government, in light of the very recent Wikileaks revelations and prostitution scandals, would still somehow find reason to vote in confidence of him as leader of their nation is too much for his most belligerent opponents who no longer believe they can find a voice in parliament, in the senate, or in the press.  As such, they have chosen to cast their votes in the streets through violence and destruction, in rioting the likes of which has not been seen in Italy in “over 30 years.”

Toronto's Queen st. by C.G. Cunningham

While many media outlets would like to describe these violent protests in Rome and London as mindless apolitical thuggery, as was the mantra of major Canadian media outlets after G20 protests in Toronto this summer, it is much more likely that it is an expression of a deep feeling of political disenfranchisement.  The protests in Canada saw major abuses of power and a total abridgement of people’s rights to free movement, peaceful assembly, security of the person and due process.  Nearly all ‘charges’ against protesters in Toronto who were jailed have been thrown out, and there are now multiple investigations into police wrongdoings.  The protests on the second day of the G20 meetings swelled as the residents of Toronto spilled out onto the streets as they sensed that their rights were being trampled on; not by the IMF; the World Bank or the Group of 20; but by the Toronto Police and the other anti-riot squads and intelligence squads running amok in their city, indiscriminately searching and arresting people wearing "suspicious" or dark clothing, kettling areas of the city without warning and trapping peaceful demonstrators and people going about normal business.  Stories of beatings and sexual intimidation by police abound.  Reporters, video journalists and accredited media personnel, even from the CBC, were attacked by police, having their equipment seized and destroyed in an ostensible effort to control information on what was happening.  Many Canadians travelled to Toronto simply to protest the government’s eagerness to spend $1billion on security for the meetings while other social spending was being cut. 

Protest for Inquest by My Toronto Democracy

Though it may be too cold to protest in Canada now as winter approaches, there must be further consternation among all who have read a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which discusses the continuing trend of rising income disparity in Canada since the 1970s.  As the top earning Canadian households continue to earn a greater and greater share of dollars, the result can only be a growing perception amongst lower earners that they are not getting their fair shake.   As long as a coalition government between Canada’s two major parties continues to support policies which encourage the trend of increasing disparity, which favours a numerical minority, so will there be a growing perception amongst the majority that the government is in service of that wealthy minority class, is unresponsive to the will of the majority, and that there is an erosion of democracy and social justice.  The disparity trend is the same in the US.  After the G20 summit in Toronto, it has also become public knowledge that to join a group which seeks redress against the government’s seeming anti-democratic leanings is to find oneself on a ‘security list’, and that should you present yourself at a public protest while being on such a list, you may be targeted for kidnapping and wrongful confinement in makeshift jails for the duration of the demonstrations, as happened to several activists who found themselves on government and police watch-lists. 

The British government has attacked its own future by making it harder for its citizens to educate themselves; they have stunted social mobility, and entrenched class divisions through this recent measure which was enacted in a gross and anti-democratic breach of public trust.  In Italy, a section of society would rather see Rome burn than accept the continued rule of their philandering and self-interested Prime-Minister.  Canadians and Americans are waking up to the fact that regardless of which party has formed their governments, they are facing a fourth consecutive decade of erosion of social services and increases in wealth and income disparity.  The populations of all these nations are watching their governments pay less and less attention to the will of their people, and more and more money to security and prison firms, policing and domestic surveillance initiatives.  Many view this as evidence that the protests such as we have seen in the past weeks in London and Rome, and this summer and Toronto are fruitless.  However, I’m afraid to imagine what shape the world would take in the total absence of such protests, should we proud inheritors of western democracies, whose freedoms and institutions were paid for in blood and revolution, become wholly subservient and meekly offer a carte-blanche to those who would take it.

More reading:


London's Fees Protests
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/12/riots-fire-anger-defining-political-moment
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/footage-shows-protester-dragged-from-wheelchair-2159570.html


Riots in Rome
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338461/Berlusconi-win-sparks-violence-Rome-survives-just-THREE-votes.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/silvio-berlusconis-confid_n_796566.html#s207347


Toronto G20 protests
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/07/10/g20-rally-toronto-independent-review.html
http://littlealexinwonderland.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/report-toronto-police-molested-female-g-20-captives-video/
http://www.g20justice.com/

Increasing Canadian Income Disparity
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/rise-canadas-richest-1
http://www.obj.ca/Canada---World/2010-12-01/article-2008311/Canadas-wealthiest-breaking-new-frontiers-in-income-disparity%3A-report/1

Drones, Torture, Rendition: Democratic Values?

A Huffington Post column by Johann Hari summarizes certain revelations stemming from the leaked USG diplomatic cables by Wikileaks.  The piece posits that Julian Assange's efforts have made the world safer and are a boon to US National Security, that a better educated public with proof of government wrongdoings can better bring its government to account.

Hari's column touches on a cable which proves the US Armed Forces were operating in Yemen while denying it publicly, and references an article which discusses 'Reaper' or 'Predator' drone attacks in Pakistan.  Drone attacks there are a very messy situation; Pakistani officials publicly deny their tacit approval of US drone attacks within their territory, rejecting them as a violation of their sovereignty and of dubious value and causing massive civilian casualties. According to Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit, drone attacks "are having long-term negative consequences.”  Indeed, the Pakistani and American governments likely will suffer "long-term negative consequences" from the resulting radicalization of Muslims when they employ drone tactics such as attacking a funeral procession; waiting for a time until villagers come out from cover after the attack in search for survivors and to pray for the newly slain; then attacking again.  Certainly they make bitter enemies of the villagers who lose their homes and family members in such wanton displays of imperial might; people who may have nothing left to do to support themselves except to take up arms, if it does not generally galvanize the entire population against them, to whom the notion that US forces are in the region to restore security and human rights must seem something of a Hitlerian joke.

The article also highlights pressure the US Government exerted on Germany to quash an investigation into the rendition of an innocent man, Khaled El-Masri, who was mistaken for an insurgent with a similar name. El-Masri was kidnapped from Europe and brought to the CIA's infamous 'Salt Pit', a secret interrogation facility in Afghanistan.  A Harper's Magazine article, The El-Masri Cable, describes the treatment he received: "Despite El-Masri’s protests that he was not al-Masri, he was beaten, stripped naked, shot full of drugs, given an enema and a diaper, and flown first to Baghdad and then to the notorious “salt pit,” the CIA’s secret interrogation facility in Afghanistan. At the salt pit, he was repeatedly beaten, drugged, and subjected to a strange food regime that he supposed was part of an experiment that his captors were performing on him. Throughout this time, El-Masri insisted that he had been falsely imprisoned, and the CIA slowly established that he was who he claimed to be. Over many further weeks of bickering over what to do, a number of CIA figures apparently argued that, though innocent, the best course was to continue to hold him incommunicado because he 'knew too much.'"  While this kidnapping, torture, sexual violation and starvation of an innocent man had already been revealed, the leaked cables show the US Government's expectation of impunity for its agents who execute these illegal actions in sovereign foreign nations; in this case, Germany's unwillingness to cooperate by dropping charges in the matter against 13 USG agents is met with threats from US diplomats.

Hari's article points to other abuses by Western governments and the lies they tell their people to cover it up.  He expresses outrage in the poignant observation that "There is a squalid little irony when you see people who are literally bombing innocent civilians every day feverishly accuse a man (Julian Assange) who has never touched a weapon in his life of being 'covered in blood.'"  He names Western governments as the prime threats to their own population's security, and suggests that the unmasking of this hypocrisy must lead to positive change, stability and security.  What will the view of the Muslim and 3rd world be, if Western 'democracies' fail to address the abuse of power by their governments?  Al Qaeda already names Western voters as sponsors of the military occupation of Palestine and the general misery of the third world, offering that ignorance is not an excuse for imperialism.  Many amongst the populations of the world's Muslim nations already view Westerners, especially Americans, as ignorant, militarist and corrupt materialists.  Now that Western tax-payers and voters cannot hide behind the veil of ignorance, how will the world view of Western 'democracies' change, should they fail to expel the ruling classes who have sown war, death, torture and poverty in their people's name?  What is the risk that Westerners come to be seen as knowingly complicit in the heinous crimes of their governments by their 'democratically' expressed unwillingness to stop these crimes, let alone rectify and bring their authors to justice?  Whatever blood Julian Assange and the American government have on them, it is more and more smeared onto each of us, here in Canada, in the US and in Europe.


Read the Johann Hari- Huffington Post article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/julian-assange-has-made-u_b_793504.html

More on Drones by Johann Hari and others:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann--hari-obamas-robot-wars-endanger-us-all-2106931.html
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/23/at-least-65-killed-as-us-drones-attack-south-waziristan-funeral-procession/
http://www.qatar-tribune.com/data/20101202/content.asp?section=pakistan1_3
http://geo.tv/6-24-2009/44711.htm

Harper's Magazine on El-Masri Rendition:
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/11/hbc-90007831

BBC on American intervention in Yemen:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11918037

Peas in a Water Pod: China, India and Bangladesh; Atlanta, Alabama and Florida

Two Economist articles of recent publication draw attention to the imminent threat that the availability of water, or the lack thereof, poses to social, political and economic stability.  A Himalayan rivalry, Aug 21; and Chattahoochee blues, Sept 18; describe current and potential disputes on both domestic and international levels. 

In discussing the extremely complex nature of relations between India and China, A Himalayan rivalry briefly describes the recent Sino-Indian war which saw China attacking India while the USSR and USA were preoccupied with the 1962 October Cuban missile crisis, with China occupying disputed areas in Arunachal and Kashmir for roughly a month before peace and withdrawal.  The long border between the two countries was, in 1962, a demarcation with no real geographical, historical or even official basis after more than a century of gerrymandering by the British and Russian empires competing for control of central Asia.  To a great extent it remains so today, and its obscurity mirrors the current relationship of the two giants, whose trade has increased from “$270m in 1990” to an expected “$60 billion this year,”  yet whose militaries still manoeuvre along the borders; China making “huge improvements... in its border infrastructure, enabling a far swifter mobilisation of Chinese troops there,” and India announcing “last year that it would deploy another 60,000 troops to Arunachal,” a border province at the eastern end of India, most of which is claimed by China as “Chinese South Tibet.” 

Yarlung Tsangpo River, Tibet - by Fighting Irish 1977

Arunachal is not only a new home to 60,000 Indian troops, but also a province through which the Brahmaputra River flows; from Tibet to Bangladesh and into the Indian ocean; sustaining millions of Indians and Bangladeshis.   According to The Economist, “China appears to have reasserted its demand for most of India’s far north-eastern state,” (Arunachal) having made diplomatic mischief with citizenship and visas for Arunachalis and by objecting to Asian Development Bank loans to India “on the basis that some of the money was earmarked for irrigation schemes in Arunachal.”  Whether or not China will have Arunachal remains to be seen; however, China will have its water.  A possible motivation for the objection to the above mentioned financing of irrigation projects in India is that should China begin diverting water from the Brahmaputra, the impact would be much more measurable in its effects on agriculture and industry, thereby strengthening India’s claims of damages against China. 

The Economist reports that one dam is being built on the Brahmaputra, or the Yarlung Tsangpo River as it is known in Tibet, however the Zangmu dam is actually only one of a few that China has apparently already announced publicly.  Considering China’s penchant for great works of engineering as in the Three-Gorges-Dam, its long term view in policy matters, its demonstrated willingness to divert waters as in the ‘South-North Water Transfer Project, and as China prefers in matters most sensitive to announce their intentions and projects near or at completion as a fait-accompli; many in India and Bangladesh surmise that with the infrastructure already being put into place, a gradual if not sudden diversion of the waters that feed the Brahmaputra River is an inevitability, in light of China’s already apparent problem of feeding and watering its 1.34 billion inhabitants.  Many sources show a litany of dams currently under construction and in planning stages along the Yarlung, well beyond what is publicly admitted by Chinese officials and media.    

Aspects of the Brahmaputra/Yarlung situation are paralleled in the south-eastern US as described in Chattahoochee blues, where local water utilities are illegally supplying the growing Greater Atlanta area with more and more water from Lake Lanier, itself created by the construction of the Buford dam on the Chattahoochee river in 1956; a dam originally intended primarily to supply power.  Downstream farms, industry and communities in Georgia and Alabama want to ensure their own adequate supply of water; as do communities, environmentalists and oyster farms in Florida; where fresh water from the Chattahoochee empties into the Apalachicola river, sustaining the watershed and floodplain which feeds the complex ecosystem of forests and marshes and the special balance of fresh and salt water where the river meets the gulf of Mexico. 

 Federal courts have been forced through a process of lawsuits into a position where it must take sides in a dispute which it understands cannot be fairly resolved, as there is plainly not enough water to satisfy the overall demand, if not need.  Their decision has been to defer to the judgement of Congress or to a negotiated solution between the parties, with the caveat that should neither process produce a decision by 2012, local water suppliers in greater Atlanta will (still) no longer be able to legally use Lake Lanier as a source of water.  While the court recognises this outcome as a “Draconian result”, the status-quo being already one of illegal removal of water from Lake Lanier, watchers will await what Draconian measures the authorities will employ to stop Atlanta from supplying itself with water from the lake, if any. 

There seems to be a precedent forming both on domestic as well as international levels that is one of first-come, first-served.  Furthermore, if nations fail to properly resolve and manage their own internal water-resource problems and allow their populations to deprive each other and suffer thereof, there seems little hope that any agreement internationally as to the equitable and sustainable distribution of water is possible.   

The Economist; A Himalayan rivalry: 

http://www.economist.com/node/16843717

The Economist; Chattahoochee blues:

http://www.economist.com/node/17043462

More on the Brahmaputra/Yarlung River: 

http://tibetanplateau.blogspot.com/2010/04/india-poorly-informed-about-chinese.html

Wikileaks: Misanthropy and the Spectre of Scrutiny

Amid the bluster surrounding the public release of 278 of 251,287 secret and confidential USG diplomatic cables by Wikileaks as of Monday November 29th; more telling as to the behaviour and thinking of governments and vested interests is the current reaction in the world media and of public officials, than any information so far to be gleaned from these documents.  This author has read the majority of the 278 published cables, and perused the remainder, the greater share originating from embassies in Europe, the middle-east and central Asia, where the US armed forces are most active, and a smattering of cables from east-Asia, Africa and the Americas rounding out the balance.  Read in volume, they provide a fascinating glimpse as to the psychology and priorities of USG foreign policy.

The characterization by the Pentagon of Wikileaks being “reckless” in their release of the documents came in fact ahead of their release, as were Sunday’s headlines quoting the White House statement that their publication is “reckless and dangerous.”  If the documents so far released are dangerous at all, it is mostly to the continued perception by the American public that their government stands above other nations on a moral high-ground, and that USG foreign policies are in any tangible way amenable to and affected by democratic processes at home.  Wikileaks has in fact respected the danger that confidential informants and private citizens inside Iran, Afghanistan and Korea face by censoring their names, though the names of foreign diplomats, statesmen and US officials are rarely spared, as they are ostensibly publicly accountable.  Such statements from sources protected by Wikileaks’s self censorship are in any case usually the least revealing as to actual policy, and are interesting only in their insight as to what foreign insiders and parties want the USG to do or think.  

The statement by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs which has formed the leading paragraph in so many news outlet’s headlining stories: "To be clear -- such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," is a falsehood, as the cables themselves demonstrate that the USG, with abandon, continues to support on a quid pro quo basis innumerable corrupt dictatorial regimes such as in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.  The notion that anyone anywhere is soliciting the USG in the aid of “promoting democracy and open government” is absurd in the light of these cables, which instead demonstrate foreign governments soliciting the USG for money, weapons and military action against their neighbours, or in the cases of Syria, Azerbaijan and Turkey, that the USG not continue to provoke the Iranian regime and desist from sponsoring terrorism, subterfuge and the foment of dissent within Iran’s borders, which they believe strengthens the Islamic leadership by providing it pretext for the further curtailing domestic freedoms of movement and expression, and which convinces the Iranian leadership that an attack by American forces is imminent and forestalled only by its current difficulties in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq.  The cables reveal that many representatives of middle-eastern nations believe that Iran’s operations and attempts to destabilise Iraq and Afghanistan stem from the Iranian government’s conviction that allowing a military success in Iraq or Afghanistan would precipitate a rather immediate invasion of Iran itself by Western forces. 

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has called Wikileaks a “Threat to democracy,” which seems understandable only if one extrapolates that the release of the cables will motivate people such as him to dispense with it.  For the moment, exactly how the exposure of secretive government workings to the public threatens that public’s right to rule itself (democracy), if it does not in fact do the opposite, remains unexplained.  Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, called the leaks “deplorable” and reportedly continued that ‘leaks like this one do not serve anybody's national interests and may threaten national security.’

Hilary Clinton’s statement that the leaks are “An attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity," seems ironic in light of the continual proliferation of weapons and conflict on every continent and the ongoing global economic crisis; and thereby causing one to wonder about exactly whose security and economic prosperity she speaks, and to whom she is referring when she invokes the name “international community,” a rather ambiguous and ubiquitous term of late.   There are also the calls from News outlets such as Fox News and NY Rep. Congressman Peter King that Wikileaks be deemed a terrorist organisation, and that its assets be seized and donors be considered sponsors of terrorism, which is an obvious absurdity, inconsistent even with the USG’s loose definition of terrorism, and would define innumerable US citizens as terrorists.

One of the few reasonable reactions by any government to the scandal is from David Cameron’s Conservative UK government, who as very recent newcomers to power are perhaps not (yet?) a part of Secretary Clinton’s ‘international community’.  A spokesman for the UK government discussed the matter with reporters, stopping short of branding Wikileaks as a criminal or terrorist organisation, and relating simply that the released cables and a lack of confidentiality on matters “is inhibiting the conduct of governments.”  While an honest observation, the merit of the conduct of any government and which matters merit strict confidentiality is itself a matter which clearly requires debate.

Overall, the picture is one of public leaders worldwide closing ranks in face of what they view as a clear attack on their authority and mandate to continue the types of behaviours described in the cables, which it is.  They deplore the leaks as a threat to “national” security, mistaking themselves as the nation and not merely its representatives, and are weary of the possibility that an informed public may better understand their government’s duplicity and actions against the public welfare in favour of privately profitable wars and support for autocratic/oligarchic regimes abroad, causes which almost no citizens of western nations find virtue in.  A massive PR campaign is being mobilised in the mainstream media, beginning with a repetitious doublethink mantra which in its essence suggests to the public mind that to hold its leaders to task on matters most important is antithetical to their freedoms and democratic rule.  

Only 278 of the 251,287 cables obtained by Wikileaks have thus far been released.  The relative voracity of global leadership’s reaction to the publication of these cables, which have provided very little extra insight beyond information which is already publicly available, if not conveniently located in a single place from a single source, is perhaps indicative that the ruling echelon is convinced the most damning evidence of their self-interest and misappropriation of public trust is yet to come.

East eats West?

This week's Economist magazine's headlining articles and cover-page, 'Buying up the world- The coming wave of Chinese takeovers' highlight the process and nature of foreign takeovers by Chinese firms.  The piece offers surprisingly little discussion or speculation as to China's deeper motivations and timing in its recent takeover bids for large multinational companies, or as to the reasoning of other governments and critics who would resist the emerging trend before concluding that rejecting China's advances would "be a disservice to future generations." 

There is something absurd about the reasoning in these articles, which do point out the "opaque and arbitrary" nature of authority within large Chinese companies, and which do briefly note that takeover bids are most often made on companies working in strategic resource sectors; but which base their conclusions on speculation that Chinese firms will "bring new energy and capital to flagging companies around the world," that "Chinese companies will have to adapt" and that its investments in the global economy will help to make China's interests "increasingly aligned with the rest of the world's."  That the Economist can readily admit to not understanding the motivations and interests of "opaque" Chinese government and authority but then predict its evolution is a failure of logic and a cause for concern should policy makers around the world find agreement with this thesis.

A steady accumulation of bonds and hard currency in all denominations, especially of its largest rivals in the US and Euro-zone, coupled with a well timed and targeted increase in the rate of takeover of global means of production and access to raw materials represents an obvious, well planned, forward looking and ongoing effort to supplant Western hegemony in favor of an ill-defined future global order over which a preeminent China presides.

This is the Chinese mission according to Chinese leaders and state-owned news outlets, as discussed in a 2008 CSIS report which states among other things: "The PRC-owned Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po opined that the elevation of the “harmonious world” theory in the congress work report indicates that Hu (Jintao) is “assuming an even more important role in international affairs that is, as ‘formulator, participant and defender of world order,’ in order push the entire world toward harmony.”  Other such thinking among leading Chinese thinkers is evident in Zhao Tingyang’s The Tianxia System: The Philosophy for the World Institution (2005) and Liu Mingfu’s book The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age (2010).  All of these sources are united in their assumption that a Chinese eclipse of Western economic power is inevitable, though they may differ on their view of that post-ecliptic world.  Without knowing the truth about China's aims, the West should be wary of allowing a monolithic foreign government access to its strategic resources and internal economies.  

The Economist article gives further evidence that China's entry into global capitalism is not motivated by the usual basic greed and desires of Western investors when it reports that "Natural-resources firms can become captive suppliers to China, rather than selling on the open market... Westerners realised their new objective was to maximise production, not profits" and "Chinese firms... risk political fallout if they fail.  Their sense of mission makes them 'transparent', says one European executive."  That China's is a long term view is undeniable in the context that they would forgo immediate profit by selling to the highest bid on the market in favor of repatriating newly exploited resources. 

Western economic domination of the world reached its zenith in the 20th century, when according to this weeks Economist articles "Britain owned 45% of the world's FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in 1914; America's share peaked at 50% in 1967."  It is undeniable that, in competition and in concert, Western powers used their public institutions and militaries to further their economic-imperial goals, making the 20th century the bloodiest and most warlike known to history.  Entire continents were subjugated and looted in the pursuit of profit and 'civilisation',- including China, and large parts of Central and South America, Asia and Africa remain captive to the national and corporate institutions which have inherited that legacy.  While the West so often points out China's human rights abuses and excesses of power, the Chinese are always quick to point out the hypocrisy of such criticisms, as it did in its recent report on the US's human rights record published in the China-daily; a startling and credible list of very recent abuses.  If there are any worries among people in the West as to the waning of Western power in favor of Chinese influence, it should perhaps not be in lament of a lost golden age of economic and military triumph, but in fear that the emerging power in China, accountable to no one and secretive in their aims and motivations, will as it hijacks a global economic system which promotes greed and consolidation of power, look upon and treat the West in the same manner that the West has China and the rest of the world.  


Read the Economist reports and other related articles here:

The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/17463473
http://www.economist.com/node/17460954

Regarding Chinese policy and statements about US human rights abuses:
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080129_murphydecoding.pdf
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/12/content_9582218.htm

Regarding takeovers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7967604.stm
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/11/03/potash-ottawa-review.html 
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=6336.4792.0.0

Seoul G20: Perplexing Conclusion, Clear Result

The conclusion of the most recent G20 summit in Seoul last Friday, hailed as a success for political reasons by attending politicians, was punctuated with the following agreed upon statement: "Uneven growth and widening imbalances are fueling the temptation to diverge from global solutions into uncoordinated action... uncoordinated policy actions will only lead to worse outcomes for all."  In other words, 'while we agree in principal that it is best to agree, we disagree.'  I can only imagine that, if only the leaders of nations in times past, who with the specter of wars and economic strife looming before them, had been privy to such wisdom, things would have turned out exactly the same...

In spite of ambiguous political statements made in Seoul last week, markets have been remarkably unified in their response.  Since markets closed on the Wednesday (Nov. 10) before the summit began in earnest, every single major US dollar denominated market has fallen.  Several of these markets had been gaining steadily leading up to the G20 summit, but all have dipped in response to the G20's conclusion.  Here is a quick statistical rundown of some of those losses up to the Wednesday Nov. 17 close:

Dow Jones   -350 points (-3.1%);
S&P 500   -40 points (-3.2%);
NYSE Comp.   -259 points (-3.3%)
Crude $/Brl   -6.77 (-7.7%)
Copper $/lb   -0.24 (-6.0%)
Gold $/oz   -62 (-4.4%)
Platinum $/oz   -97 (-5.6%)


Thus, money (or value) is coming out of stock and commodity markets across the board.  Furthermore, Treasuries, both 30yr and 5yr notes, fell 1.5% and 0.9% respectively, during the same period; markets which often gain when stock markets are in turmoil.  Taken in the context of a rise of 1.44 points (+1.9%) during the same period, in the US Dollar Index (USDX) which is a guage of the value of the dollar relative to other world currencies, we can reasonably assume that losses in the value of stocks and commodities are partly, if not mainly, a result of a strengthening US dollar.  This represents deflation.  What is the cause of this deflationary pressure?  It could be that investors have responded to the G20's failure to resolve its differences over state manipulations in currency markets by pulling out of markets and deleveraging, or paying off debts.  The US dollar being a debt-based currency, any net reduction in USD debts effectively reduces the amount of USD in the system, producing deflation. 

Perhaps the dirtiest word in modern economics, many analysts of late, even Fed chief Bernanke, have begun to broach the issue of deflation.  That it is impossible in America has been the misplaced hope of so many bank and fund chiefs.  The Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s has resulted in persistent deflation for over a decade.  The more recent global recession, particularly the crash in the summer of 2008, was a deflationary crash, which saw all markets lose value at break-neck speed after being inflated by Bush's bank bailouts and stimulus spending.  That extra money was un-created nearly as quickly as it was created when it was used by large institutions to pay off debts and deleverage.  So what to expect?  With interest rates already at historical lows and failing to stimulate more borrowing, look for the Federal Reserve to enact more quantitative easing, the modern equivalent of printing money.  This will complete another round in the cycle, and further consternate the US's G20 partners, especially China, who will see it as another salvo in the much denied currency war.  However, if they fail to do so, fear of another credit crunch may trigger another US dollar exodus from markets everywhere, and the global 'double dip' recession will be upon us.  It seems that there is no positive alternative, and no way out of the rabbit hole the US has dug for itself and the rest of us.

Perhaps the only thing keeping the floundering juggernaut of global finance afloat is the placebo effect of the actions of its masters who maintain a public image of confidence and certainty about their actions.  If at any time any major player all at once goes bust or pulls their money off the table, everyone else may just decide to cash in.  It seems since the summit, a few players at least, have decided to pocket at least a few of their chips, just in case.

Japanese Population Crash will be Political, not Economic Failure

There has been much discussion in the developed world over the last decades among economists and policy makers concerning their ageing populations.  Recent discussions on CBC Radio's 'The Current', as well as treatment of the issue by other news outlets as it concerns Japan are a striking demonstration of the fear of the unknown future.  Analysts are watching with a keen eye, as Japan may provide a litmus test as to how well modern democracies and economies are able to weather the demands of an ageing and shrinking population.

Compared to Western nations, Japan's immigration policy is non-existent, and Japan features near the bottom of the list in 'Total Fertility Rate' or TFR, regardless of whose doing the math.  Since 2005, deaths outnumber births in Japan.  Projections along these rates vary, some stating that by 2055 the population will have shrunk by 30% which represents more than 30 million people.  While the question of what Japanese society will look like in two or three generations as its population shrinks is fascinating, the fears stemming from this issue pertain mostly to the ageing of Japan's shrinking population, which is expected to continue. 

The implications of an ageing population are well understood:  Fewer working people paying less taxes to support more and more pensions and social services will certainly be the trigger for future attempts to reform pension, health and welfare systems, etc., which are already the point of heated debate in developed nations.  Witness recent rioting in France over pension reforms and the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62, or G.W. Bush's failure to enact pension reforms in 2005 amid resistance from organised labour and the AARP.  Any shift in the status quo represents a shift in wealth, privilege, and the potential for both, and will be opposed doggedly by those groups seeing themselves as the losers in the trade.  The real question is, how can a democratic nation cope with growing divisions along the lines of age.  One may wryly consider that rollbacks in pensions and social programs will occur in democracies as soon as enough baby-boomers are dead or too senile to vote in their own interests.

Japan's is a special case however, and Western nations will take their cues from how Japan deals with its population problem at great risk.  Japan's is an export-based economy, making it dependent on foreign purchasing of their goods.  As their work force shrinks, so will drastically the total production and total income of their export sector, which props up household incomes, the tax base and social services, as well as the stock market and thus the private investments of its citizens.  Service economies, diversified and net importers of finished goods, such as the US, Canada and Europe, will not suffer in the same way.  These Western economies may suffer a lack of spending and conspicuous consumption in the retail sector, but they are not dependent on net inflows of currency in the same way that Japan is.

There is, however, reason to hope.  To allow the population to shrink as it ages may not be as bad as some predict.  GDP will certainly fall allong with a marked population decline, but it is less clear that per-capita-GDP would also fall.  The same can be said for almost any statistic, be it productivity v. productivity-per-capita, etc.  While Western nations invite immigration to counter low birth rates, their economies must grow to maintain, let alone improve, average living standards as population rises.  Recent economic hardships demonstrate that this is not always possible.  In a vacuum, if Japan's population were to shrink by a fifth, then the remaining four fifths would be left to split the fifth of the pie left behind, enjoying the resources which previously accommodated everyone.  With proper stewardship of Japan's available resources and economy, something along those lines may be possible.  While there may be less money around to buy things, there will be less demand on fixed assets such as land and real-estate, as well as on other domestic markets.  Incomes may increase as Japanese firms compete in a shrinking market of Japanese educated workers, technicians and specialists. 

To what degree will future Japanese generations be willing to honor the agreements and obligations of past governments?  Again, the question is, will democracy in such hugely populated jurisdictions allow for enlightened and sustainable policy?  The problem may not at all be the shrinking or ageing of a population, but the political structure's ability to handle the changing demography.  Japanese politicians are avoiding the issue for all the wrong reasons.  With so many vested interests, with so many people with so much to lose, a vocal minority may win the day, as they often do, to the detriment of sustainability, good governance, and people at large.

The truth is that there is no example in history of how a modern economy or modern democracy will react to a shrinking population.  There are sure to be "shrinking" pains, as pains, strife and unrest happen during any major demographic shift.  In the most pessimistic of predictions for Japan however, there is a lack of creative and inspired thinking. 

Read/ listen to stories about this issue:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2010/11/16/nov-1610---pt-2-japans-population-crash/

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-49967220100708

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/aug2010/bw20100812_825983.htm

Famine Present, Brazilian Future?

A recent Economist article is shocking, if not blindly optimistic in its revelations about the world's prospective ability to feed itself.

The piece, published in the Aug. 28th edition, attempts to present Brazil's agricultural reforms of the past 40 years as a road map to insuring against future famines.  However misguided in its conclusions, the article is honest in its presentation of the problem of world hunger, acknowledging that "by 2050 world grain output will have to rise by half and meat production must double to meet demand."  One may wonder if these increases would only serve to maintain the current balance of global food supply and demand, which provides enough food at low enough prices to properly feed only 5 out of 6 people on the planet (WHO statistic), leaving more than 1.1 billion people in a constant state of mortally dangerous hunger and malnutrition.  The author also admits that these increases must come in spite of "flattening" growth in global grain-yields, a lack of "extra farmland" and "renewable water running short.".

The article opens with the suggestion that the current Malthusian pessimism, as far as agriculture is concerned, is trivial enough to be fit for making puns, and that the world has been subject to such doomsaying before, such as in the 1968 Best-seller The Population Bomb by Paul Erlich, which predicted that in the "1970's and 1980's hundreds of millions of people will starve to death."  Nevermind the fact that Erlich was essentially correct in his prediction, and nevermind that such a state of affairs continues to be true, with current WHO estimates attributing 36 million deaths per year to hunger and malnutrition.

Attempting to offer constructive and positive suggestions as to the problem's solution, the Economist lays out the basis for what it terms "Brazil's agricultural miracle."  Brazilian farms are "many times the size even of American farms," America being the home of large-scale industrial farming; that "Farmers... sell crops on a scale that makes sense only if there are world markets for them... they depend critically on new technology," and that "Brazil's progress has been underpinned by the state agricultural-research company and pushed forward by GM crops."  The article minimizes damage to the Amazon rainforest as a part of the "miracle" to the point of incredulity, saying that Brazil is an example of how to "save the world's imperilled ecosystems" by growing "so much food elsewhere that nobody would need to touch the natural wonders."  One is left to speculate on what type of statistics underpin this fantastic argument. 


Ambiguation and pun making aside, the article makes no account for certain troubling facts.  According to the WHO, 11 million Brazilians remain "undernourished," even as Brazil is a net food exporter, and while this number is on the decline, one cannot separate the economic, agricultural and land reforms of the past 40 years in Brazil from the military dictatorship which initiated them in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  It was an iron fist that swept aside property rights and civil liberties, and held down working-class wages in the name of agro-industrial progress and upper-class economic growth.  Former General/President Emilio Medici famously gave an honest assessment of his government's policies: "A economia vai bem, mas o povo vai mal"- "The economy does well, but the people do poorly." 

If the Economist is correct in its assertion that food production will need to increase dramatically in the next 40 years to meet demand, it remains unclear how other countries could manage to duplicate the 'milagre Brasileiro,' which would require them to conjure new farmlands and sources of fresh water, of which Brazil had untapped abundances of; to make multiple technological breakthroughs allowing more and more efficient use of those ever more scarce lands and resources and to abandon democracy, property rights and free markets in favor of central planning and speedy consolidation. To replicate this "miracle" outside Brazil seems less an option than a strange dystopic pipe-dream of plutocratic control and alchemy, perhaps just as nightmarish as any Malthusian prediction.


Read the Economist article at http://www.economist.com/node/16889019

Gorbachev's Afghan Pessimism: BBC Interview

Former Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev spoke plainly about the war in Afghanistan during an interview with the BBC earlier this week.

"Victory is impossible" is his leading statement on the topic of the war.  Gorbachev states that Obama is right to pull the troops out, "no matter how difficult".  Mr. Gorbachev underlines one of the 'difficulties' as being America's deep and well established ties to militants and factions within Afghanistan.  He does not miss the opportunity to remind his English speaking audience as to who the original sponsors of the current violence are: "The Americans... were training militants, the same ones who today are terrorizing Afghanistan and more and more of Pakistan."

In making such statements, Mr. Gorbachev alludes to and seems prepared to discuss the vested interests or bureaucratic and military resistance at work to slow or block a US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Surely Mr. Gorbachev's experience and insight in this area would have made for some fascinating and revealing news copy, however BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg fails to engage the topic.

The clip ends with Mr. Gorbachev shrugging at the alternatives to withdrawal: "But what's the alternative?  Another Vietnam?  Sending in half-a-million troops?  That wouldn't work."  Mr. Gorbachev paints a picture of America, caught in a trap of its own making, bleeding and unable to free itself.

Mr. Gorbachev presided over the USSR's final extrication from the Soviet-Afghan war at the end of the 1980's.  Since the American invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, a long list of former Soviet government and military officials, including Mr. Gorbachev, have gone on record saying that the west's war in Afghanistan is unwinnable.  While such predictions seem always to be hinted with pride and sour grapes, after nine years in Afghanistan, Americans can no longer hope that they will do better.  The Soviet-Afghan war ended after 9 years, and cost the Soviet Union 14,453 lives.  Troop deployments reached a height of 104,000, and a total of 620,000 Soviet soldiers served in the war.  As of this week, NATO troop levels exceed 100k, and coalition deaths in Afghanistan have reached 2,095 people, according to wikipedia.  However, this number does not include western contractors and NGO workers doing security and infrastructure work.

Read the article and watch the clip:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11633646

Currency War?: Truth is the first casualty

In recent days, major news outlets across the world have been reporting on the growing rift, particularily between China and the US, and more generally between 'developped' and 'developping' nations, over currency markets and monetary policy ahead of the G20 meetings in Korea this November.  

The issue not only highlights the growing ability of emerging economies, such as China and Brazil, to stand up to the unbalanced global economic order imposed by European and American institutions, but the nature of the coverage has itself revealed a staggering bias and lack of insight by the Western media and points to an unsurprising but serious misunderstanding in the Western public as to how their economies function and relate to the global economy.

The issue has been politicized in the US for some time now, where people are being made to feel somehow that in a general way China is threatening the welfare of the American economy by holding its currency 'artificially low', causing the hemorraging US trade deficit and the continual loss of American factory jobs.  The intended message to the public is clear when the US Treasury Department's not-yet-released study of whether China manipulates its currency to gain an 'unfair' trade advantage is referred to again and again, while credible statements to the contrary go unnoticed, such as the World Bank and IMF who foresee currency 'tensions', not 'war', and who admit that allowing China's currency to rise will do little to help the balance of trade in the US.  Quite often, the fact that the yuan has already risen against the dollar by 20% since Chinese currency reforms five years ago is completely glossed over, or is noted as insignificant.

Nearly without exception, all Western news outlets decry China's 'intervention' or 'state manipulation' of the value of its own currency, along with other vaguely 'commie' sounding terminologies which are sure to raise the hairs on the back of every red-blooded American. 

A nation's currency is the lifeblood of its economy, and a government's right to manage and manipulate the value of its own currency is not only necessary for the maintenance of economic stability, but also sovereignty.  Free trading nations such as the US and EU resort to 'open market operations', manipulating interest rates, and lately 'quantitative easing'- the modern-day high-tech equivalent of printing more money.  While China 'pegs' its currency's value against a basket of currencies to maintain its stability in global markets, something that the US and EU do not do, it is the height of hypocrisy for the US and EU to enact major inflationary measures such as quantitative easing to drive down the value of its currency for selfish political and economic reasons, and then call China beligerent and interventionist when it merely allows the value of the yuan to float along with the Euro and greenback.

Western efforts to cheapen the value of US and Euro dollar denominated debts and to make foreign-produced goods more expensive in their domestic markets, to beat back looming deflation, to bailout its financial institutions and to inflate economic data, all by devaluing their currencies, is neo-mercantilism, and an extreme provocation to developping nations dependent on exports, such as China, Brazil, India, Korea, and Thailand to name a few.  Furthermore, Western governments, by lowering lending rates and increasing the supply of money in their domestic markets, have provided impetus to large financial institutions to go overseas to look for opportunities, thereby increasing competition, prices and the value of the domestic currency in those developping nations, as Western capital virtually invades and destabilizes their markets.  To then attempt to dictate how these nations should or should not react to such provocations is the height of arrogance.

The truth is that the US and European economies remain extremely vulnerable to further collapse, and politicians and bureaucrats in these economies remain willing to enact extreme measures to prevent this, or to at least give the appearance to their constituents that they are doing so.  The past few years have seen massive uncertainty and volatility in currency markets because of the banking crisis of 2008 and the Keynesian reaction to it and the recession it caused.  That such uncertainty and volatility would spill over into the relations between the West and its global trading partners is perhaps predictable.  However, painting China's monetary policy as the sponsor of Western economic woes is ridiculous, and does more to damage the accusors's credibility than it does to improve their economic situation.


Read articles on this topic, good and bad, at:

ABC News "China trying to avoid currency war"
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11865837

Xinhua News:  "Sword of Damocles dangling over China-US economic ties"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-10/16/c_13560709.htm

The Council on Foreign Relations:  "Concerns over currency wars grow"
http://www.cfr.org/about/newsletters/editorial_detail.html?id=2222

The Globe and Mail:  "Averting currency war tops G20 agenda"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/averting-currency-war-tops-g20-agenda/article1758134/

Arirang News:  "Currency disputes heat up ahead of G20 Seoul summit"
http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=108013&code=Ne2&category=2

The News Center:  "Fx tensions mount ahead of Fed's Bernanke"
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/fx-tensions-mount-aheadfed%60s-bernanke_491477.html

China squeezes world supply of rare earths

An article about rising prices and China's decision to reduce by 40% their export quota of "rare earth" commodities such as cerium, lanthanum and yttrium, which are used in the manufacturing of flat-screen monitors and aerospace alloys among other things, appeared in the September 4 edition of the Economist.  China "accounts for almost all of the world's production" of rare earths.

The article, entitled 'Digging in', reports that "announcements of rare-earth projects have accelerated in recent months", as "high prices have already begun to propel a supply response elsewhere in the world."

More interestingly, discussing the possible motivations behind China's new export quota on rare earths, the Economist speculates that China is leveraging its virtual monopoly on rare earths in an attempt to control more of the secondary sector production of high end goods which require them. 

While at this time Western markets may be able to absorb the higher costs of these elements and eventually balance and diversify their supply, rare earths can be added to the growing list of commodities, critical to the West's consumption based economies, who's futures are uncertain.  The situation also highlights China's unapologetic pragmatism and self interest as far as the security of the supply of resources to its economy is concerned.  While such self-interested behavior is not exclusive of other powerful nations, might China's willingness to nearly half their exports in rare earths suggest something of the shape of things to come?

Read the Economist article at http://www.economist.com/node/16944034

The ANA: Afghan National Army or Afghan Notional Army?

An article in the August 21st 2010 edition of the Economist, 'Fixing the Unfixable', describes in colorful detail the challenges facing the American effort to create a cohesive Afghan National Army (ANA).  The article makes the argument that a capable ANA is a prerequisite to Western forces leaving the country, if the Afghan government is to be spared collapse.  In making its case, the article draws attention to different aspects of the ANA's situation, which reeks of amateurism from top to bottom.

While credible reports as to the the Afghan National Army and Police's moral corruption abound, whether it be the routine torture of detainees or the pedophilic practice of bachabazi, the Economist provides insightful data as to the actual capability of the ANA, or lack thereof.  The article cites a report released earlier this year by Arnold Fields, the US inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, which says that only 23% of ANA soldiers and 12% of police can be trusted to work unsupervised.  Senior officers are known to be stealing food and fuel, and are accused of stealing weapons.  Certainly the capability of the ANA to govern itself and command respect from its own members is under serious question.

As to the ANA's capability in the field, the Economist presents some interesting numbers: "During operations, they remain almost totally reliant on NATO troops, who suffer twice as many casualties."  The image this conjures is one of ANA troops taking full cover at first sign of the Taliban, before calling in Western forces to clean up the mess.  An episode is described where, without the operational support of NATO, 300 ANA soldiers managed to get themselves ambushed by the Taliban in Laghman.  A quick look into this story, reported in the Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2010, tells that the ANA commando units, such as the one defeated in the ambush "are supposed to be the force's best units."  Many were killed and captured and the unit was "missing" according to the words of Gen. Zahir Azimi of the Afghan Defense Ministry. 

Another concern raised by the Economist is over the ANA's sustainability and identity as a 'National' army.  "Less than 3% of recuits to the ANA are from the Pushtun south, from where the Taliban draw most support."  This is a huge discrepancy, as the Pushtuns are the largest ethnic group within Afghanistan.  Apparently translators are often required not just for NATO officers, but also for ANA officers when operating in Pushtun districts, where most of the insurgency is being fought.  That the makeup of the ANA is being drawn along the same divisive ethnic and tribal lines as the rest of Afghanistan is a concern to many as to the viability of the ANA, as to who the ANA truly represents and is willing to defend, and as to whether or not the ANA can help avoid a civil war after Western forces leave, or whether it would infact help precipitate one. 

The article mentions that Army pay has been increased from $120 to $165 a month.  While this is apparently good pay in Afghanistan, it does raise the question of motivation.  To speculate, it would seem likely that in such a poor and divided country, with no national military tradition, it is the pay and the pay alone that motivates recruits to keep coming back.  In combat, as we have seen, the ANA forces seem to shrink from confrontation, which may be a sign that ANA soldiers show up to work to get paid, not to risk their necks.  In many cases the pay does not seem to be enough, as the ANA's desertion rate is astronomical.  A Nov. 26, 2009 article in the Asia Times cites an Inspector General for reconstruction report revealing that one in every four combat soldiers quit the ANA during the year ending in September 2009. 

The Economist discusses all of these problems in the context of their appraisal and addressing by General William Caldwell, who upon recently taking charge of organising the ANA, is reported as "horrified" that the focus was on "quantity, not quality".  Horrifying perhaps, but unsurprising that priorities at the ANA are out of place.  That much is already evident.  But the type of training received by many recruits may also have spoken to them about the nature and strength of the West's commitment to the ANA.  Caldwell reports that "The ratio of instructors to students was 1 to 80... On one base, it was 1 to 466 - There were no training standards... It was just, eight weeks and you're done."  It may have seemed to many recruits that the type of Army they were joining was one of appearances.  "Some contractors failed even to show recruits how to calibrate the sights on their weapons" the article reports.  With this being the level of preparation, losses in the field and desertion in the ANA ranks seems to find context.

To learn that contractors are responsible for the dismal type of training given to ANA recruits is to consider another aspect which puts the viability of not only the ANA, but the entire mission into question.  While the profit motive is ever present in any military adventure, and particularly American ones, in this instance it has undermined its objectives.  It is astounding that such an integral part of the American strategy for reconstruction, the training of an effective national army, could be commoditised and offered up for contract, and then to be administered privately and with such little oversight.  It leaves one to question the administration of the entire operation, and where else profit motives are being allowed to hinder the objectives of the Afghan mission.

Perhaps General Caldwell may find it more horrifying, the prospect of forming a credible modern army out of an ill-equipped ragtag group of illiterate peasants, pedophiles, corrupt officers and amateurs with mixed loyalties, ill-trained by foreigners more interested in making a quick buck than in the future of Afghanistan.  Perhaps he is deluded: his goal is to expand the army from 134,000 to 171,600 over the next 12 months.  This would represent an increase of some 37,000 soldiers, which is as much as the ANA has grown in the last 5 years when the focus was on "quantity, not quality".  These numbers are pie in the sky, as much as the mission is itself. 

That such an army, divided against itself, could ever prop up a national government seems a far away prospect.  Indeed the ANA appears to be something of a joke, and an army more in name than in reality.

Read the Economist article at http://www.economist.com/node/16846714