58 US embassies akin to medieval fortresses - Chalmers Johnson

Re item 1: The Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statues was vandalism; and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was deplorable. But warfare destroys moderate positions, pushing people to extremes. We should call for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, but support the Pakistan government's efforts to draw the line.

(1) Trots consider calling for Taliban victory
(2) Better for foreign troops to leave Afghanistan - Malalai Joya (former female MP)
(3) Turkey approves Gas Pipeline which will reduce EU dependence on Russia
(4) Drought plus upstream dams on Euphrates (in Turkey, Syria) cause water shortage in Iraq
(5) US embassies akin to medieval fortresses - Chalmers Johnson

(1) Trots consider calling for Taliban victory

From: ummyakoub <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>  Date: 22.08.2009 12:48 PM

Should the left call for Taliban victory?
August 18, 2009
Socialist Worker
http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/18/should-the-left-call-for-taliban-victory

AS SOCIALISTS, we support the right of oppressed peoples to fight for self-determination unreservedly, just as we oppose imperialism, without caveat.

This perspective is generally accepted by the left without question in contexts such as Latin America or Africa, where bitter fights against U.S. and European imperialism have been fought and, in some cases, won.

Yet, when it comes to the Middle East and Afghanistan today there is suddenly much less clarity about what radicals and Marxists should be saying. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Afghanistan, which has suffered under the yoke of U.S. imperialism since 2001 (with active U.S. interference in the country since at least the 1970s).

The idea that the Taliban, as a movement fighting against U.S. occupation, is a force we should be supporting is, unfortunately, a somewhat controversial position to hold, even on the far left. This is a serious mistake and speaks both to the extent to which Islamophobia has penetrated the left, as well as to the lack of understanding of the social dynamics of an oppressed and devastated country like Afghanistan.

We are all familiar with the lies and excuses used to justify the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Bush and his coterie of crooks and warmongers told us that only a military invasion could liberate the people, and especially the women, of Afghanistan from the brutal, misogynistic and "medieval" Taliban movement.

There was no mention, of course, of the substantial support offered to the Taliban regime in the late 1990s when Clinton was president and in the early days of the Bush presidency, nor of the long and ugly history of U.S. intervention in Central and South Asia, which was an important precondition for the rise of Islamism.

We should condemn unreservedly the oppression of women and the general social conservatism of the pre-2001 Taliban regime, as well, of course, as their efforts to cut deals with regional and global superpowers against the interests of the vast majority of Afghans. However, we must also unreservedly condemn the racism and Islamophobia used as an ideological fig leaf to justify invasion and imperialism, and it is the left's weakness on this issue, which has blinded many to the new realities on the ground in Afghanistan.

Before addressing the important question of who the Taliban actually are, it is important to understand the material conditions Afghans face. Afghanistan is a devastated country. It is ranked at or near the bottom of a broad range of social indicators, such as levels of poverty, infant mortality, literacy, per capita income, prevalence of easily preventable diseases and so forth. Most major cities in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, are in ruins (despite claims of "reconstruction" by NATO imperialists) and decent roads, electricity, clean water, sanitation and basic social services are unheard of for most of the population, especially in the rural areas. The majority of the population ekes out a living on a subsistence basis, and the struggle for survival is the overarching concern for most Afghans.

In a nutshell, there is no Afghan working class or progressive petit bourgeoisie to speak of, and the major social classes (aside from the puppet regime and it's assortment of bandits and thugs) are the poor peasantry and the Islamic clergy.

THE SIGNIFICANCE of this to a discussion of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan should be obvious to any serious historical materialist. This question cannot be thought about in the abstract, it must be considered in light of the material realities on the ground. Such realities necessarily shape the kinds of social forces and the character of class struggle in that country and make it highly likely that any grassroots resistance will have a strongly religious character, given that the rural clergy are the only force capable of uniting the peasantry against the comprador ruling class.

The following point cannot be stressed enough; whilst the U.S. remains in Afghanistan, economic and social development will not occur much beyond current levels. This in turn means that the Taliban, as a broad-based movement of poor farmers and lower clergy, is the face of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

To put it another way, if we, as avowed anti-imperialists, intend to wait around for a resistance movement that agrees with us on every issue, including the need to fight the oppression of women, gays, racial and religious minorities, etc., we'll be waiting a long time. The Taliban is the resistance in Afghanistan and we must support it, critically, but unreservedly.

The Taliban that ruled Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion no longer exists. The U.S. and NATO routinely refer to any act of resistance as the work of the "Taliban" (meaning the followers of Mullah Omar), much as every act of resistance in Iraq was the work of "Baath loyalists."

To be sure, there are attacks being carried out by people who support the former regime, but many, perhaps most, resistance fighters have no particular loyalty to the former leadership and some are actively hostile to it.

Anand Gopal, one of the few independent journalists actively trying to find out what is actually happening in Afghanistan has written some very useful and insightful work on this, and as he points out, the ranks of the Taliban have been swelled in recent years by rural peasants who have been radicalized as a result of US/NATO brutality, including the indiscriminate air attacks which have killed thousands of Afghans.

The Taliban are increasingly espousing a strong nationalist message and, in some cases, have substantially moderated their social conservatism in order to build a more broad-based and effective resistance movement.

It is also the case that the "Taliban" is effectively a blanket term for a coalition of groups, some drawn from the tiny strata of educated middle class Afghans, which aim to eject foreign troops from their country. In short, when the U.S. and its allies use the term "Taliban" they want us to think of public stonings, music bans and ultra-conservative clerics--and if we follow their lead we do a grave disservice to the Afghan resistance and only help to perpetuate Islamophobic caricatures of "crazed, bearded extremists."

There is no fundamental difference between the liberation theology movements in South America and the popular Islamist resistance movements in the Middle East and Asia, movements such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban. To be sure, the former were less socially conservative, but as religiously colored grassroots resistance movements they are essentially the same kind of manifestation of class resistance.

The left needs to ask itself why it is much more critical of Muslims expressing class anger in a religious form than of South American Christians; to my mind, unexamined Islamophobia explains much of this discrepancy.

Every U.S. and NATO tank that the Taliban destroy, every Karzai-appointed stooge they assassinate and every town or village they liberate is a victory for our side and a grievous blow to U.S. imperialism--we would do well to remember that and to offer our solidarity and support for a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.

(2) Better for foreign troops to leave Afghanistan - Malalai Joya (former female MP)

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date:  30.07.2009 06:15 PM

Published on Sunday, July 26, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

The Big Lie of Afghanistan  by Malalai Joya

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/25/afghanistan-occupation-taliban-warlords

In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament. Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade, and the so-called liberation a big lie.

On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US government.

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops.

In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili, as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, "the same donkey with a new saddle".

So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.

This week, US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that "more loss of life [is] inevitable" in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the "national interests" of both the US and the UK.

I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don't believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers' money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.

What's more, I don't believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave Afghanistan will descend into civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.

The Afghan people want peace, and history teaches that we always reject occupation and foreign domination. We want a helping hand through international solidarity, but we know that values like human rights must be fought for and won by Afghans themselves.

I know there are millions of British people who want to see an end to this conflict as soon as possible. Together we can raise our voice for peace and justice.

© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited

Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician and a former elected member of the Parliament from Farah province. Her last book is Raising My Voice

(3) Turkey approves Gas Pipeline which will reduce EU dependence on Russia

From: Tata Soria <freeinformation.clearinghouse@gmail.com> Date: 15.07.2009 12:39 PM

{Comment - TS} Turkey Govenment as a regional power, is moving its main bets against Russia and China, in favor or US and the EU. Azerbaijan is currently an operation base against Iran Islamic Republic. Whats the role of the kurds in the coming events? {end}

Europe July 13, 2009, 1:52PM EST text size: TT

Nabucco Pipeline Gets Turkish Assent

With a signed deal to transit Turkey, the proposed 2,000 mile gas line from the Caspian to Austria could lessen European dependence on Russian supplies

By Renata Goldirova

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2009/gb20090713_747206.htm

July 13, 2009

The Nabucco project, designed to cut the dependence of energy-hungry Europe on Russian gas, will reach an important milestone later today (13 July) as EU governments and Turkey are set to sign a key transit pact.

"The signature will show that we are determined to make the Nabucco pipeline a reality as quickly as possible," European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said ahead of the signing ceremony, which would effectively end six months of intense negotiations on the use of the pipeline.

The 3,300-kilometer pipeline is expected to run between the Caspian Sea region and Austria, crossing Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

Ankara, for its part, wanted to take 15 percent of the gas flowing through Nabucco at a discounted price for internal consumption or even for re-exportation, but was not granted this.

The Nabucco's entire capacity amounts to 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year.

"The [EU-Turkey] agreement is a very significant one," says Karel Hirman, an energy expert from the Slovak innovation and energy agency. "Turkey sought to become a gas dealer, while this agreement will make it a regular transit country profiting from transit fees."

Once the basic legal pact is sealed, companies keen to use the Nabucco pipeline can bid for its capacity by signing contracts with the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International, a consortium consisting of gas companies from the five countries concerned plus Germany's energy giant RWE.

"Things have to be done step by step," the European Commission energy spokesperson Ferran Taradellas Espuny said, explaining that "once the gas is contracted, then you start building the pipeline."

Brussels has put aside €200 million from EU coffers as a "little carrot" for companies to begin construction work as quickly as possible. The incentive is part of the bloc's €5 billion recovery package and so needs to be spent in 2009 and 2010 in order to boost the ailing European economy.

"The Nabucco International Company has to make a proposal of how it intends to spend the money before 15 July," the commission spokesperson said.

Construction is expected to begin in 2011, with the €7.9 billion project possibly up and running by 2015. However, its success hangs by a thin thread, being highly dependent on whether a sufficient number of countries commit themselves to put gas into the Nabucco pipe.

The EU's executive body has put its biggest hopes on Azerbaijan. The country, with proven natural gas reserves of some 850 billion cubic metres, is seen as Nabucco's first source of gas.

In addition, Turkmenistan's president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on Friday (10 July) said that Ashgabat had "a surplus of natural gas available to foreign customers, including the Nabucco pipeline."

Iraq, Egypt and even Iran at a later stage are also seen as potential suppliers, with the commission's Ferran Taradellas Espuny arguing that "the European market, including price conditions, is extremely attractive for gas producers in the region."

But Karel Hirman, a Slovak-based energy expert, pointed to possible competitors such as Russia and China.

"China has intensified efforts to be present in Central Asia," Mr Hirman said, pointing to a pipeline between the Asian tiger and Turkmenistan that should be operational from next year.

The EU-backed Nabucco project gained fresh momentum after Russia at the beginning of the year turned off its gas taps, leaving Ukraine and a number of European customers stranded.

Bulgaria and Slovakia - entirely reliant on Russian supplies - were most affected, with Bratislava claiming the economic damage amounted to some 0.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

(4) Drought plus upstream dams on Euphrates (in Turkey, Syria) cause water shortage in Iraq

Iraq Suffers as the Euphrates River Dwindles
Moises Saman for The New York Times

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: July 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/world/middleeast/14euphrates.html?_r=1&hp

JUBAISH, Iraq — Throughout the marshes, the reed gatherers, standing on land they once floated over, cry out to visitors in a passing boat.

"Maaku mai!" they shout, holding up their rusty sickles. "There is no water!"

The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq's neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now.

The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.

The poor suffer more acutely, but all strata of society are feeling the effects: sheiks, diplomats and even members of Parliament who retreat to their farms after weeks in Baghdad.

Along the river, rice and wheat fields have turned to baked dirt. Canals have dwindled to shallow streams, and fishing boats sit on dry land. Pumps meant to feed water treatment plants dangle pointlessly over brown puddles.

"The old men say it's the worst they remember," said Sayid Diyia, 34, a fisherman in Hindiya, sitting in a riverside cafe full of his idle colleagues. "I'm depending on God's blessings."

The drought is widespread in Iraq. The area sown with wheat and barley in the rain-fed north is down roughly 95 percent from the usual, and the date palm and citrus orchards of the east are parched. For two years rainfall has been far below normal, leaving the reservoirs dry, and American officials predict that wheat and barley output will be a little over half of what it was two years ago.

It is a crisis that threatens the roots of Iraq's identity, not only as the land between two rivers but as a nation that was once the largest exporter of dates in the world, that once supplied German beer with barley and that takes patriotic pride in its expensive Anbar rice.

Now Iraq is importing more and more grain. Farmers along the Euphrates say, with anger and despair, that they may have to abandon Anbar rice for cheaper varieties.

Droughts are not rare in Iraq, though officials say they have been more frequent in recent years. But drought is only part of what is choking the Euphrates and its larger, healthier twin, the Tigris.

The most frequently cited culprits are the Turkish and Syrian governments. Iraq has plenty of water, but it is a downstream country. There are at least seven dams on the Euphrates in Turkey and Syria, according to Iraqi water officials, and with no treaties or agreements, the Iraqi government is reduced to begging its neighbors for water.

At a conference in Baghdad — where participants drank bottled water from Saudi Arabia, a country with a fraction of Iraq's fresh water — officials spoke of disaster.

"We have a real thirst in Iraq," said Ali Baban, the minister of planning. "Our agriculture is going to die, our cities are going to wilt, and no state can keep quiet in such a situation."

Recently, the Water Ministry announced that Turkey had doubled the water flow into the Euphrates, salvaging the planting phase of the rice season in some areas.

That move increased water flow to about 60 percent of its average, just enough to cover half of the irrigation requirements for the summer rice season. Though Turkey has agreed to keep this up and even increase it, there is no commitment binding the country to do so.

With the Euphrates showing few signs of increasing health, bitterness over Iraq's water threatens to be a source of tension for months or even years to come between Iraq and its neighbors. Many American, Turkish and even Iraqi officials, disregarding the accusations as election-year posturing, say the real problem lies in Iraq's own deplorable water management policies.

"There used to be water everywhere," said Abduredha Joda, 40, sitting in his reed hut on a dry, rocky plot of land outside Karbala. Mr. Joda, who describes his dire circumstances with a tired smile, grew up near Basra but fled to Baghdad when Saddam Hussein drained the great marshes of southern Iraq in retaliation for the 1991 Shiite uprising. He came to Karbala in 2004 to fish and raise water buffaloes in the lush wetlands there that remind him of his home.

"This year it's just a desert," he said.

Along the river, there is no shortage of resentment at the Turks and Syrians. But there is also resentment at the Americans, Kurds, Iranians and the Iraqi government, all of whom are blamed. Scarcity makes foes of everyone.

The Sunni areas upriver seem to have enough water, Mr. Joda observed, a comment heavy with implication.

Officials say nothing will improve if Iraq does not seriously address its own water policies and its history of flawed water management. Leaky canals and wasteful irrigation practices squander the water, and poor drainage leaves fields so salty from evaporated water that women and children dredge huge white mounds from sitting pools of runoff.

On a scorching morning in Diwaniya, Bashia Mohammed, 60, was working in a drainage pool by the highway gathering salt, her family's only source of income now that its rice farm has dried up. But the dead farm was not the real crisis.

"There's no water in the river that we drink from," she said, referring to a channel that flows from the Euphrates. "It's now totally dry, and it contains sewage water. They dig wells but sometimes the water just cuts out and we have to drink from the river. All my kids are sick because of the water."

In the southeast, where the Euphrates nears the end of its 1,730-mile journey and mingles with the less salty waters of the Tigris before emptying into the Persian Gulf, the situation is grave. The marshes there that were intentionally reflooded in 2003, rescuing the ancient culture of the marsh Arabs, are drying up again. Sheep graze on land in the middle of the river.

The farmers, reed gatherers and buffalo herders keep working, but they say they cannot continue if the water stays like this.

"Next winter will be the final chance," said Hashem Hilead Shehi, a 73-year-old farmer who lives in a bone-dry village west of the marshes. "If we are not able to plant, then all of the families will leave."

Amir A. al-Obeidi, Mohammed Hussein and Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting.

(5) US embassies akin to medieval fortresses - Chalmers Johnson

From: Sandhya Jain <sandhya206@bol.net.in>  Date: 13.07.2009 09:15 AM

How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases-Chalmers Johnson-13 July 2009

http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=687

How to Deal with America's Empire of Bases: A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands

Chalmers Johnson

13 July 2009

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175091/chalmers_johnson_baseless_expenditures

The US Empire of Bases - at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise - just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad.

The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy - a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.

While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the US find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.

And what is being done about those military bases anyway - now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.

Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the US military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favour, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

I suspect this development will not go unnoticed in other countries where Americans are also unpopular occupiers. For example, the Ecuadorians have told us to leave Manta Air Base by this November. Of course, they have their pride to consider, not to speak of the fact that they don't like American soldiers mucking about in Colombia and Peru. Nonetheless, they could probably use a spot more money.

And what about the Japanese who, for more than 57 years, have been paying big bucks to host American bases on their soil? Recently, they reached a deal with Washington to move some American Marines from bases on Okinawa to the US territory of Guam. In the process, however, they were forced to shell out not only for the cost of the Marines' removal, but also to build new facilities on Guam for their arrival.

Is it possible that they will now take a cue from the government of Kyrgyzstan and just tell the Americans to get out and pay for it themselves? Or might they at least stop funding the same American military personnel who regularly rape Japanese women (at the rate of about two per month) and make life miserable for whoever lives near the 38 US bases on Okinawa. This is certainly what the Okinawans have been hoping and praying for ever since we arrived in 1945.

In fact, I have a suggestion for other countries that are getting a bit weary of the American military presence on their soil: cash in now, before it's too late. Either up the ante or tell the Americans to go home. I encourage this behaviour because I'm convinced that the US Empire of Bases will soon enough bankrupt our country, and so - on the analogy of a financial bubble or a pyramid scheme - if you're an investor, it's better to get your money out while you still can.

This is, of course, something that has occurred to the Chinese and other financiers of the American national debt. Only they're cashing in quietly and slowly in order not to tank the dollar while they're still holding onto such a bundle of them. Make no mistake, though: whether we're being bled rapidly or slowly, we are bleeding; and hanging onto our military empire and all the bases that go with it will ultimately spell the end of the United States as we know it.

Count on this, future generations of Americans travelling abroad decades from now won't find the landscape dotted with near-billion-dollar "embassies."

Chalmers Johnson is the author of The Blowback Trilogy -- Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis (2006), all published by Metropolitan Books.

Copyright 2009 Chalmers Johnson

Courtesy TomDispatch.com