URL for this article: http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm Click here for Emperor's Clothes email list. Receive about one article/day. Click here to send this email to a friend. www.tenc.net [Emperor's Clothes] ======================================= Washington Wants Afghanistan by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff & Nico Varkevisser [posted 18 September 2001] ======================================= "Does my country really understand that this is World War III? And if this attack was the Pearl Harbor of World War III, it means there is a long, long war ahead." (Thomas Friedman, 'New York Times,' September 13, 2001) Key U.S. government representatives and media figures have used the bombing of the WTC and Pentagon to create an international state of fear. This has swept Washington's closest allies (notably Germany and England, though not Italy) into agreeing carte blanche to participate in U.S. reprisals. It has also served to obscure a most important question: does Washington have a hidden agenda here, a strategy other than hurling bombs? If so, what is it, and what does it mean for the world? *** Amid the increasingly implausible and frequently contradictory explanations (2) offered by U.S. government officials for their inability or unwillingness to intervene effectively before and during this past Tuesday's aerial attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. - and as the cries for war drown out voices of reason - a deadly scenario is unfolding. Columns in major mainstream newspapers have borne such titles as: "World War III" ('New York Times,' 9/13) "Give War A Chance" ('Philadelphia Inquirer,' 9/13) "Time To Use The Nuclear Option" ('Washington Times,' 9/14). A government that claims it had no knowledge of or was at a loss knowing how to deal with painstakingly organized terrorist attacks, now calls for "exterminating" previously unseen assailants by "ending states who sponsor terrorism," in the words of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Henry Kissinger argues ('Los Angeles Times,' 9/14) that alleged terrorist networks must be uprooted wherever they exist. Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu writes an article entitled "Dismantle Terrorist Supporting Regimes" ('Jerusalem Post,' 9/14). And to raise the level of international intimidation a notch, we have R.W. Apple, Jr. in the 'Washington Post' (9/14): "In this new kind [of] war...there are no neutral states or geographical confines. Us or them. You are either with us or against us." Initially, a mix of countries was threatened as so-called 'states supporting terrorism,' who are not with us and therefore against us: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Although differing in most respects, especially political ideology, they are alike three ways: They all bear decades of U.S. government hostility; they all have secular governments; they all have no connection to Osama bin Laden. In, "Give War A Chance" ('Philadelphia Inquirer') David Perlmutter warns that if these states do not do Washington's bidding, they must: "Prepare for the systematic destruction of every power plant, every oil refinery, every pipeline, every military base, every government office in the entire country...the complete collapse of their economy and government for a generation." Meanwhile, the countries which collaborated to create the Taliban, training and financing the forces of Osama bin Laden, and which have never stopped pouring money into the Taliban, namely Pakistan, close U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the United States itself (documentation below) have not been placed on the "we've got to get them" list. Instead these states are touted as core allies in the New World War against terrorism. Raising the pitch, yesterday: "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the US would engage in a 'multi-headed effort' to target terrorist organizations and up to 60 countries believed to be supporting them. "The US, Mr. Rumsfeld told American TV, "had no choice" other than to pursue terrorists and countries giving them refuge." The threats to bomb up to a third of the world's countries has scared many people, worldwide. This, we think, is the intention. It serves two functions. First, it means that if Washington limits its aggressive action mainly to attacking Afghanistan, the world will breathe a sigh of relief. And we think Washington will mainly attack Afghanistan - at first. Other immediate violations of sovereignty, such as the forced use of Pakistan, will be backup action to support the attack on Afghanistan.. There may also be some state terror, such as increased, unprovoked bombing of Iraq, as a diversion. But the main immediate focus will, we think, be Afghanistan. Second, this scare tactic is meant to divert attention from Washington's real strategy, far more dangerous than the threat to bomb many states. Washington wants to take over Afghanistan in orderto speed up the fulfillment of its strategy of pulverizing the former Soviet Republics as Washington in the same way that Washington has been pulverizing the former Yugoslavia. This poses the gravest risks to mankind. WHAT DOES WASHINGTON WANT WITH IMPOVERISHED AFGHANISTAN? To answer this question, look at any map of Europe and Asia. Consider the immense spread of the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. European Russia is 1,747,112 square miles. That's between a third and half the landmass of all Europe. Add the Asian part of Russia and you get 6,592,800 sq. mi. That's equal to most of the US and China combined. More than half of Africa. Russia borders Finland on the far West. It borders Turkey and the Balkans on the south. It extends to the edge of Asia in the Far East. It is the rooftop of Mongolia and China. Not only is Russia spectacularly large, with incalculable wealth, mostly untapped, but it is the only world class nuclear power besides the U.S. Contrary to popular opinion, Russia's military might has not been destroyed; indeed, it is arguably stronger, in relation to the US, than during the early period of the cold war. It has the most sophisticated submarine technology in the world. If the U.S. can break up Russia and the other former Soviet Republics into weak territories, dominated by NATO, Washington would have a free hand. Despite talk of Russia and the U.S. working together, this remains the thrust of US policy. (3) Afghanistan is strategically placed, not only bordering Iran, India and even, for a small stretch, China (!) but most important, sharing borders and a common religion with the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union (SU), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. These in turn border Kazakhstan, which borders Russia. Central Asia is strategic not only for oil, as we are often told, but more important for position. Were Washington to take control of these Republics, NATO would have military bases in the following key areas: the Baltic region; the Balkans and Turkey; and these Republics. This would constitute a noose around Russia's neck. Add to that Washington's effective domination of the former Soviet Republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, in the south, and the US would be positioned to launch externally instigated 'rebellions' all over Russia. NATO, whose current doctrine allows it to intervene in states on its periphery, could then initiate "low intensity wars" including the use of tactical nuclear weapons, also officially endorsed by current NATO doctrine, in 'response' to myriad 'humanitarian abuses.' It is ironic that Washington claims it must return to Afghanistan to fight Islamist terrorism, because it was precisely in its effort to destroy Russian power that Washington first created the Islamist terrorist apparatus in Afghanistan, during the 80s. This was not, as some say, rewriting history, a matter of aiding rebels against Russian expansionism. Whatever one thinks about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, it was in fact conceived as a defensive action to preserve, not alter, the world balance of power. It was the United States which took covert action to 'encourage' Russian intervention, with the goal of turning the conservative rural Afghan tribesmen into a force to drain the Soviet Union. This is admitted by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the key National Security chief at the time. Consider excerpts from two newspaper reports. First the 'N.Y. Times': "The Afghan resistance was backed by the intelligence services of the United States and Saudi Arabia with nearly $6 billion worth of weapons. And the territory targeted last week [this was published after the August, 1998 U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan], a set of six encampments around Khost, where the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden has financed a kind of 'terrorist university,' in the words of a senior United States intelligence official, is well known to the Central Intelligence Agency. "... some of the same warriors who fought the Soviets with the C.I.A.'s help are now fighting under Mr. bin Laden's banner.... ('NY Times,' 24 August 1998 pages A1 & A7 ) And this from the London 'Independent': "The Afghan Civil War was under way, and America was in it from the start - or even before the start, if [former National Security Adviser, and currently top foreign policy strategist Zbigniew] Brzezinski himself is to be believed. '"We didn't push the Russians to intervene,' he told an interviewer in 1998, 'but we consciously increased the probability that they would do so. This secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap. You want me to regret that?' "The long-term effect of the American intervention from cold-warrior Brzezinski's perspective was 10 years later to bring the Soviet Union to its knees. But there were other effects, too. "To keep the war going, the CIA, in cahoots with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's military intelligence agency ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate), funneled millions and millions of dollars to the Mujahedeen. It was the remotest and the safest form of warfare: the US (and Saudi Arabia) provided funds, and America also a very limited amount of training. They also provided the Stinger missiles that ultimately changed the face of the war. "Pakistan's ISI did everything else: training, equipping, motivating, and advising. And they did the job with panache: Pakistan's military ruler at the time, General Zia ul Haq, who himself held strong fundamentalist leanings, threw himself into the task with a passion." ('The Independent' (London) 17 September 2001) Right up to the present, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia has been perhaps the key force in maintaining the Taliban. BUt the U.S. has helped directly, as well. Despite the Taliban's monstrous record of humanitarian abuse: "The Bush administration has not been deterred. Last week it pledged another $ 43 million in assistance to Afghanistan, raising total aid this year to $ 124 million and making the United States the largest humanitarian donor to the country." Why have the US and its allies continued - up to now - to fund the Taliban? And why nevertheless is the US now moving to attack its monstrous creation? It is our conviction, and that of many observers from the region in question, that Washington ordered Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to fund the Taliban so the Taliban could do a job: consolidate control over Afghanistan and from there move to destabilize the formerly Soviet Central Asian Republics on its borders. But the Taliban has failed. It has not defeated the Russian-backed Northern Alliance. Instead of subverting Central Asia in businesslike fashion, it has indulged in blowing up statues of Buddha and terrorizing people who deviate from the most regressive interpretation of Islam. At the same time, Russia has been moving in the 'wrong' direction. The completely controllable Yeltsin has been replaced with President Putin, who partially resists the U.S., for example, putting down the CIA-backed takeover of Chechnya by Islamist terrorists, linked to Afghanistan. Worse, China and Russia have signed a mutual defense pact. And despite immense European/U.S. pressure, Russian President Putin refused to condemn Belarussian President Lukashenko who, like the jailed but unbroken Yugoslav President Milosevic, calls for standing up to NATO. It is this unfavorable series of developments that has caused Washington to increase its reliance on Washington's all-time favorite tactic: extreme brinkmanship. Thus, on the very eve of recent Belarussian presidential elections: "[Ambassador to Belarus Michael Kozak wrote to a British newspaper that] America's 'objective and to some degree methodology are the same' in Belarus as in Nicaragua, where the US backed the Contras against the left-wing Sandinista Government in a war that claimed at least 30,000 lives." ("The Times" (UK), 3 September 2001.) (4) As you may recall, the Contras were a U.S.-financed terrorist outfit that specialized in attacking farming villages and slaughtering supporters of the left-wing nationalist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Just as a few weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador Kozak openly advocated a policy of state terror against the former Soviet Republic of Belarus in the Baltic area - for no phrase other than 'state terror' can describe the U.S. sponsorship of the Contras in Nicaragua - Washington has decided to intervene directly in strategic Afghanistan, set smack in the middle of Asia and positioned so as to complete a three- pronged encirclement of Russia: Central Asia, the Balkans and the Baltic. Washington has cynically used the mass slaughter at the World Trade Center and the lesser attack on the Pentagon to rally its NATO forces, invoking Article Five of NATO's charter, under which all members of NATO must respond to an attack on any one, with the goal of a) putting together a "peacekeeping force" for Afghanistan b) launching air and possibly ground attacks c) eliminating the obstinate and incompetent leadership of the Taliban and d) taking direct control through the creation of a U.S. dominated NATO military presence. Some argue that NATO would be crazy to try to pacify Afghanistan. They say the British failed to do it in the 1800s, and the Russians failed in the 1980s. But Washington does not need or intend to pacify Afghanistan. It needs to create a military presence sufficient to organize and direct indigenous forces to penetrate the Central Asian republics and instigate armed conflict, to (as we shall hear groups like Human Rights Watch saying soon enough) "free victims of humanitarian abuses from the oppressive hand of soviet style governments," etc. Rather than trying to defeat the Taliban, Washington will make the Taliban an offer they cannot refuse: fight the U.S., and die, or join it, getting plenty of money and guns, plus a free hand to handle the drug trade, just as the U.S. has permitted the KLA to make a fortune from drugs in the Balkans. (5) This would duplicate what Washington did in Kosovo, training and consolidating a Kosovo Liberation Army-type terrorist force, in this case out of elements of the Taliban and others, and directing this army against the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, just as it has directed the KLA against Macedonia. At the same time it could increase its offers of military assistance to these same Republics, thus penetrating the region on both sides of conflict in fact instigated by Washington, simultaneously attacking and defending Central Asia - precisely as it has done in Macedonia. The goal: decimated, NATO-dominated territories in place of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. (6) This strategy cannot be sold to the American people. We repeat: it cannot be sold. It is for that reason, that the Bush administration is using the tragic nightmare of murder in New York, which itself occurred under circumstances suggesting the complicity of American covert forces, to create an international hysteria in order to drag NATO into the strategic occupation of Afghanistan and an intensified assault on the former Soviet Union. (7) Before anyone sighs with relief, thinking, "Thank God this is all that's happening," consider that apart form the violation of national sovereignty and many other very negative aspects of Washington's plans, the attack on Afghanistan brings NATO to Russia's Central Asian doorstep. This is a strategic escalation of conflict, moving us all much closer - nobody knows how much closer and nobody knows how fast things will escalate - to worldwide nuclear war. Will Washington get away with it? Washington, and the giant capitalists who control it, obviously think Russia will let itself be destroyed. But then, as the Greeks say, "Pride is followed by self-destruction." The Russians are very deceptive. They try to avoid a fight. But as Mr. Hitler discovered, when they are pushed to the wall, they fight with the ferocity of lions. And they have tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Thus Washington is playing with the possibility of a war which would make the horror that occurred last Tuesday at the World Trade Center, or even the much larger-scale horror of NATO's terror-bombing of Yugoslavia, look like minor incidents. (8) - Emperor's Clothes *** Further Reading: 1) Like a man with a guilty conscience, the U.S. government and its NATO allies constantly denounce terror, while in fact routinely using it in international affairs. See for example: 'WASHINGTON: PARENT OF THE TALIBAN AND COLOMBIAN 'DEATH SQUADS' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/mis.htm 'WHAT NATO OCCUPATION WOULD MEAN FOR MACEDONIANS' First-hand report of the state of terror instituted when NATO took over Kosovo. Can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/misc/savethe-a.htm ''Five Years On & the Lies Continue.' Discussion of the use by the U.S.-sponsored Islamist regime in Sarajevo of systematic terror against Serbian villagers in Bosnia. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/texts.htm 'Meet Mr. Massacre' - Concerning U.S. Balkans envoy William Walker's death squad activities in Latin American. Can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/meetmr.htm 2) 'Criminal Negligence or Treason' Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/treason.htm 3) 'Why is NATO Decimating the Balkans and Trying to Force Milosevic to Surrender?' by Jared Israel and Nico Varkevisser. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/whyisn.htm 4) 'Tough Measures Justified in Belarus' by Jared Israel at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/tough.htm 5) 'WASHINGTON: PARENT OF THE TALIBAN AND COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUADS' by Jared Israel. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/mis.htm#a 6) 'SORRY VIRGINIA BUT THEY ARE NATO TROOPS, NOT 'REBELS' Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/times.htm 7) - Click here please. 8) 'Yugoslav Auto Workers Appealed to NATO's Humanity...' Can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/misc/car.htm 9) Rick Rozoff takes a critical look at Washington's response to Tuesday's tragedies in 'Bush's Press Conference: Into the Abyss' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/rozoff/abyss.htm 10) While Washington points to Osama bin Laden as "suspect # 1" in yesterday's horrific violence, the truth is not being told to the American people: 'Washington Created Osama bin Laden' by Jared Israel can be read at http://emperors- clothes.com/articles/jared/sudan.html#w 11) If one looks carefully, one can find in the Western media evidence that bin Laden has been involved - on the U.S.-backed side - in Kosovo, Bosnia and now Macedonia. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/mis.htm 12) Bin Laden was propelled into power as part of the U.S. drive to create an Islamist terrorist movement to crush the former Soviet Union. See, the truly amazing account from the 'Washington Post,' 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy.' at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm 13) Head of Russian Navy says official scenario couldn't have happened. See 'Russian Navy Chief Says Official 9-11 Story Impossible' at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/navy.htm 14) Emperor's Clothes has interviewed Rudi Dekkers from the Huffman Aviation facility, at which two of the hijack suspects were students a year ago. Though Mr. Dekkers' told the interviewer he had received many calls, the media has not published his comments. The interview was taped and the text on Emperor's Clothes is a verbatim transcript, including the grammatical errors common in daily speech. See "Interview With Huffman Aviation Casts Doubt on Official Story" at http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/dekkers.htm TARGETS - Independent monthly paper on international affairs Sloterkade 20 - 1058 HE Amsterdam - The Netherlands Ph. ++ 31 20 615 1122 - Fax: ++ 31 20 615 1120 See our website: www.targets.org NSP Lista isprobava demokratiju u praksi ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrBE8.bVKZIq Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
