среда, 30 мая 2012 г.
Agenda 21 To Be Discussed at Bilderberg Confab
Global warming alarmist Redford to attend elite conference
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The attendance of Alberta Premier and global warming alarmist Alison Redford at this year’s Bilderberg conference, during which she will discuss “ecological challenges,” confirms that Agenda 21 and the bid to re-brand the stuttering climate change power grab will be core issues at the elitist confab set to take begin tomorrow.
“According to a government news release, Redford will meet with a number of individuals to discuss topics like monetary policy, ecological challenges and responsible development of natural resources,” reports CBC News.
Redford’s attendance at the clandestine meeting of global power brokers is costing Canadian taxpayers $19,000 dollars.
Her appearance represents yet another example of how Bilderberg is not merely a talking shop but an active consensus-making forum for people in positions of power. Redford will be scheming with power brokers from foreign countries in complete secrecy and with total disregard for her democratic obligations to the Canadian people.
Redford is an aggressive advocate of the man-made explanation behind climate change. During an election debate earlier this year, she attacked Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith as a national embarrassment simply because Smith dared to suggest that the science on global warming was not settled.
Redford’s advocacy for more controls on carbon emissions is directly in line with the Obama administration’s war against America’s coal industry and the wider Bilderberg agenda for a “post-industrial revolution,” where energy use will be severely restricted in the name of saving the earth, leading to plummeting living standards.
The United Nations’ Agenda 21 project demands that member nations adopt “sustainable development” policies that are little more than a disguise for the reintroduction of neo-feudalism and only serve to reduce living standards and quality of life.
The true motivation behind this agenda was recently unveiled at the ‘Planet Under Pressure’ conference in London, during which climate change alarmists presented their blueprint for humans to be packed into denser cities so that the rest of the planet can be surrendered to mother nature. This process is already well underway in California where laws passed to mitigate car use and carbon dioxide emissions have led to policies that mandate up to 30 homes be built on a single acre of land.
It’s a similar idea to the nightmare ‘Planned-Opolis’ proposal put out by the Forum for the Future organization last year, in which human activity will be tightly regulated by a dictatorial technocracy in the name of saving the planet, with cars for personal use banned and only accessible to members of the elite.
The mindset of this gaggle of arrogant, scoffing elitists in their drive to micro-manage the human race, which they regard as a plague on the earth, was best encapsulated by the following quote from ‘Planet Under Pressure’ attendee and Yale University professor Karen Seto.
“We certainly don’t want them (humans) strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely [together],” Seto told MSNBC.
Bilderberg elitists like Redford will no doubt be sharing similar rhetoric at this week’s confab, which kicks off on Thursday at the Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles hotel in Chantilly, Virginia.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
HOME»NEWS»WORLD NEWS»MIDDLE EAST»SYRIA BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'
The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.
Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.
The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.
It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.
The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.
A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.
Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.
“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.
“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.
“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.
He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.
“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”
A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.
“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.
“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”
text here
Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.
The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.
It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.
The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.
A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.
Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.
“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.
“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.
“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.
He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.
“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”
A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.
“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.
“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”
text here
среда, 16 мая 2012 г.
The Fed: Mend It or End It?
Another reform calls for changes to the composition of the Federal Open Market Committee. Still another proposal was for outright nationalization of the Fed or of its functions. But if what the Fed does now is bad and inflationary, allowing the Treasury to print and issue money at-will would be even worse, and could possibly lead to a Weimar-like hyperinflation. The problems and advantages of the gold standard were discussed at the hearing. The era of the classical gold standard was undoubtedly one of the greatest eras in human history. For a period of several decades in the late 19th century, the West made enormous advances. However, the gold standard was still run by government. The temptation to suspend gold redemption reared its head again with the outbreak of World War I. Once the tie to gold was severed and fiscal restraint thrown to the wind, undoing the damage would have required great fiscal austerity. Instead, the Western world proceeded to set up a gold-exchange standard which lasted not even a decade before easy money led to the Great Depression.
While returning to the gold standard would certainly be far better than maintaining the current fiat paper system, as long as the government retains the power to go off gold we may end up repeating the same mistakes.
The only viable solution is to get government out of the money business permanently. The way to bring this about is through currency competition: allow parallel currencies to circulate without receiving any special recognition or favor from the government. Fiat paper monetary standards throughout history have always collapsed due to their inflationary nature, and our current fiat paper standard will be no different.
It is imperative that the American people be educated on the dangers of the Fed and the importance of restoring sound money. The laying of the groundwork must begin today, so that the American people will be prepared for the day when the mirage the Fed has created evaporates completely. The full hearing footage is available on my website and I would encourage every American to take a look.
full text
суббота, 12 мая 2012 г.
Sarkozy took 100 million from Qaddafi
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko says Sarkozy took 100 million from Qaddafi. Gaddafi told President of Belarus about it in person. Lukashenko accused Sarkozy that he was provoked to attack and kill Qaddafi, so as not to give his (Sarkozy) debt.
пятница, 11 мая 2012 г.
US Ambassador In Veiled Terror Threat to Syria’s Assad
Susan Rice seizes on horrific bombings to push NATO political agenda for regime change
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 11, 2012
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice reacted to yesterday’s deadly bombings in Damascus by issuing a chilling and thinly veiled threat that NATO-backed terrorists would carry out more attacks unless President Bashar al-Assad stepped down.
Following the attacks, which targeted the Military Intelligence Centre and killed mostly Syrian security force members, Rice seized upon the carnage to proclaim, “The longer Assad clings to power, the greater the risk of destabilization in Syria and throughout the region.” Although Rice’s words were subtle in tone, the message she sent to Assad was clear – relinquish power or the terror attacks will continue. Instead of condemning the bombings, Rice actually hinted that more would take place until the NATO powers had achieved their political agenda of regime change.
In a subsequent tweet she added, “Bombings also remind us of the urgent need for a political solution in Syria before it is too late.” And just what is that “political solution”? According to Rice herself in a statement made hours before the attacks, the solution is “Increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and on Assad himself to step down.” So effectively, Rice all but lauded the bombings as a tool to dispense with the UN cease fire and accelerate the “political solution” for NATO – the mission to topple Assad.
Rice’s complete failure to condemn the horrific attacks and her subtle gesture of actually using them to threaten more attacks on the Syrian government is abhorrent. Far from behaving likes a stateswoman, Rice’s rhetoric has more in common with Osama Bin Laden. In a related story, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has admitted that Al-Qaeda terrorists are present inside Syria, but ludicrously denied knowledge of their activities. These are the same Al-Qaeda terrorists who Hillary Clinton admits are on the same side as the United States in Syria.
“Frankly, we don’t have very good intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are,” he told a joint press conference with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon on Thursday.” Really Mr. Panetta? You only have to look at the 59 dead and 372 wounded in yesterday’s deadly twin car bombing, the worst attack yet, to know “exactly what their activities are.”
The terrorists now carrying out the destabilization campaign in Syria were airlifted in from Libya by NATO after they had helped NATO powers overthrow Gaddafi and impose a “reign of terror” that has seen black Libyans incarcerated and tortured in detention camps. These same terrorists, dubbed ‘freedom fighters’ by the establishment media, are now carrying out kidnappings, executions and torture against Syrians deemed loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad, according to Human Rights Watch. As a source told the London Telegraph back in November, “There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria….There is a military intervention on the way.”
And who were those Libyan fighters? Members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi admitted that LIFG fighters, directed by Abdulhakim Belhadj, were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops. Just as the Al-Qaeda flag now flies high over Libya, NATO-backed Syrian rebel fighters and their supporters also display the same motif – with Susan Rice, Leon Panetta and the rest of the NATO regime change crowd standing right behind them.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice reacted to yesterday’s deadly bombings in Damascus by issuing a chilling and thinly veiled threat that NATO-backed terrorists would carry out more attacks unless President Bashar al-Assad stepped down.
Following the attacks, which targeted the Military Intelligence Centre and killed mostly Syrian security force members, Rice seized upon the carnage to proclaim, “The longer Assad clings to power, the greater the risk of destabilization in Syria and throughout the region.” Although Rice’s words were subtle in tone, the message she sent to Assad was clear – relinquish power or the terror attacks will continue. Instead of condemning the bombings, Rice actually hinted that more would take place until the NATO powers had achieved their political agenda of regime change.
In a subsequent tweet she added, “Bombings also remind us of the urgent need for a political solution in Syria before it is too late.” And just what is that “political solution”? According to Rice herself in a statement made hours before the attacks, the solution is “Increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and on Assad himself to step down.” So effectively, Rice all but lauded the bombings as a tool to dispense with the UN cease fire and accelerate the “political solution” for NATO – the mission to topple Assad.
Rice’s complete failure to condemn the horrific attacks and her subtle gesture of actually using them to threaten more attacks on the Syrian government is abhorrent. Far from behaving likes a stateswoman, Rice’s rhetoric has more in common with Osama Bin Laden. In a related story, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has admitted that Al-Qaeda terrorists are present inside Syria, but ludicrously denied knowledge of their activities. These are the same Al-Qaeda terrorists who Hillary Clinton admits are on the same side as the United States in Syria.
“Frankly, we don’t have very good intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are,” he told a joint press conference with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Pentagon on Thursday.” Really Mr. Panetta? You only have to look at the 59 dead and 372 wounded in yesterday’s deadly twin car bombing, the worst attack yet, to know “exactly what their activities are.”
The terrorists now carrying out the destabilization campaign in Syria were airlifted in from Libya by NATO after they had helped NATO powers overthrow Gaddafi and impose a “reign of terror” that has seen black Libyans incarcerated and tortured in detention camps. These same terrorists, dubbed ‘freedom fighters’ by the establishment media, are now carrying out kidnappings, executions and torture against Syrians deemed loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad, according to Human Rights Watch. As a source told the London Telegraph back in November, “There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria….There is a military intervention on the way.”
And who were those Libyan fighters? Members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi admitted that LIFG fighters, directed by Abdulhakim Belhadj, were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops. Just as the Al-Qaeda flag now flies high over Libya, NATO-backed Syrian rebel fighters and their supporters also display the same motif – with Susan Rice, Leon Panetta and the rest of the NATO regime change crowd standing right behind them.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
Stalinobus
Why are capitalists so afraid of Stalin? Why bourgeois government aggressively fights with the memory of the people? Why do people remember the great leader Stalin? Why do people protect the great Stalin? Because he lived for the poor people!
Authorities Of Novosibirsk have removed from route bus with a picture of Stalin
Our film is dedicated to Stalinobus!!!
четверг, 10 мая 2012 г.
Financial octopus
...a small group of capitalists owns the world.
Do You keep believing in market competition??)))) Wake up)))
среда, 9 мая 2012 г.
What Does the Taliban Attack on Kabul Portend (II)?
Patr II
During a recent visit to Kabul Afghan friends pointed out that according to the World Bank, the contribution of the Services sector to the Afghan GDP was 50%. An optimistic but hopelessly unreal assessment was offered-this would be only marginally affected by the withdrawal of foreign forces. The truth of the matter is that again according to World Bank estimates 90 to 97% of economic activity in Afghanistan was driven, in the last few years, by the foreign presence. It would not be wrong to assume that once the foreign troops withdraw and foreign aided projects begin to be abandoned for lack of funding the services and construction sector of the economy will contract much more drastically perhaps by as much as 90%.
I had mentioned in the earlier article that the reduction of the ANSF would, by 2017, demobilise about 120,000 ANSF personnel and add these men, with few skills other than handling weapons, to the ranks of the large number of currently unemployed people in Afghanistan. To this one must also add the large number of people currently engaged by foreign and Afghan security companies who will be thrown out of work once foreign financed projects grind to a halt and the need for security at such sites diminishes. What will these people do to secure their daily bread? Out on the streets begging or more likely adding to the ranks of the common criminals or extortionists supported by one war lord or another, to exacerbate the difficulties that the ordinary Afghan citizen faces particularly in urban settings. Many of the unemployed may seek to become economic refugees. I have calculated that as many as 2 million Afghans may, post 2014, seek shelter in Pakistan where the border is open and a smaller number may try to cross into Iran where border controls are stricter
One way to handle this situation would be to ensure the maintenance of a high level of economic assistance to Afghanistan post 2014. The Afghans at the Bonn meeting had circulated a paper suggesting that the international community commit to providing $10 billion a year to Afghanistan up to 2024 by which time the Afghans estimated that enough progress would have been made on the exploitation of Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits and on the development of its agricultural potential to allow Afghanistan to stand on its own feet. What most Afghans are asking is whether this is a realistic goal given the donor fatigue that exists in the NATO countries and the obvious reluctance of other potential donors to make such commitments.
They will note the example of Pakistan. The Obama administration pushed strongly for the American Congress to approve what came to be known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, which committed the USA to providing 1.5 billion annually in economic assistance for 5 years. Since American law prohibited a commitment for longer than 5 years it included a recommendation that a future congress should extend this for another 5 years. In other words there was formally a decade long commitment of economic assistance. In practice however much of this is bogged down and the Pakistanis have been vociferously complaining about the shortfall in disbursements and about the projects that the Americans have chosen for implementation.
For the moment it is known that on 22nd April a draft ‘Strategic Partnership Agreement” document was finalised and signed by both Ambassador Crocker on behalf of the United States and National Security Adviser Spanta. While the contents of the agreement are not known it is generally believed that this provides for a decade long involvement of the USA with Afghanistan. Commenting on the agreement an American embassy spokesman said, “Our goal is an enduring partnership with Afghanistan that strengthens Afghan sovereignty, stability and prosperity and that contributes to our shared goal of defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates,”... “We believe this agreement supports that goal.”
It is highly unlikely that this document, which does not deal with the question of a residual American military presence after 2014, will spell out the specifics of the concrete economic assistance that the Americans will provide over the next decade. But even if it does the Afghans must assume that its implementation may face the some problems, as the Pakistanis believe they are experiencing with the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.
The Afghans know that those with money are rapidly taking the money out of Afghanistan. The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has said that $ 8 billion were taken out of the country last year and there are good reasons to believe that despite the new regulations introduced to discourage the exodus of funds more than $4 billion will leave the country this year. Some Afghan friends have said that this fear is unfounded. They believe that the announcement of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership will restore faith in the future of Afghanistan and such funds will be invested in Afghanistan. One can hope this turns out to be true but the prospects are bleak.
As the foregoing shows, the economic picture-post 2014 appears grim and that is the reality but one must also recognise that there are some bright spots, which, if properly developed, may mitigate the hardship.
These are the major foreign investment agreements signedso far. First the Aynak copper mines where the Chinese have committed to a $2.4 billion investment for strip mining that will provide considerable investment in the mine itself but will also involve the construction of such infrastructure projects as a thermal power plant and a railway to allow the shipment of the mined ore to some smelting unit. A similarly large investment has been committed for the exploration and exploitation of Afghanistan’s fossil fuel deposits. The Indians on their part have put together a consortium, which has committed to an investment of more than $10 billion for the exploitation and transport of iron ore from the Hajigak deposit-reportedly one of the largest and richest in the region. Lastly there is the finalisation recently of the agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on transit fee for the pipeline, which is to bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of gas daily from Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan and India. This project alone would give Afghanistan a transit fee that at the agreed rate of 49.5 cents per thousand cubic feet an annual income of mote than half a billion dollars and would generate other economic activity that could add another half a billion to Afghanistan’s GDP.
Much remains to be done before these projects can bear fruit. The Aynak project remains stymied until the archaeological remains around the site have been completed. The routes to be followed by the transport infrastructure to be created to take the ore to market have yet to be decided. One would like to suggest that as regional cooperation increases the Chinese and Afghans should think in terms of transporting this copper ore to Pakistan’s Baluchistan where a similarly large deposit of copper is awaiting exploitation. The combined product of the two mines would permit the setting up of a smelting plant within the region and an economical transport of the finished product through Pakistan’s port at Gwadar. Currently legal problems are holding up the Pakistan project but were there a chance of a joint smelting plant being set up the incentive for resolving the legal disputes in Pakistan would become irresistible.
Similar work of an imaginative and innovative nature will need to be done for the other projects that are being considered. The most important issue however is going to be the post 2014 security situation and that in turn is going to depend on how rapidly the process of reconciliation proceeds and how this process helps to bridge the differences both ideological and political between the “armed opposition” and the Karzai administration on the one hand and between Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups on the other. Will there be agreement on retaining an American military presence after 2014? If so will this become an insurmountable obstacle as negotiations with the Taliban proceed? Will Afghanistan’s neighbours cooperate?
Only slightly less important will be the efforts that are needed to provide better governance and the impact on these efforts by President Karzai’s repeated assertion that he was considering stepping down before 2014 when the next Presidential elections are due to permit the holding of the elections before foreign troop withdrawal is completed. Will a new team to cope with the challenges of overseeing the withdrawal and undertaking the needed reform of government structures? These two sets of questions, perhaps the subject of the greatest concern to Afghans, will be the subject of my next article. full text
During a recent visit to Kabul Afghan friends pointed out that according to the World Bank, the contribution of the Services sector to the Afghan GDP was 50%. An optimistic but hopelessly unreal assessment was offered-this would be only marginally affected by the withdrawal of foreign forces. The truth of the matter is that again according to World Bank estimates 90 to 97% of economic activity in Afghanistan was driven, in the last few years, by the foreign presence. It would not be wrong to assume that once the foreign troops withdraw and foreign aided projects begin to be abandoned for lack of funding the services and construction sector of the economy will contract much more drastically perhaps by as much as 90%.
I had mentioned in the earlier article that the reduction of the ANSF would, by 2017, demobilise about 120,000 ANSF personnel and add these men, with few skills other than handling weapons, to the ranks of the large number of currently unemployed people in Afghanistan. To this one must also add the large number of people currently engaged by foreign and Afghan security companies who will be thrown out of work once foreign financed projects grind to a halt and the need for security at such sites diminishes. What will these people do to secure their daily bread? Out on the streets begging or more likely adding to the ranks of the common criminals or extortionists supported by one war lord or another, to exacerbate the difficulties that the ordinary Afghan citizen faces particularly in urban settings. Many of the unemployed may seek to become economic refugees. I have calculated that as many as 2 million Afghans may, post 2014, seek shelter in Pakistan where the border is open and a smaller number may try to cross into Iran where border controls are stricter
One way to handle this situation would be to ensure the maintenance of a high level of economic assistance to Afghanistan post 2014. The Afghans at the Bonn meeting had circulated a paper suggesting that the international community commit to providing $10 billion a year to Afghanistan up to 2024 by which time the Afghans estimated that enough progress would have been made on the exploitation of Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits and on the development of its agricultural potential to allow Afghanistan to stand on its own feet. What most Afghans are asking is whether this is a realistic goal given the donor fatigue that exists in the NATO countries and the obvious reluctance of other potential donors to make such commitments.
They will note the example of Pakistan. The Obama administration pushed strongly for the American Congress to approve what came to be known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill, which committed the USA to providing 1.5 billion annually in economic assistance for 5 years. Since American law prohibited a commitment for longer than 5 years it included a recommendation that a future congress should extend this for another 5 years. In other words there was formally a decade long commitment of economic assistance. In practice however much of this is bogged down and the Pakistanis have been vociferously complaining about the shortfall in disbursements and about the projects that the Americans have chosen for implementation.
For the moment it is known that on 22nd April a draft ‘Strategic Partnership Agreement” document was finalised and signed by both Ambassador Crocker on behalf of the United States and National Security Adviser Spanta. While the contents of the agreement are not known it is generally believed that this provides for a decade long involvement of the USA with Afghanistan. Commenting on the agreement an American embassy spokesman said, “Our goal is an enduring partnership with Afghanistan that strengthens Afghan sovereignty, stability and prosperity and that contributes to our shared goal of defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates,”... “We believe this agreement supports that goal.”
It is highly unlikely that this document, which does not deal with the question of a residual American military presence after 2014, will spell out the specifics of the concrete economic assistance that the Americans will provide over the next decade. But even if it does the Afghans must assume that its implementation may face the some problems, as the Pakistanis believe they are experiencing with the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.
The Afghans know that those with money are rapidly taking the money out of Afghanistan. The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has said that $ 8 billion were taken out of the country last year and there are good reasons to believe that despite the new regulations introduced to discourage the exodus of funds more than $4 billion will leave the country this year. Some Afghan friends have said that this fear is unfounded. They believe that the announcement of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership will restore faith in the future of Afghanistan and such funds will be invested in Afghanistan. One can hope this turns out to be true but the prospects are bleak.
As the foregoing shows, the economic picture-post 2014 appears grim and that is the reality but one must also recognise that there are some bright spots, which, if properly developed, may mitigate the hardship.
These are the major foreign investment agreements signedso far. First the Aynak copper mines where the Chinese have committed to a $2.4 billion investment for strip mining that will provide considerable investment in the mine itself but will also involve the construction of such infrastructure projects as a thermal power plant and a railway to allow the shipment of the mined ore to some smelting unit. A similarly large investment has been committed for the exploration and exploitation of Afghanistan’s fossil fuel deposits. The Indians on their part have put together a consortium, which has committed to an investment of more than $10 billion for the exploitation and transport of iron ore from the Hajigak deposit-reportedly one of the largest and richest in the region. Lastly there is the finalisation recently of the agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on transit fee for the pipeline, which is to bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of gas daily from Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan and India. This project alone would give Afghanistan a transit fee that at the agreed rate of 49.5 cents per thousand cubic feet an annual income of mote than half a billion dollars and would generate other economic activity that could add another half a billion to Afghanistan’s GDP.
Much remains to be done before these projects can bear fruit. The Aynak project remains stymied until the archaeological remains around the site have been completed. The routes to be followed by the transport infrastructure to be created to take the ore to market have yet to be decided. One would like to suggest that as regional cooperation increases the Chinese and Afghans should think in terms of transporting this copper ore to Pakistan’s Baluchistan where a similarly large deposit of copper is awaiting exploitation. The combined product of the two mines would permit the setting up of a smelting plant within the region and an economical transport of the finished product through Pakistan’s port at Gwadar. Currently legal problems are holding up the Pakistan project but were there a chance of a joint smelting plant being set up the incentive for resolving the legal disputes in Pakistan would become irresistible.
Similar work of an imaginative and innovative nature will need to be done for the other projects that are being considered. The most important issue however is going to be the post 2014 security situation and that in turn is going to depend on how rapidly the process of reconciliation proceeds and how this process helps to bridge the differences both ideological and political between the “armed opposition” and the Karzai administration on the one hand and between Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups on the other. Will there be agreement on retaining an American military presence after 2014? If so will this become an insurmountable obstacle as negotiations with the Taliban proceed? Will Afghanistan’s neighbours cooperate?
Only slightly less important will be the efforts that are needed to provide better governance and the impact on these efforts by President Karzai’s repeated assertion that he was considering stepping down before 2014 when the next Presidential elections are due to permit the holding of the elections before foreign troop withdrawal is completed. Will a new team to cope with the challenges of overseeing the withdrawal and undertaking the needed reform of government structures? These two sets of questions, perhaps the subject of the greatest concern to Afghans, will be the subject of my next article. full text
вторник, 8 мая 2012 г.
пятница, 4 мая 2012 г.
среда, 2 мая 2012 г.
What Does the Taliban Attack on Kabul Portend? (I)
When one examines the details of the Taliban attack what emerges is that the Taliban occupied buildings in the most closely guarded part of Kabul for more than 18 hours but did little material damage. On the government side the loss of life was limited to 8 members of the Afghan Security Forces and some 4 civilians. 36 Taliban, on the other hand lost their lives. The Taliban spokesman could term these admittedly well-coordinated attacks as a “remarkable achievement” but the government and NATO could even more validly claim that the response of the Afghan forces showed that they had acquired the professionalism to handle such attacks and defeat them with minimum loss of life. By and large this assertion could be accepted even though it is clear that the Afghan forces needed to rely on NATO helicopters and their weaponry to finally dislodge the insurgents from their vantage points.
There are some who would also point to the plea posted on a Taliban website appealing for financial assistance as evidence of the fact that the Taliban have really been hurt by the NATO offensives in the South and need fresh sources of money to garner fresh recruits. Perhaps this is too optimistic a reading of the purport of the Taliban plea. After all we are told to believe that much of the financing for Taliban operations comes from taxing Opium cultivations and from contributions that drug traffickers make as “protection money. The truth however is that much of the illicit money made from opium cultivation and drug trafficking lands up in the pockets of corrupt officials- the job of a police chief in a drug transiting province is said to be available only if a bribe of $60,000 is paid and even a district police chief has to pay $25000 for his job and then be prepared to provide monthly benefit to his bosses. In the areas that they control the Taliban levy a tax equal to 10% of the crop but this does not yield the sort of revenue that western sources suggest.
Where is the big opium money? On a recent visit to Kabul one was shown house after house, garish but clearly expensive, almost all owned by beneficiaries of the opium trade and the revenues it generated for politicians and officials and equally importantly for the warlords who had carved out their fiefdoms along the drug trafficking routes. A recent story in the “Economist” magazine about the state of affairs in Tajikistan was revealing. It said that “The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that some 30% of Afghan opiates—including 90 tonnes of heroin a year—pass through Central Asia on their way to Russia, most of them through Tajikistan” and that “researchers believe the industry is equivalent to 30-50% of Tajikistan’s GDP.” Clearly the principal beneficiaries of the opium trade are not the Taliban.
Separately it has been reported that the US Treasury designated Gen. Gholamreza Baghbani, who runs the Revolutionary Guards' Quds force office in Zahedan near the Afghan border, as a narcotics "kingpin" for facilitating Afghan drug runners. Iran is a major consumer of opium itself with some 4 million users and is said to be the conduit for 55% of the Afghan opium crop. The Afghans perhaps share the American belief that the money earned for facilitating the drug trade is also used to finance arms shipments into Afghanistan.
Whatever the Taliban earn from drug trafficking may be insubstantial but opium is a problem for Afghanistan in another sense. At the basic level it provides income for the poor farmer who has not other comparably profitable crop. This is why the UNODC survey shows that the area under opium has grown this year. 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces remained poppy free this year but none of the 5 that lost this status in 2011 has regained that status. Little success has attended NATO and American efforts to curb the cultivation of opium. In Helmand and Kandahar, where the “surge” of American troops has chased the Taliban out of many key areas there has been little or no resultant reduction in poppy cultivation this year. The UNODC survey shows that over 63,000 hectares in Helamand and almost 22000 hectares in Kandahar have been cultivated this year reflecting only a marginal change over 2010. Elsewhere there have been substantial increases in poppy cultivated areas in provinces like Nangarhar.
On the other hand it is now evident that opium and heroin addiction has grown in Afghanistan with a million or more users most of them addicts. It can be anticipated that as economic activity slows down following the foreign troop withdrawal, the need for poppy as a cash crop will increase, and with it the number of addicts in Afghanistan and all its neighbouring countries.
This should be the source of genuine apprehension for the Afghan people since, along with indiscriminately spent foreign aid, drug trafficking has been the principal driver of corruption and of the poor governance that more than any other factor has contributed to the present instability in Afghanistan.
A second point of concern should be the planned reduction in the size of the Afghan national Security Forces (ANSF) from the level of 352,000, which will be reached before the end of this year, to 230,000. This will mean a reduction in the cost of maintaining the force from about $6-7 billion a year to about 4.1 billion, which, the Americans say, should be met by a $500 million contribution from Afghanistan, $2.3 billion from America and another $1.3 billion from NATO and other countries. At the recent NATO meeting in Brussels despite the presence of both Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta, the only firm pledge came from the UK whose representative committed to providing S110 million from 2015 onwards. Brave words have been spoken about the fact that firm pledges will come before the May 21st Conference in Chicago but so uncertain is the prospect that the NATO Secretary General has already appealed to Russia and China to contribute.
President Karzai himself is so uncertain about the prospect that he has called for the Americans to reduce to writing whatever amount they will provide for the Security forces arguing that even if the amount is lower than the amount the Americans are currently talking about he wanted a written commitment. This, the Americans have rejected with Secretary Panetta explaining that the administration could not make such commitments since appropriating money remained the prerogative of Congress.
This disagreement and the war weariness of the NATO countries suggests that this pledge of $4.1 billion a year for the 2014-2024 period will not be met and an even more drastic reduction in the ANSF will become necessary. But even if this pledge is met it seems difficult to understand how the extra 2-3 billion annually that will be needed to allow for the reduction to take effect gradually until 2017 will be catered for. Some have suggested that the Americans will have no choice but to pick up the slack. The Afghans must worry about whether this will happen.
But even more they must worry about what happens when some 120,000 ANSF personnel knowing little other than how to fire a gun will be accommodated in a shrinking economy. A senior British officer is reported to have said, "Do we really want 120,000 disaffected men – trained to use arms – made unemployed, out on the streets, in an economy highly unlikely to find them other jobs?"
In my next article, I will try to detail the other concerns which, put together, dwarf in every substantive way the apprehensions that may been caused by the Taliban attacks or what is said to be their source.
(To be continued)
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