Eric Margolis

GREAT NORTHERN WHITEWASH OVER AFGHANISTAN

The report on Afghanistan delivered by the Manley Panel to Canada’s government last Monday was deeply flawed and most disappointing. Its totally predictable findings could have been written without the panel of instant Afghan experts wasting millions of taxpayer money.

This whitewash was designed to provide political cover for the Conservative government of PM Stephen Harper, which has faithfully followed the Bush Administration’s party line on Afghanistan. PM Harper has hung his political hat on the failing war in Afghanistan. By threatening to quit the conflict if NATO does not provide more troops, the Manley report provided the government with a handy escape hatch if things go terribly wrong in Afghanistan and the 2,500 Canadian troops there are forced to cut and run.

The Manley report provides the latest doleful example of the opposition Liberal’s pathetic failure to demand Ottawa answer tough questions about the growing mess in Afghanistan. Canada’s opposition has done even worse than the Democrats in Washington. Both are petrified to oppose a war that no matter how futile and foolish risks provoking charges of `not supporting our boys,’ and `being soft on terrorism.’

Most disturbing, the report claimed continued military operations in Afghanistan, which had so far cost 79 Canadians dead and untold billions, were necessary to `enhance’ Canada’s international influence. Two days later, another Canadian soldier died in action, presumably reinforcing the report’s contention about enhanced image.

As one who spends half his time abroad, I can attest that Canada’s military role in Afghanistan is virtually unknown to Americans, save occasional pats on the back to the Harper government from Bush Administration officials. Many Americans can’t find Canada, never mind Afghanistan, on the map.

In Europe and Asia, most people regard the Afghanistan conflict as a 19th century-style colonial war over future oil pipeline routes, and NATO’s role there the result of severe arms-twisting by Washington. That’s why most NATO troops are kept out of combat. Canada, by contrast, foolishly sent its small troops contingent into one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous regions due to the ignorance of its military and political leaders.

Canada’s position as one of the world’s most respected, admired nations has nothing to do with its military role in Afghanistan. Quite the contrary. Ottawa’s rash blunder into a tribal civil war in Afghanistan, and one-sided policy in the Mideast, has put Canada squarely in the gun sights of violent anti-western groups, and makes it appear an eager spear carrier in the Bush/Cheney wars in the Muslim World. Every bombed Afghan village breeds new enemies for Canada.

Ottawa is hiding the full truth about Afghanistan from Canadians. Its flag-waving media has further obscured the facts. When did one last see a report filed from the side of Taliban and its growing number of allies? The North American media has done as lousy a job in reporting Afghanistan as it did Iraq.

The report’s claim that Afghanistan’s US-imposed regime is `democratic’ is absurd. CIA `asset’ Hamid Karzai was installed by Washington and is kept in power by US troops and a stream of cash payoffs to drug-dealing tribal chiefs. His rigged `election’ was supervised by US troops and bought with $100 bills.

Afghanistan’s so-called `national army’ is made up of US-paid mercenaries. The `army’ does not need more training, as Manley claims. It needs loyalty to a legitimate national government – which does not exist.

Half of Afghanistan’s population, the Pashtun tribes (the source of the Taliban religious movement), has been largely excluded from political power. Until included, there will be no stability, never mind democracy. But Washington and Ottawa, have painted themselves into a corner by so demonizing Taliban and making enemies of the Pashtun (half of Afghanistan’s population), that overt negotiations with the movement or its growing number of allies is impossible.

Ominously, the Afghan war is steadily spreading into Pakistan, threatening the kind of `mission creep’ seen in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Canada is hypocritically backing Musharraf’s ugly dictatorship in Pakistan while claiming to be fighting for `democracy’ in Afghanistan.

The Manley report also soft-soaped government corruption. It ignored the 800 lb gorilla in Kabul: senior government officials up to their turbans in the heroin trade. Canada, the US and NATO find themselves patrons of the world’s leading narcostate, which supplies 90% of the world’s heroin and runs on drug money. The drugs are exported through Pakistan, another key western ally being corrupted by billions in drug money. Taliban eliminated the drug trade before being overthrown in 2001.

Most important, Manley’s report completely ignored the biggest problem of all. Canada has no political objective in this aimless war beyond making high-ranking Ottawa officials feel self-important at NATO meetings.

The Karzai regime, which rules only Kabul, would not last a week without western troops. There is no prospect of national
political consensus until Taliban and its allies are brought into the process. The reborn Afghan Communist Party(now known as the Northern Alliance) is again a dominant influence in Kabul, including running torture prisons to which the US and Canada have been sending captives.

If the Afghan conflict is a vital matter of national security, as Canada claims, then maintaining a mere 2,500 troops in Afghanistan is no more than a gesture that wastes the lives of its soldiers. If fighting Taliban is that important, then Canada should mobilize and send 100,000 troops, not a handful. If it’s not, then Canada should withdraw its troops and let the Afghan tribes get on with resolving their differences. One either wins a war or goes home.

Canada is not being ennobled by this sordid, ugly, drug-fueled war, as Mr. Manley wrongly believes. To the contrary, Canada’s honor and reputation are being injured, and its security endangered. The Manley report is the political equivalent of a sub-prime mortgage. It does the nation a disservice.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

THE PIRATE’S CURSE

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA - These be pirate waters, the fabled Spanish Main, where freebooters and buccaneers preyed like wolves on the Spanish Empire.

In the 1600’s, Spain’s imperial expansion and European wars were dependant on silver and gold looted from Peru. Spanish treasure fleets transported tons of silver from Peru on a two-month voyage north to Panama. Mule trains carried the treasure across the isthmus to the fever-infested hellhole of Portobello. There, another fleet of galleons waited to take the silver first east along the coast of Latin America to the port of Cartagena, then to Cadiz, Spain.

Where there was treasure, there were pirates. The Spanish Main became the main hunting ground for British, French and Jamaican buccaneers, the most famous of whom was Capt. Henry Morgan.

Many of these cutthroats bore `letters of marque’ from the British and French crowns, authorizing them as legal pirates to `singe the beard of the king of Spain.’ The British and French crews usually took a cut of 10-20% from their pirates.

These Caribbean freeboaters were murderous, filthy, cruel, men, scum of the gutter. They bore no resemblance to Hollywood’s cute pirates.

Those who think history does not matter should consider that the five-masted vessel on which I voyage has been unable to use its sails because of fierce headwinds. In 1665, a British privateer, Edward Mansfield, led a pirate fleet on this very course, bent on sacking Cartagena. His ships met the same strong winds that buffet us, thwarting his raid.

He might have failed even had the winds held fair, for Cartagena was a powerful fortress, which it remains today, a treasure of 17th century military engineering and a jewel of colonial architecture.

The Colombian government is desperately trying to develop tourist business, but it’s a task as hard as sailing into the wind. A government tourist brochure cheerily proclaims, `Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay.’

Not quite. Last week, six tourists were kidnapped on the Pacific coast and the usual violence continued across this nation of 44.5 million, Latin America’s fourth largest country.

Travel to Colombia, long a world leader in kidnapping, drug dealing and gunplay, is not for the faint of heart. What a tragedy, Colombia is a magnificent nation, with vast resources of coffee, gold, silver, oil, emeralds, and coal, with a charming, friendly people and some of the world’s most beautiful women (a title shared with neighboring Venezuela).

Colombia has been racked by violence since the 19th century. From 1900-1953, two parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, massacred one another with mindless abandon. Entire villages were slaughtered in the communal madness. At least 400,000 Colombians died in what they call, `La Violencia.’

At the heart of this orgy of violence lay bitter rivalry between big landowners of Spanish descent, known as `latafundistas,’ and with Colombians of mixed or pure Indian or black blood.

Interestingly, I found a similar historic phenomena when covering the 1980’s war in Nicaragua. Behind all the slogans about `Marxismo’ and freedom, the struggle between leftist Sandinistas and rightist Contras was really an extension of a long-time feud between two powerful families of land barons that began in the late 1800’s.

In the 1970’s, Marxist rebel groups began waging guerilla war against the government in Bogotá. Today, the largest of these groups, the FARC, has turned into a combination of ideological extremists, bandit army, and a major force in dealing cocaine and heroin. Hidden in the vast Amazonian forests of southern Colombia, the FARC continues to terrorize the nation, staging frequent attacks and kidnappings. FARC currently holds over 700 hostages, including two Americans who were working for the Pentagon.

Opposing FARC is the more or less democratic government of Alvaro Uribe, a hardline rightwinger who is very close to the Bush Administration and a major US ally. Uribe’s father was killed by FARC in a botched kidnapping.

The army and police are unable to defeat FARC’s guerillas, who have increasingly turned to refining and transporting cocaine. Large landowners created their own private army of rightwing death squads, the AUC, with secret backing from the military and police. They have committed almost as many atrocities as FARC.

This week, Venezuela’s mercurial leader, Col. Hugo Chavez, enraged Uribe by declaring FARC `a legitimate’ movement. FARC receives limited financial and moral support from European and Latin American leftists who wrongly see it as a liberation army fighting social evil and landowners. Cocaine, kidnapping and extortion supply steady income to FARC.

No one knows what to do about long-suffering Colombia. Washington backs and finances Uribe, but rightly fears getting sucked into a jungle war in Colombia. Meanwhile, Colombians continue to suffer and live in terror. Every attempt to end the war through negotiations has broken down, but there is clearly no other way to end this frightful conflict.

The US, Canada and the EU should make solving Colombia’s festering civil war a major diplomatic priority. Nicaragua and El Salvador’s civil wars offer sensible models for resolution. Both bitter, murderous conflicts were finally resolved by power sharing that has stood up remarkably well. There is a big difference, though, between these wars and Colombia: drugs.

Furious at being unable to sack Cartagena, Capt. Mansfield reportedly lay a dreaded pirate curse on Colombia. Alas, it worked.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

NEW HAMPSHIRE DRAMA

PANAMA - Watching America’s quirky electoral process from abroad always has special piquancy. In many countries, including little Panama, whoever becomes president of the United States often has more influence over these nations than their own leaders.

I used to get lots of mail from American conservatives fretting the wicked Red Chinese had taken over the Panama Canal. That’s because a Hong Kong multinational bought the company that runs the Canal’s port operations.

Panama has been taken over, all right, not by Reds, but by American retirees fueling condo mania. I liked sinister Panama better under `old pineapple face,’ Gen. Manuel Noriega, with its cutthroats, crooks, gun runners, and evil women, a sunny place for shady people, to paraphrase Maugham. Today, it’s Republican golfers, and they were just delighted by John McCain’s victory in New Hampshire.

This column is less enthusiastic. Candidates who dared tell Americans the truth – Republican Ron Paul, Democrat Dennis Kucinich – were marginalized. Two capable, experienced senators, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, were ignored by Iowa’s subsidy farmers and holy rollers. Smart, worldly Bill Richardson trailed badly.

Many Americans don’t want politicians who tell them hard truths. They prefer politicos offering blarney and roses, or who stoke mindless testosterone nationalism.

Senator John McCain appears an exception. New Hampshire voters, usually sober, serious lot, chose him for his resolute character, plain speaking, and experience. He has both gravitas and wit. The senator is a genuine war hero and courageous patriot in contrast to the Bush Administration’s other bloodthirsty, wartime draft-dodgers.

But McCain is further to the far right than Bush and Cheney and often sounds like a dangerous crank on foreign policy. He is an old-time imperialist who wants to wage jihad against the Muslim World and keep the Pentagon running foreign policy.

In the exciting Democratic race, Hillary Clinton’s last minute, carefully contrived tears on TV moved female voters to give her victory over Iowa winner, Barak Obama.

That’s a shame. Obama represents a new wave of more truthful, forthright politics America badly needs. The Clintons are vintage machine politicians with a tawdry record of sleazy financial and personal behavior. Hillary, who oozed in every direction on important issues, is as slippery
as an Alabama mud fish. No politician who voted for the obscene Iraq War deserves re-election, starting with Hillary.

Then there is Rev. Mike Huckabee, anointed by the Evangelical Taliban far right. Like other Republicans, he has been urging more war abroad. Someone should remind Friar Huck that Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek, not wage oil crusades.

At least scary Rudy Giuliani has so far fared badly. But he is waiting for Florida’s Jewish and Cuban voters to supercharge his campaign. New York’s former mayor is surrounded by fanatical neoconservative foreign policy advisors from the ultras far right who urge `World War IV’ against the Muslim World. The last thing America’s battered foreign policy needs is more direction from the semi-fascist neocons who created its current disasters.

Mitt Romney, however robotic, and John Edwards merit respect for their fierce, tireless, though so far unsuccessful campaigns. Both are highly capable men, but they failed to excite voters. Boos to lazy Fred Thompson, as poor a campaigner as an actor.

The next bunch of primaries this and next month will determine the presidential race. America desperately needs strong, intelligent leadership. It faces recession at home and a disaster area abroad, thanks to the blundering stupidities of the Bush/Cheney White House and a gutless Congress. The Republican Party needs liberation from the southern fried know-nothings and holy rollers that have hijacked it.

Unfortunately, neither Hillary Clinton nor Obama have the experience the presidency demands. If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, it’s likely the Republican candidate may defeat her. Most men can’t stand her, and there are enough sensible women who won’t support her just because she is female. Tears may only work once.

Meanwhile, `old pineapple face’ Noriega has served his full 17-year term in a Miami jail for cocaine trafficking. But the Bush Administration is trying to keep him silent by sending him to France to face further charges of money laundering. Washington fear’s Panama’s former dictator will reveal how he worked for CIA and trafficked drugs to support US-backed Contras in Nicaragua.
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PAKISTAN’S 10% SOLUTION

Benazir Bhutto’s murder increasingly resembles an Agatha Christie whodunit in which all the potential suspects look guilty as hell.

Pakistan’s now civilian dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, pleads innocent. But his henchmen ordered the crime scene hosed down, destroyed evidence, and forced doctors who examined Benazir’s body to make the preposterous claim a fall, not bullets, killed her.

On 23 Oct, days after the first attempt to kill Ms Bhutto in Karachi, she told me she `suspected’ the chief of a government security agency staged the bombing. She repeated to me accusations that two other high-ranking Punjabi government officials, one a chief minister, were out to kill her.

On 25 Oct. Benazir told me her phones and email were being tapped by Musharraf’s security services. So they knew her every move. A week later, she emailed me, saying she feared imminent arrest. A week before her murder, she repeated by phone that Musharraf’s supporters were gunning for her.

On 30 Oct, I sent a long email to Benazir that outlined a new political strategy for her People’s Party. In it, I concluded, `for your public appearances, follow India’s security measures for its prime minister. They are very tight. Consider new, lightweight body armor, `Dragonskin.’ By phone, I warned her of snipers.

The government accuses tribal militants belonging to Pakistan’s Taliban. But they strongly deny involvement. Al-Qaida’s Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed authorship of the assassination. My hunch says it was al-Qaida.

Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, refused an autopsy on his wife’s body. Ordering it buried with haste, in keeping with Muslim custom. But an autopsy would have determined the true cause of death and exposed government’s lies.

President Musharraf got national parliamentary elections postponed to 18 Feb, hoping sympathy for the slain Benazir would diminish. He called in Britain’s Scotland Yard to investigate her murder, but only after all evidence was destroyed.

Ironically, when Benazir Bhutto became prime minister after the assassination of her family’s bitter foe, my old friend Gen.Zia ul-Haq, she ordered the ongoing investigation of his murder quashed and evidence destroyed.

Washington still backs Musharraf as the man to wage its war in Afghanistan. Though few westerners yet understand it, the 2001 US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and spreading resistance, ignited the current explosion in Pakistan. The Bush White House must keep spending billions in secret payments to Pakistan’s Army and intelligence services -dispersed by paymaster Musharraf - to help fight its war in Afghanistan and growing regional rebellions in two of Pakistan’s four provinces.

Meanwhile, Benazir’s bereaved People’s Party just elected her 19-year old son, Bilawal, and husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-chairman - using a fake will, charge disgruntled family members. I met Bilawal in London in October. He is a highly intelligent young man who shows lots of the Bhutto fire. But he’s far too young to sit in parliament, and 16 years too young to become prime minister.

In the interim, papa Zardari will rule the party as regent. Whether he will run for prime minister is uncertain. Known to all as `Mr 10%’ from his time as a government minister in charge of contracts ad procurement, Zardari is dogged by grave corruption charges and three ongoing investigations in Europe. His even more venal father was called `Mr 15%.’ The Bhuttos are believed to have amassed a large fortune stashed away in Europe. This great feudal landowning family of southern Pakistan considers the People’s Party as their own family business, a legacy to be passed from one generation to the next.

Musharraf’s popular support is down to 10%. So to win February elections, he must rig them. The US appears ready to assist his disgraceful farce.

The best solution for Pakistan is a coalition between the People’s Party, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League, the incorruptible Imran Khan’s small party, and Muslim Parties. If they do not hang together, Musharraf will surely hang them separately.

And now, just when things could not seem to get worse, Washington is abuzz with rumors that the US is planning attacks into Pakistan. Sheer madness. More about this soon.

KUDOS & BOO’s for 2007

KUDOS

- America’s intelligence community, which refused to let itself be used any more to fabricate lies or promote wars of aggression. In December, they revolted against the Bush/Cheney rush to war against Iran and told Americans the truth: Iran was not making nuclear weapons. It took a lot of courage for America’s spooks to defy their masters in the White House. We salute these patriots.
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- Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. That rarest of things, a principled political leader who has modernized Turkey, advanced democracy and human rights, pressed for better relations with Kurds and Armenians, normalized relations with Greece, and stared down Turkey’s neo-fascist generals. Erdogan, and close ally, President Abdullah Gul, have shown how a moderate Islamist government can successfully combine democracy with Islamic principles of social justice and law.

- Pakistan’s Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. This courageous jurist stood up to Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf and ignited national opposition to his rule. Chaudhry’s defiance marks the emergence for the first time of the institution of law in Pakistan. The general quickly had Chaudhry and 36 other senior justices arrested. They have now been dismissed. The United States, Britain and Canada, who loudly call for democracy in the Third World, remained mute over Musharraf’s criminal behavior.

-Russia’s Vladimir Putin. We deplore his methods in squashing political opposition, muzzling the media, or savaging Chechen independence-seekers. Still, former intelligence officer Putin ad his KGB old-boy’s network have raised Russia from its knees, tripled its national income, and reasserted traditional policies and interests. Russians love him and for good reason. When Putin took over, Russia was a beggar state living on US handouts. Today, thanks to the oil boom and tough management, Russia is feeling its oats again.

- Twin Kudos to: Australia’s new Labour PM Kevin Rudd. A breathe of fresh air who kicked out former PM John Howard, a rightwing reactionary dinosaur who whipped up racism against Muslims and Asians and was a faithful spear carrier for the Bush Administration. And Poland’s new conservative PM, Donald Tusk who kicked out one of the odious Kaczinski twins, a pair of far right, narrow-minded anti-Semites who represented the worst of primitive Polish rural politics.

BOO’s

-Of course, George W and the real US President, Dick Cheney again get the booby prize. But add in this year the pathetically inept Condoleeza Rice, `don’t worry be happy’ Alan Greenspan and the administration which presided over the Enronization of the US finances. The gargantuan Ponzi scheme based on peddling mortgages to the poor and uneducated, run by Wall Street’s shyster financers, has finally collapsed, taking down the US dollar.
Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Iran, Somalia, and now mortgage mayhem and who knows what else.

-El Presidente Hugo Chavez. He had some good ideas, way back when. But this socialist demagogue has gone off the deep end, carried away by hot air and dreams of being son of Fidel. As King Juan Carlos of Spain rightly snapped, `why don’t you shut up!’ Venezuelan voters just seconded King Jun Carols, giving Chavez a stinging defeat.

-Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Uncorrupt, but a loose cannon who cannot control his tongue.
Ahmadinejad’s bombast and idiotic comments about the Holocaust and eliminating Zionism have helped turn the world against Iran. But, ironically, he was telling the truth all along when he denied Iran was working on nuclear weapons. It was George Bush and Dick Cheney who were the Fathers of Lies. Still, Iran needs a more mature, sensible leader.

-The US Congress. It has utterly failed to restrain the run amok president, stop his wars abroad, or protect the constitutional rights of Americans. Recalling the old Soviet Presidium, 90% of Senate and House Republicans slavishly voted for Bush’s policies. Cowardly Democrats, led by the slippery Hillary Clinton, voted for war, then ran for cover when things went terribly wrong. `America’s only native criminal class,’ quipped the great Mark Twain.

-Pakistan’s military dictator turned civilian dictator, Pervez Musharraf. A mean, spiteful man, he humiliated and debased his once proud nation, abandoned old allies for money, and licked Washington’s hand. Now, he’s leading Pakistan over a cliff.

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