Eric Margolis

AMERICA RESCUES THE ALBANIANS

NEW YORK – The Bush Administration has lurched for so long from one foreign policy disaster to another, we have almost forgotten what it’s like to see the United States do the right thing.

But we did last week, and a very welcome sight it was. After decades of oppression and struggle, the 2 million Albanians of the former Yugoslav/Serb province of Kosovo finally achieved their long-sought independence. This was the final welcome act in the death of the abortive state, Yugoslavia.

The United States was the first major power to recognize the new Republic of Kosova – as it should henceforth be called. There were almost as many American flags in the streets of its capitol, Prishtina, as Albanian ones. President George Bush deserves a hearty salute.

The United States had once more rescued the Albanians. In 1918, victorious Serbia was about to annex tiny Albania to gain its deep-water Adriatic ports. US President Woodrow Wilson ordered Serbia back, saving Albania.

After Communist demagogue Slobodan Milosevic sought to build a Greater Serbia in the 1990’s through ethnic terrorism, Washington forced NATO to halt Serb genocide in Bosnia.

In 1999, while Europe watched impotently, Milosevic’s forces killed 13,000 Kosovar Albanians, blew up mosques, gang-raped Muslim women, burned Albanian villages and drove one million Albanian Kosovars into frigid winter fields where they would have died of exposure without outside help. The United States saved the Kosovars by launching a short air war on the Serbs.

Outraged Serbs claimed they were victims of an American-German conspiracy. Kosovo was their historic medieval heartland, they insisted, Serbia’s very soul. But by 2008, Kosova’s population was 2 millions Albanians and only 60,000-80,000 Serbs and gypsies, mostly in the Mitrovica enclave. About 100,000 more Kosovo Serbs had moved to Serbia.

Historic claims are often of questionable value. Kosovo was indeed the heartland of medieval Serbia after Serb tribes invaded the region in the 6th Century AD. But the original inhabitants were Illyrians – ancestors of today’s Albanians.

Serbs sought to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Albanians three times: in the 1911-12 Balkan Wars after they seized it from the Ottoman Empire; in 1945; and in the 1990’s. This brutal record, and persecution of Albanian Kosovars in the post-Tito era, invalidates any legitimate claims Serbia has to Kosovo.

Wounded pride aside, Serbia is better off without Kosova. History teaches it’s often counter-productive to try to retain by force a region that wants out (the US Civil War is a strong exception).

Serbs, an intelligent, talented people, became international pariahs after the demagogue Milosevic intoxicated them with Nazi-style bogus historic mythology, primitive nationalism, and anti-Muslim racism. Serbia’s future lies in European Union, not in dubious medieval mythical glories.

America once again saved Albanians from extinction. By contrast, it was noteworthy that Romania refused to join Britain, France, Germany and Italy in recognizing the new Kosova republic. That’s because Romania also has its own dirty secret. The post-World War I Treaty of Trianon was ever bit as evil and immoral as the 1938 Munich Pact. At Trianon, the victorious allies handed over 66% of the Hungarian people to Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Romania got the lion’s share, including Transylvania. Hungarians want freedom from Romania.

Albanians were also divided between Albania proper, and Yugoslavia’s provinces of Kosovo and Macedonia. So Albanians and Hungarians remain Europe’s divided peoples.

But there is no hint free Kosova will anytime soon join neighboring Albania. The Kosovar leadership under able PM Hasim Tachi, rejects any talk of union; so does Albania’s capable prime minister, Dr Sali Berisha. Kosovars are not eager to merge with impoverished, struggling Albania; they want to be in the EU.

It certainly is a tonic seeing people abroad joyously waving American flags and blessing the United States. This is what my America used to be about. I pray that under new presidential leadership, the USA will resume this honorable tradition as liberator and defender of human rights.
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copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

PAKISTAN’S MAKE OR BREAK ELECTION

Pakistan’s national elections today are critically important for this strife-torn country’s future. They are almost as crucial for its western backers. Unless honestly conducted – and this seems highly unlikely - the vote will ignite further violence, plunging the highly strategic nation of 163 million into new dangers.

As of this posting, the turnout is disappointingly low, averaging less than 35%, caused by apathy, political fatigue, fears of attacks and the widespread belief that the elections will be manipulated by the government of President Pervez Mushattaf.

Only one thing is certain about today’s vote. If President Pervez Musharraf and his PML-Q party do well enough to retain power or head a coalition, the election was likely rigged.

Musharraf has rigged every vote since seizing power in a 1999 military coup. Polls show only 15-20% of Pakistanis support him. The majority backs the late Benazir Bhutto’s People’s Party, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N). A coalition of Muslim parties, and cricket star Imran Khan’s PTI, may also garner some new voters, though Islamists have been trailing in the polls.

However, Musharraf’s powerful friends are determined to keep him power. In spite of Musharraf’s having muzzled the media, jailed thousands of opponents, purged the judiciary, and stuffed the electoral commission with henchmen, Washington, London and Ottawa still support his dictatorship and continue to hail him as a `democrat.’

While piously claiming to be waging war in Afghanistan to bring it democracy, the western powers have been encouraging and abetting dictatorship in Pakistan.

The reason is clear: Musharraf has rented out much of his army and intelligence service to battle Taliban in Afghanistan and tribal militants at home. His fee: up to $1 billion monthly in secret and overt US payments. Without them, Musharraf wouldn’t last very long.

Musharraf and his US and British patrons are hoping the opposition will split the vote and become deadlocked, leaving the former general as last man standing. The opposition, by contrast, is talking about ending the war against Taliban and reasserting Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir – something Washington and London do not want to hear.

The powerful military still supports Musharraf, though for how long depends on the level of post-election violence. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the new armed forces chief, was selected by Musharraf and Washington as a loyal anti-Islamist who would follow America’s lead. But this capable general remains an enigma. Indian intelligence sources say the US decided in early 2007 to ease the floundering Musharraf from power and make Gen. Kiyani Pakistan’s new strongman. One is reminded of Henry Kissinger’s cynical quip that the only thing more dangerous than being America’s enemy is being its ally. Musharraf’s usefulness to Washington is rapidly nearing its expiry date.

If Pakistan is rent by widespread protests and violence over brazen electoral fraud, or suffers political deadlock, the military may overthrow the widely detested Musharraf and seize power. Gen. Kiyani is said to be reluctant to see the military re-engage in politics, but there could be no alternative if veteran politicians Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, cannot produce a viable government.

The best outcome would be for the military to exile Musharraf and impose temporary martial law until the independent judiciary can be restored, the electoral commission made fair, media ungagged, and political repression ended. Then genuine, honest elections could be held and Pakistan returned to parliamentary government. But once the soldiers taste power again, they may be reluctant to give it up.

Until Pakistan gets a legitimate government representing its national interests, rather than those of the western powers, the country will remain in turmoil, and Pakistanis disgusted by the political process.
This, in turn, will pour fuel on the rising flames of anti-Americanism and extremism.

Pakistan is facing spreading civil war, and possible secession by two of its four provinces. The Pashtun tribal uprising ignited by the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan is now spreading into Pakistan, risking a full-scale uprising by that nation’s 25 million Pashtuns. Any of these earthquakes could provoke an invasion by India, met by a nuclear riposte from Pakistan.

The war in Afghanistan and heavy-handed efforts by the US to bend Pakistan’s military regime to its will ignited much of the current turmoil. A majority of Pakistanis don’t want their soldiers to be western mercenaries, or their leaders to appear western yes-men. They support Taliban, and the struggle for Kashmir. But the US is so consumed by its war of revenge against Taliban over 9/11 – in which Taliban as not involved - it cannot see any of this.

Pakistan is the Muslim World’s most important nation and sole nuclear power. By treating Pakistan like a banana republic, arm-twisting Islamabad into battling its own people, and ignoring its own national interests, the US is playing with fire and damaging its own long-term strategic interests.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

WHY EUROPEANS ARE NOT EAGER TO DIE IN AFGHANISTAN

NEW YORK – NATO conferences are usually pretty boring affairs, but last week’s meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania produced some real fireworks.

An angry and clearly frustrated US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accused some European nations of not being prepared to `fight and die’ in Afghanistan in the battle against Taliban. His latest outburst follows an intemperate critique last month in which the US defense secretary asserting British, Canadian and Dutch forces fighting in southern Afghanistan needed counter-insurgency training from the US.

The undiplomatic Gates is quite right that Europe has little stomach for battle. Most Europeans regard the Afghan conflict as a. wrong and immoral; b. America’s war; c. all about oil; and d. probably lost.

To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the once real threat of Soviet aggression, not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush’s wars in the Muslim World. Eastern Europeans are understandably grateful to the United States for helping free them from Soviet domination and as a result are supporting the US Afghan mission – but somewhat tepidly and usually in response to millions in aid from Washington.

While Gates and Canada’s government were pleading for more troops, the commander of the 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, US Gen. Dan McNeill, landed a bombshell of his own. If proper US military counter-insurgency doctrine were followed, said McNeill at a Washington conference, the US and NATO would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance to western occupation of Afghanistan.

When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, they deployed 160,000 troops and about 200,000 Afghan Communist troops – yet failed to crush the mostly Pashtun resistance. Now, the US and NATO are trying the same mission with only 66,000 troops, backed by ragtag local mercenaries grandly styled the Afghan National Army. Of these 66,000 western soldiers, at least half or more are non-combat support troops.

Canada’s calls for a 1,000 more NATO troops, and the US decision to send 3,200 Marines, will not alter the course of this war, which is turning increasingly against the western occupiers. Even so, France’s new neoconservative leader, President Nicholas Sarkozy, is reported to be considering sending another troops contingent to Afghanistan. Probably in hopes of pleasing Washington and becoming its new Tony Blair.

Meanwhile, the war is ominously spreading into neighboring Pakistan, stretching beleaguered US and NATO forces ever thinner.

A primary reason for Gates’ recent request for Islamabad to `invite’ US troops to begin assaults against pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen inside Pakistan is due to their growing attacks on US/NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.

As this column has previously reported, over 70% of US/NATO supplies come in by truck through Pakistan’s tribal belt known as FATA, including all of their oil and gas. Attacks by pro-Taliban tribesmen against these vulnerable supply lines are jeopardizing western military operations inside Afghanistan.

The hunters are becoming the hunted. Cutting off invader’s supply lines is a time-honored Pashtun military tactic. They used it against Alexander the Great, the British, and Soviets, and are at it again.

What angry Sec. Gates fails to see is that by pushing NATO into a distant Asian war without political purpose or seeming end, he is endangering the very alliance that is the bedrock of US power in Europe.

Europeans increasingly ask why they need the US-dominated military alliance, a Cold War relic, in which they continue to play foot soldiers to America’s atomic knights, to paraphrase the late German statesman, Franz Josef Strauss.

Why does the rich, powerful European Union even need NATO any more? The Soviet threat is gone – at least for now. Nuclear-armed France and Britain are quite capable of defending Europe against outside threats. Why cannot the new European Defense Force take over NATO’s role of defending Europe and protecting EU interests? United Europe will inevitably field its own integrated military force. Arm-twisting Europe to fight a highly unpopular war in Afghanistan will only hasten this development.

In short, most Europeans see no benefit in playing junior members in an alliance whose historic time has passed, and that serves primarily as an instrument of US power. Washington’s sharpest geopolitical thinker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls NATO a `stepping stone’ the US uses to project power into Europe.

By pushing NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush Administration may end up fatally undermining NATO and encouraging anti-American forces in Europe. In fact, it’s becoming evident that the cash-strapped US needs the EU more than the EU needs the US.

Final point. If impassioned claims by US and Canadian politicians that the little Afghanistan war must by won at all costs, then why don’t they stop orating, impose conscription, and send 400,000 soldiers, including their own sons, to fight in Afghanistan?

Of course they won’t. They prefer to waste their own soldiers, and grind up Afghanistan, rather than admit this war against 40 million Pashtun tribesmen was a terrible and stupid mistake that will only get worse.
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

`SUPER TUESDAY’ FAILS TO ANOINT A DEMOCRATIC WINNER

NEW YORK - The 5 February Democratic primaries were supposed to produce a decisive victory for Hillary Clinton’s well-oiled machine.

Instead, Barak Obama’s close second place derailed Hillary’s purported coronation, leaving her facing months of bitter, costly house-to-house political fighting at a time when her campaign is straining to raise cash. Instead of battling Republicans, Democrats will be stuck battling one another.

By contrast, the super Tuesday primaries anointed John McCain as Republican frontrunner, leaving the robotic Mitt Romney in the dust, and `Friar Huck’ Huckaby speaking only for the Bible Belt. Romney faced reality and quit this week, Huckaby should also.

Republican Ron Paul, the only candidate speaking the truth to the public, won more votes than expected and vows to stay in the contest. Some are urging him to run as an independent. This might very well doom the Republicans by carving off 6-10% of their supporters.

Perennial gadfly Ralph Nader is again threatening to run. Back in 2000, his entry into the presidential race siphoned off enough liberal Democratic votes to hand the election to George Bush.

At Washington’s airport, I saw a stark testimony to the brevity of political fame: a rack of `Rudy Giuliani for President in 2008’ t-shirts with a big sign, `Clear-0ut. Were $14.99, now $1.99.’

Many Americans clearly want change after eight years of the disaster-prone Bush/Cheney Administration. Obama put his finger on the problem when he said in a recent speech that America had to stop thinking about war. But this will be difficult in the face of the continuation of Bush’s politics of fear. Polls show 75% of Republicans still support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House’s faux `war on terrorism,’ and a militarized foreign policy. Rural southerners retain their head-lock on the Grand Old Party.

Another very disturbing element is the lack of new ideas among the leading candidates. The race has become one of personality, image, and ethnic/religious/gender/and age voter blocks.

If Hillary wins the nomination and presidency, it will be due to votes of middle-aged women who clearly identify with her problems, from wandering husbands to expanding hips and thighs. This should not be criteria for the most powerful political office on earth. But as every advertiser knows, to sell products to females you need to have a woman in the ad with whom potential customers can identify.

Too many blacks will vote for Obama because he is partly of their race. Skin color should not be a criterion but, in US politics, it always is. It’s time America have a person of color in the White House – not because of his race, but his abilities. The past sin of slavery still hangs heavy on America’s soul.

Hispanics are overwhelming supporting Hillary Clinton because she and Bill paid attention to them when no other politicians cared. And because blacks and Hispanics have become bitter competitors and rivals in the quest for low-paid jobs.

Hillary Clinton also won most of the vitally important Jewish vote last week. Her machine has been busy spreading rumors in the Jewish community that Barak Obama is `soft on Israel’ or even a closet Muslim. Now that she is struggling to raise campaign funds, Clinton will be ever more beholden to Jewish supporters, who traditionally provide 50% of the Democratic Party’s finances. This means no change in the current US Mideast policy.

Narrow-minded Christian conservatives are furious at John McCain for his grown-up, civilized attitudes towards social issues. But once their current tantrum abates, America’s Taliban will fall in line behind McCain when faced by the choice of Hillary or Obama.

Republicans are on their knees praying Hillary will win the Democratic nomination. This, they believe, means almost certain victory for McCain. They may well be right. Cynics might even suspect some bigwig Republicans will rush to covertly finance Hillary’s campaign.

A friend gave me a birthday card. On the cover was a picture of President Hillary Clinton, sitting in the Oval Office. Inside, the card read, `see, there are things even scarier than your birthday!’

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2008

THE REPUBLICANS MAY STILL HOLD ON TO POWER

WASHINGTON DC - An aura of `fin de regime’ hangs over this imperial capitol, as eight years of Republican rule nears an end. All the lobbyists, consultants, deal-makers and journalists who feed off the Federal Government are now frantically scrambling to latch on to the new regime that will come in January, 2008.

Polls show Democrats way ahead of the beleaguered Republicans – so far. A majority of Americans are fed up with the Bush Administration’s foreign policy disasters and, increasingly, the seriously ailing economy which is slipping into recession. The massive frauds and outright criminal activity lying behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis is going to be squarely blamed on Republicans.

Unless there is a major terrorist attack on the US in coming months, the Republicans seemed doomed. At least they did until the 29 January Florida primary. Suddenly, Republicans see a glimmer of light at the end of their very dark tunnel: Sen. John McCain.

Conservative Republicans do not like the senator from Arizona, seeing him as too permissive over social and religious issues. Many moderate East Coast Republicans shudder when they listen to McCain propose decades of wars against the Muslim World, and sending more US troops to Iraq.

At a political rally last April, Sen. McCain led a chorus singing, `bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’ This act alone should have disqualified him from high office. But right wingers loved the senator’s bellicose song, and now hail him as the man who will really `unleash’ America’s military might.

Last summer, McCain’s candidacy seemed doomed when his campaign ran out of money. McCain held on, and is now the front-runner, with the robotic Mitt Romney snapping at his heels.

The humiliating defeat in Florida of former New York City mayor Rudi Giuliani also alters the dynamics of the primary race. Giuliani was primarily financed and supported by Republican Neoconservatives because of the ex-mayor’s hard line support of Israel. His neocon financial backers and advisors are now trying to climb aboard the McCain bandwagon. This will give McCain important new finance to battle Romney’s millions, and even more important media support.

Even so, with some 66% of voters saying they will vote Democratic in the November elections, Republican chances still seem dim. But this does not take into account the Hillary factor.

Senator Hillary Clinton still leads Barak Obama in the Democratic primary race. The next round of `super’ primaries, on 5 February, may cement her lead, unless Obama produces an upset.

Women like Hillary Clinton because of her image as a wronged wife and champion of female rights. A teary-eyed speech won her the woman’s vote in New Hampshire. But many men detest Hillary just as much. She represents to them everything they find distasteful in some women: deviousness, aggressiveness, underhandedness and unattractiveness.

Republicans are down on their knees praying Hillary will beat Obama. If she becomes the Democratic candidate, the Republican – now most likely led by John McCain – will probably beat her. No matter how angry American men are with the Bush Administration’s follies, they detest Hillary even more. They could very well hold their noses and vote Republican again.

Though just endorsed by the influential Kennedy family as anointed heir to the sainted President John Kennedy, Barak Obama must yet face an oncoming crisis. The internet is rife with accusations from rightwing know-nothings that he is a Muslim who will hand Washington over to al-Qaida and Taliban. But the debate over his religious roots has not yet hit the mainstream media in a meaningful manner.

So far, Obama has managed to get away with claiming he is a Christian and has no Muslim background. But it’s clear he does, having a Muslim father. When more Americans become aware of this awkward fact, Barak Obama could face an uphill struggle. Anti-Muslim prejudice is so high in America that even a Muslim grandparent could be the political kiss of death.

If Obama cannot evade this problem, or falters on 5 Feb, Hillary Clinton will become the Democratic candidate. Faced with widespread male disapproval, she could lead her party to defeat and the nation to another Republican victory. This time led by a hardliner who likes to sing about bombing Iran and was actually a war hero.
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OFFER’ PAKISTAN CAN’T REFUSE’

WASHINGTON DC – Could we be witnessing the beginning of yet another calamitous US foreign misadventure?

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated the US is `willing’ to send a `small number’ of US combat troops to Pakistan to fight the spreading insurgency in its Pashtun tribal areas.

US Special forces and CIA air and ground units have long staged incursions into Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas(FATA) along the Afghan border – in spite of denials by Washington and Islamabad. Under Pakistan’s Constitution, FATA is supposed to be autonomous and free of any troops, Pakistani or foreign.

Now, as the Afghan war turns increasingly against the US and its allies, Gates wants US Special Forces to `train Pakistani soldiers in counter-insurgency warfare’ and join them in combat against pro-Taliban tribesmen. Provided, says Gates, Islamabad `invites’ them. Increasingly isolated, unpopular, and ever more dependent on US support, President Pervez Musharraf may have no choice but to eventually accept an offer he cannot refuse.

Besides an act of political-military desperation, sending US combat troops into Pakistan’s wild FATA tribal zones is politically reckless and militarily foolish. They would soon be dragged ever deeper into Pakistan.

US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are already over-stretched and barely able to defend their own vulnerable supply lines. Incursions into Pakistan will pit US – and perhaps Canadian - forces against the same warlike Pashtun tribesmen they cannot defeat in Afghanistan.

Secretary Gates’ claim that Pakistan needs counter-insurgency training by US Special Forces is preposterous. This writer has repeatedly been in combat in Kashmir and on the Siachen Glacier with Pakistani regulars and special forces. As a former soldier and veteran war correspondent, I can attest that Pakistan’s 619,000-man armed forces, though poorly equipped due to US embargos, are among the world’s toughest, most capable and best trained.

Pakistan’s soldiers hardly need counter-insurgency training from a nation that suffered the humiliation of Vietnam and has failed to defeat guerillas in Afghanistan or Iraq. Nor do NATO troops in Afghanistan from Canada, the Netherlands or Britain, whom Secretary Gates recently ignorantly dismissed as lacking training in irregular warfare.

The Bush Administration should think deeply before committing US forces to a third conflict, this time against a powerful nation of 165 million seething with unrest, violence, and anti-Americanism.

Pakistan’s army, which has so far been `rented’ by billions in payments from Washington to fight Taliban and its allies, is showing increased reluctance to wage war on its own people. The entry of US troops into Pakistan could trigger a violent reaction from Pakistan’s military. This may include attacks on vital bases and convoys supplying US forces and NATO in Afghanistan, providing the 24/7 air cover without which they could not operate.

Nationalist elements in the armed forces are complaining bitterly of becoming `sepoys,’ as the British Raj termed its native troops, in Washington’s fight against violent anti-western groups. Pakistani Pashtun, who are prominent in the military and intelligence services, can be counted on to oppose any US action against their fellow Pashtuns in FATA.

Gates’ proposal conjures unwelcome memories of `mission creep’ from Vietnam, where the US diluted its forces and spread the war by moving into Communist `safe haven’ Cambodia. That operation was a strategic failure and led to the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge.

The idea of entering a third conflict when US military forces are stretched to the breaking point and the Treasury running on money borrowed from China and Japan is sheer folly.
Once US forces enter Pakistan, there will be no easy exit. The war-loving Pashtun will never stop fighting, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Given Washington’s growing entente with India, Pakistan’s military will very likely view US forces operating in their nation as foes, not friends.

Osama bin Laden has repeatedly stated his hope that the US will get sucked into a ruinous, debilitating conflict in Pakistan. Secretary Gates may be taking the first step.
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