News of the Empire
From The Times of India “Taliban’s Political Ace: A letter to Shanghai Group”
The Taliban sent a letter last week to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an Asian Co-Op headed by China and Russia, which includes the Stans as well as Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. According to this article, the letter shows that “that the Taliban are functioning as a unified organization, with a definite leadership, and feeling strong enough to seek negotiations as a political body” and highlights “the general perception that the SCO is intended to keep the US out of the Central Asian region”. The writers of the letter speak as a De Facto government of what they call “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, and the letter asks the SCO to come out against the “occupation” of Afghanistan and assist against would be colonialists. In return they offer to mind their own business and make peace with their neighbors.
Also in the NY Times “As Afghans Resist Taliban, US Spurs Rise of Militias”
So, we are inciting a civil war in Afghanistan. What else is new. Given that most experts agree that the Taliban is more and more comprised of locals who are angry and frustrated by the behavior of the occupying forces, and the difficulties of training an “Afghan” Army and Police Force that isn’t infiltrated by Taliban, why not just encourage anyone who wants to fight them. This may be a temporarily effective strategy to hurt our ‘enemies’, but doesn’t sound like a serious foreign policy to me.
Earlier this week in the NY Times: The Tab says “Pakistani Successes May Sway US Troop Decisions”
But the article is actually titled “Pakistani Military Encounters Little Fight as Militants Flee”. I’m assuming this doesn’t count as a ‘success’. The Pakistani Military showed off the massive destruction they had wrought to the international press, but they only had 7 casualties in 5 days so our government is concerned that they didn’t fight very hard. I wonder how the local people feel about this? The article goes on to say that the US is ‘concerned’ that they will call it a day, declare victory and make deals with all the rest of our enemies (oops, the Terrorists), without incurring enough casualties to call it a war. Apparently, the Empire has no use for political solutions in Pakistan.
In Today’s NY Times, “US Fears Iraqis Will Not Keep Up Rebuilt Projects”
This article raises many questions, and for better or worse, gives no hint of what should be done about the problem. The title refers to “rebuilt” projects, but the text talks about projects too sophisticated or expensive for the Iraqis to maintain. It points to the Iraqi’s lack of money for financing the maintenance of these projects, and lack of engineering capacity to operate them. Basic water and sewage projects don’t have to be too high tech for basic engineering competence. Hospitals without antibiotics, disinfectants and bandages don’t need high tech equipment and aren’t expensive. Furthermore, if Iraqis had been involved in the planning and implementation of their own infrastructure rehab program, then the projects would have people involved capable of carrying them forward. This is the result of bad planning and assistance provided without insight into what the problems really are.
Forget “We broke it. We bought it”. The oft repeated cliche is superficial and self centered. The fact is that we broke it, but there is no way the Iraqis are going to allow us to take it home. So, its time to start thinking about, and discussing with the Iraqis what a viable restitution would look like.
I was reading a not very interesting post on one of the English language news outlest from Kurdistan when a saw the ad. In Erbil, they are building an American style housing complex for the rich. You can buy an American style home, a Hawlerian Home (Kurdish name for Erbil) or a Palace. That’s a lot of wood construction in a place where it is previously unheard of. As for American style housing, I wonder what the shelf-life of wood is in the desert. I stayed in a beautiful part of Suleimaniya, but I saw people on the other side of town still living in piles of rubble, probably left over from the 80s. One might think that would be the place to begin construction, but the Kurds want to be Capitalists so they can be rich like us.
All the more so, in light of Mark Grueter’s recent post on Alexander Cockburn’s Counterpunch blog, Inside the American University of Iraq, where he says that the University, which is located in Suleimaniya, Kurdish Iraq, is not as it appears on it’s sophisticated web page which presents a fully functioning university with a diversity of students studying a broad range of subjects on beautiful buildings. Grueter says that in fact, there are only a few students, mostly Iraqis who meet in temporary shacks to study English so as to obtain the requisite skill for other learning. He ought to know, as he works there.
I was in Suleimaniya, Kurdish Iraq last summer, and I can attest to the fact that the people really do want to learn English. They want to be included in the world community, and they want access to the resources for learning that are in English. However, they haven’t got their program together for completing civil service projects, as numerous unfinished construction projects will attest. Furthermore, they have little access to basic resources for learning, like paper and pencils and working computers. They have high speed wireless internet routers, but they generally don’t have access to computer software that is up-to-date and viable. They get Windows knock offs from Syria, which fail when caught by registration drones online. Textbooks come from Iran, or are composed on a computer in Sorani Kurdish, then copied off on the printer or using a Xerox style copier. There is a mandatory public school system, which is great. What they need now is access to basic teaching resources.
UPI (United Press International) has “Arabs Go For Air Power to Counter Iran”
This is the war machine sustaining itself on thin air. The article says that Egypt, UAE, the Saudis and generally the ‘Moderate’ Arab states, as bizarre a misnomer as ever was spoken, are buying advanced airplanes, missiles etc to protect themselves from Iran. Iran has not threatened any of these countries in a very long time, and it isn’t a threat to them now, given that they are already armed to the teeth with American and Israeli super weapons. The article even says that Iran is no match for these countries in terms of air power, but goes on to say that they may need these weapons because Iran has a bigger ground force.
It occurs to me that the reason for Iranians substantial ground force, aside from the fact that Iran has a bigger population, is that the Iranians are actually willing to defend their country without exception, while the oppressed populations of some of these countries are not. But then it goes on to say that among the goodies they are going to receive are air to air missiles. But how will those help against a country with an inferior air force? I think, whatever we want to sell them, they’ll buy.
BBC Arabic (from Mosaic) reports Abbas Complains that Israel is Negotiating with Hamas
In the clip, Abbas seems a little put out. He is being thrown over, and the wolves are at the door. But, it isn’t any secret in Israel that the government is negotiating with Hamas. In September, Israel made a deal with Hamas to exchange 20 female Palestinian Prisoners for a video showing that captured soldier Gilad Shalit is alive and well. In today’s Haaretz, they have “President confirms ‘real progress’ in Shalit talks“. The talks in progress are securing a deal where Israel will trade 1,000 Palestinian Prisoners for Shalit. The numbers aren’t so far out when you consider that Hamas will be trading their only Israeli prisoner for only 1/12 of those Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
