Nine Muslim organizations held a protest in the capital recently slamming Congress for victimizing Muslims who they claim are innocent. This protest was evoked by Delhi police investigations into this month’s Delhi bomb blasts.

The phenomenon of protesting against security forces and police conducting enquiries in the light of clues obtained through investigating agencies is being increasingly communalized and politicized at various levels. The trend was first set two decades ago by Kashmir Islamic insurgency in which case people came out in multitudes to protest the arrest of a suspected collaborator with insurgents or their conduit. The media would jump into the fray and click shots that highlighted so-called victimization.

In the case of Jamia Nagar investigations and rounding up of two students of the Jamia Millia, no less a person than the Vice Chancellor has come out in open support of the inmates of the institution alleged to have links with the Delhi bombers. He has offered financial support towards the legal defence of the arrested students.

It is important to note that the law of the land is not blind to the necessity of assisting an accused in his legal defence, and the Jamia students would naturally and normally become the beneficiaries of this provision. The Vice Chancellor had no compulsion to join the issue unless he wanted to be in the limelight somehow or other. Moreover, though a central university is an autonomous body, it has to go by the norms set forth by the funding agency. Obviously, the UGC does not recommend its grants to be used for the defence of alleged criminals.

The Union HRD minister, more loyal than the king, has given a clean chit to the Jamia VC. Yet another cabinet minister has hinted that the government is considering imposing a ban on some Hindu rightist organizations like Bajrang Dal and RSS. This is UPA’s secular balancing. Incidentally, only a few days before the HRD Minister patted Jamia VC for his stand, the PMO had issued a missive to the Union HRD Minister to rein in the Jamia Vice Chancellor of Jamia, known Nehruvian alumni.

As the Jamia incident and Delhi blasts have made political position of HRD and Steel ministers farcical, it was expected that they would come out in support of the people who are protesting. After all we are going through the dark period of vote bank syndrome in this country.

Kashmiri leader Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, the patron of Peoples Democratic Party, has warned the Prime Minister of a dangerous situation developing in the country in which the Muslim community is subjected to discrimination and defamation. It is not his first open threatening. We should recall that in early 1990s, when armed insurgency erupted in Kashmir, and political process was derailed, the Mufti found a new constituency in Azamgarh to fight election for a seat in the Parliament. With the sordid story of Azamgarh as the hot bed of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, one can easily understand the commitment of the Mufti when he was taken as Home Minister in V.P. Singh government.

With extended links existing between the Muslim youth of Azamgarh working in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and the known anti-national elements back home, it is not something unusual to expect the Muslims of the region rise in protest against any punitive measure adopted by the government to curb crime.

Nobody says that all Muslims are terrorists: nobody says that all Muslims are anti-nationals and subscribe to the concept of Islamic Caliphate from Turkey to Indonesia. Nobody believes that Islam preaches violence. These are established facts. But the question is why are only Muslims involved in bomb blasts and terrorist activities in this country? A satisfactory answer has to be produced to this question.

Either there is dichotomy in what the ordinary Muslims preach and practice or there is a revolt within Islamic society in which the use of terror is made a legitimized instrument. That the terrorists are using Muslim localities and houses as hideouts, that they are using Muslim students and others as their informers and conduits, that the terrorist seek shelter in Muslim ghettos after they execute a terrorist attack, raise questions about the intentions of wider sections of Muslim community of India.

When community elders have the understanding that police investigations pick up innocent youth and a protest against this has to be made, have not they the responsibility of issuing instructions to the entire Muslim community not to give shelter to the terrorists if they are Muslims; not to assist their subversive schemes and conspiracies, not to provide them logistical support. Should not the suspected terrorist and their accomplices be isolated and made social outcasts (tark-i-mawalat)?

Islam is a religion of immense social reach. Historically speaking Muslims always show greatest regard to the ulema and learned theologians. They are the pathfinders. In the case of terrorism making dent in sections of Muslim youth in this country, the ulema and learned men have great responsibility of stepping in and stopping aberration which could lead to disaster.

Islamic terror from which not only the Indians but the Pakistanis as well are suffering, cannot be fought and eradicated by a state on its own. Civil society has to play its role to normalize civil life and inter-community relations.

The Deoband fetwa against terrorism is here. It has been hailed as a positive move by all nationalist forces in the country. But unfortunately, the write of the ulema that should have run in the length and breadth of the country, appears to have been lost in the great radical euphoria. It is a matter of serious concern to the Muslim community that the clear verdict of the ulma against terrorism has not stemmed the tide of terrorist subversion.

Indian Muslim community needs to take stock of this situation. It should not let people get the impression that either its anti-terrorism decree is hollow or an eye wash or that it is helpless before the radicalized mentality. Whatever be the case, it cannot absolve itself of its responsibility at this juncture.

There is another aspect to the issue. Instead of joining hands to protest police investigation process done under law, and instead of heading for a confrontational situation, the Muslim elders should have constituted mohalla committees in each Muslim locality to undertake house to house check so that terrorists and anti-national elements if any, are flushed out. The security personnel should have no difficulty in contacting the locality elders and receiving brief from them. Involvement of the community to a peace process and restoration of normal civil life is of much importance. This would reduce pressures on security forces, and in the process, no innocent person would be victimized.

Indian Muslim community is faced with the same situation that faces the contemporary Pakistani civil society with the difference that Indian Muslims have tasted and even drawn mileage from a well entrenched democratic and secular arrangement. They have not only become crucial to other political parties but have floated their candidates directly and won many seats in the assemblies and the parliament. They cannot afford to disregard the democratic option,

It is not the time of giving vent to pent up anger or hatred. Societies and nations are not run by anger and hatred. We need to overcome these evils. We need to be positive towards restoring confidence among people and streamlining relations between the administration and the administered.
(The writer is the former Director of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

Mr. Jagmohan’s write – up (Kashmir’s new danger April 12, 2007) asks for some vital clarifications. A letter will not do, hence a full write-up.

Shri Jagmohan is one most outstanding authority on contemporary Kashmir essentially first by virtue of being an astute scholar, and secondly having headed the J&K State twice, once in normal times and the next at a crucial time when armed insurgency broke out. Notwithstanding these unique qualifications, some basics of Kashmir history and psyche appear to have remained obscure to his searching eye.

In the first place it is a big fallacy to think that Kashmir had a tolerant Islam. It was never so. Muslim historians, pseudo-secular Hindus and some self-styled visionaries manipulated it. Works of Kashmiri Persian histories like Baharistan-i-Shahi (A.D. 1622) and Tohfatu’l-Ahbab (closing years of 16th century) and Tarikh-i-Kashmir of Peerzada Ghulam Hasan have remained inaccessible to most of Kashmir commentators including perhaps Jagmohan. These and other casual Persian histories give an insight into atrocities perpetrated on the Kashmiri Hindus from A.D 1339 to the end of the Pathan rule in circa A.D. 1797. For a long period of over four hundred years, Kashmiri Hindus have borne untold atrocities, forced conversion and circumcision and persecution at the hands of the local Muslim satraps, warlords and their engines of oppression. Never did a single Kashmri Muslim stand up to the tyrannical and bigoted rulers and goons demanding justice to the Hindu population.

What is termed as “tolerant Islam” of Kashmir, is actually the culture of forced tolerance, which the powerful and dominating Dogra regimes under Gulab Singh and Ranbir Singh (A.D. 1840 to 1897) enforced in the State through its muscle power. The Dogras understood well that the Kashmiris had to be disarmed of their strong and special weapon – - hypocrisy. From A.D. 1339 to 1947, Kashmiri Hindus have been spared the tyranny and persecution for just one hundred years of Dogra rule, A.D. 1846 to 1947. The ushering in of populist majority rule in 1947 in Kashmir on the foundation of forty-year long hate–Dogra (read Hindu) movement surreptitiously called “freedom movement” was the beginning of the destruction of the Pandit minority. The Constitution of India that accorded special status to the State of Jammu and Kashmir including Article 370, State Constitution and Flag, snatched away from the Pandit minority all that it gave to the Muslim majority. Independence opened the floodgate of anti-Pandit crusade, which finally culminated in 1990.

The story of atrocities, which Kashmiris perpetrated on the local Hindu and Sikh population in district Baramulla during the 15-day seizure by the Pakistani tribal hordes in Oct-Nov 1947 has been most discreetly, shrewdly and deftly made to submerge under the façade of Abdullah’s sham slogan of Hindu-Muslim-Sikh ittehad (unity). An independent agency has, during last two years, conducted a painstaking and in-depth research in these atrocities by interviewing the still surviving persons of 1947 tribal invasion in the then district of Baramulla. He has collected horrendous and hair - raising stories of massacre, rape, loot, arson, plunder, desecration of shrines and vandalising of temples all conducted by the locals with the minimal support of the armed tribesmen. The study has so far filled nearly a thousand pages of the draft manuscript as it deals with almost each village in Baramulla district where there was a sprinkling of Hindu households. The researcher has interviewed each family in fullest possible detail.

It is stated by the NC leaders that after repulsing the invaders from Baramulla in 1947, they exhorted the locals to dump on the roadside all the property they had looted from the Hindu households and that as a result, hundreds of dumps were raised and the looted property was retrieved and returned to the Pandits after identification. What a canard and what a white lie.? The first question is that NC accepts that hundreds of dumps were raised of looted Hindu property. This belies their claim that there was harmony between the two communities. Secondly, the heaps of retrieved goods that are so proudly stated, were nothing but heaps of empty cardboards, broken pieces of furniture, broken utensils, worn out rugs and mats, and of course huge quantities of books, which did not interest the looters at all. Therefore to claim that NC maintained communal harmony is a blatant canard and classical hypocrisy. Had just a dozen of tribesmen succeeded in entering the peripheries of the city of Srinagar, the entire Muslim population would have risen in their support as happened in Uri, Bonyar, Narwaw, Baramulla, Delina, Sopor, Handwara,, Langet, Bandipore, Pattan, Magam and Tangmarag towns. What is more interesting is that right from those days down to present day, which is a span of over 60 years, the leading national political party, Congress, and more importantly, the Leftists have never tired of eulogising NC and its leadership for maintaining so-called “communal harmony” during the raid on Kashmir.

As regards Nund Rishi of whom Jagmohan speaks so spiritedly, has anybody outside the Kashmir Islamic fold ever verified whether there was a personality in Kashmir that historically did exist in the shape and form in which his fans present him today? No never. Yes we have the Rishi Nameh, a short versified biography of the Rishis of Kashmir published by the Kashmir Cultural Academy. And what does it say about Nun Rishi? Anybody with even an elementary knowledge of Persian will shudder after reading the adventures of Nun Rishi Islamised as Shaykh Nuru’d-Din with the sobriquet of “Noorani” – - the enlightened. The biographer, out of his great devotion describes in full detail how Nund Rishi, accompanied by his musclemen, attacked the temple at Bumzov near Mattan, abused the Hindu chief priest, challenged him to miracles, threw cow hide on his idols, evicted him and finally succeeded in converting him to Islam. This activity resulted in demolishing the temple and erection of a mosque at the site. If this is the work of Rishis, and if this is for what Nund Rishi has to be praised and eulogised, I have nothing to say to Shri Jagmohan.

The events of 1990 resulting in the extirpation of the Pandit community from their land of birth, looting of their left-behind properties and forcible occupation of their assets, and declaring them as absconders (mufroor) in revenue records do not at all endorse the views of Jagmohan that there was harmony and that the Islam of Kashmir was anyway different from Islam in other parts of the non- Arab world.

The sugar – coated pills called “Kashmiriyat” or “moderate and tolerant Islam of Kashmir” etc. have been coined not by the Kashmiris but by the idealists (trishunka) who have all along tried to project Kashmir as India’s secularist model, and, ironically, at the cost of the minuscule Pandit religious minority.

Jagmohan has tried to evoke Mufti Saeed’s sense of responsibility by helping him remind his days as India’s Home Minister. It would have been in fitness of things if Jagmohan had also asked the Mufti to demand an enquiry into the attacks on Pandits in Anantnag district in 1986 when the Mufti was Congress chief. Such a demand becomes more relevant when even today fingers are pointing towards the Mufti. Indeed nobody knows better than Jagmohan the untold ins and outs of that shameful episode.

I have written this rejoinder only to set the historical rencored right. It is the responsibility of honest and impartial historians to state the facts of history.

(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, Srinagar).

The roots of Shia-Sunni jihad bedevilling Pakistan’s Punjabi dominated regions in general and more recently the Kurram Agency of FATA in particular, have to be traced in the deep – seated conflict and contradiction existing in traditional ideologues of the Shia and the Sunni sects of Islam ever since the tragic happenings in Kerbala in 7th century A.D. After the Arab conquest, Iran became predominantly Shia for several reasons. Her centuries old pre-Islamic monarchical mindset harking back to the days of great Achaemenian and Sassanian Empires, her dislike for Arab domination resulting in several anti- Arab revolts and uprisings, her rich and ennobling cultural heritage and national pride, her agriculture-oriented economy and entrenched feudalism, her organized and structured society as against a tribal and a nomadic way of life are some of the factors, which prompted Iranians to carve out their Shia (literally meaning weaning away from mainstream) identity and reinforce it through exceptionally studious, accurate and reasoned scholarship.

The Iranians wrested the leadership of the Islamic world when they ousted the first regular Sunni Ummayid caliphate and replaced it by the Abbasid Caliphate in the early 8th century A.D. Legendry Abbasid Caliphs at Baghdad, namely Haroon, Mamoon, Mansur, Mehdi and Mustansir all carried Iranian blood in their veins Their Prime Ministers from the House of Barmak (corruption of Sanskrit Pramukh) or the anglicised Barmecide were the Buddhist high priests of the famous Buddhist ministry, Navbahar (Nava Vihara) at Balkh – Bamiyan (present day Afghanistan). After conversion to Islam, they were carried by their captors to Baghdad and handed over to the Abbasids. The Barmecide (Baramakeh of Iranian historians) rendered the most valuable service to Islamic civilization by organising the House of Knowledge (baitaul hikma), actually a Translation Bureau, where the most celebrated works of great Greek philosophers were translated into Arabic.

Iran has always questioned the right of Saudi Arabia to act as the leader of the Muslim world. Protest is the first ingredient of Shia philosophy because they began with a protest against what they call illegal and unjust denial of caliphate to Ali and his progeny, the Imams. With the passage of time, geopolitical strategies sucked the two sects into its vortex. The first affront to Shia ideology came from the Sunni orthodoxy championed by Abdul Wahhab of Saudi Arabia (19th century) who, apart from radicalising the Sunni sect, lent his full support to Shah Saud in capturing power in Saudi Arabia and declaring himself the founder- king of his ruling dynasty. On the Iranian side, the first legendry figure to challenge Wahhabism and also monarchical system was Ayatollah Khumeini. After the successful Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979, and the formally declared agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Saudi’s met with a compulsion of providing their guns with adequate ammunition to counter the spread of Khumeini’s doctrine. Thus the secret agents of leading Sunni dominated countries with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the forefront, and morally and materially supported by the Americans, met and created the ar-Rabitu’l-Islami in Saudi Arabia as the nodal agency to conceive, plan, provide and execute what is known today International Theo-Fascism.

The US -launched pro-mujahideen and anti-Soviet agenda in Afghanistan was a part of Wahhabi sponsored International Theo-Fascism. It is true that the Wahhabis snatched away the Khumeinite concept of “Export of Islamic Revolution” from Iran’s hands and recast in their own mould. Iran was forced to withdraw into its shell for some time.

With Iranian economy partially stabilising under the clerical rule, and zero tolerance against the regime, Iran has come to a stage where she would like to re-assert herself if not as the leader of the Islamic world at least as a voice in that group, which cannot be ignored. The Americans have provided her the wherewithal to push her mission. Thus we find that Iran is actively involved in Lebanon, in Iraq, in some Gulf Emirates and also in Shia dominated parts of Afghanistan. Iran’s ambitions are further strengthened by her onward moving nuclear agenda particularly in the light of UN sanctions becoming ineffective and saner elements in the western world warning against the use of muscle power in Iran.

Interestingly, Iran and Pakistan have been trying to downplay the atrocities perpetrated on Shia minority in Pakistan. Although the Pakistani government may not be evincing interest in flaring sectarian violence but at the same time it is unable to tighten its control on Sunni Wahhabi radical groups in that country who have become a real threat to her integrity and solidarity. In Kurram, the Sunni Wahhabi Theo-Fascists gathered from Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Indonesia, and Bangladesh etc challenged the local Shia population’s dominance. Thus in a sense it is not only a Shia-Sunni conflict but also a strife of the indigenous Kurramis against foreign non-ethnic monopolists enjoying the largesse of Pakistan’s radical groups, intelligence agencies and the military-bureaucratic combine.

(The writer is the former Director of the Centre aof Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

Congress has its patent antics of making scapegoats and passing the buck on.

Buta Singh has been a Congress activist for the whole of his life. How can one become Mr. non-partisan over night more so when the same party had catapulted him into the seat of the Governor to which he owed allegiance and which was in power at the centre?

His functioning has been controversial nay partial from the very outset of his tenure as Governor. In fact he found his counterfoil in Mr. Sibte Rizvi who had been censured by the President for misuse of his high office in somewhat similar manner. Why Buta Singh refused to learn something by that episode is intriguing. There can be only one explanation that Congress is too arrogant a party to run the country in strict adherence to the demands of democracy.

Who can refute the premise that Governor Buta Singh consulted New Delhi before finalising his report on the dissolution of Bihar Assembly? He knew that if he chose to go by the ground reality, as it existed at that point of time, he would be landing in great trouble. What had motivated Buta Singh to play with his constitutional duty and obligation was his deep interest in preserving his position. What motivated the Council of Ministers to rush in wild haste to the doorsteps of the President at midnight was their recklessness in blocking the chance of a non-Congress majority in the assembly staking claims for the formation of a government.

Now that the Supreme Court has come out with a scathing criticism of the manner in which the Governor and the \union government handled the matter, the Congress has found it easy to make a scapegoat of Buta Singh. There are not buyers of the theory that he misled the Union cabinet.

The fact of the matter is that it is the Union Cabinet that misled the President, the parliament and the nation. Yet despite all this, the Union Cabinet has very brazenly passed on the buck and is now content with the statement that the Governor’s report carried weight.

This episode gives rise to both constitution; as well as ethical aspects of our democratic structure. The first question that attains great importance and ought to be debated in all intellectual circles in the country is whether a person with a life career in a particular political party should be the Governor? Can impartiality and justice be expected from him?

This also brings in another aspect of the whole issue. Is not the opposition justified in disrupting the sessions and the proceedings of the parliament/assembly when such gross violation of constitutional propriety is noticed?

The second question is this: Is there no role for the silent majority, the patriotic and law abiding civil society in such a situation where the representative of the Head of the State is showing callous disregard for constitutional propriety? Should the civil society remain a silent spectator and leave such important matters to the whims and fancies of editorials of newspapers many of who are insensitive to their professional responsibilities?

Evidently, the union cabinet cannot absolve itself of the responsibility it carries of giving a clean and honest administration to the nation. The cabinet could have handled the matter with more discretion, statesmanship and without infringing the constitutional obligation. \it could have waited till the President returned from his tour abroad. It could have asked expert legal opinion outside the cabinet. It could have recommended the summoning of the Governor for a crucial exposition of the ground situation in Bihar.

We do not say that the Prime Minister should have consulted the leader of the opposition and preferably the components of the UPA government on non-official level also. Any ruling political coalition that really cared for cementing the constitutional basis of the Indian nation would have certainly taken the opposition into confidence even if it doing so had no precedent.

The fact is that the situation in Bihar was extraordinary. That had been demonstrated by the rather drastic treatment, which the EC had to mete out to those who wanted to trivialize the election process. The law and order situation in the state was tenuous. As such it was only in the fitness of things that the union government took the opposition into confidence. Alas that did not happen.

The government in Bihar will go on with its tenure but the whole nation must sit down and ponder what lessons this unique episode has brought us. We need constitutional remedy for such happenings and we need moral standards resurrected if we want that our democracy should become strong and pervasive. The nation and its leading political parties have to learn from the ignominious exit of Bihar Governor.

The End.

Washington D.C. October 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted a series of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses, one of which is the subject of the first trial of Saddam which begins tomorrow in Iraq.

The first set of charges concerns Saddam’s responsibility, along with seven co-defendants, for the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiites in Dujail, a town 35 miles north of Baghdad, after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Saddam. Procedures for the trial are the subject of significant controversy, as reported by the New York Times’ John Burns today. The Archive’s posting gives a preview of the evidence that the U.S. government may be providing to the trial process.

Saddam may face up to a dozen trials for crimes alleged to have been committed by his regime - among them the gassing of Kurds in Halabja and the suppression of a Shiite uprising in the south. However, in September it was reported that the Iraqi government may waive further proceedings if Saddam is convicted in the first trial, a conviction which could bring the death penalty. (Note 1)

During his years in power, the U.S. Intelligence Community produced estimates and studies of Iraq’s foreign and defense policies, its military capabilities and activities, and analyses of the regime’s domestic policies and actions. Other U.S. agencies, both before and after the termination of Saddam’s rule, also produced reports on the regime’s internal activities.

The collection below contains a number of documents produced by U.S. agencies over the last thirty years concerning the Iraqi regime’s policies and activities directed at maintaining itself in power and eliminating or neutralizing opposition to the regime.

Documents:

Document 1: NIO/Middle East, The Implications of the Iran-Iraq Agreement, May 1, 1975. Secret - Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 2: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 36.2-1-79, Iraq’s Role in the Middle East, June 21, 1979. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 3: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 34/36.2-82, Implication of Iran’s Victory Over Iraq, June 8, 1982. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 4: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 36.2-83, Prospects for Iraq, July 19, 1983. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 5: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services, August 1985, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 6: Central Intelligence Agency, Political and Personality Handbook of Iraq, January 1991, Secret, Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room;

Document 7: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Domestic Impact of the War, January 25, 1991, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 8: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Implications for Insurrection and Prospects for Saddam’s Survival, March 1991, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act;

Document 9: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 36-2-91, Iraq: Saddam Husayn’s Prospects for Survival Over the Next Year, September 1991, Secret, Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room;

Document10: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 92-7, Saddam Husayn: Likely to Hang On
June 1992, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act;

Document 11: Central Intelligence Agency, Special Intelligence Memorandum, Humanitarian Situation in the Marshes, August 20, 1993, Top Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document12: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 93-42, Prospects for Iraq: Saddam and Beyond, December 1993, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 13: Department of State, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, September 1999, Unclassified, Source: Dpartment of State;

Document 14: Director of Central Intelligence, Putting Noncombatants at Risk: Saddam’s Use of “Human Shields”, January 2003,Unclassified, Source: Central Intelligence Agency;

Document 15: U.S. Agency for International Development, Iraq’s Legacy of Terror: MASS GRAVES, January 2004,Unclassified, Source: Agency for International Development.

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 167. For more information contact Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000.

The parties are trying to reach agreement on a set of principles to guide negotiations that will lead to the dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear program and the threat it poses of a destabilizing North Korean nuclear weapons arsenal. This will be the fifth round of these talks, which were initiated at the invitation of China in 2003 to address the crisis created in October 2002 when U.S. envoy James Kelly accused the DPRK of violating the terms of the 1994 Framework Agreement that was supposed to halt that nation’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for provision of light water reactors to North Korea to meet its growing need for energy. Since 2002, North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT and earlier this year claimed to have nuclear weapons, the number of which has been placed at six by U.S. and other intelligence sources.[1]

The fourth round of talks recessed on August 7 after nearly two weeks of meetings, a record, to provide time for the six governments, North Korea in particular, to consider the issues which were standing in way of agreement. Among the motivations observers saw for North Korea to agree to these talks was the country’s increasing need for energy to power mechanized farming equipment and to produce fertilizer, key to addressing the country’s worsening food shortages. The key sticking point deadlocking the recent round of talks was North Korea’s insistence that it be allowed to pursue a civilian nuclear energy program under the proposed agreement, something the U.S. has branded a deal-breaker in light of Pyongyang’s violation of the 1994 agreement, though South Korea has gone on record as agreeing North Korea has a right to a civilian nuclear program. Though U.S. and other diplomats expressed encouragement based on the length of the talks and the serious approach they saw North Korea taking to the talks, additional complicating factors were North Korea’s continued insistence that any agreement include a U.S. commitment to remove its nuclear threat to North Korea, a threat the U.S. insists is non-existent, the question of future aid for North Korea, and Japan’s insistence that Pyongyang return abducted Japanese nationals and turn over their abductors. [2]

These talks illustrate a set of recurring themes and issues that run through the efforts by the U.S. and its partners to bring North Korea to the bargaining table and secure a binding commitment that will effectively end the nuclear threat posed by the DPRK. First of course is the challenge of reconciling North Korea’s emphasis on addressing what it sees as the bilateral security issue between itself and the U.S. with the emphasis placed by the U.S. and its negotiating partners on multilateral talks in which North Korea’s neighbors take much of the lead in pressing North Korea to come to an agreement. Second is the challenge of coordinating national positions among the U.S. and its partners, highlighted by the apparent split between Washington and Seoul on the legitimacy of Pyongyang’s desire for a civilian nuclear energy program. Third is the role played by North Korea’s economic situation in pushing that nation to the negotiating table and any eventual agreement.

The challenges of negotiating with North Korea are many, key among them trying to probe the inner workings of a regime that was for so long viewed as reclusive, paranoid and highly unpredictable, even to its erstwhile Cold War allies, Russia and China.[3] In an effort to shed new light on how the U.S. viewed North Korea and sought to deal with this enigmatic country, the National Security Archive’s Korea Project is seeking declassification of key documents going back to the Nixon administration that provide significant new evidence on policy deliberations within the U.S. government and with allies, and on the policy goals regarding North Korea that were pursued by three decades of U.S. administrations. To provide additional background for the upcoming resumption of the 6-Power Talks, the Archive is today posting a collection of documents dating from the first Bush and Clinton administrations that illustrate how the themes, issues and challenges seen in the current talks have echoed through prior policy discussions. Among the notable points highlighted by these documents are:

The cycles of optimism and pessimism in U.S.-North Korean relations. The first document demonstrates the optimism, albeit cautious, that marked the view of the Bush I State Department about the prospect for continued positive negotiations with North Korea as the administration came to a close in 1992. By mid-1993, this optimism would be replaced by bewilderment at North Korea’s reversion to a hard-line regarding its nuclear program. The cycle would continue through the low point of the 1993-94 nuclear crisis, only to move back toward cautious optimism following the 1994 Framework Agreement and the start of peace talks. Relations would reach another high point with the North-South Korean summit and Secretary Albright’s trip to Pyongyang in 2000, only to collapse again two years later with the revelations about Pyongyang’s cheating under the 1994 agreement.

The emphasis during the first Bush and Clinton administrations on pursuing a multilateral approach to the North Korean problem, both in terms of addressing the nuclear problem and the larger issue of a peace settlement for the peninsula. This delicate and complex balancing act created problems at home and abroad, such as:

The complaint voiced in one document that Washington was being whipsawed between the calls of allies such as South Korea and Japan for pursuing diplomatic solutions to the North Korean problem, and domestic pressures to take a hard line.

The struggle to design a forum for discussing a framework for working on a peace treaty that would give the two Koreas the lead in reaching a peace settlement, yet also protect the interests of the other major powers such as China and Russia.

The U.S. desire to preserve the ability to deal with North Korea directly on a bilateral basis to address issues such as missile sales or terrorism that would be free of “ROK manipulation,” as one document put it.

Assessments of North Korea’s leadership, its rationality and ability to survive economically or politically also swung between optimism and pessimism. This can be seen in:

The double-edged sword of North Korea’s dire economic situation, which was seen as helping to motivate Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table, but which, if left unchecked, could lead to disastrous consequences in the event of a total North Korean collapse. This pitted humanitarian against diplomatic considerations, and led the U.S. to work with South Korea to “prevent the precipitate collapse of the DPRK, since it would present unacceptable military risks and economic costs…”

Assessments of North Korea’s social and political resiliency in the face of continued economic hardship, which one analysis attributed to the “continuing strength of their family-centered Confucian value system,” as well as to the belief North Korea’s economic woes were grounded in millennia of imperialistic designs upon the nation.

The fascinating argument put forward by Stapleton Roy, long-time State Department Asia hand, that took issue with the image of North Korea’s leaders as illogical and unpredictable. In assessing the historic summit meeting between the two Korean leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il in June 2000 for Albright, Roy stressed that she must realize the significant degree of continuity in North Korean policies dating back to the period of Kim Il Sung, policies that he said were not ideologically rigid, but able to change in response to changing circumstances on the Korean peninsula. Roy attributed the continued survival of North Korea, “independent and prickly,” to this adaptable foreign policy, which he argued Kim Jong Il had helped to shape during his father’s rule.

Following their October 2000 meetings, Secretary Albright described Kim Jong Il as, “someone who is practical, decisive, and seemingly non-ideological.”
Documents Nr. 1 - 20 in PDF and footnotes are awailable on this site.

WHEN Saudi Arabia’s ruler King Fahd died after a prolonged illness on August 1, his last rites were performed according to strict and austere Wahabi traditions. But one person who reacted as though his beloved uncle had died and mourned publicly, was Pakistan’s General Musharraf, who promptly declared one week’s state mourning

and became the first non-Arab ruler of a Muslim country to rush to Saudi Arabia for the last rites of the Saudi monarch.
What prompted this show of grief and solidarity by General Musharraf who had visited Saudi Arabia only a few weeks earlier? Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now in the same boat on issues of global terrorism. The ISI continues to provide support to the Taliban and jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose cadres are being arrested worldwide for inciting and promoting terrorism. There is also evidence that Saudi “charities” like the Al Harmain Islamic Foundation, the International Institute for Islamic Thought and the International Islamic Relief Organisation continue to fund extremist and terrorist activities worldwide, undermining peace and harmony in pluralistic societies.
King Abdullah, who has just ascended the throne in Saudi Arabia, is respected as a moderate. The same, however, cannot be said of other members of the royal family, including those of the powerful Sudairi clan who have controlled the levers of power and defied Abdullah even when he was the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Influential royals of the Sudairi clan like the Governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, have funded extremist Islamist causes worldwide. Prince Salman channeled large funds to Islamic extremist groups in Bosnia. He also provided arms and training to Chechen rebels. King Fahd’s “favourite” son, Prince Abdul Aziz (popularly known as Azouzi), sent millions of dollars through a known associate of Osama bin Laden to “slaughter Russian soldiers and civilians alike” in Chechnya. Azouzi also transferred huge sums of money to countries like Germany, Spain and the US for Wahabi Islamic causes that preach hatred of the West.
His love for opulence is such that he was permitted by an indulgent father to spend $4.6 billion for constructing a palace outside Riyadh. One of America’s leading experts, Mr Robert Baer, who was formerly in the CIA, states that Saudi Arabia is ruled by “an increasingly bankrupt, criminal, dysfunctional royal family that is hated by the people it rules.’’
Rather than coming down heavily on the Saudi elite after 9/11, the Bush Administration has chosen to tread cautiously. Humanitarian causes dear to influential people like Mrs Barbara Bush and Mrs Nancy Reagan have been funded by the Saudi royals. Influential Americans like Vice-President Dick Cheney, Mr George Schultz, Mr James Baker, Mr Colin Powell and Dr Henry Kissinger have all been associated with companies like the Carlyle Group and Haliburton that deal extensively with Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis are estimated to have invested over $500 billion in the US. They remain a major buyer of American arms and are the largest supplier of oil to the US. They have also played ball with the Americans in keeping global oil prices at levels that the Americans find acceptable. But while the Bush Administration has avoided public criticism of the links of Saudi royals with international terrorism, American writers like Robert Baer, Gerald Posner and Craig Unger have been given access to information about their terrorist links.
Gerald Posner recently revealed that when the FBI captured a top Al-Qaeda terrorist, Abu Zubaydah in Faisalabad, Zubaydah revealed that his contacts in Saudi Arabia were Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a wealthy royal with a passion for race horses, Prince Sultan bin Turki al Saud, a nephew of King Fahd, and Prince Fahd bin Turki, another relative of the monarch. Zubaydah told his American interrogators that the royal family struck a deal with Al-Qaeda for the latter not to target it. He also revealed that Prince Ahmed was informed beforehand that Al-Qaeda was planning to strike on American targets on September 11, 2001.
Zubaydah further revealed that Al-Qaeda had also struck a deal with the Pakistani military. Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir was informed of the impending attacks on the US on 9/11. The Bush Administration has remained silent on these allegations. More ominously, Prince Ahmed died mysteriously in his sleep a few weeks after Zubaydah’s revelations. His cousin Prince Sultan bin Turki died the next day in a “car accident”. Prince Fahd bin Turki died mysteriously a week later of “thirst” while he was said to be driving in the desert. Finally, Air Chief Marshal Mir died in a mysterious air crash in Pakistan. According to Posner, the air crash is believed to have been an act of sabotage.
Just as Pakistan and China are partners in nuclear and missile proliferation, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are partners in global terrorism. Mosques and jihadi-oriented madarsas in both countries spout anti-western venom. Terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba have links in Saudi Arabia. This is evident from the phone calls made by Lashkar militants operating in India to contacts in Saudi Arabia. But the Pakistani-Saudi nexus goes beyond terrorism. The Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported in July 2000 that Saudi Arabia was sending 150,000 barrels of oil per day virtually free of cost to Pakistan. Such supplies, currently valued at $3.2 billion annually, continue.
Robert Baer has reported that the US has known about nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia since 1994. Defence Minister Prince Sultan was given unprecedented access to Pakistan’s nuclear facilities in Kahuta in May 1999. Dr. A.Q. Khan visited Saudi Arabia shortly thereafter. According to Pakistani writer Amir Mir, General Musharraf’s visit to Saudi Arabia on June 25-26 was primarily to discuss how to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to information about the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia nuclear nexus. Saudi Arabia is resisting pressures to adhere to the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, a Protocol that Iran has been compelled to accept.
Saudi Arabia has been a consistent supporter in the OIC of Pakistan’s protégés in the Hurriyat Conference in Jammu and Kashmir. One, however, sincerely hopes that King Abdullah will avoid going down the path chosen by General Musharraf. No country can insulate itself from the inevitable consequences of sponsoring jihad and extremism abroad while piously proclaiming its abhorrence of such causes. Words necessarily have to be matched by deeds.
11 August 2005)

Emboldened by the success of 1979 Islamic revolution culminating in the dismissal of monarchy in Iran, , Ayatollah Khumeini began mounting criticism against the Saudi monarchy calling it unlawful and hence non-acceptable to Islamic community. Once again the Saudi monarchy was obliged to invoke political-social support of Wahhabism, this time to counter the rising popularity of Khumeinism. Thus Wahhabism resurfaced and with vengeance not only to overshadow Iran’s rising Islamic crescendo but also to sensitise vast Sunni Muslim world to the puritanical Islam of its early days. When the Americans made good use of this sensitivity in their geopolitical strategies, there was no stopping to the adventures of radicalised Sunni-Wahhabi Islamic groups. These groups have now come to be called terrorits.

This is not the first time that anti-monarchy terror has struck in the holy kingdom. The American military camp was the first to the targeted two years ago and, thereafter, some installations and government buildings were blasted. The Al-Qaeda said it fights against the presence of the Americans in Saudi Arabia..

However, Saudi government always tried to underplay the events of Islamic terrorism on its soil and even often blacked out the news, Its compulsions are obvious.

There are numerous reports stating that through its strong intelligence network, the Saudi monarchy has been funding Muslim extremist groups in different parts of the world to forcefully propagate Wahhabi ideology, particularly in countries where the Muslims are in a minority. Most of the Islamic seminaries (madrasah) in many countries receive funding through organizations connected to Medina based al-Rabita al Islami, the core organization disseminating Wahhabi ideology.

The method of propagating Wahhabi ideology essentially to raise cadres of crusading ideologues differs from country to country. Nevertheless, the ultimate objective steadfastly adhered to remains the same - -the modern Islamic Caliphate.. Thus Islamization process in Indonesia has its own local version and Uzbekistan its own.

A couple of days earlier,400 bomb blasts in one day came as a big shock to the people of Bangladesh (not debated in the media). The blasts may not have caused much human loss, yet loud and clear was the message of the perpetrators that if the constitution was not replaced by orthodox Islamic sharia law, Bangladesh government could be in for a major crisis. Already several million non-Muslim Bangladeshi nationals have fled to West Bengal or Assam regions because conditions of safety and security had dismally deteriorated in their native towns and villages.

Secularism is not an article of faith either with the Saudi or with the Bangladeshi governments. These two countries have their own governments and their own laws, whatever these be, but never at variance with Islam.. As such, the terrorism there is not what may be stated a “freedom movement”. It is simply theo-fascism let loose by the perpetrators..

.It, therefore, follows that reasons like economic backwardness and disparity, alienation, dispossession, unemployment etc. are not the root cause of terrorism in contemporary times. There is something beyond these factors that generates the will to kill and get killed.

At the United Nations, experts are engaged in providing a cut and dried definition of terrorism. They agree that a precise definition is elusive. However, the definition comprises two parts each running into the other. One part is what is terrorism and the other is what does it want to achieve. To say that it wants to create dread and fear or that it wants to topple the governments is saying half the truth.

This definition falls short of hard reality. Certainly it is not wholesome. From the two examples of Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, it becomes sufficiently clear that the objective of religion-based terrorism is to forge the supremacy of Islamic orthodoxy.

Again to say that only a handful of Muslims are involved in the act is a very loose statement. The terrorists project themselves as defenders of Islam and consider themselves catalysts in the realisation of Islam’s global supremacy both as an ideology and as political power. No Muslim will and can challenge this stand. Therefore, in ideological terms, Muslims all over the world are solidly behind the pioneers of contemporary Islamic resurgence movement remarkably depending on violence as the arbiter.

Now remains the crucial question of violence. This has to be understood without an emotion. The role of brute force as a decisive factor in shaping the destiny of a people is excellently stated by Iqbal, the thinker who had floated the idea of a separate state for the Muslims of the sub-continent.. He says

main tum ko batata hun taqdir-e umam kya hai
shamsheer o sinan awwal tawus o rabab akhir
(Let me tell you what the destiny of a nation is
it is the sword and the lance first and the lute and the flute last)

There have been demonstrations in Srinagar and other towns of Kashmir valley against the verdict by the separatists. Interestingly, demonstrations against. The decision of the apex court began from the defenders of the law of the land meaning the Srinagar bar association itself. Separatist groups and organizations including those who want to be called moderates took the clue from the bar association and made demonstrations. The police and security forces had to swing into action to protect the civilian population from being vandalised.

APHC, the ideological front of separatism has given a call for a general strike on August 8 in a bid to galvanise Kashmirian society into solidarity against the verdict of the apex court. The coalition partners of the APHC have also in separate statements called the verdict as a measure to suppress the “freedom movement” in Kashmir. An atmosphere of expression of disapproval of the SC is steadily built to accentuate the alienation process.

This environment is created at a time when the peace process is pursued with all seriousness and in the course of things, some movement forward has already been made. What bearing will it have on that hard earned achievement remains to be seen?

Going by the repeated statements of the Hurriyat, its affiliates and other separatist groups, violence is to be eschewed in finding a lasting solution to Kashmir problem. Taking the spirit of this assertion into consideration, it is obvious that there are only two ways of preventing further violence. One is that of amnesty for all indulging in acts of violence so that they are provided an opportunity to rejoin the national mainstream. The other and rather unavoidable way is to allow the law of the land take is natural course.

New Delhi offered ceasefire to the militants in Kashmir, which they spurned. It offered to talk to them if they eschewed arms but they spurned the offer. In regard to second option, the union as well as the state government never circumvented the law of the land in dealing with persons against whom there are criminal cases. As stated at the outset, all legal formalities were completed without the smallest lapse or negligence while the case was heard and all possible opportunities of defence were allowed to the accused.

The verdict came in complete compliance of the law of the land. It has to be noted that the Supreme Court hopefully did not deliver the judgement keeping in mind that the country’s highest law making body had been attacked. What the honourable court concentrated upon was that security personnel on duty were gunned down without any provocation with the intention of entering the parliament and gunning down a large number of MPs. Thus there was a clear case of murder against the assailants. Therefore the law took its ordinary course and now the verdict has come.

Where does all this leave any scope for protests and demonstrations? Where does this show that the “freedom movement” is suppressed? Where does it show that an irregularity is done?

Obviously those who are now demonstrating against the verdict or are instigating others to assemble in numbers and stage dharna and strike are challenging the authority and sovereignty of the Supreme Court of India.

Terrorism has spread to many parts of the country. Many terrorists have been captured tried punished and hanged or sent to long imprisonments. This is because the state promises to protect the life and property of its citizens. But challenging the law of the land means politicising the criminal procedure and intimidating the highest fountain of justice. No civilized society will allow it. And if it allows, it is not a civilized society nor is it having a just administration. Political leadership and political movements do not mean they have the freedom of committing crimes and politicising their law breaking activities. In the present case justice had to be done to those whose right to life was denied. In doing so, the human rights of the culprits were fully taken into consideration.

A true freedom fighter may be lionised. A true freedom fighter having suffered oppression and suppression may become Nelson Mandela of his times. But a murderer is a murderer when he makes an elaborate plan to attack his targets meaning human beings.

The separatists in Kashmir shall have to see that the law and politics are not mixed-up. A legally constituted government is bound to enforce the verdict of its highest court of law whose judges have been appointed by the President of India through an established procedure. The law of the land still leaves the option of appeal for mercy open to the aggrieved. This is yet the last attempt to ensure that a fair deal has been given and the law of the land has not been abused.

The verdict should have evoked a constructive response of appealing the militants to refrain from acts of violence that deprive innocent human beings the right to enjoy existence.

The games are expected to involve Russia’s Il-76 transport planes with paratroopers, Tu-95MS bombers firing cruise missiles at targets in the sea and Su-27SM fighter jets simulating coverage of ground forces. Russian and Chinese military leaders, including defense ministers as well as Russian Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky and his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie, are expected to attend the drills.

The exercises were first mentioned in a memorandum of understanding between Chinese Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in July 2004. The countries first revealed such plans in December 2004, when Ivanov visited China.

The maneuvers would largely focus on anti-terrorist drills, deputy commander-in-chief of Russia’s ground troops, Colonel General Vladimir Moltenskoi, said this week. According to the war-games scenario, a fictitious state becomes plagued by terrorist violence and seeks assistance from neighboring states (ie Russia and China) to restore law and order. However, it has been argued that strategic bombers and submarines are hardly necessary for anti-terrorist drills.

It is hardly a coincidence that Russia and China have invited observers from four other governments in the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstanto - to attend the war-games. The group officially aims at fighting Islamic militants in Central Asia, but the war-games scenario, the would-be restoration law and order, looks like a practice for a joint intervention to keep a friendly regime in power.

Earlier this year, Kyrgyzstan underwent a regime change following mass riots, while Uzbekistan managed to quell an uprising. As speculation swirls about yet another “color (non-violent) revolution” in strategically important Kazakhstan, Russia and China presumably do not mind indicating that they have joint capabilities to intervene.

The maneuvers are also viewed as a message to the US, as both Russia and China are keen to sustain and expand their influence in Central Asia, confronting global dominance by Washington. July’s summit of SCO in the Kazakh capital of Astana seemingly served the same purpose. The SCO nations not only suggested the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan announce a timetable for withdrawal, they also issued a declaration demanding, among other things, a limit on outside interference in nations’ internal affairs.

The SCO declaration, as well as a bilateral Russian-Chinese declaration on “World Order in the 21st Century” adopted on July 2, did not mention the US directly. However, these documents are understood to target perceived US domination in international affairs. Both declarations reiterated the principles of mutual respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression and non-interference.

Moreover, following the SCO demand to the US-led coalition forces to declare a timetable for withdrawal from Uzbek and Kyrgyz bases in the region, Uzbekistan revealed a decision to order the closure of the Karshi-Khanabad air base, used for US operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Russian-Chinese war games also take place against a backdrop of the freshly minted Chinese anti-secession law on Taiwan. During a trip to China in March, Baluyevsky said that Russia was against any form of Taiwan independence, but he denied allegations that the forthcoming exercises were meant as practice for a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Not surprisingly, Russian officials have been keen to deny that the drill planners had the Taiwan issue in mind. Ivanov has said that Russia did “not care” about other countries’ concerns over the exercises. “The exercises will take place thousands of kilometers from Taiwan, precisely on the Shandong peninsula,” Ivanov said.

Russian media outlets claim that a major row erupted between China and Russia over the location for the exercises. It was claimed that Russia had pushed for Xinjiang, due to its proximity to Central Asia. This location would allow Russia to highlight the importance of its air force base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan.

However, Beijing allegedly rejected the proposal, and instead suggested Zhejiang, a coastal province near Taiwan. Exercises in this area would look too provocative and trigger a strong reaction not only in Taiwan, but in the US and Japan. Due to Russia’s insistence, the exercises were thus shifted some 500 miles to the north to the Shandong peninsula.

In the meantime, Russia is understood to have a commercial agenda for the war games as it hopes to sign a massive arms deal with Beijing, and the exercises will be a perfect place to showcase what’s available. Last January, Moscow hinted it could sell advanced strategic weapons to China, including Tu-22M3 bombers, known as Backfire in the West.

Sergei Blagov covers Russia and post-Soviet states, with special attention to Asia-related issues. He has contributed to Asia Times Online since1996. Between 1983 and 1997, he was based in Southeast Asia. In 2001 and 2002, Nova Science Publishers, NY, published two of his books on Vietnamese history.

Seeking to prevent any further damage to Washington’s position in the “Great Game”, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to the region to shore up support for maintaining American bilateral agreements with the key players. This was followed by Uzbekistan announcing a deadline for US withdrawal from a military base in its territory. These moves indicate that even though fighting in Afghanistan has yet to cool down, the traditional power politics of Central Asia are heating up.

China and Russia combine

Before the SCO meeting, Russia’s and China’s leaders met at the Kremlin on July 1 to discuss their goals in Central Asia and the upcoming G8 summit. The meeting signaled a shift toward greater cooperation between the two states, completely solved their long-standing border disputes from the legal perspective and laid the foundation for greater integration of their state-controlled oil companies and banking sectors. One reason that the atmosphere in the Kremlin was so unusually amiable was the perception that a shared threat loomed larger than their differences in policy goals; that threat was Washington’s role in Central Asia.

The “Joint Statement of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation Regarding the International Order of the 21st Century”, signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 2, addresses US hegemony in several less-than-oblique passages. The text emphasizes “non-interference in internal affairs”and “mutual respect” for other nations’ “sovereignty”, and stresses the role of “multipolarity” in dealing with conflicts.

In a passage aimed at Washington’s perceived encroachment in Central Asia, the document states, “The peoples of all countries should be allowed to decide the affairs of their own countries, and world affairs should be decided through dialogue and consultation on a multilateral and collective basis. The international community should thoroughly renounce the mentality of confrontation and alignment, should not pursue the right to monopolize or dominate world affairs, and should not divide countries into a leading camp and a subordinate camp.” This last statement could also easily be read as a preemptive dismissal of the G-8 on the eve of the Scotland meeting. Though Russia is now a member and China an observer of the grouping, they feel that the organization is dominated by the West’s agenda.

This dismissal of Western-style multilateralism is further expanded in a passing broadside aimed at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their emphasis on reform in exchange for aid or loans: “The international community should establish an economic and trade regime that is comprehensive and widely accepted and that operates through the means of holding negotiations on an equal footing, discarding the practice of applying pressure and sanctions to coerce unilateral economic concessions, and bringing into play the roles of global and regional multilateral organizations and mechanisms.”

Beijing and Moscow resent the West demanding economic reforms before further integrating China and Russia into the existing globalization power structures. They wish to present an alternative marketplace for developing countries to sell their goods - one that does not tie economic access to reform or transparency. China has been able to successfully use the widely expected expansion of its domestic market to sell this alternative source of revenue to countries irked by the IMF or World Bank, from South America to Africa. Now it hopes to further cement such a relationship with the states of Central Asia.

In the joint statement, China and Russia sent a clear message to the other members of the SCO - Washington poses a threat to Central Asia’s sovereignty; China and Russia can offer a similar economic and security package, only it will be designed to preserve the current status quo not to encourage market economies or democratic reforms. Fearing future waves of “color” revolutions in the region, these states were eager to receive this message.

A bigger and stronger SCO

On July 5, the members of the SCO - China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - met in Astana, Kazakhstan to discuss the changing political situation in Central Asia. While previous meetings focused nearly exclusively on the “three evil forces” - terrorism, separatism and extremism - and were dominated by China’s desire to control the Uighur population in its Xinjiang region and protect its access to energy resources, this meeting demonstrated that the organization, which represents nearly 50% of the world’s population, desires to be a serious force in international affairs. This can be seen in the granting of observer status to India (at Russia’s request), Pakistan (at China’s insistence) and Iran (to the delight of all members).

The environment of the SCO meeting was most influenced by the reaction to Uzbekistan’s violent suppression of the May rebellion in Andijan. Western criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s tactics brought to the surface fears that the clan-based governments of Central Asia might fall in a wave of “color” or non-violent revolutions, similar to that of Ukraine’s “orange” revolution. Russia and China provided blanket support for Karimov after the suppression, while Washington could only offer nuanced criticism, fearing that intense criticism of Karimov would result in the loss of access to the Karshi-Khanabad air base, or K2, used to support US operations in Afghanistan; nevertheless, the loss of this base now appears a likely scenario.

Washington’s criticism was enough to spread fear throughout the ruling clans of Central Asia that the US is engaged in covert operations to undermine or overthrow the current ruling regimes. This fear does not even escape Kyrgyzstan’s subsequently elected government - which swept into power in a similar manner as Ukraine’s government - because its support still rests on a shaky foundation of clan alliances.

In this environment, the SCO sought to limit Washington’s presence in the region - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan shifted their support to China and Russia in order to protect their sovereignty from US meddling. The joint declaration issued at the end of the summit took aim at Washington by rejecting attempts at “monopolizing or dominating international affairs” and insisting on “non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states”. The members further urged the US-led forces in Afghanistan to declare a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Uzbek and Kyrgyz bases in the region that were established to support the Afghan operations. The Central Asian states see it in their interests to fill the power vacuum that the withdrawals would create with that of China and Russia, which they believe would better ensure the longevity of their regimes.

Top US General Richard B Myers summed up Washington’s interpretation of the shift in blunt terms: “It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries.” Ten days later, Rumsfeld landed in Kyrgyzstan to ensure that the world’s only superpower wasn’t elbowed out of the region.

Washington pushes back

The US secretary of defense’s visit to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan was aimed at shoring up support for the continuation of the US military presence in each country, which was successful at least for the mid-term. Kyrgyzstan hosts a US military base at the Manas air base, and Tajikistan offers the US military and NATO fly-over rights and hosts a small contingent of French soldiers involved in Afghan operations. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was in Dushanbe on July 21 to firm up that arrangement. Notably, Rumsfeld did not visit Uzbekistan, the other SCO member-state that hosts a US military base. Whether his absence was the result of an Uzbek request or a calculation of Washington’s, it demonstrated how the US plans to address the shifting power relations in the region. Nevertheless, Uzbekistan subsequently gave the US 180 days to pull out from the Karshi-Khanabad (K2)air base, used for US operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

Washington has approached Central Asia on bilateral terms, never treating the SCO members as a bloc. In terms of leverage in the relations, this shifts the fulcrum to Washington’s advantage. China and Russia encourage the SCO states to act multilaterally in an effort to limit Washington’s reach. Rumsfeld’s trip demonstrated Washington’s ability to act bilaterally with Kyrgyzstan, which has a newly elected government and has yet to fully congeal its foreign policy, and Tajikistan, which has traditionally been the SCO member that follows a balanced approach with its foreign suitors.

Recently, relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have shown the strengths of Washington’s bilateral approach. When more than 500 Uzbeks crossed over into Kyrgyzstan following the crushing of protesters in Andijan, Kyrgyzstan initially reacted in step with the Uzbek government. Eighty-seven Uzbek refugees were sent back, prompting outrage from the UN and Washington. This led to negotiations between the UN and officials in Kyrgyzstan, which, by Washington’s design, left out any avenue for input from Uzbekistan. On July 29, a plane with 440 Uzbek refugees left Kyrgyzstan for Romania. This demonstrated Washington’s ability to directly influence the geopolitics of Central Asia only a few weeks after the united front presented by the SCO called for a US withdrawal.

However, in dealing with Karimov’s government in Uzbekistan, Washington’s bilateral approach is no longer effective, in part because of its success in Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek suspicion of Washington’s involvement in the Kyrgyzstan revolution and uprising in Andijan has caused Karimov to throw his government’s support behind China’s and Russia’s vision for the region. As such, the same day that the plane carried refugees out of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan asked Washington to leave the K2 air base.

The immediate reaction from Washington was to hold back on sending a high-level representative to renegotiate the arrangement while waiting for things to “cool down”.

This seems to suggest that the US is leaning toward the future goal of regime change in Uzbekistan and is willing to sacrifice the air base if necessary. This does not mean that Washington will cut off all relations with Uzbekistan, but if it becomes apparent that future negotiations will not lead to an extension of the air base use agreement, Washington can be expected to pursue further bilateral agreements with the other governments in Central Asia to isolate Karimov’s government.

Conclusion

Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the “Great Game” between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world’s great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent SCO meeting.

China and Russia are acting in tandem to shore up support for SCO policies by offering blanket support for the current regimes and implicitly calling attention to US-led efforts to undermine their governments. The states hosting the game board will continue to swing their support from China and Russia to the US, and back again, so long as they keep their hold on power. The past month has seen a flurry of activity in the Great Game, and it can be expected that things will not cool down any time soon.

Sir - This refers to ‘The metamorphosis of Al-Qaeda’ by Rajeev Sharma (August 1, 2005). A comprehensive subject like terrorism and al-Qaeda demands an elaborate and specialised analysis. The fact is that the Islamic society (ummah) is beset with deep contradictions within. Some of these were

highlighted by agalaxy of eminent and emancipated Muslim thinkers around 10-12th century who had been greatly influenced by the great Greek philosophers with their fomidable instrument of logic. But this emancipated segmentof Muslim society was only to be ruthlessly suppressed by the emerging orthodoxy of 12-13th century. The orthodoxy had found a strong backing from the vested Khurasanian feudal structure imposed by the victorious Arab conquerors of Iran. Al-Ghazali led the retaliatory campaign and established the supremacy of the dogma. Notwithstanding intermittent groundswells of less intensity, this ideological rupture in the ummah lay benign for several centuries perhaps because of mutual political and logistic interdependence with strong Islamic monarchies and satrapies in the Asian-Eurasian continent until the unprecedented supremacy of modern scientific and technological advancement made by the west. The impact of this advancement on all walks of life, particularly political and social, is imagined by the orthodoxy as the gravest threat to its survival in its traditional form. Finding that many myths hitherto strongly sustaining orthodoxy were fast eroding, its fight for survival becomes unavoidable Since it must, peraforce, offer some rationale for legitimizing militant adventurism, the ‘unjust’ liquidation of Muslim monarchies and satrapies in the 19-20th centuries came to be attributed to western colonial entrepreneurship rather than to the dynamics of historical processes. But since there is no political centripetal force existing today as was in place during the early years of the rise of Islam in Arabia, the orthodoxy must perforce invoke imagined threats to the survival of the faith as its battle cry. In order to impress upon the believers the efficacy of its methodology, it must bring to their memory the laurels Arab legions had won on the battleground against the unbelievers and their thunderous victories over them in fabulous regions of Asia like Iran, Central Asia, India South East and Europe to the fringes of the Pyrenees. Islamic Diaspora, unable to integrate itself into the European and western civilizational pattern in which Islamic life style being categorised as primitive recedes to background, looks to the revivalist phenomenon as a redeeming feature. Hence even the second and third generation of the Diaspora finds itself bogged down with split personality and, therefore, sensitised by the seminorial instrument to the recrudescence of traditional Islamic dogma symbolised in our times by a movement like Al-Qaeda.

ANALYSIS, by Rajeev Sharma, New Delhi, July 31 - The world of jihad is undergoing a never-before churning process which is set to throw up significant new trends in international terrorism in the months to come.

Today’s Al-Qaida has metamorphosed. Al-Qaida as an organisation which emerged in the eighties when Saudi rulers propped up Osama bin Laden with American help as a Deobandi power centre opposed to Salafis or Wahabis who were raising their heads in the desert kingdom, does not exist today. This Al-Qaida was a creation of Saudi and American intelligence.

But, as an idea, a unifying concept or dream, this Al-Qaida is alive and kicking and has become even more powerful. Only its profile, modus operandi and operational culture have changed and its operational character has become global, key counter-terrorism officials of the Indian Government told The Tribune. It is a fine distinction that has to be understood clearly.

The operational work at the country-level organisation like in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan is being done by local outfits. It may be the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in Palestine, Zarqawi in Iraq — not unlike an established company having franchisees.
This is not just the metamorphosis of Al-Qaida alone. These are the new patterns in global jihad. The new changes are making themselves manifest on the radar screens of international terrorism at several levels. At the international level, the “franchisee” outfits are paying obeisance to Al-Qaida. These are of two types.

In the first category are those cells which once were linked to Al-Qaida’s ideological command chain and which no longer exist in their original form. These cells are now setting their goals on the basis of fatwas issued by the Al-Qaida previously. These small cells have overlapping geographical inter-connections. For example, if such a cell in Istanbul wants to stage action in Lisbon, while the actual action will be done by Turks, the logistical support and reconnaissance will be taken care of by the Portuguese cell, simply because they belong to the same ideological fraternity.

In the second category comes an outfit like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Apart from Al-Qaida, the LeT is the only jihadi organisation today which has acquired worldwide established presence.

Experts divide jihadi organisations into three types: (i) national, (ii) fragmented poly-national and (iii) monolithic multinational. The LeT fits into the third type.

The LeT’s is a queer case. Though being denominationally opposed to Al-Qaida — Al-Qaida is a Deobandi organisation while the LeT is a product of Salafi-Wahabi ideology, the Ahle-e-Hadith philosophy — the LeT has taken great care to be appearing to change its spots. Despite the fact that the LeT is at variance with the Al-Qaida ideologically, it is acting in sync with Al-Qaida.

The Pakistan Government has been telling the United States that the LeT is against India. Slowly but steadily, the truth has started dawning upon the West that the LeT now threatens to become the staging post for the West.

The considered opinion in the higher echelons of Indian counter-terrorism officials is that both Islamabad and the LeT appear to have read the writing on the wall. But that does not mean that the LeT would have to close its shop.

Their likely strategy would be complete disappearance of the LeT and Jamaat-ud-Daawa infrastructure from Pakistan in the next 12 to 18 months. After some interregnum, terrorist attacks would still be taking place all over the world, probably with more ferocity. But it would be well-nigh impossible to determine the identity of the progenitors of these acts.

This interregnum would mark the emergence of a new terror entity as a latter-day Al-Qaida. But it will present itself as being based anywhere in the world other than Pakistan. The new entity may be seen to be operating from the jungles of Moro (Philippines) or the coastal belt of Aceh (Indonesia) or some vague place in Sudan. It will definitely not be seen to be operating from Pakistan.

Western governments and agencies are already trying to peep into the minds of future terror outfits. Consider the US State Department’s April 2005 annual report on terrorist activity around the world. The report concluded that Al-Qaida had been supplanted as the most worrisome threat by unaffiliated local groups of Islamic radicals acting on their own, without help from bin Laden or his aides. The pattern of attacks in 2004, the report stated, illustrates “what many analysts believe is a new phase of the global war on terrorism, one in which local groups inspired by Al-Qaida organise and carry out attacks with little or no support or direction from A-Qaida itself.”

Iraq is another befitting example of how some regional Islamic radical groups function independently of Al-Qaida but enter into mutual alliances for specific operations or campaigns. One of the primary networks of insurgents fighting the US military in Iraq is led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has pledged his loyalty to bin Laden and acts publicly on behalf of Al-Qaida but has developed his own organisation.

The moral of the story: Al-Qaida is dead; long live Al-Qaida!

KARACHI - Sophisticated terror attacks using the minimum possible resources to target civilians are the issue of the day, whether it be in Egypt, the United Kingdom or Spain.

Invariably, Pakistan is linked to the attacks. In the case of the July 7 suicide attacks in London, three of the bombers were of Pakistani descent and had visited madrassas (Islamic schools) in Pakistan. Pakistanis are being sought in connection with the weekend’s attacks in Egypt.

Pakistan, simply, is widely reckoned as the premier breeding ground for jihadis, fueled by the Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, the on-going troubles in Kashmir and the current Taliban-led resistance to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The root of the “evil”, as much of the West sees it, is the madrassa system - the many thousands of schools that teach the Koran and little else, and which mostly attract underprivileged, marginalized youth highly susceptible to the extreme teachings - and militancy - that some of the madrassas offer.

Under US and British pressure, therefore, in the wake of the London bombings, hundreds of madrassa teachers and students, along with militants, have been rounded up in the past two weeks.

Yet maybe this is a classic case of not been able to see the wood for the trees.

Pakistan’s leading monthly magazine, Herald, has published a detailed eyewitness account backed with photographs on how youths are trained in militant camps in the central region of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Mansehra. The story was so accurate that the government could not deny it, although it issued orders to “fix” the publisher.

“Until 2001, thousands of fighters trained here for operations in Kashmir and Afghanistan … after the 9/11 attacks in America, though, the militants’ activities dwindled, and last year the camp was abandoned following an unequivocal warning from the government. But all major militant organizations began regrouping in April this year by renovating training facilities that were deserted last year,” the cover story of Herald maintained.

According to a manager of the training camp, the report said, all the major militant organizations, including Hizbul Mujahideen, al-Badr Mujahideen, Harkat ul-Mujahideen and others, began regrouping in April.

The Herald report says that at least 13 major camps in the Mansehra region were revived during the first week of May. As the camps reopen, managers claim trained militants as well as new aspirants are flocking to enlist for jihad.

As one militant leader put it, the organizations are now under a “regime of controlled freedom”.

The story is a severe embarrassment for the government of Pakistan as many US officials are already skeptical of its integrity in the “war on terror”.

Asia Times Online security contacts say that the US had become aware of the main Mansehra camp, but it was assured by Pakistani officials that the camp had not been in operation in the past few months.

Meanwhile, in the mountains …
The mountainous terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan is another area where neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan have been able to eliminate training camps. The area is a rugged no-man’s-land that spans the border.

This is the hub of the Taliban resistance, where many top commanders, including Jalaluddin Haqqani, visit, and it’s a perfect training center of the Afghan and global resistance. The Afghan resistance plots its hit-and-run attacks within Afghanistan from here.

… and in the tribal areas
Asia Times Online sources in the North Waziristan tribal area say that there were as many as 40 attacks in a single day on various army posts on Monday.

“The purpose of the attacks was not to kill anybody but just to remind the Pakistani army what happened to them last year when they tried to conduct operations in South Waziristan,” commented a tribal source from Waziristan on the telephone.

Last year, under immense US pressure, the Pakistani government launched several military operations in South Waziristan to track down al-Qaeda suspects and foreign militants. They encountered fierce resistance from tribespeople, who cherish their virtual independence from the central government.

Trouble on the border
Conflict between the Pakistan army and Islamist militants along the Afghan border has led security analysts to talk of a full-fledged insurgency that poses a grave threat to the country, reports M B Naqvi of Inter Press Service (IPS).

“Frequent, bloody gun battles, heavy casualties, ambushes, attacks on military outposts and killing of informers and army collaborators are not ordinary crimes. Make no mistake. It is an insurgency,” said A R Siddiqui, commentator on military affairs and a former brigadier in the Pakistan army.

Siddiqui told IPS that he saw the conflict as an “offshoot or even a continuation” of the “war against terror” prosecuted by the US against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan immediately after September 11, 2001.

US-led coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan are coordinating operations with the Pakistani army in both North and South Waziristan as part of the efforts to capture al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The high levels of civilian “collateral damage” in recent weeks has caused outrage which has resulted in further alienation of the Pashtun tribes that dominate Waziristan and which form the backbone of the Taliban movement.

“This is inexcusable,” said Siddiqui. “Either Pakistan’s intelligence has failed or wrong information was fed by the coalition’s military sources in Afghanistan. It is going to intensify the insurgency in all the tribal areas and will mean many more recruits to the Taliban and other militant outfits in both countries.”

The Pakistan army first began operations against al-Qaeda elements holing up in Waziristan in July 2002, but quickly became bogged down in a war with fiercely independent Pashtun tribes that saw the expeditions - the first in more than half-a-century - as an attempt to subjugate them.

Pashtun tribes are spread across the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), in which Waziristan falls, the NWFP and on the other side of the Durand Line (border) in Afghanistan.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said he is particularly concerned about Pakistan’s image as a hotbed for Islamist extremism, militancy of various shades and as a support base for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Last week, he charged two Pakistan-based militant organizations, the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Sipah-i-Sabah, which he had ordered banned, with being “responsible for indoctrinating some of the London bombers”.

Musharraf also said he believed that some of the madrassas were “dabbling in the military training of their students and preparing jihadis”.

Now it is up to him to stop it, provided he does not get lost in the trees.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

In the 1980s, Charles Wilson, a colorful and powerful Democrat from the East Texas Bible Belt, was a member of a Congressional appropriations sub-committee. From that position of power he funneled billions of dollars in secret funding to the CIA, which used the money to purchase weapons to help the mujahideen drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

In those days, the mujahideen were viewed by the US as “freedom fighters” and were so-named by then-president Ronald Reagan, who praised them for “defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability”.

In that Cold War environment, chasing the Russians out of the country trumped all other considerations. Among the weapons funded by Congress were hundreds of Stinger missile systems that mujahideen forces used to counter the Russians’ lethal Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships.

And there were also tens of thousands of automatic weapons, antitank guns, and satellite intelligence maps. According to author George Crile, Wilson even brought his own belly dancer from Texas to Cairo to entertain the Egyptian defense minister, who was secretly supplying the mujahideen with millions of rounds of ammunition for the AK-47s the CIA was smuggling into Afghanistan.

From a few million dollars in the early 1980s, support for the resistance grew to about $750 million a year by the end of the decade. Decisions were made in secret by Wilson and other lawmakers on the appropriations committee.

To help make his case, Wilson exploited one of the decade’s scandals, the Iran-Contra affair, arguing that Democrats who were voting to cut off funding for the Contras in Nicaragua could demonstrate their willingness to stand up to the Soviet empire by approving more money for the Afghan fighters.

Many Muslims from other countries volunteered to assist various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan, and gained significant experience in guerrilla warfare. Some of these veterans have been significant factors in more recent conflicts in and around the Muslim world.

The effort was successful. On February 15, 1989, General Boris Gromov, commander of the Soviets’ 40th Army, walked across Friendship Bridge as the last Russian to leave Afghanistan. The CIA cable from its Islamabad station to the agency’s headquarters said, “We won.” Wilson’s own note said simply, “We did it.”

Pakistan’s president at the time, General Zia ul-Haq, who had allowed the weapons to move through his country on CIA-purchased mules, credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. “Charlie did it,” he said.

Thus, the largest covert operation in CIA history ended with Russia’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But in Charlie Wilson’s War (2003 Grove/Atlantic), Crile notes that the US-financed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan also helped create the political vacuum that was filled by the Taliban and Islamic extremists, who turned their deadly terrorism against the US on September 11.

After the Soviet withdrawal, the CIA tried to buy back the weapons they had supplied, but were largely unsuccessful.

Until Wilson’s retirement from the House in 1996, he enjoyed a reputation as a relentless womanizer, perpetual partier and borderline drunk.

But Wilson’s questionable reputation proved to be a brilliant cover for his passionate anti-communism. He was also an ambitious politician, perfectly willing to vote for military contracts in his colleagues’ districts in return for votes to support the mujahideen.

When the Soviet Union pulled its troops out, however, the mujahideen could not establish a united government and its members broke into several factions. In the ensuing bloody civil war for control of the country, the squabbling mujahideen were ousted from power by the Taliban in 1996.

The mujahideen regrouped as the Northern Alliance and in 2001, with US and international military aid, ousted the Taliban and formed a new government.

A wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden was a prominent mujahideen organizer and financier; his Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, meaning Office of Services) funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the US, Pakistani and Saudi governments. Bin Laden broke away from the MAK in 1988, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In the US invasion of Afghanistan following September 11 - to hunt down bin Laden - the Taliban theocracy was effectively defeated - or at least dispersed. But its remnants nevertheless continue to battle the US and its coalition partners, and spell trouble for the fragile government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai, which is struggling to deal with the fragmented, warlord-based nature of Afghan society and the devastation of years of war and deprivation.

In the 1980s, opposition to the Soviet Union and communism was widespread among the US public. But many believe the Wilson story is a perfect illustration of good intentions resulting in bad consequences.

Wilson’s war succeeded in leading to the conditions for the arming of the very people responsible for the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, and who now shoot at US and coalition troops.

Professor Abdullahi An-Naim of Emory University Law School, told Inter Press Service, “Good intentions are not good enough, and we should always be humble and accept the possibility of being wrong. The lesson of the law of ‘unintended consequences’ of our previous policies is to realize in our current policies that ends never justify the means.

“Pragmatic reasons for any policy must always be consistent with moral rationale. If bad means appear to achieve good ends in the short term, then it is simply that we have failed to appreciate the real costs which in fact outweigh the presumed benefits.”

According to a review of Crile’s book on the Acorn, a popular Indian blog, “Charlie Wilson’s most dangerous legacy is a nuclear-armed Pakistan brought about by US governments closing one eye on Pakistan’s covert nuclear program in the 1980s. By the way, Charlie Wilson’s PR firm is still retained by the Pakistan government to lobby its interests in Washington,” the article concludes.

Note from Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch: The World Monuments Fund has placed Iraq on its list of the Earth’s 100 most endangered sites, the first time that a whole

nation has been listed. The destruction began as Baghdad fell. First, there was the looting of the National Museum. That took care of some of the earliest words on clay, including, possibly, cuneiform tablets with missing parts of the epic of Gilgamesh. Soon after, the great libraries and archives of the capital went up in flames and books, letters, government documents, ancient Korans and religious manuscripts stretching back centuries vanished forever. What we’re talking about, of course, is the flesh of history. Worse yet, the looting of antiquity, words and objects not only never ended, but seems to have accelerated. From well organized gangs of grave robbers to American engineers building bases to American soldiers taking souvenirs, the ancient inheritance not just of Iraqis but of all of us has simply headed south. Though less attended to than the human costs of the war, such crimes against history are no small matter, as Chalmers Johnson indicates below. [1]

In the months before he ordered the