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Viewing cable 09STATE80163, S) REPORTING AND COLLECTION NEEDS: THE UNITED

Reference ID | 09STATE80163

Created | 2009-07-31 20:08

Released | 2010-11-28 18:06

Classification | SECRET//NOFORN

Origin | Secretary of State

VZCZCXRO1645
RR RUEHRN RUEHTRO
DE RUEHC #0163/01 2122048
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
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FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHRN/USMISSION UN ROME 0673
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 5248
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 7044
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 2637
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 9388
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 9465
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 1034
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 2653
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 3680
RUEHBS/AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS 4458
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 2406
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS 7503
RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI 9888
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 2537
RUEHJA/AMEMBASSY JAKARTA 4533
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 2427
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 6121
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 5675
RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO 3128
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 2351
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 5996
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA 5977
RUEHOU/AMEMBASSY OUAGADOUGOU 8735
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 5501
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 5526
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH 2691
RUEHSJ/AMEMBASSY SAN JOSE 1046
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 1500
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 8889
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 9893
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 8737
RUEHVI/AMEMBASSY VIENNA 8905
RUEHVB/AMEMBASSY ZAGREB 2969
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 7784
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 5364
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 8154
UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
INFO RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC//DHI-1B/CLM//DP//
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC//NHTC//
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 24 STATE 080163

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/31/2034
TAGS: PINR KSPR ECON KPKO KUNR
SUBJECT: (S) REPORTING AND COLLECTION NEEDS: THE UNITED
NATIONS

REF: STATE 048489

Classified By: MICHAEL OWENS, ACTING DIR, INR/OPS. REASON: 1.4(C).

¶1. (S/NF) This cable provides the full text of the new
National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD) on the United
Nations (paragraph 3-end) as well as a request for continued
DOS reporting of biographic information relating to the
United Nations (paragraph 2).

¶A. (S/NF) The NHCD below supercedes the 2004 NHCD and
reflects the results of a recent Washington review of
reporting and collection needs focused on the United Nations.
The review produced a comprehensive list of strategic
priorities (paragraph 3) and reporting and collection needs
(paragraph 4) intended to guide participating USG agencies as
they allocate resources and update plans to collect
information on the United Nations. The priorities should
also serve as a useful tool to help the Embassy manage
reporting and collection, including formulation of Mission
Strategic Plans (MSPs).

¶B. (S/NF) This NHCD is compliant with the National
Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), which was
established in response to NSPD-26 of February 24, 2003. If
needed, GRPO can provide further background on the NIPF and
the use of NIPF abbreviations (shown in parentheses following
each sub-issue below) in NHCDs.

¶C. (S/NF) Important information often is available to
non-State members of the Country Team whose agencies
participated in the review of this National HUMINT Collection
Directive. COMs, DCMs, and State reporting officers can
assist by coordinating with other Country Team members to
encourage relevant reporting through their own or State
Department channels.

¶2. (S/NF) State biographic reporting:

¶A. (S/NF) The intelligence community relies on State
reporting officers for much of the biographical information
collected worldwide. Informal biographic reporting via email
and other means is vital to the community's collection
efforts and can be sent to the INR/B (Biographic) office for
dissemination to the IC.

¶B. (S/NF) Reporting officers should include as much of the
following information as possible when they have information
relating to persons linked to : office and

STATE 00080163 002 OF 024

organizational titles; names, position titles and other
information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cell
phones, pagers and faxes; compendia of contact information,
such as telephone directories (in compact disc or electronic
format if available) and e-mail listings; internet and
intranet "handles", internet e-mail addresses, web site
identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent
flyer account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant
biographical information.

¶3. (S/NF) Priority issues and issues outline:

¶A. Key Near-Term Issues
1) Darfur/Sudan (FPOL-1)
2) Afghanistan/Pakistan (FPOL-1)
3) Somalia (FPOL-1)
4) Iran (FPOL-1)
5) North Korea (FPOL-1)

¶B. Key Continuing Issues
1) UN Security Council Reform (FPOL-1)
2) Iraq (FPOL-1)
3) Middle East Peace Process (FPOL-1)
4) Human Rights and War Crimes (HRWC-3)
5) UN Humanitarian and Complex Emergency Response
(HREL-3)
6) Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMDN-5H)
7) Terrorist Threat to UN Operations (TERR-5H)
8) Burma (FPOL-1)

¶C. UN Peace and Peacebuilding Operations
1) Africa (FPOL-1)
2) Outside Africa (FPOL-1)
3) Policy Issues (FPOL-1)

¶D. UN Security Council
1) Procedures and Dynamics (FPOL-1)
2) Sanctions (FPOL-1)

¶E. UN Management
1) UN Leadership Dynamics (FPOL-1)
2) Budget and Management Reform (FPOL-1)

¶F. UN General Assembly Tactics and Voting Blocs (FPOL-1)

¶G. Other Substantive Issues
1) Food Security (FOOD-3)
2) Climate Change, Energy, and Environment (ENVR-4)
3) Transnational Economic Issues (ECFS-4H)
4) Arms Control and Treaty Monitoring (ACTM-4)
5) Health Issues (HLTH-4)
6) Terrorism (TERR-5H)
7) Trafficking, Social, and Women's Issues (DEPS-5H)

STATE 00080163 003 OF 024

¶H. Intelligence and Security Topics
1) GRPO can provide text of this issue.
2) GRPO can provide text of this issue.
3) Foreign Nongovernmental Organizations (FPOL-1)
4) Telecommunications Infrastructure and Information
Systems (INFR-5H)

¶15. Collection requirements and tasking

(Agriculture is the Department of Agriculture; Commerce is
the Department of Commerce; DHS is the Department of Homeland
Security; DIA/DH is Defense Intelligence Agency/Defense
HUMINT; Energy is the Department of Energy; DNI/OSC is the
Open Source Center of the Director of National Intelligence;
FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigation; HHS is the
Department of Health and Human Services; Navy is the Navy
HUMINT element; NCS/CS is the CIA's Clandestine Service;
OSC/MSC is the Map Services Center of OSC; State is the
Department of State; TAREX (Target Exploitation) collects
information using HUMINT Methods in support of NSA's
requirements; Treasury is the Department of Treasury; USAID
is the U.S. Agency for International Development; USSS is the
U.S. Secret Service; USTR is the U.S. Trade Representative;
WINPAC is the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and
Arms Control Center.)

¶A. Key Near-Term Issues

1) Darfur/Sudan (FPOL-1).
-- Views of United Nations (UN) member states on contributing
troops and air transportation equipment, such as helicopters,
to the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the African Union
(AU)-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).
-- Details of deployments of troop contributor countries to
UNMIS/UNAMID.
-- Details on actions and views of UN personnel deployed in
UNMIS/UNAMID.
-- Views of UNSC members on the success or failure of
UNMIS/UNAMID.
-- Operational plans of UNMIS/UNAMID from both the UN
Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, and
UNMIS/UNAMID in Sudan.
-- Details of diplomatic engagement between UNMIS/UNAMID
Special Envoys for the Darfur Peace Process in Sudan, and the
Sudanese government or Darfur rebel groups.
-- Views of member states on UN activities in Sudan
(including Darfur).
-- Divisions between UN member and UN Secretariat assessments
of the situation on the ground as it affects UN action.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Libya,
Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda,

STATE 00080163 004 OF 024

Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, European Union (EU), UN

2) Afghanistan/Pakistan (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of key UN leaders and member states
regarding the ongoing operations of the UN Assistance Mission
in Afghanistan (UNAMA), including force protection in
Afghanistan.
-- Information on plans and intentions of UN leadership or
member states affecting elections in Afghanistan.
-- Reactions to and assessments of security threats directed
at the UN or aid personnel attempting to render humanitarian
assistance.
-- Plans and intentions of key member states and Secretariat
leadership concerning Afghan political and economic
reconstruction, including efforts to combat warlords and drug
trafficking.
-- Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian intentions or reluctance to
secure and safeguard UN and nongovernmental organization
(NGO) personnel (international as well as locally-hired
staff).

Countries: Afghanistan, Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa
Rica, Croatia, France, Iran, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Pakistan,
Russia, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
Terrorist Groups: Taliban
International Organizations: EU, UN, World Bank

3) Somalia (FPOL-1).
-- UN plans and potential to expand, reinforce, or replace
the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) and African Union
(AU) Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
-- Plans and intentions of UN leadership, the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, and member states to deploy a UN-led
maritime force to monitor piracy off the coast of Somalia.
-- Willingness of member states to pledge troops or air
transport to a possible UN or multinational force in Somalia.
-- Views of Somali population on the deployment of a UN or
multinational peacekeeping force in Somalia.
-- Details of diplomatic engagement between UN envoys and
Somali government or Somali opposition officials.
-- Information on World Food Program activities in Somalia.
-- Details of UN Development Program (UNDP)-Somalia training
Transitional Federal Government police officers and Alliance
for the Reliberation of Somalia officials in the Joint
Security Force.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, China, Costa
Rica, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico,
Russia, Somalia, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, NATO, UN

4) Iran (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of the UN Secretary General (SYG),

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Secretariat staff, or member states to address efforts by
Iran to develop, test, or proliferate nuclear weapons.
-- Positions and responses of member states to future
International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Director
General reports on Iran,s Implementation of Safeguards and
relevant provisions of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.
-- Specific plans and activities of the UK, France, Germany
(EU-3), and Russia with respect to IAEA policy toward Iran.
-- Plans and intentions of key UN leaders and member states,
especially Russia and China, regarding human rights in Iran,
sanctions on Iran, Iran,s arming of HAMAS and Hizballah, and
Iran,s candidacy for UN leadership positions.
-- Plans and intentions of Perm 5, other key member states,
coalition partners, and key Secretariat officials concerning
sanctions against Iran.
-- Member support/opposition/subversion of US positions
regarding Iranian sanctions.
-- Iranian diplomatic efforts with the IAEA and UN member
states to avoid passage of additional sanctions and effective
implementation of existing sanctions, as well as its efforts
to end UNSC involvement in Iran's nuclear program by
returning Iran's nuclear file to the IAEA.
-- Information on Iran,s activities as chair of the UNDP and
within the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
-- Development and democratization activities of the UNDP in
Iran; details about the UNDP Resident Coordinator,s
relationship with Iranian officials.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Libya,
Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
Terrorist Groups: HAMAS, Hizballah (Lebanese)
International Organizations: EU, IAEA, UN
Non-State Entities: West Bank and Gaza Strip

5) North Korea (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of UNSC members, especially the P-5,
to consider additional resolutions against North Korea and/or
sanctions under existing resolutions.
-- Information on the plans and actions of UNSC members to
address efforts by North Korea to develop, test, or
proliferate nuclear weapons.
-- UN views on food aid to North Korea, designating it as a
nation in famine, and misuse of aid.
-- North Korean delegation views and activities;
instructions/plans of delegation officials on North Korean
WMD-related issues.
-- Development and democratization activities of the UNDP in
North Korea.
-- Details about the UNDP Resident Coordinator,s
relationship with North Korean officials.
-- Biographic and biometric information on ranking North
Korean diplomats.

STATE 00080163 006 OF 024

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, Burma, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, North Korea, Russia,
Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, IAEA, UN

¶B. Key Continuing Issues

1) UN Security Council Reform (FPOL-1).
-- Positions, attitudes, and divisions among member states on
UN Security Council (UNSC) reform.
-- Views, plans and intentions of Perm 5 and other member
states on the issue of UNSC enlargement, revision of UNSC
procedures or limitation of Perm 5 privileges.
-- International deliberations regarding UNSC expansion among
key groups of countries: self-appointed frontrunners for
permanent UNSC membership Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan
(the Group of Four or G-4); the Uniting for Consensus group
(especially Mexico, Italy, and Pakistan) that opposes
additional permanent UNSC seats; the African Group; and the
EU, as well as key UN officials within the Secretariat and
the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Presidency.
-- Willingness of member states to implement proposed reforms.
-- Reactions of UN senior leadership towards member
recommendations for UNSC reform.

Countries: Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Libya, Mexico,
Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, UN

2) Iraq (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of the Perm 5, other key member
states, coalition partners, and key Secretariat officials
concerning Iraqi political and economic reconstruction, the
UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), and internal Iraqi
boundaries.
-- Plans and intentions of the International Organization for
Migration to assist with the reintegration of internally
displaced persons and refugees.
-- Extent to which member states will support or subvert US
positions regarding Iraqi objectives, including
reconstruction efforts.
-- Information on plans and intentions of the SYG,
Secretariat staff, or member states affecting elections in
Iraq.
-- Iraqi actions to convert UNAMI to a Chapter 6 mission.
-- Iraqi attitudes toward the UN.
-- Reactions to and assessments of security threats directed
at the UN or aid personnel attempting to render humanitarian
assistance.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Iraq, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam

STATE 00080163 007 OF 024

Terrorist Groups: Insurgents in Iraq, Iraqi Shia Militants
International Organizations: EU, UN, World Bank

3) Middle East Peace Process (FPOL-1).
-- Details on views, plans and intentions of key Secretariat
decision-makers, member states and influential blocs and
coalitions on UN engagement and role in the Middle East Peace
Process (MEPP), including implementation of the roadmap.
-- Indications that a UNGA special session on the Middle East
might be reconvened.
-- Developments within the UN system that would further the
Arab-Israeli peace process.
-- Details about Quartet (EU, UN, US, and Russia) MEPP plans
and efforts, including private objectives behind proposals
and envoy negotiating strategies.
-- Strategy and plans of SYG special envoy regarding US
positions, Quartet plans, and other (EU, Russia, UK) special
envoys.
-- Indications member states or donor countries might scale
back UN peacekeeping presence in or aid donations to the
Middle East.
-- Plans of the SYG or member states to pressure the US on
the MEPP.
-- Views, plans and tactics of the Palestinian Authority,
including its representative to the UN, to gain support in
the UNSC, UNGA, or UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its
strategies and positions on Palestinian-Israeli issues,
including from Russia and EU countries, especially France,
Germany, and UK.
-- Views of Secretary General,s Special Envoy and UNSC on
possible settlement of the Shab'a Farms dispute to include
Syria/Lebanon border demarcation.
-- Secretariat views regarding water management as part of
the Middle East Peace Process, including domestic and
regional competition for allocation.
-- Quartet views on Syria's policies and approach toward
Israel and Palestinians and on Syrian motives behind and
efforts to subvert or support Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations.
-- UN efforts to influence negotiating positions on
territorial boundaries, water resources and management, and
right of return.
-- Views, plans and tactics of HAMAS to gain support in the
UNSC or UNGA for its strategies and positions on
HAMAS-Israeli issues, and on HAMAS-Palestinian Authority
issues, including from Russia, China, Iran, and EU countries,
especially France, Germany, and the UK.
-- Information on UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
activities in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West
Bank, and its relations with HAMAS/Hizballah.
-- Plans and intentions of member states to support/oppose US
priority to reduce the number of Middle East resolutions.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,

STATE 00080163 008 OF 024

Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Spain, Syria, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
Terrorist Groups: HAMAS, Hizballah (Lebanese)
International Organizations: EU, UN
Non-State Entities: Palestinian Authority, West Bank and
Gaza Strip

4) Human Rights and War Crimes (HRWC-3).
-- Plans and policies of UN leaders, member states, and
foreign NGOs to promote human rights.
-- Plans and intentions of member states toward the
International Criminal Court (ICC), International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and other
UN-related courts and tribunals dealing with human rights
issues.
-- Plans and intentions of UNHRC members to support or oppose
US policies in the UNHRC.
-- Views of UNSC and other member states on Zimbabwe,s
government policies on human rights, humanitarian assistance,
democracy, and candidacy for any UN leadership positions.
-- Views and intentions of UNSC, UN human rights entities,
and members regarding Sri Lankan government policies on human
rights and humanitarian assistance; UN views about
appointing a Special Envoy for Sri Lanka.
-- Plans and perceptions of member states toward
establishment of new measures to prevent genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes, and other systematic human
rights abuses.
-- Plans and intentions of member states toward proposals and
resolutions supported by the US or like-minded states,
including those advancing democracy; women's rights,
particularly implementation of UNSC Resolutions 1325 and
1820; those pertaining to children in armed conflict; or
those condemning human rights abuses in individual countries.
-- Information on reactions of member states to resolutions
designed to promote democracy, human rights and reforms in
the Muslim world.
-- Perceived success or failure of abilities and priorities
of the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights
(OHCHR), and efforts by member states to undermine OHCHR
independence.
-- Views, intentions and tactics of UNHRC members regarding
reform and the role of the US.
-- Member state support for/opposition to objectives of human
rights, refugee, development, and emergency relief agencies.
-- Plans and intentions of member states or UN Special
Rapporteurs to press for resolutions or investigations into
US counterterrorism strategies and treatment of detainees in
Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo.
-- Degree of coordination by and among human rights agencies,
especially between the UN Human Rights Council, the OHCHR,

STATE 00080163 009 OF 024

the UNGA Third Committee, the UN Economic and Social Council,
and the International Labor Organization.
-- Plans and agenda for upcoming UNGA Third Committee and
UNHRC sessions and world human rights conferences,
particularly plans by developing countries to stymie
criticism of their human rights records through procedural
motions or influencing votes.
-- Plans of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to
sponsor resolutions or conventions in the UN restricting
freedom of speech under the rubric of criminalizing
"defamation of religion."
-- Details of UNHRC and OHCHR budget shortfalls.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Chad, China, Costa
Rica, Croatia, Cuba, France, Georgia, Iraq, Japan, Lebanon,
Libya, Mexico, North Korea, Russia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone,
Sudan, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe
International Organizations: AU, EU, Human Rights Entities
and War Crimes Courts, ICC, OIC, UN

5) UN Humanitarian and Complex Emergency Response
(HREL-3).
-- Information on the planning and execution of responses to
humanitarian emergencies by UN member states and Secretariat;
indications US assistance may be requested.
-- Efforts of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
World Food Program (WFP), UN Development Program (UNDP), UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO),
and other UN entities to respond to and to coordinate
activities in humanitarian or refugee crises, including
environmental disasters.
-- Views of UN Secretariat, UNSC members, and key member
states on UNRWA.
-- Details on effectiveness of UNHCR and OCHA leadership.
-- Information on ability of UN to gain/not gain humanitarian
access to troubled areas, especially in light of security
concerns.
-- Location of humanitarian facilities, including GPS
coordinates, and number of personnel.
-- Details of friction between UNHCR, OCHA and UN Security
Coordinator Headquarters and field offices.
-- Level of cooperation and coordination or lack thereof
between UN aid agencies and non-UN aid programs.
-- Interoperability and willingness to work with US
coalitions in humanitarian assistance operations; willingness
to provide support despite security threats.
-- Indications of donor fatigue.
-- Status of and member support for/opposition to efforts by
UNHCR to refocus organization's work and to redistribute
programs to other agencies.
-- Details on UNHCR funding shortfalls.
-- Perceived ability of the UNDP to coordinate an effective
UN presence in each country and to promote democratic

STATE 00080163 010 OF 024

governance.
-- Plans and ability to care for and protect internally
displaced persons.
-- Communications and logistics problems.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: Economic-Societal Entities,
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UN, World Health
Organization

6) Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMDN-5H).
-- Plans and intentions of member states to address threats
to international security from the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction.
-- Views of member states on tactical and substantive aspects
of resolutions pertaining to missile proliferation, missile
defense, nuclear disarmament, the IAEA, and Israel's nuclear
program.
-- Information from key Secretariat decision-makers, key IAEA
Secretariat staff, member states, or influential blocs or
groups, such as the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), the OIC, or
the Group of 77 (G-77), on the role of the UN on nuclear
proliferation or addressing the expansion of capabilities to
produce or use weapons of mass destruction.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, Burma, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, IAEA, International Arms
Control Organizations, OIC, UN

7) Terrorist Threat to UN Operations (TERR-5H).
-- Plans and intentions of Secretariat and member states to
respond to individuals affiliated with terrorist groups or
state sponsors of terrorism threatening the safety or
security of domestic and overseas UN personnel, facilities,
protectees, or installations.
-- Evidence of relationship or funding between UN personnel
and/or missions and terrorist organizations.
-- Debate in Secretariat, UNSC counterterrorism bodies
(subcommittees), UN agencies and among member states about
measures for funding of security for UN domestic and overseas
facilities, operations, and personnel.
-- Host-country intentions to secure and safeguard UN and NGO
personnel.
-- Reactions to and assessments of terrorist acts directed at
the UN, UN personnel, UN protectees, or domestic and overseas
UN installations, including foreign UN missions in New York.
-- Details of UN efforts to acquire, collect, assess and
disseminate threat information within the US and overseas.
-- Plans of UN security offices to upgrade security at UN

STATE 00080163 011 OF 024

domestic and overseas UN facilities.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: UN

8) Burma (FPOL-1).
-- Views of UNSC and member states on Burma,s policies and
actions on human rights, humanitarian assistance, democracy,
and attempts to play a larger UN role.
-- Plans and intentions of the Special Adviser to the UN
Secretary General on Burma regarding future interaction with
Burma and engagement with UN member states.
-- Plans and intentions of the SYG on Burma; level of trust
in his Special Adviser.
-- Views of Burmese officials on the SYG, on his Special
Adviser on Burma, and on key countries in the UN.
-- Role of the UN in Burmese elections.
-- Development and democratization activities of UNDP in
Burma; details about the UNDP Resident Coordinator,s
relationship with Burmese officials.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, Burma, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia,
Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, UN

¶C. UN Peace and Peacebuilding Operations.

1) Africa (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of UN leaders and member states
regarding peace operations, especially in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Chad/Central African
Republic, Burundi, Cote d,Ivoire, and Liberia.
-- UN peacekeeping plans and intentions regarding military
operations against rebels based in the eastern part of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
-- Early warning information available to the Secretariat on
potential threats to peace and security.
-- UN views on the role of AFRICOM in African conflict
resolution and post-conflict capacity building.
-- UN expectations of US military involvement in African
peacekeeping missions and how this may influence UN
willingness to establish, curb, or end missions.
-- Extent to which UN peace operations in Africa are
straining the resources of the UN and member states; impact
of current operations on future operations and readiness.
-- UN views on peacekeeping mission creep and pressures to
expand the UN role in African conflict zones, either in the
form of more comprehensive "peacemaking" mission mandates or
in areas where security threats demand more aggressive and
timely UN-led multilateral intervention.
-- Details on views of the UN Department of Peacekeeping

STATE 00080163 012 OF 024

Operations on operational plans, including the ability of the
UN and its member states to build capacity in Africa,
including by working with the AU or other regional
organizations and NGOs.
-- Efforts by China, France, Iran, and others to gain
influence in Africa via UN peace operations.
-- Information on extent of support and capabilities for
peace operations by the AU and the Economic Community of
Western African States (ECOWAS).
-- Official stance on deploying HIV positive troops and
actual practice.
-- Degree to which official peacekeeping reporting matches
unofficial communications of events; views on those
discrepancies.
-- Views of African states that host peacekeepers regarding
UN peacekeeping troops and troop contributing countries.
-- Attitudes and intentions of Ghana and Rwanda concerning UN
peace operations in Africa and perception of their relative
ability to contribute to such efforts.
-- Attitudes of other African States to Ghana/Rwanda
participation and leadership.

Countries: Austria, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Central African Republic, Chad, China, Congo, Cote d,Ivoire,
Democratic Republic, Costa Rica, Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia,
France, India, Japan, Jordan, Liberia, Libya, Mexico, Nepal,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa,
Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zimbabwe
International Organizations: AU, EU, ICC, NATO, UN
Non-State Entities: Lord,s Resistance Army

2) Outside Africa (FPOL-1).
-- Plans and intentions of UN leaders and member states
regarding ongoing peace operations outside Africa.
-- Willingness of UN leaders and member states to support UN
peacekeeping efforts and utilize preventive diplomacy in
areas of potential conflict.
-- Views of member states on and plans to respond to the
US-backed G-8 plan to expand global peace operations
capabilities.
-- Views and positions of key member states and Secretariat
toward proposed resolutions, mandates, peacekeeping issues,
and US-sponsored initiatives.
-- Information on whether member states will utilize
references to the ICC to condition support for peace
operations.
-- Information on deployment benchmarks, pre-deployment
screening, and supply and logistic shortfalls in peace
operations.
-- Ability to obtain pledges and deploy capable military
forces, including surge capabilities.
-- Views of UNSC members, the Secretariat, and key member
states on Haiti,s government policies and actions on human
rights, humanitarian assistance, and democracy.

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-- Views and positions of UNSC members, the Secretariat, and
key member states regarding the UN Interim Force in Lebanon
(UNIFIL) and peacekeeping in Lebanon.

Countries: Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Georgia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Nepal, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Uganda,
Uruguay, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, ICC, NATO, UN

3) Policy Issues (FPOL-1).
-- UN member views, plans, and intentions concerning the
capability of the UN to organize, lead, and carry out new,
complex military operations and civilian police operations.
-- Information on Secretariat or member views on or
initiatives for peace operations reform.
-- Information on the appointment of SYG special
representatives for new peace or political operations.
-- Scope, objectives, command structures, rules of
engagement, and threat environment for proposed peacekeeping
activities, including transportation and communications
infrastructures and any available maps.
-- Types, number, and capabilities of troops, equipment, and
materiel that countries are willing to contribute.
-- Information on interoperability of equipment and material
available for logistic support.
-- Information on turf battles between the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, Department of Field Support, and
Department of Political Affairs over control of peace
operations.
-- Information on turf battles between logistic and military
sides of peace operations.
-- UN member views on reform of the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations.
-- Information on troop contributing countries' tendency to
follow orders given by troop contributing country commanders
vice UN field commanders.
-- Influence of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) and the Office of the High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNCHR) on including human rights and refugee
concerns within peace operations mandates.
-- Host government views and concerns about UN policies
toward that country.
-- Influence of UN security coordinator on operational
planning; field personnel reaction to UN security directives.
-- Capability/plans for Standby High-Readiness Brigade
(SHIRBRIG) deployments.
-- Details on peacekeeper abuse of women and children;
national and UN responses.
-- Changes in ability of member states, especially member
states of EU, AU and ECOWAS, to contribute troops to peace
operations, including for economic, social, and operational
reasons.
-- Details on contributions of member states (in kind,

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personnel, or financial).

Countries: Austria, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, China, Costa
Rica, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan,
Jordan, Libya, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia,
Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda,
Uruguay, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, UN

¶D. UN Security Council

1) Procedures and Dynamics (FPOL-1).
-- Plans, intentions, and agendas of UNSC members and
Secretariat on issues that come before the UNSC, especially
voting intentions of UNSC members and priorities or frictions
among the Perm 5.
-- Plans and intentions of UNSC members to support or oppose
US policies in the UNSC.
-- Specific views and positions of key member states on
US-sponsored initiatives, initiatives with implications for
the US, and other proposed resolutions and mandates.
-- Plans, intentions, views, positions, lobbying, and tactics
of regional groups, blocs, or coalitions on issues before the
UNSC, especially those that do not include the US
(particularly the Africa Group, AU, EU, NAM, G-77, Rio Group,
Arab League, the OIC, and the Group of Latin America and
Caribbean Countries (GRULAC).
-- Differences in the positions of member states, differences
between UN missions and their capitals, internal procedures
for determining voting instructions, and voting instructions
to delegations.
-- Priorities, plans, and intentions of new member states
joining the UNSC, and influences on them by regional groups,
blocs, or coalitions on issues before the UNSC, especially
those that do not include the US (particularly AU, EU, NAM,
G-77, Rio Group, Arab League, and the OIC).
-- Plans and intentions of member states of regional groups
regarding UNSC candidacy.
-- Biographic and biometric information on UNSC Permanent
Representatives, information on their relationships with
their capitals.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, OIC, UN

2) Sanctions (FPOL-1).
-- UNSC member plans, intentions, and views toward sanctions
issues, especially during negotiations of sanctions
resolutions.
-- Willingness of and efforts by UN member states to violate
sanctions.
-- Perceived and actual impact of sanctions on target

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governments, individuals, entities, as well as on civil
population.
-- Plans, intentions, and agendas of UNSC sanctions committee
members.
-- Plans, intentions, and agendas of UNSC sanctions committee
expert groups and their ability to support sanctions
monitoring.
-- Pressure to limit scope and length of new sanctions,
especially from coalitions and regional groups.
-- Views and actions of the Secretariat or member states with
regard to sanctions, including to bolster UN ability to
support sanctions implementation and to address violations.
-- Views of target government on sanctions imposed on it.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Sierra Leone,
Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, UN

¶E. UN Management

1) UN Leadership Dynamics (FPOL-1).
-- SYG's management and decision-making style, and his
influence on the Secretariat.
-- Plans, measures and efforts undertaken by the SYG and
subordinates on US political and bureaucratic objectives for
UN management.
-- Role and influence of Secretariat and other key officials
with SYG and other UN system agencies.
-- Views of and brokering by key officials on major issues.
-- Changes in and appointment and selection process for key
officials of Secretariat, specialized agency, committee,
commission, and program officials in New York, Geneva,
Vienna, and other UN system cities, to include special
assistants and chiefs of staff.
-- Personalities, biographic and biometric information,
roles, effectiveness, management styles, and influence of key
UN officials, to include under secretaries, heads of
specialized agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG aides,
heads of peace operations and political field missions,
including force commanders.
-- Relations between key UN officials and member states.
-- Views of member states on the next SYG race, to include
preferred candidates and candidates lacking UN member support.
-- Views of UNSC members and other member states on Cuban,
Iranian, or Syrian candidacy for any UN leadership positions.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, Cuba, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Syria,
Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: UN

2) Budget and Management Reform (FPOL-1).
-- Plans, measures and efforts undertaken by the SYG and

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subordinates on US political and bureaucratic objectives for
UN management.
-- Perceptions of member states of the effectiveness of the
Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Joint
Inspection Unit (JIU) to combat waste, fraud, mismanagement,
and corruption.
-- Effectiveness of the OIOS, in light of the review of the
OIOS mandate.
-- Plans and moves to implement OIOS recommendations.
-- SYG's view of the role of the OIOS.
-- Secretariat attitudes toward and evidence of corruption in
UN agencies and programs, and willingness to implement
measures to reduce corruption.
-- Plans and intentions of UN member states or the
Secretariat to address corruption issues at the UN and UN
agencies.
-- Plans and intentions of UNDP Executive Board members to
push for or block management reform proposals.
-- Plans and intentions of UNDP Executive Board members or
senior UNDP managers to address potential or actual cases of
corruption or mismanagement by field missions, including
efforts to cover up waste, fraud, or abuse.
-- Internal complaints by UNDP staff about waste, fraud, or
abuse and efforts by UNDP management to respond to them.
-- Plans and intentions of Board members, such as Iran, to
push for increased UNDP funding for programs in their own
countries or those of their friends.
-- Degree of independence from UN headquarters of UNDP
Resident Coordinators in the field and perceptions of field
staff on UN aid consolidation reforms under the "One UN"
Program.
-- Efforts by the G-77 Board members to develop common group
platforms, especially on budget and management reform issues.
-- Developments in the implementation of the performance
based personnel system and contractor reform.
-- Plans, intentions, and agendas of UN specialized agency
executive committees.
-- Impact and effectiveness of whistle-blowing provisions on
the UN reform process.
-- Attitudes of UN staff and member states towards extending
a common whistle-blower protection program to all UN funds
and programs.
-- Indications of pressure by member states or groups to
increase or control growth in the budget.
-- Secretariat and member attitudes towards changes in the
scale of assessments.
-- Options under consideration to resolve financial problems.
-- SYG views on and plans for responding to Government
Accountability Office reports calling on the UN to more
effectively implement results-based budgeting, and make
further progress on management reform.
-- Secretariat and member attitudes and plans to improve the
UN budget process.
-- Status and use of advanced information systems to

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streamline UN processes.

Countries: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China,
Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Egypt, France, Japan, Libya,
Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: UN

¶F. UN General Assembly Tactics and Voting Blocs (FPOL-1).
-- Plans, intentions, views, positions, lobbying, and tactics
of regional groups, blocs, or coalitions on issues before the
General Assembly, especially those that do not include the
US, i.e., the Africa Group, AU, EU, NAM, G-77, Rio Group,
Arab League, the OIC, and the GRULAC.
-- Details of bargaining on votes or candidacies and attempts
to marginalize or undermine proposed or planned US positions
or policy initiatives.
-- Information on the EU agenda in the UNGA, especially as it
relates to US priorities in the First, Third, and Fifth
Committees.
-- Information on efforts by the EU or other member states to
secure additional voting rights in the UN and its specialized
agencies.
-- Lobbying by member states for committee membership
assignments or vice presidencies.
-- Information on current and likely future leadership of
regional groups, blocs, and coalitions.
-- Differences over positions between UN missions and their
respective capitals.
-- Voting instructions to delegations on key resolutions.
-- Plans, intentions, and agendas of key committee chairs;
member views of issues that come before these committees.
-- Efforts of Third World countries to moderate, via NAM and
G-77, Third World positions on development, defamation of
religion, or human rights issues.
-- Intentions of UN members to use non-UN bodies and working
groups to bypass perceived UN bureaucracy.
-- Perceptions of member states of the viability and
potential impact of the US-backed Democracy Caucus.
-- Biographical and biometric information on key NAM/G-77/OIC
Permanent Representatives, particularly China, Cuba, Egypt,
India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan,
Uganda, Senegal, and Syria; information on their
relationships with their capitals.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, Cuba, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Japan, Libya,
Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, South Africa,
Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: AU, EU, OIC, UN

¶G. Other Substantive Issues

1) Food Security (FOOD-3).
-- Status and proposals related to the UN Comprehensive

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Framework for Action to address the global food crisis.
-- WFP activities and proposals related to reforming donor
food aid policies and establishing a new standing global fund
to address regularly occurring food crises.
-- WFP and FAO plans and proposals regarding the impact on
food prices and food security of the growing use of ethanol
and biofuels.
-- Internal UN responses to international calls for reform of
FAO and WFP.

Countries: Afghanistan, Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa
Rica, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Haiti, Iraq, Japan, Libya,
Mexico, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, Sudan,
Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe
International Organizations: FAO, UN, World Animal Health
Organization
Non-State Entities: Palestinian Authority, West Bank and
Gaza Strip

2) Climate Change, Energy, and Environment (ENVR-4).
-- Country preparations for the December 2009 Copenhagen UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Meeting.
-- Developments related to other UNFCCC meetings and
discussions on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.
-- Perceptions of key negotiators on US positions in
environmental negotiations.
-- Developments on the Montreal Protocol, including reactions
to US efforts to limit hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
-- Indications that member states working through the UN and
its specialized agencies are/are not fostering environmental
cooperation, partnerships and capacity building between and
among member states and regional and sub-regional
organizations.
-- Monitoring of and compliance with UN-sponsored
environmental treaties; evidence of treaty circumvention.
-- Information on adherence to member states' own national
environmental programs, including protection, monitoring, and
cleanup efforts.
-- Efforts by treaty secretariats to influence treaty
negotiations or compliance.
-- Information on the Convention on Biological Diversity,
particularly on access, benefit sharing and bio-safety.
-- Information on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,
including potential efforts to modify or amend its provisions.
-- Information on excessive maritime claims, including those
relating to ridges.
-- Information on efforts to develop a mechanism to add
chemicals to the list of persistent organic pollutants.
-- Information and perceptions on the strategic approach to
international chemicals management, especially efforts of the
EU's management program.
-- Information on participation in and compliance with the UN
Basel Convention.
-- Status of efforts to set standards to promote

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environmental protection, including protection of forests,
desertification, and invasive or endangered species.
-- Efforts within the UN to protect water resources, and to
promote development of alternative sources of energy.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, UN

3) Transnational Economic Issues (ECFS-4H).
-- Information on efforts by UN member states or
organizations to promote or obstruct regulatory reform,
including banking and financial reforms, transparency,
international law, trade, development, and foreign direct
investment to reflect the Monterrey anti-poverty consensus
and the Millennium Development Goals.
-- Plans, intentions, and tactics of the UNGA President
regarding international financial problems; views of member
states regarding these plans.
-- Plans and intentions of member states to support US
priorities related to economic freedom and promotion of
democracy.
-- Secretariat or member plans to develop multilateral
economic, trade, or development agreements impinging on US
interests.
-- Efforts by member states and the Secretariat to reconcile
international differences over globalization, especially the
perceived impact of globalization on human rights, labor, and
environmental issues.
-- Member positions on UN decisions, plans, and activities
concerning environmentally sustainable economic growth
through market economies, free trade, private investment, and
efficient multilateral development assistance.
-- Efforts to expand the global compact involving
corporations committed to observing human rights,
environmental, and labor standards.
-- SYG's views and statements on trade issues and efforts to
influence future World Trade Organization rounds.
-- Plans and intentions of UN member states that may impact
freedom of navigation.
-- Information on international taxation initiatives.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, FAO, International
Financial Institutions and Infrastructures, UN, World Bank,
World Trade Organization

4) Arms Control and Treaty Monitoring (ACTM-4).
-- Plans, tactics, timetables, and draft proposals for the
Eighth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and especially

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information related to the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East
and a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone initiative, from
interested individual member states (especially China, Cuba,
Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and South Africa) and
like-minded groups such as the NAM and the New Agenda
Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South
Africa, and Sweden).
-- Member state views of the major problems facing the NPT;
whether or under what conditions states would consider
withdrawing from the NPT.
-- Member views on and responses to US plans and policies on
missile defense and positions on a Fissile Material Cutoff
Treaty, particularly those of Russia, China, and Pakistan.
-- Information on IAEA plans for safeguards, international
fuel banks, or other nuclear fuel supply arrangements, and
meetings of the Board of Governors at the IAEA.
-- Member views on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
(CTBT); prospects for country ratifications and entry into
force.
-- Member plans for plenary meetings of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group; views of the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation
Initiative.
-- Readiness of member states to reform the agenda of the UN
General Assembly's First Committee; proposals prepared by
member states for the First Committee.
-- Views of key delegations on US proposals on land mines.
-- Tactical and substantive information regarding periodic
arms control meetings in New York, Geneva, Vienna and
elsewhere, including the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Chemical Weapons Convention, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) review process, UN experts group on missiles,
and meetings on conventional arms.
-- Plans and intentions of member states to introduce new
arms control or proliferation prevention measures or make
significant changes to existing agreements.
- Member or Secretariat plans to address WMD proliferation,
safeguards, arms control and disarmament, or other threat
reduction efforts.
-- Foreign attitudes on UN-sanctioned arms control
negotiations.
-- Biographic and biometric data on, and positions of key UN
arms control interlocutors, especially candidates for the
position of Director General of the IAEA, and the heads of
other international institutions.

Countries: Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, Cuba, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland,
Japan, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South
Africa, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, IAEA, International Arms
Control Organizations, NATO, OSCE, UN

5) Health Issues (HLTH-4).
-- UN, WHO, and other international organizations,

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forecasts, expected impacts, plans, proposals, key studies,
and reactions to major health crises and other health-related
issues, including efforts on disease eradication, improving
health standards and access to care and medicine, and
programs to monitor and respond to emerging infectious
disease outbreaks and other disasters or emergencies.
-- Information on deliberations in the UN and other
international health organizations on health issues and the
policy positions and objectives of member states and key
figures, including compromises, insertions, and items omitted
in published declarations and studies.
-- Information on international health organizations,
relationships and interactions with countries and other
organizations, including relationships with regional offices
or subsidiaries.
-- Details on limits and restrictions placed on international
organizations to investigate reports of diseases that pose an
international threat, including restrictions placed on the
nationality of members of investigation teams.
-- Details on disease transparency, particularly indications
about inconsistent reporting of outbreaks to appropriate
international organizations and delivery of specimens to WHO-
and FAO-affiliated laboratories, and including discussions or
agreements impacting the publicly disclosed occurrence of
diseases.
-- Details of discussions related to the accessibility of
HIV/AIDS drugs (antiretroviral drugs or ARVs).
-- Details related to the availability, accessibility, and
regulation of health care, particularly medications,
vaccines, and counterfeits.
-- Member state attitudes toward maintenance of smallpox
stocks.
-- Information on global counterfeit medications to include
surveillance, countermeasures, and research and development
issues.
-- Details on efforts to implement health-related Millennium
Development Goals.
-- Details on corruption in international health
organizations or the corrupt use of goods and services
provided for health issues by bilateral and multilateral
donors and international health organizations, including WHO,
UNAIDS, FAO, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria.
-- Details on irregularities in Global Fund fundraising,
spending, and treatment of whistle blowers.
-- Personalities, biographic and biometric information,
roles, effectiveness, management styles, and influence of key
health officials, to include the Director General of the WHO,
head of UNAIDS, the Pan American Health Organization, under
Secretaries, heads of specialized agencies and their chief
advisers, and top aides.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,

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Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, FAO, UN, World Animal Health
Organization, WHO

6) Terrorism (TERR-5H).
-- Information on plans and intentions of UN bodies and
member states to respond to or address within UN fora the
worldwide terrorist threat.
-- Structure, plans and key figures of UN counterterrorism
strategy.
-- Information on plans and activities of UNSC,s four
counterterrorism sub-bodies.
-- Plans and intentions of member states to address terrorism
by implementing anti-terrorism legislation as called for
under resolutions, particularly as they relate to tracking
financial transactions.
-- Views of member states on US policy toward terrorism.
-- Efforts of member states to support or oppose activities
undertaken by UN specialized agencies such as the
International Maritime Organization and the International
Civil Aviation Organization to improve maritime and airline
security.
-- Information on UN support for technical assistance to
member states to combat terrorism, particularly in Africa.
-- Views of member states about inclusion or exclusion of
terrorism against Israel in counterterrorism efforts and
definition of terrorism.
-- (For further requirements, see the NHCD on Terrorism
Threats to US Interests at Home and Abroad, July 13, 2005.)

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: UN

7) Trafficking, Social, and Women's Issues (DEPS-5H).
-- Plans and intentions of member states to support or oppose
US priority to combat trafficking and exploitation of men,
women, and children.
-- Member state perceptions of ability of UN Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC) to follow through on strategies to
support women and children through UN specialized bodies.
-- Information on member efforts to combat organized crime,
narcotics trafficking, and trafficking in persons.
-- Plans and intentions of member states to address
reproductive issues, including the aims of the EU vis-a-vis
the US, GRULAC, Arab, and OIC nations.
-- Member state perceptions or plans regarding efforts to
reconcile religious differences worldwide.
-- Information on reforms undertaken within the UN
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
and future plans of the organization.
-- Member views on education initiatives.

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Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, OIC, UN

¶H. Intelligence and Security Topics

1) GRPO can provide text of this issue and related
requirements.

2) GRPO can provide text of this issue and related
requirements.

3) Foreign Nongovernmental Organizations (FPOL-1).
-- Influence of key UN-affiliated foreign NGOs on UN
decision-making.
-- Efforts of foreign NGOs to undermine US policy initiatives.
-- Foreign NGO role in, views toward, and influence on UN
policies and activities on globalization, justice, human
rights, the environment, and
family/women/children/reproductive issues.
-- Ability and capacity of foreign NGOs to assist refugees,
displaced persons, and victims of disasters through the UNHCR
and WFP.
-- Ability and capacity of foreign NGOs to support the UN
Environmental Program or national efforts with environmental
protection, pollution monitoring, and cleanup efforts.
-- Contacts between foreign NGOs and Secretariat staff that
could involve sharing of confidential data.
-- Foreign efforts to strip US or foreign NGOs of UN
affiliation and to block US or foreign NGOs seeking UN
affiliation.
-- Efforts by member states-*particularly China, Cuba,
Israel, Russia, and Islamic countries*-to obtain NGO
affiliation for organizations supporting their policies.
-- Efforts by organizations affiliated with terrorist
organizations or foreign intelligence organizations to obtain
NGO affiliation with the UN.
-- Efforts by the EU through the Arhus convention to place
NGOs on UN bureaus; reactions of member states to those
efforts.
-- Role of NGOs at the Office of the High Commissioner for
Refugees (OHCR), OHCHR, and UNHRC in the Third Committee of
the UNGA.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, Cuba, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: EU, OIC, UN

4) Telecommunications Infrastructure and Information
Systems (INFR-5H).
-- Current technical specifications, physical layout, and
planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and

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information systems, networks, and technologies used by top
officials and their support staffs.
-- Details on commercial and private VIP networks used for
official communications, to include upgrades, security
measures, passwords, personal encryption keys, and types of V
P N versions used.
-- Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of key officials,
as well as limited distribution telephone numbers/directories
and public switched networks (PSTN) telephone directories;
dialing numbers for voice, datalink, video teleconferencing,
wireless communications systems, cellular systems, personal
communications systems, and wireless facsimiles.
-- Information on hacking or other security incidents
involving UN networks.
-- Key personnel and functions of UN entity that maintains UN
communications and computer networks.
-- Indications of IO/IW operations directed against the UN.
-- Information about current and future use of communications
systems and technologies by officials or organizations,
including cellular phone networks, mobile satellite phones,
very small aperture terminals (VSAT), trunked and mobile
radios, pagers, prepaid calling cards, firewalls, encryption,
international connectivity, use of electronic data
interchange, Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), Worldwide
interoperability for microwave access (Wi-Max), and cable and
fiber networks.

Countries: Austria, Burkina Faso, China, Costa Rica,
Croatia, France, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Russia, Turkey,
Uganda, Vietnam
International Organizations: UN
CLINTON

.

HUNNERTS OF WIKILEAKS MIRRORS....

.

2009-12-23T02:53:00.000-08:00

2009-12-20T23:27:00.000-08:00

Unbelievably stupid video with something screamingly funny in the middle:

Some jackass emailed it to me, and, well, at least I got one seriously loud laugh out of it. Made sirens go off across town.

Pfeh....

—99

2009-12-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

Minot/Barksdale Nuclear Bent Spear Incident — Part I
Monday, 7 December 2009
By Richard Scott for Boiling Frogs Post

An Analysis & Critique

Over 36 hours on August 29-30 2007, six AGM-129 ACM Air Launched Cruise Missiles each containing one W80 (nuclear warhead) were removed from safeguarded weapons storage facilities at the Minot AFB in North Dakota, loaded aboard a B-52 bomber and flown 1500 miles to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. While removed from secure storage, these weapons passed through six separate links in the chain of custody without being discovered, without being visually inspected and were left unguarded and unsecured on the runways of both Minot and Barksdale for 15 hours and 12 hours respectively before the Ordnance Unloading Team at Barksdale discovered the error, established a security zone and activated a Nuclear Security Alert to further safeguard the warheads.

Attempting to conceal the incident as part of the DOD’s policy on neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates notified President Bush and ordered in internal Air Force Investigation of the incident, the first of its kind in the 40+ years of nuclear weapons handling. This lasted 6 days until the story of the incident was broken by the Military Times, quoting unnamed sources and picked up by the MSM. Soon after, the Air Force announced that the Minot Munitions Squadron commander was relieved of command and 25 airmen were disciplined. They also assured the public that the weapons never left the custody of Air force personnel and the public was never in danger. The results of that investigation saw the commanders of the 5th Bomb wing and the 5th Maintenance Group at Minot and the 2nd Operations Group at Barksdale relieved of command, four senior NCOs of the 5th Bomb Wing received “administrative action”, all personnel of the 5th Bomb Wing were stripped of their nuclear certifications, 65 airmen lost their Personnel Reliability Program certifications and all tactical weapons ferry operations were suspended, citing:

“There has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards at Minot Air Force Base and at Barksdale Air Force Base.”

Additionally, the Inspector General offices of all USAF major commands with a nuclear mission were tasked to conduct “Limited Nuclear Surety Inspections” at every nuclear-capable unit under Defense Threat Reduction Agency oversight. This prompted Gates to appoint retired USAF General Larry Welch to lead a special Defense Science Board to study the mishap in the context of the overall review of all nuclear weapons handling policies and procedures. That report was released in February of 2008 and is available for viewing here.

Part I of this piece will look at the incident and DSB report from the perspective of a nuclear weapons handler, whether the reasons cited are credible and whether the actions taken to address it will have any effectiveness in improving nuclear weapons safeguards. Part II will look at some of the ancillary stories related to this incident and attempt to gauge their overall credibility and connection.

In 1987, the AGM-129 ACM (Advanced Cruise Missile) was deployed by the USAF as a stealthy weapons platform with both conventional and nuclear payload capabilities to counter improvements in the Soviet Air Defense regime. Although capable of carrying conventional warheads, their primary use was to carry W-80-1 Variable Yield thermonuclear warheads. Each W-80-1 has a programmable nuclear yield of between 5-150 Kilotons of TNT. Used primarily as a nuclear platform aboard B-52 bombers, the AGM-129 was deployed on wing pylons of 6 weapons each and an internal rotary launcher capable of carrying another 8 of the weapons. These weapons were subject to the START II treaty which required a limit of 400 warheads deployed on ACMs. In March, 2007, the USAF announced the retirement of the entire complement of AGM-129s due to high maintenance costs and reliability issues in order to meet START II goals of having fewer than 2,200 total deployed nuclear weapons by 2012. This was despite an ongoing Service Life Extension Program intended to keep them as a viable weapons system until 2030. The decommissioning procedures called for the removal of the W-80-1 warheads from the AGM-129s and replacement with dummy payloads. The dummy payload missiles were then ferried to Barksdale in complements of 12 missiles (2 pylons of 6) per trip for missile decommissioning. The W-80-1 warheads were to be flown to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM aboard aircraft specially designed for payload survivability for further transfer to the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX and warhead dismantlement. By the first of August, 2007, more than 200 of these missiles were transferred and decommissioned at Barksdale.

The procedure instituted to accomplish this task at Minot is detailed on page 10 of the DSB’s report referred to above. It details that the Munitions Maintenance Squadron prepares a build-up sheet for each load to be ferried including pylon, missile and/or warhead serial numbers being moved prior to breakout. This sheet is sent to the breakout crew at the weapons storage facility who are tasked with verifying it against the existing inventory of weapons in storage and noting and reporting any discrepancies. Once completed, the breakout crew transfers the payloads to the Convoy Crew tasked with weapons transfer to the flight line. The Convoy Crew is tasked to verify the load and perform visual inspections upon receipt from the Breakout Crew, then transfer the weapons to the flight line, passing control onto the bomber Crew Chief and the loading Crew. Once they have visually verified and signed off on receipt of the weapons, they are loaded aboard the bomber, reverified by visual inspection and custody is turned over to the bomber crew. The bomber crew is tasked to do a visual inspection as part of their pre-flight checklist before the plane leaves the ground. This should require 4 visual inspections in Minot alone with further corresponding inspections taking place at the destination point until the weapons are finally secured in the weapons storage facility at Barksdale. Since the various payloads, nuclear, conventional and dummy, are visually identical at first glance and stored in the same facility, the payloads are supposed to be clearly identified with readily visible means to indicate payload types in addition to the individual visual inspections along the chain of custody. Additionally, all nuclear payloads are equipped with electronic and visual identifiers as well as anti-theft devices designed to trigger alarms if they leave the weapons storage facility without proper authorization and procedures.

On the day in question, the movement plan identified two pylons of nuclear-inert missiles to be transferred on 30 August, 2007 via tactical ferry. This plan was altered by the Minot Munitions Maintenance Squadron to include another pylon with missiles closer to the expiration dates of limited-life components instead of one of the pylons identified in the movement plan. As a result, the new pylon of weapons was not properly prepared for tactical ferry and the warheads contained in the missiles not removed prior to transfer. The Breakout Crew failed to visually verify the presence of nuclear warheads in the weapons being transferred and allowed the Convoy Crew to remove them without the proper security details being present. Subsequently, the Convoy, Loading and Aircrews all failed to properly perform their visual inspections with the consequent result of nuclear warheads being inadvertently loaded aboard the B-52 and transferred to Barksdale where they were unloaded and transferred to the Barksdale Convoy Crew who finally discovered their presence triggering the Nuclear Security Alert at Barksdale.

The Defense Science Board Report’s findings on the incident were listed as:

1. Over time, nuclear weapons movement procedures for bomber weapons have been compromised for expedient work processes. This evolution occurred without adequate review and approval above the Wing level.

2. There was confusion over applicability of nuclear weapons handling procedures for nuclear weapons systems that do not contain nuclear weapons.

3. The practice of storing nuclear munitions in the same facility with nuclear-test, nuclear-training and nuclear-inert devices led to confusion and unnecessary access to nuclear weapons.

4. The various levels of inspection activities failed to detect these changes in process which compromised established procedure. The Nuclear Operational Readiness Inspection process required only limited mission performance, sometimes generating as few as one aircraft being subjected to inspection.

The report further found that, due to the decrease in size of the nuclear force and stockpile of nuclear weapons in the inventory as well as its consolidation with chemical and biological weapons, the level of focus on the nuclear mission had been drastically reduced in the Air Force Bomber command, contributing to the conditions that created the Bent Spear incident. The report also found similar trends in the Air Force Missile command to a lesser degree when compared to the corresponding Naval nuclear weapons program.

As a former Naval Nuclear Weapons Handler, I was alarmed by the first reports of this incident and mystified at how it could have occurred. After reading the DSB’s review and subsequent Air Force corrective actions, I was equally alarmed at both the degradation of handling procedures within the Air Force and the fact that the 5th Bomber Wing was still certified as nuclear-capable despite failing the subsequent Nuclear Surety Inspection on at least one occasion. Having experience undergoing one successful nuclear-certification inspection, the Navy’s Nuclear Weapons Acceptance Inspection as well as five annual Nuclear Technical Proficiency Inspections and two Technical Surprise Inspections, I was appalled by the Wing’s certification as well as the subsequent NSI failures by the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, the 90th Missile Wing at F. E. Warren AFB and the 377th Air Base Wing at Kirtland AFB. The latter is especially disturbing since the 377th is tasked with support of the transfer of the actual nuclear warheads to the Pantex plant for decommissioning. For the record, I have never heard of any nuclear-capable command in the US Navy either failing its inspections or being decertified as a result.

I found the stated causes of the confusion that precipitated the incident somewhat disingenuous since my experience was also dealing with both nuclear and non-nuclear payloads in the weapons systems I was responsible for, including handling evolutions. I was further mystified at how nuclear warheads could be “inadvertently” transferred from a secure, alarmed storage facility, fail to set off any anti-theft or anti-transfer alarms and pass through a total of SIX separate transfers of custody involving over 50 total personnel before being discovered. While I found the recommendations of the DSB for a unified Air Force nuclear command structure encouraging, I am skeptical about the results unless the Air Force adopts a program more closely resembling the Naval program. So my closing questions are as follows:

1. Why were established nuclear handling procedures with regard to close personal inspection at Minot not followed by appropriate personnel?

2. Why were no alarms set off by the warhead transfer, despite having each nuclear warhead individually catalogued and alarmed electronically?

3. Why did FIVE separate teams fail to either visually inspect or verify the presence of nuclear payloads despite established procedures requiring such inspections, four of which occurred prior to the flight?

4. What plans and procedures are in place to prevent a reoccurrence and to ensure Air Force units tasked with the nuclear mission pass their inspections the first time, every time?

For better or worse, we have an extensive nuclear arsenal and will continue to have one for the foreseeable future. I have applauded and supported US efforts to safeguard both our own arsenal as well as assisting Russia and the other former Soviet states to safeguard and secure the remnants of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. I supported GHW Bush’s successful plan to transfer and safeguard the former Kazakh component of that arsenal to US custody for dismantling and securing of all its nuclear material. I have consistently opposed nuclear proliferation and support IAEA inspection and control of ALL nuclear weapons arsenals, including India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. As the only country to actually use nuclear weapons in combat, despite my agreement that their use ultimately saved more lives than it took, the Mark of Cain is upon us. That Mark can only be assuaged by a commitment to total nuclear disarmament by all nations with the US playing a leading role within the IAEA. I also offer my own personal opinion that the only group of people who have EARNED the RIGHT to authorize the First Use of nuclear weapons are the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

2009-11-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

How the Brain Filters out Distracting Thoughts to Focus on a Single Bit of Information

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2009) — The human brain is bombarded with all kinds of information, from the memory of last night's delicious dinner to the instructions from your boss at your morning meeting. But how do you "tune in" to just one thought or idea and ignore all the rest of what is going on around you, until it comes time to think of something else?

Researchers at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have discovered a mechanism that the brain uses to filter out distracting thoughts to focus on a single bit of information. Their results are reported in 19 November issue of Nature.

Think of your brain like a radio: You're turning the knob to find your favourite station, but the knob jams, and you're stuck listening to something that's in between stations. It's a frustrating combination that makes it quite hard to get an update on swine flu while a Michael Jackson song wavers in and out. Staying on the right frequency is the only way to really hear what you're after. In much the same way, the brain's nerve cells are able to "tune in" to the right station to get exactly the information they need, says researcher Laura Colgin, who was the paper's first author. "Just like radio stations play songs and news on different frequencies, the brain uses different frequencies of waves to send different kinds of information," she says.

Gamma waves as information carriers

Colgin and her colleagues measured brain waves in rats, in three different parts of the hippocampus, which is a key memory center in the brain. While listening in on the rat brain wave transmissions, the researchers started to realize that there might be something more to a specific sub-set of brain waves, called gamma waves. Researchers have thought these waves are linked to the formation of consciousness, but no one really knew why their frequency differed so much from one region to another and from one moment to the next.

Information is carried on top of gamma waves, just like songs are carried by radio waves. These "carrier waves" transmit information from one brain region to another. "We found that there are slow gamma waves and fast gamma waves coming from different brain areas, just like radio stations transmit on different frequencies," she says.

You really can "be on the same wavelength"

"You know how when you feel like you really connect with someone, you say you are on the same wavelength? When brain cells want to connect with each other, they synchronize their activity," Colgin explains. "The cells literally tune into each other's wavelength. We investigated how gamma waves in particular were involved in communication across cell groups in the hippocampus. What we found could be described as a radio-like system inside the brain. The lower frequencies are used to transmit memories of past experiences, and the higher frequencies are used to convey what is happening where you are right now."

If you think of the example of the jammed radio, the way to hear what you want out of the messy signals would be to listen really hard for the latest news while trying to filter out the unwanted music. The hippocampus does this more efficiently. It simply tunes in to the right frequency to get the station it wants. As the cells tune into the station they're after, they are actually able to filter out the other station at the same time, because its signal is being transmitted on a different frequency.

The switch

"The cells can rapidly switch their activity to tune in to the slow waves or the fast waves," Colgin says, "but it seems as though they cannot listen to both at the exact same time. This is like when you are listening to your radio and you tune in to a frequency that is midway between two stations- you can't understand anything- it's just noise." In this way, the brain cells can distinguish between an internal world of memories and a person's current experiences. If the messages were carried on the same frequency, our perceptions of the world might be completely confused. "Your current perceptions of a place would get mixed up with your memories of how the place used to be," Colgin says.

The cells that tune into different wavelengths work like a switch, or rather, like zapping between radio stations that are already programmed into your radio. The cells can switch back and forth between different channels several times per second. The switch allows the cells to attend to one piece at a time, sorting out what's on your mind from what's happening and where you are at any point in time. The researchers believe this is an underlying principle for how information is handled throughout the brain.

"This switch mechanism points to superfast routing as a general mode of information handling in the brain," says Edvard Moser, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience director. "The classical view has been that signaling inside the brain is hardwired, subject to changes caused by modification of connections between neurons. Our results suggest that the brain is a lot more flexible. Among the thousands of inputs to a given brain cell, the cell can choose to listen to some and ignore the rest and the selection of inputs is changing all the time. We believe that the gamma switch is a general principle of the brain, employed throughout the brain to enhance interregional communication."

Can a switch malfunction explain schizophrenia?

People who are schizophrenic have problems keeping these brain signals straight. They cannot tell, for example, if they are listening to voices from people who are present or if the voices are from the memory of a movie they have seen. "We cannot tell for sure if it is this switch that is malfunctioning, but we do know that gamma waves are abnormal in schizophrenic patients," Colgin says. "Schizophrenics' perceptions of the world around them are mixed up, like a radio stuck between stations."
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...OR you copy an article on a page full of seriously distracting crap and paste it somewhere you can read it in peace... and maybe that means your receiver is malfunctioning, or maybe that means capitalism should be killed before it drives too many more people screaming naked off cliffs. Pick.

2009-11-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

SPECIAL REPORT: In eastern Europe, people pine for socialism
8 November 2009 | By Anna Mudeva

BELENE, Bulgaria (Reuters) - In the dense forests of the idyllic Danube island of Persin, home to the endangered sea eagle and the pygmy cormorant, lie the ghastly remains of a communist-era death camp.

Hundreds of "enemies of the regime" perished from beatings, malnutrition and exhaustion in 1949-59 in Bulgaria's Belene concentration camp, where dead bodies were fed to pigs.

Twenty years after the fall of communism, Belene is largely forgotten -- only a small marble plaque tells its horrific story. And nostalgia for the past is growing in the small Balkan country and across the former Soviet bloc.

Capitalism's failure to lift living standards, impose the rule of law and tame flourishing corruption and nepotism have given way to fond memories of the times when the jobless rate was zero, food was cheap and social safety was high.

"(The bad) things have been forgotten," said Rumen Petkov, 42, a former guard now clerk at the only prison still functioning on the Persin island.

"The nostalgia is palpable, particularly among the elderly," he said, in front of the crumbling buildings of another old jail opened on the site after the camp was shut in 1959. The communists imprisoned dozens of ethnic Turks here in the 1980s when they refused to change their names to Bulgarian.

Some young people in the impoverished town of Belene, linked to the island with a pontoon bridge, also reminisce: "We lived better in the past," said Anelia Beeva, 31.

"We went on holidays to the coast and the mountains, there were plenty of clothes, shoes, food. And now the biggest chunk of our incomes is spent on food. People with university degrees are unemployed and many go abroad."

In Russia, several Soviet-themed restaurants have opened in Moscow in recent years: some hold nostalgia nights where young people dress up as pioneers -- the Soviet answer to the boy scouts and girl guides -- and dance to communist classics.

Soviet Champagne and Red October Chocolates remain favorites for birthday celebrations. "USSR" T-shirts and baseball caps can be seen across the country in summer.

While there is scant real desire for old regimes to be restored, analysts say apathy is a vital outcome.

"The big damage of the nostalgia...is that it dries out the energy for meaningful change," wrote Bulgarian sociologist Vladimir Shopov in the online portal BG History.

DISENCHANTMENT

Across former communist eastern Europe, disenchantment with democracy is widespread and pollsters say mistrust of the elites who made people citizens of the European Union is staggering.

A September regional poll by U.S. Pew research center showed support for democracy and capitalism has seen the biggest fall in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Hungary.

The poll showed 30 percent of Ukrainians approved of the change to democracy in 2009, down from 72 percent in 1991. In Bulgaria and Lithuania the slide was to just over half the population from nearer three-quarters in 1991.

Surveys by U.S.-based human rights group Freedom House show backsliding or stagnation in corruption, governance, independent media and civil society in the new EU-member states.

The global economic crisis, which has wounded the region and put an end to six or seven years of growth, is now challenging the remedy of neoliberal capitalism prescribed by the West.

Hopes of catching up with the wealthy Western neighbors have been replaced by a sense of injustice because of a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

In Hungary, one of the countries worst hit by economic downturn, 70 percent of those who were already adults in 1989 say they were disappointed with the results of the regime change, an October survey by pollster Szonda Ipsos showed.

People in the former Yugoslav countries, scarred by the ethnic wars from the 1990s and still outside the EU, are nostalgic for the socialist era of Josip Broz Tito when, unlike now, they traveled across Europe without visa.

"Everything was better then. There was no street crime, jobs were safe and salaries were enough for decent living," said Belgrade pensioner Koviljka Markovic, 70. "Today I can hardly survive with my pension of 250 euros ($370 a month)."

GOLDEN ERA

In Bulgaria, the 33-year rule of the late dictator Todor Zhivkov begins to seem a golden era to some in comparison with the raging corruption and crime that followed his demise.

Over 60 percent say they lived better in the past, even though shopping queues were routine, social connections were the only way to obtain more valuable goods, jeans and Coca Cola were off-limits and it took up to 10 years' waiting to buy a car.

"For part of the Bulgarians (social) security turned out to be more precious than freedom," wrote historians Andrei Pantev and Bozhidar Gavrilov in a book on the 100 most influential people in the Balkan country's history.

Nearly three years after joining the EU, Bulgaria's average monthly salary of about 300 euros and pension of about 80 euros remain the lowest in the club. Incomes in the more affluent Poland and the Czech Republic, which joined the bloc in 2004, are also still a fraction of those in western Europe.

A 2008 global survey by Gallup ranked Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania among the 10 most discontented countries in the world.

"Our parents' generation was much more satisfied with what they had. Everybody just wants more of everything these days," said Zsofia Kis, a 23-year old student in Budapest, referring to the way communist regimes artificially held down unemployment.

DALAVERA, MUTRI, MENTE

After two decades of patchy, painful reforms, the majority of people refuse to make more sacrifices, as would be needed to complete a revamp of the economy and the judiciary.

Demoralization and heightened popularity for political parties promising "a firm hand" are other consequences.

Not without reason.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, described the fall of the Soviet Union as the "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Kremlin critics have accused the authorities of a creeping rehabilitation of the Soviet Union to justify their clampdowns on the media and opposition parties.

"There is an idealization of the Soviet past," said Nikita Petrov, an historian from the Memorial human rights group. "It's a conscious policy. They are trying to show the Soviet authorities looking decent and attractive to today's generation."

In Bulgaria, oligarchs who control entire sectors of the economy have emerged from the former communist party's ranks and its feared secret services.

The names of corrupt politicians and crime bosses are an open secret, but Bulgaria has not convicted a single senior official of graft and has jailed only one gang boss since 1989. No one has been convicted for the communist repressions.

Some of the most popular words among ordinary Bulgarians are "dalavera," a Turkish word meaning fraud, "mutri," a nickname for ugly mafiosi and "mente," which means counterfeit products.

"People are losing faith that one can achieve success in an honest, decent way. Success is totally criminalized," said Boriana Dimitrova of Bulgarian polling agency Alpha Research.

She said the sense of injustice was particularly strong in the Balkans, Europe's poorest corner, where untouchable parallel structures of power reign. "Some people say: 'yes, the old regime was repressive but at least there was law and order.'"

A promise to end the climate of impunity helped tough-talking Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of the center-right populist GERB party to a landslide election win in Bulgaria in July.

Public discontent and recession mean only populist governments can survive in the region, analysts say.

"The level of mistrust in the political elite and institutions is so high that you cannot convince people to do anything under unpopular governments," said Ivan Krastev of Sofia's Liberal Strategies Institute.

Some in Bulgaria accuse the West of duplicity for easily swallowing the communist past of members of the new elite.

The election of Bulgarian Irina Bokova, 57, a former communist apparatchik and ambassador to Paris, as head of the U.N. culture and education body UNESCO in September was a stark example of the West's hypocrisy, critics say.

Bokova studied in Moscow during the communism and climbed the diplomatic career ladder in the 1990s thanks to her past.

"AMERICANIZATION"

On one front at least, some eastern Europeans say they have succeeded in catching up with and even outstripping capitalist standards -- the thirst for materialism.

A big chunk of the loans taken in the boom years was spent on fancy cars and yachts, flat TV screens, designer clothes, silicon surgeries and exotic trips abroad.

Copying foreign standards went as far as giving babies Western names and flooding TV screens with reality shows like "Big Brother."

"Bulgaria is becoming Americanized," said renowned Bulgarian artist, Nikola Manev, who lives in Paris. "I pick up the phone and they talk to me in English, I go to a restaurant and it's called Miami. Don't we have our own names for God's sake?

"Looking on the surface, I see new buildings, shops, shiny cars. But people have become sadder, more aggressive and unhappy," he said, prescribing spiritual cures.

This autumn for the first time in many years, tickets at Sofia's theatres are selling out weeks in advance.

(Additional reporting by Marton Dunai and Gergely Szakacs in Budapest, Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade and Conor Humphries in Moscow; Editing by Sara Ledwith)

2009-08-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

Old Uncle Dave considers this a must-read, but it was at Op Ed News, and so fuck that. If I've gotta read it, I've gotta read it where it's readable.
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July 29, 2009

The American Road to Fascism -- a synopsis of Chris Hedges' new book, Empire of Illusion
By Richard Clark

The United Nations' International Labor Organization estimates that some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide in 2009. The collapse had already seen close to 4 million lost jobs in the United States by mid-2009. The International Monetary Fund's prediction for global economic growth in 2009 is 0.5% -- the worst since the Second World War. There were 2.3 million properties in the United States that received a default notice or were repossessed in 2008. And this number is set to rise, especially as vacant commercial real estate begins to be foreclosed. About 20,000 major global banks collapsed, were sold, or were nationalized in 2008. An estimated 62,000 U.S. companies are expected to shut down in 2009.

Meanwhile, our government is being wrecked by corporations, which now receive 40% of federal discretionary spending. More than 800,000 jobs, once handled by government employees, have been outsourced to corporations, a move that has not only further empowered our shadow/corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions. Management of federal prisons, the management of regulatory and scientific reviews, the processing or denial of Freedom of Information requests, interrogating prisoners, and running the world's largest mercenary army in Iraq -- all this has become corporate. And these corporations, in a perverse arrangement, make their money directly off of the American citizen.

This devil's deal is but an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry: Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 billion contract to repair Iraq's oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control all of Iraq's oil production. This has now become $130 billion in contract awards to Halliburton. And flush with taxpayer dollars, what has Halliburton done? It has made sure that only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiary companies are incorporated in the United States and that 107 of its subsidiaries (or 75%) are incorporated in thirty different countries. This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing "controlled foreign corporations," i.e. subsidiaries, that are located inside low-tax, or no-tax, countries that are thereby used as tax havens. Thus the corporations take our money, squander it, and cleverly evade taxation, all at our expense. And our corporately infiltrated and corporately controlled government not only funds them but protects them!

By this means and many others, the financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom that is now taking hold even in the United States. Credit Suisse analysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1,390,000. If that estimate is correct, 13% of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes.

The bailout for banks and financial firms, who feel no compunction to account for taxpayer funds, essentially pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. Power no longer resides with the citizens of the United States, who, at ratios of 100 to 1, pleaded with their representatives in Washington not to loot the national treasury to bail out reckless Wall Street investment firms that engaged in a variety of schemes of highly questionable legality.

Political and economic power increasingly lies with corporations
These corporations, not we, pick who runs for president, for Congress, for judgeships, and for most state legislatures. You cannot, in most instances, be a viable candidate without their blessing and money. These corporations, including the Commission on Presidential Debates (a private and corporately controlled organization), determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge -- from universal, not-for-profit, single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts, to NAFTA. If you do not follow the corporate script, you will certainly become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, or Cynthia McKinney.

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative John Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq -- something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton -- and instead supported continued funding for the war. It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act. It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30%. It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit. It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676, sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and John Conyers and supported by three-quarters of the American people they supposedly represent. It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power. It is why many backed the class-action "reform" bill -- the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) -- that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits. Workers, under CAFA, would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations. CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges.

The ever expanding war against American workers
The assault on the American working class is nearly complete. In the past three years, nearly one in five U.S. workers was laid off. Among workers laid off from full-time work, roughly one-fourth were earning less than $40,000 annually. Today most of them make significantly less. As a result of all the layoffs over the last decade, there are whole sections of the United States that now resemble the developing world. There has been a Weimarization of the American working class. And the assault on the middle class is now under way. Anything that can be put on software -- from finance to architecture to engineering -- can and is being outsourced to workers in countries such as India or China, who accept pay that is a fraction of what their Western counterparts receive, and without benefits. And make no mistake, both the Republican and Democratic parties, beholden to corporations for money and power, have allowed this to happen.

Over the past few decades, we have watched the rise of a powerful web of interlocking corporate entities create a network of arrangements to diminish and often abolish outside control and oversight. In their quest for ever more extraordinary profits and executive compensation, these corporations have neutralized national, state, and judicial authority. The corporate state, begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forward by every president since, has destroyed the public and private institutions that protected workers and safeguarded citizens. Only 8% of workers in the private sector are now unionized. This is about the same percentage as in the early 1900s. The result? There are now 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of Americans in a category called "near poverty."

Washington has become our Versailles
We are ruled, entertained, and informed by the new courtiers. Congressional Democrats, like the Republicans, are mostly courtiers. Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly and systematically stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception.

Television journalism is largely a farce. Celebrity reporters, masquerading as journalists, make millions a year and do little more than provide a platform for the powerful and the famous so they can spin, equivocate, and lie. Sitting in a studio, putting on makeup, and chatting with Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, or Lawrence Summers has little to do with real journalism. If you are a journalist, you should start to worry if you make $5 million a year. No real journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No real journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists -- and they should. Ask Amy Goodman, Seymour Hersh, Walter Pincus, Robert Scheer, or David Cay Johnston.

The comedian Jon Stewart, who hosts his popular "Daily Show' on Comedy Central, has become one of the most visible and influential media figures in America. In an interview with Jim Cramer, who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC, Stewart asked his guest why, during all the years he advised viewers about investments, he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and banks that unleashed the financial meltdown -- or warned viewers about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveraging used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings accounts of ordinary Americans.

Cramer, like most television and many print reporters, provides an uncritical forum to the powerful. At the same time they provide the forum, they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power. They play the role on television of journalists. It is a corrupt kind of quid pro quo: The media get access to the elite as long as the media courtiers faithfully report what the elite wants reported. Without that quid pro quo, reporters are cast into the wilderness and denied access.

The behavior of a Jim Cramer, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Salon.com, mirrors that of the "courtiers" who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Day after day, news organizations as diverse as the New York Times, CNN, and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts. While they pretended to serve the public, they actually served the power elite, just as Cramer and most of those on television do today.

In Bill Moyers' 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War, Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them. Even more damaging, Moyers contrasted Russert's work with that of Bob Simon of CBS, who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administration's pro-war leaks, so crucial in fanning public and political support for going to war, were bogus. Moyers focused on a story, given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheney's office, that appeared on the front page of the paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press, where Cheney had the audacity to cite the Times article to substantiate what he was telling Tim Russert!

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post suggested that Russert's journalistic failure, in allowing these lies to pass, unvetted, indicated a larger failure of many media figures: "More and more, in the media, become, I think, common carriers of administration statements, rather than critics of the administration. We've sort of given up being independent and on our own."

Russert, like Cramer, when exposed as complicit in the dissemination of misinformation, attempted to portray himself as an innocent victim, as did New York Times reporter Judy Miller, who, along with her colleague Michael Gordon, worked largely as stenographers for the Bush White House during the propaganda campaign to invade Iraq. Once the administration claims justifying the war had been exposed as falsehoods, Miller quipped that she was "only as good as my sources." This logic upends the traditional role of reporting, which should always begin with the assumption that those in power have an agenda and are rarely bound to the truth. All governments lie, as I. F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of any real journalist to do the hard, tedious work necessary to expose these lies. On the other hand, it is the relatively easy and well paid job of courtiers to feed off the scraps and BS tossed to them by the powerful so that they can best serve the interests of the power elite that pays them so well.

Cramer, formerly of Goldman Sachs, continues to serve his elite masters by lashing out at government attempts to make the financial system accountable. He has repeatedly characterized President Obama and Democrats in Congress as Russian communists intent on "rampant wealth destruction." He has referred to Obama as a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin." He has also used terms such as "Marx," "comrades," "Soviet," "WinterPalace," and "Politburo" in reference to Democrats, and has asked whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the "general secretary of the Communist Party." On the March 3, 2009, edition of NBC's Today, Cramer attacked Obama's purported "radical agenda" and claimed that "this is the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president." Statements like these from courtiers like Cramer will grow in intensity as our economic morass deepens and the government is forced to be increasingly interventionist, perhaps including the nationalization of many banks.

It is not just one or two reporters or television hosts who are corrupt. The media institutions themselves are corrupt. In the weeks before the occupation of Iraq, media workers were too busy posturing as red-blooded American patriots to report. They rarely challenged the steady assault by the Bush White House against our civil liberties and the trashing of our Constitution. The role of courtiers, after all, is to parrot official propaganda. Courtiers do not defy the elite or question the structure of the (corporate) state. The corporations, in return, use the power of television to make them into multimillionaire celebrities and allow them into their inner circle. Historically, no class of courtiers, from the eunuchs behind the Manchus in the nineteenth century to the Baghdad caliphs of the Abbasid caliphate, has ever transformed itself into a responsible and socially productive class. Mainly they are, and always have been, merely flaks, PR agents, propagandists and apologists for the rich and powerful. Very well paid and famous, yes, but essentially corrupt.

In modern America, the rise of courtiers extends beyond the press
Elected officials govern under the pretense that they serve the public, while with a few exceptions they actually work on behalf of corporations. Example: In 2008, a Congress with a majority of Democrats passed the FISA bill, which provides immunity for the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance over the previous six years. Such a bill endangers the work of journalists, human rights workers, crusading lawyers, and whistle-blowers who attempt to expose abuses the government seeks to hide. This bill means we will never know the extent of the Bush White House's violation of our civil liberties. Worst of all, since the bill gives the U.S. government a license to eavesdrop on our phone calls and e-mails, it effectively demolishes our right to privacy. Even worse, these private communications can be stored indefinitely and sent to any government agency. In short, the bill will make it possible for those in power to identify and silence anyone who dares to make information public that defies official propaganda or exposes fraud or abuse of power. But the telecommunications corporations, which spent some $15 million in lobbying fees, wanted the bill passed, so their courtiers in Congress passed it.

Being a courtier requires agility and eloquence. The most talented of them should at least be credited as great actors. They entertain us. They make us feel good. They persuade us and pretend to be our friends. They are the smiley faces of a corporate state that has hijacked our government. When the corporations make their iron demands, these courtiers drop to their knees. They placate the telecommunications companies that want to be protected from well deserved lawsuits. They permit oil and gas companies to rake in obscene profits and keep in place the vast subsidies of corporate welfare doled out by the state which they increasingly control. They allow our profit-driven health-care system to leave the uninsured and underinsured to suffer and die without proper care. What the elite wants, it gets, thanks to the well compensated service of their loyal courtiers.

Stupidly we trust courtiers wearing face powder who deceive us in the name of journalism. We trust courtiers in our political parties who promise to fight for our interests even as they pass bill after bill to further corporate fraud and abuse. Quite mistakenly we assume that our courtiers are providing us with real information, facts, and knowledge. This is the danger of a culture awash in lies and pseudo-events: Truth becomes ever more elusive, ever less certain. And so it was that the Democratic Party was able to refuse to impeach Bush and Cheney. This collective hiding from the truth also allows our government to spy on us without warrants or cause, and funnel billions of our taxpayer dollars to the very investment firms that committed fraud against us. Meanwhile, quite incredibly, these well paid courtiers baldly tell us that our government and corporations treasure democracy and stand up for the protection of our civil rights. Their unending lies have become a form of collective abuse. And, as so often happens in the weird pathology of victim and victimizer, we keep coming back for more.

America's transformation from a manufacturing economy to an economy of consumption
Our political and economic decline took place by way of a corporate drive for massive deregulation, the repeal of antitrust laws, and the country's radical transformation from a manufacturing economy to an economy of consumption. Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the danger this posed. He sent a message to Congress as long ago as April 29,1938, titled "Recommendations to the Congress to Curb Monopolies and the Concentration of Economic Power." In it he wrote:

Democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of (corporate) power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of Government by a group or any controlling private power. Neither is Democracy safe if its business system cannot provide employment, and produce and distribute goods in such a way, as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

The corporate state, the security state, and the imminent birth of fascism in America
As the pressure mounts, as this despair and impoverishment reach into larger and larger segments of the populace, the mechanisms of corporate and government control are being bolstered to deal with the coming civil unrest and instability. The emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state. This is why the Bush White House pushed through the Patriot Act (as well as its renewal), the suspension of habeas corpus, the practice of "extraordinary rendition," the practice of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, and the refusal to ensure free and fair elections with verifiable ballot-counting. It is all part of a package. It comes together. The real motive behind these measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security. It is to be able, when and if the time is right, to seize and maintain a fascist-like control of our government and society.

Hints of our brave new world seeped out when the director of national intelligence, retired admiral Dennis Blair, testified in February and March 2009 before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and '30s. "The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications," Blair told the Senate:

The crisis has been ongoing for over a year, and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom. Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the Great Depression. Of course all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.

The road ahead is grim
We have few tools left to dig our way out. The manufacturing sector in the United States has been dismantled by globalization. Consumers, thanks to credit card companies and easy lines of credit, are $14 trillion in debt. The government has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion toward the crisis, most of it borrowed or printed in the form of new money. It is borrowing heavily to fund our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And yet no one states the obvious: We will never be able to pay these loans back.

We are supposed to spend our way out of the crisis and maintain our part of the grand imperial project . . on credit! We are supposed to bring back the illusion of wealth created by the bubble economy. Yet there is no coherent and realistic plan, one built around our severe limitations, to stanch the bleeding or ameliorate the mounting deprivations we will suffer as citizens. Contrast this with the national security state's very carefully laid out preparations to crush potential civil unrest, and you get a glimpse of the future. [link]

According to new laws that supersede not just old laws but the Constitution itself, the military can now be ordered by the president into any neighborhood, any town or suburb, to capture a citizen and hold him or her in prison without charge. The executive branch can do this under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress after 9/11, that gives the president the power to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against anyone (allegedly) involved in planning, aiding, or carrying out terror attacks. And if the president can declare American citizens living inside the United States to be enemy combatants and order them stripped of constitutional rights, which he effectively can, under this authorization, what does this mean for us? How long can we be held without charge, without lawyers, and without access to the outside world? It remains to be seen.

The specter of the coming social unrest was raised at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S.ArmyWarCollege in November 2008, in a monograph by Nathan Freier titled Known Unknowns: Unconventional "Strategic Shocks" in Defense Strategy Development. The military must be prepared, Freier warned, for a "violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States" that could be provoked by "unforeseen economic collapse," "purposeful domestic resistance," "pervasive public health emergencies," or "loss of functioning political and legal order." The resulting "widespread civil violence," the document said, "would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis, so as to defend basic domestic order and human security.”

"Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, the Department of Defense would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multistate or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance," the document read.

In plain English, this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government run and administered by the Department of Defense. They are actually considering this. And so should we.

"When growth rates go down, my gut tells me that there are going to be problems coming out of that, and we're looking for that," Freier continued. He then referred to "statistical modeling" showing that "economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one- to two-year period."

Director of National Intelligence Blair articulates the newest narrative of fear
As the economic unraveling gets much worse, we will be told it is not the bearded Islamic extremists who threaten us most, although those in power will drag them out of the Halloween closet whenever they need to give us an exotic shock. Instead, the power elite will finally tell us it is the domestic riffraff, environmentalists, anarchists, unions, right-wing militias, and enraged members of our dispossessed working class who are now the enemy. Crime, as it always does in times of poverty and turmoil, will grow. And those who oppose the iron fist of the state security apparatus will be lumped together with the criminals in slick, corporate news reports (loyally delivered by the new courtiers) about the growing criminal underclass.

The destruction that the corporate state has wrought has been masked by lies
The consumer price index (CPI), used by the government to measure inflation, is meaningless. To keep the official inflation figures low, the government has been substituting basic products they once tracked to check for inflation with ones that do not rise very much in price. This trick has kept the cost-of-living increases tied to the CPI artificially low. The disconnect between what we are told and what is actually true is worthy of the deceit practiced in the old East Germany. The New York Times' consumer reporter, W. P. Dunleavy, wrote that her groceries now cost $587 a month, up from $400 one year earlier. This is a 40% increase. California economist John Williams, who runs an organization called Shadow Statistics (link), contends that if Washington still used the CPI measurements applied back in the 1970s, inflation would be about 10%.

The advantage of false statistics to the corporations is huge. An artificial inflation rate, one far lower than the real rate, keeps down equitable interest payments on bank accounts and certificates of deposit. It masks the deterioration of the American economy. The fabricated statistics allow corporations and the corporate state to walk away from obligations tied to real adjustments for inflation. These statistics mean that less is paid out in Social Security and pensions. These statistics also reduce the interest that has to be paid on our multitrillion-dollar national debt. Finally, corporations can escape having to pay real cost-of-living increases to their employees.

The lies employed to camouflage our economic decline have been in place for several decades. President Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation's unemployment rate by 2%. President Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could find only part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed. His trick "disappeared' some 5 million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls. If you work more than twenty-one hours a week -- most low-wage workers at places like Walmart average twenty-eight hours a week -- you are counted as employed even though your real wages put you below the poverty line. Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can find only very poorly paid part-time jobs, is not 8.5% but 15%. A sixth of the country was effectively unemployed in May of 2009. And we were shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash.

Our elected officials base their decisions not on the public good but on the possibility of campaign contributions and lucrative employment on leaving office. Our corporate elite tell us government is part of the problem and the markets should regulate themselves -- and then that same elite plunders the U.S. Treasury when they trash the economy. We insist we are a market economy, one based on the principles of capitalism and free trade, and yet the single largest sectors of international trade are the armaments and weapons systems of empire. There is a vast and growing disconnect between what we say we believe and what we do. We are blinded, enchanted, and finally enslaved by illusion.

Financial collapses have always led to political extremism
It was the economic meltdown of Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic. It was the collapse of the WeimarRepublic that vomited up Adolf Hitler. And it was the breakdown in czarist Russia that opened the door for Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash. (See Hedges' book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America)

In former manufacturing towns, the end of the world is no longer an abstraction. Most who live there have lost hope. Fear and instability have plunged the working classes into profound personal and economic despair, and, not surprisingly, into the arms of the demagogues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic, miracles, and the fantasy of a utopian Christian nation. And unless we rapidly re-enfranchise our dispossessed workers into the economy, unless we give them hope, our democracy is doomed.

As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class; as the Democratic and Republican parties expose themselves as craven tools of our corporate state; as savings accounts, college funds, and retirement plans become worthless; as unemployment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke, we must prepare for the political resurgence of reinvigorated right-wing radicals including those within the Christian Right. The engine of the Christian Right -- as is true for all radical movements -- is personal and economic despair. And despair, in an age of increasing shortages, poverty and hopelessness, will be one of our few surplus commodities.

Our collapse is more than an economic and political collapse
It is, at its core, a crisis of faith. The capitalist ideology of unlimited growth has failed us. It did not take into account the massive depletion of the world's resources, from fossil fuels to clean water to fish stocks to soil erosion, as well as overpopulation, global warming, and climate change. It failed to understand that the huge, unregulated international flows of capital and its assault on American manufacturing would wreck the global financial system. An overvalued dollar (which could soon deflate); wild tech, stock, housing and financial bubbles; unchecked greed; the decimation of our manufacturing sector; the empowerment of an oligarchic class; the corruption of our political elite; the impoverishment of workers; a bloated military and defense budget; and unrestrained credit binges are essentially consequences of a failed ideology, and together combine to bring us down. Soon the financial crisis may very well become a currency crisis. And when it does, this second shock will threaten our country's financial viability. We let the market rule. Now we are paying for it.

In his book The Great Transformation, written in 1944, Karl Polanyi laid out the devastating consequences -- the depressions, wars, and totalitarianism -- that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that "fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function." He warned that a financial system always devolved, absent heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism -- and a Mafia political system -- which is a good description of our current power elite.

Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University, wrote that a self-regulating market turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market's assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity.

We face an environmental meltdown as well as an economic meltdown
Russia's northern coastline has begun producing huge quantities of toxic methane gas. Scientists with the International Siberian Shelf Study describe what they saw along the coastline recently as "methane chimneys" reaching from the sea floor to the ocean's surface. Methane, locked in the permafrost of Arctic landmasses, is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperatures rise. Methane is a greenhouse gas twenty-five times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The release of millions of tons of it will rapidly increase the rate of global warming. [link]

Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are responsible, as Polanyi predicted, for our personal impoverishment as well as the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted (courtesy of the oil, gas, and automobile industries and a corporate-controlled government) to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities of methane, some scientists have warned, could asphyxiate the human species.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any concentration of carbon dioxide greater than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere is not compatible with maintenance of the biosphere on the "planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." (The Earth's atmosphere now has an average concentration of 385 ppm.) To halt this self-immolation, Hansen has determined, the world must stop burning coal by 2030 -- and the industrialized world must do it well before that -- if we are to have any hope of ever getting the planet back down below that 350 number. But in the United States coal supplies half of our electricity! And China opens up a new coal-fired power plant every day. [link]

Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities
Democracy, like individualism, is based not on personal gain but on self-sacrifice. A functioning democracy must often defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of citizens. But this is no longer happening in America. The corporate managers and government officials trying to fix the economic meltdown are pouring money and resources into the financial sector because they are trained only to manage and sustain the established system, not change it, and the system has by this time evolved into a proto-fascist corpocracy.

For the reasons already cited, the working class, which has desperately borrowed money to stay afloat as real wages have dropped, now face years, maybe decades, of stagnant or declining incomes without access to new credit. The national treasury, meanwhile, is being drained on behalf of speculative commercial interests. Our (now corporate controlled) government -- the only institution citizens have that is big enough and powerful enough to protect their rights -- is in that respect becoming weaker, more anemic, and increasingly unable to help the mass of Americans who are about to embark on a period of deprivation and suffering unseen in this country since the 1930s. Creative destruction, Joseph Schumpeter understood, is the essential fact about unfettered capitalism. But is our "democracy" any longer strong enough, real enough, and wise enough to ameliorate this destruction in such a way as to prevent incredible amounts of suffering in the lives of ordinary Americans?

"You are going to see the biggest waste, fraud, and abuse in American history," Ralph Nader recently said about the bailouts. "Not only is it wrongly directed, not only does it benefit the perpetrators instead of the people who were victimized, but they don't have a delivery system of any honesty and efficiency. The Justice Department is overwhelmed. It doesn't have a tenth of the prosecutors, investigators, auditors, and attorneys needed even to deal with the previous corporate crime wave before the bailout started last September. It is especially unable to deal with the rapacious ravaging of this new money by these corporate recipients. Rather than lending it to businesses in need, the big banks have parked billions of the dollars loaned to them at the Fed, to collect interest on the money. [link] They have also used some of it for acquisitions or to preserve their bonuses and their dividends. As long as they know they are not going to jail, and they don't see many newspaper reports about their colleagues going to jail, they don't care. If they quit, they quit with a golden parachute."

There are a handful of former executives who have conceded that the bailouts are a waste. The former chairman of American International Group Inc. (AIG), Maurice R. Greenberg, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the effort to prop up the firm with $170 billion has "failed." He said the company should be restructured. AIG, he said, would have been better off filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection instead of seeking government help.

Will a second stimulus package save us?
The terrible truth is that we will not be able to raise another $3 or $4 trillion (especially with our commitments now totaling more than $12 trillion) to fix this mess. It was not long ago that such profligate government spending was unthinkable. There was an $800 billion limit placed on the Federal Reserve. The economic stimulus and the bailouts will not bring back our casino capitalism. And as the meltdown shows no signs of abating, and the bailouts show no sign of working, both the recklessness and the desperation of our capitalist overlords have increased. Meanwhile the costs to the working and middle class is becoming unsustainable. The Fed reported that households lost $5.1 trillion, or 9%, of their wealth in the last three months of 2008, the most ever in a single quarter in the fifty-seven-year history of record-keeping by the central bank. For the full year, household wealth dropped $11.1 trillion, or about 18%. These figures did not record the decline of investments in the stock market, which has probably erased trillions more in the country's collective net worth.

The bullet to our head, inevitable if we do not radically alter course, will be sudden
We have been borrowing at the rate of more than $2 billion a day over the last ten years, and at some point it has to stop. The moment China, the oil-rich states, and other international investors stop buying U.S. Treasury Bonds, the dollar will become junk. Inflation will rocket upward. We will become WeimarGermany. A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans. A cabal of proto-fascist misfits, from Christian demagogues to simpletons like Sarah Palin to loudmouth talk-show hosts, whom we naively dismiss as buffoons, will find a following with promises of revenge and moral renewal. The elites, the ones with their HarvardBusinessSchool degrees and expensive vocabularies, will retreat into their sheltered enclaves of privilege and comfort. We will be left bereft, abandoned outside the gates, and at the mercy of the security state.

Lenin said that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch its currency. As our financial crisis unravels, and our currency becomes worthless, there will be a loss of confidence in the traditional mechanisms that regulate society. When money becomes worthless, so does government. All traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic crisis. The moral order is turned upside down. The honest and industrious are wiped out while the gangsters, profiteers, and speculators walk away with millions.

There are powerful corporate entities, fearful of losing their influence and wealth, arrayed against us. They are waiting for the moment to strike, which will be a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control. The tools are in place. These antidemocratic forces, which will seek to make an alliance with the radical Christian Right and other extremists, will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites, and the specter of left-wing dissent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to extinguish what remains of our democracy. And while they do it, they will be waving the American flag, chanting patriotic slogans, promising law and order, and clutching the Christian cross. By then, exhausted and broken, we may have lost the power to resist.

Mass culture is a Peter Pan culture
It tells us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by "get happy" psychologists, Hollywood, or Christian preachers, is a form of magical thinking. It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns alienation and anxiety into a cheerful conformity. It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers off-shore penal colonies, where it openly practices torture, into the greatest democracy on earth.

The world that awaits us will be painful and difficult. We will either be dragged back to realism, to the understanding that we cannot mold and shape reality according to human desires, or we will slide into despotism. We will either learn to adjust our lifestyles radically, to cope with diminished resources, environmental damage, and a contracting economy, as well as our decline as a military power, or we will die clinging to our illusions. These are the stark choices before us.

2009-07-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

The Technique of a Coup d'État
by John Laughland

In recent years, a number of "revolutions" have broken out all over the world.

1. Georgia

In November 2003, the president of Georgia Edward Shevardnadze was overthrown following demonstrations, marches and allegations that the parliamentary elections had been rigged.

2. Ukraine

In November 2004, the "Orange Revolution" of demonstrations started in Ukraine as the same allegations were made, that elections had been rigged.

The result was that country was ripped away from its previous geopolitical role as a bridge between East and West, and put it on the path to becoming a fully-fledged member of NATO and the EU. Considering that Kievan Rus is the first Russian state, and that Ukraine has now been turned against Russia, this is a historic achievement. But then, as George Bush said, "You are either with us or against us." Although Ukraine had sent troops to Iraq, it was evidently considered too friendly to Moscow.

3. Lebanon

Shortly after the US and the UN declared that Syrian troops had to be removed from Lebanon, and following the assassination of Rafik Hariri, demonstrations in Beirut were presented as "the Cedar Revolution." An enormous counter-demonstration by Hezbollah, which is the largest political party in Syria, was effectively ignored while the TV replayed endlessly the image of the anti-Syrian crowd. In one particularly egregious case of Orwellian double-think, the BBC explained to its viewers that "Hezbollah, the biggest political party in Lebanon, is so far the only dissenting voice which wants the Syrians to stay." How can the majority be "a dissenting voice"?

4. Kyrgyzstan

After the "revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine, many predicted that the same wave of "revolutions" would extend to the former Soviet states of Central Asia. So it was to be. Commentators seemed divided on what colour to label the uprising in Bishkek – was it a "lemon" revolution or a "tulip" revolution? They could not make up their minds. But on one thing, everyone was in agreement: revolutions are cool, even when they are violent. The Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev, was overthrown on 24th March 2005 and protesters stormed and ransacked the presidential palace.

5. Uzbekistan

When armed rebels seized government buildings, sprung prisoners from gaol and took hostages on the night of 12th–13th May in the Uzbek city of Andijan (located in the Ferghana Valley, where the unrest had also started in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan) the police and army surrounded the rebels and a long standoff ensued. Negotiations were undertaken with the rebels, who kept increasing their demands. When government forces started to move on the rebels, the resulting fighting killed some 160 people including over 30 members of the police and army. Yet the Western media immediately misrepresented this violent confrontation, claiming that government forces had opened fire on unarmed protesters – "the people."

This constantly repeated myth of popular rebellion against a dictatorial government is popular on both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum. Previously, the myth of revolution was obviously the preserve of the Left. But when the violent putsch occurred in Kygyrzstan, The Times enthused about how the scenes in Bishkek reminded him of Eisenstein films about the Bolshevik revolution, The Daily Telegraph extolled the "power to the people," and the Financial Times used a well-known Maoist metaphor when it praised Kyrgyzstan’s "long march to freedom."

One of the key elements behind this myth is obviously that "the people" are behind the events, and that they are spontaneous. In fact, of course, they are often very highly organised operations, often deliberately staged for the media, and usually funded and controlled by transnational networks of so-called non-governmental organisations which are in turn instruments of Western power.

1. The literature on coups d’état

The survival of the myth of spontaneous popular revolution is depressing in view of the ample literature on the coup d’état, and on the main factors and tactics by which to bring one about.

It was, of course, Lenin who developed the organisational structure for overthrowing a regime which we now know as a political party. He differed from Marx in that he did not think that historical change was the result of ineluctable anonymous forces, but that it had to be worked for.

But it was probably Curzio Malaparte’s Technique of a Coup d’état which first gave very famous expression to these ideas. Published in 1931, this book presents regime change as just that – a technique. Malaparte explicitly took issue with those who thought that regime change happened on its own. In fact, he starts the book by recounting a discussion between diplomats in Warsaw in the summer of 1920: Poland had been invaded by Trostky’s Red Army (Poland having itself invaded the Soviet Union, capturing Kiev in April 1920) and the Bolsheviks were at the gates of Warsaw. The debate was between the British minister in Warsaw, Sir Horace Rumbold, and the Papal nuncio, Monsignor Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti – the man who was elected Pope as Pius XI two years later. The Englishman said that the internal political situation in Poland was so chaotic that a revolution was inevitable, and that the diplomatic corps therefore should flee the capital and go to Posen (Poznán). The Papal Nuncio disagreed, insisting that a revolution was just as possible in a civilised country like England, Holland or Switzerland as in a country in a state of anarchy. Naturally the Englishman was outraged at the idea that a revolution could ever break out in England. "Oh never!" he exclaimed – and was proved wrong because no revolution did break out in Poland, according to Malaparte because the revolutionary forces were simply not well organised enough.

This anecdote allows Malaparte to discuss the differences between Lenin and Trotsky, two practitioners of the coup d’état/revolution. Malaparte shows that the future Pope was right and that it was wrong to say that pre-conditions were necessary for a revolution to occur. For Malaparte, as for Trotsky, regime change could be promoted in any country, including the stable democracies of Western Europe, providing that there was a sufficiently determined body of men determined to achieve it.

2. Manufacturing consent

This brings us onto a second body of literature, concerning the manipulation of the media. Malaparte himself does not discuss this aspect but it is (a) of huge importance and (b) clearly a subset of the technique of a coup d’état in the way regime change is practised today. So important, indeed, is the control of the media during regime change that one of the main characteristics of these revolutions is the creation of a virtual reality. Control of this reality is itself an instrument of power, which is why in classic coups in a banana republic the first thing that the revolutionaries seize is the radio station.

People experience a strong psychological reluctance to accept that political events today are deliberately manipulated. This reluctance is itself a product of the ideology of the information age, which flatters people’s vanity and encourages them to believe that they have access to huge amounts of information. In fact, the apparent multifarious nature of modern media information hides an extreme paucity of original sources, rather as a street of restaurants on a Greek waterfront can hide the reality of a single kitchen at the back. News reports of major events very often come from a single source, usually a wire agency, and even authoritative news outlets like the BBC simply recycle information which they have received from these agencies, presenting it as their own. BBC correspondents are often sitting in their hotel rooms when they send despatches, very often simply reading back to the studio in London information they have been given by their colleagues back home off the wire. A second factor which explains the reluctance to believe in media manipulation is connected with the feeling of omniscience which the mass media age likes to flatter: to rubbish news reports as manipulated is to tell people that they are gullible, and this is not a pleasant message to receive.

There are many elements to media manipulation. One of the most important is political iconography. This is a very important instrument for promoting the legitimacy of regimes which have seized power through revolution. One only need think of such iconic events as the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789, the storming of the Winter Palace during the October revolution in 1917, or Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922, to see that events can be elevated into almost eternal sources of legitimacy.

However, the importance of political imagery goes far beyond the invention of a simple emblem for each revolution. It involves a far deeper control of the media, and generally this control needs to be exercised over a long period of time, not just at the moment of regime change itself. It is essential indeed, for the official party line to be repeated ad nauseam. A feature of today’s mass media culture which many dissidents lazily and wrongly denounce as "totalitarian" is precisely that dissenting views may be expressed and published, but this is precisely because, being mere drops in the ocean, they are never a threat to the tide of propaganda.

2a. Willi Münzenberg

One of the modern masters of such media control was the German Communist from whom Joseph Goebbels learned his trade, Willi Münzenberg. Münzenberg was not only the inventor of spin, he was also the first person who perfected the art of creating a network of opinion-forming journalists who propagated views which were germane to the needs of the Communist Party in Germany and to the Soviet Union. He also made a huge fortune in the process, since he amassed a considerable media empire from which he creamed off the profits.

Münzenberg was intimately involved with the Communist project from the very beginning. He belonged to Lenin’s circle in Zurich, and in 1917 accompanied the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution to the Zurich Hauptbahnhof, from whence Lenin was transported in a sealed train, and with the help of the German imperial authorities, to the Finland Station in St. Petersburg. Lenin then called on Münzenberg to combat the appalling publicity generated in 1921 when 25 million peasants in the Volga region started to suffer from the famine which swept across the newly created Soviet state. Münzenberg, who had by then returned to Berlin, where he was later elected to the Reichstag as a Communist deputy, was charged with setting up a bogus workers’ charity, the Foreign Committee for the Organisation of Worker Relief for the Hungry in Soviet Russia, whose purpose was to pretend to the world that humanitarian relief was coming from sources other than Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration. Lenin feared not only that Hoover would use his humanitarian aid project to send spies into the USSR (which he did) but also, perhaps even more importantly, that the world’s first Communist state would be fatally damaged by the negative publicity of seeing capitalist America come to its aid within a few years of the revolution.

After having cut his teeth on "selling" the death of millions of people at the hands of the Bolsheviks, Münzenberg turned his attention to more general propaganda activities. He amassed a large media empire, known as "the Münzenberg trust," which owned two mass circulation dailies in Germany, a mass circulation weekly, and which had interests in scores of other publications around the world. His greatest coups were to mobilise world opinion against America over the Sacco-Vanzetti trial (that of two anarchist Italian immigrants who were sentenced to death for murder in Massachusetts in 1921) and to counteract the Nazis’ claim in 1933 that the Reichstag fire was the result of a Communist conspiracy. The Nazis, it will be remembered, used the fire to justify mass arrests and executions against Communists, even though it now appears that the fire genuinely was started on his own by the man arrested in the building at the time, the lone arsonist Martinus van der Lubbe. Münzenberg actually managed to convince large sections of public opinion of the equal but opposite untruth to that peddled by the Nazis, namely that the Nazis had started the fire themselves in order to have a pretext for removing their main enemies.

The key relevance of Münzenberg for our own day is this: he understood the key importance of influencing opinion-formers. He targeted especially intellectuals, taking the view that intellectuals were especially easy to influence because they were so vain. His contacts included many of the great literary figures of the 1930s, a large number of whom were encouraged by him to support the Republicans in the Spanish civil war and to make that into a cause-célèbre of Communist anti-fascism. Münzenberg’s tactics are of primary importance to the manipulation of opinion in today’s New World Order. More then ever before, so-called "experts" constantly pop up on our TV screens to explain what is happening, and they are always vehicles for the official party line. They are controlled in various ways, usually by money or by flattery.

2b. Psychology and the manipulation of opinion

There is a second body of literature, which makes a slightly different point from the specific technique which Münzenberg perfected. This concerns the way in which people can be made to react in certain collective ways by psychological stimuli. Perhaps the first major theoretician of this was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, whose book Propaganda in 1928 said that it was entirely natural and right for governments to organise public opinion for political purposes. The opening chapter of his book has the revealing title – "Organising chaos" – and Bernays writes,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised opinions and habits of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. [my italics]

(The text continues: "We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.")

Bernays says that, very often, the members of this invisible government do not even know who the other members are. Propaganda, he says, is the only way to prevent public opinion descending into dissonant chaos. Bernays continued to work on this theme after the war, editing "Engineering consent" in 1955, a title to which Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky alluded when they published their seminal Manufacturing Consent in 1988. The connection with Freud is important because, as we shall see later, psychology is an extremely important tool in influencing public opinion. Two of the contributors to "Engineering consent" make the point that every leader must play on basic human emotions in order to manipulate public opinion. For instance, Doris E. Fleischmann and Howard Walden Cutler write,

Self-preservation, ambition, pride, hunger, love of family and children, patriotism, imitativeness, the desire to be a leader, love of play – these and other drives are the psychological raw materials which every leader must take into account in his endeavour to win the public to his point of view … To maintain their self-assurance, most people need to feel certain that whatever they believe about anything is true.

This was what Willi Münzenberg understood – the basic human urge for people to believe what they want to believe. Thomas Mann alluded to it when he attributed the rise of Hitler to the collective desire of the German people for "a fairy tale" over the ugly truths of reality.

Other books worth mentioning in this regard concern not so much modern electronic propaganda but the more general psychology of crowds. The classics in this regard are Gustave Le Bon’s work The Psychology of Crowds (1895), Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power (Masse und Macht) (1980); and Serge Tchakhotine’s Le viol des foules par la propagande politique (1939). All these books draw heavily on psychology and anthropology. There is also the magnificent oeuvre of one of my favourite writers, the anthropologist René Girard, whose writings on the logic of imitation (mimesis), and on collective acts of violence, are excellent tools for understanding why it is that public opinion is so easily motivated to support war and other forms of political violence.

2c. The technique of opinion-forming

After the war, many of the techniques perfected by the Communist Münzenberg were adopted by the Americans, as has been magnificently documented by Frances Stonor Saunders’ excellent work, Who Paid the Piper? [published in America under the title The Cultural Cold War].

In minute detail, Stonor Saunders explains how, as the Cold War started, the Americans and the British started up a massive covert operation to fund anti-communist intellectuals. The key point is that much of their attention and activity was directed at left-wingers, in many cases Trotskyites who had abandoned their support for the Soviet Union only in 1939, when Stalin signed his non-aggression pact with Hitler, and in many cases people who had previously worked for Münzenberg. Many of the figures who were at this juncture between Communism and the CIA at the beginning of the cold war were future neo-conservatives luminaries, especially Irving Kristol, James Burnham, Sidney Hook and Lionel Trilling.

The left-wing and even Trotskyite origins of neo-conservatism are well-known – even if I still continue to be astonished by new details I discover, such as that Lionel and Diana Trilling were married by a rabbi for whom Felix Dzherzhinsky – the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka (forerunner of the KGB), and the Communist equivalent of Heinrich Himmler – represented a heroic paragon. These left-wing origins are particularly relevant to the covert operations discussed by Stonor Saunders, because the CIA’s goal was precisely to influence left-wing opponents of Communism, i.e. Trotskyites. The CIA’s view was simply that right-wing anti-communists did not need to be influenced, much less paid. Stonor Saunders quotes Michael Warner when she writes,

For the CIA, the strategy of promoting the Non-Communist Left was to become "the theoretical foundation of the Agency’s political operations against Communism over the next two decades."

This strategy was outlined in Arthur Schlesinger’s The Vital Center (1949), a book which represents one of the cornerstones of what was later to become the neo-conservative movement. Stonor Saunders writes,

The purpose of supporting leftist groups was not to destroy or even dominate, but rather to maintain a discreet proximity to and monitor the thinking of such groups; to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could blow off steam; and, in extremis, to exercise a final veto over their actions, if they ever got too "radical."

Many and varied were the ways in which this left-wing influence was felt. The USA was determined to fashion for itself a progressive image, in contrast to the "reactionary" Soviet Union. In other words, it wanted to do precisely what the Soviets were doing. In music, for instance, Nicholas Nabokov (the cousin of the author of Lolita) was one of the Congress’ main agents. In 1954, the CIA funded a music festival in Rome in which Stalin’s "authoritarian" love of composers like Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky was "countered" by unorthodox modern music inspired by Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system.

For Nabokov, there was a clear political message to be imparted by promoting music which announced itself as doing away with natural hierarchies …

Support for other progressives came when Jackson Pollock, himself a former Communist, was also promoted by the CIA. His daubs were supposed to represent the American ideology of "freedom" over the authoritarianism of socialist realist painting. (This alliance with Communists pre-dates the Cold War: the Mexican Communist muralist, Diego Rivera, was supported by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, but their collaboration ended abruptly when Rivera refused to remove a portrait of Lenin from a crowd scene painted on the walls of the Rockefeller Center in 1933.)

This cross-over between culture and politics was explicitly promoted by a CIA body which went under an Orwellian name, the Psychological Strategy Board. In 1956, it covertly promoted a European tour by the Metropolitan Opera, the political purpose of which was to encourage multiculturalism. Junkie Fleischmann, the organiser, said,

We, in the United States, are a melting-pot and, by being so, we have demonstrated that peoples can get along together irrespective of race, colour or creed. Using the "melting-pot" or some such catch phrase for a theme we might be able to use the Met as an example of how Europeans can get along together in the United States and that, therefore, some sort of European Federation is entirely practicable.

This, by the way, is exactly the same argument employed by, among other people, Ben Wattenberg, whose book The First Universal Nation argues that America has a special right to world hegemony because she embodies all the nations and races of the planet. The same view has also been expressed by Newt Gingrich and other neo-cons.

Other themes promoted include some which are at the forefront of neo-conservative thinking today. First among these is the eminently liberal belief in moral and political universalism. Today, this is at the very heart of George W. Bush’s own foreign policy philosophy: he has stated on numerous occasions that political values are the same all over the world, and he has used this assumption to justify US military intervention in favour of "democracy." Back in the early 1950s, the director of the PSB (the Psychological Strategy Board was quickly referred to only by its initials, no doubt in order to hide its real name), Raymond Allen, had already arrived at this conclusion.

The principles and ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are for export and … are the heritage of men everywhere. We should appeal to the fundamental urges of all men which I believe are the same for the farmer in Kansas as for the farmer in Punjab.

To be sure, it would be wrong to attribute the spread of ideas only to covert manipulation. They have their force in large-scale cultural currents, whose causes are multiple. But there is no doubt that the dominance of such ideas can be substantially facilitated by covert operations, especially since people in mass-information societies are curiously suggestible. Not only do they believe what they have read in the papers, they also think they have arrived at these conclusions themselves. The trick of manipulating public opinion, therefore, lies precisely in that which Bernays theorised, Münzenberg initiated, and which the CIA raised to a high art. According to CIA agent Donald Jameson,

As far as the attitudes that the Agency wanted to inspire through these activities are concerned, clearly what they would like to have been able to produce were people who, of their own reasoning and conviction, were persuaded that everything the United States government did was right.

To put it another way, what the CIA and other US agencies were doing during this period was to adopt the strategy which we associate with the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, who argued that "cultural hegemony" was essential for socialist revolution.

2d. Disinformation

Finally, there is a huge body of literature on the technique of disinformation. I have already referred to the important fact, originally formulated by Tchakotine (Chakotin), that the role of journalists and the media is key in ensuring that propaganda is constant: "Propaganda cannot take time off," he writes, thereby formulating one of the key rules of modern disinformation, which is that the required message must be repeated very frequently indeed if it is to pass. Above all, Tchakotine (Chakotin) says that propaganda campaigns must be centrally directed and highly organised, something which has become the norm in the age of modern political "spin": British Labour Members of Parliament, for instance, are not allowed to speak to the media without first asking permission from the Director of Communications in 10, Downing Street.

Sefton Delmer was both a practician and theoretician of such "black propaganda." Delmer created a bogus radio station which broadcasted from Britain to Germany during the Second World War, and which created the myth that there were "good" patriotic Germans who opposed Hitler. The fiction was sustained that the station was actually an underground German one, and was put on frequencies close to those of official stations. Such black propaganda has now become part of the US government’s armoury of ‘spin’: the New York Times revealed that the US government makes news reports favourable to its policies which are then carried on normal channels and presented as if they were the broadcast company’s own reports.

There are many other such authors, some of whom I have discussed in my column, All News is Lies. But perhaps the most relevant to today’s discussion is Roger Mucchielli’s book, Subversion, published in French in 1971, which shows how disinformation had moved from being an auxiliary tactic in war to a principal one. The strategy had developed so far, he said, that the goal was now to conquer a state without even attacking physically, especially through the use of agents of influence inside it. This is essentially what Robert Kaplan proposed and discussed in his essay for The Atlantic Monthly in July/August 2003, "Supremacy by Stealth." One of the most sinister theoreticians of the New World Order and the American empire, Robert Kaplan, explicitly advocates the use of immoral and illegal power to promote US control of the whole world. His essay deals with the use of covert operations, military power, dirty tricks, black propaganda, hidden influence and control, opinion-forming and other things like political assassination, all subject to his overall call for "a pagan ethic," as the means to ensuring American domination.

The other key point about Mucchielli is that he was one of the first theoreticians of the use of bogus non-governmental organisations – or "front organisations" as they used to be known – for effecting internal political change in another state. Like Malaparte and Trotsky, Mucchielli also understood that it was not "objective" circumstances which determined the success or failure of a revolution, but instead the perception created of those circumstances by disinformation. He also understood that historical revolutions, which invariably presented themselves as the product of mass movements, were in fact the work of a tiny number of highly organised conspirators. In fact, again like Trotsky, Mucchielli emphasised that the silent majority must be rigorously excluded from the mechanics of political change, precisely because coups d’état are the work of the few and not the many.

Public opinion was the "forum" in which subversion was practised, and Mucchielli showed the different ways in which the mass media could be used to create a collective psychosis. Psychological factors were extremely important in this regard, he said, especially in the pursuit of important strategies such as the demoralisation of a society. The enemy must be made to lose confidence in the rightness of his own cause, while all effort must be made to convince him that his adversary is invincible.

2e. The role of the military

One final historical point before we move onto a discussion of the present: the role of the military in conducting covert operations and influencing political change. This is something which some contemporary analysts are happy to admit is deployed today: Robert Kaplan writes approvingly of how the American military is and should be used to "promote democracy." Kaplan says deliciously that a phone call from a US general is often a better way of promoting political change in a third country than a phone call from the local US ambassador. And he approvingly quotes an Army Special Operations officer saying, "Whoever the President of Kenya is, the same group of guys run their special forces and the President's bodyguards. We've trained them. That translates into diplomatic leverage."

The historical background to this has recently been discussed by a Swiss academic, Daniele Glaser, in his book, Nato’s Secret Army. His account begins with the admission made on 3rd August 1990 by Giulio Andreotti, the then Italian Prime Minister, that a secret army had existed in his country since the end of the Second World War, known as "Gladio"; that it had been created by the CIA and MI6; and that it was coordinated by the unorthodox warfare section of NATO.

He thereby confirmed one of the most long-running rumours in post-war Italy. Many people, including investigating magistrates, had long suspected that Gladio was not only party of a network of secret armies created by the Americans across Western Europe to fight in the resistance to a putative Soviet occupation, but also that these networks had become involved in influencing the outcome of elections, even to the extent of forming sinister alliances with terrorist organisations. Italy was a particular target because the Communist Party was so strong there.

Originally, this secret army was constructed with the aim of providing for the eventuality of an invasion. But it seems that they soon moved to covert operations aimed at influencing the political process itself, in the absence of an invasion. There is ample evidence that the Americans did indeed interfere massively, especially in Italian elections, in order to prevent the PCI from ever winning power. Tens of billions of dollars were funded to the Italian Christian Democrats by the US for this very reason.

Glaser even argues that there is evidence that Gladio cells carried out terrorist attacks in order to blame Communists, and to frighten the population into demanding extra state powers to "protect" them from terrorism. Ganser quotes the man convicted of planting one of these bombs, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who duly explained the nature of the network of which he was a foot soldier. He said that it was part of a strategy "to destabilise in order to stabilise."

You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic which remains behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.

There is an obvious relevance to the conspiracy theories swirling around 9/11. Ganser presents a host of good evidence that this is indeed what Gladio did, and his arguments shed light on the intriguing possibility that there might also have been an alliance with extreme left-wing groups like the Red Brigades. After all, when Aldo Moro was kidnapped, shortly after which he was assassinated, he was physically on the way to the Italian parliament to present a programme for a coalition government between the Socialists and the Communists – precisely the thing the Americans were determined to prevent.

3. Today’s revolutionary tacticians

These historical works help us to understand what is going on today. My colleagues and I from the British Helsinki Human Rights Group have personally witnessed how the same techniques are used today.

The main tactics were perfected in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, many of the operatives of regime change under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. have happily plied their trade in the former Soviet bloc under Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. For instance, General Manuel Noriega reports in his memoirs that the two CIA-State Department operatives who were sent to negotiate and then engineer his downfall from power in Panama in 1989 were called William Walker and Michael Kozak: William Walker resurfaced in Kosovo in January 1999 when, as head of the Kosovo Verification Mission, he oversaw the artificial creation of a bogus atrocity which proved to be the casus belli for the Kosovo war, while Michael Kozak became US ambassador to Belarus, where in 2001 he mounted "Operation White Stork" designed to overthrow the incumbent president, Alexander Lukashenko. During an exchange of letters to The Guardian in 2001, Kozak brazenly admitted that he was doing in Belarus exactly what he had been doing in Nicaragua and Panama, namely "promoting democracy."

There are essentially three branches to the modern technique of a coup d’état. They are non-governmental organisations, control of the media, and covert operatives. Their activities are effectively interchangeable so I will not deal with them separately.

3a. Serbia 2000

The overthrow of Slobodan Miloševic was obviously not the first time the West used covert influence to effect regime change. The overthrow of Sali Berisha in Albania in 1997 and of Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia in 1998 were heavily influenced by the West and, in the case of Berisha, an extremely violent uprising was presented as a spontaneous and welcome example of people power. I personally observed how the international community, and especially the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), fiddled its election observation results in order to ensure political change. However, the overthrow of Slobodan Miloševic in Belgrade on 5th October 2000 is important because he is such a well-known figure, and because the "revolution" which unseated him involved a very ostentatious use of "people power."

The background to the putsch against Miloševic has been brilliantly described by Tim Marshall, a reporter for Sky TV. His account is valuable because he writes approvingly of the events he describes; it is also interesting because this journalist boasts of his extensive contacts with the secret services, especially those of Britain and America.

At every turn, Marshall seems to know who the main intelligence players are. His account is thick with references to "an MI6 officer in Priština," "sources in Yugoslav military intelligence," "a CIA man who was helping to put together the coup," an "officer in US naval intelligence," and so on. He quotes secret surveillance reports from the Serbian secret police; he knows who the Ministry of Defence desk officer is in London who draws up the strategy for getting rid of Miloševic; he knows that the British Foreign Secretary’s telephone conversations are being listened to; he knows who are the Russian intelligence officers who accompany Yevgeni Primakov, the Russian prime minister, to Belgrade during the Nato bombing; he knows which rooms are bugged in the British embassy, and where the Yugoslav spies are who listen in to the diplomats’ conversations; he knows that a staffer on the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee is, in fact, an officer in US naval intelligence; he seems to know that secret service decisions are often taken with the very minimal ministerial approval; he describes how the CIA physically escorted the KLA delegation from Kosovo to Paris for the pre-war talks at Rambouillet, where Nato issued Yugoslavia with an ultimatum it knew it could only reject; and he refers to "a British journalist" acting as a go-between between London and Belgrade for hugely important high-level secret negotiations, as people sought to betray one another as Miloševic’s power collapsed. (My suspicion is that he may be talking about himself at this point.)

One of the themes which inadvertently runs through his book is that there is a thin dividing line between journalists and spooks. Early on in the book, Marshall refers casually to "the inevitable connections between officers, journalists and politicians," saying that people in all three categories "work in the same area." He then goes on jokingly to say that "a combination of ‘spooks’, ‘journo’s’ and ‘politicos’, added to ‘the people’" were what had caused the overthrow of Slobodan Miloševic. Marshall clings to the myth that "the people" were involved, but the rest of his book shows that in fact the overthrow of the Yugoslav president occurred only because of political strategies deliberately conceived in London and Washington to get rid of him.

Above all, Marshall makes it clear that, in 1998, the US State Department and intelligence agencies decided to use the Kosovo Liberation Army to get rid of Slobodan Miloševic. He quotes one source saying, "The US agenda was clear. When the time was right they were going to use the KLA to provide the solution to the political problem" – the "problem" being, as Marshall explains earlier, Miloševic’s continued political survival. This meant supporting the KLA’s terrorist secessionism, and later fighting a war against Yugoslavia on its side. Marshall quotes Mark Kirk, a US naval intelligence officer, saying that, "Eventually we opened up a huge operation against Miloševic, both secret and open." The secret part of the operation involved not only things like stuffing the various observer missions which were sent into Kosovo with officers from the British and American intelligence services, but also – crucially – giving military, technical, financial, logistical and political support to the KLA, which, as Marshall himself admits, "smuggled drugs, ran prostitution rackets and murdered civilians."

The strategy began in late 1998 when "a huge CIA mission (got) underway in Kosovo." President Miloševic had allowed the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission to enter Kosovo to monitor the situation in the province. This ad hoc group was immediately stuffed with British and American intelligence agents and special forces – men from the CIA, US naval intelligence, the British SAS and something called "14th intelligence," a body within the British army which operates side by side with the SAS "to provide what is known as ‘deep surveillance’." The immediate purpose of this operation was "Intelligence Preparation of Battlefield" – a modern version of what the Duke of Wellington used to do, riding up and down the battlefield to get the lie of the land before engaging the enemy. So as Marshall puts it, "Officially, the KDOM was run by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe … unofficially, the CIA ran (it) … The organisation was just packed with them … It was a CIA front." Many of the officers in fact worked for another CIA front, DynCorp, the Virginia-based company which employs mainly "members of US military elite units, or the CIA," as Marshall says. They used the KDOM, which later became the Kosovo Verification Mission, for espionage. Instead of doing the monitoring tasks assigned to them, officers would go off and use their global positioning devices to locate and identify targets which would be later bombed by Nato. Quite how the Yugoslavs could allow 2,000 highly trained secret service agents to roam around their territory is difficult to understand, especially since, as Marshall shows, they knew perfectly well what was going on.

The head of the Kosovo Verification Mission was William Walker, the man deputed to oust Manuel Noriega from power in Panama, and a former ambassador to El Salvador whose US-supported government ran death squads. Walker "discovered" the "massacre" at Racak in January 1999, the event which was used as a pretext for starting the process which led to the bombing which began on 24th March. There is much evidence to suggest that Racak was staged, and that the bodies found were in fact those of KLA fighters, not civilians as was alleged. What is certain is that Walker’s role was so key that the country road in Kosovo which leads to Racak has now been renamed after him. Marshall writes that the date for the war – spring 1999 – was not only decided in late December 1998, but also that the date was communicated to the KLA at the time. This means that when the "massacre" occurred and when Madeleine Albright declared, "Spring has come early," she was behaving rather like Joseph Goebbels who, on hearing the news of the Reichstag fire in 1933, is supposed to have remarked, "What, already?"

At any rate, when the KVM was withdrawn on the eve of the Nato bombing, Marshall says that the CIA officers in it gave all their satellite phones and GPS equipment to the KLA. "The KLA were being trained by the Americans, partially equipped by them, and virtually given territory," Marshall writes – even though he, like all other reporters, helped propagate the myth of systematic Serb atrocities committed against a totally passive Albanian civilian population.

The war went ahead, of course, and Yugoslavia was ferociously bombed. But Miloševic stayed in power. So London and Washington started what Marshall happily calls "political warfare" to remove him. This involved giving very large sums of money, as well as technical, logistical and strategic support, and including arms, to various "democratic opposition" groups and "non-governmental organisations" in Serbia. The Americans were by then operating principally through the International Republican Institute, which had opened offices in neighbouring Hungary for the purpose of getting rid of Slobodan Miloševic. "It was agreed" at one of their meetings, Marshall explains, "that the ideological arguments of pro-democracy, civil rights and a humanitarian approach would be far more forceful if accompanied, if necessary, by large bags full of money." These, and much else besides, were duly shipped into Serbia through the diplomatic bags – in many cases of apparently neutral countries like Sweden who, by not participating formally in the NATO war, were able to maintain full embassies in Belgrade. As Marshall helpfully adds, "Bags of money had been brought in for years." Indeed they had. As he earlier explains, "independent" media outlets like the Radio Station B92 (who is Marshall’s own publisher) were, in fact, very largely funded by the USA. Organisations controlled by George Soros also played a crucial role, as they were later to do, in 2003–4, in Georgia. The so-called "democrats" were, in reality, nothing but foreign agents – just as the Yugoslav government stolidly maintained at the time.

Marshall also explains something which is now a matter of public record that it was also the Americans who conceived the strategy of pushing forward one candidate, Vojislav Koštunica, to unite the opposition. Koštunica had the main advantage of being largely unknown by the general public. Marshall then describes how the strategy also involved a carefully planned coup d’état, which duly took place after the first round of the presidential elections. He shows in minute detail how the principal actors in what was presented on Western TV screens as a spontaneous uprising of "the people" were, in fact, a bunch of extremely violent and very heavily armed thugs under the command of the Mayor of the town of Cacak, Velimir Ilic. It was Ilic’s 22 kilometre-long convoy carrying "weapons, paratroopers and a team of kick boxers" to the federal parliament building in Belgrade. As Marshall admits, the events of 5th October 2000 "looked more like a coup d’état" than the people’s revolution of which the world’s media so naïvely gushed at the time.

3b. Georgia 2003

Many of the tactics perfected in Belgrade were used in Georgia in November 2003 to overthrow President Edward Shevardadze. The same allegations were made, and repeated ad nauseam, that the elections had been rigged. (In the Georgian case, they were parliamentary elections, in the Yugoslav case presidential.) Western media uncritically took up these allegations, which were made long before the actual voting took place. A propaganda war was unleashed against both presidents, in Shevardnadze’s case after a long period in which he had been lionised as a great reformer and democrat. Both "revolutions" occurred after a similar "storming of the parliament," broadcast live on TV. Both transfers of power were brokered by the Russian minister, Igor Ivanov, who flew to Belgrade and Tbilisi to engineer the exit from power of the incumbent president. Last but not least, the US ambassador was the same man in both cases: Richard Miles.

The most visible similarity, however, came in the use of a student movement known as Otpor (Resistance) in Serbia and Kmara (It’s enough!) in Georgia. Both movements had the same symbol, a black-on-white stencil of a clenched fist. Otpor trained people from Kmara, and both were supported by the US. And both organisations were ostensibly structured along communist lines – combining the appearance of a diffuse structure of autonomous cells with the reality of highly centralised Leninist discipline.As in Georgia, the role played by US money and covert operations has been revealed – but only after the event. During the events, the television was full of wall-to-wall propaganda about how "the people" rose up against Shevardnadze. All images which counteracted the optimistic view were suppressed, or glossed over, such as the fact that the "march on Tbilisi" led by Mihkail Saakashvili started off in Gori, Stalin’s birthplace, beneath a statue of the former Soviet tyrant who remains a hero to many Georgians. The media was equally unconcerned when the new president, Saakashvili, was confirmed in office by elections which awarded him the Stalinist score of 96%.

3c. Ukraine 2004

In the case of Ukraine, we observe the same combination of work by Western-backed non-governmental organisations, the media and the secret services. The non-governmental organisations played a huge role in de-legitimising the elections before they occurred. Allegations of widespread fraud were constantly repeated. In other words, the street protests which broke out after the second round, which Yanukovich won, were based on allegations which had been flying around before the beginning of the first round. The main NGO behind these allegations, the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, receives not one penny from Ukrainian voters, being instead fully funded by Western governments. Its office was decorated with pictures of Madeleine Albright and indeed the National Democratic Institute was one of its main affiliates. It pumped out constant propaganda against Yanukovich.

During the events themselves, I was able to document some of the propaganda abuses. They involved mainly the endless repetition of electoral fraud practised by the government; the constant cover-up of fraud practised by the opposition; the frenetic selling of Viktor Yushchenko, one of the most boring men in the world, as a charismatic politician; and the ridiculously unlikely story that he had been deliberately poisoned by his enemies. (No prosecutions have been brought to date on this.) The fullest account of the propaganda and fraud is given by the British Helsinki Human Rights Group’s report, "Ukraine’ Clockwork Orange Revolution." An interesting explanation of the role played by the secret services was also given in The New York Times by C. J. Chivers who explained that the Ukrainian KGB had been working for Yushchenko all along – in collaboration with the Americans of course. Other important articles on the same subject include Jonathan Mowat’s "The New Gladio in Action: Washington’s New World Order ‘Democratization’ Template," which details how military doctrine has been adapted to effect political change, and how various instruments, from psychology to bogus opinion polls, are used in it. Mowat is particularly interesting on the theories of Dr. Peter Ackermann, the author of Strategic Non-Violent Conflict (Praeger, 1994) and of a speech entitled "Between Hard and Soft Power: the Rise of Civilian-Based Struggle and Democratic Change," delivered at the State Department in June 2004. Mowat is also excellent on the psychology of crowds and its use in these putsches: he draws attention to the role of "swarming adolescents" and "rebellious hysteria" and traces the origins of the use of this for political purposes to the Tavistock Institute in the 1960s: that institute was created by the British Army as its psychological warfare arm after World War I and its illustrious alumni include Dr. David Owen, the former British Foreign Secretary and Dr. Radovan Karadžic, the former President of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Mowat recounts how the ideas formulated there by Fred Emery were taken up by one Dr. Howard Perlmutter, a professor of "Social Architecture'' at the Wharton School, and a follower of Dr. Emery, (who) stressed that "rock video in Katmandu," was an appropriate image of how states with traditional cultures could be destabilized, thereby creating the possibility of a "global civilization." There are two requirements for such a transformation, he added, "building internationally committed networks of international and locally committed organizations,'' and "creating global events" through "the transformation of a local event into one having virtually instantaneous international implications through mass-media.

Conclusion.

None of this is conspiracy theory – it is conspiracy fact. The United States considers as a matter of official policy that the promotion of democracy is an important element of its overall national security strategy. Large sections of the State Department, the CIA, para-governmental agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy, and government-funded NGOs like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which publishes several works on "democracy promotion." All these operations have one thing in common: they involve the interference, sometimes violent, of Western powers, especially the US, in the political processes of other states, and that interference is very often used to promote the quintessential revolutionary goal, regime change.

July 21, 2009

2009-07-19T14:31:00.001-07:00

Russia’s Sickness: ’Anti-Americanism’
by Christopher Dowd, July 18, 2009

No one in Russia is buying tickets to the traveling Obama road show.

This is the road show whereupon Obama flies into a foreign country and makes a pretty speech that all two of our allowed political viewpoints will pretend to bicker over and then he flies home and US policy continues on the same as before… as this news story from the other day makes clear. So much for that "reset button."

Americans, especially liberals, line up for tickets to the Obama road show. The lines are around the block.

Outside of cocoon America, however, sales are dead.

But the backers of the Obama road show, the Beltway (or what our press would call "oligarchs" when talking about Russia’s government) don’t care about foreign ticket sales. They just want to mollify Americans with the appearance of "change" while everything pretty much stays exactly the same. From troop "pullouts" that haven’t really happened to detention policies that haven’t really changed to defense spending that isn’t decreasing Americans are subjected to an Obama regime that must pretend to be different while actually being so only in the most cosmetic and substance-less of ways.

While our government takes pains to make sure our viewpoints are narrowly managed it really could care less how the broader world views the US. Except in active war zones or in areas of "national interest" where the US wages intense, focused, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns, what foreigners generally think of the US is of little concern to the Beltway. And why should the views of foreigners be of any concern to our Beltway elite? It is not like they really have to worry about another country being a threat (I mean a real threat and not the made-up-for-the-rubes "threats"). Short of doing something to ignite a nuclear exchange with another nuclear power the United States has nothing to fear militarily from any nation on the planet. The only attack the US can suffer is from the pin prick of terrorism. And a terrorist attack certainly does not threaten the Beltway’s rule or power — on the contrary — they only strengthen and enhance them. Heck — some US politicians and statists of the rightist variety have even hoped openly for more terrorists attacks in this country for precisely that reason — so the hand of government would be strengthened!

This isn’t to say that DC doesn’t make an effort. Periodically we will get a spasm out of Washington in which they express interest in US "image management" abroad and it becomes the rage for a month or so among our media talking heads. As if America’s image was just a problem of mixing up the right PR stew and not the direct consequence of its actions and deeds. But then Washington makes clear just how much they care about their foreign image when they do things like put an unqualified boob and parochial political hack in charge of the outreach effort to cultures and a religion she knows less than nothing about.

Now our elite understand that the US image is a direct result of what they do. They just don’t care. But they do take pains to make sure the average American is kept from this reality. And they have done this by infantilizing us with such broad notions as "Anti-Americanism."

You see, it isn’t what we do that so upsets foreigners. No. See — what makes them mad at us, what makes them crazy is that they have this disease — this disorder — this condition, if you will, called "Anti-Americanism."

"Anti-Americanism" is something that foreigners just seem to catch out of the blue for no reason. Well — some say "Anti-Americanism" is spread to foreigners when jealousy for how awesome we are overwhelms them and they realize just how inferior to us they are in all ways. Hatred for America has nothing to do with what our government does, which always does things out of pureness of heart and for noble motive. Rather, hatred for America comes from, well… . "Anti-Americanism."

See, we are the victim. America. Us against the world that hates us because they are all infected with irrational "Anti-Americanism" and are blinded to our inherent goodness.

And other than "Islam" (which in idiot reich winger land is one mass Muslim mind out to set up the One World Caliphate) no one has the disease of "Anti-Americanism" worse than the Russians.

And this was starkly evident on Obama’s visit when Russians, a people who have no cause for "white guilt" when it comes to those with ancestry in the Southern Hemisphere, refused to embarrass themselves by spazzing out like teen age school girls as any West European country would upon a visit from "the first black President."

Oddly, unlike Americans — the Russians have this "Anti-American" propensity to dismiss words over actions and deeds. They also have the troubling habit of not seeing American actions in the best possible light as we do and they likewise don’t believe automatically in the noble intentions of all US policy and actions — as we do reflexively.

And those are indeed chief symptoms of "Anti-Americanism." Not seeing American actions as we see them — as motivated by pure goodness — is to "hate America" actually. It is also a sign of "paranoia."

This LA Times article from July 4th, even before Obama’s visit, entitled "Anti-Americanism plays in Russia" lays out all the reasons that the ugly soul-destroying disease of "Anti-Americanism" has gripped the small shrunken hearts of Russians everywhere (except those in the employ of MIC-financed American think tanks however). And the reasons for their Anti-Americanism? Well they are myriad. First — it is just a habit of Russian rulers to drum up anti-American sentiment to bolster rule at home. Also Russian insecurities about not being a superpower are to blame. Other reasons are that "Anti-Americanism" is a good career path for Russian politicians, Cold War nostalgia, and the idea that if there is no hostility with the US then Russia isn’t important anymore and Russian rulers can’t stomach that reality.

Oh — and the article mentions in passing that Russia may feel threatened by the expansion of NATO up to her borders when it was assured to them that this would not happen. And some unnamed meddling on the part of the US in Georgia and Ukraine might, maybe, also be a factor. But not really.

No one has a legitimate reason to be mad at America. To feel threatened by America. To suspect America of less than pure intention. All that motivates their hostility is… just… well…"Anti-Americanism" for the sake of being anti-American. Most, if not all "Anti-Americanism" in Russia isn’t motivated for any legitimate reason. No, as the LA Times article makes clear — it is motivated out of grubby cynical political reasons on the part of their corrupt grubby cynical "oligarchs."

And in the few instances that they can point to as being the cause of their alarm at American actions, they are really just failing to believe the US rationales for these actions at face value — which is itself — another sign of "Anti-Americanism." Failure to believe US explanations, no matter how imbecilic or insulting, is paranoid "Anti-Americanism." Not buying into the often absurd self-serving Beltway "conventional wisdom" on an issue of foreign policy is likewise "Anti-Americanism." Straying too far afield from the tiny parameter of debate allowed on foreign policy issues (which in most cases among our two party fraud is literally no more than who can do more for the sainted holy "troops") is perilous for a foreign leader to do — as it is for an American politician.

When Russia doesn’t believe the false and clearly preposterous US rationale that a missile shield they are building in Poland is to defend from attack by Iran — that is clearly an example of Russian paranoid "Anti-Americanism" run amok.

Likewise — to view the expansion of NATO up to her borders as a threat is yet more rampant "Anti-Americanism." Since US politicians say that this expansion isn’t motivated by anything Anti-Russian — then it is "Anti-American" for the Russians to think or suspect otherwise! See how that works?

Not buying into the New York Times fantasy version of events in Kosovo that ended in the 72-day-long murder-bombing of civilians in Serbia? You got it. "Anti-Americanism."

Take a dim view of the US funneling money through NGO’s into your domestic politics and in the border states not yet officially in NATO? Just another sad example of not seeing that NGO money for what it is — pure democracy goodness! And it is "Anti-American" to suspect such US sponsored NGO operations in their countries as anything other than that.

See, Russians don’t have any cause to be alarmed by American actions at all. If they would just listen to Obama, and believe in the unique special sweet goodness of America as much as we do — then the Russians would be cured of this terrible sickness!

This sound bite — this phrase — "Anti-Americanism" is not questioned by Americans at all. We don’t even think about it. We accept this nonsense phrase as an excuse for why foreigners hate us without even thinking about it. It works like a charm on a dumbed down American population that has long lost the ability to formulate or solve the most basic of logical syllogisms.

For decades now it has been used to dismiss much criticism of the United States. Its use in the last decade however has gone into turbo crazy overdrive. Our leaders even seem to forget that "Anti-Americanism" isn’t real, sometimes, and they can come off sounding… well… nuts.

They are so accustomed to no one of any consequence at home challenging the notion that maybe foreigners might have reasons to dislike American policy other than simply "hating America" for no specified reason that they actually have no idea how they seem to the world. Nothing better demonstrated this deranged disconnect from any semblance of reality than the reaction among our elite to the Russian response to an attack on them from the DC client state of Georgia.

Here we had an American elite — which is waging two wars on more than dubious grounds thousands of miles away from her borders charging Russia with illegal aggression against a rump statelet on her borders that had all but attacked Russia! And that they themselves more than likely approved of if not had orchestrated beforehand! Without batting an eye, a deranged American elite felt entirely comfortable charging Russia with illegal aggression against an all-but-installed American puppet government in a "country" on her borders that had attacked a Russian minority group enclave while American armies swarm over the Middle East on justifications that only Americans and morons would buy. But for Russia to charge or even hint at malign American motives in oil-rich Iraq is intolerable "Anti-Americanism," ridiculous paranoia.

The reaction of the American Beltway to that event was quite simply, scary mental.

Our media’s and foreign policy establishment’s abuse of this term is so obscene and shameless at this point, it makes Al Sharpton and Abe Foxman blush.

2009-06-23T23:58:00.001-07:00

Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election?
June 23, 2009
by Jeremy R. Hammond

from FOREIGN POLICY JOURNAL [just in case]

Following the announcement of victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his main opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran’s presidential election on June 12, the country erupted in turmoil as supporters of Mousavi flocked to the streets to protest what they claimed was a fraudulent election, while state security and militia forces cracked down on dissenters, sometimes violently. Iran claimed that the unrest was being fueled by foreign interference, a charge reported but generally dismissed in Western media accounts. But there is ample reason to believe that the U.S. likely had a hand in fomenting the chaos that has since plagued the country many commentators have compared to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah.

The role of the U.S. in overthrowing the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and installing the brutal regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is by now well known. In his speech in Cairo last month, President Barack Obama even referenced the CIA-backed coup, acknowledging that “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.”[1]

The U.S. lost their principle ally in the Middle East, however, when the Shah was in turn overthrown as a result of the Islamic revolution that swept the country in 1979, resulting in the clerical regime that continues to this day under Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who took over the title from the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

During the Reagan administration, the U.S. illegally sold arms to the Iranian regime even while supporting Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s devastating war against the Islamic Republic. And while neoconservatives in Washington had their eye on Iran as a target for regime change throughout the Clinton years, it wasn’t until George W. Bush came to be president that a strategy for bringing this about began in earnest. Whether the policy of regime change implemented under Bush has been quashed or continued by the administration of President Barack Obama remains to be seen, but what is incontrovertible is that the U.S. has a long and sordid history of interference in Iranian affairs.

The National Endowment for Democracy

One mechanism by which the U.S. interferes in the internal political affairs of other nations is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-governmental agency with funding from both Congress and private individuals whose purpose is to support foreign organizations sympathetic to U.S. foreign policy goals.

NED’s website states that its creation in the early 1980s was “premised on the idea that American assistance on behalf of democracy efforts abroad would be good both for the U.S. and for those struggling around the world for freedom and self-government.”[2]

The idea behind NED was to create an organization to do overtly what the CIA had long been doing clandestinely, and the organization has developed its own history of foreign interference. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” acknowledged Allen Weinstein, one of NED’s founders.[3]

In Nicaragua, for instance, the CIA provoked opposition activities in the hopes that it would prompt an “overreaction” from the Sandinista government. The NED was there, also, providing money to opposition groups while the CIA armed contra terrorists (using money from the sale of arms to Iran, incidentally).[4]

In the Bulgarian elections of 1990, NED spent over $1.5 million in an effort to defeat the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). When the effort failed and the BSP won, NED backed opposition groups that sowed chaos in the streets for months until the president and prime minister finally resigned. [5]

The NED was in Albania supporting the opposition to the communist government that was elected in 1991. Once again, turmoil in the streets led to the collapse of the government, forcing a new election in which the U.S.-backed Democratic Party won.[6]

Between 1990 and 1992, NED financed the Cuban-American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group out of Miami that in turn funded Luis Posada Carriles, a terrorist harbored by the U.S. who was responsible for the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people.[7]

NED was present in Mongolia helping to unite opposition parties under the National Democratic Union to defeat the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party that had won elections in 1992. With backing from NED, the NDU won in 1996 and U.S. media lauded the economic “shock-therapy” that the new pro-West government would implement. Under the new government, the National Security Agency (NSA) also set up shop with listening posts to spy on China. [8]

During the Clinton administration, NED was in Haiti working with the opposition to ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[9]

And NED was in Venezuela financing the opposition to President Hugo Chavez, including groups involved in the attempted coup in 2002 that nearly succeeded in his overthrow.[10]

NED is also active in Iran, granting hundreds of thousands of dollars to Iranian groups. From 2005 to 2007, NED gave $345,000 to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF).[11] The group claims “no political affiliation” on its website, but is named for the founder of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance (NAMIR), an opposition group to the clerical regime founded in 1980. According to the group’s website, Boroumand was murdered by agents of the Iranian government in Paris, France, in 1991.[12] The website is registered to the Boroumand Foundation, listed at Suite 357, 3220 N ST., NW, Washington, D.C.[13]

Another recipient of NED grants is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which received $25,000 in 2002, $64,000 in 2005, and $107,000 in 2006. The 2002 grant was to carry out a “media training workshop” to train participants representing various civic groups in public relations. The 2005 money was given in part to “strengthen the capacity of civic organizations in Iran”, including by advising Iranian groups on “foreign donor relations.” The 2006 grant was similarly designed to “foster cooperation between Iranian NGOs and the international civil society community and to strengthen the institutional capacity of NGOs in Iran.”[14]

The group’s president is Dr. Trita Parsi, whose parents fled political repression in Iran when he was four. He studied for his Doctoral thesis at the Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies under Professor Francis Fukuyama.[15]

Fukuyama wrote in 2007 that “Ahmadinejad may be the new Hitler”, but that the use of military force against Iran “looks very unappealing”, and that airstrikes “would not result in regime change”, which was “the only long-term means of stopping” Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.[16] The NIAC similarly opposes the use of military force against Iran, and instead “supports the idea of resolving the problems between the US and Iran through dialogue in order to avoid war.”[17]

Following the Iranian election and subsequent violence, NIAC issued a statement saying that “The only plausible way to end the violence is for new elections to be held with independent monitors ensuring its fairness.”[18]

Last November, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad-Javad Zarif charged the U.S. with attempting to orchestrate a “velvet revolution” in Iran. One of the means by which this was being carried out, he said, was by means of workshops. “American officials have been inviting Iranian figures to so-called scientific seminars over the past few years”, he said. “However, when the Iranians attend these sessions, they realize they have gathered to discuss measures to topple the Iranian government”.[19]

The Office of Iranian Affairs

In February, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested emergency funding from Congress to the amount of $75 million, on top of a previously allocated $10 million, “to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government”, in the words of The Guardian. The money “would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, help pay for Iranians to study in America and support pro-democracy groups inside the country.” The propaganda effort would include “extending the government-run Voice of America’s Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage.” In announcing the request, Rice said the U.S. “will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country.”[20]

The Christian Science Monitor reported candidly on the “implicit goal” of the requested funds as being “regime change from within”, and similarly noted that “The money will go toward boosting broadcasts in Farsi to Iran, support for opposition groups, and student exchanges.”

A former specialist on the Middle East from the National Security Council, Raymond Tanter suggested the U.S. could work with an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). “If we are serious about working with groups from within,” he said, “it will have to be with the MEK, because there’s no other opposition force the regime cares about.”

Mehdi Marand, a spokesman for the Council for Democratic Change in Iran, similarly said that some in the Congress were ready to remove the MEK from the terrorist list. “If the US really wants to help the democratic forces inside Iran,” he said, “the only way is to remove restrictions from the opposition.”[21]

The problem is that the MEK is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Based in Iraq, the group came under the sway of the U.S. after the 2003 invasion that overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein.

According to former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among a few lone voices pointing out prior to the invasion of Iraq that there was no credible evidence the country still possessed weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. was already working with the MEK. Well prior, in 2005, Ritter wrote that the Bush administration had authorized a number of covert operations inside Iran. “The most visible of these”, he wrote, “is the CIA-backed actions recently undertaken by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.” The MEK’s CIA-backed operations within Iran included “terror bombings”, Ritter charged.[22]

A State Department cable unclassified in March, 2006 and entitled “Recruiting the Next Generation of Iran Experts” began by asserting that “Effectively addressing the Iran challenge ranks as one of the highest foreign policy priorities for our Government over the next decade.” The document outlines a plan developed under then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to “promote freedom and demoncracy [sic] in Iran.”

To this end, the State Department created the Office of Iranian Affairs (OIA) under the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which would “reach out to the Iranian people” and bring more Iran experts into the Foreign Service and more Persian-speaking officers into the OIA, the Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR), and other branches of the State Department. Part of the “outreach” effort would be based in Dubai, a “natural location” for a regional office due to its “proximity to Iran and access to an Iranian diaspora”.[23]

The Dubai office would be modeled on the listening station in the Latvian capital of Riga, according to the document, which was where the U.S. had a listening station to gather information on the Soviet Union during the 1920s (George Kennan was at one time stationed there). The Iranian media has referred to the station as the “regime-change office.” A State Department official based in Dubai said the office’s purpose “is to get a sense of what’s going on in Iran. It is not some recruiting office and is not organizing the next revolution in Iran.”[24]

But the State Department cable also stated that among responsibilities of the Deputy Director of the Dubai station would be to seek “ways to use USG programs and funding to support Iranian political and civic organizations” and “to alert Washington on [the] need to issue statements on behalf of Iranian dissidents.”

The OIA would also create an International Relations Officer Generalist (IROG) position in Istanbul to advance “U.S. policy objectives with the Iranian [expatriate] community” in Turkey and Israel. A similar position would be created for the same purpose in Frankfurt, London, and Baku.[25]

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times critical of the Bush administration’s designs on Iran, Charles A. Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Ray Takeyh, also a senior fellow at the CFR, observed that the objective was “not just to contain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions but also to topple the Iranian government.” Their main criticism with the new “strategy for regime change” is that it was likely to “backfire and only strengthen Tehran’s hard-liners” by giving them cause to decry “U.S. ‘interference’” and thus lending them political leverage to implement a crackdown on dissidents.[26]

When asked whether the OIA was intended to promote regime change, a State Department senior official told CNN it was “to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions” before acknowledging, “Yes, one of the things we want to develop is a government that reflects the desires of the people, but that is a process for the Iranians.”[27]

Then US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton acknowledged in October 2006 that regime change was the “ultimate objective” of the U.S. sanctions policy, and adding that it “puts pressure on them internally” and “helps democratic forces” within the country and amongst the Iranian diaspora.[28]

Administration officials told the New York Times that then Vice President Dick Cheney was promoting the “drive to bring Iranian scholars and students to America, blanket the country with radio and television broadcasts and support Iranian political dissidents.” The program was to be “overseen by Elizabeth Cheney, a principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, who is also the vice president’s daughter.”[29]

A Washington Post article on the new office noted money would be spent on “opposition activities” and observed that “Although administration officials do not use the term ‘regime change’ in public, that in effect is the goal they outline as they aim to build resistance to the theocracy.” The Post also noted that a “setback” for the Bush administration had come when Congress cut $19 million from the funding that would mainly affect broadcast operations, thus affecting plans to increase Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts into Iran to 24-hours a day.[30]

The Financial Times reported in April, 2006 that the effort was being coordinated with the U.K. and noted that criticism of the administration’s strategy included some of the same Iranians the program was designed to bolster. “Serious Iranian opposition politicians are virtually unanimous in saying that foreign funding of activities designed to promote democracy, especially by the US or UK, would be counter-productive”, the Financial Times reported. The article also quoted Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a press adviser to President Ahmadinejad, as saying that Iranians are “alert” to the “propaganda of enemies”.[31]

In May, the Los Angeles Times reported that the OIA was headed by David Denehy, a specialist at the International Republican Institute (IRI).[32] The IRI has been a recipient of NED funds, and was active in Venezuela, including the year of the attempted coup, when the IRI received $299,999 from NED to “train” political parties (including the IRI, over $1 million in grants was given by NED to groups operating in Venezuela in 2002).[33]

NIAC president Trita Parsi explained the goal of the U.S. policy by saying, “The administration is trying to make regime change through democratization the policy, instead of making confrontation by military means the policy.”

The L.A. Times also reported that “at the Pentagon, an Iranian directorate will work with the State Department office to undercut the government in Tehran.” The new Iranian directorate, the report noted, “has been set up inside its policy shop, which previously housed the Office of Special Plans [OSP]”.[34]

The OSP was the office headed by Douglas Feith that was created to bypass the normal intelligence review process and stovepipe information bolstering the policy of regime change in Iraq, including information from Iraqi dissidents like Ahmad Chalabi, who was afforded little credibility outside Feith’s office.

In an article for Rolling Stone, author James Bamford revealed how a member of Feith’s cabal at the OSP, Michael Ledeen, set up a meeting with Iranian dissidents to further the goal of regime change in Iran. Ledeen had served as the Reagan administration’s intermediary with Israel during the illegal arms deal that became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

At the meeting in Rome, Ledeen, along with Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, met with an Iranian named Manucher Ghorbanifer in a safehouse provided by Nicolò Pollari, the director of Italy’s Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI). Pollari had just months before been responsible for providing to that Bush administration what would later be revealed to have been fabricated documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium from Africa. The men discussed the possibility of using the MEK to further their goal of regime change in Iran, according to Bamford’s sources who were familiar with the meeting.

Additionally, Larry Franklin, who worked under Feith in the OSP, later met with two other men “who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran.” The two men were Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). With the FBI watching, Franklin illegally passed classified information on a National Security Presidential Directive dealing with U.S. policy on Iran to AIPAC with the goal of having the influential Israeli lobby exert pressure on the White House to adopt the draft directive.

In the July 24 article, Bamford wrote, “Over the past six months, the administration has adopted almost all of the hard-line stance advocated by the war cabal in the Pentagon…. To back up the tough talk, the State Department is spending $66 million to promote political changes inside Iran—funding the same kind of dissident groups that helped drive the U.S. to war in Iraq.”

Writing in the New York Times Magazine in June, 2007, Negar Azimi wrote about how the Iranian newspaper Kayhan “editorializes almost daily about an elaborate network conspiring to topple the regime. Called ‘khaneh ankaboot,’ or ‘the spider nest,’ the network is reportedly bankrolled by the $75 million and includes everyone from George Soros to George W. Bush to Francis Fukuyama to dissident Iranians of all shades.”

Azimi added, “If the spider’s nest had a headquarters, it might well be the Office of Iranian Affairs, which sits on the second floor of the State Department” and “was charged with outlining, in close consultation with Denehy, how to spend the democracy fund.”

$36.1 million of the funds was to go to VOA Persian and Radio Farda. VOA has often featured Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah, who now lives in Maryland. On April 1, 2007, VOA featured the head of the Balochi terrorist group Jundallah, Abdel Malek Rigi, who was “introduced as the leader of an armed national resistance group.”

Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who previously had worked for three years at Radio Farda, told Azimi that the VOA’s new administrators “do not seem to be able to distinguish between journalism and propaganda…. If you host the head of Jundallah and call him a freedom fighter or present a Voice of America run by monarchists, Iranians are going to stop listening.”[35]

U.S. Covert Operations in Iran

In April, 2006, investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh wrote in the New Yorker magazine that “The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack.”

A source with ties to the Pentagon told Hersh that American units were operating in Iran and “working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Balochis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast.” The principle goal was to “‘encourage ethnic tensions’ and undermine the regime.”[36]

Asia Times Online reported shortly thereafter that a “former Iranian ambassador and Islamic Republic insider” had provided details “about US covert operations inside Iran aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the regime – or preparing for an American attack.” According to the source, “The Iranian government knows and is aware of such infiltration.”

Richard Sale, intelligence correspondent for United Press International, corroborated the charges made by Hersh, saying that “The Iranian accusations are true,” but that “it is being done on such a small scale – a series of pinpricks – it would seem to have no strategic value at all.”

The Asia Times Online article continued, noting recent unrest in Iranian ethnic minority communities, including amongst Kurdish, Arab, and Balochi populations. In one incident “in late January, a previously unknown Sunni Muslim group called Jundallah (Soldier of Allah) captured nine Iranian soldiers in the remote badlands of Sistan-Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.”[37]

In July, Seymour Hersh repeated in an interview with NPR that the U.S. was supporting anti-regime terrorist groups including the MEK, Jundallah, and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, Hersh said, in order to give the White House a casus belli.[38]

In a July 29 article, Scott Ritter wrote that “American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed…. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran … appears to be linked to an MEK operation….”[39]

Hersh wrote another article in the New Yorker in November noting that the Pentagon was increasingly conducting covert operations that had traditionally been the CIA’s domain and giving further details about its activities in Iran. “In the past six months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan”, which has conducted raids into Iran. He repeated that the “Pentagon has established covert relationships with Kurdish, Azeri, and Balochi tribesman, and has encouraged their efforts to undermine the regime’s authority in northern and southeastern Iran.”[40]

On Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh joined Scott Ritter in a conversation about the topic of Ritter’s book, Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, which claimed the U.S. was conducting operations in Iran using the MEK. Ritter said the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was building a station in Azerbaijan to work with Iran’s Azeri population and was also working closely with the MEK.[41]

On February 27, 2007, the London Telegraph reported, “America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.

“In a move that reflects Washington’s growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran’s border regions.

“The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.

“In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.

“Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Balochis in the south-east.”

A former high-ranking CIA official told the Telegraph that the CIA’s funding for opposition and separatist groups was “no great secret”.

Fred Burton, a former US State Department counter-terrorism agent and author of Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent (published in 2008), also told the Telegraph that “The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime.”

And John Pike of the Global Security think tank in Washington said, “The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up [sic] over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity.” Pike also said that “A faction in the Defense Department wants to unleash” the MEK. “They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage.”[42]

Journalist and later author of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis (published in October 2007) Reese Erlich told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! in March 2007 that the U.S. was using Kurdish groups against Iran. “In the case of one group,” he disclosed, “the P.K.K. or the Kurdistan Workers Party and they are, along with Israel, sponsoring them to carry out guerilla raids inside Iran, and it’s part of a much wider plan by the United States to foment discontent and actual terrorist activities by ethnic Iranians in various parts of Iran. And when I was in northern Iraq, I was able to determine that that kind of activity is going on from Iraqi soil under the Kurdish controlled areas of Iraq, into Iran.”

Erlich also explained how the PJAK was formed as a breakaway group from the PKK and added that “they’re playing a very similar game with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, another Iranian Group, and with groups in Balochistan, which is near the Pakistan Iranian border where some revolutionary guard bus was blown up.” He added that Israel was also “backing various Kurdish groups.”[43]

Further corroboration was given in April, according to the ABC News blog “The Blotter”, which reported that according to U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources, the Balochi group Jundullah, operating out of the Balochistan province in Pakistan, was carrying out deadly operations inside Iran under the guidance and encouragement of the U.S. Funding for Jundullah was not provided directly, but instead, “Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abdel Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.”

Referencing the attack on the bus Erlich spoke of in his interview with Amy Goodman, ABC News noted that Jundullah had taken credit for a number of terrorist attacks and kidnappings, including “an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.”[44]

Again in May, ABC News reported that “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert ‘black’ operation to destabilize the Iranian government,” according to current and former intelligence officials. The presidential finding “reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.”

Retired CIA senior official Bruce Riedel said he couldn’t “confirm or deny whether such a program exists”, but added that “it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime”.

Vali Nasr, adjunct senior fellow for Mideast studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News, “I think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within Iran”.[45]

The same day as the ABC News report, the Telegraph also reported that “President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert ‘black’ operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed.” The official document endorsed “CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.” The plan would also include sabotaging Iran’s economy “by manipulating the country’s currency and international financial transactions.”[46]

In July, 2008, former Pakistan Army Chief General Mirza Aslam Baig went public with the charge that the U.S. was backing Jundullah operations based out of Balochistan province.[47]

Jundullah claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of the Amir al-Mohini mosque in the city of Zahedan on May 14, 2009, and said the target had Revolutionary Guards holding a meeting inside. Iran accused the U.S. of being behind the bombing.[48]

Jalal Sayyah, an official at the governor’s office in Sistan-Baluchestan province, told state radio, “The terrorists, who were equipped by America in one of our neighboring countries, carried out this criminal act in their efforts to create religious conflict and fear and to influence the presidential election”.[49] Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsooli similarly said, “Enemies try to influence the election by terror, just as they did in Zahedan yesterday…. The terror agents are neither Sunni nor Shiite but American and Israeli seeking a Sunni-Shiite divide.” Opposition candidate to President Ahmadinejad Mir-Hossein Mousavi also blamed “foreign forces” for the bombing.[50]

The U.S. naturally denied the charge. “We condemn this terrorist attack in the strongest possible terms,” said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. “We do not sponsor any form of terrorism in Iran.”[51] White House spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying, “The United States strongly condemns the recent terrorist attacks in Iran…. The American people send their deepest condolences to the victims and their families. No cause justifies terrorism, and the United States condemns it in any form, in any country, against any people.”[52]

The next day, gunmen attacked President Ahmadinejad’s campaign headquarters in Zahedan, and three men were arrested as they tried to escape.[53] The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that three people, including a child, had been wounded in the attack. According to Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-financed channel in Dubai, Jundullah had claimed responsibility for the attack.[54]

On June 9, 2009, just days before the presidential election, the Iranian state news agency Press TV reported that the brother of Jundullah leader Abdel Malik Rigi, Abdulhamid Rigi, had confirmed in an interview that the U.S. had met with the group since 2005 and helped to arm them. He himself had also met with the Americans in Islamabad, Pakistan, he said, according to the report.[55]

A ‘Velvet Revolution’

Two months before the election, Iran announced that its Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had uncovered a plot to overthrow the regime and accused the Netherlands of conspiring with the U.S. and U.K. to provide financial support to opposition groups and websites for “anti-government activities” to bring about a “soft overthrow” of the government.[56]

Following the disputed election that resulted in an overwhelming win for the incumbent candidate President Ahmadinejad, rallies erupted in the streets of Tehran, with protesters charging that the election had been fraudulent and calling for an annulment of the announced result. Protests in some cases turned into riots resulting in property destruction and acts of arson. State security forces responded violently to some protests, and the state-backed Basij militia was blamed for storming Tehran University and killing 13.[57] The Basij was also blamed for other atrocities, including the murder of a young woman identified as Neda Agha Soltan. Neda was captured on a grisly video that has gone viral on the internet showing her lying in the street bleeding to death after apparently having been shot.[58]

Amid the chaos and charges of foreign interference in the elections, Iran cracked down further on dissent, blocking websites and issuing a ban on foreign reporters. During the confusion, the social-networking internet site Twitter reportedly became an important means for protesters to organize and keep each other updated. A Twitter user posts brief updates (“tweets”) via a web browser or cell phone text messaging. Other users may subscribe to that user’s tweets to receive instant updates. Thus, despite efforts to block other internet sites, Iran could not put a stop to Twitter activity without blocking all SMS communications.

But the “Twitter Revolution”, as some Western media have dubbed it, may not be all it appears. Blogs in the U.S. exploded with unconfirmed reports based on anonymously submitted tweets, many ostensibly coming from inside Iran. But as the Washington Post observed, “It is hard to say how much twittering is actually going on inside Iran.”[59]

While much of what was being Twittered has since been confirmed, there has been no shortage of dubious information going around. The New York Times observed that “just as Twitter has helped get out first-hand reports from Tehran, it has also spread inaccurate information, perhaps even disinformation.” Among the false information spread via Twitter and repeated by bloggers were: “That three millon protested in Tehran last weekend (more like a few hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi was under house arrest (he was being watched); that the president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid last Saturday (not so).”[60]

The popularity of the latter claim was in no small part due to a post by Andrew Sullivan in his popular blog “The Daily Dish” at The Atlantic. Sullivan reported, “Yes, the president of Iran’s own election monitoring commission has declared the result invalid and called for a do-over. That is huge news: when a regime’s own electoral monitors beak [sic] ranks, what chance does the regime have of persuading anyone in the world or Iran that it has democratic legitimacy?”[61]

Sullivan linked to a Farsi language website as his source, Peykeiran.com,[62] but Sullivan admittedly cannot read Farsi, so he was clearly merely relaying information he saw elsewhere, perhaps on Twitter, without attribution. Sullivan’s relayed claim, whatever its true origin, was promptly repeated in blogs across the net following his posting it at The Daily Dish.

But when shown the post and the linked-to page in Farsi, Kourosh Ziabari, an Iranian journalist and correspondent for Foreign Policy Journal, replied, “Actually, Andrew Sullivan has made a mistake, as far as I see. The one who asserted that the election results were invalid was Ali-Akbar Mohtashami, the Administrator for the Committee of Votes Preservation at the national campaign of Mir-Hossein Mousavi.”[63] This is hardly the same “huge news” Sullivan claimed it to be.

The New York Times also observed that “Not only is it hard to be sure that what appears on Twitter is accurate, but some Twitterers may even be trying to trick you.” An example cited is that of fabricated posts purporting to be from ABC News reporter Jim Sciutto.[64]

In that case, Sciutto said, the Iranian government attempted “to turn technology against the protesters. Officials have started a number of fake opposition pages on Twitter, which are tweeting propaganda and misleading information.”[65]

Sciutto offered no evidence that it was actually the Iranian government that was responsible for Twittering in his name, but then, of course, it is easy to accept that the Iranian government is using Twitter to spread misinformation simply as a matter of faith. And yet, despite the great amount of false or unsubstantiated claims made by apparent supporters of the opposition, there’s reluctance on the part of the mainstream media and bloggers to attribute to it the word “propaganda”, much less to suggest that there might have been a coordinated effort by anti-regime groups or foreign intelligence services to spread misinformation or foment unrest.

Evgeny Morozov, a blogger for Foreign Policy and a fellow at the Open Society Institute, questioned the “Twitter revolution” in an op-ed for the Boston Globe. He pointed out that “social media could do wonders when it comes to making many people aware of government’s abuse or the venue of a rally”, but “organizing protests is quite different from publicizing them; the former requires absolute secrecy, that latter one strives for the opposite.”

“However tempting it might be to attribute the Iranian protests to the power of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media,” Morozov added, “we should be extremely careful in our conclusions, especially given that the evidence we are working with is extremely sparse.”[66]

Morozov also told the Washington Post that it “is not at all certain” that Twitter “has helped to organize protests”, but “in terms of involving the huge Iranian diaspora and everyone else with a grudge against Ahmadinejad, it has been very successful.”

During a live discussion with readers, he observed that many posters had listed their location as Tehran in “solidarity” and that the Iranian diaspora was highly active in using social media. He also pointed out that it isn’t known whether a person with an Iranian sounding name posting content Farsi about events in Tehran was actually “in Tehran or, say, Los Angeles”.[67]

When Twitter Inc scheduled maintenance for the website, the U.S. asked the company to postpone the work so the service would not be interrupted as it was being used to rally people into the streets to protest the election. “One of the areas where people are able to get out the word is through Twitter,” a senior State Department official told reporters. “They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance and we asked them not to.”[68]

Iran shortly thereafter summoned the Swiss ambassador, who also represents U.S. interests in the country since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations after the 1979 revolution, to complain about American interference in Iranian affairs.[69]

One might be tempted to argue that the strategy for regime change implemented under the Bush administration that including funding for propaganda, support for Iranian dissident groups, and backing for anti-regime militants and terrorists has changed under the new administration of President Barack Obama. There is no evidence, many have pointed out, of U.S. meddling in the Iranian election.

But then, neither is there any clear indication that Obama ever revoked the policy strategy implemented under Bush. The most likely scenario is that Obama has put the military option favored by some in the Bush administration on the back burner in favor of other means to carry out a change of regime in Iran.

Whatever the case may be, given the record of U.S. interference in the state affairs of Iran and clear policy of regime change, it certainly seems possible, even likely, that the U.S. had a significant role to play in helping to bring about the recent turmoil in an effort to undermine the government of the Islamic Republic.

Certain name variants in this report have been changed within quoted text for consistency. British spellings have also been changed to American English.

An earlier version of this report said that Al-Arabiya was a “state owned” channel. It is a Saudi-financed channel operating out of Dubai and the text has been changed to reflect this.

[1] Remarks by President Barack Obama in Cairo, Egypt, White House, June 4, 2009

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/

[2] David Lowe, “Idea To Reality: A Brief History of the National Endowment for Democracy”, National Endowment for Democracy, Accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.ned.org/about/nedhistory.html

[3] William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p. 180

[4] Susan F. Rasky, “C.I.A. Tied to Nicaragua Provocations”, New York Times, September 21, 1988

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/21/world/cia-tied-to-nicaragua-provocations.html

William Blum, Rogue State, p. 175

[5] William Blum, Rogue State, p. 157

[6] Ibid., p. 157-8

[7] Ibid., p. 183

[8] Ibid., p. 177

[9] Ibid., p. 182

[10] William Blum, “US coup against Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, 2002” (Excerpted from Freeing the World to death: Essays on the American Empire), KillingHope.org, accessed June 22, 2009

http://killinghope.org/essays6/venez.htm

Eva Golinger, “The Proof is in the Documents: The CIA Was Involved in the Coup Against Venezuelan President Chavez”, VenezuelaiFOIA.info, accessed June 22, 2009

http://venezuelafoia.info/evaenglish.html

[11] Information on grants for years 2005-2007 available on the National Endowment for Democracy website, accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.ned.org

[12] Information from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation website, accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.iranrights.org/

[13] WHOIS domain lookup, accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.whois.net

[14] National Endowment for Democracy website, accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-mena06.html#iran

[15] Information from the National Iranian American Council website, accessed June 22, 2009

http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=826&Itemid=28

[16] “The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe”, The Guardian, January 31, 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/31/comment.usa

[17] National Endowment for Democracy website, accessed June 22, 2009

[18] “NIAC Calls for New Election in Iran”, National Iranian American Council Press Release, June 20, 2009

http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1452&Itemid=2

[19] “US plotting Velvet Revolution in Iran?”, Press TV, November 18, 2008

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=75784&sectionid=351020101

[20] Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, “Bush plans huge propaganda campaign in Iran”, The Guardian, February 16, 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/feb/16/usnews.iran

[21] Howard LaFranchi, “A bid to foment democracy in Iran”, Christian Science Monitor, February 17, 2006

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0217/p03s03-usfp.html

[22] Scott Ritter, “The US War with Iran has Already Begun”, Al Jazeera, June 20, 2005

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm

[23] “Recruiting the Next Generation of Iran Experts: New Opportunities in Washington, Dubai and Europe”, Unclassified State Department Cable, released March, 2006

http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/0293_001.pdf

“New ‘Office of Iranian Affairs’ Outlined in State Department Cable”, Think Progress, March 1, 2006

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/01/iran-doc/

[24] Lionel Beehner and Greg Bruno, “Intelligence on Iran Still Lacking”, Council on Foreign Relations, December 4, 2007

http://www.cfr.org/publication/12721/

[25] “Recruiting the Next Generation of Iran Experts”

[26] Charles A. Kupchan and Ray Takeyh, “The wrong way to fix Iran”, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2006

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/26/opinion/oe-kupchan26

[27] Elise Labott, “U.S. to sharpen focus on Iran”, CNN, March 2, 2006

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/02/us.iran/

[28] Guy Dinmore and Daniel Dombey, “Bolton: sanctions ‘help regime change’”, Financial Times, October 24, 2006

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto102420061730242214&page=2

[29] Steven R. Weisman, “Cheney Warns of ‘Consequences’ for Iran on Nuclear Issue”, New York Times, March 8, 2006

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E0D61531F93BA35750C0A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[30] Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler, “U.S. Campaign Is Aimed at Iran’s Leaders”, Washington Post, March 13, 2006; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/12/AR2006031201016.html

[31] Guy Dinmore, “US and UK develop democracy strategy for Iran”, Financial Times, April 21, 2006

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto042120061741075322&page=1

[32] Laura Rozen, “U.S. Moves to Weaken Iran”, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2006

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/19/world/fg-usiran19

[33] Grant information obtained from the National Endowment for Democracy website, accessed June 23, 2009

http://www.ned.org/grants/02programs/grants-lac.html

[34] Laura Rozen, “U.S. Moves to Weaken Iran”, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2006

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/19/world/fg-usiran19

[35] Negar Azimi, “Hard Realities of Soft Power”, New York Times Magazine, June 24, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/magazine/24ngo-t.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[36] Seymour M. Hersh, “The Iran Plans”, New Yorker, April 17, 2006

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact

[37] “Tehran insider tells of US black ops”, Asia Times Online, April 25, 2006

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD25Ak02.html

[38] “Seymour Hersh On Covert Operations in Iran”, NPR, June 30, 2006

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92025860

[39] Scott Ritter, “Acts of War”, Truthdig, July 19, 2008

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/

[40] Seymour M. Hersh, “The Next Act”, New Yorker, November 27, 2006

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27/061127fa_fact

[41] “Target Iran: Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh on White House Plans for Regime Change”, Democracy Now!, December 21, 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/21/target_iran_former_un_weapons_inspector

[42] William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran”, Telegraph, February 25, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1543798/US-funds-terror-groups-to-sow-chaos-in-Iran.html

[43] “Report: U.S. Sponsoring Kurdish Guerilla Attacks Inside Iran”, Democracy Now!, March 27, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/27/report_u_s_sponsoring_kurdish_guerilla

[44] “ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran”, ABC News ‘The Blotter’, April 3, 2007

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/abc_news_exclus.html

[45] “Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran”, ABC News ‘The Blotter’, May 22, 2007

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/bush_authorizes.html

[46] Tim Shipman, “Bush sanctions ‘black ops’ against Iran”, The Telegraph, May 27, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1552784/Bush-sanctions-black-ops-against-Iran.html

[47] “Former Pakistan Army Chief General Retired Mirza Aslam Baig says Iran and Pakistan under siege of western conspiracies”, Pakistan Daily, July 8, 2008

http://www.daily.pk/politics/politicalnews/5406-former-pakistan-army-chief-general-retired-mirza-aslam-baig-says-iran-and-pakistan-under-siege-of-western-conspiracies.html

“‘US backs Jundullah to destabilize Iran’”, Press TV, July 9, 2008

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=63054&sectionid=351020101

[48] ‘Gunmen attack’ south Iran election office”, BBC News, May 29, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8074640.stm

[49] “Iran official blames U.S. in deadly mosque bombing”, Reuters, May 29, 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54R5O320090529?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

[50] “Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election office”, Agence France-Presse, May 29, 2009

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Gunmen_attack_Ahmadinejad_election__05292009.html

[51] “‘Gunmen attack’ south Iran election office”, BBC News, May 29, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8074640.stm

[52] “US condemns ‘terrorist attacks’ in Iran”, Agence France-Presse, May 30, 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jj8UWc4-2zQ2Ix1VBz_0RwB7iVGQ

[53] “‘Gunmen attack’ south Iran election office”

[54] “Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election office”

[55] “Rigi’s brother exposes US ties with Jundullah”, Press TV, June 9, 2009

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=97484&sectionid=351020101

[56] “Iran ‘uncovers cyber plot to topple gov’t’”, Press TV, April 11, 2009

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=91129&sectionid=351020101

[57] Johns Lyons, “Students slaughtered in Tehran university attack”, The Australian, June 19, 2009

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25658596-601,00.html

[58] Michael Weissenstein and Anna Johnson, “Amateur video turns woman into icon of Iran unrest”, Associated Press, June 23, 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jeJnPi6AOx5JpqWi2Wwv3AaesBPAD9902QK00

[59] Mike Musgrove, “Twitter Is a Player In Iran’s Drama”, Washington Post, June 17, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603391.html

[60] Noam Cohen, “Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned”, New York Times, June 20, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/weekinreview/21cohenweb.html

[61] Andrew Sullivan, “Follow-Up On Earlier Posts”, The Atlantic ‘The Daily Dish’, June 13, 2009

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/followup-on-earlier-posts.html

[62] Peykeiran.com webpage, accessed June 23, 2009

http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=2104

[63] E-mail correspondence with Kourosh Ziabari

[64] Noam Cohen

[65] “ABC’s Jim Sciutto’s Twitter Account ‘Hijacked’ By Pro Iranian Government Messengers”, ABC News ‘The World Newser’, June 18, 2009

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/06/abcs-jim-sciuttos-twitter-account-hijacked-by-pro-iranian-messengers.html

[66] Evgeny Morozov, “The repercussions of a ‘Twitter revolution’”, Boston Globe, June 20, 2009

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/06/20/the_repercussions_of_a_twitter_revolution/

[67] Evgeny Morozov, “Iran Elections: A Twitter Revolution?”, Washington Post, June 17, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/06/17/DI2009061702232.html

[68] Mike Musgrove

[69] Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran accuses the US of meddling in election crisis”, Associated Press, June 17, 2009

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090617/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election

2009-06-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

Terry Eagleton's 2008 Yale Terry Lecture Series

christianity fair and foul

the limits of liberation

faith and reason

culture and barbarism

2009-05-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

Follows here a readable-to-me format for Pepe Escobar's 7 and 11 May pieces in the Asia Times. The flashing ads and pop-ups and double-underlined terms and general chaos on that site just don't let me concentrate. Sorry.

========================================

REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 1

Obama does his Bush impression

The "lasting commitment" Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, "Af" President Hamid Karzai and "Pak" President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon's "Long War".

In Obama's own words, the "lasting commitment" is above all to "defeat al-Qaeda". As an afterthought, the president added, "But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan." To have George W Bush's man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto's widow defined as "sovereign", one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House.

In yet another deployment of his impeccable democratic credentials, Karzai has just picked as one of his vice presidential running mates none other than former Jamiat-e-Islami top commander and former first vice president Mohammad Fahim, a suspected drug warlord and armed militia-friendly veteran whom Human Rights Watch deplores as a systematic human-rights abuser. Faheem is Tajik; Karzai is Pashtun (from a minor tribe). Karzai badly needs the Tajiks to win a second presidential term in August.

Possibly moved by the obligatory "deep regret" expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Karzai refrained from throwing a tantrum in Washington concerning the latest "precise" US air strike in ultra-remote Farah province in western Afghanistan which, according to local sources, may have incinerated over 100 Afghans, 70% of them women and children. Context is key: it was the inept, corrupt, dysfunctional Karzai administration - monopolized by warlords and bandits - which made so much easier the return of the Taliban in full force.

Obama's opium war

By now it's clear that the upcoming, Pentagon-enabled, summer surge in the "Af" section of Obama's war in AfPak will be deployed essentially as Obama's new opium war. In a spicy historic reversal, the British Empire (which practically annexed Afghanistan) wanted the Chinese to be hooked on its opium, while now the American empire wants Afghans to stop cultivating it.

The strategy boils down to devastating the Pashtun-cultivated poppy fields in southern Helmand province - the opium capital of the world. In practice, this will be yet another indiscriminate war against Pashtun peasants, who have been cultivating poppies for centuries. Needless to say, thousands will migrate to the anti-occupation rainbow coalition/motley crew branded as "Taliban".

Destroying the only source of income for scores of poor Afghans means, in Pentagon spin, "to cut off the Taliban's main source of money", which also happens to be the "main source of money" for a collection of wily, US-friendly warlords who will not resign themselves to being left blowing in the wind.

The strategy is also oblivious to the fact that the Taliban themselves receive scores of funding from pious Gulf petro-monarchy millionaires as well as from sections in Saudi Arabia - the same Saudi Arabia that Pentagon supremo Robert Gates is now actively courting to ... abandon the Taliban. Since the Obama inauguration in January, Washington's heavy pressure over Islamabad has been relentless: forget about your enemy India, we want you to fight "our" war against the Taliban and "al-Qaeda".

Thus, expect any Pashtun opium farmer or peasant who brandishes his ax, dagger, matchlock or rusty Lee-Enfield rifle at the ultra-high tech incoming US troops to be branded a "terrorist". Welcome to yet one more chapter of the indeed long Pentagon war against the world's poorest.

You're finished because I said so

As for the "Pak" component of AfPak, it is pure counter-insurgency (COIN). As such, His Master's Voice has got to be Central Command commander and surging General David "I'm always positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus.

Enter the Pentagon's relentless PR campaign. Last week, Gates warned the US Senate Appropriations Committee that without the approval of a US$400 million-worth Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund (itself part of a humongous, extra $83.5 billion Obama wants to continue prosecuting his wars), and under the "unique authority" of Petraeus, the Pakistani government itself could collapse. The State Department was in tune: Clinton said Pakistan might collapse within six months.

Anyone is excused for believing this tactic - just gimme the money and shut up - is still Bush "war on terror" territory; that's because it is (the same extraordinary powers, with the State Department duly bypassed, just as with the Bush administration). The final song, of course, remains the same: the Pentagon running the show, very tight with the Pakistani army.

For US domestic consumption purposes, Pentagon tactics are a mix of obfuscation and paranoia. For instance, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says, about Pakistan, "This is not a war zone for the US military." But then Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - who's been to Pakistan twice in the past three weeks - says the Taliban in AfPak overall "threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home".

He was echoing both Clinton and Gates, who had said that the Taliban are an "existential threat" to Pakistan. Finally, Petraeus closes the scare tactics circle - stressing in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee that if the Pakistani Army does not prevail over the Taliban in two weeks, the Pakistani government may collapse.

That unveils the core of Pentagon's and David "COIN" Petraeus' thinking: they know that for long-term US designs what's best is yet another military dictatorship. Zardari's government is - rightfully - considered a sham (as Washington starts courting another dubious quantity, former premier Nawaz Sharif). Petraeus' "superior" man (his own word) couldn't be anyone but Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kiani.

And that's exactly how Obama put it in his 100-day press conference last week, stressing the "strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation" and reducing Zardari to smithereens ("very fragile" government, lacking "the capacity to deliver basic services" and without "the support and the loyalty of their people"). Judging by his body language, Obama must have repeated the same litany to Zardari yesterday, live in Washington.
The money quote still is Obama's appraisal of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

Pakistani "sovereignty" is a joke; Pakistan is now openly being run from Washington. "We want to respect their sovereignty" does not mean "we" actually will. Obama and the Pentagon - which for all practical purposes treat Pakistan as a pitiful colony - would only be (relatively) comfortable with a new Pakistani military dictatorship. The fact that Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship (see the recent, massive street demonstrations in favor of the Supreme Court justices) is dismissed as irrelevant.

The Swat class struggle

In this complex neo-colonial scenario Pakistan's "Talibanization" - the current craze in Washington - looks and feels more like a diversionary scare tactic. (Please see The Myth of Talibanistan, Asia Times Online, May 1, 2009. ) On the same topic, a report on the Pakistani daily Dawn about the specter of Talibanization of Karachi shows it has more to do with ethnic turbulence between Pashtuns and the Urdu-speaking, Indian-origin majority than about Karachi Pashtuns embracing the Taliban way.

The original Obama administration AfPak strategy, as everyone remembers, was essentially a drone war in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) coupled with a surge in Afghanistan. But the best and the brightest in Washington did not factor in an opportunist Taliban counter-surge.

The wily Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law), led by Sufi Muhammad, managed to regiment Swat valley landless peasants to fight for their rights and "economic redistribution" against the usual wealthy, greedy, feudal landlords who happened to double as local politicians and government officials.

It's as if the very parochial Taliban had been paying attention to what goes on across South America ... Essentially, it was the appropriation of good old class struggle that led to the Taliban getting the upper hand. Islamabad was finally forced to agree on establishing Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic jurisprudence) in the Swat valley.

So what happened in Swat is that it moved beyond a - corrupt - state, and neo-colonial control. Washington's enemy suddenly swelled to part of the 1.3 million people in the area whose only means of protection are armed militias - what the West bundles up as "Taliban".

It's always crucial to remember that the "Taliban" have all sorts of agendas, from armed resistance to US occupation in Afghanistan to armed resistance to Pakistani army incursions. What they all want is basically the end of Washington's drone war, the end of Pakistan's support for the "war on terror" in AfPak, or at least for the inept, corrupt Pakistani state to leave them alone.

It's true that over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media.

But the solution is obviously not a war in Swat. It would be, for instance, a concerted, long-term government policy to defuse the network of at least 45,000 madrassas (seminaries) with nearly 2 million students all over the country. And to defuse anti-democratic, sectarian outfits like Lashkar-e Toiba and Sipah-e Sahaba.

It won't happen. And Washington does not care. What matters for the Pentagon is that the minute any sectarian outfit or bandit gang decides to collude with the Pentagon, it's not "Taliban" anymore; it magically morphs into a "Concerned Local Citizens" outfit. By the same token any form of resistance to foreign interference or Predator hell from above bombing is inevitably branded "Taliban".

Left to its own devices, the Pentagon solution for Swat would probably be some form of ethnic cleansing. Predictably, what Obama and the Pentagon are in fact doing - part of their cozying up with the Pakistani army - is to side with the feudal landlords and force a return to the classic Pakistani status quo of immense social inequality. Thus virtually every local who has not become a refugee (as many as 5000,000 already did, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis) has been duly branded a "terrorist". Locals are caught between a rock (the Taliban) and a hard place (the US-supported Pakistani military).

The Pentagon does not do "collateral damage". The only consideration is the US Army becoming partially exposed in neighboring Afghanistan. After all, the key AfPak equation for the Pentagon is how to re-supply US troops involved in OCO ("overseas contingency operations").

The Swat tragedy is bound to get bloodier. As Steve Clemons from The Washington Note blog has learned in a conference in Doha, Obama and Petraeus are forcing the Pakistani army to crush Swat. Once again the imperial "fire on your own people" logic. Predictably, Zardari and the Pakistani army are still against it. But if they accept - that would be a tangible result from the Washington photo-op on Wednesday - the prize will be a lot of money and loads of precious helicopter gun ships.

Madmen on the loose

The Obama administration not only has rebranded the Bush "global war on terror" (GWOT) as the subtly Orwellian "overseas contingency operations" (OCO). The key component of OCO - the AfPak front - is now being actively rebranded, and sold, not as an American war but a Pakistani war.

Zardari plays his pitiful bit part; alongside Obama, the Pentagon and the State Department, he has been convincing Pakistani public opinion to fight Washington's OCO, defending the Predator bombing of Pashtun civilians in Pakistani land. It ain't easy: at least 20% of Pakistani army soldiers are Pashtun - now forced to fight their own Pashtun cousins.

As for the "Af" element of AfPak, the war against occupation in Afghanistan has "disappeared" from the narrative to the benefit of this Pakistani "holy war" against Talibanization. What has not disappeared, of course, is US bombing of Afghan peasants (with attached Hillary "regrets") plus the Predator war in FATA.

The question is: How far will the Obama, the Pentagon and Zardari collusion go in terms of wiping out any form of resistance to the US occupation of Afghanistan and the drone war against Pashtun peasants in FATA?

The relentless warnings on the collapse of Pakistan may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Were it to happen, the balkanization of Pakistan would do wonders for the Pentagon's long-term strategy in the "arc of instability".

From a Pentagon dream scenario point of view, the balkanization of Pakistan would mean dismantling a "Terrorist Central" capable of contaminating other parts of the Muslim world, from Indian Kashmir to the Central Asian "stans". It would "free" India from its enemy Pakistan so India can work very closely with Washington as an effective counter power to the relentless rise of China.

And most of all, this still has to do with the greatest prize - Balochistan, as we'll see in part 2 of this report on Friday. Desert Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan, is where Washington and Islamabad clash head on. From a Washington perspective, Balochistan has to be thrown into chaos. That's about the only way to stop the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which would traverses Balochistan.

In a dream Washington scenario of balkanization of Pakistan, the US could swiftly take over Balochistan's immense natural wealth, and promote the strategic port of Gwadar in Balochistan not to the benefit of the IPI pipeline, but the perennially troubled Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline - Caspian gas wealth flowing under US, and not Russian or Iranian, control.

As for the Taliban, whether in FATA or Swat or anywhere else, they are no threat to the US. Usman Khalid, secretary general of the Rifah party in Pakistan, has nailed it, "The population dread the Taliban-style rule but they dread being split into four countries and to go under Indian suzerainty even more. The Taliban appear to be the lesser evil just as they were in Afghanistan."

History once again does repeat itself as farce: in fact the only sticking point between the Taliban and Washington is still the same as in August 2001 - pipeline transit fees. Washington wouldn't give a damn about sharia law as long as the US could control pipelines crossing Afghanistan and Balochistan.

Yes, Pipelineistan rules. What's a few ragged Pashtun or Balochis in Washington's way when the New Great Game in Eurasia can offer so many opportunities?

REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 2

Balochistan is the ultimate prize

It's a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama's brand new OCO ("Overseas Contingency Operations"), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror") does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable.

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan's 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has not been able to locate Quetta resident "The Shadow", historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself.

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.

Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai - while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land.

To top it all, there's the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever "wins" Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of "gas republic" Turkmenistan.

The cavalry to the rescue

Now imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama's surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan.

What would the Balochis do? That's a very complex question.

Balochistan is of course tribal - just as the FATA. Local tribal chiefs can be as backward as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). A parallel could be made with the Swat valley.

Most Baloch tribes bow to Islamabad's authority - except, first and foremost, the Bugti. And then there's the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) - which both Washington and London brand as a terrorist group. Its leader is Brahamdagh Bugti, operating out of Kandahar (only two hours away from Quetta). In a recent Pakistani TV interview he could not be more sectarian, stressing the BLA is getting ready to attack non-Balochis. The Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad denies it, saying their support is not beyond 10% of the provincial population.

It does not help that Islamabad tends to be not only neglectful but heavy-handed; in August 2006, Musharraf's troops killed ultra-respected local leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former provincial governor.

There's ample controversy on whether the BLA is being hijacked by foreign intelligence agencies - everyone from the CIA and the British MI6 to the Israeli Mossad. In a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to Sistan-Balochistan in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran's version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. And it's no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controls the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.

In October 2001, while I was waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, and apart from tracking the whereabouts of President Hamid Karzai and his brother, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as "progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist" (and that makes them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of "Punjabi chauvinism", and always insisted the region's resources belong to Balochis first; that was the rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.

Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16% ("It's government policy to keep Balochistan backward"), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70% of the Baloch population ("Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it's the talk of the bazaars"). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that "Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples".

As a whole, not only BLA sympathizers but the Balochis in general are adamant: although prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, they want infinitely more autonomy.

Game on

How crucial Balochistan is to Washington can be assessed by the study "Baloch Nationalism and the Politics of Energy Resources: the Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan" by Robert Wirsing of the US Army think-tank Strategic Studies Institute. Predictably, it all revolves around Pipelineistan.

China - which built Gwadar and needs gas from Iran - must be sidelined by all means necessary. The added paranoid Pentagon component is that China could turn Gwadar into a naval base and thus "threaten" the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The only acceptable scenario for the Pentagon would be for the US to take over Gwadar. Once again, that would be a prime confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases.

Not only in terms of blocking the IPI pipeline and using Gwadar for TAPI, control of Gwadar would open the mouth-watering opportunity of a long land route across Balochistan into Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar or, better yet, all of these three provinces in southwest Afghanistan. From a Pentagon/NATO perspective, after the "loss" of the Khyber Pass, that would be the ideal supply route for Western troops in the perennial, now rebranded, GWOT ("global war on terror").

During the Asif Ali Zardari administration in Islamabad the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, has been regrouping and rearming, while the current chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, is suspected of being a CIA asset (there's no conclusive proof). There's fear in Islamabad that the government has taken its eye off the Balochistan ball - and that the BLA may be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. But Islamabad still seems not to have listened to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.

So what's gonna be the future of "Dubai" Gwadar? IPI or TAPI? The die is cast. Under the radar of the Obama/Karzai/Zardari photo-op in Washington, all's still to play in this crucial front in the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

2009-03-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

99 is so smart....

2009-01-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

2008-12-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Yet another article I can't read on its proper site:

All roads lead out of Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar

The measure of success of president-elect Barack Obama's new "Afghan strategy" will be directly proportional to his ability to delink the war from its geopolitical agenda inherited from the George W Bush administration.

It is obvious that Russia and Iran's cooperation is no less critical for the success of the war than what the US is painstakingly extracting from the Pakistani generals. Arguably, Obama will even be in a stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis the tough generals in Rawalpindi if only he has Moscow and Tehran on board his Afghan strategy.

But then, Moscow and Iran will expect that Obama reciprocates with a willingness to jettison the US's containment strategy towards them. The signs do not look good. This is not only from the look of Obama's national security team and the continuance of Robert Gates as defense secretary.

On the contrary, in the dying weeks of the Bush administration, the US is robustly pushing for an increased military presence in the Russian (and Chinese) backyard in Central Asia on the ground that the exigencies of a stepped-up war effort in Afghanistan necessitate precisely such an expanded US military presence.

Again, the Bush administration's insistence on bringing Saudi Arabia into the Afghan problem on the specious plea that a Wahhabi partner will be useful for taming the Taliban doesn't carry conviction with Iran. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday pointedly stressed the need to be vigilant about "plots by the world's arrogance to create disunity" between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Russian-Iranian proximity
It seems almost inevitable that Moscow and Tehran will join hands. In all likelihood, they may have already begun doing so. The Central Asian countries and China and India will also be closely watching the dynamics of this grim power struggle. They are interested parties insofar as they may have to suffer the collateral damage of the great game in Afghanistan. The US's "war on terror" in Afghanistan has already destabilized Pakistan. The debris threatens to fall on India, too.

Most certainly, the terrorist attack on Mumbai last month cannot be seen in isolation from the militancy radiating from the Afghan war. Even as the high-level Russian-Indian Working Group on terrorism met in Delhi on Tuesday and Wednesday, another top diplomat dealing with the Afghan problem arrived in the Indian capital for consultations - Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mahdi Akhounjadeh.

Speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, General Nikolai Makarov, just about lifted the veil on the geopolitics of the Afghan war to let the world know that the Bush administration was having one last fling at the great game in Central Asia. Makarov couldn't have spoken without Kremlin clearance. Moscow seems to be flagging its frustration to Obama's camp. Makarov revealed Moscow had information to the effect that the US was pushing for new military bases in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Coincidence or not, a spate of reports has begun appearing that Russia is about to transfer the S-300 missile defense system to Iran. S-300 is one of the most advanced surface-to-air missile systems capable of intercepting 100 ballistic missiles or aircraft at once, at low and high altitudes within a range of over 150 kilometers. As long-time Pentagon advisor Dan Goure put it, "If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran. This is a system that scares every Western air force."

It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but Russia and Iran seem to be bracing for a countermove in the event of the Obama administration pressing ahead with the present US policy to isolate them or cut them out from their "near abroad".

Aviation Week magazine recently quoted US officials as claiming that Moscow was using Belarus as a conduit for selling the SA-20 missile systems to Iran. "The Iranians are on contract for the SA-20," one of the US officials said. "We've got a huge set of challenges in the future that we've never had [before]. We've been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we've been free to operate in all domains."

The US official said the deployment of SA-20 around Iranian nuclear facilities would be a direct threat to Israel's fleet of advanced but "non-stealthy" F-15Is and F-16Is. Ha'aretz newspaper reported on Tuesday that the head of political-military policy in the Israeli Defense Ministry, Major General Amos Gilad, was traveling to Moscow with a demarche that Russia should not transfer S-300 to Iran.

Evidently, Moscow is maintaining an air of "constructive ambiguity" as to what is exactly happening. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented in October that Moscow would not sell the S-300 to countries in "volatile regions".

But, on Wednesday, Russia's Novosti news agency cited unnamed Kremlin sources as saying that Moscow was "currently implementing a contract to deliver S-300 systems". Again, on Wednesday, the deputy head of the Federal Service of Russia's Military-Technical Cooperation, Alexander Fomin, publicly defended Russian-Iranian military cooperation as having a "positive influence on stability in this region". Fomin specifically commented that systems such as the S-300 benefited the whole region by "preventing new military conflicts".

The US thrust into the Russian backyard in the Caucasus and Central Asia will most certainly have a bearing on the Russian-Iranian tango over the S-300. Moscow and Tehran will be on guard that despite the stalemate of the Afghan war and the mounting difficulties faced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, the cold warriors in Washington continue their great game in the Hindu Kush.

Politics of transit routes
This becomes glaring if we look at the saga of the US's supply routes to Afghanistan. Recent events have shown that militants are capable of holding NATO to ransom by disrupting the supply routes to Afghanistan via Karachi port. Logically, the US ought to look for alternate supply routes.

Apart from the Karachi route, there are three alternate routes to supply the troops in Afghanistan: one, via Shanghai port straight across China to Tajikistan and to Afghanistan; two, the Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan land routes up to the Afghan border on the Amu Darya; three, the shortest and the most practical route via Iran.

Russia has both road and rail links connecting the Afghan border. China, on the other hand, has at present only one rail connection to Central Asia - the line from Urumqi in Xinjiang Autonomous Province ending on the Kazakh border. But China is currently working on two additional loops - one from Korgas on the Kazakh border to Almaty and the second from Kashi to Kyrgyzstan. Both these loops connect China to the Central Asian rail grid of the Soviet era leading to the southern Uzbek port city of Termez on the Amu Darya, which is a traditional gateway to Afghanistan.

But surprisingly, Washington wouldn't look at any of these alternate routes. Iran is understandably a no-go area (even though, in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan the Bush administration sought and obtained logistical support from Iran). But the US is equally wary of involving Russia and China in the war effort. It apprehends that tomorrow these countries might well demand a say in war strategy, which has so far been the US's exclusive turf. Then, there are other implications.

The containment strategy towards Russia and China cannot be sustained if there is a critical dependence on these countries for the US's war effort in Afghanistan. Again, their involvement will effectively freeze any expansion plans for NATO into Central Asia - let alone the scope for establishing new US military bases in the region. All-in-all, therefore, by involving Russia and China in the supply routes for US troops in Afghanistan, the US would be under compulsion to shelve its entire "Great Central Asia" strategy, which aims at rolling back Russian and Chinese influence in the region.

So, what does the US do? It has decided on a three-pronged approach. First, the US will motivate the recalcitrant Pakistani generals not to create problems for NATO convoys passing through Pakistan. Thus, US Senator John Kerry, who visited India on route to Pakistan last week on a mediatory mission, pledged, inter alia, that the US would urgently act on the Pakistani top brass's demand for upgrading its F-16 fleet capable of carrying nuclear weapons, apart from expediting a fresh multi-billion dollar new aid package for Pakistan.

Second, the US had began working on an entirely new supply route for Afghanistan which steers clear of Tehran, Moscow and Beijing and which, more importantly, not only dovetails but holds the prospects of augmenting and even strengthening the US's containment strategy towards Russia and Iran.

US's Caucasian thrust
Thus, the US has begun developing an altogether new land route through the southern Caucasus to Afghanistan, which doesn't exist at present. The US is working on the idea of ferrying cargo for Afghanistan via the Black Sea to the port of Poti in Georgia and then dispatching it through the territories of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. A branch line could also go from Georgia via Azerbaijan to the Turkmen-Afghan border.

The project, if it materializes, will be a geopolitical coup - the biggest ever that Washington would have swung in post-Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus. At one stroke, the US will be tying up military cooperation at the bilateral level with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Furthermore, the US will be effectively drawing these countries closer into NATO's partnership programs. Georgia, in particular, gets a privileged status as the key transit country, which will offset the current European opposition to its induction as a NATO member country. Besides, The US will have virtually dealt a blow to the Russia-led Collective Security Treat Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Not only will the US have succeeded in keeping the CSTO and the SCO from poking their noses into the Afghan cauldron, it will also have made these organizations largely irrelevant to regional security when Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the two key players in Central Asia, simply step out of the ambit of these organizations and directly deal with the US and NATO.

Third, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on December 12 that the US was also concurrently setting up a presence in Almaty. It said, "The talks that the US administration officials are having in Central Asia confirm the view that a new project exists. Last week, Kazakhstan's parliament ratified memorandums of support for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. They allow the US to use the military section of Almaty airport for emergency landings by military planes."

Therefore, the US is making a determined bid to render Russian diplomacy on Afghanistan toothless. Interestingly, the US has allowed NATO at the same time to negotiate with Russia for transit route facilities, which Moscow will be hard-pressed to refuse. Last week, the NATO envoy for Central Asia, Robert Simmons, visited Moscow. If Moscow had calculated that assisting the NATO supply route would enable it to gain influence on other issues of Russia-West relations or on Afghanistan, that is not going to happen as the US would have no dependence on Russia as such and would have no compulsion to reciprocate.

Washington has certainly done some smart thinking. It is having the best of both worlds - NATO taking help from Russia with the US at the same time puncturing the CSTO and undercutting Russian interests in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

What hits Russian interests most is that if the Caucasian route materializes, the US would have consolidated its military presence in South Caucasus on a long-term basis. Ever since the conflict in the Caucasus in August, the US has maintained a continuous naval presence in the Black Sea, with regular port calls in Georgia. The indications are that the US is planning a carefully calibrated ground presence in Georgia as well. Talks are in the final stages for a US-Georgia Security and Military Agreement. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza visited Tbilisi on Tuesday for consultations in this regard.

According to reports, Washington is finalizing a document that includes helping Georgia fulfill the criteria for NATO membership and promoting "security cooperation and strategic partnership". As a US expert summed up, "The South Caucasus option is more expensive but incomparably more secure. It is also immune to Russian political manipulation ... a larger flow of supplies by land and air would presuppose an unobtrusive US military-logistical presence on the ground. It would also require reliable control of Georgian and Azerbaijani air space."

Another dramatic fallout is that the proposed land route covering Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can also be easily converted into an energy corridor and become a Caspian oil and gas corridor bypassing Russia. Such a corridor has been a long-cherished dream for Washington. Furthermore, European countries will feel the imperative to agree to the US demand that the transit countries for the energy corridor are granted NATO protection in one form or the other. That, in turn, leads to NATO's expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Surely, the renewed Taliban threat in Afghanistan and the escalation of combat is providing a fantastic backdrop. For the first time, the US would be establishing a military presence in the Caucasus and the distinct possibility emerges for a Caspian energy corridor leading to the European market. Both Russia and Iran will feel directly threatened by the US military presence virtually in their border regions, and both would feel outplayed by Washington in the Caspian energy sweepstakes.

These maneuverings over the supply routes bring out the full range of the bitterly fought geopolitical struggle in the Hindu Kush, which mostly lies hidden from the world opinion that remains focused on the fate of al-Qaeda and Taliban. The fact is, seven years down the road from the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the US has done exceedingly well in geopolitical terms, even if the war as such may have gone rather badly both for the Afghans and the Pakistanis and the European soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

US holds trump card
The US has succeeded in establishing its long-term military presence in Afghanistan. Ironically, with the deterioration of the war, a case is now being built for establishing new US military bases in Central Asia. While the US's close partnership with the Pakistani military continues intact, the search for new supply routes becomes the perfect backdrop for expanding its influence into the Russian and Chinese (and Iranian) backyards in Central Asia.

The veiled threat of reopening the "Kashmir file", which is patently aimed at keeping India at bay, also serves a useful purpose. Plainly put, the US faces a real geopolitical challenge in Afghanistan if only a coalition of like-minded regional powers like Russia, China, Iran and India takes shape and these powers seriously begin exchanging notes about what the Afghan war has been about so far and where it is heading and what the US strategy aims at. So far, the US has succeeded in stalling such a process by sorting out these regional powers individually. Indeed, Washington has been a net beneficiary from the contradictions in the mutual relations between these regional powers.

On the whole, the US holds several trump cards, given the contradictions in Sino-Indian relations, Sino-Russian relations, the situation around Iran, India-Pakistan relations and Iran-Pakistan and, of course, Russia-Pakistan relations. The US's number one diplomatic challenge at this juncture will be to pre-empt and scatter any sort of incipient coordination that may take place between the regional powers surrounding Afghanistan in the nature of a regionally initiated peace process. The US has done its utmost to see that the SCO proposal for holding an international conference on Afghanistan doesn't materialize.

But as the Russian-Indian and Iranian-Indian consultations this week in Delhi testify, the regional powers may be slowly waking up and becoming wiser about the US's geostrategy in Afghanistan. The time may not be far off before they begin to sense that the "war on terror" is providing a convenient rubric under which the US is incrementally securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.

The million-dollar question is Obama's sincerity. If he genuinely wants to end the bloodshed and the suffering in Afghanistan, tackle terrorism effectively and enduringly, as well as stabilize Afghanistan and secure South Asia as a stable region, he has to make a definitive choice. All he needs to do is to feel disgusted with the "collateral damage" that the great game is causing to the human condition, and seek an inclusive Afghan settlement in terms of the imperatives of regional security and stability.

Such a break will be consistent with what he claims his sense of values to be. The existential choice is whether he will break with the past out of principle.

No doubt, Obama faces a tough call, being a quintessential "outsider" in Washington, as he will run into the vested interests of the US security establishment, the military-industrial complex, Big Oil and the influential corpus of cold warriors who are bent on pressing ahead. The war in the Hindu Kush enters a decisive phase for the New American Century project.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

2008-12-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Last update - 13:28 12/12/2008

Amira Hass returns to Gaza after a two-year absence

By Amira Hass

The first thing that captures your eyes, after two years away, is a visual quiet. Gone are the flags of every color (including green) that once flew everywhere; the billboards commemorating shaheeds with their weapons, new ones popping up nearly every day; the large banners emblazoned with slogans. Yes, here and there you still come across a tattered flag or faded sign, old graffiti on the walls, or a smiling Arafat beaming down from a giant poster that no one took the trouble to remove, the colors dulled by time. But the loud, aggressive, competitive profusion that was frequently replenished is all gone. Pictures of government officials in Gaza don't impose upon you, they don't hang on every corner. Instead, one notices bougainvillea, tree-lined avenues, wrought-iron gates, colorful head coverings. The Hamas government doesn't need external symbols to prove its strength and announce its presence. The conclusion is obvious as it is.

A somewhat hasty conclusion - or a partial one, to be more precise. When there is no political competition, someone said to me, there's no need for its outward expressions. Are there really no rivals (Fatah, in other words), or have they been silenced? Around November 11, the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip worked to conceal any symbols related to the date, the man and the movement - in addition to prohibiting the staging of any memorials.

It wasn't the Fatah movement that called for rallies, but a committee composed of PLO organizations. It didn't even attempt to hold rallies in an open area (such as a soccer field or city plaza) - as Hamas does every few days (with its green flags). When yellow Fatah flags were hung up, police were called to the location and removed them; high school students who went around wearing checkered kaffiyeh-like scarves - or any other symbol that alluded to Arafat and Fatah - were asked to remove them and also summoned for a brief police interrogation. Even candles that were set out in windows in Abu Amar's (Arafat's) memory were confiscated. So Fatah supporters reported, at least. The removal of these symbols wasn't only an expression of the government's self-confidence, but of intimidation and coercion as well.
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"You mean to tell me that in the West Bank, too, Hamas people are afraid like this, of the PA?" a Fatah member from the southern Gaza Strip, who had reported to me about some of the oppressive measures taken against her movement in her area, asked me a bit incredulously. Another Fatah member told me that it was a conscious decision not to clash with the Hamas police: "We don't want to expose people to the kinds of things we went through - arrest and torture. We don't want people to get hurt. We want them to be politically active. Also, we hoped that the reconciliation talks would begin in Cairo, and if we hold rallies - there will be oppression, tears and death, and that will ruin the chance for reconciliation."

Weapons have also disappeared from city streets and from the refugee camps in Gaza. At least the showy kind, at least at first and second glance, and when you're not looking for that protrusion of a gun on a right hip, and if you don't take into account a short convoy of cars passing by every so often, one of them (with darkened windows) apparently transporting Interior Minister Sa'id al-Siam or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. A broad jeep accompanying the convoy carries several stern-faced armed men. The weapons are nowhere to be seen, unless you count a gang of uniformed masked men that roamed one intersection at midnight and drew the attention of a sleepless resident. These are Iz al-Din al-Qassam brigade fighters, a Hamas member explained, and she also found it heartbreaking, for it showed how many young people, including her own children, are ready to sacrifice their lives in the struggle for independence.

One house in Gaza was adorned with a poster of a smiling teenager who was killed about six months ago, before the tahadiyeh [lull]. No one had any idea that he had decided to join a Qassam-launching cell. His father is very bitter. How could they have recruited such a young kid, who hadn't even finished his matriculation exams? But a Hamas official said that the organization does not recruit anyone under 18. If the number of young people enlisting in the organization's military ranks is indeed large, the disappearance of weapons from the main streets, during daylight hours, is even more impressive. It attests to self-control, to an organization that is able to distinguish between the military and the civilian, to a guiding hand from above, to governmental attention to details - like the public's longing for some sense of normalcy - insofar as one can speak about normalcy when 1.5 million people are not permitted to leave a tiny, 365-square-kilometer area, and many are out of work and getting by on donations. The disappearance of official and unofficial weapons is especially noticeable if you compare it to the situation in Al Bireh-Ramallah, where Palestinian security personnel are deployed almost permanently, with their long rifles slung over their shoulders for all to see.

And then there's the quiet that the ear notices almost immediately. The quiet of zero construction, of closed factories and half-finished buildings, of half-demolished streets awaiting repaving, of water drainage systems whose pipes are filling with sand, because Israel prohibits the entry of all raw materials and construction materials. Pipes that pour sewage into the sea because there are no replacement parts for the broken pumps in the treatment facilities, or no diesel fuel to operate them.

Nothing to do

A group of businessmen in Gaza got fed up with sitting at home and living with this quiet and with the frustration. They consulted and decided to study - Hebrew. Three times a week, at the offices of the Businessmen's Association. The association pays for a teacher and for the noisy generator that provides light - since the rest of the neighborhood is in the dark because Israel is not allowing the transfer of industrial fuel to the Gaza power plant. The students pay for the coffee and tea. With the teacher's consent, one lesson was given over to a conversation with me. Many of the students already speak Hebrew well - they just want to learn to read and write it. Others are just beginning to learn the language. Why? "Because this madness of the closure and blockade of Gaza can't last forever, because the two peoples' futures are tied together," they say with certainty, as they learn a new Hebrew word from me - ashlayot (illusions).

"I'd like you to come with me to the store and speak with all of our employees. We're still paying their wages, even though there's no work, the store is empty," says Tareq Saqa, owner of an electronics importing company. Other Hebrew students painted a similar picture: an importer of medications (who now imports via the tunnels, for lack of an alternative), importers of lighting fixtures, of fire extinguishers, of chocolate and other sweets. Some speaking in Arabic, others in Hebrew. Some of them have trucks that are stuck in Israel without work. Others have shipping containers they cannot bring in from the West Bank. All have workers sitting at home with nothing to do.

Abdel Hakim Ismail is a contractor. "The guys who spoke before are traders, and they still have a little work. Maybe 20 percent of what they had before. But we contractors - No one's been working for four years or more. Half of us closed down completely. There's no material for asphalt for roads, for buildings. If there's gravel for concrete, then the cement is missing. If there's cement and gravel, there's no iron. It's been like this for five or six years now. Iron one day, cement one day, gravel another day. I've lost over a million dollars in five years, and there are jobs that I wasn't able to complete. I was working on a new school in Gaza, I'd dug for the foundations already, and now for two years I've been waiting for cement in order to pour concrete. I also have a United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] school in the Nuseirat refugee camp that's waiting - instead, pupils there study in steel shipping containers that are broiling hot in summer and freezing in winter. Some friends of mine won a tender to build a whole neighborhood, with Saudi financing, in Khan Yunis [the neighborhood where the Neve Dekalim settlement once stood, and which was designated to house refugees whose homes were destroyed by the IDF]. The total budget is $8 million. They managed to build just $2 million worth. They can't finish the buildings, and they're not receiving their money."

Fadel al-Jaru has a factory that makes curbstones and flagstones. And not long after the disengagement, he and a partner opened an asphalt business. Out of 40 workers in the first factory, "I've kept only three. I have a lot of orders [for flagstones]. Over 300,000 meters' worth. Some for UNRWA projects, some for the UN Development Program and some for the government. I work with contractors and everything's been stuck for the last two years. There are no materials. In the past, I used to go through an entire silo, 30-40 tons of cement, in one day. Every year, I'd buy 1,000 tons of cement. Recently, for the first time in a year and a half, I received 120 tons. The asphalt factory cost $1.4 million. It was able to operate for just one month."

"We don't live like human beings." This is Salim, the teacher, summing up and inserting a little grammar lesson: "ben adam in the singular, bnei adam in the plural." So what do we live like, asks one late-arriving student, who doesn't get an answer. Someone else goes back to the word ashlayot that they learned from me and asks if I think "we ought to go learn French." And the guy sitting next to him answers instead: "Not French, it's Egyptian we ought to learn."

On the second day of my return to Gaza, on November 9, I discovered another oppressive sight that has practically disappeared from the neighborhoods bordering the former sites of the settlements: Gone are the buildings pockmarked with bullet holes that were a constant testament to the abundance of arms and varieties of bullets used by the IDF. The remnants of houses that were wrecked by Israeli mortar shells or bulldozer teeth, reminders of the years of fear, have been cleared away. This is evidence of the work of the municipalities and of UNRWA, I thought. Of their understanding that these sights of war need to be removed, of the conscious and organized effort to restore a feeling of normalcy. But several mounds of debris to the east of the Jabaliya refugee camp and several bullet-ridden houses that are still occupied by their tenants and overlook the "tunnel city" in Rafah - reminded me that I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I noted that this is also something to pay attention to in the coming weeks - the work of the municipalities in general, the clearing of rubble in particular (some of the debris, I learned, was crushed and recycled in several basic infrastructure projects). But then I discovered that unfettered, independent tours of the area, with a taxi driver I know or with friends - were out of the question.

'A gift from the CIA'

Because, starting November 11, four days after I arrived in Gaza via the sea, on the Karameh, a ship belonging to the Free Gaza movement, with a delegation of European parliamentarians, I was treated to a 24-hour-a-day escort: two or three Palestinian security personnel (in three shifts), traveled behind me in a very large jeep ("a gift from the CIA to Abu Mazen," a friend joked).

At night they slept in it, below the apartment of friends where I was staying. I called the jeep dababeh - tank - because it stood out so. I was told that the escort was necessary for my safety. That if anything were to happen to me, God forbid, the whole world would be talking about nothing else and would blame the government in Gaza. "But I plan on staying for three months," I told A. - who is in charge of a unit called Security and Protection of Foreigners. "Inshallah, you'll stay a year," he said. "So why follow me around with a tank?" I asked. "If someone wants to hurt me, he'll know just where I am." Because we don't have any small civilian vehicles, he explained, and again promised that it was all for the sake of my safety and well-being. I told him that when I remarked to people that it was a shame for all that money to be spent like this, they answered: "Don't worry, it's the Iranians' money [a variation on the common phrase, "the Jews' money" - meaning something that can be wasted indiscriminately]. He didn't laugh.

A., like other Hamas officials and security personnel whom my friends tried in vain to convince of the irrationality of this permanent escort - promised that I was free to speak with whomever I wanted, and to see whomever I wished to see. Just how inaccurate this was I discovered on the second day of the escort: I wanted to visit a family in the Al-Shati refugee camp, whose son has been living in Ramallah for the past 20 years and who hasn't been able to visit them for the past 13 years because of the Israeli closure policy. His wife had sent gifts to them through me, including sage and hyssop ("you can't find the same quality in Gaza"). A fairly mundane visit, with an ordinary family that doesn't include even a single Hamas supporter. But I was asked not to come if I was going to be accompanied by that obtrusive jeep, even if the men inside it weren't from the unit that carries out raids and arrests. "What will the neighbors say? They might be frightened. What will they think of us?"

It's no wonder that this was also the response of the Fatah activists I planned to visit at one of the refugee camps with whom I'd hoped to spend time, looking for an opportunity to speak with some particularly impoverished families, in their homes.

In one neighborhood where I spent a lot of time, Fatah activists vanished from the streets at first. Then they learned the reason for the jeep's presence, calmed down and were out on the streets again. In another neighborhood, people said - some in fright and others in disgust - that my escorts always tried to find out the name of the owners of the building in which I stayed, and to find out the identities of the shop owners in the area. To find out information about my hosts. "Are they afraid for you, or of you?" someone teased. And a 12-year-old girl asked warily whether "the 24-hour escort wasn't an excuse to throw you out of here soon."

Neighbors asked in a mixture of concern and jest, "So who are the ikhwan [the Muslim brotherhood] in the jeep?" or "What are the Iz al-Din al-Qassams doing down there?" But not all the young escorts are Hamas or Iz al-Din al-Qassam activists, it turns out. A. himself held an important position in Arafat's presidential guard. One of his subordinates, who was one of my escorts, is really "with [Ramallah PM Salam] Fayyad," as a colleague of his described him with a smile, adding "And I'm with [Ismail] Haniyeh, but we're good friends."

A spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza told me that about 2,000 of the previous regime's security personnel defied Ramallah's order and now serve in the five security apparatuses that are under the Interior Ministry. There are still some who want to go back to work. They've realized, apparently, that Hamas rule is not as temporary as they thought in the beginning, and they're tired of sitting at home. The police force in Gaza is comprised of about 13,000 people, and only they - he assured me - are permitted to carry out arrests. The days when Iz al-Din al-Qassam members carried out arrests and interrogations (and torture) are over. Seven hundred more people serve in the "civil defense" (firefighters and the various rescue services), 1,000 in national security (the border guard), 1,000 in "security and protection" and 300-400 in internal intelligence. He claims that in the previous period, there were 60,000 security personnel "and no security. Today there are much fewer and there is security."

Coercive measures

What's right is right, and parents who are no longer afraid to send their children outside the house alone will attest to this. Things are so different now from the time when security anarchy reigned, when the PA security apparatuses were in charge - and, according to many, actually encouraged the anarchy and the spread of gang activity, in the hope that this would help bring about the fall of the Hamas government. A man who is far from being a Hamas supporter entered the police station (to collect recovered property that had been stolen from him). He was impressed by the new spirit of equality and efficiency there. So different from how it was under the PA.

The suspicion that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is doing and will do everything in its power to disrupt order in Gaza is the main justification offered for the coercive measures taken against Fatah activists. The trade union leadership in Ramallah, which is identified with the PLO, has enforced a general strike on health and education ministry workers in Gaza since August of this year (employees in other government ministries, including the security apparatuses and the legal system have been required, since Hamas took over security in June 2007, to boycott their workplace if they wish to continue receiving a salary from Ramallah).

The Hamas government quickly filled the void with workers and security people from the ranks of its supporters and established its own legal system. About 80 percent of government health care employees have since returned to work. Whether because of pangs of conscience, or because the health ministry in Gaza forbids them to work privately, or because they were summoned for questioning at Al Mashtal - the interrogation center in northern Gaza.

"Many doctors asked to be summoned to Al Mashtal, or to be transported to work in a police jeep, so they could tell Ramallah that they were under threat," said someone who is close to the health minister in Gaza. A clerk in another ministry, who is not a member of Hamas, told me the same thing.

Hamas easily found replacements for many of the teachers, though even a Hamas-supporting teacher admits that their level is still rather low and that they are inexperienced. The ones hurt the most are the high school students who have to take their matriculation exams this year. Now, any teacher who wishes to return to work is not guaranteed a place automatically. He or she must register along with the rest of the job candidates. Also striking, under orders from Ramallah, are some members of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas man noted resentfully. The strike was recently extended to December 31, despite opposition from PLO organizations in Gaza, including Fatah.

A key Fatah activist (whom I met with after practicing an evasive maneuver from my "escorts" and whose identity I cannot reveal, of course), told me bitterly: "The PA fell [in Gaza] when it had 70,000 soldiers. Is the Hamas government going to fall because of the doctors' strike? There are some in Fatah in Ramallah who likened the strike to the revolution of 1936 [the Arab Revolt]. We asked the leadership: 'Why did you agree to this strike? Why didn't you consult with us, the Fatah members in Gaza?' I personally encouraged teachers and doctors to go back to work. Anyone who is stuck sitting at home after he's been working for 30 years becomes mentally ill. When we hold our sixth convention, the people who listen to us will be elected."

And another Fatah man, a former prisoner who is out of work (and whom I also met while hiding from the jeep), says: "The worst thing for me is that I'm sitting at home. That I'm not working. A lot of people like me are in a state of depression. I feel unneeded. I gave my whole life for Palestine, for the people, and now my life is worthless. Without work, life has no value. It's a punishment, to just sit at home. My whole life has stopped."

The Hamas government figures that if there are such open attempts at disruption that they affect the entire public, then of course there are also covert attempts at disruption. One claim that has reached leftist activists is that Fatah people have been instructed to cooperate with the IDF, if and when it invades Gaza. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza says that someone who receives a salary from Ramallah was arrested and admitted that he was asked to prepare bombs in return for his wages. There's no telling whether or not this is true.

Another claim: Some of those being paid by the PA are asked to spy and relay information to Ramallah. Tales about informants in the service of Ramallah are also told by people who do not belong to Hamas. In Rafah I was advised not to let myself be seen in a certain area where there are tunnels: One of the owners of the land that's rented to the owner of the tunnel receives a salary from the rival government. If I am seen with him, I was told, one of the many informants around will tell Ramallah and his salary will be halted. This is not a baseless worry: The wages of some who "were suspected" of going to work have been halted (regardless of whether the "suspicion" was justified or not). And for their part, Hamas opponents are convinced that the government has informants everywhere - to sniff out and report on whatever needs reporting. For example, that there's a group of friends that drinks alcohol together. The police burst into one such home one day, stood the men against the wall and beat them in front of their wives. Afterwards, they claimed to have been searching for drugs. But the message got through loud and clear.

The informants keep track of who meets with whom, goes the claim. In one school, a boy was asked to write down the name of the mosque his father prays in. That's what a family friend said. When he refused to answer, the teacher said that it didn't matter, that they had other ways of finding out. I checked with other parents as to whether their children were ever asked this question. They said no.

Officials deny that there are orders aimed at "Islamization" or the imposition of stricter Muslim practices (than those that already exist in the society). But "we hear the messages from low-level activists," says a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp. "For example: In the summer, UNRWA set up summer camps throughout the Gaza Strip. The mosques emptied out, the kids ran to the summer camps. Because what else do young people have to do besides going to the mosque, or the muqawama [the resistance, the military organizations]? Or Internet? And when there's no electricity most of the time, there's no Internet either. And then we started hearing from the lower levels, not from the main officials, that the summer camps are heresy, that it's not okay." There is also a great fear of telephone wiretapping. "I'll pay a price for what I said to you," someone told me on the phone.

No knowing

Are these fears based on solid knowledge or on inflated rumors, on hatred or on an accurate assessment of Hamas' intentions? It's hard to tell. Somehow, everyone "knows" that one form of torture often used at Al Mashtal is to draw a ladder or bicycle on the wall. Then the interrogator asks the subject to climb on the ladder or the bike. And when the subject of course doesn't comply, he is beaten. The sister of a Fatah activist who "went underground" said to the Hamas police who came looking for him: You tell them to mount a bicycle drawn on the wall. And they answered her, she says: "No, we've stopped doing that, because the gas ran out." I tried to find out how many people had met and talked with someone who had experienced this form of torture. It appears that there is only one such complaint - which is still being looked into.

People also "know" that Hamas only distributes food packages to its supporters. Or that it only distributes canisters of cooking gas to people who belong to the movement - and this at a time when there is a shortage of cooking gas throughout the Gaza Strip. A common occurrence or isolated cases that, for all the repetition, become bloated in the general consciousness? To judge from the words of one fisherman from the Al-Shati refugee camp, who is not a Hamas man - there's no comparing the PA government "which was corrupt and worried only about its people" and today's government. Is this because he's a childhood friend of Haniyeh, is it because Haniyeh "was a fisherman, and his father was a fisherman and we're neighbors and he still lives in the camp, in the same refugee house" - or does the fisherman really reflect the popular attitude of people who are not exposed to arrests and other oppressive measures by Hamas?

Sometimes, there is talk about groups of salafiyin (purists who seek to base their practice on the early generations of Islam) that are the ones who impose - by violent means - stricter religious practices. But, M. told me in protest, the real salafiyin (and he considers himself one of them) are opposed to all violence. Suspicious observers say that there are elements in the government that make use of the violent salafiyin.

It was the salafiyin who were cited in the effort to get me to leave Gaza, against my will, just three weeks after my arrival, when I still had dozens of topics written in my notebook that I planned to examine and write about. On the morning of November 30, A.'s aide or deputy requested that I meet with them "immediately." I managed to do so two hours later, at noon, and then I was informed that "because of the security situation and information that has been received about a threat to your life, we can no longer protect you and you are requested to leave the Gaza Strip immediately. The order is from Sa'id al-Siam."

In April 1995, I had heard a similar line that seemed to have been taken from the same instruction manual that A. had memorized. Only then, it came from a representative of the PA mukhabarat (intelligence), and the order came from Arafat. Then I was told that the danger was from the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, while this time the salafiyin were mentioned. A. was deeply offended by the comparison and by the implication that they were lying, just as Arafat's security people had lied, just as the Israel Shin Bet lies when it prevents Israeli journalists from entering Gaza "for security reasons." In 1995, the "immediately" was replaced by three days. Then, friends and acquaintances in Fatah intervened, and during those three days were able to get the order changed.

This time I sought the help of Hamas people. That Sunday I was supposed to stay with N. - an old friend, a member of Hamas and a university lecturer. I told him right away on the phone about the order, and I heard the shock and sorrow in his voice. Within an hour, he had come to pick me up together with his friend, a member of the legislative council. They both tried to call whomever they could think of, to try to get the decree changed. From minute to minute, phone call to phone call, the dejected looks on their faces told me there was no chance. The decision was final.

At three in the afternoon, we sat down to eat, in his home, with his wife and two sons. At four, my escorts rang the doorbell and informed me that my time was up. That I had to leave immediately. An order is an order. We went downstairs together and sitting in the dababeh, instead of the usual two or three, were six or seven of my escorts, wearing clearly unfriendly expressions. They couldn't care less that I still had to pack, to say goodbye to friends, that the Erez checkpoint was closed. It was my fault for taking so long. N. tried to explain: "We've been fasting [the last 10 days before the Feast of the Sacrifice are voluntary fast days]. We'd planned to break the fast with a meal with Amira [at five]. When I found out she had to leave, I called my wife and we decided to end the fast earlier, in honor of our guest." I was surprised and moved, because I had been unaware of this gesture. The phone calls finally produced one bit of leniency: I was permitted to leave the next day, December 1.