One Heckuva Leak (washingtonpost.com)
Nobody looks very good in this business of outing a CIA operative by-way-of a leak to the media - including the media. That's the part of this discussion that seems most relevant.
This is a fascinating account of a UMass Dartmouth history professor's recent trip to Afghanistan - not as a simple tourist, but as one who knows the region, knows the people, and has the nerve to go where most American journalist - or for that matter, most Americans, don't go. This is a must read for our second topic which is about Afghanistant today. I suggest that you go to the link below, but if that fails we've imported the complete story here.
UMass professor sees an Afghanistan few were meant to
By Steve Urbon, Standard-Times senior correspondent
It was early August, almost two years after the rout of the Taliban, and Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum was attending the wedding of one of his generals when he was informed that there was a man outside who wanted to talk to him, an American.
Americans simply are not supposed to be in northern Afghanistan these days. It's far too dangerous. The U.S. State Department advises everyone to stay away for their own good.
But Gen. Dostum soon found himself face-to-face with an unlikely visitor, 36-year-old Brian Glyn Williams, a history professor from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Dr. Williams somehow had bluffed, bribed and finagled his way into one of the most dangerous places on Earth -- especially for an American civilian.
He not only wanted to talk to Gen. Dostum, he wanted to stay a while, to be "embedded," to use the phrase of the day, with the 25,000 nomadic Uzbeki soldiers who keep the peace and rule the countryside in the region around the sprawling city of Mazar-I-Sharif.
He wanted to know how the war on terror was going, how the rebuilding of Afghanistan was going.
"I'm here to tell your story," he told the skeptical general, who, Dr. Williams said, "hates being called a warlord. He doesn't like the word at all. He'd rather be called the interlocutor for the community, defender of the ethnic Uzbeks. They call him 'Baba,' which means father."
The world still calls him warlord, responsible for the destruction of the Taliban and the capture of the "American Taliban," Johnny Walker Lindh. But it also blames Gen. Dostum for the deaths of hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war in storage trailers. He is now persona non grata for the U.S. government, and runs northern Afghanistan mostly on his own while the U.S. patrols the south.
The bear-like Gen. Dostum granted Dr. Williams a five-minute interview, which is about all he had ever granted to the small handful of foreign journalists who even spoke to him during the height of the conflict in November 2001.
"It became five hours," said Dr. Williams.
The Welsh-born UMass professor got everything he wanted: to stay with Gen. Dostum and his 25,000-man army for two weeks, to be shown the mountains and battlefields where American B-52s and Stealth bombers rained fury on the Taliban, directed by special U.S. "A-Teams" riding horseback and calling in airstrikes using laptop computers and satellite links. The professor wanted to interview the Taliban prisoners, to walk the streets of the cities and ask people about their lives.
For the fast-talking Dr. Williams, language wasn't a problem. He had long since added Turkish to his native Welsh and adopted English. Turkish, as it happens, is Gen. Dostum's language. The eager American, carrying an indispensable accessory for the traveler in Afghanistan, his own AK-47 assault rifle, made himself right at home.
Dr. Williams intends, among other things, to write a magazine article describing how one goes about purchasing a machine gun in Kabul. (His was a used one, $250.)
But as a historian he has many stories to tell, and to date his career has included many trips to Asia, to Kosovo and Bosnia, to Crimea, to Uzbekistan in the former Soviet Union. His venture into Afghanistan, financed by a summer research grant ("They wanted me to keep receipts from Afghanistan for a mortar," he laughed), will become a book and the topic of lectures and courses.
Opening bluff
This trip, to the northern provinces of one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, involved ingenuity and risk.
First off, Dr. Williams traveled as a British citizen (he holds dual citizenship), to avoid the interference of the State Department. He traveled first to London, then to Istanbul, and then to Baku, Azerbaijan, where he bribed his way into a round-trip ticket into Kabul on an aging former Soviet Aeroflot aircraft now flown by the Azerbaijan state airline.
In Kabul as a guest of the Turkish embassy, Dr. Williams made contact with a contingent of Gen. Dostum's army stationed at the nation's capital.
"I went to their compound with Turkish guards from the Turkish embassy. I told them 'I'm here to meet General Dostum. If you can get me through the mountains safely I will recommend you to him personally, and you have my word that I will bring you to him,'" Dr. Williams said.
"These were lowly soldiers down in Kabul. I told them (falsely), 'I'm on his orders to come there.' So they believed me."
Soon the young professor was accompanied by "several truckloads of guys with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades," and they set off for the forbidding mountains that bisect Afghanistan and isolate the northern provinces. They chose the treacherous mountain route, Dr. Williams said, because as bad as it was, it was still preferable to the eastern route around the mountains, close to northwest Pakistan.
There, the neo-Taliban, as Dr. Williams calls them, were busy attacking buses and police stations, burning girls' schools opened since the war and otherwise terrorizing the population. More than 60 people were killed in that region in one week during Dr. Williams' visit, he said.
The mountain route was no bargain, either. It included a long tunnel built by the Soviets during their disastrous occupation of Afghanistan -- without lights, with lots of rubble and cleared of mines only two weeks earlier.
At one point in the trip the driver slammed on the brakes when he realized that there was no longer a bridge spanning a 2,000-foot ravine. The party needed to drive down the mountain, across the river at the bottom and back up again.
That was nothing compared to the checkpoint incident in which his bodyguards threatened to use their RPGs and machine guns if they weren't allowed to pass. The checkpoint guards, disbelieving their story about transporting an American, had even made the not-so-friendly gesture of spraying machine gun fire into the air to demonstrate their point.
But after Dr. Williams stepped forward and proved his identity by displaying his cameras and video gear, they waved his group through.
"It was the most harrowing trip of my life," Dr. Williams said.
'Protect my ameRican'
Upon his arrival, it was clear to his hosts what needed to be done. The American had to be kept safe. "General Dostum (pronounced "Dostoom") gave me some guards, some tribesmen to protect me," Dr. Williams said.
"He made a point of having these guys swear an oath, a bayat, to me that if anything happens to him it's on your head and your family's head. Your whole clan is responsible. Don't let any harm happen to my American.
"They all swore bayat. That bayat is more important than $25 million," he said, referring to the award money offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden. "These guys live on $25 a month. It means nothing, the $25 million. A Rolls-Royce, a swimming pool, it just doesn't matter.
"They're ethnic warriors from another era. They're primordial. When they swear bayat that means everything in the world. That means your soul to Allah. It means your tribal pride. It means your pride as a man. It means your honor. These people aren't from the line of Britney Spears from MTV and Kmart. Honor is everything," he said.
It wasn't long before the UMass professor got the grand tour, standing atop some of the thousands of ruined Soviet tanks that littered the countryside, and visiting the Medieval fortress where a thousand or more Taliban are rotting away, their captors' hatred for them unabated.
Dr. Williams lived as the general's troops lived, eating rice pilaf and vegetables, mutton, flat nan bread, and drinking Pepsi ("No Coke, Pepsi") brought in from Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
The American was led to the site of the prison uprising that claimed the life of CIA agent Johnny Michael Spann, the first American casualty in the war on terror. He stood on the spot where the American A-Teams called in the bombers that obliterated not only the Taliban tanks, but the mountains on which they stood.
A job well done
Gen. Dostum's forces have Dr. Williams' admiration and thanks. "He captured about 5,000 Taliban. He gave the al-Qaida Taliban to America. Sixteen hundred of his own people died fighting against the Taliban.
"They are the front line in the war on terror. There's no doubt where they stand. They're not like the Saudis. These guys rode on horseback, slaughtering al-Qaeda Taliban. They took 1,600 casualties and never got thanks from America," he said.
"Here they were on $60 horses riding around in conjunction with $1.2 billion Stealth bombers to break the spine of the Taliban army of the north. It was beautiful. He's the main warlord. He's the only one who rode up and went against the Taliban and destroyed them. The other warlords did nothing. In Mazar-I-Sharif they waited until Dostum had already won the war for them. The capital of the north was the first big victory in the war on terror. When that city fell the whole Taliban house of cards began to fall," Dr. Williams said.
Gen. Dostum was ruthless with the prisoners; after the uprising that killed the CIA agent, "his guys massacred them all. There were only 40 left including Johnny Walker Lindh," Dr. Williams said.
As for those prisoners in the storage containers, Dr. Williams disputes the critics. Those Taliban, he said, were wounded in the fighting, many by U.S. bombs, and were without the medical care to keep them alive. They had air, he said, and didn't suffocate.
Dr. Williams credits Gen. Dostum with the bulk of the success in the north. "I would guess that 90 percent of the al-Qaida fighters shipped to Guantanamo Bay were captured by Dostum," he said.
Polar opposites
Where Gen. Dostum was severe, Dr. Williams said, Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai, a former Taliban supporter himself, was the opposite. "His guys were hand in glove with the Taliban and let them all go. If Dostum had been there he would have killed them."
It is these Taliban, he said, who are marauding in eastern Afghanistan and protecting bin Laden in the frontier mountains of northwest Pakistan. "Bin Laden is now in the northwest frontier provinces of Afghanistan. I'm positive of it. I'd bet my career on it," he said.
He said bin Laden is protected by the same sort of loyalty that Gen. Dostum's men swore to their visitor, who they closely followed and guarded day and night, even sleeping with their machine guns outside his bedroom door.
"If they swore bayat to me and kept it that well, I can see why if whole tribes swear bayat to Osama bin Laden they'll never give him up. The bayat is so vital to their identify, to their tribal communal pride and honor, you can't give them $100 million. You can't give them a billion. Who cares? When you live in the mountains with sheep and your guns and your pride, what do you do? Buy more sheep?"
The Taliban he interviewed in Gen. Dostum's prisons over two days, he said, displayed that same undying loyalty to the oaths they made. "One of them said to me, 'I came here to kill Americans. If I weren't in these shackles I would kill you.'"
Dr. Williams was not impressed with the Americans' control in Afghanistan, where he said they live and work in their "bubble world, covered up, where you don't stop for anything, you zip back and forth between bases. And here I am wandering around with a bunch of Uzbeks."
Dr. Williams believes it is men like Gen. Dostum who are best able to secure Afghanistan and begin to remove the booby-trapped rubble. In the north, outside the view of the Americans, Gen. Dostum has just taken delivery of a fleet of brand new Czech fighter planes, which he paid for with oil and gas revenue.
Those planes sit not far from the hulks of blown-apart Soviet MiG fighters and T-72 tanks as a symbol of the nation's military rebirth. Dr. Williams gives Gen. Dostum the credit for a much better job of security than what he saw being run by Americans in Kabul to the south.
Bringing it home
Dr. Williams will soon relate his experiences and his views in books and lectures, but he doesn't have the AK-47. As he left, he gave that to one of Gen. Dostum's troops, one of the bodyguards, a man who didn't have a weapon yet because he couldn't afford it. The gesture meant an immediate promotion for the young man, who like many others had spent his whole life as a fighter and a soldier in a place Westerners dare not tread.
Most of them, anyway.
his story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on September 28, 2003.
ABCNEWS.com : Nigeria Court Overturns Stoning Sentence
Well, at least a step in the right direction:
KATSINA, Nigeria Sept. 25 — An Islamic appeals court Thursday threw out the case of a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery, a case that sharpened the divide between Muslims and Christians in Africa's most populous country.
Amina Lawal would have been the first woman stoned to death since 12 northern states began adopting strict Islamic law, or Shariah, in 1999. Four of five judges on the court voted to overturn the verdict, citing procedural errors in her original trial.
Wrapped in a light orange veil, her eyes downcast, Lawal cradled her nearly 2-year-old daughter as the court announced its decision. Police and lawyers hustled her away afterward.
"It's a victory for law. It's a victory for justice," said defense attorney Hauwa Ibrahim. "And it's a victory for what we stand for dignity and fundamental human rights."
An Islamic court first convicted Lawal, 32, in March 2002 after the birth of her daughter two years after she divorced her husband. Judges rejected Lawal's first appeal five months later.
Prosecutors, who argued Lawal's child was living proof she committed adultery, said they were satisfied with the verdict but had 30 days to appeal.
The verdict drew international condemnation. The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo called for Lawal's life to be spared, and Brazil offered her asylum.
The Islamic appeals panel ruled the conviction couldn't stand because Lawal wasn't given enough time to understand the charges against her; only one judge, instead of the required three, presided at her trial; and she was not caught in the act of sex out of wedlock.
In the sole dissenting opinion, Judge Sule Sada said Lawal had confessed to the crime and the conviction should stand. But the defense had argued that the court should reject Lawal's confession because no lawyers were present when she made it.
The introduction of strict Islamic law in a dozen northern states has triggered deadly clashes between Christians and Muslims. Five people, including Lawal, have been sentenced to death by stoning. Three have had their convictions overturned.
"We think the death penalty for adultery is contrary to the Nigerian constitution," said Francois Cantier, a lawyer with French group Avocats Sans Frontieres, or Lawyers Without Borders, who was advising the defense. "We think that death by stoning is contrary to international treaties against torture which Nigeria has ratified. We think that death by stoning is degrading human treatment."
Also under Shariah, one man has been hanged for killing a woman and her two children and Muslim authorities have amputated the hands of three people for stealing.
Many Muslims in the predominantly Islamic north have welcomed Shariah, saying it's a key part of their religion and discourages crime.
Lead defense lawyer Aliyu Musa Yawuri said Lawal a poor, uneducated woman from a rural family didn't understand the charges against her at the time.
Lawal has identified her alleged sexual partner, Yahaya Mohammed, and said he promised to marry her. Mohammed, who would also have faced death by stoning denied any wrongdoing and was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Lawal is the second Nigerian woman to be condemned to death for having sex out of wedlock under Islamic law. The first, Safiya Hussaini, had her sentence overturned on appeal in March the same time that Lawal was convicted.
This site does a great job of laying out some rules - and providing some examples - that help us dissect propaganda.
propaganda critic: index of site dedicated to propaganda analysis
Life Books: 100 Photographs that Changed the World
This Life book is a good study in the impact of images. But if you don't want to buy the book, you can find nine of the images on line at this site. It's a good starting point for applying the eight visual literacy questions.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush isolated as speech to UN falls flat
Two views:
Showing no contrition for defying the world body in March or the declining security situation in Iraq, the US president called for the world to set aside past differences and help rebuild the country: "Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid - and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support," he said.
But the French president, Jacques Chirac, who spoke after Mr Bush, blamed the US-led war for sparking one of the most severe crises in the history of the UN and argued that Mr Bush's unilateral actions could lead to anarchy.
"No one can act alone in the name of all and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," he said. "The war, launched without the authorisation of the security council, shook the multilateral system. The UN has just been through one of the most grave crises in its history."
BBC row spurs call for reform | csmonitor.com
There are many issues raised in this piece, but the one I found to be the most interesting was the subject of the "two-way." This has become a staple of broadcast journalism in the US. Here's what is said about it in this article:
Instead, the corporation is likely to look at the format known as the "two way," in which a news anchor interviews another journalist in a conversation that can occasionally lead to exaggeration."One thing they should look at is the peculiar practice of journalists interviewing journalists," says Allen. "They are not scripted and the journalists are talking off the top of their heads. It's an odd way of doing things."
One BBC correspondent said the "two way" doesn't need to be risky as long as broadcasters are careful. But he said he expected new guidelines as a result of the Gilligan affair.
Losing Dollars and Sense in Iraq
It might be interesting to set this side-by-side with the presidnt's speech to the UN.
This may be off topic - but it cerainly has something to do with our relationship with China and the way China is changing vis-a-vis world trade,
Media manipulation - Wikipedia
An "encyclopedia" article about media manipulation that is loaded with links to external sites making it a virtual mini-course on the topic. As they explain at the outset:
The process of media manipulation is based on the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques, and is used by some individuals or groups of individuals with influence to suppress information or points of view by crowding them out of the media, or by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or simply by drawing their attention elsewhere.
Here's some challenging thinking. Yes, it's anti-war. But that's not the prime issue. At issue is the question of whether you can first occupy a country, then get people to overlook the fact of occupation and do what you think is good for them.
It's Time for Women to Stand Against War
While I have sympathy with the political views expressed here, I'm including it because of the statements about women and war - essentially there are this:
1. Women seldom play a significant part in the decision to go to war.
2. Women and children are the major victims of war.
Are they true? I'm not sure. But they are worth pondering in the context of women and the world.
The Radical Hand Behind Bush's War Moves
There's a lot of politics mixed into this one - as is bound to happen when you get this close to major events - but it does cover some interesting history on the issue of unilateralism.
Russia's press marked the anniversary of September 11 yesterday by regretting that Washington squandered the outpouring of international goodwill after the suicide attacks by launching the hotly-contested invasion of Iraq.
Some newspapers said both Europe and Russia have become confused by President George W. Bush's global ambitions after initially rallying behind the United States in a genuine outpouring of grief two years ago.
"A year ago, it seemed that our goals were simple, clear, obvious and honorable. But today it seems that one year ago, we were wrong," the authoritative Izvestia newspaper observed in a special commentary.
"Two years ago international terrorists declared war on the United States and thus on the entire civilized world," Izvestia said.
But Izvestia noted a global coalition that once formed behind the United States has since splintered after Washington ignored other nations' strong reservations over the need to attack Iraq.
Criticism abounds among aid agency officials in Kabul of the part played by the Americans in this process. The US military is widely accused of supporting warlords who are profiting from the booming narcotics trade, some of whom are within the interim government of Hamid Karzai.
To this should be added a deeper concern. Faced with a disaster in Iraq, the Americans are pressing hard for Afghanistan to stick to its agreed timetable of holding elections next June. Their critics say that a fair poll is impossible until the country's security situation is improved - a move that many believe would only be possible if the peace-keepers' mandate is expanded beyond Kabul, a move being contemplated by Nato.
They fear that the US will force elections through to claim a success, and lay the ground for pulling out before the job of reconstruction is close to completion. Paul O'Brien, from Care International, said: "This is not being driven by a realisation of the long-term needs of Afghanistan, but by short-term political considerations in the West."
Thus goes the conclusion of this piece - for all the background, go here:
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Friday called on his partners within the European Union not to tamper with the blueprint for a European constitution but to accept it as it stands.
"I fear that if we begin to undo the package we will not be able to tie it up again, Schroeder said.
"And because I have this fear... I am against opening it up again," he said, adding: "This is what I will stick to, even though I too would like to make some modifications," he added.
EU Business - Germany's Schroeder pleads for EU constitution blueprint to remain intact
Thoughtful, long-term analysis of the policies - or lack of policy - that has landed us in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At the moment, the United States is fighting wars in two countries with no clear policy of intervention, no clear end in sight and no clear understanding among Americans of what their nation has gotten itself into.
For muchy more, see the New York Times Magazine here:
HONG KONG - Celebrating a major climbdown by the government over an unpopular anti-subversion Bill, local newspapers yesterday called for more changes in how the city is run and more willingness to listen to the public.
'Withdrawing the Bill doesn't solve all of Hong Kong's problems and doesn't mean that people's discontent and concerns are fully addressed,' the Ming Pao Daily News said in an editorial.
For more see:
TLAXCALA, Mexico -- The verdant farm hamlets in Mexico's central highlands have become a front line in the battle over globalization ahead of a World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun. These farms hundreds of miles from Cancun lie in the ancestral heartland of corn, a crop now flooding in from the United States at lower prices under 1994's North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Trade ministers from the WTO's 146 members will meet in Cancun beginning Sept. 10 to discuss a trade treaty cutting tariffs and subsidies and further opening markets to foreign trade. The meeting is an important stage in attempts to create a binding treaty by the end of next year.
Go here for more:
Fast forward and the picture is totally changed. Saudi Arabia became a household name in the 1970s when it led the Arab oil embargo against the West, and again in 1990 to 1991 when American troops landed on Saudi soil to repel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. The Saudis even put up over $50 billion to pay for the war. But post-September 11, 2001, things have been different. Fifteen of the terrorists that day were Saudi citizens, and their leader, Osama Bin Laden, though stripped of his citizenship, was still a Saudi in the eyes of Americans, and was funded by private donations from the Gulf oil states, including Saudi Arabia.What had happened to the staunch personal friendships that existed between the Saudi people and the thousands of Americans who went there to share in the oil wealth and protect the kingdom from outside threats? What happened to the close cooperation between the Saudi government and the American government, dating back to World War II, on a whole range of political, economic and military issues at considerable political costs to both countries? Three books have recently been published, each in its own way challenging whether Saudi Arabia was ever any true friend in the first place and claiming that the relationship was based on the self-serving American desire for oil revenues and on the self-serving Saudi desire to perpetuate its own corrupt, anti-democratic governmental system and its terrorist campaign to propagate its hate-filled Wahhabi ideology for Islamist world domination.
For more on saudi Arabia, the US and these three new books, go here:
I found this paragraph particularly helpful"
Saudi Arabia is a society run by the elders of extended families who are collectively ruled by the elders of the royal extended family, not a country of individuals ruled by an individual ruler. In this context, the ancient desert culture and customs and the Islamic values and mores of the royal family are the same as those of any other Saudi family. Not to understand this is not to understand commercial, political, social or religious practices in the kingdom.
A coed elementary school was set on fire on Tuesday, and leaflets were distributed saying that girls should not be allowed to go to school. According to Reuters, this brings the total number of schools that have been attacked in the past year to more than 20. The leaflets distributed by the attackers also threatened teachers who taught girls, according to the Associated Press. Almost two years after the fall of the Taliban, most girls are still not in school.
For more, go here:
The Canadians are challenging the European Unions restrictions on geneticlaly modified (GM) foods. This study suggest they should negitate the matter rather than try to get the WTO to adjudicate it.
This is a PDF file requiring Adobe Acrobat Reader"
Well, this is where I find the Internet interesting. I think the sequence goes something like this.
1. US presidential candidate blames China for our economic woes.
2. NYT writes and editorial saying it ain't so.
3. Chinese news agency pick up on it and circulates a story about the NYT editorial.
Ain't this fun? Check out:
BOOK REVIEW
Explaining the debate over US foreign policy
By Rich Barlow, Globe Correspondent, 9/3/2003At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World, By Michael Hirsh, Oxford University Press, 288 pp., $26
Heading into a presidential election that's sure to pivot on foreign policy after 9/11, it's a good time for nonexperts (and that's most of us) to get some guidance in the confusing, rancorous debate.
"Realists" say America should use force only when a vital national interest is threatened: No bleeding-heart humanitarian missions to the Earth's boonies and, by God, no playing footsie with the United Nations, that Denver boot on American sovereignty. Descendants of Woodrow Wilson retort that all peoples deserve the same right of self-determination we claimed. And only by working through the UN and its cousin institutions, which the United States essentially created, can we rout terrorism and make a decent world.
"At War With Ourselves" is a clear-headed referee in this debate. A smart foreign policy, Newsweek diplomatic correspondent Michael Hirsh writes, is "one in which `the yahoos of the right and softies of the left' are once again marginalized," as they were during the Cold War.
Realists take Hirsh's heaviest fire. His thesis is that the international community and its institutions actually serve American interests. Sure, the UN sometimes embarrasses itself; nations like Libya heading human-rights committees is a joke. But if the American president hopes to protect our security and interests, the UN and globalization are "critical to bending other nations to our will" -- offering international money and cover for nation-building in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, blunting militarism in rivals, like China, with the desire for globalism's prosperity. When Bush comes to shove, we need the family of nations.
But those who see the UN as a pacifist debating society won't find Hirsh joining their candlelight vigils. Realists get one thing right: This international system depends on America's superpower wielded effectively. Hirsh says the Clinton administration encouraged terrorists in the 1990s with its ineffectual, cruise-missile tantrums after terrorist attacks. "In a stream of messages sent from his lair in Afghanistan, [Osama bin Laden] mocked the Americans for retreating from conflict in Muslim lands," he writes.
Entire review is here:
Boston.com / A&E / Books / Explaining the debate over US foreign policy
What follows is the full text of a New York Times editorial on the current situation in Afghanistan.
Endangered Peace in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is paying a heavy price for the Bush administration's reluctant and miserly approach to nation-building. The central government is bankrupt and powerless. The economy remains inert. And now the Taliban appears to be making a deadly and alarming comeback, just 21 months after American-backed forces drove it from power. For weeks the White House has been hinting that more coherent, better-financed policies are on the way. They are badly needed.
By the time the Taliban left power, most Afghans reviled it. It could not have come back this far if postwar governance had been wiser. Despite the presence of thousands of American troops and vows of Pakistani military cooperation, the Taliban's leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and many of its fighters managed to escape into the mountains or across the porous Pakistani border. Taliban fighters have now re-entered largely Pashtun areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the Tajik-dominated national government is weak and resented, and have rebuilt a guerrilla army that is wreaking havoc. Afghans who cooperate with the Kabul government are targeted for assassination. International aid workers have been told to stay away for their own safety. America fought in Afghanistan because the Taliban let Al Qaeda operate and train there. Allowing the Taliban to rebuild a territorial base would negate Washington's military victory.
Kabul's estrangement from the southeast is compounded by the extreme disrepair of the war-devastated Kabul-to-Kandahar highway, the main road in a nation with few railroads. Despite substantial commitments of aid from America, Japan and Saudi Arabia, only about a tenth of the 300-mile highway has so far been repaved. The rest is ruts and dust, crippling commerce and leaving truckers vulnerable to bandits and Taliban guerrillas. The repair work needs to be substantially accelerated.
Other regions are not faring much better. Most of the north and west is run by warlords loyal only to themselves. Many are better armed than President Hamid Karzai's government and pass on to Kabul only those tax revenues they choose to. Sending international security forces to provincial cities, as Germany now proposes, would help some. So would a clearer American policy of not making local military deals with warlords, arrangements that weaken the central government.
The White House soon plans to announce that American reconstruction aid will be doubled, to $1.8 billion a year, and a dozen senior American advisers will be sent to reinforce government ministries. That will be welcome, but probably not enough.
This is an update on the Nigerian economy that looks useful and reliable, but frankly I don't know because I am not familiar with the source named at the end of the article.
One of the things that becomes increasingly clear as you look for news on topics such as this, is how little gets reported by the major news gathering organizations.
allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Reflections On Oil Export Revenue, Targets & Public Expectations
OK, this one is about something more than food - the whole concept of free trade as seen from one perspective.
That perspective focuses on our relationship to the Third World and concludes:
"Sometimes it seems that capitalism is too good to be true. In fact, non-believers from various perspectives, right and left, have been proclaiming the free market's flaws for centuries now. But seeing is believing, and that's why the Third World, eyes open at last, wishes to climb aboard the free-trade bandwagon. The question next month in Cancún is whether or not we will let them. "
For much more, go here:
TCS: Tech Central Station - What's Going to Be the Next World Order?
HONG KONG Sept. 3 —
China is fueling the spread of AIDS by refusing treatment and information about the disease and by failing to hold officials accountable for a blood-selling scandal blamed for infecting thousands of people, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
Brad Adams, Asia division director of the New-York based Human Rights Watch, released a report in Hong Kong about people living with HIV or AIDS in China.
It found Chinese with HIV or AIDS face heavy discrimination. Laws in some places ban them from public swimming pools or from working in food services, it said.
"The Chinese government has been in denial about the problem for many years," Adams said.
For more see: