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| Ray Stevenson |
As this is written, a conference of Afghani warlords and factions is unfolding under United Nations (!) auspices in Germany. Widely publicized, the stated purposes are to fashion some sort of "broadly based" Government for the war-torn country and its devastated people. Hovering near the curious gathering are representatives of US TNC oil monopolies and government, plus the "Imperial" lordships of the British and NATO monopoly driven powers. These talks include representatives of the exiled and ancient feudal monarchy of Afghanistan, apparently much too feeble to totter to the affair. Meantime the US B-52 and B-1 bombing runs continue on the hapless country, offensive and barbaric military actions by something called the "Northern Alliance" backed by President Bush’s "merciless bombing" and "on the ground" Marine and "Special Forces" continue. The main "democratic (!!!) " creation to date is death and increased horror stories that flood the Western media of atrocities against Afghan civilians and the former "Taliban" fighters and hapless flood of refugees, seeking escape from US President Bush’s bombing expeditions.
To even suspect there is hope that the US conclave of blood-drenched warlords et al might advance anything democratic or stabilizing in the interests of Afghan people is to visualize Dracula switching from his blood diet to sipping milk shakes. So whose interests are being served and advanced? It had been already concluded by the psycho-war pundits that some infinitesimally obscure purpose is being served by Bush’s "new war" against (dare we use the word?) "TERRORISM" to ensure never again will there be another "asymmetrical" war attack such as that on New York City World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon on September 11th. Supposedly soothed will be the great American colossus of illusory piety and killing bomb runs, as well as avenging the loss of life on that date. We reject such notions, totally.
These would be error of proportions fit to "dwarf an Alpine mountain"... or Mt. Everest if you so desire… and will certainly bring greater hatred and war onto the global agenda.
Without fear of contradiction, the gathering of the warlord military power brokers, representing very much less than 50% of the Afghan people, has been convened to smokescreen and hide behind the curtains of the advanced psychological warfare blathering (such as CNN et al) the real war aims of the US-British-NATO monopoly capitalist powers that have unleashed their nauseating war of revenge on the Afghan people without regard to whether they are Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras or others. It is very hard to detect any "humanitarianism" there.
The real war aims of those powers can be summed up in short: the domination, defeat, political and economic control of the resources and people of the Middle, Central and Eastern countries of Asia. And that is hardly a new historical purpose, taking into account the long history, dating back generations, to Afghan forays… military and otherwise. History tells us that control of the Afghan territory is the vital key to the far more important and extended mid-Asiatic controls… military, corrupted or other. It is no secret that at the heart of US foreign policy, dating particularly back to 1955, the US-sponsored CENTO agreement and the 1951 CIA-engineered overthrow and resources of the area are their prime target. Mossadegh had dared to nationalize the Iranian oil!!! That is why the veritable war of "terror" has been waged, and is currently being contemplated by the Bush (Jr.) oilmen to be extended to Libya, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan et al… all in the name of fighting (may we dare use the word) to wipe out "TERRORISM"... which they claim is spawned mainly within the Islamic world!!!
On April 12, 1980, more than twenty years ago, speaking to a European conference of two hundred Parliamentarians on the Helsinki Accords of 1975 in Helsinki, on behalf of the World Peace Council, I said in part:
"What is the symbolism of the US National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski aiming a rifle across the border of Afghanistan and being pictured world wide, while slavering to pull the trigger? That is the symbol of war, backed by the US decision to place huge naval military forces in the Persian Gulf and illegally installing in the Indian Ocean on Diego Garcia island a nuclear equipped B-52 bombing force with a range capability to reach every country on the Eastern African and Southern Asian perimeter, including China and the USSR…"
The question then as today demands an answer…"what ‘national security’ interest of the USA, other than war-making and predatory economic and also political aggression could possibly have been at stake?" Since then the "Bush the Elder President Oilman’s ‘Desert Storm'" war on Iraq has continued, as has the robbery of Palestinian land and aggression against those people by Israel; the CIA emplacement of US appeasing the Pakistani rulers such as El Haq and the current leadership, and a ten-year CIA war in conjunction with the hideously feudal Mujahadeen warlords of Afghanistan to overthrow the first government there in 1978 had placed its feet on the path to modern, progressive policies and direction. A Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance had been put into place with the neighboring USSR and its Muslim Republics of Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizia. Building of Afghan infrastructure, modernizing of educational facilities and new economic development were the great results under a non-Communist Government, albeit led by a Communist, Taraki. Most significantly for the first time the legal elimination of feudal and medieval oppression of women was brought into force, and they emerged in the professions and new freedoms. On a very popular basis they began to discard the ancient oppressive restrictions that were part and parcel of the feudal Afghan way of life. It should be noted… these conditions grew and strengthened under the tottering old monarch now dredged up from exile to become "the focal point" of whatever is cynically projected in the current meeting in Germany. The destruction of the "new freedom" for the Afghan women, in fact, became a significant target and point of agreement between the "New War" engineered by Brzezinski, the CIA and cohorts in 1979. Brzezinski now brags of "baiting the USSR into their Vietnam War". The Mujahadeen (now in the German conclave) agreed that the hideous restrictions on women were to be re-imposed… as it was by the Pakistan (post-Indira Bhutto) Government and the Taliban feudalists. Thus more than 50% of the Afghan population were thrust into female slavery and servitude such as the civilized world has not witnessed in centuries. The US government did not even raise a whisper of dissent or opposition. Instead, they sent in their bombers and the most modern weaponry to the feudalist warlords to the tune of billions to help their bloodthirsty feudal friends of the Mujahadeen and the Taliban to re-impose the unbelievable conditions on the Afghan people… first of all on the women.
Did the USSR "invade" Afghanistan when they sent troops there in late 1979 under the commitment of mutual aid to the Afghan Government which requested such military assistance? It is extremely unlikely that a single "psychological warfare" media such as the (CNN, BBC, CBC or otherwise) will "inform" their audiences otherwise. The facts of history based even on the loquacious outpourings of "Triggerman" Brzezinski (see previous story in November NSC) are otherwise. The Soviet interest in seeking to uphold a popular, progressive Government in their neighboring Muslim country, beside their own Muslim Republics is clear. Their entry into the ten-years attempt at protection of the Afghan Government and people came at an official request of that Government under the terms of the reciprocal Treaty of Friendship and Solidarity. In reality, it should have received UN support opposing the war.
Incidentally the first of these treaties between the Afghans and the Soviets was signed in 1921, but fell upon non-compliance precisely because of mainly British intervention in Afghanistan with corrupted medieval forces of the Mujahadeen… now being entertained in Germany. Their "price" of cooperation will unquestionably come in the form of greater shipments of military hardware in their hands. The US-British-NATO "rewards" will involve a greater confusion and more deadly control of the Afghan people and some kind of military occupation and open season on the exploitation of the natural resources and wealth they have been so successful thus far in stealing from the Afghan people. Under such regimes these bloodied and exploited people will have zero control of their destiny… political, economic, cultural or otherwise. That future will be determined in the Board rooms of the TNC oil monopolies and their financial backers of the "Westernized" (more correctly... "militarized") Powers. Unless the peoples of that world, particularly the working class and their political and economic organizations, rouse themselves in opposition to the oil Barons' wars, the "new war on terrorism" will darken in deepest gloom by today’s economic and political TNC programs all our lives and the lives of our descendants for generations. Already the seizure of unprecedented powers, in Canada, Great Britain and first of all in the USA to throttle civil, political rights under the heavy smokescreen of "fighting terrorism" is advancing with seven-league strides as the neo-fascist actions of the oil and TNC cabal of Governmental authority deliberately swells their new doctrines of neo-fascist military and political controls.
The degree of lies ands duplicity, amounting to a wholesale "hoax," is prevalent on all sides. On at least two occasions it has been reported that offers of the Taliban and Sudanese to surrender bin Laden, US President Bush’s "dead (preferably) or alive" proclaimed target. The offer was rebuffed. Another report in the Toronto Star (Canada), quoting the British "Guardian" newspaper, tells us, that "…FBI agents were told by the Bush Administration to back off investigating of the bin Laden family living in the USA." At the same time, "The Wall Street Journal" in September of 2001 documented "lucrative business connections between the bin Laden family in the United States and some of the senior US Republicans… including former President Bush (Sr.)."
The "Toronto Star" (Canada) writer, Thomas Walkom, raises the question… quite pointedly... "if that is true, no wonder the Bush Administration prefers bin Laden be killed, rather than to testify in open court..."
The "witches brew" flaming ever upward from blood and the oil-smeared leaders of TNC and governmental authority threatens to consume us all unless massive popular mobilization come to be. It is time for precisely that!
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