Pakistan, et cetera
August 29, 2006
On August 27, an artillery round fired by the Pakistani military found its mark on a cave in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, bordering both Afghanistan and Iran, and killed an 80-year-old man with a magnificent white beard. His name was Nawab Akbar Bugti, and he was the leader of a popular political movement in Pakistan’s largest geographical province.
Balochistan has only four percent of Pakistan’s population, though it occupies 44% of Pakistan’s land mass. Like its neighbor, Afghanistan, it is populated by religiously conservative ethnic Pashtuns living in extremely rugged and mountainous terrain. Like its neighbor, Iran, it possesses a geologic relic in abundance: fossil fuel, in this case the Sui natural gas field that produces 45% of Pakistan’s supply. It also contains a warm water port — Gwadar — only 70 kilometers from the Iranian border.
The killing of Bugti has resulted in a province-wide rebellion in the very region…
January 18, 2008
KABUL – The capture by militants of a fort in Pakistan near the Afghan border is not just another isolated incident in the volatile region. It represents a concerted fightback by al-Qaeda to derail any peace initiatives unless the group itself is directly engaged, rather than local resistance leaders.
On Wednesday, several hundred insurgents armed with assault rifles and rockets stormed the remote Sararogha Fort in the South Waziristan tribal area and routed its garrison from the Frontier Constabulary (FC), a paramilitary force formed of…
NOTE: South Waziristan is adjacent to Balochistan, and both border Afghanistan. At the end of the second article, there is reference to bin Laden’s latest missive. On that count, I am posting one from the past and one from the present as well.
August 2004 series for Sanders Research Associates The United States is now caught between the Scylla of economic stagnation — temporarily perched atop a potential avalanche of personal debt — and the Charybdis of inflation if fuel prices continue to rise — the specter of the temporal coincidence of stagnation and inflation — stagflation.
The actions of the Bush administration are not, as presumed by the vast and spectacularly stupid population that has been convinced of American invincibility, acting out of a position of strength, but of overpowering crisis and radical instability.
The US is aggressively attempting to diversify its oil sources, not just in the Gulf where it has ensnared itself in the tar-baby of Iraq, but in Latin America, Africa, and the Caspian Basin. In all these regions, the populations have been bled white by the debt-peonage of US-directed structural adjustment programs, and anti-American sentiment is at an all time high. This animosity is further inflamed in the Caspian Basin and the Gulf by the unrepentant support for Zionism by the US and the current administration’s invocation of the Crusades in its wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
None of these countries, however, compares to Saudi Arabia in its strategic centrality to the world system right now, or its centrality to US hegemony within that system. And it appears that one Saudi revolutionary has apprehended both this centrality and the increasing frangibility of that system — Osama bin Laden.
There really is a war between OBL and the United States, and the war is for Saudi Arabia…
January 12, 2008 Bin Laden urges the Iraqi fighters to heed the lesson of the Afghans’ historic post-Soviet debacle because “the same thing applies to Iraq today”; leaders are more interested in their own power and status than in making Islam and the ummah (Islamic community) victorious. And while bin Laden warns that Washington is using promises of money, military training and arms to entice the “Islamic Party and some fighting groups [to] support America against Muslims”, he leaves no doubt that the Islamists’ main enemy in Iraq is now Saudi Arabia, not the supposedly militarily defeated United States. After the Soviets’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden reminded the Iraqi fighters that “America exerted great efforts … to convince the Afghan leaders through the governments of Riyadh and Islamabad to join a national unity government with communists and secularists from the West.” Bin Laden explained that the Saudi regime was then – and is again today in Iraq – the main enemy of the mujahideen…
It is extremely interesting — like watching one’s own destruction is interesting — to see how these things play out. The danger to power of using instability as a strategy seems a no-brainer. But can we be sure that this is an outgrowth of stupidity, as many surmise; or is this dynamic inevitable in its broader tendential forms, based on the late metastasis of imperialism.
The stagflation has arrived. The wars stumble along through an agony of slow defeat.
Are we entering a teachable moment; or a period of dangerous reaction? What is to be done?
TomThumb:
The teachable moment may be past. The Trotskyites continually talk of a crisis and we are entering a period of extreme crisis.
Unfortunately we have no mass movement to turn to that will confront this crisis. Over the last fifty years, capitalism has been extremely successful in discrediting socialist movements, at least in the popular mind. Democratic institutions have become a continuing trajic comedy with the political process being corrupted by money or elections being blatantly rigged.
Bush has recently issued his executive orders saying he can rule by decree and strip anyone he chooses of any assets.
My guess is very, very dangerous reaction
19 January 2008, 12:46 pmskol:
Egads, let’s not get too apocalyptic here! We’re entering a period of both! I’d say that any dangerous reaction in any form creates a teachable moment, but not always the other way around
19 January 2008, 9:02 pmI don’t mean to be vague, but let’s keep some sanity and perspective. I don’t know what’s to be done, and I’m not sure a single person can have any impact…
…sort of. Retreating from this global flustercuck to our own backyards seems a right option. It’s always saner at home, I’ve always said starting now. Simplify, simplify, simplify… I don’t know what else to do.
Stan:
Hear hear.
I’ve scrounged two old six-pane windows that I’ll use to build a cold-frame.
And each Sunday, I see a group of the same local people. That’s part of why folks are scratching their heads about Schizoid Stan’s sudden preoccupation with religion.
Turns out there are a lot of things I didn’t know that were right under my nose… aside from a language that expresses one’s sense of the sacred (and I don’t minimize that).
I now belong to an organization that has over 8 million members in the US, and 12 million members worldwide.
Among hundreds of its resolutions, one can find quotes like the following:
“The prison system in the USA is oppressive, racist, and a major contibuting cause of crime and poverty.”
“The issue of pornography has undergone a dramatic change over the past two decades, one that shifts the definition, increases the complexity, and requires a new level of discussion. The use of violent, agressive themes accompanying sexually explicit material has continued to increase… …Common understandings of pornography no longer serve us well. Some of us may believe pornography is a social evil because it is sexual, while others may defend pornography as a universal right to freedom of expression because it is sexual. Yet the truth is that pornography… is about violence, degradation, exploitation, and coercion… inextricably linked to the oppression of women. It’s appeal will continue as long as sexual arousal is stimulated by images of power and domination… The temptation to embrace easy answers must be resisted. Government cencorship is not an effective tool to deal with pornography. To acknowledge pornography as harmful is not to sanction every possible legal remedy…”
“…hereby petitions the Goivernment of the United States to lift its economic embargo against Cuba by repealing the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 as well as the 1994 additional restrictions and any other laws and measures… seek negotiations with the Cuban government for the restoration of normal diplomatic relations…”
“…we support the discussion and study of reparations for African Americans…”
“…condemns the discriminatory policies against African American farmers by the private lenders and the USDA… applauds the sttlement of the class action suit…”
“As stewards of the natural environment we are called to preserve and restore the air, water, and land on which life depends. Moreover, we are called to see that all life has a sufficient share of the resources of nature…”
and on it goes.
These quotes are from the United Methodist Church’s Book of Resolutions. It’s as good a political program as I’ve seen among the fledgling and not even fledged party upstarts… and there are 8 million US members (not all mobilized around this program, for sure, but members nonetheless, and available to hear it), with infrastructurte that includes child care, homeless ministries, foreign assistance ministries, school scholarships, thousands of buildings, etc etc etc.
It’s there, now.
Something to think about.
20 January 2008, 7:12 amTomThumb:
You’re right skol, it occurred to me after I wrote that, that a time of reaction is an emminently teachable moment. That is if you are not dead or in prison. (“The sky is falling, the sky is falling”) Even in prison a lot of teaching goes on. I can get a bit morbid from time to time
I don’t dismiss the power of belief of almost any kind, especially when it is directed toward a more noble and greater cause than one’s self. Most of our denominations are not populated by the “extra chromosone crowd” as George H. W. Bush termed the religous extremists he sent his son out to bring to his cause.
I was raised in the Disciples of Christ (over-reachingly named the Christian Church). Not a bad denomination, with many of the same enlighteded, principled ideas of the Methodists (At least it was until some years ago when I lost touch with them). Although, I am sorry to point out that George W. Bush is a Methodist. Well, you know the old saying about one in every bunch and we can pray for him, pray for him to stop butchering the poor Iraqi’s.
I was recently, over the past couple of years, contemplating Marx’s old quote “religion is the opiate of the people.” Actually read more of the whole thing. These quotes are always taken out of context and ususally in a way that arouses apprehension about the author, especially in the bourgeois.
Anyway, Marx was actually saying that religion helped the underclass bear their suffering. Another article I was recently reading pointed out that at the time he wrote this, opium was considered a miracle pain-killer. In fact about this time Bayer AG marketed their famous painkiller derived from morphine. It was called Heroin.
It occurs to me that Marx’s quote should be studied by all religions. For if that is all that religion is doing, is this sufficient. Should it not also be motivating one to try to ameliorate that suffering, not only for one’s self, but for others. I don’t usually quote from the Bible, and I don’t know who said it, but here goes, “A tree is known by its fruit.” Today, we are in a situation where religion is being used for some quite extreme, reactionary purposes, both domestically and abroad, and not for medication. However, this should not be overgeneralized to reflect on all religions or all who are religious (be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, etc.)
What is to be done. Well, I always like to quote Lennon and Marx. John Lennon and Groucho Marx. (Doesn’t appear as funny in print as it does when you say it to somebody.) So here is a quote from John Lennon when asked somewhat a similar question. Lennon replied, “Well, we are all still here.” Which I take to mean we just keep going, try to do the best we can, do good works, help your fellow man (and the planet), and try to think of a better way.
STAN: on Bush’s Methodism:
20 January 2008, 3:04 pm