The US and its allies are not only losing the war in Afghanistan, but their military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is also on the verge of unravelling as a result of this failure. Several Western officials, including US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, defence secretary Robert Gates, British foreign secretary David Miliband and Lord Paddy Ashdown, a British peer, have in recent days given dire warnings about NATO’s impending collapse.
Jose Padilla, a 37-year-old American citizen, was sentenced to 17 years in prison on January 22, after being found guilty of terrorist offences. The prosecution alleged that he had enrolled in a military training camp in Afghanistan as part of a conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism against Americans.
When rebel groups centred in Sudan's Darfur region attacked Chad's capital, Ndajamena, on February 2 it looked as if the long, corrupt and oppressive rule of presidentIdriss Deby (pic) might be ending, but Chad was not so lucky. As a report in the Economist put it, “Chad is one of Africa's poorest and least stable countries and Mr Deby one of the continent's worst presidents.”
The transitional federal government (TFG) of Somalia, which was put in power in December 2006 after the removal of the ruling Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) by the Ethiopian army – began to disintegrate last October, finally crumbling soon after its 72-year-old leader, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, fell ill in December and was taken to Britain for medical treatment. Now the new government, a remnant of the TFG, whose name it continues to use, is also backed by the US, Ethiopia and their allies, including those in the region such as Kenya.
Intense debate has erupted in Washington about why sixteen US intelligence agencies unanimously endorsed the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report on December 3 relating to Iran’s nuclear programme, which has openly contradicted (and therefore embarrassed) US president George Bush. For years Bush has accused Iran of working on building a “nuclear bomb”, despite vigorous denials from Tehran. The NIE report has confirmed what Iran had been saying all along: that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and that its enrichment activities comply fully with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rights and obligations.
A year ago (December 2006) the US government persuaded Ethiopia to invade Somalia, giving it military and financial backing to remove from power the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and replace it with the transitional federal government (TFG). Both Washington and Addis Ababa thought at the time that they had gained effective control of Somalia by replacing the UIC with an administration made up of warlords, military officers and secular officials. But now they have no doubt that whatever control they had has crumbled:
Things are not going well for US president George Bush, not only because he is now seen as a lame-duck president or that bad news continues to pour out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the phony war on terror is not yielding results as it did immediately after 911, when frequent “orange alert” warnings kept people frightened enough to agree to whatever the government was demanding, including curtailment of civil liberties. People seen to have seem through these tricks of the government, which is widely distrusted by most Americans today.
With the surge in Iraq to establish security an utter failure and the British having fled Basra, Washington’s propagandists are in no mood to set another trap for themselves by making bold policy pronouncements about Afghanistan. A detailed review, forced by the failure of America and NATO to subdue the resistance in Afghanistan, has been launched without fanfare.
The year 2007 has turned out to be one of the costliest in blood and lives since the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the US in October 2001. On November 19 a bomb-explosion killed seven people but missed Ghulam Dastagir Azad, governor of Nimroz province, the intended target in the town of Zaranj. On the same day an attack on a military bus in Kabul was thwarted when the bomber was prevented from boarding. Two days earlier a roadside bomb near Qandahar had killed two Canadian soldiers and wounded three others, bringing the Canadian death toll to 73.
Almost six years after the deaths of over 3,000 Muslims in a genocidal operation by Hindu fundamentalists in the state of Gujarat that began on 28 February, 2002, new information has emerged about the incident that began it. At the end of October two major Indian television channels, seen around the world by cable and satellite, broadcast the findings of a six-month investigation by Tehelka, a weekly news magazine: journalists secretly recorded senior members of Hindu organisations speaking about their roles in the attacks, as well as the role of the state government of the time, led by chief minister Narendra Modi.
The US followed through on its threats to impose severe economic sanctions on Iranian institutions on October 25, when it announced unilateral measures against the Revolutionary Guard Corps, three major Iranian banks, and more than 20 Iranian companies. However, the fact that it imposed the sanctions unilaterally, instead of via the UN, as initially threatened, indicates caution about the US’s belligerence even among allies that are supporting it publicly, and there was outspoken criticism of the US from Russian president Victor Putin during a state visit to Iran.
The US government suffered a stunning defeat on October 21 when a court in Dallas, Texas, refused to convict officials of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity despite a long government campaign against them. The HLF was shut down in December 2001 amid allegations that it was supporting terrorism and had links with Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement in Palestine.
It was in December 2006 that the Ethiopian army – with the US’s military and financial support – invaded Somalia and paved the way for the expulsion of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and its replacement by the clan-based interim government (IG). Now it is once again pouring its troops into Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to prop up the IG (which has foundered as a result of a dispute between its president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and prime minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi) and to prevent the UIC from seizing power.
One can imagine the furore that would erupt if a Muslim group were to launch a "Judeo-Christian Fascism Awareness Week" on American university campuses and then circulate a petition asking people to sign; those refusing to do so would be accused of supporting ‘Judeo-Christian Fascism’. Something similar took place for a week at nearly 200 American university campuses from October 24 but Muslims, not Jews or Christians, were the targets of this vicious campaign.
The summit-meeting of the five Caspian Sea countries in Iran on October 17, and the suspension of the European Union’s sanctions on Uzbekistan have focused attention on how the US, Russia, the EU and China are vying with each other for the rich energy resources of the Central Asian states in the region.
What is the key constituency whose support all rulers of Pakistan desperately seek and need? Considering that Pakistan is looking forward to a supposed return to democracy, one might be forgiven for thinking that the answer to this question lay somewhere among Paksitan’s long-suffering people. Alternatively, bearing in mind the role that the military has played in politics for much of Pakistan’s 60-year history, thoughts might turn to the army and the officer corps.
The preliminary hearings into the terrorism-related charges against 14 Muslim youths that should have determined whether they should be tried took a bizarre turn on September 24 when the prosecution abruptly halted proceedings. Crown attorneys wanted instead to go directly to trial. Defence lawyers were appalled at such “abuse of process” and described prosecution tactics as a “disgrace”.
The last thing a Muslim country like Somalia – which has been in the grip of turmoil and lawlessness for 16 years and is now under occupation by Ethiopian and US forces – needs is intervention in its turbulent affairs by Muslim governments, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that are allies of the US and back its anti-Islamic programme in the Horn of Africa. Yet that is exactly what took place in mid-September, when three top leaders of the so-called Somali interim government (IG) and 300 clan heads (warlords, most of them) gathered in Jeddah and signed a “national reconciliation pact”, as the minority accord was presented.
Like a spoiled child that throws a tantrum when it cannot get what it wants, the US government is threatening to place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran on the list of “terrorist” organizations unless the UN Security Council agrees to tougher sanctions against Tehran. The idea is so preposterous that even Washington’s friends have baulked. How can an important arm of government be described as a “terrorist” organization, they ask incredulously.
The Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of tribal elders, is the traditional Afghan way of discussing and resolving differences, but there was something very odd about the one held in Kabul from August 9-12. True, large amounts of food that (including rice, lamb kebabs and other Afghan delicacies) were served with typical Afghan hospitality, but the jirga was not entirely an Afghan affair. This was partly because it brought together tribal elders from both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, which is something of a novelty with potentially grave consequences for the future of Pakistan if it is not handled carefully.
