The Inalienable Right to Resist Occupation

by Kim Petersen / December 29th, 2008

Israeli Jews are massacring Palestinians again. Zionists are pinning the blame on the elected representative of the Palestinians: Hamas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni demonized the Palestinian movement: “Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune.”

Complicitly, the Whitehouse blamed Hamas, as did Canada’s government. Government officials in the US, Canada, and Europe spoke the same lame phrase, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” as if the slaughter being carried out by a world military power against a starving population could be construed as some kind of defense. Israel, the world’s most frequently cited violator of international law, a racist state, an occupation state built through violence and slow-motion genocide is being acknowledged as having the right to defend its criminality. This is preposterous; there is no right of an occupation regime to defend its occupation. Palestine, however, has a right to resist occupation!

Israeli writer Gideon Levy called Israel’s actions a war crime, but he also blames Hamas: “In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel’s overreaction.”¹

Hamas chooses to stand and resist occupation rather than getting down on its knees to Israel. It seems for Levy that resistance is foolish.

Levy implied that Israel had a right to react — just it went too far. Thus, Levy depicted Israel as the reactor and Hamas as the provocateur. This is false.² Levy attempts to present Israel as blameless for Hamas’s firing of rockets — as if all the violent crimes he reported against Palestinians had never happened before the rockets from Gaza.

What the critics of Hamas are alleging — without showing evidence — is that Hamas (or any Palestinian, for that matter) is behind the launching of rickety rockets from Gaza. However, even if Hamas is behind the launching of the rockets, so what!? Hamas, is the elected representative of Palestinians. Palestinians have the legal right to self-determination. They have the moral right to resist occupation. However, the right to resist must also be recognized as a legal right.³ It is absurd to argue that there is no legal right to resist the illegal act of occupation — a prima facie denial of the right to self-determination. History bears this out. Did the early Americans not claim a right to resist British colonialism?⁴ Did the Europeans not have a right to launch guerrilla attacks on the Nazi occupation regimes? Why does Levy deny this right to Palestinians?

Whether the tactics of Palestinian resistance are in their best interests is debatable. Nonetheless, the Jewish state has never been at a loss to conjure pretexts for its criminal acts.

Demonizing Hamas

In a recent article,⁵ I took exception to Levy demonizing Hamas. As a “benign” or moderate Israeli voice, Levy, wittingly or unwittingly, fortified a pretext for the destruction heaped on Gaza.

One writer supportive of Palestinian rights rejected criticism of Levy’s writing. Paulo de Rooij wrote, “This portrayal of Gideon Levy is rather unfair, it fails to appreciate Levy’s courage, …”⁶

De Rooij sets up a hoop: before you analyze and criticize the content of someone’s writing, you must first acknowledge any courage. No, I did not say Levy was courageous but neither did I say he was cowardly. I made no portrayal of Levy. I focused only on what he wrote. When someone writes for public readership, one can usually expect that there will be some who disagree, and some people will express their disagreement. For these purposes, there are widely accepted guidelines for appropriate and rationale discourse.

De Rooij says that the article “fails to understand his value in the Israeli context, and it attacks one of the more benign Israeli personalities.”

Yes, Levy goes against the grain in Israel in that he reports that Palestinians are human and that they suffer. Israelis know about Palestinian suffering, and it certainly causes no massive outpouring of shame or sympathy for their Palestinian victims.

De Rooij often writes about language and how it is twisted in usage, yet he claims the article “attacks” Levy, although nowhere in the article have I criticized Levy the person; I have only dealt with the content of what he wrote. To criticize the written word is not to attack the person.

The writer suggests, “Maybe attacking some of the pernicious zionists would have been more fruitful.”

I submit that the more pernicious Zionists are obvious and do not need exposing; I am, however, concerned about those media types who come across as progressives and yet write Zionist propaganda. I took issue with Levy’s maligning of Hamas. He demonizes Hamas. Is this fair? Should Levy of the occupying Jewish state be criticizing resistance to the occupation?

The critic writes, “Despite the fact that Levy does exhibit some contradictions, he has rendered the Palestinian victims a great service. Primarily because of Levy’s (and Hass’) reporting, Israelis cannot say ‘we did not know’. Is it just because of some of his contradictions that anyone should urge readers to shunt his writings?”

Who suggested Levy’s writings should be shunted?

He argues, “Yes, Levy exhibits some contradictions — most of us do so too — but it is simply absurd to abuse someone who should be clearly considered to be on ‘our’ side.”

Clearly? Who decides what is “our” side? I submit that there are clear principles involved: (1) dispossession of an Indigenous people or other legitimate settlers is a crime against humanity, in its worst form – a genocide; (2) the occupation of the territory of an Indigenous people and legitimate settlers is criminal, and (3) the victims of dispossession and occupation have the right to resist and reclaim their territory and liberate themselves from their occupiers.

Levy fails on (1) and (3). If the dispossession of Palestinians from their territory was wrong in 1967, then why was it right in 1948? Why does Levy deny the inalienable right to resist dispossession, occupation, humiliation, and violence? Is this the side of social justice activists?

De Rooij alleges “abuse” against Levy in the article. If so, then he should point out an instance of such abuse.

He delves further into what appears to be innuendo. The nature of innuendo is that it is murky. He talks about activist posers, about “hurdles,” about “idiocy,” and about hoop jumping. I never imagined that calling for adherence to international law might be equated with requiring someone to jump a hoop, and if antiwar activists, if social justice activists can’t call for simple adherence to the norms of international law, then what can they ask for? Talk? Talk is important, but isn’t that what Oslo and the Roadmap were? Where did that get the Palestinians?

He agrees that Levy has contradictions, and I agree that Levy also does fine reporting. It is not the fine reporting that I am at odds with. I am concerned with the Zionist-serving writing of Levy that defies Palestinian aspirations. To wit, Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for Hamas. By demonizing Hamas in his writing, Levy gives succor to the Israeli extremists strangling Gaza, even though he does not agree with the criminal methods. Militant Israelis could point to his writings and say that even Levy is against Hamas. How benign is that? How does that help Palestinians?

It appears that de Rooij’s attack is based on his contention that the writings of certain people are above criticism. I am obviously not one of them. This is fine because I reject the notion that the writings of anyone are beyond logical analysis, rebuttal, and criticism.

Progressivism is grounded in principles. When progressivist writers waver on principles, when they surrender to lesser evilism of a sort, the danger of the slippery slope presents itself. The equality of people(s) is a fundamental principle. All writers are equals. Every writer’s word must be open to scrutiny and questioning — and where the writing is suspect, it must be open to challenge.

Although progressives may have disagreements, in the end, what is important is solidarity for the rights of the oppressed. Palestinians are being slaughtered again. Palestinians have the same rights as all other peoples have, and these rights must be upheld. Among these rights must be the right to resist all forms of oppression.

1. Gideon Levy, “The neighborhood bully strikes again,” Haaretz, 27 December 2008. How accurate is his characterization of the Jewish state — “neighborhood bully”? Would calling the Nazi state a “neighborhood bully” have been appropriate? [↩]
2. Israel violated the cease-fire on 4 November. This allowed it to escalate the situation to its present massacres. “Israel Breaches Gaza Ceasefire: Invades, Kills 7, Seizes Many,” From Occupied Palestine, With Love, 5 November 2008. [↩]
3. Diakonia, a Swedish church-based sustainable development organization, recognizes the right to resist with non-violent means, but finds that under international humanitarian law there is no explicit mention of the right of an occupied people to resist an occupation. Ingela Karlsson, “Resistance to Israeli occupation – a right?” Diakonia, 24 October 2006. [↩]
4. Of course, resisting British colonialism did not give Americans the right to dispossess the Indigenous peoples of the land. [↩]
5. Kim Petersen, “Talk Is Cheap, Human Life Is Not: Justice and Freedom for Palestinians Now!” Dissident Voice, 22 December 22 2008. [↩]
6. Paul de Rooij, “Commentary on Talk Is Cheap, Human Life Is Not,” Palestine: Information with Provenance. [↩]

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org. Read other articles by Kim.

This article was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 8:06am and is filed under Crimes against Humanity, Disinformation, Israel/Palestine, Media, Original Peoples, War Crimes, Zionism.

The absurd persistence of domination: Of speciesism, capitalism, and shaking their foundations

December 28th, 2008 · 5 Comments

By Jason Miller Print This Post

12/28/08

Even the most ardent reactionaries, deluded ‘patriots,’ and apathetic cynics, whose myopic, Panglossian perspectives ensure that they continue to reflexively genuflect to the deeply criminal enterprise of American Capitalism and rationalize the savage imperialism of US foreign policy, are beginning to concede that we are in the midst of a crisis of epic proportions.

So lack of awareness, which is usually the first obstacle to solving a problem, isn’t the real enemy here. Our chief foe is a swarm of greed-driven, self-absorbed, mean-spirited locust-like human beings who are dedicated to “reforming” and perpetuating capitalism, the very system that has led us to this woeful state of environmental, economic, social, and political affairs.

Capitalism, the systemization of greed, selfishness, subjugation, and exploitation camouflaged by the narcotic of consumerism, the irresistible illusion of equal opportunity for all, and its ostensible compatibility with liberal democracy, has seduced hundreds of millions of people into ignoring its contradictions, injustices, and malevolence.

Capitalism has inflicted deep wounds upon the Earth and is the persistent infection that must be eradicated to avert the sixth mass extinction, the ongoing torture and murder of billions of non-human animals, an acceleration of Climate Change, further economic collapse, mass starvation, severe shortages of potable water, perpetual resource wars, and a host of other catastrophic events.

While much of its foul stench emanates from the United States, the foul odor of capitalism has wafted its way into the nostrils of nearly every citizen on the globe. Capitalism’s cockroach-like apologists, propagandists, beneficiaries, enforcers, and power brokers scurry in and out of nearly every nook and cranny of the planet.

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Global and dominant as it is, capitalism is the culmination and perpetuator of a number of vile social, economic, political, and cultural elements and dynamics, many of which began rearing their ugly heads with the advent of agriculture, domestication and civilization. Starting about 10,000 years ago, as humans became “civilized,” we alienated ourselves from nature, psychologically enabling us to exploit non-human animals and savagely abuse the Earth for our enrichment, amusement and comfort.

As a collective, we human animals have hubristically determined that we are the master species, endowing ourselves with the right to dominate, enslave, torture, humiliate, murder, and eat any sentient being on the planet (with the almost universal exception being the taboo of cannibalism–which is a bit perplexing considering the numerous other evils we inflict upon one another and the fact that human over-population is a tremendous problem).

Speciesism, the mental perversion that afflicts most people–causing them to view themselves as superior to all other species, is the one of the most blatantly exploitative and reprehensible of all human ideologies. Yet it remains “socially acceptable.” Inextricably linked with the bourgeois belief in the supremacy of profit and property over life, speciesism reveals the ferocity and grotesquery of savage capitalism. Animal exploiting capitalists of all stripes, including ranchers, biomedical researchers, meat processors, egg producers, fast food restaurateurs, and their ilk spend billions of dollars on agitprop each year to ensure that both the law and those who consume their products continue to view non-human animals as property, worthy of no more consideration than a lawn-mower. In fact, many people treat their Lawn Boys far better than factory farmers treat “their” sows.

Remember that human slavery, in which certain members of the human species were reduced to the status of property, was once institutionalized. The United States, the self-proclaimed land of the free (and not coincidentally the nexus of parasitic and decaying capitalism), was one of the last “advanced” nations to abolish slavery. And abolition wouldn’t have occurred had it not been for great sacrifices by many people of conscience and a civil war. Such is the pernicious and relentlessly cruel nature of capitalism.

Patriarchy and racism were once institutionalized too. Yet despite the fact that women and minorities have made significant legal, political, and social strides, the white man still wields tremendous power in this world, much of it economic in nature.

Overt and unapologetic imperialism and colonialism may be relics of the past, but conquest and subjugation still thrive under the guise of humanitarian intervention, loans to developing nations requiring corporate-friendly economic reforms, and aid to puppet regimes amenable to the rape of their country. All this to satisfy capitalism’s insatiable appetite for new markets, cheap labor, and natural resources.

Many people are concerned about the devastating and noxious impact we humans are having upon the Earth. But thanks to corporate green-washing, the globalization of the American Way of Life, and the deep allegiance many people have to capitalism (a system that is based on infinite growth on a finite planet), the rape and plunder of Mother Nature continues at an alarming rate. Relentlessly bludgeoned by the unquestioned supremacy of capitalist “ideals,” potential solutions that might interfere significantly with growth and profit are beaten to death before they can fully emerge from the womb.

Meanwhile, anti-capitalist radicals, including Marxists, socialists, anarchists, deep environmentalists, anarcho-primitivists, animal liberationists, members of indigenous movements, feminists, and many others who recognize that the problems we face are systemic in nature and that capitalism must go, remain marginalized, persecuted, ridiculed, vilified, and perhaps worst of all, divided.

An example of the agitprop the ruling elite successfully deploys (despite its obvious absurdity) to throw the true left to the margins of society. Obama is, AT BEST, center left on the political spectrum, yet the deeply indoctrinated amongst the working class–who remain faithful to their capitalist exploiters–swallow this nonsensical portrayal of him as a communist as if it was gospel….

American Capitalism’s power elite, comprised of the upper strata of the economic, corporate, political, and military hierarchies, enjoy tremendous advantages over those who oppose them. Despite their obvious economic and military might, their most powerful weapon is actually their seemingly omnipotent abilities to prevent any ideology from challenging the national religion of capitalism, to maintain the allegiance of most of the working class, and to demonize those who dare to blaspheme against their economic rape.

In a recent interview, internationally-renowned progressive political analyst Michael Parenti described the means by which the ruling class manipulates the masses into supporting such an obviously wretched system:

“Through control of the universe of discourse, including the media, the professions, the universities, the publishing industry, many of the churches, the consumer society, the job market, and even the very socialization of our children and the prefiguring of our own perceptions, the ruling interests are able to exercise a prevailing ideological control that excludes any reasoned critique of the dominant paradigm.”

It is imperative that those of us who recognize that electing a Democrat who is a racial minority and who talks a progressive game is a band-aid, at best, and that the real solution is to drive a stake through the heart of vampiric capitalism by uniting and by finding a means to take on the corporate media in such a way that we begin winning significant numbers of hearts and minds.

Anti-capitalist academics, writers, publishers, organizers, speakers, community leaders, politicians, and activists need effective conduits through which they can meet, communicate, educate one another, derive a sense of solidarity, and coordinate their efforts.

It is essential that we break down the perceived barrier between intellectuals and activists so that we can unify against regressive forces that thrive on inequality, injustice, environmental abuse, speciesism, and hierarchy—or in other words let’s come together and crush those loathsome bastards who prosper via the domination and abuse of the Earth and its sentient inhabitants.

Derrick Jensen has called on rational people of conscience to form a culture of resistance against the soulless insanity of a status quo that empowers and rewards those who are the most sociopathic and the most devoid of empathy. And if we are to create this culture of resistance and strive to forge an egalitarian, just, ecological, non-speciesist and democratic society, it is crucial that we expand our moral circle and bring animal liberation into the fold.

Aside from the morally indefensible fact that we enslave, torture, and murder sentient beings who feel pain and fear just as we do, consider Charles Patterson’s powerful argument he advanced in Eternal Treblinka. Patterson demonstrated that there is a frighteningly thin line between the abuse, objectification, and industrial torture we routinely inflict upon cows, for example, and that which we inflict upon other members of our own species. Many of the techniques the Nazis employed in the Holocaust came directly from the livestock and meat-packing industries.

Because our delusional notion of superiority is so deeply ingrained in our psyches, even many people of good conscience ignore the fact that non-human animals, who have no voice, no legal rights, and no viable means to defend themselves, are the ultimate victims of the ‘might makes right’ capitalist mentality. As the radical front line of a culture of resistance against a brutal social structure that thrives on abuse and exploitation, we need to attack the problem at its root. Leaving racism, sexism, classism and even Zionism in the dust, speciesism is the most enduring, savage, and widely accepted of the cultural ethos that enable capitalism to thrive, as it enables morally retarded wretches to pitilessly damn billions upon billions of innocent beings to a nightmare of Hobbesian proportions.

If we truly intend to subvert the dominant rapacious paradigm and replace it with something that will serve the greater good and heal the Earth, we must put animal liberation on our agenda.

So, how can we create a formidable culture of resistance and establish animal rights as one of the pillars of the radical agenda?

The Transformative Studies Institute (TSI) at http://transformativestudies.org/, a radical educational entity that “fosters interdisciplinary research that will bridge multidisciplinary theory with activism in order to encourage community involvement that will attempt to alleviate social problems,” is sponsoring Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) at www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/, which partners with Cyrano’s Journal Online (www.bestcyrano.org) to provide a media platform for radical writers, scholars, poets, playwrights, activists, and groups. No significant social movement will take place if the intelligentsia is cloistered in ivory towers, alienated from the activists who need them for education and guidance. We have an abundance of theory, but a dearth of praxis. TSI and TPC intend to get ideas into the heads of those who will translate them into action!

Both TSI and TPC will work in conjunction with the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) at http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/ to promote “critical scholarly dialogue and research on the principles and practices of animal advocacy, animal protection, and animal-related policies in the fields of social sciences and humanities.” ICAS, TSI, and TPC will push to catalyze the inclusion of animal liberation into the broader radical agenda through critical pedagogy and again through facilitating the conversion of theory into praxis.

With noted scholars, activists, thinkers, and writers such as Steve Best, William Blum, Ward Churchill, Anthony Nocella II, Richard J. White, John Asimakopoulos, Lisa Kemmerer, Gary Corseri, Jason Bayless, Michael Parenti, Adam Engel, Ed Duvin, Gore Vidal, Richard Kahn, Joe Bageant, John Steppling, and many others behind this ambitious under-taking, the project has great potential. We desperately need ventures like this one to succeed.

As Adorno wrote in Minima Moralia, “A breed of men has secretly grown up that hungers for the compulsion and restriction imposed by the absurd persistence of domination.”

Capitalism and speciesism are woven into most of the world’s cultural and socioeconomic DNA. This ensures that the sociopathic “breed of men” to which Adorno referred enjoy the perpetual existence of the “absurd persistence of domination.” Which in turn is ensuring the rapid acceleration of widespread suffering and calamitous events.

As radical scholars or activists, we face the daunting task of exterminating capitalism and speciesism. And time grows short. Yet we can find solace in the fact that resistance is NOT futile!

Jason Miller is a tenacious anti-capitalist and vegan animal liberationist. He is also the founder and editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, blog director for The Transformative Studies Institute and associate editor for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.

TSI and ICAS do not endorse the content of TPC. TPC and CJO are independent media sources for writers to express themselves in an open democratic manner. TPC, CJO, ICAS and TSI do not intend to encourage illegal/unethical activity or behavior. The information herein is solely intended for entertainment, educational, research, academic, or other lawful purposes.

The End of the Affair? The BND, CIA and Kosovo's Deep State

By Tom Burghardt (Antifascist Calling)

When three officers of Germany's foreign intelligence service the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), were arrested in Pristina November 19, it exposed that country's extensive covert operations in the heart of the Balkans.

On November 14, a bomb planted at the office of the European Union Special Representative was detonated in downtown Pristina. While damage was light and there were no injuries, U.N. "peacekeepers" detained one of the BND officers hours after the blast when he was observed taking photos of the damaged building. Two of his colleagues waited in a car and acted as lookouts. The officer named these two colleagues as witnesses that he was in his office at the time of the attack.

That office, identified by the press as the "private security firm" Logistics-Coordination & Assessment Service or LCAS, in reality was a front company for BND operations. Its premises were searched three days later and the trio were subsequently arrested and accused by Kosovan authorities of responsibility for bombing the EU building. As a result of the arrests, the BND was forced to admit the real identities of their agents and the true nature of LCAS.

A scandal erupted leading to a diplomatic row between Berlin and Pristina. The German government labeled the accusations "absurd" and threatened a cut-off of funds to the Kosovo government. A circus atmosphere prevailed as photos of the trio were shown on Kosovan TV and splashed across the front pages of the press. Rumors and dark tales abounded, based on leaks believed by observers to have emanated from the office of Kosovo's Prime Minister, the "former" warlord Hashim Thaci, nominal leader of the statelet's organized crime-tainted government.

When seized by authorities one of the BND officers, Andreas J., demonstrated very poor tradecraft indeed. Among the items recovered by police, the operative's passport along with a notebook containing confidential and highly incriminating information on the situation in Kosovo were examined. According to media reports, the notebook contained the names of well-placed BND informants in the Prime Minister's entourage. According to this reading, the arrests were an act of revenge by Thaci meant to embarrass the German government.

But things aren't always as they seem.

On November 29, the trio--Robert Z., Andreas J. and Andreas D.--departed Kosovo on a special flight bound for Berlin where they "will face a committee of German parliamentarians who have taken an interest in their case," according to an account in Spiegel Online.

More curious than a violent attack on the streets of Pristina, a city wracked by gangland killings, car hijackings, kidnappings and assaults is the provenance of the bomb itself. In other words, why would German intelligence agents attack their own? But before attempting to answer this question, a grim backstory to the affair rears its ugly head.

An Agency Mired in Scandal

This latest scandal comes as yet another blow to the BND considering August's revelations by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks that Germany's external intelligence agency had extensively spied on journalists. Like their counterparts at the CIA, the BND is forbidden by law from carrying out domestic operations.

According to Wikileaks documents, journalists working for Focus Magazine and Der Spiegel were collaborators in a scheme by the agency to learn their sources as well as obtaining information on left-wing politicians, including Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) leaders Gregor Gysi and Andreas Lederer.

Indeed Focus Magazine journalist Josef Hufelschulte, code name 'Jerez, wrote articles based on reports provided by the BND "intended to produce favorable coverage." Wikileaks correspondent Daniel Schmitt and investigations editor Julian Assange comment that, "The document in general shows the extent to which the collaboration of journalists with intelligence agencies has become common and to what dimensions consent is manufactured in the interests of those involved."

In November, Wikileaks published a subsequent document obtained from the telecommunications giant T-Systems. In addition to revealing two dozen secret IP addresses used by the BND for surveillance operations, the document provides "Evidence of a secret out of control BND robot scanning selected web-sites. In 2006 system administrators had to ban the "BVOE" IP addresses to prevent servers from being destroyed." Additionally, Wikileaks revealed the "activity on a Berlin prostitution service website--evidence that intelligence seductions, the famed cold-war 'honeytrap', is alive and well?"

While the document does not spell out who was running the sex-for-hire website, one can't help but wonder whether Balkan-linked organized crime syndicates, including Kosovan and Albanian sex traffickers are working in tandem with the BND in return for that agency turning a blind eye to the sordid trade in kidnapped women.

Kosovo: A European Narco State

When Kosovo proclaimed its "independence" in February, the Western media hailed the provocative dismemberment of Serbia, a move that completed the destruction of Yugoslavia by the United States, the European Union and NATO, as an exemplary means to bring "peace and stability" to the region.

If by "peace" one means impunity for rampaging crime syndicates or by "stability," the freedom of action with no questions asked by U.S. and NATO military and intelligence agencies, not to mention economic looting on a grand scale by freewheeling multinational corporations, then Kosovo has it all!

From its inception, the breakaway Serb province has served as a militarized outpost for Western capitalist powers intent on spreading their tentacles East, encircling Russia and penetrating the former spheres of influence of the ex-Soviet Union. As a template for contemporary CIA destabilization operations in Georgia and Ukraine, prospective EU members and NATO "partners," Kosovo should serve as a warning for those foolish enough to believe American clichs about "freedom" or the dubious benefits of "globalization."

Camp Bondsteel, located on rolling hills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac,is the largest U.S. military installation on the European continent. Visible from space, in addition to serving as an NSA listening post pointed at Russia and as the CIA's operational hub in the Balkans and beyond, some observers believe that Andreas J.'s notebook may have contained information that Camp Bondsteel continues to serve as a CIA "black site." One motive for rolling up the BND intelligence operation may have been U.S. fears that this toxic information would become public, putting paid U.S. claims that it no longer kidnaps and tortures suspected "terrorists."

When NATO partners Germany and the U.S. decided to drive a stake through Yugoslavia's heart in the early 1990s during the heady days of post-Cold War triumphalism, their geopolitical strategy could not have achieved "success" without the connivance, indeed active partnership amongst Yugoslavia's nationalist rivals. As investigative journalist Misha Glenny documented,

Most shocking of all, however, is how the gangsters and politicians fueling war between their peoples were in private cooperating as friends and close business partners. The Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian, and Serb moneymen and mobsters were truly thick as thieves. They bought, sold, and exchanged all manner of commodities, knowing that the high levels of personal trust between them were much stronger than the transitory bonds of hysterical nationalism. They fomented this ideology among ordinary folk in essence to mask their own venality. As one commentator described it, the new republics were ruled by "a parastate Cartel which had emerged from political institutions, the ruling Communist Party and its satellites, the military, a variety of police forces, the Mafia, court intellectuals and with the president of the Republic at the center of the spider web...Tribal nationalism was indispensable for the cartel as a means to pacify its subordinates and as a cover for the uninterrupted privatization of the state apparatus. (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 27)

Glenny's description of the 1990s convergence of political, economic and security elites with organized crime syndicates in Western intelligence operations is the quintessential definition of the capitalist deep state.

In Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott describes how the deep state can be characterized by "the symbiosis between governments (and in particular their intelligence agencies) and criminal associations, particularly drug traffickers, in the stabilization of right-wing terror in Vietnam, Italy, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other parts of the world." Indeed, "revelations in the 1970s and 1980s about the 'strategy of tension,' whereby government intelligence agencies, working in international conjunction, strengthened the case for their survival by actually fomenting violence, recurringly in alliance with drug-trafficking elements."

Scott's analysis is perhaps even more relevant today as "failed states" such as Kosovo, characterized by economic looting on an industrial scale, the absence of the rule of law, reliance on far-right terrorists (of both the "religious" and "secular" varieties) to achieve policy goals, organized crime syndicates, as both assets and executors of Western policy, and comprador elites are Washington's preferred international partners.

For the ruling elites of the former Yugoslavia and their Western allies, Kosovo is a veritable goldmine. Situated in the heart of the Balkans, Kosovo's government is deeply tied to organized crime structures: narcotrafficking, arms smuggling, car theft rings and human trafficking that feeds the sex slave "industry." These operations are intimately linked to American destabilization campaigns and their cosy ties to on-again, off-again intelligence assets that include al-Qaeda and other far-right terror gangs. As investigative journalist Peter Klebnikov documented in 2000,

The Kosovar traffickers ship heroin exclusively from Asia's Golden Crescent. It's an apparently inexhaustible source. At one end of the crescent lies Afghanistan, which in 1999 surpassed Burma as the world's largest producer of opium poppies. From there, the heroin base passes through Iran to Turkey, where it is refined, and then into the hands of the 15 Families, which operate out of the lawless border towns linking Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia. Not surprisingly, the KLA has also flourished there. According to the State Department, four to six tons of heroin move through Turkey every month. "Not very much is stopped," says one official. "We get just a fraction of the total." ("Heroin Heroes," Mother Jones, January-February 2000)

Not much has changed since then. Indeed, the CIA's intelligence model for covert destabilization operations is a continuing formula for "success." Beginning in the 1940s, when the Corsican Mafia was pegged by the Agency to smash the French Communist Party, down to today's bloody headlines coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, global drug lords and intelligence operators go hand in hand. It is hardly surprising then, that according to a report by the Berlin Institute for European Policy, organized crime is the only profitable sector of the Kosovan economy. Nearly a quarter of the country's economic output, some <82>550 million, is derived from criminal activities.

Though the role of the United States and their NATO partners are central to the drama unfolding today, the BND affair also reveals that beneath the carefully-constructed faade of Western "unity" in "Freedom Land," deep inter-imperialist rivalries simmer. As the socialist journalist Peter Schwarz reports,

Speculation has since been rife about the background to the case, but it is doubtful whether it will ever be clarified. Kosovo is a jungle of rival secret services. In this regard, it resembles Berlin before the fall of the Wall. The US, Germany, Britain, Italy and France all have considerable intelligence operations in the country, which work both with and against one another. Moreover, in this country of just 2.1 million inhabitants, some 15,000 NATO soldiers and 1,500 UN police officers are stationed, as well as 400 judges, police officers and security officers belonging to the UN's EULEX mission. (Peter Schwarz, "Kosovo's Dirty Secret: The Background to Germany's Secret Service Affair," World Socialist Web Site, December 1, 2008)

Into this jungle of conflicting loyalties and interests, international crime syndicates in close proximity--and fleeting alliance--with this or that security service rule the roost. It is all the more ironic that the Thaci government has targeted the BND considering, as Balkan analyst Christopher Deliso revealed:

In 1996, Germany's BND established a major station in Tirana...and another in Rome to select and train future KLA fighters. According to Le Monde Diplomatique, "special forces in Berlin provided the operational training and supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi stocks as well as Black uniforms." The Italian headquarters recruited Albanian immigrants passing through ports such as Brindisi and Trieste, while German military intelligence, the Militaramschirmdienst, and the Kommando Spezialkrfte Special Forces (KSK), offered military training and provisions to the KLA in the remote Mirdita Mountains of northern Albania controlled by the deposed president, Sali Berisha. (The Coming Balkan Caliphate, Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 37)

But as Schwarz observed, why would the Thaci government risk alienating the German state, given the fact that after the U.S., Germany "is the second largest financial backer of Kosovo and ranks among the most important advocates of its independence." Why indeed?

According to Balkan Analysis, the International Crisis Group (ICG) funded by billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute (OSI) and closely aligned with "liberal interventionists" in the United States, were instrumental in arguing that the United States and Germany, should guarantee "future stability," by building up the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK), the KLA's successor organization, into a well-equipped army. Towards this end, the U.S. and Germany, in addition to arming the organized crime-linked statelet, have provided funds and equipment for a sophisticated military communications center in the capital.

Speculation is rife and conflicting accounts proliferate like mushrooms after a warm rain. One theory has it that senior Kosovan politicians were angered by BND criticisms linking KLA functionaries, including personal associates of Thaci and the Prime Minister himself, with organized crime. Tellingly, Schwarz reports, this "is contrary to the position taken by the CIA."

Is the affair then, merely a falling-out among thieves on how the spoils will be divided?

The CIA: Drugs & Thugs International

As noted above, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely on far-flung networks of far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to facilitate the dirty work for U.S. policy elites and American multinational corporations. Throughout its Balkan adventure the CIA made liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and provide them with targets. In their public pronouncements and analyses however, nary a harsh word is spoken.

According to the CIA, by any standard Kosovo's economy is a disaster, but that doesn't prevent the Agency from seeing "significant progress"!

Over the past few years Kosovo's economy has shown significant progress in transitioning to a market-based system, but it is still highly dependent on the international community and the diaspora for financial and technical assistance. Remittances from the diaspora--located mainly in Germany and Switzerland--account for about 30% of GDP. Kosovo's citizens are the poorest in Europe with an average annual per capita income of only $1800--about one-third the level of neighboring Albania. Unemployment--at more than 40% of the population--is a severe problem that encourages outward migration. (Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, November 20, 2008)

Needless to say, one unmentionable "fact" disappeared from the CIA's country profile is the statelet's overwhelming dependence on the black economy. I suppose this is what the Agency means when it lauds Kosovo's transition to a "market-based system"!But as former DEA investigator and whistleblower Michael Levine, author of The Big White Lie, told B92, one of the wings of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "linked with every known narco-cartel in the Middle East and the Far East", and that almost every European intelligence service and police has files on "connections between ethnic Albanian rebels and drug trafficking". And dare I say by extension, the CIA itself.

One bone of contention which could have led Thaci and his henchmen to seek revenge against his erstwhile German allies was a 67-page BND analysis about organized crime in Kosovo. As Schwarz noted the dossier, produced in February 2005 and subsequently leaked to the press, "accuses Ramush Haradinaj (head of government from December 2004 to March 2005), Hashim Thaci (prime minister since January 2008) and Xhavit Haliti, who sits in the parliament presidium, of being deeply implicated in the drugs trade."

According to the BND report, "Regarding the key players (e.g., Haliti, Thaci, Haradinaj), there exists the closest ties between politics, business and internationally operating OC [organized crime] structures in Kosovo. The criminal networks behind this are encouraging political instability. They have no interest in building a functioning state, which could impair their flourishing trade." (WSWS, op. cit.)

Haradinaj, an American protegee, became Prime Minister in 2004. However, he was forced to resign his post in March 2005 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him for crimes against humanity. Among other things, Haradinaj was accused of abducting civilians, unlawful detention, torture, murder and rape. Schwarz notes he was acquitted in April 2008 "for lack of evidence, after nine out of ten prosecution witnesses died violently and the tenth withdrew his statement after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt." Talk about friends in high places!

Mirroring evidence uncovered by journalists and investigators regarding the control of the drugs trade by 15 Albanian crime families, the Berlin Institute for European Policy laid similar charges against Thaci, stating that real power in Kosovo is wielded by 15 to 20 family clans who control "almost all substantial key social positions" and are "closely linked to prominent political decision makers."

According to Spiegel, when the BND operation was run to ground with the possible connivance of the CIA, its secret network of informants, instrumental to gaining insight into the interconnections amongst state actors and organized crime were compromised. The BND's Department Five, responsible for organized crime wrote a confidential report linking Thaci as "a key figure in a Kosovar-Albanian mafia network."

Department Two, according to Spiegel, was responsible for telecommunications surveillance. In 1999, the BND launched operation "Mofa99," a wiretap intercept program that targeted high-ranking members of the KLA--and exposed their links to dodgy criminal syndicates and Islamist allies, al-Qaeda. The program was so successful according to Spiegel that since then, "the BND has maintained an extensive network of informants among high-ranking functionaries of the KLA and the Kosovar administration."

Functionaries in possession of many dangerous secrets and inconvenient truths!

As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky wrote back in 2001, among the "inconvenient truths" unexplored by Western media is the close proximity of far-right Islamist terror gangs and planetary U.S. destabilization operations.

Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin ("holy warriors") to fight covert wars on Washington's behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy. A report of the US Congress has revealed how the US administration--under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake--had "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base" leading to the recruitment through the so-called "Militant Islamic Network," of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.

The "Bosnian pattern" has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with the KLA-NLA are Mujahedin from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union as well as "soldiers of fortune" from several NATO countries including Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. (Michel Chossudovsky, "Washington Behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia," Global Research, September 10, 2001)

Fast forward seven years and one can hypothesize that the BND, stepping on the CIA's toes and that agency's cosy intelligence "understanding" with Mafia-linked KLA fighters and al-Qaeda assets, would have every reason to sabotage the BND's organized crime operations--not that the German military intelligence service's hands are any cleaner!

While we may never know all the facts surrounding this curious affair, one thing is certain: the role played by powerful Mafia gangs as a source for black funds, intelligence assets and CIA "agents of influence" will continue. Administrations come and go, but like motherhood and apple pie the shadowy workings of America's deep state is an eternal verity you can count on!

First appeared in Antifascist Calling. Thanks to Tom Burghardt and Antifascist Calling for covering this document. Copyright remains with the aforementioned. Contact antifascist-calling.blogspot.com for reprint rights.

Source document

• T-Systems BND network assignments, 13 Nov 2008
• How German intelligence infiltrated Focus magazine

See also

• German intelligence scrubs European records after Wikileaks exposure

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.

Retrieved from "https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Affair%3F_The_BND%2C_CIA_and_Kosovo%27s_Deep_State"

Categories: Analyses | United States

US-CUBA: Business Support for Dismantling Embargo

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (IPS) - If U.S. President-elect Barack Obama wants to begin dismantling Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, it appears he will have widespread support for doing so.

Not only have some major foreign policy heavyweights recently called for ending the embargo if, for no other reason, than to create desperately needed goodwill elsewhere in the Americas and beyond.

But major U.S. business groups also appear more enthusiastic than ever for pushing the incoming administration and the most Democratic Congress in some 20 years in that direction, although they concede the process may be more gradual than they would like.

"We support the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba," a dozen such business associations, including the politically potent Business Roundtable, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Retail Federation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote, in a letter addressed to Obama Thursday.

"We recognize that change may not come all at once, but it must start somewhere, and it must begin soon," they added, noting that Washington’s trade embargo and its long-standing efforts to isolate Havana for national security reasons during the Cold War have "far outlasted (their) original purpose".

The letter, which was drafted by Jake Colvin, vice president for Global Trade Issues of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), is the latest in a series of public statements by prominent foreign policy figures and institutions in favour of easing, if not abandoning, Washington’s efforts to isolate Havana.

Last May, a high-level bipartisan Latin America task force of the influential Council on Foreign Relations issued a 76-page report that, among other things, called for any incoming U.S. administration to repeal the economic and travel sanctions Washington has imposed against Cuba over the past 15 years and engage Havana on a range of issues of mutual concern with a view to ending the embargo and normalising ties.

And just two weeks ago, an inter-American commission sponsored by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, from which the new administration is expected to recruit key policy-makers, and co-chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former U.S. U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering went further yet.

In addition to easing the embargo and directly engaging the government of President Raul Castro, it urged that Cuba immediately be removed from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, end restrictions on humanitarian aid there, re-integrate Cuba into regional and global economic and political organisations, and lift all travel restrictions on the island.

The report noted that Washington’s decades-long hostility toward Havana had "disproportionately dominated U.S. policy toward the LAC region for years (and) have hindered Washington's ability to work constructively with other countries."

During this year’s presidential campaign, Obama himself had pledged to open talks with the Cuban government without preconditions and to relax the embargo -- by repealing regulations promulgated by President George W. Bush -- that limited both travel by Cuban Americans to their homeland and their ability to send remittances to their families there.

Those measures were the least popular of a series of measures taken by Bush since 2003 to tighten the embargo after Congress and former President Bill Clinton had loosened it the late 1990s to the extent of permitting sales of food and medicine to the island.

Beyond repealing the Cuban American measures, however, Obama said he would maintain the embargo, insisting that it provided "leverage" to encourage the Castro regime to adopt political reforms, a precondition "to begin normalising relations". Still, his position was more forthcoming than that of either Sen. John McCain or his Democratic rival -- and now his secretary of state-designate -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, both of whom were eager to court the hardliners in the Cuban-American community in Florida, a key swing state.

In the event, Obama won Florida in the general election, suggesting that the vaunted political clout wielded by die-hard anti-Castro forces there may at last be on the wane and that the president-elect may have more room for manoeuvre than he might have expected.

"The demographics (in Florida) have changed," noted Colvin, who just released a 42-page report, "The Case for a New Cuba Policy", in his capacity as a fellow with the New Ideas Fund. "Republicans are now in the minority among Hispanics in Florida, and non-Cuban Hispanics don’t feel the same way about the embargo."

Colvin and other experts expect that Obama will follow through on his pledges after his Jan. 20 inauguration to immediately lift restrictions on Cuban American travel and remittances and to begin bilateral talks on a number of issues, including migration and cooperation on drug-trafficking and the environment.

But he and the business groups hope he will go further. "These are excellent first steps," the letter states, "but we urge you to also commit to a more comprehensive examination of U.S. policy."

William LeoGrande, a veteran Cuba specialist who is dean of he School of Government at American University here, believes Obama could with little political cost repeal other measures taken by Bush, particularly those that restricted "purposeful" travel -- as opposed to tourism, which is banned by law and thus requires Congressional action -- by U.S. citizens to Cuba.

Lifting Bush’s restrictions on trade -- specifically, that Cuba pay in cash for all U.S. exports of food and medicine before they leave U.S. ports -- could also be repealed without much cost.

In its letter, the business associations calls for Obama to "immediately remove travel restrictions and allow Americans to act as ambassadors of freedom and American values to Cuba," ease credit requirements on trade in food and medicine, and "exempt agricultural machinery, heavy equipment and other exports from the embargo which could provide the goods and technology needed to rebuild from recent storms" that have devastated the island.

In his new report, Colvin argues that Obama actually enjoys very broad discretion to lift many elements of the embargo just by issuing new regulations or modifying old ones.

"The idea that Congress has limited the president through legislation such as (the 1996) Helms-Burton (Act) is largely a myth," according to the report which lays out a blueprint for what kinds of initiatives Obama could take on his own, particularly through the licensing authority of the Treasury Department which determines much of what can and cannot be done between U.S. businesses and individuals vis-à-vis Cuba.

"Given all the other things that Obama has on his plate, he probably won’t want to wage a big political battle in Congress to end the embargo," said LeoGrande. "It would be much easier to dismantle the commercial embargo little by little, piece by piece, in sectors beyond food and medicine."

He noted that Bush himself exempted cell phones and computers from the embargo after Castro legalised their ownership earlier this year. Bush also granted licenses to U.S. pharmaceutical companies to import Cuban bio-medical products to test them. These can be used by Obama as precedents.

For more general action, especially in Congress, "the question is whether these business associations are willing to really flex their political muscle on Capitol Hill and at the White House to get this done," he added, noting that they have been reluctant to do so until now knowing that Bush would oppose them.

But Colvin, who described the letter as a "shot across the bow" for Obama and Congress, said the companies are "more optimistic" about prospects with Bush’s departure. "Going into next year, we’re going to take the temperature of our companies on this and then start setting up some meetings on the Hill and see where we go."

March base Predator unit to train next generation of pilots

10:00 PM PST on Thursday, November 27, 2008

By MARK MUCKENFUSS
The Press-Enterprise

The 163rd Air National Guard at March Air Reserve Base is beginning a new mission.

After two years of being the only National Guard unit to fly unmanned Predator drones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will begin training the next crop of Predator pilots. The goal is to increase the military's capacity for observing and targeting enemies during wartime.

The Predator training starts in February at the Southern California Logistics Airport, the former George Air Force Base, in Victorville. The 163rd will be the first National Guard unit to teach Air Reserve pilots how to fly drones.

Story continues below

Kurt Miller / The Press-Enterprise

Commander Kirby Colas, a Predator pilot, will be one of the instructors at a new flight school. He said that while the planes can be deadly, their primary benefit is in providing troops with a bird's-eye view of the action on the ground.

"This schoolhouse thing is really a big deal," said Col. Randy Ball, a pilot and a 36-year National Guard veteran. Ball is overseeing the training program.

"We'd like to think it's going to expand. It would make sense for the school here to get bigger."

Since starting the missions at March, the Guard unit's 35 pilots have remotely flown two predators 24/7, aiming their sights on strategic targets and helping ground soldiers seek out the enemy. Among other things, they can perform surveillance on suspected insurgents and spot roadside bomb activity.

The March missions all have been flown in Iraq. Other Predators are responsible for recent attacks on suspected militants in Pakistan, just across the border from Afghanistan.

The role of unmanned aircraft is expanding in the Middle East wars. The Air Force recently bolstered its arsenal with the Reaper, another drone that flies faster and has more firepower than the Predator.

At the other end of the spectrum, troops in the field have small hand-launched planes they can use to spy on the enemy.

There is even talk of using the unmanned planes domestically to help assess natural disasters, aid in search and rescue operations and assist in fighting wild fires.

During last year's October fires, NASA pilots used an Ikhana, a drone similar to the Predator, to take infrared images of the San Diego fires. The information helped firefighters determine the footprint and direction of the fire.

Money Saver

Capt. Al Bosco is a spokesman for the March National Guard unit. He said the Predators don't just provide air and logistical support without risking a pilot's life. They also save money.

Flying a fighter jet, he said, costs "thousands and thousands of dollars for an hour of flight time."

He said he didn't know what it cost for a 20-hour Predator mission, but beyond the cost of fuel and the pay for the three people necessary to operate it, there is little else to factor in.

According to the Air Force Web site, a single F-22 Raptor costs the Pentagon $142 million. Four Predators cost $30.5 million. That includes the necessary computers and satellite equipment.

There are additional savings in not having to support as many personnel in the field. At the end of a mission, the Predator crew members get in their cars and go home.

Currently, Bosco said, the 163rd is the only Air National Guard flying the Predator. Four other units are preparing to fly missions. The Air Force flies all of the other missions.

Flying Drones

Predator pilots based at March sit in front of a bank of computer consoles. With a keyboard, a joystick and throttle, they fly lightweight airplanes equipped with cameras and a pair of hellfire missiles that are half a world away. The planes typically fly 20-hour missions that are broken up into three- to four-hour assignments with various groups of ground-based troops.

The operation of each drone requires a pilot, a sensor operator responsible for the plane's cameras, targeting devices and weapons and a coordinator who monitors such things as air traffic communications and weather.

Five pilots and five sensor operators will provide one-on-one training for recruits at the new center in Victorville. The training sessions last for three months.

For training, the drones will take off from George and fly west into the airspace of Edwards Air Force Base.

Story continues below

Kurt Miller / The Press-Enterprise

The light weight of the Predator drone can make it tricky to fly, said Col. Randy Ball, a pilot and 36-year National Guard veteran who is overseeing the training program. Ball said the drone is powered by a modified four-cylinder snowmobile engine. "It's kind of like flying a Kleenex," he said.

Flying from a computer console has none of the tactile sense of handling a real plane. There is as much as a 1½-second delay between a pilot's movement and the response of the plane 9,000 miles away, to which pilots have to adjust.

In addition, said Ball, the light weight of the drone can make it tricky to fly. "It really is a powered glider," he said, adding that it is powered by a modified four-cylinder snowmobile engine.

"It's kind of like flying a Kleenex."

One big difference is that Kleenex aren't usually equipped with bombs.

Predators are armed with two AGM Hellfire missiles. They often serve an important role in combat operations, Ball said.

"If you go back to May, it was pretty violent in the Baghdad area. Every day we flew we were arming missiles. Since then, it's been very quiet."

Commander Kirby Colas, who flew commercially for Delta Airlines, is a Predator pilot and will be one of the instructors for the new flight school. He said that while the planes can be deadly, their primary benefit is in providing a bird's eye view for troops on the ground.

Each Predator has two cameras as well as a laser-guided targeting equipment. The cameras have a visual range of six miles.

"Even in infrared, we can zoom in and you can tell adults from children, males from females, good guy trucks from bad guy trucks," Colas said. "We can send video immediately to ground troops in range."

As long as the troops are within 50 miles of the plane, they can receive the data.

While a missile from the drone can be fired within 1½ minutes after identifying a target, it is usually a much longer process.

"Every event on a target probably represents hundreds of hours of observation, preparation and coordination," Colas said. "We're the most accurate shooter in the military."

Expanded Uses

Ball said the role of unmanned planes is expanding. The Reaper, for example, is able to carry 15 times more munitions than the Predator and fly three times as fast.

"UAs are going to keep growing," Ball said, referring to unmanned aircraft. "It's a huge growth industry."

The military is working on an unmanned helicopter, he said. "They've actually landed it on an aircraft carrier. It's pretty impressive."

The use of unmanned cargo planes is being explored. And, on the other end, ground troops sometimes employ hand-launched drones, Styrofoam planes equipped with cameras that allow troops to see over hilltops or around corners.

Recent reports have indicated that even though drone pilots are thousands of miles away from their targets, some have experienced reactions to their combat missions similar to post traumatic stress disorder. Ball said that hasn't been a factor for his pilots.

"We have had a couple of fellows that wanted to talk about it after they fired a missile," he said. "But the biggest stress my guys have is 24/7 operations. It's hard on family life."

Some of their fellow airmen also give them a hard time. Flying remotely doesn't carry the same prestige as climbing into a cockpit and taking off into the sky.

"We take all sorts of grief," Ball said. "But then I ask them how many missiles they've shot at bad guys and I usually win."

Reach Mark Muckenfuss at 951-368-9595 or mmuckenfuss@PE.com

Menace of US drones

Sat, 2008-11-22 02:47

By Asif Haroon Raja

USA has no remorse over its brazen acts of aggression and rationalises its invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq as compulsory acts to ensure security of its homeland. It justifies its offensive actions under Article 51 of UN charter. It is now trying to justify its intended offensive against Pakistan under the same Act on the plea that Pakistan is allowing its soil for breeding terrorism and exporting terrorism into Afghanistan to cause harm to US-Nato troops. If so, why it remains tight-lipped on misuse of Afghan soil by several spy agencies working against the interests of Pakistan?

While so-called cross border terrorism is not causing any harm to homeland of USA, cross border terrorism from Afghanistan into Pakistan is directly impinging upon the integrity and existence of Pakistan. As a policy, US military is extending support to warlords and officials in Afghanistan that are friendly with India and are anti-Pakistan.

Since last July, American attitude towards Pakistan has become highly aggressive. Besides defaming Pak army and the ISI on baseless charges, Pakistan has been declared as a war zone and home to terrorists wherefrom terrorism is exported to Afghanistan. In their view 3.5 million inhabitants of FATA being illiterate, impoverished and unemployed are militants and have turned the area into a military ground which breeds terrorists and provides safe haven to Al-Qaeda. Osama, Al-Zahawari and other high-value targets in their view are based in FATA. Drone attacks on suspected targets in Waziristan have become a norm. The spy planes fly over the north-western region of Pakistan at will and hit targets unchallenged.

The drones hit suspected Al-Qaeda and pro-Pakistan Taliban disregarding collateral damage incurred and ignores anti-army militants. Each attack by the deadly flying machines kill majority of innocent civilians including women and children and very few noted militants get targeted. In this year so far 24 missile attacks have taken place killing 344 civilians. The number of so-called militants does not exceed ten.

The US military justify their selective targeting on the false plea that Pakistan army show little inclination to prevent anti-American groups including Afghan Taliban which cross into Afghanistan and hit US-Nato troops. Attacks are made without seeking permission or even conveying their intent on the plea that the army and the ISI are linked with the Taliban and leak information to them before they are hit. US drones continue to carryout unprovoked acts of aggression while Washington disregards our feeble protests with arrogance. While it castigates Pakistan for not controlling infiltration from FATA, it keeps mum over large-scale infiltration of RAW and RAM agents into Pakistan and drone attacks almost on daily basis.

Despite protests by Pakistani leadership and assurances by American leadership and unanimous resolution in parliament against US intervention, there has been no let up in the aerial attacks. The drones controlled by CIA plan to eliminate all pro-Pakistan Pashtun tribal leaders and notables as well as Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Neither there is any remorse or word of apology from USA on attacking its ally which has rendered huge sacrifices to prevent the Afghanistan front from getting destabilised. The US has now begun to construct new military bases closer to Pakistan’s western border to facilitate employment of drones even in rough weather conditions and to cover larger areas in depth. It implies reliance on spy planes will be further enhanced and option of ground raids suspended for the time being.

Drone attack on a suspected target in Bannu on 18 November allegedly killing an al-Qaeda operative has added a new dimension since the attacks had so far been confined to FATA only.. It indicates that from now onwards the drones would also attack targets inside settled areas of Frontier province and the creeping forward policy would continue till no part of Pakistan would remain safe from drones. Ironically, despite claims of killing al-Qaeda operatives, so far not a single body has been recovered from the sites of attacks. It is widely believed that al-Qaeda is named to cover up failure of their intelligence resulting in collateral damage only. It is also speculated that missile attacks are wilfully launched to push back the militants from forward to rearward areas to not only spread militancy in urban centres but also to find an excuse for drone attacks. PM Gilani has expressed hope that once Obama is in the saddle the drone attacks will come to an end. One wonders the basis of his optimism since Obama has given no such assurance. Even if his wish is granted which is least likely, still there are 60 days before Obama enters Oval Office. Does it imply we will continue to bear the onslaught of drones for this period without a whimper on a wishful assumption?

Irrespective of the deep political polarisation between the Democrats and Republicans in USA, both are on one frequency as far as Pakistan is concerned. The leadership of the two parties as well as State Department, Congress, Pentagon, House of Representatives, CIA and the Jewish lobby in USA feel that the root to terrorism lie in FATA. Three out of five Americans do not want withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan before stamping out terrorism and taking to task Osama bin Laden. These feelings have not changed despite altered perceptions of majority of NATO countries. France, Germany, Poland and Turkey in particular are keen to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan at the earliest. Britain and French military commanders have opined that war in Afghanistan could not be won militarily and have sought a political solution to Afghan imbroglio. The retired US military Generals in particular and some circles within American society have also expressed serious reservations over the skewed way adopted by Bush led team to fight the war on terror that has led to heightened anti-Americanism and has made the world unsafe. Ex Nato commander Gen Wesley Clark has urged more anti-terrorism support for Pakistan and letting Pak army tackle militancy on its soil without outside interference.

The white Americans, American Jews, Israel, India and UK want Obama to do what Bush could not achieve.. They want Pakistan to shed away its India centric mindset and instead wholly concentrate towards the threat posed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They want him to convince Pakistan government and the military to consider militancy as the chief threat and not India. They want Pakistan not to waste its energies on Kashmir dispute and save whatever it has or get ready to lose everything. India’s belligerence against its neighbours and massive human rights violations in Kashmir and some other parts of India including massacre of Christians in Orissa doesn’t irk them. They want Obama to play a key role in resolving long outstanding Kashmir issue to the liking of India and not of Pakistan. They are keen to remove the lack of trust between the US-NATO-Afghan forces based in Afghanistan and Pak army so that the four could adopt a unified military strategy to combat the common threat of terrorism.

For the Jews, nuclear Pakistan poses the biggest threat to their security. Iran with nuclear ambitions is another cause of great worry for them. Conversely, Hindu nuclear bomb does not bother them. USA, Canada, Russia and Israel had contributed a great deal towards development of Indian nuclear capability. Unsolved Palestinian problem together with the threat posed by Hamas and Hezbollah are other irritants for Israel.. They feel that Bush by disengagement had strengthened the hands of Hamas. They have not forgotten and forgiven the humiliation suffered at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon war. They are also keen to receive $30 billion US assistance promised to be delivered in the next decade. The Jews want Obama to address all these problems to their satisfaction. The Jewish lobby in USA know their nuisance value. Without their support none can hope to capture the prestigious slot of presidentship and any president daring to go against their wishes is turned into a political corpse.

Like other presidents, it will be the endeavour of Obama as well to become the protector of Israel. Obama has already indicated his tilt towards Israel by announcing his unconditional support for an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. During his visit to Palestine, he spent only 45 minutes with the aggrieved Palestinians and had no word of sympathy for brutal blockade of Gaza and killing of tens of hundreds Palestinians at the hands of Israeli security forces but he did show concern over few losses of Israelis well knowing that the casualty ratio was 1:400. While he desires dialogue with even those who formed part of Bush’s axis of evil, Obama opposes negotiations with the Hamas. There is increasing awareness among the Americans about the perverse influence of Jews over various organs of state power and hatred against them is spreading.

With the change of government in Washington by 20 January next year, the Democrats under Obama are likely to relegate Iraq front to lower priority since fighting war on two fronts has become financially and socially prohibitive. Obama has pledged to carryout phased withdrawal starting January next year and complete it in 16 months time. After pulling back its forces from frontline duties and shifting few brigades to Afghanistan, USA will then focus its entire attention towards Afghanistan. Keeping one front activated will be logistically and financially viable. However, it will have to be seen how Iraq turns up after the departure of US troops and its allies. Some opine that there is a strong possibility of the country getting split into three states with southern Iraq under Shias and under the influence of Iran would become the dominant state. Such a development will make all Arab Sunni states in the neighbourhood uneasy. Upsurge of Shia power under the patronage of Iran would also impinge upon the security and economic interests of USA, Israel, Europe and Japan in the region. The independent state of Kurds in the north would impact Turkey, Iran and Syria having sizeable Kurds. These factors will cast a heavy pull on the new policy makers in Washington and despite their great urge to withdraw US troops from Iraq; they might not be able to do so for quite some time.

As regards Pakistan, Obama has issued policy statements which give an insight to his thinking. He stated that he expects Pakistan to fully focus on war on terror and should not be distracted by other regional problems. He said that resolution of Kashmir dispute is essential to fight terrorism. What it implies is that USA expects Pakistan to forget about Kashmir by accepting the Line of Control as permanent border, encouraging trade between the two parts of Kashmir, Pakistan to allow land route to India to ship Indian goods to Afghanistan and Central Asia, accept India as the unchallenged regional power, and let India stand up as a bulwark against China. He is keen to change the perceptions of Pakistani leadership and the military about India and make them believe that it is not India but the militants who pose the biggest threat to Pakistan’s security and existence.

Other than the west loving Muslims, the Muslims have seen the inner side of the sole super power which has been following anti-Islamic policies. 9/11 changed the dynamics of the world and gave rise to virulent anti-Muslim racism. US aim is to subjugate Islamic civilisation and to ensure American global ascendancy. Because of unjust policies and double standards, the Bush government fuelled militancy and terrorism and made the world unsafe. In order to give final shape to its New World Order, the US under new leadership is likely to continue browbeating Pakistan economically through its exploitative tools – IMF and World Bank – until Pakistan falls in line with its perceptions and agrees to adopt secularism, roll back its nuclear program and accept India as the regional policeman.

Asif Haroon Raja is a retired Brig and a security and political analyst and writes for several national and foreign newspapers.

- Asian Tribune -

Pakistan calls for halt to U.S. spy plane cross-border attack

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has urged, in his address to top NATO military generals, for a halt to U.S drone missile strikes within the Pakistani territory.

Kayani made the appeal while addressing the military committee of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in Brussels at the invitation of Admiral Giampaolo Di Paolo, Chairman of NATO's Military Committee, according to a statement issued by the Pakistani army Wednesday.

The statement came a few hours after a U.S. drone fired missiles in Pakistan's district of Bannu bordering Afghanistan, killing at least five people.

Pakistani officials said that the U.S. has fired some 20 missiles in the tribal region since August.

Kayani highlighted the need to reinforce Pakistan's effort and operate in a coordinated manner within respective national boundaries, the statement said.

"He urged a halt to unarmed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) within Pakistan's territory," it said.

In his address, Kayani apprised the NATO military committee of the overall security situation in the region. He focused on Pakistan's perspective on the obtaining environment, operational issues and the way forward.

Kayani clearly spelt the need for security and stability in the region through a comprehensive approach.

Editor: Yan

An Interview with Bolivian President Evo Morales

“Neoliberalism Is No Solution for Humankind”

Democracy Now! Audio and Transcript

November 19, 2008 -- Bolivian President Evo Morales joins us in the firehouse studio to discuss the election of Barack Obama, US-Bolivian relations, the global economic crisis and more. Morales is visiting the United States at a time when relations between the two countries are deteriorating. Last month, the Bush administration suspended long-term trade benefits with Bolivia over its alleged failure to cooperate in the “war on drugs.” Meanwhile, Morales has given the Drug Enforcement Administration three months to leave Bolivia. He accused DEA agents of violating Bolivian sovereignty and encouraging the drug trade.

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JUAN GONZALEZ: Today, a Democracy Now! special. We spend the hour with Bolivian President Evo Morales. He is here in New York for meetings at the United Nations and the Organization of American States.

President Morales told reporters Monday that he hoped to see improved diplomatic and trade relations with the United States under President-elect Obama. Bolivia’s first indigenous president noted the significance of the first African American being elected to the White House and said they “had a lot of things in common if we are talking about change.”

Relations between the United States and Bolivia have deteriorated in recent months. Last month, the Bush administration suspended long-term trade benefits with Bolivia over its alleged failure to cooperate in the “war on drugs.”

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The Andean Trade Preference Act allows us to suspend trade preferences with countries that do not live up to their promises. And unfortunately, Bolivia has failed to cooperate with the United States on important efforts to fight drug trafficking. So, sadly, I have proposed to suspend Bolivia’s trade preferences until it fulfills its obligations.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Meanwhile, Morales spoke out about this earlier this month and gave the Drug Enforcement Administration three months to leave Bolivia. He accused DEA agents of violating Bolivian sovereignty and encouraging the drug trade.

This Monday, President Morales told reporters at the United Nations he would never permit the US anti-drug agency back into his country. He said he would launch a new intelligence operation to stop trafficking, as well as campaign to remove the coca leaf from the UN list of prohibited drugs. Bolivia is the third largest producer of coca, after Colombia and Peru. The United States is the world’s largest cocaine consumer.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now here in our firehouse studio by the Bolivian president, Evo Morales. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: First, you come here after the election of the first African American president of the United States. You are the first indigenous leader of Bolivia. What is your message to President-elect Obama?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, I thank you for the interview. I feel that the world goes round and round. Three or four years ago, it would be impossible to think that a peasant president would be there. Nevertheless, the awareness of the Bolivian people keeps on growing. All the excluded people, all the marginalized people, the most abandoned people in the history of Bolivia have a president now.

And I feel the same thing is happening in the US. According to the information we do have, our brothers, our Afro-American brothers, and Afro-Americans, whatever you call them, they were excluded. And the struggle on this sector has been so important. So there is a growth in the integration of our people. I feel that is what I would say about a brother, as Mr. Obama, as president of the US.

In the same way, in Latin American, women who were excluded had no right to be president. Now we have two women who are presidents, in Argentina and in Chile. And these two presidents are the expression of a plural national state. Fathers of the Catholic Church, Catholics, women, workers—that is Latin America. And now, we have a president—and excuse me if this is offensive, but black. And this is proof of the diversity we have in America. But what is coming, maybe it will be very different, but maybe we can complement each other to look for equality among people, people who are here on Mother Earth.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, in the waning months of the Bush administration, relations between Bolivia and the United States have gotten worse. You asked the ambassador, the US ambassador, to leave the country, and now you have suspended relations with the DEA. How do you see—why do you see this getting so bad between the United States and Bolivia? And what’s your expectation under the new administration?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Our government, our culture has a very close relationship with human beings. We are the culture of dialogue. But we also saw in the presence of the ambassador of the US as a constant conspiracy. And I remember that I talked to you, and I actually denounced the ambassador, because he used to call me the Andean bin Laden. And the coca growers, he used to call them Taliban. That’s when I was a leader, and I was a candidate for the presidency. Permamently, from the State Department of the US, I have been accused of being a drug trafficker and a terrorist. And even now that I’m president, that continues on on the part of the embassy. I know it does not come from the American people.

I need ambassadors who are diplomats and that if there’s a possibility to cooperate, that they cooperate. If they have the possibility of doing good business, they should do it, but also that Bolivia would benefit it. But we don’t need aggression, conspiracies. Unfortunately, the financial resources that come from the US—they talk about corporation, that corporation really is financing destabilization. And so, that makes us want to be respected as a country.

Well, secondly, talking about the DEA, already during in the ’90s, the ex-commander or leader of the armed forces—his name was Moreira—he requested exclusion, that the DEA be excluded. Why? Because they didn’t respect the national police or the armed forces of my country, and they wanted to divide with others or conquer certain loyalties in the national police. I, personally, I’ve been a victim of the DEA, because sometimes they even protected drug traffickers. If they really fought against drug trafficking, it would be very different.

And when they do an operation against drugs, it’s always with political ends. When I was a representative and we had the proper documentation, they asked Evo the information about—personal information about Evo Morales and also the MAS officers. The DEA investigated directly the financial entities. Since they couldn’t find anything, they kept quiet. Once, a reporter from the newspaper called Opinion in Cochabamba told me, not publicly, just in person, that he had talked to the DEA, and the DEA were really doing investigations, but just with political ends. And that newspaper man told me that “the DEA investigated you, and they didn’t find anything.” And lately, when I was already in the government, but when the communications were in hands of the telecom company from Italy, a team of the DEA were listening phone calls to be able to spy on me. This is a political thing. And that is why that happened.

So by talking about drug-trafficking, the fight against that, I mean, this is the most advanced things in Bolivia, because we are talking about the coca growing and the confiscation of the shipments. And so, when we declared persona non grata the US ambassador, we—they say we are protecting, but that is not the culture of the indigenous people—drugs—but we want to reduce, with compensation—well, if we don’t do it the proper way, it’s not going to be any good.

And our proposal has been very clear. There is not going to be zero coca leaves growing. Therefore, we have to actually control the coca growing, but we have a very small portion, per family. It’s forty meters by forty meters—it’s not very big—per family. It’s very, very small. It’s just like the backyard of anybody’s house. And that will allow us to have a self-control, the social control. Even though we do have promise, this is how we are fighting. And we will fight drug trafficking with or without the help of the US, because this is an obligation my government has to fight against the evil that it happens, it causes on human beings.

AMY GOODMAN: So you’ll never let the Drug Enforcement agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration back in?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] We are getting organized, and we are actually setting up a national intelligence in collaboration with our neighbors Argentina, Chile, Brazil. And that way, the fight against drug trafficking is going to be more effective, but it’s going to be something that has a political element into it. If we don’t permit the DEA to come back, that doesn’t mean we’ll break relationships with the US.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. He’s joining us in our firehouse studio for the hour. Stay with us.

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest for the hour is the President of Bolivia, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, Evo Morales. He is here in New York. I wanted to ask you about this unprecedented meeting that took place in September, led by the presidents of Argentina and Chile, took place in Chile, as the crisis in Bolivia was deepening. You were accusing the right-wing opposition governors of staging a violent—attempting to stage a coup against you, a violent coup. A number of peasants were killed there in Bolivia. Do you think the United States was involved with this?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Well, from the time I was sworn in as president of the republic in 2006, the opposition continually tried to stop my presidency. During the first few months, they said, “Oh, poor little Indian,” that “he’s going to be four, five, six months as president, and then he’s going to leave. He’s not going to be able to lead, to be in the government.” Nevertheless, a year went by, and I was still president. I gave my speech to the Bolivian people.

And from that time on, what did the opposition do? They said, “We think that this Indian is going to stay here for a long time. We have to do something.” That something is like, get him out. In the financial and political issues, with false arguments that I was going to end with private property in Bolivia, they tried constantly to wear me down.

AMY GOODMAN: Who is they?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The opposition, the right-wing parties, the fascists and the racists, the rest of the neoliberalism.

And since they couldn’t do anything, well, they also realized with a dirty campaign against Evo Morales, they wanted a hard vote against Evo Morales. And this year in September or October, they decided to do a civil coup, a violent coup, even though last year a commander of the armed forces announced publicly that they wanted to use the armed forces for a military coup.

But this year, what are they doing? These opposition groups, first of all, they try to overtake the national police. They couldn’t do it. They hit the members of the armed forces, they attacked them. But they couldn’t occupy the headquarters. But they did—they were able to secure some airports in the eastern part of the country, so that when the president and the ministers had to use those airports, they couldn’t use it. And they overtook more than sixty communities in Tarija and other places. And this is terrorism. They bring guns. They destroyed gas tax between Bolivia and Brazil. So that is really messing up the patrimony of the state, really.

Finally, there was a reaction of the peasant movement to recuperate INRA, which is the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, the offices. It has the charge of actually giving back the land to the indigenous people and to the peasants. And then there was a massacre. Look, they tried to occupy and take over the armed forces [inaudible]—that is sedition—and then to take the national patrimony and to burn gas. And this is terrorism. And as UNASUL declare, that there was a massacre in Pando, and this is genocide. We went through that.

But in those three aspects, you can see that there was an attempted coup that didn’t succeed. And I want to salute that, and that is the reason why I’m here in the US. I want to express my respect to the international community, because everybody condemned the coup against democracy to the rule of law, but—everybody but the US, but the ambassador of the US. It’s incredible.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, I’d like to ask you, in previous visits, we’ve talked about the long struggle to craft a new constitution for Bolivia. And our understanding now is it’s finally been crafted and that it will go to a referendum in January. What are your expectations on this referendum? And what does the new constitution signify for Bolivia?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I feel a great optimism, because we suffered a lot of discrimination, and they have called me monkey, animal, not capable of anything. And I don’t think that they have treated [President-elect] Obama the same way they treated Morales, by the opposition. Because I feel this optimism, I think we are going to succeed with the new constitution that will guarantee a united Bolivia, with guarantees for the people and a plural national state with everybody—black, white, mixed breeds, indigenous people—they are going to be united. And the law is going to include a plurality for people. It will guarantee private property, collective communal property, and also state property that belongs to the people, such as the state companies, such as the hydrocarbon industry.

But also, the new constitution will allow the Bolivian state—rather, that we are not going to allow any settlement of any military base on Bolivian soil. We will not. And we also renounce to declaring war against any of our neighbors, because war is not good for any country in any part of the world.

And the most important thing is that public services—water, telephone, energy, electricity—this is a human right. And so, it has to be a public service and not a private business.

Yes, we can talk about a lot of social achievements and civil liberties, and so on and so forth, and equality between men and women, but according some experts, this new constitution is one of the most advanced constitutions socially.

And for the first time in Bolivian history—200 years of republican life, we’ve had—this draft law will be either approved or rejected by the people, by Bolivians. We had twenty different constitutions, but just a few, a few families, a few politicians were ruling. And they didn’t take into consideration the Bolivian people. We will have a referendum, and it will be either rejected or approved, but it will be with awareness through the vote and not through violence, as it happened before with the fascist and racist groups.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to go to break again, but when we come back, I want to ask you about the G20 summit and what is called here “free trade.” This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We’re talking to the President of Bolivia—he’s here in New York in our firehouse studio—Evo Morales. Stay with us.

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest for the hour is the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. The G20 summit that’s just taken place in Washington, what are your thoughts on it?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Well, finally, everybody has a right to get together, to meet. But if we are talking about a financial crisis, all countries should actually be there, and it also should be talked about at the UN. If there was a meeting of the G20, I can imagine that they are the only ones who are responsible for the financial crisis, so they have to meet, because they are responsible. Well, as I say, we all have the right to meet in groups, but this is a world problem. And the government of the US and the president of the assembly should actually call for a meeting to listen to everybody and to find solutions all together to the problem.

And according to the measures that the G20 decide upon, they are investing millions and millions of dollars, but these millions only go to the people who caused the crisis, not to the people that need the money. So, those millions of dollars should go to the victims and not to the people who caused the crisis. And so, the people that had mortgages, who couldn’t pay, or loans, or people who lost their employment, I am sure that everybody would think that it would be better that the G20 would do otherwise. I think it’s important not only that the different states participate in this financial crisis. Otherwise, there should be like an authority that will be above nationalities, above the nations that will decide.

So, Bolivia is going to be affected how? Well, the prices of our natural resources are going to go down and also many remittances. But we are ready to face this crisis, this financial crisis, and we will overcome this problem of trade, because the state is an entity that regulates the national economy and not the free market. Besides that, an important question when I became president, the reserves for the Bolivian treasury was $1,700,000. And right now, we have $8 billion. Between 2004, 2005, and in 2004, the reserves were never more than $1 billion in Bolivia. In a little bit of time, we have improved. So this gives us security that we can face this very deep financial crisis.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What do you see this crisis that started in the United States and Britain and other European countries—what does it say about the economic model that the United States has been pressing on the rest of the world now for several decades?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Well, the present models in place are not a good solution for humanity, for human beings, because it’s based on injustice and inequality. And that’s why I think there is a rebellion in Latin America against that model, that business model. Trade which is actually posed by the International Trade Organization is not a good solution either. According to my experience in my country, it is important to have the state present to overlook not only in social issues, but basically also looking into structural issues. In summary, I want to tell you that the neoliberalism is no solution for humankind, because it’s not viable.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In that vein, Argentina recently decided to nationalize the private pensions that had been developed for many of its workers, something that was not looked upon well by the financial community here in the United States. Do you see Latin American leaders going more in the direction of nationalizing resources that were sold off in previous decades?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Yes, we started nationalizing in Bolivia the hydrocarbons, for example. That doesn’t mean that the investors are going to lose their investment. As a state, we need partners, but we don’t want them to be owners of our resources. The national government guarantees that the investment can be recovered, but also we have to watch how much of that is recovered.

We also nationalized Entel, which is the telecommunications company. It was in the hands of a transnational. This company invested only where there was more population and to be able to have a lot of clients. But this is a human right. Communication is a human right, as I was saying before. You have to go into the rural areas. It doesn’t matter if you lose money, because we have to give them telecommunications.

And I feel that this process will continue on, because just I’m talking about natural resources and basic services. We want the presence of the state or the different states in social issues and structural issues. But it’s important to have the participation of the state nationalizing different companies or entities.

AMY GOODMAN: President Morales, many saw the election in the United States of Barack Obama as a kind of global election. What do you think is the single most important thing President Obama can do?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I cannot tell him anything or advise. Well, I think that this is a democracy, and this president has been elected through the vote through the people. And I repeat what I said a few moments ago. The same way as I was talking about the discrimination and offenses that I suffered, in the history of Bolivia, the indigenous movement has kept going on, but it has been always the sector that has been the most humiliated and that suffered the most.

In the past, also here, the Afro-American movement suffered great discrimination. And now, since we have a president as we have, maybe this group won’t be discriminated against. I say that because I have gone through that same experience, because in Bolivia there are some groups who think that indigenous people cannot govern, they cannot be presidents. They think that they are the only ones who went to school and that are prepared to rule, to dominate.

AMY GOODMAN: In terms of attitude to Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela, the President of the United States?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I hope enormously that relations can be improved. I hope that the US, with President-elect, will end the trade blockade. I hope that our relations will improve and that journalists will be able to help us and will be able to go deeper into the issues. We want to complement each other to serve our people. We all need each other. What is good for the people is good for the states. So we have a certain hope for our people, because of the elections that will favor the most discriminated-upon segments of the population.

UAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask you, in today’s New York Times, influential paper here in the United States, calls for the Congress to approve a free trade agreement with Colombia. Your sense of how these free trade agreements have been operating in Latin America?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Any country has a freedom to sign a free trade agreement with any other country. Each region, each nation is different. For Bolivia, this is not a solution, a free trade policy. Trade is important, but we want a fair trade that will allow to solve poverty, that will favor the most poor segments of society. And we also are working on collective companies and also small companies and medium companies. And sometimes we actually have also the collaboration of people who work in these types of businesses. If, for some people, free trade agreements are the solution, well, test time will actually show whether it was good or it was bad. But I can talk about my country. My country, even the agro-industrial people, about five or seven years ago, they were actually protesting against the free importation of goods.

AMY GOODMAN: You are headed from here, New York, today to Washington. You’ll go to the Lincoln Monument. You will be honoring Dr. King there, Dr. Martin Luther King. Why?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] I want to honor my brothers, the movement, the Afro-American movement. I have the obligation to honor the people who preceded us, the ones who fought for the respect of human rights and rights in general.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us. We have been joined for the hour by the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales.