Securing US Control over Socotra Island & Gulf of Aden

The American component of the Greater Afghan War is Operation Enduring Freedom, which takes in Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Djibouti, which hosts some 2,500 U.S. military personnel in the Pentagon’s first permanent base in Africa, is also the headquarters of the U.S.’s Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), set up in 2001 several months before Operation Enduring Freedom and overlapping with it in many respects. The CJTF-HOA, based in the French military base of Camp Lemonier, was transferred from the Pentagon’s Central Command to its Africa Command on October 1, 2008 when AFRICOM was formally activated.

Its area of responsibility includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. Its areas of interest are Comoros, Mauritius, and Madagascar. The last three are, like Seychelles, island nations in the Indian Ocean.

The U.S. expanded Camp Lemonier to five times its original size in 2006 and troops from all branches of the U.S. armed services “use the base when not working ‘downrange’ in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen.”

The permanent stationing of U.S. military forces in Seychelles is part of a pattern in recent years of basing American troops to man missile batteries, interceptor missile radar sites, air bases, counterinsurgency forward bases and other installations in countries where their presence would have been inconceivable even a few years ago: Afghanistan, Colombia, Bulgaria, Djibouti, Iraq, Israel,
Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Poland and Romania. A report of January 7 claims that the U.S. plans to establish an air base in Yemen in the Socotra archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways
Securing US Control over Socotra Island and the Gulf of Aden
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, October 30, 2019

The article sheds light on America’s unspoken military agenda: the control over strategic waterways.

In the last two years the island of Socotra (which belongs to Yemen) has been taken over by the UAE. 

In May 2018, acting as a US proxy, the UAE established a military base on the island, seizing control of both Socotra’s airport and seaport.

It is unlikely that the UAE will be able to maintain their position on Socotra.

Michel Chossudovsky, October 30, 2019

***

“Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene.” (US Navy Geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayus Mahan (1840-1914))

The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres South of the Yemeni coastline. The islands of Socotra are a wildlife reserve recognized by (UNESCO), as a World Natural Heritage Site.

Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (See map below). It is of crucial importance to the US military.

Among Washington’s strategic objectives is the militarization of major sea ways. This strategic waterway links the Mediterranean to South Asia and the Far East, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

It is a major transit route for oil tankers. A large share of China’s industrial exports to Western Europe transits through this strategic waterway. Maritime trade from East and Southern Africa to Western Europe also transits within proximity of Socotra (Suqutra), through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. (see map below). A military base in Socotra could be used to oversee the movement of vessels including war ships in an out of the Gulf of Aden.

    “The [Indian] Ocean is a major sea lane connecting the Middle East, East Asia and Africa with Europe and the Americas. It has four crucial access waterways facilitating international maritime trade, that is the Suez Canal in Egypt, Bab-el-Mandeb (bordering Djibouti and Yemen), Straits of Hormuz (bordering Iran and Oman), and Straits of Malacca (bordering Indonesia and Malaysia). These ‘chokepoints’ are critical to world oil trade as huge amounts of oil pass through them.” (Amjed Jaaved, A new hot-spot of rivalry, Pakistan Observer, July 1, 2009)

Sea Power

From a military standpoint, the Socotra archipelago is at a strategic maritime crossroads. Morever, the archipelago extends over a relatively large maritime area at the Eastern exit of the Gulf of Aden, from the island of Abd al Kuri, to the main island of Socotra. (See map 1 above and 2b below) This maritime area of international transit lies in Yemeni territorial waters. The objective of the US is to police the entire Gulf of Aden seaway from the Yemeni to Somalian coastline. (See map 1).

Socotra is some 3000 km from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, which is among America’s largest overseas military facilities.

The Socotra Military Base

On January 2nd, 2010, President Saleh and General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command met for high level discussions behind closed doors.

The Saleh-Petraeus meeting was casually presented by the media as a timely response to the foiled Detroit Christmas bomb attack on Northwest flight 253. It had apparently been scheduled on an ad hoc basis as a means to coordinating counter-terrorism initiatives directed against “Al Qaeda in Yemen”, including “the use [of] American drones and missiles on Yemen lands.”

Several reports, however, confirmed that the Saleh-Petraeus meetings were intent upon redefining US military involvement in Yemen including the establishment of a full-fledged military base on the island of Socotra. Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh was reported to have “surrendered Socotra for Americans who would set up a military base, pointing out that U.S. officials and the Yemeni
government agreed to set up a military base in Socotra to counter pirates and al-Qaeda.” (Fars News. January 19, 2010)

On January 1st, one day before the Saleh-Petraeus meetings in Sanaa, General Petraeus confirmed in a Baghdad press conference that “security assistance” to Yemen would more than double from 70 million to more than 150 million dollars, which represents a 14 fold increase since 2006. (Scramble for the Island of Bliss: Socotra!, War in Iraq, January 12, 2010. See also CNN January 9, 2010, The
Guardian, December 28, 2009).

This doubling of military aid to Yemen was presented to World public opinion as a response to the Detroit bomb incident, which allegedly had been ordered by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

The establishment of an air force base on the island of Socotra was described by the US media as part of the “Global war on Terrorism”:

 “Among the new programs, Saleh and Petraeus agreed to allow the use of American aircraft, perhaps drones, as well as “seaborne missiles”–as long as the operations have prior approval from the Yemenis, according to a senior Yemeni official who requested anonymity when speaking about sensitive subjects. U.S. officials say the island of Socotra, 200 miles off the Yemeni coast, will be
beefed up from a small airstrip [under the jurisdiction of the Yemeni military] to a full base in order to support the larger aid program as well as battle Somali pirates. Petraeus is also trying to provide the Yemeni forces with basic equipment such as up-armored Humvees and possibly more helicopters.” (Newsweek,  Newsweek, January 18, 2010, emphasis added)

US Naval Facility?

The proposed US Socotra military facility, however, is not limited to an air force base. A US naval base has also been contemplated.

The development of Socotra’s naval infrastructure was already in the pipeline. Barely a few days prior (December 29, 2009) to the Petraeus-Saleh discussions (January 2, 2010), the Yemeni cabinet approved a US$14 million loan by Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) in support of the development of Socotra’s seaport project.

The Great Game

The Socotra archipelago is part of the Great Game opposing Russia and America.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had a military presence in Socotra, which at the time was part of South Yemen.

Barely a year ago, the Russians entered into renewed discussions with the Yemeni government regarding the establishment of a Naval base on Socotra island. A year later, in January 2010, in the week following the Petraeus-Saleh meeting, a Russian Navy communiqué “confirmed that Russia did not give up its plans to have bases for its ships… on Socotra island.” (DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia), January 25, 2010)

The Petraeus-Saleh January 2, 2010 discussions were crucial in weakening Russian diplomatic overtures to the Yemeni government.

The US military has had its eye on the island of Socotra since the end of the Cold War.

In 1999, Socotra was chosen “as a site upon which the United States planned to build a signal intelligence system….” Yemeni opposition news media reported that “Yemen’s administration had agreed to allow the U.S. military access to both a port and an airport on Socotra.” According to the opposition daily Al-Haq, “a new civilian airport built on Socotra to promote tourism had
conveniently been constructed in accordance with U.S. military specifications.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania), October 18, 2000)

The Militarization of the Indian Ocean

The establishment of a US military base in Socotra is part of the broader process of militarization of the Indian Ocean. The latter consists in integrating and linking Socotra into an existing structure as well as reinforcing the key role played by  the Diego Garcia military base in the Chagos archipelago.

The US Navy’s geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan had intimated, prior to First World War, that “whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean [will] be a prominent player on the international scene.”.(Indian Ocean and our Security).

What was at stake in Rear Admiral Mahan’s writings was the strategic control by the US of major Ocean sea ways and of the Indian Ocean in particular: “This ocean is the key to the seven seas in the twenty-first century; the destiny of the world will be decided in these waters.”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/yemen-and-the-militarization-of-strategic-waterways-2/17460

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal,  which hosts the award winning website: www.globalresearch.ca . He is the author of the international best-seller “The Globalisation of Poverty and The New World Order”. He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, Germany. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

Will UK ever apologize for atrocities to colonies?

Perhaps a wishful thinking...

What would it take for the UK to apologize for centuries of atrocities carried out under the British Empire?
Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT : 10 Oct, 2019

Any objective historian would concede that the British government has a centuries-long list of atrocities that it must one day apologize for. To this day, the British Empire has struggled with the notion of righting past wrongs.

The British government made a rare move last week: it expressed regret for the killing of Maori in New Zealand in 1769. When Captain James Cook “discovered” New Zealand, it wasn’t long before local Maori people were being attacked and killed by Cook and his band of merry men.

To be fair, the government only took this step because it wanted to push ahead with a government-funded commemoration of Cook’s initial landing, including replicating his sailing ship with an accompanying flotilla. In fact, New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters (who has Maori ancestry, mind you), suggested that Maori had their own share of the blame.

Captain Cook and his gang didn’t just kill innocent natives. As my good friend and former rugby star Eliota Sapolu points out regularly, the captain took native Polynesian women as sexual slaves. Perhaps rejecting the commemoration of people who commit such acts is actually not a bad idea.

The British Empire spanned far and wide, often at the expense of the basic rights of the local populations that fell under British rule. So much so, that you would be hard-pressed to Google search a country and find that the British hadn’t interfered extensively in that neighborhood.

In South Africa, the British rounded up approximately one sixth of the Boer population (allegedly, the majority of whom were women and children) and detained them in camps during the Second Boer War. More than 22,000 of the 27,927 detainees who died were under the age of 16, while an unknown number of black Africans were also killed.

The Second Boer War was also infamous for Britain’s use of its devastating scorched earth policy, which saw it destroy farms and civilian homes to break the Boer’s resolve.

British forces also held thousands of Kenyans in camps during the 1950s Mau Mau Uprising, this particular event rife with allegations of sexual assault, rape and torture.

And when it comes to recognized and esteemed figures whose legacies would be better suited for review in The Hague, Great Britain certainly has an abundance of them. Winston Churchill’s international reign of terror as British prime minister comes to mind.

Churchill’s rule is mired with an incredulous amount of bloodshed.

In 1921, Churchill launched a massive bombing tirade to counter unrest in Mesopotamia, allegedly cancelling out the existence of a village within 45 minutes (perhaps the world record). He also said, “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilized tribes; it would spread a lively terror.”

Yes, indeed it would. We call this terror a war crime.

Among his eclectic list of crimes, Churchill also called for the gassing of local Indians, who he aptly termed “a beastly people with a beastly religion.” With this racist logic, he successfully starved 4 million Bengalis to death, all the while blaming the locals for their plight for “breeding like rabbits.”

Speaking of India, British troops also once opened fire until they ran out of ammunition against a number of peaceful protesters, possibly killing 1,000 protesters and injuring 1,100 more. The brigadier in charge was treated as a hero by the British public, who donated £26,000 to say thank you.

In South Africa, the British rounded up approximately one sixth of the Boer population (allegedly, the majority of whom were women and children) and detained them in camps during the Second Boer War. More than 22,000 of the 27,927 detainees who died were under the age of 16, while an unknown number of black Africans were also killed.

The Second Boer War was also infamous for Britain’s use of its devastating scorched earth policy, which saw it destroy farms and civilian homes to break the Boer’s resolve.

British forces also held thousands of Kenyans in camps during the 1950s Mau Mau Uprising, this particular event rife with allegations of sexual assault, rape and torture.

And when it comes to recognized and esteemed figures whose legacies would be better suited for review in The Hague, Great Britain certainly has an abundance of them. Winston Churchill’s international reign of terror as British prime minister comes to mind.

Churchill’s rule is mired with an incredulous amount of bloodshed.

In 1921, Churchill launched a massive bombing tirade to counter unrest in Mesopotamia, allegedly cancelling out the existence of a village within 45 minutes (perhaps the world record). He also said, “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilized tribes; it would spread a lively terror.”

Yes, indeed it would. We call this terror a war crime.

Among his eclectic list of crimes, Churchill also called for the gassing of local Indians, who he aptly termed “a beastly people with a beastly religion.” With this racist logic, he successfully starved 4 million Bengalis to death, all the while blaming the locals for their plight for “breeding like rabbits.”

Speaking of India, British troops also once opened fire until they ran out of ammunition against a number of peaceful protesters, possibly killing 1,000 protesters and injuring 1,100 more. The brigadier in charge was treated as a hero by the British public, who donated £26,000 to say thank you.

Fast forward some decades later and the arrogance of the violent chess game played by the remnants of the British Empire continues even to this day. Prior to the NATO onslaught of Libya, the North African nation had the highest standard of living on the entire continent. Now it is a terrorist safe-haven; a lawless failed state where slaves are sold like commodities.

When then-Prime Minister David Cameron announced the success of the use of violent force in Libya in 2011, he told the world it was “necessary, legal and right.”

“It was necessary because Gaddafi was going to slaughter his own people - and that massacre of thousands of innocent people was averted,” Cameron famously stated. “Legal, because we secured a Resolution from the United Nations, and have always acted according

to that Resolution. And right, because the Libyan people deserve to shape their own future, just as the people of Egypt and Tunisia are now doing.”

None of those points are correct. We already know that Muammar Gaddafi was embroiled in a battle with extremist jihadists who had fought against the British in Iraq. (These militias would eventually become ISIS). The idea that Gaddafi was massacring civilians for no apparent reason has been heavily disputed. Besides, the British government at the time had an interestingly cozy relationship with the Libyan regime and helped to capture Gaddafi’s opponents who were later sent back to Libya and tortured. The “no-fly zone” resolution did not authorise the removal of Gaddafi by force.

So no – it wasn’t legal, it wasn’t necessary and certainly wasn’t right.

The destabilization of Libya and the flow of arms following Gaddafi’s death helped prop up terror groups across the region, including Boko Haram in Nigeria.

The British have a history of destroying entire regions and justifying their actions with the same colonial mindspeak that they have always used. Centuries later, the best they can muster is a statement of “regret” – a meaningless gesture void of any meaning.

When you remove yourself from your bubble you realise how the rest of the world views the legacies you have left in your wake. A phrase I often hear while talking to people of different nationalities is “the British have a lot to answer for.” I recall one Iraqi friend telling me that in their part of the world, it is not necessarily the Americans who are despised the most, but the British.

The Iranian people, for example, can recall a CIA-backed coup in 1953 which removed their democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosadegh, and changed the nation’s entire course of history. I haven’t met a single Iranian who is in denial about Britain’s central role in this operation.

This is from the Guardian, a British newspaper:

“Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded.”

The Guardian noted: “US officials have previously expressed regret about the coup but have fallen short of issuing an official apology. The British government has never acknowledged its role.”

Forget asking for apologies, there are some crimes that the British will just flat-out ignore.

Before the gatekeepers attack me for being anti-British (if that is such a thing), I will just point out that I am in fact a British citizen, born and raised in the United Kingdom. I am also fortunate enough to have New Zealand citizenship. But life isn’t a sports game; I am not required to pick teams. Both the British government and the New Zealand government have a good share of deeds to
acknowledge and apologize for – that’s just an objective truth, whether we like it or not.

The British certainly have a lot to answer for, and as a British person I can say this quite comfortably without feeling as though I have shot myself in the foot. At the end of the day, a nation battling a rising right-wing and anti-immigrant hysteria would do well to view the actions of its own government and military over the last few centuries, as it may even help tell the story of how the
current state of Britain came into being.

- - -
Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.

Broken electoral system delivers ‘win’ for Trudeau!

Scandals, RCMP, SNC Lavalin, black face, broken electoral promises and the list goes on.  Shameful.  As Mark Twain said - "Politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with age".  Maybe there is still hope for Justin Trudeau. "Black Face" wins again. Sorry Canada.

Lack of alternatives, broken electoral system delivers ‘win’ for Trudeau
RT : 22 Oct, 2019

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrates his narrow election victory as a success. Yet, in fact, he managed to stay in power largely thanks to the complicated Canadian electoral system … and a lack of competition.

“You have sent us back to Ottawa, you have given us a clear mandate,” Justin Trudeau told a crowd at his campaign headquarters in Montreal, Quebec.These aren't the words of a man who recognizes that voters stripped him of a majority, including a net loss of 30 seats in his home province.

Judging from the mood and words at Trudeau's ‘victory’ party, one could be forgiven for not knowing that his Liberals lost over 1 million votes compared to 2015, or that their share of the popular vote around the country plummeted by over 6 points.

It would be nearly impossible to know you were celebrating the win for the party that actually got the second largest number of votes!The numbers obviously tell a different story, in addition to numerous other indications from election night that show Canadians are not happy with JT.

Jody Wilson-Raybould, Trudeau's former attorney general who quit Trudeau's cabinet due to their attempts to interfere with her office’s investigation into a criminal case against Quebec-based construction company, SNC-Lavalin, ran and won as an independent. She left the Liberals in protest, and was rewarded by the electorate for her move.

The reasons behind the disenchantment with the image-obsessed Trudeau are many, well documented and often discussed. Pundits from all political stripes on election night acknowledged that Trudeau's appeal had “lost its luster,” but in spite of this, he will be returning to 24 Sussex Drive to serve a second term as Canada's prime minister.

So how is it that Canadians can be simultaneously pissed off at someone, and vote them back in? In short, the Liberals didn't exactly get voted back in.

In Canada's flawed electoral system, the Liberals won 33 percent of votes, but 46 percent of the seats. The Conservatives won 34.5 percent of the popular vote, but 37 percent of the seats and the center-left NDP, obtained just 7 percent of seats with 16 percent of votes.

Such figures, which might look confusing, are indeed a result of the Canadian electoral system dubbed ‘first past the post’. The country is divided into one-candidate constituencies known as ridings. A candidate with the highest number of votes in a riding gets a seat in parliament – and they do not even need to gain an absolute majority of votes (more than 50 percent).

Back in 2015 Trudeau said he would do away with the ‘first past the post’ system, but reneged on his pledge, precisely because it disportionately reinforces the Liberals position atop Canada's political landscape. Beyond the limits this system already puts up for people seeking alternatives to the ruling party, the other options also failed to inspire.

Sure, NDP had a good, left-populist program and a strong social media presence, especially in the later part of the campaign. However, most activists I spoke with before the election were pretty unmotivated given the party spent much of the year on the sidelines.

On the right, the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer weren't able to capitalize on a weakened and scandal-marred government in large part because much of the country doesn't want either the austerity or the sort of social policies that some conservatives push.

This played into the Liberals tried and true election fail-safe – calling for ‘strategic voting’. It works like this: Liberal activists and politicians drum up fears about the impact of Conservative policies to scare non-rightwing voters.

‘Anything But Conservative’ is then presented as a pragmatic way to ensure that a Tory government does not get elected. The votes of those swayed by the ABC mantra defaults Liberals as the most ‘viable’ option to achieve the objection of keeping out the Conservatives, in spite of the Liberals own track record or policies.

For years and at various levels of government, the Liberal Party has insidiously but successfully invoked ‘lesser-evilism’ to their benefit, and it certainly helped push the Liberals ahead in a number of key areas.

The numbers of those who couldn't be bothered to vote – due to apathy or no appealing option – also increased considerably.

So no, Justin Trudeau did not win these elections. He did not regain the trust of the voters, nor did he shed the baggage he has accumulated over the last few years.

He lost just enough to keep his job by playing the system and his opponents in spite of the obvious dissatisfaction of the populace, many of whom held their nose while they cast a ballot for him.

By Pablo Vivanco
- - -
Pablo Vivanco is a journalist and analyst specializing in politics and history in the Americas, and served as the Director of teleSUR English. Recent bylines include The Jacobin, Asia Times, The Progressive and Truthout. Follow him on Twitter@pvivancoguzman

Syrian Oil and US Troop Withdrawal - Explained

United Thieves of America.

"A supposed champion of the rule of law, the US is violating its own anti-Syrian sanctions by smuggling crude from oil fields it seized from Damascus",  " a nation that repeats ad nausea that it sticks to democratic values and rule of law in international relations, is pumping oil… under a pretense of fighting ISIL, other wise know as thief's  using double standards to try to hide there
deeds.

Not smuggles! They steal. What do you expect from descendants of British? Outside looks white but inside is darker then crude oil colour.

Nothing is surprising about this infested country. Robbery is not new for America. Stealing is the culture of most businessmen in US.

"stealing" is in the category of "being smart" in US.

So this is what Trump meant when he said 'We have secured the oil".

Does anyone really expect anything different from USA? The same people who murdered at least 60 million native Americans and stole their lands. Murder, lies and deceit has been their method right from the start.

Syrian Oil and US Troop Withdrawal, Explained
South Front, 2 November 2019

The United States is to keep forces at the oil fields in Syria despite the troops’ withdrawal from the north of the country. The formal justification of the move is the need to “deny ISIS access” to the oil fields. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that the US military is already “taking some actions” to strengthen and reinforce their position in Deir Ezzor. This, Esper said, will include “some mechanized forces”.

US military convoys already started entering Syria from Iraq and moving towards the US-controlled oil fields on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. The Pentagon provided few details regarding numbers of troops and equipment that will remain in the area. Media reports speculate that around 500 personnel reinforced with dozens of pieces of military equipment  will be stationed there. For example, Newsweek reported that the US is seeking to deploy a half of an US Army armored brigade combat team battalion that includes as many as 30 Abrams battle tanks to the oil fields. The US is also going to keep its military garrison in the al-Tanf area, on the Damascus Baghdad highway, where about 150-200 troops remain.

The version of the troops’ withdrawal from Syria that the media is trying to sell its audience says that the US is leaving the country. In reality, the US actions look more like re-deployment than withdrawal.

Firstly, the withdrawal of “a majority of 1,000 troops” is hardly possible if, at the same time, 650-700 troops are to remain in the Deir Ezzor oil fields and al-Tanf.

Secondly, the Trump administration, including the Defense Secretary, said that it was moving troops out of northern Syria, but not that they would be leaving the country. Trump himself described the withdrawal from Syria as a “process”.

Thirdly, the US military convoys which left northern Syria during the active phase of Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring for western Iraq are now returning. Dozens of US military vehicles accompanied by fuel tankers entered Syria on October 26 and 27 alone. US forces also remained deployed at the Qasrak base on the Tell Tamr-Qamishli highway.

Therefore, in the best case the US contingent is being reduced, while the rest of the forces just change their deployment area. The stance of Iraq, which at the highest level rejected the long-term presence of the US troops withdrawing from Syria to western Iraq, also played its own role. Some experts initially suggested that Washington could keep forces on the Iraqi side of the border to project military power to Syria while keeping the troop withdrawal promise at the same time. However, this plan caused too much resistance from the Iraqi government, which is already in much closer relations with Iran than the US has ever wanted.

Another factor is money. The control of a part of Syrian oil does not impact the US economy in general. However, it does open particular prospects for the US campaign in the region and gives the Trump administration additional leverages of pressure on Syria and its allies.

Before 2011, Syria had a lucrative oil industry, pumping about 400,000 barrels a day and having 2.5 billion barrels of reserves. The ensuing war and wide-scale Western sanctions devastated the country’s economy, cutting production by around 90% and forcing the Assad government to rely heavily on foreign imports of oil, mainly from Iran.

The known oil reserves are mainly in the eastern part of the country near its border with Iraq and along the Euphrates River. The largest and most mature fields are the Omar and Jbessa fields, which reportedly had production capacities of 100,000 and 200,000 barrels a day, respectively, in 2010. This is the area where the US is planning to keep its military presence. It is estimated that around 75% of Syrian oil reserves are under the direct or indirect control of the US. A number of smaller fields are located in the center of the country, which is controlled by the Syrian Army, and in the country’s northeast, which is now under the joint control of the Syrian Army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

When the SDF and the US-led coalition seized the fields, the revenue from smuggling of Syrian oil was estimated at around $10 million a month with the price of around $30 per barrel. However, thanks to assistance from companies affiliated with US intelligence agencies and private military companies the oil output and thus revenue grew significantly.

According to an October 26 report by the Russian Defense Ministry, the US military and private military contractors are now actively involved in protecting and managing oil smuggling in eastern Syria. The oil production itself is carried out using equipment provided by Western corporations bypassing all US sanctions. The oil exportation is implemented by the US-controlled company «Sedkab», created under the so-called Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria, a political body created by the SDF, when US troops were deployed in northern Syria. The income from the smuggling goes through brokerage companies interacting with various accounts of US private
military companies and US intelligence agencies. The Russian side says that the barrel cost of smuggled Syrian oil is $38 and estimates a monthly revenue for the US “business” involved in the operation of over $30 million.

The business interests of US agencies and entities involved in the operation offer more reasons for the US presence in the area. It can be expected that if the situation in this part of Syria remains unchanged, the Trump administration will indeed go forward with its withdrawal “process” and more and more US troops will be replaced by US-linked private military contractors. Meanwhile US
agencies and private military corporations will use revenue from the oil smuggling for further operations across the Middle East.

= = =

US smuggles crude worth $30mn per month from occupied Syrian oil fields, violating its own sanctions – Russian Foreign Ministry
RT : 1 Nov, 2019

A supposed champion of the rule of law, the US is violating its own anti-Syrian sanctions by smuggling crude from oil fields it seized from Damascus, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.

Each month the US smuggles crude worth $30 million out of Syria, according to Zakharova. The fuel comes from fields in the northeastern part of the country, where the US maintains a military presence after pulling its troops back from the Syrian-Turkish border.

“A nation that repeats ad nauseam that it sticks to democratic values and rule of law in international relations, is pumping oil… under a pretense of fighting ISIL,” the official said, using an outdated name for terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Oil fields in the Deir ez-Zor governorate, east of the River Euphrates, were captured by US-backed Kurdish militias as they advanced on IS forces. Washington makes no secret of the fact that it keeps an illegal military presence in the area in order to deny Damascus access to the natural resources that it has every right to possess under international law.

The US considers the Syrian government illegitimate and has used various means to attempt to topple it over the past eight years, from imposing harsh economic sanctions to arming and training whoever was willing to fight against Damascus. The fact that the US banned oil trade with Syria and is now smuggling oil out of it is particularly ironic, Zakharova said.

= = =
Trump is an honest thief among dishonest thieves.

‘I like oil!’ Trump reaffirms predatory intentions in Syria as Assad calls him ‘the best’ US president for his honesty
2 Nov, 2019

Donald Trump is not trying to hide Washington’s true policies and intentions behind doublespeak about freedom and democracy – and that makes him “the best American President,” Syrian President Bashar Assad said.

“We’ve stayed back and kept the oil,” Trump reiterated on Friday, reaffirming the main US interest in Syria and making clear that all less immediately lucrative endeavors like keeping peace and reconstructing the devastated country should be taken care of by someone else. “Other people can patrol the border of Syria... let them – they’ve been fighting for a thousand years.”

Trump’s remarkably blunt approach was commended by Syria’s Assad, who noted in a recent interview that Nobel Peace Prize laureate presidents always pose as the “defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values,” rather than “criminals who represent the interests of American lobbies.”

    He is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president… What can be better than an honest enemy?

While giving Trump credit for not mincing words, Assad noted that the crumbling moral high ground facade only reveals what’s always been there.

    This is the reality of American policy... All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of political atrocities and crimes…

Oil fields in the Deir ez-Zor governorate, east of the River Euphrates, were captured by US-backed Kurdish militias as they advanced on Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist forces. After pulling its ‘advisers’ back from the Syrian-Turkish border, Washington has made no secret of the fact that it keeps an illegal military presence in the area in order to deny Damascus access to its natural
resources.

According to Russia’s estimates, each month the US smuggles crude worth $30 million out of Syria – not only in violation of international law but, ironically, also in breach of its own unilateral sanctions against the war-ravaged state.

= = =

US ‘pullout’ from Syria looking more like permanent occupation with 800 troops reportedly tasked to ‘protect’ oil
RT : 6 Nov, 2019

The long-awaited US pullout from Syria appears to have been postponed, with Pentagon sources claiming some 800 troops will stay behind to “guard” Syria’s oil, in a mission even pro-war US politicians are calling “reckless.”

US troops will occupy a large, oil-rich area stretching 150km from Deir ez-Zor to al-Hasakah, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday. A total of about 800 troops will be stationed in the country, with some 600 in the Kurdish-controlled northeast plus the 200 currently garrisoned at al-Tanf in the south, anonymous administration officials told the AP.

The decision appears to cancel out President Donald Trump’s promise made last month to bring home the 1,000 troops stationed in Syria, representing another triumph of the hawks in his administration over the president’s non-interventionist impulses. Trump has repeatedly bragged “We’re keeping the oil.”

The explicit purpose of the occupation - guarding the Kurdish-controlled oil fields in northeast Syria not only from terrorists, but from the Syrian government - is illegal under international law, as Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin pointed out on Tuesday. Even American politicians who were previously champing at the bit for Trump to keep troops in Syria have criticized the move. They point out that the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force - the post-9/11 resolutions that have been stretched to justify invasions of several countries under the guise of “fighting terrorism” - don’t allow the US to occupy another country’s oil fields, given that the US is not at war with Turkey or (officially, at least) Syria.

The US is building two new military bases in Deir ez-Zor, according to Turkish media reports, indicating Trump is settling in for the long haul. One base, near the town of Rmelan in al-Hasakah province, is reportedly situated near some 1,300 oil wells and fills up approximately 4 square km.

Officials told the AP that the order’s approval does not include a “mandate” to take Syria’s oil, while Defense Secretary Mark Esper attempted to smooth out the president’s words to that effect by saying he “interprets” them to mean US troops are guarding Syria’s resources from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) - even though the president has declared the terror group defeated.

Trump announced troops would be pulled out of northeast Syria last month, allowing Turkey to clear the border area of the Kurdish militias Ankara considers terrorists. The president's critics in Washington recoiled at the prospect of peace, slamming Trump for abandoning the US' Kurdish allies, even when his administration negotiated a cease-fire with Turkey that gave Kurdish forces several days to clear the area and cleared the way for Russia and Turkey to reach a peaceful settlement of their own.

Switzerland & United States are the world’s most corrupt nations

No wonder the "neutral" Switzerland piles up hundreds of NGOs filling their pockets with "donations". The bastion of justice is indeed the ultimate repository of wealth stolen worldwide.

About USA it was not a secret.. The US gouvernement under Obama said it clearly that they wanted to  bring all the money to the US...

They attacked Switzerland banking system with the law suit against UBS..  nothing new !!

The devil is in the details: Tax havens become absolutely ethical when they serve to reduce the burden on the citizens of corrupt governments who coerce tax money from people -at threat of incarceration- in order to transfer a large percentage of that tax money to politicians and cronies by various kickback schemes, one of them being criminal and deadly wars of aggression, fought to grab
resources for private corporations.

Switzerland & United States are the world’s most corrupt nations – report
RT : 5 Feb, 2018

A new study from advocacy group Tax Justice Network reveals that Switzerland is the world’s most-corrupt country, with a “high secrecy score of 76.” It’s followed by the US and the Cayman Islands.

“Switzerland is the grandfather of the world’s tax havens, one of the world’s largest offshore financial centers, and one of the world’s biggest secrecy jurisdictions or tax havens,” said the group’s report ‘Financial Secrecy Index — 2018 Results’.

It explained that “the Swiss will exchange information with rich countries if they have to, but will continue offering citizens of poorer countries the opportunity to evade their taxpaying responsibilities.

“These factors, along with ongoing aggressive pursuit of financial sector whistleblowers (resorting at times to what appear to be non-legal methods) are ongoing reminders of why Switzerland remains the most important secrecy jurisdiction in the world today,” said the report.

The index ranks countries for the assistance their legal systems provide to money-launderers, and to all people who seek to protect corruptly-obtained wealth. The higher the secrecy score, the more corrupt the government is.

In order to create the index, a secrecy score is combined with a figure representing the size of the offshore financial services industry in each country.

According to the report, the United States’ secrecy score (60) is rising, which results in attracting corrupt wealth. In 2013, the US was in the sixth place, and in 2015 it took the third in the rating.

“The continued rise of the US in the 2018 index comes off the back of a significant change in the US share of the global market for offshore financial services. Between 2015 and 2018 the US increased its market share in offshore financial services by 14 percent,” said the report. In total the US accounts for 22.3 percent of the global market in offshore financial services.

“The US provides a wide array of secrecy and tax-free facilities for non-residents, both at a Federal level and at the level of individual states.”

The report added that “Financial secrecy provided by the US has caused untold harm to the ordinary citizens of foreign countries, whose elites have used the United States as a bolt-hole for looted wealth.”

Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Germany, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and Guernsey closed out the top-10 most corrupt countries.

The least corrupt nations among the 112 covered in the rating were San Marino, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Montserrat.

The countries with the lowest secrecy score were UK (42) and Slovenia (42), Belgium (44), Sweden (45), Lithuania (47), Italy (49) and Brazil (49).

= = =

EU has 'whitewashed' Switzerland, one of the 'world's most harmful tax havens' - Oxfam
RT : 10 Oct, 2019

The European Union has removed seven countries from its list of tax havens, the bloc’s finance ministers announced on Thursday. They include Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and five other countries.

Brussels set up a blacklist and a gray list of tax havens in December 2017, following revelations of widespread avoidance schemes used by corporations and wealthy individuals to lower their tax bills. Blacklisted countries face reputational damage and stricter controls on transactions with the EU.

The largest financial center on the blacklist, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was removed after it adopted new rules on offshore structures in September.

The Gulf state charges no corporate taxes, making it a potential target for firms seeking to avoid paying tax in the countries where they actually operate.

The EU does not automatically add countries that don’t charge tax - which can be a sign of being a tax haven - to its blacklist, but it requested the UAE introduce rules that would allow only companies with a real economic activity there to be incorporated in order to reduce the risks of tax dodging.

The Marshall Islands has also been removed from the blacklist, which still includes nine extra-EU jurisdictions - mostly Pacific islands with few financial relations with the EU.

Switzerland, one of the EU's close trading partners, had been on the gray list. According to the EU, the nation has "delivered on its commitments" to prevent it from being a tax haven and is now off the list.

Albania, Costa Rica, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and Serbia have also been removed from the gray list, with around 30 jurisdictions remaining on it.

Countries on the gray list risk being moved to the blacklist if they fail to deliver on their commitments.

“The EU has whitewashed two of the world’s most harmful tax havens,” said Chiara Putaturo of Oxfam, referring to the de-listing of Switzerland and Mauritius.

“Despite recent reforms, both countries will continue to offer sweet treats to tax-dodging companies,” she said, as cited by Reuters.

= = =

European Union blacklists 17 countries as tax havens
RT : 6 Dec, 2017

The European Union (EU) finance ministers have adopted a blacklist of 17 countries for refusing to cooperate with its crackdown on tax evasion.

The countries listed are American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

The President of Panama Juan Carlos Varela said the country was “not in any way a tax haven.”

EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the blacklist represented "substantial progress,” adding, "Its very existence is an important step forward. But because it is the first EU list, it remains an insufficient response to the scale of tax evasion worldwide."

Forty-seven other nations were included in a public “gray” list of countries which are currently not compliant with EU standards but have committed to change their tax rules. The lists followed the recent leaking of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers.

To determine whether a country is a "non-cooperative jurisdiction" the EU index measures the transparency of its tax regime and tax rates. It also checks whether the tax system encourages multinationals to unfairly shift profits to low tax regimes, avoiding higher duties in other states.

According to French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, the blacklisted countries could lose access to EU funds. Other possible countermeasures will be decided in the coming weeks, he said.

Last month, Le Maire said tax havens should be blocked from any right to seek help from global financial institutions like the International Monetary Bank or the World Bank.

Some countries such as Luxembourg and Malta have opposed stricter sanctions while EU Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said: “stronger countermeasures would have been preferable.”

China is NOT engaged in 'debt trap diplomacy!

Here is the MSM's logic: Debt owed to the west is okay but to China is a "trap". While Chinese loans, that account for 20% of Sub-Saharan countries' external debt, are used to improve infrastructures, the Western loans fall into the pockets of arm dealers and corrupt politicians. Of course, the west won't acknowledge this fact or China's debt forgiveness.

Western countries pursue the death trap diplomacy since 1500. From 1500 to the present, the death trap diplomacy of the Western countries have killed one billion people. The US accuses China of exactly what they themselves do through the IMF. It goes to show that they know it's wrong!

In reality it is the western institutions like the IMF and WB with all their strings attached to loans that precipitate countries who accept such loans into generations of debt slavery. What easier way to distract from that reality than to accuse Chiba of debt diplomacy!

Well, even if it is a trap, countries are free to take it or not.  Several countries have agreed to build Silk Road projects without taking on Chinese debt.  Others have decided that the debt, and the resulting obligation, is worth the added jobs and development.  The important difference is that previous US and British deals with African countries brought military obligations WITHOUT jobs and development.

Under President Xi, China's Confucian Marxism "shares" its economic benefits with other nation-states. In response, Imperial America has enacted laws to "counter" these efforts in every country and on every sea. Australia has been forced to invest future revenues in military purchases from USA and must demonstrably "counter" China in the South Pacific. Consequently, Australia today is in a bigger debt-trap to the American Empire than any Pacific island is to China.

The corporate psychology of the west is pathetic. Projection is what mentally ill people do -- the practice of blaming others for the pathological behavior they themselves display. The west, America in particular, has engaged in  “debt-trap diplomacy”, under the guise of aid, for a long time now.

In the late 1990's when the Western (US) bankers caused the collapse of Russian and Asian Tiger economies, China vowed to ensure that they would never be able to do it again. The US. abused its power and now the US is losing its power. Both China and Russia are more reliable business partners than the US/West ever was. The multi-polar world is the only way to go.

Debt-trap is exactly what America has been doing for decades. Read John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" so they are, as always "projecting". In fact, as President Putin made clear in the recent highly successful "Russia-Africa Summit" Russia is doing the exact opposite, and we can be confident that her partner in so many ventures will be the same. It's specified as being the opposite  - a "No strings" trade agreement, and no political venturing.

The west slowly realizes China’s wise policies of the BRI: creating a world trade area and building the necessary infrastructure for it to be profitable. It is about Chinese markets, not debt diplomacy. And the west realizes that it ridiculed the Chinese efforts for years, just to find itself now 6 years behind. Not only did China invest its money gainfully but it builds infrastructure and trade communities that are equally gainful for both, the host country and China. As a consequence some 130 countries joined the BRI to date.

Experts say Beijing is NOT engaged in 'debt trap diplomacy', but anti-China propaganda is relentless
Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT : 30 Oct, 2019

A new report has shed some light on predominantly western critiques of China’s foreign policy strategy, particularly in the Pacific; and it has put to rest an issue which has dominated media discourse for some time now.

The Australian – a prominent Australian-based media outlet – published an article last weekend claiming that a “Chinese diaspora” could be changing the Asia-Pacific. According to the report, given “China’s economic rise, its build-up in the South China Sea, US-China trade tensions, the ubiquitous Belt and Road Initiative, debt-trap diplomacy, foreign interference, soft power and cyberwarfare” examining this diaspora is a timely exercise worth doing.

The key buzzwords in the latter sentence are “debt-trap diplomacy.”

Debt-trap diplomacy

China has been accused of using “debt-trap diplomacy” on smaller, less developed nations for some time now. The accusations have surfaced not just from mainstream, corporate media outlets, but from the highest echelons in the Trump administration. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it, China is “using the debt trap…to put these countries in a place where it isn’t a commercial transaction. It’s a political transaction designed to bring harm and political influence in the country in which they’re operating.”

In other words, China hands out loans so excessive that it knows the smaller nation could never realistically pay it off. At which some time China would make a trade-off for the debt, with something much more valuable (and almost certainly, tangible).

You’d have to wonder why so many countries would be willing to accept Chinese money if this were indeed the case. Yes, money will always be appealing, but to find yourself at the complete mercy at a rising superpower that supposedly will turn your ports into assets for its growing naval might is surely asking for trouble, at least as far as your domestic population would be concerned. Considering that these countries will even cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan just to take a share of the money that China is offering (even though Taiwan was already providing them with financial support to a reasonable extent), it wouldn’t make sense if these nations were digging themselves into a trap filled with major consequences. China was even able to bring Kiribati onside and turn it against Taiwan, by providing full funds to purchase airplanes and commercial ferries.

It also doesn’t seem to present a clear picture of what actually happens in reality. Earlier this year, Forbes reported that China had forgiven close to nearly $10 billion in debt. Between 2000 and 2018, over half of the countries receiving loans from China have had their debt wiped clean. Others have had their loans turned into gifts. Altogether, some 20 African nations have had their Chinese loans forgiven, with at least six of them getting a round of free cash twice (in fact Sudan and Zimbabwe have had a round of debt forgiveness more than three times).

According to the Australian-based Lowy Institute, in its most recent report, China’s global infrastructure strategy in fact represents something much more “nuanced” than the supposed debt-trap diplomacy, though the report is not without its criticisms either.

“The evidence suggests China has not been engaged in problematic debt practices in the Pacific as to justify accusations of debt trap diplomacy, at least not to date,” it reads.

“Still, the sheer scale of Chinese lending and the lack of strong institutional mechanisms to protect the debt sustainability of borrowing countries mean a continuation of business as usual would pose clear risks.”

While western nations criticize China’s strategy and warn developing nations not to get caught in any potential traps, they do seem to be missing the fact that a lot of these nations prefer Chinese money as an alternative to the other sources at hand. China backs huge infrastructure development in many countries throughout the Pacific, and as the Lowy Institute noted, Chinese money is “perceived to be faster, more responsive to the needs of local political elites, and have fewer conditions attached.”

“We like China because they bring the red flags, not the red tape,” one senior Pacific official once said.

The Lowy report even seems to suggest that Chinese projects have been known to deliver good quality infrastructure.

Despite this damning reality, as soon as I saw the Lowy report last week, I did make a bet with myself that it would not be long before the media began re-using accusations of “debt-trap diplomacy” and flat-out ignoring the experts’ view on the matter. As the Australian example shows, my prediction was fairly accurate.

As I’ve said before, despite Australia’s record low aid budget, it is still the largest aid provider to the Pacific region. However, its recently announced Pacific Step-Up program seems to suggest that Australia will be looking to compete more heavily against China for influence through loans, grants and callable capital.

This dilemma could lead to an infrastructure arms race with China in the Pacific, which would only make the situation worse for the states that Australia and the US are supposedly concerned about. According to Lowy Institute, “in seeking to compete directly with loans from China, Australia might simply exacerbate debt sustainability problems in the Pacific.”

In that case, you can bet that no one will be accusing Australia of using “debt-trap diplomacy” to entrap Pacific Island nations.

The Chinese Diaspora threat

For countries like Australia, Chinese debt in the Pacific may end up being the least of their worries. As the Australian reports, Beijing can potentially use its influence on Chinese expatriates across the globe to score political victories in their new places of domicile. The media outlet claims that as this young generation of Chinese expats becomes more influential in these nations, government decision-making may fall like dominos as a result. The Australian is even suggesting that policy decisions regarding hot-potato issues such as Taiwan and China’s military build-up in the Pacific would be included in this category.

Like most things involving China, I suspect this is another potential threat overhyped to the worst possible extent. I have lived in different parts of the Pacific, and the anti-Chinese sentiment emanating from this type of propaganda can be felt quite strongly in certain circles. Among those circles is Winston Peters, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, who is viscerally anti-Chinese and has already been pushing strong immigration reform targeting Chinese migrants.

And yet as the Lowy Institute report has revealed, sometimes the allegations against China just don’t stack up.

- - -
Darius Shahtahmasebi is a New Zealand-based legal and political analyst who focuses on US foreign policy in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific region. He is fully qualified as a lawyer in two international jurisdictions.

Jihadism was used as antidote to communism...

This shouldn't surprise anyone after having realised that USA is the mastermind behind IS jihadists...

How Islamic Jihadism Was Conceived as Antidote to Communism?

By Nauman Sadiq

Global Research, November 05, 2019

During the Soviet-Afghan conflict from 1979 to 1988 between the capitalist and communist blocs, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab States took the side of the former because the Soviet Union and the Central Asian states produced more energy and consumed less. Thus, the Soviet bloc was the net exporter of energy, whereas the capitalist bloc led by Washington was the net importer of energy.

It suited the economic interests of the oil-rich Gulf countries to maintain and strengthen a supplier-consumer relationship with the capitalist bloc. Now the BRICS countries are equally hungry for the Middle East’s energy, but it’s a recent development. During the Cold War, an alliance with the industrialized world was predicated upon the economic interests of the Gulf states, which was given a religious color of purportedly “anti-communist” Islamist ideology by the Salafist preachers of Saudi Arabia.

All the celebrity terrorists, whose names are now heard in the mainstream media every day, were the spawns of the Soviet-Afghan War: including Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, the Haqqanis, the Taliban, the Hekmatyars etc. But that war wasn’t limited only to Afghanistan. The alliance between the Western powers and their regional client states during the Cold War funded, trained, armed and internationally legitimized the Islamic jihadists all over the Islamic World. We hear the names of jihadist groups operating in regions as far a field as the Central Asian States, the North Caucasus and even in Bosnia and Kosovo in the Balkans.

Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, then American envoy to Kabul, Adolph “Spike” Dubs, was assassinated on the Valentine’s Day, on 14 Feb 1979, the same day that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamist insurgencies spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.

According to documents declassified by the White House, CIA and State Department in January, as reported [1] by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year.

The revelation doesn’t come as a surprise, though, because more than two decades before the declassification of the State Department documents, in the 1998 interview [2] to The Counter Punch Magazine, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.

Here is apoignant excerpt from the interview. The interviewer puts the question:

    “And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?”

Brzezinski replies:

    “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least he had the courage to speak the unembellished truth. It’s worth noting, however, that the aforementioned interview was recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western policymaker can now dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.

Regardless, that the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State Department’s declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf states to train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was forged years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan joined the American-led, anticommunist SEATO and CENTO regional alliances in the 1950s and played the role of Washington’s client state since its inception in 1947 as a former colony of the British Empire. So much so that when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while performing photographic aerial reconnaissance deep into Soviet territory, Pakistan’s then President Ayub Khan openly acknowledged the reconnaissance aircraft flew from an American airbase in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan.

Historically, Pakistan’s military first used the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami as proxies during the Bangladesh war of liberation in the late 1960s against the Bangladeshi nationalist Mukti Bahini liberation movement of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman – the father of current prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and the founder of Bangladesh, which was then a province of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan before the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

Jamaat-e-Islami is a far-right Islamist movement in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood political party in Egypt and Turkey – several of whose leaders have recently been imprisoned and executed by the Bangladeshi nationalist government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed for committing massacres of Bangladeshi civilians on the orders of Pakistan’s military during the Bangladesh war of liberation.

Then during he 1970s, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began aiding the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan.

Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security establishment was wary of his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a consequence of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.

Pakistan’s support to the Islamists with the Saudi petro-dollars and Washington’s blessings, however, kindled the fires of Islamist insurgencies in the entire region comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Soviet Central Asian States, and even in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

Regarding the Kashmir dispute, there can be no two views that the right of self-determination of Kashmiris must be respected in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions on the right of plebiscite to the Kashmiri people, and the international community must lend its moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people. But at the same time, the militarization of any dispute, including Kashmir, must be avoided due to human suffering that militancy and wars anywhere in the world inevitably entail.

The insurgency in Kashmir erupted in the fateful year 1984 of the Orwellian-fame when the Indian armed forces surreptitiously occupied the whole of Siachenglacier, including the un-demarcated Pakistani portion, on the Pakistan-India border in Kashmir.

Now, we must keep the backdrop in mind: those were the heydays of the Cold War and Pakistan army’s proxies, the Afghan jihadists, were triumphantly waging a guerrilla warfare during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, and the morale of Pakistan’s military’s top brass was touching the sky.

In addition, Pakistan’s security establishment wanted to inflict damage to the Indian armed forces to exact revenge for the dismemberment of Pakistan at the hands of India during the Bangladesh War of 1971, when India provided support to Bangladeshi nationalists and took 90,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war after Pakistan’s defeat in the Bangladesh war of liberation.

All the military’s top brass had to do was to divert a fraction of its Afghan jihadist proxies toward the Indian-administered Kashmir to kindle the fires of insurgency. Pakistan’s security agencies began sending jihadists experienced in the Afghan asymmetric warfare across the border to the Indian-administered Kashmir in the late 1980s; and by the early 1990s, the Islamist insurgency had engulfed the whole of Jammu and Kashmir region.

*

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes :

[1] CIA was aiding Afghan rebels before the Soviets invadedin 1979

[2] Brzezinski Interview: How Jimmy Carter and I Started theMujahideen