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Wednesday, January 28, 2004
A Sri Lankan Air Force Commodore just came into the shop with a long list of books he wanted all about military ballistics and industrial chemistry. He told me where he was from, and added, "we always beat you at cricket." I should have said "I'm not surprised, Wales are shit at cricket," but my actual reply was: "yes, ho ho, but not at WAR." Dumb! Like, I might as well have added "you were under us for a while, weren't you?" or "Ah yes, Ceylon!" He was a thick-faced lump, though; it didn't seem to penetrate. All of the books he wanted were out of date, and mostly out of print. Apart from, ah, Gaseous Detonations and, um, Battlefield Ballistics. Watch out Tamils!
It's really snowing now, there's thunder, and the church bell across the road is ringing like mad.
5:35 PM
I like this weather a lot: fucking freezing air and clear blue sky. How I cope with this vicious morning gift is: fine lambswool scarf, pigskin gloves, and duffel coat (of good quality, i.e. Gloverall, not CND march rubbish - a distinct difference). Gulls wheel, light-reflected, perfect white. Felt the warm breath of a sexy blonde mathematician with a name like a Slavic pop star on my neck, but that was just my imagination. Again.
More on Liberia: it's (almost) back on.
9:46 AM
Monday, January 26, 2004
Liberian Fruit
The wife of Liberia's most powerful rebel leader has taken control of her husband's guerilla movement without, it seems, his consent. In fact, Sekouh Conneh has insisted that this is just "a family squabble," and that, actually, he is in charge of the militia. Unfortunately for him, Asha Keita-Conneh claims the loyalty of all of his battlefield commanders. Like a little Madame Agathe doll, she is widely regarded as being the real ideological and tactical force behind 'Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy' (or LURD for short - how marvelous!). Surrounded by her fighters, all nodding their assent, with her baby on the ground beside her, she sat in her living room in Monrovia last week, and said:
I put him there as chairman. If you open a big business and put your husband in charge, if you see that things are not going the right way, you step him aside and straighten things up. If somebody gives you something and the person wants it back, there should be no problem.
10:45 PM
Friday, January 23, 2004
Cathy, Come Home
I'm a Peking O fan.
I think it might be the best blog of all. However low-key, Cathy has craft, but not like George Oppen or Basil Bunting (the latter would be no insult; the former would). Exquisite arrangement: words + pictures + links dotted like scattered bits of tale that tie together. Mental shots (slots and shoots) in all directions, like sitting on a bus reading a magazine while listening to conversations, thoughts, with the corner of an eye caught by a flyposter or a strange sign, or both, and all of it bent backwards. Best backgrounds are always black or white; to highlight or frame care, creative energy, flair (see also, Lex Luka, Ingram, Cozen). Also an escape from restraint and restriction of subject, topic, or autobiography: white space and word gaps sooth and seduce. Peking O is rigorous autobiography, realism of an applied kind: Ulysses, last stop before Finnegans Wake; or, to be more accurate, mid to late-period Beckett (How It Is maybe, or Company) served on a sweet trolley. I hold her in high esteem: expert finger-jabs on keyboard; pen, word, and delicious, brittle syntax. I don't even know the girl; less through each Peking O vignette or word-cluster. A byte is enough to get me
12:10 PM
I need to be left in Pakistan, with laptop, contacts and contract. I can't keep making this rubbish up. I need a nice wife, like Monica Bellucci or something. I'm almost 26, and have nothing except youth, which is draining fast. How ridiculous! Cracking quangos in Tower Hamlets, a reporter-sleuth, in trenchcoat and snap brim fedora - that's me! At least, IT SHOULD BE. Connecting East End to the World - Afghanistan or Columbia or Beijing or whereever. I have: distinct jawline, fine Roman nose, strong bones; I'm a suspicious hawk, with vague misgivings, a distrust of Utopian rhetoric, but special fine grade optimism. I can be useful.
Fuck foxes, you should have heard the gulls cry above Orion House.
12:05 PM
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Egypt the Prize
Saudi Arabia is a divisive issue in Washington. Officially, the White House and the Pentagon maintain the House of Saud's elevated position as ally and client, paying lip service to a long history of friendship and trade (though with less emphasis than the nervous Saudi Royals).
BUT: an increasing number of representatives, house members, senators, etc. are in agreement with Perle and Frum, and coming around to their contention that, sooner or later, the US will have to take action against the Saudis unless they relinquish ALL ties with terrorism and Wahhabism. Some argue that the Saudis will never meet such conditions whatever they say - because, in the end, they can't - and should simply be deposed forthwith.
There is another element - (a phantom trace of personal suspicion...).
With the Iraq oil fields under US/UK control and, essentially, open to Western exploitation, Saudi Arabia is no longer the one significant oil producing State in the Middle East. But the exploitation of this bountiful natural resource necessitates a bottom threshold of national security. Iraq is obviously far below that threshold. The Iraqi resistance movement would not, however, be able to perpetuate such effective strikes against US forces and Iraqi cities if it was confined to national dissidents, ex-Baathists and Sunni muslims. The strength and expertise comes from alien elements; that is: a cynical pact with Islamist guerrillas. In other words, a (very) significant number of Saudi jihadists - ...the question is, do they recieve the tacit or even active support of the Saudi regime? Considering the regional stakes involved - Saudi oil hegemony = leverage with the US; without it the regime is more than vulnerable, internally and externally - ...blah blah...bullshit...
On July 10th, 2002, a rather shady character called Laurent Murawiec (an analyst for White House advisors Rand Corp.) gave a presentation to a Pentagon advisory group that included Donald Rumsfeld, Newt Gingrich, Dan Qayle and Henry Kissinger. Murawiec had been invited by Richard Perle; the briefing was titled: Taking Saudi Out of Arabia. The contents of Murawiec's Powerpoint display proved explosive, especially when leaked to the Washington Post. It called for a full US invasion of Saudi Arabia, deposing the House of Saud, seizing the State's oil fields and its financial assets.
The presentation began with a critique of the Arab world, detailing its isolation from the industrial and digital revolutions; theological crises; perpetuation of wars, demagogues, criminal states and human rights abuse. At one point, Murawiec claimed that "in the Arab world, violence is not a continuation of politics by other means - violence is politics, politics is violence." This combination of politics, violence and regressive theology led the twin poles of terrorism and Wahhabism to migrate from Islam's "lunatic fringe to centre-stage".
Saudi Arabia, Murawiec stressed, was principal party to this migration. On from this, Murawiec then (correctly) pointed out that "Saudi Arabia is not a God-given entity," because the House of Saud received dominion over Arabia in 1922 from the British, and took guardianship of Mecca and Medina by force from the Hashemite dynasty. "There is an 'Arabia'," he added, "but it need not be 'Saudi'."
From here, Murawiec defined the outer edges of Neocon foreign policy. America must demand that the Saudi regime: 1. stop funding fundamentalist movements, groups, and mosques worldwide; 2. ban all anti-American/Isreali/Western propaganda, writing and teaching within Arabia; 3. ban Islamic charitities and confiscate their assets; 4. prosecute all sponsors of terrorism within the kingdom, including the Saudi intelligence services. Once clear that these demands were not being met (as if they could be), Murawiec suggested that the US threaten Mecca and Medina with force!
Murawiec's summation remained incomprehensible to everyone present. "Iraq is the tactical pivot; Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot; Egypt the prize," he stated, boldly. The room looked confused, then stunned (or vice versa).
When the story of Murawiec's briefing was leaked to the press, everybody distanced themselves from it. People said truly amazing things. The hypocrisy of the situation was palpable, and unwittingly justified parts of Murawiec's critique, if not his remedies.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said: "The Saudi's cooperate fully in the global war on terrorism" (yes, Victoria, on the other side!). Kissinger, typically, got to the realpolitik nub (highlighting the difference between the old-skool slippery Kissinger-style realpolitik and new-skool megablast Perle-style realpolitik; an important distinction to keep in mind): "I don't consider Saudi Arabia to be a strategic adversary of the United States. They are doing some things I don't approve of, but I don't consider them a strategic adversary," he said. Donald Rumsfeld, however, truly excelled, with this gem of all apologisms: "It is correct, as apparently someone said in the briefing, that a number of the people who were involved on September 11th happen to have been Saudi individuals and that there are those issues that Saudi Arabia is wrestling with, just as other countries of the world are wrestling with them." Which must mean, therefore: Afghanistan needs bombs, Iran needs international inspectors, but the Saudis need a good Manhattan therapist.
5:47 PM
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Romeo Dun
And this is Romeo Dellaire talking; the dashing UN General ordered by the Security Council to do nothing as he witnessed Hutus massacre Tutsis and Hutu moderates with machetes and machine guns in a genocidal bloodbath. The price of following orders: early retirement due to post-traumatic stress disorder; nightmares and flashbacks.
Dellaire is testifying against Rwandan colonel Theoneste Bagosara who took control of the country on April 7, the day after Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down (killing everyone on board, including Burundian president Cyprian Ntarymira). Bogosara and his officers are accused of organising and unleashing a country-wide slaughter that began within hours of Habyarimana's assassination - the result of a conspiracy involving Madame Agathe Kanzinga (Hutu Power icon; wife of Habyarimana), the Presidential guard, the Rwandan Armed forces, and the interahamwe militias.
The initial spark was an accord signed between Habyarimana and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (a Tutsi army engaged in civil war with the Hutu regime). However, the assassination marked the culmination of a simmering campaign of ethnic hatred ("tension" would be an inadequate description) fomented by State media under the control of Hutu extremists. The planned genocide had been explained in detail on live radio for months before: killing techniques and lists of local armed militias ("These people were trained to be able to kill 1 000 Tutsis in 20 minutes," says Dellaire*) were broadcast to a captive Hutu population ; Tutsis listened with a passive fatalism borne of dread. The death of Habyarimana provided the opportunity for Hutu extremists to begin the slaughter. (It's astonishing that this could ever be conceived as a rational plan - which it was - no state could continue to function, or even exist, after genocide on this scale: the Hutu plan was not only genocidal, it was suicidal too).
I'm glad that Dellaire is testifying in Tanzania, and he should be commended; it does something to address, if not redress, forced non-intervention - a kind of revenge on Hutu genocide criminals, the UN, and every country guilty of abandoning Rwanda to ethnic apocalypse; leaving a UN general and a handful of soldiers to somehow cope alone in the midst of a human disaster with few historical precedents. Dellaire is the last person to blame: this is not the culpability of one man, but an indictment of Western priority and motive.
*And this is explosive: He said foreigners supervised the training alongside Rwandan officers, without identifying their nationality.
10:24 AM
Brooklyn Legend Daria Brit sent me this important article ("compulsory reading material") about the 21st Annual Porn awards in Las Vegas. An interview with anal sex specialist Ashley Blue, who found her vocation via Henry Miller:
"I found out about anal sex reading him, and I was like, 'Whoa!' He wrote things like, 'I stuck my cock up her ass and hit something'—really, really cool, great, disgusting things."
Ashley is choice. "I don't get recognized in public 'cause I don't look like a goddamn fucking whore," she says.
8:58 AM
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Neocon Id
The roots of Muslim rage are to be found in Islam itself. There is no middle way for Americans...It is victory or holocaust.
Richard Perle (aka 'The Prince of Darkness') made his name as a senior Pentagon official during the Reagan administration; in the Cold 80s he was known for his opposition to all arms control agreements with the USSR. Past Chairman of the Defence Policy Board, he is a close friend and colleague of Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
David Frum is a former White House speech writer; 'The Axis of Evil' is one of his.
Perle and Frum have just written a book together (Perle policy, Frum style). It's called An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, and it sounds like the first essential read of 04.
In this "manual for victory" all insurgent movements with any alleged Islamic ties are grouped under the general designation of "militant Islam" (hence the rather suspect inclusion of peripheral movements and guerilla groups in Venezuela and Aceh, as well as Brazil, Paraguay, Nigeria). The War on Terror can then be fought, in a way, by proxy - although, of course, there is no real comparison with Cold War-by-other-means geostrategy: the enemy here is continually sought out and engaged wherever possible. One admirable strand of Perle and Frum's argument is their call for Bush to end the hypocritical US retainment of Saudi Arabia; they demand Saudi accountability for the international promotion of Wahabbism and covert support of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. Then again, hypocrisy is not something that An End to Evil lacks - particularly funny (almost wry) is Perle and Frum's attack on China for "bullying democratic neighbors" and opposing US military assistance to Taiwan: "Defensive weapons pose problems only for aggressors," they scold (!). However, the book locates targets with a brutal clarity otherwise lost in a post-Clinton political landscape of spin, blurred motives, and denial.
For example: in a moment of astonishing rhetoric, Perle and Frum ascribe the whole problem of World Evil to religion. I agree! But what a diagnosis: if Wahabbism is the disease, then all Muslim communities are invariably infected by it (because of some mysterious "loyalty" bug Perle and Frum cite, every Muslim is a potential suicide bomber). This kind of mongrel Manichean pomp is, of course, a disguise for something more complex, ruthless, and rational: strategic global dominance. Yeah, obvious! But the point is that such vision is never clearly articulated outside the Left, who often overestimate the realpolitik focus of the Bush administration (i.e. energy supplies, neoliberal expansion, national security, a specific step-by-step response to a diffuse threat). It takes the ruthless candor of a Perle/Frum Faustian pact to frame the scale and scope of future neo-Imperial ambition. The root of all US machinations over the next twenty years - barring vast global shifts or disasters - will, I wager, be contained in the premises and details of this book.
So, what then?
Perle and Frum outline three major strategic policies: 1. the next phase(s) of the War on Terror; 2. neutralising China as a power bloc in the Far East; 3. bolstering a pro-Western alliance in South Asia. Alongside these prescriptions they recognise related symptoms to be cured in different ways. One of the most striking is Europe, in which they single out France (in similar terms to Saudi Arabia!) as a potential rival, if not enemy. Their remedy is to isolate France from the rest of Europe, in part by offering preferential treatment to UK arms manufacturers. Another area they focus on - with a revealing lack of emphasis - is Israel. They say that the Bush administration should stop criticising Israel for deploying military force against Hamas and Hezbollah (including bombing raids on Syrian territory) and state that "the distinction between Islamic terrorism against Israel, on the one hand, and Islamic terrorism against the United States and Europe, on the other, cannot be sustained." (A distinction not made by al-Qaeda, incidentally.)
As to the 3 major policies, this is what they say:
1. The Next Phase(s) of the War on Terror.
Firstly, it involves the Islamist regimes. Perle and Frum call for a succession of the House of Saud, unless they cooperate unconditionally with the US War on Terror (the Saudis have really fucked things up: attacked by al-Qaeda whom they fostered, and - potentially - the US, their greatest client and ally). Next, they want to see the flow of oil and arms from Iraq to Syria cut off, and the removal of Bashar al-Asad. Finally, they want the Bush administration to help dissidents otherthrow the theocratic regime of Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran.
Secondly, North Korea. Here the choice is stark; either China removes Kim Jong-Il, or the Americans do. Perle and Frum contend that North Korea's nuclear weapons programme is a Chinese responsibility for which they will be held to account. On the other hand, they lay out a strategy for action against North Korea (once Kim Jong-Il has undermined all inspection demands, like Saddam) on the premise that "the surest way to avoid war is to prepare to fight it". This involves three procedures: 1. an air and naval blockade; 2. the repositioning of American troops along the frontline; 3. the development of detailed plans for a pre-emptive strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities. The likely outcome of inevitable war on the Korean peninsula would be the destruction of the North Korean regime and the unification of Korea under the democratic rule of Seoul. They believe that, since this would be a bad result for China, China will, in the event, shoulder the burden and replace Kim Jong-Il with a moderate Communist ruler acceptable to both China and the West. This is Perle and Frum's ideal outcome, they say.
2. Neutralising China
Although Perle and Frum stress that China and America can be friendly, this relies on a number of conditions (human rights, regional power, Taiwan, US interests) that they outline with a certain scepticism, adding:
Whatever hope we may have that China will move toward greater openness through a process of economic-leading-to-political reform, we will have to deal with a deep-seated Chinese determination that their great and ancient civilization should recover its place as a great power.
(What a revealing combination of respect and contempt!) To counter this, Perle and Frum propose a defensive partnership with Japan, Australia, and any other Asian democracies willing to join them, thereby creating a regional power bloc to balance dominant Chinese influence in the region. On China, Perle and Frum unwittingly expose the ancient insolubility of power politics: one major power will always seek total domination as its ultimate goal at the expense of any competing power; if there are competing powers then this determination can only lead to war.
This is perhaps the most alarming aspect of An End to Evil; it, in effect, details the roots of future conflict.
3. Pro-Western alliance in South Asia.
This is linked to the Saudi export of Wahhabism; most prominently, to Pakistan. In South Asia, Musharraf is their ideal.
Men of Musharraf's generation were already mature by the time Saudi money began to infiltrate Pakistan. They seem to have been able to accept it without being unduly influenced by it. The next generation may have other ideas - and bombs that are today Islamic in name only may some day end up as weapons of jihad.
The Perle-Frum strategy here rests on the model of Musharraf's coup and subsequent move to civilian leadership. It calls for stronger military ties with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, fostering pro-West army officers, imparting counterterrorism tactics and nuclear command and control systems (to India and Pakistan; there remains a deep-rooted scepticism about the reliability of Pakistan in this respect). In this case, an old Cold War perspective is revealed: democracy is not valued in itself; the main concern is to keep the enemy out of power. This is a recipe for the promotion of corrupt, dictatorial (but ostensibly pro-West) regimes. Again, I make the point: the real tragedy is that this should be the only viable alternative to theocratic fascism (even worse: Pakistan currently combines both in one country). To counter the blatancy of this, Perle and Frum stress the US role in increasing aid to these countries (primarily to fund the reform of education and reverse what they call the graduation of "deformed personalities" from the current Islamic schooling system) and the offer of free trade agreements with the West.
*
The repressed is only cut off sharply from the ego by the resistances of repression; it can communicate with the ego through the id.
Freud
I call this Neocon Id because An End to Evil reveals the unconscious desire of Neocon Hawks to themselves: policy and thinking freed from the repressive apparatus of international opinion, ethics, and public accountability. Unmediated and rampant in its heartless, dead-eyed, fucked glory: everything Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld have ever wanted to say and do in one lethal volume. You no longer need to humour some bore who decides to "reveal" American motives and aggression to you: just say, yeah, I know, everybody knows, they said it in this book. No secrets: the absolute polar extreme of Clinton spin and obfuscation. An End to Evil is a textbook for Imperial takeover shorn of responsibility and morality (or: superego!). The hard nerve of it is seductive: it will surely have an evil influence on realpolitik movers and shakers (number crunchers, military maniacs) to emerge in the near future. In 1899, Oscar Wilde described Octave Mirbeau's Torture Garden as "disgusting...a sort of grey adder" - a description that came to mind when I first heard about Perle and Frum's "manual". That same insidious, repulsive, reptilian influence - now creeping over the body politic.
Perle and Frum: I call them the Decepticons.
.
10:52 AM
Saturday, January 17, 2004
No messing around: War Blogs : KEEP YOUR HELMET ON
The operation then turned from one of a high profile search for a global terror ring into one of finding the tribals who had aided the fugitives and attacked the Pakistanis.
Well that didn't work, then.
Meanwhile, Musharraf makes a speech: The Pakistani leader's message went largely unheard on the floor of the house because of the noisy protest...
Calling for a "jihad on extremism" (inelegant rhetorical twist) while the North West Frontier Province goes under Sharia law: In practice, that means abolishing interest payments in banks, imposing more Koranic studies in school, and subjecting the administration of justice to Sharia interpretation.
11:40 AM
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Boom Bye Bye
The battles for the cities are expected to begin next summer. In the mean time, during the long harsh winter that is already well advanced, the mujahideen will lie low in their caves, from where, for the first time, they will launch a series of suicide missions.
The Taliban announce strategy, October '03
And so far they have remained true to their word; as the toll of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan tops 100, pressure is mounting on Musharraf to flush out remaining Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives based in the Pashtun area - a rocky Islamist enclave along the Pakistan/Afghan border, untouched by Pakistan law. A Pakistani military operation in early January was ineffectual, amounting to a few minor skirmishes; further operations are expected, on the insistence of Washington. The Pentagon suspects that the Afghan resistance movement is receiving supplies, weapons and training from the ISI and elements of the military, and want to gauge the extent of Musharraf's benign complicity in this aid. Asia Times Online claims that
Washington "requested" from Islamabad a list of military operators who served in Afghanistan under cover during and after the fall of the Taliban...This request was apparently fulfilled, and marks one of the most significant developments in Pakistan's cooperation with the US as the list, with a little bit of extrapolation, provides detailed information on the activities of the Inter-Services Intelligence's key military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region.
Again, this seems crucial in the context of two attempts on Musharraf's life in December; I am convinced that the ISI is involved in a conspiratorial alliance aimed at removing the President, wresting control of Pakistan, and creating a secure Islamist base for war. I also believe that Musharraf knows this, and is willing to give the US their scoop on ISI operatives for that very reason. It seems that the Islamists have gone too far to fail, and have failed, losing their best chance of killing Musharraf. He is now more willing to cooperate with the US precisely because Islamist insurgency in Pakistan has proved a direct and urgent threat to his survival.
The US drive a hard bargain, forcing Musharraf to confront the power and duplicity of the ISI and Islamist military officers in Kashmir, but also in Pakistan's lawless Islamist territories. US intelligence has pinpointed the South Waziristan region - an area not under the direct rule of central government - as a key Taliban and al-Qaeda base. The US are planning a future military offensive in South Waziristan and across the border in the mountains around Shakin: a pincer movement it is hoped will trap resistance forces. The US is determined to destroy Taliban resistance before it kicks off a declared summer offensive; it also wants to arrest internal disaffection among those in the Northern Alliance who oppose Afghanistan's new US-backed constitution, and prevent an alliance with mujahideen warlords like Gulbudden Hekmatyar.
Meanwhile, despite a rather civilized meeting between Musharraf and Vajpayee, Pakistan and India continue their mutual destabilisation by fermenting proxy wars in minor but strategically-charged regions (the India-Pakistan war has now turned Cold, like a miniature version of the US-Soviet deep freeze). While shaking hands in public, Musharraf and Vajpayee continue to (in effect) support or aid insurgencies in areas other than Kashmir; low-level tactics that keep out of the headlines. In the province of Balochistan in the south of Pakistan, various Separatist organisations and rebel sleeper cells have reawoken and made contact; rocket attacks and bomb blasts have been reported in the regional capital Quetta. Balochitan has strong familial ties with India and Pakistan believes that the Indian government is taking an active part in fostering the Separatist groundswell. Similarly, in Sindh, Pakistan claims that covert Indian agents have been infiltrating the local "Nationalists" in an attempt to undermine the Punjab establishment. Pakistan, on the other hand, gathers covert forces against Indian insurgency in the Punjab and Manipur regions.
All around trouble afoot and apace. Either that or 04 could conclude the first phase of the War on Terror, with a clear victory one way.
Dramatic Prediction!
Either: the Islamic states erupt, overthrow and fight in a pan-Arab Islamist coalition; the terror networks regroup, reconnect, recruit afresh and attack with devastating force.
Or: the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban are wiped out along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan; terror cells remain scattered, disconnected, without leadership or base; Arab nations acquiesce to US demands; and bin Laden is discovered to be dead, or alive and then killed.
Anyway, get your cards on the table now. (Oh, fuck off.)
11:21 PM
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Honey Monster
Yemenese honey is the best honey money can buy; really, would I recommend anything less? Pure, rich, sweet, and expensive, it is a worthy extravagance. Yemenise honey is also a front for international terrorism. Or, at least, was until (roughly) 2001, when the US ordered the Yemenese government to freeze several bank accounts belonging to honey dealers accused of acting as al-Qaeda conduits (it blacklisted 3 Yemenese businesses on this charge: al-Hamati Sweets Bakeries, al-Nur Honey Center, and al-Shifa Honey Press for Industry and Commerce).
The Yemenese Honey Industry was, the CIA claimed, an important source of legal funding for terror "entrepreneurs" like bin Laden and Abu Zubaydah, as well as armed groups, including Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Honey is consumed in large quantities in the Middle East, and honey shops provided a crucial source of income for such groups. Nearly all terror organisations mix legitimate fundraising activities with crime; in the (or a) case of honey, literally. The export of honey is a good way to shift contraband:
drugs, arms, gold, electronic equipment and cash are often smuggled in honey containers. With the tacit approval of shopkeepers, these 'goods' are literally buried in honey. 'The smell and consistency of the honey makes it easy to hide weapons and drugs' explained a Yemeni customs officer. '[In addition,] inspectors don't want to inspect that product. It's too messy.' (Loretta Napoleoni)
11:29 PM
Monday, January 12, 2004
Bad Diet
Large Quarterpounder with Cheese Meal. French Fries like shriveled fingers, lashed with salt effect. A glutted mausoleum; hard mirrors, molded seats, the soothing stench of fat and chemicals. Just like slipping into fever. Once, a friend of mine brought me a McShake, watched me suck at it for, like, an age, and when I'd finished, my head full of cold gloop, said "you know how they make their shakes so thick, don't you? Chicken fat."
A French lady on the radio, of good intelligence, just said: globalisation is way of denying anything natural, from body smells, to food smells. Talking about deodorant and a disgust of garlic.
Drinking cheap wine, with dedication. An inverted wine connoisseur, I can expertly navigate the worst wine for sale in London. Currently quaffing Villa Radiosa Rosato Salento ("brilliantly coloured, richly scented 'Rose' with delicious ripe fruit. It has good acidity and is consistently fresh and fruity") which tastes like nail varnish. Extra long spaghetti (Buitoni), crushed tomatoes in a tin (Napolina), spring onions tied with blue elastic, loose mushrooms flaking earth. Chop, chop. A Mediterranean diet. Perfume and hot pavements, perfect hemlines, tiny islands and temple ruins (and all this in Bow). Really, reduced to bad bacon, when you fry it fat and water seeps out and boils in the pan. Currant buns. (Remember crumbs in bed? My tray and a pot of tea?) Welsh Butter (a clot of salt and cream) and Guernsey goldtop milk. Yemenese honey, with crumbling comb.
Yasmine Bleeth is fat and addicted to coke: her belly spills over tracksuit bottom elastic. I find that so sad. I think she's a nice girl with extraordinary blue eyes and good lineage: her mother, Carina Bleeth, escaped the Algerian War, moved to New York, and used her sharp wits to cut out a niche in the fashion shark pool.
7:15 PM
Friday, January 09, 2004
Global Error
Musharraf survived two assassination attempts this Christmas. (Good effort!) The first attempt was an event assassination: the would-be assassins strapped 550lbs of explosives to a bridge and detonated it as Musharraf's motorcade crossed. In the event, Musharraf's limousine drove clear of the blast by seconds and the bridge was completely destroyed. The second attempt seemed like a hasty reaction to the failure of the first, but was more daring: a stunt assassination. Three suicide bombers loaded two lorries with explosives and tried to ram Musharraf's motorcade from both sides as it drove past two petrol stations. What more could they do? Amazingly, Musharraf escaped with only minor damage to his limo.
Keeping Musharraf alive and in control of Pakistan is crucial to the success of Bush's War on Terror. Most people concede that avoiding regional chaos, theocratic fascism in Pakistan and a nuclear holocaust on the subcontinent takes precedence over challenging Musharraf's autocratic aspirations and the corruption of his abortive democratic "system". The real regional tragedy is that such a decision - or judgement - need be made. Apart from social sticking points, there are two important issues on which Musharraf should be challenged: Kashmir (see below) and the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. It is unclear to what extent Musharraf is complicit in the trade of nuclear equipment to Iran, North Korea and Libya (even Pakistan's nuclear weapons labs boast their share of Islamists) - but this is the issue on which he will be, finally, condemned.
The problem is, without Musharraf in place the WoT axle snaps and there is no replacement or remedy. The alternative is a nuclear-armed Islamist State run by former Taliban and al-Qaeda members, sponsors and allies - the worst possible scenario. Musharraf's position is strong only in the sense that the ISI or the military will not remove him through legitimate, legal, or electoral channels. While Musharraf has power he can rig anything - particularly elections. He can also, slowly and methodically, tighten his grip on power. For example, on January 2, a vote of confidence was held in the national parliament and regional assemblies which Musharraf won. He claimed that the victory "legitimised" his Presidency, and so extended his term of office until 2007. You will notice, however, that the only parties contesting Musharraf's legitimacy, as such, are the very Islamists willing to use democratic victory to dismantle democratic rights. In effect, an Islamist electoral platform urges people to vote themselves out of existence. That's the alternative to sham democracy.
Nevertheless, Musharraf remains internally isolated. In the eyes of many it is impossible to 'legitimise' rule won by force, except by force. The ISI retains a large degree of independence from the government as well as significant ideological ties with Islamic jihadists. Tension between Musharraf and this pro-Taliban secret service - forced to work with the Americans against the Taliban during the Afghanistan war - is extremely corrosive. The face-off with India over Kashmir was exacerbated by the need for Musharraf to placate the ISI and military in exchange for their cooperation with the FBI as it scoured Pakistan for hot al-Qaeda operatives. This paid remarkable dividends with the capture of senior al-Qaeda members in Karachi (Ramzi Binalshibh), Punjab (Abu Zubaida) and Rawalpindi (Khaled Shaikh Mohammed). (Remarkable, because they were plucked from impenetrable tribal nests located inside hardline Islamist territories.) Over Kashmir national and religious tensions rub, and the pride and pettiness of regional power politics takes hold. The fight gets mixed with ISI and militant demands: the reason India accuses Pakistan of ignoring - even backing (i.e. ISI funding) - Islamic jihadists in Kashmir is because it's true. Nuclear rocket rattling last summer was a dangerous game and Musharraf had the ISI in mind when playing. And yet Musharraf knows that he can no longer get away with double-play: it's impossible to ignore Islamist guerrillas operating out of Pakistan in Kashmir while hunting al-Qaeda at the behest of the West. Those kind of inconsistencies are not accepted in W's WoT (a message impressed on the Saudis, who are beginning to understand what's afoot). As Musharraf is forced to crack down on Kashmiri guerrillas, enmity grows in the ranks of the ISI and the military. Put the assassination attempts in the context of Musharraf's recent meeting with Vajpayee in Islamabad and you can see The General in sharky water.
Even within the army Musharraf is in a minority, as Seymour M. Hersh points out in this article from November, 2001:
Musharraf and many of his newly appointed senior aides are muhajir - immigrants who fled to Pakistan from India after Partition, in 1947 - but they are in charge of an Army that traditionally has been dominated by officers from the Punjab region. Even now, an estimated ninety percent of the officers are Punjab. "These things matter a lot," a retired Pakistani diplomat told me. "The Punjab officers would be thinking that there's an earthquake or a revolution taking place. Is it because of the ethnic background of Musharraf? Don't write off the unhappiness within the Army."
The background to the coalition's last major success in Pakistan - the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - reveals the scale and complexity of the threat to Musharraf. Mohammed was captured in a rich residential location largely populated by retired army generals (and only two miles for Musharraf's own mansion). At the time of Mohammed's arrest, a high-ranking, serving officer with close ties to Mohammed was also arrested (the two arrests were obviously, if not openly, related). Another Mohammed link led to Jama'at Islami, Pakistan's largest radical Islamist party and a substantial political rival to Musharraf (in the event of a free and open democratic election, ironically, although in the last round of parliamentary elections the Islamists made substantial gains despite heavy rigging). Jama'at Islami also has strong ideological and material support from elements of the army disloyal to Musharraf. When he was arrested, Mohammed was being shielded by a Jama'at Islami activist. The whole affair uncovered a tight nexus of al-Qaeda jihadists, muhajir and Islamist army officers and Pakistan's most powerful Islamic party. Such ties obviously extend and include ISI dissidents, if not the whole secret service hierarchy. (The diplomat Hersh cites goes on to say that the ISI is "a parallel government of its own. If you go through the officer list, almost all of the ISI regulars would say of the Taliban, 'They are my boys'.") Such an alliance seems more than capable of producing assassins able to devise and carry out assassination attempts on the scale of Decembers failures.
Musharraf's survival is perhaps due to the tenacity and shrewd caution of a former coup leader able - so far successfully - to play between two opposing and powerful forces (the US and al-Qaeda/ISI/the army/Jama'at Islami). Musharraf has so far displayed a willingness to keep militants in line or have them removed. It would seem, now, to be a question of survival. And Musharraf's survival instinct is so strong that it could almost be called miraculous.
12:29 PM
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Revol
Wearing a disheveled suit and shades, Hitchens squatted on a milk crate in the subway, rode a bike without his feet touching the pedals, fed Central Park pigeons and puffed his way across the city in wheezy protest of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's smoking ban.
Go Itch!
10:11 AM
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Quaddafi Cakes
A couple of funny/fucked things about the recent Quaddafi move to give up WMD programmes.
1.
It was an empty gesture, in this sense: Libya's weapon stocks are negligible, a threat to nobody but the Quaddafi regime itself, vulnerable to sanctions or, in the worst case, US/UN military action (as remote as this final option seems). The gesture was empty, but satisfied both parties. Quaddafi is given the potential transition of Libya from an increasingly untenable and isolated terrorist state to a more securely integrated (if minor) "global" power (in the sense that diplomatic relations can resume almost across the board). Quaddafi can claim some security in his alliance with the West in the War on Terror, a cause and coalition he is keen on because it affords protection from and promotes offensive action against his regime's most actively dangerous enemy: radical Islamists (more on this below). Quaddafi's Libya has long been unpopular in the Middle East, and also despised by Wahhabi fundamentalists. The US and the UK, for their part, welcome Quaddafi's pledge not least because it serves their case for pre-emptive action and the legitimacy of the Iraq war. For the coalition, the timing of Quaddafi's television announcement was perfect: days after the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the day after a similar pledge by Iran's mullahs to open their nuclear programme to international inspectors.
2.
So even though Quaddafi is essentially "on side" in the War on Terror, his past status as International Terrorism Sponsor and unelected dictator of a rogue state that sought to develop WMD (with little success, but it's the thought that counts) shoves him in the same bracket as countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria - countries Quaddafi has actively distanced himself from for years, and countries who actively distanced themselves from Quaddafi years before that. The glaring anomaly of Libya's position in the Middle East is made clear by Islamic fundamentalism and related terror networks, supported in different measure at different times by Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc. and fought by Libya's one effective ally since Quaddafi's September Revolution in 1969, the Soviet Union (an alliance abandoned by the Soviets due to their alarm at Quaddafi's erratic behavior).
Despite the fact that Quaddafi's was an Arab-Islamic revolution, its ideological emphasis was socialism, nationalisation, "freedom of the individual" and Arabic Unity. For the Quaddafi regime religion was never a driving force. Quaddafi was a legitimate target for Islamists and therefore Islamist insurgency became his greatest threat. In the early 1990s, Libyan veterans of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan formed al-Muqatila, a terrorist group backed financially by bin Laden and based in Sudan. In 1998 Quaddafi foiled an al-Muqatila plot to assassinate him. (A similar plot in 1996, devised in partnership with MI5, had to be abandoned, according to David Shayler). In April 1998, Quaddafi was the first person to ever submit an international arrest warrant for bin Laden.
By the end of 2001, Libya and MI5 were cooperating. The scale of this turnaround was indicated by the return of Musa Kousa (Quaddafi's head of external intelligence) to Britain. In 1979, Kousa had been de facto Libyan ambassador to Britain. His position did not, however, last long. In a Times interview, Kousa put on record Libya's support for the IRA, and the regime's intent to kill two Quaddafi opponents on British soil. Kousa's comments led to his expulsion from the UK. In September 2001, however, the global equilibrium tipped and spilt, and Libyan intelligence proved invaluable to the CIA and MI5. In October 2001, Kousa arrived back in the UK for the first time since 1979, this time carrying documents outlining details of Islamist cells and networks in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Libya and the UK now had a mutual enemy and corresponding aims: effective negotiations began here.
3.
This is how it used to be:
Khadafi's erratic behavior (to put the best possible gloss on it), his inordinate ambitions, and his rapidly changing alignments antagonized virtually everyone in the Arab world and isolated him from all but his most needy clients. Doubts were expressed concerning his mental state, not only in the West but also in the Arab and Third World capitals. Was he a madman in the clinical sense. or just highly emotional, inbalanced, and unpredictable? Khadafi even became an embarrassment to those closest to him in outlook.
(Walter Laqueur)
Quaddafi's elevation to International Statesman - announced, in effect, by Blair and Bush (Blair beating Bush to it by minutes) - is somewhat laughable, at least absurd, certainly more than a surprise. But that's International Relations! Shifting blocs of power and influence, supple and covert alliance.
durtal78@hotmail.com and don't be polite.
4:24 PM
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Never trust a man with an almanac.
The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior — such as apparent surveillance — a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning."
4:41 PM
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