Telangana Liberated

How the prospective state might fall to the Naxalites, Naxalites support the demand for a separate Telangana state with an eye to making it part of their agenda set up a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’.

by Ram Avtar Yadav,

Until the last decade, Andhra Pradesh was a beacon for Left-wing extremism in India. Naxalites showcased it at international fora as a model that could be replicated not only by their comrades in other Indian states but also by their brethren elsewhere in and around the subcontinent. Today, the state stands as the best example of the success of counter-insuregncy strategies of a government. At every meeting called by the Union government to discuss the vexatious issue, Andhra Pradesh has been singled out for praise and other states have been exhorted to follow the Andhra model.

But the situation could change with the UPA government agreeing to carve out a Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh. The politically expedient decisions leading to the acceptance of the demand for Telangana have significant implications for internal security, especially with regard to the ongoing national counter-insurgency initiative against left-wing extremism.

Although the connivance between political parties and the Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh is not a new phenomenon, it is, nevertheless, worrisome. In many cases, especially during election times, political parties have come to a tacit agreement with the Naxalites, who target candidates of opposing parties. After coming to power, the party ensures that the police forces “go slow” against Naxalites. In some other cases, individual politicians have used Naxalites as hired guns to kill their political opponents.

It is instructive to revisit the formation of a Congress-led government in 2004 when there was a ceasefire between the state authorities and the Naxalites of the People’s War Group. The two sides had agreed to sit across the table because of a behind-the-scenes understanding during the elections—during which the Naxalites helped the Congress Party win in several constituencies, and in return, secured a promise for leniency upon the latter’s victory. A section of Naxalite activists emerged overground, organised mass rallies and participated in two rounds of negotiations. But it took little time for the process to collapse. The Naxalites saw the interlude as merely tactical opportunity to organise themselves more effectively. They continued the violence and assassinated several politicians. They also restarted ‘people’s courts’ in the villages for instant justice, settling disputes and extorting money from contractors. Large-scale recruitment of youth to Naxalite ranks took place in the villages during this period.

Telangana is not only being formed with the support of the Naxalites, but will be encompassing the districts that are their stronghold. The security situation is bound to worsen further. It is likely to play out in the following manner.

During the next panchayat elections, the Naxalites will put up candidates and capture village panchayats and other local bodies in the fledgling state. Once the panchayats are under their control, they will have effective control not only over the people in the villages but also substantial funds from the exchequer. Then, in the assembly elections that follow, they will again put up candidates and win a majority—by intimidating and coercing the electorate—in the assembly and form a proxy government.

This proxy government will play to the tune of its Naxalite masters and revoke the ban on their activities, ostensibly for peaceful talks. These talks will be used as a pretext for suspending security operations against the Naxalites, while they use this period to recruit, train and equip their cadre. The Naxalites will then consolidate their hold over the area and siphon off huge amounts of development funds to strengthen their organisation. They will renew their recruitment drive, collect weapons and explosives, threaten people, summon and question government officials.

During this period of uncertainly, Naxalite cadre will insidiously infiltrate the police, security forces and myriad government institutions. In the security forces, this infiltration will be specially targeted at the Greyhounds, the state Intelligence Bureau and other agencies to ferret out the network of informers who had provided information about them. These informers and some active police officers will be brutally murdered to intimidate opponents and deter political opposition.

Naxalites do not abruptly launch an armed struggle, but are known to proceed very methodically including conducting a preliminary study of local social, economic and political milieu and the vulnerabilities of particular groups of population before coming out with customised action plans. Their strategy will be to contain overtly violent activities in the newly formed state, to prevent the Union government from dismissing the state government under Article 356 of the Constitution. The Naxalites will restrict the movement in the new state at the level of political mobilisation, highlighting local issues through front organisations and organising meetings in strongholds to garner popular sympathy. The leftist-liberal support base of the Naxalites—intellectuals, media personalities and cultural icons—will in any case vociferously decry efforts to invoke Article 356 as denying the will of the people by dismissing a duly elected government.

Meanwhile, Naxalites will use this period to strengthen their cadre in neighbouring states. They will deliberately keep the violence low in border regions so as to keep away police attention, thereby facilitating intra-state movement. With their strong base in Telangana, Naxalites operations in the other states will be much larger in intensity and scope to keep New Delhi’s attention focussed on those states.

Naxalites have supported the demand for a separate state of Telangana with an eye to the eventual setting up of their ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’ which extends from Nepal through Bihar in the North to the Dandakaranya region and Andhra Pradesh in the South.

It is important that the major setback suffered by the Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh, particularly in the Telangana region is made irreversible by stalling the creation of the new state. This deserves careful scrutiny because it is a marker of challenges that Naxalites might pose in other parts of the country in the future.

Why India must send troops to Afghanistan

The proposal to deploy Indian troops in Afghanistan is based on the simple logic of force fungibility. As the nuclear factor makes it unfeasible for Indian troops to directly attack Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex, India should ensure that US troops do so. The US ‘surge’ in Af-Pak is a strategic opportunity for India

by Nitin Pai & Rohit Pradhan

In the August 2008 issue of this magazine, Sushant K Singh made a comprehensive case for India to increase its military presence in Afghanistan. Beyond engaging in development projects and training Afghan national security forces, the proposal to deploy combat-ready Indian troops in Afghanistan is based on the simple logic of force fungibility. As the nuclear factor makes it unfeasible for Indian troops to directly attack Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex, India should ensure that US troops do so. Since it is in India’s interests that as many US soldiers are committed to operations ‘along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border’, it is sensible for the Indian troops to relieve their US counterparts of duties in areas where they are not actually fighting the taliban — especially in Western and Northern Afghanistan.

India has the capacity to equip, station and supply several divisions of its troops in Afghanistan. Many Afghan political leaders — from President Hamid Karzai to members of the Northern Alliance — are highly likely to welcome India’s decision. Contrary to the myths that make the rounds in the popular media, the Afghan people do not reflexively oppose foreign troops on their soil — remember they welcomed international troops who came to rid the country of Mullah Omar’s Taliban regime in 2002.

Neighbouring countries, including Iran and Tajikistan, will support an Indian military presence in Afghanistan provided their interests are taken into account. So will Russia. And not least, the United States will welcome it — for even if Indian troops do not eventually deploy, the very possibility of their arrival will change Washington’s bargaining terms with the Pakistani military establishment.

What if the Pakistanis retaliate with more terror attacks? Yes, it is highly likely that the military-jihadi complex will attempt to escalate the proxy war against India. While the impact of this escalation is less significant compared to what the Pakistani army might do in response to a ‘surgical strike’ India must be prepared to accept a short-term spurt in terrorist attacks as the cost of this option. The cost can be mitigated — but not eliminated totally — through better intelligence co-operation with the United States and intensification of the internal security mechanisms put in place after last November’s terrorist attack on Mumbai.

But let’s not forget that the Pakistani military-jihadi complex might escalate the proxy war against India even if India doesn’t send troops to Afghanistan. If the Obama administration increases pressure on the Pakistani army to act against its surrogates on both sides of the Durand line, the latter is likely to increase tensions with India — like it did after 26/11 — in the hope of diverting Washington’s attention.

It is in India’s interests to ensure that the United States stays committed to the objectives outlined by President Barack Obama — for the US cannot succeed in that mission unless it transforms the Pakistani state. Now, some analysts have been arguing that the United States will withdraw from Afghanistan for at least the last years. They have been wrong far — as the number of US military personnel, private military contractors and civilian personnel has only increased since then. While much has been made of President Obama’s announcement of the beginning of troop withdrawals in 18 months, there has been a surprising lack of analysis of how the ongoing surge might change the ground realities.

Despite this, it can be argued that the US will pack up and leave if the situation worsens. But if India does not act to keep the US focused, such arguments are gratuitous, sanctimonious and ultimately, self-fulfilling.

On the one hand, India could do nothing and allow the United States and Pakistan to work out a solution, and hope that the outcome of that bargaining will secure India’s interests. On the other, India could choose to indirectly crush the Pakistani military-jihadi complex by militarily supporting the international forces in Afghanistan.

Right strategy, right politics

But democracies rarely function solely by cold logic of reason. Compelling as the case for direct Indian military intervention in Afghanistan may be, political challenges remain on the horizon. Indian governments have rarely provided political backing for strategic foresight, and with a highly risk-averse government in place, crossing the rubicon may prove particularly difficult. Therefore, challenging the political and ideological critiques of India’s military intervention in Afghanistan is essential before troops can be sent to Afghanistan.

A common objection is that collaborating with the United States in Afghanistan is akin to participating in a crusade against Muslims, and as such, has to be eschewed in order not to offend India’s Muslim population. Apart from assuming transnational loyalties of Indian Muslim population — a gross insult in itself — this narrative ignores the fact that the Taliban has shown no compunction in killing fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Indeed, the war in Afghanistan is between the Karzai government, which by all objective measures is a conservative Muslim government, and a rabid and fanatical bunch of ruthless killers with little piety or concern for human life. Far from being anti-Muslim, military intervention in Afghanistan would protect innocent Muslim lives.

Also, while Afghanistan is overwhelmingly Muslim, it is ethnically diverse, with Pashtuns — the main support base of the Taliban — comprising only 45 percent of the total population. Pashtun majoritarianism has been resisted by other ethnic groups in Afghanistan — manifested, for instance, in the preponderance of ethnic Tajiks in the erstwhile Northern Alliance. The underlying ethnic and regional dynamics present a far more complex picture and challenge the view that an intervention in Afghanistan will somehow be “anti-Muslim”.

Other commentators recall the circumstances in which the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was forced to withdraw from Sri Lanka to warn against any foreign deployment. This is argument fails to account for the profound contextual difference between the 1980s’ Sri Lanka and today’s Afghanistan.

First, the LTTE did not pose a direct security threat to India — at least to the same extent as the Taliban. Therefore, fighting the LTTE carried less political legitimacy in India particularly in states with historical ties to Sri Lankan Tamils. Second, unlike the LTTE which at one time was covertly supported by Indian intelligence agencies, the Taliban have been antagonistic to India even before they rode to power in Kabul in 1990s. Third, despite its military weakness, the Premadasa government in Colombo had constitutional legitimacy — this left India with no option but to accede to its request to withdraw. India has greater flexibility in Afghanistan and is less likely to be out-manoeuvred by a recalcitrant president. Therefore, as long as the requisite political will exists in India, which, in turn, is predicated upon a clear understanding of the military mission and its requirements, India can escape the quagmire of Sri Lanka.

Indeed, the arguments ranged against India’s military involvement in Afghanistan sound suspiciously similar to those against the India-US nuclear deal: Muslim opposition, acceptance of US hegemony and so on. Political commentators had then questioned the wisdom of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh risking his government on the nuclear deal asking if it was worth staking so much on something whose exact details escaped understanding of all but the few. Yet, it is undeniable that Dr Singh’s firm stand in favour of the nuclear deal and the opportunistic behaviour of parties like the BJP influenced the subsequent general elections. The Indian electorate might not have understood the exact relationship between the nuclear deal and energy security but it rewarded those it saw as risking political capital in securing the national interest.

The sceptics might be right. The aam aadmi might not understand the importance of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan to ensure India’s long-term security. But if the nuclear deal is any indicator, the electorate will reward those willing to take risks in pursuit of the national interest.

It is still early in Dr Singh’s second term as prime minister. The opposition is in disarray with both the Left and the Right still recovering from the serious blow they received in the general elections. With President Obama showing a renewed commitment to Afghanistan, the time to act is now. All that is required is for the UPA government to summon the requisite political will and rally the nation by making a clear military and political case for India’s armed involvement in the Afghanistan. For that, it is imperative that India’s military planners develop and have on the ready a comprehensive, well-thought out policy option involving the deployment of Indian troops in Afghanistan.

Russia unveils top secret new fighter

Touted rival of US F-22 stealth jet

Russia on Friday unveiled a new fighter aircraft touted as a rival of the U.S. F-22 stealth jet and developed amid the highest secrecy as part of a plan to modernize the armed forces.

The fifth generation fighter, manufactured by the Sukhoi company and known as the PAK FA, made a maiden flight of just over 45 minutes at the firm's home base of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Far East region.

Pictures broadcast on state television showed the fighter jet -- which has been kept closely under wraps for years -- flying at altitude and then landing on a snow-surrounded runway. "The plane performed very well," said Kayukova."All our expectations for this first flight were met. The premiere was a success." The new jet has the capability of carrying out long flights above the speed of sound as well as simultaneously attacking different targets. Russia is currently embarking on a major program to re-equip its military, not least the air force which is still using largely Soviet-era equipment and suffers from frequent crashes. The new fighter, which has been in development since the 1990s, is due to enter the armed forces in 2015, Russian news agencies said. The first flight of the PAK FA (Prospective Aviation System of Frontline Aviation) is being seen in Russia as a major boost for the military after the project was hit by repeated delays over the last years. "There is no doubt that the plane is needed," the ex-commander of the Russian air force, Anatoly Kornukov, told the Interfax news agency. "Our Su-27 and MiG-29 planes are good but have aged. They are 20 or more years old and it's time to have something as a replacement," he said. He said the new plane could easily stand comparison with the U.S. F-22, also a fifth generation stealth fighter. "It's going to be no worse than an F-22. I've been in an F-22 and I know."

Israel uses Facebook to spy on Arabs & Muslims

Report says Tel Aviv uses site to get inside people's head

For Facebook users updating their statuses or posting family pictures is for their select friends list but according to new report the information most people believe is private is actually being used by Israel to profile people and spy on them to obtain valuable information.

According to "reliable" sources quoted in France-based, Israël Magazine, Israeli intelligence focuses mainly on Arab and Muslim users and uses the information obtained through their Facebook pages to analyze their activities and understand how they think.

The extensive report allegedly ruffled some feathers in the Israeli government and diplomatic circles and Israel's ambassador to Paris accused the magazine of “making classified information available to the enemy.” Israel's covert activity was uncovered in May 2001, Gerard Niroux, Professor of Psychology at France's Provence University said. “It is an intelligence network made up of Israeli psychologists who lure youths from the Arab world, especially from countries located within the range of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in addition to countries in Latin America," Niroux, who is the author of a book called The Dangers of the Internet, said. Niroux said a huge number of men use the networking website to meet women and warned this was unsafe as it is the best way to lure men and find their weak points. “It is very easy to spy on men using women,” he told the magazine. This is not the first time Israel has been accused of using Facebook to spy on people and in April 2008 Jordanian paper al-Haqiqa al-Dawliya published an article entitled "The Hidden Enemy" making the same claims. The paper said it was dangerous because people, especially the youth, often reveal intimate and personal details about themselves on Facebook and similar online communities, making them easy targets for people looking in.

Political Facebook " It is an intelligence network made up of Israeli psychologists who lure youths from the Arab world, especially from countries located within the range of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in addition to countries in Latin America " Gerard Niroux -- French professor The paper added it is no longer necessary for occupation forces, like Israel and the United States, to use the traditional tools to control people or inciting sedition as it is now enough to use Facebook to promote certain ideas that infiltrate a certain social and political structure of any given country. The fact that Israel uses Facebook to spy on Arabs is not just confined to media reports, but it is a general sentiment shared by people in the region. People have been working as spies without realizing it, the report said, adding by just logging in to a chat room and talking about anything with someone he does not know is enough to do the job. Any information revealed will be analyzed and used at a later stage. Israel has a long history of espionage in the Middle East. During the 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars, Israel used to thoroughly examine the obituary pages in Arab newspapers, leading the Egyptian army to ban publishing obituaries of military personnel. Analyzing the content of Egyptian papers also played a major role in planning for the 1967 war, according to Israeli media reports, adding the war actually started as Egyptian newspapers ran a story that several army officers of different ranks would be having breakfast together at 9:00 a.m. on June 5, 1967, the day Israel attacked Egypt.

US Troops Kill Kabul Imam in ‘Unfortunate Incident’

Protests in Afghan Capital as NATO Expresses Regret

by Jason Ditz,
Mohammad Yonus, the imam of the Paktia Kowt Mosque in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, was killed today by American troops while sitting in his car.

Yonus was reportedly in his car with three of his sons waiting for his other son to arrive. A US convoy saw the parked car and decided it was a “threatening vehicle,” opening fire and killing Yonus. His sons were not injured in the shooting.

Locals said the convoy did not even stop after the shooting, and identified the attackers as American. Yonus was rushed to the hospital but died of his injuries shortly thereafter.

The killing sparked protests in front of a military base in Kabul, and once again brought attention to the growing problem of civilian killings by the international forces in the nation.

NATO spokesmen called the killing an “unfortunate incident” and expressed regret over shooting the imam. They promised that his family would receive an undisclosed amount of money to compensate them for the killing.

A Loss of Faith in Afghanistan

First State of the Union Address 2010.


By ERIK MALMSTROM
Tonight, President Obama presented a compelling defense of his strategy to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Following my deployment to the northeastern region of the country in 2006-2007, I arrived at many of the same conclusions as he has over recent months. I believed that the faltering mission required a revamped approach, more troops, and more resources. Dealing with the dysfunctions of the U.S.-led effort, serving in an overstretched unit and suffering casualties in my platoon prompted my initial diagnosis. However, time, distance, and perspective from my experience have forced me to reconsider this assessment.President Obama’s goals are sound. Training Afghan security forces, rewarding good governance, reducing corruption, supporting the rights of all Afghans, and strengthening the international coalition are vital to the fight against Al Qaeda. However, a fatal flaw plagues the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by the president: the more the U.S. and its allies deepen their involvement and commitment in Afghanistan, the more they undercut the Afghan sense of ownership, accountability and sustainability that will determine the long-term fate of the mission. Simply put, his strategy is directly at odds with his goals.
Most importantly, Mr. Obama’s plan lacks the most essential prerequisite to any successful counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan: a credible Afghan government. The Karzai regime is weak, corrupt, and perceived to be illegitimate by most Afghans. Similar problems hamper provincial, district, and village governments.
Last year’s fraudulent elections made this already bad situation even worse. By and large, Afghans have lost faith in the president, the current government and the democratic process. In my own experience, this lack of confidence was pervasive, palpable and deep-seated. It poisoned the very integrity of our mission.
Ironically, President Obama’s call for better governance ignores our own culpability for the sorry state of affairs in Afghanistan. Our mere presence has insulated the Karzai government from the consequences of its actions. It has enabled its corruption, laziness, and ineffectiveness. It has stunted the growth of the Afghan state, institutions, and civil society. At some point, Karzai must answer to his people for his dismal performance. In turn, the U.S. must prepare for the potential collapse of this government and plan for various contingencies.
In the end, this is an Afghan war that must be won or lost by Afghans. Thus, the true path to progress rests on thrusting the Afghan government in a position of genuine responsibility and relegating the U.S. and NATO to a supporting role. While the U.S. will be an important player in Afghanistan both now and in the future, one must be careful not to overstate the U.S. role and understate the Afghan role. Furthermore, one must understand that the U.S. presence undermines Afghan ownership of the conflict. Escalating this presence will only exacerbate this problem.
Furthermore, the U.S. and other NATO countries lack the domestic political support, money and resolve to escalate the war for more than a short period. Given this abbreviated timeline, any potential gains from the president’s strategy are likely to be ephemeral and superficial. In the coming years, the U.S. will likely find itself in a similarly poor situation if it fails to seriously recalibrate its strategy.

Erik Malmstrom served in northeastern Afghanistan in 2006-2007 as an infantry officer with the 10th Mountain Division. He is currently a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School.

The CIA, Assassination, and the War on Terrorism

by Jacob G. Hornberger
In late July, the New York Times disclosed a secret plan by the CIA to assassinate suspected terrorists around the globe. According to the Times, the agency decided against implementing the plan, possibly because of the risk of being prosecuted for murder in countries in which the assassinations would take place.
Actually, it’s not at all clear yet that the CIA is telling the truth about never having implemented its assassination program. After all, in November 2002, the CIA fired a missile into an automobile containing suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who were traveling in Yemen. The missile killed everyone in the car, including an American citizen named Ahmed Hijazi.
How did the CIA justify its Yemen assassination? The rationale has become a familiar one: since the United States is at war with the terrorists, it has the authority to kill suspected terrorists wherever it finds them. In the war on terrorism, as U.S. officials have reminded us so often, the entire world is a battlefield.
However, the fact is that terrorism is a crime. Everyone, including federal prosecutors and federal judges, will acknowledge that. It is denominated a crime in the federal criminal code. Accused terrorists are indicted by a federal grand jury and put on trial in a federal district court. They have included Zacarias Moussaoui, Jose Padilla, Ramzi Yousef, Timothy McVeigh, and many others.
So, if terrorism is a crime, how is it that the CIA assassinated people traveling in a car in Yemen? As suspected criminals, why weren’t the occupants in the car entitled to be arrested and extradited to the United States for trial rather than being assassinated?
The answer lies in a radical action taken by President George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment or an act of Congress, he simply declared that henceforth U.S. officials would treat terrorism as either a criminal offense or an act of war, at their option.
Thus, some suspected terrorists are treated as criminal defendants, which means that they are accorded the procedural protections provided by the Bill of Rights.
Other suspected terrorists are not so fortunate. They are treated as illegal enemy combatants and denied the protections of the Bill of Rights. Suspected terrorists in this group are also subjected to such things as torture, kangaroo tribunals, and lifetime incarceration, even in the unlikely event that a tribunal acquits them of all charges.
Bush’s war-on-terrorism paradigm obviously provides another way to treat suspected terrorists — simply by killing them. No arrests, no Miranda warnings, no presumption of innocence, no attorneys, no trials, and no other messy procedures associated with the criminal-justice system. Not even incarceration in a military dungeon, torture, or trial before a kangaroo tribunal.
Instead, just have the CIA assassinate them.
The whole thing brings to mind the movie Star Chamber, starring Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook, which came out in 1983. The movie was about a group of judges who had grown sick and tired of suspected criminals’ getting set free on procedural “technicalities.” So they simply formed their own assassination team, which took out the suspected criminals.
America: part of the battlefield
While government officials have chafed against the restrictions in the Bill of Rights ever since it was adopted, they have never been able to ignore them, thanks to criminal defense attorneys and an independent federal judiciary willing to enforce such provisions ... until, that is, federal officials figured out a way to do so under the regime of George W. Bush. By simply declaring a “war on terrorism” and announcing that this federal crime would now also be treated as an act of war, the executive branch has been able to completely ignore the Bill of Rights where this particular crime — terrorism — is concerned. It would be difficult to find a more perfect and ingenious scheme for circumventing the Bill of Rights for what everyone acknowledges is a federal criminal offense.
Keep in mind that in criminal proceedings a trial determines whether the state has provided sufficient evidence to convince a jury or judge beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the offense. In the war on terrorism, there is no trial, and the CIA is free to assassinate anyone it wants, so long as CIA agents believe that the target is a suspected terrorist.
One presumption in all this is that the CIA will be assassinating only foreigners in foreign lands, which some Americans might find comforting. “They’re protecting us from our enemies,” the sentiment might be. Or, as the CIA might put it, “We’re doing what’s necessary to protect the national security of our country.”
But there is a basic problem here. As U.S. officials have often reminded us, in the war on terrorism the entire world is a battlefield. That includes the fact that the United States is part of that worldwide battlefield. It also includes the possibility that American citizens can be terrorists.
That’s in fact why the CIA treated a foreign citizen — Ali al-Marri — and an American citizen — Jose Padilla — as illegal enemy combatants and transferred both of them into military custody, notwithstanding the fact that both of them had been arrested by federal law-enforcement personnel in the United States. The idea was that both of them were suspected of having committed terrorist acts and, therefore, were subject to being treated as enemy combatants in the war on terrorism, at the option of the government.
Even though federal officials later treated Padilla as a criminal defendant instead, indicting him for the federal crime of terrorism, that was after he had spent three years in prison as an illegal enemy combatant in the war on terrorism. During those three years, he was subjected to torture, sensory deprivation, denial of counsel (until the federal courts ordered otherwise), isolation, and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a military dungeon.
But at least Padilla was alive. The disquieting fact is that under the war on terrorism, the CIA wields the same authority to do to him what it did to the American traveling in the car in Yemen — simply take him out through assassination. After all, what difference does it make whether a suspected terrorist is traveling in Yemen or in the United States, given that in the war on terrorism the entire world is a battlefield? In fact, couldn’t one make the case that an American terrorist in the United States is much more dangerous than an American terrorist traveling in Yemen?
Operation Condor
The CIA’s assassination scheme brings to mind Operation Condor, a worldwide political program of repression and assassination led in the 1970s by Chilean military strongman Augusto Pinochet’s intelligence agency, which was known as DINA. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Operation Condor had the support and cooperation of the CIA.
Operation Condor bears some similarities to the manner in which the CIA has waged the war on terrorism. DINA took countless people into custody, tortured them, killed them, “disappeared” them, or held them indefinitely in dark dungeons. Of course, back then it was the war on communism, rather than the war on terrorism, that was used to justify these extraordinary measures.
It is no surprise that Operation Condor also employed assassination as one of its primary tools. DINA agents did not only assassinate domestic people suspected of being communists, it also sent its agents abroad to assassinate people, just as the CIA has done in the war on terrorism. DINA officials viewed the situation the same way that U.S. officials view the war on terrorism today: in the war on communism, the entire world was a battlefield and the enemy was subject to being killed wherever they could find him.
Needless to say, the battlefield in the war on communism included the United States, just as it is part of the battlefield in the global war on terrorism. One day, DINA agents, led by a man with CIA ties, Michael Townley, assassinated a Chilean citizen named Orlando Letelier on the streets of Washington, D.C. The assassination was carried out with a car bomb. Also killed in the attack was an American citizen named Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s assistant.
Why did DINA agents assassinate Letelier? Because DINA officials believed that he was a communist. He had served in the socialist Salvador Allende regime, which had been ousted from power by Pinochet in a military coup (a coup that had the approval of U.S. officials, including those in the CIA). After the coup and after having been tortured by Pinochet’s henchmen for about a year, Letelier was released. He moved to Washington, where he lobbied against the Pinochet regime. Thus, in the eyes of Operation Condor, Letelier not only was a communist, he also constituted a danger to the Pinochet regime.
What was the difference between DINA’s assassination of Letelier and Moffitt, on the one hand, and the CIA’s assassination of the people traveling in that car in Yemen? In principle, there isn’t any. In Yemen, the CIA assassinated people it believed were terrorists, including an American citizen. In Washington, DINA assassinated people it believed were communists, including an American citizen.
A federal grand jury in Washington, however, apparently didn’t endorse the war-on-communism paradigm for justifying assassination. It indicted Townley and his group of anti-Castro Cubans who were accused of helping him to plant the car bomb. Townley was given a plea bargain that enabled him to testify against his underlings and that ultimately permitted him to live the rest of his life somewhere in the United States under the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Other assassinations
An interesting and revealing part of the Pinochet coup involved a young American journalist named Charles Horman, who was murdered during the coup. The killing was made famous in the 1982 movie Missing, which starred Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. For years the CIA denied involvement in the Horman murder. In 1999, however, the State Department released a document acknowledging that the CIA had played “a role” in the killing.
What role precisely? We don’t know. Don’t forget that this is the CIA we’re talking about. Despite the State Department’s open acknowledgement that the CIA had participated in the murder of an American citizen, there was no special prosecutor appointed and there were no grand jury investigations or indictments. The CIA has been permitted to get away with participating in a murder, the murder of an American citizen, no questions asked.
Of course, the CIA’s history of assassination goes back further than the war on terrorism and Operation Condor. There was a CIA scheme to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. That operation involved a partnership between the CIA and the Mafia, a criminal organization that itself is famous for its many murders. There was also a CIA scheme to assassinate Congo leader Patrice Lumumba by providing him with a toothbrush carrying a deadly disease. We also shouldn’t forget the CIA’s use of LSD and other drugs in the 1960s on American citizens without their knowledge or consent, which led to at least two deaths.
Is the existence of the CIA consistent with the principles of a free society and a limited-government republic? With its willingness to assassinate on order, the answer clearly has to be no. It’s high time that the American people dismantled this dangerous threat to democracy, freedom, and limited government.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Bahrain military bringing security to Afghan bases

By John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition

Afghanistan − To Lance Cpl. Antonio Kirby, the object found in the pocket of a delivery driver hardly looked like something to smoke.

“What is it, a rock?” Kirby asked.

“No, no, this weed. This weed,” answered Bahraini Pvt. Abdulaziz Alqahtani, using language he picked up from Marines.

The rocklike hashish, a small amount for personal use by the driver delivering supplies to Camp Leatherneck, didn’t raise any security red flags. But the incident is an example of how 125 guards from Bahrain are helping secure the headquarters for U.S. military operations in volatile Helmand province, where more than 10,000 Marines are stationed and more are on the way.

Bahrain deployed members from its special security force to Afghanistan in December. It joins several predominantly Muslim countries that have contributed troops to the war, including the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Jordan.

“The Bahrainis are the first line of defense to get into Camp Bastion and Camp Leatherneck. They are on the front line, making that happen,” said Marine Lt. Col. Chris Naler, commander of brigade headquarters at Camp Leatherneck.

Under Bahrain’s deployment agreement, reached last year following a visit to the country by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the special security troops are in Afghanistan for two six-month deployments. The nation has the option to do two more six-month deployments after that.

At Camp Leatherneck and at neighboring Camp Bastion, which is the British headquarters and logistical hub for operations in Helmand, each morning starts with the arrival of one supply-stacked delivery truck after another.

The Bahraini troops work alongside the U.S. Marines, who lack the language skills to interrogate the delivery drivers. And while the Marines have translators, they can’t always be relied on. During a recent search, a Bahraini caught a translator advising a driver how to smuggle contraband on base.

In addition to narcotics, the Bahraini forces look for anything that could be used to make a bomb or detonate an explosive: wires and cell phones are confiscated. Occasionally, the investigators also come across and seize photos of the World Trade Center.

“They’re fully integrated into what we do,” said 2nd Lt. Jared Gastrock, who commands the Marines working with the Bahrainis. “We were expecting hiccups with the language barrier, but it hasn’t been a problem. They know what to do and they go out there and do it.”

Up to 20 members of the Bahrain force speak between five and seven languages, including Farsi, Dari and Pashtu. Bahrain’s official language is Arabic but English, Farsi and Urdu are also commonly spoken.

For the Bahrainis, the deployment is something of an adventure.

“We are new out here, but it is quite good,” said Bahraini Lance Cpl. Ismail Mukhtarv.

Taliban Overhaul Image in Bid to Win Allies

A banner of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, in Kabul. Among Afghans, there seems to be little liking for the government.

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have embarked on a sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some old-fashioned ones, to soften their image and win favor with local Afghans as they try to counter the Americans’ new campaign to win Afghan hearts and minds.

The Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, issued a lengthy directive late last spring outlining a new code of conduct for the Taliban. The dictates include bans on suicide bombings against civilians, burning down schools, or cutting off ears, lips and tongues.

The code, which has been spottily enforced, does not necessarily mean a gentler insurgency. Although the Taliban warned some civilians away before the assault on the heart of Kabul on Monday, they were still responsible for three-quarters of civilian casualties last year,according to the United Nations.

Now, as the Taliban deepen their presence in more of Afghanistan, they are in greater need of popular support and are recasting themselves increasingly as a local liberation movement, independent of Al Qaeda, capitalizing on the mounting frustration of Afghans with their own government and the presence of foreign troops. The effect has been to make them a more potent insurgency, some NATOofficials said.

Afghan villagers and some NATO officials added that the code had begun to change the way some midlevel Taliban commanders and their followers behaved on the ground. A couple of the most brutal commanders have even been removed by Mullah Omar.

The Taliban’s public relations operation is also increasingly efficient at putting out its message and often works faster than NATO’s. “The Afghan adaptation to counterinsurgency makes them much more dangerous,” said a senior NATO intelligence official here. “Their overarching goals probably haven’t changed much since 2001, but when we arrived with a new counterinsurgency strategy, they responded with one of their own.”

The American strategy includes limiting airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians and concentrating troops closer to population centers so that Afghans will feel protected from the Taliban.

American and Afghan analysts see the Taliban’s effort as part of a broad initiative that employs every tool they can muster, including the Internet technology they once denounced as un-Islamic. Now they use word of mouth, messages to cellphones and Internet videos to get their message out.

“The Taliban are trying to win the favor of the people,” said Wahid Mujda, a former Taliban official who now tracks the insurgency on the Internet and frequently comments on Afghan television. “The reason they changed their tactics is that they want to prepare for a long-term fight, and for that they need support from the people; they need local sources of income,” he said. “So, they learned not to repeat their previous mistakes.”

The Taliban can shape the narrative about attacks sometimes before NATO public affairs even puts out a statement. Unlike the NATO press machine, the Taliban are willing to give details, and while some are patently exaggerated or wrong, others have just enough elements of truth that they cannot be entirely ignored.

Bruce Riedel, who led President Obama’s review of the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, described the information war as critical. “You have to respond in the propaganda war in a very quick time cycle; you can’t put out a statement saying, ‘We’re looking for all the facts before we comment,’ ”Mr. Riedel said.

The new public relations campaign combined with relatively less cruel behavior may have stemmed some of the anger at the insurgency, which tribal leaders in the south said had begun to rally people against the Taliban.

But the most important factor in their growing reach is the ineffectiveness of the central government and Afghans’ resentment of foreign troops. Military intelligence analysts now estimate that there are 25,000 to 30,000 committed Taliban fighters and perhaps as many as 500,000 others who would fight either for pay or if they felt attacked by the Western coalition.

The effort to change the Taliban’s image began in earnest last May when Mullah Omar disseminated his new code of conduct. The New York Times obtained a copy of the document through a Taliban spokesman. A version of the new code was authenticated last summer by NATO intelligence after a copy was seized during a raid and its contents corroborated using human intelligence, according to a senior NATO intelligence official.

The version sent to The Times is a 69-point document ranging from how to treat local people, how to treat prisoners, what to do with captured enemy equipment and when to execute captives. Much of the document deals with the Taliban chain of command and limits the decisions that field commanders can make on their own. The document exhorts insurgents to live and work in harmony with local people.

In an eerie echo of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the photographing of prisoners, one edict states: “If someone is sentenced to death, he must be killed with a gun, and photographing the execution is forbidden.”

Creating a code of behavior is one thing, enforcing it another. The Taliban have survived in part because they are an atomized movement and it is difficult to persuade local commanders, who operate in mountain or desert redoubts, to follow directives from leaders living hundreds of miles away in Pakistan.

There are doubts as well about the Taliban’s recent assertions that they are independent from Al Qaeda. Leaders of both groups live in the same areas of Pakistan, and Al Qaeda remains a source of financing and training for the Afghan movement.

“If you compare the document to actual behavior, Mullah Omar only has marginal control over his forces,” said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, the director of communications for NATO.

“A portion of it may stick in some parts of the country, but not in other places,” he said. Despite an edict that says in suicide attacks “to try your best to avoid killing local people,” a suicide bombing in Oruzgan Province last Thursday killed 16 civilians. But in most places, the civilian casualties from suicide bombers have been in the single digits. The Kabul attack on Monday killed five people, two of them civilians, and wounded 32.

That contrasts sharply with Pakistan, where the insurgency routinely fields suicide bombers who kill scores of civilians.

Admiral Smith and others say that according to a recent Defense Intelligence Agency survey, the Taliban’s new strategy has failed to win over Afghans and that even though the insurgency may be carrying out fewer mutilations and beheadings, it still relies on intimidation through night letters, threatening conversations and even assassinations.

Interviews with tribal elders in areas where the Taliban are active suggest a complex picture. Several interviewed in rural Kandahar Province praised the Taliban’s new, less threatening approach, but said that did not translate into enthusiasm for the Taliban movement. At the same time, there is not much liking for either the Afghan government or NATO troops.

“There is a tremendous change in the Taliban’s behavior,” said Haji-Khan Muhammad Khan, a tribal elder from Shawalikot, a rural district of Kandahar Province. “They don’t behead people or detain those they suspect of spying without an investigation. But sometimes they still make mistakes, people still fear them, but now generally they behave well with people. They had to change because the leadership of the Taliban did not want to lose the support of the grass roots.”

The latest refrain of Taliban commanders, their Internet magazine and from surrogates is that the insurgency represents Afghanistan’sPashtuns, who are portrayed as persecuted by the Afghan government. “Pashtuns are suffering everywhere; if you go and check the prisons, you won’t find any prisoners except Pashtuns; when you hear about bombings, it is Pashtuns’ homes that have been bombed,” said a Taliban commander from Kandahar Province who goes by the name Sangar Yar.

While Pashtuns have been disproportionately affected by the Western military offensive, the insurgency is active predominantly in Pashtun areas where it is difficult to separate civilians and fighters.

At the moment, the dueling propaganda wars seem to have reached a stalemate.

“People have no choices; they are in a dilemma,” said Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder and businessman in Kandahar. “In places where the Taliban are active, the people are compelled to support them, they are afraid of the Taliban. And, in those places where government has a presence, the people are supporting the government,” he said.

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar.

The Tel Aviv Cluster

By DAVID BROOKS
Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.
In his book, “The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement,” Steven L. Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement. The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability. It is learning-based, not rite-based.
Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendants have been living off of their wits ever since. They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive. They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.
No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement. The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest. Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.
Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype. People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.
But that has changed. Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift. The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics. This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.
Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq. Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.
As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.
Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well. The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending. Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term. Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream. The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron. It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.
This shift in the Israeli identity has long-term implications. Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world. And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.
But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbors. All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation. Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centers. But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money.. The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.
For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the U.S.. Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652.
The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability. As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth. To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country. It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes. American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here. Now Israelis keep a foothold in the U.S.
During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.html?ref=opinion