10.6.2007, Saturday
Afghanistan Stalemate
The talk in Iraq is troop drawdown. But not in Afghanistan, where more U.S. soldiers may be headed.
By Andrew C. Schneider, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
October 5, 2007
Nearly six years after it began, the war in Afghanistan is a draw. The Taliban guerrillas and their al Qaeda allies can't defeat the U.S.-led coalition in conventional battle, but the coalition doesn't have enough troops on the ground to wage a successful counterinsurgency.
The U.S. is sure to send in more troops at some point. Currently, the U.S., NATO and non-NATO allies have about 51,000 soldiers to police a country nearly one and a half times as large as Iraq. About 25,000 of them are U.S. troops. Even the staunchest congressional critics of the war in Iraq recognize the importance of winning the war in Afghanistan and favor shifting U.S. troops there as the U.S. presence in Iraq is reduced. But the 15-month limit on combat tours that will force the U.S. to bring troops home from the Iraq surge to rest and retrain next spring and summer will prevent them from being immediately deployed to Afghanistan.
Many of the remaining coalition forces -- most notably Germans, French and Italians -- are barred from deployment in combat by their home governments. Exceptions include the contingents from the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands, which have engaged the Taliban in fierce fighting in southern Afghanistan. But the Canadians and the Dutch have each taken heavy casualties, with the result that domestic pressure is building in both countries to bring their troops home. The Afghan National Army and police forces remain understrength and are increasingly the targets of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices as the Taliban draw lessons from the war in Iraq.
The Taliban have been stepping up operations, not just in the south and east of the country where they remain strongest, but also in territory previously considered secure, to the north and west of Kabul. Indeed, the notion of any territory in Afghanistan being securely held by either coalition forces or the Taliban is misleading. Afghanistan is so large and the terrain so rugged that large parts of the country rarely see a regular military presence of either side. And the tribal nature of Afghan society makes the situation even more fluid.
"Afghanistan is such a mishmash of tribal loyalties that you'll see a [tribal] group loyal to the Taliban the day it passes through town and loyal to NATO the day it passes through town," says Nate Hughes, a military analyst for private intelligence firm Stratfor.
Several factors further complicate coalition efforts to break the Taliban insurgency. The Kabul-based Afghan national government remains highly corrupt and ineffective at providing basic services, which costs both it and the U.S. support from the Afghan people. The Taliban are reaping huge profits from the production and smuggling of illegal drugs as opium farming flourishes, particularly in the group's stronghold in the southern province of Helmand. The ties between Pashtun tribesmen on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border not only enable al Qaeda and the Taliban to use Pakistan as a safe haven from coalition attacks but also provide fertile recruiting ground for the Taliban to replenish their own forces. Meanwhile, the Pakistani army and intelligence services have variously shown themselves as unwilling or unable to fight the Taliban effectively on their own side of the border.
The delicate political climate in Pakistan doesn't help. An agreement just reached between General Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will allow the latter to return from exile later this month and run to reclaim her former office. That will ease relations between Musharraf and Bhutto's followers in the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), averting the threat that PPP deputies would join 80 other opposition legislators in resigning rather than participate in this weekend's presidential election.
The end result is likely to be another term as president for Musharraf, with the general following his reelection by shedding his uniform and governing as a civilian. But the move won't quell protests by those opposition parties not reconciled to Musharraf's continued rule. Nor will it transform Pakistan into a civilian democracy. Pakistan's military will retain a strong influence in the nation's government, just as it has during previous interludes of civilian rule over the past three decades. At best, what will emerge is a power sharing arrangement between Musharraf, his successor as army chief and a civilian prime minister.
Whatever government emerges after Pakistan's election this weekend won't reverse Islamabad's policy of supporting the U.S. war against the Taliban. But instead of dealing with one individual, the U.S. will have to deal with multiple Pakistani institutions, making for a more complex process of obtaining Pakistani assistance for any specific operations against the Taliban or al Qaeda.
10.7.2007, Sunday
10.8.2007, Monday
Venezuela: Another marigold revolution?
Published Date: October 08, 2007
Our story begins in 1999, when a small group of Serbian college students took a look at the government of then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and decided that enough was enough. They began regular protests against Milosevic's authoritarian rule and began to act as a nexus, coordinating their efforts with other dissident groups and minor political parties. In early 2000 they named their student activist group Otpor.
Within months, Otpor's invigorating and slick campaign tactics helped energize and unite various political factions and bind them together into a confederated anti-Milosevic movement. And in October of that year, Milosevic's government fell.
After its greatest hour, Otpor did not dissolve. It evolved. It remained active in demanding political accountability at home in Belgrade, but also stretched out internationally, seeking training and allies. As the organization's founders graduated from university the group became more nuanced and gradually grew to command a broader and deeper skill set.
Otpor strengthened its connections with Western governments and nongovernmental organizations, which provided the group with funding and limited amounts of intelligence about potential weaknesses in regimes they were already targeting. The tactics used in the crucible in Belgrade were "marketed" in documentaries and training manuals. Otpor became more than "just" a student group and transformed itself into the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). Among the group's strongest allies
are Freedom House and the Albert Einstein Institute and, through them, the US Agency for International Development and the US Department of State.
In 2003 CANVAS worked with the opposition in the former Soviet state of Georgia and helped foment the Rose Revolution. In 2004 similar efforts merged with a broader international effort to spur Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution. Not all of CANVAS's attempts proved successful. Efforts in Belarus, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, for example, bore no fruit. But the group's ability to mobilize and unite disparate factions and strike at the core of authoritarian systems are among the best
on the planet.
In 2005, CANVAS turned its attention to Venezuela, and on Oct 5 -- the seventh anniversary of Milosevic's fall-five student leaders from Venezuela arrived in Belgrade for training.
Demographically, Venezuela is very young, and thus in political terms student groups are potentially powerful. Additionally, the student movement is probably the most cohesive single faction within the Venezuelan opposition to President Hugo Chavez-which is itself perhaps the most ineffective and fractured opposition in Latin America. Venezuelan students only recently became active in anti-Chavez activities, and formed the backbone of opposition to the government's nationalization of CANTV, the country's o
nly meaningful private television station.
Success is by no means guaranteed, and student movements are only at the beginning of what could be a years-long effort to trigger a revolution in Venezuela, but the trainers themselves are the people who cut their teeth on the "Butcher of the Balkans." They've got mad skills. When you see students at five Venezuelan universities hold simultaneous demonstrations, you will know that the training is over and the real work has begun. –Stratfor
10.9.2007, Tuesday
Iran's Truce?
By Kevin Drum
Oct 9, 2007
Answers.com
(Political Animal) IRAN'S TRUCE?....The recent truce between leaders of Iraq's two biggest Shiite militias — the Badr Organization's Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim and the Mahdi Army's Muqtada Al-Sadr — has generally been chalked up to the good offices of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But Stratfor suggests that a different knocker of heads may have been responsible:
Sources in Iraq said in September that Al-Sadr had been in Iran, and it appears that this latest truce was signed in Tehran on Oct 3, when Al-Sadr was there to meet with al-Hakim. The Iranians have made clear to Al-Sadr that he must either cooperate and get his militia in line or face a massive purge led by Al-Hakim's Badr group. Al-Sadr appears to have complied.
....The Iranians are also heavily invested in al-Hakim's SIIC, which they view as the main vehicle to extend Iranian influence into Iraq. Iran has traditionally played Al-Sadr and al-Hakim's factions against one another to ensure that both depend on Tehran's good graces-but that policy has been more destructive than intended. Recognizing that Al-Sadr is a force to be reckoned with, Iran has decided it will be more worthwhile to co-opt him than to challenge him in the long run — though several obstacles will prevent Tehran from doing so.
This comes via Cernig, who is skeptical. Me too. Still, as rumors go this one isn't bad, and it's far from inconceivable that this is how things played out — though it doesn't necessarily mean that Sistani wasn't involved too. The truce could have had multiple brokers.
As for what it means, I'll leave that to smarter people than me. Just seemed worth passing along.
The Houston Chronicle
October 9, 2007 Tuesday
3 STAR EDITION
Why no big drug bosses this side of border?;
Latin America says they exist, but U.S. insists it's too risky for them here
BYLINE: DANE SCHILLER, STAFF
SECTION: A; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1252 words
Latin Americans bristle when Washington points a finger south and lectures about drugs.
They note that when the U.S. government talks about which cocaine cartels operate in Mexico or Colombia, officials tick off foreign drug lords' names, preferred smuggling routes and sometimes even the tattoos they sport.
But when it comes to what is going on in the United States - the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs - federal agents and police catch a lot of dealers but never snare Mr. Big, or even acknowledge he exists.
Where is a real-life Tony Montana, the Miami drug baron portrayed by Al Pacino in the classic movie Scarface?
What about an American version of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian who was known for his gold-plated bathroom and was the most infamous cartel boss ever?
"I certainly would love to see where is the Pablo Escobar of Texas," Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, who was once kidnapped by Escobar, said on a recent visit to Houston. "I would love to know."
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox shared Santos' concern.
"That is the question I always ask myself," Fox said recently by phone from California. His speaking tour comes to Houston next week. "Who crosses or permits the drugs to be crossed at the border, and when on the U.S. side of the border, who transports the drugs to the markets of this great nation?"
The sideways glances continue as the nations try working together more closely than ever, and that includes a proposed
$1 billion U.S. government aid package to help Mexico fight drug trafficking.
"This is a way for them to turn the situation around on the United States," Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami drug-trafficking expert, said of the concerns shared by Santos and Fox. "They are feeling under siege as the United States is harping against their organizations and their inability to catch them."
No widespread corruption
American drug fighters say that for a variety of reasons, the biggest of bosses stay out of the United States.
"You don't have prominent cartel figures here. Our law enforcement efforts are too good. Our intelligence is too good and we don't have the vast corruption," said Fred Burton, a former federal anti-terrorism agent who is on Gov. Rick Perry's Border Security Council.
James Kuykendall, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent, said big-time dealers want to avoid the type of scrutiny they'd draw in the U.S.
"If you get too flashy, there is a red flag," he said. "We do not pursue it as well as we could, but we seem to do better than most Latin American countries."
Kuykendall pointed to how the drug cartels follow the lead of legitimate corporations to stay out of trouble.
"When you get to the supply end, it is one dude in charge of everything," he said.
Even if larger-than-life kingpins aren't in the United States, the Justice Department holds out numerous arrests of mid-level traffickers. And two men charged with running cocaine empires from Mexico have been handed over to the United States for prosecution in Houston's federal courthouse.
Drawing parallels to mafia
Osiel Cardenas is accused of heading the Gulf Cartel and threatening to kill an FBI and DEA agent he and his soldiers caught on the streets of the Texas-Mexico border city of Matamoros.
Cardenas, who was later arrested in Mexico, remains in the U.S. government's custody pending a May trial, but his gold-plated gun, cowboy boots and bulletproof vest will remain south of the border, where they are displayed at Mexico's version of the Pentagon.
Juan Garcia Abrego ran the same cartel years ago, but was caught and handed over to the United States. He is now serving multiple life sentences at the federal "supermax" prison in Colorado.
Eduardo Valle, a Mexican commentator who once led a Mexican-government task force that tried to capture Garcia Abrego, said it is naive to believe there are not at least powerful regional drug bosses that take care of business in the United States.
He pointed to the way the Italian-American mafia used to have a grip on the nation's underworld, and said it is likely that tradition has continued with other groups who maintain well-established distribution networks needed to move billions of dollars worth of drugs.
An indictment against Cardenas doesn't seem to put his feet squarely in the United States, but indicates that over the phone and in other ways, his instructions were followed.
The document traces drugs and money from Mexico through Houston and on to other points in the United States. Authorities charge that over a five-month period in 2001, about $41 million in drug proceeds was counted at a hideout in Georgia.
Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former police officer, said it is hard to fathom how perhaps billions of dollars could be handled by the drug cartels without high-level players on U.S. soil.
"There has to be someone on this side making the big bucks off it - it is not the low-level drug dealer on the corner," Moskos said.
Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a Houston lawyer who has served as the region's top federal prosecutor, said drug bosses realize if they're going to stay free, they've got to avoid the United States.
"They can't bribe enough people, and it is not their environment; they got control of their cartel through a number of different means - that doesn't mean they can control wherever they go," he said. "There is no reason for the cartel guys to come into the United States," he continued. "Even if there was, there is too big of a risk."
Lt. Gray Smith, with the Houston police narcotics division, said the city sits at the heart of a major pipeline for sneaking drugs from Mexico to the East Coast and other areas.
He noted while there are no Pablo Escobar types, about 14,000 people a year are arrested in the Houston area on narcotics charges, ranging from possession of less than a gram of cocaine to several thousand pounds of marijuana.
Among the biggest differences in running a drug syndicate in the United States versus Latin America is that here there are just pockets of corruption, while in Latin America entire systems are dirty enough to let bosses control their local village or even a federal government.
"It is apples and oranges," he said of comparing the environment for crime in Latin America to the United States.