By Peter Symonds

The attempted suppression of an Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) report on atrocities and war crimes committed by Afghan governments and warlords from 1978 to 2001 is devastating exposure of the US puppet regime in Kabul.

The AIHRC, an organisation set up by the Kabul regime itself, has documented the criminal record of the warlords who run the regime and the powers that backed them, above all the United States.

The 800-page report, entitled “Conflict Mapping in Afghanistan Since 1978,” was prepared over a six-year period from 2005 by a team of 40 researchers working with international legal and forensic experts. It found evidence of 180 mass graves, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, rape, and the destruction of towns and villages. Commissioner Ahmad Nader Nadery reported that the report tallied a million killed—not all through war crimes—and another 1.3 million disabled.

The report catalogues the crimes committed by all sides in the wars that raged in Afghanistan, including the 1978–1992 Soviet-backed regime and the CIA-backed traditionalist mujahedin militias that fought it, overthrew it, and then divided Afghanistan between themselves.

It details the brutal civil war that followed the fall of the Soviet-backed regime, as Islamist warlords whom Washington had hailed as “freedom fighters” battled for power and control of resources, including the lucrative Afghan opium trade. Atrocities and human rights abuses continued under the Taliban—who were formed with Pakistani backing and tacit US support—as well as their rival northern warlords.

Unsurprisingly, current Afghan officials named as responsible for atrocities objected to the release of the report, only portions of which were leaked to the media.

Afghan officials named in the report include First Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik warlord; Second Vice President Karim Khalili, a Hazara warlord; General Atta Mohammed Noor, another Tajik militia leader who is currently a provincial governor; and General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious Uzbek warlord, who is chief of staff to the supreme commander of the Afghan Armed Forces.

The political prominence of such thugs underlines the venal, corrupt character of the regime of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. From the outset, it rested on a network of reactionary local and provincial warlords, militia commanders and tribal leaders.

The suppression of the war crimes report would not be possible without US complicity. According to the New York Times, the US embassy in Kabul objected to its publication; US officials said that its release would “open up old wounds.”

The report exposes not only Afghan warlords, but the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They funded, armed and trained the various reactionary Islamist militias that fought the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s, tore the country apart in the 1990s, and have ruled it in collaboration with Washington over the last decade.

Stopping as it does in 2001, the document says little about the crimes committed by US and NATO forces who began occupying Afghanistan that year. However, even the limited details of US operations in Afghanistan in the final months of 2001 point to war crimes. The CIA worked closely with its warlord allies, including in the mass murder of alleged Taliban detainees in the Qala-i Janga fortress near Mazar-i Sharif.

The voluminous report devotes only two pages to “violations by US forces.” However, these include US bombing of civilians, the use of indiscriminate weapons including cluster bombs, prolonged detention of prisoners without due process, torture and renditions.

Washington’s sensitivity over the Afghan report is not simply related to its past crimes. By reviewing the decades from 1978 and 2001, the document is a reminder that US imperialism not only helped to create brutes such as Dostum, Fahim and Khalili. It also funded and armed the Afghan and foreign Islamist militias that are currently fighting the US occupation—the Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Al Qaeda international terrorist network.

Whether Islamists like Hekmatyar were lionised by the American media as “freedom fighters” or denounced as “terrorists” depended entirely on whether or not they served US interests. The Taliban’s reactionary edicts, including against women, were only condemned by Washington from the late 1990s, as the Taliban became an obstacle to US plans for oil and gas pipelines across Afghanistan from Central Asia.

This history exposes the bogus character of the US “war on terror,” that was used as a pretext for wars to boost US domination over the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia and to set up the infrastructure of police-state rule at home.

Moreover, the US and its European allies are now exploiting the criminal methods developed in Afghanistan elsewhere in the Middle East. In the name of “liberating” the Libyan people, the US and NATO armed and backed opposition militias, including those with ties to Al Qaeda, that overthrew Gaddafi with the aid of a massive NATO bombing campaign. The current regime in Tripoli is composed of Islamists, adventurers, and other US assets just as reactionary as their counterparts in Kabul.

Now the Obama administration is also backing Islamists, Al Qaeda forces, and other militias to oust Syrian president Bashir al Assad and install a pro-US regime in Damascus.

Washington hopes to suppress the Afghan report so that these truths about its crimes in Afghanistan do not fuel opposition to the criminal policies it now pursues throughout the Middle East.

__________________________

Peter Symonds is a political correspondent for WSWS.ORG.

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

As Syria descends into Western-induced chaos…

By Sharmine Narwani –english al-akhbar.com
Originally: Sun, 2012-07-08 23:47-

President Assad (l) sitting next to Gen. Tlass.

The departure of Brigadier General Manaf Tlass from Syria continues to make headlines around the world. But amidst the fanfare, the question of whether this latest development has lasting significance is not at all clear. There are several points to consider:

First, gaining the “defection” of important members of the Sunni community and senior commanders of the Syrian Army has been a central goal of the external opposition and their foreign backers since the onset of protests in 2011. This is the Assad-must-go-no-matter-what crowd, and splitting key pro-regime communities (major cities, secular Sunnis, business elite, government officials, armed forces and minority groups) has been their only strategy to provoke regime change, outside of foreign military assistance.

Second, the regime-changers have gone to great lengths to actively promote “cracks” in these communities. This includes widespread misinformation campaigns as outlined by Stratfor last December, and through carefully calibrated unconventional warfare tactics as explained in this article. A slew of current and former regime officials/confidantes have been approached by external parties this past year to – if necessary – manufacture these fissures. One former senior government official who is known to be dissatisfied with Assad’s performance has told me personally that he was offered a specific large sum of money by the US Congress – brokered by a third nation – just to show up at a critical “Friends of Syria” opposition meeting. Gaining key defections from Syria has become that important.

Third, Brigadier General Tlass is, frankly, not that important from either a military or political perspective.

Since the news of his departure broke a few days ago, Tlass has stayed quiet. It is unlikely that he has “defected” – that would suggest he is joining the opposition, and it is doubtful that any but the most opportunistic of them would embrace a figure so closely associated with the Assad history in Syria.

But here’s a tidbit that hasn’t made the rounds yet in this well-hyped story: until very recently, Tlass was telling members of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle that he wanted the post of Minister of Defense.

“He believed he could help push forth a reform agenda, as he had envisioned with his old friend Bassel (al-Assad),” says an acquaintance of Tlass’.

A well-informed source close to the Syrian government tells me that Tlass had tested those waters last Spring before Assad announced a new cabinet in April 2011, from which he was excluded. In the early months of unrest in Syria, he had attempted to stem the crisis by mediating between the government and its opponents in various towns and cities, but had by most accounts not succeeded. Part of the problem appears to be that the Assad establishment did not put its weight behind his efforts after they faltered, choosing to pursue another strategy altogether. By August, as armed clashes and crackdowns escalated, Tlass was effectively sidelined by a regime that refused to entrust in his vision and was mistrustful of his family’s opposition credentials. He then simply stopped working, cut-off many of his ties with close friends and reigned in his legendary social life.

How does one just not go to work one day? A source explains that “Tlass’ military uniform was only 10% of his life anyway. The rest of his time was spent on running around, his social life, some business dealings. He was a privileged son of an important regime figure – that was his life and he had a sense of entitlement as did many others like him.”

But still Tlass apparently did not count himself out – he tried again for the top defense post in the lead-up to the last cabinet reshuffle, and was passed over a second time when Assad announced the new line-up on June 23.

The headlines this week that claim the “defection” of a major Syrian Army commander and a member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle lack a great deal of the nuance unique to Manaf Tlass’ case.

Tlass’ father, a longtime close friend and confidante of Hafez al-Assad, was Syria’s Defense Minister between 1972 and 2002, finally relinquishing his post two years after Bashar al-Assad was named president. The details of whether he was politely ejected by the incoming “younger generation” or resigned after having ensured the transfer of power to Hafez’s son remain unclear, but reports suggest that there is some truth to both.

Tlass’ family are from Rastan, in the Province of Homs, a major hub for opposition activity and armed clashes this past year. Tlass and his father have been pretty much the only hold-outs in a family that has long since abandoned the regime. His widowed, Paris-based sister Nahed Tlass who was married to Akram Ojjeh, a wealthy Saudi arms dealer 35-years her senior, and their brother Firas who runs the family business from the UAE, have been harshly critical of Assad for some time.

More notable yet is his first cousin defected Lieutenant Abdul Razak Tlass, frontman for the notorious Saudi-backed Farouq Battalion operating in Homs, which has been accused by local opposition groups of targeting their members and pro-regime civilians for extrajudicial killings, and for deliberately provoking attacks by Syrian security forces.

The media stories on Manaf Tlass focus heavily on his very senior ranking in the Syrian armed forces and his closeness to the president. While the latter is true – Tlass is a close friend of the Assads – he is not a member of the president’s innermost political/military circle and his social interests were always much closer to Assad’s now-deceased brother Bassel, once heir-apparent to their father, Hafez.

Tlass’ military value within the Syrian Army is even more dubious. Contrary to media reports, he has not been a member of the Presidential Guards for more than two years and last served with a regular brigade. Tlass apparently felt snubbed by the president for not being promoted to Major General from his current status as Brigadier General, but importantly, is viewed within the army as a token regime appointment rather than a commander capable of leading his forces.

Is Tlass’ departure significant? Certainly, it has been useful for some perception-creating headlines. But he was neither a pivotal figure within the Syrian Army nor the political establishment. His importance was rather in relation to his father’s standing within the elder Assad’s coterie, and as a member of a leading Sunni family long associated with the regime.

The fact is, after almost a year of inactivity and relative isolation, Manaf was in political no-man’s land in Syria. Scorned by people in Rastan for his continued allegiance to Assad, and marginalized by the regime in both the political and military spheres, Tlass had nothing to gain or lose by sitting tight.

“I don’t blame him. He had to make a choice,” says a Syrian who knows Tlass. “Nobody stopped him from leaving and nobody worked on him to stay,” says another, who knows the elder Tlass well.

So he went to France. End of story. But that won’t stop the spin.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

Under the cloak of “free speech,” rich Americans — especially on the Right — are buying what’s left of U.S. “democracy” and doing much of it in secret, insisting their sponsorship of TV attack ads be hidden. Some of their handmaidens even boast about their impending victories, note Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas magnate, and est. $24 billion worth of political muscle. He is open about his involvement in politics (as opposed to the Koch brothers, who hide their filthy manipulations) and conditions his donations to unconditional support for Israel. Adelson and his ilk are the poster boys for American political corruption, but it takes whorish politicians to do the tango.

In all the hullabaloo over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on health care, another of its rulings quickly fell off the public radar. Before deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act, the Court announced it would not reconsiderCitizens United, the odious 5-4 decision two years ago that opened our elections to unlimited contributions.

Within minutes of that announcement, right-wing partisans were crowing about the advantage they now own, an advantage not due to ideas or personalities but to the sheer force of money. They were remarkably candid and specific. Here’s what Fred Barnes wrote in The Weekly Standard about the Senate race in Missouri:

“For three weeks in May, Republican super-PACs took turns attacking Democratic senator Claire McCaskill in TV ads. Republicans hadn’t held their primary — it’s not until August 7 — but McCaskill wound up trailing all three of the GOP candidates in polls. Now McCaskill, unnerved, is struggling to recover. …  That’s what super-PACs can do. When they emerged in 2010 and worked in tandem, they were a critical force in the Republican landslide in the congressional elections. This year they’re playing an even bigger role. The size and reach of their efforts dwarf what they did two years ago.”

Attaboy, Fred, for telling it like it is, for exposing the hoax that the Court’s original decision was about “free” speech. No, it’s about carpet bombing elections with all the tonnage your rich paymasters want to buy.

Try not to laugh when you hear one of its decision’s perpetrators, the noted lawyer Floyd Abrams, say, as he did not too long ago: “I don’t think we should want as a matter of policy, to make decisions which are essentially, people can’t do all the speaking that they can in a political campaign. I don’t think we can ration speech.”

Speech already is rationed. On your playing field, Messieurs Barnes and Abrams, those who have no money have no speech. And just who do you think is doing this “speaking?” Poor people haven’t lost their voice — they can’t afford a voice. Everyday working people suffer from universal laryngitis, brought on by the absence of money. As for children — children who have a big stake in our elections but no vote, forget it — for them to be heard they would need piggy banks the size of Walmart heirs. Or the Koch brothers for uncles.

And if it’s free speech the Deep Pockets are practicing and touting, why are you ashamed of it? If free speech is a right, why all the secrecy? Why hide from voters where the money is coming from? Why not openly say you are downright proud to be exercising their First Amendment rights and writing checks is your patriotic duty?

Instead, conservatives across the country are fighting legal battles to keep their sugar daddies secret. Why? According to their guardian angel in Congress — the highly leveraged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — the right wing opposes disclosure laws because the super-rich just might be bullied and harassed by the rest of us who want to know who’s buying our elections.

So the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal asks us to have pity on billionaires and those little ol’ corporations and their CEOs who just might have their tender feelings hurt; exposed to boycotts and pickets if it was known which candidates they were buying. But wait a minute. Weren’t we taught the First Amendment also guarantees the right of every citizen to assemble and petition, even to boycott and picket?

That’s what a couple of hundred protesters were doing just the other day. They marched to the D.C. offices of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, those right-wing money mills run by the mastermind of so much of this massive fundraising, Karl Rove. He’s making a bundle buying and selling “Free Speech,” while at the same time deploring the disclosure of big donors’ names as “shameful” intimidation!

Exercising their First Amendment rights, the demonstrators taped a kind of wanted poster on Rove’s office door, indicating they would like to see him wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. Instead, he could be seen in casual wear, buzzing around in a golf cart at Mitt Romney’s Utah mountain gathering of high rollers. No doubt plotting how to raise more millions to pay for more “free speech.”

So let’s see if we’ve got this right: On the one hand, conservatives declare that corporations and the super-rich can spend all they want on exercising their First Amendment rights, but on the other, they demand to keep it secret so the rest of us can’t exercise our First Amendment rights to fight back. Have you ever heard of more cowardly lions?

It’s one big joke. Big enough to make you cry. Three things don’t go together: Money. Secrecy. Democracy. That’s the nub of the matter. This is all a sham for invalidating democracy in the name of democracy. It’s the trick authoritarians always use to hide their real intentions, which in this case is absolute power over our public life and institutions: the privatization of everything.

The Supreme Court is pointing the way. Instead of mitigating the worst excesses of both the state and the private sector, with Citizens United and the latest decision affirming it, the Court has taken sides — saying to the massed wealth of the one percent: America is yours for the taking, for the buying. Help yourself.

That’s what George III thought, too, which brings us back to our celebration of the 4th of July, to the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson, who seems to have thought that a little uprising now and then would be good for what ails us. This time the overweening power is not monarchy but plutocracy, the convergence of the political, religious and corporate right that would keep us in the dark about where all that money is coming from, and who it’s buying, until one day we wake up and our country is no longer our own.

Fortunately, those orange jump suits come in one size fits all. So remember, moneyed lords and ladies, what King George learned the hard way — you can only push your subjects so far.

Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program, Moyers & Company, airing on public television. Check local airtimes or comment at www.BillMoyers.com.

Tags: Bill Moyers, Citizens United, Fred Barnes, Michael Winship, U.S. Supreme Court

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

By Stephen Lendman

How can the world still tolerate leaders like these? The problem is the media. And behind the media, corporate power.

A common thread defines Obama and Netanyahu. Their agenda threatens humanity. Both head modern-day Spartas.

Israel is very much involved in Washington’s war on Syria. At issue is destroying another independent state, murdering thousands, planning more wars, and threatening the entire region and beyond.  Iran is next in line. Saber rattling combines with war by other means. It includes sanctions, subversion, instability, cyberwar, targeted assassinations, other disruptive actions, and relentless scoundrel media vilification and fearmongering.

On August 3, Haaretz headlined “King Bibi in trouble.” Poll numbers show a 60% disapproval rating. It’s not for institutionalized militarism and belligerence. It’s about new budget cuts hardening neoliberal harshness.  Most Israelis are fed up with what harms their well-being. Their narrow definition omits likely blowback from regional wars and more planned. Conflict rages cross border in Syria. If attacked, Hezbollah can respond in kind.

Key is whether Israel plans bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. Doing so is lawless, madness, and self-destructive. Nonetheless, heated rhetoric suggests it’s possible.

On August 2, Haaretz headlined “Ex-Mossad chief said what should be clear to everyone – Israel has never been so close to attacking Iran,” saying:

According to Ephraim Halevy, “if I were an Iranian, I would be very worried about the Israeli talk about a possible attack, because Israel’s threats sound serious and credible to me.”

No longer publicly active, he may or may not know what’s planned. Haaretz said he’s not “another establishment stooge.” Nor is he “gung-ho.”   He’s wise enough not to reveal state secrets. Perhaps he commented because someone asked. Once a Mossad insider, always one. Iranian officials will parse his comments carefully.

On August 1, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile (DF) headlined “(Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei Warns Iran’s Top Leaders: WAR IN WEEKS,” saying:

Before Friday, July 27 prayers, he “summoned top Iranian military chiefs for what he called ‘last war council.’ “

DF claims he told them “(w)e’ will be at war within weeks.” Allegedly he ordered high alert readiness, fortifying Iran’s nuclear facilities, and retaliatory responses.

Only high level insiders know Israeli intentions. Saber rattling and inflammatory rhetoric went on for years. It’s heard regularly now. So far, belligerence hasn’t follow bluster. Whether things now are different remains to be seen.

On August 3, Haaretz headlined “As Netanyahu pushes Israel closer to war with Iran, Israelis cannot keep silent,” saying:

“Why aren’t ministers and defense officials standing up right now, when it is still possible, and saying: We will not be a party to this megalomaniacal vision, to this messianic-catastrophic worldview?”

As important is why militarism, belligerence, and denigration of Muslims define Israeli policies. Why is war institutionalized?

Why does a nation treat one-fifth of its people like fifth column threats? Why are non-Jews persecuted? Why do decades of occupation repression continue?

Why do only elitist Jews matter at the expense of all others? Why does a tiny state threaten other regional nations? Why do world leaders permit it? How can any responsible official contemplate catastrophic war if launched?

Haaretz suggests “Netanyahu has a historical mindset (and) outlook under which….Israel is ‘the eternal nation’ and the United States” is just one among many.

In other words, “(w)e are everlasting, we are an eternal people, and they, despite all their strength and power, are merely temporary and ephemeral.”

Megalomania and delusions of grandeur define this type thinking. Past leaders governing this way perished by the same sword they lived by. It always turned out that way.

Tiny Israel is a dot in an ocean of justifiable resentment. One step too far may bite back harder than what Netanyahu and others around him imagine.

His governing style is autocratic, said Haaretz. He thinks he holds Israel’s destiny in his hands. He may end up fiddling while it burns. His hermetic worldview rigidity may end up its undoing.  He’ll take an entire nation and others over a cliff with him. Perhaps he’ll end up like Caligula. Delusions of grandeur and tyrannical harshness got him assassinated. His own Praetorian Guard did him in. Netanyahu heads Israel’s most extremist ever government. It’s racist, repressive, elitist and fascist. Democracy is more hypocrisy than real.

Hardliners around him share his vision. Most Israelis want peace, not war. They have no say. Their fate hangs in his hands. It’s their country, their security, and their future.  Don’t they understand the consequences of attacking Iran? Have they no sense that “bomb or be bombed” rhetoric is belligerent bombast? Don’t they know destructive policies sometimes follow?

Iran threatens no one. Its nuclear program is peaceful. Every Israeli and Western leader knows it. Saying otherwise hides dark side intensions.

Why don’t knowledgeable people speak out? Why don’t opposition officials do it? Why don’t they stand up for what’s right? Why don’t they stop this madness before it’s too late?

Have they no sense of the stakes? Don’t they care enough to try? Are loyalty and daily priorities more important than survival? Are millions of Israeli lives and others in the region unimportant?

Why haven’t Israelis protested publicly en masse? Why won’t they act in their own behalf?  Poet Hayyim Bialik (1873 – 1934) once wrote about “with heart’s blood and marrow pay(ing) the price of the blaze.” A century later he’d have had weapons of mass destruction in mind.

A Final Comment

IDF chief of staff General Benny Gantz believes Iran won’t develop nuclear weapons. He’s concerned about launching an attack. He called Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian leaders rational. They’re not dangerous extremists bent on war.

Netanyahu is mirror opposite. He said governments make policies, not generals. Their job is taking orders and obeying. Other times they’re asked for advice. Prime ministers and cabinet members can accept or reject it.

George Clemenceau once said “(w)ar is too important to be left to the generals.” In Israel, some have more good sense than politicians. The same holds for America. Delusional leaders can’t wait to shed more blood.

Gantz calls unilateral Israeli action ill-conceived. Other current and past IDF generals and intelligence officials share his view. Many in America feel the same way.

Instead of waging wars, preventing them should be prioritized. When leaders able to cause mass destruction behave like delusional mad dogs, stopping them matters most.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour   

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

If yes, then buy us a beer. The wingnuts are falling over each other to make donations…to their causes. We, on the other hand, take our left media—the only media that speak for us— for granted. Don’t join that parade, and give today. Every dollar counts.
 Use the DONATE button below or on the sidebar. And do the right thing. Even once a year.

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

Manaf Tlass: Still a wild card in the game of big powers.