Different Stans

Tajik Opticon #2

1907 Solar Eclipse Expedition by Sergei Prokhudi-Gorskii, Russian Photographer

 
This is my little weekly newsletter on Tajikistan on Saturdays. Click on "Tajikistan" on the side bar to see past issues and posts.

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Tajikistan's blockage of Facebook, local news sites, and Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe this week drew expected outrage from all the right places and the US Embassy weighed in with a condemnation on -- appropriately -- Facebook.

But Tajik communications czar Beg Zuhurov bounced back to tell everyone today that he will unblock the popular social-networking site -- which isn't so reachable anyway in Tajikistan which has low Internet penetration. When? Well, just as soon as he clears some "technical difficulties". He also wanted us to know that the government's blockage was prompted by "the people" who were "outraged" at extremist statements appearing on the web. Zuhurov -- who sounds like he has a name that would make a good CEO of a start-up -- maybe he should privatize? -- said he would even take a personal meeting with Zuckerberg to discuss.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the head of Facebook in Russia, which oversees operations in Tajikistan (sigh) -- Ekaterina Skorobogatova -- said the company was aware of the situation but "we are not taking any active response". Russia has troops on the Tajik border but they are not available for putting Facebook back online! 

This blockage is part of a long-standing tendency of the authoritarian government of Emomali Rahmon to block news sites whenever there is unrest or attacks by terrorists or various events -- and the excuse is that authorities need to keep a lid on extremism.

Somewhere between the extreme of blocking Facebook and online in general  -- which we are told is supposed to help people become less violent and more connected -- and the claims that we have nothing to worry about from terrorists in Tajikistan lies the truth. Muhiddin Kabiri, Chairman of the Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan, said in a recent talk at the Elliot School at GWU that "episodes in the Rasht Valley and in Gorno-Badakhshan have little to do with home-grown Islamic extremism" because they are related to the civil war. But...the civil war *was* about extremism as Islamists wanted to take power. Yes, we're always told that "Islam is merely the form which dissent takes in this country". Even so, it can take other forms and the forms of Islam it does take can be extreme.

Jacob Zenn reports at Jamestown Foundation, citing Interfax that  on November 16, Russian prosecutors charged nine citizens of Tajikistan and Russia with membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir and possession of grenades, rifles, TNT, millions of dollars’ worth of counterfeit money, and written materials promoting extremism. We're told over and over by certain factions in the State Department (who also downplay the Benghazi events) and their allies in the think-tanking world that HuT is harmless and peaceful -- based on the group's own self-declarations of peace. And then every time we see any group actually caught performing some violent act, we're told those are people who left HuT or aren't really in HuT but in another group. Now, it's always possible that all those grenades and counterfeit bills were planted, but then, maybe they weren't.

Joshua Foust tweeted misleadingly -- unless you really focus on the scare quotes -- that
Faisal Devji said "civil society" is bad for democracy. What he means is that certain Islamic charities that have made the Pamiris dependent are bad for democracy. Foust tends to minimize these problems; but I can see Devji's point -- it's rather like the way Occupy Wall Street is going around preying on Hurricane Sandy victims now to make people sign up for their revolutionary movement. Sure, they do some good along the way and there may be really sincere helpers and really grateful aid recipients. But it's not the way to encourage the civic life outside of political extremism that helps create the climate for real democracy.

I remember a USAID woman who told me piously in the 1990s that she was bringing the warring sides of the Tajik civil war together by forcing them to go out together on garbage pick-up runs, and this immersion in municipal duty would take their minds off their abstract extreme positions. Leave aside the fact that people in Tajikistan didn't have discarded fast food wrappers and such as we have in the West to make up lots of garbage, the fact is, people had real issues (for them) in the civil war that still haven't gone away, and don't lend themselves merely to dismissal round the trash pick-up. USAID hopes never grow dim, however, and the US has gifted Tajikistan with more garbage trucks.

Tajikistan's outrageous practice of torture got some tough scrutiny this month in Geneva at the UN Commitee Against Torture. The CAT experts named names and cited bad practices such as holding people for more than 72 hours in detention, and without notification of relatives in the first 12 hours -- in all the post-Soviet states it is this stage of doznaniye (identification) where the torture often takes place to extract a confession. The remedies CAT proposes are pie-in-the-sky -- independent oversight and investigation bodies, registries, follow-up -- but that's okay because it outlines what a normal country would function like, and that's something to work toward some day. Meanwhile, the people advocating for these changes within Tajikistan and suffering reprisals even for contacting this very committee at the UN are given a boost of recognition.

Tajik Official Promises Zuckerberg Facebook to be Unblocked 

Beg Zuhurov, head of the communications ministry in Tajikistan has promised Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg through a translator that he will unblock the popular social network, Asia Plus reported December 1. (in Russian). 

"I informed the respected Zuckerberg that most citizens of Tajikistan who had lived through the recent civil war and lost their relatives and friends were outraged at any extremist calls and lies disseminated through his social network," Interfax reporetd, citing Zukhurov.

He cited "technical reasons" for why there's still a hold-up in turning access to the site back on in Tajikistan.

 Tajikistan Blocks Facebook

Next Web and other news service reported November 27 that Tajikistan’s Office of Telecommunications has officially ordered all ISPs and mobile carriers in the country to block access to Facebook following a spoken order a day earlier.

By Monday evening, all 6 ISPs and 6 mobile carriers in Tajikistan complied to the orders, cutting local users from the world’s biggest social network. The head of the office Beg Zuhurov has explained the reasons behind blocking Facebook to RIA Novosti,

“I received many calls from citizens of Tajikistan, asking me to shut down this Facebook as a hotbed of slander. Unknown people there insult the leaders of the state. They are apparently being paid well for that.”

RFE/RL's Site in Tajikistan Blocked

The website of RFE/RL's Tajik Service appears to be blocked on the Internet in Tajikistan.

Asomuddin Atoev, the chairman of Tajikistan's Association of Internet Service Providers, told RFE/RL on November 30 that several leading service providers received SMS messages from Tajikistan's state-run Communications Service requesting the blockage.

US Condemns Blocking of Facebook in Tajikistan

Amb. Susan Elliot condemned the blocking of Facebook and other sites on...where else? Facebook!

"The U.S. Embassy is concerned with the apparent decision by the Communications Service of the Republic of Tajikistan to block access to Facebook, Radio Ozodi, and other Internet news sites. The United States believes that the right of individuals to express their views freely is universal, whether exercised in a public square or on the Internet.

We urge the Government of Tajikistan to respect individual rights to freedom of expression and lift its restriction on Facebook, Radio Ozodi, and other blocked news sites."

Trial Resumes of Police Charged in Death of Detainee

November 29, 2012, Asia-Plus -- The trial has resumed in Dushanbe of an investigator from the police station in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour charged over the death of a detainee.

Bahromiddin Shodiyev died in hospital in later October last year ten days after he was interrogated at the police station in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district.

Tajikistan Reviewed at UN Committee Against Torture

Tajikistan was reviewed at the recent session in Geneva of the UN's Committee Against Torture, the treaty body that examines compliance with the Convention Against Torture. The list of issues and the Tajik government's response, as well as the experts' conclusions can be found here (scroll down and look to the column on the far right). My summary is below the fold.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Takes Advantage of Ethnic Fault Lines in Tatarstan, Kyrgyzstan

Jacob Zenn reports at Jamestown Foundation:  On November 16, Russian prosecutors charged nine citizens of Tajikistan and Russia with membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir and possession of grenades, rifles, TNT, millions of dollars’ worth of counterfeit money, and written materials promoting extremism (Interfax [Moscow], November 16). In the months prior, there were also several incidents in which Hizb ut-Tahrir members and other religious extremists were arrested in the Ural region oblast of Chelyabisnk. Chelyabinsk borders Kazakhstan as well as the Republic of Bashkortostan whose population is more than half composed of Muslim Tatars and Bashkirs.

Chelyabinsk is more than 90 percent ethnic Russian, but has recently shown signs of extremist influence. On October 20, counter-intelligence officers searched an office where a female citizen was suspected of storing Hizb-ut-Tahrir materials on her computer. And in August, five Hizb ut-Tahrir members were arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) for using material from Islamist websites and Hizb ut-Tahrir propaganda to “brainwash” worshippers at religious classes about “toppling non-Islamic governments” and “establishing a global caliphate” (Interfax [Chelyabinsk], October 22; Interfax [Chelyabinsk], August 2).

Chairman of Islamic Rebirth Party on Current Situation in Tajikistan

The Central Asia Program at IERES, the the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, has this talk available online of Muhiddin Kabiri, Chairman of the Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan,  on the current political and religious situation in Tajikistan on October 16, 2012. The talk is available in its English translation.

Richard Weitz also has a write-up of the talk on EurasiaNet:

"Tajikistan has experienced bouts of internal violence in the past couple of years, but the bloody episodes in the Rasht Valley and in Gorno-Badakhshan have little to do with home-grown Islamic extremism, asserts Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, the only legally operating, religiously oriented political group in Central Asia today."

US Government Delivers Garbage Trucks

December 1, 2012, Asia-Plus – On Friday November 30, USAID/Tajikistan Country Director Kathleen McDonald participated in the transfer of three specialized waste disposal trucks to the jamoats of Isfisor, Zarzamin, and Ghafurov, U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded and implemented the project through its Local Development Initiative.

AIDS Deaths in Tajikistan

Every fifth person ill with HIV/AIDS in the Kulyab region in the south of Tajikistan has died, Asia Plus reported December 1. According to officials, 556 infected persons there have been registered, of which 119 have died. (in Russian).

International AIDs day in Tajikistan is helping to turn out people for voluntary testing, says Asia Plus. 654 cases have been found in the first 9 months of this year. 4,500 cases have been registered since 1991.

Is Some Civil Society in Tajikistan Not So Civic?

In Current Intelligence there's an intriguing article by Faisal Devji, Reader in Indian History and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University titled "Dictatorship of Civil Society in Tajikistan":

"The fall of the Soviet Union gave rise to a narrative about the “transition” to democracy, for which the concept of civil society was seen as being foundational. Represented by new-fangled NGOs on the one hand, and on the other by more traditional religious or economic institutions, civil society was meant to establish peace in post-Soviet societies by limiting the reach of the state and indeed politics in general, seen as the source of conflict and violence there. I want to argue here that the reverse is actually the case. Civil society in its post-Cold War incarnation, which is very often funded from abroad, serves both to prevent the establishment of democratic politics, as well as increase the risks of conflict and so the possibility of violence."

Devji then elaborates on what he means by "civil society" -- the Aga Khan Development Network,  a group of Islamic charities not without some controversy (a Glass Door review says non-Ismaili employees may have trouble advancing to senior positions).

"Having helped to save Pamiris from violence, pestilence and famine during the civil war, the AKDN, together with the Ismaili religious organizations that shadow it, ended up making them more vulnerable to attack. This is partly due to their entering into what appears to be an informal pact with the government, in which the latter is allowed to have its way while the AKDN and its religious shadows engage in murky financial and other transactions. A number of the Ismaili religious bodies, for example, seem to have no official existence in Tajikistan, though the funds they receive from abroad appear to be transmitted by the AKDN, even though its role is not meant to include this kind of support. These organizations then hire Pamiris who, in violation of Tajik law, possess no recognized employment status or identification, and can therefore be picked up at any time by the state’s security agencies."

Tajikistan's Difficult Development Path

Carnegie's Martha Brill Olcott and Johannes F. Linn from the Emerging Markets Forum discussed Martha’s latest book, Tajikistan’s Difficult Development Path. Relying on extensive fieldwork and empirical studies, the work is the first of its kind in systematically delving into the economic, political, and social outlook for the country.

Despite the increased level of expert and public attention to Central Asia stemming from the region’s strategic location and abundance of natural resources, Tajikistan has remained generally understudied both in the United States and in the international community more generally. A country of seven and a half million people, it faces some of the most difficult challenges amongst the post-Soviet states. Magnifying these challenges is the impending withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan, which creates a particularly difficult security threat for neighboring Central Asian countries.

Mass Migration Good for Regime, Argues Political Scientist

EurasiaNet reports:  It has long been clear that Tajikistan’s economy depends on cash remittances from labor migrants. In mid-November, the World Bank said remittances amounted to the equivalent of 47 percent of the country’s GDP, making Tajikistan the most remittance-dependent country in the world.

For years, observers have argued that migration – and the poverty driving it – is a threat to Tajikistan’s stability. But in an intriguing essay earlier this month for Radio Ozodi, Tajik political scientist Navruz Nekbakhtshoev argued that the exodus of labor migrants actually helps stabilize Tajikistan and enables President Imomali Rahmon to maintain his grip on power. Labor migrants – who comprise perhaps one out of every seven Tajiks – provide the cash that keeps the country afloat. But they are not home (most work in Russia) to protest the corruption, nepotism, or entrenched poverty. So the government, Nekbakhtshoev argues, effectively rids itself of an active population that might otherwise be malcontents at home. [To read the original essay, as posted by @eTajikstan in English, click here].

 

Tajik Opticon #1

1907 Solar Eclipse Expedition by Sergei Prokhudi-Gorskii, Russian Photographer

I decided to start a little weekly newsletter on Saturdays about Tajikistan because I think this Central Asian country bordering Afghanistan needs more attention all around. If you want to get the page of links in your email box, write me at catfitzny@yahoo.com with header TAJIKISTAN.

Summary Comments:  

Winter is a time of greater vulnerability in Tajikistan but there don't seem to be major disasters. Did you know the main ingredient of the Tajik diet is wheat?  While it has shortages of its own, Tajikistan exports electricity to war-torn Afghanistan -- but Afghans don't appreciate this because they don't seem to even know about this or any other much-trumpeted Central Asian humanitarian assistance. The US often feverishly thanks Central Asia for helping Afghanistan, but a public opinion poll by the Asia Foundation found Afghan people unaware of it. If Central Asian leaders are trying to buy good will, they need a PR program to go with it.

The US is intensifying its military activity with Tajikistan as it plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. The SOCCENT Commander visited Dushanbe this month; the US also helped open two border guard stations under the banner of combating narcotics -- and it's my operating theory that most military and police activity will be under that banner. And what are "special operations"? OSCE also trained some border guards -- a few. Does this do any good? Meanwhile Russia's CSTO, the Warsaw Pact replacement at least for the rump Soviet Union, promises never to interfere in Tajikistan's internal affairs and isn't chartered to do so. I don't believe them, because they can change their minds or their charter or call something cross border as not so internal. Example of something not so internal that is cross border:an IMU member, only 24, was convicted recently in Tajikistan for terrorism. Of course, his legal defense was not likely the most brilliant -- and one independent lawyer's association has been shut down this month.

The World Bank reports that ALMOST HALF of Tajikistan's GDP - 47% -- comes from migrant labour remittances, making it the world's largest remittance contribution to GDP anywhere -- a dubious distinction. The toll on women is great -- fergananews.com reports suicides among females left as heads of household. The rate does not appear to be going up and is 111 cases for 2011; one problem is that Tajik males don't come home after finding Russian women partners. Russia is making it harder for migrants to enter their labour market with a new law next month requiring migrants to have knowledge of Russian. But there's hope! Coke is coming to Tajikistan, and that investment of $30 million is going to create Tajik jobs...right?

Not surprisingly, the Islamic Revival Party backed Palestine in the Gaza war and delivered a one-sided statement complaining of "Israeli war crimes" without mentioning Hamas rockets or dragging suspected Israeli spies through the streets on motorcycles. The West will not win the minds much less hearts of Central Asian intellectuals and youth on the Internet unless they polemicize more with this kind of radical Islamic position. We have no idea of what the average Tajik's attitudes are to Islamism because there aren't polls (if you know one, send me a link).

Regrettably, when the West *does* engage as Catherine Ashton is doing now on a tour of Central Asia, she does it in the form of garble about "women's empowerment" (is that what you get when you don't get women's rights?) and rhetorical questions, like "what about freedom of religion"? Well, what about people tried without benefit of lawyers and tortured when they may merely be devout religious believers? It's hard to get the population to appreciate the need to counter terrorism if a heavy hand is used on their young. The rhetorical questions need to be sharpened, i.e. what about the lawyers' group closed down and the prison probes?

Tajikistan Vulnerable to Hunger

Wheat is the most widely consumed cereal and provides the majority of calories to households in Tajikistan while cooking oil provides the second most calories,says ReliefWeb. Potatoes and rice are leading alternative staples.  PDF report of prices in Tajikistan

Snows, Floods?

In November, expected precipitation at lower elevations, and snowfall at higher elevations can lead to flash flooding when rapid melting occurs, ReliefWeb reports. Freezing temperatures can also cause local damage to crops.

OSCE Trains OSCE Border Guards

Tajiks were among 26 senior border guards from Eurasia who participated in an anti-corruption training, held from 19 to 23 November, organized in co-operation with the Borders Unit of the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, OSCE reported.  Earlier, OSCE trained Tajik, Afghan and Kyrgyz border guards in cross border interdiction.

Tajik-US Military Cooperation

Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) Commander, Maj. Gen. Ken Tovo, visited Tajikistan yesterday and met with senior U.S. and Tajik officials on issues of bilateral cooperation and regional interest, theUS Embassy in Dushanbe reported.

During his visit, Tovo met with U.S. Ambassador Susan Elliott and discussed areas of continued military cooperation between the two countries, including SOCCENT’s relationship with the Tajik Special Operations Forces. Tovo also met with senior military officials as he underscored SOCCENT’s support to stability and security in Central Asia.

US-Tajik Open Two Border Posts

Representatives from the U.S. and Tajikistan governments celebrated the opening of two border guard posts in Sayod and Ribhoz, Tajikistan, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Nov. 6.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Middle East District constructed the facilities under the Department of Defense's counter-narcotics program.

Russia Says CSTO Won't Suppress Tajik Unrest

The Russian troops stationed at the 201st base in Tajikistan won't be involved into suppression of protest actions in Khorog in case of their recurrence, Collective Security Treaty Organization Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha said, according to C-A News.

"I exclude this absolutely. The Russian troops stationed at the 201st base are aimed to provide assistance to Tajikistan in combating external threats,” Bordyuzha said in an interview with The Moscow News.

Afghans Unaware of Central Asian Aid Except from Tajikistan

Afghans remain largely unaware of any reconstruction project or foreign aid provided to them by the countries of Central Asia, according to a new public opinion survey conducted in Afghanistan by the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation, a major international nonprofit group, reported Silk Road Newsline, according to a CA News report.

Tajikistan was the only Central Asian country identified by just 1 percent of Afghan respondents when the poll measured their perceptions of which country has provided the most aid for the development projects in their area or district.

Tajik Lawyers' Group Shut Down; Amnesty International Protests

Tajikistan has ordered non-governmental organization (NGO) Young Lawyers Association “Amparo” to be shut down in what appears to be a politically motivated case, prompting Amnesty International to reiterate its call for civil society activists not to be harassed or intimidated.

IMU Member Convicted in Tajikistan

A court in southern Tajikistan has sentenced a 24-year-old member of the terrorist group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan's Taliban to twelve years in prison, the Tajik Supreme Court reported on Thursday, according to Interfax.

"Azamat Elmirzoyev, detained by the Tajik National Security Committee this summer, fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2010-2011 and then moved to Pakistan to be trained at terrorist camps of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," the report said

Tajik Rights Defenders Demand Prison Probe

Tajikistan's nongovernmental organization Coalition Against Torture has issued a statement demanding investigations into the alleged mass beatings of prison inmates, RFE/RL reports.

According to the rights group, prison guards brutally beat at least 50 inmates after their transfer from a Dushanbe jail to a prison labor camp in the northern city of Khujand a week ago.

Tajikistan Should Stop Celebrating New Year: Islam Revival Party

Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim country, which makes New Year an alien holiday. The authorities should stop celebrating it, says a statement by the chief editor of the Islamic Revival Party website published on Friday, according to an Interfax report.

Writer Muhibullo Kurbon proposed to spend the money assigned for New Year decorations on charity.

"We should admit that New Year is an alien holiday to the overwhelming majority of people in our country because they are Muslims," Kurbon said in his appeal to the authorities.

Islamic Revival Party Supports Palestine

The Party of the Islamic Revival of Tajikistan on Wednesday adopted a statement condemning Israel's actions in Palestine, recognizing the actions taken by Palestine as legitimate.

"The Party of Islamic Revival of Tajikistan condemns air and sea attacks on the Palestinian territories by the Israeli military, in which hundreds of peaceful Palestinians, including many children, were killed," the Party of Islamic Revival of Tajikistan said in a statement.

"We express concern about the fact that the world community, especially the U.S. and some Western countries, have backed the war crimes committed by Israel, ignoring the lawful demands made by the people of Palestine, who have been under Israeli occupation for over sixty years," the document says.

Tajik Labour Migration Chief Sentenced for Fraud

The chief of a Dushanbe-based company involved in arranging Tajik labor migrants' trips to Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, RFE/RL reports.

Nasrullo Zamonov was found guilty of fraud on November 20 after being arrested in April when more than 90 clients of his Zamoni Yunus company filed lawsuits against him.

Tajik Embassy Blasts Russian Manual

Tajikistan's embassy in Moscow is harshly criticizing the publishers of a controversial manual on labor migrants to Russia, calling the document a "provocation," says RFE/RL.

New Russian Law Requires Migrants to Know Russian

A new federal law entering into effect December 1 will require migrants, many of whom are from Tajikistan, to know the Russian language, reports Asia-Plus (in Russian).

Tajikistan First Among Top Recipients of Migrant Remittances as Share of GDP

The World Bank reports that 47% of Tajikistan's GDP comes from remittances from migrant labour abroad. (H/T Zabikhullah Saipov)

Burden of Male Migrant Labour Falls on Tajik Females

Article on fergananews.com reports female suicides in Tajikistan in families separated by migrant labour. (In Russian)

EU's Ashton to Travel to Central Asia, to Meet Tajik President

Asked by RFE/RL if she will raise human rights, Ashton said:

Ashton: It's always part of my dialogue. And it's done in a way that it enables us to talk about what that means in practice. What does it mean for women? What does it mean for women not just in their political rights but their economic rights? I believe, by the way, that economies are much better off when women are engaged; they are usually much more successful. What does it mean for people who want to make their own point politically? What does it mean for freedom of religion? What does it mean for people who are disabled? What does it mean for people who we need to celebrate [as] different and...the same? And for my discussions, it will be a core part of the dialogue that we have when we think about how the EU works with these countries into the future.

Tajikistan is not Switzerland:  Tourists

Asia Plus reports on the ruggedness of tourism in Tajikistan (in Russian)

Coca-Cola Plans to Enter Tajikistan Market; Invest $30 Million

Coca-Cola is planning to come next year. (Asia Plus, in Russian)

Tajikistan Exports Electricity to Afghanistan Despite Own Shortages

Asia Plus, in Russian

TALKO Synthesizes Gas to Lessen Dependency on Uzbekistan

Fergananews.com reports that Tajiistan's aluminum factory is synthesizing gas. (in Russian).

Why Can't Human Rights Watch Call on the Taliban and Its Supporters to Stop Abusing Women's Rights?

Veiled woman carries child, Kandahar, February 2011. Photo by Basetrack.

Why can't the left handle criticism of the Taliban, admit that they are the biggest problem in Afghanistan -- they oppress all people, and particularly violate women's rights; they kill the most civilians; they traffic in heroin which is causing addiction and numerous deaths of users in the region; they are aid and abet terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda which causes mayhem elsewhere. 

So why don't "progressives" on the left and the human rights that tilt left, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, care more about the terrible threat from the Taliban, likely to grow worse as NATO troops withdraw from this war-ravaged nation by 2014?

After all, "progressives" and of course human rights groups are supposed to care about human rights and social justice. How can they be so myopic about the obvious in Afghanistan?

There aren't any human rights or social justice under the Taliban, and the PR spinning they are doing these days, to the effect that they may tolerate girls' education or aren't what they were in the 1990s -- oh, please.

Yet here we go again with Human Rights Watch not mentioning the Taliban except in passing in their address to Hillary Clinton on women rights in Afghanistan! They make it seem as if the Afghan National Army is the problem!

I've talked about this troubling myopia before here and here -- the NATO summit, when all eyes were turned on NATO as it makes a plan to withdraw from Afghanistan was a missed opportunity when again, HRW made it seem like our problem is the potentially (or actually) abusive Afghan National Army and the Karzai government -- merely because they are nominally in charge as state actors -- and not the non-state actors who cause most of the harm.

Now this week again, HRW astoundingly can't see its way clear to naming the Taliban as the major threat to human rights in Afghanistan.

Their appeal only goes to Hillary Clinton -- as if she's the problem, even though she has arguably done more for women's rights than any leader in office -- even before she was Secretary of State, as the First Lady.

The statement to Clinton implies -- but does not ascribe root cause to -- that after 11 years of Taliban rule, women have "no such commitment" to their rights -- as if it's an address-less problem of the weather.

But instead of naming the Taliban explicitly as the ongoing problem, HRW engages in the usual surrogate advocacy -- going to those tangential to the problem who might influence others not really the problem, and making them "own" the problem merely due to their proximity.

In HRW's prescription, the Karzai government and its backers such as the US must continue to press the Afghan government -- and not name and shame the Taliban and make any kind of public demand on those supporting them to stop.

The US is urged to issue "prompt public responses to Afghan government actions and statements that violate Afghanistan’s domestic and international obligations to the rights of women and girls" -- but the overwhelming majority of violations come from the Taliban, such as the shooting of Malala -- and there is no prescription for this terrorist movement.

Other prescriptions amount to bromides like "pushing for women-friendly leaders" in key Afghan institutions -- that isn't quite the same thing as actually calling for women to be in those positions, of course! --  or ensuring "a central role for women in all Afghan peace-building processes."

HRW almost comes close to admitting the problem when it says Clinton should pressure the Afghan government to:

Ensure Afghanistan’s security strategy focuses not just on support for military and police but also on security for women and girls;

But here HRW is assuming this benign and protective nature of the Afghan security forces that it doesn't have -- look at the dozens of cases of these soldiers turning on their colleagues in the US and allied armed forces in the "green on blue" incidents.

This myopic, frustratingly *irrelevant* sort of statement is what human rights groups do when they are painted into a corner by mandate or a literalist interpretation of international law. They can't advise governments how to wage war on human rights abusers -- that's not what they do. They feel as if calling on the Taliban to stop abusing human rights is futile. They also have to appeal to those who make commitments under international law -- and obviously the Taliban didn't sign any human rights treaties.

To be sure, HRW does occasionally do this literally -- by including a brief pro-forma sentence in their reports or releases, such as this one mainly appealing to the Pakistani government to do something about Malala's attackers. Says HRW:

Armed groups including the Taliban, al Qaeda, and their affiliates should cease attacks that target children, educational personnel, and schools.

But that's just checking off a box, and it isn't where their heart is. It's not the headline; it's not the main focus. You can tell by the urgent calls the organization's representatives actually make:

“Parts of Pakistan are among the most dangerous places in the world to go to school today,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s time Pakistani authorities understand that expressions of outrage alone are inadequate and such attacks will only end if they hold abusers accountable.”

Can't we call the Taliban and their allies to account first, guys? After all, the problem with the Pakistani government isn't that it is "inadequate" but that it is in cahoots with the Taliban, yanno?

Sticking in the line about "holding abusers accountable" is like Obama insisting to Romney that he did mention "acts of terror" in the Rose Garden and implied Benghazi. But he didn't. And the entire philosophy he holds -- like the "progressives" at HRW -- is still one in which weak local and Western governments are more to blame for the unhappy childhoods of terrorists than the terrorists themselves -- and the state who engendered mass murder and displacement in the 1970s and 1980s -- Russia.

In a world where the lion's share of victims of wars are civilians, and where so many of them are killed by non-state actors, it's ok to broaden the scope of concern more robustly, and not make it merely a a pro-forma line in statement after statement whose center of gravity falls towards governments, not non-state actors.

After all, it's only a strict construction of "human rights" that wouldn't involve international humanitarian law at all that would make one feel as if appeals to non-state actors committing mass crimes against humanity somehow have "no place" in the international human rights regime.

Until the international human rights movement leaders broaden to take on victims of terror and non-state actors who commit massive abuses of human rights, they will continue to be niche and elitist and irrelevant in most of the world -- and offer no model for non-violence and no capacity for succor for one of the world's largest categories of victims these days.

When HRW lists the "challenges" that women still face that the Afghan National Army is supposed to fix for them, curiously, they don't put first on the list "violent attacks by the Taliban and its allies". Yet attacks on girls going to school, and attacks on women and demands for harsh oppressive practices for women are rampant.

It's not just threats against women in public life; it's women in private, life too. There's just something woefully inadequate about listing the problems of women in Afghanistan as "lack of access to justice" or "high maternal mortality" or "imprisonment for moral crimes" when they are first of all wrapped up in cumbersome burquas if they step out in public and running for their lives if they try to go to school. Lack of court access or maternal mortality are real problems, of course, but they all stem from the fundamental flaw of dysfunctional Afghan society -- the failure to grant women dignity and equality in the first place.

HRW wants Clinton to have "a clear and viable strategy that is taken as seriously as military strategy". But she already does. Clinton has done everything possible for women and raising women's rights in every fora, and there are all kinds of programs of aid and engagement. The problem is the Taliban. Now some might then credit the Obama Administration with fighting the war required to defeat the Taliban, including with immoral drones.

But I don't think we have to conclude that a flawed military strategy is required because of the difficulty of making a sturdy human rights strategy. A human rights strategy can start with a simple naming of the real problem -- the Taliban and its allies -- so that we don't mistake it for anything else.

After that problem is named for what it is, there is nothing naive or futile about calling on the Taliban to stop harming women and to begin respecting their rights, and condemning their attacks on girls like Malala. HRW of course recognizes this problem, but they don't put the pieces together in something like a letter to Clinton.

The reason why it isn't futile and naive to call on the Taliban to stop their abuses and to change. They are, after all, terribly cunning about PR and are especially prone now to whining that they aren't getting fair press coverage, or claiming that they really do intend to allow more educational opportunities, as they are struggling for political advantage. Now more than ever is the time to name the problem and go to the right address with it -- the Taliban -- instead of ducking and dodging and going to tangential surrogates.  The Taliban has to feel the pressure of the world's ostensibly impartial moral forces -- not just Hillary Clinton.

The US can't substitute a military strategy, as flawed as it was with collateral damage, that actually tried killing the Taliban and keeping it from gaining supporters with some sort of "heightened consciousness" about women's rights, mouthing platitudes more loudly.

Instead, especially at a time when the supporters and the enablers of the Taliban are going to have to face choices, we need to call on all of them to stop violating women's rights and move toward equality.

Women in burquas in street in Kandahar, February 2011. Photo by Basetrack.

"Great Gain, Not Great Game" -- But Increased Militarization?

Mitsubishi ATV given by US in EXBS Vehicle Donation program to Uzbek Institute of Nuclear Physics

Argh, who writes these lines?

Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Robert O. Blake, Jr. put out the transcript of a speech yesterday made at Indiana University's Inner Asian and Uralic Natural Resource Center  titled Toward a Great Gain, Not a New Great Game. OK, who profits, as Lenin would say?

Most of the references to human rights are generics, but there's this:

It is important to note that we always take into account the political, economic, military and human rights situation of a partner country when deciding what kind of security cooperation to pursue. As an example, we provide only non-lethal assistance to Uzbekistan because of our concerns about its human rights record. But we continue to engage, making it clear that our relationship can reach its full potential only when Uzbekistan meets its human rights obligations.

Non-lethal, but still military, i.e. still assistance to police and troops that might be directly or indirectly, as a system, part of human rights abuse. I don't believe human rights and democracy "rub off" from training, and that those kinds of exercises are mainly fallacious and at best, aspirational -- and really more about having contacts with regimes so that when all hell breaks loose you have people to talk to. Or even before all hell breaks loose -- in another program, the US supplies vehicles to the IUzbek nuclear institute to be able to zip around and monitor radiation at borders. During the presentation ceremony in July, Amb. George Krol explained:

The U.S. and Uzbekistan are partners in the fight against transnational threats including international terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The problem of proliferation and trafficking of illicit materials is not just a problem for our two countries but for the world, and the work performed by Uzbekistan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics is vital to making the world safer.

These Mitsubishis are donated for "the war on terror," and are hopefully used for their intended purpose -- if used wrongfully, it's more likely they wouldn't be involved in cracking down on dissidents so much as driving groceries home. But speculation that the US might leave military vehicles or equipment (or more seriously, sell arms) remains -- and there's nothing wrong with continuing to watch this with that speculation in mind, because it could happen quickly. For one, we have Blake's words at a press conference in August in Tashkent which are a reassurance, but also involve his own thinking of what might be expected -- but not certainty:

AP:  Also in Uzbekistan, there have been some reports from Russian media recently suggesting the possibility that during the drawdown during 2014 that military equipment might be left along. What assurances can be made making certain that the wrong things do not end in the wrong hands, by which I mean weaponry.

Blake: First of all, the process of allocating Excess Defense Articles is only just beginning. We are beginning the consultations on that. It won’t be just for Uzbekistan but for all countries partnering on NDN. There will be quite detailed conversations with our military people based in embassies in each of these posts, with host nation counterparts on this thing. With respect to Uzbekistan, I do not think there will be any lethal weapons of any kind that will be offered. I think most of the kind of things that will be on offer will be military vehicles, Humvees, those kind of things. It is in our interests to provide those kinds of equipment. Uzbekistan has been a strong supporter of the NDN. That has in turn raised their profile with international terrorist organizations, who may want to target Uzbekistan in retribution. So, it is very much in our interest to help Uzbekistan defend itself against such attacks.

We are certainly prepared to think about how we can do that. I myself have been engaged over the last year in the U.S. Congress to get a waiver so that we can provide non-lethal military assistance to Uzbekistan, even though they have not met a lot of the human rights conditions that would allow for more regular military assistance. That waiver has been approved. We are providing non-lethal military assistance now and will continue to do so, and the EDA process will be one way that we could help.

Around Blake's trip to Uzbekistan in August, the Uzbek regime acquitted one token activist, Shuhrat Rustamov, as Democracy Digest reported although of course a dozen or more human rights defenders and journalists remain, and many thousands of religious prisoners remain. I haven't seen an independent read-out of this civil society meeting, which was likely choreographed and selective, but at least it was a departure from past years and trips by high-profile US officials who avoided civil society.

The Indiana speech doesn't add anything new with regard to these intentions or the prospects of deployment of a US base, but it certainly doesn't make such speculation seem unreasonable or even "conspiratorial" as Joshua Foust has claimed. It's an evolving situation. Joshua Kucera at the Bug Pit focused on the speculation about whether a base would be negotiated and noted Blake's denials. Although no base was negotiated, he felt the trip was used by Blake to understand Karimov's motivations and intentions for leaving the CSTO. But then Kucera overlooks the real practical goal of the visit, as Democracy Digest pointed out, in describing the "sweetener" to this trip that came with the activist's court acquittal:

The ruling came as Obama administration officials prepare to negotiate an agreement with Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, to permit thousands of military vehicles, and other equipment to transit from Afghanistan through Uzbek territory.

This week General William Fraser III, the Commander of the U.S. military Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), visited Uzbekistan to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov and Minister of Defense Kabul Berdiev to discuss issues relating to the Northern Distribution Network through which cargo transits Uzbekistan en route to Afghanistan. Those issues are likely less about supplying troops in their last year and more about bringing the heavy military vehicles out. All in all, the effort is to increase closer cooperation between the Uzbek and US militaries, as this other recent program for fraternization also indicates. 

The UK has also, of course been very busy doing this same type of negotiations -- and this is what prompted the AP reporter to ask whether these transiting vehicles could "fall into the wrong hands," i.e. Uzbek military and/or Interior Ministry troops/police that might use it to oppress their own people as they did in Andijan in 2005 or -- I would add -- terrorists.  Certainly when *thousands* of vehicles are going from point A through point B, some of them will get lost, stolen, misappropriated, and maybe given away, despite Blake's claims that this will be tightly controlled.

Kazakhstan also was described in the speech yesterday with a strange amalgam of business and human rights:

Turning to some of our specific security priorities, we have excellent cooperation with Kazakhstan on non-proliferation issues ranging from proliferation prevention to improvement of the regulatory framework for strategic trade controls, and we look forward to building on our cooperation on mutual security concerns with complementing progress in human rights, and labor and religious freedoms.

It's too bad we couldn't have that "religious freedoms" for Uzbekistan, too.

Then for Kyrgyzstan, hopefully not by design, no mention of human rights but something about "services". Is there a "service" citizens can sign up for to get equal treatment under the law if they are ethnic minorities like Uzbeks?

In Kyrgyzstan, which also hosts the Manas Transit Center through which all of our troops going to Afghanistan pass, we are helping the new democratically-elected government to reform the security sector and to address issues related to corruption and rule of law. We are also helping the government improve services for citizens.

The NDN continues to be vital despite resumption of relations with Pakistan and truck routes opening:

The Northern Distribution Network, or NDN, is perhaps the clearest example of the benefits to the U.S. our security engagement with the Central Asian countries has yielded. Over the past year, we have seen how the NDN provided critically important alternate routes for our non-lethal cargo transiting to and from Afghanistan, particularly when we were experiencing challenging moments in our relationship with Pakistan.

I do wonder a) whether small business get to contract with the NDN or only the big state cronies and b) how that GM plant, which was reducing its output, is doing and c) whether there is any really stringent review going on of the corruption issue in contracts, per the waiver passed last year that still provided for six-month reviews.

But here's the part that is new -- or at least, articulated with more emphasis, and contains the seeds of concerns about further militarization of the relationship with Central Asian dictatorships, and their own further militarization throughout the region. Many people think of 2014 as a kind of cliff, after which US troops come home and only a few remain behind to turn off the lights. But the Administration now describes the post-withdrawal period as a Transformation Decade , and that Transformation Decade actually includes, well, the continued presence of troops:

In addition to our important bilateral security relationships, the United States helps facilitate increased regional coordination and support for Afghanistan. The Central Asian countries are vital partners in support of the International Security Assistance Force’s efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, especially as Afghanistan increasingly takes the lead for its own security, as it has done now for over 75 percent of its population. None of us has an interest in seeing Afghanistan ever again become a platform from which Al-Qaida or others could attack our homeland.

The Central Asian countries will remain important partners as a NATO Enduring Presence replaces the ISAF mission in 2014, and as Afghanistan embarks upon its Transformation Decade between 2015 and 2024. Afghanistan will increase coordination with NATO on internal security and with its neighbors on shared issues such as border security and combating flows of narcotics and other contraband [emphasis added].

The United States is likely to maintain a presence in Afghanistan, the particulars of which will be negotiated over the next year. We are committed to the success of Afghanistan’s security transition and to regional security, and we have communicated this commitment to our Central Asian partners.

Certainly there will be a lot less troops in Afghanistan, but I wonder if it's fair to say there will be more military advisor presence then in neighbouring Central Asia -- for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Central Asian governmentgs will want to have some US troops as a counter to Russian troops, and as a deterrent to Islamic insurgency springboarding from Afghanistan.

As for the concept of "Afghanistan as platform for Al Qaeda," I think the way to think about this is more like this: Al Qaeda is the platform from which attacks on our homeland and our diplomats abroad are launched. Or: Al Qaeda is the software that can be installed on any platform to attack our homeland and our diplomats abroad. And it seems pretty permanently installed in Afghanistan.

Thoughts on 9/11

A screenshot from an album in The Sims which I made with real "missing" posters.

Some random and disconnected thoughts on this sad anniversary.

I was thinking of Marvin Bell's poems. He is a New York poet I heard give readings a number of times and was also once in one of his workshops long ago. He has a number of anti-war poems. Some you can hear him reading here:

This line from "I Didn't Sleep" seems particularly apt:

"The war went on. The silence at home was deafening."

Then there's his "Bagram 2002". I happened to see this video posted by a poet friend on Facebook some months ago and started writing about it but the blog page crashed. It's about an Afghan dying in American custody.

Very few people have really made works of art involving protest against the Iraq or Afghan wars, much less very good works of art. Sure, there's a certain amount of forums ranting, and "Bush lied, people died" kneejerk thinking. But if you want to get people to think  and empathize, you have to have good art, and I think Marvin Bell's poems work that way.

Right about that time I was re-reading his poems, I read this op-ed piece by a former Guantanamo prisoner -- and was reminded of it again with the news this week that another prisoner had died in Guantanamo.

Lakhdar Boumediene describes his Guantanamo nightmare in the Times. It indeed seemed awful and harrowing. Think Progress raged that America had locked up a humanitarian for seven years.

And if true, that's of course, awful. Yet you just have to get away from the lefty press over to the conservative press, and you find it challenged. The Weekly Standard says part of the story tracks, but then they say officials claim he had the telephone numbers of extremists in his pocket. Now, would this be possibly normal for a humanitarian, one who may have had to deal with tough customers to get convoys through and that sort of thing? Yes, but this was Bosnia. And the extremists were elsewhere and they claimed he was part of a jihad sort of network. How can we tell if it were true?

Certainly the man who died sounds like a brain-injury victim who should have been let out long ago. But who are these guys who arrange for him to get medical treatment in Pakistan related to Al Qaeda? And there's this: it's not responsible to send somebody back to Yemen where they might be tortured and killed out of expediency.

So I don't really come away with any convictions. Like any human rights advocate, I want Guantanamo to be closed because indeed prisoners have been subjected to inhuman treatment there. Was it torture by international UN standards? Indeed, it seems so.

But the main problem the Administration has with Gitmo is that they can't find places outside of the US willing to take them. And if we consider the track records -- a good share of them either went back to jihad or continue to spout jihad, what would you have them do?

As always on September 11, I think of Susan Sontag. Boy, did she get people mad with her invention at that time. I don't know why she didn't bother me. I don't agree with her, and I find it too "chickens coming home to roost", but I found myself actually reciting over and over again in those confusing days:

"Let's by all means grieve together.  But let's not be stupid together."

It just seemed right to me, somehow, along with this:

"A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense."

Well, sure. But it's awful easy to Monday-morning-quarterback on this. I found it atrocious that the Times had to gin up a piece a thread shy of a truther rant claiming that Bush knew the attack was coming and didn't do anything.

But Jesus Christ, there's a big difference between being told an attack is coming, and stopping it. How? Who were the agents? Where were they? One was sent back. What was Bush supposed to do? Intern all immigrants? ID check all Muslims? Ground all airplanes? It's insane. Those claiming there was negligence have to point out the actual path of action, not just fume and whine that we had all this intel and didn't do anything.

Remember this very clairvoyant piece in The Atlantic by a former CIA agent? He said our intelligence will never catch bin Ladn, who was already a problem then from other attacks, remember? And the reason? Pakistani intelligence. A problem in July 2001; still a problem through March 2011 until Obama ordered the SEALS to go around it. And still a problem in the aftermath.

Did you know my namesake, often the subject of enormous speculation about me in Second Life, because some people thought because we had the same name, we were the same person, has also written about 9/11, which she witnessed even more up close than I did -- she saw the buildings collapse and the bodies of the jumpers falling. I only talked to haggard, hollow-eyed people who had seen the jumpers themselves but I was busy picking up my own kids and the child of someone who couldn't get across the Brooklyn bridge to go down and look at the scene, which was soon blocked off anyway. 

I wrote quite a long blog in 2008 about my experience that day.

And I wrote an essay about the "missing" posters that is now included inthe official archive at the Library of Congress.

If someday they build a memorial, I hope it will have some elements in its design that reflect those posters, billowing in the wind, tattered and covered with that strange gray silt that covered everything in New York City in the days after 911, which we touched and smoothed out countless times on the wall to try to see the faces of our fellow New Yorkers who were obliterated in a matter of hours.

I have to say, I don't like the memorials. I saw the big light beam last night, and I thought, no, I don't want a big light beam rending the sky, it's too dramatic, or too... something.

And the buildings they're doing -- well, I just don't like them. Too modern. Too pretentious. Too something.  But, I have to say, that few war memorials or atrocity memorials I've seen around the world really ever work. They are always too dramatic or too kitsch or insufficient.  The World War II monument in Riga that the Soviets built, as explained by a Soviet guide, where the flagstone steps around it were uneven and forced you to step unevenly, was effective because the guide said the uneven steps were supposed to make you think of human suffering, refugees fleeing and so on.

If you want to think of an example of people being stupid together, think of that hideously stupid film ridiculing Muslims and the Prophet, which has now so angered Egyptians that they killed a State Department official. Yes, the film, funded by a Jewish real estate agent who will be endlessly vilified now, along with Jews as a whole community, is awful, and stupid. Few in the US take it seriously and it only gets views as it becomes a scandal. There is never any need, whatever your beef is with terrorists, to denigrate religious beliefs and culture in this way, or make a caricature of complex issues.

But wait a minute, you get to kill a man over your outrage over an insensitive and stupid film like this? Why? What's wrong with you? Is this religion? Or merely machismo, out of "male humiliation, the cut that will not heal"? Nothing justifies killing somebody, even if your religion is mocked. Say, do these people have some help getting incited like this?

I suppose the only hope for this is education. People putting up offensive, idiotic videos like that -- could education, context, meaning ever have any effect on them? And those insensed into murderous rage by such idiocy -- would education ever work quell their rage?

Mark Zuckerberg had this immature belief that if only people connect, they will be less angry -- he spoke of would-be jihadists in Lebanon making friends on Facebook and not following the jihadist path or people protesting the FARC on Facebook and this making a difference. Really? If anything, the problem is that social media is too connected, so that an idiotic movie that might never have gotten out of its own narrow circle gets on Youtube and gets lots of views and reaches people insulted by it on Youtube and they have lots of opportunity to accelerate and amplify their rage.

The answer isn't to take down the video but to make other videos. And it will be hard to make good art out of a cause like that. So read Marvin Bell's quiet little poems and think about what might be done.

 

Is The US Involved in Violence in Tajikistan or is EurasiaNet Just Knee-Jerking Again?

Joshua Kucera has a piece up on Eurasianet implying that the US could be involved in violence in Tajikistan -- but with really not a shred of evidence, just conjecture.

Sure, indeed evil Amerika could be up to no good with its not-a-lot-of-troops and not-much-money in military aid to this impoverished Central Asian nation on the porous border of Afghanistan. Indeed it could.

But I have to wonder if this piece is merely  part of the knee-jerk anti-Americanism often emanating from this set that goes soft on Central Asian terrorists and militants and then claims that US involvement with Central Asian tyrants makes the US fully responsible for those dictatorships' violence against such forces. The critics of the US -- which isn't actually journalistically established as complicit yet -- don't have a plan for addressing the militants.

I'm just as concerned about the possibly negative role of the US presence in Central Asia as anyone -- it's a key role I started this blog.

But I'm also concerned about the problem of terrorists and extremists and militants, and the way in which these Central Asian dictators can bolster their own case for continuance in power -- and the Pentagon can bolster its case for continued embrace of these tyrants -- because there isn't anything that contends those challenges to them.

I think the argument to get rid of the tyrants of Central Asia has to involve getting rid of the tyranny of terrorism, too. EurasiaNet and Human Rights Watch never worry about that problem. Get rid of the tyrants, get rid of US aid, and the peoples of these countries will auto-magically emerge as liberal democrats, they seem to imply.

Kucera doesn't have any inside story or allegations or rumors -- what he has are some old WikiLeaks cables from 2009 and 2010 that talk about US special forces training the Tajik military.

That's worrisome, given that any uniformed force in Tajikistan is going to be by its nature abusive and unaccountable in this authoritarian state. But then you could have the argument that the State Department and Pentagon no doubt have, that it's better to have these abusive forces exposed to American training that might make them "better" than not.

I'm not persuaded those democratic values rub off so easily, but I think there's a more pragmatic thing to say: training? from Americans? Like...that works? Come on guys, the Americans have been training the Afghan National Army just over the border from Tajikistan for years, and look at how well that's working out! They're shooting our people!

The problem is that neither Kucera nor anyone else I can see has actually been able to point to any bad actor from the American forces who has somehow colluded with some bad military guy doing bad things -- to be able to show this training to this unit or individual commander relates to this shoot-out.

And we'd have to also agree what's bad here. Here's a series of events that started with the murder of a top KGB official and involved security forces being killed in gun clashes and a state of emergency being declared in Badakshan. So how can you ask for the Tajik government to treat this as a mere "law-enforcement matter"? That's really stretching it. It's a profound challenge to this brittle authoritarian bunch and they are fighting for their lives -- in a context where the civil war between the post-Soviet secular authoritarians and the Islamists was not so long ago.

This is, of course, the very deep-seated belief of "progressives" in the Soros-funded circles -- that there shouldn't be anything defined as "terrorism," but there should just be individual criminal acts that are dealt with by criminal law, not some "war on terrorism".

Yeah, we get it that the "war on terror" waged by the Tajiks is clumsy indeed. But wait a sec -- their KGB guy and dozens of security people are killed in clashes with mafias or armed groups or terrorists or whatever they are, and they are supposed to treat it just like a one-off axe murder or shooting a convenience-store clerk? Please.

Kucera quotes Mamadsho Ilolov,  President of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan Mamadsho Ilolov, saying that the government shouldn't have used the anti-insurrection methods they did in the mountains, but should have "done it another way". How?  And who says the assassination of a national security chief should be treated even as a police chief or other prominent official? This is the KGB; in these countries, it's hyper-special. It's a profound challenge to the state to have the KGB affected, truly. It seems to me to be a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of "state security" in these countries and how it is viewed to expect the Tajik government to see this as merely a policing operation. It was seen as civil war -- and maybe rightly so.

I'm all ears to hear how this is a human rights violating operation that had terrible human rights effects. Maybe it did, especially if civilians were killed as "collateral damage."

But... no civilians have been confirmed as killed, as far as we know from available news sources. There were 12 security agents and about 30 militants killed, says RFE/RL

Let's look at it in detail:

Nozirjon Buriev, a spokesman for the State Committee for National Security, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that some 40 militants, including eight Afghan nationals, were arrested during the military operation in the eastern Badakhshon Province.  

Buriev rejected earlier reports about civilian casualties. 

"Unfortunately, 12 law enforcement officers were killed and 23 were wounded during the operation," he said. "There were no civilian casualties."

The official said the government operation was targeting Tolib Ayombekov, a former opposition commander and current regional border guard head.

​​"The armed, illegal group led by Ayombekov has, over the years, been involved in drug trafficking and also tobacco smuggling and the trafficking of minerals. It has also committed numerous, serious crimes," Buriev said. "On July 21st, the group brutally murdered General Abdullo Asadulloevich Nazarov, the regional head of the State Committee for National Security." 

So, can anybody tell me that any of these 40 people were just shepherds or farmers caught up in a raid? If 12 of the Tajik government forces are killed, doesn't that let us know that these militants were armed and deadly?

Sure, it's better not to kill militants, but it's better to capture and bring them to trial in the courts. They shot government troops, however. What was the plan?

The tendency of the "progressives" to look at a story like this an automatically assume that there was something done wrong. But what was it, exactly? What *are* you supposed to do with people who murder your provincial national security chief and then shoot and kill a dozen of your men? If you're an illegitimate authoritarian government, you're a problem, but so are those challening you. That's what I come up against in this story and I wish others would.

Of course, the usual experts on this have been all over it trying to talk all those purported "hysterics" out there who see terrorists behind every bush that these are really just drug lords. Or mafia lords. Or turf-warlords.

Except, we don't really know that. Few people can really get in there and report it, and it's quite possible that these turf-warring drug lords are inspired by belief systems that could involve extremist ideas and theologies. It's ok to posit that in this part of the world; it's ok to examine it. Truly, it is. You have to keep an open mind -- and this gang never does.

Always, when there is violence in Central Asia, people begin asking: is it ethnic hatred, or drugs, or turf wars, or terrorists? And it's unlikely that these things appear only in pure, isolated, strains with no admixtures. Likely it's a little of all of these "challenges of the modern era" as Berdymukhamedov euphemistically calls all these problems.

Those who are knowledgeable about this region like Lola Olimova say that terrorism "can't" be the issue here:

Unlike other former rebel strongholds, Badakhshan has been less of a worry for central government over the years. In eastern valleys nearer to Dushanbe, there have been sporadic incidents since the civil war, which though localised, raised concerns of a Sunni Islamic insurgency with possible links to the Taleban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. (See  Tajikistan: Islamic Militancy No Phantom Menace and Tajik Authorities Struggle to Quell Militants.) People in Badakhshan are mostly Ismaili Muslims, so that kind of link is of little direct concern.

Well, except, what if it is? Are you sure?  When we are dealing with pundits who keep telling us that Islamic militance *is* a phantom menace and it's really all just local turn skirmishes among clans and whatnot, whom are we to believe?

And Olimova's story talks about this region's warlords being involved in the heroin trade from Afghanistan.  Why does anybody think the drug trade is isolated from the Taliban and Al Qaeda?

Olimova is worried that if the government is too heavy-handed in cracking down on these warlords, they will have a counterintuitive effect of alienating the population and cause more unrest.

Here's an interesting bit of analysis that discounts that:

These powerful men under attack in the Pamirs are not like the businessmen arrested in Andijon. They are not moral pillars of the community who provide gainful employment and assistance to the masses. They are not governing like traditional khans. They may have made some gestures of charity, but they are very likely not strongly tied to the community in a manner that will lead the community to fight for them. Pamiris may be unhappy, but how many do you think will want to put their life on the line for those guys who hide behind their tinted windows? I generally find that in Tajikistan there is not the same Western style/level of resentment towards the wealthy, the corrupt and the mafia, but there is no strong bond. 

The area's isolation also means that the central government could blockade it and strangle an insurrection, adds the author.

At the end of the day, Kucera's piece doesn't perform any new journalism or any new thinking, and it's the sort of piece that not only enrages the US embassies and troops in the region, it makes them ridicule EurasiaNet (which was something I found out more of after I left there myself). And that's unfortunate, because an informed and credible critique of the US and these tyrants they embrace is needed.

Kucera links to a Wall Street Journal piece that sounds the alarm about the links between the drug trade and Rahmon and other Central Asian dictators. Everybody knows they are up to their eyeballs in this drug trade, but this drug trade isn't just for the sake of buying SUVs -- it's about belief systems and power networks, too -- drugs are a means to an end.

The US, if it is serious about combating illegal drugs, wouldn't necessarily favour Rahmon over his enemies. But the US may want to call all things post-Afghan-war as "combating the drug trade" or "combating terrorism" when it may not be. These problems are real; we don't know how much our government will fake them.

But if we are to make the case, I think we have to have more than just a hunch that presence=complicity. 

And this isn't just a police matter, and Kucera leaves this part out from the WSJ piece:

The Tajik crisis, meanwhile, has reverberated across the frontier in Afghanistan, where Mr. Ayombekov has high-level friendships and business connections, especially among fellow members of the Ismaili sect of Islam that dominates Gorno-Badakhshan, according to Tajik officials. Afghan authorities said Wednesday they arrested the chief of Afghan police in a district not far from Khorog on suspicion of helping the Gorno-Badakhshan fighters.

So there are networks and there are networks -- Kucera quoted the WSJ source that this was about a turf war -- "This was about economic control, and a dispute between the center and local structures over the region's business, legal and illegal," says Parviz Mullojanov, a political analyst in Dushanbe -- but if it has a dimension stretching across the border to Afghan officials as well, it's more than a local turf battle.

What's interesting and faintly reassuring about this story is that the government proposed a cease-fire an an amnesty for other rebel leaders at large, as if they realize they don't all this to go too far. They are managing their own turf war.

I don't know if the crisis is subsiding, but it's not clear that the US has done anything wrong.

Nonetheless, obsessed with the antagonism that all the Soros-funded gang seem always and everywhere to have to all US authority, Kucera asks:

To what extent did U.S. aid abet the use of these special forces to carry out a turf war? One which resulted in a substantial number of civilian casualties? At this point, it's hard to say. But it's safe to assume the question is being asked in the State Department and the Pentagon. Stay tuned.

As for the reports of civilian casualties -- they may well have occurred, knowing how these countries work, yet there's a puzzle as to why RFE/RL didn't reiterate the claim from their Tajik service cited by EurasiaNet July 25, in their story dated July 24.

It's impossible for me to gather every news story on this now and parse it further -- I'm not an expert on Tajikistan and Tajikistan in general tends to be neglected by those people who are regional experts, with a few exceptions.

But I do think that jerking the knee on the US, we have to ask whether the US really has such involvement here as to be complicit, and whether or not its involvement mattered or maybe made a difference. Hey, it's okay to recognize the limits of American power to do good or bad. We have to ask lots more questions that EurasiaNet is prepared to ask about the nature of violent movements challenging governments in these countries, too, even if the governments themselves are violent and illegitimate. More violence continues in Tajikistan and the question of how many civilians have been killed remains open; the protesters in Khorog asked the government to put an end to the violence.

 

 

Taliban Blows up 22 Trucks En Route from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan

AP and Fergana.news have reports this morning that the Taliban has blown up 22 trucks with ammunition and fuel for NATO forces that were bound for Afghanistan en route from Uzbekistan. No casualties were reported.

The incident occurred in Samangan, and the terrorists just used one bomb.

The truckers had spent the night at a gas station. There were also dozens of cars there where drivers were sleeping as well, and the Taliban exploited the situation, placing a magnet mine on one of the fuel trucks, which rapidly touched off a conflagration with the others. Panic ensued and it was hard to get the fire out.

It's hard to imagine no one was hurt in this situation.

I was just hearing a Russian Central Asian expert the other day say how poorly defended these authoritarian countries are, which he noticed again on a recent visit. When people discuss various scenarios for what may happen after 2014 when troops are withdrawn, they tend to talk about the Taliban "spilling over" into the Central Asian countries. Maybe they don't need to "spill," but the IMU may just go home or make a visit. A Mumbai-type scenario seemed more likely than conventional battles or sparking of civil wars, i.e. a series of smaller or even devastating urban terrorist attacks. And they don't have to wait until 2014 to start them.

I find that contrary to the fierce way they can appear, these countries can be quite brittle and fragile, because the corruption factor is always lurking around the corner -- when things are so strict, people constantly find ways to route around and it undermines authority -- and that means security.

Is Kodirov Merely "Interneting While Muslim"?

Robert McKay at the New York Times has a blog posted today that takes the perspective of the lawyer in the case of Ulugbek Kodirov, the Uzbek "student" who was found guilty of plotting to kill President Barack Obama.

The headline says "Alabama Uzbek Who Plotted to Kill Obama Was Victim of Social Media, His Lawyer Says".

The implication is that the young man just surfed the web and stumbled on a lot of jihad stuff, talked to some scary bad guys he didn't really know, but just on the Internet, and then -- because he was being watched by the FBI -- got set up with bombs and guns to look like he was really a terrorist when in fact -- in the words of Registan (which rarely finds a terrorist they believe in), he was "Interneting while Muslim." (That is, arrested for his religious affiliation rather than any actual crime, much the way cops arrest blacks for "driving while black".)

Interestingly, even thought Joshua Foust and Nathan Hamm question everything about terrorism narratives in general, seldom finding them convincing, and don't even seem very persuaded about even the existence of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a group put on the list of foreign terrorist organizations by the US government (and rightly so) -- they haven't taken this position on Kodirov. They seem to accept that the charges are serious, the evidence found, even if via a sting, and they have had virtually no comment on the case. That's by sharp contrast with their reams of dubious justifying claims about the case of Jamshid Muhtorov, which they view as a trumped-up case illustrative of the evils of the "war on terrorism".

Here's my response to McKay below, which hasn't been cleared by moderators yet:

Robert,

I don't know why you are uncritically accepting the lawyer's version of this story, and apparently leaning toward the narrative that this kind of case in the US is about "Interneting while Muslim," or seeming to accepting the defense "the Internet made me do it".

First, you need to read some other media on this. As wset.com reported today, Columbia University has no record of this man ever applying to their medical school:

"But Columbia spokesman Doug Levy said Kodirov never was accepted to the university's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"From the immediately available records we have no knowledge of this individual and no record of him being an accepted student," Levy said."

It's not clear why he moved to Alabama. If you don't speak English well and you discover a plan to go to college isn't working out, the obvious thing to do is to stay in the New York area where there are numerous Russian speakers and service jobs using Russian-speaking networks and where you can find help and friends -- not go to a state where there are far fewer such imigrants. It makes no sense.

I do follow Uzbekistan quite closely, and I've found this story odd from the beginning, and I don't know whether it's some sort of elaborate staged operation on the part of Uzbek intelligence or what it is. In the Russian-language exile press, Kodirov's mother describes him as having fallen under the influence of radical Islamists preaching in US mosques, not "the Internet".

You also seem to imply that because an undercover US agent posing as a jihadist sympathizer supplied Kodirov with weapons, that there is something concocted and contrived about this case, i.e. it wouldn't exist if it weren't for the sting operation. While that could be possible, you don't seem to concede that people can radicalize and sympathize and agree to help radical Islamist organizations all on their own without prompting, and when they supply material support to such organizations, they are then breaking the law.

There just has to be a lot more curious and unbiased reporting on this story, starting with the basics as the reporters did at wnet.com, calling up Columbia and checking the story that the lawyer simply bought and never checked.

***

Now, some further thoughts.

I have to say, it hadn't occured to me to try to check up on the "student" angle of Kodirov's saga in the US -- I just took it at face value. Of course, we should have started with this. I marvel that a court case could get as far as a conviction, with the lawyer having never proved it, and no prosecutor ever doing due diligence on this. Isn't that where you would start?!

I'd go back further, I'd start with the US Embassy in Tashkent. Uzbekistan is a country where you need an exit visa. You don't just leave Uzbekistan. If you get out by circumventing the state-imposed procedures, which many do, you can't count on coming back or not facing problems of surveillance from the Uzbek secret police abroad or harassment of your family members at home. It's a strict authoritarian country with more than 5,000 political prisoners who were arrested for offenses as innocuous as reading the Koran in groups in their homes or having some literature found in their apartments of unauthorized Muslim preachers.

So who set up an American visa for Kodirov? What educational program did he come to the US under? There are established Embassy-run programs for educational exchange which are avidly encouraged as the US is a big believer in trying to educate young people in countries like this as a way of hopefully getting them to become more liberal and democratic in the future -- a laudable and worthy cause. But obviously some ringers slip through, so the question is: what school under what program had accepted him? Can't the State Department tell us that? Is anyone asking these questions anywhere?

Now, it's always possible that Kodirov didn't come through the regular or usual State Department or Embassy-cleared channels. Maybe his brother-in-law's cousin's nephew sold him a tourist visa and a fake school invitation. Or a visa to some third country from which he then got to the US. That happens.

Maybe he got enrolled in something called not "Columbia University School of Physicians" but something like "Colombia Medic Academy", one of the hundreds of fly-by-night educational operations preying on just this kind of person with little English and lack of how the system worked. They are advertised in droves on bus shelters and subways and billboards in New York City and many people pay them money in the hopes of getting a degree -- and more importantly, a job -- when they are hardly likely to do this, even if accredited. Perhaps Kodirov didn't realize he was on track at best to become a "respiratory therapist" or "home health care attendant" which *you, too, can become in as little as 6 months with a down payment of only $99* as a late-night TV ad might claim.

But...we haven't heard the story and I'm speculating how innocently, a young person on a student visa might get caught up.

As I noted in my reply to McKay, I'm just not getting the Alabama angle, other than to figure that he had some connection there. The US has resettled a number of Uzbeks who fled the Andijan massacre in Arizona and other western states; there are other Uzbeks who have emigrated to the US as part of the large tide of people leaving the Soviet Union and post-Soviet dislocations, often involving ethnic clashes, as occurred against Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. So he probably had some contact who promised him a home or a job or something. What was it?

You can debate the sting approach as much as you like, but naturally it's ok to ask why Ulugbek was eager to get these weapons and had acquired so much animosity to Obama.

Given that there was a plea agreement that reduced his sentence, it sounds like Kodirov agreed to inform on others -- and maybe that includes these radical Islamist preachers that may have turned him. I recall reading several poignant pleas from his mother that he was lured to ruin by such persons, despite not being particularly religious when he still lived in Uzbekistan. I will look these up.

The plea doesn't really shed any light on these issues.

I don't know if Robert McKay starts from the same place I do, which is that it's not ok to make common cause with and support terrorist groups on the Internet. He may believe that the "Internet" part of this sanitizes and defangs the "terrorist" part and makes it merely a kind of virtual offense.

Of course, it's just such a crazy long shot -- a deadly pun -- to imagine that this kid with no prior firearms training and not enough money to buy a sniper rifle or ability to make a real plan for how he was going to get near President Obama is really a deadly assassin. Except...such people are, and when we look at the history of people who have shot presidents, we see that -- they can be insane, crazy, vain, vaguely hooked up to political movements but you never really find out why they were working in the Soviet Union -- etc. etc. That's America. So it's ok to prosecute a case like this.

Kodirov was so far gone that he said he didn't care if he got killed in the process, he just wanted to get Obama. So that tells you that he was either psychotic or immersed in a cult -- but I presume he went through psychiatric examination.

You can also see from the plea -- did McKay read it? -- that the hinge in this story isn't the Internet or talking to shadowy people on the Internet, but making a friend who invited him to a mosque and talked to him about jihad and who then gave him the Internet videos to look up on Youtube or other sites.

So you can' say Kodirov is a "victim of social media"; he's the victim of a guy who befriended him and took him to a mosque where he was encouraged to believe that jihad was acceptable -- and encouraged to act on those violent sentiments. THAT is the problem; the Internet only amplifies it.

One thing I really don't like about this complaint, and I wonder why the lawyer let it be put in, is this:

As part of this agreement, the defendant specifically acknowledges and states that the defendant has not been persecuted in, and has no present fear of persecution in, Uzbekistan on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Similarly, the defendant further acknowledges and states that the defendant has not been tortured in, and has no present fear of torture in Uzbekistan.

That's just plain up and down false. Indeed, Kodirov does have a well-founded fear of persecution, especially now that he has become publicly known and has been identified with extreme Islamists and a plot to kill a president. But even before that, merely for being a young Muslim man who studied abroad he could face questioning, attempt to make him into a secret police informant, and torture if he refused to cooperate -- there are existing cases like this and it is common in these countries.

There are thousands of Muslims who have been tortured and imprisoned for activities that are not considered crimes in democratic countries -- joining unauthorized religious groups that aren't even designated as terrorist groups and so on.

I suppose the lawyer had to concede this paragraph to get the plea, but it sure sets back progress for everybody else. There's no question Kodirov faces *now* a very high likelihood of torture if he were returned to Uzbekistan, and even before his arrest, merely for floating around and not going to a scheduled program, he could face at least questioning and an effort to turn him, if not worse. So could his family. The Uzbek secret police are deadly.

Strangely, despite this high likelihood of torture as others have found, Kodirov asks to be returned to Uzbekistan.

Now, that suggests to me that this entire story could indeed be a hoax planned by Uzbek intelligence, either with Kodirov's knowledge, or with Kodirov's general goofiness and possible mental illness exploited by cunning secret police -- and with either his knowledge that he will get out of it all by being brought home and quietly released, or with their knowledge that they will either put him in jail anyway at home or compensate him in some way. The point of this exercise? To let us know there are real terrorists in Uzbekistan and to smear the whole Uzbek emigre community, ultimately, for Americans and Uzbeks.

Except, if he wasn't the avatar of an elaborate sting operation on the part of Uzbek intelligence, he went along with the American sting willingly and that is troublesome.

Given that the complaint also contains an agreement to assist in his removal by the provision of documents, etc., I wonder if we can expect that Kodirov *will* be removed in this case.

I will keep researching the emigre press on this and post more later, but meanwhile, I ask these questions:

o Is this another MNB caper, whereby the Uzbek secret police create a hoax and a case like this to influence public opinion and deter would-be jihadists?

o Did the US FBI and/or CIA collude in this hoax?

o Why didn't anybody research the bona fides of his student visa and educational institution here in the US and at the US Embassy in Tashkent?

 

No, the Russians Will Not Help with Syria and Should Get Unrelenting Pressure to Stop Arms Deliveries

I always marvel at people on web forums who claim that the 100,000 people who have died in Iraq are "caused" by the US. There's an infantile clinging to the "big revelation" that the Bush Administration lied, and there weren't weapons of mass destruction there.

So there wasn't a good reason to invade the country? There were very real enemies there who didn't appear merely because the US showed up to topple Saddam. The terrorists supported by Al Qaeda; the militants supported by Iran and Syria -- these are realities for which the "progressives" claiming the untruth about the 100,000 never have an answer. One of the reasons I ran a news clipping site "Not Killed by American Troops" for awhile was to keep reporting and archiving the news that most of the killings in these wars were not being done by American troops.

That doesn't mean we don't criticize these invasions or we don't condemn American soldiers when they do kill civilians, which of course they have, at times in grisly and horrifying fashion. But the overwhelming number of civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed by terrorists and militants such as the Taliban.

By the same token, I see little awareness among those spouting on forums, that Russia is propping up the Assad regime in Syria, and has given Syria $1 billion in weapons.  An appalling massacre has occurred in Syria of more than 90 people, 32 of them children. Even now, despite this horror, a Russian ship is on its way delivering more arms to the Assad regime. Even Amnesty International had to concede that most of the world's killings of civilians are done with Russian weapons -- not American weapons. That was a bitter truth for the left to swallow, and the protests are shrill on AI's website. But it is the truth.

People like Robert MacKay at the New York Times profess surprise on Twitter at WikiLeaks trying to spin the Syrian massacre today. Why the surprise? Long ago WikiLeaks revealed itself to be a pro-Kremlin operation seeking sustenance for its largely anti-American agenda from what they rightly identify as America's enemy ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). More than that, the anarcho-Leninism that WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange and others espouse sees the world in a dichotomy where America is always evil and Russia is always misunderstood or victimized, if not good.

The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq were supported by Iran and Syria all this time; these are Russia's allies and never stopped being their allies from the Soviet era.

So when I see an article like this in the New York Times, US Seeks Russia's Help in Removing Assad, I have to conclude: what are you smoking, guys? Why these fantasies?

Russia has never helped on Syria and is highly unlikely to do anything different than it has already done for the entire latest round of the mass crimes against humanity -- which is nothing. Russia is busy at the UN complaining about the less than 100 civilians killed not deliberately by NATO during the fight with Qadaffi for Libya. Russia is not helping on Syria. While Russia may have technically supported Kofi Annan's mission, or the notion of monitors, it could indicate external assent while practicing internal dissent because its ships keep steaming to Syria with arms and it keeps excusing Iran.

Russia does not like how either Iraq or Libya turned out, hates the idea of humanitarian interventions (in part with good reason), and does not want to remove Assad and precipitate what it sees as a messy civil war with Al Qaeda in the wings to help the opposition. It may lie about this actual danger, we can't know. But it does not want to help. If it waits long enough, Syria might turn out to be like the huge crimes against humanity in Africa in places like Sudan or the DRC -- that is, the world will turn away and stop caring, and become preoccupied again with even just one death in Israel/Palestine.

Why does Prime Minister Medvedev hate the idea of Mubarak in a cage, as the Times reports? Because he does not want to envision either Putin or himself in cages -- and cages are what the Russian criminal justice system puts people in -- as they did Mikhail Khodorkovsky. As the Times reports:

“The Russians now consider President Assad a liability,” said Dimitri K. Simes, a Russia expert and president of the Center for the National Interest in Washington. “But Putin doesn’t like having his clients removed one after another by the United States, and he considers Assad his client.”

Frankly, I don't think the Russians consider Assad anything of the kind. That is, sure, he's a problem and a challenge, but so is the Syrian opposition, and they have the stamina to wait out things like this and they have the brutal and grim determination to keep allies like Assad. We don't. Very, very few people are demonstrating in Russia against Moscow's relationship with Assad; and very, very few people are demonstrating in the US against Moscow's relationship with Assad, either. The fairly small turnout of protesters from Occupy Wall Street that turned up at the NATO summit wanted to denounce NATO for Libya and prevent NATO from ever exercising force anywhere in the world again -- they weren't concerned about massacres in Homs. They line up perfectly with the Kremlin in that regard.

What's more imporant is the second half of what Simes said -- indeed, Putin hates the US, doesn't want to be seen to be taking dictation from the US, and will cling to Assad for that reason alone -- with the help of WikiLeaks stirring up the massages, claiming we must "guard against spin" on the Syrian massacre. As if there was a "spin" involved in pictures of 32 bloodied little children. OWS keeping up such pressure as they can muster on having any kind of international military response.

Helen Cooper and Mark Landler at least reported accurately that in fact Russia didn't sign on to a "Yemensky Variant" for Syria.

Human Rights Watch has also apparently been in quiet talks with the Russians -- more and more, this large and wealthy organization behaves like a foreign embassy. I don't see any call on Russia to do something about this latest Syrian massacre on HRW's website, but it's a holiday weekend and that's not their policy with Russia, despite some open protests -- they believe Russia can be influenced better by dialogue than by confrontation (I think they're absolutely wrong about this, and shouldn't even have an office in Moscow, which is constraining their statements.)

“There’s a deep strain of anti-Americanism at the heart of Putin’s Kremlin,” said Carroll Bogert, a deputy executive director of Human Rights Watch, who has also discussed the Yemen option with Russian officials. “When a proposal is perceived as something the Americans want, it can automatically become less desirable to the Russians.”

Still, she and other human rights activists said the plan was worth trying, even if the odds are against winning wholehearted Russian backing, much less the acquiescence of Mr. Assad.

The plan will fail, and human rights activists had better have a plan B, if they are advising governments quietly on what they should do. Of course, it isn't direct military action in Syria that's the issue for the Kremlin, but another NATO action via Turkey on the border of Syria in quest of the bad idea of safe zones.

Here's why it will fail, as the Times explains:

In Syria, by contrast, Mr. Assad oversees a security state in which his minority Alawite sect fears that if his family is ousted, it will face annihilation at the hands of the Sunni majority.

Everybody wants to do something about Syria. Pronouncing an idea like the "Yemensky Variant" or the latest peace venture as failures in advance make it seem like you are hopelessly pragmatic.

Oh, but there *is* something to do, and I want everyone to do a lot more of it: gang up on Russia. Nobody should be pretending Russia is helping; nobody should pretend that Russia is going to help bridge the violent situation and lead it to "talks". Everybody should apply unrelenting, prolonged, and principled pressure on Russia until it stops shipping arms to Syria and enabling mass crimes against humanity. Anything less than that risks being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Tajikistan -- the Weak Link in the Chain of the US Exit from Afghanistan?

Foreign Minister Zarifi greets Clinton in Dushanbe last October. Photo by US Embassy Dushanbe.

Pakistan -- with whom we still haven't agreed about resumption of the transit of non-lethal military goods to Afghanistan -- usually gets all the attention when people talk about the vulnerabilities around the US exit from Afghanistan.

But there's all of Central Asia, too.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Tajikistan's Foreign Minister today for talks in Washington.

Foreign Minister Zarifi is here in the US to attend the NATO summit next week in Chicago. None of the Central Asian presidents are coming -- hey, no need to bow and scrape. But they're invited because of how vital these countries are to the Northern Distribution Network, so they are at least sending their foreign ministers. And they should do that much, given that collectively, they get $500 million from the US for their right-of-a-way through their countries, and they should see this in some way as "their" war (but don't).

Why? Because Tajikistan is next to Afghanistan, and when we pull out our troops in 2014, what's going to blow, besides the thin veneer of urban secularism in Kabul holding back the Taliban? The Afghan border of Tajikistan, that's what, and that's of concern because Tajikistan is the poorest of the post-Soviet states and now racking up increasing incidents of terrorist attacks and the arrests and trials of extremist groups that seem to then fuel more terrorist attacks. Tajikistan is also next to Iran and shares the ancient Persian civilization.

It's a place where children still get polio -- surely a shortfall of the international community's care. although after 32 cases, the UN responded with another immunization program. If you have a poor childhood do you get to be a terrorist? No, of course not, and terrorists are often urban educated middle class people.  But they develop a message that can be attractive to poor people who have no recourse. We don't know very much about the people in group trials of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Tajikistan and other Central Asian states.

It's a state from which a large part of the population leave for migrant work in Russia, where they are treated poorly (of the 50 or 60 or so migrant workers murdered in Russia in hate crimes every year, most are Tajiks). More than a quarter of the Tajik economy is made up of remittances from migrant laborer. Tajikistan weathered a civil war in which the largest number of journalists in the world were killed (about 50), after Algeria -- in the same pattern, by both the state and the Islamist militants).

Government nervousness about extremism is said in fact to have fueled unrest, some believe -- there's a tough new religion law that punishes even parents taking their children to the mosque. For the first time the US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the State Department to give Tajikistan the desigation of "country of particular concern" for its deteriorating stae of religious rights.

I want to think a lot more about the hydraulic theory of terrorism that is so very, very common everywhere among human rights groups, think tanks, the government -- that is, that the very brutal tactics that the Central Asian governments use, or the US uses in the drone war and in counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism, are what create new rebels and terrorists. That's the operating conclusion and most find it to be true because indeed it does seem to follow a pattern. This is one of those debates people may have forever. Does the death penalty deter crime? No, it doesn't, crime increases. Did the death penalty at least remove that one murderer? Yes, but another sprang up in his place. And so on.

Certainly when you take a BBC reporter, charge him on suspicions of Islamic extremism merely because he reported on Hizb-ut-Tahir followers, beat him, throw him in jail, mistreat him for weeks, before finally letting him go after an international outcry, you haven't made a friend for life. Think of what we heard from the Pakistani lawyer discussing the claims of his clients who became victims of US drone attacks -- they become militarized because they have no redress. Why are people in Hizb-ut-Tahir? Because they have no sense of redress -- no place to go where their grievances are heard and addressed. Even doing part one of this proposition can go a long way to ameliorating distress in a population in dire straights, but even that part isn't done well when you tell people they can't take their children to a place of worship.

Whatever the dynamics, the US military seems sufficiently concerned to be trying to bolster Tajikistan now as a weak link in the exit strategy -- if the war spills over from Tajikistan into Afghanistan, or if it becomes a fuel pump for the revival of the civil war between a secular state and its supporters and Islamic groups, then the US is making more problems than it is solving by leaving.

Back in March, CentCom promised increased military aid to Tajikistan to buy equipment, Avesta reports:

Noting the "buffer" role of Tajikistan in the prevention and spreading the threats of terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking, Mattis emphasized that the U.S. is going to provide the technical assistance to the border guards and other security and law enforcement agencies in Tajikistan.

As throughout the war in Afghanistan and other wars, there's a confusion and conflation between war-fighting and police work -- so here's U.S. Army Central Command James Mattis in Dushanbe, our top army guy for the region meeting President Rakhmon to give assurances about support for equipment of police to fight terrorism. So there's a war on terror, but it's fought with support, training and equipment to police (and not army, although presumably they are trained, too.)

The budget is $1.5 million for this year. That's not really very much. Although it's part of a full aid package of $19.1 million:

Tajikistan ($19.1 million): U.S. assistance is focused on ensuring the stability of Tajikistan,
particularly in light of the military drawdown in Afghanistan. Programs will seek to strengthen local governance and improve education. Funding will also be used to increase food security by seeking to solve systemic problems that contribute to food shortages such as inequitable access to water,  inadequate supplies of seeds and fertilizer, a lack of modern technologies, and poor farm practices.

What is training and bolstering and what does it accomplish? It's not like people who fought a civil war for six years killing tens of thousands need to learn how to fight. Presumably they need to learn how to fight more professionally and...democratically...or something

I keep seeing the images so vividly relayed by Kim Barker in the Taliban Shuffle, the trainees waving their guns around and shooting in the air and shooting themselves in the foot by accident -- and then grimly, the incidents where the trained Afghan army then shoots US soldiers. Why? Is that, er, poor training? Or is resentment building over things like the accidental Koran burning? Or was it that they were never really on our side to start with? Or are they set up by other forces in Pakistan intelligence? Or what's the deal?

At least -- if I've read this correctly -- we're giving the Tajiks nearly as much for health ($1.2 million) as we are in military aid, and that's good news.

Open Society Institute complained two years ago that the US gives more in military aid to Central Asia than it does for democracy programs. I'm the first to complain about state-tropic baggy USAID programs and don't confuse them with more effective NED or Freedom House programs that are more directly useful in helping civil society groups. Except that these organizations are expelled from most of the Central Asian countries and their grantees sometimes wind up in jail and it's actually hard to spend civil society grant money in this area of the world because of the Zen of foundation work: if it were the kind of place where you could give money easily to good causes, it wouldn't need your help.

I think it would be worth going over the budgets again and looking at the non-military but non-democdracy aid that is related to health, labor, women, etc. that may be of significant help to this poor country -- unless of course it's all being siphoned into the president's relatives pockets or something.