Western concern at China's growing involvement in Africa

[This is so smack dab in the middle of the map that FTW has drawn you for years, and so thoroughly consistent with the details we added to the map in Crossing the Rubicon, that it’s almost sad. The MORE THINGS change, the more they stay the same. – MCR]

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The smugglers' trail jolts toward the southern border, crossing salt-encrusted plains, scrabbly farmland and hundreds of blossoming poppy fields. Suddenly, a fortress-like compound looms.

Locals say the imposing, high-walled mansion near Garmser belongs to Haji Adam, a well-known drug smuggler. Tales of his wealth are legion. "When he became sick, he was flown directly to Germany," said a man in the village of Garmser, who asked not to be named. "Even helicopters have landed at his house," said another.

Like nearly every other major drug figure in the region, Adam appears to worry little about the law. "Many smugglers don't even bother hiding their wealth," said a British diplomat in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's their way of saying 'screw you' to authority."

Another bumper drug harvest is expected in Afghanistan, and kingpins who control the $2.7 billion trade appear as untouchable as ever. Afghan poppy-eradication workers for DynCorp International, a Texas company that got a $174 million-a-year contract from the U.S. State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, are chopping down poppy crops. But targeting unarmed and penniless poppy farmers is easy; rounding up those at the pinnacle of the drug trade business is much harder.

Afghanistan's top drug smugglers have been spectacularly successful at evading Western and Afghan law enforcement. Although Western drugs experts estimate there are several dozen major traffickers, just two have been arrested since the Western-funded war on drugs started four years ago -- Haji Baz Muhammad, who was extradited to the United States in October, and Bashir Noorzai, arrested on arrival in New York last April.

Several anti-drug experts working with Western embassies in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave The Chronicle a profile of the typical drug lord. Many live in fortified mansions, some defended with anti-aircraft guns. Loyal tribesmen and heavily armed private militias provide protection. And they reportedly enjoy political support at the highest levels of government.

Persistent allegations of drug links have dogged some of Afghanistan's most powerful figures, including several provincial governors, Cabinet ministers and the president's own brother, Walid Karzai. At least 17 members of the newly elected parliament have active links to the trade, according to a study by analyst Andrew Wilder of the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, a Kabul think tank.

But the most serious charges hover over Gen. Muhammad Daud, the deputy interior minister for counternarcotics. One senior drug official said his office was 99 percent sure that Daud was a player in the trade he is supposed to be destroying. The official spoke on condition that neither he nor his nationality be identified due to the extreme sensitivity of the subject. "He frustrates counternarcotics law enforcement when it suits him," the official said. "He moves competent officials from their jobs, locks cases up and generally ensures that nobody he is associated with will get arrested for drug crimes."

Daud denies the allegations. "These rumors are the work of my enemies," he said last year. At a news conference in February, he said his forces had confiscated more than 100 tons of drugs in 2005.

Afghan undercover drug teams have had limited success in penetrating the upper echelons of the drug networks. "Like most criminal masterminds, they don't get their hands dirty with actual gear. You try to get to their lieutenants, use intelligence to see what they're up to and find where the money goes," said the official.

Typically, he said, drug kingpins have established power bases from their days as mujahedeen commanders or tribal elders. They slip easily in and out of Afghanistan using false passports or, less often, small aircraft that can evade U.S. air traffic controllers based in Qatar.

Many strike deals during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. "The hajj is a good place to do business, we believe," the official said.

Western drug experts say part of the illicit profits are invested in Kabul, where new glass-fronted commercial buildings and gaudy mansions are springing up. Much of the rest may end up in Dubai, where Western intelligence agents are working with officials of United Arab Emirates to stanch the flow of drug money, the experts said.

Fears that Afghanistan is becoming a full-fledged "narco-state" are swelling fast. Poppy cultivation dipped by 21 percent in 2005, after President Hamid Karzai declared a jihad -- a government-sanctioned holy war on drugs -- but is expected to rise sharply this year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The greatest spike, as much as 100 percent, is expected in Helmand province, where Adam, the well-known smuggler, lives.

The desolate, sun-baked plains of southern Helmand are one of the world's busiest heroin smuggling hubs. At night, high-speed convoys race across the hard-packed desert toward Pakistan. The border, which is controlled by Baluch tribesmen, has little relevance. "It's basically Baluchistan, with a line running through it that happens to have been drawn by some white guys," said the senior drug official.

The main smuggling hub is Baramcha, a notoriously lawless village on the plains. It is entirely unpatrolled -- the last border police fled for their lives five months ago, said Allahuddin, the district intelligence chief, who goes by one name. "They attacked the customs post, killed our soldiers and cut off their heads," he said.

From Baramcha, bricks of opium derived from the poppy sap are spirited away by jeep, camel or bus, either south toward Pakistan's Makran Coast or west into Iran. After it is purified into heroin, most ends up on the streets of Europe.

Instability in the border area is fueled by a recent pact between Taliban fighters and drug smugglers, apparently rooted in their shared interest in excluding Karzai's pro-U.S. government from the area. Last December, the Taliban attacked Garmser police headquarters, killing nine officers. Smugglers provided the vehicles, said district Gov. Haji Abdullah Jan. "Now they are working together," he said.

British forces arriving in Helmand as part of a NATO mission will soon mount patrols along the porous border, said Lt. Col. Henry Worsley, a British commander in the provincial capital, Laskhar Gah.

In Kabul, the dilapidated justice system is being overhauled to help prosecute drug lords. A new counternarcotics law was recently approved, and a special drug court has been set up in Kabul. So far, 14 judges, 36 investigators and 32 prosecutors have received training. The court already has heard several hundred cases, mostly involving low-level couriers and laboratory operators.

But even when drug criminals are prosecuted, they frequently bribe their way to freedom, Western officials say. As a result, the United States is now helping finance construction of a new drug lock-up with a capacity for 50 prisoners at Policharki prison outside Kabul, due to open later this year. Government officials and Western diplomats say they hope to arrest the first major smuggler soon.

"I think if we get our act together, it's not unrealistic," said the British diplomat. "But around here nothing is for sure."

[I cannot overemphasize the importance of these developments or this article. Clearly Iran's influence continues to grow as America's diminishes. More importantly, this piece points to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's horsepower on the world scene and acknowledges that one reason the US has an interest in Iran is because it needs to geographically plug into Iran's vast and (relatively) well maintained pipeline system to get Caspian oil to market. This is exactly what we pointed to in our recent story, “Rapprochement.” – MCR]

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.

Speaking in Beijing as recently as January 17, the organization's secretary general Zhang Deguang had been quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying: "Absorbing new member states needs a legal basis, yet the SCO has no rules concerning the issue. Therefore, there is no need for some Western countries to worry whether India, Iran or other countries would become new members."

The SCO, an Intergovernmental organization whose working languages are Chinese and Russian, was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO's change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Iran's nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States.

Visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told Itar-TASS in Moscow that the membership expansion "could make the world more fair". And he spoke of building an Iran-Russia "gas-and-oil arc" by coordinating their activities as energy producing countries. Mohammadi also touched on Iran's intention to raise the issue of his country's nuclear program and its expectations of securing SCO support.

The timing of the SCO decision appears to be significant. By the end of April the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to report to the United Nations Security Council in New York regarding Iran's compliance with the IAEA resolutions and the Security Council's presidential statement, which stresses the importance of Iran "reestablishing full, sustained suspension of uranium-enrichment activities".

The SCO membership is therefore a lifeline for Iran in political and economic terms. The SCO is not a military bloc but is nonetheless a security organization committed to countering terrorism, religious extremism and separatism. SCO membership would debunk the US propaganda about Iran being part of an "axis of evil".

The SCO secretary general's statement on expansion coincided with several Chinese and Russian commentaries last week voicing disquiet about the US attempts to impose UN sanctions against Iran. Comparison has been drawn with the Iraq War when the US seized on sanctions as a pretext for invading Iraq.

A People's Daily commentary on April 13 read: "The real intention behind the US fueling the Iran issue is to prompt the UN to impose sanctions against Iran, and to pave the way for a regime change in that country. The US's global strategy and its Iran policy emanate out of its decision to use various means, including military means, to change the Iranian regime. This is the US's set target and is at the root of the Iran nuclear issue."

The commentary suggested Washington seeks a regime change in Iran with a view to establishing American hegemony in the Middle East. Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, wrote: "The US's long term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: "I would not be in a hurry to draw conclusions, because passions are too often being whipped up around Iran's nuclear program ... I would also advise not to whip up passions."

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear power agency and a former prime minister, said Iran was simply not capable of enriching uranium on an industrial scale. "It has long since been known that Iran has a 'cascade' of only 164 centrifuges, and obtaining low-grade uranium from this 'cascade' was only a matter of time. This did not come as a surprise to us."

Yevgeniy Velikhov, president of Kurchatov Institute, Russia's nuclear research center, told Tier-TASS, "Launching experimental equipment of this type is something any university can do."

By virtue of SCO membership, Iran can partake of the various SCO projects, which in turn means access to technology, increased investment and trade, infrastructure development such as banking, communication, etc. It would also have implications for global energy security.

The SCO was expected to set up a working group of experts ahead of the summit in June with a view to evolving a common "energy strategy" and jointly undertaking pipeline projects, oil exploration and related activities.

A third aspect of the SCO decision to expand its membership involves regional integration processes. Sensing that the SCO was gaining traction, Washington had sought observer status at its summit meeting last June, but was turned down. This rebuff - along with SCO's timeline for a reduced American military presence in Central Asia, the specter of deepening Russia-China cooperation and the setbacks to US diplomacy in Central Asia as a whole - prompted a policy review in Washington.

Following a Central Asian tour in October by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington's new regional policy began surfacing. The re-organization of the US State Department's South Asia Bureau (created in August 1992) to include the Central Asian states, projection of US diplomacy in terms of "Greater Central Asia" and the push for observer status with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should be seen in perspective.

US diplomacy is working toward getting Central Asian states to orientate toward South Asia - weaning them away from Russia and China. (Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul has also failed to respond to SCO's overtures but has instead sought full membership in SAARC.)

But US diplomacy is not making appreciable progress in Central Asia. Washington pins hopes on Astana (Kazakhstan) being its pivotal partner in Central Asia. The US seeks an expansion of its physical control over Kazakhstan's oil reserves and formalization of Kazakh oil transportation via Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, apart from carving out a US role in Caspian Sea security.

But Kazakhstan is playing hard to get. President Nurusultan Nazarbayev's visit to Moscow on April 3 reaffirmed his continued dependence on Russian oil pipelines.

Meanwhile, Washington's relations with Tashkent (Uzbekistan) remain in a state of deep chill. The US attempt to "isolate" President Islam Karimov is not working. (Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is visiting Tashkent on April 25.) Again, Tajikistan relies heavily on Russia's support. In Kyrgyzstan, despite covert US attempts to create dissensions within the regime, President Burmanbek Bakiyev's alliance with Prime Minister Felix Kulov (which enjoys Russia's backing) is holding.

The Central Asians have also displayed a lack of interest in the idea of "Greater Central Asia". This became apparent during the conference sponsored by Washington recently in Kabul focusing on the theme.

The SCO's enlargement move, in this regional context, would frustrate the entire US strategy. Ironically, the SCO would be expanding into South Asia and the Gulf region, while "bypassing" Afghanistan.

This at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is stepping up its presence in Afghanistan. (General James L Jones, supreme allied commander Europe, said recently that NATO would assume control of Afghanistan by August.)

So far NATO has ignored SCO. But NATO contingents in Afghanistan would shortly be "surrounded" by SCO member countries. NATO would face a dilemma.

If it recognizes that SCO has a habitation and a name (in Central Asia, South Asia and the Gulf), then, what about NATO's claim as the sole viable global security arbiter in the 21st century? NATO would then be hard-pressed to explain the raison d'etre of its expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union.

Ostensibly, the growing threat of international terrorism is responsible for the Bush administration's proposed 2007 military budget, of $439 billion: a 7-percent increase from last year's record tally. Higher spending, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has indicated, would ensure U.S. success "in the long war against terrorist extremism."

But only a small share of the increase would cover specialized anti-terror and counter-insurgency systems. The biggest and costliest items -- such as nuclear-powered submarines and long-range bombers -- are intended for use against an entirely different enemy: the People's Republic of China. Although official U.S. ties with Beijing have remained overtly friendly, Pentagon officials apparently hold a much darker view of the future.

The U.S. Defense Department isn't exactly forthcoming about its perception of the China threat. Rather, it speaks of unnamed future challengers that might someday contest American military dominance. The United States "must hedge against the possibility that a major power could choose a hostile path in the future," says the Pentagon's four-year-strategy review. It's to deter -- and, if necessary, defeat -- such challengers that the Defense Department wants to bankroll pricey new military systems.

The Pentagon has spelled out its rationale for this "hedging strategy" in its Quadrennial Defense Review of 2006. A comprehensive assessment of military policy conducted every four years, the review shapes the Pentagon's long-term strategic planning. This year's version accords equal weight to "defeating terrorist networks," "defending the homeland," and "shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads."

The first two of these priorities are obvious enough, but what is meant by the third? The answer, if one reads between the lines, is that the United States should splurge on super-sophisticated weapons to prevent any aspirants to super-power status from ever catching up, or even trying.

For those familiar with the evolution of U.S. strategic thinking over the past 15 years, this sounds very similar to the perpetual-dominance posture, first articulated in the famous "Defense Planning Guidance" document leaked in 1992, shortly after the Soviet Union's collapse. "Our first objective must be to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival," comparable to the U.S.S.R., said the top-secret document. To this end, "we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

At the time, U.S. leaders -- including the first President Bush -- repudiated this outlook as overly militaristic. But it has clearly made a comeback in the current Bush administration. And while the principle was first stated in purely abstract terms, as applying to any conceivable challenger, it's now focused on China.

"Of all the emerging powers," states the Pentagon's current four-year review, "China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States." With its booming economy, China has increased its military spending and acquired new weapons, putting "regional military balances at risk."

Yet there's no evidence that China actually seeks to compete with the United States on equal military terms, or to close the gap in advanced military technology. The Pentagon's own assessment of Chinese capabilities, "The Military Power of the People's Republic of China," highlights China's many weaknesses, including its lack of aircraft carriers and long-range aircraft.

Still, this hasn't stopped the Pentagon brass from seeking costly new weapons to fight a hypothetical greatly enlarged Chinese threat. Among the costliest items in the Bush administration's proposed military budget are the F-22A Raptor air-superiority fighter ($2.8 billion); the multi-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ($5.3 billion); the futuristic DD(X) destroyer ($3.4 billion); and the Virginia Class nuclear-attack submarine ($2.6 billion). Additional billions are included for a new class of aircraft carrier and a next-generation long-range bomber.

It's hard to imagine that these costly, super-sophisticated weapons would be used to fight bands of lightly armed guerrillas in Baghdad or Tora Bora. The only adversary that might conceivably pose a potent enough threat to justify use of such systems is a beefed-up China. It's to fight this imagined Chinese threat that the administration wants to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into unnecessary military programs.

Spending all this money might discourage China from building up its military and thereby avert a future U.S.-Chinese clash. But it's just as likely that it would have the opposite effect. To defend itself from the implicitly anti-Chinese weapons, Beijing might develop countervailing systems, and so become the heavily armed power that we sought to avoid in the first place.

Congress will examine the rationale for increased defense spending. It's essential that lawmakers and members of the public question the Pentagon's justifications -- and reject proposals that would have the effect of triggering a new Cold War, one with the People's Republic of China.

Campaign by Local Activists Persuaded Board of Supervisors of Looming Energy Crunch; Landmark Initiative Urges Development of ‘Action and Response Plan’

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. 13-APRIL-2006 San Francisco on Tuesday became the first U.S. city to pass a resolution acknowledging the threats posed by peak oil, urging the city to develop a comprehensive plan to respond to the emerging global energy crunch.

The resolution which won unanimous support by the Board of Supervisors was sponsored by Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi, Jake McGoldrick, Sophie Maxwell and Chris Daly. It cites an influential study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, known as the Hirsch Report, which raises concerns about the nation’s ability to avert a major crisis from the peak and decline of oil production.

The measure comes on the heels of an increasingly effective grass roots campaign by groups such as San Francisco Oil Awareness, Post Carbon San Francisco, and SF Informatics, who have sponsored mailings and meetings targeting Bay Area elected officials for more than two years. San Francisco has been making strides in the area of energy independence, energy watchdogs have reported. According to a year-long study by Sustainlane.com using over 600 data points, San Francisco is the city third best able to cope with an energy crisis.

Michael Poremba, spokesman for SF Informatics, congratulated the Supervisors on their action Tuesday. “We are thrilled to see the city finally acknowledging the peak oil issue,” Poremba said. “Our society runs on oil, our economy runs on oil, and farsighted local governments should begin planning now--indeed years ago--for an era of declining supplies, because that era is starting now.”

Citizen’s group San Francisco Oil Awareness played a key role in bringing the idea of a resolution in front of city officials. Members of the group, including Jennifer Bresee, Allyse Hartwell, Dennis Brumm and David Fridley, formed a committee promoting a draft resolution discussing the issue with officials on the Board and at other venues.

Local peak oil activists have been gaining wider recognition in recent months as the topic has gained traction in the media and in the U.S. Congress, where Congressman Roscoe Bartlett introduced the first-ever “peak oil resolution” and formed a caucus to study the issue. Members of the SF Post Carbon group were featured in a recent article in Salon.com surveying the growing movement.

Among the high-visibility tools used by the groups is a colorful poster called The Oil Age, created by SF Informatics in association with Global Public Media. The poster traces the history of oil production worldwide and displays relevant energy statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, BP Statistical Review and other industry sources. The poster was hand delivered to dozens of Bay Area elected officials in January, including the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, The Department on the Environment and the Commission on the Environment.

“The poster is a great way to open up city officials’ doors,” said David Fridley, a scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and a member of San Francisco Oil Awareness. “It’s a very effective passport into the halls of power because of its polished and professional quality.” Co-member Jennifer Bresee agrees, “Plunking down this poster in front of a supervisor is a lot more effective than trying to explain it in words alone,” she says.

Copies of The Oil Age poster can be purchased at www.oilposter.org. To date, over 1,600 posters have been donated to teachers worldwide. And thanks to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, the poster has been distributed to every member of the U.S. Congress.

Robert L. Hirsch, R. Bezdek, R. Wendling, Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, February 2005.

About SF Informatics
SF Informatics represents a group of concerned citizens committed to researching and communicating critical ecological and societal trends worldwide. For more information: dave@oilposter.org. Poster ordering or donation information: www.oilposter.org.