War Without End

Anglo Thug · Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2002 11:54 am Post subject: bin Laden's Triumph

How useful bin Laden has been to the 'democrats' and 'libertarians' that 'serve' as our 'elected' representatives in this country. Herr Blair, president in waiting (forget about the ridiculous PCC episode - please!), is making some important changes to our privacy laws. It now seems that Fred from the local fire station will be able to invade your privacy as and when he feels the need - no court intervention required. I feel much safer already.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/netprivacy/article/0,2763,736011,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,387405,00.html

msteffan1 · Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2002 6:08 pm Post subject:

Gives HOTMAIL a whole new meaning....

Anglo Thug · Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2002 5:20 pm Post subject:

Anglo Thug · Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2002 6:31 pm Post subject: Thank you Netscape/AOL

What would we do without search engines? How would we ever find what we wanted in the sea of information that is the Internet? Fortunately we do have search engines? Unfortunately this does not mean we will always find what we are looking for.

Take this forum for instance. Over the past few weeks I have noticed a disturbing trend. Several sites have been good enough to carry links to articles posted here on their own pages. These pages have been subsequently spidered and so the forum has been reaching people that would otherwise never know it existed. That's all good news. Not so good when a search just a few days later fails to find the same links to the forum. Even using the exact same search, the links are no more.

Main culprit seems to be AOL/Netscape. It takes them about three days to pull down anything they find 'unsuitable' for their audiences - not that they make any mention of this silent censorship.

In case you think this is just a whinge and publicity is the name of the game, you couldn't be more wrong. My point is, if this forum is being censored then what else are we missing? Who makes the choices as to what we can and can't see? Don't you just love living in the free west? As we are so readily reminded - our fathers fought a war for freedom. And now we are bombing people so they can enjoy this kind of freedom too. Ain't life grand? Our fathers would be proud.

At least we can rely on the mainstream media for our daily dose of news. So who will be voted out of the Big Brother house next? Let's ask AOL - this is their favourite subject in these untroubled times.

Libby · Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2002 12:04 pm Post subject:

Anglo Thug

Philippines FM quits over US presence

MANILA, Philippines, July 2 (UPI) -- The Filipino vice president resigned Tuesday as the country's foreign minister due to differences with President Gloria Arroyo over the presence of U.S. troops in the country.

"The resignation stemmed from an honest difference of opinion concerning policies," a joint statement by Vice President Teofisto Guingona and Arroyo said. "Since the president is the chief architect of foreign policy, the vice president yields."

Guingona's resignation brings to an end a week of political uncertainty in which it was announced last week the vice president was resigning as foreign minister, and later that he had been reinstated.

Guingona will remain vice president, however.

The vice president has been a vocal critic of the U.S. troop presence in the country. U.S. troops serve as advisers to the Philippines' army in its fight against Abu Sayyaf rebels as part of President Bush's war on terrorism.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.

Anglo Thug · Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2002 11:12 am Post subject:

Hi Libby,

I'd hate to ask you to mix with the wrong crowd just to make a point regarding AOL. Best thing to do is dump your account. That's my option anyway.

If you need an alternative email address try here:

http://aohell.zzn.com/

Libby · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2002 8:25 am Post subject:

Anglo Thug wrote:

Hi Libby,

I'd hate to ask you to mix with the wrong crowd just to make a point regarding AOL. Best thing to do is dump your account. That's my option anyway.

If you need an alternative email address try here:

http://aohell.zzn.com/

Good morning, AT:

I would like to drop AOL..I would like your advice first, on
how to save..or rather transfer 'stuff' I have in my PFC?
Do I use I floppy disk..or what..you know my computer
ignorance..so anything in laymen terms you can shoot
my way, would be greatly appreciated.

Amy

Anglo Thug · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2002 7:36 pm Post subject:

Hi Libby,

Recovering the address book and shortcuts to another client looks easy enough but the PFC might be a problem. You can still access it by leaving the AOL client installed. However, if you want to transfer all your mail there are only a few tools out there to do the job and I can't vouch for any of them.

I'm dropping my account in the next two weeks and will be faced with the same problem. If I can figure out the structure of the PFC I'll see if I can put together an app to extract the data. I'll pass it on if I'm successful.

Meanwhile try searching Google -> keywords LEAVE AOL.

msteffan1 · Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2002 1:23 pm Post subject: Re: Thank you Netscape/AOL

our fathers fought a war for freedom. And now we are bombing people so they can enjoy this kind of freedom too. Ain't life grand? Our fathers would be proud.

At least we can rely on the mainstream media for our daily dose of news. So who will be voted out of the Big Brother house next? Let's ask AOL - this is their favourite subject in these untroubled times.[/quote]

Ah but dont we bring peace where there isnt any by taking these actions?
Long article but enlightening.

Karzai & Associates' Trickle-Down Reconstruction

Reported by: Marc W. Herold

www.cursor.org, 6/3/2002 ::

Departments of Economics and Women's Studies
Whittemore School of Business & Economics
University of New Hampshire

INTRODUCTION

POSTED MAY 12, 2002 --

A bifurcated, externally driven, spatially segregated economic system, managed by a foreign 'trained' and foreign-backed elite is the image of tomorrow's 'successful' Afghanistan, representing the limit of development possibilities [and imagination] under the Intercontinental model of Karzai & Associates. The Kabul Intercontinental Hotel serves as a powerful metaphor of this 'vision.' The 'vision' must be driven by certain hard facts: a 'demand profile' determined by social class and income realties; a particular 'insertion' of the Karzai regime in the international politico-economic order; and a specific emerging post-Taliban class and power structure.

Very descriptive attributes of this 'vision' include spatial segregation [Kabul and the 'Rest']; utter irrelevance to the masses of impoverished Afghans; the co-existence of the Intercontinental Hotel 'model' alongside and separate from a huge traditional, subsistence, nomadic and vibrant marketplace economy in the informal sector; and a dependence upon outside 'dollars' as the necessary fuel for economic prosperity in the Intercontinental. Should such international funds be disbursed in cash form, history strongly suggests the kleptocracy in place will first line its pockets. The Karzai vision is, thus, consumptionist, western, and international trade-oriented [including heavy import dependence and earning foreign exchange from services whether oil pipeline fees or tourism, and traditional Afghan exports like carpets and fruits].

A couple of days before Christmas 2001, a banner in the Intercontinental Hotel's lobby read, "Christmas Party on December 25 at 6 P.M. Onwards at Kabul's Liveliest Nightspot, 5th floor, Supper Club."1 An appropriate metaphor for the 'reconstruction' of post-Taliban Afghanistan under Mr. Karzai & Associates is the five-story Kabul Intercontinental Hotel [pictured below in its 'better' days].

Though this idea will be gradually elaborated, three pillars of this 'vision' might here be quickly unveiled:
1. An emphasis upon imports for the western-oriented middle and upper classes who are returning from exile.
2. Centrality of the service sector [as providing also the main linkage with the impoverished masses] -- see pool attendant above and caddie below.
3. A celebration of the late capitalist, postmodern stress upon western-style consumption, maybe epitomized by the bubbly, artificially flavored Coca Cola widely available in Kabul since the 1970s2, or the launching last month [April 2002] of "an Afghan magazine funded by ELLE [which] will show what's behind the burqa and on Afghan women's minds."3
Another angle to discern the emerging 'Intercontinental model' might be the re-opening of the Qargha Lake nine-hole golf club in the heavily bombed Qargha district of northwest Kabul.4 In the 1970s, British and U.S. expatriates played weekly stroke competitions on carefully manicured fairways and packed-sand greens. And according to Dawn newspaper [May 11, 2002], the new Afghan authorities want Pakistan to develop its cricket facilities, but the Pakistanis are fretting over the many contracts for cement and engineering products which are going to competitors in India and Iran.

The 'vision' must be driven by certain hard facts: a 'demand profile' determined by social class and income realties; a particular 'insertion' of the Karzai regime in the international politico-economic order; and a specific emerging post-Taliban class structure.5

Very descriptive attributes of this 'vision' include spatial segregation [Kabul and the 'Rest']; utter irrelevance to the masses of impoverished Afghans; the co-existence of the Intercontinental Hotel 'model' alongside a huge traditional, subsistence, nomadic and vibrant marketplace economy; and a dependence upon outside 'dollars' as the necessary fuel for economic prosperity in the Intercontinental. The vision is, thus, consumptionist, Western, and international trade-oriented [including earning foreign exchange from services - whether oil pipeline fees or tourism6, and traditional Afghan exports like carpets and fruits].

My focus here is upon the content of the Karzai vision. Others have sought to grant the Karzai regime much greater independence than it deserves. For example, both John Ruggie of Harvard University and Michael Massing of The Nation, lament over 'losing the peace' in Afghanistan if the International Security Assistance Force is not quickly expanded as Karzai requests. Security for whom? Security so that what might be accomplished? Is it fair to say, as Massing does, that Karzai does not represent 'alien rule'?7
The reconstruction of Afghanistan upon the oil and gas pipeline is often pointed to in the West.8 In Kazakhastan, on the other hand, mention is made of Afghanistan's 'fabulous' mineral wealth -- oil and gas in the north, iron, copper, gold, rubies and emeralds. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica mentions an abandoned gold mine 5 kilometers north of Kandahar and accounts exist of gold being mined in Mokor and transported on caravans. Rubies have been mined in Badakhshan Province since the days of Marco Polo.9

During more recent times, it is pointed out how the late Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Masood's men extracted precious stones -- emeralds and lapis lazuli -- using very environmentally destructive, primitive methods in the Panjshir Gorge of the Hindu Kush mountains and their foothills around the village of Khenj [Kapisa], pocketing about $60-100 million annually.10 Rashiddudin, Afghanistan's jet-setting emerald merchant and the major shareholder in several mines is conveniently the brother-in-law of Masood. The lands of Afghanistan coughed up the resources that allowed the civil war to rage between 1996-2001: Emeralds were to the Northern Alliance what poppies were to the Taliban.

The parallels between Karzai's vision and the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel are obvious. And as the Intercontinental today towers over Kabul in partial ruin and in dire straits -- without water and merely flickering lighting -- so too does much of the 'Afghan economy.' The shell structure and memory of the Intercontinental provide the limits of its 'reconstruction', just as the skeletal class structure of Karzai's Afghanistan determine the shape of its 'development' possibilities.

A few days after becoming Premier, Karzai sent the Intercontinental Hotel a message:
"We need the second and third floors. Journalists were rousted from rooms and a cadre of new ministers, military commanders, civil servants and state guests moved in."11
The new minister of irrigation, Mangal Hussain, just returned from exile in Atlanta; the late minister of tourism and civil aviation, Dr. Abdul Rahman came back from five years in Rome at the side of King Zahir12; education minister Professor Rasool Amin, who was Zahir Shah's point man in Peshawar, are guests along with other Afghan luminaries.
Historical parallels exist too: The Intercontinental Hotel Kabul - "The country's first Americanized, sanitized chain hotel"13 - originated as a Pan American World Airways venture completed in September 1969 [building upon Pan Am's control of the Afghan national airline -- Ariana], and the Karzai regime's non-military political foundations are in the ineffective monarchy of Zahir Khan. Even Helen Hughes, economist under contract for the World Bank in the early 70s, recently wrote about the Zahir monarchy,
"The Royal Court was the epicenter of corruption...Afghan elites were corrupt through and through...the Court's corruption became so extreme that it had to flee. Robert McNamara's World Bank enthusiastically responded to the [new 1973 Daoud] Socialist Government's Seven Year Development Plan, provided it would respect 'Afghanistan's unique traditional society'."14

According to the American Dupree couple [who were friends with all of Kabul's ruling elite in the 70s], the king Zahir Shah lacked vision but he enjoyed growing strawberries and Brussels sprouts on his big farm north of Kabul.15 Thirty years later, his role might be that of a ceremonial ribbon-cutter.
The Karzai family has played an important role in Afghan politics for the past 60 years. Karzai's father was a close associate of King Zahir Shah; his grandfather was chairman of the Wulfi Jirga that authorized Zahir Shah to rule over Afghanistan.16 Today, Karzai represents the old monarchy.17 In the 1980s, Karzai interacted with Americans to organize covert weapons shipments to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets. He ran the Peshawar office of Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, leader of one of the seven mujahideen groups armed and financed by the C.I.A. The limited 'independence' and strong American backing of Karzai have been recurrently displayed, as when in early December he offered an olive branch to Mullah Omar but quickly took a Rumsfeld hint that this was unacceptable, to his mild statement in January that U.S. bombing should stop - which was also quickly retracted. Karzai now only records on His Master's Voice label.

The links of Hamid Karzai to the UNOCAL company [and the C.I.A., Britain's M16 and the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group] are well known -- Karzai having served as a well paid consultant to UNOCAL when it was negotiating with the Taliban. The man who spotted Karzai's 'leadership potential' and recruited him to "the fold" was then RAND program director, Zalmay Khalilzad.18 The Bush Administration's special envoy to Afghanistan, appointed nine days after Karzai took office, is Zalmay Khalilzad, graduate of the University of Chicago, another UNOCAL consultant and whose father was an aide to King Zahir, who actually drew up the risk analysis of the proposed $2 billion CENTGAS pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Multan, Pakistan.19

Khalilzad was undersecretary of defense for George Bush I, during the war against Iraq. After a stint at the Rand Corporation think tank, he headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense Department and advised Donald Rumsfeld. But he was not rewarded with any promotions. The required Senate confirmation would raise extremely uncomfortable questions about his role as UNOCAL adviser and one-time staunch Taliban defender. He was assigned instead to the National Security Council -- no Senate confirmation required -- where he reports to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice [who was a board member of another oil giant, Chevron].

The Enron Corporation, a major political contributor to the Bush campaign, conducted the feasibility study for the CentGas deal. Bush Administration support for the Taliban into August 2001 was guided by energy considerations, in particular wresting control from Russia of the still largely unexploited oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. Russia has kept Central Asia's vast oil and gas reserves bottled up by restricting access to export pipelines -- all of which run over Russian territory. The famous UNOCAL pipeline would go directly from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan - so long as an Afghan Government -- whether Taliban or Karzai -- can guarantee its security.20
No doubt, Karzai & Associates today would relish tasting the investment opportunities that were under discussion with the Taliban in late 1998. As the Clinton Administration was raining Tomahawk cruise missiles upon the Taliban and Al Qaeda, business was dealing. Whereas UNOCAL had withdrawn in December, other international investors were engaged in serious project negotiations. A New Jersey-based company, Telephone Systems International [TSI] announced in September a $240 million contract with the Taliban to set up a network of satellite-call centers in major Afghan cities, as well as a 30,000-line wireless system in Kabul. Eighty percent of the profits were to go to TSI and 20 percent to the Taliban. The joint venture had a fade-out clause in it, giving the Taliban full ownership after 15 years.

A second major proposed investment was made by the Afghan Development Company, an international consortium formed in November 1998 with access to $1 billion in financing, which was interested in developing a huge copper mine [at Aynak in Loghar province, 35 kilometers south of Kabul], a cement plant in Herat, a gas liquification unit in Sheberghen, and a new gold mine near Kandahar -- all items which had been under discussion for a quarter century.21 A third project involved a Greek engineering group, Consolidated Contracts International, which was exploring for oil and gas in the western region of Herat.22

Today, only the first of these ventures is operational -- the Afghan Wireless Communication Company [AWCC], a joint U.S.-Dubai-Afghan Government venture, which operates GSM mobile cellphone and Internet services in Kabul and Kandahar.23 AWCC uses the Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications system that owns AWCC with Boeing-Hughes turnkey technology. Thuraya, in turn, is a United Arab Emirates firm, a private joint stock company, with a shareholder base made up of 18 major telecommunications operators and investment houses.24

On April 8th, the first commercial mobile cellphone network was launched in Kabul by the AWCC, whose managing director said, "A reliable telecommunications service is a necessary part of the work of rebuilding the economy..."25 AWCC reportedly has spent $50 million to-date on equipment in Kabul, site preparation in Mazar and Heraat, and equipment for Jalalabad and Kandahar. The Afghan mobile-phone project was spearheaded by Ehsan Bayat, an Afghan émigré who has lived in the U.S. since 1979. Bayat founded New Jersey-based Telephone Services International [TSI] in 1995. The first AWCC equipment arrived in mid-February in Kabul.
The Karzai & Associates vision is being elaborated by the legions of foreign 'experts', media, modern-day carpetbaggers, etc. who have descended upon the Kabul Intercontinental and lesser manors [like the Mustafa Hotel in central Kabul].

I do not wish to suggest that an alternative 'vision' or even visions, do not exist.26The dominant one might be described as a restoration model. It seeks to restore capabilities of living frugally and within one's own resources. The restoration model would target the majority of Afghans. Seventy-eight percent of [the 22.5 million Afghans - U.N. data for 2001] Afghans live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Nearly 90 percent of the Afghan economy is agriculture-related. Of the 22 percent who live in cities, most are in Kabul, the capital, which had a peacetime population once of 2 million. Other main cities include Kandahar (more than 400,000) and Mazar-i-Sharif (nearly 300,000). Other cities are Jalalabad, Herat, Kunduz, and Taloqan.

In February, Sweden's L.M. Ericsson multinational telecommunications giant set in operation a complete GSM [Global System for Mobile Communication] system, working with the U.N.'s World Food Program. The company provided equipment worth $5 million free of charge. The system is centered upon a hill located in central Kabul. The GSM can serve up to 5,000 subscribers, but initially it provides communication for 200 users from the U.N., other humanitarian organizations and important government officials. The purpose of the Ericsson system is to assist telecommunication amongst humanitarian organizations, serving as a substitute for unreliable land telephone, an unstable electrical power system, and expensive satellite phones.27

This restoration vision is expressed in writings and practices of some non-governmental organizations and some bilateral governmental aid programs [e.g., the Swiss, French, British, Norwegians, etc.], whose efforts focus upon repairing Afghanistan's traditional water irrigation systems, providing clean water for people [for example clean water is now available in Kabul to only 20 percent of its residents28], removing UXOs from fields and neighborhoods, providing the basics of health care and simple tools, developing self-help projects for the disadvantaged like the World Food Program's successful bakeries operated by war widows in Kabul, rebuilding of destroyed homes and victims' compensation [Global Exchange], etc.

The focus should mostly be upon the rural areas and the poor. The country's agricultural sector will only be restored when mines and cluster bombs have been removed and farmers can return. An alternative way of contrasting the two visions might be to compare an economy based upon 'provisioning' and one based upon meeting 'demand' and individual maximization [whether of real income, consumer satisfaction, or profits].

Given the total destruction of Afghanistan's productive structure and income levels [daily earnings for those lucky to be employed are from U.S. $.50 to $2 -- those working on a Japanese-financed cleanup/rebuilding project in Kabul], even the market-based activities will depend upon the dollars [or afghanis] spilling over into it from the chosen few who participate immediately and directly in the Intercontinental model. Reports from Kabul already lament how little life has changed for the poorest of Kabul in the past six months, as in the words of 12-year-old Hamida who has a 10-member family to feed:

"Under the Taliban, under the new government, it's the same. I can't imagine anything will ever change."29

Twelve year old Abdul Majid is the principal wage earner for a family of seven. On a good day, Majid earns $1.50 shining shoes, enough to buy bread and potatoes for all. His father is blind, his mother deaf, and only one of his siblings works -- Abdul Martin, 15, who earns 50 cents a day weaving carpets. Jawad, 13 years old, starts work at a private bakery in Kabul at 4 A.M., working for 35 cents a day. He is the breadwinner for his widowed mother and four siblings. Before a U.S. bomb in November destroyed a World Food Program bakery in Kabul where Razia worked, she had earned almost $1.70 a day.30

Saira, a widowed mother, has five children. Her two sons hustle money by hauling things for people in their capital asset -- a wooden pushcart. Sometimes the boys, aged 14 and 16, lug heavy pieces of wood, sometimes sacks of grain. For this, they earn less than $1 a day.31 More than 50 percent of the average $1 a day wage of the casual, unskilled worker is spent on bread alone.

The Veteran Canadian Afghan reporter Kathy Gannon noted "conditions outside Kabul are even worse." According to the United Nations figures, annual per capita income is $178, malnourishment afflicts 70 percent of Afghans, and men's life expectancy is 44 years [for women it is 43].32 The World Health Organization reports a mere 24 percent of Afghans have access to safe drinking water -- which is a major cause of disease.33

Under the Taliban, agricultural production recovered to pre-Soviet [1979] invasion levels. A friendly Pakistan provided 80 percent of the shortfall of grain, and international agencies the rest. Afghanistan was economically [and under the Taliban, ideologically] an extension of Pakistan. Food prices closely followed those in Pakistan. Cross-border smuggling was and continues to be rampant. In a sense, the Taliban represented the triumph of the poor Muslim peasantry over the western-oriented urban strata, whether of the Soviet era or the prior Zahir Khan years. The Taliban brought the village into the city, imposing the accepted social norms of village life on Kabul by force.34
Other wished-for catalysts suggested for Afghanistan's economic revival have been predictable: Peacetime recovery of the nation's traditional, export-oriented carpet industry35; and Mr. Muhammad Yunnus [of Grameen Bank fame] has recently weighed-in that providing micro-credit to poor Afghan women engaged in dress-making and carpet-weaving would go a long ways to alleviating 'grinding poverty', cultivating hope, and creating stability.36

The two main connections between the Intercontinental model and the traditional, rural-based economies, are the income spillovers from the former to the latter in terms of 'demand', and the employment generated directly or indirectly in the informal economy -- respectively pool attendants and domestic servants and those employed in producing wares bought by the members of the Intercontinental sphere.

The Intercontinental model relies totally upon resources garnered from abroad, and Karzai has journeyed far, inter-continentally, trying to secure these. The language of the various large international donor agencies talks of 'reconstruction' with an initial heavy emphasis upon rebuilding roads, electricity generation and distribution, water and sewage provision, installing modern communications systems, rebuilding demolished buildings, and especially creating a large police and military establishment [to protect the Intercontinental model from internal detractors]. The Intercontinental model points to the need to pay civil servants, set up a system of property rights, rebuild a financial system that can provide credit, and fixing roads and utilities. But, it should be obvious that most such projects cater overwhelmingly to the educated, mobile, urban strata in terms of employment, income generation, and consumer satisfaction.

In January, the United States' Agency for International Development began providing [certain] Afghan farmers with genetically modified, high yield seeds, reports Agence France-Presse.37 Under a $12 million grant from U.S. A.I.D. to the Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan, some 3,500 tons of wheat seeds were distributed to 60 - 70,000 Afghan farmers in early April.38

By late January, a visiting delegation from the IMF and World Bank was proposing that Afghanistan adopt the U.S. dollar as currency to replace the volatile, often faked afghani.39 The dollarization idea was temporarily put aside.

Shortly thereafter, the Karzai regime in April appointed a new governor of the Afghan central bank, Anwar Ul-Haq Ahady, leader of the Afghan Social Democratic Party [the Afghan Mellat Party], and holder of American degrees in finance and political science and a professor of political science and international finance at Providence College, R.I. Ahady lived in the United States since the late 1970s, acquiring a M.B.A. from Northwestern University. Even more importantly, Ahady is married to Fatima Gailani, the daughter of Sayed Pir Gailani, a Pashtun tribal leader, moderate member of the anti-Soviet mujahideen in the 80s, and close supporter of King Zahir.40

Karzai's other major economic adviser is Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who worked at the World Bank and was the lead scientist in its Social Development Department. He came to the United States in 1977 and has taught anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. Ahmadzai's vision of reconstruction is centered upon improving foreign trade relations -- he mentions exporting to Europe and exporting crops like saffron and cumin -- and initiating labor-intensive development schemes.

When fighting broke out in Paktia province in early 2002, Karzai appointed Taj Mohammed Wardak as 'his' governor. Wardak, a U.S. citizen, was brought back from a comfortable retirement in North Hills near Los Angeles where he had been living for over a decade. He had been a powerful governor of three Afghan provinces under King Zahir.
A major player well tuned to the vision of the World Bank and the United States is deputy vice chairman and Minister of Finance, Heyadat Amin-Arsala. Amin-Arsala hails from a prominent and influential Ghilzai Pashtun tribal family, and worked as a loan officer at the World Bank for almost 20 years [1968-87]. In 1989, he was appointed Finance Minister of the fledgling exile Afghan Interim Government emerging in the post-Soviet era. He was looked upon very favorably by Western diplomats and journalists at the time because he was 'Westernized' -- a Chevy Chase man, a World Bank man, a man familiar with what one Western diplomat called 'the practicalities of international finance.' Amin-Arsala's 'Americanization' began in 1963 when he arrived in this country -- doing a quick teaching stint for the Peace Corps, followed by enrolling in the doctoral program at George Washington University [though he only completed the Masters], then taking a job at the World Bank. He married a woman from Rye, N.Y., and "surrounded himself with the enviable comforts of the American bourgeoisie."41 Amin-Arsala was a founder of one of the American-backed, anti-Soviet mujahideen groups -- the one headed by Sayed Pir Gailani and based in Peshawar. In 1989, Amin-Arsala uttered words which could have been spoken today:
"My hope is that the international community that has helped us to a large extent during the last seven years will enable us to create a new Afghanistan. We need a massive, well-thought-through reconstruction program, so that the people from all quarters can get involved."42

He served as foreign minister in the mujahideen government [1993-96], followed by becoming one of King Zahir's closest aides and an adviser to USAID. In 1999 he became a director of a major U.S. company in the optical fiber industry, FibreCore Inc.

Both Ahady and Arsala seem to personify what a writer in The Observer noted:
"...once the immediate [Afghan] crisis is over...long-term development will be subcontracted to the technocrats, who will trot out the same tired nostrums: Trade liberalization, financial liberalization and large doses of deflation to provide macroeconomic stability."43

Naturally such remedy as applied in Russia and Argentina augers poorly for all those not frequenting the Intercontinental.

Whereas the forces of repression and foreign ministry are in the hands of three Panjshir Valley Tajik Northern Alliance men [Interior Minister Qanooni and Defense Minister Fahim], the nominal economic levers are firmly held by the Western-educated, cosmopolitan monarchists. But this latter group exerts minimal influence outside Kabul -- areas that remain ruled by a coterie of warlords. Members of the former Northern Alliance now in positions of governmental influence printed [through a Russian-Swiss firm, Appleline Ltd. in Switzerland] huge amounts of afghanis to finance their war since the Taliban takeover in 1996 - between 1996-2001 an estimated seven trillion afghanis, or about $175 million at the current exchange rate. No one claims to know who in the Northern Alliance got the wads of afghanis. An extra $8 million was quickly printed up in December 2001, before the Karzai regime was inaugurated.44 The afghanis were both spent and stockpiled, which drove the afghani value down to near zero today.

The prospect is quite clear: a widening gap between a Westernized Kabul and an impoverished, under-educated, and powerless countryside. Its only hope remains either working for the government, but that remains illusory given powerful a patronage system controlled mostly by the Panjshiri, or being able to live frugally again assisted by the forces behind the restoration model. While the Panjshir boys are well armed and unwilling to compromise, Karzai's monarchists have no guns and depend totally on outside forces. The Loya Jirga cannot under such circumstances redistribute power away from the elements of the Northern Alliance.

Should the promised billions materialize, these funds would filter through a commercial-political structure labeled by some as a kleptocracy, generating ample rents along the way, with the remainder landing up as income in the hands of the employed urban strata delegated to oversee and the workers hired to execute, such projects. Karzai's Planning Minister, General Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, an ethnic Hazara, was involved in past looting of humanitarian organizations in Mazar.45

Legions of foreigners -- by late January a count indicated 65 international NGOs, 20 U.N. and other international organizations just in Kabul alone46 -- have descended upon Kabul during the past couple months, providing further impetus to 'demand' [and creating skyrocketing prices for things such as living space -- a house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul now rents for $10,000 a month and a three bedroom house in Shar-i-nau about $2,000/month]. Soldiers -- military tourists -- from the international peacekeeping units are part of the scene on Chicken Street in search of best prices.47

In turn, these incomes generate a particular 'demand profile', serving as the emission point for a forthcoming supply. The supply response [both for the domestic and export markets -- attract eco-tourists, or "come see the rebuilt Bamiyan Buddhas"] will depend upon the reservoir of local entrepreneurship and the extent to which the demand profile is import-oriented. The evidence suggests a highly import-intensive supply response, given past traditions and the almost total lack of any domestic industry [outside a few destroyed hulks of cement plants, vegetable oils plants, textile factories, and the like].48

Under the Taliban, taxes were levied on trans-shipment of consumer goods, electronics and used cars from Dubai, the Gulf and Iran destined for Pakistan [into which they were smuggled]. Moreover, using a transit trade agreement dating back to the 1950s, Islamabad permitted land-locked Afghanistan to import goods duty-free that were landed in the port of Karachi. The bulk was promptly smuggled back from Afghanistan into Pakistani border towns. A powerful transport mafia thrived then as now between Herat and Pakistan.49

In the urban centers, traditional market places -- like Chicken Street in Kabul -- will revive as bustling commercial centers of distribution, providing employment for some and a blend of traditional [agricultural and handicraft] and modern products [satellite dishes, lipstick, video cassettes, etc.] The biggest selling items in the bazaars remain, as always, slaughtered lambs hanging on hooks and firewood cut from gnarled grapevines, but imported items from Pakistan or Dubai are in hot demand. The revival was well under way in January:
"...the Marco Polo restaurant...was a popular place...there was a nightclub, and there was drinking, and many people. Afghans and foreigners came [there]...at the Marco Polo restaurant, the reopening went off without a hitch, and customers have begun to trickle back. The nearby Shar-i-Nau Park area, which old guidebooks point to as a '70s entertainment hub lined with discos and restaurants is alive again. The movie theater has reopened. There are sizzling kebab joints, sidewalk musicians and the latest rage, weightlifting clubs."50

Ingeniously, the weights were made out of Soviet armored car gears welded together.51

The new bustle on the streets of Afghanistan's cities has been widely noted. For example, Steven Gutkin of the Associated Press, recently wrote:
"Sales are soaring of TV's, VCRs, music cassettes, videotapes and satellite dishes - all Taliban taboos. Real estate prices in the capital of Kabul have doubled."52

Already a week after the Taliban hastily exited Kabul, things were changing: Ahrash, 17, was doing a brisk business in homemade satellite dishes cut from tin cans; his father smuggles TV sets over the mountains from Pakistan and sells them faster than he can supply them.53 By late December, articles were effusively chronicling how "Afghan women [were] back with fashion."54 Dressmakers were working overtime sewing Western dresses in Kabul. A widely cited Reuters report began:
"Beneath the billowing folds of her sky-blue burqa, a young Afghan woman reveals an immaculately tailored purple silk trouser leg, hemmed in gold braid and neatly tapered around the ankle. Beside her, a loosely veiled companion struts out a pair of brand new white leather high-heeled shoes beneath a sleek skirt of rich green satin. After five years of Taliban rule, when the burqa shrouded women from head to toe and tailors were not allowed to measure female clients, Kabul's fashion industry has been reborn...'they're not interested in the style from 2000, they want 2001,' says Salah [owner of a Kabul tailoring shop]...'they're going for tight-fitting trouser suits, sculpted jackets and long, figure-hugging skirts...' "55

The Western objectification of women has returned in force to the urban centers of Afghanistan. Many note shops and street corner stalls now selling posters of female Indian film stars. Similar stories are written about the bazaars of Kandahar.56 The conservative Taliban stronghold of Kandahar is experiencing a boom in satellite dishes and even pornography is now viewed on four TV channels showing nothing else.57 The Novid Video Store says sales and rentals of porn movies are booming -- the movies are imported from India and Pakistan and sell for $2.50.58 In Kabul, Peter Beaumont reports that 'normal service returns with sex on the telly [television]' at the downtown Mustafa Hotel.59

The Taliban Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Protection of Virtue would have had a field day with all this activity, but it was flattened by massive U.S. bombing on October 17th, 2001.60

Aziz Ullah sells German beer for 94 cents a can at his Bella Ahmed store adjacent to the bombed-out telecommunications building in Kandahar. In Kabul's new nightspot, canned Russian beer was selling at $10 a can.61 In April, a mobile phone mania was said to be underway in Kabul, with 1,000 handsets being sold at $350 apiece.62 Bustling market activity is not confined to Kabul or Kandahar. Jeffrey Gettleman reports on the 'new' Mazar-i-Sharif:
"The defeat of the Taliban in November didn't mark just the end of a hard-line regime. It meant the end of isolation. Many countries that had refused to trade with Afghanistan are now rushing products back in. Every day, there's a new brand of soda or cookie or gum in the market: Ashi Mashi cola from Iran; Magic Kiwi soda from Uzbekistan; cookies from China, Russia, Egypt and India; Turkish Combat-5 bubble gum, a favorite. "Six months ago," said merchant Esmat Sakhi, holding up a shriveled orange, "this is what you'd see." Juice shops are lined with Titanic posters, and the 5-year-old movie is so beloved here, the word has entered the popular lexicon. "I don't want good kebabs," driver Mohammed Hussein said as he sat down at a cafe the other day. "Bring me titanic kebabs." "63

This explosion of market activity is made possible by a fantastic increase in the money supply resulting from 'importing' afghani notes printed in Switzerland by a Russian-Swiss firm, from Russia by the truckload and from counterfeiting64, from pent-up demand, and from a reservoir of entrepreneurial initiative stifled during five years of ascetic Taliban rule. The economic activity -- recovery -- that is taking place is solely the result of spontaneous work by people with a knack for business working in the exploding, endogenous informal economy.

The projected dynamism of the Intercontinental model resides firmly in a continual infusion of outside monies. The Tokyo Afghan Reconstruction Conference in January 2002 resulted in promises of $4.5 billion for Afghanistan over five years [with $1.8 billion pledged for fiscal 2002]. The largest piece of the $4.5 billion -- $1.2 billion -- has been earmarked for road repair. Ninety-five percent of the country's 30,000 miles of highways have either been destroyed or damaged by warfare and neglect.65 Highways are nearly impassable and sites of lawlessness and violence.

But much of the proposed aid needed to be approved by respective national parliaments, and very little comprised actual cash grants. At the meeting Karzai promised, "Afghanistan will assume responsibility for the foreign debt incurred by all previous governments." In 1990, the year that major international lenders suspended further loans to the strife-ridden country, according to UNCTAD the foreign debt stood at $ 5.5 billion [1996 estimate too]. In 1999 the country's GDP in purchasing power parity dollars was estimated to be $ 20 billion.66 Assuming an annual rate of interest of a mere two percent, annual debt repayment would total $110 million.67

But Afghanistan has no system of taxation in place, and raising tariffs on imports would pose a crushing burden upon millions of poor people who survive because of the cheapness of imported Pakistani basic wares -- wheat, rice, cooking oil, diesel fuel, toilet paper, etc. No funds can be raised by pursuing privatization since all hydroelectric power stations and the Chinese-built telephone system [more modern than Pakistan's] were bombed by U.S. warplanes.

Karzai went to Tokyo with two visible aims: Reintegrate Afghanistan into the world capitalist financial community, and raise monies to cover payments to civil servants, including troops] and maybe hire some more employing the patronage system.68 In late February, Amin-Arsala, Karazi's Minister of Finance admitted "we are able to finance only three to four percent of our current budget from domestic resources."

A fundamental flaw pervades the Intercontinental model: A belief that capitalists will invest in a reasonably stable, post-Taliban Afghanistan. But capitalists [excepting Enron] follow existing markets, they do not create markets -- they are market-slackers, not market makers. Given the dire poverty of Afghanistan, no market-driven investments will be made [other than minor ones catering to the expatriate community, e.g., AWCC, DHL, etc.].

The vision of 'business opportunity' in new Afghanistan' was expressed by Islamudin Khorami, who fled in 1983 for Long Island [N.Y.] where he opened up Afghan Blue Sky, importing woolen hats and jewelry hand-made by Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Today, Khorami turns over $ 150,000 a year, selling goods at American malls. He envisions hiring up to 500 workers to knit gloves and sweaters in his home city of Mazar-i-Sharif, presumably destined for the export market.69 This represents just another example of low-wage production in Third World countries destined for export -- a vision popular from Sri Lanka to the Dominican Republic, Tibet to Jamaica, El Salvador to Malaysia -- where the only linkage to the domestic economy is that of wages paid to assembly line workers.

The real source of economic dynamism in Afghanistan is found in the explosive proliferation of small-scale, market-based activities, partly based upon barter and income exchanges. The overall impact is constituted by the sheer volume and diversity of these types of transactions, located largely in the informal economy. A significant proportion of these exchanges involve mere buying and re-selling, exploiting locational and convenience economies. A clear example was provided in an article about 'rebuilding Afghanistan' in Business Week:
"Afghans are remarkably resourceful. Take Sakhi Mohammad, proprietor of the Kabul Supermarket on Flower Street, one of the capital's few undamaged commercial thoroughfares. The moment he learned the capital was about to fill up with U.N. officials and aid workers, he managed to get his hands on the goods foreigners crave: King Edward cigars, Toblerone chocolate bars, Carr's crackers, Camembert cheese. Now he claims to ring up $350 in daily sales, five times what he did during Taliban times. "In the past, I didn't buy anything pricey," says Mohammad. "No one bought it"."70

A bi-furcated, externally driven, spatially segregated economic system, managed by a foreign 'trained' and foreign-backed elite is the image of tomorrow's 'successful' Afghanistan, representing the limit of development possibilities [and imagination] under the Intercontinental model of Karzai & Associates.

The mainstream media has tried desperately to put a positive face on the first six months of the Karzai regime. A typical example of such a courageous 'spin' is made by Michael Zielenziger of the Knight-Ridder newspapers.71 The author cites the following as 'evidence' of Karzai exceeding hopes: Interviews with Karzai's Interior Minister Yunis Qanooni [one of the Masood Panjshiri's men] and western officials -- hardly likely to be critics of 'their man in Kabul. He then mentions favorable mitigating factors like foreign donors' billions being poured in to reopen schools, clear land mines and such. Two other factors include "...the huge US-led combat presence" and "the rains" [which have relieved the three year drought]. The pick-up of local markets is also cited. The topic of security and stability is broached, but here any observer of the Afghan scene must conclude that things are not rosy -- mortar rounds and rockets rain down regularly, warlords fight, holdups are a daily routine, extortion flourishes, etc. In other words, Zieleniger's favorable 'spin' relies upon U.S. troops and infusion of foreign monies, favorable weather, pent-up demand [and printing money -- afghanis -- wildly], reviving local markets, and interviews with persons most unlikely to be critical.

On Friday -- thank God it's Friday! -- February 22nd, opening night, over 100 members of the foreign diplomatic and journalist corps descended upon Kabul's 'own post-Taliban night spot, Club Kabul, a private club nicknamed The Kabul-Cabana.72 Club Kabul, fittingly, is the brainchild of an American aid worker and an Afghan entrepreneur:
"...and was the place jumping. Patrons danced to a group of traditional Afghan musicians, who alternated with Western music blaring on a CD player...the house drink was the Kabul Sling, a variation of the one that made Singapore famous."
The reconstruction - Intercontinental - model in full swing.

In April, DHL Worldwide Express launched its Kabul venture -- three scheduled flights a week -- and a DHL office in a dilapidated villa not far from the U.S. Embassy -- representing the first foreign enterprise to make a direct financial commitment in Afghanistan. DHL's biggest customer is the Pentagon, which ships electronics components from its battle-damaged Blackhawk helicopters to a Lockheed Martin facility in Tampa Bay, Florida for repair. Karzai's minister of civil aviation approved:
"...when people know that DHL is coming into Kabul, it means things are moving forward."

On April 6th, Afghanistan's new mobile commercial cellphone network was inaugurated by the placing of a call to an émigré in Germany, on a $350 mobile phone handset of the Afghan Wireless Communications Company [AWCC] using Boeing-Hughes technology. A bearded mullah chanted a prayer for the new mobile phone system.
The call was predictably made by the man referred to in the 1980s by American correspondents of the area, as the smartly dressed Quetta-based "Gucci guerrilla," Hamid Karzai, at the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel.73

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