Danke für das billige Dope, NATO!

"Zehn [chinesische] Arbeiter wurden meuchlings von anonymen Tätern ermordet. Es handelte sich dabei nicht um einen politisch motivierten Anschlag. Die Chinesen hatten eine Grundregel des afghanischen Spiels mißachtet. Als nämlich der lokale Warlord ihnen - gegen gute Besoldung natürlich - den bewaffneten Schutz seiner Stammeskrieger anbot, hatten die Ingenieure aus der Volksrepublik das leichtfertig abgelehnt. Aber am Hindukusch ist es nun einmal nicht üblich, daß Ausländer solche Offerten ausschlagen und sich weigern, die angeforderte Summe für die wackeren Wächter zu zahlen. Diesen Verstoß gegen die Regeln hatten die Chinesen mit zehn Toten bezahlt und sich seitdem den strengen Überlebensgeboten dieser Region angepaßt. Schließlich verhalten sich die internationalen Kampfeinheiten von "Enduring Freedom" und ISAF ähnlich, wenn sie die sich ständig steigernde Produktion von Opium und Heroin im Umkreis ihrer Stellungen dulden, um sich nicht den Zorn der Nutznießer dieses Geschäfts, der örtlichen Stammesfürsten und Bandenchefs zuzuziehen. Nur unter dieser Bedingung sind ja die meisten NATO-Positionen abzusichern." Peter Scholl-Latour [2008], S. 202.

Als ich kürzlich im Keller eines der vielen Amsterdamer Coffee-Shops der ganzen Palette an Dope und Weed ansichtig wurde, fand ich heraus, daß der Afghane weitaus der Günstigste war. "Der CIA überschwemmt die Welt mit billigem Stoff" hatte ich mir gedacht ...  Nur zu gut, daß "Deutschland am Hinduskusch verteidigt wird" ... 

Besonders Russland leidet an der Heroinschwemme: an die 50 Tonnen (!) sollen jährlich an die alten Feinde Afghanistans geliefert worden sein. Russland verlangte daraufhin von der NATO mehr Härte bei Drogenbekämpfung, doch diese lehnte ab, mit der Begründung, die lokalen Bauern müßten doch Geld verdienen ...

If the Iranians Really Want Something from Israel, What Is It exactly?

(50:00)

"Let's talk about the neo-cons. Who has done more damage to Israel than the neo-cons?"

(52:45)

"The American way is always "We don't talk to them!". You take the French on the other hand who have a back-channel to Teheran  right now as we speak. They always talk to their enemies, figure out what they want, see if they can give it and then - once they have decided on a policy in secret - they make it public. And that's what we need to do to Teheran. We really need to find out what they want, how far they're going on this nuclear bomb and what they need from Israel: is it the settlements in the West Bank, is it Israel's nuclear program, is it Lebanon? All these things can be worked out, I think, with the Iranians."

(54:00)

"They [Iran] are not a radical expanding power. They are a traditional state power which wants to be predominant in the Gulf. And they want to be predominant in the Gulf because they believe they have the biggest army, the rim of the Gulf is 90% Shia and they got certain demands."

(48:00)

"I think that we can look at the Iranians and look at the way they have acted in Iraq [...] - they are not suicidal. They're not Al'Qaeda, they don't wanna kill themselves, they could have done an enormous damage to us [...] but they didn't. We have to look at their recent record. We have to look at their record in Lebanon: in spite of the 2006 war they have stepped back from confrontation. They have stepped back from confrontation in Gaza [...]. So I see them as much more accommodating to a grand bargain than I would for instance the Taliban or Al'Qaeda or even huge parts of Saudi-Arabia - they just don't like us - there is a clash of civilizations there - there isn't with Iran. The Iranians are the only country in the Middle-East that really like us ... the Iranian people, not the regime."

These quotations of ex-CIA case officer in the Middle-East Robert Baer stem from a conversation in 2009, at a time when demonstrations against the clerical government took place in Teheran. Much of what Baer says represents a refreshing antidote to the world-wide mass media infotainment and war propaganda currently poisoning international politics. One of the striking questions asked in the video below is simply "What exactly do the Iranians want from Israel?" Note that this question is rarely asked in public debates and practically never by folks blinded by the notorious "wipe off the map" phrase and its endless repetitions.

Note also that in this video, Baer conjectures (at 46:25) that Iran's clerical regime might deliberately goad Israel into an attack on Iran in order to produce an "external threat/enemy", strengthening and confirming the Mullah's dominion inside Iran's not so stable power structure. This possibility has been only recently considered by others: see Former CIA Officials Say Iran’s Clerics Want to Goad Israel Into an Attack. (Sounds too adventurous though and too self-destructive)

see also: The Illusion of the Bomb Threatening the Existence of Israel

The Illusion of the Good Hegemon

"Throughout the post-war period, the US functioned as the
international monetary system’s hegemon. It was a ‘benign hegemony’,
or what has been called an act of ‘hegemonic benevolence’. The
US provided leadership, stability and the opportunity for the world
economy to flourish, through the pursuit of monetary management
and freer trade. An inevitable consequence of the success of this
hegemony, and the growth of the world economy, some would
argue, was the relative dispersal of the power of the hegemon. As
other states grew in economic strength and stature, and began to
challenge the authority of the hegemon, so there was a relative
decline in the ability of the US to lay down the law. It is this natural
cycle of hegemonic decline that some pinpoint as the direct cause for
the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system."

Economides, Spyros; Wilson, Peter: The Economic Factor In International Relations, I.B. Tauris, New York, 2001, p.79.

This is how strong double-speak may influence historic views. Spyros and Wilson forgot to remember the Corean War (1950-53), the CIA overthrowing of Mohammed Mossadegh and installation of the cruel Shah regime in Iran 1953, CIA-sponsored 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état toppling President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, the Vietnam-War (1955–64), the constant interventions and eventually bombing in Laos (1957-73), the installation of the ferocious "Papa Doc" Duvalier regime in Haiti (1959), the Vietnam War (1959–75), all the Cold-War activities of the US secrete services and military especially in South-America, Africa and Europe, Cambodia (1970), ... only to mention a few key-words fitting into the Bretton-Woods time period (1944-1971). The underlying mistake constituting such an erroneous, one-sided historical view of the alleged "hegemonic benevolence" of the USA is the separation between economy and politics and the blanking out of the latter. The economy of the Western sphere of influence during the Cold War has grown as a whole supported by a series of brutal US-interventions: this is how the begnin hegemon had to defend his monetary and economic system. Dissidents had to be kept in line (whether communists or not). Hegemony is almost always brutal and it is unbearably costly almost with necessity. The good hegemon is a cruel illusion.




Other base2014 blog posts on hegemony:


Hegemony and Dominance (Hegemonie und Dominanz)
Für's Protokoll (For the Record)

Der Wahre Grund für den Irakkrieg? (True Reason for the Invasion Of Iraq?)
Hegemonic Stability Theory
The First Question in International Political Economy
Brot und Spiele und Militär
Hegemony and So-Called Moral Leadership
Friends of a Dictator
Egypt Uprising - Standard Routine for an Unusual Event
Deutsche Gotteslästerung/German Blasphemy
III Warum Deutsche in Afghanistan kämpfen/Why Germans fight in Afghanistan
II Warum Deutsche in Afghanistan kämpfen/Why Germans fight in Afghanistan
I Warum Deutsche in Afghanistan kämpfen/Why Germans fight in Afghanistan
Hegemony Cables
U.S. Citizens without vote/U.S. Bürger ohne Stimmrecht
Egypt's Cyber Dissidents

Mubarak Steps Down From His Throne

Shortly after 17:00 CET, Omar Suleiman - the CIA's man in Cairo – announced in a one-minute speech that Hosni Mubarak has resigned from office and "instructed the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to run the affairs of the country".

base 2014 congratulates the people of Egypt to have succeeded in chasing away the long time oppressor and wishes good luck on the way to social freedom and fairness! Congrats especially to Egypt's Cyber Dissidents!

Just for the record, the following screenshot shows how Austrian television viewers came to know of the historical news of this day:

At exactly 17:02:31 CET, Karim El-Gawhary reporting live from

 Cairo for the Austrian ORF realizes that Mubarak has resigned.

The fate of other countries has shown that getting rid of the dictator himself - as the symbol of oppression - might lead to a balanced prosperous development - as long as his vasalls are banished, too. But Mubarak's henchmen are still in charge. His own party - the NDP -  is still in place.  

On January 28, base2014 suggested Mubarak's NDP to be the next member of the Socialist International to be expelled.

This was eventually done silently on January 31: the farewell-letter to the Secretary General of the National Democratic Party Egypt was published on the SI-website. A member of the Dutch Labour commented: "the SI’s  late calling of democratic sensibility is shameful and opportunistic. This behaviour of the SI represents part of the ideological and moral crisis of the Left, being so much a non-critical part of the global establishment.  Since the heydays of Olaf Palme, Willy Brandt and Bruno Kreisky within the SI, we have never heard anything substantial from this on paper mega-organisation any more."

The SI did not name any of the massive crimes committed and/or tolerated by the dictator's party.