We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Business of War in Afghanistan

Click here to access article by Antony Loewenstein from Al Akhbar (Beirut, Lebanon). 

It appears that private militias and spy services in alliance with a local bought-and-paid-for oligarchies is the model being used by the Empire to secure its newly won colonies in the Middle East. The end result is chaos, social disintegration, and widespread suffering by ordinary people. The author describes the model as applied in Afghanistan.
Privatized security and intelligence is now a natural part of Western war making. America simply cannot and will not launch missions without the backing of often unaccountable companies that compliment its defense industry.
The story is similar in Pakistan as described by the same author in the last half of this report.
It is a nuclear-armed nation which is seemingly always on the verge of collapse due to both a desperate need for American money and its need to secure its regional position against India and Afghanistan. The result is a quasi-police state, backed by private security, silencing critics of its politics of capitulation toward militants and Washington. Courageous journalists and human rights activist are lone voices of dissent.
Over a decade of manoeuvring has left the state divided by ethnic tensions, insurgent activity, corruption, and self-censorship. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have compounded the problem by treating the nation as little more than a testing ground for new weapons against supposed terrorists. Tragically, civilians have born the brunt of the onslaught and turned the country into a cauldron of poverty, resentment, elite disdain, and silence.