Bush, war and desperate struggle for a slice of life -I
Fidel Castro Ruz

IN THE reflection titled “Bush in the Sky”, published by our newspapers this past March 23rd, I claimed Bush would get up to his old tricks during the NATO meeting in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, held from the 1st to the 3rd of April. Important events are taking place in Europe. To ignore them would be to remain ignorant of today’s dilemmas. With enough patience to get through the next few pages, readers will have access to news that were extracted from a sea of information, news which see the light of day at different times and on different days, thrown together with other headlines, vital and not.
Athens, April 3rd (EFE)
According to the EFE, Greek nationalists celebrated having prevented Macedonia’s entry into NATO today. At the root of this is the unresolved Athens-Skopje dispute over Macedonia’s name, which has been going on for 17 years now. The Greek press was unanimous, that Thursday, in calling the veto that prevented Macedonia’s entry into NATO a success, a decision that was confirmed today at the summit meeting that this military organization held in Bucharest. Above all else, the media underscored the intense pressures Washington brought to bear on the organization to have it accept Macedonia’s entry into NATO, and expressed a sense of nationalist pride in noting Athens did not yield to these pressures. As a headline of the Athenian newspaper Avriani announced, Bush’s blackmail did not go down well, but Kostas Karamanlis will go down in Greece’s history for the veto against Bush’s designs. Bucharest, April 4th (EFE) The EFE reported that the White House expressed its satisfaction over the results obtained at the summit, where the allies promised to base more troops in Afghanistan, backed US plans to set up an anti-missiles shield in Eastern Europe and promised that the Ukraine and Georgia would be accepted as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the future.
Tirana, April 3rd (EFE)
 According to EFE’s article, Albania’s political class enthusiastically welcomed NATO’s official invitation for Albania to join the organization. Albanian members of parliament, who convened for an extraordinary session, called the day “historical” and extolled it as the country’s most important event since the proclamation of Kosovo’s independence this past February 17th and the creation of the Albanian state in 1912. President of Parliament Jozefina Topalli thanked all nations that supported Albania’s entry in NATO and US President George W. Bush in particular. The invitation, Topalli said, marks the end of Albania’s political transition and the first step towards Euro-Atlantic integration the country has taken in these past 17 years of democracy. Minister for the Economy Genc Ruli stated that Albania’s entry into NATO means more stability and security and, therefore, more foreign investment, essential to the economic development of one of Europe’s poorest countries. The main streets in the Albanian capital were embellished today with the flags of NATO and Albania.
Madrid, April 4th (DPA)
This article opens with a question: Isolated from the rest of the world? The image of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, sitting alone next to empty chairs before the table at the NATO summit meeting, while George W. Bush and other leaders speak animatedly nearby, was the front-page photo of the main Spanish newspapers today and revived debates on the foreign policies of the Spanish socialist government. In addition to commenting on the controversial photograph, newspapers and radio and television talk shows underscored the absence of a meeting between Zapatero and Bush, which La Moncloa had announced as a fait accompli after the US leader phoned his Spanish counterpart to congratulate him for his electoral victory of March 9th. Bush’s relationship with Zapatero has been cold and distant since the socialist came to power for, almost immediately after his election, in April 2004, the latter withdrew the 1,300 thousand Spanish soldiers who were based in Iraq. At no point did the United States or Bush tried to conceal their disapproval towards this. Since then, there hasn’t been a single bilateral meeting between the two. Neither Bush has officially visited Spain since then, nor Zapatero been in the White House. Just the contrary occurred with the previous Spanish president, the conservative José María Aznar…his was one of four faces which appear in another well-known photo: the one taken at the Azores summit, in which Great Britain and the United States hatched the plans for an intervention in Iraq which Spain supported. Exchanges between Bush and Zapatero in Bucharest were limited to a “Hello, hello, congratulations”, from the US to the Spanish leader, which newspapers satirized as the “three-word encounter”.
Bucharest, April 4th (ANSA)
ANSA reports that in his closing remarks at the NATO summit, US President George W. Bush handed over the helm to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on a silver platter. According to analysts, the US President’s farewell remarks, which marked the debut of his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkpozy and the British Premier Gordon Brown, will be remembered for Bush’s absurd insistence on requesting the immediate entry of Georgia and the Ukraine into the alliance, against the obvious opposition of the remaining members. It was “Old Europe”, with the French-German axis at the helm in its criticisms of the war in Iraq, which levelled a scathing “no” at President Bush.The US President appeared unusually nervous at the Bucharest summit. Diplomatic sources even speak of harsh words spoken with his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who tried to convince him of abandoning a “lost cause”, at least at that summit. Bush’s nervousness was also evident in his sudden interruption of the press conference held at Romanian President Traian Basescu’s summer residence, when the European head of state was attempting to answer a question concerning US treatment of Romanians who seek to travel to the United States. Bush’s irritation over the length of the summit meetings, where the 26 heads of State took the floor, also came to fore. The president abandoned the debates on Afghanistan inopportunely, leaving behind some members of his team and several journalists who were covering his trip. Bush also reacted adversely to a New York Times article which commented on the “invisibility” of the US White House chief in the midst of the electoral campaigns and despite warnings of an economic recession. Bush had but one triumph at Bucharest: securing NATO’s support for his “space shield” plans with a view to holding a morning meeting with Putin at the Sochi spa, on the Black Sea. According to analysts, Bush will have the opportunity to put some order to the United State’s conflictive relations with Russia, which have reached their thorniest point since the conclusion of the Cold War.
Bucharest, April 4th, 2008 (AFP)
According to the AFP, in a rare cooperative gesture, Russia arrived at an agreement with NATO in Bucharest on Friday, to permit the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance to use its territory to transport non-military equipment to its troops in Afghanistan. The agreement concerning Afghanistan was the only concrete step taken by the two parties at the NATO-Russia Council meeting held on Friday at the Bucharest House of Parliament. Non-military equipment for ISAF (International Security Assistance Force based in Afghanistan) may be transported through Russian territory, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said. The ISAF, led by NATO since 2003, is today made up of 47,000 officers from 39 countries. In response to a request for reinforcements for military headquarters, to combat ferocious Taliban resistance in southern and eastern Afghanistan, NATO countries offered troops that more than substantially swell these forces. France, for instance, will send an additional battalion of some 700 soldiers that will be deployed in the country’s east. As more troops are deployed and spending increases, the agreement with Russia should lower costs, as it will make it possible to transport, by train, supplies which had hitherto been sent to Afghanistan by air. Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to NATO, had stated that the fate of Russia and NATO in Afghanistan were interdependent, as both stood to lose if the Taliban ever returned to power.
Bucharest, April 4, 2008 (AFP)
Though President George W. Bush affirmed that the Cold War had ended, AFP tells us, the summit meeting between NATO and Russia held in Bucharest this week demonstrated that the former enemies continue to lock horns over nearly all issues: Georgia and the Ukraine, Kosovo’s independence, the anti-missiles shield, Iran and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. “NATO cannot guarantee its own security by expanding to other countries”, Putin told Western leaders. The facts are evident: since the end of the Cold War, NATO’s membership has grown from 16 to 28, absorbing nearly all of the former communist block —Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia—and three former Soviet republics: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In the heat of this geopolitical battle, on Thursday Putin managed to convince the 26 allies to postpone granting Georgia and Ukraine the candidacy to join the organization, a move strongly backed by President Bush and a step towards becoming full members. But Putin’s partial triumph does not dispel Russia’s concerns over the fact that NATO promised these two former Soviet republics that they would one day join the Alliance. NATO’s declaration adds to the questions and preoccupations in Russia with respect to the direction of NATO’s evolution. A Russian authority referred to it as an alliance that assumes global functions, with no limits on its rights to use force.
Zagreb, April 4th (EFE)
For an immense country such as Russia, Eastern Europe is not only a place of culture, art, history and refined sciences or a producer of well-known wines, goose liver, all imaginable types of cheese and other exquisite and costly products from the countryside and city. It is also a consumer of Russian oil, gas, gold, nickel and raw materials, an instrument for capital flight and brain drain, for the squandering of food products, converted into the ethanol used by their luxurious and unaffordable automobiles. The whole world knows this. Asia is far more important than Europe for Russia, for Asia’s international trade institutions, through the Shanghai Group, open more doors to the World Trade Organization, where Bush has offered to support Putin in his aim to have Russia join this organization. What interest does the United States have in setting up space bases, radars and launching platforms in Europe and everywhere, if it is not in using these to threaten Russia? Obviously, the weapons it could aim at Russia could also be aimed at China and all other countries, without exception, to turn them into the allies or enemies of an empire whose economic and political system is unsustainable. The United States is heading towards trade protectionism to maintain employment indices at home, where its employees cannot compete against the millions of people in the Third World who, through great sacrifices, produce quality consumer goods at much lower costs, goods which transnational corporations later sell in search of surplus value. All the while, Bush declares terrorist whatever countries he pleases. I decided not to divide this reflection into two parts, risking a lengthy text. I have still to address an issue which, though less significant, I would like to analyze separately because of its concrete relationship to our country. I shall do so on a different occasion.
(to be Continued)

Putin saved Russia from Western traps
Soumaya Ghannoushi

TO SAY that Russia’s image in the British and American media is negative would be quite an understatement. Read press reports on the country and the impression you will get is of a semi-rogue state run by a power-crazed 21st-century czar, who oppresses dissidents at home and threatens countries abroad. What is missing from this chilling narrative, however, is that Putin, the former KGB agent dismissed as a new Stalin, saved Russia from disintegration and Yugoslavia-style mayhem. He succeeded in putting an end to the vortex of European and American foreign interventions that transformed his country from the world’s mightiest power to a ludicrous caricature epitomized by a drunk president, who specialized in making a fool of himself and his country, bumbling, dancing or stumbling at international gatherings.
It is ironic that the man who presided over Russia’s collapse was feted, while opprobrium is heaped on the one leading it through its recovery. For much of his rule, Yeltsin was hailed as a hero and embraced by Western statesmen — sometimes literally. Clinton even campaigned for his re-election. This proceeded as he transferred his country’s wealth to gangs of thieves while his people went hungry, while GDP plummeted (by 50 percent), over a quarter of Russians sunk into poverty (an estimated 30 percent), and mortality rates rose by 50 percent. He was even cheered in Western capitals when his tanks besieged the Duma — after it refused to pass his drastic liberalization reforms — shelled and almost destroyed the building with the elected legislature inside. As long as he did Washington’s bidding, he could do no wrong.
In the space of a few years, Putin transformed Russia from the world’s latest sick man to a confident, resurgent power. Russia is back on its feet after the terrible decade of US/IMF blessed “shock therapy”, of rampant corruption and comprehensive decline. For the last eight years, GDP has steadily increased, rising by the highest percentage since the fall of the Soviet Union at 8.1 percent. Inflation has fallen to under 10 percent, and Russia’s trade balance has increased threefold in four years. Last year, the World Bank declared that Russian economy had achieved “unprecedented stability.” Many British and American economic analysts compete in playing down Putin’s role in Russia’s economic resurrection, maintaining that it has more to do with high oil prices than with any economic reforms he has introduced. What these conveniently overlook, however, is that, had it not been for Putin, the country’s enormous oil and gas revenues would still be flowing into the accounts of Shell, BP and other foreign companies. —Arab News


The nuclear Jihadist
Amjed Jaaved

YET ANOTHER book, The Nuclear Jihadist, authored by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, has come up on Pakistan’s nuclear programme. The book claims to be an expose of Dr A. Q. Khan’s `criminal’ activities to fabricate a nuclear bomb for Pakistan. But, the underlying message is that Pakistan’s bomb may fall into hands of Osama Bin Laden who may use it against the West. The odds for a nuclear attack, as quoted by the authors, are fifty per cent, according to Harvard professor Graham Allison and former US defence secretary William Perry. Another Harvard professor Matthew Bunn has reportedly said that he would not live either in New York or Washington, because he fears a terrorist attack using atomic weapons (page x). On page 152-153, the authors allege that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence goes to publishers to falsify books such that they flash Dr Khan in a favourable light.
It is unfortunate that the insinuations against Pakistan’s nuclear programme never stop. In their book, Messrs Frantz and Collins have done nothing except putting old wine in new bottle. Earlier, International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) had published a ‘research’ dossier titled ‘Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks’. The title of the dossier suggests that it is exclusively focused on Dr Qadeer. However, it throws light on bomb espionage activities of several other countries, including India. Frantz et al make no reference to the dossier. Why? Because the dossier has some silver linings in favour of Pakistan. The dossier is accompanied with a prefatory statement by Dr John Chipman, Director General of the IISS. This statement gives a fair opinion of Pakistan’s motivation to go nuclear.
Dr Chipman points out, ‘Pakistan’s motivation to acquire nuclear weapons was sparked in large part by competition with India. .. the major boost [to Pakistan’s weapons programme] came in December 1971 after Pakistan’s traumatic defeat by India. Embitterment over the loss of East Pakistan also provided a psychological motivation to Dr A.Q. Khan to offer his services to his home country by stealing enrichment technology from his workplace in the Netherlands. With that boost, it took Pakistan only ten years to reach the point where it could produce a nuclear weapon, despite the withdrawal of nuclear assistance from Western countries’. The dossier could ferret out no Islamic connexion to Pakistani bomb. Despite its pro-India bias, the dossier admits ‘ Khan may have acted largely on his own volition, for his own profit’ (page 2). ‘Khan’s nuclear activities were largely unsupervised by Pakistani governmental authorities and his orders of many more components, than Pakistan’s own enrichment programme required, apparently went undetected’ (p. 66). ‘Most of Khan’s dealings were carried on his own initiative’ (DG, IISS, press statement dated May 2, 2007).
The dossier reflects well on Pakistan’s efforts to tighten its nuclear security and safety controls _ It observes ‘Many of Pakistan’s internal reforms since 2001, and then following Khan’s confession and confinement to house arrest in 2004, have been transparent and appear to have worked well. A robust command-and-control system is now in place to protect Pakistan’s nuclear assets from diversion, theft and accidental misuse. A.Q. Khan and his known cohorts are out of business’. The dossier also notes that ‘A new defence policy was adopted in March 2004. This policy reportedly intended to “further strengthen institutionalization of control of strategic assets”, and “turn all policies and decisions from an invisible secrecy into solid documentary form following recent proliferation scandal” (p. 36).
The dossier realises dangerous implications of the 123 agreement (revised version on anvil) for Pakistan. Extract: ‘Fears that the India-US nuclear cooperation agreement will free up Indian domestic uranium for additional weapons purposes gives Pakistan an additional motivation to continue to produce weapons-grade fissile material of its own. Pakistan has resisted any nonproliferation regimes that it believes would give a ‘perpetual edge’ to India. This is one reason Pakistan has been the country most resistant to negotiating a fissile material cut-off treaty’. Aside from its Pakistan-bashing title, the dossier observes ‘Pakistan was not the only country to evade nuclear export controls to further a covert nuclear weapons programme (page 7). ‘Almost all of the countries that have pursued nuclear weapons programmes obtained at least some of the necessary technologies, tools and materials from suppliers in other countries. Even the United States (which detonated the first nuclear weapon in 1945) utilised refugees and other European scientists for the Manhattan Project and the subsequent development of its nascent nuclear arsenal. The Soviet Union (which first tested an atomic bomb in 1949) acquired its technological foundations through espionage. The United Kingdom (1952) received a technological boost through its involvement in the Manhattan Project. France (1960) discovered the secret solvent for plutonium reprocessing by combing through open-source US literature. China (1964) received extensive technical assistance from the USSR’.
From the dossier, one gets to know that Asher, an Israeli businessman, and Alfred Hempel, an ex Nazi who died in 1989, are co-fathers of India’s ‘indigenous’ bombs. Hempel, a German nuclear entrepreneur, helped India overcome difficulties of heavy-water shortage by organising illicit delivery of a consignment of over 250 tonnes of heavy water to India’s Madras-I reactor, via China, Norway and the USSR. The duo also arranged transfer to India of sensitive nuclear components. One unmistakable conclusion from the dossier is that Pakistan’s motivation to go nuclear was well founded. In view of restrictions on nuclear exports, Pakistan did what other countries did to make its bomb.