By: Ryan Mauro
June 01, 2009
As the world waits to see if the Pakistani military has the will and the ability to save the country from the Taliban, an equally pressing question confronts the international community: How can the Taliban’s funding sources be located and severed in order to prevent them from becoming the first nuclear-armed terrorist group?
In an interview last week, General David Petraeus said that the Taliban is being funded with “hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars” annually from drugs, foreign donations, and “locally generated” sources of income, particularly organized crime. As their responsibility for up to a third of the bank robberies in Karachi in recent years shows, the Taliban has become a hybrid terrorist mafia.
A Pakistani intelligence report says that militants under the command of Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban engage in “criminal activities like kidnapping for ransom, bank robbery, street robbery and other heinous crimes” to help finance their activities. Some companies owned by members of the Mehsud tribe in Pakistan are paying 40 percent of their income to the Taliban, sometimes by force and sometimes of their own accord. The sale of cigarettes and salvaged vehicles are other business investments.
The Swat Valley, the site of the current Pakistani military offensive following the Islamists’ establishment of Sharia Law, is exceedingly important for the Taliban. Not only was it a safe haven for extremists, but its emerald mines and timber were good business. A Taliban spokesperson in the Swat Valley confirmed in April that they received one-third of the profit from the emerald mines, which are said to be bringing the Taliban at least $3 million annually, an amount that increases as more mines are utilized.
The Taliban also use the money from the mines to maintain local support. The Taliban spokesperson said the rest of the profit goes to the workers. During the takeover of one mine near Swat Valley, the Taliban told the mineworkers that they’d receive half the profit.
It is also cheap for the Taliban to operate in Karachi because of the support of local Pashtuns that sometimes hold secret fundraisers for them. Tribes in Kandahar, Afghanistan, also provide Taliban operatives with funding for medical treatment, food, fuel, and other expenses. The Taliban benefit from the tribes’ local culture, which requires “taking care of their own,” as explained by one Asia Times reporter who sat in on a fundraising meeting in Karachi that brought in over $11,600.
The drug trafficking element of the Taliban’s fundraising has been widely covered. The United Nations Drug Office believes the Taliban made up to $300 million from opium sales in 2008. Money is not only made from the sales, but from also charging “protection fees” for those moving the drugs over the Afghanistan borders and for the drug laboratories. Afghan opium cultivation in 2008 fell nearly 20 percent, and production fell six percent. However, according to Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the U.N. Drug Office, this does not reflect progress by those fighting the Taliban. The Taliban has simply produced so much that they have reduced cultivation and are stockpiling current supplies to artificially keep prices higher.
The focus on the Taliban’s organized crime activity shouldn’t distract from the need to stop foreign funding of the group. Supporters in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait provide perhaps as much income for the Taliban as drug sales. The United Arab Emirates is another hot-spot for the Taliban, with the late high-level commander Mullah Dadullah reportedly visiting the country in early 2006.
Most of this foreign funding comes from an unofficial network called hawala, which is often used in countries that don’t have a functioning banking system. An estimated $13-17 billion is transferred through hawala each year. Free of any signed documents, fees, regulation, or recording mechanisms and minimal delays, hawala is a cheap and attractive system for criminals, terrorists, or even average citizens.
If Justice Salam, who served on the Taliban’s Supreme Court, is to be believed, then private citizens in the Arab world and Pakistan are not the only foreign financiers of the Taliban. He claims that the intelligence services of Pakistan, Iran, and, most surprisingly, Russia, are also providing financing as well as weapons. These three countries have also been singled out for assisting the Taliban by no less an authority that the Taliban’s former deputy chief of finance.
Hamid Mir, a Pakistani reporter who has significant contacts in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and is the only journalist to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden after 9/11, told me the same thing in 2006. He accused Iran and Russia of supporting the Taliban, saying that “Russia is covertly supporting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. The spokesman of the Afghan Interior Ministry, Lutaffulah Mashal, told me in September 2005 in Kabul that the Taliban are getting modern Russian-made weapons. He suspected that Russia may be taking revenge on the U.S. for supporting the Afghan Mujahideen against Russia in the 1980s.”
It is more likely that the alleged Russian assistance to the Taliban does not come from direct government orders, but from the activity of the Russian mafia working with corrupt officials. One such Russian criminal is Viktor But, a former high-level Soviet officer “suspected of being the main gunrunner to al-Qaida and the Taliban” who said in 2002 that he was living in Russia without any action being taken by the authorities. He was ultimately arrested on February 6, 2008 in Thailand.
In the battle against the Taliban, the struggle against terrorists and the struggle against organized crime have become intertwined. As the Taliban loses support among the Pakistani population, it will morph into an Islamist mafia, relying upon bribes and force to sustain itself. Defeating the Taliban will not only require a Pakistani military presence to free the locals from fear, but competent law enforcement and an international effort to better regulate the hawala networks that will enable criminals and terrorists to operate for years to come.
1 June 2009
31 May 2009
Gibraltar ambush: Spain grabs miles of British waters to carry out 'environmental protection'
Source: Daily Mail
By Simon Mcgee
31st May 2009
They've tried invasion, diplomacy and downright skulduggery to grab a piece of Gibraltar during the past 300 years.
But now the Spanish have played their trump card by laying claim to 20 square miles of sea around the Rock...in the name of the environment.
And it seems to have worked – for the moment, at least. For the EU has granted Spain legal rights over British waters surrounding Gibraltar.
But the move has sparked protests from Britain and the Gibraltar government and led to a confrontation between Royal Navy and Spanish warships.
The grab for the section of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW) came about when Spain convinced the European Commission to include Gibraltar’s waters within a new 69sq mile EU marine conservation area called the Estrecho Oriental, to be maintained by Spain.
However, under EU law, only the member state with sovereignty over the land or sea in question can apply for it to be designated an EU conservation site – meaning the EU has recognised Spain’s possession of British water.
map
The designation requires Spain to undertake environmental protection work within the specified area, handing it an excuse in EU law for its ships to mount incursions into British waters.
Gibraltar has been a key strategic asset since it was ceded by Spain to Britain in perpetuity under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, although the Spanish still claim the territory and insist the Treaty never relinquished its waters.
Spain’s new-found recognition was tested earlier this month when it sent
a corvette into British waters, fuelling diplomatic tensions.
The armed fisheries protection ship Tarifa entered unannounced into waters to the east of Gibraltar to inspect fishing boats, insisting that it was in Spanish waters.
The vessel retreated only after the Royal Navy patrol boat HMS Sabre was sent to intercept it.
The incursion took place just a day after the Gibraltar government made it known that it was considering taking legal action against the designation.
It has lodged a bid in the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to overturn the decision.
Britain’s Europe Minister, Caroline Flint, said: ‘We share the deep concerns that this designation has caused in Gibraltar and we continue to assert our sovereignty over BGTW. ’
A Foreign Office spokeswoman added: ‘The UK is the only member state which is able to make a proposal like this. We do not recognise the validity of their designation.’
Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Peter Caruana told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Spain has usurped British sovereignty of Gibraltar waters. This is clearly wrong and unacceptable.
'Spain argues that Britain has no waters around Gibraltar, so its actions are not an innocent mistake. There is zero basis in international law for its position.’
Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Gibraltar Group, said: ‘This decision must be reversed.
'The Spanish have been trying underhand tricks for 300 years to get a piece of Gibraltar, and unless we do something soon they will have finally succeeded in chipping away at our sovereignty of the Rock.’
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, standing guard over the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar.
The territory is a thin stretch of land covering just 2.6sq miles with a fiercely patriotic population of 28,000.
The European Commission declined to comment. The Spanish government failed to respond to phone calls.
By Simon Mcgee
31st May 2009
They've tried invasion, diplomacy and downright skulduggery to grab a piece of Gibraltar during the past 300 years.
But now the Spanish have played their trump card by laying claim to 20 square miles of sea around the Rock...in the name of the environment.
And it seems to have worked – for the moment, at least. For the EU has granted Spain legal rights over British waters surrounding Gibraltar.
But the move has sparked protests from Britain and the Gibraltar government and led to a confrontation between Royal Navy and Spanish warships.
The grab for the section of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW) came about when Spain convinced the European Commission to include Gibraltar’s waters within a new 69sq mile EU marine conservation area called the Estrecho Oriental, to be maintained by Spain.
However, under EU law, only the member state with sovereignty over the land or sea in question can apply for it to be designated an EU conservation site – meaning the EU has recognised Spain’s possession of British water.
map
The designation requires Spain to undertake environmental protection work within the specified area, handing it an excuse in EU law for its ships to mount incursions into British waters.
Gibraltar has been a key strategic asset since it was ceded by Spain to Britain in perpetuity under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, although the Spanish still claim the territory and insist the Treaty never relinquished its waters.
Spain’s new-found recognition was tested earlier this month when it sent
a corvette into British waters, fuelling diplomatic tensions.
The armed fisheries protection ship Tarifa entered unannounced into waters to the east of Gibraltar to inspect fishing boats, insisting that it was in Spanish waters.
The vessel retreated only after the Royal Navy patrol boat HMS Sabre was sent to intercept it.
The incursion took place just a day after the Gibraltar government made it known that it was considering taking legal action against the designation.
It has lodged a bid in the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to overturn the decision.
Britain’s Europe Minister, Caroline Flint, said: ‘We share the deep concerns that this designation has caused in Gibraltar and we continue to assert our sovereignty over BGTW. ’
A Foreign Office spokeswoman added: ‘The UK is the only member state which is able to make a proposal like this. We do not recognise the validity of their designation.’
Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Peter Caruana told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Spain has usurped British sovereignty of Gibraltar waters. This is clearly wrong and unacceptable.
'Spain argues that Britain has no waters around Gibraltar, so its actions are not an innocent mistake. There is zero basis in international law for its position.’
Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Gibraltar Group, said: ‘This decision must be reversed.
'The Spanish have been trying underhand tricks for 300 years to get a piece of Gibraltar, and unless we do something soon they will have finally succeeded in chipping away at our sovereignty of the Rock.’
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, standing guard over the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar.
The territory is a thin stretch of land covering just 2.6sq miles with a fiercely patriotic population of 28,000.
The European Commission declined to comment. The Spanish government failed to respond to phone calls.
24 May 2009
HOW UNIVERSITIES PERPETUATE SOCIALISM
by Dr Jim
September 11th, 2006
It isn’t much of a surprise that most young people who go to
university are Socialists. Many even identify themselves as full
blown Marxists. Ask the students themselves and they will tell
you it is because the more educated you become the more left
your politics.
Bias notwithstanding, is this really true?
Is it an example of education to believe in a policy that
espouses the collective over the individual and in the process
stifles free enterprise and invention? Is it so educated to
believe in an ideology that was responsible for the murder of 70
million people in Russia, 80 million people in Communist China,
the quarter of the population in Cambodia under Pot, let
alone the millions forced to live in oppressive circumstances
everywhere it has been tried and failed so dismally?
The answer, of course, is an emphatic no!
So why then would otherwise intelligent young people be so
enamoured with Marxism and all its red cousins? In order to
understand the nature of the question we have to look at where
these ideas are mostly thrust forth and that would be in our
universities. The universities which in turn have knock on
effects for our legal systems, our media, our education and our
political spheres. The members never quite willing to jettison
the Marxist baggage in the process.
Whilst in university however, under the guise of receiving a
‘higher education’, the lifestyle of dependency is established.
Classes are organised for studies, lessons are predetermined
and the pre-approved “texts” supply all the pre-approved answers
required to advance. In fact, the student merely turns up,
digests the mantra and then goes home. Questioning your
professors, especially if they are rabid leftists themselves,
results in demerits and ostracism. In many instances, even
accommodation is supplied. In short everything is provided to the
students without effort.
Even university politics plays like a communist state. Any
elected body of students are given some semblance of power but
never actually directing the overall running of the campus. Like
Orwell's 'Big Brother' the real leadership retain a politburo
like control on real proceedings, including, most importantly,
financial control. And while it looks good on a resume to have
been president, vice president or even newspaper editor during
your university career, and a career is what it becomes, it is
essentially meaningless in the real world. Sadly many live with
the delusion that it means something.
On the subject of university newspapers, prima facie it would
appear that the campus inmates have full editorial control.
However, if the students are imbued with the dependency mentality,
and indoctrinated with a socialist mindset, how likely is it
that any publication printed will be anything but leftist in its
perspective? The old maxim, “garbage in, garbage out” springs to
mind – thus as with all socialist ideals, independence of
university newspapers is a castle built on wet sand.
University provides the ultimate testing ground for the tightly
ordered society to be controlled on a wider scale. We can see
then that the slogan “The government will provide” becomes much
more than an easy to remember catchphrase and an actual end
in itself.
Outside of the cocoon, university students cannot understand
that people generally don’t belong to this closely ordered
thought-collective mentality such as they have been subjected to for
20 years or so. Simply they ask, “Why can’t all society be
institutionalised like I was?” This also goes a good way to
explaining when “uni” students tend not to venture out into the
private enterprise but instead move from safe government job to
safe government job like a monkey goes through trees.
It also goes a long way to explain why our politicians, bureaucrats
and other assorted yes-men are so detached from the public
they claim to represent in a public service setting. Like an
aristocracy they simply can't relate to what "the peasants"
go through on a daily basis.
Like the Communist system it closely mimics, university inmates
cannot think without having to run it past their "higher-ups"
first. This is achieved through the oft quoted "peer-review"
procedure. It is believed any thought outside of this tightly
controlled process, where information is effectively vetted, no
matter how logical or effective, has to be disregarded. In a
left dominated campus, it is easy to see how new truths can be
created, while all other reality can be rejected.
Undoubtedly universities have a place in our society. When they
get it right they have the potential to produce doctors,
engineers, scientists and other extremely necessary and
rewarding professionals contributing untold benefits for
society. When they get it wrong they merely become propaganda
centres for "unquestionable" lunatic left ideologies - ideologies
which have a track record of untold misery on humanity.
September 11th, 2006
It isn’t much of a surprise that most young people who go to
university are Socialists. Many even identify themselves as full
blown Marxists. Ask the students themselves and they will tell
you it is because the more educated you become the more left
your politics.
Bias notwithstanding, is this really true?
Is it an example of education to believe in a policy that
espouses the collective over the individual and in the process
stifles free enterprise and invention? Is it so educated to
believe in an ideology that was responsible for the murder of 70
million people in Russia, 80 million people in Communist China,
the quarter of the population in Cambodia under Pot, let
alone the millions forced to live in oppressive circumstances
everywhere it has been tried and failed so dismally?
The answer, of course, is an emphatic no!
So why then would otherwise intelligent young people be so
enamoured with Marxism and all its red cousins? In order to
understand the nature of the question we have to look at where
these ideas are mostly thrust forth and that would be in our
universities. The universities which in turn have knock on
effects for our legal systems, our media, our education and our
political spheres. The members never quite willing to jettison
the Marxist baggage in the process.
Whilst in university however, under the guise of receiving a
‘higher education’, the lifestyle of dependency is established.
Classes are organised for studies, lessons are predetermined
and the pre-approved “texts” supply all the pre-approved answers
required to advance. In fact, the student merely turns up,
digests the mantra and then goes home. Questioning your
professors, especially if they are rabid leftists themselves,
results in demerits and ostracism. In many instances, even
accommodation is supplied. In short everything is provided to the
students without effort.
Even university politics plays like a communist state. Any
elected body of students are given some semblance of power but
never actually directing the overall running of the campus. Like
Orwell's 'Big Brother' the real leadership retain a politburo
like control on real proceedings, including, most importantly,
financial control. And while it looks good on a resume to have
been president, vice president or even newspaper editor during
your university career, and a career is what it becomes, it is
essentially meaningless in the real world. Sadly many live with
the delusion that it means something.
On the subject of university newspapers, prima facie it would
appear that the campus inmates have full editorial control.
However, if the students are imbued with the dependency mentality,
and indoctrinated with a socialist mindset, how likely is it
that any publication printed will be anything but leftist in its
perspective? The old maxim, “garbage in, garbage out” springs to
mind – thus as with all socialist ideals, independence of
university newspapers is a castle built on wet sand.
University provides the ultimate testing ground for the tightly
ordered society to be controlled on a wider scale. We can see
then that the slogan “The government will provide” becomes much
more than an easy to remember catchphrase and an actual end
in itself.
Outside of the cocoon, university students cannot understand
that people generally don’t belong to this closely ordered
thought-collective mentality such as they have been subjected to for
20 years or so. Simply they ask, “Why can’t all society be
institutionalised like I was?” This also goes a good way to
explaining when “uni” students tend not to venture out into the
private enterprise but instead move from safe government job to
safe government job like a monkey goes through trees.
It also goes a long way to explain why our politicians, bureaucrats
and other assorted yes-men are so detached from the public
they claim to represent in a public service setting. Like an
aristocracy they simply can't relate to what "the peasants"
go through on a daily basis.
Like the Communist system it closely mimics, university inmates
cannot think without having to run it past their "higher-ups"
first. This is achieved through the oft quoted "peer-review"
procedure. It is believed any thought outside of this tightly
controlled process, where information is effectively vetted, no
matter how logical or effective, has to be disregarded. In a
left dominated campus, it is easy to see how new truths can be
created, while all other reality can be rejected.
Undoubtedly universities have a place in our society. When they
get it right they have the potential to produce doctors,
engineers, scientists and other extremely necessary and
rewarding professionals contributing untold benefits for
society. When they get it wrong they merely become propaganda
centres for "unquestionable" lunatic left ideologies - ideologies
which have a track record of untold misery on humanity.
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