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Growth of opium trade in Afghanistan direct result of U.S. invasion: James Petras

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AFGHANISTAN US MARINES

– by PressTV

An American political commentator says the resurgence of opium trade in Afghanistan is a “direct result of the US invasion” in 2001.

“I think the growth of the opium trade in Afghanistan is a direct result of the US invasion of Afghanistan,” James Petras, retired Bartle Prof. of sociology at Binghamton University, told Press TV in an interview on Tuesday.

According to US federal auditors, Afghanistan’s opium industry is booming despite $7.6 billion spent in US counternarcotics efforts since 2002.

The most recent report was released on Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

SIGAR said the net land area used for poppy cultivation in 2013 was more than 500,000 acres, a 36 percent jump from the previous year and a historic record.

The United Nations said that the majority of the cultivation happened in Helmand and Kandahar provinces that were the focus of the 33,000-strong American troop surge four years ago.

“The antinarcotics international agencies all noted that during the reign of the Taliban, there were [sic] virtually no poppies being grown,” Petras said. “The Taliban was strictly enforcing the outlawing of the growing of the narcotic plants.”

“Subsequent to the invasion, we have the breakdown of government responsibilities, the imposition of US rule through warlords and selected client regimes which had no authority, no influence over the countryside,” Petras continued.

He noted that the Afghan government under the influence of US presence had no influence on rural areas of the country and bribed tribal leaders by letting them grow narcotics.

“One way they attempted to secure the allegiances of various tribal and rural leaders was by tolerating the growth of opium and other narcotic plants as a way of trying to outlaw the Taliban,” he said.

Petras concluded that the end of the US military occupation in Afghanistan and large scale alternative farming and subsidies could end the “narcotics epidemic” in the country.

AN/AGB

The US is a leading terrorist state: Noam Chomsky

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Philosopher Noam Chomsky is professor of the MIT Institute of Linguistics (Emeritus). (Photo: teleSUR/file)

Noam Chomsky is professor of the MIT Institute of Linguistics (Emeritus). (Photo: teleSUR/file)

by Noam Chomsky, TeleSur

An international poll found that the United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even close.

Imagine that the lead article in Pravda reported a study by the KGB that reviews major terrorist operations run by the Kremlin around the world, in an effort to determine the factors that led to their success or failure, finally concluding that unfortunately successes were rare so that some rethinking of policy is in order.  Suppose that the article went on to quote Putin as saying that he had asked the KGB to carry out such inquiries in order to find cases of “financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well.  And they couldn’t come up with much.” So he has some reluctance about continuing such efforts.

If, almost unimaginably, such an article were to appear, cries of outrage and indignation would rise to the heavens, and Russia would be bitterly condemned – or worse — not only for the vicious terrorist record openly acknowledged, but for the reaction among the leadership and the political class: no concern, except how well Russian state terrorism works and whether the practices can be improved.

It is indeed hard to imagine that such an article might appear, except for the fact that it just did – almost.

On October 14, the lead story in the New York Times reported a study by the CIA that reviews major terrorist operations run by the White House around the world, in an effort to determine the factors that led to their success or failure, finally concluding that unfortunately successes were rare so that some rethinking of policy is in order.  The article went on to quote Obama as saying that he had asked the CIA to carry out such inquiries in order to find cases of “financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn’t come up with much.” So he has some reluctance about continuing such efforts.

There were no cries of outrage, no indignation, nothing.

The conclusion seems quite clear.  In western political culture, it is taken to be entirely natural and appropriate that the Leader of the Free World should be a terrorist rogue state and should openly proclaim its eminence in such crimes.  And it is only natural and appropriate that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and liberal constitutional lawyer who holds the reins of power should be concerned only with how to carry out such actions more efficaciously.

A closer look establishes these conclusions quite firmly.

The article opens by citing US operations “from Angola to Nicaragua to Cuba.” Let us add a little of what is omitted.

In Angola, the US joined South Africa in providing the crucial support for Jonas Savimbi’s terrorist UNITA army, and continued to do so after Savimbi had been roundly defeated in a carefully monitored free election and even after South Africa had withdrawn support from this “monster whose lust for power had brought appalling misery to his people,” in the words of British Ambassador to Angola Marrack Goulding, seconded by the CIA station chief in neighboring Kinshasa who warned that “it wasn’t a good idea” to support the monster “because of the extent of Savimbi’s crimes.  He was terribly brutal.”

Despite extensive and murderous US-backed terrorist operations in Angola, Cuban forces drove South African aggressors out of the country, compelled them to leave illegally occupied Namibia, and opened the way for the Angolan election in which, after his defeat, Savimbi “dismissed entirely the views of nearly 800 foreign elections observers here that the balloting…was generally free and fair” (New York Times), and continued the terrorist war with US support.

Cuban achievements in the liberation of Africa and ending of Apartheid were hailed by Nelson Mandela when he was finally released from prison.  Among his first acts was to declare that “During all my years in prison, Cuba was an inspiration and Fidel Castro a tower of strength… [Cuban victories] destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor [and] inspired the fighting masses of South Africa … a turning point for the liberation of our continent — and of my people — from the scourge of apartheid. … What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations to Africa?”

The terrorist commander Henry Kissinger, in contrast, was “apoplectic” over the insubordination of the “pipsqueak” Castro who should be “smash[ed],” as reported by William Leogrande and Peter Kornbluh in their book Back Channel to Cuba, relying on recently declassified documents.

Turning to Nicaragua, we need not tarry on Reagan’s terrorist war, which continued well after the International Court of Justice ordered Washington to cease its “illegal use of force” – that is, international terrorism — and pay substantial reparations, and after a resolution of the UN Security Council that called on all states (meaning the US) to observe international law – vetoed by Washington.

It should be acknowledged, however, that Reagan’s terrorist war against Nicaragua – extended by Bush I, the “statesman” Bush — was not as destructive as the state terrorism he backed enthusiastically in El Salvador and Guatemala.  Nicaragua had the advantage of having an army to confront the US-run terrorist forces, while in the neighboring states the terrorists assaulting the population were the security forces armed and trained by Washington.

In a few weeks we will be commemorating the Grand Finale of Washington’s terrorist wars in Latin America: the murder of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, by an elite terrorist unit of the Salvadoran army, the Atlacatl Battalion, armed and trained by Washington, acting on the explicit orders of the High Command, and with a long record of massacres of the usual victims.

This shocking crime on November 16, 1989, at the Jesuit University in San Salvador was the coda to the enormous plague of terror that spread over the continent after John F. Kennedy changed the mission of the Latin American military from “hemispheric defense” – an outdated relic of World War II – to “internal security,” which means war against the domestic population.  The aftermath is described succinctly by Charles Maechling, who led US counterinsurgency and internal defense planning from 1961 to 1966.  He described Kennedy’s 1962 decision as a shift from toleration “of the rapacity and cruelty of the Latin American military” to “direct complicity” in their crimes, to US support for “the methods of Heinrich Himmler’s extermination squads.”

All forgotten, not the “right kind of facts.”

In Cuba, Washington’s terror operations were launched in full fury by President Kennedy to punish Cubans for defeating the US-run Bay of Pigs invasion.  As described by historian Piero Gleijeses, JFK “asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to lead the top-level interagency group that oversaw Operation Mongoose, a program of paramilitary operations, economic warfare, and sabotage he launched in late 1961 to visit the ‘terrors of the earth’ on Fidel Castro and, more prosaically, to topple him.”

The phrase “terrors of the earth” is quoted from Kennedy associate and historian Arthur Schlesinger, in his quasi-official biography of Robert Kennedy, who was assigned responsibility for conducting the terrorist war.  RFK informed the CIA that the Cuban problem carries “[t]he top priority in the United States Government — all else is secondary — no time, no effort, or manpower is to be spared” in the effort to overthrow the Castro regime, and to bring “the terrors of the earth” to Cuba.

The terrorist war launched by the Kennedy brothers was no small affair.  It involved 400 Americans, 2,000 Cubans, a private navy of fast boats, and a $50 million annual budget, run in part by a Miami CIA station functioning in violation of the Neutrality Act and, presumably, the law banning CIA operations in the United States.  Operations included bombing of hotels and industrial installations, sinking of fishing boats, poisoning of crops and livestock, contamination of sugar exports, etc.  Some of these operations were not specifically authorized by the CIA but carried out by the terrorist forces it funded and supported, a distinction without a difference in the case of official enemies.

The Mongoose terrorist operations were run by General Edward Lansdale, who had ample experience in US-run terrorist operations in the Philippines and Vietnam.  His timetable for Operation Mongoose called for “open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime” in October 1962, which, for “final success will require decisive U.S. military intervention” after terrorism and subversion had laid the basis.

October 1962 is, of course, a very significant moment in modern history.  It was in that month that Nikita Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba, setting off the missile crisis that came ominously close to terminal nuclear war.  Scholarship now recognizes that Khrushchev was in part motivated by the huge US preponderance in force after Kennedy had responded to his calls for reduction in offensive weapons by radically increasing the US advantage, and in part by concern over a possible US invasion of Cuba.  Years later, Kennedy’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara recognized that Cuba and Russia were justified in fearing an attack. “If I were in Cuban or Soviet shoes, I would have thought so, too,” McNamara observed at a major international conference on the missile crisis on the 40th anniversary.

The highly regarded policy analyst Raymond Garthoff, who had many years of direct experience in US intelligence, reports that in the weeks before the October crisis erupted, a Cuban terrorist group operating from Florida with US government authorization carried out “a daring speedboat strafing attack on a Cuban seaside hotel near Havana where Soviet military technicians were known to congregate, killing a score of Russians and Cubans.” And shortly after, he continues, the terrorist forces attacked British and Cuban cargo ships and again raided Cuba, among other actions that were stepped up in early October. At a tense moment of the still-unresolved missile crisis, on November 8, a terrorist team dispatched from the United States blew up a Cuban industrial facility after the Mongoose operations had been officially suspended. Fidel Castro alleged that 400 workers had been killed in this operation, guided by “photographs taken by spying planes.” Attempts to assassinate Castro and other terrorist attacks continued immediately after the crisis terminated, and were escalated again in later years.

There has been some notice of one rather minor part of the terror war, the many attempts to assassinate Castro, generally dismissed as childish CIA shenanigans.  Apart from that, none of what happened has elicited much interest or commentary.  The first serious English-language inquiry into the impact on Cubans was published in 2010 by Canadian researcher Keith Bolender, in his Voices From The Other Side: An Oral History Of Terrorism Against Cuba, a very valuable study largely ignored.

The three examples highlighted in the New York Times report of US terrorism are only the tip of the iceberg.  Nevertheless, it is useful to have this prominent acknowledgment of Washington’s dedication to murderous and destructive terror operations and of the insignificance of all of this to the political class, which accepts it as normal and proper that the US should be a terrorist superpower, immune to law and civilized norms.

Oddly, the world may not agree.  An international poll released a year ago by the Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) found that the United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan (doubtless inflated by the Indian vote), with no one else even close.

Fortunately, Americans were spared this insignificant information.

Century old legacy of Islamic practice in Austria under threat

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Austria-mosque

by Sakeena Suliman, Cii News

Austria intends to establish an Austrian Islam. Echoing the 2013 sentiments of warmonger Tony Blair to create an Islam that Europe and the West will be pleased with, Austria has amended its 102 year old law on Islam.

Institutionalised in 1912 to safeguard the rights of Muslims and independently recognised by the government, fear of “extremisim” has led to the state’s extremist draft.

The amendments include banning Muslim organisations from receiving finances from abroad, the Quraan is to get a unified German-language translation and 70 of the 300 Imams in Austria will be outlawed for being employed by foreign countries.

Islam has so far existed in Austria on equal terms with other religions like Catholicism, Lutheranism, Judaism and Buddhism. There has been strong criticism for the state’s singling out Islam, practiced by almost six percent of the 8.6 million Austrians.

Cii Radio spoke with Doctor Farid Hafez, born in Austria but working and living in Vienna. Hafez earned an MA and PhD at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna and an MSc in civic education at the University of Krems and Klagenfurt. He currently lectures at different universities and colleges in Austria. Part of his research includes the role of Islamophobia in Austrian party politics and Islamic political theory.

Hafez says until recently the legal recognition allowed Austrian Muslims much more independence than Muslims living elsewhere in Western Europe. “The masses of the Muslim people were quite astonished about what is going on here. Also because the Islamic Council [of Austria] did not really inform the Muslim people what was happening behind the scenes.”

The draft for a new Islam law has been an interest of the Islamic Council since 2003 but did not materialise because of the tense political atmosphere that worsened due to the far right’s use of Islamophobic slogans during their elections campaigns.

“… Generally speaking in the society Islamphobic attitudes have become more widespread. Therefore this draft for a new Islam law could not be implemented because there was no political party that said it was going to push something more liberal for the Muslim people. Now due to the discourse of the so called Islamic state in Iraq and Syria there was a possibility for the government to say they are going to bring this new draft for Muslims, there are going to say it’s good for them but on the other hand they are going to get tougher with the Muslims and show them the borders of action,” explained Hafez.

The draft, presented by a few leading government parties, among them the Social Democrats and the Conservative Party, is actually the implementation of institutionalised Islamophobia.

“What is going on here these days is that you have many, many, many discriminations… Twenty five percent of Imams in Austria are paid by the Turkish Government through an organisation which is connected to the ministry of religious affairs in Turkey, they want to restrict the Turkish influence. It also has to do with the general suspicion against the Turkish government, Erdogan, and on the other side they want to have an Austrian Islam,” said Hazfez.

“Muslims also want to have an Austrian Islam but it’s not an Islam dictated by the Austrian government but it’s an Austrian Islam that’s coming from bottom up. That’s where the difference lies, and it’s a crucial difference.”

The draft is undoubtedly driven by a general suspicion against Muslim people. While the draft has not yet gone so far as to control topics delivered at Friday sermons, Hafez said “the debate for that is already alive” with government declaring that Imams be trained at the University of Vienna.

“The Islamic council has no right to say who it wants or not so it’s possible that a non-Muslim could train the imams. In addition to that the training of Imams is something that, you can have theology in a university but the training of Imams is very much connected to the history and the institution of Islamic life. We see here in the draft it looks like the state wants to create an Imam it wants, together with the Islamic Council but it will have the main say in it and that’s a dangerous development it looks like the state wants to create its own Austrian Islam according to its own vision and that’s against the Austrian constitution because the Austrian constitution.”

History of key document in IAEA probe suggests Israeli forgery

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IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 18 February 2014 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between the E3+3 and Iran. IAEA Vienna, Austria (Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA)

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 18 February 2014 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between the E3+3 and Iran. IAEA Vienna, Austria (Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA)

by Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service

Western diplomats have reportedly faulted Iran in recent weeks for failing to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with information on experiments on high explosives intended to produce a nuclear weapon, according to an intelligence document the IAEA is investigating.

But the document not only remains unverified but can only be linked to Iran by a far-fetched official account marked by a series of coincidences related to a foreign scientist that that are highly suspicious.

The original appearance of the document in early 2008, moreover, was not only conveniently timed to support Israel’s attack on a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in December that was damaging to Israeli interests, but was leaked to the news media with a message that coincided with the current Israeli argument.

The IAEA has long touted the document, which came from an unidentified member state, as key evidence justifying suspicion that Iran has covered up past nuclear weapons work.

In its September 2008 report the IAEA said the document describes “experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device.”

But an official Iranian communication to the IAEA Secretariat challenged its authenticity, declaring, “There is no evidence or indication in this document regarding its linkage to Iran or its preparation by Iran.”

The IAEA has never responded to the Iranian communication.

The story of the high explosives document and related intelligence published in the November 2011 IAEA report raises more questions about the document than it answers.

The report said the document describes the experiments as being monitored with “large numbers of optical fiber cables” and cited intelligence that the experiments had been assisted by a foreign expert said to have worked in his home country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The individual to whom the report referred, Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko, was not a nuclear weapons expert, however, but a specialist on nanodiamond synthesis. Danilenko had lectured on that subject in Iran from 2000 to 2005 and had co-authored a professional paper on the use of fiber optic cables to monitor explosive shock waves in 1992, which was available online.

Those facts presented the opportunity for a foreign intelligence service to create a report on high explosives experiments that would suggest a link to nuclear weapons as well as to Danilenko. Danilenko’s open-source publication could help convince the IAEA Safeguards Department of the authenticity of the document, which would otherwise have been missing.

Even more suspicious, soon after the appearance of the high explosives document, the same state that had turned it over to the IAEA claimed to have intelligence on a large cylinder at Parchin suitable for carrying out the high explosives experiments described in the document, according to the 2011 IAEA report.

And it identified Danilenko as the designer of the cylinder, again basing the claim on an open-source publication that included a sketch of a cylinder he had designed in 1999-2000.

The whole story thus depended on two very convenient intelligence finds within a very short time, both of which were linked to a single individual and his open source publications.

Furthermore, the cylinder Danilenko sketched and discussed in the publication was explicitly designed for nanodiamonds production, not for bomb-making experiments.

Robert Kelley, who was the chief of IAEA teams in Iraq, has observed that the IAEA account of the installation of the cylinder at a site in Parchin by March 2000 is implausible, since Danilenko was on record as saying he was still in the process of designing it in 2000.

And Kelley, an expert on nuclear weapons, has pointed out that the cylinder would have been unnecessary for “multipoint initiation” experiments. “We’ve been taken for a ride on this whole thing,” Kelley told IPS.

The document surfaced in early 2008, under circumstances pointing to an Israeli role. An article in the May 2008 issue of Jane’s International Defence Review, dated Mar. 14, 2008, referred to, “[d]ocuments shown exclusively to Jane’s” by a “source connected to a Western intelligence service”.

It said the documents showed that Iran had “actively pursued the development of a nuclear weapon system based on relatively advanced multipoint initiation (MPI) nuclear implosion detonation technology for some years….”

The article revealed the political agenda behind the leaking of the high explosives document. “The picture the papers paints,” he wrote, “starkly contradicts the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in December 2007, which said Tehran had frozen its military nuclear programme in 2003.”

That was the argument that Israeli officials and supporters in the United States had been making in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate, which Israel was eager to discredit.

The IAEA first mentioned the high explosives document in an annex to its May 2008 report, shortly after the document had been leaked to Janes.

David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security, who enjoyed a close relationship with the IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen, revealed in an interview with this writer in September 2008 that Heinonen had told him one document that he had obtained earlier that year had confirmed his trust in the earlier collection of intelligence documents. Albright said that document had “probably” come from Israel.

Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was very sceptical about all the purported Iranian documents shared with the IAEA by the United States. Referring to those documents, he writes in his 2011 memoirs, “No one knew if any of this was real.”

ElBaradei recalls that the IAEA received still more purported Iranian documents directly from Israel in summer 2009. The new documents included a two-page document in Farsi describing a four-year programme to produce a neutron initiator for a fission chain reaction.

Kelley has said that ElBaradei found the document lacking credibility, because it had no chain of custody, no identifiable source, and no official markings or anything else that could establish its authenticity—the same objections Iran has raised about the high explosives document.

Meanwhile, ElBaradei resisted pressure from the United States and its European allies in 2009 to publish a report on that and other documents – including the high explosive document — as an annex to an IAEA report. ElBaradei’s successor as director general, Yukia Amano, published the annex the anti-Iran coalition had wanted earlier in the November 2011 report.

Amano later told colleagues at the agency that he had no choice, because he promised the United States to do so as part of the agreement by Washington to support his bid for the job within the Board of Governors, according to a former IAEA official who asked not to be identified.

What ‘democracy’ really means in U.S. and New York Times jargon

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Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

– by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

One of the most accidentally revealing media accounts highlighting the real meaning of “democracy” in U.S. discourse is a still-remarkable 2002 New York Times Editorial on the U.S.-backed military coup in Venezuela, which temporarily removed that country’s democratically elected (and very popular) president, Hugo Chávez. Rather than describe that coup as what it was by definition – a direct attack on democracy by a foreign power and domestic military which disliked the popularly elected president – the Times, in the most Orwellian fashion imaginable, literally celebrated the coup as a victory for democracy:

With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.

Thankfully, said the NYT, democracy in Venezuela was no longer in danger . . . because the democratically-elected leader was forcibly removed by the military and replaced by an unelected, pro-U.S. “business leader.” The Champions of Democracy at the NYT then demanded a ruler more to their liking: “Venezuela urgently needs a leader with a strong democratic mandate to clean up the mess, encourage entrepreneurial freedom and slim down and professionalize the bureaucracy.”

More amazingly still, the Times editors told their readers that Chávez’s “removal was a purely Venezuelan affair,” even though it was quickly and predictably revealed that neocon officials in the Bush administration played a central role. Eleven years later, upon Chávez’s death, the Times editors admitted that “the Bush administration badly damaged Washington’s reputation throughout Latin America when it unwisely blessed a failed 2002 military coup attempt against Mr. Chávez” [the paper forgot to mention that it, too, blessed (and misled its readers about) that coup]. The editors then also acknowledged the rather significant facts that Chávez’s “redistributionist policies brought better living conditions to millions of poor Venezuelans” and “there is no denying his popularity among Venezuela’s impoverished majority.”

If you think The New York Times editorial page has learned any lessons from that debacle, you’d be mistaken. Today they published an editorial expressing grave concern about the state of democracy in Latin America generally and Bolivia specifically. The proximate cause of this concern? The overwhelming election victory of Bolivian President Evo Morales (pictured above), who, as The Guardian put it, “is widely popular at home for a pragmatic economic stewardship that spread Bolivia’s natural gas and mineral wealth among the masses.”

The Times editors nonetheless see Morales’ election to a third term not as a vindication of democracy but as a threat to it, linking his election victory to the way in which “the strength of democratic values in the region has been undermined in past years by coups and electoral irregularities.” Even as they admit that “it is easy to see why many Bolivians would want to see Mr. Morales, the country’s first president with indigenous roots, remain at the helm” – because “during his tenure, the economy of the country, one of the least developed in the hemisphere, grew at a healthy rate, the level of inequality shrank and the number of people living in poverty dropped significantly” – they nonetheless chide Bolivia’s neighbors for endorsing his ongoing rule: “it is troubling that the stronger democracies in Latin America seem happy to condone it.”

The Editors depict their concern as grounded in the lengthy tenure of Morales as well as the democratically elected leaders of Ecuador and Venezuela: “perhaps the most disquieting trend is that protégés of Mr. Chávez seem inclined to emulate his reluctance to cede power.” But the real reason the NYT so vehemently dislikes these elected leaders and ironically views them as threats to “democracy” becomes crystal clear toward the end of the editorial (emphasis added):

This regional dynamic has been dismal for Washington’s influence in the region. In Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, the new generation of caudillos [sic] have staked out anti-American policies and limited the scope of engagement on development, military cooperation and drug enforcement efforts. This has damaged the prospects for trade and security cooperation.

You can’t get much more blatant than that. The democratically elected leaders of these sovereign countries fail to submit to U.S. dictates, impede American imperialism, and subvert U.S. industry’s neoliberal designs on the region’s resources. Therefore, despite how popular they are with their own citizens and how much they’ve improved the lives of millions of their nations’ long-oppressed and impoverished minorities, they are depicted as grave threats to “democracy.”

It is, of course, true that democratically elected leaders are capable of authoritarian measures. It is, for instance, democratically elected U.S. leaders who imprison people without charges for years, build secret domestic spying systems, and even assert the power to assassinate their own citizens without due process. Elections are no guarantee against tyranny. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of each of these leaders with regard to domestic measures and civic freedoms, as there is for virtually every government on the planet.

But the very idea that the U.S. government and its media allies are motivated by those flaws is nothing short of laughable. Many of the U.S. government’s closest allies are the world’s worst regimes, beginning with the uniquely oppressive Saudi kingdom (which just yesterday sentenced a popular Shiite dissident to death) and the brutal military coup regime in Egypt, which, as my colleague Murtaza Hussain reports today, gets more popular in Washington as it becomes even more oppressive. And, of course, the U.S. supports Israel in every way imaginable even as its Secretary of State expressly recognizes the “apartheid” nature of its policy path.

Just as the NYT did with the Venezuelan coup regime of 2002, the U.S. government hails the Egyptian coup regime as saviors of democracy. That’s because “democracy” in U.S. discourse means: “serving U.S. interests” and “obeying U.S. dictates,” regardless how how the leaders gain and maintain power. Conversely, “tyranny” means “opposing the U.S. agenda” and “refusing U.S. commands,” no matter how fair and free the elections are that empower the government. The most tyrannical regimes are celebrated as long as they remain subservient, while the most popular and democratic governments are condemned as despots to the extent that they exercise independence.

To see how true that is, just imagine the orgies of denunciation that would rain down if a U.S. adversary (say, Iran, or Venezuela) rather than a key U.S. ally like Saudi Arabia had just sentenced a popular dissident to death. Instead, the NYT just weeks ago uncritically quotes an Emirates ambassador lauding Saudi Arabia as one of the region’s “moderate” allies because of its service to the U.S. bombing campaign in Syria. Meanwhile, the very popular, democratically elected leader of Bolivia is a grave menace to democratic values – because he’s “dismal for Washington’s influence in the region.”

"We are better off without U.S government": Bolivian President Evo Morales

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Bolivia’s president talks about the country’s ongoing socio-economic transformation and his third term in office.

– by Al Jazeera

In 2009, under the country’s first indigenous president a new constitution declared Bolivia a plurinational state – ending centuries of undeclared apartheid.

Opponents in the oil-rich eastern region launched a civil disobedience movement, confronting the east against the poorer, indigenous majority who support President Evo Morales. Critics denounced the president’s fiery socialist rhetoric and the nationalisation of Bolivia’s oil and gas industry in the poorest and most undeveloped nation in South America.

Five years later, from the World Bank to the IMF, Evo Morales is getting full marks for overseeing an unprecedented transformation of Bolivia. Spurred by high commodity prices, economic growth is now the highest in the region.

And while the president’s anti-capitalist discourse is as strong as ever, a mix of mainstream economics and social programmes has dramatically reduced poverty and unemployment, while allowing the private sector to flourish.

“We have taken flight towards development. What others could not do in 180 years we have done in some nine years of profound changes …. We are going to make Bolivia the energy hub for South America,” says Morales.

In a region where personality cults are too common, millions of Bolivians have come to worship Morales.

He has just been re-elected after a disputed court decision allowing him to run for a third consecutive term as president.

“I believe that some revolutions, some transformations, are driven by a person. I don’t like it, but I am happy that there is now an Evo generation, a new generation of young men and women with a great deal of knowledge, principles, and values, who are assuming leadership. I am very pleased with the way young people are getting involved. Obviously, much depends on the process, on the steps we take to ensure good economic stability with social benefits,” Morales says.

Morales not only opposes the eradication and abolition of the coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine. He is also waging an international campaign to legalise and industrialise its use for traditional and medicinal purposes. He made headlines when he demonstrated how the plant is chewed at the United Nations, the same body that declared the plant an illegal narcotic in 1961.

He says: “It [drug trafficking] must be fought – we are convinced of that – and we are doing so more effectively and more wisely. When the United States was in control of counternarcotics, the US governments used drug trafficking for purely geopolitical purposes …. The US uses drug trafficking and terrorism for political control …. We have nationalised the fight against drug trafficking. ”

“The best way to fight drug trafficking is to engage the people. Then there will not be zero coca, but neither can there be unfettered coca cultivation, because a problem does exist. As long as there is market demand for cocaine, the sacred, natural leaf, the medicinal coca leaf will always be associated with this illegal problem. The root cause of drug trafficking is demand, because the developed countries are not stopping the demand for cocaine.”

On Talk to Al Jazeera, President Evo Morales gives an insight into his personal life and discusses his controversial decision to legalise child labour, his expulsion of the US ambassador, the issue of drug trafficking – and whether he plans to step down when this term is over.

"US Bio-Warfare laboratories in West Africa are the origins of the Ebola epidemic"

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Could Ebola Have Escaped From US Bio-warfare Labs? American law professor Francis A. Boyle, answers questions for tvxs.gr and reveals that USA have been using West Africa as an offshore to circumvent the Convention on Biological Weapons and do bio-warfare work.

Prof. Francis Boyle

Prof. Francis Boyle

– by Aggeliki Dimopoulou

Is Ebola just a result of health crisis in Africa – because of the large gaps in personnel, equipment and medicines – as some experts suggest?

That isn’t true at all. This is just propaganda being put out by everyone. It seems to me, that what we are dealing with here is a biological warfare work that was conducted at the bio-warfare laboratories set up by the USA on the west coast of Africa. And if you look at a map produced by the Center of Disease Control you can see where these laboratories are located. And they are across the heart of Ebola epidemic, at the west coast of Africa. So, I think these laboratories, one or more of them, are the origins of the Ebola epidemic.

US government agencies are supposed to do defensive biological warfare research in these labs. Is there any information about what are they working on?

Well, that’s what they tell you. But if you study what the CDC and the Pentagon do… They say it is defensive, but this is just for public relation purposes than anything. It’s a trick. What it means is what they decide at these bio-warfare labs. They say, “well we have to develop a vaccine”, so that’s their defensive argument. Then what they do is to develop the bio-warfare agent itself. Usually by means of DNA genetic engineering. And then they say, “well to get the vaccine we have to develop the bio-warfare agent” – usually by DNA genetic engineering – and then they try to work on the vaccine. So it’s two uses type of work. I haven’t read all these bio-warfare contracts but that’s typical of the way the Pentagon CDC has been doing this since at least the 1980’s. I have absolute proof from a Pentagon document that the Center of Disease Control was doing bio-warfare work for the Pentagon in Sierra Leone, the heart of the outbreak, as early as 1988. And indeed it was probably before then because they would have had to construct the lab and that would have taken some time. So we know that Fort Detrick and the Center for Disease Control are over there, Tulane University, which is a well-known bio-warfare center here in USA – I would say notorious for it – is there. They all have been over there.

In addition, USA government made sure that Liberia, a former colony of the USA, never became a party to the Biological Weapons Convention, so they were able to do bio – warfare work over there – going back to 1980’s – the USA government, in order to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention. Likewise, Guinea the third state affected here – and there is an increase now – didn’t even sign the Biological Weapons Convention. So, it seems to me, that the different agencies of the US government have been always there try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention and engage bio-warfare work. Indeed, we had one of these two lab bio-warriors admit in the NY Times that they were not over there for the purpose of either screening or treating people. That’s not what these labs are about. These labs are there in my opinion to do bio-warfare work for different agencies of the US government. Indeed, many of them were set up by USAID. And everyone knows that USAID is penetrated all up and down by the CIA and CIA has been involved in bio-warfare work as well.

Are we being told the truth about Ebola? Is that big outbreak began all of a sudden? How does it spread so quickly?

The whole outbreak that we see in the west coast of Africa, this is Zaire/Ebola. The most dangerous of five subtypes of Ebola. Zaire/Ebola originated 3500 km from the west coast of Africa. There is absolutely no way that it could have been transmitted 3500 km. And if you read the recently published Harvard study on the DNA analysis of the west Africas’ Zaire/Ebola there is no explanation about how the virus moved there. And indeed, it’s been reported in the NY Times that the Zaire/Ebola was found there in 1976, and then WHO ordered to be set to Porton Down in Britain, which is the British equivalent to Fort Detrick, where they manufacture all the biological weapons for Britain. And then Britain sent it to the US Center for Disease Control. And we know for a fact that the Center for Disease Control has been involved in biological warfare work. And then it appears, at least from whatever I’ve been able to put together in a public record, that the CDC and several others US bio-warriors exported Zaire/Ebola to west Africa, to their labs there, where they were doing bio-warfare work on it. So, I believe this is the origins of the Zaire/Ebola pandemic we are seeing now in west Africa.

Why would they do that?

Why would they do that? As I suggested to try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention to which the US government is a party. So, always bio-warriors do use offensive and defensive bio-warfare work, violating the Biological Weapons Convention. So effectively they try to offshore it into west Africa where Liberia is not a party and Guinea is not a party. Sierra Leone is a party. But in Sierra Leone and Liberia there were disturbances which kept the world from really paying attention of what was going on in these labs.

USA sent troops to «fight» Ebola. What do you think about that move?

The US military just invaded Liberia. They send in the 101st Airborne Division to Liberia. That’s an elite division of combat and they have no training to provide medical treatment to anyone. They are there to establish a military base in Liberia. And the British are doing the same in Sierra Leone. The French are already in Mali and Senegal. So, they’re not sending military people there to treat these people. No, I’m sorry.

Weren’t they afraid Ebola’s going to go out of control even in the USA or EU in a massive way?

It’s already gone in the USA and the European Union. So, there it is. Which raises the question: Was this Zaire/Ebola weaponized at any of these labs? I don’t have an answer to that question. I am trying to get an answer. And therefore it is much more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are telling everyone. The WHO and the CDC are up to their eyeballs in this. They know all about what ‘s going on. It was the WHO that ordered the original Zaire/Ebola in 1976 to be sent to Porton Down for biological warfare purposes. So this could be more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are saying.

And you can’t believe anything they telling you because they are involved in that. But certainly I can’t say it has been weaponized. I don’t know that yet for sure. I have the Harvard genetic analysis of it. When I was in college I had very good courses in genetics, and biochemistry and population biology but I am not a professor of genetics. I have a friend who is a professor of genetics and he is going to take a look at this and try to figure out if there’s been DNA genetic engineering perpetrated or performed on the Zaire/Ebola. Is there a genetically modified organism at work, a GMO? I don’t know. But if a GMO is at work that’s a pretty good sign it’s been weaponized. But in anyway, it is far more dangerous than the CDC and the WHO are telling anyone, because it’s clearly transmitted for a certain distance – we don’t know how far – by air. Breathing and coughing and sneezing. So, anyone treating people, seems to me, are going to need not only a protective suit but probably a breathing apparatus, at minimum. And you saw what happened to that Spanish nurse and that Spanish priest that were brought in, infected with Ebola. So right now the WHO and the CDC are telling healthcare workers that in addition to suits they need breathing apparatuses. So, again, I don’t believe you can trust anything the WHO or the CDC are telling you. And I really don’t know about the European Health Agency… If they‘re believing the WHO and the CDC then, in my opinion, they ‘re not properly protecting the health of the European people. And it’s simply bizarre that the CDC and WHO are relegating the screenings to the people in west Africa. It’s just bizarre. They need to be protecting health of their own people and they aren’t doing that. I read some of the European press but I’m not sure precisely what the European Health Agency is recommending but they certainly can’t rely upon the WHO and the CDC. As for Greece, I know you have your own Health Ministry there and they cannot rely upon them at all, as well.

Some experts told recently the Forbes magazine that even ISIS could use Ebola as a biological weapon. I would like to have your comment on that.

This is total propaganda. These people are trying to distract public opinion from the fact. My opinion is that the origins of the current pandemic came out of the USA bio-warfare labs in west Africa. That’s what is going on here. ISIS has nothing to do with this. That’s just propaganda which is trying to scare and distract public attention away of what really is going on here. They doing the same thing here in USA. That’s what we need to concentrate on. Number one. And number two? We have to find out: was this Zaire/Ebola GMOed by either Porton Down or CDC or these US bio-warfare labs? It is far more dangerous than it currently appears. That’s the real issue. And I don’t have an answer to that question. It was the US government labs that research here. I’m not saying that Ebola was released deliberately by these labs. I have no evidence to that. It could have escaped. But this is really what we need to be focusing on. Not ISIS. It’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous.

What do you think should be done?

I would encourage the Greek government to convene an emergency meeting of your top health science people and to look into this on comprehensive bases and figure out what to do under these circumstances to protect the health of people of Greece. In particular they must not believe anything they are being told by the WHO and CDC. There is a need of open objective minds here about what is really going on. I think this needs to be done.

Back in 1985, I was down in Nicaragua investigating atrocities of the Contras there and all of a sudden the country was hit with an outbreak of a hemorrhaging Dengue Fever which is similar to Ebola. And it seemed pretty suspicious to me. So I met with some of the highest level officials of the Nicaraguan government and said: “you know, this very well could be US bio-warfare against Nicaragua. They did the same thing to Cuba. And my advice is you convene health care medical experts, not politicians, to look into this. And if you agree with me and that’s the result, file a complaint with the UN Security Council for violation of the Biological Weapons Convention against the USA”. And eventually that is what they did. Here I am not recommending the Greek authorities to file a complaint against the USA. What I am recommending is the same thing I did to the Nicaraguans. That you need to convene some of your top experts geneticists, doctors, etc.

And don’t get anyone in this group who has ever done any type of research for any agency of the US government. They are completely unreliable. Get Greeks experts completely independent of the US government or the British government. It’s funny here in the USA when the media want to get experts on this, all the experts they talk to are people who have done biological warfare work for the USA. And they are up to their eyeballs on this Ebola. And doing research on this Ebola. Of course they’re not going to give you proper advice. So, find this experts and make sure they never done any research for USA or Britain on any of this stuff but are qualified and can give you a qualified opinion of what is really going on and how dangerous this stuff is. And then aim to protect the health of Greek people. You definitely don’t have to wait for the European Union in Brussels to do it for you. I’m not telling Greece what to do. I’m just telling you how to do it. And this should be done immediately. It should have been done already. But ok, better late than ever.

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia – Herzegovina at the World Court. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.

He is also the author of “Biowarfare and Terrorism”. The book outlines how and why the United States government initiated, sustained and then dramatically expanded an illegal biological arms buildup.

Read the Greek version of the interview here.

New Zealand cops raided home of Reporter working on Snowden documents

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Photo: AP/Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald

Photo: AP/Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald

– by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher, The Intercept

Agents from New Zealand’s national police force ransacked the home of a prominent independent journalist earlier this month who was collaborating with The Intercept on stories from the NSA archive furnished by Edward Snowden. The stated purpose of the 10-hour police raid was to identify the source for allegations that the reporter, Nicky Hager, recently published in a book that caused a major political firestorm and led to the resignation of a top government minister.

But in seizing all the paper files and electronic devices in Hager’s home, the authorities may have also taken source material concerning other unrelated stories that Hager was pursuing. Recognizing the severity of the threat posed to press freedoms from this raid, the Freedom of the Press Foundation today announced a global campaign to raise funds for Hager’s legal defense.

In August, one month before New Zealand’s national election, Hager published Dirty Politics, which showed that key figures in Prime Minister John Key’s National Party were feeding derogatory information about their opponents to a virulent right-wing blogger named Cameron Slater. Hager published evidence in the form of incriminating emails, provided by a hacker, demonstrating coordination between National Party officials and Slater. The ensuing scandal forced the resignation of a top Key ally, Justice Minister Judith Collins, and implicated numerous other National Party officials and supporters. Despite the scandal, the National Party won a resounding victory in the election, sending Key to a third term as prime minister.

On October 2—less than two weeks after the election—detectives from a regional “major crime team” came to Hager’s Wellington home armed with a search warrant authorizing them to seize anything that might lead them to the identity of his source for Dirty Politics. The warrant shows that prior to the raid, a police “intelligence analyst” had studied Hager’s media appearances in an effort to discover information about his sources for the book, taking particular note of references Hager made to knowing the source’s identity.

While there is no evidence that Hager’s work on NSA documents was a factor in the raid, it is possible that authorities knew or suspected that he had been given access to some of those documents. Over the past several months, Hager has exchanged multiple encrypted emails with reporters atThe Intercept which, if obtained by New Zealand authorities under a warrant, could have tipped them off to the existence of a relationship. When The Intercept reported last month on the activities of the nation’s surveillance agency GCSB, we made clear that we were working with local journalists on further stories, and it was widely speculated that Hager was the likeliest local candidate for such a partnership. At the time, Key expressed concern that future stories from the Snowden archive could jeopardize the country’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Whether or not Hager’s work with The Intercept may have partially motivated the raid, the situation underscores the dangers of using invasive law enforcement tactics against reporters—they impede the reporting process, render source relationships very difficult to protect, and offer the very authorities that reporters are attempting to hold accountable a window into their ongoing reporting. (The Intercept‘s collaboration with Hager will proceed.)

The raid at Hager’s home took place while he was out of town, visiting the University of Auckland to give a series of lectures. Six officers arrived at his home at 7:45 a.m., waking his 22-year-old daughter, who was presented with a search warrant as she answered the door.

Once they entered the property, detectives spent ten hours sifting through Hager and his family’s personal effects, making copies of any USB storage devices they found and seizing Hager’s computer, personal documents, a camera, a dictaphone, CDs, and dozens of other items—not to mention his daughter’s laptop, cellphones, and iPod.

“This was an unusually heavy action for New Zealand police to take against someone in the media,” Hager told The Intercept. “Occasionally police use a warrant to go after a particular piece of evidence held by a media person or organization. But hours of sifting through someone’s files and seizing piles of their materials does not normally occur. It has a strong smell of politics about it.”

Hager, New Zealand’s most well known independent reporter, emphasized the potential damage the raid could have on work that is wholly unrelated to Dirty Politics: “It is disruptive to anyone’s work to suddenly not have their computers and especially an investigative journalist’s work. There is now also the legal battle to get my equipment and files back untouched. There is no choice about fighting it. I have to protect this and other sources for life or why should anyone ever trust me again?”

The New Zealand Police did not immediately respond to email request seeking comment. Hager is challenging the legality of the warrant in court, and the property that was seized remains sealed and unavailable to the police for the time being.

Although he is being represented by pro bono counsel, Hager has already incurred legal expenses reaching into the thousands of dollars, and New Zealand’s “loser pays” provision could subject him to a very large monetary judgment if he loses. The Freedom of the Press Foundation campaign to raise money for Hager is intended to help him fight for the return of his property, challenge the legality of the raid, and defend himself against any potential future threats stemming from his work as a journalist. (The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras are co-founders of the foundation and, along with Edward Snowden and Intercept technology analyst Micah Lee, are also board members; in May, The Intercept‘s parent company First Look Media donated $350,000 to the foundation.)

Press freedoms are under increasing assault in the English-speaking world—there have been similar controversies in the other Five Eyes alliance nations of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Canada—and the ability of New Zealand police officers to cavalierly raid the home of a reporter who has criticized the government in power threatens to establish a dangerous precedent everywhere reporters operate. A successful campaign on Hager’s behalf would signal that people around the world are willing to defend basic press freedoms and stand against such assaults. Those wishing to do so can contribute to Hager’s defense fund here.

Update: In an emailed statement to The Intercept on Friday, New Zealand Police spokesman Ross Henderson denied that officers were aware Hager was working with leaked U.S. government documents. Henderson insisted that the raid was aimed at seeking information related to the source for Dirty Politics, and added that the police force “has a duty to appropriately investigate matters involving alleged criminal activity, regardless of a person’s occupation or position, and Mr. Hager is no exception.” Whether Hager’s material is covered by a law in New Zealand that protects a reporter’s right to keep his sources confidential, Henderson said, depends on whether Hager “meets the legal definition of a journalist” which “is now a matter for the court to rule on.”

Only 4% of drone victims in Pakistan named as Al-Qaeda members

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CIA drones targeted but missed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in this strike in 2006 (AFP/Getty)

CIA drones targeted but missed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in this strike in 2006 (AFP/Getty)

– by Jack Serle, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

As the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan hits 400, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that fewer than 4% of the people killed have been identified by available records as named members of al Qaeda. This calls in to question US Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim last year that only “confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level” were fired at.

The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project has gathered the names and, where possible, the details of people killed by CIA drones in Pakistan since June 2004. On October 11 an attack brought the total number of drone strikes in Pakistan up to 400.

The names of the dead have been collected over a year of research in and outside Pakistan, using a multitude of sources. These include both Pakistani government records leaked to the Bureau, and hundreds of open source reports in English, Pashtun and Urdu.

Naming the Dead has also drawn on field investigations conducted by the Bureau’s researchers in Pakistan and other organisations, including Amnesty International, Reprieve and the Centre for Civilians in Conflict.

Only 704 of the 2,379 dead have been identified, and only 295 of these were reported to be members of some kind of armed group. Few corroborating details were available for those who were just described as militants. More than a third of them were not designated a rank, and almost 30% are not even linked to a specific group. Only 84 are identified as members of al Qaeda – less than 4% of the total number of people killed.

These findings “demonstrate the continuing complete lack of transparency surrounding US drone operations,” said Mustafa Qadri, Pakistan researcher for Amnesty International.

Pakistan drone strike
deaths in numbers
Total killed 2,379
Total identified as militants 295
Total named as al Qaeda 84
Total named 704

When asked for a comment on the Bureau’s investigation, US National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that strikes were only carried out when there was “near-certainty” that no civilians would be killed.

“The death of innocent civilians is something that the U.S. Government seeks to avoid if at all possible. In those rare instances in which it appears non-combatants may have been killed or injured, after-action reviews have been conducted to determine why, and to ensure that we are taking the most effective steps to minimise such risk to non-combatants in the future,” said Hayden.

“Associated forces”

The Obama administration’s stated legal justification for such strikes is based partly on the right to self-defence in response to an imminent threat. This has proved controversial as leaked documents show the US believes determining if a terrorist is an imminent threat “does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”

The legal basis for the strikes also stems from the Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (Aumf) – a law signed by Congress three days after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks. It gives the president the right to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those behind the attacks on the US, wherever they are.

The text of Aumf does not name any particular group. But the president, in a major foreign policy speech in May 2013, said this includes “al Qaeda, the Taliban and its associated forces”.

Nek Mohammed speaks at a Jirga three weeks before he died in a CIA drone strike (Reuters/Kamran Wazir)

It is not clear who is deemed to be “associated” with the Taliban. Hayden told the Bureau that “an associated force is an organised armed group that has entered the fight alongside al Qaeda and is a co-belligerent with al Qaeda in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”

The CIA itself does not seem to know the affiliation of everyone they kill. Secret CIA documents recording the identity, rank and affiliation of people targeted and killed in strikes between 2006 to 2008 and 2010 to 2011 were leaked to the McClatchy news agency in April 2013. They identified hundreds of those killed as simply Afghan or Pakistani fighters, or as “unknown”.

Determining the affiliation even of those deemed to be “Taliban” is problematic. The movement has two branches: one, the Afghan Taliban, is fighting US and allied forces, and trying to re-establish the ousted Taliban government of Mullah Omar in Kabul. The other, the Pakistani Taliban or the TTP, is mainly focused on toppling the Pakistani state, putting an end to democracy and establishing a theocracy based on extreme ideology. Although the US did not designate the TTP as a foreign terrorist organisation until September 2010, the group and its precursors are known to have worked with the Afghan Taliban.

According to media reports, the choice of targets has not always reflected the priorities of the US alone. In April last year the McClatchy news agency reported the US used its drones to kill militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas in exchange for Pakistani help in targeting al Qaeda members.

Three days before the McClatchy report, the New York Times revealed the first known US drone strike in Pakistan, on June 17 2004, was part of a secret deal with Pakistan to gain access to its airspace. The CIA agreed to kill the target, Nek Mohammed, in exchange for permission for its drones to go after the US’s enemies.

The “butcher of Swat”

Senior militants have been killed in the CIA’s 10-year drone campaign in Pakistan. But as the Bureau’s work indicates, it is far from clear that they constitute the only or even the majority of people killed in these strikes.

“Judging by the sheer volume of strikes and the reliable estimates of total casualties, it is very unlikely that the majority of victims are senior commanders,” says Amnesty’s Qadri.

The Bureau has only found 111 of those killed in Pakistan since 2004 described as a senior commander of any armed group – just 5% of the total. Research by the New America Foundation estimated the proportion of senior commanders to be even lower, at just 2%.

Waliur Rehman talks to the Associated Press less than two years before his death (AP Photo/Ishtiaq Mahsud)

Among them are men linked to serious crimes. Men such as Ibne Amin, known as the “butcher of Swat” for the barbaric treatment he and his men meted out on the residents of the Swat valley in 2008 and 2009.

Others include Abu Khabab al Masri, an al Qaeda chemical weapons expert. Drones also killed Hakimullah and Baitullah Mehsud, and Wali Ur Rehman – all senior leaders of the TTP.

There are 73 more people recorded in Naming the Dead who are described as mid-ranking members of armed groups. However someone’s rank is not necessarily a reliable guide to their importance in the organisation.

“I think it really depends on what they are,” Rez Jan, a senior Pakistan analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank told the Bureau. “You can be a mid-level guy who is involved in [improvised explosive device] production or training in bomb making or planting, or combat techniques and have a fairly lethal impact in that manner.”

Rashid Rauf, a British citizen killed in a November 2008 drone strike in Pakistan, is one al Qaeda member who appears to have had an impact despite not rising to the organisation’s highest echelons.

He acted as a point of contact between the perpetrators of the July 7 2005 attacks on the London Underground and their al Qaeda controllers. He also filled a similar role linking al Qaeda central with the men planning to bring down several airliners flying from London to the US in the 2006 “liquid bomb plot”.

The Bureau has only been able to establish information about the alleged roles of just 21 of those killed. Even this mostly consists of basic descriptions such as “logistician” or “the equivalent of a colonel.”

Note: This story contains a clarification. 4% of people who have been killed by CIA drone strikes have been named and positively identified as members of al Qaeda by available records. Of the drone strike victims who have been named, 12% are identified as al Qaeda. 

Russia denies agreement with U.S to share intel on Islamic State militants

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"An image made available by Jihadist media outlet Welayat Raqa, allegedly shows a member of the Islamic state militant group parading with a tank in a street in the northern rebel-held Syrian city of Raqa on June 30, 2014" (AFP)

“An image made available by Jihadist media outlet Welayat Raqa, allegedly shows a member of the Islamic state militant group parading with a tank in a street in the northern rebel-held Syrian city of Raqa on June 30, 2014” (AFP)

– by Agence France-Presse

Moscow on Thursday denied a US assertion that it had agreed to ramp up intelligence-sharing with Washington over the Islamic State group, saying it would provide no such help without UN Secuity Council approval.

The statement by Russia’s foreign ministry contradicted a declaration by US Secretary of State John Kerry made after a meeting in Paris on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Moscow “will not join any ‘coalition’ set up without the backing of the UN Security Council and that violates international law,” the ministry said.

It pointed out that a bilateral commission involving Washington and Moscow that aimed to help tackle terrorism had been scrapped by the US.

Moscow also added that it was already giving “significant help” to countries including Syria and Iraq and would continue to do so.

The slapdown to Kerry appeared to underline yet again the fraught state of US-Russian relations, brought low by the crisis in Ukraine where pro-Russian rebels are fighting a pro-West government.

Kerry had said on Tuesday that he and Lavrov reached an agreement “to intensify intelligence cooperation with respect to ISIL (Islamic State) and other counter-terrorism challenges”.

He said Lavrov had “acknowledged their preparedness to help with respect to arms, weapons, they are doing that now, they already have provided some, and also potentially with the training and advising aspects”.

The US has imposed the toughest sanctions on Moscow since the end of the Cold War over its backing for the separatist rebels in Ukraine.

The two sides are also at loggerheads over the civil war in Syria, where Moscow has been a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington is currently spearheading a coalition of Western and Arab nations conducting an air campaign against the Islamic State jihadists.

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