Stingers: Sores That Hardly Heal

Originally published on Desicritics 8/15/08

The pain was almost intolerable. Burning, searing fire that ran down the side of my face onto my neck made me shout and scrabble about like a mad man. I had been picking oranges from a tree in our central Nigerian compound when I disturbed a nest of wasps that had taken residence in that tree, not more than two feet above my head. Six of these warriors descended on me and began to sting, each one multiple times. Wasps do not commit suicide when they attack, they use their stingers again. Years later, in 1985 I was reading on the verandah of our Model Town home in Lahore and a bee landed on my neck. I brushed it aside, but not quick enough and got stung. It was not as painful as the wasps had been but there was one difference. It left its stinger behind, and in doing so had committed suicide, tearing out its guts as it was brushed aside. Pindi, my cook pulled the stinger out with a tweezers, warning me not to leave it in as it would create a bad sore and become infected. I had to hear the terrible stories of children in his village that had been stung and had suffered terribly because the parents did not know enough to get rid of the deadly stingers and not to leave them embedded.

I had been reading the Pakistan newspaper, Dawn, at the time and news about the very beginning of the defeats and withdrawals of the Soviet military forces from Afghanistan because of such effective rebel fighting, like “persistent wasps”. This withdrawal eventually culminated in 1989, supported by the many small victories of the Mujahideen in their fight against the cursed invaders, and the support given by the Americans to this effort of the guerrillas during Operation Cyclone, support by the supply of arms and weapons to the freedom fighters. Stingers! Yes, these were supplied by the CIA in the hundreds to the forces fighting the Soviets. Some sources say as many as two thousand stingers weregiven to the Mujahideen. After the withdrawal of the Russians there was a concern that the Taliban now had many of these weapons, Stingers, which, with their heat seeking devices had been lethal against Soviet helicopters and low-flying aircraft. Now American forces could become targets of these very weapons.

But, allied experts said, the battery systems which operated these weapons became useless after a few years. (But the technology to repair and put in new battery systems existed; in fact Pakistan now has its own version of the old Stinger) I love the title of the article by Ken Silverstein in the State Oct.2, 2001, “Stinger, Stingers, Who’s Got the Stingers?”  In that article he reviews the Reagan administration’s programs to arm the Mujahideen with Stingers to battle Soviet aircraft, he says that the Taliban now possess many of these weapons as do others to whom they were sold who ‘reverse-engineered’ these and made their own. Many worried about this because Islamic fundamentalist who loathed the West, about as much as they hated the Soviets, could possibly share these wonderful high tech weapons with, and think of this, with terrorist groups.

In 1986, Congress had approved the deal and CIA then shipped 300 Stingers to the rebels and the next year 700 more. The Stingers were now embedded, not only among the rebel forces, but according to some sources, Pakistan stock piled the Stingers it got, and some say, sold a few to the Chinese for sums unknown, who were clever and reverse-engineered them and produced their own, and since there was a hot market for these, reverse sold these to the ones who first had them. According to Silverstein’s article these weapons now were dispersed by the rebels to Tajikistan, Chechnya and Algeria. And, he says that the Pentagon approved the sale of Stingers to at least 21 countries, mostly NATO of course, such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. ( I love the word mostly. The selling of American weapons by Americans is a really big business, and this does not just include little Stingers, it includes weapons of pretty ‘mass destruction’ in the form of high tech aircraft and their missile systems. You know, keep the economy going.) The Soviets stole the design and made their own SAM-14 Gremlin, a virtual copy of the Stinger. Oh my! What a hornet’s nest!          

The CIA later, in its $65 million program, (It is as if they gave each Afghan citizen $2) offered $150,000 to $200,000 to the very ones they had supported by giving them these amazing weapons. This was more than production cost, but cheaper than having their planes shot down. This buy-back program resulted in the return of very few of the Stingers and the authorities were concerned that the Taliban, who later waged a bloody insurgency, had stockpiled these weapons. In fact, the coalition authorities had no idea where most of these lethal Stingers were. These were a hidden threat and are still a threat today, imbedded, festering Stingers. This was a sore spot. The buy-back flopped, by and large. If the Americans thought that Stingers were worth about Rupees 1,200,000 each, these must be pretty good things to keep around, just in case. And it is a well know fact that in bargain situations, when one party seems a bit desperate to buy something, it may be a good strategy to hold back a bit and wait and see if the buy back price will rise. Imagine getting the Stingers free and then later selling them back at highly inflated prices to the donor and making a few dealers rich in the process. Riches buys land, good land for growing poppies.

These embedded Stingers may still be around. India claimed that in a 1999 attack Muslim rebels in Kashmir used a Stinger to down a military aircraft. 

Kathy Gannon’s book I is for Infidel: From the Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan, 2005, Perseus Book Group, speaks about the war in Afghanistan as being “yesterday’s war”. “The wider world had done the most dangerous of things. It had stuffed this tiny country with massive amounts of weapons, including the precious Stingers, turned over the countryside to the volatile discordant mix of mujahadeen factions—and then walked away.”

In 2001, following the Sept.11 attack the U.S. launched “Operation Enduring Freedom”, a military campaign to destroy the Al-Qaeda terrorist camps inside Afghanistan, the very ones with whom they had had a common cause, you know, the Afghan Mujahideen and who now said thanks for the free Stingers. The Stingers were not like those of the wasps, burning, searing, but temporary. They were like those of bees, which left imbedded, make their way deep into the flesh while pumping venom all the while and leaving a festering sore that hardly heals.

In the 2008 political campaigns new political solutions are being suggested about Afghanistan, new efforts that will need to be made to subdue the rebels in their mountain dens in Afghanistan and along the border of Pakistan and hopefully get the really bad guy, bin Laden in the process. What a holy terror our soldiers will face once again when ‘Yesterday’s War’, thanks Kathy, becomes Today’s Military Operation in which, on their turf, using our weapons, our Stingers, they, the bad guys, face off against us, defending their holy land with religious Islamic zeal, cursing oaths of vengeance. 

Not to worry folks. Dear Wikipedia gives us the answers, “The US inventory contains 13,400 missiles. The total cost of the program is $7,281,000,000.” Let’s see, if we divided this by the population of Afghanistan which is about 33 million people it could set up the entire population with a nest egg for small business development that would put it on its economic feet, peacefully. Imagine what that money could do to build schools for Afghani boys and girls. I forgot; inventory means that the money has already been spent by U.S. tax payers to engineer and manufacture these arms which now exist and are waiting for new batteries and need to be used.

That is a lot of bees to contend with, a pretty big hive. Let the Taliban be warned, our hive is bigger than yours. The pain will be intolerable, a real pain in the neck! But for whom?

Genocidal Indigenous Forces: Teaching Kids War Games

Originally published on Desicritics 8/8/08

Kids love it! They get to ride in Humvees or Black Hawk Helicopters and hold weapons and shoot at the evil ones, the genocidal indigenous forces. The American soldiers and uniforms are real but the enemy they shoot at is sort of vague, but they are the genocidal forces that will kill you unless you kill them. Terrorists! 

Joseph De Avila’s article, War Games: Army Lures Civilians by Letting them Play Soldier (The Wall Street Journal, July 28th, 2008) describes the new war games that the army has developed as a recruitment device. They present a new way “…to relate to the public, they also present an opportunity to shape their tastes,” says Col Casey Wardynski from West Point. Some $9 million have been spent to develop these war games as recruitment devices. And, they are realistic. When you shoot the bad guys they fall down dead. Try not to hit the friendlies; that’s a no, no. How exciting to shoot at the ‘genocidal indigenous forces.” 

In the Old Testament it says, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Prov.22.6) They knew their stuff back then, long before Christ, even if they didn’t have military psychologists to tell them how to motivate youngsters. Somehow, what you learn as a kid, particularly about modeling adult behavior, seems to have some effect on them in later years. Amazing. The US Army sure got it right. The way to get young people to enlist as soldiers is to make them feel it, put a gun in their hands and go bang, bang. That’s powerful stuff. A bit violent, perhaps, but hardly any different from what the kids watch on T V. Oh, I almost forgot, soldiers are trained to kill the enemy. 

Of course teenagers also play the Army game and if they are over seventeen, they soon get a call from recruiters with ideas about incentive packages and the like, and it seems to work. You see, the terrorists are out there, but you can’t really see them. Sure there was 911, but even Bush got it wrong, where the terrorists came from, but look, if they are ‘genocidal indigenous forces’ that are radical and insurgent, go for it. The war on terror is frustrating because the enemy doesn’t play fair, doesn’t show his head, just sneaks in and explodes a bomb or two and kills a bunch of innocent people and then later in the press, some strange group takes happy credit for it. The “genocidal indigenous group” called the faithful warriors of the almighty was responsible for the latest killings. Sound familiar? It happened in India not too long ago, bomb blasts, and revenge killings for past killing of the ‘faithful’. The old Pathan ethic, the pushtunwali, still is very much alive, revenge, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But the problem with bomb blasts and suicidal killing of others is that so many innocent die or are maimed.

The US Army recruitment efforts, targeting kids and young people to enlist, is not a new idea. One of the earliest schemes to use children to foster the state’s programs occurred in 1948. The Stalinist apparatchiks established a children’s train and recruited hundreds of children to run a train with the intent of creating a cadre of enthusiastic rail workers for the state, and to “instill political obedience in youth.” By the way that same train system has been modernized and is back in service in Hungary and, yes, the kids run it. To be admitted to this training program requires high admission standards but the pay is great, and the added bonus, they get a good dose of “old style discipline.” See Daniel Michaels’ article, ‘Is this any Way to Run a Railroad, In Hungary, They Put Kids to Work.” (The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 8, 2008.) 

But wait, it is not only the western world that is targeting kids with subtle messages to gain their support. Have you heard about Islamic Superheroes who battle injustice in America? The new series is called The 99 and is a whole series of comic books which feature hero characters that each; personify the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God. Interestingly enough, the comic book series is doing well in the Islamic world after the creator of the series, Naif Al-Mutuwa guaranteed that great respect would be given to Islamic religious beliefs, which resulted in a major Islamic bank supporting his project. Imagine, “Jabbar the Powerful” or “Noora the Light” fighting the, now get this, the evil indigenous forces of evil in America. An illuminating review of this by Camille Agon, called Islamic Superheroes Going Global was reported in Time on 8/7/2008. 

Yes, bring them up in the way they should go and when they become adults they will not depart from it. Ancient wisdom is being applied in modern situations by many different groups, and the system works.

I wonder how youth are trained and motivated to support and even become Taliban, Al Qaeda? War games in which vague figures are dressed like Americans which can be shot at in video games? Hardly, no. Madrassas are sometimes the answer! The difference is dramatic. In the American War Games, they shape their tastes: the youth sit in a Black Hawk Helicopter, safe and secure and kill genocidal insurgent militant forces from a distance and don’t even see the blood and guts, just hear the roar and the thunder of the explosions. How different from the youths, say from the NWFP of Pakistan, whose religious beliefs are so honed that they will put explosives on their own bodies; beautiful young men and women, and blow themselves up for the sake of the Cause. That is real commitment based on very strong faith and belief that the rewards in the next life will be great and eternal. With US Army war games, they “shape their tastes” now for active recruitment: for the faithful, religious training could lead to personal suicide shaping their eternity in the great bye and bye based on a combined set of motivators, hate for the infidel Zionists and a passionate love for Paradise.

The beauty of the American system is that it is supported NOW, not by eternity, now, with lots of high tech killing machines and lots of computers that make striking the target an almost certainty with a feeling of anonymity as the trigger is pulled. Training, simulated killing of the enemy, the evil ones and that is sort of fun; and you even get to keep score while you are at it. Play soldier. What a strange concept. There is nothing playful about killing another human being, whoever she is. Certainly, for the suicide bomber, play does not enter the picture, nor is there anonymity involved, it is highly personal and by pulling the trigger the ‘game’ is over. It is not a game but a choice for death based on a belief in life everlasting with a knowledge that as you die you take a hundred of the enemy with you, you know the accursed American infidels who are in Afghanistan and Iraq. Madrassas may get a bad rap because a few of them do train youngsters to do violence for a greater cause and even teach them how to handle weapons and explosives. The US Army should get a bad rap for developing a recruitment tool that is insidiously and philosophically awful; motivating young people to become killers with a game. But, oh well, as long as it is for a good cause, you know, obliterating ‘them-thar’ genocidal indigenous forces. We all know who those guys are, right?

We have a generation of youth whose ‘tastes have been shaped’ by violence on television, daily doses of it. Even as a pre-school youth, long before television was invented, I remember running around playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, a toy gun in my hand going bang-bang, you’re an Indian and you are dead. I had no idea who Indians were, nor even where the Punjab was located. Later it was water pistols and now I see they have graduated to guns that shoot blobs of dye so that you can record a ‘kill’ with colorful evidence. Yes, mea culpa. I loved guns. I was an excellent marksman and a pretty good shikar and shot many helpless critters in India, Nepal, Africa and America. Jim Corbett was my idol. Yes, my tastes were shaped, and I think the war games will be effective recruitment tools for the Army since many American youths have a taste already established. Is that called appetite? Yes I think the Islamic Superheroes comic books will be a big success and create the zeal for justice that the authors’ seek.

My huge problem now is that I no longer believe that the world’s problems can be solved by violence and by killing each other. In Luke 3 vs.14 it says, “Do violence to no man.” I must have missed that verse earlier on in my youth. Strange, how selective our perception is based on age, taste, experience and belief. Consider this; “Not one blow, O Madhusudan! will I strike to gain the rule of all Three Worlds; then, how much less to seize an earthly kingdom! Killing these must breed but anguish, Krishna!” Out of context, assuredly, but not out of mind.

We maintain the right to bear arms in America, and this is a deeply held liberty based on the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Most American homes have a gun or two. I checked on this and came up with the figure of 215 million guns in homes in 1999 and that since that time about 60 million more have been added. (You see, there are many gun collectors who have many guns.) Imagine a country with 250 million guns in the hands of its citizens. Yes, I can see that the U S army has developed a recruitment winner with its new war games, especially since they have connected shooting and killing with patriotism and getting the bad guys, the evil genocidal indigenous forces that live over there somewhere and speak weird languages and scribble stuff from right to left and set the price of gas way too high. Let them play soldier. A satirical cartoon would be redundant in an atmosphere in which comic book cartoon superheroes bespeak the reality of international nuclear control, not mere guns.

The Opium Eaters - The Roads Between

Originally published on Desicritics 7/16/08

We are the opium eaters; we are the consumers of the 6,500 tons of opium produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan with an export value, according to the United Nations, of about $3.1 billion. While we fought the war against terror and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, against the Taliban, the war against opium growing and trafficking was neglected, went soft. A virulent opium trade has flourished in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2004, a time when the Taliban had all but eradicated poppy growing. Now, ninety percent of the world’s opium is produced in the region of southern Afghanistan and border areas of northern Pakistan. But the world continues to have a tremendous need for opium products to be used for legitimate medical purposes. India is a producer of licit opium for the pharmaceutical market, however, the farmers are paid so little to grow approved amounts of opium that they have also learned how to subvert the system and receive ten times the amount for their crops on the illegal market. There is a shortage of raw opium for medical uses, while the illegal trafficking of opium continues. Efforts to eradicate opium in the fields as it is grown have been ineffective. Graft, bribery and corrupt political forces have protected the growers; only a tiny proportion of the entire opium 2007 crop grown was destroyed. The fields that were destroyed with weed cutters were frequently those of the poor peasant who did not have the support of a landlord or a war lord. Aerial spraying of poppy fields has been prevented by those in high authority in Afghanistan. Supply and demand, that is, the need we, a drug culture, express for opium, is what moves the trade of this narcotic, and move it does, by the hundreds of metric tons annually. 

Amazingly, America through its international clout exerts controls in many other sovereign territories it avoided many years ago. Remember The Monroe Doctrine? What is that? What we may remember is President T. Roosevelt’s statement, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Now we speak loudly, explosively, and carry huge economic sticks and massive military ones but the opium trade goes on, seemingly ignoring the international sanctions, the military presence of the United States, and in the past of England, in Afghanistan, and their tanks rumbling on paths right through the middle of the bright and beautiful fields of poppies growing in Kandahar or in Nangahar along the Baluchistan border where the greatest increases in opium production have occurred.

De Quincey’s famous book, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1822, is a classic rendition of one who used opium and who experienced the “...extreme euphoria initially,” as well as the hellish results of addiction in the later stages, “...the darkness and nightmares.” In the late eighteen hundreds, at the time of the Monroe Doctrine which spoke of American autonomy and non-involvement in European wars, and in the early nineteen hundreds, opium was consumed widely and openly in Europe, England and the United States. It could be purchased in the local chemist shops or drug stores as we call them; women took laudanum drops in a glass of water for the ‘vapors’ or other ailments. We were a nation of opium ‘eaters’, however, in terms of actual volume, more opium is now consumed in various forms illegally in the United States than during that early period. 

“The State Department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) plays a key role in carrying out the President’s National Drug Control Strategy by leading the development and implementation of U.S. International drug control efforts. INL manages a diverse range of counter-narcotics programs in 150 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and Europe. These bilateral, regional and global initiatives aim to fight the cultivation of drug crops at their source, disrupt the trafficking of drugs and precursor chemicals, and help build host-nation law enforcement capacity.”

(Nancy J. Powell, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, July 12, 2005, Washington D.C.) 

The efforts of the US government to get a handle on the drug and opium problem, continues world-wide. Since more than ninety percent of the opium of the world is grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan, special efforts are made there to slow down opium growing, because its sale, transport and processing, provide the very ones we are fighting in our world against terror with the financial means to carry out their activities. Taliban and Al Qaeda receive some of their financial backing from such drug trafficking. Corrupt officials at every level have their hands out for bribes to allow the growth of the opium poppy, the transport of opium and processing of it, and this trade is growing.

A blind eye. It seems there are many along the way when it comes to opium. Such blindness pays off very well. So well in fact, that the small business man has learned that huge profits can be made by becoming part of the purchase and sale of opium; much like we buy stocks, they buy shares in its purchase, transport and sale. Many of these actors are not huge investors by international standards. Sixty thousand rupees may seem a vast sum to many Pakistanis, however, $6000 may not be a huge investment in other parts of the world. But it is small investors like this who make it all happen, make the opium flow freely across international borders to Iran and on to Europe and the States. We in the western world are the eventual buyers which make it all possible. We are the consumers, the infidel opium eaters.

I talked with a few opium growers in NWFP, the small-fry types, and asked if this was not an activity proscribed by their religion. They were surprised at my question, “Of course not, the growing, sale and dealing with opium is business, a way for a man to make a living by growing a crop.” They were amazed at my placing an immoral connotation on the activity. But when it comes to talking about foreigners in their country who are trying to manipulate them, to destroy them if they do their business, then the strong ‘moral and immoral’ words fly, shaitan, words of condemnation and frustration, oaths calling on Allah to destroy the infidel invaders. Americans, by Nancy Powell’s own words, are involved in 150 countries carrying out anti-narcotic activities; involved in an equal number of military programs, carrying out our nation’s efforts to control and fight against our enemies, terrorism and anti-democratic activity. “While undermining the narcotics industry through successful eradication and interdiction, we are also helping extend democracy and strengthen security...by building democratic institutions that provide security and justice.” (Counter-narcotics Programs, 5/23/2007)

The small man in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt or Iran looks at this monster and sees the big infidel bully that is pushing around, getting its way in the world through the power of money and the might of armed force. Hatred! Why? Hatred is focused against this force that is such a powerful agent for change; hatred is the strong emotional undercurrent to undermine it. Drugs, opium and the power of it on the international market has provided the little man, the student of truth, the Taliban, with tools to undermine our world-wide efforts of domination, albeit extending democracy. The more we buy opium, the stronger their cause. Our appetite for opium means the Taliban will prosper. Their strength is surprising. President Karzai was their target for assassination in April of 2008. He did not die, but others around him did. Puppets are hated as vehemently as the one who holds the strings. Puppets, whether they be leaders ‘nominated’ by America in Iraq, leaders who are supported in Israel, or even those wearing the green robes of aristocracy in Afghanistan are looked at in distaste; but it is really the string pullers who are the target of hatred, the demon puppet master.

Our threats in Jan. 2008 to go after ‘them’ in Pakistan from our already compromised ‘puppet’ base in Afghanistan drew surprisingly strong words from President Musharraf during his hay day. If I may paraphrase it, “Don’t mess with your troops and anti-terrorist programs on Pakistani soil. The terrain is terribly rough out there, you won’t like it.” (Italics mine) We are not used to having ‘sovereign nations’ react like this, particularly Islamic nations who accept our foreign aid to the tune of a billion dollars of American taxpayer money in AID, a great deal of which is used for their military purposes. 

The little guys, thousands of them, support the ‘opium eaters’ through their moving opium on the back roads from Afghanistan, through Pakistan and to the markets beyond. Opium is the livelihood of thousands of farmers, thousands of merchants and truck drivers, thousands of shippers. These actors on a small stage in Pakistan say their lines in the play on drugs with halting voices, but keep the play alive.

I have walked on small paths in the opium fields on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and talked to the farmers. They make so little from their sales of raw opium; it is those who buy it and move it that reap the huge financial benefits. I have talked to the farmers about trying alternative crops; they smile and say, yes, yes, sahib. Stretching out in front of me were vast acres of white and red blossoms, another harvest of opium getting ready for the opium eaters. I have on my computer screen a wonderful picture of Afghani men harvesting opium, standing in their fields as British and American tanks rumble by on the dirt roads, oblivious to the harvesting activity around them, and carefully staying on the roads between the poppy fields. That picture is the metaphor for opium eaters.