Haqqani Network has become Achilles Heel of USA

Haqqani Network has become Achilles Heel of USA

 

Asif Haroon Raja

 

Civil war in Afghanistan is raging since 1976. It saw relative calm and stability during brief spell of Taliban rule, but peace was snatched away by USA and the country was again pushed into the inferno. Ongoing war lit in October 2001 is continuing and has become the longest war in its history. One of the most impecunious countries of the world is being continuously trampled under the boots of US-NATO forces for over a decade without any respite and this gruesome process is likely to continue for some more time. Having failed to subdue Afghan resistance forces despite applying excessive force and dirty tricks, occupation forces are now at the verge of throwing in their towel and departing.    

 

Concluding that military option alone will lead nowhere; of late the US has been following dual-track policy of slapping the Taliban with one hand and offering lollypops with the other. While the slaps are reserved for the hardliners who fight and refuse to negotiate, the lollypops are for the moderates showing inclinations to negotiate and promising to make the hardliners led by Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani agree to talk with Americans. The US has been constantly trying to win over Mullah Omar or Jalaluddin Haqqani or any of his sons like Sirajuddin and Badruddin since it has realized that without their cooperation political settlement is not possible.

 

Ironically, while the US has been pushing Pakistan to go after Haqqani Network (HN) in North Waziristan (NW) since early 2010, it secretly kept wooing leadership of HN to breakaway from Mullah Omar and join Karzai’s government. Services of ISI were availed to establish contacts. HN turned into most wanted target after its leaders refused to fall into the US trap and rebuffed the overtures of USA as well as several other countries. Sirajuddin conveyed in clear terms that that HN was not a separate entity but part of Taliban under Ameer-ul Momineen Mullah Omar who is regarded by each member of his group with deep sense of respect and approbation and would obey his and not US commands. All this has now been disclosed by Wall Street Journal.

 

In its bid to break the will of Taliban and make them agree to US terms so that senseless war could end, apart from stepping up aerial and ground raids in Afghanistan, CIA accelerated the rate of drone strikes in NW and also kept up its pressure on Pakistan to launch a major military operation in NW and eliminate alleged safe havens of militants. Reluctance on part of Pakistan Army to open a new front owing to social, political, financial and military constraints as well as its strong suspicion that the US was playing a double game strengthened US spin doctors to accuse Pakistan that it is aligned with Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda. Secretary Defence Leon Panetta went to the extent of saying that either Pakistan is complicit or incompetent. In the wake of intensification of attacks by Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months, the US started holding HN responsible and urged Pakistan to destroy its sanctuaries in NW.

 

To dispel the false impression created by US military leaders that lot of progress had been made against the Taliban, the latter undertook spectacular offensive actions in and around Kabul. A daring attack was launched on Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul on 28 June. Murders of two important aides Ahmad Wali Karzai and Jan Muhammad in July in Kandahar who were supposedly making secret parleys with the Taliban upset the US and Karzai’s plans to broker a political settlement. Downing of US Chinook in Wardak in August took the lives of 38 American soldiers of Special Forces including 23 belonging to unit of Navy Seals that had taken part in Operation ‘Get Geronimo’ on 2 May. Truck bomb attack on the NATO military base in Wardak on 10 September resulted in death to five and injuries to 96 including 80 US soldiers, out of which several succumbed to injuries.

 

Of all the attacks, September 13 attack on US Embassy, NATO HQ and Afghan National Security Directorate in the most protected capital city of Kabul was more worrisome for the US. Not only this attack exposed the fragility of security system but also laid bare the weakness of security forces which had no clue how to deal with six militants who had paralyzed the capital city for 20 hours. ISAF’s confidence in ANA that it was ready to takeover security duties was also shattered. The US was still to recover from the shock when peace maker Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber on 20 September which gave a deadly blow to peace process. It depressed Karzai so deeply that he gave up on negotiations with Taliban.

 

Dumbfounded by string of deadly attacks by Taliban and not knowing how to cover up their embarrassment, the US military officials led by retiring Admiral Mike Mullen hastened to fabricate a charge-sheet against Pakistan’s ISI asserting that it was linked with HN which was ISI’s veritable arm and the two were involved in 13 September attack. HN was declared as irredeemably violent and criminal outfit. During his meeting with Gen Kayani in Spain, Mullen had urged him to rid the US of the monster of HN at the earliest but his tone was friendly. But on 22 September when he addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee, he looked haggard and emaciated and his blunt and harsh utterances betrayed his inner anxieties. Cameron Munter, Ryan Crocker and Panetta joined the Pakistan-HN condemning choral group and alleged that Pakistan was in cahoots with HN. Hillary Clinton’s over three hours session with the visiting Hina Rabbani revolved entirely around HN and the necessity to mount an operation in NW. It was quite apparent that the US had decided to make Pakistan a scapegoat and cover up its recurring failings.              

 

Pak-US relations have been continuously sliding down in the aftermath of Raymond Davis and 2 May incidents. Rather than feeling remorseful and trying to compensate Pakistan for the wrongs done, the attitude of US officials has remained puffed-up and bossy. They are now threatening to take unilateral action in NW in case Pakistan didn’t agree to do so and chase out HN. The latter has become Achilles Heels of USA which is giving it nightmares. The US has become so obsessed with the small band of 3-4000 fighters in NW that it has declared that no progress can be achieved in Afghanistan without their elimination.

    

To make matters worse for the marooned US military in Afghanistan, its strongest ally Pakistan which has taken the major brunt of war and sacrificed the most is having second thoughts over its alliance with USA, which has given it a raw deal. Instead of getting over awed and frightened, Pakistan has taken the bullying US officials by complete surprise by giving a befitting reply. The Army took the lead in showing eyes to the US and the government gave a pleasant surprise to the nation when it followed suit. Soon after, it held an All Parties Conference. 13-point resolution laid out that Pakistan will give peace a chance and will not abide by the dictates of the US which are against its national interests.

 

The US got yet another shock when it found the divided nation standing united and resolutely behind the government, Army and ISI. The outrage expressed by Pakistani nation has taken the heat out of the US aggressive posturing and has put the US administration on the defensive. It has been forced to take immediate steps to defuse the highly volatile situation. Although Pakistan has sailed passed the worst crisis, however, it will take time for the storm to fully subside, since several involved players having high stakes in Afghanistan would try to keep Pakistan in a tight corner.

 

Bridging of trust deficit will require sincere and concerted efforts from both sides. Hawks in US military and in CIA egged on by Jewish and Indian lobbyists will keep Pakistan under pressure to make it abide by their dictates.  Indo-Afghan strategic alliance is also aimed at giving a message to Pakistan to behave. Accusation by Kabul that Pakistan had a hand in Burhanuddin’s murder and latest revelation that six persons have been held in Kabul over an alleged plot to assassinate Afghan President is an indication that plot makers will keep cooking incriminating stories to implicate Pakistan and get it declared as a terrorist state, or ISI as a rogue outfit. Pakistan should not relent under any circumstances and should face the challenge gallantly.     

 

The writer is a retired Brig, author of several books and a defence analyst. Email: asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: The Escalation of BP's Liability

Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: The Escalation of BP's Liability

As oil, sickness and contamination persist, Gulf residents and lawyers file thousands of lawsuits against the oil giant.

by Dahr Jamail

Global Research, October 5, 2011

Al Jazeera - 2011-10-03

PHOTO: Residents of Grand Isle, Louisiana, display their signs of protest [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

"If you got caught humping another woman - [if] you're both naked and caught in the act - you'd want BP to explain to your wife how it didn't happen."

This colorful analogy was proposed by Dean Blanchard, a seafood distributor on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to explain oil giant BP's continuing machinations to evade liability in the aftermath of the April 2010 disaster.

During a recent discussion in his office, Blanchard told Al Jazeera that the fishing waters off Louisiana are only producing one per cent of the shrimp they formerly produced. "Half of the local fishermen have shut down," he stated. "They are dying. And [as] for the fishing, every day they are hauling dead porpoises in front of my place. I have a claim filed with BP, but none of us in the seafood business are being paid."

Speculating that he may soon have to close down his company, Blanchard spoke for hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who remain angry and frustrated when he added: "I worked 30 years to establish my business, and now BP has destroyed my life."

Fallout and responsibility

In a key investigative report released on September 14, the US government heaped most of the blame for the oil disaster on BP, which now faces a raft of criminal and civil litigation and billions of dollars in potential damages.

The report concluded that BP violated federal regulations, ignored safety concerns and crucial warnings, and made careless decisions during the cementing of the well nearly two kilometres underwater.

"That report summarised what we already knew, and it will help establish the punitive damage case against the defendant [BP]," New Orleans-based attorney Stuart Smith, representing more than 1,000 cases against BP, told Al Jazeera.

Smith has been litigating against oil companies for 25 years, and in 2001 was lead counsel in a case that resulted in a $1bn verdict against ExxonMobil.

"The fastest way to lose a toxic tort case is to rely on the government or the defendant to collect the evidence," explained Smith, whose firm has spent more than $2m for its client's cases by collecting samples and data and having them analysed by experts.

As litigation against BP continues to mount, several studies have confirmed Smith and Blanchard's concerns about the deep impact of BP's oil disaster.

One recent study carried out by experts at Auburn University concluded that mats of oil that remain submerged on the seabed could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems. Large quantities of tar balls and oil mats have washed ashore, or have been uncovered by recent storms, at Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, as well as at several beaches in Louisiana and in Pensacola, Florida. A recent Al Jazeera over-flight of the area near BP's capped Macondo well, the origin of the April 2010 disaster, revealed a long swathe of oil and sheen.

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist and MacArthur Fellow, has - since autumn of 2010 - been conducting tests on seafood and sediment samples along the Gulf for chemicals present in BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants.

"Tests have shown significant levels of oil pollution in oysters and crabs along the Louisiana coastline," Subra told Al Jazeera. "We have also found high levels of hydrocarbons in the soil and vegetation."

In response to the question of what local, state and federal governments are doing about the ongoing chemical exposures, Subra declared: "There is a lack of concern by the government agencies and the [oil] industry. There is a leaning towards wanting to say it is all fixed and let's move on, when it is not."

Blanchard, who perceives the federal government's inadequate response to the BP disaster as evidence of its collusion with the oil giant, meanwhile joked: "We're fixing to have a fundraiser to try to buy our politicians back from BP."

Health effects

On June 1, 2010, BP board chairman Henric Svanberg announced, in accordance with the company's pledge to provide $20bn in compensation to persons harmed by the disaster: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."

According to attorney Stuart Smith, however, neither oil companies nor the US government properly tends to citizens who suffer as a result of their policies.

"I've spent 25 years suing the oil and gas industry, and the government has never been on the side of the people," Smith informed Al Jazeera. "But the extent to which they've behaved that way this time is unbelievable. The government has not even acknowledged any health impact [from the disaster]."

Over the course of his career, Smith has represented a number of chemical plant employees with a condition known as toxic encephalopathy, a degenerative neurological disorder that can result in permanent brain damage. Caused by exposure to toxic substances, symptoms of the condition include memory loss, concentration difficulties, fatigue, seizures, depression, light-headedness, headaches and nausea. Similar symptoms are now being experienced by residents of the Gulf Coast.

Indeed, since July 2010, Al Jazeera has spoken with scores of Gulf residents, fishermen, and clean-up workers who have blamed negative health effects on the chemicals from BP's oil and dispersants.

"The government knew about … peer-reviewed studies of what happens when people are exposed to these chemicals, and millions have been exposed," Smith stated. "Peer-reviewed scientific literature shows that you'll have these health problems, and yet the government does nothing."

Al Jazeera recently spoke with Steven Aguinaga, a 33-year-old father of three who confirmed that he acquired "critically high levels of chemicals" in his body after swimming with his friend Merrick Vallian at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

"At the time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good," said Aguinaga. "I've been extremely sick ever since."

Al Jazeera has covered this subject extensively, and, given that BP has just confirmed filing a plan with US regulators to pursue its first deepwater oil work in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 2010 disaster, concerns of future problems persist. According to BP's application, the company wants to drill four new wells at a depth of 1770 metres (244 metres deeper than the Macondo well) in an area approximately 300km off the Louisiana coast.

Ecological litigation

A biological study published on September 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that effects of the oil on a small Louisiana marsh fish, the killifish, could be an early warning sign of trouble ahead for fish populations.

"The message that seafood is safe to eat doesn't necessarily mean that the animals are out of the woods," said Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of biology at Louisiana State University and a lead researcher in the study, which found that the fish were being exposed to oil in the sediment. The study indicates that the same kinds of health and reproduction problems are likely to occur in the Gulf as were witnessed among herring, salmon, and other animal populations in the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster, which prompted significant losses among various species.

Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, said in a written statement: "This study is alarming because similar health effects seen in fish, sea otters, and harlequin ducks following the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska were predictive of population impacts, from decline to outright collapse."

Unfortunately for BP, the Centre for Biological Diversity (CBD) is now suing the company for $19bn. A group that utilises the law to protect the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive, CBD has an unparalleled record of legal successes, winning 93 per cent of its lawsuits.

"We have sued them under the Clean Water Act," Kieran Suckling, the executive director and founder of the CBD, told Al Jazeera. "The way the Act works is it levies a fine based on the number of gallons [of oil] spilled and how malicious or criminal BP was acting when the spill occurred."

According to Suckling, BP "should be made to pay $19bn under the Clean Water Act and in so doing be found to be criminally negligent. That $19bn should [consist of] entirely new funds, not including anything they've already put out, and those funds should be dedicated to Gulf Coast restoration."

CBD estimates that "approximately 6,000 sea turtles, 26,000 dolphins and whales, 82,000 birds, and countless fish and invertebrates may have been harmed by the disaster."

Cyn Sarthough, meanwhile, is the executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), an environmental group active in all of the states along the Gulf of Mexico. GRN, like CBD, sues companies and government organisations that violate environmental laws.

"Much of our litigation is against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the group that was formerly the Minerals Management Service (MMS)," Sarthough told Al Jazeera. "There is also a challenge to BP's original oil spill response plan. We are engaged in this with several other claimants … [The plan BP] had in place was inappropriate and failed to meet safety requirements because it grossly exaggerated BP's response capabilities."

BP's liability: 'From bad to disastrous'

The Gulf Coast-based law firm Brent Coon and Associates (BCA) is considered one of the world's foremost experts on BP, and has successfully sued the oil giant in the past.

Brent Coon was the lead attorney in a case against BP for a 2005 explosion at its refinery in Texas that killed 15 workers. His firm forced BP to accept full responsibility and to compensate the victims and their families.

BCA now represents more than 5,000 claimants from BP's Gulf disaster and has been appointed by the Plaintiff's Steering Committee to head several key sub-committees relating to discovery.

"We represent a cross section of claimants, who range from people who worked within the oil industry, to shrimpers, captains, deck hands, restaurant and condominium owners," Coon told Al Jazeera in April. "We want full restitution and reparations for harm done by BP."

Coon reiterated that other companies involved in the disaster, such as Halliburton and Transocean, need to be held accountable as well. He remarked:

"From what I've seen, after representing thousands of people who were made sick or died from petrochemical industry hazards over the years, companies like BP, Exxon, Citgo, Shell, and others do not mind killing people as the cost of doing business, even when it's their own employees. I've seen it time and time again."

Coon additionally argued that, "[u]nless you criminally prosecute these people and make them pay for their decisions, they do not have a sufficient deterrent for the way they do business. Unless the government steps in and criminally prosecutes these bastards and hold them accountable, nothing is going to change".

According to Coon's calculations, BP will be forced to pay out another $10-20bn to cover economic claims. Some experts expect the total could be much more than that, even as high as $30bn.

Lawyer Stuart Smith agrees, writing recently that the federal government report on the 2010 disaster has caused the "state of BP's legal liability" to go "from bad to disastrous".
He believes the report presents "incriminating new evidence" that "increases the likelihood that criminal charges will be brought" against the oil giant, and predicts the new findings will push BP to offer large settlements to spill victims, particularly commercial fishermen and charter boat captains.

"The company wants to put this nightmare in its rearview mirror as quickly as possible," added Smith, "both from a PR and business perspective." Corroborating this viewpoint is a recent Reuters report citing an anonymous BP insider as declaring: "We would like everything settled as soon as we can, otherwise you have lingering reputation issues and investor uncertainty."

Judge Carl Barbier, who will be hearing the civil damages claims against BP, has set a trial date for February 2012. According to Reuters, another source close to BP has anticipated: "I expect that early next year you will see the mother of all settlements."

If BP is found to have been grossly negligent, which the company denies, it could be fined over $21bn in Clean Water Act fines alone.

Given that the latest government report links the accident to BP's cost-cutting efforts, Professor Zygmunt Plater at Boston College Law School said claimants could receive a multiple of any compensatory award, which would mean that even at a 1:1 punitive-to-economic damage ratio, BP may have to offer at least an additional $5bn to cover punitive awards.

Smith is urging people with ongoing litigation against BP to stay the course: "Clients that hold out will, in the end, be compensated, because BP won't want to go to trial [since] the punitive damages will be so great."

He, along with Coon, feels his clients are going to get what they deserve.

"In light of this latest federal report, I think it may take more than $30bn to cover all the cases," said Smith. "One thing's for sure, BP is feeling the heat. We'll see early next year just how much the company will put on the table to make all this liability disappear, like so many gallons of crude."

Dahr Jamail is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Dahr Jamail

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