US “SECRET” PLANS FOR AFGHANISTAN
PART TWO of the “SILK ROAD” posts:
Again, please forgive the lack of polish here; this is the fourth time I’ve written an introduction only to have the document somehow eaten up in my files, and it will be the fourth time I’ve tried to post the articles.
Basically, the information from the following four articles indicates that the intent of the US is to remain in the Caspian Sea/Persian Gulf/Balkan regions for a long time; even if Osama Bin Laden is caught right away.
However, there is a familiar refrain in this plan; “Operation Noble Eagle”.
Apparently the first objective is to replace the head of the Afghanistan government with a “puppet”.
This is the standard operation first step when multinational corporations move into a region that they wish to exploit the resources of.
In this case, CIA will replace the government overtly instead of covertly.
The “puppet” will be under the thumb of a NATO/UN overseeing body, as Unocal has asked for in many US government meetings.
The second step will be to institute a corporate/military army to maintain the pipeline route.
Again, standard tactics, but this time we have involved the Global governmental bodies.
Looks like we will call this a “Global War on Terrorism”.
I hope someone recognizes this is simply a larger scale version of “Plan Columbia,”
except in this case the “Outsourced Tyranny” is US and Allied international troops.
Notice that Turkmenistan, where the oil and gas pipelines to China are to originate, has granted permission for US spy planes to fly over.
Notice in the fourth article:
“William Farish, the American ambassador to Britain and a close friend of President George W Bush, has said US policy advisers are evaluating how best to safeguard American and European interests in the region, including planned pipelines to the vast oil and gas reserves of central Asia.
…Farish outlined a very different possible scenario, in which Nato strengthened its presence in the region, turning the Balkans into a prominent theatre of operations and training. Perhaps reflecting US fears of a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, a Nato ally, Farish sees the Balkans as a possible buffer zone in future against unstable regimes to the east.
…Farish said the key thinkers behind Bush's strategy were his deputy, Dick Cheney; the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld; the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; and the secretary of state, Colin Powell. Their policy would be geared towards long-term stability, rather than what Farish described as the haphazard troop deployments of the Clinton years.
"We won't see American troops thrown into every crisis like it's a dartboard," he said.
The new ambassador is hardly limiting his field of vision, however. A son of one of the five great oil families of Houston, Texas, Farish is fascinated by the "black gold" that lies in large quantities in the countries around the Caspian Sea. He sees America's relationship with Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, as vital to its future influence in the area.”
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WELL FOLKS, THAT ABOUT SAYS IT ALL.
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Secret memo reveals US plan to overthrow Taliban regime
Special report: terrorism in the US
Special report: Afghanistan
Ian Traynor in Tajikistan and Gary Younge in Washington
Guardian
Friday September 21, 2001
The US government is pressing its European allies to agree to a military campaign to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and replace it with an interim administration under United Nations auspices.
Diplomatic cables from the Washington embassy of a key Nato ally, seen by the Guardian, report that the US is keen to hear allied views on "post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country".
The embassy cable reveals that the US administration is bent on force to evict the Taliban from power because of the shelter it has offered Osama bin Laden, named by the White House as prime suspect for the New York and Washington atrocities on September 11.
The Guardian has also learned that two large US Hercules transport aircraft landed in Tashkent, capital of the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, on Tuesday loaded with surveillance equipment to be installed along the northern Afghan border.
The secret landing represented a radical departure since it appeared to herald the deployment of squadrons of US fighters at Uzbekistan's sprawling airfield at Termez, directly on the border. Such a build-up would incur the wrath of Russia which views the central Asian republics as its backyard.
The Pentagon yesterday continued its move to a war footing, with orders for up to 130 heavy bombers, fighters, aerial refuelling planes and other combat aircraft to be deployed around the Middle East and Central Asia region.
Two B-52 bombers yesterday left Barksdale airbase in Louisiana, joining F-15E fighter-bombers, F-16 fighters, B-1 long range bombers and E-3 Awacs airborne command-and-control aircraft that left on Wednesday.
The navy has also sent an additional aircraft carrier toward the Middle East region,which along with the air deployment could place up to 500 US warplanes in the Mediterranean, Gulf and Indian Ocean areas.
Tony Blair, in Washington last night to meet Mr Bush, suggested military strikes inside Afghanistan, targeted on Bin Laden's training camps, could come in a matter of days. "These people, if they could, would get access to chemical, biological and nuclear capability. We have no option but to act," he said.
The US strategy to depose the Taliban regime is based on more than military thinking. A further plank appears to entail supporting the campaign of the exiled 86-year-old monarch of Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah, to return to power by encouraging the guerrilla army of the Northern Alliance opposition to fall in behind him.
Diplomatic documents seen by the Guardian show that Washington is funding and organising the travel of several Northern Alliance figures to Rome to confer with the exiled monarch who is expected to call for a revolution.
"The king plans to call on all the Afghan tribes to rise up against the Taliban," the diplomatic cable reported yesterday, citing the advice of the US administration.
US plans to overthrow the Taliban regime were revealed when a senior European politician in Washington this week was told by the US administration that it wanted to hear his country's views on how Afghanistan should be run after the Taliban were defeated and that "closer consultations" were necessary.
The Americans also spoke of a role for the UN in the new "interim administration" for Afghanistan and for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in central Asia, without mentioning Nato.
Washington is routinely sceptical of the UN and OSCE, but the key role was seen as an attempt to build as broad a coalition as possible behind the imminent campaign.
The Europeans, Russia, and even China might be swayed by the unusual US inclusiveness, diplomats said. "It's a major change of US policy," said one.
The spying mission in Uzbekistan is also fraught with political risk. The two Hercules could not fly over Iran, but Turkmenistan, the third ex-Soviet state bordering Afghanistan granted permission.
However, diplomats said the Turkmens were less keen to grant overflying rights to US fighter aircraft heading for the Afghan border.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4261737,00.html
US And Britain's Secret Plans For 10-Year War
By Michael Evans
Defense Editor
The Times - London
9-20-1
Generals rule out 'D-Day invasion'
AMERICA and Britain are producing secret plans to launch a ten-year "war on terrorism" - Operation Noble Eagle - involving a completely new military and diplomatic strategy to eliminate terrorist networks and cells around the world.
Despite the mass build-up of American forces in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, there will be no "D-Day invasion" of Afghanistan and no repeat of the US-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991, defence sources say.
The notion that a US-led multinational coalition would attack Afghanistan from all sides for harbouring Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi dissident leader and prime suspect for the terrorist outrages in New York and Washington, has been rejected in Washington and London. The sources also say that the planned campaign is not being focused on just "bringing bin Laden to justice".
The build-up of firepower by the Americans in the region, notably the two aircraft carrier battle groups that are to be joined by a third carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt, is seen as a major display of available military capability. While it is important for these assets to be in the right place in case of a political decision to launch a strike, there are no plans for a "short-term fix".
The dramatically different anti-terrorism campaign is being planned to meet what is now regarded as the most dangerous threat to global security, known as asymmetric warfare. "We're expecting it to last from five to ten years," one source said.
New ideas are needed to counter small groups armed with the minimum of weaponry, whether conventional or non-conventional. Such groups have the capability to attack a nation as powerful as the United States, which is equipped with the full range of modern weapons and professional Armed Forces.
Old doctrines for fighting wars, based on lining up tanks and artillery and layers of troops, are being thrown out and replaced by a more subtle and wide-ranging doctrine which seeks to defeat the enemy at its own game. "The aim is not to go for the enemy's strengths, but its weaknesses," one source said.
American and British planners are working on the basis that military strikes will take place only as part of a broader global counter-terrorist operation, embracing every other type of international action - diplomatic, economic and political.
Most of the focus of the ten-year campaign plan, the sources say, is on using military action as a potent back-up to all the other strands of Operation Noble Eagle.
However, President Bush, conscious of the demand for "revenge" from the American public, might sanction shorter-term military operation by special forces, or airstrikes, but only if there is sufficient intelligence to guarantee a sucessful outcome. "There's no point in firing a lot of missiles at bin Laden if they miss their target, or launching Tomahawks at bin Laden training camps if they are empty," one source said.
Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, also gave the strongest hint yesterday of what Operation Noble Eagle is all about. "I think what you will see evolve over the next six, eight, ten, 12 months, probably over a period of years, is a coalition to help battle terrorists," he told CNN.
He added: "This is a very new type of conflict or battle or campaign or war or effort, for the United States. We're moving in a measured manner. As we gather information, we're preparing appropriate courses of action, and they run across the political and economic and financial, military, intelligence spectrum."
British officials said the whole focus of the long-term American approach was being driven by Richard Cheney, the American Vice-President, and General Colin Powell, the Secretary of State. The combination of the two highly experienced men was guaranteeing a well-coordinated strategy. "Everyone now knows it's going to be a long haul, not a spectacular single strike," one official said.
The war on terrorism could be likened, they said, to the war on drugs or poverty, and the best way to undermine and eventually dismantle the terrorist structures around the world was to use the method of "hearts and minds" - encouraging foreign governments and people to join in the "war" so that terrorists would be isolated and identified.
Some of the most dramatic achievements, the sources say, might come, not from military action, but from political pressure on foreign governments to turn their backs on terrorism and to hand over the organisers of terrorist networks.
They point to the campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. Although the airstrikes fitted more closely to the "old doctrine concept" of using massed firepower to target the enemy, which brought criticism from many parts of the world, Nato was also seen to be working as a humanitarian agency with its operation in Albania helping to build shelters for the thousands of refugees pouring out of Kosovo.
The eventual outcome, the political downfall of Slobodan Milosevic and the decision by the new Government to hand him over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, is seen as a classic example of how military action can serve two purposes, defeating the enemy and effecting political change.
In the Gulf War, the American-led coalition achieved one objective, driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait, but not the other, the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein by his own people.
Already, the sources say, just over a week after the terrorist attacks in America, there have been positive developments: the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed a new ceasefire and 1,000 clerics have been forced to gather in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, to discuss the fate of bin Laden.
Yesterday it was also announced that President Putin is to visit Nato headquarters in Brussels on October 3 and will meet Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the Secretary- General, another positive sign that the Russian leader supports the campaign against terrorism.
Russia and Nato put out a joint statement last week condemning the terrorist attacks and vowing that they would not go unpunished.
Other coalitions against terrorism are also being rapidly formed and several countries, notably Pakistan yesterday, have offered bases for American military action.
However, sources in Washington say there are no plans to deploy huge numbers of US troops to Pakistan, which would only inflame Islamic fundamentalists opposed to the decision by President Musharraf to grant US access to two air bases in the country.
http://www.rense.com/general14/10yr.htm
Osama not the only target: US
WASHINGTON: The United States says its worldwide campaign against terrorism will continue even if Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden is handed over along with his associates as it wants to "treat the problem as a whole."
Meting out justice to Bin Laden and his associates "is only a little piece" of the anti-terrorism mission the Bush administration has undertaken, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in television interviews.
Wolfowitz, one of the major strategists in the administration, said: "There's states that support them with intelligence and explosives and planning. They have sanctuaries ... And ability to operate that has to be ended. "It means going after regimes that actively support state terrorism. Osama Bin Laden is part of the problem, but it is a much bigger problem."
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Wolfowitz said, is one of the most active supporters of state terorism.
Saddam and leaders of Palestinian militant group Hamas are the only serious leaders in the Middle East who have applauded the terrorist acts in the US, he said.
"He (Saddam) is shooting at American pilots. So he remains a problem. He is one of the problems. Osama Bin Laden is one of the problems. There are networks, including not only Bin Laden's, but other radical anti-American networks. We are going to have this as a campaign and treat the problem as a whole," Wolfowitz said.
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=1975040948
US to build buffer zone in Balkans
Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent
THE Bush administration is planning to strengthen its military presence in the Balkans, which it now sees as a potential buffer against terror threats from the east.
William Farish, the American ambassador to Britain and a close friend of President George W Bush, has said US policy advisers are evaluating how best to safeguard American and European interests in the region, including planned pipelines to the vast oil and gas reserves of central Asia.
Before Bush became president it was widely thought he favoured a phased withdrawal of troops from Bosnia and Kosovo. During a recent visit to Bondsteel, the main American base in Kosovo, he said the burden of peacekeeping should be borne by European armies. But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Farish told The Sunday Times that foreign policy was being radically rethought.
"I think all of that is under review now, particularly in light of recent developments," he said in an interview. "What the final deployment is, is something that is under discussion - as it falls into play with the whole terrorist plan."
Unusually for a new ambassador to Britain, Farish hopes to visit the Balkans within the next three weeks, and to assess American policy in Macedonia, the region's current tinderbox, before reporting back to Bush.
He identified the Northern Ireland peace process and enlisting support for Bush's national missile defence plan as his other foreign policy priorities.
Although Nato's operation to collect weapons from rebel Albanians ends this week, Nato planners are hoping many of the troops involved can stay on until a follow-up mission is agreed with the Macedonian government. Hardline members of the government in Skopje want Nato out of the country.
Farish outlined a very different possible scenario, in which Nato strengthened its presence in the region, turning the Balkans into a prominent theatre of operations and training. Perhaps reflecting US fears of a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, a Nato ally, Farish sees the Balkans as a possible buffer zone in future against unstable regimes to the east.
There are currently 3,350 American peacekeepers in Bosnia among a total Nato-led force of 18,000, and 6,200 in Kosovo, among a force of 37,500. Several hundred American troops are providing logistical support for the arms-gathering operation in Macedonia.
Farish said the key thinkers behind Bush's strategy were his deputy, Dick Cheney; the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld; the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; and the secretary of state, Colin Powell. Their policy would be geared towards long-term stability, rather than what Farish described as the haphazard troop deployments of the Clinton years.
"We won't see American troops thrown into every crisis like it's a dartboard," he said.
The new ambassador is hardly limiting his field of vision, however. A son of one of the five great oil families of Houston, Texas, Farish is fascinated by the "black gold" that lies in large quantities in the countries around the Caspian Sea. He sees America's relationship with Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, as vital to its future influence in the area.
"I think we'll see a whole new era between the United States and Russia," he said. "Putin appears to be very direct, very straightforward - he and President Bush will get along very well."
Last week the former prime minister of Kazakhstan, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, said America should join forces with Russia and use former Soviet pipelines to move oil to northern and southern Europe.
Farish believes the stability of Macedonia, which lies on a projected pipeline route between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, is vital to the region's economic development. "The whole area is in a state of flux," he said. "It's going to be a fascinating study for the next few years."
The remains of 72 Muslims, believed to have been killed by Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 Bosnia war, have been exhumed over the past five days from a mass grave in the northwest of the country, a Muslim-led commission for war missing said yesterday. The bodies appeared to have been thrown down a 280ft cliff, which was mined so that rock and soil collapsed over them.
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/09/23/stifgneur02003.html
STAY TUNED FOR PART THREE!
Phoenix
