Asia Times Special

Asia Times:
The other September 11

By Pepe Escobar
Sep 12, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - You don't need an Osama bin Laden to pull a September 11. Forget Boeings-turned-into-missiles crashing into twin towers. Switch for a moment to four military planes bombing a presidential palace - and replay a different September 11 movie starring Dick and Henry. "Dick", of course, is the late US president Richard Nixon. "Henry" was his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. Foreign policy-wise, it's quite an enlightening plot.

Scene 1: Washington, the Oval Office, September 1970. Dr Salvador Allende, a man of culture, grand bourgeois and charismatic founder of the Socialist Party, has just won the presidential election in Chile fair and square, with 36.22% of the votes. Nixon and Kissinger receive Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Richard Helms. Nixon tells Helms, according to Kissinger, that he wants "a major effort to see what could be done to prevent Allende's accession to power. If there were one chance in 10 of getting rid of Allende, we should try it."

Scene 2: Santiago, La Moneda Palace, September 11 of the year 1973, 8am. Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile, is worried about a general called Augusto Pinochet. Radio stations are mute. The navy has taken over Valparaiso - where the president was born. But he worries about his new army commander, chosen less than three weeks ago: "Poor Pinochet, he must have been arrested ..."

General Pinochet is far from arrested: he is conducting a coup. Troops march over Santiago. At 8.30am a solemn military declaration makes treason official. Tanks roll into the city center. At noon, four Stuka planes destroy Allende's private residence on Tomas Moro Street and bomb La Moneda Palace. The president chooses resistance, fighting the troops surrounding the palace and spurning offers of a plane for himself and his family to leave the country. When his capture is imminent, Allende presses his chin against the AK-47 that Cuban leader Fidel Castro gave him, and fires. At 2pm, the military junta takes power. Systematic arrests, torture and executions start almost immediately.

Between these two scenes is the story of a coup that unfolded in slow motion for virtually three years. The United States was still embroiled in Vietnam. Nixon's policy for the whole of Latin America was one word short of "war on terror": "to prevent another Cuba". Nixon simply could not tolerate "that bastard Allende" (in his own words). Chile had the largest copper reserves in the world. Allende was about to nationalize Chilean copper - thus sabotaging the monstrous US corporate profits of Anaconda Copper Mining Co and Kennecott Copper Co, which had been bleeding the country for decades.

The Chilean-destabilization strategy, presided over in detail by Kissinger, developed into a series of operations called Track 1 and Track 2. The CIA tried to stage a coup even before Allende's inauguration on November 1970, giving US$50,000 to a crypto-Nazi gang to kill chief of staff General Rene Schneider on October 22, and bribing generals and admirals. It didn't work.

Allende wanted to develop "a peaceful Chilean way towards socialism". He was elected by workers, peasants and the marginalized, urban lower classes. Educated urban youth celebrated the "socialism of red wine and empanadas" (stuffed pastry). But Washington would prevent any turn to the left by devastating the Chilean economy, deploying mass bribery, spying and blackmail.

Allende in fact was a moderate compared with Chilean popular movements further to the left that occupied factories, lands or just property (1,278 occupations in 1971 alone). Then strikes started to spread (3,200 in 1972). Industrialists sabotaged production. No one could explain how Chilean credit was suddenly cut off in international markets. Loans were suspended.

The CIA, apart from non-stop sabotage, financed strategic strikes - doctors, bank clerks, a very long truck drivers' strike. Conservative newspapers conducted a non-stop vicious disinformation campaign. There were coup rehearsals. And political chaos compounded economic chaos: the Christian Democrats - the centrists - ended up joining the right and the extreme right against Allende.

Nixon got exactly what he wanted. On September 11, US Navy ships monitored all Chilean military bases to warn the plotters about who might be supporting Allende. Pinochet took over and entered history as the definitive, sinister Latin American dictator from central casting.

Dictatorship in Chile coincided with the ascension of neo-liberalism (which in the 1990s would be remixed as "globalization"). Chileans with scholarships had been a fixture of the University of Chicago for years. The charter of neo-liberalism - and Pinochet's Holy Economic Grail - was written by two of them, Sergio de Castro and Arturo Fontaine. Afterward, it was classic division of labor: the armed forces killed while the "Chicago boys" applied neo-liberal economic policies. Military repression assured economic "freedom".

Some other dictators were in place before Pinochet, more were to follow. By the mid-1970s, six US-backed South American dictatorships - Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay - were united in deep secret under the infamous, transnational Operation Condor, a Latino war "of" terror eliminating everyone who was or might become a political adversary.

Condor had two key players: Pinochet in Chile (who kept Condor's centralized computers) and Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay (he died this year in Brazil). The Pinochet regime kept a small lab for the fabrication of botulism soup and nerve gas - which were and remain certified weapons of mass destruction; the chemist responsible later escaped to Uruguay and was assassinated. Orlando Letelier, Chile's ambassador to Washington under Allende in 1970-72, was assassinated under Condor. Who cared? Military fascism was Washington's daily special, every single day.
Pinochet and Condor, in Chile, were responsible for as many victims as September 11: about 3,000, including 1,198 "disappeared". In Argentina, there were officially at least 10,000 dead: for human-rights organizations there were more than 30,000 dead and "disappeared". In Paraguay, there were at least 2,000 dead; in Bolivia at least 350 dead and "disappeared", in Brazil almost 300, in Uruguay almost 200. Families of the "disappeared" are convinced Kissinger knew about everything. He will take his secrets to the grave, as will model dictator Pinochet - who still refuses to die.

Behind the rebuilt La Moneda palace in central Santiago, facing the Ministry of Justice building, there is a statue of Allende. Underneath, the words: "I have faith in Chile and its destiny." These were his last words before he committed suicide, instead of becoming a hostage on South America's September 11.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Fallujah again in the line of US fire

By Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

FALLUJAH, Iraq - After enduring two major assaults, Fallujah, a key city in the western province al-Anbar, is under threat from US forces again. This coincides with news of a classified US intelligence report that the Pentagon is taking "very seriously" - that US forces are losing control of Anbar.

The report, written by Colonel Pete Devlin, the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq, and cited in the US media, said a shortage of US and Iraqi troops in Anbar and the collapse of local governments had left a vacuum that had been exploited by al-Qaeda in Iraq. It painted a poor picture of security prospects in Anbar, which includes Fallujah and Ramadi, Sunni resistance strongholds. It said that the US had been defeated politically, if not militarily, in the province.

This confirms an article last week citing Iraqi police and residents (see US military 'loses control' of key Iraqi province, Asia Times Online, September 7 ).

In Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, residents are edgy. "They destroyed our city twice and they are threatening us a third time," said Ahmed Dhahy, 52. "They want us to do their job for them and turn in those who target them."

Dhahy, who lost 32 relatives when his father's house was bombed by a US aircraft during the April 2004 attack on Fallujah, said the US military had threatened it would destroy the city if resistance fighters were not handed over to them.

"Last week, the Americans used loudspeakers on the backs of their tanks and Humvees to threaten us," Dhahy said. Residents said the US forces warned of a "large military operation" if fighters were not handed over.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no reports of such action.

Fallujah was heavily bombed in April 2004 and again in November that year. The attacks destroyed 75% of the city's infrastructure and left more than 5,000 dead, according to local non-governmental groups.

But after the heavy assaults, resistance fighters have continued to launch attacks against US and official Iraqi forces in the city. Fallujah remains under tight security, with the US military using biometric identification, full body searches and bar-coded identification cards for residents to enter and leave their city.

"The Iraqi resistance has not stopped for a single day despite the huge US Army activities," a city police captain said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The wise men of the city explained to US officials that it is impossible to stop the resistance by military operations, but it seems the Americans prefer to do it the hard way."

The police captain said anti-occupation fighters had increased their activities in the face of sectarian violence in which Shi'ite death squads have killed thousands of Sunnis in Baghdad. Many residents of Fallujah have relatives in the capital city.

Lack of reconstruction and the US military's failure to pay due compensation to victims' families have added to the unrest, the captain said. "There used to be resistance attacks against the US and Iraqi forces in Fallujah daily," said the captain. "But now they have increased to several per day. Many soldiers have been killed and their vehicles destroyed. So it is clear that the security measures they have taken in Fallujah have failed."

Several residents said all sorts of killings had been taking place over the past eight months. Religious leaders have been targeted regularly, with no group claiming responsibility. On Sunday, the former chief of traffic police, Brigadier Ahmed Diraa, was shot dead in his car. Residents in Fallujah said Diraa had quit his post a month earlier.

In the face of killings, and now threats of a new attack, residents remain defiant of the occupation forces. The hardships that people have endured seem to have strengthened rather than weakened them.

"There are so many arrests and killings, and collective punishments, such as random shootings, violent inspection raids, repeated curfews and deliberate cutting of water and electricity," said Mohammed al-Darraji, head of a human-rights group in Fallujah called the Iraqi Center for Human Rights Observation.

"What is going on in this city requires international intervention to protect civilians and to punish those who seriously damaged Fallujah society and committed serious crimes against humanity," Darraji said. His group has been monitoring breaches of the Geneva Conventions in the city since the April 2004 siege.

"There is a long list of collective punishments that have turned the city into a frightful detention camp," he said.

Another human-rights campaigner in Fallujah, who asked to be referred to as Khalid, said human-rights activists in Iraq felt betrayed by the United Nations. The UN had played ignorant "by leaving US troops to act alone in the city", said Khalid, who works with Raya Human Rights, a non-governmental organization in the city. "This was after the media exposed the enormity of the violence and human-rights violations during the last three years."

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI13Ak03.html

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Iran steps back from the brink

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Iran has finally blinked, reportedly agreeing to a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as a confidence-building measure in response to growing international pressure.

This is a welcome development that can potentially take the wind out of the sails of the ship of sanctions planned by the US and its
allies at the United Nations Security Council.

A diplomat close to talks between the European Union high representative on foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, and Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Larijani, in Vienna made the announcement on condition of anonymity.

According to the source, Larijani did not rule out the possibility that Iran would cease uranium enrichment for a month or two. Iran failed to fulfill the requirement of the international community to cease uranium enrichment by August 31, and its case is now before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

It should be noted that Iran imposed conditions on a possible suspension, including, according to some reports, a halt in activity on Iran at the Security Council and a step-down from trying to impose sanctions on Iran.

In response, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated that Iran's temporary suspension of its nuclear program might be enough for the first direct negotiations between the United States and Iran in more than 25 years. Rice said Iran needed to suspend uranium enrichment before talks could begin, but she did not rule out something less than a permanent suspension.

This marks a softening of the US approach, which has steadfastly ruled out any hint of negotiation unless Iran permanently abandons enrichment activities. This hard line has been drawing fire domestically, such as by Senator Chuck Hagel, who has pointed out the need of serious US negotiation with Iran, warning that allies of the United States would support tough action against Iran only if they were confident Washington was serious about achieving a negotiated, diplomatic solution.

Larijani has been a master tactician so far and in making this important concession has proved that he is not quite as unpragmatic and rigid as previously believed. Indeed, he possesses the necessary diplomatic acumen to realize that his earlier criticism of his predecessor, Hassan Rowhani, for inking a similar suspension in October 2004 was not entirely warranted.

Ironically, precisely at the time Larijani was disclosing this important information to Solana, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the Iranian press that returning to the past case of suspension was not "a reality".

This, in turn, raises the question of whether or not Iran's internal debate is over and the concession by Larijani is fully backed by the powers that be in Tehran.

Clearly, this is not an easy decision that can possibly satisfy everyone in Iran. Some hardline elements in the Iranian parliament (majlis) and the media are adamantly opposed to any such concessions, insisting that Iran must remain steadfast on its right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to peaceful nuclear technology, which includes the right to produce nuclear fuel under the safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.

As a result, a small political brush fire can be expected if Iran makes good on this announcement and in the near future re-suspends, albeit temporarily, its nascent nuclear-fuel cycle.

Not to worry too much, however, as Iran has placed the accent on "temporary", and in the overall scheme of things, such as the lack of urgency for nuclear fuel in light of Russian foot-dragging on completing the Bushehr power plant and the technical difficulties Iran has experienced with its cascades of centrifuges, such a move by Iran is prudent and absolutely called for as a crisis-prevention measure.

Reflecting a growing sentiment inside Iran's ruling circles, Iran's former president, Mohammad Khatami, recently told the Financial Times, "We can achieve that right later, if that means we can avoid a crisis."

Indeed, several interrelated factors have converged to bring Iran to this policy shift, ranging from mounting international pressure and the growing prospect of escalating sanctions, to the threat of military action, to Iran's unease about Russia's commitment to complete the expensive nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

Concerning the last, Iran has finally aired its frustration - that the project is now seven years overdue - through Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi. He bluntly told Moscow to make good on its promises to turn Bushehr operational.

Assefi's public comments came in response to reports in the Russian press that Moscow was considering halting its cooperation on Bushehr should the UN impose sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agencies that there was no basis to those reports and Russia was committed to its contract with Iran on the power plant.

But of course none of Lavrov's verbal assurance can be completely reassuring to Iran, which sees Washington's hidden hands influencing Moscow to keep postponing the due date for Bushehr's opening day. After all, whereas Russian nuclear officials touring Iran this year had promised that Bushehr would be completed in 2006, they have since extended that, first to early next year and now to late 2007.

Inevitably, many Iranians rightly ponder whether Bushehr will ever be completed, recalling how only a few months ago Nicholas Burns, a top US State Department official, bluntly asked Russia to withdraw from the Bushehr project if Iran failed to heed the UN's call to suspend enrichment activities.

At the time, Russia reacted angrily to the United States' request, but as time has passed and Iran has defied the UN Security Council's demand, Russian President Vladimir Putin is put in an awkward position of either honoring Russia's contract with Iran on nuclear cooperation or going along with the US and EU on the threats of sanctions.

From Iran's vantage point, looking at past episodes of Russia's barter trade with the US over Iran, there is now a distinct possibility that Putin will prioritize his ties to the West over Iran if pushed to make a choice - and the diplomatic momentum is drifting precisely toward such a stark choice.

Consequently, the stakes have exponentially grown for Iran now, with the prospect of a longer-term setback to its much-cherished nuclear program that will have significant ramifications for the country's economic planning.

Given this dire consequence, Tehran has given a serious reply to the international community's incentive package over Iran's nuclear program. Tehran seeks clarification on a number of items, eg, the timeline on the offered nuclear assistance, the guarantee of implementation, given existing US sanctions that preclude the sale of dual-purpose technology to Iran.

Germany and the five permanent UN Security Council members - the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the US - offered Iran a package of economic and political incentives in June if it suspended nuclear-fuel work. The package was negotiable, but the six powers said Iran had to halt all enrichment work first.

In a sign of moderation toward Iran, US President George W Bush permitted a visa to Khatami and made the conciliatory gesture of stating his willingness "to learn about that country". This is a timely turnabout from his incendiary remarks in August, calling Iran the leader of a global "Islamic fascist" movement.

Certainly, the US and Iran policy of labeling has gotten the two countries nowhere and the sooner they shelve their reciprocal demonization in favor of a prudent, and polite, diplomacy, the better.

As long as Washington ignores Iran's stability role in the region and limits itself to castigating Iran's "subversive" role, there can be no meaningful progress on a key aspect of the incentive package, namely, security.

The package calls for Iran's inclusion in a regional security arrangement and, again, an important prerequisite is Iran's and the United States' ability to see beyond the fog of their hostile rhetoric-supplanting policy and explore their wealth of shared or parallel interests.

Both Tehran and Washington support the present besieged governments in Kabul and Baghdad, and the combination of impending civil war in Iraq, potentially spilling over to neighboring countries such as Iran, and the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan alone dictates fresh thinking on Tehran's and Washington's part on how not to let the situation in the region get out of hand.

Clearly, the nuclear crisis can add a qualitative turn for the worse in the current Middle East crisis still grappling with the tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon, whose economic infrastructure has been wiped out. No matter how Iran publicly celebrates Hezbollah's victory, the fact is that Hezbollah has sustained serious injury and faces an international buffer between itself and Israel that, in turn, denies Iran crucial leverage in its geostrategic game with the US.

This observation leads us to question seriously the conclusion of a recent study by London's Chatham House, which naively proclaims Iran a "major beneficiary" of the "war on terror". Sure, the change of regimes in Kabul and Baghdad has been a security plus for Iran, but the massive infusion of US military might, bolstered by base-building in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and elsewhere in Iran's vicinity, have been tantamount to major tremors threatening the wellspring of Iran's national security.

Any premature conclusion that ignores the security predicament of Iran in the post September 11, 2001, milieu cannot possibly be taken seriously.

In fact, the real, clear and present danger of a US military threat against Iran has caused a state of semi-emergency that the government's leaders yearn to end and to return to the state of normalcy - this against the present pattern of war games and war preparation draining precious resources and deflecting from burning economic priorities.

It is hoped that Iran's declared intention to take the confidence-building measures on its nuclear program will have the desired result of de-escalating tensions in the region.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved

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