Mil-Tech

Blackwater Reaches Deal on U.S. Export Violations

The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations.

The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.

The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges. A company spokeswoman confirmed Friday that a settlement had been reached. The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said he could not immediately comment.

The settlement with the State Department does not resolve other legal troubles still facing Blackwater and its former executives and other personnel. Those include the indictments of five former executives, including Blackwater’s former president, on weapons and obstruction charges; a federal investigation into evidence that Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government officials; and the arrest of two former Blackwater guards on federal murder charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans last year.

But by paying fines rather than facing criminal charges on the export violations, Blackwater will be able to continue to obtain government contracts. While the company lost its largest federal contract last year to provide diplomatic security for United States Embassy personnel in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government was incensed by killings of Iraqis in one highly publicized case, it still has contracts to provide security for the State Department and the C.I.A. in Afghanistan.

Blackwater, its reputation tainted in part because of the excessive use of force by some of its personnel in Baghdad, sought for years to extend its reach far beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For a time, the company’s founder, Erik Prince, had ambitions to turn Blackwater into an informal arm of the American foreign policy and national security apparatus, and proposed to the C.I.A. to create a “quick reaction force” that could handle paramilitary operations for the spy agency around the world. He had hopes that Blackwater’s military prowess could be an influential force in regional conflicts around the world.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seals member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, took an interest in Africa, particularly Sudan, and he is said to have wanted Blackwater to step in to help the rebels in southern Sudan, which is predominantly Christian and animist, fight the Sudanese government and the Muslim north, despite United States economic sanctions.

Blackwater’s ambitions in Sudan were described in detail by McClatchy newspapers in June.

The settlement with the State Department, involving practices from the days before Blackwater was rebranded as Xe Services, comes as Mr. Prince is trying to shed his ties to Blackwater and its past activities.

He overhauled the company’s management in 2009, changed its name, and has now put the privately held company up for sale. He has just moved with his family to Abu Dhabi from the United States, a move that colleagues say was a result of his deep anger and frustration over the intense scrutiny he and his firm have received in recent years.

The State Department export controls require government approval for the transfer of certain types of military technology or knowledge from the United States to other countries. But Blackwater began to seek training contracts from foreign governments and other foreign organizations without adhering closely to American regulations.

The company also shipped automatic weapons and other military equipment for use by its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in violation of export controls, and in some cases sought to hide its actions, according to the government. In one incident, Blackwater shipped weapons to Iraq hidden inside containers of dog food.

A federal investigation into the company’s weapons shipments to Iraq led to guilty pleas on criminal charges by two former Blackwater employees who are believed to have cooperated with a broader federal inquiry.

Investigators reportedly looked into whether some of the weapons that were shipped to Iraq were sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. Turkish officials reportedly complained to the United States about American weapons seized from the group.

In 2008, after a federal investigation of Blackwater’s actions was begun, the company admitted “numerous mistakes” in its adherence to export laws and created an outside board of experts to supervise the firm’s compliance.

Current and former government officials say that the government’s inquiry into some of Blackwater’s export control violations began as part of a federal grand jury investigation in North Carolina, where Blackwater is based. But the matter was apparently shifted to the State Department when the criminal investigation in North Carolina narrowed its focus.

That grand jury handed down the indictments of the five former Blackwater executives earlier this year. That indictment includes charges that Blackwater executives sought to hide evidence that they had given weapons as gifts to King Abdullah of Jordan.

Despite the fines and investigations that have plagued Blackwater, the firm has continued to win contracts from the State Department and the C.I.A.

In June, the State Department awarded Blackwater a $120 million contract to provide security at its regional offices in Afghanistan, while the C.I.A. renewed the firm’s $100 million security contract for its station in Kabul. At the time, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, defended the decision, saying that the company had offered the lowest bid and had “cleaned up its act.”

www.nytimes.com

More US-NATO Military Bases: US Armed Forces in Central Asia

The US plans to build military training centers in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. First these plans were announced last year and they received a wide response because earlier it had been announced that a Russian military base would be built in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Now Pentagon is not going to confine itself with Kyrgyzstan and plans to build military facilities on the territory of five states of the region. It implies the redeployment of part of military infrastructure of the US from Afghanistan to the former Soviet Central Asia and Kazakhstan and also the construction of NATO facilities there.

According to “EurasiaNet” (an internet-portal financed by George Soros), US Central Command’s counter-narcotics fund was to allocate more than $40 million for the construction of military training centers in the cities of Osh (Kyrgyzstan) and Karatoga (Tajikistan), a canine center and helicopter hangar near the city of Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan) as well as for the strengthening of border check points in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Pentagon estimates the construction of each border check point at $5-10 million. The location of the US border check point in Uzbekistan is not disclosed out but the location of the check points in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan is quite remarkable. The Serahs check point (Turkmenistan) is on the border with Iran and the Kyrgyz check point (where the modernization of electricity supply and water supply and sewerage system is planned) – near Batken. Both check points are of geo strategical importance – first in case of a war between the US and Iran and second – in case of destabilization of the political situation in this part of the Fergana Valley like it was in 1999-2000 during the invasion of Islamic movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

In Kazakhstan the US plans to build a new helicopter hangar near the city of Alma-Ata, a canine center and a center for inspection of transport vehicles, with the total construction costs amounting to $10 million. In Tajikistan the Americans plans to build a military training center in Karatoga (not far from the capital of Dushanbe) for Tajik servicemen. There they plan to practice combat actions in city conditions of a city and to train sharpshooters/spotters. The construction costs are estimated at $10 million. A similar center worth $ 5.5 million for practicing different kinds of combat actions in the course of border and counterterrorist operations should be built in the Kyrgyz city of Batken.

It has been known about the US plans to strengthen its military presence in Central Asia since last autumn when the Northern supply route through Russia began to function alongside with the transport route from Pakistan. It is known that Pentagon is working on the plan to deploy elite units of its special troops in Central Asia namely four battalions of the 3rd Special forces (airborne) group which has a long experience of fighting in Afghanistan.

In addition to Central Asia the US plans to deploy its forces in Southern Caucasus – in particular early warning radars in Georgia. It is expected that besides the radars Pentagon may locate a land military base and a naval base in Georgia with 25,000 servicemen.

Finally Pentagon is to build a special operations complex in Afghanistan near the Uzbek border worth $100 million. The complex with the area of 6 hectares will be located in Mazar-i-Sharif, 275 km north-west from Kabul and 56 km south from the Uzbek city of Termez. In 18 months the Americans are to build a united operational center, residential blocks, a communication hub, a center for tactical operations, storage facilities, a training center, a medical center, repair facilities a center for logistics, a canteen, recreation facilities and a doghouse. They plan to put the complex into operation in late 2012 early 2012. In longer perspective 2012-2016 the US Central Command plans to allocate another $3.8 billion on the construction of military facilities in the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Even a brief look at the deployment of the US military objects shows that it almost fully repeats the geography of “the Eurasian Balkans” of Z. Brzezinski, who gave this geopolitical region a decisive role in fighting Russia on “the Grand Chessboard”. By locating its special troops, surveillance equipment and other forces in Central Asia and in the Caucasus after the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in 2011 the US will ensure its military presence right besides Russia’s “belly” near the northern border of Iran and the western border of China. Here the Americans plan to deploy an intelligence network which will ensure control over the situation in the most important points of Eurasia.

Spy Network Pilfered Classified Docs From Indian Government and Others

A spy network targeting government networks in India and other countries has been pilfering highly classified and other sensitive documents related to missile systems, the movement of military forces and relations among countries, according to a report released Tuesday.

It also grabbed nearly a year’s worth of personal correspondence from the Dalai Lama’s office, even after reports published last year indicated that the Dalai Lama’s network had been compromised in what is believed to be a separate breach.

The researchers say the spying is an example of an advanced shift that has occurred in malware networks from “what were once primarily simple to increasingly complex, adaptive systems spread across redundant services and platforms” and from ones that primarily focused on exploitation for criminal purposes to ones that are focused on “political, military, and intelligence-focused espionage.”

The spynet, dubbed Shadow Network, was discovered by a group of computer-security researchers in Canada and the United States who have been monitoring the espionage for at least eight months and watched as the spies siphoned classified and other restricted documents from the Indian Defense Ministry and other computer networks.

The researchers — based primarily at the Munk School of Global Affairs’ Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and at SecDev Group, a consultancy in Ottawa — are the same ones who reported last March on another spynet, dubbed Ghost Net, that had breached computers of the Dalai Lama and more than 1,200 other systems at embassies, foreign ministries, news media outlets and nongovernmental organizations based primarily in South and Southeast Asia.

The researchers, who worked with colleagues at the Shadowserver Foundation in the United States, discovered the Shadow Network last year while they were investigating the Ghost Net. While the Ghost Net focused primarily on the Dalai Lama and Asia, the Shadow Network focused primarily on India. (It also targeted the office of the Dalai Lama, the United Nations, the Pakistan Embassy in the United States and numerous other institutions and private companies.)

According to the report by the researchers, “Shadows in the Cloud”, the documents pilfered through the Shadow Network included sensitive and confidential embassy documents about India’s relationships with Russia and nations in West Africa and the Middle East, and “secret assessments of India’s security situation in the states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, as well as concerning the Naxalites and Maoists,” two political opposition groups. The spies also stole documents from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

The intruders obtained reports on several Indian missile systems as well as documents related to the travel of NATO forces in Afghanistan. There is evidence that computers at Indian embassies in Kabul, Moscow and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and at the High Commission of India in Abuja, Nigeria, had been compromised, including ones that process visa applications.

Among the stolen data, the researchers found visa applications submitted to Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan from nationals of 13 countries.

“In a context like Afghanistan,” the reseachers write, “this finding points to the complex nature of the information security challenge where risks to individuals (or operational security) can occur as a result of a data compromise on secure systems operated by trusted partners.”

Aside from government networks, the attackers further targeted computers at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in India, the India Strategic Defence Magazine and Force Magazine as well as the networks of companies based in India.
Last month, the Indian communications minister told reporters that government networks had been targeted by China, but that the attempted attacks had been unsuccessful. The Toronto researchers then contacted Indian intelligence officials to tell them about the spy network. The Indian Defense Ministry told The New York Times that it’s looking into the matter.

The attacks appear to come from a different source than the one behind the Ghost Net attack. The researchers say the Shadow Network appears to originate from a criminal gang based in China’s Sichuan province, while acknowledging that true attribution is generally difficult or impossible to surmise in hacking attacks.

Ghost Net used computer servers located on the island of Hainan. After the researchers exposed the Ghost Net last year, several of the command-and-control servers used in that attack went offline.

“We snuck around behind the backs of the attackers and picked their pockets,” Ronald J. Deibert, a political scientist and director of a cybersecurity research group at the Munk School, informed the Times. “I’ve not seen anything remotely close to the depth and the sensitivity of the documents that we’ve recovered.”

The researchers informed the second spy ring was more sophisticated and difficult to detect than the Ghost Net operation, but like that other network, also pilfered e-mail from the Dalai Lama. The intruders obtained at least 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama’s office between January and November 2009.

The researchers traced some e-mails used in the attacks to hackers who appeared to be based in Chengdu, in Sichuan province. Circumstantial evidence points to at least one of the alleged hackers being affiliated with the University of Electronic Science and Technology there.

Military Seeks $1.3 Billion For Projects in Afghanistan

While the Obama administration weighs whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. military is spending billions of dollars on construction projects to ensure the country’s infrastructure can support American and coalition personnel in 2010 and years beyond.

The military has already spent roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years. Now, if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation.

At the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, Bagram, the military is planning to build a $30 million passenger terminal and adjacent cargo facility to handle the flow of troops, many of whom arrive at the base north of Kabul before moving onto other sites. Under the proposed schedule, those facilities will not be completed until late 2010 and go into operation early in 2011, according to military sources.

Officials say such projects are absolutely essential given the inadequate and dilapidated nature of the existing infrastructure.

Bagram is far from the only U.S. base being upgraded. The military is also spending hundreds of millions of dollars constructing facilities for the Afghan army and police. The U.S.-led coalition recently announced the opening of a $68 million, U.S.-financed forward operating base near Farah, in the western part of the country bordering on Iran. The base will house 2,000 Afghan soldiers and an American mentoring team.

Such bases can take a long time to build. The original solicitation for contractors on the Farah garrison project was dated Dec. 29, 2007. A proposal for an additional phase was offered in March 2008, and 18 months later, almost two years after it was first solicited, the garrison at Farah was opened.

Col. Thomas E. O’Donovan, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Afghanistan Engineer District, told reporters last March that his multibillion-dollar construction program is providing “underpinnings” for efforts at establishing security and stability across Afghanistan.

Lawmakers Consider Anew On Afghan Aid.

In a World Bank analysis, Singapore ranks as the easiest country to conduct business in, while Afghanistan is number 162

National Security Advisor James L. Jones

“…the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.”

To Afghanistan’s many problems—Taliban insurgents, narco-trafficking, corruption, a president who shuns campaigning—can be added one more: It’s one of the worst places in the world to do business.
According to the World Bank’s 2009 Ease of Doing Business Rankings, Afghanistan placed 162 out of 181 economies. Singapore was ranked first.

On Tuesday, the Oversight and Government Reform foreign affairs subcommittee considered the challenges, difficulties and opportunities inherent to aiding the Afghan economy.

“Afghanistan’s stability will depend, in large part, on what the U.S., our partners and allies, and, most critically, the Afghans themselves, do over the coming several years to bring economic progress to a population ravaged by 30 years of war,” said Rep. John F. Tierney, D-Mass., chairman of the subcommittee.

The hearing was among the first of its kind since President Barack Obama announced his new so-called Af-Pak Strategy on March 27, key parts of which stress the importance of increased economic development in Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan.

The hard realities

Though U.S. taxpayers have shelled out $37 billion to the country, Afghanistan still clamors to transform its economy from corrupt bazaar to free market.

Transparency International, an organization that tracks corruption across the globe, rates Afghanistan as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Afghanistan comes in a low seven out of 177 nations analyzed in Foreign Policy Magazine’s recently released 2009 Failed State Index.

Afghans are also leaving their land in droves, citing the lack of jobs. In 2008, 18,000 Afghans applied for asylum in Europe, almost double the 2007 figure.

Projects in the works

Experts who have been deeply involved in Afghanistan’s economic development filled in subcommittee members on projects in the works, all spelling out proposals in line with their own visions.

Dr. Mohammad Usman, a former planning advisor to the Minister of Agriculture in Afghanistan, urged the lawmakers to keep a keen eye on rural development.

“The agricultural sector has the potential to reestablish its historically prominent role in nurturing Afghanistan’s growth and development,” Dr. Usman said.

Approximately 80 percent of Afghans live in rural areas and rely on agricultural for their livelihood, including livestock, cultivating wheat and dried fruits. Before the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan owned 20 percent of the global market for raisins.

Mildred Callear, the executive vice president of Small Enterprise Assistance Funds, a project of Afghan Growth Finance LLC, counted the successes the operation has had so far.

Focusing on small to medium sized business loans (not to be confused with microfinance), the investment fund, Afghan Growth Finance, has committed about $5 million to Afghan entrepreneurs since April 2008.

Callear said the loans are “the largest portion of the formal business base in Afghanistan and are the backbone of a growing and local private sector.”

Afghan Growth Finance’s investments seem to run the gamut of what’s possible in Afghanistan’s future free market, including a licorice root and extract processor, a renewable energy corporation, a media company and an internet service provider.

Callear mentioned that due to their relatively small size, the businesses tend to go under the radar of insurgents looking to make a statement by attacking a perceived western aid project.

All who testified agreed that saving Afghanistan entails not only crushing the tough Taliban but also rebuilding a fragile economy.

Speaking to the panel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, a spokesman for The Aga Khan Development Network, credited Afghan business savvy for the country’s resilience over years.

“Afghans are inherently very entrepreneurial,” the spokesman for the coalition of aid agencies said.
“It’s what allowed them to endure over 20 years of war.”

More Troops required, But Afghans Must Take Fight To The Taliban, Experts Claim.

Professor Michael Clarke, director of Royal United Services Institute.

The west has lacked a coherent international strategy since 2001 until last year so we have wasted seven years. Before Barack Obama came in there were separate national strategies that didn’t meld together; now there is an American-led one taking a regional approach (taking in Pakistan), a developmental approach and a reinvigorated military counter-insurgency campaign. Whether it will work is another matter. But there are not enough military units.

The west had 60,000 troops for Bosnia and 80,000 for Afghanistan, which is seven or eight times bigger than Bosnia. There is a particularly urgent need for more Afghan troops. The Afghan government is planning for 135,000, 90,000 of which whom have been prepared for battle, but 150,000 are needed. By the British government’s own strategy, the earliest that the Afghan army and police can take over most of the fighting will be 2015, so there won’t be a significant drawdown at least until then. (G.B has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan).

In terms of equipment, Britain has deployed its best-equipped army ever. The troops are not complaining about the equipment, but there is not enought of it and there is a critical shortage of helicopters. As for talking to the Taliban, we’re already talking to them and there has been significant efforts in the last two years to reduce the core Taliban.

We can’t do anything with the rejectionists but diplomats say there has been an effect from these negotiations. The opinion polls are fairly consistent in showing that the Taliban has no more than 4-5% of popular support. Hamid Karzai ‘s government in theory should be viable – and there are some bright spots, particularly at the interior ministry – but in pratice he has not done enough to build a competent and representative government. If he wins the election next month – and he should – the onus will be on him to prove he can put together a competent government.

Col Christopher Langton, senior fellow, International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The ideas are there but the difficulty is matching these ideas with the right type of effort, the right equipment and right skills. There is already a recognition of the lack of civilian capacity to help build Afghan institutions.
The military is attempting to bring stability so that the more civilian-based campaign can take root. You need the military campaign to succeed long enough for more long-term development and reconstruction to take hold. The further operations go, the more success that is achieved at the tactical level, the more difficult it becomes to hold on to territory, so you need the flexibility that more troops give you to maintain momentum. Otherwise you allow your opponents to regroup and come back at you.

The key thing is not to lose momentum, to suddenly reduce troop numbers in the face of combat. We should keep troops deployed beyond the elections [next month] so that key strategic gains can be made. The goals are achievable with many provisos, particularly if there are enough troops. The commitment is one that is going to have to be open-ended. We can’t say we will get out on November 2 because then all the insurgents have to do is wait until then. But the military campaign can’t go on forever and we have to build politically on progress in Helmand and the positive effect of Pakistan’s military campaign. I’m encouraged by Pakistan’s total commitment to its operations against the Taliban on its territory.

My concern is not so much whether the Pakistani government will prevail in its tactical operations but whether the public will support it. I’m not optimistic or pessimistic. I am realistic. I don’t have the right to be pessimistic as most of the troops serving there are committed to their tasks. We’ve got to be a little bit more sober in our assessment. This is not be finished tomorow and it is important not to send mixed signals as these will also be picked up by our adversaries.

Shukria Barakzai, Afghan MP and president Asia Women organisation.

The strategy is not working at all because it is based on not what Afghans people need but on what foreign countries want. But no one is listening to us. War is not the way to achieve peace. Military operations are not the only way to bring security.

Security won’t come without development or job opportunities. How long do we have to wait for security through bombs and bullets? To those who argue that development is not possible without security I say we had fewer troops in 2003 but more security then.

Now we have more troops and less security. The focus should be on training Afghan troops and technical assistance. I would love to see Afghans on the frontline. We Afghans have to fight for our own country and for the values we believe in. The offensive in Helmand will not bring positive results. It is not the first one and will not be the last.

As for Hamid Karzai why do people think that Afghanistan equals Karzai. After seven years we are stuck with the same old gang of players. Once they spoke the rhetoric of holy war, now they talk about democracy. The silent democratic majority is missing.

Rory Stewart, Ryan Family professor of the practice of human rights, Harvard University
Afghanistan’s political and strategic significance has been grossly exaggerated. The idea that we are there so we don’t have to fight terrorists in Britain is absurd. The terrorist cells and training camps are not in Afghanistan. The people the Americans and British are fighting in Afghanistan are mostly local tribesmen resisting foreign forces. Does al-Qaida still require large terrorist training camps to organise attacks?

Could they not plan in Hamburg and train at flight schools in Florida; or meet in Bradford and build morale on an adventure training course in Wales? Those who argue that we have the right strategy provided we have enough troops and equipment were saying not long ago that if we had only had 7,000 troops in Helmand instead of 5,000, we could defeat the Taliban.

Then when we had 7,000 they said we needed 9,000. The demand for more troops is ever escalating. As for the argument that security is a prerequisite for development, that has not turned out to be the case everywhere. Where there is relative security, in the north and the centre, there has been very little development and what there has has come from the Afghans themselves. The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to far fewer – perhaps 20,000. In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the building of an Afghan state. If the west believed it essential to exclude al-Qaida from Afghanistan, then they could do it with special forces. (They have done it successfully since 2001 and could continue indefinitely, though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.) At the same time the west should provide generous development assistance – not only to keep consent for the counter-terrorism operations, but as an end in itself. It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state. They have no clear picture of this promised ‘state’, and such a thing could come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners.

Major General Julian Thompson (retired), visiting professor King’s College.

The strategy as I understand it is right, although it hasn’t been and there is lots of catching up to do. I’m not sure however, that we have the wherewithal in terms of troops and equipment. We need to keep the troops off the roads and transport them by air with helicopters. There is no vehicle built in the world that can withstand explosions. Even tanks are vulnerable.

The message from the military is that there are not enough troops and there should be more. The military want more troops and more resources but from the beginning the campaign has been onsistently underfunded and that has been a political decision. During the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher never had anybody from the exchequer in cabinet decisions on the war because she knew they would say no. There should be no time frame on the Afghanistan operation. That would be hopeless as that would be just giving hostage to fortune.

If there is a short deadline, all the enemy has to do is to wait you out.

As for Karzai, we’re stuck with him, we have to work with him, otherwise we take over the running of the place and I don’t think anyone wants that. The idea that we could have a perfect government in Kabul is a pie in the sky hope. There is quite a lot of public support for the war but the thing that bleeds public support is casualties, but you can’t fight people without taking losses. There has been a nasty spate of casualties but over a similar period in Northern Ireland there were twice as many.

Running Out of Options, Afghans Decide To Leave Home.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Through twenty years of war, Abdul Ahad never considered leaving Afghanistan. But as his country started to deteriorate rapidly in 2007, so did his life. He was laid off from his full-time driving job and forced to take the only work he could find: a once-a-week driving gig through Taliban territory.

On a recent day at the Kabul airport, 30 young deportees from England returned home for the first time in several years. A 20-year-old man expressed no regrets and vowed to try again.

In the past eight months, a suicide bomb and a firefight nearly took killed him. Now, Mr. Ahad, 26, has had enough. He has begun scouting potential smugglers to take him to Europe, he said, looking to join the surge of young Afghans who are leaving their country, frustrated by endless war, a lack of prospects and the slow pace of change.

While foreign diplomats hold out hope that the August presidential elections and President Obama’s new troop deployments could change things here, Afghans are voting with their feet.

Last year about 18,000 Afghans applied for asylum in Europe, a figure nearly double the 2007 total. The spike was the highest increase for any major country in 2008, according to the United Nations. By comparison, applications from Iraqis fell 10 percent.

“People can’t find jobs here,” Mr. Ahad said. “And if you go to a place where there’s work, you’ll be killed in a week.

“I’m desperate,” he added. “It’s not a big dream. I just want to finish my studies and live normally.”

Willing to gamble on the risks, young men like him are turning over their savings — up to $25,000 in some cases — and their lives to smugglers, who arrange routes over seas to Australia or over land to Europe, where the Afghans then try to seek asylum.

Finding a smuggler is not as difficult as it might seem. In interviews in the capital, Kabul, several smugglers, all of whom requested anonymity because their work is illegal, estimated that business was up 60 percent over last year. One said he was turning away customers for the first time in his 11-year career.

“It’s out of my power to deal with the demand,” he said. “I never imagined it would get like this.”

The country’s dire situation has even prompted some privileged Afghans to leave. They include the host of “Afghan Star,” an “American Idol”-style television series, who disappeared after a documentary based on the show won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival; as well as a media officer who worked for President Hamid Karzai and deserted his delegation during an official visit to the United States in September.

Just a few years ago optimism abounded here, as the American-led invasion seemed to have ousted the Taliban, and wooed more than 3.5 million Afghan refugees back home while setting off a series of promising reconstruction projects.

But since 2006, waves of Afghans have fled the Taliban resurgence, endemic corruption and the government’s inability to provide basic services like electricity. They are turning up in perilous waters near Australia, in Turkish prisons, at Rome’s main railway station and in Le Petit Kabul in Paris, or Little Kabul.

In Calais, France, an immigration detention complex dubbed the Jungle is keeping about 600 Afghans in conditions that are “very, very bad compared to two years ago,” said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency based in Geneva, who visited the camp in May. French officials have vowed to close the center by the end of 2009.

Migration officials and recent deportees said many other Afghans abroad just disappear, are sexually exploited by truck drivers or are forced into labor. Applications for asylum often fail, too.

“It’s death or destination,” said Shuja Halimi, who expressed no regrets after he was deported back to Afghanistan from the United Kingdom, after a two-month journey across 12 countries, including Bulgaria, where he says he eluded gunfire at the border.

He said living conditions in Europe were awful “but not as bad as Afghanistan.” Now in Kabul, Mr. Halimi, who has three children, has not found a job.

“We’ve got a president called Hamid Karzai who has done nothing for Afghan people,” he said, echoing the sentiment of many young Afghans.

On a recent day at the Kabul airport, 30 young deportees from England returned home for the first time in several years. Equipped with only a plaid canvas bag, Akbar Khan, 20, vowed to try again. “We’ll try to go back in about a month after we save some money,” he said.

In an attempt to curb the migration, the International Organization for Migration ran a media campaign here warning against the hazards of smuggling. The Italian government, which noted a 202 percent rise in Afghan asylum applications last year, financed the initiative.

Pakistan and other neighboring countries historically offered Afghans refuge during crises like the Soviet occupation. But today Pakistan faces an internal refugee crisis of its own. Iran, too, is cracking down, now deeming the Afghans economic migrants rather than victims of war and deporting about 700,000 last year.

As other avenues close, Afghans are now engaged in “what has become an intercontinental migration,” said Mr. Chauzy of the International Office of Migration.

The most common route out for Afghans, then, is by road — from Iran via Turkey to Greece — and costs around $16,000, the smugglers said. They said that for about $25,000, they could guarantee an air journey eased by forged documents or prepaid bribes to immigration officials.

Once in Europe, Afghans apply for asylum most often in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Greece and Italy. Scandinavian countries and Switzerland receive far fewer applicants but accept a significantly higher rate of Afghans, according to data from the European Commission.

Migration experts say the widening and tight-knit Afghan diaspora in Europe has encouraged the trend, anchoring new arrivals and providing increasingly sophisticated advice on the asylum process.

European officials trying to curb illegal migration have broken up several high-profile smuggling operations recently. In June, British officials convicted an Afghan man calling himself “the smuggler of Europe,” who claimed his multimillion-dollar operation served thousands of young men, according to phone conversations recorded by authorities. Some men were forced to work at a chain of pizza restaurants to pay off their debt.

But officials in Afghanistan have been slower to crack down on smugglers. One smuggler chuckled when asked if he feared being arrested, saying his business operated much like a travel agency, and almost as openly.

“In this government, three things work very well: relations, money and acquaintances,” the smuggler said.

“When these three exist, anyone can get what they want.”

Noor Haidiri, an adviser to the Minister of Refugees, placed some of the blame on Afghanistan’s regional neighbors. Many Afghans, he said, leave legally and hire smugglers in Iran or Dubai. As for the networks that exist here, he said, “only five years ago we had our first elected government, and it goes slowly.”

But many Afghan youths feel that, given the danger in the country, legality is a secondary concern.

“I love this country, but it’s totally going in the wrong direction,” said a teary-eyed 26-year-old man, who did not want to give his name because he was planning to leave. “I want to live like a normal person: wake up, go to work, and be with a wife — or a girlfriend, preferably.”

Pakistan: Some Remarks To Ponder Over

US desire for power and wealth is insatiable where financial resources are worshipped like God. Friendship is fragile which is contrived to take advantage and so is its commitment to treaties. The US doesn’t believe in mutually beneficial deals but goes for hegemonic monopoly over others inviting strife. Imperialism has made the West dehumanized and devoid of morality. It conquers, plunders and kills with an altruistic face of saving humanity under false pretexts and catchy slogans. In actuality, it is dehumanizing Asia. CIA is notorious for spying, rigging elections to have US pawns in power and to secure lucrative contracts. It ruthlessly smothers resistance into submission and compliance.

Although Islamic resistance confronting the sole superpower is disjointed and divided, it has however denied it the unchallenged global supremacy and caused economic global decrease.

Terrorism is a product of injustice and confined to Islamic world. Without eradicating root causes which breed terrorism, the disease cannot be cured.

War on terror is chiefly being financed by USA through drug trade in Afghanistan. Likewise, Taliban too are using drug money to finance their resistance struggle. Continued occupation of Afghanistan by US-Nato troops is the major cause of instability and militancy in Afghanistan while RAW led subversion and sabotage against Pakistan has fueled extremism and terrorism in Pakistan.

Bush led neo-cons caused worst damage to US prestige and its economy. Contrary to claims of change, Obama Administration is following policies of Bush. It prefers force over dialogue, making no effort to provide them security, justice, rule of law, jobs and basic amenities to improve their lives. It is turning a blind eye to narcotic trade in Afghanistan, spreading vices in Afghan society and funding militancy. It continues to depend upon cunning advises of RAW, Mossad, CIA and pseudo US think tanks and hence distrusts, blames and coerces Pakistan which is facing the major brunt of US war on terror.

Disregarding US said that it has won Iraq war, Peter W. Galbraith opined that Iraq war failed to serve a single major US foreign policy objective. It has not made US safer; not advanced war on terror; not made Iraq a stable state; not spread democracy to Middle East; and has not enhanced access to oil. Even now 10-15 terror attacks take place daily. The US has suffered 4321 casualties. Situation in Afghanistan is far worse where 80% of territory is under control of Taliban. UK military commander Brig Mark Carlton Smith and French and German military commanders in Afghanistan admitted that US led allied forces are not going to win the war. Troops surge and flawed Af-Pak policy will not convert defeat into victory but will reinforce failure.
USA is trying to allay fears of Pakistan that it should not worry about India but doesn’t spell out basis of its optimism. While it attentively listens to complaints of India, it turns a deaf ear to grievances of Pakistan claiming that these are misconceived and warns Pakistan to behave (Kargil conflict, suicide attack in July 2008 on Indian Embassy in Kabul, Mumbai attacks etc). Colossal amount of $32.35 billion spent on defence by India and frenzy with which it is modernizing its armed forces and upgrading its nuclear capability disturbing regional military balance do not consternate Washington. Collective defence budget of all the six neighbors of India is $5.7 billion, of which Pakistan’s share is $4 billion.

Drones have not curbed militancy in Fata or put fear in hearts of tribesmen nor has it helped US military in limiting militancy in Afghanistan. Purpose of schemers is to provoke divisive militants like pro-government Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir to join hands with Baitullah and put up a unified front against Pak army in Waziristan and get locked in fatal combat. Greater the resilience shown by militants, greater will be the urge to redeploy forces from eastern to western border to fulfill another wish of USA. It is in context of leaving our eastern border unguarded that Indian COAS Gen Kapoor has rendered a hollow and babyish assurance that India poses no threat to security of Pakistan.

Does USA really think that India is preparing itself to fight China? If so, it must be dreaming since ground situation is quite different. India has 13 Corps out of which seven Corps including six strike Corps are deployed against Pakistan, marked as principle enemy. It broke Pakistan into two in 1971 and thereafter it has constantly employed covert means to destabilize Pakistan. India and Afghanistan have signed a defence pact according to which India would deploy some 1,50000 troops in Afghanistan by December 2009. It would provide Indian military in collaboration with Afghan forces another avenue for invasion against Pakistan.

Was invasion and occupation of Afghanistan justifiable and are Americans justified in imposing set of rules quite alien to local customs and traditions and their brand of democracy which has not worked anywhere else?
Is it morally correct for occupation forces to divide local population into unfriendly and friendly categories and pitch latter against the former, split them on ethnic lines and also indulge in collateral damage under the pretext of eliminating irreconcilable? Will reconcilable of today not be irreconcilable of tomorrow?

Are Americans justified in keeping majority Pashtun Afghans out of power and propping up anti-Pakistan non-Pashtun regime headed by a puppet in Kabul? Are they right in trying to block Taliban from regaining power even if locals want them?

Having been ousted from power and their country, are Afghans so terribly wrong in resisting occupation of their country by alien forces and has it happened for the first time? Are invaders who conquer, plunder and mercilessly kill inhabitants of captured country for economic and strategic gains real terrorists or resistance forces that pick up arms in self-defence to safeguard their liberty and honor?

Are Americans justified in converting Afghanistan into biggest narcotics state in the world particularly when the Taliban had rid Afghanistan of this menace? In what way Americans have made lives of Afghans more secure and prosperous than what it was during Taliban rule? Is security in Afghanistan better today than what it was during Taliban rule?

Are they justified in misusing Afghan soil for carrying out drone attacks against Pakistan killing innocent people and in alliance with other powers carrying out covert operations to destabilize Pakistan?
Is USA justified in establishing military bases in other countries, spying over them and neighboring countries, destabilizing regimes and stealing their resources? Today USA has its forces in nearly 200 foreign countries. All US military bases are tied to oil resources and oil transportation considerations. Southcom in Colombia, Pacific Command, Centcom Command keep an eye on various oil producing areas. Centcom keeps its eye on Middle East and oil rich Caspian Basin covering most of Central Asian Republics. Afghanistan is an important military base for its reach against Iran, Central Asia, China, Russia and Pakistan.

As per South Asian analyst Lisa Curtis ‘The US needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the US’. What if a drone is shot down when Pak army patience wears thin? Doesn’t USA know that there is no viable supply line to send arms to Kabul for US-NATO troops?

On what moral grounds USA is so keen to give India a key role in Afghanistan, thereby enabling it to stab Pakistan in the back?

Why is USA pressing Pakistan to shift more and more forces from eastern to western border without taking any practical steps to allay its genuine security concerns?

Why has USA underestimate nefarious activities of 17 Indian Intelligence units in Afghanistan and each of Indian consulates and Kabul Embassy housing two Israelis despite being repeatedly told about their involvement in Fata, Swat and Balochistan?

Isn’t it high time we stand up as a nation and say No More?

70 Mbps of satellite broadband services for Troops in Afghanistan

SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES has announced that IoGlobal has signed a multiyear agreement to create a new DVB IP platform on the NSS-11 satellite to keep NATO troops in Afghanistan connected with friends and family back home. New Asia 9 platform on the China beam of SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES’ NSS-11 satellite provides more than 70 Mbps of satellite-delivered streaming voice, data and video services to soldiers stationed in and around Kabul, Afghanistan.

The solution expands on the growing, long-term relationship between IoGlobal and SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES across three satellites and delivers a broad offering of mission-critical satellite-based services ranging from broadband to video streaming into the South Asian region.

“This latest agreement between IoGlobal and SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES reinforces our service commitment to the Middle East and regions around the world, as the two companies deliver multiple SCPC, VSAT and DVB service platforms over our NSS-703, NSS-6, and NSS-11 spacecraft,” said Deepak Mathur, Vice President of South Asia and the Middle East for SES AMERICOM-NEW SKIES.

Satellite Broadband Internet in Iraq and Afghanistan for U.S. Troops

WARSAW, Poland, Jan. 22 /Reuters/ — TS2 Satellite Technologies‘ network in Iraq and Afghanistan has over 15,000 military users of local broadband satellite connections.

“We were among the first telecommunications operators in the satellite technology in the territory of Iraq and Afghanistan, and as such we have enjoyed a successful cooperation with the U.S. Army for several years now,” says Marcin Frackiewicz, CEO of the TS2 Satellite Technologies.

TS2 Satellite Technologies offers two-way high-speed Internet access with no phone lines, no cable and no dial-up modem. It’s always on, available virtually anywhere, and affordable. The laptop or Wi-Fi network can receive Internet signal through a special satellite VSAT modem, which was usually set up in a building or tent when deployed.

The one VSAT access point provides the following services for soldiers:

– Broadband access to the Internet (WWW, E-mail, FTP etc.)
– Data transfer to many other users simultaneously
– Telephone connections including VoIP, IP phone
– Video-conference connections

Advantages of the system:

– Short set-up time
– Fast and easy upgrades
– Possibility of guaranteed CIR
– Transmission in almost all weather conditions

The communication among the bases is possible thanks to the simultaneous lease of bands on the Intelsat 10-02, Intelsat 901 and Eutelsat W6 satellites whose coverage enables configuration of connections between any place in Europe, Middle East and Southwest Asia.

TS2′s satellite military networks are located in Al Taqaddum Air Base, Bahgram AF, Balad Base, Baquba Airfield, Brassfield-Mora, Cob Adder, Cob Speicher, Camp Al Asad Airbase, Camp Bucca Basra City, Camp Buehring, Camp Charlie Basra, Camp Eggers, Camp Fallujah, Camp Grizzly, Camp Korean Village, Camp Liberty, Camp Mejid, Camp Ramadi, Camp Slayer, Camp Stryker, Camp Taji, Camp Victory, Fob Bagram, Fob Brassfield Mora, Fob Delta Al Kut, Fob Diamondback, Fob Falcon, Fob Garryowen, Fob Gardez, Fob Ghazni, Fob Kalagush, Fob Kandahar, Fob Lagman, Fob Mchenry, Fob Marez, Fob Normandy, Fob Rustamiyah, Fob Summerall, Fob Sykes, Fob Salerno, Fob Torkham, Fob Warhorse, Fob Warrior, Herat RTC, Jallahabad Air Base, Kabul Airport, Kabul Camp Eggers, Kandahar Air Base, Lsa Anaconda Balad, Q-West Base Complex and Tallil Ab Lsa Adder.

Especially for U.S. Military Personnel, Contracting Officers and DoD Contractors, TS2 delivers satellite equipment to most of all military addresses in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East, within maximum of 7 days.

Supported military locations in Iraq -
http://www.ts2.pl/en/Internet-in-Iraq-for-US-Army-Soldiers

Supported military locations in Afghanistan -
http://www.ts2.pl/en/Internet-in-Afghanistan-for-US-Army-Soldiers

Contact:

Piotr Kubiak and Michal Skrok
TS2 Satellite Technologies
phone +48 22 630 70 70
fax +48 22 630 70 71
http://www.ts2.pl