SIT-REP 10-22; Friday, October 22, 1999

In This Issue: Globalism; Chechnya, Pakistan; Indonesia

Dear Readers: I won't be able to get through all the news build-up in this issue, so the next will be devoted to Yugoslavia and Kosovo. It will follow this report, over the weekend. This, in part, sets the stage for that analysis by inspecting Clintonian Globalism's effects on parallel crises.

"We [Anglo-Saxons] are the first race in the world, and the more of the world we

inherit the better it is for the human race."

"The extension of British rule throughout the world... the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire... and finally, the foundation of so great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity."

- Cecil Rhodes, 1877; Quoted in Basil Williams; Cecil Rhodes, 1921

"Know The Enemy and Know Yourself:" About Clintonian Globalism:

Bill Clinton, Strobe Talbott, General Wesley Clark and other Rhodes Scholars are following a more "multi-cultural" approach, but are at the forefront of those who agree that the way to ultimate power is along Cecil Rhodes' original vision. Rhodes, ultimately, was "bottom-line" oriented, seeking to control gold, diamonds and other natural resources. The current crowd seeks to control government and to "tax" corporations by many "positive" and "negative" means (including class-action and anti-trust litigation) as their means of establishing government and bureaucratic control over a global economy that is less and less dependent on government.

The approach works best with industries which need regulation (telecommunications, energy, transportation, defense), and least well with free-market companies which cater to individuals (Microsoft, Ford, Dell, Stanley Works, etc.) and by empowering us with tools, enable our self-reliance and freedom.

In 1992, as Matt Drudge recently reminded us (http://www.drudgereport.com), Strobe Talbott wrote in TIME magazine, in an essay titled "The Birth of the Global Nation," that he looks forward to government run by "one global authority."

England, France, Japan and China "temporary?" Imagine a world run by the UN where all the delegates are unelected political hangers-on and ne'er do-well brothers-in-law who draw their intellectual content from the Strobe Talbotts of the Rhodes Scholarship meritocracy.

But imperialism always sparks nationalism, religious "revivalism" and sectionalism as antitheses. Imperialists will, thus, resort to sectional and sectarian disputes between constituent peoples to overwhelm nationalisms, as we see in the civil wars the US and UN globalists choose for interventions.

We shall see something more of how this "enlightened" globalist US diplomacy deals with nation-states, large (China, India), medium (Pakistan, Indonesia) and small (Yugoslavia, Colombia, Panama).

I will briefly observe that this Clintonian globalism of bureaucrats and regulators is only plausible because there is also an alternate and natural globalism of free markets and fair trade under voluntary associations that predates it. That model's modern vision was established by George Washington and his Freemason contemporaries of the Age of Enlightenment. It rests on constitutional government, voluntary associations of states, "free trade" and rising standards where Adam Smith's "invisible hand" operates. The Kingdom of Serbia was an example of the Masonic State in the Washingtonian spirit. (I'll try to expand on this subject in a future essay).

As to former President George Bush and his mixed-version of the "new world order," .he seems to me to have muddled his thinking between the two competing models. His experience in oil and in government may have had something to do with that. His son may be elected next year and has the chance to set things aright --if he can be persuaded. But as a fellow Yale graduate, I have to disclose that the Bush men are "Dekes" (members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, or DKE, fraternity) and we cannot expect too much of "frat" boys from a "jock house." One can only offer support and good strategy to Mr. Bush and other contenders.

Yugoslav Roundup:

There is good news and bad news all around as SIRIUS resumes its news surveys.

Good news: Liddy Dole has dropped out of the Presidential race; it seems Croat and Albanian money is not flowing as generously as it did to her husband's campaign coffers.

Good news: The KLA has managed to frighten Kosovo's Albanian population to the extent that if candid they would admit they prefer the Yugoslav government back, to a KLA-run independence. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova would beat Hashim Thaci (or Thaqi) by about 4:1 in a direct election.

Good news: Bill Clinton vetoed the Foreign relations bill in a fight with Republicans over UN dues and other issues: the Bad news is that language condemning Serbia as a state sponsor of terrorism survived both houses of Congress and, unless we can change some more minds, will likely be in the version Clinton ultimately does sign.

I could continue, but·

I'd like to take a quick look at Chechnya, then at Pakistan and Indonesia, the seventh and fourth most populous nations in the world and events there, then have a further look at Yugoslavia and Kosovo in the next issue.

Chechnya:

Chechnya, Afghanistan and Pakistan definitely overlap on the issue of squashing Islamist guerrilla movements linked to Osama bin Ladin. Russia continues its careful offensive against Grozny, demanding that Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov end his support for the local Islamist guerrilla army of Shamil Basayev before it will consider negotiations. Meanwhile about a third of Checnya's population (170,000) have fled the war zone, mostly into neighboring Russian provinces.

At the same time, Russia sent emissaries around to the major Muslim states of the Middle East, including one to General Musharraf of Pakistan, to assure them that this was an attack on rebels, not on Islam. In Pakistan, it appears Russia was intent on reinforcing the message from the US and the UN that it is time to put the Afghan training camps out of business.

The IMF has tried to warn Russia into good behavior through threats to its ongoing loans to Moscow, but Russia estimates the operation will only cost about $1 Billion. High oil prices --they've risen from $10/barrel last December to $22+/barrel this autumn-- give Russia more flexibility.

The campaign has done wonders for the popularity of the new Prime Minister, the previously unknown Vladimir Putin, whose poll numbers are soaring. It appears the Russian arm forces are in the midst of a revival.

It appears Russia will succeed in restoring its authority in the secessionist province, and may succeed in putting the Islamist guerrillas out of business, for the time being. But this Islamist rebellion-jihad spirit is strong and they will continue to seek ways to pop up elsewhere, so they will remain a major international problem for many years to come.

Pakistan:

With some 135 million people, Pakistan is the seventh largest nation in the world, right behind Russia. It is the second largest Muslim country, behind Indonesia. Supposedly it was a democracy, but in fact it was corrupt as can be and remains driven by feudal landlords who own most of the land and control the votes of their dependent peasants.

On October 12^th, a coup ended the corrupt, "democratically-elected" government of Nawaz Sharif. While the US is paying lip-service to a rapid return to democracy, it appears that the experts in Washington understand it is more important to control its nuclear weapons and Islamic guerrillas-terrorists in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. General Pervez Musharraf, the coup's leader, appears disposed to cooperate. In exchange, he seeks to give a politically and economically dysfunctional country a vacation from the excesses of corrupt politics and a struggling economy. In this case, reconstruction and establishment of constitutional rule of law takes precedence.

The US is uncomfortable with the coup, but Musharraf has put together an intelligent proposal for an interim government of experts supported by a "think tank." Land reform may be an element where the feudal landlords are busted up. We shall see. Pakistan earned more time by pulling troops back from India's border and will earn more by shutting down guerrilla training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, it was Sharif's effort to satisfy the US over those camps which contributed to the coup's timing.

The morning of the coup, as reported by AP's Kathy Gannon. The morning of the coup, Interior Minister Shuhjaat Hussein told her that Sharif was ordering the armed forces to shut down all training camps and to "disarm" the nation --another gun control program. (Details are reported by an editorial in the Oct. 15^th Wall Street Journal which is attached to the website edition of this report). Everywhere our intervention forces go, nowadays, gun control is decreed (and fails) while the UN NGO's hand out condoms and other birth control devices and information, even before they get food delivery regularized. We have seen gun control programs in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Timor, etc. In fact, last week actor Michael Douglas jet-setted in to northern Albania, at the UN's behest, to grace the ritual destruction of two Kalashnikovs (AK-47s) to the cheers of the assembled crowd. There are attempts to crack down on the bandit gangs of Northern Albania, but this photo-opportunity rally will lead nowhere. Self-defense is an ancient obligation under common law, as well as a right.

Pakistan is impatient to "liberate" the Muslim majority in the neighboring province of Kashmir, mostly controlled by India, the second most populous nation. This year, the Pakistani army tried supporting an Islamic guerrilla invasion of Pakistani nationals masquerading as "freedom fighters." The US used IMF loan coercion and other means to put an end to that adventure in July and it is a contributing factor to the timing of the coup. Now with the country down to near-zero in terms of treasury reserves, General Musharraf is trying to squeeze several billion dollars of bad loans back out of the pockets of the many cronies of former Prime Ministers Bhutto and Sharif. Sharif, himself, may face trial on corruption at some near date. Ms Bhutto has already been convicted.

Robert Kaplan, in a column in the New York Times (October 18, 1999, Weakness in Numbers) got to the point of Pakistan's corruption; it was along ethnic lines, in turn:

The trade-off Musharraf wants may be, in part, that for Pakistani cooperation in containing terrorists, including Osama bin Ladin, it may lead to some support in the UN for a sovereignty referendum --someday-- in Kashmir. Pakistan does have a legitimate claim to contest India's sovereignty, though betting that the UN will force India's hand is a long-shot at this stage.

A Yale classmate and sometime collaborator, Professor Henry F. Carey, wrote me an interesting reaction about the recent fighting in Kashmir and the coup:

In fact, today's New York Times reports continuing efforts by the Kashmiris to get a plebiscite initially promised them by a UN Security Council resoluton of April 28, 1948 and never conducted due to the occupation by both India and Pakistan of their parts of Jammu and Kashmir.

Odd, India has a more mildly corrupted version of democracy, but it has governed itself by elections and "constitutional" governance for the same 52 years that Pakistan has spent half under military dictatorships and half under corrupt civilian misrule.

Also odd is that Pakistan, India, China and Russia, often at each others' throats in the past, do agree that US globalism, as practiced by Mr. Clinton, et al, is a bit too much of a threat to the sovereignty of their nation-states. A powerful anti-Globalist bloc is forming; the rest of the world is tired of our "Third Way" politics and diplomacy.

Indonesia:

The aftershocks of IMF-sponsored economic coercion are still being felt in Jakarta and in East Timor. In a last minute twist, technocrat and interim president BJ Habibie dropped out of the presidential race and a widely-respected Muslim cleric, Abdurrahman Wahid, cheating Ms. Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the infamous founding dictator, Sukarno, of her presumed victory. Her secularist followers rioted in Jakarta, and her Hindu supporters rioted in Bali, but Wahid and other parliamentary forces took the practical step of electing Ms Sukarnoputri as Vice President, trusting that things can be calmed down, that the Army can get Timorese militias under control and that IMF funding can resume.

Indonesia will, thus, have opposing politicians in the executive, something the US experienced when Jefferson had Aaron Burr as Vice President. This is not a recipe for future constitutional order or for executive branch comity, but it may work in the interim years, with the Army serving as the de facto fourth branch of government.

Having ceded independence to East Timor, the government still has the Aceh independence movement to fight, and other scattered sectarian rumbles between Muslims and others. We shall see how things evolve as Jakarta attempts to revive a badly shaken economy.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin C. Works --SIRIUS. WWW.SIRI-US.COM

Readers may re-post this report in whole or in part, "for fair use only" with attribution to the author.

October 15, 1999; The Wall Street Journal; Review & Outlook

Pakistan and the Senate

When you're a chaotic Third World nation with nuclear weapons, you're not held to the same standards as a normal country. In Pakistan's case, that may help explain the politicized efforts to present Tuesday's military coup as a result of a Republican-led Senate's failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For the coup itself was not the only significant development that day. Indeed, a high-level meeting earlier Tuesday between the government and representatives of the military's four service branches may reveal more than anything about what is at stake now. And it has little to do with the U.S. Senate.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Interior Minister Shuhjaat Hussein said his government was asking the military to draw up plans to disarm the nation. But this was to be no ordinary gun control. The targets, the minister said, were terrorists and Islamic extremist groups. He specifically mentioned groups that have been waging sectarian war inside Pakistan. And when confronted with Pakistan's responsibility for the local and foreign extremists also fighting in Kashmir, for instance, Mr. Hussein did not flinch. "We do accept that we created these people," he told the AP's Kathy Gannon in an interview. "Now we realize that we should not have encouraged them in a way that they can now harm us."

Coming on top of last week's announcement by Mr. Sharif that his government had asked Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to close down training camps where Pakistanis go to prepare for sectarian warfare back home, that was explosive stuff. Islamists in Pakistan reacted with fury, accused him of being a U.S. puppet and vowed revenge. Tuesday's events may have been the army's turn to react. It is no secret that Gen. Musharraf was an architect of this summer's ill-fated Pakistani incursion into Kashmir, and was livid when it was called off.

So livid, in fact, that Prime Minister Sharif sent his brother to Washington last month partly to warn of an impending coup by military officers angry over Mr. Sharif's orders to have them withdraw from the Kashmir campaign--which came at President Bill Clinton's insistence. Afterward, the Clinton Administration confined itself to issuing a vague statement about the importance of constitutionality, not mentioning the military, but including a warning to Mr. Sharif to be nicer to his political opponents. Mr. Sharif's subsequent decision to follow another of Mr. Clinton's suggestions by ordering the Pakistani military to snuff out Islamic warrior forces, including some the army helped train or nurture for duty against the Indians in its beloved Kashmir, may have been the last straw.

As India recognizes, the most likely trigger for a nuclear war is not an army takeover per se, but the radicalization of Pakistani politics, with or without generals at the helm. So the first order of business for Washington should be to demand Islamabad's full cooperation in the anti-terror campaign. With various anti-nuclear sanctions already in effect against Islamabad, Washington doesn't have many arrows in its quiver. But it does have IMF money. Pakistan's generals may assume that having nukes will let them, like Russia, get away with murder. Any wobbling in Washington that confirms that impression makes murder almost guaranteed.