Subject: Imam Shamsi Ali, Rabbi Marc Schneier, Attorney Joel Cohen Could Teach A Thing Or Two Dr. Ban Ki-moon, UNSG, Right Here In Manhattan, So He Be Able To Navigate The Ship of The UN In Troubled Islamic Waters. The First Named Three Have Already Started On A Voyage Of Discovery.

Local Muslims must help cops target terror.

wrote IMAM SHAMSI ALI
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, in The New York Daily News.  www.nydailynews.com

Be Our Guest
An NYPD report issued last week shined a spotlight on the growing threat of homegrown radicalism. As a member of the city’s Muslim community, I must say: By describing the problem clearly, the report is an important contribution to our understanding of the terrorist threat.
Indeed, I am honored the report cited an article of mine, published in the Daily News last year, as evidence that the city’s Islamic community sees a real danger in its midst. My commentary singled out a local radical group, the Islamic Thinkers Society, and warned against other poisonous elements.
In the wake of the NYPD report, people throughout the city’s Muslim community must now ensure an ongoing, aggressive effort to root out radicals in the five boroughs.
New Yorkers should understand: Some of this is already underway. Many prominent Muslim leaders are fully aware of a fringe element whose sentiments stem primarily from a misinterpretation of religious teachings as well as from international political tensions.
To counteract these influences, we have taken progressive, positive steps - working closely with youth to educate and advise against the dangers of radical ideas. We understand that if we consider confronting this hatred a job for the police alone, they - and we - will fail. It is neighbors, clerics, family members and friends who see dangerous patterns as they emerge. We are the ones clued into potential problems before they might turn deadly.
Regrettably, some in the Muslim community have had a one-sided reaction to the NYPD report. One prominent organization issued a statement saying the “sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.”
While I agree with some of those words, it is critically important that we in the Muslim community acknowledge the undeniable scourge of homegrown radicalism even as we criticize others for making generalizations.
Yes, it is true: At times the NYPD report paints the Muslim community with too broad a brush. It fails to take note of the many changes that have taken place within our community over the years. I believe radicals are much more marginalized today than they were, for instance, 12 months ago.
And the report broadly identifies Muslim student associations, mosques, bookstores and other locations as possible hotbeds of radicalism. Such generalizations are not helpful. Finally, while the report correctly identifies “salafis” - members of a narrow strain of Islam - as the source of many radical views, it incorrectly identifies two prominent Muslims, Sayyid Qutb and Abul A’la Maududi, as salafis.
But on the central question, let there be no doubt: The Police Department has it right. Radicals who seek to incite hatred have been and remain a danger to New York.
Last September in these pages, I wrote: “There are local preachers who distort our faith to foment hatred of America. There are people who, rather than encouraging young people to build better lives for themselves, irresponsibly egg them on toward an angry and narrow view of the future. I see this danger every day.”
We must communicate clearly that such views have never and will never be accepted by mainstream Muslims. And the police must have more trust in - and a more nuanced understanding of - us. Only when we work hand in hand can we eradicate this very real threat.
Ali is deputy imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens.

Now Imam Shamsi Ali has replaced retired Imam Omar Abu Namous as Main guide to the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the big Mosque at the corner of East (6 Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.

We re-publish above today, because we had the good sense to go today to The New York Synagogue on East 58 Street, Manhattan, to witness the three people of our title in “THE DIALOGUE CONTINUES…”

What dialogue? Why do they say continues?
The short answer can be found by reading our posting of January 15, 2007. That is when this particular history started. Please see:

 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2007/01…

Now to the longer answer - Today was Saturday “Zachor” so first let us say a few words about this particular Saturday which in Judaism is the Saturday of Shabbat Zachor. This is the Saturday where the Torah Portion that is read is about the first bad experience the Jewish Nation had after it was formed by the act of liberation described in the “coming out of Egypt” experience. We read about the columns of Jews marching through the desert towards their promised land - at that stage a peaceful march after the crossing of the sea experience. Now it is the people of Amalek that decide to attack them - and this is the first time the budding Nation has to fight - and God wants them to fight and eradicate the Amalek - but Moses hesitates to complete that order. When he holds his hands up - the Israelites win, but when he lowers his hands - the fighting does not go on well. Eventually his hands are propped up by two stones and the fighting ends with some of the Amalek escaping.

God decrees then “Zachor the Amalek” - that is remember the Amalek - which some interpreted as kill the Amalek whenever you see them, but 12th century greatest philosopher Maimonides said - not so fast - the idea is not to kill the Amalek, but to learn from that experience to judge Amalek-type treachery. That is - you are responsible “to protect” whenever someone behaves in treacherous ways like Amalek did. Only then you are entitled to kill in your self defense. That is the humanism of Moses that won out in the end - and that is the way all religions that regard the old testament as their basic book of belief understand above story today.

How nice it were if the UN and all its Member States would indeed behave according to the Maimonides explanation of “Zachor” - governments would indeed cary out their “responsibility to protect” their own citizens, as by the way, under the leadership of the previous UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the UN actually got around finally to put this on its books - something that would obligate , for example, Sudan to protect its citizens in Darfur. On the other hand, Maimonides shuddered, like Moses must have shuddered, from the idea of genocide, and it would have been genocide indeed if all Amalek would have been eradicated. What we know today is that we are entitled to eradicate the Hitlers or the Bin Ladens of this world - in effect we are ordered by God to do so - the God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in.

Now we know what is special in the date today - and by the way this special day was explained by Rabbi Schneier - and we immediately understood when reading later the NY Daily News article by Imam Shamsi Ali, that he also is in complete agreement with the the Maimonides interpretation of the Biblical text.

So, with both representatives of what some think are feuding religions agreeing on that all important text, so what is the problem? Surely, with the news that reach us daily from the Middle East it seems that - some over there - believe in the simplistic explanation that says someone becomes your enemy by birth - and that is the ground on which grows the insanity of suicide bombers. If you realize that there is an insanity in that behavior - why then allow such behavior in your own neighborhood right here in America - for example?


Brighter folks understand better, and when they happen to be living as minorities in countries of western civilization they wake up and realize that only by joining with their so-called enemies-by-birth in order to fight for greater common interest - the fight against “islamophobia” and “antisemitism” - that is when both sides could in effect be the winners in their own life.

The New York history started rolling a year ago when Rabbi Marc Schneier and attorney Joel Cohen (the latter belonging to the same law firm that years ago, because of efforts by Dr. Rita Hauser, brought about discussions between the State of Israel and the PLO) decided to reach out to Imam Omar Abu Namous of the Manhattan great Mosque. Rabbi Marc Schneier is President of the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) and he made it his business to find the common ground by starting on the voyage - saying - look - let us leave out the problems of the Middle East and let us first see if we can bridge the problems Jews and Muslims have right here. Our previous article describes what happened a year ago, and how people like Martin Luther King III, Russell Simmons and Steven Spielberg, and perhaps even the Ambassador of Qatar to the UN, were ready to lend a shoulder - and thus the voyage was started.

Now 24 moderate Muslim leaders from the UK wrote a press release where they said - signed with their names and titles - that what goes on in the Middle East is a misinterpretation of Islam. Islam does not allow for acts of suicide in the name of the religion. For me personally above statement is also sort of a vindication. After the infamy of 9/11 before the end of 2001, at a meeting of the Board of the Center for UN Reform Education (CURE) - I asked if anyone has heard of an Islamic cleric to say that the suicide bombers do not go to paradise, but rather, they go to hell? The majority at CURE, even though I just wrote for them the “Promptbook on Sustainable Development” that was distributed before the 2002 Johannesburg Summit to all UN Member States’ Governments - in New York and directly to their capitals, were appalled. Their instinctive feeling was that for polite discourse one must fudge over such issues, and they really knew nothing about the place of Wahhabism in all of this - even though they agreed with me that US dependence on Middle East oil is part of the problem.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) invited Rabbi Marc Schneier to their March 9, 2008 dinner and to speak about above “Muslim Call for Peace: Dialogue and Understanding Between Muslims and Jews.” And Imam Shamsi is being invited these days to various Jewish institutions to speak - so the dialogue started just a year ago is finally catching on - perhaps even faster then the originators dared to hope - and obviously - the Middle East is not kept out of this dialogue anymore.

Now, to March 15, 2008, at The New York Synagogue, “The Dialogue Continues….:” Imam Shamsi, who was born in Indonesia, and studied at Madrases there - religion, Koran, Arabic language - made it clear that the Islamic Madrasa is like the Jewish Midrash - a place of religious studies. The problem is what comes in because of daily experiences. The fact that Indonesia and Malaysia are away from the Palestinian experience brings about a much more moderate approach to the Middle East problems. Afghanistan and Pakistan have their own set of problems and their extremists are busy with those problems. The Majority of world Muslims live in that part of Asia. Strangely, Shiia Islam did not come up in the discussion - I realized this only now when writing about it - so the discussion was really only about the Sunnis that populate the immediate area of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and whenever extreme movements were mentioned it was only the Hamas. The Hezbolah was not mentioned - hardly anything about Iran.

Talking about the extremism of the Middle East, when asked about the Wahhabi influence - he said that there is a religious Wahhabism as a stream of extremist Islam, but there is also a political Wahhabism that is Saudi Arabia. Because he comes from a different background he, though Muslim, finds his disagreements with that extremism and he was attacked for not being on the extreme. The article we used as an introduction shows this, and “googling” we found articles directed against him - so Imam Shamsi is a brave man. He is ready to say that political Islam has highjacked religious Islam. The great majority of Muslims, though they are religious Muslims obligated to help other Muslims, will not agree to the radical methods applied in the Middle East that were instituted and supported by the Arab governments. To the direct question if he accepts the right of existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East - he unequivocally answered YES. He wants to see two separate states in the region - a Jewish State and a Palestinian State.

I tried my question in which I intended to enhance the cooperation between Jews and Muslims by getting the two groups, that try now to find common ground, to go even to higher ground - a common interest in - as ordered by the Bible - man is to be just the guardian of the earth so he can transmit life on earth to his children. That means a common interest in enviromentalism that today means also a reduction of CO2 emissions and less reliance on oil. The side effect of this being also a decrease in funds that are being misused by the likes of the political Wahhabists when they support the Wahhabi religious expansion.

I did not get an answer to my question, but intend to ask for the speakers’ comments to this posting.

Now to why I wrote that listening to the debate, the UN Secretary-General could have charged himself with arguments when faced with what he may think a phalanx of Arab Leaders bombarding him with common anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Further, letting them contribute to his UN staff appointees that dance to music provided by home-government - he gets the Middle East to twist and color everything the UN does. First start with the realization that the League of Arab States, all run by Sunni Arabs may have a large numerical presence at the UN, but they are in a minority when one looks at the Islamic global population. (OK, we know that the Shiia majority in Bahrain is now trying to raise their head - but the ruling house is still Sunni and by design, In Iraq the upper hand was Sunni. In Lebanon Islam is basically led by Sunni though the Iran supported Shiia will try to to act more like Sunni then even the Saudis, when it comes to Israeli problems.) The non-Arabs and the Shiia led by Iran, are actually better gauge for the future of Islam - but you would not know this at the UN. A majority of the Muslims, even in the States of the Arab League, will want to live a normal life of personal fulfilment if they were only given the chance.

From Imam Shamsi, and Rabbi Schneier’s discussion - it turned out that much of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is indeed an intra-Arab problem. This is indeed something so serious, that by not seeing it one ends up in complete disequilibrium when trying to view the region. In Dakar, the UNSG ended up becoming a prop to feuding Arab governments. By not putting a finger on the pulse of suffering Arabs, but by only talking to their governments, the real suffering of the people is not known to the UN - it is nevertheless possible for the Muslims right here in New York, to enlighten the UNSG - these meetings between Muslims and Jews in New York, and the statements that start to come out from the UK, are witness that there is no Islamic monolith to be frightened by. These activities are much more promissing then the Discussions about Civilizations that were orchestrated by the UN with the participation of the Islamic Government’s official delegations and the King of Spain.

This posting is written after returning tonight from a Hazen Polsky Foundation Asia Society’ President’s Forum, where at the Asia Society’s Headquarters in New York, President Vishakha N. Desai interviews prominent guests on Asian and Asian American Topics. Today we had the United States Permanent Representative to the UN - Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The way how this Forum is organized - there is an important guest, and Dr. Desai engages him in a discussion. Then questions are allowed from the floor and also via the internet from people watching the webcast of the live session.

Dr. Khalilzad is an authority on US-West Asia relations and on Asia in General.  Dr. Desai directed her questions mainly on Afghanistan and Iraq. The obvious - Iran and Pakistan issues - came up also - oil did not come up and not really much about the workings of the UN or the US-UN relations. Sure, there were personal questions to the Ambassador who is the highest ranking Muslim in the Administration. Also, he has a very interesting personal history and he will have worked in the Administration through all 8 years of the Bush -43 Presidency. He also worked for Bush -41 and in the Reagan years. We were anxious to ask him about the November - December 2008 Poznan problem about which we wrote several times in the past. I could not place my question in the Q&A time, but was able nevertheless to bring before Dr. Khalilzad my question after the end of the session - and indeed I got an answer that seems a plausible way to go about the US position on the climate change issue, and the reality that there will be a change in the occupancy of the White House in January 2009. Nevertheless - in December 2008 - there will already be a President-in-waiting.  As there is only one President at a time - that could then mean that the important Poznan meeting will become totally irrelevant because of the fact that the US President will indeed be changed within one month, and so will the US attitude to the climate change subject.

My question to the Ambassador was something like this: Mr. Ambassador, my question is about climate change. You, and this Administration will still be here in December, but there will already be a President-elect, and any one of the three possibilities for next Presidency has a different attitude to climate change then this Administration. The important Poznan meeting is in December - how will you deal with the subject in the light of serious policy differences?

The Ambassador said that we have experience with transition teams and we will establish this via a transition team.

I insisted wanting to know if this will have to be done in Washington, and this clearly will not provide for timely guidance, or will you do it here in New York?

To my real surprise - the Ambassador said - “I will do it here - we know how to do it.”

I attach here notes about the persona of Dr. Khalilzad, and we see that he has had experience with transition teams - that is he will be able indeed to establish at the UN such a transition team in order to provide for taking  US new policy to the December Poznan meeting. It is indeed the essence of that meeting - the effort to bring the US on board. Hopefully, whoever wins in November, he or she will appoint without delay  someone to work with the US Mission to the UN in order to prepare the new US position for the Roadway to Copenhagen that goes from the Bali meeting through Poznan - to Copenhagen.

In this posting we do not go over the points that were brought up at the Forum, our only further material is related as said to the persona of Ambassador Khalilzad.

Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad (Pashto/Persian: زلمی خلیلزاد - Zalmay Khalīlzād) (born: 22 March 1951) is since April 23, 2007, the Permanent United States Representative to the United Nations. He has been involved with U.S. policy makers at the White House since the early 1980s.

An ethnic Pashtun, Khalilzad was born in the city of Mazari Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Khalilzad’s father was a government official under the monarchy of Mohammed Zahir Shah. Zalmay began his education at the private Ghazi Lycée school in Kabul. He came to the United States as a high school exchange student. After one year in te US, he returned for a short while to Kabul, but then switched to the American University in Beirut (AUB), where he learned about the larger Western Asia Region - that according to his own statement - stretches from Morocco to Pakistan.

On April 23, 2007 Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad began as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Prior, to his present appointment, Khalilzad served as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq 2005-2007.

From 2003 to 2005, Khalilzad served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, and also as Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan.

“Before becoming Ambassador to Afghanistan, he served at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, and prior to that as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs.” He also has been a Special Presidential Envoy and Ambassador at Large for the Free Iraqis. In defending the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Khalilzad said in a February 2002 PBS interview: “We have to think about where Afghanistan has been and where it might have been. Compared to the many years of war involving the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, and prior to that the civil war among various factions that fought against the Soviet Union and the actual war against the Soviet Union, which lasted some ten years, this is - what they have now - is a much better situation. The civil war has ended, Afghanistan has been liberated. There are challenges, clearly, there are security challenges, there are political challenges, there are economic challenges, but these problems that they face now are much smaller, better problems, if you like, to have compared to the problems they had just a few years ago.”

“Mr. Khalilzad, a protégé of Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, since long before Mr. Bush took office, served as a senior director on the president’s national security council staff during the early years of Mr. Bush’s first term.” After the 2000 elections, Dr. Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and has been a Counselor to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

Zalmay Khalilzad served as an adviser to the oil company Unocal, now part of ConocoPhillips, this during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. While working for the Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) in the mid 1990s, while with RAND Corporation, Khalilzad conducted risk analyses for Unocal for a proposed 1,400 Km (890-mile), $2-billion, 1.9-billion-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan - a Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project. He acted as a special liaison between UNOCAL and the Taliban regime.

In 2001, President George W. Bush asked Khalilzad to head the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and Khalilzad briefly served as Counselor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In May 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced the Khalilzad’s appointment as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs at the National Security Council. In December 2002 the President appointed Khalilzad to the position of Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis with the task of coordinating “preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.”

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, President Bush came to rely on Khalilzad’s Afghanistan expertise. Khalilzad was involved in the early stages of planning to overthrow the Taliban and on December 31st 2001 was selected as Bush’s Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan. He served in that position until November of 2003, when he was appointed to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Khalilzad held the position of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from November 2003 until June 2005. During this time, he oversaw the drafting of Afghanistan’s constitution, was involved with the country’s first elections, and helped to organize the first meeting of Afghanistan’s parliament (the Loya Jirga). It was rumored by some that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was very reliant on Khalilzad’s guidance. During 2004 and 2005 he was also involved in helping with the establishment of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), which is the first western-style higher learning educational institution in Afghanistan.

Should a Republican win the 2008 Presidential Election, Khalilzad is widely speculated to be a leading candidate to become Secretary of State.

He is one of the original members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was a signatory of the letter to President Bill Clinton sent on January 26, 1998, which called for him to accept the aim of “removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power” using “a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.”

Between 1993 and 1999, Dr. Khalilzad was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for RAND’s Project Air Force. While with RAND, he founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Between 1991 and 1992, Dr. Khalilzad served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. Then-Secretary of Defense Cheney awarded Dr. Khalilzad the Department of Defense medal for outstanding public service.

Dr. Khalilzad also served as a senior political scientist at RAND and an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego in 1989 and 1991. From 1985 to 1989 at the Department of State, Dr. Khalilzad served as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs working policy issues, advising on the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. From 1979 to 1986, Dr. Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. \

Khalilzad first visited the United States as a high school exchange student, through an American Field Service program. He lived for a year with a family, and attended Ceres High School, near Modesto, the wine country, the San Ioaquin Valley, California.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he studied closely with strategic thinker Albert Wohlstetter - a mathematician and mentor to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Between 1993 and 1999, Dr. Khalilzad was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure, for RAND Corporation’s Project Air Force. While with RAND, he helped found RAND’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies as well as “Strategic Appraisal,” a periodic RAND publication. He also authored several influential monographs, including “The United States and a Rising China” and “From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World After the Cold War.”

While at RAND, Khalilzad also had a brief stint consulting for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which at the time was conducting a risk analysis for Unocal, now part of ConocoPhillips, for a proposed 1,400 km (890 mile), $2-billion, 622 m³/s (22,000 ft³/s) Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and further proceeding to Pakistan. He acted Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project.

In 1997, Khalilzad “joined Unocal officials at a reception for an invited Taliban delegation to Texas.”

“Just as oil industry conflicts of interest have not been a concern for the Bush administration in its appointments, Khalilzad’s historic support for the Taliban seems not to be either,” wrote the environmental, anti-mining group Project Underground of Khalilzad’s ambassadorship. “Even as the Clinton administration was beginning to recognize the repressive nature of the Taliban regime and its links to [Osama] bin Laden, Khalilzad called for U.S. engagement with the Taliban. ‘The Taliban do not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran,’ wrote Khalilzad. ‘We should … be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to re-engage.’”
Between 1991 and 1992, under President George H. W. Bush, Dr. Khalilzad served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. Then-Secretary of Defense Cheney awarded Dr. Khalilzad the Department of Defense medal for outstanding public service.

Dr. Khalilzad served as a senior political scientist at RAND in 1989 and 1991. Here he was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for the U.S. Department of Defense think tank - the RAND Corporation’s Project Air Force, 1993-99, Founder, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Associate Professor at the University of California at San Diego. He was also Executive Director, Friends of Afghanistan, “a support group for the mujaheddins fighting the Soviets.” The group was part of a $500,000 U.S. Information Agency “public relations campaign intended to bring [the Afghan] struggle against Soviet troops to the world’s attention.”

Khalilzad is one of the original members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (the only Muslim and non-native born American original member) and was a signatory of the letter to President Bill Clinton sent on January 26, 1998, which called for him to accept the aim of “removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power” using “a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.”

In 1984 Khalilzad accepted a one-year Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to join the State Department, where he worked for Paul Wolfowitz, then the Director of Policy Planning.

From 1985 to 1989, Khalilzad served in President Ronald Reagan’s Administration as a senior State Department official advising on the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war. During this time he was the State Department’s Special Advisor on Afghanistan to Undersecretary of State Michael H. Armacost. In this role he developed and guided the international program to promote the merits of a Mujahideen-led Afghanistan to oust the Soviet occupation.

From 1979 to 1986, Dr. Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, where he worked with Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Dr. Khalilzad is the author of more than 200 books, articles, studies, and reports.

Russia may offer Afghan route for Nato
James Blitz in London, for The Financial Times, March 6 2008.

Russia is for the first time talking to western governments about the possibility of allowing goods destined for NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan to be transported across Russian territory.

In a development that could signal the start of a significant level of practical co-operation between Russia and Nato in Afghanistan, diplomats in Moscow and Brussels are working on a plan that would allow non-military material – such as clothing, food and petrol – to cross Russia by land.

Despite the frosty relationship between Russia and the west in many policy areas, Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s new ambassador to Nato, signalled a strong interest in forging agreement in this area at a recent meeting of the Nato-Russia council in Brussels.

His proposal has since been followed up by intensive talks between Nato and Russian officials on the precise routes to be used, amid hopes of reaching agreement at next month’s Nato summit in Bucharest.

According to diplomats at Russia’s Nato mission, the supply routes would have to pass from Russia through former Soviet republics, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which are being consulted on the move.

“Consultations on the possible arrangements are being held between experts from Russian agencies and people from Nato,” said a senior Russian official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Discussions are focusing on the approximate volumes of cargo that could be transported and the entry and exit routes for the shipments.”

A senior European diplomat at Nato said: “Rogozin has signalled an interest in practical co-operation with Nato – not least on Afghanistan – and we hope something will come from that.”

The Russian proposal could be an important boost for the Nato mission fighting the Taliban, say western diplomats.

Nato’s 43,000 troops in Afghanistan rely heavily on supplies transported via Pakistan. However, Pakistan’s political uncertainty has long been regarded by Nato military commanders as a potential risk to operations, making the offer of a northern supply route through Russia attractive.

Western diplomats at Nato say it is too early to know whether the Russian proposal signals a change in Moscow’s policy towards the west after the election of Dmitri Medvedev as Russia’s president last week.

Instead, they argue that Russia has always had a strong interest in seeing the Nato mission in Afghanistan succeed because Moscow wants to keep Islamist fundamentalism at bay on its southern borders.

“By helping the Nato mission in Afghanistan, Russia is looking after its strategic interests,” said one diplomat.

This posting starts with the essence of the presentation of the Austrian Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, and moves then to the article by Matthew Russell Lee on www.InnerCity.Press.com - these related to the UN Security Council open debate on “CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT.” We had before one posting where The Permanent Representative of Israel lamented the fact that some use their own children as human projectiles in suicide bombings - these people obviously have no respect then for the children of the other. We picked the Austrian intervention because it is uncluttered with direct references to reality, and basically makes all the right requests for a world of sanity.

The Austrian presentation stresses that we have already on the books all the tools needed for a sane world - tools that prohibit and criminalize recruitment and use of child soldiers, as well as other abuses of children in armed conflict. We have already the tools for monitoring and reporting of abuse. The problem is that violations just continue without regard to the rules on the books. The Ambassador wants to see that rape and sexual abuse of children should also trigger automatically the requirement for monitoring and reporting mechanisms like it is for the use of the children as soldiers. He is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence against children documented in the Secretary-General’s report. He makes clear allusion to the UN’s own forces, that were tainted, as we well know, with many accusations of sexual abuse.

He requests that child rights training should be an obligatory part of training of UN peace keeping personnel. THE EUROPEAN PEACE UNIVERSITY IN STADTSCHLAINING, BURGENLAND, AUSTRIA, is offering Specialization Courses on Child protection, Monitoring and Rehabilitation also for UN and EU personnel. Similarly, he expressed Austria’s interest in protection of women and girls, and asks for support to the Machel Strategic Review and the development of an Inter-Agency Child Protection Database for applicability in conflict and post-conflict situations.

All of the above is nifty, but then look please on The Inner City posting to see that not all are equal at the UN. Some get away literally with murder, while some that are not big enough, or influential enough, at the UN are doomed to stay as victims. Please - see the attached posting, and consider what can be done to bring reality based corrections into the UN deliberations for enforcing the already existing regulations - equally - for the strong and weak.
For one thing, we were appalled when after the presentation by the Ambassador of Israel, it was the Palestinian representative who spoke of those that do war hiding behind children. He surely meant not his own Palestinians but with straight face and impunity was probably talking of the Israelis. And what happened with troops from Sri Lanka that were returned from Haiti for misusing local children? Was there any reeducation process applied if there was no court action? What about the refusal of Karzai of Afghanistan to let UN look into child recruits by the Taliban? Will pacification intent over-rule looking into child-soldiers issues?

Afghanistan and Pakistan:Uneasy Neighbors and a Place Where The US Will Be Involved Many Years Beyond Its Involvement In Iraq. The Solution Will Come Through Sustainable Development. Ideas From a Great Event At The Asia Society Headquarters In New York. We think This Will Be an Issue in the US Presidential Elections.

February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day, I had breakfast coffee and croissants at the Asia Society where Chairman, Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke had arranged for a morning seminar supported by the Nicholas Platt Endowment for Public Policy (Mr. Platt is the previous Chairman and now Chairman Emeritus at the Asia Society). The topic of the conversation dealt with the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan - and the two countries as a whole.

The debate was being broadcast, and as we already wrote - “For the one issue of U.S. foreign policy on which most of the rest of the world agrees is that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. They also say that the sooner the U.S. extricates itself (and concentrates more on Afghanistan and Pakistan), the better for the world, the better for the so-called war on terror and the better for America itself” - in our article: www.sustainabilitank.info we were quite curious to hear people in the know.

The two debaters were Nicholas Schmidle, Former Fellow, Institute of Current World Affairs, who was based in Pakistan from February 2006 until January 2008, and was expelled from Pakistan. Please see: “Pakistan Kicked Me Out. Others Were Less Lucky.” By Nicholas Schmidle, Sunday, February 3, 2008; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…

Sarah Chayes, Field Director, Afghans for Civil Society and Author of “Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban.” She lives in Kandahar and for the organization she created - please look at www.arghand.org

The 1996 takeover in Afghanistan by Mullah Omar’s Taliban was welcome by the people because it came up against a background of disorder and upheaval feeding corruption - the result of rule by warlords and nonexistence of a central authority. Today, as no achievements were made by the Karzai government in the eradication of corruption, the people are longing for the relative peace they had under the Taliban - so here comes a new Taliban that is much less restrictive then the old Taliban. Now he price of wheat is up, this because of the continuing corruption, and people have a hard time feeding themselves. It is not true that the opium/narcotics economy is run by the government or by the new Taliban. The reality is that this is the only economy in the country - the business sector runs the narcotics trade - they export the drugs and import the cars and TVs. There are no banks that extend credit to farmers. The opium is the credit and the valid currency in the country! The reality is that growing the poppies provides them with the credit they need and they repay in narcotics. If you harm the poppy fields you destroy their livelihood - and you become their enemy even more so. The Afghans got trapped by the disorder, and the west is trapped as well!

The above brings us to the main point we found in the presentations - the fact that one must start giving the people an alternative. There were quite a few people with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan among those present in the room besides Ambassador Holbrooke and the two members of the panel. They were called in by Mr. Holbrooke to make statements and there was a general consensus that a long development process will be required - this was the essence of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - something the US has not grasped yet - but some NGOs got started nevertheless.

Ms. Sarah Chayes lives six years already in Kandahar and got going an industry of fragrances under the ARGAND.org name that starts from growing the plants that are the base for these fragrances. Mr. Barney Rubin who wrote a 50 page article backing these locally produced goods for export, plugged locally produced soaps. Now - these are buds of Sustainable Development that can start replacing the narcotics economy. It will take many years, a lot of money, and enlightened US presence, to pull this off and eventually to allow the US and NATO to pull out. Ambassador Holbrooke said flatly that we must tell the people in the US that we will be in Afghanistan long beyond our involvement in Iraq. We have to build thus a long term support system - this is something the Canadians have already started in one province.

One participant spent time as part of a US military training team on the Pakistani side of the border. He said that if there is work on rural electrification, Madrases lose their impact. He said that what is important to the locals in his area is their Pashto heritage, not the madrassa teachings, neither the affiliation to Afghanistan or Pakistan - they are Pashtuns first. Chayes said that the situation of rights of women is not their issue. What is important to them is the fact that the cost of their daily wheat! Kost is better off ,despite its location closer to the new Taliban, is because there was an increase here of resources from the US.

Kandahar is the historic center of Afghanistan - not Kabul. That is where the main attention should be centered. Americans put $10 billion into Afghanistan since 9/11. but half of it was reimbursement to the government for their operations. The other half could have helped with the commodities but did not - this because of the prevailing corruption.

Former US Ambassador Robert Finn, from his own experience there: “there was never enough money, there were never enough troops.” also - “we cannot go before there is an Afghan economy!”

Schmidle said that the Wazirs and the Masoods are the two strong tribes. There are foreign militants that are hated by the locals. The Wazirs kept out the foreign Uzbeks. The Afghans did not think that the insurgency was their insurgency. They see in the Americans’ intrusion the reason for their troubles. The trick would be to cooperate with the local Taliban in order to root out the foreign insurgents.

Chayes has a problem with the concept that there is a good Taliban. If you work with them you end up giving away the south to the Pakistani ISI (the intelligence). That would be like giving the victim over to the gang-rapists - she said.

Nick Platt said plainly that this time we must stay and we must make up our mind now that this is a long-time operation. Schmidle, talking of the military activities raised the issue about US attacks and the possibility that the targets should be in Pakistan rather then in Afghanistan.

On the other hand - the observation was that the disaffection with Karzai is total and Chayes saw this in Kandahar - his own home-town. He was given the task to clean out corruption but appointed the people that were most involved in this corruption. He is afraid of Pakistan and the warlords. He is charismatic - that is how he emerged as the face to the West. In this respect it is different then Iraq where there was no charismatic leader that projected to the West. But then - he rules with his friends and does not support anti-corruption moves.

Ambassador Holbrooke asked if there is an alternative to Karzai, and was answered by a former US Ambassador who just came back last week from the region that he has not met a senior US official who understands the conflict inside that region. Supporting the new Taliban - against the old Taliban does not show understanding!

A Pakistani present, Javet Khan, said that the bad Taliban has now 60% support among the people - that is more then before. Bringing back the bad Taliban may pacify the region. This point of view was opposed by Chayes. The Pashtuns do not want the Taliban! What they want is to get something to survive on!

At the end of the event, Ambassador Holbrooke announced that he intends two go within the next two months to the region and we concluded that this whole topic will move to the front burner in the US Presidential campaign.

With a presumed Republican McCain candidacy that says he is ready to stay in Iraq for the next 100 years and his lack of emphasis on Afghanistan, we can only see the necessity of a Democratic approach that will tell the US that while Iraq was all about oil and for various reasons the US has to get out in a speedy but controlled fashion, staying in Iraq for the long haul makes for US real National interest - it also can be successful via the development of a local economy that is based on sustainable development. Helping the Afghans achieve their true independence from their warlords and from the Pakistani intelligence machine, showing understanding to the Pashtuns on both sides of the border, does have the promise of success that the US intervention in Iraq never had. The issue is very much one of US internal politics, and the Administration of 2009 must be different from the one of 2008 if it is for the US to extricate itself from the blunders that followed the 9/11 attacks. Will Ambassador Holbrooke have a chance at being part of the New White House? That is also a question now!

I got an address in Manhattan for buying Afghan soaps - it is in a store at 143 West 44 Street.

DOMUS
413 West 44th Street
(at 9th Avenue)
New York, NY
Tél.: (212) 581-8099
 Retailers.

Soap Stones

Each bar of Arghand soap is hand-molded to resemble a river-polished lump of local marble. Each weighs 4 1/2 oz., or 125 g. For wholesale prices, orders, and other information, please contact  info at arghand.org

Amandine (with palm and coconut oils, apricot kernel oils, sweet almond, cold pressed wild almond and almond extract). The oil of the tiny wild almonds, which grow in the highlands above Kandahar, gives this soap its character. A flat white oval, lightly colored with a swirl of wild almond butter.

Anisette (with palm and coconut oils, cold-pressed sweet almond, anise seed and pomegranate seed oils, steeped licorice root). Licorice and alkanet roots, both wild vegetable dyes gathered locally, give this soap its distinctive coloring. Round and flat, yellow and lapis lazuli.

Desert Fields (with palm and coconut oils, cold pressed wild pistachio, pomegranate and castor, steeped Artemisia persica leaves and walnut hulls). Irregular, tawny-green. Perhaps Arghand’s best cleanser.

Elixir of Artemis (with palm and coconut oils, cold pressed wild almond, hemp, pomegranate seed and castor oils, and Artemisia cina essential oil). The heady aroma of this autumn-flowering herb gives this soap a festive note. A touch of ground turmeric root adds a joyous yellow hue. Flat, irregular, golden.

Kandahar Rose (with palm and coconut oils, cold pressed sweet almond and pomegranate seed oils, and essential oil of Rosa damascena). So ancient is the tradition of distilling the essence of the “Kandahar Rose” (Rosa damascena) in Kandahar, that the very word for rose is “flower-water flower.” Egg-shaped, white with a swirl of pink.

Mountain Herb (with palm and coconut oils, cold pressed hemp, black cumin, pomegranate seed and castor oils and essential oil of wild mint). The pistachio green color of this soap comes directly from its hemp and vivid green cumin seed oils.

Pomegranate (with palm and coconut oils, cold pressed sweet almond and pomegranate oils, pomegranate concentrate). This soap, fragrance-free and rich in pomegranate seed oil, is especially suited to sensitive skin. Round, deep red.

Thornblossom (with palm and coconut oils, cold-pressed sweet almond and pomegranate seed oils, and essential oil of Salvia spinosa). This rare flower, which grows wild in the hills above Kandahar, posesses an intoxicating, fruity odor, and is known for its medicinal qualities. Triangular, marble-white.
Gift assortments of “Soap Pebbles” (5 x 50 g. each), are also available.

Body Oils

Amandine
(with oils of sweet and wild almond, apricot kernel and pomegranate seed, and pure almond extract). A relaxing oil that brings a sense of comfort and well-being.

Anisette
(with oils of sweet almond, apricot kernel, anise and pomegranate seeds). Uplifting.

Desert Fields
(with oils of wild pistachio, apricot kernel, and pomegranate seed, essential oil of Artemisia persica). An unctuous, golden elixir that deeply penetrates the skin. Tonic fragrance.
Our labels were painted by Austin, TX artist Betty Jameson, and designed by Eve Lyman of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Arghand soaps are wrapped in strips of silk from turbans woven in the western Afghan town of Herat. We commission pomegranate-wood display and gift baskets — scale models of pomegranate harvesting baskets — from a pair of elderly brothers in Arghandab.

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WINNING AFGANISTAN - Comment by Harry L. Langer, April 5, 2008.
Rather than aerial spraying or using other heavy handed methods to eradicate the Afgan heroin crops (their farmers’ staple crop and main livelihood) and possibly destroy their fields, it would be more effective and humane to purchase the poppy crop with part payment in seeds to grow desperately needed food crops to meet national and international demand. This would provide an alternative livelihood; expand markets; win the hearts and minds of the Afgan farmers; cut off the primary revenue source sustaining the Taliban and Al Quaeda: help stabilize the country; and meet the goals of the Alliance, NATO, the U.S., and the UN. It is also more cost effective than conducting war and would save lives.

Oceans Eyed as New Energy Source.
By Brian Skoloff, The Associated Press, Thursday February 14, 2008.

Dania Beach, Florida - Just 15 miles off Florida’s coast, the world’s most powerful sustained ocean current - the mighty Gulf Stream - rushes by at nearly 8.5 billion gallons per second. And it never stops.

To scientists, it represents a tantalizing possibility: a new, plentiful and uninterrupted source of clean energy.

Florida Atlantic University researchers say the current could someday be used to drive thousands of underwater turbines, produce as much energy as perhaps 10 nuclear plants and supply one-third of Florida’s electricity. A small test turbine is expected to be installed within months.

“We can produce power 24/7,” said Frederick Driscoll, director of the university’s Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology. Using a $5 million research grant from the state, the university is working to develop the technology in hopes that big energy and engineering companies will eventually build huge underwater arrays of turbines.

From Oregon to Maine, Europe to Australia and beyond, researchers are looking to the sea - currents, tides and waves - for its infinite energy. So far, there are no commercial-scale projects in the U.S. delivering electricity to the grid.

Because the technology is still taking shape, it is too soon to say how much it might cost. But researchers hope to make it as cost-effective as fossil fuels. While the initial investment may be higher, the currents that drive the machinery are free.

There are still many unknowns and risks. One fear is the “Cuisinart effect”: The spinning underwater blades could chop up fish and other creatures.

Researchers said the underwater turbines would pose little risk to passing ships. The equipment would be moored to the ocean floor, with the tops of the blades spinning 30 to 40 feet below the surface, because that’s where the Gulf Stream flows fastest. But standard navigation equipment on ocean vessels could easily guide them around the turbine fields if their hulls reached that deep, researchers said.

And unlike offshore wind turbines, which have run into opposition from environmentalists worried that the technology would spoil the ocean view, the machinery would be invisible f