Turkmenistan's travails - redux

 

In September 2002 I penned an OPED bemoaning the unfortunate fact that the antics of 'Turkmenbashi' ("Head of all Turkmen," the then "Perpetual President of Turkmenistan," Sapamurat Niyazov) obscured the miserable lot of the ordinary folk of Turkmenistan...

I said: "... The total and utter ridiculousness of this situation makes an observer want to smile. But that is an unfortunate reaction. The buffoonery masks repression and misrule, under which the vast majority of Turkmenistan's citizens live a life of grinding poverty, while the country has vast reserves of natural gas and is the world's tenth largest producer of cotton. While the masses are hungry, Turkmenbashi spends money on grandiose projects (a 10 meter high gold-plated statue of Turkmenbashi atop a 72 meter tall tower surrounded by fountains, ornate palaces, Berzengi - a hotel and business center in the desert outside Ashkhabad that has 22 empty 5-star hotels built completely from imported materials), jails any opposition (some in psychiatric wards), has a tame and muzzled press, etc. As there are shortages of staples and hunger increases, Turkmenbashi has said, "Anyone who complains about going without sausage or bread for a day is not a Turkmen."

When he passed away in 2006 his Vice President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, took over in his stead, and a May 2008 blog entry noted that he had rolled back a couple of Turkmenbashi's actions. However, as time passed it became clear that not much was changed, as reflected in this November 2009 blog update entry.

We are now mid-way through 2019 and apparently not much has improved, see: Crazy-Ass President Of Turkmenistan Proves He's Not Dead By Doing Donuts Around 'Gateway To Hell.' 

Also view the video on YouTube: Watan Habarlary 04.08.2019

Powell, for the last time...

A recent article, 'Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew About Iraq 15 Years Ago and What He Told the U.N.', deconstructs Powell's United Nations speech in 2003 and demonstrates (were it really necessary) Powell's perfidy. Of course, this was nothing new to anyone who has followed the evolution of Powell's position on this and also on the question of his knowledge and role in torture under the Bush administration!

Previous blog entries concerning Colin Powell:

Follow up - Tweedledum and Tweedledee - February 15th, 2015

Apparent success - October 26th, 2014

Confirmed (Powell and torture) - January 7th, 2014

Great quotes ... - Feb 21, 2011

Random picture - December 22nd, 2010

Powell... Tekel... - April 15th, 2009

And yet... - December 14th, 2008

As expected... - October 20th, 2008

The Powell rehabilitation project? - July 13th, 2008

Did they say that (III) - April 20th, 2008

Random chart - 'donations'

Source: Clinton Foundation’s Deep Financial Ties to Ukrainian Oligarch Revealed

Gabriel - update

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The June 30th 2008 blog entry 'Gabriel' noted the re-election of Robert Gabriel Mugabe, while commenting on the appropriateness of his middle name... Alas, he continues to preside over the destruction of his nation:

"... After blowing about £3 million on his daughter’s wedding earlier this month, Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe says he wants a pay rise.." (link).

"...  Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, has warned that in future “no white person will be allowed to own land”..." (link)

It looks like he will stick around in power until he dies. Unfortunately that may still be a while:

"...I am made to feel youthful and as energetic as a boy of nine," a smiling Mr Mugabe told thousands of supporters at the party, held a few days after his birthday due to the Singapore trip..." (link).

"...Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, was given a one-ton, gold and diamond-studded stone "Royal throne" by his staff as a birthday present, state media reported. The chair, which is covered with leopard and crocodile skins, lion furs and two huge claws, was presented to Mr Mugabe at a party hosted by staff in the Office of the President and Cabinet at State House on Saturday, the day after his birthday. The chair is known as a Simbahwe in the local Shona language. It was carved from a solid block of stone and took three artists almost two years to create..." (link)

Great quotes - sycophancy

"...We’re not really concerned about you, Barack, but God forbid some other guy’s in the office five years from now and there’s another 9/11”

- Richard Clarke,  former White House counter-terrorism adviser, who served on President Obama's NSA review panel....

The article 'Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying' traces the evolution (on the subject of security and surveillance) of Senator Obama to President Obama... 

Going by the quotes from close and trusted folks such as Axelrod and Plouffe it appears that all it took to move Obama's position 180 degrees was a bogus plot against him, "more information"(myriad threats in his daily intelligence briefings), and a strong element of CYA ("...On the other hand, Mr. Obama was acutely aware of the risks of being seen as handcuffing the security agencies. “Whatever reforms he makes, you can be sure if there’s another incident — and the odds are there will be in our history — there’ll be someone on CNN within seconds saying if the president hadn’t hamstrung the intelligence community, this wouldn’t have happened,” Mr. Axelrod said...") 

Oh, and he also "... trusts himself to use these powers more than he did the Bush administration.” Clearly a man of deep conviction:

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Great quotes - torture

Photo credit

"... My experience gave me confidence that I could squelch at least the more aggressive proposed EITs, then and there, if I wanted to. It would have been a relatively easy thing to do, actually. But over the next day or two, as I turned things over and over in my mind, I concluded that the issue was anything but easy. We were less than six months removed from 9/11; the nation was still in the throes of fear and dread about another catastrophic attack; cascading intelligence reports were indicating the threat of attack; and the CIA had in its custody the one guy who would likely know when, where and by whom the next plot would be carried out. And he was taunting and mocking us about it. At the same time, the CIA was being pilloried in Congress and the media for having been “risk averse” in the years leading up to 9/11—too unimaginative, too timid about dealing with the evil forces in the world. 

With all of that churning in my head, I couldn’t shake the ultimate nightmare scenario: another attack happens, and Zubaydah gleefully tells his CIA handlers he knew all about it and boasts that we never got him to tell us about it in time. All because at the moment of reckoning, the Agency had shied away from doing what it knew was unavoidable, what was essential, to extract that information from him. And with hundreds and perhaps thousands of Americans again lying dead on the streets or in rubble somewhere, I would know deep down that I was at least in part responsible. In the final analysis, I could not countenance the thought of having to live with that..." 

 - John Rizzo, in I Could Have Stopped Waterboarding Before It Happened.

In this "exclusive account from the CIA’s former top lawyer" Rizzo justifies not squelching this but instead "punting" this to the OLC (i.e. John Yoo et al.) to have them "provide cover" by invoking the "time is of the essence," "no luxury of time" and "imminent attack" defense.

Which he then (presumably inadvertently) exposes as a farce, by saying "... I emphasized that we didn’t have the luxury of time—Zubaydah was sitting in his cell, perhaps with knowledge of another imminent attack, and basically he was giving his interrogators the finger. That was as close as I got to advocating the EITs. I returned to the Agency and told our people that this initial meeting went about as well for the CIA as could be expected: We had not been summarily dismissed as lunatics or aspiring criminals.  Three months later, on July 13, the group assembled in Bellinger’s office again. Other than responding to OLC requests for additional, specific factual information, the Agency did not play a role in any of the OLC’s internal deliberations. By the end of the meeting, I knew that the OLC was going to write a memorandum giving a bright green light to the EITs..." 

Amazing... Clearly he hasn't heard the famous Lincoln quote (just substitute knave for fool).

Random charts

Click to enlarge (or visit originals, links below)

Source: Transparency International: The Global Perceptions Index 2010. "... With governments committing huge sums to tackle the world's most pressing problems, from the instability of financial markets to climate change and poverty, corruption remains an obstacle to achieving much needed progress. The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). These results indicate a serious corruption problem..."

Great quotes - corruption

BBC World Service asked what had happened to the $8.8bn (funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries, per the SIGIR "without assurance the monies were properly used or accounted for".)

Admiral David Oliver: "I have no idea. I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it's important."

BBC: "But the fact is billions of dollars have disappeared without trace."

Oliver: "Of their money. Billions of dollars of their money, yeah I understand. I'm saying what difference does it make?"

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish

Take a poor country, one with endemic low-level corruption, one where taking care of your own is a way of life.... Then pump in billions in cash ("... in the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes...") and start doling it out, year after year for almost a decade.... Then marvel at the corruption! Shock! Horror! Blame the Afghan President and his government for this sad state of affairs, which surely is why the Taliban haven't been defeated....

Skids of cash:

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Source: Transparency International: 2010 Global Corruption Barometer

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Source: L’exil ou le despotisme: Essai sur la corruption et l’absence de liberté dans le monde arabe comme causes d’émigration et de fuite des élites

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Source: Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as reported by the victims

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Source: Un ancien officiel révèle les règles cachées de la corruption