World Media Watch for October 14, 2002

BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.

* * *

1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--IN A TINDERBOX, JIHAD WARRIORS FAN ETHNIC TENSION (Radical Islam has long played a bit part on the fringes of Indonesia's murky domestic political scene. The crucial question raised by the Bali bombings is whether the same forces of Islamic extremism have now been recruited to play a similarly destructive role in the international arena; as terrorists.

2//Pakistan News Service, Pakistan--EDITORIAL: ELECTIONS 2002 & THE RAISE IN NATIONALISM (Despite the focus on the first ever intra-religious party affiliation and its subsequent claim to a solid 3rd spot in Pakistani elections, a careful analysis reveals that via their voting power, the people of Pakistan have handed a crushing defeat to anti-state elements... The continuous hate-mongering, defamation and constant twisting and manipulation of every issue to show Pakistan in a bad light has been the star achievement of many media outlets, e.g. Fox News and CNN. The mistreatment of non-terrorist, innocent detainees in jails, who have done nothing but overstay their visa, adds insult to the injury.)

3//The Times of India, India--PAK POLLS INCREASE TERRORISM CONCERNS: ADVANI (India on Sunday said that elections in Pakistan had increased its "concerns regarding cross-border terrorism", while indicating it would review its deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops along the borders. "I believe that the election results in Pakistan increase our concerns," Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani told reporters in New Delhi. "There have been elections in which democracy has not been strengthened but the army has. Our concerns regarding cross-border terrorism have, therefore, increased," he said.)

4//Stratfor Strategic Forecasting, USA--IRAQ: WITH MOSCOW STANDING FIRM, WILL U.S. GO IT ALONE? (Moscow's position will encourage France, China and other Council members to further resist U.S. plans to attack Iraq. Had Moscow given in, Paris and Beijing would find it much more difficult to resist U.S. pressure, but since Moscow still opposes the use of force and the French resolutions will not subject Iraq to the kind of conditions that the United States wants, Washington still could decide to sidestep the United Nations altogether.)

Related excerpt: RUMSFELD'S AGENDA MAY POINT TO EARLIER ATTACK ON IRAQ (...Keeping Rumsfeld in Washington through all of November may signal earlier -- rather than later -- action against Iraq.)

5//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--DANCES WITH BEARS:WAR ON IRAQ PAYS NO RUSSIAN DIVIDEND (Russian oil producers, pipelines and ports are certain to be badly hit if the United States forces a regime change in Iraq, and if world oil prices fall sharply. And that's only scratching the surface of the threat to the Russian economy from an American war against Saddam Hussein, and all that would follow. Understanding this should be an antidote to a spate of recent reports in the Anglo-American press.)

* * *

1//The Sydney Morning Herald October 14 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/14/1034222686089.html

IN A TINDERBOX, JIHAD WARRIORS FAN ETHNIC TENSION
By Louise Williams

Radical Islam has long played a bit part on the fringes of Indonesia's murky domestic political Scene. The crucial question raised by the Bali bombings is whether the same forces of Islamic extremism have now been recruited to play a similarly destructive role in the international arena; as terrorists.

Domestically, Indonesian adherents of radical Islam have, to date, been cast in the shadowy role of agents provocateurs, while moderate Islam has held centre stage. While several thousand Indonesians are thought to have trained with the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, their concerns at home have been decidedly parochial. Indonesia's small bands of so-called "jihad" warriors have been largely supported and manipulated by Jakarta's politicians to fuel religious and ethnic tensions in the tinderbox of multicultural, religiously diverse Indonesia.

(SNIP)

Several important factors, however, have fuelled the recent rise of radical Islam in Indonesia. Domestically, the economic crisis of 1997 and the fall of the authoritarian President Soeharto the following year had a profound influence on the freedom of hardline Islamic groups to recruit and the willingness of the swelling ranks of poor, under-employed young men to follow.

The US "war on terrorism" added a potent global dimension to the domestic picture. When the bombing of Afghanistan began, many Indonesians saw the "war" as an attack on Islam and too many of the victims on the ground as innocent Muslim civilians.

(SNIP)

One international think tank warned late last year: "Involvement in radical organisations may become more widespread if grievances against the US strikes combine with the perceived benefits of joining such organisations, and possible coercion on the part of organisations."

2//Pakistan News Service Updated on 2002-10-12 07:16:06
http://www.paknews.com/editorials.php?id=1&date1=2002-10-12

EDITORIAL: ELECTIONS 2002 & THE RAISE IN NATIONALISM

Despite the focus on the first ever intra-religious party affiliation and its subsequent claim to a solid 3rd spot in Pakistani elections, a careful analysis reveals that via their voting power, the people of Pakistan have handed a crushing defeat to anti-state elements. As a whole, the nation has come together and moved into the mainstream, rejecting ultra-extremists and has reached out to drag religious parties out of the closet. If nothing else, the acceptance and dominance of mainstream PML-QA party in the elections 2002 results is a resounding support for President Musharraf and his policies.

Given that Pakistan is going through troubled times, being a frontline state in one war on Western borders and another threat of war from million-man army of bitter rival India on the Eastern border, and furthermore, suffering from infiltration of Indian RAW terrorist elements, if Pakistani conscience had not woken up at this stage to defend its ideology, one would argue that it never would. Realizing the peril the nation is in, the elections depict the nation is rejecting all anti-state and extremists elements. It is not surprising to see that the likes of ANP, MQM and Jaey Sindh are reeling under a staggering defeat.

The mood of the nation is very understandable and there is great resentment at the mistreatment of Pakistan at the hands of relentless anti-Pakistani propaganda, including the one currently in progress equating the rise of current election's nationalism to 'religious extremism ' or 'Talibanism'. Pakistan in leading the American war on terrorism, and by any standard, should be able to reasonably expect that it would be treated with respect and considered a friend, not only by the American government but also by all Americans. Unfortunately this has not been the case. The continuous hate-mongering, defamation and constant twisting and manipulation of every issue to show Pakistan in a bad light has been the star achievement of many media outlets, e.g. Fox News and CNN. The mistreatment of non-terrorist, innocent detainees in jails, who have done nothing but overstay their visa, adds insult to the injury.

(MORE)

3//The Times of India Monday, October 14, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?artid=25086432

PAK POLLS INCREASE TERRORISM CONCERNS: ADVANI
October 13, 2001 08:39:54 PM

NEW DELHI (AFP) India on Sunday said that elections in Pakistan had increased its "concerns regarding cross-border terrorism", while indicating it would review its deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops along the borders.

"I believe that the election results in Pakistan increase our concerns," Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani told reporters in New Delhi.

"There have been elections in which democracy has not been strengthened but the army has. Our concerns regarding cross-border terrorism have, therefore, increased," he said.

Anti-US Islamic parties made a strong showing in last week's elections in Pakistan, the first vote since President Pervez Musharraf ousted the civilian government in a 1999 military coup.

Advani also indicated that the government was preparing to review its decision on troop deployment at the international border, as well as on the Line of Control.

India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons, have between them deployed nearly a million troops to their common borders since December when the Parliament was attacked by militants allegedly sponsored by Pakistan.

(SNIP)

Wednesday's review will be the first by India since the deployment and comes at the end of the successful completion of elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which is at the core of the long running animosity between the two countries.

(SNIP)

Advani also said that as far as Pakistan's role in the Kashmiri elections was concerned, it had failed the "litmus test". "If anyone has failed or lost in these elections, it is the ISI because they spared no effort to see that these elections do not take place...non-stop they tried," he said.

Before the elections, India had said that the "litmus test" of Pakistan's sincerity in ending infiltration into Kashmir would be the peaceful completion of elections there.

An estimated 830 people, including 50 political activists, died before and during the four-phase elections in the state that ended last week in the ouster of the long-ruling National Conference (NC) government.

(MORE)

4//Stratfor Strategic Forecasting 11 October 2002
http://www.stratfor.com/fib/topStory_view.php?ID=206874

IRAQ: WITH MOSCOW STANDING FIRM, WILL U.S. GO IT ALONE?

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin went out of their way to demonstrate cordiality during Blair's Oct. 10-11 visit to Moscow. But the message Blair brings back to U.S. President George Bush is that Russia is unlikely to support a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a war against Iraq.

With France and China, the other two permanent Security Council members, objecting to such a resolution as well, the best Washington likely can hope for during voting in the United Nations next week is a French-authored two-resolution compromise. Under this plan, one resolution would set out conditions for Iraqi cooperation with weapons inspectors and a second would threaten force if those conditions are not met.

But since the first resolution is not as tough as Washington wants, the Bush administration -- determined to attack Iraq and with Congress on its side -- may opt for unilateral action in the end.

(SNIP)

Moscow's position will encourage France, China and other Council members to further resist U.S. plans to attack Iraq. Had Moscow given in, Paris and Beijing would find it much more difficult to resist U.S. pressure, but since Moscow still opposes the use of force and the French resolutions will not subject Iraq to the kind of conditions that the United States wants, Washington still could decide to sidestep the United Nations altogether.

RELATED:

http://www.stratfor.com/
RUMSFELD'S AGENDA MAY POINT TO EARLIER ATTACK ON IRAQ

Oct 11 U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has cancelled a November trip to South Korea, according to South Korean media. Rumsfeld was to have visited Seoul for an annual security consultation meeting, but the meeting has been rescheduled for December in Washington. Keeping Rumsfeld in Washington through all of November may signal earlier -- rather than later -- action against Iraq.

5//Asia Times Online October 12, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/DJ12Ag01.html

DANCES WITH BEARS
War on Iraq pays no Russian dividend
By John Helmer

MOSCOW - Russian oil producers, pipelines and ports are certain to be badly hit if the United States forces a regime change in Iraq, and if world oil prices fall sharply. And that's only scratching the surface of the threat to the Russian economy from an American war against Saddam Hussein, and all that would follow.

Understanding this should be an antidote to a spate of recent reports in the Anglo-American press. These claim that, behind the curtain of the United Nations Security Council, the Russian government is negotiating a secret deal with the US to trade Moscow's concession for war to start, for Washington's guarantee to secure Russian oil company concessions in Iraq, or to pay a matching indemnity. No matter how the value of Russia's interests in Iraq may be totted up, and never mind how unreliable and unpredictable Bush administration undertakings are understood to be, the cost to the Russian economy of a collapse of the oil price is certain to be greater than any promised indemnity.

The Russian parliament has so far failed to analyze and debate this. But already Russia's oilmen have begun to admit it. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive of Yukos, the second largest of Russia's oil producers, told an investor conference in New York last Friday that until now oilfield and refinery output in Russia had been growing faster than the country's transport infrastructure had been able to manage. This is why, he said, Yukos was publicly backing massive investment on new export routes to China, and the Mediterranean through Croatia and Murmansk.

Asked what he thinks may happen to those plans if the US takes military action to topple Saddam, Khodorkovsky said his view was bearish, but that Yukos was prepared for a fall of oil prices to $14 per barrel. He claimed that Yukos could withstand even lower prices, but added that if there were a sharp decline of oil prices, spending on Russian oilfield development would slow, and on transport infrastructure as well. Khodorkovsky didn't say it, but LUKoil, the biggest of Russia's oil producers, is much more vulnerable than Yukos.

A Russian foreign policy maker said this week in Moscow that he had been told by State Department officials recently that US policy is to establish and hold an oil price of $13 per barrel. Everyone in the oil business understands that if this is true, and if the policy succeeds, the much publicized monthly shipments of Russian oil to Houston, which began in July, are bound to stop abruptly; losses set in at around a price of $20 per barrel.

If oil this cheap is indeed a US objective, then a regime change in Iraq, possibly to be followed by regime change in Iran, and unremitting pressure on Saudi Arabia, look to be the means that the Bush administration will pursue, overriding whatever coziness that has developed between Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin.

(SNIP)

For the time being, it is necessary to make hay while the sun shines. The major Russian outlets for oil exports say that they are expanding as fast as they can. The St Petersburg oil terminal, for example, the leading outlet for refined oil products, says that it has expanded its throughput capacity by 33 percent this year, and is planning to double this again by 2005. Transneft has begun laying new pipes for transporting double the volume of crude oil that Primorsk, the new crude oil outlet in the Leningrad region, can export. These are costly but necessary measures for the oil economy to grow in future. But they won't suffice, nothing will suffice, if Bush drives Saddam and the oil price into the ground.

* * *

© 2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com

Updated listings of Radio for Progressives on the internet at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

* * *