Middle East

The U.S. military has lost track of some 220,000 weapons shipped to Afghanistan since 2001, the Times reports. A leaked report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office reveals that the U.S. did not keep proper record of 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars and other weapons sent to Afghanistan as well as 135,000 weapons supplied by other countries. Arms trading is a thriving business in Afghanistan, with Afghan police units being known to sell arms direct to the Taliban. The gao report, says the Times, comes just as the U.S. is considering arming local militias in Afghanistan.

It appears the U.S. may not be surging as many troops into Afghanistan as anticipated. On February 17, President Obama ordered the deployment of 17,000 additional troops—far less than the 30,000 to 32,200 requested by the chief commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Though that number may yet increase, time is of the essence as the Taliban gain strength. The Taliban, says Stratfor, “are preparing for a surge of their own to demonstrate their strength and undermine the foreign occupation with attacks increasingly focused in and around Kabul” (February 18).

Meanwhile, Germany is seeking the assistance of intelligence contacts in Saudi Arabia to help in the fight against the Afghan insurgency, according to German-Foreign-Policy.com. The German Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Turki al-Faisal, former chief of the Saudi intelligence service, recently spent several days in Berlin at the invitation of State Secretary August Henning, former president of the German Federal Intelligence Service (bnd). The visit, according to the Interior Ministry, was to discuss how to “enhance the cooperation between the two states in the field of security policy” and particularly how to “improve the security in the Pakistani region bordering Afghanistan.” Prince Turki has a long history of working with German intelligence in Afghanistan—from the days of the Soviet occupation. At that time, Turki was partners with Osama bin Laden, and he still has extensive contacts in the region. German-Foreign-Policy.com says that Berlin now wants to draw on Turki’s long history of cooperation with German intelligence to help fight the Islamic insurgency. The Trumpet has said for some time that Germany seeks to strengthen its involvement in Afghanistan—notwithstanding German media reports to the contrary (see, for example, our Feb. 14, 2008, article “Germany vs. nato: Playing Hard to Get”). German-Foreign-Policy.com says that past cooperation between Germany’s bnd and Saudi intelligence has been successful. It is possible that Prince Turki’s connections once again could help Germany be a bigger player in the region.

In Pakistan, the provincial government in the North-West Frontier Province has made a deal with Islamist militants whereby sharia law will be enforced in exchange for peace. On February 16, the secular Awami National Party announced that it had reached an agreement with the Movement for the Enforcement of Sharia—a terrorist group that falls under the Taliban umbrella and that has ties to al Qaeda—to end the jihadist insurgency in a wide area of the province. The deal undermines the Pakistani government’s authority in the country, is a significant victory for the Islamists, and a further setback for U.S./nato efforts next door in Afghanistan. Besides the difficulty of implementing the agreement in the first place, “the move will not lead to the containment of the jihadist insurgency,” says Stratfor. “If anything, the government’s weak negotiating position will only consolidate the Taliban’s influence in the region …” (February 17).

Europe

Six thousand neo-Nazis descended upon Dresden in eastern Germany last weekend in one of the largest extremist gatherings since World War ii. The Dresden march has become an annual event for German neo-Nazis trying to twist history to show that Germany was the real victim of the war. Around 10,000 anti-fascists turned up to protest against the Nazis. The number of neo-Nazis attending the march almost doubled over last year, causing great concern among some in Germany. “The demonstration is a dramatic sign and shows that we aren’t sowing unnecessary hysteria and panic when we warn about the growing danger of the far right,” said Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “The march is a revival of German far-right megalomania and extreme nationalism,” Hajo Funke, an expert on neo-Nazis at the Free University in Berlin, told Bloomberg. “The far right’s strength isn’t in parliament, but rather in a rightist and neo-Nazi subculture that’s been unbroken since the 1990s.” As the German economy collapses and people get more desperate, watch for a continued resurgence in right-wing views not only in Germany but across Europe.

Meanwhile, Europe’s national economies continue to suffer. The European Commission warned that the budget deficits in several EU member countries are getting dangerously large. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück speculated that the more stable countries in the eurozone may have to bail out the smaller ones. This would mean Germany—what the International Herald Tribune called Europe’s “traditional, though increasingly reluctant paymaster”—stepping in to help the weaker economies. Of course, in return for this aid, Germany would require more power. For more background on the economic crisis in Europe, see our article “Did the Holy Roman Empire Plan the Greek Crisis?” in the February Trumpet.

Asia

Russia struck a landmark energy deal with China this week. Transneft spokesman Igor Dyomin said that under the terms of this deal, the Chinese Development Bank will lend $25 billion to Russian energy firms. This money is to be used to build a pipeline that will connect the long-delayed Eastern Siberian-Pacific Ocean Pipeline to China. In exchange for this loan, the Russians have pledged to supply the Chinese with 15 million tons of oil annually for the next 20 years. Russia is the second-largest oil producer in the world, while China is a relatively oil-deficient region with a booming economy. An energy partnership between these two nations would greatly benefit both parties. The only real obstacle is the lack of oil-transporting infrastructure traversing the Siberian wilderness. Once Moscow gets pipelines in place, however, Russia is likely to become one of East Asia’s chief energy suppliers. For more information on the forming alliance between Russia and China, read Russia and China in Prophecy.

Latin America/Africa

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won his referendum to remove presidential term limits from the Constitution, enabling him to continue to win elections of questionable veracity for life, the next one coming in 2012. He has failed to make this change previously, but Venezuelans will remember that whenever his desires have been deferred in the past, he has fallen back on the slogan “por ahora,” meaning “for now.” Chavez first used the expression when surrendering after a military coup; he was soon president of Venezuela. The Threat Closer to Home by Douglas Schoen and Michael Rowan suggests that his victories may actually be a result of his control of the voting process in Venezuela.

The drug war in Mexico is often between the police and the cartels—and the cartels are winning. Associated Press reports: “For people caught inside Mexico’s drug corridors, life is about keeping your head down and watching your back, especially when the sun dips behind the cactus-studded horizon. No town knows this better than Villa Ahumada, where the entire police force quit after 70 cartel hit men roared through last spring, killing the police chief, two officers and three townspeople.” There has been no police force in Villa Ahumada since last May. In Tijuana, gang members are naming police officers marked for death over police radios, then making good on the threat. Last year, gangs killed over 500 police officers in Mexico. Read “Is Mexico About to Collapse” in our March Trumpet for more on the deteriorating state of the U.S.’s southern neighbor.

Anglo-America

President Barack Obama signed into law the enormous $787 billion spending bill on Tuesday. The “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” consists of laws authorizing billions of spending on infrastructure as well as paying for unrelated liberal pet projects, according to critics. However, President Obama warned that the new law “does not mark the end of our economic troubles,” a fact that has become painfully evident to most Americans.

Meanwhile, state governments are concerned that the federal government is using its enormous spending bill to expand itself and constrict state powers under the Bill of Rights. Governors and legislatures in several states are acting to combat a buy-off of their sovereignty, established in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. This is just another symptom of the sickness American republican democracy is experiencing—put simply, a crisis in the rule of law.

Lawmakers in Sacramento locked in the Capitol 45 straight hours, trying to solve California’s projected deficit, passed a budget before dawn on Thursday. The bill, aimed to fix a $42 billion shortfall through 2010, calls for temporary tax increases, $1.4 billion in cuts from employee compensation and other measures. Stay tuned to California to see if one bill can fix the stern curses facing that state.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Chinese government’s human rights violations cannot take precedence over cooperation, especially over the global economic crisis, climate change, and security threats like North Korea, the Washington Post reported. “We pretty much know what they are going to say,” she told reporters regarding human rights. “We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere [with other issues].” Watch for this compromising, conciliatory tone to pervade the State Department and the Obama administration’s dealings with dangerous countries, including China and North Korea.

The Trumpet has consistently forecasted that race conflicts will break out in dramatic fashion in the United States. Another mile-marker on the road to that destination passed Wednesday when Attorney General Eric Holder said that America is “essentially a nation of cowards” when it comes to race issues during a Black History Month speech. The perspective of the nation’s first black attorney general reminded some of startling revelations during the campaign of his boss, the nation’s first black president. Watch for subsequent actions in the new administration to divide, rather than unite, the races.