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11 Setembro: Nunca Esquecer! What the 9/11 Memorials Missed, and What They Reveale

By Wilfred M. McClay

The victims were targeted as Americans. Why hasn't that blunt and inescapable fact been placed at the center of our account twenty years later? Everyone who was alive at the time of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath remembers the formula: if we do this or that to alter our way of life, then “the terrorists will have won.” It started out as an utterly earnest phrase, making a serious point about preserving the things that most deserve defending in the American political system. The venerable civil-libertarian Times columnist Anthony Lewis expressed what has become the classic formulation in a summer 2004 edition of Mother Jones, “If we allow our liberties to be trampled,” he wrote, “the terrorists will have won.” But as the immanence of the terrorist threat waned, and a sense of complacency began to set it, the phrase became the butt of endless jokes. “If I can’t go out and eat a Big Mac today, the terrorists will have won”: that was the pattern. The smirking talk-show host David Letterman got in his two cents: “If I can’t text inappropriate photos then the terrorists have won.” Or there was the comedian Ellen DeGeneres, host of the Emmy Awards in November of 2001: “We’re told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?” Never very funny to begin with, these lines have taken on a whole new aspect in the past few weeks. For by any reasonable measure the terrorists are now winning. The very forces that protected al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and permitted them to plan attacks on the United States are now back in power, savoring what they see as a second great victory for militant Islam, following its previous triumph over the Russians, a success so complete that the Soviet Union itself soon thereafter would cease to exist, collapsing as rapidly as the Twin Towers would collapse a dozen years later. It would be hard to imagine a more satisfying and encouraging confirmation of a divinely ordained world-historical destiny. The forces now in charge in Afghanistan have every reason to think that there is a holy wind at their back, and they are likely in the fullness of time—which might come in mere months—to make their country into even more of a haven for international terrorist groups than it was twenty years ago. In addition, they have won this war in a way that has brought unprecedented shame and disgrace upon the United States in the process. What were our leaders thinking? Was it that they were weary of a seemingly endless commitment to a seemingly impossible task, anxious “to go on living our lives as usual,” and eager to generate a grand photo-op finish to the Afghan adventure that (it was thought) would provide a symbolic bookend to the whole matter, and redound to the benefit of a struggling Biden presidency? In any event, our leaders deliberately timed the chaotic withdrawal of American troops and personnel to correspond with the 9/11 attacks of 2001, the very events that put the Afghan tragedy into motion. In departing, we left behind for the use of our enemies some $85-$90 billion of advanced military equipment, an amount more than the annual military budget of all but two countries, the United States and China, and we abandoned an unknown but not insignificant number of our own people and vulnerable Afghan allies who had trusted American leaders to stand with them and for them. What can one say? The harsh consequences of acts of such colossal, comprehensive, almost inexplicable stupidity may not be long in coming, and we have good reason to fear for our ability to cope with them when they do, given our current addled and divided state. Our enemies in that part of the world have never before shown us any quarter, and it is ludicrous to think that they will start doing so now, under these circumstances. Perhaps the most astonishing part of it all is that this defeat is, to a large degree, a setback that we have inflicted upon ourselves. In fact, there is a good case to be made that what we have just witnessed is, to borrow a phrase from the military historian Mark Moyar, a triumph forsaken. The immediate goals of the post-9/11 Afghanistan invasion had been quickly met, and there had been no comparable attack on the American homeland since 2001—an achievement that very few observers in 2001 thought possible. Over a dozen American servicemen have since been killed in the course of America’s August 2021 withdrawal, but for eighteen months before it, the United States had not suffered any military fatalities. A small residual garrison of a few thousand, geared toward counter-terrorism operations rather than grandiose cultural transformation and nation-building, could have been maintained there for years to come and protected our national interest in limited but vitally important ways. Such an outcome would also have fully honored the sacrifice of those thousands who gave life or limb to the cause. It could have made clear what many had forgotten: that our task in Afghanistan was the management of a chronic problem, not the imposition of an impossible “solution” to it. But we did not do that. Our approach became all-or-nothing, either complete cultural transformation or bust, with the latter being the result, an example of how genuine idealism can, over time, curdle into abject cynicism. And what our shocking actions have shown to the world, more than anything else, is the face of a country that is confused, irresolute, bitterly divided, demoralized, poorly led, easily distracted, prone to fits of pathological self-loathing, and simply not up to the task of world leadership—and perhaps not even the task of self-government. We are clearly a weaker, unreliable horse in the world’s eyes now, and our allies and enemies alike are already busy rethinking their plans accordingly, and recalibrating their future relations with us. Whether we choose to remain the weak horse is going to be up to us. Chances are that we will be faced with unforgiving hardships either way. We’ll have plenty of reason to regret the actions that our leaders have so clumsily undertaken over the past month, the ground they have so fecklessly thrown away. And we won’t be the only ones regretting it.   With this backgroundin place we can ask some simple but important questions, ones that involve the anniversary that we have just commemorated—or tried to. But it was not easy, was it? The act of commemoration, especially if it involves the honoring of the dead, represents one of the fundamental features of civilized life, a way that we pay attention to the connection of past, present, and future, honoring the past while drawing on it for sustenance and direction in facing the trials to come. What then, going forward, does 9/11 itself mean to us as a nation? How do we incorporate that meaning into our national story? How are we to make sense of it, in light of its having been the catalyst for a twenty-year contest that ended so ignominiously? If indeed it has ended at all? When I wrote about this same general subject in the pages of National Affairs on its tenth anniversary, I already noted that there was comparatively little attention then being paid to what September 11 means, and should mean, for Americans. There was, and is, a reason for that. “We lack a general consensus,” I said at the time, “about the event’s larger importance to our nation,” a fact that greatly complicates the task of national remembrance. I reflected upon an old metal sign that I keep by my desk, dating back to the 1940s, bearing the words “Remember Pearl Harbor.” No American, at least not until the poorly educated Americans of recent years, would have had any doubt as to what those words meant. But there is reason to wonder whether any comparable clarity or universality of meaning can be found in the words “Remember 9/11.” Many Americans in fact are likely to ask instead: what ought we even to remember? Wouldn’t we be better off simply to forget? I would have thought that no one who was of age in the days after 9/11 could possibly forget the surreal horror of the attacks, and the enormity of the damage they caused. For a great many of us, those dreadful sights that beggar description remain burned into our memory. Neither would I have supposed that one could easily forget the country’s response, in the form of the sudden proliferation on American streets of a vast profusion of American flags, or the sudden enthusiasm for the playing of patriotic songs in public places. Those memories offer us a fleeting glimpse of a robust and unabashed patriotic unity of which we Americans were once fully capable, not so very long ago. But many of us have indeed forgotten, and our moments of remembrance have proved fleeting. As powerful as September 11th proved in galvanizing national unity and providing a floundering young president with a chance to prove his mettle, its immediate influence rapidly dissipated, giving way to the kind of endless internal political conflicts that have been our hardwired condition at least since the contested election of 2000, if not longer. Concerns about the nation’s alleged lapse into rampant “Islamophobia” soon began to overshadow patriotic sentiment, or anxiety about the possibility of another attack. More and more Americans became willing to consider the possibility that the United States was somehow to blame for the attacks against its helpless civilians—“why do they hate us?”—and fully deserving of them. Or alternatively, it came to seem that the danger of al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups had been grossly exaggerated for political purposes, and had led to a massive abrogation of civil liberties, as well as the use of harsh techniques of detention and interrogation that placed us outside the pale of civilized humanity. These sources of internal division did not disappear. Instead, they seem to have hardened into a default setting, even as those more patriotic memories seem almost impossible to credit in today’s bitter and censorious environment. At many times during these past two decades, it has seemed as if the world’s conflicts are of interest to Americans only insofar as they can be incorporated into the eternal struggle for political power in America, the only struggle that really matters. Never in modern times has our nation seemed more insular, more myopic, more self-absorbed—even and especially when we think about the world outside of our borders; never has it appeared more unable to imagine world events in any way other than as refracted through the ceaseless battle for political advantage in Washington. The interpretation of September 11 has been a victim of this cultural condition. What happened on that date was an attack on the American nation by organized and committed jihadists enjoying the shadowy support of other nations, some of them duplicitous “allies” of the United States. It was a deed committed with the intention of wounding and destabilizing the American nation, a deed whose origins are to be found running at least back to the 1970s, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That episode ended in a colossal victory for the terrorists, and now, after twenty years’ effort in pushing back the challenge of American might—preceded, lest we forget, by at least ten previous years of terrorist acts, including in the failed attack on the World Trade Center in 1993—another such victory seems in the offing. Or so it seems to them. As we in the West wallow in guilt and identity politics, preoccupied with the pursuit of absolution for our imperfect pasts, bereft of a compelling story about who we are, our jihadist enemies suffer from no such inhibitions. In an August 18 statement, the al-Malahim Foundation, that is, the media arm of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), put it this way: “After two decades of jihad, steadfastness, and willpower in the conflict with the crusader West and the global forces of unbelief, [our brothers in the Taliban] were crowned with full power over the brave land of Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires and superpowers, and the defeat of America and the crusader West.” That supreme confidence in the long game, rather than their superior strategy or tactics or weaponry is the secret of their success. The challenge to us ought to be unmistakable. As Andrew McCarthy has so aptly put it, “Jihadists believe history is on their side, that they are winning, that their opponents are weak of will, and that they will ultimately prevail by patient, ruthless faith.” However delusionary such beliefs may seem to us—and as McCarthy and others have pointed out, they require a breathtakingly selective reading of Islamic history to be sustained—they must be taken seriously by us precisely because they are taken seriously by our adversaries. In the famous formulation of the sociologist W.I. Thomas, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” an adage that applies with especial force to the world of war and diplomacy and international relations, where perception and reality are hard to distinguish. Our catastrophically bumbling withdrawal from Afghanistan after twenty years has made our enemies’ “situational definition” even more entrenched, and its defeat incalculably more difficult. We are now faced with the task of lifting ourselves out of an enormous hole that we have dug for ourselves. Where to begin?   We could beginwith a fuller and more realistic assessment of the events of 9/11 itself, understanding it and observing it as an important event in the life of the American nation, and not merely of some individuals in that nation, and as a challenge that we will need to meet by resolute and proportionate means, steadily applied, rather than by presidential impulse. That would help us a great deal, and would use our commemoration as an occasion for a kind of civic education. But most of what we are getting from our political leaders is a reliance on the admittedly riveting human-interest stories coming out of this event. The chief story that is told is one of the heroism and suffering of those who bore the brunt of the attack: the victims, their families, the first responders, firemen, police, and medical personnel. And the many tragedies of lives cut short, lives maimed and mutilated by senseless loss. These are vitally important stories and should be told again and again, every year. They should not be forgotten. But that poignant retelling cannot take the place of relating, again and again, the larger cause for the sake of which the heroism and suffering took place. The victims were targeted as Americans. If that blunt and inescapable fact is not placed at the center of our account, we have missed the larger context for properly celebrating the heroes and mourning those who were lost, and finding our way forward from here. Let me illustrate what I mean with a historical example. Imagine if Lincoln had given the Gettysburg Address without making any mention of the Civil War’s purpose, but instead told stories about farm boys wrenched from the placid security of their homes and thrown into the charnel house of war. But he did no such thing. In fact, Lincoln chose not to dwell on details of the suffering and sacrifice of the men being laid to rest in that new national cemetery. Instead he began the address by invoking the achievement of the Founders (who created “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”) and going on to describe the war as a “testing” of that original achievement. That test, he tells the audience, is for us. It is, he concluded, for us, the living, to carry on the effort, and to see that “these dead shall not have died in vain.” President Biden gave no public speeches for this year’s 9/11. But he did broadcast a pre-recorded message, and visited the three sites damaged by the attacks. He offered a few impromptu words at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the memorial to the doomed Flight 93. “These memorials are really important,” the president said at a stop at the local fire department. “But they’re also incredibly difficult for the people affected by them, because it brings back the moment they got the phone call, it brings back the instant they got the news, no matter how years go by.” True enough, and an affecting observation. But we need much more than that from our leader. The leadership we need would help us make sense of where we are, and where we have to go from here, if those lives are not to have been lost in vain. We need serious and honest oratory in the service of a national vision which would help us ground our emotions in something larger than ourselves and our individual experiences. Biden’s words could have applied just as well to lives tragically lost in a massive auto accident or a flash flood. So did they die in vain? Is a leader’s silence on the subject a way of whispering that they did? What words we did get did not supply us with a viable and believable public meaning for 9/11 rising above the immense suffering of its victims, the undeniable heroism of first-responders, and the like. At the 9/11 memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, President and Mrs. Biden stood silently with their Democratic predecessors, the Obamas and the Clintons, and other dignitaries, including former mayor Rudy Giuliani, and they listened as relatives of the victims, many of them children, read aloud the names of the dead, in what has become an annual ritual that paused for moments of silence marking the times when the hijacked planes hit their targets and when the twin towers eventually fell. All of which is moving and appropriate and even beautiful in its way—but not enough. The haunting and frankly dispiriting 9/11 Memorial near where they stood—two massive pools set within the footprints of the vanished Twin Towers, with the largest manmade waterfalls in the United States cascading down their sides—bears the enigmatic title “Reflecting Absence.” That reticent, Zen-like name conveys a certain passivity and lack of conviction, even as its waterfalls have the effect of drawing one down, down into the earth. This is not enough either. These structures remind one that the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and other structures in 2001 were primarily intended to demoralize us and terrorize us and set us against one another, to erode our sense of solidity and mutual trust, to symbolize vulnerability on our side and ruthlessness on their side. Can we be so certain, even now, that the effort failed? Look around. Is the state of our liberty and our comity back to what it was twenty years ago? How well would we respond today to another 9/11 attack? Do we have the capacity to draw together as we did, however fleetingly? Are we today the same people we were then? The larger public meaning would have to begin with facing up to the fact that we Americans have been engaged for many years now in a genuine and ongoing civilizational struggle—something that the “terrorists have won” jokes mocked but also implicitly acknowledged. Our leaders have never been clear about that, and they have largely fallen silent on the civic crisis characterizing this American moment. President Biden’s promise that he would “restore the soul” of the country now manifests as a campaign catchphrase deployed against President Trump; another sign that our political class is content to reduce the obligations of leadership to partisan sloganeering. Fortunately, the fundamental decency of the American people has not been entirely suppressed. There is fury abroad in the land, especially in the lower ranks of the armed forces, over our bug-out in Afghanistan; and there are valiant American citizens who have defied all odds, including obstructions placed in their path by their own government, to rescue the Americans and others who have been abandoned there. What has been done by our leaders in Washington has offended against that fundamental decency in the national character. It has offended against Lincoln’s principle: that we must highly resolve that our dead shall not have died in vain. It was an illusion to think that killing one leader, Osama bin Laden, or defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, would solve the problem. For one thing, it is not a problem that can be “solved.” And the fundamental conflict is not with one person or with jihadists in one country—although it is equally a mistake to claim, as did the former president George W. Bush in an otherwise admirable speech for this year’s September 11, that the “same foul spirit” is the source of all offenses against pluralism and the status quo the world over, foreign and domestic. Such vague and simplistic rhetoric only serves to blur the problem, and—once again!—assimilate 9/11 into the web of domestic politics. The fact is that we have never clearly characterized for our nation, and ourselves, the nature of the present civilizational conflict and the identity of our adversary. For various reasons, we haven’t had the will or the courage or the clarity to do so. There will be consequences for that failure. One of those consequences will be that the memory of 9/11 may become even more unpleasant and troubling to contemplate in the future than it is today, as reflected in Biden’s words at Shanksville, and in so much else of our public discourse. It will be to us the alarm to which we responded, not by rolling over and going back to sleep, but by committing an even worse form of default. The American people already sense this might turn out to be the case. In a recent Quinnipiac poll, over 60 percent of Americans stated that they believe American troops will have to return to Afghanistan. And they may be right about that. That in the same poll some 54 percent of Americans expressed agreement with President Biden’s abrupt removal of American troops is an indication of the confused state in which we find ourselves. We recognize the likely necessity of doing something we are unwilling to do. How much more, therefore, do we need leaders of integrity, intelligence, wisdom, and courage, the kind of leaders we have been mainly lacking for the past four decades, to help us navigate what lies ahead. If nothing else, we can use our commemoration of 9/11 in the years ahead to concentrate our minds upon that fact. For more at Mosaic on the commemoration of 9/11, see Richard Goldberg’s essay, “September 11 from 1981 to 1931” and the response it generated from Senator Ben Sasse. https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/politics-current-affairs/2021/09/what-the-9-11-memorials-missed-and-what-they-revealed/

Alterações na Geopolítica do Mediterrâneo

Dia memorável é, para a geopolítica do Mediterrâneo, este 30 de Julho.

No Magrebe atlântico, Rabat vê a sua soberania no Sahara Ocidental ser, finalmente, reconhecida por Paris, numa carta do Presidente da República francesa ao soberano marroquino Mohamed VI. Este reconhecimento provocou uma violenta reacção de Argel (verdadeiro padrinho do Polisário, muito interessado num acesso directo ao Atlântico...) e a retirada do embaixador argelino em França.

Na outra ponta do velho 'mare nostrum' dos romanos (mas só depois da derrota final de Cartago), foi um péssimo dia para os movimentos terroristas islamistas que se reclamam da Palestina. O Hezbollah teve os seus centros de comando, nos arredores de Beirute, pulverizados. E viu, nessa pulverização, desaparecer alguns dos seus dirigentes de topo. Mas o grande acontecimento do dia, nestas matérias de troca de amabilidades, é sem dúvida a execução em Teherão (em Teherão...!!!) do dirigente máximo do Hamas, pouco depois de ter sido recebido pelo novo presidente da república islamista...

Ismail Haniyeh, a sua última reunião (com o nóvel presidente do Irão), a 30 Julho 2024, em Teherão .

A geopolítica do Mediterrâneo e sua margem sul teve hoje alterações bem importantes. Alterações que vão marcar as evoluções nos próximos tempos. Vamos ver até onde. E com que novo presidente em Washington...

O Campeão Europeu ou... a Geopolítica da Bola

O xeque Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan ganhou a "Champions"... Nasser Al-Ghanim Khelaïfi perdeu-a (mais uma vez). 

Este campeonato joga-se entre o Abu Dhabi e o Qatar e é esta a realidade do futebol europeu: ser campo de um jogo muito mais poderoso, entre duas "equipas" que travam uma luta de vida ou de morte. 

Luta que, neste século XXI, estenderam a vários tabuleiros no continente europeu, das finanças ao futebol passando pela política. 

Alguns desses tabuleiros são de máxima discrição, alguns são apenas obscuros e outros estão à vista de quem queira ver, como é o caso do futebol.

Quem disse que este futebol é um desporto...? Quem disse não sabia nem da missa a metade! 

Uma coisa, porém, fica ainda mais clara: a geopolítica manda em tudo, mesmo numa Champions League. 

Resultado (por ora): Abu Dhabi 1  -  Qatar 0

Catar: Um Emirado da Irmandade Muçulmana

O CatarGate veio colocar a questão de saber o que é realmente o Catar, um emirado infiltrado e dominado pela Irmandade Muçulmana. Ora, pouco antes do início do 'Mundial', foi editada uma excelentemente documentada obra sobre a Irmandade Muçulmana, da autoria de uma investigadora egípcia refugiada nos Estados Unidos, Cynthia Farahat. Curiosamente (ou talvez não...), perante a perplexidade da autora, a distribuição do livro tem estado a ser adiada para o próximo... 30 de Dezembro! 

Aqui, no IntelNomics, conseguimos (felizmente!) acesso a uma digitalização da edição, através de bons amigos.
Thanks, Cynthia and friends.

''The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood's Industry of Death'', by Cynthia Farahat

The Muslim Brotherhood’s “Secret Apparatus” is a clandestine incubator for Islamic terrorism, and it exports its “industry of death” to destroy the world through infiltration, disinformation, and jihad .....

About the Autor

Cynthia Farahat is an Egyptian American author, columnist, political analyst, researcher, and fellow at the Middle East Forum. She co-founded the Misr al-Um and the Liberal Egyptian parties in Egypt, which advocated for peace with Israel, capitalism, and the separation of mosque and state. She studied Islamic jurisprudence for more than twenty years and co-authored several books in Arabic, including Desecration of A Heavenly Religion, which was officially banned by Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo in 2008 for its critical research of Egyptian Islamic blasphemy laws.

Farahat landed on an Al-Qaeda affiliated groups’ hit list and was officially banned from entering Lebanon for her work fostering regional peace. Egyptian State Security Intelligence Service surveilled her for over a decade and she received daily death threats from radical Islamists. After her brother was tortured by President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, her friend was murdered, and Islamists tried to assassinate her, Farahat immigrated to the United States.

Farahat has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, briefed more than 120 congressional offices, and advised numerous intelligence and law enforcement agencies. She received the Speaker of Truth Award from the Endowment for Middle East Truth and the Profile in Courage Award from ACT for America. Her writing has been published in many Arabic and western outlets, including National Review online, the Middle East Quarterly, The Hill, Fox News, The Daily Caller, and The Washington Times. She has appeared on ReasonTV, Fox News Live, Voice of America, PJTV, BlazeTV, and i24 News.

Eva Kaili e o CatarGate: Um ''Romance Negro'' de Desfecho Ainda Imprevisível

O CatarGate é um 'romance negro' em que, por ora, a (ex) vice-presidente do Parlamento Europeu Eva Kaili tem o principal papel feminino...

A vice-presidente do PE tem o nome, biblicamente, adequado ao papel de tentadora e distribuidora de maçãs do Catar... Mas que tipos (e tipas também pois que estamos em tempos anti-discriminação sexista) morderam malas e pacotes, perdão, as maçãs, e as têm agora atravessadas na garganta...? Quem está atolado e preso nas areias movediças do Catar? E as simpáticas e sempre tão opacas ONGs que papeis desempenham neste "romance"? Calma com a curiosidade.

As cenas dos próximos capítulos vão desenrolar-se depois destas "festas" que já estão à porta. Em termos de Europa, 2023 vai, portanto, ser um ano muito divertido... Claro, como em qualquer bom 'romance negro', o desenlace final será surpreendente!

Mapas para Perceber o Mundo

Os nossos amigos da "Conflits" publicam e aconselham, como "leituras de Verão",

Des cartes pour comprendre le monde

par REVUE CONFLITS

Lectures d’été. Sélection d’articles de Conflits présentant des cartes pour comprendre le monde.

Cartes : les trois allers et retours de la Russie à l’ouest

Carte. Vers un nouvel ordre bipolaire en Asie Pacifique ?

Carte : les gazoducs qui alimentent l’Europe

La Fabrique Conflits – les cartes

Quand le printemps brouille les cartes, une histoire stratégique des frontières arabes

Moçambique: Uma Guerra pelo Controlo do Tráfico de Heroína

Um reputado e respeitado analista americano do terrorismo e do crime organizado disse há uns tempos que o maior cartel mexicano do tráfico de droga se situava no interior da polícia. E que, acrescentou este velho amigo da equipa IntelNomics, muitas das operações “anti-droga” da polícia eram guerras entre cartéis pelo controlo do tráfico, de circuitos e de território.  Em Moçambique, cuja maior exportação é a heroína, a situação é (guardadas as devidas diferenças, claro) muito semelhante, segundo o documento (datado de Julho 2018) que abaixo se cita e regista. Ignorar este facto quando se aborda a “tragédia de Cabo Delgado” e seus “ataques jihadistas do terrorismo islamista” é um erro estratégico e é a garantia de fracasso. Nem de resto, sem ter este facto em conta, é possível explicar a situação no terreno nem a longa recusa do auxílio estrangeiro de Maputo... Se a recente evolução (intervenção das tropas ruandesas e aceitação da formação de grupos de forças especiais por Portugal, USA e outros ocidentais) travará ou não a "evolução" de Moçambique para narco-estado e para uma espécie de somalização é a grande incógnita no horizonte daquele país lusófono.

The Uberization of Mozambique's heroin trade

Joseph Hanlon |  Published: July 2018

Department of International Development

London School of Economics and Political Science

Tel: +44 (020) 7955 7425/6252 London

Fax: +44 (020) 7955-6844 WC2A 2AE UK Email: J.Hanlon@lse.ac.uk

Website: http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/home.aspx

Acknowledgement:

This research was partly funded and facilitated by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, as background for their paper "The Heroin Coast: The political economy of heroin trafficking along the eastern African seaboard", by Simone Haysom, Peter Gastrow and Mark Shaw. Thanks to Global Initiative for permission to publish the more detailed background paper here.

Abstract:

Mozambique is a significant heroin transit centre and the trade has increased to 40 tonnes or more per year, making it a major export which contributes up to $100 mn per year to the local economy. For 25 years the trade has been controlled by a few local trading families and tightly regulated by senior officials of Frelimo, the ruling party, and has been largely ignored by the international community which wanted to see Mozambique as a model pupil. But the position is changing and Mozambique may be coming under more donor pressure. Meanwhile the global move toward the gig economy and the broader corruption of Mozambican police and civil service makes it easier to organise alternative channels, with local people hired by mobile telephone for specific tasks. Mozambique is part of a complex chain which forms the east African heroin network.

Heroin goes from Afghanistan to the Makran coast of Pakistan, and is taken by dhow to northern Mozambique. There, the Mozambican traffickers take it off the dhows and move it more than 3000 km by road to Johannesburg, and from there others ship it to Europe.

Keywords:

Mozambique, heroin, drugs, transnational crime, smuggling, Whatsapp

Heroin has been one of Mozambique's largest exports for two decades and the trade is increasing.

 

Heroin is produced in Afghanistan and shipped through Pakistan, then moved by sea to east Africa and particularly northern Mozambique. From there it is taken by road to Johannesburg, from which it is sent to Europe. This basic route has remained unchanged for 25 years. Estimates vary from 10 to 40 tonnes or much more of heroin moving through Mozambique each year. With an export value of $20 million per tonne, heroin is probably the country's largest or second largest export (after coal). It is estimated that more than $2 mn per tonne says in Mozambique, as profits, bribes, and payments to senior Mozambicans.

Heroin arrives on dhows 20-100 km off the coast. The Mozambican role is to take it from the dhows, move it by small boat to the coast and then by road to warehouses, and finally take it by road 3000 km to Johannesburg, South Africa. The 10-40 t/y estimate is from dhows only, and further significant amounts of heroin also arrive in containers of other imports, particularly at the northern port of Nacala.

Until recently, the trade was carried out by south-Asian-origin families based in the north of Mozambique and was tightly regulated by the most senior figures in Frelimo.

The trade has been well known since 2001 when an article was published in Metical, and it said heroin was then Mozambique's largest export. Frelimo regulation means there have been no drug wars between the trading families, and little heroin remains in Mozambique. With one exception (the United States in 2009-10), the international community has chosen to ignore the regulated heroin trade - other issues ranging from natural gas to corruption have been seen as more important.

Mozambique is a transit centre for heroin. Like any commodity, there is a supply chain and there are points between the producer and final buyer where the commodity must be warehoused to await an order or be repacked to satisfy an order, which is Mozambique's role. The chain is that heroin hydrochloride (white powder or grey crystal blocks) is produced in Afghanistan, passes through Pakistan and Iran and is moved to northern Mozambique. It is warehoused and repacked and then goes by road to Johannesburg. From there it is sent to Europe.

Heroin production is increasing in Afghanistan. But tighter control of transit through eastern Europe is moving the trade to southern routes, and more controls in Kenya and Tanzania has moved sea landings south to northern Mozambique. The trade appears to be increasing significantly. This, in turn, led to an investigation by the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, just published: "The Heroin Coast: The political economy of heroin trafficking along the eastern African seaboard", by Simone Haysom, Peter Gastrow and Mark Shaw. The report argues that the heroin trade has "political protection" and that "in Mozambique, we find a tight integration between ruling party figures and traffickers."

The report continues: "individuals in Frelimo have become implicated in criminal activities, and … the party’s own system for generating funds relies on a lack of the rule of law."

Despite the heroin trade being well known to embassies, it was only on 1 June 2010 that US President Barack Obama designated Mohamed Bachir Suleman (MBS) as a "drugs kingpin", making it illegal for US citizens, US companies, and businesses which operate in the US to conduct financial or commercial transactions with him or three of his businesses. MBS is a major businessman and trader, and he works with at least three other south-Asian origin trading families.

They use their own facilities and staff and mix illegal and legal commerce. MBS is believed to still control a large part of the heroin trade through Mozambique, but his position and that of linked families may have diminished.

On the other hand, there is a move in East Africa which reflects the global trend of Uber and Airbnb, away from using established business networks and warehouses, to a looser system of freelance workers controlled via WhatsApp and BlackBerry. Meanwhile petty corruption within Mozambique has become so endemic that the heroin trade can run on bribes and no longer needs political patrons. This leads to what one of my sources  described as a move to "disorganised crime", which appears to be handling much of the new increase in heroin trade.

This working paper is based on the background paper on Mozambique written for Global Initiative by Joseph Hanlon. This working paper has five sections.

The first section looks at MBS, the biggest heroin trader, medium-size traders, and at political patronage. The second section is about the national and international politics of Mozambique's regulated heroin trade. The third section sets out what is known about the physical heroin trade and movements within Mozambique. The final sections look at the recent growth of a parallel unregulated trade in Mozambique and at the global context of a criminal gig economy.

Mozambique's own drug baron

President Joaquim Chissano was the guest of honour at the wedding of the second son of Mohamed Bachir Suleman (MBS) on 19 April 2001. An article in the biggest weekly newspaper, Savana (27 April 2001), described the wedding was as "sumptuous" and said there were 10,000 guests from all over the world.

For a country less than a decade out of war, this was massive and ostentatious spending. MBS was also known as a major contributor to Frelimo. He is one of Mozambique’s most prominent and wealthiest businessmen and his wealth did not come only from importing refrigerators and washing machines for his Kayum Centre.

Also in 2001, I was briefed by an international drugs control official that his business, Grupo MBS, was the main heroin trader in Mozambique.

Links to MBS were passed on to Armando Guebuza when he was elected President in 2004. He twice publicly visited MBS's Maputo Shopping Centre (22 June 2006 and for the official opening 8 May 2007). The $32 mn complex was then the largest in Mozambique, and Guebuza praised it a model of private investment. MBS was reported to have made a $1 million contribution to President Armando Guebuza's 2009 electoral campaign. But those links may have been through Guebuza's children.

In 16 November 2009 and 25 January 2010 cables, Todd Chapman, Chargé d'Affaires at the US Embassy in Maputo, alleged that MBS "has direct ties to President Guebuza and former President Chissano" and that MBS is the coordinator of heroin going through Mozambique and perhaps southern Tanzania.

Then on 1 June 2010, US President Barack Obama designated MBS as a "drugs kingpin", making it illegal for US citizens, US companies, and businesses which operate in the US to conduct financial or commercial transactions with him or three of his businesses, Grupo MBS, Kayum Centre and Maputo Shopping Centre.

The US Department of the Treasury stated that "Mohamed Bachir Suleman is a large-scale narcotics trafficker in Mozambique, and his network contributes to the growing trend of narcotics trafficking and related money laundering across southern Africa. Suleman leads a well-financed narcotics trafficking and money laundering network in Mozambique." In the next section we point out that this was a unique intervention, even though the international community knows about the heroin trade.

The close link between MBS and Chissano is said to reflect a complex relationship. The heroin trade was regulated at the highest level. Chissano is said to have regularly met personally with MBS, and probably with the heads of the other heroin trading families.

MBS was publically identified as a major donor to Frelimo. It has been widely assumed that there was an agreement to regulate the trade. There have never been drug wars between the heroin families and no convictions - and in the past two decades, no arrests - of senior figures in the heroin and hashish trades, and no seizures of heroin passing through the regulated trade.

The Ministry of Interior, police and customs receive their commissions and assist the trade. Frelimo receives a substantial amount of money for operating costs and election expenses, and one assumes some members of the Frelimo leadership personally receive a part.

Chissano had been Frelimo head of security since 1966, and he had the personal contacts needed to organise and regulate the trade.

There is no direct evidence of high level regulation, and any witnesses to such meetings are unlikely to speak out. It is speculated that part of the deal is that the heroin is intended for international transit and the traders agree that little stays in Mozambique.

In the early 2000s, the military housing zone in central Maputo became known as "Columbia" because drugs were so readily available, and some the children of the elite because heroin users.

This was widely publicised and then suddenly heroin became less available. Did Chissano tell MBS to stop selling locally? Clearly something happened, because cocaine and particularly crack are still readily available, suggesting lack of regulation of the cocaine trade.

Other players

Although MBS is a big man in Mozambique, he is part of a chain running from the Indian subcontinent. Under MBS, Global Initiative identifies three linked families with businesses in Nacala .....

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224816/1/wp190.pdf

Causas, consequências e significado da saída do Afeganistão... Que fazer?

A retirada americana do Afeganistão foi um naufrágio que confirmou, mais uma vez, como Camões tem razão: um fraco rei faz fraca a forte gente.

Biden revelou-se um fraco rei. A execução da manobra de retirada foi um desastre que fraca fez a forte gente. Esta "árvore" (a triste manobra de Biden) não deve, porém, impedir-nos de ver a "floresta" (o quadro estratégico em que esta retirada acontece).

É, por isso, muito aborrecido e cansativo todo o “bombardeamento” de litanias pacóvias à volta do assunto, de "análises" que são, de facto, banalidades ideológicas, discursatas normativas e vagamente moralóides, narrativas lineares e residuais das velhas políticas do século passado e tretas quejandas. Até o Papa não soube conter-se e veio meter uma "colherada" de moralismo terceiro-mundista...!

Esta retirada (há várias anos programada) assinala o fim de uma época marcada pela decisiva influência do "trotskismo de direita" e seu "state building" na política externa americana e o regresso a um realista "back to the basics" da geoestratégia americana.

E, sobretudo, assinala a passagem de um quadro estratégico de "war on terror" para um outro, bem distinto, de afrontamento dos "great powers" numa "unrestricted-warfare".

Porém, saber o que isto significa e que possíveis consequências permite exige conhecimento, inteligência e "intelligence", adequadas "grelhas de leitura" e domínio teórico dos quadros estratégicos. Todo um conhecimento, portanto, muito para além das banalidades e narrativas ideológicas e moralóides…

Com esta saída do Afeganistão, os USA abandonam, definitivamente, quadros do século XX, suas problemáticas e outras "distrações" e entram no novo mundo da grande questão do século XXI: a disputa implacável, entre os USA e a China, pela hegemonia no novo sistema global em emergência...

Vêm aí grandes mudanças! E é entender que mudanças podem ser essas e como nos irão afectar é o que importa perceber e procurar antecipar.

Nada disto impede que os americanos e todos os ocidentais continuem a apoiar o Afeganistão. A ajuda mais urgente será a de fornecer - já - o necessário à Frente da Resistência Nacional de Ahmad Massud...

Afeganistão: O Desastre Biden

"Um fraco rei faz fraca a forte gente" (A soft king makes a valiant people soft). Nós sabemo-lo, pelo menos, desde que Luis de Camões o escreveu. Os nossos amigos americanos descobrem-no agora e da pior maneira com Joe Biden. Um Joe Biden que tenta tapar o sol com uma peneira de mentiras e é desmentido, na praça pública, até pela normalmente silenciosa CIA! 

Sobre as várias desculpas inventadas por Biden, diz Kori Schake, na insuspeita Foreign Affairs:

"None of those things are true—and Biden knows it. His cynical defense of a failed policy and its inept execution are only adding to the damage caused by this catastrophe. (...) But none of that reduces the unnecessary damage that Biden has inflicted on Afghans, on U.S. allies, on his own broader foreign policy agenda, and on American power. The Biden team made costly choices and is counting on public apathy to prevent any political blowback at home, even calculating that the horrifying images of Afghans desperate to flee the country will eventually benefit the president politically. Reputations matter in international politics, and the Biden administration has just earned a bad one."

Em síntese, após Biden, God bless América... que bem o precisa!

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-08-25/roads-not-taken-afghanistan

O Nosso Homem em Tashkent ou... como Paulo Casaca quase atropelou o presidente do Afeganistão...

José Mateus

... E como o presidente Ashraf Ghani acabou a cumprimentá-lo muito afectuosamente. Notícias fescas mas, sobretudo, uma visão própria do desastre afegão, com a retirada americana, uma manobra estratégica que, daqui a uns tempos, será tipificada como manobra de altíssimo cinismo político, verdadeira "chaos operation" regional..

O meu velho amigo Paulo Casaca, um economista notável possuidor de fortíssima e "acidentada" (como deve ser...) formação política é homem que gosta de meter as suas "boots on the ground" e regressou agora de uma volta pelo teatro do grande jogo afegão. Retomamos aqui o relato que ele acaba de publicar no "Tornado".

Paulo Casaca, em Tashken | 19 Julho, 2021

1. Nos escombros da União Soviética

O Embaixador britânico dissidente Craig Murray, numa das observações porventura mais pertinentes no seu testemunho transformado em livro intitulado ‘Assassínio em Samarcanda’, apresenta o Uzbequistão como um país onde o fim da União Soviética se traduziu num endurecimento da ditadura comunista, e não em qualquer primavera da liberdade.

Conheci o Uzbequistão em 2014, uma década depois de terminado o consulado de Murray no país, e tudo o que vi confirmou a impressão de o país ser gerido por uma severa ditadura, certamente mais acentuada do que era a da Alemanha Oriental dos anos 1970 ou a Rússia dos anos 1980.

Posto isto, e entre os inúmeros pontos em que discordo da visão do ex-diplomata britânico, fiquei sempre impressionado pela arte de receber e tolerar os estrangeiros. A ditadura de Karimov se porventura não fomentou essa capacidade, também não a eliminou.

Na verdade, a primeira razão pela qual me interessei pelo país foi o relato de membros da comunidade judaica europeia do caloroso acolhimento no Uzbequistão dos judeus que perante o avanço das tropas nazis na União Soviética encontraram aí refúgio. O Uzbequistão continua ainda hoje a abrigar deslocados tártaros exilados pelas purgas estalinistas ou coreanos fugidos das invasões japonesas, entre muitos outros refugiados das mais diversas paragens.

Para além de todos os refugiados que são hoje parte integrante do seu povo e dos muitos russos ou ucranianos que ficaram depois da implosão soviética, há comunidades uzbeques nos países vizinhos e comunidades dos países vizinhos no Uzbequistão. A título de exemplo, uma das mais emblemáticas cidades do país, Samarcanda, etnicamente, é esmagadoramente tajique.

E depois, a verdade é que a ditadura uzbeque não eliminou (ou pelo menos não eliminou totalmente) brilhantes académicos e diplomatas que tive a oportunidade de conhecer e com eles muito aprender, muito em especial em matéria de Islão.

Sete anos depois, a morte de Karimov deu lugar à subida ao cargo do seu Primeiro-Ministro de 2003 a 2016, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, e a alguma liberalização do regime, que se faz notar sobretudo na integração económica mundial, e que se reflectem na mudança de imagem geral do comércio e movimento da capital desde a minha presença prévia no país em 2014.

A União Europeia concedeu recentemente ao Uzbequistão o estatuto ‘GSP+’, o estatuto comercial mais favorável atribuído teoricamente a países terceiros em função de um conjunto de critérios de bom comportamento laboral, ambiental, social e sobretudo de direitos humanos. Não se trata de uma distinção significativa porque ela tem sido concedida em total contradição com esses preceitos, tornando-se antes de um símbolo da decadência política das instituições europeias. A generalidade dos observadores independentes não vê uma evolução significativa no carácter ditatorial do regime que possa justificar o gesto europeu.

2. O Uzbequistão e a Jihad

Como todas as repúblicas da Ásia Central, de religião maioritariamente muçulmana, após o fim da URSS, o Uzbequistão assistiu a um grande influxo de doutrinação religiosa, frequentemente de pendor fanático islamista, que rapidamente deu lugar a terrorismo jihadista em conexão com o santuário talibã no Afeganistão, país com o qual faz fronteira.

O Uzbequistão é tido por ser o país da região que tratou de forma mais dura e radical o movimento islamista, combate que passou por repressão e muita violência, sendo que a questão não está ultrapassada. Os EUA em particular e o Ocidente em geral, depois de um apoio irrestrito ao jihadismo como forma de minar a União Soviética, passaram ao plano contrário após o 11 de Setembro de 2001, focando apenas a vertente da violência e da repressão.

O Uzbequistão – de onde era originária uma grande parte do exército soviético que combateu no Afeganistão – passou assim de país ditatorial inimigo da liberdade religiosa a aliado seguro na guerra contra o terror, tendo abrigado importantes bases norte-americanas de 2001 a 2005.

Em 2005, a propósito de um dos mais sangrentos confrontos com islamistas, em Andijan, no Vale de Ferghana (ver por exemplo este relatório) os EUA condenaram vivamente a violência do exército uzbeque, o que levou ao encerramento das bases americanas e a uma reviravolta diplomática, com uma ancoragem cada vez mais sólida do país na esfera de interesses russos e chineses.

Para a Rússia e muito em especial para a China – que como assinalei na semana anterior, é o novo líder estratégico regional – o jihadismo talibã passou a ser visto como um instrumento útil na luta contra o Ocidente, no fundo invertendo-se os papéis desempenhados há décadas atrás.

Com Mirziyoyev voltou a fazer-se sentir a tendência para encarar o jihadismo de uma forma utilitarista. Karimov tinha tido já a peregrina ideia de apoiar uma facção dissidente do grupo islamista ‘Hizb ut-Tahrir’, o Akromiya, com a intenção de enfraquecer o ‘Hizb ut-Tahrir’ que considerava o seu inimigo principal, para ver o Akromiya montar a mais espetacular sublevação registada (Andijan, 2005) e, por tabela, ser acusado de fabricar grupos jihadistas para massacrar o seu povo.

Desde que a administração Trump desastradamente seguiu os conselhos do Qatar e abandonou a posição de que qualquer negociação para a paz teria de ser dirigida pelas autoridades afegãs – uma repetição da desastrosa lógica do Vietname – que a legitimidade das autoridades afegãs foi posta em causa, com um enorme reforço da confiança dos Taliban e, tão ou mais importante do que isso, com os principais actores internacionais a considerar os talibã um interlocutor priveligiado.

Na senda do exemplo americano, tanto a Rússia como a China, como de resto também o Uzbequistão, acharam que o caminho a seguir era negociar com os talibã para que estes deixem de os atacar, vendo o grupo jihadista como dando mais garantias do que as autoridades afegãs de estabilidade e pacificação no país.

Os talibã passariam assim a ser os bons jihadistas, capazes de assegurar mais estabilidade que as autoridades laicas e, mais importante ainda, capazes de manter um acordo com terceiros – o que deram largamente provas de não fazer durante o seu consulado de terror sobre o país.

Como observei a semana passada, a China, que me parece ser a verdadeira estratega neste jogo, terá uma confiança muito limitada nessa cenário, mas confesso que fiquei desiludido quando me dei conta que em alguns lugares chave do poder uzbeque vejo agora rostos de uma nova geração que se pensa mais moderna e liberal mas que me parece francamente menos competente, informada e lúcida que a anterior, encarando como possíveis cenários irrealistas.

3. A batalha de Cabul

A pressão de quase toda a comunidade internacional sobre as autoridades afegãs para que elas se rendam aos talibã é impressionante, e só nesta semana vimos o inefável Qatar a promover negociações entre as autoridades afegãs conduzidas pelo número 2 afegão e os talibã, enquanto eu mesmo pude presenciar as negociações em Tashkent entre uma delegação paquistanesa integrando militares e dirigida pelo Primeiro-ministro Imran Khan e a delegação afegã dirigida pelo Presidente Ashraf Ghani.

E, por mero acaso, à saída da reunião quase choquei com o Presidente Ghani, que parou, me cumprimentou com imensa cordialidade como se nos conhecêssemos (nunca nos encontrámos) adivinhando o interesse nos meus olhos, de uma forma que não deixou de me espantar.

Como é possível que o Presidente de um país à beira do colapso total, sujeito a uma inacreditável pressão (só o que eu vi em Tashkent arrasaria a moral do mais intrépido dos combatentes) tenha encontrado o estado de alma para perder alguns segundos a cumprimentar um desastrado passeante que se pôs no seu caminho?

Talvez quem esteja a pensar que Cabul são favas contadas esteja a menorizar a fibra dos afegãos.