| BFP Exclusive: Karzai Clan Attorney Threatens US Journalist, Uses Intimidation Tactics |
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| Source: |
Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post |
By: |
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Boiling Frogs Post has obtained a threat letter issued by Technologists Inc to the Examiner in response to its recent exposé involving President Hamid Karzai’s brother Qayum Karzai and his mob-like operations.
In a letter dated May 5, 2012, the company’s General Counsel Michelle E. Crawford accuses the investigative reporter of being inaccurate and libelous without providing any specific or concrete counter claim, and threatens the Examiner with legal action:
If the Examiner.Com fails to print the requested correction/retraction , Ti will be left with no choice but to seek legal action against your organization and will seek damages as well as the costs of litigation, including any filing fees, attorney’s fees, and any other costs that may be incurred.
The letter was provided to Boiling Frogs Post by an anonymous source familiar with the case. To read the letter click here.
On April 27 the Examiner published an exclusive article written by investigative journalist Michael Hughes titled ‘Karzai Family Looks to Extend Boss Rule in Afghanistan.’ The article exposes President Hamid Karzai’s mob boss brother Qayum Karzai, who has lived and operated businesses in the United States and has reportedly been on the list of ‘hand-picked’ potential candidates as Afghanistan’s next president.
Two of Qayum Karzai’s companies, Technologist Inc. and Daman Construction, are known to dominate the construction, logistics and security sectors throughout southern Afghanistan, and win every government contract with zero competition:
Qayum’s primary companies, Technologist Inc. and Daman Construction, win every government contract without having to deal with the nuisance of free market competition, which allows Qayum to reap healthy margins by, for example, selling $4 million generators to the governor of Kandahar for $50 million.
Hughes provides accounts of Qayum Karzai’s manipulation of business and news sectors in Afghanistan and his mob-style intimidation tactics including assassination plots against competitors:
Qayum’s control of the media has reduced southern Afghanistan to a de facto totalitarian state. This doesn’t seem to bother NATO a bit considering it finances Qayum-owned media outlets which, incidentally, never seem to report anything negative about the Karzai regime.
Hughes also reminds the readers how the infamous Karzai brothers, who lived in the United States, went from middle-class small business owners living on average wages to bringing in billions of dollars a year and building mansions in Dubai, all in less than a decade, and how:
...the unholy alliance that was forged between the brothers Karzai, rapacious warlords and incestuous multinational corporations, U.S. taxpayer dollars began to “lubricate an entire system of corruption that eventually extended to the Taliban.
…
…the coalition has continued to feed and enrich the Karzai syndicate because, according to the conventional wisdom that pervades the DoD and the White House — no other viable options exist.
In November 2009, Boiling Frogs Post published an extensive exposé on Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, his son, the Karzai Mob, and their Washington accomplices in amassing hundreds of millions of dollars in US government contracts and related corruption games. Here are a few excerpts:
The Karzai brothers took a great interest in Wardak Junior, and he enjoyed the benefits of the Karzais’ flashy and high-flying friends. After the September 11 Terror Attacks, the Karzais made Hamed the Vice President of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, which was founded by Mahmood Karzai. As I mentioned briefly in my piece, our Neocon Ex-Congressman Don Ritter happens to be the co-founder of this organization. Hamed was also appointed to an advisor’s post with President Karzai’s first Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani. No small accomplishment for the barely 30 year old Hamed!
And here is where I introduced my readers to Technologists Inc, yes, the same company in question:
Hamed Wardak’s most productive venture in tapping into the US Defense Sector Pot(s) of Gold began with joining a Washington DC contracting firm, Technologists Inc., founded by Aziz Azimi, who happened to be a very close buddy of Qayum Karzai. Here is a further detail on this by e-Ariana:
“Hamed Wardak’s new alliances proved extraordinarily advantageous as George W. Bush launched his “war on terror,” particularly with Khalilzad and Strmecki enjoying direct access to Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office.”
Do you want to check out the kind of contracts, the kind of millions, we are talking about with Technologists Inc.? Here is one for you:
Technologists, Inc., Rosslyn, Va., was awarded on Jan. 5, 2009, a $96,090,519 firm fixed price contract for the construction of an Afghanistan National Police National Training Center. Work will be performed in Maydan Wardak, Afghanistan, and is expected to be completed by Mar. 31, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Web bids were solicited on Oct. 1, 2008, and 13 bids were received. U.S. Army Engineer District, Afghanistan, is the contracting activity (W917PM-09-C-0005).
That’s right. Just one of these contracts is worth nearly $100 million for connected Afghan carpetbaggers cashing in on wars suffered by ordinary American tax payers and US soldiers.
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You can read my entire exposé here at Boiling Frogs Post.
According to our sources there will be a major follow up to Michael Hughes’ investigative piece on Qayum Karzai, including further revelations involving NATO and its investigations inside Afghanistan. Meanwhile, we hope to see the Examiner stand up for this brave investigative journalist. Based on a document we have received, as an independent contract journalist Michael Hughes can be thrown in front of these wolves with no backing or protection from the paper:
Please review the letter, make appropriate revisions, and reach out to the attorney/company directly. Also, pursuant to the Examiners Independent Contractor Agreement and License, you are solely liable for the content you post on the website and are responsible for defending any claims filed as a result of the content.
The above communication was issued by the Examiner. I understand the implications and standing of the contractual agreement between free-lance reporters and media publications. Knowing how timid and awful mainstream media channels such as New York Times and Washington Post have been, knowing how this story and hundreds of similar stories have been buried and gone untouched by these soul-sellers, I salute the Examiner for taking on the needed task to investigate and expose. I certainly hope that they will back Hughes and won’t let these bluffing bullies getaway with their fluff intimidation tactics.
| Exclusive: Karzai family looks to extend boss rule in Afghanistan |
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| Source: |
Examiner |
By: |
Michael Hughes |
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother, Qayum, is the type of guy who watches the Godfather movies not for entertainment purposes, but to learn new techniques. Hence, it is more than a little concerning that President Karzai has reportedly been grooming Qayum to succeed him as the country's next president - a move that could accomplish the impossible by making life even more unbearable for most Afghans.
I discovered all of this on Friday afternoon during an exclusive discussion with Naseem Pashtoon Sharifi - a business rival of the Karzai family who was forced into exile in the U.S. after Qayum Karzai tried to have him assassinated on more than one occasion.
Naseem is the editor of the Kandahar-based Surgar Weekly and president of Arakozia Advertising, two of the many industries Qayum has completely dominated despite the fact that monopolies are illegal in Afghanistan
Qayum, who has actually lived in Maryland for years, also dominates the construction, logistics and security sectors throughout most of southern Afghanistan. But there isn't a soul willing to challenge Qayum for fear of violent retribution and because of his unrivaled political power, which primarily stems from the fact Qayum is the one who literally appoints most of Afghanistan's cabinet ministers, provincial governors, mayors and police chiefs.
Qayum's primary companies, Technologist Inc. and Daman Construction, win every government contract without having to deal with the nuisance of free market competition, which allows Qayum to reap healthy margins by, for example, selling $4 million generators to the governor of Kandahar for $50 million.
Qayum is not above letting the Taliban in on the action either. As 60% owner of the notorious Watan Risk Management firm Qayum has rewarded a number of insurgent commanders with cuts of NATO security and logistics contracts.
Qayum's control of the media has reduced southern Afghanistan to a de facto totalitarian state. This doesn't seem to bother NATO a bit considering it finances Qayum-owned media outlets which, incidentally, never seem to report anything negative about the Karzai regime.
Local writers working for reputable news organizations such as BBC, Voice of America and Reuters even have their articles and reports censored by the provincial government.
Competitors like Naseem who dare resist Qayum's Orwellian censorship are financially choked and brutally intimidated. Recently, Qayum deployed razor-wielding thugs to cut down an Arakozia ad draped across Surgar's office window (see Photo #1), knowing full well that the revenue stream from Naseem's outdoor advertising business funds his newspaper operations.
Qayum even spray-painted many of Naseem's billboard signs with a red "X" mark to identify them for the Karzai demolition squad (see Photo #2 and Photo #3).
However, it is fair to wonder who is more at fault - the Karzai crime family or those who gifted them with power in the first place. Because the truth is, back in 2002 the Bush administration allowed a cabal of neoconservative "free market" ideologues, led by Afghan expatriate Zalmay Khalilizad, to install the Western-friendly Karzai as president.
Then, as the U.S. took its Iraq detour in 2003, it cut Faustian deals with a network of warlords, empowering them with guns and money in an effort to "keep the peace" in Afghanistan.
According to journalist Douglas Wissing in his new book, Funding the Enemy, once the unholy alliance was forged between the brothers Karzai, rapacious warlords and incestuous multinational corporations, U.S. taxpayer dollars began to "lubricate an entire system of corruption that eventually extended to the Taliban."
It is interesting to note that before Hamid Karzai became president the Karzai brothers were, for the most part, middle-class small business owners living on average wages. Miraculously, just a decade later, the Karzai family now brings in billions of dollars a year and can suddenly afford to build mansions in Dubai.
This unearned exuberance comes at the expense of the American taxpayer while a high percentage of U.S. aid never reaches those who need it most. The Karzai family's profligacy seems even more abhorrent when one considers that, according to the UN's Human Development Index, 42% of Afghans live on roughly a dollar a day.
The reemergence of the Taliban that began in 2005 was not some inevitable development but occurred because Afghan peasants grew weary of watching members of the Karzai family grow rich while they starved.
"The social injustice, the corruption, the support of thugs and warlords, the assassinations... these are the reasons young Afghans continue to join the Taliban," Naseem said. "More Taliban have been added to the frontline by this [the Karzai] government's brutalities than any ideology."
Yet Naseem held out hope that the Americans would eventually course-correct. Instead, the coalition has continued to feed and enrich the Karzai syndicate because, according to the conventional wisdom that pervades the DoD and the White House -- no other viable options exist.
Such an ill-informed mindset has resulted in the cultural, economic and political erosion of Afghan society. Naseem wants the American public to understand that most Afghans are decent people - it is the crooked 1% of the population that has ruined his homeland's good name. And, what is even more maddening, is that this crooked 1% has been fully funded and supported by the United States military.
Naseem believes beyond any doubt that Afghanistan will never see peace if the U.S. supports Qayum's candidacy and continues to fund the Karzai cartel. He is certain that whichever candidate the U.S. backs will become the next president.
Naseem explained that the U.S. simply needs to modify its king-making criteria. For example, candidates should be immediately disqualified who possess any of the following attributes: corrupt, homicidal, greedy, untrustworthy and unpopular. And certain categories of persons should be excluded from the process altogether, including known kingpins, warlords, fanatics and war criminals.
What the Afghans need more than anything is a president who is honest, uncorrupt and willing to put the public interest above private greed. They need someone with blood-free hands who is capable of building inclusive and equitable economic and political institutions. They need a well-respected leader who can garner broad support across Afghanistan's mosaic of tribes, ethnicities and sects. In other words, the last thing they need right now is Qayum Karzai.
| Man fled Afghanistan out of fear of President Karzai’s brothers |
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| Source: |
Toronto Star |
By: |
Mitch Potter |
WASHINGTON — Nerves frayed from months of mounting threats, Naseem Pashtoon Sharifi admits it wasn’t the most rational of decisions.
There he was, racing through the streets of downtown Kandahar City with a carload of gunmen on his tail. One hand on the wheel, the other trying desperately to load bullets into a pistol. If death was imminent, he would die fighting.
Then, as the gunmen bore down, Sharifi swerved right and stood on the brakes, screaming to a halt. The would-be assassins, unable to react in time, flew past. Suddenly, the hunters were in front, the prey in back.
It was then that Sharifi did “the crazy thing” — role reversal. He decided to chase his tormentors.
“I just floored it. I was so afraid for my family, my children, I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I had to know who these guys were,” Sharifi says from the relative safety of his exile in California, where the father of three has found safe harbour for his family.
“I caught up with them, and we raced for two or three more blocks. And then suddenly the gunmen slowed down and turned. And that’s when I knew.”
His pursuers had been cops. They drove right into Kandahar Police Headquarters.
If the scene harks back more to 1930s Chicago than 21st century Kandahar, Sharifi says they are one and the same — and all under the sway of the Brothers Karzai, the close kin of Afghanistan’s president, who Sharifi is convinced is out to get him.
When he fled Kandahar, Sharifi left behind a burgeoning media empire that at its peak counted 150 employees and ranked as the fourth largest employer in the region. But that, too, Sharifi says, has been plundered by the Karzais.
All but one very important piece — against the odds, Sharifi has managed to keep alive his Kandahar newspaper, Surgar. The feisty weekly continues to tilt against the powers that be, even as its owner has been squeezed out of the country.
These are far from idle accusations. Sharifi festered for months, consulting his extended family for approval — warning them to brace for reprisals — before finally approaching the Toronto Star to take his claims public.
He came because Kandahar is Canada’s patch and the regime that has taken root blossomed under Canada’s nose. Without intervention, he frets it will be the ultimate ruin of the country, ensuring a colossal failure for NATO.
His tale offers a rare glimpse inside the world of the Karzai Brothers — a clan he says he came to know well, and initially had faith in, before everything went pear-shaped.
“I saw how good the Karzais looked from a distance. And then I learned first-hand how badly they stank up close,” Sharifi said.
“I know I’m not the biggest fish. But what happened to me is simply a microcosm of the larger story playing out in Kandahar.”
The Karzais — Ahmed Wali, who is widely regarded as Kandahar’s foremost power broker, together with elder brothers Qayum and Shawali — denied each and every accusation. Lies, all lies, they said.
But further investigation shows Sharifi’s story is far from one man’s grudge. Four other Kandahar sources, speaking to the Star on condition of anonymity, confirmed his account that Karzai muscle-flexing removed him from the city, with Karzai interests promptly taking over the bulk of his business.
Sharifi’s accusations also coincide with recent WikiLeaks revelations showing the extent of U.S. concerns about the Karzais’ hold over Kandahar. One diplomatic cable describes the family’s position as a “semi-modern aristocracy” directed by “unrivalled strongman” Ahmed Wali Karzai, known as AWK.
AWK, the U.S. cable said, “appears not to understand the level of our knowledge of his activities and that the coalition views many of his activities as malign, particularly relating to his influence over the police.”
The U.S. cable singles out Canada’s $50 million Dahla Dam project as a cause for worry, noting that Karzai businesses were positioned for “multiple patronage benefits” after lobbying the Canadians for construction and security contracts.
Naseem Sharifi, now 36, was just starting out in the world back in 2002, when he returned to post-Taliban Kandahar like thousands of others, wanting to be a part of the new Afghanistan.
Born to a respected branch of the prominent Barakzai tribe, Sharifi had been sent away at age 16, another young refugee of war. It was an adoption into exile, with the young Sharifi joining relatives in Seattle who, by marriage, were distant Karzai cousins. After 12 years in exile, he was back with U.S. citizenship, a Western education, a zest to make his mark.
It wasn’t long before he struck upon his unlikely formula for success — billboards. Sharifi had vivid memories of the outdoor advertising billboards that clutter America’s highways, a concept then alien to Afghanistan. And with new banks and new cellphone companies opening daily, he thought the idea might just click.
Click, it did. Sharifi assembled a fledgling team and Arakozia was born.
War-torn Kandahar was then so starved for visual stimulation that when he planted his first outdoor sign Afghans gathered from far and wide just to look at it.
The contracts poured in. Afghan Wireless, Roshan cellular. Even NATO bought in, with a series of poppy-eradication billboards.
“We barely knew what we were doing at first. But we were quick studies. Before I knew it, we were operating in seven provinces. Nobody else was doing it. And the phone just kept ringing.”
With Arakozia running on all cylinders, Sharifi began to indulge his more magnanimous instincts. He pumped profits into expansion with the launch of Surgar, Kandahar’s first-ever independent weekly. And then Kandahar’s first-ever coffee shop.
“The goal for both the newspaper and the coffee shop was the same — to encourage civil society and help create a sense of community,” says Sharifi.
“Until then, all that existed in Kandahar for the past 30 years were places we call somowat — dirty little holes used for smoking marijuana and drinking tea.”
The Kandahar Coffee Shop flourished and so too did Surgar. From chess and snooker tournaments to sports sponsorships, Sharifi’s Arakozia stood ready to embrace any who approached with a positive idea. When a group of Kandahar high school students came looking for help in starting a students’ association, Sharifi ticked off every box, providing office space and computers for a group that quickly swelled to 1,800 members: literate Kandaharis in a land of outrageously high illiteracy, coming together for the greater good.
Sharifi was becoming a player. Doors opened, including the doors of the family Karzai. AWK attended Sharifi’s wedding to a local Kandahari woman in 2004 and furnished introductions to his brothers — Shawali, the eldest; Mahmoud, then based in Kabul but a frequent visitor to Kandahar; and Qayum, the Baltimore restaurateur who, Sharifi and others insist, ranks among the most influential of the siblings in Kandahar politics.
Sharifi’s access to Kandahar’s inner circle included regular visits with then-governor Assadullah Khalid, who later would lose his job amid accusations of personal involvement in the torture of Afghan detainees.
The first hint that something wasn’t quite right came in 2006 when, Sharifi says, he was offered a 20 per cent interest in a construction company, Daman, that he alleges is controlled by the Karzais. Free.
“I accepted the offer. Which now I deeply regret. I was so caught up in all the other business and this circle of power that had opened up, I didn’t give it proper consideration,” Sharifi says.
The other partners in Daman, he says, included Shawali Karzai (20 per cent), local Internet entrepreneur Ramat Qumran (20 per cent) and Qayum Karzai (40 per cent). They met regularly for lunch to discuss ways to latch on to the millions of development dollars flowing into the province.
“Every day, just as lunch would begin, Shawali Karzai would whisper in my ear, ‘Did you find a contract? Why don’t you tell the governor to give you a contract?’ Every single day.
“In hindsight, I realize … they wanted me to get my hands dirty. I was a threat because I was clean. But I was so naïve. There was also a strange dynamic between the Karzai stepbrothers. They are one family, yet they compete with each other. Shawali is the oldest; he was the father’s favourite, but I began to feel that he was using me like a pawn to prove to his brothers he, too, could generate wealth for the family.” For their part, the Karzais say the lunches were only social and they had no direct control over Daman.
Sharifi says he quit the enterprise without ever receiving a penny.
Instead, he threw himself into yet another new venture — the launch of a radio station to better reach the estimated 80 per cent of a provincial population unable to read or write. He assembled a team, began ordering equipment, all underwritten with the profits of the billboard business.
As the radio plans took shape in early 2006, Sharifi was summoned to the Governor’s Mansion, where he was confronted by an uncharacteristically stern Governor Khalid.
“Drop this idea for a radio station,” said the governor, according to Sharifi.
“He said, ‘Don’t ask why. Just know that Qayum and Ahmed Wali Karzai don’t want it.’”
Governor Khalid then placed a call, with the speakerphone amplified so that Sharifi could hear the conversation. Qayum Karzai answered.
“The governor said to Qayum, ‘I just called to assure you that the work is done. Sharifi will not open the radio station.’ And Qayum answered, ‘Good, just make sure. Naseem is the kind of person that gets things done. He will make us look bad. Just make sure we stop this,’” Sharifi says.
“I was stunned. I had such hope up to this point, but my whole perception changed. These mountains we call the Karzais — I began to realize how tiny they were. I was just a small player, but their self-confidence was so low that a little guy like me doing things with enthusiasm made them feel threatened.”
Sharifi acquiesced, dropping his radio plans. But the tension with the Karzais worsened in 2007 with the appointment of Ghulam Hamidi, a lifelong friend of the Karzai brothers, as mayor of Kandahar.
Within days of the new mayor’s arrival a tax dispute erupted, with Mayor Hamidi publicly accusing Arakozia of not paying its share. Sharifi says he was blindsided — but quickly produced what he claims is full accounting of every bill, to the last Afghani.
Mayor Hamidi would not let the matter rest. The final cut, says Sharifi, came in when the mayor arbitrary declared a tenfold increase in municipal taxes against Arakozia’s billboards — from six per cent to 60 per cent.
Sharifi acknowledges he was a small player in the big picture, pursuing small but legitimate business opportunities that paled against the multi-billion-dollar security and narcotics racketeering that is widely believed to permeate Kandahar. Why squeeze out a little guy like me, he wondered?
And on this point, if nothing else, the Karzais agree — Sharifi was a minor figure in town. Each of the three brothers, Ahmed Wali, Qayum and Shawali, played down Sharifi’s place in their lives in statements to the Star. He was an acquaintance, not a friend, they say. There were never any business dealings. The story of Daman and the radio station story are “pure fiction,” said Qayum Karzai.
The brothers also accuse Sharifi of exploiting the Karzai name, and hint darkly that perhaps his adoption to the U.S. as a teenager was never formally legal.
But there is a certain velocity to the Karzai denials — a flurry of emails, phone calls and written statements — that suggests the saga has penetrated the Karzai brothers’ famously thick skins.
Perhaps one explanation is a particularly provocative cartoon published by Surgar in early 2008, which portrayed Mayor Hamidi as a snarling dog on a leash held by Qayum Karzai. Even in a stable democracy, such an image likely would make noise. In Kandahar, it was a thunderclap.
“(Sharifi’s) relationship with me changed for one reason and one reason alone — that cartoon,” Qayum Karzai told the Star in a telephone interview addressing the allegations.
“Mayor Hamidi and I have known each other since we were 6 years old. His father was my father’s friend. We went to the same school, we swam together, we hunted together. We were part of a very tight clique,” said Qayum Karzai.
“Everybody knows the mayor is a friend of mine. So this cartoon of me holding him like a dog, it was … disappointing.”
Mayor Hamidi responded to the Star with an epic four-page letter defending not only his dispute with Arakozia but the entirety of his tenure in office. Hamidi denied any wrongdoing and attributed the entire dispute to a battle over back taxes.
Surgar, however, kept pushing. In 2008, the newspaper became more aggressive about reporting corruption allegations. It also began translating and reprinting in Pashtu the widening array of international media stories drawing attention to the growing power of the house of Karzai.
“The next phase was threats of physical violence,” says Sharifi. “I was getting anonymous phone calls warning, ‘Leave the city or face the consequences.’” The journalists at Surgar were regularly threatened. In at least one case, he says, the threat came directly by phone from AWK — a claim Ahmed Wali Karzai categorically denied in his statement to the Star.
“More than once I was followed by armed men on motorcycles. I had always lived openly. But now my openness was vulnerability. I had a pattern of travel between home and office,” he says.
After the next big scare — the 2008 high-speed chase through Kandahar City that ended at police headquarters — Sharifi knew the end was near. He now saw the Karzai hold over Kandahar as both omnipotent and potentially lethal. And he was in their crosshairs. For their part the Karzais say they had nothing to do with any police chase.
But for Sharifi, the breaking point came two weeks later, when Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the elected head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, summoned local journalists to disclose details of a suicide attack.
At the end of the news conference, as reporters packed their equipment, AWK called on Surgar’s reporter and issued an ominous warning that was heard by all: “Tell Naseem we have information there are four more suicide bombers in Kandahar. He is the next target.”
Sharifi was notified immediately.
“I knew I had to leave immediately. My (pregnant) wife, my two kids, my dad, my brother and my sister — we were on the next plane to Dubai. I had built my dream house in Kandahar. And now the dream was over.”
Ahmed Wali Karzai, in a statement conveyed through his U.S. lawyer, adamantly denied threatening Sharifi. The “intel report” about a Taliban suicide bomber was real, he said, and thus Karzai felt duty-bound to convey the information.
“I’ve had nine attempts on my life,” said Karzai. “I did it to help him, not to scare him. I remember when (Sharifi) left the country, I thought it was a sign of cowardice and it was empowering the Taliban. Those of us who are committed to building a new country cannot flee when the Taliban threaten us.”
In Sharifi’s absence, Arakozia shrunk rapidly, losing two-thirds of its staff as the billboard business collapsed. The final blow, said Sharifi, came by acetylene torch. “Every one of my billboards was cut with a torch, taken and confiscated.”
The next twist of fate, Sharifi says, was the sudden emergence of a new billboard company — Innovative Kandahar Advertising. On paper, the new operation belonged to Kandahar businessman Qazi Omar. But everybody in Kandahar, says Sharifi, knew the real owner was Qayum Karzai, the Baltimore restaurant baron.
Sharifi claims the new firm, with its ties to power, forced out Arakozia and the other three smaller billboard companies in the south, creating a de facto monopoly and raising prices accordingly. To verify the claim, the Star located the owner of one of those firms, Pashtani Advertising, in Quetta, Pakistan. Noman Kaker, speaking in halting English on his cellphone, confirmed, “All of the business has been taken over by Qayum Karzai.
“He destroyed us all and took all the billboard contracts for himself,” said Kakar. “Arakozia was the biggest but I had 14 people working for me. Now we are all unemployed and I have come to Quetta to try and find work to feed my family. It is a mafia. If you want billboards you must go through Qayum. Nobody else can do the work.”
To further test Karzai’s denial of ownership, the Star contacted the new company, Innovative Kandahar Advertising, posing as a prospective client — a fictitious American charity looking to mount a counter-narcotics billboard campaign.
Company manager Qazi Omar quoted a price of $700 per billboard per month — a fourfold increase over what the now-defunct billboard companies in Kandahar, including Arakozia, charged for their services.
The Star then asked whether “Your company’s owner, Qayum Karzai, might agree to a discount for such a large contract?”
Omar responded, “Yes, this is possible. You should contact Qayum Karzai directly to negotiate a discount. You can email him. Do you have his address?” He then proceeded to carefully recite Karzai’s email address, spelling it slowly letter by letter.
In a subsequent telephone interview, Qayum Karzai denied any financial ties to the company, suggesting that Qazi Omar’s poor grasp of English was the reason for the “miscommunication.”
“I have absolutely nothing to do with this company. What kind of a nutty businessman would own or invest in such a thing if he does not even know the employees. It is absolutely, totally wrong,” Qayum Karzai said.
Afghan cell telephone records obtained by the Toronto Star, meanwhile, show very active lines of communication between Qayum Karzai and Qazi Omar. Over the span of six months this year, Qazi Omar’s phone registered nearly 60 calls to Qayum Karzai’s Baltimore cellphone. Karzai, in turn, appears to have placed eight calls to Omar’s phone in Kandahar over the same span.
Arakozia is not quite dead, relying upon its small-scale printing operation — posters, handbills, and the like — that pay some bills. And Surgar, the weekly, is as popular and feisty as ever, even to this day, with a subscription base of 15,000 and popular support throughout the Sharifi belt. But shorn of the billboard income, the paper barely breaks even.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, in a statement to the Star, pointed to the continuing existence of Surgar as part of his defence against Sharifi’s allegations. “His paper is still open, so no one tried to close it,” AWK said through his lawyer. “If it closes, it’s because he is not making any profit, not because anyone is telling him to close.”
| In the Name of a General, his Son, a Spook & the Godmother of Neocons |
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| Source: |
Examiner |
By: |
Michael Hughes |
Once Upon a Time a General…
 Once upon a time there was an Afghani general named Abdul Rahim Wardak. He had studied in both US and Egyptian military schools before joining the army in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, a few years after he joined the army, he decided to defect and joined the Mujahideen movement. We don’t know exactly who in the United States gave him the order to defect, because no one is willing to go on record. However, we know very well that due to their fight against the Communist Soviet Union, the Mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, along with several other not as significant nations. We also know that back then, when we were supporting, financing, training and cheering for the Mujahideen as ‘freedom fighters,’ those labeled today as terrorist evil-doer radicals, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, were viewed and treated as our allies and entourage.
Now, back to our General. He joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan arm of the Mujahideen and fought against the Soviets. Interestingly, during those years, the mid to late 80s, our general Wardak was brought to the United States and coached to testify before the US Congress; not once but several times. He was even flown to the US once to receive medical treatment for a wound he received from a scud missile. I am sure you are savvy enough to know that this was considered ‘highly special’ treatment for a Mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan. Our general was truly loved when it came to our CIA and certain high-level people within the Reagan Administration.
So how good of a military officer was Mr. Wardak? Not a good one – and this assessment seems to be pretty much unanimous. In fact, this is how he’s been known in that part of the world: “… in the 1980’s, he had garnered a reputation as one of the least accomplished commanders of the American-backed Mujahideen resistance to Soviet occupation forces.” If you enter the circles within the Washington DC Afghani diaspora, and if you get close enough to hear the hushed comments, you’d be able to make out words like ‘corrupt,’ ‘ties to drug-running warlords,’ or ‘Afghan mafia.’ But for some ‘mysterious’ reasons our Central Intelligence Agency and hard-core Neocons within our foreign policy arena had deemed this general ultra special and important…
*And the story continues…
Once Upon a Time a Godmother of Neocons…
 Once Upon a time there was a woman named Jeane Kirkpatrick, who didn’t really look like a woman but it never mattered, in fact it may have helped her. Jeane was a Democrat, and then, later, she became a Republican. She was on President Reagan’s National Security Council, on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and of course the Defense Policy Review Board. She became the US Ambassador to the United Nations; appointed by President Reagan. Ms. Kirkpatrick was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). She was a hard-core anti-communist, and she was a hawk. But most importantly, she was the woman whom people considered and labeled the Godmother of Neocons.
Ms. Kirkpatrick died in 2006, and here is a widely witnessed account of those who shed the most tears:
“Until the end, she was a cherished mentor to the neo-conservatives. John Bolton – Bush’s outgoing ambassador to the UN and of all her successors there the one who most closely resembled her – publicly wept as he paid tribute to her last week. Perhaps the tears were at the rubble of his President’s Iraq policy, but also for a remarkable woman.”
Before her death, her final ‘known’ government mission was to help pave the way for our preemptive attack on Iraq in 2002:
“…in a final mission, kept secret until her death, to meet Arab envoys in Geneva in 2003 to win them over to the impending invasion of Iraq. Her instructions were to argue that pre-emptive war was justified. But Kirkpatrick knew it wouldn’t work. Instead she made the case that Saddam Hussein had flouted the UN too long and too often.”
Jeane Kirkpatrick, true to her Grand Neocon title, was a strong believer of ‘the end justifies the means.’ She vehemently disagreed with Secretary of State George Schultz on the Iran-Contra affair, in which she supported skimming money off arms sales to fund the Contras. Everything was kosher to her, whether drugs or illegal arms sales, as long as these means served what she considered to be the goal; an imperial US.
Ms. Kirkpatrick similarly, in fact more vehemently, supported our operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 80s where we backed and trained the Mujahideen against the Soviets. Just like what we sanctioned in Nicaragua, in Afghanistan all deals, no matter how insane or unsavory, were means’ to justify the end. This was one of her mottos most cherished by the hawks and the neocons:
“Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies.”
What went unsaid in that quote, but meant and practiced was: Radical Islam, the Taliban, their Madrasas, their terrorizing of women, their heroin business…are perfectly all right, as long as they are on our side, in our camp, on our payroll, instead of on the other side.
Following her ‘direct’ government career, she returned to academia at Georgetown University where for some reason many well-known Neocons, such as James Woolsey and Douglas Feith, chose to flock. And very characteristically our Jeane Patrick continued her contribution to the practice of Neocon-ism…
Once Upon a Time a spook…
 Once upon a time there was man named Milton Bearden, commonly referred to as Milt. He spent his early years in the state of Washington where his father worked on the Manhattan Project. After a few years with the US Air Force he joined the CIA in 1964.
Milt was CIA’s chosen man for their operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, from 1986 to 1989, when our country was supporting the Mujahideen, he was one of their main men on the ground, working with this coalition of the Taliban, the Saudis and their main man Bin Laden, and the Pakistani ISI. The Director of the CIA, William Casey, was the one who appointed Milt Bearden for this task. Here is Milt’s own words describing his importance in a not very unusual ex-CIA conceited manner:
“For Casey Afghanistan seemed to be possibly one of the keys and so he tapped me one day to go. he said ‘I want you to go to Afghanistan, I want you to go next month and I will give you what ever you need to Win.” To win, yeah he said: “I want you to go out there and win” As opposed to ‘let’s go there and bleed these guys and make it be a Vietnam’, I want you to go and win and whatever you need you can have. He gave me the Stinger Missiles and a billion Dollars!”
He must have done extremely well since he was promoted to CIA Station Chief in Pakistan. In fact he must have done exceedingly well since he was later appointed the chief of the Soviet/East European Division during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and received three glowing medals from the CIA for services rendered.
Milt’s cushy CIA retirement and all those glowing medals must not have been enough, for he then engaged in frenzied marketing and self promotion to get himself entrenched in almost all major US networks and newspapers as a consultant, writer, advisor, and of course as a trusted source – a CIA source to provide quotes and information for scripts at the snap of a finger. He coauthored a book with New York Times reporter James Risen called The Main Enemy. Whether this kind of business arrangement, where a commonly used source partners up with a reporter, presents a conflict of interest or even could be called incestuous, is everyone else’s call.
Most interestingly Mr. Bearden seemed to have lured in the American mainstream media by presenting himself as an outspoken critique of the Bush White House Intelligence policies after the September 11 terrorists’ attack. He suddenly became a major spokesperson on ‘how we created this monster called Osama Bin Laden,’ and the nasty radical Taliban. And the mainstream media couldn’t get enough of him. Ironically, he happened to be the man after William Casey and Neocons’ Jeane Kirkpatrick’s own hearts in creating the Bin Laden monster, bolstering the radical Taliban brand of Islamism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and kosherizing all dirty deeds as means to justify the end(s). He didn’t get those medals or promotions for nothing!
Not only that, Mr. Bearden’s speeches and writings seemed to have received the approval of the CIA and the Bush administration. As we all know you don’t get to publish uncensored and unredacted books as an ex-CIA man unless they want you to. This didn’t seem to raise a single eyebrow in the US media or pseudo activist organizations and think tanks.
While cashing in on his CIA past and government approved public persona within the US media, he quietly began to court the Ex-Taliban carpetbagger crowd in Washington DC in order to tap in to the billions of dollars war market cookie jars…
The son, and then the circle all came together…
 Our General Wardak disappeared from the Afghan scene at the beginning of the civil war in the 1990s. He brought his family to the United States where he settled comfortably with enough wealth from undetermined sources, and he enrolled his son, Hamed, in Georgetown University.
Hamed Wardak, a quite chubby and ambitious young man, arrived at Georgetown University, and by the time he got to his senior level he was taken under the wings of one of his professors as her protégé. That professor was none other than our Jeane Kirkpatrick, the proud Godmother of the Neocons. Our savvy readers will understand that this was not due to chance and Hamed’s stars being all aligned. After all, his General father had done his job well serving Kirkpatrick’s and other Neocons’ foreign policy objectives at all costs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As mentioned earlier, his General father was flown to the US several times and coached by this crowd to give speeches before the US Congress to obtain funds for their overt and covert operations involving the Saudis, Pakistanis and Taliban. So no, these relationships don’t evaporate and disappear. Wardak and his family were accommodated quite well after they were brought to the US, and the Neocons’ future plans for Afghanistan would have plenty of roles for the Wardak family to fill.
Wardak Junior was a known figure among the radical pro-Taliban sympathizers in Washington DC circles. Here are a few quotes from an excellent piece written on the Wardak(s) and Karzai(s):
“During this period, he flirted with pro-Taliban sympathies, due both to his ethnic Pashtun fervor and peer pressure from young DC-area extremists.
Gradually, however, Hamed came under the influence of Kirkpatrick’s philosophical soul mates, notably Marin Strmecki, a Republican essayist and political facilitator with the Smith Richardson Foundation. Strmecki worked at the Pentagon under Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, along with Lewis “Scooter” Libby – and Zalmay Khalilzad. It was during Hamed Wardak’s reappraisal of the world, via these American political heavyweights, that he came into contact with a group of upwardly-mobile players on Washington’s Afghan-American scene: the Karzais; specifically, two of the six Karzai boys – Qayum and Mahmood. Unlike their younger brother Hamid, who had spent much of his life in Pakistan, Mahmood and Qayum were accomplished US-based businessmen.”
The Karzai brothers took a great interest in Wardak Junior, and he enjoyed the benefits of the Karzais’ flashy and high-flying friends. After the September 11 Terror Attacks, the Karzais made Hamed the Vice President of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, which was founded by Mahmood Karzai. As I mentioned briefly in my piece, our Neocon Ex-Congressman Don Ritter happens to be the co-founder of this organization. Hamed was also appointed to an advisor’s post with President Karzai’s first Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani. No small accomplishment for the barely 30 year old Hamed!
Hamed Wardak’s most productive venture in tapping into the US Defense Sector Pot(s) of Gold began with joining a Washington DC contracting firm, Technologists Inc., founded by Aziz Azimi, who happened to be a very close buddy of Qayum Karzai. Here is a further detail on this by e-Ariana:
“Hamed Wardak’s new alliances proved extraordinarily advantageous as George W. Bush launched his “war on terror,” particularly with Khalilzad and Strmecki enjoying direct access to Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office.”
Do you want to check out the kind of contracts, the kind of millions, we are talking about with Technologists Inc.? Here is one for you:
Technologists, Inc., Rosslyn, Va., was awarded on Jan. 5, 2009, a $96,090,519 firm fixed price contract for the construction of an Afghanistan National Police National Training Center. Work will be performed in Maydan Wardak, Afghanistan, and is expected to be completed by Mar. 31, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Web bids were solicited on Oct. 1, 2008, and 13 bids were received. U.S. Army Engineer District, Afghanistan, is the contracting activity (W917PM-09-C-0005).
That’s right. Just one of these contracts is worth nearly $100 million for connected Afghan carpetbaggers cashing in on wars suffered by ordinary American tax payers and US soldiers.
Back to the Wardaks and Karzais:
…
“By the time Khalilzad took up his ambassadorship to Kabul in Dec. 2004, Strmecki had been appointed Rumsfeld’s “Afghanistan Policy Co-ordinator.” That same month, Karzai removed his Minister of Defence, the Northern Alliance’s Mohammed Fahim, a Tajik. Faim’s replacement: Rahim Wardak.”
You heard it right. Our General Wardak was promoted and taken back to Afghanistan to serve in Karzai’s regime as the Minister of Defense. Was he given citizenship when he was brought back to the US to settle? No one is really talking. Did anyone in Afghanistan question having US citizens in their quasi democratic government posts? No one in the US media is reporting. If you are trusted within the Afghan diaspora in the DC area you’ll hear hushed comments about Wardak, his corrupt practices, and the rumors, fairly consistent rumors, of his close connections to the poppy world.
Back to Wardak Junior in Washington DC; With his dad now in Afghanistan as the Defense Minister, and with his Karzai partners and friends, he was busy running from one pot of gold to another:
“During this period, Hamed Wardak’s Washington DC-based firm, Technologists Inc. (Ti), benefited from several large contracts, some arranged directly with the US Defense Department, others via the Afghan Ministry of Defence. Ti’s website boasts that it was the first Afghan-American firm to be awarded a prime contract by the US government. Its portfolio has been fattened by a cornucopia of construction projects, including border crossing stations and the ANA’s Logistics and Command Headquarters, a counter-narcotics “campus” where the US Drug Enforcement Agency and its Afghan counterparts will be based [Emphasis Added] cell block renovations to Kabul’s huge Pul-i-Charkhi prison, and three industrial parks.”
Now recall the hushed voices about our General Wardak’s possible shady connections to heroin and mafia in Afghanistan among the Afghani diaspora in the Washington DC area. Now this same general happens to become the Minister of Defense, while his son runs companies with contracts for services rendered to our very own US Drug Enforcement Agency in Afghanistan, which is supposed to be fighting the heroin trade over there. Could it get more ridiculous and ironic than this?!
Of course it can. As I was working on this piece this New York Times headline popped up on my screen:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home. The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.
The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
I am not going to get side tracked and criticize this NY Times article and its timing. After all, Karzai’s heroin connection and mafia characters have been known for a long time. The New York Times piece is probably timed and written to serve a draft or new operation plan for Afghanistan where we’ll be installing another crook to replace Karzai, but this new crook will be handpicked by this administration and enrich their slate of contractors…
Okay, so now we have Hamed Wardak with his Defense Minister father’s rumored heroin past and present, we have his extremely close ties to the Karzais with their heroin and crime network and connections. In a good and just world this would mean the end of Wardak. But that’s not the kind of world we live in. Hamed and his companies and connections, both in Afghanistan and in the US, are still cashing in; big time.
Here is one of our characters who hasn’t made an appearance for several pages: Milt Bearden, the EX-CIA Rambo in Afghanistan in the 80s, the US media darling on Osama Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban…you name it, the shrewd self promoter with books and movies:
Milt Bearden must have been pretty familiar with our General Wardak since he was on the ground in Afghanistan serving his masters at the CIA and the Whitehouse, including the great advocator of ‘use any means,’ our Godmother of Neocons, Jeane Kirkpatrick. Operation Cyclone must certainly have brought him in contact with involved Taliban Generals, including our General, Osama Bin Laden, and other key ISI operators, and his dealings must certainly have included the major heroin operations tapped into to further fund these ‘freedom fighters.’ In fact, our Spook dealt extensively with Hekmatyar, who is considered one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Heroin Operator in Afghanistan – which supplies 90% of the world’s Heroin:
“One U.S. official who had considerable dealings with Mr. Hekmatyar was Milt Bearden, who during the Soviet occupation ran the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s covert program in Afghanistan. He says Mr. Hekmatyar struck him as “quirky and paranoid.””
Thus, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that our Ex-Spook took an interest in our General’s son, and translated this interest into a close business partnership when our young and chubby Hamed Wardak got closer and closer to big Pots of Gold in Washington DC and his father made it to the Defense Minister position in Afghanistan.
After Hamed Wardak left Technologists Inc. to go further in tapping the US Defense Contractor Gold Pots, and to set up various other front businesses in Afghanistan, many of which happen to be in security sectors, he formed a new front organization, Campaign for a US-Afghan Partnership. Guess who he appointed as the top man for the Board of this ambigious organization? That’s right, none other than our ex-spook, media supplier, Milton Bearden. Check out his glowing background listed on Hamed Wardak’s organization’s website: click here. What exactly this organization does, no one really knows, which should go as another credit to our Mr. Bearden’s CIA background in keeping things convoluted and secretive.
Rumors from the Ex-CIA community in the DC area point to another highly lucrative Wardak company paid by US tax payers, NCL, in Kabul, and hint that their buddy Milt may have been playing a major role there. Because of Mr. Bearden’s cozy relationships no one in the media has been looking for these deeper engagements and lucrative partnerships between him and Hamed Wardak.
With their intimate relationship and close ties with the Bush Whitehouse, especially Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney’s quarters, the Wardaks and Karzais ran from one pot of gold to another, filled their pockets and probably Swiss accounts, while the conditions kept worsening in Afghanistan, resulting in more civilian deaths and injured, and more US troop casualties there. Then, the Bush-Cheney era came to an end…
If you are holding your breath for our New President to act differently than his predecessor in enriching Wardaks-like carpetbagger war profiteers, go ahead – inhale and exhale. Hamed Wardak has been a supporter of both Hillary Clinton and President Obama, who between them received a total of $20,000 from Mr. Wardak in 2008. A naïve out of Washington person would scratch his head and ask ‘With all these ties, close connections and friendship with Bush Neocons such as Rumsfeld and Khalilzad, why the heck would he support and pay the Obama camp?’ Washington circle people would never ask such questions. They know very well how things are, that each establishment-based administration has its own set of neocons, hawks, and war profiteers.
Soon we’ll know who our new administration has in mind to replace Karzai’s regime. Will it be an insider like our General Wardak? Certainly not impossible. He’s been the man for decades, and they’ve invested a lot in him and his son, and enriched him and his family tremendously. Will it be another puppet just like Karzai but with a new face? Certainly possible. That would mean another group of carpetbagger war profiteers entering the market to grab the pots of gold financed by us, while the Karzais and Wardaks go away and enjoy their hundreds of millions of dollars stashed somewhere.
No matter what, with this kind of foundation, nothing will change for us, the ordinary Americans. Our tax dollars will go to the Wardaks or Wardaks-like parasites. Our soldiers will lose arms and legs, or their lives. The Afghani civilians will continue to suffer death, destruction, and chaos. Because the story of the General, his son, a spook, and the Godmother of Neocons, is only one of hundreds out there, and as long as we sit on the sideline, watch, and do nothing, there will be hundreds, or thousands more in this story, albeit with different faces and names. |
