Conspiracy Theorists Triumph

Russia Profile ^ | January 20, 2009 | Alexander Yanov

[nickcarraway]

Modern Russians have a well-deserved reputation of being good conspiracy theorists. There was even a sort of a pseudo-science invented, called “conspirology,” charged with uncovering conspiracies often before they are indeed hatched. Until recently, however, “conspirology” was the domain of the marginal sector in the mass media. Horror stories about Western conspiracies popped up mostly in print, edited by unrivaled “conspirologists” Alexander Dugin and Mikhail Leontyev. Their “conspirology” is rather primitive and can be reduced to a bumper sticker: NATO is an enemy of Russia, and everyone opposing NATO is our ally.

The problem is that the Afghan Talibs are also against NATO, but they are avowed and open enemies of Russia as well. They became especially dangerous enemies in the late 1990s, when they began housing the headquarters of the international Wahhabi Caliphate headed by Osama bin Laden. This organization made no secret of its desire to spread its power not only to the Middle East, but also to the Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is no secret that before the Americans crushed the Taliban infrastructure in 2001, Russia had been preparing for a similar attack against the Taliban.

This situation presented Russia’s amateur conspirologists with a dilemma. Who is an ally and who is a foe in this situation? Until now, the official line of the Russian authorities was that Moscow is ready to cooperate even with the “unfriendly” NATO in its fight against the Talibs. However, a recent publication in the Rossyiskaya Gazeta offers some hope to the anti-NATO conspirologists. In an interview published in December of 2008 a high-placed official, the head of Russia’s anti-drug authority (the Federal Service for Drug Control) Viktor Ivanov cut this Gordian knot, giving the anti-NATO conspiracy theory its old luster. In the opinion of this former aide to Vladimir Putin during the latter’s presidential term, the drugs coming from Afghanistan and sowing death and destruction among Russia’s young people actually come to Russia with NATO’s consent.

The statistics cited by Ivanov in his interview are indeed alarming. But his conclusion is even more worrisome. “I shall voice a seemingly seditious thought,” Ivanov said in his interview. “In my opinion, we don’t need to foster cooperation with NATO on Afghanistan. This was a wrong policy.” “Why?” the journalist taking the interview reasonably asked. Hasn’t it been officially declared that together with the Western coalition, headed by the United States, we are resolving the hard problems of containing the terrorist and drug trafficking threats in this very difficult region? Besides, NATO forces in Afghanistan tie up the Islamist force, restraining them from moving into the Russian Caucasus with their unfriendly of intentions. “This was a big misconception [of NATO’s intentions],” Ivanov replied. “In 2001, during the Taliban’s reign, the opium poppy fields took up about 190 hectares of Afghanistan’s land. Since the toppling of the Taliban regime and the coming of NATO’s troops, the production of opiates in Afghanistan grew 44 times. Afghanistan became a real drug state.”

But there is one important detail that Ivanov preferred not to mention. Ninety eight percent of Afghanistan’s opium poppy is grown, according to U.S. reports, in the seven southern provinces of the country, which are under the Taliban’s control. The NATO forces have so far been unable to evict the Taliban from there for a variety of reasons, but they would gladly do so if they had been stronger, and the Taliban—weaker. Thus the drug caravans that Ivanov is talking about are a product of the Taliban’s might and not of NATO’s, as a reader of Rossyiskaya Gazeta might conclude. Wasn’t this fact brought to the knowledge of FSDC? And if it was, why didn’t Ivanov tell the readers the truth?

Unfortunately, the journalist did not ask Ivanov this obvious question. If he had done so, numerous loopholes in Ivanov’s line of thinking would have become apparent. Firstly, the NATO troops have been formally stationed in Afghanistan not since 2001, but since the year 2006, although American forces did stay there since 2001. Secondly, how can one say that “Afghanistan became a real drug state,” if in 2008, 18 out of its 34 provinces have been recognized as opium-free by the UN (in the year 2007 there were only 13 such provinces)? Thirdly, Ivanov’s authority seems to have missed a change that the Taliban went through in the last few years. The Taliban’s metamorphosis from the opponents of drug production to its greatest promoters and protectors went unacknowledged, although the combination of drug cartel founders and religious fundamentalists, this new breed of “drug-Talibs,” is indeed a dangerous phenomenon.

But if the “drug-Talibs” became a reality, Russia should be interested in fostering cooperation with NATO on driving the Taliban (and its drug lords) out of Afghanistan. Or, at least, Russia would not be interested in ruining this cooperation, as Ivanov’s “seditious thought” suggests. Yes, the new Afghan army is yet too weak (its 80 thousand people are dwarfed by the 558 thousand strong Iraqi army) to drive the Taliban and its drug mafia out of the country. And yes, the NATO forces in Afghanistan (60 thousand people), inferior even to the American and British contingent in Iraq (154 thousand), is still unable to offer effective assistance to the Afghan government in fighting the Taliban. Besides, Afghanistan has a bigger territory than Iraq. The Soviet experiment of controlling Afghanistan in 1979 to 1989 yielded little hope for defeating the mujahidin insurrection given this juxtaposition of forces.

So, which conclusions should Russia derive from this, if it is indeed concerned about the fate of its youth suffering from the Taliban’s heroin? Firstly, it should understand that the only shield protecting its youth from the “drug-Talibs” is the NATO (and American in particular) force in Afghanistan. Thus Russia should do everything in its power to make that shield stronger. If the Soviet trauma does not allow Russia to send its troops to Afghanistan, it can at least share its intelligence data with NATO. If we believe Ivanov, Russia has more than enough of it.

Here is an interesting quote from the same interview: “There is a well-established system of banking, loans and finance, aimed at facilitating the production of drugs [in Afghanistan]. The storages are provided with more than one thousand tons of pure heroin, which serves as a kind of an insurance fund just in case the crops are not good this season. Banks willingly credit the farmers specializing in the production of opium poppies.” So, Ivanov is already informed about everything, with only a few addresses and phone numbers missing. And if the appropriate locations were provided, the NATO bombers would certainly be at hand to destroy the storages, whose heroin ends up not only in Russia, but also in NATO countries. As for the opium banks and the rest of the credit system supporting the drug production, NATO certainly commands enough political influence in the Afghan government to have these institutions shut down in a second. So, what prevents FSDC from sharing its knowledge with NATO?

Betrayed by the language

I am afraid that the stumbling block is the old “conspirology” formula, according to which NATO is an enemy not to be helped under any circumstances, even if these “circumstances” are the lives of young people in Russia. Of course, Viktor Ivanov does not cite this formula directly, but the language in which he tries to justify his obstructionist policy betrays him. This is the argot where the enemy is not named simply because, being the modern Judeo-Christian Western civilization, it is omnipresent and almighty.

Here is a quote that shows this language in action: “It is widely known that the ideology of the Taliban is supported by a relatively small segment of Afghanistan’s population. At the same time, all Pashto tribes are declared to be supporting the Taliban.” Declared by whom? “In fact, half of the country is arbitrarily presented as terrorists, and this is cited as the reason justifying the presence of foreign troops.” Presented by whom? Cited by whom?

Yet, how can NATO be involved in all of these evil designs, if it is in fact more than willing to pull out of Afghanistan as soon as possible? And isn’t NATO itself making every effort to drive a wedge between the Pashto tribes and the “drug Talibs?” In fact, if NATO had known the villain who “declares,” “presents” and “cites,” it would have had him punished severely.

Unfortunately, Ivanov does not provide any names or addresses, perhaps because they are only known to these same homegrown conspirologists catering to the nationalist audience. Did he decide to join their ranks? This is not likely, since his status puts him far above the staff members of the Zavtra weekly. According to another explanation, Ivanov simply made public the views of those people in the Russian leadership who do not sympathize with the aims of the new president of the United States. In fact, moving the focus of the American anti-terrorist operation from Iraq to Afghanistan is an important element of Barack Obama’s platform. This way, Obama plans to correct the mistakes of his predecessor.

It is quite obvious that such a change of accents in the antiterrorist operation will be hard to achieve without cooperation with Russia, which controls a lot of American transit to Afghanistan. It appears that some people in the Russian government, whose views Ivanov seems to have expressed, may not be willing to see this cooperation succeed. But whatever these people’s motives, the birth of “state conspirology,” heralded by Ivanov’s interview, does not bode well for the Russian-American relations.

Alexander Yanov is a well-known expert on the history of Russia. He served as a professor of history and politics at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and, until retirement, at the City University of New York.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks nick.