The Fascist Connection

credit: Scientific American

The hallmark of authentic fascism is, as Mussolini taught us, a symbiotic partnership between government and corporate interests so close that the distinction between public institutions and private commercial enterprises disappears. A good example is the US Federal Reserve Bank that functions as a government policy making organ, but is composed of private bankers. Another example is the relationship between the Pentagon and natural resource companies. The dependent relationship of international oil companies and US military forces was partly responsible for the intervention in Libya under cover of a UN humanitarian mandate. The reality is to secure the Libyan oil reserves for the West under the nominal administration of a friendly and compliant Libyan government; Qaddafi was too much of a defiant nationalist to make a good collaborator. Afghanistan is proving to be no exception to the symbiosis of private enterprise and military power{14.12.10}. US forces are escorting USGS geologists to remote locations [R photo] in southern Afghanistan still under the control of the Taliban looking for rare earth minerals. What they are finding is encouraging to western industrialists [L photo]. Potentially large deposits of minerals needed for the electronics industry have been located. While China currently dominates the world supply (97%) with ore mined at Bayan Obo, the supply in Afghanistan is estimated to be as rich as China's.

But these modern day Marco Polos come heavily armed and poised to kill. The profits from exploiting the deposits will very likely not benefit the poor locals who depend on poppy growing to scrape a living from the arid climate. The locals that are not killed, that is. One of Jeremy Morlock's accomplices in the "trophy" murders of Afghan civilians was sentenced to only seven years in prison as part of a plea deal last Thursday. Andrew Holmes was the third soldier from the 5th Stryker Brigade based at Lewis-McChord, Washington to plead guilty to war crimes committed in Kandahar province last year. His defense lawyer hopes to bring the trophy hunter home by the time he is 25 years old. Seven other soldiers face lesser charges in connection with the plotting since 2009 to kill unarmed Afghans and stage their deaths as casualties of combat.