Health is key to people's lives, and a prerequisite for sustainable societal development.
Good health among residents of Östergötland is one of the most important factors for growth, development and well-being in the county. This is a joint policy for public health work in the municipalities and County Council of Östergötland as well as for the Regional Development Council Östsam.
The policy is based on the national goal
The public health work in the county is based on the national goal for public health policy to create societal conditions for good health on equal terms for the entire population1 and will be implemented within the framework of the eleven national target areas:
1. Participation and influence in society
2. Economic and social conditions
3. Child and adolescent issues
4. Health in the workplace
5. Environments and products
6. Health-promoting healthcare and nursing care
7. Protection against spread of disease
8. Sexuality and reproductive health
9. Physical activity
10. Dietary habits and food products
11. Tobacco, alcohol, narcotics, drug abuse and gambling
Public health is an aspect of social planning
This figure below is a schematic image of health determinant factors, i.e. what affects health. Adapted
from the original by Göran Dahlgren and Margret Whitehead (1991).
Vision
Public health policy in the county should be based on knowledge of the health of the population and on those factors that determine health; see the figure below. The health of Östergötland residents is the result of a complex interplay among many factors and participants. Public health is an issue both for the individual and for the whole society.
The economic, social and environmental conditions in society influence the individual's opportunities to take responsibility for his or her health.
A public health policy perspective should therefore be included in community planning.
Vision
Östergötland - A Health Region 2020
Goals
The overall common, measurable goals for the public health process in Östergötland are
to
• improve the conditions in society for sound and equal health for all(new)
• increase the number of years of good health and quality of life
• narrow the gap in differences in health by strengthening health amongst the most vulnerable (new)
Strategy
The municipalities and the County Council of Östergötland as well as the Regional Development Council Östsam shall develop management, knowledge and methods regarding public health policy through:
Management
• manage and follow up in the area of public health from the highest political level
• include a public health perspective in political decisions
• decide on operative goals and efforts for public health in plans and governing documents
• allocate resources, time and expertise to the public health policy process Knowledge
• strengthen expertise among public officials and staff members about health
determinant factors and increase the capacity to handle them
• increase knowledge among public officials and staff members about the extent to
which decisions and actions contribute to equal health
• increase knowledge and awareness of prerequisites for good health among
everyone who lives and works in Östergötland Methods
• use and develop methods that integrate public health in all agencies
• ensure that there are common regional and local indicators for health and for equity in health
The indicators should be developed in collaboration with national and
international participants.
• link the regional and local indicators to budgets and governing documents in the respective agency
• develop a sustainable structure for regional coordination of public health policy and public health work within the Regional Association Östsam in which other public authorities, civil society, the business community, etc. are also involved
• consider starting an Östergötland Public Health Commission
Regional coordination of public health policy and public health work
The Regional Development Council Östsam, in collaboration with the municipalities and the County Council of Östergötland, shall develop a sustainable structure for regional coordination and collaboration that supports the public health policy and public health work in the county. This work shall be based on the regional development programme, on
this policy, on the public health situation and ongoing public health work in the county.
In the three-year plans, the Regional Association's authorized representatives shall decide on sub-goals and resources for the regional work. In addition, the representatives shall decide on activity goals and resources for the regional coordination function in the agency plan for the years in question.
Mission of the regional coordination function is to:
• develop a sustainable structure for regional coordination and collaboration about public health among affected public authorities, civil society and the business community
• support public health policy and organize and develop public health work in the county
• contribute to integrating a public health perspective into the local and regional
planning and development process
• develop proposals on indicators for public health in Östergötland that the particular organisation can use in planning and follow-up. The indicators should comprise “lowest common denominators” for tracking the development of public health in the county as well as at the municipal and neighbourhood level
• arrange data collection, analyse the health situation, present environmental analyses and distribute knowledge and methods in collaboration with relevant research and development
• work to increase the county's resources for public health by supporting and coordinating applications for funding
• be the secretariat for the Östergötland Public Health Commission2.
Organization
Public health issues shall be integrated in the Regional Development Council Östsam's entire operation. The ambition will be to develop a cross-sectoral approach with public health as one of the perspectives. In the Regional Development Council, the regional coordination function will be part of the Community Planning operations area, which is responsible for the regional development programme, infrastructure, mass transit,
environment and energy, agricultural development, etc.
Costs and financing
The municipalities and the County Council of Östergötland plus the Regional
Development Council Östsam shall agree no later than August 2010 on the extent, costs and financing regarding the coordination function in the Regional Development Council.
Under the assumption that the parties make such an agreement, the Regional
Developemtn Council Östsam shall decide on the coordination function in its operations plan for 2011.
An Östergötland Public Health Commission
Purpose
An Östergötland Public Health Commission, according to the model from WHO3, shall analyse the health situation in the county from a cross-sectoral knowledge and experience perspective. The commission shall proceed from the national public health policy goal areas and operate during the years 2012-2014. The commission shall analyze the health
situation based on socioeconomic, environmental, gender, diversity/non-discrimination and life-cycle perspectives. The commission shall propose efforts at the county,municipal and neighbourhood level that create conditions for better health on equal terms for everyone who lives and works in Östergötland. Furthermore, the commission shall present its results in annual preliminary reports as well as a final report in the last quarter of 2014.
Principal
Östsam's Board of Directors shall be the principal for the Östergötland Public Health Commission and appoint the members. The municipalities and the County Council in Östergötland, the political parties, public authorities, Linköping University, non-profit organizations, etc. shall be given opportunity to propose individuals to serve on the commission.
Participants
The Östergötland Public Health Commission should be composed of committed,
knowledgeable and experienced individuals from research, the public sector, politics and civil society. There ma y be 10-15 participants on the commission.
Secretariat
The Regional Development Council Östsam, the regional coordination function for public health policy and public health work shall be responsible for the secretary function on the commission. An important task is to prepare the start of a commission and recruit participants.
Costs and financing
The Regional Development Council Östsam shall in collaboration with the members and other interested parties work for the financing of an Östergötland Public Health Commission.
Follow-up/evaluation
The work of the commission shall be followed up during the course of the process. In planning for the commission, resources for follow-up and evaluation should be included.
Follow-up of the policy
The municipalities and the County Council of Östergötland and the Regional Association Östsam shall follow up the policy in annual reports. The follow-up shall show to what extent the goals and strategies in the policy have been achieved and lead to decisions on remedying any deficiencies. The Regional Development Council Östsam shall describe in its annual report how the regional coordination is functioning and being developed based on the intentions.
Time period
The policy applies to the years 2011-2014. After that it is planned that Östergötland will become part of a new, larger regional organisation.
NOTES
1 The government's bill 2007/08:110 A renewed public health policy
2 Under the assumption that such a commission is formed
3 In 2008 WHO published the report “Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the
social determinants of health”. An independent commission of 19 researchers from all over the world,
chaired by Sir Michael Marmot, epidemiologist and public health researcher, prepared the report. Swedish
translation of the report: http://www.fhi.se/sv/Publikationer/Alla-publikationer/Utjamna-halsoskillnadernainom-
en-generation1/
THIS IS FROM A
"Report to the municipalities and the County Council of Östergötland April – June 2010 "
E-DEFENSE MUST BE ORGANIZED THE SOONEST AT EU/EC-DG-ICT AT R&D LEVEL,SO THAT CITIZENS TO FEEL SECURE.
CIVIL SOCIETY,UNIVERSITIES,PRIVATE COMPANIES (CLUSTERS,SME),REGIONS ,NATIONAL STATES AND OTHER IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS SHOULD GATHER AND BEGIN DISCUSSIONS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH AN AMBITIOUS TARGET ON BEHALF OF EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS PARTNERS.
THANKS
A.C.
Who controls the internet?
Squared-jawed, with four stars decorating each shoulder, General Keith Alexander looks like a character straight out of an old American war movie. But his old-fashioned appearance belies the fact that the general has a new job that is so 21st-century it could have been dreamed up by a computer games designer. Alexander is the first boss of USCybercom, the United States Cyber Command, in charge of the Pentagon’s sprawling cyber networks and tasked with battling unknown enemies in a virtual world.
Last year, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared cyberspace to be the “fifth domain” of military operations, alongside land, sea, air and space. It is the first man-made military domain, requiring an entirely new Pentagon command. That went fully operational a week ago, marking a new chapter in the history of both warfare and the world wide web.
In his confirmation hearing, General Alexander sounded the alarm, declaring that the Pentagon’s computer systems “are probed 250,000 times an hour, up to six million per day”, and that among those attempting to break in were “more than 140 foreign spy organisations trying to infiltrate US networks”. Congress was left with a dark prophecy ringing in its ears: “It’s only a small step from disrupting to destroying parts of the network.”
In three short decades, the internet has grown from the realm of geeks and academics into a vast engine that regulates and influences global commercial, political, social and now military interaction. Neuroscientists tell us that it is changing the development of our cerebral wiring in childhood and adolescence. Social scientists and civil libertarians warn that our privacy is being eroded, as ever more of our life is mediated by the web. It should probably come as no surprise that governments believe control of this epoch-making technology is far too important to be left in the hands of idiots like you and me.
If states start monitoring the internet, what does it means for the average user? President Obama has stated that his administration’s pursuit of cybersecurity “will not include – I repeat, will not include – monitoring private sector networks or internet traffic”. But not everyone is so sanguine. Richard Clarke, adviser to four presidents and the author of Cyber War, supports US plans to beef up its cyber defences but even he is worried about USCybercom. “We created a new military command,” he wrote, “to conduct a new kind of high-tech war, without public debate, media discussion, serious congressional oversight, academic analysis or international dialogue.”
Very few people understand cybersecurity. It is technologically complex and the network environment in which it operates changes at lightning speed. So governments are granting themselves new powers to intervene in computer networks without anyone, including themselves, fully appreciating what their implications are.
The establishment of USCybercom is just one element in an eye-popping expansion of security, which includes beefing up the cyber capacity of the Department of Homeland Security to deal with threats to the US’s domestic cyber networks. These moves will lead to a much deeper apparatus of control and monitoring of internet activity by the US.
Some specialists argue that the gargantuan security systems involved simply will not work, and that bureaucrats and corporations are encouraging a new round of profligacy to line their pockets. Civil liberty advocates worry that General Alexander’s new cyber command could dodge privacy laws to monitor our e-mails and social networking activities. And despite Obama’s reassurances about such an Orwellian scenario, so much of Alexander’s written testimony to Congress has been labelled classified that nobody outside the Pentagon and the White House quite knows what the military cyber strategy involves.
The US is not alone in trying to muscle in on the web: across the world, states are trying to assert their authority over the communications of individuals and private companies.
The United Arab Emirates has been in dispute with Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry, for the past six months. The government in Abu Dhabi demanded that the company either lift the e-mail encryption on BlackBerries or establish a local server so the authorities could monitor the traffic going into, out of and across the country. Otherwise, Abu Dhabi warned, all BlackBerry communication in the country would be stopped. RIM had refused to budge (despite the fact that it had already agreed to allow China, India and Saudi Arabia access to unencrypted messages). The UAE government announced yesterday (Oct 8) that the threat to suspend BlackBerry services had been lifted as the provider now complied with the Gulf state’s regulatory framework.
Some security experts believe that the UAE’s real concern may be more complex than who says what on their BlackBerries. Tony Yustein, an IT security consultant who has advised the FBI, comments: “More important is the knowledge that the data is not 100 per cent secure in Canada, and that the US can access this data. So the US can monitor communications inside the Emirates.”
BlackBerry is just the opening shot. India said last month it intends to ask Google and Skype to set up servers inside its borders so that it can monitor traffic over Gmail and Skype’s internet telephone system. Other countries seem set to follow.
Iran appears to be in two minds about whether to embrace or stymie technological progress. On the one hand, Twitter accounts helped the opposition mobilise demonstrations in the wake of last year’s contested presidential election and so the authorities blocked the service sporadically. On the other hand, by monitoring Twitter traffic, Tehran was able to identify who was organising the protests.
Taken together, these incidents demonstrate how states are building walls around the internet to regulate what information circulates in their country. The internet is being separated into a series of national intranets that reflect cultural, political and security concerns. “As cyber security and national security become ever more entwined, an increasing number of countries may impose censorship,” says Rex Hughes, a Cambridge academic who heads Chatham House’s project on Britain’s cyber defences. “A number of countries have already gone down this route.”
Try accessing YouTube in Turkey, for example, and you get a message saying that it is banned. In China, the BBC website is often offline – especially when there is a big Chinese story in the news. Nor is the US immune to censorship, having forced the removal of .com websites advertising travel to Cuba from Europe.
Russia has a slightly different approach. It has built up a monumental Big Brother appartus that goes under the acronym SORM-2. A copy of every little byte that goes in, out or across Russia is copied to a central storage computer in Moscow under the control of the FSB, the KGB’s successor. Should the organisation ever need the co-operation of a fellow citizen, then the information stored on the FSB’s computers can provide useful leverage to overcome any reluctance.
It is easy to understand why the paranoid elites of Iran, Burma and Belarus might be monitoring the internet as closely as they do. But why are the military and security services in the west starting to divert so much of their resources into what is known soothingly as “information assurance”?
A series of events has shaken America’s cyber confidence. One of the most dramatic occurred in 2008 when a US soldier based in the Middle East unwittingly plugged an infected memory stick into one of the Pentagon’s laptops. A malicious computer code, explained US Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III, “spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control”. It was, he said, their “worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary”.
The incident led directly to the establishment of USCybercom and it explains why General Alexander insists that his primary job will be “defensive”, ensuring that the Pentagon’s seven million computers, grouped into 15,000 networks that provide the backbone for 4,000 military installations worldwide, can withstand the avalanche of daily probes and attacks. But the general has also said that the US needs to guarantee its “superiority” in cyberspace – although he emphasised that this is not the same as “supremacy” or “dominance”.
This reflects a real fear on the part of the US that the internet is slipping from its control. Until now, the country’s dynamic technological base, alongside the immense power of companies such as Google and Microsoft, have ensured its influence over the world wide web. Maintaining that influence appears to have become a central goal of the Obama administration. The day after Google announced that it and several other companies had fallen victim to a systematic cyber attack by China in December last year, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state gave a speech attacking countries seeking to restrict freedom on the internet.
The message to the Chinese was clear: “The US government considers Google and its ilk to be part of the country’s strategic infrastructure and we will march in step with them around the world.” Under the stewardship of Eric Schmidt, Google’s presence in Washington has become so ubiquitous that a jealous Microsoft manager quipped to me recently: “the US government, fronted by Obama, powered by Google”.
US military and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI enjoy privileged access to data stored by American.com companies, including Google and Facebook, the world’s two largest depositories of personal data. If the Feds are hunting a Russian cyber criminal who has a Facebook account, they can be in there with a judge’s warrant within a day. If a German police officer asked for a similar favour from Facebook, the process could take months.
But there are areas where American control over the administration of the web is slipping. Under pressure from foreign governments, notably China, Icann, the US-based independent body that stipulates how the addresses of websites can be formulated, announced that from now on it will allow the use of most major language scripts – Cyrillic, Chinese and Arabic, among them.
US defence hawks regard this as a disaster. Writing in the Harvard Security Journal, Dan Geer, whose company has advised the CIA on computer security, called it “the single most criminogenic act ever taken in or around the digital world”. He argues that it will be even easier for cyber warriors to launch an attack while disguising their location.
For the moment though, the US appears to enjoy the most advanced “offensive” military capability on the internet. But countries such as China, India, France and Israel are catching up and you don’t need much to be a player in this game. As the security industry repeatedly stresses, all it takes is one smart guy and a laptop to cause trouble.
And there’s plenty of trouble out there. Western governments cite three central threats that justify the increased presence of military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies in cyberspace: crime, commercial espionage and warfare.
Many ordinary people can testify to the sheer audacity of web criminals. In September, Roger Mildenhall, an Australian living in South Africa, got a phone call telling him that one of his two Perth properties had been sold and that contracts were about to be exchanged on the other. Mildenhall thought the call was a joke, for he had no intention of selling either property. It emerged that Nigerian cyber criminals had seized his digital identity and obtained copies of the title deeds to his two houses. The proceeds, nearly A$500,000 (£300,000), were transferred to a bank in China, from where the funds were laundered.
Criminal threats such as this, new security measures and the global growth of web censorship are already changing how we use the internet. We will find ever larger areas of the net difficult to access and we will have to sacrifice some convenience as institutions force us to assume greater responsibility for our own security. Already some banks, such as HSBC, insist that customers install proper security software on their PCs, otherwise they will not reimburse them if they fall victim to cyber crime.
Undeniably, banks lose most money from cyber attacks because of the sloppiness of their customers. But the banks, too, need to clean up their act. “Financial institutions must invest more in next-generation internet banking technologies and consumers must take a more informed attitude towards the types of e-commerce sites they visit,” says Rex Hughes of Chatham House. “Today, organised crime clearly has the upper hand in online banking but better engineering, regulation and user education can help to restore order in financial cyberspace.”
Last week’s bust of an east European gang, which made at least $70m using the notorious malware known as Zeus, proved the point. The hackers targeted small businesses and institutions, knowing that they would have a weak cyber defence in place.
China has argued that the next generation of computer users will need to pass the equivalent of a driving test before its members are allowed to surf parts of the web essential for day-to-day life. The idea has triggered a huge backlash among civil libertarians worldwide who warn that such a move would undermine completely the very freedoms that the internet was designed to promote.
According to a Data Breach report published by US telecom company Verizon, commercial espionage accounts for a third of illegal activity on the web. When criminals break into a company’s computer system to steal information, it’s mainly employees’ lax working practices that allow them to do so – people using virus-infected memory sticks that they have received as a gift, for example. Although industrial spying is rife, targeted companies like to keep it quiet. Telling the world that your company is vulnerable to cyber attacks does not inspire investor and customer confidence.
Where the military is responsible for cyber defence and cyber warfare, law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency hunt down cyber criminals. The large security companies such as McAfee and Symantec look after private clients threatened by industrial spies. But no act of cyber crime, espionage or warfare can be mounted without the involvement at some point of skilled hackers – often ones who deploy their skills across the board.
Opposing them are the world’s intelligence services. Spook central in Britain is the Government Communications Headquarters, housed in “the Donut”, a purpose-built circular structure on the outskirts of Cheltenham. Almost 5,000 spies and geeks sift huge amounts of data gathered globally from the internet and mobile communications devices to assess cyber threats facing Britain and its allies. The atmosphere inside is curiously relaxed, with a lot of young people using break-out areas and hot-desking, rather like a successful dotcom start-up. Yet this is one of the most secure facilities in the country, and one that gives Britain a huge advantage in defending itself against modern crime, terror and war. “If you look at cyber capacity of individual countries,” Tony Yustein, the security consultant, told me, “I would say Israel – I mean of course Mossad – are the best; the United States is second not because of the CIA but because of the National Security Agency; and then Britain, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, is a strong third.” Drawing on this pedigree, GCHQ’s primary aim is to spot and stop the 20 per cent of nasty stuff on the web that sensible ordinary measures such as anti-virus programs cannot prevent.
Washington is overflowing with doomsayers. In February, Mike McConnell, a retired vice-admiral and George W. Bush’s intelligence chief, informed Congress that if America became involved in a cyber war now, “we would lose”. He added that “a major cyber attack could shut down our nation’s most critical infrastructure – our power grid, telecommunications, financial services”. There is a danger with such rhetoric of crying wolf. According to Amrit Williams, a specialist with IBM and one of cyber security’s most astute observers: “There is no question that we have a very serious problem; the increased reliance on technology, the ubiquitous nature of broadband connectivity and more digital commerce all create an environment that will breed increasingly sophisticated crime.” But he warns that deploying the so-called “Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) strategy of rhetoric doesn’t work – it drives up hysteria”.
Nonetheless, following the emergence of Stuxnet this summer, there can no longer be any ambiguity about whether military cyber security is an issue for governments. This complex virus directly targets Siemens-designed software in industrial systems, allowing the malware to take control of power plants. Although it has been found across the world, many believe the virus’s primary target was Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. The infection of employees’ laptops has led to cries of western sabotage from Iranian government officials.
As investigations continue, even the most sober voices are agreed: Stuxnet has stepped up the cyber arms race by two or three notches. “This virus could only have been developed by a team of sophisticated security professionals with time and money at their disposal,” explains Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer for F-Secure, the Finnish-based computer security company. He believes Stuxnet’s sponsor was a state, not a group of random hackers. “We have known about it for several months and still haven’t managed to decode it fully.” What this means, he says, “is that we now have proof that states are investing serious resources into the development of next-generation viruses. It is without question the most significant virus we have seen in a decade.” It is also our most significant indication to date that the struggle for control of the internet is just beginning.
Misha Glenny’s ‘McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime’ is published by Vintage
ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLE BELOW,BUT NOT ONLY, EUROPEANS WERE FOLLOWING USA AND UK ,FOR SOLIDARITY REASONS,AS EUROPEAN UNION IS AWAY OF HEGEMONIC INITIATIVES AND EX IMPERIAL COLONIAL COMPLEXES.
THE REALITY IS THAT WE ARE FOLLOWING A WAR WHICH IS FAR FROM OUR CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND LANDS (EVEN IF ALEXANDER ,ISKANDAR ,THE HELLEN AND A MACEDNIAN IS A SHARING CULTURAL,HISTORICAL THEME FOR EUROPEANS AND SOUTH ASIAN PEOPLE ).
ON THE OTHER HAND WITH THE ANGLO SAXONS WE ARE TIED WITH OBLIGATIONS,RESPONSIBILITIES AND COMMON CULTURE,SO EVEN IF HEROIC GEN.PETRAEUS IS FACING BIG DIFFICULTIES IN STABILIZING AN OLD,CORRUPTED REGIME WE MUST LEAVE THE PLACE,GIVING IT BACK TO ITS CITIZENS , WITH OUR HEADS ,BEING STAND UP.
BECAUSE WE THE EUROPEANS ,EVEN IF WE ARE PEACEFUL,WE AREN'T LOSERS.
OUR PROPOSAL CONSISTS OF THREE PARTS IN ORDER THE WHOLE SITUATION TO BE HANDLED AT A PEACEFUL,RESPECTABLE WAY,SO THAT ALL FOREIGN POWERS IN THE NEAR FUTURE TO LEAVE THE PLACE,BEING GOVERNED BY ITS PEOPLE IN PEACE AND DEMOCRACY.
WE THE EUROPEANS SHOULD CALL OUR FUTURE NATURAL PARTNERS THE RUSSIANS ,IN ORDER TO SHARE A ZONE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO THE COUNTRY.
THE RUSSIANS HAVE SPENT A LOTS OF YEARS AT AFGHANISTAN,THOUSANDS OF THEM LEFT THEIR BODIES AT THESE LANDS,SO THEY KNOW THINGS AND PEOPLE,APART FROM SACRIFICE .
ALSO NATO (BUT ALSO RUSSIANS) IS DECLARING THAT WANTS TO DEVELOP AN ALLIANCE WITH THEIR MILITARY MACHINE,SO HERE THE OPPORTUNITY IS GIVEN.
THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE DIVIDED IN THREE ZONES
A)ZONE WHERE THE WESTERN ALLIES HAVE NO CONTROL (ACCORDING TO ESTIMATIONS,FROM THE ELECTIONS ,THIS IS 30-40 % )
THE USA,TOGETHER WITH THE LOCAL MILITARY POWERS SHOULD ACT FOR STABILITY OF THIS TERRITORY.
B)ZONE WHERE THE CONTROL IS DOUBTFUL AND SEMI-STABILIZED.
THE RUSSIAN LIGHT MILITARY SYSTEM SHOULD GOVERN THIS PLACE,COMBINED WITH LOCAL HEAVILY ARMED POLICE AUTHORITIES AND WITH NATO FORCES.
C)LAND WHERE CIVILIZATION,PEACE AND DEMOCRACY IS WORKING PROPERLY FOR THE SHAKE OF THE AFGHAN PEOPLE.
ALL EUROPEAN UNION'S PEACE DEFENSE POWERS SHOULD CONTROL THROUGH OUR WAYS ,THOSE OF EDUCATION,SCIENCE,VALUES ,HEALTH CARE ,WELL ORGANIZED INFRASTRUCTURES,DEVELOPMENT OF LOCAL ARTS AND CULTURES.
AT THE SAME TIME LOCALS WILL HAVE THE FIRST ROLE IN GOVERNANCE , OF POLITICAL,ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS AND STATE BODIES,COMBINED WITH THE ANCIENT CULTURAL AFGHAN TRADITION OF THE TRIBES. A STRONG SUPPORT FROM AUXILIARY MILITARY PERSONNEL PLUS CIVILIAN ORGANIZATIONS FROM AFRICA,COULD BE A STRONG ASSET.
WITH THIS POLICY THE NEGATIVE SITUATION,WHICH IS HAPPENING NOW DAYS,WILL BE TURNED OVER, SOONER OR LATER TO A POSITIVE ONE,SO THAT OUR POWERS TO LEAVE THOSE FAR AWAY,FROM OUR HOMELANDS, LAID COUNTRIES.
WE (BUT NATO ALSO) SHALL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO COOPERATE WITH RUSSIAN ARMY,FOR A DEFENSE THEMATIC,AS THE PURPOSE IS HOW WE CAN LEAVE IN PEACE AND DEMOCRACY,AND FINISH THIS ENDLESS WAR.
IT MIGHT BE , ALSO A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO MANAGE ALL OUR DEFENSE POWERS UNDER A COMMON EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATION ,AT THE TERRITORY OF OUR INFLUENCE,SO THAT WE CAN BUILD OUR EUROPEAN DEFENSE ARMY.THE DREAM OF CED AS IT WAS BASED ,BY THE PARIS TREATY ON MAY OF 1952,TO BE IMPLEMENTED AT LAST ( http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/europe/1952ced.htm ).
THE RUSSIANS ON THEIR PART,WHO LEFT THE PLACE SOME YEARS AGO,THEY SHALL OPEN NEW GATES OF COOPERATION ,WITH ALL PARTIES AND THEY WILL DISCOVER HOW IT IS TO COLLABORATE WITH MOTHERLAND EUROPE,FOR THE COMMON PROSPERITY AND PEACE.
USA BEING GOVERNED BY THE WISE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,ONLY A GAIN CAN HAVE FROM SUCH AN EKSELIXIS ,INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY.
WE SHALL NOT ANALYSE THE BENEFITS AND PROFITS FOR THE AFGHAN PEOPLE ,AS THESE ARE BETTER TO BE FELT THAN TO BE WRITTEN DOWN...
THANK YOU
AGGELOS CHARLAFTIS
Afghanistan: Strategic war for Europeans, existential conflict for NATO
By any standard, things are going bad in Afghanistan. This is partly due to profound disagreements between participating countries regarding to the objectives of the mission and the strategy to be implemented – not to mention disagreements within states. For the United States and British governments, Afghanistan is a matter of national security. And despite a declining popular support, the memory of the terrorist attacks in 2001 and 2005, which were prepared in part in South Asia, are still very alive. For London and Washington, it is preferable to fight the terrorist threat over there than over here, although strong voices are now rising against this argument even in America.
On the other hand, for most European countries the military presence in Afghanistan is nothing more than a gesture to safeguard the appearance of transatlantic solidarity. The terrorist threat is widely regarded as non existential – not to say non-existent – and the presence in Afghanistan is perceived more as part of the problem than as part of the solution to the terrorist threat in Europe. Hence, Europeans showed little enthusiasm to the American openness during the latest NATO summit in Strasbourg and they proved unable to commit a significant amount of civilian – instead of military – forces.
Yet, there are many reasons to challenge the common view that Afghanistan has no connection to European security. To begin with terrorism: several terrorist cells tightly linked to Afghanistan and Pakistan – some of which were ready to take action – have been dismantled in the recent years. In Germany, members of the Sauerland cell were arrested in September 2007 with several hundred kilograms of liquid explosives. They allegedly targeted the American base in Ramstein and the international airport of Frankfurt.
The German terrorists would not have been such a threat without Afghanistan. Indeed, they wanted to fight alongside Afghans against American forces, but they were ordered to go back to Germany in order to carry out an attack on European soil and to maximise their ‘added value’. More importantly, they were indoctrinated and received crucial jihadi training in terror camps where they learned the basics of terrorism (surveillance, preparation, manufacturing of explosives, tactical skills, etc.).
It is often underestimated how important such training is to terrorist groups. In Europe, we observe a trend in jihadi terrorism towards more self-radicalisation through the internet. These lone-wolf terrorists are harder to spot by intelligence services, but at the same time they pose a lower threat to national security for it is extremely challenging for an isolated individual to plan, prepare and carry out a successful terrorist attack of significant scale.
Some people argue that military operations in Afghanistan feed Islamist propaganda and contribute to the radicalisation and the recruitment of new militants. Indeed, a combination of declining violence in Iraq and rising violence in Afghanistan led to a shift in media attention from Iraq to Afghanistan last year. This refocussing of the media influenced the jihadi preferences; that is to say, Afghanistan became the preferred battlefield for combat and propaganda.
Nonetheless, this argument is wrong; leaving Afghanistan will not be a universal panacea to all security problems. An improper withdrawal would have dire consequences for national, regional and international security. At the national level, the Taleban could quickly come back to power and organise mass repression against their opponents. Is that what Europeans want? At the regional level, a Taleban come-back could have a destabilising impact as well as encourage Pakistan to deepen its ties with Islamists in order to maintain some form of control over its unstable neighbour. Is that what Europeans want? At the international level, a return on grace for al-Qaeda would undeniably present a grave threat. Is that what Europeans want?
The answer is no. Time will come to leave Afghanistan. But only when the Afghan authorities are ready to handle their own security.
There is only one way out for the Atlantic Alliance to avoid total fiasco in Afghanistan and prevent its critics from writing a premature obituary for the organisation: firstly, NATO should develop a holistic strategy determining precisely the objectives and the enemy, i.e. who to fight and who to co-operate with; and, secondly, NATO should make sure that this new strategy is coherent with the interests of all its members, most of which believe that their military presence is counter-productive.
There is thus an urgent need to launch national debates (and a European debate) to define the strategic interest in Afghanistan. This debate must be open to public opinion, and it is the responsibility of policy-makers, journalists, military staff and scholars to identify and analyse all the available options and related risks. At Egmont Institute, we have already took a step in this direction when publishing an important issue paper on Afghanistan. Some other think tanks have followed, but it is time to take the debate on to the next level.
If we come to the conclusion that our security depends upon the evolution of the situation in South Asia, then Europeans need to strengthen their efforts and take more responsibilities. Conversely, if we come to the conclusion that European deployments harm more than they benefit our security, then it will be a good time to share this view with our allies and take the logical resulting measures.
OUR COMPANY BASED ON SHAREHOLDING LEGISLATION CONSISTS OF EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS,LAWS,ENGINEERING,CONSULTING,TECHNOLOGY,ECOLOGY,CAPITALISING WHICH ARE WORKING WITH PASSION TO IMPLEMENT OUR VALUES.(published by think tank IAMBLICHUS team)
