Contrarian Comment

Radio Feb-09

2010-05-03T19:28:00.002+06:00

Live with Talat: Army Mosque bombing - 4/12/09

2009-12-07T22:07:00.001+07:00

Crisis Cell - Brig Sharaf on India's Fizzler:

2009-09-15T20:41:00.003+07:00

Comment:

My only criticism is in the conclusion - i.e. the demilitarization of the region. This is a non-starter because India's nuclear programme is not Pakistan-specific but more of a deterrence towards China. That was not given sufficient emphasis in the analysis.

The gallows - Not too long awaiting these Rangeelas:

2009-07-25T19:32:00.001+07:00

Don't miss the galiyan in the end ...

And now ...

...Zardari kutta hai hai is being heard increasingly ... Open galiyan in streets still to come.

And so, the 'Tayyara hijacking case' reaches conclusion - nails for musharraf's coffin continue to sharpen:

2009-07-17T22:21:00.003+07:00

Supreme Court acquits Nawaz Sharif in plane hijacking case

Friday, 17 Jul, 2009 | 09:45 AM PST |

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday overturned convictions against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for plane hijacking and terrorism, two months after reversing a ban on the opposition leader's holding office.

Sharif was convicted of ‘hijacking’ a commercial jet carrying Pervez Musharraf after denying the aircraft landing rights on October 12, 1999 as Pakistan was convulsed by a coup that swept Musharraf to power.

The plane eventually landed and Musharraf, who was then army chief of staff, seized control of the country.

‘Looking at the case from any angle — the charge of hijacking, attempt to hijack or terrorism does not stand established against the petitioner,’ the Supreme Court ruled on a petition filed by Sharif.

The five-judge court headed by Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani heard the petition in June, but initially reserved judgement.

‘The conviction and sentence of the appellant are set aside and he is acquitted,’ said the order, written in English.

The ‘petitioner had neither used force nor ordered its use and undisputedly no deceitful means were used.’

The opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N party headed by Sharif welcomed the judgement.

‘A judgement given by a kangaroo court nine years ago has been nullified by an independent and sovereign apex court in the light of the constitution, law and evidence on record,’ PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq told AFP.

He said the party would now endeavour to bring former ‘dictator Pervez Musharraf to book and hold him accountable.’

Comment:

The case was always a bad joke. There were a total of 12 defendants charged with exactly the same offence - based on exactly the same evidence - and 11 were honorably acquitted by the anti-terrorism court headed by the Sessions Judge Rehmat Hussain Jaffery.

Nawaz Sharif, though, was not only convicted but given a life sentence. It is said the judge intentionally left sufficient grounds in this manner to allow overturning the sentencing later on appeal by the defendant in a higher court.

The Martial-Law Government of the time appealed to have that life sentence changed to death, but in the meantime the Saudis intervened.

The plane had landed safely, yet the cockpit voice and data recorders were never produced in the court on the pretext these were accidentally erased during data extraction. Captain Sarwat who piloted the plane disappeared soon after and later found to have been granted early retirement by PIA and had moved to Florida with his family. None of the passengers in the supposedly commercial flight PK-805 has ever surfaced till date, and Lt. General (late) Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani of ISI at the time hinted in a TV show that the plane had no passengers, but was rather a chartered flight for the COAS, Musharraf.

Despite all the above, Musharraf almost succeeded in hanging Nawaz Sharif through this ridiculous case, had the Saudis not threatened to terminate the free oil facility to Pakistan - vital in the post nuclear test environment - if Nawaz was not released into exile.

The muti-lingual terrorists or bollywood brilliance?

2009-07-06T21:39:00.001+07:00

The live phone-in of Shaatullah (?) in Oberoi on the 1st day, in Hindi:

Then Fahadullah in the Jewish guesthouse speaks fluent Pakistani Punjabi for Channel 4:

... and then switches to Lucknavi Urdu - "Tabiyyat nasaaz hai" - ""Baazoo mein lagi hai".

So which one is true?

Appears the Indians intercepted great bollywood shoots audios for Channel 4.

US war of attrition

2009-04-25T16:36:00.004+06:00

The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, conceived as power among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of the fine distinctions of the statesman’s thinking, reasons more often than not in the simple moralistic and legalistic terms of absolute good and absolute evil.

(Hans Joachim Morgenthau)

It is past seven years since US War against terrorism in Afghanistan. Rather than assume the nature of large scale counter insurgency operations supported by intelligence networks, it has degenerated into a military intervention with force levels insufficient even for peace enforcement. The composition of US and allied troops and the manner in which they operate raise questions. Just like the 90s when there was no desire to curtail Osama or his brand of Islam, there appear no visible political engagements in tandem with such selective operations to suggest that a negotiated end is in sight. As the focus shifts from Afghanistan to Pakistan, attrition through time delay is the nature of this war. Pakistan’s establishment was neither prepared nor contemplated such a contingency when it gave un-stinted support to USA.

Across the Durand line, the conflict has gripped the entire NWFP and now threatens Punjab. Some may argue that this ‘Burnout Policy’ has served well to precipitate resistance in Pakistan; to identify pockets of militancy; and its support amongst people and the establishment. To that extent, one may partially agree but add that in doing so, USA has willfully chosen to draw Pakistan into a chaos akin to Afghanistan in the 90s. These hardliners also elect to ignore that these seven years have served to create and increase anti-US sentiments in Pakistan. This dynamic itself has the potential to provide the water in which the fish need to swim. Pakistan is in the midst of difficult choices.

The coinage AF-Pak means that Pakistan is now relegated to a strife ridden ungovernable state and therefore a legitimate war zone; Durand Line means nothing; and USA will exercise its right of direct and indirect military intervention in Pakistan. It also reflects that Pakistan’s policy of appeasement of USA has failed to cater to Pakistan’s legitimate concerns, leaving no choice but to hedge its interests. The vanguard of this new policy will be the symbolic drone attacks widened into new areas, increased pressure on the political and military establishment and more violence, particularly in Punjab. In such state of affairs, Pakistan’s leadership, economics and national integration are equally vulnerable. In the background and away from the eyes of observers, the dirty game of intelligence and counter intelligence operations will continue with ferocity and mutual betrayal. Politicians ready to sell their mothers will be engaged and mutual erosion of the state of Pakistan will continue.

Even an ordinary Pakistani has allied with the growing perception that this so called war for democracy, human values and popular enfranchisement is in fact a frontal assault on Pakistan’s political, defence and intelligence establishments. There is also a growing perception that USA in cahoots with political minimalists of Pakistan is on a dangerous road to curtail the over arching role of Punjab in the politic body. If agendas such as these are accomplished, Pakistan’s geography and the nuclear story will become a tale of the past. Pakistanis will be their own Brutus.

Rather than react to every bit of news, Pakistanis need to understand that it is the backstage activity that affects us most. For long, US state and non state actors have run in overdrive to send mixed signals to Pakistan. Pakistan’s fragile political system, political immoralities and quest by some to put self before the state provide a happy hunting ground for such notions to breed. Amazingly, this activity peaks just before exchanges of high profile visits. Dramatisation follows a familiar pattern. The most recent to cite are President Obama’s desire while in Czech Republic for a nuclear free world; report of a US research organisation suggesting recognition of Pakistan’s nuclear capability; sharp shooters in State Department, Pentagon and CENTCOM focusing on criticism of Pakistan Army and ISI, interspersed with drone strikes. The recent hall mark was the visit to Pakistan by US special envoy Richard Halbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen wielding sticks and carrots and select academicians doing round of universities least to mention media mouth pieces. The epitome was the press conference by Halbrooke and Mullen in India with an implied threat to Pakistan.

In this context, much written by me on the nature of Pakistan’s present and future war and attrition is validated. I would now expand my assessment to two very important issues that I mentioned for record but did not deliberate earlier.

If eradication of militancy is indeed the goal of USA and its allies in Afghanistan, then why are they not contemplating a full fledged counter insurgency operation in the areas they control? Despite all the advantages of technology and precision, Taliban ascendancy in Afghanistan is increasing. NATO and US forces are confined to well guarded urban centres and venture out on selective basis in which more civilians than militants are killed. All open spaces are dominated by militants. Present military composition in the area suggests that USA will remain in the region for a long duration. This in turn complicates Pakistan’s security and concerns need to be addressed.

USA is here to stay for a long time. Their need for pivots against a rising China and resurgent Russia demand that they control strategic spaces that threaten these rising centres of power as well as deny them strategic access to the Indian Ocean. Pakistan at cross roads of geography is also in the midst of conflicts that geography creates. Just like Islam was used to threaten the godless communism, the radical Islam is now being used in the generic names of Al Qaeda and Taliban to further long term geo-strategic objectives. As the notion of AF-Pakistan assumes currency we shall see the addition of LET and others to this coinage. India will be used to downgrade Pakistan’s military, agrarian and economic potential. Space for political maneuvering and bargaining will be gradually denied. Rise of militancy in Pakistan serves this game plan and policy makers in Pakistan ought to realise this.

Pakistan is also vulnerable economically. Surging oil prices followed by an international economic meltdown have added to Pakistan’s fragility. Home grown speculators and liberal economic managers have played a treacherous game with Pakistan’s sovereignty. A fiercely competitive domestic economy that withstood thirteen years of nuclear sanctions has been reduced to consumerism. Trillions of free floating rupees have been lost out to economic liberalism. Pakistan’s most competitive export sectors have since been edged out. Devaluation of rupee, rising electricity and energy in-puts have made production non competitive. Industrial led growth is now a fairy tale. Given the situation, these difficulties are most likely to worsen. Industrial layoffs are endemic and chances of complementary alliances for economic gains dwindling. In due course these could lead to discontentment, labour unrests and breed radicalisation. The most affected are the industrial centres of Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Karachi. Though Pakistan ultimately suffers, the worst hit is Punjab, the bread basket of Pakistan.

Insofar as Punjab, there appears commonality of interests between the political minimalist of Pakistan and USA. It is Pakistan’s biggest province in terms of population, economic growth and representation in the national fabric. It is argued that even in vulnerable times such as these the federation needs to be strengthens albeit more powers to the smaller federating units. In backdoors, devolution of Punjab is seen most expedient. In the post 2008 dispensation, Punjab was singled out for manipulation and political instability. Had it not been for a national movement spearheaded by lawyers, it would have deteriorated to chaos. Federalism aside, Punjab must be seen as the heart of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s sectarian militants known for their ferocity inside Pakistan and as far away as Eastern Europe, sit in Punjab, like a time bomb ticking away. Over the course of thirty years, these hardliners have learnt the art to manipulate many masters and to be controlled by none. Rise of militancy in Punjab’s urban centres is no coincidence and a tell tale sign of events to come. The murder of Daniel Pearl is a testimony to where their support and ideology comes from. The intelligence agencies and the government need to keep a vigil on these militant groups, their off shore lines of funding, local businesses and foreign handlers from all across the world. Intelligence establishments world over have used them when needed; yet the axe must fall only on those who align with the ideology of Pakistan.

The damage to Pakistan’s interests runs much deeper than can be imagined. Succinctly, India that had no role in the anti Soviet war of the 80s has emerged as a preferred ally of USA. Indian security and intelligence establishments benefit from a substantial presence in Afghanistan and create unrest in Pakistan through diverse armed groups. The irony is that though USA is quick to level allegations against Pakistan over links with militants, they appear least responsive to complaints against what India does.

Obama, during the election campaign won the hearts of the Muslims in USA by raising the Kashmir issue. However, after assuming office and under pressure from India, he has given no indications of addressing the issue.

On the question of cooperation with India in Afghanistan, USA chooses to completely ignore the historical perspectives and the fact that all Indo-Pakistan issues are linked to Kashmir. While India continues to stage manage a battle on Pakistan’s reverse front as a tit for tat on Kashmir, USA remains adamant that India and Pakistan have a common enemy and must cooperate. The message is clear. Succumb or we make a lesson out of you.

For Pakistan, a national reconciliation could begin through consensus on immediate security issues including militancy, Pakistan’s role as an ally of USA and economic hedging. Restoration of the post 2 November Judiciary is a good omen and other positive developments must lead on from here. The government of Pakistan must draw its strength from the people. After all,

“National Power rises from a relatively stable foundation of geography, through different gradations of instability to its peak in the fleeting elements of national character and morale”.

(Hans Joachim Morgenthau)

Pakistanis from all across the spectrum need to rise to the challenge. It is indeed the time to eat grass.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a political economist.

E mail: nicco1988@hotmail.com
Posted by Brigadier (retired) Samson Simon Sharaf

Comment:

Much geopolitical water has flown under the bridge since this article was published on April 10 on the blog INSIGHT AND FORESIGHT by Brig Simon. Two weeks is a long time these days.

The Baluchistan insurgency gained momentum due to the mysterious abduction and killing of three separatist Baluch Nationalist leaders after release of UN's John Solecki on payment of ransom, apparently a dispute over division of the same, and the evidence pointing to Afghanistan and India's support to the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Army's Brahamdagh Bugti and Harbiyar Mari made public by Adviser Interior, Rehman Malik, in the Parliament followed by an in-camera Senate hearing on the issue.

Then, Ambassador Holbrooke's interview with Dr. Shahid Masood broadcast on 24 April who claimed there were only 8-10 personnel in the Indian Consulate in Kandhar and which need not be a concern for Pakistan, even though India neither shares a border with Afghanistan nor has a domestic Pushtun population in it's own country, and that in fact India was participating in the Afghan reconstruction out of some altruistic reasons with $ 1 billion in aid by building roads and infrastructure - particularly a road from South Afghanistan to the Iranian border.

What Holbrooke forgot to mention of-course was that this particular road leads to the Iranian port of Chah Behar, and is not intended for promotion of tourism or trade between the two countries, if any exists in the first place, but for access to an alternate supply route for US forces in case of a total breakdown of supplies from the currently threatened and often attacked routes through Pakistan.

All these geopolitical games are quite visible from the Pakistani Intelligence eyes, or even the ordinary public, and appropriate countering measures continue to be taken - in whatever cloak and dagger manner fits the best to the situation.

... and 'Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey' continues ...

2009-03-28T09:23:00.002+06:00

While the American President pulls over to the kerb having lost his map:

To his own nation, Mr Obama said: "The American people must understand that this (economic support) is a down payment on our own future."

His adversaries move into overdrive:

NEW YORK: Taliban leaders based in Pakistan have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades to ready a new unified offensive in Afghanistan as the US prepares to send 17,000 more troops there this year, the New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said that in interviews, several Taliban fighters based in the border region said preparations for the anticipated influx of American troops were already being made.

A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.

The report said that the Taliban fighters sounded confident and predicted that 2009 was going to be a ‘very bloody’ year.

Comment:

1. How is throwing aid money at the Pakistani Government for ROZ etc, going to make any difference to the now united front of the Afghan/Pakistan Taliban? Are they all going to switch to day jobs making widgets in Waziristan?

2. The "Down payment on our future" refers to the 'Al-Qaeda' threat to US/Pakistan. But didn't the Americans conclude just a few days ago it had been seriously damaged and no longer effective? Then which 'Al-Qaeda' is this one?

Americans are still pinning the tail everywhere on the donkey except on its behind - and Pakistan isn't helping them to the correct spot either. Why should they? They know where the tail belongs and they will pin it there when it suits them.

Tariq Ali - On developments in Pakistan - 19 Mar 2009

2009-03-21T16:35:00.004+06:00

Comment:

Destabilizing a country of 175 million to sustain occupation of a country of 30 million - typical American logic.

The geographical location of USA makes this kind of adventurism possible. Protected by oceans around two ends and the Monroe Doctrine for the rest, its mainland has little to fear from blowbacks.

So did they use the sea-route or not?

2009-03-03T10:42:00.000+06:00

The controversy over the Naval Chief's categorical statement that the sea-route was not used by the Bombay attackers, VS. the PPP Interior Minister's announcement it was!

Host: Syed Talat Hussain
Guests: Gen Retd Hamid Nawaz, Brig Retd. Simon Samson Shroff

Comment:

Pakistan played a master stroke by accepting "Some part of the plan was hatched in Pakistan". This is what was said. No more and no less. At the same time, a list of 30 questions was given to India to answer re the involvement at their end, and to hand over specific information about certain Indians involved in the execution of not only the recent attacks but many other on Muslims e.g. the Train firebombing of returning Pakistanis and the Malegaon mosque blasts in which a serving Indian army colonel has been found to be implicated.

It was to relieve international pressure and to grab the initiative, and to put the ball back in India's court. Now, India finds itself in a quandary what to do. It's like saying "Okay so you said we did it, fine we did it if you say so, but now please tell us who helped us at your end?" India is finding that question very difficult to answer, and in the meantime all pressure and threats of Indian retaliation have vanished.

I believe these people were likely Assamese - where there're several insurgencies - because their physical characteristics were quite typical of people from that region. Nowhere in Pakistan do people look like that and certainly not the people of Pakistani Punjab/NWFP from where they're claimed to have come.

The biggest proof however is that two attackers were interviewed live at different locations and both were speaking Marathi - an Indian dialect which is spoken nowhere in Pakistan. The Indian dossier released contained the alleged code words used during the sea journey, and all those words were in a Bombay style Hindi dialect.

It has been said they were tutored to speak in such manner by their handlers (though I find it unbelievable people would feign any accent when prepared to die hours later), there was no need to use a foreign tongue for codewords while at open sea in private communication.

All these factors just simply do not add up. It's a chess game where the purpose of a move is only revealed in its outcome.

The truth of the Holocaust: There were no Gas Chambers

2009-02-13T21:55:00.003+06:00

Comment:

I have always maintained it was simply not logistically possible to methodically kill six million Jews from all across Europe in the time period the 'Holocaust' is said to have lasted. Two to three hundred thousand maximum may indeed have perished.

Turkey. A major policy shift?

2009-02-01T22:22:00.003+06:00

David Ignatius, Ban Ki Moon, Tayyip Erdogan, Amr Moosa, Shimon Peres - Davos:

Comment:

The Caravan moves on.

The transcript of the Turkish PM:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: (Simultaneous translation from original Turkish)

"First of all, before replying to the question as to what needs to be done, I think it’s also important that we analyse the current situation because we need to do a proper analysis of the current situation in order to determine what steps need to be taken.

I’m not going to start from 40 years ago in making the situation analysis, I am just going as far back as June 2008. If we look at back then, June 2008, there was a ceasefire which was stated [agreed to] and there was no problem to the ceasefire that was to last for 6 months, but when the ceasefire ended, 6 months later there were no rocket attacks at that point, in the meantime the Israeli side was to lift the embargo, the situation had to change in Palestine, however, the Palestinian Territories are like an open air prison because it is completely isolated from the rest of the world, so it is very much isolated, sealed, so if you try to bring in a case of tomatoes from any crossing into the Palestinian territories you must get the permission of the Israeli side because it is not possible otherwise so [Looking at this,] I look at this from a humanitarian point of view and I will also say a few words as Prime Minister, I visited Israel some time ago and then I went to Palestine and as the Prime Minister I waited for half hour with my wife in the car [for about half an hour] to be able to cross into the Palestinian territories from Ramallah.

But never has a diplomat coming from Israel had to wait for that long at our borders. I think we have to look at these aspects of the situation there on the ground. I also ask Mr. Olmert if there were any deaths as a result of these rockets attacks and he told me that there were no deaths, but that the attacks were a fact, so these rockets are being used but, they don’t kill anyone, so I’m told that it’s about the rockets themselves, they are of not very good quality, but in the meantime, there were more that 24 Palestinians who were killed during the ceasefire since last June, and the power was cut off, there was no food, the electricity didn’t exist in hospitals, so there were quite a number of difficult issues and we had already started as Turkey to send humanitarian aid to Palestine, so there was already a humanitarian issue then. And let me say, I have always been a leader who expressly stated that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity, Islamophobia too, is a crime against humanity.

For me the person being Christian, Jewish or Muslim is not important if the person is under stress, to me, the common denominator is that they are all human beings and so my approach is a humanitarian one, and that has been what I have taken as the basis of my efforts, for example we tried to send humanitarian aid the Turkish Red Crescent, tried to provide aid, but it took quite a while, two weeks sometimes, to have the trucks cross the crossings. I don’t know if President Peres is aware of this but it has taken us quite a lot of time, our diplomats have had to work very hard to make sure that the aid will flow into the Palestinian Territories. Even more interesting, is that the Israeli Prime Minister was in Turkey, Mr. Olmert was in Turkey four days before the war in Gaza started. as you have mentioned, we as Turkey have taken up an intermediation role between Israel and Syria for indirect talks and there were already four rounds of talks, which have taken place, indirect talks, and the fifth round was actually carried out with Prime Minister Olmert and myself present and our special envoys present in Ankara and we sat together for five to six hours and we were discussing the issues between Syria and Israel. I was on phone conversation with President Assad and my envoy was talking to the Foreign Minister Moallem and our goal then, to see if we could move to the next phase which was direct talks between Israel and Syria, so that was what we were trying to do and our goal in trying to do all this has been to achieve peace in the region and we have been trying to bring together officials from two countries which to date have not come together. We were making quite good progress, so much so that we were having problems with a few words only, in the language that we were talking. It was decided that a few days should lapse until a final decision could be reached and in the meantime, I was talking to Mr. Olmert with my Foreign Minister with me and our special envoy and Prime Minister Olmert had his advisers as well and I said that we could work to release the captured Israeli soldier who was held by Hamas but I said, and I also made the request, I said that the reforming change Party won the election in Palestine. We are talking about democracy, we would like to see democracy take root, so if we would like to see democracy take root then we must respect, first of all, the people who have received the votes of the people of the country they are running in, so we may not like them, but we have to respect the process. And I said to Prime Minister Olmert that they held the Ministers and Members of Parliament of Palestine. I suggested also, that there could perhaps be a gesture made, similar to the gesture made to President Abbas before, they could be released perhaps. But Prime Minister Olmert said that this would make things very difficult for President Abbas. But then I said, perhaps it would be possible to release some of the women and children and that could perhaps that be done as a gesture. President Olmert told me that he would talk to his colleagues and respond back the next day, but we got no response and in about 4 days after that, by December 27 we saw the war in Gaza. What happened was more than 1,200 people were killed including women and children. More than 5,000 were wounded and this was a disproportionate use of force, so if you look at all this from a humanitarian point of view and think of the military power of Israel including weapons of mass destruction and whether or not there is anything that is similar in Gaza, whether the Palestinians have any of that kind of military power, they don’t have that kind of power. The UN Security Council met and the resolution was announced but Israel did not recognize this resolution of the United Nations Security Council as Secretary General Ban Ki Moon mentioned, the UN centre was also hit during the course of this war. Schools, mosques were also hit, but mankind or humanity as a whole did not really act as quickly as it should have to try to help people there. In the case of Georgia people acted rather quickly, I include ourselves in that effort because we too worked very hard to help Georgians as well in a difficult time. So, what I am trying to say is that we should not be judging anyone by their race or religion if they are in distress. Our goal, everyone’s goal, is to try to help people in difficulty. I visited Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and I talked to many leaders, European leaders on the phone, unfortunately this whole thing lasted 3 weeks it was covered from the very beginning, television channels, BBC for example predicted that it would take about 3 weeks, indeed the whole process or the whole war took 3 weeks and this has lead to the destruction of the infrastructure. And the figures that the UN Secretary General mentioned are not sufficient to solve the problem, we need much more, not even 1 billion or 2 billion dollars would help in trying to restore the structures there because these people there do not have any means to rehabilitate their infrastructure and they now have to be burdened.

There is a lot of talk about Hamas, but Hamas are not the only people in Gaza, there are also civilians. Hamas is also a different face of the change and transformation party. The problem here is that their democratic rights have not been recognized, respected. Where we are now, the unilateral ceasefire was announced by Israel and then Hamas the next day announced a unilateral ceasefire as well. One is talking about a year-long ceasefire process, the other one proposes a year and a half. Another issue is of course to end the isolation of the Palestinian People. Will it be possible for Israel to do that, in other words, will the crossings be open for people to come in because how will those people survive where they are, under the conditions that they are in? If we respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Conventions that are internationally accepted, those crossings, first of all, must be opened so people can experience their rights, the rights of life. There is also the issue of arms being smuggled into the area. If one end of the tunnel is in Egypt then Egypt must stop this illicit arms flow. But if we consider Palestine as a State, and I think that there is also a question there, perhaps some question marks in peoples minds, this issue of the division within Palestine, and how to breach the differences between Fatah and Hamas. If we are trying to bridge that gap then we have to consider all the parties. And I said this to Mr. Olmert too, because if it’s only Fatah who is present on the Palestinian side, that is not going to be sufficient to project the results to all of the Palestinian people, Hamas has to be taken into consideration as well because they are a part of that society, they have won an election, so they too must be included in this equation. If it’s the UN who is going to take the lead, that’s the way it should be, I hope that the UN puts it weight behind these efforts and/or the United States under the Obama administration can take an important role. I hope, I expect, President Obama to be the voice of the silent masses and to put his weight, his administration’s weight, behind a solution. He must do this not within the agreements that have been previously made by the previous administration, including the last one that was made between the then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Livni. There’s got to be a new opening and Hamas must be considered in this process. If Turkey is asked to play some sort of a role, we too would be willing to be involved, but we must be careful and we must think of the whole process when we try to define the parties involved and we must definitely achieve peace in the Middle East because that is important and necessary for global peace. If the Middle East peace process does not yield a positive result, that means that we will not have peace in the world as a whole. So I think that in the National Unity government to be established in Palestine this party of Reform and Change must be there, and that is how the National Unity government has to be established then elections have to take place and once the new government is in place, whether we or not, like them will be and should be the government of the Palestinian people because we have to respect the will of the Palestinian people."

Next:

"One minute! One minute! Mr.Peres, you’re older than me. Your voice is coming too loud. I know that the reason of your voice’s coming this loud is a guiltiness psychology. My voice won’t come this loud, know that so. When it comes to kill, you know how to kill very well. I know how you shot, how you killed the children on plages, very well. Two people who had been prime minister in your country made important statements to me. You have prime ministers who said that “When i get in to Palestine on tanks, i feel myself a different kind of happy.” And you’re giving me numbers. I can give you names. You may be wonder. I also condemn who acclaims to this grimness. Because i suppose acclaiming the people who killed those children, those people, is another humanity crime. Look, we can not edge out a reality here. I keep a lot of notes here, but i don’t have a chance to reply all here. But i only say two words from here. First, - Please don’t interrupt me!
First, The Torah says in the sixth topic that “You are not going to kill!”. There is killing here.

This is also interesting too - Gilad Atzmon: Israel barbarism is on the further side of fiendishness - a Jewish. Oxford University International Communications Proffessor who is soldiering in Israil army, Avi Shalom give a talk to the English newspaper Guardian that - (The Davos moderator wants to interrupt Erdogan) I thank you too. From now on Davos is done to me. I don’t come Davos again. Know that so! You don’t let me talk. He talked about 25 minutes, you gave me 12 minutes."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with Shimon Peres, whose voice had risen as he made an impassioned defence of Israel’s actions, jabbing his finger.

Mr Erdogan said Mr Peres had spoken so loudly to conceal his “guilt”.

He accused the moderator of not allowing him to speak and said he did not think he would return to Davos.

The Turkish PM stressed later that he had left the debate not because of his disagreements with Mr Peres but because he had been given much less time to speak than the Israeli leader.

Turkey is one of the few Muslim countries to have dealings with Israel, but relations have been under strain since the Islamist-rooted AK Party was elected to power in 2002.

Late on Thursday, a WEF official said that Mr Peres and Mr Erdogan had spoken by mobile telephone, and both men now considered the matter closed.

Earlier the Turkish Prime Minister had made an address himself, describing Gaza as an “open-air prison”.

When the audience applauded Mr Peres, he said: “I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. You killed people. And I think that it is very wrong.”

The moderator, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, had given him a minute to reply, then asked him to finish, saying that people needed to go to dinner.

“I do not think I will be coming back to Davos after this because you do not let me speak,” Mr Erdogan shouted before marching off the stage in front of Mr Peres, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and an elite audience of ministers and international officials.

2009-01-27T15:01:00.003+06:00

Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda

January 26, 2009
By George Friedman, Stratfor.com

Washington’s attention is now zeroing in on Afghanistan. There is talk of doubling U.S. forces there, and preparations are being made for another supply line into Afghanistan — this one running through the former Soviet Union — as an alternative or a supplement to the current Pakistani route. To free up more resources for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably will be accelerated. And there is discussion about whether the Karzai government serves the purposes of the war in Afghanistan. In short, U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to focus on Afghanistan seems to be taking shape.

We have discussed many aspects of the Afghan war in the past; it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely?

Al Qaeda and U.S. Goals Post-9/11

The overarching goal of the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, has been to prevent further attacks by al Qaeda in the United States. Washington has used two means toward this end. One was defensive, aimed at increasing the difficulty of al Qaeda operatives to penetrate and operate within the United States. The second was to attack and destroy al Qaeda prime, the group around Osama bin Laden that organized and executed 9/11 and other attacks in Europe. It is this group — not other groups that call themselves al Qaeda but only are able to operate in the countries where they were formed — that was the target of the United States, because this was the group that had demonstrated the ability t o launch intercontinental strikes.

Al Qaeda prime had its main headquarters in Afghanistan. It was not an Afghan group, but one drawn from multiple Islamic countries. It was in alliance with an Afghan group, the Taliban. The Taliban had won a civil war in Afghanistan, creating a coalition of support among tribes that had given the group control, direct or indirect, over most of the country. It is important to remember that al Qaeda was separate from the Taliban; the former was a multinational force, while the Taliban were an internal Afghan political power.

The United States has two strategic goals in Afghanistan. The first is to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda prime — the central command of al Qaeda — in Afghanistan. The second is to use Afghanistan as a base for destroying al Qaeda in Pakistan and to prevent the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan.

To achieve these goals, Washington has sought to make Afghanistan inhospitable to al Qaeda. The United States forced the Taliban from Afghanistan’s main cities and into the countryside, and established a new, anti-Taliban government in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai. Washington intended to deny al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan by unseating the Taliban government, creating a new pro-American government and then using Afghanistan as a base against al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The United States succeeded in forcing the Taliban from power in the sense that in giving up the cities, the Taliban lost formal control of the country. To be more precise, early in the U.S. attack in 2001, the Taliban realized that the massed defense of Afghan cities was impossible in the face of American air power. The ability of U.S. B-52s to devastate any concentration of forces meant that the Taliban could not defend the cities, but had to withdraw, disperse and reform its units for combat on more favorable terms.

At this point, we must separate the fates of al Qaeda and the Taliban. During the Taliban retreat, al Qaeda had to retreat as well. Since the United States lacked sufficient force to destroy al Qaeda at Tora Bora, al Qaeda was able to retreat into northwestern Pakistan. There, it enjoys the advantages of terrain, superior tactical intelligence and support networks.

Even so, in nearly eight years of war, U.S. intelligence and special operations forces have maintained pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan. The United States has imposed attrition on al Qaeda, disrupting its command, control and communications and isolating it. In the process, the United States used one of al Qaeda’s operational principles against it. To avoid penetration by hostile intelligence services, al Qaeda has not recruited new cadres for its primary unit. This makes it very difficult to develop intelligence on al Qaeda, but it also makes it impossible for al Qaeda to replace its losses. Thus, in a long war of attrition, every loss imposed on al Qaeda has been irreplaceable, and over time, al Qaeda prime declined dramatically in effectiveness — meaning it has been years since it has carried out an effective operation.

The situation was very different with the Taliban. The Taliban, it is essential to recall, won the Afghan civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal despite Russian and Iranian support for its opponents. That means the Taliban have a great deal of support and a strong infrastructure, and, above all, they are resilient. After the group withdrew from Afghanistan’s cities and lost formal power post-9/11, it still retained a great deal of informal influence — if not control — over large regions of Afghanistan and in areas across the border in Pakistan. Over the years since the U.S. invasion, the Taliban have regrouped, rearmed and increased their operations in Afghanistan. And the conflict with the Taliban has now become a conventional guerrilla war.

The Taliban and the Guerrilla Warfare Challenge

The Taliban have forged relationships among many Afghan (and Pakistani) tribes. These tribes have been alienated by Karzai and the Americans, and far more important, they do not perceive the Americans and Karzai as potential winners in the Afghan conflict. They recall the Russian and British defeats. The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don’t stay very long. Betting on the United States and Karzai — when the United States has sent only 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and is struggling with the idea of sending another 30,000 troops — does not strike them as prudent. The United States is behaving like a power not planning to win; and, in any event, they would not be much impressed if the Americans were planning to win.

The tribes therefore do not want to get on the wrong side of the Taliban. That means they aid and shelter Taliban forces, and provide them intelligence on enemy movement and intentions. With its base camps and supply lines running from Pakistan, the Taliban are thus in a position to recruit, train and arm an increasingly large force.

The Taliban have the classic advantage of guerrillas operating in known terrain with a network of supporters: superior intelligence. They know where the Americans are, what the Americans are doing and when the Americans are going to strike. The Taliban declines combat on unfavorable terms and strikes when the Americans are weakest. The Americans, on the other hand, have the classic problem of counterinsurgency: They enjoy superior force and firepower, and can defeat anyone they can locate and pin down, but they lack intelligence. As much as technical intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites is useful, human intelligence is the only effective long-term solution to defeating an insurgency. In this, the Taliban have the advantage: They have been there longer, they are in more places and they are not going anywhere.

There is no conceivable force the United States can deploy to pacify Afghanistan. A possible alternative is moving into Pakistan to cut the supply lines and destroy the Taliban’s base camps. The problem is that if the Americans lack the troops to successfully operate in Afghanistan, it is even less likely they have the troops to operate in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States could use the Korean War example, taking responsibility for cutting the Taliban off from supplies and reinforcements from Pakistan, but that assumes that the Afghan government has an effective force motivated to engage and defeat the Taliban. The Afghan government doesn’t.

The obvious American solution — or at least the best available solution — is to retreat to strategic Afghan points and cities and protect the Karzai regime. The problem here is that in Afghanistan, holding the cities doesn’t give the key to the country; rather, holding the countryside gives the key to the cities. Moreover, a purely defensive posture opens the United States up to the Dien Bien Phu/Khe Sanh counterstrategy, in which guerrillas shift to positional warfare, isolate a base and try to overrun in it.

A purely defensive posture could create a stalemate, but nothing more. That stalemate could create the foundations for political negotiations, but if there is no threat to the enemy, the enemy has little reason to negotiate. Therefore, there must be strikes against Taliban concentrations. The problem is that the Taliban know that concentration is suicide, and so they work to deny the Americans valuable targets. The United States can exhaust itself attacking minor targets based on poor intelligence. It won’t get anywhere.

U.S. Strategy in Light of al Qaeda’s Diminution

From the beginning, the Karzai government has failed to take control of the countryside. Therefore, al Qaeda has had the option to redeploy into Afghanistan if it chose. It didn’t because it is risk-averse. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a group that flies planes into buildings, but what it means is that the group’s members are relatively few, so al Qaeda cannot risk operational failures. It thus keeps its powder dry and stays in hiding.

This then frames the U.S. strategic question. The United States has no intrinsic interest in the nature of the Afghan government. The United States is interested in making certain the Taliban do not provide sanctuary to al Qaeda prime. But it is not clear that al Qaeda prime is operational anymore. Some members remain, putting out videos now and then and trying to appear fearsome, but it would seem that U.S. operations have crippled al Qaeda.

So if the primary reason for fighting the Taliban is to keep al Qaeda prime from having a base of operations in Afghanistan, that reason might be moot now as al Qaeda appears to be wrecked. This is not to say that another Islamist terrorist group could not arise and develop the sophisticated methods and training of al Qaeda prime. But such a group could deploy many places, and in any case, obtaining the needed skills in moving money, holding covert meetings and the like is much harder than it looks — and with many intelligence services, including those in the Islamic world, on the lookout for this, recruitment would be hard.

It is therefore no longer clear that resisting the Taliban is essential for blocking al Qaeda: al Qaeda may simply no longer be there. (At this point, the burden of proof is on those who think al Qaeda remains operational.)

Two things emerge from this. First, the search for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups is an intelligence matter best left to the covert capabilities of U.S. intelligence and Special Operations Command. Defeating al Qaeda does not require tens of thousands of troops — it requires excellent intelligence and a special operations capability. That is true whether al Qaeda is in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Intelligence, covert forces and airstrikes are what is needed in this fight, and of the three, intelligence is the key.

Second, the current strategy in Afghanistan cannot secure Afghanistan, nor does it materially contribute to shutting down al Qaeda. Trying to hold some cities and strategic points with the number of troops currently under consideration is not an effective strategy to this end; the United States is already ceding large areas of Afghanistan to the Taliban that could serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda. Protecting the Karzai government and key cities is therefore not significantly contributing to the al Qaeda-suppression strategy.

In sum, the United States does not control enough of Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda sanctuary, can’t control the border with Pakistan and lacks effective intelligence and troops for defeating the Taliban.

Logic argues, therefore, for the creation of a political process for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan coupled with a recommitment to intelligence operations against al Qaeda. Ultimately, the United States must protect itself from radical Islamists, but cannot create a united, pro-American Afghanistan. That would not happen even if the United States sent 500,000 troops there, which it doesn’t have anyway.

A Tale of Two Surges

The U.S. strategy now appears to involve trying a surge, or sending in more troops and negotiating with the Taliban, mirroring the strategy used in Iraq. But the problem with that strategy is that the Taliban don’t seem inclined to make concessions to the United States. The Taliban don’t think the United States can win, and they know the United States won’t stay. The Petraeus strategy is to inflict enough pain on the Taliban to cause them to rethink their position, which worked in Iraq. But it did not work in Vietnam. So long as the Taliban have resources flowing and can survive American attacks, they will calculate that they can outlast the Americans. This has been Afghan strategy for centuries, and it worked against the British and Russians.

If it works against the Americans, too, splitting the al Qaeda strategy from the Taliban strategy will be the inevitable outcome for the United States. In that case, the CIA will become the critical war fighter in the theater, while conventional forces will be withdrawn. It follows that Obama will need to think carefully about his approach to intelligence.

This is not an argument that al Qaeda is no longer a threat, although the threat appears diminished. Nor is it an argument that dealing with terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not a priority. Instead, it is an argument that the defeat of the Taliban under rationally anticipated circumstances is unlikely and that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan will be much more difficult and unlikely than the settlement was in Iraq — but that even so, a robust effort against Islamist terror groups must continue regardless of the outcome of the war with the Taliban.

Therefore, we expect that the United States will separate the two conflicts in response to these realities. This will mean that containing terrorists will not be dependent on defeating or holding out against the Taliban, holding Afghanistan’s cities, or preserving the Karzai regime. We expect the United States to surge troops into Afghanistan, but in due course, the counterterrorist portion will diverge from the counter-Taliban portion. The counterterrorist portion will be maintained as an intense covert operation, while the overt operation will wind down over time. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan is not a threat to the United States, so long as intense counterterrorist operations continue there.

The cost of failure in Afghanistan is simply too high and the connection to counterterrorist activities too tenuous for the two strategies to be linked. And since the counterterror war is already distinct from conventional operations in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan, our forecast is not really that radical.

Comment:

Taliban were never the same as Al Qaeda. Only now Stratfor has come to realize that. Now, the term 'Al Qaeda Prime' has been introduced. So who are the 'Subprime' Alqaeda? I think they will take another 7 years to figure that out.

These are none else but the Uzbeks earlier expelled from South Waziristan by a joint military plus Moulvi Nazir Lashkar operation, and now allied with the Punjabi Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Obama Inaugral - A Synopsis:

2009-01-23T18:31:00.003+06:00

The Arrivals:

The Oath:

The Speech:

Comment:

The criticism:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Agreed!

Investigating Swat:

2009-01-20T09:57:00.003+06:00

Comment:

It is clear from this documentary that all kind of Government writ has been lost in Swat, with no chance in sight of regaining the same.

Another fact becoming clear is that the uprising has it's roots in the change of judicial system from the Sharia-based one in the Wali-Swat days to the present one at time of the Princely State's merger with Pakistan, which turned out to be unacceptable to the populace.

The grievance initially took the form of the mainly peaceful agitation of Sufi Muhammad's Tehreek-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) during the 90s, and turned militant after leadership of the movement was snatched by his radical son-in-Law Fazlullah upon the arrest of Sufi Muhammed. The same movement morphed into Taliban-Swat following the bombing of the Bajaur Madrassa run by the TNSM in which 82 were killed including the administrator - Fazlullah's younger brother. The final straw came with the Lal Masjid siege and the subsequent firebombing of the premises with which open war was declared by the same Swat militants.

As the Army spokesman rightly answers when asked as to who was responsible. "No single person can be blamed. We all are responsible"

Of David Sanger, stray dogs, and crossroads of guns:

2009-01-14T18:53:00.008+06:00

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare
By DAVID E. SANGER, NY Times
Published: January 8, 2009

"TO GET TO THE HEADQUARTERS of the Strategic Plans Division, the branch of the Pakistani government charged with keeping the country’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons away from insurgents trying to overrun the country, you must drive down a rutted, debris-strewn road at the edge of the Islamabad airport, dodging stray dogs and piles of uncollected garbage. Just past a small traffic circle, a tan stone gateway is manned by a lone, bored-looking guard loosely holding a rusting rifle. The gateway marks the entry to Chaklala Garrison, an old British cantonment from the days when officers of the Raj escaped the heat of Delhi for the cooler hills on the approaches to Afghanistan. Pass under the archway, and the poverty and clamor of modern Pakistan disappear."

Guests: Lt. Gen. Rtd Haq Nawaz Khan, Tariq Fatmi and Brig (R) Samson Simon.

Comment:

Brig Samson Simon's entry into the Talk show circuit is a very welcome one. He brings to the analysis an additional approach which had been missing before, and that is a sharp military-tech details mind - while at the same time coupled with a dispassionate geostrategic intellect. Something like a Tom Clancy novel.

Re the subject, the NY Times article portrays the direction events are taking, and a predictable one. It was clear during Obama's election campaign that disarmament and containment of Pakistan would be amongst his very first priorities. Now the implementation of the same will begin to unfold with the Presidential Oath of Office, and it will be upto the Pakistani politicians and diplomats how they counter it.

So far, they have managed to successfully procrastinate using obfuscation and deception, while Obama is much too smart to fall for that. Pakistan will have to chose sides.

Are you with us or against us? That question will not only remain but become even clearer than it ever was with Bush.

From "I wanna take my pants off" to "I feel okay in a Hijab":

2009-01-13T11:02:00.002+06:00

The culmination of Jihad Struggling with Islam

David Mulford on Pak role in 26/11

2009-01-12T21:37:00.005+06:00

Comment:
Credible material? Information? Don't know if evidence? Not a judge of rules of evidence? FBI associated with preparation of the Dossier?

This is the US ambassador to India saying this. What he's actually saying is the credibility of the dossier is only as much as it was prepared by FBI.

Well ... it is the same FBI which said yellow cake had been sold to Saddam from I don't even remember where in Africa.

Stratfor forecasts for Jihadism - 2009:

2009-01-09T14:57:00.003+06:00

Jihadism in 2009: The Trends Continue

January 7, 2009

Global Security and Intelligence Report

Stratfor: By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

For the past several years, we have published an annual forecast for al Qaeda and the jihadist movement. Since the January 2006 forecast, we have focused heavily on the devolution of jihadism from a phenomenon focused primarily on al Qaeda the group to one based primarily on al Qaeda the movement. Last year, we argued that al Qaeda was struggling to remain relevant and that al Qaeda prime had been marginalized in the physical battlefield. This marginalization of al Qaeda prime had caused that group to forfeit its position at the vanguard of the physical jihad, though it remained deeply invol ved in the leadership of the ideological battle.

As a quick reminder, Stratfor views what most people refer to as “al Qaeda” as a global jihadist network rather than a monolithic entity. This network consists of three distinct entities. The first is a core vanguard, which we frequently refer to as al Qaeda prime, comprising Osama bin Laden and his trusted associates. The second is composed of al Qaeda franchise groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, and the third comprises the grassroots jihadist movement inspired by al Qaeda prime and the franchise groups.

As indicated by the title of this forecast, we believe that the trends we have discussed in previous years will continue, and that al Qaeda prime has become marginalized on the physical battlefield to the extent that we have not even mentioned their name in the title. The regional jihadist franchises and grassroots operatives pose a much more significant threat in terms of security concerns, though it is important to note that those concerns will remain tactical and not rise to the level of a strategic threat. In our view, the sort of strategic challenge that al Qaeda prime posed with the 9/11 attacks simply cannot be replicated without a major change in geopolitical alignments — a change we do not anticipate in 2009.
2008 in Review

Before diving into our forecast for the coming year, let’s take a quick look back at what we said would happen in 2008 and see what we got right and what we did not.

What we got right:

* Al Qaeda core focused on the ideological battle. Another year has passed without a physical attack by the al Qaeda core. As we noted last October, al Qaeda spent a tremendous amount of effort in 2008 fighting the ideological battle. The core leadership still appears to be very intent on countering the thoughts presented in a book written in 2007 by Sayyed Imam al-Sharif, also known as Dr. Fadl, an imprisoned Egyptian radical and a founder (with Ayman al-Zawahiri) of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al-Sharif’s book is seen as such a threat because he provides theological arguments that counter many of the core teachings used by al Qaeda to justify jihadism. On Dec. 13, an 85-page treatise by one of al Qaeda’s leading religious authorities, Abu-Yahya al-Libi, was released to jihadist Web sites in the latest of al Qaeda’s many efforts to counter Dr. Fadl’s arguments.

* Pakistan will be important as a potential flashpoint. Eight days after we wrote this, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Since then, Pakistan has become the focal point on the physical battlefield.

* The November 2007 addition of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) to the global jihadist network will not pose a serious threat to the Libyan regime. The Libyans have deftly used a combination of carrots and sticks to divide and control the LIFG.

* Jihadists will kill more people with explosives and firearms than with chemical, biological or radiological weapons. We saw no jihadist attacks using WMD in 2008.

What we got mostly right:

* The Algerian jihadist franchise, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), will be hard-pressed in 2008, but not eliminated. AQIM succeeded in launching a large number of attacks in the first eight months of 2008, killing as many people as it did in all of 2007. But since then, the Algerian government has been making progress, and the jihadist group has only conducted two attacks since August 2008. The Algerians also are working closely with neighboring countries to combat AQIM, and the group is definitely feeling the heat. On Dec. 23, 2008, the Algerian government reportedly rejected a truce offered by AQIM leader Yahia Djouadi. Djouadi offered that al Qaeda would cease attacks on foreigners operating in oil fields in Algeria and Mauritania if the Algerian security service would cease targeting al Qaeda members in the Sahel region. The group is still alive, and government pressure appears to have affected its operational ability in recent months, but it di d take a bit longer than we anticipated for the pressure to make a difference.

* Syria will use Fatah al-Islam as a destabilizing force in Lebanon. We had intelligence last year suggesting that the Syrians were going to press the use of their jihadist proxies in Lebanon — specifically Fatah al-Islam. We saw a bit of this type of activity in late May, but not as much as anticipated. By November, Syria actually decided to cut ties with Fatah al-Islam.

* Jihadist operatives outside war zones will focus on soft targets. Major terrorist strikes in Islamabad and New Delhi were conducted against hotels, soft targets Stratfor has focused on as vulnerable for many years now. Other attacks in India focused on markets and other public places. While most of the attacks against hard targets came in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, there were a few attacks against hard targets in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Turkey. Granted, the Sanaa and Istanbul attacks were unsuccessful, but they were attacks against hard targets nonetheless.

What we missed:

* The jihadist franchises in Yemen resurged, and the al-Shabab in Somalia found success. While we quickly picked up on these trends in April and May respectively (and beat most others to the punch with some very good analysis on these topics), we clearly did not predict them in December 2007. We knew that the influx of fighters from Iraq was going to impact countries in the region, but we didn’t specifically focus on Yemen and Somalia.

The Year Ahead

We anticipate that we will see the United States continue its campaign of decapitation strikes against al Qaeda leadership. While this campaign has not managed to get bin Laden or al-Zawahiri, it has proved quite successful at causing the al Qaeda apex leadership to lie low and become marginalized from the physical jihad. The campaign also has killed a long list of key al Qaeda operational commanders and trainers. As noted above, we believe the core leadership is very concerned about the ideological battle being waged against it — the only real way the theology of jihadism can be defeated — and will continue to focus their efforts on that battlespace.

As long as the ideology of jihadism survives (it has been around since the late 1980s), the jihadists’ war against the world will continue. It will continue to oscillate between periods of high and low intensity. In the coming year, we believe the bulk of physical attacks will continue to be conducted by regional jihadist franchise groups, and to a lesser extent by grassroots jihadists.

With the lack of regional franchises in North America, we do not see a strategic threat to the United States. However, as seen by the recent convictions in the Fort Dix plot trial, or even in the late October case where a U.S. citizen apparently committed a suicide bombing on behalf of al-Shabab in Somalia, the threat of simple attacks against soft targets in the United States remains. We were again surprised that no jihadist attacks occurred in the United States in 2008. Given the vulnerabilities that exist in an open society and the ease of attack, we cannot rule out an attack in 2009.

In Europe, where AQIM and other jihadist franchises have a greater presence and infrastructure, there is a greater threat that these franchises will commit sophisticated attacks. It must be recognized, though, that they will have a far harder time acquiring weapons and explosives to conduct such attacks in the United Kingdom or France than they would in Algeria or Pakistan. Because of this, we anticipate that they will continue to focus on soft targets in Europe. Due to differences between the Muslim communities in the United States and Europe, the grassroots operatives have been more active in Europe than they are in the United States. The May 22, 2008, attempted bombing at the Giraffe Cafe by a Muslim convert in Exeter serves as a good reminder of this.
Jihadist Franchises

After failing last year to predict the resurgence of the jihadist franchises in Yemen and Somalia, we will be keeping a sharp eye on both for 2009. Somalia continues to be a basket case of a country, and the instability there is providing an opportunity for al-Shabab to flourish. There is currently an attempt under way to bring stability to Somalia, but we anticipate that it will not succeed, due to the militant factionalism in the country. The only thing working against al-Shabab and their jihadist brethren is that the Somalian jihadists appear to be as fractious as the rest of the country; al-Shabab is itself a splinter of the Supreme Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which ruled Somalia briefly before the Ethiopian invasion in 2006. There are currently as many as four different jihadist factions fighting one anot her for control over various areas of Somalia — in addition to fighting foreign troops and the interim government.

In Yemen, things have been eerily quiet since the Sept. 17 attack against the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and the government campaign to go after the group behind that attack. Six gunmen were killed in the attack itself, and the Yemenis have arrested numerous others whom they claim were involved in planning the attack. The Yemenis also killed or captured several significant jihadists prior to the September attack. But given the large number of Yemenis involved in the fighting in Iraq, the number of Saudi militants who have traveled to Yemen due to pressure at home, and the Salafist-jihadist influence within Yemen’s security and intelligence apparatus, it will be possible for the two jihadist franchises in Yemen to recover if the Yemenis give them breathing space.

Meanwhile, though Iraq is far calmer than it was a few years back, a resurgence in jihadist activity is possible. One of the keys to calming down the many jihadist groups in Iraq was the formation of the Awakening Councils, which are made up of many Sunni former Baathist (and some jihadist) militants placed on the U.S. payroll. With the changes in Iraq, responsibility for these Awakening Councils has been passed to the Iraqi government. If the Shiite-dominated government decides not to pay the councils, many of the militants-turned-security officers might return to their old ways — especially if the pay from jihadist groups is right. Intelligence reports indicate that Baghdad plans to pay only a fraction of the approximately 100,000 men currently serving in the Awakening Councils. The Iraqi central government apparently plans to offer the bulk of them civilian jobs or job training, but we are skeptical that this will work.

Elsewhere, Pakistan is once again the critical location for the jihadists. Not only is Pakistan the home of the al Qaeda core leadership as its pursues its ideological war, it also is home to a number of jihadist groups, from the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in the northwest to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in the northeast, among several others. The coming year might prove to be pivotal in global efforts against the jihadists in Pakistan. Pakistan already is a country in crisis, and in some ways it is hard to imagine it getting much worse. But if Pakistan continues to destabilize, it could very well turn into a failed country (albeit a failed country with a nuclear arsenal). Before Pakistan becomes a failed state, there are a number of precursor stages it probably will pass through. The most immed iate stage would entail the fall of most of the North-West Frontier Province to the jihadists, something that could happen this year.

This type of anarchy in Pakistan could give the jihadists an opportunity to exert control in a way similar to what they have done in places like Afghanistan and Somalia (and already in the Pakistani badlands along the Afghan border.) If, on the other hand, Pakistan is somehow able to hold on, re-establish control over its territory and its rogue intelligence agency and begin to cooperate with the United States and other countries fighting the jihadists, such a development could deal a terrible blow to the aspirations of the jihadists on both the physical and ideological battlefields. Given the number of plots linked to Pakistan in recent years, including the Nov. 26 Mumbai attack and almost every significant plot since 9/11, all eyes will be watching Pakistan carefully.

America’s Foot Soldiers In Islamabad:

2009-01-08T17:42:00.006+06:00

Durrani’s Firing Reveals How Pakistan Is Penetrated At The Top:

Thursday, 8 January 2009. www.ahmedqureshi.com

M. A. Durrani was busy leaking information to embarrass Pakistan internationally. He was part of an influential group in Islamabad that worked overtime to ensure Pakistan accepted blame for Mumbai and initiated action against the military and ISI without verifying the so-called evidence. Mr. Durrani says his leaks had the blessings of President Zardari. Who are they working for? Alarmingly, Pakistan’s security stands breached at the highest levels in the capital, where shady individuals are working for foreign interests with impunity. It is time for a major purge to cleanse Pakistani government and politics of foreign assets. Mr. Durrani should be debriefed as to whose interests he was serving in his sensitive position.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—A secretive powerful group in the top corridors of the Pakistani government has been working overtime for the past few weeks to push Islamabad into publicly accepting the half-cooked ‘evidence’ provided by the United States and India that implicates Pakistan, its military and the ISI in the Mumbai attacks.

Two prominent names in this group are national security adviser Mehmud Ali Durrani and the Ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani. They pushed hard for Pakistan to accept blame without verification and without pursuing other compelling leads in the Mumbai attacks. These other leads cast a wider net and significantly weaken India’s ‘Pakistan-only’ fixation.

The behavior of Mr. Durrani became particularly desperate in the last few days, and especially on Wednesday, Jan. 7. His boss, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, was not off the mark when he cited betrayal of Pakistan’s national security as the main reason for sacking Mr. Durrani.

The question is: Who was Mr. Durrani working for? There is even chatter about the possibility that he might be arrested and interrogated to determine whose interests he was serving. There is no question that his bold moves were sanctioned by President Zardari. It is also interesting to note that information minister Sherry Rehman came to Mr. Durrani’s rescue in the final stage of the bizarre power struggle that marked Durrani’s last few hours in office.

Given the traps created by this government for Pakistan and especially for the ISI after the Mumbai attacks, it is safe to conclude that Pakistan’s power echelons stand breached by individuals, like Mr. Durrani, who are keenly pursuing policy objectives of a foreign government or governments.

The conduct of Mr. Durrani, coupled with massive recent policy failures with direct bearing on national security, reinforce the need for a purge within the government and within the country’s political elite. Foreign governments have been able to penetrate both and cultivate assets. These ‘assets’ conduct their own private foreign policies directly with foreign powers without the approval or knowledge of the Pakistani state.

The Signs

Sitting in Washington, Ambassador Husain Haqqani has been wrangling with the Pakistan Foreign Office for several days now over the FBI evidence shared with Pakistan, which apparently includes a tape recording purporting to show a Pakistani citizen inside Pakistan talking to a Mumbai terrorist over telephone. Mr. Haqqani wants Pakistan to accept this piece of evidence as final proof that elements within Pakistan executed the attack on Mumbai. Other Pakistani officials disagree and say the audio tape and other information need to be verified by Pakistani experts to determine if it is fake or real. We don’t trust India and they don’t trust us. It’s as simple as that.

Durrani’s Suspicious Role

Behind the scenes, Mr. Durrani has been playing what amounts to a dirty role in this whole crisis with India. In the last week of December, he contacted a known Pakistani journalist working for the Wall Street Journal and leaked to him a ‘breaking’ a story: an activist of the defunct Lashkar Tayyeba in Pakistani custody had confessed to making phone calls to Mumbai terrorists.

It was strange that Mr. Durrani chose to leak this information to a U.S. newspaper. If the story was true [it wasn’t. It was officially debunked later] the Pakistani government would have released it through its spokespeople. The only plausible purpose of the leak was to embarrass Pakistan, quash the voices calling for evidence and verification, and push a weak government into accepting responsibility for the Mumbai attacks. It was a classic pressure tactic, in this case used by an insider – Mr. Durrani – against his own government.

Using this deliberate leak, the Wall Street Journal came out with an elaborate story . Its editors somehow linked the alleged confession to ISI’s tense relations with elected governments in the 1990s. There was a separate box in the story that gave a timeline to the supposed tense relations.

In short, Durrani’s leak to Wall Street Journal became a condemnation of the ISI. Which seems to be the whole purpose of the Indian drama anyway. The leak also weakened the effect of foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s rare bold statement that demanded India deactivate its forward air bases, withdraw troops and defuse the war hysteria.

Durrani’s leak in effect threw the ball back in the Pakistani court.

Desperation

With Ambassador Haqqani’s failure to convince Pakistani officials to accept the American evidence, the pro-American lobby in Islamabad began to get desperate. U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen flew into Islamabad to convince President Zardari to allow the Indian air force to conduct limited ‘surgical strikes’. He asked Zardari to deactivate the state of alert in the Pakistan Air Force for this purpose. The deal was sealed if not for the strong stand taken by the Pakistani military. Mullen returned empty handed.

The ‘Charge Sheet’

Mr. Durrani’s reign of double dealings at the top, as Prime Minister’s adviser on national security, makes the list of foreign policy blunders by the government appear deliberate and calculated and not just the work of incompetent administrators:

The immediate admission of guilt on behalf of ISI, when Mr. Gilani was told to accept sending ISI chief to New Delhi on India’s ‘summon’.

The weak, apologetic diplomacy in the face of Indian warmongering.

Misleading China in the U.N. Security Council voting, resulting in incriminating Pakistani individuals and organizations without evidence. Some observers even go as far as saying that this vote has smoothed the way for future sanctions on Pakistan and its military if and when major powers pursue this.

The Zardari government is suspected of having dragged its feet on issuing orders to the Pakistani military to raise the level of alert even when Indian army, air force and navy were moving to forward positions. The plot becomes sinister when the consequences of this reluctance become clear. A snap attack by India when the Pakistani military was not ready could have resulted in humiliation for the military. This would have emboldened the current government to take on a humiliated military and pursue the U.S. agenda of dismantling the ISI and transform the Pakistani military into a glorified police force at the beck and call of U.S. and India. This ‘ideal role’ for Pakistan is now openly discussed in Washington and is no longer a secret.

The Memorable 7 January

The actions of Mr. Mehmud Ali Durrani on this day show how desperate he had become to see Pakistan taking the blame and submitting before India. This portion of the story needs careful reading because it reveals how far this game goes to the top levels of the Pakistani government.

Mr. Durrani apparently leaked to an Indian TV channel and a couple of Pakistani news channels that Pakistan has accepted Indian ‘evidence’ that Ajmal Kassab, the lone surviving Mumbai terrorist, was a Pakistani citizen. [Please click here for an incisive examination of the Indian and American ‘evidence’].

Mr. Durrani probably intended for this information to be quoted ‘anonymously’. But one of the journalists probably made the mistake of mentioning Durrani’s name.

Reacting to this, Pakistan’s second most senior diplomat, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, came out to deny that Kassab’s identity has been determined, in effect brushing aside Durrani’s leak.

To counter Mr. Bashir, Information Minister Sherry Rehman went a step further. She volunteered this information [that Kassab is a Pakistani] through a text message to a reporter of the American Associated Press news agency. Her move seconded Durrani’s.

Surprisingly, the government’s own Minister of State for Interior, Mr. Tasnim Qureshi, reacted angrily to Mr. Durrani’s leaks. He told reporters that Kassab’s Pakistani links mean little because Kassab was a “creation of Indian intelligence.”

Now, was Mr. Durrani acting alone in making the leaks? After being sacked, Mr. Durrani told Geo News that he consulted the President on all his moves.

This begs the question: Did President Zardari approve the calculated leaks to the media by Durrani and Sherry? If so, why? Why did they have to do it this way? Who were they hiding from? Why try to force the hand of the rest of the organs of the Pakistani state?

Does this mean that Mr. Zardari, Mr. Durrani, and Mr. Haqqani will leak confidential material to the media every time things don’t go their way? Why this act of desperation? Who were they trying to please?

Time For A Purge In Islamabad

A growing number of Pakistani officials and politicians have been cultivated by foreign governments in a variety of ways to pursue the goals of those governments. This foreign meddling and direct contact is confined in large part to the United States, and then to the United Kingdom. It is happening outside the knowledge of the Pakistani state and has reached dangerous proportions. Mr. Durrani’s story is a case in point.

Mr. Durrani was and remains an active member of something called the Balusa Group, created and financed by the U.S. government as a way to create influence in the upper echelons of the Pakistani government. The Americans say the purpose of this group was to bring peace between Pakistan and India through ‘Track II’ diplomacy. But the truth is that its members, like Mr. Durrani, were involved in lobbying for U.S. sponsored energy corridors between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. A side goal was to convince Pakistan to give India unlimited access to Afghanistan and Central Asian republics as a free concession without asking for anything in return, like resolving Kashmir and water disputes.

Foreign Minister Mehmood Qureshi distanced himself from the group as soon as he assumed his new position. He wanted to ensure he was not linked to foreign interests while discharging important business of the state. However, Mr. Durrani and Mr. Husain Haqqani have not publicly ceased their associations with foreign policy groups and interests after becoming servants of the Pakistani state. Mr. Durrani has been serving the state for almost three years now without renouncing his foreign associations, and all of them happen to be tied to U.S. interests.

The result of the damage brought by Mr. Zardari, Mr. Durrani and Mr. Haqqani to Pakistan in the past few weeks is obvious. Pakistan’s wishy-washy diplomacy in the face of Indian belligerence and warmongering has emboldened New Delhi to pursue a tougher line with Islamabad. Officials in Washington and New Delhi are betting on the confusion created by the actions of Mr. Durrani to make it easier for them to extract concessions from Pakistan.

There is no question that the United States plans to expand the war in Afghanistan to include Pakistan. This is the only way to weaken the Pakistani military and firmly align Pakistan with American interests opposite China and others. The only way this is possible is with India’s help. People like Mr. Durrani are helping this happen from the inside. Such elements need to be purged form the system.

In conclusion, this is what Dr. Ayesha Siddiq, the author of Military Inc., had to say about Mr. Durrani when he was first appointed in government:

"The PPP selected Washington's dream team to run foreign relations and national security. One is not sure that appointing Durrani as the National Security Adviser will do the job. The appointment (of Durrani) is in consideration of the general's close ties with the US Pentagon. Not to mention the fact that Durrani owes his intellectual growth to Shirin Tahirkheli, a Bush administration adviser and former senior official of the [U.S. delegation to the] UN National Security Council".

Enough said.

The war has already begun. The question is. When did it begin?

2009-01-07T13:38:00.003+06:00

Pakistan's present and future war

By Samson Simon Sharaf
Saturday, January 03, 2009

India has carried out a revaluation of its strategic options with Pakistan, and the coming years could witness an all-out strategy of coercion by it, a strategy so effectively applied by Israel in the Middle East. India's biggest advantage in conceptual and technical military cooperation with Israel lies in the fact that its technology is largely indigenous and facilitates material transfer with no end-user problems. Pakistan is already engaged in a war of attrition and the future will be a serious test of its strategy of defiance and ability to ride out the crises as a cohesive nation state.

India's quest for security and response to perceived external threats is shaped and complicated by its past. India desires to exist as a great power with a capability of bullying its neighbours and turning them into vassal states. Pakistan has been the major impediment towards this India's quest for great-power status. Wary of the freedom struggle in Kashmir, an exaggerated threat of Islamic militants and fear of another Two Nation Theory from within, Indian strategists have been toying with the idea of using a small but lethal rapid-reaction force for a limited duration inside Pakistan. However, India cannot accomplish what it has failed to do in the past six decades, unless the breeze blows in its favour.

In the post-9/11 scenario, India sees an opportunity and is acting as a neo-realist to minimise the importance of Pakistan through high-profile coercion in line with international perceptions. In this India is even ready to forego its traditional mantra of keeping the great powers out of the region and to align with them for short-term gains. In the final analysis, India wishes to frame a politically discredited, ethnically fragmented, economically fragile and morally weak Pakistan. This can only happen if the role of the armed forces in Pakistan's policymaking is reduced, Punjab divided and the rallying call of Kashmir taken care of for good.

The Indian military structure is geared towards such a capability with active assistance from Russia and Israel, and now the USA and UK. Having allied itself closely with Israel, India will now seek a continuous harassment through heightened military coercion, control of river waters, diplomatic isolation and covert interference. Mumbai and any such incidents in future will continue to provide reason for such intimidation, all in concert with the US and western strategic objectives in the region.

Interestingly, much of the blame for having landed in the box and then pushed into a vulnerable position must also be shared by the Pakistani establishments of the past decade. Pakistan's declared nuclear capability was meant to deter all types of conflicts and pave the way for sustained economic growth, international stature, and a political solution of the Kashmir dispute, Through Kargil, Pakistan led India and the world to believe that notwithstanding a nuclear shadow, a limited military conflict in an existing conflict zone was still possible. Kargil, and later 9/11, changed international perceptions on an armed freedom struggle in Kashmir as well as Pakistan's relevance to the new form of threat: non-state actors. Seen in the backdrop of 9/11, it was the second effect that finally resulted in disownership of the freedom fighters in Kashmir by Pakistan while also resigning the Kashmir question to the impossibility of backdoor diplomacy.

The nuclear capability of Pakistan provides a very small window of opportunity to India to carry out a physical offensive action across the LoC or the international border. This action could be a raid in the form of hot pursuit through ground or helicopter-borne troops, precision air strikes with or without stand-off; remote-controlled targeting through a guided-missile attack, and in the worst case, an attempt to seize objectives close to the international border with little military but considerable political significance. India had a fully developed chemical weapons programme even before it signed the chemical weapons convention as a country not possessing chemical weapons. But it declared its arsenal soon after signing the convention and is not averse to using quickly diffusing chemical weapons. After 9/11, India has held war games and fine-tuned these concepts and implemented some in a very limited manner during the escalation on the LoC.

Hot pursuit, as the name suggests, is only possible in an already hot theatre like the LoC. These are launched through ground troops or heliborne forces. Such an option has little probability because of the bilateral ceasefire. But such an option, however remote, cannot be ruled out.

With the active assistance of Israel, some Indian aircrafts have acquired a beyond-visual-range, precision stand-off capability, something witnessed during the Kargil conflict. India may use its air force remaining inside its own territory and launch laser-guided munitions diagonally inside Pakistan. However, the selected targets should be within 20 kilometres of the LoC or the international border.

Precision strikes imply that Indian aircrafts will physically violate Pakistan's airspace and launch precision surgical strikes against selected targets from a very high altitude, or conventional bombing runs, or use heliborne troops. In such a situation, these aircrafts will be vulnerable to Pakistani air defence and the PAF.

In the cold start strategy, India positions forces with offensive capabilities in military garrisons close to the international border, equipped, trained and tasked to capture some nodal points along the international border, before the Pakistani forces can react. India may not succeed in such an operation without a massive air cover. In Indian strategic calculus, the timing and lightening speed of such operations will solicit immense international pressure on Pakistan so as to curtail Pakistan's conventional and nuclear response.

Notwithstanding such options hinging on military and diplomatic brinkmanship, India will benefit from the use of Israeli armed and surveillance drones operated by Israeli crews from inside India. Historical precedents for such cooperation already exist.

The whole body of war fighting reasoning in such limited conflicts warrants a level of rationality and comprehension of a common strategic language between the belligerents. This is technically impossible. Different actors would draw varying conclusions from an animated Graduated Escalation Ladder (GEL) always vulnerable to a Fire Break Point that could result in uncontrolled conventional and nuclear escalation. It is, therefore, most important that the decision to graduate a conflict rest solely with the political leaders of the country, wherein a common strategic parlance could be evolved with more ease.

Taking a leaf from the Israeli opaqueness in its nuclear doctrine, India over time has applied a conceptual innovation in her nuclear strategy. The Indian revision in the nuclear doctrine implies the ambiguity in the "no first use clause" through a declared no first use and pre-emptive retaliation to create a perception that it is making a coercive transaction from doctrine of limited conventional war to an opaque level of conflict in which the nuclear weapons remain in a very high state of alert. The implication is that India may flirt with the concept of a limited strategic coercion in the shadow of a very high non-degradable nuclear alert beyond Pakistan's capability to neutralise. It is also my opinion that, as of now, after having signed the Nuclear Deal with USA, India benefits from an extended US nuclear umbrella, and strategic and diplomatic support.

There are reliable reports from Afghanistan that Indian contractors are busy building billets and accommodation in Kabul and Bagram to station two Indian divisions in the area. At the same time, bids have been invited by the US Corps of Engineers to construct a divisional size cantonment in Kandahar. Hypothetically, troops in the garb of protection for Indian investments will actually seal off Afghanistan's Pakhtun regions from the North. Then the US, NATO and Indian troops will go for an all-out counter insurgency operation in the cordoned off Pakhtun areas. The effects of spill-over into Pakistan would be pronounced and the Durand Line would become a figment of imagination. Premised on the romantic notion of Pakhtun nationalism, the doors to Pakhtunkhwa would be opened. The USA would then select the shortest route to Afghanistan through the Arabian Sea and Balochistan.

Whatever the concept, scope and objective of such limited escalations, India, with its newfound allies, has decided to maintain a constant vigil and coercion of Pakistan over a prolonged period of time but well below a Fire Break Point. The obvious targets, in tandem, with its allies, will be addressed through diverse instruments like control of rivers, economics, diplomacy, international pressure, internal law and order, military intimidation and even insurgency. A trillion-dollar question is: will the USA be ready to occupy Balochistan for a secure supply corridor?

The war has already begun. The question is. When did it begin?

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistani army. Email: nicco1988@hotmail.com

United against the goyim!

2009-01-07T11:56:00.008+06:00

Auntie Ziona Against Auntie Simone

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Oy gevalt, the terror attack in Mumbai was all we talked about at Shabbat last week.

With a few bottles of Uncle Shlommi's kosher wine from Chile pushing up the angst levels, old Mrs Mendelsohn became quite tearful about India being Israel's biggest customer in the global arms trade, and the way India invited our Mossad to provide intelligence and training to the paramilitary mobs of Hindutva, and keep the country safe from the Achmeds and Mustafas.

And we raised our glasses to the hard work put in by our Bush'le to encourage an arms race between India and Pakistan, making them feel honoured to join the nuclear club and get their chance to wipe one another out, without involving our armies and our gelt.

Auntie Shelomi said she was convinced that the CIA was behind Mumbai, because of Obambi's response right after the attack and his election campaign promises to bomb Pakistan out of existence, coupled with the arrival of US warships in Pakistani waters the moment the shooting began in Mumbai.

"And only the American shmoigers could have done something as stupid as ordering large amounts of LIQUOR and meat for the 'Muslim' terrorists holed up in Chabad House, if the plan was to create support for the coming war against Pakistan!"

"Nu, at least we can be sure that Socialists were not involved," said Mony, who's still feeling fercockt after his altercation with Mikey'le a few weeks ago.

"It sounds like a typical false'le flag operation to me," said Rachel, who has a goy conspiracy theorist for a boyfriend. "Mossad, the CIA and the British MI ZEX working with a core group of meshuggenah ideologues within India's military, intelligence and political elite who were planning a coup, and who want to see India emerge as a groys-power closely allied with our Jewmerice."

"Feh!", shouted Auntie Shelomi, "If the Mossad was involved and the plan was to frame the Muslims, wouldn't they have had the brains to remind the killers to remove from their right wrists the red strings that signify devotion to Hinduism?

But why were the police told to 'stand down' and not fire back at the killers, and why was Hemant Karkare, the anti-terrorism chief of Mumbai police, the first target of the mysterious terrorists?

Auntie will tell you, but keep it to yourself and don't tell anyone... Kerkare had been uncovering the nexus between the Indian military and the sudden rise of well-armed and well-financed Hindu terrorism groups with their wide network of militant training camps across India. And he'd arrested a few very important people.

As usual, Uncle Shlommi was able to help us to make sense of the puzzle. He served in the elite forces when our Golda was PM, and can still remember how to tap out Hava Nagila in Morse Code from those days.

"Girls, there's no need to plotz" he said, standing up and lifting the menorah high in the air. "Always remember that we work together with the intelligence agencies of our allies. To understand the Mumbai attack, you have to figure out who is going to benefit from it, and I promise you, it's not going to be these schmendriks in Pakistan.

"Do you remember what our David Ben-Gurion had to say about that anti-semitic sewer of a country, if ever there was one?

"The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs.

"This lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan.

"Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore, India is the most important base for us to work from there against Pakistan."

"Oy vey", said old Mrs Mendelsohn, swaying a bit as she pulled up her sleeve to display the number tattooed on her wrist, something she does every Shabbos, "Can you imagine another Shoah, only this time with Pakis instead of Germans?!

"Got in himmel. The first thing they would smash on Kristallnacht would be the kosher wine."

United against the goyim!

angst - cold sweat, anxiety
feh! - An expression of disgust or disapproval, representative of the sound of spitting.
fercockt - all fucked up
gelt – money
groys - big, large
Got in himmel - God in heaven
"Hava Nagila" is a hebrew folk song, the title meaning "Let us rejoice".
meshuggenah - a crazy person, someone who is nuts.
plotz - Or plats. Literally, to explode, as in aggravation.
Shabbos or Shabbat - Sabbath. Friday night sundown to Saturday night sundown.
shmendrik - a pathetic loser, hapless soul, an inept nincompoop.
shmoiger - A shmuck, but really stupid.

Brig Samson Simon - Crisis Cell 26 Dec 08

2009-01-04T19:17:00.001+06:00

Comment:

There're many significant facts in Brig Simon's comments. The war of attrition with Pakistan, the Israeli military hardware nexus with India, the US/Indian installations and troop buildup in Bagram.

But people are curious to know who Ajmal Kasab is. Will they ever know?

Assault on Gaza:

2008-12-30T23:43:00.000+06:00

Comment:

I don't see any weapons lying around here immediately after the attack. These were Hamas policemen, not the Hamas fighting forces.

It was Israel's way of breaking down the internal security infrastructure of the democratically elected Hamas to make way for a return of Wast Bank's Fatah which was expelled by Hamas earlier and their security compounds taken over.

The debilitating Gaza blockade resulting in the Hamas Katushya rocket launches, which are home made tin shells with motors and do not even carry explosives - killing one Israeli (an Arab-Israeli) and damaging some houses in six months - is the same Bush Sr. doctrine previously used on Iraq to make ordinary citizens rise against Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War. They didn't succeed. In case of Bush Jr. and the Israelis, it is to punish the Gazans for voting for Hamas and for them to get fed up and accept the secular pro-West Abu Ma'zen and his corrupt PLO in their place. That isn't going to happen either. These things have a way of backfiring.

But USA/Israelis are not really known for learning from previous mistakes. They just repeat them over and over again because for them lives of these strange people are worth nothing.

Zaid Hamid lets loose on Bhrat Varma:

2008-12-30T11:09:00.000+06:00

This is the full show which started it all. The live broadcast was stopped halfway by Ministry of Information. The final two segments not broadcast have now been released by Zaid Hamid's Brasstacks website.

Zaid Hamid on Iqbal - 16 Nov - 7 Dec 2008

2008-12-19T11:00:00.000+06:00

Compilation of a four-part talk series on Iqbal's personal life and teachings, by Zaid Hamid. A two-hour plus treat.

If one filters out some fiery observations by the emotional Zaid Hamid, this series is a gem in knowing Iqbal.

Wake up time? The Mumbai Mystery:

2008-12-18T20:27:00.000+06:00

Lesson one: cover up
By Humayun Gauhar, The Nation, December 6 2008

Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque by Hindu fascists, egged on and led by L.K. Advani, the current leader of the Hindu fundamentalist BJP. Say a prayer for India.

Whoever it was that said that one can choose one's friends but not one's neighbours was spot on. The Indian neighbours that we are landed with need telling some home truths by way of lessons after their near-demented response to the Mumbai Mayhem.

Ask them: don't you think that there is a massive cover up going on? Else why would your commandos obliterate all chances of the militants' identities being discovered? They shot them through both eyes and obliterated their fingerprints because these, and DNA, can identify a person. Are your authorities trying to hide the fact that the militants were neither Pakistani nor Muslim but Hindu and Israeli? In subsequent articles I will give you Indian press clippings for every contention I make here. One would have thought that your government would be keen to discover the identities of these people. This was not mindless, but very clever brutality. Until one gets some logical reason for why this happened you cannot blame me for thinking that there is indeed a massive cover up in progress and that your prime minister and foreign minister rushed to finger Pakistan to divert public anger from itself. Without proof the latter told Condoleezza Rice that, "There is no doubt the terrorists were individuals who came from Pakistan and whose controllers are in Pakistan." Condi to her credit replied that she would not "jump to any conclusions about who is responsible."

So here's some unsolicited advice, but before you see red at this "damn Muslim" from "puny little Pakistan" with the temerity to give you gratuitous advice and jump on my back, do read this once and then again the next day and then tear it up if you still want. When you are humiliated, don't react like a still colonised people. It's tiresome. You won independence, not after 90 years of slavery as we did, but after a millennium. During all this time you managed to retain your religious majority. That's quite an achievement, something to be proud of, though do acknowledge that if your Muslim rulers had "spread Islam by the sword" most of you would have been Muslims. So get over it and get over yourself and the false secular image that you have created of India and start dealing with the reality that you are citizens of 'Hindustan' - 'Land of the Hindus'. You will do yourself a great favour by publicly acknowledging this truth.

Putting the blame on Pakistan for anything and everything has become the standard operating procedure of your fanciful politicians. Is it to hide the fact that you have rampant homegrown militancy and freedom movements in your country? It doesn't work. You try and ethnically cleanse 150 million Muslims and then you are surprised when you get it in the neck? Is it revenge for centuries of Muslim rule? Get over it.

Don't ignore what I said last week: state terrorism begets non-state terrorism. You should honestly see the degree of state terrorism your country has indulged in, not just against Muslims but also against other minorities, Sikhs and Christians particularly, and the 'Untouchables'. You should also consider how much terrorism you have fomented in all your neighbouring countries.

I'm going to try and help you, Indian neighbours, to focus on the bizarre stories that I have been able to piece together from your newspapers and then ask you some questions to help you think logically. It goes something like this. Your intelligence agency intercepted a phone conversation that some "cargo" was soon to be delivered by ship from Karachi. It asked the Indian Navy and Coast Guard (who were involved in a joint exercise on - and perhaps also in - the Arabian Sea at the time to practice for just such an event) to intercept the boat. The militants hijacked a fishing trawler and, amazingly, managed to evade the Indian Navy and Coast Guard in full cry. Near I'm going to try and help you, Indian neighbours, to focus on the bizarre stories that I have been able to piece together from your newspapers and then ask you some questions to help you think logically. It goes something like this. Your intelligence agency intercepted a phone conversation that some "cargo" was soon to be delivered by ship from Karachi. It asked the Indian Navy and Coast Guard (who were involved in a joint exercise on - and perhaps also in - the Arabian Sea at the time to practice for just such an event) to intercept the boat. The militants hijacked a fishing trawler and, amazingly, managed Mumbai they boarded some rubber dinghies - the number varies from 2, 3, 6 and 7. One version has it that three rubber dinghies landed at a deserted beach near Mumbai and the militants waded and walked through marsh and tall reeds and took taxis to get to the city. A second says that one dinghy landed at a pier in the heart of Mumbai. Indian police at the pier saw them and said that they took taxis and went away. A third version says that people saw 6 to 7 dinghies land at Colaba beach near the Nariman Building which is Israeli owned and operated and only Jews can live there. Ten young men unload boxes and went into it. Were they Israelis? One Indian security officer who went in was shocked to see that they were white. We know that your and Israel's security forces have been in joint venture for years. Was it them, perhaps? A huge quantity of food had been purchased and was awaiting the militants before their arrival in the Nariman Building. Was it your commandos who killed the Jewish rabbi, his wife and other Israelis/Jews there to prevent them from talking? It is also suggested that the militants were connected to Somali pirates who wanted revenge from the Indian Navy for the killings of their fellow pirates earlier on the Arabian Seas. A senior naval officer of yours, however, has named the ship that was allegedly hijacked as M V Alpha. On enquiry it was found that it is a Panamanian flag carrier, not Pakistani, and its captain says that his vessel was never hijacked.

Do you really believe these cock and bull stories? This is not a James Bond thriller, unless living in 'Bollywood' has made you all live in a make-believe world. Tell me: is this not the height of incompetence or is there a massive cover up going on by your government?

There are so many holes in these stories. Onlookers remember the militants drinking beer just before the attacks. Would Muslims driven by religious zeal convinced that they are going to heaven drink alcohol before going to their deaths for crying out loud, even as a decoy? Not on your life. Initially Indian media said that some Britons of Pakistani origin were involved. Britain says that's not true. RAW says they had already warned your authorities of an imminent attack. The Americans say they warned them twice. Yet all these warnings went unheeded. Why? Was someone in cahoots with the militants? Were these people not Muslims at all?

The militants knew all the joints well, which means that they must have inside (Indian) help. They took days to stash arms and ammunition in the hotels. Were your guys asleep or in cahoots? Don't rule out the possibility that some of your army and intelligence people are involved with Hindu militant groups and MOSSAD to create open warfare between India's Muslims and Hindus and bring our countries to the brink? The Israelis would love even more than India to destroy Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and such incidents would 'justify' an attack, so why not engineer them?

Is it possible that while on the one hand Indian authorities are so incompetent that they couldn't prevent the attacks despite several warnings and on the other they could determine within hours that Pakistan was behind them? After Pakistanis were burned alive in the 'Friendship Express' India immediately blamed the ISI. It later transpired that a serving Lt Colonel Srikant Purohit of the Indian Army and a Hindu fascist group did it. So why should we believe you this time? India's Anti-Terrorist Squad official who discovered Purohit's involvement and was still investigating him was one of the first to be deliberately killed by your commandos. To get him out of the way, before he uncovered more embarrassing truths? That his wife blamed your government for her husband's murder and refused compensation is damning, what?

You guys always blame the ISI or its "rogue elements" or our army and some jihadi groups. Your government has given us the same old list of 20 that includes the Indian underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Our interior minister says India has given only 3 names: yet another Indian underworld don named Tiger Memon, Dawood Ibrahim and Maulana Masood Azhar. Without even an extradition treaty, you want us to "hand over" these 20 to you, no questions asked, no evidence furnished. Give us some hard evidence and if there is are Pakistanis or Pakistani connections involved we'll fix their hash in Pakistan. You watch.

Why haven't you given us the SIM that was allegedly found on the captured militant? A SIM has a near endless story to tell and each number found has its own story. We'll trace them all. Lashkar-e-Taiba's objective is liberating Kashmir; you know the part occupied by you. Then why on earth would the Mumbai militants demand the liberation of Hyderabad, Deccan, and not Kashmir, if they were Lashkar-e-Taiba? It doesn't make sense.

Think, my Indian neighbours, think, if not for yours then at least for God's sake, before we are all vaporised and our issues become of interest only to historians.

The writer is a senior political analyst
E-mail: humayun.gauhar@gmail.com

Comment:

This article is interesting because the author is the Ghost Writer of General Pervez Musharraf's book "In the line of fire", and a Geo-Political adviser to the current political Government.

More comments later.

What was the original identity of Pakistan as envisaged by Jinnah:

2008-12-13T12:04:00.000+06:00

It is a raging debate in Pakistan. The secularists quote Jinnah's 11 Aug 1947 speech as proof that's what Pakistan was intended to be. In this speech, he spoke of an inclusive and impartial government, religious freedom, rule of law and equality for all. He also seemed to advocate the separation of church and state. This speech was delivered a month before Pakistan was born. He had said:

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. "

[Full text here ...]

The Islamists on the other hand quote the 'Objectives Resolution'. It was the resolution adopted on 12 March 1949 by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The resolution, proposed by the Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, proclaimed that the future constitution of Pakistan would not be modeled entirely on a European pattern, but on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam, which proclaimed the following principles:

1. Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He has delegated it to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.

2. The State shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people.

3. The principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed.

4. Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings of Islam as set out in the Qur'an and Sunnah.

5. Adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop
their cultures.

6. Pakistan shall be a federation.

7. Fundamental rights shall be guaranteed.

8. The judiciary shall be independent.

This resolution was made the Preamble to the existing Pakistan Constitution of 1973, and later amended to be fully incorporated in the Constitution of Pakistan in Article 2A of the Constitution.

I, however, argue with neither. Not the 11 August 1947 one because it was in the backdrop of one of the most violent episodes in history in which a mass and unplanned exchange of populations took place and millions were dead and still dying in riots, nor the March 1949 Objectives Resolution because it was not moved by Jinnah but by Liaquat Ali Khan, and was prompted by the pressure of the rallying slogan (still popular) of Indian Muslims demanding partition of "Pakistan ka matlab kya; La Ilah-a-Ilallah" meaning "What does Pakistan mean; Say there's no God but Allah." This is half of the 'Shahada' or that sentence belief in which is essential and inviolable to be a Muslim in the first place.

My argument is entirely based on something between the two, i.e. at a time when the upheavals of partition had ended and a State structure was well underway, and Pakistan's Central bank was inaugurated. It was the last speech Jinnah ever made, and died two months later. It is dated 1 July 1948. He said:

"I shall watch with keenness the work of your Research Organization in evolving banking practices compatible with Islamic ideas of social and economic life. The economic system of the West has created almost insoluble problems for humanity and to many of us it appears that only a miracle can save it from disaster that is not facing the world. It has failed to do justice between man and man and to eradicate friction from the international field. On the contrary, it was largely responsible for the two world wars in the last half century. The Western world, in spite of its advantages, of mechanization and industrial efficiency is today in a worse mess than ever before in history. The adoption of Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating a happy and contended people. We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind."

[Full text here ...]

Above is not an official source, because this particular speech has been expunged from Pakistan's collective memory. It is not even listed in Pakistan's official web archives.

This leaves little doubt what Jinnah actually wanted. A modern Islamic state with religious principles as the guiding source for its most vital policies.

Religion, to Jinnah, had everything to do with State.

Side Note:

We may also ponder over what Jinnah said back in 1948:

"The economic system of the West has created almost insoluble problems for humanity and to many of us it appears that only a miracle can save it from disaster that is not facing the world."

Has he been proven right after all these years?

Would we agree the Western free-markets Economic Model has collapsed and a new or modified one is now needed and will emerge? Another experiment?

We shall have to wait and see.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa or Hizballah?

2008-12-12T14:50:00.000+06:00

Residence of Hafiz Saeed where he was placed under house arrest. Inset, the organizations offices sealed by police.

The International Crisis Group

"Earthquake Jihad: The Role of Jihadis and Islamist Groups after the October 2005 Earthquake"
24 July 2006

Pakistan’s jihadi groups and other Islamist ‘humanitarian’ groups played a prominent role in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in the aftermath of the 8 October earthquake. They conducted relief and reconstruction work, provided health services, organised and managed displacement camps and carried out needs assessments. This article explores the part these groups played, reviews how international humanitarian actors engaged with them and outlines the political consequences of their activities, locally, nationally and regionally.

The jihadi and Islamist ‘humanitarian’ response

Pakistan has 58 Islamic religious parties, and 24 known Islamist militant groups operate in the country. At least 17 Islamist groups banned by President Pervez Musharraf’s government undertook relief and reconstruction work in the aftermath of the earthquake. These jihadi and Islamist organisations were also prominent in camp management, running 37 out of the 73 organised camps in and around Pakistani-administered Kashmir’s capital, Muzaffarabad. These groups had a presence in every affected district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in the Neelum and Jehlum valleys, including Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Hattian, Dhir Kot, Rawalakot, Haveli and Athmuqam. In their response to the earthquake, jihadi and Islamist ‘humanitarian’ groups drew on their existing infrastructure in AJK, their knowledge of the local terrain and their close cooperation with the Pakistan army, which provided logistical support and other facilities, including helicopters, to enable the jihadis to continue their work.

Prominent Islamist ‘humanitarian’ foundations and jihadi groups

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) are the two largest Islamist political parties in Pakistan. Both have prominent social wings. The JUI is in a coalition government with Musharraf’s Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-I-Azam (PML-Q) in NWFP and Balochistan provinces. The JUI is an ardent supporter of the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan, while the JI controls the Hizbul Mujahideen, a major militant organisation operating in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Al Khair Trust, which is connected to JUI, has been heavily supported by the Pakistani military in its relief and reconstruction work, especially in AJK. The Al Khidmat Foundation, set up by JI, was one of the main organisations coordinating, collecting and distributing goods in the earthquake-affected region, and also coordinated manpower from other international organisations. The Al Khidmat Foundation’s subsidiary organisations include the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association, the Pakistan Engineers Forum, the Ghazali Education Trust, and the JI’s Islami Jamiat Talaba (student wing) and Tanzeem al-Asataza (teachers’ wing).

Other prominent jihadi groups conducting relief work include:

• The Al Rasheed Trust, a Sunni organisation based in Karachi which grew out of the banned Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammad. Jaish-e-Mohammad was proscribed by the Pakistani government in 2002. The Al Rasheed Trust is banned by the United Nations Security Council, but the Pakistani government has not outlawed it.

• Jamaat-ud-Dawa grew out of the banned Islamist militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is known to have militant training camps in AJK, and has been at the forefront of the fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s ‘humanitarian arm’, the Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, maintained a field hospital in Muzaffarabad and Balakot. It also operated ambulance services and surgical camps, constructed 1,000 shelters and provided electricity through generators.

Jihadi and Islamist groups were the first to conduct rescue operations, establish initial medical emergency camps, surgical units and dispensaries for earthquake survivors and send assessment teams to isolated areas. They raised a volunteer army of thousands of madrassa students. Jihadi outfits and Islamist groups provided doctors, clinics, x-ray services, dental care, reconstruction materials, ambulance services, burials and mosque rebuilding. They also cared for orphans, the displaced and widows. They organised mule transport for relief goods to isolated areas, and commandeered lifting equipment and tents. In the reconstruction phase, these groups have established programmes providing cheap reconstruction materials and subsidised saw mills.

Interaction with international humanitarian actors

Whether knowingly or out of ignorance, international humanitarian actors (NGOs, the UN and foreign military assistance teams) established working relationships with some of the banned jihadi groups and other Islamist ‘humanitarian’ groups, either supplying relief goods to jihadi camps or coordinating distributions with Islamist groups. UNHCR supplied camps managed by the JI and Al Rasheed with shelters, Jamaat-ud-Dawa distributed US relief aid and an American surgeon operated in a Jamaat-ud-Dawa relief camp. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is reported to have worked with the ICRC, WHO, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and Khalsa Aid (a pan-Sikh humanitarian agency). Jamaat-ud-Dawa claimed that it received funding from Indonesia and Turkey, and Indonesian and Turkish doctors worked as volunteers in hospitals and clinics that it sponsored. Meanwhile, non-sectarian organisations like the Edhi Foundation were overlooked by the UN and international NGOs.

There is no reason why international NGOs, regardless of the urgency of the earthquake, interacted with these banned jihadi groups or Islamist humanitarian actors. The jihadis were brought in from outside the region in the aftermath of the earthquake, although options existed in secular mainstream civil society groups or NGOs, which were instead marginalised or not engaged by the international NGOs. This has contributed to building the capacity and legitimacy of Islamist groups in AJK, and has raised their profile as humanitarian actors. A number of possible consequences flow from this.

The ramifications of the role of jihadi and Islamist ‘humanitarian’ groups in the earthquake response

The most important implications of jihadi and Islamist involvement in the earthquake response are likely to be felt in the education sector. AJK is one of the country’s most literate regions, and the earthquake destroyed almost all of its education institutions. Integral to jihadi and Islamist relief efforts was the establishment of schools and madrassas for young people in AJK. The Deobandi Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabiya (Pakistan’s largest union of madrassas) plans to build 1,500 mosques and 300 madrassas in AJK and NWFP. The purely Islamic education that these institutions will provide will inevitably sideline provincial/state curricula. In the medium and long term, if the jihadis and Islamist groups are allowed to continue with their rigid religious curriculum this will radicalise the young in AJK, and will form a convenient recruiting base for the militant activities of these organisations. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa has openly called for all orphans to be handed over to the organisation for an ‘Islamic education’. ... more ....

Comment:

It remains unclear whether the educational facilities run by Jamat-ud-Dawa including the 5,000 student complex in Muridke will be seized and shut down, or taken over by the Government, or handed over to some other charity or NGO. Most likely these will be allowed to run by the Wafaq-ul-Madaris or another such body under Government sponsorship because if shut, the students will have to be accommodated elsewhere when no Government run school infrastructure exists providing not only free tuition but free boarding & lodging as well.

That will not solve the problem though. As Hafiz Saeed said yesterday in a televised phone conversation "Jihad is a religious obligation, and we cannot stop teaching our children that". If Jihad equates terrorism, shutting Jamat-ud-Dawa will not stop that being taught even if the Government takes over the Dawa-run institutions.

Second problem will be the charity-funded and volunteer-staffed relief facilities. With the parent organization out-lawed, the charity collection and volunteer work by its thousands of members would become illegal. Who will then fund or staff these? It remains to be seen.

Third problem is where will the out-lawed workers go and what will they do? My own feeling is now that they'll no more be occupied with the harmless 'Jihad' activities of welfare work, many will drift off to the active 'Jihad' outfits with an AK-47.

Have we then exacerbated the problem by banning Jamat-ud-Dawa or solved it?

Hameed Gul - Fareed Zakaria: The King is dead; Long live the King.

2008-12-09T21:33:00.000+06:00

"... the elusive ISI - the infamous Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency ... may be a connection between elements in the ISI and the Mumbai terrorists ... rare chance to get an inside glimpse, an exclusive interview with General Hamid Gul ... I should warn you. Some of his views are shocking. On 9/11 in particular ... I thought it was important that you hear them ... General Gul, you know that the United States has given four names to the United Nations of ISI officers whom it would like to place on an international terrorist list. You are one of those four names."

"And to make sense of all this mess, David Kilcullen ... probably one of the smartest guys on the subject of counterinsurgency, an advisor to General Petraeus, and one of the authors of the so-called surge in Iraq."

Comment:

Quote:
"... a classical special forces or commando style raid ... AlQaeda has never mounted a maritime attack on a land-based target. They've mounted a number of attacks on sea targets, such as the USS Cole, on October 12, 2000. They've mounted a number of other attacks on, say, oil rigs in the Arabian Gulf, and so on. But no al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, and certainly never Lashkar-e-Taiba, has mounted a maritime raid of this type or this complexity - hijacking a fishing vessel, infiltrating via the sea, via an inflatable boat, but then also launching diversionary attacks designed to pull the first responders out of the way of the subsequent follow-on groups that then struck the Oberoi, the Taj Mahal and the Nariman Center. And then, when we did see these groups taking and holding these buildings, they were applying some pretty sophisticated methodology. ... if you look at the equipment that they carried and the way that they operated, this was very much in the vein of a special forces raid, rather than a traditional terrorist attack."
Unquote:

Err ... no Al Qaeda has indeed never mounted a maritime attack on a land-based target, but they're military aviation experts at wide-bodied passenger jet warfare against land-based targets. I would have guessed fishing trawlers should be a piece of cake for these supermen. But Mr.Kilcullen is the counter-terrorism expert.

Quote:
"The guys had backpacks with about 20 pounds of explosives each. They had some pretty sophisticated weaponry, cryptographic communications, satellites, cell phones, credit cards, false ID. They were clean-shaven and dressed in Western clothes. You know, this was a clandestine operation or a covert operation style activity."
Unquote:

Sure. The only things they missed on were operating manuals of fishing trawlers translated into Punjabi, and copies of Qura'anic Verses.

Al-Qaida is dead; Long Live Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
The new bogeyman. Al-Qaida was getting a bit frayed at the collar.

The Terrorists Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too

2008-12-09T10:16:00.000+06:00

Op-Ed Contributor

By ASIF ALI ZARDARI
Published: December 8, 2008, NY Times.

Islamabad, Pakistan

THE recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on Oct. 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root.

To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims.

India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan — and the rest of the world — must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization.

These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic. ... more ...

Asif Ali Zardari is the president of Pakistan.

Comment:

So the President of Pakistan all but admits the attacks were carried out from Pakistani soil, attempts to gain sympathy over his wife's murder in the effort to appear in the same boat as the Indians, and that some mysterious Pakistani non-state actors are to blame quoting the arrests in Muzaffarabad.

Pakistanis simply had to arrest 'someone'. Perceptions are more powerful than reality. If perceptions say Pakistanis must have done it, then Pakistan has to show it's doing something about it to avoid war. These arrests appear no more than that.

Let's see if any proof is presented. Right now the Indians are stumbling along changing stories every other day. Latest was the attackers left a sack of Pakistani flour, a satellite phone with Pakistani numbers on it, and unbelievably some rolls of Pakistani toilet paper in the abandoned boat. I know they wouldn't have much use for a sack of flour and toilet paper on a suicide mission but a satellite phone?

Re: "The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization."

Mr. Zardari not very long ago when asked by a reporter "Who killed your wife?" during a press conference at the Nawaz Sharif Ranch in Lahore, replied with great finality while staring down the reporter "The same people who killed her father."

It wasn't known till now that terrorists killed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Why can't the Pakistani State come right out and say what Tariq Ali says in conclusion on Counterpunch, and which infinitely makes more sense:

The Assault on Mumbai

Why should it be such a surprise if the perpetrators are themselves Indian Muslims? Its hardly a secret that there has been much anger within the poorest sections of the Muslim community against the systematic discrimination and acts of violence carried out against them of which the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in shining Gujarat was only the most blatant and the most investigated episode, supported by the Chief Minister of the State and the local state apparatuses.

Add to this the continuing sore of Kashmir which has for decades been treated as a colony by Indian troops with random arrests, torture and rape of Kashmiris an everyday occurrence. Conditions have been much worse than in Tibet, but have aroused little sympathy in the West where the defense of human rights is heavily instrumentalised.

Indian intelligence outfits are well aware of all this and they should not encourage the fantasies of their political leaders. Its best to come out and accept that there are severe problems inside the country. A billion Indians: 80 percent Hindus and 14 percent Muslims. A very large minority that cannot be ethnically cleansed without provoking a wider conflict.

None of this justifies terrorism, but it should, at the very least, force India’s rulers to direct their gaze on their own country and the conditions that prevail. Economic disparities are profound. The absurd notion that the trickle-down effects of global capitalism would solve most problems can now be seen for what it always was: a fig leaf to conceal new modes of exploitation.

Who exactly is Barrack Obama?

2008-12-07T07:54:00.000+06:00

Webster Tarpley

Comment:

Obama may or may not be what he appears to be, but that isn't the central point in Tarpley's discourse. What is significant is that his emphasis on United State's encirclement of China and Russia as the ultimate foreign policy objective ties in with the American Century Global Vision introduced by the Bush Administration (as opposed to the earlier centuries of European domination), the concept of 'Old' Europe and 'New' Europe and attempts to drive a wedge between the two, and the proposed missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The 'Old' Europeans achieved the same global domination through colonizations, the Bush administration tried through direct military intervention and occupation with unsatisfactory results, while Tarpley believes the Zbigniew Brzezinski school will pursue the tried and tested means of using small enemies as cannon fodder against the big enemies, instead of directly fighting either - as in Afghanistan against the Soviets - towards the same policy objectives.

This is a solid argument to be made.

India vs Pakistan - Evaluation on Military Strengths

2008-12-04T20:29:00.000+06:00

Dmitri, August 6th, 2007

Manpower and Ground Forces

India has the second largest manpower in its military globally - at 3,773,300 personnel (2005), next only to China. Pakistan has a much smaller manpower of 1,449,000 personnel which is proportionally higher than India in terms of their population ratios. Pakistan’s ground forces are equipped with American or Chinese weapons like FIM 92 Stinger SAMs, BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles, T-82 tanks and other equipments. Indian ground forces are equipped mostly by home-made or Soviet technologies like IR guided 9K35 Strela-10 SAMs, 3rd Gen IR guided Nag anti-tank missiles, UAVs and a large inventory of tanks and support vehicles. In terms of numbers and equipments, both Indian and Pakistani ground forces are on an closely equal footing.

Comparison of Air Forces

As of 2006, Indian Air Force (IAF) has over 170,000 personnel and 3,382 aircrafts of which 1,330 are combat aircraft operating off 61 airbases - making it the fourth largest air force in the world. India’s strike fighters consist of Russian and French aircraft like Mikoyan MiG-29, Dassault Mirage 2000, Sukhoi Su-30 - the last one developed under dual licensing by HAL, India’s aerospace industry in Bangalore. In addition to these, India’s air force owns ground attack aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, UAVs and support helicopters - a majority of them either of Soviet or French origin. Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has about 530 combat aircraft and over 65,000 active personnel, operating out of 9 airbases. Its strike fighters consist of US, Chinese and French fighters like F-16 Fighting Falcon, JF-17 Thunder and Dassault Mirage ROSE-III. It also has transport aircraft like Lockheed Martin C-130 and Airbus A310, however there are no UAVs or reconnaissance aircraft in the Pakistani Air Force.

Naval and Sea Based Forces

After the overwhelming losses in the 1971 war against India, Pakistan rapidly increased the size of its naval fleet which doubled in the 1980s after a massive 3.2 billion dollar military and economic aid by US President Ronald Reagan. At present, Pakistan’s navy owns over 45 vessels , most of them of US or European origin which include submarines, destroyers, frigates, patrol and mine warfare boats. It operates from its sole naval port in Karachi and naval facilities in UK, USA and France. It had recently been involved in various humanitarian operations during the 2005 Tsunami in South East Asia. Indian Navy on the other hand, is a three dimensional naval force consisting of missile-capable warships, an aircraft carrier, mine sweepers and a host of marine aircrafts; most of its warships indigenously built in its own dockyards. The navy operates from its major naval bases in Visakhapatnam, Mumbai, Goa and the Andaman Islands. Indian Navy has significant capabilities of being a true blue water Navy and is experienced both in war and peacekeeping operations in the Indian Ocean.

The Nuclear Club

India tested a nuclear bomb in 1974 using materials from Canada and technical help from Soviet Union. However the embargo in heavy water export from Canada after the test stalled India’s nuclear ambitions till 1998, when it shocked the world by conducting five nuclear detonations termed as Shakti tests. The highest yield was by a 48 kiloton staged fusion device, which India claimed was a thermonuclear bomb but seismic data on the tests proved otherwise. In the same year 1998, Pakistan conducted a series of six nuclear detonations in a test termed as Chagai. The highest yield was reported to be about 25 kiloton from a two stage boosted device. At present Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile is slated to be around 30-40 warheads while India possesses 70-100 warheads. The nuclearisation of India and Pakistan became a turning point in the history of conflicts between these two countries with high tensions but no war, not very much unlike the US vs USSR Cold War.

Ballistic and Cruise Missile Proliferation

In the nuclear delivery front, both India and Pakistan have a series of ballistic and cruise missiles in addition to ground attack aircraft. The maximum range among India’s operational ballistic missiles is 2000 km achieved by Agni-2. India’s Agni ballistic missiles are indigenously developed by its own missile defence industry known as IGMDP. The maximum range among Pakistan’s missiles is by Hatf V Gauri which is reported to do over 2200 kms. Pakistan’s Hatf missiles are based on North Korean No-Dong series of IRBMs. Both Pakistan’s Hatf and India’s Agni ballistic missiles are nuclear capable. India has also developed a supersonic cruise missile BrahMos which is by far the fastest cruise missile at Mach 2.6 and maximum range of 290 km. It is reported to be nuclear capable but it is not confirmed yet. On the Pakistan side, its Babur cruise missile has a reported range of 700 km and a maximum speed of 880 km/h (Mach 0.7). As with India BrahMos, Babur is also reported to be nuclear capable but there is no confirmation yet.

The Final Verdict

Both Pakistan and India are almost evenly matched head to head in nuclear and missile fronts, however India has strategic and technological superiority over the conventional forces of Pakistan. Indian Navy is larger in fleet and personnel size with a more varied range of ships including an aircraft carrier while Pakistan’s Navy is smaller and has no aircraft carriers. Indian’s IAF is equipped with highly capable fighters like 4.5th generation Su-30s and 4th gen Mirage 2000s which are technologically superior to Pakistan PAF’s F-16s and Mirage IIIs. Additionally Indian pilots are better trained and more capable in air combat than Pakistani forces as was demonstrated by its various wars with Pakistan or joint exercises with US and UK. In the area of conventional ground forces both the Indian as well as Pakistani Army is well equipped and highly trained to survive in extremities of topography and climate in combat conditions, like wars in the high Himalayas.

If a purely conventional war were to take place between both these countries, India would most likely overpower Pakistan owing to its superior military technology and infrastructure, larger manpower, more territorial area and a strategic advantage in its sea and air forces. It must also be noted that a war between these two countries will matter more than India’s conventional superiority as both these nations are nuclear powers on an equal deadlock. India has maintained a ‘no first use’ nuclear policy on the lines of a similar policy by China while Pakistan does not have any such policy, considering their only hope against India is in nuclear deterrence. It would be risky for India at the present scenario to go into any aggressive war against Pakistan as the repercussions would be serious a nuclear devastation for both countries.

Comment:

India's numerical and technical superiority in a conventional war is beyond question - therefore Pakistan's low nuclear threshold and maintenance of the first-use option.

However, in a surgical kind of strike being talked about in Indian and Pakistani circles, over Muridke or Muzaffarabad , cruise missiles are likely to be used. The Pakistani and Indian capability is evenly matched in these except for India's supersonic cruise missile with a speed of Mach 2.6 which is an obvious advantage in this kind of a strike, but it only has a range of 290 kms - enough to reach Muridke if launched from East Punjab but not much more. Pakistan's answer is the Babur cruise missile with a range of 700 km and a speed of Mach 0.7 - sub-sonic but pretty fast.

UAV's was the other Indian advantage which has recently been matched by Pakistan.

With the evenly matched air, missile and nuclear capability, a surgical strike doesn't seem to be the best option. If India is to win, it will have to be a full-scale conventional war with both sides avoiding breaching the other's nuclear threshold.

Is that possible?

Therefore, I do not think there will be an India-Pakistan military confrontation. God bless May 1998 for both.

Bombay Attackers Speak:

2008-12-04T11:08:00.000+06:00

Available in various parts on the web, compiled below:

First one named Sahaadullah from Oberoi:

Second one named Imran from Nariman House:

Comment:

Who are these persons? Pakistani or Indian? Alive or dead?

They're speaking Hindi. The language of India. Why? Feigning diction and accent to mislead investigation or not feigning at all?

Are they both the same persons as the anchor claims?

The videos are just 15 minutes apart as the time on TV screens show. Is that significant?

Many questions arise which must be answered.

Important thing to note is how the interviewer repeatedly and insistently keeps baiting the caller into admitting he came from somewhere outside India, preferably Pakistan. This, when the operation was still on in full swing and no clues had emerged by then of any sort - real or imagined.

Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

2008-12-02T15:44:00.000+06:00

An analysis from stratfor.com - By George Friedman

Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences

Last Wednesday evening, a group of Islamist operatives carried out a complex terror operation in the Indian city of Mumbai. The attack was not complex because of the weapons used or its size, but in the apparent training, multiple methods of approaching the city and excellent operational security and discipline in the final phases of the operation, when the last remaining attackers held out in the Taj Mahal hotel for several days. The operational goal of the attack clearly was to cause as many casualties as possible, particularly among Jews and well-to-do guests of five-star hotels. But attacks on various other targets, from railroad stations to hospitals, indicate that the more general purpose was to spread terror in a major Indian city.

While it is not clear precisely who carried out the Mumbai attack, two separate units apparently were involved. One group, possibly consisting of Indian Muslims, was established in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. The second group appears to have just arrived. It traveled via ship from Karachi, Pakistan, later hijacked a small Indian vessel to get past Indian coastal patrols, and ultimately landed near Mumbai.

Extensive preparations apparently had been made, including surveillance of the targets. So while the precise number of attackers remains unclear, the attack clearly was well-planned and well-executed.

Evidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack. These groups have a highly complex and deliberately amorphous structure. Rather than being centrally controlled, ad hoc teams are created with links to one or more groups. Conceivably, they might have lacked links to any group, but this is hard to believe. Too much planning and training were involved in this attack for it to have been conceived by a bunch of guys in a garage. While precisely which radical Pakistani Islamist group or groups were involved is unknown, the Mumbai attack appears to have originated in Pakistan. It could have been linked to al Qaeda prime or its various franchises and/or to Kashmiri insurgents.

More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers’ strategic end. There is a tendency to regard terror attacks as ends in themselves, carried out simply for the sake of spreading terror. In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan’s radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so. Let’s work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack.

An End to New Delhi’s Restraint

The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to the Indian government — a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall.

India’s restrained response to Islamist attacks (even those originating in Pakistan) in recent years has come about because New Delhi has understood that, for a host of reasons, Islamabad has been unable to control radical Pakistani Islamist groups. India did not want war with Pakistan; it felt it had more important issues to deal with. New Delhi therefore accepted Islamabad’s assurances that Pakistan would do its best to curb terror attacks, and after suitable posturing, allowed tensions originating from Islamist attacks to pass.

This time, however, the attackers struck in such a way that New Delhi couldn’t allow the incident to pass. As one might expect, public opinion in India is shifting from stunned to furious. India’s Congress party-led government is politically weak and nearing the end of its life span. It lacks the political power to ignore the attack, even if it were inclined to do so. If it ignored the attack, it would fall, and a more intensely nationalist government would take its place. It is therefore very difficult to imagine circumstances under which the Indians could respond to this attack in the same manner they have to recent Islamist attacks.

What the Indians actually will do is not clear. In 2001-2002, New Delhi responded to the attack on the Indian parliament by moving forces close to the Pakistani border and the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, engaging in artillery duels along the front, and bringing its nuclear forces to a high level of alert. The Pakistanis made a similar response. Whether India ever actually intended to attack Pakistan remains unclear, but either way, New Delhi created an intense crisis in Pakistan.

The U.S. and the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

The United States used this crisis for its own ends. Having just completed the first phase of its campaign in Afghanistan, Washington was intensely pressuring Pakistan’s then-Musharraf government to expand cooperation with the United States; purge its intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of radical Islamists; and crack down on al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had been reluctant to cooperate with Washington, as doing so inevitably would spark a massive domestic backlash against his government.

The crisis with India produced an opening for the United States. Eager to get India to stand down from the crisis, the Pakistanis looked to the Americans to mediate. And the price for U.S. mediation was increased cooperation from Pakistan with the United States. The Indians, not eager for war, backed down from the crisis after guarantees that Islamabad would impose stronger controls on Islamist groups in Kashmir.

In 2001-2002, the Indo-Pakistani crisis played into American hands. In 2008, the new Indo-Pakistani crisis might play differently. The United States recently has demanded increased Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention to focus on Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis.

Therefore, one of Islamabad’s first responses to the new Indo-Pakistani crisis was to announce that if the Indians increased their forces along Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan would be forced to withdraw 100,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan. In other words, threats from India would cause Pakistan to dramatically reduce its cooperation with the United States in the Afghan war. The Indian foreign minister is flying to the United States to meet with Obama; obviously, this matter will be discussed among others.

We expect the United States to pressure India not to create a crisis, in order to avoid this outcome. As we have said, the problem is that it is unclear whether politically the Indians can afford restraint. At the very least, New Delhi must demand that the Pakistani government take steps to make the ISI and Pakistan’s other internal security apparatus more effective. Even if the Indians concede that there was no ISI involvement in the attack, they will argue that the ISI is incapable of stopping such attacks. They will demand a purge and reform of the ISI as a sign of Pakistani commitment. Barring that, New Delhi will move troops to the Indo-Pakistani frontier to intimidate Pakistan and placate Indian public opinion.

Dilemmas for Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington

At that point, Islamabad will have a serious problem. The Pakistani government is even weaker than the Indian government. Pakistan’s civilian regime does not control the Pakistani military, and therefore does not control the ISI. The civilians can’t decide to transform Pakistani security, and the military is not inclined to make this transformation. (Pakistan’s military has had ample opportunity to do so if it wished.)

Pakistan faces the challenge, just one among many, that its civilian and even military leadership lack the ability to reach deep into the ISI and security services to transform them. In some ways, these agencies operate under their own rules. Add to this the reality that the ISI and security forces — even if they are acting more assertively, as Islamabad claims — are demonstrably incapable of controlling radical Islamists in Pakistan. If they were capable, the attack on Mumbai would have been thwarted in Pakistan. The simple reality is that in Pakistan’s case, the will to make this transformation does not seem to be present, and even if it were, the ability to suppress terror attacks isn’t there.

The United States might well want to limit New Delhi’s response. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to India to discuss just this. But the politics of India’s situation make it unlikely that the Indians can do anything more than listen. It is more than simply a political issue for New Delhi; the Indians have no reason to believe that the Mumbai operation was one of a kind. Further operations like the Mumbai attack might well be planned. Unless the Pakistanis shift their posture inside Pakistan, India has no way of knowing whether other such attacks can be stymied. The Indians will be sympathetic to Washington’s plight in Afghanistan and the need to keep Pakistani troops at the Afghan border. But New Delhi will need something that the Americans — and in fact the Pakistanis — can’t deliver: a guarantee that there will be no more attacks like this one.

The Indian government cannot chance inaction. It probably would fall if it did. Moreover, in the event of inactivity and another attack, Indian public opinion probably will swing to an uncontrollable extreme. If an attack takes place but India has moved toward crisis posture with Pakistan, at least no one can argue that the Indian government remained passive in the face of threats to national security. Therefore, India is likely to refuse American requests for restraint.

It is possible that New Delhi will make a radical proposal to Rice, however. Given that the Pakistani government is incapable of exercising control in its own country, and given that Pakistan now represents a threat to both U.S. and Indian national security, the Indians might suggest a joint operation with the Americans against Pakistan.

What that joint operation might entail is uncertain, but regardless, this is something that Rice would reject out of hand and that Obama would reject in January 2009. Pakistan has a huge population and nuclear weapons, and the last thing Bush or Obama wants is to practice nation-building in Pakistan. The Indians, of course, will anticipate this response. The truth is that New Delhi itself does not want to engage deep in Pakistan to strike at militant training camps and other Islamist sites. That would be a nightmare. But if Rice shows up with a request for Indian restraint and no concrete proposal — or willingness to entertain a proposal — for solving the Pakistani problem, India will be able to refuse on the grounds that the Americans are asking India to absorb a risk (more Mumbai-style attacks) without the United States’ willingness to share in the risk.

Setting the Stage for a New Indo-Pakistani Confrontation

That will set the stage for another Indo-Pakistani confrontation. India will push forces forward all along the Indo-Pakistani frontier, move its nuclear forces to an alert level, begin shelling Pakistan, and perhaps — given the seriousness of the situation — attack short distances into Pakistan and even carry out airstrikes deep in Pakistan. India will demand greater transparency for New Delhi in Pakistani intelligence operations. The Indians will not want to occupy Pakistan; they will want to occupy Pakistan’s security apparatus.

Naturally, the Pakistanis will refuse that. There is no way they can give India, their main adversary, insight into Pakistani intelligence operations. But without that access, India has no reason to trust Pakistan. This will leave the Indians in an odd position: They will be in a near-war posture, but will have made no demands of Pakistan that Islamabad can reasonably deliver and that would benefit India. In one sense, India will be gesturing. In another sense, India will be trapped by making a gesture on which Pakistan cannot deliver. The situation thus could get out of hand.

In the meantime, the Pakistanis certainly will withdraw forces from western Pakistan and deploy them in eastern Pakistan. That will mean that one leg of the Petraeus and Obama plans would collapse. Washington’s expectation of greater Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border will disappear along with the troops. This will free the Taliban from whatever limits the Pakistani army had placed on it. The Taliban’s ability to fight would increase, while the motivation for any of the Taliban to enter talks — as Afghan President Hamid Karzai has suggested — would decline. U.S. forces, already stretched to the limit, would face an increasingly difficult situation, while pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas would decrease.

Now, step back and consider the situation the Mumbai attackers have created. First, the Indian government faces an internal political crisis driving it toward a confrontation it didn’t plan on. Second, the minimum Pakistani response to a renewed Indo-Pakistani crisis will be withdrawing forces from western Pakistan, thereby strengthening the Taliban and securing al Qaeda. Third, sufficient pressure on Pakistan’s civilian government could cause it to collapse, opening the door to a military-Islamist government — or it could see Pakistan collapse into chaos, giving Islamists security in various regions and an opportunity to reshape Pakistan. Finally, the United States’ situation in Afghanistan has now become enormously more complex.

By staging an attack the Indian government can’t ignore, the Mumbai attackers have set in motion an existential crisis for Pakistan. The reality of Pakistan cannot be transformed, trapped as the country is between the United States and India. Almost every evolution from this point forward benefits Islamists. Strategically, the attack on Mumbai was a precise blow struck to achieve uncertain but favorable political outcomes for the Islamists.

Rice’s trip to India now becomes the crucial next step. She wants Indian restraint. She does not want the western Pakistani border to collapse. But she cannot guarantee what India must have: assurance of no further terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. Without that, India must do something. No Indian government could survive without some kind of action. So it is up to Rice, in one of her last acts as secretary of state, to come up with a miraculous solution to head off a final, catastrophic crisis for the Bush administration — and a defining first crisis for the new Obama administration. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said that the enemy gets a vote. The Islamists cast their ballot in Mumbai.

Whose Karachi?

2008-12-01T22:26:00.000+06:00

Death toll mounts to 43 in Karachi violence

KARACHI: At least 43 people were killed and over 125 wounded as firing and violent incidents continued to affect the country’s financial capital on Monday.

According to reports, unidentified miscreants torched dozens of vehicles, timber market, marriage hall, godown and a garbage house in separate violent incidents in the metropolis.

While law enforcement agencies failed to bring the situation under control as 14 more people were killed in different areas today. Five out of 14 bodies could not be shifted to hospitals.

In another incident, unknown gunmen shot dead five people in Raees Amrohi Colony of Orangi Town, increasing the death toll in three days’ violence to 43.

Sindh Government had imposed a three-day b..... more

Comment:

After all, the telephonic speeches from London had been shouting hoarse since months now that Karachi is being infiltrated by Taliban and citizens should sell TVs and VCRs and buy guns and form vigilance committees (quite comically ... to learn Judo & Karate as well).

I doubt any citizen did that, but it would have created enough fear amongst the residents of North Karachi areas close to Pushtun colonies to condone the MQM gangs roaming around setting Pushtun businesses on fire. I myself last Friday saw cheap Pushtun owned restaurants' furniture thrown on the street in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Pushtuns retaliated the next day and forced shuttering down of the city's biggest clothing market - Zainab Market of central Saddar mostly owned by Urdu-speaking Karachiites, killing three.

They (Pushtuns) also run the entire public transport in the city as well as long-haul upcountry, are concentrated around the highway arteries leading into Karachi, and can shut down the city more effectively and rapidly if attacked than MQM had been doing through coerced strikes in the 90s. No dearth of firepower of-course which would have only increased since then.

Taliban will not come to Karachi. They have no fight here. The raising of ethnic tensions is towards the long held single agenda of domination of Karachi by MQM. Now that the refugees from the military operation in Bajaur and Mohmand agency have started trickling in looking for livelihood - Karachi being the largest Pushtun population city in the country, every upcountry Pushtun knows someone or the other here - MQM feels its hold may be threatened. Therefore first the beating of drums of a Taliban threat, next the demand for registration of non-resident entrants, and now the raiding of Pushtun businesses. It can only result in ethnic warfare in streets and ransacking in ethnically mixed residential districts - engulfing the city in fire.

But, this ethnic alienation is supported by a majority of Urdu-speaking voters of UP and Bihar origins in Urban Sind (Muhajirs as they prefer to be called) and they will keep MQM in power of one sort or another. All because of the unfounded insecurity created by exactly such manipulation.

The 'Garbage House' referred to in the above news story is one of the common Pushtun-run collection centers where recyclable waste is delivered by Afghan refugee children scavenging for a few Rupees a day.

I can't see how this will not add to further insecurity rather than reducing any even if it exists.

Orange Wristband question II - Amar Singh?

2008-11-30T07:53:00.000+06:00

Comment:

According to the highly controversial and popular Pakistani Defense Analyst, Zaid Zaman Hamid, the Bombay attacker in the CCTV image above is named Amar Singh, a Sikh BJP activist and the one taken alive being claimed to be Yemani. His colleague Hira Lal, a Hindu, was killed and his face mutilated. The comparative pictures of the Saffron Band on him and on the file photo of a BJP activist are produced in evidence by him.

It appears Indians have already decided the attackers were Pakistanis. Were they?

The answer doesn't seem clear at all, but jingoism and chest-beating against Pakistan in India is already reaching fever-pitch.

Orange Wristband question:

2008-11-29T17:09:00.000+06:00

Comment:

Observation by a Pakistani Blog: "Notice the orange thread / band on their right hands. Tying a red thread or cord around the wrist is a Hindu practice and it is unlikely a Muslim, especially one politicized enough to carry out an attack such as this, would observe it. I think this provides more evidence that this was a false flag operation or at least an attack by a non-Muslim group."

I'm not convinced of the false flag theory. It would have been plausible only if remote bombs were involved instead of an outright physical assault and holding ground on target locations. This was a suicide mission to the last man and Hindu subversion groups are not known for such missions.

At the same time, they are certainly not the LeT type Jihadis either. Muslims, maybe, but not the average Pakistani mainstream Jihadis of the Talib persuasion. This type of operation is the first anywhere in the world, let alone Pakistan.

So, the question remains. Who are they? Perhaps a mixed group with some locals/some foreigners. The ones who spoke with reporters were definitely Indian. The pictures above could be foreigners. The minute knowledge of routes, diversions, and digital building layouts could be tied in with the Bombay underground involvement. A lethal mixed bag.

Whoever they were, this doesn't bode well for India. The fact that it was just 10 of these (figure confirmed by Bombay Police Chief vs 20 reported before) who held off elite commandos of the Indian military might for two days & three nights, would inspire other militant groups.

Mumbai attacks: Why it happened

2008-11-28T21:03:00.000+06:00

Comment:
Agreed except for some minor points.

Raiders of the Taj:

2008-11-27T16:17:00.000+06:00

Who is this person?

Comment:

The classic Urban Guerrilla. Reminds me of the Black September raid at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Could it be a neo-Symbionese Liberation Army?

Top Pakistan ex-commando killed - So what?

2008-11-24T16:54:00.000+06:00

I appear to have got some knickers in a twist through these remarks on another blog in adulation of a recent assassination victim.

I have no hesitation in reproducing not only one remark but two if that seems to be something of novelty to some, while it's shared by many in this country:

Top Pakistan ex-commando killed

Zeemax said...

I have little sympathy for people like this if all they're capable of doing is capturing the Qila of Lal Masjid and killing their own people in Wana for the Americans, and then twirl their moustache. Never seen real action against the enemy who has as much firepower as he had.

What did Musharraf know about Conduct Unbecoming anyway? Instead, he should have promoted him to Lt. General for whatever reason. Both the same breed.

Good riddance, in my view.

But I agree with you there will be plenty more to come who'll meet the same fate.
November 20, 2008 8:35 AM

pavocavalry said...

my dear brother , the man had nothing to do with lal masjid....the very mysterious part of the story is that musharraf was apparently very close to him and the SSG commandos played a crucial role in 12 october coup ....commandos were brought in helicopters to islamabad for the operation.......later musharraf retired him abruptly and did not promote hom to the rank of lieutenant general........
November 20, 2008 8:48 AM

Zeemax said...

Pavo,

I know he was retired a year before the Lal Masjid op but it was his kith & kin you see in the pic below, raising victory signs after having blown to bits a bunch of schoolgirls with dandas and their handful of helpers with 14 kalashnikovs. You would think they were ghazis returning from raising the flag over Red Fort of Delhi.

Ghazis?

I suspect many of those in this truck would have been blown to bits as well in the Tarbela revenge bombing.

Sorry but you know I feel very strongly about this. This was the single act of beyghairati coupled with brutality and cowardice which pushed Pakistan over the brink and prompted formation of PTT.
November 21, 2008 12:09 AM

Comment:

Someone being a batchmate, a friend, a relative, or father is one thing. That unfortunately does not automatically make that person a hero for everyone else. He certainly wasn't mine, and I feel no compulsions to feel any different due to others' nostalgic personal associations with anyone.

Gaza Fishing Boat Seizure:

2008-11-22T17:35:00.000+06:00

But what's the Pakistani flag doing on a Palestinian fishing boat?

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: Israel’s tightened blockade of a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is now entering its third week. Tel Aviv rebuffed calls Thursday from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to reopen the crossings into Gaza for humanitarian aid. Israeli government officials cited continuing Palestinian rocket fire as the reason for closing the crossings.

Residents of Gaza are running out of essentials, like food, medicines and fuel, as a result of the almost continuous blockade imposed November 4th.

Meanwhile, the fifteen Palestinian fishermen seized by the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza were released on Wednesday. The three international volunteers accompanying the fishermen, however, remain in a prison near Tel Aviv.

American Darlene Wallach, Italian Vittorio Arrigoni, and Scottish Andrew Muncie had arrived by boat into Gaza in late August as part of the first Free Gaza delegation. They remained in Gaza working with the International Solidarity Movement alongside Palestinian fishermen, documenting any harassment by the Israeli navy.

The three internationals are reportedly beginning a hunger strike today to protest their detention. They are also demanding the Israeli navy release the Palestinian fishing boats they confiscated this week.

US citizen in detention, Darlene Wallach, joins me now from a phone inside the prison near Tel Aviv. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Darlene.

DARLENE WALLACH: Thank you very much. Thanks for calling me.

AMY GOODMAN: Where exactly are you being held?

DARLENE WALLACH: I’m in a—it’s in a men’s prison, but inside the men’s prison there’s a compound for women. And the compound is for people who are illegally in Israel because their visa, work visas ran out. So my question is, why am I here? I was kidnapped at gunpoint by the fourth largest military in the world, and I was on a Palestinian fishing boat in Palestinian fishing waters. So it doesn’t make any sense why I’m here, why I’m being held.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what you were doing and the scene when you were arrested.

DARLENE WALLACH: I was on a Palestinian fishing boat that I’ve been on numerous times. And we accompany the Palestinian fishing boats in their waters, where they have the international right to fish, so that the Israeli navy won’t shoot and kill or arrest the Palestinian fishermen.

So what made it different this time is, it seemed to me they were specifically targeting the internationals, because they released the Palestinian fishermen to their homes. And they also confiscated the fishing boats. And the way that they arrested us was very different than how they normally arrest the fishermen. So, normally, they force the fishermen to strip to their underwear, jump in the water and swim to the Israeli navy boats. And this time they brought Zodiac boats, and the frogmen boarded each Palestinian fishing boat. And the first person taken was Andrew. I saw him being taken. And then they took the fishermen off of that boat. Then they came to the boat I was on and took me off the boat.

And so, I don’t know—I didn’t know what happened to the fishermen. I was very concerned about their safety and what Israel might do to them. And I’m very, very concerned about the fishing boats, because in the past what Israel does is they sink the boats or they damage the boats, like taking the engines off, or steal all the equipment. So I’m very concerned about what’s going to happen to the fishing boats. That’s their livelihood. I mean, they said fifteen fishermen. Well, there’s more than just those fifteen that work on each boat. So the livelihood of all those people now has been destroyed. That’s how many families now? And the families tend to be large. How many families now have no income, and there’s no employment, because they have no fishing boats to go out on? It’s really just disgusting, despicable, deplorable. And I want the world to speak out and tell Israel to stop.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, those fifteen fishermen have been released. Why haven’t you been released?

DARLENE WALLACH: I guess the plans are to deport us. And my understanding is, when they deport you, they deport you to where you came from. Since I came from Gaza, I want to be released to Gaza. It sounds like they have no plans on doing that. I don’t know why they’re holding me. It seems like they violated international law in many different ways. And so, I don’t know. I can’t answer that. But then, if you try to talk to Israel, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get the truth from them.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get into Gaza, Darlene Wallach?

DARLENE WALLACH: How did I get to Gaza?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

DARLENE WALLACH: I was on the Liberty, one of the two boats that—one of the first two boats that went to Gaza from Cyprus. And I actually was with the Liberty on the way to Cyprus. And so, it was a wonderful trip. It was a wonderful boat. It was an amazing, amazing experience.

The welcome that we got in Gaza, it was just overwhelming. My emotions come up, because it was thousands of people just so happy to see, at least token-wise, symbolically, the siege broken. It was the first time in forty-one years that, from Cyprus, a stamp on a piece of paper said a boat was leaving Cyprus for Gaza. And it was like an amazing trip. And it’s been amazing to be in Gaza to work in solidarity with the Palestinians. They’re amazing, kind, warm, loving people. And I—for me, just being out on the fishing boats and the stress, I don’t understand how they can go out there day after day with the stress, knowing at any time they could be killed, that any time their boats could be taken, at any time they could be arrested or shot.

AMY GOODMAN: Darlene Wallach, I wanted to remind our listeners and viewers about these boats, that the one—one of them you describe, the Liberty, that’s challenging the blockade. We were able to reach people on the boat in the first trip that was coming over. We spoke to the former prime minister of Britain’s sister-in-law, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. We spoke to Jeff Halper, the Jewish Israeli who is challenging housing demolition. Mairead Maguire was on one of the trips; she is the Nobel Peace Prize-winner from Ireland. These are the boats that you’re describing that—not to be confused with the fishing boats, but are challenging the blockade.

DARLENE WALLACH: That’s correct. That’s correct.

So, I want to make sure that people understand, when they talk about the ceasefire, Israel has violated the ceasefire from day one; before it even was created, they were violating it. The ceasefire supposedly was going to lift the blockade and allow goods and services and food and fuel and that kind of thing, and Israel has never lifted that blockade.

Israel has violated the ceasefire every day by, when the fishermen go out to fish, Israel navy comes and shoots at the boats. They use high-pressure water power; they have a water cannon that they shoot at the boats that damages the boats, injures people. They’ve cut the cables. The fishermen have lost their fishing nets.

On a daily basis, the farmers who try to go out and farm their fields get attacked. So, Israel created this buffer zone, 300- to 500-meters wide, along the whole length of the Gaza Strip. And that was done around May 1st. And that was a desert area, that whole area, where they demolished all kinds of crops, homes, wells. And in the crops, it was like citrus, dates, olives. Any kind of crop they had, it was all demolished. And farmers now are trying to go back out and start, you know, planting their fields and being able to harvest their fields. And we’ve been accompanying them.

And even just standing out there in the fields, where it’s just farmers, obviously knowing with any kind of military—no militants, just farmers, just people trying to tend their fields—the Israeli military comes by in their jeeps and gets out and starts shooting. So we’re a presence to be witness to that. We’re a presence to make sure that people aren’t killed. And when they start shooting, we’re standing out in the fields with our florescent vests on, some of us. And we stand there until the Israeli military leaves. We don’t back off. When they start shooting, we stand in the fields and having the bullets, you know, come around us, over our heads or by our feet.

AMY GOODMAN: Darlene Wallach, are you beginning a hunger strike today at the jail?

DARLENE WALLACH: I actually started a hunger strike last night. I didn’t eat dinner. And for me, they had someone talk with me yesterday, and saying that they are not going to allow me to die. So I don’t know what that means. For me, I’m still in the prison, and I still have my cell phone. Andrew Muncie was taken into isolation today, and his phone was taken from him.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Darlene Wallach, for joining us, speaking to us—the name of the prison you’re in near Tel Aviv?

DARLENE WALLACH: I always forget the name of it. It starts with an “M.” And it’s a new prison. It’s a men’s prison, but within the men’s compound, they have a compound for women.

And I just want to make sure people know that this blockade on Gaza, this siege, is really, really horrendous, what it’s doing. I mean, the flour mills are having to shut—the last flour mill shut down, because there’s no fuel. I mean, if people can’t buy bread, what are they going to eat? This is very, very, very serious. There’s 500 students with scholarship that can’t get out to go continue their university education. And there’s 3,000 students that are accepted to universities, that they’re losing their administrative entrance into the universities, because Israel will not allow them out. And 258 people have died, because Israel refuses to let them out to get medical care. And this is [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: Darlene Wallach, I want to thank you for being with us. We’re going to turn next to the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who speaks about the blockade of Gaza. Darlene Wallach is speaking to us from the Masiyahu Prison near Tel Aviv. Again, executives from the Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, BBC, CNN and other news organizations have signed a letter criticizing the Israeli government’s decision to ban journalists from entering Gaza.

Comment:

The full video can be seen here at the Democracy Now site.

No idea however where did the Pakistani flag on the boat come from. Maybe they have a few helpers from Pakistan, Bosnia style.

PM Sister Letterhead?

2008-11-21T23:07:00.000+06:00

Comment:

Lots of leaks these days. Dirty tricks brigades out in full force. First Salman Taseer's family revelations, and now this.

No denying though that this is exactly how the PPP has delivered on its promise of Roti, Kapra aur Makan in the previous two terms after ZAB as well. Nothing new.

Salman Taseer Photos Controversy

2008-11-21T10:46:00.000+06:00

Comment:

Personally I don't find any of these photos objectionable. In fact, publishing the daughter's school sports activities and innocent clowning around is definitely below the belt even though she's in shorts and swimsuits and skirts. After all she studies in Lahore American School and brought up in a very westernized household. The dancing appears to be from a mehndi occasion - totally cultural.

The son's case does appear to be a bit different. He apparently is a playboy just as his father was and still is. Again, nothing wrong with that except using the Punjab Governor house for gathering bevies of star-eyed bunnies just as Kennedy used the White House? Don't think many people will take kindly to that.

However, how unfair these personal attacks may be, they do highlight the fact that entry into public office does mean loss of personal privacy. Salman Taseer would have been well-advised to keep his and his son's philandering and his open bottles of Black Label Scotch to his gigantic farmhouse outside Lahore, and not to bring these along to the Governor House chambers and lawns. That place holds a great deal of historical symbolism for the identity of the Punjab province.

Then, at a time when the country is mired in all sorts of crises, open displays of private merry-making by the rulers just reinforces the feeling that the governing elite doesn't care what goes on outside their well-guarded walls, as long as they continue to maintain their share in absolute terms from the ever shrinking pie, while the share of others' shrinks even further along with the size of the pie.

Last but not least, this is an Islamic country where attempts at 'enlightened moderation' have always backfired violently. These fires are better left unstoked.

2008-11-20T23:28:00.000+06:00

Faiza Dawood confronts Dir General ISPR on the Bannu strike:

2008-11-20T20:58:00.000+06:00

Focus With Faiza 19th November 2008

Comment:

Faiza was a real tigress in this one. Never seen her so angry. Really grilled Major General Athar Abbas, spokesman of the Pakistan Army!

She actually cornered him into admitting that helicopter incursions into Pakistani airspace were a different matter and not acceptable to the Military (which confirms the blog entry below), while unmanned drones strikes quite another which the Government may decide whether to allow or not.

I think that's a fair position on the part of the Army - though the public is hopping mad!

I don't know how far the Military will allow loss of its reputation and goodwill in the Pakistani people's eyes.

Re Mustafa Kamal - Can't believe Dawn did this:

2008-11-17T23:11:00.000+06:00

From FP Magazine:

Thank you for your email. Dawn has already published the following clarification:

Link: Dawn 13 November 2008

Still, it’s true that the newspaper has not published a correction or taken responsibility for incorrectly reporting the story.

Jina Hassan
Media & Public Relations Coordinator
FOREIGN POLICY magazine

Reply:

Dear Jina,

It appears Dawn published it in their online beta version on the new .net domain still under testing (to appease you) which no one reads, but not in their regular .com site, which is the same as the print edition. Quite smart on their part I guess.

Here're the links for the regular 13th November online version as well as the scanned print edition. One needs to register for the print edition and go to archives. The clarification doesn't appear on either.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/11/13/index.htm

http://epaper.dawn.com/

Sorry to nitpick about this, but it's become a huge controversy. FP may forget about it if it's too much trouble.

Regards

Comment:

No further comment is necessary I guess. Dawn would not want trouble showing up at its doors.

Drones can attack as long as they have a passport and a visa - II

2008-11-17T11:41:00.000+06:00

Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

Washington Post
Sunday, November 16, 2008

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries.

... more

Comment:

The Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman categorically denied the report in a special news conference held for the purpose yesterday, which leaves no doubt whatsoever that the report is entirely accurate.

Drones can attack as long as they have a passport and a visa - Zardari.

2008-11-15T11:19:00.000+06:00

(CBS) Pakistan accused the U.S. this week of violating international law by launching missile strikes into its northwest tribal region. There have been about two dozen attacks since August - all carried out by unmanned drones targeting al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is a sore subject between two close allies in the war on terror. And it was the first thing CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan brought up when she spoke exclusively with Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari.

Lara Logan: There's been a dramatic escalation in the number of U.S. predator strikes on Pakistani soil. Are these strikes achieving anything?

President Asif Ali Zardari: Well, obviously the people who are using the strikes are confident that they're doing something. Otherwise they wouldn't be at it. At the same time ... it's undermining my sovereignty and it's not helping win the war on the hearts and minds of people.

Logan: If you're losing the people and the strikes are undermining your credibility - why allow them?

Zardari: They do not happen with our knowledge. If there was now the technology that would tell me that their drone is coming in …

Logan: But that technology would be the U.S. informing you because it's your country.

Zardari: The U.S. yeah, of course, that would be a welcome step to inform us also.

Many believe the Pakistani government does know, but can't say so publicly because the strikes are so unpopular. Zardari told CBS News his official policy is that they'd rather have the capability to do it themselves.

Zardari: So that is ever the challenge for this new administration, will be to allow us to have the capability of doing more. We want to do more. It's our war.

But not all Pakistanis see it that way, and if Predator strikes are unpopular, ground raids by U.S. forces are even more unwelcome.

Zardari: Anybody who needs to come to Pakistan needs to have a passport and a visa. So whether it's ground forces or air forces they need a visa and if they don't have a visa they're not allowed.

The problem for President Zardari, who has only been in power for two months, is that he presides over a country which is believed to house more known terrorists than anywhere else in the world, operating mostly from the lawless tribal areas.

Logan: It's widely agreed today that if there's another 9/11 attack ... a big terrorist attack like that, its most likely going to be planned in the tribal areas or planned already. What can you do to assure American people about what you're doing?

Zardari: Well I can assure the American people that nothing like that is going to happen in my watch.

Logan: Do you believe that's a danger?

Zardari: I believe there's always a danger of them. I didn't know that they'd be successful in getting my wife. We thought we'd protect her but we couldn't. But to say we'd allow it to happen. No.

Comment:

Zardari seems to be completely losing it. Such gaffes are rare even by his standards. "... a welcome step to inform us also."?. "So whether it's ground forces or air forces they need a visa"?

So, it would be Ok if US informed Zardari before sending drones and obtained a visa to attack Pakistanis. This won't go down too well with the Pakistani public.

Lara Logan was smart and caught him with his pants down when he made the technology excuse and asked "But that technology would be the U.S. informing you because it's your country.". All he had to say was it would be a welcome step.

The truth is what David Ignatious said in conclusion in the Washington Times Op-Ed of 4th November A Quiet Deal With Pakistan:

"And it's an inherently unstable arrangement: Pakistan's leaders publicly decry U.S. attacks, and the United States, with a wink and a nudge to its ally, keeps on attacking. "

But what do the drones achieve? They get 2 or 3 militants and kill a dozen innocents at the same time. Most of the time not even those 2 or 3 but completely mis-intelligence directed at the totally innocent. All that achieves is more militant recruits.

Taliban and Al-Qaida (whatever that is) is not damaged in the least by these raids, rather benefited by increased sympathy. They don't mind losing 2 or three operatives every couple of days or so. Taliban has lost more than 25,000 fighters since the war began and still gained strength. CIA Director Michael Hayden says re Bin Ladin today "In fact, he appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he nominally heads," and this 'Al Qaeda' is still blowing up stuff in Pakistan (the last one being the Danish embassy bombing responsibility claimed by Al-Zawahiri personally).

Zardari is merely running around trying to charm the Americans with that sickening always present grin, as he is used to charming bimbos, but Americans are smarter than that. They know he's losing support fast in Pakistan, and will not back him much longer. Another failed experiment.

Anniversary of the Benazir 'Will'.

2008-11-15T07:51:00.000+06:00

“To the officials and members of Pakistan Peoples Party, I say that I was honoured to lead you. No leader could be so proud of their party, their dedication, devotion and discipline to the mission of Quaid-i-Awam Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for a federal democratic and egalitarian Pakistan as I have been proud of you.

“I salute your courage and your sense of honour. I salute you for standing by your sister through two military dictatorships.

“I fear for the future of Pakistan. Please continue the fight against extremism, dictatorship, poverty and ignorance. I would like my husband Asif Ali Zardari to lead in this interim period until you and he decided what is best. I say this because he is a man of courage and honour. He spent eleven and a half years in prison without bending despite torture. He has the political stature to keep our party united.

“I wish all of you success in fulfilling the manifesto of our party and in serving the downtrodden, discriminated and oppressed people of Pakistan. Dedicate yourself to freeing them from poverty and backwardness as you have done in the past.”

Signed, Benazir Bhutto.

(Highlights mine)

Comment:

"was; I have been":I haven't seen any person referring to oneself in the past tense while still alive writing a will.

"this interim period": What interim period? It could only be in case of a sudden death. It would not cover the possibility if she was incapacitated otherwise or died a natural death from terminal illness.

Did she write other wills to cover those possibilities? Or did she know there was only one possibility?

Now the fruit loop will argue "... she knew she was going to be assassinated ... she wrote it in a bout of depression and a sense of impending doom ... etc".

But she certainly didn't behave as if in depression or even aware of the very real danger. Underestimated it immensely. She actually thought she was under some divine protection emanating from her voters and no one could touch her. Even after the October 18 attack on her cavalcade, she foolishly continued to attend open rallies in false bravado.

This 'Will' was beyond doubt written posthumously. It plugs all the holes necessary to be plugged for smooth succession by her husband.

The anniversary of the 'will' should be celebrated as perhaps the biggest and most efficient scam of the history of the country, as well as the one which the most number of people fell for and continue to do.

Foreign Policy Magazine ranks Mustafa Kamal 2nd best Mayor in the world - Is this a joke?

2008-11-12T17:52:00.000+06:00

TR: Altaf Hussain, out of emotions, kissing Mustafa Kamal on the cheek for being ranked 2nd best Mayor in the world.

Foreign Policy Magazine - The 2008 Global Cities Index: The Rankings

Karachi is at No. 57 behind Dacca.

It appears where the No. 2 idea came from, was from the Mayors of the Moment mentioned by the same Magazine consisting of three names and acknowledging their potential. The Nos. 17, 57 and 59. The second mentioned is Mustafa Kamal.

Does this mean he has been ranked #2 Mayor in the world?

No innocent mistake here of-course. It is party policy to mislead.

Now people will hear this claim the rest of their lives along with the erstwhile claim that Karachi produces 70% of Pakistan's revenue. Most will even believe it.

Pakistani darhi wala ho ya clean shave, ander sey sab Taliban hain

2008-11-12T13:23:00.000+06:00

Comment:
Particularly now since they appear to have acquired brand new Humvees. I wonder if these have air conditioning? Probably.

Under attack in Helmand:

2008-11-08T18:17:00.000+06:00

Ben Anderson-BBC

Comment:

The Afghan National Army is pathetic. Watch episode 6 from 20:20 onwards which shows ANA soldiers getting high on opium during a break in the firefight - and the exit strategy of Nato depends on the same ANA holding the fort.

This is why the British Commander termed the war with Taliban 'unwinnable'.

They are just playing a cat & mouse game of attrition with Nato.

CIA Drones: The Game Is Falling Apart

2008-11-03T14:10:00.000+06:00

Ever wonder why American drones attacking Pakistan from Afghanistan are operated by CIA and not the U.S. military? Because the game has reached a dead end. CIA assets and agents inside Pakistani territory, like Baitullah Mehsud, have been beaten by the Pakistani military and are on the retreat, begging for a ceasefire. Seeing its assets vanish, CIA is flying drones to eliminate tribal leaders loyal to Pakistan. Our Foreign Office has admitted for the first time that Pak-American ties are at their worst. The U.S. war against Pakistan has already been launched, without declaration.

By ZAID HAMID, Sunday, 2 November 2008.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The CIA has now declared an aggressive but covert war against Pakistan in a desperate attempt to counter success of Pakistan army and Governor NWFP in countering CIA / RAW backed terrorist groups in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

For the first time, there is panic in Langley, CIA headquarters, over the success of Pakistani strategy in tribal areas. This may seem bizarre but this is the reality of the dirty game being played by the American spy agency. The CIA’s game is falling apart in tribal areas and they are getting more and more ruthless and sinister.

Before we get into the details, let us refresh what we wrote last week. It is all building up and now dots can be easily connected.

We had written:

On the western front, U.S. continues to create security issues for Pakistan. The U.S. strategy is strange to say the least if not downright sinister. Within Afghanistan, U.S. is involved in direct talks and dialogue with most hard core Taliban leaders. But in Pakistani tribal areas, where only the local Pakistan Taliban are based, U.S. wants Pakistan army to wage a full fledged war! The fact of the matter is that local Pakistani Taliban like Baitullah Mehsud or his likes are only fighting the State of Pakistan and NOT the Americans inside Afghanistan. In fact, there is clear evidence to suggest that U.S. and India are actually patronizing and protecting these terrorist assets operating against State of Pakistan. Also, these local Taliban or their allies are no threat to U.S. or its allies anywhere in the world. So, why is U.S. so keen to force Pakistan into a bloody war inside its own tribal areas? The reason is obvious – it is another chapter in CIA’s dirty war to create enough anarchy in Pakistan to justify its case against Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

It would be a tight balancing act for the army and ISI. They know the CIA game plan and have already been bitten seriously by their allies in this secret covert war against the State. Army was forced and then duped to fight a war which was not its own.

U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is NOT Pakistan’s war. The war by CIA’s backed militant assets against the State, army and ISI has been forced upon Pakistan due to U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The way to fight this war is NOT just to push it away from within but also to extinguish it from its source – the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It seems that while Pakistan fights local Taliban it will also have to confront U.S. on this fundamental issue.

For the past seven years, it is Pakistan which was taking the losses in the tribal areas while Indians and CIA, based in Afghanistan, created their own assets and ruthless militias to draw in and fight Pakistan into a protracted war within its own borders. While Pakistan took the losses, Indians and CIA were happy at supporting, funding and pushing more and more funds, explosives and equipment to their assets in the tribal areas. It was around 2005 when Pakistanis realized for the first time that it is being double-crossed by its allies in the name of war on terror and shifted gears to identify the “good Taliban” from the “bad Taliban”. It was quickly established that out of hundreds of small and large groups operating in the tribal areas, they can be safely classified into four categories.

1. Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbadin Hekmatyar. These are all Afghans and none of them have ever declared war against Pakistan despite some very harsh treatment meted out to them by Pakistan under Musharraf era.

2. The local “good Taliban” who were Pakistanis and had sympathies with Afghan Taliban but were not against the State of Pakistan and never wanted to fight the Pakistan army or the State. Peace deals were signed with Nek Muhemmed in south Waziristan, Mullah Nazir in south Waziristan and Haji Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan. CIA immediately eliminated Nek Muhammed to be replaced with one of their own assets Baitullah Mehsud!! That was the time when the CIA game was really exposed to ISI and Pakistani security establishment.

3. The “Bad Taliban”, CIA and RAW assets who were only fighting the State of Pakistan and not the U.S. inside Afghanistan. Baitullah Mehsud, Mullah Fadlullah and Lal Masjid brigade fell in this category. U.S. has never attacked Baitullah Mehsud even once and is protecting him with all its resources despite repeated requests by Pakistan to take out the most wanted terrorist.

4. Fourth category of militants were local brigands, gangsters, criminals and highway men who were exploiting the local environment and made their own gangs in the name of Taliban but were neither fighting the Americans nor wished to face Pakistan army. They just harassed local population and fought sectarian wars within. Mangal Bagh near Peshawar is one such case to be noted. It was this Mangal Bagh who was presented by our media as someone about to capture Peshawar. Which is funny and naïve.

In the last one year or so, Pakistan has signed multiple peace deals with “Good Taliban”, isolated the bad guys and finally has struck the “Bad Taliban” very hard. This has brought the entire axis of CIA-backed militants under severe pressure from two sides. Loyalist tribes and militants are now also attacking and isolating anti-Pakistan militants and for the first time, the TTP, the so-called ‘Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’, the terrorist setup run by Baitullah Mehsud, is taking most severe beating. Baitullah’s own brother has been killed and their allies in Khar are considering surrender. Local tribes are now up in arms against them and the tide is finally turning in Pakistan’s favor.

Comment:

I had always subscribed to the good Taliban/Bad Taliban theory, but had disagreed with Zaid Hamid's categorization regarding Baitullah Mehsud as one of the bad Taliban. My reasoning was that Baitullah Mehsud was a direct successor of Nek Muhammad and later Abdullah Mehsud, both of whom were only fighting Nato in Afghanistan and not the Pakistani state (Peace Deals), and were assassinated by US inside Pakistan territory using drones. Why would the followers of his predecessors join him and accept Baitullah as their leader if he was any different?

However, several questions have arisen since then. As Zaid Hamid states, Baitullah Mehsud is indeed fighting the Pakistani state currently rather than in Afghanistan. His strongholds in Souh Waziristan have never been attacked by US drones, but rather his rival Mullah Nazir's are regularly attacked in North Waziristan who is fighting Nato and not the Pakistani state. The most recent attack on him was jut two days ago in which he is reported severely wounded. Conversely, Mullah Nazir is an ally of Pakistan Army, and no operations are carried out against him but against Baitullah Mehsud's positions around FATA.

It certainly appears Nato/CIA's foes within Taliban are friends of Pakistan. Nato/CIA are killing our Taliban friends with drones, and we're fighting their Taliban friends through military operations.

The theory of CIA running drone operations instead of Centcom makes sense too. It wasn't too long ago that the Head of Centcom visited Pakistan and pledged no further incursions into Pakistan territory (after the household massacre by US special forces in Angoor Adda - also Mullah Nazir territory), and there was a drone attack the very next day killing dozens in the same territory.

The theory of involvement of RAW and Mossad though doesn't make sense. RAW is not known to have the capacity to undertake operations of this magnitude in Pakistan - just a few Kashmir Singh style bombings, while Israel was being befriended by Musharraf who was on the verge of accepting Israel at one point. Israel would have no incentive in upsetting the applecart with such games in Pakistan's Tribal Areas. Their main concern is Iran, not Pakistan which is no threat to it.

As far as India is concerned, it's foreign policy is a scavenger policy i.e. they expect their neo-con and zionist friends to beat up Pakistan, and scavenge upon what remains. Only CIA has something to gain from destabilizing Pakistan i.e. to denuclearize and undermine its army.

Therefore, I regard this part of Zaid Hamid's analysis as exaggeration, and a progression of his thesis re Hindu Zionism and Jew Zionism.

Should Pakistan Default?

2008-11-02T10:54:00.000+06:00

The article below was originally published in The News recently, and has since appeared in several places on the web and the blogosphere and seems to have gathered some sort of a cult-following. Here, we examine some of the assertions.

Forget IMF, Pakistan Should Default

(Foreword by WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM: This is serious. If you know President Zardari, please take this article to him. Pakistan does not have to go to IMF and we do not have to service debt. This is an opportunity to spend our money rebuilding our economy and nation. Pakistan is trying to avoid defaulting so that the PPP government can stay in power, and so that while it stays in power, it can continue to borrow money. The real question here is: where is all the money going and why does Pakistan need to keep borrowing it? Let’s tighten our belts and spend the money we have to make a pro-Pakistan trade policy and creatively market Pakistan. Please don’t go to IMF. Please default. South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia have done it. They have survived. So can we.)

By MOSHARRAF ZAIDI, Tuesday, 28 October 2008.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan is not going to default, because nobody will let it. That's too bad. Don't let the "economists" scare you. Default sounds like a dark, scary, doomsday scenario. Sovereign default sounds worse, like God's curse itself.

It is not.

"Sovereign" is the fancy term for country, used by the same loan sharks that milk pensioners to fatten their year-end bonuses (and who brought you Wall Street Meltdown 2008). Sovereign default is simply a country not making its loan repayments on time. It has happened to plenty of countries. They are all still around.

Ex-bankers and former IMF employees will never advise Pakistan to default because to do so would be counter-intuitive. It would be like expecting the PPP to undertake land reforms, or the Jamaat-e-Islami to be consistent about anything.

Advising Pakistan to default would represent an existential crisis worse than sovereign default. People would be forced to revisit the premise of their entire careers. We can't have that. So instead, we have experts from all around the world wringing their hands, loosening their ties and extolling the virtues of the "bitter pill" of yet another IMF program. The purpose? To avoid the "dreaded" default, at all costs.

Why is default such a "scary" thing, and why do countries go to extraordinary lengths to avoid default?

Countries try to avoid default for four reasons:

1. First, countries try to avoid default to save the country's reputation as a borrower in good standing—which means that they want to continue to borrow at rates that are favorable to them.

2. Second, countries try to avoid default to save their ability to participate in international trade freely—which means they fear having sanctions imposed on them for being poor managers of their affairs.

3. Third, countries try to avoid default to protect domestic banking and financial system—which means in essence that they want to protect the rich, because there aren't many poor folks with bank accounts.

4. And finally, the fourth reason countries try to avoid default is to save the government of the day from the disgrace of having defaulted.

Eduardo Borensztein and Ugo Panizza published an IMF working paper earlier this month that exposes one of the worst kept secrets in international development. They conclude that among all four of these reasons to avoid default, the most compelling, based on the evidence, is politics. They conclude that "The political consequences of a debt crisis seem to be particularly dire for incumbent governments and finance ministers".

In short, governments choose not to default because it is the politically expedient thing to do. The actual economic costs of defaulting, Borenzstein and Panizza conclude, are simply not that high. Moreover, another paper earlier this year (by yet another IMF economist, Ali Alichi), suggests that the only real reason that countries repay the sovereign debt that they owe is to continue to be able to borrow money.

In short, Pakistan is trying to avoid defaulting so that the PPP government can stay in power, and so that while it stays in power, it can continue to borrow money. The real question here is: where is all the money going and why does Pakistan need to keep borrowing it?

Most of the money is going to debt-servicing and to defense. The traditional response to unsustainable expenditure in Pakistan is to call for a cut in defense spending, while continuing to find a way to pay off Pakistan's loans. No one ever actually explains what they mean by cutting defense spending, which is why the conversation begins with a request to cut the defense budget, wanders into the patriotism of those demanding the cut, and ends with a straight-faced refusal.

No one expects Pakistan to compromise its national security, but it is not unreasonable to explore more efficient ways of securing the nation and the national interest. Far from a national conversation about spending priorities however, no one has gone so far as to even suggest a more traditional and hawkish view, for example, that the war on terror being waged by Pakistan's soldiers needs all the financing it can get, and that Pakistan's debtors will have to wait. An even more refreshing case to make would be to suggest that both debt servicing and national security are major drags on current and future generations, and that they represent much lower priorities than building infrastructure, fixing the police and delivering real education. What would a Pakistani government that was committed to those priorities look like?

For starters it would:

1. Stop hiring poorly qualified political workers to stack the deck for future election campaigns. Forget hiring another ten thousand jiyalas as teachers, to ruin another generation of children. Let's face it, Pakistan cannot grow teachers on trees, it doesn't have any teachers. It has to go out and hire the best Indonesian, Turkish, and Korean teachers. It has to bring them to Pakistan and put them to work. Pay them real salaries.

2. Hire the Emiratis that have designed Sheikh Mohammad's infrastructure revolution to do the same thing to Karachi.

3. Then go out and hire every willing CBM, FAST, GIKI, and IBA graduate out there, and make cops and municipal administrators out of them. Take ten of those supercops, give them Blackberrys, night-vision goggles, Humvees and some ammo and put them outside every school. Forget the entourages. Protect the schools.

4. Take the municipal administrators and tell them to get running water to those schools. If there's no well, and no groundwater, teach them how to negotiate deals, so they can buy truckloads of mineral water for the students, and their mothers. Get those kids and their families some clean water.

5. Make sure there are nurses and doctors at each school. Pay every Aga Khan University Medical School graduate twice what they would make as residents at Mount Sinai or Beth Israel.

6. Teach the kids their native languages, drop the grammatically dreadful and aesthetically murderous fake American accents and bring back the Pakistani accent to film, television, radio and to dinner parties.

That's the kind of expenditure that would explain indebting future generations of Pakistanis. It would explain deepening the pool of debt that Pakistan is drowning in. It would explain the helplessness currently being feigned by economic and political policy makers. In short, if Pakistan was borrowing money to pay for this kind of a social program, it would be hard to argue against it.

Instead, Pakistan is borrowing money to throw it into the same black hole that the money has been going into for at least a generation now. What has Pakistan got to show for almost forty years of sustained debt growth? Illiterate fanatics who can't pronounce the name of God are taking over Swat because the courts don't work. Drug lords and criminals posing as religious vigilantes are taking over NWFP because the cops don't work, can't work, and aren't allowed to work. The water in the taps all over the country is toxic. The teachers at the school can barely read. The ones that can spend more time in Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi, at the civil secretariat looking for a transfer, than teaching their students whatever little they know. The students are at home watching Sanju Baba kill bad guys, and Jon Abraham seduce bad girls. The mullahs are making speeches they don't understand, to crowds that aren't listening, until they bring on the hate. Then everybody listens. The uncles and aunties think cheap Broadway rip-offs with racy costumes constitute a culture renaissance. Little girls in rural Pakistan meanwhile are being traded by remorseless jirgas, in the name of honor. The culture vultures hate Arabic, love Punjabi, and are addicted to broken English. The hawks want beef, the doves want bhindi. And bankers want to loan Pakistan more money to finance the whole rot all over again.

It's time for Pakistan to start spending its money on people servicing, instead of debt servicing. Bigger and more successful countries have done this before including Indonesia, Russia, and Argentina. Pakistan loves to ape other countries. Now is its chance. Time to default.

The original version of this article first appeared in The News International. The writer is an independent political economist. Email: mosharraf@gmail.com

© 2007-2008. All rights reserved. The News International & AhmedQuraishi.com. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Comment:

For analysis, default on Foreign Debt must be subdivided into that on bonds issued by it, or foreign commercial bank debt, or that of bilateral &/or multilateral International Financial Institutions (IFIs), or any combination of the above.

The consequences of a sovereign default on foreign debt of any kind would depend upon the reason for doing it in the first place - the "Inability to repay", or the "Unwillingness to repay".

The author mentions defaults of South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. All of these were foreign bank defaults (not bonds or IFIs) from 1998 to early 2000s due to an inability to repay after the far-eastern currency crisis, and lasted for 1-2 years at most.

Pakistan too has defaulted both on foreign bank debt as well as its foreign bonds between 1998-1999 after the nuclear tests - but soon began repayments. The freeze on foreign currency accounts was also a default of sorts, though of yet another type which was unilateral restructuring of on-demand domestic Govt FX liability into a long-term liability. Borensztein and Panizza quoted by the author were referring to this kind of default in their IMF paper - "Inability to repay".

Default due to "Unwillingness to repay" is however quite a different story. To illustrate this type of default, the examples of South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia are not relevant.

There have been few defaults of this nature, mostly during the South American debt crisis of the 1970s/80s which were eventually resolved through debt-equity conversions and write offs by foreign lenders. Peru was perhaps the most extreme case in South America which defaulted on IFIs alongwith commercial banks and its bonds.

None of these, though, defaulted on foreign trade obligations. Nigeria was the only one which did on that too alongwith all other types - with disastrous results and had to suffer the most severe consequences i.e. complete collapse - despite its considerable oil wealth.

I suspect the author in this article advocates the latter type of default i.e. due to "Unwillingness to repay", of a kind more like Peru while not going to the extent of Nigeria.

This kind of default, in addition to collapse of the domestic financial sector, renders the local currency worthless due to capital flight and hyperinflation, turns the entire economy into a cash economy with no formal credit of any sort, all imports of essentials need to be via hard currency in cash including oil since letters of credit are not accepted abroad, assets abroad including ships and aircraft at foreign ports are seized - basically total anarchy with an economy of carpetbaggers, smugglers, and bootleggers for needed foreign goods.

If the Government tries to counter this with printing currency for subsidies etc for an impoverished population, the hyperinflation is fueled further and turns into a vicious circle almost impossible to break. The Weimar Republic of 1923 is an example with housewives burning currency notes for firewood (above right), and money carted around in wheelbarrows (below).

In societies already fractious such as Pakistan, as was the case in former Yugoslavia, this often results in civil strife, war, disintegration, or rise of a Hitler as in case of Germany's Weimar Republic of 1923.

I'm sure the author would not like this to happen. We need to be very cautious when talking about Sovereign Default.

Lt. Gen Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani (r) July 1928 - 1 Nov 2008

2008-11-01T14:31:00.000+06:00

God Bless, and R.I.P.

The landmark Geo interview of the ex-Corps Commander of Rawalpindi, dated 2nd June 2008, in which he made important revelations which started the landslide pressure on Musharraf's impeachment, ultimately forcing Musharraf to resign in August.

Host: Shahid Masood
Guest: Lt.Gen (r) Jamshed Gulzar Ahmed Kiyani

Comment:
The major revelations were:

- Musharraf kept the Prime Minister of the time, Nawaz Sharif alongwith the entire Federal Cabinet out of the loop on Kargil, and the briefings were superficial not giving the whole story. The questions raised by important functionaries including the then Foreign Minister, Sartaj Aziz, were never answered in the briefings. Even the Naval Commander was left uninformed of details of the plan.

- The subsequent hijacking case resulting in removal of elected Government of Nawaz Sharif was no more than a 'story', and hinted the plane in question was a chartered one - not a commercial flight, and with no fare-paying passengers in it.

- That White-Phosphorous bombs were dropped on Jamia/Hafsa, containing chemical pellets which stick to the flesh and burn through to the bone.*

- That as Chairman of the Public Service Commission (after retirement), he was under pressure to hire nominees of Shaukat Aziz. When he insisted on merit, he was asked to resign but refused. For that he was dismissed and appealed to the Supreme Court, where his case is still pending.

*Later there was criticism he was wrong and didn't know the difference between harmless smoke bombs and chemical weapons.

The counter-criticism however was that if an infantry officer was promoted all the way to Lt. General without knowing that difference, and later made Corps Commander of strategically the most important Corps in the country, that would raise very serious doubts on the entire military establishment of the Pakistan Army. That immediately quietened the objections towards Gen Kiyani's statement.

2008-10-30T16:48:00.000+06:00

FIA finds foreigners were the target at Marriott

Thursday, October 30, 2008 - By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The authorities have identified the mastermind of the Marriott terrorist attack and have arrested some of his key accomplices, who have confirmed that the target of the deadly assault was the foreigners staying at the hotel.

The attackers reportedly belonged to Al-Badar, Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi while the mastermind is a resident of Peshawar. So far the authorities do not have evidence of the involvement of al-Qaeda or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the attack that killed more than 70, including four foreigners.

When approached, the DG Federal Investigations Agency Tariq Pervaiz, who is also the head of the joint investigation team probing the Marriott attack, confirmed to The News that the case had been solved.

He also admitted that it was also established that the target of the attack was foreigners staying at the Marriott. A senior Interior Ministry source also confided to this correspondent that the government had already been conveyed that the Marriott was chosen as the target for the worst ever suicide attack in the federal capital because of the presence of foreigners.

The investigations have rejected all the claims made by different government high-ups that the target of the attack was the political leadership of the country, the Parliament House or the Prime Minister House.

It was found in the probe that the mastermind of the terrorist attack, still at large, was a chemical engineer and resident of Peshawar. He belongs to Al-Badar group and executed his deadly plan with the participation of activists of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The DG FIA when asked also confirmed these facts, adding that the arrest of the mastermind and one of his key facilitators from Faisalabad would possibly reveal more facts. Tariq Pervaiz was hesitant to disclose the names of the mastermind and his key facilitator for the reason that it might delay their arrest. He, however, hinted that in the near future the government might announce head money to apprehend them.

Amongst those already arrested include a medical doctor, Usman, from a leading private hospital of Islamabad who was privy to the whole terrorist plot. The probe revealed that the deadly truck carrying explosive and driven by the suicide bomber, used the Margalla Road to reach the Constitution Avenue from where it took a right turn to hit the Marriott Hotel. The mastermind, riding in a red Toyota Vitz, piloted the suicide truck till the fatal vehicle took the right turn.

It was also learnt that the mastermind and some of his key facilitators were regular visitors to the Marriott Hotel where they had occasionally observed the presence of foreigners. A source said that even on the day of the attack, one of the collaborators visited the Marriott and reconfirmed the presence of foreigners. The authorities have established that the cause of the attack was the presence of foreign nationals.

Comment:

Confirmation of how it's not one war, but several at the same time, and policy makers must make a distinction between who to go after and with whom to reconcile, instead of clubbing them all together in their notion 'It's our war'.

It may be 'Our War', but against whom? That remains unclear.

Comment from an earlier blog dated September 12, 2008:

"...the sectarian militias operating in Pakistan i.e. the Kurram Agency Sunni Vs Shia lashkars, Mangal Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam Vs the Barelvi Ansar-ul-Islam in Khyber Agency, the Punjabi Lashkar-e-Jhangvi / Sipah-e-Suhaba are Takfiri groups whom consider each other Kafirs - while the Afghan/Pakistan tribal militias plus the Arabs/Uzbeks operating in Afghanistan are Salafis Vs foreigners whom they consider 'Kafir' crusaders."

We must make a distinction between which ones are only interested in fighting Nato in Afghanistan, and which ones are only interested in anarchy in Pakistan, using the umbrella of the convenient label 'Taliban'.

Most Wanted for whatever. A War with no Rules

2008-10-27T12:20:00.000+06:00

Our comrade and friend Zeemax has drawn a fine distinction about UBLs not being indicted for 9/11.While theoretically sound this fine distinction is unfortunately no longer relevant .Why someone may ask ?

Although the USA was no guardian of liberty or human rights from 1941 till 2003 it did stand for something or some power fighting for some idealistic and some right causes albeit partially.International law as it was created in the aftermath of WW Two had a system in the form of the UN ,however imperfect,with shamelessly opportunistic and intellectually dishonest characters like Kofi Annan.

When the USA attacked Iraq however ,it lost all the high moral ground , however controversial with all the imperial faux pas of the CIA , that it had held since 1945.The US attack on Iraq represented the beginning of a great divide in international law.Unilateral action in an arbitrary manner disregard all previously accepted international rules of the game,ironically framed by various nations with the USA as a key actor ! The open adoption of the modus operandi at the state level that whichever state is stronger,allows this state to attack at will any weaker state and occupy it ! With lackeys like Blair,an apology of whatever good Britain had produced , shamelessly following the Bush regime,the USA attacked and occupied Iraq.The fact that Bush acted in the best national interest of USA is relative but cannot be debated seriously ! It was the decision of a commander in chief taken according to his best judgement ! The fact that the CIA shamelessly fabricated lies about WMDs and the fact that so called political giants like Colin Powell did not exhibit any intellectual honesty in differing with his commander in chief ! That reduced this giant to a pygmy at least in terms of intellectual honesty ! No US general resigned as a matter of conscience over the pedantic and highly incompetent troop assessments of characters like Rumsfeld who knew th division of battle less than a spinster !

We are not debating the fact that the Iraq war was a " just war" or " an unjust war".We are merely stating the fact that USA's unilateral and arbitrary action in attacking Iraq demolished " all ethics from international law". Now the rule was and remains so that whoever is stronger can attack the weaker party.As a matter of fact the US attack on Iraq falls in a category worse than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan of 1979 .This is because the USSR had a valid treaty with the defacto government of Afghanistan ,while US action was based totally on the fact that might is right ! And the USA had moral poodles like Blair !

The rule of international relations since 2003 is that " Might is Right" .Thats the way th USA demonstrated to the world.Now any state actor or non state actor can follow this rule.Morality if any was removed from international relations in 2003.

Ironically the US attack on Iraq , damaged USA ,severely in long term strategic terms.A honogenuous Shia block was created from Hazarajat in Afghanistan to the coast of Mediterranean in Lebanon.The USA was caught in a strategic quagmire in Iraq which is being exploited by USA's enemies,both state and non state actors and the end is nowhere in site in Iraq.

The conclusion is that there were never no rules in war .And whatever rules existed in international relations were demolished by the USA when it attacked Iraq.Now when Russia attacks Georgia ,its the Bush doctrine,when China attacks Taiwan,it will be the Bush doctrine.When India attacks Pakistan it would be Bush doctrine.No one , no US president would be unable to undo this transformation.

The future wars will be a complex mix of state and non state actors.They will have absolutely no rules of any sort.No place will be sacred.Everyone will be a target.The combatants will have no uniforms.An age of barbarism was introduced in international relations in 2003 .The age of strategic anarchy as I termed it in 2003 will continue till the day of doom ! A good past time for all students of strategy and military history to blog about !

I am not a religious man , but all that the USA did in 2003 is sacrilege and a blasphemy against international law even when judged and viewed by a totally secular and agnostic man like this scribe !

Usama Bin ladin most wanted for murder of US nationals outside the United States? But I thought WTC was in New York inside the United States:

2008-10-25T17:37:00.000+06:00

MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH

USAMA BIN LADEN

Aliases: Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, The Prince, The Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, The Director

DESCRIPTION

Date of Birth Used: 1957 Hair: Brown
Place of Birth: Saudi Arabia Eyes: Brown
Height: 6'4" to 6'6" Sex: Male
Weight: Approximately 160 pounds Complexion: Olive
Build: Thin Citizenship: Saudi Arabian
Language: Arabic (probably Pashtu)
Scars and Marks: None known
Remarks: Bin Laden is left-handed and walks with a cane.

CAUTION

Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.

REWARD

The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin Laden. An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.

Comment:

This is the page on Usama Bin Ladin on the FBI's most wanted site as of today. The link is Here.

When inquired by the 9/11 Truth Commission re why Usama Bin Ladin is not wanted for 9/11? FBI replied because he has not been indicted for 9/11 and there is not enough evidence to make him wanted for that.

Daughter (in law?) of the West:

2008-10-23T19:16:00.000+06:00

... some excerpts

Daughter of the West
Tariq Ali

Arranged marriages can be a messy business. Designed principally as a means of accumulating wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or transcending clandestine love affairs, they often don’t work. Where both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitized by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence. That this is equally true in political life became clear in the recent attempt by Washington to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf.

The single, strong parent in this case was a desperate State Department – with John Negroponte as the ghoulish go-between and Gordon Brown as the blushing bridesmaid – fearful that if it did not push this through both parties might soon be too old for recycling. The bride was certainly in a hurry, the groom less so. Brokers from both sides engaged in lengthy negotiations on the size of the dowry. Her broker was and remains Rehman Malik, a former boss of Pakistan’s FIA, who has been investigated for corruption by the National Accountability Bureau and who served nearly a year in prison after Benazir’s fall, then became one of her business partners and is currently under investigation (with her) by a Spanish court looking into a company called Petroline FZC, which made questionable payments to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Documents, if genuine, show that she chaired the company. She may have been in a hurry but she did not wish to be seen taking the arm of a uniformed president. He was not prepared to forgive her past. The couple’s distaste for each other yielded to a mutual dependence on the United States. Neither party could say ‘no’, though Musharraf hoped the union could be effected inconspicuously. Fat chance.

Both parties made concessions. She agreed that he could take off his uniform after his ‘re-election’ by Parliament, but it had to be before the next general election. (He has now done this, leaving himself dependent on the goodwill of his successor as army chief of staff.) He pushed through a legal ruling – yet another sordid first in the country’s history – known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, which withdrew all cases of corruption pending against politicians accused of looting the national treasury. The ruling was crucial for her since she hoped that the money-laundering and corruption cases pending in three European courts – in Valencia, Geneva and London – would now be dismissed. This doesn’t seem to have happened.

Many Pakistanis – not just the mutinous and mischievous types who have to be locked up at regular intervals – were repelled, and coverage of ‘the deal’ in the Pakistan media was universally hostile, except on state television. The ‘breakthrough’ was loudly trumpeted in the West, however, and a whitewashed Benazir Bhutto was presented on US networks and BBC TV news as the champion of Pakistani democracy – reporters loyally referred to her as ‘the former prime minister’ rather than the fugitive politician facing corruption charges in several countries.

She had returned the favour in advance by expressing sympathy for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lunching with the Israeli ambassador to the UN (a litmus test) and pledging to ‘wipe out terrorism’ in her own country. In 1979 a previous military dictator had bumped off her father with Washington’s approval, and perhaps she thought it would be safer to seek permanent shelter underneath the imperial umbrella. Harper Collins had paid her half a million dollars to write a new book. The working title she chose was ‘Reconciliation’.

As for the general, he had begun his period in office in 1999 by bowing to the spirit of the age and titling himself ‘chief executive’ rather than ‘chief martial law administrator’, which had been the norm. Like his predecessors, he promised he would stay in power only for a limited period, pledging in 2003 to resign as army chief of staff in 2004. Like his predecessors, he ignored his pledge. Martial law always begins with the promise of a new order that will sweep away the filth and corruption that marked the old one: in this case it toppled the civilian administrations of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. But ‘new orders’ are not forward movements, more military detours that further weaken the shaky foundations of a country and its institutions. Within a decade the uniformed ruler will be overtaken by a new upheaval.

Dreaming of her glory days in the last century, Benazir wanted a large reception on her return. The general was unhappy. The intelligence agencies (as well as her own security advisers) warned her of the dangers. She had declared war on the terrorists and they had threatened to kill her. But she was adamant. She wanted to demonstrate her popularity to the world and to her political rivals, including those inside her own fiefdom, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). For a whole month before she boarded the Dubai-Karachi flight, the PPP were busy recruiting volunteers from all over the country to welcome her. Up to 200,000 people lined the streets, but it was a far cry from the million who turned up in Lahore in 1986 when a very different Benazir returned to challenge General Zia ul-Haq. The plan had been to move slowly in the Bhuttomobile from Karachi airport to the tomb of the country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, where she would make a speech. It was not to be. As darkness fell, the bombers struck. Who they were and who sent them remains a mystery. She was unhurt, but 130 people died, including some of the policemen guarding her. The wedding reception had led to mayhem.

The general, while promising to collaborate with Benazir, was coolly making arrangements to prolong his own stay at President’s House. Even before her arrival he had considered taking drastic action to dodge the obstacles that stood in his way, but his generals (and the US Embassy) seemed unconvinced. The bombing of Benazir’s cavalcade reopened the debate. Pakistan, if not exactly the erupting volcano portrayed in the Western media, was being shaken by all sorts of explosions. The legal profession, up in arms at Musharraf’s recent dismissal of the chief justice, had won a temporary victory, resulting in a fiercely independent Supreme Court. The independent TV networks continued to broadcast reports that challenged official propaganda. Investigative journalism is never popular with governments and the general often contrasted the deference with which he was treated by the US networks and BBC television with the ‘unruly’ questioning inflicted on him by local journalists: it ‘misled the people’. He had become obsessed with the media coverage of the lawyers’ revolt. A decline in his popularity increased the paranoia. His advisers were people he had promoted. Generals who had expressed divergent opinions in ‘frank and informal get-togethers’ had been retired. His political allies were worried that their opportunities to enrich themselves even further would be curtailed if they had to share power with Benazir.

What if the Supreme Court were now to declare his re-election by a dying and unrepresentative assembly illegal? To ward off disaster, the ISI had been preparing blackmail flicks: agents secretly filmed some of the Supreme Court judges in flagrante. But so unpopular had Musharraf become that even the sight of judicial venerables in bed might not have done the trick. It might even have increased their support. (In 1968, when a right-wing, pro-military rag in Lahore published an attack on me, it revealed that I ‘had attended sex orgies in a French country house organised by [my] friend, the Jew Cohn-Bendit. All the fifty women in the swimming-pool were Jewish.’ Alas, this was totally false, but my parents were amazed at the number of people who congratulated them on my virility.) Musharraf decided that blackmail wasn’t worth the risk. Only firm action could ‘restore order’ – i.e. save his skin. The usual treatment in these cases is a declaration of martial law. But what if the country is already being governed by the army chief of staff? The solution is simple. Treble the dose. Organise a coup within a coup. That is what Musharraf decided to do. Washington was informed a few weeks in advance, Downing Street somewhat later. Benazir’s patrons in the West told her what was about to happen and she, foolishly for a political leader who has just returned to her country, evacuated to Dubai.

On 3 November Musharraf, as chief of the army, suspended the 1973 constitution and imposed a state of emergency: all non-government TV channels were taken off the air, the mobile phone networks were jammed, paramilitary units surrounded the Supreme Court. The chief justice convened an emergency bench of judges, who – heroically – declared the new dispensation ‘illegal and unconstitutional’. They were unceremoniously removed and put under house arrest. Pakistan’s judges have usually been acquiescent. Those who in the past resisted military leaders were soon bullied out of it, so the decision of this chief justice took the country by surprise and won him great admiration. Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country of generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics: the struggle to reinstate the chief justice had presented a different picture.

Aitzaz Ahsan, a prominent member of the PPP, minister of the interior in Benazir’s first government and currently president of the Bar Association, was arrested and placed in solitary confinement. Several thousand political and civil rights activists were picked up. Imran Khan, a fierce and incorruptible opponent of the regime, was arrested, charged with ‘state terrorism’ – for which the penalty is death or life imprisonment – and taken in handcuffs to a remote high-security prison. Musharraf, Khan argued, had begun yet another shabby chapter in Pakistan’s history.

Lawyers were arrested all over the country; many were physically attacked by policemen. Humiliate them was the order, and the police obliged. A lawyer, ‘Omar’, circulated an account of what happened:

While I was standing talking to my colleagues, we saw the police go wild on the orders of a superior officer. In riot gear . . . brandishing weapons and sticks, about a hundred policemen attacked us . . . and seemed intensely happy at doing so. We all ran.

Some of us who were not as nimble on their feet as others were caught by the police and beaten mercilessly. We were then locked in police vans used to transport convicted prisoners. Everyone was stunned at this show of brute force but it did not end. The police went on mayhem inside the court premises and court buildings . . . Those of us who were arrested were taken to various police stations and put in lockups. At midnight, we were told that we were being shifted to jail. We could not get bail as our fundamental rights were suspended. Sixty lawyers were put into a police van ten feet by four feet wide and five feet in height. We were squashed like sardines. When the van reached the jail, we were told that we could not get [out] until orders of our detention were received by the jail authorities. Our older colleagues started to suffocate, some fainted, others started to panic because of claustrophobia. The police ignored our screams and refused to open the van doors. Finally, after three hours . . . we were let out and taken to mosquito-infected barracks where the food given to us smelled like sewage water.

Geo, the largest TV network, had long since located its broadcasting facilities in Dubai. It was a strange sensation watching the network in London when the screens were blank in Pakistan. On the very first day of the emergency I saw Hamid Mir, a journalist loathed by the general, reporting from Islamabad and asserting that the US Embassy had given the green light to the coup because it regarded the chief justice as a nuisance and wrongly believed him to be ‘a Taliban sympathiser’. Certainly no US spokesperson or State Department adjunct in the Foreign Office criticised the dismissal of the eight Supreme Court judges or their arrest: that was the quid pro quo for Washington’s insistence that Musharraf take off his uniform. If he was going to turn civilian he wanted all the other rules twisted in his favour. A newly appointed stooge Supreme Court would soon help him with the rule-bending. As would the authorities in Dubai, who suspended Geo’s facilities.

In the evening of that first day, and after several delays, a flustered General Musharraf, his hair badly dyed, appeared on TV, trying to look like the sort of leader who wants it understood that the political crisis is to be discussed with gravity and sangfroid. Instead, he came across as a dumbed down dictator fearful for his own political future. His performance as he broadcast to the nation, first in Urdu and then in English, was incoherent. The gist was simple: he had to act because the Supreme Court had ‘so demoralised our state agencies that we can’t fight the “war on terror”’ and the TV networks had become ‘totally irresponsible’. ‘I have imposed emergency,’ he said halfway through his diatribe, adding, with a contemptuous gesture: ‘You must have seen it on TV.’ Was he being sarcastic, given that most channels had been shut down? Who knows? Mohammed Hanif, the sharp-witted head of the BBC’s Urdu Service, which monitored the broadcast, confessed himself flummoxed when he wrote up what he heard. He had no doubt that the Urdu version of the speech was the general’s own work. Hanif’s deconstruction – he quoted the general in Urdu and in English – deserved a broadcast all of its own:

Here are some random things he said. And trust me, these things were said quite randomly. Yes, he did say: ‘Extremism bahut extreme ho gaya hai [extremism has become too extreme] . . . Nobody is scared of us anymore . . . Islamabad is full of extremists . . . There is a government within government . . . Officials are being asked to the courts . . . Officials are being insulted by the judiciary.’

At one point he appeared wistful when reminiscing about his first three years in power: ‘I had total control.’ You were almost tempted to ask: ‘What happened then, uncle?’ But obviously, uncle didn’t need any prompting. He launched into his routine about three stages of democracy. He claimed he was about to launch the third and final phase of democracy (the way he said it, he managed to make it sound like the Final Solution). And just when you thought he was about to make his point, he took an abrupt turn and plunged into a deep pool of self-pity. This involved a long-winded anecdote about how the Supreme Court judges would rather attend a colleague’s daughter’s wedding than just get it over with and decide that he is a constitutional president . . . I have heard some dictators’ speeches in my life, but nobody has gone so far as to mention someone’s daughter’s wedding as a reason for imposing martial law on the country.

When for the last few minutes of his speech he addressed his audience in the West in English, I suddenly felt a deep sense of humiliation. This part of his speech was scripted. Sentences began and ended. I felt humiliated that my president not only thinks that we are not evolved enough for things like democracy and human rights, but that we can’t even handle proper syntax and grammar.

The English-language version put the emphasis on the ‘war on terror’: Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln, he said, would have done what he did to preserve the ‘integrity of their country’ – the mention of Lincoln was obviously intended for the US market. In Pakistan’s military academies the usual soldier-heroes are Napoleon, De Gaulle and Atatürk.

What did Benazir, now outmanoeuvred, make of the speech as she watched it on TV in her Dubai sanctuary? Her first response was to say she was shocked, which was slightly disingenuous. Even if she had not been told in advance that an emergency would be declared, it was hardly a secret – for one thing, Condoleezza Rice had made a token public appeal to Musharraf not to take this course. Yet for more than 24 hours she was unable to give a clear response. At one point she even criticised the chief justice for being too provocative.

Agitated phone calls from Pakistan persuaded her to return to Karachi. To put her in her place, the authorities kept her plane waiting on the tarmac. When she finally reached the VIP lounge, her PPP colleagues told her that unless she denounced the emergency there would be a split in the party. Outsmarted and abandoned by Musharraf, she couldn’t take the risk of losing key figures in her party. She denounced the emergency and its perpetrator, established contact with the beleaguered opposition, and, as if putting on a new lipstick, declared that she would lead the struggle to get rid of the dictator. She now tried to call on the chief justice to express her sympathy but wasn’t allowed near his residence.

She could have followed the example of her imprisoned colleague Aitzaz Ahsan, but she was envious of him: he had become far too popular in Pakistan. He’d even had the nerve to go to Washington, where he was politely received by society and inspected as a possible substitute should things go badly wrong. Not a single message had flowed from her Blackberry to congratulate him on his victories in the struggle to reinstate the chief justice. Ahsan had advised her against any deal with Musharraf. When generals are against the wall, he is reported to have told her, they resort to desperate and irrational measures. Others who offered similar advice in gentler language were also batted away. She was the PPP’s ‘chairperson-for-life’ and brooked no dissent. The fact that Ahsan was proved right irritated her even more. Any notion of political morality had long ago been dumped. The very idea of a party with a consistent set of beliefs was regarded as ridiculous and outdated. Ahsan was now safe in prison, far from the madding hordes of Western journalists whom she received in style during the few days she spent under house arrest and afterwards. She made a few polite noises about his imprisonment, but nothing more.

The go-between from Washington arrived at very short notice. Negroponte spent some time with Musharraf and spoke to Benazir, still insisting that they make up and go through with the deal. She immediately toned down her criticisms, but the general was scathing and said in public that there was no way she could win the elections scheduled for January. No doubt the ISI are going to rig them in style. Had she remained loyal to him she might have lost public support, but he would have made sure she had a substantial presence in the new parliament. Now everything is up for grabs again. The opinion polls show that her old rival, Nawaz Sharif, is well ahead of her. Musharraf’s hasty pilgrimage to Mecca was probably an attempt to secure Saudi mediation in case he has to cut a deal with the Sharif brothers – who have been living in exile in Saudi Arabia – and sideline her completely. Both sides deny that a deal was done, but Sharif returned to Pakistan with Saudi blessings and an armour-plated Cadillac as a special gift from the king. Little doubt that Riyadh would rather him than Benazir.

With the country still under a state of emergency and the largest media network refusing to sign the oath of allegiance that would allow them back on air, the polls scheduled for January can only be a general’s election. It’s hardly a secret that the ISI and the civilian bureaucracy will decide who wins and where, and some of the opposition parties are, wisely, considering a boycott. Nawaz Sharif told the press that in the course of a long telephone call he had failed to persuade Benazir to join it and thereby render the process null and void from the start. But now that he is back in the country it’s unclear whether he will still go ahead with the boycott or try and negotiate a certain number of seats with the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, who had betrayed him by setting up a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, the PML-Q, to support Musharraf. Perhaps a shared bout of amnesia will bring them together again.

What will Benazir do now? Washington’s leverage in Islamabad is limited, which is why they wanted her to be involved in the first place. ‘It’s always better,’ the US ambassador half-joked at a reception, ‘to have two phone numbers in a capital.’ That may be so, but they cannot guarantee her the prime ministership or even a fair election. In his death-cell, her father mulled over similar problems and came to slightly different conclusions. If I Am Assassinated, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s last will and testament, was written in semi-Gramsci mode, but the meaning wasn’t lost on his colleagues:

I entirely agree that the people of Pakistan will not tolerate foreign hegemony. On the basis of the self-same logic, the people of Pakistan would never agree to an internal hegemony. The two hegemonies complement each other. If our people meekly submit to internal hegemony, a priori, they will have to submit to external hegemony. This is so because the strength and power of external hegemony is far greater than that of internal hegemony. If the people are too terrified to resist the weaker force, it is not possible for them to resist the stronger force. The acceptance of or acquiescence in internal hegemony means submission to external hegemony.

After he was hanged in April 1979, the text acquired a semi-sacred status among his supporters. But, when in power, Bhutto père had failed to develop any counter-hegemonic strategy or institutions, other than the 1973 constitution drafted by the veteran civil rights lawyer Mahmud Ali Kasuri (whose son Khurshid was until recently the foreign minister). A personality-driven, autocratic style of governance had neutered the spirit of the party, encouraged careerists and finally paved the way for his enemies. He was the victim of a grave injustice; his death removed all the warts and transformed him into a martyr. More than half the country, mainly the poor, mourned his passing.

The tragedy led to the PPP being treated as a family heirloom, which was unhealthy for both party and country. It provided the Bhuttos with a vote-bank and large reserves. But the experience of her father’s trial and death radicalised and politicised his daughter. She would have preferred, she told me at the time, to be a diplomat. Her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, were in London, having been forbidden to return home by their imprisoned father. The burden of trying to save her father’s life fell on Benazir and her mother, Nusrat, and the courage they exhibited won them the silent respect of a frightened majority. They refused to cave in to General Zia’s military dictatorship, which apart from anything else was invoking Islam to claw back rights won by women in previous decades. Benazir and Nusrat Bhutto were arrested and released several times. Their health began to suffer. Nusrat was allowed to leave the country to seek medical advice in 1982. Benazir was released a little more than a year later thanks, in part, to US pressure orchestrated by her old Harvard friend Peter Galbraith. She later described the period in her memoir, Daughter of the East (1988); it included photo-captions such as: ‘Shortly after President Reagan praised the regime for making “great strides towards democracy”, Zia’s henchmen gunned down peaceful demonstrators marking Pakistan Independence Day. The police were just as brutal to those protesting at the attack on my jeep in January 1987.’

Her tiny Barbican flat in London became the centre of opposition to the dictatorship, and it was here that we often discussed a campaign to take on the generals. Benazir had built up her position by steadfastly and peacefully resisting the military and replying to every slander with a cutting retort. Her brothers had been operating on a different level. They set up an armed group, al-Zulfiqar, whose declared aim was to harass and weaken the regime by targeting ‘traitors who had collaborated with Zia’. The principal volunteers were recruited inside Pakistan and in 1980 they were provided with a base in Afghanistan, where the pro-Moscow Communists had taken power three years before. It is a sad story with a fair share of factionalism, show-trials, petty rivalries, fantasies of every sort and death for the group’s less fortunate members.

In March 1981 Murtaza and Shahnawaz Bhutto were placed on the FIA’s most wanted list. They had hijacked a Pakistan International airliner soon after it left Karachi (a power cut had paralysed the X-ray machines, enabling the hijackers to take their weapons on board); it was diverted to Kabul. Here Murtaza took over and demanded the release of political prisoners. A young military officer on board the flight was murdered. The plane refuelled and went on to Damascus, where the Syrian spymaster General Kholi took charge and ensured there were no more deaths. The fact that there were American passengers on the plane was a major consideration for the generals and, for that reason alone, the prisoners in Pakistan were released and flown to Tripoli.

This was seen as a victory and welcomed as such by the PPP in Pakistan. For the first time the group began to be taken seriously. A key target inside the country was Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain, the chief justice of the High Court in Lahore, who, in 1978, had sentenced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to death, and whose behaviour in court had shocked even those who were hostile to the PPP. (Among other charges, he had accused Bhutto of ‘pretending to be a Muslim’ – his mother was a Hindu convert.) Mushtaq was in a friend’s car being driven to his home in Lahore’s Model Town area when al-Zulfiqar gunmen opened fire. The judge survived, but his friend and the driver died. The friend was one of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat: Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, a dodgy businessman who had ostentatiously asked General Zia to make him a present of the ‘sacred pen’ with which he had signed Bhutto’s death warrant. The pen became a family heirloom. Zahoor Elahi may not have been the target but al-Zulfiqar, embarrassed at missing the judge, claimed he was also on their list, which may have been true.

It is the next generation of Chaudhrys that currently provides Musharraf with civilian ballast: Zahoor Elahi’s son Shujaat organised the split with Nawaz Sharif and created the splinter PML-Q to ease the growing pains of the new regime. He still fixes deals and wanted an emergency imposed much earlier to circumvent the deal with Benazir. He will now mastermind the general’s election campaign. His cousin Pervez Elahi is chief minister of the Punjab; his son, in turn, is busy continuing the family tradition by evicting tenants and buying up all the available land on the edge of Lahore. It has not been divulged which member of the family guards the sacred pen.

The hijacking meanwhile had annoyed Moscow, and the regime in Afghanistan asked the Bhutto brothers to find another refuge. While in Kabul, they had married two Afghan sisters, Fauzia and Rehana Fasihudin, daughters of a senior official at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Together with their wives they now left the country and after a sojourn in Syria and possibly Libya ended up in Europe. The reunion with their sister took place on the French Riviera in 1985, a setting better suited to the lifestyles of all three siblings.

The young men feared General Zia’s agents. Each had a young daughter. Shahnawaz lived in an apartment in Cannes. He had been in charge of the ‘military apparatus’ and life in Kabul had exacted a heavier toll on him. He was edgy and nervous. Relations with his wife were stormy and he told his sister that he was preparing to divorce her. ‘There’s never been a divorce in the family. Your marriage wasn’t even an arranged one . . . You chose to marry Rehana. You must live with it,’ was Benazir’s revealing reply, according to her memoir. And then Shahnawaz was found dead in his apartment. His wife claimed he had taken poison, but according to Benazir nobody in the family believed her story; there had been violence in the room and his papers had been searched. Rehana looked immaculate, which disturbed the family. She was imprisoned for three months under the ‘Good Samaritan’ law for not having gone to the assistance of a dying person. After her release she settled in the United States. ‘Had the CIA killed him as a friendly gesture towards their favourite dictator?’ Benazir speculated. She raised other questions too: had the sisters become ISI agents? The truth remains hidden. Not long afterwards Murtaza divorced Fauzia, but kept custody of their three-year-old daughter, Fatima, and moved to Damascus. Here he had plenty of time for reflection and told friends that too many mistakes had been made. In 1986 he met Ghinwa Itaoui, a young teacher who had fled Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1982. She calmed him down and took charge of Fatima’s education. They were married in 1989 and a son, Zulfiqar, was born the following year.

Benazir returned to Pakistan in 1986 and was greeted by large crowds who came out to show their affection for her and to demonstrate their anger with the regime. She campaigned all over the country, but felt increasingly that for some of the more religious-minded a young unmarried woman was not acceptable as a leader. How could she visit Saudi Arabia without a husband? An offer of marriage from the Zardari family was accepted and she married Asif in 1987. She had worried that any husband would find it difficult to deal with the periods of separation her nomadic political life would entail, but Zardari was perfectly capable of occupying himself.

A year later General Zia’s plane blew up in midair. In the elections that followed the PPP won the largest number of seats. Benazir became prime minister, but was hemmed in by the army on one side and the president, the army’s favourite bureaucrat, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, on the other. She told me at the time that she felt powerless. They wouldn’t let her do anything. ‘Tell the people,’ was my advice. Tell them why you can’t deliver on your promises to provide free education, proper sanitation, clean water and health services to improve the high infant mortality rate. She didn’t tell them; in fact she did nothing at all apart from provide employment to some of her supporters. Being in power, it seemed, was satisfaction enough. She went on state visits: met and liked Mrs Thatcher and later, with her new husband in tow, was received politely by the Saudi king. In the meantime there were other plots afoot – the opposition was literally buying off some of her MPs – and in August 1990 her government was removed by presidential decree and Zia’s protégés, the Sharif brothers, were back in power.

By the time she was re-elected in 1993, she had abandoned all idea of reform, but that she was in a hurry to do something became clear when she appointed her husband minister for investment, making him responsible for all investment offers from home and abroad. It is widely alleged that the couple accumulated $1.5 billion. The high command of the Pakistan People’s Party now became a machine for making money, but without any trickle-down mechanism. This period marked the complete degeneration of the party. All that shame-faced party members could say, when I asked, was that ‘everybody does it all over the world,’ thus accepting that the cash nexus was now all that mattered. In foreign policy her legacy was mixed. She refused to sanction an anti-Indian military adventure in Kargil on the Himalayan slopes, but to make up for it, as I wrote in the LRB (15 April 1999), her government backed the Taliban takeover in Kabul – which makes it doubly ironic that Washington and London should be promoting her as a champion of democracy.

Murtaza Bhutto had contested the elections from abroad and won a seat in the Sind provincial legislature. He returned home and expressed his unhappiness with his sister’s agenda. Family gatherings became tense. Murtaza had his weaknesses, but he wasn’t corrupt and he argued in favour of the old party’s radical manifesto. He made no secret of the fact that he regarded Zardari as an interloper whose only interest was money. Nusrat Bhutto suggested that Murtaza be made the chief minister of Sind: Benazir’s response was to remove her mother as chairperson of the PPP. Any sympathy Murtaza may have felt for his sister turned to loathing. He no longer felt obliged to control his tongue and at every possible opportunity lambasted Zardari and the corrupt regime over which his sister presided. It was difficult to fault him on the facts. The incumbent chief minister of Sind was Abdullah Shah, one of Zardari’s creatures. He began to harass Murtaza’s supporters. Murtaza decided to confront the organ-grinder himself. He rang Zardari and invited him round for an informal chat sans bodyguards to try and settle the problems within the family. Zardari agreed. As the two men were pacing the garden, Murtaza’s retainers appeared and grabbed Zardari. Someone brought out a cut-throat razor and some warm water and Murtaza shaved off half of Zardari’s moustache to the delight of the retainers, then told him to get lost. A fuming Zardari, who had probably feared much worse, was compelled to shave off the other half at home. The media, bemused, were informed that the new clean-shaven consort had accepted intelligence advice that the moustache made him too recognisable a target. In which case why did he allow it to sprout again immediately afterwards?

Some months later, in September 1996, as Murtaza and his entourage were returning home from a political meeting, they were ambushed, just outside their house, by some seventy armed policemen accompanied by four senior officers. A number of snipers were positioned in surrounding trees. The street lights had been switched off. Murtaza clearly understood what was happening and got out of his car with his hands raised; his bodyguards were instructed not to open fire. The police opened fire instead and seven men were killed, Murtaza among them. The fatal bullet had been fired at close range. The trap had been carefully laid, but as is the way in Pakistan, the crudeness of the operation – false entries in police logbooks, lost evidence, witnesses arrested and intimidated, the provincial PPP governor (regarded as untrustworthy) dispatched to a non-event in Egypt, a policeman killed who they feared might talk – made it obvious that the decision to execute the prime minister’s brother had been taken at a very high level.

While the ambush was being prepared, the police had sealed off Murtaza’s house (from which his father had been lifted by Zia’s commandos in 1978). The family inside felt something was wrong. At this point, a remarkably composed Fatima Bhutto, aged 14, decided to ring her aunt at Prime Minister’s House. The conversation that followed remains imprinted on her memory and a few years ago she gave me an account of it. It was Zardari who took her call:

Fatima: I wish to speak to my aunt, please.

Zardari: It’s not possible.

Fatima: Why? [At this point, Fatima says she heard loud wails and what sounded like fake crying.]

Zardari: She’s hysterical, can’t you hear?

Fatima: Why?

Zardari: Don’t you know? Your father’s been shot.

Fatima and Ghinwa found out where Murtaza had been taken and rushed out of the house. There was no sign on the street outside that anything had happened: the scene of the killing had been wiped clean of all evidence. There were no traces of blood and no signs of any disturbance. They drove straight to the hospital but it was too late; Murtaza was already dead. Later they learned that he had been left bleeding on the ground for almost an hour before being taken to a hospital where there were no emergency facilities of any kind.

When Benazir arrived to attend her brother’s funeral in Larkana, angry crowds stoned her limo. She had to retreat. In another unusual display of emotion, local people encouraged Murtaza’s widow to attend the actual burial ceremony in defiance of Islamic tradition. According to Fatima, one of Benazir’s hangers-on instigated legal proceedings against Ghinwa in a religious court for breaching Islamic law. Nothing was sacred.

Anyone who witnessed Murtaza’s murder was arrested; one witness died in prison. When Fatima rang Benazir to ask why witnesses were being arrested and not the killers she was told: ‘Look, you’re very young. You don’t understand things.’ Perhaps it was for this reason that the kind aunt decided to encourage Fatima’s blood-mother, Fauzia, whom she had previously denounced as a murderer in the pay of General Zia, to come to Pakistan and claim custody of Fatima. No mystery as to who paid her fare from California. Fatima and Ghinwa Bhutto resisted and the attempt failed. Benazir then tried a softer approach and insisted that Fatima accompany her to New York, where she was going to address the UN Assembly. Ghinwa Bhutto approached friends in Damascus and had her two children flown out of the country. Fatima later discovered that Fauzia had been seen hobnobbing with Benazir in New York.

In November 1996 Benazir was once again removed from power, this time by her own president, Farooq Leghari, a PPP stalwart. He cited corruption, but what had also angered him was the ISI’s crude attempt at blackmail – the intelligence agencies had photographed Leghari’s daughter meeting a boyfriend and threatened to go public. The week Benazir fell, the chief minister of Sind, Abdullah Shah, hopped on a motorboat and fled Karachi for the Gulf and thence the US.

A judicial tribunal had been appointed by Benazir’s government to inquire into the circumstances leading to Murtaza’s death. Headed by a Supreme Court judge, it took detailed evidence from all parties. Murtaza’s lawyers accused Zardari, Abdullah Shah and two senior police officials of conspiracy to murder. Benazir (now out of power) accepted that there had been a conspiracy, but suggested that ‘the hidden hand responsible for this was President Farooq Ahmad Leghari’: the intention, she said, was to ‘kill a Bhutto to get rid of a Bhutto’. Nobody took this seriously. Given all that had happened, it was an incredible suggestion.

The tribunal said there was no legally acceptable evidence to link Zardari to the incident, but accepted that ‘this was a case of extra-judicial killings by the police’ and concluded that such an incident could not have taken place without approval from the highest quarters. Nothing happened. Eleven years later, Fatima Bhutto publicly accused Zardari; she also claimed that many of those involved that day appear to have been rewarded for their actions. In an interview on an independent TV station just before the emergency was imposed, Benazir was asked to explain how it happened that her brother had bled to death outside his home while she was prime minister. She walked out of the studio. A sharp op-ed piece by Fatima in the LA Times on 14 November elicited the following response: ‘My niece is angry with me.’ Well, yes.

Musharraf may have withdrawn the corruption charges, but three other cases are proceeding in Switzerland, Spain and Britain. In July 2003, after an investigation lasting several years, Daniel Devaud, a Geneva magistrate, convicted Mr and Mrs Asif Ali Zardari, in absentia, of money laundering. They had accepted $15 million in bribes from two Swiss companies, SGS and Cotecna. The couple were sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to return $11.9 million to the government of Pakistan. ‘I certainly don’t have any doubts about the judgments I handed down,’ Devaud told the BBC. Benazir appealed, thus forcing a new investigation. On 19 September 2005 she appeared in a Geneva court and tried to detach herself from the rest of the family: she hadn’t been involved, she said: it was a matter for her husband and her mother (afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease). She knew nothing of the accounts. And what of the agreement her agent Jens Schlegelmilch had signed according to which, in case of her and Zardari’s death, the assets of Bomer Finance Company would be divvied out equally between the Zardari and Bhutto families? She knew nothing of that either. And the £120,000 diamond necklace in the bank vault paid for by Zardari? It was intended for her, but she had rejected the gift as ‘inappropriate’. The case continues. Last month Musharraf told Owen Bennett-Jones of the BBC World Service that his government would not interfere with the proceedings: ‘That’s up to the Swiss government. Depends on them. It’s a case in their courts.’

In Britain the legal shenanigans concern the $3.4 million Rockwood estate in Surrey, bought by offshore companies on behalf of Zardari in 1995 and refurbished to his exacting tastes. Zardari denied owning the estate. Then when the court was about to instruct the liquidators to sell it and return the proceeds to the Pakistan government, Zardari came forward and accepted ownership. Last year, Lord Justice Collins ruled that, while he was not making any ‘findings of fact’, there was a ‘reasonable prospect’ that the Pakistan government might be able to establish that Rockwood had been bought and furnished with ‘the fruits of corruption’. A close friend of Benazir told me that she was genuinely not involved in this one, since Zardari wasn’t thinking of spending much time there with her.

Daniel Markey, formerly of the State Department and currently senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, explained why Washington had pushed the marriage of convenience: ‘A progressive, reform-minded, more cosmopolitan party in government would help the US.’ As their finances reveal, the Zardaris are certainly cosmopolitan.

What then is at stake in Pakistan as far as Washington is concerned? ‘The concern I have,’ Robert Gates, the US secretary for defense, recently said, ‘is that the longer the internal problems continue, the more distracted the Pakistani army and security services will be in terms of the internal situation rather than focusing on the terrorist threat in the frontier area.’ But one reason for the internal crisis is Washington’s over-reliance on Musharraf and the Pakistani military. It is Washington’s support and funding that have given him the confidence to operate as he pleases. But the thoughtless Western military occupation of Afghanistan is obviously crucial, since the instability in Kabul seeps into Peshawar and the tribal areas between the two countries. The state of emergency targeted the judiciary, opposition politicians and the independent media. All three groups were, in different ways, challenging the official line on Afghanistan and the ‘war on terror’, the disappearance of political prisoners and the widespread use of torture in Pakistani prisons. The issues were being debated on television in a much more open fashion than happens anywhere in the West, where a blanket consensus on Afghanistan drowns all dissent. Musharraf argued that civil society was hampering the ‘war on terror’. Hence the emergency. It’s nonsense, of course. It’s the war in the frontier regions that is creating dissent inside the army. Many do not want to fight. Hence the surrender of dozens of soldiers to Taliban guerrillas. This is the reason many junior officers are taking early retirement.

Western pundits blather on about the jihadi finger on the nuclear trigger. This is pure fantasy, reminiscent of a similar campaign almost three decades ago, when the threat wasn’t the jihadis who were fighting alongside the West in Afghanistan, but nationalist military radicals. The cover story of Time magazine for 15 June 1979 dealt with Pakistan; a senior Western diplomat was quoted as saying that the big danger was ‘that there is another Gaddafi down there, some radical major or colonel in the Pakistani army. We could wake up and find him in Zia’s place one morning and, believe me, Pakistan wouldn’t be the only place that would be destabilised.’

The Pakistan army is half a million strong. Its tentacles are everywhere: land, industry, public utilities and so on. It would require a cataclysmic upheaval (a US invasion and occupation, for example) for this army to feel threatened by a jihadi uprising. Two considerations unite senior officers: the unity of the organisation and keeping politicians at bay. One reason is the fear that they might lose the comforts and privileges they have acquired after decades of rule; but they also have the deep aversion to democracy that is the hallmark of most armies. Unused to accountability within their own ranks, it’s difficult for them to accept it in society at large.

As southern Afghanistan collapses into chaos, and as corruption and massive inflation takes hold, the Taliban is gaining more and more recruits. The generals who convinced Benazir that control of Kabul via the Taliban would give them ‘strategic depth’ may have retired, but their successors know that the Afghans will not tolerate a long-term Western occupation. They hope for the return of a whitewashed Taliban. Instead of encouraging a regional solution that includes India, Iran and Russia, the US would prefer to see the Pakistan army as its permanent cop in Kabul. It won’t work. In Pakistan itself the long night continues as the cycle restarts: military leadership promising reforms degenerates into tyranny, politicians promising social support to the people degenerate into oligarchs. Given that a better functioning neighbour is unlikely to intervene, Pakistan will oscillate between these two forms of rule for the foreseeable future. The people who feel they have tried everything and failed will return to a state of semi-sleep, unless something unpredictable rouses them again. This is always possible.

30 November
Postscript

Six hours before she was executed, in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots wrote to her brother-in-law, Henry III of France: ‘As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him.’ On 30 December 2007, a conclave of feudal potentates gathered in the home of the slain Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and testament being read out and its contents announced to the world media. Where Mary was tentative, her modern-day equivalent left no room for doubt. She could certainly answer for her son.

A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts), and two ciphers will run the party until Benazir’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass the post on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People’s Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader. Both Pakistan and the People’s Party deserve better than this medieval charade.

Benazir’s last decision was in the same autocratic mode as the ones that went before it; her approach – tragically – cost her her life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election, she might still be alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.

31 December

A heated debate at Pavocavalry's blog:

2008-10-21T22:49:00.000+06:00

Re China

ENNYMAN : While it is true that China has historically been non-expansionist, this does cannot be taken for granted as a straight line philosophy for the future. Internal pressures are already driving China beyond its borders to obtain raw materials for its fast growing middle class and the infrastructure needed to feed it ... China is legitimizing and encouraging Africa’s most repressive regimes, thereby increasing the likelihood of weak and failed states. The United States must also be alert to the potential long-term disruption of American access to important raw materials and energy sources as these resources are “locked up” by Chinese firms for the PRC’s domestic market to maintain China’s economic growth.

This is only true in case of iron-ore and oil - China has every other mineral/fossil reserve except these two. It is in competition with USA to have sustained and uninterrupted supplies of essential inputs over the long term and really has no choice but to look towards alternatives other than those controlled by USA.

China has a legitimate right to ensure its energy supplies to sustain its growth. USA too ensured the same thing long ago but through CIA, military coercion, manipulation - even outright occupation and so forth. I don't see any Chinese military imperialism emerging unless USA tries to deprive China of alternatives as well. In that case, China will fight.

Let's take Oil. China has been investing huge amounts in high risk exploration in Sudan, mostly in the Darfur region. Even the Indians have exploration contracts in Sudan (as well as one Pakistani - Hashwani) but Chinese are much bigger. In response, US tried but failed in getting a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. That force, was NOT to prevent any genocide of Darfur tribes out of humanitarian reasons - it was to counter Chinese influence in Sudan over its oilfields.

China is trying to cultivate South America as well (Venezuela). As for the main supply from Middle-East, USA is in full military control of not only the M.E oilfields but of the tanker waterways too. Even though China has access to Iranian oil, it can't ensure its transport without a naval presence confronting the US fleets in the region.

Therefore the Gwadar port & gas pipelines project in Pakistan's Baluchistan which is not even yet operational - and there's an insurgency going on there targeting the Chinese engineers building it!

Re Iron-ore, China has sustained supplies from Kandla, India so far but who knows what pledges have been made in this absurd nuclear energy deal (for peaceful purposes of-course) which violates the Non-Proliferation treaty? There's obviously a USA quid pro quo with India.

You said: "China as non-expansionist. Even if the nation does not become an aggressor militarily, its thirst for raw materials is driving up the price of all kinds of goods in the global marketplace, which is having an impact on lives, even if they are not losing freedoms."

It was the WTO regime which turned China into the world's factory place for cheap goods for their markets and keeping the high-value added items for themselves. WTO perhaps thought in its ignorance China will keep making t-shirts and not go for value-addition at the same time. That notion has turned itself on its head and China now has a monopoly over consumer goods over practically the entire world - except automobiles. That too is just a matter of time. Should we then blame China for striving for a value-added standard of living for its people?

To conclude the subject of China, allow me to quote an example:

I lived in Hong Kong throughout the decade after the negotiations for Hong Kong's fate after 1997 commenced in 1983. Britain's initial position was that Hong Kong had been ceded to Britain and not part of the 1897 lease agreement while Kowloon and New Territories peninsulas were - so those two could be handed back if the lease wasn't renewed while Hong Kong Island would remain British.

This was factual but the Chinese refused to even discuss it saying China's ceding of Hong Kong Island was by coercion. Britain's next position was okay renew the lease for another 100 years. China said no and insisted on full sovereignty. Britain said okay we'll keep Hong Kong because it's ours, you take Kowloon and New Territories back - China said fine we'll cut off the electricity and the water and the vegetables to Hong Kong in that case.

Then Britain said alright you take the sovereignty but let British run the administration because we're good at it and that's what the Hong Kong people want - and involve the Hong Kong people as a party in these negotiations since it is a 'Three-legged stool" i.e. Britain, China and the Hong Kong people after an election. China said 'No'. It is a two-legged stool - with just two parties i.e. Britain and China. Hong Kong people are not a party to territory. Britain asked what about the Hong Kong people's wishes? China said "Give them all British passports. If they're Chinese, they'll remain here, or you take them all!"

Britain agreed and many did take that choice because Britain thought Hong Kong will be brought down by brain/capital drain.

That's how I'm a British Citizen when I never lived in Britain more than a year at a stretch. I was a Hong Kong Citizen, and remain that (Triple with Pakistan/Britain). But I'm not Chinese, so I'll never be a Chinese citizen. Chinese are extremely racist - but that's another subject for another time.

Anyway the punchline is, China did not give up an inch. When Margaret Thatcher went for the final decision to China, Deng Xiao Ping told her over an 11 course dinner consisting of small bowls of sea-weed and strange reptile meat accompanied with endless refilling of mau tai (Chinese cognac), that China was not going to negotiate back and forth with Britain over this issue. The final offer was 50 years of one country - two systems, meaning Hong Kong could retain the present administrative/financial system for 50 years, and then a rethink, with full Chinese control and no intervention of the British.

If that was unacceptable, it was stated, China was going to send 50,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers overnight into Hong Kong as soon as the dinner was over and occupy it, and Britain could send as many galleons it wanted to prevent it.

This actually happened. This is why Margaret Thatcher fell off the plane stairs on disembarking at Hong airport in 1983 and all markets in Hong Kong crashed - the Hong Kong Dollar fell from KHD3/US$ or thereabouts to HKD 11/US$ in a single day and was pegged at HKD 7.8 where it remains. The real estate was worth nothing and everyone was looking for Canadian visas. That's the time the mainland Chinese started buying up Hong Kong.

Of-course the deal was accepted, and Prince Charles took down the Union Jack on the Hong Kong Kong Harbour on July 1, 1997 with the bemused Chinese looking on ...

The British thought Chinese couldn't run Hong Kong. The 1997 currency crisis occurred at the same time of the handover with the derivative driven attack on HKD as well alongwith Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, but it couldn't dent Hong Kong under Chinese control. (No connection insinuated here - purely coincidence).

Re Admiral Fasih's article and Brigadier Simon/Pavocavalry's comments:

Admiral Fasih was mostly right in the Geo-Political analysis, except when it comes to economy. USA will not run out of money till the US Dollar denominated global settlement system remains, and I don't see it threatened at all. Some 80% of world trade is denominated in US$, and everyone's surplus with anyone else including the US is deposited with USA. The Euro is nowhere near an alternative. Even if the Chinese or the Japanese tried to retrieve their near $2.5 trillion in US sovereign assets, where would they take it?

Then, US is the largest consumer economy. It's society is culturally consumer. Neither the Chinese nor Japanese nor the Indians come anywhere close. The WTO tried to promote consumerism in other parts of the world to divert exports to USA to reduce US trade deficits but failed miserably. It is culturally just not acceptable neither in the US nor rest of the world.

So, the world will produce and US will consume, and that's how it will remain. There's no alternate for economic growth.

US will remain an economic engine for the foreseeable future unless the entire global economic system collapses. But that's just my opinion.

However, I believe that's how it should be.

Obsession- Radical Islam's War against the West - II

2008-10-19T09:41:00.000+06:00

Further Comment on the entry below:

A valued contributor (Pavocavalry) has made some pertinent observations which I believe merit a separate entry:

"Is it possible that this is done by republicans to malign Obama?"

No I do not. This is some other shadowy pressure group in action.

What I did find surprising is that the 70 newspapers which distributed this DVD as inserts includes the NY Times, considered the Admin's mouthpiece, and wouldn't have done it for the revenue alone.

"Do you think that the Americans are stupid enough to believe this?"

Yes, some are indeed very naive, like the old lady who told McCain during the last debate that Obama was an Arab and she didn't trust him. And he replied "No Ma'am, he's a decent family man, citizen" implying that Arabs can't be decent family men and US citizens all at the same time. Watch below:

"Do you think that obama or mc cain are any different?"

As far as dealings with Muslim areas of conflict are concerned, they're both the same. Though with the difference that Obama is an inexperienced lout with a stick, while McCain is likely to do the same things but in a covert manner.

I didn't think the persistent use of sophomoric Islamophobia like this to further the neo-con cause in the USA since 9/11 needed any further comment, so, I didn't think it was necessary to flog an oft-flogged dead horse in the entry below.

Obsession- Radical Islam's War against the West: Full Length DVD

2008-10-18T18:03:00.000+06:00

"Muslim DVD rattles voters in key battleground states": CNN:

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- On a Sunday morning just weeks before the presidential election, Priscilla Linsley opened her local Denver newspaper and discovered a DVD inside.

Clarion Fund released "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," in 70 newspapers in key swing states.

"I was shocked at the content and horrified that this had been in my Sunday paper," said Linsley, a 74-year-old Democrat, who watched about half of the video before throwing it in the trash.

"I have Muslim friends and respect Islam as a religion and felt that this was really hateful," said Linsley.

The hourlong film on DVD, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," was made by Israeli filmmaker Raphael Shore and shows disturbing, sometimes violent images.

Rima Barakat Sinclair, who is Muslim and a Republican, was so angry she called her local lawmakers in Denver. Video Watch voters reaction to the DVD »

"It is riddled not only with misleading facts but outright fabrication," said Barakat Sinclair.

In September, some 28 million of the "Obsession" DVD's were distributed as advertising inserts in 70 newspapers, primarily in critical swing states such as Colorado, Florida and Ohio.

The video in question:

Comment:

28 million copies distributed in newspaper inserts at election time?

Perhaps Obama is indeed an Arab!

Not that If Obama is or isn't makes any difference. But these people just wasted $28 million @$1 per DVD including distribution costs to make use of the middle name.

“How We Lost the War We Won: A Journey into Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan”

2008-10-15T23:27:00.000+06:00

Interview with an embedded Journalist with Taliban:

Comment:

Significant points are (1) Whatever happens in Afghanistan, but what about Pakistan? It too will need to be countered to get a solution of Afghanistan, and (2) There'll have to be an ethnic cleansing on the lines of Baghdad in Kabul, and the Pushtuns in rest of Afghanistan will need to be excluded from voting as the Sunnis in Iraq.

This is the solution apparently being seriously considered in the US line of thought.

Just killing brown people will not work as the gentleman says, International troops must withdraw. There's no other solution.

George Soros and Market Fundamentalism:

2008-10-14T20:26:00.000+06:00

Quotes from an October 12 interview:

"What we are witnessing is not the result of some exogenous shock that knocked things off balance, as the prevailing paradigm, which believes markets are self-correcting, would suggest. The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium."

"In short, the boom-bust sequences, the bubbles, are endemic to the financial system."

Comment:

Soros initiated the Far-Eastern Currency Crisis of 1997 which almost bankrupted Indonesia, Thailand and S. Korea. Indonesia and S. Korea had to approach IMF for rescue while Thailand had to float its currency resulting in massive devaluation and collapse of its financial sector. Malaysia had to scramble to place exchange controls to keep him out and Mohatir Muhammad called him the most evil person on earth - or something to that effect.

What Soros saw was that the Far-Eastern currencies were massively overvalued, accompanied with little or no regulation, in the race to integrate globally in free flow of capital, and could be brought down without much effort (he used just $10 billion leveraged to $100 billion) to great profit for members of the Quantum Fund.

Soon afterwards, Soros himself declared: "Free-flow of capital between nations means the destruction of societies"! This was exactly the tool he used, but admitted quite openly he was just using the system which was not of his making and was in fact opposed to it.

George Soros is an interesting person. He funds many left-oriented media projects such as Democracy Now and NPR. Incredibly smart. He made a billion in 1992 betting against the British Pound and brought it to 1:1 against the Dollar. He again made billions in 1997 defeating many central banks in the Asian Currency crisis using leveraged techniques, but then wrongly bet against the Dollar in 2004/5 and lost a billion when Dollar went up instead of down, and It's reported he recently lost a huge amount in the Russian Rouble - the ultimate speculator.

But he's a person who knows a lot more about the global financial system than any economist.

Sarah Palin at the 1984 Beauty Pageant - Rare video.

2008-10-11T21:16:00.000+06:00

Sarah Louise Heath Palin, Sarah Heath at the time. Hats off to her. I hope she wins the elections as VP. Lots of confidence.

Comment:

... the compere does mention 'leadership' as one of her qualities ... though 'other' qualities seem more apparent here!

Comments on Regional Shift

2008-10-11T18:56:00.000+06:00

Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan cannot cooperate because Iran traditionally has been their eenemy due to the sectarian factor.This is the situation since last four hundred years.Iran from Mughal times was attacking Mughal provinces of Kandahar.Afghanistn was saved from Iran once the English East India Company landed an Indian Bombay Army force from the sea in 1856 and forced Iran to lift siege of Herat and make peace with Afghanistan.Iran similarly could never make peace with Ottoman Turkey.In Afghanistan the Iranians entered to support the Northern Alliance just because they were enemies of the Talibans who Iran opposed because they were staunch Sunnis.A senior Northern Alliance leader confessed to me that without Iranian support they were finished in 2000.At that time naieve USA was totally missing.

Now in this region thanks to the grand stupidities of USA , a Shia block has been created from Lebanon to Iran including Syria and Iraq and Iran is now trying to secure its eastern borderlands.

It is surprising why the USA has failed to use the Baloch factor against Iran right from 1979.This has been a pathetic strategic failure.I am surprised at the strategic barrenness of US thinkers but then Doug Scherer had well summed it up that they are wet pussies at least at the State Department level.The future lies in divide and rule .In making the dragons kill the dragons rather than wasting energy on killing dragons at a very high cost.That sums up USA's faux pas and grand stratehic failures.May be the military industrial complex in USA made money at the cost of the US common man.

Regional shift :

2008-10-11T16:31:00.000+06:00

Quote-1:

Gates: U.S. would support Afghan peace talks with Taliban: CNN

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States would be prepared to reconcile with the Taliban if the Afghan government pursued talks to end the seven-year conflict in that country ...

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have asked for an additional 15,000 troops but the call has gone unanswered, with the United States short on troops and NATO countries not interested in contributing more personnel. "At the end of the day, that's how most wars end," Gates said ...

"There has to be ultimately -- and I'll underscore ultimately -- reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," he said ...

The reconciliation would have to be on the Afghan government's terms, and the Taliban would have to subject itself to the sovereignty of the government, he added ...

"That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us," Gates said.

Quote-2:

Iran backs Pakistan pipeline deal sans India: Tehran Times

ISLAMABAD (AP/APP) -- Iran says it is willing to build a pipeline to export natural gas to Pakistan even if India delays joining the multibillion-dollar project opposed by the U.S.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced the offer Friday during a visit to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Both countries said India would be welcome to join the $7.5 billion project at a later stage ...

Mottaki ... termed the stability and security of Pakistan as stability and security of Iran.

Mottaki also agreed with the Prime Minister on the need for expansion of relations in political, trade, investment, culture and other fields.

Referring to President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent meeting with President Ahmedinejad in New York, he recalled that President Zardari had extended an invitation to his Iranian counterpart to visit Pakistan and hoped the visit will soon materialize.

Iranian Foreign Minister extended invitation of Iranian President and Senior Vice President to the Prime Minister to visit Iran. The Prime Minister accepted the invitation and informed him that time frame of the visit will be decided through diplomatic channels.

Earlier, Pakistan requested Iran to help to meet its growing energy crisis by giving oil on deferred payment. The request was made by Foreign Minister Qureshi during his talks with the visiting Foreign Minister ... Talking to newsmen jointly after the meeting, Qureshi said Iran has already a system of three month deferred payment but Pakistan has requested to increase this time period ... Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan has also interested to buy additional 1000 MW electricity from Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, “We condemn terrorist activities that took place in the last several weeks in Pakistan, targeting stability of our neighboring country Pakistan.” ... The Iranian Foreign Minister however said efforts should be made to consider root cause of such terrorist attacks and other happenings based on the war against terror.

Referring to the importance of 1000 km border between Pakistan and Iran, the Foreign Minister said, “We have to protect it, because of projects like IPI, road and railway links.” ... “We will not allow any person or group of any other name to violate this border to suffer the people of both sides of border.”

Foreign Minister Mottaki termed the stability and security of Pakistan as stability and security of Iran.

Comment:

Iran stepping into the picture. Correct timing to shift balance in Afghanistan with both USA and Pakistan on the back foot. USA because of non-cooperation of European Nato allies coupled with economic meltdown, and Pakistan because of domestic warfare and loss of fiscal resources.

One thousand megawatts of electricity plus deferred payment oil (actually free because it will never be asked to be paid for as in the Saudi Oil Facility from 1998-2004) will allay some public pressure.

Pakistan has always has had a cow to milk.

First it was the cold war of Lyndon B. Johnson when he gave a Ford truck publicly to replace Bashir Sarban's camel cart, then the Soviet-Afghan war of Bush Sr. and Clinton, then WOT of G.W. Bush, and now Iran. (China in the background? Chinese never show their cards).

So Pakistan will be OK. It won't go bankrupt. It's just too important Geo-strategically for others - plus with nuclear weapons, and an unmatched asymmetrical undeclared war apparatus which no other country has, it will always have foreign cows to milk with these assets. Pakistan is used to doing nothing on its own. It doesn't need to.

It will only eventually do something on its own. What that is? Only time will tell.

FIRST THOUGHTS ON THE ONGOING US MEDIATION WITH TALIBAN

2008-10-11T15:35:00.000+06:00

FIRST IMPRESSION

1-A PLOY TO REDUCE TENSION SO AS TO REDUCE US CASUALTIES BEFORE ELECTIONS.
2-AN ATTEMPT TO DIVIDE THE TALIBAN FROM AL QAEDA

ANALYSIS

1-ANY US RAPPROACHMENT WITH TALIBAN WOULD RESTART THE CIVIL WAR-THE NORTH WOULD SECEDE-RUSSIANS AND IRANIANS WILL BE DOMINANT IN THE NORTH OF AFGHANISTAN.

2-THE SOUTH WOULD BECOME A HAVEN FOR ALL FREEBOOTERS.

3-PAKISTAN WOULD BE SEVERELY DESTABILISED AND INDIA IN TURN WOULD BE AFFECTED.

4-ALL AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN INVESTMENTS MADE IN AFGHANISTAN SINCE 2001 WOULD GO STRAIGHT INTO THE GUTTER

LASTLY TERRORISM WILL RECIEVE A BOOST AND THE CHANCES OF THE US MAINLAND BEING ATTACKED WILL BE MULTIPLIED BY ONE BILLION

The drumming prodigy

2008-10-10T22:41:00.000+06:00

Comment:

On a lighter note. In faith in the indomitable human spirit.

Ideas have consequences ...

2008-10-10T19:45:00.000+06:00

Naomi Klein on the Chicago School and the global financial meltdown:

Comment:

This speech is a lesson. Some knowledge of economy is required, but overall it is in quite simple words.

The connection made is "... people falling in love with a perfect Utopian system - seductive of the perfect Utopian market." Just as people did with Marxism - but both turned out to be distortions, merely a tool used by powerful people to justify excesses by creating crises.

Interestingly, the speaker calls the Neo-Liberals as well as the extreme Leftists as the "modern Trotsky-ites".

"Milton's misfortune is that his policies have actually been tried"
(John Kenneth Galbraith)

Two teeens, a Mulsim from New Jersey and a Christian from near Boston

2008-10-09T21:35:00.000+06:00

Muslims- A Walk in Your Shoes - 16 min - Sep 30, 2006
Noggin-Nickelodeon - www.cuii.org

Two teeens, a Mulsim from New Jersey and a Christian from near Boston learn about each other in the post 9/11 world. Learn about Islam, Muslims and the month of Ramadan.

Live in Bajaur - Talat Hussain 29 September 2008:

2008-10-04T20:05:00.000+06:00

Comment:

For the tribes, country (mulk) means their own territory, not Islamabad. It's a fallacy to think otherwise. They hate outsiders, and that includes 'all' outsiders, including Pakistani armed forces - befriending them only till they can use their firepower.

A tribal elder says at the end of his quote (not translated in the show ) is that "Za da gutta karey di" - meaning - "They've fingered us".

There're many opinions in this documentary. One must sift and sort between these to get to what the tribes really want.

It seems to me two things are clear. They do not believe in any border between Afghanistan and Pakistan as they live on both sides, while at the same time do not want any foreigners on their soil. Of-course it can only mean non-Afghan foreigners i.e. Uzbeks, Tajiks, others ... the others in the fray.

No dearth of the others in the fray as it stands. But, there's no 'other territorial' Muslim in Taliban ideology.

So, it will be a long war.

Palin-Biden Debate: Who won?

2008-10-04T16:00:00.000+06:00

Depends whom considers the winner between a Tenth-Grader and an Eighth-Grader:

On Afghanistan:

On Iran-Pakistan:

On Israel:

Comment:

Courtesy Robert Fisk

On Afghanistan:

"But seriously. There was Biden on Thursday night, telling us that along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan – he was referring, of course, to the old frontier drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand which most Pushtuns (and thus all Taliban) regard as fictional – “there have been 7,000 madrassas built … and that’s where bin Laden lives and we will go at him if we have actually (sic) intelligence”.

Seven thousand? Where on earth does this figure come from? Yes, there are thousands of religious schools in Pakistan – but they’re not all on the border. In another extraordinary bit of myth-making"

On Pakistan:

“Pakistan’s (nuclear) missiles can already hit Israel,” Biden thundered. But what was he talking about? Pakistan has not threatened Israel. It’s supposed to be on our side. Both vice-presidential candidates seemed to think that our ally in the “war on terror” was now turning into an ally of the axis of evil. Even Islam didn’t get a run for its money.

Indeed, one of the funniest reports of the week, yet another investigation of Obama’s education, came from the Associated Press news agency. The would-be president, the Associated Press announced, had attended a Muslim school but hadn’t “practised” Islam.

What on earth did this mean, I asked myself? Would AP have reported, for example, that McCain had attended a Christian school but hadn’t “practised” Christianity? Then I got it. Obama had smoked Islam but he hadn’t inhaled!

Biden actually demanded a “stable” government in Islamabad, which was a little bit hypocritical only a few days after US troops had crossed its sovereign border to shoot up a Pakistani house allegedly used by the Taliban. As General David Petraeus told The New York Times this week, “The trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction … wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult.”

On Israel:

Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. “Palestine” and “Palestinians” – that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept – simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase “Israeli occupation” was mercifully left unused. Neither the words “Jewish colony” nor “Jewish settlement” – not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, “Jewish neighbourhood” – got a look-in. Nope.

Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to “defence”, hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a “two-state” solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn’t understand the region.

There was even a Biden jibe at George Bush for pressing on with “elections” – again, the adjective “Palestinian” went missing – that produced a Hamas victory. But Hamas appeared to exist in never-never land, a vast landscape that gradually encompassed all the vast and black deserts that stretch, in the imagination of US politicians, from the Mediterranean to Pakistan.

And, of course, Israel – a word that must be uttered, repeatedly, by all US candidates – became the compass point of the entire Middle East, this “peace-seeking nation … our strongest and best ally in the Middle East” (quoth Palin) of whom “no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend…than Joe Biden” (quoth Biden).

Israel was “in jeopardy” if America talked to Iran, Palin revealed. “We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust.” Thus was the corpse of Hitler dug up yet again – just as McCain resurrected the shadow of the Second World War last week when he blathered on about Eisenhower’s sense of responsibility before D-Day. That Israel can quite adequately defend herself with 264 nuclear warheads went, of course, unmentioned, because acknowledging Israel’s real power undermines the image of a small and vulnerable country relying on America for its defence.

Israelis deserve security. But where were the promises of security for Palestinians? Or the sympathy which Americans would immediately grant any other occupied people? Absent, needless to say. For we must gird ourselves for the next struggle against world evil in Pakistan.

Obama breathes fire, McCain shows restraint:

2008-09-28T13:57:00.000+06:00

Who is right?

Comment:

Obama: "I'm going to send 2-3 additional brigades to Afghanistan ... because AlQaida and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the Northwest Regions ... and although under George Bush, we've been ging'em 10 billion Dollars over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens - and until they do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe."

McCain: " ... if you’re going to aim a gun at somebody ... you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger ... You don't say things out loud, if you have to do things, you have to do things. This area, on the border, is not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great. I have been to Waziristan, I've seen how tough that terrain is, it's ruled by a handful of tribes ... "

Two-Three additional brigades? Governor NWFP said just yesterday they'll have to massacre half the population of Afghanistan/FATA to eliminate Taliban.

Out of the two, McCain knows the realities on the ground better, but Obama is going to win. It's experience against adrenaline induced exuberance - and exuberance always wins.

However, the aim is the same. They only differ on strategy, though McCain is the wiser of the two.

In the long run none will win, regardless of who wins the US Presidential race.

(Title courtesy Dawn)

A view of things to come

2008-09-26T20:42:00.000+06:00

The scenario may be described as following :--

1-Pakistan int's meddling in Afghanistan and participation in its destruction with USA and UK and Saudi Intelligence from 1978 to 1992 and continual interference till 2001.

RESULT:-- A very strong anti Pakistan sentiment created in Afghan elite consisting of the army,intelligence,civil service ,intellectuals and urban areas.

2-Entry of USA and NATO in Afghanistan.

RESULT:--- A policy adopted to coerce Pakistan by forcing its armed forces to act against tribals/Islamists thus as a result creation of a situation which was taken advantage by other third parties to further heat up the Pakistani civil war.

3-Creation of a democratic government in Pakistan which came into power as a result of secret protocols with USA.

RESULT --- A serious internal policy divide created.

4-FINAL ULTIMATUM TO PAKISTAN:--

Threat of physical attack.

Encouraging secession in Pakistani provinces.

Dividing the Pashtuns and Punjabis.

5-SHOWDOWN:---

Surrender or compromise.Gradual reduction of Pakistani states potential,denuclearisation.

Transformation of Pakistan as a US satellite state with US Bases.

6-ANALYSIS:--

Course Alpha:-- Compromise.Pakistan stays intact but totally under US influence and at constant civil war like Algeria.

Course Bravo:-- Pakistan Army picks up the gauntlet.Decides to militarily resist the Americans.Offers bases to China and Russia.Totally stops Afghan Transit Trade while allowing Afghanistan to buy from the tribals alone who are given a preferential status.Defence Treaty with China.Close relations with Iran.

Course Alpha is more likely.Course Bravo requires resolution and strong leadership which is sadly lacking.

Five-minute ground battle? Blow Hot Blow Cold:

2008-09-26T14:48:00.000+06:00

Other extracts from the same report:

ISPR: “Two helicopters from the Afghanistan side crossed into Saidgai, Ghulam Khan Sector, North Waziristan. When the helicopters passed over our border post and were well within Pakistan territory, our security forces fired anticipatory warning shots,” said a statement issued by the ISPR.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman: Pakistani troops had fired at US helicopters. “The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan,” he said. Mr Whitman said US and Nato military officials were speaking to their Pakistani counterparts to determine what had happened and to ensure there would be no recurrence. “This is an unfortunate incident. It just goes to demonstrate the importance of coordination along that border,” he said. “The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place.” Citing early reports, Mr Whitman said neither helicopter was hit by ground fire and did not return fire against Pakistani positions. Officials said the aircraft would likely have fired back had they been hit. “We avoided a serious incident,” Mr Whitman said, but added: “The incident is troubling, no doubt.”

Zardari: “You mean the flares,” said Mr Zardari when a reporter asked him to comment on the Pentagon’s claim. “Sometimes the border is so mixed that they don’t realise they have crossed the border,” said Mr Zardari, seated opposite Ms Rice at his hotel in New York.

Condoleeza Rice: “The border is very, very unclear, I know,” agreed Ms Rice. Ms Rice tried to defuse the tension, saying that the United States and Pakistan remained close allies in the war on terror.

A military official:... two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, crossed into the border post, prompting the Pakistani side to fire warning shots.

Locals:... one of the helicopters was up to one and half kilometers inside Pakistani territory while the other hovered on the Afghan side.

ISAF:The International Security Assistance Force insisted however that the choppers had not entered Pakistani airspace. “Isaf helicopters received small-arms fire from a Pakistan military checkpoint along the border near Tanai district, in Khost province, while conducting routine operations in Afghanistan,” it said in a statement. “There are no reports of any damage to the helicopters or any casualties.” The statement added: “Isaf forces and the Pakistani military are working together to resolve the matter.”

Comment:
It appears a hot incident did take place. The Inter Services Public Relations of the Pakistan armed forces (ISPR), an unnamed military official, the Pentagon, as well as the ISAF in Afghanistan - all say it took place. Only Zardari and Rice suggest these were just flares to warn of a border crossing.

Blow hot Blow cold is right. It appears the Pakistan Army is delivering on its word to put a stop to cross-border flights by ISAF, Zardari and Rice notwithstanding.

Not a good signal for Zardari's Presidency at all.