Old Soviet Electrical Grid and Water Distribution Nightmares

Power Struggle Threatens Central Asian Electricity Grid

Defections from regiona distribution network may destroy Soviet-era effort to ensure equitable sharing of electricity.

By Gulnura Toralieva in London (RCA No. 596, 20-Nov-09)

Kazakstan’s decision to withdraw from the Central Asia-wide electricity grid and strong hints by Uzbekistan that it will follow suit have highlighted the fragility of energy arrangements in the region. Analysts are warning that political leaders urgently need an action plan to avoid a potential crisis.

The Soviet Union created a common power system for Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan which worked as long as they were part of the same state. But the system began fraying at the edges after 1991, as the newly independent countries began asserting competing interests.

Electricity generating capacity is distributed unevenly in Central Asia. Mountainous Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have close to 80 per cent of the region’s water resources, allowing them to build and benefit from hydroelectric power stations, whereas Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan have substantial oil and gas deposits but depend on their smaller neighbours for water.

Disputes arise whenever Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan store up water for the winter, the time they need it most for electricity production. The three lowland states want the water to flow downstream in spring and summer to provide irrigation during the growing season.

The Uzbeks export their natural gas to Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. They also supply electricity to Tajikistan, as well as providing a transit route for Kyrgyz and Turkmen electricity going to that country. But Tashkent periodically stops supplying gas in autumn and winter because of non-payment of bills, and earlier this year suspended the transit of Turkmen electricity to Tajikistan.

Following a meeting of the council which coordinates regional power supplies in mid-October, Kanat Bozumbayev, head of the Kazak electricity distributor KEGOC, said he had been told that Uzbekistan was leaving the network.

This was denied in a statement from the Uzbek state company Uzbekenergo. A spokesman said they merely wanted to alter the terms of transit arrangements.

“We would like to charge fees for electricity transits to Kyrgyzstan, which were previously regarded as transfers and were free of charge,” he said.

Although the problem was resolved – the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks reached a compromise on compensation – Uzbekenergo subsequently sent out further signals about withdrawing from the entire regional set-up.

In an article published in a state newspaper on November 5, Esso Sadulloev, who heads Uzbekenergo’s distribution office, said Uzbekistan planned to leave the Central Asia-wide grid, which he said was become increasingly unsustainable as certain member states were siphoning off electricity

“The unified electricity system is beginning to be obsolete, and is becoming the source of confrontation between participating states,” said Sadulloev.

His remarks appeared in the press two days after Kazakstan – Central Asia’s strongest economy and major oil producer – made the shock announcement that it too was withdrawing from the grid.

Deputy energy minister Duysenbay Turganov said KEGOC had taken the decision because the system was being disrupted by Tajikistan, which was taking more electricity than it was entitled to and failing to respond to instructions issued by the regional agency which manages the network. In February, Kazakstan temporarily withdrew from the Central Asian energy network because supplies to its southern regions were being disrupted by Tajikistan, which had begun taking electricity from the common grid in order to see its population through the winter months. The Tajiks began tapping the system, without consultation, after Uzbekistan halted transit supplies from Turkmenistan.

Kazakstan’s decision had serious consequences for Kyrgyzstan, which was forced to impose strict limits on power use for consumers as the supply faltered.

Energy experts say the current disagreements arise from longer-running shortcomings in the way the network has functioned. Some say it is just a matter of time before the entire system disintegrates.

The Central Asian network links and regulates supplies from 80-plus power stations across the region, and the departure of even one member could prevent it functioning as a whole.

The resulting energy shortages could provoke instability and unrest which no government would want to see. Bazarbay Mambetov, an economist in Kyrgyzstan, says no one can afford to let this happen.

“The energy grid was created as a single mechanism and has been ensuring a reliable, uninterrupted power supply across the region,” he said. “Whether its participants like it or not, we are all now linked together by this system.”

But it is a network whose infrastructure has not been maintained since the Central Asian republics went their separate ways.

“It is old and it hasn’t been properly maintained, and was designed for a different environment,” said Cleo Paskal, a researcher on energy and environmental matters at the London-based think-tank Chatham House.

The system was set up based on calculations of rainfall and river volumes over previous decades, whereas environmental conditions in the region may now have changed to the extent that the design is redundant, she said.

NO ONE COMES OUT AS WINNER

Ularbek Mateyev, an energy expert in Kyrgyzstan, says, “The Soviet Union designed and built the most viable energy grid, so no country will benefit from leaving it.”

One of the consequences would be to increase the number of outages due to accidents, as there would be no central mechanism for mitigating the effects of power surges by switching supplies from one country to another.

If Uzbekistan, centrally located with the four other states around it, were to leave, everyone else’s national grid would be placed under severe strain.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan would be worst hit, despite existing hydroelectric schemes and plans to build more, analysts say.

“Tajikistan, the northern part in particular, will suffer most,” said Anvar Kamolidinov, a water management expert in Tajikistan. “Soghd province depends on Uzbek electricity coming from the common energy grid. Soghd’s power plant at Kairakkum power plant provides only 20 per cent of the energy consumed there. If Uzbekistan leaves, two million people in [Soghd] region will be left without power.”

Meanwhile, Kamolidinov said, central and southern Tajikistan will also lose out as they will no longer get power generated in Turkmenistan and transferred through Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan, too, will suffer from the loss of electricity coming from or via Uzbekistan.

Kazakstan’s energy minister Sauat Mynbayev says his country would probably struggle through, by keeping a power station in the southern Jambyl region running continuously.

“It would be a huge load, but in terms of power supplies, it would help us – and also northern Kyrgyzstan – survive this period,” he said at a government meeting in late September.

Experts warn, however, that the larger states will face significant problems just as smaller Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will. Neither Uzbekistan nor Kazakstan is currently in a position to assure a constant, uninterrupted flow of power.

Kamolidinov believes Kazakstan and Uzbekistan would have left the parallel system already if they were not dependent on their neighbours to fill in the gaps at certain time.

“Kazakstan might leave, but it will mean additional costs, including spending to build the infrastructure that will be required,” he said. “If Uzbekistan goes, it will have supply problems at peak periods in the morning and evening. Without the Nurek power plant… in Tajikistan, it will be technically problematic and costly for Uzbekistan to meet this peak consumption.

Mambetov say the Uzbeks also need to be able to draw on Kyrgyz electricity.

“Leaving the common grid will have negative consequences for Uzbekistan itself, first and foremost,” he said. “The Uzbek energy grid needs Kyrgyz power in order to regulate a constant current.”

POWER CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH REGIONAL POLITICS

Aside from periodic electricity shortages, the breakdown of regional energy arrangements will have wider implications, analysts say.

For one thing, neither the Tajiks nor the Kyrgyz will have much of an incentive to honour the already loose arrangements for opening up the dam sluices in spring to let water down the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, so that their neighbours have enough irrigation for their crops. Their natural tendency will be to hold as much back until late autumn, when they need to begin generating more power.

Within the Soviet Union, water and fuel were exchanged between republics as free, shared commodities. But in the post-1991 world, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have become increasingly annoyed that their neighbours charge them for gas, oil and coal, yet their own natural resource – water – still has no monetary value placed on it.

Kamolidinov expressed the sense of dissatisfaction common in Tajikistan that “virtually for nothing”, the country stores up the waters of the Syr Darya river in its Kairakkum reservoir for release to Uzbekistan and southern Kazakstan when they need it.

“It’s going to be difficult to reach a [water] agreement on previous terms after the [Uzbek] power supply to Soghd region is interrupted in winter,” he added.

Many analysts see disputes over water and energy as inextricably linked with the political differences between the Central Asian states.

“The system inherited from the Soviet Union is in the process of being dismantled because Central Asian leaders are unable to reach agreement,” said Shairbek Juraev, an assistant professor of international and comparative politics at the American University in Central Asia, based in Kyrgyzstan.

Disagreements over water and energy have been festering for a long time, but Juraev says political confrontation has picked up pace recently.

“There is a risk that the situation may worsen, and that it will affect ordinary people most of all, with shortages of power and water and limits on freedom of movement,” he said. “It may lead to deteriorating conditions along borders, interethnic tensions, and a general worsening of the political situation in the region.”

Uzbekistan’s unhappiness with the current electricity arrangements form part of a wider pattern of disagreements with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, over their plans to complete major new hydropower schemes.

The Roghun and Kambarata power plants would bring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively, a lot closer to self-sufficiency in energy. But Uzbekistan worries that the new dams would block off water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and is insisting on an international study on the possible effects of the projects before they are completed. (For more on this, see Uzbek Overtures to Kazakstan on Water Dispute.)

Russia’s role in the region is an added complicating factor. There is talk of Moscow investing in both the Roghun and Kambarata schemes, and the Uzbeks are also concerned about plans for a new Russian military base in southern Kyrgyzstan, not far from their border. (See Kyrgyzstan: Russian Base Plan Alarms Tashkent on this issue.)

These interconnected issues make it difficult to attribute blame to any one state when disputes arise.

“All the countries in this region do not take one another’s interests into account, and are thus responsible for the current situation,” said Farhod Tolipov, a political analyst in Tashkent. “Since they gained independence, these countries have had many reciprocal grievances and disagreements.

“You cannot criticise Uzbekistan alone, for announcing its decision to leave the common grid even though it was aware this would have certain consequences for its neighbours. Its actions were prompted by the behaviour of Kyrgyzstan, which is planning to build the Kambarata plant and open a Russian military base in the south, although it knows the reaction this would bring from Uzbekistan.”

According to Paskal, worsening inter-state relationships are ultimately the legacy of Soviet-era arrangements for “enforced cooperation” which are no longer working.

In addition, she said, the once-united Central Asian states are starting to undergo “real cultural polarisation and social fragmentation, which make cooperation difficult. If social cohesion starts to break apart, all relations become difficult.”

BUILDING SEPARATE NETWORKS

When it comes to electricity, however, the Central Asian states are not standing still, but are already taking steps to forge new one-to-one arrangements with one another while strengthening their own national grids.

The Kazaks, Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks are currently working towards bilateral and trilateral deals on infrastructure and supply, bypassing the regional level at which agreement seems so difficult.

As Nargiz Kassenova, professor of political science at the Kazakstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research, noted, “The countries in the region are making great efforts to ensure energy security by making their own grids more autonomous and developing new capacity.”

Mateev agrees that a movement towards fully independent power networks is under way, while pointing out that it goes against the international trend towards greater cooperation and efficiency through economies of scale.

“In the next three to four years, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will find solutions and free themselves from energy dependence on Uzbekistan,” he predicted.

Kamolidinov agreed that the Tajiks and Kyrgyz were heading away from reliance on other Central Asian states.

“Energy independence has long been on the agenda of these two countries,” he said. “Uzbekistan leaving the grid and the problems this will create for them will only strengthen their desire for energy independence.”

Gulnura Toralieva is a freelance journalist from Kyrgyzstan.

Naxalism: A Short Introduction to India’s Scariest Security Challenge

Posted by T. Greer in COIN, India, Stealth Conflicts

Prime Minister Mahoman Singh has called them “the single biggest security challenge ever faced by our country”. Fourteen Indian states are struggling to battle the insurgency waged by their 20,000 fighters. Over the last three years some 2,600 people have died by their hands.

These are the Naxalites, the source of India’s scariest security challenge.

Naxalism. It is a topic few in the West are aware of. The international media lends little attention to India’s Maoist insurgents, choosing instead to focus its attention on the more dramatic attacks of groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba. It is hard to blame them: writing about Islamic terrorism has become too easy. There is no need to perform substantive reporting or analysis on the cause of events; pundits simply need to boil down Muslim gunmen and bombers to the level of caricature and the news has been written. Naxalism, in contrast, does not lend itself to such easy stereotypes. Not surprisingly, most media outlets have been conspicuously quiet about the movement.

This silence is not sustainable. Indeed, last month an attack staged by the Naxalites was so spectacular that even the New York Times could not ignore it. On the eighth of October 200 Naxalites ambushed a large contingent of Maharashtri police commandos, killing 17 of them in a gunfight staged in broad daylight. As the Indian government begins a major nation-wide paramilitary offensive against the Naxalites, the ambush on the eighth shall surely be but the first of many battles. I suspect that as this conflict enlarges in scope and drags through time the word “Naxalite” shall lose its alien sound. The day will come when Beltway analysts will pronounce the fate of Chhattisgarh in the same steady voice as they prophesize of Xinjiang; soon the pundit class will talk as freely of the Naxalites as they do the P.K.K.

However, this is all in the future — the post below is for those of you who want a head start.

·

The term “Naxalite” is derived from Naxalbari, the name of the West-Bengal town where India’s Maoist movement began. During the late 1960s the Communist Party of India was sharply divided on how to bring about India’s communist revolution. The party broke into two camps: those in favor of a attaining power by election, whereby the party would have the influence to provide momentum for a great urban uprising, and those in favor of utilizing the country’s vast peasant class to bring about a government-toppling armed insurrection. In 1967 Charu Mazumdar, a member of this second camp, grew tired with the Communist Party’s dithering and debates and set out to begin the revolution himself. The Naxalbari revolts were the result of his efforts.

Mazumdar called his new movement the “All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries”, but most Indians  knew the group by their place of origin, and began to call all Maoist-style guerrillas “Naxalites.”  The movement was supported by two very different groups: leftist college students (mostly from Kolkotta), and poor delits and peasants who had just barely survived India’s worst famine in a century. A steady flow of aid from China further strengthened the movement, allowing it to spread beyond the Naxalbari region itself, taking root in Andrah Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand.

From this point on events turned against the Naxalites. Chinese aid was cut off in the early 70s when the Chinese Comunist Party ended their long standing policy of funding Asian Maoist groups. A brutal counterterror campaign was began by Bengal’s police, and it decimated the ranks of the Naxilite faithful. To top things off, Mazumdar himself was captured by state police, and he stayed in their custody until his death in 1972.

Absent a study source of funding, a base of operations, and a leader, the Naxalite movement fell apart. What had been one organization splintered into 30; divided and prone to factional infighting, Mazumdar’s mass movement was forced to the precipice of Indian society. Only in rural areas far removed from government power did Naxalism retain a vestige of popular support.

This state of affairs was the status quo well into the 1990s. By this time Naxalism had been reduced to irrelevancy, prompting national and state governments to focus on more pressing problems. Given breathing space the Naxalites were able to to rebound and then expand. By 2004 the two largest Naxalite factions joined together to form a new organization, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). The creation of CPI-Maoist was a watershed event, ending the era of interfactional  violence among the Naxalbari and paving the way for a Naxalite resurgence.

·

Naxalism thrives in the regions of India devoid of state control and subject to endemic poverty. Naxalites are often welcomed with open arms in such circumstances;  those leading lives of toil in India’s isolated jungle villages eagerly grasp opportunities to escape the system of oppression and impoverishment that dominates rural India. Once welcomed in, CPI-Maoists construct a shadow-state, complete with taxes, regulations, and courts, all ostensibly for the betterment of disenfranchised delit peasants and tribal groups.

Yet for these oppressed groups seeking recourse by way of Naxalite is an inevitable Faustian bargain. As it becomes clear that a Naxal shadow state has supplanted the authority of state government, police forces are sent to drive the Naxalites out. In the violence that follows it is the delits and tribals who suffer most.

That Naxalite groups find continued support in rural areas despite the ills that accompany their presence marks another aspect of the regions Naxalites favor: the absence of an educated citizenry. The states with a significant Naxal presence all have literacy rates below the national average; the gap in literacy found between Bihar (54%) and Kerala (91% ) mirrors the extant of Naxalite control in the two states.

The area of India where support for the Naxalism runs highest has been called “the red corridor”, a long stretch of territory reaching from southern tip of Andhra Pradesh to the eastern regions of West Bengal. The intensity of Naxalite insurgency varies across this stretch; in most places Naxalites rule unopposed only in remote pockets and patches of the region’s countryside.

In the past opposition from the rural population of Eastern India has kept Naxalism from growing past these remote pockets. The response to CPI-Maoists’s expansion was violent; many rural landowners would not tolerate a Naxalite shadow state and founded anti-Maoist militias in an attempt at armed resistance. The pattern was set by the Salwa Judum, a grass roots resistance movement in Chhattisgarh that was co-opted by the state government soon after its founding. Eager to find a quick fix to the Naxalite problem, the government of Chhattisgarh paid members of the Salwa Judum as “Special Police Officers” and ordered them to clear the jungle of Naxalite influence. The battles that followed this command resulted in thousands of internal refugees across the state. The heavy handed tactics of the Salwa Judum and their government patrons alienated many of the state’s rural poor, and early this year the last vestiges of the movement disappeared.

The same cannot be said for the Naxalites. Every bit of lost legitimacy for the Indian government was a gain for the Naxalite’s shadow state; by the end of this summer the Naxalites had enough popular authority to  set up road blocks on national highways and frisk employees of the Chhattisgarh government.

The surge in Naxalite power is not limited to Chhattisgarh. Multiple states, some outside the red corridor, have seen a troubling growth in Naxalite related violence. Part of the reason the October 8th ambush made headlines is because it did not occur in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, or Orissa, the four states traditionally subject to Naxal violence.

The scope this violence has ensured action on the part of India’s central government. Last month the Central Reserve Police Force reported that it had lost six times the number of men to Naxalites this year than it has to all other groups in all other combat zones, including Kashmir.  This month the CRPF announced that it was launching a nation-wide operation to counter the Naxal threat. Titled “Operation Green Hunt”, the campaign is expected to last two years.

We will see. As this blog has noted in the past, counterinsurgency campaigns  do not operate on a small time scale. This is but the beginning of another long war.

OTHER RESOURCES

Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist)
South Asian Terrorism Portal. 2008.

An invaluable resource for those concerned with Indian security issues, the South Asian Terrorism Portalt has in depth intelligence reports on most of India’s terrorist organizations. This particular report provides a summary of CPI-Maoist’s history, ideology, structure, and current activities. This is easily the best summary of CPI-Maoist that I have seen online.

Communist Party of India (Maoist): Documents, Statements, and Interviews of Leaders
Banned Thought. Last updated November 13 2009.

A collection of CPI-Moist documents and propaganda materials. As the title of the site indicates, all of these materials have been censored in India.

Charu Mazumdar: Reference Archive.
Marxists.org. 2003.

A collection of Charu Mazumdar’s manifestos.

India’s Forgotten War

An exhaustive aggregator and analyzer on all news items related to Naxalism.

Revolution in South Asia

A comprehensive blog that covers Maoist movements across South and Southeastern Asia… from the perspective of the Maoists.

Naxalite Rage

Shlok Vaidya’s blog on India’s security environment, guerrilla warfare, and “the far-flung implications” of a globally connected Naxalite insurgency.

ARTICLES OF INTEREST

Pragati.
Volume 31. October 2009.

Pragati released a special edition devoted to Naxalism and how the Indian government how to best over come it.

While the entire volume is top-notch, I recommend Raj Cherubal’s “Hope is the Antidote to Naxalism“, Ankur Kumar’s “Money and Friends“, and Sushant K Singh & Nitin Pai’s “Winning the Counterinsurgency Endgame” for those pressed for time.

A Spectre Haunting India
The Economist. 17 August 2006.

A good introduction to the conditions in which Naxalism arises.

Naxal Movement in India: A Profile.
Kujur, Rajat. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. 2008.

An in depth history of the Naxal movement, with an emphasis on the movement post-Mazumdar.

On War Footing.
Datta, Sakait. Outlook India. 13 October 2009.

A short but detailed overview of what Operation Green Hunt will look like.

Operation Green Hunt launched. But where are the Naxals?
The Times of India. 7 November 2009.

The Times points out the prime difficulty in waging war against the Naxalites.

India: Draconian Response to Naxalite Violence.
Human Rights Watch. 6 April 2006.

Being Neutral is our Biggest Crime: Government, Vigilante, and Naxalite Abuses in India’s Chhattisgarh State
Human Rights Watch. 14 June 2008.

Dangerous Duty: Children and the Chhattisgarh Conflict
Human Rights Watch. 5 September 2008.

Human Rights Watch has recorded a plethora of human rights violations surrounding this conflict. I do not expect things to get better any time soon.

Sararogha Fort S. Waziristan

A News Aggregator That Covers The World’s Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Covered Also. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.

more about "Sararogha Fort S. Waziristan", posted with vodpod

Lebanese Army Chief: Prepare for Possible Israeli Attack

Mohamad Shmaysani Readers Number : 191

21/11/2009 Israel media continued to circulate news about a possible new war with Lebanon. On Wednesday, Haaretz pointed Thursday that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was devising a scheme to wage war on Lebanon, Iran and Syria in the coming spring. And on Friday, Amos Harel, Haaretz’s military correspondent related the coming Israeli war on Lebanon to a broader regional war that reaches Tehran. Harel said that the situation on the border with Lebanon was complicated; on the one hand there is Hezbollah’s missile arsenal but on the other hand there is no Hezbollah activity against Israel on the border. Meanwhile Lebanon’s army chief, Jean Qahwaji, called on soldiers to be on high alert and to prepare defenses along the border for a possible Israeli attack. In a statement published in honor of Lebanon’s Independence Day, Qahwaji said soldiers should prepare “to handle what the Israeli enemy is scheming against the homeland, and to continue the battle against its violations – in the air, water, and land – with all the tools at our disposal”. Israeli occupation forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi recently warned the Knesset that Hezbollah is currently armed with thousands of missiles, some of which could reach Dimona, south of the occupied territories. “Some of them have a range of 300 km and some of them have a range of up to 325 km,” Ashkenazi said, adding that the missiles were ready for use. “There is a paradox – one hand there is calm, but when you peek over the fence you can see armament and empowerment. If Hezbollah carries out a retaliatory attack for (Imad) Mugniyah it will force Israel to respond and this will lead to deterioration,” he said. “Lebanon will continue to work to free the land that is still under Israeli occupation including the Shaba Farms and part of the village of Rajar,” Qahwaji said. The Army Chief urged the military to “make the utmost possible to reassure the citizens to their lives and livelihoods and continue in pursuit of terrorists, criminals and all those who undermine the country’s security.” “You are also called to prohibit the spies from tampering with the country’s stability from time to time,” he said. A Lebanese military court last week sentenced to death a man charged with spying for Israel and arrested another individual suspected of the same charge. Last spring, Lebanon arrested close to 20 members of six espionage cells suspected of transmitting intelligence information to Israel. Lebanese sources attributed last weeks arrests to improved cooperation between Lebanon’s many security agencies, saying that with the help of better-trained personnel and access to more sophisticated equipment, the Internal Security Forces have been intensifying their efforts to uncover espionage networks as part of an attempt to develop a pan-Lebanese image. “You are also called to strengthen your efforts in order to track terrorists, criminals and perpetrators regardless of their affiliations. In this regard, you have achieved stunning exploits in this field during the last couple of months through efforts which were certified by local and international sides.” “All the eyes are looking up to you, and the people is hailing you, therefore, do not hesitate to respond to the country’s call and spare no efforts for the sake of our land and thus you shall be preserving the precious legacy of your martyrs and drawing bright pages in the book of independence.” Qahwaji concluded his order of the day on the Independence Day.

Italian police arrest 2 linked to Mumbai attacks

AFP/File – This photo taken on November 27, 2008, shows flames and smoke gushing from The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, …

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer Ariel David, Associated Press Writer

ROME – Italian police on Saturday arrested a Pakistani father and son accused of helping fund and providing logistical support for last year’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, authorities said.

The two were arrested in an early morning raid in Brescia, where they managed a money transfer agency, police in the northern Italian city said.

The day before the attacks began on Nov. 26 they allegedly sent money using a stolen identity to a U.S. company to activate Internet phone accounts used by the attackers and their handlers, said Stefano Fonsi, the head of anti-terror police in Brescia.

The transfer was just $229 but gave the attackers five lines over the Internet, which are difficult to trace and allowed militants to keep in touch even during the rampage, Fonsi said.

Italian police began the probe in December after being alerted by the FBI and Indian police about the transfer, Fonsi told The Associated Press.

Ten militants, allegedly from Pakistan, killed 166 people in a three-day assault on luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites in India’s financial capital. One Italian was among the 19 foreigners killed.

The funds were transferred under the identity of another Pakistani man who had never been to Italy and was not involved in the attacks, Fonsi said.

He lives in Spain and his identity was probably stolen when he used another money transfer agency somewhere in the world, Fonsi later told a news conference.

The order to open the accounts with the Callphonex company came from two men in Pakistan, he said. Fonsi added that Italian authorities had shared details of their identities with Pakistani officials.

The two suspects in Brescia, identified in a police statement as 60-year-old Mohammad Yaqub Janjua and 31-year-old Aamer Yaqub Janjua, are accused of aiding and abetting international terrorism as well as illegal financial activity. Their agency, which operated on the Western Union money transfer network, was seized by police.

Transferring funds using the identity of other people was a common practice at the Madina Trading agency in Brescia, and the Italian probe broke up a ring of people who used the system, Fonsi said.

Two more Pakistanis were arrested in Saturday’s raids for allegedly committing fraud, money laundering and other crimes through the masked transfers, but they were not linked to the Mumbai attacks. A fifth Pakistani man escaped arrest and was still being sought.

An additional 12 people were flagged to prosecutors for possible investigation but were not arrested, Fonsi said.

Just by using the stolen identity, the suspects had transferred some euro400,000 ($590,000) between 2006 and 2008 to various countries. The network also used its contacts in Pakistan to help illegal immigrants enter Italy, Fonsi said.

__

Associated Press Writer Andrea De Benedetti contributed to this report.

US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard

AP – FILE – In a Monday, July 21, 2008 file photo, Blackwater Worldwide’s headquarters is seen in Moyock, …

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. It touched off a string of investigations that ultimately led the State Department to cancel the company’s lucrative contract to guard diplomats in Iraq.

Iraqis have said they’re watching closely to see how the U.S. judicial system handles the five men accused of unleashing an unprovoked attack on civilians with machine guns and grenades.

A one-paragraph notice filed Friday says only that prosecutors have asked that the case against Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., be dropped. The government’s detailed request to the court was filed with the judge and with the defendant, but was not made public.

Prosecutors filed the request in a way that allows them to file new charges against Slatten later. There is no indication in the documents whether they intend to. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Friday he could not say whether new charges would be filed.

Slatten’s attorney, Thomas Connolly, said he could not comment on the court documents but said Slatten has maintained his innocence all along. Slatten was an Army sniper who served two tours in Iraq before joining Blackwater.

The request could be a bad sign for the government. After the shootings, some guards spoke to investigators under the promise of immunity. Prosecutors have been arguing behind closed doors that the immunity deal did not taint the case. The judge is considering that issue now. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 25.

Five guards, all military veterans, face charges. Prosecutors say the shooting was unprovoked but Blackwater says its convoy was ambushed. A sixth pleaded guilty, turned on his former colleagues, and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

The case against the remaining four guards is set for trial in February. Prosecutors were aggressive in their charges, using an anti-machine gun law to attach 30-year mandatory prison sentences to the case. And though authorities can’t say for sure exactly which guards shot which victims, all five guards are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter.

So far, most of the case has played out behind closed doors. Defense attorneys have argued the FBI improperly built their case using information gathered under the promise of immunity. Investigators say they were careful to build their case only on material gathered independent of the immunity deals.

The trial likely will hinge on whether the Blackwater guards were provoked. Iraqi witnesses say Blackwater fired the only shots. Some members of the Blackwater convoy said they saw gunfire. Others said they didn’t. Radio logs of the shooting indicate the guards were fired on.

Prosecutors say the guards was itching for a fight and unleashed a gruesome attack on unarmed Iraqis, including women, children and people trying to escape. The convoy allegedly launched a grenade into a nearby girls’ school.

Since the shooting, Blackwater, headquartered in Moyock, N.C., has renamed itself Xe Corp. and has undergone a management upheaval.

An inept response

Babar Sattar

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

The Pakistan-based Taliban’s indiscriminate religion-inspired war against the state in concert with other terror groups poses a threat that no one really knows how to deal with. The war raging in our tribal areas as well as our cities is multi-pronged and has ideological, strategic, political, socio-economic and legal dimensions.

The declared strategy of the Pakistani government toward this war is to take the security operation underway to its logical end with complete resolve and, once the physical control of the Taliban country is reclaimed, consolidate military gains with economic investment and political reforms. The military is essentially involved in a fire brigade operation struggling to put out the fire where it is raging the most. The proposed but missing political and economic tiers of the strategy are meant to win the hearts and minds of people, and prevent futurerecruitment of the youth by the Taliban and other terror groups.

But given that the Taliban and other terrorist outfits functional in Pakistan comprise our own citizens, what will we do about those who survive this military operation including the operational and sleeper cells that are already spread across the country? While an effective military operation can limit the ability to spread violence and terror across Pakistan with impunity and an effective socio-economic and political rejuvenation process can diminish the appeal of ideologically inspired terrorism, we cannot underestimate the need for effective traditional law enforcement to prevent and address acts of terror being carried out across Pakistan. And it is this necessary dimension of fighting terror within Pakistan through traditional policing and law enforcement where our response has not just been deficient but completely non-existent.

As anchor Dr Moeed Pirzada emphasised in a recent discussion, countries that are able to control the movement of men, material and money within their territories and across their borders are better placed to fight the threat posed by terror groups. Pakistan is not just lagging behind on this count but seems completely oblivious to the urgent need to put in place the legal framework and implementation mechanisms to control the movement of men, material and money within Pakistan. Furthermore, the government has made no effort to evaluate the multiple contours of our criminal justice system to ensure that it can effectively take cognizance of the crime of terrorism. Pakistan has been infested with extreme violence and terror for more than five years now and we have yet to hear about terrorists being caught, tried and convicted by our courts of law.

If our criminal justice system lacks the ability to punish terrorists, insurgents and criminals, are we not rendering the concept of rule of law meaningless? We have seen Maulvi Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid walk free despite public knowledge that under his supervision the mosque was turned into an armed fortress, and the Lal-Masjid brigade not only harassed residents and shopkeepers in the neighbourhood but also killed at least five soldiers. Similarly, we continue to hear the demand from India and the US to prosecute Hafiz Saeed, and while the government seems willing to do so, it is unable to bring any formal charges that stick. If Hafiz Saeed is mixed-up in terror plots, he must be prosecuted and convicted. If he is not, his name should be cleared and he should not repeatedly be put under preventive detention merely due to allegations and pressure by foreign countries.

The idea is not to initiate a witch-hunt in the name of law enforcement and eradication of terror, but to make due process of law meaningful and our penal justice system functional. If our justice system does not work, it will either encourage security forces to circumvent due process and indulge in extra-judicial killings or allow criminals and terrorists to go scot-free and remain a menace to society. Given that the terrorists we are fighting are our own people — even if partly supported and financed by our external enemies — it is crucial that the state’s response to this threat be framed within the realm of law. We are presently failing to apprehend and convict terrorists and criminals because (i) much of our law-enforcement activities and security operations are undertaken beyond the zone of law as our legal framework is deficient in fundamental ways, and (ii) to the extent that laws exist they are not being effectively implemented.

Our legal framework does not adequately cater for the army undertaken security operations within the country. Article 245 of the constitution authorises the armed forces to “act in aid of civil power when called upon to do so”. But there is no detailed legislation that delineates the mechanics of how the armed forces will function while acting in aid of civil power, how the forces will arrest and detain people, and how they will gather evidence and facilitate prosecution when the accused are presented before a court.

Sections 4 and 5 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 also provide for armed forces acting in aid of civil power and contemplate that any such operation will be subject to the Code of Criminal Procedure1898. But the armed forces are not trained to carry out internal security operations with a view to apprehending and convicting citizens. For example, during the Swat operation, did the soldiers document recovery of weapons in a manner that would be admissible as evidence in a court of law? Will officers appear before courts as prosecution witnesses? If not, will suspected terrorists not be able to walk free merely because due process formalities have not been followed?

Another huge component of our security infrastructure that functions beyond the realm of law is intelligence agencies. There is no legislation or legal framework that clearly defines the scope of work of our intelligence agencies, the authority that each agency has and effective mechanisms of supervision to ensure that authority vested in the agencies is properly regulated and not abused. This creates a two-tier problem. One is the fear that intelligence agencies have the ability to function as uncontrolled monstrosities and abuse the vast powers not supported by law that they have assumed as a matter of practice.

The second is the limited ability to effectively use the extremely crucial information gathered by these agencies to prosecute criminals because the process through which such information is gathered does not have the backing of law. For example, if there is no legal mechanism to seek permission to wire-tap citizens and record conversations, the utility of such recordings in a court of law remains dubious. The problem needs to be resolved by fixing the structure rather than getting into territory wars over who controls a deformed structure.

Then there are laws such as the Anti-Terrorist Act and the Security of Pakistan Act 1952 that conceive the idea of controlling and suspending activities of proscribed and subversive organisations, but do not take the concept to its logical conclusion. The law does not automatically produce any serious penal consequences for an organization that is declared subversive or proscribed. The state is not obliged to identify the members of such an organisation, prevent them from reorganising themselves under a new banner, prohibit them from purchasing property, renting houses and vehicles, etc.

The deficient legal framework thus makes the exercise of declaring an organisation proscribed or subversive largely meaningless. And finally there are laws that exist on statute books but are just not being enforced. The Explosives Act 1884 is one such law that mandates that the manufacture, possession, use, sale, transport and importation will be subject to government license. If this law was being properly implemented, terrorists would not get their hands on hundreds of kilograms of explosive material at will.

If we intend to control the menace of terror wreaking havoc across Pakistan, we will need to resuscitate traditional law enforcement mechanisms, bring all its components within the realm of law and ensure that our criminal justice system is functional. Without acquiring the ability to exercise effective control over men, material and money within Pakistan, our fire-fighting operations will only have limited utility.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu

Why Is a City of Three Million Unprotected, Gen. Kayani?

O Peshawar!

Basil Nabi Malik

Where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live. – Thomas Brown, Sr.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Peshawar is facing an unprecedented wave of terror. It has been reported that Peshawar has encountered six terrorist attacks in the last 11 days, and this at the exclusion of the various attacks which took place before that. Within this climate of gloom, there are reports and feedbacks that the people of the NWFP, those in Peshawar, in particular, feel that their efforts and sacrifices in tackling terrorism are not being appreciated by the country as a whole.

And who can really blame them for thinking this? Perhaps we would think this way too if we saw our brothers and sisters being killed by savage barbarians , while the political leadership were squabbling over issues such as the 17th Amendment, gas load-shedding, and the ever-so-terrible lack of sugar in the market. While their businesses and industries in Peshawar close down due to the security situation, the people of other provinces seem not to have shown much concern for the situation in NWFP. While the people of Waziristan migrate from their homes to help rid the country of terrorism once and for all, they are looked at suspiciously as if they themselves were terrorists.

Throughout my life, the phrase “we sacrifice our today for your tomorrow” has always applied to the army. It is interesting to note that we often see many television channels, newspapers and civil society members encouraging the army in tackling these terrorists. Each member, in his own way, and rightly so, states that these men are fighting for the good of the country, and it is because of them that we can sleep soundly at night.

However, whenever I hear such comments, the people of Peshawar come to mind. And this is so because, in my opinion, if the people of this country feel that the army must be encouraged and shown support because of the great risks they are undertaking for the sake of the country, then the people of Peshawar deserve even more encouragement and support. After all, the one difference between the remarkable valour of the army and that of the people of Peshawar is that the latter are fighting fiercely without any guns, tanks or helicopters. They are fighting with faith as their weapon, sheer determination being their armour, and patriotism being their badge of common purpose.

Whether it is a suicide blast in the heart of Peshawar or at check posts at the outskirts of the district, the people of Peshawar are learning to live in a minefield, and that too in the name of patriotism and nationalism. With every blast that takes place, you hear the people reiterating their support for the on-going operation and for the army to increase the intensity of the operation. As they rightly point out, it is not only the battle for the soul of the NWFP but the soul of the Pakistani nation itself. And the people of NWFP, amongst others, are at the forefront of that battle to secure a better future for all of us.

Steps must be taken, sending the simple message to our brothers in Peshawar and other parts of NWFP that we, the people of Pakistan, do appreciate their sacrifices, that we do feel for all our brothers and sisters in that province, that we recognise their colossal sacrifices and their tremendous courage in the face of terrorism, that we do recognise their services for the security and stability of the country. Although the people of this country are beleaguered by issues of loadshedding, gas-loadshedding, the sugar crisis, acute inflation, unemployment, corruption, not to mention the various acts of terrorism also taking place in other parts of the country, especially Lahore and the Twin Cities, a moment should not be missed to encourage those who have to live with not only these issues that we face, but also with a constant fear of a suicide bomber lurking in the shadows. Remain steadfast Peshawar, we are with you.

Sipah-e-Sahaba Leader Killed By Motorcycle Hitmen

Leader of banned outfit killed

Karachi

The general secretary of the banned Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Sindh, Engineer Illyas Zubair, was shot dead while one of his companions was seriously injured in an attack Friday night near Teen Hatti.

Jamshed Town police said that Zubair, a prominent SSP leader along with Qari Shafiqur Rahman Alvi was on his way to drop Qari on Jamshed Road, near Teen Hatti when they were intercepted near Baba Noori Shah’s shrine by some armed motorcyclists.

“The attackers sprayed Zubair and Qari Shafiq with bullets, killing Illyas on the spot and injuring Qari Shafiqur Rahman Alvi”, the SHO Jamshed Quarters, Sohail Khan, told The News.

It was learnt that Qari Shafiqur Rehman Alvi, who was wounded in the attack is the party’s provincial information secretary. He was shifted to the hospital in a serious condition. Sohail Khan said that apparently the armed motorcyclists were chasing Zubair’s vehicle and when they reached near the shrine, they were attacked.

Body of the deceased was taken to the Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC) while Qari Shafiqur Rahman was shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, the police official added. Police said that Zubair was the father of five children and lived near the party’s Karachi headquarters, Siddique Akbar mosque, Nagan Chowrangi.

Tension gripped most city areas after the news of Zubair’s killing spread like wild fire. Heavy contingents of police and Rangers were deployed at Siddique Akbar Mosque where SSP workers had started gathering after learning of the assassination of their leader. Ahle Sunnat Wal-Jamat officials said that Engr. Illyas Zubair was a prominent leader of their party, who was recently released from prison after being detained under the MPO.

Who Is The Enemy In Afghanistan?

By Ramtanu Maitra

05 October, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Sept. 25— A common refrain in Washington in some quarters is that if the United States begins withdrawing troops now, Afghanistan will be taken over by the Taliban. The Taliban will, once again, bring in al-Qaeda, posing a threat to Americans residing thousands of miles away. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, in an interview with Fortune magazine on Sept. 22, “If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan. . . . The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which al-Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th.”

Rice, of course, held office when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime from Kabul, in 2001; her statement was issued at a time when President Obama and his administration has, under review, options which could lead to a wholesale reconsideration of its strategy.

It is important to investigate whether her statement is a valid assessment, or was made to rally those in Washington who want the present administration to adopt the British imperial policy and lead America into another Vietnam War, weakening the United States, and endangering the entire world. Is Rice doing exactly what was done by the 1960s’ policymakers who lied to the American people that the purpose of the Vietnam War was to prevent Communists from taking over Asia? Remember the “domino theory”? Now, find out how similar that theory is to the one that Rice is propagating.

The Taliban: A Laboratory Product

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, the “free world” got together to push the Red Army back and smack the Russian bear. Money flowed into Afghanistan from the West and the Persian Gulf, with the intent of protecting the sovereignty of Afghanistan, preserving Islam, and crippling the Communists.

This went on for ten years, during which many Afghan-bred mujahideen (religious fighters) were armed and trained by the Western powers. Ten years later, in 1989, the Soviets, humiliated and badly mangled, left Afghanistan. Then, the groups of mujahideen the West had created fell upon each other and began a civil war, trying to grab control of Kabul.

During the 1980s, Saudi-funded radical Pakistani madrassas (seminaries) had pumped out thousands of Afghan foot soldiers for the U.S.- and Saudi-funded jihad against the Soviets. They also helped bind the independent-minded Pushtun tribesmen closely to the Pakistani government for the first time in history, easing the acute insecurity Pakistan had felt towards Afghanistan and the disputed border.

However, only in 1994—almost 15 years after the Soviet invasion began—did the world come to know about the rising force called the Taliban. Afghanistan had never had a politico-religious group of that name, nor had Afghans even heard about the group before. The Taliban was created as a handmaiden of outside forces, including:

• Saudi Arabia, which indoctrinated a group of Afghans by funding the establishment of thousands of madrassas inside Pakistan;

•The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which acted at the behest of Islamabad to gain control of Kabul through a proxy and dependent rag-tag group; and

• British intelligence, which saw the Taliban as a potent ally that would further British interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia by undermining all sovereign nation-states.

• All this, while Washington watched the development from a distance, essentially encouraging it.

To be precise, the Taliban is a laboratory product, created to unleash instability throughout the area. The instability is essential for the empire builders, and those who know how the British Empire was built in the 18th and 19th centuries, would recognize the phenomenon in a flash.

The Pakistani ISI and the military trained this group of Islamic zealots indoctrinated by Saudi-funded Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative version of Sunni Islam. Beginning in 1994, the Pakistani military, aided by these zealots, went against the somewhat war-weary Afghan mujahideen. With the Islamic flag in their hands and Pakistani soldiers providing the fighting-muscle, the Taliban soon overran most of Afghanistan, but not all. Between 1995 and 2001, when the United States landed its Special Forces from Uzbekistan, the Taliban rule had lost its momentum. Once a binding force in the midst of greedy, power-hungry mujahideen leaders, the Taliban, after it came to power, lost credibility fast. Reports indicate that not more than 5% of Afghans in 2001 still supported these zealots.

It also became evident in 2001, when the U.S. Special Forces, with the help of the Tajik-Uzbek-Hazara dominated Northern Alliance, breezed through Afghanistan and took control of the whole country in six weeks, that the Taliban could not fight. Although the Bush Administration did not divulge it at the beginning, it soon became public knowledge that Washington had allowed the Pakistani government to rescue thousands of Afghan Taliban, Pakistani adjuncts of the Taliban, Pakistani ISI and Army officers, al-Qaeda volunteers, and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) members from the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. It is almost a replay of how the bin Laden family members were spirited out of the United States, just hours after the 9/11 attacks, when the entire airspace of the United States was under lockdown

The defeated Taliban and al-Qaeda had fled to Kunduz after losing battles across the north of the country, and many were surrendering. But then, something inexplicable happened. Over a three-day period, Pakistani military planes made non-stop flights in and out of the Kunduz airport, which was controlled by the Taliban.

All the important Taliban commanders and Pakistanis escaped along a safe-flight corridor, supposedly guaranteed by the Americans. That airlift, which American soldiers called “Operation Airlift of Evil,” made the Northern Alliance soldiers livid. The Indian government sent diplomatic protest notes to the American and British governments. The Kunduz airlift story became available to the world much later, when a high-level CIA officer, Gary Berntsen, who was reportedly the second-in-command during the operation, described it in his book.

Saudi Arabia’s Role

Following the capture of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, only three nations—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.)—all close allies of the United States—recognized the regime. There is every reason why the Saudis did that.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and emergence of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan, and Turkmenistan, bordering Afghanistan, the Saudis have pumped in money to indoctrinate the citizens of these nascent states. They provided the money, and Britain provided the manpower, in the form of a religious group, the Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT). The HuT is headquartered in England, but banned in many Central Asian states. If one were to ask Tony Blair or Gordon Brown about the HuT, one would be told that the group is “peace-loving.” Both prime ministers, despite the demands of many Britons, have refused to ban the group’s activities in Britain.

On the other hand, ask the same question of any of the Central Asian heads of state, and he would point out that the most ferocious militant group in Central Asia is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and almost all the members of the IMU were former HuT members.Both groups are dedicated to destroying Islamic sovereign nation-states and establishing a caliphate.

That is what al-Qaeda preaches, and so does Saudi Wahhabi doctrine. Presently, the British-run HuT has set up a base in Lahore, the second-most populous Pakistani city, bordering India. The Times of London reported in July, that Hizb ut-Tahrir was preparing for a “bloodless military coup,” in order to indoctrinate the region by “military means,” if necessary. Members of the group based in Lahore said the group was prepared to bring the Islamic caliphate to power by “waging war.”

As Afghanistan plunged into civil war in the 1990s, the Saudis began funding new madrassas in Pakistan’s Pushtun-majority areas, near the Afghan border, as well as in the port city of Karachi and in rural Punjab. The Pakistani Army saw the large number of madrassa-trained jihadis as an asset for its covert support of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as its proxy war with India in Kashmir. While in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), bordering Afghanistan, and the gateway to the famed Khyber Pass, madrassas supplied both Afghan refugees and Pakistanis as cannon fodder for the Taliban, the Binori madrassa and others associated with it formed the base for Deobandi groups (not too distant from the Wahhabi), such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which sought to do the

Pakistan Army’s bidding in Kashmir. The many Ahle-Hadith seminaries supplied Salafi (Wahhabi) groups, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Arab sheikhs funded madrassas in the Rahimyar Khan area of rural Punjab, which formed the backbone of hard-core anti-Shi’ite jihadi groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, and its even more militant offshoot, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. All these groups shared training camps and other facilities, under the aegis of Pakistan’s ISI.

The Saudi and Gulf petrodollars encouraged a Wahhabi jihad-centered curriculum. Prominent madrassas included the Darul Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak in the NWFP and the Binori madrassa in Karachi. The Haqqania boasts almost the entire Taliban leadership among its graduates, including top leader Mullah Omar, while the Binori madrassa, whose leader Mufti Shamzai was assassinated, was once talked about as a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden, and is also reportedly the place where bin Laden met Mullah Omar to form the al-Qaeda-Taliban partnership.

British-Saudi Joint Effort: The ‘Al-Yamamah’ Link

Saudi money does not flow out of the Saudi government Treasury, but from various charities. One such charity is al-Haramain. After al-Haramain figured among a number of Saudi charities accused by Washington of financing terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the foundation was closed in Saudi Arabia, in 2005. Al-Haramain was said to have received $45-50 million each year in donations, and has spent some $300 million on humanitarian work overseas.

However, the U.S. accusation has had no effect on the donors. The foundation and other private groups that have been dissolved, and their international operations and assets folded into a new body, have been named the Saudi National Commission for Charitable Work Abroad, which will employ all those who were working for al-Haramain and other charities that were closed because of their support for terrorist groups. In other words, the more it changed, the more it remained the same.

Where British and Saudi operations converge in the most profound way, is in the longstanding “al-Yamamah” covert operations slush fund, established through the arms-for-oil barter scheme first negotiated between the Margaret Thatcher government in Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, in 1985, and still operational today. As EIR has exclusively revealed, al-Yamamah has generated hundreds of billions of dollars in off-budget, offshore funds, that were one critical source of Anglo-Saudi funding to the Afghan mujahideen, in their battle against the Soviets. In a 2006 official biography, Prince Bandar’s ghostwriter boasted that al-Yamamah was a geopolitical partnership between London and Riyadh, to “combat communism” through the buildup of the covert funding conduit.

As recently as 2006, the funds were used to stage a number of attempted coups d’état in Africa, which had nothing to do with fighting communism, and everything to do with British schemes to engulf that continent in perpetual, genocidal war. The Anglo-Saudi schemes for South Asia are identical, and there is good reason to believe that al-Yamamah is an active feature of the ongoing destabilizations.

This brings us to the question of the relationship between the Saudis and al-Qaeda. Beside the fact that 15 of the 19 terrorist 9/11 operatives were Saudis, it is to be noted that, although the distance from Riyadh to southern Afghanistan is a fraction of the distance between Kabul and Washington, no airplane ever hit Saudi Arabia’s palaces, nor its fabled oilfields. All the major terrorist attacks that occurred inside Saudi Arabia were aimed against U.S. targets there.

In other words, if one ignores the mainstream media, there remains no doubt that Riyadh and al-Qaeda work hand-in-glove. Both have the same objectives. One of the major figures dealing with the Taliban, and protecting al-Qaeda, was the Georgetown University-educated Prince Turki bin al-Faisal, who was also an Ambassador to the United States. Prince Turki was given charge, in 1993, of dealing with the feuding factions of Afghan mujahideeen. The Taliban began to emerge a year later. Prince Turki was also working closely with the Pakistani ISI and met Mullah Omar inside Afghanistan.

Turki bin al-Faisal was the Saudi intelligence chief between 1979 and 2002, the crucial years during which the Taliban was “bred,” the Afghan Taliban brought al-Qaeda into Afghanistan, and the 9/11 events occurred in the United States. In 2002, the Saudi King appointed Prince Turki as the Ambassador to Britain. The appointment created an uproar in London, particularly among the intelligence community, but Prime Minister Tony Blair personally intervened to accept his credentials.

Britain in the Saddle

While the Saudis and the Pakistani military have played significant roles on the ground, shoring up the Taliban and bringing it together with al-Qaeda, Britain’s role was not simply to provide the indoctrinating terrorists, in the garb of the “peace-loving” Hizb ut-Tahrir, but much more, particularly after U.S. and other NATO troops were in Afghanistan. While some 9,000 British troops were sent into harm’s way, British empire-servers were also taking good care of the enemies who were killing the British soldiers.

The British operations came to light when Afghan President Hamid Karzai expelled two MI6 agents on Dec. 27, 2007, on charges that they posed a threat to the country’s national security. Afghan government officials said the decision to expel them was taken at the behest of the CIA, after the two agents were caught funding Taliban units. One of the agents, Mervyn Patterson, worked for the United Nations, while the other, Michael Semple, worked for the European Union. Both were Afghan specialists who had been operating in the country for over 20 years; that means they must have been interacting on behalf of London with all the al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders there.

An unnamed Afghan government official told the London Sunday Telegraph that “this warning,” that the men were financing the Taliban for at least ten months, “came from the Americans. They were not happy with the support being provided to the Taliban. They gave the information to our intelligence services, who ordered the arrests.” The source added, “The Afghan government would never have acted alone to expel officials of such a senior level. This was information that was given to the NDS [National Directorate of Security] by the Americans.” In 2006, U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan had loudly protested the British decision, in a deal with local tribal leaders, to withdraw troops from Musa Qala, opening the door for a Taliban takeover of the region.

The London Times wrote that, when Patterson and Semple were arrested, they had $150,000 with them, which was to be given to Taliban commanders in Musa Qala. “British officials have been careful to distance current MI6 talks with Taliban commanders in Helmand from the expulsions of Michael Semple, the Irish head of the EU mission and widely known as a close confidant of Britain’s ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, and Mervyn Patterson, a British advisor to the UN,” the Times wrote. But what has not been told, is that these two MI6 agents were operating in Helmand, the center of Afghanistan’s vast opium production.

Were Patterson and Semple not simply out to create a British faction within the Taliban, but to arrange for a large-scale opium shipment network, to generate cash for the City of London and Her Majesty’s Service?

Besides its covert operations inside Afghanistan, undermining both Kabul and Washington, Britain also rides American shoulders in Afghanistan. One such attempt that failed, was in January 2008, when President Karzai turned down the joint effort of Washington and London to appoint Lord Paddy Ashdown as the UN’s super envoy to Afghanistan. Ashdown, a “liberal” and a “democrat,” who wears his vainglorious feudal title on his shirtsleeves, was ready to pinch-hit for London and Washington, which are looking increasingly like colonial powers trying to occupy Afghanistan, to further undermine the “duly elected” Afghan President.

In addition, Britain works through some others who have the keys to almost all the locks in Washington.

Take, for instance, the duo of George Soros and Lord Mark Malloch-Brown. Soros, who has a hook over the world’s narcotics cartels, benefits immensely from the explosion of the drug traffic; Malloch-Brown, adequately trained by Her Majesty’s Service, serves the interest of the offshore banks and the City of London by helping to procure the much-needed liquidity to keep the imperial wheels greased. In April 2007, Malloch-Brown was appointed vice chairman of Soros’s Quantum Fund, whence come Soros’s billions. The Financial Times of London reported at the time, that “Sir Mark will also serve as vice-chairman of the billionaire philanthropist’s Open Society Institute (OSI), which promotes democracy and human rights, particularly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.” The newspaper added, in a May 1, 2007 article: “In a letter to shareholders in his Quantum hedge funds, Mr. Soros said Sir Mark would provide advice on a variety of issues to him and his two sons, who now run the company on a day-to-day basis. With his extensive international contacts, Malloch-Brown will help create opportunities for [Soros Fund Management] and the fund around the world.”

Lord Malloch-Brown was earlier Britain’s Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While Soros promotes drug legalization internationally, the Afghan drug lords do their part—with the help of the Afghan militia, illegal cash, and gunpowder. At the same time, the Soros-funded International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), formerly known as the Senlis Council, having enlisted a number of drug-loving bureaucrats, holds seminars on the “impossibility” of eradication of Afghan opium. Behind these shenanigans, the prime objective of the Senlis Council, and its benefactor Soros, is to legalize opium production.

The ‘Axis of Evil’

What emerges from this investigation is that the Taliban is not a natural product of Afghanistan, and ever existed there prior to 1994. The Taliban is a movement centered on the Wahhabi doctrine, funded by Saudi and Gulf money, as well as by the joint British-Saudi al-Yamamah slush fund. The Pakistani ISI and military train and arm them, and pro-British power players such as Soros and Malloch-Brown keep them in place, to create and launder opium-centered illegal money for the City of London and Wall Street.

While U.S. and other NATO troops are laying down their lives to fight the “evil incarnates,” the Taliban and al-Qaeda, those “evil incarnates” are being strengthened by the “best” allies of the United States—Britain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the City of London, not to mention Wall Street.

If Condoleezza Rice and her ilk feel deeply concerned that the security of the United States will be weakened by withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Afghanistan, they should stop issuing their false statements and go after the real “axis of evil”—the British Empire and those who serve it.

1.. With Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA’s key field commander (NewYork: Crown, 2005).

 

 

Obama Promising Afghan Exit to Divert Us From the Planned Escalation

[Obama is faltering under the weight of the people’s objections to his prolonging and escalating Bush’s war in Afghanistan.  By announcing that his plan has an ending he and his handlers are hoping to fool the growing resistance movement into allowing him a “temporary” surge.  It’s a scam, people, just like everything else.  Don’t let up.  Pour on the heat.]

Debate Shifts to Afghan Exit Plan

By PETER SPIEGEL and YOCHI J. DREAZEN

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have turned the focus of Afghan war planning toward an exit strategy, publicly declaring that the U.S. and its allies can’t send additional troops without a plan for getting them out.

The shift has unnerved some U.S. and foreign officials, who say that planning a pullout now — with or without a specific timetable — encourages the Taliban to wait out foreign forces and exacerbates fears in the region that the U.S. isn’t fully committed to their security.

Associated Press

Hillary Clinton, with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, arrives in Kabul on Wednesday for an unannounced visit.

"It’s not a good idea," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D., Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

"When the area has been stabilized…then it’s time to go home. But to set up a timetable for people in that neck of the woods, they’ll just wait us out," said Rep. Skelton, a prominent supporter of proposals by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Kabul, to send more troops for a counterinsurgency campaign.

Mr. Obama isn’t asking for the firm, publicly declared handover dates in Afghanistan that were the feature of early Iraq war plans, according to senior administration and military officials.

Instead, the officials said, the administration wants the Pentagon to identify key milestones for Afghanistan to meet, in its governance and the capability of its security forces, and then give a rough sense of when each objective is likely to be achieved. Reaching these goals would allow the U.S. role to shift away from direct combat, allowing troop levels to decline.

Mr. Obama said Wednesday in a CNN interview that he believed his new Afghan policy needed to include an "endgame" because "unless you impose that kind of discipline, [U.S. policy] could end up leading to a multiyear occupation that won’t serve the interests of the United States."

Keeping the public eye on an exit strategy — rather than on how many new troops would be deployed, the subject of much of the U.S. public debate so far — could also help Mr. Obama sell his strategy at home.

"What the White House wants is a strategic glide path that gives a sense of the path ahead and the time it will take to meet each specific target," the defense official said. "It’s not a hard-and-fast timetable for withdrawal."

However, Mr. Brown — who faces significant, growing U.K. public opposition to the war — has called for an international conference next year that would come up with a "process for transferring district-by-district to full Afghan control," and set a clear schedule for doing so, beginning as early as next year.

In the 2007 surge in Iraq, planners eventually set benchmarks that weren’t tied to specific dates. The models under consideration for Afghanistan are variations of the timeline devised by Gen. David Petraeus in the fall of 2007 that laid out six stages for gradually reducing U.S. force levels in Iraq, according to a defense official.

Some senior military officials involved in Afghan policy said getting the Afghan government to agree to benchmarks tied to a schedule could spur President Hamid Karzai to meet governance goals.

"He won’t act if he thinks we’ll be there forever, and with constantly increasing numbers of troops," said a senior military official.

As President Obama searches for an exit strategy for Afghanistan, WSJ’s Peter Spiegel says it’s becoming clear that this won’t necessarily involve a firm timetable, but will more likely involve other measures for determining withdrawal.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Kabul on Wednesday to attend Mr. Karzai’s inauguration Thursday, continued to pressure the Afghan president to overhaul his government to make it more responsive to the electorate.

"There is now a clear window of opportunity for President Karzai and his government to make a new compact with the people of Afghanistan to demonstrate that now there will be accountability and tangible results to improve the lives of people throughout this country," Mrs. Clinton told U.S. Embassy staff.

A military official briefed on the U.S. deliberations said the issue of timelines is likely to affect the mix of how additional forces are used between three different missions: direct combat, securing urban areas to protect local populations, and training Afghan security forces.

A decision to push for a quick ramp-up of Afghan forces may lead more of the reinforcements to be deployed as trainers for Afghan army and policy units, the official said.

Another military official said a sped-up training effort could lead to an "effectively sized" Afghan force by 2013, which would allow North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops to concentrate on training and providing support to domestic security forces. "There are of course many factors that could influence this — including what the enemy and population do to hedge their bets against an established withdrawal date, which is why we generally don’t like to discuss timelines," said the military official of the 2013 goal.

—Anand Gopal and Alan Cullison in Kabul contributed to this article.

Write to Peter Spiegel at peter.spiegel@wsj.com and Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com

If Everyone on the List Quit, There Would Be No Government

Gilani to quit if wife proved NRO beneficiary

By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir

& Asim Yasin

ISLAMABAD: In what could be described as a clear message to the beneficiaries of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to resign from their posts, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday said he would resign if it was proved that his spouse was a beneficiary of the controversial ordinance.

“I will resign if it is proved that either I or my spouse got any relief from the NRO. I spent a jail term to provide jobs but I never liked to get relief through the NRO and faced trial under the law of the land, so how could it be possible that my wife can get relief through this ordinance,” he said in a press talk after the function of ‘Green Journalist Award’ at the Prime Minister Secretariat here Thursday.

The soft-spoken Gilani got emotional and said this was mischievous that his spouse’s name was put on the list. The prime minister was visibly worked up with the news item that appeared in the morning newspapers claiming that wife of the prime minister was among the beneficiaries of the NRO. Explaining the position of his family in strong words and giving the whole background of the allegation, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said he had announced on the floor of the National Assembly that the list of those who got benefit from the notorious ordinance would be placed before it. Accordingly, he called the ministry concerned on almost daily basis to provide the list of the beneficiaries of the law but the National Assembly was prorogued and the list was never produced in the House but the list was published in the newspapers.

The prime minister was not in an agitated mood but he was firm about his position by saying: “The offices are not bigger than the man. I am strengthening the institutions and any office is small before my endeavours.”

He said the government did not table the NRO in Parliament keeping in view the sense of the parliamentarians. “I had asked the Law Ministry to present a list of the NRO beneficiaries before Parliament but they did not do so and they will be asked in this regard,” he said.

However, he said, the Law Ministry presented the list to him Wednesday night in which name of his spouse was also included, and that was a surprise for him as neither his wife nor any of his family members took any relief under the NRO.

Smelling something fishy in preparation of the list, the premier said he had asked for an inquiry in this regard. Political observers are of the view that Prime Minister Gilani has given a message to all those in loud and clear words who got benefit from the infamous law that now stands quashed. He has set example and shown the path in or outside the government that the best way to deal with it is to step aside gracefully.

“Would the president and the federal ministers dare to offer the same?” quizzed a political observer. Later, in an exclusive chat with The News, Prime Minister Gilani made it clear that he would not stay in the office for a minute by compromising his integrity as he belongs to a family where fairness and honesty runs in their blood. “I am sitting in the seat occupied by great leaders of Pakistan movement such as Liaquat Ali Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his illustrious daughter Shaheed Benazir Bhutto who gave their blood for upholding the principles. I will be the last person who will bring bad name to the office. We are to strengthen the institutions, not destroy them” he said, adding, “A person who is sitting at the helm of affairs of the country on behalf of the PPP must not have one single stigma on his character. I will protect the both”. He stressed that he was totally committed to his promise of resigning if the so-called allegations of his spouse benefiting from NRO are established. He expressed his surprise that the minister of state for law was now saying that the wife of the prime minister is not among the NRO beneficiaries and NAB is also issuing similar clarification but they must explain that what stopped them from issuing the list and producing it in Parliament when the prime minister of the country had asked them to.

Earlier, replying to a question during the press talk, the prime minister reaffirmed the government’s resolve to completely root out the menace of extremism and terrorism. “Pakistan is not fighting anyone’s but its own war for peace and security,” he added. He said Pakistan is utilising all its resources to fight terrorists and now it is the responsibility of the international community to come forward and help build the capacity of our law enforcement agencies.

Answering a question regarding US President Obama’s letter to President Asif Ali Zardari, in which it was reported to do more in the war on terrorism, the prime minister said it is for America now to do more in overcoming the menace of terrorism. “There is nothing like ‘Do More’ mentioned in the letter,” he added.

He said the government has got a damage need assessment report and is expected to receive about $1.2 billion as assistance for reconstruction of affected areas.

To a question regarding the report of Transparency International, he said the government has great concerns over the matter and a committee has been constituted under the head of the finance minister to look into the issue for its elimination. “The corruption did not surface in one day but it dates back to decades,” he argued.

Answering a question regarding provision of evidence of Indian involvement in Balochistan and terror activities, the prime minister said these evidences would be provided at an appropriate time whenever needed.

Regarding Aghaze Haqooqe Balochistan package, he said this plan has been prepared after taking all political parties present in Parliament into confidence, and it will be presented in the joint sitting of Parliament. He said the government intends to give legal cover to this package and the members of the smaller provinces will have equal opportunity in the joint sitting to give their suggestions and provide legal cover to it.

The prime minister said, however, leaders of the political parties who have links with the Baloch leaders sitting outside Parliament have been asked to get their inputs on the package to make it more viable.

The sources said that an internal probe is now underway to seek clue about inclusion of the name of prime minister’s wife in the so-called list when she never asked for taking advantage from the NRO.

A federal minister who accompanied the president in his sojourn to Kabul would be under tremendous pressure to offer resignation in the wake of announcement made by the prime minister.

APP adds: Prime Minister Gilani said his wife was a director in a company during the period of Junejo government in 1985, adding, but owing to the government’s policies the project became sick and the company defaulted.

When Musharraf took power (in 1999), the chief executive of that company was arrested and remained in jail for eight years before the matter was closed. Gilani further said that he contested the general elections in 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997 and then in 2008 and was cleared as a candidate by the returning officers.

He said when he was in jail his brother contested the election in 2002 and was also cleared as a candidate. Gilani said when he was behind the bars his wife used to visit him and also met General Maqbool, the then NAB chairman, and other NAB officers to pursue his case.

“My wife along with my lawyers Aitzaz Ahsan and Khawja Haris was fighting my case,” he said and added that if there was any problem how could they spare his wife when she used to visit jail and NAB offices and he too would have been jailed on the charges of financial corruption instead of any other matter.

ISI Vehicle escorting CIA director overturns in Islamabad

[A veiled threat?]

Vehicle escorting CIA director overturns

By Shakeel Anjum

ISLAMABAD: A vehicle of a sensitive security agency escorting US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta, currently on a ‘secret’ visit to Pakistan, overturned near the KRL Chowk at Islamabad Expressway while the motorcade was going to the Diplomatic Enclave from Islamabad Airport, intelligence agency sources told The News.

Two riders of the vehicle sustained injuries and were shifted to a hospital, the sources said. The sources said CIA director’s motorcade was heading towards Islamabad from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport when an escorting car of a sensitive security agency flipped over after its tyre burst and hit a vehicle of the motorcade.

“Motorcade of the CIA chief kept travelling towards Islamabad ignoring the incident,” the sources added.The CIA chief is on a three-day visit to Pakistan and will meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the sources added.

Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit, when contacted by this correspondent, expressed his ignorance about the visit of the CIA director, saying he had no information about the same. When contacted, US Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsir refused to comment on the visit of CIA chief to Pakistan, saying he didn’t deal with CIA matters.

Wow! This Really Explains a Lot

Finally, dreaded NRO list is out and official

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) presented to the government on Thursday a list of 248 politicians and bureaucrats, who were alleged to have plundered hundreds of billions of rupees but were cleared by the NAB under the NRO.

Sources in the Law Ministry while sharing with The News the “complete list” of NAB’s NRO beneficiaries, explained that thousands other cases of NRO beneficiaries did not belong to the NAB but with the provincial governments because they were criminal cases and were not covered by the NAB law.

On top of the list is the name of President Asif Ali Zardari while his several close associates, both political and bureaucratic, including Rehman Malik, Salman Farooqi and his brother Usman Farooqi, Hussain Haqqani and Siraj Shamsuddin are also reflected.

The list, which also reflects a brief introduction of the cases dropped against each name under the NRO, also includes the name of serving and former ministers, federal and provincial secretaries, ex-chief secretaries, existing or former members of the national and provincial assemblies and others.

According to the list, Asif Ali Zardari remained the beneficiary No 1 of the NRO as at least eight of his NAB cases of corruption and misuse of authorities were dropped. These cases included the alleged kickbacks from SGS PSI Company, grant of licence to ARY Gold causing huge loss to government, corruption in purchase of Ursus tractors under the Awami Tractor Scheme, illegal award of contract to Cotecna for pre-shipment, assets beyond means, received kickbacks from Sajjad Ahmad (late) ex-chairman Pakistan Steel Mills, illegal construction of Polo ground at PM House and the money laundering SGS Swiss case.

Others amongst politicians include Nawaz Yousaf Talpur, ex-MNA and former minister, who was co-accused in URSUS tractors case; Ms Nusrat Bhutto, assets case; ex-MNA and the PPP Secretary General Jehangir Badr, assets case and corruption in Sui Southern Gas Company; ex-minister for commerce and presently Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, misuse of authority in issuing sugar export permit to non-entitled persons in 1994; ex-MNA Malik Mushtaq Ahmed Awan, embezzlement in Octroi contracts; ex-MNA Rana Nazir Ahmed, assets case and misuse of authority; ex-MPA Mian M Rashid, assets case and illegal appointments; ex-MPA Tariq Anees, assets beyond means; ex-MPA Mian Tariq Mehmood Dina, assets beyond means; ex-minister of education Sindh Agha Sirajuddin and others, misuse of authority; ex-chief minister and former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, misuse of authority, illegal allotment of plots and assets case; ex-provincial minister Ghani-ur-Rehman, assets beyond means; ex-senator Haji Gulsher, misuse of authority and acquisition of land; ex-provincial minister Habibullah Khan Kundi, misuse of authority and acquisition of land; ex-MNA Mir Baz Muhammad Khan Khethran, misappropriation of government funds allocated for people’s works programme; ex-federal minister Anwar Saifullah Khan, misuse of authority in allocation of LPG and illegal appointments; ex-provincial minister Sardar Mansoor Laghari, corruption in Utility Stores Corporation; ex-Mayor Sargodha Ch Abdul Hameed, assets beyond means; ex-chairman Zila Council Lahore Ch Shoukat Ali, ex-MNA Haji Kabir and ex-chairman Zila Council Lahore Ch Zulfikar Ali in Zila Council fraud case.

Amongst government servants and others, who had benefited from NRO and got themselves cleared from NAB cases include ex-additional director general FIA and presently Interior Minister Rehman Malik, embezzlement of funds on account of un-authorized released of imported yellow cab cars, illegal detention of complainant and illegal gratification; ex-secretary information and presently Pakistan’s ambassador in the US Husain Haqqani, co-accused in Ms BB case of TV channels; ex-federal secretary and presently principal secretary to the president Suleman Farooqi, illegal allotment of textile quota, forgery and fraud, obtained illegal benefits in connivance with exporters; ex-chairman Pakistan Steels Mill, caused loss to Pak Steels through illegal disposal of 15.93 MT of end cuts, procurement of Ferro Silicon at higher rates; ex-joint secretary PM Secretariat, former principal secretary to the PM Gilani and presently Executive Director ADB Siraj Shamsuddin, illegal appointment; ex-NBP president and presently Pakistan’s ambassador M B Abbasi, corruption and corrupt practices and loan default; ex-secretary Sindh Rasool Baksh Rahoo, KPT land cases; Mashook Ahmed Usmani, Aurangzeb, Moin ul Arfeen, Akhtar H Askari and Kher M Kalochi of Pakistan Steels Mills (PSM) in the case of purchases on exorbitant prices for PSM; ex-DG textile quota Nayyar Bari and ex-DD Export Promotion Board Anees Alam, illegal allotment of textile quota, forgery/fraud, obtained illegal benefits in connivance with exporters; ex- secretary commerce Brig (R) Aslam Hayat Qureshi, co-accused in ARY Gold case; ex-advisor to Prime Minister A R Siddiqi, co-accused in AAZ and BB cases; ex-principal secretary to the PM Saeed Mehdi, co-accused in polo ground case; ex-principal secretary to the PM Ahmed Sadiq, assets beyond means; ex-chief secretary Punjab Javed Qureshi, fraud in Zila Council Lahore contracts; ex president HBL, willful default, ex DG Intelligence Bureau Brig Imtiaz, assets beyond means; ex-MD Printing Corporation of Pakistan Pir Mukarram, corruption and corrupt practices; ex-DG Textile Quota Akhtar Alam in textile quota case; ex-secretary Petroleum Capt (R) Naseer Ahmad, misuse of authority in awarding contracts for OGDC; ex-Director Textile Quota Syed Arfeen, textile quota case; customs officials Khalid Aziz, Muhammad Nawaz Butt and Mumtaz Ali Changezi in illegal evasion of tax duties case and wrong refund of customs rebate case; Pak Steel employees Syed Iqtedar Rasool, Qaiser Raza, Irfanuddin, Hisamuddin and Qurban Ali Jatoi in import of PIG iron for PSM case; General Manager Port Qasim Authority Abdul Sattar Dero, corruption in PSM; businessman/transporter Pir Deedar Hussain Shah, yellow cab scam; ex-FIA Assistant Director Sajjad Haider, ex-Inspector Muhammad Sharif Qureshi and inspector Moeen Ashraf, all three co-accused of Rehman Malik in embezzlement of funds on account of unauthorized release of imported yellow cab cars case; Assistant Director FIA Agha Ishrat Ali, assets beyond means; ex-Deputy Director FIA Ch Muhammad Sharif, assets beyond means; ex-Additional Commissioner Income Tax Javed Iqbal Mirza, assets beyond means; ex Managing Director Karachi Water and Sewerage Board Aftab Ahmed, misuse of authority in awarding contracts; Project Director Karachi Water and Sewerage Board Fareed Ahmed, misuse of authority in awarding contracts; ex-Regional Commissioner of Income Tax Sindh Abrar Ahmed, assets beyond known resources.

The names of other beneficiaries are Collector Customs Imtaiz Ali Taj; ex-Secretary Javed Burki, DG Port Qasim Authority Irshad Ahmed Sheikh; AD FIA Noor Muhammad Kaka; Maj (R) Rashid Khan; Additional Director FIA Ali Qaswar Bokhari; ex-DG Peshawar Development Authority Syed Zahir Shah; Suptd Customs Check Post Mand Muhammad Younas Butt; Customs officials Sherdad Khan, Sajad Hussain, Muhammad Sarwar and Abdul Hameed Siddiqi; Senior Store Manager Muhammad Iqbal; District Engineer Water Supply Quetta Zamarak Khan; Revenue Officer Pashin Rehman Ali; Assistant Revenue Office Pashin Hafiz Matiullah; Superintendent Revenue Officer Pishin Muhammad Iqbal; Junior Auditor Ibrar Hussain; ex-SP Railways Inamur Rehman Sehri; ex-DC CDA Ch Muhammad Aslam; ex-Secretary CDA Abdul Ghafoor Dogar; ex-AD CDA Mushtaq Ahmed Baloch; ex-Sub Engineer CDA Muhammad Ismail; ex-DC CDA Ahmed Khan; ex-Account Officer Attaullah Khan; ex Patwari Muhammad Farooq; ex-Patwari CDA Muzamil Hussain; Clerk CDA Dawood Khan; ex-Deputy Director Planning CDA Muhammad Iqbal; ex-DC CDA Muhammad Amin; ex-DC CDA Shoukat Ali; Supervisor PTCL Sheikh Liaqat Ali; Assistant Manager GHQ Habibullah Tasnim; Assistant Store Keeper Muhammad Saeed; ex-DG Services CDA Mohiuddin Jameeli; ex DD CDA Muhammad Ashfaq; ex-Asstt Estate Manager CDA Din Muhammad; EGDC official Raheel J Qureshi; GPO Rawalpindi officials Muhammad Farooq, Salim Raza, Muhammad Anwar, Muhammad Akhtar and Arshad Mehmood; ex-Tehsildar Raja Zahid Hussain; Dy DG Military Land and Cantonment Department Abdul Naeem Khan; ex-SSD MEO Rwp Sh Muhammad Amin; Assistant Director Military Land and Cantonment Abdul Hayee Qamar; ex-DG Military Land and Cantonment Qazi Naeem Ahmed; Abdul Ghafoor Khan, Muhammad Ali; ex-Chairman SLI Zaheer; ex-DG NHA Iqbal Ahmad; ex-Chief Engineer CAA Raees M Irshad; CAA officials Ghulam Qadir Lakhan, Shafique Siddiqi, Ahmed Hussain, Iqbal Bangash, Khurshid Anwar, M Akbar, A D Abbasi, Kh Farooq Ahmad and Rafique Shad; OGDC officials Jaffar Mohammad, Khalid Subhani, Capt (R) Nazir Ahmed; Najmul Hassan, M Ishaq, Muzaffar Hussain, Shahid Ahmed, Qamar Hussain Shah, M Israel Khan and Bashir Ahmad Bhatti; PWD officials Mureed Ahmed Baloch, Sadaqat Ali, Khalid Mehmood Nasir, Akram Rao, Rashid Mujib Siddiqi, Aslam Shahid, Zahid ullah Khan and Shabbair Husain; Wapda officials Anwar Hussain, Wapda Line Superintendents Saifullah, Muhammad Arshad, Syed Ehsan Ali Shah, Mirza Saeed Ahmed, Akbar Ali and Allah Wasaya; Nadra officials Hakim Din, Sardari Ali and Nadir Khan; Zakim Khan Masood, Sadiq Ali Khan, Sardar Mansoor Leghari, Din Muhammad, Sikandar Ali Abbasi, Ahmad Yar Gondal, Amin Jan, Sharif Alam Padri, Usman Ghani Khatri, Adnan Khawaja, Nadeem Imtiaz; ex-official Abdul Hakeem, proprietor M/s Techno Int Pir Bux Solangi; private person Abdul Sattar Mandokhel; official S M Attaur Rehman; Sahib Dad Mengal; Hamza Khan Gabol; Riaz ul Hassan Rizvi; Shamsuddin, Ayaz Ahmed, Mukhtiar Ahmad, Muhammad Ali, Abdul Aziz, Rasheed Muhammad Qureshi, Mumtaz Ahmed Bhutto, Maqsood Ahmed, ex-UDC MEO Sialkot Naeem uddin, ex Asst Audit Officer Muhammad Hanif Rahi; ex-cameraman Abu Zar Jaffari; Auditor General officials Muneeruddin Ch, Abdul Razaak Bhatti, Mehr Sajjad Ahmed, Mirza Sajjad Ahmed, Mirza Muhammad Ayub, Muhammad Iqbal Shah, Mukhtar Ahmed, Malik Shahmat Ali, Mian Abdul Rehman, Muhammad Shafique, Syed Javed Hassan, Syed Muzaffar H Shah, Muhammad Sarwar Safi, Muhammad Shabbir and Tariq Mehmood; Food Department officials Ch Nazir Ahmed, Safiullah Awan and Muhammad Usman; Wapda’s Liaqat Ali, Customs Ali Muhammad Sheikh; PTCL’s Munawar Hussain, Muhammad Ashfaq Naz and Muhammad Shahid; Lahore Wapda’s Shahid Iqbal Ghauri, Manzoor H Chohan, Muhammad Javed, Abdul Rehman, Iftikhar Ali and M Qasim; Amjad Hussain Sandhal, Syed Zahir Hussain, Ghulam Mustafa, M Hanif; Sadiq Muhammad, Sameer Amjad, Ch M Siddiqi, Rasheed Ahmed Patwari, Mirza Sher Muhammad; businessmen Seth Nisar Ahmed and Zahid Mehmood; official Murid Ahmed Baloch, Qazi Afzal Hussain, Shaukat Hussain Shah, Maqbool Ahmed, Noor Jamal, Sardar Muhammad Nasim, Mirza Sher Muhammad, Rashid Ahmed Patwari, Muhammad Usman, Arshad Mehmood, Muhammad Akhtar and Waheedur Rehman.

US Politician urges Americans to move to settlements in violation of international law

[Is it bigoted, or anti-Semitic to notice the drama and hysterics used by Israeli spokesmen to get their way in the world?  Netanyahu is among the worst of the Jewish "drama queens," who try in vain to justify the barbarism used against the Palestinians everyday.  Everything is the ultimate tragedy; every trial an "existential threat."  Hasbara or no, the people of the world know when someone is "hamming it up," and that is all you see coming from Israeli spokesmen, especially the Jewish-American congressmen  who entice their Christian colleagues to join them on paid junkets to Israel.  These guys are blowing the scam, when they wail an moan whenever Israelis are asked to answer to the same international norms and laws that bind everybody else.  Every inch of the Occupied Territory is stolen land.  Every settler/colonizer who lays claim to another piece of that stolen property feigns outrage, as they raise their hands, as if beseeching God Himself,  screaming "injustice," that Israel is the only country in the world "not allowed to defend itself" from Palestinian bottle rockets.  It's time this drama closed.]

Saed Bannoura

 

Nof Zion – east of ‘Green Line’ border (photo ARIJ) IMEMC, November 18, 2009 A Democratic State Assemblyman from New York is leading a mission of 50 US citizens through Israeli settlements in the West Bank, encouraging the US citizens to move to the settlements in violation of international law. Dov Hikind, who represents the 48th District of Brooklyn, told Israeli media, “Our goal is to send a clear message to Washington and President Obama that Jews will continue to live in Judea and Samaria and the ultimate commitment American Jews can make is to actually come and buy property in these areas as this will ensure these communities’ security and growth.” He added, “For now, if a Jew wants to buy something in the Land of Israel there shouldn’t be anything that says you can’t buy in a particular area because Jews should not live there because that area has to be segregated.” But he failed to mention that Israel has created the segregation system, in which over 50 laws discriminate openly against non-Jews, and Palestinians indigenous to the land are prevented from living in 78% of what was once their own land. Hikind also failed to mention where the ‘land of Israel’ to which he refers begins and ends, a trait which is common among right-wing Israeli settlers who hope to continue the expansion of the ‘land of Israel’ by never openly defining the borders of the state. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has refused to define its own borders, instead continually expanding further and further onto Palestinian loand in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international law. The New York Congressman said that he himself plans to buy a house in a new settlement called Nof Zion, where he plans to participate in a ‘cornerstone-laying ceremony’ on Wednesday. According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, the 44 dunams of land where Nof Zion is situated are owned by Palestinian families, but were confiscated by occupying troops in 1967. In 2005 the families submitted an appeal to the Israeli high court of justice to prevent construction on their land, but it was rejected. Hikind said that the idea of a settlement freeze as a precondition for peace talks is “ridiculous and outrageous”, and criticized the idea that US President Barack Obama had taken such a position, even for a short while, earlier this year. But the indigenous Palestinians whose land has been seized for the construction of these settlements say that there is no way to negotiate when the occupying army has complete control over every aspect of their lives, including control over Palestinian air, land and sea borders, internal control over their travel, vehicles, IDs, birth and death records, and land. Palestinians whose land is seized have no recourse in the Israeli court system, which does not recognize their right to the land as the indigenous inhabitants, even when the Palestinian owners present titles and deeds to the land in question.

:: Article nr. 60199 sent on 18-nov-2009 16:12 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60199

Netanyahu: The obscene liar

By Khalid Amayreh

 

November 18, 2009 Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is a manifestly fascist-minded demagogue who thinks that everything Jewish must override everything non-Jewish, regardless of all considerations. He is also a first-class liar who believes that lying to the world, including Jews, is the first line of defense against growing opposition to genocidal Israeli criminality. Indeed, like Nazi Germany, which waged war on Europe and killed or caused the death of millions in the name of self-defense, Israel is doing the same thing by threatening and attacking its neighbors, especially the helpless Palestinians who have been trying for decades to rid themselves of the Nazi-like Israeli occupation of their country. There is no doubt that Netanyahu is a true pathological liar. Falsifying reality is simply an inherent and conspicuous character of the notorious bigot. Netanyahu claimed this week that nuclear-armed Israel is the world’s most threatened county. He was quoted by the Ha’aretz newspaper as saying that ” Israel is facing enemies who don’t conceal their intentions, who first attack us physically and then attack our right to self-defense.” But Is Israel really a threatened country? Obviously, the claim is a big lie because Israel is actually a threatening, not a threatened country. Israel, which possesses a huge stockpile of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, has been attacking other countries from day-1 of its hateful existence. Indeed, Israel has been trying relentlessly to annihilate the national existence of another people, the Palestinians, by arrogating their land, demolishing their homes and towns, and expelling them from their ancestral homeland. Harsh ethnic cleansing, which takes a variety of aspects, has always been and continues to be Israel ’s modus operandi in treating the Palestinians. Israel is probably the only country in this world that thrives on murder, theft and lies, a country that murders children on their way to school and then cries out “self-defense! Holocaust! terror.! In his monologue of lies, Netanyahu also claimed that Palestinian “rocket attacks” on Israeli settlements were not experienced by any other country since German attacks on Britain during WWII. Well, if the term “pornographic lies” has any meaning, it is people like Netanyahu and his colleagues who give it meaning. After all, no honest person under the sun can compare the extremely primitive projectiles fired by desperate Palestinians resistance fighters on Israeli settlements, with the German raids and rocket attacks against London and other British cities. Indeed, while the German missile and other attacks on British cities killed thousands of Britons, eight years of Palestinian rocket firing on Israel killed less than ten Israeli settlers. In other words, more people would die in a single traffic accident in Israel than they would in eight years of Palestinian “rocket attacks”. More to the point, a single attack by Israeli fighter-bombers, e.g. F-16s and F-15s, would cause more death and devastation than all Palestinian rockets would in many years. This is exactly what happened during the past ten years. Israeli aerial and artillery attacks on Palestinian population centers killed thousands of innocent Palestinians. Thousands others were maimed and badly injured. In fact, it is amply safe to state that for every Israeli settler killed by Palestinian “rockets,” a thousand Palestinians, mostly children, women and other innocent civilians, were killed by the Jewish Wehrmacht, deceptively known as “Israeli Defense Forces.” This massive Israeli criminality culminated in the virtual genocide in Gaza last winter, when hundreds of Israeli war planes, the state-of-the-art of the American technology of death, rained bombs, depleted uranium and white phosphorus, on unprotected Palestinian towns. The pornographic killings in Gaza proved to be far more satanic and diabolic than many of the crimes committed by the Nazis. The Nazis attacked a super-power at least by that era’s standards and bombed well-protected towns, Whereas the Nazis of our time, the Israelis, rained death on totally unprotected refugees who had absolutely no means of defense or protection against the virtual genocide. Actually, what Israel did to Gaza and Gazans in December and January can be compared to the extermination of Germany’s real or perceived enemies during the War. In both cases, innocent and helpless people were mercilessly murdered en mass for political or ideological reasons. Hence, the appropriateness of the term “Nazis of our time.” Like Netanyahu is doing today, many Nazi leaders and ideologues tried to rationalize and justify their evil acts by claiming that Germany, the motherland, was facing mortal threats and the German nation was faced with either of two choices, destroying the enemies using a no-holds-barred approach, or be destroyed itself. But Israel is using the same Nazi arguments very lightly, not to repulse any real threats, but rather to justify real crimes against humanity being committed against the captive Palestinians. Otherwise, how can people of any semblance of rectitude buy the big lie that a country that possesses more 300 nuclear heads, and has one of the strongest armies in the world, and above that controls the government of the world’s only superpower, is threatened more than any other state in the world? It is, of course, unlikely that Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders think in their hearts that they are not lying. They do know they are lying. This is quite natural for a state that is based on lies and myths such as the claims that Palestine didn’t exist and the Palestinians were not a distinctive nation and that Israel didn’t expel the native Palestinians to the four corners of the globe. In light, it is very important that the peoples of the world, men and women who value honesty and justice, be constantly on the alert to confront and refute Zionist hasbara lies with the same aggressiveness and resolve with which they confront Zionist crimes. In short, Israel must not be allowed to translate its pornographic lies into a license to commit a holocaust against the Palestinian people and other peoples of the Middle East. The Zionists are capable of doing the unthinkable. They behave as the Nazis behaved because they possess the same Nazi mindset. The only difference lies in name, place and circumstances.

:: Article nr. 60205 sent on 18-nov-2009 23:02 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60205

Israel begins work on new tunnels to storm Al Aqsa Mosque

Middle East Monitor

 

November 19, 2009 The Al Aqsa Foundation for Endowments and Heritage revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities began excavation works at Al Sharaf alley, tens of meters west of the Al Aqsa Mosque, in preparation for the construction of two tunnels and two electric elevators to connect between the alley, which was confiscated by the Israeli authorities in 1967, and the Al Buraq area and Al Maghariba Gate of the mosque. The Foundation said that the aim of digging these tunnels and building the elevators is to “deliver a greater number of Jewish settlers to the Western Wall and the doors of Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially the Al Maghariba Gate, through which foreign tourists and Jewish groups can storm into the Al Aqsa Mosque.” The Foundation considered this to be “a judaization project through which Israel seeks to Judaize the Al Aqsa Mosque.” It added that, during a tour it conducted Tuesday, November 17, it found works of deep excavations, by the so-called Israeli Antiquities Authority, in the Al Sharaf alley tens of meters west of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. During these excavation works, historical and archaeological monuments, dating back to Ottoman and Mumluke eras, were being destroyed and obliterated. The Al Aqsa Foundation for Endowments and Heritage had revealed in a media report on March 3, 2009 the intention of the occupation authorities and its executive arms to dig two new tunnels, one of them 56 meters long and the other 22 meters, in order to link the Palestinian Al Sharaf Alley, in the Old City, to Jerusalem. It also revealed the Israeli authorities’ intention to install an electric elevator in the vertical tunnel and electric corridor in the horizontal tunnel. The location of these two tunnels is to be the meeting point of several archaeological sites, through which Israel “is trying to develop an illusionary Hebrew history.” It explained that this Judaizational project would cost 10 million shekels (about U.S. $ 2.5 million), and will be implemented in collaboration between the occupation’s municipality of Jerusalem, the so-called the Jewish Quarter Preservation and Development Company, the Monuments Authority, and the National Insurance Institute. The project will be funded through donations from Baruch Klein. Al Sharaf Alley is an Islamic area located inside the boundaries of the Old City with an area of more than 133 square meters. It was occupied by Israel in 1967. It is the closest neighborhood to the Moroccan (Al Maghariba) district, which was destroyed by the Occupation authorities on 11/6/1967, after the fall of Al Sharaf Alley. Thousands of Palestinians were expelled from it, their houses, lands, and real estate properties were confiscated; then, private Israeli companies were immediately established. These companies seized the homes, real estate properties and lands of the area and housed the Jewish settlers and built new homes. They changed its name into the Jewish Quarter – and only a handful of Palestinians were left in it, in addition to two mosques – one of them is closed and the other is open only for Dhur (noon) and Asr (mid-afternoon) prayers, with the Azan (call to prayer) being banned.

:: Article nr. 60254 sent on 20-nov-2009 00:36 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60254

Link: www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/268-israel-begins-work-on-new-tunn
els-to-storm-al-aqsa-mosque

Who’s Afraid of Hiroshima? Obama’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

Who’s Afraid of Hiroshima?

Obama’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

James Corbett

 

November 19, 2009 When the Nobel Prize committee announced their choice for this year’s Peace Prize winner, they stressed that a key factor in awarding Obama the prize had been the commitment to a nuclear-free world he had outlined in speeches such as the one he delivered in Prague earlier this year. “The committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons,” said the committee chairman when announcing that Obama had won the prize. Assuming that the committee truly believed that the Obama presidency would signal a meaningful change in American nuclear policy, they did not have long to wait for a clear refutation of that thesis. Having learned in advance that Obama would be visiting Japan ahead of last week’s APEC summit in Singapore, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki extended formal invitations for Obama to visit their cities. Had he done so, he would have become the first U.S. president to visit the cities since they were the victims of the world’s first nuclear attacks. However, Obama turned down the requests, citing scheduling concerns and offering vague promises to visit the cities sometime in the future. While such a move may come as a surprise to the Nobel committee, it is decidedly less shocking to those who have been studying American nuclear policy for decades. One such man is Motofumi Asai, the President of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, who noted in a recent interview with The Corbett Report that, while surprised that Obama says he intends to visit Hiroshima one day, “anyhow, it is clearly not now.” “In a very long historical term, his speech in Prague in April may be remembered as a departure from the nuclear century to the non-nuclear century,” Asai said about the nuclear rhetoric that won Obama the Peace Prize. But, he added, “I am rather sober about the prospects of a change of U.S. nuclear policy.” Observers of the Obama administration’s actions on the nuclear front would indeed have good reason to be ’sober’ about the prospects of Obama living up to his nuclear disarmament rhetoric. As the Washington Times reported last month, the Obama administration has reaffirmed an unspoken decades-old U.S. policy to officially ignore Israel’s nuclear stockpile. This support ensures that Israel does not have to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would require them to relinquish their hundreds of nuclear bombs. As the Washington Times report makes explicit, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accidentally revealed in a television interview that Obama’s rhetoric about a nuclear-free world is not meant to apply to America or its allies: “It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran,” the Israeli leader said. “But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him, and I asked to receive from him, an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue. It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document].” The report exposing Obama’s nuclear hypocrisy was printed just one week before he received the Nobel Prize for his valiant efforts to bring about a “nuclear-free world”. Even Obama’s most logical political allies have questioned the sincerity of his “commitment” to the abolition of nuclear weapons. As Joseph Gerson wrote on CommonDreams.org earlier this year: …there appears to be less to Obama’s ‘perhaps not in my lifetime’ commitment to nuclear weapons abolition than the adoring press has let on. It is no accident that in his message to the NPT Preparatory Conference earlier this month that he made no reference to abolition. Similarly, the subject did not arise when President Obama and former Secretary of State George Shultz spoke with the press following their meeting at the White House. Now Obama’s most fervent supporters are noting that his actual actions on nuclear disarmament so far have amounted to a series of token gestures and empty platitudes. Even basic steps like affirming a no-first strike nuclear policy have not been forthcoming. Obama’s nuclear promise, it seems, can be added to the bonfire of dashed hopes along with his broken promise to end warrantless wiretapping, his broken promises to close Guantanamo and end secret detentions, his broken promise to not use signing statements, his broken promise to allow voters time to read legislation before it gets signed, and his broken promise not to appoint lobbyists to his administration. Sadly, this is not the first time the Nobel committee has erred so badly in its judgement of a world leader promising nuclear eradication. In 1974, Japan’s Prime Minister Eisaku Sato won the prize for his formulation of the so-called Three Non-nuclear Principles that every Japanese government has paid lip service to since they were first adopted by the Diet in 1971: that Japan will neither develop nor possess nuclear weapons, nor allow them in their territory.[16] It has since come to light that Sato himself broke the third principle when he negotiated secret agreements with the Nixon administration that allowed the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Japanese territory. Now, with President Obama’s nuclear abolition rhetoric turning out to be more hot air, it seems the Nobel Peace Prize committee once again has egg on its face. Unless of course it is the intention of the committee not to reward Obama for his non-nuclear words, but to shame his administration into living up to its lofty language. Perhaps the Nobel committee is in fact using their prize as a tool for offering an ultimatum to the Obama administration: Follow through on your promises or be exposed as a fraud for all the world to see. If this is indeed the case, then Obama’s White House should be shamed into peace and disarmament. The fact that this “man of peace” is in fact every bit the warmonger his presidential predecessor was presents perhaps the largest chink in his fast-disintegrating corporate media-supplied “president of the world” armour. Those who are truly interested in bringing about a nuclear-free world can start simply enough by condemning Obama for his failure to visit Hiroshima.

:: Article nr. 60255 sent on 20-nov-2009 01:09 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60255

Link: dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/whos-afraid-of-hiroshima/

Peshawar’s Latest Bombing

more about "Peshawar’s Latest Bombing", posted with vodpod

Intel creates cyborg mind control chip

Brain waves to control computer functions

By Sharon Gaudin | Computerworld US

By the year 2020, you won’t need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the web using nothing more than their brain waves.

Scientists at Intel’s research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people’s brains.

The scientists say the plan is not a scene from a sci-fi movie, Big Brother won’t be planting chips in your brain against your will. Researchers expect that consumers will want the freedom they will gain by using the implant.

“I think human beings are remarkable adaptive,” said Andrew Chien, vice president of research and director of future technologies research at Intel Labs. “If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time, they would have said, ‘I don’t want that. I don’t need that.’ Now you can’t get them to stop. There are a lot of things that have to be done first but I think [implanting chips into human brains] is well within the scope of possibility.”

Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau said that users will soon tire of depending on a computer interface, and having to fish a device out of their pocket or bag to access it. He also predicted that users will tire of having to manipulate an interface with their fingers.

Instead, they’ll simply manipulate their various devices with their brains.

“We’re trying to prove you can do interesting things with brain waves,” said Pomerleau. “Eventually people may be willing to be more committed … to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the web with the power of your thoughts.”

To get to that point Pomerleau and his research teammates from Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, are currently working on decoding human brain activity.

Pomerleau said the team has used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts, he added.

For instance, if two people think of the image of a bear or hear the word bear or even hear a bear growl, a neuroimage would show similar brain activity. Basically, there are standard patterns that show up in the brain for different words or images.

Pomerleau said researchers are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology into a head set that culd be used to manipulate a computer. The next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor that could be implanted inside the brain.

Such brain research isn’t limited to Intel and its university partners.

Almost two years ago, scientists in the US and Japan announced that a monkey’s brain was used to to control a humanoid robot. Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University and lead researcher on the project, said that researchers were hoping its work would help paralyzed people walk again.

And a month before that, a scientist at the University of Arizona reported that he had successfully built a robot that is guided by the brain and eyes of a moth. Charles Higgins, an associate professor at the university, predicted that in 10 to 15 years people will be using “hybrid” computers running a combination of technology and living organic tissue.

Today, Intel’s Pomerleau said various research facilities are developing technologies to sense activity from inside the skull.

“If we can get to the point where we can accurately detect specific words, you could mentally type,” he added. “You could compose characters or words by thinking about letters flashing on the screen or typing whole words rather than their individual characters.”

Pomerleau also noted that the more scientists figure out about the brain, it will help them design better microprocessors. He said, “If we can see how the brain does it, then we could build smarter computers.”

Israeli army kidnapped 6200 children since 2000 Official report

Middle East Monitor

 

Palestinian children arrested by Israeli forces November 16, 2009 An official report, received by Arab League from the minister of prisoners’ affairs in the Palestinian Authority (Ramallah), revealed that the Israeli occupation forces have kidnapped about 6,200 Palestinian children since the beginning of Al Aqsa Intifada (2000), including approximately 337 children still detained in Israeli prisons and interrogation centers. During last Saturday’s meeting of the Arab League’s permanent delegates council, which was set to discuss the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Minister Issa Qaraqe introduced the report, which unveiled the “repressive, inhumane practices of the Israeli occupation authorities against Palestinian children in Israeli prisons and detention camps,” stressing that this violates the rules of international law, conventions on children’s rights, and all international norms. The report pointed out that “any person under the age of 18 is considered a child, according to international law, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and, recently, Israeli domestic law,” and according to the definition of juvenile by the United Nations’ Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, which were adopted in the General Assembly Resolution 45/113, dated December 14, 1990. Qaraqe stated that the Israeli occupation authorities “deprive detained children from the basic rights granted by international conventions, such as the right to know the reason for their arrest, the right to counsel, the right of families to know  the reason and the place of detention of their child, the right to appear before the judge, the right to object to the charge and lodge an appeal against it, the right to communicate with the outside world, and the right to a humane treatment that preserves the dignity of the detained child.” The report warned that the occupation authorities, “blatantly violated the rights of detained children”; dealt with them as “potential subversives”, “and subjected them to different types of torture and cruel treatment, such as beating, sleep deprivation, starvation, sexual harassment, and deprivation of visits. The occupation forced applied the worst mental and physical means to extract confessions from child prisoners and to pressure them to work for Israeli intelligence.” The report also mentioned that during the first Intifada, massive numbers of children were arrested and detained on charges of throwing stones and other forms of political resistance, whereas, during the second intifada, Tel Aviv began adopting administrative detention against Palestinian children and it started convicting and detaining children under the age of 14 for periods of up to 6 months. The report further stated that, according to the 2002 annual report of the Defense of Children International organization, those arrest patterns did not exist during the years of the first intifada. Source: Quds Press

: Article nr. 60131 sent on 16-nov-2009 18:19 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60131

Link: www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/255-israeli-army-kidnapped-6200-ch
ildren-since-2000

Azerbaijan threatens to bury Nabucco project

// SOCAR vice president Elshad Nasirov threatened to start selling gas to Asian countries if Europe further lingers construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline which was to link Caspian states with EU bypassing Russia.

According izvestia.ru  Elshad Nasirov said “the situation is more serious than it may seem. It is better to sell gas at Asian prices than not to have an opportunity to sell it to Europe at western prices”.

Azerbaijan was planning to send its Shahdeniz gas to Europe by Nabucco gas pipeline. Yet the pipe to extend to more than 3,300 km has not been projected to the needed extent and has no required financial means. Meanwhile, Europe’s opportunity to get reserves directly from the Caspian Sea and reduce dependence on Russia is at stake.

The energy corridor to the East widely opens from the Caspian Sea. Thus, a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China will be launched on 16 December. The highway extending to 1818 kilometers will pass via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Chinese Hogos. The project is estimated at $7.31 bn. Every year this pipe will supply 30 bn cu m of gas to China. Yet the pipeline capacity can be raised to 40 bn cu m. As is known from London’s City, Beijing is currently holding consultations with SOCAR that may lead to supply of Azeri gas to China by the new gas pipeline.

The analysts, questioned by Bloomberg, gave different assessments to the situation. “The reports about possible supply of the Caspian gas to China instead of saying: we will send it to you but via Russia, have a very great importance. Azerbaijan’s threats raise stakes”, Julian Li, chief analyst of the Center of Global Energy Studies, has said.

MindWar: Full Spectrum Fake Terrorism (for the victims in Pakistan)

MindWar: Full Spectrum Fake Terrorism

Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire

 

August 21, 2005 Jeffrey Steinberg, in an article appearing in the August 26 issue of the Executive Intelligence Review, mentions Col. Paul E. Vallely, the Commander of the 7th Psychological Operations Group, United States Army Reserve, and a document he authored entitled From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory (note: link is a PDF document). “MindWar must be strategic in emphasis, with tactical applications playing a reinforcing, supplementary role,” Vallely wrote in 1980. “In its strategic context, MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe—neither through primitive ‘battlefield’ leaflets and loudspeakers of PSYOP nor through the weak, imprecise, and narrow effort of psychotronics [the relationship between matter, energy, and consciousness]—but through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth.” In short, the corporate media, Vallely wrote 25 years ago, is an integral and essential component and “force multiplier” of forever war waged against enemies, including the American people. Steinberg spends a lot of time documenting the occult and paranormal activities of Pentagon researchers (and also “weapons that directly attack the targetted population’s central nervous system and brain functioning,” including “such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves), but for my dime the interesting part of Steinberg’s analysis concerns the use of fake terrorism, or “pseudo gang” terrorism and “psychological operations” of the sort used against the “targetted population” here in the United States since nine eleven and, more recently, in Britain. For instance, Steinberg references Seymour Hersh, who quoted Naval Postgraduate School defense analyst and Pentagon counterinsurgency advisor John Arquilla (see my January blog entry on Hersh and Arquilla in regard to pseudo terrorism and the kidnapping and apparent murder of Margaret Hassan). “Hersh hinted [in his New Yorker article, The Coming Wars] that U.S. Special Forces units were being unleashed to create their own terrorist ‘pseudo gangs’ to more easily infiltrate terrorist groups like al-Qaeda,” as Steinberg summarizes. “When conventional military operations and bombing failed to defeat the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya in the 1950s, the British formed teams of friendly Kikuyu tribesmen who went about pretending to be terrorists,” writes Arquilla. “These ‘pseudo gangs,’ as they were called, swiftly threw the Mau Mau on the defensive, either by befriending and then ambushing bands of fighters or by guiding bombers to the terrorists’ camps. What worked in Kenya a half-century ago has a wonderful chance of undermining trust and recruitment among today’s terror networks. Forming new pseudo gangs should not be difficult.” It is my contention al-Qaeda (or more precisely, al-CIA-duh) is just such a “pseudo gang,” initially created in Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviets but held over—as are all successful intelligence operations (and the CIA admits the creation of the Islamic Terror Network is its largest and most successful operation to date; see Chalmers Johnson). As the corporate media (as a willing participant in psychological warfare against the American people) would have it, al-CIA-duh reformulated itself without intelligence assistance after the United States abandoned Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet defeat in that backwater and more or less strategically meaningless country (that is until a consortium of oil and natural gas corporations decided they wanted to build a pipeline there in the 1990s). There is ample evidence that al-CIA-duh remained a valued intelligence “asset” (and covert warfare workhorse) after Afghanistan, the primary example being its activities in the Balkans (see my From Afghanistan to Iraq: Transplanting CIA Engineered Terrorism) and elsewhere. As Steinberg notes, once again referencing the detective work of Hersh, “[Evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General William “Jerry” Boykin] and his immediate boss, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, are directly in charge of the Special Operations search-and-kill squads touted by John Arquilla in his pseudo-gang promo.” Joe E. Kilgore, writing for Special Warfare in the Winter of 2002, declares that the “future holds great promise for the Center and School and for the students it trains. The commanding general of SWCS [John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School], Major General William G. Boykin, is developing the ARSOF School of the Future, an innovative concept designed to ensure that SWCS instructional facilities and techniques will meet the challenges of the 21st century. The SWCS Special Forces Evolution Steering Committee is developing a road map to facilitate the transformation of the Special Forces Branch. Improvement plans for both CA and PSYOP have been approved, and those plans are scheduled to be implemented beginning in FY 2002.” An integral component of the Pentagon’s ambitious psyop program is Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG). “P2OG would launch secret operations aimed at ’stimulating reactions’ among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction, meaning it would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to ‘quick-response’ attacks by US forces. The means by which it would do this is the far greater use of special operations forces,” David Isenberg wrote for the Asia Times in November, 2002. P2OG, however, is only the public relations face of a much larger and sinister plan that stretches back at least to 1980 and Col. Paul E. Vallely’s seminal MindWar document and the idea of psychological warfare waged against the American people. Vallely, of course, does not mention “pseudo-gang” warfare explicitly and instead puts forward the idea of “full spectrum” warfare in all fronts, including disinformation or propaganda warfare waged against the American people. Indeed, the idea of fake or deceptive terrorism is much older and originated in its modern form and was field tested by General Frank Kitson, a British officer “who first thought up the concept that was later used in the formation of Al Qaeda. He called it the ‘pseudo gang’—a state sponsored group used to advance an agenda, while discrediting the real opposition. The strategy was used in both Kenya and Northern Ireland. In the case of Northern Ireland, most of the violence that was attributed to ‘Loyalists’ was in actuality not their handiwork, but the result of the activities of the death squads affiliated to the British secret state,” writes Ian Buckley (see my General Frank Kitson: Trail Blazing Fake Terrorism).

:: Article nr. 14909 sent on 21-aug-2005 22:47 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=14909

Link: kurtnimmo.com/blog/?p=915

Mass Mind Control Through Network Television

Are Your Thoughts Your Own?

By Alex Ansary

Outside The Box
12-29-5

Why do countless American people go along with the War on Iraq? Why do so many people call for a police state control grid? A major component to a full understanding of why this kind of governmental and corporate corruption is to discover the modern science of mind control and social engineering. It’s baffling to merely glance at the stacks of documentation that this world government isn’t being constructed for the greater good of humanity. Although there are a growing number of people waking up the reality of our growing transparent soft cage, there seems to be just enough citizens who are choosing to remain asleep. Worse yet, there are even those who were at least partially awake at one time but found it necessary to return to the slumber of dreamland. This is no accident; this is a carefully crafted design. The drive to dumb down the populations of planet earth is a classic art that existed before the United States did. One component to understanding and deciphering the systems of control is to become a student of the magicians of influence and propaganda. In order to defeat our enemies (or dictators), its imperative that we understand how they think and what they believe in. When people think about mind control, they usually think in terms of the classic “conspiracy theory” that refers to Project MkUltra. This program is a proven example of ‘overt mind control.’ The project had grown out of an earlier secret program, known as Bluebird that was officially formed to counter Soviet advances in brainwashing. In reality the CIA had other objectives. An earlier aim was to study methods ‘through which control of an individual may be attained’. The emphasis of experimentation was ‘narco-hypnosis’, the blending of mind altering drugs with carefully hypnotic programming. A crack CIA team was formed that could travel, at a moments notice, to anywhere in the world. Their task was to test the new interrogation techniques, and ensure that victims would not remember being interrogated and programmed. All manner of narcotics, from marijuana to LSD, heroin and sodium pentathol (the so called ‘truth drug’) were regularly used. Despite poor initial results, CIA-sponsored mind control program flourished. On 13 April 1953, the super-secret project MK-ULTRA was born. Its scope was broader than ever before, and only those in the top echelon of the CIA were privy to it. Official CIA documents describe MK-ULTRA as an ‘umbrella project’ with 149 ’sub-projects’. Many of these sub-projects dealt with testing illegal drugs for potential field use. Others dealt with electronics. One explored the possibility of activating ‘the human organism by remote control’. Throughout, it remained a major goal to brainwash individuals to become couriers and spies without their knowledge. When it was formed in 1947, the CIA was forbidden to have any domestic police or internal security powers. In short, it was authorized only to operate ‘overseas’. From the very start MK-ULTRA staff broke this Congressional stipulation and began testing on unwitting American citizens. Precisely how extensive illegal testing became will never be known. Richard Helms, CIA Director and chief architect of the program, ordered the destruction of all MK-ULTRA records shortly before leaving office in 1973. Despite these precautions some documents were misfiled and came to light in the late 1970’s. They laid bare the spy agency’s cynicism. Despite the widespread knowledge of MK Ultra and the civil lawsuits that followed, this form of behavior modification is not the most expansive. The real dangers are the types of thought control that are ‘covert’ and not the subject of several dozen Hollywood movies like “Clockwork Orange” and Mel Gibson’s “Conspiracy Theory.” Our founding fathers faced enormous challenges in the formation of this country and its bill of rights. One challenge was laying down the groundwork or a free society without knowing what kind of technological advances would be made. Who would have guessed in those times that we needed an article in the bill of rights that specifically prohibits the government and it’s associates from engaged in mind control or thought control. The closest item that promises our protection from the government is the 4th Article in The Bill of Rights which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Like many are now beginning to note, the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights are merely given lip service by our supposedly elected officials. One of the most common examples of mind control in our so-called free and civilized society is the advent and usage of the television set. This isn’t to say that all things on TV are geared towards brainwashing you. They’re not. But most of the programming on television today is run and programming by the largest media corporations that have interests in defense contracts, such as Westinghouse (CBS), and General Electric (NBC). This makes perfect sense when you see how slanted and warped the news is today. Examining the conflicts of interest is merely glancing at the issue, although to understand the multiple ways that lies become truth, we need to examine the techniques of brain washing that the networks are employing. Radio isn’t any different in its ability to brainwash a population into submission. Sixty-seven years ago, six million Americans became unwitting subjects in an experiment in psychological warfare. It was the night before Halloween, 1938. At 8 p.m. CST, the Mercury Radio on the Air began broadcasting Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. As is now well known, the story was presented as if it were breaking news, with bulletins so realistic that an estimated one million people believed the world was actually under attack by Martians. Of that number, thousands succumbed to outright panic, not waiting to hear Welles’ explanation at the end of the program that it had all been a Halloween prank, but fleeing into the night to escape the alien invaders. According to researcher Mack White ( http://www.mackwhite.com/), “Psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear. Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University’s Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing. Two years later, with Rockefeller Foundation money, Cantril established the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR), also at Princeton. Among the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness of “psycho-political operations” (propaganda, in plain English) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril and Rockefeller money assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in setting up the Princeton Listening Center, the purpose of which was to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is the propaganda arm of the National Security Council. Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the basic research had been done and the propaganda apparatus of the national security state had been set up–just in time for the Dawn of Television.” Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body’s own natural opiates–thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit. It’s no longer an overstatement to note that the youth today that are raised and taught through network television are intellectually dead by their early teens. The dumbing down of humanity is represented by another shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system) increases. The latter, commonly referred to as the reptile brain, is associated with more primitive mental functions, such as the “fight or flight” response. The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain, if it looks real, it is real. Thus, though we know on a conscious level it is “only a film,” on a conscious level we do not–the heart beats faster, for instance, while we watch a suspenseful scene. Similarly, we know the commercial is trying to manipulate us, but on an unconscious level the commercial nonetheless succeeds in, say, making us feel inadequate until we buy whatever thing is being advertised–and the effect is all the more powerful because it is unconscious, operating on the deepest level of human response. The reptile brain makes it possible for us to survive as biological beings, but it also leaves us vulnerable to the manipulations of television programmers. This is where the manipulators use our own emotions as strings to control us. The distortions and directions we are being moved to are taking place in the subconscious, often undetected. Propaganda techniques were first codified and applied in a scientific manner by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) early in the 20th century. During World War I, Lippman and Bernays were hired by then United States President, Woodrow Wilson, to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion in favor of entering the war, on the side of Britain. Edward Bernays said in his 1928 book Propaganda that, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” The Creel Commission provided themes for speeches by “four-minute men” at public functions, and also encouraged censorship of the American press. The Commission was so unpopular that after the war, Congress closed it down without providing funding to organize and archive its papers. The war propaganda campaign of Lippman and Bernays produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion. Bernays coined the terms “group mind” and “engineering consent”, important concepts in practical propaganda work. The current public relations industry is a direct outgrowth of Lippman’s and Bernays’ work and is still used extensively by the United States government. For the first half of the 20th century Betrays and Lip man ran a very successful public relations firm. World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, both by Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Gobbles and the British Political Warfare Executive, as well as the United States Office of War Information. Turn on your local newscast. You have a few minutes of blue-collar crime, hardly any white collar crime, a few minutes of sports, misc. chit chat, random political jibber-jabber, and a look at the weather that no one is forecasting correctly. Is that what happened in your town? And we’re supposed to own the airwaves! The mainstream media openly supports the interests of the prison industrial complex. The stories focus on minority criminal groups, and exploit the real threat to appear much more dangerous than they are. Think about the growing per capita number of prisoners in the country. Then remember that this is happening at the same time that our prison boom began. The police on our streets have created criminals. The focus is to keep us in a state of fear, that way the elitists can attack any group they want to without fear of consequence. This is why the media is continuing to craft the timeless art of dehumanization. The techniques are increasing in their sophistication over time as the mind scientists that serve the empire continue to discover scientific breakthroughs as to how the human brain functions, learns, retains information, and behaves. The most effective brainwashing techniques are used on the most successful propaganda networks. Examine the music bed that lies low during the fright night scope of the second. It’s spooky. I wonder if we are supposed to be thinking with our minds or getting ready for stunt. Observe the graphics with the music. They’re glitzy and flashing. Like the monkey that is attracted to shiny objects, it’s our monkey hand that controls to remote often stops the search for entertainment when the proper amount of glamour catches their attention. Most importantly, notice the repetition behind the lies that the politicians and their corporate media groupies tell us. You see, the unimaginable fallacies are created as ‘truth’ not because it’s logical or provable, but because of the broken record technique. No matter how ridiculous the lie, it’s repeated often enough that the brain doesn’t know the difference between reality and nursery rhymes. This technique is under estimated in its ability to allow the puppeteers to hypnotize millions of people. Instead of “Fair and balanced” it’s “We say it enough times, and you believe it.” It’s a tragic day when the state can monopolize on the enslaving and imprisonment of a population. Hollywood will continue to frighten us with films on the mafia, gangsters, and the corrupt blue collar criminal whose stupidity and greed get them caught. In the end, our minds are already pre conditioned to accept living in a police state economy and society because we read it in the paper, saw it praised on the news and talk shows, or saw it in a movie. There are several movies planned right now that support the official story of 911 and a few movies that glamorize the War on IRAQ. According to David L Robb, Author of Operation Hollywood, “Hollywood and the Pentagon have a long history of making movies together. It’s a tradition that stretches back to the early days of silent films, and extends right up until the present day. It’s been a collaboration that works well for both sides. Hollywood producers get what they want – access to billions of dollars worth of military hardware and equipment – tanks, jet fighters, nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers – and the military gets what it wants – films that portray the military in a positive light; films that help the services in their recruiting efforts. The Pentagon is not merely a passive supporter of films, however. If the Pentagon doesn’t like a script, it will usually suggest script changes that will allow the film to receive the military’s support and approval. Sometimes these proposed changes are minor. But sometimes the changes are dramatic. Sometimes they change dialogue. Sometimes they change characters. Sometimes they even change history.” They create something coined ‘disinfotainment’. They mix disinformation with entertainment and call it disinfotainment. Unadulterated Violence is now accepted on regular TV. Killing in the name of the mother government is praised, that is unless the violence is committed in self defense to protect someone from the system. Sharp shooters, bombers, and assassin are worshipped if they are fighting for the system, are in the military, or are associated with groups that control the masses locally, such as the local police department. I don’t condone violence, however it’s hypocritical to support one form of homicide when it favors the elite, and condemn another when it’s done to protect your land, freedom, or loved ones. This odd reality transfers itself into the shady world of video games that are stepped in plots and tasks to kill as much as the player can. The players are getting younger and younger with 7 out of 10 children playing games with a ‘Mature’ rating. Recently I was browsing the PC video game selection at a very large electronics store. I was appalled to see nearly 50 different games in which the setting of the game is IRAQ and the goal is to kill as many insurgents as possible and fulfill the mission. Children today are being indoctrinated through their favorite games and law enforcement programs to be the button pushes of the weapons of mass destruction for tomorrow’s world. Is it any wonder why there are two house bills and a senate bill (with more on the way), which are giant steps in dismantling free speech of the general public. These bills together would kill (PEG) cable access centers where the public still owns the airwaves. It’s the programming created locally, without censorship or commercial gain. Their income is derived from franchises within the local cities and a small percentage cable subscriber frees. This is a corporate takeover because this is centralizing communication by removing the locally based programming and moving the audience to the more official, nationalistic, and sensational programs that promotes violence, uniformity, and slavery over peach, diversity and freedom. Cable access features free speech and information with perspectives neglected by mainstream television. It also features a free flow programming system with fresh programs being aired by new producers on a rotating basis. This keeps the content and information creative and locally based while network TV is rigid with regular time slots and repetitive programming. The blocks of programming that are universally accepted parallel the shift to craft our entire lives towards the factory’s bell and the illusion of time. This is the creation of the hive mind. The hive mind is result of massive brainwashing to the general public. Everyone shares the same thoughts, goals, knowledge and understanding. A hive mind society gears itself towards conformity and ignores diversity while masqueraded as the road to utopia in mainstream television. Network programming, weather it’s the news or drama, is geared towards artificially creating your world and reality. With the proper amount of entertainment and sensationalism, we may even be living our lives through the television set. Many anchors and actors are beautiful and research shows that attractive people are usually perceived as trust worthy. While the real news rolls quickly by on the bottom of your screen, the anchor is selling you on the idea of having your very own police state hell hole right here in your local jurisdiction, or how 2 sports opposing teams chased around on a court for 2 hours in attempt to score points means something to you. No education, no information, SPIN. Today the media represents a tool of brainwashing and indoctrination that is utilized on behalf of the owners interests. Since the 1996 Telco act, television and radio stations all across the nation were bought out by major international media outlets. Clear Channel and Infinity are the two largest corporations in radio today. This has centralized the distribution of information and has threatened our free society ever since. The media drums to the heartbeat of its owners, whose interests are not of the general public. Instead they are interested in their other financial endeavors like defense contracting, oil business, political parties, prison industry. The conflicts of interest are monumental with the deregulation of the corporations. The lines are now blurred between one network’s coverage of the war and the other. Once we come to the conclusion that the media is intentionally deceiving us, we can apply the principles of problem-reaction-solution. This formula takes a problem by either creating it or allowing it to happen and presenting that to the population. It could be terrorism, molestation, extra terrestrials. These topics create fear and no one in their right mind would support terrorism or crime. It’s therefore OK to blast the television, the papers, and radio with ‘the problem.’ The natural reaction from the people is a request for more control to ensure more safety. Most let their fear and emotional side control their decisions and usually translated into something like, “The government needs more power over our lives to make us safer and freer from tyranny. I believe what the media tells me so I will support whatever decisions they make.” Today’s mainstream corporate news program discourages dissent of the war and paints activists with a negative brush that hints of treason. At the same time, the so-called journalists are cogs in a much larger machine who know that if they report a story that paints the government in a dark light, is likely to remain on ‘the wire’ and off the front page. The most disturbing thing about spending a single hour examining network cable news and modern Hollywood films are the reoccurring themes in the backdrop. The central ideas of countless “investigative reports” or “Friday night special” features are about a threat of some type over the horizon. The end of the world as we know it is being sold. If the news isn’t feeding it to you, then the History Channel or Discover Channel are either talking about the crusades, asteroids, UFOs, earthquakes, terrorism, or exposes about serial killers. They are crafted a message that our world is unstable, and the threat is always an invisible and dangerous one that only our military can fix. When you record and log all the messages, you end up with a script, a screen write produced through the movie studios of Hollywood hell. I am not alone in noting this observation. Local and network news are designing their editorials about despair and fear because the owners, producers, and editors now understand that fear sells. The end result are the desired ratings, delivered like expected. The masters of modern spin understand that we like to be terrified. Just look at the success in the action/suspense/terror genres that have plopped onto the conveyor belt and packaged for our glee consumption. When the editors in charge found out that simply plastering a terror alert chart didn’t scare the people the same way it used to, they began to kick up the campaign of terror a few notches with new and creative ways to sell the police state. When you get to the other side of the terror alerts of all shapes and sizes, you find another nightmare masquerading as the savior. The ‘Ministry of Truth’ will protect you. The mother government is here to rescue you and squash this brown terrorist bug, this gray alien, this avian bird flu, and every other nightmare that the nightly news brought you. The finest public relations specialists take the science of worshipping our kings down to a frame by frame level. George W. Bush is pictured in numerous poises with a hallo around his head. In other pictures, he stands tall with dozens of American flags blowing in the wind behind him. A more blasphemous display features him speaking in front of the cross of Jesus Christ. The message send couldn’t be more clearly presented. Our current leaders are of the messiah status and only through them, will we reach the gates of safety. The lie that has been accepted by so many as truth is that this is a religious war. Numerous prime time programs are telling the story of the crusades (without the horrors) to synch our vibrations up to something out of the 13th Century, instead of the 21st Century. If the America people accept the fact that the crusades are here, that George Bush reports directly to god, and that revelations are here, then they have won the war for our minds. The loudspeaker whispers, “All our problems are by accident, never design.” Across the room the system’s minion snorts, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” It’s that plot that says Middle Eastern terrorists from an Afghan cave are the reason beyond our little, “War on terror.” Related messages in the script demonize young minority males and suggest harsh punishments for crimes they commit. They don’t come out overtly and state their racist agenda. They come at you from the side by airing the same crime news repetitively, usually when it’s committed by the minority group. The networks love the fact that the TV sets the norms in society and today, and hence politically opinion. Who would imagine that in the United States of America, both candidates of both parties in the 2004 election would be members of the Skull and Bones society at Yale University? Out of 290 million Americans, this is the best we could come up with? It is the decision of the owners to influence producers, editors, and others involved to paint to brush to fit the objective, which is the bottom line. If Sports is what the people want, then they get it, usually in large doses. Multi-media sports (or spectator sports) is just an escape from our own existence. It’s like gambling, or drug addiction. It provides that buffer zone of rooting for something with other people that we’ve been told is good. People’s fantasies also lead them to fixating on sports. Its simulated masculinity, in an age where there’s a push to change us from men to robots. It’s human nature to resist and fight that which is suppressing us. The sociologists and psychologists in areas of influence know this. Spectator sports prove the outlet internationally for what has been stripped away from us. We’ve lost the right to rebel and change our government through warfare if necessary. Today the bulk of our nation’s population today doesn’t know what’s really going on with the fall of the American dollar and the plans for the transfer of American wealth to other countries. However, most can tell you who the top basketball or football players are. A lot of fans wish they were the stars, out there on the stage, the court, and the drag strip. Either you’re “numero uno” in center stage or you’re nothing. End of story. What I never understood when I was in high school was why my peers and friends would act naïve or ignorant in a “Wayne’s World” or “Beavis and Butthead” kind of way. What I’ve learned since then is that the numerous programs that are pimping themselves of as ‘entertainment’ are actually demo graphed to the lowest common denominator. This is especially true with disc jockeys in Radio today. The reason our airwaves are saturated with jokes and content centered on fart jokes, private parts, borderline racism, and general trash talk is because it is selling. In the meantime, large numbers of our children, young adults, and older audiences are mimicking what they see and hear because the current ‘norm’ is selling this behavior as cool or ‘chic.’ When the conditioned is so intense that these forms of content are considered the norm, anything else seems either bizarre or uninteresting to the average American’s attention span that is decreasing by the day. Hypothetically, if a producer on a network did get away from a feature story exposing government corruption at the highest levels, chances are the large impact necessary wouldn’t be realized because the average viewer’s brain has already been conditioned to seek out certain types of disinfotainment. The media has created the picture perfect society that could exist if we only did things their way, (their interests/government interest). It tells us what happiness is and what it is not and same for love, hate or anything else they can implant into our sub consciousness. We can become the perfect slave to the system through indoctrination given through network TV. Over time the messages are becoming increasingly racist, violent, and dishonest. But the programming began decades ago and few have the eyes to see it for what it has become. We live in a world where the populations give their minds away to the official version of the event, where utopia is right around the corner when big brother is riding shotgun. It’s a world where Hollywood can make you believe anything, even that you are free. It’s a world in which the prosecutor and the judge sit on the same side of the bench. The most obvious reason that our minds are being controlled on a massive scale psychologically, is become our culture has been conditioned incriminatingly to a TV, a radio, or a paper. We are given the world reality through a screen, some ink, or radio waves. The truth is hiding in plain site. The indoctrination through these mediums warns us that views other than those presented by them are unimportant and too be condemned. This Administration and media monopoly has a carefully crafted dehumanization program to anyone that dissents the official version of events. Some people are wrong about 5% of the time. Some are wrong most of the time. I wish I was wrong all the time. A lot of people deal with these intense realities, by asking me rhetorically, “What is the solution, smart guy?” Remember, it’s the viewers, the consumers and all the other little votes called dollars that helped this oligarchy system lay its concrete foundation in our backyards. We must recognize the truth about why the system is flawed and enslaving us if we wish to beat it. The most important solution to fighting this type of brainwashing and mind control is to start with ourselves and our own awakening in the smaller things. In this case, it’s brainwashing but after awhile we break Outside the Box and begin venturing outside the system and into unknown terrain. Fighting with people and forcing them to understand ‘our truth’ is not a solution. If our collective free will created this nightmare, than only our collective free will change it. The battle begins in the heart and mind of the beholder, and then extends outward from there, only to those open to the information. If you choose to travel the road to the truth, then you must be prepared for the obstacles that await you. You may be condemned or criticized by your family, your friends, your lovers, or your co-workers. This is their programming that began at birth that is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. You’re going to have to be stronger than that. You must realize that there is a reality that exists outside of this controlled artificial system. Like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, he took that ‘leap of faith’ over the bridgeless canyon in an attempt to get to the other side. Like Neo in the Matrix, he took the red pill from Morpheus in his attempt to cross over to his real self. Once you wake up, it’s as if a hypnotist came along and snapped his fingers. You wake up and say to yourself, “Oh my god. I can see it now. Why did it take me so long to wake up?!” For some of you it can be a major shock. Like anything else, take this information and knowledge in stages. If it took a lifetime for them to mold your reality for you, then you know that it may take longer than a day to fully awaken. Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

China and Russia Spoil UN Embargo Actions on Iran

[US and EU may go it alone, with so-called "crippling actions" (euphemism for military blockade) on behalf of Zionist masters.]

West lowers sights for new Iran sanctions at U.N.

By Louis Charbonneau – Analysis

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Western powers are gearing up for talks on a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program but will not target Iran’s energy sector to ensure Russia’s and China’s support.

The decision to begin exploring the possibilities for new punitive measures against Tehran reflects the growing impatience in the United States, Britain, France and Germany, the four Western powers that have joined forces with Russia and China to persuade Iran to freeze parts of its nuclear program.

“We have waited long enough for Iran,” a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “We and our friends in the (six powers) agree it is time to consider next steps at the U.N.”

But the scaling back of the West’s expectations for new U.N. steps against Iran for defying Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium shows that the Europeans and Americans have accepted that Moscow and Beijing, with their close trade ties to Tehran, will not let Iran’s economy be crippled.

Diplomats said the Western powers are eager to ratchet up the pressure on the Islamic Republic. But they also need to keep Moscow and Beijing on board to send a clear signal to Tehran that the world’s big powers are united against it.

The United States and its Western allies fear Tehran is covertly seeking atomic weapons, a charge Iran denies.

Just a few months ago U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders warned Iran that it could face “crippling sanctions” if it continued to reject U.N. demands about its nuclear program.

But “crippling” measures would not make it through the United Nations. The kinds of sanctions that Russia and China can accept in a new U.N. resolution, Western diplomats said, include largely symbolic measures, such as adding names to a U.N. blacklist to face asset freezes and travel bans.

OTHER OPTIONS – EUROS, LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS?

One senior Western diplomat said a new U.N. sanctions resolution could be expected to target “at least another bank, more individuals, more companies — possibly a shipping company — a tighter ban on arms, possibly political measures.”

Another senior European diplomat told Reuters the Security Council could “never pass crippling sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas businesses because Russia and China have a veto.”

“Such sanctions will have to come from the European Union, or outside the U.N., and we hope to do that,” he said.

A senior Western diplomat said the Western powers had other options independent of the United Nations. Those options would not be symbolic, he said.

He said that if European governments were to forbid Iranian banks from engaging in any transactions in euros, it would have “quite serious consequences” for Iran. Such a measure is both feasible and possible if the “political will” exists in Europe, he added.

Other diplomats said the West could prevent Iran from getting hold of the lucrative technology to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG). Tehran has been eager to acquire LNG technology for some time but has been unable to get top industry players to close deals with it.

Iran has the world’s second largest gas reserves after Russia.

Diplomats said negotiations on new sanctions would likely begin before the end of the year, when an unofficial deadline runs out — a deadline the U.S. and European leaders had given Iran to begin talks on their offer of economic and political incentives in exchange for halting nuclear enrichment.

Diplomats said it was highly unlikely the Security Council would be able to approve a new sanctions resolution before the end of the year. Negotiations would likely drag for weeks or months as the Russians and Chinese work hard to water down the measures, as they did with previous sanctions resolutions.

Western diplomats said their fears about Iran’s nuclear program were confirmed this week by a new report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog that said it was concerned Tehran might still be engaging in clandestine atomic activities.

Iran has also rejected a U.N. proposal to ship most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country for further enrichment and processing in Russia and France before returning it to the Islamic Republic for use in a medical reactor that produces isotopes for cancer treatment.

Tehran has enough low-enriched uranium for approximately one bomb, if enriched to a much higher purity level, and U.N. officials had said that moving most of it temporarily out of Iran would have bought time for negotiations aimed at ending Tehran’s nuclear standoff with the West.

Shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama took over from George W. Bush in January, he announced that he was willing to engage directly with Iran to mend ties between the two nations, which have not had diplomatic relations for three decades.

Western diplomats said hopes had been high that Iran would take Obama’s outstretched hand and end its confrontational approach to the West. But they have been disappointed.

“It doesn’t look like Iran wants to resolve this problem,” a diplomat said. “It’s not surprising but it’s disappointing.”

(Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Criminals and Spies Posing as Militants

State behind shadows

Kamila Hyat

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor

The demand by French parliamentarians that allegations by a newspaper regarding the payment of $4.3 million to Asif Ali Zardari and other Pakistanis in kickbacks from a 1994 submarine sale to Pakistan be investigated opens up many possibilities.

The insinuations that stem from that deal take the case well beyond the league of other major scandals involving defence deals, such as that which surfaced in the 80s, linking the then Indian prime minister Rajeev Gandhi to massive kickbacks paid out by the Swedish firm, Bofors. Such bribery of course takes place around the world. However, the Pakistan case appears to be unique. French investigators say Pakistanis, displeased with the failure to pay all the money promised as kickbacks, may have had a hand in the 2002 suicide bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French naval engineers working on the submarines.

The attack was one of the earliest by a suicide bomber in the country where such means of mass murder were virtually unknown till after 2001. It remains, to this day, an attack which killed the largest number of westerners. The killing was at the time blamed on groups linked to Al Qaeda, and two members of a jihadi organisation were indeed found guilty by a lower court in Sindh but were acquitted by the provincial high court due to lack of evidence. In France, since this summer, investigators have been looking into the possibility that Pakistani intelligence officials were behind the bombing — which they think might have been intended to send out a message to Paris. The kickback payments were stopped after a change in the French government and in 2000, France moved for international conventions that banned kickbacks to be put in place. French officials who back this theory say the logic of the attack would have been similar to traditional mafia hits on those who fail to pay back debts: to make an example of someone who is seen as unlikely to pay up, and thereby send a message to others, even while officially being able to point the finger at someone else.

In President Zardari’s, defence it must be said that in 2002, he was indeed in jail. As his spokesman has said, while denying the story, it is hard to see how he could have been behind the attack carried out at a time when General Pervez Musharraf was at the height of his power. The French president — Nicolas Sarkozy — a minister at the time the submarine deal was signed, has also denied the story though there is a suspicion this is tied in to his attempts to alter France’s independent investigation system rather than any genuine knowledge about the events of 2002. It is also apparent that the story, coming as an anti-Zardari campaign gains momentum, has been played up. The Pakistan government has ordered a new investigation into the attack, though it is hard to believe that much credible evidence will emerge from it.

There are a number of important implications in the whole sordid business. The links between elements in the intelligence agencies and the militants have only recently been broken, as the military takes on the Taliban. The attack on the GHQ a few weeks ago and more recently on the ISI office in Peshawar is an outcome of this breakdown in a long relationship. But if elements other than the militants are capable of organising suicide attacks, more questions arise as to the nature of our state and the shadowy network that links groups within it, creating a labyrinth that makes it extremely difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.

The existence of outfits that mirror the working of militants or that incorporate them in their own efforts is relevant to other cases of terrorism too. The 2007 murder of Benazir Bhutto remains a mystery. We are, almost two years after it took place, no closer than before to solving what happened though the killing has had a huge impact on our political system, badly weakening it and the democratic set ups that stem from it. The status of Pakistan’s own probe into the death is unknown. Certainly it has faded rather unexpectedly into the background given that Benazir Bhutto’s own party is in power. A UN investigation — for what it is worth — continues. There are many who suspect that Baitullah Mehsud, the man named as having plotted the murder, indeed had little to do with it. We know the assassination was meticulously planned, involving bombers and multiple sharp-shooters. It is possible that the extremist shield was used to provide cover to other killers.

This has happened in the case of other deaths — including that of Major General Faisal Alvi, killed by unknown gunmen in 2008. In April this year, a former military official admitted to the murder – claiming he had carried it out in revenge for the death in Afghanistan of his brother, a militant. But other suspicions linger on, with some reports suggesting the flamboyant Alvi could have been preparing to expose links between elements in the intelligence agencies, the Taliban and other extremist outfits. There is no way of knowing if there is any truth in this.

The possibilities are quite obviously limitless. Extremists could be used to cover up other crimes, committed for completely different motives, and to deflect blame from their true perpetrators. Even petty criminals seem to be able to resort to this. In 2008, a businessman in Bhakkar ‘hired’ a young suicide bomber to target a rival and staged an attack that killed 20 people. The motive was initially believed to be sectarian. If ordinary murderers can hide behind militancy, it is obvious that more powerful elements can do so too.

In the state we have created, it is hard to know what is mirage and what reality. The intelligence agencies that manipulate so much of what happens are a factor in this. The French submarine story suggests suicide bombings may not always involve extremists; the origins of such attacks may have been different. The games played are dangerous ones. They continue today, and they will indeed not come to an end until we can find a way of more effectively controlling our agencies, limiting their size and bringing them under some kind of centralised command within a state that is not run from secret locations scattered across its territory but only by the institutions constitutionally assigned to do so.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com

The Real Cost of this War, the Suffering of the Innocent

IDPs and winter

As winter sets in over Waziristan, the over 300,000 people reported by the UN to have fled the area have now begun to move beyond the neighbouring districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, where they have so far been based. With little prospect of being able to return to abandoned homes till after the snows melt away, IDPs are headed to larger cities in search of work to sustain them over this period. Some say they are also fearful of clashes breaking out in D I Khan, where persons from rival tribes have all sought shelter. It is also clear that the IDPs from South Waziristan have not received the level of help offered to those from Swat. Requests from international humanitarian agencies to be permitted to work with the IDPs have been turned down by authorities on the grounds of security.

These concerns are valid, but as a consequence men, women and children who have played no part in militancy suffer. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross, known internationally as a body that is neutral, has been prevented from visiting the conflict zone or even areas where IDPs are based. With the advent of winter certain to impose a prolonged period of displacement, it is vital that the situation be reviewed. Ensuring that the people of Waziristan receive adequate support goes beyond immediate humanitarian needs of the old, the sick, the very young or the vulnerable. Wining the trust of these people is of utmost importance and this could prove a vital factor in the future to ensure that victory in Waziristan over the militants is sustained and indeed built upon to guarantee the future of the territory.

Dangerous Disconnect With Reality Masquerading as Leadership

[Miliband is typical of all modern leaders--he is either dangerously ignorant of the real causes of all this crap, or he is a hypocritical liar, who loves to tell the sheeple the most outrageous stories, knowing that they will accept anything he says.  There are so many layers of pure B.S. overlapping each other in the thirty years of lies that we have been fed concerning Afghanistan, that it would be surprising if even the CIA could keep it all straight.  All of the trouble that we are in there stems from the original deceitful program to create a jihadi army, that began it all.  Instead of solving our problems by correcting our history of lies, we cover the old lies with a fresh layer of brand new lies.  We created "militant Islam" to fight our wars for us.  It's time to un-create it.]

Cryptograms

Decoding the various messages that come out of Afghanistan or those that are given to Afghanistan by its well-wishers is an arcane artform. The latest message has been delivered by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, while speaking at a meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly in Edinburgh. Miliband is a frequent visitor to the region and presumably has a ‘feel’ for its complex politics. That said, one wonders who he has in mind when he says that ending the war in Afghanistan is going to need ’senior Taliban figures’ sitting in government. Military action, he says, must be accompanied by a ‘political surge’. Presumably this does not mean flooding the country with yet more politicians in the hope that by sheer force of numbers they are somehow going to ‘make a difference’. He seems to be under the impression that the majority of the Taliban may be persuaded to stop fighting, but how he has determined that they are peace-loving pastoralists at heart who would happily lay down the Kalashnikov and pick up the hoe is not clear.

The ‘top Taliban’ in Afghanistan are driven and motivated ideologues with years of fighting under their belts. They are unlikely to join any government that does not reflect their vision. Miliband talked of ‘reintegration’ and of the insurgency starting to ‘fray and crumble’. The insurgency shows no sign of fraying or crumbling and although the Taliban are under pressure there is little or no indication that they are about to pack up and go home. In one of his more lucid moments Miliband acknowledged that the task was going to be far from straightforward – but pointed out that enemies of a past era are now in government together and that could happen with today’s adversaries. Former Taliban, he said, are now in government and that at least is true – but the government is monstrously corrupt, weak at the centre and barely functional outside greater Kabul. How long it will last is anybody’s guess. He probably had little choice but to say what he did, yet viewed from our end of the telescope his statement appears to bear little resemblance to what we understand ground realities to be. He concluded by delivering his own version of the ‘Pakistan must do more’ mantra by calling for more support for Pakistan to ’squeeze the life’ out of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Messages are tailored to audiences and Miliband’s audience in Edinburgh got what it wanted to hear. Decoding it for local consumption suggests a reality-disconnect that bodes ill for all of us.

Three Day Warning to Protect Building, What About the People Outside?

Police were tipped about attack on spy agencies

Some stations received information after bombing at ISI headquarters

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Javed Aziz Khan

PESHAWAR: The Frontier police were tipped off about a possible suicide bombing at the offices of spy agencies in NWFP and Fata well ahead of the attack on the provincial headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Khyber Road here on November 13, a source confided to The News.

The NWFP government was informed on November 10 that a suicide bomber had been sent from the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stronghold to attack the office of the country’s intelligence agency in any of the mentioned districts or Miramshah subdivision of the North Waziristan Agency.

“A reliable source has indicated that militants from North Waziristan are plotting attack (through suicide car-bombing) on the country’s secret agencies offices. Likely targets could be intelligence agencies’ offices in Miramshah, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and Peshawar, etc,” said the dispatch No 2898 from the office of

the additional chief secretary (ACS) home and tribal

affairs sent to the bosses of the Frontier police on November 10.

The message, a copy of which is available with The News, revealed that an explosive-laden vehicle, likely to be non-custom paid, might be used in the attack. “Tight security and extreme vigilance is suggested to thwart any untoward incident,” said the letter.

The sources said the information was accordingly conveyed to the capital city police officer (CCPO) of Peshawar, the SSPs of operations, coordination and investigation, Peshawar, and the district police officers (DPOs) concerned the same day.

The sources said security was already at its best but it was further beefed up around the offices of spy agencies in Peshawar, Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan and Miramshah after receiving the tip-off.

The suicide bomber, however, succeeded in bombing the regional office of the ISI on the Khyber Road with a mini-truck.

The blast, triggered through high-intensity ex-

plosives, killed 12 people and injured around 70 people

but the destruction it caused to the infrastructure was colossal.

The tragic aspect of the story is that some of the police stations in the province received the information conveyed by the office of the ACS days after the explosion at the ISI headquarters.

Peshawar’s hospital staff face war-like situation

‘Victims are pouring in almost daily now. We start our day with prayers that may Allah spare us from tragedy,’ says Arif. —AFP Photo

PESHAWAR: Doctors and nurses battle round the clock to save lives in Pakistan’s war against the Taliban, threatened with death and struggling to treat horrific injuries at a colonial-era hospital.

‘We’re under severe psychological pressure. How long will we get bodies of men, women and children, severed limbs, severed heads?’ said Sajida Nasreen, catching her breath on duty at the main hospital in the northwest city of Peshawar.

‘A dead 11-year-old was brought in, drenched in blood but his shoes shining with polish. His father came, lifted the child onto his lap, kissed him and said: ‘I sent you to school, not to die’.

‘For the first time in my career, I wept bitterly,’ said the nurse, who at 53 thought she had seen everything until Al-Qaeda-linked attacks got worse and worse, killing 2,540 people in Pakistan over 29 months.

‘Those responsible should see the situation in the hospital to understand what these blasts do,’ she added.

Lady Reading Hospital, or LRH as it is known among the 2.5 million residents of Peshawar, was founded in 1924 when Lord Reading was viceroy of India and is now one of Pakistan’s largest teaching hospitals.

On a visit to the area, his wife fell off a horse and suffered an injury, only to find proper treatment was unavailable locally. In England, she collected donations from British philanthropists and set up a hospital that ultimately took her name.

But the romance of its beginnings has vanished under the carnage witnessed in Peshawar and the surrounding North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where Taliban bombings and military offensives have been concentrated.

‘We have dealt with 49 blasts… 2,200 injured and 576 bodies in bombings,’ Doctor Ataullah Arif, surgeon in charge of the emergency ward, told AFP.

Tactics are changing. Bombings of crowded markets are beginning to maximise civilian casualties. Attacks on the army, police and paramilitary to avenge the government’s alliance in the US-led ‘war on terror’ are becoming more brazen.

‘Victims are pouring in almost daily now. We start our day with prayers that may Allah spare us from tragedy,’ said Arif.

‘We have been working under severe stress over the past two months. I can’t explain the situation in words.

‘Very often there are bodies and blood, as rows of stretchers start flowing amid shouts and screams,’ he said.

The 1,543 beds are woefully inadequate and the hospital is struggling to overcome dire shortages to build a 500-bed emergency ward.

‘In an emergency, sometimes we put two wounded on one bed and people with lesser injuries are treated on the floor or in wheelchairs,’ said Arif.

There are fears that a suicide bomber could strike the hospital, a soft target.

There are eight gates into the 30-acre compound guarded by just seven policemen, Arif says.

‘Our staff are constantly in danger. They are under severe threat from militants.We have received calls from militants, warning the staff ‘you are treating those who are our target. We will not spare you.’’

LRH chief executive, Doctor Abdul Hameed Afridi, says shortage of space is so acute that the basement was converted into a mortuary last year.

‘We face great difficulty in coping with the situation. We badly need funds, equipment and trained staff. In such a big hospital, we have just one CT scan machine and no MRI facility,’ said Afridi.

‘We need life saving drugs. LRH bears the pressure not only from NWFP but from Afghanistan. When there is a big disaster in Afghanistan casualties are also sent to Peshawar,’ he said.

Aged 25, Bibi Zakia is one of LRH’s younger nurses but has grown old quickly in the face of horror.

‘It is a human crisis. It’s a huge burden. We have to treat not only the victims, but also take care of their relatives,’ she said.

‘We are tired but I’m proud to be a nurse and I think I’m better than millions of others because I’m serving humanity.’But even hardened nurses sometimes find it difficult to cope with the magnitude of the suffering.

One particular occasion was a car bomb on October 28 that killed 118 people in Peshawar’s Meena market, frequented by women and children, in the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan for two years.

‘I remember two charred bodies of children. They looked like roast chickens. It was horrible. I couldn’t control myself. Pain and anguish filled my body and I screamed and I shouted: what was their crime?’

Rejecting Obama, U.S. Jews push West Bank settlement

[If Obama really did represent some kind of hope in the cosmic scheme of things, then these continuous insults from Netanyahu and Lieberman would serve as a wake-up call.  He must know, that if he continues to grovel before the Zionist master race then it will only get worse for him and for us.  For the sake of his children and for all of us, Obama better start acting like he really was a smart man.  The rest of us had better start praying for a political miracle.]

By Tom Perry

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – President Barack Obama may be telling Israelis that building settlements round Jerusalem risks dangerously fuelling Palestinian anger, but some of his fellow Democrats brought the opposite message to the city on Wednesday.

Dov Hikind, a member of New York state’s assembly, looked out over Jerusalem’s Old City and dismissed the "extreme" view on the matter taken by his party’s president.

He urged fellow American Jews to buy homes on occupied land rather than in traditional U.S. vacation spots.

"I’m trying to get a whole bunch of my friends to actually buy," said Hikind during a tour of settlement housing projects for several dozen potential U.S. investors.

"Rather than buying second homes in Florida, we want people to buy in Israel," he said, having watched a foundation stone laid for an extension to the Nof Zion, or Zion View, settlement.

Palestinians, whose leaders declared this week’s Israeli government approval for more settlement building near Jerusalem a killer blow to peace, reject Hikind’s description of Nof Zion as "Israel," as it lies on occupied land they want for a state.

But his views, shared by significant numbers of American Jews, many of them Democrat voters, are an indication of Obama’s difficulties in holding to his demands that Israel halt its expansion of settlements in the interests of a peace agreement.

Hikind’s active participation in the settlement policy that has seen Israel move close to a tenth of its Jewish population onto land captured from the Arabs in the 1967 war is not very common among Jews in the United States. But financial support from Americans, some benefiting from U.S. tax relief on charity, is a significant source of funding for West Bank settlements.

A small group of Israeli peace activists staged a protest against Hikind’s tour on Wednesday. Israeli left-wingers echo Obama’s line that expanding settlement for ideological and religious reasons is jeopardizing Israel’s security.

Settlements, home to significant numbers of immigrants from the United States, also benefit from support from fundamentalist American Christians — like Republican former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

"The thing that prompted me to organize this group is being so angry at the Obama administration," said Hikind.

"I WANT TO LIVE HERE"

As he looked out across the valley toward the Old City, where the gilded Dome of the Rock marks out the Muslim holy site that Jews revere as the site of their ancient Temple, he said:

"I don’t want to displace anyone. I don’t want to kick anyone out of their homes. I have no hate, no malice in my heart. I want to live here and I am trying to work that out."

Yet Palestinians in the city feel that is exactly what Israel and its international supporters are trying to do, displacing today’s inhabitants with foreign-born Jews who claim an ancestral and religious right to land going back 2,000 years.

On the same day as Hikind was showing fellow Jews the sites of future homes, and Obama was condemning Israel’s approval of 900 new homes at the nearby Gilo settlement, Abdel Halim Darry had his house demolished by Israeli authorities. Arabs complain that they are denied permission to build for growing families.

"The difference between us is clear," Darry said. "There are plans to build 900 housing units in Gilo, in order to accommodate their so-called population growth, while our growth is not taken into account, and we have to make-do with what we have. I have no idea where the Palestinians should go."

Other Arabs in the city make complaints, endorsed by the United Nations and world powers, that they are unfairly evicted by courts from homes where ownership is in dispute, while Arabs have little chance of recovering property occupied by Jews.

Palestinians say building projects such as that at Nof Zion, close to the Arab village of Jabal Mukaber and sitting under the British colonial-era building that houses the United Nations mission, are undermining not only their hopes of a state but their hopes of a viable capital in a part of Jerusalem.

(Additional reporting by Jehan Abdalla, editing by Alastair Macdonald and Charles Dick)

Indian Troops Prepare for Guerilla War With Maoists

Red soldiers prepare for war

Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Wednesday November 18, 2009, Bastar

Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district is all set to become a battleground between the state and the Maoists. NDTV travels inside the forests in the district to report on what lies ahead.   Deep inside, the forest is laden with a lot of mine pits – a sign that the Naxals are preparing for war. And there could be hundreds such mines, being made ready for use and camouflaged by natural vegetation by the time government troops move in. The mines have been scattered across all possible approach routes of the forces. “Like small ants that attack a snake at various at the same time, we are also going to do the same,” said Kadri Satyanarana Rao, also known as Kosa, president of the Dandyankaranya Special Zonal Committee, who will be leading the fight. And that’s not all, the Maoists are also preparing to fight face to face. Their weapons range from old-fashioned shotguns, to AK-47s and even seized rifles like the INSAS. His plan is simple: Multiple strikes, simultaneous cuts and break the moral of the force, much like the “guerilla warfare”. Also, anticipating that local support would be crucial, Maoists are wooing the villagers by looking after their welfare. “We are building up our capacity using people. We have asked our cadre to interact with people more. We will use the force of the people against the forces,” he said. And these could be the Naxals’ biggest advantage because the tribal people here have never seen a government representative ever. Even after with Chidambaram’s latest strategy to use force and development simultaneously, no government official has reached them yet. Across Bastar the situation is very poor; there is no power, no roads, and no schools. So far only the Maoists were here, but now sometimes forces come this way. And with this the Maoists are planning what could turn out to be the worst nightmare of the state. “We are going to spread out across India and hit back,” said Kosa. So how’s the government preparing? The Chhattisgarh Police have created smaller teams, of about 8-12 commandoes, which are now being launched into the forest. Their mission is to search and destroy the Naxal targets. So, instead of a massive offensive the state wants calibrated operations. And the man who is going to lead the government’s forces into Bastar is the Director General of Police Viswaranjan. “We will move in carefully. Our idea to take back small patches of land, hold it with forces and allow development to start,” he said. As we moved out of the forest, one thing was clear – no matter who wins or who loses, the days ahead are likely to be bloody and messy.

Freedom Rider: Assassination

Posted Tue, 11/17/2009 – 20:02 by Margaret Kimberley

Printer-friendly version

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was rooted in previous crimes and created a cascade of subsequent crimes. Indeed, none of the high profile political killings of the Sixties can be understood apart from the larger matrix of official criminality. Even “the American mafia owes its very existence to the CIA, which protected and promoted the illegal drug trafficking responsible for so much loss of life and destruction of entire communities.”

Freedom Rider: Assassination

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The president of the United States was gunned down as a direct result of his connections with criminals and with anti-Castro Cuban exile terrorists.”

November 22, 2009 will mark 46 years since the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. That date is usually reserved for sentimental nostalgia for the days of “Camelot” and tales of the charismatic president and a family still admired by many people. It ought to be a date to remember the past and continuing corruption of American domestic and foreign policy which led to a day that changed our history and set in motion crimes committed years later.

The official explanation of the president’s death – than an unstable man acted alone – is impossible to believe and ignores information that was never brought before the American people. There are individuals such as Santo Trafficante and John Roselli who confessed to involvement in the president’s death in later years. None of those individuals were ever investigated in even a cursory manner. Doing so would have exposed the government’s illegal activities at home and abroad. As a result of this inaction, the same individuals may have played a part in the killings of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and continued their illegal activities in the Watergate scandal.

“The Kennedy brothers’ ongoing financial and tactical support of violent Cuban exiles and organized crime figures brought about the president’s killing.”

The Kennedy administration was far from the romantic beacon that it has been portrayed to be for nearly 50 years. At the time of his assassination, the president and his brother, attorney general Robert Kennedy, were involved in a plot to overthrow the Cuban government. The Kennedy brothers’ ongoing financial and tactical support of violent Cuban exiles and organized crime figures brought about the president’s killing. The cover up led to further killing.

On November 9, 1963, avowed white supremacist Joseph Milteer was recorded by a police informant predicting that president Kennedy was about to be killed. Milteer had connections with mobsters Carlos Marcello and Santos Traficante. Milteer also spent years attempting to kill Martin Luther King. He openly offered a bounty to anyone who would kill him. Milteer had connections with convicted assassin James Earl Ray. The cover up of one assassination led to another years later.

Theories about the JFK assassination and the identity of the shooter or shooters vary a great deal. The confusion is a direct result of government lies that have been told for decades. Despite the fact that the 1992 JFK Act requires the release of all documents related to the assassination, they will not be released until 2017 at the earliest. All of the government files on the King assassination have not been released, neither to the House Special Committee on Assassinations or to the public.

“All of the government files on the King assassination have not been released.”

Among the untold stories of the presidential assassination is that of Abraham Bolden, the first black Secret Service agent to serve in a presidential detail. He experienced overt racism at the hands of his superiors and witnessed gross incompetence among his fellow agents. In November 1963 Bolden was stationed in Chicago, where an attempt to kill the president was revealed, causing the cancellation of a motorcade through that city. There was also an assassination plot uncovered in Florida that same month.

When Bolden attempted to contact the Warren Commission and reveal his information about the two assassination attempts, he was himself arrested on a trumped up charge of selling government documents. Despite the fact that a witness against him admitted to lying and a prosecutor pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked about his conduct in the case, Bolden was convicted and spent three years in prison.

Bolden was punished because he wanted to tell what would have been a very inconvenient truth. The two previous attempts that November proved that the president of the United States was gunned down as a direct result of his connections with criminals and with anti-Castro Cuban exile terrorists. Some of those gangsters were eager to return to their lucrative activities in pre-Castro era Cuba, some took revenge because the president’s brother threatened their livelihoods with his headline-making prosecutions.

“Drug dealers and other criminals operate with the full assistance of the American intelligence agencies.”

Little has changed in the way our government has been run in the past five decades. Drug dealers and other criminals operate with the full assistance of the American intelligence agencies. The American mafia owes its very existence to the CIA, which protected and promoted the illegal drug trafficking responsible for so much loss of life and destruction of entire communities.

In 2009, narco-traffickers in Colombia now operate with the full blessing of the United States government. Journalists work hand in hand with the government to spread propaganda, and good people who dare to speak out against government crimes are themselves silenced through a variety of means.

By all means, the 22^nd of November should be remembered. Remember that the CIA refuses to release information, claiming that doing so would cause “extremely grave damage” to national security. In other words, they want to tell their lies in perpetuity. Remember that Robert Kennedy approved J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance of Martin Luther King and sowed the seeds of destruction of the civil rights movement. Remember that King’s killers had full government protection after killing a president. The truth isn’t pretty, but it must not be forgotten.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.

Islamabad: TTP leaders evacuated by mysterious airlifts

Akhtar Jamal

Mysterious airlifting of some Taliban elements from areas of Pakistan-Afghanistan border linking Waziristan have been reported by several sources and fears are growing that anti-Pakistan TTP terrorists are also being rescued by their “foreign allies” from across the border.

The unexplained movements of “un-marked” helicopters and aircraft have been reported since last few days along Pak-Afghan border and one source claimed that they were being transported to the Eastern Afghanistan.

Some experts believe that secret allies of friendly-Talibans took the action in order to secure the militants from an assault in South Waziristan by Pakistani Armed Forces while others believe the secret evacuation was part of a larger deal between some Western States and “good Taliban.”

The airlifting and evacuation of TTP leaders from South Waziristan coincided with a report by foreign news media or a similar mysterious evacuation of “militants” from South Afghanistan to North Afghanistan.

An Iranian news site on October 18 reported that “British Army has been relocating Taliban insurgents from southern Afghanistan to the north by providing transportation means.” Quoting diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Iranian site claimed that insurgents are being airlifted from the southern province of Helmand to the north amid increasing violence in the northern parts of the country.

The PressTV.com also claimed that “the aircraft used for the transfer have been identified as British Chinook helicopters.”

The report suggested that the secret operation was being launched under the supervision of Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, who “was still operating under the British guidance.”

Last week Afghanistan’s Pajhwok news agency reported that “US ambassador scotched speculation that his country was helping terrorists in the north, saying America had nothing to do with the air-dropping of armed men from helicopters in Samangan, Baghlan and Kunduz provinces.” At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai had himself claimed that “some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night.”

According to Pajhowk news report President Karzai revealed “the government had been receiving evidence of the air-dropping of gunmen from mysterious helicopters in the provinces over the last five months.”

A comprehensive investigation is underway to determine which country the helicopters belong to; why armed men are being infiltrated into the region; and whether increasing insecurity in the north is linked to it.

http://www.pakobserver.net/200910/19/news/topstories16.asp

The Amazing Arrogance of the Zionist State

[It really is an amazing thing to see this little piss ant of a fascist country thumbing its finger into the eye of its only patron in a sea of hostility.  The world has never seen such a thing as this shitty little state that struts about the world stage thumping its chest boasting "I am Israel, God on earth, I can do as I will and none can stand before me.  And the really sick part is, they are right.  Israel can do whatever it wants and Washington and its Jewish owners will do nothing to change Israel's path of racist supremacist destruction.]

Israel rebuffs criticism on new Jerusalem settlement

Posted: 19 November 2009 0055 hrs

	Photos 1 of 2 Jewish settlers look towards Palestinian areas in east Jerusalem as the foundation stone is laid for a new settlement neighborhood

JERUSALEM: Israel defended on Wednesday its decision to build hundreds of new Jewish homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem as US President Barack Obama warned the “dangerous” move pushed peace further away.

New settlement construction “embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous,” Obama said in an interview with Fox News.

“I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security. I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbours,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai defended his ministry’s decision to build 900 new homes in east Jerusalem that drew international criticism.

Israel considers mainly Arab east Jerusalem to be an integral part of its capital, but the Palestinians want to make it the capital of their promised state.

“Freezing construction in Gilo is just like freezing construction … in any other neighbourhood in Jerusalem and Israel,” Yishai told AFP. “Construction in Jerusalem cannot be halted, and Gilo is in Jerusalem.”

Gilo is one of a dozen Jewish settlements in the eastern part of the Holy City, which Israel has annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.

Israeli news reports said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had rejected a request from US ally to halt construction in Gilo, but it was not clear whether the request concerned the project approved on Tuesday night.

Only hours after the decision was announced, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he was “dismayed.”

“At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed,” Gibbs said.

Russia slammed the expansion as “unacceptable for the Middle Eastern peace process.”

The move is likely to further hamper Washington’s so far futile efforts to get Israel and the Palestinians to restart peace talks, which were suspended during the Gaza war at the turn of the year.

In another move likely to exacerbate tensions, Israel demolished a Palestinian house in east Jerusalem. Palestinians often build in east Jerusalem without permits because these are nearly impossible to get.

The European Union, United Nations, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia added their voices to the criticism of the decision to expand Gilo, a move that flew in the face of Palestinian calls for a complete freeze on all settlement activity for peace talks to resume.

The EU presidency stressed that “settlement activities, house demolitions and evictions in east Jerusalem are illegal under international law.”

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who was holding talks with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Wednesday, said: “It is a decision that we regret.”

Speaking one day after he held talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Amman, Kouchner also said it was urgent that negotiations should resume between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Abbas is determined to return to a process of political dialogue,” he said. “That is the urgency.”

But UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the decision to build new homes in Gilo “undermined efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution.”

Britain called the decision “wrong.”

The Palestinians’ chief negotiator Saeb Erakat accused Israel of “making a mockery of existing agreements and sabotaging all prospects for a return to genuine negotiations.”

Israel captured east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it. It views the entire Holy City as its “eternal, indivisible” capital and does not consider Jewish neighbourhoods in the eastern sector as settlements.

Meanwhile, a group of visiting US Jews on Wednesday laid a symbolic cornerstone of a new Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.

“I’m sending a message to President Obama – leave Jerusalem alone,” Danny Danon, an MP with Netanyahu’s Likud faction, said at the ceremony.

Canada’s Military Developing Urban Warfare Camouflage for Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver

[Why do they need camo that only works in their major cities?  Sounds like they are preparing for the next battlefield.]

Soldiers could get uniforms for urban jungle

Camo tailored for Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver — but not Ottawa

By David Pugliese, The Ottawa CitizenOTTAWA — Future Canadian soldiers could be wearing new uniforms designed to provide camouflage on the streets of our largest cities.

The Defence Department will know by March what designs might work for what is being called a Canadian Urban Environment Pattern.

Those designs are to be based on the “unique requirements” of the urban settings of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, according to an outline of the project being co-ordinated by scientists at Defence Research and Development Canada in Suffield, Alta.

Ottawa, the nerve centre of government and the military, was left off the list because it doesn’t rate as a major metropolitan centre.

“We’re not trying to slight any city in the country,” explained Scott Duncan, head of the soldier and systems protection group at DRDC Suffield. “We chose the three largest urban centres to have baseline data in this early development project.”

He said information gathered on what patterns might work best in those three cities could also have applications for other urban centres.

Duncan said the $25,000 study to come up with camouflage patterns did not necessarily mean a new uniform would be produced for the Canadian Forces anytime soon. Once the patterns are determined, the results will be presented to the Canadian military and it will be up to the leadership on how to proceed, he added.

“If you were to refer back to the Canada First Defence Strategy, one of the principal mandates that has been given to our military is that they must provide protection to the citizens of Canada and help exercise Canadian sovereignty,” Duncan said.

“Given our large urban population, should any operations be required, there’s a good probability that some of them will be taking place in urban environments.”

However, Eric Graves, the editor of Soldier Systems Daily, a U.S. website that reports on the uniform and equipment industry, questioned whether it made sense to have camouflage based on the landscape of Canadian cities. Various studies indicate the world’s population in developing nations is becoming more focused in urban areas and military officers often talk about future warfare being in those areas.

“It makes zero sense for the Canadian military to produce an urban pattern based on their own cities unless they plan on fighting there,” Graves noted.

“If that’s the case, then it is the perfect choice.”

Still, Graves said, if the Canadian military strategy is to continue supporting the United Nations and NATO on its operations, “the answer is that they have to take a broader look, and develop a pattern more suited to use in ungoverned or under-governed areas that are rapidly urbanizing.”

The contract for the Canadian camouflage pattern was awarded to HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp. in Maple Ridge, B.C.

The original contract requirement from DRDC Suffield noted that the current military uniform to protect against chemical, biological and radiological substances was available in only the desert and temperate woodland patterns.

Clement Laforce, deputy director general for DRDC Suffield, said the patterns that would be produced are not just for chemical or biological protective suits, but also for general use for the Canadian Forces.

An urban camouflage uniform was designed in the U.S. in the 1990s based on slate grey patterns. It is used by some U.S. police tactical teams, U.S. special forces on urban missions and a number of foreign special forces and law enforcement units.

However, Duncan said uniforms designed for a U.S. urban environment might not work in a Canadian setting. “There’s factors such as light, the amount and types of vegetation and weather patterns,” he said. “These are all parameters you take into consideration when you develop these patterns.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Unsettling Revelations Regarding U.S. Lease of Colombian Military Bases

“opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America” against threats not only from drug trafficking and guerrilla movements, but also from “anti-U.S. governments” in the region.

Unsettling Revelations Regarding U.S. Lease of Colombian

Military Bases

by COHA Research Associate Christina Esquivel

U.S. Air Force Reveals Another Possible Explanation Behind Bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement

On Friday, October 30, U.S. and Colombian officials signed the controversial Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), granting the U.S. armed forces access to seven Colombian military bases for the next ten years. The deal has been the subject of anxious speculation and heated debate since talks were first confirmed over the summer, as many policymakers throughout the hemisphere are now grappling with the reality of a heightened U.S. military presence in South America.

Though details were not released to the public prior to the signing of the agreement, official statements from both governments have continuously affirmed that the leased facilities would be exclusively used to support counternarcotic and counterinsurgency initiatives within Colombia. However, a recently publicized U.S. Air Force document presents a far more ominous explanation for massive congressional funding for the forthcoming military construction at the Colombian bases. It emphasizes the “opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America” against threats not only from drug trafficking and guerrilla movements, but also from “anti-U.S. governments” in the region.

The day after the signing of the DCA, the Colombian newsweekly Semana publicized the document, which was submitted to the U.S. Congress in May. The Budget Estimate Justification Data for the Military Construction Program of the U.S. Air Force was intended to defend the appropriation of $46 million to outfit and update the Palanquero air base, the largest such facility in Colombia and one of the seven to be leased through the DCA. Submitted long before the security accord was reached in mid-August, the Air Force budget justification document constitutes the first official declaration of the rationale for the agreement with Colombia, a statement of intent met with approval from the U.S. Congress. The document appears to validate the persistent reservations expressed by Colombia’s neighbors, particularly Venezuela, in regards to the real motivation and potential scope of the DCA, and has added further strain to the already tense relations that the U.S. and Colombia have with other South American countries.

Behind Closed Doors: The Defense Cooperation Agreement

Details of the agreement between the United States and Colombia have been shrouded in secrecy since the summer, when an article in the Colombian magazine Cambio first drew international attention to the $46 million appropriation earmarked by the House of Representatives to upgrade the Palanquero base, signaling possibility of a military deal between the two countries. In response to the article, three Colombian ministers held a press conference in Bogotá that marked the first in a series of attempts to offset speculation that the operations of U.S. military personnel and civil contractors on the leased bases may not remain limited only to countering security threats within Colombia. The session was also intended to reassure the public that the agreement would not permit unilateral U.S. operations nor the creation of new U.S. bases there. The ministers confirmed that the seven existing Colombian bases leased as a result of the deal— Palanquero, Malambo, Tolemaida, Larandia, Apíay, Cartagena and Málaga— would remain fully under Colombian jurisdiction. Days after the August 14 accord was reached, the State Department issued a statement confirming that the DCA, which was then under review, would “facilitate effective bilateral cooperation on security matters in Colombia, including narcotics production and trafficking, terrorism, illicit smuggling of all types, and humanitarian and natural disasters.”

Colombia’s neighbors remain skeptical as to the objectives of the arrangement, and despite international pressure to publicize the terms of the agreement, transparency has been lacking. The DCA was only released to the public on Tuesday, November 3, nearly three months after the accord had been reached and days after it was signed by Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez and the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield. President Álvaro Uribe submitted the agreement to be reviewed by the Consejo de Estado (State Council), a non-partisan state advisory institution. However, Uribe ignored the Council’s recommendation to make the DCA open to congressional debate, even though the agreement unquestionably enjoys the support of the majority of Colombians. The Council urged further review in order to resolve critical concerns that make the agreement excessively “vague and unbalanced,” as well as potentially problematic for Colombia. Among these concerns are the agreement’s ambiguous wording regarding the cooperative relationship, time frame, legal status of U.S. personnel stationed in the country, use of satellites, and the role of third countries. Refusing to release the DCA to the already supportive Colombian public generated even more suspicion of the Uribe administration.

Justifying Strategic Interests: The Military Construction Budget Estimate
The U.S. Air Force construction budget for the Palanquero base, published by Semana magazine on Saturday, October 31, appears to validate existing regional anxieties regarding the implications of the long-obscured military base deal. The Budget Estimate Justification document, which outlines the specific destination and purpose of the funds, gave further weight to the questions first raised in July surrounding the pending deal and the purpose of U.S. military funding destined for the Colombian bases. In contrast to the Defense Cooperation Agreement, this document stands as a far more concrete declaration of intent for U.S. military presence in South America, as “an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America.” Contrary to public statements from both governments, this document confirms the potential of the military cooperation to extend beyond Colombian borders. Furthermore, it suggests that the base could be used for continental combat operations and to neutralize regional governments considered “anti-U.S.,” presumably Venezuela but also likely including Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Located near the Magdalena River 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Bogotá, the Palanquero base has the capacity to lodge over 2,000 personnel, hangar space for 50-60 airplanes, and the longest runways in the country, Palanquero is already Colombia’s largest military base and one of the most advanced in Latin America. Leasing this Colombian facility would provide the U.S. Air Force with “access to the entire continent.” According to the budget justification, the planned structural and operational improvements are intended to “leverage existing infrastructure to the maximum extent possible, improve the U.S. ability to respond rapidly to crisis, and assure regional access and presence at minimum cost.” The upgrade is also intended to “increase [the U.S. Air Force’s] capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).” Within this budget justification, stated interests in counternarcotic and counterinsurgency operations within Colombia are sidelined in favor of promoting strategic military and security throughout the hemisphere.

This explanation marks a critical departure from the public representation of the agreement embodied in official statements that have been made since the summer as well as in the recently released DCA. U.S. Southern Command spokesman Jose Ruiz dismissed the document as “budget, not policy,” maintaining that only the DCA would govern the activities of the U.S. military in Colombia. However, with so much left up to interpretation by the DCA itself, the budget justification document may represent “a more candid declaration of intent,” according to John Lindsay-Poland, co-director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin American and the Caribbean. Rather than a firm policy framework, Lindsay-Poland explains that instead the DCA is “an empty vessel that provides a structure for military cooperation, whereas the budget document is a declaration of the military’s intent for how that structure will be used.” He argues that the Pentagon is looking to gain strategic capacity in the region over the long term. Weak non-interference provisions in the DCA are unlikely to succeed where accords by the United Nations (UN) and Organization of American States (OAS) have failed, as in the case of the U.S.-backed attack on Ecuador by Colombian forces in 2008. The vague terms of the DCA as well as the secrecy of the talks surrounding it have raised questions not only concerning its present intent, but also its future exploitability over its ten-year duration.

Escalating the Latin American Arms Race

In much of Latin America, the Defense Cooperation Agreement has been understood as a threatening act of aggression, especially in light of the combative language used in its budget justification. In the news article revealing the existence of the budget document, Semana magazine characterized the deal with the U.S. as an escalation of the ongoing arms race in the region, calling it the beginning of a “new Cold War.” Prior to the amplification of its strategic partnership with the U.S., Colombia lacked the capital to compete with the weapons arsenal accumulated by its neighbors, particularly Venezuela and Brazil. Former presidential security advisor Armando Borrero noted that with U.S. resources and support, Colombia no longer “had to involve itself in the regional arms race” that it could scarcely afford. According to Semana, for Colombian military leaders who had long sought a way to obtain the personnel and equipment to engage Venezuela on an equal military footing, “this accord seemed to fall from the sky.”

Since talks on the deal were first publicized over the summer, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has perceived the amplification of U.S. military presence in the region as targeting his country for a possible attack. At the summit of the Union of Southern Nations (UNASUR) in August, he denounced the agreement as a sign that the “winds of war are starting to blow.” Chávez has since used the bilateral pact as both an opportunity to question Colombia’s sovereignty, and more importantly to justify further arms purchases for Venezuela. In a speech on September 14, he reasoned, “what could we do if the Yanquis are establishing seven military bases?” On Thursday, November 5, following the signing of the DCA, Chávez carried out his promise to sever diplomatic ties with Colombia; he also froze trade between the two nations, which already had fallen by nearly half in September.

The U.S. Air Force document, which designates funding to “increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR),” gives substantial weight to Chávez’s fears of destabilization by the U.S. and Colombia, particularly in the wake of the Venezuelan government’s recent accusation of espionage by the Colombian intelligence agency (DAS). Speaking before the National Assembly on October 29, Venezuelan Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami presented documents allegedly originating from DAS, which showed that Colombia had sent spies to Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba as part of a CIA-linked operation. While Colombia heatedly denied the allegations, they did not refute the validity of the intercepted DAS documents. By pursuing this vague and open-ended deal with Colombia and approving the combative language of the budget justification document, U.S. officials have accelerated the simmering conflict between the neighboring South American countries by legitimizing Venezuela’s suspicions and precipitating the closure of vital channels of communication and exchange.

While international and regional governing bodies have neglected their mediating role in the face of the escalating conflict, Brazil has taken the initiative to engage the two countries in a constructive dialogue. On Friday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced his intention to bring Uribe and Chávez together for a November 26 summit in the Brazilian city of Manaus. However, in order for talks to proceed between Colombia and Venezuela, the United States must better define the nature of the cooperative relationship established by the DCA and clarify the strategic regional interests suggested by the U.S. Air Force budget justification document. Transparency going forward is crucial to undoing the tangle of suspicion and antagonism fostered up to now by the U.S.-Colombian military cooperation deal.

‘Musharraf passed atomic information to US’

By Ali Masood Syed

LAHORE: Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has expressed his firm conviction that former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had transferred very sensitive information relating to Pakistan’s atomic programme to the US.

Dr Khan said he was ready to record the facts before the court of law.Talking to this correspondent he confirmed the contents of the recent Washington Post story and said these were drawn from the copy of his letter, which he addressed to his wife and handed over to his daughter Dr Dina Khan in 2004 as a precautionary measure when she was leaving for Dubai. The letter had ultimately landed at Musharraf’s table after being recovered from the baggage of his daughter.

Musharraf referred to the letter in his book also and now it has appeared in the press, Dr Khan said. He said on the orders of the dictator, humiliating search operations were carried out in his residence and all documents, personal diaries and family photos were confiscated. The computerised national identity cards were returned after several written requests.

He confirmed the observations of columnist Jabbar Mirza that Musharraf was hell bent upon handing him over to the US. In this connection, Dr Khan said, the then-prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had himself confided that he was under severe pressure to sign his exit order, which he refused after taking the federal cabinet into confidence. He said Musharraf kept a C-130 plane ready to fulfil his nefarious designs.

Dr Khan questioned what type of justice it was that the truth was made secret for countrymen while it was transferred to the US. The nation must know that national secrets were handed over to Washington by the former president who was an American stooge, he said. He said the nation knew well who its well-wisher was.

He said one-sided action was taken against him during the Musharraf regime and a deliberate and well-calculated policy was implemented to brand him a culprit. It may be recalled that the letter published by the Washington Post leads to information, which proves that China helped Pakistan in the initial stages of Pakistan’s atomic programme. On the contrary, Dr Khan had started mutual cooperation by briefing the Chinese officials with regard to the European centrifuges. The letter leads to the conviction that every thing was done for the mutual interest. The letter discloses that uranium hexafluoride (UF6) was procured in return for invertors, valve flow metres, pressure gauges and other machines. After being self sufficient in 1982, Pakistan offered to return the same but the Chinese were gracious enough having asked to retain them as gift. The letter that appeared in the Washington Post is also significant because therein Dr Khan had quoted people who were alive as against accusations that he always referred to the people who were dead.

He told this correspondent that a comprehensive strategy against him and Pakistan’s atomic programme had been drawn at a secret meeting between Musharraf and former CIA director George Tenet at a hotel in New York on Sept 24, 2003. It was the meeting which both of them in their books had referred to. It is interesting that many assertions made by them are conflicting with one another.

Musharraf claimed to have recognised the Pakistani P-1 Centrifuge design shown by George and told him that it was the same manufactured under Dr Khan’s supervision. Dr Khan said these sketches were sealed in 1982-83 and at that time Musharraf had no access even up to the threshold of Kahuta plant.

Khan demanded inquiry and trial against Musharraf and his coterie. It is an open secret that Musharraf had deep-rooted contacts with Israel and God knows how many secrets he had transferred to them. He said under a planned policy the former president had transferred all responsibility over his shoulders, which he was not going to deny. But, he demanded to expose his confessional statement secured under duress or to record his statement afresh so that real facts might be revealed.

Dr Khan said he was a resident of Bhopal in India and had opted to migrate to Pakistan, dedicated his life to the country and pledged to serve Ummah. How could a person with such plans become a traitor?

It may be recalled that Dr Khan had always been a sour in the eyes of the US, India, Israel and some European countries because he had openly stated why atomic programme in Muslim world was condemned when European nations were carrying forward jointly the same. Why Pakistan was not allowed to sign atomic agreements when the US had been doing the same. He had a clear vision that atomic program should be aimed at maintaining balance of power in the world and doing away with one-sided persecutions. However, under the current circumstances he had been devoting solely to issues pertaining to health, education and other developmental projects.

IBM: Computing rivaling human brain may be ready by 2019

by Daniel Terdiman

According to IBM, ‘BlueMatter, a new algorithm created by IBM researchers in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information.’

(Credit: IBM)

Computers capable of mimicking the human brain’s power and efficiency could be just 10 years off, according to a leading researcher at IBM.

According to the researcher, Dharmendra Modha, the manager of IBM’s cognitive computing initiative, scientists from his company and some of the world’s most prestigious universities have already managed to simulate the computing complexity of the feline cortex, a feat that could augur a day not too far off when it will be possible to ramp up to what the human brain can accomplish.

Last year, IBM and five universities were awarded a DARPA contract to work on a cognitive computing project aimed at eventually achieving that goal. Just a year later, Modha said, his team, working in conjunction with the universities’ scientists, have achieved two major milestones.

The first was a real-time cortical simulation that achieved more than 1 billion spiking neurons, as well as 10 trillion individual learning synapses. According to Modha, that exceeds what a cat’s cortex is capable of.

Second, the scientists created a fresh algorithm they’re calling BlueMatter that is aimed at spelling out the connections between all the human brain’s cortical and sub-cortical locations. That mapping is a critical step, Modha suggested, for a true understanding of how the brain communicates and processes information.

The human brain, Modha said, is fundamentally different from today’s computers in power and size, and he and the many scientists he is working with are eager to learn from the brain how to build new kinds of computing architectures. Part of the reason, he added, is that as our world gets more and more complex, a “tsunami” of data is being produced and analyzing those data demands “a new kind of cognitive system, a brain-like system, to make sense of it.”

To achieve the goal, Modha and his fellow scientists are combining supercomputing, neuroscience, and nanotechnology research to demonstrate what’s possible. The work they’ve done has progressed in just a year from the granting of the DARPA contract to today’s achievements.

Modha said that examples of what could be done with computers working at this scale are realistic analysis of the world’s water supply systems, or financial systems. The idea is to detect causality behind phenomena, and to make those connections quickly and effortlessly, the way the human brain works. Writing such a program using today’s computers would be impossible, he said, but these future computers would be able to quickly distill answers to these kinds of enormous problems.

There’s no promise, of course, that Modha and his colleagues will be able to advance the difference between the power of the cat and human cortexes in the next decade. After all, there’s a difference of a factor of 20 between the two. But he sounded optimistic that a decade is a realistic goal.

But regardless of the timing, the aim is clear: reverse-engineer the human brain and learn its computational algorithms. And then deploy them in a bid to solve some of the world’s most complicated computing problems.

Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.

One or the Other–Pak Army Playing Games, or Simply Incompetent?

[There has never been an army like the Pak Army--they always leave the escape door open, when allegedly going after their militants, you know the ones, sometimes they are "miscreants," sometimes (when they threaten India, for instance) they are considered "patriots."  Which label fits, this time, Kayani?]

Where are Taliban and al Qaeda commanders, US media asks Pak

PTI

 

Washington: A day after senior Pakistani army commanders claimed that their forces have captured all major towns and population centres of the extremist-ridden South Waziristan, Taliban and foreign militants appear to have disappeared and not been eliminated.

---

Army officials said that they have killed as many as 550 Taliban militants a month after the military began its campaign into the lawless territory, yet they acknowledge that hundreds, perhaps thousands more have melted away.

As the offensive into the area, considered to be a sanctuary of al Qaeda and Taliban militants gained momentum, Boston Globe said, “Vast numbers of Taliban and foreign terrorists had disappeared into the vast desert scrub and craggy hills surrounding their strongholds of Sararogha and Ladha”.

“Where are they? That’s what bothers me,” New York Times quoted a senior American intelligence officer as saying.

Azam Tariq, a Tehrik-i-Taliban spokesman claimed that the militants has suffered hardly any casualties.”Ours is a strategic withdrawal”.

“We will wage a guerrilla war and inflict heavy casualties on the army”, he said.

The paper commented that “lasting success” has been elusive for the Pakistani forces. It said that tempered by an agile enemy that has moved easily from one part of the tribal areas to the next–and even deeper into Pakistan–virtually everytime it has been challenged.

The Boston Globe said, it appears that the die-hard Taliban ranks and their top commanders as well as men of the shadowy al Qaeda are postponing the fight for another day to test the army’s resolve to continue to pursue them.

Despite the gung-ho mood in the Pakistan Army ranks in the wake of these recent advances, The Washington Post quoted military officials acknowledging that Taliban was well organised, armed and equipped, and that the campaign against them is far from won.

Post said, the Pakistani Army estimated there were 10,000 to 12,000 active Taliban fighters in Waziristan, “which means that only a fraction have been killed”.

American journalists taken by helicopters to the erstwhile Taliban strongholds of Sararogha and Ladha by the Pakistan Army said, questions remain where the terrorists have slipped away.

US intelligence and military officials are not sure how long the military will be able to hold the Taliban territory captured.

They wonder once the army leaves, the militants will simply come back.

Media reports said that over the last five years Waziristan’s town like Sararogha and Ladha had become mini Taliban states.

While the Americans want the Pakistan Army to keep up the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda leadership, they fear that Islamabad might end the campaign after crushing Mehsud and cut permanent peace deals with other Pakistani militant factions.

Success in the region, in the remote mountains near the Afghan border, New York Times said could have a direct bearing on how many more American troops are ultimately sent to Afghanistan, and how long they must take.

“There is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us”

“Israeli Ministries Funding the Rabbi who Endorses Killing Gentile Babies”

Readers Number : 376

17/11/2009 Israeli daily Haaretz published a report on Tuesday in which it said that there are Israeli ministries funding Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the rabbi who endorsed killing gentile babies. The Haaretz repost says: “Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov “Jack” Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other “political/ideological” murderers. True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them. The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.” “Is that so? Not really,” Haaretz continues. “For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies “because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us … it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly … we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents.” Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar. The Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.” “Their spiritual leader stated in his book, “Torat Hamelekh” that “a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them.” The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible,” wrote the rabbi and adds, “and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect.” Not long ago, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications. The Israeli minister surely has reservations about the rabbi’s publications. He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.”

How Cold Is Gaza In Winter,How Hard Do the Winds Blow?

Gazans Brace for Cold, Bleak and Miserable Winter

By Mel Frykberg

 

EZBT ABBED RABBO, Nov 16, 2009 (IPS) – Tens of thousands of Gazans living in tents and damaged homes face a wet, cold and miserable winter as Israel’s blockade of the coastal territory continues to prevent the importation of building and reconstruction material. During the last few weeks Gazans were given a brief reprieve from the oncoming winter as an unseasonal snap of warmish, sunny weather held off winter rain and plummeting temperatures. But, during a tour of northern Gaza last week, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Maxwell Gaylard, and the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) called on Israel to open its border crossings immediately to avert a further deterioration in the humanitarian situation on the ground. “With winter rains and cold weather now imminent, the people of Gaza are even more desperately in need of construction materials such as cement, roofing tiles and glass to build and repair homes destroyed and damaged during the Israeli military offensive of 2008/2009,” said Gaylard. During Israel’s intensive bombing campaign in December/January Gaza’s infrastructure was heavily targeted leading to the destruction and damage of thousands of homes. “Gaza urgently requires 268,000 square metres of glass for windows and 67,000 square metres of glass for solar water heaters or enough glass to cover more than 30 football pitches. More than 500 children are still living in tents,” Mike Bailey from Oxfam told IPS. Damage caused to Gaza’s water, sanitation and electricity systems, exacerbated by Israel’s crippling blockade which forbids the import of most essential spare parts and fuel, has further limited the ability of aid agencies to supply essential services. The lack of concrete water storage tanks means that fresh water can only enter water pipes when there is electricity to power water pumps. Backup generators – which rely on fuel – are needed to ensure power cuts do not lead to water shortages and pollution of water. “The humanitarian situation is going to deteriorate if something doesn’t give,” Gaylard told IPS during a tour of the Ezbt Abbed Rabbo area of the northern Gaza strip. “We are reaching out to the international community. We are appealing to the member countries of the U.N. on a regular basis about this continuing crisis… We are holding discussions with the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council. One would hope that the message would be getting out after the Goldstone report,” said Gaylard. “We are continuing talks with the Israeli government but pressure must be brought to bear on those responsible for keeping the border crossings closed,” Gaylard told IPS. Fifty metres away from where the media gathered to hear the U.N. coordinator address the escalating humanitarian crisis, dozens of Gazan families were living the crisis first-hand. Muhammad Zaid’s five-storey home – which took four years to build and was home to 16 people, the youngest a one-year-old – was flattened during 15 days of intensive Israeli shelling at the beginning of the year, forcing the family to flee. For the first five months after the war Zaid and his family lived under the caved-in bottom floor of the building. For the last five months the Zaids have lived in a tent supplied by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Despite the recent unusually warm and dry weather, the heavens opened up for one night last week and rainwater flooded their tent as the family desperately tried to salvage belongings. “We were awake the whole night scooping water out and trying to dig a small ditch around the tent to prevent more water flooding in but it didn’t help. The children were terrified and screaming. It was so cold,” Zaid told IPS. However, when the winter rains begin to flood his tent on a regular basis in the near future Zaid, who is unemployed and in huge debt, will face the additional problems of having only intermittent electricity, and no running water. “I have spent over three thousand dollars of borrowed money for a new refrigerator and stove and some other basic appliances but we have no heater and the electricity keeps cutting,” said Zaid. Several kilometres away, near the border with Israel, mother of eight Taghreed Abu Amrayn, showed IPS her new “home”, a tent attached to the remains of her former three-storey house, as she jiggled 20-month old Safedin on her hip. “I’m not sure how we will cope with winter as heating and electricity are a big problem and the children are always getting sick. I think the phosphorous bombs that were dropped nearby may have affected them. “Apart from the health issues we still live in fear on a daily basis as Israel continues to bomb these areas,” Amrayn told IPS. Nearby the Abu Amrayns, Rifat Bakri, 28, and Wissam Amoud, 27, were using improvisation to try and overcome the absence of construction material. They had “rebuilt” their former garage and mechanical workshop with cardboard boxes. “We couldn’t just sit around, we needed to get back to work. These boxes have provided a provisional garage for the short-term but when it rains in winter they will become water-logged and I’m not sure what we will do then,” Bakri told IPS. “This abysmal situation can’t continue. People are desperate. Enough is enough. It is time for the blockade to be ended and for humanity to return to Gaza,” Bailey told IPS.

:: Article nr. 60135 sent on 16-nov-2009 22:50 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=60135

Nation Fanning Flames of Hatred In Peshawar, Running Hysterical Opinions as “News”

[In one of the most blatant attempts to amplify anti-India propaganda, this opinion piece disguised as a news story, blames India for Peshawar's market bombing.  Real Muslims couldn't have done this, could they?  VBIED (vehicle born improvised explosive device) is simply a description of any car-bomb, manufactured with explosives.  Surely Col. Pirohit didn't supply a truck-bomb all the way from India, nor even the actual explosives used.   Peshawar was and is bombed continually because the government leaves it unprotected.  The militant problem stems from two causes, the Army chasing them there, first from Swat and now Waziristan, and because of past sponsorship of all the active militant groups by the ISI, as hands of the Army and the CIA.  By encouraging media under the Army's thumb like the Nation, to hype the threat from India now, is a clear attempt to relieve pressure on the Army by reopening the Eastern front with India.  Beware.]

India destabilising Pakistan

By: Ashraf Javed

LAHORE – Explosive material used in the deadly bomb blast which took place at Khyber Bazaar Peshawar last month, was identical to what had been used in exploding Samjhota Express in India, sources confined to The Nation Monday.
The explosive material – Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) – was used in Khyber Bazaar bomb blast.
Sources say the Pakistani security agencies have found concrete evidences to prove Indian involvement in Khyber Bazaar blast in which VBIED was used.
Sources close the development revealed that the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind the terrible blast which left more than 42 innocent people dead and 100 others wounded, including women and children.
“Lt Col Prohit of the Indian Army who is the prime accused in the Samjhota Express explosion case, was the expert and qualified to handle VBIED and its manufacturing process,” sources said.

More Nations Buying Gold By the Ton in Preparation of Dollar Elimination

Mauritius buys two metric tons of gold from IMF

WASHINGTON: The African nation of Mauritius has bought two metric tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for nearly 72 million dollars.

Sale of two metric tons of gold to the Bank of Mauritius, which is the central bank of Mauritius, was conducted on the basis of market prices prevailing on November 11 with proceeds equivalent to 71.7 million dollars, the IMF said.

Early this month, the Reserve Bank of India had announced buying 200 metric tons of gold from the IMF for 6.7 billion dollar.

This transaction is part of the total 403.3 metric tons sales approved by the IMF Executive Board in September and adds to the 200 metric tons already sold to the Reserve Bank of India.

The money, thus generated would be used by the IMF to fund projects in Africa and other third world countries.

Israel gaffe reveals ‘Iran ship photos’ were forged

Israel gaffe reveals ‘Iran ship photos’ were forged

Iran says labels reading ‘Ministry of Sepah’, a body that no longer exists, are enough to prove that the photos released by Israel are forged.

After Israel released photos it said proved that a huge shipment of weapons for Hezbollah came from Tehran, Iranian news agencies publish evidence showing that the photos are forged.

Israeli naval sources recently claimed that they found a large cache of Iranian-made arms when they stormed a vessel near Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.

They claimed that the ship was heading for the Hezbollah resistance movement, either in Lebanon or Syria.

Iran instantly dismissed the claims, issuing a statement with which it condemned Israel’s many acts of piracy in international waters.

But the Israeli government persisted in its accusations, releasing what it claimed to be photos and documents in an effort to implicate the Iranian government in the matter.

The photos and documents were carried by a number of leading newspapers in the West, including The Los Angeles Times.

“The Israeli regime has made a fool of itself with regards to what it claims to be evidence that Iran was sending weapons to Hezbollah,” IRNA news agency said on Monday.

“Take a close look at the photos, one of which merely shows a couple of boxes labeled ‘Ministry of Sepah’ without providing corroborative evidence that they came from Iran, and you will see the huge gaffe committed by Israel,” it added.

The article explained that Iran’s Ministry of Sepah gave its place to the Defense Ministry more than twenty years ago. “So this begs the question of what the emblem of a nonexistent body was doing on the cargo?”

“It seems the American daily has failed to get its facts straight, or on the other hand, maybe it is getting its cue from the Israeli leadership,” said the news agency.

“In any case, the newspaper should know that if a country plans to send a secret arms cargo to another, it will not brand the shipment with a full description of the batch.”

“Tel Aviv’s baseless claims [about Iran providing Hezbollah with military] are evidently designed to justify another Israeli attack on Lebanon.”

Yadollah Javani, the Director of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said last week that the claims were intended to divert attention from a UN report detailing Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

“These accusations are nothing but an Israeli ruse to deflect international attention from the Goldstone report as they move closer to the war crimes tribunal [at the International Criminal Court (ICC)],” noted Brigadier General Javani.

He was referring to the 575-page report headed by Jewish South African judge Richard Goldstone, which detailed numerous acts of war crimes and human rights violations committed by Israeli soldiers during their incursion into Gaza.

“Israeli officials have a longstanding tendency to level baseless accusations against others when they are in serious trouble,” he added.

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also dismissed the charges, questioning why the Israelis had failed to detain the crew, if the ship was supposedly carrying weapons.

Berri said that while Hezbollah has the right to obtain arms from “anywhere in the world,” it is pretty obvious that Israel made the claims to fudge the issue of its war crimes in Gaza.

SBB/DT

South Stream Is a “Go,” Nabucco Merely “Gone”

Russian gas pipeline’s approval deals blow to EU

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Vladimir Putin has made energy politics a top priority

Slovenia’s agreement to sign on to the South Stream pipeline project has dashed hopes by the European Union to reduce dependency on Russian gas.

 

As the Slovenian and Russian energy ministers signed an agreement for the massive South Stream gas pipeline Saturday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin looked on in satisfaction.

The approval of Slovenia, the fifth country to do so, brings Russia closer to locking its control over the European gas supply.

South Stream, which is estimated will cost 20 billion euros ($30 billion) to build and is expected to be completed by 2015, would run under the Black Sea to carry natural gas to western Europe.

The European Union has supported the construction of an alternative pipeline, known as Nabucco, in an effort to counter Russian monopolistic influence by importing gas from Caspian Sea nations like Azerbijan and Turkmenistan. That project has been stalled, however, by a lack of supply agreements.

The politics of gas

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Russian claims the South Stream line would ensure supplies by bypassing Ukraine

EU leaders have been pushing for more independence from Russian natural gas since a dispute between Moscow and Kiev last January left many European homes without heat in the dead of winter.

About 80 percent of Russian gas currently passes through Ukraine, and Russia has claimed the South Stream line, which bypasses Ukraine, would ensure a smoother supply.

Another Russian project, Nord Stream, would also bypass Ukraine by piping gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. Denmark, Sweden and Finland have all given their approval to the project, meaning construction could start as soon as next year.

acb/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Rick Demarest

The imminence of war is an illusion

Irrespective of the provocations, there are natural obstacles to a new round of Israel-Hezbollah conflict

• Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News
• Published: 00:00 November 17, 2009

• Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News

Shortly after the Israel Defence Forces claimed that it had captured a ship allegedly filled with Iranian weapons meant for the Hezbollah, Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Hezbollah had rockets with a 320-kilometre range that could reach into the Israeli heartland.

On November 11, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah corrected him, saying that all of Israel, not only its south, was within the range of Hezbollah rockets — raising fears that a new confrontation could soon break out along the Lebanese-Israeli border. A closer look, however, proves that it was not as imminent as it may seem. Simply put: Israel is not ready, the US is not enthusiastic and international heavyweights, like Saudi Arabia and Russia, would not allow it.

Over the past two years, Israel has been violating international law with repeated over-flights above Lebanon and sending espionage cells into Lebanese territory, including listening devices into the south last October. According to the UN, both sides “remain committed to full implementation” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that repeated violations across the border highlight how fragile the situation is, raising fears that it could deteriorate any minute.

Sources close to Hezbollah confirm that the Lebanese party is busy reinforcing fixed defence positions north of the Litani River, protecting the routes to Beirut and the Beka’a Valley, claiming that if war is to break out, Hezbollah is prepared not only to fight back, as it did in 2006, but to delve deep into northern Israel, capturing Jewish colonies along the border. If that happens, they add, this would certainly bring down the Netanyahu government. The ground would be too soft for Israeli tanks to venture this winter, sources add, pushing the likelihood of a confrontation to next spring.

Impediments

There are natural obstacles to a new round of battle between Hezbollah and Israel. One is the presence of UN peacekeeping forces along the border, who had their mandate renewed earlier this year, along with a lack of a proper pretext for the Israelis to strike at Hezbollah, which has been observing 1701. Israel can, of course, use the ship affair to justify striking at Lebanon once again, although it is difficult to see what that would achieve, except set the region ablaze — drowning all the moderation brought around by Barack Obama.

Israel, however, realises that it cannot bomb Hezbollah out of existence. Far from eliminating Hezbollah, such a war, were it to break out, would be targeted at Iran more than Lebanon. The Lebanese party, despite all attempts, is still firmly united and has not been infiltrated by Israeli spies. Had this been the case, then Israel would have managed to penetrate them long ago. Let us not forget that for years, the only kind of intelligence both countries got on Iran was from various unreliable sources: Iranians in the Diaspora loyal to the Shah, Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussain and Lebanese proxies like the “South Lebanon Army”. None of them knew for sure how powerful the Iranian giant really was. Real intelligence, after all, is always gathered by embassies — which are official channels of espionage, recognised by the international community since the 16th century. The US and Israel have not had embassies in Iran since 1979.

The only logical explanation for such a war would be to test the pulse of the Iranians, preparing for a Plan B in case Obama’s engagement hit a brick wall with Tehran. Obama, for that matter, is not too enthusiastic about a non-state player in the Middle East, over which he has absolutely no control. He would not mind an assault that breaks or weakens Hezbollah to prevent the snowballing of non-state players modelled after Hezbollah.

Not now, however. Not before Obama delivers on the Middle East process and gets his domestic house in order.

One suggestion on how to deal with Hezbollah is to lure them into power, as was the case with Hamas after 2006, and Fatah, before them, after Oslo. Only when they capture the state will they cease to operate as a state-within-a-state, where they will be eager to be recognised by the international community as statesmen rather than guerrilla leaders. Nasrallah personally is very aware of this danger and insists that Hezbollah wants to hold on to both sides of the stick — assume their respected allocation in the Lebanese system, while maintaining their arms and right to fight the Israelis. He realises very well that power corrupts and this explains why in the newly-born Lebanese cabinet, Hezbollah has no more than two technical portfolios — agriculture and administrative reforms. Since the option of taming Hezbollah through power does not stand for now, the world is clueless on how to deal with Hezbollah. Politically, they remain as powerful as ever, having managed to dictate all of their demands.

The will for war is therefore present, although the logistics of such a war and the logic behind it remain very abstract and difficult to justify for the Israelis. And so long as dialogue is still ongoing — no matter how sluggishly — between the US and Iran, war is probably not in the immediate horizon between Lebanon and Israel.

Sami Moubayed is the editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine.

Morocco: Endangered ‘Model’?

Eric Goldstein | November 16, 2009 Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
How should the United States relate to a solid ally whose human rights record is better than the norm in its region and better than its own record of 20 years ago — but is now heading in the wrong direction? The United States has long held Morocco, a pro-Western ally, as a model for other countries in North Africa and the Middle East because of its cooperation in the fight against terrorism and simultaneous political liberalization. This image has helped Morocco strengthen its ties with the European Union too. Morocco is “on the front lines in the global war against terrorism,” the State Department wrote in 2007, and “one of our most reliable and closest allies in the region. The country is a liberalizing, democratizing, and moderate Middle East nation undertaking broad political, social, and economic reforms.” That year, Morocco won a five-year, $700 million U.S.-government-backed Millennium Challenge Corporation grant. In the mid-1990s, toward the end of his 38-year rule, the late King Hassan II eased repression, freeing political prisoners and ending the practice of “disappearing” opponents. After Hassan II’s death in 1999, his son and successor, Mohammed VI, continued to liberalize politically, allowing exiles to return and affording critics a wider space to sound off in the media and on the streets. The young monarch also undertook two bold measures. He reformed the family code to give women more rights and established a truth commission — the region’s first — to probe and acknowledge past abuses and compensate victims. Recent Reversal More recently, though, Morocco’s advances have been eroded or reversed, mainly because they have not been institutionalized: working mechanisms are not in place to hold accountable the officials who flout them. The country’s compliant judiciary, the institution that has lagged the most in the reform process, rarely investigates complaints of official abuses but reliably convicts dissidents in unfair proceedings. After all, if those in power were to allow courts to deliver justice independently, they would surrender a pillar of their repressive apparatus. The effort to stem terrorism has contributed to the regression on rights. After coordinated suicide bombings in Casablanca on May 16, 2003, authorities rounded up and tortured suspected militants, convicting hundreds in unfair trials. To its credit, the government did not extend the crackdown to mainstream Islamist movements or civil society. Although Morocco has not had a major terrorist incident since the May 2003 attack, it faces a continuing and real threat from militant Islamist groups. Meeting this challenge is not easy but requires, among other things, effective police work, based on exploiting available technical means and collecting reliable human intelligence. That agenda is not advanced by allowing the police to fall back on indiscriminately arresting suspects, holding them in prolonged incommunicado detention, and coercing confessions that the courts then use to convict them. Lately, however, the setback on rights seems to have less to do with combating terror than with reining in those who challenge the political status quo, centered on an unaccountable monarchy and the key ministries that answer directly to it. For example, in July, a Rabat court convicted the heads of two parties, four other well-known political figures, and 29 others of complicity in a terror network, on the basis of confessions contested due to allegations of torture and falsified transcripts. The “Belliraj” case, which seems more about discrediting or weakening certain opposition parties than punishing terrorists, goes to appeal this month. Western Sahara In an ominous development, Morocco last month referred to a military court seven nonviolent activists who seek self-determination for the Western Sahara — a contested territory south of Morocco’s internationally recognized border that Morocco claims and administers de facto — on charges of harming external state security. “One is either a patriot, or a traitor,” King Mohammed VI declared one week later in a speech marking the 34th anniversary of Morocco’s “Green March” to take control of the former Spanish colony. “Is there a country which would tolerate a handful of lawless people exploiting democracy and human rights in order to conspire with the enemy against its sovereignty, unity and vital interests?” The “Moroccanness” of the Western Sahara, which Moroccan authorities have portrayed for decades as the national cause, remains a convenient pretext for repressing rights, on the grounds that Sahrawis who favor self-determination are Algerian-backed enemies of Morocco’s “territorial integrity.” While Morocco’s press may be among the freest in the Middle East and North Africa, it’s also arguably the one whose freedom has shrunk the most during the past year. Since June, the courts have jailed one magazine editor for writing about the king’s health and heavily fined three newspapers for “insulting” the Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi. Exercising powers found nowhere in the law, the interior minister destroyed issues of two magazines in August because they reported on a public opinion poll about the king and in September ordered the police to evict the staff and padlock the offices of a daily that ran a caricature of a royal cousin. Clinton’s Move After meeting with King Mohammed VI on November 2, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the first top Obama official to visit Morocco, saluted the reforms that have enabled Moroccan women to “bring their considerable talents to strengthening democratic institutions, accelerating economic growth and broadening the work of civil society.” Let us hope that in private, Clinton conveyed to the king a concern that the overall human rights situation in Morocco is deteriorating — for women as for men who engage in social or political activities that displease those in power. To remain silent about Morocco’s backsliding because “it is better than its neighbors” would promote complacency about a situation that, once a cause for hope, is threatening to settle down as one more stalled transition. In a country that Washington commended for liberalizing politically while combating extremism, that augurs ill on both fronts. Eric Goldstein is a deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, an expert in developments in North Africa, and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

The Suffering Goes On and On

[The lies will continue to enslave us, until we stop letting them pass.  If we accept the lies that we know are wrong then they become the same as the truth.  SEE: Gaza Is Our Guernica The "civilized world" accepts, in paralytic mute silence, the malevolent abuse that Israel heaps upon all the Palestinian people as state policy, acceptable state terrorism.  We would not accept this treatment for any other people--the wholesale destruction of most of their homes, accompanied by a blockade of all building supplies...at the onset of winter!  The Western world deserves the judgment of Hell's worst punishment for endorsing this sick policy.]

The Suffering Goes On and On

By Ron Forthofer

 

Novembert 16, 2009 This past September, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict issued its report. Richard Goldstone, a South African Justice and a strong supporter of Israel, headed the effort. During the period under investigation, Israeli forces killed over 1400 Palestinians, the majority of whom were defenseless civilians, while 13 Israelis were killed. Although the report was well covered elsewhere, the U.S. corporate media did not give much attention to its findings. Excerpts from the press release of the report provide an overview: “Following its 3-month investigation, the four-person Mission concluded that serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel in the context of its military operations in Gaza from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity. The Mission also found that Palestinian armed groups had committed war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against humanity. “The report concluded that the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population. The Report states that Israeli acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their rights to access a court of law and an effective remedy, and could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed. …” This report’s findings are consistent with those of other groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well as testimonies from Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza during the massacre. The Obama administration dismissed the report, expressing “serious concerns about many recommendations in the report” according to Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the UN. In October, the U.S. opposed a UN Human Rights Council resolution that supported taking the report to the Security Council, and just last week the U.S. also voted against a General Assembly Resolution calling for the report to be sent to the Security Council. These Obama administration’s positions, along with its backtracking on Israeli settlements, again make it clear that the U.S. is not an honest broker in peace negotiations involving Israel. Additionally, last week the U.S. House of Representatives considered a resolution calling for President Obama to continue his opposition to the Goldstone report. Despite Judge Goldstone’s documentation that the resolution was almost entirely based on falsehoods and misrepresentations, 344 members (including the seven Colorado representatives) still voted in favor of it. Lost in all these maneuvers to sidetrack the Goldstone report is the fact that the Israeli attack was unnecessary. A ceasefire had effectively ended rocket firing into Israel for over four months until Israel broke the ceasfire in early November, 2008. After the ceasefire ended in mid-December, Hamas eventually offered a new ceasefire under the conditions that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza and stop its attacks. Israel’s response was to initiate its long-planned attack. Also overshadowed in the dispute about the Goldstone report is the siege of Gaza that continues today. Eleven months before the Israeli attack, Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, wrote: “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and – some would say – encouragement of the international community.” The situation she described has greatly worsened since Israel’s attack. Israel has refused to allow material for rebuilding homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, civil administration buildings, sanitation facilities, etc. into Gaza. There is also a critical shortage of food, clean water and medicine. Unfortunately, the U.S. and Europe, leaders of the so-called civilized world, are active partners in this crime against humanity. Through their silence, the U.S. corporate media also abet this crime. Please inform your elected representatives of your dismay at their support for a cover-up of war crimes. As supporters of human rights and justice for all, we can also join the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (http://www.bdsmovement.net/) to apply pressure on Israel akin to the movement against South African apartheid. Locally, please join the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center (303-444-6981).

The fire is spreading

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Some six months ago I wrote a critique of the media on these pages for not abiding by professional journalistic ethics in its coverage of the military action in Malakand. Among other things, I emphasised how the daily Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press releases were printed almost word for word without independent source verification (or a mention that no such source existed).

It is perhaps not surprising that the same exercise is being repeated now with Operation Rah-e-Nijat. But it is a damning indictment of those who claim to be committed to freedom of information and other principles of media democracy all the same. Through the course of this year, as the state’s long-standing policy of patronising religious militancy has unravelled in the face of increasing pressure from Washington, the media has answered the call of the powers-that-be to be loyal to the “greater national interest.” It is perhaps considered by and by that protecting the “greater national interest” requires the sacrifice of basic journalistic principles.

For a few days recently some media personalities made hay about restrictions on media coverage of “terrorism” which apparently all parliamentary parties deemed necessary. The expected furore never came to pass, and it has recently been reported that most media outlets have voluntarily agreed to a code of conduct vis-a-vis what can be shown on live TV and what cannot. No democratic government should ever employ draconian measures against the media. On this occasion, however, it appears to make sense that a confrontation was avoided by the media’s own admission that showing mutilated bodies strewn around bomb sites is not beneficial to the public interest. But in general the media’s practice of self-censorship is motivated rarely by public-interest concerns.

The media is a commercial entity and therefore can always be expected to cater, first and foremost, to its profit-making needs. In Pakistan the private TV media revolution was welcomed by ordinary people who have historically been fed a surfeit of state ideology via Pakistan Television (PTV). Only a few short years after a glittering christening, however, the private media has proven that the profit-motive can coexist quite well with the ideological agenda that we all thought had been left behind with the state’s monopoly on information.

In recent times the media has clamoured about the imperative of military action in Waziristan while at the same time recovering the familiar narrative of an Indian-Israeli-American conspiracy to deprive Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal and eventually dismember it. It is amazing that these two narratives can go together, but that is exactly how the choreographers behind the scenes would have it. In short, the ideational leap that was first made immediately prior to the Swat operation – that the once loyal jihadi protégés of the state are now its most lethal enemies – is being taken to its logical conclusion; that is, through the insistence that those who claim to be undertaking jihad against the Pakistani state are actually agents of RAW, Mossad and the CIA.

The “foreign hand” theory is back in a big way, and the media is proving to be more loyal than the king in propagating it far and wide. Caches of arms captured in high-profile operations read “Made in India.” Newspaper headlines accuse the “foreign hand” of constructing special aircraft to storm our nuclear installations. In a very conspicuous parallel development, the Afghan Taliban have reportedly dissociated themselves with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claiming that real warriors of Islam never target Muslim innocents. This fits the media narrative that has now cast away all pretensions in making a clear distinction between genuine holy warriors and “enemy” agents masquerading as jihadis. The former are essential to the security of “Islam,” and therefore the Pakistani state, whereas the latter are out to malign Islam and wipe Pakistan off the map.

The right-wingers in the media, educational institutions and within the state are of course aided in drumming up nationalist hysteria by the increasingly conspicuous man-management that Washington insists upon. It is a fact that there has been an influx of American “security men” into Islamabad and other cities. It was widely reported that Americans completed deserted their positions on the Pakistani-Afghan border as soon as the South Waziristan operation started. Then there is the recently published story in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh rehashing the tired theme of Pakistani nukes’ safety.

Notwithstanding the disastrous role that American imperialism has played, and continues to play, in the wider region, it is crucial to understand why anti-Americanism (and its anti-India corollary) is being cultivated by the media at the present time. The goal is not to facilitate democratisation or foster genuine anti-imperialist sensibilities; the media’s harping on about America and India directly aids the security establishment’s attempts to paper over the contradictions that have erupted in recent times to reassert its strategic vision and its control over state affairs.

American forces must leave Afghanistan and American control over policymaking in Pakistan must be resisted. But the same security establishment and right-wing media that got into bed with the Americans in the first place some 30 years ago are part of the problem, and are not the heroic defenders of the people that they claim to be.

As the operation in South Waziristan is concluded, to great media fanfare, the people of Pakistan will be no closer to lasting peace than they were before the “mother of all operations” was started. In fact, very little appears to have changed. Change will only happen if and when we undertake an exercise in collective introspection and accept that the Frankenstein that we have created cannot be understood, and therefore tamed, by engaging in unaccountable military operations in one part of the country after another.

This is not a “war” against the proverbial “foreign hand,” or even, as the liberals would have it, against the “extremists.” After all, those who blow themselves up are products of this society and the ideas that circulate freely within it. The real battle must be waged against the obsolete and poisonous ideas that litter our textbooks and the hyper-nationalist propaganda that is spewed out by those who claim to be providing us with unadulterated facts. Underlying all of this is a gory struggle for power in which all players invoke state sovereignty and willingly expend human lives in the name of this sovereignty.

If we are willing to get to the heart of the matter, there may yet be hope that we can build a self-respecting nation on the basis of a new social contract. Such a nation can resist Empire, and make friends with its neighbours. If we persist with fire-fighting, the fire will only spread further.

The writer teaches colonial history at Quaid-e-Azam University and is affiliated with People’s Rights Movement.

Email: amajid@comsats. net.pk