Pakistan caught in someone else’s war

by
SYED HAMAD ALI*

The sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other senior judges under Pervez Musharraf’s infamous emergency in November 2007 caused widespread protests and chaos throughout Pakistan.

These are bleak times for Pakistan. Not a day seems to go by without the country somehow managing to capture the world media’s attention. Sometimes I wish, watching the spectacle from a safe distance thousands of miles away from the mayhem, that the Pakistan I grew up in was not so much in the news all the time.

Surely there must be other stories to report on; whatever happened to the economic meltdown in Iceland or the asteroid that nearly hit earth?

But it seems Pakistan is in vogue at the moment, and for all the wrong reasons. The latest episode with the Sri Lankan cricket team has been a shocker, irrespective of how catastrophic the situation already was. The eastern city of Lahore, known for its historic Mughal buildings and gardens and its cultivation of the arts, had been largely spared the chaos engulfing the northwestern part of the country that borders Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, writing in London’s The Independent, has placed the blame on Pakistan’s involvement in the badly conducted War on Terror: “We were taken into this war against the public will. There were no Pakistanis involved in 9/11. We were sucked in deliberately by a dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who wanted to strengthen his position and receive American money.” Khan has hit the nail on the head.

The Pakistani nation was, without a doubt, forced to become a party to this war under the Musharraf regime, and little seems to have changed since President Asif Ali Zardari took office. If anything, the situation has become worse. The US drone attacks, now revealed to be operating from inside Pakistan, right under the very noses of the military brass, ineluctably also kill innocent Pashtun civilians, including children; they have created widespread anger and hatred against the rulers.

The extremist forces, under the banner of the Taliban, feed on society’s lack of faith in what is seen as the current lot of weak and compliant satraps. The West is spectacularly losing in the battle for hearts and minds in Pakistan by not connecting with the popular sentiment. The US is conducting the war as if the Pakistani people simply do not exist; it is as if the only players are the Taliban and the coalition forces battling it out in a desolate landscape.

But the landscape is not desolate; there are an estimated 170 million people who call Pakistan home. It is the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire who are paying a very heavy price with their lives and who are being mass displaced from sometimes remote villages to safer havens, all this while President Obama gives directions from the luxury and comfort of his White House. Is this the liberal justice and “freedom” espoused by the United States of America where it seems only might is right? There is a general consensus among many Pakistanis that their country is being made a scapegoat for America’s failures in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, in the eyes of many in the Western media it would seem the struggle in Pakistan is some sort of an epic battle between the forces of secularism and fundamentalism. But the reality on the ground is far removed from this. This is not some set for a Hollywood action thriller. Such a representation is misleading because it excludes the vast majority of people in the country, who would fit into neither the category of secular nor fundamentalist.

Make no mistake about this, the majority of people in Pakistan do not support the fundamentalist ideology of the Taliban, just as they do not support the US in the way it is conducting this never-ending war. The Taliban are an embarrassment, not just to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but to the wider Muslim world. The very name Taliban, derived from the Arabic word Talib and meaning student, is a complete misnomer judging by the actions of these people. There is nothing remotely educational or student-like about blowing up girl’s schools, as has been happening in the troubled Swat valley. The uneducated Taliban have only served as fodder to the likes of Fox News and other right-wing propaganda machinery.

But the big question to ask is if there is any road that can lead the country out of this quagmire. The answer is a definite “Yes,” because this war has never been Pakistan’s war, and the first step on any road to stability is to bring back the country’s deposed judges. The spread of the fundamentalists can be checked by restoring Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other senior judges sacked under Musharraf’s infamous emergency in November 2007. There is still a chance to rein in the spreading lawlessness, but it is certainly not by the US method of dropping bombs and expecting results.

The late Benazir Bhutto, at the time of the emergency, had demanded the judiciary’s restoration and had said: “The flag of Pakistan used to fly over the house of the chief justice. That flag, which was the flag of justice, the flag which was the flag of the judges; who has let down this flag?” She had demanded the restoration of the judges, but unfortunately once in power her own widower and the Pakistan People’s Party seem to have forsaken her wish to see the judges brought back.

Among others, Amnesty International has been urging the government of Pakistan to declare as illegal the sacking of the judiciary by Musharraf. But there is a reluctance to bring back Chaudhry, perhaps because an independent justice system would mean accountability. President Zardari, who has been faced with accusations of corruption and even murder, is speculated to be in fear of court cases against him being brought back to haunt him under such a setting. The chief justice, before getting the sack, had also been calling for the release of some of the hundreds of Pakistan’s missing persons who have disappeared since the country signed up to the Bush administration’s War on Terror.

Now these are the people, the courageous lawyers and judges, who the US and other Western, “freedom-loving” governments should be supporting. That is, if they are serious about defeating the Taliban.

And there are certainly those who, at least verbally, have shown their support. During her campaign as a presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton spoke out eloquently to CNN about the need for making a connection with the educated middle class. These were the words she used: “The people in the streets are wearing suits and ties; they are lawyers, they are professionals, they are the middle class of Pakistan, which really offers the very best hope for a stable, democratic country and that is in America’s interest, but more importantly, it is in the interest of the Pakistani people.” Now that she is secretary of state, one hopes that Clinton can actually bring herself to act on those words and pressure Pakistan’s government to bring back the judges. The West must show it believes in its own values.

With the country sliding into perpetual chaos, outsiders could be forgiven for thinking the restoration of the judges may not be so pressing an issue. But this would be a mistake of epic proportions. The need of the moment is to strengthen the moderate middle class in Pakistan, not the power-hungry military, nor the corrupt and feudal politicos who currently hold sway. And certainly not the Taliban.

It would seem President Zardari needs the threat of an ever-encroaching Taliban to frighten the West to keep supporting him, and the Taliban need the excuse of an unpopular leader like Zardari in order to step in and fill the vacuum of power. Instead of curbing extremism, the presence of Zardari & Co. has actually acted as a catalyst to the rising tide of fundamentalism sweeping across sections of the country. The strongest deterrent to the rise of the Taliban is if people can have their faith in the judicial system restored. The alternate prognosis, if the rule of law is not restored, is a further descent into chaos and violence. No one wants that.

---

*Syed Hamad Ali is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, UK.

DV calls the bluff of “India Shining” : UN agency shatters false image

Dalit Voice always posted on right-hand sidebar of There Are No Sunglasses

Dalit Voice March 1st – 15th, 2009

DV calls the bluff of “India Shining” : UN agency
shatters false image

From Dec.1, 2006 —for about two years— we started publishing a new column, “India Shining”, regularly in every issue of DV on p.13. The short reports published in this column are taken from the Brahminical toilet papers to prove the false claim of the ruling class that India’s “gallop” into unprecedented prosperity is all bullshit. Such a false claim of quantum jump from 8.6 to 9% to 10% GDP is proved wrong by the very toilet papers who made this claim.

Reckless exploiters: India’s ruling upper castes cannot be more than 15% of our population. They are led by the vaidiks who have been the traditional centuries-old exploiters whom Budha, Guru Ravidas, Nanak, Phule, Dr. Ambedkar, Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy fought. They are the country’s leaders of thought and action having co-opted the other three caste groups—Kshatriya, Vaishya and to some extent even the shudra—and converted them into reckless, heartless exploiters.

What we have in the country today is the rule of this 15% upper castes who alone are the Hindu.

The exploited people comprise the SC/ST/BCs (65%) and Muslim/Christian/Sikhs (20%).

We have given this caste-wise statistical break-up in almost every writings on the subject.

With minor exceptions this 15% ruling class constitute the fair-skinned “India Shining” group and the rest are their servants and slaves. However, some among the slave castes and communities did break the barrier and became the bum-lickers. Sharad Pawar, the Maratha war-lord, Chandra Babu Naidu, the Khamma cooli, Narendra Modi, the Gujarati Teli, today, are some examples among the political class.

Near the gates of swarga: This 15% rulers together with their bum-lickers have twisted our very value system and bent our very way of life to suit their immediate needs. What is worrying is the way these rulers are killing the very future of our children by instilling in them all false and dangerous values. Unthinking people reading these “India Shining” stories in the media get the impression that the country is flowing with milk and honey. And that we are just a couple of miles away from the gates of swarga.

What appears as their outward success — even as the inner strength of the country’s core values are collapsing — is due to the Brahminical toilet papers and TV which they have captured to distort and destroy the minds of those who are willing to get their minds destroyed. Once you make the youth gullible with such powerful psychological assaults the weak minds simply succumb. But the Bhoodevatas remain unchanged. While they pulverise our brains, their values are fully rooted in the system propounded in their holy Vedas and Shastras.

Kamasutra: Their main preoccupation is eating, entertainment, sex (kamasutra), and cheating. A life of perpetual pleasure and leisure.

From centuries they have been only pleasure-seekers and without doing any work they subject the rest to mental and physical crucifixion — which our people willingly undergo. This is the painless operation which in other words is called Hinduism. For details, please read our book, Know the Hindu Mind (DSA-2008, Rs. 100). They have been doing this since centuries and anybody coming in the way is mercilessly tackled and finished. DV has published articles on how they killed Saint Ravidas and his disciple Meerabai. (DV Feb.1, 2009 p.9: “Why Guru Ravidas was murdered?”). The cumulative effect of the Brahminical “India Shining” is proved in the recent Beijing Olympics. (DV Edit Sept.16, 2008: “Beef-eating & Olympics: India suffers Himalayan humiliation because of Hindu hate-mongers”).

As the overwhelming 85% of the slaves of India have no media of their own except Dalit Voice, what they paint as “India Shining” is taken as the supreme truth.

But the United Nations has created a new organisation called the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), an official of which recently visited India and his report speaks out the truth.

---

BILLIONS TRAPPED IN POVERTY

India fails to meet MDG standards

TAJUDEEN

By official reckoning the GDP of India now belongs in the global elite if economies numbering only 12 countries in the world that have a trillion dollar economy. But how is this wealth spread across the country? The top 5% of the population control almost 40% of this wealth with more than 50% in the hands of top 10% altogether and the bottom 10% owning only 0.2% of the nation’s wealth and the bottom 50% owning less than 10% of the wealth. Gandhi’s statement about there being enough in the world to satisfy our need but not enough to satisfy our greed, is even truer of India today. But is anyone who matters listening? Interacting with some of the community political activists of the poorest of India shook my Gandhian/Congress Party of India loyalties. Any believer in the Mahatma has to stay away from V.T. Rajshekar, the crusading veteran journalist, V.T. Rajshekar who is the Editor of Dalit Voice. My brief interaction with him and reading some of his books such as the collection of essays he edited, Gandhi You Do Not Know, gave alternative analysis of the man that is very much less rosy than popularly understood and believed. We went to a village just 15 kilometer from New Delhi that gave us the starkest contrast of life in India. It is indeed incredible: cows moving as sacred animals holding up traffic, buffaloes used as we use cows — dispensing milk, tuk tuks, tricycles, all kinds of cycles, an assortment of Indian made cars. In short any movable objector being is used for transport.

In Bardarpur Khaddar, a small village of not mor than a couple of thousands, predominantly Muslim and Dalit (lower caste of Untouchables) you come face to face with how poverty and inequality affects the majority Indians. A country that has produced its own missiles, is leading in science and technology, ICTs, trading and manufacturing and almost anything else, yet the 400 children in this village have no school, no health facilities and travel to Delhi with extreme difficulty.

At an interaction with the community I asked them if they had elected representatives at the local, state and central levels and they answered “yes”. I then challenged them to use their votes to deny political power and legitimacy to leaders who will not respond to their needs. One of the community leaders, with obvious pain and frustration on his face, shook his head and told us that they had tried that and no one noticed. The explanation is that they are an insignificant demographic and political force without power to threaten the powers that be. When people do not have faith in their vote, what do they care if India is the smallest or largest democracy in the world?

As India celebrates its 52nd independence on 15th August its political leaders must address the incongruous situation that affects millions of its population who are structurally trapped in poverty. India will meet the MDGs, but hundreds of millions of Indians like the villages of Badarpur Khaddar, will not. Neither Gandhi nor Indian movies can satisfy them, only concrete action by their leaders.

(tajudeen.abdulraheem@gmail.com)

Neck deep in crisis

The Kashmiri writer of the following analysis says what I have trying to tell my friends and readers in Pakistan, the crisis that is upon you cannot be escaped by denying your and our past.  Our nations were partners in a noble enterprise to help the suffering Afghan people to escape the horrors of Soviet occupation, only to find that it had been transformed into somewhat of a criminal enterprise by the spy agencies tasked with implementing it.  Ostrich-like attempts to hide from what we had together created, first by Bush Sr., then by Pakistan itself, have allowed the mission-gone-astray to unleash an unholy jihad against the entire Middle East.

Pakistan has been left “holding the bag” for the American mistakes, being branded as the “epicenter of terrorism” as a result of the Mumbai attacks which originated from Pakistan and seven other countries.  Pakistan must “own” its past and be willing to expose the breadth of the transformation that swept over the nation in its own commitments to the joint anti-Soviet jihad, revealing the American and Saudi hands in the creation of the terror network.

Failure to force the United States and Saudi Arabia to take responsibility along with you for the creation of the menace which now threatens Pakistan and all of Southern Asia will eventually leave Pakistan standing alone against the world.

Neck deep in crisis <!–

  

–> <!–

what about this area

–>

‘Civilized’ world is more responsible for what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan Mehmood ur Rashid In the history of Pakistan Lahore was known for the resolution that later saw the birth of an independent nation. Today the same city of Lahore is in the news, and the matters relates to how Pakistan is dangerously standing on the precipice of undoing. What made Pakistan come this pass? Who shares how much of blame?  Instead of confining the debate to recent news, better take a panoptic view of what has been happening in this region from past many decades. With the invasion of soviet troops into Afghanistan masters of international politics boarded the flights to Kabul. In the name of helping the oppressed people of Afghanistan, the priests of modern civilization drafted a new Bible of exploitation. They mounted their agenda on top of the tower of crisis. People of Afghanistan, enraged at the usurpation of their country, rose in rebellion against the Late Soviet Union. This confrontation had immense potential to change the global power balances. Gauging the same, everyone in its own capacity invested in the great bazaar of exploitation. Pakistan, being the front-line-state, turned into an international counter for all such investments. Propaganda, finance, and arms flowed in. Money, mind and muscle; stakes were all inclusive. Afghan armed groups were showered with the appellations of brave, freedom loving, anti-colonialists; and what not. Ultimately a beautiful and sublime epithet – Afghan Mujahideen- was internationally adapted. Afghanistan was now the land of Jihad and the fighters there bore the insignia of Mujahideen. From here onwards Afghanistan turns into an international battleground and Pakistan a gallery to watch the show. Turbaned ‘Mullah’, waiving a long beard and brandishing an AK-47 becomes the symbol of valor and sacrifice. Hollywood makes movies, world’s best publishing houses release books, newspapers and news channels receive a deluge of reports and features. Everyone pats the back of Mullah. With the passage of time Pakistan turns into an extension of the battleground in Afghanistan. From a gallery it switches over to ground itself. Muslim youth in Pakistan join its Muslim brethren in Afghanistan, to fight the Soviet army. Millions make it to the Graveyard. Shahadah becomes the buzzword. On the other side of the line blood-brokers were making a keen observation of the happenings. To them it was a proxy war. Little mattered to them the destruction of Afghanistan than the emaciation of the Soviets. To provide more canon-fodder, they explored all the possibilities. From a naïve Madrasa student to the cunning drug trafficker, they used everyone. The crises in Afghanistan overwhelmed the establishment in Pakistan. On the pretext of Afghan Jihad all vested interests were fortified by the halo of sanctity. From Military headquarters to Madrasa enclosures, from Market to Mafia; all guarded their peculiar line of interest. Huge amount of human sacrifices and the monstrous destruction could have been minimized, had it not been so. Instead of helping the crises end up in Afghanistan, helpers themselves plunged into trouble. Pakistan placed herself in a perilous position. Somehow, Soviets withdrew. Mujahideen turned triumphant. How sad that decades long war against an invader turned into a fratricide! A monumental opportunity was lost in the mist of chaos and conspiracy. Afghan Mujahidin proved their mettle while fighting but miserably failed to make peace between themselves. Their friends in Pakistan proved no different. In this time of crises the only contender happy at the outcome was none other than America. Her first enemy was out and the other one was madly engaged in self-destruction. Now it was the time for them to have a direct access to Afghanistan and control the Politics and economy of the region. General Zia could prove a hurdle, so was the general belief. Strings were pulled, and Zia was dead. The war that should have been, and was, won by Afghan Mujahidin, was won by America, Brigadier Yousuf speaks his heart out. Interventionist policy of America wreaks havoc to Afghanistan, and ultimately it concludes with Operation Enduring Freedom. Americans are really smart when it comes to nomenclature. First contributors to the crisis in Afghanistan are Soviet Union and America. ‘Civilized’ they are, because they are powerful. Soviets gone, Afghanistan trampled and now Pakistan is burked. ‘Mullah’ was once the symbol of sacrifice. Praise was unstintingly showered on him. Now he is the most detestable entity on this earth. What changed? ‘Mullah’ or the Policy?  Those who are being named so are the same, with all their good and bad elements. But they are no more needed by the ‘leaders’ of this world. If they want to live they have to make so on the terms of the ‘civilized world’. What ever happened in Afghanistan was supposed to have a bearing on Pakistan. Pakistan definitely had a role to play. It is stupid to think that Pakistan should not have involved herself in it. But not accepting the folly of mismanaging the crises and putting the blame squarely on America is even more stupid. It tantamount to self-deception. All the sections of the Establishment, and society at large, in Pakistan share their part of blame. In all this it is a great tragedy that Islam is being projected as a religion of illiterates and backwards. As a humble student of Qura’n, one can be more than sure that Islam is a synonym to Knowledge, Emancipation, Democracy, Progress; one may add up many more adjectives. Unfortunately the reverse of it is being projected. For this sorry state of affairs a whole range of factors is responsible. Cutting short the debate on it, what needs to done is to exhibit a sense of maturity to undo the damage. The kind of violent politics that we are doing is only going to deepen the wound. Whosoever is responsible for the crisis, impact of it is only on the Muslim world. Muslim scholars all over the world, have a Herculean task to perform. Grand scale overhauling of the whole system of education in the Muslim society is needed. Mainstream education and Madrasa education is an unwanted divide.  Instead of responding to the international gallery, the task of expunging the bad elements from the Muslim society should be carried out with an independent outlook. With an open mind and a decent methodology, the rot needs to be undone. It is a collective task of the Muslims of Pakistan to get themselves out of the mire of crises. Feedback at <!– var prefix = ‘ma’ + ‘il’ + ‘to’; var path = ‘hr’ + ‘ef’ + ‘=’; var addy20999 = ‘emrvaid’ + ‘@’; addy20999 = addy20999 + ‘gmail’ + ‘.’ + ‘com’; document.write( ‘‘ ); document.write( addy20999 ); document.write( ” ); //–>\n // –>emrvaid@gmail.com<!– document.write( ‘‘ ); // –>This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it <!– document.write( ” ); // –>

Iranian police kill six drug traffickers, seize 5 tons of drugs

TEHRAN, March 8 (RIA Novosti) – Iranian police have killed six drug traffickers and seized five tons of opium in armed clashes in the country’s east, the Iranian media reported on Sunday.

The police operation in the Sistan-Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan was launched on Saturday afternoon and lasted several hours. There have been no reports of casualties among the police, the media reported.

Drug traffickers use the territory of Iran for the smuggling of drugs largely produced in Afghanistan.

According to Iranian police, about 30% of narcotic drugs produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan are smuggled into Iran, of which 50% remain in the country and the remaining part is brought to other countries.

From April 2008 to January 2009, Iranian police killed 120 drug traffickers and drug dealers and seized over 30,000 tons of drugs. A total of 19 Iranian police and border guards were killed in armed clashes with drug traffickers and drug dealers over that period.

The Iranian authorities spend about $600 million a year on the fight against drug trafficking.

Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America

By Paul Thompson

A century and a half ago it was at the centre of the Californian gold rush, with hopeful prospectors pitching their tents along the banks of the American River.

Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.

With America’s economy in freefall and its housing market in crisis, California’s state capital has become home to a tented city for the dispossessed.

Rich and poor: The tents and other makeshift homes have sprung up in the shadow of Sacramento’s skyscrapers

Shanty town: The tent city is already home to dozens of people, many left without jobs because of the credit crunch

Those who have lost their jobs and homes and have nowhere else to go are constructing makeshift shelters on the site, which covers several acres.

As many as 50 people a week are turning up and the authorities estimate that the tent city is now home to more than 1,200 people.

More…

• U.S. jobless figures hit 25-year high with 651,000 people laid off in one month
• Houses more affordable than any time in last six year after 20% slump
• Brown left hanging as Ed Balls admits PM’s failure to toughen banking laws contributed to crisis

In a state more known for its fantastic wealth and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the images have shocked many Americans.

Conditions are primitive, with no water supply or proper sanitation.

Many residents have to walk up to three miles to buy bottled water from petrol stations or convenience stores.

Ben Cardwell, carries supplies to his tent at a homeless settlement

Tammy Day, a homeless woman, cooks potatoes on a campfire at the site

At other times, charity workers arrive to hand out free food and other supplies.

Joan Burke, who campaigns on behalf of the homeless, said the images of Americans living in tents would shock many.

‘It should be an eye- opener for everybody,’ she said. ‘But we shouldn’t just be shocked, we should take action to change things, because it’s unacceptable.

‘It is unacceptable that in this day and age we have gone back to a situation like we had during the Great Depression.’

Homeless: Keith and Tammy Day cook dinner

Authorities in Sacramento, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has his office,
admit the sight of families living in such poverty is not pretty.

But faced with their own budget crisis and a £30billion deficit, they have had little choice but to consider making the tent city a permanent fixture.

The city’s mayor Kevin Johnson said: ‘I can’t say tent cities are the answer to the homeless population in Sacramento, but I think it’s one of the many things that should be considered and looked at.’

Shanty towns sprung up during the Great Depression as people lost their jobs and homes

Migrant Mother: Dorothea Lange’s famous photograph from the Great Depression features Florence Owens Thompson, 32, a mother-of-three who had just sold the family’s tent to buy food

As America’s most powerful state California had the same gross domestic output as Italy and Spain, but it has been among the hardest hit by the recession and housing crisis.

Foreclosure rates last year rocketed by 327 per cent, with up to 500 people a day losing their home.

Coupled with massive job cuts that have seen one in ten workers laid off, many people who once enjoyed a middle class existence are now forced into third world conditions.

Former car salesman Corvin and his wife Tena are among the newest residents of the tent city.

Tent city residents queue up to receive supplies handed out by a local charity

The couple, who are in their fifties, lost their home and jobs around the same time.

With homeless shelters full in Sacramento, they had little choice but to use what savings they had left to buy a tent.

The couple admit they have yet to tell their grown-up children about their hand-to-mouth existence.

Tena said: ‘I have a 35-year-old son, and he doesn’t know. I call him, about once a month and on holidays, to let him know that I’m well and healthy.

‘He would love me anyway, but I don’t want to worry him.’

The shame of Sacramento’s tent city was given a much wider airing after it was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show which is watched by more than 40million people a week.

Many of those who have found themselves homeless worked in the building trade.

But with no new home builds and as many as 80,000 people losing their job every month, there is little chance of employment. Governor Schwarzenegger last month approved a budget to address the state’s deficit, ending a three-month stalemate among lawmakers.

As well as increasing taxes, he has imposed drastic cuts in education, healthcare and services that will affect everyone living in the state.

Many of those living in the tent city are pinning their hopes on President Obama’s $787billion stimulus package which is aimed at rescuing the economy and creating jobs.

The President has also announced plans to save the homes of nine million people from foreclosure by restructuring their mortgage debt.

Seven countries link found in 26/11 Mumbai Attacks: Interpol

ISLAMABAD: Interpol Secretary General Ronald K Noble said Interpol did not receive any report from India on Mumbai attacks adding that Pakistan was cooperating with the Interpol firmly.Addressing a joint press conference here with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik, he said India should take the lead in the probe in a bid to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

He said links of the seven different countries, including India, were found in the Mumbai terror attacks during the investigation.

“We are trying to help expose the terrorists wherever they are hiding.”

During his three-day stay in Islamabad Ronald met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Interior Advisor Rehman Malik and the DG Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Tariq Khosa.

Ronald who himself remained top US law enforcer at various positions including Chief of Staff of the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice showed his confidence in 26/11 probe being carried out by FIA.

Noble added that Pakistan was providing the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) of Mumbai suspects to the Interpol, which would be checked by the global data of the 187 countries maintained by the Interpol.

He said Pakistan understood that unless terrorists-related information was compared against Interpol’s global database and shared among its global network, an international terrorist investigation can never be considered complete and all countries, which are not provided with this vital information, remain at risk.

On the occasion Rehman said India should reply soon on the 30 questions that Pakistan has forwarded relating to the probe.

He said only 13 days were left in the remand of those arrested in Pakistan for alleged involvement in the attacks adding Pakistan has interrogated Zaki ur Rahman and others but India had not provided the most vital information.

Here are the 30 questions
1. Kasab statement copy
2. Kasab I-card number and other documents
3. Cell phone he has used
4. Killed terrorists’ description
5. Digital note books recovered from terrorists
6. Copies of memos of
articles found on terrorists
7. Evidence of terrorists’ connectivity to militants abroad
8. Logs of cell phone
intercepts
9. Transcripts of conversations among terrorists and with handlers
10. Cell-phone numbers tracked after attack
11. Intercepted voice identified by Kasab as that of alleged handlers
12. Details in stored memory of Thuraya phone
13. Details of cell phones recovered from accused,
14. Fingerprints of the 10
15. Fingerprints from recovered weapons
16. Clear photographs of the accused
17. DNA profiles of the 10
18. Post-mortem reports of all killed terrorists
19. Forensic analysis and photograph of engravings on Yamaha engine
20. Photographs of engravings on weapons
21. Confirmation if the pistols were 9 mm
22. Headers of email received from deccanmujahideen@gmail.com claiming responsibility
23. All CCTV footage
24. GPS data regarding travelling log
25. Details of batteries
26. Photograph identified by Ajmal as Lakhvi
27. Information pertaining to tailor, brand names and dry cleaning of clothes
28. Google Earth does not carry details of security systems. Further details
29. Why terrorists did not come to the notice of Gujarat and Maharashtra governments after travelling by sea in their territory? How they managed to evade so many coastal radars.
30. Interrogation reports of Mukhtar Ahmed (counter-insurgency officer) and Tausif Rehman, Indian nationals arrested for providing SIMs to terrorists

A dangerous void in Pakistan

—Ahmed Rashid

The crisis in Pakistan leaves the US with few policy options. Large injections of cash are desperately needed to give the government the time to re-establish the writ of the state and revive the moribund economy. Yet the real issue which Obama certainly cannot address is the lack of leadership in a country that teeters on the edge of chaos

Just as the Obama administration tries to get a handle on Pakistan — a critical part of its regional approach to sorting out Afghanistan and defeating the Taliban — the country takes another spiral downwards, virtually negating options Washington considered before.

Almost in a mirror image of the financial crisis that galloped ahead of the solutions that governments devised, the situation in Pakistan deteriorates at a pace faster than policymakers can grasp. Most worrisome in the developing crisis is the leadership void in Pakistan, without which talk of any solution would be a fruitless exercise.

The governmental weakness was demonstrated dramatically recently while Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi took part in a crucial trilateral meeting in Washington with the US and Afghanistan, back home the government virtually ceded control of part of the country to the Taliban. The meeting was designed to input policy options before Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan which President Barack Obama is supposed to sell to NATO at its summit on April 2.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, a controversial ceasefire with Taliban militants in the Swat valley was on the verge of breaking down, economic indicators spiralled down further and the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict to disqualify opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from taking part in politics and ousting his brother Shehbaz Sharif from being chief minister of the Punjab province, plunged the country into fresh political crisis. A terrible week was capped by a terrorist attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore.

Hopes that the 2008 election of the democratic and secular Pakistan People’s Party government would bring political parties together to address these problems have been thwarted by the PPP trying to isolate the long-time rival Sharif brothers. President Asif Ali Zardari is now deeply unpopular for refusing to reconcile with the opposition and failing to address long-term issues such as terrorism and the economy.

The Sharifs are now rallying their supporters to join lawyers who plan a protest in Islamabad for mid-March ostensibly to reinstate the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, but in reality to try and topple Zardari. The country that can least afford more political turmoil will see just that.

With such a rolling crisis, US policy options to help Pakistan are more difficult to ascertain. And yet Pakistan’s crisis is a matter of major concern for not just Pakistan, but the region and the international community. President Obama told a US television station recently that Pakistan “was endangered as much as we are”.’ The expansion of the Pakistani Taliban across northern Pakistan and the safe haven that the leaders of the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda have along Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan present a major global security threat, as does its collapsing economy.

Both the government and the army have already agreed to a controversial ceasefire in the Swat valley east of the Federal Administered Tribal Areas and just 100 miles from Islamabad — which virtually cedes control of the valley to another branch of the Pakistani Taliban.

The deal has been struck with Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric freed last year after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen in a vain attempt to oppose the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. He led a peace march through Swat to convince his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, who leads the Swati contingent of the Pakistani Taliban and is closely allied to Al Qaeda, to accept the government’s offer of a ceasefire in exchange for enforcement of sharia law in the valley.

The US is adamantly opposed to such ceasefires, which in the past have only strengthened the Taliban, while the exhausted and demoralised Pakistan army welcomes them. The government insists the legal change will be a limited application of Islamic justice through the local courts, the Taliban interpret it as allowing full application of Sharia law for all aspects of education, administration and law and order in the region. Fazlullah’s men, aided by Uzbek, Chechen and Arab jihadis fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years, finally driving the army out and taking control of most of Swat last year.

The fighting has led to some 1200 civilian deaths and the forced exodus of an estimated 350,000 people out of a population of 1.5 million. Fazlullah has blown up 200 girls schools, hanged policemen and teachers, set up Sharia courts and now runs a parallel government.

Even though the former military regime of President Pervez Musharraf concluded several controversial short-lived ceasefires with the Pakistani Taliban, the government never previously conceded major changes to the legal or political system.

The peace deal has become an explosive issue in Pakistan: Right wing, religious-minded citizens and politicians praise it for bringing peace to Swat, while liberal Pakistanis see it as an unmistakable watershed in the country’s battle against Islamic extremism, giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban a new safe haven. Swat is vital for the militants because it is well out of range of US drones, which successfully attack their leaders in FATA. Pakistan has objected to the US use of drones to bomb its territory and it will be politically unacceptable if the US extends drone attacks in Swat, several hundred miles from the Afghan border.

The Taliban are unlikely to stop with Swat. From FATA, the Taliban have already expanded their influence into the settled areas of the North West Frontier Province and virtually laid siege to the capital Peshawar.

To add to the US and NATO woes, three rival Pakistani Taliban leaders, who have fought the Pakistan army on and off since it deployed into FATA in 2004, have formed a new alliance called the Shura-e Ittehad-ul Mujaheddin or Council of United Holy Warriors. Under the influence of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader who also has a sanctuary in Pakistan, the new council aims to broker ceasefires with the Pakistan army so that both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban can concentrate their firepower on the 17,000 new US troops being sent to Afghanistan in spring by the Obama administration.

The US military is trying to convince the army to retrain some of its regular forces in modern counter insurgency tactics. Last year after months of dialogue the army allowed the US to retrain and re-equip its paramilitary Frontier Corps, but not regular forces because it considers India a larger threat still expecting a conventional war.

Meanwhile extremist attacks like the one in Lahore only further depress the economy which faces increasing joblessness, inflation and capital flight. Last year Pakistan received a two year USD7.6 billion IMF loan, but any hope for bilateral aid from Europe and other donors has not materialised so far.

The Obama administration has promised Pakistan USD1.5 billion a year for the next five years, but it will take many months before the US Congress will make such money available, while conditions Congress will likely impose — such as decisively combating extremism — Pakistan may be unwilling or unable to fulfil.

The crisis in Pakistan leaves the US with few policy options. Large injections of cash are desperately needed to give the government the time to re-establish the writ of the state and revive the moribund economy. Yet the real issue which Obama certainly cannot address is the lack of leadership in a country that teeters on the edge of chaos. —YaleGlobal

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and author of Descent into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia

Bombs kill 15 in Peshawar, Khyber

* Five cops, two FC men killed in Peshawar attack
* Two civilians killed in Darra car blast
* Five AI activists killed in Tirah blast

PESHAWAR: Three separate bombings killed at least 15 people in the NWFP and Khyber Agency on Saturday.

At least eight people, including five policemen, two FC personnel, and a civilian were killed in a remote-controlled car bombing in Mashugagr village. Some villagers also sustained minor injuries.

Muhammad Wali, a villager, said the car was unlocked and the villagers had found the body of an old man in it. “The blast occurred when police officials walked towards the vehicle,” he said. Security officials said about 40 kilogrammes of explosives were packed in the vehicle. They said it was likely that the militants who had blown up the shrine of Sufi poet Rehman Baba were involved.

According to Online, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and several other political personalities have, in separate statements, condemned the bombing.

Darra blast: In a separate car bombing, at least two civilians were killed and seven others, including six security personnel, injured in Darra Adamkhel. Eyewitnesses said the Taliban detonated a car parked alongside the road when a convoy of Mehsud Scouts reached Bazikhel graveyard. They said security forces launched indiscriminate fire after the attack and arrested 15 locals. At least 10 people were injured, Online quoted a private TV channel as reporting.

Tirah blast: Also on Saturday, at least five people were killed and eight injured when a shop in the remote Tirah area of Khyber Agency was bombed, sources said. They said five volunteers of banned organisation Ansarul Islam (AI) were killed. An AI spokesman blamed rival militant outfit Lashkar-e-Islam for the blast.

Texas makes emergency plans in case violence spills over from Mexico

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/MIGUEL TOVAR

<!–

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/MIGUEL TOVAR

–>Federal police arrive to patrol Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, last week as part of a government effort to free Mexican citizens from a daily spectacle of assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings ordered by rival drug czars. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/MIGUEL TOVAR

By DAVE MONTGOMERY

dmontgomery@star-telegram.com

AUSTIN — The state and federal governments have prepared contingency plans to deal with spillover violence from across the border as

Mexican troops clash with ruthless drug cartels terrorizing Mexico.

“Anything you can think of that’s happened in Mexico, we have to think could happen here,” said Steve McCraw, Gov. Rick Perry’s director of homeland security. “We know what they’re capable of.”

A crackdown by Mexican President Felipe Calderon has turned Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, into a war zone as federal troops battle feuding cartels.

Thousands of soldiers and agents have surged into the border city in the government’s latest effort to free Mexican citizens from a daily spectacle of assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings ordered by rival drug czars.

McCraw predicted that the violence in Mexico “will get worse before it gets better.”

Mexico’s active-duty armed forces number more than 130,000 and are being aggressively used to combat the cartels. But U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters last week that Mexico’s two largest drug cartels have fielded a combined army of 100,000 foot soldiers to battle not just government forces but also one another.

Potential threat

The state’s contingency plan was developed under the umbrella of Operation Border Star, a multiagency law enforcement offensive led by Perry’s homeland security office. The plan, which has not been released publicly, envisions scenarios of violence, such as kidnappings or a takeover by hit squads, with a corresponding response by law enforcement, McCraw said.

While declining to elaborate on specifics for security reasons, McCraw called it a “very aggressive plan to deal very quickly with all threats that might be posed.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also prepared contingency measures to respond to cross-border violence, agency spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said. Like the state plan, the federal response “contemplates a number of contingencies that could result from violence” in Mexico, Kudwa said.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, interviewed last week on PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, said the grisly murders and kidnappings that are signatures of the Mexican drug wars haven’t made their way north.

“But let’s be very, very clear,” she said. “This is a very serious battle. It could spill over into the United States. If it does, we do have contingency plans to deal with it.”

Fears of instability

A Defense Department study raising the possibility that the narco-violence could undermine the Mexican government has also prompted fears of a mass migration of refugees that would require a large-scale humanitarian response.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command, in a speculative assessment of global security threats, said Mexico and Pakistan “bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse.”

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels,” the report said. “How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.

“Any descent by . . . Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone,” the report said.

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton, said in a report last month that Mexico is “fighting for survival against narco-terrorism” and that the country’s worsening problems threaten U.S. security.

“In the next eight years, the violent collection of criminal drug cartels could overwhelm the state and establish de facto control over broad regions of northern Mexico,” McCaffrey’s report said. “A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result in a surge of millions of refugees crossing the U.S. border.”

Contingency plan

Perry and others disagree with the speculation that Mexico is on the verge of collapse, pointing out that the country is a robust trading partner and that the government is aggressively battling the cartels.

But state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, said: “Talk of a collapse of the Mexican government is very, very premature and, at this point in time, unlikely. However, I think that for Texas to be responsible to its citizens, it has to consider a contingency plan were conditions to worsen in Mexico. There is no question that any type of upheaval in Mexico would lead to more people from Mexico coming across the border illegally in large numbers.”

A state response being prepared by the governor’s office, he said, would include medical treatment, food, shelter and other assistance “for people that are fleeing their country out of concern for themselves or the lives of their families.” The response would also likely deal with economic disruptions along the border, he said.

McCraw, interviewed last week, confirmed that the governor’s office has plans to deal with a migration surge resulting from “any calamity” but said there is no indication that Mexico is vulnerable to collapse. Planning for a migration influx, he said, is separate from the contingency plan for spillover violence.

“Do we plan for mass-migration scenarios?” he asked. “Of course.  . . .  But the scenarios could be a natural disaster, pandemic flu, serious problems in South America, Central America. The state of Texas prepares for all scenarios . . . for all hazards, all threats.”

A look at the problem

Operation Border Star, which has evolved from three previous operations since 2005, is designed to dismantle smuggling and present a show of force all along Texas’ 1,254-mile border with Mexico.

Commanded from the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Austin, the operation includes DPS troopers, the Texas Rangers, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, local sheriffs and police, and other state and federal agencies. Over the past four years, Perry’s office says, serious crime along the border has dropped by 65 percent.

The Legislature authorized $110 million for Border Star in 2007, and Perry is asking for $135 million from the 2009 Legislature. Perry is also supporting legislation sponsored by Carona to crack down on transnational gangs operating on the Texas side of the border in collaboration with the cartels in Mexico.

The Mexican drug wars claimed more than 5,700 lives in Mexico in 2008, including 1,600 in Juarez, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels are battling for supremacy. About a half-dozen cartels are rooted in Mexico, accounting for an estimated $27-billion-a-year business through the smuggling of drugs and human cargo.

In turn, McCraw says, bulk cash, weapons and stolen vehicles flow back into Mexico from the United States to fortify the illicit operations.

Violence on the Texas side of the border hasn’t risen to the level that would trigger full-scale use of the contingency plan, McCraw said.

But a shootout in Reynosa and protests on international bridges Feb. 17 sent Border Star command posts into a “hot loop” alert to escalate monitoring and intelligence activities before returning to normal 24 hours later, McCraw said.

This report includes material from The Monitor in McAllen.

Any type of upheaval in Mexico would lead to more people from Mexico coming across the border illegally in large numbers.”

State Sen. John Carona,
R-Dallas

DAVE MONTGOMERY, 512-476-4294

US corruption fuels drug trade: Mexican president

PRESIDENT CALDERON BLASTS AMERICAN HYPOCRISY FOR IGNORING DRUG SMUGGLERS AND CRIMINAL FACILITATORS WITHIN OUR OWN GOVERNMENT.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon hit back at accusations his government is failing in the fight against violent drug cartels, saying that corruption in the United States is also to blame.

With murders among feuding Mexican drug cartels on the rise and continued ravenous demand for cocaine and other illegal drugs north of the border, Calderon said the United States should take a hard look at itself before pointing the finger at anyone else.

“The main cause of the problems associated with organized crime is having the world’s biggest consumer next to us,” Calderon said in an interview with AFP.

“Drug trafficking in the United States is fueled by the phenomenon of corruption on the part of the American authorities,” he said, calling on US President Barack Obama to step up the fight against drugs in his own country.

Calderon admitted some Mexican officials had helped cartels, but urged the United States to consider how many of its officials have been implicated.

“I want to know how many American officials have been prosecuted for this,” he said, listing a string of prosecutions made against Mexican police officers and government officials during his administration.

“It is not an exclusively Mexican problem, it is a common problem between Mexico and the United States,” he said.

Although cocaine is largely produced in South America, Mexican cartels control much of the multi-billion-dollar trade, transporting the drug to consumers in the United States.

Since taking office in late 2006, Calderon has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on drug cartels, often with bloody repercussions, as cartels hit back with ever-higher levels of violence and intimidation.

Mexican cities on the US border have suffered the brunt of the violence, prompting concerns in Washington that the killings and attacks could spill over the border.

Some 5,300 people were murdered in drug violence across Mexico in 2008. Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, was worst hit, with more than 1,600 drug-related deaths reported.

Top US military official Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is due in Mexico later this week as Washington prepares to step up military and other assistance to tackle the heavily armed cartels.

“One of the things he expects to talk to his counterparts in Mexico and other officials about is the growing violence and growing threat with regard to narco-trafficking and the drug cartels,” Captain John Kirby, spokesman for Mullen, also told AFP on Wednesday.

Mexico’s ill-equipped police and security forces are often out-gunned by the well-armed gangs.

The administration of George W. Bush pledged 1.6 billion dollars over three years in security assistance to Mexico and Central America, primarily aimed at better equipping Mexico’s security forces.

To even the playing field further, Calderon called on US officials to do more to stem the flow of weapons from the United States to Mexico, a route often used by traffickers to acquire arms.

“The biggest empowerment of organized crime are the weapons that arrive from the United States,” the president said.

“Since 2006 we have decommissioned 27,000 arms, everything from missile launchers to 2,500 grenades. We have also found uniforms and arms belonging to the US Army.”

But he said recent talks with Washington had offered hope: “I have spoken to Obama about this subject…. We now have a clearer, more decisive response (from the current administration), one which matches the magnitude of the problem which we face.

In late February, US Attorney General Eric Holder said US and Mexican authorities had arrested 750 people over 21 months in an anti-drug sweep, including 52 members of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

That announcement came as Calderon said an additional 5,000 troops and 1,000 police would be deployed to the border region.

While the United States has played down calls for its own troop deployment, recently appointed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said contingency plans to deal with violence spilling over the frontier are being reassessed.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

Bush Policies

“In the days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush was advised that – with the country on a wartime footing – the U.S. military could patrol American streets and burst into a ‘terrorist cell’ without a warrant.”

WE CONSTANTLY WORRY ABOUT THE COMING POLICE STATE, NOT STOPPING TO REALIZE THAT BUSH AND CHENEY TRIED TO CREATE THE AMERICAN GARRISON STATE IN THE 911 WAR RESOLUTION.  FOR SOME REASON, CONGRESS DID IT’S DUTY AND BALKED AT THE REQUEST TO MILITARIZE THE COUNTRY AND AUTHORIZE THE USE OF FULL MILITARY FORCE ON TARGETS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES!

WHERE IS THAT RESPONSIBLE CONGRESS TODAY, WHEN WE NEED TO STOP THE TERROR WAR AND SET ABOUT THE TASK OF REPAIRING THE DESTRUCTION UNLEASHED UPON THE WORLD BY THESE MONSTERS.  IF THEY HAD GOTTEN THEIR WAY, THEN PARTS OF THIS COUNTRY WOULD RESEMBLE AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ.

NEVER FORGET THAT THE SAME WARLORDS WHO WERE PUSHING THESE EXTREME CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS ARE THE SAME MEN WHO HATCHED THE LAME-BRAIN IDEA OF CREATING AN INTERNATIONAL JIHADI NETWORK AND PUSHED THE NEOCON AGENDA.

Bush Policies

Handling the truth

Will there be a day of reckoning for the Bush administration antiterror policies that may well have trampled the Constitution?

There’s a compelling public interest in conducting just such an independent, open-minded inquiry. Over the last week, the pressure to do so mounted exponentially – among congressional Democrats as well as civil libertarians and others.

That was due, in part, to the release of chilling antiterror documents crafted by Bush lawyers, as well as the CIA’s shocking admission that its agents destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations likely involving torture.

It didn’t take much of an imagination to hear the chilling sound of jackboots on pavement echoing from the pages of the formerly secret legal memos.

In the days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush was advised that – with the country on a wartime footing – the U.S. military could patrol American streets and burst into “a terrorist cell” without a warrant.

Bush was told he could ignore both the Geneva Conventions on humane prisoner treatment and the anti-torture treaty, and pack prisoners off to countries that tortured.

Finally, Bush lawyers contended that “First Amendment speech and press rights” could be muzzled given “the overriding need to wage war successfully.” (An irony to this last item is that the memo’s author was John C. Yoo, now a law professor who writes commentaries for newspapers, including The Inquirer.)

For its part, the CIA already revealed that videos of hundreds of hours of harsh interrogations had been tossed. Last week’s admission, though, only raised more questions about the legality of agency moves.

In releasing this information, President Obama performed a public service by shedding light on decisions and actions that cry out for further examination.

The president, though, would like to move on. Obama’s approach would be to craft antiterror strategies that comport with the law and human-rights treaties – certainly a must.

The forthright statement last week from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that “waterboarding is torture” and a technique never to be authorized by his Justice Department set the right tone. Now, the president has tasked Holder to review which interrogation techniques should be authorized.

Both the legal strategies and field tactics used by the U.S. military and intelligence officers at the behest of Bush have been exposed to a large degree in recent years, including warrantless spying on citizens. But the full story has yet to be told.

Amid last week’s disclosures, Senate Democrats under Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont held a hearing Wednesday on the feasibility of a so-called Truth Commission – a panel that might even offer immunity to witnesses in exchange for plumbing the depths of Bush policies.

Congressional Republicans uniformly reject Leahy’s proposal, but the idea has fairly broad backing in legal and civic circles. Even so, there are potential legal pitfalls that would have to be resolved.

A tried-and-true approach could be a congressional inquiry like the famed Church Committee, which in the mid-1970s exposed how the CIA and FBI opened Americans’ mail and committed other rogue acts.

Given the stakes, the nation’s antiterror tactics should be subject to no less scrutiny. The inquiry at the very least could help avoid a repeat of any past mistakes.

US spills the beans on Israel nukes

US spills the beans on Israel nukes
Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:34:09 GMT

Dimona is believed to be housing Israel’s nuclear warheads.

A US military document has classified Israel as “a nuclear power” — a status Tel Aviv has for years refused to either confirm or deny.

A document approved for publication in late 2008 by the US Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) has termed Israel “a nuclear power” on a par with Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported Sunday.

JFCOM is one of ten combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense, the only command focused on the transformation of US military capabilities.

Among the duties of the command is to develop future concepts for joint war fighting and training.

The Virginia-based command warned of a “growing nuclear arc” extending from “Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India and on to China, North Korea and Russia in the east”.

The report adds that “unfortunately” the arc “coincides with areas of considerable instability [which] are of enormous interest to the United States”.

Under its policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ Israel has neither admitted nor denied possessing nuclear weapons. However, it is believed to have up to 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

The remains of the city of Hiroshima in Japan after being nuked in 1945. The then US president, Harry S. Truman, justified the bombing and said Hiroshima was “a military base” attacked “to avoid the killing of civilians”.

Tel Aviv’s policy of deliberate ambiguity was first skewed when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in late 2006 said: “Can you say that this is the same level when they [Iran] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”

An Israeli spokesman later said Olmert did not mean to say that Israel has nuclear weapons, but instead had meant to describe America, France, Israel and Russia as democracies.

A year later, the then-French president Jacques Chirac hinted that Israel would counter any Iranian attack with a nuclear weapon. “Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed,” he said in an interview published in The New York Times and Le Nouvel Observateur.

He retracted his comments a day later, lamenting that he had spoken casually and quickly. “I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record,” he said.

Deadly Car Bomb in Pakistan

more about "Deadly Car Bomb in Pakistan", posted with vodpod

Man Behind The Curtain: Zbigniew Brzezinski-Part 2 of 2

more about "Man Behind The Curtain: Zbigniew Brze…", posted with vodpod

Man Behind The Curtain: Zbigniew Brzezinski-Part 1of 2

more about "Man Behind The Curtain: Zbigniew Brze…", posted with vodpod

Bizarre EU Parliament Legitimizes MEK Iranian Terror Group

Tools of Mossad, CIA, even Saddam Hussein, Mujahedeen E-Khalq (MEK) is prepped for eventual rise to power in post-regime changed Iran.