Saudi Arabia Scrambles to Limit Region’s Upheaval

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia is flexing its financial and diplomatic might across the Middle East in a wide-ranging bid to contain the tide of change, shield fellow monarchs from popular discontent and avert the overthrow of any more leaders struggling to calm turbulent republics.

From Egypt, where the Saudis dispensed $4 billion in aid last week to shore up the ruling military council, to Yemen, where it is trying to ease out the president, to the kingdoms ofJordan and Morocco, which it has invited to join a union of Gulf monarchies, Saudi Arabia is scrambling to forestall more radical change and block Iran’s influence.

The kingdom is aggressively emphasizing the relative stability of monarchies, part of an effort block any dramatic shift from the authoritarian model, which would generate uncomfortable questions about the glacial pace of political and social change at home.

Saudi Arabia’s proposal to include Jordan and Morocco in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council — which authorized the Saudis to send in troops to block a largely Shiite Muslim rebellion in the Sunni Muslim monarchy of Bahrain — is intended to create a kind of “Club of Kings.” The idea is to signal Shiite Iran that the Sunni Arab monarchs will defend their interests, analysts said.

“We’re sending a message that monarchies are not where this is happening,” Prince Waleed bin Talal al-Saud, a businessman and high-profile member of the habitually reticent royal family, told The New York Times’s editorial board, referring to the unrest. “We are not trying to get our way by force, but to safeguard our interests.”

The range of the Saudi intervention is extraordinary as the unrest pushes Riyadh’s hand to forge what some commentators, in Egypt and elsewhere, brand a “counterrevolution.” Some Saudi and foreign analysts find the term too sweeping for the steps the Saudis have actually taken, though it appears unparalleled in the region.

“I am sure that the Saudis do not like this revolutionary wave — they were really scared,” said Khalid Dakhil, a Saudi political analyst and columnist. “But they are realistic here.”

In Egypt, where the revolution has already toppled a close Saudi ally in Hosni Mubarak, the Saudis are dispensing aid and mending ties in part to help head off a good showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The Saudis worry that an empowered Muslim Brotherhood could damage Saudi legitimacy by presenting a model of Islamic law different from the Wahhabi tradition of an absolute monarch.

“If another model of Shariah says that you have to resist, this will create a deep difficulty,” said Abdulaziz Algasim, a Saudi lawyer.

Saudi officials are also concerned that Egypt’s foreign policy is shifting, with its outreach to the Islamist group Hamas and plans to restore ties with Iran. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, also retains a personal interest in protecting Mr. Mubarak, analysts believe.

The Arab Spring began to unravel an alliance of so-called moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which were willing to work closely with the United States and promote peace with Israel. American support for the Arab uprisings also strained relations, prompting Saudi Arabia to split from Washington on some issues while questioning its longstanding reliance on the United States to protect its interests.

The strained Saudi posture toward Washington was outlined in a recent opinion piece by a Saudi writer in The Washington Post that suggested Riyadh was ready to go it alone because the United States had become an “unreliable partner.” But that seems at least partly a display of Saudi pique, since the oil-for-protection exchange that has defined relations between the two for the past six decades is unlikely to be replaced soon. Saudi Arabia is negotiating to buy $60 billion in advanced American weapons, and President Obama, in his speech last week demanding that Middle Eastern autocrats bow to popular demands for democracy, noticeably did not mention Saudi Arabia. The Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, sat prominently in the front row.

Saudi Arabia is taking each uprising in turn, without relying on a single blueprint. In Bahrain, it resorted to force, sending troops to crush a rebellion by Shiites because it feared the creation of a kind of Shiite Cuba only about 20 miles from some of its main oil fields, one sympathetic to, if not allied with, Iran. It has deployed diplomacy in other uprisings — and remained on the fence in still others. It is also spending money, pledging $20 billion to help stabilize Bahrain and Oman, which has also faced protests.

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia joined the coalition seeking to ease out President Ali Abdullah Saleh because it thinks the opposition might prove a more reliable, less unruly southern neighbor. But Arab diplomats noted that even the smallest Saudi gestures provided Mr. Saleh with excuses to stay, since he interpreted them as support. This month, for example, the Saudis sent in tanker trucks to help abate a gasoline shortage.

On Syria, an initial statement of support by King Abdullah for President Bashar al-Assad has been followed by silence, along with occasional calls at Friday Prayer for God to support the protesters. That silence reflects a deep ambivalence, analysts said. The ruling Saudi family personally dislikes Mr. Assad — resenting his close ties with Iran and seeing Syria’s hand in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, a Saudi ally. But they fear his overthrow will unleash sectarian violence without guaranteeing that Iranian influence will be diminished.

In Libya, after helping push through an Arab League request for international intervention, Saudi Arabia sat out and left its neighbors, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to join the military coalition supporting the rebels. It has so far kept its distance publicly from Tunisia as well, although it gave refuge to its ousted president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

There are also suspicions that the kingdom is secretly providing money to extremist groups to hold back changes. Saudi officials deny that, although they concede private money may flow.

In 1952, after toppling the Egyptian king, Gamal Abdel Nasser worked to destabilize all monarchs, inspiring a regicide in Iraq and eventually the overthrow of King Idris of Libya. Saudi Arabia was locked in confrontation with Egypt throughout the 1960s, and it is determined not to relive that period.

“We are back to the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Saudis led the opposition to the revolutions at that time, the revolutions of Arabism,” said Mohammad F. al-Qahtani, a political activist in Riyadh.

Suicide truck bomb kills at least 32 in Pakistan

Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber in a pickup truck detonated his explosives near several government offices in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 32 people in the latest violence to hit the country since the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

In addition to the deaths, at least 56 people were wounded, said a Pakistani official, Mir Chaman Khan. Most of the victims were civilians, including many in a nearby restaurant.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has landed in Pakistan for talks. Earlier yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed the importance of strengthening Washington-Islamabad ties, which have frayed badly since the bin Laden raid.

In claiming yesterday’s attack, the Pakistani Taliban stated that it was not vengeance for bin Laden, but rather revenge for security forces’ killings of a family of five Chechens earlier this month in Baluchistan Province.

Anti-Americanism Is Pakistan’s Only Hope

[It is no conspiracy theory that Pakistan is being targeted by outside interests.  The Special Forces type of soldiers being killed in the latest assaults are all highly trained professional killers.  Who is supplying them?  The only obvious answer is:  the United States, India, Israel, Britain, and very possibly, Russia.  It is Clinton's job to sell the lies being fronted to the world by the Western disinformation machine.  I guarantee that Hillary's meetings were "tense."  She is lucky she made it out of there alive.  The US govt. had better rethink its plans for Pakistan and for world domination. 

Tell Mike Vickers that his "plan to takeover the world" has failed (SEE:  Mike Vickers Author of Anti-Soviet Strategy Now Plots the “Take-Over-the-World Plan”).]

Pakistani activists from Jamiat Ulama e Islam (JUI) burn a US flag during a protest in Karachi (AFP/File)

Anti-Americanism will not help Pakistan: Clinton

(AFP) – 2 hours ago

ISLAMABAD — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday told Pakistan that the country needed to understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not end its problems.

“Pakistan should understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not make the problem disappear,” Clinton told a news conference following talks with Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders.

Pakistan was left humiliated and angry after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden two hours’ from the capital on May 2.

The unilateral operation has fuelled widespread anti-American sentiment in the country, which has long been high over a covert CIA drone war against militant commanders in the country’s northwestern tribal belt.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who accompanied Clinton in her meetings pleaded for greater co-operation between the two wary allies in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Clinton denied that the meetings, held under blanket security, were tense and said she had heard Pakistan commit to “some very specific action”, saying the country deserved more credit for its efforts in the war on militants.

“I return to Washington ever more committed,” to the relationship, she said.

Pakistan shuts down U.S. ‘intelligence fusion’ cells

Pakistan also tells the U.S. to cut back its troops in the country, in a move amid deepening mistrust after the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden and a CIA contractor’s shooting of two Pakistani men. Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen heads to Pakistan for talks.

Pakistanis in Lahore protest the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan’s military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country. (Arif Ali / AFP/Getty Images)

By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

May 27, 2011

Reporting from Washington—

U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the steps are permanent. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew Thursday to Pakistan for a hastily arranged meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army. A Pentagon official said the two will probably discuss Pakistan’s demands for a smaller U.S. military presence.

The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove U.S. advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeusspearheaded the effort to increase the U.S. presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan’s failure to control the militants.

The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration’s efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, U.S. officials said.

The Pakistani decision has not affected the CIA‘s ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan. Those flights, which the CIA has never publicly acknowledged, receive assistance from Pakistan through intelligence channels separate from the fusion centers, current and former officials said.

The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents.

In January, Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities.

Soon after, Pakistan ordered several dozen U.S. special operations trainers to leave the country in what U.S. officials believe was retaliation for the Davis case, according to a senior U.S. military officer.

Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and four others at a compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan’s military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country.

Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani brigadier, blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centers on the mistrust that has plagued U.S.-Pakistani relations in recent months. Washington’s decision to carry out the raid against Bin Laden without informing Pakistan’s security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low, he said.

“There is lot of discontent within Pakistan’s armed forces with regard to the fact they’ve done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted,” Hussain said. “Particularly after the Abbottabad raid … the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the U.S. responsible.”

The two intelligence centers in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistani army’s 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are both headquartered in the city, capital of the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistani army’s 12th Corps headquarters in Quetta, a city long used by Taliban fighters to mount attacks in Afghanistan’s southern provinces. U.S. troops have staffed the Quetta facility only intermittently, U.S. officials said.

The closures have effectively stopped the U.S. training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said.

The Frontier Corps’ facility in Peshawar, staffed by a handful of U.S. special operations personnel, was located at Bala Hissar, an old fort, according to a classified U.S. Embassy cable from 2009 that was recently made public by WikiLeaks.

The cable, which was first disclosed by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, hinted at U.S. hopes that special operations teams would be allowed to join the paramilitary units and the Special Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in operations against militants.

“We have created Intelligence Fusion cells with embedded U.S. Special Forces with both the SSG and Frontier Corps” at Bala Hissar, Peshawar, the 2009 cable says. “But we have not been given Pakistani military permission to accompany the Pakistani forces on deployments as yet. Through these embeds, we are assisting the Pakistanis [to] collect and coordinate existing intelligence assets.”

Another U.S. Embassy cable said that a “U.S. Special Operations Command Force” was providing the Frontier Corps with “imagery, target packages and operational planning” in a campaign against Taliban insurgents in Lower Dir, an area of northwest Pakistan considered an insurgent stronghold.

In September 2009, then U.S. ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, wrote in another classified messagethat the fusion cells provided “enhanced capacity to share real-time intelligence with units engaged in counter-insurgency operations” and were “a significant step forward for the Pakistan military.”

The intelligence fusion cell in Quetta was not nearly as active as the facilities in Peshawar, current and former U.S. officials said. Pakistan has long resisted pressure to intensify operations against Taliban militants in Quetta. The city, capital of Baluchistan, is outside the tribal area, which explains Pakistan’s reluctance to permit a permanent U.S. military presence, a U.S. official said.

Despite the ongoing tensions, Pakistani authorities have agreed to allow a CIA team to inspect the compound where Bin Laden was killed, according to a U.S. official. The Pakistanis have signaled they will allow U.S. intelligence analysts to examine documents and other material that Pakistani authorities found at the site.

A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said the reams of documents and electronic data that the SEALs seized at the compound have sparked “dozens” of intelligence investigations and have produced new insights into schisms among Al Qaeda leaders.

david.cloud@latimes.com

Times staff writers Alex Rodriguez in Islamabad and Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama signs extension of Patriot Act

[SEE:  There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says]

By JIM ABRAMS | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday passed a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

Following the 250-153 evening vote in the House, the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities headed for the president’s signature with only hours to go before the provisions expire at midnight.

With Obama currently in France, the White House said the president would use an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president. Minutes before the midnight deadline, the White House said Obama had signed the bill.

Obama said he was pleased the act had been extended.

“It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” he said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A short-term expiration would not interrupt ongoing operations but would bar the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.

Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government’s ability to monitor individual actions. The bill passed the Senate 72-23.

The measure would add four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps — those authorized for a person rather than a communications line or device — of court-ordered searches of business records and of surveillance of non-American “lone wolf” suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.

The roving wiretaps and access to business records are small parts of the USA Patriot Act enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But unlike most of the act, which is permanent law, those provisions must be renewed periodically because of concerns that they could be used to violate privacy rights. The same applies to the “lone wolf” provision, which was part of a 2004 intelligence law.

Paul argued that in the rush to meet the terrorist threat in 2001 Congress enacted a Patriot Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had some backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who have long contended the law gives the government authority to spy on innocent citizens.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he voted for the act when he was a House member in 2001 “while ground zero was still burning.” But “I soon realized it gave too much power to government without enough judicial and congressional oversight.”

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the provision on collecting business records can expose law-abiding citizens to government scrutiny. “If we cannot limit investigations to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?” he asked.

“The Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans’ privacy and violate their constitutional rights,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

Still, coming just a month after intelligence and military forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, there was little appetite for tampering with the terrorism-fighting tools. These tools, said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, “have kept us safe for nearly a decade and Americans today should be relieved and reassured to know that these programs will continue.”

Intelligence officials have denied improper use of surveillance tools, and this week both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent letters to congressional leaders warning of serious national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to lapse.

The Obama administration says that without the three authorities the FBI might not be able to obtain information on terrorist plotting inside the U.S. and that a terrorist who communicates using different cell phones and email accounts could escape timely surveillance.

“When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. In unusually personal criticism of a fellow senator, he warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, “is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them.”

The nation itself is divided over the Patriot Act, as reflected in a Pew Research Center poll last February, before the killing of bin Laden, that found that 34 percent felt the law “goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties. Some 42 percent considered it “a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists.” That was a slight turnaround from 2004 when 39 percent thought it went too far and 33 percent said it was necessary.

Paul, after complaining that Reid’s remarks were “personally insulting,” asked whether the nation “should have some rules that say before they come into your house, before they go into your banking records, that a judge should be asked for permission, that there should be judicial review? Do we want a lawless land?”

Paul agreed to let the bill go forward after he was given a vote on two amendments to rein in government surveillance powers. Both were soundly defeated. The more controversial, an amendment that would have restricted powers to obtain gun records in terrorist investigations, was defeated 85-10 after lawmakers received a letter from the National Rifle Association stating that it was not taking a position on the measure.

According to a senior Justice Department national security official testifying to Congress last March, the government has sought roving wiretap authority in about 20 cases a year between 2001 and 2010 and has sought warrants for business records less than 40 times a year, on average. The government has yet to use the lone wolf authority.

But the ACLU also points out that court approvals for business record access jumped from 21 in 2009 to 96 last year, and the organization contends the Patriot Act has blurred the line between investigations of actual terrorists and those not suspected of doing anything wrong.

Two Democratic critics of the Patriot Act, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado, on Thursday extracted a promise from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she would hold hearings with intelligence and law enforcement officials on how the law is being carried out.

Wyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. “A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says,” Wyden said.

___

Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman and Pete Yost contributed to this report.

Is Pakistan Being Framed?

Yasmeen Ali  

The dynamics are shifting. The game plan to deal with Pakistan is shifting. There is a huge feeling of let down amongst the general populace with regards to the relationship of our status as a “close ally on war on terror” with the USA.

Since the Raymond Davis case, events have transpired to bring Pakistan , internationally, in a most unfavorable light. First, Osama was discovered in Abbotabad.  A US cable, released by WIKILEAKS revealed USA knew Osama was in Pakistan since 2008 (CLASSIFIED BY: MULTIPLE SOURCES REASON: E.O. 12958, AS AMENDED, SECTION 1.4(C) DECLASSIFY ON: 20330910 S E C R E T / / NOFORN / / 20330910).

Cheeeee!!!

And they did nothing?

Political pundits long predicted attacks like Karachi Naval Base, will happen to establish to the world, that Pakistan is a world of terrorists, thereby, by being unable to protect it’s naval base, is implicitly incapable of protecting it’s nukes! A case cleverly being projected by the western media by expressing “concern” over Pakistan’s ability to protect her sensitive points.  Even before the naval base attack, in it’s May 15th edition,Express.Co.UKcarried an article by Marco Giannangeli. It announces the decision of US to deploy troops in Pakistan if the nation’s nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists seeking revenge for Osama Bin Laden’s death.

Entry into the Karachi Naval Base was way beyond the capability of Taliban. Only 4 to 6 invaders held the base captive, inside collaboration and security failure notwithstanding? C’mon! Gimme a break.

Wait. A memory kick here.

Was not India very interested in procuring the P-3C Orion Aircrafts eventually procured by Pakistan?   In a cable generating from US Embassy in New Delhi on 2005 May clearly defined the Indian Navy’s interest in the P-3C Orion aircraft( some excerpts are shown below):

“We continue to see serious potential for the sale of P-3C Orions, and the chance to compete for multi-role combat aircraft. During Admiral Prakash’s recent visit to the US he indicated a strong desire to move quickly on acquisition of P-3Cs, even requesting leasing two P-3′s as an interim solution. “

What a co-incidence! That was what got destroyed in the attack.

The NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has admitted the safety of Pakistan nukes is a matter of concern” during his one day visit to Afghanistan in May 2011.

Clinton arrives today in Pakistan for talks. A friend, in light of the on going scenario, wrote,” Slowly and surely they are coming to the point.  We have to wait for the onslaught after the visit of Ms. Hillary Clinton and Pakistan’s response”.

Question looming large on the horizon is: Is Pakistan Being Framed?

(The writer is a lawyer and teaches at a Lahore based University. She can be reached at yasmeen.a.9@gmail.com)

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US and UK–Next Phase of World Domination?

B. Obama / D. Cameron

US, UK form joint security council Obama will announce on his first state visit to Britain this week that the White House is to open up its highly secretive National Security Council to Downing Street. The move aims to show the US still values the trans-Atlantic ‘special relationship.” A joint National Security Strategy Board will be established to co-ordinate senior officials on both sides in dealing with challenges such as terrorism and rogue states. – Sydney Morning Herald

Dominant Social Theme: England and America, perfect together …

Free-Market Analysis: The British-American relationship is deepening again, or so it is reported. According to the Herald (see above) President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron will formally present to the press and public a new Service Personnel Joint Task Force when Obama is in Britain on his latest whirlwind, European trip. As of yesterday, he was still in Ireland proclaiming Irish roots.

Obama will also visit Warsaw and then attend a G8 summit in Deauville, France. But the big deal in London is the new Joint Task Force, which we figure isn’t exactly what it’s being portrayed as. For one thing, the talks between Obama and Cameron supposedly will deal mainly with Afghanistan. As the article tells us: “The main discussions between Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron will focus on Afghanistan, on which they have a similar outlook. They both aim to reduce combat troops and recognise that elements of the Taliban will have to be involved in a political settlement.”

In fact, Obama told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show bluntly, ‘We’re not going to militarily solve this problem … What we can do, I think, is use the efforts that we’ve made militarily to broker a political settlement that ensures the Afghanistan constitution is abided by, that elections remain free and fair, that human rights including women’s rights are respected.’

The Pentagon is alarmed by Cameron’s stated intention to draw down British troops, which number about 10,000. About 400, or four percent, are scheduled to leave soon, which is causing the Pentagon anguish. But Obama doesn’t appear to have any intention of talking Cameron out of it. The Afghan war, as we have pointed out previously, is increasingly being seen as something of a lost cause.

Anglo-American elites behind the war, having failed for a second time in 100 years to beat the stubborn PashtunAfghan-Pak nation into a bloody pulp, are apparently regrouping for other fights. Bin Laden’s non/death (we believe he probably died 10 years ago) is useful in this regard. We are now detecting at least two ways it is being manipulated. It is allowing the US and NATO to declared victory in order to reduce forces, and it is also putting significant additional pressure on Pakistan’s leaders.

This can either lead to an invasion in Pakistan to route out the Taliban, a general war with Pakistan, or even an international realignment in which Pakistan seeks to ally itself with China against the US. This latter evolution would begin to set up China as a military opponent of the US – which the US military-industrial complex may be seeking in order to keep orders moving. As we have pointed out in the past, the war on terror is simply not compelling enough. Something on the scale of a Cold War is necessary to keep the big money flowing to America’s military providers.

Of course, Obama is sticking close to the Pentagon line as he always does. He was asked, according to the article, whether the US has plans to speak directly to the Taliban (apparently the US already is) and he replied in the cautious affirmative as follows: ‘Ultimately, it means talking to the Taliban, although we’ve been very clear about the requirements for any kind of serious reconciliation. The Taliban would have to cut all ties to al-Qaeda, renounce violence, and they would have to respect the Afghan constitution. Now those are some fairly bare-bones requirements.’

Obama needs to say something like this because the American generals are having trouble giving up the fight and Obama doesn’t really want to get on the wrong side of the US military. But from what we can tell the game is pretty much over. The US may make all sorts of public preconditions about talking to the Taliban, but the war is costing US$100 billion a year and every day more and more hearts and minds are being lost – not won. There is no reason for the US to stay in Afghanistan any longer or at least not from the point of view of a full-fledged military operation. There are other wars to fight.

Yes, the playing field has enlarged considerably. The Anglo-American axis has done some of what it needed to do in Iraq and Iran and now the battles must be waged elsewhere. As we state every now and again, the goal is world domination and has nothing (primarily) to do with oil, gas, pipelines, currency or any other kind of raw material. Those are secondary reasons.

Primarily, Anglosphere elites are intent on influencing CULTURE. The first thing Western occupying forces do when they enter a nation is set up a central bank. The next thing they do (mostly the Americans) is to begin to set up military bases. The central bank secures the ultimate control of the business environment and the bases secure some (enough) control of the political process – which is also reconfigured into a regulatory democracy.

In the case of Afghanistan, the Western elites have not entirely secured their goals, nor will they. The Pashtuns will survive as an independent entity as they have before. In Iraq, the process is more advanced. The government itself is somewhat dependent on the Americans and the political class generally may not want the Americans to leave. But there is a significant Shia population that wants nothing to do with the US. Bombs are beginning to go off in Iraq again and the only group besides a handful of political leaders that wants the Americans to stay is a small, northern Kurdish population.

What will happen to the Afghan and Iraq troops that are drawn down? Well, from our point of view, the Anglosphere has made a tactical decision to use freed-up resources to intimidate the larger Middle East and parts of Africa since it cannot finish the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additional troops may be deployed for maximum effect in and around countries such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Libya.

The idea is to spread Anglo-American influence throughout the region in order to bring it under far firmer control of the West. Iran and the Palestinians are additional logical additional targets for this next chapter of Western world domination; Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are already Western proxies. The West even has a compliant media outlet in the Middle East in Al Jazeera from what we can tell, as Al Jazeera was funded by the Western puppet state of Qatar and staffed initially with BBC reporters.

Hillary Clinton held a news conference with her British counterpart yesterday. Much of the news conference consisted of Ms. Clinton warning the leaders of Libya, Syria and other countries that their time was basically up and that the US and Britain were going to dictate the nature and shape of future governments in the region. “Leaders,” Ms. Clinton intimated in her droning monotone, “do not step out of line or the UN will sanction you and NATO will invade you.”

None of this is preordained in the era of the Internet. The CIA-sponsored youth movements (See AYM) in Egypt and Tunisia have already spiraled out of control. As we have stated many times, the broad manipulations of Money Power in the 20th century are not so effective in the 21st as in the 20th. The West has apparently absorbed a defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq has not been properly reconfigured either.

Conclusion: It is the masses themselves, informed by the ‘Net that will provide the most formidable pushback to the West’s Middle Eastern and African consolidation – a process we refer to as the Internet Reformation. The elites know this of course, and are doing what they can to diminish such pushback by imposing economic chaos, high food prices, etc. But understanding the process and doing something to effectively halt it are two different things. History itself may be conspiring against fuller, Western elite control in the 21st century.

Influence mercenary in Colombia

By Juan Diego Restrepo E. *

OPINION The case of Colombia in Abu Dhabi and training in military units demanding answers about who has control over the mercenaries who arrived in the country over the past 30 years.

The latest news on the production of Colombian mercenaries arrived from Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE. According to accounts of the New York Times, that country arrived in November 2010, dozens of fellow hired by Erik Prince, founder of the renowned U.S. firm Blackwater, to provide various security services, including “defend oil installations and attacks skyscraper terrorists “and” control of internal unrest. “

This information was complemented by the revelations of journalist Daniel Coronell, who in his regular column in Semana magazine, said that the mercenaries brought to this country were trained Colombian military facilities, in a sort of alliance between military officers and private companies security has not yet been explained satisfactorily by military commanders or by the Ministry of National Defense.

The controversy over Colombian mercenaries in the Arab country is a good excuse to ask critically how did the country to “export” those “skilled labor in the war” before the inferiority complex that characterizes us lead us to feel proud that a Colombian security pays an Arab sheikh. It is also an opportunity to ask those who have arrived in the country under the euphemism of contractors: what is your true nature?, Who exercises control over them?, What are the implications of this outsourcing of services related to security? what are the implications that the State has met the function of maintaining the monopoly of force by public transport?

Several analysts of contemporary armed confrontations, including Darius Azellini warn that the “new wars”, both intrastate and interstate, are conducted by various actors, often non-state without any legal regulation. In this area are part of private military corporations (PMCs), private firms, for profit, offering both governments and private companies security services, logistics, transportation, telecom and data analysis, among others.

Colombia has not been left out of these activities and given the dynamics of war has become, according Azellini in a private laboratory for the conduct of the war in the last thirty years, making our country a preferred destination of the CMP.

According to this research, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United States in 2007 issued a report requested by the U.S. Congress which lists all the private military corporations (PMCs) contracted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense to work in Colombia. These are the following companies: Lockheed-Martin, Lockheed-Martin Technology Services, Lockheed-Martin Mission Support, Lockheed-Martin Integrated Systems (LMIS), LMIS-Optec, DynCorp International, Olgoonik, ARINC, Oakley Networks, Northrop-Grumman Mission Systems, Mantech, Mantech International, ITT, ARINC, Telford Aviation, King Aerospace, CACI Inc., Tate Incorporated, Chenega Federal Systems, PAE Government Services, Omnitempus, Construction, Consulting & Enginneering – CCE, U.S. Naval Mission Bogota Riverine Plans Officer and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

To that list, according Azellini, we would not have the CMP directly hired by the Colombian government through its armed forces and other U.S. institutions and multinational companies. Among them would be Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Risk Control, Global Risk, Colombia and Spearhead Defense System Ltd (owned by the Israeli mercenary Yair Klein, who coached dozens of paramilitaries in the Magdalena Medio region in the decade of the eighties).

The services of several of the companies listed were paid with funds from the so-called Plan Colombia. Companies like DynCorp, one of the largest, would be among those that lobbied for the allocation of U.S. resources to the plan, but not out of altruism but because they compete to win and retain security markets.

The CMP is composed of former members of elite units of U.S. and other countries ex-military, military veterans or U.S. assets temporarily assumed limited missions during their holidays. Although since the end of the Cold War such entities provided various services, became commercial companies offering military services ranging from combat to military training, through the advice and logistical support in a global market violence.

Use these specialized security services has several advantages: their activities fall outside the control of public and political because the mercenaries are employed than military evade national laws and international agreements, and sprains to succeed him the rules imposed by the U.S. Congress, which has regulated the presence of military personnel in Colombia, hiring non-American. Azellini estimated that by 2008 the country had at least 2,000 people in mercenary activities of different interests, whose responsibilities are diluted and hide them as “contractors.”

Such as “contractors” was given, for example, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves, three U.S. citizens kidnapped by the FARC on February 12, 2003 and released on July 2, 2008 in Operation Jaque. They arrived in the country hired by the firm California Microwave Systems, which provides technical services to the Northrop-Grumman Mission Systems, in charge of controlling several radars in the south and east.

One of the key issues on the recruitment of the CMP is the guarantee of impunity should be given to these companies so that their actions are not punished in the country legally. These agreements are provided for those who are part of these private security companies include clauses which has ruled that its members will not be subject to military justice, as they are not officially members of military equipment or tried by civilian courts. That is, their work is done “in areas of immunity.”

It is not free because hundreds of Colombians are now in the service of PMCs, because in the last thirty years we have had a strong presence and influence of this type of security firms in the country.But beyond asking what these compatriots in Abu Dhabi, which is urgent is to demand the authorities of our country clear answers to many questions that arise when analyzing this case: how many CMP operating in the country, how many people the integrated and what nationality they are?, what is the amount of contracts? What state agency regulates their activities?, where are they concentrated?, what do they do? Someone in government should know something and it is necessary in the interests of transparency, go out to give explanations of the case.

(*) Journalist and university professor

Blackwater’s Colombian Mercenaries In Abu Dhabi

Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder

Adam Ferguson/VII Network

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, has a new project.

By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

Multimedia

Document

Copy of Mercenary Contract

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi hired Erik Prince to build a fighting force.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder ofBlackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.

In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.

The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.

“The gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help,” said one Obama administration official who knew of the operation. “They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”

Still, it is not clear whether the project has the United States’ official blessing. Legal experts and government officials said some of those involved with the battalion might be breaking federal laws that prohibit American citizens from training foreign troops if they did not secure a license from the State Department.

Mark C. Toner, a spokesman for the department, would not confirm whether Mr. Prince’s company had obtained such a license, but he said the department was investigating to see if the training effort was in violation of American laws. Mr. Toner pointed out that Blackwater (which renamed itself Xe Services ) paid $42 million in fines last year for training foreign troops in Jordan and other countries over the years.

The U.A.E.’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for Mr. Prince also did not comment.

For Mr. Prince, the foreign battalion is a bold attempt at reinvention. He is hoping to build an empire in the desert, far from the trial lawyers, Congressional investigators and Justice Department officials he is convinced worked in league to portray Blackwater as reckless. He sold the company last year, but in April, a federal appeals court reopened the case against four Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

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Mark Mazzetti reported from Abu Dhabi and Washington, and Emily B. Hager from New York. Jenny Carolina González and Simon Romero contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia. Kitty Bennett contributed research from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 19, 2011

An article on Sunday about the creation of a mercenary battalion in the United Arab Emirates misstated the past work of Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm whose veterans have been recruited for the new battalion. Executive Outcomes was hired by several African governments during the 1990s to put down rebellions and protect oil and diamond reserves; it did not stage coup attempts. (Some former Executive Outcomes employees participated in a 2004 coup attempt against the government of Equatorial Guinea, several years after the company itself shut down.)

Belarus devaluation spreads panic

Belarusians queue to buy foreign currency outside an exchange booth in Minsk, Belarus, Tuesday, May 24, 2011.AP

Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A sharp devaluation of the Belarusian ruble has spread panic throughout the country, with people sweeping store shelves and queuing up at currency exchange offices on Wednesday in a desperate attempt to protect their savings.

President Alexander Lukashenko promised that the national currency will remain stable following the devaluation enacted a day earlier, but experts warned the Belarusian ruble will continue its nosedive if Russia doesn’t provide a quick bailout.

The ruble lost nearly half of its official value against the dollar Tuesday, when the National Bank ordered a devaluation.

The new official rate is 4,930 rubles per dollar, up from the previous 3,155 but the perceived value of the local currency is much lower — on the black market it takes 6,000 rubles to buy a dollar.

To make matters worse, there is a physical shortage in the country of dollars and euros, which companies and households desperately want to own to protect themselves from a worse devaluation in the future.

The government has tightly regulated sales of hard foreign currency and its own reserves are badly depleted.

Exchange offices have run out of foreign currency because they are allowed only to sell what they buy from clients.

Andrei Krylevich, 42, has spent a week in lines outside an exchange booth in downtown Minsk without a chance to buy a single dollar.

The computer company he works at has sent its employees on an unpaid leave, and he urgently needs to pay back a $9,000 loan to a bank.

“In just one month, I have virtually turned bankrupt, the entire country has gone bankrupt,” Krylevich said.

Most Belarusian industries are state-owned, and the government has tried to keep its scarce currency reserves for vital imports.

On Tuesday, it set tight limits on interbank currency trading, effectively stifling the market.

The flamboyant Lukashenko, in power for nearly 17 years, has kept an unusually low profile in recent weeks as his government has been pleading Moscow for a vital loan.

Russia has been reluctant to provide it, pushing Belarus to sell its industrial assets.

Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Tuesday that Belarus can get the total of $3 billion in loans from an economic alliance of several ex-Soviet nations over the next three years, including the first $800 million disbursement that could be delivered next month.

Kudrin added that Belarus could earn another $7.5 billion by privatizing its industries, most of which remain in state hands.

What Happens To Nuclear Waste? Into Eternity 1of6

What Happens To Nuclear Waste? Into Eternity 1of6, posted with vodpod

Arizona Attempts To Pass First “Fat Smoker” Penalty

Under an Arizona Plan, Smokers and Obese Would Pay Fee for Medicaid

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Arizona, like many others states, says it is no longer able to adequately finance its Medicaid program. As part of a plan to cut costs, the state has proposed imposing a $50 fee on childless adults onMedicaid who are either obese or who smoke. In Arizona, almost half of all Medicaid recipients smoke; while the number of obese people is unclear, about one-in-four Arizonans is overweight, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. The state’s plan must ultimately be approved by the federal government. Monica Coury, spokeswoman for Arizona’s Medicaid program, discusses.

Q. What is the current status of the state’s Medicaid program?

A. “In Arizona, there has been an increase of 30 percent in the number of people on Medicaid and a 34 percent decrease in general fund revenue since 2007. We are one of just a few states that cover childless adults in Medicaid. We want to change the nature of eligibility for that program from an open-ended entitlement program to one that the state manages based on available funding, which means we can freeze the program and then open the program back up for enrollment should we come into additional funds. But that is just one of the things we are seeking to do. We also want to reform the payment system for Medicaid. Currently, Medicaid is structured such that we are a purchaser of ‘widgets,’ if you will. So, providers are incentivized to do more — since they get paid for quantity. There is no financial incentive for a provider to reduce the number of hospital admissions, for instance, because that drives down the bottom line. We want Medicaid to move away from that concept to one that supports and financially rewards health plans and providers for supporting quality.”

Q. Why is it a good idea to charge people a fee for being overweight or for smoking?

A. “The issue is this: we can’t keep complaining about the rising cost of health care and not drill down to what that means on the individual level. Maricopa County (where Phoenix is located) has started a program among its employees where smokers have to pay $450 more for health insurance than non-smokers. They take a swab to detectnicotine. The bottom line is that there’s plenty of evidence and studies that show there is an undeniable link between smoking and obesity and health care costs.”

Q. What has been the response from critics?

A. “Some people have suggested it is discriminating against obese people. To me, it is a matter of fairness. We have an obligation to provide health care coverage to 1.35 million people. And we’ve got a budget crisis, so if there’s something you can do to help out — we’re just asking you to put a little more back into the system. What we want to test is whether making people pay is going to affect behavior. We think it will.”

Q. How would disabled people be affected?

A. “We’re not talking about the disabled, the elderly, pregnant women, or children, and certainly there would be exceptions for certain conditions, like cancer. We are talking only about able-bodied people who have the capacity to manage their weights.”

Q. How did you arrive at the amount of $50? Would that be sufficient to offset the fund’s costs?

A. “We’ve talked about $50 once a year. We haven’t done the math, but it’s not about how much we would collect. It is totally about testing the efficacy of this strategy. Obesity is costing us billions in health care costs, so our thought is ‘let’s test some of these strategies.’

The Law of Unintended Consequences and the Zionist Conspiracy To Strangle Gaza

Gaza crossing to stay open

Cairo

Egypt will permanently open its border crossing with the Gaza Strip from tomorrow.

Egyptian authorities have informed the Hamas movement that governs the Gaza Strip that they will open the Rafah crossing from 5am to 9pm daily. Most residents of Gaza will not be required to get a visa or undergo security checks, the Hamas government said. Opening the crossing would ease the blockade imposed after Hamas took control of the strip in 2007.

A report by Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency said the move aimed to ”end the status of the Palestinian division and achieve national reconciliation”. Israel warned that reopening the crossing could allow Hamas to build its arsenal.

There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says

• By Spencer Ackerman  

You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence committee, he laments that he can’t precisely explain without disclosing classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular gives him immense pause: the so-called “business-records provision,” which empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.

“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden says. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”

That’s why Wyden and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall offered an amendment on Tuesday to the Patriot Act reauthorization.

The amendment, first reported by Marcy Wheeler, blasts the administration for “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.” It would compel the Attorney General to “publicly disclose the United States Government’s official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.” And, intriguingly, it refers to “intelligence-collection authorities” embedded in the Patriot Act that the administration briefed the Senate about in February.

Wyden says he “can’t answer” any specific questions about how the government thinks it can use the Patriot Act. That would risk revealing classified information — something Wyden considers an abuse of government secrecy. He believes the techniques themselves should stay secret, but the rationale for using their legal use under Patriot ought to be disclosed.

“I draw a sharp line between the secret interpretation of the law, which I believe is a growing problem, and protecting operations and methods in the intelligence area, which have to be protected,” he says.

Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked. The Justice Department’s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect business records96 times in 2010 — up from just 21 requests the year before. The court didn’t reject a single request. But it “modified” those requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening of the provision is underway.

“The FISA Court is a pretty permissive body, so that suggests something novel or particularly aggressive, not just in volume, but in the nature of the request,” says Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s resident Patriot Act lobbyist. “No one has tipped their hand on this in the slightest. But we’ve come to the conclusion that this is some kind of bulk collection. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if it’s some kind of internet or communication-records dragnet.” (Full disclosure: My fiancée works for the ACLU.)

The FBI deferred comment on any secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to the Justice Department. The Justice Department said it wouldn’t have any comment beyond a bit of March congressional testimony from its top national security official, Todd Hinnen, who presented the type of material collected as far more individualized and specific: “driver’s license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”

But that’s not what Udall sees. He warned in a Tuesday statement about the government’s “unfettered” access to bulk citizen data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records.” In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged Congress to restrict the Patriot Act’s business-records seizures to “terrorism investigations” — something the ostensible counterterrorism measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.

Indeed, Hinnen allowed himself an out in his March testimony, saying that the business-record provision “also” enabled “important and highly sensitive intelligence-collection operations” to take place. Wheeler speculates those operations include “using geolocation data from cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans” — something our sister blog Threat Level has reported on extensively.

It’s worth noting that Wyden is pushing a bill providing greater privacy protections for geolocation info.

For now, Wyden’s considering his options ahead of the Patriot Act vote on Thursday. He wants to compel as much disclosure as he can on the secret interpretation, arguing that a shadow broadening of the Patriot Act sets a dangerous precedent.

“I’m talking about instances where the government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are,” Wyden says, “and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.”

Site: Oregon.gov

Russian-made walkie-talkie set found near PNS Mehran runway

DAWN.COM

A helicopter gives support to ground troops battling militants at the PNS Mehran base in Karachi May 23, 2011. Troops recaptured the Pakistani naval air force base on Monday after a 16-hour battle with as few as six Taliban gunmen. – Reuters Photo

KARACHI: Investigative authorities have found a walkie-talkie set from the eastern side of the runway at PNS Mehran air base. The set was allegedly used by the terrorists during the attack that took place at the PNS Mehran earlier this week, DawnNews reported on Thursday.

According to sources, during a recent search of the bushes surrounding the eastern end of the runway, the walkie-talkie set – which is of a Russian make – was found near the location from where the terrorists had entered the base. The walkie-talkie has been sent to the laboratories for forensic evidence.

Meanwhile, fresh samples of the attackers’ fingerprints have been dispatched to NADRA a second time for identification. The investigation officer has said that the NADRA database contains about 70 to 80 million fingerprint records, while the report might take up to three to four days.

Obama’s Perfect Storm

Letter from America / Nathaniel Sheppard Jr: Obama’s Perfect Storm

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) arrives to address a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington after US President Barack Obama suggestion for Palestinians to have a state as per the 1967 borders. (File Photo)

By NATHANIEL SHEPPARD JR.
AL ARABIYA

Despite a basket of new ideas on achieving peace in the Middle East and North Africa, President Barack Obama has not been able to develop a roadmap that would give his ideas traction. Nor has he been able to retain the hearts and minds he won over at the onset of his presidency two years ago with pledges of a new beginning for US-Arab relations.

Instead, he finds himself surrounded by a perfect storm of criticism from friends and foes alike, a hapless hiker without a map in a maze of unmarked trails.

It might be easier and less perilous for the president to do a high wire act over a lava pit blindfolded than venture along the quicksand riddled roads that ostensibly lead to peace in the region but in fact dead end at bridges to nowhere.

At the beginning of this month, there was the row with Pakistan over the unannounced US commando raid in Abbottabad in which Osama Bin Laden was killed.

Praise for the raid that brought down the world’s most wanted fugitive and mastermind of terrorist attacks that killed thousands was overshadowed by recriminations between the two would-be allies.

US officials including the president wondered aloud whether Pakistani security or government officials may have knowingly allowed Bin Laden to live for years in the garrison town not far from the capital, Islamabad, while the world thought he was holed up in a cave somewhere.

An embarrassed Pakistan bristled at the US for violating its sovereignty in carrying out the attack and warned that a repeat of the breach would have dire consequences. Pakistan continued to stew as a previous dispute continued over civilian deaths by unmanned US drone aircraft in tribal areas. Relations hit a new low yesterday when Pakistan reportedly asked the U.S. to remove its military forces from the country.

If there is a flashpoint in the Middle East that unites critics and allies of the US alike in opposition to American policy, it is most certainly the longstanding fight over Palestinian statehood and Arab recognition of Israel.

A week ago, President Obama unveiled a Middle East policy. There was little new in it to impress Arabs, and the section on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian border dispute only inflamed Israel. He had but stated publicly what privately had been considered by previous administrations as a possible starting point for resolving the myriad issues between the two neighbors—going back to internationally recognized 1967 boundaries with land swaps to take account of demographic changes since then.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hopping mad. He said that he expected the president to withdraw his suggestion by the time they met for already scheduled talks. In an Oval Office photo op following those talks, Mr. Obama diplomatically said friends sometimes differed in opinions on resolving issues. Mr. Netanyahu cast diplomacy aside and lectured the president on what Israel would and would not do, mostly what it would not.

That feud, too, has gone unabated and Mr. Netanyahu has stepped up the rhetoric. When the president went to Europe for a six-day visit last week, Mr. Netanyahu went to Congress and fired up members eager to beat up on the president as the country heads toward another presidential campaign in 2012.

If Israel and the Palestinians are unhappy with US efforts to help resolve the matter, so too are some US allies. Britain and other countries in Europe and elsewhere, fed up with the lack of progress, have signaled they may support an expected Palestinian request that the UN General Assembly pass a declaration creating a Palestinian state if there is no progress by September. The US opposes such a move.

President Obama’s much ballyhooed Middle East speech also failed to achieve a primary goal of persuading Arabs the US would be there for them if they choose the path of democracy. It did not specify how. Moreover, as the Arab Spring revolts against despotic governments swept across the region like brushfire, the US was seen largely as a sidelines booster, reluctant to get involved beyond asking regional strongmen to kindly step down.

Criticism mounted as US policy in the region seemed uneven and unreliable, with the US cherry-picking where it would commit tangible help such as arms and support for using NATO airpower. As Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi cracked down on citizens, mercilessly bombing areas of resistance, President Obama decided to let the French take the lead in setting things right. They failed to do so and the US was drawn in under pressure.

The president addressed the matter during a historic speech before the British Parliament yesterday, the first ever by a US president in Westminster Abbey. He told Parliament that “…as a revolution races through the streets of the Middle East and North Africa, the entire world has a stake in the aspirations of a generation that longs to determine its own destiny.

“While we cannot stop every injustice, there are circumstances that cut through our caution—when a leader is threatening to massacre his people, and the international community is calling for action. That is why we stopped a massacre in Libya. And we will not relent until the people of Libya are protected, and the shadow of tyranny is lifted.”

The situation in Syria appears to meet that standard and is perhaps even worse as a brutal government crackdown that has claimed the lives of hundreds of dissidents continues. Mr. Obama left unclear why there has been no tangible US support beyond economic sanctions against the country’s leaders that so far have shown no signs of working.

“We will proceed with humility, and the knowledge that we cannot dictate outcomes abroad,” President Obama said. “Ultimately, freedom must be won by the people themselves, not imposed from without. But we can and must stand with those who so struggle.”

There was a festering problem of dwindling Arab faith in the president even before this. Two years ago, a newly elected President Obama promised a fresh start in US-Arab relations. His credibility has all but vanished now, however, as there appears little evidence of change other than a spike in Islamophobia in the US.

He spoke of a new world order yesterday in which China, India and Brazil would play key roles as bourgeoning superpowers but he named no Arab nations that would have such standing, again leaving Arabs on the margins.

While enjoying warm receptions and generally high marks for his visit to Europe so far, the president has been largely preaching to the choir. Middle East peace efforts continue to go nowhere as do US efforts to hold onto old Arab friends and cultivate new ones.

(Nathaniel Sheppard Jr. is a veteran foreign correspondent who has worked for the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times. He can be reached at: natsheppard@gmail.com)

DEA Sent Headley to Penetrate LET

Witness says told to infiltrate groups

(UPI NewsTrack) — CHICAGO, May 26 (UPI) — A defendant in the Mumbai terror attacks told a Chicago court he used his ties with the U.S. drug agency to attend LeT terror group training camps in Pakistan.

Pakistani-American David C. Headley, a co-defendant in the November 2008 massacre in India’s financial capital, who testified Wednesday in the U.S. federal court trial of Tahawwur Rana he got espionage training from non-commissioned officers with the Pakistani spy agency Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate, The New York Times reported.

Headley, who has confessed to his role in plotting the Mumbai attacks that killed 163 people, including six Americans, said as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration he was asked to infiltrate Islamic extremist groups, and that he used it as a cover to attend training camps of Lashkar-e-Toiba, which India says masterminded the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistan has denied the ISI had any role in the Mumbai killings. Headley, a high school friend of Rana, agreed to testify to escape the death penalty.

Prosecutors say Rana used his immigration consulting business as a front to help Headley scout out Mumbai. Rana’s lawyers say he was duped by Headley, the Times reported.

During cross-examination by Rana lawyer Charles Swift, Headley said he went to Pakistan for the DEA in 1999 and began his LeT training after 2002.

When asked about his former wife telling the FBI she believed her husband was plotting with terrorists, Headley was quoted as saying he had been instructed by the drug agency to visit their mosques.

He replied “Yes,” when asked if he had told the agency not worry about his activities as he was working for them.

Swift also asked him about a Maj. Iqbal, earlier identified by Headley as his ISI handler. Headley said he had met Iqbal on a military base and also saw him traveling numerous times in military vehicles. He said Iqbal also was not impressed with his LeT training and arranged ISI training for him.

Indian media reports have indicated Headley’s testimony confirms India’s charges that ISI elements were involved in the Mumbai attacks. The reports say the prosecution in the case has provided sufficient documentation to support Headley’s testimony.

(Source: UPI )
(Source: Quotemedia)

China Is Key to America’s Afghan Endgame

[SEE:  China is the Key to the America’s problems.]

By ANATOL LIEVEN

LONDON — The affairs of Afghanistan and Pakistan are becoming the biggest test of whether the United States and China can cooperate to maintain global peace and stability in the 21st century.

They are an even bigger test of this than the Korean Peninsula, for the security equation there is largely frozen, whereas in Afghanistan and Pakistan it is very volatile indeed, as circumstances surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden have emphasized.

The future of Afghanistan is also a test of other great-power relationships that will largely define the 21st century in Asia: Of whether China and India are doomed to mutual hostility or can find areas of cooperation; and of whether the Chinese-Russian relationship will become a true partnership that will seek common solutions to key problems.

As the United States moves toward a withdrawal of its ground forces from Afghanistan, the role of the region is bound to become increasingly important. The question now is whether Washington is prepared to accommodate its wishes to those of other powers in the area, and help broker a regional settlement for Afghanistan in which the United States will be only one player among several.

China, along with Pakistan, India, Russia and Iran, has a critical role to play. It borders Afghanistan, albeit for only a few miles. China’s possession of a huge Muslim territory in Xinjiang makes it acutely conscious of the threat of Islamist extremism both to its own territory and to former Soviet Central Asia. China has committed itself to far the biggest commercial investment in Afghanistan — $3 billion in the Aynak copper mine.

Finally, China has a very great stake in Pakistan, which is indeed China’s only real ally in the world. The importance of this relationship has been emphasized by statements of support for Pakistan from Beijing in the wake of Bin Laden’s death, and the visit of Pakistan’s prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, to China. Reports from Kabul say that Pakistan has been encouraging the Karzai administration to look to Beijing, not Washington, as a future sponsor.

Many Pakistanis are now open in their desire that China replace the United States as Pakistan’s main international backer. China’s aid to Pakistan is still considerably exceeded by that of the United States, but China has become a key provider of military equipment to Pakistan, and has also invested heavily in Pakistani infrastructure.

China’s stake in Pakistan is threefold. There is the desire dating back to the 1960s to use Pakistan as balance against India, with which China has a major border dispute and that China regards as a potential rival. China has also used Pakistan as a link to Islamist groups in the region. Finally, China is building up energy routes from the Gulf via Pakistan to insure China against any future naval blockade by the United States or India.

At the same time, China is by no means unconditionally committed to Pakistan, and this should give Washington room for maneuver. Beijing has in fact played a rather cautious hand, keeping its aid limited. Both the corruption and incompetence of the Pakistani state and the spread of Islamist insurgency in Pakistan have made Beijing wary of a deeper commitment.

It is extremely unlikely, though, that China will join the U.S. in pressuring Pakistan to accede to the U.S. version of an Afghan peace settlement. Rather, if Washington swings round to the idea of negotiating a deal with the Taliban and using Pakistan as a mediator, China’s ability to influence Islamabad will be of great importance. For this to happen, however, Washington will have to persuade India to limit its own ambitions in Afghanistan; and China will also have to help bring Russia and Iran on board.

Up to now, China seems to have assumed that it could do separate deals with the Taliban and their allies to exclude Uighur militants, and that it may be able to do the same kind of deal to defend the Aynak mine. This is a mistake.

While American and Indian hopes that the Taliban can be defeated in the Pashtun areas are clearly impossible, so to are Taliban hopes of sweeping to power in the whole of Afghanistan. The U.S., India and Russia will make sure that, as before 9/11, non-Pashtun armies continue to defend their own areas against the Taliban. This is a recipe for unending civil war — which is no recipe for successful copper production and export.

Another reason why China should help seek an Afghan peace settlement is for the sake of Pakistan’s stability. Continued war in Afghanistan will mean continued radicalization in Pakistan. This in turn will increase the risk that Pakistan-based terrorists will strike at the U.S. or India. Especially following Bin Laden’s death, a terrorist attack with links to Pakistan would so infuriate Americans that retaliation against Pakistan would be a real possibility, and no concern either for the risks or for U.S. relations with China would prevent this.

If China truly cares about Pakistan’s survival, it should be doing everything possible to get the Pakistanis to prevent international terrorism based on their soil.

Anatol Lieven is a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and author of “Pakistan: A Hard Country.”

US Public Diplomacy Means Smiling Faces Hide Lying Lips

[SEE:  The Stunning Investigative Story on the Birth of Balochistan Liberation Army–Mar 1, 2005]

Baloch separatist movement not fuelled by India: US

The separatist movement in Balochistan province is fuelled by the country’s domestic policies and not India, a top US official said Thursday.

“I don’t think that the existence of a terrorist or a separatist movement in Balochistan is fuelled by Indian financing or anything like that,” US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said.
“I think it’s fuelled by domestic issues that are internal to Pakistan,” Blake said in his interaction with Defense Writers Group here.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of supporting the rebels in Balochistan in order to destabilize the country. India, however, has categorically denied the allegations.

Indiana Rally Against Supreme Court As the “Enemy of the State”

Rally condemns court as ‘enemy’

Associated Press

Protesters gather on the Statehouse lawn Wednesday to rail against a state Supreme Court decision on home-protection rights.

Hundreds protest unlawful-entry ruling

Niki Kelly | The Journal Gazette

INDIANAPOLIS – More than 200 Hoosiers came to the Indiana Statehouse on Wednesday to protest a Indiana Supreme Court ruling that even the governor has questioned.

They carried American flags, pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution and signs deriding the justices who decided the case.

“Justice Steven David – Enemy of the Constitution,” said one placard, referring to the justice who penned the majority opinion.

Many at the rally called for Hoosiers to reject David in a retention vote scheduled for November 2012. Gov. Mitch Daniels appointed him to the court last year.

“This month the Indiana Supreme Court ruled citizens no longer have the right to refuse entry to law enforcement without a warrant or probable cause,” said Sean Shepard, who was master of ceremonies for the event Wednesday. “A boundary has been crossed, and we’re not going to tolerate it.”

The state Supreme Court found citizens have no right under common law to reasonably resist police unlawfully entering their homes. Critics say this violates the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure.

The case involved a Vanderburgh County man who was arguing with his wife while moving out of their apartment. The man, Richard Barnes, yelled at police, who followed him back into his apartment. Barnes told police they could not enter, and he struggled with an officer who ignored him.

Barnes was later charged with and convicted of battery.

Critics of the ruling say the court, in a 3-2 decision, could have ruled more narrowly, noting police in the case were called to investigate a domestic abuse allegation and the wife inferred her permission for them to enter the home.

Attorney General Greg Zoeller, whose office argued to uphold the man’s conviction, said he will support a rehearing to lessen the scope of the ruling.

House and Senate leaders also have asked for a review, and several lawmakers are preparing legislation to overturn the ruling.

Even Daniels on Tuesday questioned it, saying, “I’m not in habit of giving advice to the Supreme Court” but that he was “puzzled by the ruling.”

David Pippen, chief legal counsel for Daniels, said the governor’s confusion involves the “no-retreat” law he signed in 2006, which seems to conflict with the ruling and was not considered in the case.

That law says a person is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against another person if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry or attack on the person’s property.

There is no exception in the law for police.

“We read the ruling, and we decided that Justice David was completely out of bounds,” said Joel Weyrick, of Indianapolis, who attended the rally with his wife, Stacey. “Police are no different. If they break into my home, they are criminals, and I have the right to defend my home.”

Indiana Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan said justices are not allowed to comment on pending cases.

She said that the code of judicial conduct charges courts with making fair and impartial decisions and says “a judge shall not be swayed by public clamor or fear of criticism.”

nkelly@jg.net