The different are now targets of hate

Dilip Bobb

In his recently released book, Jimmy the Terrorist, author Omair Ahmad takes a hard, uncomfortable look at how religion, alienation, poverty and the struggle for communal dominance impacts on the social fabric of a small town in India. It is a work of fiction but disturbingly real. By the end, it’s not clear who Jamaal (Jimmy) really is, a terrorist or a nationalist, victim or criminal, he could fit any of those descriptions. For all its local roots, flavor and issues, it is very much a microcosm of the political, religious and social churning taking place in India. At its heart is a contemporary reality: the subterranean layers of intolerance, growing use of the Biblical exhortation of ‘an eye for an eye,’ and the subliminal urge of a majority community to keep the minority in its place, indeed, teach it a lesson from time to time to ensure that. We have seen enough examples of that, starting with the bloody birth of India’s independence to Gujarat in 2002, but now, it’s taken on a more sinister form.

What is unfurling before us each day now, are the contours of the conspiracy that point to ‘saffron terror’, a neologism which has entered public debate in India thanks to people like Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh. What the anti-terror probe, started ironically by Hemant Karkare, the police official who died in the worst act of terror on Indian soil, now enshrined as 26/11, has exposed, is how a network of Hindu fundamentalists planned and executed a series of bomb blasts across India that were originally attributed to Muslim groups.In a knee-jerk, face-saving reaction, local police arrested a number of Muslims, accused them of the plots, and threw them in jail. However restricted the number of Hindu extremists in the network, it is a worrying enough development. Terrorism is terrorism, whether of the Islamic variety or the newer Hindutva one, which is more alarming in terms of its impact on India’s socio-cultural fabric. It has become a cliché now, but the shop-worn quote about “one man’s terrorist being another’s freedom fighter” is starting to blur the lines between the purpose of terrorism, which is to terrorise, and acts that are committed in the garb of patriotism, and the greater good.Home Minister P Chidambaram gave clear warning last year when he told a meeting of top police officers from across the country that: “There is no let-up in the attempts to radicalise young men and women in India.Besides, there is the recently uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts of the past.” That development has also revived another label: ‘Nationalist terrorism.’ Basically, it is a form of terrorism motivated by nationalism.As with the concept of terrorism itself, the term “nationalist terrorism” and its application are highly contentious issues.What types of violence are acceptable and its justification are eminently debatable but in the end, it boils down to perpetrators believing they are “freedom fighters,” engaged in a valid but asymmetric war. ETA in Spain, the IRA in Ireland and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are prime examples. Pakistan, the prime exporter of terror, uses another convenient phrase to describe them: ‘Non State Actors’. The use of religion to propagate violence is as old as history itself but what we are witnessing now, and not just in India, is a sharp spike in intolerance.Globally, nationalists in many countries, post-financial meltdown, see immigration as a threat to the prosperity of the native population.We have seen the results of that in recent government policies in France and other European countries, as well as increasingly, in America. In today’s globalised world, the miracle of communications has removed barriers of distance, language, and culture.This ideally should mean that we have become more accustomed to other religions and other races. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. In a world that has shrunk, intolerance has begun to play a larger role.Denmark, one of the most tolerant countries in the world, has turned inwards thanks to one incident, the cartoon controversy, and it has led to a social polarisation of its Muslim community. Across Europe, and now America thanks to its Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin’s legacy, the popularity of right wing ideologies is also on the rise, another indicator that globalisation and economic integration does not translate into social integration. However the rise of intolerance in India has a more dangerous edge because of ignorance, lack of education, poverty, communal bias, deep-rooted and uniformed prejudices and political instigation.One month after 26/11, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underlined the threat at, paradoxically, the abode of peace, Santiniketan, during a convocation lecture when he said: “Today, we are witnessing an unacceptable rise in intolerance. Our society seems more divided, more angry, and, tragically, more violent.” The roots of intolerance go back some way.Nathuram Godse was its original manifestation but of late, it has acquired a more prominent, more violent, and more political face.India’s founding fathers produced a document of extraordinary beauty, wisdom, intellect and foresight, the Constitution of India, which laid out the framework for a secular, democratic state, in effect, a template for caste, communal and religious tolerance. It has been consigned to the dustbin of history.Politics, the origin and bane of most social ills in India today, has been the prime mover.Parties like the Shiv Sena and its family offshoots have taken intolerance and insularity to frightening levels, mainly because it has been accompanied by violence, threats and bullying. The larger objective is to create a climate of fear and thus garner a larger share of votes from the indigenous community in the guise of giving greater employment opportunities and promoting local culture. The only culture it really promotes is bigotry.However loudly and publicly they may protest, the Sangh Parivar’s hate groups have taken that to another level, not just in Ayodhya and elsewhere but in the destruction of movie halls and exhibition centres showing what they consider material that is ‘antinational’ and “insulting” to Indian culture.That culture is not Indian; it is communal, blinkered and restricted to right wing Hindu extremists. The hate groups who commit such intolerant acts invariably do so to chants of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Hind’, the signature of ‘nationalist terrorists.’ In India’s case, that can now translate into hyper-nationalism. M F Husain, India’s bestloved and best-known artist, has completed over a decade in exile, thanks to these selfappointed guardians of Indian culture. More recent examples include abuse and violence directed at Kashmir separatist leaders in Delhi and against television channels that broadcast ‘pseudo-secular’ distortions. Historian Ramachandra Guha has written about the shrinking liberal space in India and that is a troubling trend. We who think differently, who worship other gods, or speak in a different tongue are becoming moving targets in the intifada of intolerance.

Turkmenistan Might Muscle NABUCCO and Trans-Caspian Pipeline Into Existence

NABUCCO: Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and invite Russia to participate in a territorial dispute with Iran

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov met with representatives of the media urged Russian companies to take part in the laying of submarine pipeline systems in the Caspian Sea, the correspondent of IA REGNUM. The head of Turkmenistan underlined the interest of Turkmenistan in collaboration with companies with which his country has a long and fruitful working and who have solid experience and highly relevant engineering and technical framework for implementation of complex objects.

“In particular, this applies to Russian companies, with which Turkmenistan has long established reliable partnership and which enjoy great prestige in the world, including the laying of submarine pipeline systems” – said Berdimuhamedov.

According to him, Russia has always been a strategic partner for Ashgabat. “We are bound by historical and economic relations, and today many Russian companies are successfully operating on the Turkmen market. Therefore, Turkmenistan would have welcomed the participation of both Russian companies and companies of any other country in view of mutual benefit and feasibility”, – said the Turkmen leader.

The head of the Turkmen state once again voiced his country’s principled position not to allow politicization of pure economic projects. “As gas prices may be recalled Turkmenistan put forward at the UN concept of energy security, which clearly set equal relationship suppliers, transit countries and consumers. Therefore, any special or new approaches to the principles of calculating the export of Turkmen gas will not. As you know, Turkmenistan sells its gas at the border, and its price is derived from an international formula, taking into account the changing global energy market conditions demand. This means that in the sale of Turkmen gas to European direction Turkmenistan will adhere to generally accepted international principles, without prejudice to any of the parties – suppliers, transit countries and consumers. Thus, we are ready to cooperate on the basis of pragmatism with all stakeholders, “- concluded the head of Turkmenistan.

As already informed news agency REGNUM, the territorial division of the Caspian Sea between the Caspian states – Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran – still not resolved. Negotiating with the EU and investors an alternative to Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline NABUCCO as a potential supplier to its Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, Turkmenistan comes from the fact that for the construction of the Trans-Caspian pipeline across the Caspian Sea rather the consent of those countries, whose actual waters it will pass, then is Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Thus, Turkmenistan excludes the participation of at least neighboring Iran in determining the fate of projects affecting the waters of the Caspian Sea, to which Iran is in principle the claim. So far Azerbaijan has unofficially supports the line of Turkmenistan to Iran’s withdrawal from the process of discussing the draft, leaving himself room to maneuver around the EU-backed gas pipeline project NABUCCO and necessary for its implementation of the Trans-Caspian pipeline.

Source – a REGNUM

Tunisian Wikileaks Putsch–CIA Touts Mediterranean Tsunami of Coups

[The US will keep thinking that it is winning until the very end.  Expect no let-up in these destabilization scenarios, as the CIA continues to play every string on every purloined instrument in its secret arsenal, looking for that big “Win”.]

Libya, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan, Italy All Targeted; US-UK Want New Puppets to Play Against Iran, China, Russia;

Obama Retainers Cass Sunstein, Samantha Power, Robert Malley, International Crisis Group Implicated in Destabilizations

Webster G. Tarpley
TARPLEY.net

Washington DC, January 16, 2011 – The US intelligence community is now in a manic fit of gloating over this weekend’s successful overthrow of the Tunisian government of President Ben Ali. The State Department and the CIA, through media organs loyal to them, are mercilessly hyping the Tunisian putsch of the last few days as the prototype of a new second generation of color revolutions, postmodern coups, and US-inspired people power destabilizations. At Foggy Bottom and Langley, feverish plans are being made for a veritable Mediterranean tsunami designed to topple most existing governments in the Arab world, and well beyond. The imperialist planners now imagine that they can expect to overthrow or weaken the governments of Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, and perhaps others, while the CIA’s ongoing efforts to remove Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi (because of his friendship with Putin and support for the Southstream pipeline) make this not just an Arab, but rather a pan-Mediterranean, orgy of destabilization.

Hunger revolution, not Jasmine revolution
Washington’s imperialist planners now believe that they have successfully refurbished their existing model of CIA color revolution or postmodern coup. This method of liquidating governments had been losing some of its prestige after the failure of the attempted plutocratic Cedars revolution in Lebanon, the rollback of the hated IMF-NATO Orange revolution in Ukraine, the ignominious collapse of June 2009 Twitter revolution in Iran, and the widespread discrediting of the US-backed Roses revolution in Georgia because of the warmongering and oppressive activities of fascist madman Saakashvili. The imperialist consensus is now that the Tunisian events prefigure a new version of people power coup specifically adapted to today’s reality, specifically that of a world economic depression, breakdown crisis, and disintegration of the globalized casino economy.

The Tunisian tumults are being described in the US press as the “Jasmine revolution,” but it is far more accurate to regard them as a variation on the classic hunger revolution. The Tunisian ferment was not primarily a matter of the middle class desire to speak out, vote, and blog. It started from the Wall Street depredations which are ravaging the entire planet: outrageously high prices for food and fuel caused by derivatives speculation, high levels of unemployment and underemployment, and general economic despair. The detonator was the tragic suicide of a vegetable vendor in Sidi Bouzid who was being harassed by the police. As Ben Ali fought to stay in power, he recognized what was causing the unrest by his gesture of lowering food prices. The Jordanian government for its part has lowered food prices there by about 5%.

Assange and Wikileaks, Key CIA Tools to Dupe Youth Bulge
The economic nature of the current unrest poses a real problem for the Washington imperialists, since the State Department line tends to define human rights exclusively in political and religious terms, and never as a matter of economic or social rights. Price controls, wages, jobless benefits, welfare payments, health care, housing, trade union rights, banking regulation, protective tariffs, and other tools of national economic self-defense have no place whatsoever in the Washington consensus mantra. Under these circumstances, what can be done to dupe the youth bulge of people under 30 who now represents the central demographic reality of most of the Arab world?

In this predicament, the CIA’s cyberspace predator drone Julian Assange and Wikileaks are providing an indispensable service to the imperialist cause. In Iceland in the autumn of 2009, Assange was deployed by his financier backers to hijack and disrupt a movement for national economic survival through debt moratorium, the rejection of interference by the International Monetary Fund, and re-launching the productive economy through an ambitious program of national infrastructure and the export of high technology capital goods, in particular in the field of geothermal energy. Assange was able to convince many in Iceland that these causes were not nearly radical enough, and that they needed to devote their energies instead to publishing a series of carefully pre-selected US government and other documents, all of which somehow targeted governments and political figures which London and Washington had some interest in embarrassing and weakening. In other words, Assange was able to dupe honest activists into going to work for the imperialist financiers. Assange has no program except “transparency,” which is a constant refrain of the US UK human rights mafia as it attempts to topple targeted governments across the developing sector in particular.

“Yes we can” or “Food prices are too damn high!”
Tunisia is perhaps the first case in which Assange and Wikileaks can make a credible claim to have detonated the coup. Most press accounts agree that certain State Department cables which were part of the recent Wikileaks document dumps and which focused on the sybaritic excess and lavish lifestyle of the Ben Ali clan played a key role in getting the Tunisian petit bourgeoisie into the streets. Thanks in part to Assange, Western television networks were thus able to show pictures of the Tunisian crowds holding up signs saying “Yes we can” rather than a more realistic and populist “Food prices are too damn high!”

Ben Ali had been in power for 23 years. In Egypt, President Mubarak has been in power for almost 30 years. The Assad clan in Syria have also been around for about three decades. In Libya, Colonel Gaddafi has been in power for almost 40 years. Hafez Assad was able to engineer a monarchical succession to his son when he died 10 years ago, and Mubarak and Gaddafi are trying to do the same thing today. Since the US does not want these dynasties, The obvious CIA tactic is to deploy assets like Twitter, Google, Facebook, Wikileaks, etc., to turn key members of the youth bulge into swarming mobs to bring down the gerontocratic regimes.

CIA Wants Aggressive New Puppets to Play Against Iran, China, Russia
All of these countries do of course require serious political as well as economic reform, but what the CIA is doing with the current crop of destabilizations has nothing to do with any positive changes in the countries involved. Those who doubt this should remember the horrendous economic and political record of the puppets installed in the wake of recent color revolutions – people like the IMF-NATO kleptocrat agents Yushchenko and Timoshenko in Ukraine, the mentally unstable warmongering dictator Saakashvili in Georgia, and so forth. Political forces that are foolish enough to accept the State Department’s idea of hope and change will soon find themselves under the yoke of new oppressors of this type. The danger is very great in Tunisia, since the forces which ousted Ben Ali have no visible leader and no visible mass political organization which could help them fight off foreign interference in the way that Hezbollah was able to do in checkmating the Lebanese Cedars putsch. In Tunis, the field is wide open for the CIA to install a candidate of its own choosing, preferably under the cover of “elections.” Twenty-three years of Ben Ali have unfortunately left Tunisia in a more atomized condition.

Why is official Washington so obsessed with the idea of overthrowing these governments? The answer has everything to do with Iran, China, and Russia. As regards Iran, the State Department policy is notoriously the attempt to assemble a united front of the entrenched Arab and Sunni regimes to be played against Shiite Iran and its various allies across the region. This had not been going well, as shown by the inability of the US to install its preferred puppet Allawi in Iraq, where the pro-Iranian Maliki seems likely to hold onto power for the foreseeable future. The US desperately wants a new generation of unstable “democratic” demagogues more willing to lead their countries against Iran than the current immobile regimes have proved to be. There is also the question of Chinese economic penetration. We can be confident that any new leaders installed by the US will include in their program a rupture of economic relations with China, including especially a cutoff of oil and raw material shipments, along the lines of what Twitter revolution honcho Mir-Hossein Mousavi was reliably reported to be preparing for Iran if he had seized power there in the summer of 2009 at the head of his “Death to Russia, death to China” rent-a-mob. In addition, US hostility against Russia is undiminished, despite the cosmetic effects of the recent ratification of START II. If for example a color revolution were to come to Syria, we could be sure that the Russian naval presence at the port Tartus, which so disturbs NATO planners, would be speedily terminated. If the new regimes demonstrate hostility against Iran, China, and Russia, we would soon find that internal human rights concerns would quickly disappear from the US agenda.

Key Destabilization Operatives of the Obama Regime
For those who are keeping score, it may be useful to pinpoint some of the destabilization operatives inside the current US regime. It is of course obvious that the current wave of subversion against the Arab countries was kicked off by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her much touted speech last week in Doha, Qatar last week, when she warned assembled Arab leaders to reform their economies ( according to IMF rules) and stamp out corruption, or else face ouster.

Given the critical role of Assange and Wikileaks in the current phase, White House regulations czar Cass Sunstein must also be counted among the top putschists. We should recall that on February 24, 2007 Sunstein contributed an article entitled “A Brave New Wikiworld” to the Washington Post, in which he crowed that “Wikileaks.org, founded by dissidents in China and other nations, plans to post secret government documents and to protect them from censorship with coded software.” This was in fact the big publicity breakthrough for Assange and the debut of Wikileaks in the US mainstream press — all thanks to current White House official Sunstein. May we not assume that Sunstein represents the White House contact man and controller for the Wikileaks operation?

Every Tree in the Arab Forest Might Fall
Another figure worthy of mention is Robert Malley, a well-known US left-cover operative who currently heads the Middle East and North Africa program at the International Crisis Group (ICG), an organization reputed to run on money coughed up by George Soros and tactics dreamed up from Zbigniew Brzezinski. Malley was controversial during the 2008 presidential campaign because of the anti-Israeli posturing he affects, the better to dupe the Arab leaders he targets. Malley told the Washington Post of January 16, 2011 that every tree in the Arab forest could now be about to fall: “We could go through the list of Arab leaders looking in the mirror right now and very few would not be on the list.” Arab governments would be well advised to keep an eye on ICG operatives in their countries.

Czar Cass Sunstein is now married to Samantha Power, who currently works in the White House National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director (boss) of the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights – the precise bureaucratic home of destabilization operations like the one in Tunisia. Power, like Malley, is a veteran of the US intelligence community’s “human rights” division, which is a past master of using legitimate beefs about repression to to replace old US clients with new puppets in a never-ending process of restless subversion. Both Malley and Power were forced to tender pro forma resignations during the Obama presidential campaign of 2008 – Malley for talking to Hamas, and Power for an obscene tirade against Hillary Clinton, who is now her bureaucratic rival.

Advice to Arab Governments, Political Forces, Trade Unions
The Arab world needs to learn a few fundamental lessons about the mechanics of CIA color revolutions, lest they replicate the tragic experience of Georgia, Ukraine, and so many others. In today’s impoverished world of economic depression, a reform program capable of defending national interests against the rapacious forces of financial globalization is the number one imperative.

Accordingly, Arab governments must immediately expel all officials of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and their subset of lending institutions. Arab countries which are currently under the yoke of IMF conditionalities (notably Egypt and Jordan among the Arabs, and Pakistan among the Moslem states) must unilaterally and immediately throw them off and reassert their national sovereignty. Every Arab state should unilaterally and immediately declare a debt moratorium in the form of an open-ended freeze on all payments of interest and principal of international financial debt in the Argentine manner, starting with sums allegedly owed to the IMF-World Bank. The assets of foreign multinational monopolistic firms, especially oil companies, should be seized as the situation requires. Basic food staples and fuels should be subjected to price controls, with draconian penalties for speculation, including by way of derivatives. Dirigist measures such as protective tariffs and food price subsidies can be quickly introduced. Food production needs to be promoted by production and import bounties, as well as by international barter deals. National grain stockpiles must be quickly constituted. Capital controls and exchange controls are likely to be needed to prevent speculative attacks on national currencies by foreign hedge funds acting with the ulterior political motives of overthrowing national governments. Most important, central banks must be nationalized and reconverted to a policy of 0% credit for domestic infrastructure, agriculture, housing, and physical commodity production, with special measures to enhance exports. Once these reforms have been implemented, it may be time to consider the economic integration of the Arab world as an economic development community in which the foreign exchange earnings of the oil-producing states can be put to work on the basis of mutual advantage for infrastructure and hard commodity capital investment across the entire Arab world.

The alternative is an endless series of destabilizations masterminded by foreigners, and, quite possibly, terminal chaos.

Gone to Gulag: Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl

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Gone to Gulag: Diary of a Soviet Schoolgirl, posted with vodpod

Baloch High Court Bails Bugti

BHC grants bail to Shahzain, 26 others

The Balochistan High Court (BHC) Monday granted bail to Shahzain Bugti and his arrested aides who were arrested last month.

According to a private television channel, the court ordered to release of each on Rs five lac bail amount.
A single bench of the Balochistan High Court comprising Justice Noor Muhammad Miskanzai had reserved on Thursday its judgment on the bail application of Shahzain Bugti, provincial president of the Jamhoori Watan Party.
Shahzain and 26 others were arrested by the Frontier Corps last month allegedly possessing huge quantity of weapons.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Mentor goes on trial in Jordan

Mentor of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader goes on trial in Jordan

By The Associated Press (CP)

AMMAN, Jordan — The Palestinian-born mentor of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has pleaded innocent at the opening of his terrorism trial in Jordan.

Isam Mohammed Taher al-Barqawi and three other Jordanians of Palestinian origin, including a fugitive being tried in absentia, are charged with recruiting militants in Jordan to join a “terrorist organization” identified as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

If convicted, the four face 15 years in jail.

Monday’s hearing was adjourned until Jan. 30 to hear prosecution witnesses.

Copyright © 2011 The Canadian Press

Zardari-Panetta meeting `attended by ISI chief`

[Gen Pasha comes to Washington to watch-dog Zardari’s meet with him, even though he has been called and subsequently declined to testify in a Brooklyn courtroom in the David Headley Mumbai trial.]

Dawn

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha attended an important meeting that President Asif Ali Zardari held with CIA chief Leon Panetta here on Friday, dispelling a perception that the government of Pakistan did not want to involve the military in its dealings with the Americans.

Diplomatic sources told Dawn that Gen Pasha was not in the presidential entourage which arrived here on Thursday. He travelled alone, participated in the president’s meeting with Mr Panetta but stayed away from other activities.

President Zardari left Washington on Saturday evening at the conclusion of the visit during which he also met US President Barack Obama along with Ambassador Husain Haqqani.

Although President Obama came with his entire national security and counter-terrorism team for the meeting, President Zardari did not take any other official with him, causing wild speculation in the media about the purpose and contents of his talks with the US leader.

President Zardari also met other US officials and lawmakers but his meeting with the CIA chief was considered the most important after the one with President Obama at the White House.

After the Zardari-Obama talks,  the White House issued a statement saying that the two leaders focused on shared efforts to fight terrorism and to promote regional stability.

But no statements were issued after President Zardari’s meeting with the CIA chief, which led to speculative reports in the media that Mr Panetta had come with plans to expand drone attacks to areas in and around Quetta where the Americans believe some senior Taliban leaders are hiding.

Since the CIA supervises the drone strikes such speculations were easy to make. Both Pakistani and American officials are refusing to disclose the topics discussed at the meeting.

“We do not discuss intelligence matters,” said Ambassador Haqqani when asked to comment on such reports at a briefing during the president’s visit.

But diplomatic observers in Washington say that Gen Pasha’s participation in Mr Zardari’s meeting with the CIA chief contradicts at least one part of these speculative reports which claimed that the Zardari government wanted to keep the military out of its talks with the Americans.

US/Saudi Manipulation of Lebanon Situation Enters a New Phase

Regional summit may delay P.M. showdown

March 8 to nominate Karami to challenge Hariri over post of prime minister
By Hussein Dakroub
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s political divisions appeared set to deepen Monday as the country prepared for a fierce battle over the prime minister’s post after the March 8 coalition decided to name former Prime Minister Omar Karami as a rival candidate to try and oust caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

A political source, however, said President Michel Sleiman might at the last minute postpone binding parliamentary consultations set to start at noon Monday to give regional leaders meeting in Syria later in the day time to exert efforts to ease tension between the rival factions in Beirut.

M.P. Suleiman Franjieh told Al-Jadid television Sunday night that M.P.s of the March 8 coalition would name Karami as its choice for prime minister during the consultations.

Earlier in the day, Hariri’s parliamentary Future bloc and its allies in the rival March 14 camp nominated Hariri as their only candidate for premier amid rising political tensions following the collapse of Hariri’s national unity Cabinet last week and the imminent release of a U.N.-backed court’s indictment into the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The result of the consultations with the 128-member Parliament, which end Tuesday, is far from certain. The rival camps have around 58 or 59 M.P.s each with M.P. Walid Jumblatt holding the decisive vote with his 11 lawmakers. Jumblatt has not announced whom he his bloc will nominate.

The rival factions’ battle for the premiership came amid a flurry of regional diplomatic activity aimed at defusing tension in Lebanon and helping the feuding parties to agree on a new Cabinet.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Damascus Monday to discuss with Syrian and Qatari leaders on how to help prevent Lebanon sliding further into crisis, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Hariri visited Ankara last week to seek support from Erdogan after the collapse of his Cabinet. Turkey, like other states in the region, fears instability in Lebanon could have consequences in the wider region.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group and its March 8 allies would not name Hariri to form a new Cabinet during Monday’s consultations. “The opposition unanimously will not name Hariri tomorrow” as their candidate for premier, Nasrallah said in a televised speech Sunday night. He said political leaders faced “a big national and historic responsibility” in choosing a new prime minister.

Hariri’s Cabinet collapsed last week after Hizbullah and its allies resigned in a dispute over the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s impending indictment into Rafik Hariri’s killing. The indictment, to be issued early this week, is widely expected to accuse some Hizbullah members of involvement in Hariri’s killing, raising fears of sectarian violence. The S.T.L. has been at the root of long-simmering tensions between the March 8 and March 14 camps.

Franjieh, an ally of Hizbullah, warned of political assassinations that would lead to sectarian strife as a result of the S.T.L.’s indictment and the Cabinet crisis. “We are heading for security incidents that would lead to strife,” he told AL-Jadid TV.

Hariri’s parliamentary Future bloc decided during a meeting Sunday to nominate Hariri to head the new government at the consultations, according to a statement read by M.P. Atef Majdalani after the meeting. Majdalani said the bloc has decided to keep its meetings open in view of the current government crisis.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly discussed Lebanon’s crisis with Hariri and reiterated Washington’s call on rival factions to maintain calm. “We urge all the parties in Lebanon to work together to find a solution for the numerous issues that face the Lebanese people,” Connelly said in a statement after meeting Hariri. “It is now more important than ever that all sides commit to constructive dialogue and avoid escalating tensions in the country.” She said she discussed with Hariri his meeting last week with President Barack Obama in the U.S. She renewed U.S. support for the S.T.L. and criticized Hizbullah and its allies for bringing down the Cabinet.

“We discussed the importance of the S.T.L. and its continuing work to assist the Lebanese people put their tragic and bloody history of political violence behind them once and for all,” Connelly said. “The tribunal is an independent, international judicial process whose work is not subject to political influence – either from inside Lebanon or from outside. The efforts by the Hizbullah-led coalition to collapse the Lebanese government only demonstrate their own fear and determination to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke by telephone with Sleiman Saturday to discuss the situation in Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported. Clinton said the U.S. stood on Lebanon’s side at this time according to what the Lebanese decide for themselves, the N.N.A. said.

Sleiman said rival Lebanese factions would eventually be able to reach a solution for the political crisis through dialogue and resort to constitutional rules, the N.N.A. reported.

Speaker Nabih Berri said in remarks published Sunday he would not name Hariri for prime minister unless he complied with the Saudi-Syrian efforts to resolve the Lebanese crisis. In an interview with the Saudi newspaper Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Berri said the Saudi-Syrian initiative, which reached a dead end last week, still provided a chance for a solution for Lebanon’s crisis.

Following the collapse of Hariri’s Cabinet, Berri said Lebanon has entered “a caretaker stage” that would not end in the near future whether Hariri was reappointed to form a new cabinet or the opposition named another candidate. “We have entered a tunnel whose beginning we know but whose end we don’t see,” Berri said. He added that he was still convinced the Lebanese crisis could be solved by the Saudi-Syrian efforts. He stressed the importance of forming a national unity Cabinet, saying that he had preferred from the beginning that such a cabinet be headed by Hariri. “But after what happened, we need him [Hariri] to confirm his commitment to the Saudi-Syrian efforts,” he said.

Free Patriotic Movement leader M.P. Michel Aoun, who is allied with Hizbullah, said legislators who name Hariri for premier during Monday’s consultations would be supporting “corruption and false testimony.” In an address to the M.P.s, Aoun told a news conference in Rabieh, “anyone who stands on Hariri’s side will be standing on the side of corruption and false testimony.”

“In the atmosphere of forfeiture and financial corruption, we cannot accept the continuation of the same pattern in government,” Aoun said.

Jumblatt, who held talks on the Lebanese crisis with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus Saturday, met with Berri Sunday to discuss the latest developments, the N.N.A. said.

The Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, has come out in support of Hariri’s nomination as prime minister in what seemed to be a warning to the March 8 coalition against naming another candidate. “The formation by Prime Minister Saad Hariri of the next government is in the interest of all of Lebanon.”

Disadvantaged turn to disobedience in US — RT

[This falls under the “random acts of kindness” theory, only this represents random acts of resistance.  It is sort of like vandalism, but not as extreme or as illegal.  Using some loop hole to give random free subway rides to deprive “Big Brother/Fat Cats” of a little excess profit is like trowing a little sand in the machinery of the system; if enough people join in with similar acts of resistance, tossing-in their own bit of sand, then hopefully the whole thing might grind to a halt.

I guess that it is something to do on a nice sunny morning, while waiting for Western civilization to either explode or collapse because of its crimes and excesses.]

Disadvantaged turn to disobedience in US

Lauren Lyster

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Disadvantaged turn to disobedience in US — RT, posted with vodpod

Caught in the eye of the financial crisis, underprivileged Americans have begun seeking ways to subvert system inequality by turning to the new tactic of economic disobedience.

Researchers and activists are documenting that wages in the US have been dropping while benefits and pensions are being cut. In the face of this, some have turned to a different form of protest that does not entail carrying placards or statement-making arrests. This form of resistance is happening in places hardly visible.

In poor neighborhoods in New York City, some residents organize to raise a little money to buy subway cards offering unlimited rides, and swipe as many people in as they can to give them a free ride.

For Ollie, one of the activists who organizes this form of disobedience, most importantly it is a response to an economic system that he sees as unfair.

“Taxes are cut for wealthy people and there are bailouts for banks and none of it reaches people in this neighborhood, and we think that is wrong,” Ollie said.

“I think fundamentally it is a neighborhood of immigrants and it is always been that way – a neighborhood that has never had much of a political voice. If they are not going to bail us out this is what we’ll do to bail ourselves out,” he states.

Lisa Dodson, an American sociologist, found this subversion of the system is happening across the country. However, she also discovered that the practice extends to middle-class businesses, where managers break rules to help their employees.

“These were managers who felt that the people working for them – doing their jobs, being responsible – were still unable to take care of their family,” Dodson, from Boston College, described.

In her research, Dodson found grocery store managers sending bags of food home with workers, fast food managers padding paychecks with overtime wages. Though she said most of these managers were generally opposed to breaking rules, they felt their actions were justified by the circumstances.

“Ignoring the fact that people who are working very hard for you are unable to feed their children…in the minds of some people at least, that has become a bigger wrong,” Dodson added.

Egyptian Copy-Cat Torches Self Outside Parliament In Cairo, Hoping to Spark Revolution

Egyptian sets fire to himself at parliament: source

An Egyptian opposition activist waves the Tunisian flag (L) during a protest in Cairo in support of the ouster of Tunisian president.

CAIRO – A man set himself on fire outside parliament in Cairo on Monday, a parliament source said, in an apparent copycat replay of the self-immolation of a Tunisian graduate which sparked a popular revolt.

The man “stood outside the People’s Assembly, poured fuel on himself and set himself on fire,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

“A policeman who was close by managed to extinguish the fire and the man was quickly taken away by ambulance,” the source added.

The man has not been identified and his condition was not immediately known.

The incident comes after 26-year-old Tunisian graduate Mohammed Bouazizi torched himself in Tunisia when police prevented him from selling fruit and vegetables to make a living.

The case of Bouazizi, who would later die of his wounds, unleashed a wave of protests in Tunisia that would eventually topple the 23-year-old regime of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

Egyptians have often voiced similar grievances to Tunisians. They have long complained of economic hardships and Cairo has regularly come under criticism for failing to lift an emergency law in place for three decades.

On Friday, dozens of Egyptians celebrated the ouster of the veteran president outside the Tunisian embassy in central Cairo.

– AFP/ir

Apparent Rift Between Israeli Govt. and Military Brass Over Potential Iran Assault

Israel army brass and Barak clashed on Iran war: report

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM

(Reuters) – Israel’s military chief objected last year to a proposal to attack Iranian nuclear sites by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who retaliated by cutting the general’s tenure, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, who retires next month, believed that “initiating a war will only bring disaster upon Israel” and won Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “promise that his view would be heard,” the Haaretz daily said.

“This had a fatal impact on (Ashkenazi’s) relationship with the defense minister,” said the unsourced report by columnist Aluf Benn, who has broken stories on secret cabinet debates.

Ashkenazi, a career infantryman, took command of Israel’s armed forces in 2007 after his predecessor, Dan Halutz, resigned in disgrace over the inconclusive Lebanon war the year before.

Citing professional considerations, Barak announced last April that Ashkenazi’s four-year term would not be extended by a year, as is customary. The defense minister named Yoav Galant, the general in charge of Israel’s Gaza front, to succeed him.

“The impression is that Galant is more aggressive on Iran and will not block Netanyahu and Barak, who are eager to go into battle” against Iran, the Haaretz report said.

The Netanyahu government has been publicly circumspect on resorting to force against Iran. Israel sees a potential mortal threat in its arch-foe’s nuclear program but would face big tactical and diplomatic hurdles in trying to take it on alone.

Some analysts assess that the prospects of an imminent Israeli war on Iran have ebbed, thanks to the perceived success of diplomatic and covert actions against Tehran..

GOVERNMENT AGAINST GENERALS

Israel has endorsed international sanctions designed to get Iran, which denies having hostile designs, to curb its uranium enrichment. Netanyahu said Tuesday these measures should be shored up by the United States and other world powers posing a “credible military option” against the Iranians.

Haaretz described a rift between Israel’s two most powerful elected leaders and the heads of the security services, who it said have been “moderates” like Ashkenazi when it came to Iran.

One of those officials, Mossad director Meir Dagan, stepped down last week, saying in a valedictory briefing that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear bomb before 2015 and that Israel should not rush into military confrontation.

Another official named by Haaretz, military intelligence general Amos Yadlin, retired last month. The third, Shin Bet domestic security chief Yuval Diskin, ends his term in May.

Haaretz said “2010 went by without a war with Iran. In the winter no one goes to war because the clouds limit air force operations. But in 2011, a conflict is brewing.”

While the new crop of generals and spymasters could prove more cooperative to war orders from the Netanyahu government, its inexperience may also make Israel vulnerable to reprisals from Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian allies.

Jahangir Arasli of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a Dubai- and Beirut-based think-tank, said Israel’s enemies could even be “emboldened to test the water” by firing first.

That risk, Arasli said in a report, “will potentially increase significantly, culminating by summer 2011. However, the stage is getting prearranged and a spiral may start to unfold as early as this spring.”

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Ehud Barak Quits Netanyahu’s Labour Party Over Settlements/Peace Process Issue

Israel’s defense minister quits Labour

Jerusalem – Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that he was leaving the iconic Labour Party and forming a new faction in parliament, completing a split in the party over the handling of peace talks with the Palestinians.

The move did not immediately threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority, but will likely rob the coalition of its most moderate members.

Barak, a former prime minister and one of the most powerful members of the government, is expected to stay in the ruling coalition with four followers. But Labour’s eight remaining members were expected to quit, leaving Netanyahu with only a narrow majority of 66 seats in the 120-seat chamber.

“It’s clear to me that’s what will happen,” said Cabinet Minister Avishai Braverman, a Labour lawmaker not splitting off to join the new Barak-led faction.

Barak, along with his four allies, announced his move in a letter obtained by The Associated Press. A formal announcement was expected later on Monday.

Barak made the move to pre-empt growing discontent within Labour over his support of the government’s handling of peace efforts with the Palestinians.

With talks stalled for more than three months, an increasing number of Labour members had urged him to pull out of the government because of the impasse. One member, Daniel Ben-Simon, quit the party last week to protest Barak’s decision to remain in the government.

Labour is the most dovish faction in an otherwise hardline government.

– AP

50 Years After Ike Warned Us

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EISENHOWER WARNS AMERICA OF THE MILITARY INDUST…, posted with vodpod

Today the military industrial complex is our government.

“I pledge allegiance to the Pentagon of the United States.”

 

Special Tribunal Carries Especially Big Surprises

What now for Lebanon?

Franklin Lamb

Originally published in Al Manar 


South Beirut — Informed Congressional sources in Washington DC today
are confirming that the White House has informed Congressional Committee
Chairpersons and American allies that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
(STL) will indict Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Wali al
Faqui (jurisconsult or Supreme Religious Leader) for issuing the order to
assassinate Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The US and Israel believe
Iran’s motive was that PM Hariri was considered a serious threat to Tehran
and Damascus because their intelligence agencies established that Hariri was
conspiratorially linked to Saudi Arabia, France and the United States–and
by extension, Israel.

One could be forgiven for getting confused by the “its Syria!, no its not its
Hezbollah!, ohmygod it’s really Iran!” labyrinth in the Hariri assassination
saga this past half decade. Late this week key Congressional leaders have
been advised by the White House that the execution order targeting Hariri
was delivered by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds force chief Qassem
Suleymani to Hezbollah’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh. The US,
Israel and their allies intend to back with an international media campaign,
the STL theory that Mughniyeh and his brother-in-law, Mustapha Badr
al-Dine met on several occasions and handpicked the team that carried out
the assassination. Moreover, that Syrian President Bashar al-Aassad,
and his brother-in-law, Syrian intelligence chief Assef Shawkat, also played
key roles in organizing Hariri’s assassination. The US government expects
that each of these named individuals, including several Hezbollah leaders,
will be indicted and convicted, almost certainly in absentia.

Within the coming weeks the US Congressional lobby is expected to initiate
in the House and Senate a total cut off of American aid to Lebanon unless
resigned Prime Minister Hariri is immediately returned to office. This aid
cutoff will be vociferously demanded by AIPAC despite statements to the
contrary by American Ambassador Maury Connelly in Beirut earlier today.
Ambassador Connelly spoke to reporters following a meeting with Hezbollah
ally General Michel Aoun, leader of the Change and Reform parliamentary
bloc (FPM) at his residence in Rabieh. It was a rare visit indeed by an
American Ambassador with Aoun, a gentleman who the US Embassy has
privately labeled “megalomaniac”. The visit by the US Ambassador reflected
Aoun’s newly enhanced political status this weekend. Ms. Connelly assured
the media gathering that “the United States remains steadfast in its support
for Lebanon’s state institutions through our robust military, security, and
economic development assistance. We expect a new government will emerge
through constitutional procedures, and our strong partnership with Lebanon
will obviously endure.”

Few in Lebanon, or the region for that matter, give much credence to the
Ambassador’s statement, particularly as Hezbollah is now the de facto new
majority and can administer the government as its wants should it choose.
The Lebanese Parliamentary lineup is probably, as of today, 64 seats for the
US-Saudi team and 64 seats for the Lebanese National Resistance. Moreover,
the momentum favors Hezbollah since it picked up support from Walid
Jumblatt’s five member Progressive Socialist Party Parliamentary bloc, after
Jumblatt broke with Washington in 2008 (Walid delayed announcing his
switch until 2009 just in case Washington wanted to make amends which
apparently they did not). What caused Jumblatt to bolt from March 14 was
his friend Jeffrey Feltman’s failure to deliver on promised support for
Jumblatt’s very risky May 2008 political challenge to Hezbollah. Feltman
pledged “all the help you need Walid. You can take it to the bank.” Jumblatt
has stated publicly that he felt “stiffed” by the Americans but he still likes
Jeffrey personally, if not politically.

The White House has made it plain that America expects Saad Hariri to be
returned to his Prime Ministerial post. That event is unlikely to occur.
Yet, the Hezbollah led opposition might allow Hariri to be a caretaker until
the 2013 elections—but only if he fulfills their earlier demands and
withdraws Lebanon from any association with the STL. The Obama
administration has informed Congress that it would view a Hezbollah-led
coalition assuming power in Lebanon as a direct threat to its strategic
interests in the region and would likely, at a minimum, respond with an
intense destabilization campaign. Frankly, there is little the Obama
Administration can do that it has not tried before to squeeze Lebanon and it
has little influence over events here partly due to the facts that the US is
way overstretched in the region and is barely taken seriously in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Levant countries
these days.

Moreover, President Obama is said by one Congressional source to believe
that Hezbollah is not interested in the hands on, “Jimmy Carter” style of
governing for Lebanon or being involved in dealing with every detail of
Lebanon’s very complicated sectarian system. The White House is said to
expect Hezbollah to play a major role in forming the next government and
some State Department staffers believe that it may even play a constructive
role in shaping a policy statement that will govern the day to day running
of the government. Few but the Israel lobby in Washington believe, or even
mention, the idea that Hezbollah has any interest in an Islamic Republic
system for Lebanon, repeatedly disavowed by Hezbollah officials including
Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah is expected to increase
its focus on Israel and continue to apply its skills and manpower to build a
regional deterrence to Israeli aggression while working for domestic
tranquility and stability. “In short, as one Congressional staffer via email,
“Washington is not panicked by events in Lebanon at this time. We have
bigger problems in the region and we’ll watch the STL’s progress and
see what happens as a result of the indictments. But for sure we will not sit
on our hands if things get out of hand.” The White House is said to be
considering French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s idea of creating a “contact
group” comprised of United States, France, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
Turkey to negotiate a solution to the latest crisis.

There continues to be much speculation about the timing of the Special
Tribunal indictments and what they will mean on the street. Bookies at the
Casino de Liban near Jounieh have odds that those indicted will be named
publicly on next month’s valentine’s day, the 6th anniversary of the Hariri
murder. Others are holding their bets arguing that using that date would
make the STL prosecutor’s office appear too politicized, a charge Prosecutor
Daniel Bellemare has been chafing under for more than a year. The STL has
said that the names of those indicted will be kept sealed when prosecutor
Bellemare sends them to Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen. The public will
likely learn the names of those indicted when arrest warrants are issued by
the Court.

Despite civil war still being talked about as a possibility here in Lebanon,
it has proven impossible to ignite to date even though it would suit US-Israel
political goals. The sage of Lebanon, former Prime Minister Salem el Hoss
predicts Lebanon is now headed for a long period of governmental
stagnation while domestic and foreign actors angle for political and military
advantages. Dr. Hoss explained that a civil war is unlikely given the
attitudes of the young generation and the fact that none of the sects could
successfully confront the Opposition led by Hezbollah and western powers
lack credibility here.

More likely would be Israel undertaking a White House green-lighted
invasion of Lebanon to degrade Hezbollah and Syria as a base toward the
weakening of Iran from ground level. Congressional sources report that the
Pentagon disagrees with Israel and intend to attack not from the base
but from above the top of the Resistance pyramid, which is Iran. The US will
hit Iran hard thus hopefully opening up another attempt to peel away
Syria and forced them to accept a peace deal with Israel. The scheme would
return the Golan heights to the Assad regime minus the 100 meters
strip along Syria’s Lake Tiberius. This sliver of lake front is where former
Syrian President Hafez Assad told President Bill Clinton in 2000, he used to
swim as a kid. He also told Clinton that Syria’s demand for its full return
was non-negotiable, the same position adamantly held today by the Syrian
government.

In Beirut, discussing the likelihood of street violence, a March 14th Hariri
supporter attending Professor Norman Finkelstein’s public lecture at AUB
last night told this observer that Lebanon needs stability and justice. “Let
all the dead from Lebanon’s black civil war period rest in peace. It’s time
to move on and rebuild our fractured country. I say all those who have been
killed in Lebanon are equal.”

Well almost.

The enthusiastic young man did not believe his counsel should apply to the
case of his personal idol, former P.M. Rafik Hariri, who while not the first PM
to be killed in office, is the first one to be killed with such powerful friends
insisting on “justice.”

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached c/o
fplamb@gmail.com

Radical roots blow back

Zia Khan

The ideological bond between jihadis and Pakistani security forces is anything but broken.

On a freezing winter’s night, a contemplative Ali Sher warms himself near a roaring bonfire and recalls the most wonderful time of his life — time spent training new recruits at a Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) camp in Smahani sector of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, close to the Line of Control.

As a teenage jihadi training at al Qaeda’s infamous Yawar Camp in Khost in the early 90s, Ali Sher once met Osama bin Laden and Jalaluddin Haqqani on what he describes as the luckiest morning of his life. The 35-year-old father of a baby boy is overwhelmed with emotions when he remembers this time.

His last assignment was to hide Mullah Akhtar Usmani, the Taliban commander of Kandahar, in Pakistan, after the Twin Towers were bombed and before the Taliban regime was driven out by the Americans.

“What I liked most about jihad,” he says, “was that we were backed by the ISI [Inter Services Intelligence].”

Though he quit the complicated jihadi underworld soon after 9/11, Ali still remembers the ISI officers he worked with. Today, he finds it hard to accept that the intelligence apparatus that was once hand in glove with jihadi groups is now out to get them.

“I do not believe that the ideological relationship between us and the ISI was so weak that it was broken by 9/11,” says Ali,
recalling how jihadi ideologues like the slain Maulana Yousaf Ludhianvi of Karachi’s Binori Town seminary were revered in the army.

His conviction seems to be based on sound reasons; the ideological bond between jihadis and Pakistani security forces is anything but broken. The Punjab governor’s assassination in the federal capital a few weeks ago was just the latest manifestation of radicalised ideologies infiltrating Pakistani security forces. When an elite police commando shouted “Allah-o-Akbar!” after spraying Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer with bullets, it was a grim reminder of how radicalisation has seeped into Pakistani security forces.

Taseer’s assassination has raised a fundamental question: how genuine are concerns that segments of Pakistani security apparatus are inclined to the hardline ideology espoused by al-Qaeda?

Though Malik Mumtaz Qadri’s crime was immediately dubbed ‘an individual act’ by commentators and politicians, it is reflective of much more than that.

“Security forces are made of and influenced by society. They are not raised in isolation, so their radicalisation is natural,” says Fida Khan, who has been covering Talibanisation in Pakistani society for a Japanese newspaper. “What was officially begun during Zia’s era is now haunting security institutions,” he adds, referring to the deliberate state policy between 1979 and 1988 in which radicalisation was promoted in the army.

Taseer, an outspoken liberal, was at the heart of a controversy surrounding a Christian woman charged with blasphemy. Aasia Bibi was sentenced to death by a local court in central Punjab for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), despite the fact that it is common knowledge that the blasphemy law is used to settle personal vendettas. The woman and her family denied the charge, and it was Taseer who visited Aasia Bibi in prison and called for an amendment to the unfair law. But on Friday, December 31, 2010 clerics burned Taseer’s effigies when they carried out countrywide protests against the government’s alleged plan to repeal or amend the blasphemy laws. This, despite the fact that the government has categorically denied having any intention to amend the blasphemy laws several times.

Taseer’s murder appears to be unique because the governor was a high-profile target. It seems that this is the first time that an elite police guard has been persuaded by a radical ideology to kill a person he was deployed to safeguard. But in recent years, there have been several incidents in which low-level officials from Pakistan’s military and paramilitary forces have become radicalised enough to actually defect to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A few years ago a Pakistan Army officer from Chakwal abandoned his training at an infantry college to join a Taliban faction led by Commander Abdul Wali alias Omar Khalid in Mohmand. This young radical threatened to blow up a military academy for fresh recruits in Abbottabad though he thankfully never delivered on his threat. Similar reports of young army officers abandoning their posts to become Taliban foot soldiers in the tribal badlands are becoming more common than ever. The military regularly denies these allegations but, in 2008, British journalist Christina Lamb revealed that a Taliban fighter killed by Nato’s Special Forces in the Helmand province of Afghanistan was identified as a Pakistani army officer. This claim too was denied by the Pakistan army.

Similarly, in the 2009 attack on the Pakistani Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the nine militants were led by Aqeel alias Dr Usman who was once associated with the military. The radicalisation of security forces was also apparent when a suicide bomber who attacked the office of World Food Programme in Islamabad turned out to be a member of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary.

Should such incidents be taken as individual acts or do they reflect a problem much bigger than a single person getting carried away by religious ideologies in the heat of the moment? While it may be comforting to believe the ‘lone gunman’ theory, the frequency of these acts indicates the presence of a larger and far more dangerous trend.

“You need to understand the whole dynamics under which security forces and especially the secret services operate. Religion comes into the picture as a motivational tool right at the outset of training, but there are chances that it can become the dominant ideology, even eclipsing the working command and control structure,” says Irfan Shahzad, an Islamabad-based expert who has been tracing the trend of rising militancy in Pakistani society and the country’s armed forces.

But a snippet from Ali Sher’s conversation is enough to understand the phenomenon: “the ideological bond between them [the ISI] and us was simply unbreakable… that made us bolder and we were certain that no one on earth could defeat us.”

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, January 16^th, 2011.