Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 28th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | The Bush Administration in a policy decision in July 2008 authorized the US forces in Afghanistan to cross the internationally recognized boundary of its ally and conduct a raid without the permission of the Pakistani government. The decision to go into Pakistan was probably based on several domestic and international factors.
US gives up ground raids into Pakistan * NYT report says White House now relying on CIA Predator airstrikes in Tribal Areas LAHORE: The United States is refraining from using its special forces on Pakistani territory following a raid nearly two months ago that resulted in civilian casualties and vehement protests from Islamabad, The New York Times (NYT) reported on its website late Sunday. “The White House has backed away from using American commandoes for further ground raids into Pakistan after furious complaints from its government, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the Central Intelligence Agency against militants in the Pakistani mountains,” the report said.There were at least 18 Predator strikes since the beginning of August, some deep inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, compared with five strikes during the first seven months of 2008, the report noted. Many of the Predator strikes were taking place as deep as 25 miles into Pakistani territory, not just along the border.
The report said US officials had complained that relying on airstrikes alone, the US would be unable to weaken Al Qaeda’s grip in the Tribal Areas. It said that following a US attack on September 3, National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani made an unannounced visit to Washington and expressed Pakistan’s anger in person to top White House officials, including his counterpart Stephen Hadley. It said Pentagon officials had publicly praised the Pakistan Army’s aggressive campaign against the Taliban in Bajaur Agency. However, some US officials were ‘wincing’ at a full-scale military operation taking a heavy toll on civilians. “They don’t have a concept of counter-insurgency operations,” one senior US official said. “It’s generally a heavy punch and then they leave.” daily times monitor
After the February elections Islamabad had a new fragile and fractious coalition government in place which was learning the ropes. Additionally the new government was busy in some domestic issues which did not allow it to focus on Afghanistan immediately. Things were not going well in the Afghan war. ISAF, NATO and US forces had briefed the US Administration that they were unable to win the war against the 38 insurgent groups fighting in Afghanistan. They anti-occupation forces are lumped together by the media as "the Taliban". However they are not the Taliban. The Taliban were Talibs (students) who were raised in refugee camps in Pakistan. The Talibs/Taliban were recruited by the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence services to go back into Afghanistan and try to bring peace to the war torn region--still caught up in a fratricidal civil war after the departure of the Soviet forces. The birth of the Talibs is usually lumped into the basket of Pakistan. The other parent is seldom mentioned. Congressman Rohrabaker in a s Senate briefing said "let me repeat, the CIA created the Taliban". Congressman Rohrabacker was as active in recruiting, arming, training the Talibs/Taliban as Congressman Charlie Wilson was in arming their predecessors the Afghan Mujahideen. Both groups were highly valued by the US politicians and were invited to the corridors of power in Washington. Unable to bring about an Afghan surge, President Bush sensing an opportunity decided to escalate the war and expand the the theater of war to put pressure on Islamabad.
One reason for the attack could have been the expropriation of the hawkish stance of Senator Barack Obama who had on multiple occasions declared that "in the presence of actionable intelligence, if high value targets had been identified, and if the Pakistanis will not or cannot cooperate, I will go into Pakistan to pick up Osama Bin Laden". President Bush wanted to pull the rug from under Senator Obama's bluster and prove that the Bush bravado was bigger than the Democratic aggressive statements. The attack failed to achieve any purpose other than to really piss off the Pakistanis
The US was taken aback by the ferocity of the Pakistani response to President Bush's push into Pakistan. The response included the following actions by the Pakistan Army.
1) The US Ambassador was summoned and an unusually strong damarche (diplomatic rebuff) was handed to him.
Zardari's tour de force on his visit to New York was not his flirtation with Sarah Palin. His masterpiece was not even his speech at the UN General Assembly at which he proclaimed to the world the "Bhutto Doctrine of Reconciliation" as the silver bullet to defeat terrorism, the Western world's current bugbear. The real jewel, because it was not a personal peccadillo but reflected the policy of President Zardari's government, was his remark on Sept 26, during a brief appearance before the media alongside Condoleezza Rice, that he looked upon US support as a "blessing." A blessing we can do without Wednesday, October 15, 2008, Asif Ezdi
2) Pakistan's National Security Advisor to the USA (he is the Security "Ambassador" to America) made a special trip to Washington and lodged a formal protest.
NEW YORK, Oct 27: Following “furious complaints” by Islamabad, Washington has backed away from using American commandos for further ground raids into Pakistan, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the CIA against militants in the mountains, the New York Times reported on Monday. However, the newspaper quoted American and Pakistani officials as saying that the attacks by remotely piloted Predator aircraft had increased sharply in frequency and scope over the past three months.
Through Sunday, there were at least 18 Predator strikes since the beginning of August, some deep inside tribal areas, compared with five strikes during the first seven months of this year. At the same time, however, officials told the newspaper that relying on airstrikes alone, the United States would be unable to weaken Al Qaeda’s grip in the tribal areas permanently. Within the government, advocates of the ground raids have argued that only by sending Special Operations forces into Pakistan can the United States successfully capture suspected operatives and interrogate them for information about top Qaeda leaders.
The decision to focus on an intensified Predator campaign using Hellfire missiles appears to reflect dwindling options on the part of the White House for striking a blow against Al Qaeda in the Bush administration’s waning days. After months of debate within the administration and mounting frustration over Pakistan’s reluctance to carry out more aggressive operations, President Bush finally gave his approval in July for ground missions inside Pakistan.
But the only American ground mission known to have taken place was a Special Operations raid on Sept 3, in which the roughly two dozen people killed included some civilians. American officials say there has not been another commando operation since. American officials acknowledge that following the Sept 3 raid they were surprised by the intensity of the Pakistani response, which included an unannounced visit to Washington, three weeks after the incursion, by National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani. He registered his anger in person with top White House officials.
But the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying that no tacit agreement had been reached to allow increased Predator strikes in exchange for a backing off from additional American ground raids, an option the officials said remained on the table. Protests led US to stop ground attacks: paper By Masood Haider
3) The invading US forces were fired upon and some forces had to retreat back across the Durand Line into Afghanistan
4) Unconfirmed reports say that one US helicopter was shot down. This was denied by the US commanders who claimed that the chopper had mechanical failure
5) Pakistani jets forced some of the drones back to Afghanistan.
6) Perhaps the most important and most potent response was the cutoff of supplies to the American forces in Afghanistan. More than 70% of the US logistics goes through Pakistan. This includes water, oil, food all the basic ingredients for survival and for fighting a war. The US has about a weeks supply of water and essentials. If the embargo on supplies had been halted, the war in Afghanistan would have come to a screeching halt. The other routes to land locked Afghanistan are not economically or logistically feasible. Pakistan has charged $5 Billion for the logistical support provided to ISAF, NATO and US forces. In a three trillion Dollar war $5 billion as reimbursement is a good deal for the countries fighting a war in Kabul. The US DOD in 2001 calculated that Pakistan suffers a loss of $20 Billion per year (2001 Dollars). The $5 Billion in US Aid to Pakistan is no favor to Pakistan, it is to compensate for the huge loss to Pakistani business and machinery.
7) The Pakistani National Assembly (Majlis e Shoora) and the Aiwan e Bala (Senate) passed a resolution condemning the U S intrusion.
* Resolution says attacks in Pakistan unfortunate, gross violation of sovereignty * Kamil Agha says no need for new resolution, government should implement joint parliamentary resolution
ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Monday strongly condemned missile attacks by US drones in Pakistani territory amidst parliamentarians' demands for implementation of the resolution unanimously passed at the conclusion of the in-camera parliamentary session last week.
Leader of the House in Senate Raza Rabbani tabled a resolution in the House to condemn US drone attacks, which was endorsed unanimously. He assured the House that the US ambassador would be summoned to register Pakistan's protest. He said the National Assembly speaker would constitute a committee to oversee the implementation of the unanimous resolution against terrorism passed by the in-camera session.
Unfortunate: The Senate resolution against drone attacks said strikes inside Pakistan were unfortunate and a gross violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. The resolution underlined that continued incursions were harming the government's efforts to seek a political solution through dialogue.
The House said such strikes were an effort to undermine parliament. It called on the government to ensure such attacks did not recur. The House called on the government to protest with the US as well as NATO and ISAF authorities, and to seek assurances for full respect of Pakistan's sovereignty.
The senators urged the government to implement parliament’s earlier resolution against US drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, rather than merely passing resolutions. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator Ishaq Dar asked the government to ensure implementation of Monday’s resolution, which guarantees sanctity of the Pakistani territory. He demanded the government should inform the House of any action taken to stop such violations.
Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Khursheed Ahmad said foreign forces should know parliament was warning them through a unanimous resolution. He wondered if parliament was capable in checking such attacks. He said the government was ignoring parliament’s verdict and demanded implementation of the parliamentary resolution in letter and spirit. Senator Azam Swati said, "Let us call an enemy an enemy now."
No need: Leader of the Opposition Kamil Ali Agha argued there was no need to move a resolution after parliament had already passed a joint resolution on the issue reflecting the support of the whole nation for the government on the issue. He said the government should ensure implementation of the parliamentary resolution passed at the conclusion of the joint in-camera session instead of repeating such resolutions.
Agha said the government should talk in clear terms with those responsible for such violations of national sovereignty. He demanded the government take notice of what he called trampling of the sentiments and verdict of the people of Pakistan in the form of a joint resolution. Unanimous Senate resolution blasts US attacks By Tahir Niaz. The News
The US continues to bomb targets in Pakistan with increasing frequency. This has created great hardship for the Pakistanis living in FATA. 30,000 have been killed , most of them innocent civilians, women and children. 300,000 have been displaced. Just like the 2 million who died fighting the USSR, these brave Pakhtuns have gotten no recognition, and no help from America or any of the other forces that are fighting in Afghanistan.
The US continues to attack Pakistani territory via drones, even though it knows that the strikes are counterproductive and extremely inaccurate. The bombs on the drones have actually never hit any target and usually rain down on civilian homes, schools and hospitals. As the number of drone attacks increases, the Pakistan Government, Senate and National Assembly is now reacting in a more robust manner.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's foreign ministry said Wednesday that it has lodged a "strong" protest with the U.S. ambassador over missile attacks conducted on Pakistani soil by unmanned drones.
The aftermath of a suspected U.S. drone attack on a building in North Waziristan.
The ministry said it summoned Ambassador Anne Patterson to underscore that such attacks violate Pakistan's sovereignty and should be stopped immediately.A statement from the ministry said Patterson was also told that the attacks have cost lives and undermined public support for Pakistan's counter terrorism efforts.
The ministry lodged its protests three days after a missile strike from a suspected U.S. drone on a compound in South Waziristan killed 20 people. Pakistan has repeatedly raised objections to foreign nations violating its sovereignty to pursue terrorists. A U.S. ground operation in September that left several civilians dead rankled relations between the two countries. Last week, Pakistan's parliament passed a resolution that condemned any incursion on Pakistani soil by foreign forces.
The resolution called for a review of the country's national security strategy and said the government needs to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The ministry said it handed Patterson a copy of the resolution.
The U.S. and NATO, which have troops in Afghanistan, have been seeking a way to effectively battle militants who launch attacks from Pakistan's swath of tribal areas along the border. They have become frustrated with Islamabad over the years, saying it is not being proactive enough against militants -- a claim Pakistan denies. The United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from drones, which are controlled remotely.
Syria has also responded very strongly to US attacks inside its territory. Neither the Laosification of the Iraqi war into Syria nor the Cambodiazation of the Afghan war into Pakistan will change the realities on the ground-defeat:
The U.S. embassy in Syria's capital has issued a warning to Americans in the country to be alert following a raid on eastern Syria that Damascus blames on U.S. forces. The embassy says "unforeseen events" could prompt officials to close the embassy to the public indefinitely.
Syrians carry coffins of their realtives who were killed yesterday in a US military raid on the village of Sukkiraya, on the Syria-Iraq border, 27 Oct 2008
Syria has protested to the United Nations about Sunday's deadly helicopter raid. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released Tuesday, Syria urged U.N. member states to prevent a repeat of the attack, calling it a serious violation of Syria's sovereignty. Syria's letter also says the U.N. Security Council should take action against those responsible for the raid, saying it killed eight Syrian civilians, including children. The identity of the casualties has not been independently verified. Syria Warns it May Close US Embassy By VOA News 29 October 2008
Maleeha Lodhi, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the UK, and the former Pakistani Ambassador to the USA says the following:
For most Pakistanis however, the litmus test of the next American administration will be whether it is prepared to treat Pakistan with respect. In the final analysis this intangible may count for as much as finding the right mix of trade and aid that goes beyond advancing America's own interest. If there is a consensus in Pakistan about future dealings with the US, it is that the advent of a new Administration will offer a window of opportunity for Islamabad to recalibrate relations with Washington on the basis of national honour, respect and reciprocity. If the new American president could understand that, it would be a major step forward for such a critical relationship.
The Afghan war was considered unwinnable by the USA and talks were initiated by the US in Saudi Arabia.
Western officials, led by Britain, have pushed for negotiations with the Taliban in recent weeks after the violence in Afghanistan has reached a seven-year high. Some officials claim Mullah Omar and the Taliban have split from al Qaeda, but US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal they see no evidence of such a split.
Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the outgoing commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said winning the war was "neither feasible nor supportable" and the West should work to reduce the level of violence in the country.
Over the last week, several senior Western officials have said the International Security Assistance Forces could not win the war militarily and that negotiations with the Taliban were necessary to secure the peace. Brigadier Richard Blanchette, a British general who serves as the spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, advocated negotiations with the Taliban and said no military solution was possible in Afghanistan.
Kai Eide, the United Nation's Special Representative in Afghanistan, echoed Blanchette's statements. "I've always said to those that talk about the military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more political energy," Eide said on Oct. 6. "We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. That means political engagement." Taliban mock West for calling Afghanistan unwinnable
By Bill RoggioOctober 14, 2008 4:00 PM
This is how the Taliban have been responding.
"The Islamic Emirate wants to make it clear that the only solution and the most successful path for resolving the Afghanistan problem is for the foreign forces to leave Afghanistan unconditionally and to respect Afghanistan's national independence and Islamic faith," the statement, issued in English, read. "Surely it is only then that peace, stability and prosperity would return to Afghanistan, otherwise all hue and cry and slogans will be empty, fruitless and ineffective."
"If the Americans, British, and at their behest the United Nations wish to keep the invading forces of 38 countries in Afghanistan, and at the same time ensure peace and reconciliation to their liking, they are dreaming an immature and empty fantasy."
The Taliban said the al Qaeda-linked group is "on the verge of victory" while the West is engaged in "a series of artificial gestures and a hue and cry about talks." Taliban mock West for calling Afghanistan unwinnable By Bill RoggioOctober 14, 2008 4:00 PM
President Zardari and his team of financial advisers are saying unbelievable things. Are they trying to take the country for a ride or trying to play blind mans poker brinkmanship. It is a dangerous game. By all accounts and going by his own words It seems that President Zardari's team is ready to pull a rabbit out of his hat! The problem is no one can believe what Mr. Zardari says. He says one things and does the exact opposite. He flirts with world leaders, tries to charm news paper editors with words that they want to hear, avoids conflict with opponents whom he calls allies, and calms down enemies by evoking no threat from them.
DUBAI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Pakistan is in no danger of defaulting on its debt and is still considering whether to expand on technical help from the International Monetary Fund, its central bank governor said on Wednesday.
Shamshad Akhtar said a technical package would be announced in due course but that the country was still mulling over its options for finding capital to deal with a balance of payments crisis that has rocked its economy.
"We are taking steps to build up the reserves. We are developing a macroeconomic stabilisation package which will help us attract capital flows," said Akhtar, governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.
"We have a technical engagement with the IMF and in due course a package will be announced," she said on the sidelines of an Islamic finance meeting in Dubai.
Asked if Pakistan would turn to the IMF, she said "it is under consideration. We have a few plans and we have other options.... There will be no default by Pakistan."
Pakistan has just a few weeks to raise billions of dollars in foreign loans needed to meet debt payments and pay for imports.
Islamabad's seven-month-old government, running Pakistan after more than eight years under former army chief Pervez Musharraf, has been reluctant to go to the IMF and has been looking for help from friendly governments. No chance of Pakistan default, mulls IMF aid-c.bank Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:11am EDT (Adds quotes, background, details)
The Murdock press is having a field day with the difficulties faced by Pakistan. The triumphalist Indian media is going ballistic. The media is full of press reports about Pakistan with countdowns and the usual Indian glee whenever Pakistan has a little trouble. Pakistanis and the world is used to Indian doom and gloom prophecies. Many countries face an economic crisis today--the USA, UK, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Iceland...the list is long. Many will go to the IMF. It is not good, but it is not the end of the world. Pakistan's banking system has already been through a crisis. The banking system is sound. The problem lies with teething pains that come with any new government, war on its borders, US electioneering rhetoric that scared away investors from Pakistan PPPP incompetence, a lack of governance and a world financial crisis.
No chance of Pakistan default, mulls IMF aid-c.bank Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:11am EDT (Adds quotes, background, details)
But little assistance has materialised. Moody's cut Pakistan's credit rating by one level to B3 on Tuesday and warned of further cuts.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after talks with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad on Tuesday that an agreement on help for Pakistan could not be delayed.
A group of friendly countries, dubbed Friends of Pakistan, are also set to meet in the United Arab Emirates in November to discuss ways of assisting Pakistan.
(Reporting by Daliah Merzaban, Writing by Lin Noueihed and Amran Abocar; editing by Patrick Graham). No chance of Pakistan default, mulls IMF aid-c.bank Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:11am EDT (Adds quotes, background, details)
Christian Science Monitor is ready to a join Apple, Betamax, and an elite list of products that that were so far superior to the competition that that the consumer thought the world of them--yet they were not commercially viable. To call them failures just because the inferior product won the marketplace is an inaccurate depiction of the situation.
In the first of what could be a series of print newspaper closings, the Christian Science Monitor has announced the end of its daily print format and its switch to a Web-based publication. Starting April 2009, the 100-year-old news organization will no longer publish daily physical newspapers and will focus its content on the Internet. It will, however, publish a weekly print magazine.
The new daily edition of the Monitor will be available by paid subscription and delivered as a PDF file via e-mail Monday through Friday. The weekly print edition will cost $3.50 per copy or $89 for a year's subscription. The print edition will feature more in-depth content on high quality 10-by-12-inch paper.
The majority of the decision is based on money. The Monitor is a nonprofit financed by a church and delivered through the mail, and has seen a steady decline in readership over the past 40 years. For it to be the first print newspaper to close makes sense in these circumstances, and may not herald the immediate foreclosure of other, wealthier news organizations.
For years, the newspaper industry has declined in profit and subscriptions, as newsmongers more often than not log onto the Internet to get their daily fix. In the era of RSS feeds and constantly updating blogs, physical newspapers are hard pressed to compete against the sheer volume of material and wide range of sources. By mid-afternoon, most print dailies are old news.
With its decision to go online-only, the Monitor not only stabilizes its finances -- allowing better funding for journalism abroad -- but it also enters its second century at the forefront of the digital revolution. This move may be seen to some as the Internet "killing" a venerable, century-old publication. To me, it's the evolution of modern journalism; a logical and progressive step in the direction many more will approach in the years to come. Christian Science Monitor Goes Online-Only Brennon Slattery Oct 29, 2008 10:43 am
Christian Science Monitor to discontinue daily print edition
Associated Press The front page of The Christian Science Monitor is seen in Boston Monday. A century after it began publication, The Christian Science Monitor is giving up its daily print edition. The century-old publication will move almost exclusively to online publication. The change is expected to cut annual costs by millions of dollars for the money-losing newspaper.
The century-old Christian Science Monitor said Tuesday that it would discontinue its daily print edition in April and move almost exclusively to online publication, becoming the first major national newspaper to abandon a daily paper-and-ink format. The move, which had been expected by industry professionals and the Monitor staff, will cut annual costs by millions of dollars for the money-losing newspaper, which is subsidized by the Christian Science Church. The publication's management and some staff members also contend that the online format will make the report more timely to subscribers, most of whom receive the Monitor by mail a day or two after the paper goes to print.
But the change will present considerable risks. Unlike most daily newspapers, the five-day-a-week Monitor receives the bulk of its revenue from subscriptions, not advertising. The Monitor plans a new weekly magazine to maintain its print presence, but that is expected to bring in only a fraction of the $9.7-million circulation revenue it receives annually. To compensate, the publication will have to increase online advertising dramatically.
The Monitor may also face a delicate balancing act in presenting itself almost exclusively via a new technology. By Michael A. Hiltzik and Tiffany Hsu October 29, 2008
The "demise" of the Christian Science Monitor's print edition should not bee seen a failure of the CSM. This should be seen as the march of technology. The Christian Science Monitor has been our favorite newspaper for the past three decades. In our student life we read it in the library. After we graduated, we subscribed to it. Then we read it online. It is analysis is second to none.
"They're doing something novel and innovative," said Lou Ureneck, head of the department of journalism at Boston University. "On the other hand, they're walking away from tradition, and when we talk about journalism and news coverage, there's a certain heft and continuity associated with tradition that brings credibility."
The Boston-based newspaper's management said Tuesday that the transition was unavoidable -- not only for the Monitor but also possibly the entire newspaper industry.
"I'm not sure that the rest of the industry will follow us, but I think they'll be watching," said Monitor Editor John Yemma. Still, the new Monitor may not be a model for local and regional daily newspapers.
"The Christian Science Monitor is a highly specialized product," with national and international reportage but no local content, noted Alan Mutter, a Bay Area media executive who writes a blog on newspaper economics. "What's good for them may not be good for any other publication."
One unique feature of the Monitor's economics is its subsidy from the church, whose founder, Mary Baker Eddy, launched the publication in 1908. In the fiscal year ending April 30, 2009, the church will contribute $13.3 million to cover the gap between the publication's $25.8 million in expenses and $12.5 million in revenue, Yemma said.
Of that revenue, roughly $800,000 came from advertising, he said. For the newspaper industry generally, by contrast, up to 80% of revenue comes from advertising, which provides almost all of its profits. Subscription fees generally cover only the cost of printing and distribution, industry analyst John Morton said.
Because only about 8% of revenue is generated by newspapers' websites, converting to web-only operation is not yet an option for most, Morton said. "The newspaper economic model is still firmly rooted in print," he said.
Web publication may suit the Monitor well because it faces unusual obstacles in serving its readership by print. Its audience of about 50,000 subscribers is geographically dispersed, making them costly to reach with a physical product.
Yemma said the conversion to online publication would be part of a broader program of cost containment aimed at sharply reducing the church subsidy to $6.5 million by 2013. He said the newspaper's budget would be reduced by about $1.5 million in the next fiscal year, leading to cutbacks among the 95-member editorial staff of 10% to 15%.
One uncertainty is how the change in format will affect the Monitor's distinctive style of journalism, which has won seven Pulitzer Prizes. The newspaper traditionally is heavy on analysis, partially as a consequence of its delivery method: Articles filed by around noon each day don't reach readers until the following afternoon at the earliest.
With such a delay, "you can't be competitive on the news," said Cameron W. Barr, deputy foreign editor at the Washington Post and a former Mideast correspondent for the Monitor. Hiltzik and Hsu are Times staff writers. michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, tiffany.hsu@latimes.com
Many ask, why Gandhi didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize? What if Dr. Martin Luther had known about Gandhi's racism?
If Dr. King had known about about the Zulus (African tribe) and the Kaffirs (African tribe), he surely would have voiced his concern.Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906 Dr. King may not have read Time Magazine and the explosive stories about Mr. Gandhi’s personal life. The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politician Dr. King probably knew only about the propaganda clips of Mr. Gandhi and never really new the man. The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence Dr. King on moral high ground condemned wars. He would have been shocked to find out that Gandhi supported the British wars extending the British empire.Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties Dr. King was probably unaware about Gandhi’s open racism.Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society. Dr. King did not know that Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down. Dr. King would have been appalled if he knew that Gandhi insisted on calling Hitler his “friend” and that his advice to the Jews was horrible piece of Anti-SemitismGandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler. Dr. King would have been horrified if he had known about Mr. Gandhi’s personal fetishes.Sex life of Mohandas Gandhi, his failures and sexual perversion Martin Luther probably would be appalled if he knew about what Gandhi said about Africans and blacks in South Africa
Mr. Gandhi was nominated twice. The first time his efforts in South Africa were considered benefiting the Indians only.
In his report, Professor Worm-Müller expressed his own doubts as to whether Gandhi's ideals were meant to be universal or primarily Indian: "One might say that it is significant that his well-known struggle in South Africa was on behalf of the Indians only, and not of the blacks whose living conditions were even worse."
The 2nd time his name was disqualified for proposing war against Pakistan. Based on a telegram from Reuters, The Times, on September 27, 1947, under the headline "Mr. Gandhi on 'war' with Pakistan" reported:
"Mr. Gandhi told his prayer meeting to-night that, though he had always opposed all warfare, if there was no other way of securing justice from Pakistan and if Pakistan persistently refused to see its proved error and continued to minimise it, the Indian Union Government would have to go to war against it. ... (Mohandas K. Gandhi, Spetember 27th, 1947)
In 1937 a member of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament), Ole Colbjørnsen (Labour Party), nominated Gandhi for that year's Nobel Peace Prize, and he was duly selected as one of thirteen candidates on the Norwegian Nobel Committee's short list. Colbjørnsen did not himself write the motivation for Gandhi’s nomination; it was written by leading women of the Norwegian branch of "Friends of India", and its wording was of course as positive as could be expected.
The committee's adviser, professor Jacob Worm-Müller, who wrote a report on Gandhi, was much more critical. On the one hand, he fully understood the general admiration for Gandhi as a person: "He is, undoubtedly, a good, noble and ascetic person – a prominent man who is deservedly honoured and loved by the masses of India." On the other hand, when considering Gandhi as a political leader, the Norwegian professor's description was less favourable. There are, he wrote, "sharp turns in his policies, which can hardly be satisfactorily explained by his followers. (...) He is a freedom fighter and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist. He is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician."
Gandhi had many critics in the international peace movement. The Nobel Committee adviser referred to these critics in maintaining that he was not consistently pacifist, that he should have known that some of his non-violent campaigns towards the British would degenerate into violence and terror. This was something that had happened during the first Non-Cooperation Campaign in 1920-1921, e.g. when a crowd in Chauri Chaura, the United Provinces, attacked a police station, killed many of the policemen and then set fire to the police station.
A frequent criticism from non-Indians was also that Gandhi was too much of an Indian nationalist. In his report, Professor Worm-Müller expressed his own doubts as to whether Gandhi's ideals were meant to be universal or primarily Indian: "One might say that it is significant that his well-known struggle in South Africa was on behalf of the Indians only, and not of the blacks whose living conditions were even worse."
The name of the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate was to be Lord Cecil of Chelwood. We do not know whether the Norwegian Nobel Committee seriously considered awarding the Peace Prize to Gandhi that year, but it seems rather unlikely. Ole Colbjørnsen renominated him both in 1938 and in 1939, but ten years were to pass before Gandhi made the committee's short list again.
A frequent criticism from non-Indians was also that Gandhi was too much of an Indian nationalist. In his report, Professor Worm-Müller expressed his own doubts as to whether Gandhi's ideals were meant to be universal or primarily Indian: "One might say that it is significant that his well-known struggle in South Africa was on behalf of the Indians only, and not of the blacks whose living conditions were even worse."
Without that millstone Gandhiji around its neck, India would be a Great Power today and not just a vector for disease and late night appeals from missionary groups seeking to deculturalize Indians.
Gandhi's limitations as a family man. Where the world sees a saint, Rajmohan Gandhi sees a cruel husband and a mostly absent father, paying scant attention to his children's schooling and dragging wife Kasturba across continents at will, belittling her desire for the simplest of material possessions, then expecting her to comply when he turns from amorous husband to platonic companion to apparent adulterer. Gandhi took on a magnetic personality in the presence of young women, and was able to persuade them to join him in peculiar experiments of sleeping and bathing naked together, without touching, all apparently to strengthen his chastity. (Whether these experiments were always successful is anyone's guess.) It is also revealed that Gandhi began a romantic liaison with Saraladevi Chaudhurani, niece of the great poet Rabindranath Tagore—a disclosure that has created a buzz in the Indian press. The author tells us that Gandhi, perhaps disingenuously, called it a "spiritual marriage," a "partnership between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is wholly absent." http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609478,00.html
1. gandhi hated blacks http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/17/1066364486503.html?from=storyrhs " But, when forced to share a cell with black people, Gandhi wrote: "Many of the native prisoners are only one degree removed from the animal." " Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136) Mohandas Gandhi’s description of black inmates. [Kaffirs are a tribe in South Africa] 2. gandhi enjoyed enemas in a sexual way: "Gandhi would do enemas twice a day and if he liked you allowed you to enter the piece up his rectum. " http://rupeenews.com/2007/12/25/six-stories-of-mohandas...s-sexual-perversion/ 3. gandhi slept with young girls to test if he was still a man: "Each night he slept naked between two young girls to prove his sanctity" http://www.ralphmag.org/AJ/gandhi.html 4. gandhi advised the jews to commit mass suicide: “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004247.html 5. gandhi praised hitler: In a letter to Hitler in 1941, Gandhi wrote: "Nor do I believe that you are the monster described by your opponents." 6. gandhi did nothing for blacks in south africa, only indian: "In 1906 Gandhi had participated in a war against Blacks. The Gandhian literature either keeps quiet on the subject or tries to paint him as a great humanitarian who actually helped Blacks by rendering to them urgent medical care. Had he not done so, we are told, many Blacks would have died. While researching the historical documents, however, I found that Gandhi’s participation had nothing to do with “humanitarian concerns” for Black people. He was more concerned with “allying relationships” with the colonial Whites living in Natal colony. Driven by his racial outlook, he went out of his way to enlist Indians to join the army under him to fight for his cause against the Blacks. He also considered Indians living in South Africa to be “fellow colonists” along with the White colonists, over the indigenous Blacks." http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/aah/singh_12_3.htm 7. gandhi scorned blacks so much that he successfully changed legislation to give indians a separate door from blacks at the post office. Gandhi wrote: “In the Durban Post and telegraph offices there were separate entrances for natives and Asiatics and Europeans. We felt the indignity too much and many respectable Indians were insulted and called all sorts of names by the clerks at the counter. We petitioned the authorities to do away with the invidious distinction and they have now provided three separate entrances for natives, Asiatics and Europeans.” http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo/2008/1...ion-of-black-people/ 8. gandhi was a wife beater : "Despite his pacifist philosophy, he was a wife-beater." http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003987/bio
GANDHI ON BLACKS AND RACE RELATIONS (Zulus and Kaffirs were African tribes in South Africa) “A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150) Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: “One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105) “Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245) His description of black inmates: “Only a degree removed from the animal.” Also, “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” - Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136)
.
1947: Victory and Defeat
In 1947 the nominations of Gandhi came by telegram from India, via the Norwegian Foreign Office. The nominators were B.G. Kher, Prime Minister of Bombay, Govindh Bhallabh Panth, Premier of United Provinces, and Mavalankar, the President of the Indian Legislative Assembly. Their arguments in support of his candidacy were written in telegram style, like the one from Govind Bhallabh Panth: "Recommend for this year Nobel Prize Mahatma Gandhi architect of the Indian nation the greatest living exponent of the moral order and the most effective champion of world peace today." There were to be six names on the Nobel Committee's short list, Mohandas Gandhi was one of them.
The Nobel Committee's adviser, the historian Jens Arup Seip, wrote a new report which is primarily an account of Gandhi's role in Indian political history after 1937. "The following ten years," Seip wrote, "from 1937 up to 1947, led to the event which for Gandhi and his movement was at the same time the greatest victory and the worst defeat – India's independence and India's partition." The report describes how Gandhi acted in the three different, but mutually related conflicts which the Indian National Congress had to handle in the last decade before independence: the struggle between the Indians and the British; the question of India's participation in the Second World War; and, finally, the conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities. In all these matters, Gandhi had consistently followed his own principles of non-violence.
The Seip report was not critical towards Gandhi in the same way as the report written by Worm-Müller ten years earlier. It was rather favourable, yet not explicitly supportive. Seip also wrote briefly on the ongoing separation of India and the new Muslim state, Pakistan, and concluded – rather prematurely it would seem today: "It is generally considered, as expressed for example in The Times of 15 August 1947, that if 'the gigantic surgical operation' constituted by the partition of India, has not led to bloodshed of much larger dimensions, Gandhi's teachings, the efforts of his followers and his own presence, should get a substantial part of the credit."
Having read the report, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee must have felt rather updated on the last phase of the Indian struggle for independence. However, the Nobel Peace Prize had never been awarded for that sort of struggle. The committee members also had to consider the following issues: Should Gandhi be selected for being a symbol of non-violence, and what political effects could be expected if the Peace Prize was awarded to the most prominent Indian leader – relations between India and Pakistan were far from developing peacefully during the autumn of 1947?
From the diary of committee chairman Gunnar Jahn, we now know that when the members were to make their decision on October 30, 1947, two acting committee members, the Christian conservative Herman Smitt Ingebretsen and the Christian liberal Christian Oftedal spoke in favour of Gandhi. One year earlier, they had strongly favoured John Mott, the YMCA leader. It seems that they generally preferred candidates who could serve as moral and religious symbols in a world threatened by social and ideological conflicts. However, in 1947 they were not able to convince the three other members. The Labour politician Martin Tranmæl was very reluctant to award the Prize to Gandhi in the midst of the Indian-Pakistani conflict, and former Foreign Minister Birger Braadland agreed with Tranmæl. Gandhi was, they thought, too strongly committed to one of the belligerents. In addition both Tranmæl and Jahn had learnt that, one month earlier, at a prayer-meeting, Gandhi had made a statement which indicated that he had given up his consistent rejection of war. Based on a telegram from Reuters, The Times, on September 27, 1947, under the headline "Mr. Gandhi on 'war' with Pakistan" reported: "Mr. Gandhi told his prayer meeting to-night that, though he had always opposed all warfare, if there was no other way of securing justice from Pakistan and if Pakistan persistently refused to see its proved error and continued to minimise it, the Indian Union Government would have to go to war against it. No one wanted war, but he could never advise anyone to put up with injustice. If all Hindus were annihilated for a just cause he would not mind. If there was war, the Hindus in Pakistan could not be fifth columnists. If their loyalty lay not with Pakistan they should leave it. Similarly Muslims whose loyalty was with Pakistan should not stay in the Indian Union."
Gandhi had immediately stated that the report was correct, but incomplete. At the meeting he had added that he himself had not changed his mind and that "he had no place in a new order where they wanted an army, a navy, an air force and what not".
Both Jahn and Tranmæl knew that the first report had not been complete, but they had become very doubtful. Jahn in his diary quoted himself as saying: "While it is true that he (Gandhi) is the greatest personality among the nominees – plenty of good things could be said about him – we should remember that he is not only an apostle for peace; he is first and foremost a patriot. (...) Moreover, we have to bear in mind that Gandhi is not naive. He is an excellent jurist and a lawyer." It seems that the Committee Chairman suspected Gandhi's statement one month earlier to be a deliberate step to deter Pakistani aggression. Three of five members thus being against awarding the 1947 Prize to Gandhi, the Committee unanimously decided to award it to the Quakers.
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 28th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | Pakistan helped the Chinese secure Tibet by giving up Aksai Chin. Without Tibet, present day China would be a fractured country with the Indian army instigating raids on Beijing.
Pakistan helped the US by forming SEATO, and CENTO to contain the USSR. Pakistan contained the dominoes from falling. It was with Pakistani help that the mighty USSR was defeated in Afghanistan. It was the defeat in Afghanistan with forced the USSR to implode. Two million kids died fighting the USSR. No memorials for them.
For one 34-year-old Pakistani soldier, it is a simple matter of respect. The soldier, a Major in the Frontier Corps in the mountainous badlands along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, says recent U.S. military incursions into Pakistan not only breach an agreement between the two countries, but call into question the very spirit of the alliance President Bush says is the most important in the war on terror. "As a Pakistani, nobody likes someone to enter their home. It raises doubts about American credibility and the sincerity of their alliance with Pakistan," says the Major, who asked not to be named because military rules discourage soldiers from speaking to the media. "We have clear territorial limits and when you cross them, it is humiliating for us. The Americans are pushing us against the wall." Far from helping in the fight against terrorist groups, the incursions hurt it, says the Major. Under the circumstances, he adds, "I have to ask myself: 'Why am I doing this?'"
How Pakistan answers that question could help determine the fate of the war on terror. U.S. military leaders have long grumbled that Islamabad's commitment to fighting extremism was ambiguous at best — and duplicitous at worst. The new post-Musharraf government says it is serious about the fight, and offers as proof its two-month long military offensive in Bajaur, the northernmost chunk of the tribal belt. But, say Pakistani officials, U.S. incursions over the past two months, including an incident on Sept. 25 in which two U.S. helicopters and Pakistani soldiers in a border post engaged each other in a five-minute-long firefight, are alienating the Pakistani people and cramping Pakistan's ability to move.
The tensions come as the militants have stepped up their campaign inside Pakistan, strengthening their hold over huge swathes of the country and launching ever more deadly strikes in its cities, including a Sept. 20 truck bombing that killed more than 50 people at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel. U.S. Army General David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, believes the militants are now so strong that they pose an "existential threat to the future of Pakistan." Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters at the Pentagon on September 26 that the terrorist safe haven in Pakistan "has gotten safer this year. The insurgency has gotten more sophisticated."With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington and Omar Waraich/Islamabad
After 911, it was the Pakistanis that caught more than 300 top Al Qaeda leaders. Today Pakistani territory is being bombed by the allies. The same fighters are being killed whose kith and kin were invited to the White House. In 2001, the US DOD calculated that Pakistan was losing $20 Billion per year. As a result of the US war on Terror Pakistan lost at least 140 Billion. The opportunity cost is more than 500 Billion.
Pakistan's leaders say their own response to the terrorist threat has likewise stepped up a notch. They point to the Bajaur offensive as exhibit A: The operation, which began in early August, was initially a defensive action to stop militants overrunning the regional headquarters of Khaar. Over the past few weeks, Pakistani troops have gone on the offensive, using aerial attacks and ground troops supported by tanks and artillery in one of the fiercest battles inside Pakistan since 9/11. Pakistan's army bosses say they have killed more than 1,200 militants, including foreign fighters from the Middle East and Central Asia. The militants, who are armed with Kalashnikovs, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and who have built sophisticated defenses from which to fight, have destroyed at least one Pakistani tank and killed dozens. Pakistani soldiers. Local tribesmen, who have long resented the presence of foreign militants in the region, have formed their own militias to take up the fight. "This is a war which we are fighting," says Rehman Malik, the advisor to Pakistan's prime minister on interior affairs. "As far as recognition, I think our allies are now realizing what we are doing."
Though initially skeptical about the offensive, U.S. military officials now believe the battle in Bajaur is having an impact, not least because it is sucking in militants from around the region. Pakistani officials say the number of attacks in Afghanistan's Kunar Province, across the border from Bajaur, has gone down in the past few weeks, as militants head to Pakistan to help their brothers there. (Coalition officials in Afghanistan say they have noticed no change in activity in Kunar.)
Pakistani officials see Bajaur as a turning point. On President Pervez Musharraf's watch, they say, military offensives were repeatedly cut short to allow deals to be struck with the militants, and the deals invariably failed. This time, says advisor Malik, the militants asked for a ceasefire "which we have declined." The army will fight on, he promises, "until the operation is done to its full conclusion."
But U.S. incursions hurt that fight, Pakistani officials say. Opinion polls routinely show that an overwhelming majority of ordinary Pakistanis oppose U.S. actions inside their country. The government has to respond to public sentiment, leading to harsh, uncompromising language from political and military leaders. General Ashfaq Kayani, Musharraf's successor as military chief, has publicly railed against U.S. operations on Pakistani soil, saying they help the cause of the militancy; he has promised to protect the borders from such incursions. After the September 25 incursion, chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told TIME that Pakistani troops would hereafter shoot at any force "seen as hostile or in an offensive posture," coming across the border. Any Americans making the crossing, he warned, should not expect Pakistani soldiers to ask questions before shooting. "At the level of a [border] post [Pakistani troops] are not to be given shades of an order... they're supposed to engage."With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington and Omar Waraich/Islamabad
The US instead of giving Pakistan market access to America, instead gave it the miserly sim of $5 Billion. The other $5 billion was for reimbursement of services rendered--bases, logistics support, fuel tankers etc etc.
All the same, U.S. officials privately say that air strikes into Pakistan will continue, as will "hot pursuits" across the border, when appropriate. After all, The Bajaur operation is a long way from over, and there is still no guarantee that it won't end in the kind of messy compromise that has marked previous actions. The offensive has already forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes; 20,000 families have fled across the border into Afghanistan to avoid the fighting, taking their stories and grievances with them. If history is any judge, a new generation of militants — as anti-Pakistani as they are anti-American — will emerge from these camps. If Bajaur is a crucial front for the Pakistani military, the terrorists know not to get cornered into any last stands; they are striking across the country. Al-Qaeda and Taliban bombers are now able to strike Karachi and Islamabad; following the Marriott bombing, militants have targeted political leaders across the country. Their reach also imperils the U.S. military's supply lines into Afghanistan — 80% of dry cargo and 40% of the fuel used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan goes through Pakistan.
U.S. military officials plainly want to keep their supply lines running through Pakistan, but are preparing alternate routes if Islamabad orders them shut down. "We're working our way through to understand rail, pipelines, customs, what it would take, are they there in a sufficient scale to allowus to do this?" Marine General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the JointChiefs told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 23. Under the circumstances, say U.S. officials, it makes little sense to give up the option of cross-border operations — the Pakistanis have not yet demonstrated that they can fight this on their own.
Many Pakistanis agree, but argue that the assistance they require doesn't include American boots on Pakistani soil. The Frontier Corps Major says Pakistan needs more help with equipment, not to be marginalized as an ally. "We want to fight this war with such conviction that no one can accuse us offighting this war incompetently," he says. — With reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington and Omar Waraich/Islamabad
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 28th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | History is written by the winner--most of the time. All of us believe that the USA destroyed the Russian evil empire, Capitalism won and the US--the victor lived happily ever after....
Hold on a bit...Socialism is alive, Russia is as strong as ever, and Capitalism as we know it dies in October 2008.
.. we won the Cold War (whoopee!), so that’s all for the history books now...Or did we?
You have to admit, it’s more than a bit odd to see the United States, that bastion of capitalism, led by George W. Bush, that great champion of free market ideology, now massively plunging itself deeply into good old-fashioned socialism in the form of increased welfare state benefits, bailouts, and the nationalization of major industries. Add that to existing programs and those coming around the corner, plus increased regulation, and pretty soon we won’t be far off from being... France! – the nightmare scenario of those sick things on the right. Somehow, in their addled brains, when George W. Bush massively expands government healthcare coverage for seniors that’s a good thing, but, say, providing it to children or to all of us represents evil socialism, the very thing which will destroy the fiber of this mighty country. Nevermind that ‘mighty’ seems to ring more melodious in a sentence with ‘China’ these days than with ‘America’. Only people twisted enough to think that the democratic socialism practiced by contemporary Europeans is some sort of decadent system produced by Satan himself (“My god, they get paid maternity leave!! There’s healthcare for all!! They work far fewer hours per week and have guaranteed seven-week vacations!! This is just wrong!! This humanity is inhuman!!”) could also applaud Bush for doing exactly the same thing for which they’d certainly excoriate Obama for doing.
But make no mistake about it, the American system of political economy has already begun a hard and long overdue tilt to port. As Americans become increasingly exposed to the joys of a globalized market economy, their prior resistance to sensible solutions will melt as fast as their paychecks already have. It won’t be long before there is the rough equivalent of national healthcare here, plus a return to more progressive taxation, fair labor laws and necessary levels of regulation. People can pretend all they want if it makes them happy, but this will nevertheless be a mild form of socialism, not hugely unlike the dreaded European model. And if Americans ever knew the truth about how their system stacks up to France’s or Germany’s or Sweden’s – in terms of leisure time, in terms of lack of stress from worrying about healthcare or education or retirement costs, in terms of health, longevity or infant mortality, and on and on and on – you might see a serious swing to the left on economic questions. All this is possible in an America in which the lies and the crimes of the right have been exposed and repudiated, only to be far more thrashed in the coming years if a President Obama is as smart as I think he is.
So who won the Cold War, then? The capitalists? Yeah, maybe. In the same way that Britain won World War II, that is – only simultaneously to lose power, prosperity and a global empire in the bargain. If you call that winning, then okay.
The only greater thing about America finally maturing enough to adopt a quasi-socialist system is knowing the degree to which that will drive the freaks on the right to utter distraction.
Though they will, of course, still be happy to collect their generous government benefits.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | For the past 5000 years the Khyber pass has witnessed invading armies come into South Asia and then become resident in the fertile plains of the Punjab and the Ganges.
The Aryans come down the Khyber, as did the armies of the Ghaznavids, the Abdalis, the Seljuk Turks, and then the Mughals. The British did not come down the path of the invaders. They came as traders through Bengal (today's Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar) the riches part of the Subcontinent under Siraj Ud Daulah.When the British tried to reverse the path of the invaders, they failed miserably and had to retreat back to the Indus when they stayed.
"The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck,
Our hands and scarfs were saffron-dyed for signal of despair, When we went forth to Paniput to battle with the ~Mlech~, Ere we came back from Paniput and left a kingdom there." -- With Scindia to Delhi by Rudyard Kipling
Somnath and Delhi must have felt the same way as the residents of Islamabad and New Delhi today. Those who define the fault line as the Durand Line forget that in 1526 the fault line was was Panipat not the Hindu Kush. Indian machinations in Kabul are reminiscent of the Marietta messing with the Kabul. With dreams of Mughal grandeur, they began to think of themselves as successors to the Mughals. They began harassing the vassal states of the Ahmed Shah Durrani and ultimately paid the consequences of the harassment.
But 1947 has little or no relevance for a more serious conflagration threatening to engulf the region. I am inclined to look at the turmoil in Afghanistan and its impact on both as rooted in 1526 if not earlier. That year the First Battle of Panipat was fought just north of Delhi between Mughal adventurer Babar and Delhi’s Pathan ruler Ibrahim Lodhi. To my mind the Uzbeks and the Tajiks of Afghanistan’s recent Northern Alliance, and Kabul’s current dominant rulers, form the corner once represented by Babar, who became India’s first Mughal emperor after winning at Panipat.
Incidentally, that battle’s verdict was influenced by a superior technological prowess that came in the form of gunpowder and cannons, which Babar had introduced for the first time in Indian warfare. The challengers, the still ill-equipped but tenacious Pashtuns, seem to closely represent the forces that once belonged to the former fellow Pathan ruler of Delhi.
The venue of the still continuing stand-off between two of South Asia’s most fiercely unrelenting Muslim groups has shifted from Panipat to the regions around an artificially created Durand Line but much of its energy seems to still derive from the historically ingrained fault lines seen in 1526. Add to this the element of the colonial Great Game in a new, more lacerating avatar, predicated on a bizarre if elusive hunt for a few subversives, and we can grasp the genesis of the ferocious confrontation that the NSAs seem to have agreed to face jointly. The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.jawednaqvi@gmail.com
The impact of the invasions from Farghana, Samarkand, Bokhara and Ghazni had long term impacts on the Subcontinent as we see it today. These invasions to much extent destroyed the power of the Brahmins and at the very least liberated 450 million souls who would have been in total bondage of the caste system. The 450 million Muslims (in Pakistan, India and Bangaldesh) today enjoy a decent life whereas the 250 million Dalits (leftover0 are still struggling to find humanity in their souls and their destiny.
Agrand alliance of Durrani from the West and the Ebngalis from the East defeated the Marhattas
Ahmad Shah Durrani (Ahmad Shah Abdali) angered by the news from his son and his allies was unwilling to allow the Marathas spread go unchecked. In 1759 he raised an army from the Afghan (Pashtun) tribes with help from the Baloch and his Rohilla ally Najib Khan. By the end of the year they had reached Lahore as well as Delhi and defeated the smaller enemy garrisons. Ahmed Shah, at this point, withdrew his army to Anupshahr, on the frontier of the Rohilla country, where he successfully convinced the Nawab of OudhShuja-ud-Daula to join his alliance against the Marathas.Wiikipedia
"The lofty and spacious tents, lined with silks and broadcloths, were surmounted by large gilded ornaments, conspicuous at a distance... Vast numbers of elephants, flags of all descriptions, the finest horses, magnificently caparisoned ... seemed to be collected from every quarter ... it was an imitation of the more becoming and tasteful array of the Mughuls in the zenith of their glory." -- Grant Duff, describing the Maratha army[5]
The decline of the Mughal Empire had led to territorial gains for the Maratha Confederacy. Ahmad Shah Abdali, amongst others, was unwilling to allow the Marathas' gains to go unchecked. In 1759, he raised an army from the Pashtun tribes with help from the Baloch people and made several gains against the smaller garrisons. The Marathas, under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau, responded by gathering an army of 100,000 people with which they ransacked the Mughal capital of Delhi. There followed a series of skirmishes along the banks of the river Yamuna at Karnal and Kunjpura which eventually turned into a two-month-long siege led by Abdali against the Marathas. Wiki
The Marhatta dream of conquering Kandhar was not realized. The Marhattas were soundly defeated in 1761
We have already brought Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and other subahs on this side of Attock under our rule for the most part, and places which have not come under our rule we shall soon bring under us. Ahmad Khan Abdali's son Taimur Sultan and Jahan Khan have been pursued by our troops, and their troops completely looted. Both of them have now reached Peshawar with a few broken troops...we have decided to extend our rule up to Kandahar. -- Raghoba's letter to the Peshwa, May 4, 1758[2]
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | The Unwinnable war in Afghanistan is spilling over into Pakistan.ISAF, NATO and the US are losing the war in Afghanistan. We are not saying this. The US, UN, UK and Australian commanders are saying this. The US is in the middle of a major policy review. The arrogant Islamabad head of the CIA was fired because he did not get along with the Pakistanis.
All this points to a depressing scenario for the NATO forces, and their allies, only a portion of which are actually engaged in combat. It goes to the British to put a dampener on undue optimism (not that there was much to begin with) in the conflict. For British Brigadier General Mark Carleton-Smith, commander of the 16 Air Assault Brigade in Afghanistan, the best one could hope for was “reducing [the conflict] to a manageable level of insurgency.” An adequate number of troops were needed to “contain the insurgency to a level where it is not a strategic threat to the longevity of the elected Government” (October 7).
Nothing new there: Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, when chief of the defense staff, warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that Britain risked having its “hand caught in the mangle of Afghanistan.” The key now is merely to redress the level of mangling. Some have advocated firm measures at the local level. Britain’s ambassador to Kabul Sherard Cowper-Coles has ventured that an “acceptable dictator” might be the best solution. The current strategy was “doomed to failure.”
Such jittery opinion should not be dismissed lightly. The British views are particularly important. Having already shed the blood of its soldiers in the Afghan wars of the 19th century, the reluctance to persevere on the current course is understandable. Instead, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has huffed, indignantly claiming that there was “no reason to be defeatist or to underestimate the opportunities to be successful in the long run.” Then, drawing the longest of bows, Gates could say with confidence that what applied in Iraq also applied in Afghanistan. Conflating wars and strategic dilemmas continues to be a bad habit at the Pentagon.
In the meantime, the Taliban, beset as they are by rifts, will continue being resilient under pressure. They await the new American president with sanguinary anticipation. Counterpunch Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
The worst part is that neither US candidate has a clue on what to do about Afghanistan. Both promise more of the same. Senator Obama wants to send more forces into Afghanistan and attack Pakistan. Senator McCain wants to send more forces into Afghanistan and not announce the fact that he will attack Pakistan. Now another candidate has become the pawn of the same war mongering crowd. Facing imminent defeat in Afghanistan Barack Obama wants to expand the theater of war. The British fought the Afghans and Paskhtuns for 80 years. In the end after the defeat of Maiwand and other defeats, they withdrew back to the Indus.
The US presidential candidates are warbling about what strategies will best suit Afghanistan in a post-Bush world. Both Barack Obama and John McCain promise that the interminable conflict will be of “top priority” come 2009. Neither has provided clear guidelines, largely because such guidelines are essentially useless. The Coalition forces in Afghanistan continue to lose the ground to Taliban. Planners are scratching their heads in desperation.
Obama has at stages advocated the deployment of two more army brigades. McCain has also called for a surge in troop levels. The military solution, that only solution doomed to failure, continues to attract followers. Empires with supposedly power, notably ones teetering on collapse, often revert to force when all else has failed.
In recent times, two allies of the US – the UK and Australia – have expressed reservations as to how such a conflict can be ever won on the ground. The warnings have been simmering for some time. The war, most of these parties concede, might yield tactical victories, short-term gains in skirmishes. But it can do nothing else. The Taliban, it would seem, are either winning the war, or at least fighting the coalition forces to a bloody stalemate. They have finances, time, and soldiers, to kill. Counter Punch:Afghanistan the Un-Winnable. By BINOY KAMPMARK
With a new government in Islamabad, the US tried to take advantage of the chaos that comes with the advent of a new coalition government in power. President Bush ordered US forces to take action inside the Northwestern territories of Pakistan. So the US attacked. The Pakistanis were furious and stopped the US supply lines for a couple of days and shot down a US helicopter.
WASHINGTON — The White House has backed away from using American commandos for further ground raids into Pakistan after furious complaints from its government, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the Central Intelligence Agency against militants in the Pakistani mountains.
According to American and Pakistani officials, attacks by remotely piloted Predator aircraft have increased sharply in frequency and scope in the past three months.
Through Sunday, there were at least 18 Predator strikes since the beginning of August, some deep inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, compared with 5 strikes during the first seven months of 2008.
After months of debate within the administration and mounting frustration over Pakistan’s failure to carry out more aggressive counterterrorism operations, President Bush finally gave his approval in July for ground missions inside Pakistan.
But the only American ground mission known to have taken place was a Special Operations raid on Sept. 3, in which the roughly two dozen people killed included some civilians. American officials say there has not been another commando operation since.
American officials acknowledge that following the Sept. 3 raid they were surprised by the intensity of the Pakistani response, which included an unannounced visit to Washington, three weeks after the incursion, by the country’s national security adviser, Mahmud Ali Durrani. He registered his anger in person with top White House officials.
A senior administration official said Sunday that no tacit agreement had been reached to allow increased Predator strikes in exchange for a backing off from additional American ground raids, an option the officials said remained on the table. But Pakistani officials have made clear in public statements that they regard the Predator attacks as a less objectionable violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
“There’s always a balance between respecting full Pakistani sovereignty, even in places where they’re not capable of exercising that sovereignty, and the need for our force protection,” said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Washington Post. October 27, 2008 U.S. Takes to Air to Hit Militants Inside Pakistan By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
The drone attacks cuase a lot of civilian damage, cause problems for the government of Pakistan and are counterproductive.
ISLAMABAD, Oct 26: US attacks in tribal areas are harming the government’s efforts to isolate extremists and mobilise people against militancy, according to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Addressing a press conference after returning from Beijing on Sunday, the prime minister criticised the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps for saying that the military operation in Bajaur Agency might last another year, asserting that any decision about the timing of the army’s withdrawal from tribal areas would be taken by his government. Mr Gilani was referring to remarks by Maj-Gen Tariq Khan during a briefing for media on Saturday. The Dawn. October 27th, 2008
To support the Plan for a New American Century (PNAC) the Bush administration has created justification for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. The "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) has set the fire from the Euphrates to the Oxus. The war on a state for the action of non-state players is unprecedented in the history of mankind--akin to bombing Mexico for the actions of the Mexican gangs in Los Angeles and New York or bombing Italy for the actions of the Organized crime (Cosa Nostra). Of course the Taliban gang was created by Congress Rohrabaker and with CIA help. Their benefactor was the main person that liberated Afghanistan from the USSR--another US protege called Osma Bin Laden (the scoundrel drummed out of Saudi Arabia ad stripped of his citizenship).
One of the most important purposes of UN is "to maintain international peace and security" by suppressing such wanton "acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace". Article 2 (4) of its charter gives substance to this statement of intent by prohibiting all kinds of aggression aimed at other states. There are, however, two exceptions to this provision, and we have to ascertain whether America's into Pakistan fall within their ambit. The first exception is provided under chapter VII of the Charter, whereby the Security Council may authorize collective action against the erring state to maintain or enforce international peace and security. It is to be noted that no such UN resolution authorizing an attack on Pakistan has been passed as yet and hence no question of UNSC-backed collective action arises against Pakistan.
Secondly, Article 51 of the Charter gives "the inherent right of collective or individual self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations." In this regard, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently told a Senate panel that the US had a right of "individual self-defence" under the UN Charter where a foreign government was either "unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist activity inside its borders". This assertion needs to be scrutinized.
It is true that Article 51 is vague as to who should launch the armed attack before this right of self-defence is invoked – it only says "if an armed attack occurs", meaning thereby that the armed attack could either be instigated by the state itself through its regular armed forces; someone on behalf of the state; or by lawless individuals or groups who do not have state's patronage. However, this open-ended point of view is curtailed or interpreted by the concept of state responsibility as enshrined in UN Resolution 3314 where the right of self-defence applies only when an act of aggression is carried out by, or on the behest of, one state against the territorial sovereignty of another.
Given this, the legal basis on which America has justified its incursions into Pakistani territory becomes untenable, as the persons involved in attacks against the allied forces in Afghanistan are non-state foreign militants who are a law and not regular Pakistani armed forces. Moreover, the Pakistani government has, by committing more than "one hundred thousand" of its regular armed troops to the border areas, shown to the world that it is more than "able and willing" to take care of the international terrorist activity inside its borders. Also, that more troops have died in the war on terror than those of all other allies combined should speak for itself. Crossing the borderThursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan
History is forgotten, stories have been created by the Neocons. A vulnerable population in Afghanistan already bombed out of existence by the USSR is now facing the brunt of the attack from drones and choppers 9which a just years ago were hailed as angles of mercy in the same region).
At the same time, however, officials said that relying on airstrikes alone, the United States would be unable to weaken Al Qaeda’s grip in the tribal areas permanently. Within the government, advocates of the ground raids have argued that only by sending Special Operations forces into Pakistan can the United States successfully capture suspected operatives and interrogate them for information about top Qaeda leaders.
The decision to focus on an intensified Predator campaign using Hellfire missiles appears to reflect dwindling options on the part of the White House for striking a blow against Al Qaeda in the Bush administration’s waning days.
Top American officials have justified the Sept. 3 ground raid as a self-defense response against militants who use havens in Pakistan to launch attacks against American and allied forces in Afghanistan. Those attacks have increased by about 30 percent from a year ago, according to military officials.
As part of the intensified attacks in recent months, the C.I.A. has expanded its list of targets in Pakistan and has gained approval from the government there to bolster eavesdropping operations in the border region, according to United States officials.
Once largely reserved for missions to kill senior Arab Qaeda operatives, the Predator is increasingly being used to strike Pakistani militants and even trucks carrying rockets to resupply fighters in Afghanistan.
Many of the Predator strikes are taking place as deep as 25 miles into Pakistani territory, not just along the border.
Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article.
The information about the American operations inside Pakistan was described in interviews by a dozen military and civilian officials from the United States and Pakistan, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic concerns and because details remained classified.
While Pakistan is now headed by a new civilian government, under President Asif Ali Zardari, the tense discussions between the countries over counterterrorism operations appear to echo at least some of the uneasiness that long characterized the partnership between Mr. Bush and Pervez Musharraf, the former president. He was defeated in parliamentary elections in February and left office in August.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, told the Council on Foreign Relations this month that the two nations were cooperating in deploying “strategic equipment that is used against specific targets.”
On Oct. 16, a Predator strike in South Waziristan killed Khalid Habib, a senior Qaeda operative. But the strikes sometimes have unintended consequences. On Sept. 8, one in Miranshah on a compound owned by a Taliban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, failed to kill him but did kill women and children. On Aug. 27, a Predator strike near the village of Wana missed its target; it is unclear whether civilians were killed.
Senior military and counterterrorism officials say the increased Predator strikes have disrupted planning, pushed some insurgents deeper into Pakistan, prompted some militant commanders to post additional sentries and forced the militants to use their cellphones and satellite phones, which American eavesdropping operations can monitor.
“It’s fair to say that it has caused key Al Qaeda figures to focus even more on their safety and security,” said a Western counterterrorism official. “It has caused them to be more suspicious of people they don’t know well, and it also has caused frictions between Al Qaeda and tribal elements.”
But the official acknowledged that the intensified operations have failed to shake Al Qaeda’s hold on the tribal areas. “Things haven’t gotten to the point that they would even consider another option,” he said.
Pakistan and the United States are also taking steps to repair the relationship between their intelligence services, which reached a nadir this summer after evidence emerged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate had a hand in the July bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s top military official, recently replaced not only the ISIs commander but also four midlevel generals believed to have had advance knowledge of the embassy bombing.
The C.I.A. has also put a new station chief in Islamabad, replacing one whose tour of duty had ended and whose relationship with the ISI had become contentious.
Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the new head of the ISI, is in Washington this week and is scheduled to meet with the C.I.A. director, Michael V. Hayden.
Pentagon officials have publicly praised the Pakistan Army’s aggressive campaign against militants in the Bajaur tribal agency. But privately, some American officials are wincing at a full-scale military operation that is taking a heavy toll on civilians as well as insurgents, and has not diminished the cross-border attacks.
“They don’t have a concept of counterinsurgency operations,” one senior American officer said. “It’s generally a heavy punch and then they leave.”
More than 200,000 people have now fled the attack helicopters, warplanes, artillery and mortar fire of the Pakistani Army, and some officials in Washington say the Pakistani government has been slow to follow up with food, water and other assistance to help displaced villagers. The United States has approved $8 million to aid the refugee effort.
Still, a senior official in the State Department said the situation was a vast improvement from years of Pakistan’s off-again-on-again military operations in the tribal areas.
“They have shown more fight than ever before,” that official said of the Pakistanis. “They show no desire to negotiate with the militants.”
The official said that Pakistan’s civilian government had been moved to act in part by large-scale terrorist attacks in Pakistan, like the Sept. 20 bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed more than 50 people. Washington Post. October 27, 2008 U.S. Takes to Air to Hit Militants Inside Pakistan By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Mumbai, October 22 : The Maharashtra police are said to have cracked the September 29 bomb blasts in Malegaon and Modasa town in neighbouring Gujarat saying these were allegedly carried out by the Hindu Jagran Manch, an Indore-based Hindu extremist group known to have links to the BJP's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The key suspects are being questioned, top Maharashtra Police sources have told The Indian Express.
Five Muslims were killed in a powerful blast in the communally sensitive textile town of Malegaon in Maharashtra and one Muslim boy was killed in the explosion in Modasa in Sabarkantha district.
Both bombs were placed on motorcycles parked in crowded areas days before Eid and set off after Muslims had broken their Ramzan fast on a Monday evening.
The BJP had condemned both the blasts. Investigators initially suspected Islamist groups such as SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen to be behind the near-simultaneous attacks — the first blast was at Modasa at 9.26 pm, the second minutes later in Malegaon — as they came in the aftermath of blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.
Besides, the motorcycle in Malegaon was parked below the now-defunct first floor office of SIMI while the one used in Modasa had Islamic stickers on its seat.
However, investigators found that these were apparently attempts by the attackers to mislead them, the sources said.
The breakthrough, they said, came when they traced the origin of the two-wheeler used in Malegaon. The vehicle used was a LML Freedom brand although some of its parts had been cannibalised from other vehicles and the chassis and engine numbers had been erased.
But with this brand out of production, dealer records and help from forensic experts led the probe to Gujarat, the sources said.
The motorcycle was allegedly owned by a man with an "ABVP background" there while the attackers belonged to the Hindu Jagran Manch with its headquarters based out of the office of an NGO in Indore, investigators found.
Top Maharashtra police officials confirmed the breakthrough but refused to go on record due to the sensitivities involved, adding that Central agencies were aware of the development.
The blast in Malegaon had sparked mob violence as angry Muslims targeted the local police and grievously injured the first policemen to arrive at the site, including a probationary IPS officer.
The attack came two years to the month when three bombs had exploded in and around a mosque in the town and killed 37 people, mostly Muslim worshippers.
That attack was blamed on SIMI and nine men were arrested but the trial has been stayed by the Supreme Court....
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | The Capitlaist system and the USA has struggled against the wild and radical ideas of Marxism. Ideas like Medicare, 8 hour work week, Social Security, equal pay for women, paid leave, 8 hour work day, medical leave and pension plans. According to Socialism all means of production have to be owned by the dictatorship of the proletariat (workers). Today in the US of A, the government has not only purchased the stakes in major banks and financial institutions, but also is assisting some of the major corporations. Whatever happened to "Government is the problem" and "the less government the better"?
Okay, you’re gonna need to fasten your seatbelt for this one.
Hear’s a quiz for you: Who was the third most ‘socialist’ president in American history?
Hmmm... Hard to say, eh? I think we can all agree that Franklin Roosevelt, who brought the first incarnation of the welfare state to America in the form of the New Deal, qualifies as the most socialist of American presidents. He was angrily decried as such by the rabid right (of course) when he gave Americans jobs and labor organizing protection and pension benefits. They were accurate to call his programs socialist, though it was a laugh then, as it is now, to label the country by that term. All modern industrial democracies are mixed economies, with elements of both private sector (market) and public sector (government) activity. The question is never whether they’re mixed – they all are – the question is what is the mix. And America, of any country on this list, has always had the least socialist mix of all.
Anyhow, I think we can all also pretty much agree that number two on our list of presidents who most moved the American system of political economy to the left would be Lyndon Johnson. LBJ declared war on poverty in his Great Society program, and he also had some major goodies for the middle class as well, like Medicare. By the time Johnson was done, the American welfare state had been expanded considerably, though it still paled beside those of other comparable countries in the West. All of these, for starters, had national healthcare systems, and of course America has never quite gotten there.
After the 1960s, the liberal project stalled and ran into a wall of regressivism which has continued until this day. In fact, just about literally until this very day, as we are now watching that ideological experiment crumble before our eyes, and not a moment too soon.
So who, then, has been the third most socialist president in American history? Before solving that mystery, let’s take a moment to define terms. What do we mean by ‘socialism’? For me, that system of political economy revolves around four key concepts. First, there is a big welfare state. That means that there are government programs – not provided to some people by charity, or the workplace, or individual purchase, but provided by the government for all – covering so-called cradle-to-grave benefits: healthcare, paid maternity leave, pension, unemployment insurance, education, etc., all down the line. Second, there are relatively high levels of taxation, built into a rather steeply progressive taxation system. This accomplishes at least two things. First, it produces the revenue necessary to pay for the first plank, the generous benefits for all. And, second, it levels the distribution of wealth in society to an acceptable degree, so that you don’t wind up looking like a banana republic, with ninety-eight percent of the national wealth concentrated in the hands of two percent of the population.
The third major component of socialism, as I see it, is regulation of the private sector. Yes, there is a market economy, and it is even likely to be bigger than the public sector portion of the economy. But that does not mean that private actors may do whatever they want. They may not make a profit while externalizing their costs in the form of air, water, chemical or other forms of pollution. They may not employ underage children. They may not pay slave wages. They may not prevent workers from organizing. They may not deny them vacation time or sick leave or maternity time off. They may not provide dangerous working conditions in order to maximize profits. What we know from human psychology and from historical experience is that corporations will do all these things and more, left to their own devices. Maybe you’ve noticed lately? The regulatory function of the state is to represent the people’s interests, and to make sure they always trump the more narrow special interests.
Again, America is different from the rest of the West in this regard only in scale, not in kind. We don’t mandate six week annual vacations or a fair union organizing environment, to be sure. But the principle of regulation in the public interest is widely subscribed to everywhere but among the nutty right (or should I just say the right, and avoid redundant adjectives?). Just ask airplane passengers whether they want an FAA inspecting for safety, or if they prefer to let airlines struggling to cut costs in order to remain profitable to handle that however they see fit, perhaps even subcontracting it out to the lowest bidder. Ask them if they want an FDA to inspect the food and medicines they imbibe, or should we all just do it on the honor system. Not only do Americans want regulation, but I’m pretty sure they’d be rather horrified to see how little of it actually remains in place today, and the degree to which what’s left is working on behalf of industries supposedly being regulated instead of the public interest – including at the FAA and FDA.
Finally, socialism – especially classic socialism of the mid-twentieth century – involves the actual ownership of major industries by the government, particularly big, important ones. These so-called ‘commanding heights of the economy’ – transportation, communications, mining, housing, etc. – were deemed too crucial to the welfare of society to be left in the hands of private actors, and thus were often owned and run by the government.
It’s probably fair to say that – at least as of a decade ago – no Western democracy is today as socialist as it used to be. The definite trend of the hated Thatcher-Reagan era has been emphatically toward the other direction on all four of these indices.
But at least now we can finally answer our pregnant question: Which American president has been the most socialist of all, apart from FDR and LBJ? The (really, really) surprising answer is: George W. Bush. What makes this surprising is not only his rhetoric, but also many of his programs, which are completely antithetical to socialism. This is a guy straight out of the eighteenth century, on a good day. More often it’s the thirteenth. Tax law revisions provide one example, representing a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and the next generations to the already wealthy. These are hardly socialist in nature. Nor is slashing regulation of industry or undermining union organizing efforts at every turn right out of Trotsky’s playbook.
But Bush has actually expanded the welfare state in America far more than anyone since LBJ in the 1960s. In one sense – comparatively speaking – this was hardly difficult to do, since the theme of the ensuing decades has been retrenchment at every turn. For Ronald Reagan that meant counting ketchup as a vegetable in his administration’s efforts to scale back student lunch programs, even while Nancy was simultaneously splurging on the finest new china for the White House. Even (alleged) Democrats got into the act, as Bill Clinton wiped away American welfare programs wholesale, in order to win himself an election he already had in the bag. Meanwhile, he spent loads of his political capital on trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO, which undermined organized (and even disorganized) labor in America. In both cases, Clinton said ‘We’ll come back to it later and fix the flaws in the original legislation’. But he never did, presumably because he was too busy being diddled by Newt for having diddled Monica.
All that said, however, Bush’s prescription drug legislation for seniors was the biggest addition to the American welfare state since the Great Society. And not just by default either, because nobody else was doing anything in the intervening years. This was a gigantic program, to the tune of about $800 billion in cost. So, what in the world was a regressive monster like Bush doing supporting a wholesale socialist expansion of the American welfare state? Well, in large part he was pandering to seniors, who tend to vote in disproportionately high numbers, especially in Florida, which – no one needs reminding – is a swing state that the GOP needs to win in order to capture the presidency. But an even better answer is that this was socialism of a different kind – corporate socialism – massively benefitting pharmaceutical and insurance corporations.
In an incredibly brazen act of legislative transfer of wealth, Bush and his congressional allies inserted two provisions into the bill which ran absolutely and completely counter to the national interest, and to everything they claim about how capitalism works, instead privileging these industries at taxpayer expense, and without the slightest hint of subtlety about any of it. One of those provisions actually prevented the federal government from using its wholesale buying clout in order to negotiate lower prices for pharmaceuticals they purchase. Thus Medicare (which handles this program) pays more than double on average than is paid by the Veterans Administration – another arm of the very same government which is not similarly restricted – for the exact same drugs. The other lovely provision prohibited the acquisition of drugs from Canada, where they are considerably cheaper in cost. If Bush had written into the bill a requirement that all Americans must fall seriously ill at least twice per year, he could hardly have been more obvious about his game. Oh, and did I mention that Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin, who shepherded the bill through Congress, retired immediately afterward to accept his prize of a two million dollar a year job leading the main lobbying group for Big Pharma?
So, how come right-wing kooks in Congress and on the radio didn’t object to this very socialist program? One reason was because they were pandering to seniors as well. And another was because they tend to fall in lock-step behind the fuhrer, like good Republicans are wont to do. Meanwhile, of course, corporate welfare is not exactly a foreign concept to these goons, either. But there’s another explanation as well, which is that some of them actually did kick and holler, and so this most dishonest of presidents lied to members of his own party in Congress, guaranteeing to them that the total price tag for the program would not exceed $400 billion. Why that should be acceptable, in principle, to the supposed free market purists of the right escapes me, but it was nevertheless enough to convince several otherwise recalcitrant Republicans to put the legislation over the top. Truth be told, however (and what a concept that is, eh?), the lies ran even deeper than that. Richard Foster, the Medicare Chief Actuary within the administration who had run the numbers, knew full well what the real cost of the Boy King’s program would be – almost double what Bush was telling anybody, including his GOP pals in Congress. So he got a warning from the White House via his boss, Thomas Scully (who was also negotiating his new job as a lobbyist for drug companies, just as this bill was being considered by Congress): If you talk to any member of Congress about this, you will lose your job. Like the legions of pathetic and self-interested functionnaires whom bullies like Bush and Cheney depend on for success (yes, Colin Powell, I’m talking about you), Foster put his paycheck ahead of the national interest and kept his mouth shut.
And so this massive expansion of the American welfare state – the biggest in four decades – became law under this most regressive of presidents, at his insistence. But the prescription drug bill was just a warm-up act for Karl Marx Bush, one of America’s all time most socialist of presidents. Now that his ‘free market’ (read corporate-servicing) schemes have all blown up in all of our faces, he has not hesitated to turn to – wait for it, now – the government, to bail out the fast imploding private sector. Yes, that evil monster that Ronald Reagan induced many of our more cognitively-challenged comrades to believe was “the problem, not the solution”, turns out to be a pretty handy little life boat to have in your back pocket when Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ was most recently seen, not efficiently allocating resources in the market, but rather reaching over and flushing the toilet on the global economy. All of a sudden we see our perennial exponents of the virtues of capitalism now giving government hand-outs to taxpayers in hopes of stimulating the economy, bailing-out failed corporations and entire industries, and now effectively nationalizing banks. This would be a pretty breathtaking sight, indeed, had not the last eight years more or less already taken away whatever breath we had left.
Of course, it’s really only astonishing if you ever bought into the rhetoric in the first place. It’s kinda like Iraq. If you think that Bush invaded that hapless country to get rid of a WMD threat to American security, or to bring democracy to 25 million Iraqis – oops, sorry, make that now 24 million – then you’re likely to also think that regressives actually believe in a free market, and actually do so because of some theoretical proof or empirical evidence that it is a superior system to the alternatives. The reality is that it is instead simply the rationale du jour for kleptocracy. These guys are masterful at starting with a conclusion (which invariably involves their personal greed), and then inventing some pack of lies or another to sell it. Apart, perhaps, from the decidedly un-free market provisions of the prescription drug bill, nothing proves this quite so well as the massive government intrusions into the economy of the last several weeks. Everybody all of a sudden got real quiet about ideology. That’s because the true ideology is simply greed, and government is there to facilitate that in whatever way works best. In this case, it was capitalism on the way up, and socialism on the way down. The privatization of profit, and the socialization of risk. The right hand grabs a fistful on the good days, and the left hand grabs another on the bad. All that good old-fashioned rhetoric about the joys of the free market was about as sincerely believed as the notion that Sarah Palin is eminently qualified to be president. It was just there to keep the hoi polloi bought into a myth, and thus to prevent them from ever demanding their fair share of the pie.
In some ways of course, these slogans lauding the virtues of laissez faire capitalism are no more ridiculous now than they ever were. Consider this. You’re sitting in a sixth grade history course sometime in the 26th century (of course the ‘humans’ then will all be machine hybrids with memory modules, and thus no need for education – but let’s leave that aside for now). So, little Jimmy Jetpack raises his hand to ask the teacher a question:
JIMMY: “Um, Ms. Saturnalia, I don’t really understand this whole Cold War period we’ve been discussing. You said that the two superpowers were on a hair-trigger, with giant arsenals of nuclear weapons aimed at each other, and that all life on the entire planet would have been extinguished if those rockets were fired, right?”
MS. SATURNALIA: “That’s right, Jimmy. What is it that you don’t understand?”
JIMMY: “Well, um, just exactly what were they fighting over that was so important that they were willing to put at risk an entire planet?”
MS. SATURNALIA: “Oh well, that’s easy, Jimmy. You see, back then, before humans finally learned that socialism is the best economic system, one side wanted the government to have more intervention in the economy, and the other wanted it to have less. And they got so angry with each other over who was right, they almost had a cataclysmic thermonuclear exchange.”
JIMMY: “Oh. I, uh... see. Ms. S, they weren’t very smart in the twentieth century, were they?”
MS. SATURNALIA: “Well, no Jimmy, now that you mention it, they weren’t. Unless, of course, you compare them to the people of the twenty-first century. But that’s next week’s topic.”
Some might argue that this is an ungenerous reading of the era just gone by. That what was really at stake in the Cold War was a battle over freedom, not just a clash between the economic ideologies of capitalism and communism. It’s certainly true that the Soviet Union was far more oppressive than the United States was. On the other hand, that didn’t seem to matter so much during World War II, when we were happy to ally with Uncle Joe Stalin himself in order to squash those, er, other totalitarians. And – on the other, other hand – it didn’t seem to matter so much during the Cold War either, when we backed every repressive neocolonialist regime we could find, from Nicaragua to South Africa to Vietnam and back again. Or when we simply installed our own – in Iran, Guatemala or Chile – if the existing government was a little too, um... free and, er... democratic.
Well, whatever. In any case, we won the Cold War (whoopee!), so that’s all for the history books now.
Or did we?
You have to admit, it’s more than a bit odd to see the United States, that bastion of capitalism, led by George W. Bush, that great champion of free market ideology, now massively plunging itself deeply into good old-fashioned socialism in the form of increased welfare state benefits, bailouts, and the nationalization of major industries. Add that to existing programs and those coming around the corner, plus increased regulation, and pretty soon we won’t be far off from being... France! – the nightmare scenario of those sick things on the right. Somehow, in their addled brains, when George W. Bush massively expands government healthcare coverage for seniors that’s a good thing, but, say, providing it to children or to all of us represents evil socialism, the very thing which will destroy the fiber of this mighty country. Nevermind that ‘mighty’ seems to ring more melodious in a sentence with ‘China’ these days than with ‘America’. Only people twisted enough to think that the democratic socialism practiced by contemporary Europeans is some sort of decadent system produced by Satan himself (“My god, they get paid maternity leave!! There’s healthcare for all!! They work far fewer hours per week and have guaranteed seven-week vacations!! This is just wrong!! This humanity is inhuman!!”) could also applaud Bush for doing exactly the same thing for which they’d certainly excoriate Obama for doing.
But make no mistake about it, the American system of political economy has already begun a hard and long overdue tilt to port. As Americans become increasingly exposed to the joys of a globalized market economy, their prior resistance to sensible solutions will melt as fast as their paychecks already have. It won’t be long before there is the rough equivalent of national healthcare here, plus a return to more progressive taxation, fair labor laws and necessary levels of regulation. People can pretend all they want if it makes them happy, but this will nevertheless be a mild form of socialism, not hugely unlike the dreaded European model. And if Americans ever knew the truth about how their system stacks up to France’s or Germany’s or Sweden’s – in terms of leisure time, in terms of lack of stress from worrying about healthcare or education or retirement costs, in terms of health, longevity or infant mortality, and on and on and on – you might see a serious swing to the left on economic questions. All this is possible in an America in which the lies and the crimes of the right have been exposed and repudiated, only to be far more thrashed in the coming years if a President Obama is as smart as I think he is.
So who won the Cold War, then? The capitalists? Yeah, maybe. In the same way that Britain won World War II, that is – only simultaneously to lose power, prosperity and a global empire in the bargain. If you call that winning, then okay.
The only greater thing about America finally maturing enough to adopt a quasi-socialist system is knowing the degree to which that will drive the freaks on the right to utter distraction.
Though they will, of course, still be happy to collect their generous government benefits.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net. Remind Me Again Who Won the Cold War? By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN Counterpunch
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | Indian machinations in Kabul are reminiscent of the Marhatta messing with the Pakhtuns and the Balauch in the 18th century. With dreams of Mughal grandeur, they began to think of themselves as successors to the Mughals. They began harassing the states of the Punjabis, Pathans and the Baluch. By messing with the powers, a grand alliance was formed which inclued Ahmed Shah Durrani to the West and Ud Daulal to the East. The Marhattas ultimately paid the consequences of the harassment--they were decimated from history. A grand alliance of Durrani from the West and the Ebngalis from the East defeated the Marhattas
Ahmad Shah Durrani (Ahmad Shah Abdali) angered by the news from his son and his allies was unwilling to allow the Marathas spread go unchecked. In 1759 he raised an army from the Afghan (Pashtun) tribes with help from the Baloch and his Rohilla ally Najib Khan. By the end of the year they had reached Lahore as well as Delhi and defeated the smaller enemy garrisons. Ahmed Shah, at this point, withdrew his army to Anupshahr, on the frontier of the Rohilla country, where he successfully convinced the Nawab of OudhShuja-ud-Daula to join his alliance against the Marathas.Wiikipedia
"The lofty and spacious tents, lined with silks and broadcloths, were surmounted by large gilded ornaments, conspicuous at a distance... Vast numbers of elephants, flags of all descriptions, the finest horses, magnificently caparisoned ... seemed to be collected from every quarter ... it was an imitation of the more becoming and tasteful array of the Mughuls in the zenith of their glory." -- Grant Duff, describing the Maratha army[5]
The Marhatta dreams of conquering Kandhar was not realized. The Marhattas were soundly defeated in 1761 and perished as a political entity.
We have already brought Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and other subahs on this side of Attock under our rule for the most part, and places which have not come under our rule we shall soon bring under us. Ahmad Khan Abdali's son Taimur Sultan and Jahan Khan have been pursued by our troops, and their troops completely looted. Both of them have now reached Peshawar with a few broken troops...we have decided to extend our rule up to Kandahar. -- Raghoba's letter to the Peshwa, May 4, 1758[2]
For the past 5000 years the Khyber pass has witnessed invading armies come into South Asia and then become resident in the fertile plains of the Punjab and the Ganges.
The Aryans come down the Khyber, as did the armies of the Ghaznavids, the Abdalis, the Seljuk Turks, and then the Mughals. The British did not come down the path of the invaders. They came as traders through Bengal (today's Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar) the riches part of the Subcontinent under Siraj Ud Daulah.When the British tried to reverse the path of the invaders, they failed miserably and had to retreat back to the Indus when they stayed.
"The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck,
Our hands and scarfs were saffron-dyed for signal of despair, When we went forth to Paniput to battle with the ~Mlech~, Ere we came back from Paniput and left a kingdom there." -- With Scindia to Delhi by Rudyard Kipling
Somnath and Delhi must have felt the same way as the residents of Islamabad and New Delhi today. Those who define the fault line as the Durand Line forget that in 1526 the fault line was was Panipat not the Hindu Kush.
But 1947 has little or no relevance for a more serious conflagration threatening to engulf the region. I am inclined to look at the turmoil in Afghanistan and its impact on both as rooted in 1526 if not earlier. That year the First Battle of Panipat was fought just north of Delhi between Mughal adventurer Babar and Delhi’s Pathan ruler Ibrahim Lodhi. To my mind the Uzbeks and the Tajiks of Afghanistan’s recent Northern Alliance, and Kabul’s current dominant rulers, form the corner once represented by Babar, who became India’s first Mughal emperor after winning at Panipat.
Incidentally, that battle’s verdict was influenced by a superior technological prowess that came in the form of gunpowder and cannons, which Babar had introduced for the first time in Indian warfare. The challengers, the still ill-equipped but tenacious Pashtuns, seem to closely represent the forces that once belonged to the former fellow Pathan ruler of Delhi.
The venue of the still continuing stand-off between two of South Asia’s most fiercely unrelenting Muslim groups has shifted from Panipat to the regions around an artificially created Durand Line but much of its energy seems to still derive from the historically ingrained fault lines seen in 1526. Add to this the element of the colonial Great Game in a new, more lacerating avatar, predicated on a bizarre if elusive hunt for a few subversives, and we can grasp the genesis of the ferocious confrontation that the NSAs seem to have agreed to face jointly. The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.jawednaqvi@gmail.com
The decline of the Mughal Empire had led to territorial gains for the Maratha Confederacy. Ahmad Shah Abdali, amongst others, was unwilling to allow the Marathas' gains to go unchecked. In 1759, he raised an army from the Pashtun tribes with help from the Baloch people and made several gains against the smaller garrisons. The Marathas, under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau, responded by gathering an army of 100,000 people with which they ransacked the Mughal capital of Delhi. There followed a series of skirmishes along the banks of the river Yamuna at Karnal and Kunjpura which eventually turned into a two-month-long siege led by Abdali against the Marathas. Wiki
The impact of the invasions from Farghana, Samarkand, Bokhara and Ghazni had long term impacts on the Subcontinent as we see it today. These invasions to much extent destroyed the power of the Brahmins and at the very least liberated 450 million souls who would have been in total bondage of the caste system. The 450 million Muslims (in Pakistan, India and Bangaldesh) today enjoy a decent life whereas the 250 million Dalits (leftover0 are still struggling to find humanity in their souls and their destiny.
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | To support the Plan for a New American Century (PNAC) the Bush administration has created justification for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. The "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) has set the fire from the Euphrates to the Oxus. The war on a state for the action of non-state players is unprecedented in the history of mankind--akin to bombing Mexico for the actions of the Mexican gangs in Los Angeles and New York or bombing Italy for the actions of the Organized crime (Cosa Nostra). Of course the Taliban gang was created by Congress Rohrabaker and with CIA help. Their benefactor was the main person that liberated Afghanistan from the USSR--another US protege called Osma Bin Laden (the scoundrel drummed out of Saudi Arabia ad stripped of his citizenship)/
One of the most important purposes of UN is "to maintain international peace and security" by suppressing such wanton "acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace". Article 2 (4) of its charter gives substance to this statement of intent by prohibiting all kinds of aggression aimed at other states. There are, however, two exceptions to this provision, and we have to ascertain whether America's into Pakistan fall within their ambit. The first exception is provided under chapter VII of the Charter, whereby the Security Council may authorize collective action against the erring state to maintain or enforce international peace and security. It is to be noted that no such UN resolution authorizing an attack on Pakistan has been passed as yet and hence no question of UNSC-backed collective action arises against Pakistan.
Secondly, Article 51 of the Charter gives "the inherent right of collective or individual self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations." In this regard, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently told a Senate panel that the US had a right of "individual self-defence" under the UN Charter where a foreign government was either "unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist activity inside its borders". This assertion needs to be scrutinized.
It is true that Article 51 is vague as to who should launch the armed attack before this right of self-defence is invoked – it only says "if an armed attack occurs", meaning thereby that the armed attack could either be instigated by the state itself through its regular armed forces; someone on behalf of the state; or by lawless individuals or groups who do not have state's patronage. However, this open-ended point of view is curtailed or interpreted by the concept of state responsibility as enshrined in UN Resolution 3314 where the right of self-defence applies only when an act of aggression is carried out by, or on the behest of, one state against the territorial sovereignty of another.
Given this, the legal basis on which America has justified its incursions into Pakistani territory becomes untenable, as the persons involved in attacks against the allied forces in Afghanistan are non-state foreign militants who are a law and not regular Pakistani armed forces. Moreover, the Pakistani government has, by committing more than "one hundred thousand" of its regular armed troops to the border areas, shown to the world that it is more than "able and willing" to take care of the international terrorist activity inside its borders. Also, that more troops have died in the war on terror than those of all other allies combined should speak for itself. Crossing the borderThursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan
History is forgotten, stories have been created by the Neocons. A vulnerable population in Afghanistan already bombed out of existence by the USSR is now facing the brunt of the attack from drones and choppers 9which a just years ago were hailed as angles of mercy in the same region).
Now another candidate has become the pawn of the same war mongering crowd. Facing imminent defeat in Afghanistan Barack Obama wants to expand the theater of war. the British fought the Afghans and Paskhtuns for 80 years. In the end after the defeat of Maiwand and other defeats, they withdrew back to the Indus.
In fact, the right of self defence could rather be rightly raised by Pakistan against the US forces that are carrying out these uncalled-for acts of aggression. In this backdrop, the 'counter attacks' by the armed forces of Pakistan in defending its border region with Afghanistan are perfectly within the scope of international law. Furthermore, as mentioned in Article 4(f) of the Resolution 3314, Pakistan also reserves its right of self-defence against Afghanistan, which is allowing its territory to be used by American forces stationed in Afghanistan for perpetrating acts of aggression against Pakistan. Yet another plea America could take is that of 'hot pursuit' in FATA. In this regard, in an incident dating back to 1977, when Rhodesia entered Mozambique and attacked bases used by 'terrorists' 60 miles inside the border, the UN condemned the aggressor action saying that the concept of hot pursuit exists only under the law of the sea. It said that in the absence of an any agreement between states that explicitly permitted such action, there was no right of hot pursuit across land borders. In an ideal world, all this would have deterred any law-abiding country from violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other states – but not so for the world's sole superpower. The writers are both lawyers. Emails: osmankhan@rsilpak.org and naumanqaiser@rsilpak.org.
Mr. Zardari's popularity ratings are in the low 20s. He is reviled in Pakistan and not very liked even within his own political party the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians. Within a few weeks of coming to power, Mr. Asif Zardari has screwed up on many counts. We list some of them here.
U.S. incursions hurt that fight, Pakistani officials say. Opinion polls routinely show that an overwhelming majority of ordinary Pakistanis oppose U.S. actions inside their country. The government has to respond to public sentiment, leading to harsh, uncompromising language from political and military leaders. General Ashfaq Kayani, Musharraf's successor as military chief, has publicly railed against U.S. operations on Pakistani soil, saying they help the cause of the militancy; he has promised to protect the borders from such incursions. After the September 25 incursion, chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told TIME that Pakistani troops would hereafter shoot at any force "seen as hostile or in an offensive posture," coming across the border. Any Americans making the crossing, he warned, should not expect Pakistani soldiers to ask questions before shooting. "At the level of a [border] post [Pakistani troops] are not to be given shades of an order... they're supposed to engage."
All the same, U.S. officials privately say that air strikes into Pakistan will continue, as will "hot pursuits" across the border Time Magazine. October 22nd, 2008
It is only too apparent that our present strategy on the war on terror, devised by the US and focusing on the military, has not only failed, it has increased the violence and terrorism in Pakistan. Is it merely coincidental, that as the voices for a holistic policy to deal with the tribals have increased post the elections, the acts of terrorism have hit the urban centres with a vengeance? At the very least, as we mourn the loss of innocent Pakistanis, let us also pause and see where we are headed as we play the deadly US game in this region. Shireen Mazari is the director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. smnews80@hotmail.com
1) His appointment of a known Neocon Mr. Haqqani to Washington was putting salt on the wounds of Pakistani Americans who have fighting for the civil rights of Muslims-Americans and Pakistani-Americans in the USA. Mr. Hussain Haqqani had joined the Neocon defamation machine for a few Dollars and wrote incessantly against Pakistan, Pakistanis and Muslims in general. For his misdeeds, Mr. Haqqani who had been against Ms. Benazir Bhutto, was rewarded with an Ambassadorship to Washington. Mr. Haqqani has no credibility within the Pakistani-American community and perhaps "hum sub ummed seh hain" (the Pakistani SNL) said it best in some acerbic commentary--when the comedians characterized Mr. Haqqani as the "US Ambassador to Pakistan in Washington"--one who safeguards US interests, even though in reality he is Pakistan's Ambassador to the USA.
1) Appeasing India by forgetting Kashmir will not get India to withdraw from her forward positions in Siachin or Sir Creek. When the pressure is off Occupied Kashmir, she will continue to creep into Pakistani territory.
So for those of our leaders who have already declared their intent to cosy up to India, regardless of issues like Kashmir, let the killing of cricket fan Khalid Mahmood be a warning about the chasm that exists between our over- enthusiastic passion for embracing India and India’s continuing suspicions and hostility towards Pakistan. A more realpolitik approach to dealing with India would stand us in much better stead. Let us learn our lesson from the price we are paying as a result of coming to the aid and assistance of the US with simply no preconditions or sober considerations — post-9/11. Shireen Mazari
4) Mr. Zardari's statements on India are not only factually incorrect, they make no sense at all.
Where would you put your money: on an America burdened by a $10 trillion debt or a China flush with almost $2 trillion cash reserves, the largest in the world?
You would think Pakistan is the luckiest country in the world for being China's close ally as the world faces economic decline. Wrong. The truth is, we have a ruling class that has been betting on the wrong horse. President Zardari should know. But by no means is this his mistake alone. This is more about a short-sighted political elite that sits on one of the world's hottest pieces of real estate – Pakistan – and simply doesn't know what to do with it. Even MacDonald's does a better job with its properties. Why should China come to rescue a defaulting Pakistani elite that has placed all its eggs in the American basket? The bitter truth is that both Saudi Arabia and China want to help Pakistan. Both maintain strong military ties with Pakistan.
But currently they are reluctant to contribute to the survival of a government in Islamabad that appears a little too pro-American than the acceptable limits for a sovereign nation. Let the Americans handle their own mess in Pakistan. This is the new attitude. That's why the Saudi oil concession and the Chinese billions are not coming.
Riyadh and Beijing have good relations with America. But unlike Pakistan, both jealously guard their own interest first. The harsh truth is that we in Pakistan have a government that could have as well been made in Washington, peppered with strong US and British apologists in key posts. Right or wrong, this perception is especially felt in Beijing. Eight Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Sudan as Africa emerges as a new battleground for clashing American and Chinese interests. But Pakistan was and continues to be the first battleground. The Chinese have been under attack in Pakistan for the past four years, something unheard of in our half-century of close ties. The Americans have made unusual political inroads in Islamabad. Now they are following this up with military incursions and full fledged psychological warfare to ensure total Pakistani compliance. Getting it right on China Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Ahmed Quraishi
4) Mr. Zardari's decision to rush off to the UK and the US instead of to China was an idiotic decision for which the entire nation is now paying the price. America has to rethink India policy: K. Afrisiabi. Kowtowing to the USA will not help in eliminating terror in Pakistan. It has had the exact opposite affect. US insensitivity to Pakistani concerns
there is the US and its continuing absurdities vis-a-vis Pakistan. Apart from witnessing the most intrusive political behaviour on the part of the present US ambassador as she continues to rush from one political leader to another — and obviously she is not discussing their health or the weather — we have had US personnel arriving one after another to convince us on all manner of issues.
One such visitor, Harlan Ullman, gave an intriguing analysis — as only an American can. Declaring that Pakistan’s case was not well understood in Washington (perhaps we should evaluate how our publicists are spending our money on the Hill), he then added that regardless of what we do, we can neither change the US mindset nor get any money since they do not have it now! Obviously only another American can understand what was being implied here!
The crux of the issue was that we have to help the US in Afghanistan, because if they fail there, it will be devastating for Pakistan! Shireen Mazari
We have played both Washington and Beijing in the past. But there comes a time when you need to take a stand on national interest. Pakistan's time has come and gone. It came again this summer, when someone in Washington decided to expand the disastrous Iraq-Afghan war into Pakistan. And we caved. Again.
By politely declining Zardari government's request for a massive cash infusion, Beijing's message is clear: China's influence and interests in Pakistan must be protected.
You can't spend seven months in American laps, go to them for help as a first choice, and then dash to China as an option of last resort and expect Beijing to go weak in the knees because of a hollow statement such as 'I'll visit China once every three months.'
Even China's pro-Pakistan quarters are confused. Sixty years and we still don't have Pakistani translators who speak Chinese. Beijing went as far as spending its own money to build a modern Chinese language centre in the heart of the Pakistani capital three years ago. Still no Pakistani translators to accompany our leaders visiting China. The Chinese cite the example of Indian television plays. The Indian embassy in Beijing is supplying local Chinese TV stations with copies of Indian plays dubbed in Chinese.
These are playing all over the place. Pakistan's PTV has a two-decade old treaty with China's CCTV to do just that. But our people are yet to send anything similar. In 2005, we signed with China a 'Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good-neighbourly Relations'. It was supposed to be the beginning of expanding the Sino-Pak relationship beyond the military. But the treaty hasn't inched forward in three years. Chinese officials had to politely remind their Pakistani counterparts during President Zardari's visit that the treaty "is of great historic and immediate significance" to the future of our relationship, according to the joint statement.
China's biggest project in Pakistan, the Gwadar port, has been under attack along with its engineers and workers and we have done nothing to stop it. Our president went to Beijing to ask for a major favour while two Chinese engineers continue to be kidnapped inside our own territory.Getting it right on China Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Ahmed Quraishi
5) Mr. Asif Zardari, soon after taking office fired Pakistan's permanganate representative to the UN, and asked the Pakistani diplomats to halt the anti-India campaign on the Nuclear deal at the IAEA and the Nuclear Supplier's Group (NSG)
6) Within a few weeks, Mr. Zardari has screwed things up so royally that it may take weeks to reverse course and fix them
One has escaped to freedom but these kidnappings keep recurring. Can you blame a young Chinese policy analyst sitting in some think tank in China for assuming that there might be elements in Islamabad that concur with the outside powers that would like to see China forced out of Pakistan? We just can't seem to run our affairs like big nations do. Our problem is that we have a great country with great capabilities but a political elite with the worldview of a rat.
America is and must continue to be our friend. But this is the time to break free of voluntary submission to US diktat. The world financial crisis is an opportunity to reduce our political and economic reliance on the US. What are we afraid of? Economic hardship? America is already using donor organisations to squeeze Pakistan. Pakistanis will accept hardship if they are honestly told that the upshot will be setting our policies and priorities right. The writer works for Geo TV. Email: aq@ahmedquraishi.com. Getting it right on China Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Ahmed Quraishi
The US cross border raids on Pakistan are illegal, a violation of the UN charter and a war crime. 300,000 Pakistanis are refugees in this own land. 30,000have been killed for living in Pakistan. The obsequious elected government is subservient to masters outside Islamabad.
Given this, the legal basis on which America has justified its incursions into Pakistani territory becomes untenable, as the persons involved in attacks against the allied forces in Afghanistan are non-state foreign militants who are a law and not regular Pakistani armed forces. Moreover, the Pakistani government has, by committing more than "one hundred thousand" of its regular armed troops to the border areas, shown to the world that it is more than "able and willing" to take care of the international terrorist activity inside its borders. Also, that more troops have died in the war on terror than those of all other allies combined should speak for itself. Crossing the borderThursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan
The Musharraf takeover in 1999 had no political legitimacy, but at least it made a bid for economic sovereignty by ending the IMF tutelage. Unfortunately, this military regime's economic advisors sought to show that they were "more loyal than the king" and pushed the old, tried privatisation, liberalization, and deregulation agenda. The one major innovation the banker finance minister pushed, because that is all he seemed to understand, was a credit-based consumption-driven economy. The chickens have come home to roost and the country is bankrupted once again and facing across-the-board high indebtedness and risk that it has much less capacity and resources to deal with than economic tutors in Washington. A high profile debt committee was appointed in 1999 to get rid of the domestic and foreign indebtedness once and for all. However, despite much debt relief and grants (ironically some suggest $10 billion) and much big talk, the country is faced with debt driven economic disaster apart from other structural problems. There are three key issues that confront the current political regime. Where to get the resources to overcome the current crisis and for the future? What to do with them in terms of a coherent economic strategy? How to build the capacity for implementing such a strategy? I will address the first of these issues in this article and turn to the other two in future articles. Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Shahrukh Rafi Khan. The News
After protestors thronged to United Nations Military Observer Group office in Srinagar demanding the resolution of Kashmir dispute, as it is already known, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is planning to visit India towards the end of this month or in early November. Another important move in this regard is that United Nations Secretary General has informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Major General Kim Moon Hwa of the Republic of Korea as Chief Military Observer in the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). Major General Kim will replace Major General Dragutin Repinc of Croatia.
The historic opening of Srinagar-Muzafarabad and Poonch-Rawalakote roads for trade would be supplemented by some more bold initiatives to facilitate Kashmir resolution process, both on bilateral and internal fronts. Kashmir resolution process involves not only various shades of political opinion but all sections of the society. In a historic decision, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu (CCIJ) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AJKCCI) on Oct 14 formed a 32-member joint chamber of commerce. But the cross-LoC trade cannot be an alternative to Kashmir solution.
The latest developments in the State offer Government of India an opportunity to reinforce its resolve of working through peaceful means and through public participation towards the resolution of the problem.
Freedom Leader Geelani
Calling for a complete shutdown on October 24, the United Nations Raising Day, the Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Saturday urged masses to send emails, letters, faxes, telegrams and SMS to the UN’s New York headquarters to press for granting Right to self determination (RSD) to people of Kashmir to determine their fate.
Indian Terrorism
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed claimed the State had started witnessing continuous changes of great importance and substance after the 2002 elections transforming its ground scenario positively and this had resulted in consistent increase of public participation in the democratic processes and his party contributed to it. Let that be. But he should enter now the freedom movement by actively involving himself with the freedom leaders fully committed to the cause of full and complete freedom from foreign occupation.
An international organization research on the Kashmir conflict, 7thspace.com, to assess experiences with violence and mental health status among the conflict-affected Kashmiri population, has reported that 85 per cent of Valley population have confrontation with the violence while 66 percent have witnessed torture. The survey reported that the civilian population in Kashmir is exposed to high levels of violence, as demonstrated by the high frequency of deliberate events as detention, hostage, and torture. Respondents reported frequent direct confrontations with violence since the start of conflict, including exposure to crossfire (85.7%), round up raids (82.7%), the witnessing of torture (66.9%), rape (13.3%), and self-experience of forced labor (33.7%), arrests/kidnapping (16.9%), torture (12.9%), and sexual violence (11.6%).The survey found high levels of psychological distress that impacts on daily life and places a burden on the health system. Ongoing feelings of personal vulnerability (not feeling safe) were associated with high levels of psychological distress. Over one-third of respondents were found to have symptoms of psychological distress, women scored significantly higher. A third of respondents had contemplated suicide.
India Destroys Medicinal Fauna of Kashmir
Kashmir is infested with Indian terror forces, agents and pro-India elements sabotaging the cause of freedom. India argues it has every right to heavily militarize Jammu Kashmir and kill the Kashmiri Muslims stock and barrel. Around 60,000 troops are posted in the Gurez which has a habitation of only 30,000 people. The ecology of Gurez is under threat as the army troopers deployed in the border area have been accused of vandalizing the environment by extracting valuable medicinal plants and minerals. Gurez has got vast resources of precious and costly medicinal plants and minerals, which were extracted legally by the locals till 1989 when armed rebellion broke out in Kashmir. After the turmoil, thousands of soldiers were deployed in Gurez and they continue to man each and every ridge.
The locals said that valuable medicinal plants like Kuth (Saussurea cosstus), Diosoriea (Dioscorea deltoidea), Mushki Bala( Veleriana wallichii) Guchies (Morchella esculenta), Black Zeera, Artimesia, Bellodona, Podophyllum (Banwangon) are found in abundance in Gurez. They said that had these natural resources been extracted by the state administration with the help of locals, the economy of the border area would have received a boost. They, however, alleged that the troopers are illegally extracting the natural resources, posing ecological and economic threat to the border area. “There are legal, scientific and technological methods to extract the medicinal plants from the forests. However, troops during illegal extraction are not following these methods and destroy the precious and costly medicinal plants for their monetary benefits,” they said. “We were exporting medicinal plants legally worth crores of rupees to other parts of India and world before start of militancy. After the deployment of army personnel in Gurez, peaks encumbered with medicinal plants and minerals are now on the verge of extinction
India Continues Foul in JammuKashmir
After killing about a lakh innocent Kashmiris and destroyed property worth billions of US dollars and, yet, branding the defenseless Kashmiris as “terrorists” and cross-border-terrorists” in a sustained manner in the militarized Jammu Kashmir under terror India occupation, India seems to have all of a sudden woken up to the fact Kashmir should be properly developed before being handed over to freedom leaders for onward development. So far so good, unless the steps are proved injurious to Kashmir health later. Governor NN Vohra seems to be interested in the "development" of Kashmir as much as the Indian government has been in the near future. But under no circumstances should he get the impression that all these initiatives will not, in any way, endear India to Kashmiris who hate India from the core of their hearts, its terror forces and fraud people. He could try to get back the original level of Kashmir’s glory and progress curtailed by Indian strategy to brand Kashmiris as terrorists.
Putting at rest the uncertainty on poll dates the Governor Vohra on Oct 18 said that dates for conduct of assembly election in the State will be announced in two days. He also asserted that Governor’s rule in the State will end in next two months. That is a good gesture if India once for all does away with its misrule in neighborhood and withdraws all forces form the region.
Senior Hurriyat Leader Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat has criticized the Government’s decision to lease out 145 kanals of land at Pampore to para-military CRPF for 90-years. The Jammu and Kashmir Industries Limited (JKIL) has reportedly decided to give on lease 145 kanal of land at Pampore to CRPF against the premium of Rs 22 crores. “He strongly condemns this decision of the Government. Already lakhs of kanals of land have been occupied by the troops throughout Kashmir,” Prof. Gani Bhat said. “We would fight this decision tooth and nail peacefully.” Acting chairman Jammu Kashmir Peoples League Mukhtar Ahmad Waza has expressed serious concern over the transfer of joinery mill land to CRPF at saffron town Pampore and termed it as a deep rooted conspiracy to strengthen the illegal occupation of Kashmir through the occupational armed forces deputed in Kashmir to silence Kashmiris from demanding their birth right (FREEDOM). India has already deputed more than 7 lac armed forces which comprise the population ratio of 1:6 is the sheer violation of human rights as stipulated in United Nations charter, these forces have rendered atrocities on common Kashmiris which can be inked in the unending voluminous books ever written on Kashmir resistance history, Mukhtar Waza said.
Patron Mahaz-e-Azadi, Mohammad Azam Inquilabi strongly opposing handing over of land of joinery mill Pampore to paramilitary forces, Azam said such moves give credibility to our doubts that the Government of India has turning Kashmir into a big garrison and added that it is very unfortunate and will affix fuel to the perilous situation of Kashmir because in the cantonment the armed forces never remain parochial and affect the very social fabric – resulting into a complete social disorder, Azam said.
Meanwhile, APHC urged people of Kashmir to protest against such dangerous moves democratically and peacefully. “It is a ploy to destroy the saffron production capacity of the area and attack Pampore’s economy, which is largely driven by the world’s costliest spice,” the locals said.
Who Wants Poll in Troubled JK?
There have been mounting pressures from the pro-India leaders on the Indian government, Election Commission and JK Governor to hold poll and put them in office.
Maintaining that National Conference, an ally of communal BJP, is ready to participate in the assembly elections, party president Omar Abdullah on Oct 16 asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to announce the poll dates in the State. BJP has said the postponement of polls in Jammu Kashmir would send wrong signals to the world watching the Indian terror activities in the militarized state under Indian occupation. NC thinks it cannot lose out to the freedom leaders in any manner and it must rule if not the Congress. He therefore asserted that NC is ready for elections, no matter whether the ECI announces the final dates now or later. Omar Abdullah, dreaming about his own chance, as his father did, to ruin the lives of innocent Kashmiris as New Delhi’s Hindutva agent in Kashmir. He has already promised people that NC will initiate more “projects” for development of people, if voted to power.
Further, anti-Muslim BJP specifically asked the commission not to postpone the polls and hold it now and impose Indian government in JK. Indian Election Commission, after postponing the polls of JK, has by taking the pressure as excuse, on Oct 19 quickly announced seven-phased poll in Jammu and Kashmir in November 17, 23, 30, December 7, 13, 17 and 24. Counting of votes, accordingly, will take place on December 28. It is pretty clear that the anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri forces along with pro-India elements have decided to go ahead with the poll, come what may. That is the showcasing of Indian arrogance and imposing of anything and everything on defenseless freedom seeking Kashmiris.
Some Observations
Obviously, India has to justify its illegal occupation of Jammu Kashmir through “free and fair” polls by bribing the leading politicians in the state. And the pro-India Kashmiris, rightly denied of any special privileges form New Delhi and looking forward to receiving Reserve Bank bundles, are trying their luck to appease India.
Obviously, by keeping an "elected" government, Indian strategies want Indian terror forces to continue to do what they have been doing all these years, killings and destructions. As a strategic partner of USA and Israel, India also is keen to keep some alien nations under its military control and custody. Since there are quite a lot of pro-India politicians, pampered by colonial India, who have become rich and important by supporting Indian terror cause in Jammu Kashmir, Kashmiri Muslims should now organize themselves, if they want regain freedom from terror India.
Indian and Jammu regional Hindus who have failed to get the illegal land for their NRI god Amarnath, a Hindu deity discovered by Great Britain in 19th Century, these Hindus and their media lords are keen the pools are held now and land is forcefully taken back or "reconvicted" from defenseless Kashmiris to protect a Hindu god staying outside India. That is Hindu mind-set, it never let a Muslim live peacefully any where in the world, not just in India. Since bulk of media in Kashmir also support Indian terror cause for a few coins in return, only patriotic Kashmiris have to rise once again to reassert their sovereignty goals.
Since India is a known terrorist state and an arrogant democracy, it now for the UN to intervene to finalize the freedom issue and not the Indian dirty poll and other agendas. Hindutva politicians think without polls to legitimize their illegal and immoral occupation, India would lose Jammu Kashmir and affect its terrorist national agenda.
Unfortunately, there is none in India and not many in Jammu Kashmir among Hindus who would see reason and demand cancellation of polls in the troubled JK and surrender sovereignty to Kashmiris.
India is quick to fix a date for polls in JK unwanted by Kashmiris, while still refuses to fix date to quit Jammu Kashmir. India and pro-Indians in Jammu Kashmir, their terror forces and media are together. And the Freedom leaders, quite rightly, have reacted sharply to Indian speed for holing the poll to put in place a puppet regime to pursue the in Indian terrorist agenda in Jammu Kashmir. They demand a date for freedom for Kashmir, in place of the polls.
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 22nd, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | There have been reports about Indian involvement in BLA and other nefarious crooks of the garden variety.
We have reported on Indian intelligence services from our columnists in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and USA. Now there are reports that Afghans have been captured admitting to the RAW activities.
Arrested militants name RAW for funding 680m through Afghan secret agency: The three arrested members of a militants’ gang especially deputed by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have disclosed that RAW has been funding suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan and that the Indian agency has funneled Rs 680 million through its links with the Afghan secret agency. The gang of three persons have brazenly admitted that they belong to the group of persons who had been deputed to ‘destabilise democratic Pakistan’ with the sole purpose of ‘enforcement of Shariah’ in the country. Operators of an intelligence agency, working beyond the call of their duty, came into contact with a source ready for a tip-off against a reward and led to the arrest of Khurram Ishtiaq, Ghulam Mustafa and Shamim. The persons had been working under Qari Hussain, second-in-command to Baitullah Mehsud. All the three had been arrested on Aug 13 this year while they were on the prowl for a target. The militants had been arrested ‘red-handed’ as they possessed complete suicide kits, including two jackets and 70kg of explosives and detonators. The accused were hardened militants and took a lot of time to break in and make confessions. They revealed that Qari Hussain had been working to help three adjutants�"Farukh Usman alias Shahjee, Tayyab alias Baba; Ustad, the trainer to destabilise democratic government. The Nation october 22nd, 2008
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | To support the Plan for a New American Century (PNAC) the previous administration has created justification for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. The "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) has set the fire from the Euphrates to the Oxus. The war on a state for the action of non-state players is unprecedented in the history of mankind--akin to bombing Mexico for the actions of the Mexican gangs in Los Angeles and New York or bombing Italy for the actions of the Organized crime (Cosa Nostra). Of course the Taliban gang was created by Congress Rohrabaker and with CIA help. Their benfactor was the main person that liberated Afghanistan from the USSR--another US protege called Osma Bin Laden (the scoundrel drummed out of Saudi Arabia ad stripped of his citizenship)/
One of the most important purposes of UN is "to maintain international peace and security" by suppressing such wanton "acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace". Article 2 (4) of its charter gives substance to this statement of intent by prohibiting all kinds of aggression aimed at other states. There are, however, two exceptions to this provision, and we have to ascertain whether America's into Pakistan fall within their ambit. The first exception is provided under chapter VII of the Charter, whereby the Security Council may authorize collective action against the erring state to maintain or enforce international peace and security. It is to be noted that no such UN resolution authorizing an attack on Pakistan has been passed as yet and hence no question of UNSC-backed collective action arises against Pakistan.
Secondly, Article 51 of the Charter gives "the inherent right of collective or individual self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations." In this regard, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently told a Senate panel that the US had a right of "individual self-defence" under the UN Charter where a foreign government was either "unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist activity inside its borders". This assertion needs to be scrutinized.
It is true that Article 51 is vague as to who should launch the armed attack before this right of self-defence is invoked – it only says "if an armed attack occurs", meaning thereby that the armed attack could either be instigated by the state itself through its regular armed forces; someone on behalf of the state; or by lawless individuals or groups who do not have state's patronage. However, this open-ended point of view is curtailed or interpreted by the concept of state responsibility as enshrined in UN Resolution 3314 where the right of self-defence applies only when an act of aggression is carried out by, or on the behest of, one state against the territorial sovereignty of another.
Given this, the legal basis on which America has justified its incursions into Pakistani territory becomes untenable, as the persons involved in attacks against the allied forces in Afghanistan are non-state foreign militants who are a law and not regular Pakistani armed forces. Moreover, the Pakistani government has, by committing more than "one hundred thousand" of its regular armed troops to the border areas, shown to the world that it is more than "able and willing" to take care of the international terrorist activity inside its borders. Also, that more troops have died in the war on terror than those of all other allies combined should speak for itself. Crossing the borderThursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan
History is forgotten, stories have been created by the Neocons. A vulnerable population in Afghanistan already bombed out of existence by the USSR is now facing the brunt of the attack from drones and choppers 9which a just years ago were hailed as angles of mercy in the same region).
Now another candidate has become the pawn of the same war mongering crowd. Facing imminent defeat in Afghanistan Barack Obama wants to expand the theater of war. the British fought the Afghans and Paskhtuns for 80 years. In the end after the defeat of Maiwand and other defeats, they withdrew back to the Indus.
In fact, the right of self defence could rather be rightly raised by Pakistan against the US forces that are carrying out these uncalled-for acts of aggression. In this backdrop, the 'counter attacks' by the armed forces of Pakistan in defending its border region with Afghanistan are perfectly within the scope of international law. Furthermore, as mentioned in Article 4(f) of the Resolution 3314, Pakistan also reserves its right of self-defence against Afghanistan, which is allowing its territory to be used by American forces stationed in Afghanistan for perpetrating acts of aggression against Pakistan. Yet another plea America could take is that of 'hot pursuit' in FATA. In this regard, in an incident dating back to 1977, when Rhodesia entered Mozambique and attacked bases used by 'terrorists' 60 miles inside the border, the UN condemned the aggressor action saying that the concept of hot pursuit exists only under the law of the sea. It said that in the absence of an any agreement between states that explicitly permitted such action, there was no right of hot pursuit across land borders. In an ideal world, all this would have deterred any law-abiding country from violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other states – but not so for the world's sole superpower. The writers are both lawyers. Emails: osmankhan@rsilpak.org and naumanqaiser@rsilpak.org.
And why is it that Pakistani exports to the US are so heavily penalised?As last month’s report by the US Pakistan Policy Working Group points out, “We raise the same tariff revenue from Pakistan’s $3.7bn in exports to the US as from France’s $37bn in textile exports to the US. The average US tariff rate on Chinese exports to the US is three per cent, compared to 10 per cent on Pakistani exports.” Surely, seeking to slash this absurdly discriminatory level of protectionism would be less degrading than extending a begging bowl inscribed with the phenomenal figure of $100bn? The writer is a journalist based in Sydney. mahir.worldview@gmail.com
Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 15th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | India's faltering $41 Billion IT economy cannot salvage the lot of the poor. While a triumphalist media discusses the "growth of the Indian middle class", the reality of India's penury stricken population is very different. The higher the number the worse off the country. India ranks below Cambodia and Burkino Faso in terms of hunger. It is slightly better off that Haiti, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Pakistan's fares much better and is not listed on this chart. Cuba has taken care of its population and eliminated malnutrition, hunger and child mortality. It has done more with less and is the example that needs to be followed. Cuba produces more doctors for less and offers free medical education to citizens of the world. 1000 Cuban doctors served in cold Azad Kashmir and helped the victims of the earthquake.
India scored worse than nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh,” the report says.
When Indian states are compared to countries in the Global Hunger Index, [the central Indian state of] Madhya Pradesh ranks between Ethiopia and Chad,” it says.
India is long known to have some of the highest rates of child malnutrition and mortality in under-fives in the world.
According to the Indian government statistics two years ago, around 60% of more than 10 million children in the state were malnourished (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) along with Welthungerhlife and the University of California)
THE COUNTRIES WITH THE WORST RECORD ON HUNGER. THE HIGHER THE NUMBER THE WORSE IT IS. INDI RANKS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAP. On this chart Cambodia is the best and Congo the worst. India is worse than Burkino Faso and slightly better than Zimbabwe, and Haiti
The 2008 Global Hunger Index of developing and transitional countries has been published.
The annual survey, by the International Food Policy Research Institute in conjunction with Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, ranks 88 countries on under-nourishment, prevalence of child malnutrition and rates of child mortality. The higher the index score, the worse the performance.
What goes around, comes around. After almost a decade of "Awe and schock" daisy cutter bombing, drone strafing and air strikes on the anti-occupation insurgent, the powers to be have realized that Pakistan's legitimate interests have to be taken into account of any peace initiative to work in Afghanistan.
Both Obama and McCain have called for increases in US and NATO troop strength in Afghanistan, and President George W Bush currently intends to send 8,000 more US troops to join the 34,000 who are already there before he leaves office. The NATO commander in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, who commands a total of nearly 70,000 troops, said last week he will need another 15,000 for next year.
But while the forces may help keep the lid on, they cannot defeat the Taliban, according to Rashid and Rubin. The article criticizes the Bush administration's "war-on-terror" rhetoric that "thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous 'terrorist' enemy".
" ... An agreement in principle to prohibit the use of Afghan (or Pakistani) territory for international terrorism, plus an agreement from the United States and NATO that such a guarantee could be sufficient to end their hostile military action, could constitute a framework for negotiation. Any agreement in which the Taliban or other insurgents [which] disavowed al-Qaeda would constitute a strategic defeat [for al-Qaeda]," said the two authors. At the same time, Washington and its allies should pursue, "[A] high-level diplomatic initiative designed to build genuine consensus on the goal of achieving Afghan stability by addressing the legitimate sources of Pakistan's insecurity ... ". From Great Game to Grand Bargain, Foreign Affairs journal.Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid and New York University Professor Barnett Rubin (US eyes a 'grand' Afghan bargain By Jim Lobe in Asia Times)
The Taliban initially gained its political legitimacy because the population was sick and tired of the war and corruption that accompanied the Afghan warlords after the resistance to the Soviet occupation turned their guns on each other. Much of the populace now no longer welcomes a situation whereby outside military forces engage in virtually unconstrained military operations while the old corrupt warlords are back in business.
Although Pakistan has supported Pashtun based insurgents, including the Taliban, it would be wrong to attribute the current insurgency in Afghanistan primarily to Pakistani machinations. To appreciate this we need only re-consider how the Taliban rose to power in the first place.
After the Soviet withdrawal and the fall of the Soviet instituted regime of Najibullah the international community washed its hands of Afghanistan. A vicious civil war broke out, which included large scale rocket attacks upon Kabul, when most of the media was transfixed on the relatively minor siege of white and well attired Europeans in Sarajevo.
Nobody really cared much about Afghanistan after the Soviets left, except when it impacted on a new "great game" over the energy resources of Central Asia, much to the suffering of the Afghans.
The Taliban has benefited from this neglect twice over now. Following 9-11 and the over-throw of the Taliban the US essentially left Afghanistan, moving on to bigger and better things. One could see this in the manner in which the Taliban was dispatched.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who dismissed the comments by the British military commander but said that his country favors talks with Talban to bring peace in Afghanistan adding that talks with Taliban could be part of the solution to the Afghanistan violence. Talking to reporters en route to Europe for meeting with Defence Ministers, Gates admitted the coalition troops face a stiff challenge in Afghanistan. He said soaring violence in Afghanistan has made that country deadlier than Iraq but added that there is nothing to be the defeatist. He emphasized that part of a solution in Afghanistan is dialogue with those Taliban elements willing to work with the Karzai government.
Similarly, US State Department's deputy spokesman Robert Wood told a briefing in Washington, "We are very supportive of an Afghan reconciliation programme." US military commanders have already acknowledged that there's no military solution to the Afghan conflict and even its Joint Chief of Staff Mike Mullen in his statement before Senate committee had said that they are running out of time and stressed the need for change in the strategy as military effort alone could not bring peace to Afghanistan. The latest developments have exposed the claims of the puppet Afghan government of having control over vast area of the country and fighting against Talban and even blamed Pakistan for supporting them but now it is advocating for talks with the Taliban as mounting death toll among coalition troops and a worsening violence inside Afghanistan has forced the Americans to involve Saudi Arabia in the talks. The Post
Pakistan Taleban 'want to talk' By Syed Shoaib Hasan BBC News, Islamabad
The Taleban believe they will be negotiating from a position of strength
Taleban militants fighting the Pakistan army in the country's tribal areas say they are willing to hold unconditional talks with the government.
Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the militants, said they were also willing to lay down their arms if the military ceased operations against them. The army is conducting operations against militants in the tribal region of Bajaur and the Swat valley. The operations are said to be a serious effort to eradicate the Taleban. The army wants them and al-Qaeda to be removed from Pakistan's tribal regions next to the Afghan border.
'No foreigners'
"We are willing to negotiate with the government without any conditions," Maulvi Omar told the BBC Urdu service on Wednesday.
"We are also willing to lay down our arms, once the military ceases operations against us." Pakistan's government has said that it is willing to talk to the militants once they lay down their arms.
But it has also said it will not tolerate the presence of any foreigners in the region. Maulvi Omar said that the local Taleban did not want foreign militants in the region and would help the government to remove them. "We can set up a shura [elders] committee to liaise with the authorities in removing such people," he said. Maulvi Omar said it was useless to debate the security situation in parliament without taking the Taleban into confidence. "What is the use of discussing the situation without talking to us?" he asked.
Claims
Pakistan's military says it has killed and captured hundreds of militants in recent fighting in Bajaur and Swat. The military also says that it has destroyed fortified encampments and training facilities of the militants in Bajaur. But locals point out that this is mainly a series of exaggerated claims made by the military.
They say the militants never fight in regular positions, or behind fortifications, in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The tribesmen also say that claims that dozens of militants have recently been killed are also exaggerated.
Local journalists say that many of the places where the military claimed to have killed the insurgents were abandoned weeks before any attack. They also say that there is a big discrepancy between the number of bodies recovered and buried and the numbers of militants the military claim to have killed.
Strumenti 
The aftermath of a suspected U.S. drone attack on a building in North Waziristan. 
The impact of the invasions from Farghana, Samarkand, Bokhara and Ghazni had long term impacts on the Subcontinent as we see it today. These invasions to much extent destroyed the power of the Brahmins and at the very least liberated 450 million souls who would have been in total bondage of the caste system. The 450 million Muslims (in Pakistan, India and Bangaldesh) today enjoy a decent life whereas the 250 million Dalits (leftover0 are still struggling to find humanity in their souls and their destiny.
Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan
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Reviving Hinduism in Budhdist lands: The Hindu extremists use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India. (see Hindu unity dot org) 
Extremist Hindus show power using the Swastika in triple entendre--as an ancient Hindu symbol, reverence for Hitler and sign of Anti-Western Indian power 
Extremist Hindus revere Hitler and use the Swastika as the Indian flag
India's budget-- fit for a superpower 
Murder of 10 million Indian girl babies:Before or right after birth. The media is silent.
