پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

The author is an Indian Retd. Major. Project Arjun, a sitter for Pak MBT Al-Khalid:                      

By: Major General M. L. Popli (retd.)                        

India's main battle tank Project Arjun is, unfortunately, more flab than brawn. More a heavyweight than a performer. A potpourri really, with a French engine, and German seals fitted into an Indian hull and turret. And transporting this heavyweight is going to be another problem, which could limit its operational performance.

Project Arjun has indeed suffered throughout its development, from confusion
and inexplicable delays. And by imbalances between the Army, the DRDO and the bureaucracy. Pakistan by contrast, has drawn a lesson from the Indian                          experience and avoided the trap of over lasting her R&D's indigenous know-how in
the development of its MBT Khalid.

 
India's main Battle Tank (MBT) Project Arjun, named after mythical hero of the Mahabharat, was conceived in 1974. It was then planned that by 1995, about 10 armoured regiments of the Indian Army would be re-equipped with Arjun. Depending
excessively on research and development, advanced industrial and defence production base, project Arjun was planned entirely to be under taken by the scientists and the engineers indigenously.

Almost six different agencies have been at work on this  project, besides a number of subsidiary organizations. Published reports revealed that after a number of prototypes and pre-production models spread over the last 16 years or so, own Defence and Research Development Organization has managed to produce an over 60 tons tank. Some armour experts have termed it as more of a heavyweight than a performer, more of
flabbiness than mobile fire power.

Arjun mounts a 120mm rifled gun deadly in lethal power but wanting in accuracy.
Its performance in various trails was reported to be anything but up to the mark. It is believed that during in March 1990, General V. N. Sharma, the then Army Chief of Staff and an armoured expert, was "quite wild" when only three of the five rounds hit the 5X5 meter target and no hit was scored against a moving target. 

Its trial performance stands in sharp contrast to that claimed by the DRDO that the tank's main gun would hit a target 60X60 cm from a distance of 2000 meter. In another similar field trial a month earlier, only four of the five rounds had hit a 5X5 meter target at 1100 meter. Incidentally, such accuracy trials are generally related to the height of the tanks, usually 2 meter high.                          

Arjun was basically planned as an ambitious project with complete indigenous components and assemblies.

It has now been revealed that the Arjun's sub-systems were all imported except for the hull and the turret. The imported assemblies include all major sub-systems such as engine, transmission, track-suspension, gin and fire control. Our experts are of the view that their integration, "leaves much to be desired". The auxiliary power unit from France did not perfectly fit in the tank, with the German seals not meeting the General Staff qualitative requirements of withstanding temperatures up to 150 degree Centigrade
. The barely measured up to 120 degrees. Arjun is therefore quite a "khichri" with the French engine, with German seals fitted into the Indian hull and turret mounting a not very accurate 120mm gun.                          

Armoured experts say that another problem thrown up by the heavyweight is its transportation. Arjun could present a lot of problem for transportation by railways particularly through certain portions of the system. This could impose very serious
limitations on the Arjun's operational performance. In most of the field armies, the tank transporters and assault bridges are not usually designed to take such heavy weights. These aspects mostly highlight the engineering and operational problems.

It would be worthwhile to example financial implications. Both the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) and Public Accounts Committee have been very critical of this project relating to as much as of the rising costs as well as inordinate delays. Our finance men generally been very unhappy both over the time and cost factor, originally sanctioned at Rs. 15 crore per copy, its costs have excalated to nearly double the original estimates. Dr. Raja Ramanna has stated that the bulk production of Arjun as Indian Army's MBT would commence sometime in 1992 or so. Hopefully, the Arjun should be the medium through which our strike corps would achieve their objective.

Experience in the most advanced countries suggests that it takes nearly 20 years t develop and integrate a tank. However, appreciating our security environment it is necessary that a state of the art MBT should become available to our forces by
1994-95. To draw lesson for the future, it is essential to cover this aspect. Project Arjun throughout its development has suffered from confusion and perhaps also from avoidable indecisive delays. It has been dogged by grave imbalances between the DRDO, the bureaucracy and the Army. It took us nearly 15 years to appoint an expert senior Armoured Corps officers (Lt. Gen.) to coordinate the various loose ends. General Tripathi was the first incumbent.                          

As it is, project Arjun has involved the utilization of six major imported sub-systems and , there fore all this talk of idigneousness will not quite wash. Yet another lesson is that we should not put all our eggs in one basket and must have fall back position s and options, despite repeated setbacks - be these in the ongoing Arjun and the LCA projects and our earliest dismal experience on HF-24 Muruts.                          

While our success in missiles is definitely a feather in DRDO's cap, the Arjun and LCA projects underlines, the need for a review at the political level whether India can support such wasteful expenditure and delays. This is an age of globalization and sharing of technology, along with co-sharing of benefits. We seem to have paid rather heavily for trying to do it ourselves in the vain hope of doing it better than all others elsewhere.
Perhaps the political factor and DRDO's overconfidence may have been major limitations and our political masters and scientists as well as the users need to have a second look in such vital areas as defence. And now to take a look at the development of the MBT by our Western neighbors. Pakistani experts have apparently drawn a lesson from Indian experience in this field. They avoided the trap of an over estimating know how indigenous R&D'' and industrial base. Fortunately, the bureaucratic working environments in this particular context are far more efficient and responsive in Pakistan with the need to
Armed Forces being given a respected look, due partly to their role in
the affairs of the state.                          

Reports since last September continue to suggest that Pakistan has not only been
implementing an ambitious project to upgrade her existing fleet of Chinese built T-59 tanks, but has also carried out successful production of her MBT prototypes.

Besides upgrading its T-59 tanks, which number over 1300, Pakistan has
also produced a new upgraded model designated T-69-2MP with a 105mm rifle bore gun and an improved fire control system. T-69-2MP which rolled out from the Heavy
Rebuild Factory in December '90 is to be the Pak Army's MBT till a totally new and vastly improved MBT-2000 Khalid, named after the famed Arab Conqueror Khalid Bin Walid, enters the operational service sometime in 1993-94. How did Pakistan acquire such a favorable lead?

Reports in February-March this year in the Pakistani media heralded the successful testing of a modern prototype tank at its Heavy Rebuild Factory (HRF) being redesignated as Heavy Defence Industries in the ancient University township of Taxila almost 40kms North of Islamabad. Project MBT-2000 Khalid is being executed in close collaboration with China's NORINCO. A memorandum to this effect was signed between the two countries sometime in the late 80s. According to analysts MBT-2000 Khalid is rated more than a match for the Soviet supplied T-72 tanks held by our army.                          

Having completed the design and development of MBT-2000 Khalid project, a number of prototypes have been built for evaluation and trials under different conditions. The preliminary prototype is being handed over to Pakistan Army for field trials in June 1991. General Mirza Aslam Beg, the Pakistan Army Chief, while addressing the annual conference of commanding officers of tank regiments on March 17, 1991, at Nowshera (Ahmed Nagar being its Indian counterpart), further revealed that the production of this tank is expected to commence in 1993. A word, however needs to be mentioned about the
Taxila Industrial Complex. This complex has come to be known as the Golden Triangle with its two sides comprising Heavy Mechanical Complex and the heavy Forge and Foundry. Once a total wildness, Taxila has developed into Pakistan's single
largest heavy industrial complex.                          

Together with the Wah Ordnance Factories Complex and further north the Kamra
Aeronautical Complex, these reflect Pakistan's determination to achieve indigenous industrial development and also that country's well-planned efforts for self-reliance in vital areas of defence.

According to military analyst, Pakistan adopted a step-by-step approach towards the manufacture of its MBT-2000 Khalid, and this is the single most important reason for having stolen a march over India. They are of the opinion that the Indian project was too ambitious, whereas Pakistan's approach was more systematic comprising the following phases:

Setting up of project 711 in the early 80s to rebuild the Chinese T-59 tanks inducted in Pakistan Army after the 1965 conflict with India. Some 1000 such tanks are being built and 2000 engines of tanks are being produced.                          

Project 711 was subsequently expanded and redesignated P-711-K (K in Chinese denotes
extension). This project is designed to eliminate need for imported components up to 80 percent. More importantly, on a long term basis, P-711-K has been planned to establish production base for manufacture of complete MBT.

It is learnt that once the production line for the MBT 2000 gets established, over 100 such tanks will start rolling out to give Pakistan a level of self-reliance undreamed of earlier. In this entire process (P-711 to 711-K), various series of tanks such as P-70, P-85, and finally P-90 (MBT-2000 Khalid) are being completed in phased  manner.                          

Pakistan's MBT-2000 Khalid will mount a 125mm gun with thermal image converter
and will enter Pakistan's operational service sometime by the mid-90s thus the T-series of tanks are being progressively converted into P-Series. Maximum effort has been devoted to getting the machine souped up as possible mainly to cut down weight. Just compare the 60 tons Arjun with the maximum 44 tons P-90 khalid.                          

Now that T-69-2MP2 has commenced entering Pakistan Army service succeeding
the T-59 series and preceding MBT-2000 Khalid, it is essential to mention some details of this tank. It is equipped with 105mm gun with a more powerful engine, special armour for increased protection in the Pakistani built laser range finder and thermal image sighting system to maximize the gun range even in the hours of darkness.

It also has an integrated fire control system for reducing engagement time and increasing accuracy, along with the automatic fire support system. This tank's most lethal component, the penetrater ammunition called Armour Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS), is also being indigenously produced. It will not be out of place to mention that bilateral discussions are already underway with USA on the possible
co-production of the Abram M1A1 tank which proved its superiority in the recent Gulf war against Iraq. Pakistan has ruled out its purchase and signed an agreement in November '90 with the US company General Dynamics for establishing a rebuild factory for M-Series of tracked vehicles (M-47, M-45A2, M-68, A3 and M-113 and others).                          

This project has been designated P-87. Currently, a series of such closely related
projects to manufacture hull, turret, gun barrels and engines are in various stages of planning-execution. All these will finally merged into a tank manufacturing factory
that will produce MBT-2000 Khalid.

A comparison of the approaches on the production of MBT-2000 by India
and Pakistan clearly highlights that in such areas where both research and development, as also the industrial base of a reasonably high level do not exist, it is in the overall
interest of the country as also its armed forces that we should shed our political obsessions, bureaucratic ineptitude and the overestimated vanity of our DRDO. It can surely save the country vast amount of scarce funds while, at the same time , giving
our armed forces the best weapons system. With the changes in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe , we definitely need to review our earlier approach in the sphere

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

U.S. strategy simply hasn’t worked. For all its bombs and drones, the consensus is that the Taliban in Afghanistan are winning while Zardari last month told the BBC that the “Pakistani Taliban have the upper hand, and both the world and Pakistan are losing the ‘war on terror’.”

If that’s true, then the U.S. and NATO must back off to allow the region to solve its own problems and heal its own wounds. Every day they are in country they prove over and over again that violence only breeds violence.

It’s time that Zardari and his Afghan counterpart President Hamid Karzai told them “Time’s up. Get packing”. It’s more than likely that once the red rag stops waving the extremist bulls will quit snorting. Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. (Source: Gulf News)

Many I met on the streets of the capital believe the blast was caused by a "foreign hand", a reference that usually denotes anyone from India, Afghanistan, Israel and Russia to the United States.

"They have taken revenge for the attacks in Delhi," said Allahditta Malik, a shopkeeper whose windows were shattered in the blast, referring to recent terrorist attacks in India.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Pakistani President Zardari gushes over Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's meeting in New York this morning with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari — part of her crash course in foreign affairs — began innocuously enough.

"So nice to meet you," she told him, according to the pool report filed by CNN, and he responded in kind.

Simple, civil salutations. But Zardari soon steered the conversation in a direction ..

ZARDARI: “You are even more gorgeous than you are on the [inaudible].”

PALIN: “You are so nice. Thank you.”

ZARDARI: “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

[A Zardari handler tells the two to shake hands again for the cameras.]

PALIN: “I’m supposed to pose again.”

ZARDARI: “If he’s insisting, I might hug.”

At that point, the pool reporter was escorted from the room.

— Kate Linthicum

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

News from New York is refreshing. It says that US President George W Bush and President Asif Ali Zardari held a meeting on Tuesday a week before a meeting of ‘Friends of Pakistan’ that aims to consider a proposal for bailing Pakistan out of its economic crisis. Both leaders showed unanimity of views on the core issue of Pakistan’s sovereignty, with President Bush stating that Pakistan’s sovereignty would be respected and military and economic aid would be provided to it for combating terrorism. Ironically, when Mr Bush was assuring his Pakistani counterpart of his intention to honour Pakistan’s sovereignty, yet another US drone carried out a mission over Pakistani territory before crashing near Angoor Adda – the scene of the Nato ground assault that killed over a dozen tribesmen. The local tribesmen have claimed to have shot down the drone. This could just well be the case given the level of anti-US anger prevailing in the tribal areas and among its population. The tribal population is getting increasingly perturbed over the incidents of ‘foreign’ incursions that they consider an invasion against their independence. Quite alarmingly, drones have continued their ‘spy’ missions despite earlier US assurances about not breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty. The Post: September 25th, 2008

September 25th, 2008 - 2:12 pm ICT by ANI -

Washington , Sept 25 (ANI): In the wake of the recent surge in tensions with Pakistan over unilateral strikes by US-led forces from across the Afghan border, the US administration has reportedly called for a review of US strategy in Afghanistan .

A senior Pentagon official said that US President George Bush has ordered a review of US strategy in Afghanistan , amid rising insurgent violence and tensions with Pakistan .

The review is being led by Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, a deputy national security adviser, with the participation of senior representatives from the Pentagon and other departments, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Clearly this seems to be a larger, more cross-governmental approach to what we do here on a regular basis. I think we”re trying to get everything in order and make sure were on a footing for long-term success, the Pentagon official said while referring to Pentagons regular reviews of military strategy.

With only months left to the current administration, the White House wants to move quickly, the official said, and added I wouldn”t necessarily assume that there is going to be a complete new strategy. That’’s what’’s being considered. Are these things that require adjustments?

After his recent meeting with Bush two days ago, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had appeared Satisfied saying that the US President mindset favoured stopping the unilateral strikes from across the Afghan border. Though, he was non-committal at Bushs clear assurances on the issue. (ANI)

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Its Afghanistan. Octoberfest in Kabul. Well not quite? A Taliban test offensive, quite possible. According to press reports the probability of a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan is not only possible, it if very probable

• "..we should expect one more enemy effort before winter,": Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak 
• We are now combating a much stronger and more sophisticated enemy: Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak

Kabul expects new Taliban onslaught before winter: minister

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Taliban forces will likely stage a new wave of attacks in Afghanistan before winter sets in, the country's defense minister said as he renewed calls for a joint US-Afghan-Pakistan border force.

"I believe we have experienced the worst of this year's fighting" but "we should expect one more enemy effort before winter," Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said during a visit to the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.

"There are more foreign fighters and Taliban in Afghanistan than in any time in the past few years and they are operating in more provinces than before," Wardak said.

"We are now combating a much stronger and more sophisticated enemy," he said, citing "elaborate preparation, access to better training, plenty of resources and equipment, new tactics, sophisticated planning" displayed by the Taliban.

Saying a more sophisticated enemy requires "a global strategic response," Wardak repeated his call for a joint Afghani-Pakistani and NATO-led coalition force that would target insurgent safe havens on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

"We need to establish a mechanism for practical cross-border cooperation, including strengthening routine links between our military, border security and law enforcement institutions," the minister said.

The proposal was "in the very initial stage" and will need to be developed further, said Wardak, adding: "It will take time."

Given allegations that Pakistan is turning a blind eye to insurgents operating out of the country, a joint force patrolling on both sides of the border would "eliminate all the suspicion there is at the moment."

"It will be a major confidence building (step). Everybody will be fully assured of each other's sincerity," he said.

The proposal, which has yet to be publicly endorsed by the United States or Pakistan, comes as Pakistani leaders have expressed anger over strikes in the country's tribal zone by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces.

The proposed joint border force "will make the question of sovereignty less sensitive," Wardak said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani meanwhile reiterated Wednesday that his country would not tolerate violations of its sovereignty after a series of strikes this month.

The US Defense Department called for combined efforts to tackle the threat posed by insurgents.

"We need collectively if possible to address this threat from the tribal regions," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

The Pentagon was "encouraged by the recent, far more aggressive military operations that the Pakistanis are taking in the tribal areas," he told a news conference.

As for the joint force endorsed by Kabul, the spokesman added: "If they (Pakistanis) ever were to acquiesce and agree to do joint operations, that would be a good thing."

In New York, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged the international community on Wednesday to provide more assistance for his country's army and police to enable security forces to take on a greater role in the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Such a move could reduce the need for NATO-led troops and decrease civilian casualties, Karzai said, in a reference to coalition operations backed by air strikes that have resulted in numerous civilian casualties.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

 

Pakistan will prevail against terrorism: By Asif Ali Zardari  |  September 25, 2008

THERE ARE MOMENTS in history that define nations, and also define men. For Pakistan, we have reached a critical crossroad that will determine the nature of our future, or if we will have one. I have the opportunity to help my people secure that future, by implementing the vision of my late martyred wife, Benazir Bhutto. Benazir gave her life fighting the terrorism and fanaticism that haunt the entire civilized world. I fight the terrorist threat in Pakistan not only as an elected democratic leader but also as a grieving husband. No one should doubt my commitment to standing up to the terrorist threat. My commitment is national. My commitment is personal.

Last week's cowardly attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is another example of the irrational threat against civilization. Striking during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the barbarians killed 60 people and injured hundreds more. It was our national 9/11. It once again demonstrated that Pakistan is the great victim in the war on terror. We have lost more soldiers in Afghanistan than all the 37 countries that have forces there. We have watched our children being blown up, our wives cut down. We do not need lectures about terrorism from anyone. We don't read about it or watch it on the evening news. We live it each and every day.

The war on terror is Pakistan's war, and we are its greatest victims. We stand united and in defiance. We are resolved that our future will not be dictated by those who defile the spirit and laws of Islam for their sordid political goals. We may be the targets of international terrorism, but we will never succumb to it.

We are confronting the terrorist threat in our tribal areas as well as in our cities. Soldiers are arrayed in the field against the Taliban and al Qaeda, and last month our fighter jets killed 600 enemy fighters. But terrorism cannot be fought by military means alone. Fighting terrorism requires political will, popular mobilization, and a socioeconomic strategy that wins the hearts and minds of the people, by giving them a concrete stake in our country's emerging democracy and in our economic infrastructure. Toward this end, we need the support of the developed world to not only help us fight terrorism but also its root causes, which lurk in the poverty that breeds hopelessness.

The fight against terrorism will not be won by guns and bombs alone. The fight must be multifaceted. The battleground must be economic and social as well as military. We will win when people are mobilized against the fanatics. To mobilize them we have to give them hope and opportunity for their future. They need jobs. Their children need education. They must be fed. They must have energy. We must demonstrate to them that democracy does perform and that democratic governance can improve their everyday life. In terms of security and national interest, our success will be success for the world as well.

An economically viable Pakistan will be a secure Pakistan, and a secure Pakistan is the greatest asset in the world's fight against terrorism. A stable and economically viable Pakistan will suck the oxygen from the terrorist agenda. Economic justice and political democracy are the terrorists' worst nightmares.

We must fight this epic battle together as allies and as partners. But just as we will not let our territory be used by terrorism for attacks on our people and neighbors, we cannot allow our territory and sovereignty to be violated by friends. Attacks that violate our sovereignty actually serve to empower the forces against which we mutually fight.

I am a democratic president of a democratic nation elected with a two-thirds mandate, and I intend that my country be a model to our region and religion of a vibrant, modern, tolerant, peaceful, moderate democracy committed to economic and social justice. People, including my wife, died for this moment. I do not intend to squander it.

Terrorism took Benazir's life. But the terrorist cannot kill my wife's dream

Asif Ali Zardari is president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 25th, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

America polarizes on Islam

Fear inspires stereotypes, Omnibus lecturer contends: Kelly Soderlund The Journal Gazette

Georgetown University professor John L. Esposito jokes that he owes his career to the leader of the Iranian Revolution.

Before the 1979 revolution, nobody cared about experts in Islamic studies. Esposito, who holds a doctorate in the subject, had submitted 100 book proposals to publishers in the late 1970s: 96 did not respond, and four publishers told him there was no market for his ideas.

Within five weeks of the revolution’s breaking out, Esposito signed three book contracts. All of a sudden, the world woke up to the issues in the Muslim world, and Esposito’s expertise was needed.

Esposito kicked off Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne’s Omnibus Lecture Series on Wednesday with a speech at the John and Ruth Rhinehart Music Center.

He first met with about 50 students and discussed his work as an author of 35 books; professor of religion and international affairs and of Islamic studies at Georgetown; and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Esposito also serves as a consultant to the U.S. State Department as well as numerous corporations and media outlets.

Islam has gone from being invisible to the second largest religion in the world, Esposito said.

“But we also continue to have a very polarizing approach to understanding Islam and the Muslim world,” said Esposito, whose speech was titled “The United States and the Muslim World: What the Next President Should Know.”

Many people have “Islamaphobia,” which Esposito compares to anti-Semitism.

Many Americans have never come in contact with a Muslim person, and many also avoid meeting people from that background, he said. The only thing they know about Muslims is what they see in the media, which is usually a portrait of extremists or terrorists.

Thus, the stereotype develops that all Muslims are that way, Esposito said.

Esposito tells the story of when he introduced his blonde, blue-eyed wife to his Italian parents in Brooklyn. She told Esposito she thought they would be loud and crude because her Italian neighbors were.

And he recalls an Irish girl named Eileen who failed two grades in elementary school. At the time, Esposito thought it was because she was Irish.

When he first began studying Islam, Esposito said, many who practiced it wondered why he even bothered.

They thought he either had an ulterior motive or wondered why, if he understood what the religion was about, he hadn’t converted from Catholicism.

“I’ve found that mainstream Islam is a great thing,” Esposito said.

ksoderlund@jg.net

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Muslims ruled Spain from 711 to 1492 when the last Abur Rehman's Muslim Emirate of Cordoba fell to the King Ferdianand and Queen Isabella. "Why cry like a woman when you could not fight like a man" was what th Caliph's mother told the last Caliph who went on exile. Ferdinand and Isabella had promised the Jews and Muslims the same religious freedom that was given to them during the 700 year reign of the Jewish-Muslim-Christian symbiosis, under the Islamic Shariah laws. right after the Muslims were defeated in Cordoba, the Shariah Laws were repealed and replaced by the draconian Spanish Inquisition. All Jews and Muslims were killed, deported or converted in Spain by a representative of the Roman Catholic Church Torquamada. Torqumada tortured the Muslims and forced them to covert. Within a few decades the Moriscos (Muslim coverts to Christianity) and the Morinos (Jewish converts to Christianity) were hounded out of Spain and it remained a totally Catholic country for the next five centuries.

Jewish Synagogues, Islamic prayer, or Moorish Mosques or Muslim or Jewish immigration remained prohibited in Spain and all her colonies even after the Spanish American wars when Spain lost Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba to the USA. and even during the time of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco (1936-1975).

In 1967 some limited freedoms were allowed.  Thousands of Muslims are converting (or reverting) to their Muslim roots. It is a phenomenon that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago and some find it unbelievable even after 7/11 and Madrid. Today the old Muslim neighborhoods are are again inhabited by the Moorish Muslims from Morocco and Algeria and Mosques are flourishing.

Islam Comforts Spanish Intellectuals By  Al-Amin Andalusi, IOL Correspondent

Intellectuals, academics and anti-globalization activists make up the bulk of the new Muslim reverts in Spain

MADRID — Thousands of Spaniards, especially intellectuals, academics and anti-globalization activists, are finding comfort and solace in Islam.

"Embracing Islam is on the rise despite ferocious Western media campaigns," Abdul-Nour Brado, the head of the Islamic Society of Catalonia, told IslamOnline.net.

Estimates suggest that between 3,000 to 4,000 Catalonians accepted Islam recently.

"The numbers could be much higher than that," Barado believes.

Local media reports have noted that intellectuals, academics and anti-globalization activists make up the bulk of the new Muslim reverts in Spain.

Catalonians first embraced Islam in the 1960s and their numbers were quite few.

Now thousands of Catalonians are believed to have joined the fold of Islam.

The Spanish autonomous province of Catalonia covers an area of 31,950 km² with an official population of 6.3 million, and its capital is Barcelona.

It is home to around 100,000 Moroccan immigrants, which is attributed to the geographical proximity with Morocco.

The southern European country has an estimated Muslim minority of about at 1.5 million out of a total population of 40 million.

Islam is the second religion after Christianity and has been recognized through the law of religious freedom, issued in July 1967.

Increasing

More Spaniards in the northern province of Palencia, in the northern part of the autonomous community of Castile and Le?n, are also finding solace in Islam.

"Nearly 4,000 people in Palencia embrace Islam every year," said Saed Al-Ruttabi, the head of the Islamic Council of Palencia.

He said many Spaniards start their soul-searching journey by delving deep into the Islamic faith.

"And when they do so, they discover that the faith is quite different from the perceptions they had."

Al-Ruttabi noted that out of the 150,000 Muslims in Palencia, only 90,000 are of immigrant backgrounds.

"This reflects a global trend not only in Spain but across Europe and the US."

But the rising number of reverts is creating a "cultural problem" in the southern European country.

"New Muslims tend not to attend prayers in the mosques of Muslim immigrants," Barado said, attributing this to "cultural differences".

"This is because the reverts believe that such mosques have become like social centers for immigrant Muslims."

But Mohamed Halhul, a spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Council of Catalonia, sees a positive side.

"Differences between Muslim immigrants and new Muslims are a positive sign in a democratic country."

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

American comedians have an uncanny ability to gauge the political fortunes of aspiring presidential candidates. Most are unfettered by political considerations or dogma. Though it may a point of genuine discourse if they are biased or not, the fact remains that the late night comedy show hosts have a good feel for the pulse of the nation, and have a field day with political snafus. it is said that Jon Stewart has a team of Ivy League graduates assisting him with his monologue and and the skits. Jay Leno and Letterman have spent a lifetime understanding what gets a laugh and what does not. Much of it is in the delivery and many times they blend old themes that always work (guys not asking for directions, old people driving with blinkers on, etc. etc.).

When John McCain suspended his campaign this week, all the comedians had a field day with the decision. The points raised by Lettterman were poignant political commentary as well as brilliant comedy. It sure was funny and he made some really good points.

GERALDINE FERRARO, FORMER VICE PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER: Well, you know, I think he can really walk and chew gum at the same time. Having prepared for the debate, all the preparation, I'm pretty sure, is done by now. So if Sen. McCain wanted to do two things, which is one, address the issue, which is the economy and what is happening now, and doing it as a sitting senator, having input into a plan that will eventually, you know, be what the incoming president, if it's he or Sen. Obama will be dealing with in January — I think, you know, he could do both. Fox News

The problem with McCain is--its not just the politicians.

McCain cannot face the actual campaign on this issues - because he's on the losing side of almost all of them - and so it's all about bells, whistles, shiny objects, drama queen spectacles and propaganda. And in McCain's rattled head, he tells himself that he's pure because he once offered a series of public debates with Obama and Obama turned him down. That's enough for McCain to launch into this totally bizarre and unstable fall campaign. Yes: I said "unstable." What other word currently describes him? Andrew Sullivan's Dialy Dish

Letterman unloads on McCain for not showing up

NEW YORK (AP) — "Late Show" host David Letterman treated John McCain's decision to cancel an appearance on his talk show more like a stupid human trick than the act of a statesman.

The Republican presidential candidate said he was halting his campaign activities Wednesday, citing the need to deal with the nation's financial crisis, and called Letterman to drop out of the show's late-night lineup. On the air Wednesday night, Letterman assailed McCain's rationale and, with prickly humor, questioned whether the nominee — now trailing in some polls — was in trouble.

"This doesn't smell right," Letterman said. "This is not the way a tested hero behaves. Somebody's putting something in his Metamucil."

McCain spokeswoman Nicole Wallace said Thursday that the campaign "felt this wasn't a night for comedy."

"We deeply regret offending Mr. Letterman, but our candidate's priority at this moment is to focus on this crisis," Wallace said on NBC's "Today" show.

Letterman called McCain "a true American hero" but told his viewers: "This is not the John McCain I know, by God. It makes me believe something is going haywire with the campaign."

Instead of suspending a campaign, Letterman said, a presidential candidate should go to Washington to deal with a crisis and let his running mate shoulder the burdens of politicking.

"That's what you do. You don't quit. ... Or is that really a good thing to do?" Letterman said, a reference to McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. "What's the problem? Where is she? Why isn't she doing that?" he asked.

Letterman later asked: "Are we suspending it because there's an economic crisis or because the poll numbers are sliding?"

Making matters worse for McCain, his replacement was MSNBC's "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, a constant critic of the Arizona senator.

McCain told the CBS show that he was immediately flying back to Washington, Letterman told his audience. Then Letterman showed a TV feed of McCain being made-up for an appearance on news anchor Katie Couric's "CBS Evening News."

"Doesn't seem to be racing to the airport, does he?" Letterman said. "This just gets uglier and uglier."

As McCain spoke to Couric, Letterman shouted at the feed: "Hey, John, I've got a question. Do you need a ride to the airport?"

Letterman later said: "We're told now that the senator has concluded his interview with Katie Couric and he's now on Rachael Ray's show making veal piccata. ... What are you going to do?"

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Both the presidential candidates have the same problem--keeping the wraps on the VPs. The Democrats want the gaffe-machine Senator Biden to quit talking. The Democrats are scared that Palin will make a gaffe and be exposed. It is a matter of fact that Senator John McCain does well in Town Hall meetings, folksy type of events where there is fluff but not a lot of substance. In a hard hitting Douglas-McCarther, Reagan-Carter type of confrontation McCain may not be able to hold its own.

McCain's let's-postpone-the-debate idea may not be a real possibility now that Obama has indicated he won't play ball. But here's a factor to consider with the proposal itself: by the time the next scheduled (or, as McCain would have it, "first") presidential debate takes place, 16 states will already be voting. That includes battlegrounds like Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish

This election has been about Iraq. No the election has been about the economy. No the election has been been about Afghanistan. No the election has been about terrorism. These truths may be self evident again in 2008 "its the economy stupid". It is indigenous of Senator McCain to act as an outsider and bring in change, when Mr. McCain has been the consummate insider on the beltway.

GERALDINE FERRARO, FORMER VICE PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER: Well, you know, I think he can really walk and chew gum at the same time. Having prepared for the debate, all the preparation, I'm pretty sure, is done by now. So if Sen. McCain wanted to do two things, which is one, address the issue, which is the economy and what is happening now, and doing it as a sitting senator, having input into a plan that will eventually, you know, be what the incoming president, if it's he or Sen. Obama will be dealing with in January — I think, you know, he could do both. Fox News

It is also abundantly clear to the press that Governor Palin is a lightweight and may not survive either a thorough examination by the press or prosecution by the veteran battle tested Joe Biden. The Rove Republican machinery has sequestered Ms. Palin from the press like no other candidate has been in the history of US elections. Why is Palin in a media burqa (shielded from the press)? When will the cover come off? When will the press be able to cross examine the positions of the VP candidate.

With these facts it is safe to assume that Senator McCain chickened out of Friday's debate with Senator Obama. Amazingly and coincidently (wink wink, nod nod!) the new proposed McCain-Obama debate falls on the already scheduled VP debates. Oh! Darn! Now we have to push out the VP debates. The VP debates may be pushed out so close to the elections that people may not even watch the debate. A Republican may think "So much the better". Rote can go only so far.

McCain's Ploy By Harold Meyerson: Thursday, September 25, 2008; A19

Slipping in the polls? Concerned that Americans may be paying more attention to the declining economy -- and even supporting economic regulation again -- than to your own stellar leadership abilities?

What's a Republican presidential nominee to do?

If you're named John McCain, the answer became apparent yesterday afternoon -- make the solution to the economic crisis all about you. Suspend your campaign. Pull out of tomorrow's debate -- a trivial exercise merely allowing Americans to judge the two candidates side by side. Change the terms of the nation's economic discussion from the course we should take, and the defects of the laissez-faire model that got us here, to the indispensability of John McCain, leader of leaders.

(Besides, if tomorrow's debate goes on as scheduled, it will doubtless focus on the economy as well as foreign affairs, its announced topic. McCain sees foreign policy as one area where he can outshine Obama. Only by rescheduling the debate after the crisis has passed can he be sure he will have his moment in the foreign policy sun.)

Yesterday's Post-ABC News Poll showed Barack Obama opening a nine-point lead over McCain, chiefly because of the economic anxiety flooding the nation and the belief of most Americans that Obama is more in touch with economic realities than McCain is and has a better sense of how to navigate both the current crisis and America's long-term economic challenges. But the McCain plan for victory this November never counted on Americans picking McCain on the basis of the issues.

As his strategists saw it, they had to confine the discussion to a comparison of the character of the two candidates. Alas for McCain, reality intruded over the past week, distracting the public from McCain's stellar attributes as a decisive leader with news of an impending economic collapse. So the task for his managers has been to diminish this new story to just one chapter in the ongoing saga of John McCain, the man who rides to the rescue.

Can McCain pull this off -- persuading the public to forget how he and his fellow Reagan Republicans changed the nation's economic rules in ways that allowed Wall Street to run amok, and refocusing its attention on his decisiveness at this moment of crisis? I doubt it.

For one thing, America may be a republic of amnesiacs, but deep in some seldom-used brain lobe, it does recall that its two political parties have differed on questions of regulation and stimulating the economy, a comparison that does not now work in Republicans' favor. For another, presidential debates aren't distractions from the business of the nation. However confining their formats may at times be, they are central to the business of democracy, and suspending that business so that a lowest-common denominator consensus can be reached in Washington -- or so that McCain can complain that Obama is an obstructionist if he doesn't go along with McCain's proposals -- is an affront to American voters.

McCain's ploy was transparent. To counter the public's preference for Obama's economics over his own, he would get both of them in a room and emerge proclaiming that they had reached agreement, that they had no differences. In fact, they have very real differences. McCain wants to retain tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; Obama wants to create tax cuts for all but the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans. Obama favors policies -- through investments in infrastructure and education and through legislation enabling Americans to join unions without fear of being fired -- to build the base of the economy, while McCain's record is one of opposition to such policies. Obama favors trade agreements only when they raise labor and environmental standards with our trading partners and protect them here at home; McCain has supported every trade pact that has weakened such standards and has never said one word about protecting our standards or raising them abroad.

Comparisons such as these are odious, however, to McCain's prospects.

He cannot win on the strength of his positions. He can only win on the strength of his character. Problem is, McCain's character, as we have seen in his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, is heavy on decisiveness and weak on judgment. In this, despite his campaign's protestations, a McCain presidency would be very much an extension of George W. Bush's. The president helped McCain out last night by inviting both candidates to Washington today to put their imprimatur on a deal that seemed near completion. At the risk of making McCain's gesture look less heroic, he also made it look less self-absorbed.

But self is McCain's selling point. He is either the man on horseback riding to the rescue, or he is nothing -- or, more precisely, the loser come November. Obama, Lord knows, has his flaws, but he does not seem to believe that the nation's crises are primarily about him.

meyersonh@washpost.com

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Anti-Islam Video Offends American Ideals

By DIVYA KUMAR Special to the Tribune The Tampa Tribune Published: September 25, 2008

About 4,000 years ago the Code of Hammurabi was written and inscribed the most basic form of justice into stone and society's civilians.

About 400 years ago, the country we live in today was settled by colonists in search of a better life so they could live happily and pursue all that they could - the American dream.

About 45 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered a speech that ignited the flame in nearly every justice-seeking heart. He spoke of the dream, the "American Dream." The dream where all dreams can be fulfilled no matter how big or small. The dream where everyone is happy and anyone can do anything.

This dreamland is no mystical place. It is known as America.

As a proud American citizen, I am disgusted to see the ideals of this nation being so blatantly breached.

I was slightly alarmed recently to find copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" in both The New York Times and The Tampa Tribune, yet quickly disregarded it after realizing the ideal of freedom of speech was being upheld. Yet upon seeing the anti-American ideals the DVD sermonized, I grew livid to think that such malevolent propaganda could so maliciously manipulate the American creed in spreading itself.

True, the DVD is factually correct for the most part. Yet the video consistently projected the opinion of the minority upon the majority, thus weaving blanket conclusions with tiny strands of partial truths. It failed to emphasize that Islamic radical terrorists are a minority. What did it seek to achieve by the repetitive images of anti-America rallies? Is it not the identical extremist fear-mongering strategies that we in theory morally oppose?

While we criticize the Islamic terrorists for their casual references to the destruction of American images, how different is that from our own leading politicians who jovially croon "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"? While by no means does this make us an extremist society, it doesn't make the culture of Islam one either.

As a friend of several Muslims, what inflicted wounds of grief most deeply was the call to action against most Muslims in America who are supposedly here "with an agenda" and are "using our laws and democracy against us." Islam is a religion of peace. Quoting from the Koran: "Whosoever killed a person ... it shall be as if he had killed all mankind." (Al Maidah, Ch.5: verse 33).

Is it not discrimination to lump together the masses of peace-seeking individuals with a few extremists? Suppose the image of the purist-seeking Ku Klux Klan became the American visage. Could America the beautiful truly shine as she once did?

The call to action frightened me most. Dare these seekers of Babylonian justice call themselves Americans as they disregard the morals and values the Founding Fathers who sowed the seeds of democracy into the American terrain, turning a blind eye to the self-evident truths that "all men are created equal." How much longer can we ostracize our fellow countrymen and create polarization based on fear and hatred?

Is it "coincidental" that this DVD was released two weeks before the voter registration deadline in a country in which more than 15 percent of citizens believe that one candidate belongs to the faith of Islam? While it is untrue that Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim, it is sick to watch opponents toss around the word "Islam" and "Muslim" like a negative epithet, a sick manifestation of the fear of differences that penetrates into a supposedly secular government.

If we continue to remain hidebound by our ignorance and fail to embrace our differences, we will soon strangle the beauty out of a nation created to celebrate the harmony of different ideals.

Divya Kumar, who lives in Tampa, is a junior at King High School.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

We must fight this epic battle together as allies and as partners. But just as we will not let our territory be used by terrorism for attacks on our people and neighbours, we cannot allow our territory and sovereignty to be violated by friends,” President Asif Ali Zardari:  The Boston Globe.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said its helicopters were conducting routine operations inside Afghanistan when they came under small arms fire from a Pakistani checkpoint along the border near Tanai distict in eastern Khost province. "It appears to be an unfortunate misunderstanding," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman (The News: Thursday, September 25, 2008)

PAKISTAN IS being drawn inexorably into the war in neighbouring Afghanistan, as both sides there escalate that conflict beyond its borders. Last Saturday's car bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed 53 people and wounded at least 200, is a stark warning to the new president Asif Ali Sardari of how potent a threat he faces.

He is under pressure from sections of the armed forces and the United States to take much more robust action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda alliance in the border regions with Afghanistan. It is a real dilemma, with risks both ways, because the long-term strategy required to prosecute such a war successfully could split Pakistan apart.

The Afghan war pitches President Hamid Karzai's government and Nato forces against a growing rebellion by the Taliban, in alliance with regional nationalists who resent and resist the country's occupation. It is fuelled by a huge opium production and drugs industry backed by corrupt warlords.

Increasingly the war looks unwinnable without major escalation. In the 1980s the US encouraged the Taliban force against Russian occupation, funding Pakistan's support for the campaign. The Taliban thereby got the springboard they needed to seize and hold power in the 1990s, until toppled by the US in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

This longer history is the essential backdrop to the central role played by the immense borderlands area, now a strategic haven for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, under pressure from Nato forces. Former president Pervez Musharraf was not able or willing to bring them under full Pakistani control; he compromised by doing a deal with regional leaders and militias. It has now unravelled, as the US decided this summer to mount attacks across the border with drones and marines. The Marriott attack is best understood as a retaliation against that provocation, and is calculated to exploit nationalist feelings and test army loyalties.

President George Bush has a clear interest in securing his legacy by pursuing a military victory in Afghanistan, if necessary by drawing Pakistan into a military surge against the Taliban. It is a dangerous course because Pakistan's fragile political system may snap under the strain of accepting between the US violation of its sovereignty and effectively internalising the Afghan conflict. A less risky alternative policy would accept the overlap between these conflicts but simultaneously seek a political solution capable of isolating the Taliban in both countries.

© 2008 The Irish Times

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  |Sept. 23rd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی |  

Pakistan Ledger has repeatedly reported that the Karzai regime has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghans and the Pakistanis. In 2001, hubris and arrogance ignored the sane Pakistani advice that instead of carpet bombing the country with Daisy Cutter bombs, a section of the "good Pakhtuns" could be convinced to remove those who were bent upon harboring the terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and his coterie of Arab followers.

Pakistan in 2001 had considerable influence within the corridors of power in Kabul. The Pakistanis had convinced the government in Kabul to abandon the terrorists and find a way to work around Paktunwali (the system of allegiance and, hospitality and asylum) which had been extended to Osama Bin Laden because of his support to the Pakhtuns during the Afghan war with the USSR. The Kabul government was reluctant to abandon a hero who had helped them for the best part of a decade fighting the USSR.

The USA at the time directed and threatened Pakistan into abandoning the support to the Taliban, brushed aside any other option and then promptly moved to bomb Afghanistan into the stone age (from which it had barely begun to creep out after three decades of war).

There is a huge insurgency in Afghanistan where the anti-occupation forces (38 separate and distinct groups) actually control most of the country--NATO-ISAF, US Marines, and CIA operative not withstanding. The Washington Post today dares to report what is common knowledge for most Pakhtuns and most Pakistanis.

As Crime Increases in Kabul, So Does Nostalgia for Taliban

Traders count their money in Kabul's open-air currency market. Several traders have been kidnapped or killed in a wave of violent crime in the Afghan capital. Armed gangs target buses and trucks on the country's main highways. (By Pamela Constable -- The Washington Post)

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By Pamela Constable: Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, Sept 25, 2008; Page A13

KABUL -- Mirza Kunduzai, 58, a slight man with a short white goatee, had almost reached his house after a day of trading in the capital's open-air currency market when his taxi was forced to stop by six heavily armed men dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms.

For the next week, Kunduzai recounted, he endured one horror after another -- beaten unconscious, hooded and handcuffed, strung up by his wrists and ankles, dumped in a filthy latrine -- while his family frantically tried to raise the kidnappers' astronomical ransom demand of $2 million.

"I was 95 percent sure I was a dead man," Kunduzai said last week. "They said if my family went to the police, they would chop off my fingers and send them to my wife. I begged them to be reasonable. I offered them my house and my farmland back home. Finally, they agreed to settle for $500,000 and released me. I am poor again, but I am thankful to be alive."

While Taliban insurgents stage increasing attacks in the Afghan countryside, equally fast-expanding violent crime -- kidnappings, carjackings, drug-related killings and highway robberies -- is plaguing the capital of 5 million and the vital truck and bus routes that connect the country's major cities. It is making some Afghans nostalgic for the low-crime days before 2001, when the Taliban sternly ruled most of the country.

Today's problem, which experts say is intertwined with widespread official corruption, opium trafficking and the get-rich-quick boom of postwar aid and reconstruction, is threatening to destroy public confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai and drive away what little investment the desperately poor country is attracting.

Police and soldiers are everywhere in Kabul -- patrolling traffic circles and markets, cruising in open pickup trucks. Armed private guards stand outside newly built glass offices and wedding salons. Every week, more streets are blocked by massive concrete barricades to shelter embassies, official buildings and compounds used by U.S. and NATO forces.

"The security situation is normal. Our police are honest and patriotic, and they are getting stronger day by day," Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawol, chief of criminal investigations for the Kabul police, said in a brief interview Tuesday. He dismissed concerns about growing urban insecurity as "enemy propaganda" and said many so-called kidnappings turn out to be romantic elopements.

But on Wednesday morning, Paktiawol narrowly escaped assassination when a remote-controlled bomb exploded under his vehicle on the outskirts of Kabul, where he had gone to investigate the late-night shooting of three policemen. The general escaped with minor injuries, but his three bodyguards were killed. Officials blamed the Taliban.

In the streets and shops of this sprawling city, many residents say they have virtually stopped going out at night. Wealthy families and traders such as Kunduzai have reported dozens of kidnappings for ransom this year -- often by gangs they believe to be members of the security forces.

The burgeoning drug trade, by which Afghan opium reaches international markets and provides more than 75 percent of the world's heroin, has brought ever-more weapons and wealth into the criminal orbit, corrupting cooperative officials and eliminating scrupulous ones.

Two weeks ago, Alim Hanif, the chief judge of the country's Central Narcotics Tribunal and a man known for rare honesty in a graft-ridden system, was assassinated in Kabul. Officials said he had received numerous phone and text messages warning him to acquit a suspected drug dealer or face death.

Another problem is the continued sway of militia bosses who fought Soviet troops in the 1980s and still command groups of armed loyalists in the capital and other cities. According to diplomatic reports, some of these groups are involved in private security forces that extort money from wealthy businesspeople; others are police or other public security officers who use their uniforms and weapons to abet a variety of crimes.

"The government is weak, and it has an enormously high level of tolerance for crime, abuse and corruption," said Nader Nadery, an official of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "If you have power and money, you don't have to account for your actions. Instead of the rule of law, there is a state of impunity, which is one of the factors contributing to the growth of the Taliban."

Although Taliban fighters routinely hang and behead people in rural areas, the growth of crime and the lack of justice are the reasons most frequently cited by Afghans who support the reconstituted Islamist militia. More and more, people here look back to the era of harsh Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, describing it as a time of security and peace.

One group whose lives and livelihoods now face constant danger from armed criminals are the truckers and bus drivers who ply the highways between Kabul and the major provincial cities of Herat, Kandahar and Jalalabad. Although vulnerable to Taliban attack, the drivers say they are just as often ambushed and robbed by well-armed thieves.

Mohammed Hussain, 40, was driving one of two passenger buses traveling together on a lonely stretch of highway from Herat to Kabul last week when heavily armed men attacked about 4 a.m. The gang shot at Hussain's fleeing bus, leaving bullet holes in the windows, and stopped the second bus, forcing it off the road and into a village. There they searched every passenger at gunpoint, confiscating money and jewelry.

"I was lucky. I had 57 passengers, including women and children," Hussain said. "The thieves wait for us in the dark, and they have powerful weapons. If we go to the police for help, they are either scared or involved in crime themselves. In the Taliban time, the roads were totally safe. You could drive anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day. Now, you take your life in your hands every time you leave on a trip."

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

Austrian voters support party that wants to bring back Nazi symbols

Strache, centre, has anti-Islam views

Bojan Pancevski

He has been denounced as a xenophobe and an extreme nationalist. He has been pictured wearing a military uniform at an alleged far-Right gathering. But when Heinz-Christian Strache appears at an election rally in Austria, thousands of enthusiastic supporters, from teenagers to pensioners, give him a roaring welcome. “We are the owners of Austria and we will determine who gets in,” Mr Strache, head of the far-right Freedom Party, told a cheering crowd that was chanting his name.

The police film his public appearances because supporters of Mr Strache have, in the past, made the Hitler salute or displayed Nazi insignia, which is illegal in Austria - under a law that Mr Strache is seeking to ban.

The reputation of Austria, which has been tarnished by child abuse scandals, is on the brink of another setback as a new breed of politicians, led by Mr Strache, gain momentum and are expected to capture almost a third of the vote on an anti-foreigner ticket at elections on Sunday.

The growth of extremist tendencies in Austria have caused concern. In 1999 the country incurred sanctions from other members of the EU after a far-right party led by Jörg Haider formed a government coalition. Eight years on, and two years after the controversial coalition was ousted at the last elections, extremist sentiment is still prominent among a large proportion of the population. This time Mr Haider's former protégé, Mr Strache, is expected to capture about 20 per cent of the vote, and his new party, Alliance for the Future of Austria, could win more than 8 per cent.

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Mr Strache, 39, who overthrew Mr Haider as a leader of the Freedom Party with even more hardline policies against foreigners and the EU, is likely to establish himself as the third-largest political force in the country.

The former dental technician has campaigned successfully with slogans such as “Homeland instead of Islam” and “Vienna must not become Istanbul”.

He once wrote: “We must not allow our own sons to be insulted as ‘pigeaters' in our schools and our daughters to be exposed to the greedy stares and gropings of whole hordes of immigrants.”

The controversial campaign has reshaped the agendas of the mainstream parties, the Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party, which have refocused their campaigns on immigration issues and criticism of the EU. The move was an attempt to prevent haemorrhaging votes to Mr Strache after pollsters predicted that their share of the vote could drop to a record low of below 30 per cent each.

The popularity of Mr Strache was not damaged despite photographs being published of him in his youth wearing military uniform at an alleged far-right gathering and also showing Mr Strache raising his hand and stretching three fingers in an apparent covert version of the Hitler salute, used widely in the neo-Nazi scene. Mr Strache said that he was merely signalling for three beers in a pub.

The Jewish and Islamic community have protested against the extreme agendas of the far-right politicians.

Behind the swing towards the far-right is growing dissatisfaction with EU policies and the perceived rise in immigration after the EU expanded eastwards. The country has, however, low unemployment and crime rates and the economy is booming as Austrian companies establish market domination in Eastern European countries.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

Far Right storms election as Austrians back anti-EU rhetoric by Bojan Pancevski in Vienna

The far Right has made a grand return in Austria, emerging from yesterday’s elections as the second biggest parliamentary block, according to preliminary results.

The two parties that campaigned on an anti-immigrant and anti-European Union ticket have captured about 29 per cent of the vote, pushing the country’s traditional conservative party into third place.

Heinz-Christian Strache and his Freedom Party, who were accused of xenophobia and waging an antiMuslim campaign, won 18 per cent — a rise of 7 per cent compared with the last elections. Mr Strache’s former mentor, Jörg Haider, won 11 per cent of the vote with his new party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria.

The mainstream parties recorded their lowest share of the vote since the Second World War, with the Social Democrats dropping 7 per cent to 29.7 per cent, while the conservative People’s Party won 25.6 per cent of the vote — a decline of 9 per cent compared with 2006.

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The far Right block could still nudge ahead of the Social Democrats when the final result is published after all the postal votes are counted on October 6.

A throaty roar filled the Freedom Party’s election tent in Vienna when the results flashed up on a screen. The crowd — mainly young and middle-aged men drinking beer — punched the air in triumph. They cheered more when Mr Strache announced that his party would only join a government that was led by himself.

Many Viennese were horrified by such a prospect, however. “It is disappointing that so many Austrians agreed to what was basically a xenophobic campaign,” said Adelheid Mayr, 39. “I am ashamed of the results and I hope none of the far Right parties will be allowed to rule the country.”

The elections, held two years early, were precipitated by constant squabbling within the grand coalition of the Social Democrats and the People’s Party. Austrian voters seemingly punished both parties for their inability to govern together.

Analysts believe that the surge of the far Right reflects the voters’ dissatisfaction with the failure of the two mainstream parties to provide a functioning government. Their success also owes much to rising anxieties over immigration and the influence of the European Union.

Anton Pelinka, one of the country’s most prominent political analysts, told The Times: “In Austria there has never been a clear distinction between the far Right and the mainstream political parties. Unlike in other countries, there has never been a cordon sanitaire. Extreme positions have become more and more socially acceptable over the years.”

In 2000 Mr Haider’s Freedom Party was invited into a coalition government after winning 27 per cent of the vote. The move sparked EU sanctions against Austria.

According to Professor Pelinka, the far Right could enter government again. He said that the most probable outcome was another grand coalition, but the Social Democrats could try governing with Mr Strache’s Freedom Party. Another alternative is a minority government of the Social Democrats with support from the Freedom Party and other smaller parties. Mr Strache, 39, the biggest winner of the day, had sought to exploit fear of foreigners and Islam during his campaign.

Speaking at his final election rally in Vienna’s working-class district of Favoriten on Friday, he said that people were scared to see women in burkas running around “like female Ninjas”, and added: “Many decent people have come here and they integrated: Poles, Hungarians, Croats and also Serbs. We are all European brothers because we do not want to become Islamised.” His disdain for Islam extends to culinary matters. “One should not roast mutton in council flats. I would also not grill a wild pig in Istanbul,” he has declared.

Mr Strache has attacked the EU with equal venom, railing at “the capitalists and the neo-liberals” who were turning common people into “slave workers of the European Union”.

Mr Strache’s rally in Vienna last week was marred by a violent confrontation between hundreds of left-wing opponents and his far Right supporters, some of whom were jackbooted skinheads. The police had to separate the two sides.

— Germany was rocked by a political earthquake yesterday as the ruling conservatives in Bavaria lost their absolute majority for the first time in half a century in a regional election disaster that spells trouble for the Chancellor, Angela Merkel (David Crossland writes). Bavaria’s Christian Social Union party, a pillar of Ms Merkel’s power, suffered an almost 18-point slump to about 43 per cent.

Hands-on approach

— Heinz-Christian Strache was born on June 12, 1969, in Vienna

— He trained as a dental technician, began his political career in 1991 as a Vienna district councillor for the Freedom Party, and became a protégé of its leader, Jörg Haider

— He fell out with Mr Haider after a series of election defeats and took over the Freedom Party in 2005 Mr Strache has cultivated a youthful image. His website has pictures of him wearing a Che Guevara-style beret, with a rap song, Viva HC!, downloadable as a mobile phone ringtone

— Old photos resurfaced in 2007 showing him in paramilitary uniform apparently giving a neo-Nazi salute (above). He said that he was merely ordering three beers

— The Freedom Party demands a halt to immigration, a ministry for repatriating foreigners and the return of powers ceded to the EU

Sources: Reuters, US State Department

Have your say

This kind of vote result could happen here in the UK. It is a reaction against the perceived discrimination against White/Christian people in Europe by the so-called 'Politically Correct' in the name of multiculturalism. The UK BNP maybe small but growing. The Austrian vote is a warning.

Howard, London, UK

I am - once again - ashamed for my fellow Austrian citizens. People at Strache's event showed the Hitler salute. And Jörg Haider is known to be a wolf in sheep's clothing (playing statesmanlike).
Austria never really came to terms with it's past, and that is showing now.

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

US failures lumped on Pakistan

Asif Haroon Raja

The Americans having lost the war in Iraq are also rapidly losing control in Afghanistan as well. The Taliban-al Qaeda combine is taking a better of them and they do not know what to do next to bridle the growing power of the Taliban. Suffering from impotent rage, they are taking their ire on Pakistan which is probably the only country that receives whips without a whimper. Musharraf inflamed peaceful Fata at the behest of the US and kept giving in to US demands despite receiving kicks. About 22 air and ground violations, including missile attacks were carried out by US troops based in Afghanistan during his rule and not a word of protest was made.

After the establishment of civilian government, border violations have intensified. So far 42 border violations have taken place after February which includes an aerial assault on a security check post in Mohmand Agency on June 10, and a ground assault on September 3. These bloody intrusions are taking place in spite of the fact that the new government abandoned its policy of dialogue with the militants and has employed the army on several fronts simultaneously. The army is using jetfighters, gunship helicopters, tanks and artillery guns against the militants in Bajaur and Swat with impunity causing displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents and killings hundreds of militants and yet the Americans are dissatisfied.

The scorecard of the army against the militants is much better than what has been achieved by US-Nato-Afghan troops that side of the border. This is despite the fact that the Pak army suffers from lack of high tech weapon systems, imagery, night vision devices and intelligence acquisition means. US-led allied forces are using latest art-of-state weaponry with no regard to collateral damage caused to civil population and yet have been unable to control insurgency. As against over 600 al Qaeda operatives nabbed by ISI and FIA in Pakistan including some high value leaders, CIA has been unable to catch any prominent al Qaeda member in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai installed by the US has become the most hated man in his country and he finds it difficult to move out of his palace without American security. All the vices that had been eliminated by the Taliban have reappeared in a big way since the reins of power are in the hands of corrupt Northern Alliance elements and war lords. The poppy cultivation that had been eradicated by the Taliban during their rule has grown at an alarming scale in which most Afghan government officials, including brother of Karzai, Taliban and foreigners are involved. Lawlessness reigns supreme, corruption is at its peak and economy is in shambles despite heavy dozes of aid provided by the US, Western powers and India.

The Taliban that had started to gain strength in 2003-4, are strongest in Pashtun dominated southern, eastern and western Afghanistan but have spread its tentacles in almost all the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Not only have the occupation troops been unable to contain rapidly growing militancy, they have also been unable to win over the sympathies of the local Pashtun. The latter have developed acute hatred against the Americans and have a soft corner for the Taliban. The Afghan National Army and the police comprising mostly of non-Pashtun elements have not been sufficiently trained to combat insurgency and are more of a liability. Democracy is in name only since the Pashtun that are in great majority have been kept out of corridors of power.

India has made inroads in each and every department of Afghanistan in a big way. They have strengthened their position by investing heavily in various development projects. Taking advantage of their special status they acquired with the active assistance of Northern Alliance officials and the patronage of the US, Indians have been focusing a great deal in spoiling Pak-Afghan relations. In connivance with the CIA, Mossad and RAW, it is RAW that is working on a single point agenda to destabilise Pakistan.

Having failed to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, or to improve law and order, or to restore democratic order, or to win over the locals or improve the economy, instead of accepting their failure on all counts, the Americans have shifted the blame of their failures on Pakistan. Despite their dismal performance they have the brashness to say that Pak army is ill-trained to fight guerrilla war. They levy this charge well knowing that CIA and RAW have been working hand and glove to stoke militancy in various troubled regions of Pakistan for the past so many years. Had their performance been any better, they would have had reasons to complain that all their good work was getting neutralised because of Pakistan army’s poor performance in controlling militancy at its end.

If they think that missile or ground raids attacks in Fata would be helpful in defeating terrorism they are sadly mistaken. CIA controlled drones have fired hundred of missiles in South and North Waziristan, Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies but so far, not a single missile attack has hit any prominent militant. Instead, innocent men, women and children have been killed which has given rise to anti-American sentiments and has fuelled insurgency. These cowardly attacks launched on the basis of intelligence acquired by CIA and without taking ISI into confidence have exacerbated the problems of the Pakistan army since whatever gains made in terms of winning over local support are lost. Drones are fired to disrupt restoration of peace through agreements arrived at between militants and army. The US wants to lighten its burden at the cost of Pakistan not realising that it will be a loss for both. Resort to absurd missile warfare is yet another failure of the US which will prove counter productive.

With the Bush era reaching its fag end, the plate of new rulers in Washington will be full. They will have to contend with uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, acute hatred of the Muslim world, impudence of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Bolivia, defiance of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic movement in Algeria, China shaping up as potential super power, return of cold war because of Russian assertiveness, its fast dwindling economy and danger of unipolarism turning into multipolarism.

Pakistan being the only Muslim nuclear country and Iran at the verge of achieving it would be two potential targets of USA-Israel-India combine. Iran is a tough nut to crack where immense force will be required to achieve victory at a very heavy price. Closeness of Israel which is within the striking range of Iran’s missiles together with leadership factor makes the venture all the more risky. On the other hand, Pakistan is a soft state where its leadership has already been subjugated psychologically. Since late 2001, it has been given dozes of anaesthesia to be able to quietly extract its nuclear teeth without having to wage a war. Having numbed it, it has now begun to deliver strokes to weaken the flesh around the teeth. The Americans do not fear the pliant and docile leadership installed by them which is faithfully carrying out the policies of their blue-eyed Musharraf. They are however fearful of the militants who have given them a bloody nose in Afghanistan and have now expressed their resolve to fight them on their soil. They refuse to submit to US might and their policy of shock and awe does not over awe them.

Now that the US has made its intentions clear by declaring Pakistan as a battleground and has decided to shift its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and our leadership has neither the heart nor the resolve to keep US aggressiveness at bay, the coming months will see more bloodshed. The deadly suicide attack on Marriott Hotel is an indication that the next cycle of suicide bombing has commenced.
The writer is a defence and political analyst based in Rawalpindi

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

USA has bared its teeth

Asif Haroon Raja

After submitting to US wishes Musharraf allowed the CIA and FBI to recruit agents in FATA and other places and to establish their outposts. Taking advantage of complete liberty of action, CIA succeeded in making deep inroads into the areas of its interest. The ISI, MI and FIA in collusion with FBI were utilised for hunting and nabbing so-called terrorists all over the country. As a consequence ISI got a bit detached from its primary duty which resulted into heavy dependence of our troops operating in FATA on intelligence provided by CIA.

Once the ISI got freed from wild goose chase of so-called terrorists and came under pressure on account of missing persons, it started to concentrate on its principal task in the troubled spots. To its horror it found far too many militant groups and criminal gangs operating under the guise of religious militants and cultivated by foreign agencies. They were the ones involved in carrying out gruesome beheadings of security personnel and torching girls’ schools to defame the real Taliban who had a peaceful agenda. The CIA had managed to buy the loyalties of most tribal chiefs in FATA by doling out dollars in sacks since it knew that the Pashtun could not be crushed by force but could be purchased. Most of the pro-Pakistan groups had been won over or neutralised and those not coming to terms were eliminated by groups sponsored by CIA. Besides CIA, RAW, RAM, Iran and Uzbekistan had developed their tentacles in militancy prone areas. Things had gone topsy-turvy and ISI found itself at a loss how to differentiate between friend and foe.

10,000 Indian troops are stationed in Afghanistan under the garb of supervising construction of Jalalabad-Port Chahbahar road project that has now been completed. Whereas India has officially declared 14 Indian consulates in Afghanistan, on ground they have 107 in which 20 intelligence units are burning their midnight oil to destabilise Pakistan. Many mercantile shops run by Indians have an intelligence office in the rear. Very young boys, mostly orphans, destitute or homeless are recruited. Recruits are mostly Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Caucasians. The latter being fair skinned and resembling Europeans are trained to hit targets in Europe or in USA to once again create a 9/11 like situation.

Reportedly, 10,000 ideologically motivated saboteurs and suicide bombers have been trained. Besides receiving military training, they have also been made to learn Pashto and customs of Pathans. They are regularly infiltrated into troubled spots of Pakistan. Posing as volunteers they join the rank and file of militants to fight the army. They are the ones who are destroying schools, CD shops, bridges and other installations and carrying out brutal beheading of captured personnel. CIA is assisting in providing intimate information about military road moves and military targets. The idea is to create chaos and confusion and also to defame the army and the real Taliban that have not come under their influence. They are also responsible for creating cleavages in the people of FATA and in disrupting peace deals. In Kurram Agency, Afghan officers and soldiers are actively involved in the sectarian conflict by way of providing arms and ammunition to Tori tribe. In Swat, Fazlullah-led militants are supplied with war munitions as well as fighters.

Likewise, dissident tribal chiefs in Baluchistan including late Akbar Bugti were also taken on board. The CIA helped in reincarnating BLA and providing all sorts of war munitions to Baloch militants belonging to Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes and establishing over 60 Farari camps in Baluchistan. Shamsi airbase that was handed over to USA in October 2001, houses Blackhawk helicopters primarily engaged in monitoring the entire length of Iranian border. CIA has cultivated Iranian Baloch Jandullah group. It is anti-Iranian regime and was utilised by CIA to carry out acts of sabotage in Iran through Zahidan. Iran has now constructed a stone wall all along its border to prevent cross-border terrorism from Baluchistan. It has clouded Pak-Iran relations since the latter feels that such activities could not have been undertaken without the blessing of Pak government.

The nexus in Kabul is working upon a scripted plan to make FATA lawless and beyond the control of security forces, push militancy into settled areas and then into major cities and thus create a civil war like situation to prove their contention that Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world and that the extremists were on the verge of taking over power and nuclear weapons. After activating Swat, Bajaur was built into a stronghold of militants where huge cache of arms and ammunition was dumped. By virtue of being located at the crossroads of the tribal belt and also linked with Dir, Swat and Afghanistan, it was to act as bulwark and a launching pad to provide reinforcement to other areas.

It is when the ISI began to recover the lost ground in FATA and started to expose and block clandestine activities of CIA, RAW and RAM that all hell broke lose on ISI. Instead of feeling ashamed of what they were doing, USA had the cheek to start making a fuss that ISI was linked with the Taliban and that it must be emasculated. When the army launched powerful operations in Swat and in Bajaur and started to make rapid progress against the well-entrenched militants, instead of getting pleased Americans got disturbed since they never intended to control militancy. To create fear and panic among the peaceful residents of Waziristan and also to target pro-government elements, missile attacks were intensified and each attack killed innocent men, women and children. The idea was to antagonise pro-government Waziris and also to force them to migrate as had happened in case of Bajaur. To further up the ante, Pakistan was declared as a battleground and a ground attack was carried out on the night of 3 September at Angoor Adda. A similar attempt was made on 15th which was thwarted by the troops and locals.

Now that USA has bared its teeth and let its intentions known, to pretend that it would stop short of achieving its objectives will be like living in a fool’s paradise. It is simply degrading to unashamedly say that we cannot fight the Americans. It is also preposterous to assume that Pakistan may not survive without American support. Pro-American elements within Pakistan on US payroll have been parroting this theme since creation of Pakistan to safeguard their vested interests. North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran are living examples who have survived despite adopting hostile posture against USA. It is high time that we gird up our loins and put our act together to face up to the challenge boldly.

The army under Gen Kayani has expressed its resolve to confront the threat and safeguard country’s sovereignty. It is now up to our week-kneed rulers still busy in power game as to how they stand up to the test. It will be naive to expect that the threat will be warded off with diplomacy alone. We must make USA realise that it will become exceedingly difficult for US-led allied troops to operate in Afghanistan if Pakistan disengages itself and refuses to provide transit facility. The magnitude of dependence can be gauged from the fact that each day over 400 containers ply from Karachi and Quetta to Afghanistan transporting food, munitions and 300 million gallons of fuel for US-Nato troops in Afghanistan. We may also consider bridling CIA’s unchecked activities and closing down four bases in control of USA.

The writer is a defence and political analyst. E mail: ah.raja@yahoo.com

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

The furious Russian Defense Minster seems to have abandoned his trip and left New Delhi in a hissy fit. The last time the Russian officials showed up in Delhi, Sonai Gandhi did not even meet him. This time, Antony Serdyukov cut short his trip and left amidst speculation that the heated discussion on price and Transfer of Technology (ToT) did not go well. India was not at all happy with the new bill for the Russian Airfcraft Carrier which keeps rising by the day and has still not peaked. the new contract calls for a "cost plus" project and Russia refused to cap the price of the carrier.

The tall tales of Indian defense production are shattered once again. Indian Purchase orders from Russia and the USA tell a tale of failure and incompetence. India has been unable even to make the LCA which has been in development for more than a decade. The entire missile program has been scrapped, and tanks program already is doldrums cannot meet the needs of the Indian army.

Russia's delay in giving "full ToT" for India's plan to manufacture 1,000 T-90S tanks has taken place even after New Delhi first imported 310 of these tanks for over Rs 3,625 crore under a February 2001 contract, and then signed another Rs 4,900 crore contract in November 2007 to import 347 more tanks. The story of ToT delays and cost escalations is the same in the contracts for 230 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, overall worth around $8.5 billion. Times of India 29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

A lot of water has gone down the Volga and the Ganga since the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission for Military and Technical Commission (IRIGC-MTC) was signed in 2000. The meeting between the Indian Defense Minister AK Antony and the Russian Defense Minister Antony Serdyukov was mostly a ceremonial affair.

New Delhi, Sept 29 (ANI): Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov met his Indian counterpart A K Antony at South Block today. Earlier, Serdyukov laid a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. After paying homage, Serdyukov was presented a Guard of Honour at South Block by the Indian armed forces. The Indian

Antony Serdyukov brought good tidings, but bad news for the Indians. He asked India for another two Billion Dollars for the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft Carrier and told the Indians that the delivery date would be delayed again.

As earlier reported by TOI, India may now have to pay as much as $2 billion more to get the 44,570-tonne carrier by end-2012, over and above the original $1.5 billion package deal of January 2004 for a fully-refurbished Gorshkov and 16 MiG-29Ks. Moreover, the defence ministry recently approved the Navy's case for acquisition of 29 more MiG-29Ks for Rs 5,380 crore. Times of India (29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN)

He also informed the Indians that for $10 Billion India would get stripped down versions of the Mig 29 whose design has already been frozen and trials are due in march 2009. He informed his hosts that because of the lack of Indian infrastructure, he wasn't sure if any of the part could be manufactured locally in India. He however promised them a decision at the end of the year.

India, of course, is upset with Russia for not sticking to delivery schedules, creating roadblocks in transfer of technology (ToT), jacking up costs midway through execution of agreements and failing to provide uninterrupted supply of spares. ToT problems, for instance, have dogged the indigenous manufacture of both the T-90S and the Sukhoi-30MKI projects despite Russia earning big bucks in the huge contracts. Times of India 29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

The Indian wondered what they will be able to do within a few weeks (Jan 2009-March 2009) if the planes would be flying in March 2009.

 

 

India buying 347 Russian T-90 tanks

The Associated Press: NEW DELHI: India confirmed Monday it will purchase 347 T-90 battle tanks from Russia and said it will consider a demand from Moscow that it pay an additional US$1.2 billion because of delays in a deal for a Soviet-built aircraft carrier and 16 fighter jets.

Visiting Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and his Indian counterpart A.K. Antony also signed a protocol Monday for the joint development and production of military hardware. Another 1,000 T-90 tanks will be manufactured in India under a technology transfer agreement with Russia, an Indian defense ministry statement said.

Serdyukov said defense ties between Russia and India "are transforming from a vendor-seller relationship to joint development and production."

The 347 T-90 tanks are expected to cost India 49 billion rupees (US$1.1 billion), according to Indian newspaper reports.(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/29/asia/AS-India-Russia-Military-Cooperation.php)

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

The new stripped down version of the Mig 29 being sold to India has already been designed by Russia. In years gone by, the post USSR era, the penury stricken Russian arms industry was looking for buyers. It found few. India sanctioned by the USA plopped down billions.  Now the world stage has changed. India is snuggling up to the Russian nemeses-- the USA. According to press reports, the Russians are not very keep on using India as equal design partners in airplane development projects. Russia wants Indian Dollars for supply of kits which it had agreed to during lean times.

Designs for the PAK-FA have already been frozen by the Sukhoi design bureau, which means that Indian aircraft engineers have already missed out on the critical knowledge curve of aircraft design. Also, the unequal status of the Indian and Russian aviation industries means India will be the junior partner contributing very little except finance. India Today. September 29th, 2008

The Indians were furious that the Russians flush with Petro Dollars were not participating in a joint design of the aircraft. According to reports the decibel level of the meeting was "frank" (diplomatic euphuism for direct yelling at each other)

"So if we have missed out on the design phase, we have to analyse the cost-benefits of acquiring only super cruise and stealth technology for $ 10 billion," asks Air Vice Marshal Kak. India Today. September 29th, 2008

Russian bypassed the Indian design experts and froze the design of the aircraft. Now it is refusing to sell the top notch Russian versions of the planes--which it provided to the Chinese. India is chagrined that she is receiving stripped down versions of the Migs and SUs with almost to design input from the Indian.

The first prototype of the Sukhoi Design Bureau's PAK-FA 'T-50' fighter aircraft is set to fly in Russia next year. "We are in the process of defining what part of the contract to give to the Indian production agencies,'' said Alexey Fedorov,

Fedorov said that the process of identifying the participation of Indian partners in the FGFA would be completed by the year-end or in the shortest possible time. India Today. September 29th, 2008

In one of the most telling remarks, Alexey Federov said that they are still not sure which part of the contract to give to India. The flights are already planned for next year.

that the first prototype of the FGFA was to fly next year with the ALF-31 FP engine. Ashok Baweja, chairman of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) India Today. September 29th, 2008

India subcontractors have still not been decided upon in September 2008. The Russian plan on picking the components to be built by the Indians and the subcontractors by the end of the year. The plan will begin flying in March 2009. What will the Indian contractors do within a few weeks before the trials? The only answer is they will be able to paint the tri-color on the Russian aircraft, designed and built by the Russians.

The Chinese are spending $320 Billion on new aircraft development and exporting to more countries than one can count. China according to Janes weekly has achieved Technology independence proven by their exponential increase in new designs propelled by a $35 Billion budget to boot. The Chinese bought 250 of the planes and halted the import after 150 kits. The Chinese used the design to build their own version of the plane and renamed the two seater J-11.

As earlier reported by TOI, India may now have to pay as much as $2 billion more to get the 44,570-tonne carrier by end-2012, over and above the original $1.5 billion package deal of January 2004 for a fully-refurbished Gorshkov and 16 MiG-29Ks. Moreover, the defence ministry recently approved the Navy's case for acquisition of 29 more MiG-29Ks for Rs 5,380 crore. Times of India (29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN)

The furious Russian Defense Minster seems to have abandoned his trip and left New Delhi in a hissy fit. The last time the Russian officials showed up in Delhi, Sonai Gandhi did not even meet him. This time, Antony Serdyukov cut short his trip and left amidst speculation that the heated discussion on price and Transfer of Technology (ToT) did not go well. India was not at all happy with the new bill for the Russian Airfcraft Carrier which keeps rising by the day and has still not peaked. the new contract calls for a "cost plus" project and Russia refused to cap the price of the carrier.

The tall tales of Indian defense production are shattered once again. Indian Purchase orders from Russia and the USA tell a tale of failure and incompetence. India has been unable even to make the LCA which has been in development for more than a decade. The entire missile program has been scrapped, and tanks program already is doldrums cannot meet the needs of the Indian army.

Russia's delay in giving "full ToT" for India's plan to manufacture 1,000 T-90S tanks has taken place even after New Delhi first imported 310 of these tanks for over Rs 3,625 crore under a February 2001 contract, and then signed another Rs 4,900 crore contract in November 2007 to import 347 more tanks. The story of ToT delays and cost escalations is the same in the contracts for 230 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, overall worth around $8.5 billion. Times of India 29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

He also informed the Indians that for $10 Billion India would get stripped down versions of the Mig 29 whose design has already been frozen and trials are due in march 2009. He informed his hosts that because of the lack of Indian infrastructure, he wasn't sure if any of the part could be manufactured locally in India. He however promised them a decision at the end of the year.

India, of course, is upset with Russia for not sticking to delivery schedules, creating roadblocks in transfer of technology (ToT), jacking up costs midway through execution of agreements and failing to provide uninterrupted supply of spares. ToT problems, for instance, have dogged the indigenous manufacture of both the T-90S and the Sukhoi-30MKI projects despite Russia earning big bucks in the huge contracts. Times of India 29 Sep 2008, 0343 hrs IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

The best spin on this dire situation comes from the IAF spokesman who tried to put a face on the derisive and rebuked treatment that Delhi is getting from Moscow.

India, Russia to have different versions of same fighter plane

The Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) being jointly developed by India and Russia will look substantially different for the two countries. While the Russian version will be a single-pilot fighter, the Indian variant will have a twin-seat configuration based on its operational doctrine which calls for greater radius of combat operations.

"The Indian FGFA is significantly different from the Rusisan aircraft because a second pilot means the addition of another dimension, development of wings and control surfaces," said Ashok Baweja, chairman of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which is developing the aircraft alongwith Russia's Sukhoi design bureau.

Speaking to mediapersons at the eighth Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC), Baweja said that both sides had moved closer towards identifying the key areas of participation in the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft Programme (FGFA) for which both countries had signed a joint agreement in 2007. India would bring into play its expertise in composites, lightweight high-strength materials that significantly bring down the weight of an aeronautical platform.

The Russian aircraft is thus called because it is a successor to virtually every fourth and 4.5 generation fighter aircraft like the MiG-29 and Su-30 MKI in the inventories of both countries. It has been dubbed the 'Raptorski' for its similarity to the US F-22 Raptor that entered squadron service this year.

The first prototype of the Sukhoi Design Bureau's PAK-FA 'T-50' fighter aircraft is set to fly in Russia next year. "We are in the process of defining what part of the contract to give to the Indian production agencies,'' said Alexey Fedorov, president of the United Aircraft Corporation, the umbrella organization of Russian fixed-wing aircraft manufacturers. Fedorov said that the process of identifying the participation of Indian partners in the FGFA would be completed by the year-end or in the shortest possible time.

According to Baweja, it features stealth, or a drastic reduction in the aircraft's radar cross-section or 'signature', and the ability to 'super cruise' or jet engines that fly stealthily without engaging noisy afterburners even at supersonic speeds, embedded weapons with the capability to engage multiple ground, sea and air targets and seamless communication between the fighter, other aircraft and ground stations.

Baweja said that the first prototype of the FGFA was to fly next year with the ALF-31 FP engine. He said he would want an engine that had 15 to 20 per cent more growth than this engine in the final aircraft configuration. The FGFA is to enter squadron service by 2015 and will replace at least three classes of aircraft in the IAF.

The joint-venture borrows heavily from the success of the Brahmos project but seems fated to repeat its story. By the 1990s, Russia, the world's only operator of supersonic surface-to-surface missiles, had already perfected the Yakhont missile but lacked the funds to pursue its development. Indian stepped in with the finance in 1998 and the missile was re-launched as the Brahmos.

Designs for the PAK-FA have already been frozen by the Sukhoi design bureau, which means that Indian aircraft engineers have already missed out on the critical knowledge curve of aircraft design. Also, the unequal status of the Indian and Russian aviation industries means India will be the junior partner contributing very little except finance.

"So if we have missed out on the design phase, we have to analyse the cost-benefits of acquiring only super cruise and stealth technology for $ 10 billion," asks Air Vice Marshal Kak. (http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&issueid=73&task=view&id=16398&sectionid=4&Itemid=1)

پاکستاان لیجر | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا  | Sept 2nd, 08 | Moin Ansari |  معین آنصآرّی | 

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, is in New York at one of the most crisis ridden moments in India's 60 year old tryst with democracy. Under the aegis of his administration, over the last three years, every democratic institution—from the Parliament to the National Human Rights Commission—has been corroded. Some of the basic tenets of democratic life, such as the assurance of civil rights for every citizen, have come under severe attack.

As the right wing Hindu chauvinist forces of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh  (RSS – National Volunteers Corp) and its family of organizations (Sangh Parivar) gain strength in the country, the right of every minority citizen to live a life of dignity has come under severe threat. Mr. Singh's administration has been unable to stem the tide of growing anti-minority violence. Just in the last few weeks, not only many Christians have been massacred in the states of Karntaka and Orissa, but also last week in New Delhi, two young Muslim men—Atif and Sajid—seem to have been killed by security forces in what is emerging as a clear case of an "encounter killing." The Defense of Democracy Campaign (DDC) is protesting today to demand of the Prime Minister an explanation as to what his administration has done to respond to the crisis and to seek urgent corrective action. 

The record of the government in protecting the basic civil liberties of citizens has been abysmal. The fundamental failure that has brought Indian democracy to the doorstep of collapse has multiple dimensions:

1. Widespread anti-minority violence and the failure of the government to intervene. The most recent cases are Karnataka and Orissa, with adivasis and dalits accounting for the largest segment of those murdered by Sangh Parivar forces.

2. A dramatic rise in encounter killings highlighted most recently by the murder of Atif and Sajid in Jamia Nagar in New Delhi.

3. The government has also supported the formation of a private militia – Salwa Judum – in Chatisgarh that has killed, raped and burnt peoples and villages all across Danewada district in Chattisgarh.

4. A dramatic rise in false arrests and harassment by State agencies. The instances over the last three years are in the thousands. Prominent among these is the arrests of Dr Binayak Sen (in Chattisgarh). Like Dr. Sen, several hundreds still languish in jails in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. In many such cases, the government's inability to file even basic charges due to lack of evidence has resulted in the release of such individuals, but often with lives that are entirely destroyed. Ajay TG's case in Chatisgarh, Aftab Alam's case in Kolkatta and the Amanullah case in Jaipur are but three examples.

5. In several cases where adequate evidence exists against officers of the State for gross misuse of authority, not only has no action been taken, but often the officers have been rewarded. The case of the Mecca Masjid firing in Hyderabad, where video documentation of excessive use of force and false arrests exists, nothing has been done at all. In Chattisgarh, Offices such as S.R.P Kalluri have been promoted and are today key to the creation of private militias such as Salwa Judum.

6. Finally, in several cases where right wing Sangh Parivar forces were found running bomb factories in the country, the government has failed both in taking the investigations forward and also in examining the possibility that several of the terror bomb attacks in the country could indeed have been staged by the Hindu right wing groups to unleash anti-minority sentiments.

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Shabnam Hashmi, Director of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD)—a human rights advocacy group—described the developments of the last three years as "we are now approaching levels of pathological violence hitherto known only in places like Israel, Lebanon and Colombia. If we don't respond now we may spiral into a cycle of endless pathological violence." ANHAD recently concluded a three-day people's tribunal in Hyderabad to document the cases of extra judicial arrests and harassment.

The Defense of Democracy Campaign demands that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government immediately announce a series of measures to set in place corrective actions and new controls over the security agencies to protect and nurture a democratic civil society. We join the teachers and students of Jamia Milia University in demanding an immediate investigation and arrest of those responsible for the murders of Atif and Sajid.