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War is inevitable in South Asia. Pakistan has no choice but to fight. Bharati (aka Indian) intransigence and insistence on war mongering will inevitably lead to war which surely will escalate to a nuclear exchange. Bharti insistence on punitive sanctions on Pakistan and a host of boycotts is not reverberating with Washington or London. While both capitals are empathetic to towards Delhi, both capitals are unwilling and unable to take action against Islamabad. Bharat's military strategy banks on archaic and pre-1998 philosophy does not take into account the new realities in South Asia.

Bharat has superiority in numbers in aircraft and men. However, there are huge issues with the aircraft. Bharat's Flying Coffins make up the bulk of the air force and these are unreliable. In a pre-1998 conflict Bharat would utilize  planes to bomb targets. The IAF would then wait for the PAF and then engage it on Pakistani soil and in Bharati air. The would send waves of air craft to disable the PAF. The strategy would be to gain superiority in the air and then take out any army that is advancing towards Bharat to engage the advancing Bharati army.

This conventional wisdom has been made obsolete by three factor:

1) Pakistan has a very large of potent arsenal of short, medium, long range and cruise missiles.

2) Pakistan has more than 150,000 reserve soldiers that are trained to go deep into Bharati territory and cause mayhem and chaos in Bharat.

3) Pakistan has a very large inventory of Nuclear Bombs which will surprise many experts.

The Conventional wisdom dictates that Pakistan will respond with planes. This may not be what will actually happen. Pakistan may simply respond to Bharati attacks with missile attacks on Bharati bases of Udhampur (near Jammu)  Leh, Srinagar, Udhampur, Jammu, and Pathankot (total 96 aircraft). Oher targets for Pakistan Hataf 3 and Hataf 4 missiles are the Bharti bases in the Punjab at Amritsar, Adampur 17, Halvara, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Sirsa and Suratgarh (Total 332 Aircraft).

The Shaheens may also land on Rajasthan and Maharshtra. where the Bharti Its fighting units are based at Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Agra, Jodhpur, Uttarlai, Jamnagar and Pune (total 263 aircraft). The Shaheen can also reach Bharat's two Squadrons of Mirage 2000H at Gwalior which could be a threat to Pakistan (36 aircraft). Within minutes of the strikes against Pakistan 753 of Bhaarti combat aircraft, almost the entire IAF would be in jeopardy.

Pakistan can also take out the Bharti tanks and infantry of the following Bharti corps:

• XI Corps at Jullunder,
• 7th Infantry Division (Ferozepur)
• 9th Infantry Division (Chandimandir)
• 15th Infantry Division (Amritsar)
• 23rd Armoured Brigade
• 55th Mechanised Brigade
• two Strike Corps being two Corps and X Corps at Ambala and Bhatinda, respectively.
• The 2 Corps has 1st Armoured Division, 14th RAPID Division, 22nd Infantry Division and 14th Independent Armoured Brigade while X Corps has the 18th and 24th RAPID Divisions, 16th Infantry Division and 6th Independent Armoured Brigade.
  

Pakistani missiles can also reach:

• A new naval base that has been built between Mumbai and Cochin at Binaga Bay
• An advance base at Dwarka.
• and the Navy's Missile Boat HQ is at Colaba.

The Indian Navy, which focuses on anti-ship capabilities with an emphasis on attack submarines, has the capacity to support a multi-service heliborne-cum-para-cum amphibious operation, provided it has adequate air cover. This amphibious capability is built around 304th Army Independent Brigade at Vizagapatam. Their Marine Commando Force (Marcos for short) is based at Mumbai, Cochin and Vizagapatam.

The world has already seen the incompetence of the MARCOS commandos who fell like frozen Turkeys on top of the Chabad Center in Mumbai--and it took them three trop to get lifted to the Chabad rooftop and small building three stories high.

Given Pakistan's counter-riposte potential this could end up being "a bridge too far." The Indian Navy cannot blockade Karachi Port with the same impunity they did in 1971, our Exocet-armed Mirages and enhanced submarine fleet will keep them well off-shore, even outside our 200 miles territorial limit. Our Navy would love to get the Indian aircraft-carrier within combat aircraft range.

A lot of water has flown down the Indus since 2002 the last Bharat-Pakistan conflagration. Pakistan has a fully operational Port Qasim as well as Gwader sea port which allows Pakistan access to the sea routes without any interference from Bharat. Pakistan also has missiles that can keep the Bharti Army at bay

In 2002 Indians moved Directly Reporting Unit 333rd Missile Group consisting of 3 Prithvi Batteries with 4 launchers each to the border areas. Their two Strike Corps in the Rajasthan Desert (2 and XXI) provide a better target for a possible Pakistan tactical nuclear strike. If at anytime our conventional forces lose ground threatening our North-South communications, we will use the weapons at our disposal.

Bharati brinkmanship banks on the fact that Pakistan will not use Nuclear weapons and destroy 250 Bharati cities ending life for South Asia. This calculation may be misplaced. Pakistan under attack will use Nuclear weapons.

One must look at the India's possible deployment vis-à-vis Pakistan, based mostly on the Indians' Order of Battle (ORBAT) during the 2002 crisis. The Indian Army has five Commands. The Northern Command at Udhampur near Jammu looks after Kashmir, the Western Command, at Chandimandir, looks after Punjab and Rajasthan with the borderline at Bikaner, the Southern Command at Poona looks after Gujarat and Maharashtra, the Central Command at Lucknow has a Strike Corps, including the 31st Armoured Division meant for the western border and the Eastern Command at Calcutta looks after Counter-Insurgency in Assam and the NEFA border with China. The Pakistani Armed Forces essentially face India's Northern, Western and Southern Commands. India has troops earmarked against Pakistan as Army Reserve in both the Central and Eastern Commands.

The Northern Command consists of three Corps: XV Corps at Srinagar comprising the 19th Infantry Division (at Baramula) and the 28th (Gurais). XIV Corps at Leh comprising 3rd Infantry Division (Leh) and 8th Mountain Division (Nimer). XVI Corps at Nagrota (Jammu) is a Corps plus with five Infantry Divisions, the 10th (Akhnur), the 25th (Rajauri), the 26th (Jammu), the 29th (Pathankot) and the 39th (Yol). It also has three Independent Armoured Brigades, the 2nd, the 3rd and the 16th. There is an Artillery Brigade with each Corps. The 39th Infantry Division and the three Armoured Brigades are engaged in Counter-Insurgency duties and form the Command Reserve. The other Divisions are all deployed at the Line of Control (LoC).

The Western Command consists of three Corps, XI Corps at Jullunder, deploying 7th Infantry Division (Ferozepur), 9th Infantry Division (Chandimandir) and 15th Infantry Division (Amritsar), 23rd Armoured Brigade and 55th Mechanised Brigade, the two Strike Corps being two Corps and X Corps at Ambala and Bhatinda, respectively. The 2 Corps has 1st Armoured Division, 14th RAPID Division, 22nd Infantry Division and 14th Independent Armoured Brigade while X Corps has the 18th and 24th RAPID Divisions, 16th Infantry Division and 6th Independent Armoured Brigade.

The Southern Command consists of the XII Corps (Jodhpur) with 11th and 12th Infantry Divisions deployed at Ahmedabad and Jodhpur and the XXI Strike Corps (Bhopal) with 33rd Armoured, 36th RAPID and 54th Infantry Division. There are three Direct Reporting Units, 30th Artillery Division, which usually moves to Western Command. The 50th Independent Parachute Brigade and 333rd Missile Groups (India's nuclear artillery unit having Prithvi missiles) are meant to be deployed from the Southern Command Area to Punjab and Rajasthan. During the 2002 crisis some formations moved from the Eastern Command to areas facing Pakistan, 57 Mountain Division, 2nd Mountain Division and 27 Mountain Division.

The Indian Aerospace Forces (IAF) consists of five operational commands, Western Air Command (New Delhi) controlling air operations from Kashmir to North of Rajasthan, Southwestern Air Command located at Gandhinagar controlling air operations from Rajasthan to Maharashtra, Central Air Command at Allahabad, Eastern Air Command at Shillong and Southern Air Command at Trivandrum. Pakistan is primarily concerned with Western Air Command and Southwestern Command, with 8air deployments from the other Commands.

Western Air Command has an Air Operation Group at Udhampur (near Jammu) dedicated to occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Its fighting units are based at Leh, Srinagar, Udhampur, Jammu, and Pathankot (total 96 aircraft). In Punjab its bases are at Amritsar, Adampur 17, Halvara, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Sirsa and Suratgarh (Total 332 Aircraft).
Southwestern Air Command was previously under operational control of Western Command, it now controls air operations in Rajasthan and Maharshtra. Its fighting units are based at Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Agra, Jodhpur, Uttarlai, Jamnagar and Pune (total 263 aircraft). To back these Central Air Command has two Squadrons of Mirage 2000H at Gwalior which can be switched to the other Commands facing Pakistan (36 aircraft). Total deployment against Pakistan in 2002 was in excess of 753 combat aircraft, almost the whole of the IAF.

India's Navy has three Naval Commands. Western Naval Command at Mumbai provides naval defence of the Arabian Sea. A new naval base has come up between Mumbai and Cochin at Binaga Bay, with an advance base at Dwarka. The Navy's Missile Boat HQ is at Colaba. Eastern Naval Command, is based at Vizagaptam with a submarine base, it provides naval defence of the Bay of Bengal. The Southern Naval Command at Kochi is mainly a training base. Both the Western and Eastern Naval Commands will be involved in operations against Pakistan. Their surface fleet consists of one aircraft-carrier, 7 guided-missile destroyers, 7 guided-missile frigates, 3 frigates, 4 corvettes, 10 large patrol craft, 5 fast patrol boats, 3 fast-attack missile boats and 18 minesweepers. They have 1 nuclear-powered submarine and 13 diesel-powered submarines in service (1 Foxtrot Class, 9 Sindhughosh Class and 3 Shashikumar Class). India's Naval Air Arm with HQs at Goa consists of a squadron of Jaguars and Sea Harriers each, other than 6 Sea-Kings and 20 Cheetak helicopters. The Jaguar squadron (at Poona) is operated by the IAF.

The Indian Navy, which focuses on anti-ship capabilities with an emphasis on attack submarines, has the capacity to support a multi-service heliborne-cum-para-cum amphibious operation, provided it has adequate air cover. This amphibious capability is built around 304th Army Independent Brigade at Vizagapatam. Their Marine Commando Force (Marcos for short) is based at Mumbai, Cochin and Vizagapatam. The Indian Navy has a heavy lift capacity with 2 new 5,600-ton Magar Class Landing Vessels with 4 Landing Craft Vehicles and Personnel (LCVP). Four Polnochny-class vessels have helicopter platforms. They also have 7 locally built 500-ton Landing Craft Utility (LCU). They also have 11 Cosmos midget submarines of Italian origin that can ride the back of Foxtrot-class submarines.

The Indians can deploy four Strike Corps against Pakistan, one each against the Southern part of Azad Kashmir, Central Punjab, Southern Punjab and one against Sindh. They have the necessary balance to focus their attack in a combination of two or even three corps but time and space dictate they cannot move more than one strike corps on any axis and they have to cater for our counter-offensive. Since no ground offensive is possible in the desert without heavy air cover, their air deployment in 2002 suggested that the focus of their strike corps could well be in the south (Western and Southern Commands). One should expect a combined heliborne, para and/or amphibious operation. Both the Indian Strike Corps, 2 Corps from Western Command at Jaisalmer and 21 Corps at Barmer from Southern Command could be reinforced with additional Divisions from Eastern Command (moving through Jodhpur) and have integral Helicopter Attack Squadrons, Engineer, Artillery and Air Defence Brigades. The deployment of the Army's Direct Reporting Unit, 30th Artillery Division will give the fulcrum of the lines of attack. Jodhpur in 2002 had a concentration of heavy lift MI-8/M-17 helicopters, supplemented by AN-32s at Agra, Gwalior and Chandigarh. Agra is the peace station for another Direct Reporting Unit, the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade.

With all 3 Armoured Divisions and all 4 RAPID Divisions and at least 2 out of 5 Independent Armoured Brigades concentrated in Rajasthan, the resource allocation makes their offensive targets obvious, along the Jaisalmer-Rahimyar Khan axis or along the Barmer-Mirpurkhas axis, most probably both. They could also possibly attempt helicopter troop transportation/amphibious LST and launch XXI Strike Corps for a link-up. They practiced this in 2002. The area between Badin and Sujawal east of the Indus thus becomes vulnerable. Given Pakistan's counter-riposte potential this could end up being "a bridge too far." The Indian Navy cannot blockade Karachi Port with the same impunity they did in 1971, our Exocet-armed Mirages and enhanced submarine fleet will keep them well off-shore, even outside our 200 miles territorial limit. Our Navy would love to get the Indian aircraft-carrier within combat aircraft range.

In 2002 Indians moved Directly Reporting Unit 333rd Missile Group consisting of 3 Prithvi Batteries with 4 launchers each to the border areas. Their two Strike Corps in the Rajasthan Desert (2 and XXI) provide a better target for a possible Pakistan tactical nuclear strike. If at anytime our conventional forces lose ground threatening our North-South communications, we will use the weapons at our disposal.

Pakistan has no desire for war but it may be forced on us. We will certainly have grievous casualties and horrific damage in a conventional war even without a nuclear exchange. Unfortunately, we have no option but to fight.

The writer is a defence and political analyst. Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com. India's possible war deployment, Thursday, January 15, 2009 Ikram Sehgal

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ZAB's 81st birth anniversary today

ISLAMABAD: The 81st birth anniversary of country's first directly elected Prime Minister and founder of Pakistan People's Party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto will be observed in the country on Monday.

The birth anniversary of former prime minister of Pakistan will be observed with simplicity due to Muharram-ul-Harram and first death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto observed on December 27. No cake-cutting ceremony will be held while Quran Khawani will be held in party headquarters for the departed soul.

Zulfqar Ali Bhutto was born on January 5, 1928 in Larkana and completed his education in the US and Europe. He laid the foundation of PPP in December 1967.

In a message on the 80th birth anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on Monday, PPP Co-chairman and President Asif Ali Zardari has said that by undoing an iniquitous status quo and snatching power from the elite and giving it into the hands of the masses, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had become a legend in the history of Pakistan.

He said that Z A Bhutto was a colossus who towered over national politics for more than four decades.

"At a time when dictatorship had brought disintegration and defeat to the nation in 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto picked up the pieces of a truncated Pakistan to build it anew, raised the morale of a defeated and demoralised people, recovered five thousand square miles of territory and brought back tens of thousands of prisoners of war," he said.

"It is a measure of his greatness that today the politics of the country revolves round his name. A brave and dauntless leader that he was, he walked to the gallows rather than accept the military dictatorship" he said.

Zardari said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto helped the people shape their own destiny. "The unanimous federal, democratic and representative constitution of 1973, the nuclear programme, the OIC summit of 1974 at Lahore, the Karakoram Highway, Port Qasim, Kamrah Aeronautical Complex and Heavy Mechanical Complex, fundamental rights through habeas corpus, passport to every Pakistani and land reforms today stand as silent monuments to his memory."

"It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who established Azad Kashmir as an autonomous area with its own president, prime minister and judiciary and gave Balochistan provincial status," he said.

"Tens of thousands of people were arrested, thousands killed, hundreds whipped and tortured who rallied around Quaid e Awam in a bid to save his life and then carry on his struggle for a modern, democratic and developed Pakistan free from exploitation and obscurantism."

He said that Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a beacon light for the peasants and the workers, the youth and the women and indeed to all those dispossessed and disadvantaged.

"As the nation pays tribute to one of its greatest sons, let us join hands to defeat militancy and extremism and move forward in the spirit of Federalism, Democracy, and Egalitarianism which he lit through his example of courage in the defence of principles and ideals".

Meanwhile, in a message on the birth anniversary, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani has said the government is striving for the welfare and prosperity of people in light of the guiding principles articulated by Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Gillani said January 5 would always be remembered as a day of great historical significance as a courageous and towering personality like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born.

He said the PPP leader set the guiding principles for political, social and economic spheres, foreign relations, non-violence and religious tolerance.

And these same principles were adopted as manifesto by Benazir Bhutto Shaheed who laid down her life in the struggle to turn Pakistan into a democratic, progressive and welfare state, he noted.

He said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has left lasting and indelible imprint on the pages of world history which will not only guide the students of politics of coming generations but will also be a lesson adding to social consciousness.
The prime minister said Zulfikar Bhutto gave strength to the oppressed, poor, exploited and backward people of Pakistan so that they can secure their rights and gain political and social consciousness.

The emergence of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will be remembered as an important turning point in the political history of South East Asia, he said adding PPP is the only party which gave socially deprived people consciousness and taught them how to get their snatched rights.

He recalled that the people of Pakistan were wandering in the darkness of frustration and disappointment after the tragedy of fall of Dhaka in 1971.

Zulfikar Bhutto came to the front and with his dynamic personality and leadership took the people out of darkness and sense of desperation through his political insight and put them on the path filled with hope.

Calling Shaheed Zulfikar Bhutto the first democratic and popular leader, he said the martyred visionary gave Pakistan its first unanimous federal and democratic constitution and played a central role in the economic and social progress of the country.

In his government, the road to industrial progress was paved and educational, literary, research and cultural institutions were set up.

National Council of the Arts, Academy of Letters,Pakistan Lok Virsa, National Book Foundation, Quaid-e- Azam University and Allama Iqbal Open University were established which improved image of Pakistan in the outside world and gave it a cultural identity, he added.

He said a network of basic industries were laid down by their leader and these units are playing an important role in meeting the commercial and defence needs of the country.

Pakistan Ordnance Factory, Heavy Mechanical Complex are some of its shining examples, he added.
He said the late leader made it easier for citizens to acquire Pakistani passports allowing millions of them to get jobs abroad, earn precious foreign exchange for the country and introduce Pakistan to the wider world.

The prime minister said Pakistan emerged on the map of the world as a nuclear power and its credit goes to the charismatic leadership of founder chairman of PPP. Today this technological achievement has made us prepared for keeping the country safe from all kinds of external aggression.

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We have been interacting with Bhartis (aka India) for over the best of a quarter of a century. The Indian narrative is based on the temple education that augers well for Brahmanism and defies the facts on the ground. The narrative goes as follows:

1) India is the oldest civilization on planet earth. It is 10,000 years old and it encompasses the country from Kabul to Indonesia.

Notwithstanding the fact that there was an ice age which only melted in 6000 BC. Also it totally contradicts the archeological evidence which places the Indus Valley Civilization at about 3500 BC which is in modern day Pakistan

2) Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal are temporary anomalies that will revert back to "Mother India".

Notwithstanding the fact that "Bharat Mata" never existed as a unified state expect during the mythical reign of an emperor concocted by Pandit for James Prince in 1783. Before that there is no mention of "Ashoka". The Subcontinent has been a conglomeration fo more than 570 states--that's what it was when the British landed in Bengal and that was the way they left it in 1947. 

3) The Indus Valley Civilization was Hindu and extended on the entire Subcontinent called India.

The Indus Valley Civilization was not "Hindu" and never extended across the Subcontinent. Iwas along the Indus" almost all of it in present day Pakistan.

4) Islam is a violent religion and Muslims are intruders in Hindustan.

The inter-Aryan and intra-Aryan wars called Mahabharta and the Koray -Panday war claim more than 333 million deaths. The Aryans are as much intruders into the Subcontinent as the Muslims are.

5) Hinduism is indigenous to India and Buddha was a Hindu

Bharti secularism (Hinduism Light) tries to preach that Brahmanism is God's gift to mankind and that Jainism and Buddhism were part of Hinduism. Of course historical records as well as well the religious beliefs of Buddhists around the world in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

6) Muslims in India are actually wayward Hindus.

Many Muslims are converted Dalits and Hindus. Most Hindus fail to recognize them as Muslims or Christians and think of them as wayward Hindus that need to be reconverted back

7) The Caste system does not exist in India.

Mohandas Gandhi bet his life on the Caste system. Most Bharris are deaf and blind to the atrocities against the Dalits and Muslims.

8) Indian Muslims are fat dumb and happy.

Even according to Bharti official reports the Muslims of Bharat are discriminated against, the general Bharti populace sees the Bollywood version of reality in Bharat rather than facing the reality of Bharati Muslims--discriminated against, rebuffed in jobs and simply alienated. Tokenism is propagated to unbelievable levels

9) Dalits take advantage of Indians.

The numbers for the Scheduled Classes and the Dalits is about 450 million. There are 150 million Muslims. All alienated and hate the status quo (read Central government). No! read most of the people in Bharat.

10) India is a Superpower.

Country that is below Barkino Faso on the hunger index and lower than Pakistan on the per capita GNP has huge cavities that Bollywood influenced pundits cannot or will not see.

11) There is no poverty in India.

Bharat has 75% of the population linving under Sub Saharan levels of penury. On the human misery index, Bharat is at the lowest tier. The graduates of the "Computer Coolie College" can type but cannot see the reality of Bharat where more than 50% of the residents of Lucknow, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkoa etc sleep on the sidewalks.

12) Pakistan and Bangladesh are poor, produce nothing and live off the Americans.

Those Bhartis who have visited Pakistan cannot believe their eyes and blame their Bharti programming on their perception of Pakistan

13) The Founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah was solely responsible for "partition" of the country that was "India" and this is a temporary "partition".

The text books of Bharat eulogize Gandhi and demonize Quiad e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The textbooks blame on e man for the so called "partition" of the Subcontinent. Actually the Subcontinent was a conglomeration of more than 570 states and never actually was one country ever. Despite the BJP rhetoric Bharat was never united. Ashoka was a mythical figure who may have never existed. Ahoka's name never appeared in history books before James Princep mentioned it on the advice of the Pandits.

14) All Muslims are invaders and aliens to the Subcontinent and should be reconverted back to their original religion or repatriated back.

The bigots of hinduunity.org and the BJP perpetuate a myth that the Hindus are the original inhabitants of Bharat and that all other religions are encroachments that need to be removed. They hide the fact that Hinduism itself is an import and that the IVC was not Hindu in any sense

15) All states on the periphery of Bharat are failed states.

Nehru perpetuated this myth,  but Villibhai Patel executed it and took over Hydrabad etc. Nehru proclaimed that all of the 570 states in the Subcontinent would be considered enemy states if they did not join Bharat. Most did, but there is rebellion in almost all states of the Indian Union

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Concerns grew Tuesday that the conflict in Gaza would spill over in an increasingly violent way into Europe, where attacks were reported in several countries against Jews, synagogues and related targets.

In southwestern France, assailants on Monday night rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, but no one was injured. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, was also attacked Monday night by someone who "broke a window and threw in something that was burning," a police spokesman said. On Sunday, slogans, including "murderers. ... You broke the cease-fire," were daubed on Israel's Embassy in Stockholm.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been on a peace mission to the Mideast, warned that France "cannot tolerate letting international tension translate into sectarian violence." France has large Muslim and Jewish populations.

FOREIGN PRESS

ON SIDELINES

Israel has not allowed hundreds of foreign journalists to enter Gaza to cover the conflict, citing the danger to the journalists and their potential for interfering with military operations.

Beyond such tactical considerations, there is a political one. Daniel Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office, said that "any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that."

In a protest Tuesday, the Foreign Press Association accused Israel of trying to manage the story and said: "The unprecedented denial of access to Gaza for the world's media amounts to a severe violation of press freedom and puts the state of Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs."

EGYPT BLOCKS SOME DOCTORS

A number of doctors and other medical personnel trying to get into Gaza from Egypt have been turned back at the border.

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Mauritania, Venezuela recall ambassadors

January 7, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- One of three Arab countries that maintains full diplomatic relations with Israel recalled its ambassador.

Mauritania, which has had relations with Israel since 1999, recalled its Israeli envoy on Monday, according to reports.

The action is said to be a protest over Israel's current operation in the Gaza Strip.

Students in Mauritania have been protesting daily against the operation and there have been calls for the country to break its ties with Israel, the French Press Agency reported.

On Tuesday, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador and embassy personnel, Reuters reported, hours President Hugo Chavez called Israel's actions in Gaza a "holocaust."

Israel's Foreign Ministry was considering whether to respond in kind, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

================

Venezuela expels Israel envoy over Gaza attacks

Tue Jan 6, 2009 4:40pm EST

(Recasts with ambassador expulsion, adds Chavez, quote, background)
CARACAS, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Venezuela expelled the ambassador to Israel on Tuesday in protest over the offensive in Gaza only hours after leftist President Hugo Chavez called the attacks a Palestinian "holocaust."

The socialist Chavez, a harsh critic of Israel and the United States, in recent years has frequently withdrawn Venezuela's diplomatic envoys amid bilateral disputes and last year kicked out the U.S. ambassador over a conflict involving allied Bolivia.

The OPEC nation's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israel's campaign constituted "flagrant violations of International Law" and the use of "state terrorism."

"For the reasons mentioned above, the government of Venezuela has decided to expel the Ambassador of Israel and part of the personnel of the Embassy of Israel," the statement said.

The Israeli embassy did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.
Chavez in 2006 threatened to break ties with Israel over its military campaign in Lebanon in a war of words that led both nations to withdraw their envoys.

On Monday he accused Washington of poisoning the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to destabilize the Middle East and justify U.S.-backed Israeli incursions into Arab countries.
Israel is under international pressure to reach a ceasefire with Hamas militants and halt an offensive that has killed nearly 600 Palestinians, including more than 40 in a U.N. school sheltering civilians.
"The Holocaust, that is what is happening right now in Gaza," Chavez said in televised comments earlier on Tuesday.

"The president of Israel at this moment should be taken to the International Criminal Court together with the President of the United States."

The United States, which Chavez describes as a decadent empire, firmly backs Israel -- its principal ally in the region.
(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Sandra Maler)

========================================

Israeli envoy banished from Venezuela: Chavez' door closed

Ambassador to Venezuela talks to Ynet after being declared persona non grata
Roi Mandel

Israel's Ambassador to Venezuela Shlomo Cohen has begun preparing for a swift departure from the country Tuesday after President Hugo Chavez declared he was a persona non grata because of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"This is the first time I'm being dismissed," Cohen told Ynet on Wednesday. "We're getting the paperwork together and preparing to close down the embassy as quickly as possible. We don't have much time to waste, since the government has ordered us to leave the country within 72 hours.

"I don't remember anything like it. This is a new low in the relations between the countries," he lamented.

A telegram sent by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry to the Israeli embassy in Caracas informed the Israeli diplomats that the country has decided to expel the mission in light of the situation in Gaza, which President Hugo Chavez characterized as "genocide."

In a speech delivered by Chavez later in the day he declared that the presidents of Israel and the United States should be tried for war crimes in an international court.

Shortly after receiving the telegram and updating the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the diplomatic crisis, Cohen started packing. "Since yesterday I've been receiving many calls from friends of Israel here, expressing their sympathy and support in light of the president's decision," he said.

According to Cohen, the possibility that the government may decide to expel the mission was recently discussed in view of the president's conduct during the Second Lebanon War.

"During the Second Lebanon War I was summoned for consultations and Chavez threatened to sever the ties with Israel, but didn't follow through with the threat. This time he did.

"I estimated that something like this could happen. After all, he is an ally of Iran who maintains very close relations with the government in Tehran," Cohen explained.

Cohen believes that the decision to shut down the Israeli embassy was made solely by Chavez. "Although the parliament lauded the decision and supported it, it's clear to everyone that he is the only one making the decisions. He regularly supports radical states and organizations, and his door is closed to us.

"Even if the media in Venezuela understands why we embarked on the Gaza operation, the regime is simply uninterested. It supports one side and that's that."

Turning his attention to future ties between the two countries, Cohen said: "I hope the economic and cultural ties continue despite the crisis, and I'm hopeful that one day the friendship that characterized the ties in the past will return. I no longer believe I will be back here as an ambassador; after all, I was declared a persona non grate. Perhaps I shall return in the future as a tourist."

Meanwhile, officials at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem are mulling the possibility of explling Venezuela's diplomatic staff in response to the dismissal of Israel's ambassador to Venezuela. Senior officials estimate that Israel is left with no other in the wake of Venezuela's harsh move. ynetnews from israel

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Pakistan has basically dismissed the Bharati (aka Indian) "dossier", repudiated the claims made in it and rebuffed Mr. Boucher during the meeting when he said "Pakistan would act only or credible information".

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday his government remained committed to punishing Pakistani nationals accused of taking part in the Mumbai attacks if "credible" evidence is given against them.

Gilani made the comments during talks with Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, who arrived in Islamabad early on Monday in a bid to defuse simmering tensions between Pakistan and India.

Gilani spoke of "Pakistan's persistent efforts to defuse the current tensions with India, and his government's commitment to take action against any Pakistani national in case credible evidence is provided," his office said.

Earlier on Monday, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said that New Delhi had handed over to Islamabad what it said was evidence linking the Islamic militants who carried out the late November attacks to "elements in Pakistan."

Pakistan said it had received the dossier and was reviewing it.
Boucher discussed the regional security situation in the wake of the Mumbai attacks with Gilani and Qureshi.

Bilateral relations, the situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and an anti-militancy operation launched by Pakistani security forces in the Khyber tribal region also reportedly figured in the discussions.

Qureshi was initially scheduled to participate in Boucher's meeting with the premier but stayed back in the foreign office to study the information provided by India on the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan will act if proof 'credible': Gilani 5 Jan 2009, 1819 hrs IST, AGENCIES

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The begriming of Mr. Asif Zardari's Prime Ministership began with a very docile and compromising attitude towards Bharat (aka India). The PPPP came under a barrage or fire for its conciliatory attitude towards Delhi. However the events of the past several weeks brought about a fundamental change in Mr. Asif Zardari who was under the impression that if he was nice to Delhi, Bharat would be nice to him

The exact opposite has happened. Mr. Asif Zardari on the advice of Mr. Haqqani let Bharat extract its pound of blood by allowing the UN to pass a resolution against Pakistan. There was a tacit understanding that this would be enough for Bharat and this pound of flesh would enable the Indian National Congress to appease its war mongering media.

Indian authorities ...have expressed the suspicion that the good intentions of Pakistan's civilian leaders are not necessarily shared by its military and intelligence establishments, which were forged in a decades-long rivalry with India and have sponsored armed Islamist groups in Indian Kashmir and in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet conflict there.

But Qureshi and Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said Wednesday that the country's security forces are subservient to civilian authority and committed to supporting democratic rule. "It is completely clear to the army chief and I that this government must succeed," Pasha said of Zardari's administration. "I report regularly to the president and take orders from him."Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The PPPP government was shocked to discover that even after ascertaining the truth of the matter the Bharti government not only continued to hide the internal connections in Mumbai, it escalated the war of words by directly blaming the Pakistani government and the ISI (which was now working under the PPPP appointed General).

ISLAMABAD: In a bizarre drama, Pakistan's National Security Adviser Maj Gen(retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani was sacked on Wednesday night for having indicated days ago that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested for the Mumbai terror attacks, may have been a Pakistani, a fact ironically confirmed by the government earlier in the day. ( Watch )

A brief statement issued by the Prime Minister's House said Yousuf Raza Gilani had sacked Durrani "for his irresponsible behaviour (of) not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of national security".
Gilani was quoted by Geo News channel as saying that he had sacked Durrani for commenting on the issue of the nationality of Iman alias Ajmal Kasab without taking him (Gilani) or the government into confidence.  The premier told the channel that Durrani's "irresponsible" comments had affected Pakistan's image and went against the government's policies. Times of India

The dynamics of the Bharat-Pakistan relationship has now permanently changed. Mr. Zardari was peeved at the stoppage of Pakistani waters by Bharat. He is now livid and will bank on the more conservative hawks.

In an interview with CNN, Mahmud Ali Durrani said there appeared to be proof that all 10 gunmen had Pakistani roots. Officials from the Foreign and Information ministries confirmed that assertion, but the Foreign Ministry later retracted its statement, and within hours, government officials and national TV channels reported that Durrani, a former intelligence chief, had been dismissed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.Washinton Post

It remains to bee seen what actions if any will be taken against Ms. Sherry Rehman and Mr. Rehman Malik

The move came soon after Information Minister Sherry Rehman and Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq both told reporters that an investigation by Pakistani security agencies had confirmed that Kasab was a Pakistani national.

Rehman also said Pakistan's investigation into the Mumbai attacks was continuing. Some reports suggested that Durrani's sacking would have to be endorsed by President Asif Ali Zardari. Pak NSA Mahmud Ali Durrani sacked 7 Jan 2009, 2312 hrs IST, PTI. Times of India

Both US and Pakistani officials appear to be taking actions to lower the tensions.

Neither Qureshi nor Boucher spoke about the new evidence that India says it has found -- and delivered to Pakistani authorities -- linking Pakistan to the Mumbai assault. Qureshi said he was "disappointed" that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made such an accusation, and he noted that on the day the Mumbai siege began, he had been in New Delhi trying to improve bilateral relations.

"Suddenly, as I returned to my hotel, Mumbai took place," he said. "I did not allow this to obstruct my vision, but unfortunately, some Indian politicians succumbed and became obsessed by it." Qureshi said he had offered "from day one" to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks and that Pakistan's only desire was to "bring the perpetrators to justice." Washington Post. Rondeaux reported from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

The US wants a joint Bharat (aka India) investigation commission where all facts about the case would be bared.

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday charged Pakistan with using “terrorism as an instrument of state policy” and indicted that its state agencies were a party to the attacks, Islamabad offered a “joint investigation commission to be supervised by the respective national security advisers” and the dispatch of a high-level delegation from New Delhi to Pakistan.

Although this offer was rejected in biting accents by the Indian government, the US appears to have plumped for it. Stopping short of calling for a joint investigation, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who was on a visit to Pakistan earlier this week, appreciated the steps taken by Islamabad so far. He said as more information was uncovered, sharing and follow-up mechanism should also be enhanced. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that the US wanted a joint investigation commission on which it is a member along with India and Pakistan.  Mumbai attacks: US moves in to calm down India, Pak.  KS Manjunath / New Delhi January 08, 2009, 0:31 IST

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This is the most disgusting Pakistani medal given to anyone anywhere.

To see Richard Boucher being given the Hilal-e-Quaid-e-Azam was to see our leaders slapping the Pakistani nation on its face. After all, Boucher represents the US administration that has all but destroyed the Pakistani polity through daily killings of our people in drone attacks and through consistent demands to 'do more' even as we have seen the fallout of the insane 'war on terror' bring suicide bombings, terrorism and polarisation into Pakistan as never before. Yes, we had had our share of sectarian terror much before 9/11, but it was limited and on the wane before the US struck Afghanistan with its deathly military might.

So what is Boucher being rewarded for? Killing Pakistanis in the tribal belt? Pushing forward a debilitating agenda for Pakistan? Putting Pakistanis into Guantanamo Bay and other US prisons? Getting our military political leadership to participate in renditions and torture of Pakistani citizens? Or getting our civilian political leadership to give in to the new round of Indian histrionic demands post-Mumbai? Are all these what our rulers see as the furtherance of US-Pakistan ties? What a shame and disgrace to this long-suffering nation of Pakistan. Our rulers repress their own, kowtow to outsiders Wednesday, January 07, 2009 Shireen M Mazari

Award to Boucher for what? For installing AZ in power!   

Asif Zardari just thanked his bosses in Washington and celebrated Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's 81st Birthday by presenting them with the Highest Civilian Award. This comes when Boucher repeated that drone attacks will continue, two days after the latest drone attack in Pakistan, and WHILE the US vetoed UNSC resolution condemning Israel and contined to support Israel in the Genocide in Palestine. The people of Pakistan know very well what Boucher has done throughout for the people of Pakistan that they need no introduction.

Such events only confirm the news items that Zardari is really not mentally stable.
This reminds us of another disgusting event when the prime suspect of Benazir's assassination and defacto Prime Minister, Rehman Malik, was awarded a Human Rights Award by an NGO run by a PPP worker.

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• The president-elect's silence on the Gaza crisis is undermining his reputation in the Middle East (Simon Tisdel)
• People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune.
• "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion

The world is linked. A butterfly flutters in the Hindukush and the reverberations are felt in the Ruse Garden on Pennsylvania Avenue. Blood is flowing in the Gaza and one of the most important men in the world is ignoring it with stone edged silence. The world is bewildered. Is this the "the change we can believe in"?

The world celebrated the election of Barack Husein Obama. There was euphoria in Germany, and happiness in Manila. Sweets were distributed in Karachi and the air was pregnant with audacious hope in the Middle East. Hamas and Tel Aviv have poured water on the enthusiasm and the exuberance. The Prophet of hope is slient--beholden to the same interests that forced George W. Bush to wage the Crusades on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and threaten Iran, Syria and Somalia.

Simon Tisdall in a prodigiously effulgent article correctly says that "Obama is losing a battle he doesn't know he's in"

Barack Obama's chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don't wait for Washington inaugurations.

Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. His aides say he is following established protocol that the US has only one president at a time. Hillary Clinton, his designated secretary of state, and Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect and foreign policy expert, have also been uncharacteristically taciturn on the subject.

But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care.

The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun.

"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."

Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 January 2009 15.55 GMT | larger | smaller

The world is not stupid. It knows why the White House run by Rahm Emanuele is silent. The world knows the lobbies that are important in Washington. The world is watching. President Elect Obama is impotent. He dare not say anything to antagonize his masters.

"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said. Barack Obama

The world now knows that he is but an ordinary politician whose campaign promises were just empty words to come to power.

Obama's absence from the fray is also allowing hostile voices to exploit the vacuum. "It would appear that the president-elect has no intention of getting involved in the Gaza crisis," Iran's Resalat newspaper commented sourly. "His stances and viewpoints suggest he will follow the path taken by previous American presidents... Obama, too, will pursue policies that support the Zionist aggressions."

Whether Obama, when he does eventually engage, can successfully elucidate an Israel-Palestine policy that is substantively different from that of Bush-Cheney is wholly uncertain at present.

To maintain the hardline US posture of placing the blame for all current troubles squarely on Hamas, to the extent of repeatedly blocking limited UN security council ceasefire moves, would be to end all realistic hopes of winning back Arab opinion - and could have negative, knock-on consequences for US interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.

Yet if Obama were to take a tougher (some would say more balanced) line with Israel, for example by demanding a permanent end to its blockade of Gaza, or by opening a path to talks with Hamas, he risks provoking a rightwing backlash in Israel, giving encouragement to Israel's enemies, and losing support at home for little political advantage.

A recent Pew Research Centre survey, for example, showed how different are US perspectives to those of Europe and the Middle East. Americans placed "finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict" at the bottom of a 12-issue list of foreign policy concerns, the poll found. And foreign policy is in any case of scant consequence to a large majority of US voters primarily worried about the economy, jobs and savings.

On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas. But at the same time, he held out the prospect of radical change in western relations with Muslims everywhere, promising to make a definitive policy speech in a "major Islamic forum" within 100 days of taking office.

"I will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence," he said.

As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost. guardian.co.uk Limited 2009. Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 January 2009 15.55 GMT | larger | smaller

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On Sunday, Indian media began reporting that the only attacker captured alive, a Versace-T-shirted 21-year-old by the name of Ajmal Amir Kamal, was Pakistani, and that he had identified all his fellow militants as being trained by the banned Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba. Pakistanis are suspicious of these claims. "There is simply not enough evidence at this point to blame Pakistan," says Najam Sethi, editor of the English political weekly, the Friday Times. "No statement made under duress can be counted as 100% fact, and you can imagine the conditions under which this confession was made."

Most Pakistanis reacted with horror to news of the Mumbai killing spree starting Wednesday, having lived through equally devastating attacks on their own soil. But that initial sympathy quickly gave way to hostility as the focus of blame landed on Pakistan — a knee-jerk first reaction, rather than one based on any solid evidence. "It is a tragic incident, and we also felt bad about it as Pakistan is going through the same problem," says Abdur Rashid, a 67-year-old retired government servant in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. "But it was really unfortunate to see that even before the operation [to clear out the attackers] was finished, the Indian government stated that Pakistan is involved. It sounds that the entire incident was concocted to punish Pakistan."

Amir Rana, an expert on Pakistani terrorist groups with the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, says he has heard some troubling reports, but says that no accusations should be leveled before a thorough investigation is completed. He cites several recent terrorist attacks in India that were initially blamed on Pakistan, only to have investigations later reveal that the perpetrators wereaggrieved Indian Muslims, and in at least one case, Hindu extremists. Early accusations such as these, he worries, may only impede the close cooperation between the two countries necessary to resolve the issue.

"What we may actually be seeing here is an incident of transnational terrorism," he says. "The ideology is shared across borders, from Pakistan to India to Bangladesh." Terrorists these days are just as likely to meet in Dubai to discuss logistics, or in Katmandu to plan strategies. Training can take place not only in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, but also in Bangladesh, which also faces a mounting challenge from Islamic extremism. Weapons, distributed by a network of arms dealers that supply Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, Indian separatists groups and even Nepal's Maoists, are in easy reach. Neither the weapons, nor the tactics, of the Mumbai attackers point to any one country, says Rana. "For these kinds of attacks there is no need for training camps. There were no heavy weapons or guerilla tactics. The kind of training they needed could have been done in a single room."

Both Rana and Sethi agree that the Indian accusations are more likely to be driven less by evidence than by political imperatives. India is to hold elections in the coming months, and the ruling Congress party has taken a beating over the attacks — rival parties are saying the government was poorly prepared and had not cracked down hard enough on previous terrorist activities. "Elections are coming," says Rana, "So there are internal pressures to blame someone, and to show that it is not the government's fault. Pakistan is the obvious scapegoat."

The scapegoating of Pakistan may backfire, Sethi fears. Up until now, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has taken a keen interest in normalizing relations between the two countries, at great risk to his own standing. India and Pakistan are closer now to an enduring peace than at any point in their 61-year history together. "If anything happens, if India moves troops to the border, or threatens an attack, it could destabilize his government and derail everything," says Sethi.

Still, he hopes that calmer heads prevail, and that the Indian government response is little more than posturing, unlike in 2001 when a December attack on the Indian parliament was attributed to Pakistan, and the two nuclear-armed countries nearly went to war. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has threatened to send Indian troops to the border with Pakistan if solid evidence emerges of Pakistani involvement. In that case, Pakistan would be required to move its own troops from the border with Afghanistan, where they are making headway in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants, to the Indian frontier. "That would play into the hands of these terrorists," says Sethi. "If Pakistan and India start fighting, then the whole focus on the war on terror would be lost, and those militant groups would succeed. That would be tragic."

Asim Javeid, a 23-year-old student in Rawalpindi, agrees. "The Mumbai attack shows that terrorism is a common threat to both India and Pakistan. Unless both countries join hands and take measures to combat terrorism, we will not be able to defeat this curse." Time Magazine.  Mumbai: The Perils of Blaming Pakistan By ARYN BAKER Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008. — With reporting by Ershad Mahmud/Rawalpindi

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PM demands immediate repatriation of Dr.Afia,release of five Pakistani nationals from Guantanamo Bay

ISLAMABAD, Jan 5 (APP): Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday demanded immediate repatriation of Dr. Afia Siddiqi and release of five of its nationals from Guantanamo Bay. Talking to US Assistant Secretary of State for South & Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher at the PM House, the Prime Minister said Dr Afia needs to be repatriated on humanitarian grounds.

Boucher assured to take up the cases of Dr. Afia and five Pakistani nationals in Guantanamo Bay prison with the concerned authorities for their expeditious repatriation.

Prime Minister Gilani informed Boucher on Pakistan’s persistent efforts to defuse the current tension with India and his government’s commitment to take action against any Pakistani national in case credible evidence was provided.

He hoped the new US government would pursue President elect’s initiative to appoint a special envoy to help resolve the outstanding issue of Jammu & Kashmir for lasting peace in the region.

Richard Boucher agreed with the Prime Minister on the need for an early resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

He said once the present crisis was defused and situation normalized, the US Government would move ahead with its initiative to help the two countries find solution of the Kashmir dispute.

Gilani condemned Israeli attack on Gaza that has led to hundreds of innocent civilian casualties and urged the US and the world to play its role for bringing an end to Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.

Boucher apprised the Prime Minister that US Secretary of State was in contact with the important countries as well as with the Middle Eastern leaders to find an early solution to the Gaza crisis.

The Prime Minister also discussed holding of Friends of Pakistan meetings and Donors Conference in the immediate future to help Pakistan overcome its economic difficulties to strengthen government in countering the menace of extremism and terrorism.

He noted that despite the lapse of about three years, the promised legislation by the US Congress on reconstruction opportunities Zones (ROZs) was yet to materialize and hence needs to be expedited.

Similarly the pledged assistance for building the capacity of Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies and Foreign Military Funding for Pakistan’s defence forces need to be fast tracked.

He hoped that Biden-Lugar Bill would be taken up by the new Congress for its swift passage without any conditionalities.

Boucher highlighted the importance of cross border cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan and said the US fully appreciated Pakistan’s difficulties in fight against terror.

He assured the Prime Minister that the US government remained committed to assist Pakistan economically and efforts would also be undertaken to help Pakistan militarily through the new US Congress.

Advisor to PM on National Security, Secretaries Foreign Affairs, Defence and Interior also attended the Meeting.

US Ambassador Ms. Anne W. Patterson was also present in the meeting.

hlhlhk

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Mumbai: Intoxicated India deaf & blind to internal terror. Unable to introspect, resolve its huge race, caste & religious problems

What Are India's Options? "Bomb Islamabad!" That's what a representative of the Samajwadi Party suggested at one of the UPA meetings. But are there serious options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks?   

The terrorist struck just a week after the Al Queda number two, Al Zawahiri, released his latest audio tape saying the election of Barack Obama made no difference to the aims and intent of the Islamists.

That doesn't mean this was an Al Queda operation, but it is possible the response to the attack will benefit AQ and that this was part of the wider agenda of the attackers.

After 9/11 many people said 'We're all Americans now', but for those of a certain bent the phrase was 'We're all Al Queda now'. The franchise of ideas and modus operandi has spread thoughout the wider jihadist movement.

The timing of the attack was perfect. It came just before local elections and during an economically important cricket tournament, and during the American transition period - between the Bush years and Obama's time.

The Indian government cannot afford to be seen to be weak in its response to Mumbai. If so it will be wiped out by the Hindu Nationalist BJP at the next election. But if they can restrain themselves, what happens if there is another attack in the next few weeks? National outrage would be so great - the government would likely fall amid rioting in major cities.

So as well as various diplomatic responses such closing border crossing, cancelling cricket tours and reducing trade - another option open to New Delhi is to move troops to the Pakistan border. This is what happened in 2001/2002 after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament.

Pakistan responded in kind and a crisis quickly developed with cross border artillery battles and the rattling of nuclear sabres. A powerful Bush administration moved to calm things down but it was a close call, it was almost a full scale war.

If, over the next few weeks, India moves tens of thousands of extra troops to the border Pakistan would be forced to respond. The Pakistani troops would be moved from the North-west Frontier region bordering Afghanistan where they are currently engaged in anti terrorist operations against the Taliban. The USA wants them to stay there as part of its strategy in Afghanistan. So, enter Washington DC. The American government is desperate to restrain India from going too far, whilst at the same time trying to pressure Pakistan to keep taking on the Taliban.

Pakistan is under enormous pressure from America and India, but the diplomatic climate has changed since 2001. Then General Musharraf was President and in almost full control of his military and intelligence officers. Now there is a weak civilian ggovernment in Islamabad, led by President Zardari, and a military and intelligence community which believes it should be calling the shots on issues of national security.

This all adds up to a very dangerous situation in which the American government has to play a calming role at a time when it is in transition and has many other problems to deal with. The young men who carried out the mass murder ion Mumbai may niot have worked all of this out in advance, but its quite possible, those who sent them to kill intended this to end up in a crisis which impacts on America ability to fight Al Queda and the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mumbai, Terrorism And Strategy, Tim MarshallDecember 1, 2008 11:12 AM  

Indian Gujarat woman raped, killed & burned by mobs along with 2000 other innocents under direction of Mr. Modi. The US has refused a via to Mr. Modi the Chief Minister of Gujarat supported by Governo Bobby Jindal Women Genocide in "Incredible India": Women harassed. GENDER MURDER:-10 million baby girls killed before & after birth in India India worse than Barkino Fason on World Hunger Index and

• RAW role in fake India hijacking dramas: Why did India release hijacker Azhar?
• Is Mumbai terror retaliation to India’s Hindu Talibanization or is it part of Hinduist strategy? By Farzana Shah
• Media: Islamabad Marriot vs Mumbai Oberoi terrorism
• Indian threats bring Peace? Militants to fight alongside Pakistan Army

Writing in a post for his blog on The New Yorker, Steve Coll, an old and much respected hand on security affairs in South Asia had something interesting to say about the terrorist attack in Mumbai and the likely reaction from Pakistan. His argument is that the options for India are limited. Simply because the Pakistanis know that they are blessed when it comes to its relevance in geo-politics:

"The Pakistan Army understands this international equation thoroughly and exploits the gaps—it is careful not to expose its direct fingerprints, and yet it is brazenly persistent in pursuit of its objective of military pressure against India in Kashmir and political-military pressure on India more broadly."

So what are the options that India can exercise in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack?

If the politicians are to be believed, there was a lot of sabre rattling at two meetings held by the government on Sunday, November 30 night. While the all-party meet called by the government was a more sedate affair, an earlier meeting organised exclusively for the UPA and its allies, held in Parliament was more telling. A representative of the Samajwadi Party is said to have suggested that this was a good time to "bomb Islamabad!"

Fine. Let's bomb Islamabad, assuming we have the capability to do so and that the frontline aircraft of the Indian Air force are all serviceable, the MiG-21s ready to escort the bombers, and we can launch a full-scale military attack by penetrating the secure skies over Islamabad and then bomb it back to the stone age. 

But are we really ready for a war? 

Are we ready for the fallout when two nuclear nations go to war? Are we ready for destroying everything that we have built in the last decade and a half? Are we prepared for rolling back our consistent 9 percent growth story and undertake hardships that several generations of Indians have never seen?

All this must be weighed before we take on the job of rattling our sabres. We did that once, post December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. What did we really achieve from that 11-month old stand off with the Pakistanis? We stood on the border and they stood on the border, eyeball to eyeball, and we finally sent the forces back to the bunkers after that. But not before we had spent something to the tune of Rs 6000 crores (the official figures put it at a much lower figure pegging it a few hundred crores) and lost many precious lives of our soldiers, who stepped on mines not mapped, or tried to clear mines with bare hands while our bureaucrats held back critical mine clearing equipment.

Our air force, sanctioned 39.5 combat squadrons, is down to 30 off squadrons, our armoured corps doesn't have the tanks to roll in, our infantry is horribly tied up in counter-insurgency operations, our soldiers and officers are poorly paid and cheated in pay commission after pay commission, while we talk about "bombing Islamabad."

But there are options that one could look at as a credible response to these terror attacks. 

.....

The international outrage that has emerged after the terrorist attack is an opportunity that rarely presents itself in a nation's history. This is the time to forge partnerships with all those willing to work with us.

Intelligence cooperation has already been ramped up (the first warning for the current attack came from the Americans) and there are other diplomatic measures that are already underway. But, this is also the time to build partnerships with those elements in Pakistan who recognise the fact that the idea of Pakistan is in greater danger than from these terrorists than its declared enemies.

This is the time to look for partnerships in intelligence gathering -- not just the non-functional anti terror mechanism that was set up earlier, but a mechanism that produces hard, actionable intelligence that can be put to good use. This is the time to look at joint covert operations against terrorists and their infrastructure simply because this is a job that the Pakistanis cannot do on their own. The Americans, the British and the NATO forces are already in the region and this is as good a time as any to build partnerships with them.

Perhaps a partnerships sounds too utopian and unrealistic, a diplomatic impossibility in times of rhetoric. But look at the facts. There is no terror attack that can bend a nation as resilient as India. It has an innate strength that will ensure that the good news story, that India was, will continue to hold true.

A lot will have to be done to weed out the systemic failures in our security apparatus. It is not about "intelligence failure" and as this case has shown, our intelligence actually produced good stuff. By calling it "intelligence failure" we are trivialising the discussion to a level that is insulting to our counter-terror mechanism as well as security apparatus. Instead, we have to realise that systemic faults have to be addressed systematically. The overhaul, if the political leadership is willing, will have to happen over months, and perhaps years. But if politics goes back to the usual set of empty promises, the usual rhetoric and the usual coteries, that will be an attack on the very idea of India itself. And the time to act, is now. Saikat Datta

India is slightly better than Haiti. It is the hungriest in South Asia
Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India
Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. Gandhi to PM Desai. Fareed Zakaria on the farce of Indian "Democracy"
Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Reviving Hinduism in Budhdist lands: The Hindu extremists use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India. (see Hindu unity dot org)

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- India blamed “elements” from Pakistan for last week’s deadly Mumbai terror attacks and told its neighbor to match its words of cooperation with “strong action” to build a “qualitative new relationship.”

The attacks that began Nov. 26 and ended three days later have threatened to derail peace talks between the two nuclear- armed neighbors. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Nov. 27 said India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the assault, while Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said his government will act, provided there’s evidence.

“It was conveyed to the Pakistan High Commissioner that Pakistan’s actions needed to match the sentiments conveyed by its leadership,” Vishnu Prakash, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters today in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over the Kashmir region, which is divided between them and claimed in full by both countries. The two nations came to the brink of a fourth war in 2002, though some analysts said the latest incident may not bring tensions to that level.

“Indian and Pakistan political leaders are wiser after the experience of 2002,” said New Delhi-based C. Uday Bhaskar, a defense analyst and former director of the Institute for Defense Studies & Analyses. Statements by the Indian officials are “carefully nuanced where attention is drawn to elements in Pakistan” without “casting aspersions on the Pakistani state.”

The assault on two luxury hotels, a cafe, a rail station and a Jewish center killed 195 people, including 22 foreigners, and was the deadliest in 15 years in Hindu-majority India.

Pakistan Training Alleged

The outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Kashmiri guerilla group alleged to have carried out the attacks, still operates training camps for militants inside Pakistan and has expanded its membership, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only suspected terrorist caught by the police, told interrogators that 24 people were trained in Pakistan over the course of a year, 10 of whom were picked for the Mumbai operation, the Times of India reported today, citing unidentified people.

Kasab said the terrorists were trained by a former soldier in seven phases, including the use of weapons and ammunition and such physical activity as diving, running and swimming, the newspaper reported, citing the unidentified people.

The two nations ended their fifth round of talks between home secretaries in New Delhi on Nov. 26, just before the attacks began that evening. They resolved to cooperate with each other to combat terrorism and take “severe action” against any elements.

Peace Talks

India says the success of the peace talks that started in 2003 depends on Pakistan ending alleged support for cross-border terrorism in the part of Kashmir under Indian control and taking steps to combat militants.

Pakistan and India should work together in the wake of the terrorist attacks and not allow the incident to spur new antagonism between them, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, told CNN yesterday. “Non-state actors” were forcing their agenda and Pakistan’s government “will cooperate with India in exposing and apprehending the culprits” behind the attacks, Zardari said on Nov. 28.

The U.S. doesn’t believe Pakistan’s government was involved in the attacks, and the Bush administration trusts Pakistan to investigate the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters today. “We have no reason not to” trust Pakistan “right now,” she said.

Pakistan Meeting

Pakistan’s political leaders will meet tomorrow to discuss security policy. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will head the meeting to assess the regional situation, according to Zahid Bashir, the Pakistani premier’s press secretary.

The biggest opposition group, the Pakistan Muslim League faction headed by former premier Nawaz Sharif, which split from the Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition government in August, will attend the meeting, party spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooq said.

Gilani canceled a trip to Hong Kong, where he was to attend the Clinton Global Initiative summit starting tomorrow, to focus on addressing growing tensions with India, Bashir has said.

The 60-hour killing spree by less than a dozen terrorists underscores the failure of India’s police force to keep pace with better armed, equipped and trained militants, a former intelligence agent said.

“That system has collapsed,” said Vikram Sood, former director of India’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the Research and Analysis Wing. “Police are overworked, understaffed and undertrained.”

At least 20 officers, including the head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, were among almost 200 people killed in the gun and grenade attacks. India Tells Pakistan to Match Its Words With ‘Action’ on Terror By Bibhudatta Pradhan and Pratik Parija  To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at bpradhan@bloomberg.net; Pratik Parija in New Delhi at pparija@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: December 1, 2008 12:01 EST

Indian penury: The reality vs. the Bollywood marketing gloss:
India as World Power 1 Extremist Hindus show power using the Swastika in triple entendre--as an ancient Hindu symbol, reverence for Hitler and sign of Anti-Western Indian power Superpower India Pt 2 Extremist Hindus revere Hitler and use the Swastika as the Indian flag
How long to extripate penury from india? 300 years!India's budget-- fit for a superpower Murder of 10 million Indian girl babies:Before or right after birth. The media is silent.

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | January 5th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | 

After Truce: Israel Gambles with Palestinian Blood

Today the global terrorist nations, pretending to be the democracies, have pounded the Islamic world. Israel does not want to give up the stolen lands of the Palestinians and hence it keeps killing them. After celebrating the 60 anniversary of Israel on Palestinian lands, Israel has also celebrated the New Year 2009 with terrorist bombardments in Palestine.

In the globalizing world, the external war mongers for domestic political purposes are feeling quite safe and comfortable. UN and UNSC, the ICJ in The Hague are silent about US genocides in Afghanistan, Iraq and else where, Indian genocides in Kashmir and Israeli genocide in Palestine; in stead of pulling out by force the Israeli political and military leadership, and members of armed forces to bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the world bodies play silent observers role with occasional comments. This promotes state terrorism by anti-Islamic nations, world wide.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in June. Israel wants the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and is extremely wary of becoming embroiled in a military operation in Gaza with no clear exit strategy. Hamas needed the truce to relieve the catastrophic economic strain imposed by the Israeli siege and to consolidate its control over Gaza. And so, for very different reasons, the two sides found themselves negotiating — not directly, because neither side recognizes the other — but through an Egyptian mediator. But in the past few weeks the cease-fire has all but broken down.
The violence began days after a six-month truce expired between Israel and Hamas, and as Israel was preparing for a general election in February. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, has called for a new intifada, or uprising, against Israel, while the movement's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniya, called the attack an "ugly massacre".  Earlier, a raid destroyed a science building at the Islamic University in Gaza.Analysts said this was the single deadliest day in Gaza since Israel's occupation of the territory in 1967; although no independent confirmation is available of the numbers killed.

State Terrorists do Justify

As the truce came to an abrupt end, as per the US-Israel agenda, the two leading candidates to become Israel's next prime minister, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu have vowed if elected to topple the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, in Gaza. And the Israeli tanks and infantry have entered Gaza after nightfall on Jan 3 Saturday, launching a ground offensive that the military said would be “lengthy operation” in a widening war on Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Iran or any other Islamic nation cared not to stop the Israeli misadventure by force, but only try diplomatically. 

The Israeli government is actively misleading the public, since Israel could have put an end to the rockets a long time ago. Indeed, there was relative quiet during the six-month truce with Hamas, a quiet that was broken most often as a reaction to Israeli violence: that is, following the extra-judicial execution of a militant or the imposition of a total blockade which prevented basic goods, like food stuff and medicine, from entering the Gaza Strip.

Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party is currently ahead in the polls, meanwhile called for a more "active policy of attack", accusing the current government of being too "passive" and he wants quick wars in Palestine and finish off Hamas.  "In the long-term, the toppling of the Hamas regime is inevitable." Israeli security officials said the operation was likely to go on for several days, but that the objective was not to reoccupy Gaza. Israel has massed forces along the border and has declared the area around the narrow coastal strip a "closed military zone". The US refused to back a Libyan-drafted demand for an immediate truce.

The US terror ally, Israel has warned that its "all-out war" on Hamas could last for weeks. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border, authorized the call-up of 9,000 reservists and warned of a ground invasion. The Jewish state has called up tens of thousands of reservists and the military's chief spokesman estimated the operation in the Hamas-run territory could take "many long days". Humanitarian agencies said the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into the Gaza Strip is growing more desperate. People have taken shelter in their homes for days and water, food and medical supplies are running short. Palestinian president & PLO chief Mahmud Abbas threatened to abandon peace talks with Israel so as not to support its deadly "aggression" against Gaza.

It is no surprise that USA supports another state terrorism in Islamic world, but what is stunning is the fact the Islamic world, especially the Arab nations, have taken the greatest Israeli terrorism in Palestine as a usual thing and carry on with their usual business with the western countries. On Jan 03 at least 10,000 people packed London's Trafalgar Square in the biggest of a series of rallies at home and abroad demanding an end to the military action. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will travel to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank on Jan05.

Perpetual terrorism

It has become a routine matter that Palestinians are killed according to a US-Israel scheme so that the Jews continue to occupy and expand it stolen territories in Palestine.. As Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Western-backed Palestinian president Abbas are on the way out of office, both Israel and Palestine are going to have poll to elect their respective leaders soon.

Actually, an ally of all-powerful Israel does not need any specific cause to terror attack Palestine. Now Israel talks about a hidden mission. Israeli general elections are likely to be held on 17 February 2009. With foreign minister Tzipi Livni sitting on his right and defence minister Ehud Barak on his left, he declared: "It may take time, and each and every one of us must be patient so we can complete the mission." Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was not fighting the people of Gaza but was in "a war to the bitter end" with Hamas, which has ruled it since 2007. Livni insisted that Israel does not intend a wholesale takeover of Gaza, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. "Our goal is not to reoccupy" the strip, she said.

Rather than continuing the truce, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of state terrorism, very akin to India terrorism in Kashmir or US terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Only, the Israeli ones are much more lethal. In just three minutes and 40 seconds, sixty Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed 50 sites in Gaza, killing more than 200 Palestinians, and wounding close to 1,000 more.

Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.

Earlier, Olmert badly miscalculated in launching the 2006 offensive against Hezbollah. Gaza has cost many lives and subject Israel to another round of international opprobrium while distracting attention from the more serious threat of Iran. Despite his bold intentions, Olmert proved unwilling or unable to stand up to the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank; his government failed to dismantle even those outposts it has repeatedly declared illegal. Israel's new battle with Hamas in Gaza means that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be remembered for fighting two bloody and wasteful mini-wars in less than three years in power. The first one, in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, punished but failed to defeat or even permanently injure Hezbollah, which is politically and militarily stronger today than it was before Olmert took office. This one will probably have about the same effect on Hamas, which almost certainly will still control Gaza, and retain the capacity to strike Israel.

As it stands now, Israel considers its prerogative to terror attack Palestine and kill innocent people there, including old people, women and children. None has the authority to halt the anti-Islamic brutality.

Islamic Tragedy?
Today Muslims are seen no better than their counterparts in other religions, Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism. They lie, cheat, terrorize, kill, torture, engaged in all sorts of nefarious activities as other shameless do in democracies and autocracies.

Today the anti-Islamic forces, cutting across their religious colors, have placed a perpetual siege of Muslims and threatened Islam. There are so many Islamic nations under foreign occupation and brutality culminating in regular genocide and UN and UNSC are controlled by non-Muslim states that also behave like anti-Islamic nations. Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya are most important among them.

Israeli terrorism in Palestine showcases the will of anti-Islamic nations to attack and kill innocent Muslims freely. It vindicates the notion that neo-imperialist trends dictate terms to the divided Muslim world. The way the UN, UNSC watch the show by getting information form Tel Aviv about the emerging political trends in Israel.

Muslim countries, their governments, their leaders, officials, other agents take bribes and promote that malicious practices quite voluntarily. Tony Blair lost his premiership mainly owing to serious corruption scandal involving Saudi officials in dealing with contracts. Look at this! Saudi Arabia is the land from where Islam originated and many sacred valuables including Two Holy Mosques. They also promote corruption against equality of opportunities against Islam. They promote the occupation of anti-Islamic forces in Makkah and Madina.
Only difference is that many Muslims do pray to gain God’ sympathies and support as well for whatever atrocious things they perform, on their own or under pressure from other religious forces on payment basis. They don’t even know their prayers have been spoiled by the anti-Islamic forces by taking their bribes.

Arabs seem to be playing some hidden game. Hamas called on Arab and Islamic countries "to unite and stop this aggression, lift the siege, open the crossings and rebuild Gaza." Meanwhile, UK premier Gordon Brown has called for an urgent ceasefire amid the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. Britain is donating £5 million towards humanitarian aid in the crisis-stricken region. The Quartet of Mideast peacemakers - the United States, the United Nations, the EU and Russia - has called on Israel and Hamas to implement an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and southern Israel.

The Israeli action has sparked anger across the Arab world. Protests have been held in countries including Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as in a number of European capitals. At the UN, the Security Council joined international calls for restraint by urging an end to all violence between Israel and Gaza. Israel remains undeterred. Hamas government has vowed to fight "until the last breath" if Israel makes good on threats to send ground troops into Gaza after rejecting calls for a truce and pressing on with its air assault. In a defensive and defiant televised speech, the head of the Hamas government, Ismail Haniya, vowed Israel would be defeated. "We in Hamas are ready for all scenarios and we will fight until the last breath," senior official Mushir al-Masri said as warplanes pounded Gaza for a fifth day and the Palestinian enclave's Islamist rulers hit back with rockets.

Islamic world is yet to take common stand, if at all they want, on the issue foreign invasions and genocide of Muslims. Islamic world is yet make an honest attempt to ensure food security for every Muslims in the world. Unfortunately, Muslims seek guidance and solace in other religions around. It is not a surprise that all anti-Islamic nations, their media re against Muslims, but what is shocking is the fact, rather crude, that even many Muslims are also against Islam. That is problem the Islamic world is facing now.

Not by Resolutions alone

All these years of UNSC resolutions and peace efforts have only made Israel a state terrorist with Western support and aids. The recent Israeli terrorism was also well timed because of the political vacuum in the U.S. In Washington, officials have been urging Israel to refrain from an invasion or other operations in Gaza during the White House transition. The air attack on Gaza has shattered that hope. The saddest aspect of all this is that Olmert, a former hard-line believer in a "greater Israel," was more committed than any previous Israeli prime minister to ending the country's conflicts with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians. Thrust into office in January 2006 by the incapacitation of Ariel Sharon, Olmert won his own mandate by promising to unilaterally withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from most of the West Bank. In the end all Olmert got was U.N. Resolution 1850, passed Dec. 16, that endorsed a two-state solution without any specifics. Olmert may well go to prison on the corruption charges that have forced him from office. In order to gain sympathy of the hawkish Israeli politicians Olmert has launched, perhaps the last, terrorist operation on defenseless Palestinians.
However, Olmert is doing exactly what other Jewish leaders have done in the past; genocides in Palestine. The first round of latest attacks took the toll of five days of air strikes to 400 plus, mostly civilians, and nearly 2,000 wounded. The UNSC draft resolution "strongly condemns all military attacks and the excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel, the occupying power, which have led to the death and injury of scores of innocent Palestinian civilians, including women and children." It also "calls for an immediate ceasefire and for its full respect by both sides.."

International criticism of the offensive has increased steadily, but Israel maintains the offensive is aimed at stopping the rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza that have traumatized southern Israel. On Jan 03, Arab nations once again demanded that the UNSC, a known notorious organization, call for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer told reporters. Mansour said 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and injured since Israeli warplanes starting bombing Gaza a week ago. More than 480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and four killed in Israel.. Ban reiterated his call for an immediate cease-fire and urged regional and international partners "to exert all possible influence to bring about an immediate end to the bloodshed and suffering”. The secretary-general said the Israeli ground operation is complicating efforts by the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.N., the U.S., the European Union and Russia — to end the violence. France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert who is also the incumbent president of UNSC since Jan..1 echoed Ban asked to go back to the political track. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delayed his arrival until Tuesday so he can meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the West Bank.
The bombardment has raised concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a tiny, aid-dependent territory of 1.5 million people that has been crippled by Israel’s blockade. The Red Cross said a breadline queue in driving rain at the only bakery in a refugee camp at Gaza’s Jabalya stretched back 300 meters (yards). Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, some 6,500 tones of aid have been transferred at the request of international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and various governments, the defense ministry said. Several Arab (Islamic) countries cancelled New Year's Eve festivities in solidarity with Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, celebrations, low-key at the best of times, were particularly subdued.

The 15-member council then met behind closed doors to discuss a proposed presidential statement that would also call for all parties to address the humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, including by opening border crossings. The five permanent council members — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — along with Libya, the only Arab nation on the council, then met privately to discuss possibly issuing another press statement. Ban telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and said he was disappointed that Israel launched a ground offensive and "alarmed that this escalation will inevitably increase the already heavy suffering" of Palestinian civilians, "We need to have from the Security Council reaction tonight to bring this latest addition of aggression against our people in Gaza to an immediate halt."

Israeli leaders bluff. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni justified Israel’s rejection of a truce in the fighting in Gaza because the humanitarian situation is not dire. In an interview with the US television channel ABC, she said the overthrow of Hamas "is not the goal of the current operation, but at the end of the day, Gaza controlled by Hamas is a problem to Israel, a problem to the Palestinians and a problem to the entire region." Defence Minister Ehud Barak underlined that Israel was "determined to enlarge and deepen" the scope of its military operation "until we have achieved the objectives we have set for ourselves." As a result, there was no let-up in the violence in Palestine. Israel said that among the targets hit was a mosque in Gaza City.
But Olmert is not the only one to blame. President Bush hosted a Mideast peace meeting in Annapolis last year but never fully invested himself in Olmert's attempt to negotiate with Abbas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the region 16 times in 21 months but proved feckless as a broker. Arab states proclaimed their commitment to peace with Israel as part of a two-state settlement but were unwilling to take any tangible action to make it happen. Then, a dramatist Bush quickly kept himself away for the state resolution and slammed Hamas in order to dislocate the mission.

Why terrorism now?

Pressed by USA, Israel sent terror troops into Gaza, killing thousands already. Emphasizing the mere three minutes and 40 seconds it took to bomb 50 sites is just one of the ways the Israeli military aims to restore its international reputation. Of course, Israel has demonstrated efficacy of its weapons systems and in a way invited global quotations for orders. From 1967 Israel's military occupied the Gaza Strip and Jewish settlers built communities within the territory. Israel withdrew in 2005 but has kept tight control over access in and out of Gaza and its airspace. Attacks over the Gaza-Israel border regularly put the truce under strain with both sides blaming each other for unprovoked violations.

Even after killing about 3000 innocent Palestinians, Israel still has dismissed international calls for a 48-hour halt to its Gaza offensive as unrealistic, even as French diplomats had called for the suspension to give Hamas a chance to halt their rocket fire. Thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery, were in position along the border and Israeli aircraft have kept up a relentless string of air-strikes with the most recent raids smashing a government complex, security installations and the home of a top militant commander.

But what exactly is Israel's mission? USA and government officials in Tel Aviv just bluff claiming the attempt to halt the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel's southern towns as the only objective and the USA supports that argument. If the Israeli government really cared about its citizens and the country's long term ability to sustain itself in the Middle East, it would abandon the use of violence and talk with its enemies.

Reasons could several but all point to the killing of Palestinians. Ever since the ratings of the Kadima fell low against the Likud party, Tel Aviv was preparing for Gaza operation since June 08. Supported by the Republican Party, Israel is keen to have Obama sucked in the new problem in Mideast.  In terms of election-politics, Israeli attack on Gaza may have boosted politicians’ ratings in Tel Aviv but has left President Abbas a political orphan. Israeli terrorism has exposed the nasty behavior of the western world preaching respect for human rights and international law.
It appears, the "mission" includes a few distinct objectives. The first is the destruction of Hamas, a totally unrealistic goal. Hamas is a robust political movement with widespread grassroots support, and it is unlikely to surrender or capitulate to Israeli demands following a military assault. Ironically, Israel's attempt to destroy Hamas using military force has always ended up strengthening the organization, thus corroborating the notion that power produces its own vulnerability.

Israel does not want the new Obama administration to continue with Palestine issue, supporting its genuine cause. His failure represents another missed opportunity for Middle East peace -- and probably means that the incoming Obama administration, like the incoming Bush administration of 2001, will inherit both a new round of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed and a new Israeli government indisposed to compromise. The front-runner for prime minister in the Israeli election scheduled for February is Binyamin Netanyahu, who aspires to indefinitely postpone Palestinian statehood -- and to use military force against the Iranian nuclear program. If Netanyahu is elected, Barack Obama will be more likely to preside over a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations than a Middle East peace.

Another objective has to do with Israel's coming elections. Kadima Party wants to project itself as the terrorist party dealing with Hamas sternly. This would send out signals needed for poll prospectus of the party trailing behind the Likud leader Netanyahu in the opinion polls. Livni and Barak would gain upper h and in the population for a PM's slot. The assault on Gaza is also being carried out to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and its leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls. It is not coincidental that Netanyahu's two main competitors, Livni and Barak, were invited to the press conference – since, after the assault, it will be more difficult for Netanyahu to characterize them as "soft" on the Palestinians. The third objective involves the Israeli military. After its notable humiliation in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, the IDF has been looking for opportunities to re-establish its global standing. Last spring it used Syria as its laboratory and now it has decided to focus on Gaza.
If US-Israel combine challenges the Islamic or other UNSC-5 members to fight with Israeli forces, there is some point; Islamic world will not and cannot fight with USA. UNSC won’t support any Islamic nation.
If the US-Israel are trying level best to provoke Iran to retaliate to Israeli terror strikes on Palestine, that makes some sense, but Iran can wait for a few more weeks now in stead of sending scuds to Israel now.

Also, Hamas and Fatah have not yet reached any agreement regarding how to proceed when Mahmoud Abbas ends his official term as president of the Palestinian National Authority on January 9. One of the outcomes of this assault is that Abbas would remain in power for a while longer since Hamas will be unable to mobilize its supporters in order to force him to resign.

Post-script

India has been watching the Israeli brutalities to learn new tactics to kill Kashmiris. If a country has power and enough weapons and the support of UNSC-5 members, it can do any havoc on any nation, not necessarily Islamic. Israel has al these three favors and it terrorizes Palestinians, adding more casualties every day, while USA fuels the conflict with anti-Palestine and pro-Israeli statements.
Israel is one of those countries amazing weapons arsenals at the cost of living standards of the people. Some 40 percent Israelis are living below one dollar a day, but Israel has amazed weapons toilets at their expense and kill the innocent Palestinians to keep the Jews in good humors, as India has been doing in Kashmir. Indian strategists keenly observe the development possibly to apply the Israeli logic in Kashmir.
Expansionist Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will have left office in month’s time with thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers under construction in occupied territories belonging to Palestine. Olmert, like Ehud Barak eight years ago, will end his term as prime minister by bombing rather than liberating Palestinians. Another Israeli terror attack and another set of mass funerals for Palestinians demanding their lands now occupied illegally by US friend Israel.

But the powerful world is unserious. A stubborn and arrogant Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet conditions were not yet ripe to halt the bombardment, launched in response to persistent rocket fire from the territory that Hamas has run for a year and a half. It looks Israel has embarked on a veritable adventure and it would be deadly for the Jews if Israel decides to invade Gaza. All efforts by various sources to obtain peace in Mideast have ended in a draw with abetting Israeli terrorism in Palestine. Indeed, even as the Israelis say the operation is continuing, Egypt was among the diplomatic casualties. Cairo had played host to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Dec. 25. Like Bush, she took the opportunity only to criticize Hamas for its rocket attacks. The silence of her Egyptian hosts is now being seen by Palestinians as indirect collusion with Israel, damaging Cairo's ability to play mediator.

Furthermore, although in the contest for primacy between Hamas and Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas, as the victim of this episode, emerges as the victor in the eyes of Arabs and Palestinians. Already, elements of Abbas' own Fatah Party, the bulwark of the PA, are campaigning against the security cooperation with Israel and talking about boycotting meetings with the Jewish state. But one cannot take their assertions seriously enough.
It is high time UN and UNSC and other relevant world bodies come out with a proposal to separate polls from state terrorism. UN and UNSC prove themselves to be the most notorious of all organizations and nations.  It would be a challenge for Obama to uphold his election promises of resolving Palestine and Kashmir issues for permanent peace in the regions. Tel Aviv following Delhi’s Kashmir policy is on its way to deprive 1.3 million Gazans caged in 328 square kilometers of their legitimate rights. However, history shows that like Bush-Olmert Georgia misadventure, Gaza will also fail because following Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and FATA world wants change. Gaza will liberate Palestine. Israel perhaps thinks Palestinian blood is very cheap. Perhaps it will soon realize that it very costly and it will have to pay a heavy price for Islamic blood.

The Arab peace plan remains a document only for references. Bush has made a mockery of his own peace efforts by denouncing Palestinians and praising Jews in Israel last year celebrating the 60 anniversary of Israel, sincewhen thousands of Palestinians have been killed. This writer had put forward a suggestion for the Islamic world in general and Arab nations in particular, to consider establishing an Islamic Security Organization ISO), or Arab Security Organization (ASO) with the participation of all like-minded Muslim nations to defend the genuine interests of Muslim world and global Muslims. It is shocking that Islamic world has not yet comprehended the truth that they are under seige of a very serious nature from anti-Islamic forces, and the terrorism plank they ahve promoted thus far could ruin them all, if the Muslims still refuse to wake up.     DR.ABDUL RUFF Colachal Columnist & Independent Researcher in World Affairs

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Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | December 9th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ |

It has recently come to light that Mr. Haqqani orchestrated the UN resolution against Pakistan giving the PPPP government the fig leaf to attack Pakistanis and implement the Neocon agenda in a hurry before President Obama takes  office in Washington.

Indeed, Abdullah Haroon has committed the crime of treason against Pakistan by telling the UNSC, without any legal evidence or proof, that it should impose UN sanctions for the Mumbai attacks on JuD and Pakistani citizens based in Pakistan. Therefore, Haroon must be booked for treason, kicked out of the Pakistan Mission to the UN and prosecuted in an independent court of law for libelous defamation
against a Pakistani organization and Pakistani citizens.

• http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/11/pakistans-new-ambassador-to-usa-hh-an-embarresment-for-all/
• http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/11/mr-potato-chips-goes-to-washington-neocon-from-pakistan/
• http://rupeenews.com/2007/11/27/us-policy-and-pakistan%e2%80%99s-drift-a-rebuttal-to-mr-haqqani/

PPP President Asif Ali Zardari appointed Abdullah Haroon, an incompetent politician and a failed diplomat, as the PPP's "Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations" in New York, USA, on 3 September 2008, to stop any journalistic criticism against PPP leaders by the Dawn Media Group (DMG), because Abdullah Haroon is the elder brother of Hameed Haroon, the CEO of DMG; Publisher of the DAWN rag, DWS, Herald, Spider, Aurora, The Star; and producer of the Dawn News TV. The controversial, meritless appointment of Abdullah Haroon is a classical example of the PPP government corruption, nepotism and bribery to the DMG of Karachi, Pakistan.

Now read the following excerpts from the Asia Times Online news report to further understand the PPP's sinister conspiracy against the JuD and the Pakistan Army: "Karachi [Pakistan] - The United Nations
Security Council's declaration this week of the Pakistani group Jamat-ud-Dawah [JuD] as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is [illegally and maliciously] banned as a terrorist organization, marks
a major setback for Pakistan's military establishment.

"The UN has [unlawfully and maliciously] subjected Jamat-ud [Dawah] to sanctions as a terrorist group, including an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Jamat claims it is a charity organization separate from the LeT, which has been [illegally, maliciously and fraudulently] linked [without any lawful proof or evidence] to the devastating attack on Mumbai [India] last  month [November 2008] in which close to 200 people died.

Husien Haqqani once again exposed himself. For the past decade he has not been defending Pakistanis, Islam or Muslims. he has in fact been one of the foremost critics of Pakistan and Muslims. Over the years Mr. Haqqani's "scholarship" is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury" signifying nothing. Mr. Haqqani is not rally well educated or accomplished in anything but schmooze and opportunism. A former die hard Jamat e Islami member, then a virulent opponent of the PPP, Mr. Haqqani graduated to become a paid mule of the Neocons. He did not do any original research. Most of his "thoughts' can be found in the scholarship of Dr. Steve Emersen, Dr. Daniel Pipes and Mr. Robert Schwartz. Some of these and others participated in the Islamphobic events held on campuses in 2007.

Mr. Haqqani's narrative is "to blame Muslims and Pakistanis first". He regurgitates the what sells. Right now Islamphobia is a growth industry so he writes and says what his target audience wants to hear. And who is the targeted audience? His audience consists of the Hudson Institute, AIPAC and JINSA from whom he received huge paycheck and speaking fees. Rupee News has listed the  actual monies that Mr. Haqqani has received which is public information.

"The Pakistani [PPP] ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, and Pakistan's [PPP] Permanent Representative at the United Nations, [Abdullah] Hussain Haroon, took a pro-active role in soliciting the international community to help Pakistan. They got their message across and the UN aimed at the core of the discord by explicitly naming Jamat-ud [Dawah]. On Thursday, the sidelining of the [Pakistan] military establishment was complete. These developments are significant that the [Pakistani] military establishment, which has for so long dominated the affairs of state in Pakistan, has been
outmaneuvered by the political [PPP Terrorist Mafia] Government."

Husain Haqqani, a Pakistani diplomat and adviser to Prime Minister Bhutto is the co-chair of Hudson's Centre on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World. The Washington, D.C.-based Hudson Institute has its own of think-tanks with a diverse mix of Ceoconservatives and Pakistani Neocons.  Hudson Institute's CID was established by Hillel Fradkin, a Neocon signatory to the PNACs (Project for New American Century), letter to the President Bush urging war against Iraq. It also equated the Palestinian Authority with Al-Qaeda.

At a Hudson Institute conference in Washington last year, the Muslim scholar Zeyno Baran spoke about how the radical Muslim Brotherhood has established front groups in the US to mask and mainstream its Islamist ideology. Baran said:

Now, when we engage with Islamist organizations, either in conferences or government outreach programs, that is seen as endorsing that group and gives them legitimacy and empowers this sort of Islamism to become much more legitimate in the eyes of, let's say American Muslim groups.

If groups like CAIR or ISNA, Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, or the Islamic Society of North America, the two indicted coconspirators in the Holy Land trial case that I'm sure you all know about, and I believe you mentioned it briefly in your introduction, when those groups are invited to events with U.S. government, then most of the American Muslim groups who don't really understand these issue think that they are the legitimate representative organizations and they need to be supporting them. And instead of then having sort of non-Islamist networks being formed, many of the Muslims feel that this sort of the non-Islamist Muslims feel that there's really nowhere for them to go since the government is not reaching out to them, and since through decades of funding, institutional networking, creating of organizations, the Brotherhood and its affiliates have been taking over, or starting to take over the mainstream, that is the answer when some of you say, where are the real moderate Muslims, why aren't they speaking up, and that is partly the reason why they don't speak up because they don't think that there is really any interest or really opportunity for them.

Also on the panel was Islamic scholar Husain Haqqani, who recounted the history of how the Muslim Brotherhood took over mainstream Muslim institutions in the US. I reproduce his remarks below, not only because they are important to keep in mind when many Americans prefer to believe that CAIR, ISNA and the other mainstream Muslim organizations pursue a benign agenda, but also because Dr. Haqqani is now Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.

Pakistan’s New Ambassador: Traitor or Naïve fool? Rupee News has tried to ascertain if Mr. Haqqani is naive,  just an opportunists, a pawn in the hands of the "doers and shakers", or part of a diabolical conspiracy to place Manuchrian candidates in positions of power within the Pakistani government.

Remarks by Husain Haqqani:

Let me begin by saying that this morning we all heard about the Muslim Brotherhood's history, but to set the stage for my discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood's politicization of Islam in America, I would like to begin by just a few direct quotes from the work of the Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Banna to explain the world view of the Muslim Brotherhood as the movement sees it.

In one of his writings, Hassan al-Banna claims Muslims should strive for the Muslim individual, Muslim family, Muslim nation, Muslim government and a state that should be able to lead the Islamic governments, should be able to unite the dispersed Muslims, should be able to regain their honor and superiority, should be able to recover their lost lands, their usurped regions and their occupied territories. Then it should be able to raise the flag of Jihad and the call towards Allah until the entire world is benefited by the teachings of Islam. Addressing members of the Muslim Brotherhood, he writes: Always remember that you have two basic objectives: number one, that the Islamic
country should be free from all foreign control, for freedom is the natural right of every man which can be denied only by an oppressive dictator; second, although the concept of freedom is very different (just in case anybody is wondering), in this free land, a free Islamic government should be established, which should act according to the Islamic commands and enforce its collective system, declare its right principles as operative and popularize among the people its message which is based on wisdom. As long as the government is not established, all Muslims will be guilty, and for any slackness and carelessness in this connection will have to be accountable before Allah.

Mr. Potato-Chips goes to Washington:-Neocon from Pakistan. The "wannabee goras" see no impact of the historical issues to Pakistani and other Muslims societies, and squarely lay the blame on internal factors which are depicted as "triba", agressive, bent of world domination and have an intense hatred of the West. Mr. Haqqani seems to adhere to the cliche "They hate us because of our freedoms.

Following this, there is the Muslim Brothers' concept of a pledge of allegiance, and here there are six points to which the allegiance is undertaken.

1. First, that a person who takes the oath of allegiance to the Brotherhood acknowledges that he would build up an Islamic personality, his body should be strong, his character should be firm, his thinking should be mature and balance. Also, he should be capable of earning his living and be resourceful, his belief should be on the right lines and his prayers should be selfless, he should be keen for his progress as an individual, and mindful of his time, all his affairs should be organized and his existence should be beneficial for others to the best possible extent. These are the duties of every Muslim Brother individually.
2. The second point is that the Brother should establish a Muslim family, where Islamist ideals triumph over loyalty to his family-members. The Brother should be able to make them prepared to be respectful to the Islamic etiquette in their private lives and to follow it. He should give to his sons and his servants the best available training and instruct them in Islamic teachings. This is the duty of a Muslim Brother in relation to his family.
3. The third point holds that he should work to reform society. He should popularize among people the righteous living, prohibit evil deeds and encourage good ones, exalt virtue and a competitive spirit in performing good deeds. He should induce the people to "color their whole living in the Islamic hue." This is the duty of the Muslim Brotherhood, of every Brother individually, as well as the responsibility of the entire Jama'ah of the Brotherhood.
4. Fourth, a Muslim Brother should free his country from every foreign, non-Islamic control. He should not allow any other political, spiritual or economic power to step into his country.
5. The fifth point, is that the Brother should reform the government until the government is, in the true sense of the word, Islamic. Further, the government should be able to perform its duty and responsibility as a servant for the entire Muslim Umma.
6. The sixth principle states that the Muslim Brotherhood collectively should work to restore the international position of the Muslim Umma. For this purpose it will be necessary free the occupied Muslim lands. It should restore its honor and superiority, promote its civilization and culture anew. A new spirit of oneness and unity should be instilled in the Muslim Umma until the entire Umma is unified, and in this way, the crown and throne of the caliphate of the world may be regained.
7. The last principle relates to how the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood has been operationalized in the United States. According to the seventh principle, the Brotherhood should function as a teacher, and guide the whole world.
8. In sum, the first stage concerns the individual and the family, then the Muslim society, then the Muslim states and governments and finally, the entire world. The Brotherhood should thus spread the message of Islam to every nook and cranny of the world in such a way that the invigorating sight of obedience to Allah may be seen.

Mr. Haqqani refuses to mention a few of the issues. Hasan Al Banna's pan-Arab message was not unique on earth. His message was anti-colonial and anti-Orientalist. His message was echoed by many moderates in the Muslims world and many non-Muslims as well. For example Lawrence of Arabia helped the Arabs gain independence from the Turks on the message of Arab Nationalsism. The Christian secular Baathist party united Egypt, Syria and Iraq under the banner of Arabism.

Mr. Haqqani also fails to mention the fact that the rise of the Ikhwan Ul Muslimeen was at the peak of the cold war. While the Socialist Gamal Abul Nasser was a pawn of the Soviet Union the CIA needed to keep his popular rise to power in check. At the time the CIA helped Banna * *** in gaining popularity so that Egypt would not totally fall into the lap of the USSR.

These outlined principles are the objectives, method and message of the Muslim Brotherhood as defined by its own founder. As Hillel pointed out, the Brotherhood was created in 1928. What has happened since then, especially in the United States and what has been the U.S.'s linkage with the Muslim Brotherhood is the topic of my presentation.

Muslims started arriving in the United States as immigrants. It is true that there was an indigenous Muslim community, especially among African-Americans long before, but immigrant Muslims arrived in significant numbers since the 1950s. The number became more significant after the 1960s. In the 1950s, the people who came here were either students at American institutions of learning, colleges, universities, or students who completed their education and decided to pursue the American dream. So they were not people who came here to Islamize the United States. They happen to be Muslims who came here, and when they came here, certain needs arose.

They needed a mosque to pray in, they needed to find halal food, as they had children and settled down here, they needed education for their children which would emphasize their religious and cultural background, they needed to arrange and organize marriages, burials, and various other things according to Islamic rituals. Then, as some of them discovered the concept of certain economic practices being questioned by some theologians in the Muslim world, they began to worry about how to be able to have banking arrangements that were not entirely interest-based.

Mr. Haqqani uses a string of pearl strategy. He publishes excepts and "partial views" of history. These half-truth bring him profits from some quarters, but impact his capability both as a teacher and a diplomat. He tries to link unrelated events into a web of deceit and lies. He may not realize that my making a buck he actually impacts the lives and livelihood of millions of Muslims in America and beyond. He is not doing America or Pakistan any favors. In fact his nonsense is hurting America's popularity around the world.

A Western Oriental Gentleman (WOG) came to the USA in 2002. His credentials were pretty weak an MA from The University of Karachi. He noticed that there was a huge opportunity in making a deal with Faust and selling Islamphobia to the naive and scared American public. In the grand tradition of "Orientalism", this new FOB (Fresh of the boat) man jumped on the Neocon bandwagon and stabbed the Civil Rights Movement in the heart. Mr. Hussain Haqqani's incorrect, false and incendiary statements caused havoc with the normal functioning of the great American Democracy. Hackles were raised. If a man named Husien said this, it must be true. If a Pakistani said this it must have veracity.

What irked Pakistani Americans most about Mr. Haqqani's writings were his insinuations innuendo and portrayal of false history about Islam in America. His most egregious offense was to cast doubt on the loyalty of Muslims in America. His portrayal of terrorists cells and sleeper cells mirrored the writings of Dr. Emersen, Robert Spencer, David Harowitz, Michelle Milkin and others the worst Islamphobes in the planet. For example Mr. Haqqani's article with the innocuous title "The Politicization of American Islam" is a ticking time bomb for American Muslims. It is exactly these type of writings that have encouraged Michelle Malken to write "The Case for internment", a book that propounds the thesis that the internment of innocent American citizens who happened to be Japanese

However he has more than skeletons in his closet. He is a closet full of skeletons. For the past decade his sordid connections with the Neocons and their think tanks created this tsunami of Islamphobic rhetoric that eventually turned into a crescendo of Anti-Pakistan balderdash

These were their concerns. These concerns were taken advantage of by the Muslim Brotherhood, which had its own agenda in mind, outlined earlier.

Four things happened simultaneously in the 1950s.

1. First, the Muslim Brotherhood needed cadres. It realized that since their message was global, the cadres should be global as well, and they were looking for talented people. Now where could one find a better talent pool than among Muslims who were receiving higher education in places like the United States? Thus, the first step was for the Brotherhood to recognize that Muslims studying in the States were suited for its aims.
2. Second, the Muslims who had come to the United States as students or professionals starting out their pursuit of the American dream needed certain services, related to prayer, religious obligations, Sunday school or the Muslim equivalent of a Sunday school for their children. Their needs were recognized, and the Muslim Brotherhood recognized that its need for cadres and the Muslim community's need for services could actually coincide if they made it work that way.
3. The third thing that happened was that Saudi Arabia had emerged on the global scene, and wanted to gain influence among the world's Muslims. Hermann Eilts, who was director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and who used to be an Arabist in the State Department and served as ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia among other places, talked about how as early as the late 1940s, Hassan al-Banna and some of his closest associates used to travel to Saudi Arabia, which was not the Saudi Arabia of today. At that time, it was still coming out of the shadows of the early Saudi sort of Wahhabi non-modernist beginnings. And yet, Eilts claims that the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt in particular had ties with the Saudis, and the Saudi deputy finance minister at the time who happened to be from Sudan, was responsible for providing money for the Muslim Brotherhood as part of the influence that coincided with the American agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood. Consequently, all they had to do was persuade the Saudis that the European and American side of things was also significant and worth the investment.
4. The fourth thing, which set the stage for what we are experiencing today, is the United States entering the Cold War. As it often happens, the U.S. was still trying to find its way in a complex world, and the people who were looking at that world were not necessarily fully aware of its complexity. A binary approach was adopted, designed to contain communism by preventing Muslim countries from emerging and newly independent Muslim countries from becoming friends of the Soviets. Essentially, anyone who could help in this project was deemed a useful partner.

Mr. Haqqani's fantasies put together a maze that is based on total lies. His venom against Muslims in general, Saudis and Pakistanis in particular impresses only his masters. His masters voice is not only totally discredited, the American people have voted against the proponents of these views. America has voted for a new prophet of peace and the Neocons have been voted out of office. Mr. Husain Haqqani has been siting in the lap of the Neocons disparaging Islam and vomiting against Pakistan for the best part of a decade. Now he is rewarded with an Ambassadorial position to represent Pakistan.

Name of Primary researcher

Amount $

Funder

Alexander Alexiev

$75,000

Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation

Hillel Fradkin

$173,800

Smith Richardson Foundation

David Cook

$150,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Nazeer Ahmed

$50,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Zachary Abuza

$65,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Timur Kuran

$164,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Nelly Lahoud

$9,000

Earhart Foundation

Hussain Haqqani

$100,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Steven Emerson

$250,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Zeyno Baran

$110,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Sultan Tepe

$60,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Cheryl Barnard

$100,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Graham Fuller

$15,000

Earhart Foundation

Ibrahim Abu-Rabi

$20,000

Earhart Foundation

Fawaz Gerges

$143,000

Smith Richardson Foundation

Ahmad Mousalli

$100,000+

Earhart Foundation

Source

http://www.aipac.org/Publications/PressAIPACStatements/PC_07_Advisory_7_WEB_FINAL_03.09.07.pdf

http://www.srf.org/databank/documents/12_doc.pdf

As a result, the Saudis were becoming a key ally of the United States, while the Muslim Brotherhood were allies of the Saudis. So in the Cold War context, the Brotherhood was a 'good guy'.

Then, an idea was proposed to find a Muslim Billy Graham. Naturally, somebody who grew up in Wisconsin or Wyoming and brought up a Lutheran or Baptist and has not clue about the intricacies of the theology or the complex ideological divisions within the world of Islam, the person they were going to find was the one who himself wanted to be identified as the Muslim Billy Graham, and was looking for resources to allow him to carry his crusade. Unsurprisingly, one of the people who showed up to fill that role was a man by the name of Said Ramadan, who was married to Wafa al-Banna, the daughter of Hassan al-Banna. Thus, he met with the president of the United States in the Oval Office, as a potential Muslim Billy Graham who was going to mobilize the Muslims of the world against evils such as atheism and communism.

Then, Iraq fell into the Ba'ath rule and later on came under communist influence. This rendered the Cold War paradigm very important, and the intelligence community started paying attention to the Muslim Brotherhood, for it had the potential of being a major sources of influence against the spread of communism.

Said Ramadan, positioning himself very cleverly, started building up the institutional mechanism of the Brotherhood. He traveled to Pakistan and forged an alliance with the Islamists in Pakistan, especially that Jamaat-e-Islami led by Abul A'la
Maududi. Ramadan had so much influence in Pakistan that when the World Muslim Congress was first held, Ramadan published one of his first books and got the then prime minister of Pakistan (a Westernized man whom Truman adored) to write the preface of the book. In other words, a secular guy writing the preface of an Islamist book shows that the real issue was for the Muslims to show that they were united with the West against communism. Putting it crudely, the Muslim notion at the time was- if you can give us a few dollars to help fight the commies, so much the better, guns can come later.

Said Ramadan set up the Islamic center in Geneva in 1961, and in 1962 Prince Faisal Abdul Aziz helped create the Muslim World League, also known as Rabita al-Alam al-Islamia, which is now based in Mecca. Looking at the founding fathers of the Muslim World League is helpful to our understanding of radical Islam today. The key places where radical Islam has flourished, are places where people linked to the Rabita came from. A few examples would be: Said Ramadan himself, Egyptian in origin, Abul A'la Maududi, Pakistani, Haj Amin al-Husaini, Palestinian, Sibghatullah Mujadidi of Afghanistan, Mohammed ibn Ibrahim al-Shehr, the Saudi Grand Mufti, and Abdul Rahman Yahya al-Iryani of Yemen. This was the basic formation.

Once the Rabita came into being, it became a major funding source for radical Islamic projects all over the world. One of the first organizational structures to emerge in the United States, considering that the Muslim population was comprised of either young professionals or students, was the Muslim Students Association. Its founder was Berzinji who was a Iraqi Kurd associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Two other people came up, Ahmad Tutungi and Hishameth Taleb, both of whom were married to Berzinji's sisters, and this kind of family network emerged. Other institutions were then created, like the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. The Muslims Students Association of America became the pivot of an international Islamic federation of student organizations.

The MSA did a remarkable thing from the point of the view of the Muslim Brotherhood: they got funding for a massive translation project of all the major texts of radical Islam, Qutb's books, Maududi's books, Hassan al-Banna's books and articles of others belonging to the network. These texts were translated into 70 languages and made available to every Muslim center or mosque that was emerging. Consider young Muslims who came to the States- engineers studying in Oklahoma or Michigan or elsewhere. These students may want to learn about their faith. Thanks to the MSA, Muslim texts became available in prayer halls, free of charge and translated into every language. Turkish students can read Qaradawi for example in Turkish, Indians in Hindi, Pakistanis in Urdu and so on.

Then, the Muslim Student Association started inviting people from the Muslim world, and among the people who came to the States were Abul A'la Maududi, Abul Hassan Ali Nadwi, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. They all came to deliver lectures, which are of particular interest. While the American government at that time supported what it considered anti-communist crusaders, which they were, the lectures delivered in the US were about the impending clash between Islam and the West. Evidently, the Brothers were preparing for this clash down back in the 1970s. Maududi's writings and speeches in America are very strong on this, Nadwis, Qardawis, it's all about how the Westernized way of life is not going to be the salvation and Islamized - so instead of modernizing the Muslim world, we have to Islamize the modern world. That was the agenda.

Mr. Haqqani's delusions do not end by blaming the charitable organizations like the Rabita. He continues his diatribes against any and all Muslims organization in America and beyond. He sees evil in the eye of any and all Muslims.Mr. Haqqani's statements and article fanned the wave of Islamphobia which ended up affecting the lives, and livelihood of thousands of Muslims. It was because of this sort of Islamphobic drivel that thousands of Pakistanis were packed up in C-130s and sent back to Pakistan. If they were lucky the spent a few nights in the rape and sodomy centers  of 3rd world and Eastern European torture centers. If they were unlucky many of these Pizza Delivery people ended up in Gitmo. If they were unlucky they ended up in satellite prison systems in Egypt and Jordan's notorious "mukhabarrat". For these unlucky souls Abu Ghraib would be a picnic. Many of these horror stories are listed in "Civil Rights in Peril" and hundreds of other Human rights and Amnesty International reports.

In a nutshell, this is how it happened:

• '60s and '70s massive publication program,
• '70s and '80s, the America Project became a major source of fundraising in the Gulf region.
• After 1973, the Gulf countries became rich with petroleum dollars.
• Then, of course, came the 1980s when Jihad came about in Afghanistan, and that also enabled them to create networks that were designed for raising funds.
• These networks include charities of various kinds, so by the 1990s these still seemed relatively benign, as the notion was that they are still "on our side"- while they talk about Western civilization needing to the pulled down, they are still not a threat to us.

Even now, for example like Graham Fuller, who was head of Middle East analysis at the National Intelligence Council, even now he maintains that there is no clash of interest between radical Islam and the United States, and a State Department official said about the Taliban in 1995, "the Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis... there will be pipelines and there will be an emir and there will be no parliament, and lots of Sharia law. I think the United States can live with that." So that was the attitude when the Muslim Brotherhood created the networks that have dominated the U.S.

There are four influences on the Muslim community of this Muslim Brotherhood expansion in the United States.

1. First was that most of the leading figures in the Muslim community ended up being people from the Muslim Brotherhood or people influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. They had the money, they had the resources, they had the connections. Consider a small town in Auburn, Alabama that needs a little mosque. Who is going to pay for the mosque? This kind of help came from the Muslim Brotherhood. Many people became disproportionately influence. The Muslim community as a whole is very diverse. It includes people with Sufi background, Shi'as, etc. The emergence of the leadership ended up identifying the Muslim Brotherhood people as the leaders.
2. Second, the mosques and organizations all ended up, or most of them ended up under Muslim Brotherhood control.
3. The third impact was that the Muslim agenda ended up being defined by the Muslim Brotherhood, and this was a highly political agenda. Instead of Muslims like me who consider Islam their religious faith, this ended up being people who describe Islam as a political and social ideology, so Islam is ideology and Islam is faith, the distinction became blurred because of the way the organizational structure was created.
4. And the fourth was the marginalization of traditional Islam within the Muslim community of the United States, the kind of people who want to say their prayers but get on with the business of life, who want to have a relationship with God, but do not want to think of it as a political agenda. That's where the politicization came.

The impact on the American mainstream, and four quick points:

1. number one, the American media and academia. Since they are looking to understand Islam, they found it more convenient to approach Islam through the Muslim Brotherhood's politicized version. If you look at even Islamic studies in the United States, a lot of scholars look at the people the Brotherhood quotes. You don't here about certain scholars. Only now some people are doing some research on Sufi traditions or non-radical versions of Islam.
2. It's similar to Christian Evangelicals defining Christianity, not allowing other sects and groups to actually define it. There is pluralism within the Christian tent, big tent. The process is similar here is well. The Muslim Brotherhood's version is now the official one. So if CNN is looking for a spokesman for the Muslims, they are going to go to any of the organizations associated with the Brotherhood to provide speakers. So then you have the others who turn around and say, where are the moderate Muslims? The point is that the moderate Muslims do not control the organizational structures out of which spokesmen are born. They are quiet.
3. The fourth impact on the American mainstream was that converts to Islam, as Islam started winning converts in the United States, the new converts were more likely to be influenced by radical Islam than by traditional Islam. So whether it's the prison ministry of Muslims, or whether it's the Chaplaincy in the military, et cetera, all of it is influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood sufficiently for Muslim Brotherhood views to be the prism through which Islam is viewed by these new converts to Islam. Now, even critics of radical Islam are affected by the Muslim Brotherhood's notion that there is only one Islam. The plurality of Islam and the pluralism within Islam is totally ignored as a result. Haqqani on Muslim Brotherhood's real agenda: 6:48 AM Tue, Dec 02, 2008 | Rod Dreher

Rupee News has exposed Mr. Haqqani in several articles. Most people will be appalled by his hysterical diatribes against people based on their faith and their national origins. He can get away with it because he has now been anointed by Mr. Zardari as the Pakistani Ambassador to the USA. Mr. Haqqani should have been defending the innocent. He was like Nero watching Rome Burn. Mr. Haqqani was not just a spectator, he was an active participant on the crusade on Muslims in the West.

The portrayal of all DMS (Dead Muslim Scholars) as progenitors of all evil in the world is a growth industry in America. Mr. Haqqanis writings linking DMSs to 911 and future events is exactly what is depicted in Mr. Geert Wilder's balderdash "Fitna". If Fitna is blasphemy, Mr. Haqani's sacrilegious writings also create psychopathic paranoia in the intellectual circles of America. What is worse, Mr. Haqqani'swritings are then quoted as "fact" to create discriminatory laws, illegal surveillance and creates the case to end Habeas Corpus via the "Patriot Act" Laws.

Semantics are extremely important. We strenuously objected to Mr. Haqqani's usage of Quranic words for nafarous purposes. He continues to use the words giving succor to the enemy, but also encouragin appartichiks like Mr. Shaharyar to "monkey say monkey do" follow in his footsteps and use the same blasphemous wordings. Mr. Haqqani should be aware that blasphemy is still an offense in Pakistan and congucating Quranic terms to portray ignoble people is blasphemy. When Pakistani territory is called a "safe haven", instead of a hideout, it creates paranoia in Washington.

Statement of Pakistai Ambassador

http://www.pakun.org/statements/Security_Council/2008/12092008-01.php

INFORMATION PRESS - News Views Media - USA - Chief Editor: Journalist SYED ADEEB
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Haroon-Haqqani Urged UN to Impose Sanctions on Pakistani NGOs: Asia Times

PPP Envoy to UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon Must be Booked for Anti-
Pakistan Treason.

(InformPress.com) - PPP envoy to the United Nations (UN) Abdullah Hussain Haroon and PPP envoy to the USA Husain Haqqani cunningly urged the United Nations Security  Council (UNSC) to impose UN sanctions on Pakistan's social welfare organization, Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD), and Pakistani citizens to falsely and maliciously frame, blame and defame them in Civil Terrorism against State Terrorism of the Terrorist Mafia State of India, according to a news report of the Asia Times Online ("Pakistan's military takes a big hit", by Syed Saleem Shahzad, 13 December 2008, Hong Kong, China.)

On 9 December 2008, in his official written statement to the UNSC, Abdullah Hussain Haroon strongly urged the UNSC to impose UN sanctions on JuD and its Pakistani leaders. Haroon wrote:

"I would also like to give you a few glimpses of steps taken today in Pakistan: The [PPP] Government of Pakistan has already initiated investigations on its own pertaining to the allegations of involvement
of persons and entities in the Mumbai attacks. After the designation of Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) under 1267, the [PPP] Government on receiving communication from the [UN] Security Council shall proscribe the JuD and take other consequential actions, as required, including the freezing of [JuD] assets."

The above statement of Abdullah Haroon proves that Haroon mischievously encouraged the UNSC to impose UN sanctions on JuD and its Pakistani leaders without presenting any legal evidence or proof
against the JuD to the UNSC.

Abdullah Haroon also wrote: "A plan is being prepared to ensure effective government supervision as required for various welfare organizations. An intelligence led operation strongly supported by law
enforcement agencies is already underway to arrest the individuals alleged to be involved in the Mumbai attacks. No training camps for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba [LeT] or any entity of this nature shall be allowed
on the territory of Pakistan. The above measures, which are in process, constitute further proof of Pakistan's determination to take action and not to allow its territory to be used for terrorism.
Pakistan Government's ability and capacity to take strong measures requires the understanding and full support of its friends at the United Nations and its Security Council. In addition to our proposal
of a Joint Commission and investigations, we have now proposed to India to receive the highest possible level delegation from Pakistan to sort out these affairs."

The above statement of Abdullah Haroon also proves that Haroon told the UNSC, without any lawful proof or evidence, that both the JuD and the LeT are behind the Mumbai attacks of November 2008.
On 10 December 2008, after hearing and reading the false and malicious statements of Abdullah Haroon against JuD and LeT, the so-called UN "Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee" imposed the UN sanctions (assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo, etc.) on JuD, LeT, "Al Rashid Trust", "Al-Akhtar Trust International", Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq.

Indeed, Abdullah Haroon has committed the crime of treason against Pakistan by telling the UNSC, without any legal evidence or proof, that it should impose UN sanctions for the Mumbai attacks on JuD and Pakistani citizens based in Pakistan. Therefore, Haroon must be booked for treason, kicked out of the Pakistan Mission to the UN and prosecuted in an independent court of law for libelous defamation
against a Pakistani organization and Pakistani citizens.

PPP President Asif Ali Zardari appointed Abdullah Haroon, an incompetent politician and a failed diplomat, as the PPP's "Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations" in New York, USA, on 3 September 2008, to stop any journalistic criticism against PPP leaders by the Dawn Media Group (DMG), because Abdullah Haroon is the elder brother of Hameed Haroon, the CEO of DMG; Publisher of the DAWN rag, DWS, Herald, Spider, Aurora, The Star; and producer of the Dawn News TV. The controversial, meritless appointment of Abdullah Haroon is a classical example of the PPP government corruption, nepotism and bribery to the DMG of Karachi, Pakistan.

Now read the following excerpts from the Asia Times Online news report to further understand the PPP's sinister conspiracy against the JuD and the Pakistan Army: "Karachi [Pakistan] - The United Nations
Security Council's declaration this week of the Pakistani group Jamat-ud-Dawah [JuD] as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is [illegally and maliciously] banned as a terrorist organization, marks
a major setback for Pakistan's military establishment.

"The UN has [unlawfully and maliciously] subjected Jamat-ud [Dawah] to sanctions as a terrorist group, including an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Jamat claims it is a charity organization separate from the LeT, which has been [illegally, maliciously and fraudulently] linked [without any lawful proof or evidence] to the devastating attack on Mumbai [India] last  month [November 2008] in which close to 200 people died.

"Pakistani [PPP] President Asif Ali Zardari and his diplomatic corps based in Washington and New York had lobbied hard to counter efforts by the Pakistani military establishment to protect its strategic
assets, as Islamabad [Zardari-Gillani Ruling Mafia] wants a real clampdown on the LeT and Jamat-ud [Dawah].

"It has got its way.... Within 24 hours of the UN announcement, Pakistan [Zardari-Gillani Terrorist Mafia] carried out raids on Jamat-ud [Dawah] offices throughout the country. [JuD President Professor
Muhammad] Saeed and other [JuD] leaders have been placed under [illegal] house arrest, while several Jamat leaders have gone underground.

"The Pakistani media were given directives to label the Mumbai attack a conspiracy hatched by India's Research and Analysis Wing [RAW], Israel's Mossad and the US's Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] to
tighten the noose around Pakistan. While the War Criminal] George W. Bush Administration was assured by [Pakistan] Army Chief [General] Ashfaq Parvez Kayani that action would be taken against the LeT, the [PPP Terrorist Mafia] Government was advised by the military to make a distinction between Jamat-ud [Dawah] and the LeT.

"The Pakistani [PPP] ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, and Pakistan's [PPP] Permanent Representative at the United Nations, [Abdullah] Hussain Haroon, took a pro-active role in soliciting the
international community to help Pakistan. They got their message across and the UN aimed at the core of the discord by explicitly naming Jamat-ud [Dawah]. On Thursday, the sidelining of the [Pakistan]
military establishment was complete. These developments are significant that the [Pakistani] military establishment, which has for so long dominated the affairs of state in Pakistan, has been
outmaneuvered by the political [PPP Terrorist Mafia] Government."

\However, out of the 16-paragraphs-long speech of Abdullah Hussain Haroon, titled "Threats to International Peace and Security", only his following words make some sense: "I would request my friends in India to recall that when the Friendship Samjhota Express was burnt down with Muslim passengers killed on their way to Pakistan, fingers were pointed hastily at Pakistan but later it was proved that an Indian Army Colonel [Shrikant Prasad Purohit] was involved. We are all aware
that the [Hindu- Occupied] Kashmir situation is the root cause of all problems between India and Pakistan. Would it not be a good time to do away with the root cause by pledging to resolve it with deeds and actions....

[Information Press - www.InformPress.com - USA - Sunday, 14 December
2008]
Internet-Web Links:
(1) Failure of Diplomacy or Deliberate Decision in Islamabad?
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=151649
(2) UN Security Council Should Pass Judgments Based on Real Facts, Not
False Propaganda of Indian-Hindu Terrorist Tyrants and Corrupt
Mercenary (Kanjer) Media (CMM) of India
http://www.jamatdawah.org/news_detail.php?news_id=784
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2008/12/081211_saeed_presser_si.shtml
--> UNSC Bans Dead Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) Leader
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print3.asp?id=18915
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2008/12/081212_lashkar_ashraf_dead.shtml
JuD: http://www.jamatdawah.org
(3) Statement by Abdullah Hussain Haroon, PPP's Representative to the
United Nations, in the UN Security Council Open Debate on "Threats to
International Peace and Security" - 9 December 2008, New York, USA
http://www.pakun.org/statements/Security_Council/2008/12092008-01.php
(4) Four Pakistani Citizens Added to UN Terrorism Sanctions List
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29272
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9527.doc.htm
(5) Mumbai Terror Attack - Further Evidence of the Anglo-American-
Mossad-RSS Nexus
http://www.countercurrents.org/misra031208.htm
(6) Mumbai Terror Attacks - The Israeli Mossad Angle
They killed Hemant Karkare, chief of the police anti-terrorist squad
in Mumbai, to send a message that you cannot investigate the Mossad-
RSS angle
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2008/1127-Mumbai.html
(7) Chabad Lubavitch's Dangerous Game
Attacking Mumbai and World Economy
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/12/chabad-lubavitch-dangerous-game.html
(8) Karkare Investigations into Indian Army-Hindu Terrorist Nexus
Caused Mumbai Carnage
--> Hindustan Atma Ghataki Pathak members carried out suicidal mission
in Mumbai, India, on 26-29/11/2008, to derail Karkare investigations
into Indian Military-Hindu Terrorism nexus.
http://www.dailymailnews.com/200812/06/news/dmboxitem.html
http://www.jamatdawah.org/news_detail.php?news_id=783
(9) Sooper Media: http://soopermedia.wordpress.com
(10) DW: http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com
Ten Hindi Words Tell Who Were Those Real Terrorists of Mumbai, India
http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/2008/12/12/ten-words-tell-who-were-those-terrorists.html
http://www.ummatpublication.com/2008/12/14/lead14.html
=================================================
InformPress.com Newsletter Publication Date: Sunday, 14 December 2008
-- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/informpress
-- http://groups.google.com/group/reportpress
INFORMATION PRESS - News Views Media - http://www.InformPress.com -
U.S.A.
==================================================

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December 9, 2008, The Terrorists Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too, By ASIF ALI ZARDARI, Islamabad, Pakistan

THE recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on Oct. 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root.

To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims.

India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan — and the rest of the world — must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization.

These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan — far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan.

Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism in this year alone, including 1,400 civilians and 600 security personnel ranging in rank from ordinary soldier to three-star general. There have been more than 600 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan this year. The terrorists have been set back by our aggressive war against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pashtun-majority areas bordering Afghanistan. Six hundred militants have been killed in recent attacks, hundreds by Pakistani F-16 jet strikes in the last two months.

Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation.

For India, Pakistan and the United States, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism. The world must act to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and democracy, help us build civil society and provide us with the law enforcement and counterterrorism capacities that will enable us to fight the terrorists effectively.

Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces that are trying to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India, and ultimately a clash of civilizations.

Asif Ali Zardari is the president of Pakistan.

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India has been testing the Pakistani defenses this past week.

Mumbai: Intoxicated India deaf & blind to internal terror. Unable to introspect, resolve its huge race, caste & religious problems. So let us assume that India, overwhelmed by internal pressure and and external OK decides to send sorties to attack Pakistan.What will happen the day after. There are various options available to India. It can send aircraft to bomb suspected targets in Azad Kashmir or even Southern Punjab. It can shoot missiles on Pakistani territory or it can launch a cross border raid into Pakistan. It can block the Karachi port with the Indian Navy or it can send guerillas into Pakistan. It can also send armed bandits based into Pakistan to bomb or blow up the centers of the Jama ud Dawa etc.

The easiest for the Indian Air Force would be an attack on Azad Kashmir. Indian Sus and Migs could take off from the new Indian Airforce base in Ladakh and before the Pakistani jets could scramble the jets would have crossed the Cease Fire Line. Pakistan at this juncture has several options. As the radars identify the planes, the PAG could try to tangle the IAF in dogfights. A simpler response would be to fire Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs).

So what are the options that India can exercise in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack?

If the politicians are to be believed, there was a lot of sabre rattling at two meetings held by the government on Sunday, November 30 night. While the all-party meet called by the government was a more sedate affair, an earlier meeting organised exclusively for the UPA and its allies, held in Parliament was more telling. A representative of the Samajwadi Party is said to have suggested that this was a good time to "bomb Islamabad!"

Fine. Let's bomb Islamabad, assuming we have the capability to do so and that the frontline aircraft of the Indian Air force are all serviceable, the MiG-21s ready to escort the bombers, and we can launch a full-scale military attack by penetrating the secure skies over Islamabad and then bomb it back to the stone age. 

But are we really ready for a war? 

Are we ready for the fallout when two nuclear nations go to war? Are we ready for destroying everything that we have built in the last decade and a half? Are we prepared for rolling back our consistent 9 percent growth story and undertake hardships that several generations of Indians have never seen?

All this must be weighed before we take on the job of rattling our sabres. We did that once, post December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. What did we really achieve from that 11-month old stand off with the Pakistanis? We stood on the border and they stood on the border, eyeball to eyeball, and we finally sent the forces back to the bunkers after that. But not before we had spent something to the tune of Rs 6000 crores (the official figures put it at a much lower figure pegging it a few hundred crores) and lost many precious lives of our soldiers, who stepped on mines not mapped, or tried to clear mines with bare hands while our bureaucrats held back critical mine clearing equipment.

Our air force, sanctioned 39.5 combat squadrons, is down to 30 off squadrons, our armoured corps doesn't have the tanks to roll in, our infantry is horribly tied up in counter-insurgency operations, our soldiers and officers are poorly paid and cheated in pay commission after pay commission, while we talk about "bombing Islamabad."

The Indian attack would halt all Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) and peace making would come to a grinding halt. Pakistani doves like Naji, Haqqani and others would be swept away in the ensuing rage and Pakistani hawks would have the day. There is grave danger that the government of President Asif Zardari may fall. The TTP and others would stop all operations and the war on the Western front would come to a quick end. All forces would be moved to the Eastern front and Pakistan would be unable to provide the support and the supply chain to NATO and the US war in Afghanistan. With all caution thrown to the wind pro-Pakistani elements in Afghanistan would target Indian icons in Afghanistan.

If India attacked Pakistan, the US will be unable to fight the war in Afghanistan.

India is slightly better than Haiti. It is the hungriest in South Asia
Red Nepal: Clear and present danger to India
Chilled Urine drinking hot in India. Gandhi to PM Desai. Fareed Zakaria on the farce of Indian "Democracy" --------------------------------------------
Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Reviving Hinduism in Budhdist lands: The Hindu extremists use the Safron Swastika flag instead of the tri-colored flag of India. (see Hindu unity dot org)

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The United Nations has been given a list of four Pakistani suspects that should be extradited to India or handed over to the UN. This is a grave escalation of the crisis caused by the terror suspects in the Mumbai carnage. The US and India have tried to pass a resolution against Pakistan before. Each time China had threatened to veto it. This time China approved the resolution and decided to abstain from it.

What is amazing about this UN resolution is that the decision on declaring Jama Ud Dawa was taken without any consultation of the Pakistani Embassy or the UN representative at the UN. Was it incompetence on the part of the Pakistani representative at the UN?

WASHINGTON: America is believed to be considering declaring more than four retired officials fo the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), including its former chief Hamid Gul, international terrorists through the UN Security Council, media reports have said.

US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told a briefing in Washington Friday that details of the list of names to be submitted to the Security Council would be revealed when the document is sent to the UN.
The reports, citing sources, said that the names of Hamid Gul, Lt-Gen Javed Nasir, Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi (r), associated with the ISI during the Afghan war with the USSR, and Gen Aslam Beg (r), former Army Chief of Staff, were believed to be on the list.

However, when asked to confirm if the US had sent the names of some Pakistani individuals, Wood said he was not going to comment on names that the administration may or may not submit to the UN for imposing sanctions against them for alleged links to terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, Gul, a harsh critic of the US military presence in Afghanistan and who continues to be a vocal supporter of Jehadi groups, said Pakistani foreign ministry officials had confirmed to him the Washington was trying to put him on the UN list.

Stating that he said he had asked his government for support, he said, "I don't know why America is so much after me."
Gul claims the United States wants him on a UN list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
ISI is currently under scrutiny because of its past links with Lashkar-e-Tyyiaba, the Kashmir Jihadi organisation that India and US officials suspect supplied the gunmen who killed at least 171 people in a horrifying attack on Mumbai last month.

Gul said he had asked his government for support. "I don't know why America is so much after me," said Gul from his home in the military cantonment area of Rawalpindi.

Lou Fintor, spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad said he had no information, and added it was government policy not to comment until action had been taken either by the United Nations or the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Pakistani officials could not be contacted.

Gul says he supports the Afghan resistance to Western forces at a moral and academic level, but no more than that.
A regular guest on Pakistani news channels, Gul maintains the Sept 11 attacks in the United States were more likely the work of a neo-con/zionist conspiracy than al Qaeda.

An old ISI colleague of Gul, Khalid Khawaja, said he suspected his was another name the United States aimed to add to the UN list.

Khawaja said he kept up with old Taliban and militant contacts, but denied those ties extended to anything illegal. "I openly say I have links with these people," he said.

The News reported that an unsigned two-page document purported that Gul had recent links to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Gul was ISI chief during benazir's first government in 1988-1990. In a letter to then president Pervez Musharraf shortly before her death, Benazir named Gul among a short-list of enemies who should be investigated if she was killed. Gul said Bhutto had assured him that she was pressured to put his name in the letter, but she did not say by whom.Ex-Pak servicemen on UN terror list? Hamid Gul, Javed Nasir, Zahirul Islam Abbasi and Aslam Beg among them The Post Monitoring

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Beset by huge losses in Sri Lanka, a colossal defeat in Nepal, and reversals in its relationships with Pakistan and China, the Indian government has reasons to rethink its foreign policies. India has been chief sponsor of terror in Sri Lanka. Not only did it start the terror in Sri Lanka, it aided and abetted the terrorists organization LTTE for the the past decade. Thanks to the help of China and Pakistan, the Sri Lankan government has not only reversed the gains made by the LTTE, in 2008 it is on the verge of annihilating the worst terror group on the planet.

BANGALORE - The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is in dire straits. Territory under its control is shrinking by the day and the Sri Lankan armed forces are knocking on the door of its political headquarters, Kilinochchi.
Things have never looked this bad for the LTTE. Two years ago it was in control of the entire Northern and Eastern provinces. Then territory began slipping out of its grip in the east. It was driven out of the Eastern province in July 2007. And in the past year-and-a-half, it has been losing ground in Northern province as well, having suffered serious military reverses. If the army wrests control of

 Kilinochchi - which it says it will capture soon - the LTTE will be boxed into the jungles of Mullaitivu.
On November 15, the LTTE lost Pooneryn, a strip of land in the northwest of the island that runs parallel to the neck of the Jaffna Peninsula. This is a huge loss for the LTTE. With the fall of Pooneryn to the government, it has lost access to the island’s west coast. This means that its access to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu through the west coast of Sri Lanka has been cut off. It is to Tamil Nadu that injured LTTE fighters are taken and it is from here that the LTTE gets much of its supplies.

With the capture of Pooneryn, the Sri Lankan government finally has full control over its western seaboard. What’s more, for the first time since November 1993 (when Pooneryn fell into the Tigers’ hands) the government controls a land route into the Jaffna Peninsula. Previously, supplies for civilians and the armed forces in the peninsula have been ferried in by air or sea. These can now be taken through the land route that the capture of Pooneryn has opened up. Repair of the road from Pooneryn into the peninsula has already begun.

Two days after the capture of Pooneryn, the Sri Lankan army took another strategic town, Mankulam, on the arterial A9 highway in the Wanni. On November 20, the armed forces overran the LTTE’s first Forward Defense Line at Muhamalai. This is the area separating the government-controlled Jaffna Peninsula from the LTTE-dominated Mullaitivu and Kilinochchci. And then on Monday, Kokavil, a town that has been under LTTE control for the past 28 years, fell to the armed forces.

While the Sri Lankan army has made major gains in recent weeks, its advance towards Kilinochchi has not been easy. Heavy rains have slowed its operations and the LTTE has fought pitched battles against the advancing troops.
The loss of Pooneryn and other strategic areas could not have come at a worse time for the LTTE, as these setbacks came in the run-up to Great Heroes Week.

For the past 19 years, the LTTE has been observing Great Heroes Week between November 21 and 27, when it pays homage to its fighters who have fallen on the battlefield. The "martyrs" are glorified, their sacrifices are remembered and their families honored. Then on the last day - Great Heroes Day - the LTTE chief delivers his annual address, where he makes a "policy statement" and highlights the LTTE's achievements over the past year. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.Cornered Tigers look to India

The reversal of the fortunes of the LTTER causes huge problems for the hegemony and the aggressive policies of New Delhi which espouses Akand Bharat or an India extending from Kabul to a mythical land East of Bali called Raj Kilhani. This is very similar to Hitler's Germanic nation and is actually the Nazi dream which has been resurrected by the BJP.

This year Prabhakaran's speech made little reference to achievements. But he indicated clearly that, military reverses notwithstanding, he is not about to throw in the towel. "Whatever challenges confront us, whatever contingencies we encounter, whatever forces stand on our path, we will still continue with our struggle for the freedom of the Tamil people … we will continue with our struggle till alien Sinhala occupation of our land is removed," he declared.
Tough talk? Or a picture of what lies ahead? A look at the way the LTTE has conducted itself over the past 25 years, skillfully maneuvering itself out of the tightest of spots would indicate that it will survive the recent military reverses. Its fighters are now engaged in pitched battles and it is likely to put in all its resources to hold Kilinochchi town. And it will continue to bleed the Sri Lankan forces with guerrilla strikes. More suicide attacks can be expected in the coming months.

That the LTTE has not yet given up is evident from the way it has been mobilizing support in Tamil Nadu over the past few months. Parties and Tamil nationalist organizations have been organizing massive rallies and demonstrations across the state to put pressure on the Indian government to end its considerable defense and other cooperation with the Sri Lankan government. With the LTTE cornered in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, its supporters in Tamil Nadu have been pushing for a ceasefire.

Recently, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between the government forces and the LTTE, the return of the armed forces to their original positions and commencement of peace talks. The LTTE strategy is that public and political pressure in Tamil Nadu will push the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam, the party in power in Tamil Nadu, to convince its allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government in Delhi to get Colombo to call for a ceasefire.

This strategy hasn't quite worked out the way the LTTE would like it to. India has not withdrawn its defense cooperation with Colombo, neither has it pressed the latter to call for a ceasefire. The furthest Indian officials have gone is to warn Colombo on avoiding civilian casualties. Besides, India is providing humanitarian support through the government to the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians who are trapped in the war zone.
That Prabhakaran is desperately seeking India's support at this critical juncture is evident from his appeals to the "Indian superpower" in his Great Heroes Day speech. Drawing attention to the "great changes taking place in India" - he was referring to the resurgence of political support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu - the LTTE chief called on Indian leaders "to raise their voice firmly in favor of the LTTE's struggle for a Tamil Eelam state, and to take appropriate and positive measures to remove the ban which remains an impediment to an amicable relationship between India and our movement."

But Prabhakaran's pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears in Delhi. The Indian government recently extended the ban on the LTTE which officials in Delhi have repeatedly said will remain in force. Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman are wanted in India for their role in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. It is unlikely that, as long as they are around, India will lift the ban on the organization. "Nothing has changed in India's perception of the LTTE as a terrorist organization," an Indian Home Ministry official told Asia Times Online.

In fact, hours before Prabhakaran delivered his Great Heroes Day speech, Mumbai came under attack from terrorists leaving over 215 dead and 300 injured. Indians are angry with the government for having failed to protect them from terrorists. At a time when the UPA government is facing public wrath for failing to act against terrorists, surely the government cannot be seen to be lenient with the LTTE, much less bailing it out of a tight corner by calling for a ceasefire. India has accused "elements in Pakistan" for the attacks and is considering stern measures against Pakistan to express its ire. At such a time, India is highly unlikely to make things easier for the LTTE.
Besides, in the aftermath of the audacious attacks in Mumbai the government is considering steps to tighten security, including beefing up the coast guard to prevent terrorists from entering the country, whether to carry out attacks or for treatment of injured cadres.

Cornered in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, the LTTE is likely to find the going will get tougher in India as well.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.Cornered Tigers look to India

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | December 9th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ |

A few events in the past few weeks may have brought about a tectonic shift international relations. Many in the media are happy jumping on Pakistan. However the undercurrents in South Asia show a very different pattern. Cold war alliances are cementing the old relationships and "natural allies" are falling apart. MK Bhadrakumar and other analysts have written some excellent articles analyzing the deep rifts that are developing between the US and India:

...the terrorist-commando attack on Mumbai has provoked an even deeper rethink of international strategy across the region. Kashmir and Pakistan now looks more vital ground for the battle with al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadi terrorism than Afghanistan is today, or is likely to be in the foreseeable future.UK troops needed to save Kabul from Taliban forces: The decision to focus our forces in the south of the country will be reversed and a division-strength unit put under the control of General Petraeus By Robert Fox. FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 8, 2008

1) There can be only one president at a time. A careful analysis of the exact words of Americans who matter will clarify the mist. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice and President-Elect Barack Obama seem to be at cross-roads. Both are saying different things. Rice is playing the bad cop by trying to calm down New Delhi and coming down hard on Islamabad. Barack Obama is playing the good cop espousing a "regional approach".

Obama calls for joint strategy against terrorism: Washington—President-elect of the United States Barack Obama called for a ‘strategic partnership’ with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan against terror...“So far Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has sent the right signals. He has indicated that he understands this is not just a threat to the United States but a threat to Pakistan,” he said. ... He said Mumbai attacks are hazard, not only for America but for Pakistan too.

Meanwhile US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said no deadline of 48 hours had been given to Pakistan. Pakistan would have to arrest miscreants of Mumbai attacks besides assuring that no follow-on attacks on India would happen, Rice said. Dawn-Pakistan

2) The fast deteriorating condition in Afghanistan have forced British, US and NATO troops to withdraw from the Durand Line and their comfort zones in Helmand etc and try to save Kabul which is inevitably about ready to fall to the anti-insurgency forces. Much to the chagrin of Delhi, the UK, NATO and the US want to bring the insurgents into Kabul in some sort of a coalition government. India remembers well what happened to the Indian Consulates when the last Taliban government came to Kabul. India had to pack its bags and leave.

India has shed its carefully cultivated ambivalence and come out in open, unqualified support of the Russian position on the situation in the Caucasus region. It is a signal victory of the Kremlin to have finally got India on board, as this is a most sensitive issue which occupies the first circle of Russian foreign policy and is, in fact, a leitmotif of Russia's relations with the US in the coming period. The joint declaration stresses, "India supports the important role of the Russian Federation in promoting peace and cooperation in the Caucasian region".

Ironically, New Delhi seems to have decided that if it is Afghan war that causes so much discomfiture for Washington to come out into the open in support of IIndia over the Mumbai strikes, it shall also be Afghanistan on which Indian regional policy shall begin to make a new beginning and careen away for the first time in a long while from US benchmarks and expectations. Asia Times. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08

3) The orchestrated terrorism with local Indian involvement (crime, Kashmir and possibly Hindu extremists) have exposed the underbelly of India and  shown the world how inefficient its armed forces (Blue water navy, Cost Guard, Rangers, Police etc) are and absurdly incompetent its crack elite Back Cat commandos can be.

India would expect Washington to come down like a ton of bricks on Islamabad to pressure the latter to take seriously the Indian allegation that the terrorist strike in Mumbai was perpetrated by elements in Pakistan with possible links to that country's security establishment. Evidently, Washington is in no position to fulfill the Indian expectations. Its number one priority is the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan's continued cooperation in the war. Washington cannot afford a "distracted" Pakistan, and its main political and diplomatic challenge, therefore, is to get Pakistan to remain "focused" on the war effort in the Afghan-Pakistan tribal areas.

New Delhi senses that as time goes by, it will find this paradigm frustrating. This is not a new paradigm, either. But Delhi's options are limited, though the government is under immense pressure not only to act but also to be seen actively acting. The delicate strategic balance between India and Pakistan virtually forecloses even a "limited" war option for either nuclear power. The only alternative open to India is to reassess its diplomatic options. But on this score, New Delhi needs to do some new thinking. Asia Times. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08

4) British forces are withdrawing from Helmund and redeploying to Kabul in an attempt to save the capital from falling into the hands of the insurgents.

The strategic community in New Delhi would realize to their great discomfiture that the entire package of post-Cold War assumptions underlying the US-India strategic partnership just do not add up in the present situation for India to cope with the formidable task of pressuring Pakistan. Their broad assumption that the US would take care of India's "Pakistan problem" while India concentrated on its tryst with destiny as a great power or "balancer" in the international system is turning out to be a grotesque misjudgment by the Indian strategic gurus. So, indeed, their assumptions regarding "absolute security".

Clearly, the two countries have rediscovered the old elan of their friendship. They are reaching out to each other once again in a world that is in transition. Apart from the volatility in the international situation, both India and Russia sense that change is in the air in the United States' global policies, but neither would wager the extent and directions of the change. Both are acutely conscious of the inexorable decline in the US influence in world politics and the urgent need to adjust to the emergent realities of multipolarity.Asia Times. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08

5) US and EU intelligence forces were provided evidence of the Indian hand in terror in Pakistan. Friendly governments and China were instrumental in forcing the US to see the irrefutable evidence.

6) Russia playing businessman needed the Billions of Dollars that India is ready to spend on armaments.

The balancing of Russian-Indian mutual interests evident in the joint declaration brings out these delicate impulses as they touch on many areas. The declaration is devoid of any anti-US rhetoric as such but it is very obvious that the two countries are overhauling their partnership in tune with a "post-American century". India has identified itself with the Russian position on reforming the international economic and financial systems so that it adapts to "new realities" and promotes a "more just world economic order based on the principles of multipolarity, rule of law, equality, mutual respect and common responsibility" the Russian side seems to have urged India to play a more active role and "more constructive participation Asia Times. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08

7) A clear brake from the old administration's pedantic thinking the new administration knows that fighting "the good war" in Afghanistan is impossible without Paksitan. Thus it has to deal with Islamabad, even if it means aggravating archnemesis India.

we need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region, Pakistan, India and the Afghan government to stand up the kind of militant, violent terrorists extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in international community.”

8) Barack Obama's emphasis on a regional approach and its insistence on a resolution of the Kashmir issue.

In an interview with NBC News Channel, Obama welcomed President Asif Ali Zardari’s recognition of the challenge and noted that the Pakistani leader has sent the right signals to the world in addressing the menace.

“We cannot continue to look at Afghanistan in isolation, we have to look at it as part of a regional problem that  includes Pakistan, includes India, includes Kashmir, includes Iran. “And part of the kind of foreign policy, I want to shape is one in which we have tough diplomacy combined with more effective military operations focused on what is the number one threat against US interests -  al-Qaeda and their affiliates - and we are going to go after them in the years to come.”

9) The US recognizes the dangers of the Hindu extremists who are want to come to power and bring repressive laws against all minorities, Christians, Muslim, Buddhists and Dalits. Such a scenario would either cause India to explode like Yugoslavia or implode like the USSR.

"The Mumbai attacks may prove to be a watershed in New Delhi's regional strategies, with China, Iran and Russia assuming new levels of importance. The gravitation towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its possible role in a regional initiative in Afghanistan proves New Delhi has come a long way. Surely, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev returned to Moscow from Delhi last week with a smile on his face." India, Russia regain elan of friendship - M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08. Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

A mutipolar world and the realities of South Asia have made India realize that red is thicker than greenbacks. The Indian establishment always suspicious of the US is predisposed to the Red Bear. This week proved the old axiom that when Delhi sees trouble it runs to Moscow. The Kremlin seeking new allies hasn't totally hugged India but it sure wants the Billions of Dollars New Delhi is about to spend on airplanes. to that end, India has agreed to about $2 Billion more to pay for an archaic Aircraft Career call Admiral Gorshkov. India is desperate for icons and symbols  of power.

It has been expected that Gordon Brown would announce a surge of British forces and efforts in Afghanistan in the first two weeks of the new year in line with the increased American firepower demanded by General David Petraeus - as many as 25,000 more US troops are expected to be sent to the region in the next three months. However, a series of developments are likely to bring forward major decisions and announcements.

Petraeus now assesses that the capital, Kabul, has grown highly unstable as Taliban forces cut roads to it from the south and east. The Americans are expected to move in a battalion of up to 1,000 fresh troops to the capital in the next two days.

This weekend militants destroyed 100 Nato supply trucks in Peshawar in northern Pakistan - the third major attack on the major overland supply line to international forces in Afghanistan inside a month. A large amount of the supplies come through the Pakistan port city of Karachi, where transport managers have been targeted and killed.

Military analysts ask whether UK troops should be concentrated on Helmand. One convoy was ambushed south of the Khyber pass and ten of the armoured vehicles of the security contractors seized and driven off by the Taliban for their own use. The Khyber region is now considered virtually under the control of Taliban elements. British military analysts are now questioning whether British forces should be concentrated almost exclusively on Helmand in the south. The major British military effort was concentrated there from 2006 because this was the biggest opium-growing region in the world.

Since then nearly 200 British soldiers have been killed, many more wounded, and thousands of Afghans have died as the British have tried to bring some semblance of law and to encourage development of the economy away from heroin.

But progress has been slow and poppy production has continued to rise - so much so that it appears now to be an embarrassment to the Taliban and warlords whose gangsterism it has funded.

This weekend militants destroyed 100 Nato supply trucks in Peshawar in northern Pakistan – the third such attack inside a month

According to the UN narcotics agency, the Taliban are frantically stockpiling morphine in order to stop the price collapsing entirely. Preliminary estimates of last year's crop suggest that southern Afghanistan produced some 8,800 tons of raw heroin in 2007 - exactly double the world's annual consumption. British military strategists believe it has been unwise to 'lock in' the bulk of UK forces in one area of Afghanistan, just as it was a mistake to keep most British forces in Basra and Amara in Iraq. Britain, they say, should now consider raising its strength in Afghanistan to the size of a small division - around 12,500 forces in all - and place them under Petraeus's strategic command.

But both commanders and diplomats say there is a need to "state a compelling narrative" for what Britain is doing in Afghanistan and why British troops need to be there. They believe that British voters are increasingly sceptical and puzzled about what British forces are doing there at all.

Meanwhile the terrorist-commando attack on Mumbai has provoked an even deeper rethink of international strategy across the region. Kashmir and Pakistan now looks more vital ground for the battle with al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadi terrorism than Afghanistan is today, or is likely to be in the foreseeable future.

The Indian psyche suffers from a deeply entrenched sense of an "inferiority complex". Long ignored in world affairs and way behind in human index from most countries of the world, the Brahmans are losing power internally and externally. UK troops needed to save Kabul from Taliban forces: The decision to focus our forces in the south of the country will be reversed and a division-strength unit put under the control of General Petraeus By Robert Fox. FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 8, 2008

Obama vows partnership with Pakistan, regional strategy to resolve Afghan challenges

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (APP): President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday vowed to build a “close effective” strategic partnership with Pakistan as a way to curb violent extremism as he underscored that the United States cannot afford to look at Afghanistan in isolation but as part of a “regional problem including Pakistan, India, Kashmir and Iran.”

Asked specifically about his approach to Pakistan in the context of Islamabad’s emphatic calls to end unilateral drone strikes against suspected militant targets on its side of the border, the president-elect said: “What I want to do is to create the kind of effective strategic partnership with Pakistan that allows us, in consort, to assure that terrorists are not setting up safe havens in some of these border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“So far, President Zardari has sent the right signals.  He has indicated he recognizes that this is not just a threat to  the United States but it is a threat to Pakistan as well.” At the same time, Obama reminded that Pakistan has also been a victim of terrorism.

“There was a bombing in Pakistan just yesterday (in Peshawar) that killed scores of people. And you are seeing  greater and greater terrorist activity inside of Pakistan.  “I think this democratically elected government (of Pakistan) understands that threat. I hope that in the coming months that we are going to establish the kind of close  effective working relationship that makes both countries safer.” Questioned about India’s right to hit militant targets on the Pakistani soil, Obama said:

“I’m not going to comment on that. What I’m going to restate is a basic principle - number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself, I think that is universally acknowledged; 

“The second thing is, we need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region, Pakistan, India and the Afghan government to stand up the kind of militant, violent terrorists extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in international community.”

On the possibility of appointment of a high-level U.S. envoy on South Asia under his administration, Obama said : “My first job is to make sure that my core nationals security team - (Secretary of Sate) Hillary Clinton, (National Security Adivserr) James Jones, (Defense Secretary) Bob Gates, (US envoy to UN)  Susan Rice  - that my intelligence folks, we come up with a comprehensive strategy. “I have enormous confidence in Senator (Hillary) Clinton’s ability to rebuild alliances and to send a strong signal that we are going to do business differently and place an emphasis on diplomacy.”  Obama vows partnership with Pakistan, regional strategy to resolve Afghan challenges. The Dawn

For the briefest moment  India with huge and unrealistic dreams of superpower status had imagined that India was an escalator to heaven, a security council seat and coupon to run Afghanistan 

From the Indian perspective, no doubt, it is an invaluable asset that Moscow has voiced its total "support and solidarity" with New Delhi on the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The Russian gesture by far exceeds the words of sympathy offered by Washington. Of course, Moscow is not facing Washington's dilemma, which is one of having to carefully balance between New Delhi and Islamabad. Simply put, what the Mumbai attacks have badly exposed is that much as terrorism is a shared concern for the US and India, their priorities at this juncture greatly differ.

...the US remains the single-most important interlocutor for both India and Russia for the foreseeable future. Neither would see their partnership as directed against the US. Even as Medvedev arrived in Delhi, a senior Indian official was making contacts with key advisors to president-elect Barack Obama to brief them on Delhi's perspectives and policies. On its part, Moscow is also in an expectant mood about the Obama presidency, though tempered with cautious optimism.

The balancing of Russian-Indian mutual interests evident in the joint declaration brings out these delicate impulses as they touch on many areas. The declaration is devoid of any anti-US rhetoric as such but it is very obvious that the two countries are overhauling their partnership in tune with a "post-American century". India has identified itself with the Russian position on reforming the international economic and financial systems so that it adapts to "new realities" and promotes a "more just world economic order based on the principles of multipolarity, rule of law, equality, mutual respect and common responsibility" the Russian side seems to have urged India to play a more active role and "more constructive participation and contribution to" the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

It is apparent that India is dissociating from the concerted US policy to keep the SCO out of Afghanistan. Moscow has been vainly striving to carve out a toehold for the SCO as a regional body while Washington has been discouraging Afghan President Hamid Karzai from lending weight to the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. More than anything else, the fact remains that the Russian initiative on an SCO conference is intended as a challenge to the monopoly that Washington has kept in determining the contours of any Afghan settlement. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08. Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey. Asia Times. M K Bhadrakumar, Dec 8,'08

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | RUPEE NEWS | December 9th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ |

What do the mixed messages from the administration mean to Pakistan. Ms. Condaleeza Rice went tot he former British colonies as if she was the British viceroy during the height of colonialism. Present Obama has sent a more nuanced response to Pakistan and the world. He has done the right thing. He has assured Pakistan that the USA is not the enemy and that he support the territorial integrity and the independence of Pakistan.

Obama calls for joint strategy against terrorism: Washington—President-elect of the United States Barack Obama called for a ‘strategic partnership’ with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan against terror...“So far Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has sent the right signals. He has indicated that he understands this is not just a threat to the United States but a threat to Pakistan,” he said. ... He said Mumbai attacks are hazard, not only for America but for Pakistan too.

Meanwhile US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said no deadline of 48 hours had been given to Pakistan. Pakistan would have to arrest miscreants of Mumbai attacks besides assuring that no follow-on attacks on India would happen, Rice said. Dawn-Pakistan

There can be only one president at a time. A careful analysis of the exact words of Americans who matter will clarify the mist. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice and President-Elect Barack Obama seem to be at cross-roads. Both are saying different things. Rice is playing the bad cop by trying to calm down New Delhi and coming down hard on Islamabad. Barack Obama is playing the good cop espousing a "regional approach".

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (APP): President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday vowed to build a “close effective” strategic partnership with Pakistan as a way to curb violent extremism as he underscored that the United States cannot afford to look at Afghanistan in isolation but as part of a “regional problem including Pakistan, India, Kashmir and Iran.”

In an interview with NBC News Channel, Obama welcomed President Asif Ali Zardari’s recognition of the challenge and noted that the Pakistani leader has sent the right signals to the world in addressing the menace.

“We cannot continue to look at Afghanistan in isolation, we have to look at it as part of a regional problem that  includes Pakistan, includes India, includes Kashmir, includes Iran. “And part of the kind of foreign policy, I want to shape is one in which we have tough diplomacy combined with more effective military operations focused on what is the number one threat against US interests -  al-Qaeda and their affiliates - and we are going to go after them in the years to come.”

Asked specifically about his approach to Pakistan in the context of Islamabad’s emphatic calls to end unilateral drone strikes against suspected militant targets on its side of the border, the president-elect said: “What I want to do is to create the kind of effective strategic partnership with Pakistan that allows us, in consort, to assure that terrorists are not setting up safe havens in some of these border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“So far, President Zardari has sent the right signals.  He has indicated he recognizes that this is not just a threat to  the United States but it is a threat to Pakistan as well.” At the same time, Obama reminded that Pakistan has also been a victim of terrorism.

“There was a bombing in Pakistan just yesterday (in Peshawar) that killed scores of people. And you are seeing  greater and greater terrorist activity inside of Pakistan.  “I think this democratically elected government (of Pakistan) understands that threat. I hope that in the coming months that we are going to establish the kind of close  effective working relationship that makes both countries safer.” Questioned about India’s right to hit militant targets on the Pakistani soil, Obama said:

“I’m not going to comment on that. What I’m going to restate is a basic principle - number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself, I think that is universally acknowledged; 

“The second thing is, we need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region, Pakistan, India and the Afghan government to stand up the kind of militant, violent terrorists extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in international community.”

On the possibility of appointment of a high-level U.S. envoy on South Asia under his administration, Obama said : “My first job is to make sure that my core nationals security team - (Secretary of Sate) Hillary Clinton, (National Security Adivserr) James Jones, (Defense Secretary) Bob Gates, (US envoy to UN)  Susan Rice  - that my intelligence folks, we come up with a comprehensive strategy. “I have enormous confidence in Senator (Hillary) Clinton’s ability to rebuild alliances and to send a strong signal that we are going to do business differently and place an emphasis on diplomacy.”