Inside Sectarianism

Iran's nuclear threat: New revelations or change in IAEA's leadership?

2011-11-26T11:34:00.008-06:00

Has IAEA found new evidence or discovered undisclosed sites in Iran recently that's fueling its growing concern over Iran's nuclear program, or is it the change in IAEA's leadership that explains the different attitude? The renowned journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker on Nov 18, 2011:

"The shift in tone at the I.A.E.A. seems linked to a change at the top. The I.A.E.A.’s report had extra weight because the Agency has had a reputation for years as a reliable arbiter on Iran. Mohammed ElBaradei, who retired as the I.A.E.A.’s Director General two years ago, was viewed internationally, although not always in Washington, as an honest broker—a view that lead to the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. ElBaradei’s replacement is Yukiya Amano of Japan. Late last year, a classified U.S. Embassy cable from Vienna, the site of the I.A.E.A. headquarters, described Amano as being “ready for prime time.” According to the cable, which was obtained by WikiLeaks, in a meeting in September, 2009, with Glyn Davies, the American permanent representative to the I.A.E.A., said, “Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the group of developing countries], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.” The cable added that Amano’s “willingness to speak candidly with U.S. interlocutors on his strategy … bodes well for our future relationship.”"

See the full text here

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On the topic, see a recent interview of Mohammad Javad Larijani with MSNBC here (20.49m)

The whoo-scary Iranian terror plot

2011-10-13T17:52:00.004-05:00

Watching the US corporate media coverage of this Iranian terror plot is like watching "Wag the Dog" movie again - except that the enemy plot in the movie had less holes and was more convincing than the one in the present episode.

The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot
Glenn Greenwald
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/12/the_very_scary_iranian_terror_plot/singleton/
The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing reaction one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy.

Iranian Terror Plot: Fake, Fake, Fake
Justin Raimondo
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/10/11/iranian-terror-plot-fake-fake-fake/

News Media Hypes the “Iran Did It” Line, Ignores Holes in the Story
John Glaser
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/10/12/news-media-hypes-the-iran-did-it-line-ignores-holes-in-the-story/

What's at stake in the PA's bid for statehood at UN

2011-09-15T16:29:00.004-05:00

Below, see an insightful piece worth engaging.

Check out Massad's another excellent article on the topic: How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace"

http://electronicintifada.net/content/how-surrendering-palestinian-rights-became-language-peace/8640

For more on the two-state solution, see: How realistic is the two-state solution?

http://gazaawareness.blogspot.com/2009/01/resolve-palestine-israel-conflict.html

State of Recognition

Whether the UN grants the PA status as a state or refuses to do so, either outcome will be in Israel's interest.

Joseph Massad, 15 Sep 2011

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/20119158427939481.html#.TnI_wH33KyA.tumblr

What is at stake in Barack Obama's vehement refusal to recognise Palestine as a mini-state with a disfigured geography and no sovereignty, and his urging the world community not to recognise it while threatening the Palestinians with retribution? What is the relationship between Obama's refusal to recognise Palestine and his insistence on recognising Israel's right to be a "Jewish state" and his demand that the Palestinians and Arab countries follow suit?

It is important to stress at the outset that whether the UN grants the Palestinian Authority (PA) the government of a state under occupation and observer status as a state or refuses to do so, either outcome will be in the interest of Israel. For the only game in town has always been Israel's interests, and it is clear that whatever strategy garners international support, with or without US and Israeli approval, must guarantee Israeli interests a priori. The UN vote is a case in point.

Possible outcomes

Let us consider the two possible outcomes of the vote and how they will advance Israeli interests:

The ongoing Arab uprisings have raised Palestinian expectations about the necessity of ending the occupation and have challenged the modus vivendi the PA has with Israel. Furthermore, with the increase in Palestinian grass-roots activism to resist the Israeli occupation, the PA has decided to shift the Palestinian struggle from popular mobilisation it will not be able to control, and which it fears could topple it, to the international legal arena. The PA hopes that this shift from the popular to the juridical will demobilise Palestinian political energies and displace them onto an arena that is less threatening to the survival of the PA itself.

The PA feels abandoned by the US which assigned it the role of collaborator with the Israeli occupation, and feels frozen in a "peace process" that does not seek an end goal. PA politicians opted for the UN vote to force the hand of the Americans and the Israelis, in the hope that a positive vote will grant the PA more political power and leverage to maximise its domination of the West Bank (but not East Jerusalem or Gaza, which neither Israel nor Hamas respectively are willing to concede to the PA). Were the UN to grant the PA its wish and admit it as a member state with observer status, then, the PA argues, it would be able to force Israel in international fora to cease its violations of the UN charter, the Geneva Conventions, and numerous international agreements. The PA could then challenge Israel internationally using legal instruments only available to member states to force it to grant it "independence". What worries the Israelis most is that, were Palestine to become a member state, it would be able to legally challenge Israel.

This presumed addition of power the Palestinians will gain to bring Israel to justice will actually be carried out at enormous cost to the Palestinian people. If the UN votes for the PA statehood status, this would have several immediate implications:This logic is faulty, though, because the Palestinians have not historically lacked legal instruments to challenge Israel. On the contrary, international instruments have been activated against Israel since 1948 by the UN's numerous resolutions in the General Assembly as well as in the Security Council, not to mention the more recent use of the International Court of Justice in the case of the Apartheid Wall. The problem has never been the Palestinians' ability or inability to marshal international law or legal instruments to their side. Instead, the problem is that the US blocks international law's jurisdiction from being applied to Israel through its veto power. The US uses threats and protective measures to shield the recalcitrant pariah state from being brought to justice. It has already used its veto power in the UN Security Council 41 times in defense of Israel and against Palestinian rights. How this would change if the PA became a UN member state with observer status is not clear.

True, the PA could bring more international legal pressure and sanctions to bear on Israel. It could have international bodies adjudicate Israel's violations of the rights of the Palestinian state. The PA could even make the international mobility of Israeli politicians more perilous as "war criminals". This would render Israel's international relations more difficult, but how would this ultimately weaken an Israel that the US would shield completely from such effects as it has always done?

Implications of the UN vote

(1) The PLO will cease to represent the Palestinian people at the UN, and the PA will replace it as their presumed state.

(2) The PLO, which represents all Palestinians (about 12 million people in historic Palestine and in the diaspora), and was recognised as their "sole" representative at the UN in 1974, will be truncated to the PA, which represents only West Bank Palestinians (about 2 million people). Incidentally this was the vision presented by the infamous "Geneva Accords" that went nowhere.

(3) It will politically weaken Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes and be compensated, as stipulated in UN resolutions. The PA does not represent the refugees, even though it claims to represent their "hopes" of establishing a Palestinian state at their expense. Indeed, some international legal experts fear it could even abrogate the Palestinians' right of return altogether. It will also forfeit the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel who face institutional and legal racism in the Israeli state, as it presents them with a fait accompli of the existence of a Palestinian state (its phantasmatic nature notwithstanding). This will only give credence to Israeli claims that the Jews have a state and the Palestinians now have one too and if Palestinian citizens of Israel were unhappy, or even if they were happy, with their third-class status in Israel, they should move or can be forced to move to the Palestinian state at any rate.

(4) Israel could ostensibly come around soon after a UN vote in favour of Palestinian statehood and inform the PA that the territories it now controls (a small fraction of the West Bank) is all the territory Israel will concede and that this will be the territorial basis of the PA state. The Israelis do not tire of reminding the PA that the Palestinians will not have sovereignty, an army, control of their borders, control of their water resources, control over the number of refugees it could allow back, or even jurisdiction over Jewish colonial settlers. Indeed, the Israelis have already obtained UN assurances about their right to "defend" themselves and to preserve their security with whatever means they think are necessary to achieve these goals. In short, the PA will have the exact same Bantustan state that Israel and the US have been promising to grant it for two decades!

(5) The US and Israel could also, through their many allies, inject a language of "compromise" in the projected UN recognition of the PA state, stipulating that such a state must exist peacefully side by side with the "Jewish State" of Israel. This would in turn exact a precious UN recognition of Israel's "right" to be a Jewish state, which the UN and the international community, the US excepted, have refused to recognize thus far. This will directly link the UN recognition of a phantasmatic non-existent Palestinian state to UN recognition of an actually existing state of Israel that discriminates legally and institutionally against non-Jews as a "Jewish state".

(6) The US and Israel will insist after a positive vote that, while the PA is right to make certain political demands as a member state, it would have to abrogate its recent reconciliation agreement with Hamas. Additionally, sanctions could befall the PA state itself for associating with Hamas, which the US and Israel consider a terrorist group. The US Congress has already threatened to punish the PA and will not hesitate to urge the Obama administration to add Palestine to its list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism" along with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

All of these six outcomes will advance Israeli interests immeasurably, while the only inconvenience to Israel would be the ability of the PA to demand that international law and legal jurisdiction be applied to Israel so as to exact more concessions from that country. However, at every turn the US will block and will shield Israel from its effects. In short, Israeli interests will be maximised at the cost of some serious but not detrimental inconvenience.

The second possible outcome, a US veto, and/or the ability of the US to pressure and twist the arms of tens of countries around the world to reject the bid of the PA in the General Assembly, resulting in failure to recognise PA statehood, will also be to the benefit of Israel. The unending "peace process" will continue with more stringent conditions and an angry US, upset at the PA challenge, will go back to exactly where the PA is today, if not to a weaker position. President Obama and future US administrations will continue to push for PA and Arab recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" that has the right to discriminate by law against non-Jews in exchange for an ever-deferred recognition of a Palestinian Bantustan as an "economically viable" Palestinian state - a place where Palestinian neoliberal businessmen can make profits off international aid and investment.

Either outcome will keep the Palestinian people colonised, discriminated against, oppressed, and exiled. This entire brouhaha over the UN vote is ultimately about which of the two scenarios is better for Israeli interests. The Palestinian people and their interests are not even part of this equation.

The question on the table before the UN, then, is not whether the UN should recognise the right of the Palestinian people to a state in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which would grant them 45 per cent of historic Palestine, nor of a Palestinian state within the June 5, 1967 borders along the Green Line, which would grant them 22 per cent of historic Palestine. A UN recognition ultimately means the negation of the rights of the majority of the Palestinian people in Israel, in the diaspora, in East Jerusalem, and even in Gaza, and the recognition of the rights of some West Bank Palestinians to a Bantustan on a fraction of West Bank territory amounting to less than 10 per cent of historic Palestine. Israel will be celebrating either outcome.

Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York.

Bahraini poet tortured and sentenced to one year in prison

2011-06-13T12:26:00.018-05:00

Update: July 14, 2011

Bahraini regime releases Ayat Al-Qormezi, but does not revoke sentence
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahrain-releases-poet-who-became-a-symbol-of-resistance-to-regime-2313309.html

Video: Ayat al-Qormezi in a cheering crowd after the release
http://shiatv.net/view_video.php?viewkey=48d72658717f3d3d135f

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The Bahraini regime recently appointed Khalifa Al Dhahrani as the head of the national dialogue - the same Dhahrani who is said to be responsible for the sham investigations against many prominent political figures sympathetic to the opposition. The appointment followed the Bahraini crown prince's visit to Washington just a few days ago. This should be an eye opener to anyone still deluded by the rhetoric of reforms by the regime or the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the regime has continued its brutal suppression against the non-violent protesters using the weapons that were sold by U.S. companies with the approval of the U.S. government.

Just yesterday, the regime's military court sentenced the brave poet, Ayat Al Qormezi, to one year in prison.

Ayat Al-Qormezi, a 20-year-old poet and trainee at the Faculty of Teachers in Bahrain was arrested two months ago for reading out a passionate poem at a freedom rally.

"We are the people who kill humiliation and assassinate misery," she told a massive crowd of protesters in the famous Pearl Square in February. "We are the people who use peace to destroy the foundation of injustice."

Addressing Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa directly, she said: "Don't you hear their cries, don't you hear their screams?"

Toward the end of her poem, she prayed: “The Sunni and Shia are brothers. God care for them all!”

As she finished, the crowd shouted: "Down with Hamad!"

A few days later the Bahraini security forces raided her house, but did not find her. She was forced to give herself up when the forces threatened to kill her four brothers one by one in front of her parents.

Ayat has not been by her family since then. She did speak to her mother once on the phone. “During her detention she was whipped across the face with electric cable, held for nine days in a tiny cell with the temperature near freezing, and was forced to clean lavatories with her bare hands.” (The Independent, June 11 and 13, 2011). Later, it was found out that she was in a military hospital due to injuries from the torture.

On June 12, she was sentenced to one year in prison.

According to The Independent, “The details of her interrogation and imprisonment are similar to the experiences of other women detained by Bahraini security forces since they launched a full scale repression on 15 March…” (June 11, 2011)

Moreover, despite the lifting of martial law on June 1, 'some 600 people are still detained, at least 2,000 have been sacked, and more than 27 mosques have been bulldozed.' (June 2, 2011)

Western guns and training used to crush the Arab spring

2011-05-30T10:25:00.011-05:00

The NYTimes deserves credit for rigorously and scathingly going after the private security firm, Blackwater, and its founder, Erik Prince, in the last few years. The latest has been its reporting of a 800-member foreign militia that Erik Prince is building for the UAE:

Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder (NYTimes, May 14, 2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html

I wish that the NYTimes had similarly scrutinized the military training and arms sales done under the official stamp of the US government and Congress. The US logistical support, troops training, and counter-insurgency equipments have facilitated far too many dictatorial regimes in their attempts to suppress the legitimate concerns of their people.

US Congress notified over $60bn arms sale to Saudi Arabia (The Guardian, October 21, 2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/21/us-congress-notified-arms-sale-saudi-arabia

Also See: U.S. Arms Sales Agreements with the Middle East, 1999-2006 (Statistics)

Further, the NYTimes could also cover similar support given by other so-called pro-democratic, western countries to dictatorial regimes around the world. For instance,

UK training Saudi forces used to crush Arab spring (The Guardian, May 28, 2011)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/28/uk-training-saudi-troops

The early beginnings of the Afghan War

2011-05-27T09:42:00.013-05:00

Below, see a well-known and important article from The Nation that sets the record straight on how the 'Afghan war' started.

The American provocation may be true, but it is also true that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was part of the larger Soviet ambition of reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. The Soviet-US politics should be viewed in the context of ongoing 'Cold War' which began long before the 1979 provocations and invasion.

On a critical note: The article seems to rely on the (false) assumption that 9/11 as well as Al-Qaeda were products (or 'blowback') of the Afghan war. Quite the contrary, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are separate entities with different geographic origins, leadership, and goals. They may have developed connections, but they (or some of their factions) also have been at odds with each other in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

'Blowback,' the Prequel
Eric Alterman, The Nation, October 25, 2001
Source

The story of what historians call the second cold war often begins with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, which shocked Americans into their own overreaction in Central America and Africa, as well as into arming the mujahedeen resistance. Today, it is a truth universally acknowledged in the punditocracy that while the United States may have played an indirect role in the creation of the Taliban and perhaps even the bin Laden terrorist network through our support for the radical Islamic guerrillas in Afghanistan, we did so only in response to that act of Soviet aggression. As Tim Russert explained on Meet the Press, "We had little choice." Speaking on CNN, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Peter Tomsen speaks of our "successful policy with the ordnance we sent to the mujahedeen to defeat the Soviets." Writing on "The 'Blowback' Myth" in The Weekly Standard, one Thomas Henriksen of the Hoover Institution rehearses the Soviet invasion and then notes, "First President Carter, then, more decisively, Ronald Reagan moved to support the Afghan resistance."

The truth is that the United States began a program of covert aid to the Afghan guerrillas six months before the Soviets invaded.

First revealed by former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates in his 1996 memoir From the Shadows, the $500 million in nonlethal aid was designed to counter the billions the Soviets were pouring into the puppet regime they had installed in Kabul. Some on the American side were willing--perhaps even eager--to lure the Soviets into a Vietnam-like entanglement. Others viewed the program as a way of destabilizing the puppet government and countering the Soviets, whose undeniable aggression in the area was helping to reheat the cold war to a dangerous boil.

According to Gates's recounting, a key meeting took place on March 30, 1979. Under Secretary of Defense Walter Slocumbe wondered aloud whether "there was value in keeping the Afghan insurgency going, 'sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire.'" Arnold Horelick, CIA Soviet expert, warned that this was just what we could expect. In a 1998 conversation with Le Nouvel Observateur, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted, "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would."

Yet Carter, who signed the finding authorizing the covert program on July 3, 1979, today explains that it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion. Cyrus Vance, who was then Secretary of State, is not well enough to be interviewed, but his close aide Marshall Shulman insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it, though he says he was unaware of the covert program at the time. Indeed, Vance hardly seems to be represented at all in Gates's recounting, although Brzezinski doubts that Carter would have approved the aid unless Vance "approved, however unenthusiastically."

No one I interviewed--those who did not mind the idea of a Soviet invasion, and those who sought to avoid it--argues that Carter himself wished to provoke one. Gates, who was then an aide to Brzezinski, says the President did not think "strategically" in that fashion. "He was simply reacting to everything the Soviets were doing in that part of the world and felt it required some kind of response. This was it." Brzezinski, similarly, says he did not sell the plan to Carter on these terms. The President understood, he explained on the phone, that "the Soviets had engineered a Communist coup and they were providing direct assistance in Kabul. We were facing a serious crisis in Iran, and the entire Persian Gulf was at stake. In that context, giving some money to the mujahedeen seemed justified." Why Carter actually approved the aid remains unclear, however. Carter, it should be added, does not seem to remember much about the initial finding. Otherwise, he would not have asked his aide to fax me the pages from his memoir Keeping Faith, which ignores it entirely, and like the rest of the pre-Gates memoirs of the period, professes great shock and horror regarding the onset of the Soviet tanks.

The news of the covert program has provoked considerable confusion among those who seek to blame the United States for the September 11 massacre. Proponents of an overly schematic "blowback" scenario, including at least one vocal supporter of the Soviet "rape" of Afghanistan, have seized Brzezinski's comments to claim that Osama bin Laden is merely one of America's "chickens coming home to roost." This is both simplistic and obscene. Blowback exists in absolutely every aspect of life, because nothing comes without unintended consequences. Does it make sense to blame the destruction of the World Trade Center on a $500 million nonlethal aid program that took place more than twenty years ago? We cannot even know for certain why the Soviets decided on their invasion.

Nor can we ever know for certain whether the US officials wished to inspire one. Memories deceive, records get destroyed and even original documents can be written to be deliberately misleading, as were the period's official memoirs--save, ironically, that of Gates, the former spymaster. The covert action was undoubtedly approved by those involved for a host of reasons, some of which may be contradictory. Helping the Afghans resist Soviet domination was not exactly a controversial policy in 1979, though no one at the time could even dream that it might lead to the evil empire's eventual disintegration.

Brzezinski argues that even given the 20/20 hindsight after September 11, the covert aid remains justified. He shares the common view that America's most significant mistake was to abandon the nation to its unhappy fate following the Soviet withdrawal. Our terrorist problem, he insists, would be much worse with the Soviets still around to support their terrorist minions among the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Libyans, the Iraqis, etc.

Certainly this is much too kind to the Reagan-era military aid to Taliban-like elements. But a more accurate historical record can only lead to more intelligent debate about the future.

Views on Middle East Politics

2011-05-27T09:33:00.005-05:00

A couple of noteworthy posts:

Revising the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War
by Heathlander (May 05, 2011)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/05/973396/-Revising-the-June-1967-Arab-Israeli-War

Wikileaks, Al Jazeera, and the Qatari Public Diplomacy Challenge
by Lina Khatib (Dec 06, 2010)
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/newswire/cpdblog_detail/wikileaks_al_jazeera_and_the_qatari_public_diplomacy_challenge/

Saudis scramble to preserve the reigonal status quo

2011-05-27T09:29:00.011-05:00

A neat story from today's NYTimes is quoted below. I found the connection made with Nasser's Egypt at the end to be quite relevant. Particularly, it suggests that the logic of Saudi scramble is more than just an 'anti-Shia impulse'. It is the status quo that the Saudis seek to protect against any contenders, 'Shiite' or otherwise.

In Syria, I think that none of the major regional players wants the 'regime' (+/- Assad) to go and replaced by chaos (likely) or the 'extremist groups' (less likely). Though some do want to see the Syrian regime get weaker enough so it could not play the 'Ace' card it has usually played in regional politics, particularly in Lebanon.

For Yemen, the article's suggestion seems a bit off the mark. I think it is the replication of the 'Eygptian solution' that the Saudis (and GCC+US/Israel) seek in Yemen: Remove Mubarak, but make sure the 'regime' is in place; promote 'reforms' but make sure that only the 'good' guys from the opposition (and not just anyone from the opposition) come in power through the political process.

However, that solution hasn't worked for Egypt, yet. The protests are ongoing; the Egyptian foreign policy for Israel and Iran is changing; the MB has formed a new political party and seeks to contend in the upcoming elections. It is also unlikely that such a solution will work for Yemen. Chaos seems likely to occur if Saleh does not step down. The post-Saleh regime that the Saudis wish to build would also face protests and resistance. Any widely representative government in Yemen will probably build more cordial relations with Iran, undermining the monopolizing influence that the Saudis seek over its neighboring states.

On a related note, it's intriguing to see how the Qatar-based AlJazeera's coverage of Yemen increases when Saleh refuses to cooperate with the GCC and decreases when he makes cooperative gestures. When not in the 'ignore' mode for Bahrain, AlJazeera is subtly promoting a distinction of 'moderates' (the good guys) against those 'extremists' who want to topple the system of Sheikhdom altogether.

Saudi Arabia Scrambles to Limit Region’s Upheaval
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, NYTimes, May 27, 2011
Source

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translating the US State Dept.'s position on the Egyptian Uprising

2011-01-31T21:10:00.009-06:00

See this quite penetrating 'translation' of the US State Department's position on the ongoing Egyptian uprising.

The political equations in the Middle East are changing. Power vs. powerlessness, dignity vs. humiliation, sovereignty vs. occupation are the logics that primarily define the politics of the masses against their dictatorial status-quo regimes and foreign encroachments. This is the appropriate analytical lens to understand the politics in most parts of of the Middle East and not 'sectarian-feuds' so much.

Above: Anti-government protesters carry posters in English reading “USA, why you support dictator”, center, referring to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and in Arabic reading “Down Omar Suleiman, Israel’s man”, referring to the recently-named Egyptian Vice-President, with links to CIA, left, at the demonstration in Tahrir square in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011. – AP Photo

Incompetence or Conspiracy in Iraq?

2011-01-17T20:23:00.017-06:00

In deliberating on the outcomes of Washington's misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, a strategy of analysis that many Washington pundits use is to prefer 'incompetence' over 'conspiracy' ("They really wanted to spread democracy, but they messed up!"). But below I quote an interview clip of Dick Cheney from 1994 which shows that the Neocons clearly knew what would happen in Iraq. And, not just that, I believe they knew the fault lines (polarized and exacerbated by Saddam's neo-tribal and sectarian policies) and pro-actively exploited them to create instability in the country to justify their prolonged presence (A close scrutiny of Paul Bremer's policies immediately after the occupation and of the presence of John Negroponte and Blackwater would provide ample illuminations. Washington did at first flirt with the idea of installing the puppet Ahmed Chalabi, while utilizing the ongoing instability as the pretext for its longer stay, but the plan failed due to Iraq's Ayatollah Ali Sistani's timely intervention calling for open elections in 2005.)

A longer stay in Iraq not only had financial incentives for the military-industrial complex, but also was crucial for Washington's long-term hegemonic ambitions for the region. (It is for similar reasons that Washington wants to maintain its presence in the so-called "Af-Pak" region. Having Obama in the White House hasn't 'changed' anything.)

But perhaps it was Israel that hoped to benefit the most from the instability in Iraq. Since at least 1967, Israel has followed the policy of carrot-and-stick, co-opting the cooperative Arab regimes (like Anwar Sadat's Egypt with the Camp David Accord in 1978 which was facilitated by Washington's aid in billions of dollars), and dividing and destabilizing the non-cooperative states. As a strategic policy for its immediate neighbors, Israel has persistently sought to see them politically and economically weak and preoccupied within themselves. That was one of the reasons why Israel indiscriminately bombarded the basic infrastructure and economically viable facilities in Beirut (and the rest of the country) in the Summer 2006. (The other reason was to turn the Lebanese factions against the resistance movement.) It was also Israel that in its air strike on June 7, 1981 destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant near Baghdad and then tried to justify that as an act of "self-defense".

The first benefit that Israel hoped to see with the American invasion was an even weaker and fragmented Iraq (which would also destabilize Turkey, Iran, KSA, Syria, Lebanon). The second was a continued presence of American forces in the region. The third was the convergence of Israeli and Neocons' interest in targeting Iran, as they surely hoped that the road to Tehran went through Baghdad.

However, their plans did not always bear the fruits they desired.

Pakistan's current political situation

2011-01-14T13:49:00.008-06:00

Tariq Ali shares some neat bits in his latest piece published by the London Review of Books (Vol. 33, No. 2., Jan 20, 2011). Below I quote the excerpt that I thought was the most insightful. In the piece, he focuses on the politics of why the military has not taken over yet. But if the question is asked this way, "how come Zardari is still in power?", it would also point to Washington's active support (financial, diplomatic, etc.). Some credit also goes to Zardari's political maneuverings and his successes (so far) in soliciting support from the power-holders in the 'marginalized provinces'. Apparently, PML-N, the largest opposition party in the country with a strong hold in Punjab, also finds no other option but to support the status quo at the moment (for one, the military establishment has made it very clear on a number of occasions that it would not let PML-N's chief Nawaz Sharif come to power. A disappointed Sharif seemed to have pleaded with Washington, but, apparently, it was of no use.). For a background on the military-civilian relations, see also here and here.

Excerpt:

"Even before this killing [of Salman Taseer], Pakistan had been on the verge of yet another military takeover. It would make things so much easier if only they could give it another name: military democracy perhaps? General Kayani, whose term as chief of staff was extended last year with strong Pentagon approval, is said to be receiving petitions every day asking him to intervene and ‘save the country’. The petitioners are obviously aware that removing Zardari and replacing him with a nominee of the Sharif brothers’ Muslim League, the PPP’s long-term rivals, is unlikely to improve matters. Petitioning, combined with a complete breakdown of law and order in one or several spheres (suicide terrorism in Peshawar, violent ethnic clashes in Karachi, state violence in Quetta and now Taseer’s assassination), is usually followed by the news that a reluctant general has no longer been able to resist ‘popular’ pressure and with the reluctant agreement of the US Embassy a uniformed president has taken power. We’ve been here before, on four separate occasions. The military has never succeeded in taking the country forward. All that happens is that, instead of politicians, the officers take the cut. The government obviously thinks the threat is serious: some of Zardari’s cronies now speak openly at dinner parties of ‘evidence’ that proves military involvement in his wife Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. If the evidence exists, let’s have a look. Another straw in the wind: the political parties close to the ISI, Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, have withdrawn from the central government, accusing it of callousness and financial malfeasance. True, but hardly novel.

Another necessary prerequisite for a coup is popular disgust with a corrupt, inept and failing civilian government. This has now reached fever pitch. As well as the natural catastrophes that have afflicted the country there are local wars, disappearances, torture, crime, huge price rises in essential goods, unemployment, a breakdown of basic services – all the major cities go without electricity for hours at a stretch and oil lamps are much in demand in smaller towns, which are often without gas and electricity for up to 12 hours. Thanks to the loan conditions recently imposed by the IMF – part of a gear change in the ‘war on terror’ – there have been riots against the rise in fuel prices in several cities. Add to this Zardari’s uncontrollable greed and the irrepressible desire of his minions to mimic their master. Pakistan today is a kleptocracy. There is much talk in Islamabad of the despised prime minister’s neglected wife going on a shopping spree in London last month and finding solace in diamonds, picking up, on her way back home, a VAT rebate in the region of £100,000.

Can it get worse? Yes. And on every front. Take the Af-Pak war. Few now would dispute that its escalation has further destabilised Pakistan, increasing the flow of recruits to suicide bomber command. The CIA’s New Year message to Pakistan consisted of three drone attacks in North Waziristan, killing 19 people. There were 116 drone strikes in 2010, double the number ordered in the first year of the Obama presidency. Serious Pakistani newspapers, Dawn and the News, claim that 98 per cent of those killed in the strikes over the last five years – the number of deaths is estimated to be between two and three thousand – were civilians, a percentage endorsed by David Kilcullen, a former senior adviser to General Petraeus. The Brookings Institution gives a grim ratio of one militant killed for every ten civilians. The drones are operated by the CIA, which isn’t subject to military rules of engagement, with the result that drones are often used for revenge attacks, notably after the sensational Khost bombing of a CIA post in December 2009.

What stops the military from taking power immediately is that it would then be responsible for stopping the drone attacks and containing the insurgency that has resulted from the extension of the war into Pakistan. This is simply beyond it, which is why the generals would rather just blame the civilian government for everything. But if the situation worsens and growing public anger and economic desperation lead to wider street protests and an urban insurgency the military will be forced to intervene. It will also be forced to act if the Obama administration does as it threatens and sends troops across the Pakistan border on protect-and-destroy missions. Were this to happen a military takeover of the country might be the only way for the army to counter dissent within its ranks by redirecting the flow of black money and bribes (currently a monopoly of politicians) into military coffers. Pakistani officers who complain to Western intelligence operatives and journalists that a new violation of sovereignty might split the army do so largely as a way to exert pressure. There has been no serious breach in the military high command since the dismal failure of the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy, the first and last radical nationalist attempt (backed by Communist intellectuals) to seize power within the army and take the country in an anti-imperialist direction. Since then, malcontents in the armed forces have always been rapidly identified and removed. Military perks and privileges – bonuses, land allocations, a presence in finance and industry – play an increasingly important part in keeping the army under control."

Israeli Humor on Israeli PR Tactics

2011-01-04T08:16:00.008-06:00

See this clip humoring Israeli diplomatic and media propaganda.

The sad part is that this kind of propaganda is actually being taught in Israeli schools, media, and other public institutions. For the world outside of Israel they have the Hasbara Project.

Brzezinski on Wikileaks

2010-12-23T20:42:00.008-06:00

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as the National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter and is now a counselor at CSIS, commented on WikiLeaks in an interview on PBS Newshour (Nov 29, 2010).

"It's, rather, a question of whether WikiLeaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments, because some of these items that are being emphasized and have surfaced are very pointed.

And I wonder whether, in fact, there aren't some operations internationally, intelligence services, that are feeding stuff to WikiLeaks, because it is a unique opportunity to embarrass us, to embarrass our position, but also to undermine our relations with particular governments.

For example, leaving aside the personal gossip about Sarkozy or Berlusconi or Putin, the business about the Turks is clearly calculated in terms of its potential impact on disrupting the American-Turkish relationship."

"Seeding -- seeding it is very easy.

I have no doubt that WikiLeaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives."

--
Commenting on the implication of feeding, I noted earlier:

"One should not discount the possibility of a good number of forged and fragmented documents intentionally released to Wikileaks by government apparatuses. That reason alone is enough to suggest that Wikileaks cannot be a measure of truth per se, but it is the perspective with which one judges its content, and since there can be multiple perspectives, the truth of these leaks will remain contested. Further, the accuracy of some documents in the leaks should not be taken as a verification of the rest of the documents. On the question of verification, Wikileaks website itself suggests that the "simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize and discuss leaked documents.”

Lastly, in any review of these leaks, one should also interrogate the sources used and the background and politics of the people working for Wikileaks. Because these considerations have a huge impact on what Wikileaks editors choose to release (and what they do not), their timing, and their targets. Perhaps, their politics and agenda will become clearer with the release of more leaked documents."

Taking Wikileaks for fact is problematic

2010-12-23T19:28:00.012-06:00

Consider the headline of the below quoted Guardian story: "WikiLeaks cables: Lamb sales behind New Zealand's 'flap' with Israel".

What was an opinion of the US officials has been turned into a FACT in this story.

The contention is not this particular case (what was suggested in the story could be true), but of how the media is treating these leaks.

Not many news sources have cared to consider how diplomatic cables are written or look into the questions of "source, intent, editorial choices, fragmented form of cables, politics of the editors in what they release and what they do not, their timing, targets, then media spins and selective appropriation by politicians..." Without these critical considerations, the leaks can be very misleading.

Below, the Guardian story presents the understanding of US diplomats as a 'counter-fact' to the earlier established explanation of why New Zealand's relations with Israel soured. To further support its argument, the story cites another US embassy cable from the previous year. This is not cross-examination or triangulation; this is just circular reasoning in which the value of one cable is corroborated by another cable, both coming from the same source. The story is not a good example of investigative journalism from the Guardian.

WikiLeaks cables: Lamb sales behind New Zealand's 'flap' with Israel
Country's condemnation of Israeli intelligence agents in 2004 seen as attempt to increase exports to Arab states
Richard Adams, The Guardian, Dec 21, 2010
Source

US diplomats disparaged New Zealand's reaction to a suspected Israeli spy ring as a "flap" and accused New Zealand's government of grandstanding in order to sell more lamb to Arab countries, according to leaked cables.

The arrest and conviction in 2004 of two Israeli citizens, who were caught using the identity of a cerebral palsy sufferer to apply for a New Zealand passport, caused a serious rift between New Zealand and Israel, with allegations that the two men and others involved were Mossad agents.

"The New Zealand government views the act carried out by the Israeli intelligence agents as not only utterly unacceptable but also a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and international law," New Zealand's then-prime minister, Helen Clark, said after the arrests.

But US officials in Wellington told their colleagues in Washington that New Zealand had "little to lose" from the breakdown in diplomatic relations with Israel and was instead merely trying to bolster its exports to Arab states.

A confidential cable written in July 2004, after New Zealand imposed high-level diplomatic sanctions against Israel, comments: "The GoNZ [government of New Zealand] has little to lose by such stringent action, with limited contact and trade with Israel, and possibly something to gain in the Arab world, as the GoNZ is establishing an embassy in Egypt and actively pursuing trade with Arab states."

A cable two days later was even more pointed, saying: "Its overly strong reaction to Israel over this issue suggests the GNZ sees this flap as an opportunity to bolster its credibility with the Arab community, and by doing so, perhaps, help NZ lamb and other products gain greater access to a larger and more lucrative market."

The two Israelis were sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $NZ50,000 (£24,000) to the Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand because the victim of the attempted identity theft was a tetraplegic, wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy sufferer in residential care.

Both men pleaded guilty but denied working for Mossad. The pair were released after serving just two months behind bars and deported in October 2004. Israel made a formal apology for what an Israeli government statement refered to as "the incident with the Mossad," and normal diplomatic relations were restored by late 2005.

To US diplomats, though, "New Zealand's public reaction is its strongest diplomatic retaliation in 20 years – since French spies bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor in 1985. Clark's limitations on diplomatic contact go further than the GoNZ reaction in 1985, however, and it was reported that she toughened the language of her response from that put forward by MFAT [New Zealand's ministry of foreign affairs and trade]."

Ironically, a 2003 US embassy cable from Wellington alleged that New Zealand agreed to deploy troops to Iraq in order to safeguard lucrative contracts for New Zealand diary exporters, a claim described by Clark – currently the head of the UN Development Programme – as "rubbish".

'Erdogan says we still feel the pain of Karbala'

2010-12-18T08:06:00.013-06:00

For the first time in Turkey's contemporary history, a state leader attended and delivered a speech to an Ashura gathering. In his speech on December 16, the day of Ashura commemoration this year, Turkish PM Rajep Tayyip Erdogan stressed Islamic Unity and said that Imam Hussain was for all the Muslims.

The attendance no doubt was a powerful political gesture and is indicative of the current 'anti-Israel, pro-Iran' stance of not only the PM but also tens of thousands of common people in Turkey, and beyond. In the latest poll carried out by Zogby International and the University of Maryland in the summer of 2010, the people in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates were asked to name the world leader they admired the most. Erdogan was among the most popular ones this year, whereas just a couple of years ago he had close to nil votes. The diplomatic ties between Turkey and Israel soured in the last two years, especially after the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in Dec 2008-Jan 2009 and the May 2010 attack on Gaza aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish citizens.

Former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati was also present on the occasion and spoke to the crowd.

Erdogan says we still feel the pain of Karbala
Tehran Times, Dec 18, 2010
Source

ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati attended an Ashura ceremony in Turkey on Thursday.

Velayati, who is currently a senior advisor of Iran’s Supreme Leader, attended the ceremony in Istanbul on the invitation of the leader of Turkey’s Shia Muslims, Salah al-Din Ozgunduz.

Thousands of Turkish Shia braved freezing temperatures to commemorate the day of Ashura, which is the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS) and his 72 companions, with a procession through the streets of Istanbul.

Erdogan attended the ceremony this year for the first time since his AK party came to power in 2002.

Erdogan, who is a follower of the Hanafi school of the Sunni branch of Islam, delivered a speech at the ceremony, in which he discussed the importance of unity between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

“We have been feeling the pain of Karbala for 1,370 years. We have to feel that pain in our hearts. We remember (Imam) Hussein (AS) whenever an innocent person is killed,” the Turkish prime minister said as he began his speech.

“This country is ours, these lands are all ours, this history, this civilization is ours. Nobody can claim superiority to any other. We are equal to each other and we are all brothers in these lands. We are all first-class citizens of this country. The problems of all religious groups in my country are mine. That's why we are struggling to address century-old problems through consensus. Aren’t there those who oppose us? Of course, there are. But we will overcome this with patience,” Erdogan added.

Erdogan’s participation in Ashura ceremony is a sign of Islamic unity

Addressing the Ashura mourners in Istanbul, Velayati described Erdogan’s participation in the ceremony as an extremely significant symbol of Islamic unity.

He also pointed to Turkey’s role in defending Islamic values and foiling plots against Muslim countries.

Ashura symbolizes unity among Muslims, justice, devotion, and the struggle against oppression, Velayati added.

He stated that all Muslims shoulder the responsibility of defending the principles of Islam and fighting against the enemies.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Velayati commented on the Palestine issue and called on all Muslims to stand with the Palestinians.

On Thursday, Velayati held a meeting with Erdogan in which they discussed the latest regional and international developments as well as issues of mutual interest.

Reading the colonial diaries: The extent of American influence on Pakistan

2010-12-07T23:58:00.007-06:00

[Photo: Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani meets with US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (left), US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy on March 22.]

Here is some food for thought for those still doubting the extent of American influence in Pakistan. In previous posts, I cautioned against taking the fragmented leaks (and media reports/spins) at face value. But for the below story, I don't think we need to read against the grain too much to understand the nature of American hold in Pakistan (and the moral bankruptcy of our leaders). The American influence is quite evident from the perceptions and interactions of Pakistan's political and military leaders mentioned in the story, who all have plenty of experience of being in the upper echelon of power to know where the levers actually lie. In the final analysis, Washington and Pakistani military establishment remain the two most powerful forces shaping the future of Pakistani politics. (On the nature of Pak-US relations and Zardari's role in it, see previous posts here, here, and here).

[Edit October 8, 2011: A latest Dawn.com report reads, 'Musharraf hires US lobbyist for $25,000 a month'. The report quotes from the contract signed between Musharraf's representative and the lobbying firm. The firm is supposed to "develop a strategy to represent the interest of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in the US." See the full report here]

Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari 'prepared for assassination'
Declan Walsh, The Guardian, November 30, 2010
Source

Excerpt:

[Zardari] fears a fresh army coup. Zardari said he was concerned that Kayani might "take me out", Biden reported to Gordon Brown during a meeting in Chile in 2009. Brown said he thought it unlikely.

The observations on Pakistan's often beleaguered president are part of several portraits about prominent Pakistani politicians that are dotted with insight, colour and some surprises.

In November 2007 Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the country's most fiercely pro-Taliban religious party, hosted a jovial dinner for Patterson at which he sought her backing to become prime minister and expressed a desire to visit America.

"All important parties in Pakistan had to get the approval" of the US, said his aide Abdul Ghafoor Haideri. After the meeting Patterson commented on the mullah's famously wily political skills. "He has made it clear that … his still significant number of votes are up for sale."

The cables also highlight the contradictions of other prominent Pakistanis. Officials noted that Amin Fahim, a Bhutto supporter hoping to become prime minister, led a religious Islamic group "while enjoying an occasional bloody mary".

The opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif had a "notoriously difficult personality" while his family is noted to have "relied primarily on the army and intelligence agencies for political elevation".

America's perceived influence on Pakistani power politics is a frequent theme. In a May 2008 meeting with a visiting American congressional delegation, Zardari said: "We won't act without consulting with you."

Sharif repeatedly told the US ambassador he was "pro-American", despite his often critical public stance. He thanked the US for "arranging" to have Kayani appointed as army chief. "The best thing America has done recently," he said.

"The fact that a former prime minister believes the US could control the appointment of Pakistan's chief of army staff speaks volumes about the myth of American influence here," the ambassador noted tartly afterwards.But some dispatches make it clear that the Americans do wield great clout. After General Pervez Musharraf resigned as president in 2008, ambassador Patterson pressed Zardari to grant him immunity from prosecution. "We believed, as we had often said, that Musharraf should have a dignified retirement and not be hounded out of the country," she said.

The US – and Kayani – worried that Zardari would renege on his word. "Zardari is walking tall these days, hopefully not too tall to forget his promise to Kayani and to us on an immunity deal," wrote Patterson.

If Zardari didn't protect Musharraf then it would make him look bad. "I have to bring the army along with me," he said, also noting that the delay "does nothing for Zardari's reputation for trustworthiness".

The notable exception to that US influence, however, is the former cricketer Imran Khan, who delivered a long lecture to visiting US politicians about the iniquities of US policy.

Welcoming the group at his grand home outside Islamabad, Khan hosted an "hour-long, largely one-sided, and somewhat uncomfortable conversation".

To defeat the Taliban the US had to understand the "tribal character" of the militants, he said, and described the Pakistani drive against the Taliban in 2009 as "stage-managed" for US consumption.

There are apercus in the cables into the often inscrutable military leaders. Kayani is "direct, frank, and thoughtful" and has "fond memories" of time spent on a military training course in the US. It is also noted that "he smokes heavily and can be difficult to understand as he tends to mumble." The Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, was "usually more emotional" than Kayani.

US diplomats also have a ringside seat to civilian wrangles. In February 2009 Zardari aide Farahnaz Ispahani said the president was "very unhappy" with the way the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, had "gone off the reservation". In 2008 Zardari said Fahim "had spent most of the [election] campaign in Dubai (with his latest 22 year-old wife) and was simply too lazy to be prime minister".

The cables also record embarrassing mistakes in the embassy's efforts to manage its relationships with Pakistan's power elite. Six months after his dinner with the ambassador, Rehman was less enamoured of US policy when the FBI issued a notice suggesting he had orchestrated a suicide bombing in Islamabad.

The embassy asked the FBI to urgently recall the notice – he had been confused with another man with a similar name. Rehman was a "frequent and co-operative interlocutor with post and professes his support for co-operation with the United States", the request said.

The leaked fragments can also be misleading

2010-12-02T20:14:00.013-06:00

The leaked cables can be insightful not for what they tell us at face value but what we can extract from them after a careful scrutiny. Otherwise, these fragments of documents, even in instances where they are authentic, can be very misleading. Jeremy Scahill engages in such a critical exercise in a recent piece published in The Nation (December 1, 2010). I quote two passages:

"A special operations veteran and a former CIA operative with direct experience in Pakistan have told The Nation that JSOC has long engaged in combat in Pakistan—which raises a question: How in-the-loop is the US embassy about the activities of JSOC in Pakistan? Just because Ambassador Anne Patterson approves a cable saying that US special ops forces have only done two operations with Pakistani forces and plays this up as a major-league development doesn't make it true. JSOC has conducted operations across the globe without the direct knowledge of the US ambassador. In 2006, the US military and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. JSOC has struck multiple times inside Pakistan over the years, regardless of what Ambassador Patterson's cables may say." ...

"Since the Nation story originally ran, Blackwater has continued to work under the Obama administration. In June, the company won a $100 million global contract with the CIA and continues to operate in Afghanistan, where it protects senior US officials and trains Afghan forces. Earlier this year, Blackwater's owner, Erik Prince, put the company up for sale and moved to the Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Whether Blackwater or former Blackwater operatives continue to work in Pakistan is not known. What is clear is that there is great reason to believe that the October 2009 cable from Ambassador Anne Patterson describing US special operations forces activities in Pakistan represents only a tiny glimpse into one of the darkest corners of current US policy in Pakistan." (Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, Dec 1, 2010)

See an interview (DemocracyNow!, Dec 2, 2010) with Scahill on the same issue below.

[In a previous post, I comment on the Hersh's New Yorker piece which Scahill mentions in the above clip. There I also link my comments on the nature of Pak-US relationship and the role of the current civilian government in it.]

Moreover,

Not many people will go through all the leaked documents. They will mostly hear what the mainstream media and political groups choose to focus on.

Source, intent, editorial choices, fragmented form of cables, politics of the editors in what they release and what they do not, their timing, targets, then media spins and selective appropriation by politicians... I haven't seen many reports that engage in these critical considerations.

For how media can put a spin on these leaks, see the following story from The Real News (Dec 2, 2010): "New York Times Beats Drums for War".

The Logic of 'Suicide Terrorism'

2010-12-02T03:11:00.011-06:00

Below see some neat insights from a bona-fide scholar, Richard Pape (Univ. of Chicago). But keep in mind the distinction between the common people and the power elites in the US. The 'misunderstanding' that is referred to in the article applies mostly to the common people. The power elites, specifically those sitting in the top seats of important institutions (government, defense, media, think tanks, corporations) in Washington and New York, are more than aware of the reality on the ground. The common people are influenced by those misunderstandings whereas the power elites influence those misunderstandings and shape them in the way they want.

In the following, I quote the parts that I found most interesting. Readers interested in this topic may also want to look at the following piece, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim." On power elites, Thomas Dye's "Who's Running America" is a useful source (hope they get the 'Obama update' out soon). On "anti-Americanism" see a previous post, here.

It's the Occupation, Stupid
Robert Pape, Foreign Policy, October 18, 2010
Source

Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn't to blame -- the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.

“For nearly a decade, Americans have been waging a long war against terrorism without much serious public debate about what is truly motivating terrorists to kill them. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this was perfectly explicable -- the need to destroy al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan was too urgent to await sober analyses of root causes.

But, the absence of public debate did not stop the great need to know or, perhaps better to say, to "understand" the events of that terrible day. In the years before 9/11, few Americans gave much thought to what drives terrorism -- a subject long relegated to the fringes of the media, government, and universities. And few were willing to wait for new studies, the collection of facts, and the dispassionate assessment of alternative causes. Terrorism produces fear and anger, and these emotions are not patient.

A simple narrative was readily available, and a powerful conventional wisdom began to exert its grip. Because the 9/11 hijackers were all Muslims, it was easy to presume that Islamic fundamentalism was the central motivating force driving the 19 hijackers to kill themselves in order to kill Americans. Within weeks after the 9/11 attacks, surveys of American attitudes show that this presumption was fast congealing into a hard reality in the public mind. Americans immediately wondered, "Why do they hate us?" and almost as immediately came to the conclusion that it was because of "who we are, not what we do." As President George W. Bush said in his first address to Congress after the 9/11 attacks: "They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

Thus was unleashed the "war on terror."

The narrative of Islamic fundamentalism did more than explain why America was attacked and encourage war against Iraq. It also pointed toward a simple, grand solution. If Islamic fundamentalism was driving the threat and if its roots grew from the culture of the Arab world, then America had a clear mission: To transform Arab societies -- with Western political institutions and social norms as the ultimate antidote to the virus of Islamic extremism.

This narrative had a powerful effect on support for the invasion of Iraq. Opinion polls show that for years before the invasion, more than 90 percent of the U.S. public believed that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But this belief alone was not enough to push significant numbers to support war.

What really changed after 9/11 was the fear that anti-American Muslims desperately wanted to kill Americans and so any risk that such extremists would get weapons of mass destruction suddenly seemed too great. Although few Americans feared Islam before 9/11, by the spring of 2003, a near majority -- 49 percent -- strongly perceived that half or more of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims were deeply anti-American, and a similar fraction also believed that Islam itself promoted violence. No wonder there was little demand by congressional committees or the public at large for a detailed review of intelligence on Iraq's WMD prior to the invasion.

The goal of transforming Arab societies into true Western democracies had powerful effects on U.S. commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Constitutions had to be written; elections held; national armies built; entire economies restructured. Traditional barriers against women had to be torn down. Most important, all these changes also required domestic security, which meant maintaining approximately 150,000 U.S. and coalition ground troops in Iraq for many years and increasing the number of U.S. and Western troops in Afghanistan each year from 2003 on.”

Put differently, adopting the goal of transforming Muslim countries is what created the long-term military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, the United States would almost surely have sought to create a stable order after toppling the regimes in these countries in any case. However, in both, America's plans quickly went far beyond merely changing leaders or ruling parties; only by creating Western-style democracies in the Muslim world could Americans defeat terrorism once and for all.

There's just one problem: We now know that this narrative is not true.

New research provides strong evidence that … [m]ore than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation, according to extensive research that we conducted at the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Terrorism, where we examined every one of the over 2,200 suicide attacks across the world from 1980 to the present day. As the United States has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, which have a combined population of about 60 million, total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically -- from about 300 from 1980 to 2003, to 1,800 from 2004 to 2009. Further, over 90 percent of suicide attacks worldwide are now anti-American. The vast majority of suicide terrorists hail from the local region threatened by foreign troops, which is why 90 percent of suicide attackers in Afghanistan are Afghans.

Israelis have their own narrative about terrorism, which holds that Arab fanatics seek to destroy the Jewish state because of what it is, not what it does. But since Israel withdrew its army from Lebanon in May 2000, there has not been a single Lebanese suicide attack. Similarly, since Israel withdrew from Gaza and large parts of the West Bank, Palestinian suicide attacks are down over 90 percent.

Some have disputed the causal link between foreign occupation and suicide terrorism, pointing out that some occupations by foreign powers have not resulted in suicide bombings -- for example, critics often cite post-World War II Japan and Germany. Our research provides sufficient evidence to address these criticisms by outlining the two factors that determine the likelihood of suicide terrorism being employed against an occupying force.

The first factor is social distance between the occupier and occupied. The wider the social distance, the more the occupied community may fear losing its way of life. Although other differences may matter, research shows that resistance to occupations is especially likely to escalate to suicide terrorism when there is a difference between the predominant religion of the occupier and the predominant religion of the occupied.

Religious difference matters not because some religions are predisposed to suicide attacks. Indeed, there are religious differences even in purely secular suicide attack campaigns, such as the LTTE (Hindu) against the Sinhalese (Buddhists).

Rather, religious difference matters because it enables terrorist leaders to claim that the occupier is motivated by a religious agenda that can scare both secular and religious members of a local community -- this is why Osama bin Laden never misses an opportunity to describe U.S. occupiers as "crusaders" motivated by a Christian agenda to convert Muslims, steal their resources, and change the local population's way of life.

The second factor is prior rebellion. Suicide terrorism is typically a strategy of last resort, often used by weak actors when other, non-suicidal methods of resistance to occupation fail. This is why we see suicide attack campaigns so often evolve from ordinary terrorist or guerrilla campaigns, as in the cases of Israel and Palestine, the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, or the LTTE in Sri Lanka.”

…

“The first step is recognizing that occupations in the Muslim world don't make Americans any safer -- in fact, they are at the heart of the problem.”

On Critically Reading the Wikileaks

2010-11-30T07:48:00.051-06:00

On Critically Reading the Wikileaks
By Ali A.

Only a small proportion of the announced documents has been released so far by Wikileaks. As such, it is a bit early to conclusively suggest anything as to the value of these documents and their impact. While following the release, a few tentative thoughts came to mind that I want to share here in the interest of starting a constructive discussion. The examples I mention below are not from Wikileaks, but they are close to some of the released bits I have seen in news. The purpose here is not to analyze specific cables, but to elaborate a critical perspective for reading these leaks. (And, more broadly, for reading news on government- and corporate-owned media as well as non-corporate and user-generated forums like blogs and wikis.)

Rarely do diplomats speak out their minds in candid terms. The most sensitive information is almost always communicated in person, not over digital lines or mails. Therefore, one needs to think about not only what was said in these cables but also what was not said.

Even for communications over digital lines and mails, on important issues the US diplomats and other government officials usually use plain but coded language. The person sitting on the other end has to decipher the language and read between the lines. The dots can be hard to connect for an outsider, who may understand no more than just the apparent meaning of a leaked text. However, the added layers can be uncovered by placing such texts in the context of the politics and interests of the involved political players.

A person's perspective matters a lot for this reason. For example, a leak could suggest that, “Iran is a threat to regional stability and the Arab nations fear its nuclear capabilities.” Now, this message may mean one thing to a devout FOX News follower and another to the one critical of the American hegemonic ambitions and support to the status-quo regimes of the Middle East. Hence, the interpretation and value of such a statement depends on the perspective with which people judge it and how critically informed are those perspectives.

In my view, when Washington talks about ‘regional stability’, it first and foremost means the protection of the American and Israeli interests in the region. Iran is a ‘threat’ because it challenges those interests and supports the resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon, among other things.

Words like ‘Al-Qaeda’ and ‘terrorist groups’ may also be codes in these cables which could refer to different groups in different countries. In Yemen, for example, they could also refer to the Houthi rebels who are challenging the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Both Washington and Riyadh are against that and have provided heavy financial and military support to the regime against these rebels. In Egypt, such labels may also be used to refer to the Sunni opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been repeatedly cracked down by the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak. Similarly, the terms “moderate states” and “moderate Muslims” are also codes that often refer to those who are in favor of and are protecting the American and Israeli interests in the region (for more on this, see “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim”).

One also needs to distinguish the Arab rulers from the Arab masses. Many Arab rulers surely fear Iran, but the majority of their people support Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue and Iran's support to the resistances in Palestine and Lebanon. In a recent poll carried out by Zogby International and the University of Maryland in the summer of 2010, the people in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates were asked to name the countries that they thought were the greatest threat to their security. 88% replied Israel, 77% the US, and only 10% Iran.

At times, factual-sounding statements in diplomatic communications may in reality be policy statements. For example, a statement that, “Iran will further isolate itself if it continues to pursue nuclear ambitions,” could very well be a statement of what they would like to see in case Iran does not follow their wishes, not necessarily what the ground reality is, even from their own perspective. Because, again, the same Summer 2010 poll suggests that a “majority of the Arab public now see a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for the Middle East.”

The poll results, moreover, suggest an increasing support for Iran in the Middle East on a number of critical issues that also discredits the argument of some US scholars that ‘old feuds between Shia and Sunnis’ define the political attitudes of the region. Yet, 'sectarian divisions' and 'specter of a rising Shia crescent', both codes for what they would like to promote, is continually used by both the US and Israeli diplomats and their supported status-quo regimes of the Middle East with the hope of dividing up the masses and re-aligning their politics on sectarian lines (for more on this, see “Bahrain and Pakistan: The Shia Dilemmas”).

Without a critical interrogation, and with media spins, these codes and policy objectives may in fact perpetuate themselves through these leaks. No surprise if due to the media coverage of some of the latest leaks, the general public in the US got the impression that 'all Arabs are against the Iranians and see the Iranian nuclear program as a threat to their security' and that the fault lines in the Middle East politics lie within their ‘ethno-sectarian’ divisions. Both the Neocons and the Hawkish-Pragmatists in Washington are surely going to capitalize on such a gross misunderstanding. For one, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stated last Monday (Nov 29, 2010): "So if anyone reading the stories about these alleged cables thinks carefully, what they will conclude is that the concern about Iran is well-founded, widely shared, and will continue to be at the source of the policy that we pursue with like-minded nations to try to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

Hence, in view of the above discussion, the leaked cables should not be taken at face value, even in instances where they may be authentic.

The Impact

Not many people will go through all the leaked documents. They will mostly hear what the mainstream media and political groups choose to focus on. The media spins and the politics of appropriation of these leaks, therefore, would make for an interesting discussion in coming days.

In Iran, for example, while quoting the leaks some have criticized the current government for its defiant stand on the nuclear issue which to them has resulted in Iran’s ‘increasing isolation’ in the international arena. While some others have expressed qualms about the veracity of these leaks in instances where they may suggest that direct US support was given to the post-election rioters (true or not, and whether they discredit any of the opposition's claims, that's another debate). President Ahmadinejad also has questioned the ‘legal value’ of the leaks.

What is troubling many governments is not necessarily the exposure of their 'ill-feelings' toward each other by Wikileaks. The governments already know these truths, and also that embassies and diplomats regularly do espionage for their respective governments. In the arena of international relations, interests and power largely drive politics, not feelings of good will. Mutual suspicion among states is often normal. Pak-US relations is one example (on the issues of the nuclear arsenal, ISI, and PPP/Zardari). Iran-Saudi relations is another (particularly on Iraq and Palestine-Lebanon).

The concern that many governments have with these leaks is that this politics is out in public and now more susceptible to media spins and the perceptions of their national and international masses. After the leaks, the thoughts and prejudices of people against other countries or their own governments may solidify (and in some instances, radically change), and it would become more difficult for these governments to put an all-friendly public face, or make pragmatic political shifts, or claim to support causes that they really don't (like the Saudi (non)support to the Palestinian cause. Also, the Saudi and other status-quo Middle Eastern regimes would not be happy if their geo-political interests appear too much in line with that of Israel).

Particularly for Washington, the leaks are not only an embarrassment in front of the world but they may also promote a further disillusion regarding Washington’s claim of championing democracy, freedom, and human rights. In this sense, the leaks are a direct attack on the propaganda machinery of its hegemonic ambitions. Hence, Washington might also charge Wikileaks with promoting "anti-Americanism", in addition to calling it "a crime", "risking lives of troops", "compromising national security", etc.

The Truth

Despite the huge uproar in the media, most of the fundamental strategic and policy related knowledge that has come out in the leaks so far was already known to the discerning observers; the leaks, surely, added further confirmation to it.

Among the things that the leaks confirm is that ‘Israel tried to plan the Gaza War with Egypt and PA’ (The Jerusalem Post, Nov 29, 2010). This suggests a) the Gaza massacre in 2008-9 was pre-meditated (we already knew it then, but now we have further support), and b) the Egyptian and the West Bank authorities knew about Israel's plan well ahead of time, even if, according to the leaks, the two (supposedly) did not say 'yes' to Israel. We do not know what was worked out in the later communications. Egypt and West Bank’s PA may have had logistical concerns but from looking at their policies during the massacre we know that their strategic interests were aligned with those of Israel. Egypt, for instance, refused to open its Rafah border to allow food and other daily supplies to the Gazans. For reading the leaks, this also suggests that the fragments of cables, even if they are authentic, can be very misleading if we do not scrutinize them with a critically informed perspective.

Wikileaks reports also "indicate that the US has mounted a secret effort to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani reactor since 2007..." (CSMonitor, Nov 29, 2010). Indeed, this was one of the key issues that embittered the relationship between Washington and Pakistan’s powerful military establishment in the last few years and perhaps explains some of the dramatic political changes and turmoil. Yet, this nuclear connection was persistently and emphatically dismissed by some journalists in the liberal elite circles of Pakistan who might still call it a “conspiracy theory”.

One should not discount the possibility of a good number of forged and fragmented documents intentionally released to Wikileaks by government apparatuses. That reason alone is enough to suggest that Wikileaks cannot be a measure of truth per se, but it is the perspective with which one judges its content, and since there can be multiple perspectives, the truth of these leaks will remain contested. Further, the accuracy of some documents in the leaks should not be taken as a verification of the rest of the documents. On the question of verification, Wikileaks website itself suggests that the "simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize and discuss leaked documents.”

Lastly, in any review of these leaks, one should also interrogate the sources used and the background and politics of the people working for Wikileaks. Because these considerations have a huge impact on what Wikileaks editors choose to release (and what they do not), their timing, and their targets. Perhaps, their politics and agenda will become clearer with the release of more leaked documents.

Ali A. is doctoral student in social sciences.

---
For some bits on what has been released so far, check out the following report:

US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis
David Leigh, The Guardian, Nov 28, 2010
Source

The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.

These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the secret dispatches, which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high-level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability, and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Inappropriate remarks by Prince Andrew about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice-president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".

• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italiango-between.

• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with Britain, and some of the dispatches from the London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and Westminster. They range from political criticisms of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog" and Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia", while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

Other revelations include a description of a near "environmental disaster" last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

As the cables were published, the White House released a statement condemning their release. "Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the US for assistance in promoting democracy and open government. By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals."

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK. They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US government. That will continue."

The US ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman, said: "We have briefed the UK government and other friends and allies around the world about the potential impact of these disclosures … I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the United Kingdom will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values."

Sir Christopher Meyer, who was British ambassador to the US in the Blair years, thought the leaks would have little impact on diplomatic behaviour. "This won't restrain dips' [diplomats'] candour," he said. "But people will be looking at the security of electronic communications and archives. Paper would have been impossible to steal in these quantities."

The state department's legal adviser has written to the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that the publication would place at risk "the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and co-operation between countries".

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US soldier earlier this year and passed to WikiLeaks. Assange made it available to the Guardian and four other news organisations: the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El País in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from the most significant cables, but have decided neither to "dump" the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says that, contrary to the state department's fears, it also initially intends to post only limited cable extracts, and to redact identities.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".

PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in Washington, said: "Let me assure you: our diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not engage in intelligence activities. They represent our country around the world, maintain open and transparent contact with other governments as well as public and private figures, and report home. That's what diplomats have done for hundreds of years."

The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate comment. "We are aware of the reports."

The dispatches also shed light on older diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher shortly after his release from prison to explain why the ANC objected to her policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid regime.

"We understand Mandela was keen for a Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela has on several occasions expressed his eagerness for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the ANC's objections to her policy. We were consequently surprised when the meeting didn't materialise on his mid-April visit to London and suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system.

They are classified at various levels up to "secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn.

More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect".

Last spring, 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking many of these cables, along with a gun-camera video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly killing two Reuters news agency employees in Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a courtmartial.

In July and October WikiLeaks also published thousands of leaked military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. These were made available for analysis beforehand to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail".

He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton "and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in searchable format to the public … Everywhere there's a US post … there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed".

Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a network accessible to thousands of government employees, the state department spokesman told the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, the US government has taken significant steps to facilitate information sharing. These efforts were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs."

He added: "We have been taking aggressive action in recent weeks and months to enhance the security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information."

Nasrallah charges the STL with using faulty evidence and neglecting Israel's role

2010-11-28T22:13:00.010-06:00

For a background analysis of the situation, see here . To watch the full speech with translation, see here.

Further,

'Israel spies waging war on Hezbollah'
PressTV, Nov 28, 2010
Source

Hezbollah has accused the US-backed UN tribunal, investigating the assassination of the country's former premier, of disregard for Israel's role in the murder.

On Sunday, the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech, accusing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon of using faulty procedures, including issuing convictions in absentia and hiding witness identities.

"In international tribunals, we never have sentences made in absentia. Indictments are made, but they never hold a trial until the accused comes [and is] present in front of the judge," he said.

Withholding the identity of the witnesses, Nasrallah said, means "those who are accused can never question the witness. They can never ask the witness "where did you see me? What are accusing me [of]? Based upon what?"

The former Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri was killed alongside more than 20 other people in a massive car bombing in the Lebanese capital, Beirut on February 14, 2005.

Nasrallah said in July, 2010 that he had been informed by the slain leader's son and successor, Saad Hariri, that STL "will accuse some undisciplined [Hezbollah] members." Nasrallah has rejected the allegation, warning that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."

During his speech, the resistance leader questioned the neutrality of the court, saying the United Nations Security Council is an instrument in the hands of Washington.

In an August speech, he presented evidence proving that Israel had masterminded Hariri's assassination. The televised address featured a video captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists, substantiating that Tel Aviv had been behind the killing.

On Monday, leading Lebanese newspaper As-Safir also warned of the "intensive" pressure, Washington is applying under the slogan of "no discussions before indictment is issued."

Political analysts have warned that such indictments are meant to sow discord in Lebanon.

Hezbollah would accept the indictment issued by the tribunal only if it is supported by credible evidence, Nasrallah said.

He further broached the issue of Tel Aviv's spying on Beirut.

Nasrallah confirmed the news about Israeli-waged intelligence warfare against the country, which aims to incriminate members of the resistance movement in espionage.

He recounted how Tel Aviv would "implant" phone lines in the telephone devices used by Hezbollah members.

Aided by technical experts and the Lebanese Army Intelligence, the movement carried out "a comprehensive investigation" into the matter.

"We discovered that there are two phone lines in the telephone. One, which belongs to the individual and another, which was planted by the Israelis," Nasrallah said.

"And in your telephones, they can plant numbers, which you have no idea about and they can make phone calls by these numbers. The Israelis can make phone calls to these numbers and hence they can make it look like you're a spy…."

A Friday report by the leading Lebanese daily As-Safir showed that Israeli infiltrators used duplicated numbers to contact the telephone devices.

The newspaper warned that the application of the numbers, which appeared to be coming in from Austria, marked "serious chapters" of Israel's ability to control Lebanon's telecommunications sector.

The report, however, hailed that members of Hezbollah's security service, the Army Intelligence bureau and a number of employees at the country's Telecommunications Ministry had been able to cope with Tel Aviv's techniques and advanced software.

The act of domestic defense, it added, was enabled through several tests and tryouts.

On Tuesday, Hassan Fadlallah, a parliamentarian representing the resistance said Israel had arranged for the sale of doctored phones to some Hezbollah members, enabling wiretapping of their communications and dispatch of Tel Aviv-desired texts, Lebanese portal Naharnet reported.

"After a lengthy, complex investigation ... it was revealed that three resistance members were using local mobile phones which had been deliberately sold to them after being implanted with secret Israeli lines" by a Tel Aviv-hired Lebanese, said Fadlallah, who also chairs the parliament's media and telecommunications committee.

Also on Tuesday, Lebanon's Minister of Telecommunications Charbel Nahas said Beirut had found new evidence confirming the infiltration of Israeli espionage apparatuses into the telecommunications sector.

The resistance leader similarly spoke of the infiltration, adding that Tel Aviv was using wiretapping against all Lebanese people.

Lebanon has arrested more than 100 people, including members of the country's security forces and telecommunications personnel, since April 2009 on suspicion of spying for Israel.

Beirut has also filed a complaint to the United Nations over Israel's espionage activities within the country, expressing concerns that Israeli agents have gone as far as spying on the Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and other top officials.

The letter bewailed that the spy networks "constitute an aggression on Lebanon and on its sovereignty in a clear violation of international resolutions, particularly [the United Nations Security Council] resolution 1701."

The resolution ended Tel Aviv's 2006 war on Lebanon that killed about 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians.

Israeli agents had been responsible for targeted killings, the letter said.

A number of the suspected Israeli operatives, captured in Lebanon, have admitted to their roles in helping Israel identify targets inside Lebanon, mostly belonging to Hezbollah.

Nasrallah further criticized some Lebanese official for remaining silent on Israeli espionage activities in Lebanon.

HN/PKH/MMN

The Coming Food Crisis in Pakistan

2010-11-05T01:09:00.006-05:00

The article looks at the confluence of political and economic factors that has turned Pakistan's climatic disaster into a cosmic catastrophe. The best chance Pakistan has for recovering from floods and preventing a widespread food crisis in the coming spring is by mid-November, before the wheat sowing period ends in most parts of the country. A few pieces of bread in flood relief won't be enough for this purpose. Activists and donors need to take a more comprehensive approach and empower the small-scale farmers. Moreover, in accepting support from international donors and financial institutions, the country also needs to be cautious against the imperial and corporatist interests.

Pakistan’s Food Crisis Expected to Worsen
By Aun Ali, PULSE, October 16, 2010
Source

Pakistan’s massive floods destroyed not only standing crops of the season but also vast proportions of arable land and capacities of numerous farmers to cultivate crops in the upcoming seasons. The consequences are far reaching for an impoverished country that relies heavily on its agricultural productivity and employs two-thirds of its population in this sector.

Nearly 20 million people have been directly affected, most of whom are from the rural agricultural areas and depend on agriculture to meet their food and income needs. A great number of them have been uprooted from their lands, with their household assets, investments in farm tools and animals, and food stocks all destroyed by the floods. Submerged roads and fallen bridges have disconnected access of thousands other to the rest of Pakistan. They all lack proper shelter, food, clean water, medicine, and other basic supplies. At least six million are at risk of waterborne diseases, including an estimated 3.5 million children according to U.N.

However, if the situation is terribly bad now, the worst is yet to come.

With major crops damaged or destroyed over 3.6 million hectares of cultivated land and variable food supply expected from the unaffected regions, a famine-like food crisis is imminent in many parts of the country that could be in full swing by coming spring when Pakistan’s current food stocks will start to run out. The shockwaves will be so far reaching that even the unaffected regions will not be spared.

Especially the high density urban areas that heavily depend on rural areas for food supply will experience acute shortage and a steep rise in prices of food and other daily supplies and services (as part of a contingent effect). The major cities were already hit by dramatic price increases in the last two months, probably artificially created by hoarders and retailers, but in coming months food shortage and price hikes will be much more real and deadly for everyone – especially the internally displaced population.

The inefficiency and corruption within the present civilian government are evident to any discerning observer, just as its continuous friction with the powerful military establishment. The government is still in power due more to Washington’s patronage than grassroots support, but its existence remains highly volatile, and perhaps for that reason it sometimes seems more preoccupied in political maneuvers to preserve itself than extending help to people in need. In recent months, both the government and the establishment effectively failed to keep the climatic hazard of Attabad Lake from turning into a humanitarian crisis. No extraordinary performance is expected this time either considering the exponentially larger scale of the current tragedy.

The helpless conditions will force an even greater proportion of people from the flood-ravaged regions to move to major cities and other unaffected areas, thereby increasing the burden on the local economies of these areas. Poverty and hunger will push people from among the homeless and poor and working classes to form local supportive networks. But desperate circumstances could also force some to sell all their assets, beg in streets, commit suicide, or engage in petty crimes to feed themselves. Sadly, local news reports are already indicating an increasing number of such incidents.

The regions with high concentration of internally displaced and underserved populations may also experience the kind of food protests and riots seen in Haiti, Egypt, and Somalia in 2007-08. Desperate conditions could also feed into ongoing political-ethnic confrontations in regions like Karachi where the internally displaced and other recent emigrants from different ethnic backgrounds may be seen by some as “outsiders” who would be held responsible for local economic troubles and therefore targeted with neglect or violence. It should not be difficult to those familiar with Karachi’s political dynamics, the recent controversy over specter of “Talibanisation”, and the long history of clashes and target killings among its political-ethnic groups to imagine how a further influx of internally displaced population confounded with increasing economic troubles could lead to sporadic unrest in the city. Any prolonged unrest in the streets will be detrimental to the political and economic turmoil Pakistan is already facing.

Pakistan’s current foreign reserves are too thin to face a widespread food shortage. Compounded by the typical corruption, incompetence, and cronyism of our governments, the IMF-dictated neoliberal economic reforms of the last two decades led to uneven development and privatization of many public services in the country. The policies in particular intensified the economic and social disparities between urban and rural areas. The more long term integration into global economy through a trade-based paradigm, with emphasis on cultivating mono-culture cash crops for export purposes, further incapacitated the country’s agricultural economy to meet its own food needs in recent years. The economy does not have the strength to endure even the present crisis, let alone what lies ahead.

A perplexing challenge is to persuade the medium- and large-scale farmers, both in the affected and unaffected regions, to cultivate wheat and other food crops at optimal planting times this year, and then not export them until local needs are met. Because of country’s power structure and the way politics works, to suggest that the current government intervene through export restrictions and buy food stocks at a fair price can be very tricky. For instance, uneven or selective implementation of such policies in which some farmers are targeted and others are favored will be detrimental to both its economy and political stability. Alternatively, if the government purchases their stocks at a competitive rate (compared to the international market), then local wheat will become too expensive and beyond the average family’s reach.

On the international scene, more than one billion people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition according to U.N., and their situation is not getting any better. At least 30 countries experienced some form of food crisis and unrest just a couple of years ago, prompting projections of more to come. With global economic recession still in effect, an export ban on wheat by Russia, the world’s third-largest wheat producer, and rising food prices internationally, it is hard to imagine that Pakistan will continue to receive even the equivalent of whatever insufficient support in money, food, and other supplies the country has received so far from international sources. The dysfunctional distribution mechanisms, speculations, and monopolies that are chronically embedded in the international food market and that are responsible for price hikes and global hunger more than food shortage itself make it very uncertain that we will be able to import food stocks at an affordable rate next year.

Pakistan is on the course of developing a humanitarian crisis much worse than what it is experiencing right now. The extraordinarily bad circumstances demand extraordinary measures.

Support Small-Scale Farmers

Toward taking such measures, donations in food and other basic relief items are necessary and helpful, but not sufficient. They can feed people but cannot bring people back on their feet. Mere donations of food and other basic supplies will in fact reinforce Pakistan’s dependency, and if the situation gets worse in coming spring, Pakistan will be forced to beg for an even larger supply of these donations. In the long run, free or cheap supply of donated wheat and other food crops in local markets can incapacitate the ability of small-scale farmers to cultivate and sell their crops at sustainable rates. That is if Pakistan can manage to get international food donations consistently and sufficiently, which is quite unlikely. Hence, in any case, food donations alone cannot be a sustainable solution.

Local and international donors and activists need to take a more comprehensive approach and empower the internally displaced populations, especially the small-scale farm owners and farm workers, to cultivate food for themselves with dignity and self-sufficiency. For that, as the first step in the present context, we should reconnect these people to their lands.

The most critical time to do that is now, by mid-November, before the wheat sowing period ends in many parts of the country. We need to help these farmers return to their homes and provide them with necessary resources to fix and cultivate their flood-damaged lands. If fixing land is realistically not possible in particular cases, we should help them find arable lands on rental or shared basis. If we can do this successfully, by coming spring each of us would make at least some farmers and their families become self-sufficient in their food needs – perhaps even a whole village, depending on the yields.

Approach one or multiple affected families directly or through efforts led by dedicated and trusted individuals and NGOs. This cause will take about two to three hundred dollars at the beginning – for transportation to home, camp or bricks/woods to build shelter, rental tools/tractor/animal to plough land, seeds, filters to clean drinking water, medicine, and basic household items – and then less than a hundred dollars per month (on need basis) to sustain each family until the spring.

Toward Food Sovereignty

Pakistan’s massive floods are a climatic disaster turned into a cosmic catastrophe by human failures. The complex of dams or barrages constructed and modernized over years in Pakistan that were meant to control the natural water flow may have actually exacerbated the problem by increasing pressure at unwarranted points. A widely circulated OCHA map indicates that a number of areas behind or adjacent to these structures accrued the hardest damages. Governance failures and inadequate humanitarian relief to millions have further compounded the devastation of these floods. Even if some climatic factors were largely responsible for the recent floods, the upcoming floods in the form of a widespread food crisis would definitely be man-made. That is also to suggest that with the right measures taken at the right time we can prevent it too.

Time is running out for Pakistan. The sooner we empower these farmers, the better we can confront the coming food crisis. It took decades of misguided economic policies, more than just recent climatic hazards, to bring the economy to its current state of crisis. Empowering small-scale farmers – men and women – will be a critical first step in the direction of a just, sustainable, and self-sufficient agricultural economy.

In coming months, Pakistan’s food sovereignty will get further tied to its national sovereignty. The current dilemma is that the country is in dire need of humanitarian support from the world, yet needs to be cautious against hegemonic states and corporate interests that want to make further inroads into Pakistan's borders in the name of humanitarian relief and fighting extremism. This applies to the most basic needs like wheat seeds, for which the country is at risk of falling into the traps of monopolizing global corporations.

The best we can hope for on the international scene lies with independent individuals and organizations that work with a critical awareness of the politics of humanitarian relief and food security of their governments, international monetary institutions, and global corporations.

Aun Ali is doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at aunali@gmail.com. A condensed version of this piece appeared in Pakistan’s DAWN newspaper on September 20, 2010.

Fisk: Wikileaks and the Shaming of America

2010-10-27T01:33:00.000-05:00

The shaming of America
Robert Fisk, The Independent, Sunday, 24 October 2010
Source

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It's always tempting to avoid a story by saying "nothing new". The "old story" idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it's true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The "evidence" of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times's Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans.

But, written in bleak militarese as it may be, here is the evidence of America's shame. This is material that can be used by lawyers in courts. If 66,081 – I loved the "81" bit – is the highest American figure available for dead civilians, then the real civilian mortality score is infinitely higher since this records only those civilians the Americans knew of. Some of them were brought to the Baghdad mortuary in my presence, and it was the senior official there who told me that the Iraqi ministry of health had banned doctors from performing any post-mortems on dead civilians brought in by American troops. Now why should that be? Because some had been tortured to death by Iraqis working for the Americans? Did this hook up with the 1,300 independent US reports of torture in Iraqi police stations?

The Americans scored no better last time round. In Kuwait, US troops could hear Palestinians being tortured by Kuwaitis in police stations after the liberation of the city from Saddam Hussein's legions in 1991. A member of the Kuwaiti royal family was involved in the torture. US forces did not intervene. They just complained to the royal family. Soldiers are always being told not to intervene. After all, what was Lieutenant Avi Grabovsky of the Israeli army told when he reported to his officer in September 1982 that Israel's Phalangist allies had just murdered some women and children? "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere," Grabovsky was told by his battalion commander. This was during the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp massacre.

The quotation comes from Israel's 1983 Kahan commission report – heaven knows what we could read if WikiLeaks got its hands on the barrels of military files in the Israeli defence ministry (or the Syrian version, for that matter). But, of course, back in those days, we didn't know how to use a computer, let alone how to write on it. And that, of course, is one of the important lessons of the whole WikiLeaks phenomenon.

Back in the First World War or the Second World War or Vietnam, you wrote your military reports on paper. They may have been typed in triplicate but you could number your copies, trace any spy and prevent the leaks. The Pentagon Papers was actually written on paper. You needed to find a mole to get them. But paper could always be destroyed, weeded, trashed, all copies destroyed. At the end of the 1914-18 war, for example, a British second lieutenant shot a Chinese man after Chinese workers had looted a French military train. The Chinese man had pulled a knife on the soldier. But during the 1930s, the British soldier's file was "weeded" three times and so no trace of the incident survives. A faint ghost of it remains only in a regimental war diary which records Chinese involvement in the looting of "French provision trains". The only reason I know of the killing is that my father was the British lieutenant and told me the story before he died. No WikiLeaks then.

But I do suspect this massive hoard of material from the Iraq war has serious implications for journalists as well as armies. What is the future of the Seymour Hershes and the old-style investigative journalism that The Sunday Times used to practise? What is the point of sending teams of reporters to examine war crimes and meet military "deep throats", if almost half a million secret military documents are going to float up in front of you on a screen?

We still haven't got to the bottom of the WikiLeaks story, and I rather suspect that there are more than just a few US soldiers involved in this latest revelation. Who knows if it doesn't go close to the top? In its investigations, for example, al-Jazeera found an extract from a run-of-the-mill Pentagon press conference in November 2005. Peter Pace, the uninspiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefing journalists on how soldiers should react to the cruel treatment of prisoners, pointing out proudly that an American soldier's duty is to intervene if he sees evidence of torture. Then the camera moves to the far more sinister figure of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who suddenly interrupts – almost in a mutter, and to Pace's consternation – "I don't think you mean they (American soldiers) have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."

The significance of this remark – cryptically sadistic in its way – was lost on the journos, of course. But the secret Frago 242 memo now makes much more sense of the press conference. Presumably sent by General Ricardo Sanchez, this is the instruction that tells soldiers: "Provided the initial report confirms US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted unless directed by HHQ [Higher Headquarters]." Abu Ghraib happened under Sanchez's watch in Iraq. It was also Sanchez, by the way, who couldn't explain to me at a press conference why his troops had killed Saddam's sons in a gun battle in Mosul rather than capture them.

So Sanchez's message, it seems, must have had Rumsfeld's imprimatur. And so General David Petraeus – widely loved by the US press corps – was presumably responsible for the dramatic increase in US air strikes over two years; 229 bombing attacks in Iraq in 2006, but 1,447 in 2007. Interestingly enough, US air strikes in Afghanistan have risen by 172 per cent since Petraeus took over there. Which makes it all the more astonishing that the Pentagon is now bleating that WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands. The Pentagon has been covered in blood since the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, and for an institution that ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – wasn't that civilian death toll more than 66,000 by their own count, out of a total of 109,000 recorded? – to claim that WikiLeaks is culpable of homicide is preposterous.

The truth, of course, is that if this vast treasury of secret reports had proved that the body count was much lower than trumpeted by the press, that US soldiers never tolerated Iraqi police torture, rarely shot civilians at checkpoints and always brought killer mercenaries to account, US generals would be handing these files out to journalists free of charge on the steps of the Pentagon. They are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told.

US official documents detail extraordinary scale of wrongdoing

WikiLeaks yesterday released on its website some 391,832 US military messages documenting actions and reports in Iraq over the period 2004-2009. Here are the main points:

Prisoners abused, raped and murdered

Hundreds of incidents of abuse and torture of prisoners by Iraqi security services, up to and including rape and murder. Since these are itemised in US reports, American authorities now face accusations of failing to investigate them. UN leaders and campaigners are calling for an official investigation.

Civilian death toll cover-up

Coalition leaders have always said "we don't do death tolls", but the documents reveal many deaths were logged. Respected British group Iraq Body Count says that, after preliminary examination of a sample of the documents, there are an estimated 15,000 extra civilian deaths, raising their total to 122,000.

The shooting of men trying to surrender

In February 2007, an Apache helicopter killed two Iraqis, suspected of firing mortars, as they tried to surrender. A military lawyer is quoted as saying: "They cannot surrender to aircraft and are still valid targets."

Private security firm abuses

Britain's Bureau of Investigative Journalism says it found documents detailing new cases of alleged wrongful killings of civilians involving Blackwater, since renamed Xe Services. Despite this, Xe retains extensive US contracts in Afghanistan.

Al-Qa'ida's use of children and "mentally handicapped" for bombing

A teenage boy with Down's syndrome who killed six and injured 34 in a suicide attack in Diyala was said to be an example of an ongoing al-Qa'ida strategy to recruit those with learning difficulties. A doctor is alleged to have sold a list of female patients with learning difficulties to insurgents.

Hundreds of civilians killed at checkpoints

Out of the 832 deaths recorded at checkpoints in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggests 681 were civilians. Fifty families were shot at and 30 children killed. Only 120 insurgents were killed in checkpoint incidents.

Iranian influence

Reports detail US concerns that Iranian agents had trained, armed and directed militants in Iraq. In one document, the US military warns a militia commander believed to be behind the deaths of US troops and kidnapping of Iraqi officials was trained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Rannie Amiri: Hariri's House of Cards

2010-10-07T01:59:00.001-05:00

Hariri's House of Cards
By Rannie Amiri, CounterPunch, Oct 1-3
Source

“Have a little mercy on the Lebanese. People were considerate with you at first because your father is a martyr, but today they have become bored with you. You are playing with the country, not with PlayStation.”

– Lebanese Unification (Tawhid) Movement leader Wiam Wahhab, in comments directed to Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, 27 September 2010

A war of words has erupted between Lebanon’s Hezbollah-led March 8 Coalition and Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri’s ruling March 14 Coalition, posing the greatest challenge to Hariri’s leadership yet and threatening the viability of his “national unity” government.

As indictments loom following the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) investigation into the February 2005 assassination of the late premier Rafiq al-Hariri, his now-prime minister son finds himself trapped between diametrically opposed forces. Those in his parliamentary bloc and own Future Movement back the STL—and importantly, its funding—while the March 8 opposition has called for it to either seriously consider claims of alleged Israeli involvement in Hariri’s killing or be shut down.

The STL is still expected to implicate Hezbollah elements in the murder even after Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah presented intercepted video footage obtained from Israeli reconnaissance drones revealing the path of Hariri’s motorcade and exact location of the attack. He also said Ghassan al-Jedd, a known Israeli spy, was present at the crime scene that day (Jedd later fled to Israel).

Nasrallah’s disclosures came against the backdrop of an extensive crackdown on Israeli espionage rings operating in Lebanon’s security and telecommunications sectors, including the state-owned mobile service provider, Alfa. Having worked for the Mossad for more than a decade, one agent confessed to installing computer programs and planting chips in Alfa transmitters to be used by Israeli intelligence to monitor communications, and locate and target individuals for assassination.

This is significant since the STL is expected to rely heavily on phone records in drawing its conclusions: “A preliminary report by the U.N. investigating team said it had collected data from mobile phone calls made the day of Hariri's murder as evidence,” AFP reported.

The fallout from Rafiq al-Hariri’s killing dramatically reshaped Lebanon’s relationship with Syria. Both the slain leader’s allies and son quickly pointed an accusatory finger at Damascus. Events that subsequently transpired became known as the “Cedar Revolution” and ultimately led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a 29-year presence in March-April 2005.

This made Saad al-Hariri’s recent about-face all the more stunning.

In an early September interview with the Saudi-owned newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Hariri said he had mistakenly blamed Syria for his father’s assassination. He withdrew what he called a “political” accusation and apologized.

But some would not let Hariri off the hook so easily.

Brigadier General Jamil al-Sayyed was Lebanon’s former head of general security at the time the massive bomb detonated under Hariri’s motorcade. He along with three other pro-Syrian generals were arrested in August 2005 and jailed for nearly four years—without charge—on suspicion of involvement in the crime. They were ordered released by the Tribunal in 2009 due to fabricated, recanted witness testimony and lack of evidence.

Al-Sayyed said Saad al-Hariri had “sold his father’s blood” by way of false witnesses so he could frame Syria for the murder:

“You [Saad al-Hariri], those who are with you and [former Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora know that you have been exercising falsification since the beginning … Had the false witnesses managed to cheat the court and had you accepted that, would you be apologizing today or would you be dancing in Damascus with the new leader you installed?

“But one day, I will take what is rightfully mine with my own hands if you do not give it to me …”

State prosecutor Said Mirza summoned al-Sayyed from France for the implied threat to Hariri and his call for the Lebanese people to revolt against the government. When he arrived at Beirut’s international airport, Hezbollah representatives met him in force and escorted him home. March 14 supporters said that the action amounted to an airport takeover meant to protect al-Sayyed from arrest.

The fact that fabricated witness testimony once used to incriminate Syria may now be directed Hezbollah’s way is obviously not lost on the March 8 Coalition.

Hezbollah M.P. Hasan Fadlallah said, “When we talk about this issue, we don't only refer to four or five people who gave false testimonies during the investigations in the murder of (former) premier (Rafiq) Hariri. These are only one ring of the rings of false witnesses, and maybe the weakest and smallest ring in this dossier. We want this group dismantled, the heads of this group unveiled and the case followed up at the judicial, legal and political levels in Lebanon, so that it faces trial and accountability.”

Hariri has a number of fateful decisions on his hands: to proceed with or table the STL finance bill (Lebanon pays 49 percent of the Court’s cost and Hezbollah has already vowed to block it); to enforce the summons against Gen. al-Sayyed or prosecute the false witnesses; and most significantly, to decide whether to back the STL verdict likely blaming Hezbollah despite evidence of Israeli complicity. If so, March 8 ministers (holding one-third of cabinet seats) could pull out of his administration, plunging the country into an even deeper political crisis.

Hariri’s government is now more fragile than ever; a proverbial house of cards erected on fabricated witness testimonies and one likely to be brought down by the upcoming indictments of a discredited tribunal.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be reached at: rbamiri [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Rannie Amiri: Bahrain - Constitutional Monarchy or Police State?

2010-10-07T01:54:00.002-05:00

A Blurred Line in Bahrain
By Rannie Amiri, CounterPunch, Sep 24-26
Source

The situation in Bahrain has deteriorated to such an extent that it can no longer be called a political crisis; it is now a human rights crisis. And the silence of those in the Middle East and West, particularly the United States, has been shameful.

The Persian Gulf state is currently in the throes of unrest. The ruling al-Khalifa family, led by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is imposing increasingly draconian security measures in an effort to silence the outcry of the island’s Shia Muslim majority over sweeping arrests of opposition figures in the run-up to October parliamentary elections.

The crackdown began on Aug. 13 with the detention of Dr. Abdul Jalil al-Singace, spokesperson and head of the human rights bureau of the opposition Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy, on charges of incitement, attempting to destabilize the country and “contacting foreign organizations and providing them with false and misleading information about the kingdom.” Al-Singace had just returned from London where he addressed the House of Lords on Bahrain’s poor human rights record. After landing in Manama, the handicapped al-Singace along with three companions were arrested and then tortured.

To better understand the root causes of Bahrain’s historically tense political climate, it is imperative to appreciate the country’s demographic makeup, the government’s endeavor to manipulate it and the disenfranchisement of Bahraini Shias. Please refer to my recent article “Bahrain Reaps the Ills of Sectarian Gerrymandering” where this pertinent background information is detailed.

Briefly, Bahrain is a tiny Gulf island kingdom with a population of 800,000. Of the 530,000 nationals, 70 percent are largely poor Shia Muslims. This is in stark contrast to the ruling, but minority, Sunni elite represented by the al-Khalifa dynasty. Although Bahraini Shias constitute more than 80 percent of the labor force, they are wholly excluded from the government, security services and public sector.

In an attempt to assuage widespread discontent at the political and socioeconomic marginalization the policy of institutionalized sectarian discrimination had wrought, Sheikh Hamad implemented some basic political reforms after ascending to the throne in 1999. This helped to quell demonstrations, riots and uprisings known as the “Bahrain intifada” that rocked the country for the better part of the 1990s.

He then created the National Action Charter in 2001 in a bid to restore the 1975 constitution and transform the emirate into a constitutional monarchy. The Charter easily passed a national referendum, but the ultimately enacted 2002 constitution fell short of what the king had originally promised.

This was highlighted in the November 2006 parliamentary elections. Al-Wefaq, the country’s major Shia political party, captured 17 of 40 seats in the Council of Representatives, making it the largest bloc. They soon recognized their ability to affect social and political change was illusory, for real power lay with the upper house Shura Council, which can approve or rescind legislation passed by the lower chamber. Shura Council members are directly appointed by the king and operate in service of monarchy goals. King Hamad had pledged it would serve strictly as an advisory body, not a legislative one.

Since al-Singace’s arrest in mid-August, there has been no let-up in the government’s drive to suppress dissent:

Twenty-three activists tied to opposition or human rights groups have been charged with being members of “a terrorist network with international support” (re: Iran) and planning a campaign of “violence, intimidation and subversion” in a plot to overthrow the regime.

The old, tired strategy of promulgating the belief that Arab Shia Muslims are fifth columnists for Iran, as the al-Khalifas intimate, is simply a way to circumvent their calls for democracy, human rights and political enfranchisement. Framing the domestic strife as a matter of combating Iranian influence and ensuring regime preservation allows Bahrain to stay in the good graces of the U.S. and ensure Manama remains home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Last month saw the detention of at least 250 activists. They have had no access to lawyers and their locations are unknown. Due to a media blackout, how many have since been imprisoned is a mystery. Although many have demanded the amendment of Bahrain’s constitution, none have called for a coup d’état.

The state has assumed control of all mosques.

As reported by AFP, Crown Prince Salman said in comments carried by the official Bahrain News Agency, “Regaining control of the pulpits so they are not hostage to incompetent politicians or clerics who have lost their way … is the staring point for developing a sound religious orientation.”

The government dismissed the board and took control of the country’s oldest human rights organization, the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS).

The BHRS is the first non-governmental organization created after King Hamad’s political reforms. The Minister of Social Development alleged it had become too partisan in reporting abuses suffered by the Shia and not “all sections of Bahraini society.” The ministry appointed one of its own officials as acting head.

Shutting down the BHRS was in obvious retribution for the body’s criticism of the aforementioned arrests and detentions.

Malcolm Stewart, North African and Middle East director at Amnesty International said in a statement, “By suspending the board of the BHRS and putting its own representative in charge, the government has effectively taken control of the organization with the apparent intent of closing it down. This undermines the basic rights to freedom of expression and association, and the government should rescind its decision immediately.”

The prominent pro-democracy blogger Ali Abdulemam was arrested by intelligence services on Sept. 5 for “spreading false news” via the popular Web portal he founded, BahrainOnline.org.

Bloggers worldwide have taken up Abdulemam’s cause and demanded his release. He is regarded as a pioneer in the Arab world for advocating use of the internet as a means of political expression and social advocacy.

Ayatollah Hussein al-Najati—Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s representative in Bahrain and one of the nation’s leading scholars—was stripped of his citizenship.

It is one of the most deplorable acts yet taken by the government against the Shia clergy. The passports of al-Najati, his wife and three children were revoked on grounds their Bahraini nationality was not obtained “through legal and appropriate means.”

It is the epitome of hypocrisy. Bahrain’s notorious Citizenship Law permits non-Bahraini Sunnis throughout the Middle East and Muslim world to become expedited, naturalized citizens for the sole purpose of altering the island’s sectarian make-up. They are then given jobs by Bahrain’s largest employer—the security services.

Although al-Najati did undertake religious studies in Iraq and Iran, he was born in Bahrain. Stripping him and his family of their nationality sets the stage for their eventual expulsion from the island. Another scholar, Sheikh Abdul Jalil al-Miqdad, has been prohibited from delivering Friday prayer sermons for two weeks.

The gag order issued by the public prosecutor banning TV, radio, internet or print media from reporting on the crackdown continues as more news outlets and websites are shut down.

Press releases and statements issued by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation for Human Rights condemning the above actions can be read here.

Bahrain’s government has been touted as a beacon of democratic reform in the Persian Gulf. Its actions, however, reveal quite the opposite.

The reality is that Bahrain’s Shia are the ones holding the torch of change and reform in the face of an entrenched monarchy eager to retain its grip on absolute power.

Freedom of the press and religion, respect for human rights, ending torture, fair representation in all spheres of society, government accountability and transparency, an end to the malignant practice of sectarian discrimination; all are banners carried by Bahrain’s opposition.

The regime believes their repressive measures will temper voter turnout in the Oct.23 elections. Although many opposition groups have called for its boycott, authorities fear the Shia could still gain parliamentary seats and use this platform to more widely voice their grievances, irrespective of the inability to pass effective legislation.

What has taken place over the past month in Bahrain demands far greater media coverage. For those who have followed events, they recognize the distinction between constitutional monarchy and police state is now a blurry one.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be reached at: rbamiri [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Global hunger linked to speculations in the international food market

2010-10-02T01:13:00.008-05:00

See related piece from Julian Cribb, "The Coming Famine" published in NYTimes. Raj Patel's book "Stuffed and Starved" is also an excellent read on the topic.

The original report on which the below article is based.

How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won
Johann Hari, July 2, 2010
Source

Excerpt

"At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 percent, maize by 90 percent, and rice by 320 percent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people - mostly children - couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in over 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, called it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."

Earlier this year I was in Ethiopia, one of the worst-hit countries, and people there remember the food crisis like they were hit by a tsunami. "It was very painful," a woman my age called Abeba Getaneh, told me. "My children stopped growing. I felt like battery acid had been poured into my stomach as I starved. I took my two daughters out of school and got into debt. If it had gone on much longer, I think my baby would have died."

Most of the explanations we were given at the time have turned out to be false. It didn't happen because supply fell: the International Grain Council says global production of wheat actually increased during that period, for example. It isn't because demand grew either. We were told the swelling Chinese and Indian middle classes were pushing it up, but as Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies in New Delhi has shown, demand from those countries for them actually fell by 3 percent over this period.

There are some smaller explanations that account for some of the price rise, but not all. It's true the growing demand for biofuels was gobbling up much-needed agricultural land - but that was a gradual process that wouldn't explain a violent spike. It's true that oil prices increased, driving up the cost of growing and distributing food - but the evidence increasingly shows that wasn't the biggest factor.

To understand the biggest cause, you have to plough through some concepts that will make your head ache - but not half as much as they made the poor world's stomachs ache.

For over a century, farmers in wealthy countries have been able to engage in a process where they protect themselves against risk. Farmer Giles can agree in January to sell his crop to a trader in August at a fixed price. If he has a great summer and the global price is high, he'll lose some cash, but if there's a lousy summer or the price collapses, he'll do well from the deal. When this process was tightly regulated and only companies with a direct interest in the field could get involved, it worked well.

Then, through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied hard and the regulations were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into 'derivatives' that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in "food speculation" was born.

So Farmer Giles still agrees to sell his crop in advance to a trader for £10,000. But now, that contract can be sold on to financial speculators, who treat the contract itself as an object of potential wealth. Goldman Sachs can buy it and sell it on for £20,000 to Deutschebank, who sell it on for £30,000 to Merryl Lynch - and on, and on, provided they think the price can be jacked up, until it seems to bear almost no relationship to Farmer Giles' crop at all.

If this seems mystifying, it is. John Lanchester, in his superb guide to the world of finance, 'Whoops! Why Everybody Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay', explains: "Finance, like other forms of human behaviour, underwent a change in the twentieth century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts - a break with common sense, a turn towards self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English."

Poetry found its break broke with straightforward representation of reality when T.S. Eliot wrote 'The Wasteland.' Finance found its Wasteland moment in the 1970s, when it began to be dominated by complex financial instruments that even the people selling them didn't fully understand. As Lanchester puts it: "With derivatives... there is a profound break between the language of finance and that of common sense."

So what has this got to do with the bread on Abiba's plate? How could this parallel universe of speculation affect her? Until deregulation, the price for food was set by the forces of supply and demand for food itself. (This was itself deeply imperfect: it left a billion people hungry.) But after deregulation, it was no longer just a market in food. It became, at the same time, a market in contracts that were speculating on theoretical food that would be grown in the future - and the speculators drove the price through the roof.

Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldman's pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market, and they were looking for somewhere else to make their stash of cash swell. They started to buy massive amounts of derivatives based on food: they reckoned that food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded onto this ground and decided to buy, buy, buy.

So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for contracts based on food massively rose - which meant the all-rolled-into-one price for food on people's plates massively rose. The starvation began.

The food price was now being set by speculation, rather than by real food. The hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that even on the regulated exchanges in the US - which take up a small part of the business - 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely to inflate the price and sell it on. Even George Soros said this was "just like secretly hoarding food during a hunger crisis in order to make profits from increasing prices." The bubble only burst in March 2008 when the situation got so bad in the US that the speculators had to slash their spending to cover their losses back home."

...

"How do we know this is wrong? As Professor Ghosh points out, some vital crops are not traded on the futures markets, including millet, cassava, and potatoes. Their price rose a little during this period - but only a fraction as much as the ones affected by speculation. Her research shows this speculation was "the main cause" of the rise.

So it has come to this. The world's wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. This is what happens when you follow the claim that unregulated markets know best to the end of the line. The finance sector's Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict such misery, and barely even notice?"

Milne: US rebranding the occupation in Iraq

2010-10-01T01:50:00.002-05:00

The US isn't leaving Iraq, it's rebranding the occupation

Obama says withdrawal is on schedule, but renaming or outsourcing combat troops won't give Iraqis back their country

By Seumas Milne, Guardian.co.uk, August 4, 2010
Source

For most people in Britain and the US, Iraq is already history. Afghanistan has long since taken the lion's share of media attention, as the death toll of Nato troops rises inexorably. Controversy about Iraq is now almost entirely focused on the original decision to invade: what's happening there in 2010 barely registers.

That will have been reinforced by Barack Obama's declaration this week that US combat troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq at the end of the month "as promised and on schedule". For much of the British and American press, this was the real thing: headlines hailed the "end" of the war and reported "US troops to leave Iraq".

Nothing could be further from the truth. The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".

But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do.

Granted, 50,000 is a major reduction on the numbers in Iraq a year ago. But what Obama once called "the dumb war" goes remorselessly on. In fact, violence has been increasing as the Iraqi political factions remain deadlocked for the fifth month in a row in the Green Zone. More civilians are being killed in Iraq than Afghanistan: 535 last month alone, according to the Iraqi government – the worst figure for two years.

And even though US troops are rarely seen on the streets, they are still dying at a rate of six a month, their bases regularly shelled by resistance groups, while Iraqi troops and US-backed militias are being killed in far greater numbers and al-Qaida – Bush's gift to Iraq – is back in business across swaths of the country. Although hardly noticed in Britain, there are still 150 British troops in Iraq supporting US forces.

Meanwhile, the US government isn't just rebranding the occupation, it's also privatising it. There are around 100,000 private contractors working for the occupying forces, of whom more than 11,000 are armed mercenaries, mostly "third country nationals", typically from the developing world. One Peruvian and two Ugandan security contractors were killed in a rocket attack on the Green Zone only a fortnight ago.

The US now wants to expand their numbers sharply in what Jeremy Scahill, who helped expose the role of the notorious US security firm Blackwater, calls the "coming surge" of contractors in Iraq. Hillary Clinton wants to increase the number of military contractors working for the state department alone from 2,700 to 7,000, to be based in five "enduring presence posts" across Iraq.

The advantage of an outsourced occupation is clearly that someone other than US soldiers can do the dying to maintain control of Iraq. It also helps get round the commitment, made just before Bush left office, to pull all American troops out by the end of 2011. The other getout, widely expected on all sides, is a new Iraqi request for US troops to stay on – just as soon as a suitable government can be stitched together to make it.

What is abundantly clear is that the US, whose embassy in Baghdad is now the size of Vatican City, has no intention of letting go of Iraq any time soon. One reason for that can be found in the dozen 20-year contracts to run Iraq's biggest oil fields that were handed out last year to foreign companies, including three of the Anglo-American oil majors that exploited Iraqi oil under British control before 1958.

The dubious legality of these deals has held back some US companies, but as Greg Muttitt, author of a forthcoming book on the subject, argues, the prize for the US is bigger than the contracts themselves, which put 60% of Iraq's reserves under long-term foreign corporate control. If output can be boosted as sharply as planned, the global oil price could be slashed and the grip of recalcitrant Opec states broken.

The horrific cost of the war to the Iraqi people, on the other hand, and the continuing fear and misery of daily life make a mockery of claims that the US surge of 2007 "worked" and that Iraq has come good after all.

It's not only the hundreds of thousands of dead and 4 million refugees. After seven years of US (and British) occupation, tens of thousands are still tortured and imprisoned without trial, health and education has dramatically deteriorated, the position of women has gone horrifically backwards, trade unions are effectively banned, Baghdad is divided by 1,500 checkpoints and blast walls, electricity supplies have all but broken down and people pay with their lives for speaking out.

Even without the farce of the March elections, the banning and killing of candidates and activists and subsequent political breakdown, to claim – as the Times did today – that "Iraq is a democracy" is grotesque. The Green Zone administration would collapse in short order without the protection of US troops and security contractors. No wonder the speculation among Iraqis and some US officials is of an eventual military takeover.

The Iraq war has been a historic political and strategic failure for the US. It was unable to impose a military solution, let alone turn the country into a beacon of western values or regional policeman. But by playing the sectarian and ethnic cards, it also prevented the emergence of a national resistance movement and a humiliating Vietnam-style pullout. The signs are it wants to create a new form of outsourced semi-colonial regime to maintain its grip on the country and region. The struggle to regain Iraq's independence has only just begun.

Dawn Editorial: Trouble in Parachinar

2010-09-23T01:24:00.004-05:00

For background, click here.

[Edit October 21, 2010: More from Dawn: "Haqqani’s two sons mediating in Kurram"]

Trouble in Parachinar
Editorial, Dawn, Sep 20, 2010
Source

The seemingly interminable violence in the Parachinar area of Kurram Agency has spiked once again. This time a water dispute between two of the four main tribes — Bangash and Mangal — has claimed the lives of over 100 people in weeklong fighting that shows no sign of abating. Water, along with other resources such as forests, has long been a source of inter-tribal rivalry in the agency, but what makes Kurram Agency doubly dangerous is that the violence has been thoroughly infused with sectarian hatreds — starting as far back as 1982, though much of the present blame must lie with the ingress of the Taliban in the area in 2007.

For a couple of years the area remained cut off from the rest of Pakistan with the closure of a key road; however, a political agreement signed in Murree and a limited military operation in the area has helped to reopen the Thall-Parachinar road. Limited traffic continues to move on the road, though many people of the area still use the Afghan route to travel to other parts of Pakistan because of the dangers involved. (The Afghan route is no less dangerous: in July, 11 residents of Parachinar who were en route to Peshawar via Kabul were ambushed and killed in Paktia.)

Bringing an end to the violence in Kurram Agency, and the Parachinar area in particular is a matter of the state taking its responsibilities more seriously. The agreement signed in Murree in October 2008 was in part possible because of the initiative of the then political agent of the agency, who has since been replaced. That agreement remains the best hope for the return of peace to the area and as such should be implemented in all earnestness. From the return of displaced persons, some of whom have not returned home since the 1982 violence, to the payment of compensation for property damaged and destroyed to the return of property confiscated, the agreement encompasses many sensible and pragmatic measures. In addition, cellphone services should be restored in the area (at present, locals have to use Afghan SIMs and networks, which adds to the difficulties of life).

By now it should be apparent that the longer Pakistan delays resolving the crisis in Kurram Agency, the more it will slip back towards the sphere of Afghan, and by extension American, influence. Such a development may only further complicate the resolution of the troubles in the area. The sooner the Murree accord is implemented the better. Unfortunately, implementation isn’t the state’s strongest suit.

Kenneth O’Keefe on BBC’s Hardtalk, talks about Gaza Aid Flotilla Attack

2010-06-26T02:04:00.004-05:00

Kenneth O’Keefe talks about the Israeli attack on the MV Mavi Marmara which killed 9 humanitarian activists. See a previous post on this issue, here.

Mineral riches and the future of Afghanistan

2010-06-13T22:48:00.010-05:00

Stories about the existence of such mineral resources in both Afghanistan and Pakistan were in circulation for quite sometime. They have been cited as one of the main reasons why imperial powers are so interested in this region. Learning from other cases, the future of Afghanistan might not be very different from what is described in the following clip by John Perkins.

Economic Hitmen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ

[Update June 14, 2010: Paul Jay argues that the US knew about mineral riches at least from 2007. He writes:

One did not need to read an "internal Pentagon memo" to find about the discovery. Just visit the public website of the U.S. Geological Survey and read the press release "Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources in Afghanistan Released: 11/13/2007 10:00:00 AM"...

In an interview with USGS's Stephen Peters published at the same time on the same site, Peters says there are "Known deposits of asbestos, mercury, lead, zinc, fluorspar, bauxite, beryllium, and lithium."

In the NYT story, this is all presented as a recent and pleasant surprise to the Afghan government. According to the NYT, after the USGS survey was completed in 2006 and '07, "the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments."

The problem is the USGS results were announced in 2007 at the 3rd annual U.S.-Afghan Business Matchmaking Conference organized by the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

The press release from the USGS included a quote from Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad, who said at the time "Afghanistan's natural resources have a quality comparable to the highest-class minerals of the entire region."

Why the story broke in the NYT on Sunday could be linked to a desire by the Pentagon to create a reason why U.S. troops might want to stick around in Afghanistan for some time to come. Things are not going very well on the ground and the promise of vast mineral riches would sound enticing.

The Times story includes a quote from Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command who says, "There is stunning potential here."

The serious question is, Did the knowledge of these massive mineral deposits affect President Obama's decision to increase troop levels and widen the scale of operations in Afghanistan? Are Canada, the UK and other NATO countries aware of the USGS report?

Has securing this mineral bonanza become the real US/NATO mission in the region?]

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
By James Risen, NYTimes, June 13, 2010
Source

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

...

The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.

The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.

“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”

Like much of the recent history of the country, the story of the discovery of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is one of missed opportunities and the distractions of war.

In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.

During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.

Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.

The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.

But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.

Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.

Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.

“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

Helen Thomas - Paying the Price for Daring to Speak Out

2010-06-07T19:49:00.006-05:00

In Defense of Helen Thomas -- On Apologizing to Apologists
Paul Jay, HuffingtonPost, June 7, 2010
Source

"Helen Thomas was the dean of the White House Press corp. She has a fifty-year history of tough-minded journalism and is one of the very, very few journalists in the mainstream press who has had the guts to question US policy towards Israel. On Monday she was pressured into resigning, "effective immediately".

On Friday she was asked by a guy who stuck a video camera in her face for any comments on Israel and she said, "Tell them to get the get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people [the Palestinians] are occupied and it's their land. It's not Germany, it's not Poland." She was asked where they should go and she answered, "They should go home, to Poland, Germany and America". The video has been making its way around the Internet.

This was said days after the Israeli attack on the aid flotilla that killed at least nine activists as their boat sailed in international waters.

She later apologized in a short statement on her website "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

Her apology was not enough to stop calls for her head from those who have wanted to shut Thomas up for years."

...

"At any rate, we all know what's going on here. The hyper-pro-Israel lobby, in both parties, hasn't much liked the fact that Helen Thomas dares to speak up and question that most sacred of topics, and right from the front row of the White House Press Gallery. Heck, she had the gall to ask President Obama about Israel's "secret" nuclear weapons. She even asked the current White House spokesman why the US had not condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla. No wonder they want her the hell out.

Do I think all Jews (that came after 1948) should get out of Palestine? Well, no more or less than Europeans should get out of North America, or the Portuguese should get out of Brazil, or the British should get the hell out of Australia. There does come a point where such things are simply not possible.

There's really no need anyway, there's plenty of land and resources. The only issue is, are the rights of the people who owned the land before colonization going to be respected now; is there proper compensation; do they have the right to self-determination and so on.

In the case of the Palestinians, what Israel needs to do has been made very clear in UN resolutions and in the demands of the Palestinians. In spite of the illegal blockade of Gaza, almost no one, including the Hamas representative I interviewed a few weeks ago, says the Jews have to get out. Ok there are some that say it, people get very angry after 62 years in a refugee camp, but what most Palestinians want is to live as equals with Jews in a truly democratic state.

It's way past time that we can discuss Israel and Palestine without the McCarthyite witch hunt atmosphere that has ruled for sixty years.

I said in my last blog, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism - but some is.

Helen Thomas' isn't.

You can watch my interviews with Helen Thomas here."

Gaza Aid Flotilla: Media tries to define good vs. bad activists

2010-06-06T20:13:00.013-05:00

Consider the following two excerpts. See a related IS post here. My further comments at the bottom.

When did resistance become a dirty word?
PulseMedia, June 6, 2010
Source

"It’s time we stopped playing this game. To recognise Israel’s ‘right’ to exist in security is to deny Palestine’s right to exist in security. No state which occupies other states’ territories has a right to security. Did Hitler’s Germany have a right to security once it had invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland? And apartheid states don’t have a right to exist at all. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about this, just as there was nothing anti-white or anti-Afrikaaner in arguing that apartheid South Africa didn’t have a right to exist. A state established by massive ethnic cleansing and perpetuated by occupation and repeated massacres is not a normal state like any other. Israel will earn its right to exist when it allows the refugees to return home and when Jews, Muslims and Christians enjoy equal rights."
...

"As for the brave passengers on the MV Rachel Corrie, I wish they had not said, “we will not resist.” I wish they had said, “We are unarmed and we have no desire to come to blows with Israeli soldiers. However, if we are hijacked by armed men in international waters or near the shore of Gaza – over which we do not recognise Israeli jurisdiction – we will resist as best we are able.” Unwittingly, the activists handed Israel ammunition for its propaganda – ‘when civilised, peaceful activists arrive we deal with them peacefully. When mad Islamist Turks attack us with sticks when we board their ship, we have no choice but to shoot them many times at close range in the back of the head.’

The passengers on the Mavi Marmara should be congratulated for resisting piracy and the illegal, barbaric siege. We should never be ashamed of resistance – in occupied Europe, in South Africa, in Iraq, in Vietnam, in Palestine, in Lebanon, or on the Mediterranean sea. Resistance is beautiful. Resistance proves the existence of the human spirit amid a vast sea of inhumanity."

------
I had a similar first reaction at the brave people on the Rachel Corrie (who were in fact involved in an act of 'resistance' but who chose their rhetoric unwisely. See here). But I also think that the wrong play of rhetoric was more a result of media twist, which de-emphasized the context of Israeli aggression and shifted the focus on the use of aggressive ("bad") vs. non-aggressive ("good") forms of resistance. It is a distraction to get into that debate in this case. I was very disappointed when I read the following story on Dawn. Pathetic, wherever they copied that story from. Pathetic, that they did not bother to read the underlying framing of Good vs. Bad Activists. Notice also the use of the verb "board" which dilutes the nature of Israeli aggression; it was an act of PIRACY and violation of international laws, to say the least, considering that the ships were in international waters.

Israeli forces board Gaza-bound aid vessel
Dawn, June 5, 2010
Source

JERUSALEM: Israeli forces seized a Gaza-bound aid vessel without meeting resistance on Saturday, preventing it from breaking an Israeli maritime blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory days after a similar effort turned bloody.

The military said its forces boarded the 1,200-ton Rachel Corrie cargo ship from the sea, not helicopters.

The takeover stood in marked contrast to a violent confrontation at sea earlier this week when Israeli commandos blocked a Turkish aid vessel trying to break the blockade. At the time, Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters and a clash with passengers left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead.

Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich says Saturday's takeover took only a few minutes and that the vessel was being taken to Israel's Ashdod port.

The Irish ship - named for an American college student who was crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while protesting Israeli house demolitions in Gaza - was carrying hundreds of tons of aid, including wheelchairs, medical supplies and cement.

The standoff has raised international pressure on Israel to lift the three-year-old blockade that has plunged the territory's 1.5 million residents deeper into poverty.

Activists on board the boat, including Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan, had said they wouldn't resist if Israeli soldiers tried to take over their vessel.

This latest attempt to breach the blockade differs significantly from the flotilla the Israeli troops intercepted on Monday, killing eight Turks and a Turkish-American after being set upon by a group of activists.

Nearly 700 activists had joined that operation, most of them aboard the lead boat from Turkey that was the scene of the violence.

That boat, the Mavi Marmara, was sponsored by an Islamic aid group from Turkey, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief. Israel outlawed the group, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, in 2008 because of alleged ties to Hamas. The group is not on the US State Department list of terror organizations, however.

By contrast, the Rachel Corrie was carrying just 11 passengers from Ireland and Malaysia, whose effort was mainly sponsored by the Free Gaza movement, a Cyprus-based group that has renounced violence. Nine crew were also on board.

Amnesty Intl: 'US cluster bombs killed 55 in Yemen'

2010-06-06T19:56:00.003-05:00

'US cluster bombs killed 55 in Yemen'
PressTV, June 6, 2010
Source

Amnesty International says the United States used cluster bombs on a cruise missile in Yemen, killing 55 people, most of whom were civilians.

The attack, according to the rights group, targeted Al-Maajala in the Abyan province at a time when Washington was pushing hard to project militants in the country.

"Amnesty International is gravely concerned by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen," said Mike Lewis, the group's arms control researcher, AFP reported.

The group cited a Yemeni parliamentary committee as reporting in February that the attack had killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children, in addition to 14 alleged militants.

Deputy Director of AI's Middle East and North Africa Program, Philip Luther warned that "a military strike of this kind against alleged militants without an attempt to detain them is at the very least unlawful."

"The fact that so many of the victims were actually women and children indicates that the attack was in fact grossly irresponsible, particularly given the likely use of cluster munitions," he also said.

Lewis said, "Cluster munitions have indiscriminate effects and unexploded bomblets threaten lives and livelihoods for years afterwards."

AI had obtained photographs which showed remains of the BGM-109D Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. "This type of missile, launched from a warship or submarine, is designed to carry a payload of 166 cluster sub-munitions (bomblets) which each explode into over 200 sharp steel fragments that can cause injuries up to 150 meters (about 500 feet) away," an AI statement said.

"An incendiary material inside the bomblet also spreads fragments of burning zirconium designed to set fire to nearby flammable objects," it added.

Gaza in Plain Language - Joe Mowrey

2010-06-06T00:56:00.006-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK5TNcmEmg

Gaza Aid Flotilla Attack - News and Analysis

2010-06-04T23:27:00.006-05:00

Glenn Greenwald - How Israeli propaganda shaped U.S. media coverage of the flotilla attack - Salon.com, Jun 4, 2010

Paul McGeough's eyewitness report - 'Prayers, tear gas and terror' - SMH.com.au, Jun 4, 2010

Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah calls for continuing Gaza aid flotilla-s - Press TV - Jun 4, 2010

Anna Baltzer's eyewitness report - 'A people united will not fall' - AnnaInPalestine blog, Jun 2, 2010

Juan Cole's analysis on UNSC condemnation of Israel, Gaza Blockade - Informed Comment, Jun 1, 2010

Norman Finkelstein speaks on Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla - RussiaToday - May 31, 2010

Guardian: Gaza - from blockade to bloodshed

2010-06-01T23:35:00.003-05:00

See also, Norman Finkelstein's comments on the Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla.

Gaza: From blockade to bloodshed
Editorial, Guardian, June 1, 2010
Source

Nothing has done more to establish Israel's status as a pariah state among its neighbours than the actions of its armed forces

If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a Nato taskforce would today be heading for the Somali coast. What happened yesterday in international waters off the coast of Gaza was the work of Israeli commandos, not pirates, and no Nato warships will in fact be heading for Israel. Perhaps they should be.

Nothing has done more to establish Israel's status as a pariah state among its neighbours than the actions of its armed forces. Israel's navy said it met with "pre-planned violence" when it boarded the ships and opened fire in the middle of the night. Their intention was to conduct a mass arrest, but the responsibility for the bloodshed was entirely theirs. Having placed themselves in a situation where they lost control and provoked a riot, the Israeli navy said they were forced to open fire to avoid being lynched. What did the commandos expect pro-Palestinian activists to do once they boarded the ships – invite them aboard for a cup of tea with the captain on the bridge? One of those shot and severely wounded was a Greek captain, who refused medical aid in Israel and demanded to be flown back to Greece. Presumably he, too, was threatening the lives of Israeli naval commandos.

There was nothing on board those ships that constituted a threat to Israel's security, so Binyamin Netanyahu's argument that his troops were acting in self-defence has no validity. They should not have been there in the first place. The convoy was carrying construction materials, electric wheelchairs and water purifiers for Gaza's people. This was recognised by the Israeli navy, who said in a statement that it had offered to transfer the aid by land to Gaza. Four years into a blockade mounted ostensibly to prevent weapons from being smuggled into the enclave, this claim, too, is utterly specious. Two years of pressure from Washington failed to persuade Israel to let these construction materials in, for the benefit of the 5,000 families still in tents after the ruin wreaked by Operation Cast Lead. If Israel was so obdurate to the entreaties of its ally, why would it now acquiesce in the demands of its enemies? The fact is that Israel has used its blockade not only to prevent Hamas from rearming, but also to impose collective punishment – as a boot which it applied to the Palestinian throat. This pressure on the jugular has the opposite of its intended effect. Defiance has only grown in Gaza, and the Islamic resistance movement is reaping the benefits – as any Fatah man will admit.

In one operation Israel has destroyed whatever hold it had over the international community on Gaza. It is not simply the fury that it has created in Turkey, which will only grow as the bodies of its dead are buried. Egypt too is complicit, because its government has sealed the southern border of the Gaza strip. It has done so amid mounting popular opposition, and as a nervy transfer of power in Cairo is about to take place. The Egyptian government will not welcome the intense embarrassment that Israel has caused it. There were many calls yesterday for the siege to be lifted, notably from Britain's new foreign secretary William Hague. After what Nick Clegg, his coalition partner wrote in this newspaper about Gaza last year, he could hardly do otherwise. But as Mr Clegg said, it is action, not words, that counts now.

The blockade should end, but that will only be the start of the U-turn which is now required. Closely allied to Gaza's physical isolation is its political one. The international consensus is also crumbling on isolating Hamas by insisting it recognise Israel before it is allowed to join a national unity government with Fatah. Russia broke the taboo first two week ago when its president, Dmitry Medvedev, met Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader in Damascus, but other countries in Europe are now planning to follow suit. Brick by brick, this policy is coming apart, and in a strange way Israel is helping.

Finkelstein speaks on Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla

2010-06-01T23:27:00.015-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB_CKL5h2_8

In a previous IS post, I wrote:

Since its pre-emptive war of 1967, Israel had maintained an aura of "invincibility" and "legitimacy". The first got bitterly crushed in the Summer of 2006 and later in the 2008-9 aggression on Gaza (where Israel failed to neutralize the resistance). The crack in that aura began in 2000 when Israel was forced to withdraw from South Lebanon. As for legitimacy, for Israel it matters most of all in the US. Israel however paid a high price for its inhumane massacres in Lebanon and Gaza because it failed to achieve a clear and tangible victory in these military campaigns (the "birth pangs" of Condi Rice did not yield the desired outcomes which could have been used as justification for Israeli atrocities.) Especially during the Gaza massacre, Israel's image was severely damaged by graphic images and information that got disseminated over internet and through hundreds of protest gatherings in North America and Europe. Israel still had a tighter control on information flow in the corporate media...

Due to all of these developments, the entity of Israel is in a deep crisis right now, struggling to survive with whatever means it can, and it may resort to unrealistic steps, including another military warfare. However, what's becoming clearer with every passing day is that it probably won't take too long before this racist entity is finally dismantled like the Apartheid South Africa.

US rehearses unilateral strikes, increasing pressure on Pakistan

2010-05-30T06:23:00.008-05:00

Below see some bits about one form of American pressure, the military might, that has been applied to Pakistan time and again, especially in the past three to four years. See previous IS posts here and here, which contain some pointers on the politics behind such pressures in the US-Pak relationship.

US rehearses strikes inside Pakistan: diplomats
By Anwar Iqbal, Dawn, May 30, 2010
Source

WASHINGTON: The US military has already completed ‘dry exercises’ for a unilateral strike in Pakistan, in the event an attack on the American soil is traced to that country, diplomatic sources told Dawn on Saturday.

Also known as a dry run, this trial exercise is a rehearsal of a military’s combat skills without the use of live ammunition.

The trial run for a unilateral strike in Pakistan, however, did not involve US troops. Instead, it projected computer simulations of such an attack with an assessment of a possible counterattack and of the potential resistance US troops might face if they entered the Pakistani soil.

Diplomatic sources said the Americans had already informed Pakistan of their intention to conduct such an exercise before conducting the computer simulations.

The Bush administration had also planned live exercises close to the Pakistan border after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 and conveyed its decision to Islamabad as well, the sources added.

This caused the-then national security adviser, Mahmud Ali Durrani, to fly to Washington for convincing the Americans that such exercises would not help the fight against terrorism. Instead, they would have weakened the nascent democratic setup in Pakistan and eroded its ability to support the US-led war.

The Americans cancelled the exercise after US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and received an assurance that Pakistan would do its best to prevent extremists from using its soil for attacking other countries.

“The American decision to once again explore the possibility of a unilateral military strike is not a threat,” said a diplomatic source.

“It aims at convincing Pakistanis that now is the time to uproot extremists. A failure to do so may lead to an attack on the US soil, which, in turn, could lead to an American military strike inside Pakistan.”

The source explained that the Americans believed there were people in the Pakistani establishment who still sympathised with the jihadi elements.

While such people, according to this source, were no longer interested in protecting Al Qaeda or the Afghan Taliban, “they still have a soft corner for Pakistani jihadi elements, particularly those who fought in Kashmir.”

The Americans, however, “have concluded that all such groups are linked to Al Qaeda, whether they are fighting in Kashmir or Afghanistan, and want all of them uprooted,” the source added.

Diplomatic sources in Washington also observed that the decision to leak to the media the US military’s plans for a unilateral strike aimed at “persuading any elements in the power structure in Islamabad to do what is needed: share more intelligence, stop insisting that there are good Taliban and bad Taliban and to get serious about uprooting all jihadi groups.”

The Pakistani judiciary was also requested not to be lenient to people like Hafiz Saeed, the source added.

The US plans for a unilateral strike in Pakistan was first reported on Saturday by The Washington Post, which quoted top US military officials as saying that the Obama administration sought new options on striking Pakistan since a Pakistani-American attempted to attack New York City.

The report quoted unnamed US military officials as saying the US would only consider launching an attack in Pakistan in an extreme situation where current military action was not adequate. The CIA has been using drones to bomb Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in Pakistan.

Scores killed as attackers target Ahmadi worshipers in Lahore

2010-05-28T12:31:00.001-05:00

For a background on militancy and its causes in Pakistan, see related posts here, here, and here.

Attackers target Lahore’s Ahmadi worshippers; 70 dead
Dawn, May 28, 2010
Source

"LAHORE: Gunmen attacked worshippers from the Ahmadi community in two worship places of Lahore on Friday, taking hostages and killing at least 70 people, officials said.

The gunmen opened fire shortly after Friday prayers and threw what could have been grenades at two Ahmadi worship places in residential neighbourhoods in Pakistan's cultural capital.

Sajjad Bhutta, deputy commissioner of Lahore, said at least 70 people had been killed in the twin attacks on worship places in Garhi Shahu and Model Town. A total of 78 were injured.

The death toll at Garhi Shahu was higher, Bhutta said, because three attackers blew themselves up with suicide vests packed with explosives when police tried to enter the building."

Conspiracy Theory, a National Sport in Pakistan??

2010-05-26T10:29:00.011-05:00

It is so ironical that in the same NY Times (online), more or less on the same day, they had a story about General David Petreaus who months ago authorized clandestine operations in Mideast, Central Asia, and Horn of Africa. The same newspaper has recently published stories about private spy networks that are still operating in the "Af-Pak" region and are said to be part of US special operations in the region. The editors and reporters are fully aware of the incriminating report about Blackwater's presence in Pakistan by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation. And, yet, NY Times can publish a story like below without any serious attempt to engage the story with the ground facts. The magic word "Security" may placate many in the American audience, and it may be in line with Washington's primary concern about 'making America safer', but this foul justification is no help to those living in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the midst of political turmoils, suicide bombings, and drone attacks. They just don't see things that way.

Where there are 'conspiracies', there will be conspiracy theories - some way off the mark, but some right on target. The ongoing turmoil in the regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan should also be a reminder that these regions were the actual battlefields of the Cold War, not America or Europe. And it is in these countries where billions of dollars were poured in for intelligence networks, weapons, and guerrilla warfare training.

However, this should not be taken as denying the political utility of conspiracy talk in Pakistan, however valid the theory itself may be. For one, the talk serves to mobilize nationalist sentiments while the security establishment continues to pursue its utilitarian interests. See related posts here, here, and here. My concern, as obvious from these three posts that I cite, is just to complicate the (over)simplistic portrayal of reality.

Such oversimplification is attempted in Pakistani news media too, with a narrow focus on "Taliban" without tracing the hands behind them, or by adding the security establishment and local politics in the equation but keeping the narrative primarily focused on the "internal" factors and discrediting any suggestions of foreign influence in Pakistani politics with the same label of "conspiracy theory".

Then there are those who do similar oversimplifications but from other extreme end.

--------------

U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk
By Sabrina Tavernise, NYTimes, May 25, 2010
Source

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.”

No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government, including President Obama.

“They have planted this character Faisal Shahzad to implement their script,” said Hashmat Ali Habib, a lawyer and a member of the bar association.

Who are they?

“You must know, you are from America,” he said smiling. “My advice for the American nation is, get free of these think tanks.”

Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history. Since 2001, the United States has taken center stage, looming so large in Pakistan’s collective imagination that it sometimes seems to be responsible for everything that goes wrong here.

“When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore.

The problem is more than a peculiar domestic phenomenon for Pakistan. It has grown into a narrative of national victimhood that is a nearly impenetrable barrier to any candid discussion of the problems here. In turn, it is one of the principal obstacles for the United States in its effort to build a stronger alliance with a country to which it gives more than a billion dollars a year in aid.

It does not help that no part of the Pakistani state — either the weak civilian government or the powerful military — is willing to risk publicly owning that relationship.

One result is that nearly all of American policy toward Pakistan is conducted in secret, a fact that serves only to further feed conspiracies. American military leaders slip quietly in and out of the capital; the Pentagon uses networks of private spies; and the main tool of American policy here, the drone program, is not even publicly acknowledged to exist.

“The linchpin of U.S. relations is security, and it’s not talked about in public,” said Adnan Rehmat, a media analyst in Islamabad.

The empty public space fills instead with hard-line pundits and loud Islamic political parties, all projected into Pakistani living rooms by the rambunctious new electronic media, dozens of satellite television networks that weave a black-and-white, prime-time narrative in which the United States is the central villain.

“People want simple explanations, like evil America, Zionist-Hindu alliance,” said a Pakistani diplomat, who asked not to be named because of the delicate nature of the topic. “It’s gone really deep into the national psyche now.”

One of those pundits is Zaid Hamid, a fast-talking, right-wing television personality who rose to fame on one of Pakistan’s 90 new private television channels.

He uses Google searches to support his theory that India, Israel and the United States — through their intelligence agencies and the company formerly known as Blackwater — are conspiring to destroy Pakistan.

For Mr. Hamid, the case of Mr. Shahzad is one piece of a larger puzzle being assembled to pressure Pakistan. Why, otherwise, the strange inconsistencies, like the bomb’s not exploding? “If you connect the dots, you have a pretty exciting story,” he said.

But the media are only part of the problem. Only a third of Pakistan’s population has access to satellite channels, Mr. Rehmat said, and equally powerful are Islamic groups active at the grass roots of Pakistani society.

Though Pakistan was created as a haven for Muslims, it was secular at first, and did not harden into an Islamic state on paper until 1949. Intellectuals point to the moment as a kind of original sin, when Islam became embedded in the country’s democratic blueprint, handing immense power to Islamic hard-liners, who could claim — despite their small numbers — to be the true guardians of the state.

Together with military and political leaders, these groups wield Islamic slogans for personal gain, further shutting down discussion.

“We’re in this mess because political forces evoke Islam to further their own interests,” said Aasim Sajjad, an assistant professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

Lawyers in Pakistan have a strong streak of political Islam. Mr. Habib, who has had militants as clients, argues that Al Qaeda is an American invention. Their pronouncements are infused with anti-Semitism, standard for Islamic groups in the region.

“The lobbies are the Jews, maybe some Indians, working in the inner core of the American administration,” said Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry, vice president of the bar association.

Liberals on Pakistan’s beleaguered left see the xenophobic patriotism and conspiracy theories as a defense mechanism that deflects all responsibility for society’s problems and protects against a reality that is too painful to face.

“It’s deny, deny, deny,” said Nadeem F. Paracha, a columnist for Dawn, an English-language daily. “It’s become second nature, like an instinct.”

Mr. Paracha argues that the denial is dangerous because it hobbles any form of public conversation — for example, about Mr. Shahzad’s upper-class background — leaving society unequipped to find remedies for its problems. “We’ve started to believe our own lies,” he said.

For those on the left, that view obscures an increasingly disappointing history. For 62 years, Pakistan has lurched from one self-serving government to the next, with little thought given to education or the economy, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-i-Azam University. Now Pakistan is dependent on the West to pay its bills, a vulnerable position that breeds resentment.

“We acknowledge to ourselves privately that Pakistan is a client state of the U.S.,” Mr. Hoodbhoy said. “But on the other hand, the U.S. is acting against Muslim interests globally. A sort of self-loathing came about.”

There are very real reasons for Pakistanis to be skeptical of the United States. It encouraged — and financed — jihadis waging a religious war against the Soviets in the 1980s, while supporting the military autocrat Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who seeded Pakistan’s education system with Islamists.

But Mr. Hamid is more interested in the larger plot, like the secret ownership of the Federal Reserve, which he found on the Internet. After three years of fame, his star seems to be falling. This month his show was canceled, and he has had to rely on Facebook and audio CDs to make his points. But it is not the end of the conspiracy.

“Someone else will be front row very soon,” said Manan Ahmed, a professor of Pakistani history. “It is the mood of the country at the moment.”

Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Update on US "Af-Pak" Strategy

2010-05-25T19:15:00.015-05:00

See related posts on intelligence network and special operations here and here. One way to interpret the current US strategy is that the special operations are a means to pressurize the insurgents, the old- and neo- Taliban-s that is, to come to the negotiation table. But nothing more. Not only because the US does not have the logistical capacity to get rid of the insurgency fully - the very US presence and its military operations are fueling Talibanization in Afghanistan - but also because if they could tame the beast which got out of their hands - that is, coopt the Taliban once again as they have tried several times already - the Taliban can be a useful pressure against neighboring Iran. The Saudis would like that too. The Pakistani security establishment - still wishing to develop that "strategic depth" against India - would not mind that either. The establishment's romance with the Taliban - albeit, only with the "good Taliban" now - is not over yet. Some level of turmoil in Afghanistan, moderate or extreme depending on political climate but as long as it is controllable, is also functional for the greater interests of Washington as that legitimizes the US presence in the name of combating "terrorism" - but not without raising concerns of regional powers like China.

McChrystal shifts to raids - and Wali Karzai
By Gareth Porter, Asia Times Online, May 26, 2010
Source

WASHINGTON - General Stanley McChrystal's team once talked openly about the need to remove from power Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and the most powerful man in Kandahar.

Last October, as reports of Wali Karzai's role in the opium trade were circulating, McChrystal's intelligence chief General Michael T Flynn said, "If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves."

"The only way to clean up Chicago," Flynn declared, "is to get rid of [Al] Capone." The parallel between the legendary crime boss and Wali Karzai could hardly have been clearer.

But by the end of March, Dexter Filkins was reporting in the New York Times that US officials had decided that Wali Karzai "will be allowed to stay in place".

That complete reversal on Karzai was the result of a decision by the US military to de-emphasize the much-touted promise of governance reform in the Kandahar operation and focus instead on Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids targeted against suspected Taliban leaders living in Kandahar city - operations for which McChrystal, the top allied military commander in Afghanistan, needs intelligence being provided by Karzai.

McChrystal's shift in emphasis toward the targeted raids against the Taliban was undoubtedly accelerated by the message from the Barack Obama administration in March that he had to demonstrate progress in his counter-insurgency strategy by the end of December 2010 rather than the mid-2011 deadline for beginning the withdrawal of US troops.

That earlier deadline, first reported by the Washington Post on March 31, was confirmed this month by US General Frederick Hodge, the director of operations for all of southern Afghanistan. "Our mission is to show irreversible momentum by the end of 2010 - that's the clock I'm using," Hodge told The Times of London

The Pentagon's report on the past six months of the war, written in late March and early April, reflected that shift from governance reform to night raids. It failed to mention McChrystal's "population centric" strategy as a factor in putting pressure on the Taliban but touted the "removal" of many "lower level" Taliban commanders, mainly by "special operations forces".

After a few weeks of watching the results of the Marjah operation, the officials of McChrystal's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) command conceded that the Afghan government had taken too long to put representatives of relevant ministries into the two key districts of Helmand province. They doubted that it would do any better in Kandahar, as The Times reported on May 11.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who frequently registers the latest thinking of the military leadership, wrote a column on April 1 clearly reflecting the downgrading of governance reform in the McChrystal war plan for Kandahar and the new emphasis on targeting the Taliban.

"Shaking up the power structure might put the United States on the side of the Pashtun man in the street," wrote Ignatius, "but it would open up a power vacuum that could be exploited by the Taliban."

For US commanders, Ignatius revealed, "There isn't time for risky experiments in Kandahar."

What Ignatius didn't say is that McChrystal had already ordered a major intensification of SOF raids in Kandahar city and that those raids are dependent primarily on intelligence supplied by organizations controlled by Wali Karzai.

In an interview with The Times published on May 7, Karzai boasted that he alone has supplied "the majority of intelligence in this region", adding, "I'm passing tons of information to them."

A former NATO official had confirmed that reality a few weeks earlier. "Most of our intelligence comes directly or indirectly from him," said the official, according to Time magazine on March 19.

Neither the ISAF commanders nor US SOF commanders have well-developed intelligence networks of their own in Kandahar.

Karzai has dominated the flow of intelligence to NATO forces by gaining control over both the police and official Afghan intelligence agency in the province, according to a new study of the power structure in Kandahar.

The study, published last month by the pro-war Institute for the Study of War, shows how Karzai completed his consolidation of political control over the national police in Kandahar after using the Karzai private militia used by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Kandahar Strike Force, to kill the province police chief and the chief of criminal investigation, who had been independent of his influence, in a June 2009 gunfight.

Even more important, Karzai controls the Kandahar branch of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), which combines the intelligence and secret police agencies, as the study reveals. NDS has by far the largest network of informants in the province and has long taken the lead in carrying out the raids against the Taliban in Kandahar city, because of the ineffectiveness of the national police.

In an e-mail to Inter Press Service, a spokesman for McChrystal, Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis, acknowledged that the command accepts intelligence from Karzai, and said it would be "foolish" to refuse it.

Sholtis said he could not comment on how much weight the ISAF command put on intelligence from Karzai but asserted that the command has "multiple methods and sources for collecting intelligence" in the province, and that "we evaluate all human sources with respect to self-interest or bias".

ISAF can presumably draw on Afghan army intelligence in the province, but its assets are believed to be minimal compared with that of the NDS. The command also uses information from drone reconnaissance aircraft to supplement what it gets from Karzai-controlled networks.

Reliance on drones for targeting, however, leads to constant mistakes by US troops. Carlotta Gall reported in the New York Times on March 26 that drone strikes had killed farmers digging ditches and bringing goods home from market on three different occasions in recent weeks.

The ISAF command's dependence on Karzai for intelligence allows him to use US power against his political enemies. Time's Tim McGirk reported on March 19 that critics in Kandahar said Karzai had threatened to call down NATO air strikes or night raids by US SOF units on any tribal elders who defied him.

Karzai is widely believed to have used raids by security forces under his control to target a number of tribal opponents, according to the Institute's study. Karzai is deeply engaged in intervening in tribal politics across the province, creating new alliances and making new enemies, the analysis said.

The reaffirmation of ties between the US and Karzai ensures that the whole military effort in the province is locked into Karzai's political strategy for maintaining his grip on power. But McChrystal, the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan, has made it clear he is ready to sacrifice the possibility for political change in order to be able to do what he does best.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

Guardian: New evidence on Israel's nuke deal with apartheid South Africa

2010-05-24T01:47:00.007-05:00

How Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons
Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

By Chris McGreal, Guardian, May 23, 2010
Source

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

...

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

...

See the full story here

---

In related news,

Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu jailed

BBC, May 24, 2010
Source

Mordechai Vanunu, the technician who revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons, has begun a three-month jail term for violating the terms of his release in 2004.

Mr Vanunu was convicted by an Israeli court in December 2009 and sentenced to six months' community service.

He refused, saying he would be in danger of being assaulted by a member of the Israeli public.

The court then returned him to jail instead.

Mr Vanunu spent 18 years in jail for revealing the existence of the clandestine Israeli nuclear programme.

Before being led away he shouted "You didn't get anything from me in 18 years; you won't get anything in 3 months. Shame on you, Israel."

He was arrested on suspicion that he met foreigners, violating conditions of his 2004 release from jail.

His lawyer said his arrest was because of his relationship with his Norwegian girlfriend, not for revealing secrets.

After his release from prison in 2004, the Israeli authorities banned Mr Vanunu from speaking to foreign media and travelling abroad.

In 2007, Mr Vanunu, a Jewish convert to Christianity, was sentenced to six months in prison for breaking the conditions of his parole.

NYTimes: US is still using private spy network

2010-05-21T00:40:00.003-05:00

In a previous IS post, I suggested that contrary to the suggestions about Michael Furlong being just a rogue element, he and his assignment are actually part of a well-established, current US strategy for the "Af-Pak" region: Furlong and the US Af-Pak Strategy

See the following report that confirms that connection and provides further information. [Edit May 26, 2010: See also, NYT's report (May 24, 2010): US Commander OK'ed Clandestine Missions in Mideast, Central Asia, and Horn of Africa]

U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts
By Mark Mazzetti, NYTimes, May 15, 2010
Source

WASHINGTON — Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.

Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information — some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.

The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying.

Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for “force protection,” they said.

Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D. Furlong, was now under investigation.

But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr. Furlong’s operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program “remains under investigation by multiple offices within the Defense Department,” so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues.

“I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated,” he said. Spokesmen for General Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Mr. Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official.

A senior defense official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield — from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects — has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The C.I.A. has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones.

The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military’s hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.

The memo also said that Mr. Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations. Some officials say they believe that the C.I.A. is trying to scuttle the operation to protect its own turf, and that the spy agency has been embarrassed because the contractors are outperforming C.I.A. operatives.

The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the C.I.A. and the military intelligence apparatus. There was a belief by some officers that the C.I.A. was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan’s spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops. In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow C.I.A. spying but not the presence of foreign troops.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war.

“There’s no daylight at all on this between C.I.A. and DoD,” he said. “It’s an issue for Defense to look into — it involves their people, after all — and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones. These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of Congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering.

The officials say the contractors’ reports are delivered via an encrypted e-mail service to a “fusion cell,” located at the military base at Kabul International Airport. There, they are fed into classified military computer networks, then used for future military operations or intelligence reports.

To skirt military restrictions on intelligence gathering, information the contractors gather in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas is specifically labeled “atmospheric collection”: information about the workings of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan or about Afghan tribal structures. The boundaries separating “atmospherics” from what spies gather is murky. It is generally considered illegal for the military to run organized operations aimed at penetrating enemy organizations with covert agents.

But defense officials with knowledge of the program said that contractors themselves regarded the contract as permission to spy. Several weeks ago, one of the contractors reported on Taliban militants massing near American military bases east of Kandahar. Not long afterward, Apache gunships arrived at the scene to disperse and kill the militants.

The web of private businesses working under the Lockheed contract include Strategic Influence Alternatives, American International Security Corporation and International Media Ventures, a communications company based in St. Petersburg, Fla., with Czech ownership.

One of the companies employs a network of Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis run by Duane Clarridge, a C.I.A. veteran who became famous for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed.

The Times is withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of agents working in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A spokesman for Lockheed said that no Pentagon officials had raised any concerns about the work.

“We believe our subcontractors are effectively performing the work required of them under the terms of this task order,” said Tom Casey, the spokesman. “We’ve not received any information indicating otherwise.” Lockheed is not involved in the information gathering, but rather administers the contract.

The specifics of the investigation into Mr. Furlong are unclear. Pentagon officials have said that the Defense Department’s inspector general is examining possible contract fraud and financial mismanagement dating from last year.

In his only media interview since details of the operation were revealed, with The San Antonio Express-News, Mr. Furlong said that all of his work had been blessed by senior commanders. In that interview, he declined to provide further details.

Officials said that the tussle over the intelligence operations dated from at least 2008, when some generals in Afghanistan grew angry at what they saw as a paucity of intelligence about the militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were regularly attacking American troops.

In October of that year, Mr. Furlong traveled to C.I.A. headquarters with top Pentagon officials, including Brig. Gen. Robert H. Holmes, then the deputy operations officer at United States Central Command. General Holmes has since retired and is now an executive at one of the subcontractors, International Media Ventures. The meeting at the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center was set up to inform the spy agency about the military’s plans to collect “atmospheric information” about Afghanistan and Pakistan, including information about the structure of militant networks in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Mr. Furlong was testing the sometimes muddy laws governing traditional military activities. A former Army officer who sometimes referred to himself as “the king of the gray areas,” Mr. Furlong played a role in many of America’s recent adventures abroad. He ran psychological operations missions in the Balkans, worked at a television network in Iraq, now defunct, that was sponsored by the American government and made frequent trips to Kabul, Eastern Europe and the Middle East in recent years to help run a number of clandestine military propaganda operations.

At the C.I.A. meeting in 2008, the atmosphere quickly deteriorated, according to some in attendance, because C.I.A. officials were immediately suspicious that the plans amounted to a back-door spying operation.

In general, according to one American official, intelligence operatives are nervous about the notion of “private citizens running around a war zone, trying to collect intelligence that wasn’t properly vetted for operations that weren’t properly coordinated.”

Shortly afterward, in a legal opinion stamped “Secret,” lawyers at the military’s Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., signed off on a version of Mr. Furlong’s proposed operations, adding specific language that the program should not carry out “inherent intelligence activities.” In January 2009, General Petraeus wrote a letter endorsing the proposed operations, which had been requested by Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan at the time.

What happened after that money began flowing to Afghanistan remains a matter of dispute. General McKiernan said in an interview with The Times that he never endorsed hiring private contractors specifically for intelligence gathering.

Instead, he said, he was interested in gaining “atmospherics” from the contractors to help him and his commanders understand the complex cultural and political makeup of the region.

“It could give us a better understanding of the rural areas, of what people there saying, what they were expressing as their needs, and their concerns,” he said.

“It was not intelligence for manhunts,” he said. “That was clearly not it, and we agreed that’s not what this was about.”

To his mind, he said, intelligence is specific information that could be used for attacks on militants in Afghanistan.

General McKiernan said he had endorsed a reporting and research network in Afghanistan and Pakistan pitched to him a year earlier by Robert Young Pelton, a writer and chronicler of the world’s danger spots, and Eason Jordan, a former CNN executive. The project, called AfPax Insider, would have been used a subscription-based Web site, but also a secure information database that only the military could access.

In an interview, Mr. Pelton said that he did not gather intelligence and never worked at the direction of Mr. Furlong and that he did not have a government contract for the work.

But Mr. Pelton said that AfPax did receive reimbursement from International Media Ventures, one of the companies hired for Mr. Furlong’s operation. He said that he was never told that I.M.V. was doing clandestine work for the government.

It was several months later, during the summer of 2009, when officials said that the private contractor network using Mr. Clarridge and other former C.I.A. and Special Operations troops was established. Mr. Furlong, according to several former colleagues, believed that Mr. Pelton and Mr. Jordan had failed to deliver on their promises, and that the new team could finally carry out the program first envisioned by General McKiernan. The contractor network assumed a cloak-and-dagger air, with the information reports stripped of anything that might reveal sources’ identities, and the collectors were assigned code names and numbers.

Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Barclay Walsh contributed research.

Twenty dead in Karachi violence

2010-05-20T04:37:00.001-05:00

BBC reports that "at least 20 have been killed" in yesterday's spree of target killings which appear to be part of ongoing ethnic-political rivalry between two groups in Karachi. See previous posts on this topic: Feb 2, 2010; May 25, 2009; May 11, 2009; May 1, 2009.

Eighteen dead as violence revisits Karachi
Dawn, May 20, 2010
Source

KARACHI: At least 18 people were killed in a fresh wave of ethnic and political killings across Karachi on Wednesday.

A four-year-old boy was killed along with his father in one of the attacks.

The targeted killings staged a comeback just a day after the coalition parties reiterated their pledge to work together for peace and prosperity of Sindh.

Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah ordered agencies concerned to take effective measures for maintaining law and order.

Talking to a delegation of the Awami National Party, led by Amin Khattak, he gave the assurance that those involved in the killings would be arrested soon and taken to task.

He asked the administration and law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on the activities of miscreants, increase deployment of police and Rangers and ensure a round-the-clock police patrol.

The chief minister said that some miscreants were out to disturb the law and order situation in Karachi for “ulterior motives” and their designs would be foiled by the coalition parties with the cooperation of citizens.

Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza and Karachi police chief Wasim Ahmad also attended the meeting.

The chief minister also went to the Governor’s House and exchanged views with Dr Ishratul Ibad on the law and order situation and other matters, including by-election for a vacant seat of the Senate.

Both leaders expressed concern over the incidents of lawlessness and ordered the authorities concerned to take immediate and effective action.

They also consulted leaders of coalition parties, including the ANP’s provincial chief Shahi Syed.

The governor and the chief minister stressed the need for the elected representatives to help improve the situation in their areas.

They appealed to people to maintain unity and keep an eye on miscreants.

Qaim Ali Shah and Ishratul Ibad asked the authorities concerned to point out the reasons for recurring incidents of lawlessness and elements involved in them.

“It is a matter of concern that criminal elements play with the life of innocent people after intervals for their nefarious designs,” they said.

The governor and the chief minister stressed the need for coordination between the allied parties at the lowest level.

They expressed hope that the coordination committee of coalition parties would sort out the matter on Thursday.

MQM Plea to ANP

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement appealed to the ANP and those leading a movement for Hazara province to refrain from issuing provocative statements and resolve all issues through dialogue.

In a statement, the MQM coordination committee said that like any political party, the people of Hazara had a right to demand a separate province. Like other communities, the people of Hazara also had a right on Karachi, it added.

The Politics of a Scandal -- Hamid Mir, TTP, Leaked Phone Conversation

2010-05-19T08:12:00.018-05:00

The English translation of the alleged Hamir Mir-TTP conversation can be seen here. The Urdu tape is available at this link (for the time being, at least). According to various news sources, Hamid Mir claims that the tape was doctored.

Toward analysis, on the politics of this scandal, I want to quickly comment on the points made by Ayesha Siddiqa, renowned analyst and political commentator, in her recent blog post, which was widely distributed on the net. I believe that her narrative focuses on the establishment and its internal politics too much at the expense of other relevant players in this game. The establishment, of course, has a long history of cultivating and planting its people in the media. This no news. But proper consideration should also be given to the current civilian government and those "foreign hands" behind it (see here) and the ongoing behind-the-scene tussle between the establishment and those foreign forces, all quite relevant for understanding the politics of this scandal.

Still, there are some quite useful points in her analysis - which I copy below - that should be engaged closely. The readers may also want to read her full post to evaluate the context of these points and related assertions.

The readers may also like to read a previous IS post that looks at the Ashura Bombing in Karachi last December and raises similar questions about the involvement of various players. One thing should be quite evident for any discerning reader that the current turmoil is Pakistan is more than simply an issue of mindless, religious fanaticism. There are larger interests and forces at play here.

------
Writes Ayesha Siddiqa (May 16, 2010): "There is not a single journalist, especially on the electronic media who comments on national security and is not fed by the military. I remember one very popular journalist who even writes for foreign press. He is considered an authority on military affairs. The poor chap cannot tell the front of a submarine from its back. Planting people in the media and intelligentsia is an old trick. The only matter of concern really is that how and why is the audio recording made available on the net? The real story is the disclosure rather than the conversation."

Further, "This telephone conversation could have been tapped by several intelligence sources including the ISI, MI and IB and the question is which one leaked it and why. Is there anything interesting happening between the PPP government and Hamid Mir due to which the conversation was leaked? The other possibility is that one of the army-run agency leaked it. The first explanation is that they wanted to deflect attention from themselves on Hamid Mir. It seems from the conversation as if Mir caused Khalid Khwaja's death by instigating the alleged Punjabi Taliban. The insistence on KK's links with Ahmedis and Americans could do the trick of inciting the Taliban against KK. But I am sure that was not Hamid Mir's intent. He was just trying to show-ff to the Taliban the superiority of his information. Such show-off comes with the territory that he operates in. But the conversation was then conveniently leaked so that it may appear as something in which the intelligence agencies had no involvement thats is in the killing of KK.

The other explanation is that the conversation indicates some chasm within the intelligence establishment. The conversation basically signifies the presence of multiple groups within the intelligence agencies. There are, at least, three ideological groups within the agencies: (a) the Islamiscsts, (b) the pro-West, and (c) pro-China. These groups exert influence and lobby for their perspective. This means that the flow of information to the top brass is conditioned by the ideological bias of the groups."

And, "The dealings with the US or even China reflect the military's utilitarian approach. It will happily use any of these states to build itself. Most countries behave this way. The name of the game is realpolitik which focuses on power of the state rther than power of the people. The Pakistani state had begun to steer towards Islamism at a very early stage after its creation. Naturally, the ideology rubbed on different elements in the society as well. This is what we can see in Hamid Mir's conversation."

Also, "The discussion of his involvement in misleading Maulana Abdul Aziz does not make sense because Abdul Aziz led his funeral prayers. There is something that doesn't make sense in the story. Whats more important to remember are that the jihadis (aka Pakistani Taliban) are well-entrenched in Pakistan's intelligence system and even its establishment. No wonder, Pakistan's courts have been acquitting jihadis like Lashkare Jhangavi's Malik Ishaq. Recently, the courts acquitted those accused of involvement in the Marriott bombing case and the suicide attack against Lt. general Mushtaq Baig. These decisions could have been changed if the agencies were willing to sort out the jihadis."

Dawn: Militants kidnap 60 in Kurram tribal region

2010-05-15T08:50:00.004-05:00

[Edit May 16, 2010: Dawn update - Militants free 50 hostages kidnapped on Saturday]

For a background of clashes in Kurram, see previous IS posts here.

Militants kidnap 60 in Kurram tribal region
Dawn, May 15, 2010
Source

PARACHINAR: Suspected militants dressed as policemen kidnapped about 60 people in troubled northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border on Saturday, government and police officials said.

Heavily armed militants first seized a vehicle belonging to the government power utility in the Kurram region and kidnapped four people travelling inside. The vehicle was set on fire.

Shortly afterwards, several vehicles were seized from a convoy of civilians travelling to Parachinar, the main city in Kurram.

Officials initially said 30 people were kidnapped but later said 57 people had been taken from the convoy.

“The militants were posing as policemen and wearing police uniforms,” said Mir Chaman, a senior police official in the nearby town of Thal.

Government officials in Kurram confirmed the incident and said efforts were under way to recover the kidnapped people.

The Pakistani military has mounted offensives against militants in their strongholds in the northwest over the past year, largely clearing several areas, killing hundreds of militants and destroying their bases.

A large number of militants, officials say, have fled to Kurram and neighbouring regions after the military launched a major operation against them in their South Waziristan bastion near the Afghan border in mid-October last year.

Security forces have intensified air strikes on militant targets in Kurram and adjoining areas in recent weeks.

The militants have shown resilience and carried out a wave of suicide and bomb attacks, mainly in the northwest, killing hundreds of people.

Malalai Joya: 'TIME distorts truth about US occupation in Afghanistan'

2010-05-13T21:50:00.007-05:00

Reminds me of a similar story about Malalai Joya discussed earlier: see here.

"TIME distorts truth about occupation"
PressTV, May 11, 2010
Source

Afghan political activist Malalai Joya has criticized TIME magazine, saying it has "painted a false picture" of her.

At the end of April, TIME named Malalai Joya one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, but the write-up in the issue where the annual list was published did not mention her struggle against the US and NATO occupation of Afghanistan and even went so far as to lecture her and advise her that she should begin supporting the occupiers.

"I am very angry with the way they have introduced me. TIME has painted a false picture of me and does not mention anything at all about my struggle against the occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. and NATO, which is disgusting. In fact every one knows that I stand side-by-side with the glorious anti-war movements around the world and have proved time and again that I will never compromise with the US and NATO, who have occupied my country, empowered the most bloody enemies of my people, and are killing my innocent compatriots in Afghanistan. What TIME did was like giving an award to someone with one hand and getting it back with another hand. I have sent my protest through my Defense Committee, but TIME did not bother to even answer the protest letter. Perhaps this is the kind of freedom of expression exercised by TIME and the US. But I'm happy to see that many of my friends and supporters have objected to the write-up and expressed it by posting their comments on TIME's site or sending me many emails," Joya said.

She made the remarks in an interview with Sonali Kolhatkar on Uprising Radio, which is broadcast on KPFK, the Pacifica network's radio station in Los Angeles.

The interview was posted on the internet on May 3.

The Defense Committee for Malalai Joya published the following response to the TIME magazine write-up:

"We strongly object to the inaccuracies in the write-up by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Malalai Joya here.

"We believe it is disrespectful of Ms. Joya not to make clear her consistent and vocal opposition to the NATO occupation of Afghanistan. In fact, it is her opposition to war which has made her influential throughout the world, since in the vast majority of NATO countries public opinion is also opposed to the war.

"Hirsi Ali criticizes Ms. Joya's views on the NATO occupation of Afghanistan without ever actually letting the reader know what they are. Surely the TIME 100 honorees have all earned the right to have their own views represented in a non-patronizing, accurate manner to your readers.

"The very first sentence — 'To be a woman growing up in Afghanistan under the Taliban and to survive is in itself a major feat' — betrays an unfamiliarity with the subject's biography.

"In fact, Ms. Joya grew up in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. The Taliban only came to power in the period of 1994-1996, and Joya only returned to her homeland in 1998, at the age of 19.

"The whole tenor and content of the write-up plays into the common misconception in the United States that the only fundamentalist, reactionary political forces in Afghanistan are the Taliban.

"There is no reference to the civil war and the massacres carried out by fundamentalist warlords — many of whom have been returned to power under the Karzai regime."

Elsewhere in the Uprising Radio interview, Ms. Joya said:

"The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has an office that carefully monitors all media in Afghanistan and if they find any of them reporting against U.S. interests, they try using different means to stop it. Bribes are a very common means used. For the U.S. it's not just fighting a war through military means, but also on the propaganda front. I think propaganda plays a major role. They are trying to show the war is justified. When they kill civilians they immediately deny it and say that all the people killed are Taliban. When there is no chance for any independent confirmation, the lies are the only things reflected in the world media. There are only a few cases where some brave and justice-loving journalists like Jerome Starkey have come forward to unmake their shameful lies."

"But I will continue the struggle as long as these criminals are in power, these sworn enemies of democracy, women's rights, human rights, and as long as these occupation forces are bombing from the sky, and supporting the enemies of my people and killing innocent people of my country," she added.

Deobandi leadership still shies away from denouncing suicide bombings in Pakistan

2010-05-02T20:13:00.009-05:00

For a brief historical background of the rise of extremism in Pakistan, see here; for current political dynamics, some bits could be seen here. It's interesting that for this story DAWN chose a picture with people protesting the clashes between two Sunni sectarian groups (see below link). For a little behind-the-scenes of those clashes, see here

Still shying away from condemning suicide bombings
By Nasir Jamal, Dawn, May 2, 1010
Source

LAHORE: The Deobandi leadership in the country has for the moment refused to give a consensual nod of disapproval to suicide attacks and other acts of militancy — despite efforts by some members to reconcile the school to new realities.

A meeting held here recently was part of this initiative for reconciliation. Rising above their political and factional disputes, around 150 leaders representing different Deobandi groups, seminaries and political parties from Karachi to Bajaur converged in Lahore on April 15 for a rare meeting.

Over three days they shared space at the Jamia Ashrafia, one of the oldest and influential Deobandi institutions in the city.

Many participants are known to have links with Pakistan’s visible and invisible establishment. They included moderates such as Mufti Rafi Usmani and hardliners such as Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.

Big names in politicis — Maulana Fazalur Rehman, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Samiul Haq, whose Darul Aloom Haqania in Akora Khattak in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is credited to have given birth to Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, were also there along with heavyweights such as Maulana Saleem Ullah Khan and Hanif Jallundhry, who manage the Deobandi seminaries and education system in the country.

The objective of this rare Deobandi gathering, according to some participants, was to deliberate on terrorism, debate its causes, discuss impact on the economy and politics and suggest solutions and work together to stem the menace.

“The basic goal of this conference was to organise the movement for enforcement of Shariah through peaceful and democratic means, and discuss the reasons for terrorism in the country,” Qari Hanif Jallundhry told this reporter from Multan by telephone.

“The other objective was to draw public attention towards the need for defending Pakistan’s sovereignty and security.” More parochially, the organisers of the meeting were worried that growing militancy in the tribal backwaters of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and increasing incidence of terrorism in the cities in the rest of the country are exclusively being seen as a Deobandi phenomenon and has the potential to discredit the movement among the masses suffering because of it.

After all, the tribal fighters engaged in a pitched war with the military and killing its soldiers in the north-west or suicide bombers carrying out operations elsewhere in the country are either graduates of the Deobandi seminaries or are linked with Deobandi groups and organisations.

Apprehension

Qari Hanif conceded that militancy and terrorism could harm the Deobandi movement. “If terrorism can impact upon the economy and add to the troubles of common citizens of this country, how can we escape its effects,” he wondered.

Others say the meeting was organised at the behest of the government (read establishment), which is desperately looking for wider support from Deobandi pockets against militants fighting the army in the tribal areas. “The most important objective of those who arranged the assembly was to somehow convince the participants to issue a fatwa or religious edict censuring militants involved in terrorism and fighting the army and urging them to renounce violence at the behest of the government,” a participant from Balochistan told Dawn by telephone.

He said “a part of our leadership is under pressure (from the establishment?) to help evolve a wider consensus among all the Deobandi groups and organisations against the militants’ attacks on our soldiers and military installations as well as terrorist raids within the country”. If that was what the meeting aimed to gain, it was only partially achieved.

Maulana Ludhianvi and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed are said to have “turned the tables” on the organisers and forced them to restrict themselves to issuing a joint communiqué that was soft on militants and harsh on government and, obviously, the United States.

“Neither a fatwa triggered this war nor will it help stop one. If a fatwa could stop this war, we would have peace in our tribal areas and the rest of the country now,” another participant, who also refused to give his name, said. “Whatever is happening in Pakistan or Afghanistan today is a reaction to the American policies, its increasing influence and interference in Pakistan and our government’s inability to understand this fact and side with the West.”

The same source said a majority of the participants agreed that militancy and terrorism would continue to haunt this nation as long as the factors and causes responsible for forcing people to take up were not removed. This was exactly what the joint communiqué says. It blames the government’s policy of ‘toeing the American line’ on Afghanistan for growing terrorism. “..militancy and terrorism continue to haunt this country in spite of wide denunciation of such acts (suicide bombings and subversive activities) by all patriotic people as well as use of organised military force. The situation calls for a dispassionate analysis of the fundamental causes (of this situation). In our view it is the consequence of the foreign policy that Pervez Musharraf pursued (in the aftermath of 9/11) and the incumbent government continues to follow. We demand that the government separates itself from the war in Afghanistan and stops pursuing pro-American foreign policies and providing logistics support to foreign forces (for military operations in Afghanistan,” the communiqué says. The opponents of an edict against militants were vociferously supported by the participants from Swat and Bajaur and other tribal areas. “They are the people who are actually suffering at the hands of Americans and their allies in Pakistan. They are the people who have to bear the brunt of military action and drone attacks. How could they support pro-government edicts and decrees?,” the participant from Balochistan quoted above argued. Nevertheless, the communique did urge the militant groups to pursue peaceful means to achieve their objectives of enforcement of Shariah and expulsion of Americans from the country.

The paper calls for an end to all kinds of terrorist and subversive activities (by militant organizations). “If the government is following erroneous policies, it does not mean that we set our home afire. We, therefore, confidently and honestly believe that only peaceful struggle is the best strategy that can help enforcement of Islamic Shariah in Pakistan and secure it from the foreign influences.

The use of violence is contrary to Islamic teachings and detrimental to our objective of enforcement of Shariah in the country and efforts to expel Americans from this region. Rather, it is helping the United States deepen its influence in this region,” it argues.

Speaking to Dawn about the objectives and outcome of the meeting, Maulana Samiul Haq said: “We must avoid saying and doing anything that helps the evil forces (America in this case). And terrorism is helping the Americans.”

He made a distinction between what is going on in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal regions. “What is going in Afghanistan is essentially jihad. They (Afghan Taliban) are fighting for the freedom of their country from foreign occupation. Some of our people (Pakistani Taliban) also want to go there and help their brethrens in their war for freedom.” He pointed out that certain elements who have entered the ranks of Pakistani Taliban and are killing innocent civilians and soldiers, are responsible for obliterating the distinction between jihad and terrorism. “The present situation is quite worrisome for us because it can build up pressures against our seminaries. But, the Maulana said, it is wrong to expect that the use of force can stop the militants from carrying out their operations or stem terrorism from the country. “The only lasting solution to the issue lies in talks. If the government is willing to talk (to the militants) on some solid, concrete points, we are ready to act as a bridge and mediate between the two parties. But before proceeding in that direction the government has to distance itself from the American policy objectives. You cannot stop suicide attacks and terrorism as long as you are seen to be standing side by side with the United States,” he contended.

Another JUI leader said it is important for Pakistan to bring the militants to the negotiation table. “The Americans are talking to Taliban, the Afghan regime is talking to Taliban. Why can’t our rulers?” He was perturbed that Washington “ignored” Islamabad as it began peace talks with the Afghan Taliban in spite of the fact that we are the ones providing it logistics support and cheap oil for its operations there. The communique too urged the government to “realise that the lasting solutions to internal insurgencies lay in peace talks. It, therefore, should review its foreign policy in the light of recommendations of the in-camera session of the parliament and effect necessary shift in its policies.” A participant conceded that the moderate Deobandi leadership is worried about its loss of influence and control over younger graduates from the seminaries. “This loss of influence on younger generations is pushing them towards militancy. The communique particularly addressed the younger students of Deobandi seminaries and advised them to follow the opinion and views of ulema to stay on the right path.”

Dawn: Militancy in Punjab

2010-03-17T23:43:00.001-05:00

Militancy in Punjab
Dawn Editorial, March 17, 2010
Source

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has been excoriated by all right-thinking individuals across Pakistan for his shocking comments about the PML-N sharing a common cause with the Taliban.

But away from the politics of the war against militancy, on the security front alarming new trends are emerging in Punjab. Here’s what is known. Earlier this month, the names contained in the FIA’s ‘red book’, a list of the country’s most-wanted criminal suspects, were made public: 25 of the 119 names on the list were of suspects from Punjab, the highest number for any province.

The key suspects in many attacks on security targets in recent months are southern Punjab-based members of four militant groups: Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba and Harkatul Jihad al-Islami. The increase in fidayeen-style attacks (in which death is likely but not inevitable as with suicide attacks) has in particular caught the eye of investigators. Fidayeen attacks are the bread-and-butter tactic of Punjabi militants. Then in the last two days alone several tonnes of explosive materials and other weapons favoured by terrorists have been found in raids in Lahore.

Everything points to the terrifying reality that Punjab has a home-grown terrorism problem that appears to be growing by the day. And yet some elements have mischievously tried to play down the Punjab-militancy nexus by pointing to the fact that the groups involved are not ‘Punjabi’ because they have members who belong to other provinces too. There is no doubt that the other provinces also have a terrorism problem in their midst and they need to beef up counter-terrorism measures rapidly. But the violence in Punjab is real, it is present and it shows no sign of abating. Quibbling over whether there is such a thing as the Punjabi Taliban is beside the point: there are militants who live in and are from Punjab, these militants are attacking the state and the people, and they must be captured or eliminated.

It is true that the Punjab government is doing something to fight the threat: despite Mr Sharif’s stomach-churning comments, the provincial administration he oversees has deployed significant law-enforcement and intelligence resources to track down the Taliban. But the authorities appear to be approaching the problem as a narrow counter-terrorism issue. The wider problem is the infrastructure of hate and religious intolerance that is thriving in the province, often under official patronage. No matter how many militants the state captures or kills, there will always be more if the pipeline of hate continues to churn out brainwashed foot soldiers. The Punjab authorities must find a way, and the will, to shut down the pipeline of hate and intolerance.

Musharraf's Report Card

2010-03-16T20:04:00.012-05:00

Soon after General Musharraf's departure, against the multitude of pressures and turmoils in Pakistan, there were some calls of bringing him back, or at least, attempts to romanticize his era. Lest people forget, here is a good reminder that succinctly points out that many of our current turmoils have their roots in General Musharraf's policies. For other contributing factors, see a previous IS post here.

Musharraf's brazenness
Editorial, Daily Times, March 17, 2010
Source

A news report of Seattle Times made it sound as if Musharraf was heading back home the moment he was sure that support and applause await his return. While talking to journalists in Seattle, where he is on a lecture tour, he dropped a hint that a party with the name of All Pakistan Muslim League had been registered. Whether the former president, now mostly referred to as the dictator, is seriously planning on entering politics in the near future or not, we have the following advice and observations to make to him.

Musharraf is a coup-maker who should have been held accountable for his actions. He overthrew an elected government, violated the constitution, tampered with the political process by creating a king’s party, instituted a local bodies system that suited his purposes, and rigged the 2002 general elections. He subverted the judiciary and initiated a process whose legacy will haunt us for years to come. Sane observers feel that the over-assertiveness of the judiciary that has been restored after Musharraf’s departure is a reaction to the en masse dismissal of judges and the movement that followed, a phenomenon that may not be in the long term interests of the institution of the judiciary or the country.

Musharraf extols his contributions to the economy. However, the economic situation today is merely a reflection of the kind of unsustainable consumer demand-led economic model his managers devised. We all know how his government failed to manage the energy sector and upgrade its capacity, which has ruined the economy.

He dares comment on the Taliban and al Qaeda culture in Pakistan when he himself made the fundamental contribution in promoting it by following a dual policy post-9/11. Pakistan caught hundreds of al Qaeda operatives and handed them over to the US, but provided sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban. The Musharraf regime banned the extremist organisations in 2002, but allowed them to continue their nefarious activities under new names. We are reaping the bitter harvest of Musharraf’s policies now, which have resulted in the emergence of the Pakistani Taliban. Today Pervez Musharraf has the temerity to call Nawaz Sharif a ‘closet Taliban’. This transcends the limits of brazenness, because he himself acted more like an ‘open Taliban’ during his years in power.

Many of Musharraf’s crimes come in the category of ‘High Treason’ in the Constitution of Pakistan and are punishable by death. He had been let off the hook as a quid pro quo because of an understanding with the PPP, and partly because the institution he headed would not allow its former chief to be dragged over the coals. But it seems that his ambition is undiminished. This talk of a party and a contribution to Pakistan cannot be without reason. Does he once again want to present himself, this time out of uniform, as a saviour? If it is true, he does not seem to realise that the immunity against criminal proceedings ensured by his powerful connections could unravel and he may be held accountable for the wrongs that he has committed.

Therefore our advice to the former General Musharraf is that he should count his blessings and enjoy his safety while lecturing around the world, and lay his dream of returning to politics to rest. It will only make the murky waters of politics in Pakistan murkier.

NYTimes: US Has 'Private Spy Network' in Pakistan, Afghanistan

2010-03-16T03:03:00.007-05:00

The NY Times report could be seen here.

Here is a summary of the development from DemocracyNow:

"The Pentagon has launched a criminal investigation of a Defense Department official who set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants. The New York Times reports the official, Michael Furlong, has been accused of running an off-the-books spy operation with the help of private contractors who gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps. It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Two of the contractors hired by the military were the writer Robert Young Pelton and Eason Jordan, the former chief news executive for CNN. Pelton said he and Jordan were hired by the military to run a public website to help the government gain a better understanding of the region but that their reporting was then used to kill people."

An interesting and potentially quite revealing line of inquiry would be to look into Michael Furlong's career and his connections to the "Special Operations" in Iraq and Af-Pak. The NY Times reports that he "hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

General McChrystal, the current commander of ISAF operations in Afghanistan, had previously served as Commander of Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008. Before his present assignment, he served in Iraq, where Michael Furlong is also reported to have carried out his covert activities. On the occasion of General McChrystal's assignment in Afghanistan by President Obama, Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch commented on the nature of General McChrystal's operations in these words:

"From 2003-2008, McChrystal ran a special operations outfit in Iraq (and then Afghanistan) so secret that the Pentagon avoided mention of it. In those years, its operatives were torturing, abusing, and killing Iraqis as part of a systematic targeted assassination program on a large scale. It was, for those who remember the Vietnam era, a mini-Phoenix program...

"Although he's now being touted in the press as the man to bring the real deal in counterinsurgency to Afghanistan (and "protect" the Afghan population in the bargain), his actual field is "counter-terrorism." He spoke the right words to Congress during his recent confirmation hearings, but pay no attention.

The team he's now assembling in Washington to lead his operations in Afghanistan (and someday maybe Pakistan) tells you what you really need to know. It's filled with special operations types. The expertise of his chosen key lieutenants is, above all, in special ops work. At the same time, reports Rowan Scarborough at Fox News, an extra 1,000 special operations troops are now being "quietly" dispatched to Afghanistan, bringing the total number there to about 5,000. Keep in mind that it's been the special operations forces, with their kick-down-the-door night raids and air strikes, who have been involved in the most notorious incidents of civilian slaughter, which continue to enrage Afghans.

Note, by the way, that while the president is surging into Afghanistan 21,000 troops and advisors (as well as those special ops forces), ever more civilian diplomats and advisors, and ever larger infusions of money, there is now to be a command surge as well. General McChrystal, according to a recent New York Times article, has "been given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans... [He] is assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years. That kind of commitment to one theater of combat is unknown in the military today outside Special Operations, but reflects an approach being imported by General McChrystal, who spent five years in charge of secret commando teams in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Considering the nature and history of Michael Furlong's activities, it is quite likely that he is part of the current "Af-Pak" strategy of the US/ISAF Commander in Afghanistan and is running his business with the consent of the US Special Representative for the region, Richard Holbrooke.

The same NY Times report further indicates the following about Michael Furlong's involvement:

"Officials say Mr. Furlong’s operation seems to have been shut down, and he is now is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Defense Department for a number of possible offenses, including contract fraud.

Even in a region of the world known for intrigue, Mr. Furlong’s story stands out. At times, his operation featured a mysterious American company run by retired Special Operations officers and an iconic C.I.A. figure who had a role in some of the agency’s most famous episodes, including the Iran-Contra affair.

The allegations that he ran this network come as the American intelligence community confronts other instances in which private contractors may have been improperly used on delicate and questionable operations, including secret raids in Iraq and an assassinations program that was halted before it got off the ground."

GEO Documentary: Security Failures in Karachi Muharram Blasts

2010-03-09T20:22:00.009-06:00

See below for GEO-TV's investigative report in Urdu on the security failures before and on the day of Ashura in Karachi. My comments can be seen here: "Six Talking Points About the Ashura Blast in Karachi" and "Muharram Blasts in Karachi: Why The Government is Implicated". Further, "On Militant Extremists in Pakistan and their Supporters."

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

See a similar investigative report by Dunya News that was released soon after the Ashura blast (December 28, 2010). It was very timely and insightful.

Tackling Pakistan's Problems: Where to Start?

2010-03-09T01:58:00.027-06:00

See related posts here and here.

Below see a thoughtful perspective on tackling Pakistan's fundamental problems. Here I only want to comment on one causal factor (without discounting other contributing factors). I disagree with the part about "culture" when the author defines "anti-Americanism". I have the materialistic aspects of the American mainstream culture in mind here. Effective at the roots of many environmental, social, and economic problems, this materialism is corroding the American society itself and is part and parcel of American hegemonic expansionism in the world. It especially targets the middle and elite classes, who (often) get in the way of a meaningful social transformation with their materialistic self-indulgence, apathy, and/or active opposition. Not saying that these classes were not apathetic or exploitative before (other causal factors were definitely effective), but the problem amplified with corporate globalization (among other things, with the neo-liberal market reforms and hyper consumerism that it promoted).

In order to truly resist the American imperialism, we also need to resist the cultural imperialism. Toward the end of her famous 2002 speech, Arundhati Roy said it well: "Meanwhile down at the mall there's a mid-season sale. Everything's discounted - oceans, rivers, oil, gene pools, fig wasps, flowers, childhoods, aluminum factories, phone companies, wisdom, wilderness, civil rights, eco-systems, air - all 4,600 million years of evolution. It's packed, sealed, tagged, valued and available off the rack. (No returns). ...The American way of life is simply not sustainable because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America." (See part of that speech here).

I would frame the argument this way that the fight is not against American people or religions but against American imperialism - political, economic, cultural. Resisting this cultural imperialism is also about resisting Orientalism and the colonial ("brown sahib") mindset that develops at the receiving end.

I believe that any meaningful and sustainable change in Pakistan (and in the US and elsewhere) has to start with change of hearts, with a re-vision of individual and cultural values and priorities, and a re-definition of our interaction with fellow human beings and the environment. Of course, the challenge lies in defining the actual contours and details of this kind of vision.

The New Left revisited
By Asha Amirali, Dawn, Mar 09, 2010
Source

The much-maligned and weakened Pakistani Left often comes in for more than its fair share of prescriptive remedies.

One such critical dose appeared on these pages on March 3 in which Mr Muhammad Ali Siddiqi expressed a cautious optimism about the recent merger of a handful of leftist groups, which has resulted in the formation of the Workers Party Pakistan (WPP).

He also, however, advised the ‘New Left’ to ‘not jump on the anti-American bandwagon’, recognise that the real enemy facing Pakistan today is religious militancy, welcome foreign investment, and follow the lead of New Labour in the UK and repackage itself given the realities of the post-Cold War world.

To start with the anti-Americanism aspect, I completely agree with Mr Siddiqi that a new leftist political formation in Pakistan must not limit itself to hollow slogans. There is an urgent need to objectively analyse the contradictions that exist within Pakistani society and put together a political programme that responds to them.

Not all of Pakistan’s problems can be blamed away, and Mr Siddiqi is right that there is an immediate need to debunk the anti-American hate-mongering of the right, with all its emphasis on waging war against kufr. But what most liberals and others who decry the Left’s anti-Americanism fail to see is that the Left is not anti-American, it is anti-imperialist. Those are two completely different political positions — the Left’s fight is not with a particular culture but with any state that seeks to destroy, coerce and manipulate others to its own advantage.

Most Pakistani people, and indeed people the world over, resent American interventionism in their affairs. The Left can only be a force for genuine emancipation if it heeds this sentiment and builds and articulates an alternative vision which privileges the democratisation of the global order. And while it is obvious, there is no harm in repeating a truth: without genuine democratisation of the global order, democratisation within national boundaries is impossible.

A second but related point is the policy regime that the international financial institutions have championed in Pakistan over the past three decades. The claim that the Pakistani people will benefit from uninhibited flows of foreign capital and technology has amassed little evidence in its favour.

Throughout the tenure of Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan experienced an extraordinary influx of capital and new information technologies. The result was a temporary bubble of growth which burst, leaving in its wake sharpened inequality and an economy teetering on termite-ridden stilts. The global financial crisis followed soon after and made clear just how viable and pro-people the radical free market capitalist model is.There is no doubt that Pakistan needs to employ its unemployed millions and increase productivity across all sectors, but the trickle-down effects from foreign capital have yet to show themselves in most of the Third World. So instead, why should the Left in Pakistan not look at the experiments being attempted in Latin America which reject the neo-liberal paradigm and emphasise growth and integration strategies that put people and the environment first? It seems the logical thing to do.

Finally, and very crucially, the greatest problem facing Pakistan at the present time is not religious militancy, but fragmentation along ethnic lines. Balochistan is (still) burning and a wide cross-section of the Baloch people are increasingly drawn towards separatism. Sindhi nationalist sentiment, while currently muted because the PPP is in office, is nevertheless simmering below the surface. A large number of Pakhtuns view the unfolding civil war-like situation in Pakhtunkhwa as a war in which a conspiring and duplicitous state treats Pakhtuns as nothing more than pawns on its chessboard.

Historically the Left and ethnic-nationalists struggled together against the unitary state. Today, the Left — particularly in Punjab — must make clear its commitment to a new social contract in which all nations within the state of Pakistan are considered equal and given rights and resources accordingly.

Religious militancy is growing, yes. It is instilling hatred and violence and negating all that progressive forces want to see realised in Pakistan. However, I believe it is essential for the Left to move beyond the liberal refrain about the Islamists constituting an existential threat to the Pakistani state. Islamism has established roots in parts of Pakistani society largely because of its historic patronage by the military establishment. Today it sustains these roots because of continued support by the state, the presence of western troops in the region, and the end of imagination that afflicts society.

Military operations against people who have been alienated from the social and political mainstream will not reduce the appeal of radical Islamist ideology. We must focus on causes rather than react to symptoms: the ‘real enemy’, as Mr Siddiqi put it, is not religious militancy, rather, it is the militaristic state and its Islam-centric ideology, the nastiest but perfectly logical manifestation of which is the Taliban. The ‘New Left’ in Pakistan will do well to create consensus amongst progressive forces on these most basic of issues. However, the clear differences between Mr Siddiqi’s point of view and the one propounded here indicate that such a consensus might be difficult.

Those who, in Mr Siddiqi’s words, are not sure how they “feel about the word ‘Left’”, are unlikely to support a strongly anti-imperialist, anti-neoliberal programme. Unfortunately though, meaningful change is only possible if we travel this difficult path. There are no shortcuts.

Petraeus: US helped ISI create extremists

2010-03-08T04:05:00.005-06:00

In case, anyone needed a further confirmation, here is General Petraeus admitting that the US helped ISI create the menace of extremism and violence that we are facing in Pakistan today. Unfortunately, both players are still attached to this strategic tool, with their respective interests converging and conflicting in different situations. See my previous comments here, here, and here.

US helped ISI create extremists: Petraeus
The News, March 07, 2010
Source

Excerpt:

“Our money, Saudi money, others joined together, helped the ISI, indeed, form these elements which then went in and threw the Soviets out of Afghanistan with our weaponry. And then we left and they were holding the bag,” he said, acknowledging that it was the US which helped ISI to form these extremist elements. General Petraeus, however, acknowledged that the interests of Pakistan and the US differ in Afghanistan. He said Pakistan and the US has the same interest in Afghanistan in not allowing al-Qaeda to re-establish safe havens. “But it also has an interest that is somewhat different than ours, and that is their strategic depth and always has been for a country that’s very narrow and has its historic enemy to its east. So again, we just have to appreciate this.

“This is not unique, of course, just to Afghanistan and Pakistan and throughout the world. We have interests, they have interests. What we want to do is find the conversion interest, understand where they are divergent and try to make progress together,” Petraeus said.

Jundullah and the Washington Connection

2010-03-06T09:14:00.004-06:00

See related posts here and here.

Is the Obama Administration Supporting Violent "Regime Change" in Iran?
by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Source

Excerpt:

"We were in Tehran on February 24 -- the day when Iranian authorities announced the capture of Abdol Malik Rigi, the head of Jundallah. Jundallah (the name in Arabic for "soldiers of God"; the group is also known as the People's Resistance Movement of Iran) is a Sunni Islamist group that claims to be fighting for the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran. Its activities are focused on Sistan-Baluchistan, which is the Islamic Republic's only Sunni-majority province. In recent years, the group has carried out a number of high-profile terrorist attacks in Iran. These include a 2005 attack on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's motorcade in Sistan-Baluchistan (one of Ahmadinejad's bodyguards was killed); a 2006 attack on a bus in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed 18 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC); the abduction and execution of 16 Iranian policemen in 2007; a car bomb attack on a security installation in Sistan-Baluchistan in 2008 that killed at least four people; a 2009 ambush in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed 12 Iranian policeman; and a 2009 bomb attack on a mosque in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed 25 people and injured 125.

Most recently, on October 18, 2009, Jundallah carried out a suicide bomb attack in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed 42 people, including several senior IRGC officers. We wrote on this attack at the time, as did Ben Katcher; we also published a guest post on the incident by Jasim Husain Ali.

Two days after his capture was announced, Rigi appeared on Iranian television, where he said, among other things, that Jundallah receives financial and military support from the United States; U.S. Government officials have denied such support on the record (though they have not denied any relationship with Jundallah). Some media reports claim that U.S. support for Jundallah is "indirect," in that the support is channeled through Pakistan and Gulf Arab states allied to the United States. Iranian officials have charged for several years that Jundallah receives support from the United States, as well as from Pakistan and Sunni Arab states allied to Washington.

Our impression in Tehran last week was that the idea the United States has some sort of ties to Jundallah and other groups considered "terrorists" by most Iranians seems to be widely accepted in Tehran as a "social fact," at least. We observed a genuine, deep, and strongly positive popular reaction to the news of Rigi's arrest that seemed to cut across class and political divides in Iranian society. When news of Rigi's capture broke, it was around midday in Tehran. We were at the University of Tehran's Faculty of World Studies, meeting with graduate students in a conference room that was equipped with a large-screen television. We were interrupted by an incoming flow of students and faculty, who apologized for the intrusion but explained that there was an urgent news story which they wanted to see on television. The television was turned on, and we watched the nationally broadcast press conference at which the Islamic Republic's Intelligence Minister recounted Rigi's arrest. As we went through subsequent meetings and conversations over the course of the afternoon, it seemed clear that the news of Rigi's arrest was a source of considerable popular satisfaction. That evening, in some residential neighborhoods, there were impromptu parties, with individuals distributing cake to their neighbors and other similar gestures of celebration. We were told that one of the senior IRGC officers killed in the Jundallah attack last October was a widely known and admired hero of the Iran-Iraq war.

Iranian officials are not the only sources claiming that U.S. intelligence is linked to groups carrying out terrorist operations inside the Islamic Republic. Some Western media reports -- citing former CIA case officers -- say that there are links between Jundallah and U.S. intelligence; for example, see this widely noted story published by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker in July 2008. Some of these reports say that Jundallah is one of a number of ethnic separatist groups (including Arab, Azeri, Baluch, and Kurdish groups) receiving covert support from the United States, as part of a covert campaign authorized during the George W. Bush Administration to press Tehran over the nuclear issue and destabilize the Islamic Republic. (For a recent discussion of the issue by a retired CIA officer, see here.) As we ourselves have written, there is considerable evidence that President Obama inherited from his predecessor a number of overt programs for "democracy promotion" in Iran, as well as covert initiatives directed against Iranian interests.

Obama has done nothing to scale back or stop these programs -- a posture that has not gone unnoticed in Tehran. We understand that, last year, the Obama Administration reviewed whether Jundallah should be designated a foreign terrorist organization, but decided not to do so. Why was that? And, even though the Muhahedin-e Khalq (MEK) retains its designation as a foreign terrorist organization, the Obama Administration continues to push the Iraqi government not to consider a longstanding Iranian request that MEK cadres in Iraq -- who were granted special protective status by the George W. Bush Administration -- be deported to Iran. Why is the Obama Administration trying to protect members of a U.S. government-designated terrorist group?

Could it be that at least some elements of the Obama Administration believe that U.S. connections to groups like Jundallah and the MEK are potentially useful policy instruments vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic? Based on our conversations in Tehran, it seems clear that the perception of continuing U.S. involvement with and support for groups carrying out violent attacks inside Iran is having a corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration's seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions toward the Islamic Republic."

See the full text here.

Dubai strives to Guard its Image after Hamas Leader's Killing

2010-03-04T01:42:00.004-06:00

See a related post: "Fisk asks tough questions about the killing of Hamas leader in Dubai"

Police Strive to Guard Dubai's Image after Killing
By Robert F. Worth, NYTimes, March 2, 2010
Source

Excerpts

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The people who killed a Hamas operative in an airport hotel here in January seem to have thought they could pass it off as a natural death, or perhaps just another of this region’s macabre mysteries. They injected him with a muscle relaxant, suffocated him and then smoothed away any signs of struggle, reattaching the hotel door chain as they left the room, investigators say.

Instead, the Dubai police quickly unraveled the plot and identified 26 suspects, in a display of transparency that is almost unheard of in the Arab world. They released a 27-minute montage of video surveillance, exposing the techniques — including agents clumsily disguising themselves with wigs and fake beards — of what is now almost universally believed to be the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.

The fallout from the killing of the operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, has created a diplomatic mess for Israel and raised troubling questions about identity theft, the spread of surveillance, and the colliding definitions of terrorism and crime. But above all it has underscored this beleaguered city-state’s determination to protect its tourist-friendly image — and its powerhouse economy — from any further damage.

Dubai was hit hard by the global financial crisis, and it is keen not to let any more killers take advantage of its role as the region’s most open city. A troubling precedent came last year with the killing of a Chechen political figure. At each of the near-daily news conferences held in recent weeks by Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim, Dubai’s gruff, swaggering police chief, the subtext has been clear: do not settle your scores here.

“By being so transparent about it, Dubai is trying to send a very clear message of deterrence,” said Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at United Arab Emirates University. “This is probably the most diverse and open community in the Arab world, and to see these things happening not once, but two or three times — at a certain point you have to say ‘We will not tolerate this.’ ”

...

Although the killers succeeded in their mission, the botched getaway has stunned many across the Arab world, where the Mossad is widely credited with almost superhuman skill and secrecy. Some have suggested that the agents knew they were being filmed, but most analysts agree that they could not have expected that so much of the operation would be made public.

It was fairly straightforward police work: once they saw the injection mark in the thigh of Mr. Mabhouh, Dubai investigators had only to start collating hotel records and reviewing security video with the help of face-recognition software, according to people familiar with the investigation.

...

The Mossad has a record of taking startling risks. Beginning in the 1970s, the agency carried out assassinations in Beirut, Lebanon; Rome; Athens and many other cities. They made some terrible mistakes, including the killing of an Algerian-born waiter in Norway in 1973, whom they mistook for a Palestinian militant. But never has an alleged Mossad operation been exposed in such detail as the January killing.

It is impossible to say how successful Dubai’s deterrence efforts will be. Its police work has certainly created a headache for Israel. Most of the killers seem to have used passport information stolen from dual nationals living in Israel, and the relevant governments have made angry complaints and begun investigations. The Dubai police have released information about credit cards used by the killers that also suggests an Israeli military connection, and Mr. Tamim has said he is “99 percent, if not 100 percent sure” that the Mossad is behind the killing. Israel is maintaining its customary mask of silence about accusations related to its spy agency.

In Israel, some columnists have expressed concern about the operation’s apparent sloppiness. But for the most part it has been treated as a joke. During the Purim holiday, when Jews traditionally dress up in costume, many wore tennis outfits and wigs, mimicking the disguises of the assassins.

Even here, many people seem to feel that the diplomatic uproar will soon die down. Certainly, no one here seems too troubled by the Jan. 19 killing of Mr. Mabhouh, who had a role in the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989 and the smuggling of arms to Gaza.

Ahmadinejad meets Nasrallah and Assad in Syria: What is the significance?

2010-03-02T22:17:00.008-06:00

Here is one perspective. See here if this video does not play.

Netanyahu: Israel will never cede Jordan Valley

2010-03-02T21:49:00.006-06:00

Dividing up this geographic unity or the two-state solution was never a viable solution for sustainable and just peace in this region. Israel's intentions are becoming clearer day-by-day to people who were previously deluded by the rhetoric of "peace process" and "two-state solution". Recently, Israel also added two West Bank holy sites to its national heritage list, sparking intense protests from Palestinians and pro-justice activists around the world.

Netanyahu: Israel will never cede Jordan Valley
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz, March 2, 2010
Source

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would never agree to withdraw from the Jordan Valley under any peace agreement signed with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Jordan Valley's strategic importance along the eastern border of the West Bank made it impossible for Israel to withdraw, according to a meeting participant.

Netanyahu also told delegates to the meeting that he was set on preventing the smuggling of rockets into the Palestinian Authority, attacking opposition leader Tzipi Livni for what he called her inability to secure Israel against such a threat.

"I see that for you, a piece of paper is enough to make sure that rockets don't enter the Palestinian territory," Netanyahu said, his words directed at Livni. "I was elected to make sure that this actually happens.

Latest from Jhang, D. I. Khan, and Faisalabad

2010-03-01T19:12:00.007-06:00

See here and here for the conspicuous role of the government and politics. The first report shows that the upcoming elections are also an effective element. The Milad un-Nabi gatherings and processions (celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad), as mentioned in the second report, are widely attended by people of all sects throughout Pakistan (and around the world). Traditionally, the main processions in many Pakistani cities have been organized and led by organizations belonging to the Barelvi Sunni sect.

Jhang fears return of sectarian violence
By Khalid Hurral & Babar Dogar, The News, February 27, 2010,
Source

PML-N sees no harm in seeking banned outfit’s blessing

JHANG/LAHORE: A defunct sectarian organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), is rearing its head again and its leader’s participation in an election rally in PP-82 constituency, along with Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, has sent shivers down the spines of citizens here, who have seen sectarian bloodshed for over a decade before it subsided in 2002.

The city has witnessed inauguration of development projects by the chief of the defunct organisation. One can see SSP’s flags across the city, and all this is going on under the nose of the administration and police.

In the last general elections, Jhang voters rejected the SSP candidate and, for the first time in two decades, the SSP failed to secure any seat in the district. However, people allege that MPA Sheikh Muhammad Yaqoob, who won from the Pakistan Muslim League-Q platform, switched over to the Pakistan Muslim League-N and started backing the defunct organisation. Yaqoob denies he ever patronised the banned organisation.

People allege that local authorities, especially police, were turning a blind eye to the resurrecting outfit and show of force by its gun-toting activists.

Officials deny this charge when they are asked to explain the unchecked display of firearms. Some of the officials, however, do admit that the situation is alarming, but they refuse to say anything on record.

Their fear is not unfathomable. A few months back when some miscreants, allegedly belonging to the banned party, burnt a train and the government and private offices and property, police launched a crackdown on the law-breakers. However, later, the transfers of the district police chief and the city SHOs put them in a passive mode and they started showing reluctance in continuing the investigation into the cases of arson.

When they are reminded that the law is being flouted publicly and they are inactive, their response is usually a counter question: “Do you think we are greater protectors of the law than the law minister. Go and put this question to the law minister and the PML-N lawmakers.”

Sources revealed that the district police have discharged many SSP activists from the Fourth Schedule. Nowadays, the SSP leaders can be seen moving in the city with masked gunmen around. DPO Sultan Ahmed Chaudhry told The News he had sought a report from the police concerned about the SSP’s activities. After getting the report, he added, he would be able to say anything on the issue. He said the police were performing their duties according to the law.

When asked how come development projects had the names of a proscribed outfit’s chief, District Officer Roads Aslam Khan claimed he never issued any orders to that effect. When contacted, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah admitted that the SSP was a banned organisation and majority of its activists involved in criminal activities had been nabbed by the law-enforcing agencies. He said the organisation still had a huge following, who are not involved in any criminal activity. About Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, he said he was a runner-up in the 2008 general election, and he had grabbed 45,000 votes against the PML-Q’s Sheikh Waqas Akram.

“If Maulana Ludhianvi was an activist of the banned organisation, why he was allowed to contest the 2008 election?” He alleged that PPP’s Federal Minister Tasneem Qureshi had invited the Maulana to a lunch at his Sargodha residence to seek his support for the PPP candidate in Jhang by-polls. He claimed that some provincial and federal ministers of the PPP had also visited the Jhang residence of Maulana Ludhianvi to seek his support.

Nevertheless, he said, Maulana Ludhianvi, on his request, had decided to support the PML-N candidate, Azam Chela, and made an announcement in this regard at a public meeting, which was also attended by him (minister).

The minister said the PML-N had made him the in-charge of the election campaign in Jhang and he was present along with Maulana Ludhianvi at the public meeting. Moreover, he said, Sheikh Waqas Akram was supporting the PPP candidate in the Jhang by-polls and he was behind all this propaganda, to win over the Shia community votes and to neutralise Maulana Ludhianvi’s support for the PML-N candidate.

He claimed that he was not afraid of the propaganda as he had done nothing illegal or wrong. He further claimed that Federal Ministers Qamar Zaman Kaira, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and all provincial ministers, including Senior Minister Raja Riaz, were striving to win the support for their candidate and indulging in propaganda against him. He stated that Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer had also announced a visit to the constituency.

The minister’s view that the SSP chief was an electoral candidate raises a serious question: “Isn’t it a dereliction of duty on part of our state apparatus that a defunct outfit’s leaders went through the pre-election scrutiny?”

---

Violence mars Milad celebrations in two cities
By M. Irfan Mughal and Mohammad Saleem, Dawn, Mar 1, 2010
Source

DERA ISMAIL KHAN/ FAISALABAD: Dera Ismail Khan and Faisalabad districts were in the grip of tension following clashes and attacks on processions taken out on Saturday to celebrate Eid Miladun Nabi (peace be upon him).

A curfew was imposed in three tehsils of Dera Khan and Section 144 was imposed in Faisalabad.

Troops were deployed in the troubled Dheki town of Dera Khan after clashes between two sectarian groups.

Police and hospital sources said that seven people had been killed and 32 others injured in an attack on a procession and an exchange of fire between law-enforcement personnel and rioters.

Trouble started when the procession passing by a seminary came under attack. Witnesses said that two men in the procession were killed and five others injured.

Immediately after the incident, a charged mob attacked the seminary. A police contingent trying to bring the situation under control also came under attack and five people were killed and 27 others injured when police fired back.

The town was calm but tense on Sunday with troops patrolling the streets. The main Dera city, Proa and Paharpur tehsils were under strict curfew.

NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti discussed the situation with Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on phone and appealed to him to cooperate with the government to promote sectarian harmony in the area.

According to a handout issued in Peshawar, Mr Hoti assured the Maulana that the government would take action against trouble-makers.

DIG Feroz Shah said that over 50 people had been arrested for firing at the procession and cases had been registered against them.

Officials said that a curfew had also been imposed in the adjacent Tank town.

The administration convened meetings of elders, Ulema and politicians to seek their help in maintaining peace in the town which has a history of sectarian clashes.

Police said a pick-up truck loaded with weapons was seized near the Cawar checkpost and a man was arrested.

In Faisalabad, four people were injured when a group of people believed to be hiding in Gol Mosque opened fire on an Eid Miladun Nabi (PBUH) procession in Ghulam Mohammadabad locality of the city.

Some men in the procession allegedly vandalised the mosque and pelted it with stones.

A Gol Mosque spokesperson said that people in the procession had provoked them by throwing stones at the mosque. After the firing, a large number of people besieged the Ghulam Mohammadabad police station and set more than 200 vehicles and motorbikes on fire.

The protesters also ransacked the police station, forcing the personnel run away. Official vehicles of Gulberg traffic sector were also torched by the mob. Police tried to disperse the mob with teargas, but failed.

The charged mob also pelted policemen with stones, injuring a few constables.

The protesters blocked the Saddar Bazaar Road, Latif Chowk and Chandni Chowk and burned tyres. A number of shells fired by police also landed in houses.

The mob also attacked and allegedly looted the house of Gol Mosque khateeb Zahid Mehmood Qasmi.

About 48 people belonging to both sects, including Mr Qasmi, were arrested.

Punjab Inspector-General of Police Tariq Saleem Dogar arrived in the city on Saturday night.

Officials of police and district administration held a meeting with Ahmed Ludhianvi, chief of the proscribed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, and urged him to help calm the situation.

On Sunday, a mob attacked a mosque in Usman Town on the Millat Road and burned a motorcycle and a generator. Police arrested 12 people.

SSP (operations) Sarfraz Falki suspended Sargodha Road SHO Zahid Hussain for dereliction of duty.

Despite the imposition of Section 144, people belonging to the Gol Mosque sect took out a procession and held a meeting at the Clock Tower intersection.

The eight bazzars emanating from the Clock Tower remained closed.

Dawn: US wants hassle-free visa for its nationals

2010-02-28T04:14:00.003-06:00

For thoughts on what may be behind, see here.

US wants hassle-free visa for its nationals
By Baqir Sajjad Syed, Dawn, February 27, 2010
Source

ISLAMABAD: Washington wants Islamabad to put in place a restriction free and uniform visa regime for its diplomats and embassy staff posted here allowing them to carry out ‘full range of activities’.

“We look forward to creation of a visa mechanism that will enable US officials do their jobs without interference,” US Ambassador Anne Patterson said in a statement issued by the embassy’s Office of Public Affairs.

Delays in issuing and extension of visas of American diplomats and other embassy staff posted here remained a major irritant in relations between the two countries.

The government recently issued most of the requested visas in an effort to placate an angry Washington, which had linked it to the release of the deferred Coalition Support Fund reimbursements.

Although, the backlog is yet to be fully cleared and some of the visas are still being processed, Ambassador Patterson acknowledged progress was being made. “Prime Minister Gilani’s offer to work with the United States to establish a transparent process on visas that will enable us to undertake full range of activities … is a positive development.”

The issuance of most of the visas led to release of $349 million out of an outstanding amount of $2.6 billion.

Many of the remaining cases relate to personnel assigned with the Office of Defence Representative for Pakistan (ODRP), which has been at the centre of the dispute over CSF disbursements.

The ODRP has been also accused by the US Government Accounting Office of inconsistently applying CSF guidelines in Pakistan.

With the visa issue nearing resolution, the Americans look to be setting the bar even higher for Islamabad for the release of remaining funds by seeking visa mechanism that ensures a hindrance-free working.

Besides, the visa clampdown, the other concern for the Americans has been enhanced vigilance by the country’s security agencies, which have recently intercepted embassy vehicles for search. While Pakistani authorities insist that the search was necessitated by the deteriorating law and order situation, the US embassy took them as ‘contrived incidents’ and ‘provocative actions’.

A senior US diplomat, speaking to Dawn, said in addition to a restriction-free regime, Washington also wanted a regular and uniform visa system for all staff based in Pakistan.

“Some of them are given single entry visas for one month, others get multiple visas for a year,” he said, adding this had to be standardised.

He indicated that close to 50 visas requests were still under consideration by Pakistani authorities.

Jundallah's Rigi's Confession Clip

2010-02-25T12:11:00.004-06:00

See my comments here

US offered Rigi 'extensive aid' for Iran attacks
Feb 25, 2010, PressTV
Source

The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed that the US administration had assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The following is the detailed transcript of Rigi's confession, stated in Farsi, as broadcasted on Press TV.

"After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting."

"I said we didn't have any time for a meeting and if we do help them they should promise to give us aid. They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran."

"They asked to meet me and we said where should we meet you and he said in Dubai. We sent someone to Dubai and we told a person to ask a place for myself in Afghanistan from the area near the operations and they complied that they would sort out the problem for us and they will find Mr. Rigi a base and guarantee his own security in Afghanistan or in any of the countries adjacent to Iran so that he can carry on his operations.

"They told me that in Kyrgyzstan they have a base called Manas near Bishkek, and that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and that if such high-ranking people come to the United Arab Emirates, they may be observed by intelligence people but in a place like Bishkek this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach an agreement on making personal contacts. But after the last major operation we took part in, they said that they wanted to meet with us.

"The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran… not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don't have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them.

"One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level."

Iran's security forces arrested Rigi on Tuesday by bringing down his plane over the Iranian airspace, as he was onboard a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan.

BBC on Security Establishment's new Taliban strategy

2010-02-25T11:49:00.006-06:00

See a related post here.

What lies behind Pakistan's Taliban arrests?
By M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Feb 25, 2010
Source

Islamabad: A succession of senior Afghan Taliban leaders have reportedly been seized in Pakistan in recent weeks. The world has been left guessing as to what might lie behind these arrests.

But answers will take time in coming.

At least four Taliban "shadow governors" of provinces in Afghanistan were arrested in Pakistan in February, reports say.

But for the moment the Pakistani military has only confirmed one arrest: that of the Taliban's top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was detained in the southern city of Karachi.

Yet they have not issued any categorical denials about the other alleged arrests.

And the US media has been quoting unnamed Pakistani intelligence officials when reporting them.

Shift in attitude?

It is normally unlikely that such leaks could occur without discreet authorisation. Pakistan's policy of ambiguity when it comes to confirming these arrests could be down to the sensitivity of being seen to follow a US agenda.

Indeed analysts have long suspected senior Taliban leaders of finding shelter and sympathy in Pakistan, although the Pakistani authorities have consistently denied this.

So what are Pakistan's reasons for this sudden stream of arrests?

One group of analysts is of the view that the Pakistanis have finally started seeing the Taliban as a threat to their society and have decided to co-operate with the West's efforts to contain the movement.

Some say it is partly a quid pro quo for the US drone strikes that eliminated the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, responsible for hundreds of bomb attacks in recent years.

But whether this amounts to a shift in Pakistan's security paradigm is unclear.

The arrests also coincide with the onset of a major military offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province, long considered a Taliban stronghold.

Many believe that Pakistan's powerful security establishment, which is widely perceived to be a supporter of the Taliban movement, has come under considerable pressure from the US to make adjustments in its policy.

The Pakistani military heavily depends on the US for funds and equipment.

President Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan is also an issue for Pakistan. Analysts say that in the event of non-cooperation, Pakistan fears losing the chance of salvaging its "legitimate" interests in Afghanistan.

Countering India

The Pakistani move to arrest top Taliban leaders has also come as the first peace talks between India and Pakistan were held.

India halted all talks with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which India says was carried out by Pakistan-based militants.

Pakistan, which already disputes India's territorial claim to the northern part of Kashmir, is wary of its growing influence in Afghanistan.

Over the last 20 years, the Pakistani military is believed to have backed a number of militant groups launching attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In this time it has also been accused of training and funding the Afghan Taliban with a view to having a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul.

In the years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Pakistani military has been repeatedly blamed for "double-crossing" the Americans - protecting the Taliban and other militants while at the same time playing its role as the frontline state in the US-led "war on terror".

Since 2008, Pakistan has also resisted mounting Western pressure for more troops to be deployed in its north-western tribal badlands, on the Afghan border. It has said it needs troops on the eastern border with India.

With the Indians finally coming to the dialogue table and the US going for a troops surge in Afghanistan, options for Pakistan may well be shrinking.

And affirming its own influence in a new Afghan order will be important.

Reduced Afghan role?

But there is another interpretation of the latest events.

The argument goes that the recent arrests are part of an American strategy to drive a wedge in the Taliban movement and engage the more "moderate" elements for some kind of a power-sharing deal.

The arrests of top Taliban leaders will hurt the morale of their foot soldiers, and minimise their ability to regroup if they disperse in the wake of the US-led offensive.

These leaders could then be set free as part of a deal with the Taliban, and allowed to lead the movement into a process of integration with the wider Afghan society.

If peace is held and reconstruction begins quickly, analysts say the influence of Taliban may shrink drastically as they would be forced to compete with tribal, regional and political entities.

If that happens, Pakistani influence in Afghanistan will also decline. Is Pakistan ready for this?

Others argue that the leaders reportedly arrested so far have all been close to Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, and as such are more pragmatists than ideologues.

If they have not been arrested with negotiations in mind, their detention may not only close down crucial channels of communication with the Taliban, they may also leave the movement in the hands of more rigid and brutal second-generation leaders.

The fine print here is that Pakistan is unlikely to be naive enough not to see that by eliminating their proteges in the Taliban movement, they will be cutting off their influence over the only group they can hope to befriend in an otherwise hostile, pro-India Afghanistan.

The arrests may just be indicative of a Pakistani decision to settle for a reduced role in Afghanistan.

The fate of the detained Taliban leaders and a close watch on any further arrests may cast some light on Pakistan's strategy - in the absence of official comment.