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Posts tagged with: America
Jan 16, 2008    |       8 comments

A New World Order

Guest Blog by Faisal K – Deadpan Thoughts

In the last 10 years or so we have all watched in horror as disaster after disaster has struck the world. The events I am referring to are mostly man made ones which have left an indelible mark on our history and our conscience, they have also lead to a change in the very thought patterns and perceptions of the world.

This is not the only time in worlds history where a chain of events has happened resulting in wars, famine, destabilization of countries and then their destruction. It has happened before..for instance in the French revolution and the world wars. However If we consider, most of the calamities in the last 10 years have been attributed to militants and militancy in one form or the other. Al Qaeda claims responsibility for many of these events. The 9/11 disaster, the Gulf War, the Invasion of Afghanistan, The London Bombings, wide spread suicide attacks all over the world. Each one of these events has had a damaging impact on our collective trust in our people, our religions and our leaders.

Obviously with the amount of media coverage it has received, by those who control such things, Al Qaeda has been built up to be everyones Bogeyman. We must think clearly as to how and why Al Qaeda came into being to reveal many startling facts. Everyone knows that it happened at the end of an Afghan war when militants were established and were left with no cause to fight for, so they chose a religious one right? However a strange fact is that the Afghan people were getting support from the U.S even before the Russians moved in. In fact several theories exist that the Red Army made its move only because of tacit American involvement and support for the Afghans. Was the whole soviet Invasion made to happen? As a result of which militancy took root in this region? Is Al Qaeda a front?
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Jan 12, 2008    |      1 comment

Pakistans Nuclear Integrity under International threat

Dr Arif Alvi shares his genuine thoughts and concerns of how he percives the buildup of an American threat to our nuclear arsenal. The recent comments and indicators seriously show that it is not too far to imagine that very soon the US will in all likelihood may engage the United Nations (like their false / fake arguments they used to prempt the invasion of Iraq) to help them secure the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and demote Pakistan from the “nuclear club”.

This is a copy of his email to the People’s Resistance network urging them & the citizens of Pakistan to shed their own differences & lobby against such upcoming threats for the sake of Pakistan

  1. First Pak nukes were started as a subject discussion with their falling in wrong hands as a doomsday scenario and a possibility, started deliberately by US neocons, think tanks and the CIA.
  2. Endorsed recently by Bush Administration where they allowed US to intervene in FATA areas when considered necessary.

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Jan 12, 2008    |      Comments Off on American Journalist Deported from Pakistan today after publication of NY Times Magazine Article

American Journalist Deported from Pakistan today after publication of NY Times Magazine Article

An American journalist, Nicholas Schmidle, who authored the article “Next Gen Taliban ” that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has been deported from Pakistan. He was forced to leave today — Friday, 11 January.

Schmidle will be returning to Washington, DC on Saturday and will be joining a panel I am moderating Monday afternoon titled “Pakistan in Peril” featuring veteran journalists and Pakistan-watchers Steve Coll and Peter Bergen as well as former Bush administration National Security Council senior official Flynt Leverett. Nicholas Schmidle will now be part of this panel.

Schmidle was informed that the Ministry of Interior was deporting him for unspecified reasons, but his speculation is that he was expelled because of his article which The Washington Note highlighted on Wednesday, 2 January — before it came out on Sunday. Continue Reading

Jan 9, 2008    |       12 comments

The NAB Diaries – Part Four

Guest Post by Amer Nazir

Part One of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here
Part Two of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here
Part Three of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here

“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money.

Money is the barometer of a societys virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion when you see that in order to produce, you need to take permission from men who produce nothing when you see money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors when you see that men go richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws dont protect you against them, but protect them against you when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
Ayn Rand (Atlas shrugged)

Perhaps we are missing out on a simple point. It is not an issue of the Army against Democracy. We want democracy but what is holding us back are the illiterate, incompetent, and corrupt politicians. And we do want our army Pakistan needs an army but what is holding us back from having a professional army are the 150 or so generals that are in command…

Corrupt institutions can only bring forth corrupt people and a lawless society. Proper institutions bring forth proper people and transparency. Apart from institutions we need wealth and prosperity a larger pie. With the pie shrinking it is but natural that the men with guns would want to snatch other peoples share as well… there being no other solution for their personal economic survival. Any moral slogan is adopted patriotism, morality, religion, terrorism whatever.
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Jan 7, 2008    |       2 comments

American boots in Pakistan will push miscreants into Pakistani homes

Guest Blog Post by Moin Ansari
Moin Ansari’s Blog

The push theory pushes drug dealers and insurgents out of an area. This action does not eliminate the the insurgents or destroy the insurgency. It simply moves and “pushes the insurgents to a different area, usually into civilian quarters.

The US and NATO have been successful in pushing the insurgency, though not the insurgents out of Kabul to the Afghan Pashtun countryside. NATO, Khad, RAW and others then pushed the insurgency into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Continued activity pushed the insurgency, (not the insurgents) into Swat and Islamabad.

Already some of this insurgency has spread beyond Srinagar. More boots on the ground will spread this fire deep into the heart of India. From the other side, Burma, Thailand already are fighting a growing insurgency.

A more animated intervention or invasion of Pakistan will further push the insurgency and the insurgents into Lahore, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, and other settled areas of Pakistan. Surely the US army will follow the insurgency and the insurgents. Drones flying over Islamabad and firing missiled children hidden in Aabpara or missiles being fired into Gulberg 3 and Husein chowk in Lahore?
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Jan 6, 2008    |       23 comments

Pakistani Voter List sent to Montreal for ‘Safe Keeping’ with Mehndi.com founder

Thanks to KO and his investigation skills we have come across yet another fiasco that will haunt the government of Pakistan in the lead up to the elections.

In the past few weeks the Election Commission of Pakistan had hired the services of a certain Mr. Hayee Bokhari of Cronomagic Canada Inc, a data warehouse, to electronically host Pakistan’s election lists in safe custody under hacker proof conditions, on the face of it, it sounds honest enough, but probing a little further armed with the interview published by Canada.com of the company reveals some interesting and eye-opening flaws.

It must be mentioned that the list containing the 80 Million names of all Pakistanis eligible to vote generally does carry all our sensitive and personal information, ranging from our names, ages, home addresses, parental information and most importantly our ID Card number, if not anything else, simply said enough information to be a security risk. Paranoid as I might be all such information must be protected by the Government of Pakistan and ensured that it must never fall into the wrong hands, let alone transfer the data across the world via the Internet to a software house located in Montreal, try as much as you might, the Internet is considered highly insecure regardless of any number of security levels one might use, it is all crackable at many points along the route and definitely prone to data monitoring & mining. We all know that NSA does not hide the fact that it does data mining of all traffic going in and out of North America despite the attempt to block them in 2003 but I am certain that due to the sensitive nature of Pakistan practically all information coming out of Pakistan will definitely get ‘mined’ to help collect information for their efforts on the War on Terror in this region

I am quite sure that our local IT industry is not ‘that’ inept that we cannot host this information locally within our own secure premises which could be under the full control of the Government, heck it just requires a few good servers and a good firewall to keep hackers out and does not requires a braniac in Canada to figure this out. In all honesty I feel this is sensitive country information which should be housed and protected within the confines of our own territory, not handed over to some company housed in a foreign land in god knows where.
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Jan 6, 2008    |       9 comments

‘The Duty My Wife Left Us’ – Asif Zardari, op-ed Washington Post

Asif Ali Zardari has today written an Op-Ed in the Washington Post. Reading this artcile I came off with a sarcastic smile and the only words that came out after every sentence was YEAH RIGHT!!!. In all honesty I suspect many of you might also have the same reaction

The Duty My Wife Left Us
By Asif Ali Zardari

Last week the world was shocked, and my life was shattered, by the murder of my beloved wife, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Benazir was willing to lay down her life for what she believed in — for the future of a democratic, moderate, progressive Pakistan. She stood up to dictators and fanatics, those who would distort and defy our constitution and those who would defame the Muslim holy book by violence and terrorism. My pain and the pain of our children is unimaginable. But I feel even worse for a world that will have to move forward without this extraordinary bridge between cultures, religions and traditions.

I married Benazir in 1987 but spent less than five years living with her in the prime minister’s house over her two terms in office, which were interrupted by military interventions. I spent more than 11 years in Pakistani jails, imprisoned without a conviction on charges that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf (who brought and pursued the charges) have now publicly acknowledged were politically motivated. Even before Benazir was first elected prime minister, in 1988, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies began working to discredit her, targeting me and several of her friends. I was called “Mr. Ten Percent” by their hired guns in public relations, and the names of her friends abroad were besmirched with ridiculous charges that they headed the nonexistent “Indo-Zionist” lobby.
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Jan 5, 2008    |       2 comments

No Evidence of Pakistani or US Signal Intercepts Of Al Qaeda

Wayne Madsen Reports have published a detailed article talking about if the Government of Pakistan does indeed have evidence of Baitul Mehsud calling his colleagues and congratulating them after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Though there maybe some bias in the article but its good food for thought considering this alleged tape was released during ‘the investigation’ where the govt deliberately distorted the facts about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, could this be yet another figment of their imagination.

WMR’s [Wayne Media Report] intelligence sources are scoffing at the Pakistani Interior Ministry contention that it could prove that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of “Al Qaeda’s” chief in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud. The Interior Ministry claims that it recorded an “intercept” of Mehsud’s communications in which Mehsud allegedly congratulated his followers for the attack on Bhutto in the heavily-garrisoned city of Rawalpindi.

Bhutto’s political party and Mehsud both rejected the claims about the communications intercepts of Mehsud and said the Pervez Musharraf regime was behind the assassination of Bhutto.

US National Security Agency (NSA) sources have told WMR that signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercepts of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are rare in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

Not only is cell phone coverage spotty to non-existent in remote areas like Waziristan but ever since the 1996 NSA intercept of Chechen President Dzokhar Dudayev’s satellite telephone call to Moscow, which was passed in to Russian security authorities who triangulated his position and killed him with an air-to-surface missile, Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Osama Bin Laden, have refrained from using electronic communications. mindful of U.S. intelligence’s capability to lock in on the locations of cell phone and sat phone signals.


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Jan 3, 2008    |       4 comments

STRATFOR: Bhutto and the U.S.-Jihadist Endgame

An article appearing in STRATFOR [Strategic Forecasting Inc.] about Pakistan, its definitely worth reading, but mind you its from the perspective of a Non-Pakistani, its time that WE stand up for what we believe is right for Pakistan, not what they hope is good for us. Is that too much to ask…..

Pakistan, Bhutto and the U.S.-Jihadist Endgame
By George Friedman

The endgame of the U.S.-jihadist war always had to be played out in Pakistan. There are two reasons that could account for this. The first is simple: Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda command cell are located in Pakistan. The war cannot end while the command cell functions or has a chance of regenerating. The second reason is more complicated. The United States and NATO are engaged in a war in Afghanistan. Where the Soviets lost with 300,000 troops, the Americans and NATO are fighting with less than 50,000. Any hope of defeating the Taliban, or of reaching some sort of accommodation, depends on isolating them from Pakistan. So long as the Taliban have sanctuary and logistical support from Pakistan, transferring all coalition troops in Iraq to Afghanistan would have no effect. And withdrawing from Afghanistan would return the situation to the status quo before Sept. 11. If dealing with the Taliban and destroying al Qaeda are part of any endgame, the key lies in Pakistan.

U.S. strategy in Pakistan has been to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and rely on him to purge and shape his countrys army to the extent possible to gain its support in attacking al Qaeda in the North, contain Islamist radicals in the rest of the country and interdict supplies and reinforcements flowing to the Taliban from Pakistan. It was always understood that this strategy was triply flawed.
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Jan 1, 2008    |       3 comments

Report: ISI was diverting US aid to Rig the Elections

This news report to many does not come as a surprise, as many independent observers including this scribe have been screaming all along that these elections are no where near the notion of being free and fair – these elections were being carefully heavily rigged and the results planned in the favor of the ruling coalition, Jeremy Page has come out with some interesting discussions but I hope for the sake of transparency that the original document does finally make it into the free world

Published in Times Online written by Jeremy Page in Naudero excerpts of the article quoted here while the rest can be read on TIMES ONLINE

On the day she was assassinated, Benazir Bhutto was due to meet two senior American politicians to show them a confidential report alleging that Pakistans intelligence service was using US money to rig parliamentary elections, officials in her party said yesterday.

The report was compiled by the former Prime Ministers own contacts within the security services and alleged that the Inter-Services Intelligence agency was running the election operation from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad, they said. The operations aim was to undermine Ms Bhuttos Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and to ensure victory for the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party, which supports President Musharraf, in the elections scheduled for January 8.
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Jan 1, 2008    |       5 comments

A Possible Solution to the Mess in Pakistan

It comes as no surprise that there is tremendous pressure on the Election Commission to hold the elections on time but the ruling elite know such a decision is doomsday for each one of them. Today yet again the spokesman for the Election Commission of Pakistan said that holding parliamentary elections as scheduled on January 8 “looks impossible. and the elections can be delayed. Kanwar Dilshad mentioned a deteriorating situation in 13 districts across Pakistan where there were security problems following the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

There is now no doubt that the United States of America will be hounding the present regime to announce the general elections on time, it can be recalled that Condolezza Rice had called up Asif Zardari urging him to take part in the Jan 8th elections. It is now possible that the changing circumstances has now brought about some confusion within the minds of US lawmakers, on who to support. In all fairness I feel the onus lies on the United States to ensure a free and fair elections. It about time they stop patronizing Musharraf and remove him from Pakistan with immediate effect, install an independent caretaker government entrusting them the powers to form an independent election commission & hold free and fair elections. It is beyond certainty that the PPP will emerge victorious as the sympathy vote will over run them through into the parliament also feeding the American desire for a moderate ruling party. An elections with PML-Q and Musharraf watching over it would mean a Florida chad-like fiasco with an adamant government not willing to accept the results and the ECP fully in toe declining to declare the results, so its important to rehash the commission without Musharraf and Chaudhry’s watching over them.

The people who will loose out on this formula will be Musharraf, PM-Q, JUI-F and a slight dent on MQM, while the winners will most likely be PPP, PML-N & PTI. This plan maybe idealistic but this is the perfect opportunity for the US to mend the wounds of a bleeding country, egos will definitely go down hard but the right people will come into power. PPP is at the moment standing daggers drawn for coming onto the streets if the elections are delayed I think they can be coaxed to stand down with a little convincing , offering them an independent Musharraf free election it might make it all the more sweeter
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Jan 1, 2008    |       5 comments

Doctors Told to Shut Up

In an investigative report appearing in Washington Post it seems there was an elaborate plan to cover up the evidence relating to the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The Washington Post have expressed their concern to say that the Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors. It seems all this cover-up slowly got exposed since the video and images of the assassination become public after Musharraf’s propaganda team tried to spoof its way through a fabricated medical report

In an interview with the doctors who were at Bhutto’s side at the Rawalpindi General Hospital said that they were under extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries that the opposition leader suffered in an attack, “The government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto’s time of death was read out,” said the visibly shaken doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Sweating and putting his head in his hands, he said: “Look, we have been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace.”

Jameel Yusuf, a lead investigator in the 2002 disappearance of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, said the Pakistani government had blundered badly by not sealing off the crime scene. Moments after Bhutto was killed, workers hosed down the blood at the blast site before any evidence could be collected. “When you’re dealing with a murder of this nature, you need to have forensics,” Yusuf said.

Dec 30, 2007    |       2 comments

They don’t blame Al-Qa’ida. They blame Musharraf: Robert Fisk

By Robert Fisk Published in The Independent UK.

This is an article worth reading where Robert Fisk places the right questions, we genuinely believe its not the work of Al-Qa’ida but instead an outcome of Musharraf’s eight year rule, few recent links here and here while this blog is full of statements condemning Musharraf practically since its inception in 2004. So as they say the writing was on the wall, only if someone dared to read the wall is the question, as they say better late then never but please save my country from the brink of disaster

Weird, isn’t it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives and we are told by George Bush that her murderers were “extremists” and “terrorists”. Well, you can’t dispute that.
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Dec 29, 2007    |       103 comments

Bilawal Zardari, the new PPP Chairman

It is just being announced that Bilawal Zardari, the 19 year old eldest son of Benazir Bhutto, will be the new Chairman of PPP. Personally I feel this might in effect be a good decision for the Bhutto dynasty but a major rift within the party would definitely be seen in short order, as Amin Faheem definitely had his eyes set on the top leadership. It may suit the American agenda perfectly as it would be easier to negotiate with Bilawal as compared to rehashing the entire negotiations with a new face in the PPP. More updates to follow as news comes in

Dec 28, 2007    |      1 comment

Condoleezza Rice calls Zardari to request for Elections on 8th !!!

It was just reported on ARY One World that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called up Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto requesting him permission to let the January 8th elections to go on as planned.

I am not sure whats the agenda in all this but I suspect some serious foul play afoot to which the American bureaucracy is a full part of all this.

I personally have never believed in Benazir and my blog is brimming full of my stand against her, but at this sensitive time I too feel grief stricken to have lost a great leader in Pakistan. I would have preferred to argue and debate, but never will I wish any opponent a horrific death like this, it is simply inhumane. But when such a tragedy happens its important to be considerate of human sensitivities and let the wounds heal. Holding the elections so close to her death will mean deliberately plunging the country into chaos. As I have been repeating over and over again I hope good wisdom prevails. I feel the player deeply involved in ensuring that the election must go on time are Musharraf, PML-Q and MQM.

I now urge all Pakistanis to step up their efforts to urge the world to stop these elections as I dread, this may contribute to total annihilation of Pakistan

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