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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Kill The Fake Taliban

18 May 2009

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Kind

Dear brothers and sisters,

اسلام علیکم
Peace be upon you

1. Operation Rah e Haq

Operation Rah –e – Haq-
الحمد اللہ: Our forces continue to surround, capture or kill the terrorists. BrassTacks have seen exclusive photos clearly confirming that those fighting the army in Swat are NOT Muslims. We are faced with Gorkhas and Uzbek origin non-Muslim men posing as Mujahideen and creating anarchy in the country.

The final showdown would be in Mingora city where the city has been evacuated and the militants are digging in for an urban showdown. Right now, the city is being encircled by the army and supply and escapes routes of the militants being blocked. It is going to be a dirty and bloody affair in the coming days but the army does not wish to leave them to fight another day. It is going to finish within Swat,
انشاءاللہ.

The commando drop in Peochar Mountains is the biggest Special Forces drop in the history of Pakistan army with 3 battalions landing within the den of terrorists surprising them totally. History is being created in the remote valleys are Special Forces hunt and destroy terrorist dens and cadre. Fierce resistance was being offered by the militants but they are being decimated from all sides.

Militants are trying to release the pressure from Swat by trying to open multiple fronts in tribal areas and through acts of terrorism. Peshawar was jolted twice in a day causing multiple fatalities. Tribal pockets are seeing some bloody clashes but this time forces are hitting hard,
الحمد اللہ.




Pakistan army says 1,000 militants killed

The terrorists are stunned by the ferocity and intensity of military response. For the first time in months, we are seeing militants in total and complete disarray, being hunted by daring raids by special forces and regular army, backed by gunship and even fighters jets where required. It is a bloody and ruthless battle in the mountains and in the valleys of Swat and Malakand region which would be decisive showdown in days to come,
انشاءاللہ decimating the terrorists who had lived long enough.

"Pakistan's army has killed more 1,000 militants and nearly eliminated Taliban control of the North West Frontier Province."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/17/Pakistan-army-says-1000-militants-killed/UPI-37971242561048





A letter from wife of a officer serving in Swat

This is a fascinating message from one of our sisters whose is also wife of a Ghazi officer serving in Swat and elsewhere to protect the Pak Sarzameen. We want to share it with you all. Those who have never shed their blood for the motherland nor risked any loved one can never understand how it feels to fight and die for a sacred cause, noble mission and romantic dream. Here our sister shares her feelings with us. She is absolutely right that it is India in Swat. We even have proof that there are non-Muslim troops fighting against us perhaps of Gorkha or Uzbek origin. It is time, nation stop doubting the cause and start backing the army big time. May Allah bless this land always and forever, AMEEN.


"Dear Brother Zaid Hamid,
May Allah give you more strength, as you have touched our (Pakistanis') hearts, and have brought us together on this platform.
I am a wife, daughter, grandaughter, and daughter in law of army officers. Infact, I'm also the daughter of one of those "chand pagal pakistani' who are still uncorrupt and working day and night to revive and progress some of our institutions. I have also experienced the tension as a wife, while my husband was serving the nation in Swat. It feels great once people applaud the sacrifices of army personnel.
At this time I would like to point out how some people allege that our soldiers do this for the salaries and land allotments – Trust me you cannot PAY someone to put their lives on the line and to emrace shahadat for our country. Our soldiers unlike our enemies do not fear death cause they know that they are serving for the cause of a nation "PAKISTAN' which was created in the name of Allah. And because of that, no matter how many hurdles India has thrown in its way, ALLAH HI PAKISTAN KA HAFIZ HAI.
REST ASSURED THAT IT IS INDIA BEHIND SWAT. Hindus have not come out of the complex that they lost their 'Indian land' to the Muslims. Rest assured they can never be our friends. This is a message that we have to pass on to our generations and warn them against India's brutal mentality. It is time that we quit using any indian products (movies, clothes, toiletries).

PAKISTAN ZINDABAD
INDIA MURDABAD.
sara"




2. President Zardari's visit to France

Why President Zardari went to France? Apart from fun and games while the country burnt, he had other sinister plans!

But the real story of the weak is the visit of Mr. Zardari to France for dubious military and nuke deals. France is too keen to sell its Scorpion subs to PN but the SMAP (submarine acquisition project) of Pakistan Navy consisting of dedicated submarine officers opted for German sub-Marines.

France had been able to scuttle this sale in earlier Benazir Bhutto era and was able to sell inferior Agosta 90B subs to Pakistan Navy. This time, the Navy SMAP opted for German Subs. The project is again being attacked by France through all means possible. Now, half Jew Mr. Sarkozy is working on Mr. Zardari to convince him to change the deal and offering some dubious nuke "safety" deal as carrot. In reality, even this nuke safety deal is suspicious as it consists of certain locking systems for the nuke devices to prevent them from use, even if they fall in wrong hands. Basically, these are weapon denial locks which would even cripple Pakistani armed forces capability to use them in times of crisis. Navy is holding its ground for German subs while Mr. Zardari is negotiating it with Mr. Sarkozy.




France offers civilian N-deal modelled on US-India accord

"France backs a wide-ranging civilian nuclear deal to buy nuclear equipment like the one signed by the US with India, according to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. He said negotiations on the nuclear technology accord would be held in July this year and a new framework agreement and memorandum of understanding were likely to be signed during the visit of French..."
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/france-offers-civilian-ndeal-modelled-on-usindia-accord-659





3. Baluchistan

In Baluchistan, however, sub-nationalists and separatist are working on multiple agendas to weaken the federation with the help of elected (CIA planted) provincial government of Raisani and Zardari led suspect government. Situation is easily manageable but perhaps this political setup needs to go asap.
The idea to create another capital for Baluchistan is meant to create a Baluch only city near the sea to act as base for future separate Baluchistan State as Quetta is a primarily Pashtun city and army HQ is also located there. This is a sinister move by the provincial and federal government in an environment where Baluchistan is reeling under insurgency and funds are badly needed for security and basic infrastructure developments. In an environment where provincial government is actively allowing secessionist movements to grow and Pakistani flag and anthem is being desecrated, another winter capital near the seaport is highly suspicious move.




Gwadar likely to become Balochistan's winter capital

"The Balochistan government is likely to declare Gwadar as the winter capital of the province. "A decision has been taken in principle and the plan is likely to be approved with the next provincial budget," sources told Dawn, adding that officials concerned were working on details of the proposal..."
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/gwadar-likely-to-become-balochistans-winter-capital-559





Govt must act on flag, anthem issue: Magsi

"Balochistan Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi said on Monday it was the responsibility of the provincial government to take action against elements who removed national flag from educational institutions and stopped recitation of national anthem by their students. "Nobody should be allowed to challenge the writ of the government," the governor said, adding that removing national flag and not allowing recitation of national anthem did not mean that the government had no control over the province...."
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/govt-must-act-on-flag%2C-anthem-issue-magsi-259





4. The ultimate US / Israeli / Indian goal is to get control over Pakistan's nuclear program

It is now getting dangerously exposed that US is working on a fats track program to attack, "secure" or destroy Pakistani nuke assets, taking advantage of the weak and corrupt government of Zardari. But
انشاءاللہ defeat and humiliation awaits them as Allah plots and plan too and He is the best of the planners!
"US stress is to build peacefully relations between Pakistan and India, even at the cost of auctioning Pakistan's national security interests. Mr. Zardari is the biggest US asset who has now been detailed to serve Indian interests under shadowy secret deals which basically compromise Pakistan's historic stance towards India. Allowing transit routes to Indian military and diplomatic services to Afghanistan would be a suicide for Pakistan. Mr Zardari has signed the agreement on his latest tour to US. Also, according to Mr. Zardari, troops from Indian border are being moved to fight Taliban in the West. The ultimate objective of US is to get to Pakistani nukes. The support to terrorist groups in Pakistan by the CIA is aimed at creating doubts about Pakistan's nuke program's vulnerability."

The cat finally came out of the bag!!. The entire CIA / Mossad / RAW game plan in the region, their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, their support to terrorist groups like TTP and BLA, their pressure to bring about a war within Pakistan, and their desire to create an environment of confusion and chaos in Pakistani politics are aimed at proving to the world that Pakistani nukes are about to fall into the hands of terrorists and need US invasion to "secure" them. This is the ultimate prize US is engaged in Pakistan before it can officially launch its "Yugoslavia" option to initiate formal dismemberment of Pakistan. Shameless and audacious plan as it seems, this is exactly what is being discussed in US war planners and diplomatic circles.




US urged to engage Pakistan to protect nukes

"Two senior US scholars, one of whom headed a White House review team, have urged the Obama administration to engage Pakistanis to protect their nuclear weapons instead of taking a unilateral action. "A jihadist state in Pakistan is neither imminent nor inevitable, it may not be likely, but it is a real possibility," says Bruce Riedel, who heads the White House team for reviewing the US policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan....."
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/us-urged-to-engage-pakistan-to-protect-nukes-259





Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Pakistan

Leaked reports even suggested that US has plans to attack and seize Pakistani nukes. US deny it but the fact remains that top secret US units are already practicing the drills. Fox news broke the story.

"American intelligence sources say the military's chief terrorist-hunting squad has units operating in Afghanistan on Pakistan's western border and is working on a secondary mission to secure foreign nuclear arsenals if the Taliban or Al Qaeda overwhelm Pakistan."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/plan-pakistan-teeters-falling-taliban/

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/us-says-no-plan-to-seize-pakistans-nweapons-459





Pak increasing nuclear weapons: US

But the US propaganda against Pakistani nuke program continues at fast pace. There is no doubt that Pakistani nukes are now the prime challenge for US. As we see it, if US was not so dependant upon Pakistan as it is today due to NATO supplies, it would have already declared Pakistan as a rogue State within the "axis of evil".
"The confirmation came during a Senate Armed Services committee hearing when Democrat senator Jim Webb, an expert on defence issues, raised fears that Pakistan is adding to the nuclear weapons it traditionally has pointed toward India, and questioned whether US aid could be funding it."
http://snipurl.com/i3nj4





Gilani allayed concern over nuke safety

Both the army chief and the PM were forced to respond while Mr. Zardari was frolicking in France. The propaganda against army that it cannot handle terrorists and nukes getting into wrong hands is now getting intense and pressure had to be released.

"Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday allayed concerns over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear assets and said that a disinformation campaign had been launched to undermine the country. An orchestrated campaign has lately been launched by Pakistan's detractors expressing doubts about the security of (its) nuclear assets. The campaign has tried to link Pakistan's internal situation with nuclear security in an attempt to discredit the country's nuclear capability," the prime minister said while addressing members of PPP's Central Executive Committee and Federal Council here.."
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/gilani-allays-concern-over-nuke-safety-759

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/gen-kayani-rejects-insinuation-against-army-759





5. Even our enemies bear witness to our character

An interesting and thought provoking article from an Indian writer, Shivani Mohan, where she discusses the human side of soldiers and mentions a beautiful incident in 1965 when Pakistani soldiers had captured Indian territory and a whole village evacuated in face of advancing Pakistani troops, leaving behind 3 elderly Indian citizens. The two elderly men and a woman were well looked after by the Pakistani soldiers until ceasefire was declared.
http://pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/of-wars-soldiers-and-gentlemen/





6. Iqbal Ka Pakistan, Episode 6

As a nation we follow the Islamic ideology of "Poet of the East" Sir Allama Iqbal. As Pakistani's we honor the dream and determination he had for an independent country and freedom for all, specially the Youth. "Iqbal Ka Pakistan" is a show that revolves around questions and issues about the motherland that are on every 'thinking' youth's mind. It is a serious talk show focusing on Pakistan's current socio-political scenario, philosophy and ideology of the great poet and how as Pakistani Muslims we have embraced his endeavors for a better nation. Iqbal ka Pakistan eps6 has now been uploaded. Link as follows:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=33C983FD11969C12





Zaid Hamid

info@brasstacks.biz

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved.



Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium
without royalty provided this notice is preserved

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Monday, May 11, 2009

Osama was an “Operator” for the United States: Zardari

Infowars
May 10, 2009

In the interview here, NBC's David Gregory completely ignores Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari when he declares that Osama bin Laden was an "operator" for the United States. Gregory wants to know if Zadari believes Osama is alive. He wants to know why Pakistan has not gone after Bin Laden.

Before "everything changed" on September 11, 2001, the corporate media published truthful stories about Osama bin Laden and his relationship with the CIA. "As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar — the MAK — which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war," Michael Moran wrote for MSNBC on August 24, 1998. "What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation."

The CIA's intimate relationship with Osama bin Laden came to light during a the trial of Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed for the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in Africa. Giles Foden wrote about the "deep and insidious connection" between Osama bin Laden and the CIA on September 13, 2001, for the Guardian.

"FBI investigators examining the embassy bombing sites in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam discovered that evidence led to military explosives from the US Army, and that these explosives had been delivered three years earlier to Afghan Arabs, the infamous international volunteer brigades involved side by side with bin Laden during the Afghan war against the Red Army," Alexandra Richard wrote for Le Figaro on October 11, 2001.

In the same article Richard reports that a CIA agent met with Osama bin Laden at the American Hospital in Dubai in July, 2001, where the terrorist underwent surgery. "While he was hospitalized, bin Laden received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. During the hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to bin Laden's hospital room."

Not only did the CIA and its ISI partner create MAK and ultimately what the corporate media would call al-Qaeda, they also created the Taliban, although you won't read that in the New York Times. The ISI organized and the United States, Britain, and the Saudis funded the madrassas (religious schools) that nurtured the fanatical Wahhabi Taliban. "They were literally the orphans of war [a war orchestrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski against the Soviets], the rootless and restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self-knowledge. They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in a messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning," writes Phil Gasper.

NBC's David Gregory might want to ask the CIA or maybe Robert Gates about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden (the current secretary of defense basically ran the Osama operation through Pakistan's ISI back in the day when he was Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and then CIA director under Bush Senior).

Gregory and NBC are merely setting the stage for Obama's increased meddling in Pakistan. Part of that effort is to make Asif Ali Zadari look like he is hiding Osama bin Laden and protecting the perennial bogeyman, al-Qaeda.

Zadari, however, knows the truth and is not afraid to speak it on American television: Osama bin Laden was an "operative" for the United States.

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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Bilderberg Group Plans Economic Depression: Leaked Agenda

 
 

Paul Joseph Watson
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

On the eve of the 2009 Bilderberg Group conference, which is due to be held May 14-17 at the 5 star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, investigative reporter Daniel Estulin has uncovered shocking details of what the elitists plan to do with the economy over the course of the next year.

The Bilderberg Group meeting is an annual confab of around 150 of the world's most influential powerbrokers in government, industry, banking, media, academia and the military-industrial complex. The secretive group operates under "Chatham House rules," meaning that no details of what is discussed can ever be leaked to the media, despite editors of the world's biggest newspapers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Financial Times, being present at the meeting.

According to Estulin's sources, which have been proven highly accurate in the past, Bilderberg is divided on whether to put into motion, "Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency."

The information takes on added weight when one considers the fact that Estulin's previous economic forecasts, which were based on leaks from the same sources, have proven deadly accurate. Estulin correctly predicted the housing crash and the 2008 financial meltdown as a result of what his sources inside Bilderberg told him the elite were planning based on what was said at their 2006 meeting in Canada and the 2007 conference in Turkey.

Details of the economic agenda were contained in a pre-meeting booklet being handed out to Bilderberg members. On a more specific note, Estulin warns that Bilderberg are fostering a false picture of economic recovery, suckering investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market again only to later unleash another massive downturn which will create "massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead," according to a Canada Free Press report.

According to Estulin, Bilderberg is assuming that U.S. unemployment figures will reach around 14% by the end of the year, almost doubling the current official figure of 8.1 per cent.

Estulin's sources also tell him that Bilderberg will again attempt to push for the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, a key centerpiece of the agenda to fully entrench a federal EU superstate, by forcing the Irish to vote again on the document in September/October despite having rejected it already, along with other European nations, in national referendums.

"One of their concerns is addressing and neutralizing the anti-Lisbon treaty movement called "Libertas" led by Declan Ganley. One of the Bilderberger planned moves is to use a whispering campaign in the US media suggested that Ganley is being funded by arms dealers in the US linked to the US military," reports CFP.

Daniel Estulin, Jim Tucker, and other sources who have infiltrated Bilderberg meetings in the past have routinely provided information about the Bilderberg agenda that later plays out on the world stage, proving that the organization is not merely a "talking shop" as debunkers claim, but an integral planning forum for the new world order agenda.

Indeed, just last month Belgian viscount and current Bilderberg-chairman Étienne Davignon bragged that Bilderberg helped create the Euro by first introducing the policy agenda for a single currency in the early 1990's. Bilderberg's agenda for a European federal superstate and a single currency likely goes back even further. A BBC investigation uncovered documents from the early Bilderberg meetings which confirmed that the European Union was a brainchild of Bilderberg.

In spring 2002, when war hawks in the Bush administration were pushing for a summer invasion of Iraq, Bilderbergers expressed their desire for a delay and the attack was not launched until March the following year.

In 2006, Estulin predicted that the U.S. housing market would be allowed to soar before the bubble was cruelly popped, which is exactly what transpired.

In 2008, Estulin predicted that Bilderberg were creating the conditions for a financial calamity, which is exactly what began a few months later with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Bilderberg has routinely flexed its muscles in establishing its role as kingmaker. The organization routinely selects presidential candidates as well as running mates and prime ministers.

Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were both groomed by the secretive organization in the early 1990's before rising to prominence.

Barack Obama's running mate Joe Biden was selected by Bilderberg luminary James A. Johnson, and John Kerry's 2004 running mate John Edwards was also anointed by the group after he gave a glowing speech at the conference in 2004. Bilderberg attendees even broke house rules to applaud Edwards at the end of a speech he gave to the elitists about American politics. The choice of Edwards was shocking to media pundits who had fully expected Dick Gephardt to secure the position. The New York Post even reported that Gephardt had been chosen and "Kerry-Gephardt" stickers were being placed on campaign vehicles before being removed when Edwards was announced as Kerry's number two.

A 2008 Portuguese newspaper report highlighted the fact that Pedro Santana Lopes and Jose Socrates attended the 2004 meeting in Stresa, Italy before both going on to become Prime Minster of Portugal.

Several key geopolitical decisions were made at last year's Bilderberg meeting in Washington DC, again emphasizing the fact that the confab is far more than an informal get-together.

As we reported at the time, Bilderberg were concerned that the price of oil was accelerating too fast after it hit $150 a barrel and wanted to ensure that "oil prices would probably begin to decline". This is exactly what happened in the latter half of 2008 as oil again sunk below $50 a barrel. We were initially able to predict the rapid rise in oil prices in 2005 when oil was at $40, because Bilderberg had called for prices to rise during that year's meeting in Munich. During the conference in Germany, Henry Kissinger told his fellow attendees that the elite had resolved to ensure that oil prices would double over the course of the next 12-24 months, which is exactly what happened.

Also at last year's meeting, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice formalized plans to sign a treaty on installing a U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

Rice was joined at the meeting by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who reportedly encouraged EU globalists to get behind an attack on Iran. Low and behold, days later the EU threatened Iran with sanctions if it did not suspend its nuclear enrichment program.

There was also widespread speculation that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's "secret meeting," which was accomplished with the aid of cloak and dagger tactics like locking journalists on an airplane to keep them from tracking the two down, took place at the Bilderberg meeting in DC.

It remains to be seen what kind of mainstream media press coverage Bilderberg 2009 will be afforded because, despite the proven track record of Bilderberg having a central role in influencing subsequent geopolitical and financial world events, and despite last year's meeting being held in Washington DC, the U.S. corporate media oversaw an almost universal blackout of reporting on the conference, its attendees, and what was discussed.

Once again, it will be left to the alternative media to fill the vacuum and educate the people on exactly what the globalists have planned for us over the coming year.

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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Gaza probe shows IDF among world's most moral armies : Israeli Defense Minister

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Wednesday that an internal investigation has determined that no civilians were purposefully harmed by IDF troops during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

Following the release of the investigation results, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the army's willingness to probe itself "once again proves that the IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world.

"The IDF is not afraid to investigate itself and in that, proves that its operations are ethical," said Barak. The defense minister added that he has "complete faith in the IDF, from the chief of staff to the last of the combat soldiers."

The inquiries were performed by five IDF colonels who were not involved in the fighting in Cast Lead, and examined reports of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, medical personnel and facilities, United Nations facilities, and also the use of white phosphorous.

The investigation, which was supervised by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, did find cases of civilians killed by mistaken fire on the part of IDF troops, but said the incidents were isolated.

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff General Dan Harel said that in the dozens of cases they examined, they found that throughout Cast Lead the IDF "adhered to international law and maintained a high level of professionalism and morality."

The most glaring case of mistaken fire found by the inquiry was the attack on the Al-Dahiyeh family home in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun, in which 21 members of the same family were killed.

In the incident, the IDF called a household that was suspected of being a weapons storehouse and told the residents to evacuate, saying an attack was imminent.

The subsequent IAF strike, which was targeting a suspected weapons storehouse, landed dozens of meters from its target, slamming into the Al-Dahiyeh household.

The mistaken fire reportedly came as a result of a malfunction in the targeting system of the aircraft carrying out the mission.

The IDF has called the incident "regretful", but said it resulted from "an operational mistake that is bound to happen during intensive fighting."

Another incident reported in the probe's findings was the case of an IAF attack on a truck that military intelligence had reported was carrying Grad rockets. After the attack, which killed 8 Palestinians, including 4 Hamas gunmen, it was determined that the truck was transporting gas canisters.


 

No reason to acknowledge IDF inquiry : Tibi

MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List) on Wednesday criticized the findings of the probe, saying "there's no reason to acknowledge the IDF inquiry, which comes from a murderous, secretive, and moaning army known for being murderous and for complaints and cover-ups."

Tibi said "if these hundreds of civilians were killed knowingly, that is a war crime, and under Israeli law, it is considered even more severe."

Tibi added that he is "not surprised that the IDF has refused to cooperate with UN probes of mass killings in Gaza."

Head of the Hadash party Mohammed Barakeh also blasted the report, saying those who performed the inquiry are obscuring the truth about "war crimes that Israel committed in Gaza. There is a price for committing war crimes, and also for mistakes that cause war crimes."

Barakeh also criticized the source of the inquiry, saying "military officials are not commissions of inquiry, there are a part of the system that perpetrated these crimes, and is carrying out a cover-up."

Barakeh added that eventually those responsible for the "war crimes" will be brought to trial "from those at the top of the pyramid, all the way down to rank-and-file soldiers."


 

IDF inquiry flawed : Human rights group B'Tselem

An Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, called the military's investigation flawed. and said it "does not answer the need for an independent inquiry outside the army that would look at the whole range of violations the army is incapable of looking at."

"It shows how important it is that Israel cooperate with the fact-finding mission of [Richard] Goldstone that would look at violations," said spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli, speaking on behalf of a group of human rights groups that have made this demand in the past.

Goldstone, a former United Nations chief prosecutor for war crimes, was recently appointed to head a UN investigation into atrocities allegedly committed during Israel's three-week war against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.

The investigation called by the UN's Human Rights Council was only supposed to look at Israeli conduct. But Goldstone did not accept the assignment until the mandate was changed to also examine Palestinian actions.

Israel has not said whether it would cooperate with the Goldstone investigation. But it has rejected council investigations in the past, calling them biased.

Among questions being raised is whether Israel used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians.

In one case, Israeli artillery fire reportedly hit near a UN school where hundreds of Gazans had sought refuge, killing an estimated 42 people. Israeli said its troops were responding to fire from militants near the school, and both the incident and number of casualties have been disputed/

In another instance, Gazans allege Israeli soldiers ordered 110 civilians into a warehouse, then shelled it the next day, killing 30. Israel denies the army targeted the warehouse.

Israel also has been criticized for using white phosphorus weapons, which can be legitimately used in war to create smoke screens or provide illumination.

But rights activists have said its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitute a war crime.

Israel says its army took great care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza,

preceding some airstrikes with leaflets or phone calls warning civilians to flee - a contention confirmed by Gaza residents.

Israel is preparing for potential legal action, barring the media from publishing pictures of officers' faces and their names for fear of investigations. It has promised legal and financial support for any officers facing trial, despite the difficulty of prosecuting Israelis.


 

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent

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UN report on Gaza war not legally binding : Ban Ki Moon

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said a damning UN report on Israel's conduct in its recent offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was not legally binding.

The Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Tuesday morning that the probe accuses the Israel Defense Forces of deliberately firing at UN institutions as well as using disproportional force and causing unnecessary harm to civilians.

Israel later rejected the report Tuesday as being "tendentious" and "patently biased."

Ban made the comments in a letter he agreed to attach to the report at the request of Foreign Ministry director-general Yossi Gal, who traveled to New York on Monday for meetings with Ban's aides on the matter.

In the letter, the UN chief condemned Hamas cross-border rocket fire on Israeli civilians, attacks that sparked the conflict and, according to the Israeli paper, were ignored by the UN committee in its report.

Ban also commended the Israel Defense Forces for its close coordination with the world body during the 3-week operation, as well as the cooperation given by Israel with the report's authors. He said his representatives were holding meetings with the Israeli government on implementing the report's recommendations.

The UN chief added there would be no further reports by the world body on the subject.

In its official response, the Foreign Ministry said: "Both [in] spirit and language, the report is tendentious, patently biased, and ignores the facts presented to the committee."

"The committee has preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organization, and by doing so has misled the world."

The Foreign Ministry noted that immediately upon the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, the codename for the operation, Israel carried out independent inquiries into the damage caused to the UN installations.

It said the findings of those inquiries proved "beyond doubt" that the IDF did not intentionally fire at the UN installations.

"Not only have the Hamas terrorists not conducted such inquiries," the ministry added, "they use violence and intimidation against citizens of Gaza as tools to prevent them from presenting the actual truth. In this manner they have deceived the investigators, the UN and public opinion."


 

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

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TALIBAN TERROR

PARIS May 04, 2009

The worldly French and British who are taught history and read books are looking with wry amusement and some pity on the Americans who are now gripped by a renewed bout of Taliban terror.
About ten days ago, a bunch of lightly-armed Pashtun tribesmen rode down from the Malakand region on motorbikes and pickup trucks and briefly swaggered around Buner, only 100 km from Pakistan's capitol, Islamabad.
Hysteria erupted in Washington. `The Taliban are coming. The Taliban are coming!'
Hillary Clinton, still struggling through foreign affairs 101, warned the scruffy Taliban tribesmen were a global threat. Pakistan's generals dutifully followed Washington's orders by attacking the tribal miscreants in Buner who failed to obey the American Raj. Over a hundred people were killed, almost all innocent civilians, and thousands of refuges fled the government bombing and gunfire.
It would have been helpful had the anguished Mrs. Clinton read page 30 of my book, `War at the Top of the World:'
`In the first quarter of the 20th century…two colorful figures emerged from the barren mountains of the Northwest Frontier. First, a fiery holy man with a wonderful name, the Fakir of Ipi. The old fakir rallied the Pashtun tribes against the infidel and came within a turban's length of taking Peshawar from the British, who spent a decade chasing the elusive fakir through the mountains of Waziristan.'
`Then, a fearsome figure, the `Mad Mullah' (as the British press branded him), who rode down from the Malakand Pass at the head of 20,000 savage horsemen, determined to put the impious city of Peshawar (the main British Imperial base) to the sword.'
Like Mrs. Clinton, the good Christian ladies of the British Peshawar garrison had a very big scare. Cries were raised that the Mad Mullah and his wicked Muslims were going to lay fire sword on Peshawar and carry off its Christian ladies upon whose white bodies would be inflicted unspeakable Islamic abominations.
Plus ca change….. A century later, western imperial forces are again chasing unruly Pashtun tribesmen on the wild Northwest Frontier. Today, they're called `terrorists' by western media and politicians. In the 1980's they and their fathers were hailed as `freedom fighters' battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Pashtun (aka Pathan) frontier tribes – collectively mislabeled `Taliban' by western media - are up in arms again because they are being bombed by US Predator drones, and attacked by the Pakistani Army, which the US rents for $1.5 billion annually(the official figure; actually, it's a lot more), to support its widening war in Afghanistan. Pashtun civilian casualties - `collateral damage' in Pentagonspeak – are rising fast.
The primary cause of the growing rebellion in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) is the US war in Afghanistan, which is rapidly spreading into Pakistan. Most Pakistanis see the Afghan Taliban and their own rebellious Pashtun as heroes fighting western domination, and scorn their own isolated leaders in Islamabad as working for the Yankee dollar.
Equally, the Pashtun tribes of NWFP were guaranteed total autonomy in 1947; Pakistan's army was formally excluded from the Pashtun tribal region. Washington has pressured Islamabad into violating this basic provision of Pakistan's constitution by sending troops and warplanes into the independent tribal region.
Even the British Imperial Raj's most junior officer knew it was foolhardy to provoke warlike Pashtun. But Washington has done just this. Still, the Pashtun `Taliban' have no influence outside their Northwest Frontier and are not about to take over the rest of Pakistan.
But Washington's ham-handed tactics in Afghanistan and Pakistan are creating a bigger storm: a national revolution in Pakistan against the western-backed feudal oligarchy that has ruled it since 1947.
Pakistan is among the world's poorest nations. Half its people are illiterate. Most subsist on $1.13 daily. The feudal landowning elite, only .5% of the population, holds over 90% of national wealth. Corruption engulfs everything. Democracy is a sham; the legal system a cruel joke.
Islamic law, however draconian, offers the only justice that cannot be bought. Growing resistance movements in Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan call for national leadership that represents Pakistan's rather than western interests. Pakistanis are humiliated by being forced by the US and Britain to wage war against their own people under the pretext of `fighting Islamic terrorism.'

The big question in western capitals is: `are Pakistan's nuclear weapons safe?' Yes. For now. They are heavily guarded by crack army units and ISI, the military intelligence service, and will remain so unless the army splits in a power struggle. Pakistan's nukes cannot be armed without special security codes.

Even so, there is growing speculation in Pakistan and here in Europe that the US, possibly in league with India and or Israel, may attempt to seize or destroy Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

My esteemed colleague and regional expert, Arnaud de Borchgrave, warns Pakistan could become another Iran. I'm not so sure. Islamic parties have never commanded much support in Pakistan. There is no powerful clergy in Sunni Pakistan, as there was in Shia Iran. Pakistan has a long way to go before becoming an Islamic republic on the Iranian model. But Pakistan is certainly headed into very dangerous waters.
As for the US-led crusade in Afghanistan and Northwest Frontier, we should recall the words of Victorian poet of the British Raj, Rudyard Kipling: `Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.'
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2009

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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Moldova: Caught between NATO and Russia?

Note: The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are two of the overlapping alliances that outline "Eurasia" as a political entity.

 The "New Great Game" in Eurasia is being fought in its "Buffer Zones"


 

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

 
 

On April 7, 2009 in Moldova's capital Chisinau, supporters of the Liberal Party of Moldova, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Moldova, and the Our Moldova Alliance ignited violent protests in response to the results of Moldova's parliamentary elections. They respectively won 13.14%, 12.43%, and 9.77% of the total vote, while the ruling party, the Communist Party of Moldova won 49.48% of the vote. The Christian-Democratic People's Party of Moldova also won 3.03% of the vote. While international observers have said that no irregularities were seen in the parliamentary elections, the three main opposition parties said that it was rigged and, in an all too familiar modus operandi, started violent protests.

The current crisis in Moldova, a former constituent republic of what was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), is part of the same continuum of geo-strategic events and crises in Eurasia extending from Asia to the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It is one of two types of regime change: 

1. "Colour revolutions" characterized by political struggles and civil strife invariably triggered through U.S.-NATO interference and covert intelligence operations: Lebanon, Burma (Myanmar), Ukraine, the former Yugoslavia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tibet, and Georgia. 

2. Outright military intervention: Afghanistan and the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. 

"Self-determination" is a factor in all these conflicts. "Self-determination," "Democracy," and "Governance" are used as a pretext for outright military intervention (e.g., Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq) or interference as in the case of the "colour revolutions" unleashed in Eurasia. 


 

The Struggle for Eurasia's Buffer Zones: From the Balkans and Central Asia to Southeast Asia 


 

In Ukraine, this contest, starting in 2004, has almost geographically polarized the Slavic nation into two halves. The Orangist forces, led by the corrupt Viktor Yushchenko (who would become president) and Yulia Tymoshenko (who would become premier), dominate the Western Ukraine and the Party of the Regions and its political allies dominate the Crimea, Southern Ukraine in general, and Eastern Ukraine. The threat of Ukraine dividing into two states looms over the country as a result of this.

In Lebanon, events unfolded in 2005 within the framework of the so-called "Cedar Revolution" and led to the political and violent face-offs between the March 14 Alliance and the Lebanese National Opposition. Both sides have aligned themselves with outside players and powers, but their objectives should be measured by their independent freedom of choice from these outside powers, the source of their decision making, and why they have sided with outside powers. The popular and legitimate demands of the Lebanese people in 2005 were harnessed and translated into what has become a parliamentary majority by only a few sets by the March 14 Alliance. The March 14 Alliance's goals are not in the best interest of Lebanon, but are in the interests of their own political leaders as has been the case of most Lebanese politicians. 

In Burma, the contest was played out, in 2007, between the so-called pro-democracy forces led by Buddhist monks and the Burmese government, which is a military junta closely allied to the People's Republic of China. The clashes were totally misrepresented by the media in Australia, the E.U., the U.S., and Canada, amongst other places.  

In Georgia this struggle started in 2003 with the Rose Revolution and has been fought out since between Mikheil Saakashvili and the Georgian National Opposition on the political front. Militarily it has translated into conflict with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, with the intervention of Russia as a combatant.

In the Balkans, the struggle over Kosovo is another front in this geo-strategic struggle. The struggle for securing Kosovo is part of a wider venture to control the entire former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, which in panoramic terms are part of the mammoth struggle over Eurasia. The background to the situation in Kosovo is tied to the division and foreign sponsored civil strife of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, later the military attacks against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the 2000 colour revolution in the Serbian half of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the separation of Montenegro in 2006 from the Union of Serbia and Montenegro (a restructured configuration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and finally the declaration of Kosovar independence in 2008.
 
In all these colour revolutions there is a factor that is missing: "informed" consent from the public. If the majority of the people supporting the Rose Revolution knew what its underlying motivations were and to what it would equate, it simply would not have happened. In fact there are members of the Georgian National Opposition we were supporters of the Rose Revolution when it was sparked, but realized the fraud behind it. It should also be pointed out that there were those in Georgia who also joined the opposition forces because of self-serving interests too. In Lebanon the case is similar, Michel Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement supported the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon with the March 14 Alliance, but refused to join them in political alliance.

Although not part of Eurasia, the conflict zone in Darfur, Sudan is also a consequence of the same pattern and modus operandi. While there is a humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the underlying causes of the conflict have been manipulated.  The reason for this tragedy, in which the Sudanese people are the victims, is intimately related to economic and strategic interests.

The U.S. and the E.U. are behind the fighting and instability in Darfur and have assisted in the training, financing, and arming of forces opposing the Sudanese government. They demonize the Sudanese government and place all blame squarely on its shoulders while they fuel the conflict in order to move in and control Sudan. In this context, NATO is anxious to get its boots on the ground in Darfur in so-called peacekeeping missions.

Russia, Iran, and China oppose U.S. and E.U. pushes to intervene in Sudan. This is the reason why Russia and China oppose U.S., British, and French efforts to internationalize Sudan's domestic problems and the reason why Iran led an international parliamentary delegation to Khartoum in a show of solidarity when an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) for Omar Hassan Ahmed Al-Basher, the president of Sudan, which is politically motivated and part of a manipulated discourse. If the I.C.C. was truly impartial, by the same token, it would have sent arrest warrants out for George W. Bush Jr., Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Condolezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and a whole set of other leaders too, a long time ago.


 


The 2004 electoral map of Ukraine (Source: GlobalSecurity.org)

The Rivalry for Eurasia: The Periphery versus Eurasian Powers

In each one of these struggles, there is rivalry between a distinctly "Eurasian base of power" and a "Peripheral base of power" that is dominated by Western Europe and the United States. In other words, the struggle opposes Eurasia to the Ocean-based powers of the Periphery. It is in this context that Eurasian powers have always been strong in regards to land power or their armies, while the Peripheral Powers have had superior navies. This is why Britain and Japan had powerful navies historically and why the U.S., on a global scale, has the largest navy. A look at China and Russia will show that they have had and continue to have large and powerful land forces.

Crowds can be worked on any ideals, but power is exercised on the basis of motives. With the proliferation of these colour revolutions in geographically and culturally diverse places, conflict can no longer be seen in the historic, and manufactured, East versus West lens of the Cold War era. To tag the opposing sides in Ukraine as pro-Russian / anti-Russian or pro-Western / anti-Western and in Lebanon as pro-Syrian / anti-Syrian or pro-Western / anti-Western does not recognize the reality and geo-political complexity of the Eurasian environment. It does not also recognize the indigenous dimension or facet of the colour revolutions. The demands and desires of crowds is a factor, but the objectives of the leaders in these rings should be the basis of any critical evaluation.

The geographic list of places given is where fluctuating battles on the basis of political manipulation are taking place. Offensive geo-strategic penetration by the Peripheral Powers and defensive geo-strategic attempts by the Eurasian Powers to roll-back these penetrative pushes is taking place in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The battle-fronts are in Eurasia with Eurasian Powers themselves being the ultimate prizes for the Peripheral Powers.

Lebanon is being contested over in a match that has the indigenous elites allied with the Periphery or Eurasia. The Peripheral Powers, which include Israel and NATO as agents, consider Lebanon as a geo-political hub that can be used to penetrate into Syria, isolate Iran, and to further marginalize the Palestinians. Control over Lebanon is also a means for Israel to secure its strategic foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Control of Lebanon would also threaten the interests of Russia and China in the long-term too because of the petro-politics of the energy corridor in the Levant. This is one of the reasons that the Russians, along with Iran and Syria, provided supportive military intelligence to the Lebanese Resistance when Lebanon was being attacked by Israel in 2006.

The resentment of the Lebanese towards the past presence of Syria in northern Lebanon is legitimate, but there should be no mistake the Cedar Revolution was used as a cover by individuals and interests who are the anti-theses of popular sovereignty. If the leaders of the March 14 Alliance had the power to do so and could, they would quash any opposition to them by force. This does not by virtue epitomize the Lebanese National Opposition as exemplary either. Nabih Berri, the leader of the Amal Movement, is someone who has been known for his corruption in the past. The motives of the general population and the motives of political leaders are very different. The narrative that has been given about the sentiments for the rallies of the Cedar Revolution, in a popular sense may be true, but the motives for its political aspects are not. 

The real narrative behind the so-called democratic uprising, or Saffron Revolution, in Burma is similar. It was originally the result of an expression of public anger over rising prices, which were a result of sanctions by Peripheral Powers like the U.S., the E.U., Japan, and Australia against Burma. Without denying or overlooking the authoritarian nature of the Burmese military government, the destabilization of Burma is motivated by geo-strategic objectives to install a government that would be opposed to Chinese national interests and energy security. 

The democratic or undemocratic nature of such a government is not the real issue. International relations are about unprincipled realpolitik, albeit masked realpolitik. The real issue is the encirclement of China and the obstruction of Chinese attempts to create a secure energy route to the Middle East and Africa bypassing areas controlled by the U.S. Navy and its allies, such as Singapore and Taiwan. This is what China has been attempting to do by building ports and bases in the Indian Ocean that provide a securer route. Burma is essential to this formula.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an independent writer based in Ottawa, specializing in geopolitical issues. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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New Revelation: Bugti’s Shell Backfired

BRASSTACKS

Monday, 4 May 2009.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Akbar Bugti, a politician-turned-terrorist and a smalltime village thug who was taking India's and Karzai's help to raise a separatist insurgency inside Pakistan, was not killed by the Pakistani military. Instead he died when a rocket he fired went wrong, in what could also be suicide to evade capture, according to a close aide of Bugti who made this information public for the first time.

This revelation is a major breakthrough because the terror insurgency recruited young Pakistani Baloch men using a fake version of the story alleging that the Pakistani military killed the 80-year-old Bugti in cold blood.

Several news outlets, including BRASSTACKS, a Pakistani security analysis think tank, did explain the circumstances of Bugti's death. But this is the first time that one of Bugti's close aides has confirmed the real version.

Akbar Bugti, known as 'little Saddam' in his area of Dera Bugti, surprised all Pakistanis when, one fine morning in January 2005, he declared war against Pakistan after receiving guarantees from foreign powers based in Afghanistan that he will be given support to declare resource-rich Balochistan an independent country where he will be appointed an absolute ruler along the lines of the rich Gulf emirates. The federal Pakistani government discovered the plan and demanded Bugti's surrender. His foreign backers and supporters failed to come to his rescue when security forces surrounded him in a mountain cave on Aug. 26, 2006, where Bugti apparently fired a shell at senior security officers who came to arrest him. As a result, the cave collapsed.

Wadera Muhammad Murad Bugti told a Pakistani TV news channel earlier this week, "When security forces entered the cave where (Bugti) was hiding, he attempted to fend them off by firing a shell. This caused a massive explosion, which resulted in the cave-in that led to the death of Bugti, one colonel, two majors and three commandoes."

Another terrorist and associate of Akbar Bugti, Mir Balaach Marri, was killed on Nov. 20, 2007, inside Afghanistan as he tried to re-enter Pakistan after meeting his foreign supporters and backers.

Wadera Muhammad Bugti's statement is a second major blow to the terrorists and their sponsors inside Afghanistan. In April this year, another plank of their propaganda fell apart when U.N. officials negotiating the release of a kidnapped U.N. official discovered that Bugti's terror network based in Afghanistan was not only involved in the kidnapping but that its demand – the release of Pakistani Baloch women allegedly jailed for their political beliefs – was a hoax.

After the death of Bugti and Marri, Brahamdagh Bugti is now heading the terrorist insurgency and its only major group, the Balochsitan Liberation Army [BLA]. Brahamdagh is based in Kabul where he is sheltered in safe houses. BLA was the name that the former KGB and the Indian intelligence gave to Pakistani communist recruits who were paid to destabilize Pakistan during the 1960s, '70s and '80s, when the Soviet Union controlled Afghanistan. The BLA died with the end of the Cold War and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Its revival under a U.S.-controlled Afghanistan is a surprise to Pakistanis.

The militant campaign for 'Independent Balochistan' appears to have at least tacit support from U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan and is part of a wave of multiple insurgencies originating from Afghanistan and targeting the entire western Pakistani belt adjoining Afghanistan. All of these insurgencies did not exist before the year 2005, and certainly not before the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002.

It is thought that elements in the U.S. intelligence community are cooperating with the Indians and Karzai's intelligence to punish Pakistan for its refusal to give up interest in Afghanistan and Indian occupied Kashmir.

Washington is also trying to keep China, which has heavy investments in Balochistan, outside the region. Additionally, routes from Balochistan and Karachi all the way to Afghanistan need to be secured if U.S. is to maintain a long term military presence in Central Asia.

Brahamdagh Bugti and his supporters in Kabul and New Delhi have built an infrastructure of support for the anti-Pakistan terrorist movement that hides in the garb of a separatist movement seeking an independent Balochistan, carved out of Pakistani territories.

Indian experts in classic Urdu, Pakistan's official language, help Brahamdagh's people by writing high-standard Urdu-language press releases and emailing them en masse to Pakistani news outlets. One thrust of this propaganda was that Pakistani security agencies have arrested a large number of Pakistani women from Balochistan who are being abused in secret prisons for the crime of supporting Brahamdagh's insurgency.

This lie was exposed when Brahamdagh and his so-called Balochistan Liberation Army kidnapped in February a U.N. official who happened to be a U.S. citizen. Brahamdagh demanded the release of the allegedly imprisoned women in exchange for the American's release. Pakistani officials, U.S. officials, and FBI agents from the U.S. all scoured Pakistan's prisons and checked with all Pakistani security officials and it was ascertained beyond doubt that not a single Pakistani woman from Balochistan was incarcerated anywhere in the country not were there any registered cases of such 'missing' women by their relatives.


 

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Saturday, May 2, 2009

Obama Is Lying About Pakistan

Mr. Obama used a domestic event to 'accidentally' declare war on Pakistan. Now his team is trying to encourage the Pakistani military to seize power. The Americans destroyed Pakistan's stability through the Benazir-Musharraf deal in 2007. They are doing it again. Here is the easiest way of telling the Americans to: Lay off, stop lecturing us on India, stop supporting separatism, and mend your ways in Afghanistan.


By AHMED QURAISHI

Friday, 1 May 2009.


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—There is not a single towering personality in the Pakistani landscape today, with enough credibility, strong personality and effective communication skills, to stand up and tell U.S. President Barack Obama: You are a liar.

It is not difficult to respond to the entire American psy-ops on Pakistan, which are built on half-truths, disinformation and in some cases outright lies. This campaign is successful mainly because of the broad influence of the U.S. media in setting the world news agenda.

Before listing the exact points where Mr. Obama is lying, let me briefly sum up the existing situation.


AMERICA'S PLAYGROUND

In less than two years, the United States has successfully managed to drop from news headlines its failure to pacify Afghanistan. The focus of the Anglo-American media – American and British – has been locked on Pakistan. In order to justify this shift, multiple insurgencies and endless supply of money and weapons has trickled from U.S.-occupied Afghanistan into Pakistan to sustain a number of warlords inside Pakistan whom the American media calls 'Taliban' but they are actually nothing but hired mercenaries with sophisticated weapons who mostly did not even exist as recently as the year 2005.

No other nation in the world would have tolerated half the arrogance that the Americans are showing Pakistan. But thanks to a mistake by former President Musharraf – sometime in late 2006 when he consented to allow the U.S. to manipulate domestic politics through direct engagement with Benazir Bhutto and other players – Washington was given a free hand to deal directly with individual players inside Pakistan and recruit supporters and proxies.

Today, there are many parties inside Pakistan that are pushing the U.S. agenda and very few of those who would come out and condemn how the U.S. media and officials are single-handedly tarnishing Pakistan's image worldwide to justify a military intervention.

This is precisely why senior Pakistani military officers are gradually coming out of their self-imposed ban on public activity to counter this nasty American psy-ops. Pakistanis need to watch this carefully.

On 24 April, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, in the words of an official press release, "condemned pronouncements by outside powers raising doubts on the future of the Country," a veiled reference to a spate of official U.S. statements and planted media reports predicting the collapse of the Pakistani state.

On 25 April, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman issued a statement saying that PAF "will continue to maintain its optimum operational readiness to undertake all types of missions against all internal and external threats … Pakistan Air Force is capable of providing instant support to Pak Army as and when directed by Government of Pakistan. To keep PAF at the highest state of Operational Readiness is my number one priority," the Air Chief said in a public statement.

And on 1 May, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen. Tariq Majeed called a meeting of the military leadership and an official statement made sure to underscore that "the meeting took place against the backdrop of widespread propaganda unleashed by the western media about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."

The military statement was being nice. The propaganda was not unleashed by the 'Western media' but exclusively by the American media.

This unusual series of public statements by the Pakistani military leadership was an indirect repudiation of the sheepish attitude of the Pakistani politicians who failed to reflect the will of the Pakistani people. Amazingly, while U.S. media organizations and U.S. officials continued their propaganda about the imminent fall of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in the hands of unknown terrorists, not a single official from the elected government came out to clarify the position from a Pakistani perspective. The world continued to feed on U.S. propaganda and psy-ops for several days until the public statements from the Pakistani military set the record straight. That is when a couple of government officials, like President's Advisor Dr. Babar Awan, released statements contradicting the U.S. propaganda.

Interestingly, even Mr. Nawaz Sharif, supposedly the opposition leader, refrained from criticizing the U.S. aggressive posturing toward Pakistan. Mr. Sharif, more vengeful than statesmanlike, is hoping these days that Washington will support his bid to become the next all-powerful President after the Americans ditch a weakened President Zardari.


OBAMA'S LIES

Mr. Obama basically chose a domestic event – a press briefing on completing 100 days in office – to unveil what essentially amounts to a declaration of war against another country. The declaration was stage-managed to look accidental and not deliberate. Considering the serious nature of his pronouncements, there is no question these were well prepared in advance. This 'accidental' declaration of war should henceforth be taught in public relations classes as a classic lesson in how to deceive your public and voters and declare war without raising any alarm.

Mr. Obama first made an astonishing remark, that he is concerned about the fate of the elected Pakistani government because it cannot provide services to the people. Ironically, this was a swipe at the fake democracy that Washington itself helped erect a year ago with its direct intervention to bring Benazir Bhutto and later her husband Asif Zardari to power.

Now the U.S. President, no less, has taken it upon himself to criticize the ability of what he called the "civilian government", as opposed to a military government, to provide for the people.

It seems Washington is trying to nudge the Pakistani military again to seize power. The Americans are doing it in subtle ways. One is Obama's swipe. A second way is what Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has done. He was allowed to join the panel of the U.S. Time magazine in choosing Gen. Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, to be among the top 2o most influential people in the world. To work up Gen. Kayani's ego, Adm. Mullen wrote the following words:

"I don't remember all the details of my first meeting with General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army's Chief of Staff. But I do remember thinking, Here is a man with a plan, a leader who knows where he wants to go. He seemed to understand the nature of the extremist threat inside Pakistan , recognized that his army wasn't ready to meet that threat and had already started working up solutions."

The Americans are obviously hoping they can have Gen. Kayani in their pockets and use him to achieve their goals in the region. That is why President Obama in his 'accidental' speech on Pakistan shed these crocodile tears: "I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile."

And in another nudge for the Pakistani military, what President Obama's top general for Pakistan and Afghanistan told an American television channel was even more damning. Fox News reported on Thursday that Commander U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus has told U.S. officials the next two weeks were 'critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive.'

But in what is sure to be one of the most hypocritical statements to ever come out from the mouth of the leader of the Free World, Mr. Obama said this: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests -- huge national security interests -- in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

If Mr. Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington who basically is the overseer of the Bhutto-Musharraf deal that brought the present 'democracy' to Pakistan, has any feelings for his country, he should call an important press conference and tell the American people the following truths that their media and politicians are hiding from them:

1. American Anti-Pakistanism: The most spectacular, anti-Pakistan media campaign ever against our country has been launched by the U.S. media and continues unabated, with the purpose of softening the international opinion for a possible military action against Pakistan. And there is no question that this campaign has some backing from official U.S. quarters as was the case in the propaganda that preceded the invasion of Iraq.

2. Stop Grooming & Training Separatists Inside Pakistan: With prodding from CIA, academic programs are being launched in the U.S. that advocate the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of smaller entities. This has to stop.

3. Terrorism Inside Pakistan Is Not The Main Story. The real story is America's failure to bring peace to Afghanistan despite the passage of seven years on its direct occupation of the country. Terrorism in Pakistan is a result of the American failure in Afghanistan. We trusted the Americans. And what did they do? They let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora, and then the Americans refused to listen to our advice and filled the puppet government in Kabul with the same people who helped Osama escape.

4. Don't Lecture Us On India: The United States and its sidekick, Britain, have decided that India will be their slave-soldier in Asia in the 21st century. They want India to fight China and stabilize Afghanistan. They now want Pakistan to accept Indian military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan, forget about Kashmir and the water disputes, and turn the Pakistani military into a little more than a local police force tasked with killing anyone who doesn't like America's occupation of Afghanistan.

5. India IS Pakistan's enemy until proven otherwise through actions and not words: Someone has to teach Mrs. Clinton, President Obama and their other team members some lessons in strategy. India continues to prove by actions that it is an enemy of Pakistan. This does not apply to the people of India but it certainly applies to their government and their intelligence services, their media, and their 'non-state actors'. The world should know that India in 1972 launched a unilateral invasion of Pakistan exploiting a domestic political crisis and helped break up Pakistan. We have never done anything similar to India before that year. This naked aggression by India was never condemned by the so-called leaders of the free world and continues to be overlooked. India is portrayed as a responsible country despite having committed aggression against a smaller neighbor without provocation. Can the Americans guarantee India will not do this again?

6. The Afghan Taliban Are Not A Threat To America: The Afghan Taliban have never operated outside their country and are attacking American and other occupation forces inside Afghanistan as a result of the occupation. Washington should stop deliberately confusing the world about the difference between the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda. The al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that should be eliminated, and has considerably been eliminated.

7. Eliminating Afghan Taliban Is Not Pakistan's Responsibility: It is America's responsibility to bring the Pashtun in Afghanistan into the power structure and defuse tensions.

8. So-called Pakistani Taliban Are No Threat To America: Although money and weapons for these militants are coming from U.S-controlled Afghanistan, many of the recruits and fighters are Pakistanis and we will deal with them any way we deem fit. It is not for Washington to decide how we do this.



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Friday, May 1, 2009

Netanyahu will have to work to restore U.S.-Israel ties

An ANALYSIS in an Isreali Newspaper

By Aluf Benn

During his first 100 days in office, U.S. President Barack Obama set his aims high, but he took careful, moderate steps in practice, avoiding confrontations or adventures that might undermine his support in Congress or among the American public. That has also been his approach to the Middle East: Obama has called for a radical change in direction from his predecessor's policies, but at the same time has given relatively low priority to dealing with Israel and its neighbors.

Obama wants to see a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and hopes to ease tensions in the region through dialogue with Iran and Syria and, in the future, also with Hamas and others who were boycotted by the Bush administration. Obama cannot afford to continue George Bush's efforts to isolate the "Axis of Evil." The planned U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will create a strategic vacuum in the Middle East, and Egypt is rapidly approaching a change of leadership. Under such uncertain circumstances, the U.S. needs new allies in the region.

The most noteworthy decision made by Obama on the Middle East was the appointment of former senator George Mitchell to mediate between Israel and the Arabs. He thereby fulfilled his campaign promise to be actively involved via a high-level envoy, and also showed "balance" between the parties, thanks to Mitchell's Arab heritage. Obama's call for dialogue with Iran is still awaiting a response, and contacts with Syria have not yet matured to the point of a genuine improvement in ties.

Israel has enjoyed a "waiting period" in its relationship with Obama, but this period will end when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington on May 18. Obama and other senior administration officials have made it clear to Netanyahu that he should not waste their time by turning the visit into a public relations campaign; rather, he must propose practical steps for furthering the diplomatic process and improving the lot of the Palestinians. Netanyahu wants to place Iran at the top of the agenda, but U.S. officials will explain that Israel will have to give something in return.

The ideological affinity and close coordination that Israel enjoyed under Bush left the White House along with the former president. Netanyahu will have to work in order to restore the intimacy and closeness to U.S.-Israel ties.

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