Friday, December 26, 2008

Bearing Justice Iftikhar ill will was unwise; taking Justice Dogar under his wings was counter-productive; PPP ranks are ill at ease; attempt to work on Army will prove last straw

By Shaheen Sehbai

WASHINGTON: The one question that I am repeatedly asked by everyone, believing that I have been quite close to Asif Ali Zardari during his days of self-exile and forced expulsion from politics for many years, is how long he and his government will survive. Read more »

Download this article 

By Yousuf Nazar 

The credibility of the government is low but so is the credibility of the media. The media coverage, with some exceptions, is compromised by commercial interests and the agencies.  Also, there is no transparency in terms of ownership, business interests, and finances.

The politicians and the establishment get a lot of flak but it is about time the self-righteous media takes a critical look at its own state of affairs. We complain about dynasties in politics but is the media any better or different? Read more »

From Army Times, USA 

Critics: Afghanistan plan takes SF from usual training mission 

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 23, 2008 13:30:19 EST 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement of a plan to deploy an additional three brigades of combat troops to Afghanistan by the summer has superseded a contentious debate that pitted the Bush administration’s “war czar” against the special operations hierarchy over the National Security Council’s proposed near-term “surge” of special operations forces to Afghanistan, a Pentagon military official said.

Read more »

By Yousuf Nazar   

Who stands to gain the most from the Mumbai attacks?   

The Pakistani media was quick to dismiss Indian allegations about the complicity of elements from Pakistan in Mumbai attacks. Some channels even carried stories that there was no Aslam Amir in Faridkot, only to contradict themselves later. We need to reflect upon the whole paradigm of ‘terrorism’.  For this purpose, it is essential to to take a holistic view including examination of some important and critical events since 9/11, US’s strategic interests in the Middle East and Central Asia, the relationship between the US and Pakistan authorities, and the murky nature of CIA’s involvement with the so-called Islamic militants.  Read more »

Those who doubt what the US is capable of doing to destabilize Pakistan should read this carefully!  [Source: National Security Archive: George Washington University]

In his exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlighted a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS.  This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods.  Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba.  These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.  Bamford wrote that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

[Bamford wrote this before 9/11. He should now visit Pakistan]

Read copy of the declassified top secret memo

Read more »

On Dec. 9 GEO TV reported the Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told an Indian TV channel that the chief of Jaish-e-Muhammad Maulana Masood Azhar is under house arrest. The New York Times carried the same story citing Mukhtar’s interview to CNN-IBN. Later on Dec. 12, DAWN carried a front page story saying Maulana Masood Azhar is mostly confined to his home town of Bahawalpur.    Read more »

From Counterpunch, December 15, 2008

Finally, A Journalist We Can Look Up To!

A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

By DAVE LINDORFF

When Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi heaved his two shoes at the head of President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, he did something that the White House press corps should have done years ago.

Read more »

New York Times 

December 15, 2008 

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD — President Bush made a valedictory visit on Sunday to Iraq, the country that will largely define his legacy, but the trip will more likely be remembered for the unscripted moment when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at Mr. Bush’s head and denounced him on live television as a “dog” who had delivered death and sorrow here from nearly six years of war.

The drama unfolded shortly after Mr. Bush appeared at a news conference in Baghdad with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to highlight the newly adopted security agreement between the United States and Iraq. The agreement includes a commitment to withdraw all American forces by the end of 2011. Read more »

By Bo Nielsen and Daniel Kruger

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — The biggest foreign-exchange strategists and investors say the best may be over for the dollar after a four-month, 24 percent rally.

The currency weakened 5.9 percent measured by the trade- weighted Dollar Index after strengthening between July and November as investors bought the greenback to flee riskier assets and repay dollar-denominated loans from lenders reining in credit. Ever since peaking on Nov. 21, the dollar fell against all 16 of the most-widely traded currencies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Read more »

Arundhati Roy

Friday 12 December 2008 20.21 GMT

Azam Amir Kasab, the face of the Mumbai attacks. Photograph: Reuters

We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11″. Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before. Read more »

The Pakistani media was quick to dismiss Indian allegations about the complicity of elements from Pakistan. Some channels even carried stories that there was no Aslam Amir in Faridkot. However, subsequent developments have shown that the media needs to reflect upon the whole paradigm of its coverage.  Why does it take the UN declarations to prompt actions from Pakistan? Why do we have to wait for external pressure to mount to act against militant groups?

This lends credence to the view that militancy in Pakistan is , in part at least, a policy tool of the security establishment. Given so many other reports from even the British and the US media (e.g. The Telegraph and ABC News), Pakistan-based militants continue to be tools of also the western intelligence agencies such as the CIA and MI6.  And at points, they are all alleged to be joined at the hip.

External factors are very much there but we also have an inner cancer. The only way to get out of this would be a policy of gradual disengagement from playing the great game and support of militancy, over the course of next several years. But in the absence of a clear policy and unwillingness to reduce dependence on the United States, the risk of Pakistan sinking deeper into the quagmire will only increase at a great cost to the national security interests.

More than President Zardari or the media, it is Pakistan’s military leadership that needs to do some honest soul searching and serious reflection on its long term policy options in the light of the current crisis and past failures.

The following stories from the Associated Press should be read in that context. Read more »

DHR/046/10. 12.08 December 10, 2008

Barrack Hussein Obama

President-Elect

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Subject: Earnest request to find Masood Janjua and other missing loved ones in Pakistan.   Read more »

By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM – Dec. 10, 2008

MUMBAI, India (AP) — India has demanded that the U.N. Security Council declare a Pakistan-based Islamic charity a terrorist group, saying it was a front for the militant organization it accuses of being behind the attacks on Mumbai.

Read more »

 10 December 2008

Security Council SC/9527

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

SECURITY COUNCIL AL-QAIDA AND TALIBAN SANCTIONS COMMITTEE ADDS NAMES OF FOUR

INDIVIDUALS TO CONSOLIDATED LIST, AMENDS ENTRIES OF THREE ENTITIES

On 10 December 2008, the Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee approved the addition of the four entries specified below to its Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations

Read more »