defensebriefs

25 May 2009 @ 10:06 pm

Aravind Adiga, & Satis Shroff describe reality of India in White Tiger:

Indologists and those interested to learn about India must read the prodigiously written book by Aravind Adiga, and prolifically penned writings of Satis Shroff. Not gauging the reality may create inherent risks, not only for businessmen but also for analysts and strategic thinkers. Euphoria or melancholia cannot be sustained through media hype. An ephemeral image based upon false premises cannot be stand the scrutiny of reality. The real news about Bharat (aka India) either escapes the editors of the Rupert Murdock news media which fuels the rumors that there is some sort of a mechanism that surfaces only a certain types of news emanating from Delhi. Aravind Adigahas brilliantly described the truth about the cities of Bharat and how they function.

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: In this darkly comic début novel set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." In a series of letters to the Premier of China, in anticipation of the leader’s upcoming visit to Balram’s homeland, the chauffeur recounts his transformation from an honest, hardworking boy growing up in "the Darkness"—those areas of rural India where education and electricity are equally scarce, and where villagers banter about local elections "like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra"—to a determined killer. He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian élite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling. The New Yorker.

Secular India =Dalits under Hindu Rashtra & Muslims under Ram Raj

India: Unable to bear the Brutal Brahamanic persecution-- Buddhism survives in South East Asia Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Brahminatrocities conducted mass genocide Persecution of Buddhists in India The ManuwadiHindus destroyed Buddhism in its own land of birth

The vision of shining India is propagated every week by Fareed Zakaria. He of course deprecates Pakistan as his second nature. His mission is to hidethe truth and spread malicious propaganda. Fareed Zakaria will never bring out the Adiga perspective.

The author writes about poverty, corruption, aggression and the brutal struggle for power in the Indian society. A society in which the middle class is reaching economically for the sky, in which Adiga’s biting and scathing criticism sounds out of place, when deshi Indians are dreaming of manned flights to the moon, outer space and mountains of nuclear arsenal against China or any other neighbouring states that might try to flex muscles against Hindustan.

Delhi: 3500-yrs of massacres of Dalit-Sudra Blacks by Arya-Brahmins Who are the Untouchables? by Dr. Ambedkar Sudra Holocaust:Ongoing Genocide of millions of Dalits in India

Thousands of Bollywood movies are made every year. Very few are filmed in Bharat, and most do not ever show Bharati towns and cities. Skyscrapers in Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur as passed off as office buildings of Bharati two bit actors. Like the wise men of Gotham, some Bharati's begin believing their own propaganda

India is sometimes like a Bollywood film, which the poverty-stricken masses enjoy watching, to forget their daily problems for two hours. The rich Indians want to give their gastrointestinal tract a rest and so they go to the cinema between bouts of paan-spitting and farting due to lack of exercise and oily food. They all identify themselves withthe protagonists for these hundred and twenty minutes and are transported into another world with location shooting in Switzerland, Schwarzwald, Grand Canyon, the Egyptian Pyramids, sizzling London, fashionable New York and romantic Paris. After twelve songs, emotions taking a roller-coaster ride, the Indians stagger out of the stuffy, sweaty cinemas and are greeted by the blazing and scorching Indian sun, slums, streets spilling with haggard, emaciated humanity, pocket-thieves, real-life goondas, cheating businessmen, money-lenders, snake-girl-destitute-charmers, thugs in white collars and the big question: what shall I and my family eat tonight? Roti, kapada, makan, that is, bread, clothes and a posh house are like a dream to most Indians dwelling in the pavements of Mumbai, or for that matter in Delhi, Bangalore, Mangalore, Mysore, Calcutta (Read Günter Grass’s Zunge Zeigen) and other Indian cities, where they burn rubbish for warmth.

The stomach groans with a sad melody in the loneliness and darkness of a metropolis like Mumbai, a city that never sleeps. As Adiga says, ‘an India of Light, and an India of Darkness in which the black, polluted river Mother Ganga flows.’

Ach, munjo Mumbai! The terrible monsoon, the jam-packed city, Koliwada, Sion, Bandra, Marine Drive, Juhu Beach. I can visualise them all, like I was there. I spent almost every winter during the holidays visiting my uncles, aunts and cousins, the jet-set Shroffs of Bombay. I’m glad that there are people like Aravind Adiga, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who speak for the millions of under-privileged, downtrodden people and give them a voice through literature. Aravind deserves the Man Booker Prize like no other, because the novel is extraordinary. It doesn’t have the intellectual poise of VS Naipaul or Rushdie’s masala language. It has it’s own Mumbaimatter-of-fact speech, a melange of Oxford and NY. And what we get to hear when we take the crowded trains from the suburbs of this vast metropolis, with its mixture of Marathi, Gujerati, Sindhi and scores of other Indian languages is also what Balram is talking about. Adiga was bold enough to present the Other India than what film moghuls and other so-called intellectuals would have us believe.

Dalit leader Dr. Ambedkar struggled to emancipate the “untouchables” from the shackles of Hindu prescribed slavery-- the caste system.

Ambeekar wanted to free the Dalits& to allow them to regain their inalienable rights as human beings--highlighting the servitude, humiliation, trials & tribulations of being born in a low caste family and struggled to uplift the “untouchables”, the indigenous people, women & other disadvantaged sections of society.

Dr. Ambedkar on Pakistan
Today Dr. Kancha Iiaiah carries on the struggle of the Dalits.
Civil Rights Activist Dr. Kancha Ilaiah
Why I am not a Hindu and other Dalit articles
Muslims must work AMONG Dalits & liberate them: Dr. Ilaiah
INDIA: Dr. Ilaiah, persecuted Dalit author of “I am not a Hindu”

Balram’s is a strong political voice and mirrors the Indian society which wants to present Bharat in superlatives: superpower, affluent society and mainstream culture, whereas in reality there’s tremendous darkness in the society of the subcontinent. Even though Adiga has lived a life of affluence, studied at Columbia and Oxford universities, he has raised his voice in his book against the nepotism, corruption, in-fighting between communal groups, between the rich and the super-rich, a dynamic process in which the poor, dalits, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s Children of God (untouchables), ‘scheduled’ castes and tribes have no outlet, and are to this day mere pawns at the hands of the rich in Hindustan, as India was called before the Brits came to colonise the sub-continent. Balram, Adiga’s protagonist, shows how to assert oneself in the Indian society, come what may. I hope this book won’t create monsters without character, integrity, ethos, and soulless humans, devoid of values and norms. From what sources are the characters drawn? The story is in the form of a letter written by the protagonist to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and is drawn from India’s history as told by a school drop-out, chauffeur, entrepreneur, a self-mademan with all his charms and flaws, a man who knows his own India, and who presents his views frankly and candidly, sometimes much like P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster.

The author's attitudetoward his characters is comical and satirical when it comes to realities of life for India’s poverty stricken underdogs, whether in the form of a rickshaw puller, tea-shop boy or the driver of a rich Indian businessman. His characters are alive and kicking, and it is a delight to go with Balramin this thrilling ride through India’s history, Bangalore, Old and New Delhi, Mumbai and its denizens. The major theme is how to get along in a sprawling country like India, and the author reveals his murderous plan brilliantly through a series of police descriptions of a man named Balram Halwai. The theme is a beaten path, traditional and familiar, for this is not the first book on Mumbai and Indian society. Other stalwarts like Kuldip Singh, Salman Rushdie, Amitabh Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Anita and Kiran Desai and a host of writers from the Raj have walked along this path, each penning their respective Zeitgeist. In this case, the theme is social, entertaining, escapist in nature, and the reader is like a voyeur in the scenarios created by Balaram.

The climax is when the Chinese leader actually comes to Bangalore. So much for Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai. Unlike Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss) Adiga says, “Based on my experience, Indian girls are the best. (Well second best. I tell you, Mr Jiaobao, it’s one of the most thrilling sights you can have as a man in Bangalore, to see the eyes of a pair of Nepali girls flashing out at you from the dark hood of an autorickshaw (sic). As to the intellectual qualities of the writing, I loved the simplicity and clarity that Adigahas chosen for his novel. He intersperses his text witha lot of dialogue withhis characters and increases the readability score, and is dripping withsatire and humour, even while describing an earnest emotional matter like the cremation of Balram’s mother, whereby the humour is entirely British---with Indian undertones. The setting is cleverly constructed. In order to have pace and action in the story Adiga sends Balram to the streets of Bangalore as a chauffeur, and suddenly you’re in the middle of a conversation and narration where a wily driver Balram tunes in. He’s learning, ever learning from the smart guys in the back seat, and in the end he’s the smartest guy in Bangalore, evoking an atmosphere of struggle for survival in the jungles of concrete in India. Indeed, blazingly savage, this book. A good buy this autumn.

About the Author: Satis Shroff is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace”, poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.
Satis Shroff is a poet and writer based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transculturaltogetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

Arvind Adiga, a Brahmin from coastal Karnataka recently got the Booker Prize for his novel ‘White Tiger’. The novel describes the travails of a Dalit man from north India and how he finally triumphs over his slavery to the feudal upper caste and becomes an entrepreneur in the IT city of Bangalore.

Many reviewers have mentioned that the novel represents the struggle of a Dalit Man and his attainment of the ‘Indian Dream’. Several so called Dalit intellectuals got this book to the notice of the editor of Dalit Nation. We finally read the book and tried to put it in perspective within the overall Dalit literature and body of knowledge. What we found in this process was not in consonance with the rest of the reviewers.

The author of ‘White Tiger’ divides India into two - the Light part and the Dark part. The land of darkness is the cow belt states of North India – UP, Bihar, MP. The land of light are the states of the south especially cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. This is the basic flaw of the novel. The author has assumed that caste equations are predominant in the northern Indian villages and the southern cities are lands of milk and honey where free will and thereby entrepreneurs can thrive. In the northern villages the destiny of Dalit men are fixed and irrevocable. The Dalits are born in such squalor where the parents forget to name their children. They finally end up as the servant, cleaners and car drivers of the upper feudal caste.

The basic problem with this premise is that it gives a clean chit to the southern cities. The editor of Dalit Nation has lived in Indian metropolitan cities and is well aware of the deeply entrenched casteism in these cities. The IT industry in Bangalore is no haven of equality (Read our article – Dalits must agitate for reservation in private sector). We have proved this time and again that the majority of the resources in the cities are appropriated by the upper caste and they control all major business and administration. But Arvind Adiga finds it the right place for the Dalit hero of the novel to escape and find emancipation.

In the whole book there is no mention of our great leader Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. There is mention of Gandhi in a disparaging way but nowhere the messiah of Dalits is mentioned. The Brahmin author of this novel has no clue about Dalits and northern India and how much the Dalits venerate Babasaheb. The Brahmin Adiga even fails to mention the term Dalit in the whole of the novel. Dalit is a powerful term and it is through this identity all our oppressed brethren relate to each other. It is a clever ploy of the upper caste writers to avoid such words as Dalit and thereby strip them of our identity.

Babasaheb taught the mantra – ‘educate, organize and agitate’. But this novel does not contain any elements of the Dalit mantra. The Dalit hero, Balaram Halwai is uneducated and there is no effort or striving among his community towards education. They seem to be happy in their illiteracy and their impending destiny of life long slavery. And how does the dalit hero escape from the slavery of the upper castes. He works as a car driver to his American educated feudal lord and finally murders him, steals his money and escapes to Bangalore. What is the message the Dalits should take from this stupid book. That they should murder and steal and that is the only way our for them. What nonsense. Is this what Babasaheb taught them.

Why did not the hero of the novel and his community get educated , organized themselves and agitate against the upper caste people. This is what Babasaheb would have done and this is what he exhorted the Dalits to do all his life. But for the Brahmin Adiga the only way out for a Dalit is to murder, steal and live like a fugitive.

And how does our Balram Halwai gets deliverance in Bangalore. He opens a transportation company for call centres by renting out a few vehicles. Is this the success story of a Dalit. I was anticipating the Dalit hero to become a CEO of a software company. But he again ends up as driver or rather a person who hires many drivers.

Does not Arvind Adiga know that we have a Dalit Chief Minister Mayavathi, does he even know who people like Jagajivan Ram and K.R.Narayanan were. Does he know that Babasaheb had a Phd from Columbia University. He finally made the Dalit hero to become the the scum of the IT industry in Bangalore and he wants us to believe that he has found his salvation there. Babasaheb was a lawyer himself and he did not believe in murder or stealing. He believed in the law and was the first law minister of Independent India. Babasaheb was a socialist and believed that state reform is needed for the emancipation of Dalits. But here the Brahmin Adiga gives us a false hope in free market capitalism. The very same capitalism which fuels feudalism and exploitation is praised by the author. What a shame.

Novels like these should be shunned by Dalits as they deny our heritage and demonize our people. The ‘White Tiger’ is neither empowering nor can it emancipate Dalits. In short it is just a piece of junk written by an upper caste Brahmin. This piece of junk is given some Booker or Hooker prize and the upper caste readers read these kinds of novels thinking that this is the Dalit condition and they can rest in peace. The aim of Dalits is social reform through state legislation and cultural revolution. But how can a shameless pseudo intellectual scumbag Arvind Adiga understand this. All they are interested in is the Hooker prize and international readership. We dalits do not need India to be the ‘White Tiger’ we will convert it into the ‘Black Panther’. Arvind Adiga - Not White Tiger but the Black Panther

Dalitsare not the only one facing genocide and enslavement. Muslims face this all the time.

While many people remember the carnage during the last century, the international media is quiet about the victims of Gujarat--both the dead ones and those who survive the nightmare and now live on hell on earth. Some watch Bollywood movies with the gyrating pelvises, but ignore one of the best movies on the subject PARZANIA. Parzania is the true story of a Parsi family that lost its son in the Hindu carnage on Muslims. Parzaniacannot show the rape, pillage, arson, cannibalism, and live burning of human beings, at least it reminds the world of man's humanity on man. The victims of the Gujarat genocide have not gotten justice in Bharat(aka India). The Chief Minister of the state is hoping to become the next prime minister of the country. He roams free and boasts about the genocide on his watch.

Tags: india

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25 May 2009 @ 07:03 pm

Shining Incredible Indian Superpower

While many people remember the carnage during the last century, the international media is quiet about the victims of Gujarat--both the dead ones and those who survive the nightmare and now live on hell on earth. Some watch Bollywood movies with the gyrating pelvises, but ignore one of the best movies on the subject PARZANIA. Parzania is the true story of a Parsi family that lost its son in the Hindu carnage on Muslims. Parzania cannot show the rape, pillage, arson, cannibalism, and live burning of human beings, at least it reminds the world of man's humanity on man. The victims of the Gujarat genocide have not gotten justice in Bharat (aka India). The Chief Minister of the state is hoping to become the next prime minister of the country. He roams free and boasts about the genocide on his watch.

Silence is complicity.

The land of the Indus is incensed about a woman being spanked, and ignores the rape and burring of thousands of Muslim women in Bharat. The Pakistani establishment is impotent to bring the story of Gujarat to the United Nations and the Pakistani media is silent about the butchery. Asma Gilani has written reams about incidents in Pakistan, not a word about the Gujarat slaughter. Ikram Sehgal visits Delhi often, but has never uttered a word Modi's depredation. Pervez Hoohbhoy, Ayaz Amir and Imtiaz Alam say a lot about the Pakistani military. Mums the word about the Gujarat hecatomb where Muslims were sacrficed to Kali Devi.

The worst ever communal carnage of this century in which over 2000 innocents lost their lives
Survivors not only lost their livelihood and shelter but also have been degraded to the status of second class citizens
Most of the citizen?s inquiry committees by human rights activists have pointed out about the role of state administration and Modi in particular in the violence
Hundreds of thousands cannot return home
Maya Kodnani, Narendra Modi?s cabinet colleague who instigated and led the carnage in Naroda Patia
Modi is being projected as the future Prime minister of India

India as World Power 1 Superpower India Pt 2

The international press is also silent. Fareed Zarkaria mentions shining India, but forgets to tell the world about the despoliation of Muslims. Joe Klein of Time Magazine discusses the Superpower, but ignores the slums and hides the truth about the Chief Minister of Gujarat--Narendar Modi

: GENOCIDE AGAINST MUSLIMS: The charred bodies of Muslim after the Hindus attacked, murdered and burned them in Gujarat in 2002. The fate of Mulsims in India

In the worst ever communal carnage of this century, the post Godhra Gujarat violence, over 2000 innocents lost their lives. Most of the survivors not only lost their livelihood and shelter but also have been degraded to the status of second class citizens. Most of the perpetrators of violence, have not only gone scot-free; many of them had an upward political mobility. The efforts of the victims and human rights activists had yielded very few results and majority of the victims are grieving and living with the scars of their losses. In the whole process, the direction of Apex court to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the role of Modi, his cabinet colleagues and other top functionaries of state and those involved in violence, has come as a sigh of hope. The court gave the direction (April 27, 2002) in response to appeal by Jakia Ahsan Jafri, the widow of slain Congress MP, Ahsan Jafri. One complements the courage and doggedness of Jakia Jafri for all her efforts.

This comes in the backdrop of the arrest of Maya Kodnani, Modi?s cabinet colleague who instigated and led the Role of Narendra Modi By Ram Puniyani, 02 May, 2009, Countercurrents.org

: Indian police inspect the charred remains of a Muslim in Ambasa

carnage in Naroda Patia. Just to recall, Ahsan Jafri ex Congress MP had made frantic calls to all those concerned but the police help was not forthcoming to save him from the mob assembled by the VHP-Bajrang Dal and others, the lead players in Gujarat carnage. So far the official inquiry committees have not pointed its finger on the role of Modi, while the Human Rights Commission report (2002) pointed out that state machinery failed to protect the innocent people. Most of the citizen?s inquiry committees by human rights activists have pointed out about the role of state administration and Modi in particular in the violence. In the major such report of ?Citizens tribunal? headed by retired Justice Krishna Ayer and Justice P.B.Sawant, (Crime against Humanity), a Minister in Modi?s Government Haren Pandya gave description of the meeting which Modi had called on the evening of Godhra train accident. As per Pandya Modi instructed all the top state officials to let the Hindu anger not be curtailed in the aftermath of Godhra. Modi popularized the thesis that Godhra train was burnt in a pre planned manner by the international terrorism, in collusion with the ISI and local Muslims. Infamously, he announced that every action has an opposite reaction, meaning that now Hindus will take revenge and state should sit back and let the opposite reaction take its course. Gujarat Carnage.

The author of ‘White Tiger’ divides India into two - the Light part and the Dark part. The land of darkness is the cow belt states of North India – UP, Bihar, MP. The land of light are the states of the south especially cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. This is the basic flaw of the novel. The author has assumed that caste equations are predominant in the northern Indian villages and the southern cities are lands of milk and honey where free will and thereby entrepreneurs can thrive. In the northern villages the destiny of Dalit men are fixed and irrevocable. The Dalits are born in such squalor where the parents forget to name their children. They finally end up as the servant, cleaners and car drivers of the upper feudal caste.

Indian Terrorists: Wanted Dead or Alive

When will Delhi hand over these terrorists?

BJP caught red handed in terrorism-Gujarat blasts

Strategy to deny visa to Narendra Modi--the Hitler lover & Butcher of Gujarat

: GUJERAT GENOCIDE AGAINST MUSLIMS: Indian Muslims digging graves for loved ones who fell victim to bloodthirsty Modi mobs in Gujarat

It is a mad hatter's world. Those who massacred 15 million during world war one, 50 million in word war two and used atomic bombs to decimate entire cities today give the world lectures on nuclear proliferation, violence and peace. It is strange world when charitable societies in the Muslim world are shut down, ostensibly because they support the ex-CIA-agent-turned terrorists while the (Gujarati) Indian American Hotel Association in the United States is free to send millions of Dollars into the coffers of the butcher of Gujarat--Narendar Modi. It is a very strange world when Bobby Jindal, a supporter of Narendar Modi and one who has appeared in fund raising for Modi and (Gujarati) Indian American Hotel Association can hope to become the leader of the Republican party, while orphanages in Pakistan are shut down because they may help some unknown terrorist.

Silence is Complicity!

The IT industry in Bangalore is no haven of equality (Read our article – Dalits must agitate for reservation in private sector). We have proved this time and again that the majority of the resources in the cities are appropriated by the upper caste and they control all major business and administration. But Arvind Adiga finds it the right place for the Dalit hero of the novel to escape and find emancipation.

GUJARAT GENOCIDE AGAINST CHRISTIANS, DALITS & MUSLIMS Governor Bobby Jindal funded by Anti-Semitic Terrorists

Modi & Hindu fundamentalist Modi in “India” funded by US Gujaratis

Governor Bobby Jindal is financed by Indian American Hotel Association and he supports the IAHA which funds Modi

Christians in India raped & murdered by Hinduists supported by network in the US

Indian Hotel Association hosts Modi after US denied him a visa

Same Harem Pandya was murdered later and his father stated that his murder had taken place on the instance of Modi. While the carnage was on, the Central government, NDA led by BJP, kept watching and barring some stray noises by PM Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani, the carnage went on spilling the rivers of blood. Despite Modi?s claim that he controlled the violence in 72 hours, it took months for the din to settle. Modi's acts of omission were more than obvious. His permitting the procession of dead of Godhra tragedy in the lanes of Ahamadabad, violating all the norms of prevention and control of riot situation are too well documented by now. Now as matters stand our legal system has lots of loopholes and most of the guilty are not punished. On the contrary, in the case of Gujarat, Modi ?succeeded? in splitting the Gujarat society along religious lines, and he took advantage of the communal divide by riding back to power and strengthened his vice like grip on the administration and state as a whole. And now, In Gujarat the matters are not seen as guilty versus innocents, they are seen as Hindu versus Muslim.

: GUJERAT GENOCIDE AGAINST MUSLIMS: Modi's Gujarat anti-Muslim Pogram: Indian policemen walking past the charred body of a Muslim

While on one hand Modi is being projected as the future Prime minister of India, not only by many captains of industry but also by the party sustaining on the fodder of communal divide, the BJP. While most of the people with plural values and concern for national integration are welcoming the direction of Apex court, the others doing electoral calculations point out that this investigation will enhance the standing of Modi. BJP spokesman also pointed out that this direction of Apex court will be helpful to the BJP in electoral arena. The nation is standing on a tragic point where the communal polarization brought in by communal violence and anti-minority propaganda has resulted in the loss of sensitivity of a section of society towards the miseries and travails of large part of our own country, our own nation.

Gujarat Carnage: Role of Narendra Modi By Ram Puniyani, 02 May, 2009, Countercurrents.org

The Gujarat victims are not the only ones who suffer on a daily basis. The plight of 450 million Indian enslaved Untouchables is a story that does not see the light of day. More than 60 per cent of Dalits are landless. Over 40 million of them are bonded labourers. Dalits are the worst victims of labour coercion “The 1991 Government survey of India states that on an average day, two Dalits are killed, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits’ houses are burned and fifty Dalits are assaulted by people of a higher caste.” ” High-caste Brahmins formed a private army, the Ranvir Sena, to stop communists from encouraging Dalit field workers to demand higher wages.

Delhi: 3500-yrs of massacres of Dalit-Sudra Blacks by Arya-Brahmins Who are the Untouchables? by Dr. Ambedkar Sudra Holocaust:Ongoing Genocide of millions of Dalits in India

Dalit leader Dr. Ambedkar struggled to emancipate the “untouchables” from the shackles of Hindu prescribed slavery-- the caste system.

Ambeekar wanted to free the Dalits & to allow them to regain their inalienable rights as human beings--highlighting the servitude, humiliation, trials & tribulations of being born in a low caste family and struggled to uplift the “untouchables”, the indigenous people, women & other disadvantaged sections of society.

Dr. Ambedkar on Pakistan
Today Dr. Kancha Iiaiah carries on the struggle of the Dalits.
Civil Rights Activist Dr. Kancha Ilaiah
Why I am not a Hindu and other Dalit articles
Muslims must work AMONG Dalits & liberate them: Dr. Ilaiah
INDIA: Dr. Ilaiah, persecuted Dalit author of “I am not a Hindu”

In response to court directive, Modi asserted that he is ready to go to jail. This assertion is the outcome of his knowledge that in the polarzed state he will benefit despite his criminal acts. The observation so far has been that Modi has shown no remorse for what happened in Gujarat, forget apologizing for the same. The path to power for the practitioners of divisive politics is through the rivers of blood, and they know it.

02 May, 2009, Countercurrents.org

: Butcher of Gujarat

So should we press for justice or fall in the trap of electoral arithmetic? The point is if we loose our basic human morality, if we compromise on the issue of rule of law, what is the worth of values of Constitution? Tragedy is not that the nation is knowing the guilt of the ilk of Modi and is watching helplessly, the tragedy is that our justice delivery system has been eroded from bottom upwards, where justice is sacrificed at the drop of a hat. The communal mind set cultivated by divisive politics, the large section of state machinery being guided by considerations other than the values of constitution is a matter of deep concern.

Gujarat Carnage: Role of Narendra Modi By Ram Puniyani,

Hinduvata genocide against Muslims in Gujarat, India Modi and massacre of Gujarat Muslims expose Bharti designs Mr. Modi the Chief Minister was implicated in these riots--supported by Indian Hotel Owners Association in America--the same group that supports Gov. Bobby Jindal

Historical Mysteries
Did Ashoka exist? or did Pandit Radhakanta create him for James Princep in 1837 to perpetuate figment of Akhand Bharat? This is the first time Ashoka's name was been documented Why did Mahmud of Ghazni attack Somnath?

It is because of this total communalization of state apparatus that the Supreme Court had to reprimand Modi, time and over again. It is because of this that the major cases were shifted out from Gujarat. It is the same place where Zahira Sheikh changed her versions times and over again, lured by the lucre offered to her by BJP workers.

Modi bloating his chest while sitting over the corpses of thousands, is a symptom of deeper rot which has set in the society. By now first the cases are not investigated properly due to communal considerations, then when the reports nail the culprits, many of them are not touched for political considerations. Rather than having remorse and anguish on what happened to say that this Apex court direction will benefit BJP, is the most immoral and base statement which only heartless inhuman characters can make.

A heavy responsibility lies on SIT to cull the truth out, to ensure that the rule of justice and law prevails, in the communalized state apparatus in Gujarat. One hopes the victims of Gujarat will get justice, and the process of restoration of their civic and political rights begins in right earnest.Gujarat Carnage: Role of Narendra Modi By Ram Puniyani, 02 May, 2009, Countercurrents.org

Secular India =Dalits under Hindu Rashtra & Muslims under Ram Raj

India: Unable to bear the Brutal Brahamanic persecution-- Buddhism survives in South East Asia Why did Buddhism disappear from South Asia? Brahmin atrocities conducted mass genocide Persecution of Buddhists in India The Manuwadi Hindus destroyed Buddhism in its own land of birth

Tags: india, shining india, slumdog pwoer, superpower india

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24 March 2009 @ 10:11 pm

Book review: White Tiger written by Dalit Arvind Adiga

December 12, 2008 at 7:39 am · Filed under Ambedkar, Babasaheb, Brahmin, dalit·Tagged Arvind Adiga, Booker Prize, Dalit Literature

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24 March 2009 @ 12:36 am

Indian Cricket: Eleven brahmins and upper castes play and eleven million sarvajan and bahujan fools

Does moving the IPL cricket out of India spell the end of cricket in South Asia? Will cricket ever return to the Subcontinent? As it is, Cricket in India be besought by religious and ethnic divide that is endemic to Bharat.

Senior police sources told The Times that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had not consulted police or intelligence agencies before declaring its readiness to stage the IPL. “Frankly, they’ve been getting a bit ahead of themselves,” one said. “The focus has to be on the security of the crowds who would watch these matches, not on how much money they stand to make. “There is a lot more work to be done before people are confident about the logistics and the security issues.”

The Dalits of Bharat (aka India) are upset at the game anyway. This creates a huge problem for Indian cricket and the future of cricket in the Subcontinent.

George Bernard Shaw once mentioned that “Cricket is a game where eleven fools play and eleven hundred fools watch”. We at Dalitnation have changed Mr. G.B.Shaw’s words a little bit to reflect the modern Indian reality. We say “Cricket is a Game where eleven brahmins and upper castes play and eleven million sarvajan and bahujan fools watch and eleven hundred fools in the upper caste media comment and analyse this stupid Game.”

One look at the teams will clear up all your doubts. How the pappati pot bellied Brahmins have injected the caste system. Look at the list of Brahmin Indian cricketers: Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Vinoo Mankad, Ajit Wadekar, G.R.Vishwanath, EAS Prassana, Ishant Sharma, Yashpal Sharma, Chethan Sharma, Manoj Prabhakar, B Chandrashekar, K Srikanth, L Sivaramakrishnan, Dilip Doshi, Sunil Joshi, Rohit Sharma, Venkatesh Prasad, Ashok Malhotra, VVS Laxman, Murli Karthik, Sreeshashant, Dileep Sardesai, Sanjay Manjrekar,ML Jaisimha, Sudhakar Rao, TA Shekar and many many more. The 4% brahmins in India have on an average more than 70% representation in the cricket teams. The rest are occupied by other upper caste fellows like the jat Kapil dev, Yuvaraj Singh, Mongia, Rajputs Ajay Jadeja, Chethan Chauhan, Upper caste khatri sikhs Sidhu, B S Bedi, Harbhajan Singh. Out of fear of the muslims the sacred threadwallahs reserve some places for muslims like Azzarudin, Irfan Pathan, Pataudi, Kirmani, Munaf Patel. The indian cricket dressing room is virtually a Brahmin Agraharam. Even the recent under 19 team is full of Brahmins with surnames like Kauls and Sharmas. Based on the analysis we have found six Brahmins in this team of eleven and the rest are upper caste and one muslim.

We dalits can be rest assured that in the next few decades our youths will spend their productive time watching and worshipping the pot bellied Brahmins and upper caste players bat and bowl. Our Dalit people will buy the products endorsed by these fair complexioned Brahmins. They will brush their teeth with the toothpastes these Brahmins endorse i.e if they have the money to buy toothpaste.

Why papati Brahmins took to cricket. The upcoming and budding Dalit Intellectual Siriyavan Anand has analyzed this so well. We hope brother S Anand continues to write on engrossing Dalit issues and we wish him all the best. Brahmins who never bothered to play any games and who spent all their lives memorizing the stupid Vedic texts found the leisurely game of cricket most suitable to their lazy temperament. Cricket is one of the most laziest games fit for people who have a lot of time to spare and not physically taxing. In cricket unlike in other sports there is less contact between players. This appeals to the Brahmin practice of untouchability. No wonder young Brahmin boys are sent to coaching camps by their parents to get into the cricket team. The Brahmin selectors, the players and Brahmin commentators form a mutual admiration society.

Now where are the Dalits represented in the cricket team. We had only few dalit cricketers in all these years Balwanth Paloo ( the cricketer who Inspired Babasaheb), Eknath Solkar and Vinod Kambli. Nobody remembers Balwanth Paloo. Why should the pappati remember them. They only remember the twice born dwijas. The Maharastrian dalit Solkar was made to Field close to the batsman and he had to take so many blows. No brahmin wanted to Field there. Vinod Kambli created a world record with the Brahmin Tendulkar. But where is tendulkar now and Kambli is completely forgotten. He was dropped from the team just because he was a Dalit, so that the Brahmin Tendulkar can be made into a hero. The Brahmins do not even have sportsman and team spirit. Look at the way they think about their own records and scores. How could Gavaskar and tendulkar score so many centuries while the team did not win many matches. For the Brahmins the country comes secondary, it is the caste and personal desires which come first. Brahmins whose physiques are not so great are made into macho heros by the media. Ambedkar mentions about how genetically inferior these Brahmins are with respect to their physiques. But our strong Dalit-bhaujans don’t even have a place in the national team. It is a shame.

In more physically vigorous sports like Hockey and Football the Brahmins don’t qualify so we don’t find the papans there. They would collapse due to exhaustion if they played these games. They need Dalits and Bahujans to play these games. But these dalits don’t get any money for playing hockey and football. The Hockey and football federations have no money. All the money from the upper caste Business sponsors are given to this filthy casteist game of cricket.

The dalits are made to feel inferior every time they watch a cricket match. There are movies like Lagaan which insults Dalits. Siriyavan Anand writes in detail about these filthy casteist movie. The hero Aamir Khan who is the upper caste Bhuvan is the de facto leader of the team. The untouchable Kachra finds his place in the team because he is handicapped. Why should the dalits be portrayed as physically handicapped. The Brahmin director Ashutoish Gowarikar wants to portray that Dalits are a physically inferior race. We dalits should be watchful of these Brahmin vultures. Bhuvan the hero is patronising with Kachra. We Dalits need no patrons we should demand that our rights should be fulfilled. Kachra’s talent comes only because of his handicap. In the end they even make the upper caste Bhuvan to score the winning six.

Our warning to our Dalit brothers is beware of cricket. Stop watching this upper caste game. We dalits should focus on physically demanding games like Hockey and Football. Once again the editorial team of Dalit Nation would like to commend the budding intellectual Siriyavan Anand and we hope that one day he will become as great as Babasaheb, V.T. Rajashekar and Kancha Ilaiah. The eleven Brahmins and eleven million fools

March 7, 2008 at 9:27 am · Filed under Ambedkar, Brahmin, dalit ·Tagged Brahmins,brahmins in cricket, Caste system, cricket, Dalits, Indian Hockey, Siriyavan Anand

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23 March 2009 @ 10:09 pm

A Socialist Pakistan?

Old Socialists never die--they just smell that way!

The Socialists in Pakistan are empowered by the turmoil in the region, the schism between the rich and the poor, the growing disenchantment with America and the fear of the Taliban. There is a lot of discussion about the systems. Many feel that capitalism in a tailspin does not offer solutions for the third world. Others want to seek new avenues for development and seek solace in the economic growth of China and Russia. Some even eulogize Cuba and venerate Venezuela. Most are disenchanted with the corruption of the ruling elite.

Lenin was very clear in this relationship between the revolutionary vanguard and the working class. In "Left wing Communism", Lenin writes:
"If you want to help 'the masses' and to win the sympathy and support of 'the masses', you must not fear difficulties, you must not fear the pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution on the part of the 'leaders' (who being opportunists and social chauvinists, are in most cases directly or indirectly connected with the bourgeoisie and the police), but must imperatively work wherever the masses are to be found. You must be capable of every sacrifice, of overcoming the greatest obstacles in order to carry on agitation and propaganda systematically, perseveringly, persistently and patiently, precisely in those institutions, societies and associations - even the most ultra-reactionary - in which proletarian or semi proletarian masses are to be found." (Left wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Lenin, pp. 61)
A mass revolutionary upheaval in the next period in Pakistan will outshine even the 1968-69 revolution, which created and gave stature to the tradition of the PPP. Such movements are iconoclastic in character, they create new revolutionary traditions that change societies, reshape destiny and transform history. A revolutionary tendency can play a decisive role in such events.

Even with the relatively small forces of revolutionary Marxism in Pakistan, a subjective factor can give organization and direction to such a movement. Such a revolutionary upheaval can overthrow capitalism, destroy the roots of religious fundamentalism and obscurantism, smash the shackles of feudalism and remove the yoke of imperialist stranglehold and exploitation. Such a feat can only be accomplished through a Socialist Revolution. A socialist victory in Pakistan would open the floodgates of revolutionary upheavals across the South Asian subcontinent from Afghanistan to Burma where the masses are seething with revolt and yearning for a socialist transformation. Socialist dot Net

Several factors led to the defeat and retreat of the Marxist parties in the land of the Indus. Many feel that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had used and abused the leftist forces and them left them out to dry.

the PPP rode to power in the wake of the anti-Ayub movement of 1968-69. This was the height of the Vietnam War (the Tet Offensive had taken place in 1968), the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Anti-Imperialist movement in the heartland of Imperialism, i.e. the USA. In Pakistan, the movement was lead by the radical sections of the petty-bourgeoise strata with its allies in the working class and the peasantry. Seeing which way the movement was turning, the PPP put the popular slogan ‘Maang Raha Hai Har Insaan - Roti, Kapra aur Makaan’ (Every human being is demanding Bread, Clothing and Shelter!) as well as the slogan of ‘Socialism avay hee avay’ (Socialism is bound to come!). The inclusion of what became the socialism clause are to read against this background and it is immaterial how much the PPP remained true to its word, the point is that the term occupies a central place within the constitution and it is important for its defenders to entreat it. The Red Diary

The judicial killing of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the other was ascent of Zia Ul Haq was the final nail in the coffin of the Hammer and Sickle in the land of the Crescent and Star. After the defeat of the Soviet Armies, and implosion of USSR, the leftist forces in Pakistan went into hiding and hibernation.

Before 1968, politics and political parties were all about the ruling class. There was no mention of the working class and its political role, in the media or among the intelligentsia. But that all changed. The working class rose onto the political scene with an exceptional revolutionary movement, which started as protests against the regime of Ayub Khan led by students in November 1968, growing to a general strike led by the working class within a few months.
Workers started to occupy factories and peasants took over lands from feudal lords. In some areas, the peasantry organised armed struggle against the landlords. Tenants refused to pay rents. The working class took control of the cities and started to run the administration. A few cities remained under workers’ control for more than two weeks. Socialist revolution could be smelt in the air. Socialism was the main slogan in the movement. The ruling class was terrified.
The founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Zulifqar Ali Bhutto, came to its rescue. There was no revolutionary party and leadership able to carry through the revolution and overthrow capitalism and feudalism to establish a workers’ state. Bhutto took advantage of the situation and derailed the potential socialist revolution into a reformist democratic movement. The working class lost this opportunity and later paid the price for this failure. Respective regimes viciously attacked the most militant and conscious layers of the working class, introducing laws to prevent strikes and the formation of unions, and banning trade union activities in many sectors of the economy.
The trade union movement started to decline in the 1980s and has weakened significantly since, the last 15 years being the most difficult time. The collapse of Stalinist Russia and the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe also affected the trade union movement. Many left-wing unions, federations and their leaders fully capitulated to capitalism and started preaching free-market economy to their ranks. Leaders betrayed many struggles against privatisation and neo-liberalism. The main trade union leaderships also adopted the policy of compromise and opportunism against government attacks on workers and trade unions. Now, only 3% of workers are affiliated with trade unions.
The trade union movement is at a crossroad. Compromise and capitulation will lead to further weakness and decline. But struggle and organised resistance can provide strength and much needed confidence to the labour movement. And the numbers of trade unions have begun to increase as new sections of the working class have started to organise. Some important struggles and strikes have emerged in last few years, including the historic strike of PTCL (telecommunications) and textile workers. Teachers are also fighting for their rights, and industrial workers have won some important battles. In next few years, there will be a resurgence of workers’ struggles and strikes.

Zia Ul Haq's patronage of the Ultra Right and the religious press the Leninist and Maoists further underground. The drying up of funding sources from Moscow eliminated the Mazdoor Kisan Party and its breakaway offshoots. Even the Bhashani and Wali Khan's National Awami Party felt the pressure and lost its traditional voting block in the Western provinces of Pakistan. Many had thought that they were dead as a door nail.

...
THE PAKISTAN PEOPLE’S Party was founded in 1967 with just 35 people. Zulifqar Ali Bhutto was the founding chairman. He was a big feudal lord from Sindh and served as minister in the military government of Ayub Khan. He was a clever politician. He correctly understood the mood of the masses and put forward a radical programme with socialist slogans. He put forward demands for bread, houses and clothes for everyone. He also talked about a socialist planned economy and a classless society. In the absence of an organised left party and movement, he came forward with radical anti-capitalist and anti-feudal slogans.
The PPP became the largest political party in Pakistan in just a few months, in the aftermath of the revolutionary movement of the working class. It became the largest party in West Pakistan, while the Awami League trounced the other parties to win a landslide in East Pakistan in the first ever elections in 1970. The military and civil establishment refused to hand over power to the Awami League and this resulted in a civil war and then the separation of East Pakistan (now called Bangladesh) in 1971. Bhutto became the leader of the rest of Pakistan. He came to power with popular support, introducing a few reforms in the early period of his rule, and nationalising more than 70% of the economy.
But he was frightened of a strong working class and used repressive measures against the trade unions. He betrayed the working class and started attacking its advanced layers. His support started to decrease in the last years of his rule. The military organised a coup against him in 1977 after a violent right-wing movement against him. He was later hanged by the military government. His hanging again made him popular with the masses, because it showed he had refused to compromise with the military dictator.Socialism Today

With a resurgent Moscow, a depressed Capitalist world, and the Taliban at the Gates, many of the "Surkas" (Reds), as they are known in Pakistan have come to the forefront. The Reds even a band called "Lal" which is perpetuating its brand of populist socialism egged on by closet and hidden Socialists like Ahtizaz Ahsan. Even Mubbashair Hasan, the Left's darling and the Minister of Health of Zufiqar Ali Bhutto is now out in the open.

It is pedagogical to note that that old Socialists have come out of the woodwork. Clearly the ANP which ha dbeen rejected by the Pakhtuns for decades now is in power. Amazingly the Khans of ANP/NAP are ready to deal with the "TTP" of Swat even though the TTP is the antithesis of the the socialist and secular policies of the founding fathers of the NAP.

Will the future Pakhtuns owe their allegiance to Moscow or Mecca or Mao? This is the latent million Dollar question that will be answered in the coming weeks.

Article 3 and Karl Marx
The ‘Socialism clause’ is Article 3 of the Constitution (above clause 6 for High treason that no one tires of mentioned!) entitled ‘Elimination of exploitation’ and reads:
The State shall ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the gradual fulfilment of the fundamental principle, from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.
The above quote is taken from Marx’s classic work ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’ where he explicates how the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” can
only be realized in the Classless, Stateless Communist society where material production abounds and for socialist society, arising fresh out of the birth pangs of Capitalism, a better measure would be ‘from
each according to his ability, to each according to the labour performed’. Consequently, the above phrase was included as the cornerstone of the Constitution of the USSR, the first Socialist Country on earth. Despite not actually materializing, Socialism is definitely a part of our constitution. The Red Diary

The left in Pakistan heralds Mohammad Ali Jinnah as a secular cultural Muslim. The right points to his advocacy for a Muslim homeland and butters up this monograph with his statements about the Pakistani constitution derived out the Quran. The left points to Jinnah's earlier lifestyle. And so it goes.

‘Restoration’ and Socialism
It is therefore abundantly clear that the question of the restoration of the 1973 Constitution is invariably tied to the question of Socialism in Pakistan. The fact that it has not been mentioned within
the numerous debates of the past one year may tell us something about the class composition of the Lawyers movement; it may also explain why the broad masses of the workers and peasants of Pakistan, although definitely inspired by the heroic struggle of the lawyers and their allies, have not actively participated in the Defence of the Constitution. The Radicals in the Democratic movement need to bring Article 3 to the fore in order to connect the Constitutional question with the popular classes, as well as to see whether the class loyalties of the ‘Constitutionalists’ take precedence over their Defence of the Constitution. Any Takers? The Red Diary

The implications of the Left vs. Right battle in Pakistan reverberate around the world. Pakistan was the most loyal US ally during the Cold War. It was the front line state which led to the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan which many attribute led to the implosion of the USSR. Pakistanis and the 2 million that died fighting Moscow helped the USA destroy their biggest enemy. That help went unappreciated and was rewarded with en years of sanctions for the Pakistanis.

Today the memory of the non-delivery of the F-16s, that had been paid for with $450 million of Pakistan cash plus the CIAs drone bombing adds to the growing Anti-Americanism. The left in Pakistan plays on this growing Anti-Americanism and propagates a Socialistic Pakistan. Amazingly this has much appeal for the Socialistic Elite as well as the oppressed poor.

The only class which can bring change and transform the lives of the working masses is the working class. Socialism is the only viable system to replace capitalism. The working class has not yet started to move but once it starts the whole political scenario will be different. There is a 43 million strong working class, one third of the total population. The Pakistani working class and masses have showed again and again that they have the potential, courage and capability to conduct a revolutionary struggle against the rotten rulers. The working class needs its own revolutionary party and leadership to organise the struggle. Such a party, with a clear programme, strategy and tactics, and mass support, can win the future for the masses.
Pakistan is heading towards another showdown between the ruling and working classes. The outcome of this showdown will determine the future of this country and for the masses. The working class cannot take full advantage of independence and cannot enjoy real freedom without the overthrow of capitalism and feudalism. Socialism Today

Pakistan is at crossroads. It is threatened by the religious fervor of the Extremist Right and held hostage to the machination of the Left whose purse stings may be held far from the shore of Karachi.

The fanaticism of the religious right is matched by the extremism of the irreligiousness of the fundamentalist left. The Pro-Leninists are at the throats of the the Pro-Jeffersonians who are odds of the the Pro-Caliphists. All factions are also influenced by the ground realities where Iran, Russia, the USA, China are pulling the strings.

Bharat (aka India) scared out of it wits, is pushing for a secular government in Islamabad and Kabul. Washington wants to replicate Jeffersonian democracy in the land of the Indus and the Amu Darya. Moscow waits in the wings to incorporate Afghanistan into its near-abroad.

If one can look into the seeds of time and see which will grow and which will not, one has to see the writing on the wall. The writing on the wall spells the "day after". The "Day after" the US leaves Afghanistan is victory for those who want a Caliphate in Kabul. The "Day after" the America is thrown out of Kabul spells a victory of the anti-imperialist forces of the Pakhtuns. The "Day after' defines a prosperous South Asia for the freedom loving Pro-Western Pakistanis. The "Day after" describes a turning of the tide for he Marxists who had warned the USA of intervening in Afghanistan.

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23 March 2009 @ 09:56 pm

A resurgent Left in Pakistan advocating its own vision of a prosperous Non-stratified Pakistan

Old Socialists never die--they just smell that way!

Lenin was very clear in this relationship between the revolutionary vanguard and the working class. In "Left wing Communism", Lenin writes:
"If you want to help 'the masses' and to win the sympathy and support of 'the masses', you must not fear difficulties, you must not fear the pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution on the part of the 'leaders' (who being opportunists and social chauvinists, are in most cases directly or indirectly connected with the bourgeoisie and the police), but must imperatively work wherever the masses are to be found. You must be capable of every sacrifice, of overcoming the greatest obstacles in order to carry on agitation and propaganda systematically, perseveringly, persistently and patiently, precisely in those institutions, societies and associations - even the most ultra-reactionary - in which proletarian or semi proletarian masses are to be found." (Left wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Lenin, pp. 61)
A mass revolutionary upheaval in the next period in Pakistan will outshine even the 1968-69 revolution, which created and gave stature to the tradition of the PPP. Such movements are iconoclastic in character, they create new revolutionary traditions that change societies, reshape destiny and transform history. A revolutionary tendency can play a decisive role in such events.

Even with the relatively small forces of revolutionary Marxism in Pakistan, a subjective factor can give organization and direction to such a movement. Such a revolutionary upheaval can overthrow capitalism, destroy the roots of religious fundamentalism and obscurantism, smash the shackles of feudalism and remove the yoke of imperialist stranglehold and exploitation. Such a feat can only be accomplished through a Socialist Revolution. A socialist victory in Pakistan would open the floodgates of revolutionary upheavals across the South Asian subcontinent from Afghanistan to Burma where the masses are seething with revolt and yearning for a socialist transformation. Socialist dot Net

Several factors led to the defeat and retreat of the Marxist parties in the land of the Indus. Many feel that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had used and abused the leftist forces and them left them out to dry.

the PPP rode to power in the wake of the anti-Ayub movement of 1968-69. This was the height of the Vietnam War (the Tet Offensive had taken place in 1968), the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Anti-Imperialist movement in the heartland of Imperialism, i.e. the USA. In Pakistan, the movement was lead by the radical sections of the petty-bourgeoise strata with its allies in the working class and the peasantry. Seeing which way the movement was turning, the PPP put the popular slogan ‘Maang Raha Hai Har Insaan - Roti, Kapra aur Makaan’ (Every human being is demanding Bread, Clothing and Shelter!) as well as the slogan of ‘Socialism avay hee avay’ (Socialism is bound to come!). The inclusion of what became the socialism clause are to read against this background and it is immaterial how much the PPP remained true to its word, the point is that the term occupies a central place within the constitution and it is important for its defenders to entreat it. The Red Diary

Before 1968, politics and political parties were all about the ruling class. There was no mention of the working class and its political role, in the media or among the intelligentsia. But that all changed. The working class rose onto the political scene with an exceptional revolutionary movement, which started as protests against the regime of Ayub Khan led by students in November 1968, growing to a general strike led by the working class within a few months.
Workers started to occupy factories and peasants took over lands from feudal lords. In some areas, the peasantry organised armed struggle against the landlords. Tenants refused to pay rents. The working class took control of the cities and started to run the administration. A few cities remained under workers’ control for more than two weeks. Socialist revolution could be smelt in the air. Socialism was the main slogan in the movement. The ruling class was terrified.
The founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Zulifqar Ali Bhutto, came to its rescue. There was no revolutionary party and leadership able to carry through the revolution and overthrow capitalism and feudalism to establish a workers’ state. Bhutto took advantage of the situation and derailed the potential socialist revolution into a reformist democratic movement. The working class lost this opportunity and later paid the price for this failure. Respective regimes viciously attacked the most militant and conscious layers of the working class, introducing laws to prevent strikes and the formation of unions, and banning trade union activities in many sectors of the economy.
The trade union movement started to decline in the 1980s and has weakened significantly since, the last 15 years being the most difficult time. The collapse of Stalinist Russia and the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe also affected the trade union movement. Many left-wing unions, federations and their leaders fully capitulated to capitalism and started preaching free-market economy to their ranks. Leaders betrayed many struggles against privatisation and neo-liberalism. The main trade union leaderships also adopted the policy of compromise and opportunism against government attacks on workers and trade unions. Now, only 3% of workers are affiliated with trade unions.
The trade union movement is at a crossroad. Compromise and capitulation will lead to further weakness and decline. But struggle and organised resistance can provide strength and much needed confidence to the labour movement. And the numbers of trade unions have begun to increase as new sections of the working class have started to organise. Some important struggles and strikes have emerged in last few years, including the historic strike of PTCL (telecommunications) and textile workers. Teachers are also fighting for their rights, and industrial workers have won some important battles. In next few years, there will be a resurgence of workers’ struggles and strikes.

...
THE PAKISTAN PEOPLE’S Party was founded in 1967 with just 35 people. Zulifqar Ali Bhutto was the founding chairman. He was a big feudal lord from Sindh and served as minister in the military government of Ayub Khan. He was a clever politician. He correctly understood the mood of the masses and put forward a radical programme with socialist slogans. He put forward demands for bread, houses and clothes for everyone. He also talked about a socialist planned economy and a classless society. In the absence of an organised left party and movement, he came forward with radical anti-capitalist and anti-feudal slogans.
The PPP became the largest political party in Pakistan in just a few months, in the aftermath of the revolutionary movement of the working class. It became the largest party in West Pakistan, while the Awami League trounced the other parties to win a landslide in East Pakistan in the first ever elections in 1970. The military and civil establishment refused to hand over power to the Awami League and this resulted in a civil war and then the separation of East Pakistan (now called Bangladesh) in 1971. Bhutto became the leader of the rest of Pakistan. He came to power with popular support, introducing a few reforms in the early period of his rule, and nationalising more than 70% of the economy.
But he was frightened of a strong working class and used repressive measures against the trade unions. He betrayed the working class and started attacking its advanced layers. His support started to decrease in the last years of his rule. The military organised a coup against him in 1977 after a violent right-wing movement against him. He was later hanged by the military government. His hanging again made him popular with the masses, because it showed he had refused to compromise with the military dictator.Socialism Today

Will the future Pakhtuns owe their allegiance to Moscow or Mecca or Mao? This is the latent million Dollar question that will be answered in the coming weeks.

Article 3 and Karl Marx
The ‘Socialism clause’ is Article 3 of the Constitution (above clause 6 for High treason that no one tires of mentioned!) entitled ‘Elimination of exploitation’ and reads:
The State shall ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the gradual fulfilment of the fundamental principle, from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.
The above quote is taken from Marx’s classic work ‘The Critique of the Gotha Program’ where he explicates how the principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” can
only be realized in the Classless, Stateless Communist society where material production abounds and for socialist society, arising fresh out of the birth pangs of Capitalism, a better measure would be ‘from
each according to his ability, to each according to the labour performed’. Consequently, the above phrase was included as the cornerstone of the Constitution of the USSR, the first Socialist Country on earth. Despite not actually materializing, Socialism is definitely a part of our constitution. The Red Diary

‘Restoration’ and Socialism
It is therefore abundantly clear that the question of the restoration of the 1973 Constitution is invariably tied to the question of Socialism in Pakistan. The fact that it has not been mentioned within
the numerous debates of the past one year may tell us something about the class composition of the Lawyers movement; it may also explain why the broad masses of the workers and peasants of Pakistan, although definitely inspired by the heroic struggle of the lawyers and their allies, have not actively participated in the Defence of the Constitution. The Radicals in the Democratic movement need to bring Article 3 to the fore in order to connect the Constitutional question with the popular classes, as well as to see whether the class loyalties of the ‘Constitutionalists’ take precedence over their Defence of the Constitution. Any Takers? The Red Diary

The only class which can bring change and transform the lives of the working masses is the working class. Socialism is the only viable system to replace capitalism. The working class has not yet started to move but once it starts the whole political scenario will be different. There is a 43 million strong working class, one third of the total population. The Pakistani working class and masses have showed again and again that they have the potential, courage and capability to conduct a revolutionary struggle against the rotten rulers. The working class needs its own revolutionary party and leadership to organise the struggle. Such a party, with a clear programme, strategy and tactics, and mass support, can win the future for the masses.
Pakistan is heading towards another showdown between the ruling and working classes. The outcome of this showdown will determine the future of this country and for the masses. The working class cannot take full advantage of independence and cannot enjoy real freedom without the overthrow of capitalism and feudalism. Socialism Today

Leave a comment

12 March 2009 @ 12:13 am

The Red Dragon Century: The emerging Quad led by China

Another article about the end of US hegemony has been published in the Atlantic Monthly. Imperial blindness: Another Empire stuck in Af-Pak quagmire unable to extricate itself out of Kipling’s hell. The US has squandered it wealth and prestige in the past decade. The Unipolar world is ending. There are clear signs of a resurgent Russia and a rising China. Parag Khanna says that "India has missed the boat". Europe is a major contender for a World Power. It seems likely that the hegemony of the sole superpower will be replaced by a world with at least four major poles--The USA, Russia, Europe, and China. There may be other contenders and those who want to be counted, but the the quad will rule the world. Each node of the quad will try to manipulate other smaller powers to their advantage. For example during the Bush Administration the US tried to use Bharat (aka India) a counterweight to China. The Obama-Clinton policy is to build a strong relationship with China.

People talk glibly of ‘the total disarmament of the frontier tribes’ as being the obvious policy…but to obtain it would be as painful and as tedious an undertaking as to extract the stings of a swarm of hornets, with naked fingers.” Winston Churchill

Can Obama pull US out of the AfPak quicksand? Choosing China & Pakistan over Bharat (aka India)
Can Obama duplicate Swat peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan

The last time the political tectonic plates collided, the eartquake was felt all over South Asia, Eastern Europe and in Latin America. After the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan the USSR imploded under the drunk leadership of Mr. Yeltsin, and was reduced to the status of Latvia and Estonia. It was ignored and humiliated. A resurgent Russia can be analogized to a resurgent Germany after Versailles.

In the past two decades, America was the undisputed leader and the main military power on the planet. Parag Khanna is one of those that feel the USA squandered away that leadership and missed a golden opportunity to lead by example and with moral authority. Python swallows alligator and explodes: Lessons from the Peloponnesian War.

It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline. Paragh Khanna

Castro on collapse of US Imperialism. Decries “Law of jungle”

Why? Weren’t we supposed to reconnect with the United Nations and reaffirm to the world that America can, and should, lead it to collective security and prosperity? Indeed, improvements to America’s image may or may not occur, but either way, they mean little. Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either. Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.The Geopolitical Marketplace

While the Obama administration seeks to improve America’s position vis-à-vis Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Europe, and Asia, the most critical foreign-policy front of all – the home front—is looking brittle. This development is new, as for almost seven decades – ever since Pearl Harbor—policymakers have taken for granted that the homefront would cooperate with military missions and expenditures. America could build ships, planes, and tanks, and assert itself as the pivotal outside power in many parts of the world, and the home front (despite sometimes outspoken political opposition, as during the Vietnam War) would financially support those efforts. This held true from the time of the end of the Great Depression right up until the onset of our current great recession. The emergencies of World War II and the early Cold War years, coupled with a constantly expanding economy, allowed the home front to write blank checks for our endeavors abroad. But the big question in foreign policy today is, Will this continue in the face of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s?

Soon after the Iraq war turned nasty in 2006, the American people lost their stomach for involvement there. It was only because the surge paid fairly quick dividends, which got Iraq off the front pages, that public disquiet was reduced to low-level muttering. But that was before the economic crisis hit. Given the state of people’s retirement accounts and job prospects, where will the public be regarding Afghanistan a year from now? I’d guess that the Administration has no more than a year to show striking progress in Afghanistan before the public starts to growl like it did at the Bush Administration in the 2006 mid-term elections.

But Afghanistan is only the most obvious potential casualty of the recession. Also at stake are the expensive weapons programs and air and sea platforms that allow the United States to sustain its position as a global military hegemon. Regardless of what happens on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. dominates the air and the main sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Ultimately, it is this fact that makes this country the preeminent global power that it is, and gives our diplomacy the heft it requires to sit at the front of the table at critical gatherings around the world. Yet maintaining that position doesn’t just cost money, it costs lots and lots of money—billions, not millions. Why the recession could spell the end of American dominance by Robert D. Kaplan The Shrinking Superpower. Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Already the first signs of friction on the world scene are being felt. The Russian invasion of Georgia as a result of the NATO expansion, the Chinese rebuff of Delhi, the US-Beijing Naval tension, and the Chinese request to America to stop the destabilization of South Asia are some examples of a changing world.

The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st century.The key second-world countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are more than just “emerging markets.” If you include China, they hold a majority of the world’s foreign-exchange reserves and savings, and their spending power is making them the global economy’s most important new consumer markets and thus engines of global growth - not replacing the United States but not dependent on it either. I.P.O.’s from the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) alone accounted for 39 percent of the volume raised globally in 2007, just one indicator of second-world countries’ rising importance in corporate finance - even after you subtract China. When Tata of India is vying to buy Jaguar, you know the landscape of power has changed. Second-world countries are also fast becoming hubs for oil and timber, manufacturing and services, airlines and infrastructure - all this in a geopolitical marketplace that puts their loyalty up for grabs to any of the Big Three, and increasingly to all of them at the same time. Second-world states won’t be subdued: in the age of network power, they won’t settle for being mere export markets. Rather, they are the places where the Big Three must invest heavily and to which they must relocate productive assets to maintain influence.Parag Khanna is a senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation. This essay is adapted from his book, “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order,” Random House.

Hainan Naval incident: Beijing to USA: Can’t you read the sign? "Sea of China" is Chinese territory

Justifying the Banality of Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Thinktanks attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with

Can the Ides of March eliminate Zardocracy: What’s in store for the PPPP in Pakistan?

Pulling the US out of the AfPak quicksand? Choosing China and Pakistan over India

Fixing Afpak: Inability to define exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul Obama's sane policy: Negotating with the Taliban Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months Obama to unveil new policy: Marshal Plan & end to bombing raids in Pakistan
Convincing the US tin ear of the Pakistani point of view Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan Growing consensus in the Obama team: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan
Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation Afghanistan: Gen. Petraeus’ Pakistani advisers: Indians jittery Obama adviser gives deep insights into new Afghan policy

The fact that the public has docilely accepted this arrangement for so long does not mean that it will continue to do so. Despite the many new billions that President Obama’s budget allocates for jump-starting the economy, he intends to substantially cut the Pentagon’s money-line. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that the financial “spigot that opened on 9/11…is closing.” Gates might more accurately have said it is the financial spigot that opened following Pearl Harbor that’s closing. For the only interruption to the succession of high budgets the Pentagon has enjoyed since Pearl Harbor occurred during the 1990s, when America felt itself at peace, with no overbearing security threats. That decade saw the Navy lose almost half of its ships. The 1990s may provide only a taste of what is to come as the recession deepens and elongates, leading to tectonic changes in the public mood.

Conservatives are already protesting the short shrift President Obama seems to be giving the Pentagon, but they are crying into the wind. The President’s approval rating is exceedingly high. The lesson seems to be that the President and the Democrats can do what they want with Pentagon budgets, and, if the economy doesn’t pull out of its tailspin relatively soon, they will.

Nonetheless, I do not expect any sudden slashing of defense budgets. What I foresee is a more gradual siphoning of money away from vital programs over the next decade, even as China, India, and other countries enlarge their navies and other forces. This will not necessarily lead to a security dilemma for the U.S., but it will certainly lead to a multipolar world and the end of American dominance. The only development that could change this equation would be a new and sudden threat – and one other than mass-casualty terrorism. For while terrorism would lead to larger budgets for the intelligence establishment, the conventional air and sea platforms from which great powers are made would not be affected.

Defense policy will be increasingly geared toward protecting the homeland, even as globalization makes for a smaller, more intricately connected world. America, in the final analysis, will be better protected, even as its global reach wanes. That is what to expect if the recession is still with us a year from now. Why the recession could spell the end of American dominance by Robert D. Kaplan The Shrinking Superpower. Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

US AfPak policy review results mimic Chinese demads given to Hillary Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln In 1821 The Taliban was a construct of the CIA and was armed by the CIA:--Congressman Dana Rohrabacher Obama's Vietnam & Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Solutions to "Obama's Vietnam" Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop
Pakistan's do more list for the USA Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & Swat run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India
Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan
“Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN: Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students.
Bin Laden used Reagan’s USSR strategy to Destroy US Capitalism? Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan
Unite! Erase the Durand Line Solution: Fixing "AfPak" expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan The emerging "Leave Pakistan to Afghanistan" strategy goes mainstream--Extricating the US from the Lost in the Khyber

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11 March 2009 @ 08:41 pm

"Sea of China" is Chinese territory: Beijing to USA

Kristensen likened the clash to the "cat-and-mouse" games that used to take place between Soviet and American ships trying to gather intelligence on each other's navies. He said the parallels were troubling,
"We demand that the United States put an immediate stop to related activities and take effective measures to prevent similar acts from happening," Ma said at a regularly scheduled news briefing.
He called the incident Sunday the most serious brush with China since 2001. One of the Chinese vessels came within 25 feet of the Impeccable
Beijing has long been suspicious of U.S. surveillance activities around China, even as many in Washington remain wary of Beijing's rapid military buildup.

It used to be called "gun boat diplomacy. The US Navy has again threatened Chinese sovereignty by challenging the People Liberation Army's Navy (PLAN) in the Sea of China. At the heart of contention is the American refusal to accept the Chinese territorial zone of the Chinese mainland. According to the law of sea and the UN, most countries of the world accept the zone of sovereignty as 50 miles and the economic zone is 200 miles. The US only accept the territory of 12 miles off the shore as Chinese territory.

It is obvious that the Obama Administration is provoking China, just like the Bush Obama began its term by provoking China with overflights of spy plains. The last time, the Chinese forced the plane down, dismantled it and then bargained hard to return it. It was returned after being duplicated part by part. This time there are few bruised egos, but no harm has been done.

Reporting from Shanghai -- China blamed the United States on Tuesday for a naval confrontation in the South China Sea over the weekend, contending that an American surveillance vessel was illegally conducting activities in China's special economic zone.

The U.S. Defense Department had complained that five Chinese ships surrounded and harassed the Impeccable, a submarine-surveillance ship, in international waters on Sunday. The Chinese boats dropped wood debris in the Impeccable's path, and one of the ships came within 25 feet of the unarmed U.S. vessel, the Pentagon said, calling the actions dangerous, unprofessional and in violation of international law.

Near collision

The incident, the latest of several recent confrontations between Chinese boats and aircraft and American surveillance vessels, heightened geopolitical tensions and triggered a jump in oil prices Monday.

U.S. officials said a formal protest had been lodged with the Chinese Foreign Ministry as well as the Chinese Embassy in Washington. It was unclear whether Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would bring up the matter with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi during a meeting today in Washington.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu on Tuesday said, "The U.S. claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white, and they are totally unacceptable to China."

"We demand that the United States put an immediate stop to related activities and take effective measures to prevent similar acts from happening," Ma said at a regularly scheduled news briefing.

Ma did not describe what happened, nor did he say in what way the U.S. ship had violated international and Chinese laws. But China regards most of the area of the South China Sea as its territory.

The confrontation took place about 75 miles south of China's Hainan island, near a naval base where Beijing has started operating new nuclear attack and ballistic missile submarines, said Hans M. Kristensen, nuclear information project director at the Federation of American Scientists.
Writing in the federation's Web blog, Kristensen said the incident was "part of a wider and dangerous cat and mouse game between U.S. and Chinese submarines and their hunters."

The Pentagon reported that Chinese vessels had engaged in other aggressive behavior in the last week, including aircraft performing flybys and a patrol vessel shining a high-intensity spotlight on a U.S. naval ship in the Yellow Sea.

The latest incident "will make life harder for those in the Obama administration who want to ease the military pressure on U.S.-Chinese relations, and easier for hard-liners to argue their case," Kristensen said. China says U.S. provoked naval confrontation. By Don Lee March 11, 2009. don.lee@latimes.com. Times staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

One wonders, what American ships are doing near the Chinese secret Submarine base of Hainan? Obviously this is a crude attempt to brow beat the PLAN and spy on China's coastline. The charges of "harassment" as as true as the incident manufactured in the "Gulf Of Tonkin".

This U.S. Navy photo shows a Chinese crewmember using a grapple hook in an apparent attempt to snag part of the USNS Impeccable on Sunday as it conducted routine surveillance.

BEIJING — Was it a test of President Obama? A military game of "cat and mouse"? Or a potentially hazardous confrontation with echoes of the Cold War?

As China and the U.S. traded new accusations Tuesday over this week's incident in which Chinese vessels harassed a U.S. Navy ship, nearly causing a collision at sea, experts on China tried to decipher just how serious the episode was.

"It seems that when a new (U.S.) administration comes in, suddenly these incidents pop up," said Hans Kristensen, a specialist on nuclear arms and Chinese military affairs at the Federation of American Scientists.

MORE: Clinton, Chinese minister meet amid sea tensions

He and other experts drew parallels with the 2001 collision of a Chinese plane with a U.S. surveillance jet, which posed George W. Bush's first major foreign policy crisis as president. This time around, Kristensen said, China's decision to send five ships to intercept the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed surveillance ship, may have been a demonstration of military might intended to assert China's dominance of the South China Sea — and gauge how the Obama administration would react.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said Tuesday that China recently has become "more militarily aggressive." He called the incident Sunday the most serious brush with China since 2001. One of the Chinese vessels came within 25 feet of the Impeccable, then other ships veered into its path when it tried to withdraw. Contributing: Associated Press. Bad parallels seen in Chinese naval clash By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

The aggressive behavior of China can be judged during the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing in which she begged the Chinese to continue to buy the US T-Bonds. The "Middle Kingdom" handed a list of "to dos" to Ms. Clinton which included the request to stop destabilizing South Asia and bring peace to Afghanistan.

"I think the debate is still on in China whether, as their military power increases, they will be used for good or for pushing people around," Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Ma Zhaoxu, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said the American ship was breaking international and Chinese laws by sailing so close to China's coast. He denied China had done anything wrong and said the Pentagon's claims of harassment were "totally unacceptable to China."

The Pentagon said the incident took place outside China's sovereign waters, which the United Nations defines as 12 nautical miles beyond a country's coast. However, Ma reiterated China's claim that the U.S. needs permission to patrol within its so-called exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles out from its coast into the area where Sunday's incident took place.

The incident comes at a time when many Chinese want their government to assert its military strength more forcefully. Tong Zeng, a Beijing activist who has pressured the government to assert its sovereignty over disputed islands in the East China Sea, described China's conduct in the Impeccable incident as "normal."

Tong said that, because of better technology, U.S. ships are able to conduct surveillance from far greater distances than before. The Impeccable was equipped with anti-submarine technology, and the incident took place about 75 miles south of Hainan Island, where China has been expanding a submarine base.

"In the past, China's policy on the sovereignty issue was too soft," agreed Yan Xuetong, a professor of international relations at Beijing's Tsinghua University. "Our foreign policy must protect our national interest, not just economic interests," Yan said.

Kristensen likened the clash to the "cat-and-mouse" games that used to take place between Soviet and American ships trying to gather intelligence on each other's navies. He said the parallels were troubling, though, because of several "very nasty incidents" during the Cold War that almost sparked a broader conflict.

The Americans and Soviets eventually agreed to rules on maritime confrontations to try and keep them from escalating out of control, Kristensen said. "China and America could use that agreement (as a basis) to establish the rules of the road in international waters," he said.

Lester Ross, a Beijing-based American lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, said he doubted the Chinese claim of extended maritime sovereignty was legal — but he also urged China and the U.S. to broker a new maritime deal to avoid similar clashes in the future.

China's economic ties with the U.S. have stayed strong even at times of relative military tension, such as the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

China is the biggest sovereign holder of U.S. government debt, and the naval incident may be quickly pushed aside at a time when the global economy is in crisis, Yan said. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is still scheduled to meet in Washington today with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"The (Chinese) government wants to minimize, not escalate, conflicts with the U.S.," Yan said. He predicted the event would be a "very small bump in relations." Contributing: Associated Press. Bad parallels seen in Chinese naval clash By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

The US has to come to terms with the new realities of the world. This week's Atlantic Monthly wrote an article about the end of the supremacy of the US .It is pedagogical to see the message of Paragh Khanna repeated in the mainstream media.

In Washington, China's actions were seen as part of a broader pattern of more provocative behavior by Beijing in recent years, including expanded territorial claims and stepped-up military activities.

"They seem to be more militarily aggressive, forward pushing, than we saw previously," Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I think the debate is still on in China as to whether, as their military power increases, it will be used for good or for pushing people around."

Beijing has long been suspicious of U.S. surveillance activities around China, even as many in Washington remain wary of Beijing's rapid military buildup. But relations between China and the new Obama administration started out on positive terms as Clinton was warmly received during her visit last month to Beijing. The two sides already had agreed to resume a high-level military dialogue that had been broken off last year by the Chinese in protest of a $6.5-billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.

Shi Yinhong, professor of international politics at Beijing's Renmin University, said it was clear that both sides viewed Sunday's encounter as quite serious. The order for the Chinese ships to act, he said, probably came from a very high level.

Still, Shi said he did not see the incident as having a serious effect on bilateral ties. The Obama administration wants Chinese cooperation on economic issues, he said, and Chinese leaders want to build good relations with the U.S. to advance their international political objectives.
"

Both Washington and Beijing will treat it as an individual event," he said. "Both sides will want to deal with it." The U.S. had lodged a complaint against China, saying five of its ships harassed a U.S. surveillance vessel in the South China Sea. China says the American ship was conducting illegal activities. China says U.S. provoked naval confrontation. By Don Lee March 11, 2009. don.lee@latimes.com. Times staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

Pakistanis have always wondered by their dearest friends are being targeted in Pakistan. No one can understand why a Chinese citizen would be targeted in Pakistan. All know that the enemies of Pakistan are harming the brave people of China. Hulbudding Hikmatyar who is in charge of one of the militants groups fighting occupation blames the US forces for harming the Chinese. He claims that his team has never harmed China and does not intend to do so. This leave the American CIA, the Israeli Mossad and the Indian RAW who could be harming Pakistan's interests.

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11 March 2009 @ 05:45 pm

Do Americans know about the brutal & Banal of Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Americans are good people, as neighbors, as employers and as friends. However as a nation we are gullible, unaware of world affairs and how others manipulate our good intentions. We want to believe in justice and fairplay, but are ignorant of the injustices perpetuated in the name of national interests. Whatever happened to humanity, kindness, and love for fellow man? Whatever happened to the global village? Today the press has given up its role as the 4th pillar of the state. Gone are the days when the major papers in America challenge the painting and shatter the paradigms. Dennis Kucinich made the statement that today's American media is worse than Izvestia and Pravada which used to present only on side of the picture in the totalitarian USSR. Ron Jacobs has written a prodigiously effulgent piece criticizing the hypocrisy, shallowness ruthlessness and inhumanity of the Rand Papers.

All other arguments fall on deaf ears.

The documents are simply repackaged demagoguery justifying the Banality of Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Rand Papers attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public which has been forced to accept the the only argument that is being repeatedly propagated by a cabal of right wing ideologues. Unable to see the other options the nation is forced to accept the ruthless occupation as necessary and the only way forward.

The Thinktanks attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with

It is a document that hides the nature of the US operations in those countries behind an emasculated technospeak, rendering the true nature of the killing and destruction done in the name of the people of the US and the west
..., the task is to kill those who don't want you there and convince the others that they are either better off with the occupier
deciding factor in favor of the US occupying forces is their ability to kill with overwhelming force. Naturally, the indigenous population is aware of this--a fact which causes many to go along with the occupier merely as a means to survive
report is essentially an analyst's blueprint for perfecting the occupation of a country with the idea that the eventual result will be domination of the locals' minds, culture and economy, with the domination of the geography of secondary consideration or of no consideration at all.
the RAND study ignores the human and creative face of resistance by reducing ever element to a quantitative possibility with only so many possible outcomes.
The numbers it quotes and the classifications it makes hide the true intent and outcome of the imperial military's actions much like the statistical sheets maintained by men like Adolf Eichmann hid the true nature of the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the removal of Jewish Germans from the fatherland
It is repeated in the newspeak of government officials and the sycophantic media that reports their words without challenging their consequences
The circle of complicity is completed when the public accepts the arguments made by those officials and media as being the only argument that exists.

Today the Anti-War movement is as sickly as an AIDS patient in the last throes of his death sentence. It is numb with inactivity and marginalized by the six media empires that simply overwhelm the senses with Orwellian doublespeak. The left has chosen the wrong war over the bad war. In justifying its existence and in order to avoid being labeled as weak, the Democrats have simply tried to rationalize the Afghan war as "the good war"-- even though deep inside every Democrat knows that there were and still are several options available in Kabul. There are other ways of nabbing the evil does ohter than using daisycutters on the population in the Hindukush.

The media cannot and will not speak. The silence is deafening!

Recently, the online site known as Wikileaks (which frequently publishes documents from government and corporate think tanks not meant to be seen by the general public) released a Rand Corporation report on Iraq and Afghanistan counterinsurgency operations titled Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although unclassified, the document is marked "For Official Use Only" and was distributed to various high officials in the United States and other "Coalition" governments. In one respect, it can be argued that this paper, along with a series of three or four other Rand reports, could be considered in the same vein as the Pentagon Papers on their release in 1971. A more accurate appraisal, however, would characterize this 318 page report as a summation of what the US military and intelligence agencies could have done more effectively.

This report is essentially an analyst's blueprint for perfecting the occupation of a country with the idea that the eventual result will be domination of the locals' minds, culture and economy, with the domination of the geography of secondary consideration or of no consideration at all. Like the television show Numbers that features a mathematician who works with the FBI by providing mathematical thinking to human endeavors like serial killing, drug smuggling, etc., the RAND study ignores the human and creative face of resistance by reducing ever element to a quantitative possibility with only so many possible outcomes. The numbers it quotes and the classifications it makes hide the true intent and outcome of the imperial military's actions much like the statistical sheets maintained by men like Adolf Eichmann hid the true nature of the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the removal of Jewish Germans from the fatherland. The report draws from counterinsurgency experiences in Vietnam,Northern Ireland, Malaya, and of course, Iraq and Afghanistan.The Rand Papers on Iraq and Afghanistan The Banality of Occupation, By RON JACOBS. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at:rjacobs3625@charter.net

The Rand Papers are 300 paged propaganda gimmick disseminated to justify war, destruction, mayhem and aggression. The defeat of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan has come at great cost to the citizens of those countries. Baghdad is resilient and recovered from the devastation of invasion of Mongols under Halaku Khan who obliterated the capital city. This invasion has been worse, because it uses modern means of exterminating enemies. In Iraq more than one million have been killed and 3.5 million left the country and life as refugees in Syria and elsewhere. In Afghanistan the carpet bombing sent the country to the Neanderthal days of Chengiz Khan and the other Mongols who had tried to occupy it earlier.

The Rand report and other "reviews" simply regurgitate the ideas which have gotten us into so much trouble.

The contradiction rampant throughout the report can be best phrased in the words of US Army Major Justin Featherstone who told the report's writers after his extensive work with the urban population in southeastern Iraq: “Humanity is what it’s about, a genuine desire to do good by the good people, which can sit side-by-side with killing the people [whom you’re there to kill].” In other words, the task is to kill those who don't want you there and convince the others that they are either better off with the occupier or at least not as bad off as they would be without them. Despite the constant warnings throughout the report's recommendations to avoid killing noncombatants (without every providing a single definition of who composes this element), the report ultimately returns to this statement:

War, however, is the realm of destruction. Here will be instances in which these men and women will have to put innocents and their property at risk. In such cases, there may be no good outcome, no alternative that promises to benefit all desired ends, but rather one only less undesirable than its alternatives. A pilot might select the alternative of engaging only a few rooms instead of destroying an entire building, with the appropriate airframe and munitions being called on for the task. In lieu of devastating a town, a ground-force commander could find that a limited number of enemy concentrations provide the opportunity to wreak destruction over only a few blocks.

In other words, the occupier's job remains one that depends on its overwhelming force. Even if the suggestions and lessons learned that are described in this report were to be put into place, the deciding factor in favor of the US occupying forces is their ability to kill with overwhelming force. Naturally, the indigenous population is aware of this--a fact which causes many to go along with the occupier merely as a means to survive. This is not a report about operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and their often bloody results so much as it is a review of the perceived success or failure of those operations. The primary intent of the report is to repeat already familiar lessons about how to construct and maintain an occupation of a country that minimizes the occupiers casualties, maintains domination via fear, cajolery, and manipulation of the personal and tribal relationships of the occupied while simultaneously convincing at least a sizable minority of the population of the occupying nation that their military (in league with the occupier) is working in their interest.

Written in what can best be described as something akin to a technical writing assignment, the report echoes the recent statements from US generals in the Iraq/Afghan theaters and is reflected in the recent decision by Barack Obama to reduce the numbers of US troops in Iraq to 50,000 over the next 16 months and escalate the battle to subdue Afghanistan. If there is one thing that this document makes clear, it is that the Pentagon and its civilian enablers have no intention of leaving Iraq or Afghanistan on their own. Furthermore, it is their intention to take the lessons they believe they have learned in those two countries and apply them to Pakistan and wherever else their manifest destiny compels them to subdue.

This is not the Pentagon Papers of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations/wars. It is a document that hides the nature of the US operations in those countries behind an emasculated technospeak, rendering the true nature of the killing and destruction done in the name of the people of the US and the west. The contemporary version of the policy discussions that were revealed in the Pentagon Papers about the US operation in Vietnam are not here. Nor are the cables and directives that sent men off to kill and die. Those documents have yet to be uncovered. The usefulness of this report is in its look into the mindset of a modern imperial machine: a machine that never questions its mission or the human misery it causes but keeps its mind trained only on how to carry out that mission as efficiently as possible. The banality of the evil of modern warfare is contained in every neutered sentence of this document and the thousands of others like them. It is repeated in the newspeak of government officials and the sycophantic media that reports their words without challenging their consequences. The circle of complicity is completed when the public accepts the arguments made by those officials and media as being the only argument that exists. The Rand Papers on Iraq and Afghanistan The Banality of Occupation, By RON JACOBS. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at:rjacobs3625@charter.net

The Orwellian empire of the media is slick in deflecting the issues. There aren't enough hours in the day to shed light on the mendacity of the Murdock Empire that colludes with the other six to propagate lies, half-truths and doublespeak. Instead of covering the colossal human suffering of the Iraqi people with visual images, the media discusses the schisms between the Shia and the Sunni as if that is the problem.

The Rupert Murdock organization thinks it has won the battle and the war. Actually its meager success has destroyed our prestige around he world and bankrupted our society. We are not talking about the financial meltdown. We can will will eventually recover from the depression--it the moral bankruptcy that has to be fought in the nooks and crannies where intellectual capital hides.

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24 February 2009 @ 09:40 pm

Obama's "Surgers" vs "Exiters" in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Hope is not a strategy: Continuation is not a policy.

Washington is again buzzing with the possibilities. The Pentagon has just completed a study on how to deal with Kabul. The State Department has done its own study. The NEI has given the President another review. Of course the Right wing and Left Wing Think tanks are competing for space with their own agendas and policy preferences. Each new report proposes its own nuances based on the funding it receives and the demeanor and philosophy of its writers. There is a cacophony of voices from the Potomac on how to reduce the blood flowing into the Kabul River. There are the "Surgers" who are in the minority but went along with Obama's mini-surge, and then there are the "Exiters" who recognize the reality of the Afghan situation and want to do what is good for America.

Mr. Bruce Reidel, one of President Obama's main advisors is a "Surger' who wants to teach the Taliaban a lesson and show that that they will stay in Afghanistan for a long time. Dr. Henry Kissnger is a "Surger" who wants to surround China through bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Pakistan and Afghanistan are also giving feedback on the review of Afghan policy that will be completed in March. Pakistan''s ten economists are proposing a Marshall Plan for the region. One of the economists has suggested $60 Billion for Pakistan. The review on Afghanistan is a decision on whether Afghanstan becomes Obama's Vietnam or Reagan's East Germany. Based on the volume of paper from Washington, it seems the "Exiters" seem to be winning. Even Newsweek magazine, a very sober and somewhat balanced magazine seems to have joined the "Exiters".

Mr. Ralph Peters once a "Surger" is now an "Exiter". Mr. Peter's four possibilities can be listed as choice between an exit strategy or a hasty retreat after the defeat. We see it as follows:

1) Plan an exist strategy and leave with dignity now or

2) Wait for the Taliban to run over Karzai's forbidden city

The ranks of the "Exiters" is surging because of several interlinked factors---the economy and China. Both are inter-related and the dependencies weigh heavy on the White House. Why the US gave up India as a Strategic partner? Without China's help, the USA cannot sustain the bailouts or hope for a recovery. China is willing to give the US a reprieve, but may have a couple of strings attached. China will exact a price. It seems that Beijing at this point will require a pullout from Afghanistan and the resolution of Kashmir. We have always considered Kashmir as the silent "K" in Holbrooke's mission. India’s worst nightmares come true: Long term strategic malaise in a changing world . The People's Daily leaves no doubt that the resolution of Kashmir is not simply a "nice to have" on the "wish list" of Mr. Holbrooke--it a mandated requirement-China's pound of flesh for agreeing to buy American T-Bonds. India feels the pain: The US begs Beijing for money

It is clear that without Pakistan's cooperation, the US cannot win the war on terror. Therefore, to safeguard its own interests in the fight against terrorism in South Asia, the US must ensure a stable domestic and international environment for Pakistan and ease the tension between Pakistan and India. This makes it easy to understand why Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan issues, and why India is included in Holbrooke's first foreign visit. In fact, the "Afghan problem", the "Pakistani problem" and the "Indian-Pakistani problem" are all related. China's Official Newspaper: The People's Daily

The other factor weighing in favor of the "Exiters" is the economy. Neither the US, nor the Europeans are in any position to waste another three Trillion Dollars on unsustainable and unwinnable wars. And then there is the minor matter of finding a supply chain route to Kabul. the one through Karachi gets choked once too often. The one through Iran is a minefield of Iranian demands and Israeli suspicions. The route through Russia in untenable and too arduous with too many strings. The price of transferring “non-military” hardware through Russia is to give up Ukraine and Georgia back to Russia is too big a price to pay. Moscow’s pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan

US base at Minas is being “sold” to the Russians cutting off a possible route to Kabul. Russia asserts itself in Central Asia. The politically deaf President Bush wasted a unique opportunity to wrest the Central Asian Republics away from Moscow. If he had worked with Islamabad on a plan to Americansize the region, it would have worked. However he was too busy bombing Kabul to listed to any sane advice.

The $80 Billion Thinktank industry fails to get the nuances of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They try to use the Middle Eastern paradigm or the Indian thinking. Both fail to understand the region between the Indus to the Amu Darya.

Swat & FATA for dummies: Who has Infiltrated the “Taliban”. Who are the terrorists in Pakistan?
Imran Khan predicts that the USA will leave Afghanistan in one year. Other analysts and “Taliban” leaders are willing to allow them 2 years. The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game
Solutions to “Obam’as Vietnam”

Betrayals & Blackmail in Bakiyev: Cloaking failure as success, hiding the defeat, declaring victory & withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months . Mr. Peters calls it a strategy. It is an plan to exit Afghanistan. Mr. Peter's has read the writing on the wall.

Instead of floundering in search of a strategy, we should consider removing the bulk, if not all, of our forces. The alternative is to hope blindly, waste more lives and resources, and, in the worst case, see our vulnerable supply route through Pakistan cut, forcing upon our troops the most ignominious retreat since Korea in 1950 (a massive air evacuation this time around, leaving a wealth of military gear).
Ranked from best to worst, here are our four basic options going forward:

Best. Instead of increasing the U.S. military "footprint," reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a "mother ship" at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.
Stop pretending Afghanistan's a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium. Kill the fanatics.
Good. Leave entirely. Strike terrorist targets from over the horizon and launch punitive raids when necessary. Instead of facing another Vietnam ourselves, let Afghanistan become a Vietnam for Iran and Pakistan. Rebuild our military at home, renewing our strategic capabilities.
Poor. Continue to muddle through as is, accepting that achieving any meaningful change in Afghanistan is a generational commitment. Surge troops for specific missions, but not permanently.
Worst. Augment our forces endlessly and increase aid in the absence of a strategy. Lie to ourselves that good things might just happen. Let U.S. troops and Afghans continue to die for empty rhetoric, while Pakistan decays into a vast terrorist refuge.

Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? Time is not on the side of the USA. The war in Afghanistan is unsustainable and the Taliban can carry on forever, harassing the supply chain, continuing the hit and run operations against the US forces, keeping the Europeans at bay, and keeping the pressure on Kabul with hard hitting and morale destroying attacks every few weeks.

UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”

“Obviously the trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction, and I think everyone is rightly concerned about them…Certainly in Afghanistan, wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult… In both [Afghanistan and Pakistan], in certain areas, the going may be tougher before it gets easier.” CENTCOM commander Gen. David H. Petraeus quoted from a recent New York Times interview,

“The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic… In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.” Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, fromer British ambassador to Afghanistan, and now the UKs special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanist: Hereportedly wile speaking to the deputy French ambassador to Kabul François Fitou

The conflict in Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of concentrating on the critical mission of keeping Islamist terrorists on the defensive, we've mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be — and cannot be — transformed.
In the absence of a strategy, we're doubling our troop commitment, hoping to repeat the success we achieved in the profoundly different environment of Iraq. Unable to describe our ultimate goals with any clarity, we're substituting means for ends.
Expending blood and treasure blindly in Afghanistan, we do our best to shut our eyes to the worsening crisis next door in Pakistan, a radicalizing Muslim state with more than five times the population and a nuclear arsenal. We've turned the hose on the doghouse while letting the mansion burn.Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and the author of Looking For Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World. Posted at 12:16 AM/ET, February 24, 2009 in Foreign Affairs - Middle East - Forum,Peters | The mendacity of hope The U.S. essentially has four options — from best to worst — going forward in Afghanistan. By Ralph Peters

if President Reagan will be remembered for the breakup of the USSR, and the reunification of Germany, President Bush will be remembered for losing wars in Iraq-Afghanistan and losing the Central Asian republics to Russia. Mr. Ralph Peters is wrong when he says that "Afghanistan wasn't a war of choice". President Bush had a choice of stationing 5000 marines in Tarbela and smoking out the evil guys. He chose to carpet bomb all of Afghanistan with Daisy Cutters and not work to moderate the rulers of Kabul. He had an opportunity to use a moderate Afghanistan to placate and win over the Central Asian Republics. By listening to the likes of Mr. Peters, Bush lost the battle and America lost the war, and the world lost Central Asia to Moscow. The implications of the IMU activity in Pakistan

Initially, Afghanistan wasn't a war of choice. We had to dislodge and decimate al-Qaeda, while punishing the Taliban and strengthening friendlier forces in the country. Our great mistake was to stay on in an attempt to build a modernized rule-of-law state in a feudal realm with no common identity.
We needed to smash our enemies and leave. Had it proved necessary, we could have returned later for another punitive mission. Instead, we fell into the great American fallacy of believing ourselves responsible for helping those who've harmed us. This practice was already fodder for mockery 50 years ago, when the novella and film "The Mouse That Roared" postulated that the best way for a poor country to get rich was to declare war on America then surrender.
Even if we achieved the impossible dream of creating a functioning, unified state in Afghanistan, it would have little effect on the layered crises in the Muslim world. Backward and isolated, Afghanistan is sui generis (only example of its kind). Political polarization in the U.S. precludes an honest assessment, but Iraq's the prize from which positive change might flow, while Afghanistan could never inspire neighbors who despise its backwardness.

Imran Khan, Pakistan's eloquent and independently patriotic Paskhtun politician said it best "the Americans will leave, and we will have to deal with the mess that they created" in Afghanistan. This is the same sort of mess that the Russians left behind. At the time Afghanistan deteriorated into a decade long civil war. US, Pakistani, Saudi and UEA policy makers came up with the Taliban to bring peace to the war ridden region. It worked. Unfortunately the insane elements within the Taliban and the evil people within Al-Qaeda tangled with the USA and brought US intervention. If 9/11 had not happened, the Taliban could have been convinced and coerced into moderation. At the time they were in control of the Pakistanis and could have been molded in a different direction. However President Bush's Gung Ho Cowboy testosterone "Charge of the Light Brigade" wanted to destroy them with "shock and awe", humiliate them with Abu Ghraib, and decapitate them with Gitmo. Looking back--it was a failed policy based on fear and reprisals against the wrong people. Imran Khan appearing on GPS with Fareed Zakaria reminded the American people that "The Taliban was not the enemy--the enemy was Al-Qaeda". American Cut and Paste Armchair analysts, and British Lazy-Boy Thinktankers were unable or unwilling to differentiate between the various players. the inability to distinguish the differences among the competing forces was a fatal mistake. Perhaps those with a vested interest were happy to see armed conflict.

Recalling failures of Vietnam

Echoing Vietnam, we're pouring wealth into Afghanistan, corrupting those we wish to rally; we're fighting with restrictions against an enemy who enjoys sanctuaries across international borders; and our core enemies are natives, not foreign parties (as al-Qaeda was in Iraq).
If the impending surge fails to pacify the country, will we send another increment of troops, then another, as we did in Southeast Asia? As the British learned the hard way, Afghanistan can be disciplined, but it can't be profitably occupied or liberalized. It's inconceivable to us, but many Afghans prefer their lives to the lives we envision for them. The lot of women is hideous, and the lives of nearly all the people are nasty, brutish and short. But the culture is theirs.
Even "our man in Kabul," President Hamid Karzai, put his self-interest above any greater cause. Reborn a populist, he backs every Taliban claim that the U.S. inflicts only civilian casualties in virtually every effort against terrorists. Karzai is convinced that we can't abandon him.
We should do just that.

Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan . Oblivious to American interests, the pugnacious Anti-Pakistan Islamphobes will continue their pernicious attacks on Pakistanis and the Pakistani state. Many are on the payroll of India Inc and many are Neocons, rejected and debunked by the American electorate. But the Neocons are still around and will be around. They changed colors before, now they will shed their current skin and put on a new one.

Raplh Peters made famous by his cartography not his intellect is at it again--spouting venom against the most vulnerable population in the world. As ingrates go, is tops the list. He is incapable of finding any reality. The inability to find anything good East of the Hindu Kush is part of his structure and psyche. For Mr. Peters, everything is good West of the Khyber and East of the Indus. Mr. Peters has not read the latest assessment of the situation. India’s worst nightmares come true: Long term strategic malaise in a changing world

A reality check

In any event, Pakistan, not Afghanistan, will determine the future of Islamist extremism in the region. And Pakistan is nearly lost to us — a fact we must accept. Our strategic future lies with India.
President Obama pitched Afghanistan as the good war during his campaign, while rejecting our efforts in Iraq as a sideshow. He got it exactly wrong. Now our new president either needs to lay out a coherent, detailed strategy with realistic goals, or accept that, by mid-2002, we had achieved all that conventional forces could manage in Afghanistan.
We don't need hope. We need the audacity of realism.Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and the author of Looking For Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World. Posted at 12:16 AM/ET, February 24, 2009 in Foreign Affairs - Middle East - Forum,Peters | The mendacity of hope The U.S. essentially has four options — from best to worst — going forward in Afghanistan. By Ralph Peters
(Marines on patrol: What’s needed in Afghanistan is not more U.S. troops or hope./Rafiq Maqbool, AP)

Solution: Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan. Bruce Reidel, General Patraeus, Barack Obama, David Brown, David Milliband etc. all see Pakistan and Afghanistan as one entity–”PakAf”. Even sober journals like Newsweek quoting stalwarts have begun to seriously recognize the reality of the union and have been writing about the proposal to formally merge Pakistan and Afghanistan into one entity. Pakistan's "Do More" list to the USA . Since 2001 we have been proposing a Marshal Plan for Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is the only solution, now being recognized by the Obama Administration. Trade First not Aid First

So why not just get out? As always, it’s not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989. Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai’s administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.
Some argue this wouldn’t be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar’s government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans. On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play. Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Solutions to AfPak Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months Obama to unveil new policy: Marshal Plan & end to bombing raids in Pakistan
Convincing the US tin ear of the Pakistani point of view Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan Growing consensus in the Obama team: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan
Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation Afghanistan: Gen. Petraeus’ Pakistani advisers: Indians jittery Obama adviser gives deep insights into new Afghan policy

Kabul: The Final assault begins. How long can NATO hang on? Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (AfPak)

2009: Obama’s South Asian policy: A Marshall Plan for AfPak

Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world

Fixing AfPak expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan

The Algeriafication of Pakistan, the Egyptianization of Bangladesh may will yield Iranian type of revolutions

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln In 1821 Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam” Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop

Pakistan’s do more list for the USA Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & Swat run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India

Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan
“Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN: Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students.

Bin Laden used Reagan’s USSR strategy to Destroy US Capitalism? Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan

Unite! Erase the Durand Line Solution: Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan

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23 February 2009 @ 10:48 pm

Who are the terrorists in Pakistan? Swat & FATA for dummies: Who has Infiltrated the "Talib

The US policy in AfPak is simple, eliminate the insurgency in Afghanistan and terminate it in FATA and other areas of Pakistan. Nothing diabolical about this. However when it comes to the execution of this simple directive, there is much the American public and the world needs to know about.The US forces directly bomb Afghanistan and have 60,000 troops to extinguish the insurgency in Afghanistan. Because of the "inconvenient truth" that Pakistan is a sovereign country, they launch covert operations to debilitate the capacity of the insurgents to make war on NATO, ISAF and US troops in Afghanistan. In doing so, they are authorized to use all means necessary. Of course they blow up infrastructure, try to create dissension in the ranks of the insurgents and try to coerce them towards others centers of power where they would face opposition. One way of ensuring fewer attack in Afghanistan is to get the insurgents to tangle with the Pakistani army.

“are playing Russian roulette with America’s future with their bigoted anti-Muslim rhetoric. Muslims may constitute as much as a third of humankind by 2050, forming a vast market and a crucial labor pool. They will be sitting on the lion’s share of the world’s energy resources. The United States will increasingly have to compete with emerging rivals such as China and India for access to those Muslim resources and markets, and if its elites go on denigrating Muslims, America will be at a profound disadvantage during the next century.” Juan Cole

A majority of precocious Americans have clearly voiced disquisitions against the doltish and vindictive votary propagating a divisively diaphanous demagogy. The CIA or their proxies on many occasions have crossed the red line and committed horrendous crimes. The world has presented copious monographs against a deleterious Neocon philosophy used as an excuse to wage GWOT also known as The New Crusades Against Islam (TNCAI). Most Americans don't know the truth, or don't want to know the truth. An exegetical examination will show that the furtive condottieri supportive of Blackwater and other mercenaries has evinced shame to America. Congress does not have the stomach to hear the horrid stories of the misdeeds of the CIA in FATA and Swat. How long can the Zardari government survive even after the lethal disclosures about the drones. These hidden secrets seemed to have galvanized the opposition and even the Great Sharif has risen from its lair and started to roar. In these times Mr. Imran Khan also is making sense.

The world is watching. Pakistan are listening. The people of Swat are celebrating. The Indian are apprehensive. The West has reservations. What is going on in Swat. It is a muddle, very confusing. The statements by the government of Pakistan make is as clear as mud. The secular ANP is in the driver's seat and won elections in the NFWF and also in Swat. The religious parties in Pakistan got only 2% of the vote and got wiped out of the NWFP and in Swat. If the religious parties did not win the popular vote in Swat and the NWFP, why is there militancy there? Let us analyze these and other questions related to the problems in Swat.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Swat is exactly what the demonization of Afghan Taliban and the creation of a fake ‘Pakistani Taliban’ is all about.Pakistan has supported Afghan Taliban, so create these monsters insidePakistan, call them ‘Taliban’, make them kill ordinary Pakistanis mercilessly, and when anger builds up, point the finger at Pakistani military. What the Pakistani media is not noticing is how that everything that the so-called Pakistani Taliban does ends up supporting the U.S. government and military’s argument for boosting troops in Afghanistan and advocating U.S. military intervention in Pakistan. Swat peace deal is good for Pakistan; has nothing to do with America, is none of Europe’s business. There is no way to eliminate the insurgency in Afghanistanwithout political reconciliation inside Afghanistan itself. Drone attacks and peace deals in Pakistan are irrelevant.

The questions are complex. The issues are profound. The answers are simple.

Kabul: The Final assault begins. How long can NATO hang on?

There are many factions and groups in Swat. There are the "Tehrik e Taliabn Pakistan" militants and then there are miscreants, terrorists, foreigners, criminal elements, Indian agents and CIA operatives and under cover SSG commandos who visit Swat on an ongoing basis. Each one of these groups has a different agenda.

1) Red Mosque Hostages: When Freedom Fighters turn “Terrorist”. The Tehrik a Taliban e Pakistan was originally a splinter group from Maulvi Saeeds TSNM which was a peaceful movement for the enforcement or reinforcement of "sharia" in the former state of Swat. It is possibly a motely group of Pakhtuns, Punjabis and Afghans who are "rebels without a cause" after the cease fire in Kashmir.

Taliban Statement issued on Jan. 30th, 2008.

“We have been fighting for Afghanistan’s independence against foreign aggression since 2001 [when the Taliban were ousted] and the Afghan nation has a lot of hopes resting on us. That’s why they have stood with us against the foreign military might. They are not supporting us to fight with Pakistan, but to fight against the US-led NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces and liberate Afghanistan,” Zabihullah Mujahid said. He said the Taliban had already issued a statement disowning Baitullah on their website (http://www.alemarah.i67.org).

However a small splinter group led by Mr. Mehsud has now turned its guns on Pakistan. Why is Mr. Baitullah Mehsud with his new organization “Tehrik e Taliban” now attacking Pakistan? These rhetorical questions were asked for effect.

SUFI MUHAMMAD: He leads a peaceful group called Tehrik-e-Nifaaz Shariat Muhammadi group (TSNM). He is the Father-In-Law of Mulla Fazalullah. Muhammad Sufi Saeed led a march of thousands of local people in Swat soon after the agreement and is now trying to persuade his son- in-law Fazlullah to accept the terms.

Key Taliban leaders in Pakistan:

BAITULLAH MEHSUD: Head of the newly formed Taliban Movement of Pakistan. He has been named by the Pakistan government and the CIA as the man behind the Dec. 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in 1980s; alongside the Taliban in the 1990s and against U.S. and NATO troops after 2001. Now taking aim at the Pakistan military. From the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan, near the Afghan border where Western intelligence suggests Al Qaida is regrouping.

MAULVI FAZLULLAH: Uses an illegal FM radio station in Pakistan’s picturesque Swat Valley in the northwest to rally supporters to his rigid brand of Islamic rule. Followers have burned down CD shops, girls’ schools and launched dozens of suicide attacks against Pakistani police and military. Commander in the Taliban Movement of Pakistan.

Pakistani cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has waged war against the authorities in the Swat Valley for 20 months, has “reservations” about a peace accord between militants and the government, a spokesman said.

Fazlullah is leading a rebel group loyal to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is based in the northwestern tribal region and is fighting security forces in areas along the border with Afghanistan.

FAQIR MOHAMMAED: Based in northwestern Pakistan’s Bajour Agency, he is considered a close ally of al-Qaida’s Ayman Al-Zawahri. Part of the Taliban Movement of Pakistan but also a key member of the Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad’s Sharia Law. He has sent hundreds of young men to fight in Afghanistan and has been implicated in dozens of suicide attacks.

SADIQ NOOR: Powerful leader in North Waziristan, where followers have battled Pakistan’s military and provided assistance to the Afghan Taliban across the border. He is closely aligned to Afghanistan’s Jalaluddin Haqqani, a key eastern Afghan commander who coordinates activities between al Qaida and the Taliban.

MAULVI GUL BAHADAR: The leader behind the deeply flawed September 2006 agreement with the Pakistan military that gave breathing space for the burgeoning Pakistani Taliban. Based in North Waziristan. Source: Associated Press

There are several opinions about the TTP. Some like Zaid Hamid and Ahmed Quresihi consider them as Indian proxies. Other like Imtiaz Alam and the government of Pakistan consider them as an evil force bent upon "Talibanizing Pakistan". The truth is a bit more complex than that. The TTP and its Mullah Radio appeals to one and all for donations. It is here that they get their funding. RAW, Mossad and CIA fund them anonymously and through proxies.While bait Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah are doing some of the fighting, there are many like Ansar Abbasi who claim that the TTP is not involved with the other acts of terror in Swat and elsewhere. The detractors claim that the TTP has been infiltrated by Mossad and RAW agents posing like pious Muslims who supply them with arms and ammunition and with anonymous donations. There are many reports which claim that many of the spies caught were uncircumcised and had fake beards. Additionally there are many reports which show US Marines with long beards dressed as Pathans.

2) India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”. There are Indian RAW agents disguised as Pathans who sabotage the government infrastructure and proliferate guns and weapons into the state. RAW has had a history of attempt to destabilize Pakistan. From the Mukti Bahni to the present day, India has never reconciled to what they consider "the partition" of "India". Bharat is very cognizant of the fact that the Malakand division butts against Kashmir. If Swat is under the control of the much hated Taliban this could be worse than the Lashkar which also is really really upset at Delhi for being blamed for Mumbai.The statement by CIA Chief Gates must have sent chills up the spine of analysts in Delhi. He applauded Pakistan for the peace deal in Swat and said that this could be duplicated in Afghanistan. Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: The NWFP administration and Maulana Sufi Muhammad would immediately move to wipe out the RAW elements and criminals from the Malakand division as the government had sufficient evidence of Indian involvement in the Swat lawlessness, a source told The News.

The key NWFP government source, who has been involved in the successful negotiations between Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad and the ANP government, further revealed that it was agreed in the talks that all the closed schools in the area would be reopened, the Army would not be withdrawn and the police would be redeployed at all the police stations to ensure the writ of the government.

The source said the RAW elements and criminals had been involved in kidnapping for ransom, dacoities and blackmailing in the troubled areas of Swat. “We have even caught the RAW agents, both alive and dead,” the source said.

The source held the RAW agents and local criminals responsible for most of the crimes in the area, saying they were also involved in attacks on military targets. With the inking of the peace agreement between Maulana Sufi Muhammad and the provincial government, the source said, these elements would be cornered immediately and wiped out to make Swat crime free as it once used to be. The News. Indian agents to be wiped out from Swat By Ansar Abbasi Fri 10:42pm

There has been the Indian angle in Baluchistan. The Indian consulattes have been using the Baluch “nationalist” terrorists to create problems for Pakistan and malign the patriotic Pakistanis. Mr. Hamid Karzai, threatened by the “talibaan” has several times issued veiled threats against Pakistan. The Red Mosque and other related matters are part of the Indian-Afghan nexus supported by other anti-Pakistan forces which may want to threaten the government in Pakistan to relieve pressure on Kabul and Srinagar Osama Bin Laden turned against his benefactors. Pakistan’s legitimate interests?

3) This is also payback time for the Northern Alliance which was supported by India, Iran and Russia as a counterweight to the Pakistani support for the Taliban. The minority Hazaras and Tajiks were confined to the Panjshir Valley for most of their existence. For the first time since 2001 they run the corridors of power in Kabul. They have exacted their revenge on the Pakhtun majority as well as the Pakistanis. By cozying up with Iran using the Shia bogey they have been able to get arms and equipment. By being in bed with Delhi they were able to finagle about $1 Billion for their personal benefit.

4) . Millions of Dollars are given to the CIA for covert operations. Vice President Biden when asked about covert operations in Pakistan said "I cannot comment on this", "You know I am very open about everything with you, but I won't talk about this". What type of CIA activity is going on in Pakistan that Vice President Joe Biden can't discuss on "Face the Nation" on an American network. As General Hamid Gul said the other day on Geo TV "they don't go to Afghanistan to play marbles". What are they doing in Pakistan? There are the CIA operatives who want to payback Pakistan for original sin of creating and Taliban, and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The pressure has multiple goals--to "convince" the Pakistanis that "Sharia" is horrible, "Al-Qaeda" is evil and the "Taliban" are demonic entities. This "convincing" activity shows itself in various manifestations of pure terror, unadulterated violence, lethal sabotage and gruesome murders. Pakistan is not the only recipient of this sort of terror. There is nothing new to this sort of CIA activity--it was practiced in Honduras, Cuba, Iraq (Abu Ghraib) and in Gitmo. The same type of sabotage is being waged by the CIA proxy Jundallah in Iran. This violence is then aired all over the planet as a negative representation of "Sharia" and the depiction of the "Taliban" as an evil force made up of bad people. Pictures published in various newspapers show Marines in various disguises--dressed up as Pakhtuns with long beards and long hair hidden in turbans.

America is in the throes of a depression the likes the world has never seen. It wants to get out of Afghanistan. To make matters worse, there is serious consideration in Washington to let Pakistan run Afghanistan like it did in the 90s. The Pakistan army very cognizant of this want to prove that it can deal with the Taliban and make it work. Hence the deal in Swat. Swat spells death knell of US defeat & Afghan occupation

Kabul: The final assault begins-How long can NATO hang on?.It is beyond comprehension that with the economic woes of the USA, the Obama Administration is not working on an exit strategy from Pakistan. Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it?.

One major reason for the US to send additional troops to Afghanistan is the refusal of NATO members to meet the shortage of about 8,000 soldiers to secure some of the more dangerous areas in the Taliban strongholds of Kandahar, Helmand and Urozgan. NATO military commanders have been making requests for the additional troops for months now without getting a positive response. The deployment of the 3,200 soldiers, that too for seven months, would partially meet the NATO demand.
In fact, the Brussels-based think-tank, the Senlis Council, and other organizations and experts have estimated the need for increasing the foreign troops’ deployment in Afghanistan to at least 80,000 to tackle the growing Taliban-led resistance. There is no chance that NATO members would be willing to contribute that many troops due to fear of political fallout of deployment of their soldiers in such a volatile place as Afghanistan and owing to commitments elsewhere in other trouble-spots in the world. Some of these countries including France, Germany, Italy and Spain are even not ready to lift the strict restrictions they have placed on deploying troops in dangerous parts of Afghanistan or carrying out combat missions. Most of their soldiers are operating in the relatively safer northern provinces. The writer is an executive editor of The News International based in Peshawar. Email: bbc@pes.comsats.net.pk

Islamabad Pakistan Marriot: What was the US Marine role?. America reeling from the rebuff from Kyrgizstan on the air base, was not ready for the rough demands from Moscow. Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months.

Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan

US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin
NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan
Cambodiazation of the Afghan war
Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan

Unite! Erase the Durand Line The only solution is the inevitable confederation between Pakistan and Afghanistan

The graphics depicted below show the best solution.

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18 February 2009 @ 12:42 am

Afghanistan: Declaring victory & withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

In 2001 the US was considered the liberator and was immensely popular in Afghanistan and even though there was a tiff with Islamabad on the Nuclear bomb, America was still popular in Pakistan. The elites in both countries were definitely pro-American--many educated and trained in the USA. There was tremendous goodwill left over from the First Afghan war. President Bush had an opportunity to use the weakened USSR to build bridges and spread American influence from Karachi to Kabul and then spread it to Baku, Samarkhand, Bokhara and right up to the Chinese border and beyond.

How can you convert a population full of American fans into US policy haters? It is a classic test case of lessons learned in a tragedy of errors. What did the Neocons do and how did they do it? Instead of using a covert force of 5000 Navy seal to nab the evil guys, the Bush Neocons waged a global war on terror. They used daisy cutters on Afghanistan, nuclear tipped bombs in Iraq and drones in Pakistan. Abu Graib, Gitmo, renditions and torture have tarnished America and its image as the beacon of freedom. The fire is raging from the Nile to the Euphrates; From the Indus to the Amu Darya. All goodwill is gone.

Vietnam, half a world away, seemed alien to many Americans and to Westerners generally. Afghanistan might as well be the moon. At least Vietnam had been a French colony, albeit a troubled one. Afghanistan resisted colonization, dispatching 19th-century British and 20th-century Russian soldiers with equal efficiency. "Afghanistan is not a nation, it is a collection of tribes," according to a Saudi diplomat who did not wish to publicly disparage a Muslim neighbor. In Vietnam, the Ngo Dinh Diem government was seen as illegitimate because Diem was a Roman Catholic in a mostly Buddhist country and because it was propped up by the United States. In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai's government was essentially created by the United States after local warlords, backed by American airpower, ousted the Taliban in 2001. (Karzai was elected in his own right in 2004, but at a time when he was clearly favored by America and faced no serious rivals.)
As in Diem's Vietnam, government corruption is epic; even Karzai says so. "The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen," he said last November. His former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, rates his old government as "one of the five most corrupt in the world" and warns that Afghanistan is becoming a "failed, narco-mafia state." In a country where seven out of 10 citizens live on about a dollar a day, the average family each year must pay about $100 in baksheesh, or bribes (in Vietnam, this was known as "tea" or "coffee" money). Foreign aid is, after narcotics, the readiest source of income in Afghanistan. But it has been widely estimated that because of stealing and mismanagement in Kabul, the capital, less than half of the money actually finds its way into projects, and only a quarter of that makes it to the countryside, where 70 percent of the people live. Newsweek, With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Today as a result of thee failed policies, 80% of Afghanistan is in the hands of wealthy drug-lords who have money and arms. Pakistan is seething with anger at the loss of civilian casualties in FATA and Swat. The writing on the wall for US policy makers is clear. How do they deal with it? They can continue the flawed policy of covert sabotage, and overt war or they can build a new Central Asia.

The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable (British and American Generals). UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
The economic price of the war is untenable for the UK and the US. Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it?
The mini-surge of 30,000 troops is not materializing and has been reduced to three brigades only.Reality check on War in Afghanistan
The traditional supply route via Pakistan's tribal areas and the mountainous Khyber Pass has become increasingly vulnerable to Taliban attack.Uzbekistan pressured the IMU is scared of Taliban reprisals on supplies to Kabul
US base at Minas is being "sold" to the Russians cutting off a possible route to Kabul. Russia asserts itself in Central Asia
80% of Afghan territory is under insurgent control. US attacks on Pakistan have fueled the Afghan insurgency
The price of transferring "non-military" hardware through Russia is to give up Ukraine and Georgia back to Russia is too big a price to pay. Moscow's pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan
Hot War: A response to Cold Start. American attempts to use India to pressure Pakistan backfired as Pakistan moved its forces to the Eastern front. Pakistani response to India's Cold Start Strategy
According to Bruce Reidel Mullah Omar promised safe passage to the Americans and was interested in joining the government if the foreign troops would leave.Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO?
Imran Khan predicts that the USA will leave Afghanistan in one year. Other analysts and "Taliban" leaders are willing to allow them 2 years. The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game
Solutions to "Obam'as Vietnam"

The 20th anniversary of the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan is a poignant reminder to occupation armies that the Hindu Kush mountains are the "graveyard of empires". The Khyber for 5000 years has witnessed the hordes of invaders come down to the Indus--but the Khyber Pass is a one way street. No invader has been able to go up the Khyber and occupy Pakhtun lands. The Mongols, Alexander, the British, the Russians all discovered it the hard way.NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan.The rising fire of Anti-Americanism has engulfed the land from the Indus to the Amu Darya.

OTTAWA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - The situation in Afghanistan seems to be getting worse and a solution will require more than just military force, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday. "There are a lot of concerns about a conflict that has lasted quite a long time now and actually appears to be deteriorating at this point," he told CBC television in an interview ahead of his visit to Canada on Thursday. Obama voiced appreciation for Canada's military engagement in Afghanistan and gave no hint that he would ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extend the combat mission there beyond the mid-2011 date agreed by Parliament. "Very soon we will be releasing some initial plans in terms of how we are going to approach the military side of the equation in Afghanistan," he said. "But I'm absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military means," he added. "We're going to have use diplomacy, we're going to have to use development, and my hope is that in conversations that I have with Prime Minister Harper that he and I end up seeing the importance of a comprehensive strategy." (Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Frank McGurty). Reuters. Obama sees Afghan situation deteriorating. Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:53pm EST

Several tectonic shifts have happened in the land of the Pamirs in the past few weeks. The reverberations from these earthquakes will be felt all the way to Washington and beyond. Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin. The election campaign in Afghanistan has already started. Installing an Anti-Pakistan government in Kabul. Unable to venture beyond the confinement of his own capital, the mercurial Mr. Karzai was seen campaigning in Moscow and Delhi. The last days of the last “emperor”. The “Mayor of Kabul” is being replaced. Mr. Hobrooke rebuffed Mr. Karzai by not meeting him for three days. The snub was very evident by the itinerary of the American envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan ("K" for Kashmir is silent in his portfolio). Mr. Holbrooke like President-Elect Biden (a few weeks ago) mentioned the inefficiency of the government in front of the frustrated host. The Grand Bargains for Kabul

While neighboring Iran is predominantly Shiite, and has traditionally backed the Sunni Taliban's foes in the Northern Alliance, Tehran may also be the source of some of the more sophisticated IEDs turning up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Certainly Iran has some interest in seeing the American forces on its border bleed a little. At times, though, the United States can seem like its own worst enemy in Afghanistan. Lacking enough troops, forced to cover vast areas, U.S. forces depend far too heavily on strikes by A-10s, F-15s, even B-1 bombers. In 2004, the U.S. Air Force flew 86 strike sorties against targets in Afghanistan. By 2007, the number was up to 2,926—and that doesn't count rocket or cannon fire from helicopters

The American people have had enough of these "perpetual mimetic wars". They want to throw the Orwellian "1984" into the dustbin of history. How do Hillary Clinton, Bruce Reidel and Joseph Biden use Big brother's "War is peace and Peace is War" philosophy to camouflage the campaign rhetoric? The challenge for the architects of the "new" Afghan policy is to place all blame on Karzai's incompetence, NATA recalcitrance, and Pakistan duplicity:-- then cloak failure as success, hide the inevitable defeat, declare victory now and withdraw from Kabul while they can-- with some sense of respectability. Here is the rhetoric that we can expect. Newsweek, With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game. The secular Pakistani Awami National Party (ANP) which has been missing in action for months, finally stood up to be counted and has arranged a peace deal between the Swati militants and the Pakistani Army. Much to the chagrin of the West, there is celebration in Swat and people across the spectrum wants the fighting to stop.

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Britain said Tuesday that it had concerns over an agreement for the introduction of Islamic courts in parts of Pakistan's northwest. "We need to be confident that they will end violence, not create space for further violence," said British High Commission spokesperson Jennifer Wilkes in a statement. "They need to be clear, robust and monitored long-term, and include enforceable measures on cross-border movement to tackle cross-border militancy," he said.

Wilkes said that Britain also recognized the Pakistani government's efforts to restore peace and security to Swat. "Swat's problems require a comprehensive approach, bringing together security measures, development and governance. Any solution should also reflect the will of the people of Swat," he said. Pakistan's provincial government in the northwest and leader of a pro-Taliban banned Islamic group signed a deal Monday, abolishing un-Islamic laws and setting up Islamic courts in Malak and Division in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The courts will also be set up in the Swat valley where Pakistani Taliban have been fighting against the security forces over the past two years.
Meanwhile Sufi Muhammad, chief of the banned Tehrik Shariat-e-Nifaza Muhammadi (TSNM), Tuesday led thousands of his followers to Swat to convince the local Taliban to lay down arms and accept the agreement on Islamic laws. Muhammad, father-in-law of Maulana Fazalullah, the chief of Swat Taliban, will meet Fazaullah Wednesday, according to local press reports. Britain expresses concerns on Pakistan's Islamic law agreement, www.chinaview.cn 2009-02-17 23:00:49

The "peace deal" will be sabotaged in due course by "the powers to be" who do not want to see stability in Pakistan. That is inevitable, however it buys the Pakistani government some time to sort our the players and put together a long term strategy on coping with the problems in the restive Malakand Division. Pakistanis see a difference between the insurgents fighting the Americans in Afghanistan and the insurgents within Pakistan. There is no stomach in Pakistan to bomb and kill their own fellow citizens. Much to the chagrin of the West, Pakistan has signed a peace deal with the Swat militants.Obama's advisor predicts focus on talks and reconciliation

Islamabad: Maulana Sufi Mohammad, leader of the Tahreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) and spiritual leader of Swat Taliban, has reached Swat valley to persuade his son-in-law and militant leader Maulana Fazlullah to accept the recently signed peace deal with the government.

Sufi Mohammad was warmly welcomed in Swat as he reached there from Timar Garah on Tuesday along with a convoy of supporters which consisted of hundreds of vehicles. Banners and posters by locals on roads and in bazaars welcomed Sufi's convoy and his peace initiative.
Sufi Mohammad will persuade Fazlullah not to challenge the government's writ, lay down arms and restore peace to the restive Swat valley where Taliban fighters have pitched themselves against the military troops for the last several months resulting in dozens of civilian casualities and a loss of billions of rupees to property and business. Leader arrives in Swat valley with message of peace. By Fasihur Rehman Khan, Correspondent
Published: February 17, 2009, 23:56

Tough lessons in geography. The US has been thrown out of Kyrgyzstan. Russia promised to pay double the rent of the base and also gave Kyrgyzstan double its national budget--cool cash worth $2 Billion. This creates a huge problem for America. Her supply lines are already been choked at the Kyber and harassed along the way. Russia is asking for its pound of flesh for allowing the supplies through Russian territory. Moscow is asking for an end to NATO expansion which may be a hard bargain for NATO and the US to accept. Kyrgyzstan in a well calculated move throws out the US bases. Anti-Occupation forces choke US Afghan war

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Kyrgyzstan will close an air base used by the U.S. as a staging point for operations in Afghanistan, potentially undermining President Barack Obama’s planned troop increase aimed at defeating the Taliban. For three years, the Kyrgyz government tried to renegotiate the amount paid by the U.S. to use the base, “but we encountered no understanding from the U.S. side,” Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev told reporters in Moscow today. The decision was made “in the last few days,” he said.
The U.S. Defense department said the base issue is still being discussed with Kyrgyzstan. Before Bakiyev’s announcement, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia will lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion and provide another $150 million in economic aid. The two countries reached an agreement on settling Kyrgyzstan’s debt to Russia, part of which will be written off and the rest repaid with assets. Obama plans to boost U.S. forces in Afghanistan under a strategy similar to the troop “surge” ordered by former President George W. Bush in Iraq. There are currently about 36,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Other NATO members have contributed another 32,000 troops to the Afghan mission, according to the alliance.
Base at Manas
The base at Manas Airport near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek was established in 2001 and serves U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. It gained additional strategic importance when Uzbekistan closed a similar base on its territory in 2005. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said today he believed the terms for continued use of Manas were still under negotiation.
“I’ve seen President Bakiyev’s comments, but we have received no formal notification from him or any other Kyrgyz official to close the base,” Morrell said in an interview. “We’ve been in discussions with Kyrgyz authorities for some time now, and we anticipate continuing those discussions to the point where we are able to resolve them to our mutual satisfaction.” Earlier, in a Pentagon briefing, Morrell told reporters that Manas is “a hugely important air base for us” because it provides “a launching-off point to provide supplies to our forces in Afghanistan.” Later, in the interview, he said it wasn’t the only means.
‘Multiple Supply Lines’
“We have multiple supply lines into Afghanistan, both by air and ground,” Morrell said. “While we would much prefer to continue operations in Manas and will work to make sure that’s the case, there are a number of routes by which we can continue to supply our troops and sustain our operations.” The announcement about Manas came on the same day that insurgents attacked and damaged a bridge on the U.S.’s main land supply route into Afghanistan along that country’s border with Pakistan. Insurgents have stepped up attacks on the route in recent months. As a result, Morrell said, the U.S. has sought to open alternatives into Afghanistan from the north. Medvedev said Russia and Kyrgyzstan would combine forces to help provide stability in Central Asia. He also reiterated Russia’s willingness to cooperate with the U.S. to bring order to Afghanistan.
“Our countries will also help operations in the region that are being conducted against terrorism, and we’re prepared for coordinated actions with coalition countries,” he said. Medvedev visited Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, last month on the heels of a tour through the region by Army General David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. Petraeus said on Jan. 20 that the U.S. had secured “additional logistical routes into Afghanistan” through Central Asia as its main supply route through Pakistan becomes increasingly vulnerable to attack by the Taliban. Petraeus visited Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, skipping Uzbekistan, which in 2005 told U.S. forces to leave a base used as a transit point for supplies, troops and aircraft coming in and out of Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan to Close U.S. Air Base Used for Afghan War By Lyubov Pronina . To contact the reporter on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net

US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop. The mini-surge has begun. Pat Buchananan reports that the 30,000 promised troops may not materialize and the mini-surge may only be confined to the regiments. Khyber Pass choked for NATO supplies

US commanders have been contemplating sending up to 30,000 more soldiers to bolster the 33,000 already here, but the new administration is expected to initially approve only a portion of that amount. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday the president would decide soon.
The new unit — the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division — moved into Logar and Wardak provinces last month, and the soldiers from Fort Drum, NY, are now stationed in combat outposts throughout the provinces. Several roadside bombs also have exploded next to the unit's MRAPs — mine-resistance patrol vehicles — but caused no casualties, he said.Dawn

The brilliant intellectual and one of the most quoted men on the planet, Noam Chomsky and former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf say that there will be no change in American policy in South and West Asia. The results on the ground certainly do not show any change, however the realities on the ground may force the administration to come out of the thinktank cocoons and not simply react to conditions on the ground. President Barack Obama had a small window of opportunity where he could have made a difference. His silence on Gaza and continuation of drone bombings in Pakistan is fast depleting his capital. All this spells disaster for Obama.

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has approved a modest increase in U.S. forces for the flagging war in Afghanistan, administration, defense and congressional officials said Tuesday. The Obama administration was announcing Tuesday that it will send one additional Army brigade and an unknown number of Marines to Afghanistan during the coming six months. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the total is about 17,000 troops. About 8,000 U.S. Marines are expected to go in first, followed by about 9,000 Army troops.The new units are a Marine Expeditionary Brigade from North Carolina and an Army Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis in Washington state. International Herald Tribune. Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven, Lolita C. Baldor, Pamela Hess, Anne Flaherty and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

The lack of troops shows a huge supply and demand problem in the US army and NATO forces. There are no additional troops to spare. So while the thinktanks dictate a continuation of the failed policies, the conditions on the ground dictate a lack of will at implementing the policies. This is a classic setup for failure. The USSR had 250,000troops plus another 150,000 irregulars in Afghanistan. 400,000 troops and a 150,000 strong Afghan Army was unable to keep them from being routed. The NATO troops do not venture out of their comfort zones. It is only the US army that pursues the insurgents. 60,000 soldiers in Afghanistan will be unable to quell the insurgency and reverse the march to Kabul.

There are external factors to the malaise. Another challenge would to assuage India, keep Russia at bay and try to maintain some links with the Central Asian Republics who have not fully returned to the Russian fold.. Moscow's pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan. The American War Strategy has been impacted by the changes in Kyrgyzstan. Cambodiazation of the Afghan war has not helped the US war effort."American Taliban in Kabul?

Russia has been pressuring Kyrgyzstan amid unease at the US's growing footprint in central Asia. US attempts to supply coalition troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were in danger of suffering a major setback today after Kyrgyzstan signalled it was considering shutting down a key US military base. The central Asian republic is contemplating closing down the US military facility near its capital Bishkek. The Manas airbase - home to 1,000 US army personnel since 2001 - is a key staging post for coalition forces fighting in nearby Afghanistan. Both US and Nato commanders have expressed dismay at the possible closure. It comes at a time when Nato is desperately trying to expand its supply routes to Afghanistan via the northern countries of central Asia following a series of devastating attacks on truck convoys from Pakistan.
Russia has been pressuring Kyrgyzstan to evict the Americans, amid unease in Russia's military at the US's growing footprint in central Asia, an area Moscow regards as its backyard. The Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was today in Moscow holding talks with Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev. Tonight, Kanat Tursunkulov, an official from Kyrgyzstan's foreign ministry, told the Guardian: "Our president has said the [US] base is very helpful for the stability of the region and Afghanistan." Asked whether that meant the president would now shut it down, he said, "There's no comment on this."
But Kommersant newspaper reported that Bakiyev is seeking a $450m (£312.5m) loan from Russia for his impoverished ex-Soviet republic, and the write-off of $180m in debts. In return, Russia "counts on a favourable decision on the destiny of the US Manas airbase on Kyrgyz territory", the newspaper reported - possibly even tomorrow. Today, however, analysts said that Russia would not want the issue to jeopardise its relationship with the Obama White House. Rather, Moscow wanted to use the Kyrgyzstan base as a bargaining chip in a much wider strategic dialogue - over the future of the US missile defence shield in Europe, for example, and Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine.
"Russia is inviting the west for a dialogue. At the same time it is showing off some of its trump cards. The Manas base is one of them," Andrei Grozin, a central Asian analyst at the Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet States in Moscow, said. He added, "In effect Russia and China are saying, 'We can get rid of this base. That doesn't mean we want to do it now. We want to cooperate.' But in return Russia wants concessions [from Washington] on missile defence and no invitation from Nato to Georgia or Ukraine."
Yesterday Robert Simmons, the special envoy to Nato's secretary general, visited Kyrgyzstan and urged its government not to shut the base. He described it as a "vital link in our fight against international terrorism", adding, "The presence of the airbase is a large contribution to Nato operations." The US military chief in the region, General David Petraeus, visited Kyrgyzstan last month to explore new transport routes to Afghanistan. He also toured Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Russia has offered to transport non-military supplies to Afghanistan. But Nato has yet to reach a comprehensive transit deal with Afghanistan's immediate central Asian neighbours.
Since the 2001 war in Afghanistan, central Asia has been at the centre of a strategic competition between the US and Russia. The rivalry is reminiscent of the 19th-century conflict between imperial Britain and tsarist Russia, played out in the velvet mountains of the Hindu Kush, and famously dubbed the Great Game. In a significant victory, the Bush administration persuaded Uzbekistan's authoritarian rulers to allow a US military base on its territory. In 2006, however, the Uzbek regime kicked the Americans out following a secret deal with Moscow. China is also a significant player in the region's complex geo-politics. President Barack Obama has already signalled a shift in foreign policy - with the war in Afghanistan and a new relationship with Iran the two priorities in the new post-Bush era. He plans to build up US troop numbers in Afghanistan, possibly doubling numbers to 60,000 this year. But the traditional supply route via Pakistan's tribal areas and the mountainous Khyber Pass has become increasingly vulnerable to Taliban attack.
Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, is in deep economic trouble. The small country faces rising unemployment, a growing trade deficit, and is struggling to pay its gas and electricity bills. The normally disunited opposition has got its act together and now threatens President Bakiyev. Closure of US base in Kyrgyzstan could alter Afghanistan strategy. Luke Harding in Moscow , guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 February 2009 19.50 GMT

Pakistan & drones. The PPPP controls the Senate, the National Assembly, and has coalition governments in three provinces. The Prime Minister belongs to the PPP and President Zardari essentially has all the powers that General Musharraf used to have. It is amazing the the New York Times calls Mr. Zardari's government weak. "Shoot the drones": Shireen Mazari. Even if the Pakistan Peoples Party government is able to last the firestorm over the drone bombings, it will be under tremendous pressure to withdraw the base facilities that hosts the drones. Halting the suicide bombers needs a holistic strategy and an immediate stopping of drones. If it continues the current policy, it will be thrown out of office in 2012 or before. Pakistan’s legitimate interests?. The "government in waiting" is the irascible Nawaz Sharif whose popularity has soared over this issues. How long can the “wink wink nod nod” farce of Drones go on? Imran Khan has also taken advantage of the confusion and his popularity has increased, specially among the Pakhtuns. Nawaz Sharif aligned with Imran Khan and the Jamat e Islami would not bode well for American interests in Pakistan. Pakistan’s "Do More" list for the USA. The Amir e Jamat e Islami recently visited Beijing and both Imran Khan and Mr. Sharif have been very critical of American policy in the region. Imran Khan in a recent interview saw the US withdraw out of Afghanistan in years time. Sabotaging Obama: CIA provoking Pakistan into shooting the drones

Americans are appropriately skeptical about the chances of success in Afghanistan. A recent NEWSWEEK Poll shows that while 71 percent of the people believe that Obama can turn around the cratering economy, only 48 percent think he can make progress in Afghanistan. Deploying a U.S. force of 60,000 will cost about $70 billion a year. Training and supporting the 130,000 to 200,000 troops required for a proper Afghan Army would take another decade and could cost at least $20 billion. Petraeus has consistently warned that Afghanistan will be "the longest campaign in the long war" against Islamic extremism. But it's far from clear that Americans have the appetite for such a commitment: after the economy, their top priority is health care (36 percent). Only 10 percent put Afghanistan at the top of their list, even fewer than nominate Iraq. If there is no real improvement on the ground, by the 2010 midterm elections, candidates for office may be decrying "Obama's war." Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (Afghanistan). Is the US ready to withdraw from Afghanistan. The US has been negotiating with the "Taliban" for several months now and a meeting was held under the auspices of the Saudi monarchs. Mullah Omar promised safe package to the Americans and was interested in joining the government if the foreign troops would leave. Convincing the US Tin ear–of the Pakistani point of view

The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. USA has not met with any appreciable success to divide the Taliban by winning over the moderate elements and making them share power. Efforts will be renewed to win over Mullah Omar who has hinted at sharing power provided a firm time-table of foreign troop withdrawal is announced. Two-year timeframe will be offered as in case of Iraq, which will subsequently be dishonoured. Negotiations for power sharing will be undertaken only when the US-Nato military tilts the balance in its favour to be able to bargain from a position of strength. This implies more bloodshed, not realising that more the provocations by US troops, fiercer will be the response from the militant forces. Its oppressive acts will accelerate rather than de-accelerate violence thereby making foreign troops based in Afghanistan that much vulnerable to attacks. Military power can win a war but cannot defeat terrorism, which grows like wild weeds. Terrorism is a product of injustice; without eradicating root causes which breed terrorism, the disease cannot be cured by applying force. Obama and his team must take into account the consensus that has emerged among the western analysts that dialogue based on sincerity of purpose and genuine efforts to remove root causes is the key to settle Afghan imbroglio. The Statesman. US converting defeat into victory in Afghanistan. The writer is a retired Brig and a defence and political analyst based in Rawalpindi. ah.raja@yahoo.com . Asif Haroon Raja: Pakistan first: The devastating effects of appeasing India and kowtowing to the USA

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India

So why not just get out? As always, it's not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989. Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai's administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.
Some argue this wouldn't be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar's government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans. On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play. Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan
Unite! Erase the Durand Line The only solution is the inevitable confederation between Pakistan and Afghanistan

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04 February 2009 @ 07:45 pm

Who is in charge? Anyone home? Obama's Afghan policy in total chaos.

Rummaging through the policy papers, the think tanks and the public statements and the actual situation on the ground one finds that there is absolutely no coherence to President Barack Obama's policy on Afghanistan. It is as chaotic as his nomination process for cabinet positions where Tax cheaters got through the sieve of the so called screening system. He is hamstrung by the failed policies of his predecessor and is confused on what to do to change it. The President is getting advice from the same people that led us into this quagmire.

What he could have done was to put all major decision on drone bombing and ground incursions into a holding pattern and called a conference on Afghanistan and its neighbors. He is wasting valuable time looking at reports that are public knowledge. Mr. Obama's policy on Afghanistan cannot move beyond his line during the presidential debate. "I will go after valuable targets inside Pakistan, if Pakistan does not or cannot go after them".

How long will Americans tolerate another War President?

The voter’s proverbial Damocles sword hangs on the head of the new President. How long will America tolerate another war president? With the memories of 911 fading, most question why American soldiers are dyeing in distant lands. A repetition of history is at hand. A spectacular incident (911 and Gulf of Tonkin) led to two decades of war in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

A flurry of post-inauguration activity -- presidential meetings with top diplomatic and military officials, the appointment of a high-level Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy and the start of a White House-led strategic review -- was designed to show forward motion and resolve, senior administration officials said.
But newly installed officials describe a situation on the ground that is far more precarious than they had anticipated, along with U.S. government departments that are poorly organized to implement the strategic outline that Obama presented last week to his National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
With a 60-day deadline, tied to an April 3 NATO summit, Obama has called for a more regional outlook and a more narrowly focused Afghanistan policy that sets priorities among counterinsurgency and development goals. "The president . . . wants to hear from the uniformed leadership and civilian advisers as to what the situation is and their thoughts as to the way forward," a senior administration official said. "But he has also given pretty direct guidance."
The problem confronting the administration is how to fill in Obama's broad strokes while fighting a war that, by all accounts, is going badly. "It could take quite a long time to look at all the various aspects of this," the senior official said. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates predicted last week that the war will be "a long slog" with an uncertain outcome. Richard C. Holbrooke, the new Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy, who left yesterday for his first visit to the region, expects to spend weeks gathering information before he has much advice to give.
Meanwhile, the senior official acknowledged, "the world moves, obviously."Obama Seeks Narrower Focus in Afghan War. By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, February 4, 2009; A12. Washington Post

The Washington Post has written a very interesting article on South Asia. Though it too suffers from some of the fallacies that are inherent to many US commentators, on the whole it does a good job in identifying the issues and describing the change. Apparently Joseph Biden, Bruce Riedel, Wendy Chamberlin and the other members of the Obama team have been doing their homework. Amazingly the new Barack Obama plan contains many of the elements suggested by Rupee News over the past few years on our pages.

Without a draft, the American can bear the losses to a certain extent, but for how long. The attacks on Afghanistan were as useless as the attack on Iraq. John Wayne’s cowboy Gun Ho aggression filed in Southeast Asia and will fail in South and West Asia. What could have been achieved by a SWAT team of 5000 marines was handed over to 120,000 soldiers who have made a mess of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The two new U.S. brigades are set to arrive in Afghanistan in late April, with another planned to depart in August. But even with what is expected to be more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops this year -- bringing the U.S.-NATO total in Afghanistan to nearly 90,000 -- the international force will be insufficient to secure much of the country.
With the spring combat season near, the Taliban has rapidly increased its sophistication and reach. Neither the money nor the manpower is currently available to train and maintain an Afghan National Army that is expected to begin taking over security missions. Afghan elections are scheduled for summer, but U.S. officials see few viable alternatives to the ineffectual president, Hamid Karzai. Efforts to stem cultivation of opium poppies and the narcotics trade that lines Taliban and government pockets have made little discernible progress.
Nearly $60 billion ($32 billion of it from the United States) has already been spent on reconstruction programs in Afghanistan -- more than during five years of failed reconstruction in Iraq -- but such efforts remain "fragmented" and "lack coherence," according to U.S. government auditors. "I fear there are major weaknesses in strategy," retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in a report released Friday.Obama Seeks Narrower Focus in Afghan War. By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, February 4, 2009; A12. Washington Post

As the Supply lines become more and more precarious, NATO is feeling the pinch of the disruptions. After blowing up a crucial bridge on the Khyber Pass, the insurgents also blew up 10 additional trucks after looting them of supplies. There are many lessons to learn from Vietnam and from Afghanistan itself. Kabul bravado exponentially related to Karzai defeats. The ISAF forces face a bad dilemma. NATO Lessons: 1880 Maiwand-Afghans defeats UK: Trained sabateurs may defect! Drones sabotaging peace deals created blowback for Pakistan! The Tet offensive of the Vietcong was a massive attack on American and South Vietnamese men and material. It was daring and brave. It was well coordinated and took advantage of the vulnerabilities of the South and it took advantage of the American weaknesses in Viernam. The Tet offensive was also a massive failure.

Across the border in Pakistan, meanwhile, U.S. military officials are anxiously eyeing a map on which extremist gains are rapidly spreading eastward, toward major population centers, as the Taliban and al-Qaeda solidify their hold on the western frontier and form alliances with domestic terrorists. Islamabad's relations with neighboring India, a fellow nuclear power, remain tense after November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Officials described Obama's overall approach to what the administration calls "Af-Pak" as a refusal to be rushed, using words such as "rigor" and "restraint." "We know we're going to get [criticism] for taking our time," said a senior official, one of several in the administration and the military who would discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity.
While acknowledging the difficulties that the Bush administration faced, Obama officials dismiss the first seven years of Afghanistan war policy, when that conflict took a back seat to the war in Iraq, as reactive, ad hoc and without what one called "a very keen sense of what the goal was."
Obama has ordered up a plan for diplomatic outreach to Iran and others in the region. Afghanistan and Pakistan are to be treated as a single theater of war and diplomacy, even as stability becomes a higher priority than democracy in Afghanistan and as the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is expanded and deepened.

Dryfuss’ commentary in the liberal “The Nation” and many others like it have the following main themes. Change is in the air.

1) Bring Peace to Afghanistan by a variety of means. Question the reason for being in Afghanistan. Increase the number of soldiers. Bruce Riedel: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan

2) Support Democracy in Pakistan. Increase aid and convince the Pakistanis that supporting America’s war is to benefit them. Pakistanis to USA: We want “Friends Not Masters”

3) Create peace between Bharat (aka India) and Pakistan by convincing the Pakistan army that the threat is on the Western border not the Eastern border. Is Delhi preventing the 4th Battle of Panipat or instigating it?

The Tet offensive however was the begriming of the end of the war in South East Asia. It was during the Tet offensive that the American public and the American soldier got tired of the war and it was during the Tet offensive that the American public decided to get out of the war.The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions

Afghanistan Lost? Barnett Rubin & Maleeha Lodhi et al answer at Harvard. It is crystal clear that the US is pursuing a strategically flawed policy and therefore all peace efforts come unstuck at the end of the day. Most of the analysts have consensus on one point: the peace in Pakistan is indispensable for peace in Afghanistan. The support from Pakistan can be secured only when the latter feels secure. In the presence of air strikes on Pakistan’s tribal areas and the increasing clout of India along border of Pakistan, we have legitimate grounds to feel threatened and thus the US risks the alienation of Pakistan’s support. Moreover, the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil reinforces the impression of puppet government about the Karzai administration and it proves grist to the Taliban. New US strategy in Afghanistan Nauman Asghar

The administration will also seek a new compact with hesitant European and other partners in the war effort, promising new leadership and focus and expecting more resources and commitment. And Obama wants to get beyond the lip service long paid to balance and coordination between the U.S. diplomatic and military services.
Senior administration officials described their approach to Pakistan -- as a major U.S. partner under serious threat of internal collapse -- as fundamentally different from the Bush administration's focus on the country as a Taliban and al-Qaeda "platform" for attacks in Afghanistan and beyond. But the officials acknowledged that a comprehensive Pakistan policy will take time and money. The administration will seek early congressional action on a "rebalanced" assistance program -- introduced in the Senate last summer by then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and co-sponsored by then-Sen. Obama -- that will triple economic aid and condition military assistance with benchmarks for progress in combating extremists.
The president will get little pushback on his broad goals from the military or civilian leaders. A newly completed review by the Joint Chiefs of Staff echoes his call for a broader approach to the region and better-defined objectives in Afghanistan. "We need a comprehensive strategy, not just the military side," Adm. Michael Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said in an interview Monday. "What has to be different is how we approach the future."
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command chief whose military responsibilities stretch from the Mediterranean to Pakistan, is compiling strategic recommendations based on reports from his own team of dozens of military and civilian experts. Although less immediately concerned about the fine points of a comprehensive new strategy than the need to move quickly to secure Afghan population centers, Petraeus has already visited central Asian states bordering Afghanistan and supports more extensive diplomatic outreach. He has ordered the Afghanistan-Pakistan portion of his Centcom review to be completed by next week, when it, too, will be given to the White House.

As the annual Spring offensive comes to fruition, the Obama Administration does not have a clue on what to do in West Asia. General Patraeus playing Secretary of state visited various Central Asian capitals to sign deals with them on the supply lines--to see all of this blown up in his face. Kyrgyzistan has thrown out the American air base in **** and defected to Russia at a ransom price of $2 Billion.

The Taliban’s ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; exclusive research undertaken by Senlis Afghanistan indicates that 54 per cent of Afghanistan’s landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan, and is subject to frequent hostile activity by the insurgency.The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply. The insurgency also exercises a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change. Putting blame on Pakistan won’t help war on terror

Obama Seeks Narrower Focus in Afghan War. Situation Is Much Worse Than New Administration Realized and Will Take Time to Address. As President Obama prepares to formally authorize the April deployment of two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, perhaps as early as this week, no issue other than the U.S. economy appears as bleak to his administration as the seven-year Afghan war and the regional challenges that surround it.

Holbrooke, who reports directly to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, was said to be appalled not only at the walls that still separate military and civilian efforts but also at compartmentalization within the department itself, where separate task forces deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Provincial Reconstruction Teams that are on the front lines of U.S. assistance in Afghanistan are run and still largely staffed by the military.
Obama's deadline for a new overall strategy, set at a Jan. 23 meeting of the National Security Council, coincides with the NATO summit at which he will "come face to face" with allies "looking at him for his perspective on where he's taking the U.S. effort," a senior official said.
National security adviser James L. Jones is in charge of the effort, aided by Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute. Lute has been retained in the post of White House coordinator for Afghanistan and Iraq that he occupied in the Bush administration, to ensure that "we were not going to drop any balls," an official said.
"The policies will change -- that's the purpose of the reviews," he said, "but the mechanisms had to be in place" for ongoing operations. "This wasn't coming into office in 1993, when the world was a much calmer place. We've got two active wars and 200,000 people serving overseas. . . . It's very hard in a transition from the outside to know what is moving."
To keep the balls in play, the official said, "it makes sense to think about tranches of decisions that have to be reached" sooner rather than later on the road toward a comprehensive new strategy.

From Islamabad to Guatemala the world is holding its breath, anxiously awaiting the implementation of “change”.

India is not blameless here. It was pursuing a two-pronged strategy - making the argument that all was well in Kashmir (a blatant lie) and supporting ethnic confrontation in Pakistan. Violent intelligence wars between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have become a brutal reality in South Asia. Guatemala Times. South Asia at War. WEDNESDAY, 07 JANUARY 2009 09:39 HASSAN ABBAS

General Patraeus, possibly a presidential candidate in 2012 has had some limited success in Iraq. This success gives him tremendous leverage to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has been heavily influenced with the facts on the ground as well as the writings of Rashid Ahmed which forcefully calls for a Non-Military and regional solution to the quagmire in Afghanistan.

The administration has already given a green light to continuing CIA-operated attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft against "high-value" al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in western Pakistan. The Pakistani government has agreed to the strikes, despite overwhelming public disapproval. But after the first Obama-authorized Predator attack last week, Pakistani officials said, Islamabad complained in a private diplomatic note that U.S. intelligence was bad and that civilians were the primary casualties.
Officials would not comment on whether Obama has reissued a covert action "finding," signed by President George W. Bush last summer, that authorized ground raids into Pakistan by military Special Operations units working with the CIA. There has been no known ground operation since September, however, and the advisability of such raids is a point of disagreement between Petraeus -- who considers any tactical gain on the ground to be not worth the strategic risk of a massive popular backlash in Pakistan -- and the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Meanwhile, the approach of the warm weather "fighting season" in Afghanistan imposes its own decision deadlines. "I worry a great deal about how much time we have," Mullen said. Additional U.S. and NATO efforts this spring may be able to hold the line against new Taliban advancement, but "if you're just staying flat," he said, "the situation is getting worse."Obama Seeks Narrower Focus in Afghan War. By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, February 4, 2009; A12. Washington Post

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03 February 2009 @ 07:39 pm

Iran Peace and War

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03 February 2009 @ 07:19 pm

If President Obama really seeks a fresh start with the Muslim world... Stop bombing Pakistan

* US Predator strikes in Waziristan that killed 22 civilians just three days after the inauguration of President Obama was a signal not just to Pakistan but to the entire Muslim World that he would not just continue the Bush policy for Afghanistan-Pakistan but send more troops and spend more money to ‘reinforce failure’. + Usman Khalid +

Obama has begun the tedious work of separating himself from the failed policies of his predecessor. He has halted pending Bush regulations and executive orders and reversed CIA policies on torture and secret prisons. If the President was sincere in his interview with Al-Arabiya, about wanting to assure Muslims that "Americans are not your enemy," then he must be willing to re-examine all elements of the rogue agency's terror war, especially the more controversial elements of it.

If President Obama really seeks a fresh start with the Muslim world - establishing a humane new foreign policy for the United States to guide us to an acceptable conclusion of the war - then he must make a visible clean break with all the failed Bush policies. A fresh start with Pakistan, our most important ally in the terror war, would begin by ending CIA Predator strikes and cutting-off all support for their gangs of criminals and terrorists who now plague the country. The illegal CIA actions extend far beyond the widely known abductions and torture, to far more sinister dark programs of abductions and murderous attacks which are indistinguishable from "terrorism." Obama should understand what most every citizen of Pakistan understands, that the CIA is the source of most of the "terror" that comes out of that region. The CIA is also the source of the terror that our soldiers fight against.

The Bush presidency was an aberration, a deviation from our historical path. Undoing the many mistakes that have been made will represent a long overdue repudiation of a wrong response to a violent attack by, as yet, undetermined organizations. This cannot be avoided or sugar-coated. The United States treated the 9/11 attack as an opportunity to plunder, in effect, declaring war upon the world because of a militant organization with deep roots in the CIA. The spy agency proceeded to shape the forthcoming military actions by US and coalition forces, setting into motion the plan for total world conquest that Cheney had been carrying-around since 1992. Obama must demolish this war plan and begin the process of rebuilding the destruction left in its wake.

The repercussions from the illegal CIA torture and prison programs have reverberated throughout the world, turning all free thinking individuals against us. Covert operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to enlist local gangs and tribal militias actually fuel the greater wars, serving to amplify natural anger at American brutality, driving the opposition and guaranteeing a never-ending supply of resisters to our war plans. Other CIA actions, such as "targeted assassinations" using Predator drones and the creation of new terrorist groups such as "Tehreek e-Taliban Pakistan" (TTP), completes the repertoire of crimes and double-crosses which fuel the militant movements involved in fighting against American troops. Reining-in the CIA's war-making authority completely is the first and most important step towards ending this war or establishing a saner more moral foreign policy.

The CIA program for ‘victory’ through the maximum abuse of human rights is patterned after the Israeli Mossad model of counter-terrorism which has failed so miserably in Palestine, Lebanon and throughout the Arab world. The Israeli model is based on intimidation through the merciless application of technological superiority, creating a state of permanent conflict in the process. There is no room for "peace" in this version of "counter-terrorism." One need only look as far as the destruction and suffering inflicted upon Gaza to understand where the Israeli war-fighting policies (abduction, torture, targeted assassinations, walls and waves of genocidal fury) inevitably lead.

We have joined the Israelis in the club of pariah nations because of our inhumane attacks upon Muslim civilians and those by our proxy forces, making us outcasts who vainly seek allies to salvage our losing battles. If Obama insists on following Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Olmert down this road, then he is marking himself as a moral equal to those mental midgets.

If Obama is serious about finishing the wars, he will not continue the invasion of Pakistan that Bush began with last July's order to escalate covert actions in the Frontier region. The evidence* so far speaks volumes about Obama's plans for our unfortunate ally. US-Pakistan Throwdown of July 12 By Peter Chamberlin in Countercurrents

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02 February 2009 @ 10:23 pm

Pakistan buys 100 Brazilian air to surface missiles

BRAZILIAN authorities gave approval for the sale of 100 missiles to Pakistan which can be used in air-to-surface attacks on radar tracking instalations, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said.

The MAR-1 medium-range missiles made by the Brazilian firm Mectron are tactical anti-radiation weapons whose existence was kept under wraps for many years, according to Jane's Information Group.

Mr Jobim called them "very effective ways to monitor" areas flown by war planes, and said the deal with Pakistan, originally signed in April this year, was worth €85 million ($167.6 million).

He dismissed suggestions that the transaction might be questioned in light of last week's Islamist extremist massacre perpetrated in Mumbai, India, which some Indian officials suspected was launched from within Pakistan.

"Brazil negotiates with Pakistan, not with Pakistani terrorists," Mr Jobim said.

"To cancel this deal would be to attribute terrorist activities to the Pakistani Government."

Al Khalid Tanks
----------------------------------- a missile program that is the envy of South Asia.
--------------------------------- Pakistan a US ally faced American sanctions and developed its own JF-17 Thunder fighter which will move towards the 4th generation fighters of the world and opens up an export potential worth billions of Dollars

Pakistan’s 250 JF-17s, 50 F-16: Indias panicky “concern”

JF-17 Thunders
Beyond the JF-17 Thunders. The J-10s etc.
The Y-89 AWACS
Hataf, Ghauri, Babar, Abdali missiles

Su-27s and Su-35

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02 February 2009 @ 09:54 pm

Middle East: Its hard to tell who won and who lost

It is very difficult to find out the winners and the losers in the Middle East. In 1967, Israel won a decicive victory decimating its enemies. Israel had hoped to capture more territory and create a more defensible boundary within what was later called "defensible borders". For the longest times the world heard that Israel had the right to exist with "secure and defensible borders"--a euphuism of the Suez Canal, the Sea of Galilee and the Latani River to the North. Many skeptics however wondered if Israel had the right to exist between the Nile and the Euphrates--the most defensible borders of Ertz Israel. However important the military victory was for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), it was a strategic catastrophe for the country. The recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon are a direct result of the "victory" in the "6 Day War" in 1967.

Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal

Israel failed to topple the democratically-elected government of Hamas and was unsuccessful in achieving any of its other objectives, Mashaal told students at the University of Tehran Monday.
Israel was unable to impose on us any of the conditions it had set for a ceasefire and in the end the Israelis were forced to declare a unilateral ceasefire, he added.

The world witnessed how Israel used conventional and unconventional weapons - including white phosphorous - to massacre innocents in Gaza, continued Mashaal, adding, “But Israeli atrocities did not scare Gazans into surrendering.”
While international law permits the use of white phosphorus as an obscurant to conceal troop movement and prevent the enemy from using certain guided weapons, its use remains controversial, as it can burn through flesh to the bone or cause liver, kidney, heart, lung or bone damage and even lead to death.

Mashaal went on to praise Iran for standing by the Palestinian nation, saying, “Gazans have always appreciated the political and spiritual support of the Iranian leaders and nation. Iran is a partner in our victory."

He called on the Iranian nation to continue supporting Gazans in their efforts to reconstruct the war-ravaged coastal strip. Press TV. Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal says that the resistance of the Palestinians brought Israel to its knees in the Gaza Strip. 'Resistance brought Israel to its knees' Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:14:31 GMT

Then came 1973 when the invincible Israel soldiers faced the wrath of the Egyptian 3rd Army. Not only did the Egyptian 3rd Army make a mockery of the "secure boundary" (Suez Canal), during the Ramadhan War, the Egyptian soldiers continued into the Sinai desert and obliterated the most powerful defense bunkers made in the history of mankind--The impregnable Bar Lev LInes. The Egyptian had been practicing crossing the Suez since 1967 and had made mock models of the Bar Lev. The 3rd Army practiced for five years. During Yom Kippur, in Ramadhan the fasting Egyptians crossed and destroyed the myth of the "secure boundaries". According to some Israel won the war, (after US F-16s painted with the Star of David) pinpointed the Army, triangulated them via satellite and then targeted them. Most analysts however see the 1973 Ramadhan war as a victory for Egypt which led to the peace treaty with Israel and a return of the Sinai.

In 1980 Israel waged a war against the Palestinians to eliminate the PLO from Lebanon. Today it faces a more formidable enemy Hizbullah in Lebanon.

In 2006, Israel again tried to take its borders up to the Litani River and destroy the rocket attacks from Hizullah. However they failed to do so. Most Lebanese consider this a victory for the Arabs, for Hizbullah and for Lebanon. Israel was unable to destroy the ability of Hizbullah to shoot rockets into Northern Israel. Hizbullah fired more rockets on the last day of the war than it did the first day of the war.

February 2, 2009: The Israeli Air Force, deeply embarrassed by their inability to perform as promised in the 2006 war in southern Lebanon, made a lot of changes before going after Hamas in Gaza in late 2008.Strategy Page

In 2008 Israel waged war against Gaza again-reconquering occupied territory that it had conquered in 1967. It did kill more than 1500 Palestinians and in just thousands, but it has been unable to destroy the ability of Hamas to launch rockets against Israel.

Tel Aviv launched Operation Cast Lead against the Gaza Strip on December 27 to put an end to rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns.

At least 1,400 Palestinians died and 5,500 others were wounded during the 23-day offensive. Israel lost 10 soldiers in the fighting and three Israeli civilians were killed by Hamas rockets.
On January 18, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire.

At least 16,000 residential buildings have been damaged and 5,000 others have been reduced to rubble in the Israeli attacks.

An 18-month Israeli blockade on Gaza resulted in a humanitarian crisis which has been intensified in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead. Gazans are in dire need of fuel, electricity, medicine and other basic needs.

Press TV. Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal says that the resistance of the Palestinians brought Israel to its knees in the Gaza Strip. 'Resistance brought Israel to its knees' Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:14:31 GMT

One of the unforeseen consequences of the attack on Gaza is the widening rift between Israel and Turkey

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27 January 2009 @ 07:55 pm

Obama's Wrong policy: Escalated Bloodletting in Afghanistan and Pakistan

A day after he was sworn in as President, Barack Obama signed orders to close down Guantanamo and end the use of torture in the USA. The world was ecstatic that America may finally be embracing the ‘rule of law’. But the euphoria lasted only two days. On 24 January, President Obama opened his ‘murder account’ as the new Commander in Chief. He ordered Predator strikes in Waziristan that killed 22 Pakistanis in their homes. In Obama’s book, torture is intolerable but slaughter is another matter; it is the use of ‘smart power’. + Usman Khalid +

In a series of meetings and public appearances Wednesday and Thursday, and with the first military strikes of his administration, President Barack Obama has given a clear signal that he plans intensified bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the US escalates its military intervention in Central and South Asia.

Missiles fired from unmanned Predator drones struck two targets inside Pakistan Friday morning, killing at least 18 people. As is always the case with such exercises in remote-controlled murder, US officials claimed they were targeting Al Qaeda, although even US media accounts admitted that the majority of those killed were local residents.

Three missiles struck the village of Zharki in North Waziristan, killing ten people, of whom five were described by US "security sources" as Al Qaeda militants. A few hours later, another missile hit a house in South Waziristan, killing eight people whose identities were not known.

The strikes were the latest in a series of more than two dozen such attacks since last August, and Pentagon officials said they had carried out the attacks under existing authority from the outgoing Bush administration, while keeping the new president fully informed of the action.

The death toll from the missile campaign, according to Pakistani government figures, numbers at least 263 people. Even US government officials claim only a handful of those killed had any ties to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The attacks on sovereign Pakistani territory are blatant violations of international law, which the regime in Islamabad protests verbally, while continuing to accept billions in US subsidies to the country's military.

Obama and his newly confirmed secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, staged what amounted to a political rally at the State Department Thursday, at which they announced the appointment of two new US pro-consuls to the region.

Former senator George Mitchell is to reprise his role from the Clinton administration as the US envoy to the Middle East. Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The different titles reflect different roles. Mitchell has been given responsibility for reviving and supervising negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as well as between Israel and neighboring Arab states. His job is strictly diplomatic.

Holbrooke is to work with the US-backed regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the US military command in Kabul, to coordinate joint action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He is not labelled an "envoy," according to the State Department, because he will have input into military policy as well as diplomacy, and because he will not be negotiating with the Taliban—a rebuff to pleas for such talks by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some European countries.

Clinton called the two appointments "a loud and clear signal ... that our nation is once again capable of demonstrating global leadership." Obama said the two would "convey our seriousness of purpose" in both areas.

Mitchell chaired the negotiations in Northern Ireland that led to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, under which the IRA disarmed and Irish Republican politicians have joined the provincial government. He later chaired a commission on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose report, delivered in April 2001, was ignored by the incoming Bush administration because it called for a freeze on Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Israeli officials, and particularly the right-wing Likud Party, which is favored to win the country's February 10 parliamentary elections, have openly expressed their distrust of Mitchell, who is partially of Lebanese-American ancestry (his mother was a Maronite Christian).

Mitchell's appointment cannot disguise the fundamental policy of US imperialism in the region, which makes use of the Zionist regime as its military spearhead against the Arab masses. Both Obama and Clinton, to whom Mitchell will report, have made clear their support for the 24-day Israeli onslaught on Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians lost their lives, and over 5,000 were wounded.

The selection of Holbrooke is even more ominous, since he has long served as one of the most ruthless representatives of American imperialism, going all the way back to his early days in the Foreign Service in Vietnam. He came to public notice as the leader of the US diplomatic team at the 1995 talks on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, held in Dayton, Ohio, that concluded with a US-imposed settlement in the civil war in Bosnia.

In his encouragement of ethnic cleansing by the Croatian regime of Franjo Tudjman, which drove a quarter million Serbs out of the Krajina region of southern Croatia in a 1995 offensive, Holbrooke could deservedly face war crimes charges. He later boasted, in his memoir of the Dayton talks: "Tudjman wanted clarification of the American position. He bluntly asked for my personal views. I indicated my general support for the offensive ... I told Tudjman the offensive had great value to the negotiations. It would be much easier to retain at the table what had been won on the battlefield than to get the Serbs to give up territory they had controlled for several years."

Holbrooke was fully aware at the time of the Dayton talks that the Croatian Army was carrying out atrocities against the Serbs, and was later quoted saying, "We ‘hired' these guys to be our junkyard dogs because we were desperate. We need to try to ‘control' them. But this is no time to get squeamish about things." He will now seek to find new "junkyard dogs" to do the dirty work of American imperialism in south and central Asia.

In his remarks at the State Department rally, Obama reiterated his concern over what he called a "deteriorating situation" in both Afghanistan and Pakistan," a region that is "the central front" of the struggle against terrorism. This language, echoing George W. Bush's description of Iraq, underscores the new administration's commitment to military subjugation of the Afghan population and wider attacks on the Pakistani population of the border region, largely Pushtun-speaking and linked by tribal ties to the majority Pushtun population in Afghanistan.

Clinton said that Holbrooke's mandate would be to "coordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States' strategic goals in the region." These goals have little to do with the remnants of Al Qaeda hiding out in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The real focus of the intervention, under Obama as much as under Bush, is to establish the United States as the principal power in the oil-rich region of Central Asia.

The renewed focus on military problems in Afghanistan was signalled as well by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has been retained in his position during the transition from Bush to Obama. He told a press conference Thursday that US goals in Afghanistan had been "too broad and too far into the future. We need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years, in terms of re-establishing control in certain areas, providing security for the population, going after al-Qaeda, preventing the re-establishment of terrorism."

There is mounting anxiety in the Pentagon over the viability of US supply lines to Afghanistan, especially if the force on the ground is doubled, as Obama plans. Two-thirds of US supplies go through Pakistan and convoys through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan have come under repeated attacks. General David Petraeus, the former Iraq commander who was promoted to head the US Central Command, with responsibility for war planning throughout the region, recently completed a trip through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, seeking agreements on expanding US supply shipments through those countries. He reported on his findings to the Obama White House on Wednesday.

According to a report in the New York Times January 22, another major concern of US military authorities in Afghanistan is the strengthening of Taliban influence in the southern provinces around Kandahar, patrolled now mainly by British, Canadian and Dutch troops, who are spread thinly through a vast area.

The Times reporter noted worriedly: "It is perhaps in Kandahar, one of the provincial capitals, where the lack of troops is most evident. About 3,000 Canadian soldiers are assigned to secure the city, home to about 500,000 people. In a recent visit, this reporter travelled the city for five days and did not see a single Canadian soldier on the streets. The lack of troops has allowed the Taliban to mount significant attacks inside the city." Obama’s Team Prepares Escalated Bloodletting In Afghanistan And Pakistan. By Patrick Martin , 24 January, 2009, WSWS.org

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23 January 2009 @ 12:30 pm

Chinese Naval Strategy: Beijing defends itself against intrusive ships

We have published several articles on the Chinese Strong of Pearls Strategy to build bases around South Asia so as to make it an "Asian Ocean". Gwader is an essential part of this Chinese defense strategy. China is also building a missile defense program that protects China from intruding and intrusive visits by Aircraft Carriers that may belong to unfriendly flags and may try to prevent the re-conquest of Taiwan--China's runaway province.

SINGAPORE — U.S. President George W. Bush commissioned America's newest aircraft carrier Jan. 10 at the Norfolk naval base in Virginia. Named after his father, former President George H.W. Bush, the giant ship, which carries 85 planes and nearly 6,000 crew, is a potent symbol of America's global power and presence, despite recent U.S. economic and foreign policy failures.

It is also the last of 10 nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers to enter service with the U.S. Navy. They are the largest warships in the world. However, by 2015 the first of an even bigger and more advanced class of carrier, also nuclear-powered, is scheduled to start replacing the Nimitz vessels. Two years ago, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said that the successor ships "will help ensure the sea power of the United States for the next half century.�

To defend its interests in Asia, the U.S. has been steadily transferring more aircraft carriers and other warships from its Atlantic fleet to the Pacific. As a result, the Pacific fleet's share of the 280 ships in the Navy has risen from 45 percent in earlier years to around 54 percent and continues to increase. The U.S. Pacific fleet now includes six of the Navy's 11 aircraft carriers, almost all of the 18 Aegis cruisers and destroyers that have been modified for ballistic missile defense operations, and 26 of the 57 attack submarines.

To counter the Asia-Pacific focus of the U.S. Navy, China is reportedly planning to deploy ballistic missiles with nonnuclear warheads and special guidance systems to hit moving surface ships at sea in the Western Pacific before they can get within range of Chinese targets.

If China fielded such a weapon, one that could reliably sink or cause heavy damage to aircraft carriers and other major warships far from its shores, it would make a potential adversary think long and hard before sending naval forces to intervene in a crisis over Taiwan or any other regional conflict in which China was involved.

This would reduce the value and deterrent effect of U.S. alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, including its mutual defense pacts with Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. Fortunately, Beijing and Taipei have greatly improved their relations in recent months and an armed confrontation between them that could bring the U.S. into the fighting on the side of Taiwan seems less likely to happen.

Still, Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in naval affairs for the Congressional Research Service, told U.S. lawmakers in November that the U.S. Defense Department and other analysts believed that China was developing anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). They would have a range of up to 3,000 km and carry maneuverable re-entry vehicles with warheads designed to hit moving naval ships. The missiles would be launched by rocket propulsion from land in an arc-like trajectory high into the atmosphere and travel at speeds of up to 24,000 km per hour when coming down, making them very hard to defend against.

Ballistic missiles have traditionally been used to attack fixed targets on land and O'Rourke noted that the U.S. Navy had "not previously faced a threat from highly accurate ballistic missiles capable of hitting moving ships at sea. Due to their ability to change course, maneuverable re-entry vehicles (MRVs) would be more difficult to intercept than nonmaneuvering ballistic missile re-entry vehicles."

Some analysts are skeptical and doubt that China has made all the technical breakthroughs needed for an accurate ASBM system. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence concluded in 2004 that it would be "very difficult" for China to field an ASBM force that could successfully track faraway aircraft carriers and other major warships, which can travel at sustained speeds of over 30 knots (55 km) per hour, and then hit them with MRV warheads.

The Bush administration spent billions of dollars to develop defenses against ballistic missiles. However, President Barack Obama says that while he supports missile defense, he wants to be sure that programs are affordable and proven.

One of the more successful parts of the U.S. program, the Aegis ship-based system to defend against shorter-range missiles, experienced two recent test failures, bringing its record to 13 hits in 17 intercept attempts. Even so, it is not designed to provide a shield against the longer range missiles China is reportedly trying to turn into weapons for use against naval vessels.

The Pentagon's latest annual report to Congress on Chinese military power, published last year, said that when incorporated into a sophisticated command and control system, China's ASBMs would be a key component of its strategy to give the Chinese armed forces "the capability to attack ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, from great distances" so as to deny access to waters around China. Some analysts claim that China already operates over-the-horizon radar installations to detect and track ships far out at sea and is backing this up with maritime surveillance using its own satellites in space. They say that China will soon test an ASBM.

If they are correct and the new system works, it could turn potent symbols of naval power into sitting ducks. Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Beijing takes aim at U.S. aircraft carriers, By MICHAEL RICHARDSON, Special to The Japan Times, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009

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13 January 2009 @ 11:15 pm

Kashmir root cause of Mumbai & Afghan problems

On discussing the pacification of Kashmir many analysts specially the ones in the USA have a tin ear. They hear, but cannot listen, They see but cannot comprehend. The $80 Billion think tank industry works in unison.

The respected US strategic think tank, RAND Corp, estimated that a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would initially kill two million people, wound 100 million, and send clouds of radioactive dust around the globe.

Washington has rented 130,000 Pakistani soldiers to wage war against Pashtun tribesmen allied to Taliban on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier. The US pays their salaries and provides them with food and transport. These rented soldiers, or `sepoys,' as the British Raj used to call its native troops,detest their mission. The once proud Pakistani army has become a mercenary force.

Now, in response to the deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is putting together a plan to send more divisions of its rented Pakistani Army to fight Taliban and other resistance forces in Afghanistan. Behind Mumbai Lies Kashmir By Eric Margolis

Amazingly the Left, the Right and the Center think tanks with subtle nuances begin saying the same thing--with common vested interests, paid assignments and phobia about Pakistan. Putting down Pakistan is a profitable growth industry. Eric Morgolis sometimes discusses the truth.

Few Americans understand the growing radicalization of Pakistan caused by Washington forcing its rulers and soldiers to go against the sentiments and interests of the nation.

Pakistanis were outraged by this double betrayal, calling Musharraf an American stooge. Now, President Asif Zardari's feeble new government is continuing the same policy under US pressure, to the anger and contempt of many Pakistanis. He is seen as being *even more subservient to Washington than his hated predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan has two governments: civilian and military. The generals and ISI have never abandoned their goal of a Pakistani-dominated Afghanistan, or continuing the Kashmir jihad. Both are seen as 'vital national interests'. Pakistan's generals look with derision and distaste on Zardari, who is dogged by accusations of *gross corruption and malfeasance*.

Instead, the US keeps listening to 'the westernized Pakistani elite', less than 1% of the population, and left-leaning "experts", like Ahmad Rashid, who keep telling Washington what it wants to hear, rather than hard truths. The festering Kashmir conflict that pits nuclear armed India and Pakistan against each other lies behind the Mumbai massacre. Solving this dangerous business must be as high a priority for the great powers as ending murderous attacks on civilians. Endlessly repeating the mantra about "fighting terrorism" will not solve the dangerous conflicts in South Asia or the Mideast. Behind Mumbai Lies Kashmir By Eric Margolis

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Historical Mysteries

The Dalits of Bharat (aka India) are upset at the game anyway. This creates a huge problem for Indian cricket and the future of cricket in the Subcontinent.

Near collision

US protests 'harassment' of USNS Impeccable by Chinese vessels

Timeline: U.S.-China military skirmishes, diplomatic friction

Iran releases its own tape on Hormuz ship incident

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