Cause for thought

Anwer Mooraj

Another dreary year is coming to an end. And the future of this country looks as bleak as ever. Mr Faisal Subzwari, who is high up in the pecking order of the MQM, announced earlier this week that members of his party were resigning from ‘impotent’ ministries. Perhaps he meant ‘inept’ ministries because when it comes to spending money, they are unusually fertile. The resignation was not at all unexpected, what with the ongoing verbal sparring with the Sindh home minister. But what did take the city’s resident cynic by surprise was the rather terse news item published a fortnight ago about a delegation from the MQM calling on Pir Pagara to discuss – amazing as it may seem – the situation in the country!

Was the visit fired by an irresistible urge to ferret out the conservative mind, or a mawkish, let’s cock-a-snook intrusion into a camp that represents the quintessence of political retrogression? Or was it just an attempt to secure an ally against an intrepid foe? The pir radiates influence saturated with instant punditry. He is also the spiritual head of the Hurr tribe and is regarded as a fountain of wisdom by politicians of every persuasion. But as he represents the crystallised thinking of the feudal aristocracy, he can’t possibly speak for the poor peasants as the MQM purports to do.

This writer is not privy to what was discussed in the meeting, but it is most unlikely that the two parties touched on the real issues afflicting the country. These were identified in an excellent editorial which appeared in one of the country’s newspapers, bits and pieces of which are being reproduced from memory.

“Does a man who cannot feed his wife and children really care whether or not Mr Pervez Musharraf is tried for treason? Is a mother whose child has died of gastroenteritis likely to give much thought to the fact that American drones are killing civilians in Waziristan ?… Food inflation is forcing parents to pull their children out of school…Street crime is rampant in a country where human life is worth less than the cost of a cell phone. Yet our political leaders appear oblivious to the misery that is everywhere. They seem to have no perspective, no grip on reality…They are more concerned with political alliances than the welfare of the people.”

If the late Deng Hsaio Ping, architect of modern China, or Mr Lee Kwan Yew, father of modern Singapore, had written the editorial, they would most certainly have added that the economy in Pakistan is also up the spout. A glance at recent State Bank reports will indicate that, except for remittances from abroad, there is hardly any indicator that is showing signs of improvement. So far, there doesn’t appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The writer served as executive director of the Pakistan American Cultural Center from 1990-2004 anwer.mooraj@tribune.com.pk

Pakistan unfazed over U.S. “raid plan”

By ANITA JOSHUA

Pakistan on Tuesday remained outwardly unfazed by a New York Times report suggesting senior American military commanders in Afghanistan were pushing for an expansion of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Without commenting on the veracity of the report, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said: “The U.S. knows our position and redlines. We do not expect the U.S. to complicate matters involving counter-terrorism.” Maintaining that Pakistani security forces were capable of handling terrorists and militants, he said, “There is no question of allowing foreign troops inside Pakistan”.

As for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan trying to extend its operations to Pakistan, Mr. Basit said it had no such mandate. “We will not accept violation of our sovereignty.”

Part of the reason for Pakistan’s quiet response to the report is the way it made NATO sweat in October after a couple of ISAF helicopters intruded Pakistani airspace and killed Frontier Corps personnel positioned along the Afghanistan border. Islamabad closed its border with Afghanistan for ISAF supply trucks resulting in a blockade and an apology from NATO and the U.S. Pakistan is a major supply route for non-military cargo for ISAF. Having successfully communicated its position to NATO in that instance, Islamabad appears confident ISAF will not attempt another such misadventure in a hurry however desperate the U.S. may be to begin troop withdrawal from Afghanistan from July 2011.

The U.S. wants Pakistan to begin operations in North Waziristan as sanitising this “safe haven” of terrorists is seen as crucial to the success of the Global War on Terror. But on-record briefings by the American civil and military leadership in recent days suggest Washington has accepted Islamabad’s contention that it will do so at a time of its choosing.

While the Pakistan government has till now maintained that a final decision on when to launch operations in North Waziristan would be taken by the military, Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was recently quoted by the media as saying the last call would be of the civilian administration.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported from Kabul that NATO had denied the NYT report. U.S. Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith, NATO’s deputy chief of communications, was quoted saying ISAF and its Afghan partners had developed a strong working relationship with the Pakistani military to address shared security issues. “This coordination recognises the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan to pursue insurgents and terrorists operative in respective border areas.”

Policy on Afghanistan: Pakistan should not follow US diktats

Pakistan needs to develop an indigenous narrative keeping in view its legitimate interests and not just follow the diktats through the US strategic policy reviews for Afghanistan.

This was stated by experts, analysts and subject-specialists at a seminar on US security, policy in Afghanistan and its implication for Pakistan, organised by PILDAT. The seminar aimed at covering two issues: how the US Congress influences security/defence policies and, to understand what implications does the new NATO/Lisbon agreement and recent US strategy review in Afghanistan have for the civil-military relations in Pakistan.

Ziad Haider former Foreign Policy Adviser to US Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Vice Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dr Hasan Askari-Rizvi defence and policy analyst Dr Riffat Hussain, Chairman Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) spoke on the occasion.

Mr Haider briefed the gathering on how US Congress shapes Pakistan specific policies, the working of the US Congress especially in the contest of Kerry-Lugar-Berman law highlighting the inherent stresses in the US legislative and executive branches.

While foreign policy remains the domain of the executive in the US, there are instances where Congress has guided policy such as through the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act.

He said to think that the US speaks with one voice on Pakistan would not be true as different interests, varying levels of understanding a host of players are at play.

This provides an opportunity to Pakistan to better influence and shape policies on the Capitol Hill and at the White House. He pointed out that like legislatures the world around, Congress too has sliding public approval rating of about 13 per cent but its power of the purse makes it a formidable institution.

He said that the American public is weary of the longest wars of the US, Afghanistan but Obama may find the strangest of allies in the Republicans for support of the war.

Presenting an overview of the “Lisbon Summit Declaration and US Strategy Review and Implications for Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan,” Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi said US is in a difficult transition regarding the policy of Afghanistan and has had goal adjustments in Afghanistan and the objective is no longer total military victory. It is pursuing what can be termed as the policy of gradual withdrawal but has no clear framework for talks and reconciliation with Taliban either. It has not had any significant success in 2010 despite the surge in troops.

He said while Pakistan and the US may have goal-sharing at some level to fight extremism, it is the strategizing where the two sides differ. He said while Pakistan military has continued to gain political power and the civilian government has totally conceded foreign policy to the military, the military will continue to require civilian political support in days to come for counter-insurgency operations.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Riffat Hussain said that Pakistan needs to critically examine the latest US strategic review of Afghanistan and pointed out areas where the US vowed to focus, including more drone attacks inside Pakistan and a greater pressure on Pakistan to do more. He was of the opinion that the army chief has continued to take the civilian administration on board on key issues.

Aasiya Riaz, Join Director PILDAT, emphasized the need for the parliament and parliamentary parties to take initiative and proactive approach in critically analyzing Pakistan’s own stakes in the war and lead a narrative with institutional input of the military.

She said that strategic scapegoating of Pakistan by the US, in a war in which it has not achieved success in 10 years, seems to be the only dominant narrative internationally to the ire of the Pakistani citizens which needs to be factually countered by Pakistan.

The civil and military components of the state need to develop coherent and interest-based policies of not just during the time of US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan but beyond it as well.

Quick exit: Foreign relief workers given marching orders

Pakistan last week asked all foreigners, including US nationals, engaged in flood relief activities to leave the country by December 30 at the latest, official sources told The Express Tribune.

The government order will be applicable on all foreigners working in different parts of the country in their individual capacities, the source said.

All concerned persons have been told that their visas will not be extended after December 30, sources added.

Islamabad had sent letters to the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) provincial officials to ensure that all foreigners, particularly US nationals, leave Pakistan within the stipulated time.
“Inform the FIA headquarters in case any of them try to prolong their stay under any pretext,” the letter directed the officials in the provinces. “They will have to leave Pakistan by December 30 as their jobs have been completed,” it added.

A senior official of the FIA, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) when contacted by The Express Tribune, confirmed having received the letter last weekend. He refused to explain the reason behind the federal government’s decision. “Yes we have received a letter to that effect,” he said, requesting anonymity.

Another source in the special branch of police, Peshawar, told The Express Tribune that a security concern may be the reason for the issue at hand.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chief has asked all foreign relief agencies involved in flood relief operations, including the UN aid workers, to discontinue their activities by January 30, 2011.

The NDMA chairman (retd) Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed has sent letters to all foreign NGOs and relief agencies asking them to pack up by the said deadline. In a letter faxed to the UN humanitarian coordinator the NDMA chairman said, “The national disaster management authority highly appreciates the support by the entire humanitarian community, including the UN and their lead coordination agencies during the relief operation for one of the worst natural disasters ever faced by a nation.”

“Keeping in view the magnitude of the disaster, it would not have been possible for the Government of Pakistan to manage the situation so effectively on its own, without help from the humanitarian community in delivering relief.”

“Currently, nearly five months later, we feel satisfied to note that the situation is approaching a stable stage very fast.”

“The government had decided to conduct relief activities till the end of January 2011, hence the humanitarian community, UN agencies and concerned clusters are advised to shut down their relief operations in the affected areas by January 31, with the exception of some areas of Sindh and Balochistan where water is still standing and people are unable to return to their homes.”

Details of the areas in question will be intimated to all concerned sections by the end of December, the letter concluded.

Mossad, CIA Supporting Terrorists against Iran, Pakistan

FNA

TEHRAN – Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar underlined that the US and Israeli spy agencies equip the anti-Iran terrorist cells based in Pakistan.

Speaking to reporters here in Tehran on Tuesday, Najjar said that a group of terrorists who are based in Pakistan and commute across the border to stage terrorist operations against Iran “are equipped by Mossad and the CIA”.

“Iran has asked the Pakistani government to rapidly extradite these criminals (to Iran) and stop their activities on Pakistan’s soil,” Najjar noted.

“We hope that the Pakistani government fulfills its pledges and hands them over to Iran,” the Iranian minister stated.

Elsewhere, Najjar announced that Iranian security forces have already arrested a number of elements behind the recent bombing in Iran’s Southeastern port city of Chabahar, and underlined that the country would punish the main terrorists behind the attack soon.

At least 38 people, including women and children, were killed and 95 others were wounded in a suicide bomb blast in Chabahar on December 15.

The attack took place outside Imam Hossein Mosque in the port city of Chabahar, in Sistan and Balouchestan province, near the border with Pakistan.

The Pakistani-based Jundollah terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Jundollah group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Iran. The group has carried out mass murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, acts of sabotage and bombings. They have targeted civilians and government officials as well as all ranks of Iran’s military.

In one of the worst cases, the terrorist group killed 22 citizens and abducted 7 more in the Tasouki region on a road linking the southeastern city of Zahedan to another provincial town.

In 2007, Jundollah kidnapped 30 people in the Sistan and Balouchestan province and took them to the neighboring Pakistan.

Jundollah claimed responsibility the same year for an attack on an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) bus in which 11 IRGC personnel were killed.

In another crime in October 2009, the Pakistan-based terrorist Jundollah group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in the Sistan and Balouchestan province, which killed 42 people among them a group of senior military commanders, including Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Ground Force Brigadier General Nourali Shoushtari.

Pentagon notifies Congress of potential chopper sale to India

PTI

With India inviting proposals from foreign suppliers, the Pentagon has notified the US Congress about the possible sale of 22 Apache helicopters and that of AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles to the country at a potential cost of USD 1.6 billion.

The US Defense Department said India has requested proposals from several foreign suppliers, including the US, to provide the next generation attack helicopter for the Indian Air Force.

In this competition, India has yet to select the Boeing-United States Army proposal.

“This notification is being made in advance so that, in the event that the Boeing-US Army proposal is selected, the United States might move as quickly as possible to implement the sale,” it said.

The two potential sales, notified to the Congress separately are worth USD 1.6 billion.

The largest sale worth USD 1.4 billion is that of AH-64D Block III Apache helicopters which includes engines, equipment, weapons, training, parts and logistical support.

The second sale of USD 200 million is the package of 21 AGM-84L HARPOON Block II Missiles and associated equipment, parts and logistical support.

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the US-India strategic relationship and to improve the security of an important partner which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in South Asia,” said the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in a statement.

“The proposed sale in support of AH-64D helicopters will improve India’s capability to strengthen its homeland defense and deter regional threats.

“This support for the AH-64D will provide an incremental increase in India’s defensive capability to counter ground-armoured threats and modernise its armed forces,” it said.
“India will have no difficulty absorbing this helicopter support into its armed forces,” it said.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed the Congress that India intends to use the missiles on its Indian Navy P-8I Neptune maritime patrol aircraft which will provide enhanced capabilities in effective defense of critical sea lines of communication.

India has already purchased HARPOON Block II missiles for integration on the Indian Air Force Jaguar aircraft and will have no difficulty absorbing these weapons into its armed forces, it said.

New Delhi, We Have a Problem: India’s Space Program Hits Turbulence

If the history of modern rocketry teaches anything, it’s that sooner or later, stuff will blow up. When you pour thousands of gallons of combustible fuel into 15-story machines and then ignite the whole stack, the occasional explosion is simply going to be the cost of doing business. What you have to hope is that no one gets hurt, and if at all possible, no one’s watching.
The spectacular Christmas-day explosion of India’s new Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) – a gleaming 167-ft. (51m) tower of rocket – spared the country the deaths that sometimes accompany space disasters, but the public humiliation was another matter. Crowds swarmed the Satish Sahwan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh in anticipation of the launch and millions more watched live on TV as the GSLV’s engines were lit at 4:04 PM. Forty-seven seconds later, engineers on the ground lost control of the vehicle. Sixteen seconds after that, they blew the haywire rocket up. A booster that was supposed to carry a critical telecommunications satellite into high-Earth orbit instead met its end just eight miles (13 km) over the Bay of Bengal.

More was lost in the GSLV disaster than a $39 million (1.75 billion rupee) rocket and its satellite payload. Also badly damaged was India’s long-pursued rep as a major player in the commercial rocket game. This is not the first GSLV that has failed to fly; the booster has a record of four disasters in seven tries over the past 10 years – the most recent just last April.
“The GSLV has had only a 50% success rate,” says Ajey Lele, space expert at the Institute of Defense and Security Analysis in New Delhi. “India has wanted to have the technology and the facility [to launch heavy payloads] on its own soil. Now that will not happen in the near future.” But with China, Japan, the U.S. and other countries all chasing the same global business with their own fleet of rockets, the near future may be all the time the Indian program has.

India has had a big – if unheralded – presence in the space community for a long time. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) – essentially India’s NASA – was established in 1969 with the mission of focusing exclusively on launching communications and Earth observation satellites, programs that have immediate benefits for people on the ground and were seen as the only legitimate business a country as poor as India had in space.

ISRO did well with its limited portfolio, but things changed in 1999, when the country – puffed up after a series of successful nuclear tests the year before – decided to aim higher, planning for unmanned missions to the moon and manned missions into Earth orbit. In 2008, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft made good on part of that promise, not only successfully orbiting the moon, but making a significant – indeed, landmark- discovery about the surprising quantity of water mixed in with the lunar soil. Meantime, the smaller predecessor of the GSLV was making a name for itself as a reliable commercial launcher, with a string of 16 successful launches against no failures. The GSLV was seen as the next logical step in a rapidly advancing program: a three-stage, heavy-lift rocket suitable for bigger payloads and crews.

But the ambitious design of the rocket may be its undoing. The problem that led to the explosion occurred in the first stage – a giant liquid-fueled engine surrounded by four, strap-on solid fuel rockets. Strap-ons, as designers know, are a great way to add oomph to a booster; the more power you need, the more solids you attach. But multiple engines mean increased complexity – not to mention the need to coordinate the exact amount of thrust each motor is producing, the exact moment ignition takes place and the tricky acoustical business of controlling vibrations. The fact that it’s that stage that failed this time was not surprising but it was disappointing, since in the April launch it worked perfectly; it was the second, simpler stage that failed that time. Another former ISRO chief called the nature of this most recent accident nothing short of “a national setback.”

For the moment it’s unclear whether it’s a setback the space agency can recover from in time. Sorting out multiple glitches in multiple stages is a time-consuming business, and even one more failure could irreparably destroy the GSLV’s image. Ultimately, the global market for heavy-lift flight could simply leave India behind. Uncertain too will be the scheduled 2015 launch of the Chandrayaan II, a joint Indian-Russian moon mission that’s intended to carry both a lunar satellite and a rover and was slated to be launched on a GSLV. Even less certain is the launch of the first Indian astronauts – or vyomanauts – a mission that did not yet even have a target date and is less likely than ever to get one until the big booster proves itself.
India’s economic and technological growth have been extraordinary over the past ten years, but as the U.S. and Russia learned over the previous fifty, there is nothing that challenges a country’s scientific and industrial base like trying to take those first steps into space. The GSLV may yet recover, and vyomanauts may yet ride it to glory, but the path won’t be easy. It never, ever is.

Court martial finds Colonel guilty of abusing subordinate, asking another to strip

A Colonel has been “severely reprimanded” by the Army after a General Court Martial (GCM) found him guilty of abusing one of his subordinates and asking another to strip.

Colonel Vikramjeet Singh, the then Commandant of 39 Assam Rifles, was deployed in the North-East at the time of the incident where he allegedly asked one of his unit’s Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) to strip for not producing an official document.

The GCM had also levelled two other charges against him including that of hurling abuses at the Subedar Major of the Unit and of stripping another Naib Subedar naked but the officer was acquitted of the last charge.

Contending that he was “falsely framed up”, Singh has approached the Armed Forces Tribunal urging it to quash the GCM, which awarded him a sentence of forfeiture of two years past service for the purpose of pension and to be severely reprimanded. The Army action will also adversely impact on his promotions.

“Sentence of GCM should be quashed and set aside with it being legally unsustainable on the point of evidence, with heavy compensation for the harassment, humiliation and loss of prestige in the Army,” Singh’s counsel Major K Ramesh said here.

He claimed that Singh was a strict Commanding Officer and the personnel of Assam Rifles could not digest this work under stress and strain and a handful of disgruntled men even allegedly used criminal force one day against him in his office and thus committed an offence of mutiny.

“Instead of taking cognizance of this serious offence against the JCO the Army authorities heard their sob story and made out offences allegedly committed 2-3 years ago against Singh,” Ramesh added.

He said even in the GCM, Singh has been cleared off the charge of stripping the JCO naked, which was the most serious allegation against him.

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination: PPP lawmaker points finger at security establishment

A lawmaker from the ruling PPP has pointed a finger at the country’s security establishment for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto as the government promised it will make public an investigation report into the high-profile murder.

“Those who prepared mujahideen for the sake of American dollars and then nurtured another generation of terrorists for more dollars are behind her (Bhutto) murder,” said MNA Nadeem Afzal Gondal in the National Assembly.

Though the statement carried a not-so-veiled reference to the country’s top spy agency, Gondal preferred not to name an individual or institution.

He also said that as the head of a parliamentary committee that probed the murder of a Baloch youth, he found out that a serving colonel of the Pakistan Army killed the youth. “The killers of Benazir Bhutto are the same,” he said.

Another PPP lawmaker, Nawab Yousaf Talpur said the government would present a report into Benazir’s murder to the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC). That will also be made public, he added.

Earlier, several members from the opposition asked the government to explain why it had failed to punish Benazir’s murderers despite being in power for almost three years.
Drone strikes

The ruling PPP appeared to be backing calls from the opposition for a review of the national anti-terror policy that envisages putting an end to drone strikes inside the tribal regions.
PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab said the government supported demands for holding a debate in parliament on Pakistan’s role in the global war on terror but rejected a call to convene an all parties’ conference for this purpose.

“The debate should be here (in parliament) … it is the most appropriate forum for that,” Fauzia told the house after opposition MPs said that the government must overhaul what they called a flawed security and foreign policy.

But Fauzia urged the parliamentarians to also debate rising trends of militancy and extremism in the country and suggest a way out.

Muttahida Qaumi Move­ment’s (MQM) Wasim Akhtar demanded an all parties’ conference to also discuss what he called rising corruption in the government departments.
Disfiguring women’s face

Women lawmakers from across the house voiced support for enhancing punishment for those involved in throwing acid on women’s faces or disfiguring parts of their bodies.
But a bill on domestic violence that PPP’s Justice (retd) Fakhrunnisa wanted the house to pass was deferred till next week to incorporate suggestions from other members in an attempt to make it comprehensive.

Terrorists in the making: In the name of ‘martyrdom’

Iftikhar Firdous

PESHAWAR: “You will go to heaven before any of us, if you blow up yourself the way I tell you,” Meena Gul recounted the persuasive promise of her brother, a Taliban commander.

The twelve-year-old girl was apprehended by security personnel from the Munda area on the boundary of Dir district and Bajaur Agency in January.

Meena Gul managed to escape from the clutches of the Taliban in Charmang when militants’ hideouts were reduced to ashes in the bombardment. Her story, distressful in itself, was overshadowed by an ominous revelation of a women’s wing of the Taliban across the border to carry out suicide attacks.

“My sister-in-law, Zainab, was responsible for their training. She escorted eight women from our village to Afghanistan,” Gul told The Express Tribune. Zainab battled Pakistani forces dressed as a man.

“My younger sister blew herself up in a suicide attack in Afghanistan. I, however, managed to escape. I was too scared,” Gul confessed.

A police officer burst into laughter on that cold winter morning at the DPO’s office in Lower Dir at the incredible disclosure. “Has the child lost her mind?” He exclaimed. “She cannot be taken seriously,” added another.

Gul’s words proved to be true when a burqa-clad suicide bomber detonated explosives, killing some 47 people and injuring over a hundred, 11 months later.

Meena Gul was a resident of Afghanistan. At the time, the police record showed her family had travelled across the country, residing in Karachi, Lahore and refugee camps in Peshawar.

The last suicide attack by a woman was in December 2007; she blew up herself at a checkpoint in the heart of Peshawar. It was also the first. The woman in her thirties, enveloped in a burqa, was the only casualty.

She was also identified by the authorities as an Afghan. But at the time they insisted she was more of a carrier than a bomber.

“The perpetrators of the Bajaur bombing were from Afghanistan,” said Corps Commander Peshawar, Asif Yasin Malik, on his visit to Bajaur Agency.

He condoled with the tribesmen, promising them that those involved in the massacre of innocent people will be brought to justice.

“People in the tribal belt are being influenced from across the border,” he stated.

The TTP has always acknowledged their women’s wing. They have been mentioned in the FM broadcasts of Maulvi Faqir Muhammad in Bajaur and the absconding chief of the TTP chapter in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah.

Enforcing greater gender equality in security checks implies stepping on a minefield of cultural constraints.

Searching women is considered taboo in Pakistan’s more conservative Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.

If women are seated in a vehicle, it is typically not checked by security personnel.

The threat of terrorism is so pervasive that the centuries-old tradition of automatically excluding women from being suspect in crimes against humanity may have to be revised.

“Like all other cultural values distorted by the ongoing war, it is the sanctity of women that is now at stake,” concludes Sabir Shah, a resident of Peshawar.

Yvonne Ridley slams US moral selectivity

By Yvonne Ridley

I wonder if Hillary Clinton really believes in the pompous invective that shoots from her lips with the rapidity of machine gun fire.

We had a classic example of it just the other day when she let rip in her grating, robotic monotones over a Moscow court’s decision to jail an oil tycoon.

To be fair to Clinton, she was not alone. There was a whole gaggle of disapproving foreign ministers who poured forth their ridiculous brand of Western arrogance which has poisoned the international atmosphere for far too long.

The US Secretary of State said Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s conviction raised “serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations”.

Although Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a Moscow court, critics like Clinton say the trial constitutes revenge for the tycoon’s questioning of a state monopoly on oil pipelines and propping up political parties that oppose the Kremlin.

Clinton’s censure was echoed by politicians in Britain and Germany, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, urged Moscow to “respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law”.

Now while it may appear to be quite touching to see all these Western leaders express their outrage over a trial involving the one-time richest and most powerful man in Russia’s oil and gas industry, you have to ask where were these moral guardians when other unjust legal decisions were being made in US courts, for example?

So why have the Americans and Europeans rushed to make very public and official statements so quickly on a matter of oil and gas, in another country? Okay, so it is a rhetorical question!

But shouldn’t Clinton put a sock in it? The USA is still squatting in Cuba overseeing the continuing festering mess caused by one of the biggest boil’s on the face of human rights – yes, Guantanamo is approaching a decade of incarcerating men without charge or trial. At least Khodorkovsky had his day in an open court and can appeal.

Instead of sticking her nose in to other country’s courts, perhaps the US Secretary of State would care to look into her own backyard and tell us why one of her soldiers was given a mere nine month sentence earlier this month after shooting unarmed civilians in Afghanistan?

And after he’s served his sentence US army medic Robert Stevens can still remain in the army, ruled the military hearing. His defence was that he and other soldiers were purely acting on orders from a squad leader during a patrol in March in Kandahar.

Five of the 12 soldiers named in the case are accused of premeditated murder in the most serious prosecution of atrocities by US military personnel since the war began in late 2001. Some even collected severed fingers and other human remains from the Afghan dead as war trophies before taking photos with the corpses.

By comparison, just a few months earlier, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, was given 86 years for attempting to shoot US soldiers … the alleged incident happened while she was in US custody, in Afghanistan. She didn’t shoot anyone although she WAS shot at point blank range by the soldiers. The critically injured Pakistani citizen was then renditioned for a trial in New York. The hearing was judged to be illegal and out of US jurisdiction by many international lawyers.

Did Clinton have anything to say about that? Did any of the foreign ministers in the West raise these issues on any public platform anywhere in the world? Again, it’s a rhetorical question.

Of course a few poorly trained US Army grunts, scores of innocent Afghans, nearly 200 Arab men in Cuba and one female academic from Pakistan are pretty small fry compared to an oil rich tycoon who doesn’t like Vladamir Putin.

But being poor is not a crime.

Exactly how would the Obama Administration have reacted if Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticized the lack of even handedness in the US judicial system and demanded Dr Aafia Siddiqui be repatriated? What would be the response if Medvedev called an international press conference and demanded to know why 174 men are still being held in Guantanamo without charge or trial?

Just for the record the US judicial system imposes life sentences for serious tax avoidance and laundering of criminally-received income – crimes for which the Russian tycoon has been found guilty. Sentencing will not take place until Moscow trial judge, Viktor Danilkin, finishes reading his 250-page verdict, which could take several days.

In her comments Clinton said the case had a “negative impact on Russia’s reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate”.

How on earth can anyone treat the US Secretary of State seriously when she comes out with this sort of pot, kettle, black rhetoric? This from a nation which is morally and financially bankrupt, a country which introduced words like rendition and water-boarding into common day usage.

My advice to Clinton is do not lecture anyone about human rights and legal issues until you clean up your own backyard. In fact the next time she decides to open her mouth perhaps one of her aides can do us all a favour and ram in a slice of humble pie.

British journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union as well as being a patron of Cageprisoners.

If Obama Could Keep America First!

The headline is not meant to imply that I think he will. As things are he can’t because of the stranglehold on American policy for Israel/Palestine of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress, the mainstream media and many institutions of state including the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. My purpose is only to offer an answer to this question: What could happen if President Obama was able to put America’s own real interests first?

The answer has to begin with the statement (echoed by Mearsheimer and Walt and a growing number of respected and influential others) that unconditional support for the Zionist state of Israel right or wrong is not in America’s own best interests because it’s a prime cause of Arab and other Muslim hurt and humiliation, which is being transformed into a rising tide of anti-Americanism. To that can be added a related truth. America doesn’t have to have 1.5 billion Muslims (nearly one quarter of humankind) as enemies. Most Muslims do not hate America or Americans. What they do hate is the double-standard of American (and all Western) foreign policy, in particular its refusal to call and hold Israel to account for its crimes.

To put anti-Americanism into its true Arab perspective, I offered this thought in the Introduction to The False Messiah, Volume One of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews .

If it had been possible for an American President to wave a magic wand and have Israel back behind more or less its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with a Palestinian state in existence on the Arab land from which Israel had withdrawn as required by UN Security Council Resolution 242, and with Jerusalem an open, undivided city the capital of two states, the U.S. would have had, overnight, with one wave of that magic wand,the respect, friendship and support of not less than 95 per cent of all Arabs and very probably that of almost all Muslims everywhere. And if the President had also pressed the Arab regimes to be serious about democratizing their countries, the U.S. would have become the champion of the Arab masses, truly admired by them as it was when President Woodrow Wilson was in the White House.

In passing I’ll add that since I first wrote those words, I have addressed Arab and other Muslim audiences up and down the UK, in America and Canada and as far afield as India. On each and every platform I asked audiences if I was naïve for believing that an American president who did whatever was necessary to secure justice for the Palestinians would be rewarded with the respect, friendship and support of almost all Arabs and other Muslims. The answer was always the same. My figure of 95 per cent was almost certainly an under-estimate.

But since that response was conveyed to me things have got much worse. With his abject surrender to Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby, Obama has not only drawn public attention to America’s complicity in Israel’s defiance of international law, he is out-doing President George “Dubya” Bush in the business of targeted assassinations with drones over Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. The death toll of innocents killed is rising rapidly. Islam’s men of violence in that part of our world could not have a more effective recruiting sergeant.

What’s happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan (not to mention Iraq) underlines the fact that a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict on terms acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere would not be enough to extinguish the fire of anti-Americanism, but it would make containing it a much more manageable proposition.

There are, in fact, firemen waiting to assist Obama (or his successor) to put it out completely. They are the leaders of Iran, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Taliban. America’s own real interests would be best served by Obama himself (or his successor) seriously engaging with them, taking full account of their concerns and fears.

There is no evidence (only Zionist assertion) that Iran’s divided ruling mullahs have any intention of developing nuclear weapons, but it would not be surprising if elements in Iran – the Revolutionary Guard? – are making a case for nuclear weaponization for the purpose of deterrence.

What Iran’s leaders and also those of Hizbollah, Hamas and the Taliban want most of all is an end to American exceptionalism, for which read imperialism, and all the arrogance, bullying and interference, as well as the killing, maiming and destruction, that comes with it.

On Israel-Palestine real positions (as opposed to Zionist assertions about them) are clear. Hamas is explicitly on the record with the statement that while it will not formally recognise Israel’s right to exist, it is pragmatically prepared to accept Israel’s actual existence inside its 1967 (pre-war) borders and to live in peace with it. And though they don’t say so openly, Iran and Hizbollah have a common pragmatic position. They will accept, reluctantly no doubt, whatever the Palestinians accept.

An American president who was free to put the best interests of his own nation and people first would now give priority to talking constructively to “the enemy”. With the assistance of the leaders of Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas, Obama (possibly at the risk of assassination) could create a whole new Middle East, one in which justice for the Palestinians and peace and security for all could flourish. (I’m sure that most of us would welcome a return to the days when we could check into an airport without being treated as a possible or probable terrorist).
It is, of course, true that there are powerful vested interests in the U.S. (Jewish and non-Jewish) which actually believe that unconditional support for Israel right or wrong is in America’s best interests. Because they are not completely stupid, they know this policy is not cost free. The presumption has to be that they also believe the cost in terms of American blood and treasure is a price worth paying. Hopefully the time is coming when enough Americans will say to them: “Stop this madness! You’re wrong. It’s not a price worth paying.”

For the neo-cons and their associates who marshal and deliver support for Israel right or wrong, and who by so doing subvert what passes for democracy in America, I have a New Year message. Learn the lesson of America’s costly and catastrophic adventure in Vietnam. It doesn’t matter how powerful you are militarily, you cannot destroy ideas with bullets and bombs, especially ideas rooted in the need for self-determination, justice and human and political rights.

I have no expectation that Zionism can learn this lesson. I believe it, Zionism, to be congenitally incapable of doing so. But one day most if not all Americans will learn it – won’t they…?
Footnote

It was in Vietnam as a very young correspondent for ITN (Independent Television News), when I was observing the U.S. spending six million dollars a minute on a war it could not win and should not have waged, that I first started to ask myself questions about why things are as they are in the world. Some years later the notion that America could not have won the war in Vietnam was challenged by Senator Barry Goldwater in private conversation with me. In 1964 this five-term senator from Arizona was the Republican Party’s nominee for president. He didn’t make it to the White House in part because President Johnson branded him as an extremist who might plunge America into a nuclear war. When I was on assignment for the BBC’s Panorama programme, Goldwater said to me in his Senate office: “We could have won the war in Vietnam. We should have nuked the North. What’s the point in spending so much money on developing nuclear weapons if you’re not prepared to use them?” (With Iran and North Korea on their minds, I imagine that some of today’s neo-con nuts agree with that. And I note that after he failed to secure a second term, perhaps because he offended the Zionist lobby too much by wanting to be serious about peacemaking in the Middle East, former President Bush the First said that his dream was of a “winnable nuclear war”).

Return of the stone rage in Kashmir (2010 in Retrospect)

sify news

Srinagar: Over 110 people dead in firing by security forces on protesters, four months of crucial academic session washed out due to frequent curfews and shutdowns, business worth an estimated Rs.14,000 crore ($3 billion) lost — 2010 was indeed haunting for the Kashmir Valley that witnessed another season of intifada, the stone throwers’ uprising.

At the beginning of 2010 spring, as peace was dawning on a state battling years of armed insurgency, the scenic valley was preparing to welcome tourists with hopes to revive an economy in shambles. But that was not to be.

Most of the tourist season was lost to stones – volleys of them flying in the air every day almost all over the valley. And security forces countered them with tear gas shells, non-lethal weapons and even bullets.

As soon as the tourist season began to peak – some 400,000 tourists had come to Kashmir by June, the death of a teenager, Tufail Ahmed Mattoo, in firing by security forces June 11 set off a vicious cycle of stone-pelting agitations and killings.

Mattoo’s death triggered widespread agitation against human rights violations in the valley. Separatist leaders capitalised on the anti-government anger by giving frequent calls for shutdowns and asking people to hold protest marches.

In nearly five months of the uprising, 111 more civilians were killed – painting the valley blood red.

The agitation, which revived the separatist campaign, kept the valley closed for most of the five months due to repeated shutdowns and curfews.

President of a business lobby, Shakeel Qalandar, said each day of the shutdown or curfew cost Kashmir around Rs.100 crore ($22 million). The valley remained closed for about 140 days in the unrest period.

‘Our economic losses have mounted to Rs.14,000 crore ($3 billion),’ Qalandar told IANS.

He said some 100,000 people also lost their jobs in the tourism, manufacturing and retail sectors in the 2010 unrest.

The valley has witnessed frequent closures in the last 20 years of separatist war. As many as 1,950 days have been lost to shutdowns and curfews since 1990.

‘Conservative estimates put the losses at around Rs.2 lakh crore ($44 billion) during the last two decades,’ according to Qalandar.

Education was only a collateral damage in the cycle of protests – at the heart of which was the Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

When schools and colleges remained closed for about 115 days, the adverse effect on education can be anybody’s guess.

However, in all this maddening cycle of violence, the valley peacefully hosted the annual Amarnath pilgrimage – the way it has been doing since ages. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims from all over the country travelled to the cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

As the year began to close and winter chill seeped in, a sort of agitation fatigue led to a somewhat deceptive calm in the valley. The common sarcastic slogan doing the rounds is – ‘Khoon ka badla June main lenge’ [We will avenge the killings – of 2010 – next June).

The central government also took some steps to resolve the political problems in the state. In September, it approved an eight-point plan for Jammu and Kashmir and released Rs.100 crore ($22 million) for grants to schools and colleges.

Three interlocutors – journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, economist M.M. Ansari and academician Radha Kumar – were tasked to hold ‘sustained and uninterrupted dialogue with all sections of the people’ in the state.

During a visit by the interlocutors to frontier district of Kupwara Dec 22, thousands of people pledged not to throw stones at security forces – not a bad idea to end the year full of violence.

But the pledge came with riders. The security forces should not stop peaceful protesters and the government should take ‘solid and concrete steps’ for resolving the Kashmir issue, they held.

This is the third successive year Kashmir has witnessed a politically hot summer. In 2008, prolonged agitations, including stone pelting, was witnessed over land allotment to the Amarnath shrine board and in 2009, the Shopian alleged rape-murder of two women triggered widespread angry protests. But the 2010 protests were prolonged and furious.

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)

India’s Anti-Maoist Operations: Where are the Special Forces?

By Bibhu Prasad Routray

Synopsis

Poor standards among its police force and the lack of specialised units within its para-military is hampering India’s counter-Maoist efforts. The objective of neutralising the military might of the extremists looks, for the moment, an unrealisable goal.

Commentary

ANDHRA PRADESH, the only Indian state which was successful in defeating the left-wing extremists (Maoists), did so using its specialised counter-insurgency force, the Greyhounds. Raised in the late 1980s, the ability of the Greyhounds to take the fight into the Maoist stronghold areas was crucial in draining the extremist strength. By 2005, the Maoists had little option after losing hundreds of their cadres, but to flee Andhra Pradesh into the safety of the neighbouring states, where security operations have been far less intensive. Since then, the Greyhounds experiment of raising special force units to counter Maoists has been replicated in different states and also within the para-military Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — but unsuccessfully.

Lack of Sustained efforts

With the constant prodding of the government in New Delhi, some states like Maharashtra and Orissa have raised special counter-Maoist units. Some others like West Bengal are still ‘in the process of’ raising them. States like Bihar are managing by re-employing former Army personnel within its Special Auxiliary Police units. States like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have tended to manage their anti-Maoist operations with their regular police personnel, renamed as ‘special task force’, who have undergone training in the counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare schools. Twenty such schools, in addition to the one currently operational in Chhattisgarh, are being raised by the government.

The ineffectiveness of such specialised or semi-specialised units is clearly rooted in the continuing dependence of the states on the central paramilitary forces. Over 70 battalions of such forces are currently deployed in various states as part of the anti-Maoist ‘Operation Green Hunt’. The easy availability of these central forces for the states, at almost a nominal deployment and maintenance cost, is creating an unenviable situation — the states are paying inadequate attention to modernise their own police forces. In addition, states have regularly defaulted in paying for the deployment of such forces.

Same rot within the paramilitary

The paramilitary CRPF, raised with a mandate to manage normal law and order situations, has the experience of countering militants and insurgents in Kashmir and the northeastern states. But the Maoists are proving to be a different and difficult challenge.

Following the 1999 Kargil conflict in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, New Delhi’s Task Force on Internal Security had recommended modelling the CRPF as the primary strike force for counter-insurgency (CI) operations.. This recommendation had been accepted in 2000 by the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Since then, enormous funds have been made available to the CRPF to augment its size as well as its capacities. However, former CRPF officers, including a former chief of the force, accept that a plan to achieve the objective is yet to be formulated. There is no indication that the CRPF, which has grown to 210 battalions after continuing expansions, is anywhere close to being a specialised CI force.

A series of setbacks suffered by the CRPF in Maoist attacks has compelled the force not only to go on the defensive, but also to centralise its operations. As a result, local commanders’ capacity to innovate and launch swift counter-attacks, which are critical in counter-insurgency operations, have been put on hold.

Clearance from the CRPF regional headquarters in Kolkata, which takes at least a day to receive, has been made mandatory before the personnel embark on any CI operation acting on intelligence leads. Maoists have been extremely mobile in their approach. A day’s delay in obtaining clearance has virtually turned the CRPF into an inspecting unit rather than a combat force.

In 2008, the government set up a 10 battalion specialised counter-Maoist unit within the CRPF. The unit was fashionably named Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA). Home Minister P Chidambaram did not like the acronym. But the name stuck. The personnel underwent a year-long specialised training in the counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare schools and were deployed in phases in the Maoist-affected states. Actual achievements of the COBRA are operational secrets. However, by any standard, this is too small a unit to make any impact on the Maoists who have spread out over a vast territory. In addition, in the absence of adequate support from the state police forces, the actual capacity of the COBRA forces, has been marginalised.

Stress from continuous engagement could also be growing within the COBRA. Recently, a COBRA personnel deployed in Chhattisgarh fled the force after killing a civilian, disfiguring his face and planting his official identity card on the dead body to fake his own death. Separately, another COBRA personnel was arrested for alleged involvement in a series of crimes perpetrated by a criminal gang.

No Intelligence, No Capacity

The CRPF’s setbacks are partly linked to the weak or non-existent human intelligence apparatus within the state police forces and also to the poor operational camaraderie the two forces share. Attempt to set up CRPF’s own intelligence unit has been a long- pending ambition. Frequent verbal duels have been reported between the CRPF and the police authorities. In August, New Delhi transferred a top CRPF officer overseeing Operation Green Hunt after his spat with the top police officer of Chhattisgarh State. Frequent changes in the CRPF’s leadership have disrupted continuity of policies and programmes for augmenting the capacity of the force.

The government aims to turn the course of the war with the Maoists within the next few years. However, with the security forces receiving regular setbacks and the country still struggling to raise specialised counter-Maoist force units, such an objective appears far too difficult to achieve.

Bibhu Prasad Routray is a Visiting Research Fellow in the South Asia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He previously served as a Deputy Director in the National Security Council Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office, New Delhi.

Shiv Sena bandh turns violent in Pune

A Shiv Sena-BJP sponsored Pune bandh called to protest the removal of the statue of Dadoji Kondadev, considered the mentor of Shivaji, began on a violent note on Tuesday as agitators pelted stones at buses. Some Sena workers have been detained by police as a preventive measure. The saffron alliance had given a call for the bandh after the NCP-Congress ruled Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) removed the statue of Dadoji from the sculpture at Lal Mahal on Monday, pursuant to a resolution passed by the civic body to that effect.
The decision followed a persistent demand for a pro-Maratha outfit Sambhaji Brigade.

The agitators also tried to disrupt rail traffic at Lonavala on Mumbai-Pune section of the central railway, sources said.

PMC authorities on Monday removed the statue which had become a bone of contention following persistent demand by pro-Maratha outfit Sambhaji Brigade opposing its presence at the Mahal, along with sculptures of Jijabai, mother of Chhatrapati Shivaji and young age image of the Maratha warrior king.

The Brigade had alleged that after publication of the controversial book written by American author James Laine, which supposedly contained defamatory references to Shivaji’s parentage, it was necessary to remove the statue of Dadoji, considered mentor of Shivaji, and replace it with Shahaji Raje, his father.