STRAWS IN THE WIND

By Ahsan Waheed
ZoneAsia-Pk

There is a big hype in the media about the Prime Minister’s fate at the hands of the judiciary. It is certainly news and a sad day for Pakistan but not the kind of catastrophe that it is made out to be. If he is convicted and goes there will be another Prime Minister and it will be business as usual. The majority feel that he should be allowed to complete his term and that writing a letter to a foreign government about an elected President is not what our government should be doing. In any case these matters are good for drawing room discussions and media speculations but do not matter one way or the other.

Then there is the furor over the memo, the so called memo-gate. This non starter from the outset started off with a bang, created some fireworks and collapsed with a whimper. It is being dragged along but no one is interested any more. If two functionaries had to depart then another two took their place. If there was some hard talk then it was followed by clarifications and assurance. The whole thing was and remains farcical.

We now have the drama of the ISI Chiefs replacement. This is a routine affair and there are clear cut procedures for it. If he gets another extension it will be good because he is a straight talking and straight shooting man who has done a great job. If he retires he will be replaced by a suitable lieutenant general selected from the panel of names given by the military. The US Ambassador has commented upon this change in his address in Massachusetts. The US is ‘monitoring’ this change as if it matters or as if it can do anything about it. One of the analysts from the many who make a living out of commenting on Pakistan has said that this change is very significant because the ISI is not just an intelligence agency but it actually makes policy. So has it made all the policies that are being implemented? All this does boost the ISI image by driving home the point that it is an obsession for many who are terrified by it. That’s not too bad-is it?

The US is talking to the Taliban and have allowed them an office in Qatar so that others can talk too. Everyone and his aunt know that the US is preparing for a face saving exit after being defeated and after failing to create any sustainable structures in Afghanistan. The Taliban and others are licking their chops at the prospect of tucking into the pathetic caricature that is the Afghan Security Forces. The suited guys in government are looking at getting out as quietly as possible to wherever they came from. After the US and NATO leave it will be business as usual in and around Afghanistan. Karzai will be ditched and will be history-not that it will make any difference.

There is the matter of who kept Osama under wraps. A bitter, sick retired general with an axe to grind has blamed Musharraf and everyone is running round in circles. A doctor recruited by the US to find Osama is being interrogated and the US is ‘concerned’—he is a Pakistani and not a US citizen. US ‘diplomats’ continue to be tripped up some where or the other-the latest being one caught at an airport with bullets in his bag. Every one wonders where his gun was hidden and whether they searched him thoroughly. Some mad cap ‘fundos’ with some misguided former position holders get up on a stage and make threatening noises and tremors go through the land and as far away as the US! The good thing is that Pakistan continues to tick over and Pakistanis cope with power shortages and soaring costs. If the NATO logistics resume through Pakistan the dollars will flow in—not bad at all.

What matters is Pakistan’s economy, its internal situation, its institutions and public sector enterprises, its relations with neighbors and the world, its people and internal security. This is what we should be focusing on because if we get this right we are home free. Till we can do that let us develop thick skins and not get tickled by all these meaningless straws in the wind.

Pakistan-US row ends trilateral moot in stalemate

The trilateral process between the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan failed to make any progress on Tuesday due to serious differences between Islamabad and Washington over a host of issues, forcing Kabul to express its anguish and demand an accelerated, result-oriented reconciliation process with the Taliban to curb the increasing violence in Afghanistan. US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman held a crucial meeting of the “core group” with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Afghan deputy foreign deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin to push forward the Washington and Islamabad-backed Afghan reconciliation process between Kabul and the Taliban.

The parleys, however, failed to produce any positive results in terms of agreement between all the three sides on which Taliban group needed to be on board for the reconciliation process and which needed to be kept out of the talks. The major reason behind the failure of talks was the diplomatic row between Islamabad and Washington over a host of issues, including the latest dispute over Pakistan’s decision to impose travel restrictions on American diplomats in the country. Apart from the Pak-US bilateral differences that erupted in the wake of killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on May 2 in Abbottabad, another thorny issue that has been hampering the trilateral process is the US’ refusal to include the influential Haqqani network in the ongoing reconciliation process, despite both Islamabad and Kabul being in favour of talking to the militant group.

However, on a positive note, the three sides agreed to involve the neighbouring states of Afghanistan more in the ongoing efforts to restore peace and normalcy in the country. It was decided that the three nations would reach out to other Afghan neighbours, including Iran, Russia and China, to take them into confidence over the

reconciliation process with the Taliban and seek their assistance for its success.

Officials privy to the consultations said Islamabad refused to accept the US demand of lifting travel curbs. Pakistanis told Grossman that unless and until US authorities came up with a firm assurance that no CIA deployment would be made inside Pakistan without taking Islamabad into confidence and that the intelligence operatives’ activities would be known to Pakistani secret agencies, American diplomats would have to follow the new requirements. The failure of the US and Pakistan to resolve their differences over the travel curbs, drone attacks, anti-ISI slander campaign launched by some quarters in Washington and their negative impact on the trilateral forum led to a profound anguish in the Afghan camp. Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Ludin also expressed his frustration at the joint press conference at the end of the meeting with Ambassador Grossman and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir when he said, “I have come to Islamabad with a sense of urgency. We need to speed up this process of reconciliation and we need to make it result-oriented.” He said, “The reconciliation shall be at the centre of peace plan for Afghanistan and the whole region.” Grossman said his country supported the Afghan-led reconciliation process and the core group meeting had been useful in terms of having detailed discussions on the objectives of peace. He said the US would not repeat the mistakes of 1990s, adding that Islamabad and Washington had shared objectives of peace and stability in the region and both sides were working to achieve them. Foreign Secretary Salman reiterated Pakistan’s full support to the Afghan-led reconciliation process, saying Pakistan respected the sovereignty of its neighbouring state and would extend all possible assistance for the restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Osama’s death will not stop the dollar’s decline

The news of Osama Bin Laden’s death will open new dimensions for the US dollar but only for a short while. The reason I say this is because while global financial markets are terming the news of Bin Laden’s as good news for the currency, the dollar will continue to stay weak in 2011.

Stock markets will rally in the US, Europe and Asia, but these efforts will all be short-lived and the status of the dollar will go back to its original position.

Analyses of the past

The bull market for the US dollar is like an invisible man. An important aspect of any bull market is psychology. Bull markets climb a wall of worry as they say. This means that the market will continue to climb despite all of the worries surrounding them.

However, to really understand the long term effects of the current political scenario on the dollar, we must analyse history and look at some facts.

From 1982 to 2000, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared from 777 to above 11,000, the world was embroiled in all sorts of worries. There were the inflation pressures, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Mexican peso crisis and the Long Term Capital collapse of 1998. Throughout all of these crises and collapses, equity prices kept climbing. If you read the book “The Great Super Cycle” by David Skarica, you can see the logic behind these developments. One of the reasons is that markets take on a life of their own. Major cycles run 15 to 20 years and go on in the same fashion despite wars, recessions, drought, etcetera.

The same applies to downward cycles. Despite all of the reasons to buy the dollar in recent years, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and the Euro crisis of 2010, both of which caused a flight to the US currency, the dollar has continued on its long-term downward trend.

However, in the current scenario we are hearing more fervent calls for a rally for the dollar. People are citing the Middle East crisis as one of the reasons which is expected to trigger an investment flight towards safety – the dollar.

There are also predictions that the US economy will grow faster now, at a GDP growth rate of three per cent, in the short term due to the tax cuts of late 2010. Some say that the Euro crisis will show its ugly head again and once again result in the rise of the dollar. However, with so many calls for a dollar rally, I personally think this will not curb the downward trend of the currency. The dollar will continue to lose 9-10 per cent against the major basket of currencies.

Three reasons why the decline will continue:

1. The US is expected to have a near-10 per cent GDP deficit in 2011, which is higher than that expected from any other Western government including the UK, Spain, Portugal and even Greece (if its austerity measures pay off). This deficit will put the US in the danger of losing its reserve-dollar status.

2. As George Soros pointed out recently, the Euro crisis is all but over with the recent austerity and bailout measures being passed. The crisis this year has entered local municipalities and states in the US. An estimated $127 billion is required to rescue the failed states in the US. California, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin are all in the red and in bad shape. This will put further pressure on the US dollar in 2011.

3. If the Middle East crisis spreads, oil prices will continue to spike and might touch $137 per barrel this year. My prediction of $117 per barrel has already hit the market. The US is much more reliant on automobiles and hence on low oil prices, than any other Western nation – European nations have much better public transportation and train systems. Therefore, higher oil prices will pressure the US more than Europe.

Therefore, despite the calls of a dollar rally, I expect that the US currency is going to continue its bear market (9-10 per cent downfall in 2011) and continue to move lower against other major world currencies.

Short term reactions

- US markets will absorb the shocking news for equity and bonds, with equity markets already overbought or overvalued by 41 per cent, market consolidation in the short term will turn into a pull back in the long run.

- It is premature to say how Arab markets will respond as the situation is still quite uncertain and $31 per barrel is being charged on oil as fear premium.

- Prices of commodities, especially oil, will pull back in the short run with the dollar moving up. Other commodities are also expected to take the back seat as upsurge continues.

US, Pakistan to move beyond tensions over Davis: Petraeus

Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, sounded confident at a Congressional hearing that the United States and Pakistan could move beyond recent tensions over the Raymond Davis issue and take forward their bilateral cooperative relationship.

“The US relationship with them, which has, I think it’s fair to say, sustained a degree of tension in recent weeks, in particular as a result of the case involving the State Department employee. But hopefully we can move forward, take the rear view mirror off the bus and resume the very cooperative activities that have characterised the relationship in the past,” he said.

At the same time, Petraeus told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that the Pakistani, Afghan and ISAF cooperation along the Afghan border – where Taliban terrorists operate – has never been better than the current levels.

Pakistan, he noted, has “endured innumerable challenges in recent years: terrible natural disasters, a spread of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan that forced the initiation some two years of very tough fighting, very impressive counter-insurgency operations, in which the Pakistanis have lost thousands of soldiers and also thousands of civilians.”

“The fact is that the cooperation between Pakistan, the Afghan forces and ISAF forces has never been better. We have had a number of meetings literally just in the last couple of months to coordinate operations where Pakistan is continuing its offensive against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.”

The forces in Afghanistan will conduct complementary operations on the Afghan side of the border, he said.

The shootout, the US agent and the media

AlJazeeraEnglish

In late January, Raymond Davis, an American working in Pakistan, allegedly shot and killed two men who he claimed were trying to rob him. Soon after the shooting it emerged in the Pakistani media that Davis was a CIA operative, but that information did not surface in the US media until weeks later. That is because – at the behest of the US government – many media outlets there withheld that information. It was not until the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Davis worked for the CIA that the US media began acknowledging it. This week Listening Post not only looks at the coverage of this story but the journalistic ethics involved because what for one nation’s media is a matter of national security, is a breaking news story in another.

India’s Major Bulbul arrested in US

The Daily Mail

Former Indian Army Major accused of Kashmir HR activist’s murder

JAMMU(IOK) – A former Indian Army Major accused of the extrajudicial killing of a noted Kashmir human rights activist has been arrested in the US and would be handed over to the state police within a fortnight, Indian occupied Kashmir police said on Monday.

According to reports, fomer Major Avtar singh was arrested by the California police after his wife accused him of beating her. “It was the victim (wife) who informed the police in the US that he was also wanted in the murder case of one of the human right activists in Indian Occupied part of Kashmir ” the reports said.

On March 8, 1996, Major Avtar Singh, known as “Bulbul” (nightingale), of the 35th Rashtriya Rifles unit of the Indian army arrested Jaleel Andrabi, a human right activist near Barazulla on airport road when the activist was driving home along with his wife. The Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association filed a habeas corpus petition in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir High Court on March 9, and the court ordered the army to produce Andrabi. However, the Indian army denied that Andrabi was in custody. Over the next two weeks, the court continued to grant the government extensions for replying to the petition.

The trussed-up body of Jalil Andrabi, a prominent human rights lawyer was found in the Kursuraj Bagh area of Srinagar on the banks of the Jhelum river on the morning of March 27, 1996. Andrabi, who was forty-two, had been shot in the head and his eyes had been gouged out. An autopsy showed that he had been killed days after his arrest. As a result, the case for murder against the accused officer was pending adjudication in a Srinagar court.

Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Srinagar, Mohammed Ibrahim Wani on Febuaray 6, 2010 issued interpol red corner notice against Major Avtar singh. The CJM directed the Ministry of Home affairs to forward the arrest warrant to Interpol through its office in New Delhi. The accused army officer, it is now learnt, has been hiding in Calfornia, US. “Yes we located the accused former Major. The US police informed the interpol and in turn they communicated us,” said Raja Ajaz Ali Inspector General of Crime wing in occupied Jammu and Kashmir police. Raja Ajaz , who is also laison officer of interpol in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, said that the accused was in the preventive custody of the US police in California and would shifted to Srinagar in fifteen days.

“We were asked by the interpol and the US police to furnish fresh warrants against the accused and we have acquired the same from sessions court in Srinagar,” IG crime branch said. According to IG Raja Ajaz Ali, the ministry of home affairs has also been informed about the intimation by the interpol.

Fighting fanaticism

Elf Habib

The media has been lending almost tacit support to the currency of intolerance. The country, already battered by bloody terrorist onslaughts, is being further forced to fend off the fury and fanaticism of some hitherto apparently silent segments that have infiltrated into the most treasured security shields

The shock, sorrow and anger that stormed the nation after Salmaan Taseer’s assassination brought home stark realities to highlight the unbridled intolerance, fanaticism and obsession that seems set to obliterate the slightest dissent from the obscurantist notions of faith, conduct and behaviour. The widespread condemnation, mourning, memorial messages, vigils, candle-lighting, processions and protest rallies to vent love, reverence, grief and concern were in perfect order. However, far more potent and concerted steps are needed to reorient the maverick mindset and the attitudes that have abysmally sunk into some circles to enable them to act as self-styled vigilantes, judges, jurists and executioners. Salmaan had committed no crime, but even if someone felt the contrary, the legal recourse for redress would have been the lawful option. Yet his assassin’s reported outburst where he touted a premeditated, brutal murder as a holy feat and the tumult and bravura sweeping his congenital hordes, reflects the dread and design of a fanatic minority to derail the development of a tolerant and pluralistic society. A fatwa, for instance, was flung against Sherry Rehman, merely for suggesting some changes to the blasphemy law. The government and political parties, including some rather avowedly progressive ones like the ANP, have cowered under the hysteric outburst of some skeletal yet supercharged bigoted breeds. The media has been lending almost tacit support to the currency of intolerance. The country, already battered by bloody terrorist onslaughts, is being further forced to fend off the fury and fanaticism of some hitherto apparently silent segments that have infiltrated into the most treasured security shields. The widening gory gyre thus creates new challenges not only for the government but for all democratic forces, rights activists, intellectuals and commoners espousing a tolerant, interactive, pluralistic, peaceful and stable polity devoted to its industrial, economic and social development.

The government, political parties and judiciary in established democratic polities provide the mainstay, shield and stimulus to the diversity of thought, belief and harmonious debate and dialogue, leading to a broader multicultural and multi-faith spectrum. No attitudes, phenomena, beliefs or institutions in any democratic polity are precluded from the ambit of query, question, debate, review, revision and improvement. The repeated dictatorships here, however, stifled this surge, interrupted the political process and drove deeper divisions and distrust into various parties and regions spawning several regional, ethnic and sectarian outfits. Even our principal parties are now forced to stitch some quite disparate and cantankerous coalitions and submit to silly compromises even with the most dogmatic lobbies, hence sacrificing the most rudimentary steps to stem intolerance or promote debate and dialogue. The judiciary is also stymied by several similar constraints. Yet the government can certainly improve intelligence, the security apparatus, training and monitoring. Qadri’s elite corps, evidently, was neither trained to sift and separate personal feelings from professional duties nor vetted for its emotional stability. The absence of an in situ reflex or rapid response from Qadri’s companions to thwart his attack was an even more glaring professional failure. Such security lapses in a country where more than half the federal and provincial revenues are spent on the security sector cannot be condoned.

The security organs must strive to foster an essential professional ethos, extirpating the slightest propensity for fundamentalist notions and the cliques clamouring for vengeance against opponents, and must stop patronising the extremist factions. The other state organs, similarly, also have to cease appeasing intolerant thought or activities and work for the prevalence of an all-inclusive and all-enfolding sufi spirit and pluralism in line with thought and tradition in Islam. The existing legal recourse relating to the incitement of hatred and bigoted appeals to incriminate and annihilate individuals, apparently deemed to be deviant by some self righteous vigilantes, be faithfully implemented. The relevant rules required to mend the drawbacks must be explicitly formulated. The state can similarly initiate several effective steps to regulate the training and certification for various imams and preachers. This is actually an integral aspect of re-educating and re-orienting the mind, skill and outlook of our adult population and, evidently, also necessitates the revamping of the entire approach and mechanism of our religious instruction in schools and seminaries. Respect and tolerance for dissent, dialogue and pursuance, the poise and patience to pocket even the most provocative invectives or preferring a cool methodical legal procedure for redemption by curbing the instinctive impulse for instant vengeance have to be urged and imbibed at the earliest stages. This becomes unavoidable as the world rapidly shrinks to become an inevitable intermix of innumerable faiths, cultures, communities and ideas.

The state can certainly lead and stimulate these endeavours to a large extent but combating the intolerant mindset is more of a collective social responsibility involving efforts by institutions and organisations devoted to impart formal and informal education, influence and outlook. This necessitates the revamping of the syllabi and the mode of formal and informal instruction. But indirect impact and inspiration from the media, movies, theatre and literature is even more crucial. European societies have made some resplendent efforts in taming the fury, fire and free flow of the blood that soaked the Reformation and French Revolution The reaction to Darwin’s iconoclastic theory and Marxist ideas was quite chaotic and contentious, yet it lacked those antecedents of violent, gory feuds. In the US, the state braced a protracted struggle to stem slavery and secession while visionaries, reformers, media and movie magnates orchestrated some really remarkable themes and crusades to transcend racial barriers and expose the futility of clinging to the bygone cotton culture. Now, even video games have joined the genre in tearing down totalitarian dogmatism. Even some African states have swamped the stranglehold of apartheid and racial superiority.

Our media, unfortunately, has miserably failed in exposing the futility of the force and fanaticism for the imposition of any particular idea. It has never portrayed the ravages of morbid monolithic passions and has persistently spurned literature, movies and documentaries, historic evidence, debates and analyses illumining the instructive fate of the ideas that were once considered celestial and immutable. Accounts of societies swallowed by the schism and the strife riled by their stubborn insistence on the supremacy and enforcement of obscurantism are scrupulously ignored. So are the realities to realise the receding role and limitations of religion in the state and global affairs. The enthusiasts and proponents of liberal, logical and realistic thought have a far greater onus to disseminate a dispassionate understanding of the diversity of human thought, rites and the consequent need for tolerance and reconciliation.

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist. He can be reached at habibpbu@yahoo.com

An American goes to Pakistan: The Raymond Davis Case

By Shemrez

The Government of Pakistan, its electronic media and its people, have been captivated by the case of one Raymond Allen Davis, an ‘American’ allegedly using a pseudonym and a ‘diplomatic passport’ to come to Pakistan and shoot two Pakistanis in Lahore in broad daylight. The incident happened apparently in self-defense, and in addition to conspiracy-prone Pakistani society, a few questions remained unanswered which led to more and more sensationalism, and concealment of important facts.

First, there should be no doubt by now that ‘Davis’ is a US DoD contractor. His name seems more of a pseudonym because of General Raymond Gilbert Davis, a US Marines General who fought in World War II and retired from the post of Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps on March 31, 1972, after more than 33 years with the Marines. There is also Raymond Davis Jr., a chemist and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. This only rings a bell if one remembers the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad who got ratted out; Jonathan Banks, apparently another pseudonym, because web searches for the name yield websites related only to an American TV/film actor.

Read Complete Article Here: http://shemrez.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/07/6004187-an-american-goes-to-pakistan-the-raymond-davis-case

Death of the ‘Imam’

By Shemrez Nauman Afzal
ZoneAsia-Pk

Amir Sultan Tarar AKA Colonel Imam

Brigadier Retired Amir Sultan Tarar is suspected to have died in Taliban captivity, presumably because of cardiac arrest, but suspicions and conspiracy theories indicate that his captors, the Taliban, may have murdered him because of non-payment of ransom by his family. However, the official quarters including Military sources as well as the Frontier Corps are finding it hard to verify the reports saying they have no confirmed information in this regard.

“We have been told that his dead body has been seen near Danday Darpa Khel area in North Waziristan Agency, but the news could not be confirmed nor could we get any picture of the dead body of Colonel Imam”, a senior Army official told this scribe when contacted. Similar remarks were offered by the FC sources.

Read Complete Article Here: Death of the ‘Imam’

Intelligence Wars

By Ahsan Waheed
ZoneAsia-Pk

All of a sudden, Pakistan’s much maligned but powerful and professional intelligence agency, the ISI, is the flavor of the month. The reason is a law suit in the US against the agency for its ‘involvement’ in the Mumbai terrorist attack in which US citizens of the Jewish faith lost their lives. The government, the media and public opinion have come together like never before against this ‘outrage’; the ISI is being defended, protected and declared off limits for US courts. The US court – probably as a routine procedure – has issued a summons for the head of ISI to appear in the US court, though it would have been better if the law suit had been examined for viability – that is, unless a more sinister game is afoot.

Read Complete Article Here: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2966:intelligence-wars&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

US, Nato forces should eliminate terror bases in Afghanistan

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Tuesday linked regional peace to elimination of terrorism in Afghanistan, asking the Nato and US forces to uproot the bases of terrorists in the war-torn neighbouring country.

Speaking at a gathering at the Press Club here, the minister said the Awami National Party (ANP) had always advocated a political and peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis but there were certain foreign elements in Pakistan and Afghanistan that never responded positively to the peace initiatives in the region.

“Perpetual peace in the region is linked to complete tranquillity and harmony in Afghanistan,” he said, adding that a peaceful Afghanistan was a must for peaceful Pakistan, particularly for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal belt.

Mian Iftikhar said that some opportunists were out to weaken the democratic government but they would not succeed in their bid in the presence of an independent judiciary, free media and strong parliament.

“Our government still has reservations over the distribution of the US aid for the flood-hit areas under Kerry-Lugar Bill,” he said, adding that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was already suffering from militancy when the floods hit the province.

THE US EDGES CLOSER TO INVADING PAKISTAN

By: Eric Margolis

This writer has been warning for years that US and NATO efforts to defeat resistance to Western occupation by Afghanistan’s fierce Pashtun tribes would eventually lead to spreading the conflict into neighboring Pakistan, a nation of 175 million.

We’ve seen it all before in Vietnam. It was then called, “mission creep.”

The focus of the Afghan War is clearly shifting south into Pakistan, drawing that nation and the United States forces ever closer to a direct confrontation. This grim development was as predictable as it was inevitable.

This week’s fevered warnings from Washington of supposedly imminent terrorist attacks in Europe may be aimed at justifying intensifying US military operations against Pakistan. If attacks do come in Europe, they will most likely be linked to anti-French militant groups in North Africa and the Sahara – nothing at all to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Last week, Pakistan temporarily closed the main US/NATO supply route from Karachi to the Afghan border at Torkham after the killing of three Pakistani soldiers by US helicopter gunships. Three US/NATO fuel supply convoys were burned by anti-American militants.

Eighty percent of the supplies of the US-led forces in Afghanistan come up this long, difficult route. Along the way, the US pays large bribes to Pakistani officials, local warlords, and to Taliban. The cost of a gallon of gas delivered to US units in Afghanistan has risen to $800.

US helicopter gunships have staged at least four attacks on Pakistan this past week alone, in addition to the mounting number of strikes by CIA drones that are inflicting heavy casualties on civilians and tribal militants alike. US Special Forces and CIA-run Afghan mercenaries are also increasingly active along Pakistan’s northwest frontier.

Pakistan’s feeble, discredited government has long closed its eyes to CIA’s drone attacks. Washington does not even seek permission for the raids or give advance warning to Islamabad. Pakistan’s media claims over 90% of the casualties in US air raids are civilians.

The failing government in Islamabad is caught between two fires. Pakistanis are furious and humiliated by the American attacks. Each new assault further undermines the inept, US-installed Zardari government. Even Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the government’s strongman, protested last week’s US attacks.

But Pakistan is on the edge of economic collapse after its devastating floods. Islamabad is now totally reliant on $2 billion annual US aid, plus tens of millions more “black” payments from CIA. Washington has given Islamabad $10 billion since 2001, most of which goes to renting 140,000 Pakistani troops to support the US-led Afghan war. CIA also has 3,000 mercenaries operating inside Pakistan.

As Osama bin Laden just pointed out in a new audio tape, the Muslim nations have been derelict in coming to Pakistan’s aid. He blamed the massive flooding in Pakistan on global warming.

An influential former Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, just demanded Pakistan’s air force shoot down US drones and helicopters violating his nation’s sovereignty. His sentiments are widely shared in Pakistan’s increasingly angry military.

Pakistan’s senior generals are being blasted as “American stooges” by some of the media and are losing respect among Pakistanis. A video this week of the execution of six civilians by army troops has further damaged the army’s good name.

However, Washington’s view is very different. Pakistan is increasingly branded insubordinate, ungrateful for billions in aid, and a potential enemy of US regional interests. Many Americans consider Pakistan more of a foe than ally. The limited US financial response to Pakistan’s flood was a sign of that nation’s poor repute in North America.

Fears are growing in Washington and in Europe that the nine-year Afghan War may be lost. American popular opinion has turned against the war. The Pentagon fears a failure in Afghanistan will humiliate the US military and undermine America’s international power. In short, just what happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

America’s foreign policy establishment is venting its anger and frustration over the failing Afghan War by lashing out at Pakistan and, as well, the US-installed Karzai regime in Kabul.

Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, is seen in Washington as hopeless and incompetent. Full US attention is now on Pakistan’s military, the de facto government, and its respected but embattled commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, whose tenure was just extended under US pressure. Kayani is still regarded as an “asset” by Washington. But like Zardari, he is caught between American demands and outraged Pakistanis – plus concerns about the threat from India and Delhi’s machinations in Afghanistan. The recent upsurge of violence in Indian-ruled Kashmir has intensified these dangerous tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

The neoconservatives in Washington and their media allies again claim Pakistan is a grave threat to US interests and to Israel. Pakistan must be declawed and dismembered, insist the neocons. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is reportedly being targeted for seizure or elimination by US Special Forces.

There is also talk in Washington of dividing Afghanistan into Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek mini-states, as the US has done in Iraq, Could Pakistan be next for this divide and conquer treatment? Little states are easier to rule or intimidate than big ones. Many Pakistanis believe the United States is bent on dismembering their nation. Some polls show Pakistanis now regard the United States as a greater enemy than India.

Now that America is in full mid-term election frenzy, expect more calls for tougher US military action in “AfPak.” Already unpopular politicians are terrified of being branded “soft on terrorism” and failing to maximally support US military campaigns. Flag waving replaces sober thought.

If polls are right and Republicans achieve a major win, it’s likely there will be more and deeper US air and land attacks into Pakistan. The Pentagon is convinced it can still defeat resistance by Taliban and its allies “if only we can go after their sanctuaries in Pakistan,” as one general told me.

Where have we heard this before? Why in Cambodia and Laos, that’s where, during the Vietnam War. Frustrated US commanders expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos to go after Communist base camps. The war spread; these two small nations were largely destroyed, but the war was ultimately lost.

Victory in war is achieved by concentration of forces, not spreading them ever thinner and wider.

But our imperial generals seem determined to blunder into a nation of 175 million hostile people without any clear strategy. Unable to subdue the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan, they are now attacking the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan. America does not need more enemies.

(Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and other news sites in Asia.He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, Lew Rockwell and Big Eye. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC).

7 US troops, politician killed in Afghan unrest

KABUL (AFP) - Seven US soldiers and an election candidate have been killed in a wave of weekend attacks in Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, as President Hamid Karzai called for a rethink of Washington’s war strategy.

Two soldiers were killed Sunday in separate attacks, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

Five troops were killed in other militant violence in the south and east of the country, the areas hardest hit by the Taliban-led insurgency now reaching the end of its ninth and most deadly year.

A US military spokesman said all seven soldiers were US nationals.

Karzai told the visiting Norbert Lammert, president of the German parliament, that the counter-insurgency strategy must be rethought, according to a statement from Karzai’s office.

“Speaking about Afghanistan and regional security (Karzai) said that the strategy of the war on terrorism must be reassessed,” the statement said.

“The experience over the past years showed that fighting (Taliban) in Afghan villages has been ineffective and is not achieving anything but killing civilians.”

International troops have suffered escalating casualties as they step up the fight against a Taliban insurgency which has become increasingly deadly since the militants were ousted from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

The number of foreign soldiers killed in the war so far this year has now reached 472, compared with 521 who died during all of 2009, according to an AFP tally based on a count by the independent www.icasualties.org website.

Civilian casualties have also risen, but insurgents were responsible for over three quarters of the 1,271 deaths and 1,997 people wounded in the first six months of this year, according to a UN report this month.

About 141,000 US and NATO troops are deployed in Afghanistan to fight the insurgency and protect Karzai’s US-backed government.

The country is due to hold its second post-Taliban parliamentary elections on September 18 amid fears that insurgent attacks might disrupt the vote.

Candidate Abdul Manan, running for a seat in the western province of Herat, was shot dead Saturday in an attack blamed on the militants.

The Taliban are accused of being responsible for the deaths of two other candidates since the launch of the election campaign in early July.

Police Sunday also found the bodies of five members of the campaign team of female candidate Fawzya Galani, days after 10 of them were abducted.

The Taliban had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in Herat province on Wednesday.

“We have found five of the abducted members of Ms. Galani’s campaign team. They were dumped on the side of a mountain,” said Nisar Ahmad Popal, the chief of Adrskan district, where the bodies were found.

“We don’t know where the other five are,” he said.

Police in the northern province of Faryab meanwhile said four women working for a local group treating drug addicts were snatched by gunmen on Saturday. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Andarabi blamed the abduction on “armed opposition groups”, a term used for the Taliban and other militants.

ISAF said eight civilians were also killed in a wave of attacks on Saturday including a suicide bombing.

NATO troops backed by Afghan security forces killed up to 15 insurgents in a battle in the eastern province of Paktia late on Saturday, ISAF said.

Separately, police on Sunday shot dead two suicide bombers as they headed towards the office of the governor of Farah province in the southwest.

The violence follows an attempt by a Taliban suicide bomber squad on Saturday to storm two US-run military bases in the eastern province of Khost. The US-led military said 30 rebels, 13 of them wearing suicide vests, staged the failed attacks on the bases, in which all were killed during gunbattles.

Violence has picked up in recent months as the Taliban insurgency has gathered pace in the face of a troop “surge” by international forces.

Reflections on India

By Sean Paul Kelley

If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India’s four major problems-the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation-and then move to some of the ancillary ones.

First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality.Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum-the capital of Kerala-and Calicut. I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.) More after the jump.

The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old,if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.

The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.

I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia-and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!

One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.

Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America.

Pakistan has better delivery system: US

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: Pakistan doesn’t only have more warheads and fissile material than India but also better delivery systems for such weapons, says a report by the Federation of American Scientists.

Pakistan, in comparison to India, has always been ahead in warheads, fissile material and delivery systems: FAS report.-Photo by Reuters

“As far as I can gauge, apart from nuclear testing where India started first, Pakistan has always been a little ahead in warheads, fissile material and delivery systems,” says Hans M. Kristensen, director of the FAS nuclear information project. FAS was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan project to develop the first atomic bombs.

Later, they dedicated themselves to informing public policy-makers of potential dangers from scientific and technological advances. In his latest write-up for FAS, Mr Kristensen observes that neither India nor Pakistan could claim any nuclear moral high ground.

“Both are increasing their nuclear arsenals, both are producing more fissile material for nuclear weapons, and both are diversifying the means to deliver nuclear weapons and extending their range,” he says.

He notes that the two countries are now at a warhead level about equal to that of Israel (80 warheads). But whereas it took Israel 40 years to reach that level, India and Pakistan have done so in only 12 years, and they’re apparently not done yet. Mr Kristensen is also co-author of the ‘Nuclear Notebook’ column in the ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’, which claims to be the most accurate source of information on nuclear weapons and weapon facilities available to the public.

Mr Kristensen says that Indian and Pakistani security will be served better by trying soon to define just how big a nuclear force is sufficient for minimum deterrence. He urges both to engage in “prudent planning” to avoid taking their nuclear arsenals to a new and more dangerous level.

“Although neither government wants to say so publicly, India and Pakistan are in effect in a nuclear arms race. It might not be of the intensity of the Cold War arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, but it is a race nonetheless for capability and systems,” he warns.

Separately, Mr Kristensen and a fellow researcher Robert Norris have also published a report, saying that apparently India has assembled 60-80 warheads and produced enough fissile material for 60-105 warheads.

Pakistan is estimated to have assembled 70-90 warheads and has produced fissile material for 90 warheads.

The report, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945-2010″, published in the latest edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, notes that the majority of India’s and Pakistan’s warheads are not yet operationally deployed. But both countries continue to increase their stockpiles.

According to the report, of the roughly 22,400 intact nuclear warheads dispersed across the nine nuclear-armed nations, roughly 8,000 are operational to some degree.Roughly 1,880 weapons are on alert: 960 in Russia, 810 in the United States, 64 in France and 48 in the United Kingdom, according to the report.

The US Defence Department is believed to hold 2,468 operational warheads and 2,600 stockpiled weapons. Between 3,500 and 4,500 US warheads are slated for disassembly by 2022 at the Pantex Plant in Texas.

Russia is believed to possess around 12,000 intact warheads, with roughly 4,650 strategic and tactical weapons in operation, according to the report.

Britain has about 225 warheads for delivery by Trident 2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles aboard Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

The British government, however, says that ‘fewer than 160′ of the warheads are operationally available, and only one ballistic-missile submarine with up to 48 warheads is on patrol at any given time.

France maintains a stockpile of roughly 300 nuclear warheads, with the great majority if not all on operational status.
The report notes that a large portion of China’s strategic nuclear arsenal is intended for “regional use”.

The report, however, points out that the status of a Chinese non-strategic nuclear arsenal is uncertain, and China’s deployed warheads are not thought to be fully operational (that is, mated with delivery systems).

China holds additional warheads in storage, for a total stockpile of approximately 240 warheads.Israel, which has neither acknowledged nor denied keeping nuclear weapons, held around 80 warheads. The nation could possess enough nuclear-weapon material for use in 115-190 warheads.

North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and generated enough plutonium for use in eight to 12 weapons, but the nation has not proven to date that it has fully incorporated the material into usable bombs.