How Pakistanis See US Afghan Strategy

By Stratfor

The White House on Thursday released an overview of the much awaited Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama last year as a National Security Staff (NSS)-led assessment of the war effort. Perhaps the most significant (and expected) aspect of the report is the extent to which the success of the American strategy relies on cooperation from Pakistan. The report acknowledges recent improvement in U.S.-Pakistani coordination in the efforts to bring closure to the longest war in U.S. history, but also points out there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of Pakistani assistance.

Indeed, this is an issue that has been at the heart of the tensions between the two allies since the beginning of the war. However, the United States – now more than ever before – needs Pakistan to offer its best, given that Washington has deployed the maximum amount of human and material resources to the war effort that it can feasibly allocate. To what extent such assistance will be forthcoming is a function of how Islamabad is looking at the war.

From the Pakistani point of view, this war has been extremely disastrous. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 to deny al Qaeda its main sanctuary led to the spillover of the war into Pakistan. Al Qaedas relocation east of the Durand Line forced Islamabad to side with Washington against the Afghan Taliban and laid the foundation for the Talibanization of Pakistan.

Any Pakistani effort to effectively counter this threat is dependent upon the U.S. strategy on the other side of the border. Just as the United States is dealing with a very difficult situation where it has no good options, Pakistan is also caught in a dilemma. There are two broad and opposing views among the Pakistani stakeholders in regard to what the United States should do that, in turn, would also serve Pakistani interests.

On one hand are those who argue that the longer U.S. and NATO forces remain in Pakistan’s western neighbor the longer the wars will continue to rage on both sides of the border. The thinking is that since there is no military solution, Western forces should seek a negotiated settlement and exit as soon as possible. Once a settlement takes place in Afghanistan, Pakistan will be in a better position to neutralize its own Taliban rebellion and restore security on its side of the border.

Yet there are those who – while they accept that a continued presence of foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan will continue to fuel the jihadist fire – are more concerned about the ramifications of a premature withdrawal of Western forces. The fear is that a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan will only galvanize jihadists on the Pakistani side. At a time when it is struggling to re-establish its writ on its side of the border, Islamabad is certainly not in a position to exert the kind of influence in Afghanistan it once was able to in the pre-9/11 years.

In other words, an exit of foreign forces from Afghanistan will not restore the old arrangement. Islamabad is therefore in uncharted waters. What the Pakistanis hope for is some form of negotiated settlement that will help restore some semblance of security on their western periphery and allow for some measure of influence in a post-NATO Afghanistan. How to get from the current situation to that endgame state is quite opaque and what lies beyond is fraught with uncertainty, given the destabilization that has taken place in the last five years. What makes this situation even more problematic for the Pakistanis is that they feel that they are not the only ones who are without options. Their benefactor, the United States, is in the same boat.

AIPAC ORDERED BUSH TO ATTACK IRAN

By: Gardon Duff

In a unique interview with an official at the highest policy levels of the Pentagon, White House and, eventually, CIA, we are offered a unique “behind the curtains” look at areas of policy making during the period between 1999 and 2007. Extensive notes have been taken of meetings with President Bush and all his top policy advisors. This is only a teaser.

A highly placed source within the White House and CIA confirmed, in an interview, that the invasion of Iran was sheduled for 2006 but planned in 1999. We have heard some of this before but not with so many pieces and, I am told, more to

WHITE HOUSE INSIDERS PLAN WAR ON TERROR

come. In an interview with a Bush administration policy official:

Q. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your work at the White House? You have read my articles, what do you think of my take on things?

A. You are closer than anyone else in understanding how things worked, the only person willing to simply put it out there. You also come at things like the Pentagon people I have worked with, the ones who stood against Bush, Cheney and the AIPAC gang at the NSC (National Security Council.) I can also see that you don’t have background material that you need. Some of it you have wrong, particularly the motives for Iraq. It was always Iran, Iraq was simply a door.

“The Iraq invasion was a ‘done deal’ in 1999, but not as you thought to steal oil and bilk billions, that was all gravy. Iraq, the entire Bush presidency, had one purpose, to remove Iran from the picture.”

Q. You talk about journalists. What has your experience been?

A. I have good friends at the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Washington Post and others. They know all of this. They aren’t fooled. They could write anything but it would never hit print.

Q. Back to the 2000 election. The first impediment was, I am told, removing John McCain from the picture. Was this the case?

READ ABOUT SEX, LIES AND VIDEO TAPE, 9/11, IRAQ AND NEOCON AMERICA

A. “He was enemy # 1, stubborn, unpredictable and already tarnished by the Keating 5 scandal, with all his faults, he didn’t have the serous skeletons in his closet that would fit the bill. McCain couldn’t be blackmailed like Bush, thus McCain is a risk. Unless you can be controlled, blackmailed or bought or both, you will go nowhere in Washington.

McCain is a womanizer, the real thing. For a war hero, with McCain’s charm that’s nothing, he would never fall into the kind of trap Clinton did. Rove was assigned the job of getting rid of McCain. We all saw what was done in South Carolina. It was a masterful job.”

Q. When you talk about McCain not being vulnerable, he certainly was in South Carolina, a few rumors and smears and he was gone. You say Bush is more vulnerable?

A. “A window into a lot of this can be found in the Rosen-AIPAC lawsuit. Bush has serious issues, let’s just leave it at that.

As for Rosen, he just wasn’t an AIPAC lobbyist, he sat inside the National Security Council until 2005 as the Rand Corporation’s Director of Foreign Policy. When the press talks about an AIPAC employee and spying, he didn’t join AIPAC until later, after his arrest.

The FBI investigation and his indictement for spying covered a time when he was at the center of the Bush administration, a key policy formulator at the highest levels of government. Rosen, indicted in 2004 for spying for Israel, was responsible for formulating American policy in the Middle East and largely responsible for the fate of the Palestinian people, a bit of a conflict of interest for an Israeli lobbyist and accused spy.”

Q. Rosen has made some accusations, says AIPAC spies all the time and that they do nothing but watch pornography there. You worked with this guy, what do you know?

A. “Rosen has dirt on absolutely everyone. His divorce depositions are fascinating reading. They are sealed now but there are copies out there. I know that reporters at Time Magazine have them, others too. The FBI has tons, they were after Rosen for years. As for AIPAC, Rosen told me of their spy operations many times, but nobody needed telling, they were more than obvious to all of us.

Q. You talk about Rosen and his “black book,” that he has dirt on “everyone.” The news stories mentioned only porn. That doesn’t sound so serious. Dirt, not just porn, what kind of dirt?

A. “Mostly sex stuff, gay bondage, clubs, expense money being spent on sex, liasons in public restrooms, that kind of thing. Many of the key people around the president are involved and there is FBI surveillance, massive amounts of it, photographs, videos, and one or more undercover informants recorded conversations with top National Security Council members. Spying, nuclear secrets passed to Israel, this was common place.

I witnessed, with two others, the top Bush counter-terrorism official, actally primary advisor to Bush on counter-terrorism, who had served Clinton and others, pass nuclear weapons plans to an Israeli agent, like it was nothing.”

Q. Did the FBI know about this?

A. “For years, FBI agents, I have a list of names, worked to stop this. Then I learned that the Department of Justice killed the prosecution, Rosen’s lasted into the Obama administration before it was dropped. Witnesses were threatened with prosecution and the guilty, the spies, were allowed to keep doing what they are doing. This is what Rosen knows and what he is talking about when he says AIPAC was involved in spying. It isn’t just that AIPAC is said to receive information it is that it came from top administration officials.”

Q. Let’s get back to the sex thing. How high up does it go?

A. “One famous joke around the NSC, there was a photo of someone kissing Laura Bush on the cheek and shaking hands with President Bush. The same person had, not that long before, using those same lips and hands in a men’s restroom.”

Q. What do you know about 9/11?

A. “9/11 was planned as early as 1999 or before, to be executed as soon as the Bush team was in place. One meeting in April 2001, a meeting outlining the invasion of Iraq, may have been the green light.’ Chalibi was in place early on, from day number one. I remember telling them he was a known crook, totally disreputable and that things in Iraq would fall apart immediately. Nobody in the National Security Council ever spoke about what they would do once Saddam was overthrown. Nobody really seemed to care.

Of course, none of those people have real experience with military issues or, in fact, much of anything else.”

Q. How was the Iran invasion supposed to work?

A. “This is where so many have it wrong. In fact, there was never serous discussion about terrorism or Al Qaeda or bin Laden. These things weren’t even a sideshow. The only talk about any of it was how it could be used to justify going into Iraq and then attacking Iran.

Q. The intel on Iraq, we all know it was wrong. When was that learned?

A. “The administration didn’t believe false intelligence, it created it, order it in place before the election to be ready for, well I guess, 9/11. Silencing Plame and Joe Wilson, those were the same people who planned the creation of the phony intelligence. There was never a discussion of a serious terrorist threat against the United States. These guys would have fallen off their chairs laughing themselves to death. It was all a joke to them, 9/11, the Iraq invasion, all of it.”

Q. Back to Iran, how was the invasion to start?

A. “Everything was going to happen in Bahrain. Plans were to attack Americans, blow up clubs, restaurants. There were plans to stage a “Tonkin Gulf’ type attack and blame it on Iranian torpedo boats. Guys in the military were aware of this and there was strong opposition. Marine Colonel Joe Molofsky was the real hero here. He did more to scramble administration plans than anyone else, Molofky and General Mattis. These were really straight shooters, how I learned to trust the Marine Corps.

The government there, their security services, I believe they were deeply involved. It would have been good to see something about this in Wikileaks.”

Q. You said that war had to start by 2006. Was there a timetable?

A. “Absolutely. General Petraeus was sent to Iraq to quiet things down, not to win a war or create a lasting peace, nothing like that. His job was to shut things down so an operation against Iran could be staged from Iraq.”

Q. But that never got off the ground…

A. “No kidding, and Bush was enranged. It was the only reason he was put in office in the first place, as long as Iran survived, he was a failure, no matter what happened to the US.”

Q. Didn’t they know that war with Iran would have driven oil to $300 a barrel and collapsed the American economy?

A. “There were never briefings on that like there were never briefings on stabilizing Iraq. Nobody cared, nobody noticed and it was never discussed. It was really all about Iran and orders came in and people did what they were told like good little soldiers.”

Q. Orders? From where?

A. “All of it, all foreign policy issues, were out of AIPAC, they ran everything in the Bush adminsitration. That was the whole point of it. We never were told why we had to destroy Iran only that it had to be done. Nobody ever asked why. Nobody ever believed Iran had a credible nuclear program and, eventually, we were all very certain they never would. There was never an issue about Iran being a threat or not. There was never an issue of motive of any kind. These were orders, plain and simple, the administration that will come into office in 2001 will be tasked with destroying Iran, tasked by AIPAC who will control all key position in the administration.”

Q. Was there talk about Lebanon and the threat of Hizbollah?

A. “There really weren’t talks at all, only planning on how to follow policy, never on what policy should be or what was right or wrong. There was never a discussion about the United States, what was good for America or bad for America. People were generally oblivious to there being an America.”

Will Congress Ban Civilian Terrorist Trials?

BY: MASSIMO CALABRESI

Some observers viewed the single guilty verdict against the Tanzania Embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani last week as the death knell for civilian trials for terrorism suspects. Opponents of trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his co-conspirators in Article III courts declared civilian trials too dangerous after the jury convicted Ghailani on just one of 285 criminal counts.

In fact, the damage to civilian terrorism trials from the Ghailani verdict has been limited. The administration is avoiding the costly political fight that would come with trying to put top al Qaeda figures on trial, but is pursuing lower level civilian terrorist trials. And the effort to permanently outlaw all civilian trials–or even just those for top al Qaeda figures–seems to be going nowhere on Capitol Hill.

After Holder announced that KSM would get an Article III trial in Manhattan nearly a year ago, pretty much every politician in New York turned against the idea. In response, Holder quietly put KSM’s trial into suspended animation. The administration tried for months to find an alternate location for a civilian trial, but was everywhere rebuffed by members of Congress and local political figures in the New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia .

“The only place that made sense in the end would be Washington, which has no representatives,” says one supporter of civilian trials on Capitol Hill. But trying KSM in DC would require a legislative fix, since no 9/11 crimes were committed here. Things haven’t improve much for the administration recently. New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo came out against a KSM trial anywhere in New York State earlier this month.

The President and the Attorney General still support the idea of broadly using civilian trials to handle terrorism suspects, DoJ and White House officials say, because they think the trials are more effective than military tribunals and because they want to protect the power of the judiciary. And they haven’t given up on civilian trials for the 9/11 conspirators.

Their strategy is to proceed with lower-level civilian trials, building a track record of success for them, DoJ and other administration officials say. Down the road, the optimists hope, the political environment will change.

The Ghailani verdict didn’t exactly help that effort, but it didn’t kill it either. Those who want to permanently outlaw civilian trials for terrorists, or even just for 9/11 plotters, don’t seem to be moving ahead with plans to do so. An amendment to block civilian trials for the 9/11 co-conspirators has languished on the Hill for months, but its author, Lindsey Graham, has no current plans to introduce it, his office says. “It’s still hanging out there,” says his spokesman Kevin Bishop.

If he wanted to, Graham could try to move the amendment in the Senate’s lame duck session after Thanksgiving. The House has already included an explicit ban on the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States contained in the must-pass defense authorization bill. The Senate doesn’t have a bill yet, but it is one of the few things that may get done before this Congress concludes business in December.

The administration is watching Graham closely. But DoJ officials point to ongoing civilian terrorist trials, like those of underpants bomber Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab and subway bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi, as evidence that the rhetoric surrounding Ghailani doesn’t reflect political reality.

How Bush and Blair plotted in secret to stop Brown

Tony Blair attempted to prolong his time as prime minister after he was warned that George W Bush’s US administration had “grave doubts” about Gordon Brown’s suitability to follow him into No10, well placed sources have revealed.

Patrick Hennessy and Andrew Alderson

Mr Blair was told that President Bush and those around him would have ‘big problems’ working with Mr Brown

The White House warnings, which were reiterated by other leading US-based figures, played a key role in Mr Blair’s attempt to cling on to power until at least 2008, and to groom David Miliband as his successor, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Mr Blair hatched his plot to stay on longer than planned after being told that President Bush and those around him would have “big problems” working with Mr Brown.

Senior officials in the US administration sounded the alert after a meeting between Mr Brown and Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s secretary of state, in which Mr Brown “harangued” her over American policy on aid, development and Africa.

After the uncomfortable session, sources said she reported her misgivings to the White House, and they were sent on in turn to Mr Blair.

After taking the warnings on board, Mr Blair signalled his intention to stay on at No 10 until at least 2008, the year of the US election to choose a successor to Mr Bush.

However, he was forced to abandon this plan following a “coup” led by Mr Brown’s supporters. Mr Brown eventually became prime minister in June 2007 and pursued a foreign policy that was far more independent of America than Mr Blair’s had been.

The “understanding” between Mr Bush and Mr Blair was revealed to The Sunday Telegraph by well-placed Whitehall sources. However, the former prime minister’s spokesman last night denied that a “message” had been sent.

One source said: “This at last answers the question of why Tony Blair tried so hard to stay on: the Americans were far from happy about the imminent succession of Gordon Brown. They left him in no doubt about that.”

Mr Blair is to address this sequence of events in his keenly awaited memoir, A Journey, which will be published this week. However, ahead of publication, this newspaper has pieced together the central narrative of his final years in power.

The fact that Mr Blair acted on US warnings over his likely successor will dismay many in the Labour party who were deeply unhappy about Mr Blair’s readiness to back Mr Bush at all times, particularly over the decision to wage war with Iraq in 2003.

Following the meeting with Miss Rice, Mr Brown’s advisers were convinced that Mr Blair was starting to groom Mr Miliband, the then environment secretary, as his successor. They were particularly enraged when Mr Blair described Mr Miliband in an interview as “my Wayne Rooney”.

However, Mr Blair also played what Brown allies now see as a “double game”, warning the then chancellor that he needed to adopt a different attitude towards senior American politicians.

Mr Miliband, who failed to challenge Mr Brown for the top job in 2007, will this week step up his campaign to become Labour’s leader. He will tell a rally of 1,000 supporters in London tomorrow that under him the party would be a “living, breathing movement for change in every community”.

In the summer of 2006, Mr Blair’s trip to America was widely seen to be his US swansong. It included a meeting with Mr Bush in Washington. However, on his return his allies noticed a new-found determination to stay on at No 10. In the late summer he gave a notorious interview in which he denied any plan to leave office any time soon.

It was this, along with what was seen in Labour circles as an”unacceptable” refusal to condemn Israel for its attack on Lebanon, that sparked the coup that forced him to name his departure date.

A senior Labour source said: “After Condi Rice met Gordon for the first time she complained to the White House about the way he behaved. No 10 suddenly starting getting these messages from the White House that there were grave doubts about the desirability of Gordon taking over. It wasn’t just the White House either, it was other people based in the US, business leaders, people like that.”

Mr Blair is expected to use his book to launch a passionate justification of going to war with Iraq and to speak warmly of Mr Bush. He is likely also to spell out his regret that he did not move faster to reform public services in Britain, often in the face of opposition from Mr Brown.

As well as political disclosures, the Royal family is waiting with great interest to see what the former prime minister writes about his relationship with the Queen, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The Sunday Telegraph disclosed three years ago that, according to friends, the Queen had been left “exasperated and frustrated” at the legacy of Tony Blair’s decade in power.

The monarch had become “deeply concerned” by many of New Labour’s policies, in particular what she saw as Downing Street’s lack of understanding of countryside issues, her closest confidants reported.

However, Royal sources said this weekend that the Queen and Mr Blair had always had a good working relationship at their weekly private audiences and that he was always “charming” towards her.

Mr Blair will not be in Britain on Wednesday for the launch of his book, the proceeds of which are being donated to the Royal British Legion. Instead he will attend a high-level White House dinner hosted by Barack Obama and with a guest list including Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Mr Blair will pre-record an interview with Andrew Marr, to be screened on the BBC on Wednesday.

Obama removes ‘Islamic extremism’ term from strategy document

AP

The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.

President Obama speaks at the White House in Washington March 26. (Reuters Photo)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s advisers will remove religious terms such as “Islamic extremism” from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.”

Can Washington please grow up?

By John Hughes

Provo, Utah: America is one of the most stirring examples of democracy in action anywhere on the globe. But the way our legislators behave, it is no wonder some non-Americans find it totally perplexing.

Take the current political situation in Washington: Barack Obama ran his winning presidential election campaign on a platform of “change.” His Democratic supporters roared back: “Yes, we can.”

His Republican opponents ran their campaign on a sort of “We-too-can-change” platform. Their supporters murmured back: “Yes, we hope you can, but not too fast.”

Centrist independents, who now hold the balance of power between the two traditional parties, and who after a year into the new presidential term had hoped for bipartisanship and unity in the face of crisis, must be mighty disappointed.

The Democrats, after trying to rush an improbably comprehensive liberal agenda into being in Year 1 of President Obama’s term, have found out that “No, they can’t.”

The Republicans, after losing the White House and both Houses of Congress, have determined that their attitude toward anything the spendthrift Democratic majority in Congress proposes will be “No, you won’t.” The strategy apparently is to block Democratic-initiated programs with the hope that disillusioned voters will return a Republican majority to Congress later this year, and even hobble Obama’s bid for reelection. The danger for Republicans is that disaffected voters might blame the Republicans more for disruption than the Democrats for lack of accomplishment.

Much of the electorate is left fuming over (a) millions of jobs lost, (b) a mind-boggling national debt their children and grandchildren will be left paying off, (c) big bank presidents awarded annual salaries in the multimillions for questionable performance, and (d) a political logjam in Washington.

The national mood is not helped by cable TV commentators of the more lurid character suggesting that the administration is leading the country to Armageddon, or senior White House officials terming those who disagree with them “retarded.”

As has been traditional over the years, US political parties, both in and out of power, have tended to be more supportive of incumbent presidents on foreign policy than domestic policy. It is generally considered bad form to display disunity on foreign policy to foreign audiences, but acceptable to be in disarray on domestic challenges at home.

In sending more troops to Afghanistan, Obama is largely following President Bush’s war policy. His tough talk on Al Qaeda and terrorism meets with support from most Americans. He has escaped serious criticism on questionable handling of the closure of Guantánamo defense facility, on interrogation of the Christmas Day bomber, and the now-abandoned plan to try key Al Qaeda terrorists in courts a stone’s throw from the scene of the 9/11 disaster. Perhaps it is because his attorney-general, Eric Holder, is seen to have been the initiator of such moves.

While Obama’s Cairo and Istanbul “outreach” speeches to the Muslim world were well crafted and well received, his outstretched hand has yet to be gripped by the Arab world, or by difficult non-Arab clients like North Korea and Iran, to which he has also similarly offered engagement. North Korea already has developed nuclear-capable weaponry and Iran has proven rocket capability, with the ability to produce a nuclear warhead not far behind.

North Korea has proved adept at fending off US, European, and Chinese attempts to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Iran, a traditional wily negotiator, must surely have been impressed by North Korea’s example and probably hopes to emulate it.

Though China is America’s banker, its relationship with the Obama administration is prickly as it seeks recognition as a world power.

In these and other international challenges, Obama counts on bilateral support at home. It would be helpful if Republicans and Democrats could achieve similar bilateral concord on the serious domestic challenges facing the nation.

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, writes a biweekly column.

Indian role in Afghanistan needs to be spelt out: US

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: The United States urged India on Wednesday to be transparent with Pakistan about their activities in Afghanistan.

In a report sent to the White House in September, Gen Stanley McChrystal, who commands US and Nato force in Afghanistan, warned that “increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures.” – File photo

At a briefing at the Pentagon, spokesman Geoff Morrell also discounted Indian role in training Afghan security forces.

The Pentagon press secretary said that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had discussed the Afghan situation with Indian leaders, including the issues that concerned Pakistan, when he visited New Delhi last week.

“We did discuss Afghanistan with the government in Delhi and discussed the need for the Indian government to be as transparent as they can be with the Pakistani government about their activities in Afghanistan,” he said.

Asked if the United States would like India to train Afghan security forces, Mr Morrell said that the international community was not contemplating any such role for India.

“They clearly have contributed much in the monetary sense, financial support to the government in Afghanistan and that is greatly appreciated by us, by the Afghans and, I think, by the international community,” said the Pentagon spokesman.

“But beyond that, I think, you saw him (Secretary Gates) speak to this talk of perhaps the Indians providing training to Afghan forces. And that is not something that we, that I think, anybody is pursuing at this point.”

Secretary Gates told reporters in New Delhi last week that India and Pakistan had deep suspicious about each other’s activities in Afghanistan and stressed the need for “full transparency”.

Pakistan complains that India is using its influence in Afghanistan to stir trouble in Balochistan and had also provided weapons and financial assistance to the militants in Fata.

Islamabad also sees India’s strong presence in Afghanistan as a threat to its own security, fearing that New Delhi is trying to bring pressure on Pakistan from both its eastern and western borders.

Initially, US policy-makers ignored Islamabad’s complaints. Instead, they continued to remind Pakistani officials that the militants, and not India, were their main enemy and they should focus on fighting the militants.

But attitudes in Washington began to change after a realisation that US efforts to persuade Pakistan to stop fearing India had not worked. In recent congressional hearings such senior US military officials as Admiral Mike Mullen and Gen David Petraeus admitted that Washington needed to be receptive to Islamabad’s concerns.

In a report sent to the White House in September, Gen Stanley McChrystal, who commands US and Nato force in Afghanistan, warned that “Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan” and “the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian”.

The general also warned that “increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures”.

The McChrystal report also noted: “Stability in Pakistan is essential, not only in its own right, but also to enable progress in Afghanistan. While the existence of safe havens in Pakistan doesn’t guarantee ISAF failure, Afghanistan does require Pakistani cooperation and action against violent militancy, particularly against those groups active in Afghanistan.”

Kudos for ‘stuffy’ Canada

by Eric Margolis

Some things we learned in 2009:

The global recession that began in America in 2008 was triggered by run amok speculation, failure of government supervision, and massive fraud by accounting and credit rating agencies. The global banking system was within hours of total collapse.

America’s and Britain’s economies were artificially juiced up and distorted by the narcotic of cheap, easy credit. Both are now experiencing painful withdrawal from credit addiction. It’s an ugly sight. Their leaders still call for more massive debt to supposedly cure the disaster caused by too much debt. “Stuffy,” cautious Canada emerged with flying colours.

The financial fraud that ignited the worst recession since the 1930s began under the Clinton administration, then ran rampant during George W. Bush’s two terms. Federal regulators, the media, Congress and U.S. presidents were suborned by Wall Street. Finance became America’s leading industry. Parasitism replaced production.

Millions are out of work. America is crushed by trillions in debt. U.S. global power has taken a staggering beating. Yet the perpetrators of this biggest crime in modern U.S. history and the politicians that allowed it to occur remain unpunished. Wall Street churns obscene, government-financed profits while small investors lost billions. The big money houses should have been broken up by federal trust busters.

President Barack Obama does not walk on water. To worldwide disappointment, his foreign policy is floundering. Obama’s promise to solve the Mideast mess, America’s largest overseas headache, was scorned by Israel, which refused to stop colonizing Palestinian land. Israel made Obama look like a weakling and amateur, and clearly not in command of U.S. Mideast policy.

Those who hoped the U.S. would change course under Obama to play a positive, co-operative, non-imperial role in world affairs were profoundly dismayed.

We see continued occupation of Iraq, the expanded, trillion-dollar war in Afghanistan, military operations in Somalia, West Africa, and now Yemen. The White House stonewalled on releasing torture documents, failed to prosecute the Bush-era’s torturers and kidnappers, and refused to end domestic surveillance. And there have been continued violations of the Geneva Convention.

Military spending has risen from $667 billion US under Bush to $734 billion under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama. Add $49.8 billion more for intelligence. The U.S. is bankrupt and living on credit from China.

But Washington’s national security juggernaut keeps rolling on.

Pakistan is fast becoming a huge, very dangerous problem. Its isolated, corrupt, U.S.-backed government in Islamabad is crumbling. The Afghan war is spreading into Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal zones.

The Pentagon can’t wage war in Afghanistan without total Pakistani cooperation. But 95% of Pakistanis oppose the U.S.-led war. Their nation of 168 million seems about to erupt into truly dangerous chaos while India considers deeper intervention in Afghanistan.

Washington’s $15 billion effort to buy its way out of trouble in Pakistan won’t work. Obama has truly stuck his head in the proverbial hornet’s nest. He could have withdrawn it, but chose, instead, to go deeper. The president has only himself and his neocon advisors to blame.

What he and we should have learned is that waging wars without clear strategic or political purpose in the middle of nowhere is a fool’s errand, and a very dangerous, expensive one. Afghanistan, graveyard of empires, may also become the graveyard of Obama’s presidency.

As worldwide concern over environmental pollution grows, our dirtiest secret — the pain and terror we inflict on animals — is beginning to be exposed thanks to animal rights groups.

Over fifty billion animals are slaughtered annually around the globe; 10 billion in the U.S., and 650 million in Canada. Most suffer terribly in industrial pens and hideously cruel slaughter factories hidden from public view. Our mistreatment of animals and factory farming will be one of the next big issues facing the world’s conscience. Shamefully, Canada is a major abuser of animals through sealing, trapping, hunting and factory farming.

The European Union leads the world in humane treatment of animals. We should emulate their civilized lead.

Pentagon reviewing strategic information operations

By Walter Pincus
Sunday, December 27, 2009

Trying to counter information-savvy enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has rapidly spent nearly $1 billion in the past three years on strategic communications.

After Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had difficulty learning about strategic communications plans, he ordered that it be studied as part of the Quadrennial Defense Review. (Justin Sullivan/associated Press)

Paid-for news articles, billboards, radio and television programs, and even polls and focus groups have been sponsored by the U.S. Central Command, which has raised its spending for information operations programs from $40 million in 2008 to $110 million in 2009 to a requested $244 million in 2010.

But when Congress asked this year what the Defense Department across the services and commands proposed spending for strategic communications — or information operations as it is often called — in the fiscal 2010 budget, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates found that no one could say because there was no central coordination. The first answer came back at $1 billion, but that was later changed to $626 million.

As a result, Gates has multiple studies underway to get a firmer grip over the individual military services’ plans for strategic communications next year, according to Pentagon officials.

“Just what is the DoD [Defense Department] role?” is one of the questions Gates is asking as part of the department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, according to a senior defense official, authorized to speak only on the condition of anonymity. In a more basic sense, the defense secretary also wants a definition of just what is strategic communications.

Increasing interest in strategic communications across the government has led the White House to hold biweekly interagency meetings to coordinate activities of the Defense and State departments as well as of the intelligence agencies. “It’s an effort that brings together all the actors across government with equity in strategic communications,” according to a senior administration official who would only discuss the matter only on the condition of anonymity. “It is a rapidly developing field of endeavor,” the official said, adding that proactive planning for the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater is underway, marrying experts in the area with strategic information specialists. “Based on data, people are working on the best way to get our message across, whether through radio, television or some other means.”

Beginning in Iraq and expanding to Afghanistan, Pentagon officials have awarded multimillion-dollar contracts under the labels of strategic communications or information operations that in the past had been the purview of the State Department’s public diplomacy section.

“The department’s leadership has only recently become aware of the variety, scope and magnitude of funding associated with these programs across the services and at all levels within the combat commands,” according to the report of the House-Senate conferees on the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill that passed Congress on Dec. 19.

As a result, the conferees cut $100 million from information operations, including $20 million from the Central Command request. An additional $50 million was cut from the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which has been at the forefront of information operations.

It was SOCOM, in association with the U.S. European Command, that started a publicly available Web site now run by the Africa Command that provides news in Arabic, French and English on the Magreb region in North Africa. The Defense Department’s sponsorship is not readily apparent, though it is acknowledged if you go to the “disclaimer” or “about us” sections at the bottom of the home page.

It took eight months to get approval for the site several years ago, according to the senior administration official. Since then, he added, “there has been positive feedback . . . though it’s realized such an approach is not appropriate in all areas.” Nonetheless, SOCOM recently put out a contract for preparation of contingency Web sites for other countries or areas in which the United States may operate.

“The Congress has a need for better budget justification and execution documentation for congressional oversight of information operations program funds,” the conferees said in their report. They ordered the Defense Department comptroller to submit a report on strategic communications and information operations 30 days after President Obama submits his budget proposal to Congress in January.

The State Department is also stepping up its output, although it does not have the Pentagon’s resources. Judith A. McHale, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, described in a recent interview how the president’s Cairo speech in June was “almost instantly translated into 14 languages, posted on Web sites and blogs around the world, transmitted by text message to mobile phones in more than 170 countries and discussed on social networks that span the globe.”

But as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in October in discussing her department’s public diplomacy activities, particularly in Pakistan: “This is going to take time. You know, this is not something you can fix in a news cycle or by just snapping your fingers and asking people to believe you. . . . And I was frankly quite surprised that we had not done much of this in an effective manner. But we’re going to remedy that.”

Where is the Indispensibility?

Tariq Fatemi | December 01, 2009

The Obama White House’s first state guest was the Indian Prime Minister, which was not surprising given that India is the big success story of the post-Cold war era that appears destined for an increasingly important global role.

Dr. Manmohan Singh represents a democracy of over a billion people, but having to point this out betrayed the underlying unease with which Delhi views the Obama Administration. Also his claim that both countries share common values that include a strong attachment to human rights must surely be seen against the well documented atrocities that half a million Indian troops have been committing in Kashmir.

For India, it was important to know where exactly it stood on Obama’s radar screen of foreign policy priorities, especially after the Bush Administration’s romance, which was driven primarily by the Neocon ideologues who saw in India an ideal partner to contain China and to confront what they referred to as “Islamo-Fascism Such was the Bush Administration’s ardor for India that it went about trashing its own laws and arm-twisting Nucdlear Suppliers Group members to approve sale of civilian nuclear technology. In doing so, it failed to recognize that it was not only damaging the carefully crafted global non-proliferation edifice, but also upsetting the strategic balance in South Asia, while weakening the morality of its opposition to the Iranian nuclear program.

For the US, the visit was an opportunity to inject an element of realism in its relations with India, for Obama appreciates that far from “containing” China, the US is becoming increasingly dependent on close and cooperative ties with the Peoples’ Republic, from where it expects continuing investment to ensure its gradual emergence from the country’s worst economic crisis. Washington also recognizes that in any resolution to its Afghan engagement, it is not India, but Pakistan, whose role and contribution would be critical.

Washington may be concerned about the less than satisfactory state of governance in Islamabad, but it cannot ignore that Pakistan is now a democracy, where national consensus has encouraged the Army to perform undeniably well in confronting the militants. There is now no reason why Washington should not be more appreciative of Pakistan’s importance to peace in the region, but this can only be meaningful if the US plays a quiet but effective role in nudging India back to result-oriented talks on Kashmir and other contentious issues that divide them. This alone will enable Pakistan to devote its energies and resources to the war on terror, as was articulated by Obama in his election speeches.

It is this that worries India, for it views everything through the lens of regional hegemon, but fails to appreciate that it cannot play this role, while failing to befriend its neighbors. This explains its insistence on “bilateralism” in India-Pakistan relations and its annoyance with a mere mention of Sino-American interest in peace in South Asia. And yet, it does not hesitate to rush to foreign capitals with entreaties to join it in pressuring Pakistan-a constant refrain of Singh in Washington as well.

India wants the region to be left to its “disposal”, but does nothing to show sensitivity to the concerns of its smaller neighbors. In fact, it also wants to have a critical say in determining the kind and extent of US assistance to Pakistan but not allow Ambassador Richard Holbrooke even the courtesy of a visit to Delhi. It refuses to accept Pakistan’s repeated offers to share intelligence and coordinate positions on terrorism, but wants to enhance its cooperation with the US on anti-terrorism, to have another platform from where to “beat-up’ on Pakistan.

Another important Indian objective was to nudge the Obama Administration to operationalize the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, especially after hints to the effect that Washington was viewing it as incongruous with Obama’s publicly proclaimed goal of a nuclear weapon free world. Singh, who had staked his and the Party’s future on this agreement, does not want it to become a victim to what he believes are the misplaced dreams of the non-proliferationists in the US.

Manmohan Singh must have been pleased to hear India being described as “indispensable”, but this carries responsibilities, including an ability to live at peace with your neighbors. The US too has to recognize that if it wishes to promote genuine peace in South Asia, it has to base its relations on shared interests and not be led by fanciful expectations. Pakistan has not only a democratic dispensation (though fledgling) but also a strong national consensus that favors genuinely cordial and cooperative relations with India, which would do well to respond to these aspirations, with the US contributing to this process.

Ambassador Tariq Fatemi is a retired member of the Pakistan Foreign Service, who has served in Moscow, New York, Washington and Beijing. He was an Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Jordan, the USA, Belgium and the European Union. Currently he is teaching at various institutions and writes for the daily Dawn and other publications. AP Photo.

Krause: A voice of hope from America

Raja G Mujtaba

I find it heartening, indeed, when so many voices in America are clamouring for a troop “surge” to bring about that “big win” in Afghanistan, a win so many us know will only end is destabilization and disaster, that there are still voices of reason. This voice is from Iowa, an area of America’s heartland known for agriculture and good common sense. The voice from Iowa is that of candidate for the United States Senate, Bob Krause. Bob Krause knows security isn’t winning or losing but building confidence in America, a confidence shaken by years of senseless adventure and a shortage of common sense.

As reported, addressing Democrats at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson Jackson Day dinner on Saturday night, Bob Krause took the lead, who became the first candidate for the U.S. Senate race to call for a drawdown of troops in Afghanistan.

“It is my view as a retired military officer and a student of military strategy that we need to disengage from Afghanistan because what we are doing is not strategically sustainable,” Krause told the crowd at a rally following the keynote speech by Vice President Joe Biden. This message was well received by the audience.

“We are in direct danger of committing our remaining uncommitted national reserve of troops so that we have nothing left for emergencies,” Krause explained. “Further, I seriously doubt that we need to keep the Taliban at bay in Afghanistan to secure our national security. We are putting large numbers of U.S. and foreign troops in the land that invented xenophobia. Unfortunately this troop insertion stirs the pot and makes the situation much worse than it needs to be.”

Elaborating more on the issue, Krause said, “I hope that, when President Obama makes his troop strength decision after Thanksgiving, he does not accept the advice of the neoconservatives, and instead does the prudent thing and closes out this war that former President Bush lost through inaction several years ago.”

In extended remarks after the speech, Krause added, “Joe Biden in right on this one. We are spending $60 billion per year in the war in Afghanistan and 2 billion on Pakistan, even though Pakistan is strategically more important to us.”

Krause, very rightly has said that “Pakistan is more important to the US,” Pakistan has been ally of America all along the cold war era. People of Pakistan have always wanted very cordial and friendly relations that was fully endorsed by the people when President Eisenhower stopped over in Karachi on his journey to some country in the region, also when Vice President Johnson visited Pakistan on a state visit
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People had thronged the roads from Karachi Airport to the State Guest House where he stayed. But the US, U turns based on Kissinger doctrines disillusioned the nation when in 1971 Pakistan was left under the Indian knife.

During the Johnson visit, he was so moved by the rousing reception that enroute he stopped his car, came out and mingled with the people. There, randomly he invited Bashir Ahmed, a camel cart driver to the US as a state guest. Bashir came back as an ambassador of goodwill. President Johnson presented Bashir a truck as a personal gift. Bashir gave up his camels and began a transportation business.

President Johnson also gave Bashir money to fund scholarships for students at a small school close to Bashir’s home. I was a student at that school. It is something all of us have remembered all our lives, something about America. To us, America meant hope.

Obama administration certainly needs to review its policies with an independent mind and consult with people like Joe Biden and Krause who have better understanding of the region than some of the Pentagon’s military advisors.

Seemingly tied to the failures of the Bush administration, calling for, not only a “surge” but building a massive Afghan army which would never have the capability nor intent to fight a Pashtun based Taliban is folly. The neo-cons are bent upon taking to the US on its worst path of destruction. Whose agenda are they following needs a deep study within more sober and balanced minds, minds that base decisions on reality and fact and not rumour and influence.

Krause’s observation, “If the Pakistanis can control the Pashtuns within their own borders, it will have a very positive spin-off effect on the Pashtun nation in Afghanistan,” has lot of substance; it needs to be seen in proper context taking the people of Pakistan into confidence.

“Insuring that Pakistan can continue as a cohesive nation is where our strategic emphasis needs to be. Having our forces in Afghanistan drives Taliban into Pakistan and actually helps to destabilize Pakistan.” Krause could not be more right in saying this. White House must make a note of what he has said. This is also the voice of the American people that’s getting louder by the day.

Krause warned that our trying to control Afghanistan directly with U. S. troops not only causes backfires, but it is incredibly costly. “If we put in an additional 40,000 new troops — at a cost of about 1 million dollars per soldier in the field — this will put the new war budget for Afghanistan at $100 billion,” said Krause. “This for a war that, even by known guerrilla warfare statistical planning factors, we would be unlikely to win because it just is not enough troops.”

Need we bring up the lessons of Vietnam?

Krause also pointed out that this figure does not include the “80 year tail on government costs for treating the additional 10,000 per year Post Traumatic Stress Disorder cases that would likely come from the insertion of the additional soldiers.” Every soldier who suffers from severe combat stress or a TBI (traumatic brain injury) is a son or daughter, a husband, a mother, a parent. Those who sacrifice in war and suffer, seldom suffer alone.

“Iowans need to call President Obama and ask him to listen to those who are urging caution, and not to those who want to continue and to escalate this strategically untenable battle,” concluded Krause.

Every word of Krause needs to be given a serious thought by the Obamans and not follow the trail of General McChrystal who wants escalation in war. What General McChrystal sees as a “mission” is simply accomplishing a task best left undone. Any possible McChrystal “win” is worse than any possible contingency tied to immediate withdrawal.

According to a Chinese proverb, a country may be destroyed but the will of the people can not be. In Afghanistan, after the carpet bombings by B52s and raining of Daisy Cutters that has certainly left very high casualties but the resistance has not been defeated.

Bush has inflamed the world, Obama must extinguish it before it’s too late.

Too much of meddling and pushing should be stopped forthwith, let the people of Pakistan feel that they control and manage the country, America is only in support as a friend. People strongly resent the sermons that the US officials give when visiting Pakistan and they also feel that we don’t need aid as much as open and favoured trade policy with the US.

Curb settlements, Obama tells Israel

* EU ‘dismayed’ at Jerusalem settlement expansion
* Russia calls Israeli plan ‘unacceptable’
* Tel Aviv fends off criticism

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama put fresh pressure on Israel on Wednesday to curb its settlement projects, saying continued building could lead to a dangerous situation with embittered Palestinians.

The Swedish EU presidency also voiced dismay on Wednesday after Israel backed the expansion of Jewish settlements in Arab east Jerusalem, while Russia said the Israeli decision was “unacceptable” for the peace process.

“I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security, I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbours,” Obama told Fox News. “I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous.”

Obama has made achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians a top priority among a long list of foreign policy goals, but progress in restarting talks between the two sides has been scant. On Tuesday the White House said it was dismayed over Israeli approval to expand the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem. Israel approved the building of 900 homes for Jews on West Bank land it occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed to its Jerusalem municipality.

EU dismayed: Also on Wednesday, the EU presidency said it was “dismayed by the recent decision on the expansion of the settlement of Gilo”, one of a dozen Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. The EU presidency, held by the Swedes till the end of the year, stressed that “settlement activities, house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law”. “The actions taken by the Israeli Government contravene repeated calls by the international community … and run counter to the creation of an atmosphere conducive to achieving a viable and credible solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians,” the statement added. “If there is to be genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states,” it concluded.

Unacceptable: The Russian Foreign Ministry, separately, said, “Moscow reacts to these [settlements expansion] announcements with extreme concern. In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry called the Israeli plan “unacceptable for the Middle Eastern peace process”.

Israel defiant: Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai defended his ministry’s decision to approve the construction of new housing units. “Freezing construction in Gilo is just like freezing construction … in any other neighbourhood in Jerusalem and Israel,” Yishai told AFP. “Construction in Jerusalem cannot be halted, and Gilo is in Jerusalem.”

In another move likely to exacerbate tensions, Israel demolished an illegally built house in east Jerusalem. “The house was destroyed because it was built without planning permission,” said a spokesman for the Israel’s Rabbis for Human Rights. agencies

Washington hunts a way out of Afghanistan

Linda Heard | sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk

Finally, it seems, the penny has dropped. America’s ‘good war’ cannot be won militarily. Signs indicate that the US president, who was so gung ho on Afghanistan before taking office, has got the message. More troops just won’t cut it. “We have no illusions,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on ABC last Sunday.

“This is not the prior days when people would come on your show and talk about how we were going to help the Afghans build a modern democracy and build a more functioning state and do all of these wonderful things.” The administration’s priority is America’s security she said with refreshing frankness – or to be more precise with what she hopes will pass for refreshing frankness.

But let’s be fair! At least, she isn’t hypocritically banging on about the poor Afghan women deprived of wearing nail varnish like Laura Bush and Cherie Blair did in 2001 or giving the impression that Kabul will emerge like a phoenix as the region’s Helsinki.

The bottom line is this. The US has achieved nothing of substance in Afghanistan over the past eight years. If anything, the country is in a worse state that it was when America and its allies marched in ostensibly on the hunt for the elusive Osama Bin Laden. With nothing to show for its efforts, Washington has a problem.

It needs an exit strategy that looks like a win. For two reasons: first, its reputation as a mighty military power that can’t be beaten – and especially by tribal clansmen. And second, if it closes shop empty-handed, how does it explain the rising number of troop deaths and the billions that are still being poured onto an arid soil in the middle of an economic downturn? As President Barack Obama once said, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

TROUBLE is even Lancome’s designer Pout-à-Porter can’t beautify the stark truth: the Taleban control more than 80 percent of the country. Moreover, Afghanistan’s democracy has been shown to be a sham and its government riddled with corruption; so much so that America’s Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry has advised the White House not to send more troops unless the leadership cleanses itself of corruption. No wonder, Obama is currently engaged in a re-think! Most of his allies have already had theirs. They don’t want to know. They understand that sending their young men to fight a war without end in the “Graveyard of Empires” is no vote getter. And, in any case, this isn’t their war. Britain is, of course, an exception because preserving the so-called special trans-Atlantic relationship transcends all other concerns.

Gordon Brown has already trodden, oh so lightly, on Obama’s toes by withdrawing British troops from southern Iraq and giving the green light to Scotland to repatriate the Lockerbie bomber.

The climate got so frosty at one point that the British Foreign Office practically had to go on its knees to get Brown a one-on-one meeting with his US counterpart last September when the PM was in the US. This is why the beleaguered Brown is committed to sending 500 troops to Afghanistan to bolster the 9,000 already in theater; a move, which has failed to please anybody as the US wants another 1,500, while 71 percent of Britons want their troops brought home within a year.

Obama and Brown aren’t exactly spelling it out but it’s evident that they have both reached a similar conclusion. It may be a bitter pill but as the old saying goes if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In other words, the only way this war is going to end is if the Taleban can be brought into the political fold in return for relinquishing their weapons. They cannot be eradicated in the way that handfuls of foreign fighters can. They are Afghans. They are not going anywhere. And, like it or not, force will not change their ideology.

Battling a belief system is akin to punching in the air. It’s virtually impossible to know who the Taleban are without battalions of psychic thought police. The Taleban aren’t going around with convenient Taleb slogans on their backs. And that’s why so many innocent villagers are being bombed, which only serves to harden the anti-Western attitudes of ordinary Afghans. Whichever way it’s dressed up, Afghanistan is not a ‘good war’ if, indeed, such an animal even exists. The US should never have invaded in the first place. You just need a rudimentary knowledge of the country’s history to realize that. Invaders have come and invaders have gone.

Besides, there was not a single Afghan among the 9/11 terrorists and the only reason Taleban leader Mullah Omar was harboring Bin Laden and his cohorts was because they helped his people oust the Soviets with the backing of Western powers. In any case, as the FBI has confirmed, there is no proof that Bin Laden was the man behind the attacks on America’s soil. Indeed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is about to be tried as the mastermind behind that crime in New York.

In the end the US and NATO will walk away empty-handed. They failed to get Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. They failed to secure the country. They failed to introduce true democracy. They failed to better the lot of women and girls. They failed to destroy the poppy fields. They failed in their reconstruction efforts. And they failed to win hearts and minds. What a dreadful waste! A leaked memo indicates the Britain is pushing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to negotiate with the Taleban, says The Guardian, while the Foreign Office and MI6 are backing efforts to “remove reconciled Taleban from the United Nation’s sanctions list.” Yet in public Gordon Brown is singing the same old chorus. He still insists that his country has no intention of “appeasing the Taleban” and says “Al-Qaeda is the biggest source of threat to our national security.” If that’s the case why does he plan to hand parts of Helmand province to Afghans next year?

In the meantime, Clinton told ABC that the US is not interested in staying in Afghanistan while White House adviser David Axelrod warns that US deployment there won’t be open-handed. It seems that the US and Britain are reading from slightly different scripts.

An army study says troop morale is declining. US and UK polls show that public support is waning. In April, Gen. David Petraeus, the Commander of US Central Command, told the Senate that the Taleban are strengthening. This occupation has only one outcome. It will come to an end when Obama and Brown learn to say “victory” while managing to keep a straight face.

War With Iran? America’s Titanic Rushes The Iceberg

Dr Alan Sabrosky

A very strange thing must have happened to Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the US JointAdmiral Mike Mullen Chiefs of Staff (JCS), on his way to his recent talk at Washington’s National Press Club. He oddly asserted that Iran was indeed an “existential threat” to Israel (nice of the Israelis to have provided that sound bite), that he was open to a US attack on Iran (which is no threat whatsoever to the US) to forestall that supposed danger to Israel, and that the attack “would also be incredibly destabilizing.”

The Thesis Reviewed

In reality, only the anticipation of potentially catastrophic consequences is accurate. Regardless of what Arab governments do, the Arab street may explode. Iraq — whose population, police and armed forces are largely Shi’a, and which now has good ties with Shi’a Iran — could easily turn on the Americans in their midst, with gruesome consequences. Oil prices would skyrocket. And that is just for openers.

As for “existential threats,” Israel certainly knows something about them, because that is precisely what Israel itself poses to Palestinians. But the idea that an Iran which might someday acquire a handful of crude nuclear weapons would somehow threaten the existence of Israel with its massive nuclear arsenal and American-designed air force surpasses lunacy. The Israelis know this. What they want is for the US to remove their only surviving competitor in the region at America’s own expense.

Moreover, Iran has not gone to war against its neighbors in modern times (Iraq invaded it in 1980). But Israel and the US between them have gone to war and invaded other states on a variety of pretexts more than the rest of the world combined, since the end of the Second World War. Civil wars have been commonplace, but not international wars and cross-border interventions, which are visibly Israeli and American specialties.

The Face of Leadership?

Now, the fact that the good admiral sees nothing wrong with the US going to war in the service of another country’s interests is bad enough. But that he would do so knowing that a disaster of some sort could ensue defies belief. It is the equivalent of the captain of the SS Titanic being forewarned of an iceberg dead ahead, yet ordering the helmsman to hold his course and the engine room to increase the ship’s speed.

I hope Mullen was simply parroting the script given him by the Pentagon’s political leadership, which would be yet another strike against perpetuating civilian “amateur hour” in the national security process, just to keep the grave-diggers at America’s military cemeteries gainfully employed. It would be more than painful to think he actually believed such nonsense, or lacked the character to refute it when he heard it.

We have been there before. One of the most compelling memories I have from the Vietnam War is the awareness (after the fact, I confess) of the abysmal arrogance and ignorance of most of the civilian so-called “leadership” in the Pentagon, compounded by the fact that not a single ranking general or admiral resigned in protest over what they knew in their professional hearts, minds and souls to be appallingly self-destructive and futile policies imposed on them by those superiors, and the President himself.

Beyond Arrogance and Ambition

A US attack on Iran, alone (which Israel prefers) or in concert with Israel, would be the fourth misery in this decade directly attributable to assorted Israeli agencies, politicians and policies: the 9/11 attacks that set the whole train in motion, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now potentially Iran. With “friends” like Israel, the US will certainly not lack enemies.

Nothing much can be expected from the US Congress in forestalling a war with Iran, and that is no surprise. As Israel’s cheerleader and apologist, bought or blackmailed (or both), it is doing its legislative best to force a needless confrontation and lay the groundwork for an unnecessary and destructive war. Congress is simply a key part of the problem.

Nothing much can be expected from the White House either, which is more disappointing. Perhaps President Obama merely lacks courage. Perhaps he has no convictions, and his words in Cairo were as empty as his reservoir of courage. Or perhaps Rahm Emanuel and company have such influence over him that he cannot stand against them. He is simply not part of the solution.

Then there is the professional military, especially the flag officers on the JCS. They have the potential to make a difference, setting them above their Vietnam-era predecessors. A concerted public statement by the JCS that an Israeli-inspired US war with Iran is not in America’s interest, and that they oppose a decision that would take America into yet another costly and destructive war, would expose this particular exercise beyond any ability of the mainstream media to suppress it.

It could also cost them their careers, especially if it averted this contrived war. And I understand the significance of that, having once taken a stand at a much lesser level and lost almost everything. I am also sensitive to the concept of obedience to authority embedded in our military.

But obedience does not entail subservience, especially subservience to the dictates of a foreign country and its American lobby. The precepts of “Duty, Honor, Country” ought to be paramount, and the flag of the country they are sworn to serve does not — at least not yet — include a Star of David.

If they understand this, and understand in their hearts and their minds that “America’s Zionist Wars” are antithetical to those precepts and to the welfare of the American people, then they will take a public stand and help derail this train. Otherwise the next decade will make this one look remarkably good.

Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College.

Two Koreas in brief naval clash, vessels hit

By Jon Herskovitz and Kim Yeon-hee Jon Herskovitz And Kim Yeon-hee

SEOUL (Reuters) – Navies from the rival Koreas exchanged gunfire for the first time in seven years on Tuesday, damaging vessels on both sides and raising tension just days before U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Asia.

Lee Ki-sik, chief of Intelligence Operation Division at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks to the media during a news briefing at the Defence Ministry in Seoul November 10, 2009.

North Korea has often used military action to force its way onto the agenda of major diplomatic events and has been seeking direct talks with Obama’s administration while alarming global powers by last week saying it had produced more arms-grade plutonium.

The United States will announce in the next few days whether it will start direct talks with the North, which could kickstart a fresh round of talks with regional powers on nuclear disarmament , a U.S. official said earlier.

South Korea denounced what it said was an incursion by a North Korean patrol vessel into its territorial waters in the Yellow Sea that sparked a brief firefight near the spot where the two Koreas have had two deadly conflicts in the past decade.

“We’ve seen the reports. Obviously we don’t find any tensions of this nature productive,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, adding that there was no American involvement.

The White House said it hoped there would be no further North Korean sea action that would be seen as escalation.

There were no casualties in the incident that left a South Korean vessel pockmarked with about a dozen gunshots and apparently a North Korean patrol vessel heavily damaged, military officials said.

“North Korea is taking this aggressive stance to show they’re not backing down on their security,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the South’s University of North Korean Studies .

The North’s saber-rattling is often seen by analysts as an means to increase its leverage in negotiations.

It accused the South of starting the latest fray.

“The South Korean military authorities should make an apology to the North side for the armed provocation,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted a military official as saying.

DISPUTED SEA BORDER

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said a North Korean patrol vessel went about 1.3 km (0.7 miles) into waters claimed by the South. The South issued verbal warnings and fired warning shots. The North responded by opening fire on the South’s vessel.

“We fired back,” the South said in a statement, adding the North’s vessel then retreated.

North Korea in the past year has threatened to attack the South’s ships if they come near the v Northern Limit Line , a Yellow Sea border set unilaterally by U.S-led U.N. forces at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War that the North sees as invalid.

The two Koreas are technically still at war because their conflict ended with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty.

The South Korean won briefly retreated on the news. There was no noticeable impact on bonds while foreign investors kept up their buying spree of local equities.

“We will have to see what the incident means and how it came, but it’s unlikely to have a lasting impact,” said Choi Chang-ho, a market analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp.

Investors have grown used to the North’s saber rattling, but incidents such as this sour the mood and remind market players of the security threat North Korea poses to North Asia , which accounts for one-sixth of the global economy.

(Additional reporting by Rhee So-eui, Christine Kim and Seo Eunkyung; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Ron Popeski)