Lt. Gen. Retired Hamid Gul
by Jeremy R. Hammond
American NGO Covers For Blackwater In Pakistan?
Blackwater in New Orleans
Reports suggest Pakistan has expelled a US Blackwater mercenary, but Pakistanis ask, ’Who rules our streets, the Pakistani government or the Americans?’ And who let them in?
In May, a US diplomat was caught arranging a meeting between a suspected Indian spy and senior Pakistani officials in the privacy of her house. In June when Pakistani officials confronted Washington with evidence that terrorists in Pakistan were using sophisticated American weapons, US media quickly leaked stories about American weapons missing from the US-trained Afghan army. And now reports confirm that the dirty secret arm of the US government – the mercenaries of Blackwater – have infiltrated sensitive regions of Pakistan. Blackwater works as an extension of the US military and CIA, taking care of dirty jobs that the US government cannot associate itself with in faraway strategic places. The question: Who let them in? And who deported one of them, if at all?
by AHMED QURAISHI
Last month a group of concerned Pakistani citizens in Peshawar wrote to the federal interior ministry to complain about the suspicious activities of a group of shadowy Americans in a rented house in their neighborhood, the upscale University Town area of Peshawar.
An NGO calling itself Creative Associates International, Inc. leased the house. CAII, as it is known by its acronym, is a Washington DC-based private firm. According to its Web site, the company describes itself as “a privately-owned non-governmental organization that addresses urgent challenges facing societies today …Creative views change as an opportunity to improve, transform and renew …”
The description makes no sense. It is more or less a perfect cover for the American NGO’s real work: espionage.
The incorporated NGO is more of a humanitarian front that alternates sometimes for undercover US intelligence operations in critical regions, including Angola, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Gaza, and Pakistan. Of the 36 new job openings, the company’s Web site shows that half of them are in Pakistan today. Pakistan is also at the heart of the now combined desperate effort by the White House-military-CIA to avert a looming American defeat in Afghanistan by shifting the war to its next-door neighbor.
In Peshawar, CAII, opened an office to work on projects in the nearby tribal agencies of Pakistan. All of these projects, interestingly, are linked to the US government. CAII’s other projects outside Pakistan, are also linked to the US government. In short, this NGO is not an NGO. It is closely linked to the US government.
In Peshawar, CAII told Pakistani authorities it needed to hire security guards for protection. The security guards, it turns out, were none other than Blackwater’s military-trained hired guns. They were used the CAII cover to conduct a range of covert activities in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Continue reading…
In the video above, the anchor of a TV channel details the origin and functioning of Blackwater, to its viewers in Urdu. The organization, a contractor of the US military, came into limelight when their inhuman treatment to Iraqi prisoners especially those in Abu Ghuraib Jail were exposed by a committed journalist.
The infamous Blackwater private security firm operates as an extension of the US military and CIA, taking care of dirty jobs that the US government cannot associate itself with in faraway strategic places. Blackwater is anything but a security firm. It is a mercenary army of several thousand hired soldiers.
Pakistani security officials apparently became alarmed by reports that Blackwater was operating from the office of CAII on Chinar Road, University Town in Peshawar. The man in charge of the office, allegedly an American by the name of Craig Davis according to a report in Jang, Pakistan’s largest Urdu language daily, was arrested and accused of establishing contacts with ‘the enemies of Pakistan’ in areas adjoining Afghanistan. His visa has been cancelled, the office sealed, and Mr. Davis reportedly expelled back to the United States.
It is not clear when Mr. Davis was deported and whether there are other members of the staff expelled along with him. When I contacted the US Embassy over the weekend, spokesman Richard Snelsire’s first reaction was, “No embassy official has been deported.” This defensive answer is similar to the guilt-induced reactions of US embassy staffers in Baghdad and Kabul at the presence of mercenaries working for US military and CIA.
I said to Mr. Snelsire that I did not ask about an embassy official being expelled. He said he heard these reports and ‘checked around’ with the embassy officials but no one knew about this. “It’s baseless.”
So I asked him, “Is Blackwater operating in Pakistan, in Peshawar?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Fair enough. The US embassies in Baghdad and Kabul never acknowledged Blackwater’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan either. This is part of low-level frictions between the diplomats at the US Department of State and those in Pentagon and CIA. The people at State have reportedly made it clear they will not acknowledge or accept responsibility for the activities of special operations agents operating in friendly countries without the knowledge of those countries and in violation of their sovereignty. Reports have suggested that sometimes even the US ambassador is unaware of what his government’s mercenaries do in a target country.
Official Pakistani sources are yet to confirm if one or more US citizens were expelled recently. The government is also reluctant in making public whatever evidence there might be about Blackwater operations inside Pakistan. But it is clear that something unusual was happening in the Peshawar office of an American NGO. There is also strong suspicion that Blackwater was operating from the said office.
There are other things happening in Pakistan that are linked to the Americans and that increase the chances of Blackwater’s presence here.
These include:
1. One of the largest US embassies – or military and intelligence command outposts – in the world is being built in Islamabad as I write this at a cost of approximately one billion US dollars. This is the biggest sign of an expansion in US meddling in Pakistan and a desire to use this country as a base for regional operations. Interestingly, US covert meddling inside Pakistan and nearby countries is already taking place, including in Russia’s backyard, in Iran, and in China’s Xinjiang.
2. A large number of retired Pakistani military officers, academics and even journalists have been quietly recruited at generous compensations by several US government agencies. These influential Pakistanis are supposed to provide information, analysis, contacts and help in pleading the case for US interests in the Pakistani media, in subtle ways. Pakistanis would be surprised that some prominent names well known to television audiences are in this list. Continue reading…
[Right: The American NGO that works for US government has almost half of its international vacancies in Pakistan. Three weeks back, its director in Peshawar was found contacting anti-Pakistan elements in the Pak-Afghan border area].
3. CIA and possibly Blackwater have established a network of informers in the tribal belt and Balochistan; there have also been reports of non-Pakistanis sighted close to sensitive military areas in the country. Considering the intensity and frequency of terrorist acts inside Pakistan in the past four years, there is every possibility that all sorts of saboteurs are having a field day in Pakistan.
4. Members of separatist and ethnic political parties have been cultivated by various US government agencies and quietly taken for visits to Washington and the CENTCOM offices in Florida.
The possibility of the existence of mercenary activities in Pakistan is strengthened by the following events:
5. Pakistani officials have in recent months collected piles of evidence that suggests that terrorists wreaking havoc inside Pakistan have been and continue to receive state of the art weapons and a continuous supply of money and trainers from unknown but highly organized sources inside Afghanistan. A significant number of these weapons is of American and Israeli manufacture. Indians have also been known to supply third-party weapons to terrorists inside Pakistan.
6. Some Pakistani intelligence analysts have stumbled on circumstantial evidence that links the CIA to anti-Pakistan terror activities that may not be in the knowledge of all departments of the US government. One thing is for sure, that CIA’s operations in Afghanistan are in the hands of dangerous elements that are prone to rogue-ish behavior.
7. In May, a US woman diplomat was caught arranging a quiet [read 'secret'] meeting between a low-level Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani government officials. An address in Islamabad – 152 Margalla Road – was identified as a venue where the secret meeting took place. The American diplomat in question knew there was no chance the Indian would get to meet the Pakistanis in normal circumstances. Nor was it possible to do this during a high visibility event. After the incident, Pakistan Foreign Office issued a terse statement warning all government officials to refrain from such direct contact with foreign diplomats in unofficial settings without prior intimation to their departments.
8. Pakistani suspicions about American foul play inside Pakistan are not new. On July 12, 2008 in a secret meeting in Rawalpindi between military and intelligence officials from the two countries these concerns were openly aired. The Americans accused ISI of maintain contacts with the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani answer was that normal low-level contacts are maintained with all parties in the area. NATO and the Kabul regime were doing the same thing in Afghanistan. In return, the Pakistanis laid out evidence, including photographs, showing known terrorists meeting Indian and pro-US Kabul regime officials. Was the United States supporting these anti-Pakistan activities is the question that was posed to the US military and CIA.
9. Further back into history, in 1978 the ISI broke a spy ring made up of Pakistani technicians working for the nascent Pakistani nuclear program who were recruited by CIA. Pakistan chose not to raise the issue publicly but did so privately at the highest level in Washington.
Now there are reports that the Zardari-Gilani government is consulting Pakistan’s Naval headquarters on a proposal to construct a US navy base on the coast of Balochistan. When things have reached this level of American meddling in Pakistan, Blackwater seems like a small issue. Some Pakistani analysts are of the view that elements within the Pakistani security establishment need to be very careful about where they intend to draw the red line for CIA operations in and around Pakistan.
The video above, courtesy, The Nation, Jeremy Scahill explains what’s Backwater and how does it operate. Jeremy Scahill (born c. 1974) is an American investigative journalist with expertise on a number of global issues, most notably the recent rise of private military companies.] He is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater:The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. The book won the George Polk Book Award. He serves as a correspondent for the U.S. radio and TV program Democracy Now!.
This video shows a Blackwater trainer giving a “motivational” speech to Iraqi police; thinking they are lazy stuff. Here in this video, he prepares them to shoot on their targets without the slightest consideration for their country, their religion or anything else. The video proves per se the modus operandi of such military contractors and therefore their undesirable presence in Pakistan.
Courtesy: AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists, Posted: August 16, 2009
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.
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Afghan elections: 80% puppetry, 20% political drama
“Despite these sham elections, eventually the Pashtuns will kick out the Yankees, just as they did to the Soviets,” says an analyst on Afghan affairs
by Ben Tanosborn
In less than two weeks, Afghanistan will hold its second presidential elections since the United States occupied that country in November 2001.
Democratic elections, we deem them to be, although many Afghans and foreigners alike consider the process more of an American coronation of another vassal-monarch from that celebrated dynasty: the House of Dollar. Of course, the title is one of president; Zahir Shah being the last king, one never to lay claim to the throne since deposed in 1973 — now dead for two years.
As much as I have always been drawn to both culture and history from that part of the world, I have never visited the land, and have known but a few Afghans that I never considered being representative of that nation; all from the upper class, either university students or well-off professionals choosing their own exile. And during the last six years in which I have extended notes and commentary in my columns about this rugged, exotic (to me) land, I have relied greatly on briefings/discussions by/with my European journalist friend, Mingo, whose judgment and impartiality I trust, an unquestionable Afghanphile who has spent almost eight years of the last decade in that country, speaks fluent Dari and has innumerable friends and connections throughout that land.
“Americans’ ill-placed honor,” Mingo tells me, “may force the White House, Pentagon and Congress to stay on with this war in the manner they did with Vietnam four decades ago; but your stay in Afghanistan, if that’s the path Obama chooses, will be as painful or worse . . . and eventually, just as they did to the Russians, the Pashtun will kick you out.”
Americans shouldn’t count on a round one victory for Pres. Hamid Karzai on August 20; that is, unless the turnout in the southern Pashtun region is very strong, or the fraud that has been perpetrated in voter registration was deeply rigged to favor the present leader, more so than any of the other 35 candidates. As far as Mingo sees it, corruption is so pervasive in government — at both federal and provincial levels — that some voters could end up going to the polls several times. But whether Karzai comes out the victor, or one of his top two rivals — former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai — is able to muster a coalition to dethrone him, the country will remain in the “good hands of corruption” that seems to be part of everyone’s life, and one of the fundamental reasons for the rebellion of so many Afghans against the West and those amongst them who benefit from the occupiers’ presence.
Mingo is convinced that, overwhelmingly, the population looks back with nostalgia at the days of peace and Islamic justice, sharia, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
During the past half century, Afghans have been exposed to both the preaching and the practices of three distinct political philosophies: socialism “Soviet Union -style,” fundamentalist Islam from the Taliban, and that democratic capitalism espoused by the West — more specifically, American capitalism. To Mingo, their choice and loyalty may be split from time to time, but the latter clearly emerges as a poor third choice.
So if Americans insist in staying there, it is to secure their own interests . . . and not the overall interests of the Afghan people, no matter how many places Americans help secure in schools for women, or how much is spent in public relations when Afghans’ eyes and ears are tuned to the number of civilian casualties our military inflicts in the process of killing the Taliban. Not a pretty picture, particularly when compared to the Russian “collateral experience” there . . . and from a military with such accurate weaponry as the Pentagon claims. And, of course, sartorial Hamid Karzai is always caught in the middle, defending the occupiers, yet trying to appear to his people as their ombudsman.
The White House, Pentagon and even the Afghan government may downplay the concerns expressed by think-tanks — the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) topping them all — as to how significant the presence of the Taliban is in most parts of Afghanistan. But casualties that both America and other NATO members are likely to suffer will eventually tell it all. And, Mingo claims, the 2007 plan of the Taliban to have this geometric progression in hostilities in their campaign to retake the country by 2011 is running like clockwork. So far, their overall strategy and nature of their tactics are proving them to be right on the money.
But if our CIA is inefficient or derelict in bringing this reality to the White House, Israel’s Mossad is not, and they have their Zionist marionettes in the top slots of the appropriate committees of the US Senate trying to get the White House to double (or triple) the number of Afghan forces in the next two years, at whatever cost “they” (a Senate that obviously will work for AIPAC and not the interests of the American people) would be willing to fund, perhaps as much as $30 billion in the next two years. Yep, Israel can count on Senators Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, to get the job done. And a Rahm Emanuel at the White House is ready to cram it down the president’s throat!
But a 400,000 or 500,000 Afghan combined military-police force won’t stop the Taliban, says Mingo, and most of such “trained force” is likely to defect to the Taliban, at the proper time, against their nation’s puppet regime.
Is America’s military presence in Afghanistan one of economic and military interests, or is it just Americans’ instinct to ask “how high” when the Israelis ask them to jump? A rather easy but embarrassing question that needs to be asked!
© 2009 Ben Tanosborn
Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at ben@tanosborn.com
Source : online journal.com Cross posted at: Mathaba.net Posted: August 14, 2009
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.
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EXCLUSIVE: Drone Strike Was Not Meant For Mehsud
CIA Stunned – Americans Led To Strike Wrong Target.
The drone strike that resulted in the death of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist is believed to be a result of deliberately planted false intelligence, sources in South Waziristan have confirmed, according to a report published by the Pakistani news website PKKH.
PKKH reported that rival militants close to Qari Zainuddin Mehsud tipped off suspected local CIA informers about the presence of a ‘high value afghan Taliban target’ in a house in South Waziristan.
Qari Zainuddin, who was reported to have been killed on orders of Baitullah Mehsud, the very second day he exposed Baitullah’s designs to fight against Pakistan.
Qari Zainuddin, a former aide of Baitullah Mehsud, accused Baitullah Mehsud in June of waging terrorism against Pakistan with help from foreign intelligence operatives belonging to India, Israel and the United States. Zainuddin was gunned down in his office the next day and Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for the killing.
[Right, Baitullah and his predecessor Abdullah Mehsud were protected by CIA and provided active support by India's and Karzai's spy agents].
Pakistani officials have privately accused elements within the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan of supporting the so-called Pakistani Taliban as punishment for Pakistan’s perceived support for the Afghan Taliban.
In what appears to be a successful attempt to extract revenge by those loyal to Qari Zainuddin, false intelligence was deliberately fed to a number of local informers working for the Americans in Afghanistan. Hours later, a CIA operated drone guided by a physically dropped electronic homing device attacked and destroyed the house which the Americans believed was occupied by what they thought was anti-US Afghan Taliban.
Various reports have also surfaced in recent months disclosing the extent of support Baitullah Mehsud received from India and Israel, using Afghanistan as a base for training and arming anti-Pakistan terrorists. US army and NATO issued rifles and communication equipment has been seized from captured militants and TTP safe houses, and captured terrorists have often spoken of training by Indian nationals in Afghanistan.
The Americans were concentrating on Taliban and Qaeda forces that attack American and coalition troops in Afghanistan but were ignoring militants operating in Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official in the administration that oversees the tribal region told TIME Magazine last year.
“The Americans are not interested in our bad guys,” the official said, referring in particular to Baitullah Mehsud.
Other sources within the Pakistani intelligence community firmly believe that Baitullah Mehsud was being protected by US Drones, warning him of Pakistan Army’s action and movements in advance.
It appears the Americans have finally heeded to the long-standing demand of the Pakistani security services, even if unintentionally.
Courtesy Brasstacks & PKKH, Posted: August 11, 2009 Cross posted: PakNationalists
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.
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Ataturk’s Turkish Republic in Danger
Secularists outfoxed in Turkey’s quiet revolution
Turkey is in the middle of a political crisis that has pitted the Islamic-rooted civilian government against the military, following reports of an alleged move by military leaders to overthrow the government.
[Note for WoP Readers: Turkey’s current experiment i.e. a blend of modern secularist Turkey with Islam (not in religious sense but purely a politico-administrative one) is what best suits the Islamic world. Unfortunately Islam in the beginning was given the shape of a ‘fundamental’ Islam by the Mullahs who to a major extent even use it today as an ideological weapon for it brings ordinary Muslims to their fold. And later it were the British imperialists who with their governmental hold intensified the religious sentiments of the mainstream to retain their grip over people who were in every regard different to them (color, creed, region, language, culture, and above everything the soil itself), so they had to strengthen divisions between different regions, different religions, different castes, and clans and that’s exactly what they did.
On demise of the Empire, Americans took over and did further havoc to our strongly religious roots (which had however, always been humane, and liberal). This has always been a major factor in the soil of Pakistan to accept and absorb so many faiths, so many religions, so many cultures before it came finally to the fold of Islam.
In our recent history too, we did never experience a single case of Sunni Shia murders or Islamic Madrassas creating students who would take bombs and explode these devices destroying innocent men and property, even turning their own bodies to smithereens. All this is a product of US specialists of the N.W.O., a legacy of which we are now experiencing in today’s Pakistan.
The following post by Ameen Izzadeen is an excellent sum up of what is happening in present day Turkey but am only afraid that it may not turn up one day like Turkey indeed becoming an Islamic state, but her Islam not originating from Turkey’s own roots and instead emanates from the womb of Am-Brits neo-imperialism. Should this be the case, I only visualize once they would disengage themselves from Turkish Islam, the phenomena of destabilizing the oil rich Muslim world (as it did in Iraq, in Afghanistan and is now doing in Pakistan) completes its full circle. The supra-religionists of Turkey may then start repenting one day as did our brothers in the Jamat-e-Islami of Pakistan who too aligned themselves once with the US mission of dismembering the Soviets (and who now themselves feel how mercilessly they were / have been misused against the Soviet infidels in the name of Islam).
Another aspect which irks my mind is Mr. Fethullah Gülen, the Turkic multibillionaire who is spearheading the Gülen movement. If one would believe what Sibel Edmonds says in her interviews
Another aspect which irks my mind is Mr. Fethullah Gülen, the Turkic multibillionaire who is spearheading the Gülen movement. If one would believe what Sibel Edmonds says in her interviews, he is a CIA man and this has been disclosed during court proceedings in which Gülen’s application for a Green Card has been rejected on basis of the evidence produced in the court. Nayyar Hashmey]
by Ameen Izzadeen
Ameen Izzadeen was in Turkey last month meeting journalists, civil society leaders and political activists, reports on the country’s changing socio-political scenario.
Is Turkey facing a military coup? No way, says a journalist whom I met in Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city which reminds visitors and citizens of the country’s glorious Islamic past. During my conversation with journalists, academics, political activists and businessmen, I was shocked to hear them criticise Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. A few years ago, none dared criticize him in public or in conversation with outsiders. Things are changing in Turkey. History is being rewritten. Even the last Ottoman sultans whom the Kemalists — supporters of Mustafa Kemal and Turkey’s secular system — blamed for all the ills of Turkey in the early 20th century are being hailed as “good and honest leaders”. Media freedom has undergone a qualitative and quantitative change for the better. They are daring to speak now.”The army won’t be able to topple the government,” the journalist said. “If it does, it knows there will be public uprising and street protests,” he said.
“Can I quote you,” I asked him.
“No problem, go ahead,” he said.
But I told him that I would not mention his name, because I did not want any harm befall him.
A highly respected leader of the Fethullah Gülen movement, which emphasizes Islam’s universal love and tries to make Islam compatible with the country’s secular order, told me that a “quiet revolution is taking place” in Turkey, hundreds years ago a superpower reverently addressed as the Great Ottoman Empire.
[Above right, Fethullah Gülen, a name shrouded in the mist of espionage (labelled a CIA man), Wealth (he is a multibillionaire), Fame (highly respected and acclaimed as a leader of Islamic renaissance in Turkey), Sufism (reported to be a follower of Bediuzzaman Said Norsi & Maulana Rumi)].
The revolution is: A government elected by the people is daring to look into the eyes of the “deep state”, which, in Turkish political terminology, means a state within a state, while more and more people are discovering their Islamic roots, which the secular elite have been trying to erase for the past 86 years.
Turkey, where democracy had been often disturbed by regular military coups since the Republic was set up in 1923, is moving towards more democracy, with the government sending a message to the military that its role as a state within the state is ending.
Very little is known about Ataturk’s family background or what his faith was. Was he a Muslim or a Donmeh, a word used for a member of a secretive Turkish society? Donmehs are the descendants of the Ottoman era Jews who, along with their leader Sabbatai Zevi, converted to Islam in 1666 and took Muslim names but secretly followed their Jewish rituals. The orthodox Jewry, however, has condemned the Donmehs as heretic because they worshipped Sabbatai Zevi as the messiah and an incarnation of God.
[Left, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,founder of modern Turkey. Was he a Donmeh? [Donmehs are Turkish Jews who accepted Islam during Ottomans’ rule, but secretly practiced Jewism. Though they have Muslim names, they worship Sabbatai Zewi, their leader whom they consider an incarnation of God. Orthodox Jewry declared them heretic].
“It is very difficult to identify a Donmeh in today’s Turkey because they have well assimilated into Turkish society and there is no difference between a Donmeh and a highly westernized Turkish Muslim,” a journalist from Turkey’s Cihan News Agency said. But he declined to answer my question whether Ataturk was a Donmeh.
A Google search, however, produced a number of web articles on Ataturk’s alleged Jewish links.
Ataturk was an officer in the Ottoman Army. Hailing from Salonika, the birthplace of Donmehs, he was one of the commanders who defeated the British and the French forces during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Later, he joined the Young Turk rebellion and played a key role in the military coup that overthrew Sultan Abdul Hameed II at a time when Western powers such as Britain and Zionists had deeply penetrated into the corridors of power in Istanbul. The Zionists were particularly angry with the Sultan, for he refused to meet the father of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, when he visited Istanbul in 1901. The Zionists also tried to pay him money and buy Jerusalem, which was then under Ottoman rule.
The Sultan told one of his officials, “Advise Dr. Herzl not to take any further steps in his (Zionist) project. I cannot give away even a handful of the soil of this land (Palestine) for it is not my own, it belongs to the entire Islamic nation. The Islamic nation fought jihad for the sake of this land and had watered it with their blood. The Jews may keep their money and millions. If the Islamic Khilafah (state) is one day destroyed then they will be able to take Palestine without a price! But while I am alive, I would rather push a sword into my body than see the land of Palestine cut and given away from the Islamic State. This is something that will not be. I will not start cutting our bodies while we are alive.”
[Left, the young Sultan Abdul Hameed II: Portrayed as a vicious tyrant, Turks are rediscovering their history. ManyTurks now believe the Sultan was an honest & pious leader who became the victim of British & Zionist sinister schemes].
This part of history has failed to find its way into Turkey’s curriculum. Instead, officially recognized history books are full of blame for Sultan Abdul Hameed. They have painted him as a vicious tyrant. But senior journalists and academics whom I met during my week-long visit to Turkey say things are changing and people are beginning to see Sultan Abdul Hameed as an honest and pious leader and as a victim of the British and Zionist sinister schemes.
Ataturk later abolished the Caliphate (Sultanate) and with the help of the rival parliament in Ankara, he became the founder President of the Turkish Republic in 1923. He changed the country’s Islamic character and confined Islam to mosques. Thousands of Islamic scholars were either banished or killed. The Arabic script was replaced with the Latin alphabet — a move that made 99 percent of the Turkish population illiterate overnight. The move, however, helped the westernized elite to dominate politics and covet top positions in public administration and the military. Eighty six years after the setting up of the republic, the elite who still continue to live with their erroneous belief that Turkey belongs to them feel threatened. The signs are ominous.
During my stay in Turkey last week together with veteran Sri Lankan journalist Latheef Farook on an invitation from the Cihan News Agency, a major political upheaval was taking place after a newspaper exposed a secret military document that gave details of a plot to overthrow the civilian government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discredit the popular Fethullah Gülen movement, which is regarded as the power behind Turkey’s current Islamic renaissance.
The exposé came against the backdrop of the arrest of several ex-military and civil servants last year for their alleged role in a plan to topple the democratically-elected government of Erdogan, who is the leader of the AK Party (Justice and Development Party). Erdoagan’s Islamic credentials are an anathema to the deep state, which feels it is fast losing its place in Turkish politics.
Erdogan, who, as a teenage boy, sold lemonade and sesame bread on Turkish streets before he graduated from Istanbul’s Marmara University, was a hard line Islamist. In the past, the military has toppled several Islamic-leaning governments. Former prime minister Adnan Menderes was tried in a military court and hanged. Another popular Islamic-leaning president, Turgut Ozal, died mysteriously. The official version was he died of a heart attack. But others say he was poisoned.
A controversial poem by Erdogan ruffled many feathers a few years ago and continues to hang over his administration like Damocles’ sword. Here are the first lines of that poem.
“The mosques are our barracks
The domes our helmets
The minarets our bayonets and
The faithful our soldiers…”
Of late, largely due to the influence of the Gülen movement, Erdogan has distanced himself from his hardline Islamic views and is taking Turkey towards more democracy in an effort to gain full membership of the European Union. His moves towards more democracy have apparently irked the secular elite, for whom more democracy means more Islam. The secularists accuse him of having a secret agenda to turn Turkey into a religious state. But Erdogan is emerging strong. He is presiding over a government that has made Turkey one of the fastest growing economies of the world.
Last month, his government dared to arrest Colonel Dursun Cicek, who allegedly signed the military document that called for the toppling of Erdogan’s government. Later, a court in Istanbul ordered his release, pending further investigations. In another move, parliament passed legislation to curb the powers of the military court in civil matters. The government said that such a measure was necessary to meet EU membership requirements.
These moves have added to the tension between Erdogan’s government and the military, the self-assumed guardian of the secularist system.
Courtesy: Sunday Times, Posted: August 8, 2009
Contd…
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.
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Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for US until 9/11
Former FBI translator and founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, Sibel Edmonds exposes in her interview. how FBI officials too are involved in operationss no less shoddier than their other counterpart, the chief spy agency of the United States of America.
In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”
These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.
As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from ‘actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’) as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.
Control of Central Asia
The goals of the American ’statesmen’directing these activities included control of Central Asia’s vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.
The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.
Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.
In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)
According to Sibel:
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
Uighurs
Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that “our fingerprint is all over it.”
Of course, Sibel isn’t the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:
“were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China.”
And also that:
“Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia.”
In a separate interview, Margolis said:
“That illustrates Henry Kissinger’s bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America’s enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.
The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden’s collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this.”
Rogues Gallery
Last year, Sibel came up with a brilliant idea to expose some of the criminal activity that she is forbidden to speak about: she published eighteen photos, titled “Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery,” of people involved the operations that she has been trying to expose. One of those people is Anwar Yusuf Turani, the so-called ‘President-in-exile’ of East Turkistan (Xinjiang). This so-called ‘government-in-exile’ was ‘established‘ on Capitol Hill in September, 2004, drawing a sharp rebuke from China.
Also featured in Sibel’s Rogues Gallery was ‘former’ spook Graham Fuller, who was instrumentalin the establishment of Turani’s ‘government-in-exile’ of East Turkistan. Fuller has written extensively on Xinjiang, and his “ Xinjiang Project” for Rand Corp is apparently the blueprint for Turani’s government-in-exile. Sibel has openly stated her contempt for Mr. Fuller.
Susurluk
The Turkish establishment has a long history of mingling matters of state with terrorism, drug trafficking and other criminal activity, best exemplified by the 1996 Susurluk incident which exposed the so-called Deep State.
Sibel states that “a few main Susurluk actors also ended up in Chicago where they centered ‘certain’ aspects of their operations (Especially East Turkistan-Uighurs).
One of the main Deep State actors, Mehmet Eymur, former Chief of Counter-Terrorism for Turkey’s intelligence agency, the MIT, features in Sibel’s Rogues Gallery. Eymur was given exile in the US. Another member of Sibel’s gallery, Marc Grossmanwas Ambassador to Turkey at the time that the Susurluk incident exposed the Deep State. He was recalled shortly after, prior to the end of his assignment, as was Grossman’s underling, Major Douglas Dickerson, who later tried to recruit Sibel into the spying ring.
The modus operandi of the Susurluk gang is the same as the activities that Sibel describes as taking place in Central Asia, the only difference is that this activity was exposed in Turkey a decade ago, whereas the organs of the state in the US, including the corporate media, have successfully suppressed this story.
Chechnya, Albania & Kosovo
Central Asia is not the only place where American foreign policy makers have shared interests with Bin Laden. Consider the war in Chechnya. As I documented here, Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz (both in Sibel’s gallery) joined other leading neocon luminaries such as Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and Morton Abramowitz in a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). For his part, Bin Laden donated $25 million to the cause, as well as numerous fighters, and technical expertise, establishing training camps.
US interests also converged with those of al-Qaeda in Kosovo and Albania.
Of course, it is not uncommon for circumstances to arise where ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ On the other hand, in a transparent democracy, we expect a full accounting of the circumstances leading up to a tragic event like 9/11. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to provide exactly that.
State Secrets
Sibel has famously been dubbed the most gagged woman in America, having the State Secrets Privilege imposed on her twice. Her 3.5 hour testimony to the 9/11 Commission has been entirely suppressed, reduced to a single footnote which refers readers to her classified testimony.
In the interview, she says that the information that was classified in her case specifically identifies that the US was using Bin Laden and the Taliban in Central Asia, including Xinjiang. In the interview, Sibel reiterates that when invoking the gag orders, the US government claims that it is protecting ” ’sensitive diplomatic relations,’ protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia…” This is no doubt partially true, but it is also true that they are protecting themselves too, and it is a crime in the US to use classification and secrecy to cover up crimes.
As Sibel says in the interview:
I have information about things that our government has lied to us about… those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.
Summary
The bombshell here is obviously that certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.
It is important to understand why: the US outsourced terror operations to al Qaeda and the Taliban for many years, promoting the Islamization of Central Asia in an attempt to personally profit off military sales as well as oil and gas concessions.
The silence by the US government on these matters is deafening. So, too, is the blowback.
Source: Inforwars.com Posted: August, 3, 2009. Cross posted Against All Enemies
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
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CIA’s Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas
Sibel Edmonds
Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a former FBI translator who says she saw evidence of “criminal activities involving U.S. officials. She grew up in Iran and Turkey, later worked for the FBI, witnessing serious misconduct among her co-workers, and discovering that senior State Department and Pentagon officials were seemingly involved in corruption and Turkish elements of the nuclear black market.
Sibel is a former FBI linguist and the founder of the National Security Whistleblower Coalition. It’s a group made of former employees of law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military. They push for reforms of whistleblower protections and increased accountability for government agencies.
Last year Sibel spoke with Worldview producer Jonah Meadows and explained what an FBI employee is supposed to do when she witnesses criminal activity on the job.
Last yea, during an immigration court case involving Turkish Islamic Leader, Fetullah Gulen, US prosecutors exposed an illegal, covert, CIA operation involving the intentional Islamization of Central Asia. This operation has been ongoing since the fall of the Soviet Union in an ongoing Cold War to control the vast energy resources of the region – Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – estimated to be worth $3 trillion.
Court Case
The scene for these dramatic disclosures was an application for a Green Card in the Eastern District Court in Philadelphia by “controversial Islamic scholar” Fetullah Gulen. Gulen, who has been living in the United States since 1998, argued that he qualified for the Green Card as “an extraordinarily talented academic.”
The court case was covered extensively by the Turkish press. Leading Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:
“Gülen’s financial resources were detailed in the public prosecutor’s arguments, which claimed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, were behind the Gülen movement. It stated that some businessmen in Ankara donated 10 to 70 percent of their annual income to the movement and that it corresponded to $20,000 to $300,000 per year per person. It added that one businessman in Istanbul donated $4-5 million each year and that young people graduating from Gülen’s schools donated between $2,000 and $5,000 each year.”
Another leading Turkish newspaper reported (translated byRastibini)
Among the reasons given by the US State Department’s attorneys as to why Gülen’s permanent residence application was refused, is the suspicion of CIA financing of his movement.
[ . . . ]
“There is even CIA suspicion”“Because of the large amount of money that Gülen’s movement uses to finance his projects, there are claims that he has secret agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkic governments. There are suspicions that the CIA is a co-payer in financing these projects,” claimed the attorneys.
[ . . . ]
Among the documents that the state attorneys presented, there are claims about the Gülen movement’s financial structure and it was emphasized that the movement’s economic power reached $25 billion. “Schools, newspapers, universities, unions, television channels . . . The relationship among these are being debated. There is no transparency in their work,” claimed the attorneys.”
Who is Gulen?
Fetullah Gulen is “a 67-year-old Turkish Sufi cleric, author and theoretician,” according to a recent profile in the UK’s Prospect magazine. Prospect ran a public poll last month to find the world’s greatest living intellectual. Gulen ‘won’ the poll after his newspapers alerted readers to the poll’s existence. Gulen is also the leader of the so-called ‘Gulen Movement’ which claims to have seven million followers worldwide. The Gulen Movement has extensive business interests, including “publishing activities (books, newspapers, and magazines), construction, healthcare, and education.”
Gulen and the CIA
The fact that the prosecutors in the court cite documents that claim that Gulen has been financed in part by the CIA is remarkable for a number of reasons, even though there have been strong suspicions about the CIA’s involvement in the Gulen Movement for years. The Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, has repeatedly taken action against the Gulen movement for acting as a front organization for the CIA. In December 2002, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:
“Russian secret service claims: Turkish religious brotherhood works for CIA
The FSB, the Russian intelligence organization formerly called the KGB, has claimed that the ‘Nurcus’ religious brotherhood in Turkey has engaged in espionage on behalf of the CIA through the companies and foundations it has founded. FSB head Nikolay Patrushev has mentioned the names of these companies and foundations, saying, ‘The brotherhood engages in anti-Russian activities via two companies, Serhad and Eflak, as well as foundations such as Toros, Tolerans and Ufuk.’ Patrushev has accused the brotherhood of conducting pan-Turkish propaganda, of trying to convert Russian youths to Islam by sowing the seeds of enmity, and of engaging in certain lobbying activities. These companies and foundations have turned up in the internet site of Fethullah Gulen [alleged leader of the Nurcu religious community currently living in the United States who is a defendant in several court cases in Turkey, accused of engaging in anti-secularist activities.]“”
Russia has banned all of Gulen’s madrassas, and in April of this year, banned the Nurcu Movement completely.
Gulen’s Madrassas
The Gulen Movement founded madrassas all over the world in the 1990’s, most of them in the newly independent Turkic republics of Central Asia – Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – and Russia.
These madrassas appear to be used as a front for enabling CIA and State Department officials to operate undercover in the region, with many of the teachers operating under diplomatic passports.
Why Central Asia?
Central Asia, with its vast energy wealth, is of major interest to US oil and gas companies. The region is also of key strategic interest in the ‘Great Game’ as Russia, China and the US compete for dwindling energy supplies. The US government has been using Turkey as a proxy to gain control over Central Asia via Pan-Turkic nationalism and religion.
Sibel Edmonds Case
Twenty six people wrote reference letters supporting Gulen’s application for a Green Card – most notably ex-CIA agent George Fidas, former Turkish ambassador Morton Abramowitz, and former CIA Deputy Director Graham Fuller who appears in Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery.
I called Sibel Edmonds to comment on the latest revelations. She said:
You’ve got to look at the big picture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the super powers began to fight over control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region.
Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn’t get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime. Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.
And I want to emphasize that this is “illegal” because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.
And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – and the activities involving these countries.
Many of the people in Sibel’s State Secrets Privilege Gallery are closely connected to Gulen, and each other, as well as the operations that Sibel mentions. Many of them have actively advocated for using Muslims to further their own needs – from Turkistan to Albania and Central Asia.
Marc Grossman, former State Department #3 and former Turkish ambassador, and one of the key named individuals in Sibel’s case, is currently receiving $1.2 million per annum from Ihlas Holding, a Gulen-linked Turkish conglomerate. Sibel has previously referred to Ihlas as ‘semi-legitimate‘ and ‘alleged shady‘ - and emphasized that Grossman’s current payoff is a result of services performed while he was in office.
Grossman’s predecessor as ambassador in Turkey was Morton Abramowitz - in fact, Grossman actually worked under Abramowitz in Ankara for a number of years. During that period, the US opened an espionage investigation into activities at the embassy involving Major Douglas Dickerson, a weapons procurement specialist for Central Asia. Dickerson and his wife, an FBI translator, later became famous when they tried to recruit Sibel to spy for this criminal network.
Abramowitz, who is not listed in Sibel’s State Secrets Privilege Gallery, wrote a letter in support of Gulen for his immigration case. He has long advocated the use of Islamic fighters in furtherance of US interests, including the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets and the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war in the Balkans, acting as an advisor to the Kosovar Albanians.
Another player from Sibel’s Gallery is Enver Yusuf Turani - Prime Minister of East Turkistan, a ‘country’ recognized by only one country, the United States. East Turkistan, aka Xinjiang, is officially a part of China, and home to the Uyghur people and the “Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement,” a UN-nominated terrorist organization “funded mainly by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and received training, support and personnel from both the al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.” In fact, the Uyghurs constitute a significant percentage of detainees – at least 22 – at Guantanamo Bay since 2001. Five of those have been set free, and were eventually sent to Albania, amid much controversy.
According to TurkPulse:
“One of the main tools Washington is using in this affair in order to get Turkey involved in the Xinjiang affair is some Turkish Americans, primarily the Fetullah Gulen team who are prosecuted in absentia in Turkey for trying to found a theocratic State order in this country because he runs his activities from the United States, his protégé. Another Turk used in this affair is Enver Yusuf Turani, who is the self styled Foreign and Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in exile. He has been an American citizen since 1998. Enver Yusuf is in close cooperation with Fetullah Gulen… Their activities for the government in exile are based on a report entitled “the Xinjiang Project” drafted by Graham Fuller in 1998 for the Rand Corporation and revised in 2003 under the title “the Xinjiang Problem.” It emphasises the importance of the Xinjiang Autonomous region in encircling China and provides a strategy for it.”
In fact, Abramowitz and Fuller were key players in the establishment of ‘East Turkistan,’
“proclaiming the government in exile within 4-5 months, starting in May (2004) and completing the proclamation in mid- September. The ceremony was held at Capitol Hill under American flags in Washington.”
Two others from Sibel’s gallery, Sabri Sayari and Alan Makovsky, have been similarly involved with Gulen, Fuller, and Abramowitz – co-authoring books and articles, making joint appearances, dinners etc.
Illegal Operations
Earlier I quoted Sibel saying
“And I want to emphasize that this is “illegal” because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.”
Where does this funding come from? Narcotics trafficking, nuclear black market, weapons smuggling, and terrorist activities. As Sibel makes clear in her The Highjacking of a Nation article, the management of the heroin industry from the farms in Afghanistan to the streets of London and elsewhere “requires highly sophisticated networks,” from the protection of the convoys from Afghanistan through Central Asia to their final destination, to the laundering of the billions of dollars in proceeds in Central Asian casinos and financial institutions in Dubai and Cyprus. “So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?” Sibel asks. The heroin trade finances al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but they aren’t the real lords of the poppy fields. Journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of “Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia “ and other similar books about these issues recently noted onDemocracy Now that a “cartel” controls Afghanistan’s heroin, which supplies 93% of global heroin supply.
Sibel has been trying to tell us about these operations for years, but has been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege which was invoked citing certain ’sensitive foreign diplomatic and business relationships.’ These ’sensitive relationships’ have now been exposed to a degree, thanks to the immigration case against Mr Gulen – one of the Turkish operatives who have been fronting for the CIA in the Islamization of Central Asia, incorporating drug trafficking, money laundering, and the nuclear black market, and the convergence with terrorism.
One Last Question
At the end of our interview, Sibel asked me to leave you with this question:
“After 911, the US Government engaged in mock investigations and shut down many small Islamic charities and organizations, giving the appearance of action in the so-called ‘War on Terror.’ Why did they harbor, support and resource Fethullah Gulen’s $25 billion madrassa-and-mosque-establishment efforts throughout the Central Asian region and the Balkans?”
————
Source: http://lukery.blogspot.com/ Posted: August 3, 2009 Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
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Are We at (Robot) War in Pakistan?
It’s almost Shakespearean. But since we’re in the 21st century instead of the 16th, we seal our pact with the king by sending machines, not human assassins.
by Noah Shachtman
Washington and Islamabad are “drawing up a fresh list of terrorist targets for Predator drone strikes“ in Pakistan, according to the Wall Street Journal. Militants crossing the border into Afghanistan would still be in the drones’ bullseyes, just like before. But Pakistani officials are also “seeking to broaden the scope of the program to target extremists who have carried out attacks against Pakistanis.”
If that’s the case, isn’t America, for all intents and purposes, at war in Pakistan? Only in this war, it’s our flying robots doing most of the fighting?
Crossing a border to chase militants is one thing — an organic expansion of a pre-existing conflict. This feels like a different matter: a commitment to the Pakistanis to put down their internal rebellion. It’s certainly linked to the first conflict (the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have officially teamed up). But it’s not the same as the original fight — the one that started in Afghanistan.
Note: I’m not suggesting that we are at war with Pakistan, its people, or its government. But it seems pretty clear that the U.S. is almost (if not already) at war in Pakistan, against a whole series of militant networks.
UPDATE: It’s important to note that all of these militant groups share training, money, gear, and goons. So it’s natural to hop from one to the other — to keep on moving an inch further down this insurgent playing field. But travel one inch after another, and, eventually, you’re a mile down the road. Or, as Spencer Ackerman puts it: “Here’s where you feel like the frog who went for a leisurely dip in the warm stockpot bath and suddenly finds himself boiling,” he writes. “The American people are being asked to recommit in a major way to the Afghanistan war. It’s untenable to commit to a Pakistan war without their consent.”
“The American military has to be really, really careful about mission creep,” Jim Arkedis warns. “The military, as the Pentagon thinks it believes, can’t kill its way out of this problem, but this expanded target list only perpetuates the mindset that we can.”
I’d be curious to hear what you guys think. Drop me a line, or sound off, in the comments.
The latest drone strike went down yesterday — an attack on the network of Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud that killed at least eight. Continue readig…
Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians.
Mehsud is the main suspect behind the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Her widower, Asif Ali Zadari, is now president of Pakistan — and, according to the Journal, a prime supporter of the unmanned strikes.
Which leads Slate’s William Saletan to wonder: “Are we buying his support by sending our drones to avenge his wife’s death?”
It’s almost Shakespearean. But since we’re in the 21st century instead of the 16th, we seal our pact with the king by sending machines, not human assassins, to bring heaven’s wrath on the warlord who slew his beloved. And this time, the wrath really does come from heaven. Put yourself in Zardari’s shoes. You’re being offered the chance to destroy your enemy with a power unknown to history’s greatest kings and generals: a bloodless, all-seeing airborne hunting party.
Would you refuse?
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
[Photo: USAF]
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Source: Danger Room, Posted July 26, 2009
From Iraq to Afghanistan, US Wars Not Going According to Plan
Protesters brandished a plethora of handcrafted signs and banners reading: “Obama it’s your war now,” “America is losing its soul in Gaza,” “U.S. out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan NOW,” “College not combat,” “Hey Obama take a stand, U.S. out of Afghanistan” and “OK Democrats, now stop the war.” Bill Hackwel
by William Pfaff
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was in Washington this week to consult with Barack Obama and American military and political officials, three weeks after the Status of Forces Agreement concerning U.S. forces in Iraq came into effect.
On the same day, in Iraq, tension was reported to be increasing between the Americans, whose combat forces were supposed to evacuate Baghdad and other cities at the end of June, and the Iraqi military and security forces, who were supposed to take over the Americans’ responsibilities.
American commanders complain that the Iraq authorities have greatly reduced the number of joint patrols, supposed to continue, and in other ways “clearly are signaling that we are no longer wanted” — according to an American officer quoted in The Wall Street Journal. Iraqi commanders have told the Americans no longer to run patrols, and not to conduct raids on suspect locations, without coordinating them with the Iraqis.
A foreign diplomat in Baghdad has said that the Iraqis are determined to show that they are now in charge, in the run-up to national elections next year. Robert Gates, the U.S. Defense secretary, says that the situation is not bad. However, attacks have sharply increased in recent days, and some observers insist that the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated government must do more to reconcile the former ruling Sunni minority if sectarian conflict is not to break out again.
The Iraqi prime minister is playing the nationalist card, a dangerous one to play when the Sunnis also have sectarian revindications, and a lot of grievances. Washington itself has a hand to play in this game, with 130,000 troops (and at least as many contract forces) still in the country, whom Barack Obama has promised to withdraw, and the American public wants withdrawn — and a demagogic American right, for whom national failure means treason.
This is not the way this war was supposed to end. For younger readers: Six years ago the American intervention was supposed to end in a multi-party democratic government, an ally of Israel against the supposed menace of Iran, the strategic base and headquarters for the U.S. as dominant actor in a “New Middle East,” and a permanent and secure source of oil for the United States. None of this has happened. Iran is the principal beneficiary.
Move to another front: Pakistan-Afghanistan. Here there was also supposed to be a straightforward job to do: drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan, into their refuges in the semi-inaccessible Tribal Areas of the Pakistan border. There, the Pakistan army, with American urging and help, would defeat and disarm them, asserting Pakistani national control over the region, as well as U.S.-NATO success in Afghanistan.
What actually is happening is unsurprising. Pakistan continues to look after its own national interests, as it has always defined them. This means that the separate radical religious and tribal movements that make up the Taliban continue to be considered an asset to Pakistan in its long-term struggle with India, in defense of its own security, and in order to recover Muslim-populated Kashmir, which India controls.
The “K” word (the vale of Kashmir) in the Himalayan region continues to mar relations between two nuclear neighbours in South Asia.
The Taliban have also been for Pakistan an important instrument (originally supplied and financed by the United States — but there’s no time to go into that now, although the fact should be kept in mind), in keeping Afghanistan out of hostile hands in Pakistan’s equally long-term effort to control that country as providing Pakistan strategic depth and an additional Muslim bulwark against the threat of India.
Pakistan has made it clear now to Washington — to those who can read between the lines — that it wants no American troops inside Pakistan and no more collateral-damage bombing, and considers the American war in Afghanistan a futile and destructive effort, against whose consequences Pakistan must protect itself.
The growing opinion in Europe is that Afghanistan is the United States’ “new Vietnam.” The truth is that it is worse than Vietnam.
In Vietnam, the United States had a clearly identified enemy, supported by a responsible Communist state in North Vietnam with its government in Hanoi. The U.S. had a theory about what it was doing: suppressing the insurrection in the South, and bombing North Vietnam until the government stopped the war. All of this was, in principle, possible.
However the U.S. acted on a nonsensical theory about the world “going Communist” if the U.S. didn’t win, just as today the U.S. has an even more nonsensical theory about radical Islam conquering Muslim Asia and all of Europe, and then attacking the U.S., if Washington fails.
Unlike the Viet Cong, the Taliban are not a disciplined force acting under some government’s orders, and have neither the intention nor means to attack anybody outside Central Asia. They are motivated by nationalism, today focused against the United States, and by a desire to propagate their form of Islam.
In that respect it’s a war of ideas, which the United States has no theory about how to “win.” There is no way to make the Taliban surrender. At most they will temporarily fade away when U.S. and NATO forces begin to fade away, and fight again another day. There is no Taliban government to bomb. And there is no way to “make” Afghanistan a democratic ally of the United States. The “no’s” have it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
Posted: July 26, 2009 Source: Mathaba / (c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. #
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Pakistan, a Suicidal Nation in the Crosshairs
First a comment from a blogger friend (eideard.wordpress.com).
The North Carolina security contractor Blackwater Worldwide has changed its name to Xe, a company memo says. Company President Gary Jackson said in a memo that the company has been reorganizing for several months to “create unique brand identities for its products and services,”
As part of its rebranding, the company is jettisoning the name Blackwater and its red-and-black bear-claw logo.
Blackwater was involved in several controversies over its security work in Iraq on behalf of the U.S. government. There were high-profile investigations into alleged gun smuggling and the shooting of civilians in Baghdad.
Robert Passikoff, president of the New York marketing research firm Brand Keys Inc., said “There’s an old
saying about brands: ‘When you can’t change the product, you change the packaging.’”
A mercenary thug by any other name…
Sleazy bastards. The right-wing politicians in bed with them could care less about the name. They’ll still roll over and spout greenbacks whenever they’re asked.
Destroying ourselves with a little help from the US
Shireen M Mazari
The chaos that is spreading within the country is frightening and a result of bad or lack of governance on one hand and the US intrusions and questionable activities in Pakistan on the other.In the first instance, there is no civilian governance infrastructure to take over and govern the “cleared” areas inMalakand – but then there is no governance even in more central parts of the country. That is why we have had the despicable attack on the poor and marginalised Christians in Gojra – once again under the shameful and protective guise of the Blasphemy Law. Never has a Law been so abused to wreak violence on our minorities’ whom the Founder of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam, declared as equal citizens in the state of Pakistan. Clearly, there is so much hatred, intolerance and violence endemic within us that we do not need any Taliban to kill and harm our less fortunate fellow citizens. And where were the government and the law and order institutions when all this barbarism was being carried out?
As Pakistanis we must hang our heads once again in shame; but the main concern for us should not be simply our image internationally but what we are becoming within our own society. That is what should be of primary concern for the leadership. That is why in many previous columns I have been pointing to the dangers of bringing our marginalised population within the mainstream and delivering justice to the people so that they all have a stake in the system and the state – be they the marginalised Madrassah students or the marginalised minorities’. Otherwise extremism and violence will fester – Taliban or no Taliban – and as a desperate measure sending in the military will only aggravate not resolve the problem. And one has yet to talk of Balochistan where targeted killings continue while politicians continue to talk rather than act despite a seeming political consensus on what needs to be done. Why a beginning towards reconciliation cannot be made by declaring a general amnesty for all political prisoners and exiles only our bizarre ruling elites’ mindsets can understand but we are on a precipice here.
However, the other cause for chaos can be resolved more readily – that of the growing intrusiveness and questionable role of the US within Pakistan. For some time now one has been raising questions about the strange US presence in areas around Tarbela and in Peshawar. Then there was the news of the assassination squads controlled by the US Department of Defence rather than the CIA, of which the new US commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal was a central actor. This information helped to link up differing pieces of a growing puzzle about the increasing US personnel in Pakistan. A cause for concern, given these developments, is the US plan to spend $1 billion to expand its presence in Islamabad – especially, since central to this plan is the importation of almost 400 Marines with hundreds of APCs. There is absolutely no logic to this, but who will tell our rulers who seem hell-bent on kowtowing before Washington? Incidentally already the US contingent in Pakistan is way over the sanctioned strength of 350 but does anyone in the corridors of power in Pakistan care?
Nor is the US Marines presence restricted to Islamabad. As some of us had been writing much earlier, they had been spotted in and around Tarbela also – where our military’s Special Operation Task Force is located. It now transpires that there are already 300 plus US military personnel in this area – the so-called “trainers”. Of course, given the poor counter insurgency record of the US, heaven knows what training they will impart to our much better trained army! Also, if they were only “trainers” why would the US buy a large plot of land around Tarbela and send twenty large containers there according to an investigative Asia Times Online report (3August 2009).
As if all these US military and undercover officials crawling all over the sensitive parts of the country were not enough, it appears that the US is also using private covert setups to further a dubious and threatening agenda within Pakistan. The centre of these suspicious covert operations is Peshawar, and the central organisation is Creative Associates International Inc. (CAII – as opposed to CIA), which refers to itself as an NGO on its website but on further investigation it transpires that the organisation is registered as a private incorporated company in Washington D.C – not an NGO! A 27 July 2009 report by Sarwar and Yousafzai for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reveals that CAII has been terrifying the residents of University Town Peshawar because of its US security guards – ostensibly from that notorious US security contractor Blackwater (now renamed Xe Worldwide) whose employees already face charges of murder, arms smuggling and child prostitution in Iraq.
What is very suspicious is that CAII’s website shows no identification of its owners although its staff is identified. Also, although it is supposed to be a private corporation, all its work around the world is totally funded by USAid and the US government and the projects are all in sensitive areas only – Sri Lanka, Gaza, Angola, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. CAII is working supposedly on a strange-sounding project in FATA – FATA Development Programme Government to Community. In reality, its staff goes around escorted by the killer Blackwater guards, meeting militants and other suspect people being sought by the Pakistani authorities in FATA and the Peshawar environs. Of the 30 job openings listed on its website presently, at least half are for Pakistan.
During the latter half of July, a US citizen, Craig Davis, was arrested from the CAII house in Peshawar, his visa cancelled and deported. Interestingly, when a journalist sought to verify this information from the US embassy, its spokesperson first declared that Davis had nothing to do with the US embassy but then stated that the embassy knew nothing about this man. So if they knew nothing of the man’s existence, how was it known that he did not work for the US embassy?
The point is, clearly there is a threatening US agenda including seeking out our nuclear sites and assassinating people thereby adding to our chaos and violence. But the question is: who has allowed us to be confronted with such a dubious and large US covert and overt presence in Pakistan? Some believe that during the previous regime, certain segments of certain institutions had orders from the top to allow this dangerous US infiltration into Pakistan but no one else was informed. However, now who is responsible for the continuing presence of these people in sensitive areas where they are also terrorising the local populations?
When we as a society are facing our own problems of violence and terrorism, we can hardly afford to have such a volatile US presence here which will only aggravate our problems of violence and law and order. It is also sad to learn that Blackwater has been able to recruit dozens of retired commandos from the Pakistan army and elite police force through its local subcontractors according to the DPA report. Are Pakistanis so willing to knowingly act against their nation for dollars?
With increasing information about the dangerous US presence in Pakistan, it is not difficult to connect the dots also – with our nuclear assets, the institution of the military and the remaining strands of stability being the targets. Unless someone can stop the rot, it is only a matter of time before the US forces cross over physically on the ground from across Afghanistan. They may not get the triggers they plan on seizing but they can trigger a push towards total anarchy. Our rulers are certainly in self-destruct mode aided and abetted by the US.
The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com
Source: therearenosunglasses Posted: August 16, 2009
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.
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on August 16, 2009 at 6:26 pm Comments (4)Tags: Afghanistan, Balochistan, Extremism in Pakistan, FATA, FATA Development Programme Government to Community, Gaza, Gen. McChrystal, General Amnesty in Balochistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws, Pakistan’s Marginalized Populations, Peshawar, Shireen M. Mazari, Sri Lanka, Tarbela, The Growing US presence in Pakistan, USAid, XE Worlwide