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Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Iranian warships enter Suez Canal after 3 decades
By SALAH NASRAWI
The Associated PressTuesday, February 22, 2011; 2:55 AM
CAIRO -- Suez Canal officials say two Iranian naval vessels have entered the strategic waterway en route for the Mediterranean Sea.
Canal officials say the ships - a frigate and a supply vessel - entered the canal early Tuesday morning and are expected to reach the Mediterranean later in the day. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
This marks the first time in three decades that Iranian military ships have traveled the waterway that links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
Israel has made clear it views the passage as a provocation.
Iranian officials say the ships are headed to Syria for a training mission. Damascus is close ally of Iran'shardline Islamic rulers and an arch foe of Israel.
By Washington post
This marks the first time in three decades that Iranian military ships have traveled the waterway that links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
Israel has made clear it views the passage as a provocation.
Iranian officials say the ships are headed to Syria for a training mission. Damascus is close ally of Iran'shardline Islamic rulers and an arch foe of Israel.
By Washington post
US officials admit Remond ties with CIA
The American who fatally shot two men in Pakistan last month and who has been described publicly as a diplomat is a security contractor for the CIA who was part of a secret agency team operating out of a safe house in Lahore, U.S. officials said. The contractor, Raymond A. Davis, 36, has been detained in a Pakistani jail since his arrest. He has said that he opened fire on two Pakistani men after they tried to rob him at a traffic signal in Lahore.
The disclosure compounds an already combustible standoff between the United States and Pakistan at a time of growing distrust between the two countries and complicates U.S. efforts to win Davis's release.
President Obama and other senior administration officials have repeatedly described Davis as a diplomat who was assigned to the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore and have said he is entitled to immunity from prosecution in Pakistan.
But, in fact, Davis has spent much of the past two years working as part of a group of covert CIA operatives, whose mission appears to have centered on conducting surveillance of militant groups in large cities, including Lahore.
At the time of his arrest, Davis was based at a house with five other CIA contractors as well as an agency employee, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The official said the impact of the disclosure that Davis is a CIA contractor "will be serious.
"I think it's going to make it a hell of a lot harder to get him out," the official said. "I think ISI knows what this guy is, but I think this is just going to inflame the Pakistanis."
ISI is the acronym for Pakistan's spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
"Our security personnel around the world act in a support role providing security for American officials. They do not conduct foreign intelligence collection or covert operations. Any assertion to the contrary is flat wrong," said George Little, a spokesman for the CIA, without commenting specifically on Davis. The Washington Post learned of Davis's CIA affiliation after his arrest but agreed not to publish the information at the request of senior U.S. intelligence officials, who cited concern for Davis's safety if his true employment status were disclosed.Those officials withdrew the request Monday after other news organizations identified Davis as a CIA employee and after U.S. officials made a final attempt to prevail upon Pakistan's government to release Davis or move him to a safer facility. U.S. officials reiterated their concern for Davis on Monday and provided new details on the conditions at the jail where he is being held. One U.S. official said Davis had been moved to a separate section of the facility where the guards' guns had been taken away "for fear that one of them may kill him." The official added that the jail holds about 4,000 inmates and that three detainees have previously been killed by guards."The local police are allowing angry protesters very near the prison," the official said. He added that jail authorities were using dogs to taste or smell the food given to Davis "to make sure it doesn't contain poison."
Even while shedding new light on the circumstances of Davis's detention, U.S. officials continued to provide scant information about his assignment. A former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Davis was hired as a contract employee of the CIA's Global Response Staff, a unit that is responsible for providing security for agency employees and facilities in other countries.
Current and former U.S. officials said Davis had previously been employed by the sprawling security firm once known as Blackwater. A spokeswoman for the company, now known as Xe Services, did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. officials said that at the time of the shooting, Davis was doing what CIA employees refer to as "area familiarization," meaning basic surveillance designed to familiarize operatives with their surroundings.
The work would help to explain a collection of items found in Davis's possession when he was arrested, including a camera, a small telescope, a first-aid kit, flashlights and a Glock semiautomatic pistol.
The description of his activities is at odds with early accounts by U.S. officials, who had indicated that he was not on a particular assignment when the shooting occurred and that he was attacked in his vehicle after withdrawing money from an automated teller machine.
Davis has testified that he was approached by two Pakistani men on a motorcycle and that they brandished a weapon in an apparent attempt to rob him. Pakistani authorities have threatened to charge Davis with murder and have released pages from police reports indicating that he fired at the backs of the men he killed even as they attempted to flee.A third Pakistani, a pedestrian, was fatally struck by a U.S. vehicle that apparently had been dispatched from the Lahore consulate to retrieve Davis.
Officials in Pakistan said the government has known that Davis worked for the CIA and that the U.S. acknowledgment bolsters Islamabad's case that Davis was not a diplomat and, therefore, is not entitled to immunity. Davis's affiliation with the CIA was "one of the major reasons" for the complications surrounding the case, a senior Pakistani official said. The broader impact, the official said, will be in "adding to the public anger and anguish, and hence more pressure on authorities in Islamabad not to succumb to the American pressure to hand over Davis." State Department officials reiterated Monday that Davis was entitled to diplomatic immunity under the terms of the Vienna Convention, which has been ratified by Pakistan, the United States and most other countries. A senior official, asked whether diplomatic immunity applied to CIA employees posted abroad, said Davis's employer was not relevant."Under international law, there are very few areas where the law is so clear," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with ground rules.
The CIA and the ISI have cooperated extensively on counterterrorism operations. Pakistan has secretly authorized CIA drone strikes in the country's tribal belt, where al-Qaeda and other militant groups are based. The CIA has mainly relied on the ISI to carry out arrests of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, including Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi and other major cities.
But the murky mission of the team that included Davis suggests that the CIA has sought to expand its capabilities in Pakistan's urban areas, where high-ranking militants are thought to have taken refuge from the deadly toll of drone strikes.
One U.S. official said Davis and the others working out of a Lahore safe house "were hooked up with JSOC," the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, which has taken on an increasingly important role in intelligence-gathering missions in Pakistan.
"There were five other contractors and a blue badger living in a safe house in Lahore," the official said, referring to the colored badges worn by CIA personnel.
The CIA has provided leads and intelligence to ISI units that have made high-profile arrests. But that partnership might be strained if Davis's team were focused on militant groups with close ties to the ISI, including Lashkar-i-Taiba, a potent organization with deep support in Pakistan that is accused in the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.CIA Director Leon Panetta testified last week that the CIA-ISI relationship is one of the "most complicated" he had encountered in decades of service in Washington. Earlier this year, U.S. officials accused the ISI of intentionally exposing the identity of the agency's top spy in Pakistan, forcing the CIA to recall the officer back to Washington.
By Washington post
The disclosure compounds an already combustible standoff between the United States and Pakistan at a time of growing distrust between the two countries and complicates U.S. efforts to win Davis's release.
President Obama and other senior administration officials have repeatedly described Davis as a diplomat who was assigned to the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore and have said he is entitled to immunity from prosecution in Pakistan.
But, in fact, Davis has spent much of the past two years working as part of a group of covert CIA operatives, whose mission appears to have centered on conducting surveillance of militant groups in large cities, including Lahore.
At the time of his arrest, Davis was based at a house with five other CIA contractors as well as an agency employee, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The official said the impact of the disclosure that Davis is a CIA contractor "will be serious.
"I think it's going to make it a hell of a lot harder to get him out," the official said. "I think ISI knows what this guy is, but I think this is just going to inflame the Pakistanis."
ISI is the acronym for Pakistan's spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
"Our security personnel around the world act in a support role providing security for American officials. They do not conduct foreign intelligence collection or covert operations. Any assertion to the contrary is flat wrong," said George Little, a spokesman for the CIA, without commenting specifically on Davis. The Washington Post learned of Davis's CIA affiliation after his arrest but agreed not to publish the information at the request of senior U.S. intelligence officials, who cited concern for Davis's safety if his true employment status were disclosed.Those officials withdrew the request Monday after other news organizations identified Davis as a CIA employee and after U.S. officials made a final attempt to prevail upon Pakistan's government to release Davis or move him to a safer facility. U.S. officials reiterated their concern for Davis on Monday and provided new details on the conditions at the jail where he is being held. One U.S. official said Davis had been moved to a separate section of the facility where the guards' guns had been taken away "for fear that one of them may kill him." The official added that the jail holds about 4,000 inmates and that three detainees have previously been killed by guards."The local police are allowing angry protesters very near the prison," the official said. He added that jail authorities were using dogs to taste or smell the food given to Davis "to make sure it doesn't contain poison."
Even while shedding new light on the circumstances of Davis's detention, U.S. officials continued to provide scant information about his assignment. A former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Davis was hired as a contract employee of the CIA's Global Response Staff, a unit that is responsible for providing security for agency employees and facilities in other countries.
Current and former U.S. officials said Davis had previously been employed by the sprawling security firm once known as Blackwater. A spokeswoman for the company, now known as Xe Services, did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. officials said that at the time of the shooting, Davis was doing what CIA employees refer to as "area familiarization," meaning basic surveillance designed to familiarize operatives with their surroundings.
The work would help to explain a collection of items found in Davis's possession when he was arrested, including a camera, a small telescope, a first-aid kit, flashlights and a Glock semiautomatic pistol.
The description of his activities is at odds with early accounts by U.S. officials, who had indicated that he was not on a particular assignment when the shooting occurred and that he was attacked in his vehicle after withdrawing money from an automated teller machine.
Davis has testified that he was approached by two Pakistani men on a motorcycle and that they brandished a weapon in an apparent attempt to rob him. Pakistani authorities have threatened to charge Davis with murder and have released pages from police reports indicating that he fired at the backs of the men he killed even as they attempted to flee.A third Pakistani, a pedestrian, was fatally struck by a U.S. vehicle that apparently had been dispatched from the Lahore consulate to retrieve Davis.
Officials in Pakistan said the government has known that Davis worked for the CIA and that the U.S. acknowledgment bolsters Islamabad's case that Davis was not a diplomat and, therefore, is not entitled to immunity. Davis's affiliation with the CIA was "one of the major reasons" for the complications surrounding the case, a senior Pakistani official said. The broader impact, the official said, will be in "adding to the public anger and anguish, and hence more pressure on authorities in Islamabad not to succumb to the American pressure to hand over Davis." State Department officials reiterated Monday that Davis was entitled to diplomatic immunity under the terms of the Vienna Convention, which has been ratified by Pakistan, the United States and most other countries. A senior official, asked whether diplomatic immunity applied to CIA employees posted abroad, said Davis's employer was not relevant."Under international law, there are very few areas where the law is so clear," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with ground rules.
The CIA and the ISI have cooperated extensively on counterterrorism operations. Pakistan has secretly authorized CIA drone strikes in the country's tribal belt, where al-Qaeda and other militant groups are based. The CIA has mainly relied on the ISI to carry out arrests of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, including Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi and other major cities.
But the murky mission of the team that included Davis suggests that the CIA has sought to expand its capabilities in Pakistan's urban areas, where high-ranking militants are thought to have taken refuge from the deadly toll of drone strikes.
One U.S. official said Davis and the others working out of a Lahore safe house "were hooked up with JSOC," the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, which has taken on an increasingly important role in intelligence-gathering missions in Pakistan.
"There were five other contractors and a blue badger living in a safe house in Lahore," the official said, referring to the colored badges worn by CIA personnel.
The CIA has provided leads and intelligence to ISI units that have made high-profile arrests. But that partnership might be strained if Davis's team were focused on militant groups with close ties to the ISI, including Lashkar-i-Taiba, a potent organization with deep support in Pakistan that is accused in the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.CIA Director Leon Panetta testified last week that the CIA-ISI relationship is one of the "most complicated" he had encountered in decades of service in Washington. Earlier this year, U.S. officials accused the ISI of intentionally exposing the identity of the agency's top spy in Pakistan, forcing the CIA to recall the officer back to Washington.
By Washington post
CIA agent Davis had ties with local militants
ISLAMABAD: As American newspapers lifted a self-imposed gag on the CIA links of Raymond Davis, in place on the request of the US administration, The Express Tribune has now learnt that the alleged killer of two Pakistanis had close links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The New York Times reported on Monday that Davis “was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to American government officials.”
This contradicts the US claim that Davis was a member of the ‘technical and administrative staff’ of its diplomatic mission in Pakistan.
Davis was arrested on January 27 after allegedly shooting dead two young motorcyclists at a crowded bus stop in Lahore. American officials say that the arrest came after a ‘botched robbery attempt’.
“The Lahore killings were a blessing in disguise for our security agencies who suspected that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities in Lahore and other parts of Punjab,” a senior official in the Punjab police claimed.
“His close ties with the TTP were revealed during the investigations,” he added. “Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency.” Call records of the cellphones recovered from Davis have established his links with 33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi sectarian outfit, sources said.
Davis was also said to be working on a plan to give credence to the American notion that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not safe. For this purpose, he was setting up a group of the Taliban which would do his bidding.
The larger picture
Davis’s arrest and detention has pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations inside Pakistan.
The former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had cut a secret deal with the US in 2006, allowing clandestine CIA operations in his country. This was done to make the Americans believe that Islamabad was not secretly helping the Taliban insurgents.
Under the agreement, the CIA was allowed to acquire the services of private security firms, including Blackwater (Xe Worldwide) and DynCorp to conduct surveillance on the Taliban and al Qaeda.
According to The New York Times, even before his arrest, Davis’s CIA affiliation was known to Pakistani authorities. It added that his visa, presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late 2009, describes his job as a “regional affairs officer,” a common job description for officials working with the agency.
American officials said that with Pakistan’s government trying to clamp down on the increasing flow of CIA officers and contractors trying to gain entry to Pakistan, more of these operatives have been granted “cover” as embassy employees and given diplomatic passports.
However, “The government and security agencies were surprised to know that Davis and some of his colleagues were involved in activities that were not spelled out in the agreement,” a source told The Express Tribune.
“Davis’s job was to trail links of the Taliban and al Qaeda in different parts of Pakistan. But, instead, investigators found that he had developed close links with the TTP,” added the source.
Investigators had recovered 158 items from Davis, which include a 9mm Gloc Pistol, five 9mm magazines, 75 bullets, GPS device, an infrared torch, a wireless set, two mobile phones, a digital camera, a survival kit, five ATM cards, and Pakistani and US currency notes, sources said.
The camera had photographs of Pakistan’s defence installations.
Intelligence officials say that some of the items recovered from Davis are used by spies, not diplomats. This proves that he was involved in activities detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests.
The Punjab law minister has said that Davis could be tried for anti-state activities. “The spying gadgets and sophisticated weapons recovered are never used by diplomats,” Rana Sanaullah told The Express Tribune.
He said some of the items recovered from Davis have been sent for a detailed forensic analysis. “A fresh case might be registered against Davis under the [Official] Secrets Act once the forensics report was received,” he said.
Sanaullah said that Davis could also be tried under the Army Act. To substantiate his viewpoint, he said recently 11 persons who had gone missing from Rawalpindi’s Adiyala jail were booked under the Army Act.
However, a senior lawyer said that only the Army has the authority to register a case under the Army Act of 1952 against any person who is involved in activities detrimental to the army or its installations.
“Such an accused will also be tried by the military court,” Qazi Anwer, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association said. He added that the civil authorities could register a case of espionage against any person.
But interestingly, despite all the evidence of Davis’s involvement in espionage, the federal government is unlikely to try him for spying.
“He will be prosecuted only on charges of killing of two men in Lahore,” highly-placed sources told The Express Tribune.
The Davis saga has strained relations between Pakistan and the United States, creating a dilemma for the PPP-led government.
More pressure
The pressure on the Pakistan government to release Davis has been steadily intensifying.
According to The New York Times, “there have been a flurry of private phone calls to Pakistan from Leon E Panetta, the CIA director, and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all intended to persuade the Pakistanis to release the secret operative.” WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ASAD KHARAL IN LAHORE
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2011.
Monday, February 21, 2011
American who killed two in Pakistan was CIA spy
The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time.
Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January.
Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity.
Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. The revelation may complicate American efforts to free Davis, who insists he was acting in self-defence against a pair of suspected robbers, who were both carrying guns.
Pakistani prosecutors accuse the spy of excessive force, saying he fired 10 shots and got out of his car to shoot one man twice in the back as he fled. The man's body was found 30 feet from his motorbike.
"It went way beyond what we define as self-defence. It was not commensurate with the threat," a senior police official involved in the case told the Guardian.
The Pakistani government is aware of Davis's CIA status yet has kept quiet in the face of immense American pressure to free him under the Vienna convention. Last week President Barack Obama described Davis as "our diplomat" and dispatched his chief diplomatic troubleshooter, Senator John Kerry, to Islamabad. Kerry returned home empty-handed.
Many Pakistanis are outraged at the idea of an armed American rampaging through their second-largest city. Analysts have warned of Egyptian-style protests if Davis is released. The government, fearful of a backlash, says it needs until 14 March to decide whether Davis enjoys immunity.
A third man was crushed by an American vehicle as it rushed to Davis's aid. Pakistani officials believe its occupants were CIA because they came from the house where Davis lived and were armed.
The US refused Pakistani demands to interrogate the two men and on Sunday a senior Pakistani intelligence official said they had left the country. "They have flown the coop, they are already in America," he said.
ABC News reported that the men had the same diplomatic visas as Davis. It is not unusual for US intelligence officers, like their counterparts round the world, to carry diplomatic passports.
The US has accused Pakistan of illegally detaining him and riding roughshod over international treaties. Angry politicians have proposed slashing Islamabad's $1.5bn (£900m) annual aid.
But Washington's case is hobbled by its resounding silence on Davis's role. He served in the US special forces for 10 years before leaving in 2003 to become a security contractor. A senior Pakistani official said he believed Davis had worked with Xe, the firm formerly known as Blackwater.
Pakistani suspicions about Davis's role were stoked by the equipment police confiscated from his car: an unlicensed pistol, a long-range radio, a GPS device, an infrared torch and a camera with pictures of buildings around Lahore.
"This is not the work of a diplomat. He was doing espionage and surveillance activities," said the Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, adding he had "confirmation" that Davis was a CIA employee.
A number of US media outlets learned about Davis's CIA role but have kept it under wraps at the request of the Obama administration. A Colorado television station, 9NEWS, made a connection after speaking to Davis's wife. She referred its inquiries to a number in Washington which turned out to be the CIA. The station removed the CIA reference from its website at the request of the US government.
Some reports, quoting Pakistani intelligence officials, have suggested that the men Davis killed, Faizan Haider, 21, and Muhammad Faheem, 19, were agents of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency (ISI) and had orders to shadow Davis because he crossed a "red line".
A senior police official confirmed US claims that the men were petty thieves – investigators found stolen mobiles, foreign currency and weapons on them – but did not rule out an intelligence link.
A senior ISI official denied the dead men worked for the spy agency but admitted the CIA relationship had been damaged. "We are a sovereign country and if they want to work with us, they need to develop a trusting relationship on the basis of equality. Being arrogant and demanding is not the way to do it," he said.
Tensions between the spy agencies have been growing. The CIA Islamabad station chief was forced to leave in December after being named in a civil lawsuit. The ISI was angered when its chief, General Shuja Pasha, was named in a New York lawsuit related to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Although the two spy services co-operate in the CIA's drone campaign along the Afghan border, there has not been a drone strike since 23 January – the longest lull since June 2009. Experts are unsure whether both events are linked.
Davis awaits his fate in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore. Pakistani officials say they have taken exceptional measures to ensure his safety, including ringing the prison with paramilitary Punjab Rangers. The law minister, Sanaullah, said Davis was in a "high security zone" and was receiving food from visitors from the US consulate.
Sanaullah said 140 foreigners were in the facility, many on drug charges. Press reports have speculated that the authorities worry the US could try to spring Davis in a "Hollywood-style sting". "All measures for his security have been taken," said the ISI official. "He's as safe as can be." By Guardian
Cultural plunder
By Peter Thonemann
ARE you keen to help finance the activities of warlords and insurgents across Afghanistan?
As I write, eBay is inviting bids on no fewer than 128 ancient Bactrian and Indo-Greek silver and bronze coins, from sellers in Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.
Probably every one of them is the product of looting over the past 20 years. With luck, you might even pick up one of the tens of thousands of items plundered from the collections of the old National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul between 1992 and 2001.
For those with deep pockets, I can particularly recommend the eBay seller “The Precious Art from Past”, who is currently offering 289 looted AfPak objects for sale, including an extraordinary ancient Gandharan sculpture of a seated Heracles in near-perfect condition, yours for GBP18,950 plus postage and packing.
Such are the hazards of liv ing at a “crossroads of civilisations”. It must be said that this kind of briskly utilitarian attitude towards Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic heritage is nothing new. In 1999, the leader of the Taliban government, Mullah Omar, issued a decree forbidding any damage to the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan, on the grounds that the Taliban considered the Bamiyan statues “as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors”.
Aside from their potential economic value, no obvious benefits derived from the existence of the Bamiyan Buddhas: as Omar rightly noted “In Afghanistan there are no Buddhists to worship the statues.” Why should a Pashtun Muslim feel any sense of responsibility for the culture of Gandharan Buddhists? Dozens of times over the past 3,000 years, the plains and valleys around the foothills of the Hindu Kush have changed hands between Iranians, Greeks, Chinese, Scythians, Turks and Indians. An oft-photographed plaque outside the National Museum in Kabul reads: “A Nation Stays Alive When Its Culture Stays Alive”. No one should be taken in by the bland phrasing — this is as provocative as it gets. Which culture? Whose nation?
In March 2001, Omar gave one answer, by revoking his decision of two years earlier and ordering the dynamiting of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Simultaneously, most of the few remaining pre-Islamic objects in the Kabul museum were also smashed or sold off. It would be quite wrong to see the events of March 2001 as merely an act of barbarous vandalism (though they certainly were that too).
They also represented a particular claim about which bits of Afghanistan’s history were worth preserving: for the Taliban, the only “national culture” that mattered was the one that began in AD622.
For an alternative account of Afghanistan’s bloody history — one, as it were, with the Buddhists left in — we can look to a spectacular exhibition which opens at the British Museum next month. Neil MacGregor, director of the museum, hopes to show that “We are at a historically anomalous moment when the country is seen as remote and isolated . . . Afghanistan’s relationships are long and deep.” At the heart of the exhibition is the miracle of Tillya Tepe, the “hill of gold”, a huge earthen barrow 80 miles west of Mazar-i-Sharif, between the Hindu Kush mountains and the streams of the Amu Darya. Some time in the mid-first century AD, this mound was chosen by a nomadic prince as his burial kurghan.
The prince himself was interred at the peak of the hill, and a horse was sacrificed and buried alongside him. In a ring around the prince’s tomb were the graves of five women, probably his five wives, all of them clad in gorgeous textiles and jewellery of extraordinary splendour. ¦ — The Guardian, London
ARE you keen to help finance the activities of warlords and insurgents across Afghanistan?
As I write, eBay is inviting bids on no fewer than 128 ancient Bactrian and Indo-Greek silver and bronze coins, from sellers in Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.
Probably every one of them is the product of looting over the past 20 years. With luck, you might even pick up one of the tens of thousands of items plundered from the collections of the old National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul between 1992 and 2001.
For those with deep pockets, I can particularly recommend the eBay seller “The Precious Art from Past”, who is currently offering 289 looted AfPak objects for sale, including an extraordinary ancient Gandharan sculpture of a seated Heracles in near-perfect condition, yours for GBP18,950 plus postage and packing.
Such are the hazards of liv ing at a “crossroads of civilisations”. It must be said that this kind of briskly utilitarian attitude towards Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic heritage is nothing new. In 1999, the leader of the Taliban government, Mullah Omar, issued a decree forbidding any damage to the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan, on the grounds that the Taliban considered the Bamiyan statues “as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors”.
Aside from their potential economic value, no obvious benefits derived from the existence of the Bamiyan Buddhas: as Omar rightly noted “In Afghanistan there are no Buddhists to worship the statues.” Why should a Pashtun Muslim feel any sense of responsibility for the culture of Gandharan Buddhists? Dozens of times over the past 3,000 years, the plains and valleys around the foothills of the Hindu Kush have changed hands between Iranians, Greeks, Chinese, Scythians, Turks and Indians. An oft-photographed plaque outside the National Museum in Kabul reads: “A Nation Stays Alive When Its Culture Stays Alive”. No one should be taken in by the bland phrasing — this is as provocative as it gets. Which culture? Whose nation?
In March 2001, Omar gave one answer, by revoking his decision of two years earlier and ordering the dynamiting of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Simultaneously, most of the few remaining pre-Islamic objects in the Kabul museum were also smashed or sold off. It would be quite wrong to see the events of March 2001 as merely an act of barbarous vandalism (though they certainly were that too).
They also represented a particular claim about which bits of Afghanistan’s history were worth preserving: for the Taliban, the only “national culture” that mattered was the one that began in AD622.
For an alternative account of Afghanistan’s bloody history — one, as it were, with the Buddhists left in — we can look to a spectacular exhibition which opens at the British Museum next month. Neil MacGregor, director of the museum, hopes to show that “We are at a historically anomalous moment when the country is seen as remote and isolated . . . Afghanistan’s relationships are long and deep.” At the heart of the exhibition is the miracle of Tillya Tepe, the “hill of gold”, a huge earthen barrow 80 miles west of Mazar-i-Sharif, between the Hindu Kush mountains and the streams of the Amu Darya. Some time in the mid-first century AD, this mound was chosen by a nomadic prince as his burial kurghan.
The prince himself was interred at the peak of the hill, and a horse was sacrificed and buried alongside him. In a ring around the prince’s tomb were the graves of five women, probably his five wives, all of them clad in gorgeous textiles and jewellery of extraordinary splendour. ¦ — The Guardian, London
The speech he needs to make-Pakistan
Mr Qureshi has not spoken about the alternative to dependence on the US.
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By Syed Talat Hussain
LAST week, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi displayed a fine response to the call of his conscience. Speaking one’s mind is a rarity in a system that thrives on secrecy and subservience.Since then Mr Qureshi has reaped a rich harvest of public praise of the sort he was denied when he was in charge of the country’s foreign affairs. Then, despite having a massive PR machinery at his disposal and the ability to command the direction of the cameras, he was a marginal man in terms of public popularity on a national scale.
Now parallels are being drawn between Mr Qureshi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the country’s late charismatic prime minister, whose sizzling rhetoric on foreign affairs was as popular as the commanding heights of his understanding of world politics. Mr Qureshi should find such comparisons flattering. But this is where the matter should end. One press conference, no matter how passionate and energising, does not make a national leader. Without taking anything away from Mr Qureshi, who so far has stayed clear of the pond of corruption that some of his colleagues have been happily diving in, he has not articulated a new vision for the country’s foreign policy, much less shown how to redefine Pakistan’s strategic ties with the US. The fantastic talk of national honour and walking with one’s head held high is heartwarming, but falls hopelessly short of a new world view. Let alone that, it does not even constitute an honest answer to the fundamental question as to where Pakistan has gone wrong in its engagement with Washington. The Raymond Davis case, on which Mr Qureshi has struck a politically suicidal but personally redeeming note, is symbolic of the broader context in which Pakistan has chosen to ally itself with Washington. Davis is not the problem, but a gross symptom of the problem that can be called harsh TORs (terms of reference) within which Islamabad finds itself in dealing with the US. These TORs, restrictive of the country’s sovereignty and debilitating for its dignity, are wrapped in secrecy and sealed with silence. No one dares to open up on them. They have spawned an underground of operators like Davis who have unfettered territory for murderous operations in Pakistan until such time, of course, when they blow their own cover and get caught, literally in his case, with a smoking gun. How exactly has this underworld come about and how vast and widespread it is are queries on which the out-ofcabinet, out-in-the-cold former foreign minister could have informed the people of Pakistan, but chose not to. In fact, all bets are that he would never do that. Haloed pirs never rock the boat. Unassuming fakirs do. Mr Qureshi is not going to upstage his goodwill with Washington’s powerbrokers by crossing the fine line that divides US friends from foes, which, these days, includes ev eryone who dares ask an even remotely probing question about the US role in Pakistan. Moreover, he himself has been an indefatigable defender of deepening the very type of ties with the US, whose one manifestation he now finds unbearable. (It is amazing that the procedural matter of disclosing Davis’s real status has become one that can both shape and destroy political careers. This can only happen in Pakistan.) Many of the challenges facing Pakistan in its relations with the US are mentioned in a detailed fashion in the Kerry Lugar Bill whose most energetic advocate was Mr Qureshi himself. When almost everyone expressed deep worries over the growing drone strikes and the unlimited access that US officials, from lowly counsellor to intelligence operatives, had to Pakistan’s entire leadership, Mr Qureshi did not raise the red flag. In fact on his watch Ms Hillary Clinton held a school headmistress-like briefing in the Foreign Office, complete with charts, chalk and coloured pencils on the great things that the US was doing for Pakistan. The visitor was allowed any number of opportunities to have dialogue with ‘the people of Pakistan’ — which comprised people the US embassy here handpicked — in what really was a brazen attempt at bypassing official channels to conduct US public diplomacy. These — there are many more — are concessions that Islamabad has made on every step of its way forward with the US in the last many years, and whose grimmest consequence is the present gridlock over Raymond Davis. Of course, in Mr Qureshi’s defence it can said that he was reflecting on a consensus that the Pakistani government had crafted on its dealings with the US and the policy that he endorsed was not reflective of his personal preferences. This would be largely true. However, in the absence of any re al information on what Mr Qureshi’s actual preferences are, one can be forgiven for believing that the margin of difference is rather slim in his personal and private choice of the type of relations Pakistan should have with the US. Mr Qureshi has spoken well, and with exquisite timing, which is ninth-tenth of politics. He has raised his profile and has added to his political stock. Now he needs to fill the gaping hole of information not about the status of Davis, but what in his view is the alternative to the present relationship of dependency Pakistan has developed with the US. Until we hear Mr Qureshi speak on that subject, his coronation as a possible king of hope in Pakistan must be held back. In a land of false messiahs and pretenders, such caution is called for. ¦ The writer is senior anchor at DawnNews. |
Anti-Americanism-Pakistan
“SHOCKING, unjustified anti-Americanism will not resolve [Pakistan’s] prob- lems,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York on Friday. The fact is, however, that antiAmericanism in Pakistan is not at all shocking, and much of it is not unjustified. Ms Clinton’s remarks came as two Pakistanis were gunned down in broad daylight in Lahore traffic by an American whose work here remains a mystery. A third man was run over in the ensuing chaos when he was caught in the path of a speeding American consulate vehicle. That driver has disappeared, and the US has insisted on blanket diplomatic immunity for the gunman. This has not gone down well in Pakistan for obvious reasons. Questions linger about Raymond Davis’s work here, exacerbated by suspicions about the presence of American security contractors in Pakistan and the reputation such individuals developed in Iraq. Even his exact diplomatic or consular status remains unclear. In this context, the US stance has come across as an arrogant defence of a suspected murderer simply because he is American, and although a US congressional delegation’s visit here after her speech has helped ease tension on the issue, Ms Clinton would have done well to take that into account.
But this incident is simply one example of the dou ble standards that inflame anti-American sentiment among liberals and the right wing alike. Drone strikes arguably violate America’s concern for human rights. Support for the Zia and Musharraf regimes and the blind eye turned to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hanging violated its constant call for democracy. And while American officials have expressed regret over abandoning the region after the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, memories of the variable American policy here over the last three decades will not go away easily. While it may be justified for America to safeguard its own interests, it should not be surprised at the anger of those who bear the brunt of the fallout.
This is not to say that Pakistan has had no role to play in fuelling anti-American views. Some elements of the state have promoted these for their own benefit, and arguably are doing so today by delaying a verdict on the question of Mr Davis’s immunity. Politicians, too, have exploited the sentiment for popularity, with little concern for the fact that by doing so they are feeding extremist views and squeezing the space for moderate voices in Pakistan. But what would take the teeth out of such efforts is a consistent, long-term American policy towards the region, one in line with the values the US upholds for itself.
But this incident is simply one example of the dou ble standards that inflame anti-American sentiment among liberals and the right wing alike. Drone strikes arguably violate America’s concern for human rights. Support for the Zia and Musharraf regimes and the blind eye turned to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hanging violated its constant call for democracy. And while American officials have expressed regret over abandoning the region after the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, memories of the variable American policy here over the last three decades will not go away easily. While it may be justified for America to safeguard its own interests, it should not be surprised at the anger of those who bear the brunt of the fallout.
This is not to say that Pakistan has had no role to play in fuelling anti-American views. Some elements of the state have promoted these for their own benefit, and arguably are doing so today by delaying a verdict on the question of Mr Davis’s immunity. Politicians, too, have exploited the sentiment for popularity, with little concern for the fact that by doing so they are feeding extremist views and squeezing the space for moderate voices in Pakistan. But what would take the teeth out of such efforts is a consistent, long-term American policy towards the region, one in line with the values the US upholds for itself.
For greater transparency-Pakistan
In the old days, one could have expected a quiet behind-the-scenes deal between Islamabad and Washington to secure Davis’s release. Today, the context is altogether different.
| |
IN previous columns on Pakistan-US relations, I have often stressed the need for greater transparency in the partnership. Since 9/11, ties have been characterised by an active government-to-government relationship; very little of what happens behind closed doors is willingly brought out in the public domain.
The Raymond Davis episode is an interesting case study. It challenges the efficacy of how the two sides have chosen to conduct business.
The basis for the Pakistani and American governments choosing to keep this relationship opaque — the formulation, a deliberate one, lingers from the Musharraf-Bush era — was the belief that as long as the two governments continued to cooperate as agreed, they could achieve their objectives irrespective of the sentiment on the street. Taking the people on board was deemed unnecessary.
The Davis episode drives home the point that the formulation has outlived its utility. The framework has been upended by two developments: (i) the enhanced capacity and boldness of the Pakistani media to debate controversial issues, especially since their successful role in the lawyers’ movement; and (ii) the fact that Pakistan is now in a phase of messy coalitional politics.
In the old formulation, one could have expected a quiet behind-the-scenes deal between Islamabad and Washington to secure Davis’s release. Today, the context is altogether different. Within minutes of the shooting episode involving Davis, the media had picked up the story. All sorts of rumours about what had happened were being flashed. And before we knew it, the whole nature of the bilateral relationship had gotten tangled in the debate. The absence of credible information meant that even the most nefarious conclusions went unchallenged. Bottom line: within hours of the development, the opportunity for a quiet, tactical government-to-government deal had gone.
What has followed since is even more interesting.
The Pakistani media and street put forth a number of compelling questions. Given that officialdom is so used to opacity and providing piecemeal, inconse quential information, it continued to selfcontradict, without producing too many credible answers. The primary public conclusions are: Davis is a spook; if he is not a diplomat, he does not enjoy immunity and should be taken to task; and if he is a diplomat, this proves the already pervasive sense that many Americans in Pakistan are clandestine operatives. A disaster all round from the perspective of a sustained partnership! How does transparency fit in?
At the tactical level, if Davis has immunity, the paperwork should be produced in the open and the matter laid to rest. And if he does not, then in the interest of sustaining credible ties, both sides should answer the many questions floating around in Pakistan about why Davis was there, who authorised it, who did he actually shoot? And even more important would be transparency at the policy level: is Davis representative of American presence in Pakistan (as conspiracy theo ries claim); how many American diplomats are in Pakistan; what are the facts about private contractor presence; what other concessions have been accorded (e.g. drones); what is the rationale for all decisions/concessions?
Only by coming clean on these broad policy questions can the two governments hope to begin challenging popular misconceptions. And yes, this may mean some embarrassment in the short run but that would be a function of their past attempts at holding back information. Going ahead, as long as the two governments can explain the rationale of their decisions to their people and show how, in their view, it is in the national interest, over time, citizens will begin to realise the compulsions of the two governments and the need for them to continue working together. Lack of information produces the opposite result; everything becomes a conspiracy theory.
The second dimension to the episode is political. As soon as the news broke, coalitional politics was in play — to Davis’s detriment. The PML-N sensed an opportunity to create a hype about the issue and got the street to amplify its populist stance, i.e. Davis’ fate should be decided by the courts in Pakistan. The right-wing parties soon chimed in. Left on its own, between a rock and a hard place, was the PPP government. Otherwise probably happy to let Raymond Davis go to appease the US, it quickly realised that doing so would be politically suicidal. This, and not Musharraf’s arbitrary decisions, however bold and efficient, is what the two sides will have to deal with in the times ahead.
Finally, the episode suggests just how ill-prepared the two governments are in conducting diplomacy if behind-thescenes dealing fails on an issue.
Diplomacy around Raymond Davis has descended into an open arm-twisting exercise. Washington upped the ante by demanding Davis’s immediate release and suggested that Pakistan was violating its international obligations. Important dialogues/meetings were cancelled.
The approach reflects a fundamental lack of understanding on how to work the Pakistani street — rule number one is that you never want to be seen as a bully by Pakistanis; the more the pressure, the less likely a favourable outcome.
The PPP government, on the other hand, is guilty of its customary mismanagement. Contradictory signals have emanated throughout, both for the Pakistani people and the US. To the people, the government wanted to test the waters by hinting that Davis may be granted immunity. The media never took the bait to begin with and then the strategy died a natural death when deposed foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spilled the beans. To Washington, some ministers communicated that the job will be done while others requested that the government be given time. There was no answer to the counter-question from Washington: time for what?
To be sure, the Obama-Zardari context is fundamentally different than the BushMusharraf one. For this relationship to have any chance of long-term sustainability, policy decisions and mutually agreed choices will have to be much more transparent and better explained. Else, both sides would be better off giving up the pretence of trying to sustain ties over the long run — it simply won’t work. ¦ The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
Obama Administration Supports Israeli Crimes in Occupied Territories
Obama’s First UN Veto: US to Stop Security Council Calling Israeli Settlements ‘Illegal’
Jason Ditz,
February 16, 2011
Antiwar Forum
The Obama Administration is threatening to use its first ever UN Security Council veto this week when the Palestinian Authority moves forward with a non-binding resolution referring to the settlement construction in the Occupied Territories as “illegal.”
The case for the illegality of conquering territory, depopulating it, and building government subsidized, religiously exclusive cities over the ruins does not appear to be in serious doubt over much of the world, but of course it is a topic of debate in Israel, and like any good topic of debate in Israel the most ignorant and hawkish position has become law of the land in the US, to the point that suggestions to the contrary are considered outrageous.
Which has left the administration offering to support a watered-down draft calling the settlements “not legitimate” instead, but skirting the question of legality.
Of course neither resolution means much of anything in the long run,settlements will still be built and the US will still throw money at Israel as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. The fact that the Obama Administration is willing to throw its “first veto” at something as frivolous as a dispute of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on settlements, however, seems troubling.
___________________________________________________
Obama Warned Palestinians Of Repercussions if Abbas Goes to UN
By AFP
February 18, 2011 "AFP" -- RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories --- US President Barack Obama warned the Palestinians of "repercussions" if they pushed for a UN Security Council vote against Jewish settlements, an official said on Friday.
"President Obama threatened on Thursday night to take measures against the Palestinian Authority if it insists on going to the Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity, and demand that it be stopped," a senior Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Obama's remarks came during an hour-long telephone conversation between the two late on Thursday, in which the US leader tried to dissuade Abbas from supporting a UN Security Council vote due to take place later on Friday.
During the call, Obama told Abbas: "There will be repercussions for Palestinian-American relations if you continue your attempts to go to the Security Council and ignore our requests in this matter, especially as we suggested other alternatives."
He was referring to a package of incentives laid out earlier this week aimed at enticing the Palestinians to withdraw their support for the draft resolution on settlements which is being put before the Security Council.
After the Palestinians had rejected the initial offer, Obama rang Abbas late on Thursday to suggest that the Security Council issue a non-binding statement calling on Israel to implement a settlement freeze.
During the conversation, Abbas had rejected the offer, saying: "Stopping settlement activity is a Palestinian demand that will not be taken back because it was the reason the peace process fell apart," the official quoted him as saying.
"It was a decision taken by the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people are sticking to this demand."
It was not immediately clear at what stage in the phone call Obama had warned Abbas against rejecting the US overtures.
US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians stalled in late 2010 after the expiry of a temporary freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.
Efforts by Washington to coax Israel into reimposing a freeze collapsed in December, and the Palestinians are refusing to continue negotiating while Israel builds on land they want for their promised state.
The United States, which regularly uses its Security Council veto power to stop anti-Israeli initiatives, is very keen to avoid the vote because it does not want to be forced to cast a veto.
Should it do so, it would be the first time the United States has used its veto power since Obama took office in January 2009.
__________________________________________________
U.S. veto thwarts UN resolution condemning settlements
Palestinian Authority leadership brought draft resolution against Israeli settlements to the UN security council, despite pressure from the U.S. to withdraw it.
By Shlomo Shamir, Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid
Haaretz
Latest update 23:19 18.02.11
The United States on Friday voted against a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as illegal. The veto by the U.S., a permanent council member, prevented the resolution from being adopted. (Editor: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and are patently immoral. It is outrageous that the United States stands alone in supporting Israel's crimes, a testiment to the power of the Zionist Lobby in America)
The other 14 Security Council members voted in favor of the draft resolution. But the U.S., as one of five permanent council members with the power to block any action by the Security Council, struck it down.
The resolution had nearly 120 co-sponsors, exclusively Arab and other non-aligned nations.
The Obama administration's veto is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world.
The U.S. opposes new Israeli settlements but says taking the issue to the UN will only complicate efforts to resume stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution.
Palestinians say continued settlement building flouts the internationally-backed peace plan that will permit them to create a viable, contiguous state on the land after a treaty with Israel to end its occupation and 62 years of conflict.
Israel says this is an excuse for avoiding peace talks and a precondition never demanded before during 17 years of negotiation, which has so far produced no agreement.
Hundreds of Palestinian protesters rallied in support of the UN vote on Friday near Ramallah displaying banners demanding: "Veto settlements. Vote justice".
Jason Ditz,
February 16, 2011
Antiwar Forum
The Obama Administration is threatening to use its first ever UN Security Council veto this week when the Palestinian Authority moves forward with a non-binding resolution referring to the settlement construction in the Occupied Territories as “illegal.”
The case for the illegality of conquering territory, depopulating it, and building government subsidized, religiously exclusive cities over the ruins does not appear to be in serious doubt over much of the world, but of course it is a topic of debate in Israel, and like any good topic of debate in Israel the most ignorant and hawkish position has become law of the land in the US, to the point that suggestions to the contrary are considered outrageous.
Which has left the administration offering to support a watered-down draft calling the settlements “not legitimate” instead, but skirting the question of legality.
Of course neither resolution means much of anything in the long run,settlements will still be built and the US will still throw money at Israel as fast as the Federal Reserve can print it. The fact that the Obama Administration is willing to throw its “first veto” at something as frivolous as a dispute of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on settlements, however, seems troubling.
___________________________________________________
Obama Warned Palestinians Of Repercussions if Abbas Goes to UN
By AFP
February 18, 2011 "AFP" -- RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories --- US President Barack Obama warned the Palestinians of "repercussions" if they pushed for a UN Security Council vote against Jewish settlements, an official said on Friday.
"President Obama threatened on Thursday night to take measures against the Palestinian Authority if it insists on going to the Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity, and demand that it be stopped," a senior Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Obama's remarks came during an hour-long telephone conversation between the two late on Thursday, in which the US leader tried to dissuade Abbas from supporting a UN Security Council vote due to take place later on Friday.
During the call, Obama told Abbas: "There will be repercussions for Palestinian-American relations if you continue your attempts to go to the Security Council and ignore our requests in this matter, especially as we suggested other alternatives."
He was referring to a package of incentives laid out earlier this week aimed at enticing the Palestinians to withdraw their support for the draft resolution on settlements which is being put before the Security Council.
After the Palestinians had rejected the initial offer, Obama rang Abbas late on Thursday to suggest that the Security Council issue a non-binding statement calling on Israel to implement a settlement freeze.
During the conversation, Abbas had rejected the offer, saying: "Stopping settlement activity is a Palestinian demand that will not be taken back because it was the reason the peace process fell apart," the official quoted him as saying.
"It was a decision taken by the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people are sticking to this demand."
It was not immediately clear at what stage in the phone call Obama had warned Abbas against rejecting the US overtures.
US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians stalled in late 2010 after the expiry of a temporary freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.
Efforts by Washington to coax Israel into reimposing a freeze collapsed in December, and the Palestinians are refusing to continue negotiating while Israel builds on land they want for their promised state.
The United States, which regularly uses its Security Council veto power to stop anti-Israeli initiatives, is very keen to avoid the vote because it does not want to be forced to cast a veto.
Should it do so, it would be the first time the United States has used its veto power since Obama took office in January 2009.
__________________________________________________
U.S. veto thwarts UN resolution condemning settlements
Palestinian Authority leadership brought draft resolution against Israeli settlements to the UN security council, despite pressure from the U.S. to withdraw it.
By Shlomo Shamir, Natasha Mozgovaya, Barak Ravid
Haaretz
Latest update 23:19 18.02.11
The United States on Friday voted against a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlements as illegal. The veto by the U.S., a permanent council member, prevented the resolution from being adopted. (Editor: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and are patently immoral. It is outrageous that the United States stands alone in supporting Israel's crimes, a testiment to the power of the Zionist Lobby in America)
The other 14 Security Council members voted in favor of the draft resolution. But the U.S., as one of five permanent council members with the power to block any action by the Security Council, struck it down.
The resolution had nearly 120 co-sponsors, exclusively Arab and other non-aligned nations.
The Obama administration's veto is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world.
The U.S. opposes new Israeli settlements but says taking the issue to the UN will only complicate efforts to resume stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution.
Palestinians say continued settlement building flouts the internationally-backed peace plan that will permit them to create a viable, contiguous state on the land after a treaty with Israel to end its occupation and 62 years of conflict.
Israel says this is an excuse for avoiding peace talks and a precondition never demanded before during 17 years of negotiation, which has so far produced no agreement.
Hundreds of Palestinian protesters rallied in support of the UN vote on Friday near Ramallah displaying banners demanding: "Veto settlements. Vote justice".
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Petition seeks ISI probe against Davis-Pakistan
An application filed in a Pakistani court has sought a probe by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency against US official Raymond Davis, arrested last month for shooting and killing two men. The application filed in the Lahore High Court on Saturday by lawyer Rana Ilamuddin Ghazi was clubbed with a petition asking the court to direct authorities to submit all records related to Davis.
Ghazi also claimed that Davis was spending his days in detention as a "guest" because two barracks equipped with special facilities had been set aside for him in Kot Lakhpat Jail.
He claimed the prison was located far from Lahore and this could help Davis in "fleeing from the jail".
He alleged that the US wanted his early release as it feared he would reveal secrets about their missions in Pakistan and drone attacks.
Ghazi further claimed that the US could launch an operation to release Davis as there were several instances when America took such action against the "sovereignty of different countries".
The US could try to forcefully get him released or kill him.
He contended that it was necessary to hand over Davis to the ISI so that no one could kidnap him.
He also asked the court to pass orders to shift Davis from Kot Lakhpat Jail to Lahore Fort.
Another application filed in the Lahore High Court asked it to direct authorities to submit all certified copies of diplomatic records regarding Davis.
The application was filed by lawyer Iqbal Jafree in a pending case asking the court to direct the government not to hand over Davis to the US.
Though the High Court had restrained the government from shifting Davis out of its jurisdiction, efforts were underway to "frustrate the order of the court by manipulation and tampering of records," Jafree claimed.
By Hindustan times
`Complicated` ties-Pakistan
THE testimony of two American security chiefs before a Senate committee epitomises the `complicated relationship` that characterises Islamabad`s ties with Washington. While they admitted that, thanks to Pakistan, Al Qaeda was at its weakest since 9/11, both CIA chief Leon Panetta and counter-terrorism chairman Michael Leiter orchestrated the decade-old `do more` mantra but admitted that Pakistan had its way of looking at things. Said Mr Panetta: “They look at issues related to their national interest and take steps that complicate the relationship.” What else does the CIA chief expect Pakistan to do except to look at all issues from the point of view of its own interests? Surely America too looks — as it must — at all international questions from its own perspective. That`s why governments interact to decide whether or not there is a commonality of interest to bring them together.
There is a lot at stake for both Pakistan and America in whatever has been going on in the region and beyond since 9/11. One fact should overshadow all other considerations: no country has suffered more civilian and military casualties than Pakistan at the hands of a common enemy — terrorists of all hues. The sites bombed by the Taliban grouping include not only Pakistani mosques and shrines but also premises universally regarded as sacrosanct — hospitals and schools. Some American diplomats — among them the late Richard Holbrooke — never hesitated to admit the trauma Pakistan has suffered because of its commitment to the war on terror.The two security chiefs` comments and Senator Dianne Feinstein`s bit about “both sides of the street” come four months ahead of the beginning of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some concerns are valid because of Pakistan`s reluctance to go for an all-out military operation in North Waziristan seen as one of the biggest havens for local and foreign militants. However, surely, the Obama administration`s Afghan policy has more than America`s national interests dear to it. With voters having already handed over the lower house to the Republicans in the mid-term election, the least the Democratic Party can do for the 2012 presidential election is to minimise casualties, regional states` interest being of less consequence. Besides, while America sees reluctance on Islamabad`s part to `do more`, it has entered into a dialogue with militant groups to cover its retreat. If common interests brought Pakistan and America together, let Washington ensure that the long-term ties it has pledged do not fall victim to passing irritants as the Raymond Davis affair or its view of the ISI`s purported walk on “both sides”. The hazards of the future should serve to cement their relationship.
By Dawn News
Political `patch-up`-Pakistan
IN the hurly-burly of Pakistani politics, anything is possible. Perhaps that is why the smiles, rousing slogans and pledges of cooperation witnessed at the MQM`s headquarters on Friday to mark the visit of a high-powered PPP delegation did not surprise many. It was as though the acrimoniousness that has marked relations between the two parties over the past few months — which at times translated into street violence — was merely a misunderstanding. The Sindh chief minister, accompanied by the federal interior minister, led the PPP side in the visit to Nine Zero, as the MQM headquarters are known. Yet it was Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza`s presence in the delegation that caught many political observers by surprise. He is not exactly known for couching criticism of coalition partners in diplomatic language, and his statements in the past have elicited equally vitriolic responses from the MQM.
It is not clear what has brought about the rapprochement between the estranged allies. The more cynical amongst us would say that it is part of the same political gamesmanship witnessed countless times before, necessitated by self-preservation. More optimistic observers would suggest that it is a sign of maturity and political pragmatism. Dialogue is always better than the politics of the gun and Karachi has witnessed too much violence over the past few months for the city`s political stakeholders to continue harbouring grudges. Along with being a harbinger of peace in the city, the thaw in relations should also hopefully lead to better governance in Sindh and perhaps even the MQM`s return to the federal cabinet. Let us also hope this new understanding is not at the cost of the PPP-PML-N negotiations to evolve consensus on economic issues.Though officially there is no word on what really brought the two parties together, some reports in the media suggest disturbingly that the patch-up is the result of a `secret agreement` between the PPP and MQM to not prosecute suspects with political links in anti-terrorism courts. If this is the case and an agreement has been reached just to save supporters from prosecution, it is indefensible. Political parties should help strengthen the rule of law by allowing those suspected of being involved in `targeted killings` and other acts of violence to clear their names in court without applying pressure or entering underhanded deals. Targeted killings have claimed far too many victims in the metropolis and those involved in these brutal acts must be brought to justice. We must hope that this is not the case and both parties have reached a genuine agreement to bury the hatchet and work for better governance. That would deserve welcome as it would help bring peace to Karachi and strengthen the democratic process.
Obama’s FY 2012 Budget Is A Tool Of Class War-World
By: Paul Craig Roberts
February 18, 2011 "Information Clearing House" ---- Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class. Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets. The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.
Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined.The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose--the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.
The U.S. has no enemies except those that the U.S. creates by bombing and invading other countries and by overthrowing foreign leaders and installing American puppets in their place.
China does not conduct naval exercises off the California coast, but the U.S. conducts war games in the China Sea off China’s coast. Russia does not mass troops on Europe’s borders, but the U.S. places missiles on Russia’s borders. The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex.
The U.S. government actually spends $56 billion a year, that is, $56,000 million, in order that American air travelers can be porno-scanned and sexually groped so that firms represented by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff can make large profits selling the scanning equipment.
With a perpetual budget deficit driven by the military/security complex’s desire for profits, the real cause of America’s enormous budget deficit is off-limits for discussion. The U.S. Secretary of War-Mongering, Robert Gates, declared: “We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril.” The military brass warns of cutting any of the billions of aid to Israel and Egypt, two functionaries for its Middle East “policy.”
But what are “our” global security responsibilities? Where did they come from? Why would America be at peril if America stopped bombing and invading other countries and interfering in their internal affairs? The perils America faces are all self-created.
The answer to this question used to be that otherwise we would be murdered in our beds by “the worldwide communist conspiracy.” Today the answer is that we will be murdered in our airplanes, train stations, and shopping centers by “Muslim terrorists” and by a newly created imaginary threat--”domestic extremists,” that is, war protesters and environmentalists.
The U.S. military/security complex is capable of creating any number of false flag events in order to make these threats seem real to a public whose intelligence is limited to TV, shopping mall experiences, and football games.
So Americans are stuck with enormous budget deficits that the Federal Reserve must finance by printing new money, money that sooner or later will destroy the purchasing power of the dollar and its role as world reserve currency. When the dollar goes, American power goes.
For the ruling oligarchies, the question is: how to save their power.
Their answer is: make the people pay.
And that is what their latest puppet, President Obama, is doing.
With the U.S. in the worst recession since the Great Depression, a great recession that John Williams and Gerald Celente, along with myself, have said is deepening, the “Obama budget” takes aim at support programs for the poor and out-of-work. The American elites are transforming themselves into idiots as they seek to replicate in America the conditions that have led to the overthrows of similarly corrupt elites in Tunisia and Egypt and mounting challenges to U.S. puppet governments elsewhere.
All we need is a few million more Americans with nothing to lose in order to bring the disturbances in the Middle East home to America.
With the U.S. military bogged down in wars abroad, an American revolution would have the best chance of success.
American politicians have to fund Israel as the money returns in campaign contributions. The U.S. government must fund the Egyptian military if there is to be any hope of turning the next Egyptian government into another American puppet that will serve Israel by continuing the blockade of the Palestinians herded into the Gaza ghetto.
These goals are far more important to the American elite than Pell Grants that enable poor Americans to obtain an education, or clean water, or community block grants, or the low income energy assistance program (cut by the amount that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give to Israel).
There are also $7,700 million of cuts in Medicaid and other health programs over the next five years.
Given the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, these sums are a pittance. The cuts will have no effect on U.S. Treasury financing needs. They will put no brakes on the Federal Reserve’s need to print money in order to keep the U.S. government in operation.
These cuts serve one purpose: to further the Republican Party’s myth that America is in economic trouble because of the poor: The poor are shiftless. They won’t work. The only reason unemployment is high is that the poor would rather be on welfare.
A new addition to the welfare myth is that recent middle class college graduates won’t take the jobs offered them, because their parents have too much money, and the kids like living at home without having to do anything. A spoiled generation, they come out of university refusing any job that doesn’t start out as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The reason that engineering graduates do not get job interviews is that they do not want them.
What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15% of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?
The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.
Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.
The American elite’s solution for America’s problems is not merely to foreclose on the homes of Americans whose jobs were sent offshore, but to add to the numbers of distressed Americans with nothing to lose, the sick and the dispossessed retirees, and the university graduates who cannot find jobs that have been sent to Chine and India.
Of all the countries in the world, none need a revolution as bad as the United States, a country ruled by a handful of selfish oligarchs who have more income and wealth than can be spent in a lifetime.
February 18, 2011 "Information Clearing House" ---- Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class. Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets. The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.
Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined.The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose--the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.
The U.S. has no enemies except those that the U.S. creates by bombing and invading other countries and by overthrowing foreign leaders and installing American puppets in their place.
China does not conduct naval exercises off the California coast, but the U.S. conducts war games in the China Sea off China’s coast. Russia does not mass troops on Europe’s borders, but the U.S. places missiles on Russia’s borders. The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex.
The U.S. government actually spends $56 billion a year, that is, $56,000 million, in order that American air travelers can be porno-scanned and sexually groped so that firms represented by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff can make large profits selling the scanning equipment.
With a perpetual budget deficit driven by the military/security complex’s desire for profits, the real cause of America’s enormous budget deficit is off-limits for discussion. The U.S. Secretary of War-Mongering, Robert Gates, declared: “We shrink from our global security responsibilities at our peril.” The military brass warns of cutting any of the billions of aid to Israel and Egypt, two functionaries for its Middle East “policy.”
But what are “our” global security responsibilities? Where did they come from? Why would America be at peril if America stopped bombing and invading other countries and interfering in their internal affairs? The perils America faces are all self-created.
The answer to this question used to be that otherwise we would be murdered in our beds by “the worldwide communist conspiracy.” Today the answer is that we will be murdered in our airplanes, train stations, and shopping centers by “Muslim terrorists” and by a newly created imaginary threat--”domestic extremists,” that is, war protesters and environmentalists.
The U.S. military/security complex is capable of creating any number of false flag events in order to make these threats seem real to a public whose intelligence is limited to TV, shopping mall experiences, and football games.
So Americans are stuck with enormous budget deficits that the Federal Reserve must finance by printing new money, money that sooner or later will destroy the purchasing power of the dollar and its role as world reserve currency. When the dollar goes, American power goes.
For the ruling oligarchies, the question is: how to save their power.
Their answer is: make the people pay.
And that is what their latest puppet, President Obama, is doing.
With the U.S. in the worst recession since the Great Depression, a great recession that John Williams and Gerald Celente, along with myself, have said is deepening, the “Obama budget” takes aim at support programs for the poor and out-of-work. The American elites are transforming themselves into idiots as they seek to replicate in America the conditions that have led to the overthrows of similarly corrupt elites in Tunisia and Egypt and mounting challenges to U.S. puppet governments elsewhere.
All we need is a few million more Americans with nothing to lose in order to bring the disturbances in the Middle East home to America.
With the U.S. military bogged down in wars abroad, an American revolution would have the best chance of success.
American politicians have to fund Israel as the money returns in campaign contributions. The U.S. government must fund the Egyptian military if there is to be any hope of turning the next Egyptian government into another American puppet that will serve Israel by continuing the blockade of the Palestinians herded into the Gaza ghetto.
These goals are far more important to the American elite than Pell Grants that enable poor Americans to obtain an education, or clean water, or community block grants, or the low income energy assistance program (cut by the amount that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give to Israel).
There are also $7,700 million of cuts in Medicaid and other health programs over the next five years.
Given the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, these sums are a pittance. The cuts will have no effect on U.S. Treasury financing needs. They will put no brakes on the Federal Reserve’s need to print money in order to keep the U.S. government in operation.
These cuts serve one purpose: to further the Republican Party’s myth that America is in economic trouble because of the poor: The poor are shiftless. They won’t work. The only reason unemployment is high is that the poor would rather be on welfare.
A new addition to the welfare myth is that recent middle class college graduates won’t take the jobs offered them, because their parents have too much money, and the kids like living at home without having to do anything. A spoiled generation, they come out of university refusing any job that doesn’t start out as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The reason that engineering graduates do not get job interviews is that they do not want them.
What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15% of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?
The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.
Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.
The American elite’s solution for America’s problems is not merely to foreclose on the homes of Americans whose jobs were sent offshore, but to add to the numbers of distressed Americans with nothing to lose, the sick and the dispossessed retirees, and the university graduates who cannot find jobs that have been sent to Chine and India.
Of all the countries in the world, none need a revolution as bad as the United States, a country ruled by a handful of selfish oligarchs who have more income and wealth than can be spent in a lifetime.
