tagged w/ "War On Terrorism"
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Gareth Porter: McCain subscribes to extreme neo-con ideas, but Obama is not a break with the past. Part 5
In George W. Bush's final speech to the UN as head of state, he provided a series of reasons to view his administration's policies as having succeeded in conducting a global war on terrorism. Despite his regime's demonstrated aversion to multilateralism, Bush called on the UN and all international institutions to take a lead role in the War on Terror in the future. Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter tells Senior Editor Paul Jay why he believes that while Obama and McCain represent different visions of US foreign policy, neither truly represent a clean break from the legacy created by the Bush administration.
Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89336287_bush_doctrine_at_the_un
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89339379_the_state_of_the_empire
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89351820_provoking_russian_nationalism
See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89361295_war_and_cash_for_trash
Gareth Porter: McCain subscribes to extreme neo-con ideas, but Obama is not a break... more
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Eric Margolis: Political stability is unattainable in Afghanistan without dialog with the Taliban.
As the ongoing conflict in Pakistan and Afghanistan continue with coalition forces taking a beating, Eric Margolis believes that "there will never be stability in Afghanistan until the largest ethnic group is brought into the political process."
Eric Margolis is a journalist born in New York City and holding degrees from Georgetown the University of Geneva, and New York University. During the Vietnam War he served as a US Army infantryman. Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World –- The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Mainichi Shimbun and US Naval Institute Proceedings. Margolis is an expert of military affairs, a former instructor in strategy and tactics in the US Army, and a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan. Eric Margolis' books have been published in the US, Canada, Britain, and India. He often appears and contributes to national and international news items for outlets such as CNN, ABC,CBC and Voice of America to the Wall Street Journal and Maninichi-Tokyo. He broadcasts regularly on foreign affairs for Canadian TV (TV Ontario and CBC), radio, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, and PBS.
Eric Margolis: Political stability is unattainable in Afghanistan without dialog with... more
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Ø 10,000 Indian troops are stationed in Afghanistan under the garb of supervising construction of road Jalalabad-Port Chahbahar project that has now been completed. Whereas India has officially declared 14 Indian consulates in Afghanistan, on ground they have 107 in which 20 intelligence units are burning their midnight oil to destabilize Pakistan
Ø After 9/11 CIA bought the loyalties of pro-Pakistan tribal chiefs, leaving ISI and MI behind, those who refused were killed
Ø Nek Mohammad was killed by Americans when he made peace with Pakistan
Ø ISI had once given six figure coordinates of Baitullah and yet no Hellfire missile was fired on his hideout by CIA
Ø Foreign intelligence agents are involved in carrying out gruesome beheadings of security personnel and torching girls’ schools to defame the real Taliban who had a peaceful agenda
Ø Besides CIA and RAW, even Iran and Uzbekistan had developed their tentacles in Balochistan, Swat and Kurram Agency
Ø The nexus in Kabul is working upon a scripted plan to make FATA lawless and beyond the control of security forces, push militancy into settled areas and then into major cities and thus create a civil warlike situation to prove their contention that Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world and that the extremists were on the verge of taking over power and nuclear weaponsØ 10,000 Indian troops are stationed in Afghanistan under the garb of... more
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Khawar Mehdi: What happened to Pakistani military after 9/11? Part 4 of 4
In part 4 of this series, Pakistan analyst Khawar Mehdi tells Pepe Escobar about the repercussions of Musharraf's crucial policy switch after 9/11, abandoning the Taliban and embracing the Bush-declared "war on terror". Mehdi recalls the visit by a Pakistani delegation to Afghanistan that allegedly asked Taliban emir Mulah Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden. Mehdi argues that the true story was that the head of the delegation, Pakistani ISI chief Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, convinced the Taliban to implement a new Pakistani plan, advising the Taliban to retreat instead of facing overwhelming US military power. Mehdi also discusses how Musharraf's radical U-turn has been extremely confusing for the Pakistani armed forces and for the ISI - which had nurtured the Taliban since the mid-1990s.
Khawar Mehdi, born in Rawalpindi, is a Pakistani journalist and political analyst. Even before 9/11 he had advised numerous journalists, academics and researchers from North America and Europe working in the tribal areas of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In 2004 he was imprisoned and tortured by President Pervez Musharraf's regime while investigating the presence of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan. He was released thanks to an international media campaign - after a personal intervention by Musharraf. Mehdi has unparalleled access to sources in Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). He has been living in Virginia since 2005, working as an analyst/consultant.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89316301_the_revamped_war_on_terror_exposed
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89316341_who_s_in_us_line_of_fire_in_pak_tribal_areas
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89318873_al_qaeda_and_jihad_s_tribal_connections
Khawar Mehdi: What happened to Pakistani military after 9/11? Part 4 of 4
In part 4... more
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Pakistani analyst Khawar Mehdi: The jihad's ideology and leaders. Part 3
In the third part of this series, Pakistani analyst Khawar Mehdi tells Pepe Escobar how al- Qaeda after 9/11 reorganized and established itself in North Waziristan in the tribal areas. But it's not only Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the historical al-Qaeda leadership that enjoys freedom of movement. There is also the Haqqani family, whose stalwart is fabled 1980s Afghan jihad commander Jalaluddin Haqqani; and another notorious old guard mujahid, Gulbuddiin Hekmatyar, very much favored by the Saudis during the 1980s and an avid practitioner of the politics of jihad. Hekmatyar fighters are even closing in on Peshawar, the capital of the Northwest Frontier Province, using the very popular rationale that "the Americans are now attacking us."
Khawar Mehdi, born in Rawalpindi, is a Pakistani journalist and political analyst. Even before 9/11 he had advised numerous journalists, academics and researchers from North America and Europe working in the tribal areas of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In 2004 he was imprisoned and tortured by President Pervez Musharraf's regime while investigating the presence of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan. He was released thanks to an international media campaign - after a personal intervention by Musharraf. Mehdi has unparalleled access to sources in Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). He has been living in Virginia since 2005, working as an analyst/consultant.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89316301_the_revamped_war_on_terror_exposed
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89316341_who_s_in_us_line_of_fire_in_pak_tribal_areas
See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89323433_pakistani_army_protected_bin_laden_and_taliban
Pakistani analyst Khawar Mehdi: The jihad's ideology and leaders. Part 3
In the... more
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Unmanned drone launches missile strike in South Waziristan village.
US troops launched a missile strike in Northern Pakistan on Thursday, hours after Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, assured leaders that the US would respect the nation's sovereignty.
Unmanned drone launches missile strike in South Waziristan village.
US troops... more
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The revamped war on terror: Who's who in Pakistan's tribal areas. Part 2
In the second part of this series, Pakistan analyst Khawar Mehdi explains to Pepe Escobar how US forces crossed from Afghanistan to Pakistan in hot pursuit, in their raid on the tribal areas on September 2. Mehdi identifies the key tribal leaders the US is after, from fabled Mujahideen Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran of the jihad in the 1980s, to Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the top Taliban group in the Pakistani tribal areas. The aims and strategies of different groups are also discussed. Included is rare, recent footage shot in North and South Waziristan.
Khawar Mehdi, born in Rawalpindi, is a Pakistani journalist and political analyst. Even before 9/11 he had advised numerous journalists, academics and researchers from North America and Europe working in the tribal areas of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In 2004 he was imprisoned and tortured by President Pervez Musharraf's regime while investigating the presence of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan. He was released thanks to an international media campaign - after a personal intervention by Musharraf. Mehdi has unparalleled access to sources in Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). He has been living in Virginia since 2005, working as an analyst/consultant.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89316301_the_revamped_war_on_terror_exposed
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89318873_al_qaeda_and_jihad_s_tribal_connections
See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89323433_pakistani_army_protected_bin_laden_and_taliban
The revamped war on terror: Who's who in Pakistan's tribal areas. Part 2
In the... more
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How Pakistan reacts against US Special Forces in the tribal areas. Part 1
This is the first part of a series on the new face of the "war on terror" in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. This follows the latest US Special Forces operations inside Pakistan in the last few days. Journalist and analyst Khawar Mehdi tells Pepe Escobar about the main political players involved; the strain the new US strategy puts over the Pakistani military and government; the ways Pakistani public opinion and tribal area Pashtuns are angrily reacting to it; and the consequences of renewed anti-US sentiment spreading to most sectors of Pakistani society.
Khawar Mehdi, born in Rawalpindi, is a Pakistani journalist and political analyst. Even before 9/11 he had advised numerous journalists, academics and researchers from North America and Europe working in the tribal areas of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In 2004 he was imprisoned and tortured by President Pervez Musharraf's regime while investigating the presence of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan. He was released thanks to an international media campaign - after a personal intervention by Musharraf. Mehdi has unparalleled access to sources in Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). He has been living in Virginia since 2005, working as an analyst/consultant.
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89316341_who_s_in_us_line_of_fire_in_pak_tribal_areas
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89318873_al_qaeda_and_jihad_s_tribal_connections
See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89323433_pakistani_army_protected_bin_laden_and_taliban
How Pakistan reacts against US Special Forces in the tribal areas. Part 1
This is... more
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Gareth Porter: Bush and US intelligence not speaking the same language. Part 3
In the third and final part of this series, investigative military historian Gareth Porter expands on the multiple factors at play behind the decision by the Bush administration to allow US Special Forces to conduct targeted strikes inside Pakistan, against the better judgement of the National Intelligence Council. Porter stresses how this constitutes a very dangerous escalation of the "war on terror", which may lead to further destabilization of Pakistan - a nuclear-armed nation of 170 million people - and even to a war between the US and Pakistan.
Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89293442_al_qaeda_blames_iran_us_targets_inside_pakistan
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89297809_the_war_on_terror_targets_pakistanGareth Porter: Bush and US intelligence not speaking the same language. Part 3
In... more
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Stephen Zunes: Obama's anti-Iraq war stance wiped out by choosing hawk Biden.
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus ( http://www.fpif.org ). From 1996 to 1999, he served as chair of the Board of Peaceworkers, a US-based group supporting the non-violent struggle of the Kosovar Albanians and other non-violent movements and peacemakers in areas of conflict.Stephen Zunes: Obama's anti-Iraq war stance wiped out by choosing hawk Biden.... more
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Beleaguered president leaves but Pakistan's problems remain.
With opponents vowing to impeach him, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation on Monday. According to the Guardian Newspaper Musharraf’s problems are far from over. Though covered for his military coup in 1999 by a constitutional amendment, he has no such protection for the state of emergency he declared last fall, and is thus open to prosecution as long as he remains in Pakistan. There are also a lot of people-mainly Islamic militants-who want to kill him. According to the Hindu newspaper “Musharraf’s exit is unlikely to undo Pakistani militants. “ It goes on to state that the country’s new civilian government has done "little to change Musharraf’s policies in the troubled northwest regions bordering Afghanistan. The coalition government wants to retain close ties to Washington, and support the international fight against Islamic extremism."Beleaguered president leaves but Pakistan's problems remain.
With opponents vowing... more
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It was all over the news today that Aafia Siddiqui was allegedly recently captured in Afghanistan and brought to the USA to face charges of murder. Yet, if you read the April 3, 2003, article linked above, she was already arrested in Karachi five years ago. Her three young children "disappeared" with her. And now they are trying to tell us that she was recently arrested in Afghanistan - yet there is a lot of evidence pointing to her having been a prisoner of the USA in the infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan for the past five years. The question remains - what has the USA done with her three little children?
See also http://soj.weblog.ro/2004-05-29/10410/The-mysterious-case-of-Aafia-Saddiqui.htmlIt was all over the news today that Aafia Siddiqui was allegedly recently captured in... more
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Five years after her mysterious disappearance in Karachi, the FBI has finally conceded that an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist is alive and is in US custody in Afghanistan.
Aafia Siddiqui, 36, disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents’ home in Karachi in March 2003, around the same time the FBI announced that it wanted to question her over her alleged links to Al Qaeda.
Her family’s lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp said she believed recent media reports about Mrs Siddiqui’s incarceration increased pressure on the US and Pakistani authorities to divulge more information.
“I don’t believe that they just found Aafia,” she said. “I believe that she was there all along.”
The fate of her three young, American-born children is still unknown.
Before her disappearance, Mrs Siddiqui lived in a Boston suburb of Roxbury and studied at Brandeis University as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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More at link.
To learn more about who Aafia Siddiqui really is, click here: http://soj.weblog.ro/2004-05-29/10410/The-mysterious-case-of-Aafia-Saddiqui.html
In a 2006 report, Amnesty International listed Mrs Siddiqui as among a number of “disappeared” suspects in the war on terrorism. On July 6, 2007, AI listed Mrs Siddiqui as a possible CIA “secret detainee”, although she was still on the FBI’s Seeking Information - Terrorism list. Late last week, Mrs Siddiqui’s photo still appeared on the FBI’s list of people wanted for questioning.
Since no charges were ever filed against her, human rights groups treated her case as that of “extrajudicial detention”, although no government ever claimed detaining her.
Even the FBI does not mention any charges in the notice seeking information about her. “Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual,” says the notice.
The “gray lady of Bagram”: On July 7, a British journalist Yvonne Ridley told a news conference in Islamabad that a Pakistani woman had been held in solitary confinement for years at the Bagram US base near Kabul. The identity of this prisoner remains unconfirmed. She has been nicknamed the “gray lady of Bagram”. Ms Ridley, however, speculated that she was Aafia Siddiqui.
Moazzam Begg and several other former captives also have reported that a female prisoner, prisoner 650, was held in Bagram. The former captives claim that she has lost her sanity and cries all the time.
Although it is still not clear if the “gray lady of Bagram” is Aafia Siddiqui, her family’s attorney told reporters on Friday that the FBI had finally conceded that Mrs Siddiqui is in US custody.
“It has been confirmed by the FBI that Aafia Siddiqui is alive,” said Ms Sharp, who said she spoke to an FBI official on Thursday.
“She is injured but alive, and she is in Afghanistan.”
For five years, US and Pakistani authorities denied knowing her whereabouts. But human rights groups and Mrs Siddiqui’s relatives had long suspected that she had been captured in Karachi and secretly taken into custody.
On Thursday, an FBI official visited Mrs Siddiqui’s brother in Houston to deliver the news that she was alive and in custody, Ms Sharp said.
FBI officials, however, would not say who was holding her or reveal the fate of her children.
“If she’s in US custody, they want to know where she is,” Ms Sharp said. “Who has got her? And does she need medical care?”
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Five years after her mysterious disappearance in Karachi, the FBI has finally conceded... more
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Pakistan angrily denies a report that it helped plan bombing in Kabul.
According to Pakistans Dawn newspaper: During his vist to Washington this week, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had an exclusive meeting with CIA chief Michael V. Hayden. Hayden presented him with a “charge sheet on Pakistani intelligence agencies’ alleged involvement in jihadi activities. A senior official familiar with the talks said: “Some information in the CIA charge-sheet were so damning that the Pakistanis could not deny them.” The New York Times reported that US intelligence agencies believe that members of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, helped plan the deadly July 7th bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. 54 people were killed in that attack. Pakistan's government admitted Friday that it needs to purge Taliban sympathizers from the ISI, but it angrily denied a report that the agency helped plan the bombing in Kabul. The US also suspects rogue elements in the ISI of giving militants sensitive information that helps them launch attacks from Pakistan's tribal regions into bordering Afghanistan. They have also been trying to work out an arrangement with Pakistan for curtailing the ISI’s power. During Gilani’s visit to Washington President Bush reportedly expressed these concerns. Another difficult issue between the two countries is that the US has used predator drones and missile strikes against suspected Taliban militants and al-Qaeda operatives inside Pakistan. On June 11, US forces bombed a border post and killed 11 Pakistani soldiers inflaming anti-American sentiment. The latest deadly strike: a missile that hit a religious school just inside Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Occurred just hours before the meeting between Bush and Gilani. At a joint press conference neither the President nor the Prime minister mentioned these attacks preferring to show that that the US-Pakistan bond is tight and intact despite tensions.Pakistan angrily denies a report that it helped plan bombing in Kabul.
According to... more
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A new report by the conservative Rand Corporation calls the so-called 'War on Terrorism' fundamentally flawed, doomed to failure. The study pulls the rug from under John McCain who had promised not just more of the same old horse dung but perhaps another one hundred, another '10,000 years' of war against Iraq!
Saying that the US should 're-think' the so-called 'war on terrorism', the report claims that Bush failed to meet his own stated objectives. It was, the report concludes, the wrong approach to begin with.
Rand stopped short of repeating my charge: the 'war on terror' was just a cover for Bush's assumption of dictatorial powers which he accomplished with the Patriot Act and numerous 'signing statements', in effect, his de facto 'rule by decree'.
All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? Answers to this question have enormous implications for dealing with al Qa'ida and suggest fundamentally rethinking post–September 11 US counter terrorism strategy.
The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have not ended due to military pressure but because (1) they joined the political process or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members and that few groups achieved victory within this timeframe.
The ending of most terrorist groups requires a range of policy instruments, such as careful police and intelligence work, military force, political negotiations, and economic sanctions. Yet policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention.
--Rand Corporation, US Should Rethink "War On Terrorism" Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/07/29/
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More at link.
I didn't need a think tank, conservative or other, to tell me this - I came to the same conclusion in October 2001 when war preparations and threats against Afghanistan were being vociferously made by the Bush administration, and posted as much on many different discussion boards. That it took seven years for a conservative think tank to come to that conclusion says a lot about the speed of thinking in such think tanks...A new report by the conservative Rand Corporation calls the so-called 'War on... more
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Aijaz Ahmad: Israel/Palestine two-state solution must include security guarantees for both states. Part 8
Aijaz Ahmad: I think the question of the security of Israel needs to be addressed first, and the concern for that is quite great. My sense is that, as things are laid out, the possible solution would involve the creation of two states, one for the Israelis and one for the Palestinians in the occupied territories. And any final settlement must include extensive security guarantees for both countries. But let me say that Israel is by far the most powerful country militarily in the region, possibly stronger than all the other countries. It is the only nuclear power. And it's not a minor nuclear power like Pakistan or India; it is a major nuclear power like Britain and France. So the security is not of a military nature; it is of a political nature, and it is the political question that needs to be resolved.Aijaz Ahmad: Israel/Palestine two-state solution must include security guarantees for... more
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What Aijaz Ahmad would tell the next US president if he received a '3a.m.' call. Part 7
Aijaz Ahmad: "America should understand that other countries have similar strategic interests. I think looking at the world through narrow American interests is itself both immoral and counterproductive."What Aijaz Ahmad would tell the next US president if he received a '3a.m.' call. Part... more
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