tagged w/ clandestine
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Pakistan seems happy in getting a massive civilian and military aid package and the assurance from Washington that this country will be given the central role in the Afghan endgame.
Pakistan has presented two lists to the Obama Administration officials ahead of the two-day summit. One was a 56-pages long wish list and the second was a list of heavily bearded Taliban leaders arrested recently in Pakistan. According to the reports (msn, news) a new $7.5 billion, five year US assistance package for Pakistan’s energy, water, agriculture and education sector was pledged. The one billion unpaid US reimbursements for fighting the Pakistani Taliban would also begin flowing.
In addition, Pakistan will receive defence supplies in the coming years, P-30 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, five 250 TOW anti-armour missile systems, six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radar, six C-130E transport aircraft, and 20 AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters and new F-16 with higher speed fighter jets and naval frigates. The wish-list also included Pakistan’s plea for a civilian nuclear deal like the US concluded with India. This last wish remains unfulfilled.
This is indeed a great victory for Pakistan to be a central player in Afghanistan, a role it played with horrible consequences in the 1990s: the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida terrorist network that successfully staged 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in the West and the ongoing endless war in Afghanistan, are among the problems caused by Pakistan’s three decades misadventures in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has a history of undertaking some tactical combat operations including mock operations against selective groupings within the Taliban insurgency in order to attract US policy makers to increase the cash flow. It has now become clear that the recent arrest of Taliban leaders were also designed in order to punish those Taliban who enter into negotiation in Kabul bypassing Pakistan. According to Financial Times (March 19), Kai Edie, ex-UN special representative to Afghanistan, accused Pakistan of sabotaging the UN clandestine discussions with senior Taliban leaders.
Pakistan never chooses to harm those Taliban who are Pakistani military strategic partners and always relies on their support. At the very moment that Pakistani civilian leaders pledge to cut off the Taliban bases in Pakistan, the shadowy ISI agents are secretly giving assurance to the Taliban that Pakistan is supporting the Taliban in the ‘anti-American Jihad’.
One such irreconcilable group with close links to al-Qaida and ISI is Haqqani’e network which is headquartered in North Waziristan and is carrying out deadly terrorist attacks against the Western forces in Afghanistan with impunity. This is a Pakistani no-go zone from where most suicide bombers are sent into Afghanistan. Under increasing US pressure, it is possible that the ISI may turn against Haqqani if the upcoming US and NATO major June offensive in southern Kandahar province proves to be successful. Given Pakistani obsession with the Taliban, this change would also be conditional and limited.
The ISI is a Pakistani complex visible and invisible intelligence conglomerates. There is an ISI within an ISI. That ghostly ISI remains invisible and most of its members are retired generals who deviously play the real Afghan game from behind the scene. Their activities remain a top Pakistani secret. When I want to update my knowledge of Pakistan’s policy vis-à-vis the Taliban, I am going to look for the latest statements by retired ISI generals instead of official statements by Pakistan’s prime minister or foreign minister.
Before the battle in Swat Valley which started in early 2009, a peace agreement between the Taliban and Pakistani military was waiting for Zardari’s approval. The Pakistani Taliban in Swat insisted that they don’t need Zardai’s signature as long as the ISI is officially endorsing the agreement.
In mid March 2010, the provincial Premier in Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, made a plea to that Taliban at a mosque struck by a Taliban’s bomb not to attack the province for they and the province are all against Western intervention in Pakistan, “General Pervez Musharraf planned a bloodbath of innocent Muslims at the behest of others only to prolong his term in office, but we the Pakistan’s Muslim League-Nawaz opposed the former president’s policies and rejected the dictation being received from abroad.
If the Taliban are also fighting the same cause, then they should not carry out acts of terror in the province of Punjab.” (News International March 18) On March 29, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi boasted in an interview to Newsweek that Pakistan has, “eliminated 17,000 terrorists.” “The myth was that,” he added about Pakistan’s military success in South Waziristan, “it had never been occupied by any force and that it was impossible to do it. We have done it.” In Pakistani thinking Pashtun Northwest Frontier Province — formally renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week— is still a colony
Pakistan’s double game in war on terrorism, fighting those who are dangerous to its state security and those who disobey, while offering clandestine support to the most virulent Anti-Western extremists among the Afghan Taliban, is designed to trap the US into a vicious circle of a bunch of Taliban in exchange for bags of cash and weapons. This so-called strategic dialogue has a strong sense of déjà vu about it. Is this the last bargain? Experience shows that there would be more of the unwanted Taliban arrested in exchange for ongoing support in time to come.Pakistan seems happy in getting a massive civilian and military aid package and the... more
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According to the Iranian government they did. Iran claims that Shahram Amiri disappeared while he was on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in May, and that the US was involved.
From the Guardian:
Iranian media said he was an expert on radioactive isotopes for medical uses at Malek Ashtar University, in Tehran. "We've obtained documents about the US involvement in Shahram Amiri's disappearance," Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. "We hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Shahram Amiri's situation and consider the US to be involved in his arrest."
(Also posted to current.com by user bansheewail.)
Crazy accusations from a regime known for its bending of the truth? Perhaps. But Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker wrote a controversial article last year disclosing the Bush Administrations secret plans to go to war with Iran, and also pointing out a rise in clandestine activities by the US in the Islamic Republic. Additionally, at a talk in Minnesota in March, Hersh went into a little more detail. While he made headlines with a claim that the Bush Administration had "an executive assassination ring", he also described secret US efforts to capture an Iranian nuclear scientist inside of Iran and use that person to make the case that Iran was secretly building a bomb. (Download the mp3 of the talk here.) So perhaps not such a crazy claim.
Vanguard also investigated whether or not the US was already at war with Iran in America's Secret War with Iran - in which Mariana van Zeller took to the rugged hills and mountains of northern Iraq to meet with the American-backed militia groups fighting Iran.
America's Secret War with Iran (Video)
Recently on Iran from the Current News Blog:
- Does Ahmadinejad have a Jewish past?
- Iran: It’s just the fact of the talking that’s important
- Student protests and the return of nuke inspectors – An Iran updateAccording to the Iranian government they did. Iran claims that Shahram Amiri... more
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In the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side — a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation’s top-level intelligence talent, POLITICO has learned.
The spooks at The Company are out of the box.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32290.html#ixzz0eJYdmVlRIn the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering... more
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The apartheid, racial segregation between whites and blacks in South Africa was in force until 1994 and in the United States in practice until the 60s. But those situations were determined by historical roots going back two or three centuries. Italy however is building its apartheid in less than twenty years. Before 1989 immigration in our country was so limited as not to be significant, but today we have race riots and school classes with a 30% maximum of foreigners.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/italiaapartheid090110.htmlThe apartheid, racial segregation between whites and blacks in South Africa was in... more
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If you treat men like slaves, their only chance to defend their rights will be a violent uprising. What happened in Calabria is the result of years of criminal indifference on the part of citizens, national and local politics, to the benefit of organized crime. Immigrants who work in agriculture, in Calabria, as in many other places in Italy, live in inhumane conditions, controlled by a system of overseers. And their situation suits many.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/calabriaimmigrati080110.htmlIf you treat men like slaves, their only chance to defend their rights will be a... more
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There is a fundamental misunderstanding between the government and its voters about the security decree. Many voters of the PDL and the League since it was approved really think that all undocumented immigrants in Italy are being arrested and deported, while it's not. The misunderstanding arises because many Italians have no idea of the complexity of the phenomenon of immigration, which has been further complicated by the usual very bad Italian laws, since the Bossi-Fini law of 2002.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/immigratilega231109.htmlThere is a fundamental misunderstanding between the government and its voters about... more
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San Nicola Varco is a place in Eboli, near Salerno, where there is a farmers market built in the 80s and never came into operation. The structure had become, for many years, the lodging of hundreds of North African immigrants, mainly Moroccans, day laborers in local fields. Most of them had arrived in Italy regularly, with a contract of employment. But once here, the contract turned out to be a scam.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/sannicolavarco111109.htmlSan Nicola Varco is a place in Eboli, near Salerno, where there is a farmers market... more
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The unjust and absurd death of Stefano Cucchi, and the suicide of the new Red brigade militant Diana Blefari have served at least to talk about the prison problem in Italy, ignored and censored for years. Art. 27 of the italian Constitution, not applied as unfortunately happens to most of our basic charter, states that "Punishment cannot consist of treatment contrary to human dignity and must be aimed at rehabilitation of the offender."
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/carceriitalia051109.htmlThe unjust and absurd death of Stefano Cucchi, and the suicide of the new Red brigade... more
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Among the silence of the press and taking advantage of the ignorance of most of the population Western governments are doing something that will one day be seen by our descendants in the same way we now see the slave trade. A shame without justification. Western governments imprison thousands of people who haven't committed any crime. Hundreds of others are left to die at sea and in deserts.
http://inaltreparole.net/en/resistance/illegalimmigrants281009.htmlAmong the silence of the press and taking advantage of the ignorance of most of the... more
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Today in Rome the greatest italian anti-racist demonstration up to now led 200,000 people to the streets, from Piazza della Repubblica to the stage in Piazza Bocca della Verità. A demonstration to say no to the Security decree that criminalizes immigrants, no to rejections of refugees, illegal under any rule of international law, not to the Centers for Identification and Expulsion where innocent people can be kept in jail for up to six months.Today in Rome the greatest italian anti-racist demonstration up to now led 200,000... more
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A 50 years old woman who earns a living with acupuncture and massage is a risk to national security? Another woman of 45 years with a husband and two adult children, is a danger to italian citizens?
These are the stories of "illegal" immigrants detained without trial, without reason and without any conviction in the identification and deportation centers (Cie), for a period of up to 6 months.A 50 years old woman who earns a living with acupuncture and massage is a risk to... more
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Refugees of war are not criminals or potentially violent people but are men, women and children victims of violence, trying to escape. This is not a difficult concept to understand, but Italy rejects refugees treating them like criminals, like commodities, like waste. Berlusconi's government is criticized for its behavior by the EU and UN, but doesn't give a damn.Refugees of war are not criminals or potentially violent people but are men, women and... more
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Most Italians just don't to understand why it's criminal, inhumane and immoral to reject in Libya immigrants arriving by sea. The members of the government don't understand either, maybe because they ended up being victims of their own propaganda. The Minister of legislative simplification Calderoli says it's not good to let people come to Italy, because immigration deprives the country of origin of labor force and anyway our country cannot accommodate everyone.Most Italians just don't to understand why it's criminal, inhumane and... more
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While the world rightly continues to laugh at this ridiculous country, in Italy happen things that aren't funny at all. It's not funny that 73 refugees have died at sea while no one cared enough to help them. It's not funny the fact that the five survivors, under the new security decree, may be prosecuted for illegal immigration. It's not funny playing the game "bounce the clandestine" created on Facebook by the son of Northern League leader Bossi.While the world rightly continues to laugh at this ridiculous country, in Italy happen... more
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"The government will implement a long-term and hopefully final plan against the forces of evil, not only against widespread crime but also against organized crime." It's the new amazing promise of the President of the Council. Because now we know that Berlusconi is mostly a tv seller we'll take this news with some skepticism, partly because we have yet to see if will be maintained his latest amazing promises made to l'Aquila earthquake victims."The government will implement a long-term and hopefully final plan against the... more
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The italian security decree that criminalize undocumented immigrants is in force since a few days and we already see the first big accomplishments of this wonderful law: a Bengali immigrant called the police to arrest three robbers and was in turn denounced as illegal. Security is therefore encouraging honest immigrants not to denounce the criminalsThe italian security decree that criminalize undocumented immigrants is in force since... more
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If there is no crime emergency you can make one. It's very interesting to see the data on real crimes committed in Italy and those on the television coverage that is given to them. The crime rate in Italy over the last twenty years is unchanged. Immigrants were half a million and now are 4 million, yet that hasn't created any actual increase in crime.If there is no crime emergency you can make one. It's very interesting to see the... more
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Today In Italy comes into force the security decree, a brutal law that criminalizes undocumented immigrants and makes it impossible for people who already live a difficult and often dramatic situation to give birth in a hospital, to recognize their children, to find a home, to send money to their families, to ask the aid of the police if they are victims of a crime. On top of that they may end up in jail for having done absolutely nothing.Today In Italy comes into force the security decree, a brutal law that criminalizes... more
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The fight against crime makes great strides in Italy. The police of Arcevia, in the province of Ancona, discovered the local center of illegal immigration. Thanks probably to the denunciation of some neighbous, an activity that the Italians were not able to practice well from the days of fascism and now, thanks to the security decree, it is again possible, the police have discovered two undocumented Albanian women.The fight against crime makes great strides in Italy. The police of Arcevia, in the... more
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The Italian President of the Republic signed the security decree that criminalize undocumented immigrants, but sends to the premier and ministers a letter expressing his "concerns and worries" for a law of heterogeneous standards, lacking systemacy and of dubious consistency with the general principles of criminal law. Translated from the President educate expressions that means that this law is stupid, unenforceable, and if really applied would violates Article 10 of the Constitution and various international conventions that Italy has signed.The Italian President of the Republic signed the security decree that criminalize... more
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