Muslim Woman

Is It USA Behind Terrorist Attacks in Pakistan

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:03:27 +0000

Pakistan is facing increasing challenges of terrorism each day despite the efforts of army, initiatives in parliament, media and some youth forums. Most people in Pakistan understand that terrorism is not solely a home grown dragon although some high-ups in Pakistan nurtured it for their own personal and political interests. It may have its ancestry dating back to US interest against Russia in the region, but even that is not of such prime importance. The fact is that no suicide bomb blasts were to be seen in Pakistan just four years ago (none for all those 58 years actually), no one even knew the name of TTP at that time. If it was a home grown Pakistani Taliban organization only, why they did not show any visibility or reaction when US attacked Afghanistan in early 2002, even after Iraq invasion they were nowhere to be seen. How come they started showing up all of a sudden when our rulers wanted to enhance foreign aid offers and strengthen their regimes.

It would be extremely surprising if the analysts and educated public in general are not aware of the fact that TTP has been seeded and grown by enemy agencies specifically as they could not initiate any overt operations against Pakistan (being a nuclear power). There are numerous reports and analysis available to prove this claim. The enemies have long been working on covert operations and this wave of terrorism in Pakistan is a result of these covert operations in which the suicide bombers are usually locally hired and in some cases kidnapped and trained to do the requisite jobs. Now comes the question of local support of the network by foreign agencies and the exploitation of the locals done by them, thus taking advantage of poverty and lack of education of true religious values. None of the sects of Islam supports suicide attacks on civilians.

[Sada Zamir]

NATO Looks to Exit Afghanistan Whether US Approves or Not

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:45:57 +0000

When NATO meets in Paris in June for a summit on Afghanistan, there could be a secret deal on the table that will offer a way out of a war in which the U.S. and its allies have become increasingly bogged down.

Much to the dismay of Washington war planners, there has been a growing weariness in Europe with the Afghan conflict and reluctance by NATO members to expand troop commitments. This past year, Pentagon chiefs have consistently complained that European allies have not been pulling their weight at a time when it is vital to throw more troops into the fight against a resurgent Taliban, and a re-formed al Qaeda, whose leadership is based somewhere in the tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Talk of a secret deal emerged during the recent NATO summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, when member nations were given a classified dossier outlining a German-inspired strategy for a reduction in troop levels leading to a phased withdrawal. The proposal conflicted strongly with the views of Pentagon military chiefs who have long argued that a resolution of the conflict could take decades. They believe that, like Iraq, Afghanistan might require a U.S.-NATO presence without a time limit.

For some observers, the shifting German position on Afghanistan was predictable because the German public has consistently made it clear it is opposed to a long-term military commitment. During a NATO summit in Holland last year, Germany’s defense minister, Franz Joseph Jung, hinted at building up the Afghan security forces as a prelude to troop withdrawals, but he was careful not to elaborate or provide a timescale. But, in the wake of this latest summit, reports indicated that the secret German dossier went further, pointing to a need to build, train and equip an Afghan army and police force to take over from NATO.

Some of the proposals were said to fall into line with a British policy advocating intensive training of the Afghan military, the planning for a robust police force to combat organized crime and terrorism and the creation of an independent judiciary.

The British, however, have been reluctant to predicate their proposals on any hint of an exit strategy. Nonetheless, Germany’s apparent willingness to set the groundwork for a phased withdrawal could find favor with NATO countries that are reluctant to commit to a long-term engagement in Afghanistan.

Another unusual aspect of the Bucharest summit was the background role played by Russia, which experienced its own Vietnam when it occupied Afghanistan. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent summit members an offer that would allow NATO to ship food and “non-lethal military equipment” for its Afghan forces across Russian territory, thus avoiding treacherous routes through Pakistan.

The Pakistani routes have begun to prove hazardous for NATO food and oil convoys, with 40 oil tankers destroyed in a recent attack.

A curious aspect of the Russian offer was that Russia also made it on behalf of six neighboring countries, including Uzbekistan, through which NATO convoys would have to pass after exiting Russia en route to northern Afghanistan. Those countries come under Russia’s NATO alternative, the CSTO—Collective Security Treaty Organization. By making the offer, President Putin was in effect indicating that NATO needed a closer partnership with Russia. Putin and his advisers had carefully studied NATO’s logistical difficulties and the fact that the Taliban had identified most of NATO’s transit routes through Pakistan, making it easy to hit NATO supply lines.

In particular, the Taliban had been zeroing in on the major Pakistan-Afghanistan crossing point at Torkham, thereby interrupting important supply convoys. When Putin made his offer he was equally aware of a growing concern within NATO about the changing political climate in Pakistan and how, in the longer term, it could have a negative impact on NATO’s reliance on Pakistan as a supply route.

If all of that was not enough to make the Bucharest summit a complex affair, there were calls from countries like Uzbekistan for a dialogue between the Afghan Northern Alliance led by Gen. Rashid Dostum and the Taliban. Dostum, with the help of U.S. Special Forces, crushed the Taliban at the outset of the U.S. invasion. His territory shares a border crossing with Uzbekistan, and both he and the Uzbekistani president, Islam Karimov, have benefited tremendously from the heroin traffic that uses the crossing.

While the Pentagon still maintains good relations with Dostum, it has no time for Karimov, who ordered the U.S. to leave bases in his country after Washington diplomats condemned his killing of hundreds of Muslim protesters in 2005. His regime has been accused of boiling dissidents alive; yet several years ago he visited the White House and signed a secret
pact with President George W. Bush. Aside from his proposal to start talks with the Taliban, he also recommended involving neighboring countries like China in a dialogue to find a solution to the Afghan crisis.

While that may appeal to one or two NATO members, it will be dismissed by British and American leaders, who were dismayed to learn in Bucharest that the Northern Alliance was already engaged in a secret dialogue with the Taliban. The source for that information was none other than the Uzbek leader, Islam Karimov.

It now looks like NATO for the foreseeable future will be tied to Russia and countries like Uzbekistan for supply lines, and that could prove problematic, especially if men like Karimov choose to play a greater role in Afghan politics. For example, if NATO has to rely entirely on routes through Russia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan and Kyrgyzstan, it will make it difficult to exclude the leaders of those nations from demanding a role in forging an outcome to the Afghan conflict. [Richard Walker]

Nawaz

PKKH

Israel Role In Destabilizing Pakistan

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:02:49 +0000

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq. Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents. Read Full Article

Jeff was counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87) working for Democrat Russell Long, son of Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long. Specialist in employee benefits law—pensions, 401(k) plans, stock options, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), et.al. Tax-qualified employee benefit plans accounted for $17 trillion in assets (April 2007) and more than half the funds in the hands of institutional investors. As of 2007, ESOPs were in place in 11,500 firms nationwide, covering 10% of the U.S. workforce and holding $800 billion in assets. Law practice w/ former Senators Russell Long, Democrat of Louisiana and Paul Laxalt, Republican of Nevada, chairman of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

Jeff Gates - Author

US ready to dump Pakistani allies

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:20:00 +0000

When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States.

When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao’s Communists, we did not blame ourselves for being a faithless ally, we blamed him. He was incompetent; he was corrupt.

We did not lose China. He did.

When Buddhist monks began immolating themselves in South Vietnam, the cry went up: President Diem, once hailed as the “George Washington of his country,” was a dictator, a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist nation, who had lost touch with his people. And so, word went out from the White House to the generals. Get rid of Diem, and you get his power and U.S. support. Three weeks before JFK was assassinated, Diem and his brother met the same fate.

When the establishment wished to be rid of a war into which it had plunged this country, suddenly it was “the corrupt and dictatorial Thieu-Ky regime” in Saigon that was simply not worth defending.

Lon Nol, our man in Phnom Penh, got the same treatment.

“In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal,” said Henry Kissinger.

The army of South Vietnam and the Saigon government, the boat people of the South China Sea and the million victims of Pol Pot’s genocide can testify to that before the judgment seat of history. Thus the daily attacks on Afghan President Hamid Karzai — who sat beside Laura Bush as guest of honor at the 2002 State of the Union and got a standing ovation — as the corrupt ruler of a corrupt regime, whose brother, a narcotics trafficker, has been on the CIA’s payroll, seems a signal that the ritual is about to begin. The Karzai brothers should probably read up on the fate of the Diem brothers.

Yet never has an ally been more egregiously insulted in wartime than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s insulting of the Pakistanis on her “fence-mending” trip last week. In a meeting with editors, Hillary was asked why the United States was focusing its Predator strikes in the war on terror so heavily upon Pakistan.

Said Hillary, “Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. … I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.”

This is charging the Pakistani government, army and intelligence services with cowardice or collusion with bin Laden and al-Qaida in the war on terror. That it was made within hours of the bloodiest in a long series of terror attacks that have killed hundreds of Pakistanis only magnifies the insult. So, too, does the fact that the Pakistani army, after cleansing the Swat Valley of the Taliban, is now fighting in South Waziristan in the most critical battle of the war.

But, if this is what the Obama administration and the Congress believe, why are they sending $7.5 billion in new aid to such a regime?

Moreover, the charge is, on its face, demonstrably false. But what does it avail us to insult these people who have cast their lot with us, many of whom will, with famines and friends, pay a far more terrible price than we if we lose these wars.

And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We don’t have the stomach for a long war. We’re sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.

Source: PKKH

Fort Hood Shootings Dont Let Racism Hide Truth

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:21:58 +0000

BY NOW EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET KNOWS about the killing of 12 people and wounding of 31 others at Fort Hood in Texas. There’s no doubt that this is a tragedy for the families and friends of the slain. But from a tragedy like this there will inevitably issue forth a second tragedy – the racist, anti-Muslim hysteria that will follow because the man – Major Nidal Malik Hasan – was from a Palestinian background. And that hysteria – already in evidence in online newspaper comments boxes – will obscure the real issues and the real reasons for this tragedy. Hiding from the truth will only ensure more tragedies like this in the future. So, let’s go through some of the truths.

1) The sheer racism involved in immediately speculating on the religion of the shooter. Back in May, an Army Sgt. stationed in Iraq and suffering from PTSD shot and killed five of his fellow soldiers. That man’s name – John Russell – was Anglo Saxon. Nobody speculated on the role of his religion in the killing. In this instance, as an article in the New York Times makes clear, Hasan, who joined the military out of patriotism, faced harassment for being Muslim and wanted out, even pursuing a failed legal route to early discharge. As a psychiatrist, he had counseled many returning vets who suffered PTSD. The combination of these two things apparently made him “mortified” at the prospect of being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.

2) This racism also provides a cover for the fact that men and women trained to kill and who experience the brutality of enforcing occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, suffer from mental breakdowns, suicides and commit murders at far higher rates than the general population. A 2007 CBS News investigation into military suicides found:

“Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror… had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)”

And according to an article in the Washington Post, based in part upon an investigation by the Colorado Springs Newspaper, the rate of homicides amongst veterans from the Fourth Infantry Division’s Fourth Brigade were 114 times higher than the rate amongst the general population in Colorado Springs, where they are stationed stateside.

“During their deployment, some soldiers killed civilians at random — in some cases at point-blank range — used banned stun guns on captives, pushed people off bridges, loaded weapons with illegal hollow-point bullets, abused drugs and occasionally mutilated the bodies of Iraqis, according to accounts the Gazette attributed to soldiers who said they witnessed the events.”

Another study by the New York Times found that at least 120 people had been killed by returning vets. However, the Times itself assumes that this is a conservative number since it was reached only by looking at newspaper reports and it only includes active-duty soldiers and new veterans. The CBS survey used government statistics.

3) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents and the destruction of infrastructure and social networks that will take generations to repair. The media and government are utter, utter hypocrites to condemn these murders while taking no note – or reporting as simply normal operation procedure – the families slaughtered wholesale by US drones that fire missiles at wedding and funeral parties, into Pakistani villages. In Afghanistan alone there have been an estimated 8,400 – 28,000 direct and indirect civilian deaths caused by ISAF and US forces.

4) Mass murder has become as American as apple pie with dozens killed in spree murders this year alone. What is it about American society that brings about such a large number of these types of violent acts? The roots have to be found in the fact that America is the world’s biggest, most violent empire, whose means of domination and largest single budget outlay goes towards the
military. This year alone the military will take up to $700 billion directly with more indirectly through military aid to countries such as Israel and Colombia. This is a country jacked on violence. America, as the wealthiest nation on earth, also had the third highest levels of inequality and poverty in a study by the OECD released in 2008. The only two countries above the US were Turkey and Mexico. The combination of poverty and glorified violence, in the shadow of historically unprecedented levels of wealth creation is key to understanding the prevalence of violence in America.

There is a danger that in the days following the Fort Hood shootings, the right and the media will whip up terrible racism. Arguing wherever possible the real reasons for this terrible act will be an important part of the ideological struggle to maintain the momentum of opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We mustn’t allow the truth to drown in a sea of racist filth.

PKKH

Nawaz

The Rise is Coming

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:20:05 +0000

Despite the problems our beloved country is facing, despite the fears that are lurking around, despite all the deception and frustration that is being inflicted upon us, despite all the evil designs of the enemies against us, despite all what seems to be going wrong…………We are going to emerge as a glorified and dignified nation, we are going to acquire the stature that we are meant to, we are going reach the top………we are going to rise! This is our destiny, this is what Allah Pak has decided and written for us, This is Allah’s Will and Rasool Allah’s promise and Iqbal’s dream. This is going to happen….The Rise is definitely Coming Insha’Allah… Pakistan Hamesha Zinda-o-Paindabaad PKKH

Peshawar Bomb Blast and Pakistani Elite Class

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:37:54 +0000

To Our Elite And Not Just The President: Was a reception for a US foreign Secretary “Hillary Clinton” more important than sharing the grief of your people? More than one hundred innocent Pakistanis killed in one day, more than two hundred in less than a month. Attacks linked to our own and America’s failed Afghan policy. Attacks supported by anti-Pakistan forces in the region and not just unknown ‘extremists’. Children left without parents, a nation terrorized. And the response of our political elite? Dinner, toasts and merrymaking in Islamabad. Was a reception for a foreign guest more important than sharing the grief of your people? A shameless foreign-backed ruling elite. One hundred and ten killed in one day. More than two hundred dead in less than a month. If this were any other country, emergency would have been declared, nation would have been mobilized, and intellectuals would have moved to question the policies of rulers who draw their strength from Washington and London and not from the people and the interests of Pakistan. Above all, there would have been a national mourning. But not in Pakistan. Not in a country where one ruler sold his nation in exchange for a deal offered to him by the Am-Brits and where ‘elected’ rulers consider receiving someone from Washington and London the high point of their careers. Ahmed Quarishi www.ahmedquraishi.com

War On Terrorism in Pakistan

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:47:31 +0000

Reports of insurgents using sophisticated weapons including Russian made 14.7 anti-aircraft guns, against helicopters and fixed wing aircraft of the Pakistan air force have surfaced. Apparently it has been fitted on strategic heights in the area to target military aircraft. This anti-aircraft gun along with the 12.7 Russian model has long been in use by the Indian army. Pakistan has previously raised its concerns pertaining to Indian involvement in Waziristan entailing alleged financial and arms support to the TTP. Besides, Pakistan had been relaying its concerns to US involving Indian activities in Afghanistan. It is felt that these directed at Pakistan are deliberately ignored by the US, as part of a long-standing policy to maintain some sort of twisted leverage, by playing one against the other. This has led to a bigger trust deficit between Pakistan and US. The perception in Islamabad is that the US has been studiously ignoring its demands that India be restrained from exploiting the ongoing instability in its frontier region. Whose side is the US on? Though it has been pressuring Pakistan to undertake military operations against Taleban insurgent groups and had strongly opposed peace deals previously brokered with these groups, it does not seem to be supporting Pakistan in the ongoing battle in South Waziristan. Such a conclusion can easily be dismissed if one relies on the golden nuggets of rhetoric, spewed from the US State and Defense department! But as realpolitik goes, actions speak louder than words. And US actions to help Pakistan at this critical point have so far failed the test. A massive military operation aptly titled, Operation Rah-e-Nijat (path to purge) involving ground forces, artillery strikes and air power has been launched in Waziristan. Now Waziristan, North and South, border Afghanistan’s eastern provinces of Patika, Khost and Paktia. In such a scenario, the natural assumption would be that Pakistan would be extended a helping hand by the coalition forces, especially, when Pakistan’s military has been extending the same cooperation in recent coordinated operations, in Helmand and other places. This assumption is not only based on natural reciprocity but is a derivative of standard military logic and the deep military to military cooperation existing between the two sides. Apparently, the US outposts on the Afghan border parallel to Waziristan have been evacuated. Strange, considering the coalition forces should have boosted troops on their side given the significance of this operation. It is not a localised engagement being carried out in Swat or even other agencies in FATA, such as Bajaur and Mohmand. This is about striking the epicenter of Taleban insurgency in Pakistan, whose nuisance value for the coalition forces runs very high. Considering the past pressure on Pakistan to target Waziristan — hosting the core group, the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan — the US seems to have slunk from active involvement in supporting the operation. The implications of such a move at this point allows unhindered access to Taleban/foreign fighters from Afghanistan to aid the TTP in fighting against Pakistan’s armed forces besides trafficking of weapons. An influx of fighters and weapons is the last thing needed at  this point. This is probably why General Tariq Majid, the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) urged the UK Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup to seal the Pak-Afghan border to prevent cross-border movement of terrorists and flow of weapons into Pakistan. Proliferation of smuggled weapons is nothing new in this part of the world. Not only has it been a thriving trade since the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, this tradition has been sustained in the following years. Reports of insurgents using sophisticated weapons including Russian made 14.7 anti-aircraft guns, against helicopters and fixed wing aircraft of the Pakistan air force have surfaced. Apparently it has been fitted on strategic heights in the area to target military aircraft. This anti-aircraft gun along with the 12.7 Russian model has long been in use by the Indian army. While the insurgents long apprised of the impending operation in the area, may have procured these highly coveted weapons, contention tilts towards possible Indian involvement. Pakistan has previously raised its concerns pertaining to Indian involvement in Waziristan entailing alleged financial and arms support to the TTP. Besides, Pakistan had been relaying its concerns to US involving Indian activities in Afghanistan. It is felt that these directed at Pakistan are deliberately ignored by the US, as part of a long-standing policy to maintain some sort of twisted leverage, by playing one against the other. This has led to a bigger trust deficit between Pakistan and US. The perception in Islamabad is that the US has been studiously ignoring its demands that India be restrained from exploiting the ongoing instability in its frontier region. While Pakistan has charged India for fanning unrest and supporting  nationalist insurgents in Balochistan and vice versa — Delhi holds Pakistan responsible for not doing enough to bring perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice, the ISI for the Indian embassy blast in Kabul and sponsoring dissent in Indian held Kashmir— both states have not missed any  opportunity for ‘encouraging and exploiting’ trouble. This myopic perspective is disturbing. If the objective is to create deeper destabilisation in the region (what that may achieve for any is the bigger question) then each—the US, India and Pakistan—must be accorded full points. However, it may be wiser for all to think beyond short-term tactical victories, that are potentially pushing them towards a bigger fallout. It will eventually backfire on the larger goal of defeating terrorism—affecting all stakeholders. While presence of foreign fighters in the area including Uzbeks and Arabs is nothing new, their contribution to the current engagement is particularly irksome. Not only do they provide vital human support to the fierce fighters within the TTP ranks, they bring strategic experience from years of fighting in asymmetrical conflicts against well-armed international forces. The problem with Waziristan is that the Pakistan army is fighting a guerrilla war with conventional forces. It is very likely to turn out to be a protracted engagement. The decisive point for the military would be to gain local support among the tribes in Waziristan particularly the Mehsud tribe. This is why Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani sent a special message seeking support for the operation while detailing the objective that is to secure the state and oust foreign terrorists from the area. While curtailing the operation at this point would be detrimental in every respect, efforts to engage the tribes must be top priority. The military is already doing that to bolster supportive resistance against the insurgents. However, a long-term strategy should look at working out a power sharing formula and regain control of the area from the influence of these groups. The TTP and affiliated groups support base among certain tribes needs to be alienated and rejected by others. At the same time a reread of history of how the British eventually got Waziri tribesmen to desist from challenging state authority would be useful. Peace was won on the strength of  understanding and shifting responsibility and authority to the leading tribes with the withdrawal of forces from the area once control was wrested from miscreants. This should be integrated within  the strategic doctrine at this time. Eventually, it will be the tribes who will act as guarantors of security of these hinterlands.

Missile strike could complicate Pakistan Battle

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:15:01 +0000

Just when the Pakistan Army has started a major operation against TTP and foreign militants in South Waziristan the US Military has started to stab Pakistan in the back again. First there are confirmed reports that US and NATO troops have moved back from border area surrounding South Waziristan and have given a big escape route for TTP to move back into Afghanistan. Before starting this operation, Pakistan Army had won the loyalty of Hafiz GulBahadur, and Maulvi Nazir. Now when the operation is in full swing, and hard fought battle is raging on, when brave sons of Pakistan Army are sacrificing their lives for their nation, US drone handlers are hitting missiles at pro-Pakistan Taliban based in Waziristan so as to ignite them into joining Takfiri TTP.

This should be a lesson and a wake up call for Pakistan Army and the entire Pakistani nation that US is double crossing us openly and the US always had ill-intention towards Pakistan. US interest can never align with Pakistan’s interest. It is imperative that all treaties or agreements done between President Musharaf and President Zardari with the US must be bought before media and canceled. Pakistan Army should cut off the NATO supply line from Karachi until Indian Consulates stop sending terrorists into Pakistan and until Drone attacks stop.

AP story continues below

Soldiers fought for the Pakistani Taliban chief’s hometown Wednesday as they pressed an offensive along the Afghan border, while intelligence officials said U.S. missiles hit territory controlled by another insurgent, threatening to undermine deals that keep some militants out of the battle.The five-day-old offensive in South Waziristan is considered a critical test of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s campaign against Islamist extremists blamed for soaring attacks at home and on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan. On Tuesday, suicide attacks killed six people at a university in Islamabad, leading Pakistan to temporarily close all educational institutions. The military is advancing on multiple fronts in South Waziristan, a tribal region home to al-Qaida fighters and Taliban insurgents who have focused on overthrowing the U.S.-allied Pakistani government.

The fight for the town of Kotkai is symbolically important because Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud and a top deputy, Qari Hussain, hail from there. Kotkai also lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha. An army statement Wednesday said forces were engaged in “intense encounters” in hills surrounding Kotkai and had secured an area to its east. Two intelligence officials said troops had secured parts of the town and destroyed Mehsud’s and Hussain’s homes, but army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denied that late Wednesday, saying there was no significant fighting inside the town yet. The army believes Mehsud and Hussain remain in the region directing militants’ defenses.

Security forces on another front cleared Khaisura, a village dotted with heavily fortified bunkers complete with six-foot (two-meter) thick concrete walls, the army said. The statement reported three more soldiers were killed, bringing the army’s death toll so far to 16, while 15 more militants were slain, bringing their death toll to 105.

It is nearly impossible to independently verify information coming from South Waziristan because the army has closed off all roads to the region. Analysts say both sides have exaggerated successes and downplayed losses in the past. The missile strike Wednesday targeted Spalaga, a village with at least 1,000 homes in the North Waziristan tribal region. Two intelligence officials said at least two suspected insurgents were killed. Their identities were not immediately known. All the intelligence officials interviewed Wednesday requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The U.S. has launched scores of missiles in South and North Waziristan over the past year, including one that killed former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in August. But the latest strike was especially sensitive.

It hit territory controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant leader the army has coaxed into remaining neutral during the offensive against the Mehsud faction in South Waziristan. Pakistan considers Bahadur, along with militant leader Maulvi Nazir of South Waziristan, lesser priorities because they focus on battling U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, not targets inside Pakistan. Analysts said the missile strikes, which have long angered ordinary Pakistanis and motivated militant fighters, could stir fury among Bahadur’s insurgents, straining the deals with the army.

“This has the potential of messing up the calculus of the Pakistanis,” said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Stratfor, a U.S.-based global intelligence firm. “It could broaden the scope of the war for the Pakistanis, which they’re not prepared for at this time.”

An AP photographer in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, took photos of two small girls allegedly wounded in the strike. Aslam Din, who identified himself as the father of Sameeda Gul and Fatima Gul, said the girls were playing in the compound in Spalaga during the attack and were wounded by shrapnel. Sameeda, who appeared to be around 6, was hurt in her right leg, while Fatima, around 4, had head injuries. Neither injury appeared to be life-threatening. Din would not discuss who was staying in the guesthouse struck by the missiles.

Pakistan routinely condemns the American missile strikes as violations of its sovereignty, warning that the civilian casualties they cause deepen anti-U.S. sentiment and complicate the fight against terrorism. But many suspect the two countries have a deal allowing the drone-fired attacks. U.S. officials rarely discuss the covert operation, but have said in the past that it has killed several top militant leaders and is too valuable to set aside. U.S. officials hope that Pakistan will eventually broaden its fight to include all insurgent factions, and have routinely dismissed peace deals as tools that strengthen insurgent groups. But for now, some American officials have said it is logical for the Pakistani military to target its top internal enemy. The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan against about 12,000 Taliban militants, including up to 1,500 foreign fighters, among them Uzbeks and Arabs.

In a statement late Tuesday, the chairman of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen. Tariq Majid, appealed to Western forces to aid the South Waziristan offensive by sealing the border on the Afghan side, preventing the flow of militants and weapons. The United Nations says at least 32,000 people have fled South Waziristan over the last week, joining more than 80,000 people who left earlier when the army began making preparations for the offensive. Authorities say more are likely to leave in coming weeks, but don’t expect to have to house them in camps because most have relatives in the region.

Thanks
PKKH

Anti Pakistan Terrorists: Taliban Equipped With U.S Indian German Weapons

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:08:32 +0000

In one case, Germany sent 10,000 small weapons to Afghanistan. Half of them have disappeared. This is a classic way of supporting insurgencies without being caught. German investigators can never accuse German intelligence of crossing the NATO mandate and helping CIA in extracurricular activities. The Americans are good at dismissing their double actions in Afghanistan as conspiracy theories. Here is a brief, detailed and sourced account of what types of foreign-origin sophisticated weapons are in use against the Pakistani military. A ragtag army of criminals, throat-slitters and mercenaries could never have faced one of the world's largest organized armies if not for outside sophisticated support.

Hundreds of militants from Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the so and other associated groups are equipped with most sophisticated American, Indian and German weapons.

During Swat operation, a number of the Indian army used Vickers-Berthier (VB) light machine guns were also recovered. The recovery of Indian designed weapons were not astonishing for Pakistan But what was more surprising for Pakistani officials is that the U.S. and German weapons were recently introduced in the Waziristan area.

German sources today confirmed that thousand of German guns are being sold illegally on Afghan, Pakistan black markets. The German guns were sent to Afghanistan for police and army via a U.S. agency.

The weapons were sent in 2006 and were intended for local police and army personnel.

According to the latest reports in 2006, the German Defense Ministry shipped 10,000 old Walther-P1 pistols to the Afghan Interior Ministry to equip Afghan police and army.

However, both the German government and the responsible US-led security team in Afghanistan failed to properly monitor the guns' distribution and use. The U.S. unit was quoted by a German source as saying that “it only had detailed records of German Walther-P1 pistols, numbering 4,563 pistols out of a total 10,000.” It is believed that German officials failed to pursue the investigation in Afghanistan due to non-cooperation from the Afghan Government.

In February this year, CNN has reported that more than one-third of all weapons the United States has procured for Afghanistan's government are “missing.”

On February 12, 2009, CNN had quoted a U.S. Government Accountability Office report as saying that the U.S. military failed to "maintain complete inventory records for an estimated 87,000 weapons -- or about 36 percent -- of the 242,000 weapons that the United States procured and shipped to Afghanistan from December 2004 through June 2008."

The report elaborated that the U.S. military “is unable to provide serial numbers for 46,000 of the missing 87,000 weapons” and that “no records have been maintained for the location or disposition for the other 41,000 weapons.”

Obama Signs ‘Kill Bill’. What Can Pakistan Do?

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:26:12 +0000

President Obama has signed the ‘Kill Bill’ [Kerry-Lugar bill] despite the reservations of most Pakistanis on offensive language in some clauses.

Pakistanis do not doubt the intentions of President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Senator Kerry. We know they are friends of Pakistan. We just do not trust the Washington establishment. Exhibit A: political conditions embedded in a bill that is packaged as a token of sincere friendship.

Washington rejected Pakistani concerns saying that’s what Congress wants. But no word about the heated and passionate debate in the Pakistani parliament where the pro-US government is dangerously isolated. Pakistani parliament wanted to pass a resolution making the will of Pakistanis clear before President Obama signed the bill. In ignoring the Pakistani parliament and rushing to sign the bill, Washington sent a clear message. America will do what it wants. If it thinks that Quetta and Muridke are centers of terror, then that is it. Pakistan needs to accept it and move on. And don’t dare ask Washington for evidence. American politicians are smart people. But so are Pakistanis.

The Pakistani parliament can still pass a strong resolution rejecting the anti-Pakistan conditions in the bill and affirming that Pakistan will not be bound by them.

This way, US will give aid to our government at its own discretion. This way no one in the future will be able to say, ‘Hey, you accepted in the Kill Bill that Quetta and Muridke are centers of terror,’ or ‘Hand over so and so nuclear scientist because you agreed to in the Kill Bill’. Pakistan will be able to point to the parliament resolution and say, ‘You know what, we made our position and intention clear and still you gave us the money. That was your choice. We never accepted your claims and we told you so and yet you paid us.’

Let the Americans pay aid with a clear message from Pakistani parliament that we’re not bound by your conditions.This way, clauses in the Kerry-Lugar bill [Pakistanis are exchanging text messages calling it 'Kill Bill'] that seek to contain Pakistani military and strategic capabilities in exchange for aid will be rendered ineffective. Washington will also be put to the test: Will it still give aid to Pakistan?

After all, if this bill is really a ‘true reflection’ of American friendship with the people of Pakistan, then what’s a few cumbersome conditions between friends, right Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lugar?

Ahmed Quraishi
www.ahmedquraishi.com

Open Letter To Citizens Of the U.S

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:43:29 +0000

Citizens of United States

We Pakistanis are ordinary beings like you, having the same dreams, same needs, ambitions, emotions, reservations and same passion if not more for our country. We like you, to feel the same regret for wars, same grief for the world problems, same distress towards injustice, same hopes for a better tomorrow. We, like you, also fantasize having serene borders, comfortable homes for our children, fine education, some leisure, and a satisfied mind that what we are contributing to this country and the world at large today will benefit us and our future generations tomorrow. We fancy the feeling of living in sheer coziness of our homeland, away from overseas interventions and foreign-extremism in the exact same way as an average American desires.

We didn’t get our independence as a birthday present, we got it after much struggle and sacrifices (over 4 million lives were lost during the migration); after much strangling and many fatalities, we finally broke free of the quandary at the hands of British and Hindu rulers. After independence, we have shown remarkable progress in many areas despite having rulers who placed personal interests over national interests, who never really had to face the trauma of poverty, sickness, injustice, or leaving their loved ones behind to inhabit a land with no promises. Yet we did not give up and made a nation out of it. We did not fail as our current leaders try to put it, to solicit more and more aid to gratify their own greed. In our short history we have never been blessed with a true leader after our founder, and yet imagine our courage, we did not break down, we moved on and on. And we never really looked for shortcuts to this existence, we have paid plenitude.

We have now been presented with yet another aid package from your country which will be financed by American taxpayers money, which is the right of American citizens and on which we have got no claim. To your surprise neither do we need it to solve our problems. We do NOT need it. We have been seasoned to rely on our own resources, our own means; because at the end of the day this money will not be utilized for our poor nation it will land somewhere you cannot imagine its terminus to be. Period.

Let us give you a reality check, as the voice of our Pakistani country men and as a friendly gesture to the fellow citizens of U.S. who have a right to know. In all veracity this little aid which comes with a lot of dictation, will be utilized to finance foreign lavish trips of our government personnel who will take approximately 200 personnel including their family members to luxurious places. It will be utilized to provide notorious yet special security services that we cannot afford, to people who are not even part of the government but somehow our democratic rulers are much obliged to flatter. The so-called economic development this new aid promises will definitely not materialize. We know this because this has been happening for the last several decades.

The so-called promises to create jobs for us will never be fulfilled, whereby this money would rather be utilized for expanding the job market within the USA for the American people, which itself is being hit by the worst recession in decades. Not only that, the conditions mentioned will destabilize our civil system, will cripple our autonomy, our existence, will rob our craftsmen and the population on the whole of their much deserved earnings, and in turn will fan more frustration. The ordinary Pakistani is already paying a heavy return against the lending of IMF. Our electricity, fuel and other bills have been incremented, and those too over the dictation of the IMF. The Kerry Lugar Bill does not attempt to bring any solution for our challenges at all, instead, it will be sucking blood from our innocent population in the name of few miscreants who are not a part of us in the first place, in the name of a war that didn’t belong to us by any means and was imposed on us. Are we really attempting to build peace in here? Who are we fooling in the name of amity?

Islamic Republic of Pakistan is an independent country, which means that we are fully capable to take care of our needs, self reliant and complacent like Islam teaches us to be. We do not rely on shortcuts for realization of our needs. By the grace of our creator, we have been seasoned to work hard and achieve the impossible. The elite on powerful positions do not in anyway represent the opinion of general public. In their sinister yet sadly successful efforts, public is kept so busy in their basic problems that they never really get to question them on where was the Aid money utilized and why was it even asked for in the first place.

Its time the U.S realized that and leave the treachery of aiding us on the face and stabbing us at our backs. As the voice of enlightened Pakistanis, let us assure you, we will be delighted if the same money is utilized in your own country to deal with the recession it faces, to deal with the crimes soaring high with U.S. topping the list of most crimes in the world in a year. We will be glad if it is also spent on researches and precautionary measures on why so many Americans die with stress-related diseases every year, why life is getting tougher and tougher for an average American family and their social values are declining. We urge you to ask your Government whether this aid package is really helping us, the fellow citizens of Pakistan, or are you helping our shameless government with their lifestyles and luxuries? Are you helping in setting up schools and better health care or fanning more extremism due to ill-utilization that our rulers will ensure and frustration that the brutal conditions on this sell-out package will bring for us? Are you actually helping to support our displaced countrymen or giving them more reason to hate you for financing our depraved rulers?

Your financial aid will not do us any good, since more than this amount already stays in the bank accounts of some of our narcissistic leaders, who occupy the ‘seats’ but are indifferent towards the distress of the majority. If you are still so keen to help us however, start sharing best practices, help us in establishing good governance, help us in making our systems more transparent, help us in medical researches, help us in building up universities to polish our youth else we really don’t need your help, we can help ourselves.

We also request you to ask your government on how this bill helps the American nation and us, when it will just land in a few pockets and exactly what will our unfortunate nation be faced with as conditions to comply, tragedy of which is unimaginable but appalling enough for us to reject any aid from U.S. at all! The Patriot act which has left your nation so vulnerable cannot be allowed to implement in Pakistan. Let us make it more apparent, we will not allow the U.S. access to any of our properties or our citizens. These citizens belong to a free country, accountable to none other than their own national laws and America as a knowledgeable and well-developed country should respect that. Our country is fully capable to deal with any miscreants itself and we have been doing it to our best since this so called war on terror started. We will not allow interference in any form whatsoever in the internal matters of our country, in its governance, in its institutions and above all in its authority that this bill carefully ensures. Our rulers may be dissolute, our nation is not.

Your country has not only deceived you in the name of wars to eliminate terror while being exceptionally involved in creating it, but it also has left many homeless, many innocent killed, many children orphans, many women widows, houses and hopes shattered. It hasn’t just betrayed us, it has betrayed you. And rest assured, the bullying tactics that your country specializes in will someday become a pit in itself. Haven’t we all started witnessing that it in front of our eyes already?

We however maintain, the U.S. citizens don’t deserve to be kept in darkness. Since World War II, your country has intimidated directly or indirectly at least 44 countries, if not more in the name of peace while creating havocs in real, distributing civil wars, turmoil, oppressing nations, breaking them into pieces, dictating policies that completely butcher the civil structure. As your infamous Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger once put it so correctly: "While being America’s enemy may be dangerous, being America’s friend is invariably fatal". Who would comprehend that better than our nation, who has a history of 62 years being your ally and what did we get in return? Treachery, betrayal, deception?

What did the US get out of it; a deteriorating economy, a failed social structure, not to mention countless killed soldiers? It isn’t a surprise the same Kissinger who believed in brutal de-population of the world and whose policies your government still follows, also said "Soldiers are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy". Decide for yourself, where this face will lead you? This hatred your government is mongering against your beautiful country is pushing you down the path of obscurity too, with a point of no return.

Ask yourselves, are the U.S soldiers really worthless herds of cattle to be thrown into hostile territories just so that a few in the Govt. can benefit by selling their weapons to the U.S Govt., which buys them from these local multi-million dollar businesses at such dear cost of American tax-payers’ blood-earned money? Decide yourself, where this will lead you as a nation? This hatred your Government is mongering against your beautiful country is pushing you down the path of obscurity too, towards a point of no return.

We as responsible citizens of Pakistan request the responsible citizens of U.S. to really ask their government on the effectiveness of wars it has waged in the past and what it plans to wage in future. For instance, what did the Americans get out of the Vietnam war? Did the Vietnamese attack them? What did the Americans get out of the War between Iraq and Iran? What did the American people get out of the recent war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Did the American people get a share of the oil wealth that is being ripped off the Iraqis by use of brutal force?

Think about the latest package of deceit this Kerry Lugar Bill brings for us, the ruthless face of which we are already seeing, yet you are kept so oblivious to. We respectfully ask you to convince your government to keep the same money to themselves and utilize it to benefit your ailing economy, or maybe it can be used to return the debt that US owes to China.

Only then will we as a nation be inspired by the high spirits on your nation’s conscientiousness, and will be stimulated to follow the right footsteps.

A Pakistani

International concerns grow over the safety of the Indian Nuclear Arsenal

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:20:15 +0000

Far removed from the photo-shopped images of ‘Shining India’, lies a dark and sinister shadow that stalks the Indian Republic. The spectre of the Naxalite threat now has middle-class urban Indians nervous as they watch increasingly worrisome media reports of the repeated failures of Indian Security Forces in containing the ‘red menace’ in the jungles and hinterlands of India.

What was once only a peripheral threat to the Indian State has now reached a critical mass that has left even the ivory-tower Indian elites in New Delhi with furrowed brows. An embarrassing problem once ignored and neglected has now broken out into the worlds glare. And rightly so. As the vigour of the Reds grows from strength to strength, and the impotence of the Indian Army and Paramilitary is increasingly apparent, questions are being raised of the safety and security of India’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Similar concerns were raised internationally only a few months ago when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan were said to be within spitting distance of Islamabad and Pakistan’s own nuclear arsenal was seen as an obvious target. But whereas the Pakistan Army swiftly and efficiently routed the militants from a standing start within just a few weeks, their colleagues in India have struggled to contain an irresistibly growing Naxalite movement that has pledged to bring New Delhi down. Atif F Qureshi PKKH Editorial Team and PakDestiny

Thanks
Nawaz
www.pakistanideology.com

Blind Followers

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:41:11 +0000

Self preservation is a powerful force in humans, this exist on both personal & national level; in fact its a constant fear of facing a defeat, even on a intellectual level. In an attempt to avoid intellectual defeat, proof and evidence is created either consciously or subconsciously for beliefs that are held in them. Failure even in minor situations cause a feeling of being overwhelmed which is leading to an inferiority complex and a fear. This is why when people are confronted with something disproving their beliefs, their automatic reaction is to reject those new ideas and principles. They move towoards own ideas and construct fort of protection around themselves; and this is known as blind following, or taqleed. This manner of blind following is an opne enemy of knowledge and stand as opponent to all of invitation to the truth and to revolutionary movements. A vivid display of this is given by the nations to whom the various prophets were sent. To every prophet’s plea to follow the Guidance, the masses invariably responded ,How can we leave what has been passed down to us from our ancestors? We are not prepared to do this. In Quran chapter 43 verse 23 has highlighted this significant element;

But this is not the first time that we are discussing this subject! Even before this, whenever God Almighty sent a Rasool to any socieity or region with a warning about the catastrophic results of their erroneous deeds, the people who were used to easy and luxurious way of life always opposed him. These people who shunned doing any research or in-depth study and did not work for their living were happy living off other people's labour and earnings. Instead of listening and ponder they said to the messengers that we have found our forefathers on a path; and verily we are going to follow their footsteps & will not abandon our current social practices. The outcome of denying the divine regulations by any society, group of people or civilization were, is and will be total destruction. Either been taken over by other nations (History is full of those events where one nation is replaced by other)? or faced the natural catastrophe like typhoons, twisters or earthquakes. Whatever the tool of replacement were used by nature but for sure those societies were wiped out.

The only refuge is in the following the divine laws which is in Quran.

Religion Islam
WWW.PARVEZ-VIDEO.COM

Eid In Islam: Muslim Woman

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:27:18 +0000

Islam is the name of the life of preservation of the self within the boundary walls of the Quran. For this purpose it is necessary that the mankind must know as to what are the boundary walls of the Quran and along with it they must also get themselves up for self-control. The month of Ramadan is the specific instrument for inculcating and substantiating each of these two matters. Today we can relate this as a Training Camp or a Refresher Course. The fasting makes the men to build up such a character which make them capable of reaching higher goals given by Allah Almighty. And when this month long exercise has ended up it has been asked to celebrate it known as “Eid”

Every tribe, people or race throughout the world celebrates a festival of one sort or another. Muslims also celebrate some festive occasions on some days of the year. But the festival of Eid is one that we are commanded to celebrate with zest by Allah Almighty. Eid-ul-Fitr is in deed a sacred function of the annual celebration of the Quran’s revelation. This rejoicing Festival of Eid is the memorial of the revelation of living and lasting Book of Allah Almighty. Islam is the name of obedience to the Divine Laws not the obedience by compulsion but the obedience from the core of the heart.

Nawaz
Religion Islam

Oh Muslims

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:31:57 +0000

If one looks at the general picture of the Muslim world today it is hard to find something positive on the horizon. There is political chaos and regional turmoil all over the Muslim world. Muslims seem to have lost control of their affairs. They feel frustrated and helpless. Many Muslim governments are persecuting their people in the name of Islam. Can Muslims hope for a better future under these circumstances?

Allah Almighty has blessed Muslims with plenty of natural resources. Yet, they are dependent for most of their basic needs not to speak of their dependence in the field of science and technology and on knowledge in general. Their resources are being plundered and wasted on an unprecedented scale, while the majority population suffers extreme hardships. Muslims generally tend to blame others for their problems, few blame their rulers, others blame on one another. There may be truth in all of this, but what is lacking from Muslim discourse is an honest and intelligent diagnosis of problems, which Muslim ummah is facing. Representing almost a billion Muslims, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) the official organ of the Muslim countries for discussing such problems & has become no more than a platform for passing resolutions upon resolutions of empty words with no teeth. No wonder it has been dubbed “Oh! I see!” Most other Islamic organizations, more or lesssuffer from a similar fate.

There was a time when Muslims were the masters of the earth, controller of the destiny but today they are on a path of continuous decline. Why their condition is horrible, why they are facing self impose miserable poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease and sickness. Why there is a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and frustration among the Muslims. Why they are just living for the sake of living without any sense of direction. Why their rulers nor the intellectuals of various muslim countries have any plan for these huge sufferings and embarssement.

It is really painful to see them suffer, despite the best lands and resources they have like in Pakistan (balouchistan province). It is very important for those who are concerned about the future of the muslim ummah that to ponder about as to what to do inorder to remove the causes of Muslim decline? If not then we will be the part of that list of nations who were wiped out by the laws of Allah Almighty. For examples one can read Quran and also explore the history books.

Nawaz
Religion Islam

Sneaking US Occupation Of Islamabad - Muslim Woman

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:10:32 +0000

Pakistan was reported to have expelled the head of an American NGO providing cover to Blackwater operations on Pakistani soil. Now this deported American, Crag Davis, is back in Pakistan. And he is not alone. Close to 2, 000 Hummers have arrived at a Pakistani port that are not destined for Afghanistan. The world’s biggest US embassy is under construction in Islamabad. As if this is not enough, the US embassy has hired a huge number of houses across the Pakistani capital to serve as unofficial local franchises. Welcome to the silent American occupation of Pakistan, with the blessing of the elected Pakistani politicians and a silent Pakistani military.

Before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was given orders to the contrary, press reports of August 6 show that its spokesman, Mr. Basit, on August 5, at the Karachi Press Club, had already given out the fact of the 1, 000 US Marines coming to Pakistan for the protection of the new, imperial US embassy in islamabad .Now we are seeing houses being barricaded for US personnel all across the capital and we know of the 300 plus ’military trainers’ already ensconced in Tarbela. In addition we have the notorious Blackwater (now hiding under a new label, Xe Worldwide) and the rather obvious CIA front-company, Creative Associates International, Inc. (CAII), operating not only in Peshawar but now in Islamabad also it transpires – and a recent reflection of this was the sealing off of the road in Super Market [a stone throw away from the houses of senior Pakistani officials] last week right in front of a school!

Whatever the US embassy gives out or the terrified Pakistani leadership echoes, the reality is that there is a questionable and increasingly threatening US armed presence in Pakistan and this may be augmented soon by an ISAF/NATO presence. Incidentally, to add to the suspicions of the US presence, reports are coming in of around 3, 000 Hummer vehicles, fully loaded, awaiting transportation from Port Qasim. Will some of these go to the Pentagon’s assassination squads, who may take up residence in some of the barricaded Islamabad houses and with whom the present US commander in Afghanistan was directly associated? Ordinary officials at Pakistani airports have also been muttering their concerns over chartered flights flying in Americans whose entry is not recorded – even the flight crews are not checked for visas and so there is now no record-keeping of exactly how many Americans are coming into or going out of Pakistan. Incidentally the CAII’s Craig Davis who was deported has now returned to Peshawar! And let us not be fooled by the cry that numbers reflect friendship since we know what numbers meant to Soviet satellites.

Now another threat, in the making for some time, is becoming more overt. Pakistan’s precious and fertile agricultural land is up for grabs to the highest foreign bidder. Pakistan is not alone in being targeted thus by rich countries with little or no food resources. The UN has already condemned this purchase of agricultural land as a form of neo-colonialism. Over the past five years in a hardly-noticed wave of investment, rich agricultural land and forests in poor countries are being snapped up by buyers from cash-rich countries. Leading this grab of poor country resources are the rapidly industrializing states and the oil-rich countries who have, between 2006-2009, either directly through governments or through sovereign wealth funds and companies, already grabbed or are in the process of grabbing between 37 to 49 million acres of developing countries’ farmland (a July 2009 report by Robert Schubert of Food and Water Watch).

Wealthy countries like Japan and South Korea are acquiring farmlands abroad for food security while oil-rich countries are seeking cheap water and cultivated crops to be shipped home. The land buyers from the oil-rich arid countries are seeking water as much as land because by buying or leasing land with sufficient water, they can divert their own domestic irrigation water to municipal water supplies. The foreign land purchases destabilize food security since land given to foreign investors cannot be used to produce food for local communities – the foreign investors’ intent being to take the food back to their own food-scarce countries. Many of the land purchases comprise tens of thousands of acres which are then turned into single-crop farms – and these dwarf the small-scale farms common in the developing world, where nearly nine out of ten farms (85 per cent) are less than five acres. Such land grabs have now been recognised as harming the local communities by dislodging smallholder farmers, aggravating rural poverty and food insecurity. With Gulf countries importing 60 per cent of their food on average, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the investments into Asia and Africa to secure supplies of cereals, meat and vegetables. The rise in demand for food imports for the GCC comes at a time when exportable agricultural surplus worldwide has declined. How does all this impact Pakistan? Pakistan has rich agricultural land and adequate water although the latter’s distribution has been subject to political machinations. There has also been a seemingly deliberate effort by successive ruling elites to undermine the country’s agricultural potential and nowhere is this more brazenly evident than at present with power outages preventing crucial water supply through tubewells; and many rich lands being converted into housing colonies! Then we have had artificially created sugar and wheat shortages – ’artificial’ because for the last few years our wheat and sugarcane crops have been bountiful. As for the wonderful local fruit, that is also being diverted to feed external populations through exports that are not only depriving the locals of their land’s bounty but also raising local prices so only the rich elite can consume what is left. Now it has come out that we are selling land to the Gulf states, thereby undermining our local agriculture further. Abraaj Capital and other UAE entities have acquired 800, 000 acres of farmland in Pakistan (we have learnt no lessons from the sale of the KESC and the PTCL). Qatar Livestock is investing $1 billion in corporate farms in Pakistan. But all this produce will be taken out, so the argument that this foreign investment will bring in new technologies into our agricultural sector does not hold. In any case, one does not have to sell one’s land to foreign forces to acquire new technology which is available in the open market and the government can help local farmers acquire it. Not surprisingly, the Gulf countries are pleased with Pakistan’s rulers bending over backwards to accommodate their needs at the expense of the ordinary Pakistani – for none of the food produced on these lands will be available cheaply for Pakistanis; it will go to feed the Gulf populations. Gulf countries are happy because their imported food bill will cost 20-25 per cent less, positively impacting on their present high inflation rate. We may import this food from them for a price, just as our government has now decided to import sugar from the UAE. Of course the UAE itself imports sugar so the absurdity should be abundantly clear to all, including our profiteers!

In the visibly servile mindset of our leaders, instead of offering incentives on a similar scale to local farmers, Islamabad is offering legal and tax concessions, with legislative cover, to foreign investors in the form of specialized agricultural and livestock ’free zones’ and may also introduce legislation to exempt such investors from government-imposed tax bans. The most worrisome aspect of such wheeling-dealing is the government’s decision to develop a new security force of 100, 000 men spread across the four provinces to ensure stability of the Arab investments. This will cost the Pakistani state around $2 billion in terms of training and salaries and the real fear is that this force will be used to forcibly eject local small farmers from their lands. Concerns have been further heightened because no labour laws will be applicable to corporate agricultural companies and there will be no sales tax or customs duties on import of agricultural machinery by these investors. Nor will their dividends be taxed and 100 per cent remittances of capital and profits will be permitted. So where is there even an iota of advantage for the ordinary Pakistani as opposed to the rulers?

With the US increasingly occupying Pakistan with their covert and overt armed presence, and the Gulf states taking over our rich agricultural lands our rulers are voluntarily making us a colony again – as we were under the British who used our men to fight their wars and our cheap labor to ship the finished produce back to Britain!

Have we come full circle after 62 years of our creation?

Author: Dr.Shireen Mazari

Ramadan, Quran And Muslims

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:14:01 +0000

Islam is the name of the life of preservation of the self within the boundary walls of the Quran. For this purpose, it is necessary that the human (Muslims) must know as to what are the boundary walls of the Quran and along with it, he must also get himself up for self-control. The month of Ramadan is the specific instrument for inculcating and substantiating each of these two matters. In the modern terminology, call it a Training Camp or a Refresher Course. The fasting makes the human get himself up for leading striven-life through self-control. And its fixing is in this month, wherein the beginning of revelation of the Quran was initiated. It brings this stark fact to the fore-front that special arrangements during this Training Course should be made for gushing forth the entire Quran to the striven-people (Mujahedeen) so that they may fully comprehend as to what the connection of “the sword and the Quran” is with each other and how these two come to be the instrument for safeguarding each other.

Parvez-Video
www.parvez-video.com

Muslim Woman - Pakistan’s Northern Iraq

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:50:50 +0000

If Pakistan were Turkey, Pakistani military commanders would have been publicly warning by now to send fighter jets into Afghanistan to pound the secret supply routes that are being used to fan terrorism and separatism in northwest and southwest Pakistan. The Afghan support bases for terrorism in Balochistan and NWFP are well known by now to Pakistani spy agencies and we’d be justified to act. The purpose wouldn’t be to start a war but force an end to the export of terrorism into Pakistan, especially the Indian intelligence and terror-training outposts on Afghan soil. This is how Turkey dealt with the situation when northern Iraq turned into a haven for anti-Turkey insurgent’s right under the watch – and possible encouragement – of the United States military. This scenario might appear farfetched at the moment considering that last week another US citizen has become the recipient of our highest civil award, The Crescent Of The Great Leader [Hilal-e-Quaid-e-Azam]. That is the third or the fourth American who have that in less then a year time. Islamabad’s power corridors are sniggering with the quip that US citizenship has become the newest prerequisite for the prestigious award.

But banter aside, the situation on the Pak-Afghan border stands on the precipice of anarchy. Just when the Pakistan Army was preparing to corner master terrorist Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, the CIA ordered a drone attack in North Waziristan targeting the pro-Pakistan tribal commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. He was at peace with the Pakistani Army for more than a year. The CIA action has opened a new warfront for the Pakistani army that would make nabbing Baitullah (now he was killed in a drone missile attack) more difficult. If the – deliberate? – American blunders continue, we will end up with a fully fledged civil war in our entire northwest. Washington has already messed up Afghanistan and until a few months ago was itching to put boots on the ground in Pakistan. A full-fledged civil war would give the Americans that chance. The Kabul ruling elite and their Indian ally want nothing more than to see such a situation. It is not in Pakistan’s interest to fight the Pashtun, let alone our own Pakistani Pashtun.

We need to eliminate the terrorists who call themselves Pakistani Taliban. But in order to do so we need to shift the focus back to Afghanistan. US top diplomat William Burns has already asked the Indians to scale down or close some of their ‘consulates’ that act as terrorist planning and training outposts inside Afghanistan. Indian officials have avoided discussing this demand in public, thanks in large part to the evidence reportedly exchanged through the Pakistani-American military channels.

Now Pakistan needs to build on this through a series of fresh policy initiatives on Afghanistan. Let’s test America’s sincerity by making it clear that a US victory in Afghanistan shouldn’t come at the expense of Pakistan’s legitimate security interests. Let’s achieve our goals together instead of handing Afghanistan over to anti-Pakistan forces. It’s either this or we stop NATO supplies. We should also declare that, unlike al Qaeda, the elimination of the Afghan Taliban or any other local Afghan faction is not a strategic objective of Pakistan. We are not occupying Afghanistan, America is. And it needs to take responsibility for its own mess. Mullah Omar can in fact help Pakistan neutralize the criminals inside Pakistan who are butchering Pakistanis in the name of fighting America. This will also help us identify and neutralize the fake Taliban who are fighting the Pakistani state for foreign-pumped money.

The American position that the resistance they face in Afghanistan comes from our tribal areas should be countered. A fresh report by a US think tank shows the Afghan resistance entrenching itself in the north. So it’s not just the Pakistani tribal belt. The main issue is the pacification of the Pashtun and other areas inside Afghanistan. Do this and the problem can be resolved inside that country. We need to start seeing US-occupied Afghanistan as Turkey’s northern Iraq. It’s either this or we end up making America’s war against the Pashtuns our own.

Ahmed Quraishi

Muslim Woman: Why People Of Pakistan Want A Change

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:37:26 +0000

Since the creation of our country the factors unifying the people of Pakistan have been losing their glueyness. Selfish governance, lack of political reforms, undemocratic progress, nonexistence of justice, subjugation of farmers and workers by the feudal lords and businessmen, absence of merit, non-provision of equivalent opportunities to each Pakistani and, above all, the rejection of quality education to a immense majority of Pakistanis are only some of the reasons that come to mind as things liable for the cracks that we see in our state organization.

The generation before us and the one that is now diminishing had lived under a colonial power they were used to being governed as slaves. The change of the color of the skin of the masters on 14 August 1947 did not make much difference to that generation and they accepted the new local masters with the same mindless attitude. Only having an independent country and a flag that they could call their own was good enough to have the situation going. Their steady devotion and nationalism to Pakistan was estimable. It is not those generations but those of them that ruled the new country in their name that let Pakistan down and are responsible for the mess that we are in today.

World have changed and it is time to understand this and go with the currents of time. This new generation of Pakistanis and the ones that live overseas and crave to return to Pakistan are our key resource that must be valve. It is now time for those who drive the wheel of the destiny of this country to return to the sketch book and redesign the lines of the future of this deprived nation so that it starts moving as a growing and civilized country.

Robust Pakistan is the only shield against this from evil happening.

Nawaz

Religion Islam