The Pakistan Thread

[skyhook77sfg]

FALSE

United States and Pakistan commonality

begins with military industrial complex in ascendancy....

ongoing militarization at expense of all common good...

charade democratic elections fronting for money power

that controls the allowed parties and vets all candidates...

huge and growing disparity between elite wealth and workers wealth...


shall we continue?

[skyhook77sfg]

Rumsfeld opposes cut in aid to Pakistan

May 22, 2011

WASHINGTON: The United States should not rush to judgement on Pakistan and resort to short-sighted measures like aid reduction that may imperil the important relationship, former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued in an interview.
?We ought to take a deep breath and recognise it would make us feel good for about five minutes if we cut off aid to Pakistan,? he warned in an appearance on FOX News channel.

His comments came amid suggestions by some American lawmakers to cut assistance for the key regional country in reaction to discovery of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

Rumsfeld said he has heard of no evidence that may indicate the Pakistani government?s complicity at any level in bin Laden?s being able to hide in the country.

The US relationship with Pakistan, though complex, is important, he said, urging a ?measured and mature? approach to ties with the country.

He concluded:

"It is in our self- interest to act in our interest.'


WOW HOW PROFOUND

NEOCONS REFUSE TO FADE AWAY

SOMEBODY TELL VON RUMSFELD HE

IS NO LONGER AUTHORIZED

TO WAVE FELDMARSCHALL'S BATON

[skyhook77sfg]

WORLD BRIEFING | ASIA
Pakistan: Chinese Held in Attack
By IAN JOHNSON


A day after denying that any of its citizens had been involved, China confirmed Tuesday that Chinese technicians were taken hostage during a militant attack on a Pakistani naval base. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said “technical staff of a certain enterprise” had been on the naval base in Karachi and were held captive in the 16-hour siege, which began late Sunday and left at least 10 Pakistani security officers dead. Ms. Jiang said she had no reports that any Chinese had been injured. China is eager to present itself to Pakistan as a more reliable ally than the United Stares.....

[skyhook77sfg]

Pakistani journalist executed by ISI


Asia Times reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad will be sorely missed by The Long War Journal. His insight and reporting on the al Qaeda-Taliban nexus was innovative, and his accounts of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the support the group received from Pakistan in the early to mid-2000s were prescient. He was willing to put his life at risk to meet Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, and always came back with interesting interviews. When Saleem published, we read. Saleem was also a friend of The Long War Journal; less than two weeks ago we opened discussions with Saleem to contribute, and were confident we would come to an agreement.

Saleem's torture and brutal murder, at the hands of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate according to reports, underscores the depravity toward human life that occurs in Pakistan on a daily basis. The Pakistani people suffer horrific attacks from the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a morass of terror groups, many which are supported and encouraged by Pakistan's military and ISI. Saleem was the latest victim of the deteriorating state that is Pakistan.

A report on Saleem's death, from Dawn/AFP, appears below. You can also read a statement from Asia Times and a tribute from AKI. And this TIME Magazine article provides more details on the life and death of Saleem, and the challenges Pakistani journalists face while reporting there.

From Dawn/AFP:

A Pakistani journalist has been found dead near the capital Islamabad after writing about links between the Pakistani military and al Qaeda, officials said Tuesday.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, worked for an Italian news agency and an online news site registered in Hong Kong. He went missing on Sunday after he left his home in the capital to take part in a television talk show, but never arrived.

Officials said his body was identified by relatives after being found near his car in Sarai Alamgir, 150 kilometres (93 miles) southeast of Islamabad.

"Relatives visited the police station and now they have identified the dead body. They said it is the body of journalist Saleem Shahzad," police official Zulfiqar Ali told AFP by telephone.

He disappeared two days after writing an investigative report in Asia Times Online that al Qaeda carried out last week's attack on a naval air base to avenge the arrest of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al Qaeda links.

Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had complained about being threatened by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

"The other day he visited our office and informed us that ISI had threatened him. He told us that if anything happened to him, we should inform the media about the situation and threats," Hasan told AFP.

"We can form an opinion after the investigation and a court verdict, but... in the past the ISI has been involved in similar incidents."



Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-ma ... z1NzokvWgS

[Najar]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MF03Df02.html

In atimes , Chan AKya speculates that Saleems killing may be a prelude to attack on Israel.

"Remember, though, that the attacks on the Karachi naval installations were focused on the P3 Orion aircraft - exactly the technology that the navy would be using to monitor the movements of large craft of the type that is used to load/unload/transport large objects.

Adding up the different permutations, it is difficult to ignore the probability that the idea involves using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that had been spirited away by al-Qaeda with the active connivance of elements in the ISI. America and other countries have been focusing on the worst-case scenario of al-Qaeda getting WMDs, but haven't spent enough time considering that the organization may already have done so.

Pakistan has been on a bit of a bomb-building spree recently - again a suspicious activity because the stockpile of nuclear weapons meant to target India was widely considered sufficient as recently as 2008. So the building of new bombs had to have something to do with other applications - or other enemies than India. It is also more plausible to hide the creation of a rogue nuclear weapon when a hundred ones are being built as against when the stockpile is stable.

If you were the ISI person responsible for this project, a mere journalist like Saleem would be quite an inconvenience for your partners. Tragic as the killing of Saleem is, it may well have been initiated as part of a blueprint for a WMD to be used on Israel by al-Qaeda. An attack on India using such WMD is also plausible, albeit less likely due to the immediate retaliation that would cause.

"

[skyhook77sfg]

US gives Pakistan deadline to capture Mullah Omar



Washington: The United States has given Pakistan time till July to capture Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri and Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar.

It has also warned of a military offensive in North Waziristan if they are not captured.

The July deadline coincides with NATO and allied forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. Last week, the US had handed over to Pakistan a list of five terrorists, seeking immediate intelligence information on them. It reportedly also wanted Pakistan to possibly target these terrorists in joint operations, claimed NDTV.

Besides Ilyas Kashmiri and Mullah Omar, the list included Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al Zawahiri, the operating chief of Haqqani network Sirajuddin Haqqani and the Libyan operations chief of Al Qaeda Atiya Abdel Rahman. Abdel Rahman had emerged as a key intermediary between Osama bin Laden and Qaeda’s affiliate networks across the world.The list was discussed during two meetings between Pakistani and US officials in the past two weeks, and also during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s talks with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad on Friday, ABC News quoted a US official as saying.

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?239995


US STRATEGIC SHIFT BECOMING CLEAR YET?

[skyhook77sfg]

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

THIS IS FOR REAL


from http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/15/survival ... tered.htmL



The Pakistan Army press release issued at the end of June 9 meeting of its Corps Commanders appears to have tried talking down its critics and talking up its own pro-people and patriotic credentials.

But in the process of making loud declarations about the need for people-centered policies and raising hue and cry against the ‘divisive’ impact of the criticism being hurled at it, the army has talked about exactly what it is being accused of – overstepping its institutional limits and running rampant on the territory it should avoid.

To begin with, Pakistan Army is not a people’s army or a revolutionary force in the same vein as armies in countries like China, North Korea and Iran are. Young men, now also young women, join its ranks out of their own choice, not under ideological compulsions or due to a revolutionary fervor.

But by its own claim the army is as much the custodian of Pakistan’s geographical boundaries as it is of the country’s ideological frontiers. The corps commanders have reconfirmed – as if there was ever any doubt about it – that they are out to secure the ideological identity of Pakistan.

They say they will do whatever it takes to “secure the future of Pakistan which undoubtedly lies in an Islamic Republic”.



DID THAT LAST SENTENCE REGISTER ITS FULL MEANING?


Maybe it deserves another look....


they will do whatever it takes to “secure the future of Pakistan which undoubtedly lies in an Islamic Republic”.


US AID BY THE BILLIONS FOR THE NEXT 60 TO 80 ISLAMIC REPUBLIC NUKES?

HELLO LANGLEY-- FOGGY BOTTOM-- PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE-- CAPITOL HILL

ANYBODY IN DC NOT TOO BUSY GETTING WEALTHY ON THE TAXPAYER PAYROLL

TO PUT AN END TO INCREASINGLY SELF EVIDENT SELF DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES?


ANYBOODY?

[AzariLoveIran]

[skyhook77sfg]

SO DO I....

YOU JUST APPARENTLY HAVENT YET NOTICED MY DEDICATION TO DEMILITARIZATION OF US ECONOMY AND FOREIGN POLICY

[rednblacklumberjack]

[Najar]

The current admin was apolegetic for violating Pakistan's soverignity , and they caught on to that and are acting indignant. This is inspite of the fact that they received billions in assistance to catch OBL. Dont know how Bush/Cheney would have reacted and how Pakistan would have responded to the reaction.

[Ibrahim]

[skyhook77sfg]

US did not finance the first nuclear weapons.

But apparently we will the next 60-80 nukes.

One would have hoped the educated class

that rules Pakistan by periodic coups (the military)

would have become a bit more secular

once exposed to science and mathematics.


apparently they prefer a good dose of irratiionality.

[Ibrahim]

[skyhook77sfg]

A FEW....

but the literate class was not comparable to the size of today's officer/nco corps by any stretch of the imagination.

not even under the moghuls.

didnt say their nukes were irrational.

think educated people that cant imagine life

any way but in a religious state is prima facia irrational.


imho

[Ibrahim]

[skyhook77sfg]

beg to differ...the pro forma Islamabad folks control almost nothing in Pakistan but hot air rants and raves about this and that.

the Rawalpindi men in military khaki and in ISI mufti control not only the nukes but the nation and its economy.

and some of the gin and tonic officer's club crowd are supporters of the so called terrorists.

that is where the struggle for Pakistan's soul is underway.

outcome is as murky as Indus flood waters.


let's not pretend the Sadat killing by his own Egyptian officers cannot be replicated in Urdu.

[Ibrahim]

[skyhook77sfg]

there is a reason savy political commentators point out the only army that has a country is Pakistani.

it is THE force majeur both politically and economically.

woe to the govt that displeases the O Club gin and tonic clique.

if memory serves three military coups created military juntas

that have ruled longer than civilian govts.

the control of nukes is most definitely not in civilian hands

and if that changes 911 will be eclipsed as soon as

some wahabbi madrassas graduates can lease

a Liberian flagged container ship....

[Ibrahim]

[Najar]

[skyhook77sfg]

Pakistanis see India as bigger threat than Taliban and Qaida

Most Pakistanis see India as a bigger threat than the Taliban and the al Qaeda and disapprove of the US military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a new poll.

Although al-Qaida leader bin Laden has not been well-liked in recent years, a majority of Pakistanis describe his death as a bad thing. Only 14 percent say it is a good thing, according to a poll released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre.

http://pakistanthinktank.org/component/ ... qaida-poll

[Ibrahim]

[Hans Bulvai]

The US, nothing.

Saudi Arabia, different story. Gives much more funds than the US.

[AzariLoveIran]