The Rockets' Red Glare -- from Pak Against the US!
The USCIA manipulated Pakistan's military and govt for 60+ years, since the early 50's, the US got Pakistan to fight its US-invented Cold War, trained terrorists on Pakistan and Afghan sovereign soil.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan's internally weak post-colonial governments took the US bait but also engaged in war profiteering and terror against their own people.
These US-initiated marriages were headed, from the word go, for Divorce Court, way way before the PAKISI and its proxy, the Haqqani,started firing the rockets on US posts (read occupation), mentioned in your article.
You sow what you reap, US.
Ditto Pak and Afghanistan.
In India, we did not allow one US soldier to set foot on Indian soil. We stayed out of your fabricated Cold War. We maintained cordial relations with both the US and the Soviets, and signed a strategic "treaty of friendship and cooperation" with the Soviets while building a vibrant democracy based on our own Gandhi-led liberation struggle.
See the resulting difference?
Learn from this, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The USCIA will not.
------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/world/asia/cross-border-fire-frustrates-american-troops-in-afghanistan.html
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Every Terror Attack Leads Back To US
Every Terror attack leads back to US.
Don't blame ISI, Taliban or Al AlQaeda. Did they exist before the US began to meddle, infiltrate West Asia and South Asia?
Pakistan has been subjugated by the US Department of State since the early 50's.
Yes, each terror entity should be brought to Justice -- at the same time the US govt. stands accused before the International Criminal Court.
The US trained the Mujahideen during the Cold War that the US INVENTED to bring down the USSR. Today, they are the Taliban.
India should not have an embassy in Kabul -- hospitals, schools, yes, embassy NO.
Does India have an embassy in Palestine? I didn't think so.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------
Dawn newspaper Pakistan copyright
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/11-large-blast-heard-in-afghan-capital--il--01
-----------------------------------------
Times Of India copyright
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/india/Taliban-claims-responsibility-for-Indian-embassy-blast/articleshow/5102304.cms#write
----------------
NYTimes Copyright
12 Die as Bomb Hits Near Indian Embassy in Kabul
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
Published: October 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world/asia/09afghan.html?ref=global-home
-----
Yahoo news copyright
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
-------------------
Don't blame ISI, Taliban or Al AlQaeda. Did they exist before the US began to meddle, infiltrate West Asia and South Asia?
Pakistan has been subjugated by the US Department of State since the early 50's.
Yes, each terror entity should be brought to Justice -- at the same time the US govt. stands accused before the International Criminal Court.
The US trained the Mujahideen during the Cold War that the US INVENTED to bring down the USSR. Today, they are the Taliban.
India should not have an embassy in Kabul -- hospitals, schools, yes, embassy NO.
Does India have an embassy in Palestine? I didn't think so.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------
Dawn newspaper Pakistan copyright
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/11-large-blast-heard-in-afghan-capital--il--01
-----------------------------------------
Times Of India copyright
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/india/Taliban-claims-responsibility-for-Indian-embassy-blast/articleshow/5102304.cms#write
----------------
NYTimes Copyright
12 Die as Bomb Hits Near Indian Embassy in Kabul
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
Published: October 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world/asia/09afghan.html?ref=global-home
-----
Yahoo news copyright
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091008/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
-------------------
Sunday, September 13, 2009
A Grievious Wrong Wrought By The Brits
A Grievious Wrong Wrought By The Brits
The India-Pakistan Divide, the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh Divide, the Kashmir Accession, the Afghanistan Impasse, were 300 years in the making. It took a lot of doing.
The people of South Asia have inherited the Imperial Project. They have yet to move their leaders to dismantle and overturn the ideology and practice of that imperial Project. It took the British (and lesser colonial powers) that long, 300+ years, in days, months and years, in decades and centuries, to robustly execute their Oppress-Exploit-Divide-Rule strategy. This strategy is in stark evidence today throughout the Global South, Angola to Zimbabwe, Indonesia to Iran, Singapore to Seychelles.
Lest we forget, we in South Asia are still playing out that strategy in 2009, with real oppressors on the ground or in the air, and imagined enemies among our very own sisters, brothers and cousins. The Great South Asian Family Quarrel has transposed itself onto the emergent struggling nation-state, carefully fractured by our departing Brit masters. Pesky relatives believe the malicious gossip and decide to walk out of the door while tea is being poured and sweets are being distributed. The taste in our mouths is bitter, watered by tears over the days of bloody parting.
We ourselves have become master performers of that cynical strategy of our erstwhile masters. Ironically we have ourselves mastered that strategy, added new rules and regulations. We oppress each other. Our families have turned on their own members. So it is today in our region, South Asia.
So it will continue -- unless we reflect and return to ourselves, our deeper collective selves.
more...
The India-Pakistan Divide, the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh Divide, the Kashmir Accession, the Afghanistan Impasse, were 300 years in the making. It took a lot of doing.
The people of South Asia have inherited the Imperial Project. They have yet to move their leaders to dismantle and overturn the ideology and practice of that imperial Project. It took the British (and lesser colonial powers) that long, 300+ years, in days, months and years, in decades and centuries, to robustly execute their Oppress-Exploit-Divide-Rule strategy. This strategy is in stark evidence today throughout the Global South, Angola to Zimbabwe, Indonesia to Iran, Singapore to Seychelles.
Lest we forget, we in South Asia are still playing out that strategy in 2009, with real oppressors on the ground or in the air, and imagined enemies among our very own sisters, brothers and cousins. The Great South Asian Family Quarrel has transposed itself onto the emergent struggling nation-state, carefully fractured by our departing Brit masters. Pesky relatives believe the malicious gossip and decide to walk out of the door while tea is being poured and sweets are being distributed. The taste in our mouths is bitter, watered by tears over the days of bloody parting.
We ourselves have become master performers of that cynical strategy of our erstwhile masters. Ironically we have ourselves mastered that strategy, added new rules and regulations. We oppress each other. Our families have turned on their own members. So it is today in our region, South Asia.
So it will continue -- unless we reflect and return to ourselves, our deeper collective selves.
more...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Boneheaded RNC Sets Up Obama to Fail in Diplomacy in South Asia
Comment #133.
New York Times
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 3rd, 2009
12:27 pm
The strategy of the faux patriots among the self-ascribed national security hawks in the Republican Party, is to ensure Obama fails in his diplomatic efforts in the South Asia region.
By ratcheting up their calls for increasing militarization, rather than diplomacy, in Afghanistan, the Republican National Committee and leading Republican members in the US Congress, hope to set up and ambush Obama , divide the Democrats, deflect the Congress from urgent and attainable domestic policy goals of universal healthcare and jobs, and instead, hand the U.S.President a spectacular failure, the size of Vietnam.
That's the RNC/GOP's only hope of turning Obama into a one-term President at the polls in 2012.
If Obama goes with the ethically and politically bankrupt RNC/GOP, drones on in protracted and deadly fashion in Afghanistan, then Obama fully deserves to be a one-term Prez.
I would then regret I voted for him. I hope not to have that regret.
Comment # 32
New York Times
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 3rd, 2009
0:45 am
The strategy of the faux patriots among the self-ascribed national security hawks in the Republican Party, is to ensure Obama fails in his diplomatic efforts in the South Asia region.
By ratcheting up their calls for increasing militarization, rather than diplomacy, in Afghanistan, the Republican National Committee and leading Republican members in the US Congress, hope to set up and ambush Obama , divide the Democrats, deflect the Congress from urgent and attainable domestic policy goals of universal healthcare and jobs, and instead, hand the U.S.President a spectacular failure, the size of Vietnam.
That's the RNC/GOP's only hope of turning Obama into a one-term President at the polls in 2012.
If Obama goes with the ethically and politically bankrupt RNC/GOP, drones on in protracted and deadly fashion in Afghanistan, then Obama fully deserves to be a one-term Prez.
I would then regret I voted for him. I hope not to have that regret.
It's not all about US interests all the time, everywhere.
No nation-state has done more damage to the South Asia region for the past 55 years, than the US.
Time to get out, USA, especially if the bone-headed, ethically bankrupt RNC insists you stay.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
G.O.P. May Be Vital to Obama on Afghan War
By HELENE COOPER
Congressional Democrats are reporting disenchantment among constituents with a long Afghanistan conflict.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/world/asia/03policy.html?hp
New York Times
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 3rd, 2009
12:27 pm
The strategy of the faux patriots among the self-ascribed national security hawks in the Republican Party, is to ensure Obama fails in his diplomatic efforts in the South Asia region.
By ratcheting up their calls for increasing militarization, rather than diplomacy, in Afghanistan, the Republican National Committee and leading Republican members in the US Congress, hope to set up and ambush Obama , divide the Democrats, deflect the Congress from urgent and attainable domestic policy goals of universal healthcare and jobs, and instead, hand the U.S.President a spectacular failure, the size of Vietnam.
That's the RNC/GOP's only hope of turning Obama into a one-term President at the polls in 2012.
If Obama goes with the ethically and politically bankrupt RNC/GOP, drones on in protracted and deadly fashion in Afghanistan, then Obama fully deserves to be a one-term Prez.
I would then regret I voted for him. I hope not to have that regret.
Comment # 32
New York Times
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 3rd, 2009
0:45 am
The strategy of the faux patriots among the self-ascribed national security hawks in the Republican Party, is to ensure Obama fails in his diplomatic efforts in the South Asia region.
By ratcheting up their calls for increasing militarization, rather than diplomacy, in Afghanistan, the Republican National Committee and leading Republican members in the US Congress, hope to set up and ambush Obama , divide the Democrats, deflect the Congress from urgent and attainable domestic policy goals of universal healthcare and jobs, and instead, hand the U.S.President a spectacular failure, the size of Vietnam.
That's the RNC/GOP's only hope of turning Obama into a one-term President at the polls in 2012.
If Obama goes with the ethically and politically bankrupt RNC/GOP, drones on in protracted and deadly fashion in Afghanistan, then Obama fully deserves to be a one-term Prez.
I would then regret I voted for him. I hope not to have that regret.
It's not all about US interests all the time, everywhere.
No nation-state has done more damage to the South Asia region for the past 55 years, than the US.
Time to get out, USA, especially if the bone-headed, ethically bankrupt RNC insists you stay.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
G.O.P. May Be Vital to Obama on Afghan War
By HELENE COOPER
Congressional Democrats are reporting disenchantment among constituents with a long Afghanistan conflict.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/world/asia/03policy.html?hp
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
US Bloodletting in MY South Asia
Comment #214.
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 1st, 2009
9:22 am
US Bloodletting in MY South Asia
Yeah folks its my place, where I was born and raised. South Asia which the US has turned into hills of blood.
The US Govt. since the inception of the US nation-state, has been bloodthirsty and trigger happy. That's the incontrovertible evidence. This does not means the US has not stood, at times, for individual liberty, mostly for its own citizens at home. Freedom to shop, unlimited amounts of time to cruise the aisles to choose among 20 brands of toilet paper. Great. Whatever works for you.
But US state-sponsored violence and terror -- whether against Native American or Blacks or Vietnamese or Iraqis or Palestinians or now, Afghans or Pakistanis -- that's the name of the game for US loose cannon foreign policy.
General McChrystal, despite his name, lacks lucidity, acuity and clarity. More troops? when the US is already foolhardily pursuing a failing AfPak strategy.
Obama like every white male occupant of the Whites' (yes) House will predictably continue the bloodletting, just like his predecessors. To achieve "strategic depth" in South Asia, to further the US's continuing, unfulfilled fantasy of global dominance in an increasingly multipolar, diverse world that has highly differentiated regional and global strategic interests.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01military.html
Groundwork Is Laid for New Troops in Afghanistan
By PETER BAKER and DEXTER FILKINS
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s revised strategy would invest the U.S. extensively in stabilizing Afghanistan.
EthicalDemocracy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
September 1st, 2009
9:22 am
US Bloodletting in MY South Asia
Yeah folks its my place, where I was born and raised. South Asia which the US has turned into hills of blood.
The US Govt. since the inception of the US nation-state, has been bloodthirsty and trigger happy. That's the incontrovertible evidence. This does not means the US has not stood, at times, for individual liberty, mostly for its own citizens at home. Freedom to shop, unlimited amounts of time to cruise the aisles to choose among 20 brands of toilet paper. Great. Whatever works for you.
But US state-sponsored violence and terror -- whether against Native American or Blacks or Vietnamese or Iraqis or Palestinians or now, Afghans or Pakistanis -- that's the name of the game for US loose cannon foreign policy.
General McChrystal, despite his name, lacks lucidity, acuity and clarity. More troops? when the US is already foolhardily pursuing a failing AfPak strategy.
Obama like every white male occupant of the Whites' (yes) House will predictably continue the bloodletting, just like his predecessors. To achieve "strategic depth" in South Asia, to further the US's continuing, unfulfilled fantasy of global dominance in an increasingly multipolar, diverse world that has highly differentiated regional and global strategic interests.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01military.html
Groundwork Is Laid for New Troops in Afghanistan
By PETER BAKER and DEXTER FILKINS
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s revised strategy would invest the U.S. extensively in stabilizing Afghanistan.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Karzai: US has not met its "moral standard" in Afghanistan
US has not met its "moral standards" in Afghanistan: Karzai
11 May 2009, 1856 hrs IST, PTI
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
WASHINGTON: Smarting from frequent US air attacks and resultant "massive" civilian toll in his country, President Hamid Karzai has said America
has not met its "moral standard" in Afghanistan and warned that any society will be "fed up" with such "continued casualties".
"The US has not met that standard in Afghanistan. The United States must stand on a much higher moral platform in order for us together to win this war," Karzai said in an interview to NBC News.
Pressed whether the US has not met their own moral standards and was Washington waging an "immoral war" in Afghanistan, Karzai said: "No. No. It's not immoral war, it's the standard of morality that we are seeking which is also one that is being desired and spoken about in America.
"In other words, are we the same as the terrorists, are we the same as the bad guys, or are we standing on a much higher moral, moral platform? Are we better human beings or not?," Karzai said.
He insisted that "extreme care" should be taken to protect civilians "and their children and their homes" for the civilians "to see us (as) completely distinct and separate from the terrorists."
Referring to the recent US bombing in Farah district where some 100 Afghan civilians died, he noted that the incident resulted in "massive" civilian casualties.
11 May 2009, 1856 hrs IST, PTI
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
WASHINGTON: Smarting from frequent US air attacks and resultant "massive" civilian toll in his country, President Hamid Karzai has said America
has not met its "moral standard" in Afghanistan and warned that any society will be "fed up" with such "continued casualties".
"The US has not met that standard in Afghanistan. The United States must stand on a much higher moral platform in order for us together to win this war," Karzai said in an interview to NBC News.
Pressed whether the US has not met their own moral standards and was Washington waging an "immoral war" in Afghanistan, Karzai said: "No. No. It's not immoral war, it's the standard of morality that we are seeking which is also one that is being desired and spoken about in America.
"In other words, are we the same as the terrorists, are we the same as the bad guys, or are we standing on a much higher moral, moral platform? Are we better human beings or not?," Karzai said.
He insisted that "extreme care" should be taken to protect civilians "and their children and their homes" for the civilians "to see us (as) completely distinct and separate from the terrorists."
Referring to the recent US bombing in Farah district where some 100 Afghan civilians died, he noted that the incident resulted in "massive" civilian casualties.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
NUCLEAR, not Diplomatic, 'Disconnect' between US and Pak
My published NYT comment #83.
May 07, 2009 5:13 pm
Link
May 07, 2009 3:53 pm
US-Pak NUCLEAR not Diplomatic 'Disconnect'
What we have is not merely a diplomatic disconnect. That's small potatoes, talk is cheap.
What the entire world is faced with is a NUCLEAR 'disconnect' in which the US and NATO have not so far reassured and convinced the world that Pak's warheads are 100% secure. Nothing less that a 100% guarantee will do. This is extremely serious. Everything else pales into insignificance.
Why is the IAEA silent? Why is el-Baradei dumbstruck on this issue? Why does the world not have a guarantee from the IAEA that Pakistan's warheads are fully secured and under continuous IAEA surveillance?
The US will never act in the best interests of the Pakistani people. The US will never act in the best interests of the Afghan people. Afghans and Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis and Nepalis and Maldivians know this in their hearts.
Pakistanis especially are being humiliated (even as they are bribed) by the US in this 50 year master-stooge relationship. Pakistan has not thrived under a half-century of US domination and manipulation.
The diverse peoples of South Asia are related by blood and history. It is up to us South Asians, despite centuries of Brit divide and rule colonial strategy, to work together in fellowship and cooperation. Pakistanis have to vomit the hate propaganda they have been fed by their feudal elites to keep them servile, hungry, poor and with no prospects for employment except as suicide bombers and terrorists. And India must help and respect Pakistan in the spirit of sisterhood for the sake of every woman, child and man in our South Asia region.
Pakistanis, Indians and Afghans are closer to each other than they can ever be to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China or the US. That's a fact.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/politics/08cooper.html
On the White House: In Diplomacy, a Pakistan Disconnect
By HELENE COOPER
As American and Pakistani diplomats met, there was a gap between the sentiments expressed in public and those voiced in private.
May 07, 2009 5:13 pm
Link
May 07, 2009 3:53 pm
US-Pak NUCLEAR not Diplomatic 'Disconnect'
What we have is not merely a diplomatic disconnect. That's small potatoes, talk is cheap.
What the entire world is faced with is a NUCLEAR 'disconnect' in which the US and NATO have not so far reassured and convinced the world that Pak's warheads are 100% secure. Nothing less that a 100% guarantee will do. This is extremely serious. Everything else pales into insignificance.
Why is the IAEA silent? Why is el-Baradei dumbstruck on this issue? Why does the world not have a guarantee from the IAEA that Pakistan's warheads are fully secured and under continuous IAEA surveillance?
The US will never act in the best interests of the Pakistani people. The US will never act in the best interests of the Afghan people. Afghans and Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis and Nepalis and Maldivians know this in their hearts.
Pakistanis especially are being humiliated (even as they are bribed) by the US in this 50 year master-stooge relationship. Pakistan has not thrived under a half-century of US domination and manipulation.
The diverse peoples of South Asia are related by blood and history. It is up to us South Asians, despite centuries of Brit divide and rule colonial strategy, to work together in fellowship and cooperation. Pakistanis have to vomit the hate propaganda they have been fed by their feudal elites to keep them servile, hungry, poor and with no prospects for employment except as suicide bombers and terrorists. And India must help and respect Pakistan in the spirit of sisterhood for the sake of every woman, child and man in our South Asia region.
Pakistanis, Indians and Afghans are closer to each other than they can ever be to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China or the US. That's a fact.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/politics/08cooper.html
On the White House: In Diplomacy, a Pakistan Disconnect
By HELENE COOPER
As American and Pakistani diplomats met, there was a gap between the sentiments expressed in public and those voiced in private.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
US State-sponsored Terror -- with Apologies
My published NYT COMMENT #98.
May 06, 2009 2:12 pm
Link
May 6th, 2009 1:41 pm
US State-Sponsored Terror -- with Apologies
Talk is cheap -- your apology means nothing, Secretary Clinton, you too President Obama and the rest of the White House/State Dept. crew.
Pashtun civilians are dying and we know who is causing the deaths. Wake up and smell the acrid odor of burning flesh in a drone airstrike, America.
The US is engaged in state-sponsored terror in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area of the South Asia region
Remember the US trained, armed and paid the Mujahideen to fight the Cold War(invented by the US), with the Soviets in the 80's.
Now those same Mujahideen have become the Taliban. Historically, Pashtuns (now Mujahideen and Taliban) have never tolerated invaders and occupiers on their soil. They taught the Brits a bitter lesson during the colonial period. Then the Soviets got a 9-year taste of Pashtun medicine. Now it's the turn of the Americans to learn the same bitter bloody lesson.
But who's paying the price? Innocent women, children and men who live in the westernmost part of my South Asia region.
And who's footing the bill? The US taxpayer, me.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?_r=1
High Civilian Toll Seen in U.S. Raid in Afghanistan
By CARLOTTA GALL and TAIMOOR SHAH
The Red Cross said dozens died, but Afghan officials put the toll at more than 100, offering a grim backdrop to a U.S. visit by the Afghan and Pakistani leaders on Wednesday
May 06, 2009 2:12 pm
Link
May 6th, 2009 1:41 pm
US State-Sponsored Terror -- with Apologies
Talk is cheap -- your apology means nothing, Secretary Clinton, you too President Obama and the rest of the White House/State Dept. crew.
Pashtun civilians are dying and we know who is causing the deaths. Wake up and smell the acrid odor of burning flesh in a drone airstrike, America.
The US is engaged in state-sponsored terror in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area of the South Asia region
Remember the US trained, armed and paid the Mujahideen to fight the Cold War(invented by the US), with the Soviets in the 80's.
Now those same Mujahideen have become the Taliban. Historically, Pashtuns (now Mujahideen and Taliban) have never tolerated invaders and occupiers on their soil. They taught the Brits a bitter lesson during the colonial period. Then the Soviets got a 9-year taste of Pashtun medicine. Now it's the turn of the Americans to learn the same bitter bloody lesson.
But who's paying the price? Innocent women, children and men who live in the westernmost part of my South Asia region.
And who's footing the bill? The US taxpayer, me.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/world/asia/07afghan.html?_r=1
High Civilian Toll Seen in U.S. Raid in Afghanistan
By CARLOTTA GALL and TAIMOOR SHAH
The Red Cross said dozens died, but Afghan officials put the toll at more than 100, offering a grim backdrop to a U.S. visit by the Afghan and Pakistani leaders on Wednesday
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Loose Cannon Diplomacy: US Style
My published NYT comment #30.
May 05, 2009 3:03 pm
Link
May 5th, 2009 2:39 pm
Loose Cannon Diplomacy: US style
The US is a loose cannon in the South Asia region. It has been that way for over 50 years, particularly in regard to Pakistan, which became a victim of US Cold War geopolitical machinations, beginning with the Dulles-era of the State Department. We are seeing a continuation of that same loose cannon diplomacy from the Obama White House.
It would be a total mistake to conclude that the US has any interest in the South Asia region other than a narrowly defined, ad hoc, frequently shifting strategic interest. Therefore no real attempt to invest in the civil societies of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The latest twist in this story, that David Sanger does not mention in his article, is that Robert Gates is now calling upon Saudi Arabia, that pillar of Democracy, to assist US policy with Pakistan. Isn't Saudi money financing wahabbism in the madrassh and providing weaponry to the factions on the border? Great move, Gates and crew.
Will Pakistan become Obama's Vietnam? Sure looks like it. My sympathy goes out to the civil societies of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are paying the price for egregious missteps in US policy in South Asia. They and the US taxpayer.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
--------------------
New York Times copyright
On Washington: Pakistan Overshadows Afghanistan on U.S. Agenda
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/us/politics/05web-sanger.html
Important as Afghanistan is to the U.S., the events of the past few weeks have focused American minds on the risks to Pakistan’s stability.
=====================================================================================
May 05, 2009 3:03 pm
Link
May 5th, 2009 2:39 pm
Loose Cannon Diplomacy: US style
The US is a loose cannon in the South Asia region. It has been that way for over 50 years, particularly in regard to Pakistan, which became a victim of US Cold War geopolitical machinations, beginning with the Dulles-era of the State Department. We are seeing a continuation of that same loose cannon diplomacy from the Obama White House.
It would be a total mistake to conclude that the US has any interest in the South Asia region other than a narrowly defined, ad hoc, frequently shifting strategic interest. Therefore no real attempt to invest in the civil societies of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The latest twist in this story, that David Sanger does not mention in his article, is that Robert Gates is now calling upon Saudi Arabia, that pillar of Democracy, to assist US policy with Pakistan. Isn't Saudi money financing wahabbism in the madrassh and providing weaponry to the factions on the border? Great move, Gates and crew.
Will Pakistan become Obama's Vietnam? Sure looks like it. My sympathy goes out to the civil societies of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are paying the price for egregious missteps in US policy in South Asia. They and the US taxpayer.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
--------------------
New York Times copyright
On Washington: Pakistan Overshadows Afghanistan on U.S. Agenda
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/us/politics/05web-sanger.html
Important as Afghanistan is to the U.S., the events of the past few weeks have focused American minds on the risks to Pakistan’s stability.
=====================================================================================
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Long Term Threat To South Asia -- Taliban Or US?
My Comment # 18. April 14, 2009 11:51 pm Link
Who’s the real threat in the South Asia region– The Taliban?
Or the US and US-led NATO?
The fact is the Taliban emerged from the mujahideen that the US nurtured, armed and trained in the 10-year Cold War face off in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet Union. The US were the paymasters and handlers of the Taliban and the ISI.
The US govt. has been a force for destabilization and lately, state-sponsored terror, since the Dulles era of the State Dept in the Eisenhower administration, targeting Pakistan for satellite status after Pakistan was weakened by the Brit-driven Partition. The South Asian nation states went from colonization to neo-imperial threat.
The physical presence of the US and the US-led Nato in my South Asia region distorts intra-regional geopolitics among the sovereign nation-states (some more fragile than others).
The US now holds the balance of power in the region, which is its core objective in every region of the world.
I wonder how Obama would feel if his daughters Sasha and Malia were killed in a US drone attack. That happened to children last week in a NATO airstrike, and the death of children was confirmed by President Karzai.
When civilians are killed by the US and US-led NATO, recruitment demands into the Taliban ranks are more likely to succeed, especially when families are grieving and therefore more vulnerable to Taliban and warlord pressure.
The US and NATO have no legitimacy in the South Asia region.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/south-asias-taliban-problem
April 14, 2009, 5:19 pm
South Asia’s Taliban Problem
By The Editors
--------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?emc=eta1
Civilians Died in Airstrike by NATO, Afghan Says
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
Published: April 13, 2009
----------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?ref=global-home
In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, U.S. Faces a Test
U.S. Army officers held a meeting, or shura, with Afghan elders in Maidan Shahr who read a threatening Taliban "night letter" sent to a village elder warning people not to associate with American forces.
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: April 14, 2009
===================================================================================
Who’s the real threat in the South Asia region– The Taliban?
Or the US and US-led NATO?
The fact is the Taliban emerged from the mujahideen that the US nurtured, armed and trained in the 10-year Cold War face off in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet Union. The US were the paymasters and handlers of the Taliban and the ISI.
The US govt. has been a force for destabilization and lately, state-sponsored terror, since the Dulles era of the State Dept in the Eisenhower administration, targeting Pakistan for satellite status after Pakistan was weakened by the Brit-driven Partition. The South Asian nation states went from colonization to neo-imperial threat.
The physical presence of the US and the US-led Nato in my South Asia region distorts intra-regional geopolitics among the sovereign nation-states (some more fragile than others).
The US now holds the balance of power in the region, which is its core objective in every region of the world.
I wonder how Obama would feel if his daughters Sasha and Malia were killed in a US drone attack. That happened to children last week in a NATO airstrike, and the death of children was confirmed by President Karzai.
When civilians are killed by the US and US-led NATO, recruitment demands into the Taliban ranks are more likely to succeed, especially when families are grieving and therefore more vulnerable to Taliban and warlord pressure.
The US and NATO have no legitimacy in the South Asia region.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/south-asias-taliban-problem
April 14, 2009, 5:19 pm
South Asia’s Taliban Problem
By The Editors
--------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?emc=eta1
Civilians Died in Airstrike by NATO, Afghan Says
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
Published: April 13, 2009
----------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?ref=global-home
In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, U.S. Faces a Test
U.S. Army officers held a meeting, or shura, with Afghan elders in Maidan Shahr who read a threatening Taliban "night letter" sent to a village elder warning people not to associate with American forces.
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: April 14, 2009
===================================================================================
Monday, April 6, 2009
Drone 'em: US Policy Missteps in South Asia
My NYT Comment #18
April 06, 2009 8:53 am
The US should halt its drone activity. Not because Baitullah Mehsud called for it but because daily and nightly drone strikes KILL civilians -- children, women and men.
We can be almost certain that the US govt. and its overreaching military routinely underreports and criminally disregards loss of Afghan and Pakistani civilian lives. Are these hapless individuals wearing T for Taliban T-shirts, that the unmanned drones can accurately target 'terrorists' from the air? I think we all know that US intelligence (yeah, right) is flawed at best and criminal at worst.
The self-proclaimed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the the Fedayeen-e-Islam are exploiting the US/NATO presence, especially the drone flybys, for their own pathological and murderous ends -- US drone killings of civilians serve as an excellent recruiting tool for the TTP and similar terror outfits.
Both Karzai and Zardari have called for an end to the drones.
On a more urgent and basic level, US state-sponsored terror and billions of US taxpayer cash-for-your-satellitized-subservience dollars flung at Pakistan's ISI-driven civilian government must cease. The US govt. should be proactive on intelligence and security of its own borders, airspace and waterways right here at home, not poke around South Asia creating terror that begets terror.
Instead, humanitarian assistance and other on-the-ground civilian services funneled through international aid agencies are a necessary alternative strategy to the failed and costly US policy of blatant interference and manipulation of weak states in the South Asia region.
South Asia can and must be free to negotiate its own geopolitics. The US presence distorts and inflames this fraught geopolitics.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
News Analysis
Time Is Short as U.S. Presses a Reluctant Pakistan by Jane Perlez
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/asia/06islamabad.html
==================================================================================
April 06, 2009 8:53 am
The US should halt its drone activity. Not because Baitullah Mehsud called for it but because daily and nightly drone strikes KILL civilians -- children, women and men.
We can be almost certain that the US govt. and its overreaching military routinely underreports and criminally disregards loss of Afghan and Pakistani civilian lives. Are these hapless individuals wearing T for Taliban T-shirts, that the unmanned drones can accurately target 'terrorists' from the air? I think we all know that US intelligence (yeah, right) is flawed at best and criminal at worst.
The self-proclaimed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the the Fedayeen-e-Islam are exploiting the US/NATO presence, especially the drone flybys, for their own pathological and murderous ends -- US drone killings of civilians serve as an excellent recruiting tool for the TTP and similar terror outfits.
Both Karzai and Zardari have called for an end to the drones.
On a more urgent and basic level, US state-sponsored terror and billions of US taxpayer cash-for-your-satellitized-subservience dollars flung at Pakistan's ISI-driven civilian government must cease. The US govt. should be proactive on intelligence and security of its own borders, airspace and waterways right here at home, not poke around South Asia creating terror that begets terror.
Instead, humanitarian assistance and other on-the-ground civilian services funneled through international aid agencies are a necessary alternative strategy to the failed and costly US policy of blatant interference and manipulation of weak states in the South Asia region.
South Asia can and must be free to negotiate its own geopolitics. The US presence distorts and inflames this fraught geopolitics.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
News Analysis
Time Is Short as U.S. Presses a Reluctant Pakistan by Jane Perlez
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/asia/06islamabad.html
==================================================================================
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Lula Blue Eyes & The Whiteness System
March 29th, 2009 9:41 am Comment #273.
March 29, 2009 12:34 pm
In referencing blue eyes, President Lula of Brasil was referencing the Global North, the colonizers, the imperialists, the neo-imperialists, the slave owners, the genociders.
It's not racist, it's not about being against the color blue for eyes, the sky, whatever.
We feel, we have experienced what some fail to see out of those particular peepers.
Lula could have eschewed the rhetorical biomarker and just come straight to the point about unequal power and inequitable distribution of resources, about the origins of poverty, hunger, disease in the Global South. But would such a bland statement catch the eye of the NYT?
Perhaps I missed it in Dowd's column but I also recall that famous TV jousting on Blue Eyes vs. Brown eyes, between Mike Wallace (who brought it up again and again) and the late Shah of Iran. The Shah was making exactly the same point as Lula is. Go Brasil! Go Iran!
As for Obama's brown eyes in the Whites' House, that Change is not one we can (yet) believe in, judging by his planned blue-eyed Cheneyesque escalation of the deadly drone and convoy US/NATO trespass in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
Perhaps, if my child was killed by a US unmanned drone, while I was working in my fields, I would end up as a "militant". The Blue-eyed, green-eyed, you-name-it-eyed "militants" all lumped together in the demonizing mainstream US media as "Taliban" in the Khyber are making the same point as Lula.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Op-Ed Columnist
Blue Eyed Greed?
Article
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 28, 2009
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html
NYTimes copyright
---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYlvyZwHHU&feature=related
Shah of Iran, Mike Wallace
YouTube copyright
----------
See my Theory of Systemic Whiteness"
on this blog or Google it!
===================================================================================
March 29, 2009 12:34 pm
In referencing blue eyes, President Lula of Brasil was referencing the Global North, the colonizers, the imperialists, the neo-imperialists, the slave owners, the genociders.
It's not racist, it's not about being against the color blue for eyes, the sky, whatever.
We feel, we have experienced what some fail to see out of those particular peepers.
Lula could have eschewed the rhetorical biomarker and just come straight to the point about unequal power and inequitable distribution of resources, about the origins of poverty, hunger, disease in the Global South. But would such a bland statement catch the eye of the NYT?
Perhaps I missed it in Dowd's column but I also recall that famous TV jousting on Blue Eyes vs. Brown eyes, between Mike Wallace (who brought it up again and again) and the late Shah of Iran. The Shah was making exactly the same point as Lula is. Go Brasil! Go Iran!
As for Obama's brown eyes in the Whites' House, that Change is not one we can (yet) believe in, judging by his planned blue-eyed Cheneyesque escalation of the deadly drone and convoy US/NATO trespass in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
Perhaps, if my child was killed by a US unmanned drone, while I was working in my fields, I would end up as a "militant". The Blue-eyed, green-eyed, you-name-it-eyed "militants" all lumped together in the demonizing mainstream US media as "Taliban" in the Khyber are making the same point as Lula.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Op-Ed Columnist
Blue Eyed Greed?
Article
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 28, 2009
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html
NYTimes copyright
---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYlvyZwHHU&feature=related
Shah of Iran, Mike Wallace
YouTube copyright
----------
See my Theory of Systemic Whiteness"
on this blog or Google it!
===================================================================================
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
US Sponsors Pakistan's Terror industry in South Asia
My comment which I made to the NYTimes Public editor as well as directly to the co-writers of this NYT article (in the absence of opportunity to make comments on the Times' pages):
The reporters (article below) Mazzetti and Schmitt completely fail to link US military and financial support for Pakistan's ISI, which is specifically mentioned in the article.
The reporters link the ISI to the Taliban, but not the US to the ISI.
How does the NYT expect the concerned but overburdened US public to make the link ( with the available evidence which the article already cites) if NYT's reporters don't?
If the US govt both directly and indirectly finances terror groups, then it must be acknowledged that the US runs a terror industry.
The US government's terror industry arms and finances the ISI which in turn arms and finances competing factions of the Pak-Afghan Taliban. This must also logically mean that the US is a state sponsor of terror.
NYT's reporting on South Asia needs to demonstrate greater acuity.
And who finances Pakistan's terror industry that operates throughout much of South Asia? The United States.
The Times writers fail to make the link between US financing, tactical support and training of the so-called "S Wing" of the Pak ISI, and the current terror operations of the ISI in Afghanistan.
Where is India in all of this? It is India's responsibility to its own citizens, to publicly hold the US accountable for its longstanding backing, finnacing, armed support of Pakistan's terror industry.
But successive Indian govts. will continue to fail to do so. Why? Because India is afraid of the 60-year cosy US-Pak relationship,and it is afraid to challenge the current US-led NATO geopolitical dominance over the South Asia region.
Therefore India is culpable. India lacks ethical responsibility to its citizens and it lacks ethical purpose in the South Asia region. A sovereign nation-state founded on ethical purpose now demonstrates a lack of it.
A Democracy without ethical purpose is a danger to itself.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: March 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?hp
New York Times copyright
--------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html?hp
Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx
By CARLOTTA GALL 5:14 PM ET
NYTimes copyright
-------------------
Obama to Set Benchmarks in Fight Against Militants
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER
Published: March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/washington/27prexy.html?hp
NYTimes copyright
===================================================================================
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/Pakistan_set_to_reap_35_billion_windfall_from_terrorism/articleshow/4318277.cms
Times of India copyright
Pakistan set to reap $35 billion windfall from terrorism
26 Mar 2009, 1340 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: Terrorism pays. That may well be the message the United States and its allies send out to the world this week as they line up
billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan despite the country’s military and intelligence agencies being implicated by American officials in acts and practice of terrorism.
Ignoring confirmation about the Pakistan’s continued support and use of terrorism obtained through electronic surveillance and informants, and even brazen affirmation by Pakistani officialdom itself, the Obama administration is set to lavish a bonanza that might eventually add up to more than $ 30-$ 35 billion over the next decade.
About half the windfall will come from the US and the other half from its allies such as Japan, EU, and Gulf countries.
Washington is set to announce its largesse of around $ 15 billion of US tax-payer money in course of its new Af-Pak policy to be unveiled Friday, followed by a conference in Tokyo on April 17 of the so-called ''Friends of Pakistan'' where Islamabad is pitching for $ 10 billion.
This is in addition to the $ 7.6 billion pledged by the IMF and various donors, all at the instance of the United States, which believes Pakistan will disintegrate, with disastrous consequences all around, if it is not rescued with massive amounts of aid.
Congressional staff and sources associated with drawing up the aid package say there will be stringent conditions and tough oversight attached to the assistance, but critics of the policy regard the assurances as credulous. The Indian government has not opposed the package. ''If they (the United States) have not learned from the past, there is little we can do,'' one official said on background, referring to the Reagan era bonanza when untrammeled support for Pakistan’s military emboldened the country to adopt terrorism as a state policy.
That policy is still very much in place, going by a stunning page one New York Times account on Thursday in which Pakistani officials admit first-hand knowledge of ties between the ISI and extremists and even justify. They tell the paper that the contacts are less threatening than the American officials depict and are part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India.
''In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind,'' the paper quotes a senior Pakistani military officer as describing Islamabad’s strategy of backing the terrorists. But evidently, Pakistan's activity constitutes more than just contact with the enemy.
The NYT account, striking for the candid detail revealed by unnamed US and Pakistani officials, said Pakistan’s support to the Taliban and other militant outfits is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of the ISI. The report says the ISI also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba accused in the Mumbai attacks and ''provided protection for it.'' It did say when this cooperation and protection took place.
But other new details reveal that the ISI is aiding a broader array of militant outfits with more diverse types of support than was previously known, even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a double game had ended, the paper reported. One such outfit is the Haqqani network, which by American accounts bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul with help from the ISI.
The attack killed 54 people, including an Indian diplomat and a military commander. Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI Director-General, subsequently described the Haqqani network as Pakistan’s ''strategic asset.''
But according to the NYT, the ISI’s S wing not only helps such networks with fuel and ammunition to fight American troops in Afghanistan, but also replenishes its ranks with recruits from madrassas in Pakistan. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections, it said.
None of this appears to have made a whit of a difference in the planned US largesse for Pakistan. If anything, US officials and analysts argue it is all the more reason to rush aid to Pakistan so that its democracy and social sector can be strengthened and it can be walked away from the abyss. ''If there is a better way to do this, we are all ears,'' a senior Congressional aide involved in the process, said. While some analysts say that Pakistan extracts aid by pointing a gun to its own head, key figures in the Washington establishment don't want to take the chance that Pakistan ends up falling into the abyss.
US officials, who typically make strenuous effort to shield the Pakistani leadership from charges of fomenting terrorism, maintain that mid-level ISI operatives cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses. They say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. But Pakistani officials themselves appear to scoff at American credulity in the NYT report, saying it is part of their long term strategy to keep their options open when the U.S withdraws from Afghanistan.
That expectation got a boost this week when US President Barack Obama spoke of an ''exit strategy'' in Afghanistan. Although Obama did not specifically refer to any troop withdrawals (on the contrary, he has just directed induction of 17,000 more troops), the fact that Washington is even contemplating an exit strategy seems to justify Pakistan’s outlook of keeping its Taliban and terrorism powder dry.
--------------------------
The reporters (article below) Mazzetti and Schmitt completely fail to link US military and financial support for Pakistan's ISI, which is specifically mentioned in the article.
The reporters link the ISI to the Taliban, but not the US to the ISI.
How does the NYT expect the concerned but overburdened US public to make the link ( with the available evidence which the article already cites) if NYT's reporters don't?
If the US govt both directly and indirectly finances terror groups, then it must be acknowledged that the US runs a terror industry.
The US government's terror industry arms and finances the ISI which in turn arms and finances competing factions of the Pak-Afghan Taliban. This must also logically mean that the US is a state sponsor of terror.
NYT's reporting on South Asia needs to demonstrate greater acuity.
And who finances Pakistan's terror industry that operates throughout much of South Asia? The United States.
The Times writers fail to make the link between US financing, tactical support and training of the so-called "S Wing" of the Pak ISI, and the current terror operations of the ISI in Afghanistan.
Where is India in all of this? It is India's responsibility to its own citizens, to publicly hold the US accountable for its longstanding backing, finnacing, armed support of Pakistan's terror industry.
But successive Indian govts. will continue to fail to do so. Why? Because India is afraid of the 60-year cosy US-Pak relationship,and it is afraid to challenge the current US-led NATO geopolitical dominance over the South Asia region.
Therefore India is culpable. India lacks ethical responsibility to its citizens and it lacks ethical purpose in the South Asia region. A sovereign nation-state founded on ethical purpose now demonstrates a lack of it.
A Democracy without ethical purpose is a danger to itself.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: March 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?hp
New York Times copyright
--------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html?hp
Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx
By CARLOTTA GALL 5:14 PM ET
NYTimes copyright
-------------------
Obama to Set Benchmarks in Fight Against Militants
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER
Published: March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/washington/27prexy.html?hp
NYTimes copyright
===================================================================================
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/Pakistan_set_to_reap_35_billion_windfall_from_terrorism/articleshow/4318277.cms
Times of India copyright
Pakistan set to reap $35 billion windfall from terrorism
26 Mar 2009, 1340 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: Terrorism pays. That may well be the message the United States and its allies send out to the world this week as they line up
billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan despite the country’s military and intelligence agencies being implicated by American officials in acts and practice of terrorism.
Ignoring confirmation about the Pakistan’s continued support and use of terrorism obtained through electronic surveillance and informants, and even brazen affirmation by Pakistani officialdom itself, the Obama administration is set to lavish a bonanza that might eventually add up to more than $ 30-$ 35 billion over the next decade.
About half the windfall will come from the US and the other half from its allies such as Japan, EU, and Gulf countries.
Washington is set to announce its largesse of around $ 15 billion of US tax-payer money in course of its new Af-Pak policy to be unveiled Friday, followed by a conference in Tokyo on April 17 of the so-called ''Friends of Pakistan'' where Islamabad is pitching for $ 10 billion.
This is in addition to the $ 7.6 billion pledged by the IMF and various donors, all at the instance of the United States, which believes Pakistan will disintegrate, with disastrous consequences all around, if it is not rescued with massive amounts of aid.
Congressional staff and sources associated with drawing up the aid package say there will be stringent conditions and tough oversight attached to the assistance, but critics of the policy regard the assurances as credulous. The Indian government has not opposed the package. ''If they (the United States) have not learned from the past, there is little we can do,'' one official said on background, referring to the Reagan era bonanza when untrammeled support for Pakistan’s military emboldened the country to adopt terrorism as a state policy.
That policy is still very much in place, going by a stunning page one New York Times account on Thursday in which Pakistani officials admit first-hand knowledge of ties between the ISI and extremists and even justify. They tell the paper that the contacts are less threatening than the American officials depict and are part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India.
''In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind,'' the paper quotes a senior Pakistani military officer as describing Islamabad’s strategy of backing the terrorists. But evidently, Pakistan's activity constitutes more than just contact with the enemy.
The NYT account, striking for the candid detail revealed by unnamed US and Pakistani officials, said Pakistan’s support to the Taliban and other militant outfits is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of the ISI. The report says the ISI also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba accused in the Mumbai attacks and ''provided protection for it.'' It did say when this cooperation and protection took place.
But other new details reveal that the ISI is aiding a broader array of militant outfits with more diverse types of support than was previously known, even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a double game had ended, the paper reported. One such outfit is the Haqqani network, which by American accounts bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul with help from the ISI.
The attack killed 54 people, including an Indian diplomat and a military commander. Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI Director-General, subsequently described the Haqqani network as Pakistan’s ''strategic asset.''
But according to the NYT, the ISI’s S wing not only helps such networks with fuel and ammunition to fight American troops in Afghanistan, but also replenishes its ranks with recruits from madrassas in Pakistan. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections, it said.
None of this appears to have made a whit of a difference in the planned US largesse for Pakistan. If anything, US officials and analysts argue it is all the more reason to rush aid to Pakistan so that its democracy and social sector can be strengthened and it can be walked away from the abyss. ''If there is a better way to do this, we are all ears,'' a senior Congressional aide involved in the process, said. While some analysts say that Pakistan extracts aid by pointing a gun to its own head, key figures in the Washington establishment don't want to take the chance that Pakistan ends up falling into the abyss.
US officials, who typically make strenuous effort to shield the Pakistani leadership from charges of fomenting terrorism, maintain that mid-level ISI operatives cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses. They say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. But Pakistani officials themselves appear to scoff at American credulity in the NYT report, saying it is part of their long term strategy to keep their options open when the U.S withdraws from Afghanistan.
That expectation got a boost this week when US President Barack Obama spoke of an ''exit strategy'' in Afghanistan. Although Obama did not specifically refer to any troop withdrawals (on the contrary, he has just directed induction of 17,000 more troops), the fact that Washington is even contemplating an exit strategy seems to justify Pakistan’s outlook of keeping its Taliban and terrorism powder dry.
--------------------------
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
SWAT the US & NATO out of South Asia
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/swat-valley-blues/#comment-95061
New York Times copyright
---------------------------------
Comment #20. February 18, 2009 9:35 pm
Will Afghanistan become Obama's Vietnam?
US and NATO military operations in this region have very seriously exacerbated the already longstanding regional tensions and rivalries in Afghanistan/Pakistan western border areas, of which the Swat Valley is a part.
Both the US and NATO which is in any case US-dominated, should get out now.
Q. Your US drone can spot so-called militants from the air because they are wearing T for Taliban or Q for Al Queda T shirts?
When families who already have so little, lose fathers, mothers and children to US/NATO operations there is bound to be longterm bitterness and revenge.
The US is almost certainly under-reporting civilian casualties in Swat and adjoining areas..
Let the various local fractious factions sort out their differences (which go back centuries), without the self-proclaimed superpower futilely flexing its muscle in the region.
The flow of money, weapons and equipment into the region from various sources including the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran needs to be monitored and stanched. The UN has not done any weapons monitoring and it should.
The worrying question is — who will proactively ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Taliban now dangerously poised within striking distance of Islamabad? Again, the UN must be proactive rather than merely reactive to US demands based on its narrow interests, in the Security Council.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— Chithra KarunaKaran
New York Times copyright
---------------------------------
Comment #20. February 18, 2009 9:35 pm
Will Afghanistan become Obama's Vietnam?
US and NATO military operations in this region have very seriously exacerbated the already longstanding regional tensions and rivalries in Afghanistan/Pakistan western border areas, of which the Swat Valley is a part.
Both the US and NATO which is in any case US-dominated, should get out now.
Q. Your US drone can spot so-called militants from the air because they are wearing T for Taliban or Q for Al Queda T shirts?
When families who already have so little, lose fathers, mothers and children to US/NATO operations there is bound to be longterm bitterness and revenge.
The US is almost certainly under-reporting civilian casualties in Swat and adjoining areas..
Let the various local fractious factions sort out their differences (which go back centuries), without the self-proclaimed superpower futilely flexing its muscle in the region.
The flow of money, weapons and equipment into the region from various sources including the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran needs to be monitored and stanched. The UN has not done any weapons monitoring and it should.
The worrying question is — who will proactively ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Taliban now dangerously poised within striking distance of Islamabad? Again, the UN must be proactive rather than merely reactive to US demands based on its narrow interests, in the Security Council.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— Chithra KarunaKaran
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Bigger & Better State Department Under Clinton?
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html
My Comment #155 on NYTimes
December 23, 2008 11:42 am
Link
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html?s=1&pg=7
Will a bigger budget and and a more expanded role for State mean a substantive reordering of US foreign policy priorities?
It should cost LESS not more to pull out rather than continue to occupy Iraq; have Israel and the Palestinians work it out between themselves; India and Pakistan are fully capable of developing relations between their nation-states; let Afghanistan manage its own affairs, messy though they might be for some time.
And don't start any new budget-busting conflicts, please.
Defense! Defense! Does not mean going on the offense.
NYTimes readers and posters and everybody else will have to work overtime to keep this new administration focused on making the nation safe, with integrity.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
=====================================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html
My Comment #155 on NYTimes
December 23, 2008 11:42 am
Link
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html?s=1&pg=7
Will a bigger budget and and a more expanded role for State mean a substantive reordering of US foreign policy priorities?
It should cost LESS not more to pull out rather than continue to occupy Iraq; have Israel and the Palestinians work it out between themselves; India and Pakistan are fully capable of developing relations between their nation-states; let Afghanistan manage its own affairs, messy though they might be for some time.
And don't start any new budget-busting conflicts, please.
Defense! Defense! Does not mean going on the offense.
NYTimes readers and posters and everybody else will have to work overtime to keep this new administration focused on making the nation safe, with integrity.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
=====================================================================================
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Unpacking U.S. Hegemony via Mumbai Terror 11/26/08
In the aftermath of Mumbai's date with terror 11/26 it feels important to analyze a 60-year phenomenon -- a growing U.S. hegemony in South Asia. This process of U.S. dominance began just at the precise moment in the late 1940's (no accident of timing) that South Asia was emerging from centuries of exploitative British colonial rule. That 60+ year process in which British colonialism morphed into U.S. neoimperialism, has brought South Asians all the way to that fateful day in Mumbai last month.
11/26 still feels like today, not yet yesterday, as I write from home in New York, enroute next week to my home in Chennai, remembering my own twenty less-than-something Mumbai home of Haji Ali, Cuffe Parade and the dubbawallahs whose names I carelessly failed in my class privilege, to ask when they unfailingly brought my lunch to my desk in an office not far from VT.
Where you stand depends on where you sit. I am a U.S. citizen, I am classified as an NRI. I consistently fail to be dazzled by US hegemony. I find it abhorrent and ethically unsupportable. Indeed the US stance towards the world is in dire need of CHANGE, that charged word-of-the-moment in US, and in the Mumbai terror, South Asia contemporary geopolitics.
The NAM, the Non-Aligned Movement of newly free sovereign nation-states mainly in Africa and Asia soon found their hard won political liberation rapidly undercut by the geo-economic machinations of the World Bank and the IMF, both within the sphere of US control represented by the Federal Reserve. Nyerere's Tanzania became a debtor nation despite Nyerere's commitment to Ujamaa pan-African socialism. So did India despite Swadeshi and NAM.
The divide-and-rule strategy perfected by the colonial Brits was now given a virulently new lease of life by the neo-imperial US. across much of the Global South. The Mumbai terror attack must be framed within this larger world-system, in which the US invented the Cold War, produced and still maintains the largest number of nuclear warheads, controlled the work of the UN Security Council, satellitized a pro-Zionist Israel in West Asia (the Middle East to some) and made the world safe for Coke, not Democracy.
Last year in New Delhi US Secretary of State Condoleezza arrogantly disparaged NAM stating non-alignment has "lost its meaning".
Rice further suggested that India "move past old ways of thinking and old ways of acting." In other words, the diverse and unique historical trajectory of sovereign states struggling their way out of colonial oppression and emerging into liberatory democracy, has to be set aside to serve US strategic and market interests.
Pakistan, rendered vulnerable at the Mountbatten-engineered Partition (with the assistance of collusional, homegrown elites) particularly has felt the full impact of US meddling. That divisive meddling dates back to the Dulles era of the State Department in the Eisenhower administration with SEATO and CENTO ( both of which Pakistan became a member as an 'ally' of the US). Don't allies have to somewhat equal or equivalent? This unequal 'ally' relationship continues today, to the detriment of Pakistan.
The longstanding, invasive U.S. engagement in Afghanistan (within which Pakistan became enmeshed) is too well known to require cataloging here. Mumbai no more and no less than Islamabad or Kabul or London or Madrid or New York are global or glocal megacitities that stand at the intersection of dominant, yes hegemonic unipolarity represented by US capital and military shock and awe. The rest of the world is awakening to multipolarity and the US is still unipolar. How 20th century!
My point is not at all to externalize the terror that took our breaths away that recent November day in Mumbai. In fact my point is to affirm the need for continuing crossborder people-to-people civil society exchanges, exchanges that are made ever more difficult and divisive when Condi Rice and Mike Mullen pop in and out to "mediate" in South Asia, own "the road map" to illegal Zionist settlements in Palestine, threaten and sanction against Iran.
So long as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan don't shed their colonized, dependent mindset; allow the US to triangulate and dictate their historic and contemporary relationship; fail to look within ourselves to braid the bonds that bind us as blood-sharing kin; do not ensure that the arc of justice can bend proudly and surely towards all our peoples,
we may find ourselves continue to be restive as we cross the street in Mumbai.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.Blogspot.com
11/26 still feels like today, not yet yesterday, as I write from home in New York, enroute next week to my home in Chennai, remembering my own twenty less-than-something Mumbai home of Haji Ali, Cuffe Parade and the dubbawallahs whose names I carelessly failed in my class privilege, to ask when they unfailingly brought my lunch to my desk in an office not far from VT.
Where you stand depends on where you sit. I am a U.S. citizen, I am classified as an NRI. I consistently fail to be dazzled by US hegemony. I find it abhorrent and ethically unsupportable. Indeed the US stance towards the world is in dire need of CHANGE, that charged word-of-the-moment in US, and in the Mumbai terror, South Asia contemporary geopolitics.
The NAM, the Non-Aligned Movement of newly free sovereign nation-states mainly in Africa and Asia soon found their hard won political liberation rapidly undercut by the geo-economic machinations of the World Bank and the IMF, both within the sphere of US control represented by the Federal Reserve. Nyerere's Tanzania became a debtor nation despite Nyerere's commitment to Ujamaa pan-African socialism. So did India despite Swadeshi and NAM.
The divide-and-rule strategy perfected by the colonial Brits was now given a virulently new lease of life by the neo-imperial US. across much of the Global South. The Mumbai terror attack must be framed within this larger world-system, in which the US invented the Cold War, produced and still maintains the largest number of nuclear warheads, controlled the work of the UN Security Council, satellitized a pro-Zionist Israel in West Asia (the Middle East to some) and made the world safe for Coke, not Democracy.
Last year in New Delhi US Secretary of State Condoleezza arrogantly disparaged NAM stating non-alignment has "lost its meaning".
Rice further suggested that India "move past old ways of thinking and old ways of acting." In other words, the diverse and unique historical trajectory of sovereign states struggling their way out of colonial oppression and emerging into liberatory democracy, has to be set aside to serve US strategic and market interests.
Pakistan, rendered vulnerable at the Mountbatten-engineered Partition (with the assistance of collusional, homegrown elites) particularly has felt the full impact of US meddling. That divisive meddling dates back to the Dulles era of the State Department in the Eisenhower administration with SEATO and CENTO ( both of which Pakistan became a member as an 'ally' of the US). Don't allies have to somewhat equal or equivalent? This unequal 'ally' relationship continues today, to the detriment of Pakistan.
The longstanding, invasive U.S. engagement in Afghanistan (within which Pakistan became enmeshed) is too well known to require cataloging here. Mumbai no more and no less than Islamabad or Kabul or London or Madrid or New York are global or glocal megacitities that stand at the intersection of dominant, yes hegemonic unipolarity represented by US capital and military shock and awe. The rest of the world is awakening to multipolarity and the US is still unipolar. How 20th century!
My point is not at all to externalize the terror that took our breaths away that recent November day in Mumbai. In fact my point is to affirm the need for continuing crossborder people-to-people civil society exchanges, exchanges that are made ever more difficult and divisive when Condi Rice and Mike Mullen pop in and out to "mediate" in South Asia, own "the road map" to illegal Zionist settlements in Palestine, threaten and sanction against Iran.
So long as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan don't shed their colonized, dependent mindset; allow the US to triangulate and dictate their historic and contemporary relationship; fail to look within ourselves to braid the bonds that bind us as blood-sharing kin; do not ensure that the arc of justice can bend proudly and surely towards all our peoples,
we may find ourselves continue to be restive as we cross the street in Mumbai.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.Blogspot.com
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