while the U.S. is tied up in iraq and squabbles with iran and syria , the taliban is training more and more terrorists in pakistan - right under the noses of the pakistani security forces .
even the testimony before congress of retired admiral Michael McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence(see below) , doesn't seem to generate much interest within the U.S. government .
Quote:Pakistan A 'Hotbed' For Terror
Lawless tribal belt is al-Qaeda training ground
Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Published: Friday, February 15, 2008
For centuries the wild Pakistani tribal area -- stretching 1,000 kilometres along the Afghan border -- has been lawless, violent and remote. Now, it is rapidly becoming a central front in the U.S.-led war on terror.
The harsh mountainous territory, which Pakistan doesn't control and is off limits to U.S. troops, has become a breeding ground for jihad and the chief training centre for al-Qaeda.
Just days before Pakistanis vote in a crucial election, their country is being threatened by a new generation of radicalized Islamist insurgents who have allied themselves with international terrorists.
Fighters in the tribal areas have been blamed for carrying out more than 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan in the last year, including the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But fears are growing another high-profile attack could ignite the sort of chaos Islamic radicals thrive on.
But as al-Qaeda and the Taliban dispatch suicide bombers from the tribal belt to attack Pakistani security personnel and politicians, there are increasing indications Pakistan has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and the ideological heartland for Islamist terrorists worldwide.
According to top U.S. security officials, South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan, is the new headquarters for al-Qaeda's global operations and forms the centre of a web of terror plots and assassination attempts that reaches into Europe and the United States.
In testimony before Congress last week, retired admiral Michael McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence, stressed al-Qaeda has "regenerated its core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks."
"Al-Qaeda has been able to retain a safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) that provides the organization many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale," he said.
"The FATA serves as a staging area for al-Qaeda's attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States.
"The next attack on the United States will most likely be launched by al-Qaeda operating in the 'under-governed regions' of Pakistan," he added
Judging from online videos and local reports from Pakistan, a study published yesterday in the CTC Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, estimates "al-Qaeda is running as many as 29 training camps in the [FATA] region that are less elaborate than those found in Afghanistan in the 1990s."
But those camps funnel new recruits or "Lions of Islam" into the fight against NATO forces, including Canadians, in Afghanistan, and train potential terrorists from overseas to launch attacks.
Unlike the large military-style camps al-Qaeda used in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, the new training in Pakistan's tribal areas is being done in small groups and is specially tailored to prepare Western recruits for attacks.
On Monday, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that officials in Germany's federal police believe four men in their 20s are being trained in Pakistan to conduct terror attacks in Germany.
Also on Monday, David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, while encouraging NATO to redouble its efforts in Afghanistan, noted that 70% of all terrorist incidents in Britain had their origins in Pakistan.
In the last six months, Danish, German and Spanish officials have all broken up alleged terror plots that are linked to Waziristan.
Last month in Barcelona, police claimed to have broken up a plot to attack Spain's transit system and in four neighbouring countries.
"In my opinion, the jihadi threat from Pakistan is the biggest emerging threat we are facing in Europe," said Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spain's top anti-terrorism magistrate.
"Pakistan is an ideological and training hotbed for jihadists, and they are being exported here."
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
source :
PAKISTAN
Pakistan celebrates a final end to military rule?-what next?
Pakistan celebrates a final end to military rule ?- but what next?
From The London Times
February 19, 2008
by Jeremy Page in Lahore and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad
President Musharraf's supporters conceded defeat last night in a landmark parliamentary election that could seal his political fate and resurrect democracy in Pakistan after eight years of military rule.
But while the two main opposition parties appeared to have swept the vote, neither was expected to win an outright majority, setting the stage for a coalition government in this chronically unstable country.
Despite 470,000 police and troops on the streets, turnout was only 30 to 40 per cent because of a wave of suicide attacks by Islamic militants since July, including one that killed Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, on December 27. Voting was relatively peaceful given the security threat ?- although Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) claimed 15 members were killed in an attempt to deter voters.
Final results are not expected until tomorrow, but preliminary figures suggest that the PPP will win the most seats followed by the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister.
The PML (Q), which split from Mr Sharif's party and supports President Musharraf, was lagging in third place with several of its leading figures ?- including the party's leader ?- losing their seats. Tariq Azeem, a PML (Q) spokesman, said: "People have given their verdict. We respect it. We congratulate the PML (N) and PPP. As far as we are concerned, we will be willing to sit on opposition benches if final results prove that we have lost."
The makeup of a coalition government will be negotiated in the next few days but a front-runner to be prime minister is Makhdoom Amin Fahim, 68, the PPP vice-chairman and veteran Bhutto loyalist.
The new government could then decide whether President Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and became a key US ally in the War on Terror, should be impeached for imposing emergency rule last year to secure his own re-election. It could also determine whether Pakistan continues to co-operate with Britain and the US to the same degree in a campaign against al-Qaeda and Taleban militants near the Afghanistan border.
President Musharraf, 64, who had promised a fair election and warned the opposition not to protest against the result, pledged yesterday to work with the new civilian government.
Asif Ali Zardari, 51, Ms Bhutto's widower and successor as PPP leader, has not ruled out working with Mr Musharraf, even though many PPP supporters blame the President for her death. "Victory is our destiny and we will change the system," Mr Zardari said. However, Mr Sharif and senior PPP figures have said that they cannot work with Mr Musharraf and will try to impeach him if they win a two-thirds majority.
The PPP swept the vote in the southern province of Sindh, its traditional stronghold, and also picked up votes in North West Frontier Province from Islamist parties that have lost credibility by allying themselves with President Musharraf.
The main battleground, though, was Punjab, home to 60 per cent of the population and accounting for 148 of the 342 seats in Parliament. The most hotly contested constituency there was in Gujarat. That race ?- seen as symbolically the most important in the country ?- was between Chaudhry Shujaat, the leader of the PML (Q), and Ahmad Mukhtar, a wealthy shoe magnate and PPP loyalist.
Mr Mukhtar said that he had spent 40 million rupees (£300,000) of his own money on his campaign and had recruited a militia to guard him and his supporters. "It was very important for us to do a lot of firing into the air," he said as he dispatched armed men to polling stations where his supporters were reporting alleged electoral abuses. "They are such big crooks. You have to show that you have guns too and can protect people."
Mr Shujaat, meanwhile, was relaxing over lunch at his white-washed headquarters swarming with heavily armed Punjab police. "I went to vote but otherwise I'm not going out," he said, scoffing at the suggestion that he was threatened by Mr Mukhtar's wealth. However, preliminary results suggested that Mr Mukhtar had prevailed and that the PML (Q) would not have enough seats to form a government with its traditional allies. And in Rawalpindi, where Ms Bhutto was assassinated, Mr Sharif's party appeared to have trounced all the PML (Q) candidates.
The men who matter
Asif Ali Zardari
Benazir Bhutto's polo-loving widower named as PPP leader in her will, despite corruption allegations that earned him the nickname "Mr 10 Per Cent". He is running the party until Bilawal, their 19-year-old son, graduates from Oxford. Not standing as prime minister, but is seen as the "power behind the throne"
Makhdoom Amin Fahim
The PPP's softly-spoken Vice-Chairman and prime ministerial candidate. Served in the Cabinet under both Ms Bhutto and her father, and led the party during her eight years in exile. Refused premiership in 2002, but is seen as acceptable to all sides
Pervez Musharraf
A former special forces commando, he was applauded widely when he seized power in 1999, but angered many conservatives by backing the US-led War on Terror. Alienated urban middle class last year by sacking the Chief Justice and imposing emergency rule
Nawaz Sharif
Wealthy industrialist who has twice been Prime Minister, Mr Sharif heads the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party. Ousted in the Musharraf coup of 1999 and sent into exile. Returned in November to challenge Musharraf, but is barred from elected office because of criminal conviction
Chaudhry Pervez Elahi
Leads splinter faction of Sharif's party which worked with intelligence agencies to drum up support for Musharraf. Supported by only 5 per cent of Pakistanis
Some Pakistan Women Warded Off Voting
Some Pakistan Women Warded Off Voting
by KATHY GANNON
February 18, 2008
KHAZANA, Pakistan ?- Posters of the Muslim world's first female prime minister, the late Benazir Bhutto, fluttered in the wind. But the ballot boxes inside the women's polling station of this impoverished village were empty Monday.
The elders of the village in the Islamic nation's conservative northwest took their own vote the day before Pakistan staged its crucial elections. They decided women would not have a say in selecting the constituency's national and provincial lawmakers.
No one defied the order, said Farida Begum, an election official at the largest segregated polling station in Khazana.
"Everything is available for women to vote. We are here but no one is coming so we are just sitting and gossiping," said Begum, her stout frame hidden behind a white chador or shawl.
It was the same story in Sheikh Mohammedi, a village not far from recent violent clashes between Pakistan's military and pro-Taliban insurgents farther out of the city.
"It is difficult for Muslim women because they cannot leave their home," said local tribesman Anwar Khan. "They should stay in their home unless they go out with a man. Women have never voted here and now the situation with the bomb blasts is dangerous."
Despite the historic elevation to the premiership in the 1990s by Bhutto, who was assassinated in December, women still have little political clout in Pakistan. In the ethnic Pashtun belt bordering Afghanistan, things are going from bad to worse.
Over the past year or two, pro-Taliban militants have gained sway here, challenging the writ of the government and launching a blizzard of attacks that have sown fear in local communities.
Insurgents have attacked girls' schools, warned women against working for international or local charities, beheaded women they accused of adultery and stoned others. They have also warned women against casting their ballot or working at the election.
Shamaila Umbreen, a polling official in Sheikh Mohammedi, was fuming that women could not vote in the village, but was also scared of the militant threat.
"Out here in the villages we can't speak freely. We are not safe in this area. We don't know what can happen to us with these Taliban and they are in the villages very close to Peshawar. We know that and we are afraid," she said.
Unsurprisingly, partial unofficial returns late Monday showed either very few or no women winning parliamentary seats in the northwest.
Women do have a reserved quota of 60 seats out of 342 in the National Assembly, which are allocated on a proportional basis according to parties' performance. They also held minor portfolios in the Cabinet of the outgoing civilian administration.
But rights workers say women remain politically marginalized in Pakistan.
Asma Jehangir, head of the nongovernment Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said the threat of militant violence not only deterred women voting in the northwest, but in more liberal parts of the country as well.
"Normally in the past in the Punjab and in Lahore the voting numbers between men and women was not that different. But this time it was half as many women as men," Jehangir told The Associated Press. "I think the people were too scared to bring their women along to vote."
Jehangir alleged some parties had used scare tactics over violence to dissuade women from voting, believing they would opt for Bhutto's party out of sympathy for the opposition leader's slaying in a suicide attack eight weeks before the elections.
BBB wrote :
Quote:Some Pakistan Women Warded Off Voting
kind of makes me wonder ... the americans and brits are fighting in iraq , the NATO troops are fighting in afghanistan ... and in pakistan women are being chased away from the poll stations .
hbg(shaking head
)
Biden: Musharraf accepts defeat in Pakistan vote
Senator Joe Biden had threatened Musarraf that he would campaign to cut off US financial aid to his military if the election was not honest.
---BBB
Biden: Musharraf accepts defeat in Pakistan vote
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ?- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, apparently handed a huge defeat in elections for his country's national assembly, accepts the results and may be willing to assume a largely ceremonial role, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Tuesday.
" "The results are clear, we lost. The outcome isn't going to change,' " Biden quoted Musharraf as telling a delegation of three American senators that included Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "I've known him for a long time . . . He seemed like reality had set in."
Biden told McClatchy that he believed that Musharraf, who assumed power in a military coup in 1999, would ask one of his opponents to form a new government. Whether he would then step into the background "will depend on how the coalition government is formed and how he is treated personally."
Musharraf made no public statement about the elections, whose final results were not expected till Tuesday night or Wednesday. But unofficial tallies by Pakistani newspapers and television channels and partial official returns showed the party that has backed Musharraf, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, heading for massive defeat.
A half dozen of its heavyweight leaders lost their races and projections showed it might win as few as 45 of the contested seats in the 342-member national assembly. The Pakistan Peoples Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was likely to win at least 110 seats, and the Pakistan Muslim League-N faction, whose leader, Nawaz Sharif, was overthrown by Musharraf, appeared likely to win at least 100. The remaining seats will be apportioned according to the number of votes each party receives. Such an outcome would leave Musharraf, hailed by the Bush administration as an "indispensable" ally in its war against al Qaida and radical Islam, seriously weakened.
Musharraf could be forced to bend to widespread demands for less cooperation with the United States, which has pushed him to step up military operations against al Qaida and Islamic insurgents that have enflamed the guerrilla war and claimed large numbers of civilian casualties in the remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Many people in this conservative Muslim nation regard Musharraf as a U.S. puppet. They point to U.S. support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. confrontation with Iran, and the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay as proof that the Bush administration is waging "a war against Islam."
It would take a two-thirds majority of a joint session of the assembly and Pakistan's senate to impeach Musharraf or overturn a constitutional amendment allowing him to dismiss the parliament. The senate remains under the control of Musharraf supporters.
Sharif, who was deposed by Musharraf in a coup eight years ago, has vowed to impeach Musharraf. But Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who assumed the PPP's leadership after her death, has refused to commit himself to ousting the former army general.
The elections had been scheduled for Jan. 8, but were postponed until Monday after Bhutto's Dec. 27 assassination in a suicide bombing attack that was blamed on Islamic militants.
Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q appeared to be winning in Baluchistan, Pakistan's least developed province, which is reeling from violence by Islamic extremists and a low-key tribal insurgency.
But with unofficial results projecting huge wins for the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the parties' supporters staged noisy all-night celebrations in the streets of major cities around the country.
Some PPP officials felt their margin of victory should have been even greater.
"We are really concerned as to what happened at the polling stations," Farhattullah Barber, the Peoples Party's chief spokesman, told McClatchy. He said the party suspected widespread vote rigging, despite the seeming Musharraf defeat and that party leaders would meet later Tuesday to review the results.
"What our response will be we will decide," he said.
Musharraf had commanded considerable support until last year from a public that deeply respected the army and was tired of the massive corruption that had been associated with the political parties for decades.
But his support began sliding after he purged independent judges, detained thousands of critics and arbitrarily amended the constitution to extend his grip on power by five years while he was still army chief. He resigned the position in December under intense U.S. pressure.
Musharraf's popularity also plunged after the army attacked a militant-led mosque in Islamabad. killing women and children in the assault. The country's Islamic insurgency intensified, accompanied by an upsurge in suicide bombings.
Musharraf and the Pakistan Muslim League-Q were also widely criticized for failing to arrest inflation and end food and power shortages in a country where most of the 165 million people struggle to live below the poverty line. Many Pakistanis also believe the government was complicit in Bhutto's assassination.
Turnout appeared to have been moderate to low across the country, suppressed by fears of major terrorist violence and alienation from a political system that is riddled with corruption and has consistently failed to deliver on promises of a better life.
"It's a slow turnout," said Shaista Tariq, the chief official at a polling station opposite the park in the military headquarters city of Rawalpindi where Bhutto was assassinated. "Maybe people are afraid. Maybe people don't like any of the parties and don't trust them."
The turnout seemed especially low in the violent North West Frontier Province, which borders the tribal region where the Islamic guerrilla war is intensifying and where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding after escaping the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
"In previous elections, many people were lined up when the polls opened," remarked Imtiaz Begun, who was overseeing a polling station in the provincial capital of Peshawar where only a few ballots had been cast after an hour of voting. "This situation is different. People are scared."
More than 500,000 soldiers, paramilitary troops and police were deployed across the country following a campaign marred by a surge in suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people, including Bhutto.
But violence was comparatively low.
"I think that by and large, it has been a very, very peaceful election and blessedly enough, there has been no act of terrorism," said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.
"What we're pretty much hearing from our people around the country is that the actual voting went very peacefully, normally in terms of procedures, moving in an orderly way," said Jim Moody, a former Democratic congressman from Wisconsin who led a 40-member observer team from the United States.
Moody said that while his delegation would not complete its analysis for several days, there were only minor irregularities and violence in the constituencies visited by his team members.
Casting his ballot in Rawalpindi, where he still lives in the official residence of the army chief, Musharraf said he was ready to work with whoever emerges as the winner.
"The politics of confrontation must give way to a policy of reconciliation; not in anyone's personal interests, but in Pakistan's interest," he said, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan
"Those winning should show humility and those losing should show grace," he said.
Opposition leaders have charged that balloting would be massively rigged in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
There was extensive evidence, however, that the party sought to influence the outcome in the weeks before voting through its district administrators, particularly in Punjab Province, in violation of election laws that the pro-Musharraf federal election commission is accused of failing to enforce.
The administrators have been giving away jobs, announcing new development schemes, using the police to intimidate voters, openly campaigning for candidates and providing them with cars and offices, according to experts and opposition officials.
U.S. urges Pakistanis to keep Musharraf despite defeat
Homepage Exclusive: U.S. urges Pakistanis to keep Musharraf, despite election defeat
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan _The Bush administration is pressing the opposition leaders who defeated Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to allow the former general to retain his position, a move that Western diplomats and U.S. officials say could trigger the very turmoil the United States seeks to avoid.
U.S. officials, from President Bush on down, said this week that they think Musharraf, a longtime U.S. ally, should continue to play a role, despite his party's rout in parliamentary elections Monday and his unpopularity in the volatile, nuclear-armed nation.
The U.S. is urging the Pakistani political leaders who won the elections to form a new government quickly and not press to reinstate the judges whom Musharraf ousted last year, Western diplomats and U.S. officials said Wednesday. If reinstated, the jurists likely would try to remove Musharraf from office.
Bush's policy of hanging on to Musharraf has caused friction between the White House and the State Department, with some career diplomats and other specialists arguing that the administration is trying to buck the political tides in Pakistan, U.S. officials said.
Officials in the White House and the intelligence community fear that the longer Pakistan remains without a new government, the deeper the gridlock, threatening the progress made in the elections toward greater stability and helping the country's Islamic extremists.
One Western diplomat said, however, that the strategy could backfire if Pakistanis feel betrayed after voting to kick Musharraf from office.
"This is dangerous," said the diplomat.
The officials spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss internal government debates.
The effort to persuade Pakistan's newly elected parliament not to reinstate the judges could be perceived in Pakistan as a U.S. attempt to keep Musharraf in power after voters overwhelmingly rejected his Pakistan Muslim League-Q political party.
"There is going to be an uprising against the people who were elected" should opposition parties agree to the plan, warned Athar Minallah, the lawyer of ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whom Musharraf has under house arrest.
A close aide to Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N party won the second highest number of seats in the 342-seat National Assembly, said the former prime minister is under growing Western pressure to drop his demands for Musharraf's immediate resignation and the reinstatement of Chaudhry.
"The suggestion has been there from Western countries for some time," said the aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "We are not willing to compromise on our stance. It would be against the interests of the Pakistani people."
There may also be personal reasons for Sharif's demands: He was ousted as prime minister when Musharraf led a 1999 coup against him.
The Bush administration has long praised Musharraf as an "indispensable" ally against al Qaida and Islamic radicals waging a guerrilla war and suicide bombing campaign from the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Bush, traveling in Africa, on Wednesday expressed appreciation for Musharraf.
"It's now time for the newly elected folks to show up and form their government, and the question then is, will they be friends of the United States, and I certainly hope so," he said at a news conference in Ghana.
But many Pakistanis consider Musharraf a U.S. puppet for stepping up counter-insurgency operations in the tribal areas that have claimed the lives of women and children.
Experts cite that cooperation as a key reason for the devastating losses suffered by Musharraf's political allies, who retained only 38 of 132 National Assembly seats.
The party backed Musharraf's ouster of Chief Justice Chaudhry, the arrests of thousands of critics, the muzzling of the independent press and a state of emergency last year.
Sharif's calls for Musharraf's ouster and the reinstatement of the judges are shaping up as the main hurdles to the formation of a coalition government between his party and the Pakistan Peoples Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. That party won the largest share ?- but not a majority ?- of National Assembly seats.
Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who assumed the party leadership after his wife's death in a Dec. 27 suicide bombing, is noncommittal on Musharraf's resignation, and said the reinstatement of the judges should be left to the new assembly to decide.
Zardari and Sharif were scheduled to hold talks on forging a coalition in Islamabad on Thursday, a day after Zardari met U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson and a U.S. diplomat in Lahore held talks with Sharif's brother, Shabaz.
The parties shouldn't become fixated on the confrontation between Musharraf and the judges, said one Western diplomat.
"It's not a good idea to have some kind of upset that could lead to new instability," said the second diplomat.
Zardari appears to be receptive to the plan. He said Tuesday that the new government should proceed with "softer, small steps."
His aides also indicated that the party could explore a coalition without Sharif if he refused to embrace the U.S. plan, saying it might be possible to forge one by bringing in moderate members of the pro-Musharraf party, independents and regional parties.
"There are moderate elements within the Q League. All options are open at this point," said Javaid R. Laghari, a senior PPP senator.
(Strobel reported from Washington.)
The notion of "democracy" in Pakistan is pretty much a joke.
The country has been ruled, alternately, by military strongmen or uber-corrupt dynastic civilians.
Here is how the lid will blow off:
The uber-corrupt dynastic civilians will make good on their promise to pull Pakistan from the War on Terror. The military will not stage a coup.
Al Queda and the Taliban will grow ever more bold within their safe havens in tribal Pakistan.
The US will suffer another attack from the terrorist forces protected in Pakistan.
The uber-corrupt dynastic civilian government will not open their borders to American forces and the Pakistani military will not stage a coup.
America will invade Pakistan and while we are at it we will make sure Islamists can't take control of Pakistan's nukes.
Here's what get's in the way:
An Obama administration
The Pakistani military stages a coup.
I'm relying on the latter and fearing the former
Quote:America will invade Pakistan and while we are at it we will make sure Islamists can't take control of Pakistan's nukes.
from my limited understanding , the easiest way to unite most muslims is to invade pakistan .
the genie is already out of the bottle - just another one of my opinions .
hbg
hamburger wrote:Quote:America will invade Pakistan and while we are at it we will make sure Islamists can't take control of Pakistan's nukes.
from my limited understanding , the easiest way to unite most muslims is to invade pakistan .
the genie is already out of the bottle - just another one of my opinions .
hbg
That maybe, but if Islamists mount another devastating attack on the US what President will have time to care what may or may unite muslims?
In addition, who the fu*k cares what unites muslims. If we have to go to war with them all the better now, when we have technological and military advantages than when they may get a leg up.
Here is the defining difference in positions:
1) America is too high handed and full of itself. If little guys want to prove their identity by killing thousands of our citizens then we need to understand their motivation and employ some sort of self-correction to prevent a similar mass murder in the future.
2) They killed thousands of our citizens and therefore we need to wipe them off the face of the earth before they kill another one of our citizens.
It is is definitional insane to worry about the feelings of people who are trying to kill you. There is only one proper response - kill them first.
Irrespective of what the validity of anti-Americanism might be, any who try to destroy us should be crushed. We can talk to those who call us ass-holes, we cannot talk to those who are killing us.
This is an existential discussion, not some sort of tea room pontification.
finn wrote :
Quote:It is is definitional insane to worry about the feelings of people who are trying to kill you. There is only one proper response - kill them first.
perhaps the simplest way to deal with that problem is to blow up the world .
after all , it might be kind of difficult to get the pakistanis to agree that they should separate muslims from hindus , christians , buddhists and parsi living in pakistan - so that the latter groups would be spared from being killed by the united states .
(asking what caused those problems in the first place and what might be done to come to some undertstanding seems just so much waste of time .
btw i just read that the NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC will be performing in NORTH-KOREA for the first time .
i hope that doesn't mean that relations between the U.S. and north-korea might actually improve.
perhaps a ping-pong game might be next - remember china ?)
hbg
if anyone thinks the TALIBAN is a "spent force" , it might be a good idea to read what the BBC reports from pakistan .
it seems that the taliban have plenty of recruits in the pakistan-afghan border area . the pakistan government and army are well aware of the taliban's presence there but don't feel like they should pay much (read : any) attention to them .
in the meantime pakistan happily collects large "donations" from the united states .
the BBC reports - 10 june 2008 :
Quote:Pakistan's prickly foreign relations
Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid on why relations between the US and Pakistani militaries are at their worst since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
In recent weeks there has been a crescendo of international criticism aimed at Pakistan for cutting peace deals with the Pakistani Taleban on its territory, that give both Pakistani and Afghan Taleban the freedom to cross the border and attack Nato forces in Afghanistan.
Senior US officials and legislators, Nato commanders, European leaders, the UN and the Afghan government have voiced their anger and frustration.
At the same time, relations between two critical allies in the war on terror - the US military and the Pakistan army - seem to be at their worst since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Pakistani troops are pulling out of all the tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan that are home to Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders and thousands of their fighters, according to senior Nato military officers and diplomats in Kabul.
The Taleban now virtually rule over the seven tribal agencies that make up the Federal Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata).
Moreover they are making dramatic inroads into the settled areas of the North West Frontier Province. The peace deals are allowing the Taleban to cross into Afghanistan in ever increasing numbers.
This is a source of great frustration to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is under severe international pressure to do more to improve governance and fight corruption if his government is to receive more aid at a high level donors conference in Paris on 12 June.
Mountain war
''I am asking the world to concentrate on ending the sanctuaries for the terrorists,'' said President Karzai.
''The war is not in every village but it is continuing because of the sanctuaries outside Afghanistan and we have to succeed in convincing the world to shut them down."
He said the increasing tempo of the Taleban insurgency in the south and east of his country was making it more difficult to provide people with the security needed for improving governance and faster reconstruction.
President Karzai said what is needed is a joint strategy by Pakistan and Afghanistan, but he is still looking for a viable partner on the Pakistani side to plan and conduct such a strategy with.
Nato commanders are further frustrated by the fact that Pakistani generals have told their American counterparts that not only are they pulling the army out of Fata, but they are unwilling to allow the army to be retrained or re-equipped by the Americans to fight the necessary counter-insurgency mountain war on its western borders with Afghanistan.
Instead the bulk of the Pakistan army will remain deployed on its eastern border and train for any possible threats from its traditional enemy India - wars that have always been fought on the plains of Punjab.
Over 80% of the $10bn in aid Pakistan has received from Washington since 9/11 has gone directly to the military and much of it has been used to buy expensive weapon systems for the Indian front, rather than the small ticket items needed for counter-insurgency.
(DONATIONS ARE MOST WELCOME BY PAKISTAN !)
Nevertheless Pakistan will continue to deploy its 100,000 strong paramilitary forces along its long, porous border with Afghanistan.
The US military is now providing training and equipment to the Frontier Corps, the principle paramilitary force which is poorly trained and equipped.
Pakistan has lost more than 1,000 paramilitary and regular soldiers since the army launched its first offensive against the Pakistani Taleban in 2004 and the army is badly shaken with low morale.
The peace deals with the extremists have allowed for increased Taleban attacks in Afghanistan.
The number from the Pakistani side of the border into Afghanistan doubled between March and April this year, compared to the same time span last year.
There are now an average of 100 terrorist attacks a week compared to 60 attacks last year.
Nato officials also report a dramatic increase in the number of Pakistanis, Arabs and others nationalities now fighting alongside the Afghan Taleban in Afghanistan.
'Determined to win'
One result of the deals in Fata became visible when 30 journalists were invited to an unprecedented press conference on 23 May in South Waziristan agency held by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban and the main host for Afghan Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders in FATA.
The journalists saw few signs of the Pakistani military while the Taleban were re-occupying army check posts that had been abandoned.
At the June donors conference President Karzai will ask for $50bn commitment for the next few years although such funds are unlikely to materialise.
Major aid donors are demanding that he gets tougher with drug lords and corrupt Afghan officials.
''Karzai has to do more for himself and convince the Afghan people he is determined to win this war to rebuild the nation," said a Western ambassador in Kabul.
Next year there will be presidential elections and there is already intense speculation in Kabul as to who all will stand against President Karzai.
There are attempts to forge alliances among both the president's fellow Pashtuns and the non-Pashtuns so that a common candidate to oppose him can be agreed upon.
President Karzai is confident he can beat off any challenge, but he still lacks a team to run his election campaign and lacks an agenda to offer the people.
At the same time he is acutely aware that by being an incumbent president Afghan people will judge him more by his past achievements or lack of them, than what he tells them he will do in the future.
The crisis in both Afghanistan and Pakistan remain uppermost in the minds of the presidential candidates contesting the next US election, but it seems that the Bush administration still lacks a clear strategy as to what to do about Pakistan's reluctance to fight the extremists.
source :
UNHAPPY RELATIONS
had a look at THE TIMES OF LONDON this morning to catch up on world news .
a/t THE TIMES things in PAKISTAN are not just heating up but are close to a boil - and british and american diplomats are scrambling to prevent pakistan from becoming another ungovernable land - unless it alrady is and their efforts might be in vain .
Quote:Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page in Lahore
US and British diplomats were scrambling to broker a truce between Pakistan’s feuding political leaders tonight as thousands of black-suited lawyers defied a government ban to launch a mass protest across the country.
Richard Holbrooke, the new US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, telephoned Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s President, to discuss the unrest, which has raised fears that the army could take power once again.
“Mr Holbrooke conveyed the anxiety of the US Administration over the worsening political crisis and asked the president to find ways to end the strife,” a senior Pakistani official told The Times.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, also spoke to Mr Zardari as lawyers and opposition activists clashed with police at the start of a “long march” from major cities towards Islamabad, the capital.
Organisers hope that hundreds of thousands will join the march, due to end with a rally in front of the national parliament on Monday, to demand that the government reinstate judges deposed under Pervez Musharraf, the former president.
Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister whose party quit the government last year over the same issue, has urged Pakistanis to join the march and to rise up against their weak civilian government.
The Government responded by banning protests in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, detaining more than 300 activists on Wednesday and arresting dozens more today.
The United States and Britain now fear that further unrest could undermine the Pakistani army’s efforts to fight al-Qaeda and Taleban militants in Pakistan’s northwest, or even force it to take over the government again.
(not very good news imo)
see here for complete article :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5897202.ece
if you are interested in a somewhat more thorough review of today's political turmoil in pakistan you may wish to read the analysis by the BBC :
Quote:Q&A: Pakistan's political instability
Tension between the government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has grown in recent months.
The government has warned that if protests led by the PML-N turn violent, its leaders could be charged with sedition. The PML-N has in turn accused the government of behaving in the same undemocratic way as President Pervez Musharraf before he resigned in August 2008.
Why have the PPP and the PML-N fallen out?
full report :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7570286.stm
@hamburger,
the pakistani government is being challenged head-on by the opposition .
the opposition leader defies house arrest and large demonstrations are underway in many parts of pakistan .
what is the government going to do ?
they either must bring the oppostion into the government or the army is likely going to take control again.
both choices don't seem very palatable to the (weak) central government .
full report :
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD96UHJFG0
Quote: Violence mars Pakistani anti-government protest
By BABAR DOGAR " 51 minutes ago
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) " Pakistan's opposition leader defied house arrest on Sunday to lead anti-government protests that briefly turned violent before becoming a jubilant show of force against the country's pro-Western president.
Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif called the mass rally a "prelude to a revolution."
The power struggle between the former prime minister and President Asif Ali Zardari threatens to paralyze the government and, alarmingly for the U.S., distract the nuclear-armed country from its fight against Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border.
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But by evening the mood was festive as police pulled back, and thousands of flag-waving supporters and cheering lawyers turned out to cheer Sharif, a local favorite.
"People have responded very overwhelmingly to the call of the hour, and I am thankful to the nation," Sharif told Geo television by phone from his car. "This is a prelude to a revolution."
Washington worries that the crisis will further destabilize the shaky the year-old government and prevent it from being an effective ally in the fight against insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan.
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Though Sharif, his politician brother and scores of other opposition party members were initially ordered under house arrest, Sharif was allowed to leave his residence unchallenged.
Rao Iftikhar, a senior government official, said authorities had reached an "understanding" with Sharif that he would address the rally and return home.
But Sharif said his "destination" was Islamabad and his slow-moving convoy wended its way toward one of two main exit roads leading to the capital, about 180 miles (300 kilometers) to the northwest.
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Later, the crowd swelled to many thousands. Many were black-suited lawyers campaigning for an independent judiciary, but most appeared to be Sharif supporters chanting "Here comes the lion!" in reference to his party symbol and "Go Zardari go!"
The political turmoil began last month when the Supreme Court disqualified the Sharif brothers from elected office, over convictions dating back to an earlier chapter in Pakistan's turbulent political history.
Zardari compounded the crisis by dismissing the Sharifs' administration in Punjab, Pakistan's biggest and richest province, of which Lahore is the capital. The brothers then threw their support behind plans by lawyers to stage the sit-in.
On Saturday, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to both Zardari and Nawaz Sharif by telephone, the government announced it would appeal the Supreme Court ruling in the coming days.
Zardari refuses to reinstate a group of independent-minded judges fired by his predecessor, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
Many observers suspect Zardari fears the judges could challenge a pact that quashed long-standing corruption charges against him and his wife, slain former leader Benazir Bhutto.
I think Hillary Clinton should do another "Reset Button" visit to Pakistan. She should have all previous "corruption charges" against the Nawaz Sharif on hold as well as those against Bhutto's husband. Musharaff certainly left some undetonated political bombs behind when he left. The US should have those bombs defused i.e. the current judges in the Pakistani Supreme Court shouldbe removed somehow as they are the destabilizing factor.
@talk72000,
talk wrote :
Quote: I think Hillary Clinton should do another "Reset Button" visit to Pakistan. She should have all previous "corruption charges" against the Nawaz Sharif on hold as well as those against Bhutto's husband. Musharaff certainly left some undetonated political bombs behind when he left. The US should have those bombs defused i.e. the current judges in the Pakistani Supreme Court shouldbe removed somehow as they are the destabilizing factor.
before having those previously sacked supreme court judges are re-instated , president zardari might want to have an airplane on standby to whisk him away quickly - unless he would prefer to spend a few years in jail (if he is lucky) .
it seems that mr. sharif and his people are ready to blow his castle down .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7945294.stm
Quote: Sharif joins Pakistan protesters
Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif has joined supporters on a march to the capital Islamabad to stage an anti-government protest.
Hours ahead of the planned march, there were reports that President Asif Ali Zardari had agreed to reinstate sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The reinstatement of Mr Chaudhry and other judges has been a key opposition demand amid a growing political crisis.
Mr Sharif earlier defied an apparent bid to place him under house arrest.
Hundreds of police had surrounded his home in Lahore but the government denied that he was being detained.
Power struggle
Mr Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), has been planning a "long march" to arrive in Islamabad on Monday to stage a sit-in to demand the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.
Mr Sharif is expected to arrive in Rawalpindi - near Islamabad - in the early hours of Monday.
He is due to be joined there by his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, former chief minister of the Punjab, and leaders of the lawyers' movement demanding the judges' reinstatement.
The campaign over the judges has become a power struggle between Mr Sharif and President Zardari, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.
The government has arrested hundreds of opposition activists and banned rallies, saying they could trigger violence.
Our correspondent says it is not clear if Mr Sharif will be able to reach Islamabad, given the authorities have blocked routes leading to the capital.
She says the unrest has alarmed the West, which wants Pakistan to focus on the battle against the Taleban on the Afghan border.
( i imagine that president zardari is somewhat more concerned about his short-term survival than paying attention to the wishes of the west .
just my opinion - hbg )
President Zardari - the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - promised to bring back the judges when he took office last year following his wife's assassination.
PAKISTANIS CELEBRATE ( well , let's say "some of them celebrate" )
Quote: From Times OnlineMarch 16, 2009
Nawaz Sharif celebrates victory in Pakistan stand-off as judges are reinstated
Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s opposition leader, called off a protest march to the capital this morning after the Government, under pressure from the Army and the United States, bowed to his demand to reinstate a sacked chief justice.
Lawyers and opposition supporters were celebrating after Asif Ali Zardari, the beleaguered President, agreed to restore Iftikhar Chaudhry as the country’s top judge from March 21.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, announced Mr Chaudhry's reappointment in a dramatic dawn television address to the nation following a series of meetings with Mr Zardari and Ashfaq Kayani, the Army chief.
"I announce the restoration of all deposed judges, including Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry, according to a promise made by the President of Pakistan and myself," Mr Gilani said. "Let's move ahead together with other political powers."
read full story :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5915988.ece
let's see how this event continues ... ...
