source(ToI-let paper)
Yudhvir Rana, TNN 29 November 2009, 12:12am IST
AMRITSAR: A Sikh advocate in Pakistan was reportedly thrashed and threatened with dire consequences recently if he did not convert to Islam, forcing his family to run for safety to a gurdwara in Hassanabdal near Rawalpindi.
While the victim, Anup Singh, was yet to regain consciousness, the incident has left the Sikh community in Pakistan rattled and insecure. Talking to TOI from Islamabad, Anup’s brother, Ravinder Singh, recalled horror of November 21. ‘‘A group of at least eight men kidnapped my brother from his office and took him to Mohammad Amin’s residence, where he was stripped and photographed with Amin’s wife.’’
Undergoing treatment for fractures and severe head injuries in Holy Family Hospital, Ralwalpindi, where doctors said it might take a few months before Anup could start leading a normal life, the advocate was reportedly assaulted for fighting a separation case for Amin’s wife, Safina Kanwal. ‘‘The goons made my brother sign on a blank paper, after which they cut his hair, beard, moustaches and threatened him to convert to Islam if he wanted to live in Pakistan.’’
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Hilarious - Ben Hilton rips queen of England
Excerpts from the article,
The novelist called The Queen 'a sad little old lady' and Prince Philip a 'mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war'.
Elton claimed Prince Charles was 'a disillusioned ex-hippy,' Prince Andrew is 'a bit of a yob,' and suggested Prince Edward was gay.
Ben then mocked British families adding: 'That's a bog-standard British family in all its rainbow glory. If she (The Queen) had a black one and a disabled on, she'd have the full deck.'
The married mother-of-four said: 'He was like a spoilt child saying more and more outrageous things just for the attention.
'He obviously thought the best way to get the audience on side was to say degrading comments about Britain.{Ouch, shoe-shining peasants are hurtin' LMAO}
When playing a word association game, he was given the phrase 'The Queen.'
He replied: 'She's an ordinary woman. She's a sad little old lady who lives in state sponsored accommodation, her husband is a mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war, three out of four of her kid's marriages have failed - that's very common.'
About her children, he added: 'The eldest one is a disillusioned ex-hippy and the middle one a bit of a yob.
'That's a bog-standard British family in all its rainbow glory. If she had a black one and a disabled one, she'd have the full deck. {Pffft, Hahahahaha}
Asked if he missed her{ex-PM Thatcher}, Ben replied: 'Thatcher was a deeply divisive person. She shattered most of what we thought we knew about British society, so no, I don't miss her at all.'
He then claimed to have slept with the former Prime Minister and gave an impression of the former leader, saying: 'That was absolutely marvellous Ben.
'Then she would light-up and honestly, I thought she was a posh bird but she was just a fag-ash Lil.'
Ben bemoaned Britain winning the 2012 Olympic bid, saying: 'I'm so p***** off that we've got the Olympics in Britain.
'Firstly, it's obviously only because people feel sorry for us and to let us win some medals for once.
'I don't like it, I'm not interested in sport. I mean why, why do it.'
.......British athletes being made to train Al Qaeda terrorists 'because then they would throw their bombs and miss the target.' {man is funny}
And when shown a prop of a giant painting brush with red paint on the tip for a sketch, a reference was made of it looking like Harry Potter's broomstick.
Ben chipped in: 'I think Malfoy (Harry Potter character) was giving him a bit of a dormitory action I'm afraid you know what those public schools in England are like.'
Another one linked on the page, Labour candidate describes the Queen as 'vermin' and a 'parasite who milks the country'
The novelist called The Queen 'a sad little old lady' and Prince Philip a 'mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war'.
Elton claimed Prince Charles was 'a disillusioned ex-hippy,' Prince Andrew is 'a bit of a yob,' and suggested Prince Edward was gay.
Ben then mocked British families adding: 'That's a bog-standard British family in all its rainbow glory. If she (The Queen) had a black one and a disabled on, she'd have the full deck.'
The married mother-of-four said: 'He was like a spoilt child saying more and more outrageous things just for the attention.
'He obviously thought the best way to get the audience on side was to say degrading comments about Britain.{Ouch, shoe-shining peasants are hurtin' LMAO}
When playing a word association game, he was given the phrase 'The Queen.'
He replied: 'She's an ordinary woman. She's a sad little old lady who lives in state sponsored accommodation, her husband is a mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war, three out of four of her kid's marriages have failed - that's very common.'
About her children, he added: 'The eldest one is a disillusioned ex-hippy and the middle one a bit of a yob.
'That's a bog-standard British family in all its rainbow glory. If she had a black one and a disabled one, she'd have the full deck. {Pffft, Hahahahaha}
Asked if he missed her{ex-PM Thatcher}, Ben replied: 'Thatcher was a deeply divisive person. She shattered most of what we thought we knew about British society, so no, I don't miss her at all.'
He then claimed to have slept with the former Prime Minister and gave an impression of the former leader, saying: 'That was absolutely marvellous Ben.
'Then she would light-up and honestly, I thought she was a posh bird but she was just a fag-ash Lil.'
Ben bemoaned Britain winning the 2012 Olympic bid, saying: 'I'm so p***** off that we've got the Olympics in Britain.
'Firstly, it's obviously only because people feel sorry for us and to let us win some medals for once.
'I don't like it, I'm not interested in sport. I mean why, why do it.'
.......British athletes being made to train Al Qaeda terrorists 'because then they would throw their bombs and miss the target.' {man is funny}
And when shown a prop of a giant painting brush with red paint on the tip for a sketch, a reference was made of it looking like Harry Potter's broomstick.
Ben chipped in: 'I think Malfoy (Harry Potter character) was giving him a bit of a dormitory action I'm afraid you know what those public schools in England are like.'
Another one linked on the page, Labour candidate describes the Queen as 'vermin' and a 'parasite who milks the country'
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Mahesh Bhatt - Tau, Ab aaya oont pahaad ke niche
Before I start taking the wind out of the holier than thou sails of Bhatt family, kuch baatein bolna chahunga - Unkal ji koi kasar nahin chorhungha aapki poonch khichne mein. This whole thing actually reinforces my belief - Bhagwan ke ghar der hai, andher nahin. Rahul may or may not be innocent (chances are he'll go scot free since rarely does rich peoples relatives get convicted for severe crimes) but baap ke paapon ka ghada bhar chuka tha, sadly beta has to pay for it. Instead of Rahul, had it been a common man, he would first be arrested and questioned but not Mahesh Bhatt's son?
Kaun si fillum bana raha tha- Suicide Bomber - ab unkal mauka mil gaya pehnao C4 aur semtex wali LUX (LeT Ultra Xplosive) kachha baniyan Rahul ko, cheekho alla akhbaar, dabao button aur dhishkyun.......Hahahaha, serves you idiots right.
Now that the tables have turned how does it feel, khujli unkal, hain, hamme bhi batao? Waise toh teri chonch kenchi ki terah chalti thi ab kya kide pad gaye usme? Let me quote you -"Mahesh Bhatt said that the country is at more at risk and can possibly be destroyed by Hindu fundamentalism, as India is too big to be hit by any threat from across the border." Kaunse fundamentalism ki baat kar raha tha, ab kya kahega - aaya maja, unkal, lene ke dene pad gaye...hahahaha. Jihadist aatankvaadi tere ghar mein aate jaate hain par tere ko woh nahin dikhta tha kyunki tu unke saath mila hua hai, andhe bhootni ke closet jihadist. Zindagi bhar tere ko nahin bhoolne doonga yeh fact mein, tere burke ko fad ke roomal banata hu, just have patience and read on.
I feel sorry for Rahul(if he is innocent) and wish him the best but you lying scumbag will rot not in hell but here on earth and i'll do my part to ensure that. How were the past two days, party sharty, hain unkal? LMAO! Pooja keh rahi thi that in two days she has seen you age, aisa hi hota hai when you have one by their short and curlies. ROFLMAO!
Read this ToI-let paper's article (comments in brackets mine),
Kaun si fillum bana raha tha- Suicide Bomber - ab unkal mauka mil gaya pehnao C4 aur semtex wali LUX (LeT Ultra Xplosive) kachha baniyan Rahul ko, cheekho alla akhbaar, dabao button aur dhishkyun.......Hahahaha, serves you idiots right.
Now that the tables have turned how does it feel, khujli unkal, hain, hamme bhi batao? Waise toh teri chonch kenchi ki terah chalti thi ab kya kide pad gaye usme? Let me quote you -"Mahesh Bhatt said that the country is at more at risk and can possibly be destroyed by Hindu fundamentalism, as India is too big to be hit by any threat from across the border." Kaunse fundamentalism ki baat kar raha tha, ab kya kahega - aaya maja, unkal, lene ke dene pad gaye...hahahaha. Jihadist aatankvaadi tere ghar mein aate jaate hain par tere ko woh nahin dikhta tha kyunki tu unke saath mila hua hai, andhe bhootni ke closet jihadist. Zindagi bhar tere ko nahin bhoolne doonga yeh fact mein, tere burke ko fad ke roomal banata hu, just have patience and read on.
I feel sorry for Rahul(if he is innocent) and wish him the best but you lying scumbag will rot not in hell but here on earth and i'll do my part to ensure that. How were the past two days, party sharty, hain unkal? LMAO! Pooja keh rahi thi that in two days she has seen you age, aisa hi hota hai when you have one by their short and curlies. ROFLMAO!
Read this ToI-let paper's article (comments in brackets mine),
MUMBAI: "They’re making a villain out of a hero," said filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, referring to media reports about his son Rahul, who is being treated as a suspect in the David Coleman Headley case. {AOOOO, hero, unkal ji bollywood bhool jao aur jameen pe utro. Log peetne ke liye tayyar hai isko, mahesh bhatt ka hero ban gaya zero..hahahaa, pehle bhi ek kissa tha jisme tera muh kaala hua tha, emran hushmi aur flat wala par tu dheet nahin sudhra, besharmi ki raah pe chalta raha, ab le maja bhootni ke}
Bhatt had taken Rahul — a trainer at Breach Candy’s Moksh gym — to the office of Mumbai’s crime branch chief Rakesh Maria as soon as the Headley story broke in October-end. "Rahul gave the police the first lead," sister Pooja Bhatt told TOI on Saturday. "But instead of lauding him, the media has put him in the dock."{Unkal, Pooja looking-london-talking-tokyo ko samjhaya jaaye - this is an argument which provides poor reasoning in support of its conclusion. Do din aur rukte toh police haath mein nyota (arrest warrant) leke aati. Hua yeh, asal mein, Rahul ko chala pata Headley aur FBI ke chakkar ka, uski fatli, bhagta bhagta pahucha papa ke paas - meri g**nd bachao, tu thehra secularist (closet jihadi) teri ho gyee pant aage se geeli aur piche se peeli ki bhyi ap sab pol khul jyegi meri aur tune ghoomaye honge number. Tu pappu ko leke pahuch gaya commisioner rakesh maria saab ke paas, ji aisa aisa hua hai aap hamme is mushkil se nikalo pleez. Unhone bola hoga chup kar ke baith jaa aur let the police investigate. Pooja bhengi ko ek baat aur bataana ki so called 'lead' agar naa deta police ko rahul toh police tel waala Baambu daal ke leed(cr*p) nikal deti uski and he would have given new definition to - singing like a canary}
Pooja is upset that the investigating agencies first let Rahul’s name slip to the media, then didn’t step in to prevent speculation. "We abided by their instructions and did not reveal details of the case to reporters," she said. "But they are just sitting back, watching us get mauled by the media."{Karmon ka fal hai Pooja ji. Duniya ko doge l*da, toh wapas kya milega, chai pakora. Hadh kar di itni basic baat samajhne mein. Papa se puchho kitna jhoot bolta tha sab ke baare mein. Ek reporter hain hamare, reporter kam aur shikari kutte jyaada hain, songhte soonghte pahuch gaye aur khul gayi bhatt family ki pol that you are closet jihadists. Police kya aapke aur aapke papa ki naukar hai jo reporters ke questions ka answer de just to clear the name of secular Bhatt family. You don't even know the true extent of the 'mauling by the media'(btw, do you read papers) since they(media) are sitting on the fence on this one, till now. Aapke papa ko bahut shauk hai maul karne ka when he comes on TV, now surely, if you can dish it(mauling via media, films etc) to others, you should be man (or woman) enough to take it as well, sahi bola ki galat? You want that you should have the freedom to abuse others but others should not abuse you, yeh kahan ka rule - pakistan ka toh nahin - papa aapke bahut chakkar lagate hain ho sakta it might have rubbed off on him}
Pooja is also particularly angry with an author and former journalist for having called the Bhatts a ‘dysfunctional family’ on a social networking website. "I have seen my father age over the last two days," she said. "It’s cruel. You throw a man to the lions with his hands tied and sit back and watch."{Killer papa was a rolling stone...Unkal used to f*rt the loudest whenever freedom of speech and expression came up. You hypocrites make me sick and want to puke. Its cruel, says pooja - didn't you people do the same to others and did at that time (even now you are making jihadist sympathizing movies) you had the courtesy of hearing others out? NO. So why whinge and moan now, oh is it because your a*se is being skewered over the barbecue grill not others. Past is catching up with you f*cktards doubletime and i'm having a ball seeing you squeal like infected rats and act like monkeys on prime time TV. What is the name of the next movie - Gee Hard/Jihad what??? I can't wait :)}
Pooja also clarified the circumstances under which Headley met her mother. "Headley and another trainer Vilas Warak (whom Rahul knew) were going to Bandra together. Since Rahul was taking some time to get ready, he asked Headley to come to his apartment instead of waiting downstairs. Those were the five minutes when he met my mother."{Why bring in Vilas Warak etc so that Rahul can go scot free and all the blame is put on this poor Warak guy. Maa ki aankh tumhari aise g*ndfattu haramkh*r jindgi mein nahin dekhe, sab ko bech khao, desh ko, doston ko sabko}
As for the references to Rahul in the email Headley sent his handler in the LeT, Pooja says that even the cops have come to the conclusion that Rahul was a code for Mumbai and not her brother. "I want everybody indulging in speculation about my brother to refer to the link www.scribd.com/doc/21700864/Headley-Complaint and read what the FBI has to say about the matter on page 22."{Pooja looking-london-talking-tokyo ankhon ka ilaaj karwa le, kya yeh padha tha tune - On July 10, Headley writes another mail to Member A: “The visit to Rahul’s place, is it for checking real estate property like before, or something different and if so please tell what you can please. Also is it in Rahul’s city or different one?” To this Member A replied: “There are some investment plans with me, not exactly at Rahul’s city but near that. Rest we can decide when meet according to your ease.” Why is he using "Rahul's city" not "Rahul" if we believe your dipsh*t argument?}
She also read out a text message sent to her by Rakesh Maria: "We have found no connection of Rahul with Headley apart from peripheral friendship. One cannot rule out the possibility of him being questioned again. NIA is likely to call him for questioning. His name has been used only in indicating the city of Mumbai. We have done a thorough check in the last three weeks on the Rahul angle and it is true that Rahul Bhatt himself came to us."{Can't be taken at facevalue, you sh*tbeetles are habitual liars and are known to hoodwink naive people - Rahuls city, emran cant get a flat cos he's a muslim etc etc}
Pooja also denies media reports that Rahul helped Headley rent an apartment. "Let the police speak to all others associated with Headley and find out for themselves. My brother is being targeted because his father is famous."{Not at all surprised that you retards have the cheek to say this despite knowing that Rahul is out of jail because of this very reason (father is famous). I thought you chaps were brainless but you are shameless}
Bitter at the whole experience, Pooja wonders if citizens should actually come out to help investigating agencies at all. "Even one year after 26\11, we were clueless about Headley. Now when the FBI and citizens like Rahul are helping Indian agencies unravel his role, they are trying to cover up their inefficiency by projecting the information as their victory."{Where have the agencies projected info as their victory? You are pressurising authorities to give a clean chit to Rahul ASAP else your secular (closet jihadists) gang would be activated. Unknowingly, you have contradicted yourself. On one hand you say, citizens like Rahul are helping Indian agencies and on the other hand, he has no info and his name was just used as a code. This kind of scum arguments make you look uber idiotic which you are. But please carry on operating Bhatt family house as a jihadist sleeper cell providing help to pigs from pakistan and then feign ignorance once you get caught. Only thing is, please don't blame us if we (Indians) stop being tolerant of your and khujli unkal's views and actions}
Selfless Sacrifice - Tukaram Gopal Omble, Ashok Chakra
Sadaiv Amar Swargiya Shri Tukaram Gopal Omble, Ashok Chakra (ASI, Mumbai Police)
सदैव अमर स्वर्गीय श्री तुकाराम गोपाल ओम्ब्ले , अशोक चक्र (अ स इंस्पैक्टर, मुंबई पुलिस)
जय हिंद (Jai Hind)
हर हर महादेव (Har Har Mahadev)
Maoist cannibals
A cannibal act to strike terrorBhubaneswar: In a bid to terrorise villagers last August, a Maoist killed a man suspecting him to be a police informer and ate his flesh in full view of the public in Malkangiri district of Orissa.
Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar Gajbhiye said the incident, which took place at Bandiguda, on August 14, 2007, came to light only on Sunday, during a community policing programme.
“The villagers told me that Bhagat, commander of the Paplur Dalam, killed Mukunda Madhi in public view and ate his flesh to terrorise others,” he told PTI on the phone.
Mukunda’s hapless family was among the onlookers, none of whom opened his mouth for fear of his life, Mr. Gajbhiye said. — PTI
Koda gave Maoists 30% of the Loot
It turns out that Madu Koda, the disgraced former Jharkhand Chief Minister who looted Rs 4,000 crore was not that greedy, Maoists made a cool 30 percent of the prize money.
Investigations revealed that the Maoists made their cut from the illegal mining that took place when Koda was the CM in the state. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday grilled four associates of Koda including his personal assistant Harinder Singh, who spilled that Koda issued about 200 prospective mining leases for exploration of minerals in the state and a further 40 for mining purposes.
The cartel was very simple - businessmen with mining leases, who were not allowed to mine scarce resources simply went ahead with large scale mining. The resulting moolah generated went into the pockets of those people who provided protection from the police and allowed the illegal activity to go on - politicians, beaurocrats and other honchos with hot little hands and gangster buddies. Some of the honchos include a leading Indian steel manufacturer and a London-based tycoon. Maoists also made a killing.
According to Harinder Singh, "the political establishment received Rs 10 lakh per acre at the time of issue of such a licence (total area extends to over hundreds of acres) while the Naxalites got 20 to 30 percent on each truck of resources taken out of such a mine. The bureaucrats who were supposed to check any illegal activity received 10 to 15 percent of the share of the minerals and the remainder about 50 percent was the businessmen's share in the loot."
The promoter of the nefarious Balaji Bullion group of companies Manoj Punamia revealed that Koda was not his only client, and in fact he was working with many high profile Indian and international money launderers. According to an ED official, "His negotiations for an SEZ in Noida worth Rs 4,800 crore, where payment was to be allegedly made in Euros, and his other real estate contracts worth hundreds of crores in UP hint at his wide network across political affiliations and state boundaries. His expertise in managing "entries" and handling high-value cash transactions in banks and through hawala only helped his benefactors to launder big money in India and abroad."
Apart from Punamia, a number of other big fish have been found out by the ED. Although the agency refused to divulge the names, it is clear that many well known politicians and bureaucrats are involved, and the ED is gathering enough incriminating evidence to send them all to the gaol.
So, 'defenders' of tribal people are in hand in glove with the mining mafia in looting those very people mao-scums claim to defend with arms and violence. Circular logic! Maoists are nothing but fraudulent goons out to make a quick buck and resorting to killing innocent people with their brand of terrorism.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Vasectomies, violence inside India's Maoist camps
Source
by Rupam Jain Nair – Tue Nov 10, 1:36 am ET
JAGDALPUR, India (AFP) – A quick exchange of guns and a pledge to undertake a vasectomy is customary for India's Maoist "comrades" when they wed in their isolated forest hideouts.
Some 10,000-20,000 heavily armed rebels are believed to be hiding out in India's forests following a revolutionary communist ideology that paints the state and landowners as the enemies of the people.
"This is how I got married," says 36-year-old Ramesh Podiyani, a surrendered Maoist commander who fought for more than two decades in Chhattisgarh, a central state at the heart of India's "Red Corridor."
The vasectomy, he explained, was because children could weaken a fighter emotionally, distracting him from the cause of waging class war and destroying capitalism.
"Comrades" undergo the surgery in private clinics or with sympathetic doctors, avoiding government hospitals where they might be detected.
Podiyani, who now works for a private company, grew up in a Maoist training camp from the age seven where, instead of going to school, he was trained with bows and arrows, then with guns and landmines.
"I killed several people, but I'm not sorry. It was my duty to kill as a comrade," he told AFP, sitting inside a police conference room in the town of Jagdalpur, 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Chhattisgarh state capital Raipur.
Podiyani and his wife served two years in prison after they surrendered to police and are now waiting for a promised government job and a house.
Most of the recruits who end up as Maoist fighters are from India's marginalised tribal groups. Some are forcibly enlisted, others join by choice, attracted by the fight for the poor and justice.
"I was excited when I joined the Maoists. They gifted me a uniform and leather boots," Podiyani says, adding that he was enlisted after his parents fled the village when the recruitment drive began.
Ratha Werna, a former Maoist soldier now training in a special police camp in Jagdalpur, is also prepared to speak openly about life in an organisation that is challenging the authority of the government in 20 of India's 29 states.
The strength of the decades-long insurgency has finally prompted the government to launch a major offensive, with thousands of police and paramilitary forces set to surge into the rebel strongholds.
"We thought the Maoists were the government and they are good because they were working for us," says Werna, who was expelled by the Maoists after he failed to rob a bank in Raipur and is now a police de-miner.
Robbing banks, killing landlords, attacking police stations and holding up trains are regular activities for the guerrillas, who work in a highly structured organisation topped by former teacher Mupalla Laxman Rao, better known as Ganapathi.
Inside the Maoist camps, there are strict rules forbidding corruption, lies and adultery and leaders keep a close eye on the conduct of every cadre, four former rebels told AFP in a series of interviews.
All disputes between the camp members are decided within 24 hours by the camp leader, with punishments ranging from demotion, detention to physical labour.
Religion and superstition is also forbidden.
"I was not allowed to worship the trees and the birds in the camp," said 32-year-old Dhuna, a former rebel and tribal villager from a Maoist-dominated area of the densely forested, impoverished state.
"From humble forest dwellers we were forced to become brutal soldiers."
Women generally cook, collect wood and act as soldiers. Some have been known to abandon their children on state highways in order to better serve the cause, Kathihar Ras, a worker in a local orphanage, told AFP.
Men's tasks include patrolling, organising propaganda exercises and collecting protection money from wealthy business leaders to guarantee their safety.
The Maoist propaganda machine -- an essential part of the movement that the government is countering with its own communications efforts -- uses printing presses, hired translators and professional writers.
"India is nothing but a semi-colonial and semi-feudal state under neo-colonial form of indirect rule, exploitation and control," is one idea contained in a strategy manual obtained by AFP.
Podiyani remembers some of the songs used during the regular workshops in which fellow fighters were taught about strategy and tactics for a revolution to topple the democratic government by 2060.
This target date is mentioned in dozens of training manuals seized by the police in raids over the last seven years.
One song, he recalls, went as follows:
"These villages and land are ours.
Why are the rich here?
Let us all kill them, stab them and burn them."
Human rights activist Durge Rao says his research shows that the Maoists depend on young boys for the bulk of their recruits.
"The tribal boys are the fodder. They are enrolled and brainwashed, age being no barrier to the start of a revolutionary life," she said.
A recent arrest in New Delhi, however, shows that the movement might also draw support from unlikely quarters.
In September, police arrested Kobad Ghandy, whom they allege is a top Maoist leader despite his upper-class background and elite education in India's top-class Doon school and then in London where he studied accountancy.
"Many rich, educated people in India are committed to the Maoist movement. It is difficult to pluck them (single them out)," said Chhattisgarh's top police officer Vishwa Ranjan.
For Podiyani and his wife, the brutality of the camps eventually turned them away from the movement. But they are clearly having trouble adapting to life without the direction given by the daily struggle against the state and capitalism.
"We still think like Maoists. It has been a challenge for us to settle in a city and abide by the government's rules," he says.
Mahesh Bhatt's son friend of Lashkar terrorist Daoud Gilani aka Headley
November 13th, 2009ANIRahul Bhatt, the son of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt has been linked to Lashkar operative David Coleman Headley{aka Daoud Gilani}, who has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for plotting a major terror attack in India.
However after investigations, Rahul was given a clean chit by the investigating agencies.
"He has admitted to being friends with Headley. But, in all probability, he didn't know Headley's actual background and took him to be a foreign national in India on a job. That was exactly the guise Headley had been living under in India between 2006 and 2009," said an investigating officer.
It has also come to the fore that Rahul had helped Headley to find a flat near the Breach Candy hospital. The two had met at a gymnasium.
Intelligence agencies had earlier thought that Rahul could be a code word for Shahrukh Khan who had played several characters by the same name in his films.
"This is an issue of national security and not something trivial related to Bollywood. Ask agencies that deal with national security. I will not say anything more," said Mahesh Bhatt neither confirming nor denying that his son had close links with Headley.
Another one.
The mysterious name, Rahul, mentioned extensively in LeT operative David Coleman Headley’s e-mails to handlers in Pakistan has finally been identified. It’s neither Shah Rukh Khan nor Rahul Gandhi, but the son of famous filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. And nor is Rahul Bhatt, 25, a fitness instructor and a body builder, on the LeT hit list; he is in fact a friend of Headley who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Chicago last month. {our dipshit media and journos are the one who deliberately concocted this 'Rahul is a target' BS because if one reads the Gilani chat, Rahul is mentioned not as a target but as an acquaintance - "Say Hi to Rahul"}Two glaring questions, speed with which police has declared Rahul Bhatt innocent inspite of ongoing investigations and Mahesh Bhatt's silence since he has an extensive opinion on everything that crawls on planet Earth....lagta saanp soong gaya unkal ji ko. Jihadist aatankwadiyon ka saath doge toh yehi hoga bhootni ke Butt LMAO! It is truly a joy to see this itching pompous buffoon make such fool of himself on the permanent public record with "This is an issue of national security and not something trivial related to Bollywood". When has national security mattered to you, Bhootni ke Butt and also, you had an opinion for everything under the sun but now that your son is involved(not national security blah blah), unkal ji ki g**nd fat gayi aur gote ban gaye tonsils. Hahahahaha.....G**ndfattu Butt ROFLMAO!
However, sources said that Rahul Bhatt has not been given a clean chit yet and no one is given the same till the investigations are complete. Sources also added that the Indian government is in touch with their Abu Dhabi counterpart and the Indian investigators are likely to visit the place soon.
An officer privy to the investigations said, “He has admitted to being friends with Headley. But, in all probability, he didn’t know Headley’s actual background and took him to be a foreign national in India on a job. That was exactly the guise Headley had been living under in India between 2006 and 2009.”
It has also come to light that it was Rahul who helped Headley rent a flat near Breach Candy hospital.
The two met at a gym where Rahul who at one point weighed 122 kilos, had come to lose weight and get fit.
Rahul Bhatt at that time was supposed to be launched in a film, Suicide Bomber, under his family banner Vishesh Films, based on the London bombings which was eventually scrapped. {Method acting, anyone???}
Headley, a US citizen of Pakistani origin who had been arrested by US’s Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on October 18 with a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin Tahawwur Rana, at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, had told FBI interrogators that Rahul was a prominent Indian actor. Headley had been arrested on the information that he was planning terror attacks in Denmark and India.
The two men became friends and when Headley expressed that he was looking to rent a flat, Rahul even helped him get one near Breach Candy through a property broker. All this while, say investigators, Rahul was not aware that Headley had LeT links.
During his stay in Mumbai, Headley was ostensibly functioning as a consultant for an immigration firm in Tardeo. That was, possibly, the only identity that Rahul knew of Headley. Earlier, there were theories among intelligence agencies that Rahul could be a code word either for Shah Rukh Khan, who has played several character by that name, or even a place that could have been a terror target.
When contacted, Rahul’s father Mahesh Bhatt neither confirmed nor denied that his son had been questioned by the police in connection with the Headley case. He simply said, “This is an issue of national security and not something trivial related to Bollywood. Ask agencies that deal with national security. I will not say anything more.”
All efforts to reach Rahul failed as his phone was switched off. Text messages sent to him did not elicit any reply till the time of going to press.
Investigators also suspect that Headley may be holding dual passports of US and Pakistan (as Pakistan allows it) and thus escaped the scrutiny of immigration officials as he may have travelled to Pakistan using his Pak passport while to India using his US passport.
In a few e-mail conversations with an LeT operative, Headley has mentioned Rahul several times. The FBI affidavit notes: In an e-mail on July 2009, Headley told Lashkar-e-Taiba Member A that “I think when we get a chance we should revisit our last location again and say hi to Rahul.”
A reply from LeT Member A on the same day read: “To see Rahul is a good idea coz have some work for you over there too. Matters are good enough to move forward...”
On July 9, Headley writes again: “When you say ‘move forward’, do you mean in the north direction or towards Rahul...” To this Member A replies: “Towards Rahul.”
On July 10, Headley writes another mail to Member A: “The visit to Rahul’s place, is it for checking real estate property like before, or something different and if so please tell what you can please. Also is it in Rahul’s city or different one?” To this Member A replied: “There are some investment plans with me, not exactly at Rahul’s city but near that. Rest we can decide when meet according to your ease.”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Somali women flogged for wearing bras, violates islam
Residents said gunmen had been rounding up any woman seen with a firm bust and then had them publicly whipped by masked men.
source
- Reuters
- Published: October 17, 2009
Mogadishu () Somalia's hardline militant group Al Shabab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a deception, north Mogadishu residents said on Friday.
The insurgent group amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
Residents said gunmen had been rounding up any woman seen with a firm bust and then had them publicly whipped by masked men. The women were then told to remove their bras and shake their breasts.
"Al Shabab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts," a resident, Halima, said.
"They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women's chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat."
Officials of Al Shabab declined to comment.
Abdullah Hussain, a student in north Mogadishu, said his elder brother was thrown behind bars when he fought back a militant who humiliated their sister by asking her to remove her bra.
Men were not spared the ‘moral cleansing'. Any man caught without a beard has been publicly whipped.
"I was beaten and my hair was cut off with a pair of scissors in the street," Hussain said.
Pakistans double game with USA
The core challenge to President Barack Obama’s Afghan War may not be the Taliban, nor even al-Qaeda, but rather Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence service, the ISI, with its dual loyalties when it comes to fighting Islamic extremists.
Indeed, the success of Obama’s Af-Pak policy may depend on whether Pakistan’s ISI – officially named the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate – can be neutralized or dismantled.
If the ISI remains intact, Obama may never know exactly what side of the street the Pakistani government is really working, given ISI’s historic role in organizing many of the miltant Islamic forces that are now challenging U.S. interests in the region.
During the long-simmering dispute with India over Kashmir, ISI-backed Pakistani Taliban were deployed to bloody up Pakistan's bitter rival, Hindu-ruled India. In the mid-1990s, the ISI-organized Afghan Taliban were used to establish an Afghan regime closely tied to Pakistan.
Those groups of ISI-trained militants are now at the center of the Af-Pak conflicts, with the Afghan Taliban fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban seeking to dislodge the Pakistani government, which the ISI ostensibly serves.
These dual loyalties also are not confined to the ISI. In Pakistan, which defines itself as an Islamic republic, a substantial minority if not a majority of military officers believe they should not fight fellow Muslims but should save most of their resources for the main battle against India and to a lesser extent the United States.
Many of these officers will play a double game, appearing to side with the Americans to get needed resources, but it is just that, a game.
Strong sympathy for the militants pervades 20 percent of the officer corps that is of Pashtun ancestry and thus has tribal loyalties to the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.
The ISI’s role in organizing and nurturing the Afghan Taliban forces also has created strong personal as well as institutional bonds. The ISI’s own rise from a minor part of the Pakistani intelligence community to its most influential element tracked with its work organizing those paramilitary militant forces.
The Covert War
In the 1980s, Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq assigned the ISI to handle the billions of dollars in aid pouring in from the United States and Saudi Arabia to help the Afghan mujahedeen fight a Soviet army that was propping up an Afghan communist regime.
ISI officers were steeped in Zia’s mindset which promoted Islamic fundamentalism as a way to advance the cause of securing Kashmir for Pakistan and dominating Afghanistan. President Zia pushed this militant Islamic vision from 1977 until his death in 1988.
As the war with the Soviets raged in Afghanistan, the ISI also helped set up madrassas for young male Afghan refugees inside Pakistan, teaching them a fundamentalist form of Islam.
After the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 and the communist government fell in 1992, chaos reigned in Afghanistan as warlords fought for control. To establish order – and ensure a pro-Pakistani regime in Afghanistan – the ISI fashioned the refugee students into a well-disciplined military force called the Taliban.
In 1996, the Taliban wrested control of Afghanistan, driving out a rival force, the Northern Alliance, which Pakistan suspected of having ties to India. That defeated group, led by Tajik mujahedeen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, took refuge in the far north.
With the Taliban’s victory, the ISI was no longer just an adviser to the Afghan militants; it was a full partner in the new government.
The ISI also organized a network of Pakistani Pashtuns to assist the comings and goings of al-Qaeda, a band of Arab extremists who first arrived in Pakistan to assist the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and later turned their anti-Western fury on the United States.
That Pakistani network merged with the Pakistani militants who had been part of the Kashmir struggle, creating a powerful Pakistani Taliban movement that is now spreading rapidly across the country.
Post 9/11
The double game played by the Pakistani military and intelligence services came into focus in 2001 when Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf found himself in a tight spot after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
President George W. Bush gave Musharraf an ultimatum: join the international community and fight al-Qaeda or face the whirlwind. Musharraf agreed to assist in the “war on terror,” as did the ISI – at least publicly.
Behind the scenes, however, the ISI immediately created and funded an organization -- mainly staffed by retired ISI officers -- to assist and fund the Afghan Taliban in their resistance to the Americans. [See Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos, p. 222.]
Some ISI agents even balked at leaving Afghanistan when ordered to do so, choosing instead to stay behind and help the Taliban during the U.S. invasion in October 2001.
Most of these ISI operatives were caught along with other foreign fighters (including many Arabs) when the Northern Alliance surrounded Kunduz.
Musharraf intervened with Bush to gain permission for an airlift that transported the Pakistanis and some foreign fighters to safety.
This event, which Pakistanis call the “Great Escape,” convinced many in the Pakistani army that they could continue to play their double game with the United States, confident that some officials in the Bush administration remained sympathetic.
(The airlift likely saved the lives of those fortunate enough to get out, since the Northern Alliance suffocated many of their captives by locking them in trailers.) [See Rashid’s Descent into Chaos, p. 91.]
The Pakistani army also contributed to what might have been President Bush’s worst military blunder when he counted on the Pakistanis to block escape routes from Tora Bora as U.S. warplanes pounded al-Qaeda’s base camps.
When Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants fled to Pakistan, they evaded the Pakistani army which proved ineffective in preventing key al-Qaeda personnel from reaching safe havens in Pakistan.
Dubious Loyalties
Though Pakistan maintained a surface cooperation with the United States – helping to capture a number of second-level al-Qaeda operatives holed up in Pakistan – suspicions remained about the true sentiments of the Pakistani government and especially the ISI.
Six years after 9/11, NATO officers serving in Afghanistan blamed U.S. failure to get tough with Pakistan as a key impediment to defeating the Afghan Taliban, which operated from bases along the Pakistani border.
When the Pakistani army did mount an offensive in the border region two years ago, it suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Pakistani Taliban. Western analysts suspected that the army officers didn’t have their heart in fighting their former allies.
Even today as the Pakistani army finally has stepped up its attacks on the Pakistani Taliban – after the group launched a campaign of terrorist attacks designed to destabilize the Pakistani government – Pakistani officials still are unwilling to engage the Afghan Taliban.
In July, Pakistani officials complained to the Obama administration that a U.S. Marine offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan was driving more militants into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
“Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India,” the Pakistanis told the Americans, according to New York Times reporters Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez.
“The Pakistani account made clear that even as the United States recommits troops and other resources to take on a growing Taliban threat, Pakistani officials still consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated.
“In the long term, the Taliban in Afghanistan may even remain potential allies for Pakistan, as they were in the past, once the United States leaves. …
“The United States maintains that the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammed Omar, leads an inner circle of commanders who guide the war in southern Afghanistan from their base in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
“American officials say this Taliban council, known as the Quetta shura, is sheltered by Pakistani authorities, who may yet want to employ the Taliban as future allies in Afghanistan.” [NYT, July 22, 2009]
Stark Choice
With the Pakistani military still playing its old double game – and still obsessed about India – the Obama administration faces a stark choice: either shower Pakistan with aid money in hopes that the situation will improve, or pursue a policy of isolating Pakistan and giving only limited amounts of humanitarian and development aid.
The first course is the current policy as reflected in the $7.5 billion civilian aid package signed by Obama on Thursday. Despite the American largesse, the aid bill raised hackles in Pakistan because it included conditions like greater civilian control over the military and a demand that Pakistan stop supporting militant groups.
Pakistani officials criticized the conditions as a violation of their nation’s sovereignty, prompting a White House statement that sought to smooth the ruffled feathers.
The second approach, isolating nuclear-armed Pakistan, could have two likely results:
The Pakistani people, in a voluntary act of the exercise of people’s power, might overthrow the ISI and related army generals and form a new government of national reconciliation with prospects for democracy and a healthier civil society.
Or more likely, there would be a coup against the democratically elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, who would be replaced by a pro-Taliban military officer. Given Pakistan’s possession of a small nuclear arsenal, that prospect terrifies many U.S. officials.
However, despite the risks, I regard an isolation strategy as superior to current policy because it would clarify the truth about the Pakistani military – that it continues to coddle violent extremists as part of its strategy to undermine India.
In time, I believe the Pakistani people would act like the people of Iraq and find a way out of the current chaos.
In Iraq, it was the Sunni tribal leaders’ rejection of al-Qaeda extremism and the unilateral cease-fire by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia forces – not the actions of Gen. David Petraeus – that contributed the most to the relative peace in Iraq today.
Similarly, Pakistani-based terror attacks like the one on Mumbai, India, and against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan – as well as the spread of harsh Taliban control over parts of western Pakistan – could cause the Pakistani people to rise up against the extremists and their ISI allies.
In my view, the United States will never have a fruitful partnership with the Pakistani government until the ISI is gone, their personnel dispersed and their buildings razed.
The Afghan Theater
Afghanistan represents a different, though related, problem, with the pressing issue there the level of U.S. troops – now at about 65,000 – with Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommending about 40,000 more.
But the more fundamental problem is the lack of qualified Afghan officials and a functioning Afghan government. By and large, Afghanistan has been without a professional cadre of bureaucrats since the communist government collapsed in 1992. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Afghanistan Really Fell Apart.”]
While President Hamid Karzai’s administration is frequently denounced for corruption, it also deserves condemnation for ignoring the tedious work of building a skilled government bureaucracy.
And it makes little sense for a beefed-up U.S. military to occupy unsecured areas and provide government services when Afghanistan lacks the civil affairs personnel to take over those jobs.
This summer, after 4,500 U.S. Marines routed Taliban forces from parts of Helmand Province, U.S. officials were struck by the shortage of trained Afghan troops to augment the force and the unwillingness of Afghan officials to provide government services in a relatively remote and dangerous area.
Rather than a second wave of Afghan bureaucrats providing civilian services, the Marines were followed by a small international “stabilization team.”
U.S. and British officials said “several factors, including a lack of qualified and educated workers in the remote province, a shortage of housing and office facilities for professionals from larger cities like Kandahar or Kabul, and a series of tensions and rivalries among various Afghan agencies, were impeding the kind of follow-up needed to convince residents that the Afghan government is credible, committed and a better alternative than the Taliban,” reported the Washington Post’s Pamela Constable.
"What we need is to put visible Afghan government in these areas," said John Weston, a U.S. civilian aide in Helmand who also had worked in Iraq. He added that without a solid Afghan presence, "we will have a lot of well-meaning Americans doing good things, but it will be a trap." [Washington Post, July 18, 2009]
So, in Afghanistan, the key issue is not specific U.S. troop levels, but the desperate need to build up the Afghan army and to create a bureaucracy of competent civil servants.
Military Role
Meanwhile, the greatest U.S. military imperative will be to do no harm.
While pulling out U.S. troops entirely could be devastating to democratic elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is little good that would likely come from new military offensives, outside of limited counter-terrorist strikes and defensive operations.
Rather than trying to extend U.S. and NATO military control everywhere, a wiser course might be to concentrate on areas of Afghanistan that are relatively friendly. The ethnic map lends itself to such a retrenchment, which would involve shifting away from the Pashtun heartland in the east and south.
The U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces could base themselves around Kabul and in northern areas dominated by the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen. Coalition forces also should be able to establish themselves in the Dari-speaking Shia Muslim (Hazara) areas to the west of Kabul.
In these secure areas, the coalition could accelerate reconstruction, including development of a decentralized bureaucracy to provide an array of government services.
Schools can be built outside Kabul for students who have shown promise. Health agencies could lower infant mortality, ameliorate chronic diseases such as malaria, measles, polio and tuberculosis, and stem outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever and cholera.
The goal would not be to create a paradise, but even modest progress would be welcomed by Afghans who have experienced only poverty and misery during three decades of violent interventions by both international and regional powers – including the Soviet Union, United States and Pakistan.
These U.S./NATO reconstruction efforts would advance slowly, only moving into districts that the U.S. military is confident it can hold and where development can be painstakingly promoted.
The Afghan Taliban are well financed with a hand in the drug trade valued at $3 billion to $4 billion and with untold millions of dollars flowing from sympathizers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates.
However, the United States and its allies are in a position to compete by providing valuable goods and services.
Despite McChrystal’s alarming report about a possible “mission failure” if more U.S. troops are not deployed, it should be remembered that even after the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the Afghan communist army managed to beat back rebel offensives.
At that time, the mujahedeen were receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid, including sophisticated U.S. military equipment. But the communist regime didn’t collapse until 1992, after the new Russian government of Boris Yeltsin cut off support.
The tribal nature of Afghanistan, accentuated by the rugged terrain, makes military conquests difficult whether by a high-tech super-power or a lightly armed guerrilla force.
So, even if the United States must settle for a temporary stand-off with the Taliban – while an Afghan government infrastructure is assembled and negotiations with more moderate Taliban are tried – the likelihood is not for a sudden collapse.
By tamping down the violence and showing some patience with reconstruction, President Obama might find that time is on his side and that calls for an urgent military buildup are misguided.
Too often, the American reaction to a problem has been to use force. Sometimes, the United States has been lucky in the outcomes even when a military intervention was a bad idea. Other times, vast quantities of blood have been spilled for no good reason.
This time, a U.S. escalation would surely kill many of the enemy – along with civilians and American soldiers – but such a slaughter would not likely achieve victory and would surely alienate many more Afghans.
The bottom line is that there appears little the United States can achieve militarily in this volatile region at least in the near term. So, the best strategy may be to refrain from the temptation to escalate – and instead count on the Afghan and Pakistani people to point the way toward a solution.
Bruce P. Cameron has served as a Washington lobbyist for various governments over the past several decades, including Nicaragua, Mozambique, Portugal and East Timor. He is the author of My Life in the Time of the Contras.
source
Indeed, the success of Obama’s Af-Pak policy may depend on whether Pakistan’s ISI – officially named the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate – can be neutralized or dismantled.
If the ISI remains intact, Obama may never know exactly what side of the street the Pakistani government is really working, given ISI’s historic role in organizing many of the miltant Islamic forces that are now challenging U.S. interests in the region.
During the long-simmering dispute with India over Kashmir, ISI-backed Pakistani Taliban were deployed to bloody up Pakistan's bitter rival, Hindu-ruled India. In the mid-1990s, the ISI-organized Afghan Taliban were used to establish an Afghan regime closely tied to Pakistan.
Those groups of ISI-trained militants are now at the center of the Af-Pak conflicts, with the Afghan Taliban fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban seeking to dislodge the Pakistani government, which the ISI ostensibly serves.
These dual loyalties also are not confined to the ISI. In Pakistan, which defines itself as an Islamic republic, a substantial minority if not a majority of military officers believe they should not fight fellow Muslims but should save most of their resources for the main battle against India and to a lesser extent the United States.
Many of these officers will play a double game, appearing to side with the Americans to get needed resources, but it is just that, a game.
Strong sympathy for the militants pervades 20 percent of the officer corps that is of Pashtun ancestry and thus has tribal loyalties to the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.
The ISI’s role in organizing and nurturing the Afghan Taliban forces also has created strong personal as well as institutional bonds. The ISI’s own rise from a minor part of the Pakistani intelligence community to its most influential element tracked with its work organizing those paramilitary militant forces.
The Covert War
In the 1980s, Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq assigned the ISI to handle the billions of dollars in aid pouring in from the United States and Saudi Arabia to help the Afghan mujahedeen fight a Soviet army that was propping up an Afghan communist regime.
ISI officers were steeped in Zia’s mindset which promoted Islamic fundamentalism as a way to advance the cause of securing Kashmir for Pakistan and dominating Afghanistan. President Zia pushed this militant Islamic vision from 1977 until his death in 1988.
As the war with the Soviets raged in Afghanistan, the ISI also helped set up madrassas for young male Afghan refugees inside Pakistan, teaching them a fundamentalist form of Islam.
After the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 and the communist government fell in 1992, chaos reigned in Afghanistan as warlords fought for control. To establish order – and ensure a pro-Pakistani regime in Afghanistan – the ISI fashioned the refugee students into a well-disciplined military force called the Taliban.
In 1996, the Taliban wrested control of Afghanistan, driving out a rival force, the Northern Alliance, which Pakistan suspected of having ties to India. That defeated group, led by Tajik mujahedeen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, took refuge in the far north.
With the Taliban’s victory, the ISI was no longer just an adviser to the Afghan militants; it was a full partner in the new government.
The ISI also organized a network of Pakistani Pashtuns to assist the comings and goings of al-Qaeda, a band of Arab extremists who first arrived in Pakistan to assist the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and later turned their anti-Western fury on the United States.
That Pakistani network merged with the Pakistani militants who had been part of the Kashmir struggle, creating a powerful Pakistani Taliban movement that is now spreading rapidly across the country.
Post 9/11
The double game played by the Pakistani military and intelligence services came into focus in 2001 when Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf found himself in a tight spot after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
President George W. Bush gave Musharraf an ultimatum: join the international community and fight al-Qaeda or face the whirlwind. Musharraf agreed to assist in the “war on terror,” as did the ISI – at least publicly.
Behind the scenes, however, the ISI immediately created and funded an organization -- mainly staffed by retired ISI officers -- to assist and fund the Afghan Taliban in their resistance to the Americans. [See Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos, p. 222.]
Some ISI agents even balked at leaving Afghanistan when ordered to do so, choosing instead to stay behind and help the Taliban during the U.S. invasion in October 2001.
Most of these ISI operatives were caught along with other foreign fighters (including many Arabs) when the Northern Alliance surrounded Kunduz.
Musharraf intervened with Bush to gain permission for an airlift that transported the Pakistanis and some foreign fighters to safety.
This event, which Pakistanis call the “Great Escape,” convinced many in the Pakistani army that they could continue to play their double game with the United States, confident that some officials in the Bush administration remained sympathetic.
(The airlift likely saved the lives of those fortunate enough to get out, since the Northern Alliance suffocated many of their captives by locking them in trailers.) [See Rashid’s Descent into Chaos, p. 91.]
The Pakistani army also contributed to what might have been President Bush’s worst military blunder when he counted on the Pakistanis to block escape routes from Tora Bora as U.S. warplanes pounded al-Qaeda’s base camps.
When Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants fled to Pakistan, they evaded the Pakistani army which proved ineffective in preventing key al-Qaeda personnel from reaching safe havens in Pakistan.
Dubious Loyalties
Though Pakistan maintained a surface cooperation with the United States – helping to capture a number of second-level al-Qaeda operatives holed up in Pakistan – suspicions remained about the true sentiments of the Pakistani government and especially the ISI.
Six years after 9/11, NATO officers serving in Afghanistan blamed U.S. failure to get tough with Pakistan as a key impediment to defeating the Afghan Taliban, which operated from bases along the Pakistani border.
When the Pakistani army did mount an offensive in the border region two years ago, it suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Pakistani Taliban. Western analysts suspected that the army officers didn’t have their heart in fighting their former allies.
Even today as the Pakistani army finally has stepped up its attacks on the Pakistani Taliban – after the group launched a campaign of terrorist attacks designed to destabilize the Pakistani government – Pakistani officials still are unwilling to engage the Afghan Taliban.
In July, Pakistani officials complained to the Obama administration that a U.S. Marine offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan was driving more militants into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
“Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India,” the Pakistanis told the Americans, according to New York Times reporters Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez.
“The Pakistani account made clear that even as the United States recommits troops and other resources to take on a growing Taliban threat, Pakistani officials still consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated.
“In the long term, the Taliban in Afghanistan may even remain potential allies for Pakistan, as they were in the past, once the United States leaves. …
“The United States maintains that the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammed Omar, leads an inner circle of commanders who guide the war in southern Afghanistan from their base in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
“American officials say this Taliban council, known as the Quetta shura, is sheltered by Pakistani authorities, who may yet want to employ the Taliban as future allies in Afghanistan.” [NYT, July 22, 2009]
Stark Choice
With the Pakistani military still playing its old double game – and still obsessed about India – the Obama administration faces a stark choice: either shower Pakistan with aid money in hopes that the situation will improve, or pursue a policy of isolating Pakistan and giving only limited amounts of humanitarian and development aid.
The first course is the current policy as reflected in the $7.5 billion civilian aid package signed by Obama on Thursday. Despite the American largesse, the aid bill raised hackles in Pakistan because it included conditions like greater civilian control over the military and a demand that Pakistan stop supporting militant groups.
Pakistani officials criticized the conditions as a violation of their nation’s sovereignty, prompting a White House statement that sought to smooth the ruffled feathers.
The second approach, isolating nuclear-armed Pakistan, could have two likely results:
The Pakistani people, in a voluntary act of the exercise of people’s power, might overthrow the ISI and related army generals and form a new government of national reconciliation with prospects for democracy and a healthier civil society.
Or more likely, there would be a coup against the democratically elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, who would be replaced by a pro-Taliban military officer. Given Pakistan’s possession of a small nuclear arsenal, that prospect terrifies many U.S. officials.
However, despite the risks, I regard an isolation strategy as superior to current policy because it would clarify the truth about the Pakistani military – that it continues to coddle violent extremists as part of its strategy to undermine India.
In time, I believe the Pakistani people would act like the people of Iraq and find a way out of the current chaos.
In Iraq, it was the Sunni tribal leaders’ rejection of al-Qaeda extremism and the unilateral cease-fire by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia forces – not the actions of Gen. David Petraeus – that contributed the most to the relative peace in Iraq today.
Similarly, Pakistani-based terror attacks like the one on Mumbai, India, and against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan – as well as the spread of harsh Taliban control over parts of western Pakistan – could cause the Pakistani people to rise up against the extremists and their ISI allies.
In my view, the United States will never have a fruitful partnership with the Pakistani government until the ISI is gone, their personnel dispersed and their buildings razed.
The Afghan Theater
Afghanistan represents a different, though related, problem, with the pressing issue there the level of U.S. troops – now at about 65,000 – with Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommending about 40,000 more.
But the more fundamental problem is the lack of qualified Afghan officials and a functioning Afghan government. By and large, Afghanistan has been without a professional cadre of bureaucrats since the communist government collapsed in 1992. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Afghanistan Really Fell Apart.”]
While President Hamid Karzai’s administration is frequently denounced for corruption, it also deserves condemnation for ignoring the tedious work of building a skilled government bureaucracy.
And it makes little sense for a beefed-up U.S. military to occupy unsecured areas and provide government services when Afghanistan lacks the civil affairs personnel to take over those jobs.
This summer, after 4,500 U.S. Marines routed Taliban forces from parts of Helmand Province, U.S. officials were struck by the shortage of trained Afghan troops to augment the force and the unwillingness of Afghan officials to provide government services in a relatively remote and dangerous area.
Rather than a second wave of Afghan bureaucrats providing civilian services, the Marines were followed by a small international “stabilization team.”
U.S. and British officials said “several factors, including a lack of qualified and educated workers in the remote province, a shortage of housing and office facilities for professionals from larger cities like Kandahar or Kabul, and a series of tensions and rivalries among various Afghan agencies, were impeding the kind of follow-up needed to convince residents that the Afghan government is credible, committed and a better alternative than the Taliban,” reported the Washington Post’s Pamela Constable.
"What we need is to put visible Afghan government in these areas," said John Weston, a U.S. civilian aide in Helmand who also had worked in Iraq. He added that without a solid Afghan presence, "we will have a lot of well-meaning Americans doing good things, but it will be a trap." [Washington Post, July 18, 2009]
So, in Afghanistan, the key issue is not specific U.S. troop levels, but the desperate need to build up the Afghan army and to create a bureaucracy of competent civil servants.
Military Role
Meanwhile, the greatest U.S. military imperative will be to do no harm.
While pulling out U.S. troops entirely could be devastating to democratic elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is little good that would likely come from new military offensives, outside of limited counter-terrorist strikes and defensive operations.
Rather than trying to extend U.S. and NATO military control everywhere, a wiser course might be to concentrate on areas of Afghanistan that are relatively friendly. The ethnic map lends itself to such a retrenchment, which would involve shifting away from the Pashtun heartland in the east and south.
The U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces could base themselves around Kabul and in northern areas dominated by the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen. Coalition forces also should be able to establish themselves in the Dari-speaking Shia Muslim (Hazara) areas to the west of Kabul.
In these secure areas, the coalition could accelerate reconstruction, including development of a decentralized bureaucracy to provide an array of government services.
Schools can be built outside Kabul for students who have shown promise. Health agencies could lower infant mortality, ameliorate chronic diseases such as malaria, measles, polio and tuberculosis, and stem outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever and cholera.
The goal would not be to create a paradise, but even modest progress would be welcomed by Afghans who have experienced only poverty and misery during three decades of violent interventions by both international and regional powers – including the Soviet Union, United States and Pakistan.
These U.S./NATO reconstruction efforts would advance slowly, only moving into districts that the U.S. military is confident it can hold and where development can be painstakingly promoted.
The Afghan Taliban are well financed with a hand in the drug trade valued at $3 billion to $4 billion and with untold millions of dollars flowing from sympathizers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates.
However, the United States and its allies are in a position to compete by providing valuable goods and services.
Despite McChrystal’s alarming report about a possible “mission failure” if more U.S. troops are not deployed, it should be remembered that even after the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the Afghan communist army managed to beat back rebel offensives.
At that time, the mujahedeen were receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid, including sophisticated U.S. military equipment. But the communist regime didn’t collapse until 1992, after the new Russian government of Boris Yeltsin cut off support.
The tribal nature of Afghanistan, accentuated by the rugged terrain, makes military conquests difficult whether by a high-tech super-power or a lightly armed guerrilla force.
So, even if the United States must settle for a temporary stand-off with the Taliban – while an Afghan government infrastructure is assembled and negotiations with more moderate Taliban are tried – the likelihood is not for a sudden collapse.
By tamping down the violence and showing some patience with reconstruction, President Obama might find that time is on his side and that calls for an urgent military buildup are misguided.
Too often, the American reaction to a problem has been to use force. Sometimes, the United States has been lucky in the outcomes even when a military intervention was a bad idea. Other times, vast quantities of blood have been spilled for no good reason.
This time, a U.S. escalation would surely kill many of the enemy – along with civilians and American soldiers – but such a slaughter would not likely achieve victory and would surely alienate many more Afghans.
The bottom line is that there appears little the United States can achieve militarily in this volatile region at least in the near term. So, the best strategy may be to refrain from the temptation to escalate – and instead count on the Afghan and Pakistani people to point the way toward a solution.
Bruce P. Cameron has served as a Washington lobbyist for various governments over the past several decades, including Nicaragua, Mozambique, Portugal and East Timor. He is the author of My Life in the Time of the Contras.
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