One of the paradoxes of America's bumbling intervention in Afghanistan is that the United States knows next to nothing about the country it is occupying. Not only that, but America's learning curve is so steep that it will be years, or decades, before our military and our intelligence services finally figure out which end is up — if they ever do. Which raises the question: how does years-long counterinsurgency learning curve sqaure with President Obama's pledge to start withdrawing troops by July, 2011?

I raise that question because that deadline will be long come and gone and US forces there still won't have any idea what they're doing.Last October,"Mc Chrystal Admits: We Don't Understand the Afghans," I quoted fairly extensively from General Stanley McChrystal's leaked, 66-page report on the war, in which he acknowledged that the United States and its allies, under the umbrella of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), are blind to Afghanistan's complexities. continue

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“His explosives couldn’t have blown up his own seat. Even if full power, it wouldn’t have worked.” These were the words relayed to me during a Jan. 2 interview with military analyst and counterinsurgency specialist Gordon Duff in regard to the attempt of Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab [sometimes referred to as Abdulmutallab] to ignite 80 grams of the explosive PETN on a flight destined for America. He also explained how the patsy’s country of origin, Nigeria, is clandestinely controlled by the Israeli army and Mossad.

These entities train the military, sell weapons, run the airports, and wield power over DICON (Defense Industries Corporation). Furthermore, Mutallab’s father is a Mossad partner and Israel’s No. 1 contact in Nigeria. As the former CEO of his country’s most influential bank and the man who ran their national arms industry, Mr. Mutallab also harbors extremely close relationships with the U.S. ambassador and CIA chief in Nigeria.

On Nov. 19, 2009, Mutallab supposedly felt so alarmed about his errant son’s behavior that he met with the CIA’s station chief in Nigeria. Duff describes the father in a Dec. 31 article for Veterans Today as “one of the richest people in the world, head of a major bank, head of the national armaments industry, and close associate of the U.S. ambassador,” as well as being a Mossad asset. Yet we’re to believe that nobody prevented his Yemeni-influenced “terrorist” son from boarding a plane ultimately bound for Detroit? continue

Allegations that ISI has ’stepped up harassment of U.S. Embassy’ in Islamabad

Various reports in the American press (including the below excerpt from ‘Politico‘ blog) have come out blaming Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) of ‘unnecessarily harassing’ US Embassy officials in Pakistan – after a number of US diplomatic staff and Embassy employees have recently been caught engaging in illegal and anti-state activities.

Politico reports: As the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad publicly complained yesterday of the systematic harassment of U.S. officials in Pakistan, a longtime American Af-Pak hand says the Pakistani intelligence service the ISI appears to be deeply involved in the campaign.

“Seems the ISI has been putting pictures (with addresses) of houses containing [Embassy] Americans in the Urdu newspapers as a provocation,” the AfPak hand writes. “Several times recently the RSO (Regional Security officer) at the Embassy has had to contact folks in their offices during the day, and tell them that they can’t go home to their house tonight because of the unwanted attention caused by the ISI/Journalist provocations. Station and Emb have complained to ISI – but no acknowledgement (not surprising) and no abatement of the activity (worrisome).”

“The United States Embassy in Pakistan complained publicly Thursday that its staff members were being harassed and detained as they traveled around the country, a rare public protest reflecting the tensions as America expanded its presence here,” the Associated Press reports.

“American officials say they need to expand the embassy staff to help disburse $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan. But many Pakistanis believe that the United States is bringing in spies to destabilize the country and to take over its nuclear program. American diplomats have faced delays in approvals for visas and visa extensions. Some have been stopped at checkpoints.” 

Pakistan and the United States are apparently not on the same page in regard to the Afghan Taliban, particularly insofar as the Haqqani network in Afghanistan is concerned. Washington clearly sees Sirajuddin Haqqani as the enemy. Pakistan sees him as a possible ally in the exit of the US from the war theater beginning in 2011. The US views Haqqani's fallback position (read sanctuary) in Pakistan as a direct threat to the Western coalition in Afghanistan and has warned of expanded drone strikes into Pakistani territory if it did not move more aggressively against him. Pakistan's reactions to the threat have ranged from sullen silence to outright anger expressed by senior establishment officials who consider Haqqani key to any reconciliation process. 

Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kiani, made no bones about his reservations on the subject when he responded to US exhortations "to do more" by saying that he had his hands full countering the al-Qaeda-inspired Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and that the Pakistan army was in no position to open another front. But there seemed to be a level of understanding on the common threat posed by the Afghan Taliban when The Washington Post quoted a Pakistani intelligence official as having said, "The Pakistani Taliban are the clear and present danger. They are what matters most. Once we are done with them, we will go after the Haqqani network" – signaling that no hard and fast lines had been drawn on the issue. continue

The current propaganda that MQM is running stage managed by that great BHAAND (even the bhaands of punjabi stage shows deliver a better performance) Altaf Hussain is failed attempt to tryto cover up their past sins. If that is not enough, we get Ali K Chishti with his barrister title to distribute propaganda online from youtube to chowk to KMB.

How many of you have lived in Karachi in 1990s? All shops and businesses used to get a 'parchi' for donation to MQM. No negotiation. Even couple of months ago there was news item in which Rabita Committee had said the citizens should report those elements which are collecting bhatta in the name of MQM. Assuming for the moment (a ludicrous hypothecal scenario) that these forces were not from MQM but rather Talibans, why didn't they say so? It is because nothing strikes more fear in a Karachiite than to be on the wrong side of MQM.

The bodies that used to be found in gunny bags in Karachi in Korangi, Landhi, New Karachi, etc. Taliban just perfected and humanized the art of killing informants (by doing away with gunny bags and shooting the guy). MQM victims used to have torture marks on their body, nails pulled out, cigarrete burns, drill machine holes. The newspapers of 1990s were replete with the descriptions.  continue

These days many so called ‘intellectuals’ like Pervez Hoodbhoy, NFP etc are always whining that we Pakistanis spend too much on defence and should cut our defence budget and spend more on reviving the economy, education and social sector. They believe that in today’s world economy is more important than arms and with a strong economy a country can have things their way.

This belief is based not on facts but on books and text they are taught at universities in a system which is based on making men and women better manager but not better leaders. I believe that Pakistan needs to spend on education, social sector and etc, but not at the cost of defence as she faces imminent threat from the East and now a looming threat from the West. With the threats that we are surrounded with, we have no choice but to keep our military defence up to date and running. There are great lessons to be learnt from history when many great empires have fallen because they did not pay enough attention to developing military capabilities.

The peaceful Dravidians of the Indus Valley Civilization were forced to leave their land and migrate by the much more powerful the Aryans. The Dravidians were smart people and were one of the first people who made the drainage system, they had trading with the Egyptians, but sheer force prevailed over their capabilities in other areas of development and technology.

The Arabs were able to take down the Mighty Persian Empire and the Roman Empires which were the two super powers of their time and had remained so for centuries. The Persians and the Romans (after the Greeks) fought many wars but were never able to defeat one another. However, the Arabs were able to take on both the Persians and Romans simultaneously. Both Empires despite their immense wealth could not use their riches to defeat the Arabs’ military might. continue