China May Test North Korea Leverage After Kim's Nuclear Blast

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Bloomberg.com

China has the ability to cripple North Korea by cutting off shipments of food, fuel, and luxury goods that Kim Jong Il doles out to loyalists. Kim's nuclear detonation may put that leverage in play and test its impact on the leadership.
China is increasingly frustrated by North Korea's defiance of United Nations resolutions designed to curb its atomic and missile programs and is worried that a nuclear-armed government in Pyongyang could spark a new arms race in Asia, analysts and a person familiar with the Obama administration's policy said.
Until now, China has rebuffed U.S. and Japanese calls for tougher economic penalties against North Korean leader Kim, agreeing only on narrow UN sanctions aimed at regime-run companies and arms imports.
"China may be reaching a point of understanding that Kim is going too far," said Dennis Wilder, a former Asia director for the White House National Security Council.
Should the Chinese leadership shift against North Korea, it isn't clear what levers would be used or whether economic clout would translate into political influence over a regime in a possible succession battle, according to the person familiar with administration policy and experts on China and North Korea.
By normal measures of economic influence, China has overwhelming and growing power over North Korea. China accounted for 73 percent of North Korea's international trade last year, up from less than a third in 2003, according to the Seoul-based Korea Trade & Investment Promotion Agency.
Oil, Food
China supplies 90 percent of North Korea's oil demand, 80 percent of consumer goods and 45 percent of its food, Dong Yong Seung, a researcher on North Korean issues at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said.
China didn't want to use stronger measures in the past out of fear of alienating possible successors to Kim or even sparking the collapse of North Korea, its ally of 60 years, and fomenting a refugee crisis along their 800-mile border.
An April 5 rocket launch, the May 25 nuclear detonation and subsequent short-range missile tests may lead China to work more closely with the U.S., the person familiar with U.S. policy said.
China's foreign ministry said the country "resolutely opposes" North Korea's nuclear test. On May 25 China agreed with the U.S., Japan and Russia to work toward a UN resolution censuring North Korea for its nuclear test and missile launches.
'Strong' Words
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said China's reaction suggests there will be unanimity in the UN Security Council for efforts to punish North Korea. "The Chinese government has been exceptionally strong in their words of condemnation," Gibbs said yesterday.
Possible Chinese actions would include implementing a UN ban on luxury imports such as cognac, caviar and high-end sedans, many of which pass through the Chinese border city of Dandong into North Korea.
"North Korea runs like a Mafia family," Wilder said. "If Kim can't deliver the luxuries to his elite, they might begin to question his loyalties."
China could also curtail access to Chinese banks. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury labeled Banco Delta Asia SARL in Macao a money-laundering "concern," prompting authorities there to freeze North Korean funds. In 2007 North Korea agreed to begin implementing an accord to scrap its nuclear program after the U.S. agreed to release the funds.
And in February 2003, China either threatened or carried out a halt in oil flows to North Korea for a few days. Soon after North Korea agreed to take part in what became the six- party talks on denuclearization, Wilder said.
Famine in 1990s
A reduction in food and fuel subsidies from China and the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s helped bring on a famine that may have killed 2 million people from 1994 to 1998, according to a 1999 study by the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace. Reducing subsidies isn't a likely option now, Wilder said.
"If China was really serious it could probably bring the country to its knees," said Richard Bush, an expert on North Korea and China at Washington's Brookings Institution.
So far that economic leverage hasn't been brought to bear, and China has seen its diplomatic efforts to curb Kim's nuclear program repeatedly foiled by North Korea. One reason: North Korea's actions stem in part from an internal struggle to succeed the ailing Kim, according to Wilder and Bush.
The nuclear and missile tests are a show of strength by Kim and a bid to gain the support of the military and aren't driven by international developments, they say.
China may have been trying to get "in good stead" with Kim's likely successors, said Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Now the Chinese may be reassessing their stance.
'Macho Acts'
The Chinese may consider "that the cost-benefit analysis of allowing him room to consolidate his succession by macho acts against the U.S., Japan and South Korea is causing too much instability in Northeast Asia," said Wilder, now a visiting fellow at Brookings.
The danger is that a nuclear North Korea could prompt South Korea and Japan to pursue atomic weapons and longer-range missiles, and the spread of nuclear arms across Asia could make China less safe.
For its part, China's government says it isn't leveraging its economic and political power over North Korea.
"The question of influence over another country's policies, internal matters is inappropriate and irrelevant," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ma Zhaoxutold reporters in Beijing on May 26.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Forsythe in Washington at mforsythe@bloomberg.net.

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Ten Things To Know About Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Moveon.org

1. Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the bench than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years. Over her three-decade career, she has served in a wide variety of legal roles, including as a prosecutor, litigator, and judge.
2. Judge Sotomayor is a trailblazer. She was the first Latina to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was the youngest member of the court when appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
3. While on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has consistently protected the rights of working Americans, ruling in favor of health benefits and fair wages for workers in several cases.
4. Judge Sotomayor has shown strong support for First Amendment rights, including in cases of religious expression and the rights to assembly and free speech.
5. Judge Sotomayor has a strong record on civil rights cases, ruling for plaintiffs who had been discriminated against based on disability, sex and race.
6. Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University and to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School.
7. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor "saved baseball" when she stopped the owners from illegally changing their bargaining agreement with the players, thereby ending the longest professional sports walk-out in history.
8. Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the environment in a case of protecting aquatic life in the vicinity of power plants in 2007, a decision that was overturned by the Roberts Supreme Court.
9. In 1992, Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate without opposition after being appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush.
10. Judge Sotomayor is a widely respected legal figure, having been described as "...an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind," "highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character would be assets," and "a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity."
Judge Sotomayor is an historic, uniquely qualified nominee to the Supreme Court. Let's get the word out and make sure we get a prompt, fair confirmation on her nomination.
Thanks for all you do,
-Nita, Kat, Daniel, Ilyse and the rest of the team
Sources for each of the 10 things:
1. White House Statement, May 26, 2009.
2. White House Statement, May 26, 2009a
3. Cases: Archie v. Grand Cent. Partnership, 997 F. Supp. 504 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) and Marcella v. Capital Dist. Physicians' Health Plan, Inc., 293 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2002).
4. Cases: Flamer v. White Plains, 841 F. Supp. 1365 (S.D.N.Y. 1993), Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 382 (2d Cir. 2003), and Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).
5a. "Sotomayor's Notable Court Opinions and Articles," The New York Times, May 26, 2009.
5b. Cases: Bartlett v. N.Y. State Board, 970 F. Supp. 1094 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), Greenbaum v. Svenska Hendelsbanken, 67 F.Supp.2d 228 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), Raniola v. Bratton, 243 F.3d 610 (2d Cir. 2001), and Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, 195 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 1999).
6. "Sonia Sotomayor: 10 Things You Should Know," The Huffington Post, May 26, 2009.
7. "How Sotomayor 'Saved' Baseball," Time, May 26, 2009.
8. "Sotomayor's resume, record on notable cases," CNN, May 26, 2009.

9. "Sotomayor's resume, record on notable cases," CNN, May 26, 2009.
10a. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit.
10b. "Sotomayor is Highly Qualified," The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2009.
10c. Honorary Degree Citation, Pace University School of Law, 2003 Commencement.

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Quarter of a million Sri Lankans face two years in camps

guardian.co.uk

Many of the quarter of a million people held in internment camps in Sri Lanka face up to two years behind razor wire, a government official said today.
The official from the defence ministry said Sri Lanka was not prepared to let the UN dictate terms over the length of time people could be held in the camps.
A UN spokesman, Gordon Weiss, said he was "shocked" at the revelation, which ran counter to previous government assurances.
"It was our understanding that the government was to return 80% of the people to their homes by the end of the year, or at least try to," he said.
The UN, Britain and human rights groups have been pressing the government in Colombo to release people from the camps as soon as possible.
The news came as the Red Cross suspended delivery of supplies to displaced civilians after the Sri Lankan government blocked access to camps it controls in the country's north.
"There is no access to these camps at this particular moment," said a Red Cross official in Geneva amid growing alarm about the plight of tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who arrived at the government-run camps with little more than the clothes on their backs.
The UNHCR refugee agency said: "Restrictions to enter the IDP [internally displaced people] sites imposed by the authorities over the weekend are hindering UNHCR's ability to deliver assistance to the IDP sites (a vast area spanning 4,000 acres [1,600 hectares]) in the district of Vavuniya, where a majority of the displaced population has been accommodated. This has undoubtedly hindered our ability to deliver assistance to the population in need."
The government says it needs to hold the civilians until it can establish whether or not they are Tamil Tigers.
A second official revealed that hardcore rebels were being held and interrogated in a secure unit in the south of the country. The defence ministry has refused to discuss their fate. Thousands of other former fighters are being held in what the government describes as "rehabilitation centres".
Save the Children claims that at least a quarter of pregnant and breastfeeding women in the camps are acutely malnourished.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is due to arrive in Sri Lanka on Friday to press the government to work towards reconciliation after 26 years of war and to allow humanitarian groups access to the camps.
But Lakshman Hulugalle, the Sri Lankan defence spokesman, said the UN had to accept it was up to the government to decide when people were released. "The UN can't dictate terms to us. They can always make a request but the UN hasn't asked us to release people," he said. "The government has a plan to resettle them. Let these agencies come and join us."
Hulugalle said the government had already resettled almost 200,000 people after the east of the country was liberated from Tamil Tiger control.
"We were able to resettle them within nine months. This operation will take a little longer - one and a half to two years," he said.
He said some elderly people who had been able to show they had close relatives to look after them had been released. But he said many of the others would have to stay behind.
"All won't be there for two years, but some will be there for two years," he said.
Responding to criticism of conditions inside the camps, where detainees have told the Guardian they are short of food, water and medicines, he said: "You can't expect five-star hospitality in an area like that.
"What we are providing are the basics - security, food, health and schools. These are basic. You can't expect an Oxford college."
Hulugalle said the government had turned down an offer of 750 previously -used blankets from the Hilton hotel group because people did not want to be treated as second-grade citizens. "They are not beggars," he said.
Hulugalle said many Tamil Tigers had dressed in civilian clothes during the fighting and that made it more difficult to identify them once they laid down their arms.
However, Suhada Gamalath, the man in charge of the jails where the majority of Tamil Tigers who surrendered are being held, said about 100 fighters were being held in a prison in Boosse in the south of the country. He said they would eventually be brought to trial and could face up to 20 years' jail if convicted of murder. Sri Lanka has the death penalty but it has not been used for many years.
Gamalath said there were between 2,000 and 3,000 former Tamil Tigers imprisoned, with up to 60 more arriving every day. Most had given themselves up, he said. The total included about 250 children below the age of 18, he said, with some as young as 14.
Today was declared a public holiday by the government to celebrate victory in the 26-year-long war with the Tamil Tigers.
State television continued to show pictures of the body of the rebel leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The defence ministry said the body would be burned or buried at an undisclosed location without a funeral.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

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The Fallacy of Laissez-faire Capitalism

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I think the whole concept of Laissez-faire Capitalism is based on at least one false premise. Alan Greenspan in October 2008 pretty much described the problem to the House Oversight Committee:

Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of shocked disbelief.

People will indeed act in self-interest. The assumption was the a well run company
would function in it's self-interest. However, the system was hijacked by a worship of CEOs. Filling their pockets with unimaginable funds gave them an illusion of being all knowing, and ultimately believing that their own self-interest was best. They surrounded themselves with Board members they controlled. The "dictatorship" of the shareholders suffered a coup at the hands of the CEOs.

This fallacy of mutual self-interest extends to the original corporate design. The interest of the collective share-holders was not the same as the the interests of the company, and certainly not the community.

The values of capitalism need a rework. Self-interest can not be the driver of the market. The value of stewardship of the community's interest needs to be incorporated at a fundamental, ie regulation, level. 

As we see in the mortgage scandal, the consumer can't possibly understand the market well enough to protect his own interests. Only the government can be in "loco parentis".

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Minnesota Disabled are 'unfairly' targeted by state budget cuts, advocates say

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Pawlenty runs for President on the backs of the disabled.
Minnesota Independent

How significant the cuts ultimately turn out to be is difficult to say at this point. Yesterday Pawlenty ruled out a special session or a government shutdown, and threatened to unilaterally make $4.6 billion in cuts. He fired the first shot across the bow by signing off on the legislature's funding bill for the Department of Human Services, but striking $381 million from the General Assistance Medical Care program for childless adults in 2011. Democrats continue to insist that they can work out a compromise budget with the governor.
But no matter who wins the battle at the Capitol, one fallout is clear: There will be significant cuts to services for people with mental and physical disabilities. Given that the Minnesota Department of Human Services consumes roughly 30 percent of the state's general fund, few programs will come away unscathed. But disability advocates charge that their clients are taking a disproportionate hit.
"I think we can make a strong case that vulnerable adults and the programs that protect them are being treated unfairly," says Steve Larson, public policy director for the Arc of Minnesota.
"There seems to be an overemphasis on cutting programs for people with disabilities," adds Bruce Nelson, chief executive officer of the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota.
"These are our most vulnerable people, along with the elderly. We seem to be moving away from the Minnesota tradition of taking care of those folks who are most in need through no fault of their own."
Thomas Huntley (DFL-Duluth), chairman of the House's Health Care and Human Services Finance Division, disputes that services for people with disabilities are taking a disproportionate hit, but he doesn't doubt the significance of the cuts.
"Are they going to hurt a lot of people?" he asks. "You bet. And I think people will die because of this bill."

Pakistan's Swat offensive risks wider backlash

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Reuters

Pakistan's heavy-handed offensive against the Taliban in northwest Pakistan is misguided and risks further destabilizing the country, western military and intelligence experts argue.
By throwing up to 15,000 troops and heavy weaponry against an estimated 5,000 Taliban in Swat, a valley northwest of Islamabad, the Pakistan army may make short-term gains, but it increases the likelihood of terror-style attacks on targets in more stable areas of eastern Pakistan in the longer-term.
While the army essentially had no choice but to go on the offensive after the Taliban broke a peace accord and the U.S. administration piled on pressure for action, the broader strategy needs overhauling, the analysts say.
"On this occasion, the Pakistan army has accepted that the breach of the Swat agreement by the Taliban did in fact represent a threat which it couldn't overlook or fail to respond to," said Nigel Inkster, an expert on transnational threats at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former director in Britain's secret intelligence service.
"That said, the techniques that are being deployed go against all accepted best-practice in dealing with a counter-insurgency, particularly the use of heavy fire power.
"There are times when you are fighting an insurgency when you do employ serious war fighting. But despite that, there's a general view that the very indiscriminate nature of the military response may well be storing up resentment elsewhere," he said.
Of particular concern is the ability of Taliban-allied groups to carry out attacks in more stable parts of the country, including the capital Islamabad, when the Taliban are squeezed in other areas -- the balloon analogy of the insurgency: when it is squashed in one spot it quickly inflates in another.
Such a response has been seen before when Pakistani troops have gone on the offensive, and a similar reaction is expected this time around, even if the Taliban do end up taking a severe hit in Swat and other parts of the northwest frontier province.
ALLIED GROUP THREAT
David Kilcullen, an Australian counter-insurgency expert and a former adviser to U.S. General David Petraeus, argues the Pakistani military has lost the counter-insurgency battle in the northwest frontier and Pakistan's tribal areas known as FATA.
"FATA is now yesterday's problem," he told an audience in London at the launch of his new book on guerrilla conflict.
"The real problem for Pakistan now is in Punjab and Sindh," he said, referring to two more stable provinces in the east. "We need to focus on building up Pakistan's police forces and making sure they are the frontline force in those provinces."
Others argue Pakistan's military has no alternative but to go full-throttle after the Taliban now, even if it does lead to attacks elsewhere. Western criticism is only going to further unsettle a Pakistani leadership that is already put-upon.
"It's not pretty, but if you want to win the war, there are not too many other ways of doing things," said Anatole Lieven, a professor in war studies at King's College London.
"The Taliban and its allies will resort to increased terrorist attacks elsewhere in Pakistan and then there will be two questions. One is whether the army and police can hold the territory that they have conquered in Swat," he said.
"And connected to that, is will they go on to reconquer other areas on the Afghan frontier as the Americans would like? That is much more questionable."
He predicted the Taliban and its allies would target Punjab, where very poor communities are susceptible to Islamist ideology even if they do not share any Pashtun ethnic affiliation.
"But I don't see it growing into a full insurgency," he said. "It will be local extremist groups allied to the Taliban."
Longer-term stability depends not just on bolstering Pakistan's military and police, and pumping money for jobs and development into poor or remote areas to undercut insurgency, but on U.S. forces getting out of Afghanistan, he said.
"The U.S. presence in Afghanistan is what's really feeding the insurgency in Pakistan. That can't be overlooked and it's the big issue for militants in Pakistan.
"The fundamental thing to do is get out of Afghanistan as quickly as we reasonably can. I'm not talking tomorrow, but there's got to be a strategy to do it and soon."
(Editing by Kate Kelland and Jon Hemming)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.

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Taliban on the run in Swat

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Asia Times Online
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Following a barrage of American pressure, Pakistan abruptly abandoned all its existing plans to thwart insurgents and, in a televised speech by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, promptly declared all-out war against the Pakistani Taliban.
Within hours, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Ashfaq Kiani, launched an aggressive military operation - supported by gunship helicopters, heavy artillery and fighters jets - into northern North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), ransacking Taliban sanctuaries in Swat and other areas. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that an estimated 200 militants were killed over the weekend, bringing the total killed in fighting in the region to 700.
Water, electricity and lines of communications were completely cut; the Taliban had no option but to flee. An exodus of the local population also began, with hundreds of thousands of residents leaving their homes. In the most affected districts of Swat, Buner and Shangla, some 70% of the population has fled for their lives. The number may soar to 1.5 million in the weeks ahead.
Elsewhere, the government sponsored anti-Taliban conferences across the country in which Shi'ite and Sufi clerics declared the Taliban rebels heretics and called for their destruction. All four of Pakistan's major political parties - including the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and the largest opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz - released statements in support of the military strike.
This was how the situation unfolded over the past week in Pakistan - a situation envisioned by the administration of former United States president George W Bush more than two years ago. The events are a culmination of years of political deals cut with Islamabad to form a consensus government and provide popular support for Washington's "global war on terror".
But the essential question remains: will Pakistan win this American war against the Taliban? Neither Islamabad nor Washington has the answer, but both realize this will be a very long war. Even if the Taliban can be routed, the force and scope of the operation will undoubtedly pit different segments of society against each other.
This is the exact situation that al-Qaeda has been waiting for.
On the ground
Seven years of war in Afghanistan have shown that no matter how much bad press the Taliban receives, they are still the representatives of Pashtun tribal culture and nothing is going to change this.
Even as the new drama was unfolding in Islamabad, the Taliban issued warnings to all doctors in the NWFP that if they didn't abandon Western pants and shirts and begin wearing Pakistani shalwar kameez, or "proper clothing", they would be attacked by the Taliban.
The NWFP department of health responded by asking doctors to comply and don the Taliban's preferred attire. Despite the powerful military push, many officials still do not have the heart to resist the Taliban.
The military campaign is not universally popular in Islamabad, either. At a dinner held on Sunday at the elite Islamabad Club, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the former chief of the fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami, lambasted Pakistan's Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan over the operation, claiming that it looked like a war against the people of Swat, not against the militants. Qazi Hussain Ahmed demanded to know why the plan was not approved by the parliament and the cabinet.
The federal minister initially avoided the answer and said that he respects Qazi Hussain Ahmed as a very senior politician. But when Qazi Hussain Ahmed continued his arguments, his patience ran out.
As witnessed by Asia Times Online, Dr Babar Awan said: "Sir, have you seen the footages shown by some international TV channels about how a senior official of the administration was informing the Taliban to leave the places as the security forces are set to enter in Buner? Sir, we did discuss the issues in the closed-door sessions of parliament, but what can we do when our parliamentarians leak the information to the militants? Even a minister leaked very crucial information to the militants. Now, tell me what [other] option [was there] except unleashing the military operation secretly?"
Qazi Hussain Ahmed countered by saying the regional curfew should be relaxed so ordinary civilians could leave instead of being bombed or starved. Some believe that should the humanitarian crises worsen, it would justify direct American interventions deep inside Pakistan.
Influential US military minds, such as retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, have been highlighting this possibility. Macgregor believes that the US should make Pakistan its focus rather than Afghanistan. But in Pakistan nobody is ready to accept this scenario. In fact, no Pakistani decision-maker could have foreseen that one day the entire world would consider the whole area of Afghanistan and Pakistan as the same conflict zone.
From the eyes of al-Qaeda
The militants did not anticipate such a quick operation in the area and were caught completely unprepared. The numbers of casualties for the security forces are minimal. In most areas, either the militants are on the run or under siege by the security forces. In some cases, they are using the civilian population as human shields.
According to the local people, transporters have raised the bus fares for a single seat from 700 rupees (US$8.70) to 7,000 rupees. People have left their belongings and homes abandoned as they fled to other cities for shelter. Such a mass exodus has not been seen in the region since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in late 1970s.
Now, for financially battered Pakistan, the biggest challenge is the management of the refugees. So far, no political party has been seen in the affected areas. The only NGO, which is active for the relief operation is Al-Khidmat, a wing of the Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. The number of displaced people is likely to grow to as many as 1.5 million in coming days. The total funds the government has allocated so far is 200 million rupees (out of total 1 billion rupees announced by the prime minister). This means roughly 133 rupees for each person, hardly enough for one day's food.
The complaints have already started, and in the weeks ahead the situation is likely to get worse. As in the past, people may blame the government for the situation, not the Taliban.
Taliban may simply flee from Swat, as they did in late 2007, and regroup in different places to exploit the chaotic situation. Gaining several thousands of new recruits should not be a problem, especially when they are lured by monthly stipends and other benefits. The Taliban can easily generate resources from robberies and ransoms. Within a few months, the Taliban will be able to raise new brigades of guerrillas.
With large numbers of people travelling to destinations like Islamabad and Lahore, ethnic tensions will flare up as people in Punjab are already wary of the Taliban and have started treating all Pashtuns with suspicion.
Amid the military strikes, an anti-Taliban religious segment is amplifying its grudge against the militants. When the Taliban regroup they are likely to strike back, killing their opponents as they have done in the past. If that happens, neither the Sufis nor Shi'ites will have much support - neither from their frightened constituencies nor from the military establishment.
This is the situation al-Qaeda has desired for a very long time. Al-Qaeda carried out sectarian attacks on Shi'ite mosques, allegedly assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and bombed bombed public places. But they failed to rupture the national fibre of the country or create enough chaos in Pakistan to draw security forces to multiple fronts.
Now the government has done this for them. Islamabad has sponsored a military campaign that will push an isolated situation to the other parts of the country. The previous fear of the "Talibanization" of Pakistan could possibly become reality.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Stressing the Positive for Banks; The Rest of Us Should Be Very Afraid

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NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Hooray! The banking crisis is over! Let's party! O.K., maybe not.
In the end, the actual release of the much-hyped bank stress tests on Thursday came as an anticlimax. Everyone knew more or less what the results would say: some big players need to raise more capital, but over all, the kids, I mean the banks, are all right. Even before the results were announced, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, told us they would be "reassuring."
But whether you actually should feel reassured depends on who you are: a banker, or someone trying to make a living in another profession.
I won't weigh in on the debate over the quality of the stress tests themselves, except to repeat what many observers have noted: the regulators didn't have the resources to make a really careful assessment of the banks' assets, and in any case they allowed the banks to bargain over what the results would say. A rigorous audit it wasn't.
But focusing on the process can distract from the larger picture. What we're really seeing here is a decision on the part of President Obama and his officials to muddle through the financial crisis, hoping that the banks can earn their way back to health.
It's a strategy that might work. After all, right now the banks are lending at high interest rates, while paying virtually no interest on their (government-insured) deposits. Given enough time, the banks could be flush again.
But it's important to see the strategy for what it is and to understand the risks.
Remember, it was the markets, not the government, that in effect declared the banks undercapitalized. And while market indicators of distrust in banks, like the interest rates on bank bonds and the prices of bank credit-default swaps, have fallen somewhat in recent weeks, they're still at levels that would have been considered inconceivable before the crisis.
As a result, the odds are that the financial system won't function normally until the crucial players get much stronger financially than they are now. Yet the Obama administration has decided not to do anything dramatic to recapitalize the banks.
Can the economy recover even with weak banks? Maybe. Banks won't be expanding credit any time soon, but government-backed lenders have stepped in to fill the gap. The Federal Reserve has expanded its credit by $1.2 trillion over the past year; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become the principal sources of mortgage finance. So maybe we can let the economy fix the banks instead of the other way around.
But there are many things that could go wrong.
It's not at all clear that credit from the Fed, Fannie and Freddie can fully substitute for a healthy banking system. If it can't, the muddle-through strategy will turn out to be a recipe for a prolonged, Japanese-style era of high unemployment and weak growth.
Actually, a multiyear period of economic weakness looks likely in any case. The economy may no longer be plunging, but it's very hard to see where a real recovery will come from. And if the economy does stay depressed for a long time, banks will be in much bigger trouble than the stress tests -- which looked only two years ahead -- are able to capture.
Finally, given the possibility of bigger losses in the future, the government's evident unwillingness either to own banks or let them fail creates a heads-they-win-tails-we-lose situation. If all goes well, the bankers will win big. If the current strategy fails, taxpayers will be forced to pay for another bailout.
But what worries me most about the way policy is going isn't any of these things. It's my sense that the prospects for fundamental financial reform are fading.
Does anyone remember the case of H. Rodgin Cohen, a prominent New York lawyer whom The Times has described as a "Wall Street éminence grise"? He briefly made the news in March when he reportedly withdrew his name after being considered a top pick for deputy Treasury secretary.
Well, earlier this week, Mr. Cohen told an audience that the future of Wall Street won't be very different from its recent past, declaring, "I am far from convinced there was something inherently wrong with the system." Hey, that little thing about causing the worst global slump since the Great Depression? Never mind.
Those are frightening words. They suggest that while the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration continue to insist that they're committed to tighter financial regulation and greater oversight, Wall Street insiders are taking the mildness of bank policy so far as a sign that they'll soon be able to go back to playing the same games as before.
So as I said, while bankers may find the results of the stress tests "reassuring," the rest of us should be very, very afraid.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Balochistan is the ultimate prize in Pakistan/Afghanistan

Image via Wikipedia

Asia Times Online

It's a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama's
brand new OCO ("Overseas Contingency Operations"), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror") does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable.
Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan's 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has
not been able to locate Quetta resident "The Shadow", historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself.
Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.
Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.
Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai - while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land.
To top it all, there's the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever "wins" Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of "gas republic" Turkmenistan.
The cavalry to the rescue
Now imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama's surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan.
What would the Balochis do? That's a very complex question.
Balochistan is of course tribal - just as the FATA. Local tribal chiefs can be as backward as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). A parallel could be made with the Swat valley.
Most Baloch tribes bow to Islamabad's authority - except, first and foremost, the Bugti. And then there's the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) - which both Washington and London brand as a terrorist group. Its leader is Brahamdagh Bugti, operating out of Kandahar (only two hours away from Quetta). In a recent Pakistani TV interview he could not be more sectarian, stressing the BLA is getting ready to attack non-Balochis. The Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad denies it, saying their support is not beyond 10% of the provincial population.
It does not help that Islamabad tends to be not only neglectful but heavy-handed; in August 2006, Musharraf's troops killed ultra-respected local leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former provincial governor.
There's ample controversy on whether the BLA is being hijacked by foreign intelligence agencies - everyone from the CIA and the British MI6 to the Israeli Mossad. In a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to Sistan-Balochistan in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran's version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. And it's no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controls the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.
In October 2001, while I was waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, and apart from tracking the whereabouts of President Hamid Karzai and his brother, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as "progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist" (and that makes them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of "Punjabi chauvinism", and always insisted the region's resources belong to Balochis first; that was the rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.
Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16% ("It's government policy to keep Balochistan backward"), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70% of the Baloch population ("Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it's the talk of the bazaars"). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that "Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples".
As a whole, not only BLA sympathizers but the Balochis in general are adamant: although prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, they want infinitely more autonomy.
Game on
How crucial Balochistan is to Washington can be assessed by the study "Baloch Nationalism and the Politics of Energy Resources: the Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan" by Robert Wirsing of the US Army think-tank Strategic Studies Institute. Predictably, it all revolves around Pipelineistan.
China - which built Gwadar and needs gas from Iran - must be sidelined by all means necessary. The added paranoid Pentagon component is that China could turn Gwadar into a naval base and thus "threaten" the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
The only acceptable scenario for the Pentagon would be for the US to take over Gwadar. Once again, that would be a prime confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases.
Not only in terms of blocking the IPI pipeline and using Gwadar for TAPI, control of Gwadar would open the mouth-watering opportunity of a long land route across Balochistan into Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar or, better yet, all of these three provinces in southwest Afghanistan. From a Pentagon/NATO perspective, after the "loss" of the Khyber Pass, that would be the ideal supply route for Western troops in the perennial, now rebranded, GWOT ("global war on terror").
During the Asif Ali Zardari administration in Islamabad the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, has been regrouping and rearming, while the current chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, is suspected of being a CIA asset (there's no conclusive proof). There's fear in Islamabad that the government has taken its eye off the Balochistan ball - and that the BLA may be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. But Islamabad still seems not to have listened to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.
So what's gonna be the future of "Dubai" Gwadar? IPI or TAPI? The die is cast. Under the radar of the Obama/Karzai/Zardari photo-op in Washington, all's still to play in this crucial front in the New Great Game in Eurasia.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Al Jazeera Strikes Back at Pentagon, Releases Unedited Footage of U.S. Soldiers' 'Bible Study' in Afghanistan

AlterNet

The network released unedited tapes of the 'hunt for Jesus' one day after the Pentagon accused it of being 'irresponsible' for its initial report.

Hours after Al Jazeera first broadcast a video
showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by the military's top
chaplain in the country to "hunt people for Jesus" as they spread Christianity
to the overwhelmingly Muslim population, the Pentagon shot back. It charged
that Al Jazeera had "grossly misrepresent[ed] the truth." Col. Greg Julian, told
Al Jazeera: "Most of this is taken out of context ... this is irresponsible
and inappropriate journalism."

Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are
striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered
footage of U.S. soldiers in 'bible study' in Afghanistan. Jazeera describes
it as "Extended footage shot by Brian Hughes, a U.S. documentary maker and
former member of the U.S. military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul."

In Al Jazeera's original report, Hughes addressed the fact that soldiers had
imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. "[U.S. soldiers] weren't
talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and
using that as the tool for language lessons," Hughes told Al Jazeera. "The only
reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the
Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it ...
documenting it would be important."

Regarding allegations that the sermon of the military's top chaplain in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, where he instructs soldiers to "hunt people
for Jesus" was taken out of context, Hughes said
in a statment, "Any contention by the military that his words are
purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is
absolutely false."

Hughes is completely standing by the accuracy of Al
Jazeera's report. Here is Hughes's statement:

On Sunday, May 3, the Al Jazeera English network and I made an agreement to
produce a
broadcast segment from a rough cut of my documentary film. This opportunity
came after a May 2009 Harper's magazine cover story called "Jesus Killed
Mohammed." While he researched and prepared that article, I allowed the author Jeff Sharlet to view the
work-in-progress documentary. Sharlet's article brought the film
to Al Jazeera English's attention.




My documentary, titled The Word and the Warriors, is inspired by a personal experience
I had while serving as a combat flight crew member during the first Gulf War.
During a very difficult and emotional time at war, an Army chaplain provided me
comfort and counsel. I will never forget the important advice or the man who -
without questioning my own faith - helped me at a time of need.




For two-and-a-half years, I have been researching and producing this film. I
have traveled the world, interviewing both military servicemembers and
civilians about the important role of these religious leaders/military
officers.




During April/May 2008, I went to Afghanistan. With the assistance and full
cooperation of the U.S. Army, I was allowed to film at Bagram Air Field. During
that time, I was always wearing press credentials, and I was always accompanied
by a media liaison while filming. The media liaison staff knew everything I
filmed and - as I was told by them - they filed reports every evening about
what I had filmed. It was my primary media liaison, an Army NCO, who - on my
first day - invited me to meet LTC Gary Hensley. Hensley, the ranking chaplain
in Afghanistan talked to me off camera expressing a concern he had about
allowing me to film his chaplains. At the conclusion of the discussion, he
agreed that I would be allowed to embed with his chaplains and invited me to
film several hours of religious services.




Those hours at the Enduring Faith Chapel included his own sermon at a
service called Chapel Next. With the exception of a few minutes I could not
film because I was reloading my camera or moving to position for another shot,
I videotaped Hensley's entire sermon.




Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of
context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false.




In recent
press statements, the military also contends that - in the footage
depicting the Afghan-language (Dari and Pashto) bibles - a cut was made before
"it would have shown that the chaplain instructed that the Bibles not be
distributed." This is a false statement. The chaplain - as seen in the footage
before the cut - instructs the group to be careful and reiterates the
definition of General Order #1. After this cut he begins to organize the group
for the evening's bible study lessons.




Finally, and in my opinion most important, is the fact that EVERY FRAME of
the rough cut from Bagram was provided to the U.S. Army Public Affairs Office
in advance of this release. On Thursday, April 30 at approximately 1 pm
EST, the Army took possession of a DVD with this footage by accepting a FedEx
from me. Since Al Jazeera English first aired the piece Sunday, May 3 at 10pm
EST, the Army had every frame of this

Al-Qaeda gets a new target

Image via Wikipedia

Asia Times Online

Within two weeks of United States officials laying down the law to key Pakistani players - including President Asif Ali Zardari, chief of army staff General Ashfaq Kiani and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif - that they must join forces against the Taliban, a committee has been formed to decide on the modalities for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) to join the federal government.
This coincides with a public warning by US Central Command chief General David Petraeus that the next two weeks will be critical in determining whether or not the Pakistani government survives, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's comment on Monday that he was "gravely concerned" about Pakistan. Zardari is due in Washington this week for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.
In this charged environment, former premier Sharif has for the first time openly criticized the Taliban for their "brutal conduct" and their brand of Islam, which he pointed out included stoning to death and the amputation of hands. Sharif's statement serves as an announcement of his support for a new American-sponsored military operation in Pakistan.
This is an important and dangerous shift for Sharif and his right-wing party as it places them directly in the crosshairs of the Taliban and their al-Qaeda colleagues.
The new round of military operations has already begun in the Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). In February, after two years of fighting between militants and Pakistani security forces, a peace agreement was struck in the Swat area. One of its features was that sharia (Islamic) law would be introduced. However, over the past week or so, the truce appears to be in tatters, with fierce fighting raging and both sides claiming grave violations of the accord.
A curfew has been slapped on the area for an indefinite period and additional troops have been sent in to sort out the Taliban in Malakand division if they refuse to lay down their weapons.
Unlike in the recent past, when the present Pakistani government clearly distanced itself from any military operations against militants, calling them exclusively army work and passing resolutions in parliament against them, presidential spokesperson Farahnaz Isphani is now singing a different tune.
She said in a press statement, "The people of Pakistan and their elected representatives fully back the security forces conducting an operation against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in NWFP. The security forces are involved in a fight that will decide the future of Pakistan. It is a battle for a modern, democratic, progressive and pluralistic Pakistan."
Isphani said the elected representatives were fully aware of the efforts being made by the Pakistan army in the "war on terror", and they would support military operations through all possible means. She said the government was committed to ridding the country of terrorism and hoped the president's visit to the US would help the Obama administration and opinion-makers in Washington understand the concerns of Pakistanis.
Al-Qaeda looks on with concern
Over the past few years, al-Qaeda in Pakistan has lost more than a dozen senior leaders to US Predator drone attacks and seen its support in the tribal areas shrink in the face of peace deals between tribal elders and the government.
Another major upset came from Syed Munawar Hasan, the newly elected chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest religious party. Al-Qaeda had expected a lot from him, but he came out in his first policy address and publicly announced his support for democracy and condemned all kinds of terrorism, saying that anyone who had joined al-Qaeda should leave that path. He did though condemn the pro-American policies of the government and lend clear support for the Taliban-led Afghan national resistance.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have responded to the military and secular leaders joining forces by sending their leaders in Afghanistan underground.
In jihadi circles, the traditional punishment for betrayal is death. For al-Qaeda, in the face of this "betrayal" by Sharif and others, they have adopted a different but potentially as dangerous approach.
A few days ago, al-Qaeda's media wing al-Sahab released a detailed video documentary on the life, struggles and death of a surgeon from the southern port city of Karachi, Dr Arshad Waheed. The video was uploaded on Youtube and the media were informed.
Arshad Waheed was a surgeon at a prominent hospital in Karachi when he was arrested in 2004, along with his brother, also a heart surgeon, Dr Akmal Waheed. They were held on charges of facilitating militants associated with an al-Qaeda-linked group, Jundullah. The brothers were subsequently released on bail and Arshad moved to the South Waziristan tribal area, where he was killed last year in a US drone strike. The brothers were prominent activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its medical wing, the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association.
The documentary stresses the loyalty of Arshad Waheed to the cause of jihad, and contrasts this with what it calls the betrayals of leaders like Nawaz Sharif. Sharif is pictured with various US officials and is portrayed as an opportunist who used the name of Islam and the Taliban to gain votes in the parliamentary elections of February 2008.
"No law is acceptable except the laws framed by the Koran," Arshad Waheed is shown as saying in an address to a gathering in South Waziristan. Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are then pictured meeting with various British and American officials. Some of the background commentary says, "Democracy is a sham and it takes us away from the real course of the Islamic system of life. In democracy, politics cannot serve the Islamic cause, but deviate it."
The release of the video and the interest it has stirred places Sharif and his PML-N in a bind. Now that Sharif has, under US pressure, turned on the Taliban and al-Qaeda, whose names he previously used to gain popularity, he has made bitter foes of them - and become a target.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamist party whose goal is to combine all Muslim countries into a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, issued a statement:

Nawaz Sharif's reality, that is, his secular ideas, has been exposed. We warn him that mocking and criticizing Islamic penal laws like the amputation of hands and stoning to death might have acquired him American support, but not the appeasement of the Prophet Mohammad in the life hereafter.
By criticizing Islamic laws, Nawaz Sharif has actually convinced the Americans that he will leave Asif Zardari behind in carrying out American dirty work in the region. This once again proves that democracy is a sham and that the caliphate will provide genuine leadership to the Muslim nation.

The leader of the opposition in parliament and a key member of the PML-N, Chaudhary Nisar Ahmad, responded in a television show, "This is absolutely the wrong impression, that we are going to support the American cause in the region. We have opposed American policies in the region and we will continue to do that."
It appears, though, that Sharif has made his decision, even though it places his life on the line with jihadis. His support for the "American war" will keep him going in politics. Were he not to do so, the result would most likely be some form of a military coup, which would spell his political death.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Exposed jihadis put Pakistan on the spot

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Asia Times Online

The high-profile arrest of a group of Pakistani militants in mid-April in the restive Afghan province of Helmand by the Afghan army and their subsequent handover to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for grilling exposed a jihadi network running to the heart of urban Pakistan.
In the course of interrogation, the militants confessed to being recruited, trained and then launched into Helmand after spending some time in places such as the southern port city of Karachi and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
They also gave details of their Pakistani leaders and their activities, including how these leaders could move around freely and how they owned huge religious establishments.
The report of the interrogation of the militants, circulated to all tiers of NATO command, including the top military and diplomatic command, raises immediate questions on the competence and the commitment of the Pakistani government in controlling militants.
This event happened when there were already heated arguments between Islamabad and Western capitals on the handling of the militancy, especially in the Swat Valley, where there is a peace treaty of sorts between the government and militants.
In the United States, President Barack Obama, Central Command chief General David Petraeus and army head Admiral Mike Mullen have all raised questions over the competence of the Pakistani government, while expressing appreciation for the armed forces.
Mullen visited Pakistan twice in 10 days and met with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani, army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, among others. The message was hammered home that it is Pakistan which is running out of time, and not a particular section of society or government. Therefore, the entire Pakistani national leadership has to move very quickly to bury political differences to fight against the threat of the Taliban.
The statements were not indicative of supporting a coup in Pakistan, but a clear warning for the entire Pakistani national leadership, whether in opposition or in the government. American officials have already spoken in detail of the need for them to develop a comprehensive consensus on national policy against the militancy. This would involve removing their mental blocks concerning the Taliban - whether for or against or because of political compulsions. In short, the leaders have been urged to remain focused on the US-led "war on terror".
Well-placed contacts have confirmed to Asia Times Online that as a follow-up of these warning messages from American officials, in the next few days Sharif will accept a power-sharing formula to join the government led by Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to fight against the Taliban.
In terms of this, powerful political slots will be offered to the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) group. In principle, former premier Sharif has agreed to the terms and will add his party's weight to the battle against the Taliban. Alternatively, if either the PML-N or the PPP refuses to accept the formula, a technocratic interim government under the auspices of the Pakistani armed forces might take over.
This development sets the stage for a new battle against the Taliban in Pakistan. And for the first time, Taliban command councils in southwestern Balochistan province and across the border in Helmand and Kandhar have warned their cadre to be aware of the possible changes in Islamabad.
Caught out
While US officials were shuttling back and forth to Pakistan, seven youths were seized by the Afghan National Army (ANA) in the Gramsir district of Helmand province.
Pakistani youths from the tribal areas and the cities have frequently been arrested or killed by NATO troops in Afghanistan. Most of these youngsters went to the country in the zeal of jihad, and they could usually be linked to particular stand-alone point-persons.
This time it was different.
Three of the men have been identified as Enyatur Rahman (North-West Frontier Province - NWFP), Saeed (NWFP) and Imran (Punjab). When they were apprehended along with the four others, a Pakistani Taliban commander named Mansoor, based in Helmand, aware of the possibility of them exposing a major jihadi network inside Pakistan, tried his level-best to negotiate with ANA to prevent them from falling into the hands of NATO.
But a little mishandling caused ANA to turn them over to NATO.
There is an arrangement between the Taliban and ANA all over the south of Afghanistan, especially in Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Helmand and Ghazni provinces.
Under this, when ANA troops are sent on patrol inside Taliban areas, they pay the Taliban to avoid being killed. The price is arms, ammunition or rockets, which is handed over and then reported as having been lost during an encounter with the Taliban.
In turn, when ANA arrests any Taliban fighters, they demand cash money for their release. If the fighters are Pakistani or non-Afghan, ANA takes a little longer to negotiate a price, but if the fighters are Afghans, ANA personnel will not take unnecessary risks. Either they strike a deal then and there and release the Taliban fighters, or within a few days they hand them over to NATO. The reason is to avoid direct confrontation with the Afghan Taliban and their tribal constituencies, which could cause problems in any prolonged negotiations.
Under this arrangement, as the seven men were Pakistani, Mansoor started negotiations with ANA for the release of his men. ANA demanded US$200,000, Mansoor countered with an offer of 2 million rupees (US$25,000), which was refused. Mansoor then arranged for 10 million rupees to be paid, but since almost 10 days had passed, ANA handed the Pakistanis over to NATO.
Mansoor mishandled the situation on two counts. First, he did not involve the Afghan Taliban command, and secondly he took too long in reaching an agreeable figure.
Apparently, the youths soon began talking under interrogation. In particular, they gave details of a jihadi network known for its past association with the defunct Jaish-e-Mohammad. They also gave details of their backgrounds and how they were recruited and how they had spent time in different Pakistani urban centers, where the leaders of their network openly ran religious establishments.
This information was shared with concerned Pakistani quarters, but by that time all senior Pakistani Taliban commanders had gone underground. In the bigger picture, though, the incident provided Washington the ammunition it needed to really go after the Pakistan national leadership and warn that the entire country needed to stand up as one to fight against all sections and groups of the Taliban in the country. They reminded that it is not any particular government or political party, but the state of Pakistan that is running out of time.
This is where a new joint government involving Sharif could come into play, and Pakistan will once again be dancing to American tunes.
The Pakistani Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies obviously will not stand back. Al-Qaeda's command has already drawn up plans to stir up a reaction all across the country - the masses will be urged to show their allegiance in black and white.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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The Hush-Hush Story: Why They Tortured

The LA Progressive

The US Senate Armed Services Committee report, issued April 21, on the interrogation techniques employed against detainees following the September 11 terrorist attack, wrote Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times, "reads like deja vu all over again: the US establishment under Bush was a replay of the Spanish Inquisition. And it all started even before a single 'high-profile al-Qaeda detainee' was captured.
What Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assorted little inquisitors wanted was above all to prove the non-existent link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaeda, the better to justify a pre-emptive, illegal war planned by the now-defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the late 1990s. The torture memos were just a cog in the imperial machine."
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman mentioned it in his column April 24, writing, "For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract 'confessions' that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way." Krugman was more explicit in his blog, titled "Grand Unified Scandal" appearing the previous day, after the Senate report came out. "Let's say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link," he wrote. "There's a word for this: it's evil."
The impetus for the comment by Krugman and Escobar was a story carried April 21 in the McClatchy Newspapers by Jonathan S. Landay The story has made the rounds on the internet and in some of the foreign press but as of this writing has been ignored or obscured by most of the major U.S. media.
"The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist," wrote Landay. "Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.
"The use of abusive interrogation - widely considered torture - as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them."
Landay went on to quote "A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue" saying former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 'demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.'
"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," Landay was told. "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

Few dare call Ahmed Chalabi what he is, an Iranian intelligence agent, who along with AIPAC officials, Israeli Intelligence agents duped Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal into invading Iraq.
And now the Israeli spies will get away with it because the truth of the huge security hole in the Bush Administration will become obvious to all.
Reuters

"Given the diminished likelihood the government will prevail at trial under the additional intent requirements imposed by the court and the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment," Dana Boente, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.

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