Obama’s Afghan Strategy and Two Presidents of Af-Pak

IT IS NOT NECESSARY THAT WE MAY AGREE WITH ANY OR ALL OF THE ASSERTIONS MADE IN THIS ARTICLE.


AGHA AMIN

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Obama’s Afghan Strategy & Two Presidents of Af-Pak



By Usman Khalid



There were no surprises in the new strategy announced by President Obama over the now hyphenated countries Afghanistan and Pakistan referred to by Americans as Af-Pak. It is true that the cause of insurrection in both countries is the same i.e. Al-Qaeda. But there are differences, which if ignored, can lead to Viet Nam type disaster for America while the people of Af-Pak would bear much of the cost in human lives and misery. To understand that difference one has to start with a realisation that there is near unanimity in public perception in the Muslim World that America is their No 1 enemy, Al-Qaeda is No 2. What is their reasoning?



The Mujahideen defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in a decade long war in which the USA provided half the money (the other half being provided by Saudi Arabia) which averaged about 600 million Dollars a year. That is a paltry sum that almost every country can afford. Pakistan organised the forces and provided logistic support. The bulk of the fighters – Mujahideen – were Afghans but there were a significant number of Pakistanis and Arabs. Almost every Muslim country and community provided volunteers in varying numbers. It was, what the Americans call, Global Jihad.



After the Soviet Union was defeated, the Mujahideen looked for a reason why they could not liberate Palestine and Kashmir like they liberated Afghanistan? After all, Israel and India are not more powerful than the Soviet Union! They arrived at the following conclusions:



1. The unconditional and total support the USA gives to Israel is the reason why Israel was able to defy the world and defeat the Arabs.

2. The USA prevented the organised state power of Muslim countries to be used to liberate Palestine and Kashmir by imposing US protégés as rulers/leaders in every country.

3. Pakistan – a potentially powerful country with large and well-trained armed forces, near self-sufficiency in defence industry, which is a nuclear power – is unable to perform its proper role because its leaders are so eager to please America that they even co-operates with the enemy – India.



The response of the Arab peoples was to: 1) Organise non- state power like in Afghanistan; 2) strike at the USA. The result was 9/11. But Al-Qaeda had been a creation of the CIA. It was the name given by the CIA to its list of Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan, who should have returned to their countries upon the exit of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. But this did not happen because of two reasons: 1) the ranks of the foreign Mujahideen had been infiltrated by ‘Takfiris’ from Egypt, who wanted to make Afghanistan a base for global Jihad; 2) most of the Arab governments were afraid of returning Mujahideen and closed their doors on them. The Americans CIA was not unfriendly to Osama bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. It saw a role for them as the Takfiris kill mostly Muslims. They slaughter Muslims accusing them of being ‘enemy collaborators’, they kill the Shia for just being Shia, and they declare those they fear as an infidels and kill them. Al-Qaeda had no difficulty getting public support against Muslim leaders who joined the US led ‘war on terror’; it was easy to demonise them as ‘enemy collaborators’.

The strong points that give Al-Qaeda credibility are: 1) being in the forefront of ‘resistance’ in Afghanistan; 2) their opposition to toady rulers in the Muslim World; 3) their ability to evolve new techniques and tactics to respond to challenges of asymmetry of power. But they have huge weakness, which include: 1) their sectarian outlook, 2) indiscriminate slaughter of Muslims in areas they control, 3) promoting a view of Islam that oppresses women, enforces regimentation and which gives law into the hands of those with guns, 4) weakening the state structures of Muslim countries already under great strain because of US pressure to ‘do more’ or to ‘do things differently’.



With the US having declared its intent to withdraw from Iraq, their weaknesses far outweigh their strong points. Al-Qaeda was beaten by the Sunnis in Iraq when they realised that its agenda was to engage in slaughter of the Shia. Al-Qaeda is being beaten in the Kurram Agency in FATA where they promoted slaughter of the Shia. The people in Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies have also taken up arms against the Al-Qaeda allies and beaten them. It would not be long before they are beaten in Waziristan also. The war against Al-Qaeda is already being won – not by the armed forces but by ‘peoples’ power.



President Obama has picked the right time and the right target i.e. to defeat Al-Qaeda now and in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda now sees Pakistan as its potential base and the worst excesses of Al-Qaeda are being perpetrated against the people of Pakistan. Since Pakistan is a country with a powerful and free press, the people have a weapon to win the war of perceptions. The people of Pakistan see themselves caught between Al-Qaeda and India. (I say India because India has operational control over US policy in Afghanistan). If the people fear and detest those engaged in wanton slaughter on their streets, they also detest their leaders eager to please India but begging for Dollars in exchange for allowing Americans to bomb their country. It appears that the USA has decided to get rid of President Hamid Karazai who kisses both cheeks of every Pakistani he encounters while allowing his intelligence to work with RAW (the Indian Intelligence) to destabilise Pakistan. It is not just Al-Qaeda but also RAW and the Afghan intelligence who are carrying out terrorists attacks in Pakistan. The attack on the Cricket Team of Sri Lanka was the work of RAW; the attack on Police Training Centre near Lahore was the work of Al-Qaeda. In both cases the ‘work’ had been carried out by their common sub-contractors who call themselves Pakistani Taliban.



The war against al-Qaeda would be lost by America because of being wrong not in broad thrust but in detail. The contact group idea is bad. It appears to have been founded on a fear that those not included would try to subvert and frustrate the US efforts. Since the L of C to Afghanistan is precarious not only in Pakistan but also through Iran, Russia and states of Central Asia, a widely based contact group appears to be a good idea. But why India? That is like showing a red rag to the bull. It is true that the present ruling parties (who represent a minority in Afghanistan) are hostile to Pakistan and friendly to India, but that is the problem. To perpetuate that is not the solution. All the neighbours of Afghanistan are Muslim countries. Even though erstwhile neighbours had been competing for influence in Afghanistan for over a century, that characterised an era when two of its neighbours – Russia and British India - were super powers. Now neither India nor Russia has a common border with Afghanistan. For the first time in its history, Afghanistan can have peace. It can transform itself from being a ‘buffer’ to being a ‘’bridge’ to Central Asia. That is the common interest of the countries of the region and the USA who would also like Central Asian states to be linked to the sea in the South.



The change of leadership in Afghanistan may not solve any problem. If the successor regime is also anti-Pakistan, the Americans might be able to declare victory somewhat earlier and leave, but Pakistan would be faced with hostile countries in its West (Afghanistan) as well as the East (India). President Zardari has welcomed the Obama speech because it promises him Dollars but the military is rightly nervous. They fear that the Americans are going to leave behind a situation even harder to deal with than in 1987. Even though the Government of Pakistan is not able to articulate or defend the interests of the country, the Americans are fully aware of what they are. Barbara Plett wrote in an article for the BBC News web site:



"The Pakistan army knows that it and the Taliban have Pashtun support on both sides of the Durand line. This gives it leverage, and means it can signal to the United States that it will not be abandoned in any Afghan deal.”



“Prior to his election, Mr Obama recognised that Pakistani peace with India was key to stability in Afghanistan. Since his inauguration, however, he has dropped any suggestion of an initiative on Kashmir in the face of Indian objections.”



“Now, he hopes a mixture of carrot and stick will force a rethink of Pakistan's security calculation.”



“But for Pakistan's security establishment, its concerns - the presence of India in Afghanistan, Kabul's refusal to recognise the border, the festering Kashmir dispute - are strategic threats far greater than those posed by Islamist militants.”



"The concept of pressuring Pakistan is flawed," Ahmed Rashid and Barnett Rubin have written in the Foreign Affairs magazine. "No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal."



“Ultimately America's leverage is limited: in pushing too much, it may lose even the limited cooperation it has.”



The Americans want Pakistan to see Afghanistan and India as its friends at a time when both are aggressively engaged in clandestine operations inside Pakistan. If America does succeed in pressurising Pakistan to do what the populace sees as ‘treachery’ there would be a revolt in Pakistan. Is that what America wants? There are many in Pakistan who believe that to be the real US plan. But if the USA does really want peace in Afghanistan, as President Obama appears to say, it would keep India out of Afghanistan.



The Obama Administration has already decided to give aid to provinces rather than the central government of Afghanistan. That is a good idea; it would reduce corruption and give the USA better control over the actions of the local chieftains and warlords. It is well within the grasp of the USA to make good friends with the entire region – Af-Pak and Central Asia. It should avoid relying on military operation to destroy the resistance that it calls the Taliban. I have said before and I reiterate, when there is stand-off the one who is more generous emerges as victorious. The USA is in a position to be generous. It wants little; it has a lot to offer. It should focus on making friends not killing them. They should make use of the culture of ‘forgive and forget’ that a jirga represents. It is a mad to kill even more Afghans and declare victory over their graveyard. Time has come for a real jirga – a peace conference restricted to Afghanistan’s neighbours - to guarantee its borders and to ensure free movement of people and goods from and to Afghanistan. Afghans are even better as traders than as fighters; let their better self be given a chance.



The writer is Director of London Institute of South Asia



--
http://low-intensity-conflict-review.blogspot.com/

THE REAL ENEMY OF ARABS AND ISLAM

NOT THE JEWS , NOT THE USA BUT THE HIGHLY CORRUPT , DUBIOUS ARAB SHEIKHS,KINGS,PRESIDENTS AND GENERALS.

THESE ARE THE REAL FIFTH COLUMNISTS WHO ARE ACTUALLY ON THE PAYROLL OF USA,BRITISH AND ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.

THESE DUBIOUS ARAB SO CALLED LEADERS NEED TO BE ROCKETED FIRST.ONCE THIS IS DONE ISRAEL WILL LAST FOR MORE THAN A WEEK.

A REVOLUTION , A VIOLENT COUP DE TAT IS NEEDED.

Obama’s Team Prepares Escalated Bloodletting-Patrick Martin

Obama’s Team Prepares Escalated Bloodletting

Patrick Martin



(A day after he was sworn in as President, Barack Obama signed orders to close down Guantanamo and end the use of torture in the USA. The world was ecstatic that America may finally be embracing the ‘rule of law’. But the euphoria lasted only two days. On 24 January, President Obama opened his ‘murder account’ as the new Commander in Chief. He ordered Predator strikes in Waziristan that killed 22 Pakistanis in their homes. In Obama’s book, torture is intolerable but slaughter is another matter; it is the use of ‘smart power’. + Usman Khalid + )



By Patrick Martin , 24 January, 2009, WSWS.org



In a series of meetings and public appearances Wednesday and Thursday, and with the first military strikes of his administration, President Barack Obama has given a clear signal that he plans intensified bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the US escalates its military intervention in Central and South Asia.



Missiles fired from unmanned Predator drones struck two targets inside Pakistan Friday morning, killing at least 18 people. As is always the case with such exercises in remote-controlled murder, US officials claimed they were targeting Al Qaeda, although even US media accounts admitted that the majority of those killed were local residents.



Three missiles struck the village of Zharki in North Waziristan, killing ten people, of whom five were described by US "security sources" as Al Qaeda militants. A few hours later, another missile hit a house in South Waziristan, killing eight people whose identities were not known.



The strikes were the latest in a series of more than two dozen such attacks since last August, and Pentagon officials said they had carried out the attacks under existing authority from the outgoing Bush administration, while keeping the new president fully informed of the action.



The death toll from the missile campaign, according to Pakistani government figures, numbers at least 263 people. Even US government officials claim only a handful of those killed had any ties to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.



The attacks on sovereign Pakistani territory are blatant violations of international law, which the regime in Islamabad protests verbally, while continuing to accept billions in US subsidies to the country's military.



Obama and his newly confirmed secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, staged what amounted to a political rally at the State Department Thursday, at which they announced the appointment of two new US pro-consuls to the region.

Former senator George Mitchell is to reprise his role from the Clinton administration as the US envoy to the Middle East. Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The different titles reflect different roles. Mitchell has been given responsibility for reviving and supervising negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as well as between Israel and neighboring Arab states. His job is strictly diplomatic.



Holbrooke is to work with the US-backed regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the US military command in Kabul, to coordinate joint action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He is not labelled an "envoy," according to the State Department, because he will have input into military policy as well as diplomacy, and because he will not be negotiating with the Taliban—a rebuff to pleas for such talks by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some European countries.



Clinton called the two appointments "a loud and clear signal ... that our nation is once again capable of demonstrating global leadership." Obama said the two would "convey our seriousness of purpose" in both areas.



Mitchell chaired the negotiations in Northern Ireland that led to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, under which the IRA disarmed and Irish Republican politicians have joined the provincial government. He later chaired a commission on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose report, delivered in April 2001, was ignored by the incoming Bush administration because it called for a freeze on Israeli settlements on the West Bank.



Israeli officials, and particularly the right-wing Likud Party, which is favored to win the country's February 10 parliamentary elections, have openly expressed their distrust of Mitchell, who is partially of Lebanese-American ancestry (his mother was a Maronite Christian).



Mitchell's appointment cannot disguise the fundamental policy of US imperialism in the region, which makes use of the Zionist regime as its military spearhead against the Arab masses. Both Obama and Clinton, to whom Mitchell will report, have made clear their support for the 24-day Israeli onslaught on Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians lost their lives, and over 5,000 were wounded.



The selection of Holbrooke is even more ominous, since he has long served as one of the most ruthless representatives of American imperialism, going all the way back to his early days in the Foreign Service in Vietnam. He came to public notice as the leader of the US diplomatic team at the 1995 talks on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, held in Dayton, Ohio, that concluded with a US-imposed settlement in the civil war in Bosnia.



In his encouragement of ethnic cleansing by the Croatian regime of Franjo Tudjman, which drove a quarter million Serbs out of the Krajina region of southern Croatia in a 1995 offensive, Holbrooke could deservedly face war crimes charges. He later boasted, in his memoir of the Dayton talks: "Tudjman wanted clarification of the American position. He bluntly asked for my personal views. I indicated my general support for the offensive ... I told Tudjman the offensive had great value to the negotiations. It would be much easier to retain at the table what had been won on the battlefield than to get the Serbs to give up territory they had controlled for several years."



Holbrooke was fully aware at the time of the Dayton talks that the Croatian Army was carrying out atrocities against the Serbs, and was later quoted saying, "We ‘hired' these guys to be our junkyard dogs because we were desperate. We need to try to ‘control' them. But this is no time to get squeamish about things." He will now seek to find new "junkyard dogs" to do the dirty work of American imperialism in south and central Asia.



In his remarks at the State Department rally, Obama reiterated his concern over what he called a "deteriorating situation" in both Afghanistan and Pakistan," a region that is "the central front" of the struggle against terrorism. This language, echoing George W. Bush's description of Iraq, underscores the new administration's commitment to military subjugation of the Afghan population and wider attacks on the Pakistani population of the border region, largely Pushtun-speaking and linked by tribal ties to the majority Pushtun population in Afghanistan.



Clinton said that Holbrooke's mandate would be to "coordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States' strategic goals in the region." These goals have little to do with the remnants of Al Qaeda hiding out in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The real focus of the intervention, under Obama as much as under Bush, is to establish the United States as the principal power in the oil-rich region of Central Asia.



The renewed focus on military problems in Afghanistan was signalled as well by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has been retained in his position during the transition from Bush to Obama. He told a press conference Thursday that US goals in Afghanistan had been "too broad and too far into the future. We need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years, in terms of re-establishing control in certain areas, providing security for the population, going after al-Qaeda, preventing the re-establishment of terrorism."



There is mounting anxiety in the Pentagon over the viability of US supply lines to Afghanistan, especially if the force on the ground is doubled, as Obama plans. Two-thirds of US supplies go through Pakistan and convoys through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan have come under repeated attacks. General David Petraeus, the former Iraq commander who was promoted to head the US Central Command, with responsibility for war planning throughout the region, recently completed a trip through Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, seeking agreements on expanding US supply shipments through those countries. He reported on his findings to the Obama White House on Wednesday.



According to a report in the New York Times January 22, another major concern of US military authorities in Afghanistan is the strengthening of Taliban influence in the southern provinces around Kandahar, patrolled now mainly by British, Canadian and Dutch troops, who are spread thinly through a vast area.



The Times reporter noted worriedly: "It is perhaps in Kandahar, one of the provincial capitals, where the lack of troops is most evident. About 3,000 Canadian soldiers are assigned to secure the city, home to about 500,000 people. In a recent visit, this reporter travelled the city for five days and did not see a single Canadian soldier on the streets. The lack of troops has allowed the Taliban to mount significant attacks inside the city."++

What else is Yazidiyyat – What Else is Karbala-By Dr. Haider Mehdi

What else is Yazidiyyat – What Else is Karbala!
By Dr. Haider Mehdi

I have known the grief and anguish of the mourners of Karbala (the martyrdom of Imam Hussain) and have emotionally, religiously, spiritually, psychologically, sociologically and politically understood the outpouring of “marsiya- khani” (lamentation commemorating Imam Hussain’s martyrdom) that has continued until today for over 1400 years. I am a Muslim. I am a Shi’a. I have protested all my life against the human savagery in Karbala and my communal participation in “marsiya khani” is an unending transcendental and generational expression of political protest against Yazidiyyat – the ultimate brutality in human spirit for the sake of power, oppression and malevolent domination over others.

Yazidiyyat is a symbol of an obvious barbaric penchant towards human massacre and carnage to satisfy a compulsion to megalomania deeply rooted as a motive in the mentality of those who practice it. It is an intentional process to seek clearly defined objectives – the victims of this doctrine are helpless, innocent and powerless human beings. It is a barbaric creed.

I had never thought in my wildest imagination that I would see, at this stage of human civilization, the doctrine of “Yazidiyyat” so blatantly and so deliberately used against humanity and a “Karbala” witnessed on my TV screen right in front of my eyes in my own living room. But such has been, hopelessly, the reality of the 23-day “Gaza holocaust” and massacre of Palestinians including children, women and men, the young and old, the sick and the starving. And the world remained a spectator during this horrifying human carnage. What else is Yazidiyyat – what else is Karbala?

A knock at a door (Zeitoun, Gaza, January 4th) where the frightened members of an extended family were hiding from Israeli bombardment and ground assault as Attiyah, 46, (husband) and Zinad Samourri, 35, (wife) mother of eight children opened the door, the Israeli soldiers in cold blood shot Attiyah dead and then went on a rampage to massacre the other members of the family in this small hiding place.

“So far dozens of bodies, mostly women, children and elderly, have been recovered, almost all from the same extended family. The 48th corpse – horribly decomposed – was found on Monday but there are fears others lie under the rubble and soil churned up by Israeli armoured vehicles,” reported Tim Butcher of The Telegraph Group of London. Navi Pillay, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights has already called for war crimes investigations against Israel for the massacre that took place in Zeitoun on January 4th and 5th.

The question is: Isn’t this the “holocaust” of the 21st century? Isn’t it Yazidiyyat? Isn’t this the “Karbala” of our times? Should not the entire humanity be protesting, mourning and condemning this savagery, this inhumanity – this kind of approach to a political doctrine explicitly and intentionally espoused by the powerful nations in their conduct of international relations and their horrifying lack of respect for human life other than their own people?

The ultimate irony and human tragedy of the “Gaza holocaust” is that it was planned, executed and supported by an absolute complacency of the outgoing and incoming American administrations and the incumbent British government. The entire West remained silently in cahoots with the Israeli-American-British plan, what the Israeli Zionist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called “a re-formulation of objective reality” – another addition to the US-Western arsenal of inhumane political doctrines in global politics.

As a human being with enhanced consciousness and advanced awareness of human conditions and as a member of the segment of the contemporary world that wishes to place high value on human life, I had expected that the entire global civilization would turn upside down with anguish, condemn the “Gaza holocaust,” and demand an abrupt cessation to the repressive political creeds of our times. But it did not happen that way.

I had hoped that Barrack Hussain Obama, in his inaugural presidential speech, would have acknowledged Israeli brutality and categorically condemned it. I had hoped that Obama would say something along the lines of repudiation of the past American foreign policy approach to bring transformations to his country’s future direction in global politics. I had hoped that he would say: ‘The massacre of Palestinians has taken place in Gaza under our watch and America and the American people are ashamed of it. I pledge to the Palestinian victims and their families that America will do justice to them now, and my administration will not allow now and ever again such use of brutal military force and political doctrine against any people anywhere in the world. This is my pledge, the pledge of all Americans and I want to assure the entire global community that, as of this moment, America has changed – change has finally come.’ Now that would have been the declaration of a true statesman committed to the fundamental change that Obama has promised to the American voters and the people around the world.

But nothing of the sort was said or promised. Instead Obama did not condemn Israel’s barbarism in Gaza. He later spoke to Mahmoud Abbas and promised “to work with him as partners to establish a durable peace in the region.” But that is the classic repetition of American rhetoric of the past: no substance, no results, no change, no commitment to a policy of fairness to the Palestinian people – the usual political manipulation to continue the status-quo of Israel’s dominance in the Middle East and beyond.

I had hoped that Hilary Clinton would be horrified at Israel’s audacity of placing the new American administration, at the very outset, in a political conundrum and global crisis. I had hoped that Clinton would unleash her anger by recognizing the American part in the “Gaza holocaust.” I had envisioned that, in a reflective mindset pursuing “change” in the US foreign policy doctrine, Clinton would admit and lament that President Bush and Secretary Rice’s last-minute assault on the American image world-wide by collaborating with Israel in its “Gaza holocaust” has brought disaster and shame to the cherished values of freedom, justice, fairness and peace for all people everywhere. I had hoped that she would say that the Gaza massacre is inexcusable – and that the Obama administration apologizes on behalf of the American people. I imagined that she would have assured all people everywhere that this incoming administration had no complicity, role or part in this horrendous act of savagery against an innocent population – and she would commit herself in making sure, by supporting international law and human-rights conventions, that such an outrageous onslaught against any people anywhere will not happen again in the annuals of future human history.

But Clinton did not commit herself to any “change” in the US foreign-policy doctrine of status-quo. What she said was alarmingly resonant of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Clinton said that this administration will not talk to Hamas. The problem is that Hamas is the legitimate democratically elected representative of the Palestinian people. How can a serious negotiator of peace for the Palestinians sideline Hamas? Indeed, Clinton’s statement is yet another indicator of future American foreign policy failure in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. And this failure will happen not because of misunderstanding the nature of this conflict; it is going to be the result of an intentional policy to further push forward Israeli dominance in the Middle East. Clinton envisages the so-called peace in the entire Middle East on American terms – fairness or justice is not an ingredient in this equation.

I had also hoped that Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General, after his visit to the Gaza Strip, would have issued an ultimatum to the UN Security-Council that he would resign in protest of Israeli brutality in Gaza unless the Security-Council immediately sanctioned Israel.

But that did not happen either. Perhaps, the UN Secretary General was not moved consequentially by the human tragedy he saw. What he said was, “These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today…” But why not grab the bull by the horns and destroy its wickedness? In the meantime, as for decades, the UN political establishment keeps on working as an extended arm of American foreign policy and overall Western interests. No change there either. Sad, isn’t it?

I had hoped that all Arab regimes would have acted decisively and collectively to gain powerful and important political roles in global politics to mend the international system and make it more responsive to the larger interests of their countries and their people.

But they have virtually let the opportunity slip away yet again. It seems that oil money and American threats to destabilize their regimes are perceived more powerful than the desire and confidence to acquire commanding prowess in the global political system. Consequently, it seems that the Arab world will remain subservient to American-Western dictates for years to come. The Palestinian people will continue to suffer and Israeli military adventurism will expand in its scope as an ally of the US-West the Middle East, spreading its reach to Southeast Asia and the Central Asian Islamic States.

I had hoped that India would sever its diplomatic relations with Israel. It would do so as the largest democracy, denouncing the brutality and genocide of an innocent people in the 21st century. But it did nothing of the sort despite the fact that India is unwilling to forget the Mumbai violence for a fraction of a moment. Rightfully so. But how can it remain a passive non-actor in the global political system so as to not punish Israel for its heinous crimes against humanity? It is the ultimate contempt and neglect of the human condition and an act of absolute hypocrisy, isn’t it?

I had hoped that Pakistan’s incumbent leadership would immediately cut off military supplies to the US-Nato forces in Afghanistan that go through Pakistan’s territory unless the Bush administration forced Israel to stop its carnage in Gaza. Ask any Pakistani and you would get the same opinion. But, it seems, that the incumbent government in Pakistan does not care much for its public opinion, especially when it comes to dealing with the US. Indeed, it is alarmingly un-democratic for a regime that claims democratic credentials. Ironic, isn’t it?

I had hoped that billions of black flags would fly over billions of homes all over the Muslim world as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians, sharing their grief and anguish over the Israeli-inflicted “holocaust” on them. But it did not happen. Hence, it confirms that the entire Muslim world is politically dead, expressionless, indifferent to the violation of their “beings” – and their political leadership and governments are “agents” of American imperialism. Unbelievably sad, isn’t it?

The only voice raised in this empty and pathetic political wilderness of the Muslim world came from the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who, in a open letter to Obama, wrote the following on January 1st, 2009:

“1) Stop killing people. The United States is too fond of killing people in order to achieve its objectives… War is primitive, the cavemen’s way of dealing with a problem. Stop your arms build up and your planning for future wars.

2) Stop indiscriminate support of Israeli killers with your money and your weapons. The planes and the bombs killing the people of Gaza are from you.”

I wonder if my readers agree with Dr. Mahathir Mohamad? If you do, then express it – forcefully and assertively. If you don’t, imagine a Gaza-like “holocaust” in your backyard – most probably in Swat, somewhere in NWFP or Afghanistan. The wise thing is to act now – before it’s too late.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American President, said in 1933: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

What are you afraid of? What is your fear? Remember, they are trying to paralyze your advance…subjugate you to their will…implant fear in your hearts …and get away with it! Don’t let them do it to you!

Wake up and stand for yourself and your intrinsic faith in humanitarian principles – your right to justice, fairness and peace…! Mind it, that is what Karbala was all about…!


The “Gaza Holocaust” is a tragedy of a monumental scale because it has happened in our own lifetime – right in front of our eyes…! It is the Karbala of our times!!

Protest it…! Feel grief for it…! Mourn it…! Let “them” know you are not going to take it anymore…!



The writer is a professor, political analyst and a conflict-resolution expert.

An Illegitimate and Lawless Country

From: --"Kaiser Tufail"



Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?

Answer:Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? Answer:Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

Answer:Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?

Answer:Israel.

Q: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?

Answer:Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?

Answer: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

Answer: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?

Answer: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?

Answer: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?

Answer: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?

Answer: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?

Answer: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union? Answer: Israel.

Q: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?

Answer: Israel.

Q. What Middle East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?

Answer: Israel


Q. What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque.

Answer: Israel

Q: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana, Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?

Answer: Israel Q: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes? Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid yet is the 16th richest country in the world?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East routinely insults the American people by having its Prime Minister address the United States Congress and lecturing them like children on why they have no right to reduce foreign aid?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because "We control America?"

Answer: Israel

. What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing.

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?

Answer: Israel

Q.. Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?

Answer: Israel


This has got to be forwarded.

BOYCOTT JEWISH PRODUCTS

BOYCOTT JEWISH PRODUCTS