Steven Gaal

THE NATION =o=o=o=o=o= Balochistan and geopolitics By: Nadir Mir | March 02, 2012 | 8 Recently, a resolution was passed in the US Congress to divide Pakistan and carve out an ‘independent Balochistan’. With this, an old neocon dream was revived. This time the so-called globalists and propagandists, masquerading as human right activists, are the cheerleaders. Against this backdrop, Colonel Ralph Peter’s map of the ‘New Middle East’ truncating, balkanising every country - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan - was reproduced. Despite the fact that it was scorned and reviled even at the time of its earlier exhibition. It seems that the neocons and influential globalists of America desperately want to initiate World War III. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s interview, If you can’t hear the drums of war, you must be deaf, with Alfred Heinz on November 27, 2011, is a clear expression of this desire. The neocon-globalist geopolitical wish list - the rationale for the so-called ‘independent Balochistan’ - is as under: i Cripple Pakistan by separating Balochistan (46 percent of its territory with large mineral resources, besides the future global port of Gwadar). i Balkanised Pakistan forced to give up its nuclear arsenal. i Establish India’s hegemony over Pakistan. i Leftover US forces in Afghanistan and US controlled ‘new Balochistan’ to act as strategic central position for multi-regions. i US controlled Afghanistan-Balochistan to link the Central Asian energy oil and gas pipelines with Gwadar. i Delink Pakistan and Iran by carving out Balochistan and obviate the Iran-Pakistan energy/gas pipelines. i Establish US military presence in Balochistan for upcoming US-Israeli war against Iran. i Block Russia-Pak cooperation with Gazprom (Russian Gas Company) reaching Gwadar. i Balochistan and Kurdistan to be artificially created to have imperialist bases in the heartland of Islam. i ‘Independent Balochistan’ - a prelude for Kurdistan to break away from Turkey; separate Xinjiang and Tibet from China; Siberia from Russia; and separate Makkah and Madinah from Saudi Arabia. i US military presence in Gwadar to control the Gulf. To use the port as an alternative for USA’s 5th fleet based in Bahrain or another fleet if brought near the Gulf. i Use Gwadar as a military base for intervention in the Saudi Peninsula. The rationale of these ill-intentioned pseudo thinkers is absolutely absurd. According to them, since the Pakistani elite is exploiting Balochistan, so it should be balkanised. Those who believe that Balochistan should not be a part of Pakistan are geopolitical imbeciles. Indeed, the propagandists making these claims are clueless about regional realities because: i Pakistan: It will fight a war, even a nuclear war of national survival to defend itself. i Iran: The Iranian Seistan is part of Balochistan, which the imperialists want to carve out. Therefore, Iran will fight a war in unison with Pakistan to defend Balochistan against the US threats. i Afghanistan: The Taliban are winning; the Americans are leaving. No Afghan - not even Karzai - will cede the Afghan territory to become ‘greater independent Balochistan’. Nor can landlocked Kabul take up fights with both Islamabad and Tehran. i Turkey: The Turks will support Pakistan and oppose independent Balochistan. Those who are plotting Balochistan also support Kurdistan to balkanise Turkey. Turkey will oppose Balochistan splitting by Nato, even if Nato is foolhardy to play the diabolical game of neocons. i Saudi Arabia: The Saudis, too, will support Pakistan and oppose the Balochistan movement. i India: It has been supporting the destabilisation of Balochistan and will continue to do so. But for India to overtly support Balochistan can lead to a nuclear war with Pakistan. Besides this can also trigger freedom movements in Kashmir, Khalistan, Assam, Tamil Nadu and a dozen other places. Playing the US-Israel game will spoil its relations with Iran, Russia and China. i China: It will support Pakistan. USA’s aim in Balochistan is to block China from Gwadar. Balochistan today, Xinjiang tomorrow! China’s defence begins from Pakistan. i Russia: It is Pakistan’s new friend. Besides, the Pak-Iran link is supported by Moscow. So, the geopolitics of the region negates any viability of an independent Balochistan. In addition, anti-Americanism in Pakistan has a complex dynamic. The US meddling in Balochistan will not create an ‘independent Balochistan’, but will initiate a war, perhaps, leading to World War III. The situation in Balochistan certainly demands immediate attention. Out of 150 Baloch tribes three major ones Marris, Bugtis, and Mengals have had problems or are in conflict. The issue of Bugtis is greatly linked to the murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti. A fair trial of those responsible is their demand. The Mengals can be communicated with. Some of the Marris leaders are more adamant and would need to be worked on. Pakistan needs to accommodate most of the Balochistan demands and satisfy the people, while ensuring its national interests. Half the demography of Balochistan which is Pakhtun are patriotic like the great majority of Baloch. Bugti’s killing by Musharraf led to the present Balochistan crisis. The army or the ISI is not responsible. USA and India did not oppose Musharraf’s actions in Balochistan. This was a US-India baited gambit (to lure Musharraf into a crackdown and create turmoil for instigating independent Balochistan). Musharraf was praised by Washington and assured by Delhi of its non-involvement in Balochistan, luring him into the mess Pakistan faces today in the province. For all this time a covert war was being waged for claiming independence of Balochistan. During this period a worldwide network was established. This became overt in February 2012 as war with Iran is near centre stage in 2012. However, those who are planning war against Pakistan must be told that the choice is between peace and total war; indeed, the country will be defended at any price! The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army and is the author of the book Gwadar on the Global Chessboard. Blog: wwwpakistangeopolitics.blogspot.com ====================================================== "Playing the US-Israel game will spoil its relations with Iran, Russia and China." Oh the Balochistan Independence is A US-Israel game ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE NATION (redux) A threat in the making By: Imran Malik | March 19, 2012 | 4 Share Maverick US Congressmen Rep Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) and Rep Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) have initiated efforts to change the entire political structure of South West Asia (SWA) by creating an independent Balochistan comprising Pakistani, Iranian and Afghan Baloch areas in cahoots with the Afghan Northern Alliance (ANA) and a group of angry Pakistan Baloch Sardars (PBS). In February, they organised a public congressional hearing on Balochistan and then introduced a Baloch right to self-determination bill before the US Congress. Their implied imperatives for this proposed policy shift are multifarious. The geopolitical imperatives: By creating such a Balochistan, the US will be able to punish Pakistan for its many actual and perceived sins, including - being ostensibly responsible for its calamitous defeat in Afghanistan. By default, the statures of India and Israel would rise in the region and make them even more aggressive. Russia, China and the CARs will be effectively kept away from the Arabian Sea and the Greater Middle East Region (GMER). Iran’s envelopment would be total and its ability to project power severely constricted. The US-India-Israel nexus will emerge most dominant. Such a US dominated independent unified Balochistan would literally cut Pakistan to size, unleashing powerful centrifugal forces that will send it splintering. This will kick-start an unstoppable ethno-regional chain reaction. All divided ethnic-tribal-sectarian populations across the Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India-Nepal-Bangladesh-Sri Lanka complex and beyond will find cause to redraw the existing political borders to create similar states for themselves too. This will massively destabilise the whole South Central Asian Region (SCAR) and the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) and unleash uncontrollable upheavals, turmoil and strife - creating fertile grounds for further exploitation by the US-led West! The geostrategic imperatives: A severely truncated Pakistan is presumed to be more amenable to pressures applied by the US and its protégé India, the “regional cop-in-waiting”. However, as a natural corollary to this ‘proposed dismemberment’ of Pakistan, there would be an immediate and critical lowering of nuclear thresholds in the SCAR-GMER! The ramifications would be severe and with extra regional connotations! Balochistan constitutes the most vital and critical strategic space for Pakistan and it will “employ all elements of its power to protect this vital space so critical for the province’s solidarity, territorial integrity and survival as a unified nation!” Were the US to base forces in this proposed territory of Balochistan, it would acquire the strategic central position in SWA. It will effectively control all Pakistani ports on the Arabian Sea/Mekran Coast and dominate the Iranian ports of Chabahar and Port Abbas. It will also be able to project power through the Straits of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and by implication the Indian Ocean. Russia, China and the CARs will be contained, while the envelopment of Iran would be complete. Iran’s dominance of the Straits of Hormuz would be critically circumscribed and its bargaining position severely slashed. Pakistan’s and Iran’s nuclear installations would remain vulnerable under hawkish US oversight. US-Indian-Israeli dominance of the SCAR-GMER will be complete! The geo-economic imperatives: Such a proposed state of Balochistan would greatly facilitate the US and the West to exploit and harvest its and Afghanistan’s enormous mineral deposits. Furthermore, Balochistan provides the only viable natural trade corridor to link the world’s largest fossil fuel deposits of the GMER and the CARs to the energy deficient and voracious economies of India and China. The US would like to create and control such east-west and north-south trade corridors. The USA’s New Silk Road Project (NSRP) is a step in this very direction. This would also deny China, Russia and the CARs these trade corridors and the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. Most critically it would deprive China of a most important pearl in its “strategy of string of pearls - Gwadar!” The USA will thus have a stranglehold over the economic jugular of the region. The modus operandi: Extensive bipartisan support in the US Congress will be sought to make these bills part of the US government policy. A sympathetic international environment and opinion will be crafted through the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), their various organisations and other international fora, and the Western, Indian and some elements of Pakistani media. The “Baloch case” will, probably, hinge upon “the right of self-determination”, “ethnic cleansing” and “human rights violations” - a la Bosnia Herzegovina (ethnic cleansing) and Sudan and East Timor (rights of self-determination). At the appropriate time, a Baloch government-in-exile will announce a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), which will be immediately accepted by the UN, the US and its allies. A pliant UN Security Council (UNSC) will then pass the requisite resolution for international intervention in Balochistan. A plebiscite for Baloch independence under UN auspices will follow. An international expeditionary force will also be assembled for strategic effect. The reality: Of all the Baloch tribes, the errant ones are but a small part! The large majority of the Baloch as well as the Pashtun/Hazaras/settlers are not inclined towards independence or secession. Therefore, there is no casus belli for any international intervention - diplomatic, informational, political or military - in Balochistan, Pakistan. Sure, there are issues in Balochistan that need to be tackled post-haste. But the solution has to be homemade and essentially political in nature. An alien solution cannot be rammed down Pakistan’s throat. This is an internal matter for Pakistan, indeed! All actions have to be taken by the Pakistanis, for the Pakistanis and strictly within the ambit of Pakistan and Pakistan alone. Period. Once challenged, nuclear Pakistan will react very violently and decisively to safeguard its solidarity and territorial integrity. All options, by default, will always stay on the table! All regional and global powers like China, Russia and fora, like the UN, the EU, the OIC, the SCO, the ECO etc, must play their due pre-emptive roles at the UNSC and all other related international platforms to forestall any such gargantuan misadventures. To US-India-Israel’s abiding regret, Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan will close ranks to collectively ward off this threat in the making! The author is a retired brigadier and a former defence attaché to Australia and New Zealand. He is Secretary General of Pakistan Forum for Security and Development. Email: im_k@hotmail.com +++++++++++++++++++ Gee mybe COLBY will be BRAVE enough to invite the above retired brigadier to the FORUM !! ============================================= (BELOW an on the ground journalist) The Frontier Post Ignoring Security Agencies' services in Balochistan Posted on May 11, 2012 Sajjad Shaukat ------------------------- Since the Supreme Court of Pakistan has been hearing the cases of the missing persons in the country, the situation of Balochistan is more serious in this respect, where sense of deprivation and grievances has already accelerated among the people. But it is most regrettable that without paying attention to the facts, our own political leaders, media anchors and so-called human rights groups have continuously been maligning country's key security agencies regarding the disappeared persons of Balochistan. In this regard, these internal elements have ignored the services of Pak Army, Frontier Constabulary (FC), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI). In the recent years, Pakistan's military has made strenuous efforts to develop the infrastructure in Balochistan, providing the people employment opportunities and basic necessities of life to bring the Balochs in the mainstream of the country. Pak Army has not only established schools and colleges in Balochistan, but also set up technical and industrial institutes, besides giving military training to the youth. In this regard, on October 11, last year, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani addressed the passing-out parade in Quetta. While pointing out various efforts of the Pak Army in alleviating the people of Balochistan, Prime Minister Gilani appreciated Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani for ensuring best possible training to bring the youth from the area into the national mainstream. The recruits exhibited their prowess in anti-terrorist skills and demonstrated ways to neutralise militants. On the other side, ISI, FC and MI have captured a number of terrorists, foreign agents, and thwarted various subversive acts through pre-arrests of the militants in Balochistan. Despite its limited resources as compared to the American CIA, Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad, it is particularly owing to the services of ISI that it also provided pre-information about the external elements which have been conspiring against the integrity of Pakistan by supporting separatism in the province of Balochistan. On February 11, 2012, while giving a comprehensive overview of Balochistan situation in a briefing held at ISPR, IG, FC Balochistan, Maj-Gen. Obaid Khan signified, "out of 30 districts, five including Quetta have volatile situation. During last three months, four FC posts were attacked in these districts in which several soldiers lost their lives. In 2011, 78 FC personnel were martyred while only in January this year 38 personnel were killed." He explained: "FC has been fighting to give normal life to people and ensure security of development projects. We are providing security to four main highways as well as to 20 mega projects which include dams, mines of minerals and oil and gas installations." It is notable that in the past, Pakistan government had launched a successful approach of reconciliation particularly with the Baloch lords. The level of violence had fallen to the minimum. It was in these circumstances that the then Corps Commander, Lt-Gen Khalid Shamim Wynne claimed on November 9, 2008: "We have moved from the insurgency phase to the reconciliation phase, however, if foreign elements continue to infiltrate in Balochistan, they could stir trouble and undermine our efforts to restore peace." His observation proved quite true as covert support to the Baloch separatists by CIA, RAW, Mossad succeeded in sabotaging the peace process in the province. In fact, the unrest started in Balochistan when various projects were undertaken by the previous government with the help of army to develop backward regions of the province. The sole aim was to eliminate frustration among the people by providing infrastructure and employment opportunities. The Baloch feudal lords (Sardars) who were running their own private jails and 'farrari camps', and had been backed by India, US and Israel, opposed all the developmental projects as they did not want to give up the old system of feudalism. It was Pak Army which occupied private jails and farrari camps and thus set free several innocent people. It is of particular attention that Indo-Israeli lobbies which are well-penetrated in US-led European NGOs, human rights organisations and media have started a deliberate campaign against Pak Army and ISI, implicating them for extrajudicial killings and forced abductions in Balochistan. While, without indicating ground realities and by ignoring the services of security forces and agencies in Balochistan, Pakistan's internal entities also followed the blame game of the foreign enemies. Some leaders of Jamaat-i-Islami, particularly PML-N have always criticised security forces, accusing them for disappeared persons. In this regard, opposition leader of the PML-N, Chaudhry Nisar, while hinting towards ISI and MI misperceived on February 29, this year that these intelligence agencies were not in control of government. Pakistan's so-called human rights organisations and some media anchors also accused Pak Army and country's superior agency in relation to the disappeared people. While speaking in the tone of Pakistan's external elements, these internal elements also repeatedly said that military operation should be stopped in Balochsitan. But in reality, now, there is no military operation, being conducted in the province. It seems that by spreading disinformation about human rights violations in the province, some politicians seek to increase their vote bank by targeting the security forces - misguiding the general masses by making Balochistan a tool of political manipulation. Similarly, either some of our media anchors and human rights groups want to get good coverage in the foreign media or some of them are on the payroll of foreign enemies. It is mentionable that on February 8, 2012, the hearing of the US Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Dana Rohrabacher discussed target killings and human rights violations in Balochistan by blaming Pakistan's security agencies. He has also co-authored an article, favouring an independent Balochistan. It has exposed US blatant support to the Baloch separatist leaders who have taken shelter in Switzerlad, London and America, and are responsible for missing persons through their affiliated militant groups. ISPR Maj-Gen. Athar Abbas has repeatedly disclosed this fact including funding of the Baloch nationalists and NGOs by the external elements. Notably, on March 1, 2012, Raja Irshad, the council for the ISI and MI told the Supreme Court bench that "foreign elements" were involved in fomenting terrorism in Balochistan, so the agencies could not work with their "eyes closed" to the Balochistan issue. Reality behind the human rights violations and the disappeared people in Balochistan is that a number of these persons have gone to Afghanistan and India as they were serving their foreign secret agents. Some of them were murdered by foreign secret agencies in order to implicate Pak Army and ISI. For example, Balach Marri was killed in Afghanistan. Notably, since 2001, a majority of Pakistanis also left for Afghanistan for Jehad purposes, without informing their families, while many Balochs also joined the Jahadi groups. Most of the people were abducted by the miscreants in Balochistan, and then taken to Afghanistan for ransom. Moreover, suicide attackers themselves died during blasts, they also fall in the category of missing persons. Besides, Balochistan's geo-strategic location with Gwadar seaport has irritated America and India because China has invested billions of dollars to develop this seaport. However, it is due to multiple strategic designs that the US and India seek to control Balochistan against Pak-China interests, while subduing Iran. This is also due to the mineral resources of Balochistan -especially gold and copper that US-led India and Israel have accelerated target killings, hostage-takings, suicide attacks, fueling sectarian and ethnic violence in Balochistan by assisting Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and another group, Jundollah (God's soldiers). Their insurgents which get logistic support from CIA and RAW kidnapped and killed many innocent people, including the security personnel in the province, while claiming responsibility in this respect. The main purpose of US is the dismemberment of Pakistan by separating the province of Balochistan. It is noteworthy that in August, 2011, US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, had requested Pakistan government for opening a US consulate in Balochistan. But knowing the real intentions of America, Islamabad had flatly rejected the offer. Last year, I had visited Balochistan along with other journalists. I saw a number of institutes, set up by army, which were providing technical training to thousands of Balochs. I had also a trip to far-flung areas of the province and witnessed various mega projects and mineral sites. I was greatly surprised that no military operation is going on in Balochistan as propagated by the foreign elements. People told me that some subversive events are taking place by the minority separatist elements to create instability in the province. Now, Pakistan is facing multiple crises. So instead of sharing the blame game of the US-led countries, all our internal entities must remove the 'stereotypes', created among the general masses about security forces and agencies in connection with Balochistan.

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related /////// ============ Crashing the Operating System - Liquidity Crunch In Practice MONDAY, JUNE 04, 2012 6:12 PM ================== http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/crashing-the-operating-system-liquidity-crunch-in-practice.html ================== 2008 was a practice run, or a warning shot across the bow, compared to what is coming over the next few years. 2008 did not demonstrate what a liquidity crunch really means, but this time we are going to find out. As with many aspects of financial crisis, Greece is the canary in the coalmine, demonstrating what happens when liquidity disappears and it ceases to be possible to connect buyers and sellers or producers and consumers. As we have said before, and for a long time now, money is the lubricant in the engine of the economy in the way that motor oil is the lubricant in the engine of your car, and you know what will happen to your car if you drive it with the oil warning light on. Greece stands on the verge of an energy crisis caused not by lack of energy, but lack of money within the energy sector. This will become a common refrain throughout Europe and beyond in the coming months and years. Loss of liquidity has a cascading effect on supply chains, causing them to seize up. For a long time, money will be the limiting factor, and finance will be the key driver to the downside, just as was the case in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Resources will remain available, at least initially, but no one will have the means to pay for them during a period of economic seizure. Harry Papachristou has this for Reuters: Greek power regulator warns of energy meltdown Greece's power regulator RAE told Reuters on Friday it was calling an emergency meeting next week to avert a collapse of the debt-stricken country's electricity and natural gas system. RAE took the decision after receiving a letter from Greece's natural gas company DEPA, which threatened to cut supplies to electricity producers if they failed to settle their arrears with the company. Greece is seeing a similar dynamic unfold in relation to pharmaceuticals. Reimbursement arrears from the public sector payment system are building up, pharmacies can no longer offer credit, and people are going to have to pay up front for medicines or go without. Many will be going without. Masa Serdarevic writes for FT Alphaville: Greece: when the drugs run out The country's pharmacies are owed 500m by the state-backed healthcare insurer, according to reports. From next week patients will have to stump up the cash for their medicines upfront, and then claim a reimbursement from the National Organization for Healthcare Provision (EOPYY). It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a) medicines tend to be very expensive, so paying for them may be very difficult for a lot of people, especially pensioners. And c) if the EOPYY is having trouble paying the pharmacists, it's unlikely to find it any easier to reimburse individuals. In recent months pharmacies have promised to halt credit to patients unless they get paid, and the EOPYY has thrown some money their way. But its arrears are rapidly rising and clearly the pharmacists can only provide so much credit. Government attempts to reduce their cost burden are only making matters worse. Parallel trades are developing, with medicines priced artificially low in Greece being sold elsewhere for more. When arbitrage is both possible and profitable, it will happen. Naomi Kresge reports for Bloomberg: Greek Crisis Has Pharmacists Pleading for Aspirin as Drug Supply Dries Up The reasons for the shortages are complex. One major cause is the Greek government, which sets prices for medicines. As part of an effort to cut its own costs,Greecehas mandated lower drug prices in the past year. That has fed a secondary market, drug manufacturers contend, as wholesalers sell their shipments outside the country at higher prices than they can get within Greece. Strained government finances only make matters worse. Wholesalers and pharmacists say the system suffers from a lack of liquidity, as public insurers delay payments to pharmacies, which in turn can't pay suppliers on time. Reimbursement fraud compounds the drain on the country's health resources, Richard Bergstrom, director-general of European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, said in an interview. Drugs shipped elsewhere yet submitted for reimbursement to public insurers as if they had been prescribed to patients cost Greece more than 500 million euros a year, Bergstrom said, citing figures he said he got from the Ministry of Health. In a later e-mail, Bergstrom said he had personally seen packs of drugs with Greek reimbursement stickers on the market outside of Greece, suggesting that exporters were reimbursed and able to ship the packs abroad. "If the pack is exported, the exporter is obliged to 'cancel' the code, a bar code, by using a black pen," Bergstrom wrote. "But this is not monitored." Greece's problems are going to increase the more a currency reissue is seen as probable. Already Greek citizens are delaying payment of taxes, on the grounds that they may be able to pay later in heavily devalued new drachmas. This, of course, worsens the ability of the Greek government to meet its obligations, causing a greater shortage of liquidity and strengthening the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The political risk resulting from the new round of elections - a referendum on austerity measures -is a major stumbling block. Brinkmanship of this kind heightens market insecurity and therefore fear, and fear is catching. Greek political opportunists are holding the members of the eurozone to ransom, threatening to stop making debt payments if future tranches of support are not forthcoming. From Martin Straith at the Trendletter: Greece's Syriza Threatens to Stop Paying Their Bills. According to recent opinion polls, Tsipras' party is poised to win the most votes in repeat elections next month, bettering its surprise, second-place finish in an inconclusive May 6 vote that left no party or coalition with enough seats in parliament to form a government. Tsipras says that, if push comes to shove, Greece can manage on its own. By not paying its debts, the country will have enough cash to pay its workers and retirees. He also proposes cuts in defense spending, cracking down on waste and corruption, and tackling widespread tax evasion by the rich.. The craziness in Greece doesn't end here. The government has been having trouble getting the citizen's to pay their property taxes, so they decided to bundle the property taxes with the electricity bills, since the citizens were more inclined to pay those bills. The government had hoped to raise 1.7bn-2bn from the levy in the fourth quarter of last year. But a massive unions-led civil disobedience movement against this "injustice" scuppered that and a ruling that it was illegal to disconnect people's electricity supply for non-payment sent the collection rate even lower. Now the power company is not getting the revenue from the electricity bills and it has now had to be bailed out by the government to avert a nationwide energy crisis. In addition, international insurers are suspending coverage for shipments to Greece on the grounds that the risk of non-payment is unacceptably high. This will compromise the ability of Greece to obtain all manner of imports. Top insurer pulls cover for exports to Greece Trade insurers have been reviewing their Greek exposure ahead of the country's June 17 general election, seen as a potential trigger for a euro exit if victory goes to parties that oppose spending cuts agreed under a European bailout deal. "It's a watershed - everyone's watching what happens and trying to make contingency plans," said Richard Talboys, head of political and trade credit risk at insurance broker Willis. "There are smoke and flames coming out of Greece but we don't know if it can be put out, or if the Greeks will pour oil on it by voting against restructuring and austerity." Reduced availability of insurance cover for exports to Greece will likely make it harder for manufacturers there to source imported components and materials, said Vincent McCue, trade credit client team leader at insurance broker Marsh. "The trade credit insurers are saying if, as a result of the election a government comes to power that is committed to overturning the austerity package, even the very best of companies in Greece will no longer be able to pay their debts as they fall due," he said. The drawn-out, yet inevitable, Greek exit from the eurozone is prolonging the agony, while leaving the country open to being asset stripped. The same process has played out many times before, but humans are resistant to learning the lessons of history and applying them to their own situation. What is beginning now, or more accurately resuming now, is already familiar to the citizens of Russia or Argentina. We can expect payments to dry up, notably public sector obligations. In Russia people went to work anyway, despite being paid months late, if at all, because they had much less dependence on liquidity for rent and utilities. In Greece (and later elsewhere in Europe and the West in general) this dependence is far greater, and the impact of the loss of liquidity will be far worse as a result. Europe is at the epicentre at the moment, but contagion will ensure that the dynamic will spread. In the European context, we are likely to see the liquidity crunch currently focused on the periphery spread to the centre.Initially the centre appears to be perceived as a safe haven, but probably not for long as the systemic risk associated with the single currency becomes increasingly apparent.

Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini mostly a one man operation his first 8 years of exile. FROM a small seeds large Oaks grow. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Understanding Balochistan: NDU Seminar Submitted by Aurangzeb on May 31, 2012 – 2:00 Exclusive Report by Marium Shah 28th May 2012, NDU, the department of international relations organized a one day national seminar on “Understanding Baluchistan: Challenges and Prospects”. Prominent personalities invited as the speakers and session chairs were Dr Masoom Yasinzai, Vice Chancellor, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad; Brig.(retd) Agha Gul Ahmed; Talat Hussian, a famous journalist and anchor; Chaudhary Muhammad Yaqoob, former IG Baluchistan; Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo; Maj Gen (Retd) Mohammd Farooq and Air Commodore (retd) Shoukat Changezi. Besides these, a number of military officials, senior academicians, faculty and students attended the seminar. The opening session was chaired by the Dean, Faculty of Contemporary Studies, NDU, Prof. Dr. Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, while the concluding session was chaired by former Vice Chancellor, University of Baluchistan, Brig. (Retd) Agha Gul. The main focus of the seminar was to understand the issue of Baluchistan; to find and highlight the problems, the challenges faced, the measures to counter the problems and to draw the map of the future scenario. Dr Masoom Yasinzai, while addressing the issue, stated that there is absolutely no governance and an extreme level of corruption in Baluchistan. He said that the education sector is completely destroyed and the Baloch youth feels threatened that their demography will be exploited by foreign investors, pushing them down in neglect. He said that the constant state of insecurity has reduced the education in Baluchistan and that currently there is no governance in Baluchistan and corruption is at its peak. He emphasized that the people of Baluchistan need attention, respect and love from their fellow countrymen. Air Commodore (retd) Shoukat Changezi stressed upon the hidden role of the aggrieved organizations and non-state actors in creating the chaotic situation in Baluchistan. Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo stressed on the need of independent elections in Baluchistan. He also highlighted the corruption committed by the MPA’s in the name of development. The Baluchistan government had received large sums of money in the last budget because of changed allocations under the 7th NFC Award and the allocated money can be seen nowhere in the development of the province. He accused the MPA’s for looting the people’s money, as 25 Crore is the minimum budget of one MPA. He also pointed out that without peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan can’t trade with central Asia. Talat Hussain said that Baluchistan’s failure is the failure of the whole country, not just one province and that Pakistan has poorly failed to resolve the problems in Baluchistan. He stressed upon the role of the foreign agencies in creating unrest and highlighted that no one has ever governed the province in true spirit and now Baluchistan needs to be “governed”. He pointed out that poor policy making; no implementation and no feedback are few of the core issues. He also stressed that the policies should be people centered. Brig. Retd. Agha cleared the fact that the Army never killed Nawab Bugti nor did it want to. He was never assassinated rather he opened fire on four army men and killed them. He also said that the non-Baloch tribes are the cause of the unrest and they should be thrown out of power, in order to create peace and stability in the region. Another speaker also pointed out that many countries including UAE have been exposed by the construction of the Gawadar port, as their own interests are threatened by the functioning of this port. Maj Gen (Retd) Mohammd Farooq said that liberty, equality, fraternity and peaceful coexistence are the key to solve the issue. He also stressed upon the involvement of the foreign agencies in destabilizing Baluchistan. To sum up, the overall conclusion that seem to appear at the end of the seminar can be summarized in the facts that Baluchistan faces an international interference and government in Baluchistan is unrepresentative and has no focus. Foreign agencies including MI6, RAW, Mossad and CIA, seemed quite visible to those who knew the situation of the province in depth, that their sole aim is to destabilize Pakistan. Baluchistan is not an experimentation ground, and it should not be treated as one. It seemed like all of the institutions have tried everything, but being impartial, it can be concluded that no one has ever shown sincerity or ever tried to draw tangible and lasting solutions for the problems. “Almost all the speakers emphasized on deriving a political solution to the Baluchistan issue, as all other alternatives have been applied. “ My hunch feeling is that there is a need to negotiate with the Baloch people; if Pakistan can talk to India, why not to its own people? The nation as a whole seems to be unaware about the province, its culture, its people and its problems. Baluchistan has huge reservoirs of minerals and natural resources that need to be explored and the Baluch people should be given part in such projects; they should be taken into confidence. The Baluch youth should be educated so that they become a vital part of the society and contribute towards the welfare of their province in particular and Pakistan in general. Report compiled by Mariam Shah ( Columnist @ The Fortress Magazine), She is a Human Rights, Youth and Peace Activist and doing MPhil in ”Peace and Conflict Studies” From NDU. She Can be reached at ms.fortress@gmail.com and she tweets at @mareium ========================= The NDU also acts as a national think tank on national security matters. Input is provided to the Government and armed forces on required basis. The NDU maintains academic links with national think tanks and defence universities of friendly countries. Close interaction with these seats of learning adds richness and depth to quality research work.(Wiki) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= (tumblr) Fortress is Pakistan’s premier defense, geo-strategic and Ideological policy magazine. Printed out of Karachi, its distribution focuses around the corridors of power within the federal and provincial governments, bureaucracy, diplomacy, the armed forces, media and the academia. Fortress is the voice of Pakistani patriots and professionals, here and abroad, who increasingly want a greater say in the governance of the country, both in domestic plains as well as the international arena. It shall be a collective effort of the patriots, technocrats and masses of Pakistan to steer the nation into the pathways of prosperity and march into a more promising and dignified future with hand in hands and heads held high. Go to http://www.thefortress.pk/ to view/download the magazines

///// UPDATE WITH PHOTOS ///// Israel govt calls for mass deportation of African immigrants (PHOTOS) http://www.rt.com/news/israel-immigrants-deport-mass-907/

Wholesome approach for Balochistan June 4, 2012 Dr Raja Muhammad Khan ============== In an astounding revelation, Major General Obaidullah Khan, the Inspector General Frontier Corps Balochistan has said that there are approximately twenty foreign spying agencies actively involved in the destabilization of Balochistan. General Obaid revealed these facts on June 2, 2012, in a Press Conference held in FC Headquarters, Quetta. Indeed, Pakistan has been expressing its concern over the involvement of the foreign intelligence network in its geographically biggest Province since many years. In 2009, Pakistan formally protested with India over the involvement of its intelligence agency RAW in the destabilization of Balochistan by supporting and provoking sub-nationalist elements through Afghanistan and other neighbouring countries of Pakistan. Beside RAW; CIA, Mossad, MI-6 and many others spying networks are cooperating to destabilize Balochistan. Indeed, the main cause of the mistrust between Pakistan and its ally US is the covert role of the later to create instability in Pakistan, particularly, Balochistan and FATA, through its sponsored terrorists. In fact, in the garb of friendship, US has proved as the most dangerous enemy of Pakistan. General Obaid also disclosed that, there are over 50 farari (fugitive) camps, training the militants in the province. All these camps are funded and supported by these foreign spying agencies. Like a professional soldier, General Obaid, however, expressed his determination to fight back all these conspiracies. He said that, "We are determined to foil all conspiracies hatched by anti-Pakistan elements." Since military action is not the ultimate solution of all the issue and Baloch masses (except few foreign agents) are very loyal Pakistani, therefore, this farsighted General, who was considered most suitable for the job, he is performing, considers that issue needs a political approach. He said, "Efforts should be made to find a political solution because use of force has never succeeded in resolving any issue." The General is cognizant of the fact that, it is through a deliberate campaign FC and intelligence agencies of Pakistan are being targeted and defamed. The aim is that these national forces should be pulled out, leaving the space wide open for the foreign spying networks and forces to operate freely in the length and breath of the province. Nevertheless, the General has expressed his determination by saying that, although "The FC has been physically and psychologically targeted for quite some time, but, "Our morale is high and it cannot be weakened through such conspiracies." Definitely, securing the border and stopping insurgency is the task of FC. However, it is difficult to secure 1200 km porous border with Afghanistan. Moreover, arms and ammunition in Balochistan is not only smuggled through one route, but through a combination of many. For promoting insurgency in the province, the external forces are indeed spending billion of dollars. Gen Khattak also indicated 121 insurgent training facilities to train the locals. There have occurred 550 terrorist' incidents in the province during the current years. Unfortunately, owing to the lack of evidence, most of the militants, FC hands over to police for trial in the court are released. As an estimate, so far over 100,000 people have migrated from the province, owing to the worsening law and order situation in the province. Just a few days back, Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Ch, while closing the discussion on the Balochistan situation, said that, "The entire province is on fire but those at the helm of affairs seem to be insensitive and nobody is showing any interest in arresting the situation." The court also directed Mr Khushnood Lashari, the Principal Secretary to PM to consult Dfence and Interior secretaries and come up with a clear statement "about the rising number of incidents involving disappearances, kidnapping for ransom and recovery of dead bodies in the province." Perhaps in the light of the SC directive, Prime Minister, Gilani chaired a high level meeting on Balochistan with key persons of his cabinet and Balochistan Assembly. He also decided to visit Balochistan, starting from Sunday, June 3, 2012. It is yet not clear whether; PM would only meet the political leadership and those responsible for the law and order in the province or has the plans to meet the aggrieved Baloch masses. Nevertheless, it would be most appropriate if Mr Gilani could meet the masses and real representatives of the province during this visit; otherwise, Balochistan Chief Minister along with his key ministers mostly remains in Balochistan House in Islamabad. PM should visit the remote areas, particularly the disturbed one. This would have a grater impact on the people, who have been misdirected and being misused by anti-state elements under the direction of foreign spying agencies. Prime Minister Gilani has announced some cosmetic measures, apparently to improve the law and order situation in the province. Apart from ceasing the Rahdaris in the province, vehicles with fake number plates or without authorized documents will also be disallowed to ply in the province, a task impossible in Balochistan. PM also directs "extraordinary vigilant of inimical forces which are creating disturbances in the province." A realistic assessment of these so-called additional directives would reveal that, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) should have these as their routine duties and responsibilities to perform. There is nothing new, which this high-level meeting could suggest. Probably, it was in the response of the Supreme Court orders and to show it to the Baloch masses that political government is doing a lot for them. Premier also called for a new legislation for the recovery of the missing persons in the Balochistan province, as if no law exists currently. There is no denying the fact that the incumbent Government has given maximum funds to the province in last four years, in the form of Aaghaaz-a-Haqooq Balochistan Package and redistribution of resources in the NFC award. But, the Government could not ensure the implementation of these packages and resultant improvement in the social well being of the people of Balochistan. Those administrating the province, gets Rs 250 million as the discretionary funds of the each MPAs, but not spent a single penny on the development of their respective constituencies. Thus, the retaliation of the locals under such a situation on the call of sub-nationalists on provocation of foreign spying agencies is natural. The question is; after all, why Federal Government failed to have a check and balance in the affairs of Balochistan, while knowing fully the capabilities of Balochistan Government. These half hearted acts of the Government raise the doubts about its seriousness towards resolving the national issues of great concern. As decided by political and military leadership of the country in the last week of May 2012, the issue needs a political tackling; there is a need to get serious about the situation in the province. Whereas, the FC and intelligence agencies deny their involvement in the case of missing persons and killing of the Baloch masses, why cannot the leadership trace the other avenues, like global conspiracies against the Province and the country, as highlighted by IG FC? Just imagine, who would be the beneficiary of the missing persons, torture and killings; FC and intelligence agencies or the external element, determined to destabilize Pakistan. Whereas, the employment and deployment of FC Balochistan is now given to the Chief Minister of the province, we have to see, whether the incumbent CM is capable of doing that in the best national interest of Pakistan and the Province. His mental state and stability mostly remains questionable and who would guarantee that this force would not be used against the political opponents of the CM or Home Minister in the tribal society of Balochistan. Indeed, those at the helm of affairs must ensure timely decisions and their implementations. Nevertheless, there is a requirement of the maturity of the decisions too. Political leadership should not pass the time by taking ill-advised and short-term decisions. At this trying time of the history of Pakistan, just allotment of funds and formulation of committees and commissions would not resolve the problem. Money and political packages are short-term measures. Ultimately, it is political will and determination, free of politics that may lead towards permanent solution of the issue. Nevertheless, the implementation on ground would really matter a lot. An indiscriminate socio-economic development of the province in this regard would play a major role. There is a need that representatives of the federal and provincial governments (both elected and potentials) along with responsible bureaucracy must visit the province physically to know the real problems and to address their grievances on spot. These visits should not be restricted to Quetta, but at least at the level of tehsils and sub-divisions. These groups should have a mandate to decide things on ground and later in consultation with the respective governments should initiate long-term projects. The youth of the province, irrespective of their academic level and political affiliation should be given jobs to absorb them in the larger Pakistani society. In fact, the rapidly deteriorating situation of the Balochistan demands an immediate action plan. Rather a blame-game, the situation warrants a consensus political solution. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ##################################### Indian Intelligence Outfit ‘RAW’ Terrorism in South Asian Countries June 5, 2012 PK DEFEN India has gone to war or have supported terrorism in every regional country. Hindu Zionists have broken Pakistan and support insurgencies even today. They have destroyed Sri Lanka by supporting Tamil Tigers for 30 years! Indians have gone to war with China and create terrorism in BD, Tibet, Nepal and Burma. It is time that we cut India to size! India is already breaking apart! Lets give them a parting kick! By Isha Khan India’s premier intelligence outfit Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)’s operations against the regional countries are conducted with great professional skill and expertise. Central to the operations is the establishment of a huge network inside the target countries. It uses and targets political dissent, ethnic divisions, economic backwardness and criminal elements within these states to foment subversion, terrorism and sabotage.Having thus created the conducive environments, RAW stage-manage future events in these countries in such a way that military intervention appears a natural concomitant of the events. In most cases, RAW’s hand remains hidden, but more often that not target countries soon begin unearthing those “hidden hand”. A brief expose of RAW’s operations in neighboring countries would reveal the full expanse of its regional ambitions ( Open Secrets. India’s Intelligence Unveiled by M K Dhar. Manas Publications, New Delhi, 2005). Indian intelligence agencies were involved in Bangladesh since early 1960s.In fact, the main purpose of raising RAW in 1968 was to organise covert operations in Bangladesh. As early as in 1968, RAW was given a green signal to begin mobilising all its resources for the impending surgical intervention in erstwhile East Pakistan. When in July 1971 General Manekshaw told Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that the army would not be ready till December to intervene in Bangladesh, she quickly turned to RAW for help. RAW was ready. Its officers used Bengali refugees to set up Mukti Bahini. Using this outfit as a cover, Indian military sneaked deep into Bangladesh. The story of Mukti Bahini and RAW’s role in its organisation and training is now well-known. RAW never concealed its Bangladesh operations. Interested readers may have details in Asoka Raina’s Inside RAW: the story of India’s Secret Service published by Vikas Publishing House of New Delhi. It was partly to put an end to the activities of the ISI in India’s North-East from East Pakistan that Indira Gandhi decided to assist the Bengali-speaking people of East Pakistan in their efforts to separate from Pakistan and achieve an independent State to be called Bangladesh. The IB before 1968 and the R&AW thereafter had built up a network of relationships with many political leaders and Government officials of East Pakistan. The R&AW’s role was five-fold: Provision of intelligence to the policy-makers and the armed forces; to train the Bengali freedom fighters in clandestine training camps; to network with Bengali public servants from East Pakistan posted in West Pakistan and in Pakistan’s diplomatic missions abroad and persuade them to co-operate with the freedom-fighters and to help in the freedom struggle by providing intelligence; to mount a special operation in the CHT against the sanctuaries and training camps of the Naga and Mizo hostiles;and to organize a psychological warfare (PSYWAR) campaign against the Pakistani rulers by disseminating reports about the massacres of the Bengalis in East Pakistan and the exodus of refugees.(Role of RAW in Liberation of Bangladesh By B Raman, http://www.indiandef...Bangladesh.html). An American report confirmed RAW was directly involved in the secession of East Pakistan into Bangladesh and is currently engaged in similar activities. RAW has a long history of activity in Bangladesh supporting both secular forces and the area’s Hindu minority masterminding the break up of Pakistan in 1971(http://indianterrori...AWterrorism.htm). The main objective of the RAW is to create internal trouble in neighbouring countries and take benefit from the trouble that the neighbouring countries face(Machination of RAW in South Asia and Movement of RAW in Nepal/ by Dr Shastra Dutta Pant). The analysis of Indian foreign policy trends shows that the Indian governments had adopted an aggressive attitude and covert means for attaining its two permanent foreign policy goals: (a) to attain a hegemonic position in South Asia; ( to play a role in international system based on Kautilyan principles. Indian governments have used intelligence agencies, not only for monitoring the activities of neighbouring States, but also as a covert forward base to achieve its goals and to implement its hegemonic policies in the region. Over the years RAW become an important instrument for promoting the hegemonic influence of India in the Asian region and has also played a significant role in enhancing India’s image as an important international actor. RAW has now acquired the important role of being the covert instrument of Indian national power and will remain decisive actor in furthering Indian interests and future Indian hegemonic ambitions in the region. Ever since the partition of the sub-continent India has been openly meddling in Nepal’s internal affairs by contriving internal strife and conflicts through RAW to destabilise the successive legitimate governments and prop up puppet regimes which would be more amenable Indian machinations. Armed insurrections were sponsored and abetted by RAW and later requests for military assistance to control these were managed through pro-India leaders. India has been aiding and inciting the Nepalese dissidents to collaborate with the Nepali Congress. RAW: An Instrument Of Indian Imperialism by Isha Khan, (http://www.countercu.../khan131007.htm). India has been openly meddling in Nepal’s internal affairs by contriving internal strife and conflicts through RAW to destabilize the successive legitimate governments & prop up puppet regimes which would be more amenable Indian mechanization. Armed insurrections were sponsored and abetted by RAW and later requests for military assistance to control these were managed through pro-India leaders. India has been aiding & inciting the Nepalese to collaborate with the Nepali Congress. For this they were supplied arms whenever the king or the Nepalese Government appeared to be drifting away from the Indian dictates & impinging on Indian hegemonic designs in the region. In fact under the garb of democratization process, the Maoists were actively encouraged by the RAW to collect arms to resort to open rebellion against the legitimate Nepalese governments( RAW The Rascal by Prem Raj http://www.lankaweb....8/300408-1.html). Indian sources, including journalists, have put on record how much before 1971 RAW had established the network of a separatist movement through ‘cells’ and military training camps in Indian territory adjoining Bangladesh. The Mukti Bahini were all in place organisationally to take advantage of the political trouble in 1971 and carry out acts of sabotage against communication lines so that Indian forces simply marched in at the ‘right’ time. RAW agents provided valuable information as well as acting as an advance guard for conducting unconventional guerrilla acts against the Pakistani defence forces. A Mukti Bahini activist, Zainal Abedin, has written a revealing book which includes his personal experience in Indian training camps, entitled RAW and Bangladesh. It was the post-fall of Dhaka period which exposed the Indians’ true intentions and made Abedin realise that It was evident from the conduct of the Indian Army that they treated Bangladesh as a colony … It is now evident that India had helped the creation of Bangladesh with the aim that it would be a step forward towards the total Indian subjugation. RAW has since been seeking to create Indian dominance culturally, ideologically and economically in Bangladesh. Following the independence of Bangladesh‚ it signed a seven-point secret treaty with India. According to the treaty‚ all types of employees including civil employees appointed during the Bangladesh civil war should be granted permanent status‚ other employees also could be appointed only by the Indian administrative service‚ a certain number of Indian soldiers will continue to remain in Bangladesh despite independence‚ Bangladesh will not have its own army‚ for its internal security‚ it will have only militias from among the freedom fighters who will work under the Indian military command‚ the trade between the two countries will be kept open and free‚ and matters pertaining to foreign affairs will be dealt only after close consultation with the Indian foreign ministry. The treaty had two main points. India will have its control over foreign and defence matters and Bangladesh would open its market for Indian products. Even after this‚ Indian newspapers continued to lobby for the merger of Bangladesh into India.If European countries can become a united Europe‚ why can’t India go to status-quo-ante‚ or the situation prior to 1947?[31] Such were the views expressed in those newspapers(RAW in the Freedom Struggle of Bangladesh, Shastra Dutta Pant, http://www.banglades...000000000042901) In addition, RAW had also created another insurgency outfit, Shanti Bahini. This force comprises the Chittagong Hill Tracts Hindu and Buddhists tribesmen (the Chakmas) and the intention is to bleed the Bengali military and keep the border area tense( India’s unconventional war strategy by Dr Shireen Mazari, http://www.defencejo...99/rawfacts.htm). The Chakma guerrillas had closely assisted RAW operatives. They were assisted during and after the liberation War. The Chakmas, after the change of govt in 1975, contacted the RAW. The Chakmas offered to infiltrate among the Mizo rebels and pass on information to the Indian govt in lieu of asylum. This offer was accepted (Inside RAW : The Story of India’s Secret Service, Asoka Raina, Vikas Publishers, New Delhi, 1981, pp.86-87). In 1975, the RAW was instructed to assist the Chakma rebels with arms, supplies , bases and training. Training was conducted in the border camps in Tripura but specialized training was imparted at Chakrata near Dehra Doon. Shantu Larma’s Shanti Bahini members were flown to Chakrata and then sent back to Tripura to infiltrate into Chittagong Hill Tracts. A RAW office and its operatives at Agartala monitored the progress of the trainees. In 1976, the Shanti Bahini launched its first attack on the Bangladesh force. A new insurgency had been born and India’s secret war in the hills of Bangladesh had begun ( South Asia’s Fractured Frontier, by Binalaksmi Nepram, Mittal Pablishers, New Delhi, 2002, pp-153). The RAW was involved in training rebels of Chakma tribes and Shanti Bahini to carry out subversive activities in Bangladesh (RAW’s role in Furthering India’s Foreign Policy, The New Nation, Dhaka, 31 August 1994). The Indian intelligence had collaborated the armed rebels of Chittagong Hill Tracts to destabilise the region ( Indo-Bangladesh Relation, Motiur Rahman, daily Prothom Alo, 10 December 2002). RAW retained a keen interest in Bangladesh even after its independence. Mr. Subramaniam Swamy, Janata Dal MP, a close associate of Morarji Desai said that Rameswar Nath Kao, former Chief of RAW, and Shankaran Nair upset about Sheikh Mujib’s assassination chalked a plot to kill General Ziaur Rahman. However, when Morarji Desai came into power in 1977 he was indignant at RAW’s role in Bangladesh and ordered operations in Bangladesh to be called off; but by then RAW had already gone too far. General Zia continued to be in power for quite some time but he was assassinated after Indira Gandhi returned to power, though she denied her involvement in his assassination ( Weekly Sunday, Calcutta,18 September, 1988 ). It also unleashed a well-organized plan of psychological warfare and dissension among the political parties and religious sects, control of media, denial of river waters, and propping up a host of disputes in order to keep Bangladesh under a constant political and socio-economic pressure ( “ RAW and Bangladesh” by Mohammad Zainal Abedin, November 1995, RAW In Bangladesh: Portrait of an Aggressive Intelligence, by Abu Rushd, Dhaka ). RAW continues keeping effective contacts with the political personalities, parties and election process. The Economist of London recently wrote: ‘Ever since 2008, when the Awami League, helped by bags of Indian cash and advice, triumphed in general elections in Bangladesh, relations with India have blossomed ( http://www.economist.../21524917/print ). A couple of years back an Indian journalist Rajesh Joshi had reported that a political party of a neighbouring country received a fund of Rupees 4.5 crore from RAW( Research and Analysis Wing, India’s premier intelligence outfit) in 1991 but the party was defeated (The Indian Express, 28 April 1991). It may be mentioned here that elections were only held in Bangladesh in 1991 in the subcontinent and AL was defeated in that election. Years later weekly Sugandha had a similar story on 24 April 1996. Political parties, personalities and various outfits had received Indian fund, assistance, training etc in not too distant past. Some references: ‘The involvement of RAW in East Pakistan is said to date from the 1960s, when RAW supported Mujibur Rahman, leading up to his general election victory in 1970’ ( https://www.fas.org/...orld/india/raw/). ‘The Bangla Desh Operation began a year before the actual operation was underway. Even when the world did get a whiff of it in the shape of the Mukti Bahani, many remained unaware of RAW’s involvement. By 1968 Indian operatives had already been in contact with the Mujib faction. Meetings convened in Agartala during 1962-63, between the IB foreign desk operatives ( Sankaran Nair) and the Mujib faction’ ( Asoka Raina in “Inside RAW: The Story of India’s Secret Service”,Vikas Publishing, New Delhi,1981. Also in “RAW in the Freedom Struggle of Bangladesh” by Dr Shastra Dutta Pant (http://www.banglades...hidRecord=42901). ‘ The RAW created ‘Mujib Bahini’, a special force during liberation war. Mujib Bahini was trained at the headquarters of the Aviation Research Center, RAW’s special outfit at Chakrata near Dehradun. The force was headed by Sirajul Alam Khan,Tofael Ahmed, Abdur Razzzak and Fazlul Huq Moni. After the war most members joined Rakkhi Bahini and JSD’ ( Major General Sujan Singh Uban in his “ Phatoms of Chittagong; The Fifth Army in Bangladesh”, Allied Publishers, 1985, New Delhi). ‘Kaderia Bahini’s Tiger Siddiqui , who had contacts with the RAW crossed over the border in 1975.The Indian govt’s support to Siddiqui is reported to have continued via RAW’ (Asoka Raina in “Inside RAW: The Story of India’s Secret Service”,Vikas Publishing, New Delhi,1981). The Chakma guerrillas had closely assisted RAW operatives. They were assisted during and after the liberation War. The Chakmas, after the change of govt in 1975, contacted the RAW and offered to infiltrate among the Mizo rebels and pass on information to the Indian govt in lieu of assylum. This offer was accepted (Inside RAW : The Story of India’s Secret Service, Asoka Raina, pp.86-87). The Indian intelligence had collaborated the armed rebels of Chittagong Hill Tracts to destabilise the region ( Indo-Bangladesh Relation, Motiur Rahman, daily Prothom Alo, 10 December 2002). Swadhin Bangobhumi Andolon/Banga Sena ( led by former AL leader Chitta Ranjan Sutar) also enjoy similar help from India ( “Antaraler Sheikh Mujib”, Dr Kalidas Baidya, Kolkata, 2005). ############################################## ------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to Global Research scholar, Michel Chossudovsky: (click name for article) “In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers. British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Baluchistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan's military). In June 2006, Pakistan's Senate Committee on Defense accused British intelligence of "abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran" [baluchistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on Defense regarding the alleged support of Britain's Secret Service to Baloch separatists (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan." ################################################## ################################################## In a 2006 research article on Baluchistan which was published in Pak Tribune in 2006, Farzana Shah, a current affairs analyst for BrassTacks, a think tank based in Islamabad, highlighted the role which is being played by a British think tank against Baluchistan. Shah writes, “In this regard the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) United Kingdom arranged a seminar on Baluchistan province of Pakistan in collaboration with the so-called Baluchistan Rights Movement on 27th June 2006 in the House of Commons, London. It was highly disappointing as it was abashedly a one-sided cheap propaganda rather than discussing the real situation. By a mere look at the panel of the participants of the seminar one could easily figure out that it consisted of only anti-Pakistan elements and some self-styled activists advocating terrorism in the province. There were no representatives from government of Pakistan or even from the elected provincial government of Baluchistan in the seminar. It is just unfortunate that the Foreign Policy Centre which is expected to present fair suggestions to the British government to engage a country of their concern for important issues, indulged in such a blatant one-sided propaganda against Pakistan through the said seminar.” Shah also points out in the article how a Government of Baluchistan is setup in exile in Jerusalem, Israel. She gives the details in her article.(below) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ GEE PO BOX JERUSALEM = Baluchistan separatists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baluchistan Government in exile in Jerusalem SEE ARTICLE BELOW !! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://paktribune.co...ads-150596.html Baluchistan At The Cross Roads 28 July, 2006 Pakistan is increasingly becoming a focal point of the regional economy with the development of Gwadar Port and other mega projects in its Baluchitsan province. This coupled with its strategic location is the main reason for getting the attraction of the world and regional powers. Its critical importance can be gauged from the fact that the port of Gwadar could provide the ‘window’ to monitor the entire Persian Gulf, which according to the analysts is being used by many countries of the West, Middle East, Far East, China and India. Due to the ever increasing needs of energy resources the world powers are watching keenly and looking for ways and means to control the oil and gas supply from Central Asia, for which Gwadar again could become a major outlet. However, Chinese interest and presence in the region has not only caused great concern to them but also to our next door neighbour – India. A political turmoil causing unrest in Baluchistan could serve their designs to a great extent, where by funding and arming the rebels and miscreants could provide them with the foothold in the region. Baluchis being mostly a feudal and tribal society, the task of misleading them against the legit authorities becomes easier as only a handful of their tribal chiefs (Sardars) are to be inculcated. The media war, seminars, discussions at various fora of the world and similar other ‘intellectual’ activity is a pre-requisite to lend credence to such insurgency and ‘freedom’ struggles. In this regard the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) United Kingdom arranged a seminar on Baluchistan province of Pakistan in collaboration with the so-called Baluchistan Rights Movement on 27th June 2006 in the House of Commons, London. It was highly disappointing as it was abashedly a one-sided cheap propaganda rather than discussing the real situation. By a mere look at the panel of the participants of the seminar one could easily figure out that it consisted of only anti-Pakistan elements and some self-styled activists advocating terrorism in the province. There were no representatives from government of Pakistan or even from the elected provincial government of Baluchistan in the seminar. It is just unfortunate that the Foreign Policy Centre which is expected to present fair suggestions to the British government to engage a country of their concern for important issues, indulged in such a blatant one-sided propaganda against Pakistan through the said seminar. The seminar seemed to focus only at propagating the views of the rebels and miscreants active in Baluchistan at targeting the civilians and vital government installation to halt the development projects in the province. It certainly put the credibility of the Foreign Policy Centre in doubt, although Hugh Barnes who chaired the event claimed FPC to be an ‘independent’ think tank committed to holding events of such nature with speakers and audience members from each side of the debate. He fell much short of the claim as in the said seminar there were many sides missing and only those opposed to the government advocating the cause of the miscreants were invited to it. Had there been any representative from the Government of Pakistan or from the elected government of Baluchistan, the centre would have been justified in its such claim. FPC’s credibility becomes further questionable when one finds Pro-Israel Stephen Twiggs as its chairman and influencing its activities cleverly. He joined the Foreign Policy Centre as Director in August 2005. He is involved with the FPC from its conception in 1998 and since then as a Member of the Board from 1998 to 2006. He also chairs the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) a Westminster based pro-Israel lobby group working within the British Labour party. It is considered one of the most prestigious groupings in the party and is seen as a stepping stone to ministerial ranks by the Labour MPs. The committee wields considerable influence in Westminster and is also consulted routinely by the Foreign Office and Downing Street on matters relating to the Middle East. Tony Blair is known to consult its members over Middle East policy. Very strangely, according to one Mir Azad Khan Baluch, at his blog http://governmentofb...an.blogspot.com, the Baloch Diaspora in April 2006 established the newly formed "democratic, liberal and secular" Government of Balochistan (GOB) in Exile in Jerusalem, Israel. The address of which is as under The World Baloch Jewish Alliance Building PO Box 5631 Jerusalem, 91000 ISRAEL No wonder the formation of the above GOB confirms the anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam role of the chair of the FPC, in misleading the British government and the audience through such seminar. An other speaker, Dr Naseer Dashti, a relatively unknown entity of Baluchistan mostly delved at maligning the non-Baluchis and trying to convince the British audience that if the UK sided with the miscreants fomenting trouble in the province, all the problems will be solved there. Interestingly he had altogether negated the entire ideology of the country and that of Balochis. No one in Pakistan is in any way against the lifestyle of the Baluchs or their languages or culture as propagated by Dr Dashti. Senator Dr Sanaullah Baloch, one of the anti-government elements in Pakistan, mostly focused on spitting venom against Pakistan Army through baseless allegations. Putting a cursory look at his comments one can only shake his/her head in disappointment as he even did not spare the development projects initiated by the government of Pakistan for the uplift of Balochs. Similarly the speech by Mehran Baloch of the Baluchistan Rights Movement was one-sided opinion of an individual mainly focused on advocating insurgency in Pakistan just to benefit few Sardars for subjugating the common Baluchs. Mr Laku Luhana, World Sindhi Congress was also no different from others only focusing on criticism of the Army. Although an ethnic body’s head has nothing to do with the situation in Baluchistan, however he was being given chance to speak and add to hatred against Pakistan. Ryszard Czarnecki, a member of European Parliament from Poland, also spoke against Pak Army. He said “Pakistan came into existence through restrictive voting and is being ruled by the Punjabi army. Baluchs are a distinct ethnic group and not part of Pakistan.” It is laughable as every province of Pakistan has the population consisting of different ethnic groups. Does it mean that all the provinces are not part of Pakistan? All the above speakers seemed to have been assigned the task of speaking against the army and none of them for once mentioned the atrocities being committed by a few (read only three) Sardars against the common Baluchs. None of them even mentioned how Nawab Akbar Bugti has subjected his own very people to torture and humiliation. He has not even spared his own relatives who are against his arbitrary rule. He expelled the Kalpars and Masuries (Baluchi) tribes from their own land compelling them to live in Punjab until the army restored peace in the province and they could return to their ancestral homelands. The FPC should have noted the fact that very recently about 600 commanders of Nawab Akbar Bugti surrendered voluntarily to the government. Bangan Khan Bugti, one of his commanders, is on record to have clearly revealed that Nawab Bugti had used all the funds provided to him by the government of Pakistan for his own personal interest and for buying the arms to wage war against the government and to subjugate his own tribesmen. If these Sardars were so interested in the welfare of the Baluchs, why did not Nawab Akbar Bugti carry out any development in the province when he was the Chief Minister of Baluchistan? What stopped him from doing that? Did the FPC try to peep into hundreds of ‘Farari’ camps established by the Sardars and Nawab Bugti which were being used as torture cells committing great Human Rights violation against the common Baluchs. Why did Mehran Baloch the great Human Rights activists over looked it? Daily attacks by scores of missile were a routine matter during the last year and the beginning of this year against the common Baluchs and the government installations by the terrorists, mainly comprising the Bugti terrorists and the so called Balochitsan Liberation Army which, incidentally, has been banned recently by the British government as a terrorist Organisation, which is indeed a commendable step. However, despite the fact that terrorism is the biggest concern for the western world and insurgencies and political struggle in Kashmir, Chechnya and Palestine have been condemned and dubbed as terrorism, UK had led FPC to hold such a seminar wherein supporters of the trouble makers were advocating terrorism in the name of so called liberation urging British government to side with the terrorist against Pakistan. An institution like FPC is expected to work towards education, information and better awareness about political and foreign policy issues to help them resolve and not to provide prestigious platform for one-sided propaganda, hateful speeches and misinformation against a sovereign country. Solution to the turmoil in Baluchistan lies in dialogue, greater democracy at grassroots level, and end to the aged-old primitive tribal system where powerful Sardars hold their private armies, have prisons, hold subservient courts and dispense justice as they wish. Unfortunately the selected participants in the seminar never addressed such any such issues and mainly seemed bent upon supporting the Sardari rule. In the Pakistani mindset a feeling already exists that Balochistan trouble is being fomented from outside with help and funding from western sources to destabilise the Pakistani state, to thwart Chinese strategic investment in the area, to compel Pakistan to co-operate in (the ensuing) operation against Iran and to divert attention from India’s problems in Kashmir. Such patently unbalanced and flawed seminar panels only add to such suspicions. ########################### TO REPEAT ################ GEE PO BOX JERUSALEM = Baluchistan separatists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baluchistan Government in exile in Jerusalem OOPS !!!!!!!! OOPS !!!!!!!! GEE PO BOX JERUSALEM = Baluchistan separatists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baluchistan Government in exile in Jerusalem OOPS !!!!!!!! OOPS !!!!!!!! OOPS !!!!!!!!!!!!! OOPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MOSSAD,CIA,RAW work together to Balkanize Baluchistan via terror. I have shown this via solid evidence. Colby has not refuted me. -------------- oo -- oo-- oo -- ----------- Colby,"Like I said rebutting you is easier than giving candy to babies." Babies be afraid ,very afraid...dont take the Colby candy !! [++++++++++++++++++++++oooooooo++++++++++++++++++++++++] ---------------------------- MAIN STREAM REDIFF shows RAW-MOSSAD CONNECTION ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ POST # 2 This thread shows USA government plan to Balkanize Baluchistan with use of some terror elements. --------- Further in POST #2 Dr. Ismail Salami who has written a book on Middle Eastern political relations, as compared to obcure blogger Len Colby who has not. Dr. Salami ,"Isn't it paradoxical that Jundullah, a terrorist group and an offshoot of al-Qaeda, is directly funded by the US government which keeps bandying about its so-called 'war on terror' in the world?". ################################################ Below from my POST #2 = The Council on Foreign Relations published a backgrounder report on RAW, India’s intelligence agency, founded in 1968 “primarily to counter China's influence, [however] over time it has shifted its focus to India’s other traditional rival, Pakistan.” For over three decades both Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies have been involved in covert operations against one another. One of RAW’s main successes was its covert operations in East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, which “aimed at fomenting independence sentiment” and ultimately led to the separation of Bangladesh by directly funding, arming and training the Pakistani separatists. Further, as the Council on Foreign Relations noted, “From the early days, RAW had a secret liaison relationship with the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency.”[41] - -- -- GEE Council on Foreign Relation not good source ?? (Colby has gone off the deepend) Case closed. ################################################## Veracity Now is per Colby," Obscure blog, cites no sources.." Well Veracity Now a progressive news outlet similar to The Nation magazine,which Colby likes. Would a ethnocentric racism combined with anti-religiosity explain a preference of the The Nation magazine over a moderate Muslim Pakastani outlet ???? ################################################### Colby pompously pontificates ,"Rupee News is not “main stream”, let alone academic..", however I see many acidemics and intellectual thinkers. One has to ask,what has Colby done or accomplished in intellectual matters ? - - - ---- ------ -- -- -- ---- RUPEE NEWS INDEPENDENT (not establishment genuflector that LEN Colby loves ) RUPEE NEWS: In-depth analysis of events and unbiased commentary on news. Our media is now concentrated in the hands of 6 corporations. We have to get news and views from independent sources. Rupee News is owned and operated by Sapartese Management. There are several editors, Moin Ansari, Amardeep Singh, and Lisa Bernstein We present indpendent ideas, thought-provoking and unique. We intend malice towards none. Rupee News presents fresh ideas. Its purpose – as well as that of the other such sites is to provide a venue for informed commentary on World politics and culture from a international perspective. We are writing about important developments from ISAF, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, NATO to UEFA. The “tagged” version of the last sentence might read like this – World politics, economics, culture, and current events, demography, literature, sports. There are currently fifteen member-authors contributing to afoe who reside in several Asia, US and South Asian countries. We occasionally invite writers we appreciate to contribute as guest writers. Our contributors are keen observers of socio-economic developments, both on a international and a national level, who, in addition to their determination to contribute to an informed debate in the nascent European public sphere, have backgrounds in political journalism, audio-visual media, judicial advisory, think tanks, or academia. We can not be positioned according to the common criteria and labels used to describe American politics and the (blogospherical) coverage thereof. While we could be generally described as “pro European”, we believe in the merit of informed debate regardless of the origin of a valid argument. Moin Ansari is a 50-something US-raised Pakistani American living somewhere in the US. His political background is well to the left of centre, and is very interested in investigative history, international relations, immigration, cultural integration and language policy issues. He is presently working on a long term doctorate in history Jason Miller is a tenacious anti-capitalist and vegan animal liberationist. He is also the founder and editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, blog director for The Transformative Studies Institute and associate editor for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies. Isha Khan A Bangladeshi activits who regualrly posts on Rupee News Dr. Fawzia Khan A professor based in New Jersey who writes for various magazines including Counterpunch. Dr. Abdul Ruff Prolific writer from Delhi who regularly contributes to Rupee News Dr. Koncha A Dalit activits from Hydrabad India who highlights Dalit issues in Dalit Freedom Network Jim Mondavi: 27 year old economist and journalist, center-left. Riaz Khan An American freelance journalist who lives in the US Munir Khan An Indian activist who writes on politics

Per Colby 'Pakistan one of the most Corrupt countries on earth' = but = Per Colby 'The country’s (Pakistan) Supreme Court was so unconvinced it order the government to produce one of the missing men.' (Gee its good government now ??) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mr. Double standard has entered the room. +++++++ Social and political instability continues to prevent meaningful progress in economic development, and conditions have deteriorated over the past year. Property rights are severely undercut by a weak judiciary susceptible to political interference and rampant corruption. In dealing with the aftermath of devastating 2010 floods, the government’s response has fallen far short of adequate. http://www.heritage.org/index/country/pakistan++++++ ===================================================================================== MAIN STREAM REDIFF Thirty-five years ago, in September 1968, when the Research and Analysis Wing was founded with Rameshwar Nath Kao at its helm, then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him to cultivate Israel's Mossad. She believed relations between the two intelligence agencies was necessary to monitor developments that could threaten India and Israel. The efficient spymaster he was, Kao established a clandestine relationship with Mossad. In the 1950s, New Delhi had permitted Tel Aviv to establish a consulate in Mumbai. But full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel were discouraged because India supported the Palestinian cause; having an Israeli embassy in New Delhi, various governments believed, would rupture its relations with the Arab world. This was where the RAW-Mossad liaison came in. Among the threats the two external intelligence agencies identified were the military relationship between Pakistan and China and North Korea, especially after then Pakistan foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto visited Pyongyang in 1971 to establish a military relationship with North Korea. Again, Israel was worried by reports that Pakistani army officers were training Libyans and Iranians to handle Chinese and North Korean military equipment. RAW-Mossad relations were a secret till Morarji Desai became prime minister in 1977. RAW officials had alerted him about the Zia-ul Haq regime's plans to acquire nuclear capability. While French assistance to Pakistan for a plutonium reprocessing plant was well known, the uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta was a secret. After the French stopped helping Islamabad under pressure from the Carter administration, Pakistan was determined to keep the Kahuta plant a secret. Islamabad did not want Washington to prevent its commissioning. RAW agents were shocked when Desai called Zia and told the Pakistani military dictator: 'General, I know what you are up to in Kahuta. RAW has got me all the details.' The prime minister's indiscretion threatened to expose RAW sources. The unfortunate revelation came about the same time that General Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, was secretly visiting Kathmandu for a meeting with Indian representatives. Islamabad believed Dayan's visit was connected with a joint operation by Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies to end Pakistan's nuclear programme. Apprehensive about an Indo-Israeli air strike on Kahuta, surface-to-air missiles were mounted around the uranium enrichment plant. These fears grew after the Israeli bombardment of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Zia decided Islamabad needed to reassure Israel that it had nothing to fear from Pakistan's nuclear plans. Intermediaries -- Americans close to Israel -- established the initial contacts between Islamabad and Tel Aviv. Israel was confidant the US would not allow Pakistan's nuclear capability to threaten Israel. That is why Israeli experts do not mention the threat from Pakistan when they refer to the need for pre-emptive strikes against Iraq, Iran and Libya's nuclear schemes. By the early 1980s, the US had discovered Pakistan's Kahuta project. By then northwest Pakistan was the staging ground for mujahideen attacks against Soviet troops in Afghanistan and Zia no longer feared US objections to his nuclear agenda. But Pakistani concerns over Israel persisted, hence Zia decided to establish a clandestine relationship between Inter-Services Intelligence and Mossad via officers of the two services posted at their embassies in Washington, DC. The ISI knew Mossad would be interested in information about the Libyan, Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian military. Pakistani army officers were often posted on deputation in the Arab world -- in these very countries -- and had access to valuable information, which the ISI offered Mossad. When young Israeli tourists began visiting the Kashmir valley in the early nineties Pakistan suspected they were Israeli army officers in disguise to help Indian security forces with counter-terrorism operations. The ISI propaganda inspired a series of terrorist attacks on the unsuspecting Israeli tourists. One was slain, another kidnapped. The Kashmiri Muslim Diaspora in the US feared the attacks would alienate the influential Jewish community who, they felt, could lobby the US government and turn it against Kashmiri organisations clamouring for independence. Soon after, presumably caving into pressure, the terrorists released the kidnapped Israeli. During negotiations for his release, Israeli government officials, including senior intelligence operatives, arrived in Delhi. The ensuing interaction with Indian officials led to India establishing embassy-level relations with Israel in 1992. The decision was taken by a Congress prime minister -- P V Narasimha Rao -- whose government also began pressing the American Jewish lobby for support in getting the US to declare Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism. The lobbying bore some results. The US State Department put Pakistan on a 'watch-list' for six months in 1993. The Clinton administration 'persuaded' then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to dismiss Lieutenant General Javed Nasir, then director general of the ISI. The Americans were livid that the ISI refused to play ball with the CIA who wanted to buy unused Stinger missiles from the Afghan mujahideen, then in power in Kabul. After she returned to power towards the end of 1993, Benazir Bhutto intensified the ISI's liaison with Mossad. She too began to cultivate the American Jewish lobby. Benazir is said to have a secret meeting in New York with a senior Israeli emissary, who flew to the US during her visit to Washington, DC in 1995 for talks with Clinton. From his days as Bhutto's director general of military operations, Pervez Musharraf has been a keen advocate of Pakistan establishing diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. The new defence relationship between India and Israel -- where the Jewish State has become the second-biggest seller of weapons to India, after Russia -- bother Musharraf no end. Like another military dictator before him, the Pakistan president is also wary that the fear of terrorists gaining control over Islamabad's nuclear arsenal could lead to an Israel-led pre-emptive strike against his country. Musharraf is the first Pakistani leader to speak publicly about diplomatic relations with Israel. His pragmatic corps commanders share his view that India's defence relationship with Israel need to be countered and are unlikely to oppose such a move. But the generals are wary of the backlash from the streets. Recognising Israel and establishing an Israeli embassy in Islamabad would be unacceptable to the increasingly powerful mullahs who see the United States, Israel and India as enemies of Pakistan and Islam. With inputs from the rediff Delhi Bureau O===========########========########========########========0 ############################################################# Veracity Now MAY 21/2012 For Pakistan, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and not al-Qaeda are most dangerous since it is being funded, trained, equipped, and guided by CIA, RAW, Mossad, MI-6, and RAAM. Abdullah Mehsud detained in Gitmo was brainwashed by CIA and then set free to conduct guerrilla war in SW. He was later joined by Baitullah Mehsud. After the death of the two in 2007 and 2009 respectively, Hakimullah Mehsud commands TTP and he and several hundred runaway militants from Swat, Dir, Buner, Bajaur and SW have been provided shelter in Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan wherefrom they are launching cross border attacks in Mehmand, Dir and Chitral. Nine years have gone by and Pak Army is still fighting the war on terror because of continued foreign support to terrorists. All the seven agencies of FATA as well as settled areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are up in arms. Flames of terrorism have spread to all nooks and corners of Pakistan. +++ GEE FROM GITMO RELEASE TO TTP terror ...coincidence ??????? LOL !!!!!!!! ############################################## ############################################## MAIN STREAM RUPEE NEWS 2/14/11 'Davis' is the missing link to US support for 'TTP' terror in Pakistan --------------------- Undoubtedly this is the biggest scandal in US Foreign relations since the US U-2 was shot down by the Soviets in the sixties. Then, as now, both sides played out the drama in an iterative manner–neither side letting the other know how much they know. There are clear indications that there is much more to the “Raymond Davis” affair than the Pakistanis are letting on. This isn’t about murder and diplomatic immunity. This is mush bigger. Something is very wrong with this picture, and Islamabad is tight lipped because it now has concrete evidence that Mr “Raymond Davis” is linked with the Tehrik e Taliban e Pakistan (TTP) and some of the terror activities that have been happening in Pakistan. The Pakistanis are not stupid. Americans stick out like sore thumbs in Pakistan. When they go running around in their black SUVs laced with Satellite equipment they are tracked, traced and followed. In a cat and mouse game, the contractors can sometimes shake their “tails”. On other occasions they cannot. In fact the ISI gives them enough rope to hang themselves with. In this case, it seems Mr. Davis fell into a trap and his situation is now fully compromised. In panic Mr. “Davis” used the Nuclear option and killed the two Pakistanis who were trailing him–knowing full well that killing Pakistani spies or those who knew his identity would blow up in this face. He doesn’t have to say much–the equipment he carried tells a long and bloody story. All this is irrefutable evidence in a Pakistani court of law. The Pakistanis have already released the pictures of the equipment and the evidence that they have gathered. Of course they are still holding on to the juiciest details. The US has postponed the Afghan-Pakistan-US Trilateral meeting, dropped hints about postponing the date of Mr. Zardari’s visit to the US, and floated all sorts of other threats. Normally Islamabad would have been cognizant of the the problems of spoiling its relationship with the sole Superpower. However the smirking Pakistanis are so confident in the validity of their cause, that they are letting the US escalate the issue. Pakistan has ignored some of the US theater and has not buckled under intense US pressure. Both General Kayani and Former Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi were not very impressed by US posturing. In fact right after their threatening phone calls and messages Islamabad formally charged Davis with pre-meditated murder in the Lahore High Court. The Court promptly remanded Mr. “Davis” to prison for another 14 days of interrogation. There were stories that if Mr. “Davis” does not cooperate, the interrogation would have been upgraded to level 3 (a euphemism for torture). There are reports that despite admonitions from the US Embassy, Mr. Davis is singing like a bird, and has already given enough information to the Pakistanis to get him convicted in any court of law. The Former Foreign Minister Qureshi publicly confirmed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressured him to publicly confirm diplomatic immunity of ‘Davis’ “. However, I refused to do so because it was against the factual position in the case.” FM Qureshi’s confirmation that Mr “Davis” is not a diplomat was repeatedly discussed on all 80 TV channels with copies of his passports and business visas prominently displayed for the audience. Mr. Quresh said that “The kind of blanket immunity Washington is pressing for Davis is not endorsed by the official record of the Foreign Ministry,” adding that Washington even “threatened that Hillary Clinton would not meet me at the Munich conference on February 6 if the request was not granted.” Mr. Qureshi canceled the entire trip. Coming down from her high horse Mrs Clinton did meet General Kayani. The situation is so polarized that even traditional US allies in Pakistan have condemned the intrusive murders. Mr. Pervez Hoodbhoy who almost never criticizes the US has condemned the “Davis” affair. The PMLN is of course threatened the PPP with a vote of no-confidence. It is clear that Mr. “Davis” shot the Pakistani operatives knowing full well who they were. The Pakistani authorities have informed the the media that they are very well aware that Mr. Davis was in touch with the “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP). There is conjecture that Mr. “Davis” walked into a trap laid out by the ISI. In fact his contacts were actually ISI agents. All that he said and did is in the hands of the Pakistanis. Mr. “Davis” thought that by shooting the two operatives, he would eliminate the evidence against him. In fact, it made matters worse. Other operatives who were in the vicinity had already taken the necessary precautions. The ISI has leaked information to the media that Mr. “Davis” had crossed a “red line”. Clearly, the Americans have panicked because they undestand that the Pakistani side knows much more than it is prepared to admit in public. This is typical behavior when spies are caught with their thumbs up their noses. There are clear indications that Mr. “Davis” has broken down after sustained interrogation in police custody, and has spilled his guts–making the Pakistanis aware of explosive stuff. Its not that this stuff has surprised the Pakistanis. When you have 3000 of these guys running around the country–something gives. The ISI is one of the world’s most powerful spy organizations in the world. It has deep roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nothing that crawls or walks in Pakistan is hidden from the ISI and other agencies. On top of this there is a million man Pakistani army. 180 million Pakistanis are also watching the Americans and reporting on them. The panicked Americans have continually given highly contradictory versions about Mr. “Davis’s” identity and the nature of his assignment in Pakistan. It is very clear that Mr. “Davis’s” discovery and detention has sent alarm bells ringing all the way to President Obama’s White House. In a way the Pakistanis are amused. They know they have the Americans where they want them–right up against the wall. The Americans are fully aware that the “Davis” case is shaking the very foundations of the transactional relationship with Pakistan. While the CIA, the State Department and the White House think that this is a new discovery–the Pakistanis point to a long trail of evidence that directly points to the US consultants and their hirelings in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ISI and the Army believe that at the right time, the details of what the Pakistanis know will be revealed to President Obama and the world. Pakistan and Pakistanis have known for a long time who is behind the TTP (Tehrik e Taliban e Pakistani). Its not that hard to guess. What surprised the Pakistanis was their ability to inflict bloody attacks on the Pakistani military in order to destabilize Pakistani. Mr. Davis is not an isolated incident–there is a history behind much of what is happening in Pakistan–most of which can be correlated to the rise of the US “consultants” and “contractors” in Pakistan. It is pedagogical to note that last year when the ISI put in requests for deep security checks on those coming into Pakistan–the US put up a “hissy fit” and forced about 500 of these “Davis types” through without any background checks. Is should be noted that the ISI became very suspicious of the insistence of the US in getting these guys into Pakistan at short notice. These guys got very special attention–and that has paid off in the arrest and detention of Mr. Davis. This points to the fact that this incident was not just an accident–it was an incident waiting to happen. The ISI was ready to pounce on the situation once it happened. Pakistan has been very suspicious of these “contractors” especially when Pakistani state institutions were attacked. The attacks on the the Army HQ, and the ISI sent alarm bells among the rank and file of the Pakistani government. The vibrant Pakistani press has also been on the trail and has repeatedly pointed out the facts about the former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh (who was eventually fired by Mr. Karzai). However the US security establishment was in cahoots with him. The Pakistani military and its highly efficient intelligence set-up had concluded a very long time ago that the TTP was being aided by the very sort of free-wheeling “contractors” that Mr. Davis represents. It was just a matter of time when things came to a boil. It is amazing that the Americans are surprised they have finally be caught red-handed. This has happened in the past, but during the reign of President Musharraf, the Americans got away with it and escaped. This time Mr. “Davis” was caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan facing the new Taliban “Spring Offensive” are totally dependent on supplies running through Pakistan. The last time Pakistan shut off the spigot, the Americans ran out of toilet paper and had to cut down on food rations. It must have been hard eating food with dirty hands! If the tiff between the US and Pakistan is not resolved the US may face the consequences in Afghanistan. Failure in the Hindu Kush will certainly impact the presidential elections in 2012.

Guido Tabellini Professor of Economics at Bocconi University and CEPR Research Fellow New European institutions are the only solution If markets cannot do it, the European Commission must act as the intransigent guardian of public finances and budgetary discipline. •The first step is to drastically strengthen the EU control mechanisms over national decisions in matters of economic policy. However, control over public finances in not enough, as Ireland and Spain have taught us. •EU institutions should also have the right tools to prevent the accumulation of excessive debt in the national banking systems. All of this requires a substantial transfer of economic sovereignty from EU countries to EU authorities (either the Commission or regulatory agencies). The imminent stress tests for European banks will be the first occasion to assess the willingness to really move in this direction. However, it will be necessary to go beyond the stress tests, and strengthen the prerogatives of the newborn European Banking Authority. Clearly this transfer of sovereignty must involve all countries, France and Germany included, not only the so-called “European periphery”. http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6757 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9V3IQI02.htm ==================================== Europe mulls major step toward "fiscal union"‎ Reuters - 14 hours ago That means for some time the European Central Bank will remain the ... control will now take place at a European level, and not at a national ... ################################# Is the U.S. Fading Down the Stretch Again?—Weekly Market Reviewhttps://www.oppenheimerfunds.com/.../article_05-07-12-110256.jspCached You +1'd this publicly. Undo ... and some loss of sovereignty for the highly indebted European countries. ... from the European Central Bank to the European banking system has severed the ...

My Back Pages by Bob Dylan (an ode to the Washington Post) ----------------------------------------- Crimson flames tied through my ears Rollin’ high and mighty traps Pounced with fire on flaming roads Using ideas as my maps “We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I Proud ’neath heated brow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth “Rip down all hate,” I screamed Lies that life is black and white Spoke from my skull. I dreamed Romantic facts of musketeers Foundationed deep, somehow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now Girls’ faces formed the forward path From phony jealousy To memorizing politics Of ancient history Flung down by corpse evangelists Unthought of, though, somehow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now A self-ordained professor’s tongue Too serious to fool Spouted out that liberty Is just equality in school “Equality,” I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand At the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I’d become my enemy In the instant that I preach My pathway led by confusion boats Mutiny from stern to bow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats Too noble to neglect Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect Good and bad, I define these terms Quite clear, no doubt, somehow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now ###################XXXXXXXXX########################## CIA, RAW, MOSSAD COVERT SUPPORT FOR BALUCHISTAN DISINTEGRATION- A COMPLETE CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS by Dr.Shafaq ================================================== On the one hand, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has declared 2012 the ‘Year of Balochistan’, while on the other, the US Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs has convened unprecedented hearing on February 8 this year, and discussed situation of Balochistan. The Committee’s hearing was attended by the supporters of Baloch separtism and American scholars including human rights activists. It was chaired by Dana Rohrabacher who said, “Balochistan is a turbulent land marred by human rights violations”, requiring urgent attention. Recently, Rohrabacher has also co-authored an article with Congressman Louie Gohmert, and favoured an independent Balochistan. On February 9, Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit said, “We have conveyed our concern to the US Embassy in Islamabad and Washington on the issue of discussion on Balochistan by US Senate Foreign Relations’s Committee and expressed our feelings.” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman has stated, “It is deeply regrettable that the legislature of a country that calls itself a friend of Pakistan should allow itself to be used as a platform by those advocating the dismemberment of Pakistan and provide justification to terrorists attempting to hold Balochistan, and Pakistan, hostage.” She elaborated that this constituted interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs—would be “detrimental to building mutual trust”, and “will add to suspicions in Pakistan about American motives.” Although Pakistan’s security forces have successfully been coping with the Taliban militants in the tribal areas, yet situation has deteriorated in Balochistan where subversive events and human rights violations like targeted killings, abductions, sectarian violence, attacks on buildings, oil pipelines etc. have intensified. In fact, the US, India and Israel, have been supporting feudal lords (Sardars) of Balochistan to oppose country’s federation. These external elements have also been providing arms and ammunition to the Baloch separatist leaders. Notably, on August 14, 2009, Financial Times (online) had reported “Settlers from other parts of Pakistan, especially Punjab, have been given deadlines to leave.” As a matter of fact, this is what US-led India and Israel wanted by inciting the general masses of Balochistan to openly speak against the federation of Pakistan and the Punjabis for all the injustices, created by the Baloch feudal lords who have been fighting for their own so-called status, prestige and influence, while working on the American US agenda. In the recent past, with the backing of America, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), New Delhi had organised a seminar titled: South Asia 2020 in relation to Balochistan. In their speeches, various scholars and thinktanks maligned Pakistan in one or the other way. Besides the seminar, on November 5, 2009, a secret conference titled: “Pakistan is Problem in Balochistan” was organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in New Delhi. It was headed by the former secretary of RAW and Indian former chief of army staff. In that conference, three Baloch leaders, namely, Dr Wahid Baloch, Khan of Kalat and Munir Mengal also participated. The speech of Dr. Wahid Baloch, General Secretary of the American Friends Balohistan (AFOB) is of special attention. While vocally raising false allegations in line of the Indo-US conspiracy against Pakistan, Dr. Wahid Baloch explained, “Balochistan still remains under the occupation of Pakistan and the international community should interfere in preventing atrocities on the Baloch people, being committed by Pak Army and ISI. Dr. Wahid also allegedly indicated, “Several Baloch leaders, engineers and doctors were kidnapped, tortured and killed ruthlessly through Pakistan’s state terrorism.” In fact, the secret conference organised by the Indian officials with the direction of America itself, and participation of the Baloch leaders including anti-Pakistan elements prove that RAW, CIA and Mossad are behind all the subversive acts, being committed in Balochistan. Baloch separatist’s foreign connections could be judged from the fact that Khan of Kalat and Munir Mengal repeated the thoughts of Dr. Wahid in the meeting held with the faculty of IDSA which assured them that India fully backs Baloch struggle. It also pledged that all future activities of Baloch movement like guidance and help will be coordinated by a US team under the sponsorship of IDSA. While, Munir Mengal also gave a presentation in which he misinterpreted the economic aspects of Gwader Port as a threat to international community, opposing proposed China’s naval base at Gwader. In this regard, on November 21, 2009, with the consent of the Baloch national leader Mir Hyrbyair Marri, Laurie Deamer who is active member of the Independence American Friends of Balochistan read out the resolution in the first international conference at the Nation Press Club in Washington DC. The resolution also raised same allegations regarding Pak Army and state terrorism by implicating Islamabad and Tehran, emphasising the necessity of an independent Balochistan. While taking the breaking of Pakistan as inevitable and in the interests of the international community, especially the Baloch people and the United States, the conference called upon the US government and its affiliated departments to talk directly about Baloch independence, sending American leaders in Balochistan and abroad. Particularly, America has secretly been propagating in Balochistan that if Baloch people want to get freedom, they will have to intensify their struggle. They must forget their differences immediately and get united. In this context, they emphasised that well-maintained political conscious and motivated guerrilla force can defeat the Pak Army. For this purpose, every tribal chief should provide man power—10,000 men for the battle field. If they have 25,000 men, they can occupy every village of Balochistan within six months. They also suggested that all tribes must collect funds for running guerrilla warfare, while each fighter will be paid Rs. 8000/- per month. It is noteworthy that the agents of CIA-led RAW and Mosssad are well-penetrated in various NGOs and human rights organisations which are being used for vile propaganda against Pakistan’s security forces. In this respect, on July 31, 2011, a rally was organized by Baloch Human Rights Council in UK, in front of the US Embassy in London, which raised false accusations such as inhuman torture and extrajudicial murder of the Baloch intellectuals by the Pakistani army and ISI. Some human rights groups and Human Rights Watch (HRW) also raised similar allegtions. On August 3, 2011, ISPR spokesman, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, while rejecting human rights groups’ reports about Balochistan as a conspiracy against Pakistan, called for probing the funding of these organisations as this could be traced back to those forces which want to destabilise Pakistan. Actually, the instability started in Balochistan when various projects were undertaken by the previous government to develop the backward regions. The Baloch Sardars (Feudal lords) who have been backed by US and India, opposed all the developmental projects. These Sardars who were running their own private jails and farrari camps, resisted the government plans as they did not want to give up the old system of feudal lords. It is mentionable that America which signed a nuclear deal with India in 2008, intends to make India a mini-super power of Asia to contain China and destablise Pakistan as well as Iran. Balochistan where China has invested billion of dollars to develop Gwadar seaport irritates both Washington and New Delhi It is notable that Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and an another group, Jundollah (God’s soldiers) which have been fighting for secession of the province gets logistic support from RAW and CIA, and are also trying to sabotage Pakistan’s relationship with China and Iran. In the past few years, their militants kidnapped and killed many Chinese and Iranian nationals in Pakistan. Jundollah also arranged a number of suicide attacks in Iran, while Tehran had directly named CIA for supporting those terrorist attacks. This is also owing to the mineral resources of Balochistan—particularly gold and copper that US-led India and Israel have accelerated their subversive acts in Balochistan. Nonetheless, the year of 2012 must prove very positive for Balochistan. This is the right time for the government that its announced policy for political, social and economic reforms should be implemented so as to remove sense of deprivation among the Balochis. At the same time, our political and religious leaders and media must convince the people, especially the youth that their Sardars want to restore old system of feudalism in the province and are playing in the hands of foreign enemies, especially the US. These are the anti-state elements which incite the Balochis against the federation and the security forces in order to separate the province so as to fulfill the American secret strategic designs against Pakistan, China and Iran. No doubt, hearing on Balochistan by the US Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs has clearly exposed the US support to the Baloch separatists. Courtesy Sajjad Shaukat. Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations Read more: http://www.defenceblog.org/2012/02/cia-raw-mossad-covert-support-for.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pakistan's Counterterrorism Strategy: Separating Friends from Enemies[PDF] from thewashingtonquarterly.comA Siddiqa - The Washington Quarterly, 2011 - Taylor & Francis ... The TTP believes in waging jihad even against Muslims who help non-Muslims or do not fight un ... Most private media outlets go so far as to find a joint “CIA–RAW–Mossad”—in other words, US–Indian–Israeli—hand in every terrorist attack that takes place inside Pakistan. ... Cited by 4 - Related articles - All 7 versions =================================================== [PDF] America's New Afghan or Pakistan Policy[PDF] from pu.edu.pkMS Mazhar… - South Asian Studies, 2010 - pu.edu.pk ... (http://thephoenix.com ... peace as it has established a new intelligence wing, “RAMA” (Research and Analysis Milli Afghan) with the collaboration of RAW and Mossad ... Increasing role of India in this region is not only worrying Pakistan but also it has deep negative impact on Russia ... ---------------------------------- http://www.tandfonli...60X.2011.538362 ---------------------------------- [CITATION] India-Israel conspiracy against Pakistan: RAW-MOSSAD joint optionsMK Jalālzaʼī - 1992 - Institute of International Current … Library Search ---------------------------------- [CITATION] Zaid Hamid–CIA Threats to Pakistan 5 July 2009 [Latest Episode]G Conflict, IP Tensions, O Stuff, TV Live, G Tv… Related articles +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAKISTANS LEADING ALTERNATIVE POLICY INSTITUTE http://www.pakistank...ossad-involved/

EUROPE'S ECONOMIC CRISIS: Unraveling the "Welfare Safety Net". Europe Moves Closer to Banktatorship by Mike Whitney 6/3/12 ============================================================ Yields on 10-year Treasuries plunged to a record-low 1.56 percent on Thursday morning as panicky investors stormed out of European financial assets into German and U.S. government bonds. Deteriorating credit conditions, a flurry of ratings downgrades, and bank runs in Spain and Greece have triggered a flight-to-safety which has pushed the benchmark 10-year below its previous all-time low of 1.67 percent. Falling yields indicate that investors have lost confidence in the ability of EU policymakers to resolve the ongoing debt crisis, particularly as it relates to growing troubles in Greece and Spain. The present crisis, which is largely the result of excessive credit expansion and poor risk management by EU banks, is being used by the European Commission and the ECB to establish a euro-wide ”banking union” and to impose savage cuts to social programs, health care, and pensions. The response by EU policymakers is a social counterrevolution designed to transform the 17-member monetary union into a permanent ”austerity zone” ruled by corporate elites and big finance. Here’s more from Reuters: “The eurozone must boost growth and cut debt to regain investor confidence but it should also move towards a banking union, consider eurobonds and the direct recapitalisation of banks from its permanent bailout fund, the European Commission said on Wednesday as it laid out year-long recommendations.” “A closer integration among the euro area countries in supervisory structures and practices, in cross-border crisis management and burden sharing, towards a “banking union”, would be an important complement to the current structure” of Europe’s economic and monetary union, the Commission said. “In the same vein, to sever the link between banks and the sovereigns, direct recapitalisation by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) might be envisaged,” the document said.” (“EU calls for eurozone banking union, direct bank recapitalisations”, IFR, Reuters) The eurozone’s permanent bailout fund, the ESM, has not yet been ratified by all 17 members and already the European Commission wants to change its mandate to include direct bailouts to banks. The direct funding of underwater banks is a blatant power-grab, an attempt to establish the primacy of banks in the same way that the TARP was used to create Too Big To Fail in the US. TBTF means that the banks have merged with the state and that taxpayers provide blanket guarantees for their survival. Europe is moving fast towards this same model. German chancellor Angela Merkel is opposed to allowing the ESM to recapitalise Spanish banks, but she’s likely to capitulate if the crisis worsens. If she does give in, then the mismanaged banks will not be required to restructure their debt, wipe out bondholders and shareholders, remove bad assets, and replace management. All of the costs for such a bailout would fall on taxpayers, which is exactly what leaders of the European Commission and the ECB want. At the same time, the deepening crisis will be used to impose more fiscal reforms, which have already pushed unemployment to 20 year highs while submerging most of the south in a severe recession. Here’s more from Reuters: 
”….ministers in private are clear about their wish to see European-wide bank deposit guarantee measures put in place quickly to avoid the risk of what could be a catastrophic event. There are signs the European Central Bank favors deposit guarantees.



Problems are mounting on other fronts. With the cost of borrowing heading rapidly towards 7 percent and most foreign investors already shunning Spanish debt, the government will find it increasingly difficult to refinance 98 billion euros of debt and find another 52 billion euros to fund its deficit this year.


Local banks are barely lending, or offering loans at prohibitively high rates, squeezing companies and increasing the risk of a chain of bankruptcies which could send the economy into a nosedive. The banking system’s total loans to the business sector were 44.6 billion euros at the end of March half of what they were at the end of the boom in 2007, and the contraction continues almost every month, according to Bank of Spain data.


Consumers are postponing big purchases and cutting back spending. Spain’s soaring borrowing costs have become a national obsession since the crisis….The government acknowledges that the situation is critical.” (“Spain cries for help: is Berlin listening ?”, Reuters) The EU Commission and ECB are allowing the crisis to grow to achieve their goal, which is the creation of a fiscal union controlled by banks that has unlimited access to funding and the power to impose policy (“austerity”) through coercion. Here’s a clip from economist Mark Weisbrot who sees the political motive behind the debt crisis: 
”I have argued for some time now that the recurring crisis in the eurozone is not driven by financial markets’ demands for austerity in a time of recession, as is commonly asserted. Rather, the primary cause of the crisis and its prolongation is the political agenda of the European authorities – led by the European Central Bank (ECB) and European commission. These authorities (which, if we included the IMF constitute, the “troika” that runs economic policy in the eurozone) want to force political changes, particularly in the weaker economies, that people in these countries would never vote for.” (“Europeans’ economic future has been hijacked by dangerous ideologues”, The Guardian) It’s all politics. Right wing politics. 100 percent of the reputable economists that have commented on the debt crisis have criticized the way it has been handled, particularly in regards to austerity measures. Do you really think that Merkel or Draghi think that they’re smarter than Stiglitz, Krugman, Reich, Eichengreen, Thoma, Weisbrot, Galbraith, Baker, Roubini, etc.?
 
No. Merkel has no background in economics at all, and Draghi was formally an investment banker for Goldman Sachs. These people are not interested in fixing the EZ economy. They are engaged in a stealth campaign to radically restructure EU society, to unravel to welfare safety net, to roll back the progressive gains of the last century, and to reduce much of the continent to 3rd world poverty. A banking union will further solidify the power of big finance over the individual states, and that is the main objective. -----------------------------------------------------o------------------------------------------------------ Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. ##################################### ##################################### The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences." -- Quote from Caroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope, Chapter 20

Yes the word "zionist" is used emotionally. Yet the man has facts. The TTP material (Mossad/India RAW created terror) is in scholary articles and see second post of this thread. Evan walk a mile in his shoes. If foreign powers were having terrorist go on a killing spree in Australia and the goal would be to + Balkanize + split up Australia (so it could be exploited), you also would be emotional. NO ????? I used him because the main stream media has ignored the issue, a coinspiracy of silence. SEE MY POST 'ON SECRET WAR IN 120 COUNTRIES'. Its the same issue, a coinspiracy of silence by the MSM when many innocent lives are taken for the almighty dollar. $$$ thanks sg

DEEP BACKGROUND Baluchistan ------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Gavin Marshall: Imperial Eye on Pakistan Posted on 13. Mar, 2012 by Editor in Opinion ====-------------------------------------------==== As the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden has placed the focus on Pakistan, it is vital to assess the changing role of Pakistan in broad geostrategic terms, and in particular, of the changing American strategy toward Pakistan. The recently reported assassination was a propaganda ploy aimed at targeting Pakistan. To understand this, it is necessary to examine how America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistan’s growing military and strategic ties to China, America’s primary global strategic rival. In the ‘Great Game’ for global hegemony, any country that impedes America’s world primacy – even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan – may be sacrificed upon the altar of war. Part 1 of ‘Pakistan in Pieces’ examines the changing views of the American strategic community – particularly the military and intelligence circles – towards Pakistan. In particular, there is a general acknowledgement that Pakistan will very likely continue to be destabilized and ultimately collapse. What is not mentioned in these assessments, however, is the role of the military and intelligence communities in making this a reality; a veritable self-fulfilling prophecy. This part also examines the active on the ground changes in American strategy in Pakistan, with increasing military incursions into the country. Imperial Eye on Pakistan In December of 2000, the CIA released a report of global trends to the year 2015, which stated that by 2015, “Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.”[1] Further, it was predicted, Pakistan: Will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction. Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. Further domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military – once Pakistan’s most capable institution. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.[2] The report further analyzed the trends developing in relation to the Pakistan-India standoff in the region: The threat of major conflict between India and Pakistan will overshadow all other regional issues during the next 15 years. Continued turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan will spill over into Kashmir and other areas of the subcontinent, prompting Indian leaders to take more aggressive preemptive and retaliatory actions. India’s conventional military advantage over Pakistan will widen as a result of New Delhi’s superior economic position.[3] In 2005, the Times of India reported on a US National Intelligence Council report, written in conjunction with the CIA, which predicted a “Yugoslavia-like fate” for Pakistan, saying that, “by year 2015 Pakistan would be a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete Talibanisation.”[4] In November of 2008, the US National Intelligence Council released a report, “Global Trends 2025,” in which they outlined major trends in the world by the year 2025. When it came to Pakistan, the report stated that, “Ongoing low-intensity clashes between India and Pakistan continue to raise the specter that such events could escalate to a broader conflict between those nuclear powers.”[5] It stated that Pakistan “will be at risk of state failure.”[6] In examining potential failed states, the report stated that: [Y]outh bulges, deeply rooted conflicts, and limited economic prospects are likely to keep Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others in the high-risk category. Spillover from turmoil in these states and potentially others increases the chance that moves elsewhere in the region toward greater prosperity and political stability will be rocky.[7] The report referred to Pakistan as a “wildcard” and stated that if it is “unable to hold together until 2025, a broader coalescence of Pashtun tribes is likely to emerge and act together to erase the Durand Line [separating Pakistan from Afghanistan], maximizing Pashtun space at the expense of Punjabis in Pakistan and Tajiks and others in Afghanistan.”[8] In January of 2009, a Pentagon report analyzing geopolitical trends of significance to the US military over the next 25 years, reported that Pakistan could face a “rapid and sudden” collapse. It stated that, “Some forms of collapse in Pakistan would carry with it the likelihood of a sustained violent and bloody civil and sectarian war, an even bigger haven for violent extremists, and the question of what would happen to its nuclear weapons,” and as such, “that ‘perfect storm' of uncertainty alone might require the engagement of U.S. and coalition forces into a situation of immense complexity and danger.”[9] A top adviser to former President George Bush and current President Obama warned in April of 2009, that Pakistan could collapse within months, and that, “We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now.” The adviser and consultant, David Kilcullen, explained that this would be unlike the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which each had a population of over 30 million, whereas “Pakistan has [187] million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.”[10] Target: Pakistan Going back to the later years of the Bush administration, it is apparent that the US strategy in Pakistan was already changing in seeing it increasingly as a target for military operations as opposed to simply a conduit. In August of 2007, newly uncovered documents revealed that the US military “gave elite units broad authority” in 2004, “to pursue suspected terrorists into Pakistan, with no mention of telling the Pakistanis in advance.”[11] In November of 2007, an op-ed in the New York Times stated categorically that, “the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss,” and that, “we need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that.” The authors, Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon are both well-known strategists and scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution, two of the most prominent and influential think tanks in the United States. While stating that Pakistan’s leaders are still primarily moderate and friendly to the US, “Americans felt similarly about the shah’s regime in Iran until it was too late,” referring to the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. They warn: The most likely possible dangers are these: a complete collapse of Pakistani government rule that allows an extreme Islamist movement to fill the vacuum; a total loss of federal control over outlying provinces, which splinter along ethnic and tribal lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani military in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda try to establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.[12] They state that the military solutions are “daunting” as Pakistan is a nation of 187 million people, roughly five times the size of Iraq. They wrote that, “estimates suggest that a force of more than a million troops would be required for a country of this size,” which led them to conclude, “Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces.” They suggested one plan would be to deploy Special Forces “with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hand.” However, they admit that, “even pro-American Pakistanis would be unlikely to cooperate.” Another option, they contend: would involve supporting the core of the Pakistani armed forces as they sought to hold the country together in the face of an ineffective government, seceding border regions and Al Qaeda and Taliban assassination attempts against the leadership. This would require a sizable combat force — not only from the United States, but ideally also other Western powers and moderate Muslim nations.[13] The authors concluded, saying that any state decline in Pakistan would likely be gradual, therefore allowing the US to have time to respond, and placed an emphasis on securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and combating militants. They finished the article with the warning: “Pakistan may be the next big test.”[14] In December of 2007, the Asia Times Online ran a story about the US plan to rid Pakistan of President Musharraf, and that the US and the West, more broadly, had begun a strategy aimed at toppling Pakistan’s military. As part of this, the US launched a media campaign aimed at demonizing Pakistan’s military establishment. At this time, Benazir Bhutto was criticizing the ISI, suggesting they needed a dramatic restructuring, and at the same time, reports were appearing in the US media blaming the ISI for funding and providing assistance to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. While much of this is documented, the fact that it suddenly emerged as talking points with several western officials and in the media does suggest a turn-around against a long-time ally.[15] Both Democratic and Republican politicians were making statements that Pakistan represented a greater threat than Iran, and then-Senator (now Vice President) Joseph Biden suggested that the United States needed to put soldiers on the ground in Pakistan in cooperation with the “international community.” Biden said that, “We should be in there,” and “we should be supplying tens of millions of dollars to build new schools to compete with the madrassas. We should be in there building democratic institutions. We should be in there, and get the rest of the world in there, giving some structure to the emergence of, hopefully, the reemergence of a democratic process.”[16] In American policy-strategy circles, officials openly began discussing the possibility of Pakistan breaking up into smaller states, and increasing discussion that Musharraf was going to be “removed,” which obviously happened. As the Asia Times stated: Another worrying thing is how US officials are publicly signaling to the Pakistanis that Bhutto has their backing as the next leader of the country. Such signals from Washington are not only a kiss of death for any public leader in Pakistan, but the Americans also know that their actions are inviting potential assassins to target Bhutto. If she is killed in this way, there won't be enough time to find the real culprit, but what's certain is that unprecedented international pressure will be placed on Islamabad while everyone will use their local assets to create maximum internal chaos in the country.[17] Of course, this subsequently happened in Pakistan. As the author of the article pointed out with startlingly accurate foresight, “Getting Bhutto killed can generate the kind of pressure that could result in permanently putting the Pakistani military on a back foot, giving Washington enough room to push for installing a new pliant leadership in Islamabad.” He observed that, “the US is very serious this time. They cannot let Pakistan get out of their hands.”[18] Thus, it would appear that the new US strategic aim in Pakistan was focused on removing the Pakistani military from power, implying the need to replace Musharraf, and replace him with a new, compliant civilian leadership. This would have the effect of fracturing the Pakistani elite, threatening the Army’s influence within Pakistani politics, and undertaking more direct control of Pakistan’s government. As if on cue, in late December it was reported that, “US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.”[19] The New York Times ran an article in early January 2008, which reported that, “President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.” The article stated that the new strategy was purportedly in response to increased reports of Al-Qaeda and Taliban activity within Pakistan, which “are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government.” Bush’s National Security team supposedly organized this effort in response to Bhutto’s assassination 10 days previously.[20] Officials involved in the strategy discussions said that some “options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces,” and one official said, “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself.” Of pivotal importance to the strategy, as the Times reported: “Critics said more direct American military action would be ineffective, anger the Pakistani Army and increase support for the militants.”[21] Perhaps this is not simply a “side-effect” of the proposed strategy, but in fact, part of the strategy. As one prominent Pakistani political and military analyst pointed out, raids into Pakistan would expand anger and “prompt a powerful popular backlash” against the Pakistani government, losing popular support.[22] However, as I previously stated, this might be the intention, as this would ultimately make the government more dependent upon the United States, and thus, more subservient. On September 3, 2008, it was reported that a commando raid by US Special Forces was launched in Pakistan, which killed between 15 and 20 people, including women and children. The Special Forces were accompanied by five U.S. helicopters for the duration of the operation.[23] In February of 2009, it was reported that, “More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas.” So not only are U.S. Special Forces invading Pakistani territory; but now US military advisers are secretly advising the Pakistani Army on its own operations, and the advisers are themselves primary made up of Special Forces soldiers. They provide the Pakistani Army “with intelligence and advising on combat tactics,” and make up a secret command run by US Central Command and Special Operations Command (presumably JSOC – Joint Special Operations Command).[24] In May of 2009, it was reported that, “the U.S. is sending Special Forces teams into one of Pakistan's most violent regions as part of a push to accelerate the training of the Pakistani military and make it a more effective ally in the fight against insurgents there.” The Special Forces were deploying to two training camps in the province of Baluchistan, and “will focus on training Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force responsible for battling the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.” Further, the project “is a joint effort with the U.K.,” which helps “fund the training, although it is unclear if British military personnel would take part in the initiative. British officials have been pushing for such an effort for several years.”[25] In December of 2009 it was revealed that, “American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan's tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme,” which was revealed by a former NATO officer. He said these incursions had occurred between 2003 and 2008, indicating they go even further back than US military documents stipulate. The source further revealed that, “the Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn't confirm officially with them.” Further, as the source noted, British “SAS soldiers have been active in the province” of Bolochistan in 2002 and 2003 and “possibly beyond.”[26] The “Balkanization” of Pakistan: Blaming the Pakistanis Selig S. Harrison is a director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former journalist and correspondent. “His reputation for giving ‘early warning’ of foreign policy crises was well established during his career as a foreign correspondent. In his study of foreign reporting, Between Two Worlds, John Hohenberg, former secretary of the Pulitzer Prize Board, cited Harrison’s prediction of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war eighteen months before it happened.” Further, “More than a year before the Russians invaded Afghanistan, Harrison warned of this possibility in one of his frequent contributions to the influential journal Foreign Policy.”[27] On February 1, 2008, Selig Harrison threw his renowned “predictive” abilities on Pakistan in an op-ed for the New York Times in the run-up to the Pakistani elections. He started by stating that, “Whatever the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.” Harrison then went on to explain that Pakistan would likely break up along ethnic lines; with the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, the Sindhis in the southeast uniting with the Baluch tribesmen in the southwest, with the Punjab “rump state” of Pakistan.[28] The Pashtuns in the north, “would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent ‘Pashtunistan’,” and the Sindhis “numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran,” presumably named Baluchistan; while the rump state of Pakistan would remain Punjabi dominated and in control of the nuclear weapons. Selig Harrison explained that prior to partition from India, which led to the creation of the Pakistani state in 1947, Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicities had “resist[ed] Punjabi domination for centuries,” and suddenly: they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces — particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas — and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s waters as they flow through the Punjab. The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends. Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. … The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.[29] This passage is very revealing of the processes and perceptions surrounding “Balkanization” and “destabilization.” What I mean by this, is that historically and presently, imperial powers would often use ethnic groups against each other in a strategy of divide and conquer, in order “to keep the barbarians from coming together” and dominate the region. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard,” that, “Geopolitics has moved from the regional to the global dimension, with preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent serving as the central basis for global primacy.”[30] Brzezinski then gave a masterful explanation of the American global strategy, which placed it into a firm imperialistic context: To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.[31] While imperial powers manipulate, and historically, even create the ethnic groups within regions and nations, the West portrays conflict in such regions as being the product of these “ethnic” or “tribal” rivalries. This perception of the East (Asia and the Middle East) as well as Africa is referred to as Orientalism or Eurocentrism: meaning it generally portrays the East (and/or Africa) as “the Other”: inherently different and often barbaric. This prejudiced perspective is prevalent in Western academic, media, and policy circles. This perspective serves a major purpose: dehumanizing a people in a region that an imperial power seeks to dominate, which allows the hegemon to manipulate the people and divide them against each other, while framing them as “backwards” and “barbaric,” which in turn, justifies the Western imperial power exerting hegemony and control over the region; to “protect” the people from themselves. Historically and presently, Western empires have divided people against each other, blamed the resulting conflict on the people themselves, and thus justified their control over both the people, and the region they occupy. This was the strategy employed in major recent geopolitical conflicts such as the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide. In both cases, Western imperial ambitions were met through exacerbating ethnic rivalries, providing financial, technical, and military aid and training to various factions; thus, spreading violent conflict, war, and genocide. In both cases, Western, and primarily American strategic interests were met through an increased presence militarily, pushing out other major imperial and powerful rivals, as well as increasing Western access to key economics resources. This is the lens through which we must view the unfolding situation in Pakistan. However, the situation in Pakistan presents a far greater potential for conflict and devastation than either Yugoslavia or Rwanda. In short, the potential strategy of “Balkanization” and destabilization of Pakistan could dwarf any major global conflict in the past few decades. It’s sheer population of 187 million people, proximity to two major regional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its strategic location as neighbor to India, China, and Iran with access to the Indian Ocean, and its nuclear arsenal, combine to make Pakistan the potential trigger for a much wider regional and possibly global war. The destabilization of Pakistan has the potential to be the greatest geopolitical catastrophe since World War II. Thus, Selig Harrison’s op-ed in the New York Times in which he describes the “likely” breakup of Pakistan along ethnic lines as a result of “ethnic differences” must be viewed in the wider context of geopolitical ambitions. His article lays the foundation both for the explanation of a potential breakup, and thus the “justification” for Western intervention in the conflict. His “predictive” capacities as a seasoned journalist can be alternatively viewed as pre-emptive imperial propaganda. Fracturing Pakistan The war in Afghanistan is inherently related to the situation in Pakistan. From the days of the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s, arms and money were flowing through Pakistan to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. During the civil war that followed, Pakistan armed and financed the Taliban, which eventually took power. When the U.S. and NATO initially attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, this was primarily achieved through cooperation with Pakistan. When the war theatre was re-named “AfPak,” the role of Pakistan, however, was formally altered. While the previous few years had seen the implementation of a strategy of destabilizing Pakistan, once the “AfPak” war theatre was established, Pakistan ceased to be as much of a conduit or proxy state and became a target. In September of 2008, the editor of Indian Defence Review wrote an article explaining that a stable Pakistan is not in India’s interests: “With Pakistan on the brink of collapse due to massive internal as well as international contradictions, it is matter of time before it ceases to exist.” He explained that Pakistan’s collapse would bring “multiple benefits” to India, including preventing China from gaining a major port in the Indian Ocean, which is in the mutual interest of the United States. The author explained that this would be a “severe jolt” to China’s expansionist aims, and further, “India’s access to Central Asian energy routes will open up.”[32] In August of 2009, Foreign Policy Journal published a report of an exclusive interview they held with former Pakistani ISI chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who was Director General of the powerful intelligence services (ISI) between 1987 and 1989, at a time in which it was working closely with the CIA to fund and arm the Mujahideen. Once a close ally of the US, he is now considered extremely controversial and the US even recommended the UN to put him on the international terrorist list. Gul explained that he felt that the American people have not been told the truth about 9/11, and that the 9/11 Commission was a “cover up,” pointing out that, “They [the American government] haven’t even proved the case that 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He said that the real reasons for the war on Afghanistan were that: the U.S. wanted to “reach out to the Central Asian oilfields” and “open the door there”, which “was a requirement of corporate America, because the Taliban had not complied with their desire to allow an oil and gas pipeline to pass through Afghanistan. UNOCAL is a case in point. They wanted to keep the Chinese out. They wanted to give a wider security shield to the state of Israel, and they wanted to include this region into that shield. And that’s why they were talking at that time very hotly about ‘greater Middle East’. They were redrawing the map.”[33] He also stated that part of the reason for going into Afghanistan was “to go for Pakistan’s nuclear capability,” as the U.S. “signed this strategic deal with India, and this was brokered by Israel. So there is a nexus now between Washington, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi.” When he was asked about the Pakistani Taliban, which the Pakistani government was being pressured to fight, and where the financing for that group came from; Gul stated: Yeah, of course they are getting it from across the Durand line, from Afghanistan. And the Mossad is sitting there, RAW is sitting there — the Indian intelligence agency — they have the umbrella of the U.S. And now they have created another organization which is called RAMA. It may be news to you that very soon this intelligence agency — of course, they have decided to keep it covert — but it is Research and Analysis Milli Afghanistan. That’s the name. The Indians have helped create this organization, and its job is mainly to destabilize Pakistan.[34] He explained that the Chief of Staff of the Afghan Army had told him that he had gone to India to offer the Indians five bases in Afghanistan, three of which are along the Pakistani border. Gul was asked a question as to why, if the West was supporting the TTP (Pakistani Taliban), would a CIA drone have killed the leader of the TTP. Gul explained that while Pakistan was fighting directly against the TTP leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani government would provide the Americans where Mehsud was, “three times the Pakistan intelligence tipped off America, but they did not attack him.” So why all of a sudden did they attack? Because there were some secret talks going on between Baitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani military establishment. They wanted to reach a peace agreement, and if you recall there is a long history of our tribal areas, whenever a tribal militant has reached a peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, Americans have without any hesitation struck that target. … there was some kind of a deal which was about to be arrived at — they may have already cut a deal. I don’t know. I don’t have enough information on that. But this is my hunch, that Baitullah was killed because now he was trying to reach an agreement with the Pakistan army. And that’s why there were no suicide attacks inside Pakistan for the past six or seven months.[35] An article in one of Canada’s national magazines, Macleans, reported on an interview with a Pakistani ISI spy, who claimed that India’s intelligence services, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), have “tens of thousands of RAW agents in Pakistan.” Many officials inside Pakistan were convinced that, “India’s endgame is nothing less than the breakup of Pakistan. And the RAW is no novice in that area. In the 1960s, it was actively involved in supporting separatists in Bangladesh, at the time East Pakistan. The eventual victory of Bangladeshi nationalism in 1971 was in large part credited to the support the RAW gave the secessionists.”[36] Further, there were Indian consulates set up in Kandahar, the area of Afghanistan where Canadian troops are located, and which is strategically located next to the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which is home to a virulent separatist movement, of which Pakistan claims is being supported by India. Macleans reported on the conclusions by Michel Chossudovsky, economics professor at University of Ottawa, that, “the region’s massive gas and oil reserves are of strategic interest to the U.S. and India. A gas pipeline slated to be built from Iran to India, two countries that already enjoy close ties, would run through Baluchistan. The Baluch separatist movement, which is also active in Iran, offers an ideal proxy for both the U.S. and India to ensure their interests are met.”[37] Even an Afghan government adviser told the media that India was using Afghan territory to destabilize Pakistan.[38] In September of 2009, the Pakistan Daily reported that captured members and leaders of the Pakistani Taliban have admitted to being trained and armed by India through RAW or RAMA in Afghanistan in order to fight the Pakistani Army.[39] Foreign Policy magazine in February of 2009 quoted a former intelligence official as saying, “The Indians are up to their necks in supporting the Taliban against the Pakistani government in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and that, “the same anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan also shooting at American soldiers are getting support from India. India should close its diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan and get the Christ out of there.”[40] The Council on Foreign Relations published a backgrounder report on RAW, India’s intelligence agency, founded in 1968 “primarily to counter China's influence, [however] over time it has shifted its focus to India’s other traditional rival, Pakistan.” For over three decades both Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies have been involved in covert operations against one another. One of RAW’s main successes was its covert operations in East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, which “aimed at fomenting independence sentiment” and ultimately led to the separation of Bangladesh by directly funding, arming and training the Pakistani separatists. Further, as the Council on Foreign Relations noted, “From the early days, RAW had a secret liaison relationship with the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency.”[41] Since RAW was founded in 1968, it had developed close ties with the Afghan intelligence agency, KHAD, primarily to do with intelligence sharing on Pakistan. In the 1980s, while Pakistan was funding, arming and training the Afghan Mujahideen with the support of Saudi Arabia and the CIA, India was funding two covert groups which orchestrated terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, which included a “low-grade but steady campaign of bombings in major Pakistani cities, notably Karachi and Lahore.” RAW has also had a close relationship with the CIA, as even six years before RAW was created, in 1962, the CIA created a covert organization made up of Tibetan refugees, which aimed to “execute deep-penetration terror operations in China.” The CIA subsequently played a part in the creation of RAW. In the 1980s, while the CIA was working closely with the ISI in Pakistan, RAW, while wary of their relationship, continued to get counterterrorism training from the CIA.[42] In October of 2009, the New York Times reported that the US strategy “to vastly expand its aid to Pakistan, as well as the footprint of its embassy and private security contractors here, are aggravating an already volatile anti-American mood as Washington pushes for greater action by the government against the Taliban.” The U.S. gave Pakistan an aid deal of $1.5 billion per year for the next five years, under the stipulation of “Pakistan to cease supporting terrorist groups on its soil and to ensure that the military does not interfere with civilian politics.” President Zaradari accepted the proposal, making him even more unpopular in Pakistan, and further angering Pakistan’s powerful military, which sees the deal as interfering in the internal affairs of the country.[43] America is thus expanding its embassy and security presence within the country, as the Embassy “has publicized plans for a vast new building in Islamabad for about 1,000 people, with security for some diplomats provided through a Washington-based private contracting company, DynCorp.” The NYT article referred to how relations were becoming increasingly strained between Pakistan and the US, and tensions were growing within the country exponentially, as “the American presence was fueling a sense of occupation among Pakistani politicians and security officials,” and several Pakistani officials stated that, “the United States was now seen as behaving in Pakistan much as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Futher: In particular, the Pakistani military and the intelligence agencies are concerned that DynCorp is being used by Washington to develop a parallel network of security and intelligence personnel within Pakistan, officials and politicians close to the army said. The concerns are serious enough that last month a local company hired by DynCorp to provide Pakistani men to be trained as security guards for American diplomats was raided by the Islamabad police. The owner of the company, the Inter-Risk Security Company, Capt. Syed Ali Ja Zaidi, was later arrested. The action against Inter-Risk, apparently intended to cripple the DynCorp program, was taken on orders from the senior levels of the Pakistani government, said an official familiar with the raid, who was not authorized to speak on the record. The entire workings of DynCorp within Pakistan are now under review by the Pakistani government.[44] As revealed in the Wikileaks diplomatic cables, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson wrote in September of 2009 that the U.S. strategy of unilateral strikes inside Pakistan “risk destabilizing the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis in Pakistan without finally achieving the goal.”[45] In an interview with Press TV, Hamid Gul, former Inter-Services Intelligence chief revealed more of what he sees as the US strategy in Pakistan. He explained that with the massive expansion of the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, and alongside that, the increased security staff, the Chinese are becoming increasingly concerned with the sovereignty and security of Pakistan. He claimed that the money that the US government offered (with heavy conditions) to Pakistan, $1.5 billion every year for five years, will be spent under the direction of the Americans, and that “they are going to set up a large intelligence network inside Pakistan,” and ultimately “they really want to go for Pakistan's nuclear assets.” He further claimed that the Indians are trying to destabilize Pakistan; however, he explained, this does not necessarily mean disintegrate, but rather: they are trying to destabilize Pakistan at the moment so that it feels weak and economically has to go begging on its knees to Americans and ask for succor and help. And in that process they will want to expect certain concessions with regards to nuclear power and also with regards to setting up their facilities here in Pakistan.[46] When he was asked what America’s long-term goal was in regards to Pakistan, Gul responded that the goal: for America is that they want to keep Pakistan destabilized; perhaps create a way for Baluchistan as a separate state and then create problems for Iran so that this new state will talk about greater Baluchistan… So it appears that the long-term objectives are really to fragment all these countries to an extent that they can establish a strip that would be pro-America, pro-India, pro-Israel. So this seems to be their long-term objective apart from denuclearizing Pakistan and blocking Iran's progress in the nuclear field.[47] In Part 2 of ‘Pakistan in Pieces’, I will examine the specific ways in which the American strategy of destabilization is being undertaken in Pakistan, including the waging of a secret war and the expansion of the Afghan war into Pakistani territory. In short, the military and intelligence projections for Pakistan over the next several years (discussed in the beginning of Part 1 above) are a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those very same military and intelligence agencies that predict a destabilized Pakistan and potential collapse are now undertaking strategies aimed at achieving those outcomes. Notes [1] NIC, Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts. The Central Intelligence Agency: December 2000: page 64 http://www.dni.gov/n...ltrend2015.html [2] Ibid, page 66. [3] Ibid. [4] PTI, Pak will be failed state by 2015: CIA. The Times of India: February 13, 2005: http://timesofindia....how/1019516.cms [5] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council: November 2008: page x http://www.dni.gov/n...25_project.html [6] Ibid, page 45. [7] Ibid, page 65. [8] Ibid, page 72. [9] Peter Goodspeed, Mexico, Pakistan face 'rapid and sudden' collapse: Pentagon. The National Post: January 15, 2009: http://www.nationalp...html?id=1181621 [10] PAUL MCGEOUGH, Warning that Pakistan is in danger of collapse within months. The Sydney Morning Herald: April 13, 2009: http://www.smh.com.a...90412-a40u.html [11] Scott Lindlaw, AP: U.S. gave troops OK to enter Pakistan. USA Today: August 23, 2007: http://www.usatoday....ngagement_N.htm [12] Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon, Pakistan’s Collapse, Our Problem. November 18, 2007: http://www.nytimes.c...on/18kagan.html [13] Ibid. [14] Ibid. [15] Ahmed Quraishi, The plan to topple Pakistan's military. Asia Times Online: December 6, 2007: http://www.atimes.co...a/IL06Df03.html [16] Ibid. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid. [19] Ian Bruce, Special forces on standby over nuclear threat. The Sunday Herald: December 31, 2007: http://www.heraldsco...threat-1.871766 [20] Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan. The New York Times: January 6, 2008: http://www.nytimes.c...n/06terror.html [21] Ibid. [22] Ibid. [23] Farhan Bokhari, Sami Yousafzai, and Tucker Reals, U.S. Special Forces Strike In Pakistan. CBS News: September 3, 2008: http://www.cbsnews.c...in4409288.shtml [24] Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez, U.S. Unit Secretly in Pakistan Lends Ally Support. The New York Times: February 22, 2009: http://www.nytimes.c...a/23terror.html [25] YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN, U.S. Special Forces Sent to Train Pakistanis. The Wall Street Journal: May 16, 2009: http://online.wsj.co...1672724767.html [26] Declan Walsh, US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida. The Guardian: December 21, 2009: http://www.guardian....-pakistan-raids [27] CIP, SELIG S. HARRISON. Center for International Policy: http://www.ciponline...a/Seligbio.html [28] Selig S. Harriosn, Drawn and Quartered. The New York Times: February 1, 2008: http://www.nytimes.c...01harrison.html [29] Ibid. [30] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. (New York: Perseus, 1997), page 39 [31] Ibid, page 40. [32] Bharat Verma, Stable Pakistan not in India’s interest. Indian Defence Review: September 11, 2008: http://www.indiandef...s-interest.html [33] Jeremy R. Hammond, Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘to destabilize Pakistan’. Foreign Policy Journal: August 12, 2009: http://www.foreignpo...ze-pakistan’/ [34] Ibid. [35] Ibid. [36] Adnan R. Khan, New Delhi’s endgame? Macleans: August 23, 2009: http://www2.macleans...hi’s-endgame/ [37] Ibid. See also Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Pakistan, Global Research, December 30, 2007 [38] Imtiaz Indher, Afgan MPs call for early withdrawal of foreign troop. Associated Press of Pakistan: April 1, 2009: http://www.app.com.p...=72423&Itemid=2 [39] Moin Ansari, Proof: Captured TTP terrorists admit to being Indian RAW agents. Pakistan Daily: September 20, 2009: http://www.daily.pk/...w-agents-11015/ [40] Laura Rozen, Can the intel community defuse India-Pakistan tensions? Foreign Policy: February 16, 2009: http://thecable.fore...kistan_tensions [41] Jayshree Bajoria, RAW: India's External Intelligence Agency. The Council on Foreign Relations: November 7, 2008: http://www.cfr.org/publication/17707/ [42] Ibid. [43] Jane Perlez, U.S. Push to Expand in Pakistan Meets Resistance. The New York Times: October 5, 2009: http://www.nytimes.c...6islamabad.html [44] Ibid. [45] US embassy cables, Reviewing our Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, The Guardian, 30 November 2010: http://www.guardian....ocuments/226531 [46] US military bases 'will destabilize Pakistan'. Press TV: September 13, 2009: http://www.presstv.i...ctionid=3510302 [47] Ibid. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Washington's Black Ops against Iran Extensive range of covert operations envisaged by US Congress By Dr. Ismail Salami Global Research, October 30, 2011 The US secret agenda for tightening its vice-like grip on the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken on an apparently new form after the anti-Iran alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, raised many eyebrows among experts and analysts around the world. With a strong penchant for pushing for tougher action on Iran, the Obama administration has already imposed a series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. However, a Republican-controlled congressional committee has recently heard testimony demanding an extensive range of covert operations against the country. The operations, which range from cyber attacks to political assassinations, are speculated to be conducted under the feeble excuse that Iran was the alleged architect of an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy to the United States. By political assassination, the US congressmen unconsciously mean the liquidation of the Iranian nuclear scientists, an act they actually started long ago. Retired Army Gen. John Keane told a hearing of two key subcommittees of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, "We've got to put our hand around their throat now. Why don't we kill them? We kill other people who kill others." Also, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) poured some pearls of wisdom over others and called for "sober, reasoned discussion." "Iran's leaders must be held accountable for their action," she said, "but we cannot take any reckless actions which may lead to opening another front in the 'War on Terror,' which the American people do not want and cannot afford." Naturally, the US government, in essence, cannot afford to wage another war at least in view of the economic woes it has wrought upon the American citizens, regardless of other influencing factors. The stone that started rolling fell into the hands of New York Congressman Peter King who made an extremely bizarre comment. He suggested that the US should kick out Iranian officials at the UN in New York and in Washington and accused them of being spies, ignorant of the fact that the UN is considered an independent international body and that the US has no authority to 'kick out' diplomats accredited there en masse. Overwhelmed with a sense of false eagerness, he renewed the anti-Iran alleged assassination ploy and said excitedly, "So you have the assassination of a foreign ambassador, you have the willingness to kill hundreds of Americans -- this is an act of war," King said, "I don't think we can just do business as usual or even carry out sanctions as usual." The volley of vitriolic words against Iran which issued from Mr. King reeks of blind enmity long egged on by other hawks in Washington. In point of fact, the anti-Iran moves practically started in 2007 when US Congress agreed to George W. Bush, the then US president, to fund a major increase in covert operations against Iran. According to the intelligence officials who spoke to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the CIA was then given a presidential approval to commence its covert 'black' operations inside Iran. To that effect, over four hundred million dollars were allocated in a Presidential Finding signed by George W. Bush. The ultimate goal of the finding was to cripple Iran's religious government and the operations involved throwing support behind minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchis and other opposition groups as well as amassing intelligence about Iran's nuclear sites. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, the intelligence officials confirmed that Bush had signed a "nonlethal presidential finding", giving the CIA carte blanche to engage in any sabotaging activities including a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions in order to destabilize and eventually achieve regime change in Iran. "I can't confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," said Bruce Riedel, a retired CIA senior official, an expert on Iran and the Middle East (ABCNEWS.com May 22, 2007). In June 2007, The New Yorker magazine also ran a similar story by Seymour Hersh, confirming that the finding had been signed by Bush and intended to destabilize the Islamic government. "The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money." From an intelligence point of view, the fact that the US government is resorting to covert black operations against Iran rules out the possibility of a military strike against the country. According to reports, US ambassadors in Islamabad have repeatedly asked for opening a consulate in the province of Baluchistan, a suspicious demand from the US. In 2011, the call was renewed by US ambassador Cameron Munter to Islamabad. Persistence in this demand is to be taken seriously. Baluchistan is strategically important as it is a harbor for the anti-Iran terrorist group, Jundullah, in the first place and a separatist Pakistani province in the second place. In fact, Washington greatly favors the establishment of a 'Greater Baluchistan' which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran. Military expert Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters suggests that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: 'Greater Baluchistan' or 'Free Baluchistan' (June 2006, The Armed Forces Journal). As a result, this would incorporate the Baluch provinces of Pakistan and Iran into a single political entity which can be tailored to suit the interests of Washington. So it seems that the US harbors two main ulterior motives if this demand is answered. First, it can fulfill its dream of establishing the Greater Baluchistan, consolidate firm presence in this separatist part of Pakistan and secondly, it will be in a position to avail itself of this influence to carry out its sabotaging activities within Iran. Earlier in 2007, the Blotter on ABCNews.com revealed the role of the US government in backing the terrorist Iranian group , which is responsible for a number of gruesome assassinations of the Iranian civilians on the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The terrorist group spares no efforts in sowing the seed of terror in the southern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan and their lust for murder and cruelty knows no remission. The victims the group has so far claimed include many women and children who have become the direct target of their killing. In July 2010, the group mounted a pair of suicide attacks on a major Shi'ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, the capital of Iran's Sistan-Balochistan Province, killing dozens of worshippers and wounding over 100 people. Although US officials deny any 'direct funding' of the terrorist group, they acknowledge that they are in contact with the leader of the group on a regular basis. A similar terroristic attack was launched by the same group on a mosque in Zahedan in May 2009, which led to the martyrdom of many worshippers. Sadly enough, Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) implicitly supports the group and reportedly shelters some of its high-profile members in coordination with the CIA. Isn't it paradoxical that Jundullah, a terrorist group and an offshoot of al-Qaeda, is directly funded by the US government which keeps bandying about its so-called 'war on terror' in the world? This is enough to cause the US to hang its head low in shame and humility. Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East. His articles have been translated into a number of languages. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Church has a mission to Syria. The government of Syria has not interfered in their work. When they make converts in a rural village,they come back a month or so latter. Most of the time the 'converts' have disappeared forever by local religious leaders not affiliated with the government. ############################################################# ############################################################# Obscure source,the 'Vatican' say Syrian government not committing atrocities. SYRIA, Atrocities were not committed by the government but by armed gangs Vatican News Service refutes Western media reports by Vatican News Service (Agenzia Fides) 6/3/12 ------------------------------------------- Globa Research Editor's Note According to the Vatican, the Syrian government is not responsible for the atrocities committed against civilians. Quite the opposite. Vatican sources point to existence of armed gangs and terrorists. "According to the "Syrian National Council", which leads the opposition in Houla, in the province of Homs, 88 people, including civilians and children, were killed by the bombing of the regular army. Fides sources report a different version: the regular army hit Houla, where many Salafist militants and terrorists have found refuge, using civilians as human shields." "armed gangs out of control continue to rage and hit innocent civilians. Terrorists have blown up an Alawite’s house in the district of southern Rableh near Qusayr, always in the area of Homs. The explosion caused the death of Youssef Airouti, injuring his wife and his son, but also Hallaq Shibli and his wife Niamat Saadiyet, a Christian couple from Qusayr, who found refuge in Rableh. Meanwhile in Homs the Armenian Apostolic Church and adjoining school in the district of Hamidia were seized and occupied by the Syrian military's Liberation Army [Free Syrian Army], who use the buildings as housing and hospitals." Forward this report Michel Chossudovsky, June 3, 2012 +==============ooooooo==============+ Instability and violence, appeal of the Apostolic Nuncio: "Enough with atrocities" Damascus (Agenzia Fides) - Instability, insecurity, violence, massacres: the scenario in Syria today is bleak. According to the "Syrian National Council", which leads the opposition in Houla, in the province of Homs, 88 people, including civilians and children, were killed by the bombing of the regular army. Fides sources report a different version: the regular army hit Houla, where many Salafist militants and terrorists have found refuge, using civilians as human shields. The Apostolic Nuncio to Syria, His Exc. Mgr. Mario Zenari, interviewed by Fides, launches an appeal: "This massacre is not the only one, let’s hope it is the last. We demand an end to such atrocities. All believers, Christians and Muslims today are called to discover the weapons of prayer and fasting, to rekindle the hope of a peaceful future in Syria." According to Fides sources in the Christian community, even armed gangs out of control continue to rage and hit innocent civilians. Terrorists have blown up an Alawite’s house in the district of southern Rableh near Qusayr, always in the area of Homs. The explosion caused the death of Youssef Airouti, injuring his wife and his son, but also Hallaq Shibli and his wife Niamat Saadiyet, a Christian couple from Qusayr, who found refuge in Rableh. Meanwhile in Homs the Armenian Apostolic Church and adjoining school in the district of Hamidia were seized and occupied by the Syrian military's Liberation Army, who use the buildings as housing and hospitals. Fr. Romualdo Fernandez, a Franciscan friar of the Shrine of Tabbaleh, dedicated to St. Paul in Damascus, says to Fides Agency: "People are confused and disoriented. Reports of massacres follow but [those identified as] responsible [is] not certain. There is pessimism because no one knows what the future holds. There are criticisms to the regime, but also to the rebels of the opposition. As Christians we share the sufferings of the people, [affected] by the conflict. We work for peace and justice, without adhering to any political faction." (PA) (Agenzia Fides 26/5/2012)

/////////// RELATED STORY ////////// UNITED NATION FUNDS IMMIGRATION INTO ISRAEL ------------------------------------------------------------------- In a highly disturbing piece of news over at Kr8 Israeli Patriot, the online magazine reports that the Obama administration is providing funds to Israel (via the UN) for every illegal African immigrant that enters the Jewish state -------------------------------- FROM Jewish Defence League UK http://www.jdl-uk.org/2012/05/obamas-pet-project-illegal-immigration.html

PART ONE ------------------------------------------ The UN a house of cards and lies. =================================== + HOUSE OF CARDS + How Corrupt Is the United Nations? By Claudia Rosett , Tuesday, April 4, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent years have brought a cascade of scandals at the United Nations, of which the wholesale corruption of the Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq has been only the most visible. We still do not know the full extent of these debacles–the more sensational ones include the disappearance of UN funds earmarked for tsunami relief in Indonesia and the exposure of a transnational network of pedophiliac rape by UN peacekeepers in Africa–and we may never know. What we do know is that an assortment of noble-sounding efforts has devolved into enterprises marked chiefly by abuse, self-dealing, and worse. Seen by many, including many Americans, as the chief arbiter of legitimacy in global politics, the UN is understood by others to be the only institution standing between us and global anarchy. If that is so, the portents are not promising. The free world is grappling with threats from the spread of radical Islam to North Korea's nuclear blackmail and Iran's pursuit of nuclear bombs. The UN, despite its trophy case of Nobel prizes, has failed so far to curb any of these, just as it failed abysmally to run an honest or effective sanctions program in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Currently it is gridlocked over matters as seemingly straightforward as cleaning up its own management department. In the effort to address the UN's manifold problems, there have been audits, investigations, committees, reports, congressional hearings, action plans, and even a handful of arrests by U.S. federal prosecutors. There have been calls for Secretary-General Kofi Annan to step down before his second term expires at the end of this year. Solutions have been sought by way of better monitoring, whistleblower protection, the accretion of new oversight bodies, and another round of conditions attached to the payment of U.S. dues. On top of the broad reforms of the early 1990's, the sweeping reforms of 1997, the further reforms of 2002, and the world summit for reform in 2005, still more plans for reform are in the works.1 To its external auditors, internal auditors, joint inspections unit, eminent-persons panels, executive boards, and many special consultants, the UN has recently added an Office of Ethics–now expected to introduce in May what will presumably become an annual event: "UN Ethics Day." Is any of this likely to help? Behind the specific scandals lies what one of the UN's own internal auditors has termed a "culture of impunity." A grand committee that reports to itself alone, the UN operates with great secrecy and is shielded by diplomatic immunity. One of its prime defenses, indeed, is the sheer impenetrability of its operations: after more than 60 years as a global collective, it has become a welter of so many overlapping programs, far-flung projects, quietly vested interests, nepotistic shenanigans, and interlocking directorates as to defy accurate or easy comprehension, let alone responsible supervision. But let us try. One clear sign of how badly things have gone with the UN is the difficulty of tallying even so basic a sum as the system's real budget. Nowhere does the UN present a full and clear set of accounts, and statistics vary even within individual agencies and programs. The UN's current "core" annual budget is $1.9 billion–but the "core" is itself but a fraction of the actual budget. Around it are wrapped billions more in funding provided by "voluntary contributions" from private and corporate donors, foundations, and member states, including, to a large extent, the United States. These sums are shuffled around in various ways, with UN agencies in some instances paying or donating to each other. For instance, the UN Development Program (UNDP) operates with its own "core" budget of about $900 million a year but handles about $3 billion per year–or, depending on whom you ask and what you count, $4.5 billion per year. According to Mark Malloch Brown, the UN chief of staff who has just been promoted to the post of Deputy Secretary-General, the total budget for all operations under direct control of the Secretariat comes to roughly $8-9 billion per year. Adding in just a few of the larger agencies like UNDP (at, let us say, $4 billion), UNICEF ($2 billion or so), and the World Food Program ($2-3 billion) already brings the grand total to somewhere between $16 and $18 billion, again depending on whom you listen to and what you count. On UN websites devoted to procurement, where the idea is not to minimize the official amount of UN spending but on the contrary to attract suppliers to a large and thriving operation, the estimate of money spent yearly on goods and services by the entire UN system comes to $30 billion, or more than 15 times the core budget of $1.9 billion on which reformers have focused. Staff numbers are likewise a matter of mystery. The new ethics office proposes to offer its services to 29,000 UN employees worldwide. That number is well short of the total staff of the Secretariat plus the specialized agencies alone, which, according to Malloch Brown, consists of some 40,000 people. And that figure itself does not include local staffs–such as the 20,000 Palestinians who work for the UN Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) or the many employees, some long-term, others transient, at hundreds of assorted UN offices, projects, and operations worldwide, or the more than 85,000 peacekeepers sent by member states but carrying out UN orders and eating UN-supplied rations bought via UN purchasing departments. Whereas the number of UN member states has almost quadrupled since 1945 (from 51 to 191), the number of personnel has swollen many times over, from a few thousand into somewhere in the six figures. Little of this system is open to any real scrutiny even within the UN, and no single authority outside the UN has proved able to compel any genuine accounting. Moreover, even though there can no longer be any doubt that the scale of the rot is large, the UN's top management continues to insist to the contrary. Take the central scandal of recent UN history–namely, Oil-for-Food. Last October, Paul Volcker's UN-authorized probe into Oil-for-Food submitted its fifth and final report on that relief program, which in its seven years of operation had become a vehicle for billions in kickbacks, payoffs, and sanctions-busting arms traffic. By January of this year, after first having declared that he was taking responsibility for the debacle, Kofi Annan was spinning a different story, telling a London audience that "only one staff member was found to maybe have taken some $150,000 out of a $64-billion program." This was an artful lie. The staff member in question was Benon Sevan, whom Annan had appointed to run Oil-for-Food for six of its seven years. If indeed Sevan took no more than this relative pittance, then Saddam Hussein scored the biggest bargain in the history of kickbacks. According to Senator Norm Coleman's independent investigation into Oil-for-Food, the real figure for Sevan's take was $1.2 million. Clearing up this discrepancy is difficult, however, because Sevan, who was allowed by Annan to retire to his native Cyprus on full UN pension, is outside the reach of U.S. law and has denied taking anything. In any case, the corruption hardly ended with Sevan. Instances that appear to have slipped the Secretary-General's mind include another member of his inner circle, the French diplomat Jean-Bernard Merimée, who by his own admission took a payoff from Saddam while serving as Annan's handpicked envoy to the European Union. Within the UN agencies working with Annan's Secretariat on Oil-for-Food, Volcker confirmed "numerous [further] allegations of corrupt behavior and practices," embracing "bid-rigging, conflicts of interest, bribery, theft, nepotism, and sexual harassment." He also noted that the UN lacked controls on graft, failed to investigate many cases, and failed to act upon some of those it did explore. Finally, Volcker calculated that UN agencies had kept for themselves at least $50 million earmarked to buy relief for the people of Iraq.2 Nor do the sheer monetary amounts even begin to convey the extent of the damage done by UN labors in Iraq. Annan's office had the mandate of the Security Council, plus a $1.4-billion budget, to check oil and relief contracts for price fiddles, to monitor oil exports in order to prevent smuggling, and to audit UN operations. In the event, Oil-for-Food spent far more money renovating its offices in New York than checking the terms of Saddam's contracts, and ignored the smuggling even when Saddam in 2000 opened a pipeline to Syria. The result of what Annan now placidly describes as "instances of mismanagement"–as if someone forgot to reload the office printer–was that Saddam skimmed and smuggled anywhere from $12 billion (according to the incomplete numbers supplied by Volcker) to $17 billion or more (according to the more comprehensive totals provided by Senator Coleman's staff). And what did Saddam do with those profits? What Annan describes as "instances of mismanagement" did not simply entail theft, corruption, and waste. They enriched and supported a tyrant and a mass murderer. Saddam used his UN-blessed loot not only to build palaces and buy luxury cars but also to provide patronage to loyal Baathists, reward Palestinian suicide bombers, and restock his arsenal, conventional or otherwise. When CIA chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer went to Iraq in 2004 looking for weapons, the money trail took him straight to the UN relief operation, which, as he would report, had become a shill for an arms and illicit-money network that reached through Syria to Belarus and Russia. The network was buying "milk" from a Chinese weapons manufacturer, contracting for "vehicles" and "detergent" with Sudan, and negotiating for missiles with North Korea. And that is only Oil-for-Food. Since last summer, the UN has been bedeviled by a bribery scandal centered in its procurement department, which handles the Secretariat's buying of everything from paperclips to peacekeeper rations. In August, a UN staffer named Alexander Yakovlev pleaded guilty in federal court to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of bribes, involving possibly hundreds of millions' worth of tainted contracts–many of them in force to this day. In September, Vladimir Kuznetsov, the head of the UN budget oversight committee, had to step aside under federal indictment as Yakovlev's co-conspirator in wire fraud and money laundering. With the scandal still spreading, a number of other UN employees are now under investigation in cases involving something on the order of $1 billion in UN contracts. There have also been cases in which, although no corruption has been alleged, clear conflicts of interest have been disclosed. Thus, Volcker found that in 1997, Maurice Strong, a longtime UN Under-Secretary General, accepted a check bankrolled by Saddam in the amount of $988,885. Strong (who has denied knowing where the money came from) was then serving as chief coordinator of UN reform, no less. Another top adviser to Annan, Giandomenico Picco, was discovered to have served in late 1999 and early 2000 as both a UN Under-Secretary General and chairman of the board of a company called IHC Services.3 The company had close ties to the bribe-taking Yakovlev and signed millions of dollars in contracts with the UN while Picco was running one of Annan's pet projects, the Dialogue of Civilizations. Then there is the saga of Annan's son, Kojo, who turned out to have received more than $195,000 from a major UN Oil-for-Food contractor, Cotecna Inspection, after he had formally stopped working for it. In investigating Kojo's UN-related ventures, Volcker came across the paper trail of a by-now famous green Mercedes: in 1998, Kojo had saved some $20,000 by buying this car at a diplomatic discount in Germany and shipping it duty-free into Ghana, all under the false use of his father's name and diplomatic privileges and of the UN seal. Oil-for-Food has been described by Annan and his aides as a mistake in a good cause; such, they suggest, is the occasional if regrettable cost of doing the world's humanitarian business. Structurally, however, Oil-for-Food was not an exception. It was a template of what the UN has become. A hallmark of Oil-for-Food was that it was funded not by an assembly of UN member states but directly by Saddam as a function of his oil sales. This effectively bypassed the UN's version of the appropriations process, and was hardly the kind of setup envisioned when the organization was founded. As U.S. Ambassador John Bolton has noted, "It is the member states who are supposed to control the money." Nevertheless, the UN negotiated terms with Saddam under which the Secretariat would collect 2.2 percent of his oil revenues to cover its costs in running and monitoring the relief program. With oil sales topping $64 billion, that meant $1.4 billion for the Secretary-General's administrative spending over the seven-year life of the program. In other words, the UN Secretariat was being paid big money by Saddam to supervise Saddam–an intrinsic conflict of interest that surely played a part in the expansion and easy corruption of the program. On top of whatever bribery he managed to deploy, Saddam became for a time one of the largest direct contributors to the Secretariat's budget. Publicizing itself as Saddam's probation officer, the UN in effect became his business partner. But Saddam was only one, if the most virulent, of the many questionable business partners the UN has acquired over the past decade or so. These days, "partnering" at the UN goes far beyond enlisting the help of Angelina Jolie to visit refugees or of Bono to lecture Americans on development policy. Under Annan's management, the UN has been avidly seeking liaisons with foundations, non-governmental organizations, and private business–especially big corporate donors endowed with ready cash. This has been hailed in many quarters, including in Washington, as an innovative way of funding good works. It is rather more alarming than that. The star example of today's UN partnerships is the Secretariat's cozy arrangement with the media magnate Ted Turner, who in 1997 made a landmark offer to donate $1 billion to the world organization. The pledge reportedly caused Jane Fonda, Turner's wife at the time, to weep with joy; as for Annan, he welcomed the deal as "a model to demonstrate my commitment to engage the private sector in a concrete manner." Turner said he hoped his example would inspire others–and it has. Whatever Turner's ultimate aims may have been in undertaking this deed of seemingly astounding generosity, one of its chief beneficiaries has arguably been Ted Turner himself. For the past eight years, in exchange for the rather less than $1 billion disbursed so far, he has enjoyed a seat at the head table of what is supposed to be an impartial public institution, wielding access and influence beyond that of many actual UN member states. Like the UN's 2.2-percent commission under Oil-for-Food, moreover, Turner's funds flow through the administrative channels of the Secretariat without even the minimal checks that might be provided by the budgeting process of the General Assembly. To dispense his largesse in tax-deductible form, Turner set up a Washington-based non-profit organization, the UN Foundation, stipulating that he would turn over his gift through this foundation at the rate of $100 million per year. (Since then he has halved his annual disbursements, thus stretching out the arrangement even longer than the projected decade or more.) At the same time, and as part of the same gift, he set up a sister organization, the Better World Fund, which describes itself as "a key advocate for the UN on Capitol Hill." A portion of Turner's gift to the UN thus goes not to the world's poor but to lobbying efforts in Washington to extract more dollars for the UN from U.S. taxpayers. Over the past eight years, according to the UN Foundation, the Better World Fund has devoted more than $110 million to this effort. Of course, Washington is home to many lobbying groups. But Turner's setup is so intimately linked with the UN Secretariat as to make it hard to distinguish where the one ends and the other begins. Thus, to handle Turner's gift, the UN created a special in-house division dedicated exclusively to interacting with Turner's foundation and reporting directly to the Secretary-General. This division is called the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, or UNFIP. According to the head of UNFIP, Amir Dossal, the relationship between UN and UN Foundation officials is "pretty much a seamless exercise," with Turner's Foundation often involved from the inception in shaping UN projects that it then pays for. UNFIP staff, who evaluate these projects as UN insiders for the approval of the Secretary-General, have their salaries and expenses paid not by the UN but by Turner's foundation. Since the arrangement began, some $600 million of Turner's own money has flowed into UN causes in this way, plus another $350 million from other donors contributing via his UN Foundation. (The total of $950 million includes the $110 million spent by the Better World Fund in lobbying Congress.) This has allowed the Secretary-General to control, through UNFIP alone–and in concert with the wishes of Turner's foundation–what in many ways qualifies as an annual slush fund of more than $100 million. Many of the projects involve worthy causes like sending malaria medicine and measles vaccines to children in poor countries. But others approved by the Secretary-General have directed millions in Turner money to departments within his own Secretariat, including in some cases his own executive office. Featuring as opaque one-line items in UNFIP's sometimes tardy public reports, these endeavors have included $1 million for "Strengthening the UN Secretariat"; $1.9 million for "UN Dialogue with the Global South"; $994,875 for "Supporting UN Management Reform"; $1.9 million for the Secretariat's department of public information (on which more below); $117,600 for a "Multi-Stakeholder Meeting on Best Practices in Partnerships"; and $319,988 for "Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships"–a somewhat reflexive exercise, one might think, for what is already a highly muscular public-private liaison. In general, oversight at the UN is conducted by the organization's internal audit department, whose director is named by the Secretary-General and whose reports until this year have not been disclosed even to member states. According to a secret internal audit submitted in 2003, UNFIP appeared to be operating "without legally established functions and organizational structures." Specific irregularities in the program's conduct included the release of $1.2 million in Turner-foundation money to Annan's executive office in a manner "constitut[ing] a breach of internal controls." Small stuff, perhaps, when measured against the overall size of Turner's gift, but a significant sum to be sloshing around within the single most influential office at the UN. In September 2001, Turner intervened even more deeply in UN matters, giving $31 million from his separate, family-run Turner Foundation (devoted to the environmental "totality of the planet") to the U.S. State Department to cover a portion of U.S. arrears on UN dues. This was greeted by many, including then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, as a selfless act of philanthropy. But the reason we had fallen behind in our dues was not any lack of resources but the fact that Congress–which is supposed to control U.S. funding for the UN–had been trying to lever better behavior out of it. Why the State Department accepted the money is a question unto itself. But from the UN's point of view, splicing Turner's millions into the process meant that, as long as the organization could find wealthy private patrons in tune with its policy preferences, it could afford to be that much less answerable to a powerful member state and its democratically elected representatives. Increasingly, since the Turner pledge of 1997, the UN has been inviting wealthy patrons around the globe to collaborate with it as "partners." Some of those answering the call have signed on through Turner's foundation. Of these, a number are governmental institutions. They include the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. (no doubt an instance of Taiwan trying to get a foot in the door at the UN in any way it can), the World Bank (an instance of the UN system paying itself), the U.S. Agency for International Development (an instance of the U.S. government funding the UN via Turner's foundation), the government of Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria (itself a recipient of World Bank aid), and the American Red Cross. Others are private foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which since 1995 has given more than $380 million to the UN, more than $50 million of that through Turner's foundation. And Turner's foundation has also collaborated on some projects with the Open Society Institute of the financier George Soros, whose global network of foundations and institutes has its own roster of projects jointly funded with the UN.4 In 1999, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Annan proposed a "Global Compact" between the UN and business leaders. To join, a company is required to write a letter, addressed to the Secretary-General, "expressing support for the Global Compact and its principles." Thereafter, it is required to publish in its annual report "a description of the ways in which it is supporting the Global Compact."5 According to the UN, the Global Compact has by now amassed more than 2,400 participants in 50 countries. They are invited to host outreach programs involving UN agencies, to promote UN causes, and to contribute in cash or in kind to UN endeavors. No doubt many do so for entirely worthy reasons; but the utter balkanization of UN agencies, offices, operations, budgets, and organizational charts makes it virtually impossible to know for sure. In a 352-page book published in 2002 on "Building Partnerships," the UN itself acknowledged that there is "inconsistency, both within the United Nations system and more widely, on what constitutes the private sector." It might be more accurate to say that under the stewardship of Annan, there has been a considerable blurring of the lines. Characteristic of this is the UN's increasing willingness to franchise out both its name and its official emblem. Back in 1946, as that emblem was about to be approved, the first UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, stressed the importance of protecting it from abuse for "commercial purposes." In 2000, as part of the UN's grand plans for "public-private partnerships" in the new millennium, Annan issued lengthy guidelines in which he stipulated that the UN could in fact authorize use of its emblem by a business engaged in promotion or fund-raising for the UN itself–as long as "generation of profit by the business entity is only incidental." This raises intriguing questions about who in Annan's graft-ridden UN might be qualified to judge whether commercial profits are "incidental" to humanitarian work–and who could possibly keep track. And that brings us to a feature of the UN system, mentioned early on, that has helped to shield it from thoroughgoing investigation. Since its founding, the institution has added untold numbers of agencies, funds, commissions, programs, "ad-hoc bodies," and "other entities," to the point where most of the UN's own personnel do not know who reports to whom, or how. The Secretary-General himself, when questioned last year by the Volcker commission, professed not to understand his own chain of command. To anyone seeking to capture fresh turf at the UN, creating one of these new bodies has long been a favored path. The Secretary-General appoints or at least nominates the heads of most of them, but each has its own board, its own agenda, and in many cases its own program for soliciting funds. To name just a few of the better-known ones: UNICEF (founded in 1946); the World Food Program (or WFP, 1961); the UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 1964); the UN Development Program (UNDP, 1966); the UN Environment Program (UNEP, 1972); the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS, 1994), UN-Habitat (1997); the World Tourism Agency (UNWTO, 2003); and so forth. Many of these overlap. Most, when probed, open onto ever-receding vistas of regional offices, working groups, and the like. The offices are scattered around the globe, from New York to Rome to Nairobi to Tunis to Madrid to Bangkok and beyond. Periodic efforts to streamline and harmonize the system tend mainly to paint yet another layer on top. Typical of this is one of the Secretary-General's latest initiatives, launched just this past February: the "High-Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence in Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, Environment." Among its fifteen "high-level" panelists is a senior fellow from Turner's UN Foundation. Another example, launched last fall, is Annan's so-called Alliance of Civilizations. This grand-sounding initiative is in fact a rather restricted project of Spain, Turkey, and 20 unelected "eminent persons" picked by the Secretary-General, most of whom (like Nafis Sadik, a special adviser to Annan and a director of Turner's UN Foundation) have already spent years on the same UN conference circuits. Instructed to come up with an "action plan" to "bridge divides," the Alliance has so far served mainly as a vehicle for Annan to resurrect as a "special adviser" his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, who "retired" in early 2005 after Volcker's discovery that he had shredded three years' worth of UN executive-suite documents potentially germane to the Oil-for-Food investigation. There is almost no way to hold the UN accountable for most of what goes on in this growing empire. No national legal jurisdiction applies to the UN network and no media corps has the resources, or for that matter the interest, to deal with the entire network. Despite a Secretary-General who wields more control than anyone else in the system, accountability ultimately does not reside with him, either. In fact, there is no procedure at the UN for impeaching or firing the Secretary-General. There is, however, a tremendous machine for glossing over anything that goes wrong. The Secretariat fields a department of public information with an $85-million annual budget and more than 700 employees, about half of whom staff UN public-relations offices in more than 100 countries worldwide. On top of that, a public-relations staff is employed by each of the many agencies, commissions, and so forth. All of this promotional activity is further supplemented by the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), founded in Luxembourg in 1946 and now boasting more than 100 national chapters. The American chapter, UNA-USA, fields more than 175 community-based chapters and organizations, with nearly 20,000 members. Bringing these various strands together is a dizzying array of interwoven boards, working groups, and staff positions both within and around the UN. To give a few quick examples: Ted Turner, of the UN Foundation, sits on the board of the UNA-USA. Maurice Strong–chief coordinator of the 1997 UN "reforms," which among other things created the framework for the Turner-dedicated UNFIP–then became a charter member of the board of Turner's UN Foundation while serving as a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Annan, and is also a past president and current honorary president of the WFUNA. Paul Volcker, when tapped by Annan himself to head the Oil-for-Food investigation, was serving not only on the board of directors of UNA-USA but also as a director of its business council–which advertises itself as a networking resource for businesses interested in getting a piece of the billions in UN contracts handed out every year. Only when the media finally discovered and questioned this potential conflict of interest did Volcker resign. Asked in a recent interview about the dangers of collusion between big business and a public institution like the UN, Mark Malloch Brown declared indignantly that the UN was doing "God's work," and walked out. Is it? The question is important because, in the end, the amount of money lost to waste by the UN, or skimmed through graft, or dumped wholesale into agencies, commissions, and alliances that serve mainly themselves, or devoted in the UN's name to select private crusades, arguably counts less than the kind of agenda all this money supports. The founding purpose of the UN was to bring peace and prosperity to the globe. As to the former, the UN in the age of terror has been in most ways useless and in some ways positively dangerous. The lesson that Saddam Hussein quickly grasped was that the UN lends itself to money-laundering. With its big flows of funds across borders, its many contractors and public-private partnerships, its gigantic bureaucracy and lax controls, its diplomatic immunity, and its culture of impunity, the UN operation is a prime candidate not only for graft but, as Charles Duelfer discovered, for arms deals masked as medicine and soap. Further protecting those arms deals, and the rogues and tyrants making them, is the fact that in its capacity as a deliberative body, the UN has repeatedly urged appeasement in the face of real threats to world peace and just as repeatedly tried to constrain those (like the U.S. and its allies) willing to act to remove them. If there is any priority that the UN, with its mandate for peace, might be expected to stress, it is preventing rogue regimes from getting nuclear bombs. But as a practical matter, the organization has behaved for the most part as a spectator. Its record with Saddam Hussein is too well known to bear repeating. In the case of North Korea, admitted as a member state in 1991, the UN has responded to Kim Jong II's nuclear-weapons program mainly by kicking the problem over to the U.S. and making itself irrelevant. On Iran, the UN "debate" has served mainly to buy time for the mullahs while the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, ponders the "uncertainties" of Iran's nuclear program. On matters involving Israel and the Palestinians–unlike nuclear proliferation, this may be the UN's one genuine obsession–hypocrisy has been outdone only by mischief-making and blatant anti-Semitism. UN programs set up to help the Palestinians over the past half-century have not only failed to produce decent lives but have helped create a culture of entitlement and violence–fueled in large part by the UN's own anti-Israel agenda. The UN condemnation of Zionism as racism in 1975, finally repealed in 1991, was followed by the grotesque transformation of the UN's 2001 Durban conference on racism into an anti-Semitic festival. The UN Security Council invites totalitarian Syria to take the chair, but democratic Israel has never been so much as allowed to hold a seat. Then there is peacekeeping, which since the end of the cold war has been a boom area for the UN. Here again the expansion of UN missions has brought everything from widespread allegations of corruption to drug-dealing to rape and the sexual exploitation of hungry children–"Sex-for-Food," as the columnist Mark Steyn has aptly put it. In large parts of the undeveloped world, the appearance of blue-helmeted forces has come to signal a warning: stay away, and keep your children away. But neither have those blue-helmeted forces been visible when and where they might actually be needed. Provided with manpower plus a budget that ought to qualify the UN itself as a formidable military power, the organization stood passively aside during the massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica and has yet to act in the case of Sudan. Indeed, it has yet to muster even the integrity to kick Sudan off its Geneva-based human-rights commission, which has doubled as a clubhouse for the world's worst regimes. (Current members include China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe.)6 As for disaster relief, the record is similarly deplorable. When the tsunami hit Asia in December 2004, the U.S. and countries like Australia rushed to help the victims. The UN rushed to help itself. Demanding exclusive rights to direct the aid effort (and the money), UN officials warned loudly of a health crisis that never materialized, denounced the U.S. as "stingy," and promised transparent use of funds. A year later, the Financial Times reported that, from what little could be gleaned of the UN's largely incomplete or secret accounts, the organization's expenditures on overhead (i.e., travel, hotel rooms, lavishly funded international talk-fests, and the like) were triple those of private charities. If such is the general nature of the UN's contribution to peace and humanitarian assistance, its contribution to global prosperity is a similar story. The simple and true recipe for wealth is liberty framed by the decent rule of law; the great lesson of the last century, learned at horrific cost, is that central planners and state development schemes are a brew that tends not toward prosperity but toward dictatorship and economic immiseration. In 1990, that lesson seemed briefly to have been learned: as the Soviet Union headed for collapse, the global aid profession was atwitter over the newfound virtues of privatization. But in the sixteen years since then, the UN, in the name of "sustainable development," has fostered a comeback of command-and-control planning, courtesy of the same bureaucracy that cannot even account for its own expenditures. An enormous amount of UN activity now revolves around the so-called Millennium Goals, which aim to cut world poverty in half by the year 2015. This noble-sounding goal serves as a framework for calculating to the last decimal point a set of targets for which the UN system then decides how resources should be apportioned. UN agencies, agendas, working groups, and a never-ending succession of conferences, declarations, and plans testify to a determination to control the global climate, horn in on the Internet, and–à la Oil-for-Food–impose a UN-supervised income tax on the entire developed world. Where once the Soviet agency Gosplan issued five-year plans for an imprisoned people, the UN now aims to administer and profit from fifteen-year plans for the entire human community. Think of it as planetary socialism, supported and financed in "partnership" with private capital. The United Nations was founded as a forum of governments. As we had ample occasion to learn over the decades, this arrangement presented quite enough problems of its own. Now the UN, in contravention of its own charter, is rapidly evolving into something larger, more corporate, and more menacing: a predatory, undemocratic, unaccountable, and self-serving vehicle for global government. Like the Soviet Union of old, the UN is unwieldy, gross, inefficient, and incompetent; it is also so configured as to reach deep into the national politics of its member states and, by sheer weight and persistence, to force at least some of the worst of its agenda upon all of us. There will never be enough John Boltons to counter all of this–not that it was easy to come up with even one. Indeed, with notable exceptions, generations of American officials and policy-makers have been content, sometimes for reasons of state, sometimes for reasons of convenience, to look away from the UN's multiform deficiencies and derelictions while occasionally indulging in minor punitive measures like withholding a proportion of our annual dues–akin to docking a delinquent's bus money while continuing to pay for his liquor and his car. For many others in public life, and for many ordinary citizens as well, the institution itself, as the very embodiment of the multilateralist ideal, is still held in nearly sacred regard. All the more reason, then, to force ourselves at long last to take a hard, undeceived look at what the institution has in fact become, put aside the lengthy and futile quest for its reform, and begin to think more concretely about how, with or without it, we can best work to advance the interests and values of ourselves and other members of the civilized world. –March 8, 2006 Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is at work on a book about the United Nations in the age of terror. Her article, "The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It?," appeared in the May 2004 Commentary. In 2005 she won both the Mightier Pen award and the Eric Breindel award for excellence in opinion journalism. 1 The latest, announced by Annan as this article was going to press, is aimed at cleaning up management; revolutionary though it sounds, there is no guarantee it will be implemented, and in any case it stops well short of what is needed. 2 There is also the mystery still surrounding more than $19 billion's worth of oil revenues supposedly doled out by the UN to victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Internal audits released last year under pressure from Congress warned of overpayments of up to $4 billion. Volcker promised to investigate, but never did. 3 The discovery was made by me and George Russell of Fox News. 4 In the words of Mark Malloch Brown, who headed the UN Development Program from 1999 to 2005, Soros and UNDP "collaborate extensively." In fact, Malloch Brown lives in a house on Soros's estate outside New York City. This potential conflict of interest was never disclosed by the UN or Soros, and even after it was revealed in the press, no documentation has been forthcoming to show that the relationship is at arm's length. 5 The original terms of the compact included some anodyne language about human rights, labor standards, and the environment; in 2004, perhaps inspired by its own mishaps, the UN added a proviso that businesses should work against corruption. This has been a source of bemusement to investigators of graft in the UN's procurement division, not least because one of the major contractors embroiled in the bid-rigging scandal was a member in good standing of Annan's Global Compact. 6 UN promises to "reform" have translated into a plan to replace the Human Rights Commission with a "Human Rights Council," a largely semantic exercise. Attempts by Washington to hold out for genuine reform of this body central to the United Nations mandate have turned into an occasion for UN officials and others to criticize not the world's worst human-rights offenders but the U.S. Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Contact Claudia Rosett at claudiarosett@hotmail.com or read her blog, at claudiarosett.pajamasmedia.com. ++++++++++++ = HOUSE OF LIES = +++++++++++++++++ ACT NOW FOR ISRAEL: Remove UN Official Who Spreads LIES http://unitedwithisr...l-spreads-lies/ ======================================== Global Nuclear Crisis: UN Lies About Nuclear Threat http://tv.globalrese...-nuclear-threat ========================================= Controversy: Defeated UN Rights Expert Lies About Rejected Application for New Post http://blog.unwatch....n-for-new-post/ ========================================== Infanticide in China: UN Lies behind China's One-Child Policy http://www.sott.net/...ne-Child-Policy ========================================= The UN. lies, killings and mafia activities http://unwatchivoryc...activities.html ========================================== The UN Lies of Durban: Severe Weather Is Increasing Due To Human CO2 Emissions http://www.c3headlin...-emissions.html ========================================== UN Officer Lies on Twitter about Israeli Attack, Remains Employed http://www.theobject...mains-employed/ =========================================== Rockets Fly, The UN Lies http://archive.front...spx?artid=33270 =========================================== Palestine, the UN, and lies at Rosh Hashanah http://www.haaretz.c...shanah-1.386627 ============================================ Wikileaks Exposes UN Eritrean sanction lies http://english.pravd...anction_lies-0/ ============================================ Who is Kofi Annan? The United Nations "Peacekeeper" Handpicked by the CIA http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=30057 ============================================= The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been blatant in its support of rightwing forces, including the Haitian police, and has been systematic in carrying out human rights abuses against the poor people of Haiti, supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas party, writes Ben Terrell. http://www.globalres...ext=va&aid=4833 ============================================= One Year Later: UN radiation studies are Bogus! Did not conduct independent tests, used faulty & out of date data from Japanese government! May 25, 2012 http://www.blindbatn...overnment/13318 ======######################## ======##### PART TWO ######### ======######################## Media lies day and night about Syria. PURE 100% fakery.. see http://counterpsyops...disinformation/

see http://pakistanpal.livejournal.com/1157824.html ============================================ Zionist-Hindutvadi Plots Against Pakistan And Indian Occupied Kashmir pakistanpal May 18th, 12:51 How much more blood must be shed in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan before it is understood that the country is being torn to shreds from the inside out in a foreign-sponsored 4th Generation Warfare (4GW) campaign? How many more men, women and children must have their lives snuffed out before a little, not a goliath amount, but a little bit of attention is given to this horrific and blood-soaked crisis that deepens every day? The geopolitical implications will surely be drastically and negatively groundbreaking if Pakistan plunges into the unadulterated chaos that its enemies, "Israel," Hindutvadi India and the Zionist-occupied United States government, so passionately and stridently desire. Pakistan, the "child of Jinnah, child of 'Allama Iqbal", indeed stands on the brink. Hideous sectarian killings across the country since the start of April have revealed the deepening of a plot engineered by the forces of Zionism and Hindutva, its ugly first cousin. Whilst the Zionist media coverage has typically and predictably attempted to depict the bloodshed as "Sunni-Shi'a" strife, it is quite revealing that its coverage has been scarce, with the weight of reportage being carried by Pakistani and Iranian outlets. Additionally, the evidence will show that this sectarianism, drenched in innocent blood, is a product of the Zionist-Hindutvadi nexus, with the sect of oppressed being butchered by the sect of the supremacist oppressor. It began on April 9th, 2012 in Pakistan's turbulent Balochistan province, in which masked gunmen on motorbikes carried out a monstrous shooting spree, leaving 14 dead, including 2 women, and dozens of others wounded. The worst of the attacks was in the Hazara region at the busy Prince Road of Balochistan's largest city and provincial capital, Quetta, where four 4 Shi'a Muslims were shot dead (1), and then, according to later reports in theUrdu and Farsi presses, brutally mutilated, thus betraying the entire bout of killing as a specific targeted operation. As the casualties count rose to 6 dead and 3 critically wounded the following day, this notion was further confirmed when Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani fired six police officers for complicity in the Quetta bloodshed (2), revealing that the gunmen had "men on the inside" to protect their operation from scrutiny. In response to the martyrdom of 6 members from their community, leaders of the Hazara Democratic Party, which represents the interests of the downtrodden Shi'a of Balochistan, adamantly and eloquently blasted the cowards that perpetrated the crimes. They then called for a 10 day strike, from April 20th to April 30th, demanding justice for their fallen. Hundreds across Balochistan honored the call by protesting and shutting down shops, markets and educational institutions (3). Following the call of the Hazara Shi'a, more than 2,500 Pakistanis, Sunni and Shi'a alike, in a beautiful and righteously ferocious display of solidarity, hit the streets of Islamabad right outside the Pakistani Parliament building and chanted for the government to take action against the persons responsible for the violence. Similar demonstrations were held in Quetta, Muzaffarabad and Multan, where protesters supplicated for the Quetta victims as well as the more than 2,000 Shi'a murdered in the Kurram region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) since 2007 (4). The ostensible drift from blood-spilling to reconciliation and justice came to a screeching halt on April 14th, 2012 as Balochistan was rocked by tragedy yet again. In the same fashion as the previous killings, masked gunmen laid siege to the Barori Road, Sabzol Road and Qali Chaltan Road areas of Quetta, firing shots at dozens of Shi'a Muslims, wounding at least six and murdering at least 10 (5). This death toll would rise to more than 30, including women and children, and on April 16th, another Shi'a was gunned down by masked men in Quetta, prompting Chief Minister Raisani to thunderously call for assistance from the Pakistani Army and declare that if something wasn't done to stop the atrocities soon, Balochistan would descend into civil war (6). The obvious purpose of the cowardly masked men's assault was to foment division but this has failed as Sunni-Shi'a unity protests raged forward, with women and children participating, and not just in Pakistan, but all over the globe, including America, the UK and Canada (7). On April 18th, 2012, Imran Zaidi, the vice principal of Jinnah Polytechnic College and a Shi'a Muslim himself, was shot dead by masked men on motorbike in the important Pakistani port city of Karachi (8), once again betraying the signature of an intelligence agency's "targeted" operation. The massacring of Shi'a continued three days later, with another attack in Quetta by masked gunmen on motorbike, shooting two more innocents dead (9). Immediately following the latest round of killing in Quetta, protests across Pakistan erupted yet again with Shi'a marching through the streets of Lahore and joint Sunni-Shi'a rallies being staged in Abbottabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi and other cities (10). A sigh of relief swept through the nation when Pakistani security forces stormed the outskirts of Quetta in a search and seizure operation, uncovering the safehouse where the carnage has been launched from. Three terrorists were detained, all of whom were connected to none other than the Tehrik-I-Taliban of Pakistan {TTP} (11), the infamous and brutal proxy force of Pakistan's enemies. Two more fighters connected to the Shi'a killings,Ali Sher Haidri, spokesperson of the TTP-allied Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeT), and his well-known terrorist accomplice, Gul Jan aka Hafiz Naseer, were killed in another operation (12). Created in 2004 to coincide with the inauguration of the CIA's genocidal drone program, the TTP is the perfected product of an ongoing, incestuous relationship between the Zionist entity's Mossad, Hindutvadi India's RAW and the CIA itself. One month after Mossad's false flag attack on September 11th, 2001 and just three days after the criminal invasion of Afghanistan, two "Israeli" agents with Mossad and IOF connections were apprehended inside the Mexican Congress building of Mexico City with 9mm handguns, nine grenades, C-4 explosives, three detonators, 58 bullets and fake Pakistani passports. Their mission was to destroy the Mexican Congress. This false flag operation was intended to be phase II of 9/11, triggering a NATO invasion of Pakistan. When the mission failed, the Zionist entity activated its contingency plan: the Dragon Policy, an updated version of the Oded-Yinon-strategy of balkanizing Islamic states on ethno-sectarian lines (13). Following the failure in Mexico City, the upper echelons of Zionist and Hindutvadi intelligence erected four new clandestine agencies solely dedicated to the destruction of Pakistan, which would immediately be followed by the originally-intended aggression to denuclearize the bulwark of Islamic Resistance to international Zionism. The highest ranking figures of Pakistan's financial, political, military and religious sectors were on the hitlist and every successful attack was meant to soften up Pakistan for the imminent invasion. Using funds from the unlimited bank accounts of Mossad and Aman, the Zionism-Hindutva intelligence nexus established 57 training camps across the northern frontiers of India and occupied Kashmir, kidnaping and blackmailing Resistance fighters to fight against their own comrades while simultaneously forging alliances with mafia bosses and narcotics tycoons and training them in the finer arts of black ops. These various elements served as the perfect puppets as any rebellion whatsoever would be punished with imprisonment in the harshest of dungeons. These men would be deployed into the field under Mossad-RAW guidance and once an attack was completed, the Zionist media would report it as an 'act of Islamic terrorism.' If a 'checkout' was not secured, senior operatives of the "Israeli"-Indian nexus would finish the job (13). The CIA and its corporate offshoot, Blackwater (also known as Xe and Academi), a festering bubble of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim hatred and deep pro-"Israel" sentiments, joined the Dragon Policy in 2004. Blackwater agents became integrated with the ordnance units of Mossad and RAW. The CIA took a more proactive role by absorbing past recruits of the Zionist-Hindutvadi intelligence training camps and cultivated them into a powerful proxy force that specialized in guerilla tactics and sectarian warfare: the Tehrik-I-Taliban. The name was chosen for a very sinister, deceptive and specific reason: to despicably smear the real Taliban in occupied Afghanistan, a Resistance force fighting a '7arb el 7uriyeh (war of liberation)' against NATO invaders. It is classic psychological warfare. The Taliban, not surprisingly, has rightfully maintained its innocence and condemned Blackwater for being behind bombings and other provocations in Pakistan. Since its birth, the Tehrik-I-Taliban has murdered or wounded more than 100,000 Pakistanis and caused more than $50 billion in damage to Pakistan's economy.Prior to the most recent operation, the Pakistani army had already arrested hundreds of TTP militiamen. Proxy agents detained in Waziristan, Karachi and Balochistan were caught with sophisticated, military-grade weaponry manufactured by the Zionist entity (13). This string of horrible bloodshed that claimed the lives of dozens of Shi'a Muslim men, women and children, along with several other Sunni Muslims who stood in solidarity with them, is reminiscent of a very similar Mosssad-RAW-backed TTP campaign that targeted prominent Shi'a and Sunni figures back at the start of 2012. Tearing Pakistan apart through the"sectarianism" of the Zionist-Hindutvadi Dragon Policy, leaving it open to denuclearization and balkanization and eventually fomenting the ethnic cleansing of all Muslims from occupied Kashmir is indeed the "endgame" plot (13). The innocent Pakistani blood spilled throughout April means nothing to the supremacist oppressors or their quislings, and this is why the great Pakistani luminary Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid declared recently in one of his highly-regarded email bulletins that, "Pakistan's entire political leadership is now compromised to the enemies. These ones want to compromise our honor, faith, history, land and water," in fact, he continues, "the idiots we have today have already auctioned it." And if the Pakistani Armed Forces didn't perform the way that they did in Quetta, ending the catastrophe (at least for now), it is safe to say that the enemies would be further along in their plot. Occupied Kashmir: The "Israeli"-Indian "Training Ground" For Anti-Pakistan Warfare It is a well-established and internationally-accepted fact that the Zionist entity's military and arms industries are imposing behemoths and completely unrivaled on the international stage. What is lesser-known, or rather, ruthlessly suppressed by the Zionist media as a means of keeping it far from the global public's vision, is that "Israel" uses the occupied West Bank (and by extension, occupied al-Quds) as a laboratory for the research and design of its newest weapons. Zionist occupation forces use the hundreds of Palestinian villages in the West Bank as 'live' training grounds (14). Though this certainly qualifies as "sick," as well as "twisted," as Zionism always does, it gets even more depraved. On March 27th, 2012, the undercover unit "Israeli" military intelligence known as Duvdevan, which is responsible for the murder of beloved Palestinian-Jewish activist and director Juliano Mer-Khamis (15), as well as a laundry list of extrajudicial executions dating back to the First Intifada, savagely murdered 28-year old Palestinian Rashad Shawakha and badly wounded two of his brothers during a 'live' training exercise in the occupied West Bank Village of Rammoun (16). For the very first time, as revealed herein by Mask of Zion's ever-vigilant and exceptionally reliable Kashmiri sources, it is now known that these slaughterous and utterly insidious "live training" and "weapons testing" methods have been exported to occupied Kashmir, the land known as "heaven on Earth" illegally occupied by Hindutvadi India for 65 years and already infested with Zionist-Hindutvadi training facilities for the Dragon Policy. For the historical record, it is integral to note "Israel" is not only the top defense supplier for India (17), but the usurping Jewish entity and the Hindu supremacist regime are deeply intertwined at every level, from military to intelligence, economics to politics, communications to ideology, and this cooperation not only amounts to a frightening hegemonic agenda, but tens of billions of dollars in profit generation (13). The two occupation entities even collaborate in ventures to provide cell phone gaming services for their brainwashed populations (18); the Zionism-Hindutva relationship is one of the utmost geopolitical intimacy. Ironically and ominously, although perhaps not unintentionally, one year ago to the day before the barbaric massacres of Shi'a Muslims began in Balochistan, a terrible tragedy occurred in occupied Kashmir that shocked and saddened the people of the Vale. Maulana Showkat Ahmad Shah, a pseudo-controversial but much-loved cleric who served as the President of Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith, was murdered in a brutal bombing during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar. So abominable was the attack that it prompted a harsh condemnation from every major Azadi (Kashmiri word for freedom) organization throughout occupied Kashmir, as well as the government of Pakistan (19). Survived by his wife, son, daughter and mother, well-known across the Vale for his honesty and dedicated to the cause of Azadi by all accounts, Shah had been arrested and imprisoned under the Hindutvadi occupation's draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) many times before, and on at least two other occasions, there were attempts on his life. Dating back to 1990, a phenomenon known in occupied Kashmir as the "unidentified killings" has claimed the lives of dozens of doctors, academics, clerics, philanthropists, Resistance fighters and human rights activists, including Muslims, Pandits and secularists. All evidence indicates that RAW's "Special Operations Group" is behind the murders (20). The most recent target, prominent religious scholar Peer Jalaludin, barely escaped with his life after being critically injured in a shooting. Azadi leaders pegged Hindutva as the culprit behind the barbarous attack, stating that it was trying to divide the Kashmiri struggle through sectarianism (21). Mask of Zion contacted several Resistance fighters and Azadi activists to learn more about these disturbing developments and what was uncovered during these inquiries turned out to be nothing short of shocking and enlightening, as well as exceedingly revealing. One 46-year old veteran fighter, who, for security reasons asked to be identified by the alias "Rehman Zahid", an eloquent man with vast experience in the Azadi struggle as he fought the Hindutvadi occupation head-on during the epic Kashmiri intifada of 1989, explained to Mask of Zion the nature of what he referred to as "SOG," the RAW Special Operations Group, "The SOG is active all over Asia. It is in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Nepal and Indonesia, Malaysia and as far north as Japan. It is responsible for assassinations and surveillance and anything else the accursed Hindutvadis ask for, may ALLAH (SWT) curse them to the hellfire. Curse them! But here, here in Kashmir, my beloved that they have been raping since before Palestine was raped by the Zionists, my land of treasures and rushing rivers, the SOG is subordinate to an 'Israeli' named Katzir. You know him, yes?" "Yes, of course," I stated anxiously. Brother Rehman continued, "The 'Israeli' is governing dozens of SOG agents with full approval from the Hindutvadis in Delhi. He's integrated them into the units made up from the elites of his counter-terrorism team and calls these units the 'Yehoshua Brigades', named after Joshua from the Jewish Bible who was a destroyer and murderer of children, a rapist of land and thief of Canaan." Understandably, brother Rehman paused to take a deep breath. I saw this as an opportunity to interject, "These YehoshuaBrigades aren't regular military units then, and the operations of the SOG aren't normal operations, are they?" The Kashmiri Resistance veteran paused for yet another moment and solemnly said, "No, not at all. He named them 'Yehoshua' because these units are those which will carry out Operation Kurukshetra, a creation of Katzir and the monster, {a reference to former Indian Chief of Staff, General Sundararajan Padmanabhan, the Hindutvadi fundamentalist architect of the Cold Start Doctrine known throughout the Vale for his sadistic brutality during the 1989intifada and the immediate years after it (13)} to cleanse us from the land like Joshua and his band of murderous yahoud cleansed Canaan thousands of years ago and cleansed it again in 1948. Every assassination that they've done in the last decade was designed to provoke us into attacking them so they can make Kurukshetra a reality. Curse them, ya ALLAH (SWT)! Curse them!" "Would we be providing a most accurate description," I asked, "if we designated the YehoshuaBrigades, in all honesty, as an exclusivist Jewish-Hindu death squad motivated by the Zionist-Hindutvadi leadership's desire to attain ethno-religious and regional supremacy?" Without hesitation, Rehman Zahid, a man who had stared into the eyes of the cruel and torturous Indian soldiers who waged an unrelenting campaign of brutality under General Sundararajan Padmanabhan during the 1989 Kashmiri intifada, stated, "Absolutely. Absolutely accurate. Supremacist is what they are. Exclusivist! Separatist is what they are! They call us separatists but they are the separatists! They want to separate from all other humans, with yahoud being with yahoud and Hindutvadi being with Hindutvadi while we suffer under them. They think of us as dogs. Enemies of Islam! Enemies of humanity! Enemies of the Kashmiri, the Palestinian, the Lebanese! Enemies of Pak Sarzameen and the dunya and even the Akhira! Curse them! May ALLAH (SWT) give us strength to fight them and free ourselves from them!" Brother Rehman had become thoroughly flustered and quite upset and therefore, out of respect for and empathy with him, I had no interest in prolonging the discussion for any serious length of time; I only had one more question, "Akhi Rehman, this information is indeed critical and it most certainly explains a great deal, but what about the assassination of Maulana Showkat Ahmad Shah? Was the attack on his person a hyper-specific one?" Obligingly, Rehman replied, "Not necessarily, but, Shahid Maulana was their highest-level target yet methinks. Every killing that Yehoshua does is based on its objective of driving us into civil conflict and hurting our struggle. There is another goal for them though. The explosive used to martyr Maulana, a sticky bomb, was a modified, military-grade version of what was used in the July 11th Bombings and the Malegaon Blasts {which were false flag attacks carried out by the Zionist entity's Mossad and Hindu supremacist elements close to RAW to set the stage for their 'masterpiece' false flag on 26/11, an event that 'changed the game' in the region (22)}. Yehoshua and Katzir's regular units and even the Hindutvadi occupiers themselves are always testing new weapons for 'Israel,' may ALLAH (SWT) curse them to the hellfire. We're like their playthings." He continued, "We are armed with minimal weaponry here, anyone can see this, even the blind ones. What do they need heavy automatics, laser snipers, drones, pistols with silencers and upgraded military explosives for? Are they that afraid of our youths who pelt stones? Do our stonepelters make the Hindutvadi and the Zionist shake? Maybe we do, by ALLAH (SWT) maybe we do, but this isn't the reason. They're testing their weapons here because these are the weapons that they use on Pakistan to make chaos there. Kurukshetra is the final part of the Hindutvadi Cold Start Doctrine. Before Yehoshua Brigades are released to make the Kashmiri Nakba, India and the NATO will have turned Pakistan into Iraq or Libya with Cold Start, may ALLAH (SWT) damn them for what they did to those countries and the orphans.Yehoshua Brigades try and kill Peer Jalaludin, may ALLAH (SWT) protect him, right outside of his home with new never-before-seen heavy automatics and not even a week after this, not even a week by ALLAH (SWT)! These weapons are in the hands of TTP terrorists who spill blood in Pakistan. This is the pattern. Like I said, we are their playthings. Pak Sarzameen is the grand prize in all of this. We are the small fish." I thanked brother Rehman for his time and Muhammad Isma'il Bhat, the friend of mine who put me in contact with the Kashmiri veteran, told me in the clearest language possible that everything he said was on the money. I relayed this information to human rights activists "Zubair Zubair" in Srinagar and "Abu Ghulam" in Kupwara, who had contributed to a previous earth-shattering Mask of Zion report on Pakistan and occupied Kashmir, and both of them reaffirmed it unequivocally. It was official. Occupied Kashmir, "heaven on earth," was being used by the Zionist entity and Hindutvadi India as a "live testing ground" for Dragon Policy directives that will later be carried out in Pakistan, with every killing aimed at disuniting the anti-occupation movement and delivering it into the jaws of destruction. The Kashmiri people were at the mercy of a Jewish-Hindu death squad known as the Yehoshua Brigades, with every moment of their day passing by as if it were their last. Once again, this shows that the fates of the Pakistani and Kashmiri people are interlocked andAzadi for one from the machinations of Zionism and Hindutva means Azadi for the other. And with Kashmiris preparing to launch another intifada, like they always do, seemingly every two years (23), there is no doubt that this theme will permeate protests and marches. There is no doubt that they will demonstrate for dignity and with vigor. There is no doubt that the oppressed people of the Vale will not relent until their Zionist and Hindutvadi tormentors are brought to justice and it is known that Kashmiris are the "playthings" of nobody. Conclusion: A Modern Day Agartala Conspiracy - The Separation of Balochistan and Operation Blue Tulsi Exposed Aforementioned Pakistani luminary Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid has repeatedly likened what the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is fighting today to the "Agartala Conspiracy" of 1971, in which RAW, CIA and elements of the Soviet KGB created, trained, armed and funded the Mukti Bahini terror squads that broke down the Pakistani Armed Forces through guerilla warfare, setting the stage for the breakaway of East Pakistan, known today as the nation-state of Bangladesh. There was no "popular Bengali uprising" as it often parroted by Zionist media and academia, there was a plot of subversion directed by the enemies of Pakistan with Hindutva at the head (24). This is further confirmed by the Syed in which he points out that the Pakistani Army was 10,000 miles away from base, fighting 4GW in the streets while India invaded from three sides with 500,000 soldiers and 250,000 more Mukti Bahini terrorists. The "soldiers of Jinnah, soldiers of 'Allama Iqbal" were overwhelmed, and the dismemberment of Pakistan was completed (25). It is highly critical to add that the Zionist regime assisted India in this plot (26), as balkanizing and weakening Islamic states is a cornerstone of the Jewish supremacist entity's foreign policy, as discussed earlier in the chronicling of the TTP's history. The modern day "Agartala Conspiracy" can be accurately referred to as the "Balochistan Conspiracy." Just before the Mossad-and-RAW-backed TTP began carrying out its latest massacre of Shi'a Muslims in an attempt to drum up more sectarian tension across Pakistan, which, by the way, is an ongoing machination as Pakistani security forces just stopped another possible attack on Kirani Road in the Hazara Town neighborhood of Quetta (27), a tragedy of literally mountainous proportions struck the Pakistan nation on April 7th, 2012 as an avalanche on the famed Siachen Glacier, a massively geopolitically important strategic nexus and integral, ancestral part of Pakistan's national and cultural heritage, slammed down upon the headquarters of the 6NLI battalion of the Pakistani Army, trapping at least 139 soldiers and civilians underneath the frozen tundra. Illegally occupied by Hindutva in April 1984 in Operation Meghdoot, Siachen is once again back in the spotlight and reminding Pakistanis that the agreement signed between their nation and India in 1989 to secure the withdrawal of all forces has been consistently ignored because of Hindutva's intransigence and its dreams of supremacist expansionism (28). Developed by the Indian Armed Forces' Western Command in 1978 and actually engaged by the Indian Armed Forces' Northern Command, Operation Meghdoot was launched to capture Karakoram Highway (KKH), therefore disconnecting Pakistan's road links to China, as well as to capture the passes that connect Siachen Glacier to Gilgit-Baltistan, therefore confiscating yet another piece of land historically linked with occupied Kashmir. This act of Hindutvadi criminality was meant to bog down large numbers of Pakistan's best and brightest forces in high altitude warfare, while continuing the build-up towards the initiation of the Cold Start Doctrine and Operation Kurukshetra. Moreover, what is additionally and most importantly attached to the "bog-down" strategy of the illegal Indian occupation of Siachen is its policy of supporting terrorists in Balochistan, specifically the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and of course, the TTP (28). Hindutva and its allies in the CIA and Britain's MI6 are also funding, arming and training the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), Baloch Republican Army (BRA) and Lashkar-e-Balochistan. RAW and CIA have set up 60 training camps across Balochistan to maintain this destabilization, which is occurring just 100 miles east of Iran (29). Where there is Hindutva, Zionism is never too far away and this is especially true for Balochistan. Another vital asset of the gaggle of secessionist-terrorist elements being utilized by the enemies of Pakistan to plunge the Islamic nation into devastation is the shadowy group known as Jundallah, which has been trained and armed by Mossad for years now. Mossad has used Jundallah against the Islamic Republic of Iran on numerous occasions in bloody, bloody slaughterous attacks and even Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei himself has made mention of it (30). In its typical use of its classic and favorite tactic, the false flag, operatives of Mossad have also posed as CIA agents and flaunted wads of American cash and US passports to recruit Jundallah into carrying out bombings against Iranian women and children to terrorize the Zionist entity's most hated enemy. While this has been analyzed in journalistic spheres on and off the Internet, what hasn't been discussed is that a main objective of this particular Zionist false flag was to drive a wedge between Pakistan and Iran and foment suspicion between them (31). Thankfully, despite the terrible, terrible loss of Iranian life, the brotherly Islamic Republics have gotten over this and are moving forward with an important gas project in the face of immense pressure from the Zionist-occupied United States government (32). William Safire, infamous neconservative ideologue and member of the Jewish-Zionist brain trust that planned the annihilation of Iraq, was well-known for supporting the formation of a Kurdish state because it would weaken the Zionist entity's three greatest enemies, Iraq, Iran and Syria (33). This exact line of Zionist thinking is present in the minds of Safire's constituents at the powerful neoconservative think tank, the Brookings Institution, which produced a policy paper entitled, "Which Path To Persia?" that lays out numerous Israelcentric strategies for America and "Israel" to destroy Iran, including the launch of an insurgency in Balochistan with Pakistan being transformed into a total slave-state to support the terrorism against Iran by proxy. "Which Path To Persia?" was authored by notorious 'Iranophobe' and Jewish supremacist Kenneth M. Pollack, world-renowned lobbyist for the usurping Zionist regime Martin Indyk, Jewish-Zionist CIA stalwart and developer of Obama's Af-Pak strategy Bruce Reidel, Jewish supremacist defender of the criminal "Israeli" practice of "targeted killings" Daniel L. Byman and neoconservative shabbos goyimSuzanne Maloney and Michael E. O'Hanlon (34). "Israeli" foreign policy advisor Oded Yinon's "A Strategy For Israel In The 1980s", the monumental 1982 paper that documented in detail how the Jewish occupation regime plans to balkanize its enemies through infiltration, subversion and terrorism, rendering them non-existent as robust nation-states and turning them into satellites of Zionist hegemony, was instrumental in the Jewish decimation of Iraq (35), and it is now being implemented in numerous nations across the continent of Africa (36). The Yinon plan is also very much underway in Pakistan, with the ultimate territorial goal of the Zionist entity being to break off Balochistan from the Islamic Republic, as well as a larger chunk of land in the western part of the country to make way for a gutted Afghanistan called "Pashtunistan (37)," thus crippling Pakistan in a devastating way, essentially reincarnating and modernizing the "Agartala Conspiracy" of 1971. The convergence of Zionist-Hindutvadi objectives in Balochistan is by no means a coincidence. It is in fact exceedingly deliberate. A sister of the Dragon Policy, the Yinon-styled infiltration of Balochistan is a plot more than 10 years old known as "Operation Blue Tulsi." The resurrection of the BLA and its offshoots, the training camps set up for them, the bases set up by Mossad, RAW and the occasional cluster of CIA agents to run the terror squads, the BLA designs to overthrow the Islamabad government in 2004, the setup of a Baloch regime office in occupied al-Quds to better coordinate Mossad-RAW-CIA subversion schemes, the assassinations of top military and intelligence officials followed by their replacement with infiltrators from the Zionist-Hindutvadi nexus, and all other facsimile events are part and parcel of Operation Blue Tulsi (38), which is being executed simultaneously alongside Cold Start and Operation Kurukshetra. On a side note, it is interesting to record that the "Pakistani" troops exported to Bahrain to be used in the crackdown on a revolutionary uprising in that country at the behest of its ruling regime, the criminal and barbaric Al-Khalifa monarchy, which has bragged about its ties to Mossad and has told all of its top officials not to refer to "Israel" as the "enemy" or the "Zionist entity (39)," are not from the nationalistic and anti-Zionist military-intelligence apparatus of Pakistan, but from Balochistan (40). Not only is Mossad-RAW-backed terrorism from Balochistan wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent Pakistanis and Kashmiris, but Bahrainis too. With revelations having emerged from Jewish former US Ambassador to India John Gunther Dean that Mossad and RAW orchestrated the "accident" that murdered General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1988 (41), it seems that there isn't a single segment of the tragic aspects of Pakistan's tumultuous history that Zionism and Hindutva didn't have their dirty hands in. Moreover, the Zionist-controlled United States has started bombing the "child of Jinnah, child of 'Allama Iqbal" once again with drones as sadistic revenge for cutting off NATO supplies to occupied Afghanistan (42); the latest attack has left four little Pakistani girls slaughtered (43). And with the egregious and monstrous human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir continuing en masse, as most recently evidenced by the Indian occupation army being implicated in punishing Kashmiris through slave labor (44), and the more than 1,332 Kashmiris locked up in Hindutvadi dungeons through the draconian PSA over the last three years (45), the aforesaid plans for another intifada in the Vale couldn't have come at a better time. The filthy and pernicious plots of the Zionist-Hindutvadi alliance against the peoples of Pakistan and occupied Kashmir must be confronted and stopped once and for all. To reiterate, it indeed is not an exaggeration to suggest that Pakistan, occupied Kashmir, and, due to it being included in the enemy plots against these nation-states, the Iranian Islamic Revolution, stand on the brink of oblivion. The usurping Jewish entity and the Hindutvadi New Delhi regime are doped up on geopolitical and religious fundamentalism that is driving each and every decision that they make in pursuit of two separate empires: Greater "Israel", the Zionist confiscation and domination of all Arab lands between the Nile and the Euphrates, and Hindutva, the Hindutvadi confiscation and domination of every piece of territory within the Southeast Asia Subcontinent. Whoever stands in their way faces the unfortunately but nevertheless extremely real prospect of a ruthless militaristic backlash at the hands of these two supremacist allies. It is not only because of the "Israeli"-Indian drive for hegemony that Pakistan, Kashmir and Iran are being targeted, it is because of their defiance of their enemies' thieving thirst for Muslim land and treasure that they are in the reticle; they refuse to be subjugated, they refuse to bow before anyone except their Creator. Pakistan, Kashmir and Iran, along with the Resistance parties in Syria, Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Bahrain, Iraq, Somalia, Belarus, Yemen, Bolivia, Venezuela and anywhere else in the world where there is struggle in the shadows against this mad and bloodthirsty nexus of supremacism and thuggery are humanity's last hope for a better world. A just world. A peaceful world. A world of tolerance and understanding. A world of brotherhood and sisterhood, free from internationalist Jewish usury and the ever-looming threat of Zionist-Hindutvadi expansionism. Such a world is possible and the aforementioned "Peoples of Resistance" show us that it is so day in and day out. May their miraculous defiance persist in inspiring us all and spread to every corner of the globe until Zionism, Hindutva and all of the marionettes attached to their machinations fade away into the most damned pages of history. If it does, Azadi for everyone is just around the corner. ~ The End ~ Sources: (1) Gunmen Kill 14 People In Southwest Pakistan by Press TV (2) Pakistan Sacks Seven Police Officers Over Shia Killing by Press TV (3) Hazara Muslims Call For 10-Day Strike In SW Pakistan by Press TV (4) Demo Held In Islamabad Over Shia Killings by Press TV (5) Shia Massacre Continues In Pakistan by Press TV (6) Another Shia Muslim Killed In Pakistan Sectarian Violence by Press TV (7) Women, Children, Slam Shia Massacre In Pakistan by Press TV (8) Shia Principal Killed In South Pakistan by Press TV (9) 4 Pakistanis, Including 2 Shia Muslims, Killed In Violence by Press TV (10) Pakistanis Rally To Express Outrage Against Persisting Shia Killing by Press TV (11) Pakistani Police Arrest Three Militants Over Shia Killings by Press TV (12) Pakistan Banned Group Confirms Spokesperson's Death by Islamic Republic News Agency (13) The Salala Massacre: NATO's Naked Aggression Against Pakistan And The Hegemonic Israeli-Indo-American Strategy Behind It by Martin Iqbal and Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (14) The Crisis Of Zionism: Undeterred By Unavoidable Realities by Joseph Dana, The National (UAE) (15) Operation Phantasmagoria III: Juliano Mer-Khamis, Assassinated Hope by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (16) Israeli Undercover Unit's Murder Of Palestinian Civilian Was Part Of "Training Exercise" by Charlotte Silver, The Electronic Intifada (17) Israel Now India's Top Defense Supplier by Yaakov Katz, The Jerusalem Post (18) Extent, Tata To Launch Android Service In India by Meir Orbach, Ynet (19) Killing Of Maulana Showkat Ahmed Shah In Kashmir Widely Condemned by Kashmir Global (20) Mysterious Killings In IHK: A Conspiracy To Malign Liberation Movement by Raies Mir, Kashmir Media Service (21) Indian Police Arrest 7 Youth In Srinagar by Kashmir Media Service (22) 26/11: Mossad Terrorizes Mumbai by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (23) JKML Vows To Launch Massive Movement In IHK by Kashmir Media Service (24) The Entire RAW-KGB Plan To Create Bangladesh Exposed! by Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid (25) Agartala Conspiracy - Never Again! by Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid (26) Israel And India: Brothers In Occupation Of Kashmir by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (27) Pakistani Police Thwart Bomb Attack On Shia Muslims by Press TV (28) Siachen - The Geopolitics And Strategy In The Frozen Battlefield by Shahzad Masood Roomi, Brass Tacks Institute (29) Foreign Powers Aiding Rebels In Balochistan by Brigadier General Asif Haroon Raja, The Asian Tribune (30) Hezbollah Spices Up Israel-Iran Mix by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Asia Times (31) False Flag by Mark Perry, Foreign Policy (32) Gilani Orders Fast Progression Of Iran-Pakistan Project by Press TV (33) Mearsheimer On Dual Loyalty And William Safire by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss (34) Which Path To Persia? Options For A New American Strategy Against Iran by Kenneth M. Pollack, Daniel L. Byman, Martin S. Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution Press (35) Jewish At The Root: Iraq's Destruction, Hell Weapons, Hatred, Networking And The Interconnectedness Of It All by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (36) The Zionist Infestation Of Africa: Zimbabwe To Uganda, Congo To Somalia And Beyond by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion (37) Pakistan: Gateway To The Zionist Endgame by Martin Iqbal, Empire Strikes Black (38) Operation Blue Tulsi - Indian And Israeli Plan; Operation Blue Tulsi: 15 Years In Planning, 10 Years In Preparation And Today In Execution by The Xavia Team, Pakistan Defence Forum (39) Haaretz Wikileaks Exclusive / Bahrain King Boasted Of Intelligence Ties With Israel by Yossi Melman, Haaretz (40) Intricacies Of Bahrain's Sunni-Shia Divide by Shirin Sadeghi, Al-Jazeera English (41) Former US Ambassador Says Mossad May Have Knocked Off Pakistani President In '88 Over Nukes by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss (42) US Strikes Pakistan Despite Drone Ban by Al-Akhbar English (43) Drone Kills Innocent Girls by The Nation (Pakistan) (44) Indian Army Subjected Kashmiris To Forced Labour: IHK Regime by Kashmir Media Service (45) 1,332 Kashmiris Booked Under Black Law In 3 Years: Omar by Kashmir Media Service

Arab Spring’ becoming Nightmare for Christians Rise of Islamic groups bringing wave of intimidation, persecution By Aaron Klein -----------------o---------------- 2/8/2012 Middle East (World Net Daily) – As Islamic groups gain power throughout the Middle East, Christians here fear for their safety and are concerned about their role with regard to the future of the volatile region. “I fear for the Christians of the Middle East because it’s a bad situation for them,” Lebanese parliamentarian Samy Gemayel told WND. Gemayel, a senior member of the Phalange party, said he received information last week about a specific assassination plot against him. “I just got the information from the head of security, and he asked me not to go to a specific place, because he had information that something was going to happen there,” he said. While the exact nature of the purported assassination plot remains unclear, Gemayel, who descends from a historic Lebanese Christian family, said he is taking the new threats seriously. His older brother, Pierre, was a member of parliament and a government minister before his assassination Nov. 21, 2006. His uncle, former President-elect Bashir Gemayel, also was assassinated. Christians have been a minority in numerous Middle East countries for several decades, facing routine mistreatment and occasional persecution for much of that time. However, in the last year, the so-called Arab Spring has sparked intensified concern, with reports of an increase in attacks against Christians in some countries here. Islamists already have ascended to power in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Yemen and other countries face similar prospects, with Muslim Brotherhood-allied group consisting of much of the opposition that stands to gain from any power-sharing system. Since the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Coptic Christians have been facing a wave of Islamic attacks, including murders, rapes, church burnings and institutional intimidation. Some reports say more than 200,000 Copts already have fled their homes. When Copts attempted to protest last October, security forces reportedly fired at the protesters, killing 24 and wounding more than300 people. Last weekend, the Global Post quoted numerous Syrian Christians, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressing deep concern that if the secular regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad collapses, Islamists may gain power and persecute Christians. ooooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooooo JESUS IS LORD

Physical assault on Ron Paul leader. Please read comments section below brief articles. see http://www.dailypaul...ns-in-louisiana and http://www.dailypaul.com/237478/police-assault-ron-paul-delegate-at-lagop-convention +++++++++++++++++ see this link for RON PAUL INFORMATION NOT IN ESTABLISMENT MEDIA http://www.dailypaul.com/ +++++++++++++++++ see this link for real Republican Delegate Count http://thereal2012delegatecount.com/ Sometime next month Romney will get enough delegates for Republican nomination for President. The 'ESTABLISHMENT' media incorrectly asserts ROMNEY has = already= achieved the delelgate count needed. OIL/WATER = ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA/FACTS

SAVE SYRIA: Demand An End to US-NATO Supported Sectarian Terrorists US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia have plotted bloodbath for years. ============= 6/2/12 by Tony Cartalucci -- see http://globalresearc...xt=va&aid=31204---- ====================================================== Timeline 1991: Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense, tells US Army General Wesley Clark that the US has 5-10 years to "clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us." Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007. 2001: A classified plot is revealed to US Army General Wesley Clark that the US plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007. <iframe width="550" height="413" src="http://www.youtube.c...bed/TY2DKzastu8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> 2002: US Under Secretary of State John Bolton declares Syria a member of the "Axis of Evil" and warned that "the US would take action." BBC: "US Expands 'Axis of Evil'" May 6, 2002. 2005: US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy organizes and implements the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon directly aimed at undermining Syrian-Iranian influence in Lebanon in favor of Western-backed proxies, most notably Saad Hariri's political faction. Counterpunch: "Faking the Case Against Syria," by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005. Image: Via Color Revolutions and Geopolitics: "As illustrated by the images above, Lebanon's so-called [2005] Cedar Revolution was an expensive, highly-professional production." (click image to enlarge) .... 2005: Ziad Abdel Nour, an associate of Bush Administration advisers, policy makers, and media including Neo-Conservatives Paula Dobriansky, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Joseph Farah (World Net Daily), Clifford May, and Daniel Nassif of US State Department-funded Al Hurra and Radio Sawa, admits: "Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration." Counterpunch: "Faking the Case Against Syria," by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005. 2006: Israel attempts, and fails, to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon after a prolonged aerial bombard that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. CNN: "UN: Hezbollah and Israel agree on Monday cease-fire," August 13, 2006. 2007: Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker reveals that US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Hariri in Lebanon as well as the Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood were assembling, arming, training, and heavily funding a sectarian extremists front, many of whom had direct ties to Al Qaeda, to unleash in both Lebanon and Syria. The goal was to create and exploit a sectarian divide between Sunni and Shi'ia Muslims. Hersh interviewed intelligence officers who expressed concerns over the "cataclysmic conflict" that would result, and the need to protect ethnic minorities from sectarian atrocities. The report indicated that extremists would be logistically staged in northern Lebanon where they would be able to cross back and forth into Syria. New Yorker: "The Redirection," by Seymour Hersh, March 5, 2007. 2008: The US State Department begins training, funding, networking, and equipping "activists" through its "Alliance for Youth Movements" where the future protest leaders of the "Arab Spring," including Egypt's "April 6 Movement" were brought to New York, London, and Mexico, before being trained by US-funded CANVAS in Serbia, and then returning home to begin preparations for 2011. Land Destroyer: "2011 - Year of the Dupe," December 24, 2011. Which Path to Persia? .pdf (pdf file not uploaded , see top link for pdf file ) .... 2009: The Brookings Institution published a report titled, "Which Path to Persia?" (.pdf), which admits that the Bush Administration "evicted" Syria from Lebanon without building up a strong Lebanese government to replace it (p. 34), that Israel struck a "nascent" Syrian nuclear program, and states the importance of neutralizing Syrian influence before any attack on Iran can be carried out (p. 109). The report then goes on to describe in detail the use of listed terrorist organizations against the government of Iran, in particular the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) (p. 126) and Baluch insurgents in Pakistan (p.132). Brookings Institution: "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran," June 2009. 2009-2010: In an April 2011 AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, admitted that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to admit that the US (emphasis added) "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect." AFP: "US Trains Activists to Evade Security Forces," April 8, 2011. 2011: Posner's US trained, funded, and equipped activists return to their respective countries across the Arab World to begin their "ripple effect." Protests, vandalism , and arson sweep across Syria and "rooftop snipers" begin attacking both protesters and Syrian security forces, just as Western-backed movements were documented doing in Bangkok, Thailand one year earlier. With a similar gambit already unfolding in Libya, US senators begin threatening Syria with long planned and sought after military intervention. Land Destroyer: "Syria: Intervention Inevitable," April 29, 2011. ----- ( image not uploaded , see top link for image ) Image: Real genocidal atrocities during the "Arab Spring" occurred at the hands of NATO and its proxy sectarian terrorists. Pictured is Sirte, Libya, after NATO-armed rebels surrounded it, cut off power, water, food, and emergency aid, and allowed NATO to bombard it with daily airstrikes before a final orgy of death and destruction left its streets and facades crumbling. This is the "civilian protection" the UN and its enforcement arm NATO plan on bringing to Syria. .... 2012: With NATO's Libyan intervention resulting in a weak US-backed Tripoli client-regime, perpetual infighting, nationwide genocide, and the succession of Benghazi in the east, the NATO-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (listed #27) begins mobilizing weapons, cash, and fighters to begin destabilizing Syria. Headed by LIFG's Abdul Hakim Belhaj, this would be the first confirmed presence of Al Qaeda in Syria, flush with NATO weapons and cash. The Washington Post would confirm, just as stated by Hersh in 2007, that the US and Saudi Arabia were arming the sectarian extremists, now labeled the "Free Syrian Army." The Post also admits that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, as stated in Hersh's 2007 report, was also involved in arming and backing extremist fighters. Land Destroyer: "US Officially Arming Extremists in Syria," May 16, 2012. ------ (Image not uploaded, see top link for image) Image: Brookings Institution's Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," makes no secret that the humanitarian "responsibility to protect" is but a pretext for long-planned regime change. .... 2012: The US policy think-tank Brookings Institution in its Middle East Memo #21 "Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)," admits that it does not seek any negotiated ceasefire under the UN's "Kofi Annan peace plan" that leaves Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power and would rather arm militants, even with the knowledge they will never succeed to "bleed" the government, "keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention." This reveals that US policy does not view US interference in Syria as a moral imperative predicated on defending human rights, but rather using this false predication to couch aspirations of regional hegemony. Land Destroyer: "US Brookings Wants to "Bleed" Syria to Death," May 28, 2012. Save Syria Now The premeditated nature of not only regime change in Syria, but the use of sectarian terrorists to wring such change out of a sea of blood, is clearly and extensively documented. There is nothing that the Syrian government can do, beyond crushing this foreign legion of terrorists and restoring order, that will prevent in any imaginable way the humanitarian crisis that is planned for Syria. As seen in Libya, the torture, atrocities, genocide, and disorder only just begin with the fall of a targeted government. The US means to create a sectarian extremist state with which to array against neighboring Iran. .... The sectarian nature of the Syrian opposition, the so-called "Free Syrian Army" is already playing out against Syria's 10% Christian population, according to the LA Times' "Church fears 'ethnic cleansing' of Christians in Homs, Syria," and more recently in USA Today's distorted, but still telling, "Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites." Likewise, sectarian division, not "aspirations for democracy and freedom," were identified as the driving force behind the Houla Massacre, with both sides claiming the other carried out the attacks because of the ethnic background and convictions of the victims. Not only did US, Israeli, and Saudi conspirators purposefully unleash sectarian extremists inside of Syria, but they did so with full knowledge and the intent that atrocities like the one in Houla, Syria would result. It is clear, as memorialized in the Washington Post's article, "Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination," that these sectarian extremists and their campaign of terror is propped up solely on US, NATO, and Gulf State support. Even as these sectarian terrorists admit they are conducting bombing campaigns, carried out by Al Qaeda affiliates who cultivated their skills killing foreign occupiers and locals in nearby Iraq, and despite an increasing list of atrocities attributed to them by both Human Rights Watch and the UN itself, the West, the US in particular still advocates sending more weapons, and even direct military intervention on their behalf. The BBC recently lamented in "Can Syria avoid sliding into 'catastrophic civil war'?" that "there is no alternative to UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace mission." The BBC, after over a year of claiming the Syrian uprising was driven by aspirations for "democracy and freedom," now concedes that the conflict is primarily sectarian - as genuine political analysts had maintained from the beginning. BBC's Jim Muir attempts to leave readers begging for the world to "intervene" after describing the "incalculable consequences" of a sectarian-driven "catastrophic civil war from which the country would never recover." Of course, for those who have taken the time to examine the admitted, documented machinations of the West - sectarian strife, Sunni verses Shi'ia, were the tools of choice from the beginning for shattering not only Syria, but neighboring Lebanon and Iran. The Clear Choice It is clear what must be done to avert a repeat of a Libyan-style genocidal catastrophe and save Syria. The support for sectarian terrorists by the West must end. The weapons and foreign fighters flowing from Libya, Lebanon's north, Turkey, and the Gulf States must be stopped. The Syrian government must be allowed to quickly restore order and reassert the protection it has provided Syria's many ethnic minorities for decades against extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood and now Al Qaeda. The political transition the West speaks about as the only "acceptable outcome" for Syria will leave the nation, as it did Libya, under the rule of an ineffectual government hiding in Damascus while the rest of the country is torn apart by genocidal sectarian terrorists flush with NATO and Gulf State weapons and cash. It is clear what must be done to save Syria, and it is clear that those who ignore this obvious choice are promoting a war of aggression against a nation that posed no threat to their security. This constitutes a crime against world peace and is punishable under the Nuremberg precedent. ...

My post had at bottom a link below the ++++ symbols. (see link below ++++ ) The BBC is not obscure but its not independent. BBC is considered by many establishment genuflectors as "the" scouce. To me in all truth ,the establishment media and Frank Colby have a strong equivalency in unreliability and an agenda driven perfidy. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ related http://globalresearc...xt=va&aid=31119 Marco di Lauro whines: "Somebody is using my images from Iraq as propaganda against the Syrian government to prove the [Houla] massacre. I am really surprised that an organization like the BBC cannot be bothered to check sources and is ready to publish any image sent by a citizen activist, or journalist or whoever they are." This below a sampling for I could list scores and scores more of BBC unreliabilty. see http://www.globalres...ext=va&aid=8626 see http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=14198 see http://www.globalres...ext=va&aid=3456 see http://www.globalres...ext=va&aid=1820 #################################### The overuse and misuse of Holocaust analogies is a insult/disservice to the memory of the survivors and illuminates the poverty of ones debating position. ==================================================== The critical components of pointing to the Holocaust in contemporary ethical discussions are understanding how to make a proper analogy and harboring appropriate motivations. The Holocaust comprised so many diverse crimes on such an enormous scale that invoking it broadly does not say much. Rather, if it is to be used to productively and respectfully advance a discussion, it would be better to point out a specific aspect, compare to something specific today, and then explain why the analogy holds. That is quite different from what occurs. Much of the time, the analogy is not so much an analogy at all, but rather an attempt to vilify someone or something that is disliked. When someone makes that type of accusation, you have to wonder: what does he actually mean? Does a Nazi simply imply a person whose ideology we disagree with? What makes the opponent Nazi-like, and why? When used in this way, the Nazi analogy constitutes the worst form of rhetorical exploitation. Acutely aware of the emotional reaction it will evoke, those who use it do so intentionally to get that reaction – to garner political gain and convince people to join their side. A Holocaust reference is brandished as the ultimate tool of persuasion, as an opponent cannot argue. If something is anything like Nazism, you win the debate. But by conflating one of the most heinous crimes against humanity with any agenda found disagreeable, those who use the analogy are exploiting a tragedy. They are taking vile advantage of the victimization of others for political profit. As Dr. Caplan put it, “Because its misuse diminishes the horror done by Nazi scientists and doctors to their victims, it is ethically incumbent upon those who invoke the Nazi analogy to understand what they are claiming.” *** Critics of the Nazi analogy say it trivializes the experiences of the victims and is grossly insensitive to survivors and their descendants. I could not agree more. But I would argue the problem runs even deeper. What those who exploit the Nazi analogy fail to appreciate is that their words shape public behavior and understanding. Speech influences how we think, how we react, and whether we judge something as acceptable or not. Language shapes norms. As a result, by persistently misusing the Nazi analogy, the pundits are doing more than speaking in error. They are distorting history. Inaccurately invoking Nazism creates a moral and emotional distance from the Holocaust that has evolved into something more dangerous: a distance to the truth. For those who have not properly learned what the Holocaust was, this can be their introduction to it. Intentionally or not, the abusers of the Nazi analogy are paving the way for false understanding. What happened with the overuse and misuse of the Nazi analogy over the years is that it ceased carrying the rhetorical force it initially had. We react differently. The fact that we don’t respond with repulsion anymore – that a student can say a professor who gave him a bad grade is a Nazi, and no one bats an eyelash – means the pundits generated long-term impact beyond offending. We are becoming desensitized to the horrific experiences of the victims. By making the analogy a part of the lexicon, those who abuse it are devaluing the Holocaust. If there was any good that came out of the recent Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke scandal, it was that it showed collective moral outrage works. Limbaugh hurled terrible insults upon a woman and the public rightly reacted, leading to significant losses in his sponsorship. Yet in the same rant that caused the backlash, he also accused Fluke and others like her of being “Feminazis.” To that, most of us kept quieter. If only we had reacted to the term with similar condemnation as we did to the word “slut.” The victims of the Holocaust can be restored the respect they deserve. *** My grandmother had a plan. When I was old enough to understand, she would sit down and tell me about her experiences in Bergen-Belsen and those of my grandfather in Buchenwald. She had a profound awareness that it was important to pass on these stories, even though recounting them caused her pain. She knew the significance of documenting truth, even through the grief of reliving her utter humiliation, victimization, and loss. My grandmother believed in the value of speech. Seventy years after parents, siblings, cousins, and nieces and nephews of my grandparents were shoved into the gas chambers, the few in my family who escaped them are no longer here to tell their story. As the same is happening to the last remaining survivors across the globe, the world is losing primary sources to speak up, correct false comparisons, and promulgate a historical truth. For those whose voices were taken from them, I humbly offer mine. But I worry it’s becoming a lonely endeavor. To those in the public spotlight: I plead with you to be aware that your words have a ripple effect. To reflect on the impact of what you say before you say it. To set the bar for discourse that is conducted with civility and respect. To the rest of us, my hope is that we continue speaking out in the face of verbal abuse. To realize that collective action makes a difference. That our words, too, matter. In commemoration of the six million Jews who perished. In loving memory of family members I have never known, but will never forget. For my grandparents, may they rest in peace. ============================================================== About the Author: Ilana Yurkiewicz is a first-year student at Harvard Medical School who graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in biology. She was a science reporter for The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina via the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship and then went on to write for Science Progress in Washington, DC. She has an academic interest in bioethics, currently conducting ethics research at Harvard after previously interning at the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Follow on Twitter @ilanayurkiewicz. More » http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/04/19/in-honor-of-holocaust-remembrance-day-the-misuse-and-abuse-of-the-nazi-analogy-in-modern-bioethics/

A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite by Nick Turse 5/26/12 ========================================= Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now. While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows. Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. “We do a lot of traveling — a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently. This global presence — in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged — provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world. The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight U.S. service members died, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate. Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations. One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.” This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets. Growth Industry From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon. Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command — the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 — indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600. “I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,” he said at a June breakfast with defense reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000. During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3% to 5% a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities. A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite U.S forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that “as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia.” During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet — mostly the industrialized nations of the global north — were considered the key areas. “But the world changed over the last decade,” he said. “Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south… certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren’t.” To that end, Olson launched “Project Lawrence,” an effort to increase cultural proficiencies — like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs — for overseas operations. The program is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I. Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed “Lawrences of Wherever.” While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world. All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government. According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85% of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents. Special Operations Command won’t disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in. “We’re obviously going to have some places where it’s not advantageous for us to list where we’re at,” says Nye. “Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have — it may be internal, it may be regional.” But it’s no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the U.S. spends $50 million a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf. Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism’s National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America’s most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland. So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. “Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises.” The Pentagon’s Power Elite Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence. Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces — like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines — a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists. With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon. With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops. Since 2001, SOCOM’s prime contracts awarded to small businesses — those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons — have jumped six-fold. Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theater commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself. As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM “is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies.” Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialized Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military. Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as “the president’s private army,” today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach. In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura. That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows. Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: “I am convinced that the forces… are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer.” Recently at the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, “Are you talking about unattributed explosions?” What he did let slip, however, was telling. He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common. A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said. Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM. Right now, he emphasized, U.S. Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada’s entire active duty military. In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where America’s elite troops now operate each year, and it’s only set to grow larger. Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a “special” force this large, this active, and this secret — and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available. It just won’t be coming from Olson or his troops. “Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it,” he said in response to questions about SOCOM’s secrecy. When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object. The military’s secret military, said Olson, wants “to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do.” ------------------------------------------------------------ Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com, where this article originally appeared. His latest book, The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books), which brings together leading analysts from across the political spectrum, has just gone into its second printing. Turse is currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. His website is http://www.nickturse.com/

THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government" Detailed Investigation by Marat Musin 6/1/12 ===================== Global Research Editor's Note This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media. The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts. Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists were not pro-government shabbiha militia as conveyed, in chorus, by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA): "When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of Abdul Razak. The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered [corpses] to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something that was not verified by any marks on their bodies." We call on our readers to forward this report far and wide, post it on facebook. . The massacre in Houla is being blamed on the Syrian government without a shred of evidence. The objective is not only to isolate Syria politically and economically, but to develop a pretext and a justification for waging an R2P humanitarian war on Syria. The US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has hinted that if the Security Council does not act, the US and its allies may consider "taking actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of the [uN Security] Council.” This report by Marat Musin confirms that crimes against humanity are being committed by terrorist militia. It is essential to reverse the tide of war propaganda which uses civilian deaths as a pretext to wage war, when those killings of civilians were carried out not government forces but by professional terrorists operating under the helm of the US-NATO sponsored Free Syrian Army. Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Montreal, June 1, 2012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the weekend of May 25, 2012, at about 2 PM, big groups of fighters attacked and captured the town of Al – Hula of the Homs province. Al-Houla is made up of three regions: the village of Taldou, Kafr Laha and Taldahab, each of which had previously been home for 25-30 thousand people. The town was attacked from the north-east by groups of bandits and mercenaries, numbering up to 700 people. The militants came from Ar-Rastan (the Brigade of al-Farouk from the Free Syrian Army led by the terrorist Abdul Razak Tlass and numbering 250), from the village of Akraba (led by the terrorist Yahya Al-Yousef), from the village Farlaha, joined by local gangsters, and from Al Houla. The city of Ar-Rastan has long been abandoned by most civilians. Now Wahhabis from Lebanon dominate the scene, fueled with money and weapons by one of the main orchestrators of international terrorism, Saad Hariri, who heads the anti-Syrian political movement “Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal” (“Future Movement”). The road from Ar-Rastan to Al-Houla runs through Bedouin areas that remain mostly out of control of government troops, which made the militant attacks on Al Hula a complete surprise for the Syrian authorities. When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the Abdul Razak. Many of those killed were “guilty” of the fact that they dared to change from Sunnis to Shiites. The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something that was not verified by any marks on their bodies. The idea that the UN observers had heard artillery fire against Al-Houla in the Safir Hotel in Homs at night… I consider nothing short of a bad joke. 50 kilometers lie between Homs and Al-Houla. What kind of tanks or guns has this range? Yes, there was intensive gunfire in Homs until 3 am, including heavy weapons. But, to give an example, on the night of Monday to Tuesday shooting was due to an attempt by law enforcement to regain control for a security corridor along the road to Damascus, Tarik Al-Sham. After a visual inspection of Al Hula it is impossible to find traces of any of fresh destruction, bombing and shelling. During the day, several attacks by gunmen are made on the last remaining soldiers at the Taldou checkpoint. Militants used heavy weapons and snipers made up of professional mercenaries were active. Note that once, the exactly same provocation failed at Shumar (Homs) and 49 militants and women and children were killed, when it was organized just before a visit of Kofi Annan. The last provocation was immediately exposed as soon as it became known that the bodies of the previously kidnapped belonged to Alawites. This provocation also contained serious inconsistencies – the names of those killed were from people loyal to the authorities, there were no traces of bombings, etc. However, the provocation machine is running all the same. Today, the NATO countries directly threat to bomb Syria, and a simultaneous expulsion of Syrian diplomats has begun … As of today, there are no troops within the city of Al Hula, but there are regularly heard bursts of automatic fire, nonetheless. Moreover, it is unclear whether the militants are fighting with each other, or whether supporters of Bashar al-Assad are being cleaned out. Militants opened fire on virtually everyone who tries to get closer to the border town. Before us a UN convoy was fired upon and two armored jeeps of the UN observers were damaged, when they tried to drive up to an army checkpoint in Tal Dow. In the attack on the convoy a twenty-year-old terrorist was spotted. The fire was directed on the unprotected slopes of the first jeep, the back door of the second armored car was hooked by a fragment. There are wounded among those accompanying. According to a wounded soldier: “The next day, UN observers came to us at the checkpoint and as soon as they arrived, gunmen opened fire on them. And three of us were injured. One was wounded in the leg, the second – in the back, and I was hit in the hip. When the observers came, they could hear a woman who was standing next to them and cried, the woman stood and pleaded the observers’ help – to protect her from the bandits. When I was wounded, the observers watched as I fell, but none of them tried to help. Our checkpoint no longer exists. There are no civilians any longer in Taldou, only militants remain. Our relationship to the locals was excellent. They are very good to us; they called on the army to enter Taldou. We were attacked by snipers.” Unfortunately, many of the militants are professional snipers. 100-200 meters from our group TV-crew, militants attacked a BMP that went to replace soldiers at the checkpoint. During this a soldier – draftee got a concussion and slight tangential wound in the head by a sniper bullet. Looking at the pierced Kevlar helmet, it seems he did not even realize that he survived by a miracle. Snipers kill up to 10 soldiers and policemen at checkpoints each day. It is true, that the daily casualties of law enforcement agencies in Homs were dozens of victims daily. But, unfortunately, at 10 am, six dead soldiers were taken to the morgue. Most were killed by a shot in the head. And the day had just begun… So, these are the names of those were killed by snipers in the early morning hours of May 29: 1. Sergeant Ibrahim Halyuf 2. Sergeant Salman Ibrahim 3. Policeman Mahmoud Danaver 4. Conscript Ali Daher 5. Sergeant Wisam Haidar 6. the dead soldier’s family name could not be clarified The bandits even fired an automatic burst on our group of journalists, although it was clear that this is a normal filming crew, consisting of unarmed civilians. HOW THE ATTACK BEGAN After Friday prayers at about 2 PM on May, 25th a group from the Al Aksh clan started firing on a checkpoint of law enforcement officers from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Returning fire from a BRDM hit the mosque, and this was the very aim to lead to a bigger provocation. Then, two groups of militants led by the terrorist Nidal Bakkour and Al-Hassan from the Al Hallak clan, supported by a unit of mercenaries, attacked the upper checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of the city. At 15.30 the upper checkpoint was taken, and all the prisoners executed: a Sunni conscript had his throat cut, while Abdullah Shaui (Bedouin) of Deir-Zor was burned alive. During the attack on the upper checkpoint in the east, the armed men lost 25 people, which were then submitted to the UN observers, together with the 108 dead civilians – “victims of the regime”, allegedly killed by bombing and shelling of the Syrian army. As for the remaining 83 bodies, including 38 young children, they were from the families that were executed by militants. These families were all loyal to the government of Syria. Interviews: with a law enforcement officer: “My name is Al Khosam, I am a law enforcement officer. I served in the village of Taldou, the district of Al-Houla, a province of Homs. On Friday, our checkpoint was attacked by a large group of militants. There were thousands. Q: How do you protect yourself? Answer: A simple weapon. We had 20 people, we called support, and when they were coming for us, I was wounded, and regained consciousness in the hospital. The attackers were from Ar-Rastan and Al-Hula. Insurgents control Taldou. They burned houses and killed people by the families, because they were loyal to the government. Raped the women and killed the children.” Interview with a wounded soldier: “I am Ahmed Mahmoud al Khali. I’m from the city Manbej. Was wounded in Taldou. I come from a support group that came to the aid of our comrades, who were stationed at the checkpoint. Militants destroyed two infantry fighting vehicles and one BRDM standing at our checkpoint. We moved out to Taldou in a BMP, to pick up our wounded comrades from the checkpoint within the city. We drove them back in the BMP, and I filled in their place. And after a while the UN observers came. They came to us, we led them to the homes of families who were cut by thugs. I saw a family of three brothers and their father in the same room. In another room we found dead young children and their mother. And another one- an old man killed in this house. Only five men, women and children. The woman raped and shot in the head, I covered her with a blanket. And the commission had seen them all. They put them in the car and drove away. I do not know where they took them, probably for burial.” A resident of Taldou on the roof of the police department: “On Friday afternoon I was home. Hearing the shots, I came out to watch what was happening and saw that the fire came from the north side, towards the location of army checkpoint. As the army did not respond, they started to approach the homes, were subsequently the family was killed. When the army started to return fire, they used the women and children as human shields and continued firing at the checkpoint. When the army began answered, they fled. After that, the army took the surviving women and children and brought them into safety. At this time, Al Jazeera aired pictures and said that the Army committed the massacre at Al Hula. In fact, they killed the civilians and children in Al-Hula. The bandits did not allow anyone to carry out their work. They steal everything that they can get their hands on: wheat, flour, oil and gas. Most of the fighters are from the city of Ar Rastan.” After they captured the city, they carried the bodies of their dead comrades, as well as the bodies of people and the children they killed to the mosque. They carried the bodies in KIA pickups. On May, 25th, at around 8 PM, the corpses were already in the mosque. The next day at 11 o’clock in the morning the UN observers arrived at the mosque. Media Disinformation To exert pressure on public opinion and change the positions of Russia and China, texts and subtitles in Russian and Chinese languages were prepared in advance, reading: “Syria – Homs – the city of Hula. A terrible massacre perpetrated by the armed forces of the Syrian regime against civilians in the town of Houla. Dozens of victims and their number is growing, mainly women and children, brutally killed by indiscriminate bombing of the CITY.” Two days later, on May 27, after the residents’ stories and video recordings made showed that the facts do not support the allegation of shelling and bombing, the bandits’ videos had undergone significant changes. At the end of the text appeared this postscript: “And some were killed with knives.” Marat Musin, Olga Kulygina, Al-Houla, Syria Original text / source: http://maramus.livejournal.com/86539.html video: Russian =================== =================== http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3o-79NY56hE The translation is based on the impressive work of Soldatovich and Elena. Thank you very much for the translation of this text about the recent events near the Syrian city of Homs and in the area of al-Houlah. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ related http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31119

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MEDIA FABRICATIONS OF THE FACTS: When the Respectable Become Extremists. The Extremists Become Respectable by Prof. James Petras 5/26/12 Introduction By any historical measure, whether it involves international law, human rights conventions, United Nations protocols, or standard socio-economic indicators, the policies and practices of the United States and European Union regimes can be characterized as extremist. By that we mean that their policies and practices result in the large-scale, long-term systematic destruction of human lives, habitat and livelihood affecting millions of people through the direct application of force and violence. The extremist regimes abhor moderation, which implies rejection of total war in favor of peaceful negotiations. Moderation pursues conflict resolution through diplomacy and compromise and the rejection of state and paramilitary terror, mass dispossession and displacement of civilian populations and the systematic assault on popular sectors of civil society. In first decade of the 21st century we have witnessed the West’s embrace of the full spectrum of extremism in both domestic and foreign policy. Extremism is a common practice by self-styled conservatives, liberals and social-democrats. In the past, conservative implied preserving the status quo and, at most, tinkering with change at the margins. Today’s ‘conservatives’ demand the wholesale dismantling of entire social welfare systems and the elimination of traditional legal protection of workers and the environment. Liberals and social democrats, who in the past, occasionally, questioned colonial systems, are now in the forefront of prolonged multi-front colonial wars ,which have killed and displaced millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Extremism, in terms of its methods, means and goals, has obliterated the distinctions between center left, center and rightwing politicians. Moderates opposed to the current policies of subsidizing the major banks while impoverishing tens of millions of workers, are now labeled the ‘hard left’, ‘extremists’ or ‘radicals’. In the wake of the government’s extremist policies, the respectable, prestigious print media have engaged in their own versions of extremism[1]. Colonial wars, devastating civil society and stable cultures while impoverishing millions in the colonized country, are justified, embellished and presented as lawful and humane advances in secular democratic values. Domestic wars on behalf of oligarchies and against wage and salaried workers, which concentrate wealth and deepen despair of the dispossessed, are described as rational, virtuous and necessary. The distinctions between the prudent, balanced, prestigious and serious media and the sensationalist, yellow press have disappeared. The fabrication of facts, blatant omissions and distortions of context are found in one just as well as the other. To illustrate the reign of extremism in officialdom and among the prestigious press, we will examine two case studies. These involve US policies toward Colombia and Honduras and the Financial Times and New York Times coverage of the two nations. ------------------------- Colombia: The ‘Oldest Democracy in Latin America ’ versus ‘The Death squad Capital of the World’ Following the giddy eulogies of Colombia’s emergence as Latin America’s poster boy for democracy in an April issue of Time Magazine, as well as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, the Financial Times ran a series of articles including a special insert on Colombia’s political and economic ‘miracle’ entitled, “Investing in Colombia”[2]. According to the FTs leading Latin American journalist, John Paul Rathbone, Colombia is the ‘oldest democracy in the hemisphere’[3]. Rathbone’s rapturous praise for Colombia ’s President Santos extends from his role as an ‘emerging power broker’ for the South American continent, to making Colombia safe for foreign investors and ‘exciting the envy’ of other less successful regimes in the region. Rathbone gives prominence to one Colombia business leader who claims that Colombia ’s second biggest city, Medellín, ‘is living through its best of times’[4]. In line with the opinion of the foreign and business elite, the respectable print media describe Colombia as prosperous, peaceful, business friendly, charging the lowest mining royalty payments in the hemisphere, and a model of a stable democracy to be emulated by all forward-looking leaders. Under President Santos, Colombia has signed a free trade agreement with President Obama, his closest ally in the hemisphere[5]. During the term of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, trade unions, human rights and church groups, as well as the majority of Congressional Democrats, were successful in blocking any similar agreement because of Colombia ’s sustained human rights violations. Any such opposition from the AFL-CIO and Democratic legislators evaporated, when President Obama embraced free trade, claiming a vast improvement in human rights and President Santos commitment to ending the murder of trade union leaders and activists[6]. Colombia ’s peace, security and prosperity, praised by the oil, mining, banking, and agro-business elite, are based on the worst human rights record in Latin America . With regard to the murder of trade unionists, Colombia exceeds the entire world. From 1986-2011 over 60% of the all killings of trade unionists in the world took place in Colombia by combined military-police-paramilitary death squads, largely at the behest of foreign and domestic corporate leaders[7]. The ‘peace’, so enthusiastically praised by Rathbone and his colleagues at the Financial Times, comes with a heavy price tag: Over 12,000 arrests, attacks, assassinations and disappearances of trade unionists occurred between January 1, 1986 and October 1, 2010[8]. In that time span nearly 3,000 trade union leaders and activists were murdered, hundreds more disappeared and are assumed dead. The current Colombian President Santos was the Defense Minister under the previous President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010). In those years, over 762 trade union officials and activists were murdered by state or allied paramilitary forces[9]. Under both Presidents Uribe and Santos (2002 – 2012), over 4 million peasants and rural dwellers were driven into internal exile and their homes and lands were taken over by big landlords, speculators and narco- traffickers[10]. The Colombian government’s counter-insurgency strategy serves a dual function of repressing dissent and accumulating wealth for its supporters. The Financial Times journalists gloss over this aspect of Colombia’s ‘resurgent growth’ as they applaud the results of death-squad ‘security’, including the over $6 billion dollars of large-scale foreign investment which flowed into mining and oil regions in 2012 – in areas ‘formerly troubled by unrest’[11]. Some leading drug lords, clearly linked to the Uribe-Santos regime, were jailed and extradited to the US . They have testified how they financed and elected one-third of the Congress members affiliated with Uribe-Santos party - in what the Financial Times describes as Latin America’s ‘oldest democracy’. Salvatore Mancuso, ex-chief of the 30,000-member United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC), described how he met with then-President Uribe in different regions of the country to give him money and logistical support for his re-election campaign of 2006. Mancuso, who led the largest paramilitary death squad army in Colombia (now fragmented but still active), also affirmed that national and multi-national corporations (MNC) financed the growth and expansion of the death squads. What Rathbone and his fellow journalists at the FT celebrate as Colombia ’s emergence as an investor’s paradise is writ large with the blood and torture of thousands of Colombian peasants, trade unionists and human rights activists. The brutal history of the Uribe/Santos reign of terror has been completely erased from the current account of Colombia ’s ‘success story’. Detailed records of the brutality of the killings and torture by Uribe/Santos sponsored death squads, describing the use of chain saws to mutilate peasants suspected of leftist sympathies are available to any journalist willing to consult Colombia ’s leading human rights organizations[12]. The death squads and military act in concert. The Colombian military is trained by over one thousand US Special Forces advisers. They wage counter-insurgency style war on the Colombian countryside, arriving in villages in waves of US-supplied helicopters, cordoning off targeted areas from the guerillas and then sending in the AUC and other death squads to destroy the villages, torturing and murdering peasant men, women and children suspected of being guerilla sympathizers and committing widespread rape. This state-sponsored terror campaign has driven millions of peasants out of the countryside allowing the generals and drug lords to seize their land. Human rights advocates (HRA) are frequently targeted by the military and death squads. Presidents Uribe and Santos usually first accuse human rights workers of being active collaborators of the guerillas because of their work in exposing the regime’s crimes against humanity. Once labeled, the HRA became ‘legitimate targets’ for death squads and the military operating with complete impunity. From 2002-2011 there were 1,470 attacks against HRA, with a record number of 239 in 2011, including 49 killings under President Santos.[13] Over half of the murdered human rights workers are Indian and Afro-Colombians. State terrorism was and continues to be the main instrument of rule under Presidents Uribe and Santos . The Colombian ‘killing fields’, according to the Fiscalia General, include tens of thousands of homicides, 1,597 massacres and thousands of forced disappearances from 2005 – 2010[14]. Courageous members of the Colombian press revealed a practice, known as ‘false positives’, numerous instances in which the military secretly kidnapped young peasants and poor urban males forcing them to dress as guerrillas, murdered them in cold blood and then displayed their bodies to the respectable Colombian and international press as ‘proof’ of Santos/Uribe’s combat successes against the guerrillas. There are 2,472 documented cases of military ‘false positive’ murders[15]. =================== Honduras: New York Times and State Terrorism The New York Times featured an article on Honduras , emphasizing the regime’s ‘co-operation’ with the US war on drugs.[16] The Times writer, Thom Shanker, describes a ‘partnership’ based on the expansion of three new US military bases and the stationing of US Special Forces in the country.[17] Shanker reported on the successful operation of the Honduras Special Operations forces under the direction of US Special Forces trainers. In Shanker’s coverage, a US Congressional delegation praised the Honduran Special Operations forces ‘respect for human rights’, quoting the US ambassador description of the Honduran regime as ‘eager and capable partners in this joint effort’.[18] There are blatant parallels between the NY Times white-wash of the criminal extremist regime in Honduras and the Financial Times’ crude promotion of Colombia ’s death squad democracy. The current extremist Honduran regime, headed by ‘President’ Lobos, which invited the Pentagon to expand its military control over huge swathes of Honduran territory, is a product of the US-backed military coup that overthrew a democratically-elected liberal President on June 28, 2009, a recent historical point Shanker avoids in his coverage. Lobos, the predator president, retains control by killing, jailing and torturing his critics, including journalists, human rights advocates and lawyers, as well as now-landless peasants demanding a return of their properties after they were violently seized by Lobos’ big-landlord allies. Following the military coup, thousands of Honduran pro-democracy demonstrators were killed, beaten and arrested. According to conservative estimates by Human Rights Watch, 20 pro-democracy dissidents were openly murdered by the military and police.[19] From January 2010 to November 2011 at least 12 journalists, critical of the Lobos regime, were assassinated. In the countryside, where NY Times reporter Shanker describes a love fest between the US Special Forces and their Honduran counterparts, 30 farm workers in northern Honduras Bajo Aguan valley were killed by death squads hired by Lobos powerful allies.[20] Not one military, police or death squad assassin has been brought to justice. The original coup leader, Roberto Micheletti and his successor, President Lobos, repeatedly attacked pro-democracy demonstrations, particularly those led by school teachers, students and trade unionists. Hundreds of jailed political dissidents have been tortured. During the period of NY Times most euphoric articles on the cozy relations between the US and Honduras , the death toll among pro-democracy advocates rose precipitously: Eight journalists and a TV commentator were killed during the first 4 months of 2012.[21] In late March and early April of 2012 nine farm workers and employees were murdered by pro-Lobos landlords.[22] With impunity reigning in the Central American land of US military bases, no one has been arrest for these murders. The NY Times coverage of Honduras follows the Mafia rule of omega - silence and complicity. ==================== Syria: How the Financial Times Absolves Al Qaeda Terrorists As Western-backed Islamist terrorists savage the secular regime in Syria , the Western press, especially the Financial Times, continue to absolve the terrorists use of huge car bombs, which have killed and mutilated hundreds of Syrian citizens. With crude cynicism Western reporters shrug their shoulders and parrot the claims of the London-based anti-regime propagandists, that the Assad regime was destroying its own cities and killing its own citizens and security forces.[23] Conclusion As the Obama regime and its European allies publically embrace extremism, including state terror, targeted assassinations and the car bombings in crowded urban neighborhoods, the respectable press has joined in. Extremism takes many forms –from the refusal to report honestly about the use of mercenary force and violence to overthrow another anti-colonial regime to the blatant cover-up of the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the dispossession of millions of peasants and farmers. The ‘educated classes’, the respectable affluent reading public are being continuously indoctrinated by the respectable Western media to believe that the smiling and pragmatic President Santos in Colombia and elected President Lobos in Honduras have succeeded in establishing peace, market-based prosperity, mutually beneficial free trade agreements and military base concessions with the US---even as these two regimes currently lead the world in the murder of trade unionists and journalists. On May 15, 2012 the US Hispanic Congressional caucus awarded Lobos a leadership in democracy award – the same day the Honduran press reported the murder of the news director of radio station, HMT, Alfredo Villatoro, the 25th critical journalist killed between January 27, 2010 and May 15, 2012.[24] The respectable press’ embrace of extremism and its use of demonological and vitriolic language to describe critical regimes opposed to imperialism are matched by its euphoric and effusive praise of state and pro-western mercenary brutality. The systematic cover-up of crimes by extremist journalism goes far beyond the cases of Colombia and Honduras . Financial Times reporter Michael Peel ‘covered’ the assault on the Libyan government of Gaddaffi without mentioning the NATO-led bombing campaign that destroyed Africa’s most advanced welfare state. Peel presented the rise of armed gangs of fanatical tribal and Islamic terrorists as a victory for democracy over a “brutal dictatorship”[25]. Peel’s mendacity and cant is evident in his outrageous claims that the destruction of the Libyan economy and the mass torture and racially motivated murders, which followed NATO’s war, was a victory for the Libyan people. The totalitarian twist in the respectable press is a direct consequence of its long-term toadying to the extremist policies pursued by the western regimes. Since extremist measures, like the use of force, violence, assassination and torture, have become routine by the incumbent presidents and prime ministers, the reporters have no choice but to fabricate lies to render ‘respectable’ such crimes, to spit out a constant flow of highly charged adjectives in order to convert victims into executioners and executioners into victims. Extremism in defense of pro-US regimes has led to the most grotesque accounts imaginable: Colombia and Mexico ’s Presidents are the leaders of the most thoroughly narcotized economies in the hemisphere yet they are praised for their war on drugs, while Venezuela , the most marginal producer of any drug, is stigmatized as a major narco- pipeline.[26] Articles with no factual basis, which are worthless as sources of objective information, direct us to seek an underlying rationale: Colombia has signed a free trade agreement, which will benefit US exports over Colombian by over a two to one ratio[27]. Mexico ’s free trade policy has benefited US agro-business and giant retailers by a similar ratio. All forms of extremism permeate Western regimes and find justification and rationalization through the respectable media whose job is to indoctrinate civil society and turn citizens into uncritical accomplices to extremism. By endlessly prefacing ‘reports’ on Russia’s President Putin as an authoritarian Soviet era tyrant, the respectable media avoid any discussion of the doubling of the Russian standard of living and Putin’s over 60% electoral triumph. By magnifying an authoritarian past, the murdered Libyan President Gadhafi’s vast public works, social welfare programs and generous immigration and foreign aid programs to sub-Sahara Africa can be relegated to the oblivion. The respectable press’s praise of death squad Presidents Santos and Lobos is part of a large-scale, long-term systematic shift from the hypocritical pretence of pursuing the virtues of a democratic republic to the open embrace of a virulent, murderous empire. The new journalists’ code reads ‘extremism in defense of empire is no vice’. Notes [1] There’s a general consensus that the respectable print media include The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. [2] Financial Times (FT) 5/8/12;See also FT (5/4/12)” Colombia looks to consolidate gainsin country of complexities” [3] FT 5/8/12 (p. 1) [4] FT ibid [5] BBC News , May 5, 2012 [6] ibid [7] Renan Vega Cantor Sindicalicidio! (Un cuento poco imaginativo) de Terrorismo Laboral Bogotá, Feb. 25, 2012. [8] ibid. [9] ibid. [10] Inforrme CODHES Novembre 2010. [11] FT 5/8/12 p. 4. [12] See the Annual Reports of CODHES, Reiniciar and Human Rights Watch [13] Claroscuro Informe Aual 2011; Programa Somos Defensores Bogota 2012; Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados. Jan. – March 2012. [14] Fiscalia General. Informe 2012 [15] http://www.falsos.positivos.blogspot.com [16] Thom Shanker “Lessons of Iraq Help US Fight a Drug War in Honduras ” New York Times, May 6, 2012.6 [17] ibid [18] ibid [19] Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012 [20] Honduran Human Rights, May 12m, 2012. [21] ibid [22] ibid [23] The notorious cover-up of the car bombing is the handiwork of the FT’s star middle east journalists. See Michael Peel and Abigail Fielding-Smith “At Least 55 Die in two Damascus Explosions: Responsibility for Blasts Disputed”, FT 5/11/12. [24] Honduras Human Rights, April 24, 2012. [25] Michael Peel, “The Colonels Last Stand” FT 5/12 – 13/12 [26] One of Colombia ’s most notorious paramilitary narco traffickers described the close financial and political ties between the Colombian United Self Defense terrorists and the Uribe-Santos regime. See La Jornada 5/12/12. [27] BBC News, 5/15/12. According to the US International Trade Commission estimates the value of US exports to Colombia could rise by $1.1 billion while Colombia

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