Pro-US Cabal In Pakistan Is Angry At China Praise

The outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan needs to be congratulated for one thing: she did an excellent job of meddling in Pakistani media and politics. She is credited with organizing a pro-US cabal inside Pakistan that springs into action whenever the US is criticized in Pakistani media. Ironically, this cabal, which consists of Pakistanis, never shows equal passion when the US officials and media demonize Pakistan worldwide.

Ms. Patterson has not been working alone. She received full support from the ruling PPPP's media managers. That is why I am mentioning Pakistan's own wunderkid: Ambassador Husain Haqqani who is said by sources in his won party to be responsible for organizing PPPP's media plans while sitting in Washington DC.

Today the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal in Pakistan [read: PPPP Media Cell] are seething with anger that I criticized Nobel's cheap shot against China. A version of my op-ed, titled, A 'Nobel' Mob Ambush, Chicago Style, was published by the blog section of the Pakistani affiliate of International Herald Tribune. The comments section makes for an interesting read.

They are livid that I linked Nobel's China swipe to the unusual wave of anti-China political ads during the current mid-term election campaign in the US. I explained how the Indian lobby in the US is contributing to the 'Blame China' campaign to divert attention from US public's anger at outsourcing jobs to India.

So guess what? The pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal teams up with Indian net surfers to bash China on this excellent Pakistani website.

But no one should worry: Their comments and arguments don't even begin to scratch the surface. The best answer to their ramblings cames from Mr. Ghias Ahmed whose half-line was both pithy and shrewd:

"‎2012 Nobel Prize will be paid in Chinese Yuan...".

Did Ambassador Haqqani Grant Visa To Faulkner Thinking He Was CIA?

How did US citizen Gary Faulkner manage to get entry visas for Pakistan six times, bring along weapons, roam the military-prohibited tribal region, and not once catch the eye of Ambassador Husain Haqqani and his staff at the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC?

This question is important because only a few months ago Ambassador Haqqani faced accusations he issued visas to tens and possibly hundreds of US citizens without verifying who these visa applicants represented. Most of them, however, claimed to be traveling on US government business. Pakistani security officials suspected Mr. Haqqani was basically facilitating US intelligence agents and private security contractors for Pentagon and CIA. By directly issuing visas, Mr. Haqqani avoided the long route through the Pakistan Foreign Office, which also meant verification by law enforcement agencies.

This issue is so close to Ambassador Haqqani's heart that at one point late last year he fired a letter to Pakistan's Foreign Secretary and ISI chief warning them that blocking visas to US citizens would endanger the supply of military hardware.

Mr. Faulkner traveled to Pakistan six times and was caught in the last one carrying a gun, a knife and hashish while 'hunting' for bin Laden in the Pakistan border region. He lied to Pakistani investigators that he planned to cross into Afghanistan. He never tried to cross into Afghanistan in the previous five trips.

Despite violations of Pakistani visa and laws, he was released without a single charge, not even a police report for the record. This was done most probably on the orders of Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

While it's nice to be nice to others, the problem is that such generosity is never reciprocated by the US government, which continues to prosecute innocent Pakistani college students on terror-related charges in cases where FBI agents planted flimsy evidence to promote their careers.

Compare Faulkner to Adnan Mirza, a twenty-something Pakistani and his cousin Shiraz.

Adnan remains in jail for the past 4 years because FBI is forcing him to accept guilt while he won't accept something he didn't do. The so-called evidence against him consists of [believe it or not] a tape recording where an undercover FBI agent pretending to be Muslim lead him into a conversation on Iraq and Afghanistan. Adnan's cousin Shiraz, whose wife and child are US citizens and whose aging parents live with him in the US, was released by a US judge for lack of evidence. But last week, FBI descended on him as he celebrated his child's birthday after Amb. Husain Haqqani colluded with US authorities to issue his deportation papers. 

This is the worst part, where the Pakistani ambassador has actually been forcing these kids to accept the false charges against them. What Mr. Haqqani should have done was to tell US authorities that fake terror cases against Pakistani citizens for war propaganda purposes would hurt US-Pakistan relations. But of course Mr. Haqqani can't do that.

Moral of the story is that Pakistanis can rot in US jails but a US citizen who is in clear violation of Pakistani laws will always be promptly released by a pro-US government in Islamabad. These Pakistani officials, whose lives and careers exist outside Pakistan, don't even have the imagination to drive a fair bargain by exchanging Mr. Faulkner for Mr. Mirza, or even for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who might be partially guilty in some ways but whose method of punishment would forever remain a stain on the faces of those American and Pakistani political and intelligence officials who handled her case.

It is important to add a nore here about how ordinary Americans have dealth with Adnan Mirza's case in Houston. Ordinary Americans are good people who are confused and scared because of these fake terror cases. Many of them are coming out now to defend Adnan Mirza. These are college students and charity acitivists who knew him. But Amb. Haqqani won't defend this Pakistani because, well, Mr. Haqqani can't upset FBI since he has to live in the US long after the incumbent US-installed Pakistani govt. is gone.

P.S.: Mr. Faulkner plans to return to Pakistan in August. Let's see if Amb. Haqqani will grant him a visa for the seventh time.

For more information on Adnan Mirza, please see www.FakeTerror.com

Lahore Bombings: Indians Are Suspects, So Are Americans

US Ambassador complains to Pakistani Government that media reports have exposed the location of American residences inside Lahore’s military zone, but fails to mention why US personnel with diplomatic cover have been found at wrong places, sometimes carrying weapons that diplomats are not supposed to

Lahore’s military zone is not only exposed to covert Indian operatives but also to undercover US agents with their suspicious heavy-duty equipment placed in several houses inside a gated community right in the heart of the city’s military area. This has been going on since 2007. 

    

CLICK TO ENLARGE

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The eastern city of Lahore is exposed not only to the Indians who have been sending terrorists to plant bombs in public places for the past quarter of a century, but also to the Americans who expanded their covert presence inside Pakistan in the last three years of President Musharraf’s rule.  After the return to democracy in 2008, the US presence [beyond diplomatic requirements or disguised under diplomatic cover] is reported to have increased manifold.

Last year, Pakistanis were stunned to watch several incidents where US citizens were caught by the Military Police at checkpoints leading up to the city’s military zone known as Cantt.  Most of the time, these US individuals refused to say what business took them to the military area. The US Consulate in Lahore is located far away from this zone, which compounded the mystery. These US nationals also refused to allow the police to check their vehicles, which is a standard procedure that all Pakistanis undergo considering the terrorist attacks. On a couple of occasions, US vehicles whose drivers refused to cooperate with MP caused long queues at checkpoints. Military Police officers impounded these vehicles. This led to US officials complaining to their media that Pakistan was ‘harassing’ US diplomats.

But the truth is that the Americans have covertly maintained an outpost of several houses in a gated community right in the heart of the city’s military zone. This zone is so sensitive that a half-constructed Sheraton Hotel lies abandoned on one of Cantt’s main streets because the Pakistani military complained that the new hotel’s upper floors provided an easy view of the residence of the commander of the Pakistan Army Corp that guards Pakistan’s northeastern border with India. 

This makes the covert US presence in this area intriguing to say the least. The exact location of these houses, in the elite Sarwar Colony, is shown in the pictures that accompany this report. Most of the residents of this colony are senior retired Pakistani military officers. A handful of them have apparently leased out their homes to the Americans at exorbitant rates that far exceed the normal level of leased property rates in the Colony, according to a fascinating expose published by TheNation and is reproduced below in full.

Why are we talking about a few houses rented out by Americans linked to US government in a sensitive part of the eastern city?

The reason is a wave of terror targeting Lahore over the past two years. This is not to suggest that the US government has something to do with this.  The suspicion centers on local terrorists indirectly or directly aided by intelligence operatives from multiple countries based in Afghanistan.  The point here is that the city of Lahore is exposed not only to local terrorists working with foreign handlers, but also to Indians and possibly to private American security contractors. These contractors expanded their presence in Pakistan in the past two years, mostly using diplomatic cover. The US Embassy in Islamabad under the incumbent Ambassador has been instrumental in pushing for an expanded role for private US defense contractors in Pakistan over the past two years.

Many Pakistanis feel that such penetration of Pakistan by foreign countries is detrimental to our national security and has unnecessarily exposed us to outsiders pursuing interests that may not overlap with our own.

Today, the US Embassy in Islamabad leaked key points of a letter that US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson has sent to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. In the letter, Ambassador Patterson complained about TheNation report on the American presence in Cantt, Lahore. More interestingly, she made a veiled threat that Pak-US relations would suffer if those Americans became targets for a terror attack. The letter was leaked to the Dawn newspaper.

The most interesting part of her letter was an acknowledgement on her part that the security of US diplomats in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Government of Pakistan. This is important because it was Ms Patterson who only a year ago was lobbying the Pakistani government to allow US private defense contractors into Pakistan and was running from one government office to another to ensure that these private US contractors are allowed to carry banned weapons anywhere in the country.

When Ms. Patterson was asked why she needed these private security contractors, she said it was to protect US diplomats. Critics said that was the responsibility of the Government of Pakistan and that the Ambassador should not cross a line. Her acknowledgement of this indicates a shift. Probably it has to do with recent understandings between Army Chief Gen. Kayani and US military officials where the army chief reportedly asked US to stop indirect methods of coercion, including media leaks, the role of private contractors in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the role of CIA in the region.

So how did the Pakistani military allow such a breach to occur in a sensitive area of Lahore?

One explanation is that the Americans moved with their gadgetry and equipment to this place sometime in late 2006 and early 2007. This means that the arrangement had the blessings of former President Musharraf.  This is significant because it means the US presence in this sensitive location is part of the sovereign understandings that Pakistan entered with the United States during that time. And no matter how damaging this is for Pakistani security interests, Islamabad and the Pakistani military are forced to put up with this foreign presence for as long as those understandings are effective.

Another explanation is that Mr. Musharraf’s regime allowed the Americans to setup shop here without the full knowledge of all the relevant branches of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies.  If this is the case, then it is alarming indeed.

This story becomes relevant in the aftermath of a series of attacks in Lahore over the past two years, including one that targeted a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team. The strange part is that all of these attacks either target Pakistan’s allies [Sri Lankans, Chinese] or attack ordinary Pakistanis to kill the largest numbers of them.  Americans or American and British interests have never been attacked in this manner throughout this so-called war on terror that Pakistan has been executing on America’s behalf. If anything, much of this terror is linked to a proxy militia in South Waziristan that claims to be a Pakistani Taliban but receives all its arms and funding from US-controlled Afghanistan where the Indians also maintain a vast intelligence network aimed at Pakistan.

For a list of recorded incidents in Pakistan where private US mercenaries or defense contractors were caught at places where they should not be, see this story, What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan.

The question is: What are the Americans doing in Cantt’s Sarwar Colony?

The easiest answer is taking up residence. But there is something more to this than homemaking. The location indicates that the Americans want to keep an eye on movements and chatter in Cantt, which could indicate where Pakistan’s relations with India are headed. Washington is keen to convince Pakistan that India is trustworthy enough for Pakistan to move its army units away from India’s border and get busy in fighting America’s war in Afghanistan.

The Americans could also be interested in keeping an eye on some of the nearby military installations, including one of the largest Pakistan Air Force bases, and also a couple of nuclear installations. There are indications that the US is also interested in seeing the war on terror extended to the heartland of Punjab province in the mistaken belief that this would hurt the base of Pakistani military [Indian intelligence analysts have convinced their American counterparts that Pakistan’s military is all about Punjab province and hitting this province can help subdue Pakistan’s military and ensure its full alignment with US objectives.]

Here is the report published by TheNation on Feb. 21 on the covert US presence in Sarwar Colony in Cantt, Lahore, since 2007 and how scores of Pakistani families have become unwilling neighbors of foreigners they don’t want to see around:

“The mystery of why US personnel were being constantly caught entering into the sensitive area of Lahore Cantonment and thereby getting caught by the Military Police, has finally been resolved. However, in the process some serious questions have arisen.

In 2007, under the Musharraf regime, Americans moved into Sarwar Colony, located behind CSD Cantt just off Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Road. This gated colony contains around 200-250 houses and they are owned by retired or serving generals of Pakistan Army. The Americans have been comfortable ensconced here in a few rented houses since 2007 in what is a highly sensitive location. So question number one: Why were the Americans given permission to locate themselves in this area and who gave the permission?

Their activities really caught on only recently when they acquired Houses 87 and 88 (see pictures), ostensibly for the US embassy staff relocated from Peshawar to Lahore! The rents paid for these houses are also far higher than the average for the Colony which is around Rs 150,000 maximum. The Americans are paying around Rs 320,000 for each house per month.

Towards the end of the last year and the start of this year, the Americans intercepted at the Cantt bridge several times were all those coming to this location. However, these Americans refused to tell Military Police officials what their destination was inside Lahore Cantt. So question number two is: Why, if the Americans had rented these houses genuinely for residential accommodation? Linked to this is question three: How come the Military Police were not in on this vital piece of information? Why were they being kept in the dark?

When these houses were rented, in the first three months high security measures were taken for them -grilling, the glass was all changed probably to bullet proof, and infrared security devices were installed with a lighting system. Then, four months ago, big container trailers entered the colony (which is restricted) about seven or eight in number, and they were off loaded into the houses in the predawn hours. After the offloading, the security of the premises was given to Elite Force Punjab and Wackenhut private security guards. The covert usage of these buildings became apparent because anyone seen coming too close to the properties was mistreated and threatened.

Children playing in the park right in front of these two houses often threw balls inside the porches of these two houses. Usually Americans come out swearing. Once, children reported that a growling and angry American came out and flattened the ball before returning it to them.

Some of the Pakistani guards outside the two houses told residents in the neighbourhood that the Americans were transporting and installing hi-tech equipment in the houses. At least one resident in the neighbourhood reports that some of the guards took photographs of some of this equipment and showed them to the residents. One of the residents who saw the pictures reports that a US citizen was watching the guard from inside the house and came out, snatched the mobile phone and threatened the resident not to contact the guards again or come near the house.

But the real issue and core question is: Why the Americans are being allowed to use houses in this sensitive area of Lahore cantonment when there now exists a decision of the Government that foreigners cannot even enter the cantonment areas without prior permission?

To find out how the local residents are taking to their American neighbours, TheNation sent its reporter to the Colony and discovered a terrorised Pakistani community right in the heart of their own country. His account speaks for itself since of some unidentified private American security guards equipped with M4s. The offloaded stuff was professionally packed in layers of plastic and wood.”

EXCLUSIVE: This Is How US Agents Sneak Into Pakistan

  

See The Video Here

For a few hundred dollars, low-paid border guards are allowing entry into Pakistan to spies and agents of multiple foreign intelligence agencies operating in Afghanistan. In this story and video, see how a US lady entered Pakistan through Torkham on Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010, without visa and without the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence officers posted there. This happens in a country that faces terrorism exported by both US-controlled Afghanistan and its Indian ally.

BY SYED FAWAD ALI SHAH

Saturday, 13 March 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

TORKHAM, Pakistan—Rampant corruption and a weak Pakistani state are helping the entry into Pakistan of spies and terrorists from multiple foreign intelligence agencies operating in Afghanistan. Almost all terror in Pakistan is coming from Afghanistan.

This American woman tried to sneak into Pakistan through Torkham on Afghan border today, Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010, around early afternoon. She was wearing an Afghan woman’s burqa and apparently spoke local dialects. She would have successfully crossed into Pakistan safely hidden among a group of Afghan women but something about her demeanor raised the suspicion of a Pakistani border guard.

However, the border guards, known as Khasadars, made sure that Pakistani intelligence officers posted in the area are not told about this arrest. Torkham is considered a hot station within Kasadar tribal force circles. With salaries that go less than PKR 10,000 per month [less than US$ 130], major checkpoints such as Torkham provide an extra source of income for the Khasadars through bribes from travelers.

The guards kept the woman in a room for about thirty minutes and then let her enter Pakistan in her burqa. She paid the Khasadar guards a handsome amount of money as bribe. According a source in the Khasadar Force who witnessed the whole thing, the woman didn’t panic. She appeared composed and familiar with the ways of the border guards. She knew what to do in such a situation.

Thanks to my contacts in the border force, I was able to make a cell phone video of her passport while the Khasadar chief at the checkpoint talked to her.

Her name on the passport was Zohra Rehmati, which makes her an American from either Iranian or Tajik-Afghan extract.

Over the past four years, a large number of US agents have entered Pakistan through Afghanistan. Several have been arrested in different parts of the country disguised  as Afghan men, complete with beards and Turbans and fluent in Pashto, Dari and Urdu. Unfortunately, much of this covert American activity was sanctioned first by the Musharraf government and now by the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani combine in the incumbent government.

Ms. Rehmati, if that is her real name, may or may not be a CIA operative, or one of its private contractors associated with either DynCorp or Xe International.  But such lax security in a country that is a target of terrorism, DynCorp managed to create quite a covert network in Pakistan before being busted by Pakistani security last year. DynCorp remains in Pakistan, thanks to backing from both the US Embassy in Islamabad and the pro-US government, despite repeated attempts by the country’s security officials to force the US defense contractor to wrap up its operations here.  Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater, also operated in Pakistan until 2005 before being moved to Afghanistan, according to an earlier report in the New York Times. But going by the number of incidents in Pakistan over the past couple of years where US private agents were seen operating in major Pakistani cities, it is safe to say that both contractors continue to quietly operate in Pakistan in one

Private contractors help give CIA the benefit of deniability if an agent is arrested on foreign territory.

CIA has been known to send US citizens of foreign descent to their home countries for espionage.

The most recent example is Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American who was busted in Tehran carrying sensitive documents handed to her by an informant. Ms. Saberi was sent to Iran posing as a journalist. CIA even managed to get her newspaper accreditation from a major American newspaper. The US government was embarrassed at the arrest because Ms. Saberi was arrested red handed receiving official documents from a contact.

In Pakistan, a State that is falling apart at the seams, with no central figure or department to control the rot, is providing the perfect environment for meddling in the country not only by the United States, UK, India and other established powers based in Afghanistan, but also by a puppet regime like that of Mr. Hamid Karzai and his spymasters, who in eight years are in a good position today to wreak mayhem inside Pakistan while the politicians in Islamabad and the military in Rawaplpindi have little recourse beyond words of appeasement or caution during closed-door meetings with foreign powers in Afghanistan that are never translated into action to reestablish Pakistan’s writ domestically and in the region.

Mr. Shah is an independent journalist based in Peshawar.

PTV Suspends Two Journalists For Visiting US Embassy Without Permission

 

PTV journalist Saghir Naqqash [Left] suspended for visiting a foreign embassy withou prior permission. His colleague Shakeel Awan [Right-in black suit] faces similar action.

The state-run PTV has taken stern action against two of its journalists who appeared in pictures of a private party at the residence of US ambassador in Pakistan.

The pictures, posted on Facebook by an American diplomat in December, were widely circulated on Pakistani websites, mainly because they showed several prominent TV journalists and talk show hosts dancing and having a good time.

PTV's management suspended senior producer Saghir Naqqash and an inquiry committee is contemplating similar action against Shakeel Awan, also a senior producer.

Government employees are not allowed to meet foreign diplomats without prior permission and only if their job descriptions justify such meetings. PTV is a state-owned television network. It is the only one so far to have taken action on the controversy over the leaked pictures. Other TV stations, including Aaj, ARYOne, Samaa News and Dawn News, all privately-owned, are not known to be contemplating similar action.

In May 2009, Pakistan Foreign Office warned government employees to avoid attending private gatherings at foreign diplomatic missions if they have no business being there and only after obtaining permission from their superiors. The order came after a US diplomat and an Indian diplomat arranged a private meeting with a group of senior Pakistani federal government bureaucrats at a private house. Critics accused the US diplomat of covertly facilitating contact between an Indian diplomat and Pakistanis working in important government positions, including one working as an administrator in the office of the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The episode had the word 'espionage' written all over it.

Apart from the two PTV journalists, who basically did nothing wrong except violate government rules of business, there was at least one Pakistani TV journalist at the party who is accused of peddling information provided to her by US diplomats.


Saima Mohsin [Left-in red] from Dawn News is accused of conducting at least one TV show where she blatanly sided with the US embassy against Dr. Shireen Mazari, a renowned defense analyst and longtime critic of US policies. Dr. Mazari was a victim of US embassy's bullying when Ambassador Patterson tried last year to block her widely-read newspaper columns.

While the pictures from the party were harmless, they raised concern about how impartial Pakistani journalists can be in covering the news of US interfernece in Pakistani politics, which is a hot issue here, especially when the US footprint has expanded in recent months thanks to the entry into the country of tens of private US defense contractors, similar to those active in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last year, a senior independent journalist Syed Talat Hussain accused the US Embassy of recruiting "a motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers" and said individuals in this group "are the darlings of the US embassy staff."

For more information on Ambassador Patterson's combative diplomacy, read this report. For a checklist of illegal activities of private US defense contractors in Pakistan under diplomtic cover of the US embassy, see this detailed report.

This Ambassador Is A Sore In US-Pakistani Relationship

“I have a challenge for Ms Patterson today. I challenge her to repeat every single word she said back then and swear it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth … America’s reputation is lying in the lowest gutters in Pakistan at the moment and it can’t sink any lower.”

By AHMED QURAISHI

Monday, 8 February 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—US Ambassador to Pakistan Ms. Anne W. Patterson is becoming quite controversial. She has overseen the worst spell in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad in sixty years and many say she is responsible for at least some of it. Ties weren’t this bad even when the United States unfairly sanctioned Pakistan in 1990 over its nuclear program.

Mr. Thomas Houlahan, a Washington DC-based expert on Pakistani military issues, accused her in 2008 of conducting ‘bunker diplomacy’—that is, conducting United States diplomacy with Pakistan from the barricaded and isolated confines of her office inside a heavily fortified embassy building which in turn is located inside the isolated Diplomatic Enclave in an outer tip of Pakistan’s federal capital.

Her reports back to Washington are misleading, explained Mr. Houlahan, because she doesn’t really know what Pakistanis are thinking.

For information, Washington’s diplomats in Pakistan have been relying on two things: a pro-US government whose principals owe their power to a deal brokered and guaranteed by the US, and a list of proverbial ‘good guys’ that Ms. Patterson’s Embassy recruited from the media, including retired diplomats, military officers and academia, who could take America’s case to the Pakistani public opinion.

This strategy backfired. Big time.

Failing to see that Pakistanis were asking for respect and not confrontation, she shot alarming reports back to Washington warning of an organized campaign in Pakistani media to assail US reputation.

Getting their cue from Ms. Patterson’s reporting, US government’s spin masters countered by launching an organized campaign within the US media and worldwide, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’.  The accusation was expanded to include harassment of US diplomats and non-issuance of visas to them. Obviously, Ms. Patterson failed to tell people back in Washington that CIA and other intelligence-related personnel where using diplomatic cover under her guidance to spy on Pakistan.

She also might have overlooked another small detail: the US ambassador in Pakistan is a potential suspect in a case of bribing a senior Interior Ministry official in order to get a cache of banned weapons into Pakistan without the knowledge of the country’s intelligence.

The alarm generated by Ms. Patterson and her team led US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to rush to Pakistan in order to counter the Pakistani media, with carefully-orchestrated interviews and public appearances where Ms. Patterson did her best to keep Mrs. Clinton away from the ‘bad guys’. She ensured that her boss never met those commentators and media people who could provide the harsh, but legitimate, viewpoint.

This misrepresentation on the part of Ms. Patterson led someone no less than US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to land in Pakistan making a highly inappropriate statement, where he accused legitimate critics of US policy toward Pakistan of orchestrating an 'an organized propaganda campaign'.  He probably had no idea that legitimate criticism of policy by Pakistanis claiming they want US not to ignore Pakistani interests did not qualify to be described as ‘an organized propaganda campaign’. 

[There are indications that some Pakistanis in Mr. Zardari’s government, and not just Ms. Patterson, helped create this misperception in Washington. Topping the list of Pakistani suspects is Mr. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s envoy in Washington, a key aide to Mr. Zardari and recently the wizard behind Mr. Zardari’s media outreach campaign. Mr. Haqqani has been quite active behind the scenes in mounting a counterattack on the critics of Mr. Zardari and the critics of US in Pakistan. Recently, large numbers of Pakistani legislators have publicly accused Mr. Haqqani of misusing his official position to poison American perceptions of Pakistan’s military and intelligence.]

So, in essence, Ms. Patterson squandered two great opportunities – the visits of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gates – to address the concerns of the harshest critics in the Pakistani media. Due to Ms. Patterson’s failure, it fell to the Pakistani military to discuss those concerns with counterparts in the US military and use that channel to convey Pakistan’s legitimate concerns about how the US was ignoring Pakistani strategic interests in the region.

What Ms. Patterson should have helped resolve in the civilian arena was actually tackled, and somewhat resolved, in the military arena. But the damage is done. United States’ combative ambassador in Islamabad has left a permanent scar in the media record of the two countries, with silly accusations of anti-Americanism and harassment of diplomats.

Last year she fired a secret letter to a newspaper to silence Dr. Shireen Mazari, a defense expert and Columbia graduate, leading to a public spat that gave the impression the US ambassador was out to force newspapers to fire critics of US.

AND NOW: YVONNE RIDLEY

In 2008, Ms. Patterson accused ‘irresponsible elements’ in the Pakistani media of spreading lies about Dr. Aafia Siddiqui being in US custody in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, the British journalist who uncovered Dr. Siddiqui’s presence inside US-controlled Bagram base wrote a damning piece showing that Ambassador Patterson basically lied to the Pakistani public in her 2008 letter, which she sent to Pakistani newspapers.

This is what Ms. Ridley has to say about Ms. Patterson:

“Everyone had something to say, everyone that is except the usually verbose US Ambassador Anne Patterson who has spent the last two years briefing against Dr Aafia and her supporters.

This is the same woman who claimed I was a fantasist when I gave a press conference with Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan back in July 2008 revealing the plight of a female prisoner in Bagram called the Grey Lady.

She said I was talking nonsense and stated categorically that the prisoner I referred to as “650” did not exist.

By the end of the month she changed her story and said there had been a female prisoner but that she was most definitely not Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

By that time Aafia had been gunned down at virtually point blank range in an Afghan prison cell jammed full of more than a dozen US soldiers, FBI agents and Afghan police.

Her Excellency briefed the media that the prisoner had wrested an M4 gun from one soldier and fired off two rounds and had to be subdued. The fact these bullets failed to hit a single person in the cell and simply disappeared did not resonate with the diplomat.

In a letter dripping in untruths on August 16 2008 she decried the “erroneous and irresponsible media reports regarding the arrest of MsAafia Siddiqui”. She went on to say: “Unfortunately, there are some who have an interest in simply distorting the facts in an effort to manipulate and inflame public opinion. The truth is never served by sensationalism…”

When Jamaat Islami invited me on a national tour of Pakistan to address people about the continued abuse of Dr Aafia and the truth about her incarceration in Bagram, the US Ambassador continued to issue rebuttals.

She assured us all that Dr Aafia was being treated humanely had been given consular access as set out in international law … hmm. Well I have a challenge for Ms Patterson today. I challenge her to repeat every single word she said back then and swear it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s trial got underway, the US Ambassador and some of her stooges from the intelligence world laid on a lavish party at the US Embassy in Islamabad for some hand-picked journalists where I’ve no doubt in between the dancing, drinks and music they were carefully briefed about the so-called facts of the case.

Interesting that some of the potentially incriminating pictures taken at the private party managed to find the Ambassador was probably hoping to minimize the impact the trial would have on the streets of Pakistan proving that, for the years she has been holed up and barricaded behind concrete bunkers and barbed wire, she has learned nothing about this great country of Pakistan or its people.

One astute Pakistani columnist wrote about her: “The respected lady seems to have forgotten the words of her own country’s 16th president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865): “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”.

Well I, and many others across the world like me, can’t handle any more lies. America’s reputation is lying in the lowest gutters in Pakistan at the moment and it can’t sink any lower.

The trust has gone, there is only a burning hatred and resentment towards a superpower which sends unmanned drones into villages to slaughter innocents.

It is fair to say that America’s goodwill and credibility is all but washed up with most honest, decent citizens of Pakistan.

And I think even Her Excellency Anne Patterson recognizes that fact which is why she is now keeping her mouth shut.

If she has any integrity and any self respect left she should stand before the Pakistan people and ask for their forgiveness for the drone murders, the extra judicial killings, the black operations, the kidnapping, torture and rendition of its citizens, the water-boarding, the bribery, the corruption and, not least of all, the injustice handed out to Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her family.

She should then pick up the phone to the US President and tell him to release Aafia and return Pakistan’s most loved, respected and famous daughter and reunite her with the two children who are still missing.”

Far from the way Ms. Patterson portrayal of Pakistanis as a bunch of ‘anti-Americanists’, most Pakistanis believe in the goodness of the American people and that this American here [click to see the video and report] represents America much better than Ms. Patterson has unsuccessfully been trying so far in Pakistan, with all due respect.

  

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Mazari vs. Patterson: Clarifications By Jang Group, Shireen Mazari & PakNationalists

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Why Lie, Madam Ambassador Anne W. Patterson?

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Want To Meet Hillary? Don't Criticize United States!

Latest From US & Indian Ambassadors In Pakistan

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan

From A US Citizen On Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

Salute to this US citizen who restores our faith in the basic goodness of the American people and all peoples. Pakistanis never doubted for once this fact, despite the propaganda that some in Washington indulge in, scaring the Americans about Pakistan and its people, spreading anti-Pakistanism inside the US and worldwide. Elements within the US government and the mainstream US media continue to demonize Pakistan and spread alarm about Pakistanis. US continues to jail innocent Pakistanis. So does Britain, followed suit by their new slave-soldier in Asia, superpower-wannabe India, where some 800 Pakistanis rot in jail without trial and with a proven track record of extreme torture.

This video from a US citizen is also a message to the handful of pro-US defeatists sitting in the Pakistani government, who speak Washington's language, and to the few journalists in some cornders of the Pakistani media who are in the 'Good Guys' list prepared by the US Embassy in Islamabad. 'Good Guys' of course being anyone who agrees to peddle US propaganda in order to please US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson.

Dr. Siddiqui is not perfect, we know. She held extreme views and did seek to mingle with men wanted by law. But she symbolizes now the humiliating treatment meted out to Pakistanis - by their own government and by allied governments in the US and the UK - during the course of the past eight years.  Terrorism or not, Pakistanis won't take now even the impression of humiliation.

Here is a message to all of you: We, the Pakistani people, will hold the Government of the United States responsible if Dr. Aafia Siddiqui dies in your custody. Justice will be done. We, the ordinary Pakistanis, will bring a government to power in Islamabad that will ensure this. You just watch.

Where Is Pakistan's National Honor?

Surrendered by Musharraf and almost abandoned by Zardari and Nawaz and a long list of US apologists in a nation seething with anger, isn’t it time for Pakistan’s rulers to take a stand? US, Britain and India top the list of countries where Pakistani citizens are abused as a state policy. Imagine 60 Indians or Americans or Brits burned alive on Pakistani soil? It happened to us but our failed rulers have hushed it because they can’t stand up for national honor. War on terror or not, the policy of humiliating Pakistanis must come to an end.

Read the full column here.

My Sister Aafia Siddiqui, In English & French

By Dr. M.K.Sherwani
( French version by Samia of Mauritius (9rubi@live.com)

The anguish and pain on your face,
Have wreaked a havoc in my heart ;

My soul is now seething with rage,
As surging waves erode the shores.

Curse be on me, but more on those,
Who are called as Kings and Heads;

Whom you may call as your brothers,
Who are under your tormentors’ shoe.

But your luck will soon see the spring,
Have patience, Oh the woman of faith!

The Supreme Justice is about to dawn,
Again you will be blushing with smile.

Those, who think, have all the power,
Will stand before you as tiny creatures ;

On the ruins of today’s mighty empires,
‘Aafiya’ will stand as a towering figure.

**********************************

Ô Ma Soeur Aafia Siddiqui!

L`angoisse et la douleur sur votre visage,
Ont fait des ravages à mon coeur;

Mon âme maintenant se met à bouillir de colère,
Comme les grosses houles qui érodent les plages.

Malédiction sois sur moi, mais plus sur ceux,
Qui se sont proclamés Rois et Chefs ;

Que vous pouvez les appeler vos frères,
Qui sont sous les bottes des votre tortionaire.

Mais votre chance va bientot appercevoir le printemps.
Aie de la patience, ô dame de foi inébranlable;

Le Juge Supreme est presque à l`aube
À nouveau vous serez toute rose de sourire.

Ceux, qui pensent qu'ils ont tout le pouvoir,
Seront debout devant vous comme des créatures minuscules ;

Sur les ruines des puissants empires d'aujourd'hui,
«Aafiya», lui, elle affichera une stature imposante.

Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani,LL.D. is Chairman, All India Muslim Forum in Lucknow, U.P.,  India. He can be reached at sherwanimk@yahoo.com

Private Army of Ayaz Amir

For all the guns that this Pakistani politician owns, he should have been able to attend the funeral of a Pakisani soldier who belonged to his constituency.

Let me explain.

Mr. Ayaz Amir is a renowned Pakistani columnist. He is famous for criticizing the military and defending democracy.

He works for Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s party. He is a Member of National Assembly of Pakistan [MNA] from a rural area close to the federal capital. But despite close links to Mr. Sharif, or maybe because of them, he secured 29 special permits - or licenses - to carry banned weapons. These permits were granted to him by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

These permits can’t be obtained in normal circumstances.

The disturbing part of the story is this: the elected and democratic government of Pakistan has issued tens of thousands of licenses for banned weapons. These banned weapons include arms that only the country’s military and paramilitary agencies are allowed to own.

The result is that in today’s Pakistan, every small and big political party has a secret private army. These weapons are meant to reinforce the power of the families that run these parties and to intimidate opponents.

Pakistan has a violent, armed, family-owned democracy. That’s why it is a failure.

When I tried to do a TV show about it, most big-name politicians refused to participate.

While arming the Pakistani democracy, our ‘democratic warriors’ have also allowed the United States to create a covert private militia on Pakistani soil, manned by the highly trained former officers of the Pakistani military. Husain Haqqani in Washington granted them visas and Rehman Malik’s Interior Ministry let them establish outposts in and around the Pakistani capital. All of this was done in the past two years. Finally the Pakistani people and the military discovered what was happening and nabbed this scheme in the bud.

Why does someone like Ayaz Amir need 29 permits for sophisticated weapons?

US defense contractor DynCorp paid US$ 2,000 for each one of the 138 arm permits it received from the Interior Ministry before the whole operation was busted.

Was Mr. Ayaz Amir selling these permits in the open market? If not, has he created a small army for himself? Or is it part of a larger army maintained by his political party, the PMLN?

And then, all these weapons must have made you a secure man, Mr. Amir. But then, last year, he refused to attend the funeral of Lt. Faiz Sultan, who was an active member of PakNationalists, and an active duty soldier in the Pakistan Army. Faiz was a resident in the constituency of Mr. Amir. Faiz could also have been one of the youngest martyrs fighting the foreign-funded fake Taliban movement [a.k.a Pakistani Taliban].

Mr. Amir did not attend Lt. Faiz’s burial because the honorable politician was afraid he might become a target for the terrorists. This is what one of Mr. Amir’s local representatives told the family of Lt. Faiz.

So much for our armed democracy.

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan

(Photo courtesy DoD)

This report explains the bogus American claims about anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories in Pakistan, and how Washington has used the issue of visa delays to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and stories about pushy US diplomats in Pakistan.

This report should be an eye-opener for the good people of America.

Two Pakistani employees of an American defense contractor engaged by the US Embassy in Islamabad have been linked to two attacks on Pakistani military and the assassination of a Brigadier. If this is not alarming, then consider that US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s name has come up in an investigation where thousands of dollars were paid in bribes to Interior Ministry to smuggle illegal weapons into Pakistan. Not to mention how Washington is empowering India in Afghanistan at Pakistan’s cost. When Pakistan takes countermeasures, US officials like Mr. Gates and Mr. Holbrooke accuse Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassing US diplomats. Time for some straight talk.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL REPORT

Why A Marshall Plan, President Zardari?

President Zardari of Pakistan issued today one of his signature statements. "Time and again," he said to an audience of leading citizens of the eastern city of Lahore, "I have been asking the world for a Marshall Plan for Pakistan like the one they had for Europe."

Someone tell President Zardari that a Marshall Plan, where the world chips in, is basically for an occupied country. That's the precedent at least. Those who'll give aid will also meddle in internal affairs. Is he inviting US trusteeship over Pakistan? We know he owes his job to the United States and the United Kingdom. Should he flaunt it, along with his ignorance, like this?

He forgot to add that the world has ignored his ambitious demand 'time and again.'  Which is strange considering he is strongly backed by the governments of the US and UK.

But the question is: Why would the US go for such an expensive option when Mr. Zardari's government had almost surrendered the country to US private defense contractors and pushy US diplomats? They have in Islamabad the government that they lobbied for, without an occupation and a Marshall Plan.

Mr. Zardari's government was tailored by American and British diplomats in late 2006 and early 2007. Some of the shadiest characters Pakistan ever produced were made part of it. That was Washington and London's way of ensuring that Pakistan's charge is in the hands of people they could trust to checkmate the Pakistani military from within . Until a few weeks ago, Washington's envoy in Islamabad was secretly meeting politicians to ask them to support Mr. Zardari in the face of a hostile Pakistani public opinion, judiciary, media and the military.

In two years in power, this Am-Brit democratic dream team is yet to present a single policy proposal on any issue, be it education, culture, sports, economy, you name it.  It gets better with the opposition led by former premier Nawaz Sharif. He has been promised by Richard Holbrooke, and earlier by John Negroponte and Richard Boucher during Bush days, that he'll get his chance in power and that Washington won't oppose. If Mr. Sharif assumes power tomorrow morning, his party doesn't have a clue what it will do next except issue statements for public consumption. Which is what the incumbent Am-Brit dream team is doing.

During a television show over the weekend, I asked low-level party members of major Pakistani parties if they have attended any meeting chaired by their 'leaders' ever since the illustrious return to democracy in 2008 where education, health, culture, energy or any of the things that need planning and vision were discussed.  First they were stunned I asked this question. No one in Pakistan's newspapers, media and politics ever discusses this aspect of our Am-Brit democracy, or the multiple failures of political parties whose leaders have become little more than local representatives of foreign governments, especially US and UK.

It turned out I was right.

Here's an idea for Mr. Zardari and his dream team: Instead of begging the world for more money and a Marshall Plan, how about planning for your own country and people, plan for the economy, for education, health and transportation?

How about leveraging Pakistan's geostrategic position for more gain instead of selling Pakistan cheap, Mr. President?

[Just as a refresher on Mr. Zardari's foreign backers, here is the latest statement from former President Farooq Leghari explaining why President Zardari is a security risk.]

American McShoe In Pakistan's Face

US senators Mitch McConnell and John McCain visited Pakistan at the same time. Both of them met Pakistani leaders. These two pictures, from the Associated Press of Pakistan, stand out from their list of meetings in Islamabad. At the top, Sen. John's McShoe is protruding into Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilnai's face. And in the second one, Sen. Mitch's McShoe is distracting Pakistan's army chief.

Is there something here or am I just reading too much into these pictures?
I'd love to see our Ambassador Husain Haqqani mustering his guts to put on display a similar spectacle with US President or his VP in Washington. Mr. Haqqani probably won't do this because it's simply in bad taste. 

A Pakistani living in the United States for a long time emailed me saying this happens all the time in the US and so it's no big deal.

That's not true.  In recent months, Pakistani officials have seen an increase in the number of incidents where US diplomats have resorted to bully tactics against the host country. This includes sending undercover operatives and private defense contractors to Pakistan with diplomatc passports and lying to the Pakistani government about it. When Pakistan tried to check this, CIA and other parts of the US government resorted to a cheap tactic. Reports suddenly flooded the US media talking about Pakistan 'harassing' US diplomats. Then there is the story of how several junior diplomats working under the US ambassador in Pakistan took turns every week or so in issuing public statements indirectly threatening war and invasion against Pakistan over the alleged presence of the Afghan Taliban leadership here. Our Foreign Office told them not to make such statements without evidence. And yet they were at it again.

In this backdrop, actions such as flaunting a shoe in the face of a guest during a formal government-to-government meeting is not okay.

If some of you think this is reading too much into things, see how Turkey extracted an apology from Israel over a sofa. See the two pictures below.

I know I would take offense to someone flaunting his shoe in my face during an official meeting.

Maybe Amb. Anne W. Patterson should sensitize the powerful guests from Washington to common manners instead of wasting her energies on hunting down who to expel next from which Pakistani newspaper for criticizing US policies. This week, the US Embassy in Islamabad had the audacity to issue a statement accusing an editorial writer in the Urdu-language newspaper Nawai Waqt for slandering Richard Holbrooke. Why? Because the paper dared question US policy intentions.

Pakistan should start taking offense at these indirect messages of insult in the same manner that Turkey did.  Unfortunately, under a US-installed government, Pakistan has lost tremendous credibility and respect in the eyes of both its own citizens and friends overseas.