US Can Replace Supply Routes But Not Pakistan's Role

Pakistan has sincerely cooperated with the US-led coalition in establishing peace and a working government in Kabul after 2001.

A working government in Kabul and a semblance of peace in Afghanistan is possible today thanks to Pakistan's diplomatic and logistical role in late 2001 and early 2002.

In return, US turned Pakistan into a punching bag. But this will not continue. The US can replace supply routes but not Pakistan's key role and US officials, in government, military and intelligence, will have to learn to respect Pakistani interests if they hope to convince Pakistan to resume at least some cooperation. 

Quetta Attack: The Responsibility Of Jundullah, Afghanistan And The Organizers - Was Quetta Rally Necessary?

A suicide attacker targeted the Al-Quds rally today in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Fifty Pakistanis are dead and the figure could rise in the next few hours because the injured are in excess of 100.

It is highly irresponsible on the part of the organizers of the rally -- and the government officials that gave it the green signal -- to endanger the lives of Pakistani citizens only two days after twin attacks that targeted public events. In pure security terms, this is a serious lack of judgment on the part of the organizers. The Pakistani government must proceed with criminal charges against the organizers who, in their callousness, put politics before the lives of our citizens at a time when we face foreign-backed terror. The relevant government officials who licensed the procession should be questioned about the sources of their assessment that it was safe to hold huge rallies in these times.

This Al-Quds Day rally was organized by Pakistani Shia organizations that support Iran's call for Al-Quds Day to be held on the last Friday of Ramadan. But by no means is this a Shia religious event. A majority of Pakistanis support al-Quds Day, regardless of religious affiliations. I personally fully support Tehran's courageous stance on Al-Quds, the holy city under Israeli occupation. It's also important to remember that the Al-Quds Day is a political event launched by the government of Iran. It is not a religious event.

Inside Pakistan, the organizers of the rally should have put the safety and security of Pakistani citizens ahead of everything else. A smaller, symbolic public event could have been arranged instead of a large one. The crime of the organizers is especially compounded by the knowledge of what happened in Karachi and Lahore two days earlier.

Unfortunately, Saudi- and Iranian-backed proxy sectarian groups have endangered the lives of Pakistanis for years and put foreign interests before Pakistani national interests. These groups must and should be banned.

It is also important to avoid playing into the hands of the terrorists who did this. Everyone knows we have sectarian groups in the country. But is every attack on one group the work of the opposite group?

Not necessarily.

In other words, Pakistan’s indigenous sectarian groups have been weakened over the years and their foreign support, from Saudi Arabia, Iran or elsewhere, has been considerably curtailed. What is happening is that their remnants are being reorganized by someone else on the Afghan border, arming them and financing them and providing them a new safe haven.

So there is a bigger chance of the recent attacks being the work of the terror-export enterprise that hides in Afghanistan and has been targeting Pakistan since 2005. The first evidence of this is the fact that the attacks have been claimed by a terror group based on the Afghan border.

With an attack on a minority worship place of the Ahmedis earlier in the day in Mardan preceding the Quetta attack by a few hours, it is clear this is not a sectarian issue but an organized campaign by Pakistan's regional enemies. And surely they will find supporters inside Pakistan. Apart from the existing sectarian groups, it is easy to recruit and brainwash poor young Pakistani teenagers, convince them to wear explosive belts and blow themselves up anywhere.

And it's not just Pakistan. Iran has seen attacks on Shia mosques by elements claiming to be Sunnis. But there are no Sunni sectarian groups in Iran. The terrorists who have been attacking Iranian targets are based in US-controlled Afghanistan claiming to represent Sunnis. The attacks in Quetta today and in Karachi and Lahore on Wednesday share the same origin as the attacks in Iran: they are masterminded by terrorists who hide on the border with Afghanistan and have links to foreign intelligence agencies based there. We know that Indians have shown a lot of interest in these groups and established contacts with elements linked to them.

Let us also remember there are external powers in our neighborhood that have an interest in perpetuating chaos in the region. We’ve seen how uneasy United States officials and commentators became when the whole focus in Pakistan turned to the floods and the humanitarian disaster and no one was talking about Washington’s terror war. That’s when at least one US media outlet spun into action and contacted terror ‘spokespersons’ on the Afghan border and solicited statements that can best be described as spreading panic during a national emergency.

It is important that non-religious and non-essential public events in Pakistan -- political and religious -- be curtailed under these circumstances, regardless of sect and politics. If the government and the army can call off parades on days of national significance, including our Independence Day, then unnecessary public congregations can be curtailed as well.

Patriotic Pakistanis, Shias and Sunnis, must step forward and show courage in telling our emotional religious figures that saving the lives of Pakistanis is more important for the time being, especially when none of these public events and processions have any religious sanction.

Pakistani religious figures that refuse to do this and hide behind weak religious pretexts must be charged with endangering the lives of Pakistani citizens.

India Expected To Raise Tension With Pakistan During Commonwealth Games

Security analysts who reviewed India’s record fear New Delhi might use terrorism at Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 to divert international media’s attention away from deeply embarrassing preparations for the event

In this picture: Indian women work at a construction project in front of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, India. Picture: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

 

By ANANT SHETH in New Delhi, GULPARI MEHSUD in Islamabad

Sunday, 15 August 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

NEW DELHI, India—Many Pakistani analysts are worried that New Delhi might resort to false flag operations or a mock terror threat to sidetrack media attention from the mess surrounding the games. In all probability, India could use one of the many Hindu terror groups to mount attacks that would be blamed on Pakistan. India has seen a mushrooming of Hindu terror groups over the past decade.

There are at least two recent precedents where India falsely accused Pakistan for terror acts that Indian investigators discovered later were committed by Hindu terrorists.

In both cases, serving Indian military intelligence officers were found directly involved in carrying out the bombings. The purpose was simple: To implicate Pakistan and its intelligence agencies and build international pressure to force Islamabad into conceding the disputed territory of Kashmir.

For example, an Irish newspaper published this report, India uncovers Hindu terror group that carried out bombings blamed on Islamists . A Hindu extremist and a serving Indian Army officer were arrested and charged with planting bombs in public places that were blamed on Pakistan. That was November 2008.

In Spring 2007, a peace train called Samjota Express carrying Pakistani visitors to India as part of peace dialogue was blown up causing a fire that burned 59 Pakistanis alive. The Indian government accused Pakistan’s ISI of involvement. It said Pakistan’s military wanted to derail Pakistan-India peace talks. A year later three serving Indian military intelligence officers were arrested for planning and executing the attack. The Indian investigator who uncovered the nexus between Indian intelligence and Hindu terror groups was the first casualty of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He was eliminated by a professional sniper far away from the Taj hotel but was his death was blamed on the terrorists who stormed that building.


THIS IS AN EXCERPT. CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REPORT.

Pakistan-China YOUYI-III (Friendship) Joint Military Exercise 2010

ISI Tops 10 Best Intelligence Agencies In The World

SmashingLists.com calls it ‘least funded, yet the strongest’

Topping the Top Ten? “ISI for sure,’ says Gren, “No double agents, no agent ever caught on camera, the lowest budget but still affective. In war with 6 big intelligence agencies of the world. ISI has even countered MOSSAD in the 1980s and late ‘90s when there was a plan of a possible strike on Pakistan’s nukes.”

“It has to be the ISI” says John Smith on the Web site. “It broke down the Soviet Union (which also led to the reunification of Germany; the German Intelligence Chief gave a piece of the Berlin Wall to the Pakistani Intel Chief with a plaque under it saying, ‘To the one who struck the first blow’), has protected and developed the country’s nuclear assets against all odds, has defeated Al Qaeda/Taliban especially these days with the capture of Baradar, etc. by the ISI, has deep ingress into India. No other agency matches it in efficiency, precision, discipline and professionalism.”

See the detailed SmashingLists.com list here.

Who pulled Krishna's leg?

This is not the first time that Indian extremists have sabotaged crucial peace talks with Pakistan. A nexus of Indian government, military, intelligence and Hindu extremist and terror groups is violently opposed to peace in Pakistan and Kashmir. Time to shed the light on them.

Click here to read more.

Racist, Anti-Pakistan Picture Circulating On Some US-based Websites

THIS IMAGE IS PUBLISHED AT A US-BASED WEBSITE

http://www.thecleverest.com/if_you_see.jpg

THE LINE IN RED MIGHT BE DOCTORED, ACCORDING TO MANY.

BUT IT IS POSTED ON A US NEWS WEBSITE AND THE RACIAL PROFILING IS ALSO CLEAR.

Pakistan's political and military officials can dodge reality all they want, but no other country in the world has demonized Pakistan and Pakistanis in the last eight years like the United States government and its foreign policy and militay-intelligence communities have done, from spreading false global panic over Pakistan's strategic weapons to sponsoring political and academic events in Washington hosting speakers from little known separatist groups that advocate the break up of Pakistan along linguistic lines.

Now we have pictures such as the one above that are circulating on US websites, targeting Pakistanis despite the fact that it was a US citizen who allegedly freely traveled to meet terrorists right under the eyes and noses of CIA and FBI and their DynCorp and Xe/Blackwater agents who scour Pakistani border regions disguised as ethnic Pakistani Pashtuns. Faisal Shahzad, whose lousy terror attempt raises serious question marks about the conduct of US intelligence community, managed to allegedly travel to the Afghan border region several times and escape racial profiling and dodge every precautionary US anti-terror measure to pull off the Mickey-Mouse-clock-and-firecracker 'car bomb' stint, and yet the responsibility for his action lies on Pakistan, as per Mrs. Clinton, the White House, and now the New York City government. 

While demonizing Pakistan, Washington is also guilty of empowering India during those eight years and turning Afghan soil into a launchpad for the export of terrorism into Pakistan.

The American people and the Pakistani people have no strategic conflict of interest. But with the constant demonization of Pakistan at the hands of US government and its psy-ops managers, every attempt is being made to put the Americans and Pakistanis on a war path, and the ad above is one big step in that direction.

Not all Americans approve of what their government and intelligence are doing. Some of our American friends, including those in Washington, have informed PakNationalists.com that the Web site of Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA, appears to have pulled down the ad in the last couple of hours, but it's still available at other locations.

It's funny how this Mickey-Mouse-clock-and-firecracker 'car bomb' attempt is executed and then a week later a young Pakistani hotel clerk in Chile is arrested with traces of bomb powder on his clothes as he visits the US embassy armed only with visa application documents.

Of course, Pakistan's foreign policy, military, and intelligence communities are not stupid. They know what is going on. But they have orders to ignore this. They are also ignoring the activities of US Embassy in Islamabad as it expands its list of local Pakistani mouthpieces who have been assigned US State Department's new mission of confronting 'anti-Americanism' in Pakistan.  The ranks of these US apologists is swelling. They came into action during the last week to desperately try to scuttle any discussion on the fishy circumstances surrounding the terror attempt and focus instead on inducing guilt among Pakistanis and indirectly justify the US pressure to launch new internal wars in Pakistan.

Pakistani government and military is probably ignoring all this, including the provocative language used by Mrs. Clinton in threatening war against Pakistan, in order to avoid a direct confrontation with US or maybe more realistically to ensure the flow of US aid dollars that feed corruption at various levels of Pakistan's power structure.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

This picture invited a lot of feedback in the shortest span of time. It is also doctored. Here it is, above, as it appears on a US-based satirical website with the link. It also appears at several other places, all of them US-based websites. I am emphasizing this to answer some readers who accused our team of doctoring the original MTA ad to spread hatred. Interestingly, US apologists in Pakistan, who are closely linked to the US embassy in Islamabad and US consulates in other cities, conveniently ignore how this kind of insulting anti-Pakistan material is common in the US, actively encouraged by people close to the US government.

The point is the mindset behind this picture. Although the word 'Pakistani' is added by private US citizens, the racial profiling is quite clear on the part of MTA in the choice of the gentleman who appears in the picture. The fact that this doctored image with the word 'Pakistani' is circulating on US websites is a matter of concern and is in bad taste to say the least and does not reflect well on our American friends, most of whom are great people, just as Pakistanis are. Despite all the legitimate criticism in Pakistan on US government policies, never do US critics in Pakistan create and circulate such insulting material to humiliate US citizens as is the case here with this image insulting Pakistanis.

The story above accompanying the image explains how the US government and its pys-ops experts have been busy demonizing Pakistan for political reasons, and how Pakistan's decision makers continue to avoid addressing this manifest anti-Pakistanism on the part of some US government officials and US media. I stand by this argument.

This work by PakNationalists is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Indians Seize NYC Terror To Peddle Anti-Pakistanism

Mr. Sadanand Dhume is a columnist for Wall Street Journal. Earlier this week, he wrote a column on the failed New York City terror attempt. He gave this provocative title to his column, 'Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists'.

His sub-heading was even more interesting. It read:

Carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, it was the world's first modern nation based solely on Islam.

My gut reaction was: What's that got to do with anything?

How typical. An event offers itself to malign Pakistan and Indians pop up everywhere to offer distortions on history and policy that - in an innocent coincident of course – overlap with long held Indian policy objectives. Most WSJ readers won't know this because most outsiders are not privy to the full history of Indian antagonism toward Pakistan since this small nation's rise in 1947 after an epic and peaceful struggle.

One of the official Indian objectives has always been to question directly and indirectly the rise of Pakistan as an independent nation. That's exactly what Mr. Dhume does here, innocently of course. In lamenting the rise of a Muslim-majority nation, he conveniently forgets that it was Hindu extremism in his country that pushed the ruling Muslim elites of the region - who were a distinct race and culture by all standards - to seek the right to shape their own destiny.

Pakistan is Muslim in the same way that Israel is the world's first and only nation created in the name of Judaism and in the same way that Ireland is Catholic and India is Hindu, even if it presents itself as secular.

Instead of obsessing over Pakistan and seizing opportunities to malign it, Mr. Dhume would do well to explain to us and the world how a secular democracy in India produced 21st century's first genocide against Christians [almost 600 killed in the summer of 2009] and Muslims [2,000 burned alive in 2002].

Pakistan, despite failures of governance and politics and a history of foreign meddling in its affairs by outside powers, remains immune to this rapid and violent deterioration in tolerance that has affected the world's largest democracy.

Why do US newspapers solicit insights on Pakistan from biased, agenda-driven Indians?

Even the US government does it. Recently, Washington sent an Indian to head the USAID office in Islamabad.

This is a sign of prevalent anti-Pakistanism in some corners of US media and government.

Of course, WSJ doesn't hide its bias against Pakistan. It is not interested in offering a balanced perspective. Like most of the mainstream US news organizations, this publication has been at the forefront of demonizing Pakistan and spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Pakistan's nukes and the country's imminent breakup. To be fair to WSJ, most mainstream US news outlets have been peddling these theories as news for the past three years.

Now the US Embassy in Islamabad is recruiting Pakistanis from the media and academia [as consultants to USAID, to DoD, to CIA-linked think tanks, etc.] to beautify Washington's real face in the eyes of ordinary Pakistanis.

But Pakistanis are not stupid. They know how Washington has been treating Pakistan as a de facto enemy state and deceiving Pakistan for the past eight years.

This op-ed by Mr. Dhume is also a sobering reminder for Pakistanis that India remains the number one threat to Pakistan's long term security and stability. The Indians won't miss a chance to harm Pakistan, like they did in 1971 when they unilaterally invaded Pakistan when Pakistanis were busy in a post-election domestic squabble.

What Kayani Can Learn From Putin

By allowing foreign militaries a free reign in our tribal belt to kill hundreds of innocent Pakistanis, Pakistan is committing the same mistake as Putin’s, who initially did well a decade ago by crushing the rebellion in Chechnya but now is creating more rebels because of highhandedness. Also, Pakistan has no business eliminating the Afghan Taliban, who survived the 2001 war thanks to US mismanagement. The problem should be solved inside Afghanistan, not Waziristan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It was brave on the part of Pakistan army chief to publicly apologize for mistakenly bombing and killing tens of innocent Pakistanis in a Khyber Agency village. In a similar incident in 2006 during the reign of his predecessor, where a US missile killed up to 80 children in a school, the action was not only defended but the Pakistani military was forced to own it, giving the first signal to everyone that innocent Pakistanis can be killed with impunity as part of the war on terror. Since then, more than a thousand innocent Pakistanis have lost their lives as collateral damage in these ‘successful’ drone attacks. This would remain one of the darkest spots in our history where our rulers shirked their responsibility for the protection of every Pakistani citizen on our soil.

But the army chief’s apology is also an opportunity to review whether it is acceptable to have allowed ourselves and our American allies to import their methods of dealing with occupied populations in Iraq and Afghanistan to be used with our own people inside our own homeland.

This review is important because these imported methods of dealing with occupied populations are not only unsuitable here but are radicalizing our own citizens instead of pacifying them, producing more disgruntled citizens for our enemies to recruit, brainwash and use to kill more Pakistanis and spread mayhem.

In using these imported methods we are committing the same mistake that President Putin, now a prime minister, has been committing in Chechnya for the past decade. He successfully curbed the insurgency and ended the ability of the US and other countries to use Chechnya to bleed Russia by covertly supplying weapons and intelligence to the insurgents. But instead of building on that success, Mr. Putin continues to use aggressive tactics in Chechnya, breeding more insurgents and more opportunities for outsiders to meddle. [The latest suicide attacks in Moscow involved a young woman who blew herself up because Russian military killed her husband].

The same is happening in our tribal belt. Just when we have stamped out insurgents and criminals in some pockets [thanks to Gen. Kayani and his team], here comes the collateral damage – both from CIA drones and our own occasional mishaps – to create additional pools of disgruntled citizens ready to be picked up by anyone who has resources to use them against the Pakistani state.

It’s a vicious cycle that destroys the massive nation-building work that our military is conducting in places such as Swat, with the military’s own money and often without any support from incompetent civilian governments in Islamabad and Peshawar. For example, few people know that our soldiers donated two days’ pay to collect US$1.2 million to renovate more than half of the 400 schools in Swat destroyed by terrorist groups. The army is building roads and restoring water supply lines in Swat, even organizing cultural and musical events to provide much need entertainment to a disturbed population and restore normalcy. Not to mention achieving the impossible by restoring two million refugees back to their homes in less than a year.

But all of this good work is eaten away by the kind of massive bloodshed that occurred on April 10 at remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. Despite the brave apology, the accident will create new rebels and revenge seekers. It also brings into focus an old complaint about the veracity of intelligence that the Americans have and share with our military. Once again, the insurgency within our tribal belt is directly linked with the American mismanagement in Afghanistan. Allowing the Americans or anyone else to set up spy networks inside our territory and unleash private defense contractors in beards and local dresses is like allowing our own people and territory to be treated in the same manner as Iraq and Afghanistan, which are foreign occupied zones. This foreign element, including collateral damage and the faulty intelligence that causes it, is also sending a wrong message to ambitious criminal and tribal leaders and politicians, and that message is: the Pakistani state and its military are too weak to check foreign meddling and thus taking matters into their own hands is a legitimate option.

Another mistake that is bound to breed more enemies for the state is our faulty policy of not clearly asserting that the Afghan Taliban along with any other Afghan parties are legitimate Afghan political players. Fighting them is not and should never be Pakistan’s responsibility. The presence of some Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil is expected to due to close ties between Pakistani and Afghan Pashtuns, but the solution is not for Pakistan to help US eliminate them but to resolve the deadlock inside Afghanistan that has resulted in the Afghan Taliban escaping their country to take refuge here.

Make no mistake about it: rebels who terrorize and kill Pakistanis must be eliminated by force and without mercy. But allowing outsiders to kill our people directly or through faulty intelligence means we will see suicide attackers for a long time to come.

This op-ed was originally published by The News International in Pakistan under the title, Waziristan And Chechnya.



This work by PakNationalists is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Nuclear Scare In India

This is a threat that the Nuclear Security Summit 2010 in Washington ignored. Pakistan's nuclear installations are close to troubled spots. But India's nuclear and strategic assets are right in the middle of a robust Naxalite separatist insurgency. A nuclear device can be detonated any day in any Indian city by Naxalite rebels who have the will to cause mass casualties in India.

A stunning report that records recent incidents when Indian nuclear security was compromised. Click here to read the full report.

India's New Army Chief Has China In Sight

Over the past few months, the Indian army was divided in two: half supporting former army chief Gen. Kapoor, and the other half supporting Gen. Singh, then in-charge of the eastern command who succeeded this month in dislodging the army chief. Now Gen. Singh’s first task is to reunite a divided army. But that’s not all. This is an in-depth look that reveals how Gen. Singh comes with some other interesting plans.  Our friends in China must know about this one.

Read the full report here.

Pakistan's Impressive Rebuilding Program In Afghanistan

Forget Indian aid to Afghanistan for a minute. Have you heard about Allama Iqbal Faculty at Kabul University? Sir Syed Science Faculty Block at Nangarhar University? Liaqat Ali Khan Engineering Faculty at Balkh University in Mazar-e-Sharif? Rehman Baba High School in Kabul? And the sprawling ten-tower Jinnah Hospital Complex in Kabul and the Nishtar Kidney Hospital in Jalalabad?

Welcome to Pakistan's impressive -- and little known -- contribution to rebuilding Afghanistan in the past eight years. Add to this 500,000 Afghans who study in Pakistani schools, 28000 Afghan graduates from Pakistani colleges in 30 years, and three million Afghans who continue to live with us as our brothers and guests, add all of this and Pakistan easily beats India's one billion dollars in aid.  The Indians and their backers in the Am-Brit media have frequently referred to the Indian aid to underline why India should continue meddling in Afghanistan at Pakistan's expense.  It is interesting how very few American writers have acknowledged the Pakistani contribution.

One reason for this is Pakistan's weak public diplomacy skills. Most Pakistanis don't know about this, let alone Afghans and the international media.  Pakistanis wouldn't have discovered what different departments of the Pakistani government have been doing in Afghanistan if not for Pakistan's dynamic young Ambassador in Kabul Mr. Mohammad Sadiq.

On March 23, 2010, Pakistan Day celebrations in Kabul, Ambassador Sadiq wrote an op-ed that was published in English- and Dari-language newspapers where he listed the Pakistani contribution to rebuilding Afghanistan. 

I am thankful to Mr. Mohammad Sadiq for sending me a revised version of the piece, and for opening our eyes for the first time to Pakistan's rebuilding effort in Afghanistan. I wonder what our sprawling Federal Information Ministry, the state-run APP news agency, the state-run PTV and the military's ISPR have been doing all these years hiding this information from Pakistanis and the rest of the world and leaving the field open to the Indians and their Am-Brit backers to spread disinformation.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL OP-ED

ANP Shouldn't Be Allowed To Revive Its Old Pashtunistan Agenda

A billboard in 2008 on Pakistani soil showing the map of independent Pashtunistan. ANP denied any involvement. [Picture courtesy of Online News Agency-Nov. 2008]

ANP, a party whose founders opposed the independence of Pakistan, is once again pushing its shady agenda through a manufactured crisis over the renaming Pakistan's NWFP province.  By doing this, the party is trying to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of Pakistani Pashtuns, who are an integral part of the Pakistani state and one of its main pillars.

One of the heroes of the Pakistan Independence Movement had actually proposed the name Afghania for the province. So respect for the Pashtun identity, which makes the larger Pakistani identity, has always been there. But the manner in which ANP is whipping up linguistic sentiments, coupled with a daring attempt within the Parliament to change the constitution to give provinces unprecedented freedoms, indicates something bigger is happening than just renaming a province and revising the constitution.

A few months after ANP came to power in 2008, billboards showing the map of 'Greater Pashtunistan' mysteriously appeared in some parts of Pakistan's northwestern province. 'Greater Pashtunistan' is supposed to replace a disintegrated Pakistan, according to the proponents of this theory.

The ANP denied any link to the billboards at the time.

But whoever was behind that billboard knew there was a lot of talk going on in official and informal circles in the United States about the concept of Pashtunistan.  This was probably part of a larger psy-ops program that aimed at pressuring Pakistan to align itself more with the US agenda.

Starting sometime in 2007, the US media and think-tanks launched a campaign for independent Pashtunistan and independent Balochistan. This campaigned has slowed but has not completely ended.  Washington DC was the venue for several seminars attended by advocates of this theory. The origin of these theories is India, where analysts with links to the Indian security establishment have been advocating the breakup of Pakistan on linguistic basis, feeding on real grievances created by a failed bureaucratic and political ruling system. Indian officials have always bragged privately to their foreign guests about how they successfully used this method to cut Pakistan to size in 1971. [Click here to read how Indian analysts introduced the idea of breaking up Pakistan along linguistic lines to Washington after 9/11].

Blatant anti-Pakistanism in the US media has gradually decreased during the past year, mostly because US officials are now showing respect to Pakistan to gain its support to avert a defeat in Afghanistan.  Much credit for this change also goes to the Pakistani military establishment and to the army chief. 

But it is not completely over. While Pakistan has friends in Washington and others agree they need Pakistan, the anti-Pakistan elements in the US establishment took their latest 'seminar' on Pakistani Balochistan to Bangkok, apparently because such an event on Thai soil won't draw attention to its US backers. 

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that lends credibility to the theory that ANP's rise to power was part of the secret understandings that former President Musharraf agreed to with the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007 on the shape of future government in Pakistan.

Now three pro-US parties [ANP, PPPP, MQM] are running the show in Pakistan. PPPP has been busy enacting the American agenda of containing Pakistan's military and intelligence from within. This has failed. MQM is campaigning for a bill on provincial autonomy that will effectively end Pakistan as a strong country and turn its provinces into semi-independent states that can secede anytime they choose. This will bring Pakistan one step closer to the fate of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. 

As for ANP, instead of improving services and governance, the party is creating language-based hatred and divisions in Pakistan under the guise of renaming NWFP, which is a nonissue. Pakistanis are suffering a massive energy shortage and a general decline in the quality of life across the nation while these failed politicians are wasting time on creating ethnic- and linguistic-based divisions among Pakistanis.

The above is probably the most accurate context for understanding the latest political crisis in Pakistan over renaming a province and over passing a radical plan for changes in the constitution that would weaken the Pakistani state.

Pakistan will continue to suffer this type of instability as long as some of its political parties continue to work on foreign agendas, and as long as Pakistan's people and the armed forces tolerate foreign governments creating and maintaining proxies at the highest levels in Islamabad.

Fighting Pakistan Through SMS Messages

Two reports say a lot about India's intentions for peace with Pakistan.

One is a campaign launched by the Indian government to discourage Indian citizens from calling their friends and acquaintances in Pakistan. If you are an Indian and you call Pakistan using your cellphone, you will receive a text message from your service provider that says:

"You just made a call to ISD Code 0092 (Pakistan’s international dialing code). We urge you to exercise caution while calling unknown numbers and sharing personal details as it can be misused."

[See the report Anti-Pakistan SMS campaign launched in India.]

There is more.  Earlier this month, Afghan resistance groups attacked and killed several Indian civilian and military officers in Kabul.  A few hours later, five Pakistani construction workers were brutally murdered near Kandahar.  No awards for guessing who was behind it. Not India of course which is only investing a billion dollars in Afghan resconstruction for no reason except charity and has no other kind of presence on Afghan soil.

Too bad that a Pakistani newspaper, the Daily Mail, came out with a fairly credible evidence of the Indian fingerprints in the Pakistanis' murder: see RAW’s Chhota Rajan goons kill 5 Pakistani workers in Kandahar .

The American and British media -- what I call the Am-Brit media -- routinely portrays India as a country striving for peace and whose good intentions are thwarted by Pakistan.  The reality is that way before the Mumbai attacks and any alleged Pakistani connection to them, Indian military intelligence officers burned alive 59 Pakistanis aboard a so-called friendship train who believed official propaganda and decided to visit India to further peace. This happened in 2006.  New Delhi accused ISI of masterminding the attacks to sabotage peace. Today, a group of Hindu terrorists and serving Indian military officers are on trial in the case.

I won't talk about 1971 and how India launched a one-sided unprovoked invasion of East Pakistan exploiting a domestic post-election crisis.

And now, when sanity appears to be gradually returning to Washington, where warmongers have taken a backseat to those who can see a looming defeat in Afghanistan, Indians will do anything now to perpectuate war in Afghanistan and try to convicne Washington and London to stay the course.

All of this brings into question the theory that peace tops Indian strategy in the region.

India and Israel Against Islamic Terror: Old Nations, New Leaders
In Bad Faith?: British Charity and Hindu Extremism
Hinduism and terror.(Opinion): An article from: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life

This Hindu Terrorist Is A Wanted Man In Pakistan

India's most famous actor is a closet Hindu Taliban, standing here with terrorist Thackeray

Imagine senior military officers heeding a call to form suicide squads to attack followers of a different faith. No, not Pakistan. It is India. A Hindu extremist named Bal Thackeray made the call. At least two organizations founded and managed by retired Indian Army officers namely Lieutenant Colonel Jayant Rao Chitale and Lieutenant General P.N. Hoon (former commander-in-chief of the Western Command), answered Bal Thackeray's call to set up the suicide squads in India. Lieutenant General Hoon claimed, Thackeray instructed him to set up the training camps. Another Balaji follower is Indian Army's serving Lieutenant Colonel Srikanth Prasad Prohit, wanted by Pakistan for his complicity in torching the Samjhota Express which took a toll of 59 Pakistani passengers.

Click here to read more.

A Pakistani Elder's Statement - Pakistan Destined To Defeat India - Riles Indians

The Nation newspaper of Pakistan reported that its editor in chief Mr. Majeed Nizami, who also heads the Foundation for Pakistan's Ideology, accused India in a story published recently that it "is bent upon destroying Pakistan." 

Mr. Nizami then went on to make a dire warning cloaked in satire. "If India," he said, "did not refrain from committing aggression against us, then Pakistan is destined to defeat India because our horses in the form of atomic bombs and missiles are far better than Indian ‘donkeys’."

Mr. Nizami was apparently making a refernce in jest to several incidents recently where Indian missile tests flopped, nuclear security was breached, and a story where foreign experts charged that the famed Indian nuclear tests of 1998 were not as successful as portrayed by New Delhi.

This statement riled some Indians so much that it unleashed a flurry of emails from Indians to Pakistani newspapers and news Web sites accusing Mr. Nizami of promoting hatred against India.

The Indians were so angry they apparently picked up every Pakistani newspaper columnist and sent them emails. I received one of them in my capacity as a columnist for The News. 

I had not read the original statement by Mr. Nizamy but judging by Indian reactions I thought Mr. Nizami might have really gone hard this time on the Indians.

But I was disappointed. My first reaction after reading him was that his statement is peanuts compared to the anti-Pakistan drivel that virtually fills the Indian airwaves and newsprint. There isn't anyone in Pakistan who can match the Indian hatemongering against Pakistan.

Mr. Nizami's statement was reasonable and conditional on Indian actions. I can list over 20 references quoting Indian public figures, political leaders, and religious leaders who've made statements that encourage extreme hatred toward Pakistan and Pakistanis. I can't recall a single incident in Pakistan where a Pakistani Hindu was attacked or killed because of his or her religion. In India, 2100 Indians were killed because they were Muslims. And this happened in the 21st century, not in the 1920s.

Serving Indian military officers joined Hindu terrorists to burn 50 Pakistanis alive in 2006. India not only has the world's biggest concentration of poverty and health issues, it also has the biggest concentration of religious nutcases, disgusting religious practices, and outright hatemongering against followers of other religions, especially Christians and Muslims.

For every case of an old Saudi man marrying a 15-year-old girl, there are at least a hundred similar cases in India, not to mention the unique tradition of burying newborn girls alive as a custom across many Indian villages and towns. And this happens today, not a century ago.

All of this doesn't come to the surface very often because the American and British media is biased in favor of India for political and strategic reasons. Otherwise, India's ugly face is worse than anything we've seen anywhere else.

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.

Pakistani Openness And Indian Censorship

I relish the moment an Indian comes to this blog and complains about the 'height of intolerance' when his or her official Indian propaganda is deleted.

Intolerance? No, just reciprocity really.

Almost all the major Indian news websites, the same ones that claim secular democracy, regularly block the accounts of any Pakistani visitor who registers and writes something that punctuates the official Indian propaganda on Kashmir or bilateral relations.

The only Pakistani comments that are accepted by Indian news websites are those that either praise India or at least criticize Pakistan. Anything else, even if it was a measured comment peppered with praise for India, is deleted and its author is blocked.

And I am not talking about unknown Indian blogs. I am talking about mainstream Indian newspapers and television stations. All of them follow the same policy of blocking any Pakistani comment maker. They also never publish op-eds by any Pakistani commentator unless the author is either praising India or clearly opposing Pakistan's policies.

Moreover, all Indian media outlets follow a quiet policy of sticking to the Indian official position on Kashmir and on rape cases by Indian soldiers not to mention the mass graves found recently. I, of course, dare not say 'mass gaves' and 'Saddam's Iraq' in one sentence on any Indian news website.

In contrast, the Pakistani media not only publishes Indian authors who openly criticize Pakistan, but discussion on Kashmir in Pakistani media always gives space to the Indian viewpoint as well.

Indian claims about openness are just that. Claims. But of course the Am-Brit media won't see that, especially when Wall Street Journal, for an example in yellow journalism, never hesitated in publishing lies planted by US government in the runup to the invasion.

So I tell all the young administrators and Web editors editing the various forums run under PakNationalists to keep our Indian visitors on a short leash and make frequent use of the delete buttion. Because we're not here to foster debate with them. We're here to tell our story. Period.