Shah Rukh Khan on Shiv Sena *hit list*

LAHORE: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray said on Saturday Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan deserved to be awarded Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, Nishaan-e-Pakistan, for supporting the inclusion of Pakistani cricketers in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Hindustan Times reported.

The Bollywood superstar, also the Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner, had said that he would have picked a Pakistani player for his IPL team if his team had a slot. In an editorial in Saturday’s party mouthpiece Saamna, Thackeray said the “Khan” inside Shah Rukh Khan must be crushed by the “Har Har Mahadev” war cry of the “Shivaji” inside the Hindus. The remark was reference to Chhatrapati Shivaji’s killing of Bijapur general Afzal Khan, sent by Sultan Adil Shah II of Bijapur in 1659, at Pratapgad in Satara district of western Maharashtra.

IPL franchise owners did not bid for Pakistani players during the auction for the IPL III, which has snowballed into a major spat between the two countries.

Thackeray said if “Shah Rukh wants to give a red carpet treatment to Pakistani cricketers on the blood of innocent Indians slain by Pakistani terrorists from Kashmir to Mumbai”, then, Thackeray warned, the Shiv Sena will never permit it.

He said by supporting the cause of Pakistani players, Shah Rukh had insulted the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Thackeray said, “Since SRK has so much love for the Pakistanis, he could appoint 26/11 terror accused Ajmal Kasab as the captain of his Kolkata Knight Riders team and Mohammed Afzal Guru (facing death penalty for the 2001 attack on parliament) as the vice captain in the forthcoming IPL matches”. In a related development, Congress state spokesman Hussain Dalwai wrote to state Home Minister RR Patil demanding security for Shah Rukh’s forthcoming release “My Name Is Khan”. daily times monitor. Sunday, January 31, 2010,
Shah Rukh Khan deserves Nishaan-e-Pakistan, says Bal Thackeray

Facing isolation, Delhi back peddles on Taliban

RupeeNews

This months saw a lot of reversals for Delhi’s foreign policy. Still reeling from its eviction from Tajikistan, Delhi once again faces an about face and U turn on the Taliban. For a decade Bharat (aka India) has been espousing a hardline stance on Afghanistan–no negotiation, continued, war, perpetual occupation, and rejection of the anti-occupation forces.

Turkey did not even bother to invite Bharat to the regional conference on Afghanistan–all the immediate neighbors put up a joint front which essentially established a negotiating framework between the current government and the Taliban.

In London, Delhi again started with its old rhetoric of not negotiating with the Taliban. Its advice and stance fell on deaf ears. Neither the US, nor the UK–nor even China or Russia had any appetite for Delhi’s conspiracy theories about Pakistan and the Taliban.

“We are willing to give it a try,” Krishna told the Times of India in an interview published on Saturday.

“If the Taliban meets the three conditions put forward – acceptance of the Afghan constitution, severing connections with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and renunciation of violence, and are accepted in the mainstream of Afghan politics and society, we could do business.”

Krishna’s comments come after ministers from 60 countries met in London on Thursday to endorse a plan to win over Taliban foot soldiers with cash and jobs in a renewed effort to turn the tide in the eight-year-old war..

While accepting the reality of the new plan on the Taliban, Krishna made clear the Indian discomfort with the group, saying its fundamental assessment of the Taliban remained unchanged.

“We consider them to be terrorists who have close links with the al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” he told the daily.

“We are next door and our experiences make it difficult for us to differentiate between good or bad Taliban,” he said, adding the West saw the group “from far away”.

Besides trying to lure away Taliban fighters from the insurgency, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also offered to hold talks with the top leaders of the Taliban. The Taliban have not yet responded to his latest appeal.: India is willing to back efforts to seek peace with Taliban to stabilise Afghanistan, foreign minister S.M. Krishna said, indicating a softening of stand towards the group.DELHINEW

The Times of India in fact admitted the total failure of the Bharati foreign policy viz a viz West Asia. Nor only has Bharat failed to isolate Pakistan–Delhi’s big drama on Mumbai has isolated the country from Russia, China, America, Afghanistan, West Asia and Pakistan.

Delhi’s inane stance on non-negotiation with Pakistan has no seekers. Neither Pakistan, nor the world is bothered if Bharat wants to perpetuate its illogical belligerence towards one of the most important countries of West and South Asia. By continueing its animosity towards Pakistan on all forums Bharat has been ignored.

Obviously Bharat will now go to the drawing board, figuring out best case and worst case scenarios on the Hindu Kush. Once it has been determined that Bharat has to vacate its dozen or so Consulates, she will try to bifurcate Afghanistan into spheres of influence. Failing which it will continue to sponsor terror into Pakistan through mercenaries.

‘It seems that the Indian polity is divided, India is confused’: Shah Mahmood Qureshi

RupeeNews

LONDON: Referring to the meeting between the two ministers in New York September last, Shah Mahmood Qureshi clarified: “I gave him (S M Krishna) a very crisp proposal, a roadmap for the future. He said he would get back to me, but he has not got back to me. That means he has nothing to offer.” He persisted: “It seems that the Indian polity is divided, India is confused.”

The war of words between India and Pakistan has escalated with external affairs minister S M Krishna on Friday attempting damage control after his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s accusations against India a day earlier. Both ministers were in London to attend the Afghanistan Conference.

Qureshi had also stated that the MEA was divided on Pakistan. Krishna retorted: “I don’t know what makes him say that the MEA speaks in two voices. I think there is total unity of thinking in the ministry and unity of approach.”

LONDON: A one-day international conference on Afghanistan on Thursday rejected India’s argument that there were no degrees of Talibanism. British

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, hosting the conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, announced in his opening address the establishment of a $500 million ‘trust fund’ to buy “peace and integration” with warriors who are engaged in violence for economic rather than ideological reasons. A whopping $140 million has been pledged already for this year.

During his pre-conference discussion with the British foreign secretary David Miliband, external affairs minister S M Krishna had specifically said, “There should be no distinction between a good Taliban and a bad Taliban.” But this clearly fell on deaf ears. It was also unclear whether remnants of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, once cultivated by India, would be accommodated in any way. There was also no reference to the erstwhile foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, who put up a spirited fight in the first round of the recent controversial presidential election and exposed fraud before withdrawing from the contest.

Krishna was allocated a seat in the second of three rows of attendees at the conference which in itself reflected India’s peripheral role in Afghan affairs in the eyes of the international community. This, despite India being the biggest regional aid-giver to Afghanistan, with a commitment of $1.3 million. Earlier in the week, Turkey, an ally of Pakistan, did not even bother to invite India to a confabulation on Afghanistan.

Krishna was among more than 70 foreign ministers and officials of international organisations who attended the convention at the 185-year-old Lancaster House, a coveted venue for summits and high level interactions.

Pakistan supports a differentiation between Taliban segments, including being generally soft towards the Afghan Taliban, which was sponsored by the Pakistani Army’s Inter-Services Intelligence. In an interview to a British daily on Thursday, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi claimed: “Pakistan is perhaps better placed than any other country in the world to support Afghan reintegration and reconciliation.”

As a goodwill gesture, the conference was preceded by a lifting of United Nations sanctions on five leaders of the obscurantist Taliban regime, which was ousted by armed forces led by the United States after the 9/11 attack on New York by the Afghanistan-based Al Qaida. Among the beneficiaries is a former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil.

However, Brown warned, “But those insurgents who refuse to accept the conditions for reintegration, we have no choice but to pursue them militarily.” It is widely believed that hardcore elements among the extremists will not accept the amnesty.

In keeping with United States President Barack Obama’s plan to start withdrawing American troops in a little over 18 months, Brown also declared that to fill the breach the strength of the Afghan army would be increased to 134,000 by October of this year and to 171,600 by October 2011. Corresponding enlargements would also occur in respect of the Afghan police. The template for Afghanistan is similar to the one utilised in Iraq, that of handover of responsibilities province by province to national security forces. Times of India. World rejects India’s Taliban stand

Pakistan offers to train Afghan army

Daily.Pk

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that Pakistan has offered training to Afghanistan army and police and also offered to increase cooperation in various fields with Afghanistan.

Talking to a private TV channel said that in the conference the importance of Pakistan was admitted and besides military options, other options for the solution of Afghanistan issue were also discussed.” We would have to move forward by keeping the ground realities in mind, “ adding, “ the Afghanistan government has sought help from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in talks with Taliban”.

Qureshi said that Afghanistan has to prepare 0.3 million army and police officials by 2011.

“According to Pakistan point of view, the conference was very successful and addressing our reservations is our great success”, he added. He said that Hamid Karzai has sought five years time for normalizing the situation in his country.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the international conference in London on Afghanistan’s future, marked a “decisive” moment in Afghanistan’s history.

While he warned that British and international troops fighting the Taliban would face more “tough times” ahead, he said a process was being put in place that would enable them to return home.

“It will take time but I believe that the conditions set out in the plan that we will sign up today can be met sooner than many expect and, as a result, the process of handover district-by-district will begin later this year,” he said speaking to a 60-nation conference in London. “It will mark the beginning of a new phase and a decisive step towards Afghans taking responsibility for their own security.”

Pakistan willing to help Taliban reintegration process

PressTv

Pakistan’s foreign minister says his country welcomes Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s request for help on reconciling with the Taliban.

Talking to reporters after the Afghanistan Conference in London, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi said, Pakistan wants the reconciliation progress “to be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, and if the Afghan government so desires, we are willing to facilitate.”

At the London conference on Thursday, the Afghan government invited Taliban militants to a peace council of elders as part of efforts to find a way out of the conflict.

As leaders and ministers from around 70 nations convened in London to discuss Afghanistan, United Nations officials said members of the Taliban’s leadership council had secretly met UN Special Representative Kai Eide in Dubai on January 8, to discuss the prospects of laying down their arms, Reuters reported.

Despite intense speculation over whether senior members of the Taliban might join a future Afghan government, Qureshi said that inevitably there would be some hardline members of the Taliban that will not want to be brought back into the fold.

“You will only be engaged with those who are willing to talk and are willing to accept, for example, the Afghan constitution, those who do not want to come to the mainstream line, you can’t force them in,” Qureshi said.

Indian role in Afghanistan needs to be spelt out: US

By: DAWN

In a report sent to the White House in September, Gen Stanley McChrystal, who commands US and Nato force in Afghanistan, warned that “increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures.”

At a briefing at the Pentagon, spokesman Geoff Morrell also discounted Indian role in training Afghan security forces.

The Pentagon press secretary said that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had discussed the Afghan situation with Indian leaders, including the issues that concerned Pakistan, when he visited New Delhi last week.

“We did discuss Afghanistan with the government in Delhi and discussed the need for the Indian government to be as transparent as they can be with the Pakistani government about their activities in Afghanistan,” he said.

Asked if the United States would like India to train Afghan security forces, Mr Morrell said that the international community was not contemplating any such role for India.

“They clearly have contributed much in the monetary sense, financial support to the government in Afghanistan and that is greatly appreciated by us, by the Afghans and, I think, by the international community,” said the Pentagon spokesman.

“But beyond that, I think, you saw him (Secretary Gates) speak to this talk of perhaps the Indians providing training to Afghan forces. And that is not something that we, that I think, anybody is pursuing at this point.”

Secretary Gates told reporters in New Delhi last week that India and Pakistan had deep suspicious about each other’s activities in Afghanistan and stressed the need for “full transparency”.

Pakistan complains that India is using its influence in Afghanistan to stir trouble in Balochistan and had also provided weapons and financial assistance to the militants in Fata.

Islamabad also sees India’s strong presence in Afghanistan as a threat to its own security, fearing that New Delhi is trying to bring pressure on Pakistan from both its eastern and western borders.

Initially, US policy-makers ignored Islamabad’s complaints. Instead, they continued to remind Pakistani officials that the militants, and not India, were their main enemy and they should focus on fighting the militants.

But attitudes in Washington began to change after a realisation that US efforts to persuade Pakistan to stop fearing India had not worked. In recent congressional hearings such senior US military officials as Admiral Mike Mullen and Gen David Petraeus admitted that Washington needed to be receptive to Islamabad’s concerns.

In a report sent to the White House in September, Gen Stanley McChrystal, who commands US and Nato force in Afghanistan, warned that “Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan” and “the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian”.

The general also warned that “increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures”.

The McChrystal report also noted: “Stability in Pakistan is essential, not only in its own right, but also to enable progress in Afghanistan. While the existence of safe havens in Pakistan doesn’t guarantee ISAF failure, Afghanistan does require Pakistani cooperation and action against violent militancy, particularly against those groups active in Afghanistan.”

Meeting India’s military challenge

Thursday, January 28, 2010
Muneer Akram

During US Defence Secretary Gates’ recent visit, we have again heard the refrain of our Western friends that terrorism and the Taliban, not India, pose an ‘existential’ threat to Pakistan.

But India’s own actions and pronouncements belie these Western assertions. For the past year, India has refused to resume “composite dialogue” and has regularly threatened military action against Pakistan in the event of another Mumbai-like incident. And, while protesting loudly about pro-Kashmiri militant groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, India has been busy fomenting dissension and insurgency in Balochistan, FATA and other parts of Pakistan.

It was hardly helpful that Secretary Gates virtually endorsed India’s belligerence when he told reporters in New Delhi that “it’s not unreasonable to assume India’s patience would be limited were there to be further (Mumbai-type) attacks.” It would have been better if India was told that it is its posture which risks an Indo-Pakistan conflict and that anti-Indian violence will end once New Delhi halts its suppression of the Kashmiri people.

Any lingering doubt about India’s hostile intentions and policies towards Pakistan should have been set to rest by the new military doctrine outlined recently by the Indian army chief. General Kapoor identified five thrust areas for the Indian military build-up: the ability to fight a two-front war against Pakistan and China; optimise capacity to counter asymmetric and sub-conventional threats; enhance capabilities for strategic reach and “out-of-area operations from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Straits; acquire strategic (intercontinental) and space-based capabilities and ballistic missile defenses, and ensure a technical edge over adversaries (that is, Pakistan and China).

The new doctrine reflects India’s great power aspirations. But, the greatest danger for Pakistan emanates from the concept of the so-called ‘Cold Start’ strategy, propounded by General Kapoor, to mobilise and strike fast (within 96 hours) at Pakistan “under a WMD overhang”. At its meeting on January 13, 2010, Pakistan’s National Command Authority “took serious note of recent Indian statements about its capability to conduct conventional military strikes under a nuclear umbrella” describing this as “oblivious to the dangerous implications of adventurism in a nuclearised context.”This is, of course, not the first time India has contemplated a limited war or a conventional attack against Pakistan after South Asia was nuclearised. Indian leaders and military officers have often threatened ‘hot pursuit’ and ‘lightning strikes’ against training camps across the LoC in Kashmir. But they could not ignore Pakistan’s stance that no war between India and Pakistan could be conceived as a limited war. In 1987, and again in 2002, India contemplated a full-scale attack against Pakistan. On both occasions, India discovered that it did not have the capacity to overcome Pakistan’s conventional defences.

India no doubt hopes that with the western weapons faucets now open to it, it can, in the near future, acquire the capability to defeat Pakistan in a conventional conflict. All the new capabilities and weapons systems acquired by India, whatever the proffered rationale, can and will be deployed and used against Pakistan in the event of a future confrontation or conflict. Today, over 70 per cent of India’s military capabilities – land, air and naval – are deployed against Pakistan. There is no reason to believe that this proportion will change in the foreseeable future.

Pakistan cannot, of course, afford to match India’s military build up. Its response will have to be defensive, asymmetrical, innovative, and achieved at much lower cost. Pakistan’s forces may need to do some tactical rethinking. For example, an Indian tank force can be more effectively destroyed by drones and missiles rather than a matching tank force. A large surface navy can be seriously damaged by submarines and mobile missile-boats. The eight Indian “battle groups” may be more mobile; but they would also be vulnerable to encirclement and destruction. Rather than spread themselves thin to defend the entire Eastern border, Pakistani forces could adopt an offensive-defensive strategy, focusing a thrust into Kashmir to bottle up half a million Indian troops there.

Following the post-Mumbai situation and the emergence of India’s Cold Start strategy, Pakistan’s armed forces have undertaken extensive war games to counter this threat. If the Indians have watched these closely, they should be clear in their minds that the danger of conventional adventurism escalating to the nuclear level cannot be ruled out. This was the general conclusion in 2002 — confirmed among others by Pentagon war games. The Indo-Pakistan “composite dialogue” was restarted in 2003 on the basis of the mutual recognition that a military conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries was too dangerous to contemplate.

The critical question which arises, therefore, is what has given Indian military planners the confidence now that a conventional attack will not escalate to the mutually disastrous nuclear level? There could be three possible reasons for India’s “new” confidence:

First, India may believe that the new capabilities it is acquiring – Israeli AWACs, US-Israeli-Russian ballistic missile defence systems, advanced strike aircraft – can effectively neutralise Pakistan’s nuclear strike force of missiles and aircraft. This would be shallow strategic thinking since Pakistan could ensure penetration of Indian defences through multiplication of its missiles and warheads.

Second, Indian plans may envisage, together with a Cold Start conventional attack, a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan’s strategic delivery systems. This is likely to push Pakistan to maintain at least a part of its strategic capabilities in a state of readiness to respond to a pre-emptive counter-force strike.

The third, and most ominous, possibility is that India has come to believe that foreign powers will prevent Pakistan, by threats or military means, from escalating a conventional conflict to the nuclear level.

If India launches a Cold Start strike, the world community would first try to halt the conflict. India may count on making quick military gains and then accepting a ceasefire. But, the priority western goal would be to prevent Pakistan from resorting to its nuclear deterrent. If diplomatic demarches and threats do not work, even more drastic measures could be contemplated.

Numerous media stories have mentioned the existence of US plans to seize or neutralise Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of their threatened take over by Islamic radicals. These plans, if they exist, could be executed also in the context of an Indo-Pakistan conflict.

An article which appeared in the Foreign Affairs Quarterly (November-December 2009), “The Nukes We Need”, is also worth noting. The two writers argue that “The United States will sooner or later find itself embroiled in conventional wars with nuclear-armed adversaries” and should have the “ability to launch precise, very low-casualty nuclear counter-force strikes.” This would enable the US “to deter nuclear attacks” as well as have “retaliatory options.” The writers point out that the US already has such low-yield nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

Despite the present counter-terrorism alliance with the US, Pakistan needs to factor in these scenarios into its deterrence posture and doctrine. As the Foreign Affairs article, cited above, asserts: “If not backed by the capability and credibility to execute threats, deterrence is merely a dangerous bluff.”

To preserve the credibility of their nuclear deterrent capabilities, the major nuclear powers adopt some or all of three options: first, keep at least part of their nuclear-strategic weapons systems in a state of “high alert”; second, deploy a sufficient number of nuclear-armed missiles in hardened silos, deep underground, at secret and dispersed locations; and third, possess nuclear powered submarines as a credible second-strike nuclear force.

These objectives deserve the highest priority in Pakistan’s response to India’s new military doctrine. Pakistan’s response should also be accompanied by robust diplomatic action. This should include:

* A dialogue with China to coordinate an effective response to India’s new doctrine and capabilities at the diplomatic, strategic and tactical level.

* Press India’s weapons’ suppliers to refrain from providing it with the capabilities to execute its “adventurist” strategy; and

* Activating efforts to promote a South Asia restraint regime that provides for nuclear restraint, conventional balance and resolution of conflicts, especially Kashmir.

A clear and visible response by Pakistan is essential to convince India, and the international community, that Pakistan is determined to defend its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and that “cold start” could end in a hot finish.

The writer is a former Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations.

Source: http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=221109

US supports Pakistan’s Taliban plan–India livid

PKKH

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday was noncommittal but did not rule out Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan to ask for Taliban names to be removed from a UN blacklist to spur reconciliation.

Karzai said before heading for a major international conference on Afghanistan in London this week that he would also seek Western support for a plan to offer money and jobs to cajole Taliban fighters into laying down arms.

“I will be making a statement at the conference in London to the effect of removing Taliban names from the UN sanctions list,” Karzai told reporters in Istanbul.

The idea had previously met resistance but “as we are talking today, there is more willingness that this can be reconsidered,” he said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs noted that top US generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal had drawn parallels between Afghanistan and reconciliation schemes that had worked with factions in Iraq.

Gibbs did not comment in detail on Karzai’s plan.

But he said Washington was open to “a similar path to what happened in Iraq… provided that whoever this is accepts the Afghan constitution, renounces violence, and publicly breaks with groups that advocate violence.”

“That’s, I think, what people expect under the notion of reconciliation.”

Karzai wants to bring low- and mid-level fighters into mainstream society to end the gruelling insurgency, but the leadership of Islamist insurgent groups active in the battered country is hostile to negotiations.

McChrystal, the NATO military commander in Afghanistan, has voiced support for negotiated peace.

“As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there’s been enough fighting,” US General Stanley McChrystal said in an interview with Britain’s Financial Times published Monday.

“I believe that a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome. And it’s the right outcome.”

The White House has several times brought up the tactics of then US-Iraq commander Petraeus, who worked with local Sunni leaders fed up with Al-Qaeda after the Iraq war troop surge.

Karzai was in Istanbul for talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday, to be following by a meeting with leaders of his country’s neighbors on Tuesday.

Under a plan announced by US President Barack Obama in December, 30,000 extra US troops will be in Afghanistan this year — on top of more than 70,000 already there — before they begin withdrawing in July 2011.

Karzai will fly on to Berlin and then London, where the conference will focus on corruption, security, good governance and reconciliation with the Taliban. US does not rule out Karzai’s Taliban plan

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

PKKH

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.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now ‘Xe International’] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Immediately after the statement, Pentagon tried to put a spin on his words.

But US meddling inside Pakistan –by posting private US defense contractors under diplomatic cover of the US embassy – is a reality for most Pakistanis. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban right in the heart of Islamabad. Some Pakistanis were manhandled by some of these American militiamen on the streets of at least two Pakistani cities in recent months. Since Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan despite all the US direct and indirect misinformation, these US covert operators were arrested on several occasions.

The mainstream US media continues to keep the good American people and the world opinion in the dark about this. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America’s war on terror. This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan’s military to influence the country’s foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert meddling when he said, ‘Well, they’re [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.’

Not true. The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The money went in exchange for allowing illegal weapons into Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country’s security departments and intelligence agencies. Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the ‘entire territory of Pakistan.’ The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue US Ambassador’s role in the scandal.

A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was ‘gifting’ the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm bells inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari’s government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for ‘official US government business’ without explaining what that is. When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were exactly doing here, US officials and media launched what appears to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of ‘harassing’ US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan’s generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to pain this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

‘Conspiracy theories’ is another label that US officials and media have increasingly used recently as a cover to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and sovereignty involving undercover private US operatives inside Pakistan. This is how the Wall Street Journal tried to delegitimize serious Pakistani concerns raised during Mr. Gates’ visit in a report filed from Islamabad whose opening line read as follows, “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he’s facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here.”

The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomtic, and covert meddling inside Pakistan. Here is a list:

1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US ‘diplomats’ were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan’s premier nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. US Embassy intervened to rescue the four ‘diplomats’ after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari’s government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.

2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from police and security officials.

3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister’s Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.

4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources. [See video and pictures]

5. PUSHY US DIPLOMATS: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, “Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (…) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.”

6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari’s own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.

7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US ‘diplomats’ disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American ‘diplomats’ tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US ‘diplomats’ back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.

8. ENGINEEING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: “Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan’s effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan.”

9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.

10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan’s strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.

11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the federal Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by Dyna Corp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan’s military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

The insidious Indian propaganda

Daily.Pk

The internet has become a vehicle to fan preposterous propaganda by the agencies in India, in order to promote ‘Hindutva’ sensibility to raise scare and trepidation among the Hindus that Pakistan in collusion with Bangladesh and Indian Muslim are now planning for a second partition of the subcontinent to carve our a much bigger chunk of territory out of India,

which they have named ‘Mughalistan’, which will comprise Pakistan, Bangladesh, including all of North and Eastern India. The so called Mughal Muslim state will merge Pakistan and Bangladesh through a large corridor of land running across the Indo Gangetic plain – the heartland of India. Jinnah’s Pakistan was envisaged to have the whole of Bengal and the Punjab – besides a corridor which could provide land link between the ‘West’ and the former “East Pakistan.” The moth-eaten Pakistan was accepted only ‘temporarily’ as Jinnah thought it expedient to accept what was made available, under the exigencies of the circumstances, but the idea of ‘greater Pakistan’ was shelved for an appropriate time, as a necessary outcome of the partition, which the Hindu India had to reconcile with.

For propaganda message to appear credible a source had to be identified. It was deemed expedient to select Bangladesh, where this idea of Mughalstan was conceived and covertly planned at Jahangir Nagar University, jointly supported by the ISI of Pakistan and DGFI (Director General Forces Intelligence of Bangladesh). In propaganda parlance, this is called Black Propaganda source, which is based on total distortion as the real originators are operating from somewhere else. It is for our intelligence agencies to find out as to from where such “hate propaganda” is being disseminated. They have also concocted an organization called Mughalstan Research Institute (MRI) at Jahangir Nagar University. The objectives of the propaganda are focused on the following themes so that Indian Hindus see the so called vicious game the Muslims are playing to further divide the Hindu India and that they are no content with the creation of Pakistan – an Islamic Republic and Bangladesh though apparently ‘Secular’ nourishes deep Islamic ethos:

The Punjabis pronounce Mughalstan, ie, what is against the usual Urdu pronunciation Mughalistan. This is to establish that ISI (Punjabi dominated organization of Pakistan) is the contributor of the name. Such little details are meant to establish the credibility. The Islamic jehadis in India are being funded and organized by the Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia and others. Osama Bin Laden is behind the concept of greater Pakistan to liberate the Muslims of India from the domination of Hindus. The Bombay bombings of 1993 was led by Karachi based Dawood Ibrahim (a fugitive who is very much wanted by India for his crimes, he committed) besides Jamat-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen all are involved in planning a greater Islamic country in the subcontinent. Indian Mujahideen are also involved and the students of Islamic Movement in India (SIMI) are partners in this mission.

Hindus are declared enemies by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and besides liberating Kashmir, they have vowed to hoist the Islamic flag atop the historic Red Fort after capturing Delhi and the rest of India. Establishment of Islamic caliphate is the objective of SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) and as such they have launched jihad in the Indian States as secularism, democracy and nationalism – the key stone of Indian states-hood, are antithetical to Islam. The Indian Mujahideen have claimed responsibility for bombings in Lucknow, Vanarsi and Faizabad, Banglore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and New Delhi in 2007 and 2008. Their role models are Mohammad Bin Qasim, Mohammad Ghouri and Mahmood Ghaznavi. They consider ‘Hindu blood’ as the cheapest of all mankind, and taunt Hindu history as full of subjugation and humiliation.

Muslims, wherever they are in majority in India, for example Kashmir, hundreds of Hindu temples were raised. Hindus were forced to flee and their women were raped. There has been mass genocide of Hindus or they were converted to Islam. Kashmiri Muslims despite having special status – through Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, are still complaining of discrimination, the idea being that they are ungrateful people. Muslims population is steadily rising in the UP state, as it has risen to 18% and in Bihar 17%. A vast number of Madrassas and mosques are disproportionately growing through excessive funding by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Muslim Banghbhoomi comprises various districts along the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bangladesh borders. Bangladesh is craving for Taliban type militants and madrassas are teaching that the Muslims are the best in the world and that the non-Muslims are “to be converted, beaten, killed and their women are to be raped as maal-e-ghaneemat. Atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh can be seen from the fact that there is no single woman between the ages of 7 to 70, who has not been raped. Bangladeshis have succeeded in infiltrating into Maripur, Mizoram, Meghalaya. Arunchal Pradesh and Tripura etc. In other words, they are responsible for fanning fissiparous trends in many of the states of India.

The message is loud and clear that Hindus must rise to stop this grandiose plan of the Muslims. Mughalstan is not a question of “If” or “but”, but “when”, unless we, “Hindus” stand up to unitedly counter the treacherous plan. Ii implicitly carries message of coercive policies against he Indian Muslims, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The ostensible purpose of the propaganda is to malign both Bangladesh and Pakistan for their hatred against the Hindus. The whole propaganda is motivated by a typical Kautalian sensibility to use deception, duplicity and deceit to fan hatred against the Muslims. It is also aimed at frustrating all the attempts to bring peace and cooperation among Pakistan and India through much dramatically publicized “Aman Ki Aasha”. One should interpret the outlandish proclamation by the Indian Army Chief General Kapoor that India was capable of defeating both Pakistan and China within 96 hours. Stereotyping Muslims justifies all actions to destabilize Pakistan and even to launch a war if necessary.

The hate against Muslims is a combined strategy of US, Israel and India. The so called ‘War on Terror’ has a covert design to suppress the Islamic resurgence and undermine its identity through a well orchestrated plan. Pakistan should not dismiss it as a ‘whimsical idea’. There is a method in madness. They have killed around 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir in alone notwithstanding regular communal riots like the one in Gujrat, where Muslims were cut into pieces like vegetables. Besides Muslims, Sikhs have been killed to the tune of 250,000 in the operation against Golden Temple. A significant number of Christians have been slaughtered only in Orissa. Dalits are being most brutally treated at the hands of Hindus and yet the propaganda is to whitewash the Hindu propensity for violence. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was indeed a man of great foresight. He saw through the game, the Hindus were playing that they were the true inheritors of the British Empire and every one else was to be left high and dry.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is uncritically accepting the Indian propaganda that it is a vibrant democracy, quite oblivious of the reality that India is notoriously following its apartheid repressive policy against its religious minorities. They are covertly planning to destabilize through subversion in Balochistan, tribal areas and extending it to Punjab and Karachi. George Orwell said very rightly: “In time of universal deceit, telling to truth is a revolutionary act.” The truth must be heeded to and our countrymen must rise against Indian machinations.

DR S M RAHMAN