David DeGraw at Alternet.org describes how US intelligence ishas been behind both sides of the war on terror and how the media aids the war effort with calculated psyops like the recent “finding” of mineral deposits in Afghanistan that was trumpeted in the New York Times. Continue reading
Tag Archives: pakistan
Afghanistan Has Trillion Dollar Deposits Of Iron, Copper, and Lithium
So now we know the real reason for the Afghan war.. I wonder how long the Pentagon has had this information? BBC reports on June 14, 2010:
“Afghanistan may have more than a trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits, a spokesman for the ministry of mines has suggested. The statement came after reports in the New York Times of the work of a team of Pentagon officials and US geologists. They discovered large quantities of iron and copper as well as valuable deposits of lithium. However, questions are being asked about the timing of the release of the latest information. Continue reading
Experts Trumpet ISI-Taliban Link As Excuse For US “Counter-Measures”
Shock. Pakistani intelligence (the ISI) might be involved with the Taliban.
When the obvious is stated with all the fanfare of a papal decree from such organs of the ruling class as the London School of Economics and our own JFK School of Government (Harvard), can military action be far behind? File this along with my previous post, Mad Dog alerts.
The Associated Press reports (June 13, 2010):
“Pakistan’s main spy agency continues to arm and train the Taliban and is even represented on the group’s leadership council despite U.S. pressure to sever ties and billions in aid to combat the militants, said a research report released Sunday.
Mumbai Attack Suspect David Headley: Truth And Lies
Some background on suspected Mumbai conspirator, David Headley, in an interview in December 2009 on India’s ND TV with the Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner.
Headley Spy Case Raises Questions In India About CIA Role
Asia Times columnist M. K. Bhadrakumar writes that US citizen David Headley, a key player (Indian sources say, the mastermind), in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack that killed 166 people* has reached a plea bargain with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that allows the US Government to hold back from producing evidence against him in a court of law that would have revealed details of his ties to US intelligence. [*163, according to the NY Times, March 26, 2010; 165, according to the Wash Po, March 27, 2010]
Headley will be protected from cross-examination by the prosecutor, and the 166 victims will not be represented by a lawyer at the Chicago trial that’s now commencing.
Nor can he be extradited to India or questioned by Indian agencies about his links to US and Pakistani intelligence.
(Note: He will be accessible to India through video conferencing, deposition, and Letters Rogatory)
Headley, the son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American socialite from Philadelphia (according to the NY Times piece), was a drug-pusher in the 1990s who then went on to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
He’s said to have prepared for the attack with five visits to India between 2006 and 2008, each time returning via Pakistan and meeting with several handlers, some of whom included members of the terrorist group Lakshar-e-Toiba (LeT), which has close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence)
Headley has reportedly named five-six serving officers of the Pakistan army as among the leaders of the Karachi Project, which organizes attacks on India through fugitive Indian jihadis being sheltered in Karachi by the ISI and the LeT.
The Asia Times article goes on to ask some questions about the CIA’s possible involvement that are likely to strain US-Indian relations:
“How much did the CIA know?
The plea bargain details that while working as an American agent Headley attended at least five “training courses” conducted by the LeT in Pakistan, including sessions in the use of weapons and grenades, close-combat tactics and counter-surveillance techniques, from February 2002 until December 2003.
Training courses in April and in December 2003 were each of three months’ duration and in such close proximity to the 9/11 attacks that it stretches credulity to believe the CIA didn’t care to know what their agent was doing in the LeT training camps.
Today, the heart of the matter is how much did the CIA know in advance about the Mumbai terrorist strike and whether the Obama administration shared all “actionable intelligence” with Delhi?
A senior Indian editor wrote on Sunday, “Headley … was convicted on drug charges and sent to jail in the US. We know also that he was subsequently released from jail and handed over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which said that it wanted to send him to Pakistan as an undercover agent. All this is a matter of public record. What happened between the time the US sent Headley into Pakistan and his arrest at Chicago airport a few months ago? How did an American agent turn into a terrorist? The US will not say.”
Yet, cooperation in the fight against terrorism lies within the first circle of US-India strategic cooperation. The Mumbai attacks led to unprecedented counter-terrorism cooperation between India and the US – “breaking down walls and bureaucratic obstacles between the two countries’ intelligence and investigating agencies”, as a prominent American security expert, Lisa Curtis, underscored in US congressional testimony on March 11 regarding the Mumbai attacks and Headley.
To quote Curtis, “Most troubling about the Headley case is what it has revealed about the proximity of the Pakistani military to the LeT.”
Curtis put her finger spot on the US government’s deliberate policy to view the LeT through the prism of India-Pakistan adversarial ties. This is despite all evidence of the LeT’s significant role since 2006 as a facilitator of the Taliban’s operations in Afghanistan by providing a constant stream of fighters – recruiting, training and infiltrating insurgents across the border from the Pakistani tribal areas.
The US policy is impeccably logical. It prioritizes the securing of Islamabad’s cooperation on what directly affects American interests rather than squandering away Pakistani goodwill by Washington covering for the Indians.
This political chicanery lies at the core of the unfolding Headley drama. What emerges, even if one were to give the benefit of the doubt to the CIA, is that Headley was its agent but he possibly got involved with Pakistan-based terrorist organizations and became a double agent
No doubt, the US administration is behaving very strangely. It has something extremely explosive to hide from the Indians and what better way to do that than by placing Headley in safe custody and not risk exposing him to Indian intelligence?”
War Without End, Amen..
“Bush’s rationale for attacking Afghanistan was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the U.S. gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had demanded that the U.S. turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.
When he announced his troop “surge” in Afghanistan, Obama invoked the 9/11 attacks. By continuing and escalating Bush’s war in Afghanistan, Obama, too, is violating the UN Charter. In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama declared that he has the “right” to wage wars “unilaterally.” The unilateral use of military force, however, is illegal unless undertaken in self-defense…….
…In his declaration that he would send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Obama made scant reference to Pakistan. But his CIA has used more unmanned Predator drones against Pakistan than Bush. There are estimates that these robots have killed several hundred civilians. Most Pakistanis oppose them. A Gallup poll conducted in Pakistan last summer found 67% opposed and only 9% in favor. Notably, a majority of Pakistanis ranked the United States as a greater threat to Pakistan than the Taliban or Pakistan’s arch-rival India.
Many countries use drones for surveillance, but only the United States and Israel have used them for strikes. Scott Shane wrote in the New York Times, “For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for targeted killings in a country where the United States is not officially at war.“
Pakistani Strike Creates Nearly 1/2 Million Refugees
Hundreds of thousands of people have become refugees and scores of civilians (including children) killed during Pakistan’s latest offensive against what it terms extremist militants in the Taliban-held districts of Pakistan that border Afghanistan.
From a report on the weekend (May 9) by AP:
“The offensive has prompted the flight of hundreds of thousands of terrified residents, adding a humanitarian emergency to the nuclear-armed nation’s security, economic and political problems. Desperate refugees looted U.N. supplies in one camp, taking blankets and cooking oil….”
PM Gilani calls the full-scale offensive that was launched on Thursday at Washington’s behest
“a fight for the country’s survival.”
My Comment
Here’s a problem that’s festered decades. Why would a military solution work now when it hasn’t worked in all this time? That’s the blundering logic of the state. Defending against militants doesn’t justify creating what could amount to half-a-million refugees, by UN estimates and has the potential to destabilize what’s often considered the top “hot-spot” of the world – the Indo-Pak border and Kashmir.
At Cato, Malu Innocent has similar thoughts:
“Also, if America is worried about Pakistan’s imminent demise, U.S. policymakers and defense planners must understand that the coalition’s presence in Afghanistan threatens to further destabilize Pakistan. The vast majority of Pakistanis are not radical. But the spread of tribal militias in the northwest, tens of thousands of refugees (and certainly some militants) fleeing into major cities from aerial drone strikes, and widespread distrust of America’s intentions in the region, all place undue stress on a nation already divided, weak and fragile.”