Libya – A Trophy Won By The West

By Pepe Escobar

They are fighting over the carcass as vultures. The French Ministry of Defense said they got him with a Rafale fighter jet firing over his convoy. The Pentagon said they got him with a Predator firing a Hellfire missile. After a wounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi sought refuge in a filthy drain underneath a highway – an eerie echo of Saddam Hussein’s “hole” – he was found by Transitional National Council (TNC) “rebels”. And then duly executed.

Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a Libyan doctor who accompanied Gaddafi’s body in an ambulance and examined it, said he died from two bullets, one to the chest, one to the head.

The TNC – which has peddled lies, lies and more lies for months – swears he died in “crossfire”. It may have been a mob. It may have been Mohammad al-Bibi, a 20-year-old sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap who posed to the whole world brandishing Gaddafi’s golden pistol; his ticket perhaps to collect the hefty $20 million dangled as the bounty for Gaddafi “dead or alive”.

It gets curioser and curioser when one remembers that this is exactly what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her lightning visit to Tripoli, had announced less than 48 hours before; Gaddafi should be “captured or killed”. The Fairy Queenie satisfied Clinton’s wishes, who learned about it by watching the screen of a BlackBerry – and reacting with the semantic earthquake “Wow!”

To the winners, the spoils. They all did it; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Pentagon and the TNC. From the minute a United Nations resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya became a green card to regime change, plan A was always to capture and kill him. Targeted assassination; that’s Barack Obama administration official policy. There was no plan B.

Let me bomb you to protection

As for how R2P (“responsibility to protect” civilians), any doubters should cling to the explanation by NATO’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen; “NATO and our partners have successfully implemented the historic mandate of the United Nations to protect the people of Libya.” Anyone who wants to check NATO’s protection of civilians just needs to jump on a pick-up truck and go to Sirte – the new Fallujah.

Reactions have been quite instructive. TNC bureaucrat Abdel Ghoga went Colosseum in the Roman Empire, saying, “The revolutionaries have got the head of the tyrant.”

United States President Barack Obama said the death of Gaddafi means “we are seeing the strength of American leadership across the world”. That’s as “we got him” as one can possibly expect, also considering that Washington paid no less than 80% of the operating costs of those dimwits at NATO (over $1 billion – which Occupy Wall Street could well denounce would be more helpful creating jobs in the US). Strange, now, to say “we did it”, because the White House always said this was not a war; it was a “kinetic” something. And they were not in charge.

It was up to that majestic foreign policy strategist, US Vice President Joe Biden, to be starkly more enlightening than Obama; “In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn’t lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has in the past.”

World, you have been warned; this is how the empire will deal with you from now on.

Feel my humanitarian love

So congratulations to the “international community” – which as everyone knows is composed of Washington, a few washed-up NATO members, and the democratic Persian Gulf powerhouses of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This community, at least, loved the outcome. The European Union (EU) hailed “the end of an era of despotism” – when up to virtually Thursday they were caressing the helm of Gaddafi’s gowns; now they are falling over themselves in editorials about the 42-year reign of a “buffoon”.

Gaddafi would have been a most inconvenient guest of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as he would have relished recalling all the hand-kissing, the warm embraces and the juicy deals the West was begging to clinch after he was promoted from “Mad Dog” (Ronald Reagan) to “our bastard”. He would also relish detailing all the shady backgrounds of those opportunists now posing as “revolutionaries” and “democrats”.

As for the concept of international law, it lies in a drain as filthy as the one Gaddafi was holed up in. Iraqi dictator Saddam at least got a fake trial in a kangaroo court before meeting the executioner. Osama bin Laden was simply snuffed out, assassination-style, after a territorial invasion of Pakistan. Gaddafi went one up, snuffed out with a mix of air war and assassination.

Power vultures are congesting the skies. London-based Mohammed El Senussi, the heir to the Libyan throne (King Idris was overthrown in 1969) is ready for his close-up, having already established that he “is a servant to Libyan people, and they decide what they want”. Translation; I want the throne. He’s obviously the favorite candidate of the counter-revolutionary House of Saud.

And what about those Washington think-tank donkeys mumbling that this was the Arab Spring’s “Ceausescu moment”? If only the Romanian dictator had improved his country’s standard of living – in terms of free healthcare, free education, incentives for the newlywed, etc – by a fraction of what Gaddafi did in Libya. Plus the fact that Nicolae Ceausescu was not deposed by NATO “humanitarian” bombing. v Only the brain dead may have swallowed the propaganda of NATO’s “humanitarian” 40,000-plus bombing – which devastated Libya’s infrastructure back to the Stone Age (Shock and Awe in slow motion, anyone?). This never had anything to do with R2P – the relentless bombing of civilians in Sirte proves it.

As the top four BRIC members knew it even before the voting of UN Resolution 1973, it was about NATO ruling the Mediterranean as a NATO lake, it was about Africom’s war against China and setting up a key strategic base, it was about the French and the Brits getting juicy contracts to exploit Libya’s natural resources to their benefit, it was about the West setting the narrative of the Arab Spring after they had been caught napping in Tunisia and Egypt.

Listen to the barbaric whimpers

Welcome to the new Libya. Intolerant Islamist militias will turn the lives of Libyan women into a living hell. Hundreds of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans – those who could not escape – will be ruthlessly persecuted. Libya’s natural wealth will be plundered. That collection of anti-aircraft missiles appropriated by Islamists will be a supremely convincing reason for the “war on terror” in northern Africa to become eternal. There will be blood – civil war blood, because Tripolitania will refuse to be ruled by backward Cyrenaica.

As for remaining dictators everywhere, get a life insurance policy from NATO Inc; Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh were clever enough to do it. We all know there will never be R2P to liberate the Tibetans and Uyghurs, or the people in that monster gulag Myanmar, or the people in Uzbekistan, or the Kurds in Turkey, or the Pashtuns on both sides of the imperially drawn Durand Line.

We also know that change the world can believe in will be the day NATO enforces a no-fly one over Saudi Arabia to protect the Shi’ites in the eastern province, with the Pentagon launching a Hellfire carpet over those thousands of medieval, corrupt House of Saud princes.

It won’t happen. Meanwhile, this is the way the West ends; with a NATO bang, and a thousand barbaric, lawless whimpers. Disgusted? Get a Guy Fawkes mask and raise hell.

Toddlers among 9 dead as NATO admits Tripoli raid

TRIPOLI: NATO on Sunday acknowledged it was responsible for civilian deaths in Tripoli after Libyan officials showed reporters five bodies, including two toddlers, they said were among nine people killed in a “barbaric” air strike.

A Libyan girl holds the rebellion’s flag during an anti-Qaddafi demonstration.

An alliance statement in Brussels said “NATO acknowledges civilian casualties in Tripoli strike” during action targeting a missile site.”

It appears that one weapon did not strike the intended target and that there may have been a weapons system failure which may have caused a number of civilian casualties,” the statement added.

Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim earlier accused the Western alliance of “deliberately targeting civilians,” insisting there were no military targets anywhere near the residential neighbourhood of Tripoli that was hit overnight.

Alliance spokesman Wing Commander Mike Bracken had earlier said NATO was looking into the matter, adding: “NATO deeply regrets any civilian loss of life during this operation and would be very sorry if the review of this incident concluded it to be a NATO weapon.”

The admission that the civilian deaths were caused by NATO is an embarrassment for the alliance which has led the bombing campaign under a UN mandate to protect civilians.

However, officials from the rebel-held east of the country blamed Qaddafi for the deaths, alleging that the veteran strongman was deliberately using schools and mosques to stash arms.

“We are sorry for the loss of civilian life,” said rebel spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, adding that “we hold the Qaddafi regime responsible for having placed military armaments and rocket launchers near civilian areas.”

Journalists were taken to the Al-Arada district of Tripoli to see rescue teams and bystanders desperately searching for survivors among the wreckage of a two-storey block of flats after the early morning air strike.An AFP correspondent saw two bodies pulled from the rubble.

Tripoli insisted the scene was not staged after officials showed journalists a little girl in hospital two weeks ago they said was wounded in a NATO air strike.

One of the medical staff said she had been in a traffic accident.

The alliance has acknowledged mis-hits in the past, mostly involving rebel fighters wrongly identified as loyalist troops.

On Saturday, NATO acknowledged that aircraft under its command had accidentally hit a rebel column near the oil refinery town of Brega on the frontline between the rebel-held east and the mainly government-held west on Thursday.

Calls are increasing for a negotiated solution to the five-month-old conflict, which has recently seen a bloody stalemate between the two sides.

On Saturday, organisations including the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations highlighted the importance of “accelerating the launch of a political process” to end the conflict.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton attended the meeting along with outgoing Arab League chief Amr Mussa and African Union head Jean Ping, while UN chief Ban Ki-moon joined by live video link0.

Ban said the roots of a negotiating process were showing but that the international community needed to give a “consistent message” on a political solution with Qaddafi.

His comments came after both Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi and Russian envoy Mikhail Margelov insisted that contacts were under way between the two sides – despite furious rebel denials.Rebel spokesman Ghoga said a negotiated solution had not been ruled out, but that Qaddafi and his family could not be a part of it.Observers, including the International Crisis Group, have called on both parties to reach a deal, amid fears over a devastating and protracted conflict, as well as concerns about the Transitional National Council’s capacity to govern.

The rebels said on Sunday they have not yet received any of the roughly one billion dollars promised by international donors earlier this month, and urged benefactors to make good on their promise to aid the TNC.”(The) funds should have been deposited from last week and none have been deposited to date,” Ghoga said.

The fighting continued on Sunday, with claims of nine people killed and 51 wounded as rebel and pro-Qaddafi forces tried to break a month-long military stalemate around the besieged city of Misrata.Rebels said the dead, including fighters and civilians, were killed as the rebel-held city in western Libya came under heavy artillery fire.

Several of the wounded were said to be in critical condition.There were also reports of heavy fighting in the town of Nalut, near the Tunisian border, but the number of casualties was not known.

A DEADLY NARRATIVE

By: Ismail Khan

As high level US visitors come to Pakistan the impression is that efforts are being made to revamp end reorient the US-Pakistan relationship after the Raymond Davis and OBL incidents. This may or may not be so but much more is happening on the street and a narrative is taking shape that is getting more and more takers. It would be folly to ignore this reality.

If confused and convoluted official statements are ignored then what eye witnesses and some from the forces that battled the attackers in Karachi’s Mehran Base have said is eye-opening. It is being reported that there were up to 11 Chinese on the base. No one has explained why they were there when the base was home to US supplied P3c Orion Aircraft – especially when US sensitivity to transfer of their technology to China is well known and clearly communicated to Pakistan. It is clear from events as they unfolded that the primary objective of the attack were the US supplied aircraft and not the Americans on the base for maintenance and training. There is plausible evidence that the attackers attempted to take the Chinese hostage but the Americans were not targeted. It is said that some of the attackers had tattooed arms-a typically American habit but frowned upon in this part of the world. One such tattooed person who looks to be an American was shot dead in a bush and had communication equipment with him indicating that he was controlling the operation. Reports on the number of attackers vary from

12 to 25 and most believe the higher figure. The talk of help to the attackers from inside the base is now leaning towards the notion that this help came from the Americans on the base and not, as people are being tutored to believe, from penetration of the Navy by militants. The journalist Salim Shahzad was probably killed because he was peddling the story about ‘Al Qaeda within the Pakistani ranks’ – something of which there is no evidence. There is, however ample evidence of covert American presence in Pakistan after they used their moles to gain access through liberally supplied visas. If Raymond Davis was not enough then the stand-off in Peshawer just a day ago is a more recent event-diplomats when checked identify themselves, they don’t sit and sulk behind locked doors and black tinted glasses in their host country defying the laws of the land.

There is more on the street. A Tehrik Taleban (TTP) spokesman speaking from Mohmand (a supposedly subdued tribal agency of FATA) has said that even if the Americans/NATO leave Afghanistan their fight against Pakistan would go on because they are fighting to bring ‘Islamic rule’ in Pakistan and that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are not in danger because these are Islamic assets to be used in the service of Islam. These pronouncements come when the US is being asked to pull out after the OBL killing and after pulling out rely on small forces carrying out focused operations. Pakistan has been pushing for a shift to political resolution in Afghanistan balking at the pressure to get into North Waziristan in tandem with US led military operations in Afghanistan and stepped up Drone strikes. The reports of US drones targeting the anti-Pakistan TTP and the new revelations of TTP’s global agenda as well as long term designs on Pakistan are all coincidentally timed to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan even as the Hedley courtroom drama makes headway in incriminating the ISI – already reeling from the US delivered below the belt blow in Abbottabad. The earlier reports of Raymond Davis’ contacts with TTP now start making sense because the best option would be to stay covert and get the TTP to do the dirty work in Pakistan with careful pay-offs using Indian RAW and Afghan NDS assets as well as old Pakistan hating loyalists like the ex NDS chief now operating from the background. Cleverly orchestrated this could keep the TTP in the dark about who they were actually working for. Add to all this the fact that post OBL and post Mehran the military and the ISI are in the dock and severely downgraded domestically – something that surely gladdens the hearts of the US, the Indians and the Afghan government.

What does all this add up to? It gives the Pakistani street a narrative that fits neatly into anti-American sentiment. To many the logic is simple – use covert operations to launch the overt OBL raid. Use covert operations and local assets to launch a ‘terrorist’ attack that sends the message about not transferring US technology. Use covert contacts to create the pressure that will get Pakistan into North Waziristan to help create the environment for the Obama promised withdrawal in July. If this narrative is flawed then it is time for the US to start telling the Pakistanis what they are up to and to end the charade of de-hyphenation when it is actually a trilateral hyphenation against Pakistan – the CIA, RAW and NDS behind the smoke screen that is the TTP. A civil-military confrontation, public opinion and media running down the military and ISI, lawlessness and internal breakdown are bonus dividends not to be scoffed at.

A Paranoid Nuclear Nation

By Fatima Rizvi
ZoneAsia-Pk

Pakistan should be one, not both; and its people should choose between paranoia and power before it’s too late

For Pakistan, the writing on the wall is clear: Since 2001, we sided with the US in its War on Terror, which was actually a War OF Terror. After 2004, Pakistan became a frontline state in this war, instead of being the passive participant it had been in the three years before. It was not long before Pakistan became embroiled in a multi-front war: one with the US because of divergent goals in the region and mutual mistrust, one with regional adversaries like India and Karzai-led Afghanistan, one with terror proxies like Al-Qaeda, the TTP, Jundullah, HuJI, JeM, SSP, LeT, BLA, BLUF, BRA, IMU and other groups. This last battlespace is an unconventional war where non-state actors are being trained, financed, motivated and deployed by powerful external powers to undermine the military and intelligence organizations from within for the final external assault; this has become possible after softening up civil targets and demoralizing as well as scaring the Pakistani public over the last few years. But our civil and military leadership continues to be oblivious to these increasingly overt signals. Such insensitivity only contributes to the paranoia of the Pakistani people, who are wondering which of their assets are going to be used against them now.

Read Complete Article: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4706:a-paranoid-nuclear-nation&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

“NATO Gives Pakistani Nukes Safety Green Light”

Tacstrat

KABUL: The head of Nato said Tuesday he was confident Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were safe, but admitted it was a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base in two years.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in Afghanistan on a one-day visit and met President Hamid Karzai to discuss the transition of security from Nato-led troops to Afghan security forces, which is due to begin in July.

Rasmussen was asked if Nato was concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after it took Pakistani forces 17 hours to reclaim control of a naval air base from Taliban attackers and following the death of Osama bin Laden.

“I feel confident that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe and well protected,” said Rasmussen. “But of course it is a matter of concern and we follow the situation closely.”

Rasmussen was scheduled to wind up his Afghan visit on Tuesday after spending a night and a full day in Afghanistan.

After America kills Osama, Taliban strike Pakistan in revenge

Bloody revenge

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings on a Frontier Constabulary training center in Charsadda that left at least 80 dead in what the militant group said was in revenge for the “Abbottabad incident,” referring to the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Reuters, AFP, AP, Dawn, NYT, Guardian, WSJ, Post). Pakistani police officials, however, were skeptical that the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan since November, was the work of the TTP, and suggested it may have been orchestrated by Omar Khalid’s group, which is currently fighting the Pakistani Army in Mohmand. At least 140 were wounded (BBC, CNN). Yesterday in Karachi, Pakistani police said they arrested four TTP militants who were also affiliated with a Punjabi Taliban group (DT, AFP). And a suspected U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan has just killed at least three (AP, AFP).

Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is briefing the Pakistani parliament later today on bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad and the May 2 U.S. raid that killed him, and some who have met with Kayani recently say he is unlikely to respond to U.S. demands to go after other militant leaders in Pakistan (Dawn, NYT, Reuters). Pakistan said it is launching an inter-agency review to “clearly define the parameters of our cooperation with the U.S. in counterterrorism,” as Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani suggested, for the first time in public, that he is open to the possibility of U.S. drone strikes in the tribal areas, given more Pakistani control of the program (AFP, AFP, Time). Declan Walsh has today’s must-read, asking, “Whose side is Pakistan’s ISI [intelligence service] really on?” (Guardian).

Details continue to trickle out about the Abbottabad raid and bin Laden’s life in the compound: U.S. officials say there is no indication bin Laden had a ready escape plan, suggesting he may have become “complacent” (CNN); each of the 25 Navy SEALs who carried out the raid recorded it with a tiny helmet cam (CBS); Frontier Corps officials tell Geo that two U.S. helicopters landed in Swat before heading to Abbottabad, which the government of Khyber-Puktunkhwa said it knew nothing about (Geo); and intelligence analysts continue to dig through the more than 200 million pages recovered from the compound (Tel, Times, Independent). U.S. intelligence has reportedly been able to interview the three bin Laden widows, who were said to be “hostile,” and one of whom may be the daughter of an Afghan Taliban commander (CNN, AP). There have been conflicting reports about the nationalities and identities of the women living in bin Laden’s compound.

The AP recounts bin Laden’s trail from September 11, 2001 to early 2003, revising several Western conventional wisdoms about bin Laden’s movements, and Reuters investigates U.S. attempts to hunt the al-Qaeda leader over the years (AP, Reuters). And the NYT assesses that jihadi reactions to bin Laden’s death indicate a void in the group’s leadership (NYT).

Deepening partnerships

As expected, yesterday Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh pledged an additional $500 million in aid to Afghanistan, bringing India’s total investment in the country to some $2 billion, in a move that “is likely to fuel Pakistani suspicions of Indian meddling in what Islamabad sees as its own backyard” (NYT, Tolo, WSJ, AJE). Singh also said India is “not like the U.S.” when asked by a reporter if India would launch a raid similar to the U.S.’s in Abbottabad (ET).

Five people were reportedly killed in a cross-border clash between Pakistani tribesmen and Afghan security forces yesterday (Dawn). NATO has apologized for the death of a 12 year old Afghan girl, who was killed along with her uncle in a night raid outside of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad (NYT). A man wearing an Afghan police uniform has killed an American soldier in Helmand (Pajhwok).

Virtual battleground

Video game developers have already released several games in which users can reenact bin Laden’s last stand, and in one version, players can choose whether to defend bin Laden or play as the Navy SEALs who carried out the raid (AFP, Kokatu, Toronto Star, NYDN, Wired). One of the games has already been downloaded at least 9,000 times (BBC).

The Political Smokescreen

By: Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

Pakistan’s inept and self-serving politicians are trying to up the ante in the federal political scene, ostensibly to make the people forget and ignore what happened on May 02

On May 02, 2011, the PPP-led federal government swore in two federal ministers, four state ministers and four other members from the PML-Q, the erstwhile murderers of Benazir Bhutto, the PPP chairperson who was assassinated in a terror attack on December 27, 2009. The President of Pakistan and widower of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, administered the oath. His expressions upon signing the appointment letters were a treat if watched carefully; the President muttered under his breath as he approved the PML-Q legislators as government ministers. PM Gilani, the chief executive of the Pakistan government, sat quietly like the ornamental piece he usually is when his colleague and fellow Co-Chairman is present. And while President Zardari is not shy to repeat the notion that his party and family has suffered from terrorism, it seems highly unlikely that he himself knows what terrorism in Pakistan really is, courtesy the security protocol and box cordon he enjoys as President of Pakistan. Perhaps even the soul of Benazir Bhutto has stopped asking for justice and for the capture and trial of her killers, after it has become apparent that nobody in Pakistan is safe, that any foreign power can come in, strike, and leave as it pleases, and that Pakistan is a country which showers praise and blessings on killers instead of demonizing them and reiterating the call of justice – Mumtaz Qadri is a perfect example.

Pakistan’s ‘free’ media quickly jumped on the story a month before it actually happened – main news channels covered the PPP-PML-Q negotiations on a daily basis, and presented conjecture over the give-and-take of ministries, portfolios and powers. The biggest party to suffer from this alliance, the PML-N, also appeared rudderless because its Quaid, Nawaz Sharif, was recovering after a near-death surgical experience in the UK. Of course, Chaudhry Nisar, the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, continued his tirade against the ‘bandar-baant’ (literally meaning ‘distributing to monkeys’) of ministries and portfolios. His party members said that Zulfikar Bhutto and Zahoor Elahi – political enemies in their day – would be turning in their graves if they could see what their scions and successors are doing. Interestingly, Ch Nisar forgot all about ‘what the ISI was doing’ – as he was repeatedly ranting about it in the last few days of April – after May 02, when the whole world started asking that question – albeit under the ambit of a wholly different issue. But the PML-N is overly glad that if it had to face backlash from the Raymond Davis affair, it can heap blame on the PPP for the Abbottabad operation. Of course, it might have an axe to grind as well – reports suggest that Osama bin Laden was a financier of Nawaz Sharif’s 1997 electoral campaign, in which he incidentally won more than two-thirds of the National Assembly seats and acquired the ability to change the country’s constitution at will.

Pakistan’s political parties – and the inept and self-interested politicians who fill their ranks – are only concerned about their own lives and person. After a dastardly and secret attack on the country’s sovereignty, political parties and politicians continued to play according to a script where their own political games can progress, while the sanctity and respect of the nation went to the dogs.

The PPP defended the Armed Forces and the nation not in its capacity as a political party, but as a begrudging responsibility that it carries as the federal government. Gibran Peshimam accurately states that “it was painful watching our prime minister fumble through a policy statement following the killing of the world’s most wanted man on Pakistani soil”. The PML-Q remained quiet – it became part of the government after Operation Geronimo had already finished – and busied itself with accumulated power and commencing the exercise thereof. The PML-N asked for accountability and transparency in the Armed Forces’ operations, and wants ‘heads to roll’ – its ultimate design is to cash in on the government’s failure over the entire OBL fiasco, according to Irfan Ghauri. Maybe Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother and Chief Minister of Punjab province, would do better if he increased the salaries of Pakistan’s young doctors – maybe then, Nawaz Sharif won’t have to go abroad for treatment.

The crucial question is why the Armed Forces – the Army, the ISI, the Air Force – were silent for a prolonged period after President Obama’s announcement. The answer is simple; they (wrongly) expected the civilian government – which claims that it is politically powerful and exercising oversight over the Armed Forces – to back them up and to defend the country against propaganda attacks and psychological warfare that would commence afterwards. However, Pakistan’s political parties themselves are experts in conducting psychological warfare against their own people – and the media is sometimes a willing participant in this pursuit. The Foreign Office of Pakistan, usually considered an ISI mouthpiece by the ‘liberal’ media, also tried to defend the Army, but made some statements that were later proven wrong (but still not retracted) like the issue of radar coverage, where the PAF denied that radars were jammed or switched off when US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace. On that day, Salman Bashir inadvertently allowed the media and security analysts to bash the FO as well as Pakistan, the Army, the Armed Forces in general, and the people of the country in general. Well, at least the FO tried to clear the air.

PM Gilani proceeded on a trip to France immediately after the dust settled from the Osama assassination – logic dictates that the PM should have cancelled all foreign trips after this shock. But it appears that nobody, not even the Prime Minister, would give up an opportunity to spend a few days outside the terror-infested, electricity-hungry, inflation-ridden country of Pakistan. Agreeing with this logic, President Zardari himself left for Kuwait on an official two-day visit.

Pretty soon, the MQM also joined the federal cabinet (again) after leaving it for the third time in this parliamentary tenure. The MQM’s national political policy seems to be similar to the social life of a ‘simple girl’ – immediately desisting, disengaging, and then running away whenever anyone gets ‘too close for comfort’. The PPP and the MQM need each other to run Sindh successfully and bring peace to Karachi. However, the MQM has a very acrimonious relationship with the ANP in Sindh – the ANP and PPP are also allies in the center, because the ANP carries the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The PPP’s ineptitude at politics becomes more evident when the practices of its partners fulfill the following paradigm; that the friend of my friend is my enemy (even though both belong to the same country).

In all this tumult, the PTI is continuing its mass contact and social mobilization campaign; its drive against drone strikes and in pursuit of stopping NATO passage through Pakistan was only bolstered when the Osama operation happened, and Imran Khan has been quick to demand the President and Prime Minister’s resignation over the matter. Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former Foreign Minister, senior party member of the PPP, and custodian of the shrines of Bahauddin Zikriya and Shah-Rukne-Alam, also demanded that the President and Prime Minister resign because they were unable to protect the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan – which they were sworn to by sacred oath. But the Pakistani media and its pundits are quick to discredit both these politicians, and lump them together as pawns of the ISI. How Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the PPP, Imran Khan of the PTI, and the ISI of the Pakistan Army, can be connected together in a single sentence (let alone under a single political banner) is a subject of inquiry that would baffle many political scientists, but the Pakistani media (with its vested interests) and the Pakistani people (with their love for conspiracies) believe it as matter of fact, and readily gulp down such “truths” on mere face value as and when the media feeds it to them. Nobody sees how a Sufi saint from Multan and a cricketing hero from Mianwali could agree on this point – maybe everyone forgets that both of these individuals are Pakistani, in a country where many citizens are Pakistani just in name; just for the sake of an identity. Maybe if Pakistan had more Pakistanis than N-leaguers and jiyalas, the country would not have been in such a state. Putting party and politics before country has become standard operating procedure for these politicians who lie, cheat and steal to get to the top. They lie to the people’s face, via the media, and claim to be sensitive to their problems when they are not even aware what their constituents’ problems are. Shahbaz Sharif represents the constituency of Bhakkar in the Punjab Assembly, yet has only visited ‘his constituency’ only 4 times since he got elected. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is going to inherit his grandfather’s electoral constituencies in Larkana, when he has barely spent more than 4-5 years of his entire life in Pakistan. So much for good governance and the rule of the people.

The religious parties in Pakistan redoubled their mass contact efforts against the US, and invested more vigor in their extremist campaign of turning Pakistan into a ‘devout and pious Islamic state’ where men will be defined by beards and women by the burka. Again, this is mere politicking – the religious parties know that if they stop haranguing the federal government and reminding the people about America, they will have no cards to play in the bluff game that is Pakistani politics. However, the shrewd Mubasher Lucman was successful in revealing the true face of these ‘America-hating’ religious parties: he showed that higher-level functionaries of these so-called anti-American religious parties were receiving funds from US donors (probably a state institution like USAID) to start up a children’s channel in Pakistan. Of course, when money comes in, religion can be bought and sold too. When the religious leaders of Pakistan have no qualms about declaring one person a Muslim and another an infidel (on the basis of questionable factors, if there are any factors to consider) it becomes more plausible to understand how illiteracy and absence of social safety nets pushes uneducated Muslim families closer to their imam’s and ulema’s, who can proceed to extort and manipulate them in the name of Allah, train their children to kill people and blow themselves up, and be free from prosecution and blame because they are ‘men of the beard’ (like priests are ‘men of the cloth’).

The fact remains that the people of Pakistan will suffer because of Osama’s death: while the government and Armed Forces remain insulated, it is the Pakistani people who will be called terrorists and extremists by the international community. The Pakistani people will be blamed for harbouring terrorists, and the Pakistani people will also continue to be killed by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and Al Qaeda for the ‘betrayal’ of Osama bin Laden.

Ammar Aziz is absolutely right when he says that “this assassination of Osama bin Laden is meaningless unless each one of us kills the Osama within. Otherwise they will keep killing you, me and all of us.” The same security paradigm is true for an effective political ethos; we as Pakistanis must stop blaming an ineffective government and stop depending on it; Pakistanis must resolve to take their problems head on, and resolve them collectively, otherwise other people (Pakistanis and foreigners) will continue to take advantage of the country’s problems and its people’s anger against the status quo.

Right now, the biggest existential threat that Pakistan faces does not come from within; it comes from itself.

EXPOSED: The US-Saudi Libya deal

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a “yes”

vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya – the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, “This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner.”

As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to “seduce” three other members to get the vote.

Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.

Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.

Profiteers rejoice

Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a “conspiracy”, as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud – saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P – “responsibility to protect” does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new – oily – human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.

Whatever they say won’t alter the facts on the ground – the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There’s no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League’s Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya – even the water. And we’re not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.

Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that’s just a “kinetic military action”.

There’s been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate – and short of the “coalition of the willing” bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion – Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.

But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame (“Gaddafi must go”, in President Obama’s own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won’t settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.

Round up the unusual suspects

One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, “they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there’s no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi’ites.”

For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.

The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that’s an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.

Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi’ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement – way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout – smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state – was “neither Sunni nor Shi’ite; Bahraini”.

What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was “bullet-friendly Bahrain” replacing “business-friendly Bahrain”, and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.

And the repression goes on – invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them “arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries – they wear black masks in the streets.” Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.

Globocop is on a roll

Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector – led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the “kinetic military action ” to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.

The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libya; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the “rebels”. Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak – with attached “collateral damage” – should be expected.

A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the “rebels”. There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.

The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) – a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new “military commander” and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement – which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising – has been completely sidelined.

This is NATO’s first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO’s first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN’s weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its “strategic concept” approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).

Gaddafi’s Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean – the mare nostrum of ancient Rome – becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO “partnerships”. The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Moreover, two members of NATO’s “Istanbul Cooperation Initiative” – Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That’s too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.

According to the Obama administration’s own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for “US outreach” – such as in Bahrain and Yemen – may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for “regime alteration”, from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND MAKE ENEMIES

By Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

In the 25 years of the Viet Nam war what lives on in most memories is the MY LAI massacre where US soldiers under the command of an officer deliberately massacred an entire village of men, women and children as sport. The fact that Bangkok was turned into a brothel for US military personnel and that there was widespread domestic dissent against the US war in Viet Nam leading to protests and refusal to enlist and that the veterans of that war still suffer are lesser known facts.

In the invasion of Iraq the most remembered fact is the ABU GHARAIB prison incident where male and female US soldiers tortured Iraqis using dogs and disgraced them with nudity and other disgraceful acts. Iraqis and the world are not going to forget this humiliation. Neither will they forget that the ‘vital interest’ that drove the US to invade Iraq was oil and Israeli security under the blatant lie of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. In the process the US unwittingly gave Iran security and created the ‘Iranian threat’ that now looms large in US minds as the Middle East explodes into rage against US supported dictators and monarchs.

In Afghanistan what started as an ass-kicking response to 911 has turned into a nightmare. The images remembered by the Afghans who have long memories will be of the nine children killed as they worked in the fields, the two little children killed while fetching water and the Der Spiegel picture of grinning US soldiers posing with their ‘trophy kill’—a brutally killed Afghan bloodied and naked.  The ‘Afghans’ who side with the US in the so called war on terror are running out of excuses for US excesses while those who are fighting for their freedom are raging mad. The ‘vital interest’ that brought the US to Afghanistan with their NATO allies is of course the underground wealth in the region and containment of Russia and China. The killers were a ‘killer squad’ that hunted Afghans and killed them for sport.

Pakistan stands destabilized with its economy ruined and its Army involved against insurgents ‘created’ by the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan. Pakistanis rue the day they became a US ally as they contemplate the aftermath of the killing spree by the CIA operative ‘Raymond Davis’ and the Drone attack on tribesmen gathered for a ‘jirga’ that left 45 dead. Pakistanis think that the ‘vital interest’ that the US has in their country is their nukes and the double pincer for this are Afghanistan and India—and of course the Davis type killers let loose inside the country.

As European and US jets pound Libya there are some dates that will be remembered. The League of Arab Nations asked for international intervention on March12, the US Ambassador to the UN pushed for intervention on March 16 even though the US President had expressed reservations earlier and the UN passed a resolution on March 17 authorizing wide ranging intervention in Libya and on March 21st French planes began the intervention by bombing and killing their former friends –the Libyans. The Arab League whether it acted on its own or was ‘prompted’ has now back tracked after seeing the monster they helped create—but it is too late. The vital interest this time is the entire Middle East as the people rise against monarchs and dictators and want a say in their destiny. The seeds for wide ranging sectarian conflict are being laid starting from Bahrain where a ‘coalition’ headed by Sunni Saudi Arabia has intervened against the majority Shia. The air campaign against Libya with the most advanced Western technology highlights the obsolescence of aging Soviet systems that a Libya lulled into complacency is fielding. Europe wants a share in the spoils and is happy to lead just as the US is happy to take a back seat in the events that will unfold as Libya becomes a long drawn war that suits western interests.

The Islamists wait for the pendulum to swing in their favor as disillusioned people discover their real enemy and look for friends elsewhere. The US is speeding up this process by atrocities that defy logic—probably because it needs enemies and not friends to keep NATO going.

Pressure Tactics

By Ghalib Sultan

The recent New York Times article (NYT, Monday 20th November) that focuses on possible US military operations across the Pakistan-Afghan border into Pakistan to pursue Taliban and destroy sanctuaries may not be accurate but it is not that far off the mark as is being suggested. It has to be seen in the overall context of the pressure being orchestrated to get Pakistan to eliminate ‘Taliban sanctuaries’ in the FATA and Baluchistan. These ‘sanctuaries’ are being seen as the main reason for continued Taliban resistance, even resurgence, in Afghanistan by the US and their hosts-the Afghan government. The US wants Pakistan to ‘sanitize’ these sanctuaries.

The pressure on Pakistan to ‘act’ was always there. It has picked up dramatic momentum after the US Afghan War Strategy Review. Several tracks are being used to create a cumulative effect. There is the impression being created that the political government wants to fast track the normalization process with India and respond positively to US demands for action in the western border areas but the ‘establishment’ (euphemism for the military and intelligence-ISI) are the stumbling blocks. Needless to say both India and the Afghan government support this view. The ‘establishment’ is being projected as the real force calling the shots in the country and having its own agenda linked to its resource requirements. The past is dredged up to focus on old transgressions like interventions and policies that led to negative consequences and a blowback that has destabilized the country. Doubts are periodically raised about the security of strategic assets and a past proliferation episode is repeatedly presented with ‘new’ and ‘just uncovered’ dimensions to involve the military institution. There has been a most significant surge in drone strikes and this has led to outrage in civil society. Linked to this is the media report of possible US cross-border operations against ‘sanctuaries’. Within the domestic context the overall effect is that anti-US sentiment increases, the military gets blamed for passivity and for giving unprecedented access to the US (WIKILEAKS confirmed this!). Inevitably decision making becomes difficult because no military waging a counter-insurgency campaign can afford to be alienated from civil society. The government and the military also cannot act in tandem if there is the perception of a civil military divide-especially if this perception is created and nurtured.

Where this orchestrated campaign takes us cannot be predicted but it is clear that it will not lead to a situation that Pakistan desires. Pakistan (including the ‘establishment) wants a government-military-civil society relationship that is seen to be pulling in the same strategic direction and jointly resisting the attempts to cause discord or create the perception of discord. Pakistan understands its internal environment better than anybody else and knows that economic viability, security and internal harmony are interlinked and sensing the change in the regional balance of power knows that there cannot be a push for anything other than a threat reduction policy – this has implications for Pakistan’s policies towards India and Afghanistan. Pakistan – neither the government nor the establishment – can allow themselves to be railroaded into actions that lead to imbalance and violence across the country in a period of economic vulnerability. There is full understanding in Pakistan that sections of the western border areas are havens for drugs and weapon smugglers, bomb makers, suicide bomber trainers, criminals, kidnappers, insurgents and terrorists and would-be terrorists from across the world as well as Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda and various other organizations that are active in the region. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries directly affected but legitimate concerns exist in the Central Asian States, Russia, China, India, Iran and countries that have disenchanted segments of society. Why would Pakistan want ‘sanctuaries’ that threaten it on its soil if it can act to destroy them?

So ‘sanctuaries’ are neither a US discovery nor an exclusive concern of the US. It follows that Pakistan would want its writ across its western border areas and stability within the country. The question is what effect is the US presence in Afghanistan having, how long this presence going to continue and how is it going to end – if ever? Clarity on this could do much to shape regional policies. The US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue should either lead to an understanding of respective positions or it should be treated as a façade behind which transactional and expedient policies are being implemented by those who lack the vision to see beyond the tactical domain – the orchestrated pressures and manipulated perceptions then start making sense. The drugs-weapons-dollars chain needs to be seriously challenged. Border security needs to be enhanced by a multi state effort. The ambiguity surrounding drone strikes and their targets is no longer sustainable and an agreed policy has to be evolved. Intelligence coordination on a regional basis is badly needed to track the dispersal of terrorists and exposure of their sponsors. Economic aid and support measures have to be raised to levels that compensate the countries involved for what they are losing. An overall environment has to be created for a negotiated political settlement that is acceptable to all and that survives the US/NATO withdrawal.