By Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.
Pakistan stuffed in a box by its foreign creditors and political masters looks desperate for political change. But the authoritarian rulers of over 40 years left Pakistan incapacitated to change on its own. New THINKING and New VISION is the need of the time. Ignorance originating from individualistic absolutism governs the Muslim nation disconnected with its roots of Islamic thoughts, values and culture. Pakistani rulers are devoid of political imagination and have no sense of the present or the future to comprehend. The fatal deficiency in their mind, soul and character reflects insensitivity, indifference and literal mindedness to the interests of the people. The corrupt politicians see the people as digits and numbers to be used in elections and not as active participants to build the democratic system of governance. Reflecting on the current affairs, it is crystal clear that Pakistan is being governed by the wrong people, with wrong thinking and doing the wrong actions. The THINKING people of the nation must initiate planned steps and organize collective ideas and ideals to safeguard the integrity and future of Pakistan. The priorities must be focused on developing a new system of economic and political governance by disconnecting the interdependence on foreign debts and dictates. The nation is at its critical and painful juncture of very survival. Under the circumstances, what is there to celebrate? The symbolic Pakistan Day celebrations will remain devoid of much needed change and reformation aim of the institutionalized corrupt system of governance. Pakistan is in desperate need of a New Political System befitting to its people and values to ensure a viable future.
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For long, the Western intelligencia framed Pakistan as a “failed state” – a beggar nation merely surviving on foreign aid and unpayable 60 billion IMF debts. Most Western politicians view Pakistani rulers as hired puppets flourishing by trading their individual interests for national interests. Recently, the Foreign Policy magazine ran focused coverage on “Pakistan as the most dangerous place on earth.” Theses assertions were outcome of planned scheme of things to question the integrity of Pakistan as an independent Muslim nation. The embodying scenarios and contentions explain how internal conflicts, denial of services to the common citizens, legitimacy of the government, measures against corruption, poor management of the nation’s resources and affairs are counted as dyfunction factors to assert the conclusion. Conscientious Pakistanis should have taken serious notice of these challenging indicators and how they will affect the governance and futuristic development of a nation; certainly, the military regime of General Musharaf at the time and now the PPP Zardari in power would reject these claims. Undoubtedly, the deprived masses appear tense and uncertain of a promising future. The US policy has articulated the “Islamic terrorism” phenomenon originating from Pakistani soil and have enlarged its scope to make unchallenged drone attacks on the Pakistani civilians in the tribal belts killing almost few thousands civilians so far. If this would have happened in the US, American president would have launched many retaliatory wars against the intruders. Pakistani politicians are complacent in killing their own masses to maintain the politics of power and foreign influence.
General Musharaf, the then self-styled president was bribed and bought to make common Pakistanis look like as “terrorist” , the image America and Britain wanted to carve out for the Muslim nation. He was rewarded and lives in $1.4 million mansion in London under 24 hours British security protection. The Pakistani masses bleeding hearts and neglected talents could only hold demonstrations and strikes against the present Zaradri regime that does not represent the will of the people. If you want to analyze the progress and history under broader perspectives, most pages will go blank for the chapter on Pakistan. Intellectual and moral data ceases to exist because there was no moral or intellectual leadership to generate such vital information. Comparatively, India could gather data and considerable insights to illustrate its own contemporary progress and ancient history-though mostly developed by Muslim rulers and Islamic civilization. What freedom meant to India, is not the same to Pakistan. India enjoyed continued political leadership, whereas, Pakistanis with Jinnah’s death, lost what could have been their ideological foundation and viable political values. Secular India developed parliamentary system of government, short and long range planning models for public institutions, sustainable economic and industrial infrastructures, educational development and strong armed forces. It can celebrate what it has achieved so far. Painful as is to find rational space to have celebration for the Pakistan Day-March 23. After more than six decades of freedom from the British colonial rule, almost 50 years were stolen by the military Generals, who could not think right nor act as Muslim Generals in the interest of Pakistani nation. The ordinary folks are still looking for recognition of basic human needs, rights, equality, security and justice. There are full time high life privileges for the affluent class but nothing for the ordinary citizens except demonstrations, social and intellectual deprivation and lost sense of identity. How would the nation reconnect itself to the forgotten purpose and meaning of the Lahore Resolution of March 1940 for an independent Pakistan?
The Lahore Resolution (March 23, 1940) of the Muslim League unanimously demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim majority living in the Indian sub-continent, democratic rights, and freedom to establish and practice Islam as a system of life and to be progressive country in a global community of independent nations. None of it reflects from the half leftover Pakistan after India invaded the eastern part in 1970, and carved up Bangladesh, out of what was called East Pakistan. Defeated Generals should have learned a lesson to be shameful and accountable to the nation. Not so, they became the rulers of the militarily weak nation for long time to come. While this historical drama was in progress in concert with the then military dictators and accomplice politicians, the friendly US diplomats were describing Pakistan as “ drowning dog.” They knew well what was happening, not the common Pakistanis. After almost forty years, what has changed, if any? Nothing at all. Few years back, the Washington Post displayed its own freewill journalistic caricature- depicting General Musharaf as “dog” – a friend of America and active collaborator in its “War on Terrorism” – in reality, a new form of crusade against Islam and practicing Muslims across the globe. President Bush and General Musharaf worked hard to convince the humanity that the war on terrorism is real. Muslims opposing the war are called “foreigners”, “terrorists” and “insurgents”, while Americans are described as advisors. Deception is known to be the art of diplomacy and war. Most Western intellectuals with living conscious, would tell forthright,” it is a lie”, and “this war is a fraud.” Not to the Pakistani Generals and Mr. Zardari, it is a means of survival, and a reason to afloat their combined powerhouse. The masses and the national ideology have no role to play in this paradigm. Zardari gang and the Generals appear immune from any accountability. Those daring to challenge the absurdity of the military sponsored governance, often become ‘insurgents’ and undesirable ‘foreigners’ in their own homeland. No wonder, who is truly Pakistani, the colonial based institution of the Generals, the known thugs like Zardari or the freedom loving masses who demanded, strived and created the free homeland?
America and British policy planners are happy, their plans and strategies are effectively in place to break up the integrity of Pakistan. Conflict-making and conflict keeping is the order in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier provinces and the adjacent tribal belts of north-south Waziristan. The foreign strategic planners contend that the Baluchis and Pakhtoons as minorities in Pakistan. India will be keen to see more dismemberment of Pakistan. In recent months, the BBC broadcast several bogus interviews with political activists and so called specialists on Pakistan. These planned efforts are aimed at to fuel the provincial insurgency and conflicts and disintegration of the Muslim nation. American drone attacks and the war in Afghanistan have made things worst for the security of Pakistan. After Ms Bhutto, Sharif, General Musharaf, and now Zaradri is the best hope for futuristic hegemonic rule both of the US and India. Therefore, to appease the friendly nations, the ruling elite must celebrate Pakistan Day to forge relationship with the ideology of Muslim homeland. They are stranger to the essence of the Pakistan Day. To an educated Pakistani, it may be an insult to watch the military parade on Pakistan Day while the nation experiences daily bloodbaths and terrorism. What good the military has done for the common citizens? History tells us, there was no military factor involved, and it was the help of God and will of the people contributing to the emergence of Pakistan Movement and the birth of a free Islamic nation.
What has been destroyed systematically by the stupid Generals and the wicked politicians, cannot be recovered on its own. Educated Pakistanis used to describe the fertile lands of Sind and the Five Rivers-Punjab, “our culture is agriculture.” Not any more, once home grown foods like sugar, wheat and other commodities are now imported from abroad. What went wrong with the fertile lands of Pakistan? The Al-Qura’an (Surah Al-Furqhan), mentions, how the deeds of the people affect the environmental growth and natural productivity of human development. Ignorance to the Divine message and man-made corruption spoils the fertility of land and creative energies of humanity. A fact most often unknown to agricultural scientists. Recently, an American scholar remarked on President Bush led bogus war on Iraq: “we know the enemy, he is in us”, so do most Pakistanis. The military rule has stolen more than forty years of lifetime of the country. The nation’s agriculture lifeline has been endangered by the official neglect and corrupt practices of urbanization. Economy makes no headways under the continued IMF debts of $64 billion dollars, being unable to pay the annual interest without additional borrowing. No national productivity except on bureaucratic papers, political institutions dismantled, only dummy Parliament and the Senate are in session to float the PPP thieves and deceive the masses. To rationalize the irrational, Zardari makes references to the dead Bhuttos. How could dead people be a hope for the future of Pakistan? Would the Pakistani history offer any honorable reference to thugs and criminals?
China and India are the emerging new economic powers of Asia. Nobody wants to invest in a society governed by the military dictators and criminals like Zardari, Rahman Malik and Gilani as they have neither relevance nor value in the contemporary global affairs. India with the blessing of the Western powers, have plans for “dissecting” Pakistan, and ‘slicing’ it into half in its preparation of the war games. Ironically, most will agree, this is not the time and age for the secular military Generals to run a culturally sensitive, Islamic value-based nation of Pakistan. Those fellow Pakistanis with living conscience and Thinking Power, must contemplate, how the corrupt politicians and their accomplice military Generals, devoid of reason and intellectual foresights, could possibly help to reform and rebuild the nation? If agreeable, what are the practical solutions and a way out of the accumulated insecurity and instability? Another military coup? No. Obviously, that is going to create more problems than resolve any peacefully. With political institutions dismantled by the Generals, the nation does not seem to have the intellectual capacity to come out of the problematic box and see beyond for its sustainable future and protective measures for its integrity. Understandably, when people are governed and victimized by ignorant and insane politicians, they lose sense of rational thinking about the self and the environment and become void of productivity. This appears to be a clear burden on human conscience prevalent throughout the Pakistani culture.
Where corruption is housed, ignorance and stupidity overrun the human conscience. People and nation fail to THINK of positive thoughts and actions to change the filthy environment – fair becomes foul, foul is fair- a cultural decadence like the Western industrialized societies. Pakistani society appears to be locked-in a corruption-led system of governance for decades and becoming more and more crippled to opt out of the cancerous sickness. Leaders create leaders. The Generals, Bhuttos, Sharifs and Zardari are not the leaders but bootlickers of the West and by-products of the neo-colonial military rule. The British system produced subservient subjects, not visionary leaders for the Muslim nation. Those so-called self-appointed leaders who have been living on stolen wealth and borrowed time, how could they offer any proactive leadership vision for change, reformation and nation-building? There is nothing to celebrate except a time to reflect at our own wrong thinking and incapacitated state of the national affairs, so helpless that instead of being active reformers, most have succumbed to be pacifist spectators. Pakistan needs change but there is no systematic mechanism to foresee or visualize a democratic plan for political change and future-building. Some 30 years earlier, I asked late General Zia ul-Haq, what would our history say, why the succeeding generations of Muslims failed to produce leaders like Salahuddin, Allama Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Qutb, Al-Mushraqi, and Mowdoodi? He replied without attempting to answer the focal question. Contemporary history finds no respectable place for the oppressive military rulers and wicked politicians in nation building.
Ruined agriculture cannot be restored nor lands ploughed by tanks and guns and criminal leaders. Educated people educate others, and build public institutions, not the army. Traders and private investors run economic markets; nobody invests where military dictators and political thieves control the country. Whether you like it or not, look at today’s Pakistan where the ruling elite and the masses seem to be living in two different time zones, without meeting of minds, necessities for survival and priorities for security. America led war on terrorism is killing Pakistanis and large scale daily civilian blood baths speak their own language of the political cruelty of the so called leaders. Tanks, guns and bullets produce nothing, they destroy all living things. With Zardari, Pakistan is losing its respect and integrity. Shame to their common sense if India will talk on Kashmir. Shame to Pakistani Generals and their level of intelligence if they expect politically strong Indian leadership to have a genuine dialogue on the settlement of Kashmir. Pakistan under Zardari is operating from a position of political weakness, not strength to search for a peaceful resolution of Kashmir. There is an overwhelming sense of political insecurity. Will you celebrate the Pakistan’s 71 years of democratic demand for an independent homeland? It will be reasonable to ask for the legal trial and accountability of General Musharaf, Sharif, Zardari, and so many others who have stolen the future prospects of a democratic Pakistan. The educated and visionary Pakistanis particularly those living abroad and non-partisan would need to work hard for change and reformation of the corrupt political governance. If they hope that Zardari or Sharif or the Generals will change, it is mere a hope without a hope as FOOL never learns nor admits evil mistakes. In his Total Truth Sciences, Jon Roland lists few characteristics of the fools:
- A fool is anyone who refuses to abandon evil even when
corrected. - A fool is anyone who's conduct does not change even after
experiencing the painful consequences of their foolish actions - A fool is anyone who considers any pursuit of
understanding to be wasted effort. - A fool is always at the center of strive and contention.
- A fool refuses to admit his mistakes even when his pain is
the obvious result of his actions.
If Allama Iqbal, Quaid-e- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah or Liaqaut Ali were alive today, most likely they would have refused to be identified as part of the Pakistani political culture. The major paradoxes of Pakistan’s history illustrate that its time for change, opportunities for development and resources for progress were stolen by its own egomaniac and insane rulers. To undo the darkened past and reshape the present, Pakistan urgently NEEDS educated, visionary and proactive leadership and public institutions to rebuild its essential capacity to safeguard its integrity, survival and future as a Muslim Nation moving forward to pursue change and social and economic development infrastructures for the deprived people. The Generals, Bhuttos, Sharif, and Zardari are part of the problem, not a remedy for the future. The solution must come from the THINKING people of the new generation of educated, honest and proactive Pakistanis to facilitate HOPE and PROMISE for a sustainable political future of the beleaguered nation. The essence of time would demand prompt collective action for change and reformation process of the corrupt political governance, not a space for neutrality, confrontational argument and inaction. This should be the agenda and resolve of the Pakistan Day- a Day of freedom from captivity of the few ignorant and absurd rulers.
cajoling and arms twisting against Palestine independence
Six eastern European members of the European Union, which have not decided on how to vote on Palestinian sovereignty, are due to be visited by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Lieberman. The countries are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Netanyahu and Lieberman will undoubtedly play the "Holocaust card," stressing that these nations "owe" Israel for Nazi crimes committed on their soil during the Second World War. Lieberman is also expected to visit Croatia and Macedonia where he will also likely play the "Holocaust card."
By Wayne Madsen
Like the "Wandering Jew" of Christian folklore, doomed to wander the earth for taunting Jesus on his way to the crucifixion, modern-day Israeli diplomats are being forced to wander the globe to pressure member states of the United Nations, large and small, to vote against Palestine's bid for recognition by the UN General Assembly in September.
Obviously, the pressure being exerted by Israel's Foreign Ministry, led by Jewish anti-Arab racist Avigdor Lieberman, ruffled some feathers among some of Israel's more seasoned diplomats. Key elements of Israel's strategy to derail Palestine's bid for recognition, contained in classified cables to Israeli overseas posts, were recently leaked to the Israeli paper Haaretz.
Six eastern European members of the European Union, which have not decided on how to vote on Palestinian sovereignty, are due to be visited by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Lieberman. The countries are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Netanyahu and Lieberman will undoubtedly play the "Holocaust card," stressing that these nations "owe" Israel for Nazi crimes committed on their soil during the Second World War. Lieberman is also expected to visit Croatia and Macedonia where he will also likely play the "Holocaust card."
The use of the "Holocaust card" is a quintessential Netanyahu ploy as evidenced by his past use of it before the UN General Assembly two years ago to criticize Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks before the assembly and the failure of some members to boycott the Iranian leader's speech.
Israel has also used Holocaust guilt to pressure Germany and Italy, the two top European Axis powers in World War II, into opposing the Palestine recognition bid. In European countries that generally favor the Palestinian cause, particularly Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Belgium, and Portugal, Israel is relying on local and other European Jewish businessmen and politicians, including the super-elite Rothschild family, to advocate against a "yes" vote for Palestinian sovereignty. Ireland, Portugal, and Belgium, seeing a drastic collapse of their economies, are particularly vulnerable to pressure from international banking cartels over their UN votes concerning Palestine.
Another Israeli effort is targeting the nations of the former USSR to vote "no" on the Palestine resolution. These include a number of predominantly Muslim nations, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, in addition to Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, in addition to Mongolia, a former member of the Soviet bloc. The Israelis are also playing the "Holocaust card" in nations like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.
Israel's strategy is to prevent a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly, in accordance with the Cold War-era U.S.-contrived "Uniting for Peace" proviso, that would trump an expected U.S. veto of Palestine's sovereignty recognition by the UN Security Council, where a single "no" vote by a permanent member, would derail Palestine's bid for UN membership. By invoking Uniting for Peace, Palestine's supporters can pass a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution recognizing Palestine's sovereignty within 1967 borders and call for sanctions against Israel for violating Palestine's sovereignty.
Israel's goal is to prevent Palestine from achieving the two-thirds, 128 votes, either by a "no" vote or an abstention or non-vote, required for passage of the Uniting for Peace resolution. Even Europe's smallest states — Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, Cyprus, and Montenegro — are being subjected to massive pressure from Israeli diplomats and European Jewish interlocutors.
Neither are the UN's smallest states immune to Israeli pressure. In April, the Knesset speaker, Reuven Rivlin, visited the south Pacific nation of Tonga to lobby for a "no" vote on Palestine. Israel is also relying on Jewish lobby groups in Australia and New Zealand, for example, the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and the New Zealand Jewish Council, to pressure the diplomatic missions of other south Pacific mini-states in Canberra and Wellington, respectively, into voting "no" on Palestine. Israel envoys and interlocutors may have secured "no" votes from Tonga, Samoa, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, and Nauru. However, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Fiji still appear to be up-for-grabs. Israel is waging a vigorous operation to secure a "no" vote from Kiribati but Vanuatu recently slapped Israel's ally, the Republic of Georgia, by recognizing as independent the secessionist Republic of Abkhazia.
The south Pacific effort is being mirrored in the Western Hemisphere by groups like the America Israel Public Afffairs Committee (AIPAC), American Jewish Committee, and Canada Israel Committee for Public Affairs (CIPAC) to influence those uncommitted nations in Central America and the Caribbean, many reliant on tourism from the United States and Canada, to vote "no" on Palestine in the General Assembly. Chief targets for the Jewish groups include quake-devastated Haiti, which is extremely vulnerable to international banking pressure; Jamaica; the Bahamas; Barbados; St. Lucia; Antigua and Barbuda; Grenada; Belize; Panama; Honduras; Guatemala; and Costa Rica. Israel already has a "no" vote from Colombia in its pocket.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon lobbied Latin American and Caribbean nations at the recent Organization of American States (OAS) summit in El Salvador to vote "no" on Palestine. Ayalon indicated that Israel can expect "no" votes from Jamaica, Belize, Guyana, Suriname, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Colombia. Guyana and Suriname recently recognized Palestine's independence within the 1967 borders. Ayalon said he also believes he has secured a "no" vote from Mexico and that Israel may expect a reveral of support for Palestine from a number of Latin American nations that previously recognized Palestine's independence, including Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Venezuela, through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA), is countering Israeli and Jewish lobbying efforts by trying to ensure "yes" votes for Palestine by ALBA members Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Venezuela is also using its economic clout with its oil recipients, including Belize, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, and Saint Lucia, to ensure that Israel's lobbying efforts in the region fail.
Leaving no nation up for grabs in the struggle for votes, Israel has also targeted small nations of Africa and Asia, including overwhelmingly Muslim Maldives and Comoros in the Indian Ocean. Others receiving Israeli and Jewish attention are Bhutan, Nepal, East Timor, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Seychelles, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Papua New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Swaziland, Togo, Benin, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, and Sao Tome and Principe.
Ayalon has indicated he has also secured a "no" vote from Japan after meeting with Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Yutaka Banno and that Israeli lobbying of UN Security Council members South Africa and Nigeria may result in at least abstentions on Palestine.
South Sudan, expected to become the UN's 193rd member before the General Assembly vote, is expected to vote "no" in support of Israel, which provided the south Sudanese with military and other aid in its long civil war against the central Sudanese government in Khartoum.
Israel is currently hosting a mayor's conference in Jerusalem, sponsored by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the American Council for World Jewry, and those mayors from the Philippines, Malta, Peru, Cape Verde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, El Salvador, Tanzania, Uruguay, Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Hungary will most certainly be pressured by Israeli officials to apply pressure on their own governments for a "no" or abstention on Palestinian sovereignty.
Drawing down troops from Afghanistan is the right move. Now it's time to focus on the real threat in the neighborhood: the one coming from Pakistan.
By John Kerry
This week, President Barack Obama fulfilled a promise he made to the American people in 2009 to begin responsibly ending the war in Afghanistan. His decision to withdraw 33,000 troops from the country over the next year came from a position of strength, thanks in large part to our men and women in uniform and their civilian counterparts who helped break the Taliban's momentum.
We brought Osama bin Laden to justice and defeated al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It is now time to reduce the U.S. footprint and for Afghans to take charge of their country and its future. It is time to focus on the real threats in the region: those that emanate from Pakistan.
Much work remains to be done, and the withdrawal should be seen as the beginning of a new path toward success. The steps that the United States, the Afghans, and the international community need to take in the coming months are clear and achievable.
First, we must recognize that we will still be fighting two separate but intertwined wars. The first is against Mullah Omar's Taliban in southern Afghanistan, the group that provided sanctuary to al Qaeda. We must make sure they never do that again. The president's surge gave our military the forces it needed to launch robust operations against the Afghan Taliban, weaken its base, and force its leadersto consider negotiations as a way to survive. Our reconciliation efforts are mostly aimed at this group, which may be driven by a radical interpretation of Islam but whose interests are confined to Afghanistan.
The other war is against those who are likely irreconcilable and dedicated to attacking us, chiefly the Haqqani network and its allies in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. As our troops shift from the south to the east, their mission should shift accordingly from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism. It's the job of the Afghan security forces to win hearts and minds. Along the border with Pakistan, where insurgent groups pose a major threat, we should continue to train and work closely with elite Afghan units and the Pakistani military to root them out once and for all. There will be no rest for those who seek to do us harm.
Second, we must work with Pakistan to satisfy both our interests in Afghanistan and Islamabad's. This won't be easy. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated sharply since bin Laden was killed near Pakistan's premier military academy. American politicians and the public have responded with incredulity to the notion that the world's most wanted man was hiding in plain sight a couple of hours from the capital city of Islamabad, and Pakistan's leaders were angered and embarrassed by the violation of the country's sovereignty. The task is difficult, too, because some insurgent networks have long-standing ties to the Pakistani state, which has used them as proxies in the fight against India and permits them sanctuaries from which they attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. At the same time, other insurgents have attacked Pakistani security forces and civilians, killing more than 35,000 people.
Despite these differences, there is common ground with Pakistan. We have shared interest in a political deal to end the conflict in Afghanistan and allow the exodus of U.S. troops. We also share an interest in reining in the extremists who are attacking Pakistan and avoiding another Mumbai-style attack that could destabilize Pakistan-India relations. We need to build on these common interests.
Third, we must push for a political settlement in Afghanistan because ultimately there can be no military solution to the country's problems. This is why I am heartened that the Obama administration is seriously pursuing talks with the Taliban. For reconciliation to work and be enforced, we have to listen closely to our Afghan and Pakistani partners to make sure any deal reflects their real interests and has regional support. We also want to make certain that the rights of all Afghans, including women and minorities, are protected. We can help negotiate a regional framework for Afghanistan that includes key players such as Pakistan, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, neighboring countries in Central Asia — and even Iran, with which the United States has begun preliminary talks. Tehran's interests and influence in Afghanistan merit a place at the table at some point.
Fourth, we should make sure that the Afghan leaders and people know that the fate of their country now lies in their own hands. President Hamid Karzai has said he will honor the Afghan Constitution and step aside in 2014 as the country holds its next presidential election. This will be a key opportunity for Afghans to chart a new course.
A successful transition will be challenging. We need to rethink how best to build and sustain the Afghan army and police in order to leave behind an effective, targeted security force — not 350,000 unpaid, armed, and angry soldiers. And we have to take concrete steps to prevent the collapse of the wartime economy we have helped create, such as slowly reducing our assistance and working with other donors to set a standard wage so that we stop hiring so many of Afghanistan's qualified civil servants to work for foreign governments and organizations.
Karzai must do his part, too. This means putting the Afghan economy on track by supporting International Monetary Fund negotiations to develop acceptable banking standards, achieving financial stability, and resolving the Kabul Bank crisis; restoring legitimacy to parliament by overturning the special elections tribunal, which is trying to throw out the results of last year's parliamentary elections; and taking firm steps to combat the predatory corruption that alienates the Afghan people from their government.
The road home from Afghanistan will not be easy. Wars do not end overnight, and we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past by abandoning the region. Even as our troops withdraw, the Taliban and others should understand that the United States remains committed for the long run and will never again tolerate extremist sanctuaries that threaten our interests. But if we focus on what is necessary, achievable, and sustainable, our troops can come home while leaving behind a stable Afghanistan capable of charting its own future.
Courtesy Foreign Policy.
ISRAEL AND THE TACTICS OF MISTAKE
Given the pervasiveness of Zionist influence in the US government and its intelligence and security agencies (including of course the Defense Department), two broad scenarios are possible. One is that the neo-cons and their cohorts were in the driver's seat with Israel in the passenger seat with a map and the baggage. The second sees Israel driving with the neo-cons and others handling the map and baggage. But they were both in the same car on the road to and from 9/11. Both were embedded in aspects of the planning and execution of the catastrophe, the wars it spawned and the wars its architects now want us to wage in Israel’s name, linking treason and treachery in tandem no matter where the emphasis is placed.
By Dr. Alan Sabrosky
Many years ago I read a fascinating discussion of the "tactics of mistake." This essentially entailed using a target's prejudices and preconceptions to mislead them as to the origin and intent of the attack, entrapping them in a tactical situation that later worked to the attacker's strategic advantage.
This is what unfolded in the 9/11 attacks that led us into the matrix of wars and conflicts, present (Afghanistan and Iraq), planned (Iran and Syria) and projected (Jordan and Egypt), that benefit Israel and no other country — although I concede that many private contractors and politicians are doing very well for themselves out of the death and misery of others.
I am also absolutely certain as a strategic analyst that 9/11 itself, from which all else flows, was a classic Mossad-orchestrated operation. But Mossad did not do it alone. They needed local help within America (and perhaps elsewhere) and they had it, principally from some alumni of PNAC (the misnamed Project for a New American Century) and their affiliates within and outside of the US Government (USG), who in the 9/11 attacks got the “catalytic event” they needed and craved to take the US to war on Israel’s behalf, only eight months after coming into office.
Genesis of the Deception
That was not how it seemed at first, of course. Lists of names and associations of the alleged hijackers quickly surfaced in official US accounts and mainstream media (MSM) reports, pointing to Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda group, then largely in Afghanistan. Bin Laden denied responsibility, saying in effect that while he thanked Allah that the attacks had occurred, he had not done it, but the US demanded that the Taliban governing Afghanistan turn him over to the US. The Taliban response was reasonable: "Show us the evidence he did it and we'll give him to you." But the US brushed it off and attacked. Why? Because it had no convincing evidence, and never would — even on the eve of his public death in 2011, the FBI did not include 9/11 on his internet-based “Most Wanted” charge sheet.
As the war in Afghanistan for very dubious reasons extended into a war in Iraq for even more specious ones, the essential USG view of 9/11 became embedded in the public ethos. The 9/11 Commission Report, despite being handicapped when it was prepared and later revealed to have been deeply flawed, still appeared as the basic reference work on the attacks. Details may have been compromised, but the prevailing view was that 19 Arab hijackers had flown four planes into three buildings and one crash site, and that was the end of it. This was the position taken by the Bush Administration in 2001, and reaffirmed a decade later by the Obama Administration. Politicians of every stripe, most pundits and rafts of mainly Protestant pastors and evangelists added their endorsements.
Neither I nor most Americans had any particular reason to doubt the veracity of these claims, then or later. Nonetheless, I had strong suspicions that something was very wrong with the official US account of the tragedy only weeks after the incident, while responding to a request from a local journalist for background information. Too much made no sense whatsoever: warnings after the fact when there should have been no warnings, bizarre misbehavior by the alleged hijackers that ran counter to both the mission and their faith, skills required that far exceeded any skills the named hijackers themselves could ever have possessed for the mission, and especially the total absence of any recognition for what they had done from anyone except their supposed victims – something without precedent for actions of the sort that supposedly happened on 9/11. These and similar discontinuities reinforced my suspicion that something in the entire exercise was rotten to the core.
Potentially far more significant than individual musings was the gradual appearance of dissent that eventually crystallized in the so-called "9/11 Truth" movement, which rapidly proliferated into scores of major and many minor organizations and websites dissecting the attacks, the Commission report, the motivations and agendas of assorted elected and appointed officials, and alternatives to the orthodox view. But "9/11 Truthers" have been doing their version of the Maoist "Hundred Flowers" Campaign, throwing out so many different assessments of so many different aspects of so many different issues that the core message has been lost. Nor is it a matter of too little evidence invalidating the USG position on 9/11 being available, but too much to permit a clear focus on what happened (so many trees no one can really see the forest).
Mind you, it isn’t that what has been presented is irrelevant or even necessarily wrong, although some pretty bizarre theses have been tossed around along with a good deal of thoughtful and balanced work. A substantial segment also have resisted closure under any circumstances – especially when Israel came into the equation in any way – thus keeping the rhetorical pot boiling inconclusively, more than a few for reasons that could not withstand close scrutiny as to their affiliation and motivation.
Critiquing the 9/11 Critique
The real difficulty with much, but not all, of the effort to critique and question the official US position on 9/11 is that the “9/11 Truth” proponents have been unable to communicate their concerns – much less any conclusions – to the general public in any significant way. So much of the discussion is only partially comprehensible to some within the movement, largely unknown to the general US public, and so complicated in all its dimensions to those who do become aware of it that they fail to follow up on the arguments. It is as if critics of the official position on 9/11 have been attempting to try the case in court before they have even gotten an indictment – the analytical equivalent of putting the argumentative cart before the public horse of the need to rethink the issue, thereby creating an evidentiary Gordian Knot of sorts.
This analogy has long struck me as an appropriate way of rethinking our approach to the 9/11 controversy. It is not that the issue isn’t complex – it is, in ever so many ways, and that complexity would have to be addressed at some point, but there is no need to confuse the public with its complexity at the very beginning.
Remember that at least in the US, the evidence and voting requirements are very different in a grand jury which can issue an indictment, than they are in a petit jury that actually tries the case. The latter needs proof of guilt; but the former only needs sufficient indication that a specific crime may have been committed, and that the accused may have done it. That is where we need to go, and where I will take this argument: to focus on those essentials necessary for an indictment in a way that will be understandable and credible to a reasonably intelligent person without requiring them to have the skills of (e.g.) a civil engineer or an aviator.
Peeling Away the Layered Details
There are so many flaws in the official US Government’s position on 9/11 that it is sometimes difficult to know just where to start. For example, the miraculous survival of a passport, used to identify one of the hijackers, which somehow worked its way through the aircraft’s impact, explosion, fire, and an 800-plus foot free-fall to be found by a well-dressed man and given to a New York City police detective at the base of the twin towers is a standout. The superstar-like ability of named pilots to go from the controls of a single-engine propeller-driven light plane to the cockpit of a passenger airliner and do anything except put it into the ground within a minute of turning off the autopilot is another – who would ever have thought that the Microsoft Flight Simulator program was so superlative? And the explanations given for the multiple failures of NORAD (the North American Air Defense Command) to have fighters on all four planes within minutes of their straying off course are individually dubious and collectively preposterous – only in Hollywood would they have any credence, perhaps because that is where they originated.
The debate on these and many other points, and the implications thereof, has been extensive and sometimes ferocious, even if not particularly effective. What is not open to debate, however, is that WTC-7 — the third tower to collapse that day, and the only one not hit by a plane — absolutely was brought down by a controlled demolition, as anyone not trying to shield the attackers knows from a real-time video of its collapse. That is, WTC-7 went straight down into its own footprint in seconds without any visible catastrophic external trauma, which means only some catastrophic internal trauma could have brought it down. And if it had been wired for a controlled demolition, then so were the other towers (WTC-1 and WTC-2) that collapsed. That gives the plane impacts a gruesome cosmetic role, designed explicitly to conceal the true cause of the collapse of the buildings, while shocking the public into something akin to numbness.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdLVw3AsV4
The case of WTC-7 has long been known to critics of the US government position on 9/11. What does not seem to have been fully appreciated, at least at first (this is changing somewhat now), is that it is not merely “an” issue, but the single issue that can be used simply, directly to the American public, and effectively to discredit the US Government’s case, and thus its rationale for so many fallacies and misdeeds: not only needless foreign wars (Afghanistan being a “pump-priming” conflict to get the US into war in the region, and to lay the groundwork for later wars), but a substantial infringement of American civil liberties under the misbegotten “Patriot Act,” the unbelievably widespread acceptance of torture (including a technique openly named “Palestinian Hanging,” which assuredly did not originate in Boston and says something about Israeli habits), and the creation of known and secret prisons and detention centers in various countries.
Second only to the actual controlled demolition of WTC-7, and supplementing the thesis that with or without impacting aircraft the buildings were brought down by other means, is extensive extensive audio-visual evidence on 9/11 while the Twin Towers were still standing from what became “Ground Zero.” This evidence includes real-time clips of secondary explosions at ground level in both WTC-1 and WTC-2 (you can hear the detonations and see smoke and debris billowing out), reports on many networks of those explosions and of strange vans inside and around those buildings prior to the secondary explosions, reports from EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) of the same thing and of people inside and around the lobbies of those buildings who were not emergency personal and were not fleeing the disaster – all of this on 9/11 and widely reported as it happened that same day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J4o3Tbf5kg
And a third element, building on the above and adding its own dimension, is the presence of a number of (mostly white) vans owned – as far as can be determined, given the extent to which information on them and the people with them has disappeared from the public record – by an Israeli company (or rather a company owned by an Israeli, to be precise) in New Jersey. Some of these vans were regularly around the World Trade Center itself. But two stand out, and need to be examined in some detail for their significance to be appreciated.
First, Bergen, NJ residents saw five people on a white van filming the attacks and visibly celebrating. They had set up their cameras before the first plane hit. Police arrested them. All were Israelis (now referred to as the “dancing Israelis”). Bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further testing. All five were later released at the instigation of Israeli & American Jewish leaders, some in the US Government. Details are still classified. This incident quickly disappeared from the mainstream media, following a brief mention in the New York Times three days after the attacks, that was not followed up.
A second van was stopped on the approaches to the George Washington Bridge. As CBS’s Dan Rather said in his live report: "Two suspects are in FBI custody after a truckload of explosives were discovered around the George Washington Bridge. That bridge links New York to New Jersey over the Hudson River. Whether the discovery of those explosives had anything to do with other events today is unclear, but the FBI, has two suspects in hand, said the truckload of explosives, enough explosives were in the truck to do great damage to the George Washington Bridge…“ Those suspects –also Israelis — and the incident then seem to have disappeared from the public record and mainstream media “examinations” <sic.> of 9/11, just like discussions of the first van, the secondary explosions at ground level within WTC-1 and WTC-2, and the precipitous collapse into its own footprint of WTC-7.
The combined impact of these and many other factors is both chilling and compelling. Think of it: Secondary explosions at ground level where there should be no secondary explosions. The catastrophic collapse of the 47-story WTC-7 into its own footprint in seconds, without any significant external trauma, where by rights there should have been no collapse. Vans with targeting maps, explosives or traces thereof, cameras pre-positioned to film the World Trade Center, and especially Israelis with those vans where there should have been no Israelis present with any of those things in those places at that time.
Any of these matters ought to have been sufficient to stimulate a searching re-examination of the official USG interpretation of 9/11, and especially of the actual or putative role of Al-Qaeda in it. The vans alone pointed away from Al-Qaeda, unless one assumed that Al-Qaeda was an Israeli front, or that Mossad at a minimum had run a parallel and more murderous operation to whatever Al-Qaeda may have done.What is fascinating is how little impact it has had on public awareness of the details of 9/11, much less official US policy based on it. A “cloak of silence” had descended over any official or mainstream media discussions of 9/11 that did not conform to the official interpretation, thereby keeping such dissonance from the general public.
The Cloak of Silence Over 9/11
There have been three elements to the “cloak of silence” covering efforts to expose the failings of the official US position on 9/11 to the public. One is within the Executive Branch. Another is within the Congress. And the third is the mainstream media (MSM).
The first is not at all surprising, as so many of its key members (and especially its so-called “neo-conservatives”) were the authors of the “19 named Arabs in 4 planes” thesis, and its de facto apologists on the professional staff of the 9/11 Commission. Indeed, many of them had a vested personal and professional interest in maintaining the validity of the official position.
A surprising number had been on the strongly pro-Israel Project for a New American Century (PNAC) when it published a report asserting that some “catalytic event” akin to the Pearl Harbor would be needed to move the US in the direction they desired (and which would be of enormous benefit to Israel). The 9/11 attacks gave them their catalytic event, and they visibly capitalized on that opportunity. Many were Jewish, often with dual US-Israeli citizenship and a controlling commitment to Israel. All were Israeli partisans. And it took no great inferential leap to understand that a US consumed with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rage would inevitably and inexorably do things that would directly or indirectly benefit Israel – which, of course, is precisely what has happened over the past decade.
Overtly more surprising was Congressional acceptance of the official explanation, or rather the lack of searching inquiries into it and the events of 9/11, at least by the Democrats. But in reality, that wasn’t at all surprising. It was not just that Administration officials were essentially “speaking with one voice” on this issue, or that the Republicans in the Senate at least could have kept Democrats from holding hearings, at least in the beginning. It is that while many (especially Democrats) came to question later the war in Iraq, and some more belatedly the war in Afghanistan, there was and remains no discernable legislative effort to delve into the details of 9/11 – and especially the numerous contradictions, inconsistencies and unbelievable aspects in the official explanation. This is a predictable outcome of a substantial lobbying effort by AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) here, “encouraging” Senators and Representatives of both parties to do in this matter what they do best – nothing – and punishing the handful who balked by marginalizing their efforts while in office, and working successfully for their electoral defeat later.
Overlapping these two branches, and a critical element in the Zionist control of the US Government that is sometimes overlooked, is their domination of the political appointment and confirmation process. The White House Personnel Office has been largely dominated by them at least since 1980, and perhaps before, thereby reducing the likelihood that people unfriendly to Israel or unsupportive of its “ways and means” will be nominated in the first place. The vetting of nominees by key organized Jewish groups in the US before they go before the US Senate for their confirmation hearings has also been a fixture of this process for decades, as Ha’aretz (an Israeli newspaper) among many others has pointed out, and forces otherwise excellent nominees to withdraw if said Jewish groups find them to be unsuitable. And the leverage of AIPAC in the US Senate is in this respect crucial: anyone AIPAC wants confirmed will be confirmed, and anyone who manages to reach that point and is not acceptable to AIPAC doesn’t stand a chance.
This is why under both Republicans and Democrats, the staffs in and around the President and the Vice-President, the National Security Council, the State Department and the Defense Department (among others) look the way they do. Many are Jewish and actively Zionist, often with dual US-Israeli citizenship (not that the absence of an Israeli passport matters all that much to the others). Some are Christian Zionists who need no persuading to take the pro-Israel positions they do – I can only shudder to think of the type of a staff and appointments that would come from a president like Michele Bachmann or Mike Huckabee. Others are what the communists used to call “useful idiots,” frequently intelligent people like Condoleeza Rice or John Bolton who have made their own Faustian bargain in the furtherance of their own careers. And the rest of us live with the consequences of all of them, not least of which was 9/11 and the ensuing wars.
But it is the role of the largely Zionist-owned mainstream media (MSM) in allowing the official US government view of 9/11 to go virtually unchallenged that is most fascinating, and has been most effective in letting any possible public debate on 9/11 largely lie fallow. This was contrary to its entire post-Vietnam (and especially post-Pentagon Papers/post-Watergate) ethos, which put investigative journalism on a pedestal and made a fetish of investigating and exposing corporate and government wrong-doing, both for profits and for professional advancement. Remember, that at least since the publication of the so-called "Pentagon Papers" during the Vietnam War, the normal instinct of the MSM is to investigate and to reveal, unless that discloses Israeli misconduct or reflects negatively on Israel, in which case its virtually primeval instinct is to conceal and to protect.
The MSM's normal inquisitorial impulse was not in evidence in the case of 9/11. This is because critical inquiries into 9/11 have been largely ignored or repressed by the MSM — which would not do that if its largely Zionist ownership did not know, suspect or fear that an exposed evidentiary trail would lead, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly to Israel. Indeed, if the evidentiary trail had seemed to lead to (e.g.) Iran instead of Israel, or if its provenance was even moderately uncertain, the MSM would have vociferously shredded the USG case long ago, and the "9/11 Truth" movement would find its views presented on the front pages of major newspapers and highlighted in favorable TV/radio broadcasts.
That this did not happen quickly becomes clear as one examines the MSM’s approach to 9/11. Its role has been threefold: : (a) disinformation – to affirm, or at least not openly question, the USG case; (b) distraction – to direct attention away from Israel and the PNAC/neo-cons; and (c)doubt – to ignore or ridicule those who question the official US case. What people choose to conceal speaks volumes about the dynamics of the situation, and the end result of MSM actions has been the fabrication of an aura of disbelief and doubt where there should be none.
This process began almost immediately. Dramatic and revealing real-time reports about the details of the attacks appeared on 9/11, including many that did not directly involve the hijacked airliners. Over the next few days, some local papers and stations in the area still were reporting dissonant events (e.g., the van with the "dancing Israelis"). But within a week, most dissonance was gone or relegated to inside pages and their electronic equivalents, especially anything pertaining to WTC-7, whose collapse became a non-event, or the presence of Israelis in the vans and elsewhere, as the US Government’s propaganda machine – aided actively by most of the MSM – went into high gear first against Al-Qaeda and then in support of the invasion of Afghanistan.
The Path to 9/11
The provenance of the 9/11 attacks becomes even clearer once they are examined as a classic exercise in covert operations. Generally speaking, there are three requirements for evaluating the origin and prospects for success of all covert intelligence operations: (a) motivation, (b) expertise, and (c) local support for access to the target and post-attack evasion and escape.
Let us look first at motivation. It is a bitter commentary on how far the US has gone from its strategic requirements and its own principles that so many movements and governments around the world not only dislike and distrust the US, but hate it with a passion and with better cause than I care to think about. I recently came across a remark by a Jesuit priest to the effect that “Every time I hear that Israel is America’s only friend in the Middle East, I remember that before Israel, America had no enemies in the Middle East” – a point well worth remembering.
But the interesting thing about the assorted movements and governments that might have an actual or perceived reason to do harm to the US, is that all but one has had a negative incentive to do that: to punish the US for some actual or assumed failings or misdeeds. The one exception is Israel. It has no negative incentives at all (I exclude some real fringe fanatics), simply because without US aid and diplomatic support, it would find itself in even worse straits than did apartheid-era South Africa, and with better cause. But it is the one state with a positive incentive, if it believed it could get away with it, which is to enrage the American public against Muslims generally and Arabs in particular, and to make the US an active belligerent in the region – spending American lives and treasure in the service of Israel’s interests.
Expertiseis different and more diffuse. There are many intelligence and special operations forces in the world with the expertise to wire large urban structures for a controlled demolition. There are many combat engineer units in many countries that could do the same thing. And there are many private firms that specialize in them as well. Yet neither Al-Qaeda as an organization, nor any of its known affiliates – much less the 19 named Arabs supposedly on those four planes – possessed that expertise, or anything even remotely close to it; had they done so, the Green Zone in Baghdad would have been a pile of rubble.
But it is local support that is the crucial determinant. All well-crafted covert operations require some measure of local support, official or unofficial, unless the target area is so irredeemably hostile that none is available. Any domestic or foreign intelligence agency targeting the WTC would absolutely have required it, and Mossad would be better placed than any other to access such support for entry, access, execution and escape.
This is especially true, given the security company overseeing the WTC. CIA and/or Defense Department personnel (which is not the same as the CIA or the Defense Department as organizations) could have had access, but only if that had Israeli endorsement – one does not casually cut open walls, implant explosives, run cables and wire everything together in buildings with state-of-the-art electronic surveillance and 24/7 on-site security. Mossad would have no such need for those niceties, given the ownership of the WTC and the management of the company overseeing its security. Remember that we are not talking about large numbers of people in any case: given time to prepare the three buildings and protection from detection, as few as a dozen could have sufficed, a number small enough to be effectively unnoticed in a large organization.
Retrospect and Prospect
So let us recapitulate the basic conclusions of this analysis. First, the core official US Government position on 9/11 is that any and all aspects of it are directly attributable to 19 named Arabs on 4 planes, conducting a terrorist operation planned and executed by Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. This position is at best incomplete, and at worst a complete fabrication engineered by those directly or indirectly responsible for what happened on 9/11, and the wars afterward.
Second, Al-Qaeda and many different countries and groups had negative reasons, real or contrived, to want to harm the US. But only Israel and its neoconservative wing in the US had a positive incentive to do so, which was to enrage Americans and make the US an active belligerent against Muslim countries, thereby cementing its bonding to Israel and Israel’s interests.
Third, there is no doubt that fully-loaded civilian airliners, especially with nearly-full fuel loads, impacting the Twin Towers (WTC-1 and WTC-2) would do great damage to those buildings, and might under a chain of extraordinary circumstances precipitate a chain of events leading to their collapse. But there is absolutely no way that those airliners impacting 800-1000 feet above the ground could have produced visible and audible secondary explosions in those buildings at ground level, nor precipitated the collapse of a third building (WTC-7)which was not hit by any aircraft and had no massive external trauma from debris produced by the Twin Towers.
Fourth, Al-Qaeda – and perhaps other groups as well – had the theoretical capability to carry out a simultaneous four-plane hijacking, perhaps flying the aircraft to Cuba (the four 9/11 aircraft should have been able to make a one-way flight there at the beginning of their operational day without difficulty, depending on their actual loads), which would have been spectacular in itself.But neither Al-Qaeda nor any of their affiliates had the expertise and local support necessary to allow them the needed access to any of the buildings at the World Trade Center, cut open the walls and wire them for controlled demolition, and then to escape and evade afterward.
Fifth and finally, in addition to being unique in having a positive incentive to make the 9/11 attacks, only Israel had the essential expertise and local support required to bring down the three World Trade Center buildings with controlled demolitions, and the leverage within and around the US Government to let their operatives evade detection, to be released without fanfare if apprehended unexpectedly, and to cloak their actions from public scrutiny – all of which happened on and after 9/11.
People often ask about some new evidence or proof tying 9/11, in whole or in part, to Israel. Now I understand that there can never be absolute proof for some people barring a public confession from one of the Israeli planners or their American supporters, and that, I suspect, we will never obtain – although some of the statements made later in Israel by three of the Israelis arrested in Bergen, NJ filming the burning Twin Towers comes very close to that: One stated categorically that “our purpose was to document the event,” which should leave little doubt that they knew in advance of the attacks, whether or not they themselves personally had any further role in them.
But it is not necessary to have such a confession, any more than it is necessary to have a confession in a criminal court to convict a person of murder, if the other evidence is sufficiently compelling.Here there is a mountain of physical, technical, analytical and circumstantial evidence, far more than any unprejudiced person needs to understand far beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever, that (1) the USG case is fatally flawed, and (2) this was a Mossad-directed operation orchestrated at the highest levels of the Israeli government (because of the target) with local support within the US and elements of the US Government itself.
Given the pervasiveness of Zionist influence in the US government and its intelligence and security agencies (including of course the Defense Department), two broad scenarios are possible. One is that the neo-cons and their cohorts were in the driver's seat with Israel in the passenger seat with a map and the baggage. The second sees Israel driving with the neo-cons and others handling the map and baggage. But they were both in the same car on the road to and from 9/11. Both were embedded in aspects of the planning and execution of the catastrophe, the wars it spawned and the wars its architects now want us to wage in Israel’s name, linking treason and treachery in tandem no matter where the emphasis is placed.
Unraveling that issue is something to be left for a future investigation, interrogations and trials, followed by punishments appropriate to the magnitude of the crimes for all of the participants. Bringing an awareness of these events to the American public and others abroad in a practical and actionable way is the subject of the final piece in this series: Riposte Against Zionism: Go Tell It To The People.
Israel's Mossad has been suspected in the deaths of a number of Iranian and Turkish nuclear scientists. Although Russian officials are calling the crash an "accident" caused by poor weather conditions and pilot error, there are reports that the plane caught fire and broke up before it crashed.
By Wayne Madsen
Several Russian nuclear engineers and scientists, including the nuclear expert who designed Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr, were killed when a RusAir Tupolev-134 plane crashed while landing at Petrozavodsk, the capital of the north-western Russian Republic of Karelia, on June 20. The five nuclear experts, Sergei Rizhov, Gennadi Benyok, Valery Lalyn, Nicolai Tronov, and Andrei Tropinov, were employed by Hydropress, one of the main Russian contractors at the Bushehr facility. The five had all worked at the Bushehr facility. The Russian nuclear engineers and scientists were among 45 people killed in the crash of the Russian airliner.
The Russian engineers had also been involved in nuclear power plant projects in India, China, and Bulgaria.
Israel's Mossad has been suspected in the deaths of a number of Iranian and Turkish nuclear scientists. Although Russian officials are calling the crash an "accident" caused by poor weather conditions and pilot error, there are reports that the plane caught fire and broke up before it crashed.
Last November, Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was killed near Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran after unknown men on motorcycles placed an explosive in his car, which was detonated shortly afterward. Simultaneously, other motorcycle assailants placed a similar device on the car of nuclear expert Fereydoun Abbasi near the same university. The resulting explosion seriously injured Abbasi. In January 2010, Iranian nuclear expert Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed after a motorcycle bomb was detonated in front of his house.
In July 2009, Russian and Iranian nuclear experts were reportedly among those passengers killed when an IranAir Ilyushin-62M passenger plane skidded off the runway at Mashhad airport in northeast Iran.
In 2007, Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshire Hassanpour, who worked at an Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan, was said to have been assassinated by Mossad agents by being poisoned.
On January 28, 2008, WMR reported: "On November 30, 2007, there was another incident involving the nuclear community in Turkey. A AtlasAir McDonnell-Douglas MD-83 en route from Istanbul to Isparta broke up in mid-air in good weather just prior to it landing. There was no explosion and the wings, engines, and fuselage all separated neatly. All on board were killed. In fact, WMR learned that rescue workers were able to walk into the plane's cabin and retrieve personal belongings, including briefcases.
On board the aircraft was prominent Bosporus University nuclear scientist Engin Arik, who was to attend a nuclear conference in Isparta. She was accompanied on the flight by other Turkish nuclear scientists. Turkish TV showed soldiers with guns guarding the plane's wreckage. Isparta's Governor said the plane was not on its scheduled route and he did not understand why it crashed near the town of Keciborlu, seven miles from Isparta. Governor Semsettin Uzun said he never saw such a plane crash."
After the U.S. occupation of Iraq, hundreds of Iraqi scientists, including those working in nuclear and related disciplines, were reportedly assassinated by Mossad hit teams operating in Iraq. In some cases, the Iraqi scientists assassinated had been promised protection and safe passage to the United States by the CIA.
By S. M. Hali
Thursday June 23, 2011 was a red letter day for Pakistan. A country which is accused of harbouring, aiding and abetting terrorists, despite being the foremost victim of terror attacks, ransomed, rescued and safely transported 22 sailors belonging to various nationalities, and handed them over to their relatives or their diplomatic missions for onwards dispatch home. The plight of the crew members of Egyptian origin cargo vessel MV Suez, a merchant vessel carrying a cargo of cement bags from Karachi, Pakistan to Eretria, is well documented.
On August 2, 2010, as the merchant vessel sailed through the Gulf of Aden, it was attacked and commandeered by Somali Pirates. Under the command of Pakistani Captain Syed Wasi Hassan, the ship’s 22-member crew comprised 11 Egyptians, 6 Indians, 4 Pakistanis and a Sri Lankan. The pirates demanded US $ 20 million as ransom or threatened to kill the crew of MVSuez. The ship’s owners were able to raise only 1 million Dollars thus Sindh Governor Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ibad and human rights activist Ansar Burney jumped into the fray and negotiated with the pirates to pay sum of US $ 2.1 million. Perhaps they were moved by the tears of Laila Wasi, the twelve year old daughter of the Ship’s Captain, who declared on Pakistani media channels that if required she would sell her kidneys to get her father freed.
India, which had six crew members amongst the captives, was approached by the families of the sailors. Initially, Indian Minister of External Affairs S. M. Krishna made most of the incident on media and got a number of philanthropists and Indian tycoons to pledge large amounts of money. However, when they saw Pakistan taking the lead, they all backed out despite the desperate pleas of sailors’ families because harrowing tales of the pirates threatening execution of the sailors were reaching them. The Indian government remained unmoved but Pakistan continued its solo efforts. Once the requisite funds were raised, Pakistan Navy joined in the humanitarian effort through its operation “Umeed-e-Nau”. PN chipped in at two stages; it dispatched teams of Naval Special Operation Force (NavSOF), Navy Medical Teams along with medical supplies and food provisions via the PNS Babur. During the stage-I, the vessel was again attacked by the pirates to hijack the vessel but, PNS Babur repulsed the attack successfully. India, which so far had borne nothing but criticism owing to the callousness of its government, nearly caused an international incident, by not only hampering humanitarian operations being carried out by PNS Babur for MV Suez, but sending its warship INS Godavari,which undertook dangerous maneuvers that resulted in brushing of the sides. There was further twist to the tale, when the Captain of MV Suez declared the vessel unfit for further operations as it developed electrical problems and started listing. Pakistan Naval Chief heeded the SOS pleas and tasked PNS Babur to take the crew of the ill fated MV Suez on board, who were later transferred to a PN Frigate Zulfiquar, which safely brought the crew to Karachi, where they received a tumultuous welcome by the Sindh governor, who also hosted a reception in their honour and showered them with gifts before their return to freedom after nearly eleven months.
Now contrast with the fate of five Pakistani crew members of an Iranian fishing trawler Al-Murtuza, who were captured by Somali pirates in December 2010, but rescued by Indian Navy two months earlier, 290 nautical miles from Lakshadweep. During that time, the Indian navy rounded up 106 pirates in several raids and also rescued 70 hostages, belonging to Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, Myanmar and Pakistan. All other nationalities were allowed to go home but the Pakistanis were held back under one pretext or the other. Initially the Pakistani High Commission was not permitted to proceed to Mumbai, then diplomatic hurdles were created, while the five Pakistani sailors continued to suffer incarceration at the Yellow Gate police station, where they were looked after by a few good Samaritans. Photographer-cum-social worker Parvez Sheikh, a local restaurant owner, who supplied their meals and actor Pooja Bhatt and film director Mahesh Bhatt went out of their way to help the Pakistani sailors establish contact with their High Commission and pressurize the Indian Home/Foreign Ministries to authorize their movement and return. On the other hand, Pakistan did not differentiate between the nationalities of the crew of MV Suez, even Indians, who were in a majority. Indian obduracy and Pakistan’s magnanimity are in sharp contrast.