SPY EYES

By Brig  Asif Haroon Raja

In the aftermath of 9/11 when George W. Bush junior’s administration decided to invade Afghanistan to get hold of Osama bin Laden, the alleged master mind behind the terrorist attacks, and his protectors, Indian leaders saw it an opportunity of the century to destroy their arch rival Pakistan once and for all. With this end in view, Indian lobby in USA in collaboration with American Jewish lobby began a whispering campaign to convince the American policy makers to include Pakistan as a target country as well. In Vajpayee’s view, Afghanistan contained symptoms of terrorism but the roots of cancer were in Pakistan, which if not rooted out wouldn’t cure the disease.

 India was disappointed when Bush didn’t buy his suggestion of tackling Pakistan and Afghanistan simultaneously. Not only the proposal was over ruled, the US decided to make Pakistan an ally and a frontline state to fight terrorism. Bush however shared his inner thoughts with Vajpayee saying that wisdom demanded severing Kabul-Islamabad alliance and dealingwith the two Muslim states one by one. He suggested that since Pakistan was militarily strong and had nuclear weapons and delivery means, hence it would be prudent to apply indirectstrategy of secret war against Pakistan so as to first sufficiently enfeeble it from within and then deliver the hammer at an opportune time.

 Assurances were given to dejected Indian leader that Pakistan will be taken on board as a tactical partner for short term gains and after occupation of Afghanistan and consolidation of gains, coordinated proxy war will be unleashed against Pakistan from Afghan soil on the scale similar to the one launched against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The listener was also assured that India will not only be facilitated to make inroads inside Pakistan under the garb of treaty of peace and friendship, but also helped to enhance its presence in Afghanistan so that it becomes the strongest nation in South and East Asia.        

 Notwithstanding the US reassurances to India to destabilize, secularize and denuclearize Pakistan before return of US-NATO forces from Afghanistan, and its grant of handsome economic, military and nuclear packages, India got frustrated with the slow pace of progress achieved against Pakistan’s premier institutions. It flabbergasted Indian leaders to find Pakistan continuing to defy India and refusing to accept India’s hegemony. Ten years of massive not so covert war beefed up with propaganda war couldn’t make any dent in Pakistan’s defensive capability and nuclear deterrence. The ISI continues to remain the most potent intelligence organization in the region which has single-handed kept top six intelligence agencies on the hop.  

 While continuing with its efforts to browbeat Pakistan through its acts of sabotage and subversion in FATA, Swat, Balochistan and Karachi in particular and other regions of Pakistan in general including Gilgit-Baltistan, Indian officials kept poisoning the ears of US officials so as to drive a permanent wedge between Pak-US relations and then provoke USA to strike Pakistan. RAW helped by CIA, Mossad, MI-6, RAAM and Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) played a key role in coloring the perceptions of US leaders. RAW also worked consistently to make the Afghans hate Pakistan and has made considerable success within non-Pashtun Afghans.   

 Indian psychological operators have also been trying hard to create space for India within Pashtun dominated regions of Afghanistan but have achieved peripheral progress. Their progress is confined to those who have not forgiven Pakistan for its betrayal and are still resentful. Majority of Pashtuns well understand that India has remained closely linked with former Soviet Union and with Moscow installed regimes in Kabul. They have not forgotten that India had supported Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and later on had extended full support to Ahmad Shah led Northern Alliance during the rule of Taliban. They know that India is now a strategic partner of USA and has a big hand in the ongoing destructive policies of USA against the Pashtuns. They can discern that India is not in favor of ISAF’s pullout program and has been advising Washington to delay the departure for as long as possible.

 Fearing that if Taliban recapture power they would undo India’s political, social, cultural and economic gains in Afghanistan, RAW helped CIA and other agencies in their efforts to divide and weaken Taliban. India backed up Tajik origin Burhanuddin Rabbani’s peace efforts, which were also essentially aimed at dividing Taliban. Indian officials mollycoddled Rabbani when he visited India on Manmohan’s invitation in July this year and encouraged him to work for broad based government in Kabul dominated by Northern Alliance elements and to take on board moderate Taliban and liberal Pashtuns only.

 Knowing that India is a strict follower of Chankyan tactics, the Taliban do not rule out the possibility that RAW might have engineered the assassination plot of Rabbani so as to further fuel bitterness between Pakistan and Afghanistan, between Pakistan and USA, widen the gulf between the two major ethnic communities and also between ruling regime and Taliban. Rabbani’s efforts to bring hard line Taliban like Haqqani network in the loop and make them share power and his friendly relations with Islamabad were not to the liking of India. Given the high stakes of India in Afghanistan, possibility of RAW having a hand in murder of Rabbani cannot be ruled out since India is the only country that stands to gain by his demise. Another factor which needs deliberations is Rabbani’s very close ties with Iran and his frequent visits to Tehran to seek guidance of Iranian leaders. His hobnobbing with them must have been a cause of consternation for USA.

 Besides, Pakistan was getting on the nerves of both USA and Karzai. OBL killing drama didn’t fetch the results as were expected. Rather it backfired and stiffened Pakistan. Karzai was getting edgy since he was not making any headway in his talks with Taliban and suspected Pakistan to be playing a spoiling game. Occurrence of several cross border attacks on Pakistan’s western border villages and security posts was one way of expressing his exasperation. Like USA, he too suspected hand of Pakistan behind series of attacks in and around Kabul in quick succession, which rattled him. His acute nervousness could have driven RAW and CIA to unnerve him further by plotting Rabbani’s murder so as to propel him to sign the Indo-Afghan strategic partnership pact, which till that event he was hesitating to sign.      

 India’s fan Hamid Karzai and chosen puppet of Washington had agreed to sacrifice the interests of his own community of Afghan Pathans and to sup with non-Pashtun warlords and drug barons in return for power. He also gave a commitment to his patrons in Washington to enhance Indian presence and to diminish Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan. He also consented to allow Afghan soil to be used as launching pad for five intelligence agencies to conduct covert war against Pakistan and others. By allowing opening up of large numbers of Indian consulates specific to Pakistan, he facilitated India’s cross border terrorism and subversion. In order to camouflage RAW-RAAM clandestine operations, he accused Pakistan of indulging in cross border terrorism. He has played a typical role of a collaborator to promote Indo-US strategic designs in the region.

 Fabricated stories have been constantly fed to US policy makers in Kabul and Washington that Pak Army and ISI are linked with Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda and are playing a double game to earn dollars from USA as well as to earn goodwill of Taliban so as to create space for Pakistan in future Afghanistan. Haqqani network is the ongoing popular theme being played. Indo-Afghan vicious media campaign based on lies ultimately had an impact on Pentagon and White House.  The US military command in Kabul already under intense pressure of Obama’s administration and home public, was desperately in need of a scapegoat to hide its failures in Afghanistan. When the US propaganda brigade led by Admiral Mike Mullen assaulted Pakistan’s ISI frontally and accused it of having a hand in 13 September attack in Kabul and in murder of Rabbani, Indian leaders sniggered and taunted Washington that it had not paid any heed to their repeated counsels to include Pakistan as a target and not to make it its ally and now they have been proved right.         

 The NDS blamed for security lapse jumped to the conclusion that suicide bomber who killed Burhanuddin Rabbani on 20 September in Kabul was a Pakistani whose name was Ismatullah hailing from Chaman, and the planning was done in Quetta. What it implied was that the plot was hatched by Quetta Shura headed by Mullah Omar. It towed the US line by alleging that the ISI was behind the conspiracy. Verdict given by NDS is based entirely on the confessional statement of an Afghan national Hameedullah. Wikileaks had commented in detail about poor security standards and non-professional approach of the NDS which is heavily influenced by RAW. Pakistan rejected the allegations terming them as false and baseless and in protest refused to cooperate with NDS, which asked for investigations and handing over the accused. 

 The would-be suicide bomber pretending to be an emissary of Mullah Omar had stayed in a guesthouse in Kabul as an honored guest for four days, waiting for Rabbani to return from Iran. It was on Karzai’s urgent calls that Rabbani rushed back to Kabul. Instead of taking the NDS to task for its incompetence as to how the suicide bomber carrying a bomb tucked under his turban was allowed to meet Burhanuddin without body search, myopic Karzai promptly accepted NDS report as gospel truth. He almost fainted on recollecting that he had consented to meet the bomber but as an after thought referred him to Rabbani. His referral gave reason to non-Pashtuns to cast suspicious eyes on him.

 Suffering from bout of despondency, he resignedly stated that there was no point continuing with the process of negotiations with Taliban. In order to deflect the attention of those suspecting him, not only he accused Pakistan of assassinating Rabbani but also called off tripartite conference. To lessen his sense of grief and insecurity and also thumb nose at Pakistan, Karzai air dashed to New Delhi and hastened to ink Indo-US Strategic Partnership Treaty on 4 October about which talks had been going on since the visit of Manmohan Singh to Kabul in last May. The US also played its part to egg on its string-puppet, since it has made up its mind to carve out primary role for India in Afghanistan and its overseer in South Asia, and to shrink Pakistan’s role. Manmohan assured Karzai that India would stand by Afghanistan when the foreign troops would depart from his country. The pact promises increase in trade and cultural relations and training of Afghan security forces. Two energy agreements were also signed which added a new dimension to their relationship.

 What would be of particular concern to Pakistan, will be the deepening of Indo-Afghan security and intelligence cooperation, which will certainly be at the peril of Pakistan’s security? Pakistan well knows as to why miserly India which believes in the policy of extracting a lot from others and giving little in return is investing so much and taking so much pain to enhance its presence in Afghanistan. It has been an earnest desire of India to encircle Pakistan and make it submit to its hegemony voluntarily, failing which attack Pakistan from two directions. India’s water strategy and ongoing covert war are also aimed at forcing Pakistan to bend on its knees.

 India has already made deep inroads in various fields of Afghanistan and has also succeeded in making the entire non-Pashtun community antagonistic to Pakistan. It is aspiring to become the key player in Afghanistan after the departure of ISAF and is keen to take on training of ANA and Afghan Police as well as share security problems of the country. Pakistan had offered its services for this purpose but Karzai who hypocritically calls Pakistan as twin-brother of Afghanistan preferred India where he got his education.

 Indo-US strategic partnership has given an official stamp to Indo-US-Afghan nexus directed against Pakistan. 170,000 strong ANA trained, equipped and brainwashed by Indian military in unfriendly Afghanistan will have grave implications for Pakistan’s security since it will pose two-front threat to Pakistan in any future Indo-Pakistan war. This should also be seen in the backdrop of Indian airbase in Tajikistan where it has deployed long-range Sukoi jets. The US, which of late is behaving more like a foe than an ally, wants to leave behind Pakistan burdened with multiple domestic problems and sandwiched between hostile India and Afghanistan.

 In the wake of fast gathering clouds pregnant with dangers, isn’t it time for Pakistan to sign strategic accords with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, further cement its ties with friendly factions within Afghanistan and also give peace a chance and detach itself from self-destructive war on terror. Our assets that have now become assets of USA and India should be won back and asked to take on their traditional responsibility of defending the western border. These steps if taken will go a long way in giving Pakistan breathing space and checkmating ominous designs of our adversaries.

By Dr. Raja Muhammad Khan

In his radio interview, President Obama covered up the Mullen’s accusations against Pakistan, as mere “frustration” of this US military Chief, who could not win a success in Afghanistan, despite an extension in his service. President Karazai and his intelligence set up did not wait for a respite to Pakistan from these allegations, once they accused her of involvement in the killing of former Afghan President Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani.  According to Lutifullah Mashal, a representative of the Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), that Pakistani intelligence agency ISI was behind the assassination of former Afghan President Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani and that Quetta Shura made the plan for this killing in Quetta, Pakistan. While acting in haste, President Karazai, seconded these allegations of its intelligence agency and repeated the charges.

As this was not enough, authorities in Kabul threatened to refer the case to UNO. The new episode surfaced after Pentagon and US State Department could not put Pakistan on defensive, after Mullen accused the Pakistan for its alleged relationship with Haqqanis. This time Pakistani nation rebuffed the US allegations and strategy of degrading Pakistan through a collective voice from all forums viz; political, people and its armed forces. So much so later State Departmenthas to disown the Mullen’s remarks and even President Obama has said that, he is not sure of the linkages between ISI and Haqqanis. Mullen himself changed his statement during the farewell ceremony in Virginia and advised his successor General Martin Dempsey to remain engage with Pakistan, as ‘there can be no resolution of Afghanistan without Pakistan’ owing to its significant role and location.    

As a head of the Afghan peace council, established by President Karazai, the role of former President Rabbani was commendable. Primarily the peace council was to negotiate with Taliban, convince them to renounce the insurgent activities, and join the Afghan Government for a stable, peaceful and prosper Afghanistan.  Afghan Government and Prof Rabbani had full backing of Pakistan in this regard. He visited Pakistan in this regard and Pakistani authorities have been assisting him largely. Indeed Pakistan is a worst sufferer of Afghan instability and wants peace there. Pakistan is a strong advocate of the fact that, peace in Afghanistan will bring peace and stability in Pakistan. Indeed, these two nations cannot be dealt separately in term of security, stability or otherwise in the regional context. Since any setback to peace in Afghanistan will equally affect Pakistan, therefore, Pakistan cannot wish for Afghanistan anything that it does not wish for itself.

Besides, the late Prof Rabbani was very close to Pakistani establishment and remained friendly and sincere to Pakistan throughout. He played a significant role during Afghan war against former Soviet Union and Pakistani Government played a role in making him as an interim President of Afghanistan.  How Pakistan could be behind such a heinous crime of killing its own friend, once it desires assimilation of Taliban and other factions in broad based Afghan Government?  Pakistan has been emphasizing the Karazai Government to talk with Taliban and others, who remained unhappy with it ever since 2001. Even repeatedly, Pakistan advised US administration and CIA to resort for a political solution, rather a military one resulting into killing the Afghan masses and further deteriorating the situation there. 

President Karazai should have envisioned the scenario under which these accusations are being framed against Pakistan and its intelligence agency, before passing a verdict about this killing. Had Afghan intelligence been so efficient and competent, than it should have helped Karazi in the identification of fake Mullah Mansur, with whom even President Karazia had two meetings at the Afghan Presidential Palace in Kabul in 2010? Fake Mullah Mansur was negotiating with Karazai as the chief negotiator of Taliban from Quetta Shura.  This indeed is the worth of NDS and reality of Quetta Shura, if at all it has a physical existence in Quetta, as being claimed by U.S and Karazai. Not only Indian and U.S trained NDS, but MI-6 and CIA were unable to identify Mullah Mansur, who has been a minister in Taliban Government. How can one believe on the allegations of these self-deceiving and indeed defeated intelligence agencies for their allegations on ISI? President Karazai too had a backing of Pakistan in winning the Presidential election at a time once Obama Administration and CIA declared him and his family as the corrupt most. It was Pakistan then, which supported him throughout. Now on behest of CIA and US Administration or to advance the Indian cause, Karazai has the guts to accuse Pakistan, whichindeed is the height of being ungrateful. 

Indeed a failed US strategy necessitated that there should be some scapegoat for this failure. Under the prevailing circumstances, all out efforts are being made by this super power to penalize Pakistan for various activities in the region, which it has never thought of undertaking. Even a layman can visualize, the motive behind these allegations, after all why President Karazai should fell short of such an assessment or else he is acting as a tool in the hands of the occupiers. Why can the Afghan acumen visualize that, who is the real beneficiary of the Afghanistan remaining an unstable state?  What goods an instable Afghanistan could accrue for Pakistan?  At best; the worst instability, drug and weapons culture, ethnic and sectarian conflicts or the extra burden of over 5 million Afghan refugees, now reduced to 2.5 million, who are parasite on our economy. More than that, the instable Afghanistan has enabled involvement of dozen of international spying network inside Pakistan with the intent to destabilize it, on the pretext of sub-nationalism, sectarianism and ethnic issues. In fact, this spying network is now playing with the sovereignty of Pakistan. They are indeed harbouring the terrorists from Afghan soil and providing them with funds and weapons.

Late Prof Rabbani was a peace promoter in Afghanistan, whose indirect beneficiary was Pakistan, besides Afghanistan itself. How could Pakistan or its intelligence agency be behind the murder of such a peace lover?  Why can’t those levels the charges understand that ISI is acting as the eyes and ears of Pakistan, promote, and look after its interests? What interests ISI could have served by killing a Pakistani friend and messenger of peace.  Similarly, this organization cannot provide, safe havens, harbour and abet the terrorists groups who could be; Taliban, Haqqanis or other militants, who and their accomplices are killing the innocent Pakistanis since last one decade.  Why cannot the sense prevail among the Afghan rulers, its acumen and their masterminds?  For how long should they continue cheating their own people on behest of their foreign lords? Afghan officials and rulers should be loyal to their soil and people at least, if not with their well-wisher, Pakistan?

Since Pakistan would be a real recipient of a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, besides Afghanistan itself, therefore, it is not liked by many extra-regional powers, those indeed have different agendas. Then who will be the real beneficiary if Afghanistan remains instable? For understanding such a scenario, there is need to analyse that, would there be need of foreign forces and foreign spying networks in a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. A stable Afghanistan would ask all such foreigners to leave its geographical frontiers, for the sake of maintaining country’s sovereignty, which is highly compromised under foreign occupation currently.  In such a scenario, those who have spent trillion of dollars would have to pack up for their homelands. But the question are; had they spent this heavy amount for the benefits of Afghan people? No, not at all, U.S and its allies have spent these dollars and even got their soldiers killed for objective not to the imagination of many leaders and analysts in Pakistan and Afghanistan even. They want a permanent say in the region and that is only possible once there is an uncertainty and instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which provide a pretext for their stay in the region.

The instability in Afghanistan can be prolonged and maintained only if peace efforts are repeatedly sabotaged and so-called rulers at Kabul are kept at defensive, needing the foreign crutches for their survival all the times.  This is indeed the real situation; where NATO and U.S are the real beneficiary of this entire scenario, hence intend continuing with the status quo. These occupying powers would not let any undisputed leader like Prof Rabbani, to work for the peace, who has the ability to unite Afghans. Therefore, such peacemakers are to be eliminated by those having stakes. Rabbani was promoting the Pakistani interests besides Afghan’s. How such a man could have been be tolerated there?

Owing to their prolonged working together, Pakistani intelligence agency and its armed forces understand the strategy of CIA, NATO and their collaborators in Afghanistan. Moreover, Pakistan desires that, U.S and foreign elements should let Afghan people to decide their future themselves. With these intents in view, Pakistan and ISI are accused and pursued to give-up this Afghan centric approach, which in the long-term will bring stability in Pakistan too. Afghan President and people should understand the real motives and stop playing at the hands of CIA and others who wants to exploit the situation for their own benefit, rather contributing towards Afghan peace. CIA and RAW wants a permanent state of conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which serve their purpose, rather a peace. After having visualized these facts, President Karazai should sit with his Pakistani counterpart and Afghan NDS chief should meet ISI chief to assess the real aims and objectives behind this assassination of Prof Rabbani, rather threatening Pakistan of taking this case to UNO, to implement US desires.  After all what can UN do to Pakistan without its faults?  Moreover, Pakistan is not standing alone in the comity of nations. It has its well-wishers to stand with it at these difficult times too.

In the regional and global context, the time has arrived where leaders and those who matters, from both countries should sit together understand each other’s viewpoint, bridge the trust deficit among them, stop playing in the hands of global powers and understand the global conspiracies, being hatched against their motherlands. Hamid Karazai should negotiate with Pakistan, considering it as the well-wisher and sympathizer of all Afghan people, rather the supporter of Taliban or Haqqanis only. Pakistan should talk with Karazai, considering him as the representative of all Afghan people, rather a representative of 20 percent masses or a particular faction, or else a tool of CIA and RAW.  

There is a budding need that, Afghan authorities should put an end to the blame game, assess the emerging scenario and identify its national interests viz-a-vis Pakistan’s. Both brotherly and neighbourly Muslim countries should work for the stability and peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan through an indigenous solution suiting their people, rather accommodating the American and Indian interests. Let us leave no room for CIA and RAW and many other anti-Pakistan and anti-Afghan forces to either scold Pakistan or use Afghan soil and its leadership for the fulfilment of its long-term agenda in the region. This would be the only way forward for a regional stability, peace and a harmonious Pakistan and Afghanistan in the days to come.

By Rodrigue Tremblay

“Men accept change only when it is a necessity, and they see a necessity only in a crisis.” Jean Monnet (1888-1979), French political economist and statesman

“I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy….. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country … corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States (1861-65)

William Catton, American environmental sociologist and population ecologist

"Societies characterized by enduring deep divisions of income and wealth, such as most third-world societies, are wounded societies with little sense of the common good… As America drifts in this direction, ending poverty and redistributing income should be at the top of the national agenda." Charles Derber, Corporation Nation (p. 203)

 [There are] “three ways to be influential in American politics: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.” Haim Saban, Pro-Israel billionaire and major political contributor, (2009)

Our world has become very complex, [] and, as a consequence, it is increasingly open to macro crises of huge proportions.

Indeed, what makes our time such a dangerous period, I think, is the fact that we are facing simultaneously at least five intractable worldwide crises that it will take years to solve or to outlive. They are a financial crisis [] that it will take at least twenty years to jugulate, an energy crisis [] that's looming on the not too far horizon and which threatens the very foundation of the economic prosperity of the last half century, a double-barreled demographic crisis [] of a magnitude never encountered during the entire history of humankind, a political crisis [] that is related to the ingrained inability of governments most everywhere to solve society's problems, and, as a general background, a moral crisis [] that corrupts most institutions and makes them ineffective in promoting the common good. []

The misguided experiment with new synthetic financial instruments [] under the coat of hardly any government regulation is proving to be very disastrous to the world economy. They led to the near complete collapse of the banking and credit system in the fall of 2008, and are very much instrumental today in destabilizing the euro monetary zone [] and the European economy, [] the largest in the world. In fact, these new financial instruments play a central role in pushing down the American and European economies.

Indeed, these so called financial “innovations” have turned the world financial sector into a vast casino [] in which international bankers and speculators reign supreme. One may ask how was it possible to allow a casino-like financial capitalism [] to develop, especially after the hard lessons learned during the Great Depression of the 1930s?

When President Bill Clinton accepted the Republican proposal [] (GLBA) to gut the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, [] that had regulated investment and commercial banking until then, he had no idea that his simple signature would herald, less than ten years later, a financial crisis of historical proportions. With this deregulation move and with the dismantling of other financial safeguards that had been in place for a long time, some since the financial panic of 1907, international bankers were allowed to merge their investment banking and commercial banking activities and discard many traditional banking rules. They adopted the new model of asset securitization [], through which large banks de facto ceased being banks to become brokers, that is they ceased being lenders to become sellers of the sophisticated but untested new synthetic financial securities. Their names are now well known if not yet fully understood by many: Asset-based security [] (ABS), "Collateralized Bond Obligations" (CBOs), "Collateralized Debt Obligations" (CDOs), and credit default swaps [] (CDS). — In financier Warren Buffett's words, they turned out to be true financial weapons of mass destruction, and they are still doing their ravages, because politicians have as yet refused to rein them in and put an end to excessive financial speculation. []

Economic prosperity and population growth over the last half century have been sustained in large part by the access to relatively cheap energy and by an elevated capacity to produce food. But, the age of cheap energy [] is about to end, and this basic source of economic growth will disappear, unless some untapped cheap oil discoveries come to the rescue.

If the age of cheap energy is coming to an end, can the world economy continue to support a fast rate of population growth? This is unlikely.

Already, we observe a reemergence of hegemonic wars for oil and resources [] in some parts of the world that can be explained, at least partly, by the looming energy crisis.

Not surprisingly, the United States, with less than five percent of the world population while consuming about 25 percent of the daily world oil output, is at the center of this crisis.

Nobody can deny that oil access under American control played an important role in the Bush-Cheney decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq [] in the spring of 2003. Similarly, the recent Anglo-French involvement in Libya, under the cover of NATO, had something to do with Libyan oil riches.

In a globalized and shrinking world, geopolitics and the approaching energy crisis are closely intertwined.

The world is about to have a population of 7-billion [] to feed and equip with the necessities of life. And a larger share of that population is going to be older as the 21^st century unfolds.

Indeed, between now and 2050, the share of the population aged 60 and over is projected to increase in nearly every country in the world. All countries, both developed and developing, will be affected by this demographic shift, although in different ways. In the developing world, where fertility rates are still high (although declining), the crisis will come from too many young people without employment and too many old people living in poverty.

In advanced economies, the crisis will come from an onslaught of older citizens requiring morehealth care and social services at a time of economic stagnation and fiscal tightening.

The aging of the population will have a major impact on a society. For one, it will profoundly affect the economy during the next two decades, as the large contingent of baby boomers[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer] (USA: those born between 1946 and 1964; in Canada: 1946-1966) enters retirement and as mortality among the elderly continues to decline. In the U.S., 75 million people and close to one quarter of the population are baby boomers.

The retirement of baby boomers at the rate of between 3 and 4 million persons each year will redefine the basic economic structure and will create new economic, social and fiscal challenges.

Currently, in the United States, there are 3.3 workers to support each retiree, but by 2030, less than twenty years from now, this number will fall to only two. Consider also that twenty percent of Americans will be over 65 by 2050, up from 12 percent in 2005. As the consequence of thegraying of America, [] payroll taxes and other taxes may have to be raised, which in turn will exert an important drag on economic growth. With so many retirees as a percentage of the working population, I would not be surprised to see a serious pension crisis [] developing in the coming years. It could arise either through uncontrolled inflation or through a general decline of the real return on capital. Either way, an erosion of pension income could ensue.

Secondly, it can be expected that some basic industries, such as manufacturing, will contract while those other industries related to health care and social services, like medicine and senior care, are destined to expand. The overall saving rate is also bound to decline, thus diminishing the pool of financing available to support new productive investments.

The result will be an economy that will become, even more than today, a service-based economy and also a more knowledge-based economy rather than being primarily a goods producing economy. With such a structural shift, unless per-worker productivity were to pick up substantially, considering that such productivity is lower in service industries, economic growth is bound to suffer and taper off.

In Canada, [] for instance, average annual economic growth has registered 2.8 percent, between 1977 and 2010, but it is expected that between 2011 and 2086, mainly due to demographic shifts, economic growth could slowdown to a meagre annual average of 1.6 percent. A slower economic growth means less government revenue at a time when demand for public services can be expected to increase.

That is why governments should prepare, fiscally speaking, for the expected onslaught of older citizens requiring more health care in the not too distant future.

In many democratic countries, government has become the near exclusive tool of powerful private interests who use it at will to promote their narrow agendas. The cause is well known—the need to have tons of money to have access to the media, especially the electronic media, to get exposure. The result is everywhere to be seen: The people end up with the best politicians that money can buy.

The source of embedded corruption in politics is the overwhelming influence of money in politics. In the United States, things went from bad to worse on Thursday January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court [] took upon itself to profoundly change the U.S. Constitution and American democracy in ruling that legal entities, such as corporations and labor unions, have the same purely personal rights to free speech as living individuals and can therefore use as much money as they wish to elect public officials of their liking.

In doing so, the U.S. Supreme Court severely devalued the individual's right to vote and made sure that the percentage of people who will bother to vote in the future will keep declining. Mind you, voter participation during the mid-term 2010 U.S. federal election, for example, was a meager 42 percent of registered voters. When a majority of the people don't even bother to vote, democracy is morbidly sick. Even though voter turnout [] is generally higher in American presidential elections than for midterm contests, it was nevertheless as low as 49.1 percent in 1996 (Bill Clinton vs Bob Dole) after it had reached a high of 60.1 percent during the 1960 presidential election between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

A question must be raised: Who profits the most when democracy dies?

Our times mark the triumph of Machiavellism, [] i.e. of the corrosive ideology that politics and business should not adhere to any moral principles but should only be guided by narrow political interests and by the ruthless pursuit of profits. In this endeavor, the only principle that counts is the one that says that “the end justifies the means” and that craft, deceit and greed are OK in the pursuit of political power or of economic resources. —It is against this very destructive ideology that I wrote my book “The Code for Global Ethics”. [] I have the deep conviction that many of our other macro crises are the result of this moral vacuum.

If we go back in history, we see that the big financial crises of the past, those of 1873-1880 and 1929-1939 for example, had pretty much the same type of causes as the one we are experiencing today: They were basically caused by a general collapse of public and private basic morality among a very small elite that pushed its exploitation of public institutions to the breaking limit. For such a small elite, there comes a time when all means justify the supreme goal of enriching itself at the expense of the rest of society. All combines, tricks and schemes become acceptable and justified by pious ideological slogans such as “the market always knows best”, the new “wealth (no matter how acquired) will trickle down”, or, for the more delusional ones among them, “God is placing all that money in my hands, therefore, I must be doing some good”!

When that frame of mind takes hold, a decline of civilization can be feared. Unfortunately, that's where we stand today.

Civil war in Afghanistan is raging since 1976. It saw relative calm and stability during brief spell of Taliban rule, but peace was snatched away by USA and the country was again pushed into the inferno. Ongoing war lit in October 2001 is continuing and has become the longest war in its history. One of the most impecunious countries of the world is being continuously trampled under the boots of US-NATO forces for over a decade without any respite and this gruesome process is likely to continue for some more time. Having failed to subdue Afghan resistance forces despite applying excessive force and dirty tricks, occupation forces are now at the verge of throwing in their towel and departing.   

Concluding that military option alone will lead nowhere; of late the US has been following dual-track policy of slapping the Taliban with one hand and offering lollypops with the other. While the slaps are reserved for the hardliners who fight and refuse to negotiate, the lollypops are for the moderates showing inclinations to negotiate and promising to make the hardliners led by Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani agree to talk with Americans. The US has been constantly trying to win over Mullah Omar or Jalaluddin Haqqani or any of his sons like Sirajuddin and Badruddin since it has realized that without their cooperation political settlement is not possible.

Ironically, while the US has been pushing Pakistan to go after Haqqani Network (HN) in North Waziristan (NW) since early 2010, it secretly kept wooing leadership of HN to breakaway from Mullah Omar and join Karzai’s government. Services of ISI were availed to establish contacts. HN turned into most wanted target after its leaders refused to fall into the US trap and rebuffed the overtures of USA as well as several other countries. Sirajuddin conveyed in clear terms that that HN was not a separate entity but part of Taliban under Ameer-ul Momineen Mullah Omar who is regarded by each member of his group with deep sense of respect and approbation and would obey his and not US commands. All this has now been disclosed by Wall Street Journal.

In its bid to break the will of Taliban and make them agree to US terms so that senseless war could end, apart from stepping up aerial and ground raids in Afghanistan, CIA accelerated the rate of drone strikes in NW and also kept up its pressure on Pakistan to launch a major militaryoperation in NW and eliminate alleged safe havens of militants. Reluctance on part of Pakistan Army to open a new front owing to social, political, financial and military constraints as well as its strong suspicion that the US was playing a double game strengthened US spin doctors to accuse Pakistan that it is aligned with Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda. Secretary Defence Leon Panetta went to the extent of saying that either Pakistan is complicit or incompetent. In the wake of intensification of attacks by Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months, the US started holding HN responsible and urged Pakistan to destroy its sanctuaries in NW.

To dispel the false impression created by US military leaders that lot of progress had been made against the Taliban, the latter undertook spectacular offensive actions in and around Kabul. A daring attack was launched on Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul on 28 June. Murders of two important aides Ahmad Wali Karzai and Jan Muhammad in July in Kandahar who were supposedly making secret parleys with the Taliban upset the US and Karzai’s plans to broker a political settlement. Downing of US Chinook in Wardak in August took the lives of 38 American soldiers of Special Forces including 23 belonging to unit of Navy Seals that had taken part in Operation ‘Get Geronimo’ on 2 May. Truck bomb attack on the NATO military base in Wardak on 10 September resulted in death to five and injuries to 96 including 80 US soldiers, out of which several succumbed to injuries.

Of all the attacks, September 13 attack on US Embassy, NATO HQ and Afghan National Security Directorate in the most protected capital city of Kabul was more worrisome for the US. Not only this attack exposed the fragility of security system but also laid bare the weakness of security forces which had no clue how to deal with six militants who had paralyzed the capital city for 20 hours. ISAF’s confidence in ANA that it was ready to takeover security duties was also shattered. The US was still to recover from the shock when peace maker Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber on 20 September which gave a deadly blow to peace process. It depressedKarzai so deeply that he gave up on negotiations with Taliban.

Dumbfounded by string of deadly attacks by Taliban and not knowing how to cover up their embarrassment, the US military officials led by retiring Admiral Mike Mullen hastened to fabricate a charge-sheet against Pakistan’s ISI asserting that it was linked with HN which was ISI’s veritable arm and the two were involved in 13 September attack. HN was declared as irredeemably violent and criminal outfit. During his meeting with Gen Kayani in Spain, Mullen had urged him to rid the US of the monster of HN at the earliest but his tone was friendly. But on 22 September when he addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee, he looked haggard and emaciated and his blunt and harsh utterances betrayed his inner anxieties. Cameron Munter, Ryan Crocker and Panetta joined the Pakistan-HN condemning choral group and alleged that Pakistan was in cahoots with HN. Hillary Clinton’s over three hours session with the visiting Hina Rabbani revolved entirely around HN and the necessity to mount an operation in NW. It was quite apparent that the US had decided to make Pakistan a scapegoat and cover up its recurring failings.              

Pak-US relations have been continuously sliding down in the aftermath of Raymond Davis and 2 May incidents. Rather than feeling remorseful and trying to compensate Pakistan for the wrongs done, the attitude of US officials has remained puffed-up and bossy. They are now threatening to take unilateral action in NW in case Pakistan didn’t agree to do so and chase out HN. The latter has become Achilles Heels of USA which is giving it nightmares. The US has become so obsessed with the small band of 3-4000 fighters in NW that it has declared that no progress can be achieved in Afghanistan without their elimination.   

To make matters worse for the marooned US military in Afghanistan, its strongest ally Pakistan which has taken the major brunt of war and sacrificed the most is having second thoughts over its alliance with USA, which has given it a raw deal. Instead of getting over awed and frightened, Pakistan has taken the bullying US officials by complete surprise by giving a befitting reply. The Army took the lead in showing eyes to the US and the government gave a pleasant surprise to the nation when it followed suit. Soon after, it held an All Parties Conference. 13-point resolution laid out that Pakistan will give peace a chance and will not abide by the dictates of the US which are against its national interests.

The US got yet another shock when it found the divided nation standing united and resolutely behind the government, Army and ISI. The outrage expressed by Pakistani nation has taken the heat out of the US aggressive posturing and has put the US administration on the defensive. It has been forced to take immediate steps to defuse the highly volatile situation. Although Pakistan has sailed passed the worst crisis, however, it will take time for the storm to fully subside, since several involved players having high stakes in Afghanistan would try to keep Pakistan in a tight corner.

Bridging of trust deficit will require sincere and concerted efforts from both sides. Hawks in USmilitary and in CIA egged on by Jewish and Indian lobbyists will keep Pakistan under pressure to make it abide by their dictates.  Indo-Afghan strategic alliance is also aimed at giving a message to Pakistan to behave. Accusation by Kabul that Pakistan had a hand in Burhanuddin’s murder and latest revelation that six persons have been held in Kabul over an alleged plot to assassinate Afghan President is an indication that plot makers will keep cooking incriminating stories to implicate Pakistan and get it declared as a terrorist state, or ISI as a rogue outfit. Pakistan should not relent under any circumstances and should face the challenge gallantly.