DENVER POST’S THE P LOG: Captured: Osama bin Laden Killed, World Reacts
Kyaemon“Denver Post” is a major newspaper published in Denver, Colorado State’s capital. Colorado is known for its ski resorts and mountains.
Captured: Osama bin Laden Killed, World Reacts
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/05/02/captured-osama-bin-laden-killed/4428/
Declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden “a good day for America,” President Barack Obama said Monday the world was safer without the al-Qaida terrorist and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt about the stunning news.
A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.
“Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can’t do,” Obama said of the news bound to lift his political standing and help define his presidency. He hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as word spread around the globe.
An elite crew of American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid on Monday, capping the world’s most intense manhunt, a search that spanned nearly a decade. (AP)
46 pictures
21 comments
Kyaemon
May 4, 2011 at 8:30 pm
digits: How Technology Helped in bin Laden Raid 5/4/2011 2:02:27 PM
The raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound represents probably the biggest success so far of a revolution in military technology: the ability to relay vast amounts of digital imagery through the eye of robotic aircraft or other spy gear. Nathan Hodge reports.
http://online.wsj.com/video/seal-team-six-behind-the-scenes-of-the-elite-unit/D88B4BBD-F14F-438B-9E47-8AF0ECCD6650.html?mod=WSJ_article_onespot
Kyaemon
May 5, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Barack Obama to visit Ground Zero
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13295132
Kyaemon
May 6, 2011 at 8:45 am
Osama cost US taxpayers over $2,000bn: report
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/05-May-2011/Osama-cost-US-taxpayers-over-2000bn-report
If the $5m price the US put on Osama bin Laden’s head in 1998 had led to his immediate capture and disabled al-Qaeda, it would have been the bargain of the millennium.
Assuming that the September 11 2001 attacks would not have happened without bin Laden, and that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars would not have happened without September 11, the al-Qaeda leader directly cost American taxpayers more than $2,000bn – and the indirect burden may be much higher.
The contentious business of estimating the bill for September 11 has become a thriving cottage industry. The direct costs of the Afghan and Iraq operations are the easier part. The Congressional Research Service, Capitol Hill’s non-partisan think-tank, recently calculated that Congress had appropriated $1,283bn since 2001 on top of its usual military expenditure without adjusting for inflation and debt interest. The CRS estimates the costs will total $1,800bn by 2021.
If US boots are removed from the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan as planned and the spending scaled down, those costs are large but not crippling: $1,283bn is less than 10 per cent of the current federal debt.
But the so-called “war on terror” also left the US with new commitments which may be hard to cut. Domestic anti-terror spending surged after the Department of Homeland Security was founded in 2002 – the first new government department since the creation of Veterans’ Affairs in 1989.
The need to be seen protecting the home front has apparently extended political impregnability over another big chunk of the federal budget. The recent fiscal proposal by Paul Ryan, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives budget committee, slashed other spending by politically improbable amounts but left homeland security – and underlying defence spending – largely intact.
A paper by John Mueller at Ohio State university and Mark Stewart at Newcastle University in New South Wales, Australia, argues this response has been expensive and excessive. The authors say the direct cost of extra homeland security expenditure between 2002 and 2011, mainly by the federal government, was $690bn in today’s money, with passenger delays from extra screening and other indirect costs adding another $417bn. In 2009, the total burden came to nearly 1 per cent of gross domestic product.
Kyaemon
May 6, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Officials: Osama Bin Laden Was Planning Attack
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/25145166
Click video
Kyaemon
May 7, 2011 at 5:47 am
President Obama Visits Ground Zero
In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death, the President travels to New York City to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2069832_2272523,00.html
8 PICTURES
Kyaemon
May 7, 2011 at 6:41 pm
THIS ASIAN ANALYST EXPLORES SOME HIDDEN POLITICAL UNDERCURRENTS AND AGENDAS…
US spins web of self-deceit
By Chan Akya
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/ME07Aa01.html
None more blind than he who doesn’t want to see
None so deaf than he who doesn’t want to hear
There is much drama about the events in Pakistan, where the discovery and killing (or was it the other way around) of Osama bin Laden last weekend has brought out of the proverbial woodwork a host of people prone to finger-wagging. Such luminaries as the CIA head and the United States president’s counterintelligence adviser have weighed in with what Pakistan as a country should or shouldn’t have been doing in this matter.
This column has long criticized the actions of the government and military in Pakistan (see The ‘tragi-terror’ that is Pakistan, Asia Times Online, September 14, 2010) and blamed the myopia of the US and Europe in seeing and hearing abject reality for what it is. There is here, therefore, neither there surprise nor the consternation shown by American and European lawmakers and other commentators in this regards. Indeed, the discovery and killing of Osama in a country other than Pakistan would have been the real surprise.
In any event, the key focus of this article is to examine the pattern of self-deceit that appears to be sustaining a host of governments in matters of state as well as more mundane subjects such as the economy, financial systems and jobs growth. Expressed in simplistic terms, politicians across Europe and America have neither the willingness nor the ability to confront harsh truths.
For a few days after 9/11, the US government of George W Bush and Dick Cheney dilly-dallied about how to treat the renegade nuclear power that was Pakistan before accepting a delusional version of reality that somehow the country that had spawned multitudes of terror movements, including the Taliban ruling Afghanistan at the time, could actually be trusted to turn 180 degrees and start supporting America in its “war on terror”. So a financial package worth a few billion dollars was crafted that was somehow going to turn Asia’s basket case into a viable partner.
Fast forward a few years, and the same delusion exhibited itself when another tough decision had to be made in the days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers (technically the key event, ie rejection of Federal aid for Lehman, was on 9/11 of 2008, but that’s one coincidence too many, so the actual bankruptcy was pushed to September 15, 2008) when the US government of George W Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had to decide what to do with the other banks that were looking a little worse for wear. Once again, a romantic notion of “redemption” was ushered into the public parlance and a rescue package was crafted with firm promises that the banks would learn to behave properly from thereon.
Pakistan from the mid-1980s but much more so from the beginning of 2002 had been weaned by two parental figures; namely the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America. One provided cheap oil and money to keep the madrassas that recruited warriors into a holy war going; the other provided military aid that would make nervous opponents like India and Israel back off into the quiet corner. The idea was that economic and military aid would lead to a stronger Pakistan that could shake off its feudal society and arrive on the global stage as a full-fledged and responsible player. And yet no one really considered what the sum total of these opposing philosophies would be on the evolution of Pakistan as a society.
The same vein of (il)logic has applied in the global financial system since 2008; namely that between the parental figures in governments (in Europe and the US) and central banks there was a great attempt at inflating the financial positions of banks so that they could return to profitability and thereby resume a useful role in society. This has come to naught as none of the rescued banks have bothered to start lending more to governments and people in their home countries; instead they are using all their newfound capital and liquidity to purchase junk securities and speculate in commodity markets.
Think through this logic in moral terms. When you have socially destructive errant behavior, the worst thing possible may well be to bail out certain culprits in the obscene hope that their ways can be changed. If you wanted to stop drug pushers in the neighborhood, it would be a good idea to remove demand – ie cure the addicted folks – rather than attempt to buy the drug pushers out. The latter course of action would only result in the perverse situation of more people taking up drug-running in the hopes of either making money or being bought out.
For Pakistan, the aid given for the fight against Bin Laden was simply too lucrative to actually pursue him and his cohorts: he became the proverbial golden goose. Additionally, the fear of confronting Pakistan that was shown by the US and Europe in 2001 created worse behavior in the years hence, such as nuclear proliferation. In the case of the US and European banks rescued by taxpayers, the result was just the same as for the drug pushers described above: to create perverse incentives for even worse behavior.
Transgressions were ignored and evidence of clear crimes was hurriedly swept under the carpet. In the case of Pakistan, revelations around the proliferation of nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea were quietly brushed out of the airwaves as politicians in the US and Europe averred that Pakistan was as much a victim as a perpetrator of such crimes……
Kyaemon
May 7, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Analysis: Reimagining Obama after gutsy raid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_reimagining_obama_analysis;_ylt=AsRMj_85GHnR6vL4QZIYfuWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNjbHIxcDM0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwNTA3L3VzX2Jpbl9sYWRlbgRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzYEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2FuYWx5c2lzcmVpbQ–
WASHINGTON – It was just a firehouse chat with the guys of Engine 54 in lower Manhattan. But President Barack Obama delivered a message he hopes will also hit home with every American in this week of national catharsis: “You’re always going to have a president and an administration who’s got your back.”
In the denouement to the daring raid that brought down Osama bin Laden, the president has in effect been reintroduced to the nation.
While taking care to strike the right tone — trying to savor the success of the dramatic covert operation without appearing to gloat — Obama has offered himself as a decisive leader willing to take bold risks.
He’s gotten a bump in the polls that isn’t likely to last. But Americans may well come away with altered perceptions of a president whose strongest personal qualities in past polls have run to squishier traits like being a good communicator and friendly.
“It sheds a new light on him,” says pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. “What happened here may improve impressions that he is a strong and forceful leader, and that’s the enduring potential benefit.”
Obama’s understated victory lap — not that he would ever call it that — continued on Friday in Kentucky, where he met privately at Fort Campbell with participants in the assault on bin Laden’s Pakistani hideaway and in public with U.S. troops returning from Afghanistan. “Job well done,” the president declared.
The president has been careful to shower credit and praise for the successful raid on the U.S. military and the nation’s intelligence and counterterrorism apparatus, and to frame this as a time for Americans to set aside politics and conjure the unity that the nation felt after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But it is inescapable that he is not only a president. He also is a candidate for re-election. And the successful raid can only do him good politically.
Contrast the competing images of Obama at New York’s ground zero on Thursday, meeting with first responders and families of those lost in the terror attacks, with those from Greenville, S.C., where the first debate of GOP presidential contenders played out Thursday night. The event attracted a field of relative unknowns lacking in foreign policy experience.
For now, even Obama’s political opponents are willing to give him his due.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a GOP presidential hopeful who declined to participate in the South Carolina debate, gave no-strings-attached credit to the president, the military and the intelligence community earlier in the week, calling it “a great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has never shied from criticism of the Obama administration, also offered up credit to the president and his national security team. But he coupled it with a reminder that each president has built upon the work of his predecessor.
“We picked up on items that had been collected during the Clinton administration and worked those aggressively for eight years,” Cheney said in a TV interview after the raid. “We passed that on to the Obama administration. They picked it up and they’ve been working it.”
Fair or not, though, the credit for a blockbuster achievement like the demise of bin Laden goes to the sitting president.
With all that could have gone wrong, the risky mission could well have ended in unmitigated disaster. And, in that case, it would have been blame that was assigned to the sitting president…….
Kyaemon
May 8, 2011 at 6:15 pm
YouTube – Details leading to Osama bin Laden’s death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x0tpdt4r-c&feature=related
Russ Mitchell spoke with CBS News national correspondent David Martin on the details that lead to the U.S. killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
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Kyaemon
May 9, 2011 at 3:37 am
Bin Laden’s Secret Life in a Diminished World
Bin Laden’s Secret Life in a Shrunken World, Domestic but Dark – NYTimes.com
YouTube – EDL – Confrontation with Bin Laden supporters outside the US Embassy in London (Today 06-05-2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWYVupGPmlU
Kyaemon
May 9, 2011 at 3:39 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/world/asia/08binladen.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp
WASHINGTON — The world’s most wanted terrorist lived his last five years imprisoned behind the barbed wire and high walls of his home in Abbottabad, Pakistan, his days consumed by dark arts and domesticity….
Kyaemon
May 9, 2011 at 3:54 am
U.S. wants to interrogate Osama bin Laden’s wives
The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to make the three widows of Osama bin Laden available for questioning, even while relations between the two countries are strained.
Osama bin Laden wives: U.S. wants to interrogate Bin Laden’s wives – latimes.com
Reporting from Washington— The Obama administration is pressing Pakistan to make available Osama bin Laden’s three widows for interrogation in what could become a test of U.S. relations with the country that served as a sanctuary for the terrorist leader.
President Obama’s national security advisor, Tom Donilon, said Sunday that it remained unclear whether Pakistani officials knew of Bin Laden’s presence in their country but that the country should provide access to the three women and any materials they took from the Bin Laden compound after the U.S. raid that killed him.
While members of Congress from both parties have called for the U.S. to get tough with Pakistan and perhaps even cut off foreign aid, Donilon urged a “calm and cool” assessment that takes into account that Pakistan is a “very important partner” in the war on terror.
“It’s my job to take steps that are in the U.S. national interest,” Donilon told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And a relationship with Pakistan, given everything we have at stake in that region, is an important relationship.”
Pakistan is conducting an investigation of what its government knew about Bin Laden’s presence in the country, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, told ABC’s “This Week.”
“Pakistan wants to put to rest any misgivings the world has about our role,” he said. “Be clear, we have been victims of terrorism, and we will see this through, and we will share our intelligence with everyone that we have to share this intelligence with.”
But he also said his country was “offended” by what it views as a violation of its sovereignty from the U.S. raid.
“America has a selling job to do in Pakistan,” he said.
Pakistani authorities have learned that when Bin Laden lived in the compound one of his wives “never left the same floor of Osama bin Laden because they were paranoid about physical movement,” the ambassador said. “They didn’t go to windows. They didn’t have any sort of fresh air.”
Donilon, making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, said that U.S. intelligence officers were poring over a large trove of information “the size of a small college library” taken by Navy SEALS from Bin Laden’s home for clues to such things as other terrorist threats and the whereabouts of other terrorists.
Defending the shooting of an unarmed Bin Laden, Donilon told CNN’s “State of the Union,” “This is an organization known obviously for suicide bombing, IEDs, booby trapping buildings. And I think our forces, with no signal from [Bin Laden] that he was prepared to surrender, acted completely appropriately. And I don’t think anybody is going to second guess their judgment.”
Former Bush administration officials, while praising Obama for launching the raid, offered their own spin as well, nonetheless, including using Bin Laden’s death to defend waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation tactics.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News on Sunday that he was concerned now that Bin Laden’s dead, “there will be a rush to get out of Afghanistan.”
Photos: The death of Osama bin Laden
FP’s bin Laden Coverage
FP’s bin Laden Coverage | FP Passport
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/05/fps_bin_laden_coverage
Kyaemon
May 11, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Osama hit a wake-up call for India
By Chietigj Bajpaee
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME07Df02.html
The killing of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s heartland by United States special forces demonstrated American resolve in the decade since the 9/11 attacks to get its man. It has also renewed concerns that the South Asian nation is a hub of Islamic extremist activities that have targeted neighboring India.
The May 3 hit draws attention to the shallowness of India’s claims to be an emerging “great power” since it caps events in South Asia over the past decade that show India remains incapable of solving problems within its own sub-region, far from acquiring the capability to project influence on a larger scale.
Death by a thousand cuts
The Fedayeen (guerilla)-style attacks in Mumbai on November 26-28, 2008, which claimed the lives of nearly 200 people have often
portrayed in the media as “India’s 9/11”. However, in reality, India has suffered multiple 9/11 moments over the past two decades inflicted by Pakistan-based militant groups, and few of the masterminds behind these attacks have been held accountable as India’s list of demands grows longer with each assault.
From the multiple bomb strikes targeted at transport infrastructure, religious venues and commercial hubs across major cities in India’s heartland, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Pune, attacks have claimed some 1,000 lives and injured almost 3,000 people. Add to that toll the death of more than 40,000 people in the two-decade insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir state that has seen continued militant infiltration and ceasefire violations along the Line of Control dividing Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
The incursion of militant elements supported by Pakistani paramilitary forces in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir in mid-1999 could be defined as India’s “Pearl Harbor moment” when the country was caught off-guard by Pakistani aggression. It came mere months after then-Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s much-hailed “bus diplomacy” mission to Pakistan.
Pakistani military and intelligence services continue to feign ignorance of these plots to destabilize India while drawing distinctions between “good” militants (Kashmiri separatists, Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani group, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir factions of the Pakistan Taliban) and “bad” militants (the Mehsud faction of the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, Lashkar al-Zil, TNSM) as a means to escape charges of being state sponsors of terrorism.
Indian interests and citizens have also faced direct threats beyond its shores from Pakistan-based militancy and extremism. In December 1999, India faced what some have described as the “dress rehearsal for 9-11” as five militants hijacked Indian Airlines 814 after it took off from Kathmandu, Nepal and diverted it to Kandahar, Afghanistan after stopovers in Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai.
The hostage crisis was resolved following the release of three militants, one of whom, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was later implicated in the kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and another, Maulana Masood Azhar, was linked to an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.
The Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, has come under direct attack on two occasions in recent years (in July 2008 and October 2009). Indian nationals from the Border Roads Organization working on the Zaranj-Delaram Highway project have also been attacked on several occasions and Indian civilians appear to have been sought out in an attack on a guesthouse in Kabul in February 2010.
These attacks on Indian interests in Afghanistan have happened despite the fact that the country does not maintain a military presence in Afghanistan, is not a member of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) there, and its activities largely limited to diplomatic and reconstruction initiatives.
Playing second fiddle in South Asia
With clear indications that Pakistan remains the most direct external threat to India’s sovereignty and security, India has turned the other cheek time and again in the most clear demonstration of appeasement since Neville Chamberlain’s pledge of “peace for our time” following his Munich meeting with Adolf Hitler in 1938.
Despite a frequent war of words and the occasional mobilization of military resources, which brought both countries on the verge of a fourth war in 2001-2, India appears to have more often than not turned Theodore Roosevelt’s proverb on its head by “speaking loudly and carrying a small stick”.
Whether driven by international calls for restraint, deficiencies in its military resources that prevent rapid deployment, or fears of escalation fueled by Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and unwillingness to commit to a no-first-strike policy (while India lacks clarity over its own nuclear doctrine), India has remained reluctant to exercise the military option to Pakistan’s frequent provocations.
Instead, New Delhi appears to have “outsourced” its Pakistan policy to the United States and then expressed shock and frustration when Washington has not toed the same line in its approach toward Pakistan. Despite claims to pursuing a more pragmatic foreign policy, New Delhi appears to maintain a strain of Nehruvian idealism in its foreign policy approach.
This is demonstrated in its inability to acknowledge that despite the United States’ self-proclaimed role as the world’s policeman, Washington is in fact driven by the only interest that dominates every state’s decision-making in international relations – the national interest.
New Delhi cannot expect Washington to do its bidding, especially as New Delhi retains its own preference for a non-aligned foreign policy. This saw its most recent manifestation when two US companies (Lockheed Martin and Boeing) were knocked out of the mammoth competition for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft, which is likely to leave a bitter taste in the US-India relationship and unravel some of the goodwill generated by the US-India nuclear agreement.
In the process of having a marginalized military role in the Af-Pak region, India has been limited to spewing rhetoric. The inability of the Indian government to support several positions vis-a-vis Pakistan through concrete action makes its pronouncements shallow. While in themselves laudable, there is a hollow ring to statements that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-administered (“Azad”) Kashmir are an integral part of India, that the Pakistani state must cease its support for militancy targeted at India, and in New Delhi’s opposition to proposed reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban.
In a contrast with India for instance, the Chinese government, while maintaining a similarly stringent position on recognition of its “One China” policy, has been able to make definable progress in its goal of reunification with Taiwan by pursuing a carrot and stick approach through a free-trade agreement, three links of direct postal, transportation and trade, burgeoning tourism and by swaying the cross-strait military balance in Beijing’s favor to deter separatist tendencies in Taiwan.
India has not been able to make any such strides in reaffirming its claim to all of Kashmir, curbing the anti-India ideology that continues to permeate the Pakistan military and intelligence services and combating the spread of Islamic extremist ideology embedded in hardline Deobandi, Wahhabi and Salafi Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Instead, its actions are limited to symbolic and token gestures such as the recent “cricket diplomacy” that occurred during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani’s meeting with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh during the World Cup semi-finals.
Filling a strategic void
The boldness with which the United States deployed Navy SEALs commandos deep inside Pakistani territory to decapitate al-Qaeda’s leadership and thus accomplish the mission that it set itself nearly 10 years ago should be a wake-up call for India, which continues to face the same security dilemmas it faced at independence 64 years ago.
India for its part has developed the much-hailed “Cold Start” military doctrine, which advocates rapid deployment as a means to facilitate swift and limited military engagements aimed at deterring a nuclear response and intervention by the international community.
However, this doctrine remains mere rhetoric given its inability to deter continued aggression by Pakistan, whose development of asymmetric warfare tactics and nuclear-capable battlefield range ballistic missiles has served to somewhat negate the utility of Cold Start.
Furthermore, India has demonstrated an inability to execute the doctrine given resource and logistical constraints, including transportation bottlenecks and the shortage or poor quality of key platforms, such as artillery and surveillance systems, deficiencies in interoperability between branches of the armed forces, and an apathy or unwillingness by the civilian leadership to properly consider issues of national security.
Given these logistical, resource and command and control constraints, the chances of India mounting similar operations inside Pakistani territory to kill or capture members of terrorist groups such as Hafiz Saeed, Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Masood Azhar, Ilyas Kashmiri appears slim.
Furthermore, despite the double-digit increase in the country’s defense budget this year to over $36 billion, revisions to the doctrine, including fighting a two-front war and engaging in “out of area” operations, appear wishful thinking and a case of strategic overreach.
Pakistan, despite all its faults, has demonstrated an impressive agility to redefine itself depending on the changing strategic landscape. This includes maintaining an “all weather friendship” with China, portraying itself as the quintessential Islamic state as noted by its status as the possessor of an “Islamic” nuclear bomb, and being a pivotal component of the US-led security architecture by first bandwagoning with it in the struggle against communism during the Cold War (in the Baghdad Pact/CENTO/opposing Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) and more recently as an ally in the “war on terror”, which granted it recognition as a “major non-NATO ally”.
India on the other hand, has tended to be more slow-moving and reactive in its foreign policymaking with shifts driven more by necessity or upheaval, such as the country’s foreign exchange crisis in 1991 that prompted economic liberalization. Changes in the country’s foreign policy orientation have also been driven by the actions of other players, such as the US government’s recognition of India as a major emerging power during the Bill Clinton and second George W Bush administrations, which fueled a rapprochement.
Rather than being driven by objective and long-term strategic assessments, indigenous shifts in foreign and security policy have often been more the result of the personalities of ruling parties, such as the more realpolitik interpretation of the international system by the Hindu-nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), which prompted it to declare India as an overt nuclear weapons power in 1998.
Calm before the storm
Al-Qaeda’s Arab element is being increasingly displaced from South Asia and back to its heartland in the Middle East and North Africa. This push has been fueled by anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emergence of new places of instability as ripe terrorist sanctuaries, which have given rise to such groups as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic Maghreb, and militant groups exploiting ongoing instabilities plaguing the region, such as in the conflict in Libya.
As such, terrorist leaderships in South Asia are becoming localized, as demonstrated by the proliferation of indigenous militant umbrella organizations such as the Pakistan Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) and Punjabi Taliban. These groups are likely to return attention to Kashmir, their original grievance, and target their original enemy – India.
The decapitation of al-Qaeda’s leadership in the Af-Pak region and the planned US withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014 set the stage for a reversion to the original bilateral conflict plaguing regional stability between India and Pakistan. New Delhi cannot afford to be caught off-guard once the dust settles in South Asia and it is once again alone in facing the scourge of terrorism, separatist insurgency and military aggression emanating from Pakistan.
Chietigj Bajpaee is an Asia analyst. He has worked with several political risk consultancies and public policy think-tanks based in the United States, Europe and South Asia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at cbajpaee@hotmail.com.
Kyaemon
May 11, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Bin Laden out, Gaddafi next
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME12Ak01.html
To follow Pepe’s articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.
THE ROVING EYE Let’s start by invoking a Western cultural icon, Dante; “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” – because international law as we know it has just been delivered a stake through its heart. The “new” sociopolitical Darwinism entails humanitarian neo-colonialism, targeted assassinations – extrajudicial executions – and drone wars, all carried out in the name of a revamped white man’s burden.
In the whirlwind of lies and hypocrisy engulfing the Osama bin Laden hit job, the key justice-related fact is how an unarmed man, codename “Geronimo”, was captured live then summarily
executed in front of one of his daughters – after a lightning-quick invasion of a theoretically “sovereign” country.
As for the quagmire war waged by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against Libya, the fact is that Western public opinion was fed a military attack against a sovereign country that has committed no violation of the United Nations charter. Talk about a wolf – neo-colonialism – in sheep’s clothing – “humanitarian war”.
At the heart of the matter is the concept itself of international law – adopted by all “civilized” nations, as well as what constitutes a just war. Yet for Western ruling elites this is just a detail; there has been no high-level debate on the implications of an United Nations-justified NATO war whose ultimate – and always unstated – objective is regime change.
Tomahawk Darwinism
The dirty operation in northern Africa reveals itself to be even nastier when it has been proved that the war on Libya was initially conceptualized by dubious French interests; that Saudi Arabia delivered a fake Arab League vote for the US because it wanted to get rid of Muammar Gaddafi and at the same time have a free hand in smashing pro-democracy protests in Bahrain; that Libya offers the perfect possibility for the Pentagon’s Africom to have an African base; that a dodgy bunch of “rebels” hijacked legitimate protests, with Gaddafi defectors, al-Qaeda-linked jihadis and exiles such as Central Intelligence Agency asset General Khalifa Hifter, who had lived for nearly 20 years in Virginia, taking over.
The going got even nastier when one learned that on March 19 the Washington/London/Paris financial elites authorized the Central Bank of Benghazi to have its own – Western dictated – monetary policy, unlike the state-owned, and fully independent, Libyan national bank in Tripoli; Gaddafi wanted to get rid of both the US dollar and the euro and switch to the gold dinar as an African common currency – and many governments were already on board.
The war on Libya has been globally sold under the slogan R2P – Responsibility to Protect – a “new” humanitarian imperialist concept that in Washington was brandished with relish by three Amazon cheerleaders; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and presidential adviser Samantha Power.
Large swathes of the developing world – the real “international community”, not that fiction in the pages of Western mainstream media – saw it for what it is; the end of the concept of national sovereignty, as in a clever “reframing” completely blurring the original Article 2, Section 1 of the UN Charter principle of sovereign equality of states.
They saw that the “deciders” on R2P were exclusively Washington and a bunch of European capitals. They saw that Libya was slapped with NATO bombing – but not Bahrain, Yemen or Syria. They saw the “deciders” made no effort whatsoever to negotiate a ceasefire inside Libya – ignoring plans by Turkey and the African Union (AU).
And power players Moscow and Beijing of course could not fail to see that R2P could be invoked in the case of unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang – and the next step would be NATO troops inside Chinese territory. Same to what concerns Chechnya – with the additional Western hypocritical factor that Chechens have for years been armed by NATO via al-Qaeda-linked networks in the Caucasus/Central Asia.
Even South American players could not fail to see R2P invoked in the long run for a “humanitarian” NATO intervention in Venezuela or Bolivia.
So this is the new meaning of “international law”: Washington – via Africom or NATO – intervenes anyway, with or without a UN Security Council resolution, in the name of R2P, and everyone keeps silent on collateral damage, on bombing a regime while denying the objective is regime change, on not helping boatloads of refugees stranded in the Mediterranean.
As for why Gaddafi gets the boot while the al-Khalifas in Bahrain, Saleh in Yemen and Bashar al-Assad in Syria get away with it – that’s simple; you’re not an evil dictator if you’re one of “our” bastards – that is, play by “our” rules. The destiny of “independents” such as Gaddafi is to become toast. It helps if you already have a key US military base in your country – as with the al-Khalifas and the US 5th Fleet.
If the al-Khalifas were not US lackeys and there was no US military base, Washington would have no problems selling an intervention in favor of the peaceful, largely Shi’ite pro-democracy protesters against a ghastly Sunni tyranny which needs the House of Saud to repress its own people.
Then there are the legalese aspects. Imagine putting Gaddafi on trial. Martial court or civil court? A kangaroo court – a la Saddam Hussein – or offering him all the “civilized” means to defend himself? And how to prosecute crimes against humanity beyond reasonable doubt? How to use testimonies obtained under torture, sorry, “enhanced interrogation”? And for how long? Years? How many witnesses? Thousands?
It’s much easier to solve it all with a Tomahawk – or a bullet in the head – and then call it “justice”.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
Kyaemon
May 11, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Omar: Osama’s death won’t affect Indo-Pak dialogue
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/photo/2011-05/11/c_13868656.htm
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah salutes at the guard of honour organised at the Civil Secretariat Complex in Srinagar on May 10, 2011. On the occasion, Omar Abdullah struck a note of optimism on the talks between India and Pakistan, saying that the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden will not have any bearing on the renewed process of dialogue between the two nations.(Xinhua/Stringer)
Kyaemon
May 13, 2011 at 1:11 am
Checkbook Jihad
The raid that killed Osama bin Laden may finally shed light on the financial network behind al Qaeda.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/11/checkbook_jihad?page=0,0
Terrorist financiers must be under tremendous stress since news broke that U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and seized hard drives and other electronic media from his safe house. Intelligence analysts and document exploitation (“Doc X”) specialists are reportedly already sifting through this intelligence treasure trove and have found evidence of notional al Qaeda plots, including aspirational plans to attack the U.S. train system, and more. In all likelihood, the files will include clues pointing to bin Laden’s money trail as well.
This puts people like Abd al-Hamid al-Mujil in an uncomfortable position. Described by fellow jihadists as the “million-dollar man” for his successful fundraising on behalf of al Qaeda and other jihadi groups, Mujil directed the office of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a charity in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Both he and the IIRO office he headed were designated as terrorist entities by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2006.
But even if being “named and shamed” forced Mujil out of the terror-finance business, there are many others just like him. Just this week, David Cohen, the head of the Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence branch told CNN that major donors from the Gulf states remain the key sources of funding for the al Qaeda core. There are no doubt dozens of radical funders now worrying that their names, bank accounts, or addresses will comes up in bin Laden’s spreadsheets — or “pocket litter” — and for good reason. ………
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/11/checkbook_jihad?page=0,1
……………The Abbottabad files may help analysts better understand the current nature of the financial relationship, if any, between al Qaeda core and its regional franchises. And beyond the files themselves, bin Laden’s killing may also have an impact. For example, if fissures break out between Zawahiri and other al Qaeda leaders, freelance fundraisers who have raised funds for both the al Qaeda core and affiliated groups could shift away from Zawahiri and toward groups like AQAP, which U.S. authorities unanimously describe as the greatest terrorist threat to the United States today. Consider someone like Mubarak al-Bathali, a Kuwaiti designated a terrorist financier by the United States in December 2006 and by the United Nations in January 2008. According to the Treasury Department, Bathali raised funds in Kuwait for a range of terrorist organizations — including al Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Al Qaeda’s late leader may still bring in the big bucks for a while, as his old videos get passed around like “greatest hits.” But while bin Laden served as a unifying figurehead, Zawahiri is a divisive figure whose presumed accession to the top spot in the al Qaeda hierarchy may well rekindle simmering tensions between the organization’s Egyptian and Yemeni factions. Moreover, the al Qaeda core — lacking the power of the purse and stripped of its founding icon — may find itself less able to exert authority over its self-financed franchises. The death of bin Laden does not mark the end of al Qaeda, but it may mark the beginning of the end of its core — and the rise of al Qaeda affiliates and homegrown violent extremists.
Kyaemon
May 13, 2011 at 8:47 am
Exclusive: PM Gilani Warns of ‘Trust Deficit’ Between U.S. and Pakistan
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2070965,00.html
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in an exclusive interview with TIME — his first since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden — warned on Wednesday that continuing to work with the U.S. could imperil his government, unless Washington takes drastic steps to restore trust and win over 180 million Pakistanis. Despite the clamor of criticism in Washington alleging Pakistani duplicity over the fact that the al-Qaeda leader had been hiding out in the sleepy garrison town of Abbottabad, Gilani claimed the role of the aggrieved party in a deteriorating relationship. He complained repeatedly throughout the 45-minute breakfast interview about the widening “trust deficit” between the two allies.
Alternating between Urdu and English, the Prime Minister said cooperation between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), had broken down and that Washington and Islamabad differed on how to fight terrorism and forge an exit strategy in Afghanistan. He did, however, publicly offer for the first time to support U.S. drone strikes inside Pakistan, provided that Pakistan is in on the decisionmaking.
(See pictures of Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan hideout.)
Gilani warned that his government was accountable to an electorate that is increasingly hostile to the U.S. “I am not an army dictator; I’m a public figure,” the Prime Minister told TIME, speaking at his palatial hilltop residence in Islamabad. “If public opinion is against you [referring to his U.S. allies], then I cannot resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion.” While the bin Laden debacle has raised calls in Washington to pressure Pakistan for more cooperation, in Islamabad it has raised further hostility toward the U.S.
Speaking of the Abbottabad raid, Gilani said, “Naturally, we wondered why [the U.S.] went unilaterally. If we’re fighting a war together, we have to work together. Even if there was credible and actionable information, then we should have done it jointly.” Addressing Parliament on Monday, Gilani warned against further such U.S. strikes on Pakistan’s soil.
The Prime Minister said he was first alerted to the raid by a 2 a.m. call from Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Gilani then called his Foreign Secretary and asked him to demand an explanation from U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter. “I have not met or spoken to [U.S. officials] since,” he complained.
“Whatever information we are receiving is from the media. Today we have said that we want them to talk to us directly.”
(See why Pakistan feels the heat of U.S. mistrust.)
While Pakistani opposition politicians have pilloried as an intelligence fiasco the revelation that bin Laden had lived undetected in Abbottabad, the Prime Minister testily pushed back against suggestions that his government had caved to the military by allowing it to hold an internal inquiry into the affair, rather than enforce civilian oversight. “We are all on the same page,” Gilani said with an air of finality.
The deepening rift between Washington and Islamabad casts a shadow over Afghanistan, where their cooperation is vital to enable a U.S. exit strategy. Gilani emphasized his strengthening links with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the many bonds that unite the two peoples. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into support for the U.S. strategy there.
“In our discussions with Karzai, we came to an agreement that terrorists are our common enemy. We both have suffered; we both have made sacrifices. So we have decided to unite to fight against them,” Gilani said. To prove this recent intimacy, he showed off a beautifully carved, single-slab lapis lazuli coffee-table top, encased in velvet. “It was a gift from Karzai,” he said. “It arrived a week ago.”
Despite his rapprochement with Karzai, Gilani acknowledged his abiding “difference of opinion” with Washington on how best to fight militancy. “From Day One, my policy has been the three Ds: dialogue, development and deterrence,” Gilani said. “The first time I shared my strategy with President Bush, it sounded Greek to him. Today the whole world is toeing the same line.” In that vein, he criticized the U.S. surge in Afghanistan: “Military solutions cannot be permanent solutions. There has to be a political solution, some kind of exit strategy.”
(Watch President Obama’s announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death.)
Gilani favors a political solution to the conflict next door, led by the Afghans. “It should be owned by them and be on their own initiative,” the Prime Minister said. He saw Pakistan’s role as that of a “facilitator.” U.S. officials have routinely criticized Pakistan for allowing Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters to operate from its soil.
As its ties with Washington fray, Pakistan is strengthening its regional relations. Gilani recently visited India; next week, he will travel to China. But the Prime Minister rejects any suggestion that Pakistan will compensate for any cooling of U.S. support by drawing closer to China. “We already have a stronger relationship with China,” he said. “It’s time-tested.” Yet he doesn’t believe Washington is really going to cut aid. If it does, he said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Gilani does fear that a deteriorating relationship with Washington could hurt Pakistan’s fight against domestic militancy. “When there’s a trust deficit,” he said, “there will be problems in intelligence sharing.” Asked about the reason for this trust deficit, Gilani replied tersely, “It’s not from our side. Ask them.”
The most glaring, and worrying, example of the breakdown for Gilani is in the working relationship between the CIA and the ISI. “Traditionally, the ISI worked with the CIA,” he said. Now “what we’re seeing is that there’s no level of trust.” Relations have deteriorated sharply since last November, when the local CIA station chief was outed, allegedly by the ISI — a charge the agency denies. They hit a low point amid the standoff over Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistani men in a January incident and then claimed diplomatic immunity. Further strain has been caused by the CIA’s covert drone strikes against suspected militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border.
(See “Pakistan May Have Been Cheating on the U.S., but Don’t Expect the Marriage to End.”)
Gilani said the drone war weakens his efforts to rally public support for the fight against extremism. “No one can win a war without the support of the public,” he said. “I say that this is my war, but when drones strike, the people ask, ‘Whose war is this, then?’ ” Still, Gilani said — for the first time, publicly — that he was open to renegotiating the terms of the CIA’s program.
“A drone strategy can be worked out,” Gilani said. “If drone strikes are effective, then we should evolve a common strategy to win over public opinion. Our position is that the technology should be transferred to us.”
Still, he added, he would countenance a policy in which the CIA would continue to operate the drones “where they are used under our supervision.” That statement marks a departure from Pakistan’s frequent public denunciations of drone strikes as intolerable violations of sovereignty.
Despite his constant references to the trust deficit, Gilani indicated that he hoped to see a restoration of closer ties with Washington but put the onus on Washington to gain the support of Pakistani citizens. “They should do something for the public which will persuade them that the U.S. is supportive of Pakistan,” he said. As an example, he enviously cited the 2008 U.S.-India Civil Nuclear
Agreement. “It’s our public that’s dying, but the deal is happening there,” the Prime Minister said, adopting a wounded tone. “You claim there’s a strategic partnership? That we’re best friends?” Casting his eyes up at his chandeliered ceiling, Gilani reached for a verse. “When we passed each other, she didn’t deign to even say hello,” he intoned, quoting the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. “How, then, can I believe that our parting caused her any tears?”
Kyaemon
May 13, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Taliban show resolve to fight on after bin Laden
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110513/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
ISLAMABAD – A double Taliban suicide attack Friday that killed 66 paramilitary police recruits represented the deadliest terrorist strike in Pakistan since the killing of Osama bin Laden. It sent a strong signal that militants mean to fight on and to try to avenge the al-Qaida leader.
The attack came as both the Pakistani and Afghan wings of the Taliban have been carrying out attacks to prove they remain a potent force and bolster their profiles in case peace talks prevail in Afghanistan.
U.S. and Afghan officials have said they hope the Afghan Taliban will use bin Laden’s death as an opportunity to break their link with al-Qaida — an alliance the U.S. says must be severed if the insurgents want peace in Afghanistan. But Afghan officials and Pakistani experts say any severing of ties would not happen anytime soon, if at all.
“The Taliban want to prove that bin Laden’s killing did not really affect them,” said Rahimullah Yusafzai, a Taliban expert in the Pakistani city of Peshawar who has interviewed their reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
“I don’t think anybody is talking peace at this stage,” Yusafzai said. “Everybody is wanting to score something on the ground. I think the spring fighting, the summer fighting will continue and it will be worse than last year.”
In claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack in northwest Pakistan, which also wounded about 120 people, the Taliban said it was avenging the May 2 death of bin Laden. It cited anger at Pakistan’s military for failing to stop the unilateral U.S. raid on bin Laden’s hideaway.
“The Pakistani army has failed to protect its land,” Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call.
Click image to see more photos of Pakistan
AP/Mohammad Sajjad
In their communications, militants often try to tap into popular sentiments in Pakistan, where anti-Americanism is often stronger than fears of Islamist militants. This is despite militant attacks over the last four years claiming the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.
In Afghanistan, where bin Laden’s death has coincided with the beginning of the spring fighting season, the Taliban have launched a series of attacks including a two-day battle in the insurgents’ stronghold of Kandahar in the south.
“Violence has increased because this is part of the peace process,” said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a top adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai who is active in efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. “When you get to the point where everybody wants to position themselves to get the benefit of a dialogue and discussion, then you naturally expect there will be a lot of efforts to strengthen positions.”
Opinion is mixed on whether the Taliban will split with al-Qaida in hopes of reconciling with the Afghan government. The bond was largely built on a personal relationship between Mullah Omar and bin Laden. Now that the al-Qaida leader is dead, members of the Taliban’s top leadership council might argue for distancing the group from the mostly Arab terrorist network, but there has been no concrete signs of that yet.
The goals of the two movements are not believed to be closely aligned. While al-Qaida is focused on worldwide jihad against the West and establishment of a religious superstate in the Muslim world, the Afghan Taliban have focused on their own country and have shown little to no interest in attacking targets outside Afghanistan. Yet the two movements have long expressed formal support to one another.
“I think there are factions within the Taliban that want to split with al-Qaida and I think they will be winning the argument,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political science professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
But breaking with al-Qaida would mean forgoing some explosives expertise and reliable funding channels in the Middle East.
Gen. David Richards, the head of Britain’s military, has said that bin Laden’s death had left some Afghan insurgents panicked about their ability to raise money. Links between al-Qaida and the Taliban were greater than previously known, he said.
Getting the Taliban to split with al-Qaida is just one of many barriers toward reaching a political resolution to the nearly decade-long war.
The U.S.-led coalition hopes to hold ground in southern Afghanistan gained as a result of the addition last year of an extra 30,000 American troops. The Taliban’s goal remains undermining the Afghan government, discrediting its security forces and driving the nearly 100,000 U.S. troops and other foreign forces out of the country.
The Pakistanis, long accused of maintaining ties with militants, hold a key role in getting top Taliban leaders to negotiate. Yet their political clout with both Afghanistan and the U.S. has been tarnished — at least temporarily — by bin Laden’s death on Pakistani soil.
U.S. officials argued that Pakistani officials were either incompetent or complicit in allowing bin Laden to hide in Pakistan for years in a house north of the capital, Islamabad. And Karzai didn’t hesitate to repeat his refrain that the war against terrorists should be waged in Pakistan and not in Afghan cities and villages.
“The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is not good right now,” said Gen. Abdul Hadi Khalid, former Afghan deputy interior minister. “Now, Karzai will not trust Pakistan in the fight against terrorism or in helping Afghanistan with the reconciliation process.”
Jafar Rasouli, a Kabul-based analyst on international affairs, said relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are at a low mark. “For six years they (Pakistani officials) have kept Osama bin Laden in that location and they kept lying to Afghanistan and the world,” Rasouli said.
Pakistan officials claim they did not know that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad.
Pakistan’s army must tread a fine line when dealing with its domestic audience. While the public backs its operations against militant groups that stage attacks in Pakistan, many Pakistanis are sympathetic to the aims of insurgents in Afghanistan. They view the insurgents as a legitimate force resisting a foreign occupation.
While the U.S. accuses Pakistan of playing a double game — supporting and fighting militants — most Pakistanis avoid openly criticizing the powerful military establishment. That makes it difficult to ascertain their true sentiment about how the military is balancing its various alliances.
___
Associated Press Writers Heidi Vogt, Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed to this report.
Kyaemon
May 13, 2011 at 9:06 pm
Justice Stevens: Killing bin Laden Was Lawful
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/13/justice-stevens-killing-bin-laden-was-lawful/
By Jess Bravin
Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote Supreme Court opinions upholding the rights of Guantanamo detainees, said Thursday that the killing of Osama bin Laden was lawful.
“It was not merely to do justice and avenge Sept. 11,” but “to remove an enemy who had been trying every day to attack the United States,” Justice Stevens said at a dinner in Chicago, according to former Stevens law clerk Diane Amann, a University of Georgia professor who attended the dinner, which capped a Northwestern University symposium on the justice’s jurisprudence.
In 2004and 2006, Justice Stevens wrote Supreme Court opinions holding that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their detention before neutral judges, and that while in custody were entitled to the minimal protections of the Geneva Conventions. His rulings stressed that the laws of war—of which the Geneva Conventions, ratified by the U.S., form a principal part—cannot be ignored simply because the government found it “convenient” to do so.
But on Thursday, Justice Stevens indicated that those same laws of war permit the armed forces to kill an enemy commander who remains engaged in active hostilities against the U.S., as Navy SEALs did on their May 2 operation inside Pakistan. “I have not the slightest doubt that it was entirely appropriate for U.S. forces to do,” Justice Stevens said, according to Ms. Amann’s account.
Justice Stevens, 91 years old, was a naval intelligence officer during World War II, where he helped to break Japanese codes, allowing U.S. forces to locate and down the plane carrying Adm. Isoru Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, Prof. Amann noted. After hearing of the daring assault on bin Laden’s hideout, “I must say I was proud of the SEALs,” Justice Stevens said, adding that he also was proud of President Barack Obama for making the decision to undertake the operation.
Kyaemon
May 14, 2011 at 1:22 am
Berating General Pasha: Pakistan’s Spy Chief Gets a Tongue-Lashing
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071412,00.html
The head of Pakistan’s powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) offered his resignation to the country’s prime minister on Friday as he sought to defend the role of the spy agency. Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI chief, conceded that Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan had been an “intelligence failure” and that he was prepared to step down and submit himself to any scrutiny, parliamentarians from both government and opposition parties told TIME on condition of anonymity. Gen. Pasha was speaking at a rare, closed-door briefing to Pakistan’s parliament where the lawmakers swore an oath not to reveal details discussed.
“I present myself to the Prime Minister for any punishment and am willing to appear before any commission personally,” Gen. Pasha said, according to the parliamentarians who spoke to TIME. “But I will not allow the ISI, as an institution, or its employees, to be targeted.” According to those present, the general offered his resignation to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, but it was neither accepted nor openly declined. “He did offer to resign, but there was no reaction,” a parliamentarian tells TIME. During the briefing, the spymaster was subject to rare and fierce criticism from opposition lawmakers. Pasha is serving the final year of a two-year extension as ISI chief. He was appointed by, and remains close to, Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Sources close to the military told TIME that Gen. Pasha had offered Gen. Kayani his resignation before the corps commanders’ meeting at military headquarters on May 5, but the army chief declined to accept it. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan hideout.)
The ISI has been subject to rare public criticism and scrutiny since the U.S. Navy Seal raid on Osama bin Laden’s hiding place, in a compound in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. The revelation that he had been hiding in plain sight has been a source of deep embarrassment for many Pakistanis, with some calling for “heads to roll.” The failure to locate him, and the unilateral U.S. decision to capture and kill him, has set off allegations of complicity or incompetence. While no evidence has emerged of Pakistan hiding bin Laden, the country’s military leadership has struggled to respond to the crisis as tensions have risen with the U.S.
In what lawmakers present described as an emotional speech, Gen. Pasha determinedly pushed back against suggestions that the ISI could have had any role in hiding Bin Laden. “If we had shielded Osama bin Laden, why would we have killed and arrested so many al-Qaeda leaders?” he asked with discernible indignation, according to parliamentarians. “Would we have hidden such a large target in such an exposed area? Without any guards or escape route? Our job is safeguarding the country.” The CIA, Gen. Pasha said, did not share intelligence with the ISI in the lead up to the raid. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)
The enduring threat posed by militants linked to al-Qaeda was on brutal display earlier in the day when two suicide bombers attacked recruits from the Frontier Constabulary paramilitary force at their training center in the volatile northwest. At least 80 people were killed, just as the recruits, who had graduated a day before, were preparing to board vans and head home for leave. The attack, which was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, was the first retaliation in the country for the slaying of bin Laden. The Pakistani security forces were being targeted, the Pakistani Taliban claimed, because they had failed to protect the country from the U.S.
During the closed-door briefing in parliament, Pasha vented his own frustration at the U.S. “We are at a point in our history,” he said, according to two parliamentarians, “where we have to decide whether to stand up to America now or have [following] generations come to deride us.” His American counterparts see Gen. Pasha as partial to recalcitrance. One senior western diplomat in Islamabad describes Pakistani spy chief as “intense,” especially in comparison to his army chief. Kayani was also at the briefing, but remained characteristically quiet throughout. (See why America is stuck with Pakistan.)
Relations between the ISI and the CIA have been in decline since December 2010, when the U.S. spy agency’s Islamabad station chief was forced to leave after his identity was exposed. At the time the CIA alleged that the ISI was responsible for leaking the station chief’s name, in retaliation for Pasha being named in a New York City case involving victims of the 2008 Mumbai massacre. Tensions rose further during the six-week standoff over Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who had been held in Pakistan for killing two Pakistani men in February.
During an exclusive interview with TIME on Wednesday, Prime Minister Gilani said that he could see “no level of trust” between the CIA and the ISI. Gen. Pasha reinforced the observation at the briefing, when he recalled his last meeting with CIA chief Leon Panetta in April, a fortnight before the Bin Laden raid. At that meeting, Pasha said, he had told Panetta that arrangements between the U.S. and Pakistan were all unwritten, and that he had said such a situation could not go on any longer. (See “The bin Laden Raid: Pakistan Feels the Heat of U.S. Mistrust.”)
Pasha was the third military leader to speak before the lawmakers, and the only one not in uniform. At the start of his speech, the general, though he conceded intelligence failure, passionately defended the ISI. He argued that the U.S., U.K. and India did not ridicule their intelligence agencies after 9/11, the 2005 London subway bombings and the 2008 Mumbai massacre. In those countries, retorted Senator Pervez Rashid of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s opposition party, there is no history of military takeovers, a not unsubtle hint to the primacy of the armed forces in Pakistani politics. “There was no response from Pasha,” says a parliamentarian.
Perhaps the most popular intervention came from Javed Hashmi, a veteran from the southern Punjabi city of Multan. “We are with you,” Hashmi, who served five years in prison on trumped up charges of “subversion” against the military. “We know that you have lots of responsibilities. How about you give some of them back to us?” The light-hearted remark aroused smirks on both sides of parliament, and led to loud, desk-thumping approval.
See a video of where the U.S. goes from here.
See TIME’s complete coverage of Osama bin Laden.
Kyaemon
May 14, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Pakistan condemns Bid Laden raid, threatens reprisals for drone strikes
Pakistan’s parliament joins its intelligence chief in condemning the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden and threatens to prohibit NATO convoys into Afghanistan if Washington continues its drone strikes against militants.
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan— At a marathon closed-door session, Pakistan’s parliament Saturday joined the country’s intelligence chief in strongly condemning the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The lawmakers also threatened to prohibit NATO from ferrying military supplies into Afghanistan if Washington continued its campaign of drone strikes against militants.
The head of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, vehemently defended his agency’s track record for hunting down and capturing Al Qaeda operatives. Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha denounced Washington’s decision to carry out the raid without informing Islamabad or seeking its permission, according to accounts from lawmakers that were leaked out to Pakistani media.
Since the May 2 raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, Pasha has been taking heat from Washington and critics at home who want to know if the country’s intelligence community was harboring Bin Laden, or was grossly incompetent in being unable to detect his presence in the military city of Abbottabad for five years.
Pasha, who has been the ISI chief since October 2008, offered to quit if parliament signaled a desire to oust him, but lawmakers gave no indication that they wanted him to step down.
The appearance of military and intelligence leaders in parliament to answer lawmakers’ queries was a rare event. But it reflected widespread anger here over the ease with which the helicopter-borne team of U.S. commandos was able to slip into Pakistan, kill Bin Laden and then leave without any intervention by the Pakistani military.
Pasha did most of the speaking for the 11-hour session. Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani was also present but mostly kept silent. Pasha acknowledged that the inability to detect incoming U.S. helicopters as well as the Al Qaeda leader’s use of Abbottabad as a hideout amounted to an intelligence failure. But he stressed that the ISI was not guilty of “intentional negligence,” Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters.
Pasha also told the joint session of parliament’s upper and lower chambers that, although Pakistan welcomed the elimination of Bin Laden, the U.S. raid was “a clear breach of the country’s sovereignty,” Awan quoted the ISI chief as saying.
After the session, parliament released a resolution condemning the U.S. raid in Abbottabad and warned that any future attempt to repeat such a mission “could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world.”
The resolution also took aim at the CIA’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas, an effort that Pakistan historically has condemned publicly but tacitly approved. “Drone attacks must be stopped forthwith,” the resolution warned. Otherwise, the government would “consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to [NATO and coalition] forces.”
Pakistan plays a vital role in keeping supply lines open for U.S. and Western troops battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. About 40% of NATO’s non-weapons supplies move by truck from the Pakistani port city of Karachi to two crossings along the Afghan border.
Parliament also ordered the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the U.S. raid in Abbottabad, determine who in Pakistan should be held accountable, and recommend measures aimed at preventing any future breach of the country’s sovereignty. Last week, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced that the military would carry out the investigation, raising doubts among many in Pakistan that the military could investigate itself.
Although Pakistan and the U.S. have been allies in the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Washington remains wary of the strong ties that exist between elements of Pakistan’s intelligence community and the broad array of militant groups operating in Pakistan. Many in Pakistan, meanwhile, believe that America’s ultimate goal is to gain control of the country’s nuclear arsenal.
The steady pace of drone attacks since the beginning of 2010 and the arrest of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor accused of killing two Pakistani men in the eastern city of Lahore earlier this year, have plunged the relationship to one of its lowest points in years.
Kyaemon
May 18, 2011 at 1:50 am
John Kerry warns Pakistan over Bin Laden
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-binladen-idUSTRE7410D320110516
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A visiting senior United States senator warned Pakistanis on Monday that members of Congress were asking “tough questions” about economic aid to Islamabad after Osama bin Laden was killed on Pakistani soil.
Senator John Kerry told a news conference he had not come to Islamabad to apologize for the May 2 secret U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden and infuriated the Pakistani military.
But the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a Democrat close to President Barack Obama, said U.S.-Pakistani ties were too important to be unraveled by the incident.
In a veiled warning to the Pakistani security establishment, made up of the powerful military and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, he said: “The road ahead will not be defined by words. It will be defined by actions.”
“I emphasized to our Pakistani friends — and they are friends — that many in Congress are raising tough questions about our ongoing economic assistance to the government of Pakistan because of the events as they unfolded, and because of the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan,” he said.
Washington’s fragile ties with ally Islamabad took a beating after U.S. special forces flew in from Afghanistan on a secret operation and killed bin Laden on May 2, nearly 10 years after he orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Pakistani intelligence officials said on Monday that 12 militants were killed and four wounded in separate missile attacks by U.S. pilotless aircraft in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, region seen as a global hub for militants.
Such drone operations have fueled anti-American sentiment in Pakistan because they are seen as a violation of its sovereignty.
An intelligence official said one of the dead militants, an Arab, was the son of an al Qaeda operative identified as Abu Kashif. There was no way to verify the death toll. Militants often dispute official accounts of drone attacks……