Pakistan and the Bomb - The security of their nuclear arsenal is shaky

from The Wall Street Journal
By BRUCE RIEDEL
May 30, 2009.security

What the U.S. needs to do to avert a crisis

The Pakistani army, backed by attack helicopters, is fighting intense gun battles in the Swat valley 60 miles outside the capital of Islamabad with Islamic extremists. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have struck back with suicide bombs in Pakistan’s major cities, including Lahore. A plot in Karachi was foiled but the extremists vow more carnage is imminent.

The battles are the latest in a deadly struggle for the control of Pakistan. Some are hoping this, at last, is the turning point when the army and the Pakistani government will finally defeat the extremists, but history suggests that conclusion is premature. More likely this will be yet another temporary setback for the Islamists to be followed by new advances elsewhere.

The fighting has cast a spotlight on the shaky security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal—the fastest growing arsenal in the world. Pakistan is finishing construction of several new reactors and is seeking to buy more from China to increase its production of fissile material. The United States has provided Pakistan with over $10 billion in military aid since 2001. No one outside Pakistan can say if some of that money was diverted directly to the nuclear program by the army, but undoubtedly the U.S. assistance indirectly made it easier for the army to use its own funds to accelerate the development of its nuclear weapons.

Today the arsenal is under the control of its military leaders; it is well protected, concealed and dispersed. But if the country fell into the wrong hands—those of the militant Islamic jihadists and al Qaeda—so would the arsenal. The U.S. and the rest of the world would face the worst security threat since the end of the Cold War. Containing this nuclear threat would be difficult, if not impossible.

The danger of Pakistan becoming a jihadist state is real. Just before her murder in December 2007, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she believed al Qaeda would be marching on Islamabad in two years. A jihadist Pakistan would be a global game changer—the world’s second largest Muslim state with nuclear weapons breeding a hothouse of terrorism.

Yet it’s not inevitable. For the past 60 years, U.S. policy toward the country has been inconsistent and mercurial, rife with double standards with Pakistan’s neighbor India. Increasing calls to “secure” the country’s nuclear weapons by force are far from productive—in fact, it’s making serious work with Pakistan more difficult.

Pakistan is a unique nuclear weapons state. It has been both the recipient of technology transfers from other states and a supplier of technology to still other states. It has been a state sponsor of proliferation and has tolerated private sector proliferation as well. Pakistan has engaged in highly provocative behavior against India, even initiating a limited war, and sponsored terrorist groups that have engaged in mass casualty terrorism inside India’s cities, most recently last November in Mumbai. No other nuclear weapons state has done all of these provocative actions.

The origins of the Pakistani nuclear program lie in the deep national humiliation of the 1971 war with India that led to the partition of the country, the independence of Bangladesh and the destruction of the dream of a single Muslim state for all of south Asia’s Muslim population. The military dictator at the time, Yaqub Khan, presided over the loss of half the nation and the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dacca. The Pakistani establishment determined it must develop a nuclear weapon to counter India’s conventional superiority.

The new prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, convened the country’s top 50 scientists secretly in January 1972 and challenged them to build a bomb. He famously said that Pakistanis would sacrifice everything and “eat grass” to get a nuclear deterrent.

The 1974 Indian nuclear explosion only intensified the quest. Mr. Bhutto received an unsolicited letter from a Pakistani who had studied in Louvain, Belgium, Abdul Qadeer Khan, offering to help by stealing sensitive centrifuge technology from his new employers at a nuclear facility in the Netherlands. Over the next few years—with the assistance of the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI)—Mr. Khan would steal the key technology to help Pakistan produce fissionable material to make a bomb.

This is a long article. Click to read the rest and the comments

Real Men Fight The Taliban Wearing Pink Boxer Shorts - Yes, really...

Moment teenage soldier went into battle against Taliban... wearing 'I love New York' pink boxer shorts

from The Daily Mail Online
By Mail Foreign Service

Taking on the Taliban in pink boxer shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops is not regarded as conventional military uniform.

Especially when the shorts declare 'I love New York'.

However when Zachary Boyd, 19, was woken up by a Taliban assault on his platoon he only had time to grab his weapon, helmet and body armour before springing into action.

Zachary Boyd had been asleep when the firefight erupted in the mountains of Afghanistan. So he only had time to put on his helmet, body armour and grab his weapon.

Most of the time his appearance on the Afghanistan's frontline would have gone unnoticed by the eyes of the world.

However, Boyd managed to pick the day when a photographer was on hand to capture him going into battle in the pink boxers, red t-shirt and flimsy footwear.

The image of the fight at Firebase Restrepo in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province later ended up on the front page of The New York Times.

'I knew he was a boxer guy. I knew that for sure. I did not know they were pink, and I didn't know they said, 'I love New York,' father Tommy Boyd told his local Texas radio station WBAP.

'After I saw the picture I just laughed for about five minutes.'

On seeing the picture, Boyd's father said: 'I knew he was a boxer guy. I did not know they were pink, and I didn't know they said, 'I love New York'. Boyd, right, joined the Army because of the September 11 attacks

Boyd phoned his mother Sheree Boyd to warn her that he might be in the paper.

He said: "I hear the Times is what they put on the President's desk",' she said.

Then he told us, "I may not have a job any more after the President has seen me out of uniform".

It was typical. He has always been an interesting little character.

Boyd, who graduated from Keller Central High School in 2007, decided to join the army because of the September 11 attacks.

He was promoted to the rank of Army Specialist last week.
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Gates (Obama) Tosses A General Under The Bus For The Civilian Air Raid Deaths - and blames Bush again

Obama via Gates, conveniently tosses General McKiernan under his bus. He's doing this to deflect criticism arising from the large number of civilians that were killed in the recent U.S. bombing raid. Obama is making McKiernan the scapegoat. He's asked for McKiernan's resignation so he can replace him and then say the problem has been resolved. From this point on, Obama will not want to hear any more criticism.

Gibbs in his press conferences will just say we investigated what transpired and we've taken corrective action. Cased closed. No more questions.

I'm not disappointed that he's being replaced. I made a post back on April 10, 2009, after General McKiernan made a statement where he was apologizing for past U.S. mistakes and saying he is was studying the Quran. He was doing the Obama goose step feel good approach with the Taliban. Well, it doesn't look like it worked out very well for him and the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. Imagine that!.

The picture is of Stanley McChrystal. Here is Stanley McChrystal's Joint Chiefs of Staff biography. He is the new commander for all U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. His resume is very impressive. I like the fact that he has a Specials Forces background. Here is his Wikipedia biography.
Rees

from Yahoo News.com
By Pauline Jelinek And Anne Gearan
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon replaced its top general in Afghanistan Monday as President Barack Obama tries to turn around a stalemated war. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he asked for the resignation of Gen. David McKiernan. Gates said new leadership is needed as the Obama administration launches its strategy in the seven-year-old campaign.

The change is aimed at "getting fresh thinking, fresh eyes on the problem," Gates told a Pentagon news conference.

The move comes as more than 21,000 additional U.S. forces begin to arrive in Afghanistan, dispatched by Obama to confront the Taliban more forcefully this spring and summer.

Replacing McKiernan will be Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has had a top administrative job at the Joint Chiefs of Staff for less than a year. He is a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.

McKiernan held the command in Afghanistan for about 11 months.

Gates recommended to Obama that McChrystal be nominated for the top job and that Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez be McChrystal's deputy. He urged the Senate to confirm the two quickly.

Obama had approved 17,000 additional combat forces for Afghanistan this year, plus 4,000 trainers and other non-combat troops. By year's end, the United States will have more than 68,000 troops in the sprawling country — about double the total at the end of Bush's presidency but still far fewer than the approximately 130,000 still in Iraq.

McKiernan and other U.S. commanders have said resources they need in Afghanistan are tied up in Iraq.

Asked if McKiernan's resignation ends his military career, Gates said, "Probably."

Gates visited Afghanistan last week to see firsthand what preparations and plans are under way to set the president's counterinsurgency strategy in motion.

"As I have said many times before, very few of these problems can be solved by military means alone," Gates said Monday. "And yet, from the military perspective, we can and must do better."
He noted that the Afghan campaign has long been shortchanged of the people and money needed in favor of the Bush administration's focus since 2003 on the Iraq war.

"But I believe, resources or no, that our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders," he said. "Today we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission, and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership also is needed."

In June 2006 McChrystal was congratulated by then-President Bush for his role in the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. As head of the special operations command, his forces included the Army's clandestine counterterrorism unit, Delta Force.

McChrystal also came under fire for his role in the furor surrounding the friendly fire shooting of Army Ranger Pat Tillman — a former NFL star — in Afghanistan. An investigation at the time found that he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained in papers recommending that Tillman get a Silver Star award.

McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days prior to approving the Silver Star citation that Tillman may have died by fratricide, rather than enemy fire. He sent a memo to military leaders warning them of that, even as they were approving Tillman's Silver Star. He told investigators that he believed Tillman deserved the award.

The Army overruled a Pentagon recommendation that he be held accountable for his actions.
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Pakistan: Islamic Taliban trumps Islamic Military - War is a farce

Pakistan hangs back from major Swat offensive, talks secretly to Taliban
fron the DEBKAfile

May 10, 2009

Pakistani troops in embattled Swat Valley

While by no means a phony war, DEBKAfile's military sources report that accounts of a major Pakistan military offensive launched to flush Taliban out of their strongholds in the northern Swat Valley are generally inflated. This is not to say that hundreds of thousands of civilians are not fleeing the valley. Some half a million are on the move and will join the same number displaced since August, generating a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe.

According to our sources, the Pakistani army has so far not fought a single pitched battle with the Taliban. Neither have the insurgents been rooted out of any of the cities and villages under their control.

Islamabad's one-sided claims of some 200 Taliban killed in three days are not independently confirmed. At most, the Taliban have suffered some 50 dead combatants.

Pakistani troops are attacking Taliban positions with long-range artillery. Three to five warplane and helicopter strikes have been staged at most, as well as heavy machine gun fire on small Taliban groups on the move.

Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's statement Wednesday, May 6, that the "armed forces were being called into to eliminate the militants and terrorists" is locally assessed as intended for Western ears rather than their own commanders. It was made when president Asif Ali Zardari was in Washington warding off criticism for not doing enough to fight Islamist terror.

However, our military sources do not at this point see the 15,000 Pakistani troops poised in the Swat Valley actually launching a major offensive against the 5,000 Taliban fighters standing against them.

One reason is that not all the armed men fighting in Swat belong to the Taliban; some are local Swat militia groups whose chiefs have made ad hoc deals with Taliban. It is far from certain that Pakistani troops will want to fight their own countrymen.

Furthermore, according to DEBKAfile sources, the Islamabad government and local insurgent chiefs are in secret negotiation to arrange for the army to move "victoriously" into the main Swat towns of Mingora and Kambar without facing resistance. Taliban would retreat to the countryside, undefeated and with minimal losses. Both sides would then revert to the original deal for the imposition of Sharia law in the province in return for a ceasefire.

The negotiations also provide for Taliban to pull out of Bunar province which is 90 kilometers from Islamabad.

Both sides allowed a refugee catastrophe to develop to generate an eve-of-battle climate – hence the lifting of the curfew for a few hours Sunday, May 10, to encourage the civilian exodus.

A breakdown of these talks may well result in the much-publicized Pakistani military push actually taking off. At the same time, military experts estimate that at least double the number of Pakistani troops deployed at present will be needed to regain control of the Swat Valley from Taliban and its allies.

This extremely volatile situation prompted Gen. David Petraeus, chief of the US Central Command, to remark Saturday, May 9 that it is "too soon to gauge the full magnitude or duration of the Pakistani response.
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No Worries, Obama Will Talk To Them

This is from a post at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Nations with worst religious tolerance named - 9 of 13 are Muslim dominated

Question: How in the hell did Afghanistan get left off of this list???

If the U.S. government panel intentionally left Afghanistan off the list, so as not to upset the diplomatic effort to talk to the moderate Taliban, then the panel can accept some responsibility for any crimes against religion and women that might be perpetrated from this point on.

The U.S. government panel is refusing to acknowlege that Afghanistan is a notorious violator of religious freedom. As a result, they are not trying to help those who are discriminated against and possibly persecuted for their religious beliefs. They are not helping the women who are relegated to sub-human status and consequently beaten as a result of the predominate religious views.

If you look at the contries on the list and take into consideration the non-democratic (dictator) and muslim dominated nations, then you cover 13 out of the 13 nations identified. A pretty disgusting fact.
Rees

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. government panel listed 13 countries Friday as "egregious" violators of religious freedom.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's annual report named Myanmar, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

It recommended that the Obama administration designate them as "countries of particular concern" or CPC.

The group has issued a watch list that includes Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela, countries that don't rise to the level of a CPC but need to be monitored.

"Unfolding events in Pakistan make clear the relevance of this theme to the 2009 Annual Report. At the time of writing, emboldened Taliban-associated extremists had advanced to within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad," the report said.

"In the areas they already control, these groups are imposing draconian restrictions on human rights and religious freedom and engaging in brutal acts against individuals, particularly women and local police, who refused to accede to their repressive policies."

The federal commission is bipartisan, and its commissioners are appointed by the president and members of Congress.

A CPC designation gives Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "a range of specific policy options to address serious violations of religious freedom."

It requires the secretary "to enter into direct consultations with a government to find ways to bring about improvements in the respect for religious freedom."

The report covers the period May 2008 through April. The commission was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

"While sanctions are a possible policy option, the secretary may decide to develop a binding agreement with the CPC government on specific actions that it will take to end the violations that gave rise to the designation or take a commensurate action," the commission said. "The secretary may determine that pre-existing sanctions are adequate or waive the requirement of taking action in furtherance of the Act."
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Female Pakistani Singer Killed "In The Name Of Honor"

from Radio Free Europe
April 29, 2009
By Kristin Deasy, Sharifa Esmatullah

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Ayman Udas, a rising female vocalist in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, was shot at her home, allegedly by her own brothers.

Her death has rattled the city's jittery artistic community, as local musicians and dancers in Peshawar -- a city renowned for its vibrant artistic life -- face increasing pressure as the region falls under greater Taliban influence.

Some attributed Udas's death to the Islamist militants, but her husband told reporters that his wife was killed because she broke family traditions.

A beautiful woman in her early 30s and mother of two, Udas recently remarried after a divorce. Her two brothers, Alamgir and Ismail, disapproved of her divorce, remarriage, and her artistic career, all of which disgrace a family's name in conservative Islamic society.

The honor killing, an ancient tradition in which a male family member kills a female to "save" the family name, took place on April 27 at the family's home while Udas's husband was out picking up milk. He immediately took the case to the authorities, who have made no arrests but raided several locations in search of the suspected killers.

Udas -- poet, lyricist, and popular Pakistani singer -- had recently given her first television appearance. In one of her more popular songs, "Mra shum ashna khu pa jwando ki usam, janana sta pa waswaso ki usa," she sings about the importance of courage, even to the point of defying death.

Her death "is absolutely unacceptable," Ahmad Ali Adil of the University of Peshawar told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, calling the crime "a murder of humanity." He said that unless society changes, several other female performers will face similar problems.

Meanwhile, Artists are coming under direct threat in Taliban-controlled areas. In January, a dancer's bullet-ridden body was left in the center of Swat Valley's capital of Mingora -- not far from where Udas grew up -- with a note warning locals that "un-Islamic voices" will no longer be tolerated.
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Taliban murder couple for allegedly committing adultery

This video is very graphic and obviously disturbing. I've included it to demonstrate how brutal the Taliban is. There is no mercy or justice in their society. Justice is what they want it to be at that particular moment in time. What's very bizarre is the fact that they behave as if they're still in the middle ages, yet they're recording this savage behaviour using a cell phone.
Rees




Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery

Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their "crime" was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government's sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that Islamic extremists could take over the nation.

In the past few days the footage has circulated among Pakistanis who usually show little interest in the rough ways of the distant frontier regions.

They have now started to wake up to the fear that al-Qaeda-linked rebels from the frontier could take over their nation.

The killings happened in Hangu district, in North West Frontier Province, about two hours drive from the regional capital Peshawar. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban, the Islamic militia which has swept across the NWFP towards the capital Islamabad.

Last week, the Taliban had reached within 60 miles of Islamabad, in Buner district. Their takeover sparked panic in the West, which was already appalled by a peace deal that the government had signed this month with Taliban in adjacent the Swat valley.

In an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on the people of Pakistan to defy their government, saying they "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents".

The Taliban had agreed a withdrawal, in the last couple of days, to their stronghold of Swat. That will scarcely make the government and elite in the capital Islamabad feel much safer, as Swat is only 100 miles from them.

"The Taliban are steady and confident, the government is weak and faltering," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University and one of Pakistan's leading intellectuals.

"A Taliban victory will enslave our women, destroy Pakistan's rich historical and cultural heritage, make education and science impossible, and make the lives of its citizens impossibly difficult. Some are already contemplating an exodus."

Pakistan today stands on a knife-edge, threatened with anarchy. The desperate deal signed with the Taliban in Swat looks set to fall apart. The result will almost certainly be violence. An army convoy heading into Swat on Saturday morning was stopped by the Taliban and forced to turn back, in a naked display of their power.

They seem to have been only emboldened by the peace agreement. Many believe that a bloody military operation now looks inevitable,

For those in areas falling under Taliban control, their harsh rule is terrifying.

An SOS text message sent out on Friday by a terrified local resident, in an area of Swat called Bahrain, says that the Taliban have established total control. Asking not be named for fear of reprisal, he said that they have set up check posts at the entrance to Bahrain, from where they kidnap those they want, including young women.

"They've even warned the local schools to close the girl classes or face dire consequences. Yet the government says its writ is in Swat."

Another Swat resident said: "Every day I see armed Taliban move around freely. At the time of prayer, if they see anyone in his shop or walking about, they whip him with a stick."

The Pakistani Taliban, a copy of the Afghan extremist movement, have long controlled the tribal area along the Afghan border, which is a sanctuary for militants, including al-Qaeda. But it is their march into the heart of the country that has horrified ordinary Pakistanis, and the wider world. And the threat comes not just from the Taliban to the west. Islamic extremists, who are not part of the Taliban, are already entrenched in Islamabad and across the Punjab, the most populous province, seemingly ready to surface when their moment comes.

Islamabad's defences are being hurriedly fortified, with paramilitary troops stationed on the Margalla Hills, which overlook the city from the West. In the capital, there are thousands of followers of the radical Red Mosque, where there are now open calls for Islamic revolution at the weekly Friday prayers.

"The Taliban will not stop at Swat. They will come towards Islamabad," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military analyst based in Lahore. "If the army is to take action against them, it is going to be a really bloody battle. And then civil government will be knocked out."

"Extremist groups based in Islamabad will move from within and they (Taliban) will build pressure from outside."

The footage Pakistanis have been watching shows them what they could expect.

A local journalist was invited to witness the execution, who filmed it with his mobile phone for a Pakistani channel, Dawn News. The Sunday Telegraph is showing the footage in the West for the first time.

There were no names for the two victims.

"Using the media is part of their (the Taliban's) psychological warfare," said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of Centre for Research and Security Studies, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "This way, they inject fear into the minds of people who might oppose them, keeping the majority silent."

After the couple were shot, the family were told to take their bodies away for burial. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban linked to warlord Baitullah Mehsud.
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U.S. to Pakistan: Stop the Taliban, or We Will

from The London Times
FOXNews.com
Saturday, April 25, 2009

America made clear last week that it would attack Taliban forces in their Swat valley stronghold unless the Pakistan government stopped the militants' advance towards Islamabad.

A senior Pakistani official said the Obama administration intervened after Taliban forces expanded from Swat into the adjacent district of Buner, 60 miles from the capital.

The Pakistani Taliban's inroads raised international concern, particularly in Washington, where officials feared that the nuclear-armed country, which is pivotal to the U.S. war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda, was rapidly succumbing to Islamist extremists.

"The implicit threat - if you don't do it, we may have to - was always there," said the Pakistani official. He said that under American pressure, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency told the Taliban to withdraw from Buner on Friday.

However, reports Saturday indicated that the Taliban withdrawal was less than total. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people in the district were still at the mercy of armed militants and their restrictive interpretation of Islamic law.

American military and intelligence forces already run limited ground and air operations on Pakistani soil along the border with Afghanistan. But an overt military operation such as that threatened in Swat, away from the border, would mark a major escalation.

The official said last week's outspoken remarks by Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, were "calculated to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan" to take action. Clinton warned that the terrorists' advance had created a "mortal threat" to world security.

She was one of several American political and military leaders to use unusually strong language about Pakistan's failure to curb the Taliban. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who visited Pakistan, said he was "extremely concerned" about the developments and that the situation was "definitely worse" than two weeks ago.

General David Petraeus, of US Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan - to which America is about to commit 17,000 more troops - said Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan posed an "ever more serious threat to Pakistan's very existence."
Click here to read the full London Times report.

The End of the World as We Know It - The idiots in charge have done a very nice job

Welcome to the “post-American era.”

from The National Review
By Mark Steyn
April 25, 2009

According to an Earth Day survey, one third of schoolchildren between the ages of six and eleven think the earth will have been destroyed by the time they grow up. That’s great news, isn’t it? Not for the earth, I mean, but for “environmental awareness.” Congratulations to Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and the eco-propagandists of the public-education system in doing such a terrific job of traumatizing America’s moppets.

Traditionally, most of the folks you see wandering the streets proclaiming the end of the world is nigh tend to be getting up there in years. It’s quite something to have persuaded millions of first-graders that their best days are behind them.

Call me crazy, but I’ll bet that in 15-20 years the planet will still be here along with most of the “environment” — your flora and fauna, your polar bears and three-toed tree sloths and whatnot. But geopolitically we’re in for a hell of a ride, and the world we end up with is unlikely to be as congenial as most Americans have gotten used to.

For example, Hillary Clinton said the other day that Pakistan posed a “mortal threat” to . . . Afghanistan? India? No, to the entire world! To listen to her, you’d think Pakistan was as scary as l’il Jimmy in the second grade’s mom’s SUV. She has a point: Asif Ali Zardari, the guy who’s nominally running the country, isn’t running anything. He’s ceding more and more turf to the local branch office of the Taliban. When the topic turns up in the news, we usually get vague references to the pro-Osama crowd controlling much of the “northwest,” which makes it sound as if these guys are the wilds of rural Idaho to Zardari’s Beltway. In fact, they’re now within some 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad — or, in American terms, a couple of I-95 exits north of Baltimore: In other words, they’re within striking distance of the administrative center of a nation of over 165 million people — and its nuclear weapons. That’s the “mortal threat.”

What’s going to stop them? Well, not Zardari. Nor his “summit” in Washington with President Obama and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. The creation of Pakistan was the worst mistake of post-war British imperial policy, and all that’s happened in the six decades since is that its pathologies have burst free of its borders and gone regional, global, and soon perhaps nuclear. Does the Obama administration have even a limited contingency plan for the nukes if — when — the Pakistani state collapses?
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Taliban Seize District Near Islamabad - It was only a matter

from The Wall Street Journal
By ZAHID HUSSAIN
April 22, 2009

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's Taliban have seized control of another district in the country's northwest just 70 miles from the capital after consolidating their hold on the Swat valley following a peace deal with the government, according to local government officials and residents.

The latest Taliban advance into the Buner district has spurred fears that the controversial accord, which allowed the militants to enforce Sharia law in Swat, has emboldened them to expand their influence.

Militants have been moving into Buner since the Swat peace deal was signed in February. But starting Tuesday night they seized control of the entire district, which has a population of more than one million people, local government officials and residents said. Heavily-armed militants, streaming in from Swat, occupied government offices and set up their own checkposts. Terrified residents fled their homes.

Dozens of hooded fighters carrying rocket launchers and machine guns ransacked the offices of international aid and development agencies working in the district and took away their vehicles. Some employees of the agencies were also briefly taken hostage. The militants set up their headquarters in Buner town after driving out government officials.

The Taliban have banned music and television and stopped women from entering into a popular shrine of a Muslim saint. They are also using mosques to invite local youth to join them.

A Taliban commander said Islamic Sharia courts would soon be established in the district as they have already done in Swat. Mohammad Khalil said the main objective was to end the "sense of deprivation" among locals and provide speedy justice to the people.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Northwest Frontier Province, warned that the militants' activities in Buner were in violation of the Swat peace accord. "After the agreement, there is no justification to take up arms," Mr. Hussain said in a statement Wednesday. He denied, however, that the Taliban have total control over the area.

Rehman Malik, the federal home minister, said the government has the option of using force if the Taliban did not withdraw from Buner. A senior military official said a military operation could not be ruled out to stop the Taliban advance.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taliban advances pose "an existential threat" to Pakistan and urged Pakistanis world-wide to oppose a government policy yielding to them.

Pakistanis "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents," Mrs. Clinton said in testimony before a House committee. She pointed to "the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing [Taliban] advances, now within hours of Islamabad."

Analysts said the fall of Buner to the Taliban came as a serious blow to the government's efforts to contain Islamic militancy, which poses a major threat to Pakistan's security. The people of the area had previously beaten back Taliban raids, but lack of support from the security forces broke their resistance.

The development came after Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric who played a central role in signing the peace accord called his followers to continue their struggle for the enforcement of Islamic rule in the entire North West Frontier Province.

Addressing a large crowd in Mingora, the main town in Swat on Sunday, Mr. Mohammed declared that there was no room for democracy in Islam. "The Western democracy is infidels and should be rejected by Muslims," he said.

U.S. officials have warned that the Swat peace deal could turn Swat into a launching pad for militant expansion into Pakistan's more densely populated plains. The militants have made it clear they would not lay down their weapons, which is a crucial plank of the peace accord.

—Jay Solomon in Washington contributed to this article
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Taliban closing in on control of Pakistan nuclear weapons?

Pakistan: Mounting pressure on president over Swat deal

from adnkronos
April 11, 2009
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Islamabad (AKI) - Pressure is mounting on Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari to sign the peace deal implementing Islamic law in North West Frontier Province's Malakand region, which encompasses the troubled Swat valley.

The hardline Muslim cleric Sufi Mohammad, who has mediated peace talks between Pakistan and the Taliban in Swat has refused to hold direct talks with the government until Zardari signs the accord.

Mohammad earlier this week abandoned his peace camp, installed to oversee the peace, following the historical accord signed in mid-February between militants and the NWFP government and went back to his village.

He is chief of the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi group in Swat.

Mohammad last month signalled he was unhappy at what he calls the slow pace of implementation of the peace accord and complained that un-Islamic' laws were still in force in Malakand.

But interior minstry chief Rehman Malik played down the situation. “Maulana Sufi Mohammad did not back out from the Swat deal. He simply has changed his location," Malik told journalists in Islamabad on Thursday.

"The president will sign the Nizam-e-Adal (Islamic law) regulation but he is waiting for militants to lay down their weapons completely,” Malik said.

But peace in the Swat valley and other parts of the country looks to observers to be visibly in serious danger.

The February peace deal ended two years of fierce conflict between militants and the army in which at least 1,700 soldiers and hundreds of civilians were killed and 600,000 people were displaced.

On Wednesday, Taliban militants from Pakistan's troubled Swat valley stormed the neighbouring district of Buner, killing at least five people, police sources said.

Police reported that a group of Taliban fighters travelled late on Monday from Swat to Buner, a previously peaceful district about 100km (60 miles) north-west of the capital, Islamabad.

After the militants ignored appeals from community leaders to go back, armed tribesmen and police confronted them, sparking a battle that left three policemen and two tribesmen dead, local police officer Zakir Khan, maintained.

On Wednesday, the US embassy Islamabad issued a warning to its nationals to avoid going to restaurants and other public places in Islamabad and other Pakistani cities. The US embassy was also due to close down its visa service on Friday.

Analysts believe that the increasing drone attacks on suspected militant hideouts in the lawless South Waziristan tribal region, one of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's homes, is linked to the situation in Swat and elsewhere.
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Dog of Navy Seal Hero killed in cold blood!

Beloved pet's killing reopens old wounds for former Navy SEAL

By DANE SCHILLER

April 9, 2009

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

All it took was the gunshot fired outside his Walker County home to trigger training ingrained in former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor of a dramatic battle in Afghanistan in 2005.

He did a sweep through the house. Checked on his mother. And bolted out the door, where he found dead his beloved Labrador retriever, Dasy, a dog given to him to help him recover from his own wounds and the loss of his fellow Navy comrades.

“I could tell she tried to get away because there was a blood trail,” Luttrell recalled in a phone interview Wednesday. “When I saw she was dead, the only thing that popped into my head was, ‘I’ve got to take these guys out.’ ”

Shrouded in darkness, Luttrell, who’d just been released from the hospital after another round of surgery, crawled under a fence, skirted a ditch and sneaked up on four strangers in a sedan who apparently killed the dog on a whim. Luttrell said they were oblivious as he raised a 9 mm pistol from about 25 yards away and had one of them dead to rights.

But as the car pulled away, he didn’t fire.

Instead, he scrambled back to his pickup and launched what became a wild 40-mile chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph and crossed three counties.

“I did everything right; I didn’t do anything wrong,” he told the Houston Chronicle of the April 1 incident. “Make sure everyone knows they cold-bloodily murdered.”

Luttrell stayed on the line with a 911 emergency operator as he tried to catch the car, which was just a bit too fast for his four-door truck to overtake.

“I told them, ‘You need to get somebody out here because if I catch them I’m going to kill them,’ ” Luttrell recalled telling the operator.

Wounds still deep

The nighttime killing of a such a special dog played right into Luttrell’s deep wounds.

The 4-year-old yellow Lab was given to him upon his return from the war to help him heal. He named it Dasy as an acronym for his SEAL team members lost in a mighty fight in which they were isolated and far outnumbered by Taliban fighters.

He wrote a book, The Lone Survivor, about the experience.

Luttrell said he still wrestles with what he went through. He doesn’t sleep at night, usually keeping his guard up until sunrise, just in case.

“I don’t talk about it much. I just don’t sleep at night,” he said. “I am in and out of the house all night, going, moving around.”

Luttrell and the men he was chasing were finally stopped by Onalaska Police Department.
Luttrell said he confronted the men. “I was like, ‘Which one of you guys killed my dog?’ ” he said. “They started talking smack.”

The police sent Luttrell home, and the Texas Rangers have been working with the Walker County Sheriff’s Department.

So far, two men have been charged with felonies that could land them in state jail for at least six months.

Michael John Edmonds II, 21, and Alfonzo Hernandez, 24, both of New Waverly, are charged with cruelty to nonlivestock animals. The driver of the vehicle was arrested on suspicion of not having a license.

Other dog killings linked

There are at least five area dog killings in recent months that could be linked to the case, said Texas Ranger Steven Jeter.

“It could have been worse for both parties involved,” he said. “I wouldn’t advocate to the general public to do what he has done — to follow them at that rate of speed.”

“Marcus is trained to do certain things; he fell back on his training,” Jeter said.

Luttrell said he’s left town for now and wants to stay as far away as he can. Talking from a place he described as “the middle of nowhere,” Luttrell said he knows the attack on Dasy pushed him to a place where he doesn’t want to be.

“I was trying to talk myself out of being who I am,” he said. “Talking to myself about not doing the one thing I am good at.”
dane.schiller@chron.com

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Must Read Book - Lone Survivor - Marcus Luttrell

I started reading Lone Survivor yesterday and finished it around 5:30 this morning. I will say that if someone wants to really understand what war is really like and the heroes that fight these wars for us, then they should read this book. I obviously could not stop reading it. It will tear at your emotions. You will have to stop reading at certain points, and pause for awhile in order to comprehend the extent to which these heroes will fight to protect their team members. Their will to continue the fight did not end until they no longer had the physical ability to do so. They were still firing their weapons as they took their last breathe of air.
Rees

Scumbags Murder Marcus Luttrell's Dog UPDATED Partial 9-1-1 Call


Here is the Glenn Beck interview with Marcus

from the blog Cop The Truth

Veteran SEAL and Navy Cross winner Marcus Luttrell is a better man than I am, in more ways than I can count. When some PoS murdered his dog last week, Marcus had the restraint and calmness of purpose to chase the scumbags down and hold them, at gunpoint, until the Texas Rangers showed up. I'm not sure I could have managed that.

Killing people I can understand, but dogs? My hat is off to Marcus, once again, for doing the right thing when it would have been much easier and satisfying to just dump these four scumbags. Godspeed, brother. You're not alone.

Here is a little background:
Petty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell was born in Huntsville, Texas in 1975. He was a graduate of BUD/S Class 228. He was the only survivor of the fateful events of June 28, 2005 in Afghanistan.

Luttrell and three teammates from SEAL Team TEN were assigned to a reconnaissance mission, operation RED WING, in the Hindu-Kush mountain region of Afghanistan. Their objective was to gather intelligence on Taliban movement in the area. Luttrell’s team was eventually discovered and outnumbered by over 200 Taliban fighters.

Petty Officer Luttrell was the only to survive enemy contact. In the rescue mission that ensued, 16 Special Forces personnel, including 8 SEALs, died when their helicopter was shot down from a RPG fired by Taliban fighters. It was the largest single-day loss of life in the SEALs’ history.

In 2006, Petty Officer Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism. His full story is documented in his heroic account of the operation, entitled: Lone Survivor.

Marcus’s twin brother, Morgan Luttrell, is also a SEAL, still on active duty.
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Taliban beat girl, 17, in Islamic stronghold of Swat, Pakistan

Warning: I'm only including this video to show how barbaric Islam and Sharia law is. There are so many people who refuse to acknowledge that this actually goes on. It does, and it's all justified in the name of their religion.

These are the Taliban that Obama wants to reach out to. Of course, he only wants to talk to the moderate ones. I'll assume that the difference between normal and moderate Taliban, is that the moderate will have mercy and only beat the girl until she is half-dead.

Notice that the girl is only 'accused'. She apparently refused to marry the Taliban leader that consequently ordered this beating. This is his revenge.

Rees

This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taliban in February.

A local Taliban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters.

But some residents of Matta have accused the commander of ordering the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage, the reporters told The Times.
“Please! Enough! Enough!” the girl is heard crying in Pashtu, the language of the tribes who dominate northwestern Pakistan – now the main hub of Taliban and al-Qaeda activity.

At another point, she cries: “I am repenting, my father is repenting what I have done, my grandmother is repenting what I have done...”

The man flogging her is also heard abusing his colleague as he struggles to hold her down and stop her covering her backside with her hands.

“You should hold her tightly so she doesn’t move,” he is heard saying.

President Zardari of Pakistan insists that the truce was made with “moderates” in the region and his officials have even held it up as a model for other parts of Pakistan’s troubled northwest, which borders Afghanistan.

The deal was agreed with Sufi Mohammed, the leader of an outlawed Islamic movement who was recently released after six years in jail for leading thousands of his supporters to Afghanistan to fight American forces in 2001.

He is the father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, the 33-year-old cleric who leads the Pakistani Taliban in Swat and is known for propagating his strict interpretation of Islam through pirate FM radio broadcasts.

Pakistani officials argue that many residents of the Swat Valley, which only became part of Pakistan in 1969, have long demanded Sharia law because of the weakness of the secular state judicial system.

However, this footage appears to back up reports from many local residents that the men who have over-run Swat are no more moderate than the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan until 2001.

It is also likely to reinforce fears that the militants are now using Swat, which is just 100 miles from the Pakistani capital, as a base to spread their ideology and launch terrorist attacks deeper within Pakistan.
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Taliban call Obama offer a "Lunatic Idea"

This might be a news flash for Obama and his foreign policy staff, but it's not for the rest of us. His talk-talk-talk approach is laughable, and the entire world is seeing it as such. I guess he'll have to continue his search for those elusive "moderate Taliban " that he naively believes are out there somewhere.

Rees

U.S. reconciliation offer "lunatic": Taliban spokesman

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of "honorable reconciliation," a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops.

With the Afghan conflict now in its eighth year, NATO-led forces and the Taliban are locked in a bloody stalemate with violence set to rise further this year as more U.S. troops arrive and seek to contain the insurgency ahead of August elections.

President Barack Obama is redoubling U.S. efforts with more troops, more diplomatic effort and more economic assistance, but he has also already spoken of the need for an "exit strategy."
If the U.S. plan fails to show results, analysts say, time is on the Taliban side.

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Attack on the U.S. Capital is next says Taliban Chief Mehsud

I'm going to take a wild guess that this guy is not one of the moderate Taliban that Obama wants to have tea with.
Rees

Very soon we will launch an attack in Washington which will amaze the entire world – Taliban Chief Baitullah Mehsud

SOURCE: Free Internet Press

LAHORE: Pakistan's most wanted militant on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a deadly police academy assault and threatened to attack the U.S. Capital in retaliation for a series of air strikes. ( Watch )

Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, for whom the United States has posted a five-million-dollar reward, said there would be more attacks after Monday's raid on the Lahore police training school that left 12 people dead.

"We claim responsibility for the attack," Mehsud, blamed for the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said by telephone from an undisclosed location. "This was in retaliation for the ongoing drone attacks in the tribal areas. There will be more such attacks."

"Very soon we will take revenge from America, not in Afghanistan but in Washington, which will amaze the entire world," Mehsud warned.

Seven cadets, a civilian and four attackers died in Monday's raid on the police academy in eastern city Lahore, sparking fears that unrest is seeping out of the tribal badlands and into the heart of Pakistan. Assailants armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests shot their way into the academy in the morning, triggering eight hours of gun battles that lasted until they were overpowered by security forces.

Mehsud, who was accused by the former government of masterminding Bhutto's killing, heads the feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The US State Department has branded him a "key al-Qaida facilitator" in the semi-autonomous South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Mehsud said he had set up a council of mujahedeen (holy warriors) grouping different groups "to step up attacks on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan."

He dismissed the US reward for his arrest. "The maximum they can do is martyr me," he said. "We will exact our revenge on them from inside America." Mehsud's group is influential in both North and South Waziristan, as well as in the Bajaur tribal district to the north, which Pakistani security forces said they had effectively cleared last month following a major offensive. He commands thousands of fighters across the tribal areas on the Afghan border, although official estimates vary on the precise number. His capacity for launching attacks outside the region is questionable.

At least 35 US drone strikes have killed over 340 people in Pakistan since August last year. The US military does not usually confirm such attacks, but its armed forces and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only ones to deploy drones in the region.

In Lahore, interrogators questioned dozens of people over the assault. Punjab province's police chief Khalid Farooq said 50 had been picked up. "These people will now be interrogated," he added. "Things are moving in a positive direction but it is too early to say who was involved." A bearded man -- who interior ministry chief Rehman Malik said was Afghan -- was arrested for allegedly trying to attack police outside the compound. Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif said a judicial commission would be set up to investigate the attack, whose findings would be made public. Chief suspects for the attack are homegrown Islamist groups or Taliban and al-Qaida militants holed up in the tribal areas.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at an international conference on Afghanistan Tuesday, backed plans for reconciliation talks with members of the Taliban or past Al-Qaeda supporters who reject violence. "They should be offered an honorable form of reconciliation and reintegration into a peaceful society, if they are willing to abandon violence, break with al-Qaida, and support the constitution," she said. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned Monday's attack near Lahore and pledged international help to root out the extremist threat. Lahore was also the setting for the March 3 gun attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team that left eight Pakistanis dead.
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Christian extremist kills 48 at Pakistan mosque -- no, wait...It was actually a Muslim

More Muslims Killing Muslims
from Jihad Watch.com
"A government official accused Islamist militants of carrying out the bombing in revenge for a recent offensive aimed in part at protecting the major supply route for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan that passes in front of the mosque."

Remember this one the next time you hear a story about Muslims outraged over Americans, or Israelis returning fire from a mosque, or over alleged desecration of a Qur'an, etc.

by Riaz Khan
from Associated Press
March 27, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers close to the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, officials said.

The attack in the Khyber region was the bloodiest in Pakistan this year and came hours before President Barack Obama was due to unveil a revised strategy expected to emphasize the need to eradicate militant havens along the Pakistan-Afghan frontier.

A government official accused Islamist militants of carrying out the bombing in revenge for a recent offensive aimed in part at protecting the major supply route for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan that passes in front of the mosque.

"Residents of this area had cooperated and helped us a lot. These infidels had warned that they will take revenge," said Tariq Hayat, the top administrator of the Khyber tribal region. "They are the enemy of Pakistan. They are the enemy of Islam."

Rising violence in Pakistan is fueling doubts about the pro-Western government's ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaida militants also blamed for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

The bomber hit the mosque, a popular stop for travelers motoring between Pakistan and Afghanistan, when about 250 people were attending Friday prayers, said Hayat....
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Israel May Be Seeking A New Best Friend

When I started reading this column, my first thought was that the U.S. has too close of a relationship with Israel for something like this to ever happen.

However, I've been following Obama for quite some time and I believe I understand who he really is. I've watched closely as he has positioned anti-Israel people on his foreign policy staff.

The first thing he did after his inauguration was make a call, not to any of our European friends, not to Israel, our closest friend in the Middle East, not even to Russia or China. No, he called the Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Right out of the gate he made a statement about where his allegiance would be.

After reading the entire article, it was clear to me that if Obama's foreign policy should continue on its current course, the scenario outlined in the article could very well happen.
Rees

from Joshua Pundit
March 23, 2009

The Obama Administration has made it crystal clear that they regard Israel as a problem rather than the loyal ally it's been since the Nixon Administration.

Some very influential Israelis are thinking ahead and saying that it's time Israel had a new best friend. No less than Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's presumptive foreign minister has said that Israel's ties with Russia "must rise to the level of a strategic partnership" :

Relations between Russia and Israel must and can rise to a level of strategic partnership, said Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the Israel is Our Home party and a future member of Israel's new coalition government in an interview with Interfax.

"I've been saying all along that relations between Israel and Russia must rise to a level of strategic partnership. This is even more relevant today, then previously," Lieberman said.

The Israel is Our Home party won the third largest number of votes in the parliamentary elections and it is involved in the talks on the formation of Israel's new government.

"However paradoxical it may seem, the global economic crisis gives Israel new opportunities to reach the Russian market, after many of the Western companies abandoned it," the Israeli politician said.

Lieberman, who co-chaired the Russian-Israeli intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation in 2003-04, said that, the two countries have accomplished "a real breakthrough" in this area, but the potential is far from being exhausted.

The same refers to military-technical cooperation between Israel and Russia, he said.

"Israel has quite a few things to offer Russia in this sector - from the electronic stuffing for fighter jets to drones," Lieberman said.

Could it happen? Possibly. Russia, after all does not really need oil and gas, which is what Iran and the Arabs have to sell. And as the price of oil goes down, countries like Iran have less money to buy what Russia has on offer.

And while it's not evident yet, there could be significant conflicts in the future between Russia and Turkey, who are traditional antagonists and Russia and Iran, as the three countries attempt to expand their influence into the gas and oil regions in the old Soviet empire in central Asia.
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The Afghanistan War Story That MSNBC 'Missed' This Weekend

from Holger Awakens