Samskritabharati, Chennai, has planned this year's Shibira Gutcham from February 05, 2010 for 10 days at several places in Chennai and suburbs. Pending a final list of venues, an interim list is made available for the benefit of all samskrita lovers. Kindly pass on the info to your friends and relatives, encourage and motivate them to participate in the Shibira Gutcham and learn the skills needed to Speak in Samskritam. Please note that all of Samskrita Bharati's courses and Shibirams are absolutely FREE of COST ! The participants will be surprised to find that they can start communicating in Samskritam by the end of the Shibiram !
The interim list is as follows and also attached herewith.
Samskrita Bharati,
43-B6, 3rd Floor,
Ram Square, #2, Valluvar Kottam High Road,
Nungambakkam, Ch 600034.
Ph: 044-2827 2632, 2827 2639 Mob : 94437 22009
10 Day Spoken Samskritam classes – Shibira Gutcham 2010
SamskritaBharati Chennai chapter has proposed to conduct this year’s Shibira Gutcham (cluster of classes) from the 5th of February 2010 at several places in and around Chennai. Last year’s response and attendance being very encouraging from Samskrita lovers and abhimaanees, this year’s schedule is expected to be on a wider scale with more clusters planned to accommodate the aspirations of one and all. While a detailed schedule will be published shortly, following list of centres and contact telephone numbers can be utilized to register for participation :
Centre Telephone No:
1. Adyar, Besant Nagar, Tiruvanmiyur 98404 60569, 95001 19025
2. Annanagar East 044-2628 3858
3. Annanagar West 044-2615 2124
4. Avadi 044-2684 0636
5. K.K. Nagar 99401 98573
6. Kilpauk 98410 01558
7. Mylapore, Mandavelli, RA Puram, Alwarpet 97910 88075
8. Nanganallur, Ullagaram, Adambakkam 99411 05427, 044-2242 4712
9. Perambur, Vyasarpadi, Kolathur 98410 85975
10. Tambaram, Chrompet, Pallavaram 98404 60569, 95001 19025
11. T. Nagar, W.Mambalam, Saidapet 98405 64704
12. Vadapalani 98404 68370
13. Velachery, Madipakkam 98843 37360
14. Villivakkam 94449 02585
15. Virugambakkam 99842 57243
Dr. R. Ramachandran
Secretary, SB Tamilnadu
January 07, 2010
2010: The Turning Point
This article appears in the January 8, 2010 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
by John Hoefle
Dec. 31—As the new year rolls in, the ancient Chinese curse/blessing "May you live in interesting times" comes to mind. For we do, indeed, live in them. These are times of both tragedy, and opportunity, as an old and evil system dies a well-deserved and long-overdue death, and the fight over what will replace it takes center stage.
The old system, in its present incarnation, is known as the British Empire, but traces its roots back through Venice, Rome, and beyond. It is a maritime empire whose power is based upon control of money and trade. In the post-World War II period, the empire has cloaked itself in the corporate world, creating global cartels and global markets, controlled by global bankers, but underneath the corporatist facade, lies the same old parasitic imperialism.
That empire is dying, a victim of its own success at looting the world to the point where a devastating collapse is inevitable, unless the nations of the world rise up, cast off the imperial parasites, and return to the path of progress. Fortunately for all of us, that shift has begun.
The King Is Dead
The British Empire's fate was sealed in mid-2007, with the simultaneous deaths of its monetary system, and the financial system that monetary system had created. The distinction is important. The power of the empire rests in its ability to control the supply and price of money. It does this through a network of central banks, such as the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank. These so-called "independent" central banks are creatures of the empire, which views itself as sitting above mere nation-states.
The claim has been made that, in the bailout frenzy of the past two years, the central banks have become tools of the state. The Fed, it has been said repeatedly, has become virtually an arm of the U.S. Treasury, carrying out government policy. In fact, the opposite is true. The Treasury, and the White House, are captives of the imperial system which controls the Fed.
The bailout, underneath all the empty promises, was never intended to bring the dead system back to life. Instead, it was intended to support the imperial monetary system during the transition from the dead financial system to what the empire planned as its replacement: a global financial dictatorship. At the same time, it served to bankrupt the nation-states, the biggest obstacle to this global fascist plan.
The real goal of the British Empire is to turn back the clock to when it ruled the world in its own name, before the American Revolution changed the balance of power. Its scheme to do so revolves around sharp reductions in global population. That is, genocide. The bailout, the phony "man-made global warming" scare around which the Copenhagen conference was organized, and the accelerating, born-in-Britain, police-state measures, are all elements of a plan to impose crushing austerity.
This evil scheme, ironically, is what dooms the Brutish Empire. By destroying the physical-economic basis for life, the empire is destroying the basis for its own existence, and the basis for the existence of civilization itself. If they kill us all, they kill themselves, too.
Now, or Not in Our Lifetimes
The collapse that began in mid-2007 has continued, unabated (see Figure 1). Sometimes it breaks into the headlines, as with the open panic of September 2008, while other times, it travels under the protective screen of the corporate media and the government's statistical fraud. But it is always there. And the losses keep growing, as the real economy collapses beneath the financial games.
Out in the real world, away from the press releases, the spin doctors, the phony statistics, and the rest of the fog machine, it's nothing but collapse. In the U.S., we see record numbers of foreclosures, and the rapid growth of "Obamaville" tent cities. Jobs are disappearing at a staggering clip, setting the stage for more foreclosures, more bankruptcies, more losses for merchants and lenders. Revenues of state and local governments are vaporizing, forcing them to make even deeper cuts in services already cut beyond tolerable limits, and raising taxes on a population that is sinking deeper and deeper into economic misery. The situation is untenable, and unsustainable—and the worst is yet to come.
This is not a linear process that will play out over the next decade or so. When Lyndon LaRouche declared in his July 25, 2007 webcast that the global financial system had died, many failed to listen. Wall Street, though panic was spreading internally, insisted all was well, the system was sound, ad nauseam.
Yet, by the end of 2007, the Fed and the European Central Bank had launched extraordinary bailout facilities—and, in March 2008, Bear Stearns effectively failed. Then, in September, barely a year after LaRouche's declaration, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went before Congress to demand the immediate passage of the TARP bailout scheme, to stop the in-progress meltdown of the global financial system. Paulson got his TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which only accelerated the meltdown.
The fools claim that the bailout worked, that the collapse has not only been arrested, but reversed. But how can that be, when all that was done was to pile even more debt atop a mountain of already unpayable debt, while the power of the physical economy to pay that debt has sharply declined? The "bailers" may have broken the psychology of panic for a while, but they have solved nothing. And, in the process, they have turned trillions of dollars of private debt, into government-guaranteed debt, and triggered the hyperinflation of the dollar. The policy has not only been a failure, it has been a nation-killing failure. We will not survive, if we continue down this path.
Thus, we enter 2010 at a turning point. Our current trajectory, under the fascist policies of the British Empire and its stooges, is into a dark oblivion—an oblivion far too many among us have been forced to glimpse. If we continue down this path, we will not survive the year. The alternative, the reorganization-and-recovery plan outlined by LaRouche, provides us with a way to climb out of the pit—but only if it is implemented now. In 2010, our world is going to change for the better, or it will change, almost unimaginably, for the worse.
Defeat the British Empire
If mankind is to survive, we must finally defeat the oligarchic pestilence and its imperial monetary system. Not reach an agreement with it; not put it at a disadvantage; but end its power over the human race. We must, as sovereign nations, once again take control over our own money, and direct our spending into areas that promote the general welfare. That means infrastructure projects, economic development, rebuilding and expanding our productive base. It means putting our people back to work in productive jobs which benefit society as a whole. It means returning to science and technology, setting new goals and exceeding them. It means putting human settlements on Mars, as a jumping-off point for exploring the universe in which we live.
The biggest single obstacle to all of this is that medieval monstrosity known as the British Empire. It is the empire which is the beneficiary of the bailout program, at the expense of the people. It is the empire that pushes the superstition known as "man-made global warming," as a way of shutting down human progress and killing off two-thirds of the world's population. It is the empire that relentlessly pushes the police state, by staging phony incidents and using those incidents to justify ever more intrusive and un-Constitutional measures. It is the empire that plays on our impulses to keep us dumb, blind, and passive, while it destroys all we hold dear.
But the British Empire is also irrational, a wild beast acting on instinct as it tries to protect a world view that should long ago have passed into history. Its effort to use the Copenhagen Climate Change summit to set up what amounts to a world government under the guise of environmental concerns, was a failure, as many nations chose survival over submission. Though it is still powerful, and far from defeated, for the first time in a long time, the smell of its own blood is in the water.
It is, after all, the British Empire's derivatives-fuelled financial system which collapsed. They failed, and then demanded that we commit suicide to rescue them. In the U.S., the Federal government quickly complied, but the population rebelled, and that rebellion has become a major factor of resistance. President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have given the Brits virtually everything they demanded, but they are increasingly hated for doing so. And their power is eroding by the minute.
Other nations, seeing this rising resistance in the U.S., and knowing the Hell which awaits them if they capitulate to British demands, are emboldened to defend their own sovereignty. The Russia-China economic development accords, signed in October 2009, are a good example of this, and a demonstration that we can buck the empire and survive. This process escalated at Copenhagen, drying up the British wet dream of global dictatorship.
The fight is not over, but it has begun—and that is the most positive step of 2009. LaRouche, as the most creative generator of ideas alive today, is the driver of this movement toward a new Renaissance. He is the general who can win the war, and he needs your support.
2010 is the year all those who agree with LaRouche must come out publicly and say so, and support the LaRouche Plan. Don't be afraid, don't hide behind institutional excuses, or throw up other silly barriers. It is time for all good men and women to take a stand, to support LaRouche and the principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Join us on the front lines, and enjoy striking a blow for freedom.
It is time to finally retire the little shrinking queen and her army of sycophants, and put the world back on track. They deserve it, and so do the rest of us. Let us make 2010 the first year of the new Renaissance.
johnhoefle@larouchepub.com
by John Hoefle
Dec. 31—As the new year rolls in, the ancient Chinese curse/blessing "May you live in interesting times" comes to mind. For we do, indeed, live in them. These are times of both tragedy, and opportunity, as an old and evil system dies a well-deserved and long-overdue death, and the fight over what will replace it takes center stage.
The old system, in its present incarnation, is known as the British Empire, but traces its roots back through Venice, Rome, and beyond. It is a maritime empire whose power is based upon control of money and trade. In the post-World War II period, the empire has cloaked itself in the corporate world, creating global cartels and global markets, controlled by global bankers, but underneath the corporatist facade, lies the same old parasitic imperialism.
That empire is dying, a victim of its own success at looting the world to the point where a devastating collapse is inevitable, unless the nations of the world rise up, cast off the imperial parasites, and return to the path of progress. Fortunately for all of us, that shift has begun.
The King Is Dead
The British Empire's fate was sealed in mid-2007, with the simultaneous deaths of its monetary system, and the financial system that monetary system had created. The distinction is important. The power of the empire rests in its ability to control the supply and price of money. It does this through a network of central banks, such as the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank. These so-called "independent" central banks are creatures of the empire, which views itself as sitting above mere nation-states.
The claim has been made that, in the bailout frenzy of the past two years, the central banks have become tools of the state. The Fed, it has been said repeatedly, has become virtually an arm of the U.S. Treasury, carrying out government policy. In fact, the opposite is true. The Treasury, and the White House, are captives of the imperial system which controls the Fed.
The bailout, underneath all the empty promises, was never intended to bring the dead system back to life. Instead, it was intended to support the imperial monetary system during the transition from the dead financial system to what the empire planned as its replacement: a global financial dictatorship. At the same time, it served to bankrupt the nation-states, the biggest obstacle to this global fascist plan.
The real goal of the British Empire is to turn back the clock to when it ruled the world in its own name, before the American Revolution changed the balance of power. Its scheme to do so revolves around sharp reductions in global population. That is, genocide. The bailout, the phony "man-made global warming" scare around which the Copenhagen conference was organized, and the accelerating, born-in-Britain, police-state measures, are all elements of a plan to impose crushing austerity.
This evil scheme, ironically, is what dooms the Brutish Empire. By destroying the physical-economic basis for life, the empire is destroying the basis for its own existence, and the basis for the existence of civilization itself. If they kill us all, they kill themselves, too.
Now, or Not in Our Lifetimes
The collapse that began in mid-2007 has continued, unabated (see Figure 1). Sometimes it breaks into the headlines, as with the open panic of September 2008, while other times, it travels under the protective screen of the corporate media and the government's statistical fraud. But it is always there. And the losses keep growing, as the real economy collapses beneath the financial games.
Out in the real world, away from the press releases, the spin doctors, the phony statistics, and the rest of the fog machine, it's nothing but collapse. In the U.S., we see record numbers of foreclosures, and the rapid growth of "Obamaville" tent cities. Jobs are disappearing at a staggering clip, setting the stage for more foreclosures, more bankruptcies, more losses for merchants and lenders. Revenues of state and local governments are vaporizing, forcing them to make even deeper cuts in services already cut beyond tolerable limits, and raising taxes on a population that is sinking deeper and deeper into economic misery. The situation is untenable, and unsustainable—and the worst is yet to come.
This is not a linear process that will play out over the next decade or so. When Lyndon LaRouche declared in his July 25, 2007 webcast that the global financial system had died, many failed to listen. Wall Street, though panic was spreading internally, insisted all was well, the system was sound, ad nauseam.
Yet, by the end of 2007, the Fed and the European Central Bank had launched extraordinary bailout facilities—and, in March 2008, Bear Stearns effectively failed. Then, in September, barely a year after LaRouche's declaration, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went before Congress to demand the immediate passage of the TARP bailout scheme, to stop the in-progress meltdown of the global financial system. Paulson got his TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which only accelerated the meltdown.
The fools claim that the bailout worked, that the collapse has not only been arrested, but reversed. But how can that be, when all that was done was to pile even more debt atop a mountain of already unpayable debt, while the power of the physical economy to pay that debt has sharply declined? The "bailers" may have broken the psychology of panic for a while, but they have solved nothing. And, in the process, they have turned trillions of dollars of private debt, into government-guaranteed debt, and triggered the hyperinflation of the dollar. The policy has not only been a failure, it has been a nation-killing failure. We will not survive, if we continue down this path.
Thus, we enter 2010 at a turning point. Our current trajectory, under the fascist policies of the British Empire and its stooges, is into a dark oblivion—an oblivion far too many among us have been forced to glimpse. If we continue down this path, we will not survive the year. The alternative, the reorganization-and-recovery plan outlined by LaRouche, provides us with a way to climb out of the pit—but only if it is implemented now. In 2010, our world is going to change for the better, or it will change, almost unimaginably, for the worse.
Defeat the British Empire
If mankind is to survive, we must finally defeat the oligarchic pestilence and its imperial monetary system. Not reach an agreement with it; not put it at a disadvantage; but end its power over the human race. We must, as sovereign nations, once again take control over our own money, and direct our spending into areas that promote the general welfare. That means infrastructure projects, economic development, rebuilding and expanding our productive base. It means putting our people back to work in productive jobs which benefit society as a whole. It means returning to science and technology, setting new goals and exceeding them. It means putting human settlements on Mars, as a jumping-off point for exploring the universe in which we live.
The biggest single obstacle to all of this is that medieval monstrosity known as the British Empire. It is the empire which is the beneficiary of the bailout program, at the expense of the people. It is the empire that pushes the superstition known as "man-made global warming," as a way of shutting down human progress and killing off two-thirds of the world's population. It is the empire that relentlessly pushes the police state, by staging phony incidents and using those incidents to justify ever more intrusive and un-Constitutional measures. It is the empire that plays on our impulses to keep us dumb, blind, and passive, while it destroys all we hold dear.
But the British Empire is also irrational, a wild beast acting on instinct as it tries to protect a world view that should long ago have passed into history. Its effort to use the Copenhagen Climate Change summit to set up what amounts to a world government under the guise of environmental concerns, was a failure, as many nations chose survival over submission. Though it is still powerful, and far from defeated, for the first time in a long time, the smell of its own blood is in the water.
It is, after all, the British Empire's derivatives-fuelled financial system which collapsed. They failed, and then demanded that we commit suicide to rescue them. In the U.S., the Federal government quickly complied, but the population rebelled, and that rebellion has become a major factor of resistance. President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have given the Brits virtually everything they demanded, but they are increasingly hated for doing so. And their power is eroding by the minute.
Other nations, seeing this rising resistance in the U.S., and knowing the Hell which awaits them if they capitulate to British demands, are emboldened to defend their own sovereignty. The Russia-China economic development accords, signed in October 2009, are a good example of this, and a demonstration that we can buck the empire and survive. This process escalated at Copenhagen, drying up the British wet dream of global dictatorship.
The fight is not over, but it has begun—and that is the most positive step of 2009. LaRouche, as the most creative generator of ideas alive today, is the driver of this movement toward a new Renaissance. He is the general who can win the war, and he needs your support.
2010 is the year all those who agree with LaRouche must come out publicly and say so, and support the LaRouche Plan. Don't be afraid, don't hide behind institutional excuses, or throw up other silly barriers. It is time for all good men and women to take a stand, to support LaRouche and the principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Join us on the front lines, and enjoy striking a blow for freedom.
It is time to finally retire the little shrinking queen and her army of sycophants, and put the world back on track. They deserve it, and so do the rest of us. Let us make 2010 the first year of the new Renaissance.
johnhoefle@larouchepub.com
India preparing weapon system to neutralise enemy satellites: Saraswat
Last Updated: Jan 03, 2010
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (PTI): Indian defence scientists are readying a weapon system to neutralise enemy satellites operating in low-earth orbit, a top defence scientist said here Sunday.
"India is putting together building blocks of technology that could be used to neutralise enemy satellites," Defence Research and Development Organisation Director General V K Saraswat told reporters on the sidelines of the 97th Indian Science Congress.
However, he added that the defence scientists have not planned any tests but have started planning such technology which could be used to leapfrog to build a weapon in case the country needed it.
Saraswat, who is also the Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister, said the scientists were planning to build the weapon which would have the capacity to hit and destroy satellites in low-earth orbit and polar orbit.
Usually, satellites in such orbits are used for network centric warfare and neutralising such spacecraft would deny enemy access to its space assets.
"We are working to ensure space security and protect our satellites.
At the same time we are also working on how to deny the enemy access to its space assets," he said.
To achieve such capabilities, a kill vehicle needs to be developed and that process is being carried out under the Ballistic Missile Defence programme.
"Basically, these are deterrence technologies and quite certainly many of these technologies will not be used.
I hope they are not used," Saraswat said.
In January 2007, China had demonstrated its capability to destroy satellites by conducting an anti-satellite test.
It had launched a missile that blew to smithereens an ageing weather satellite Fengyun 1C orbiting at a distance of 500 miles away from the earth.
Saraswat said the DRDO is building an advanced version of its interceptor missile with a range of 120-140 km.
The missile interceptor is expected to be test fired in September.
Space security is going to be a major issue in the future and India should not be left behind in this area, the defence scientist said.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (PTI): Indian defence scientists are readying a weapon system to neutralise enemy satellites operating in low-earth orbit, a top defence scientist said here Sunday.
"India is putting together building blocks of technology that could be used to neutralise enemy satellites," Defence Research and Development Organisation Director General V K Saraswat told reporters on the sidelines of the 97th Indian Science Congress.
However, he added that the defence scientists have not planned any tests but have started planning such technology which could be used to leapfrog to build a weapon in case the country needed it.
Saraswat, who is also the Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister, said the scientists were planning to build the weapon which would have the capacity to hit and destroy satellites in low-earth orbit and polar orbit.
Usually, satellites in such orbits are used for network centric warfare and neutralising such spacecraft would deny enemy access to its space assets.
"We are working to ensure space security and protect our satellites.
At the same time we are also working on how to deny the enemy access to its space assets," he said.
To achieve such capabilities, a kill vehicle needs to be developed and that process is being carried out under the Ballistic Missile Defence programme.
"Basically, these are deterrence technologies and quite certainly many of these technologies will not be used.
I hope they are not used," Saraswat said.
In January 2007, China had demonstrated its capability to destroy satellites by conducting an anti-satellite test.
It had launched a missile that blew to smithereens an ageing weather satellite Fengyun 1C orbiting at a distance of 500 miles away from the earth.
Saraswat said the DRDO is building an advanced version of its interceptor missile with a range of 120-140 km.
The missile interceptor is expected to be test fired in September.
Space security is going to be a major issue in the future and India should not be left behind in this area, the defence scientist said.
General alert in Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - At a time when Islamabad is trying to implement a United States-sponsored initiative for a spirit of dialogue between Pakistan and India, an Indian general has stirred up a hornet's nest, eliciting a belligerent response from across the border.
Indian General Deepak Kapoor, according to media reports, last week said in a closed-door seminar that his country could take on Pakistan and China simultaneously and "bring it to a satisfactory conclusion in 96 hours", and even suggested that a "limited war under a nuclear overhang" was possible in South Asia.
Pakistan, tightly allied with the United States-led "war on terror" and tied down with its commitment to Washington to focus on its
western border with Afghanistan rather than on India, chose not to officially respond to the Indian general's remarks.
However, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majeed, who by virtue of his designation becomes the operational head of all Pakistan's armed forces in the event of war, spoke out.
"Leave alone China, General Deepak Kapoor knows very well what the Indian armed forces cannot do and what the Pakistani armed forces can pull off militarily ... I have doubts that he can be so outlandish in strategic postulations as to put India on a self-destructive path," said Kapoor, known for his anti-American attitude. If the report were correct, he said, the uncalled-for rhetoric only depicted a lack of strategic acumen.
Kapoor identified five thrust areas that would drive a new Indian doctrine.
While the armed forces prepare for their primary task of conventional wars, they must also factor in the eventuality of "a two-front war" breaking out. In tune with this, after acquiring a greater offensive punch along the entire western front with Pakistan by the creation of a new South-Western Army Command in 2005, India was now taking steps - albeit belatedly - to strategically counter the stark military asymmetry with China in the eastern sector. There is now "a proportionate focus towards the western and northeastern fronts".
The armed forces need to "optimize" their capability to effectively counter "both the military and non-military facets" of asymmetric and sub-conventional threats like weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, cyber warfare, electronic warfare and information warfare.
The armed forces have to substantially enhance their strategic reach and out-of-area capabilities to protect India's geopolitical interests stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Strait. "This would enable us to protect our island territories; and also give assistance to the littoral states in the Indian Ocean region."
Interdependence and operational synergy between the army, navy and air force must become the essence of strategic planning and execution in future wars. "For this, joint operations, strategic and space-based capability, ballistic missile defense and amphibious, airborne and air-land operations must be addressed comprehensively."
India must strive to achieve a technological edge over its adversaries. "Harnessing and exploitation of technology also includes integration of network centricity, decision-support systems, information warfare and electronic warfare into our operational plans."
Pakistan's Majeed, a four-star general, was in mid-2008 twice offered the position of chief of army staff by former president Pervez Musharraf when Musharraf turned against the incumbent army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani. Each time, Majeed refused, as he prefers to stay in the background, although he has emerged as a leader on several issues.
The bulk of the Pakistan army was against Asif Ali Zardari when he announced his decision to run for president, a position he assumed on September 9, 2008. Majeed, however, rallied the top brass, urging that the democratic process should be given a chance and that if the political forces wanted Zardari, their decision should be respected.
Naturally, Zardari was thankful and offered to elevate Majeed, including to a position with complete command and control over all of the branches of the armed services. Majeed declined but continued to exert what influence he had.
From mid-2009, he was at the forefront of the initiative to start a dialogue process with the Taliban, an issue he discussed with senior visiting US military officials. This raised the ire of some sections of Pakistan's strategic quarters which were closely allied with the American war in Afghanistan. Some officers even boycotted Majeed's meeting with his American counterpart, Admiral Mike Mullen, in violation of all protocols.
However, Majeed continued to air his views, which emphasize dialogue with militants. He believes that the American war machine has been badly sucked into Afghanistan and that Pakistan should distance itself from being pulled into that quagmire.
Gradually, Majeed's arguments have taken hold and in the past few weeks there have been some developments concerning Pakistan's dealings with the US.
A stringent mechanism has been adopted in issuing visas to Americans, which has restricted American defense contractors in Pakistan. Their growing presence in the country has for some time been a bone of contention. US diplomats, too, have been under pressure, such as being forced to use regular immigration counters at airports.
This does not mean that Pakistan overnight has become anti-American, or that its cooperation with the US will suddenly cease. These are critical times, though, for both the US and Pakistan, the former embroiled in Afghanistan, the latter struggling with spreading militancy, and what are now just trends could evolve into something bigger.
Three important appointments in Pakistan this year could have an influence on such trends, including Majeed's sentiments.
The director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, is due to retire in March. The government has so far not shown any interest in extending his tenure. Army chief Kiani is due to step down in November. Washington is keen to see his term extended, as he dovetails perfectly with American policies on the region. Majeed, too, is slated to retire in October, which leaves him a matter of months to push his views.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
ISLAMABAD - At a time when Islamabad is trying to implement a United States-sponsored initiative for a spirit of dialogue between Pakistan and India, an Indian general has stirred up a hornet's nest, eliciting a belligerent response from across the border.
Indian General Deepak Kapoor, according to media reports, last week said in a closed-door seminar that his country could take on Pakistan and China simultaneously and "bring it to a satisfactory conclusion in 96 hours", and even suggested that a "limited war under a nuclear overhang" was possible in South Asia.
Pakistan, tightly allied with the United States-led "war on terror" and tied down with its commitment to Washington to focus on its
western border with Afghanistan rather than on India, chose not to officially respond to the Indian general's remarks.
However, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majeed, who by virtue of his designation becomes the operational head of all Pakistan's armed forces in the event of war, spoke out.
"Leave alone China, General Deepak Kapoor knows very well what the Indian armed forces cannot do and what the Pakistani armed forces can pull off militarily ... I have doubts that he can be so outlandish in strategic postulations as to put India on a self-destructive path," said Kapoor, known for his anti-American attitude. If the report were correct, he said, the uncalled-for rhetoric only depicted a lack of strategic acumen.
Kapoor identified five thrust areas that would drive a new Indian doctrine.
While the armed forces prepare for their primary task of conventional wars, they must also factor in the eventuality of "a two-front war" breaking out. In tune with this, after acquiring a greater offensive punch along the entire western front with Pakistan by the creation of a new South-Western Army Command in 2005, India was now taking steps - albeit belatedly - to strategically counter the stark military asymmetry with China in the eastern sector. There is now "a proportionate focus towards the western and northeastern fronts".
The armed forces need to "optimize" their capability to effectively counter "both the military and non-military facets" of asymmetric and sub-conventional threats like weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, cyber warfare, electronic warfare and information warfare.
The armed forces have to substantially enhance their strategic reach and out-of-area capabilities to protect India's geopolitical interests stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Strait. "This would enable us to protect our island territories; and also give assistance to the littoral states in the Indian Ocean region."
Interdependence and operational synergy between the army, navy and air force must become the essence of strategic planning and execution in future wars. "For this, joint operations, strategic and space-based capability, ballistic missile defense and amphibious, airborne and air-land operations must be addressed comprehensively."
India must strive to achieve a technological edge over its adversaries. "Harnessing and exploitation of technology also includes integration of network centricity, decision-support systems, information warfare and electronic warfare into our operational plans."
Pakistan's Majeed, a four-star general, was in mid-2008 twice offered the position of chief of army staff by former president Pervez Musharraf when Musharraf turned against the incumbent army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani. Each time, Majeed refused, as he prefers to stay in the background, although he has emerged as a leader on several issues.
The bulk of the Pakistan army was against Asif Ali Zardari when he announced his decision to run for president, a position he assumed on September 9, 2008. Majeed, however, rallied the top brass, urging that the democratic process should be given a chance and that if the political forces wanted Zardari, their decision should be respected.
Naturally, Zardari was thankful and offered to elevate Majeed, including to a position with complete command and control over all of the branches of the armed services. Majeed declined but continued to exert what influence he had.
From mid-2009, he was at the forefront of the initiative to start a dialogue process with the Taliban, an issue he discussed with senior visiting US military officials. This raised the ire of some sections of Pakistan's strategic quarters which were closely allied with the American war in Afghanistan. Some officers even boycotted Majeed's meeting with his American counterpart, Admiral Mike Mullen, in violation of all protocols.
However, Majeed continued to air his views, which emphasize dialogue with militants. He believes that the American war machine has been badly sucked into Afghanistan and that Pakistan should distance itself from being pulled into that quagmire.
Gradually, Majeed's arguments have taken hold and in the past few weeks there have been some developments concerning Pakistan's dealings with the US.
A stringent mechanism has been adopted in issuing visas to Americans, which has restricted American defense contractors in Pakistan. Their growing presence in the country has for some time been a bone of contention. US diplomats, too, have been under pressure, such as being forced to use regular immigration counters at airports.
This does not mean that Pakistan overnight has become anti-American, or that its cooperation with the US will suddenly cease. These are critical times, though, for both the US and Pakistan, the former embroiled in Afghanistan, the latter struggling with spreading militancy, and what are now just trends could evolve into something bigger.
Three important appointments in Pakistan this year could have an influence on such trends, including Majeed's sentiments.
The director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, is due to retire in March. The government has so far not shown any interest in extending his tenure. Army chief Kiani is due to step down in November. Washington is keen to see his term extended, as he dovetails perfectly with American policies on the region. Majeed, too, is slated to retire in October, which leaves him a matter of months to push his views.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
TERRORISM IN JAMMU & KASHMIR
B.RAMAN
According to the collations based on open source information put out by the South Asia Terrorism Portal of New Delhi, 69 civilians and 90 members of the security forces were killed in terrorism-related violence in Jammu & Kashmir in 2008. There were 49 explosions in different parts of the State using improvised explosive devices or landmines or hand-grenades in which 29 persons were killed. The remaining 40 civilians were killed in other incidents, not involving explosions. There were no incidents of suicide or suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism.
2.During 2009, 55 civilians and 78 members of the security forces were killed. There were only seven explosions in which 11 were killed. The remaining 44 civilians died in other incidents not involving explosions. There were no incidents of suicide or suicidal terrorism during 2009 either.
3. The Portal has not put out collated statistics regarding the annual infiltrations of Pakistan-trained terrorists into J&K , However, other reports indicate that the infiltrations continued to take place.
4. Thus during the last two years, there was a qualitative change in the ground situation marked by the following features:
The total absence of suicidal or suicide terrorism.
A significant decrease in the indiscriminate killing of civilians using explosive substances.
A decrease in fatalities of civilians as well as members of the security forces due to terrorism-related violence.
But continuing infiltrations of Pakistan-trained terrorists.
5. During this period, the strategy of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was marked by , firstly, keeping the clandestine and operational presence of the terrorists in J&K sustained by continuing the infiltrations so that they can be re-activated, if needed, and, secondly, bringing down the level of their acts of terrorism so that any escalation does not come in the way of the confidence-building process going on between the two countries as a result of initiatives taken by the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh in India and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Government headed by Asif Ali Zardari, which had come to power in Pakistan after the elections in the beginning of 2008.
6. The confidence-building process was actually initiated by the two countries when Pervez Musharraf was the President, and this continued under the PPP-led Government. In fact, Zardari tried to project a non-confrontational approach by talking, inter alia, of the need to reconsider the Pakistani policy of making the so-called Kashmir dispute come in the way of the normalisation of bilateral relations in other spheres such as trade. However, there were indications that the Army felt concerned over his non-confrontational approach. He did not go back to a confrontational approach, but stopped talking of the need for a non-confrontational approach.
7. The political situation in Pakistan has taken a turn for the worse following the ruling of the Pakistani Supreme Court declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by Musharraf in November,2007, null and void. The NRO, inter alia, paved the way for the return of Benazir Bhutto and Zardari from political exile in order to re-join the democratic process by closing the then on-going corruption investigations and prosecutions against them. Corruption cases against many other political leaders of different political parties were also withdrawn or closed.
8. The setting aside of the NRO by the Supreme Court has called into question the legitimacy of the election of Zardari as the President in September 2008. He has been desperately fighting to keep himself in office as the President through various strategems such as encouraging the Legislative Assemblies of the provinces to express their backing for him, by playing up the regional aspirations, by talking of unspecified conspiracies against not only him as an individual, but also against the PPP and by invoking the memory and fighting spirit of Benazir. His references to Kashmir are becoming confrontational. One is reminded of a similar turn in the attitude of Benazir Bhutto as the then Prime Minister in 1989 when she assumed a belligerant attitude towards India during a visit to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in order to save her position as the Prime Minister.
9. It should be a matter of concern---but not yet of alarm---- that the fedayeen attack by a group of two terrorists---- apparently from Pakistan --- in the Lal Chowk of Srinagar on January 6,2009, has come at a time when emotions are once again being whipped up in Pakistan over the Kashmir issue. The fedayeen attack resulted in a 22-hour confrontation between the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the terrorists, who managed to entrench themselves in a local hotel before they were killed.
10. The whipping-up of emotions has the following objectives:
To divert attention away from the domestic challenges faced by Zardari and the PPP-led Government.
To placate the Army due to fears that the Army might get involved in any conspiracy to force the exit of Zardari.
To placate the Punjabi jihadi organisations, which have been itching for renewed action in J&K, in order to bring about a divide between them and the anti-Army Pakistani Taliban.
11. As a result of an improvement in the ground situation during the last two years, the Government of India, with the co-operation of the Government in Srinagar, had embarked on a policy with the following components:
A calibrated withdrawal and/or re-deployment of the Army troops in order to give the J&K Police and the CRPF a greater responsibility for maintaining peace and law and order in the State.
Maintaining on the ground the confidence-building measures already agreed upon with Pakistan before the bilateral dialogue came to be suspended following the 26/11 terrorist strikes by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Mumbai.
Maintaining the momentum of the dialogue between the Government and representatives of different political formations in the State in order to work out a political solution to their demands which are considered legitimate.
12. The first fedayeen attack since 2007 need not call into question the wisdom of continuing this strategy. At the same time, the danger that a besieged Zardari-led Government might try to undermine this strategy by stepping up jihadi terrorism in the State has to be constantly studied, analysed and assessed by our intelligence agencies, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
According to the collations based on open source information put out by the South Asia Terrorism Portal of New Delhi, 69 civilians and 90 members of the security forces were killed in terrorism-related violence in Jammu & Kashmir in 2008. There were 49 explosions in different parts of the State using improvised explosive devices or landmines or hand-grenades in which 29 persons were killed. The remaining 40 civilians were killed in other incidents, not involving explosions. There were no incidents of suicide or suicidal (fedayeen) terrorism.
2.During 2009, 55 civilians and 78 members of the security forces were killed. There were only seven explosions in which 11 were killed. The remaining 44 civilians died in other incidents not involving explosions. There were no incidents of suicide or suicidal terrorism during 2009 either.
3. The Portal has not put out collated statistics regarding the annual infiltrations of Pakistan-trained terrorists into J&K , However, other reports indicate that the infiltrations continued to take place.
4. Thus during the last two years, there was a qualitative change in the ground situation marked by the following features:
The total absence of suicidal or suicide terrorism.
A significant decrease in the indiscriminate killing of civilians using explosive substances.
A decrease in fatalities of civilians as well as members of the security forces due to terrorism-related violence.
But continuing infiltrations of Pakistan-trained terrorists.
5. During this period, the strategy of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was marked by , firstly, keeping the clandestine and operational presence of the terrorists in J&K sustained by continuing the infiltrations so that they can be re-activated, if needed, and, secondly, bringing down the level of their acts of terrorism so that any escalation does not come in the way of the confidence-building process going on between the two countries as a result of initiatives taken by the Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh in India and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Government headed by Asif Ali Zardari, which had come to power in Pakistan after the elections in the beginning of 2008.
6. The confidence-building process was actually initiated by the two countries when Pervez Musharraf was the President, and this continued under the PPP-led Government. In fact, Zardari tried to project a non-confrontational approach by talking, inter alia, of the need to reconsider the Pakistani policy of making the so-called Kashmir dispute come in the way of the normalisation of bilateral relations in other spheres such as trade. However, there were indications that the Army felt concerned over his non-confrontational approach. He did not go back to a confrontational approach, but stopped talking of the need for a non-confrontational approach.
7. The political situation in Pakistan has taken a turn for the worse following the ruling of the Pakistani Supreme Court declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by Musharraf in November,2007, null and void. The NRO, inter alia, paved the way for the return of Benazir Bhutto and Zardari from political exile in order to re-join the democratic process by closing the then on-going corruption investigations and prosecutions against them. Corruption cases against many other political leaders of different political parties were also withdrawn or closed.
8. The setting aside of the NRO by the Supreme Court has called into question the legitimacy of the election of Zardari as the President in September 2008. He has been desperately fighting to keep himself in office as the President through various strategems such as encouraging the Legislative Assemblies of the provinces to express their backing for him, by playing up the regional aspirations, by talking of unspecified conspiracies against not only him as an individual, but also against the PPP and by invoking the memory and fighting spirit of Benazir. His references to Kashmir are becoming confrontational. One is reminded of a similar turn in the attitude of Benazir Bhutto as the then Prime Minister in 1989 when she assumed a belligerant attitude towards India during a visit to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in order to save her position as the Prime Minister.
9. It should be a matter of concern---but not yet of alarm---- that the fedayeen attack by a group of two terrorists---- apparently from Pakistan --- in the Lal Chowk of Srinagar on January 6,2009, has come at a time when emotions are once again being whipped up in Pakistan over the Kashmir issue. The fedayeen attack resulted in a 22-hour confrontation between the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the terrorists, who managed to entrench themselves in a local hotel before they were killed.
10. The whipping-up of emotions has the following objectives:
To divert attention away from the domestic challenges faced by Zardari and the PPP-led Government.
To placate the Army due to fears that the Army might get involved in any conspiracy to force the exit of Zardari.
To placate the Punjabi jihadi organisations, which have been itching for renewed action in J&K, in order to bring about a divide between them and the anti-Army Pakistani Taliban.
11. As a result of an improvement in the ground situation during the last two years, the Government of India, with the co-operation of the Government in Srinagar, had embarked on a policy with the following components:
A calibrated withdrawal and/or re-deployment of the Army troops in order to give the J&K Police and the CRPF a greater responsibility for maintaining peace and law and order in the State.
Maintaining on the ground the confidence-building measures already agreed upon with Pakistan before the bilateral dialogue came to be suspended following the 26/11 terrorist strikes by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Mumbai.
Maintaining the momentum of the dialogue between the Government and representatives of different political formations in the State in order to work out a political solution to their demands which are considered legitimate.
12. The first fedayeen attack since 2007 need not call into question the wisdom of continuing this strategy. At the same time, the danger that a besieged Zardari-led Government might try to undermine this strategy by stepping up jihadi terrorism in the State has to be constantly studied, analysed and assessed by our intelligence agencies, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Indo-US Relationship: Five Mantras and Ten Commandments
"Five Mantras:
India is a re-emerging superpower that cannot be stopped!
India is a pluralistic democracy.
India is an ancient civilization that is proud of her glorious past, aware of her current limitations and fully cognizant of her future potential, roles and responsibilities.
India cannot be contained as she shall not bow or bend.
India shall prevail over all the adversities with resilience.
Ten Commandments:
Thou shall not interfere in the internal affairs of India.
Thou shall not block India’s entry into the P5.
Thou shall not spy on India.
Thou shall not expect India to change her independent foreign policy.
Thou shall not place trade restrictions and visa obstructions in the path of Indian scientists and professionals who provide important services.
Thou shall not send Evangelist, Baptist, Christian missionaries to India under garb of tourists and CIA agents under the garb of journalists.
Thou shall express sincere apologies for “breach of a bilateral contract between two sovereign nations” on Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) and make amends for the same.
Thou shall not prop up serial military dictatorships of Pakistan on one pretext or another.
Thou shall not play the China card against India.
Thou shall not act as the policeman of the Indian subcontinent."
April 6, 2008
Dr. Adityanjee is the President of Council for Strategic Affairs, New Delhi
An abridged version of this paper appeared on the southasianalysis.org website on Feb 8th 2008.
Engaging India
The New Indo-USA Partnership Poses Challenges
for the Future Us Administrations
by Dr. Adityanjee
http://www.boloji.com/opinion/0539.htm
India is a re-emerging superpower that cannot be stopped!
India is a pluralistic democracy.
India is an ancient civilization that is proud of her glorious past, aware of her current limitations and fully cognizant of her future potential, roles and responsibilities.
India cannot be contained as she shall not bow or bend.
India shall prevail over all the adversities with resilience.
Ten Commandments:
Thou shall not interfere in the internal affairs of India.
Thou shall not block India’s entry into the P5.
Thou shall not spy on India.
Thou shall not expect India to change her independent foreign policy.
Thou shall not place trade restrictions and visa obstructions in the path of Indian scientists and professionals who provide important services.
Thou shall not send Evangelist, Baptist, Christian missionaries to India under garb of tourists and CIA agents under the garb of journalists.
Thou shall express sincere apologies for “breach of a bilateral contract between two sovereign nations” on Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) and make amends for the same.
Thou shall not prop up serial military dictatorships of Pakistan on one pretext or another.
Thou shall not play the China card against India.
Thou shall not act as the policeman of the Indian subcontinent."
April 6, 2008
Dr. Adityanjee is the President of Council for Strategic Affairs, New Delhi
An abridged version of this paper appeared on the southasianalysis.org website on Feb 8th 2008.
Engaging India
The New Indo-USA Partnership Poses Challenges
for the Future Us Administrations
by Dr. Adityanjee
http://www.boloji.com/opinion/0539.htm
Why India Is No Villain
Barbara Crossette is wrong: This rising power helps solve far more problems than it creates.
BY NITIN PAI | JANUARY 7, 2010
According to the Financial Times' Lucy Kellaway, "Elephant in the Room" was the most popular cliché to appear in major newspapers and journals in 2009. It is perhaps appropriate then that Barbara Crossette's latest diatribe against India appeared in Foreign Policy under that headline. Although it claims to show that India causes "the most global consternation" and "gives global governance the biggest headache," it is merely a series of rants and newsroom clichés selected entirely arbitrarily to support the author's prejudice.
Listing India's alleged failings, Crossette makes the unfathomable assertion that it is India that causes the most consternation and the biggest headache for the world -- more than Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Pakistan, and China. Without an attempt to compare the failings across countries (And why only these countries? Why leave out the West and the rest?), it is logically impossible to arrive at the conclusion that one of them is the biggest culprit. But once you trade logic for hyperbole, you can fit just about any animal you like into the room. For Crossette, it is the pachyderm.
Consider these facts instead: The only country to have militarily intervened to halt an ongoing genocide is India, which it did in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971. After the December 2004 tsunami, it was India's navy that was the first international responder, deploying within 24 hours and delivering humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Maldives. It subsequently coordinated operations with the United States, Japan, and Australia. India has been involved in U.N. peacekeeping from the very beginning and remains one of the biggest troop contributors to this day, often putting its soldiers in danger in conflicts that have nothing to do with national interests. Indian naval ships are also involved in maritime security operations from Somalia to the Strait of Malacca. Even this partial list is enough to prove that India is not, as Crossette believes, "a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence."
Let's take a closer look at Crossette's rap sheet. First, she agrees with a quote from an article that appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a journal that advocates arms control (hardly a neutral source), arguing that India's refusals to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty make it "comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia." She doesn't explain how, because she would be hard-pressed to prove that India's "contribution" is comparable to that of China, which helped put the bomb in the hands of the likes of Pakistan, or North Korea, which brazenly violated the treaty it signed. Actions matter more than signatures.
Second, on the Doha round of trade negotiations, Crossette blames India for single-handedly foiling a deal that "nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most." Does she really know better than the developing countries themselves? It seems odd that they would not love a deal that "would have benefited [them] most." It is just as presumptuous and illogical to blame the failure of Doha on India alone. Gideon Rachman, for instance, argues that "the Doha round ultimately broke down because of a stand-off between the United States, India, China and the European Union over agricultural trade." Turns out it takes more than one hand to wreck a multilateral deal.
It is on the third point -- climate change -- that Crossette's proclivity for being selective with facts stands out most. She mentions the Indian environment minister's refusal to agree to binding carbon emission targets five months before the Copenhagen talks, but ignores his statement in Parliament five days before the negotiations pledging 20 to 25 percent carbon emission intensity cuts from the 2005 levels by 2020. Nonbinding yes, but nevertheless a serious commitment. And no country's commitments at Copenhagen were binding. She also ignores that in the end, the Copenhagen "deal" came about in part due to India's bridging of the differences between the United States and China.
Fourth, on the basis of one data point -- the scandal over a pay increase to Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend that precipitated his resignation as president of the World Bank -- Crossette alleges that India "attacks individuals." Wolfowitz, she says, was ousted "not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds." It is undeniable that there is corruption in India, but Crossette glosses over the fact that in the interview she quotes, Steve Berkman alleges that World Bank officials were involved in it too. What the latter actually said, as paraphrased by a journalist for Rediff India Abroad, is that "the international bureaucrats who run the Bank ... are the ones who conspired to nail Wolfowitz using the mini-scandal with his girlfriend to call for his ouster." Where does that leave Crossette's argument?
Fifth, Crossette claims that India "regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates," a failing that she supposes occurs because such advocates are critical of the government. Granting that there is a case for India to be more liberal in its visa regime, the country does not lack robust, committed, and vocal human rights activists. Tune in to any Indian television channel. On the other hand, the U.N. Human Rights Council is not exactly a shining example of how the international community protects human rights. Domestic activism and the liberal democratic institutions that allow it are perhaps far more effective in safeguarding human rights.
Ultimately, Crossette's suggestion that India presents a "headache" for global governance is a manifestation of an outdated mindset. It ignores the growing convergence of interests between India and the United States on the biggest challenges of this century: from establishing a liberal, democratic order to managing the rise of China to containing jihadi terrorism to addressing climate change and a host of other challenges. For those worried about rising elephants, make room if you don't want to be squeezed.
Nitin Pai is editor of Pragati -- The Indian National Interest Review.
ALL CONTENTS ©2009 WASHINGTONPOST.NEWSWEEK INTERACTIVE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/07/why_india_is_no_villain?page=full
BY NITIN PAI | JANUARY 7, 2010
According to the Financial Times' Lucy Kellaway, "Elephant in the Room" was the most popular cliché to appear in major newspapers and journals in 2009. It is perhaps appropriate then that Barbara Crossette's latest diatribe against India appeared in Foreign Policy under that headline. Although it claims to show that India causes "the most global consternation" and "gives global governance the biggest headache," it is merely a series of rants and newsroom clichés selected entirely arbitrarily to support the author's prejudice.
Listing India's alleged failings, Crossette makes the unfathomable assertion that it is India that causes the most consternation and the biggest headache for the world -- more than Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Pakistan, and China. Without an attempt to compare the failings across countries (And why only these countries? Why leave out the West and the rest?), it is logically impossible to arrive at the conclusion that one of them is the biggest culprit. But once you trade logic for hyperbole, you can fit just about any animal you like into the room. For Crossette, it is the pachyderm.
Consider these facts instead: The only country to have militarily intervened to halt an ongoing genocide is India, which it did in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971. After the December 2004 tsunami, it was India's navy that was the first international responder, deploying within 24 hours and delivering humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Maldives. It subsequently coordinated operations with the United States, Japan, and Australia. India has been involved in U.N. peacekeeping from the very beginning and remains one of the biggest troop contributors to this day, often putting its soldiers in danger in conflicts that have nothing to do with national interests. Indian naval ships are also involved in maritime security operations from Somalia to the Strait of Malacca. Even this partial list is enough to prove that India is not, as Crossette believes, "a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence."
Let's take a closer look at Crossette's rap sheet. First, she agrees with a quote from an article that appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a journal that advocates arms control (hardly a neutral source), arguing that India's refusals to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty make it "comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia." She doesn't explain how, because she would be hard-pressed to prove that India's "contribution" is comparable to that of China, which helped put the bomb in the hands of the likes of Pakistan, or North Korea, which brazenly violated the treaty it signed. Actions matter more than signatures.
Second, on the Doha round of trade negotiations, Crossette blames India for single-handedly foiling a deal that "nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most." Does she really know better than the developing countries themselves? It seems odd that they would not love a deal that "would have benefited [them] most." It is just as presumptuous and illogical to blame the failure of Doha on India alone. Gideon Rachman, for instance, argues that "the Doha round ultimately broke down because of a stand-off between the United States, India, China and the European Union over agricultural trade." Turns out it takes more than one hand to wreck a multilateral deal.
It is on the third point -- climate change -- that Crossette's proclivity for being selective with facts stands out most. She mentions the Indian environment minister's refusal to agree to binding carbon emission targets five months before the Copenhagen talks, but ignores his statement in Parliament five days before the negotiations pledging 20 to 25 percent carbon emission intensity cuts from the 2005 levels by 2020. Nonbinding yes, but nevertheless a serious commitment. And no country's commitments at Copenhagen were binding. She also ignores that in the end, the Copenhagen "deal" came about in part due to India's bridging of the differences between the United States and China.
Fourth, on the basis of one data point -- the scandal over a pay increase to Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend that precipitated his resignation as president of the World Bank -- Crossette alleges that India "attacks individuals." Wolfowitz, she says, was ousted "not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds." It is undeniable that there is corruption in India, but Crossette glosses over the fact that in the interview she quotes, Steve Berkman alleges that World Bank officials were involved in it too. What the latter actually said, as paraphrased by a journalist for Rediff India Abroad, is that "the international bureaucrats who run the Bank ... are the ones who conspired to nail Wolfowitz using the mini-scandal with his girlfriend to call for his ouster." Where does that leave Crossette's argument?
Fifth, Crossette claims that India "regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates," a failing that she supposes occurs because such advocates are critical of the government. Granting that there is a case for India to be more liberal in its visa regime, the country does not lack robust, committed, and vocal human rights activists. Tune in to any Indian television channel. On the other hand, the U.N. Human Rights Council is not exactly a shining example of how the international community protects human rights. Domestic activism and the liberal democratic institutions that allow it are perhaps far more effective in safeguarding human rights.
Ultimately, Crossette's suggestion that India presents a "headache" for global governance is a manifestation of an outdated mindset. It ignores the growing convergence of interests between India and the United States on the biggest challenges of this century: from establishing a liberal, democratic order to managing the rise of China to containing jihadi terrorism to addressing climate change and a host of other challenges. For those worried about rising elephants, make room if you don't want to be squeezed.
Nitin Pai is editor of Pragati -- The Indian National Interest Review.
ALL CONTENTS ©2009 WASHINGTONPOST.NEWSWEEK INTERACTIVE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/07/why_india_is_no_villain?page=full
UK Steps Up Cyber Security With New Operations Centre
Author: Defence IQ
Posted: 01/05/2010 9:53:00 AM EST
In June this year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a new cyber security strategy for the UK, which included setting up an operations centre dedicated at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.
Network security is vital both in a civilian and military context, as cyberspace is an area where hostile states, terrorists and criminals can all threaten the UK, Brown said.
Cyber Security Strategy
"Just as in the 19th century we had to secure the seas for our national safety and prosperity, and in the 20th century we had to secure the air, in the 21st century we also have to secure our position in cyberspace," Brown stated.
The Office of Cyber Security will oversee a cross-government programme of work, leading various agencies to address priority areas within the strategy.
To complement this work, the Cyber Security Operations Centre at GCHQ will monitor the cyberspace, coordinate response to any incidents, working towards gaining a better understanding of attacks against UK users and network security, plus provide better advice and information to the public about the risks.
Cyber Security Threats
The government has identified various methods of attack that could be used, for example, gathering operations intelligence on the military, or disrupting critical services.
Electronic attacks, subversion of the supply chain, manipulation of radio signals and using radio frequency transmissions to disrupt unprotected electronics were all identified by the government as ways of jeopardising network security.
Its report also identified, however, that cyberspace is useful to the UK in terms of military operations; when terrorists use the Internet for malicious purposes, they are also exposing themselves to new risks.
A spokesperson for GCHG said that it is "important to bring together in one place the knowledge that different parts of government and industry have" about threats to network security.
"GCHQ's best technical experts will be on hand to offer advice and support to the unit as it establishes itself," he added.
The Cyber Security Operations Centre and the Office of Cyber Security were set up in September this year with the aim that they will both be operation by the end of March 2010.
Military Response
More recently, a discussion within the House of Lords Home Affairs EU sub-committee further indicated just how important network security is for the government.
Present at the meeting was Geoff Smith, head of communications security within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Dr Steve Marsh, deputy director of the Office of Cyber Security.
At the time of meeting, held on November 4th, Marsh had just started his role within the new Office of Cyber Security and the two speakers indicated that an attack on the UK communications network could lead to military action.
"Just because you happen to have been attacked in cyberspace doesn't mean that you shouldn't respond kinetically, for example," Marsh told the meeting.
Intelligence
However, one of the most difficult aspects of taking action against an attack on network security is understanding where the threat originated from, Smith said.
"You do get into the problem of attribution. How do you know where the attack is coming from, who is behind it and what is their intention?
"These are very difficult conceptual problems and this is an area where the Office of Cyber Security is working very closing with the Ministry of Defence and other bodies to better understand the full landscape," he revealed.
A lack of sufficient intelligence is also proving a problem, according to Smith.
"We are not satisfied with the information that we have, but that's not through a lack of trying," he said.
"This is an area where it's fundamentally difficult to spot the indicators and warnings that you would see in conventional military activity.
"The development of these techniques goes on behind closed doors so it is very hard to get a good understanding of the techniques being developed or the intentions behind them. We don't know as much as we'd like to," he added.
Posted: 01/05/2010 9:53:00 AM EST
In June this year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a new cyber security strategy for the UK, which included setting up an operations centre dedicated at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.
Network security is vital both in a civilian and military context, as cyberspace is an area where hostile states, terrorists and criminals can all threaten the UK, Brown said.
Cyber Security Strategy
"Just as in the 19th century we had to secure the seas for our national safety and prosperity, and in the 20th century we had to secure the air, in the 21st century we also have to secure our position in cyberspace," Brown stated.
The Office of Cyber Security will oversee a cross-government programme of work, leading various agencies to address priority areas within the strategy.
To complement this work, the Cyber Security Operations Centre at GCHQ will monitor the cyberspace, coordinate response to any incidents, working towards gaining a better understanding of attacks against UK users and network security, plus provide better advice and information to the public about the risks.
Cyber Security Threats
The government has identified various methods of attack that could be used, for example, gathering operations intelligence on the military, or disrupting critical services.
Electronic attacks, subversion of the supply chain, manipulation of radio signals and using radio frequency transmissions to disrupt unprotected electronics were all identified by the government as ways of jeopardising network security.
Its report also identified, however, that cyberspace is useful to the UK in terms of military operations; when terrorists use the Internet for malicious purposes, they are also exposing themselves to new risks.
A spokesperson for GCHG said that it is "important to bring together in one place the knowledge that different parts of government and industry have" about threats to network security.
"GCHQ's best technical experts will be on hand to offer advice and support to the unit as it establishes itself," he added.
The Cyber Security Operations Centre and the Office of Cyber Security were set up in September this year with the aim that they will both be operation by the end of March 2010.
Military Response
More recently, a discussion within the House of Lords Home Affairs EU sub-committee further indicated just how important network security is for the government.
Present at the meeting was Geoff Smith, head of communications security within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Dr Steve Marsh, deputy director of the Office of Cyber Security.
At the time of meeting, held on November 4th, Marsh had just started his role within the new Office of Cyber Security and the two speakers indicated that an attack on the UK communications network could lead to military action.
"Just because you happen to have been attacked in cyberspace doesn't mean that you shouldn't respond kinetically, for example," Marsh told the meeting.
Intelligence
However, one of the most difficult aspects of taking action against an attack on network security is understanding where the threat originated from, Smith said.
"You do get into the problem of attribution. How do you know where the attack is coming from, who is behind it and what is their intention?
"These are very difficult conceptual problems and this is an area where the Office of Cyber Security is working very closing with the Ministry of Defence and other bodies to better understand the full landscape," he revealed.
A lack of sufficient intelligence is also proving a problem, according to Smith.
"We are not satisfied with the information that we have, but that's not through a lack of trying," he said.
"This is an area where it's fundamentally difficult to spot the indicators and warnings that you would see in conventional military activity.
"The development of these techniques goes on behind closed doors so it is very hard to get a good understanding of the techniques being developed or the intentions behind them. We don't know as much as we'd like to," he added.
January 06, 2010
AL QAEDAS & AL QAEDAS
B.RAMAN
Unless a terrorism analyst poses to himself the right questions and seeks answers to them, he will not be able to understand what is going on in the world of jihadi terrorism and will be repeatedly taken by surprise.
2.There have been many surprises since 9/11---- some of a tactical nature and some of a strategic nature.
3.As examples of tactical surprises, one could mention the July 2006 explosions in Mumbai's suburban trains, the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the December 25,2009, attempt by a Nigerian student trained by Al Qaeda in Yemen to blow up a US plane as it approached to land at Detroit.
4.As examples of strategic surprises, one can cite the spectacular come-back of the Afghan Taliban post-2004, the emergence on the scene of the Pakistani Taliban after the raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad by the Pakistan Army in July 2007, the activities of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia, the come-back of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which could turn out to be as spectacular as the come-back of the Afghan Taliban, and indications of new tactical alliances being formed by some of these organisations without any sign of either the Afghan Taliban or the pre-9/11 Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden ( AQ--OBL)
having any major influence over them.
5.The periodic messages of Osama bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri are interpreted by many as indicative of their being in total control of the myriad jihadi movements, all having the same strategic objective of humiliating the US, destroying Israel and forming an Islamic Caliphate. These interpretations have not been corroborated by acceptable evidence. Many of the assessments on the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda of OBL seem to be based not on concrete evidence, but on unquestioned pre-conceived ideas.
6.Such pre-conceived ideas, which come in the way of an objective analysis, are many. They are not subjected to intense scrutiny. One such pre-conceived idea presently under circulation is that the spectacular attack on the CIA's Chapman forward base near Khost in Afghanistan on December 30,2009, must have been carried out by the Haqqani network of Afghanistan operating from North Waziristan. Why? Because, Khost is its area of operation, where it has operated with success in the past.
7.Any scrutiny of this supposition should have given rise to the following questions/arguments:
The Haqqani network is supposed to be close to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Would the ISI have wanted its strategic asset to massacre seven CIA officers and one officer of the Jordanian intelligence related to the King, who is close to Pakistan's military leadership?
While criticising pro forma the increased Drone strikes by the CIA on the hide-outs of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, the Pakistani political and military leadership has not come in the way of these strikes, which have been helping in their own operations against the Pakistani Taliban. Would it have been in the interest of the Pakistani Army and the ISI to help the Jordanian double agent in wiping out a forward CIA base which was playing an important role in facilitating the Drone strikes against the Pakistani Taliban?
8.If the Haqqani network could not be responsible, who else could be? The Afghan Taliban has ruled itself out of the credit line by making premature claims of having been responsible without being able to give any evidence in support of its claim.
9.The only claims, which cannot be dismissed as implausible, have come from the Pakistani Taliban. While the Afghan Taliban projected it as a pentration operation through one of its members in the Afghan National Army, the Pakistani Taliban, in its initial statement itself, projected it as a penetration operation through a foreign ( non-Afghan) double agent. Its second claim identifying the foreign agent as a Jordanian might have been made after the US media had identified the agent, but no details had appeared in the media when it made its first claim. It is this which makes its claim difficult to dismiss easily.
10.There have been reports of a claim by Al Qaeda of OBL too. It is difficult to say presently whether this claim could be authentic. If there is an Al Qaeda involvement, the possibility is more of the involvement of Al Qaeda of Iraq ( or Mesapatomia) because of the past links of the Jordanian double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi with Al Qaeda of Iraq. Even when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda of Iraq, was alive, there were reports of differences between him and Al Qaeda of OBL and Zawahiri. There were reports and indications that he was not amenable to the influence of bin Laden and was waging his jihad against the Americans according to his own lights and his own reading of the situation on the ground, while ostensibly proclaiming his loyalty to bin Laden. The followers of Zarqawi, including Al-Balawi, had stronger reasons to avenge the death of their Iraqi Sheikh than the followers of bin Laden in the Af-Pak region. The possibility that the idea of the operation against the CIA officers was a brain-child of al-Balawi and not of any unit of Al Qaeda cannot be easily dismissed.
11.The premature claims of the Afghan Taliban clearly show that the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans do not have a common command and control. Even earlier, this was obvious from the fact that while the Afghan Taliban looked upon the Pakistani Army as its guardian angel, the Pakistani Taliban looked upon it as its hated enemy. There were many indicators that the Afghan Taliban was not happy with the repeated attacks of the Pakistani Taliban on the Army and the ISI. Similarly, the Afghan Taliban has never supported the projection by Zawahiri of the Pakistani Army as anti-Islamic.Recent messages emanating from bin Laden and Zawahiri do not show much enthusiasm for the attempts of Zarqawi's followers in Iraq to stage a come-back.
12. I had often mentioned in the past that as a jihadist movement, the Taliban is not a monolithic phenomenon. There are Talibans and Talibans each calling for a different strategy by the international community to deal with the threat, Recent events in Fort Hood, Detroit, Chapman, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq show that there are now Al Qaedas and Al Qaedas.It no longer seems to be a monolithic movement. Myriad Al Qaedas have bloomed and continue to bloom. What one requires is not a single strategy which can deal with all of them, but a mix of strategies suited to different groups. This makes counter-terrorism even more complicated and difficult than it has been. (7-1-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Unless a terrorism analyst poses to himself the right questions and seeks answers to them, he will not be able to understand what is going on in the world of jihadi terrorism and will be repeatedly taken by surprise.
2.There have been many surprises since 9/11---- some of a tactical nature and some of a strategic nature.
3.As examples of tactical surprises, one could mention the July 2006 explosions in Mumbai's suburban trains, the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the December 25,2009, attempt by a Nigerian student trained by Al Qaeda in Yemen to blow up a US plane as it approached to land at Detroit.
4.As examples of strategic surprises, one can cite the spectacular come-back of the Afghan Taliban post-2004, the emergence on the scene of the Pakistani Taliban after the raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad by the Pakistan Army in July 2007, the activities of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia, the come-back of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which could turn out to be as spectacular as the come-back of the Afghan Taliban, and indications of new tactical alliances being formed by some of these organisations without any sign of either the Afghan Taliban or the pre-9/11 Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden ( AQ--OBL)
having any major influence over them.
5.The periodic messages of Osama bin Laden and his No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri are interpreted by many as indicative of their being in total control of the myriad jihadi movements, all having the same strategic objective of humiliating the US, destroying Israel and forming an Islamic Caliphate. These interpretations have not been corroborated by acceptable evidence. Many of the assessments on the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda of OBL seem to be based not on concrete evidence, but on unquestioned pre-conceived ideas.
6.Such pre-conceived ideas, which come in the way of an objective analysis, are many. They are not subjected to intense scrutiny. One such pre-conceived idea presently under circulation is that the spectacular attack on the CIA's Chapman forward base near Khost in Afghanistan on December 30,2009, must have been carried out by the Haqqani network of Afghanistan operating from North Waziristan. Why? Because, Khost is its area of operation, where it has operated with success in the past.
7.Any scrutiny of this supposition should have given rise to the following questions/arguments:
The Haqqani network is supposed to be close to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Would the ISI have wanted its strategic asset to massacre seven CIA officers and one officer of the Jordanian intelligence related to the King, who is close to Pakistan's military leadership?
While criticising pro forma the increased Drone strikes by the CIA on the hide-outs of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, the Pakistani political and military leadership has not come in the way of these strikes, which have been helping in their own operations against the Pakistani Taliban. Would it have been in the interest of the Pakistani Army and the ISI to help the Jordanian double agent in wiping out a forward CIA base which was playing an important role in facilitating the Drone strikes against the Pakistani Taliban?
8.If the Haqqani network could not be responsible, who else could be? The Afghan Taliban has ruled itself out of the credit line by making premature claims of having been responsible without being able to give any evidence in support of its claim.
9.The only claims, which cannot be dismissed as implausible, have come from the Pakistani Taliban. While the Afghan Taliban projected it as a pentration operation through one of its members in the Afghan National Army, the Pakistani Taliban, in its initial statement itself, projected it as a penetration operation through a foreign ( non-Afghan) double agent. Its second claim identifying the foreign agent as a Jordanian might have been made after the US media had identified the agent, but no details had appeared in the media when it made its first claim. It is this which makes its claim difficult to dismiss easily.
10.There have been reports of a claim by Al Qaeda of OBL too. It is difficult to say presently whether this claim could be authentic. If there is an Al Qaeda involvement, the possibility is more of the involvement of Al Qaeda of Iraq ( or Mesapatomia) because of the past links of the Jordanian double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi with Al Qaeda of Iraq. Even when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda of Iraq, was alive, there were reports of differences between him and Al Qaeda of OBL and Zawahiri. There were reports and indications that he was not amenable to the influence of bin Laden and was waging his jihad against the Americans according to his own lights and his own reading of the situation on the ground, while ostensibly proclaiming his loyalty to bin Laden. The followers of Zarqawi, including Al-Balawi, had stronger reasons to avenge the death of their Iraqi Sheikh than the followers of bin Laden in the Af-Pak region. The possibility that the idea of the operation against the CIA officers was a brain-child of al-Balawi and not of any unit of Al Qaeda cannot be easily dismissed.
11.The premature claims of the Afghan Taliban clearly show that the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans do not have a common command and control. Even earlier, this was obvious from the fact that while the Afghan Taliban looked upon the Pakistani Army as its guardian angel, the Pakistani Taliban looked upon it as its hated enemy. There were many indicators that the Afghan Taliban was not happy with the repeated attacks of the Pakistani Taliban on the Army and the ISI. Similarly, the Afghan Taliban has never supported the projection by Zawahiri of the Pakistani Army as anti-Islamic.Recent messages emanating from bin Laden and Zawahiri do not show much enthusiasm for the attempts of Zarqawi's followers in Iraq to stage a come-back.
12. I had often mentioned in the past that as a jihadist movement, the Taliban is not a monolithic phenomenon. There are Talibans and Talibans each calling for a different strategy by the international community to deal with the threat, Recent events in Fort Hood, Detroit, Chapman, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq show that there are now Al Qaedas and Al Qaedas.It no longer seems to be a monolithic movement. Myriad Al Qaedas have bloomed and continue to bloom. What one requires is not a single strategy which can deal with all of them, but a mix of strategies suited to different groups. This makes counter-terrorism even more complicated and difficult than it has been. (7-1-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Instability awaits Kabul
Vikram Sood
I DON'T do quagmires”, Donald Rumsfeld had once declared rather grandly. He didn’t believe in exit strategies either. Yet, eight years later with casualties rising to a little more than one death a day in Afghanistan and expenses crossing US $ 450 billion, in December 2009 President Obama, referred to July 2011 as the date by which the US would begin to pull out of Afghanistan . This state has been the result of a policy that presumed that military supremacy was an unqualified good born of American superiority. Great though the power of the American military machine might have been, it was not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism of the al Qaeda variety. America needed help of friends, demonised its own supporters like President Karzai, it chose other friends wrongly and declined others’ advice. Consequently, it ended fighting the wrong war at the wrong place with wrong tactics.
The declared US objective has been to take out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan so that they do not become a threat to the US and its allies. Yet the Al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan; it is mostly in Pakistan with sanctuaries in Yemen and Afghanistan. It is the Taliban that is mostly in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan, so the result is that the US has been fighting an obscurantist section of an ethnic component of Afghanistan whose objective has been to throw the foreigner out and seems to be succeeding. The Taliban now represent, by and large, the Pushtun sentiment in Afghanistan and they are spreading into Kunduz in the north as well. It is possible now that the US will re- evaluate its policy towards Pakistan following the killing of seven CIA operatives inside the CIA camp in Khost; an attack that originated with the Pakistan Taliban. This act highlighted not only the dangers of counter terror operations but also that the level of commitment in the opposition to the US was very high. The US now wants to achieve something in eighteen months what has not been possible in eight years.
The second review of the US policy by Obama has probably been the result of the failure of the US and British offensive in Helmand last summer accompanied by reports that the Taliban had begun to make inroads outside the south and east which they already control, while the security situation in Herat had deteriorated.
The coalition failure in Helmand has been interpreted by most Afghans as victory for the Taliban and also drew more recruits to the Taliban. It is impossible to distinguish them from ordinary villagers and it would be a mistake to conclude that they are resented by the Pushtun population. Coalition forces have remained far too inadequate and ill motivated to allow for an effective clear and hold policy.
The Al Qaeda’s objectives and tactics are different from the Taliban’s.
While the Taliban has become an insurgency seeking liberation of its lands from foreign occupation, Al- Qaeda seeks the end of the West’s influence in the Muslim world and the end of the West’s local supporters and allies. Al- Qaeda does not seek to control territory. But the organisation needs sanctuaries to survive.
Since al- Qaeda seeks Western targets, its operatives need access to training facilities, cities, international connections and the media.
For this reason, Pakistan is currently the main base, with limited sanctuaries elsewhere.
Withdrawal
It is difficult to predict if and when the US will change its decades old policy of pardoning Pakistan all its transgressions. What we need to take into account is that one of these days the US will carry out its much vaunted but ridiculously inadequate much delayed surge, declare mission accomplished and thin out. Its longterm policies are dictated by election year compulsions. Once the coalition forces begin to pull out a few things will inevitably happen as other interests try to fill the empty spaces.
Pakistan will naturally assume that its moment has come again and it could now acquire its much dreamt of strategic depth, throw the Indians out and be the overlord in Afghanistan. The Iranians are unlikely to remain idle spectators as a Sunni Wahabbi neighbour is going to be an unsettling factor for them.
The Chinese have already begun to move in with their commercial and resource interests into Afghanistan as they would see an opportunity to move closer to the Persian Gulf, given their steady relations with the Iranians.
They also need to keep the Islamist extremists away from sensitive areas like Xinjiang. The Central Asian Republics and Russia have their concerns about the dangers of Talibanised ideology spreading into their countries. Finally, the absence of a strong centralised authority will only create more confusion in a country that has been run on drug money and foreign doles.
India
Pakistan’s exultation may be temporary.
Unable to control its own territory it is unlikely to be able to run Afghanistan in the way it may want to. It does not have the resources to do so and the US will not sub lease Afghanistan to Pakistan this time.
The other very real danger is that the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, joined together in a common fight for decades, may well ask if they fought all these years only to end up being minorities in both countries. The departure of the Coalition Forces will only add to the instability of the region and India needs to prepare itself for this eventuality.
There have been subtle suggestions made in recent months that are designed to create illusions of grandeur in us. These suggest that as a power rising towards its destiny as a major power, we should be playing a more active role in our neighbourhood, especially in Afghanistan.
Some have suggested that we could send in a brigade as a token. This is dangerous talk. The cost of maintaining a brigade is enormous and could be as high as Rs one crore a day. Add to this the logistics, air support, artillery cover, not to mention the other vital aspect, intelligence cover. Surely this intelligence would not come from the Taliban. Others suggest that we should have no problem in equipping, stationing and supplying several divisions of troops in Afghanistan. In a series of articles in this newspaper in January 2009, Manoj Joshi had cited reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General to show how inadequately equipped our forces were. The situation could not have altered dramatically since then.
It is true that there is goodwill for India in Afghanistan for our contribution to its infrastructure. This will dissipate rapidly once we are seen as an occupation force. It will not be difficult to create this impression particularly as we have no means of influencing opinion in Afghanistan, there being no media presence of our own there. Instead, we should follow the Chinese model, of gaining influence in Afghanistan without firing a single shot or losing a soldier. We need not make our policies Pakistanspecific all the time.
Role
We should look for a role in the region beyond the current troubles but we need not prove this by sending in our troops hoping to succeed where others have failed. We may develop a two- front war strategy but we are hardly capable of fighting a three front war.
We should be prepared to train Afghans in India, in whatever discipline and numbers they want this. We should offer additional infrastructure building, taking care to match this with the Afghan capacity to absorb.
We need to ask Afghans what they want and not decide ourselves what we want to give. We need to co- ordinate with Iran, Russia and Central Asia in our endeavours. Post US, there has to be a regional agreement ensuring peace and neutrality in Afghanistan.
Source : Mail Today , 7th jan 2010
I DON'T do quagmires”, Donald Rumsfeld had once declared rather grandly. He didn’t believe in exit strategies either. Yet, eight years later with casualties rising to a little more than one death a day in Afghanistan and expenses crossing US $ 450 billion, in December 2009 President Obama, referred to July 2011 as the date by which the US would begin to pull out of Afghanistan . This state has been the result of a policy that presumed that military supremacy was an unqualified good born of American superiority. Great though the power of the American military machine might have been, it was not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism of the al Qaeda variety. America needed help of friends, demonised its own supporters like President Karzai, it chose other friends wrongly and declined others’ advice. Consequently, it ended fighting the wrong war at the wrong place with wrong tactics.
The declared US objective has been to take out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan so that they do not become a threat to the US and its allies. Yet the Al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan; it is mostly in Pakistan with sanctuaries in Yemen and Afghanistan. It is the Taliban that is mostly in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan, so the result is that the US has been fighting an obscurantist section of an ethnic component of Afghanistan whose objective has been to throw the foreigner out and seems to be succeeding. The Taliban now represent, by and large, the Pushtun sentiment in Afghanistan and they are spreading into Kunduz in the north as well. It is possible now that the US will re- evaluate its policy towards Pakistan following the killing of seven CIA operatives inside the CIA camp in Khost; an attack that originated with the Pakistan Taliban. This act highlighted not only the dangers of counter terror operations but also that the level of commitment in the opposition to the US was very high. The US now wants to achieve something in eighteen months what has not been possible in eight years.
The second review of the US policy by Obama has probably been the result of the failure of the US and British offensive in Helmand last summer accompanied by reports that the Taliban had begun to make inroads outside the south and east which they already control, while the security situation in Herat had deteriorated.
The coalition failure in Helmand has been interpreted by most Afghans as victory for the Taliban and also drew more recruits to the Taliban. It is impossible to distinguish them from ordinary villagers and it would be a mistake to conclude that they are resented by the Pushtun population. Coalition forces have remained far too inadequate and ill motivated to allow for an effective clear and hold policy.
The Al Qaeda’s objectives and tactics are different from the Taliban’s.
While the Taliban has become an insurgency seeking liberation of its lands from foreign occupation, Al- Qaeda seeks the end of the West’s influence in the Muslim world and the end of the West’s local supporters and allies. Al- Qaeda does not seek to control territory. But the organisation needs sanctuaries to survive.
Since al- Qaeda seeks Western targets, its operatives need access to training facilities, cities, international connections and the media.
For this reason, Pakistan is currently the main base, with limited sanctuaries elsewhere.
Withdrawal
It is difficult to predict if and when the US will change its decades old policy of pardoning Pakistan all its transgressions. What we need to take into account is that one of these days the US will carry out its much vaunted but ridiculously inadequate much delayed surge, declare mission accomplished and thin out. Its longterm policies are dictated by election year compulsions. Once the coalition forces begin to pull out a few things will inevitably happen as other interests try to fill the empty spaces.
Pakistan will naturally assume that its moment has come again and it could now acquire its much dreamt of strategic depth, throw the Indians out and be the overlord in Afghanistan. The Iranians are unlikely to remain idle spectators as a Sunni Wahabbi neighbour is going to be an unsettling factor for them.
The Chinese have already begun to move in with their commercial and resource interests into Afghanistan as they would see an opportunity to move closer to the Persian Gulf, given their steady relations with the Iranians.
They also need to keep the Islamist extremists away from sensitive areas like Xinjiang. The Central Asian Republics and Russia have their concerns about the dangers of Talibanised ideology spreading into their countries. Finally, the absence of a strong centralised authority will only create more confusion in a country that has been run on drug money and foreign doles.
India
Pakistan’s exultation may be temporary.
Unable to control its own territory it is unlikely to be able to run Afghanistan in the way it may want to. It does not have the resources to do so and the US will not sub lease Afghanistan to Pakistan this time.
The other very real danger is that the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, joined together in a common fight for decades, may well ask if they fought all these years only to end up being minorities in both countries. The departure of the Coalition Forces will only add to the instability of the region and India needs to prepare itself for this eventuality.
There have been subtle suggestions made in recent months that are designed to create illusions of grandeur in us. These suggest that as a power rising towards its destiny as a major power, we should be playing a more active role in our neighbourhood, especially in Afghanistan.
Some have suggested that we could send in a brigade as a token. This is dangerous talk. The cost of maintaining a brigade is enormous and could be as high as Rs one crore a day. Add to this the logistics, air support, artillery cover, not to mention the other vital aspect, intelligence cover. Surely this intelligence would not come from the Taliban. Others suggest that we should have no problem in equipping, stationing and supplying several divisions of troops in Afghanistan. In a series of articles in this newspaper in January 2009, Manoj Joshi had cited reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General to show how inadequately equipped our forces were. The situation could not have altered dramatically since then.
It is true that there is goodwill for India in Afghanistan for our contribution to its infrastructure. This will dissipate rapidly once we are seen as an occupation force. It will not be difficult to create this impression particularly as we have no means of influencing opinion in Afghanistan, there being no media presence of our own there. Instead, we should follow the Chinese model, of gaining influence in Afghanistan without firing a single shot or losing a soldier. We need not make our policies Pakistanspecific all the time.
Role
We should look for a role in the region beyond the current troubles but we need not prove this by sending in our troops hoping to succeed where others have failed. We may develop a two- front war strategy but we are hardly capable of fighting a three front war.
We should be prepared to train Afghans in India, in whatever discipline and numbers they want this. We should offer additional infrastructure building, taking care to match this with the Afghan capacity to absorb.
We need to ask Afghans what they want and not decide ourselves what we want to give. We need to co- ordinate with Iran, Russia and Central Asia in our endeavours. Post US, there has to be a regional agreement ensuring peace and neutrality in Afghanistan.
Source : Mail Today , 7th jan 2010
Turkish Foreign Ministry makes web-chat-press meeting for first time
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=52248
The ministry, which has previously announced that it would start using social networking tools such as "facebook" and "twitter" for public diplomacy activities, held a tele-conference in December for the first time.
Wednesday, 06 January 2010 08:44
A spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that foreign policy issues were on the agenda of the Turkish ambassadors' conference which started in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Monday.
Briefing reporters on the issues discussed at the conference through a web-chat system on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Burak Ozugergin said that developments regarding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Turkey's EU membership process, the situation in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as mass destruction weapons were on the agenda of yesterday's gathering.
Informing reporters on the conference's sessions held on Tuesday as well, Ozugergin said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim addressed the Turkish ambassadors in the morning session, while participants exchanged views on counter-terrorism activities and the democratic move in the afternoon session.
During today's press briefing, Ozugergin informed the reporters on the latest developments via "web-chat" for the first time in the history of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry, which has previously announced that it would start using social networking tools such as "facebook" and "twitter" for public diplomacy activities, held a tele-conference in December for the first time.
The ministry, which has previously announced that it would start using social networking tools such as "facebook" and "twitter" for public diplomacy activities, held a tele-conference in December for the first time.
Wednesday, 06 January 2010 08:44
A spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that foreign policy issues were on the agenda of the Turkish ambassadors' conference which started in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Monday.
Briefing reporters on the issues discussed at the conference through a web-chat system on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Burak Ozugergin said that developments regarding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Turkey's EU membership process, the situation in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as mass destruction weapons were on the agenda of yesterday's gathering.
Informing reporters on the conference's sessions held on Tuesday as well, Ozugergin said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim addressed the Turkish ambassadors in the morning session, while participants exchanged views on counter-terrorism activities and the democratic move in the afternoon session.
During today's press briefing, Ozugergin informed the reporters on the latest developments via "web-chat" for the first time in the history of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry, which has previously announced that it would start using social networking tools such as "facebook" and "twitter" for public diplomacy activities, held a tele-conference in December for the first time.
Arming Angola
BBC
Rob Walker re-traces the story of "Angolagate" and goes on the trail of those who got rich because of it.
It was an arms deal that changed the course of the Angolan civil war, in which illegal arms were exchanged for oil.
Millions of dollars' worth of oil revenue is still missing.
A French court recently convicted several dozen members of the French establishment for their involvement.
Meanwhile, Angola is gearing up to host the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.
For the Angolan government, the tournament is a sign of the progress made since the civil war ended seven years ago, but has Angola moved on from being described as one of the most corrupt countries in the world?
First broadcast on BBC World Service on 6 January, 201
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An analysis and illustration of the most common deficits in risk governance
Risk Governance Deficits
An analysis and illustration of the most common deficits in risk governance
Author(s): John D. Graham, Beat Habegger, Belinda Cleeland, Marie Valentine Florin
Publisher(s): International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) Date of publication: Nov 2009 Pages: 91
Publisher's URL: www.irgc.org
Description: This report identifies and describes a number of common and recurring deficits in risk governance processes and structures and explains how they can occur. Each deficit is illustrated by examples from the risk governance of past or current risk issues – for example, the outbreak of "mad cow disease" (BSE) in the United Kingdom, Hurricane Katrina, fisheries depletion or genetically modified crops in Europe – in order to demonstrate the severity and variety of material and immaterial impacts they can have. The report aims to help risk decision-makers in government and industry understand both the causes of deficits in risk governance processes and their capacity to aggravate the adverse impacts of a risk. With this understanding, it is hoped that risk practitioners will be able to identify and take steps to remedy significant deficits in the risk governance structures and processes in which they play a part.
Document Download: English Version
An analysis and illustration of the most common deficits in risk governance
Author(s): John D. Graham, Beat Habegger, Belinda Cleeland, Marie Valentine Florin
Publisher(s): International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) Date of publication: Nov 2009 Pages: 91
Publisher's URL: www.irgc.org
Description: This report identifies and describes a number of common and recurring deficits in risk governance processes and structures and explains how they can occur. Each deficit is illustrated by examples from the risk governance of past or current risk issues – for example, the outbreak of "mad cow disease" (BSE) in the United Kingdom, Hurricane Katrina, fisheries depletion or genetically modified crops in Europe – in order to demonstrate the severity and variety of material and immaterial impacts they can have. The report aims to help risk decision-makers in government and industry understand both the causes of deficits in risk governance processes and their capacity to aggravate the adverse impacts of a risk. With this understanding, it is hoped that risk practitioners will be able to identify and take steps to remedy significant deficits in the risk governance structures and processes in which they play a part.
Document Download: English Version
(Reflexive) Risk and Security Politics
http://www.crn.ethz.ch/projects/current/detail.cfm?lng=en&id=106663&fd=1
‘Risk and security politics’ includes reflexive analyses of the production, dissemination and utilities of novel danger notions in Switzerland and abroad: How are such dangers identified and specified, and by whom? What are the implications of newly ‘discovered’ risks for foreign policy making? And how does the spread of risk logics empower new security management practices locally, nationally and internationally?
Drawing on sociological and linguistic works, the focus on risk and security politics seeks to deepen our understanding of how security policy is being conceptualized in the first place, and of what kinds of political ordering and control practices novel understandings of public insecurity are empowering. The focus includes both empirical and conceptual work: It maps (in-)security images and insecurity policy projects in Switzerland and abroad, tracing their political contestation and evolution; and it advances broader analytical arguments about the foreign policy effects of novel danger notions, the (non-)participatory and exclusionary political dynamics of security policy, their recent reconfigurations and their changing biopolitical effects.
For a selection of current projects, see the full description.
Current projects
Sociology of Swiss risk politics: This project differentiates and maps elite understandings of contemporary insecurity. It indicates majority and minority positions, and it questions the internal structuring of the professional security field itself. The aim of this project is to demonstrate the multiplicity of often contending visions of national insecurity in Switzerland, and to show how institutional actors are unevenly positioned to negotiate such visions.
Threats, risks, and international order: This project looks at the ‘transnationalisation’ of contemporary national insecurity. How are novel dangers recognized as surpassing national frameworks, and what implications does this recognition have for contemporary foreign policy making? The aim of this project is to trace how international danger notions have been advanced in Europe in the last decades, and to show how such notions have been seized to advocate foreign policy changes in European polities.
Contact M.A. Jonas Hagmann
The Pentagon’s Defense Review Trap
As Washington awaits the upcoming release of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, some expect it to represent an about-face while others fear it will fail to bridge the gap between strategy and reality, Peter A Buxbaum writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Peter Buxbaum in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
The Washington defense and contracting communities are anxiously awaiting next month's release of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, in a speech in New York last month, promised the report would be driven by current Afghanistan and Iraq war needs, placing an emphasis on ground troops and counterinsurgency operations and less on the modernization of weapons systems.
If that proves to be the case, it would amount to a Pentagon about-face since the last QDR, released in 2006, which had a rather short shelf life. The last edition was replete with proposals for spending on a laundry list of military modernization programs, much of which were to be scrapped or scaled back after the Department of Defense decided a year later to increase ground troop strength and emphasize counterinsurgency operations.
The fiasco associated with the last QDR may be explainable, at least in part, on the change of leadership at the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld was pushed out as secretary of defense and his replacement, Robert Gates, who continues to serve in the Obama administration after having been appointed by George W Bush, emphasized planning for the wars the US was actually fighting instead the wars Rumsfeld would have liked the US to be fighting.
Somewhere between strategy and reality
But observers fret that a gap between strategy and reality has become embedded in the QDR process, and that the 2010 edition will be no different.
The QDR was instituted in the late 1990s with the admirable purpose of institutionalizing strategic thinking among Department of Defense echelons.
"QDRs help Secretaries of Defense to set out their strategic vision for the department, and better align the military posture with the strategy," Jim Thomas, vice president for strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-partisan Washington think tank, told ISN Security Watch. But "the results of QDRs have been mixed."
Why? "Past QDRs have generally done a better job of articulating strategic approaches than aligning the military posture - investments, force structure, basing - with the strategy," Thomas explained. "There are powerful institutional forces in the military, Congress and industry supporting status quo investment programs and force structures, but there are rarely strong countervailing forces for new program starts or developing new types of forces."
Indeed, there is a school of thought that believes that the QDR as a strategic planning tool is doomed to failure.
A report recently released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan Washington think tank, concluded that the goals of the QDR - to serve as a means to develop new policies, capabilities and initiatives - "have so far been unrealized." The report is less than optimistic that the 2010 QDR will turn things around.
"The issues the QDR must address have been greatly complicated by the Department of Defense’s past failures to develop effective plans, programs, and budgets; carry out effective systems analysis; develop credible cost estimates; and create timely and meaningful future year defense plans," the report said.
"Past reviews have been decoupled from meaningful budget figures, realistic force plans, honest procurement decisions, and metrics to measure the success of their recommendations. As a result of this strategy-reality gap between concepts and resources, they have had limited practical value."
Ambiguous procurement
The DoD's broken procurement processes are a particular cause for concern. The DoD has not "made the kind of procurement reforms that will stop it from continuing its past behavior of undercosting and overestimating capabilities until production delays and cost escalations force another series of terminations," the report said. It estimated a procurement shortfall of $60 billion over the next five years.
CSIS believes the upcoming QDR should "answer the question of whether the US should posture its forces and focus its acquisitions on dealing with conventional threats from rising peer competitors or more asymmetric threats emanating from weak and failing states."
Gates has been promoting the concept of "hybrid warfare," which would require a broad range of force capabilities and flexibilities across a spectrum of operations.
"It may be an intellectual improvement over the emphasis on conventional warfighting in past reviews," said the CSIS report, "but so far hybrid warfare is so loosely defined, that it does not provide clear criteria for decision-making."
Efforts to define hybrid warfare have yielded "little more that shopping lists for every possible contingency," said the report. "It will be difficult to use hybrid warfare to define and cost end strength goals or to develop a new force plan."
In other words, if as CSIS expects, "hybrid warfare" will be the defining concept of the next QDR, the review will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors with a lack the strategic clarity and decisiveness.
Thomas sees things somewhat differently. "One of the key themes for this QDR is balance," he said, "balancing the demands of current operations with preparations for future contingencies, which may have distinctly different characteristics."
For Thomas, "hybrid warfare is unassailable as an intellectual proposition." "It helps to avoid artificial distinctions between extreme caricatures of warfare types," he explained.
Where the dollars will go
But it doesn't help the defense establishment make critical choices. "The terms of reference for the 2010 QDR make it likely that it will fall into the same trap [as past QDRs]," said Laurence Korb, a former DoD official and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank.
If the upcoming QDR embraces "hybrid warfare" and advocates institutionalizing counterinsurgency capabilities and foreign military assistance, while maintaining its conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, it will "leave unanswered the question of which gets priority, counterinsurgency or conventional war, and thus where the marginal dollar should go," Korb told ISN Security Watch.
In fact, Korb believes the 2010 QDR will advocate adding $100 billion in spending to the next five-year Pentagon budget plan. Korb, who advocates paying for an escalated war in Afghanistan with cuts in non-critical defense programs, sees such a move as "going in absolutely the wrong direction."
Military strategy should be "all about making choices and taking risks," he said. "In theory, the QDR is meant to outline the Department of Defense’s strategy and priorities. In the past, it has been an unrealistic exercise. This is unlikely to change."
Peter Buxbaum, a Washington-based independent journalist, has been writing about defense, security, business and technology for 15 years. His work has appeared in publications such as Fortune, Forbes, Chief Executive, Information Week, Defense Technology International, Homeland Security and Computerworld. His website is www.buxbaum1.com.
Publisher
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
By Peter Buxbaum in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
The Washington defense and contracting communities are anxiously awaiting next month's release of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, in a speech in New York last month, promised the report would be driven by current Afghanistan and Iraq war needs, placing an emphasis on ground troops and counterinsurgency operations and less on the modernization of weapons systems.
If that proves to be the case, it would amount to a Pentagon about-face since the last QDR, released in 2006, which had a rather short shelf life. The last edition was replete with proposals for spending on a laundry list of military modernization programs, much of which were to be scrapped or scaled back after the Department of Defense decided a year later to increase ground troop strength and emphasize counterinsurgency operations.
The fiasco associated with the last QDR may be explainable, at least in part, on the change of leadership at the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld was pushed out as secretary of defense and his replacement, Robert Gates, who continues to serve in the Obama administration after having been appointed by George W Bush, emphasized planning for the wars the US was actually fighting instead the wars Rumsfeld would have liked the US to be fighting.
Somewhere between strategy and reality
But observers fret that a gap between strategy and reality has become embedded in the QDR process, and that the 2010 edition will be no different.
The QDR was instituted in the late 1990s with the admirable purpose of institutionalizing strategic thinking among Department of Defense echelons.
"QDRs help Secretaries of Defense to set out their strategic vision for the department, and better align the military posture with the strategy," Jim Thomas, vice president for strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-partisan Washington think tank, told ISN Security Watch. But "the results of QDRs have been mixed."
Why? "Past QDRs have generally done a better job of articulating strategic approaches than aligning the military posture - investments, force structure, basing - with the strategy," Thomas explained. "There are powerful institutional forces in the military, Congress and industry supporting status quo investment programs and force structures, but there are rarely strong countervailing forces for new program starts or developing new types of forces."
Indeed, there is a school of thought that believes that the QDR as a strategic planning tool is doomed to failure.
A report recently released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan Washington think tank, concluded that the goals of the QDR - to serve as a means to develop new policies, capabilities and initiatives - "have so far been unrealized." The report is less than optimistic that the 2010 QDR will turn things around.
"The issues the QDR must address have been greatly complicated by the Department of Defense’s past failures to develop effective plans, programs, and budgets; carry out effective systems analysis; develop credible cost estimates; and create timely and meaningful future year defense plans," the report said.
"Past reviews have been decoupled from meaningful budget figures, realistic force plans, honest procurement decisions, and metrics to measure the success of their recommendations. As a result of this strategy-reality gap between concepts and resources, they have had limited practical value."
Ambiguous procurement
The DoD's broken procurement processes are a particular cause for concern. The DoD has not "made the kind of procurement reforms that will stop it from continuing its past behavior of undercosting and overestimating capabilities until production delays and cost escalations force another series of terminations," the report said. It estimated a procurement shortfall of $60 billion over the next five years.
CSIS believes the upcoming QDR should "answer the question of whether the US should posture its forces and focus its acquisitions on dealing with conventional threats from rising peer competitors or more asymmetric threats emanating from weak and failing states."
Gates has been promoting the concept of "hybrid warfare," which would require a broad range of force capabilities and flexibilities across a spectrum of operations.
"It may be an intellectual improvement over the emphasis on conventional warfighting in past reviews," said the CSIS report, "but so far hybrid warfare is so loosely defined, that it does not provide clear criteria for decision-making."
Efforts to define hybrid warfare have yielded "little more that shopping lists for every possible contingency," said the report. "It will be difficult to use hybrid warfare to define and cost end strength goals or to develop a new force plan."
In other words, if as CSIS expects, "hybrid warfare" will be the defining concept of the next QDR, the review will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors with a lack the strategic clarity and decisiveness.
Thomas sees things somewhat differently. "One of the key themes for this QDR is balance," he said, "balancing the demands of current operations with preparations for future contingencies, which may have distinctly different characteristics."
For Thomas, "hybrid warfare is unassailable as an intellectual proposition." "It helps to avoid artificial distinctions between extreme caricatures of warfare types," he explained.
Where the dollars will go
But it doesn't help the defense establishment make critical choices. "The terms of reference for the 2010 QDR make it likely that it will fall into the same trap [as past QDRs]," said Laurence Korb, a former DoD official and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank.
If the upcoming QDR embraces "hybrid warfare" and advocates institutionalizing counterinsurgency capabilities and foreign military assistance, while maintaining its conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, it will "leave unanswered the question of which gets priority, counterinsurgency or conventional war, and thus where the marginal dollar should go," Korb told ISN Security Watch.
In fact, Korb believes the 2010 QDR will advocate adding $100 billion in spending to the next five-year Pentagon budget plan. Korb, who advocates paying for an escalated war in Afghanistan with cuts in non-critical defense programs, sees such a move as "going in absolutely the wrong direction."
Military strategy should be "all about making choices and taking risks," he said. "In theory, the QDR is meant to outline the Department of Defense’s strategy and priorities. In the past, it has been an unrealistic exercise. This is unlikely to change."
Peter Buxbaum, a Washington-based independent journalist, has been writing about defense, security, business and technology for 15 years. His work has appeared in publications such as Fortune, Forbes, Chief Executive, Information Week, Defense Technology International, Homeland Security and Computerworld. His website is www.buxbaum1.com.
Publisher
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
India should think twice about copying American security systems
CHIDAMBARAM’S FANTASY
- India should think twice about copying American security systems
Diplomacy
K.P. Nayar
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100106/jsp/opinion/story_11945184.jsp
A doting father goes to the authorities to take the incredibly difficult step of telling them that his son may be palling around with terrorists. He is no ordinary father loitering on the streets, but a prominent citizen, a well known banker, someone not prone to airing his concerns without thinking, not a loose talker who easily flies off the handle.
There are other red flags. The son has disappeared in a country which is fast catching up with Pakistan as a fountainhead of global terrorism. But he has also told his family that he is voluntarily cutting off all contacts with them for the sake of what he considers to be a higher cause. And the son is no ordinary son; he is not an idler or a waster, but someone who measured up to the expectations of his prosperous family, which found it fit to send him to London where he graduated with a degree in engineering. The boy has cleared the rigorous vetting process by American and British consular officials, and both governments have given him long-term visas to visit or stay, as the case may be, in their countries.
Such a youth is a windfall catch for terrorists because he can travel around the world with ease, board airplanes without arousing suspicion and, as it turned out, can even take banned and dangerous stuff on-board an aircraft headed for a destination with extremely rigorous security checks.
And yet, the information given by the father and other hints of suspicion are filed away by spooks, and nothing is done about the suspect using tools that were specifically created to prevent terrorism in the air of the kind which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Until it is too late: the son boards a commercial plane and attempts to destroy the aircraft he is in with nearly 300 other people in mid-air.
Some readers may be forgiven for thinking that this is a plot that could have played out in India, given the security lapses that become talking points after every major terrorist attack in the country.
But no, this was an intelligence failure that happened in the United States of America on Christmas Day just a fortnight ago. And it happened despite tips and warnings that America could be targeted by terrorists during Christmas. Although the airliner that the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to destroy was saved by a fortuitous combination of circumstances, it was a successful terrorist operation from al Qaida’s point of view. After all, their man managed to evade America’s vast tracking system that is designed to keep terrorists from flying, he managed to get an incendiary device on-board a US airliner and he tried to set off that device on American airspace.
Exactly a week ago, the Central Intelligence Agency suffered its worst setback in 27 years when a Jordanian double agent was admitted into the CIA’s most sensitive base in Khost province in Afghanistan: he killed seven US spies, a Jordanian intelligence officer said to be on loan to the CIA, and wounded six others by detonating an explosives belt that he was wearing under his clothes.
It defies all logic that the Jordanian was allowed into the base without being searched or frisked; that so many CIA operatives were with him for his debriefing when two would have been appropriate, that the Jordanian was allowed to stay in close proximity to valuable CIA agents whose main job at the critical Khost base was to supervise a covert US programme of unmanned aerial strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. It is difficult to recall any security failure in India on this scale costing the lives of so many Indian intelligence personnel.
But then, the history of US intelligence has always been more hype and less accomplishments. The CIA has done extremely well in overwhelming poor societies or governments ill-equipped to contain its ideology-driven onslaughts. Chile under Salvador Allende, the Socialist president who was overthrown at Washington’s behest, is one example. But at crucial times in history, US intelligence has let down the people of America. The CIA could not predict or even report the Indian nuclear tests in 1998 quickly enough, although it was well known that the Bharatiya Janata Party was committed to exercising India’s nuclear option.
Recently, declassified documents in the West have revealed that contrary to popular myth, the Soviet Union and its former satellites did not collapse on account of any CIA heroism, but under the weight of the stagnant communist system and because of the momentum of a process that was triggered by Mikhail Gorbachev.
The botched CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro have led to a Channel 4 documentary entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro. The credit for the film’s title goes to Castro’s aide, Fabian Escalante, who once had the responsibility of detecting and subverting CIA plots to kill the Cuban leader. He calculated that there have been 638 attempts on Castro’s life.
More recently, the longevity of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in office, despite the Bush-era CIA’s attempts to overthrow him, is evidence that the American covert operations are falling behind even in the kind of anti-Allende-style coup attempts that they excelled in.
Yet, the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, wants to recreate India’s counter-terrorism infrastructure in America’s failing image. It is true that when the home minister was in Washington and in New York, the Americans opened the doors for him like they have not done even for his counterparts from America’s allied states. Indeed, prominent elected representatives on Capitol Hill have complained, half in jest, that since Chidambaram’s visit they do not often get the kind of access to the US intelligence set-up that Chidambaram got when he was in the US from September 8 to 11 last year.
In the context of America’s most recent intelligence failures, that may well be a problem rather than an advantage. Chidambaram, as one among the more intelligent Indian ministers, returned to India from his September visit to the US with lots and lots of ideas, as he has acknowledged.The home minister is now looking at replicating in India a number of US institutions that are involved in the business of promoting national security: the National Counter-Terrorism Center, the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, as well as the work of the New York Police Department in securing a megalopolis like New York. Although he no longer has anything to do with finance, having been finance minister, Chidambaram has been trying to inject his ministry into the work of the global Financial Action Task Force, of which India is not yet a member.
The trouble with opening up sensitive American institutions to foreigners like Chidambaram, especially foreigners from developing countries, is that American installations like their Joint Terror Task Force or the NYPD are very impressive establishments on the surface and have a facade of quality and efficiency. The question that Indians must ask loudly before their country is firmly and inextricably linked with America in its counter-terrorism effort is how well have these impressive institutions, including the NYPD, performed during times of crisis.
The answer, alas, is in the negative. India should, therefore, think twice about copying American systems. Those systems, in the end, allowed the Nigerian terrorist to get on-board an American airliner and violate US airspace. In the final analysis, terrorism cannot be fought by huge systems that invariably lead to inefficiency and lethargy, systems of the kind the US has created after September 11, systems which leave false impressions of being close to the ideal. There should be greater emphasis, instead, on common sense and raw human intelligence output, which is the strength of India’s counter-terrorism efforts. The US systems lack these.
It is interesting that in the days after the Christmas Day flight carrying the Nigerian terrorist was saved, there were big calls in the US for using imaging techniques at airports, machines that hide nothing of the human body. They had been delayed because of concerns about privacy. But in recent days in the US, two top former officials of the department of homeland security have been campaigning in public about the need to use the all-revealing scanners. Obviously, they represent certain industry lobbies, which want to sell scanners for body imaging. For that they will do anything.
Chidambaram may have been pleased with the reception he got in Washington, but this is something that is worth analyzing at some stage. Experts in the US may well be targeting India for its slow response to terror threats, but it is necessary to see these criticisms and the home minister’s visit in the context of holding off pressure from Washington to buy US high-tech counter-terrorism products worth millions of dollars that are being projected as critical to Indian security.
- India should think twice about copying American security systems
Diplomacy
K.P. Nayar
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100106/jsp/opinion/story_11945184.jsp
A doting father goes to the authorities to take the incredibly difficult step of telling them that his son may be palling around with terrorists. He is no ordinary father loitering on the streets, but a prominent citizen, a well known banker, someone not prone to airing his concerns without thinking, not a loose talker who easily flies off the handle.
There are other red flags. The son has disappeared in a country which is fast catching up with Pakistan as a fountainhead of global terrorism. But he has also told his family that he is voluntarily cutting off all contacts with them for the sake of what he considers to be a higher cause. And the son is no ordinary son; he is not an idler or a waster, but someone who measured up to the expectations of his prosperous family, which found it fit to send him to London where he graduated with a degree in engineering. The boy has cleared the rigorous vetting process by American and British consular officials, and both governments have given him long-term visas to visit or stay, as the case may be, in their countries.
Such a youth is a windfall catch for terrorists because he can travel around the world with ease, board airplanes without arousing suspicion and, as it turned out, can even take banned and dangerous stuff on-board an aircraft headed for a destination with extremely rigorous security checks.
And yet, the information given by the father and other hints of suspicion are filed away by spooks, and nothing is done about the suspect using tools that were specifically created to prevent terrorism in the air of the kind which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Until it is too late: the son boards a commercial plane and attempts to destroy the aircraft he is in with nearly 300 other people in mid-air.
Some readers may be forgiven for thinking that this is a plot that could have played out in India, given the security lapses that become talking points after every major terrorist attack in the country.
But no, this was an intelligence failure that happened in the United States of America on Christmas Day just a fortnight ago. And it happened despite tips and warnings that America could be targeted by terrorists during Christmas. Although the airliner that the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to destroy was saved by a fortuitous combination of circumstances, it was a successful terrorist operation from al Qaida’s point of view. After all, their man managed to evade America’s vast tracking system that is designed to keep terrorists from flying, he managed to get an incendiary device on-board a US airliner and he tried to set off that device on American airspace.
Exactly a week ago, the Central Intelligence Agency suffered its worst setback in 27 years when a Jordanian double agent was admitted into the CIA’s most sensitive base in Khost province in Afghanistan: he killed seven US spies, a Jordanian intelligence officer said to be on loan to the CIA, and wounded six others by detonating an explosives belt that he was wearing under his clothes.
It defies all logic that the Jordanian was allowed into the base without being searched or frisked; that so many CIA operatives were with him for his debriefing when two would have been appropriate, that the Jordanian was allowed to stay in close proximity to valuable CIA agents whose main job at the critical Khost base was to supervise a covert US programme of unmanned aerial strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. It is difficult to recall any security failure in India on this scale costing the lives of so many Indian intelligence personnel.
But then, the history of US intelligence has always been more hype and less accomplishments. The CIA has done extremely well in overwhelming poor societies or governments ill-equipped to contain its ideology-driven onslaughts. Chile under Salvador Allende, the Socialist president who was overthrown at Washington’s behest, is one example. But at crucial times in history, US intelligence has let down the people of America. The CIA could not predict or even report the Indian nuclear tests in 1998 quickly enough, although it was well known that the Bharatiya Janata Party was committed to exercising India’s nuclear option.
Recently, declassified documents in the West have revealed that contrary to popular myth, the Soviet Union and its former satellites did not collapse on account of any CIA heroism, but under the weight of the stagnant communist system and because of the momentum of a process that was triggered by Mikhail Gorbachev.
The botched CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro have led to a Channel 4 documentary entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro. The credit for the film’s title goes to Castro’s aide, Fabian Escalante, who once had the responsibility of detecting and subverting CIA plots to kill the Cuban leader. He calculated that there have been 638 attempts on Castro’s life.
More recently, the longevity of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in office, despite the Bush-era CIA’s attempts to overthrow him, is evidence that the American covert operations are falling behind even in the kind of anti-Allende-style coup attempts that they excelled in.
Yet, the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, wants to recreate India’s counter-terrorism infrastructure in America’s failing image. It is true that when the home minister was in Washington and in New York, the Americans opened the doors for him like they have not done even for his counterparts from America’s allied states. Indeed, prominent elected representatives on Capitol Hill have complained, half in jest, that since Chidambaram’s visit they do not often get the kind of access to the US intelligence set-up that Chidambaram got when he was in the US from September 8 to 11 last year.
In the context of America’s most recent intelligence failures, that may well be a problem rather than an advantage. Chidambaram, as one among the more intelligent Indian ministers, returned to India from his September visit to the US with lots and lots of ideas, as he has acknowledged.The home minister is now looking at replicating in India a number of US institutions that are involved in the business of promoting national security: the National Counter-Terrorism Center, the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, as well as the work of the New York Police Department in securing a megalopolis like New York. Although he no longer has anything to do with finance, having been finance minister, Chidambaram has been trying to inject his ministry into the work of the global Financial Action Task Force, of which India is not yet a member.
The trouble with opening up sensitive American institutions to foreigners like Chidambaram, especially foreigners from developing countries, is that American installations like their Joint Terror Task Force or the NYPD are very impressive establishments on the surface and have a facade of quality and efficiency. The question that Indians must ask loudly before their country is firmly and inextricably linked with America in its counter-terrorism effort is how well have these impressive institutions, including the NYPD, performed during times of crisis.
The answer, alas, is in the negative. India should, therefore, think twice about copying American systems. Those systems, in the end, allowed the Nigerian terrorist to get on-board an American airliner and violate US airspace. In the final analysis, terrorism cannot be fought by huge systems that invariably lead to inefficiency and lethargy, systems of the kind the US has created after September 11, systems which leave false impressions of being close to the ideal. There should be greater emphasis, instead, on common sense and raw human intelligence output, which is the strength of India’s counter-terrorism efforts. The US systems lack these.
It is interesting that in the days after the Christmas Day flight carrying the Nigerian terrorist was saved, there were big calls in the US for using imaging techniques at airports, machines that hide nothing of the human body. They had been delayed because of concerns about privacy. But in recent days in the US, two top former officials of the department of homeland security have been campaigning in public about the need to use the all-revealing scanners. Obviously, they represent certain industry lobbies, which want to sell scanners for body imaging. For that they will do anything.
Chidambaram may have been pleased with the reception he got in Washington, but this is something that is worth analyzing at some stage. Experts in the US may well be targeting India for its slow response to terror threats, but it is necessary to see these criticisms and the home minister’s visit in the context of holding off pressure from Washington to buy US high-tech counter-terrorism products worth millions of dollars that are being projected as critical to Indian security.
The Dim Prospects for Cyber Arms Control
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG877.pdf
Historically, arms control has always gone hand in hand with deterrence and crisis stability, but it would be difficult to be optimistic about its prospects in cyberspace. A good deal depends on what one means by arms control. If the model were to be something like the treaties signed between the United States–NATO and the Soviet Union– Warsaw Pact, which limited certain classes of weapons and banned others, there is little basis for hope.1 If, instead, the goal were a ramework of international agreements and norms that could raise the difficulty of certain types of yberattacks, some progress can be made. Why is it nearly impossible to limit or ban berweapons? First, although the purpose of "limiting" arms is to put an inventory-based lid on how much damage they can do in a crisis, such a consideration is irrelevant in a medium in which duplication is instantaneous.2 Second, banning attack methods is akin to banishing "how-to" information, which is inherently impossible (like making advanced mathematics illegal). The same holds for banning knowledge about vulnerabilities. Third, banning attack code is next to impossible. Such code has many legitimate purposes, not least of which is in building defenses against attack from others. These others include individuals and nonstate actors, so the argument that one does not need defenses because offenses have been outlawed is unconvincing. In many, perhaps most cases, such attack code is useful for espionage, an activity that has yet to be banned by treaty. Furthermore, finding such code is a hopeless quest. The world's information storage capacity is immense; much of it is legitimately encrypted; and besides, bad code does not emit telltale odors. If an enforcement entity could search out, read, and decrypt the entire database of the world, it would doubtless find far more interesting material than malware. Exhuming digital information from everyone else's systems is hard enough when the authorities with arrest powers try it; it may be virtually impossible when outsiders try.
The only barely feasible approach is to ban the activity of writing attack code, then hope that the fear of being betrayed by an insider who goes running to international authorities prevents governments from organizing small groups of elite hackers from engaging in such nefarious activities. If the international community had the manpower and access to enforce such norms, it could probably enforce a great many other, and more immediately practical, norms (e.g., against corruption). Such a world does not exist.
More-probable (or at least less-fantastic) approaches may provide relief from the threat of yberwar in treaties.3 Such approaches would not prevent states from creating an offensive cyber apability and using it either overtly, covertly in the context of other aggression (e.g., a shooting war), or under circumstances in which they are prepared for the possibility of being caught. But it might inhibit states from using cutouts, paying freelancers, or tolerating mischief from within their borders. Measures would include stated norms that define cyberattacks and put nations on notice against such activities, treaties whose signatories pledge to assist other states' investigations of cyberattacks (even if the trail leads into sensitive organizations), and agreements not to use
certain types of code (as measured by what it can do, rather than how it is written) when carrying out computer-network espionage. International support for more computer security research and development, as well as the implementation of secure versions of IPv6, would probably also help secure the global Internet.
1 See, for instance, Dorothy Denning, "Obstacles and Options for Cyber Arms Control,"
presented at Arms Control in Cyberspace, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Berlin, Germany, June
29–30, 2001.
2 The one exception is a bot, for which numbers matter for determining attack effects.
However, unless the attacking state keeps all its bots at home (in which case, such attacks
would be easy to filter out), it has to subvert computers in other states—something which, in
any case, is already illegal in the United States and in most of the developed world.
200 Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar
3 See Abraham D. Sofaer and Seymour E. Goodman, "A Proposal for an International
Convention on Cyber Crime and Terrorism," Center for International Security and Cooperation,
Stanford University, August 2000.
the Dim prospects for Cyber arms Control 201
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG877.pdf
BALOCHISTAN: Killer chieftain joins pro-bin Laden party
Share: by Ahmar Mustikhan | January 5, 2010 at 12:55 pm
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/killer-chieftain-joins-pro-bin-laden-party
Videos
Sardar Sanaullah Khan Zehri (BY MUTLIB RODENI)
sourced by Ahmar Mustikhan
If a Western correspondent asks Sardar Sanaullah Zehri whether he knows Rasool Bakhsh Zehri, he would probably say no. But people in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, know better. Rasool Bakhsh Zehri was his elder brother who he shot dead in Quetta more than 20 years ago.
He was abetted in the shootout by his late brother's chief bodyguard.
The killing occurred at the home of the late Nabi Bakhsh Zehri, a marble magnate and member of a Baluch community called looris. Looris are members of former tribes who lost lost their status in ancient tribal wars. Nabi Bakhsh Zehri was also the maternal grandfather of the I.S.I. installed chief of Bugti tribe name Mir Aali Bugti.
Zehri killed his brother to get the coveted title of chief of Jhalawan, which means that he would not only be the chief of his own Zehri tribe but other tribal chiefs in the area called Jhalawan would also come to him in case of disputes.
It was not only his brother but there are scores of other individuals who he executed with his own hands. In one incident 10 years ago, Zehri was pissed off as a teacher from his tribe publicly castigated him for not keeping his election promises.
Zehri's henchmen abducted the teacher brought him to his personal court, where Zehri first cut off his two hands with a sword and then killed him.
Zehri did not face any charges because of his close links with the the infamous Inter Services Intelligence.
The killer chieftain on Tuesday announced his decision to join the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a close personal friend of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Source: thebalochhal.com
During the election seasons, Zehri travels to the countryside and warns his constituents if they want to continue harvest in the next season they should better vote for him. In other words, they would not live until the next harvesting season if they do not vote for him.
Most of his voters can not read and write and Zehri takes full advantage of their plight. He once told a newspapaer writer who was critical of him, "You can write whatever you want against me. It does not affect me. My voters can't read newspapers."
Nawaz Sharif is chief of the Pakistan Muslim League [N], and was personally groomed during the military regime of former dictator General Ziaul Haq. His party has in the past received generous support from bin Laden to buy loyalties of Pakistani parliamentarians, according to Pakistan media reports.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/killer-chieftain-joins-pro-bin-laden-party
Videos
Sardar Sanaullah Khan Zehri (BY MUTLIB RODENI)
sourced by Ahmar Mustikhan
If a Western correspondent asks Sardar Sanaullah Zehri whether he knows Rasool Bakhsh Zehri, he would probably say no. But people in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, know better. Rasool Bakhsh Zehri was his elder brother who he shot dead in Quetta more than 20 years ago.
He was abetted in the shootout by his late brother's chief bodyguard.
The killing occurred at the home of the late Nabi Bakhsh Zehri, a marble magnate and member of a Baluch community called looris. Looris are members of former tribes who lost lost their status in ancient tribal wars. Nabi Bakhsh Zehri was also the maternal grandfather of the I.S.I. installed chief of Bugti tribe name Mir Aali Bugti.
Zehri killed his brother to get the coveted title of chief of Jhalawan, which means that he would not only be the chief of his own Zehri tribe but other tribal chiefs in the area called Jhalawan would also come to him in case of disputes.
It was not only his brother but there are scores of other individuals who he executed with his own hands. In one incident 10 years ago, Zehri was pissed off as a teacher from his tribe publicly castigated him for not keeping his election promises.
Zehri's henchmen abducted the teacher brought him to his personal court, where Zehri first cut off his two hands with a sword and then killed him.
Zehri did not face any charges because of his close links with the the infamous Inter Services Intelligence.
The killer chieftain on Tuesday announced his decision to join the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a close personal friend of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Sardar Sanaullah Zehri: He is the provincial minister for Services and General Administration. He is more popularly known as the Chief of Jhalwan or the head of Zehri tribe. In Balochistan’s tribal set-up, he is a very, very influential Sardar. He is the brother of Mir Israr Zehri, the chief of Balochistan National Party Awami and the federal minister for Postal Affairs. His younger brother, Mir Zafarullah Zehri, is currently serving as the Provincial Interior Minister.
Source: thebalochhal.com
During the election seasons, Zehri travels to the countryside and warns his constituents if they want to continue harvest in the next season they should better vote for him. In other words, they would not live until the next harvesting season if they do not vote for him.
Most of his voters can not read and write and Zehri takes full advantage of their plight. He once told a newspapaer writer who was critical of him, "You can write whatever you want against me. It does not affect me. My voters can't read newspapers."
Nawaz Sharif is chief of the Pakistan Muslim League [N], and was personally groomed during the military regime of former dictator General Ziaul Haq. His party has in the past received generous support from bin Laden to buy loyalties of Pakistani parliamentarians, according to Pakistan media reports.
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