Feb 22
by Mark Weisbrot
In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship,” and continued the administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country.
What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric? It seems unlikely that the goal was to support human rights in Iran. Because of the United States’ history in Iran and in the region, it tends to give legitimacy to repression. The more that any opposition can be linked to the United States’ actions, words, or support, the harder time they will have.
Second, it is tough for anyone – especially in the region – to believe that the US is really concerned about human rights abuses. In addition to supporting Israel’scollective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, Washington has been remarkably quiet as the most important opposition leaders in Egypt were arrested as part of the government’s preparations for October elections.Amnesty International stated that the arrestees were “prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their peaceful political activities”. Continue reading »
Tagged with: News • World
Feb 09
An American soldier whose unit has served in Iraq and Afghanistan wars admits to using brutal CIA torture techniques on his young daughter because she could not recite the alphabet.
Joshua Tabor has admitted to water-boarding his little girl, whose custody he won just a month ago, because he knew she was horrified of water.
The 27-year-old soldier was arrested after he turned up in a Kevlar military helmet, threatening to smash windows.
Police went to Tabor’s home in neighboring Yelm, where his girlfriend told them about the alleged torture.
His terrified 4-year-old daughter bore bruises all over her back and scratch marks on her neck when she was found hiding in a closet, police said. When asked how she got her injuries, she replied: “Daddy did it,” according to The Daily Telegraph.
The cruel father serves in the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, which is home to units that serve in the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Simulating a feeling of being drowned, water-boarding was used by the CIA interrogators to force terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay to come clean.
Former US President George W. Bush approved the controversial interrogation method along with several others, including sleep deprivation and hunger.
Tagged with: World
Jan 26
By M K Bhadrakumar
United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is not new to the field of diplomacy in the South Asian region. The “Gates Mission” in 1990 to defuse a cascading wave of India-Pakistan tensions is the stuff of legends. Historians are still in two minds whether Gates deserves to be credited for having conceivably averted the world’s first nuclear war.
In comparison, Gates’ mission to New Delhi and Islamabad last week wasn’t breathtaking but it stood out as a pivotal moment. He was choreographing the US’s global strategy.
Gates charms Indians …
Delhi faces an existential dilemma: it needs to determine how far it is prepared to go with Uncle Sam down the path into the garden where it has never been before. Gates made it clear the enterprise could be rewarding. He said, “India can be an anchor for regional and global security … this will be a defining partnership for the 21st century.” In the Barack Obama presidency, India has never heard such heady thoughts.
There were three vectors to Gates’ visit – Afghanistan, India-Pakistan relations and the US-India security partnership. Gatesupheld India’s legitimate interests in Afghanistan. He praised the Indian role and in turn received an Indian offer on an enhanced role strictly within the parameters of the overall US/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy – “frankly, the kind of supportand extraordinary support that India is providing in Afghanistannow is really ideal”.
India will not complicate the US’s diplomacy in Islamabad by seeking any role in the build-up of the Afghan armed forces or police. Beneath that threshold, Delhi will play a role in the “Afghanization” process. Nor is Delhi inclined to raise dust about US plans regarding the “reintegration and reconciliation” of the Taliban. The Indian position was dogmatic but nuances have crept in. This is partly tactical, as it is clear Indian opposition will not stall the process of integrating the Taliban into Afghan political life. Continue reading »
Tagged with: Articles • India • Pakistan • World
Jan 25
This is presumably a recent picture of Aafia’s condition – released by Judge Berman last week to the media… Looks like a concentration camp resident..
It looks like someone who has been badly tortured, severely malnourished and the look and emotion is one of a mental asylum resident, heavily medicated. This is definately not a picture of a sane person. The Aafia within seems dead. Its what we say in urdu “chehray pe weerani hay, dukh hey, rola deney wala sadma hey”.
Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui
Tagged with: News • Pakistan • World
Jan 16
When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.
That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.
Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.
Will it be coincidence if the next war—like the last—is consistent with the expansive goals of Jewish nationalists?
The Indo-Israel Alliance
December 2007 saw the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. diplomats that her return was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”
President Pervez Musharraf had announced that resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was essential to the resolution of conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target for Tel Aviv. Continue reading »
Tagged with: Current Affairs • Pakistan • World
Recent Comments