Showing posts with label pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pakistan. Show all posts

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Comments on -US Drone Strikes in Pakistan-Bill Roggio

Agha,

FYI.

David

The Long War Journal - Charts on US Strikes in
Pakistanas well as reporting from The *Long War Journal*. Given the Taliban's
control *...*
www.*longwarjournal*.org/pakistan-strikes.php -

ANALYSIS OF BILL ROGGIOS DRONE ANALYSIS AND BEAUTIFUL CHARTS


My dear Friend


This is waste of time and ammo . It is not changing the likely outcome of afghan war. From a close angle I see the extremists adopt improved and subtler methods !

Long War Journal is a commercial site and they have to attract readers and thus the beautiful charts ?

What has the US dine to eradicate drugs in last ten years ?

Has these drone strikes made the Afghan roads in the areas south of line Kabul Shindand safer for Afghan civilians ?

The whole premise that the extremists should present themselves as sitting ducks to US drone strikes in an area some 20 miles x 50 miles is fallacious !

Suicide bombers and IEDs can train in any area other than the above narrow strip !

How correct is Roggios data ! The charts are beautiful and Roggios site attracts traffic ! But is that the strategic objective of US military in Afghanistan ? To make Roggios site commercially viable ?

How reliable is the Humint ? We have had the Muslim 786 Drone attack on the CIA Quixotes in Khost last December 2009 !

Lets be frank that the perception on the Pakistan side is that USA wants to destroy the Pakistani state and this is their real objective while Al Qaeda is only the stated objective ?

What has the US done to change this perception ? This is being reinforced every day ! As they said “fear made men believe in the worst “ ?

To say that Russia will support the USA fight a victorious war in Afghanistan is fallacious !

Support a country designing missile shields and attempting to encircle Russia in every manner ! Constantly holding dry runs of war against Russia !

If Afghanistan is trumpeted by USA as its victory over USSR , WOULD RUSSIA ALLOW A 100,000 US MUSKETEERS TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN VICTORIOUS ?

One fact is clear ! The US casualties are low which means that there is no real fight ! US companies in Afghanistan are making big bucks !

The defense contractors you have like RONCO,Dyncorps,Xe, SSSI ,Global ,MPRI etc are making good money selling HUMNIT to the US Government ! These companise are hiring Pashto interpreters , Balochi interpreters and what not !

Louis Burger , Fluor,Black and Veach ,Red Star , Mina Corps ,TRYCO ,Halliburton,KBR and Seven Seas may your Afghan success stories ! Certainly private business did well in Afghanistan ! But what about the soldiers real job i.e the war ?

What is the on ground situation ? From 2001 to 2007 I could travel all the 1050 kilometres from Kabul to Herat in my private vehicle without a single weapon to defend myself ! Since 2007 I cannot ! How easy it is to enter Kabul ! I have driven many times from Jalalabad to Kabul after 2200 hours !

How good is the military virtue of the Afghan Army ? A military machine that the US and its hirelings destroyed in between 1978 and 1992 has still not been created ?

The question is how good is Roggios data in real tangible terms ?

You have a US force in Afghanistan surrounded by all Afghanistans neigbours who want the US to fail for various reasons ?

You pound flies with hammers with your mighty drones ? And this is the cause for a martial celebration !

The americans need to read more about the greatest army in history the Wehrmacht or the Red Army which did the real fighting for the US ! War is not New York Stock exchange and the enemy is not Dillinger who the FBI or BATF can overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun !

Datta Khel is not Ruby Ridge where neo NAZIs from BATF , FBI etc can shoot a man of honours wife like a partridge !

No war in history was won by air power alone while the 100,000 overpaid , over fed musketeers have failed to pacify Afghanistan , failed to interdict the flow of 90 % of worlds heroin to Europe and the states !

Perhaps there is a method in this madeness !

How is that Ali Jalali the most outstanding Afghan professional had to be sacrificed by the US to please the drug mafia in Afghanistan ?

I am not a religious man and this is not about religion !

The bottom line is that US policy since many years is manipulated by the US businesses may it be Oil and Gas, Wall Street or construction ! The sacred business of war has been sub letted to commercial businesses !

There is a deep question mark about Drones and I will base my assessment that God may not be with both drones or the characters that they are targeting !

The other side has an independent will and all may not proceed as Field Marshal Petraeus may desire or as a Wall Street sponsored political supremo may decide !

You have a secretary of state more fit to be in the Wallmart , clueless about strategy or war and a naieve spinster (philosophically) who has never set a squadron in the field !

This is war and it has less or good luck and bad luck and more of logical consequences of our actions and our adversaries actions !

best regards

Agha

--
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Pakistans not so historic Judgement of 16 December 2009

The so called land mark judgement is a concerted endeavour to remove the sindhi president .the motivations are multiple and complicated while the rationale is rule of law.hidden are the ethnic aspects of the issue.while NRO was not a golden law all the thrust of the judgement is against those who benefitted from it while those who negotiated it are angels.some lecturing think tanks and some serving in the pakistani establishment.

basically NRO consists of cases established by nawaz sharif regime in 1997-99 and later improved by the military junta.the dispute is not that the cases are wrong.the dispute is that only sindh was targeted.thus the so called historic judgement is not historic.it ignores all corruption from 1947 till 1985 when nawaz sharif became the establishments man.

the key issue here is to target a man for doing something wrong because he is a political threat.while so many wrong doers are enjoying political status and high social standing because they were crooks before 1985 or because they were controlling the ehtesab buraeu between 1997 and 1999.

if the army is sensible it will not touch zardari.if it is immature it will and although zardari may be removed pakistans destabilisation will escalate.this is a classical example of partial justice selective distortion and triumph of sin thou shall but in secret.

major beneficiary of this judgement would be a select 10 thousand political and military families from punjab
in the political person of the PML N and major losers would be pakistan as a state.this is a classic case of a judiciary destabilising the country although apparently acting on sound moral principles.

------------------------------------------------

The whole confrontation started once a clash of egos started.

The Sharifs took an unlterior advantage and used it for their own benefit.

In 1997 when the Supreme Court according to the Punjabi political school resorted to alleged judicial activism it was attacked and no so called punjabi civil society protested.

Now if allegedly the supreme court has again resorted to judicial activism it is OK.Just because what it is doing supports the cause of PML N which is a basically Punjab based party.

All said and done only the political ambitions of the generals to play political games would be reinforced.but then we must remember that most of the judges were comfortable working under musharraf as long as they did not have a clash of egos

i am surprised that in 1997 when sajjad ali shahs court was attacked where was this civil society and aitizaz ahsan and asma jahangir.in 2007 civil society was active ?


FORGET ABOUT HIM BECAUSE HE WAS NOT A PUNJABI CHIEF JUSTICE BUT A SINDHI , OH AND THAT TOO FROM LIARI




somewhere deep in the sub conscious are the ethnic factors.

somehow if a sindhi is corrupt it is more serious.after all a sindhi finds it ethnically more difficult to establish a line with a non sindhi judge or to manouevre inside the esablishment.

theoretically any argument can be twisted and anything can be justified but i find something very ulterior and ethnic in the 16 december judgement.

the supreme court just stuffed under ground the famous case of the generals bribing the PML N politicians in 1990.

the supreme court never touched the murder and disappearance of Asadullah Mengal , Sardar Ataullah Mengals son allegedly killed by pakistani intelligence in 1975 and his dead body never found .

FORGET ABOUT HIM BECAUSE HE WAS NOT SON OF PML N LEADER FROM PUNJAB BUT ONLY A MENGAL AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS SAY THAT BRAHUI IS A DRAVIDIAN RACE




the supreme court never bothered about three baloch leaders murdered by pakistani agencies in turbat in 2008.

But if a PML N leaders son from Punjab is killed and dead body never found the supreme court will take a gigantic suo moto action


this so called judgement is a great political mile stone in punjab but if you ask a a baloch and a sindhi or a pashtun they would be indifferent.it is so because this judgement will have no affect on the quality of life in pakistans three provinces.even the life of a common punjabi may not change at all unless he has a link with fat MPAs and MNAs of the PML N who would replace the PPP in case a new elections are held.All by design of the real forces that control Pakistan.Ten Thousand pathetic wind bag political families.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS-THE VICTIMS OF HALF LAW IN GOJRA

PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS-THE VICTIMS OF HALF LAW IN GOJRA


by


Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf (Retired)

The recent incidents in Gojra are a grim reminder of how existing half laws can be manipulated for personal and political ends. Besides loss of life, property or the reputation of the country, it also reflects an opportunist political system in which strange bedfellows can be espoused for political expediency and where rule of law can be applied selectively. Worse, it exposes false claims of the provincial and federal governments over constant surveillance of banned militant outfits in Punjab.

The entire trail from Jhang to Gojra, Mian Channu and Shantinagar is littered with similar incidents of religiously fanned hatred spearheaded by banned militant outfits. Time and again such incidents take place with impunity and remarkable alacrity. It is to question why the local administration is caught sleeping and why no preventive measures manifest themselves in pre emptive actions.

There is no doubt that the working relationship between the Federal Government and PMLN Government is dysfunctional. It took the Government of Punjab three days to move into a belated action despite warnings given by Mr. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Federal Minister of Minorities Affairs. The provincial government dismissed the factual reporting of the federal minister for over two days and moved reluctantly after all the damage had been done and Faisalabad-Karachi Railway traffic blocked for two days. The Chief Minister has repeatedly postponed his visit to the city citing security reasons. Meanwhile the frustrations continue to grow resulting in resignations of one federal and one provincial minister.

Reportedly, around 18th of July, intelligence agencies had issued a warning to the Government of Punjab of likely incidents of terrorism in which some enclaves of minority Pakistanis could be targeted. Rather than take this information seriously, the provincial government deemed it fit to act as it did, allowing free access to militant outfits for arson and murder. Perhaps they were too engrossed in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling sparing no moments for the welfare of its citizens.

The entire incident belying the fragility of our system began at a wedding party in Korrian, a Christian village 6 Kms from Gojra on 29 July. A local guest was escorted out of the celebrations for being drunk. He took revenge by leveraging the Blasphemy slogan in cahoots with some local clerics and sleepers of the banned outfits. The Federal Minister Mr. Bhatti moved into action but all his cautions fell on deaf and defiant ears in Lahore.

The Christian enclave in Gojra is located close to Awan Town named after a local property tycoon Mr. Qadeer Awan. Qadeer also runs and controls many local businesses like CNG and Petrol Pumps. He is reputed to be a very influential PMLN member and financier of the party and sleeper militants. He is known to hold the neighbouring Christian enclave in contempt with a long record of confrontation. He saw the incident at Korrian as an opportunity to settle issues and extract advantage. He is the prime suspect in the FIR, registered after 48 hours of delay. Christians allege that he with his team of sons and relatives master minded the entire operation including movement of militants from Jhang and surrounding areas.

These militants moved on public transport with automatic weapons, explosives and incendiaries with complete impunity despite many Police Check Posts en route. Rather than risk confronting heavily armed militants, the baton wielding local police chose to by stand. A nearby sizable Christian Village Chak 424 was put on hold through an expected militant attack. This was done through messages by militants, clerics and local administration. The village was never attacked but the warnings served to block reinforcements to the besieged people of Gojra. The militants were seen taking orders on cell phones as also pass on information. If all calls on cell phones from the area were to be checked during the arson, it would reveal a long trail of connections leading to militant leaders, politicians and handlers residing outside Pakistan.

But there is a positive side too. Neighbouring Muslim communities gave shelter to men, women and children, escorted them out of the area on their own transport and provided food. Some Pakistani NGOs have also established camps and MQM relief has arrived in trucks from as far away as Sindh. Pathetically, the only missing group is the Government of Punjab.

Standing next to seven caskets on the railway crossing at Gojra, I was questioning myself why seven females were burnt alive with incendiaries and why innocent people shot in the head at point blank. As I write this, two more men have succumbed to burn injuries in the local hospital. The Punjab Government made no efforts to evacuate them to a Burn Hospital in Lahore. I ask myself, did they deserve this treatment. Do Pakistani Christians who put the opportunist Unionist of Punjab to shame by aligning with Jinnah deserve this?

Local Christians allege that PMLN Government is reluctant to act because it fears losing its vote bank in the area. The incident has become a political battle ground between PMLN and PPP in which justice, rule of law and criminal accountability would ultimately be eclipsed. I remain in awe of the political system to move beyond its petty politics.

In an environment where the legal community is charged and Supreme Court taking landmark decisions, it is incumbent to take a look at half laws that provide a pretext for mob justice. The Supreme Court needs to re evaluate Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code and direct the Parliament to frame it in a manner, wherein it cannot be exploited or manipulated.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a political economist.
E mail: nicco1988@hotmail.com