Pakistan does not want the Taliban to seize control of Afghanistan when international forces pull out, according to a leaked account of a meeting with the recently retired head of its intelligence service.
Part of the non-ISI part of Pakistain does not want the Taliban to seize control. The ISI, and a good part of the rest of the country, would be just fine with it...
The country's shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has long been accused of siding with the Taliban as part of a strategy to ensure a friendly government in Kabul and to ensure arch-rival India cannot gain a foothold.
However, this year its civilian government has taken pains to insist that any political settlement must be part of an Afghan-led process.
Now, details of an interview with Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who stepped down as ISI director general last weekend, give an insight into the agency's secretive world and its position on Afghanistan.
The account of the meeting in April last year -- written by a researcher with the private intelligence firm Stratfor and obtained by WikiLeaks -- suggests the ISI fears that a Taliban takeover would have dangerous implications for Pakistan's security.
"We do not wish to see the Talibs dominate Afghanistan," he said. "On the contrary, we want to see a broad-based government that can end the civil war in that country, which has had a disastrous fallout for us. Of course the Talibs will be a key player in a post-Nato Afghanistan, which we feel is necessary for true peace to take place."
Wikileaks no doubt feels like they have a scoop, coming to figure out what we at the Burg knew eight years ago...
#1
So basically the ISI wants the Taliban in place, like before. They just would like to end the war. The key issue for us is to deny Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations against the US (and others).
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/21/2012 13:46 Comments ||
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#2
So to fight the Taliban the US would be much more effective if it used the MOAB on ISI HQ?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/21/2012 13:50 Comments ||
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#3
So, the ISI, which has done everything but cook them breakfast in bed and tuck them in at night, has decided they don't want the Taliban to run the show in Afghanistan?
I am beginning to think the ISI is as fractured into warring factions as Afghanistan. The right hand wants to kill the left hand and neither knows what the other is doing.
Obviously, ISI is dysfunctional and their logic is unworkable. Who in their right mind would think India wants anything to do with a place with scenic beauties named "Hindu Cush"?
I think ISI needs some meds, their paranoia is out of control
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/21/2012 14:01 Comments ||
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#4
The key issue for us is to deny Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations against the US (and others).
I agree, but I haven't come across anything likely to succeed.
Isolating Afghanistan might be effective, but very hard to accomplish, with Pakistan, Iran, China & former Russian provinces surrounding that country.
The imperial method, e.g. saturating Afghanistan with occupying forces & re-forming the society over a couple of generations, is a pipe dream, and insupportable.
Israel's ambassador to Egypt has quit Cairo, six months after the embassy was attacked by paid rioters and ransacked in the Egyptian capital.
Officials at the Egyptian airport said Wednesday that two IDF aircraft departed Cairo before dawn, carrying all of the equipment and documents that had been in the embassy.
During the September 2011 attack, Egyptian leaders did not respond to Israeli requests for assistance until the United States stepped in with a personal phone call from President Barack Obama, pointedly asking its military to intervene. Even so, Israeli staff members barely escaped with their lives, and the embassy has since been unable to secure new quarters.
Last week the Egyptian parliament,currently controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, demanded Israel's envoy be expelled in response to the IDF's defense of southern Israel against rocket attacks from Gaza.
CAIRO: Egypt will launch a scheme on Saturday to reduce its budget deficit by selling plots of land near Cairo to Egyptians living abroad, the housing minister said on Tuesday, with the aim of raising $15 billion over four years.
Okay, as an ex-pat Egyptian I can put my excess cash (mostly stolen and taken out of the country in the first place) into the Caymans ... hmmm, nah, too far away. Okay, I can buy a fashionable apartment on the Left Bank in Paris ... hmmm, nah, too many infidels for now. Okay, maybe a country house in Mauritania ... hmmm, nah, it's Mauritania after all. Say, I got it! I'll buy a house back in the mother land that's about to implode!
The deficit has widened since last year's popular uprising hammered the economy, cut tax revenue and led to demands for higher salaries and more benefits. The government has forecast a budget deficit of 144 billion Egyptian pounds ($23.9 billion) in the fiscal year to June 30, about 8.7 percent of gross domestic product.
Yet no one seems to ask how it is that Egypt gets itself into this sort of trouble time and time again.
Housing Minister Fathi Abdelaziz el-Baradei told reporters the government planned to offer an initial 8,000 plots in at least two satellite cities near Cairo via a website, and said Egyptians living abroad would be able to reserve the plots as of Saturday.
They include 800 square meter lots in Sheikh Zayed City that the government will sell for $675 per square meter and 400 square meter lots in Badr City for $250 per square meter.
The government said in a 10-page economic plan it sent to parliament this month that it hoped to raise as much as $15 billion from the land sales over four years. It is also working on plans to raise foreign currency by selling certificates of deposit to Egyptians living abroad and Islamic sukuk bonds to foreign institutions.
What kind of idiot foreign institutions would be so foolish as to put their investors' funds at risk by investing them in Egyption sukuk bonds, whatever those are?
Egypt has been negotiating a $3.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which now has a team in Cairo, to help it avert a fiscal crisis.
Don't worry, Champ will bow and Uncle Sugar will cover it...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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Cairo doing an Athens???
* WAFF > GREEK GOVT. WANTS TO SELL POSSESSIONS [State assets] TO TURKS | GREECE SEEKS TURKS IN BUYERS FOR ASSETS IN ECONOMIC REVERSAL.
Even various CHINA BLOGGERS, PERTS would like to see China demand foreclosure on US Sovereign Territories + Cities, etc as payment for America's huge = "crushing" debt to China.
NO NEEDS FOR USDOD-VS-PLA WAR, ONLY NEED BANKS + LAWYERS???
CAIRO: Thousands of mourners dressed in black gathered in Cairo on Tuesday for the funeral of Egypts Orthodox Christian Pope Shenouda, who spent his final years trying to comfort a disturbed community.
Shenouda, who died on Saturday aged 88, promoted religious harmony, winning respect among the Muslim majority, but his last years witnessed a growth in sectarian tension that worsened with the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak last year.
I cant tell you how much sorrow I have inside me. This was a great, great man and it will be hard to find anyone like him again, said Ivon Mosaed, a 52-year-old Christian Copt who heads an educational institute offering foreign languages courses.
Religious figures from several countries including a Catholic delegation from the Vatican and foreign ambassadors massed in the Orthodox Cathedral as long-bearded Coptic priests wearing bulbous black mitres prayed over Shenoudas body lying in an open coffin, a golden mitre upon his head and a gold-tipped staff in his hand.
A delegation from the ruling military council and several candidates for Egypts upcoming presidential elections attended the funeral. Security was tight, with dozens of police and army trucks scattered around the cathedral and plainclothes police posted on bridges and in streets nearby.
The prayers were led by Bishop Bakhomious, head of the church of Bahaira, a district in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, who will temporally hold the post of pope for two months until a new leader is elected.
I am so sad of course and many of my Muslim relatives are sad as well, said Muslim university student Iman, who was dressed in black and wearing a black veil. He was a decent Egyptian man who was also known for being very wise.
Egypt has seen less of the religious violence and discrimination that prompted members of ancient Christian communities to migrate from Iraq and other Arab countries. But Coptic Christians, who comprise about a tenth of Egypts 80 million people, have long complained of discrimination and in the past year stepped up protests, which included calls for new rules that would make it as easy to build a church as a mosque.
Thousands have paid their respects at the cathedral since he died. For much of the time, Shenoudas body was put in a seated position on a ceremonial throne dressed in gold and red embroidered vestments.
On Sunday, the cathedral had to close its doors several times in an attempt to contain the crowds. Two mourners died killed in the crush, medical sources said.
The burial is expected to take place at the Wadi el Natrun monastery in the desert northwest of Cairo, where the late pope had requested he be interred.
One of Shenoudas oft-repeated sayings, also cited in newspapers, was: Egypt is not a nation we live in, rather it is a nation that lives in us.
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03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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A Mohammedan woman was barred from serving on a jury yesterday because she refused to remove her veil.
In an extraordinary ruling, a judge said she could not sit on an attempted murder trial because her full face covering, known as the niqab, concealed her expressions.
The woman was about to take the oath in the case at Blackfriars Crown Court in London when the judge interrupted to ask if she was prepared to remove the garment which covered her whole face, apart from a narrow slit through which her eyes could be seen. Judge Aidan Marron QC, said it was 'desirable' that her face was 'exposed' during the trial and asked her to remove the veil.
When she refused she was told to stand down and a white male member of the jury pool was sworn in in her place.
In the presence of the rest of the jury, Judge Marron said: 'I wonder whether I can address the lady who is veiled. Would you prefer not to remove your veil in this particular case?'
The woman, who was wearing western clothing including a fitted grey jacket, replied: 'Yes.'
Judge Marron added: 'I entirely understand that, but in this particular case it is desirable that your face is exposed, so I'm going to invite you to stand down. I hope you understand.'
The ruling, which is thought to be one of the first of its kind in Britannia, has sparked outrage.
Yesterday Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: 'This is totally unacceptable. I really can't understand why facial expressions could have any impact on the judge, the judgment or anyone else in a trial. It has no relevance. I'm speechless that you can exclude someone on the basis of the way that they dress. It's very worrying that a judge is being prejudiced against women wearing a veil.'
Official guidelines state that veils can be worn in court although senior judges should decide on a case-by-case basis.
In 2007, the Judicial Studies Board's equal treatment advisory committee said Mohammedan women should be permitted to wear the garment as long as it did not interfere with the administration of justice. The guidelines said: 'Each situation should be considered individually in order to find the best solution in each case.'
It also says forcing a woman to choose between participating in a court case and removing the veil could have a 'significant impact on that woman's sense of dignity', and could serve to 'exclude and marginalise' her.
The rules say a judge may wish to consider excusing jurors in niqabs if a challenge is made by one of the parties, provided there is a genuine basis for the objection. The guidance followed a case at an immigration court in Stoke-on-Trent in 2006 where the judge, George Glossop, ordered an adjournment because he was having difficulty hearing legal executive Shabnam Mughal.
In 2007, a Mohammedan female juror who was accused of listening to a hidden stereo under her headscarf was cleared of contempt of court when the Attorney General's office ruled there was insufficient evidence. Ruhela Khanom, 20, faced a possible unlimited jail term for allegedly listening to her MP3 player while a defendant was giving evidence.
#2
How would you be able to tell if another person had taken her place?
Maybe an assassin with a whole different agenda, say simply to gain access ti the courtroom?
The judge was RIGHT.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/21/2012 12:41 Comments ||
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#3
That the defense tolerated having a Muslim on the jury in the first place showed incompetence. A lawyer could exclude one with just a few questions.
1) Do you accept that Crown law is the supreme law of Britain and all of its subjects?
2) Do you believe that atheists, Christians, Jews and homosexuals should be treated before the law as equal to Muslims?
3) Do you believe that women are equal to men and that women in legal authority may sit in judgment over men?
Summary: Mexican President Felipe Calderon may flee to a foreign country to avoid attempts on his life by the drug cartels against which he has directed his military.
Brazillian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has reportedly offered asylum to Calderon when Calderon's term is up in December, 2012.
BEIJING -- China has urged South Korea to remain calm and restrained over North Korea's planned rocket launch next month,
Easy for you guys to say...
a diplomatic source said Tuesday, a day after Seoul condemned the plan as a "grave provocation."
Beijing conveyed the stance to Seoul during a meeting on Sunday between Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying and Lee Kyu-hyung, the South Korean ambassador to China, the source said. At the meeting, Fu also expressed "concern" over the North's plan to launch a satellite on the back of a long-range rocket, the source said.
North Korea has rejected criticism of the planned rocket launch by its neighbors South Korea and Japan as well as their military ally, the United States, which sees the North's satellite launch as a disguised missile test.
China, the North's last-remaining ally, also voiced rare concern during a meeting between Zhang Zhijun, China's vice foreign minister and Ji Jae-ryong, North Korea's ambassador in Beijing, according to a report by Xinhua news agency.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
a "grave provocation." moreso than shelling your landmass or torpedoing warcraft? Is it the puppets or the masters that have no cohones? Bad parenting all around.
#3
The DPRK is accusing the ROK of engaging in a wily dastardly, unfair "smear campaign" agz the North's good name.
* OTOH INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > NORTH KOREA DENIES ROCKET LAUNCH WILL BREAK US PACT.
* SAME > CHINA SAYS IT HELD "FRANK" TALKS WID NORTH KOREA ENVOY.
* SAME > NORTH KOREA INVITES IAEA, CLAIMS US DEAL STILL IN FORCE.
versus
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > CHINA'S MARITIME EXPANSION COULD GO BEYOND TAIWAN: EXPERTS. SCS Region to as far west as Africa.
ARTIC = TAIWAN, + possibly the Daoyutai Islands [Japan = Senkakus], are the ONLY ISSUE(S) THAT MAY CAUSE A MIL CONFLICT BETWEEN CHINA + THE USA.
Again, China sees its sovereign reunification wid Taiwan as its all-important key to breaking of the barriers of the "First Island Chain" + gaining strategic access into WESTPAC + ultimately CENTPAC, EASTPAC. ITS WILLING TO FIGHT A MAJOR CONVENTIONAL ANDOR NUCLEAR WAR OER TAIWAN, WHERE ANY INCURRENCE OF MASSIVE/
PROHIBITIVE PLA CASUALTIES IS NOT AN ISSUE.
The Daoyutai Islands [+ Okinawa?] are there for protection + defense of Taiwan, + OKINAWA-TAIWAN-PHIL CORRIDOR INTO WESTPAC.
North Korean leader Suet Face Kim Jong-un has purged high-ranking military officers to consolidate his grip on power after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, it emerged on Tuesday.
A source familiar with North Korea said Kim Jong-un ordered officials in January to remove anyone caught misbehaving during the mourning period for Kim Jong-il. "We have information that an assistant chief of the General Staff Department was arrested and shot by firing squad on charges of sexual harassment during the mourning period," the source added. Pudgy's trying to get American feminists to cream in their pants, isn't he?
The General Staff Department takes orders directly from Kim Jong-un in wartime and commands the entire North Korean military. There are six or seven assistant chiefs under Gen. Ri Yong-ho, the chief of General Staff. It remains unclear which assistant chief was purged.
A high-ranking government official here said, "To my knowledge, an assistant chief of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces was also put in front of a firing squad early this year for being drunk during the mourning period."
Kim Sung-min of Free North Korea Radio, a former captain in the North Korean army, recalled that Kim Jong-il also carried out a bloody purge after the death of his father Kim Il-sung in the name of restoring public order. "There is a strong chance that Kim Jong-un is doing exactly what his father did," he said.
Just reminding everyone who the new boss is...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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KJ-un, I told u to call me, and you never did. Now I hear that you're purging again...That can be so unhealthy; especially being as phat as we are...(Don't get me started!)
Let's try it again my little, squared-away Kim-chi bucket. We can go see the Phat Boi movie and "re-start" this bad-boy! Chaz Bono
Germany has announced that it will sell Israel a sixth Dolphin-class submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads with an operating range of 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles).
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced the decision on Tuesday in a joint presser with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Berlin.
"A further boat will be delivered to Israel and there will be financial help," said Maiziere, confirming that Germany would shoulder part of the cost of the submarine.
Gotta keep the workers on the production line employed...
In November, a German government source had said that the country would pay a contribution of 135 million Euros ($178 million), a third of the cost.
Three earlier-model Dolphin submarines had been delivered to Israel between 1998 and 2000. In 2006, Israel placed its fourth and fifth orders for two more advanced subs. The fourth one is scheduled for delivery by 2013. The fifth and the sixth orders are due for delivery in 2014 and 2016 respectively.
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar said on Monday he does not expect an Israeli strike on Iran due to Israel's international isolation.
The senior official in Gaza told Ma'an that Iran continues to support the Palestinian cause and the Hamas movement, but denied Israeli media reports that Iranian leaders are training Palestinian factions in the Egyptian Sinai.
Zahhar met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran on Thursday, thanking the country for supporting Palestine without expecting anything in return. Noooooo...
Your winnings, sir.
Oh. Thank you! Thank you very much!
Zahhar has made conflicting statements about the role Hamas would play if Israel attacked Iran. Probably bleed all over them...
Speaking to the BBC for a report published March 7, Zahhar said Hamas would respond to Israeli attacks on Gaza but would not get involved "in any other regional conflict." He added: "We are not part of any political axis."
Zahhar told the BBC that Hamas lacked the power to respond from a territory that is still under siege, occupied and recovering from previous Israeli offensives. Too many "victories", Warty?
He later disavowed the comments in an interview with the Iranian Fars news agency and said Hamas would respond to Israel and its allies in the event of an attack on Iran. Hmmmmm...that was quick. Somebody freeze his bank account?
"Retaliation with utmost power is the position of Hamas with regard to a Zionist war on Iran," he said. We're goin' under the mattresses again, boys!
Turkey's Prime Minister Office declared that Recep Tayyip Erdogan will pay an official visit to Tehran next week, IRNA reported. The Office said in a statement that the prime minister will pay an official 2-day visit to Iran on March 28 and 29, 2012.
Erdogan is scheduled to meet with Iranian senior officials and discuss bilateral, regional and international issues with them.
Before visiting Iran, Erdogan, heading a delegation including Turkish Foreign Minister and Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, will attend Nuclear security Meeting in Seoul, capital of South Korea.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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WASHINGTON The Obama administration on Tuesday granted exemptions from U.S. economic sanctions to 10 European Union countries and Japan because they have significantly reduced their purchases of petroleum from Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Whom no one confuses for John Foster Dulles...
gave the waivers to Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Japan, meaning that banks and other financial institutions based there will not be hit with penalties under U.S. law for 180 days.
The guy just loves giving waivers out...
President Barack Obama has until March 30 to determine whether oil prices and supplies are sufficient enough to levy sanctions later this year on countries that still buy oil from Iran. Pending that decision, another 12 nations including India, China and South Korea that are deemed to be major importers of Iranian oil have until the end of July to take similar steps or face sanctions.
In a statement, Clinton lauded the countries granted exemptions, noting that the actions they had taken to reduce their imports from Iran were not easy.
They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs, she said. We commend these countries for their actions and urge other nations that import oil from Iran to follow their example.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/21/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain those are the ones within range of the Russian pipeline. Don't understand Japan though.
#3
These waivers take the bite out of the sanctions. More toothless actions, just like the League of Nations did with sanctions against Italy after their invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. The League did not include oil in their sanctions, so the list did not hurt Mussolini and he used the sanctions as a morale and propaganda tool.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/21/2012 17:16 Comments ||
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#4
My family has told me to quit picking on the monkeys that are sending our country into the toilet( hope the sand embargo puts the fear of God into the primates in Iran). I will never respect or take an order from the garbage ruling our country ever .
* FREEREPUBLIC > [Daily Mail.UK] "WE HAVE A DUTY TO PREPARE FOR THE WORST": PETER KING WARNS IRAN HAS HUNDREDS OF HEZBOLLAH AGENTS IN US.
King says the Fed knows they're hhheeeeeerrreee.
Once again, iff any Israeli milstrike intentionally or accidentally causes a few or many Mullahs in Tehran to go boom, WILL IRAN ORDER ITS TERROR PROXIES TO TAKE OUT THE WHITE HOUSE + US CONGRESSCRITTERS???
Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that Iran will retaliate "on the same level" to any US, Israeli attack, but that is at best open to a high degree of subjective interpretation on the part of Iran.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A 
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar said on Monday he does not expect an Israeli strike on Iran due to Israel's international isolation.
