#1
Mr Karzai said that "foreign military and especially the US itself" were involved in peace talks with the group. Hours later, suicide bombers attacked a Kabul police station, killing nine
how's that working out for you, Hamid? Gonna condemn the deliberate bombing as much as you do USAF night-time raids and inadvertent collateral damage?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 13:30 Comments ||
Top||
[Dawn] The UN Security Council on Friday split the international sanctions regime for the Taliban and al Qaeda to encourage the Taliban to join reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan.
The council unanimously passed two resolutions which set up one new blacklist of individuals and organizations accused of links to al Qaeda and a second for those linked to the Taliban militia.
The two groups have until now been handled by the same sanctions committee. But the international powers wanted to separate them to highlight the divide between al Qaeda's global jihadist agenda and the Taliban's focus on Afghanistan.
The sanctions committee was set up in 1999 when al Qaeda had major bases in the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until they were driven out of power by US led forces.
The new resolutions, 1988 and 1989, send "a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution," said Susan Rice, UN envoy for the United States, which led the campaign for the division.
Peter Wittig, Germany's UN ambassador who heads the Security Council anti-terrorism sanctions committee, said the resolution sends "a strong signal of trust and support for the peace and reconciliation efforts of the government of Afghanistan."
US President Barack B.O. Obama has set July as the target date to start cutting the 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan and Defence Secretary Robert Gates said this month there could be talks with the Taliban before the end of the year.
The new sanctions regime for those who pose "a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan" gives the Afghan government a say in the listing and delisting of accused krazed killers. An ombudsman also gets extra powers to recommend delistings.
The Security Council will have to vote unanimously to keep a person on a sanctions list if the ombudsman has recommended the name be taken off.
Wittig called the changes a "major advance." While all 15 council measures backed the resolutions, India and Russia said there must be none easing up in the international fight against terrorism.
"There must be no slackening of efforts to fight both al Qaeda and the Taliban," said Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
Separately, the Security Council's sanctions committee is considering taking about 20 former Taliban capos off the UN blacklist.
The Afghan government had originally advanced about 50 names but withdrew many because it did not have the paperwork to back up the case, diplomats said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. "
George W. Bush, September 11th 2001
"These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate."
George W. Bush, Statement To Joint Session Of Congress September 20th 2001
#2
*ahem* you do know Bush is no longer POTUS, right?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 13:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Bush articulated a consensus re Afghanistan that has never been repudiated officially. Afghanistan has always been the good war.
Western forces were sent to Afghanistan to hunt down and kill the Taliban because they sponsored a mass fatality attack on the continental US.
The objective was punishment for the Taliban and deterrence of other state actors who might contemplate sponsoring attacks of similar or greater magnitude.
When it became clear that this could not be done without inflicting non trivial casualties on at least a part of the Afghan population (Pashtuns) Western politicians went wobbly and changed the mission to some sort of therapeutic intervention with a nebulous end state. This happened well before Obama.
The net result is that sponsoring an attack on the US is not a suicidal mistake but a rational option for any rational hostile actor.
If the Taliban survive this and return to power in Afghanistan with the blessing of the US government why should a nuclear armed Iran be deterred in any way?
#4
I can't contradict that. I was only pointing out that the change in strength/stature/policy has been since January 2009. Just like the economy, I guess, that was "unexpected"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 18:37 Comments ||
Top||
The Afghan government will struggle to pay its bills "within a month" after the International Monetary Fund rejected proposals for resolving the Kabul Bank scandal, western officials have warned.
Although the war-torn country's biggest bank nearly collapsed last September, the government of Hamid Karzai and the international community are still at loggerheads over plans to fund an $820m (£507m) bailout as well as how the disgraced former managers and shareholders who helped themselves to hundreds of millions of dollars should be prosecuted.
As long as the IMF declares the plans to be inadequate, many countries, including Britain, are legally barred from pumping money into a government that is almost completely reliant on foreign cash to pay civil servants' salaries.
#2
O is looking for the checkbook. The family should go over for a surprise pre-election run for the PR.
Throw some Ben's around since some went missing. The signal now being sent is they will have to go back to their old farming ways to raise revenue.
WASHINGTON -- President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.
Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military's activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to "hostilities." Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.
But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team -- including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh -- who argued that the United States military's activities fell short of "hostilities." Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.
So it isn't, despite the NYT headline, that Mr. Obama refused to listen to lawyers; he decided to listen to his in-house lawyers rather than the DoJ lawyers. That's an important distinction, since lawyers to tend to disagree with each other a fair bit.
But what is better, as Tom Maguire reminds us, is that the good Mr. Koh has for the past quarter-century written about how presidential power is limited in these matters: the War Powers Act is binding, according to him, and presidents cannot act unilaterally to go to war. Unless it's his current client, that is.
Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office's interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.
That's a silly statement: the OLC works for the President. They are the President's in-house counsel. They don't run the White House, they advise the White House.
A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, said there had been "a full airing of views within the administration and a robust process" that led Mr. Obama to his view that the Libya campaign was not covered by a provision of the War Powers Resolution that requires presidents to halt unauthorized hostilities after 60 days.
Mr. Obama is both wrong and foolish to engage the country in a war without congressional approval. But he didn't 'disregard' the lawyers, he just came to a different conclusion, one that fit what he wanted to do. Unexpectedly, of course.
"It should come as no surprise that there would be some disagreements, even within an administration, regarding the application of a statute that is nearly 40 years old to a unique and evolving conflict," Mr. Schultz said. "Those disagreements are ordinary and healthy."
Still, the disclosure that key figures on the administration's legal team disagreed with Mr. Obama's legal view could fuel restiveness in Congress, where lawmakers from both parties this week strongly criticized the White House's contention that the president could continue the Libya campaign without their authorization because the campaign was not "hostilities."
The White House unveiled its interpretation of the War Powers Resolution in a package about Libya it sent to Congress late Wednesday. On Thursday, the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, demanded to know whether the Office of Legal Counsel had agreed.
"The administration gave its opinion on the War Powers Resolution, but it didn't answer the questions in my letter as to whether the Office of Legal Counsel agrees with them," he said. "The White House says there are no hostilities taking place. Yet we've got drone attacks under way. We're spending $10 million a day. We're part of an effort to drop bombs on Qaddafi's compounds. It just doesn't pass the straight-face test, in my view, that we're not in the midst of hostilities."
A sticking point for some skeptics was whether any mission that included firing missiles from drone aircraft could be portrayed as not amounting to hostilities.
Dropping bombs certainly seems to be 'hostile', unless you buy Joseph Heller's idea that it is just a 'special service'...
As the May 20 deadline approached, Mr. Johnson advocated stopping the drone strikes as a way to bolster the view that the remaining activities in support of NATO allies were not subject to the deadline, officials said. But Mr. Obama ultimately decided that there was no legal requirement to change anything about the military mission.
The administration followed an unusual process in developing its position. Traditionally, the Office of Legal Counsel solicits views from different agencies and then decides what the best interpretation of the law is. The attorney general or the president can overrule its views, but rarely do.
I'll bet that simply isn't true: the client may be foolish not to listen to his lawyer but I'll bet that past presidents have overridden the advice of the OLC, and for various reasons.
In this case, however, Ms. Krass was asked to submit the Office of Legal Counsel's thoughts in a less formal way to the White House, along with the views of lawyers at other agencies. After several meetings and phone calls, the rival legal analyses were submitted to Mr. Obama, who is supposedly a constitutional lawyer, and he made the decision.
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the internal deliberations, said the process was "legitimate" because "everyone knew at the end of the day this was a decision the president had to make" and the competing views were given a full airing before Mr. Obama.
The theory Mr. Obama embraced holds that American forces have not been in "hostilities" as envisioned by the War Powers Resolution at least since early April, when NATO took over the responsibility for the no-fly zone and the United States shifted to a supporting role providing refueling assistance and surveillance -- although remotely piloted American drones are still periodically firing missiles.
The administration has also emphasized that there are no troops on the ground, that Libyan forces are unable to fire at them meaningfully and that the military mission is constrained from escalating by a United Nations Security Council resolution.
That position has attracted criticism. Jack L. Goldsmith, who led the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration, has written that the administration's interpretation is "aggressive" and unpersuasive, although he also acknowledged that there was no clear answer and little chance of a definitive court ruling, so the reaction of Congress would resolve it.
As long as the Dems hold the Senate there will be no resolution from Congress.
Walter Dellinger, who led the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration, said that while "this is not an easy question," Mr. Obama's position was "both defensible and consistent with the position of previous administrations." Still, he criticized the administration's decision-making process.
"Decisions about the lawfulness of major presidential actions should be made by the Department of Justice, and within the department by the Office of Legal Counsel, after consultation with affected agencies," he said. "The president always has the power of final decision."
That last point is correct: the buck indeed stops with the President.
Other high-level Justice lawyers were also involved in the deliberations, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. supported Ms. Krass's view, officials said.
Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said, "Our views were heard, as were other views, and the president then made the decision as was appropriate for him to do."
#2
Trying HARD to be recognised as ALREADY King.
As in the Mideast way.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/18/2011 10:34 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I am not sure whether I agree or disagree with the foray into Libya. I do believe he needs to present the case to Congress and the people for authorization. Most likely it would be approved. But for some reason (to try and evade 'ownership'?) he does not want to make his case. Precedent is being set that gives way too much power to the Executive - again! We may all (left, right & middle) come to regret it, if not in this Administration then in some future one.
#4
Dropping bombs certainly seems to be 'hostile', unless you buy Joseph Heller's idea that it is just a 'special service'...
There is an interesting thought. If you could outsource the work in Libya to a private firm, it just becomes another government contract without all that sticky War Powers Act stuff. Works for piracy, too!
#5
Qadaffi is a pissant psycho who has already killed a bunch of Americans. As a rule of thumb, if you can take out someone like him, go for it. Even if whoever replaces him isn't particularly friendly, there is a lot more to work with if they are sane.
#7
This entire thing is madness. The War Powers Act is blatantly unconstitutional. And whe I appreciate the tactic of beating this president over the head with whatever stick is handy, the better option for Republicans would be to use this opportunity to repeal the Act.
#8
That's a silly statement: the OLC works for the President. They are the President's in-house counsel. They don't run the White House, they advise the White House.
The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) works for the President in the sense that everyone in the Executive Branch works for the President. But the OLC would more fairly be described as the Executive Branch's (EB) attorney and the Office of Which House Counsel (WHC) as exclusively the President's attorney. The head of the OLC is subject to confirmation by the Senate, the WHC is not. The work product of the WHC may be attorney client privileged and the OLC not.
The OLC issues written opinions that are treated by the Executive branch as definitive until overturned by actual courts. One of the reasons the OLC was created was that prior to it each department in the EB was operating under its own opinion of the law and this led to departments holding conflicting interpretations of a law. The OLC was set up to issue definitive legal opinions to be adhered to consistently across departments. Its opinions have no legal force, but administratively the define the EB interpretation of law until a court ruling is issued. It is unusual for the opinion of the OLC to be overruled. I believe Comrade Obamao is the first to do so since FDR, but I can't find backup.
The fair way to characterize the relationships is that the EB goes to the OLC to find out what the law is prior to court ruling. The OLC may get input some legal, some political, from anyone in the EB including the WHC. And it then renders an opinion for the EB. The President goes to the WHC tells him what he wants to do and tells the WHC to find legal justification for doing it.
Notable AAGs for OLC include Nicholas Katxenbach, William Rhenquist, Antonin Scalia and Ted Olson. WHC have included Ted Sorensen, John Ehrlichman, John Dean, and Harriet Miers.
This is a big deal inside the beltway and will not help Obamao and will provide coverage to those of both parties who want to undermine the banana in Libya.
#9
Nimble, thank you very much for that important clarification. I had conflated the OLC and the White House office.
Once again, Rantburg University to the rescue!
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 15:06 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Granted Gadaffy is an evil mideast dictator with American blood on his hands. If his end came, no one would shed a tear. There are still other evil mideast dictators as bad.
Obama doesn't need the War Powers Resolution? Really? He doesn't need Congress? Really? He doesn't need the Constitution? Really? He only needs an U.N. Security Council resolution where some countries abstained from voting; others opposed the no-fly zone. I also recall Sec. Gates had reservations about Libya. It seems Mr. Obama is on thin ice. His actions are the stuff of dictators. George Bush had the approval of Congress and an U.N. resolution to go into Afghanistan and Iraq.
#11
I'll shed a tear for American foreign policy. see #6. We have stabbed every ally and non-enemy in the back and rewarded every enemy.What a fool obumble is.
#13
Dropping bombs certainly seems to be 'hostile', unless you buy Joseph Heller's idea that it is just a 'special service'...
There is an interesting thought. If you could outsource the work in Libya to a private firm, it just becomes another government contract without all that sticky War Powers Act stuff. Works for piracy, too!
Milo Minderbinders grandson Major Major Milo Minderbinder IX can work a deal with either side. The Minderbinder clan got a world exclusive manufacturing rights on large pointy sprockets, traded their secret recipe for chocolate covered cotton for it.
Technically he's within the Constitution. The Legislative branch, given the international security situation since WWII, has granted the Executive branch a large standing military. The Founding Fathers never anticipated such a thing except during time of war. By keeping tight hold on the purse strings the history of the country shows that it funded just enough, and sometimes, not enough of a standing force, to deal with problems on the frontier and commerce issues at sea. It was understood from the beginning that to deal with such emergencies, the government didn't have time to convene Congress in order to get the troops or sailors to the point of conflict for what would be today considered a 'police action'. To fund a large forces and operations, the Executive has had to traditionally (pre-WWII) request the resources first from Congress who would either provide what was requested or not but usually with a 'use by date' attached.
The whole War Powers Act was an attempt at a Legislative veto created in the post-Vietnam era when the Donks wanted to hobble the Executive but not be placed in a situation of defunding the entire defense establishment in face of the reality of the Soviet el al threats in the world.
It is an unresolved issue in which the mechanisms of the Constitution say if you don't want him to be able to play with the toys, you have to take the funding away from him. That doesn't work well in a world where you're the big boy upon which everyone else expects you to have the means to play policeman or cowboy. That issue is also compounded by treaties approved by the Senate which obligate the country in international organizations.
Congress' power resides in its authority under Article I, Section 8, to control the purse strings, to approve the size of the military forces, and approve/disapprove the appointment of officers. If Congress does not act in these areas and just rubber stamps what the Executive wants, its Congress' problem when it comes to these type of military actions.
#15
The whole War Powers Act was an attempt at a Legislative veto created in the post-Vietnam era when the Donks wanted to hobble the Executive but not be placed in a situation of defunding the entire defense establishment in face of the reality of the Soviet el al threats in the world.
for that reason alone, the Reps should push this down Obama's and the Donks' throats: "Do you support this ONLY when a Rep is the Executive"? - if so, then you are a partisan hack. Or ....is it unconstitutional, and available to President Perry in 2012 without congressional bitching?
Your response in 4...3...2..
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Heh Frank -- I caught that President Perry thingy....
#17
Frank: I understand that the Dems' whole "point" is that _this_ intervention is legal because it has the UN seal of approval, and that that makes anything any subservient-to-UN US institutions, like Congress or the Supremes, besides the point.
[Al Jazeera] Authorities in Spain have tossed in the clink a close associate of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... wanted on charges of bribery and squandering public funds.
Hussein Salam, one of Egypt's most secretive businessmen, was jugged in his home in Mallorca on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol.
He had left Egypt a week before Mubarak was forced to resign on February 11 after 18-days of protests against his rule.
Brigadier-General Magdy el-Shafei, the head of Egypt's Interpol branch, told the state's Middle East News Agency on Thursday that authorities were preparing the necessary documents to bring Salam back to Egypt.
Since Mubarak's ouster, protesters have continued to press for the prosecution of Mubarak and his
associates for what they say were years of abuse and corruption.
Salam was charged last month along with Mubarak and the ex-president's two sons. Their trial is scheduled for August.
He is said to have won lucrative land and other deals, including exporting gas to Israel, because of his connection to Mubarak.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
RABAT: Morocco's reformed constitution will make officials more accountable and will give the government greater powers, but King Mohammed will remain a key power-broker in the security, military and religious fields, according to a draft. Feeling a bit warm, are you Your Enormity?
After facing the biggest anti-establishment protests in decades, King Mohammed in March ordered a hand-picked committee to conduct consultations with political parties, trade unions and civil society groups on constitutional reform with a brief to trim the monarch's political powers and make the judiciary independent.
In the final draft of the reformed constitution, viewed by Reuters and authenticated by a government official, King Mohammed will keep exclusive control over military and religious fields and pick a prime minister from the party that wins parliamentary elections.
The reformed constitution allows the king to delegate the task of chairing ministers' council meetings to the prime minister on a previously agreed agenda. Such meetings can decide on the appointments of provincial governors -- powerful representatives of the Interior Ministry at regional levels -- and ambassadors, a prerogative currently exclusive to the king.
The monarch can still dissolve Parliament but after consulting a newly introduced Constitutional Court, of which half the members are to be appointed by the king.
The prime minister will also be able to debate general state policy with a government council at weekly meetings to be held in the absence of the king, according to the proposals.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
DUSHANBE - Tajikistan has taken the first step toward banning children and adolescents from worshipping in mosques and churches, drawing criticism from Muslim leaders who oppose the Central Asian states crackdown on religious freedom. Bad move: the forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter...
The lower house of parliament in the impoverished ex-Soviet republic this week passed a parental responsibility bill that would make it illegal to allow children to be part of a religious institution not officially sanctioned by the state.
Authorities say the measures are necessary to prevent the spread of religious fundamentalism in the volatile republic, the poorest of the 15 former Soviet republics, where government troops have been fighting insurgents in the mountainous east.
Muslim leaders said the law, the brainchild of long-serving President Imomali Rakhmon, would only increase discontent among the majority Muslim population of a nation that fought a civil war in the 1990s in which tens of thousands were killed.
Its a black day for Muslims. Even in Soviet times, such punitive measures and religious persecution did not exist, said prominent Muslim theologist Akbar Turadzhonzoda. If the state doesnt want to, the people will defend their faith themselves. And we all know what that means...
The law now passes to the upper house of parliament, but few doubt that the docile Senate will approve the bill for Rakhmon to sign into law. The president has ruled Tajikistan since 1992.
Turadzhonzoda, who became deputy prime minister after the power-sharing agreement that brought the 1992-1997 civil war to an end, said he sympathised with all Muslims about the new bill.
You cannot frighten believers with fines, arrest and imprisonment, he said. If discontent grows, it could lead to a stand-off with the government of the likes seen in Tunisia and Egypt.
More than 98 percent of Tajikistans 7.5 million population is Muslim. Groups representing the Christian minority also expressed unhappiness and confusion about the new laws.
Churches and Christian organisations are faced with a dilemma: how can we help our parishioners without breaking the law, but continuing to honour our rules? the evangelical group River of Life said in a statement.
The group represents most of Tajikistans 2,500 Protestants. The country is also home to another 70,000 ethnic Russians, most of whom are Orthodox Christians.
The bill would also ban young girls from wearing jewellery beyond a single pair of earrings and make it illegal for them to be tattooed or visit night clubs until they turn 20 years old.
Parents must also give their children a suitable name and ban them from drinking alcohol, smoking and taking drugs. The penalties for breaching the new laws have not been published. In a separate legal change passed by the lower house this week, the founders of unregistered religious schools attended by adolescents could be jailed for between five and 12 years. Cheez, it's like they have a local version of Mike Bloomberg...
Tajik authorities imprisoned 158 people last year on charges of belonging to banned religious organisations, up from 37 in the previous year. A local BBC correspondent was detained this week on such charges.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But can they enforce it?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/18/2011 10:37 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ummm, we could use that law in the South, too many Women render themselves "Unacceptable" by getting "Tramp Stamps' at an early age, You know those Tat's don't come off?
Or do you?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/18/2011 15:21 Comments ||
Top||
Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday (June 18) said that Pakistan was a sovereign state and would not allow CIA to launch operations in Pakistan.
I would like to promise to people and media that there is no operation of CIA going to be allowed in this country, Malik said outside Parliament House in Islamabad.
Malik also said that the countrys intelligence agencies should not be criticised, adding that 1,100 incidents of terrorism were avoided on the reports of the intelligence agencies.
Speaking to media, Malik also said Pakistani soil would not be allowed for illegal movements by anyone.
I assure you. The Government has decided that anyones illegal movements within the country shall not be allowed. Moreover, even people will not be allowed who are working in NGOs or on a visit visa and those who are staying in Pakistan with work permit. This is Pakistan and we are sovereign state, he added.
The Interior Minister has made these remarks soon after the statement made by the US military chief Mike Mullen regarding the possibility of a May 2 like attack to eliminate the new Al Qaida chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Earlier, his predecessor Osama bin Laden was killed at Abbottabad in a raid by US commandos.
Malik also informed media that the government will respect the Supreme Courts verdict on the investigation commission being formed to probe journalist Saleem Shahzads murder.
#5
Interior Minister Rehman Malik did a professional job in my opinion. Pakistan is a complex area with many problems to deal with. Calm and stability are his priority. Respect accorded will go along way in my opinion. It is what it is. In the long run we will be more productive working together.
#7
This is a political whore bitching about Bin Ladin's smiting, and Raymond Davis's extraction from their hands. I'd like to hear what happened to our "Diplomat" during his durance vile. He should have an Op run on him just to demonstrate that we can
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 18:47 Comments ||
Top||
#8
last "He" being Malik...sorry - watching golf and commenting = not well English.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 18:50 Comments ||
Top||
[Dawn] The enraged rustics blocked Bannu-Miramshah Road on Thursday to protest killing of innocent people in US drone attacks in North Wazoo Agency.
Hundreds of rustics placed the coffins of the four victims, killed in US drone attack the other day, on the main road and blocked it to all kinds of traffic. The protesting rustics were also chanting slogans against the US and Pakistain government.
The tribal elders said that they would observe complete wheel jam strike in North Waziristan on Monday against US drone attacks. More than 2,000 rustics participated in the protest and funeral of the victims, eyewitnesses said.
The victims were laid to rest by the protesters after holding rally and blocking road.
The US drones had fired four missiles at a moving vehicle on Thall-Razmak Road on Wednesday. Six people were killed in the strike. The residents of the area said that four of the victims, who belonged to Borakhel tribe, were identified. The identity of two other victims could not be established, they added.
They said that three victims, including a student, were from the same family. They were residents of Spelga village of North Waziristan. The fourth victim, Akram Shah, was a driver in Wapda, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
I won't vote for him, but I'll give Obama credit for one thing.
If it moves, he'll shoot it.
[Dawn] Pakistain said on Friday NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... aircraft attacked one of its military posts in the northwest near the Afghan border and it had expressed its serious concern to the US embassy in Islamabad.
The incident in the Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Bloody Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... tribal region comes after relations between the United States and its ally hit a new low following the killing of the late Osama bin Laden ... Maybe his Mom misses him... by US SEALS in the Pak garrison town of Abbottabad in May.
The Pak Foreign Ministry said NATO aircraft intruded around 2.5 km (1.5 miles) inside Pak territory and attacked a military post.
Its statement said Pakistain had conveyed its "serious concern" to the US embassy.
"A joint inquiry of the incident has also been requested," it said, without saying when did the incident take place.
Local officials in Mohmand said it occurred early on Friday and that a few bombs were dropped but no casualties were reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Dawn] President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... invited on Friday disgruntled Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F and Pakistain Mohammedan League-Q (Like-minded) to join the ruling coalition before a possible reshuffle in the federal cabinet early next month, according to sources in the presidency.
Following his meeting with the president in the wee hours of Friday, JUI-F head Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... also called on PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Müslim League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... Interestingly, leaders of the 'Like-minded' group Salim Saifullah and his brother Anwar Saifullah, who called on the president in the evening, had met Mr Sharif a couple of days ago.
"There is no harm if these parties join the ruling coalition," presidential front man Farhatullah Babar said.
The sources told Dawn the meetings indicated that the JUI-F and the Q-League (Like-minded) were engaged in hard bargaining with the two main political parties -- Pakistain People's Party and PML-N -- before striking a deal with either.
Mr Babar said the government would reshuffle the federal cabinet in the first week of next month and it was expected that some new faces would come into it.
The sources said the JUI-F chief had assured Mr Zardari that his party would play a 'friendly opposition' role in the Senate after Maulana Ghafoor Haideri was made leader of the opposition.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... Maulana Fazl told a private TV channel that he had met President Zardari and the PML-N chief as a head of the parliamentary committee on Kashmire to inform them about his efforts to revive the Kashmire issue in the country as well as Azad Kashmire.
"I have invited President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif to a multi-party conference on Kashmire being organised by me in the first week of July. That was the sole purpose of my meetings," he said.
Maulana Fazl said the main objective of the conference was to bring the Foreign Office, the establishment and political parties in Pakistain and AJK on the same page on the Kashmire issue. Asked if the matter of election of opposition leader in the Senate came up during his meeting with Mr Sharif, the JUI-F chief said only the issue of Kashmire had been discussed.
But PML-N sources said Maulana Fazl and Mr Sharif had discussed the issue of opposition leader in the Senate and the Abbottabad commission. They said the meeting was held in a tense atmosphere and Mr Sharif had expressed displeasure over Maulana Fazl's opposition to the formation of the commission. He also told the JUI-F chief that it was a right of PML-N to have its leader of the opposition in the upper house.
Several attempts were made to contact Salim Saifullah, but he was not available.
The PPP has already joined hands with its foe of the past, Q-League, and given it a significant position in the federal cabinet with 14 ministerial slots and one minister of state.
The PPP has also restored its relations with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which had turned unfriendly after Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza had passed derogatory remarks against the MQM over the issue of law and order and murders in Bloody Karachi. The MQM rejoined the federal cabinet last month.
Political analysts believe that the Q-League might have some reservations over the 'Like-minded' group leaders' meeting with President Zardari and in case of a settlement with the Saifullahs, the bargaining position of Chaudhry brothers would weaken.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Recognize them as what?
RAMALLAH Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged European Union nations on Friday to separately or collectively recognise the state of Palestine. During a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Abbas affirmed that the Palestinian position was to resume the peace process with Israel, expecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept to talk of two states and to halt Jewish settlements, especially in Jerusalem, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.
We are calling on the European Union to help us on the question of moving the United Nations to accept Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders, Erakat was quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Ashton arrived in Israel on Thursday and met Friday with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. She later met Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and president Abbas in the West Bank. She is due to hold talks with Netanyahu on Sunday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And, of course, they will oblige, Mahmud. How better to detract public attention from the fact that their socialist economies are running out of other people's money (not to mention having their collective ass kicked by the clown of Libya) than by engineering a crisis involving the universally hated Zionist Entity?
[Straits Times] NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN footage of terrorist detainee Mas Selamat Kastari, 50, being recaptured two years ago in Kampung Tawakal in Skudai, Johor, will be shown on television this month.
Mas Selamat: The Fugitive Terrorist chronicles the manhunt for the Singapore head of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional terrorist group after his 2008 escape from detention in Singapore.
The documentary will air on Crime & Investigation Network (StarHub Channel 403) on June 30.
The exclusive footage was obtained by director Ahmad Yazid, 27, and executive producer Lydia Lubon, 32, who produced the show under their Malaysian-based production company Rack Focus Films.
They pitched the idea to cable TV channel provider AETN All Asia Networks and started the project in March last year.
'The angle was about the pay-off of tracking down and finally arresting Asia's most-wanted runaway,' said Ms Lubon over the telephone from Kuala Lumpur.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
LONDON - President Bashar al-Assad is losing control to his hardline relatives, his forces are overstretched, his government is running out of money and the revolt against his rule is gathering support and funding.
I don't buy the underlying premise of this article. Losing control to hardline relatives? What if Bashar is the hardest liner of them all? He learned from his daddy and his older brother. He's been steeped in nastiness all his life like a cup of bad tea. What if he's the bad-ass?
Why make him out to be the 'moderate'? The question answers itself: because if he's bravely hanging on against the 'hardliners' then we suckers in the West are supposed to pity him and support him in the name of 'regional stability'. Those protesters? Er, too bad for them.
Given all this, analysts and Syrian-based diplomats say the international community is starting to plan for a Syria without the Assads.
The risks of a slide into sectarian war are significant, most Syria-watchers nonetheless say, believing Assad will fight to the end, and start to regionalize the conflict by inciting violence in Lebanon, Turkey and across the borders with Israel.
He can do what he likes in Lebanon; he and the Mad Mullahs now run the place. He won't dare start something with Israel. And Turkey has now made it clear that they're prepared to whack him if necessary. That leaves Iraq, and I don't think Bashar is that desperate. No, he'll keep this in-country.
"Despite everything they have done over the past few weeks -- killing, torture, mass arrests and raids -- the protests are continuing," said one Western diplomat. "This regime will fight to the death, but the only strategy they have is to kill people, and this is accelerating the crisis."
At least until the regime runs out of protesters to kill...
In its attempt to stamp out protests across the country of 23 million, the government has withdrawn most security forces from the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, diplomats say.
Yet each time the authorities go in hard to deal with one center of rebellion, other towns rise up.
Whack-a-mole, Syrian style...
Reliant on two elite units commanded by his brother Maher -- the 4th Armored Division and the Republican Guard -- as well as secret police and militia from his minority Alawite sect, President Assad is plainly overstretched.
"Our assessment is that the regime will fall," predicted the Damascus-based diplomat. "They have three to six months of actual military capabilities to sustain this, but they cannot keep a prolonged operation going indefinitely."
They can be re-supplied by Iran for quite a while. Iran has cash and that buys weapons, loyalty and paychecks for the security forces.
Najib al-Ghadban, a Syrian academic and activist, said in London there was a broad consensus on overthrowing the Assad family after 40 years in power.
"We believe strongly that the regime has lost its legitimacy. It has no vision on how to get the country out of the crisis. The situation is deteriorating," Ghadban said. "We are certain this will reach a positive end like Tunisia and Egypt," he added.
The international community, diplomats said, see a post-Assad era ideally facilitated by a military coup and several governments are encouraging Syrian generals to mutiny.
"We are isolating him and his family. We're addressing military leaders and cabinet members to rise up. We're encouraging the generals to rise up," the diplomat said. "The key variable is the continuation of the momentum (of the revolt). We really believe there is no point of return."
Yes, the generals might rise up. But unless they're Sunni generals it won't matter, as a new Alawite government will largely resemble the Assad regime. And there aren't many Sunnis in high positions.
He and other analysts also believe that Syria's economic paralysis, amid insistent reports the government is running out of money and having to call on its inner circle for emergency funding, will fatally weaken the Assads.
One diplomat said Assad's cousin, the business tycoon Rami Makhlouf who is a hate figure for protesters, has recently deposited $1 billion at the central bank to stabilize the Syrian pound.
"When they are no longer capable of paying the salaries of bureaucrats, the army, the police and their Alawite militia this crisis will balloon and bring about the collapse of the regime," the diplomat said. "This is a train wreck waiting to happen."
Signs of stretched resources and fraying loyalties are already apparent. As protests started to spread, the authorities pulled out contingents of security and elite forces from the capital, which are now firefighting from Deraa in the south to Jisr al-Sughour in the north, the scene of heavy reprisals after the government this month claimed to have lost 120 dead to "armed gangs."
But even so residents say there are demonstrations every weekend in Damascus and surrounding suburbs.
The bloodshed in Jisr al Shugour was the result of splits in army ranks, diplomats say, an ominous sign for the Assads.
"Around 50 soldiers and mid ranking officers defected and were supported by locals and the authorities sent a force to counter them and 120 were killed," said another Syria-based diplomat, dismissing government accounts this was the work of Salafi fundamentalists as propaganda.
He and others point to the growing sophistication of the rebellion, which draws support from across society.
"After three months this is not a poor man's uprising. There is significant financing from the Syrian business community and upper class. They give money for satellite phones, cameras, food, water and medical supplies," the resident diplomat said. "This is a broad-based movement that includes not only Syrian youth, but imams from mosques, businessmen, even former Baath party members."
In other words, it's becoming Sunni against Alawite.
Analysts are puzzled by Assad's failure to address the nation in a speech since the revolt started in mid-March. They point out that conciliatory statements by Assad promising that protesters will not be fired on and the killings that followed show that he is not in control.
Or that he was lying...
"The big unanswered question concerns the president," said Patrick Seale, biographer of Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad. "The question is: Is he (Bashar) complicit with the killing or has he been pushed aside? The people running the show are the hardliners, the thugs."
Seale added: "Assad is not in charge. He is showing no leadership. He is depasse. They have really taken over."
Or this is just his style of leadership: shoot people who protest.
Residents of Syria describe a state of fear and panic among the Alawite community, saying there had been revenge attacks against Alawite army officers and security men. They said Alawite officers in Sunni areas have pulled their children out of school and sent their families to Alawite villages or abroad.
Yup, Sunni versus Alawite. The Alawites are 10% of the population and are considered non-Muslim by the Sunnis. They're remained in power by keeping their boot-heels on the necks of the Sunnis, and that can't last forever. This is a classic "us versus them" uprising.
Syrian activist Ausama Monajed said the international community, which has put 13 Syrian officials on its sanctions list, should add army officers involved in killing protesters as well as Syrian firms linked to the Assad family.
Syrian oil sales, worth $7-8 million a day and which Monajed says go directly to fund the military, should be boycotted. Arab states must build a consensus against Assad by lobbying China and Russia for a Security Council resolution, he said.
Good luck with that. A UN resolution is worth nothing. China and Russia have demonstrated that they don't care a lick about 'the people' in the Arab uprisings. So sure, go for a UN resolution. Snicker.
All scenarios that anticipate the downfall of Assad, however, depend on the Sunni-dominated army splitting, while Western military intervention such as in Libya is unlikely in Syria because of the regional risks.
Or because of western cowardice and avarice. Take your pick.
Analysts say the risks are high that Syria, an ally of Iran and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas and with a sectarian and ethnic mix of Sunni, Kurdish, Alawite and Christians, could slip into war.
Syria, they add, can make trouble in the region by trying to incite another war between Hezbollah and Israel. Recent demonstrations on the Israeli-Syrian frontier, which had been quiet for 38 years, were encouraged by Syrian authorities in an attempt to broaden the conflict.
"The Syrians have their fingers in many pies. They have many levers to put pressure on their neighbors and create problems between Hezbollah and Israel, between Sunni and Shi'ites in Lebanon and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and AKP (Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's party) in Turkey," the diplomat said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 15:23 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
might want to stir up the populace against Hezbollah and Iran, noting that their support is arming and aiding the killing of Syrian civilians. Would like to see some killing of Republican Guard and Hezbollah goons. Perhaps note that he's using Paleo thugs to suppress Syrians. Two can play these games
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2011 16:15 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Asshard is one of about three or four in his little clique that run everything. Much of his funding is from Iran, and every penny of revenue they can squeeze out of the country goes as bribes to the army command and secret police.
Except for the subsection of the Alawite that are his closest clan, he even starves the rest of them, so even they don't love him. His strategy right now seems to be to let the secret police control Damascus, and send the most loyal Alawite elite units in his army up north, to kill and brutalize village after village until they stop resisting.
Then they will work their way south, doing the same.
Right now, the others in his little clique would give him up in a minute if they thought they could preserve their own rear ends.
#3
The Neo-Ottomans have a shot at the brass-ring here, just massing Turk forces on the border under the aegis of humanitarian good-deedery might be enough.
I'm surprised how quiet the Kurdish areas appear to be. Which indicates he doesn't have the resources to deal with them. Especially as they are likely better armed than the Sunnis.
UNITED NATIONS Syrias foreign minister is telling the UN Security Council that a proposed resolution to condemn his country is based on erroneous information and will intervene in internal affairs. We at Rantburg urge the Syrian people to hang Pencilneck...
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem says in a letter circulated Friday that he hopes the council will not hastily adopt a resolution he says will help the extremists and terrorists he blames for the countrys violence.
Human rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed since President Bashar Assads forces began cracking down on protests that broke out in March.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal are sponsoring a draft resolution to condemn Syria. They say they have the votes needed to pass it but want more support.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/18/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
DUSHANBE - Tajikistan has taken the first step toward banning children and adolescents from worshipping in mosques and churches, drawing criticism from Muslim leaders who oppose the Central Asian states crackdown on religious freedom.
Wazoo
Mohmand
Asif Ali 
The sources told Dawn the meetings indicated that the JUI-F and the Q-League (Like-minded) were engaged in hard bargaining with the two main political parties -- Pakistain People's Party and PML-N -- before striking a deal with either.
