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Russia invades Georgia
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Arkansas Armed Robbers Use No-Knock FBI Warrant To Rob House
(via Freep)

4 gunmen bust doors, yell ‘FBI,’ loot home

Two men kicked in the front door, splintering it near the bolt-lock. Two more kicked in a side door. All four had guns. It was 3 a.m. “FBI! FBI!” the men shouted, one pulling what looked like a badge out of his shirt before stuffing it back in. “Where’s your money?”

Lloyd McCuien lay facedown on the living-room floor of his Pulaski County house — off Arkansas 365 outside Maumelle and within sight of Interstate 40 — surrounded by seven family members. “It took me about 10 or 20 seconds to get my mind woken up,” McCuien, 42, said, “to realize that the real FBI didn’t wear a red bandanna over their face and a white T-shirt. These weren’t the FBI. They were self-employed.” And this was a robbery, one the Pulaski County sheriff’s office is investigating.

The gunmen ransacked the house and searched room to room to gather all the occupants in one place, pulling some out of bed at gunpoint. One of the men was heavyset, McCuien said. The other three were skinny. “They sounded young,” Mc-Cuien said. A bear of a man — he looks uncannily like The Green Mile actor Michael Clarke Duncan — McCuien tried to steal an occasional peek to see if he could see a face. “Look down,” one gunman said. A few minutes later, he tried again. “I said look down!” the gunman said, following his remark with a smack on the back of Mc-Cuien’s head with a handgun. McCuien said he heard someone say pull out the duct tape. “Either they couldn’t get the tape to work or something because they decided not to tie us up,” he said.

About then, a neighbor returned home, McCuien said, and the gunmen — organized to the point of choreography until then — started bickering. “One of them said it was time to go, time to go,” McCuien said. “But another one said no, he wasn’t leaving without taking something.” The gunmen grabbed an Xbox video-game console, baseball caps and clothes, a .45-caliber handgun and McCuien’s wallet. “They took my TV off the wall like they put it there,” he said. “Just real quick, smooth and easy.”

A vehicle with a hatchback pulled up outside, and the men left in it. According to a sheriff’s office report, the robbers left behind the duct tape, a black leather bag and a glove. “They took my nephew’s clothes, man,” McCuien said. “The TV I understand. Plasma, 42-inch. But his clothes? What are they going to do with those? Wear them?” McCuien said he believes his house was targeted specifically, though he doesn’t know the reason. “I don’t know exactly why or by who, but somebody who knows somebody or somebody who’s somebody’s cousin thought we had something in here they wanted,” he said. “This kind of thing doesn’t really happen around here.”

Sheriff ’s office spokesman John Rehrauer concurred, saying violent acts are unusual in that area. The sheriff’s office does not keep track of home-invasion robberies, Rehrauer said, but crime statistics kept by the agency showed 15 robberies of people in Pulaski County in 2008 through June, a decrease of seven from the same period a year earlier.

FBI special agent Steve Frazier, spokesman for the agency’s Little Rock field office, said he had not been notified of any possible impersonations of bureau personnel.

After the gunmen left, McCuien said, he called 911. The respondents “were real law enforcement this time — uniforms, patrol cars, everything,” he said. Deputies had made no arrests by late Thursday. McCuien said his house on Ingram Road was recently remodeled, but he didn’t suspect any of the white and Hispanic crew that worked on it.

“No, man, these were all brothers who came up in here this morning,” he said. “Sorry to say.” And, he said, he tends not to keep large amounts of cash in his house. “Where would I get it?” he asked. “I’m out of work right now, just like almost everybody else, it seems. I have no idea why somebody thought I was rich.”

McCuien said he grew up in the same neighborhood of calm and winding, sidewalkless roads, old and moldering mobile homes, and clean, newer brick houses on large lots. He lived in Phoenix for 11 years, he said, owning a dumptruck firm. He moved back about six years ago, he said, after his father had a stroke. He stayed after a sister got sick, and when she died, he moved into her house.

“This is the first I’ve heard of something like this happening around here,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking I’d make history in this neighborhood.”
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/08/2008 12:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An interesting comment by the original poster is that he has both a Federal Firearms License (FFL), and an SOT, or Federal Machine Gun License, and has notified local and local-federal law enforcement organizations that if they need to serve a warrant on his house, it had either be by prior arrangement or a "knock" warrant.

Otherwise, if someone busts through his door, they could be met with belt-fed machine gun fire.

Kind of puts a whole new twist on the use of the "no-knock warrant".
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/08/2008 13:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Shame when the cops and criminals are indistinguishable.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 13:51 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Chicom ruler banking on Olympics glory, but Iran strategy matters more
From Geostrategy-Direct, subscription. Excerpts:
Since the collapse of the USSR, China is steadily increasing its ties with the mullahs and is now one of Iran's strongest allies as a buffer on the UN Security Council and as a major supplier of technology and other assistance.

In the Asian world of gaining, saving and above all not losing face, Hu Jintao is having a roller coaster of a year. With the Olympics set to open, Chinese the world over are feeling strong surges of pride in their people and nation. As the man presiding over China's communist party and its growing military and economic power, Hu is also hosting the summer games.

But the omens this year have not been particularly good for the boyish-looking dictator what with the uprisings in Tibet and other western provinces, multiple devastating earthquakes, public relations nightmares with the likes of Steven Spielberg disassociating himself from the Olympics over human rights outrages stemming from China's policies in Tibet and Sudan. And then there is the pollution.
And don't forget the water. Beijing is sucking its aquifers dry and moving water from other areas long distances to support the Olympic Spectacle.
As a good communist, Hu has no worries about his rating in public opinion polls. What he does have to worry about is the capitalist revolution thrust upon him by Deng Xiaoping which is shaking the world's economy but, more to the point, raising the expectations of the Chinese people.
Raising expectations is a dangerous thing, when you cannot deliver to everybody.
Therefore a top priority for Hu is keeping the rapid economic growth on track. Another fundamental necessity is keeping the United States from growing overly-concerned about China's rapidly-expanding strategic and military force. In other words, Beijing needs alliances to counterbalance the United States.

Enter Iran.
Iran, North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe/ The list of fine, upstanding allies grows long....*sigh*
Soon after the Ayatollah Khomeini ousted the Shah and took power, the Soviet Union emerged as Iran's strategic and military partner. Currently Russia has been completing work on the nuclear reactor at Bushehr that has been the focus of international scrutiny and diplomacy.
And possible targeting.
But since the collapse of the USSR, China is steadily increasing its ties with the mullahs and is now one of Iran's strongest allies as a buffer on the UN Security Council and as a major supplier of technology and other assistance, as the REALITE-EU newsletter pointed out in a recent report.
Since Iran is a BIG supplier of crude oil to the Chicoms and their economic miracle.

The significance of China-Iran ties could be summarized as follows:

Beijing is indirectly helping Iran's nuclear program by refusing to back hard-line economic sanctions put forward by the UN. China backed limited UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but like Russia insisted that sanctions be limited to nuclear trade, not general trade including arms and energy. Therefore, China has in effect negated the Security Council's ability to check Iran's nuclear agenda.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has the power to veto any measures that put pressure on Iran and its joint interests with China. In 2004, for example, Zhang Yan, China's ambassador to the UN, said: "The Iran nuclear issue should and is completely capable of being resolved within the IAEA's framework, through dialogue, and China is opposed to referring the issue to the UN Security Council." In November 2005, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing similarly told reporters that sanctions "would only make the issue more complicated and difficult to work out."
No teeth, no actions. The UNSC bureaucrats should gobble it up, most of 'em.
As Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the Iranian newspaper Kayhan put it: "Sanctions are not effective nowadays because we have many options in secondary markets, like China."
A true statement.
It is on the energy front where, for bilateral ties, the rubber meets the road. China's rapidly growing economy means that its energy needs are rapidly increasing, and the expanding consumer economy with more and more private ownership of automobiles is a trend that Hu needs to make sure continues. Hu and the Chinese Communist Party will do almost anything it takes to secure its growing oil supply needs.
Including making deals with axis of evil chaps.
As the second largest oil exporter to China after Saudi Arabia, Iran now sells China about $5.8 billion in oil and petrochemical products, according to the REALITE-EU report.

Over the next seven years, the International Energy Agency projects China relying on the Middle East for 70 percent of its oil imports, up from 44 percent in 2006.
So the Chicoms are setting themselves up with the oil ticks just like the US and Japan have been doing.
China's Sinopec Group has signed a deal worth $100 billion with Iran in what has been called the "deal of century". Sinopec is to buy 250 million tons of natural gas from Iran over 30 years, and will help Iran develop its massive Yadavaran oilfield in exchange for Iran selling 150,000 oil barrels per day to China for 25 years at market prices.

China is also taking advantage of the Iranian market as an outlet for Chinese exports and technology. More than 100 Chinese state companies are operating in Iran to develop infrastructural projects including dam building, cement plants, steel mills, railways, shipbuilding, highways, airports and even public transportation.

It is in Iran's missile development, that China has provided a major boost to Iran.

In the late 1980s, China reportedly transferred HY-2 (Silkworm) anti-ship cruise missiles to Iran, resulting in a U.S. freeze on high-tech transfers to China.

Iran and North Korea reportedly worked together to improve the accuracy of the Chinese C-802, an anti-ship cruise missile with a range of 80 miles that Iran bought from China during the mid-1990s. The Washington Times reported that China signed an $11 million contract with Iran to upgrade Iran's FL-10 anti-ship missile.

In April 2004, despite China's application to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (a voluntary group of 34 countries that share the goal of non-proliferation of WMD delivery systems), the State Department sanctioned five Chinese companies, including Norinco and the China Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation, for transferring cruise and ballistic missile components and technology to Iran.
Fine, sanction these companies. The Chicoms will just make new ones. I swear, some State folks are dumb or delusional (clinical), or traitors.
In August 2007 leaders from China, Iran and Russia warned the U.S. not to interfere in strategic, resource-rich Central Asia. The implied threat came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near East and South Asian affairs in 2007 about four recent Chinese technology transfers to Iran: anti-ship missiles, air surveillance radars, a fusion reactor and a uranium prospecting operation.

Let the games begin.
The Chicoms think that they can use the Jihadis as a tool against us, but this could also blow up in their faces.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/08/2008 14:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  REDDIT > CHINA TELLS BUSH TO STAY OUT OF OTHER NATIONS' AFFAIRS [includ ASIA's].

HMMMMMM, I'm interpreting this artic as China following VLADVEDEV's = RUSSIA's lead in viewing AL-QAEDA + TALIBAN [Iran?] AS SSSSHHHHH US PROXIES FOR THE NEW DESTABILIZATION AND BREAKUP OF POST-COLD WAR ASIA???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/08/2008 22:36 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
One Nation, Under a New Obama Salute
He's a "zero"???
Posted by: tu3031 || 08/08/2008 09:34 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From Michelle Malkin's site:

And reader Jim M. e-mails: “In American sign language, the sign for ‘asshole’ is the circle formed with one hand. The new Obama sign can mean only one thing: ‘Big Asshole.’ If the sign fits…”

Love it...
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/08/2008 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Why does that sign remind be of some website image I saw once. gose.com or something like that.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 08/08/2008 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  No its the Space Hippies from Star Trek.

Charismatic but evil leader, with big ears, deluded followers. Same salute.

you decide

Obama




Space Hippies



Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 10:33 Comments || Top||

#4  I believe I would have gotten the crap beaten out of me flashing that sign in grade school. Erkel strikes again.
Posted by: TomAnon || 08/08/2008 11:10 Comments || Top||

#5  One.
One is the beginning, one is the end.
Are you one, Herbert?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 08/08/2008 11:11 Comments || Top||

#6  You know what else it reminds me of?
I'll give you a clue, they're like opinions, and everybody has one.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 08/08/2008 11:12 Comments || Top||

#7  with the rays and all, I'd have to agree bigjim-ky.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 08/08/2008 11:21 Comments || Top||

#8  I think their messge is "Shut up and drink the koolaid".

Heh.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Someone made the caption underneath ti accurate. Here is the updated "symoble" wiht the truthful caption.


Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 12:04 Comments || Top||

#10  .... goatse.cz
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 08/08/2008 12:39 Comments || Top||

#11  You do not want to visit the site from post 10. Really.
Posted by: Hellfish || 08/08/2008 13:01 Comments || Top||

#12  used to be the slashdot prank went to goatse.cx.

And trust me - there are some things that cannot be undone. Seeing the picture at that site is one of them. Its grotesque and sick, and is enough to make you feel physically ill.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 13:55 Comments || Top||

#13  How the hell does he do that?
Posted by: Bertie Grise4247 || 08/08/2008 15:04 Comments || Top||

#14  Other suggested captions....

"We support the zero!"

Posted by: Herman Spaper1682 || 08/08/2008 21:57 Comments || Top||


Obama Finds an ACORN
The man who includes being a community organizer on his short resume has a long association with a far-left group that would organize our communities into socialist gulags.

In 1995, Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar balked at implementing the federal motor voter law out of concern that letting people register via postcard and blocking the state from pruning voter rolls might invite vote fraud.

A young lawyer, a community organizer himself, sued on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) and won. The young lawyer was Barack Obama. Acorn later invited Obama to train its staff.

When Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago with Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the Woods Fund frequently gave Acorn grants to fund its agenda and voter registration activities.

Acorn has been in the lead in opposing voter ID laws and other efforts to ensure ballot integrity. Acorn has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Ohio and at least 13 other states. Acorn staffers will presumably be out registering voters again this year.

Obama also opposes voter ID laws. He believes they disenfranchise voters. Last year, Obama put a hold on the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for a seat on the Federal Election Commission. It seems von Spakovsky, as an official in the Justice Department, had supported a Georgia photo ID law. Acorn espouses the leftist view that voter ID laws are racist.

In addition to subverting American democracy to promote a leftist agenda, Acorn's radical agenda amounts to "undisguised authoritarian socialism." wrote Sol Stern in the 2003 City Journal article, "Acorn's Nutty Regime for Cities." Acorn opposed welfare reform and opposes securing American borders to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. Acorn was heavily involved a few years back in opposing Rudy Giuliani's efforts to privatize failing New York schools.

Acorn also has been in the lead supporting the "living wage" and opposing efforts by big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart to bring the bounty and benefits of free-market capitalism to inner cities. Wal-Mart has faced resistance to its plans to expand into urban centers -- most notably Chicago and Los Angeles -- where unions and liberal orthodoxy remain strong. Opponents there charge that such big-box stores exploit workers, depress wages and drive out community businesses.

Acorn, Obama's former client, supported a big-box living-wage ordinance vetoed by Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley to require stores of at least 90,000 square feet operated by firms with $1 billion or more in annual sales nationwide to pay workers a minimum of $10 an hour plus $3 in benefits.

Critics such as Acorn, who complain that Wal-Mart employees live paycheck to paycheck, forget that many of Wal-Mart's customers also live paycheck to paycheck and seek quality merchandise at decent prices, which is why 100 million people shop there every week.

How can they oppose "low" wages for Wal-Mart employees while in effect supporting higher prices for Wal-Mart customers? They can because they believe the socialist orthodoxy that capitalism is bad, government is good and that the solution to poverty is to make everyone equally poor.

Wal-Mart gives people what they want at a price they can afford. It believes a fair wage is one agreed upon between employee and employer. It is the poster child for roll-up-your-sleeves capitalism. It is efficient, innovative, successful and nonunion -- everything government is not -- and is opposed for all these reasons.

Advocates of the so-called living wage see their efforts as putting money directly into workers' pockets. But it merely transfers money from one person's pocket to another person's pocket. This is classic socialist income redistribution -- not economic justice, but economic extortion.

In the real world, companies that pay workers more than the value of the goods and services they produce go out of business. Workers should be paid what their labor is worth, not what their lifestyle requires.

On his Web site, Obama embraces Acorn's socialist goal, pledging to "raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation and housing."

That money would come from taxpayers and business owners or, as Marx would say, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/08/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Nuclear soothsayers’ group
By Arundhati Ghose

At a meeting at the US think tank, the Brookings Institution, a day before the adoption by the IAEA Board of Governors of the recommendation of the director general to approve the India-specific safeguards agreement, Robert Einhorn, a former US official dealing with non-proliferation and a nuclear absolutist, said that he was confident that “if the Nuclear Suppliers Group makes a decision by secret ballot, the proposal for a special exemption (for India) will fail”. However, he added, somewhat ruefully, since there would be no secret ballot, the decision was likely to “favour India because a vast majority of NSG members will not want to disappoint India or the US”.

Reactions from the Vienna IAEA meeting were mixed: some saw the approval as an endorsement of the agreement itself, others have highlighted the “concerns” voiced by a large number of states during the debate as indicative of opposition — to the agreement and to India. Notwithstanding Einhorn’s prediction, there is no doubt that those “concerns” will become much more sharply focused in the NSG. India has asked the United States to push for a “clean and unconditional” waiver for India from the restrictions placed by the NSG on international nuclear commerce; the US appears now to be making a distinction between a “clean” waiver and an “unconditional” one.

Before turning to likely “conditions” that may become the focus of debate in the NSG, it may be necessary to revisit the origins of the NSG to understand why the discussions there may be different from the ones in the IAEA.

The NSG was set up in 1975, primarily to implement sanctions on nuclear commerce with India, as a reaction to India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion in 1974. It needs to be remembered that PNEs were an accepted concept at that time and are exempted, even today, in the text of the NPT. The NPT came into force in 1970, and Pokharan I was seen as the defiance by a weak country of the will of the powerful. China and France continued nuclear testing for weapons purposes, when they were not members of the NPT. In 1992, the NSG included in their guidelines dual-use technologies — any item or technology which might contribute to a sanctioned country’s nuclear programme — even if the import was for non-nuclear sectors. This was further reinforced by the “catch-all” lists which could include any items, even those not specifically mentioned in the guidelines.

Later, NSG guidelines, which are meant exclusively for non-nuclear weapon states, demanded that these states accept safeguards on all facilities since the non-nuclear weapon states had voluntarily given up their right to manufacture nuclear weapons. There is a strange irony in the fact that the organisation which was set up in reaction to India’s first nuclear test should today be faced with a proposal to issue a waiver of its guidelines exceptionalising India.

Quite naturally, the issue of India conducting more nuclear tests will be one of the focal points of discussion in the NSG at its next meeting. This was reflected in the debate in the IAEA Board of Governors on August 1— a number of countries, even among those that supported the India-specific safeguards agreement, called for India to adhere to the CTBT; others expressed concern at the inherent linkage between the duration of the safeguards agreement and the supply of fuel. This, in their view, would undercut the ability of the NSG to react to any future testing by India. Of the five NPT nuclear weapon states, three — Russia, the United Kingdom and France — have signed and ratified the CTBT. The US and China have not — India has not even signed the treaty and Pakistan’s position would invariably reflect India’s. Even though there is no overt reference to testing in the 123 Agreement, US laws requiring a “right of return” of equipment and material in the event of a nuclear test remain intact, unamended by the Hyde Act. Other countries in the NSG may wish to include some reference to testing in the decision to grant an exemption to India from its restrictive guidelines. The chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, has made it clear that the NSG guidelines are meant for non-nuclear weapon states; India has nuclear weapons and is not in violation of any laws or obligations as it is not a member of the NPT. He was clear that India retained the option to “walk out” of the entire exercise, if unwelcome conditions were attached to the NSG decision. Some might believe that India is in so deep, particularly after the domestic drama of the last few weeks, that it may not be in a position to walk out; this would be a misreading of the situation. It has been India’s reaction to unwelcome international legally binding constraints to walk out of a situation rather than accept a situation and then hope for the best.

Another focal point of debate is likely to be the exceptionalising of India: however, since there has been a consensus already on such exceptionalisation in the IAEA, it is not likely to be a major stumbling block. Other issues such as a moratorium on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes are also likely to be raised, though India’s positive participation in the CD on the FMCT will be a point in its favour.

It needs to be noted that the NSG only issues guidelines: each participating state will decide, on the basis of its own export control laws, how it should implement the guidelines. To that extent, even if there is a clean waiver, India will have to negotiate with supplier countries on an individual basis, before commercial contracts can be signed for the import of reactors, technology or fuel.

The choice before the NSG should be clear; if the waiver is not acceptable to India, it would be free to go its own way. This would surely not be in the interest of the global non-proliferation regime. On the other hand, a clean waiver would make India a powerful partner in the struggle against proliferation and the efforts towards nuclear disarmament.

The writer is former ambassador of India to the United Nations in Geneva. In 1996 she vetoed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at the Conference on Disarmement
Posted by: john frum || 08/08/2008 07:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


A long never-ending collective moan
By Khaled Ahmed

America’s most important non-NATO ally, Pakistan, hates America most today. The feeling is high after having pocketed US$10 billion as assistance from Washington. We hate the Americans because they gave this money to a dictator we loved in 1999 but hate now. We additionally think that America has come to the region looking for oil and hegemony, for getting hold of our nuclear weapons, etc, and is here for good, undermining Pakistan and empowering India against us. We hate America for sticking around this time, but not long ago we hated it for not sticking around after winning the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.

We hated America in the 1950s for sending us the wrong sort of wheat under PL480 when we were faced with famine because of our bad local wheat seed. American wheat was reddish in colour and the Americans couldn’t help it. When in 1968 an American scientist, Norman Borlaug, got the Nobel Prize for giving Pakistan the new seed that permanently put an end to the threat of famine in Pakistan, we quickly forgot about it. More fresh was the wound inflicted by America when it turned away from us after we started a war with India in 1965. We never liked the way the Americans tended to think about us and India.

Record shows that first we get what we demand, then we complain about not getting what we deserve. In his book The White House and Pakistan (OUP 2002), FS Aijazuddin quotes a 1966 State Department memorandum to President Johnson on the same theme: ‘Thus, while we can’t blame the Paks for being unhappy with us, it isn’t because we betrayed them; it is because their own policy of using us against India has failed. They know full well we didn’t give them $800 million in arms to use against India (but they did). Even so we built up Pakistan’s own independent position and sinews – to the tune of almost $5 billion in support. We’ve protected Pakistan against India; we had more to do with stopping the war Ayub had started than anyone else (just in time to save Paks).’

In later years, Pakistanis have had a tendency to over-value Pakistan and think the US should have paid more for its services. Irshad Haqqani ( Jang 22 May 2003) dwelling on what Pakistan got for helping the US win the Afghan war thought General Zia could have got up to US$50 billion out of the US because America had carried out “thousands of air attacks” in Afghanistan from Pakistani bases. He perhaps thought Pakistan had paid dearly for Zia’s Islamic reforms. If America’s strategic objectives coincide with Pakistan’s, what is Pakistan to do? Change its objectives? General Zia told us that they coincided and went ahead with his great ‘deniable’ jihad. What he did internally was not dictated by America.

Why this simmering Pakistani hatred for America even as America shells out big money to cover up for Pakistan’s economically inept alternation of democracy and dictatorship? Pragmatism is not the way of life Pakistanis like. They look at the world emotionally and take their state ideology seriously. For Pakistan, a state with restricted resources, sticking to the dictates of nationalism is ever more difficult. Seeking any realistic solution to the Kashmir problem throws the country into disorder. Normalising relations with India, or starting trade with it under the SAARC agreements, pleases no one.

The country’s foreign policy has been moulded by its early confrontational posture with India. There are many demons here that emerge at the most unlikely junctures. If the anti-India policy is a pillar, so is the membership of a mythical Muslim umma . There are times when Pakistan judges the world on how the world behaves towards India. There are also times when it applies the yardstick of the Muslim umma . When it comes to the umma perspective, Pakistan has reason to hate America even more for waging a crusade against Islam.

Someone has made a more serious study of the subject in Washington. The scholar is Dennis Kux, a South Asia expert of the State Department, who served twice as a diplomat in Pakistan. His book The United States and Pakistan 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies (OUP 2001) treats the theme of this ‘strange bedfellowship’ quite professionally. He thinks that the Pak-US relations fluctuated sharply across the years, beginning nicely in 1954, coming apart in the 1960s during Kennedy and Johnson presidencies, improving a bit during Nixon’s rule, but fracturing again when Carter was president.

In the 1980s, the Republicans got together with Pakistan during the covert war in Afghanistan, but after the departure of the Soviet armies from Afghanistan, a Republican president clamped the Pressler Amendment on Pakistan. After Pakistan defied Clinton on the nuclear tests in 1998, sanctions were applied, compounded again in 1999 when General Musharraf overthrew democracy in Pakistan. He writes: ‘Pakistanis tend to attribute decline in American interest in Pakistan to inconstancy and fickleness. In turn, Americans often assert that the frequent twists and turns stem from Pakistan’s wrong-headedness, particularly its fixation with India’.

Pakistan’s security perspective is regional; America’s is global. The clash occurs somewhere close to the where the two perspectives are sought to be joined. When that happens, the shivers first run down the spine of the Pakistan army, after which the intelligence agencies take over. The smaller you are in terms of power the bigger and more fragile your pride. After that the columnists and TV anchors form their angry phalanx, and what you have then is an orgy of unrealistic passions. Our disenchantment with America has become a long never-ending collective moan. It is the wages of a superpower with a global vision trying to couple with a state whose vision is restricted to a region.
Posted by: john frum || 08/08/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well written. I wish all countries could take an honest look in the mirror.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/08/2008 10:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Pls, no Pakistani Bashing, it is unca.... no wait a sec, THIS IS RANTBURG!

No Paki-Bashing pls.
Posted by: .5MT || 08/08/2008 12:48 Comments || Top||


Indo-Israeli-US nexus
Sultan M Hali

The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs. This lover of Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan. Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore India is the most important base for us to work there from against Pakistan. It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, the enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans. ——David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister Jewish Chronicle, 09 August 1967

David Ben Gurion’s words are still milk and honey to the Indians. India had been courting the Arabs but colluding with Israel for many years. Finally in 1992, under BJP pressure, the then Congress government in India established formal diplomatic relations with Israel. It may be recalled that in 1992, cash-starved India desperately needed $3 billion in aid from the World Bank and the IMF that operate under strict US control. It was decided to mobilize the support of the Jewish lobby in the USA to secure the loans. That is how Prime Minister Narasimha Rao became the first Indian head of Government to dump the PLO and openly court Israel according diplomatic recognition to Israel. Former US Congressman Stephen Solarz, who works closely with the Israeli lobby in the US and American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPC) has been guiding Indian lobby in the US. In June 1988, Mr. Solarz headed a delegation of Jewish leaders to India that met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He handed over a memorandum to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi that called for India’s recognition of Israel and the establishment of diplomatic ties. Recognition of Israel was accelerated by the collapse of the USSR and halt in Soviet arms supply to India. But the tilt had already started when India voted with the US for rescinding a UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism.

Vajpayee government shifted its focus from the Arab nations to Israel. The Asian Age commented that following the Israeli President’s state visit to India in 1996 (the first ever), Israel had signed lucrative agreements with the Indian armed forces, including upgradation of India’s MiG-21 aircraft and the ageing Jaguars, modernizing the electronic system of its aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, and replacement of Indian Army’s 130mm gun barrels with those of 155mm caliber. In 1996, the architect of India’s missile programme, and later the Indian President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam made his first visit to Israel. It is ominous that in May 1998, India exploded five nuclear devices, out of which, it is believed that at least one if not two were Israeli. The Indo-Israeli nexus did not stop there but went a step further and tried to take out Pakistan’s nuclear programme like the Israeli aircraft had successfully destroyed Iraqi atomic reactors in 1981.

In June 2000, Shimon Peres’ on his visit to India was warmly welcomed by the Indians, especially after the Israeli foreign minister publicly extended his full support for India’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was extended a cold shoulder on his visit to India a week earlier. This is a far cry from Indian Independence Movement leader Mohandas K. Gandhi’s declaration that: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code or conduct.”

Since 1992, the trade between the two countries has grown from $ 200 million to $ 1 billion and there are more than 150 joint ventures. According to information gleaned from published sources, Israeli satellite Ofek-5 provide images of Pakistan’s atomic and military installations. Israel has delivered the highly advanced Green Pine radar system for Israel’s Arrow anti-missile missile, three electronic tracking and command centers and the Rafael version of the Popeye cruise missile.

Jane’s Information Group, the world’s premier intelligence information source, ominously reported in July 2001 that “The Indian spy agency RAW and the Israeli spy agency Mossad have created four new agencies to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism.”

With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s September 7-10, 2003 visit to India, a new chapter of Indo-Israeli collusion opened. Having failed to develop its own AWAC system, India decided to acquire the Phalcon Radars and install them on the Russian IL-76 aircraft. Thus a tripartite agreement was signed on October 10th at the Indian Defence Ministry involving Israeli and Russian defense representatives. In 2006 Indian Army Chief JJ Singh visited Israel and reviewed ongoing projects with Israel, ranging from mounting of Israeli TISAS (thermal-imaging stand alone systems) on 500 BMP-2 infantry combat vehicles and the massive upgrade of 300 T-72M1 tanks to the production of hand-held thermal imagers and LORROS (long-range reconnaissance and observation systems).

Israelis supplied weapons from their operating units when India sought equipment at the height of the Kargil war in 1999. The Indian Army has been using the Israeli manufactured infantry rifles for the past few years in Kashmir and the 750-km long anti-infiltration fence along the Line of Control is fitted with Israeli anti-personnel devices like thermal imagers. The volume of defense business between the two countries can be gauged from the fact that Israel has already supplied Barak missiles to the navy, night fighting devices to the army and the air force, improving the radar network of the IAF supplying, besides hi-tech electronic warfare and information technology.

US-Israel relations are deep rooted; after 9/11 India reoriented its foreign policy to accommodate the changing realities of international milieu and find a position in USA -Israeli camp. The most striking commonality is their perception of Islam as their common enemy and their common target is illegal acquisition of wealth and resources of the Muslim World. US-India defense engagement has reached to new limits usually reserved for close US allies and friends, ranging from joint exercises in Alaska to sales of military hardware and sharing nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise. The ongoing acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s tribal belt are being attributed to this nexus, which portends ominous results, and Pakistan needs to be wary of it as Afghanistan is being used to forward the nefarious aims of the nexus.

The writer is a retired Group Captain of the Pakistan Air Force
Posted by: john frum || 08/08/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IIRC, Kosher American Dehli.
Posted by: penguin || 08/08/2008 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  The penguin,
IIRC, Kosher American Dehli.

heh Mr. Penguin, I'll take a Mighty Ruben Sammy with lots of Chutney, Saffron and Curry on it! <|:)
Posted by: Red Dawg || 08/08/2008 1:48 Comments || Top||

#3  These Pakis are fecking paranoid AND stupid, with a grandiose self-important but deluded world view.

A remarkably dangerous combination.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 2:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Pakis are Arab wannabes in spite of the fact that they are routinely deported from Arab countries. Maybe they will take a hint someday.
Posted by: McZoid || 08/08/2008 3:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Intelligent Paks realize the only reason the Hindus didn't exterminate them is that the US protected them, in retrospect a mistake.
Posted by: RWV || 08/08/2008 12:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Intelligent Paks

Please explain?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/08/2008 16:50 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
The great Oil Bubble has burst
Posted by: lotp || 08/08/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Speaking for "fire", IRNA > UK SCIENTIST SAYS: PREPARE FOR [potens dangerous/catatsrophic]GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGE OF 4C. Due to world failure to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

HMMMMM, methinks what he is trying hard NOT to say is that SOLAR ACTVITY WILL INTENSIFY = SUN WILL GET HOTTER.

CHALK UP ANUTHER ONE FOR 2008-2012 [2016]???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/08/2008 0:51 Comments || Top||

#2  The speculation bubble is gone, but can and will return if we do not start to increase domestic production, as well as innovate ways away from useing petroleum for transport, and reduce consumption via alternatives and efficienncy in the interim.

Drill here, drill now, set up wind, solar thermal, geothermal and clean coal, all of which are short to medium term soltuions. Then use the time bought tio build nukes and create the new non-petroleum technologies we need.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 2:42 Comments || Top||

#3  It wasn't a bubble in the first place. The market is correcting 15% or so. Entirely normal. It will be back up to $145 within a couple of months, barring a collapse of the world economy.
Posted by: phil_b || 08/08/2008 3:42 Comments || Top||

#4  The price will jump back up if we don't show we are serious about increasing supply while reducing demand.

Drill, build nuke plants and invest in bio-diesel. That is really the only way to improve the energy situation until we can get fusion and fuel cells going.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/08/2008 9:45 Comments || Top||

#5  I see two options:
(1) "Drill, build nuke plants and invest in bio-diesel. That is really the only way to improve the energy situation until we can get fusion and fuel cells going."
(2) Conquer Mexico and Canada and take their oil.

Someone should ask Obama and McCain which they support. As right after they take a sip of water so we can watch them spurt and sputter and see if it comes out of their nose.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/08/2008 10:39 Comments || Top||

#6  Its $116.35 right now, showing more downward pressure. If there really were a lot of stop losses set at $116.99 then we could see a good slide on the black stuff this week. Now lets get all the rats to short oil instead of running it up.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 08/08/2008 10:40 Comments || Top||

#7  The PRC and India are still subsidizing oil consumption by various methods.

There is a good chance that China will phase this out after the olympics and India will phase it out over this winter. If that happens, the demand will be suppressed by a million or two bb/day which would probably result in another $10-$30/barrel decrease in the short run.

On the other hand, maybe Iran or Venezuala may have continue to fall off in production due to infrastruction decay.
Posted by: mhw || 08/08/2008 11:51 Comments || Top||

#8  investors have jumped to food as the next place to speculate. check out grain prices now vs. a couple months ago. Mrs. Ret went to the NASWI Commisary yesterday and reported a sizeable jump in all foods from last month; cooking oil 3x, fish 2x, bread 1.5x, etc. and the commo is a not for profit operation. next few months will be interesting.
and think about this: Japan has reportedly purchased huge grain storage facilities and has negotiated directly with the farmers ( cutting out ADM, and all the major ag companies) for grain. all they need is transport to the seaports and the foodstocks are off to Japan.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 08/08/2008 14:24 Comments || Top||

#9  Again, its speculators creating demand above and beyond that of consumers.

I say, for futures, force higher margin requirements, and require them to take delivery or provide legal certification that they are capable of taking delivery.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/08/2008 19:47 Comments || Top||



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