I like the part where Al-ien Gore is mentioned: "The concern now is that he might not be as friendly to humanity as he was thought to be, and that his appearance on Earth might be part of a planned alien takeover attempt. People willingly giving power to this 'freak' would be much more effective than an 'Independence Day' style invasion."
#2
I want some of what he's smoking! Except it would probably cost me my clearance and job.
I've been to Nellis. No big deal, just things the bad guys shouldn't know about. Believe me if we had alien space weapons and weather control, Iran and the Norks would not be around.
#5
actually while reading it i wondered is this a product supposidly of 'scaler weaponry' or whatever its called - look i can say this seriously before you start because im sat here smoking, lol - but these weather programs have been around for years - yeah i know in so much as its making the rain fall and shit when crops need a drink, but in the huge picture of technolagy,scientists,goverment and all that crap is it too far off to believe some goverments with money to burn or extort wouldnt want a slice of the pie if they could get it ,mmm pie, hell back before atom bombs and the thermo nuclear era came about people were quated as saying trying to create a weapon from atoms is absurd or something similar. I don't know (i can see you nodding lol) but is this truly to far out to envision at least a level of interest and research from certain goverments? I think goverments are intersted certainly but not in area 51 sytle with greys and saucers and sht but probably some dull office situated in some dull city in some on think tank type organisation - DARPA or something similar. Anyway que X-files theme and use the force :)
#7
Don't feel bad, OS. In a double-blind comparison test, 73.8% of the subjects were unable to tell ScrappleFace articles from API news blurbs. (sure, I just made that up. So what! It *could* be true)
My Parody Alert started buzzing while reading the article about polar bears suffering from heat exhaustion where the hunter's name was Jeremiah Johnson.
#10
Don't feel bad, OS. In a double-blind comparison test, 73.8% of the subjects were unable to tell ScrappleFace articles from API news blurbs. (sure, I just made that up. So what! It *could* be true)
Maybe fake ...maybe not. How better to hide something that to out it and let folks call it parody. Me thinks it worked for the Stealth fighter...yup we got alien aircraft flyin' overhead
#1
Okay, I'll bite, this article seems to be saying the act was still murder even though the victim allegedly demanded to killed and consumed. Gotta wonder whats going in in post-Cold War unified Germany to have people like these!?
"In the last year-and-a-half, more than 300 years of experience has either been pushed out or walked out the door in frustration. This has left the agency in free-fall. I have visited these brave and committed women and men in nearly every corner of the globe, and urge the new director do so. They deserve maximum support and a clear vision of where their agency is headed."
Quite unintentionally, Democratic Representative Jane Harman's press release on the resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss is a decent guide to the debilitating problems afflicting the agency's clandestine service. Although the operations directorate has certainly been in free-fall, this condition has very little to do with Mr. Goss's tenure. The CIA is a dispirited organization. It should be: The end of the Cold War removed a sustaining sense of purpose and the broad indulgence of the agency's unenviable record of clandestine-intelligence collection, counterespionage and analytical forecasting.
The nature and exigencies of the Cold War (and the attendant literary fascination with cloak-and-dagger stories that usually bore little resemblance to the truth) successfully camouflaged much of the internal rot. Case officers love to deceive themselves and others about their work. Would you want to admit that the most important espionage achievement of the Cold War was to wait inside U.S. embassies and consulates for Soviet officials to walk in, volunteering their information and services? Or would you want to admit today that CIA officers who wait for Pakistani, Jordanian and Egyptian security officers to give them information are the "front-line" operatives in the war on terror?
Another myth is on the verge of being born. To wit: Porter Goss, the conservative ideologue, greatly politicized the CIA, and encouraged or forced several critically important senior officers to leave the agency, thus dispiriting the entire organization.
Implicit in Ms. Harman's commentary -- made more explicit elsewhere by her, by other Democrats in Congress, and by sympathetic members of the press -- is the assumption that the Bush administration is waging a vendetta against Langley's upper echelons for their hostility to the administration and their embarrassing leaks to the press, especially before the 2004 elections. The current version of this theme, best articulated by Howard Dean of the Democratic National Committee, posits a completely apolitical, professional CIA -- correctly analyzing Iraq (weapons of mass destruction excepted, of course) -- being pounded by a partisan, bellicose, mendacious Republican administration, punishing those who speak truth to power.
One has the sneaking suspicion that Mr. Dean, like others in politics and the press, really has no idea at all what CIA case officers, working-level analysts and their few Iraqi reporting assets (overwhelmingly expatriate cliques of former Baathist Sunni military officers) were writing about Iraq from 2001 until the invasion. I'll take a bet that not a single analyst or Iraq task-force case officer foresaw, in a written report, the all-important role of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the senior Shiite clergy; the power of the Salafi fundamentalist movement among the Sunnis; or the speed and nature of the Sunni insurgency before the insurgency actually developed.
But a remote understanding of the CIA has not prevented Mr. Dean, and others, from speaking with certainty about how astute Langley was in Iraq. Few seem to suggest that some in the senior management of the CIA might possibly want to rewrite history to make themselves look better, or that agency officers, like senior State Department officials, can occasionally misbehave and forget that they are apolitical executive-branch officers.
So what do we actually know about the state of the CIA -- especially the clandestine service, which has always defined the agency? And what can we say about Porter Goss's brief tenure?
The one thing we know for sure is that Mr. Goss certainly didn't degrade the capabilities of Langley, given how poor the espionage capacity already was. And the agency's covert-action (CA) capabilities -- against targets that really mattered (for example, Iran) -- were for most purposes nonexistent when Mr. Goss arrived and remain so today (the brain and muscle for these things take years to develop). A working-level CIA officer familiar with the operations directorate's Iran assets described Langley's CA abilities inside Iran from 2000 through 2004 as "unchanged: they're zero."
Unknowingly, Ms. Harman also reveals how stubbornly the CIA has refused to alter the method, and thus the effectiveness, of deploying its case officers overseas. According to the congresswoman, "I just saw those people in the field in the Middle East, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Israel last week. I saw the new recruits and I saw the chiefs of station in these states . . . [and] they're doing a lot better."
With all due respect to Ms. Harman, in all probability, they are not. No chief of station or case officer would ever discuss active operational cases or files in sufficient detail or historical depth to allow her or her staff to make any judgment whatsoever on the quality of any foreign-intelligence assets being run in any of these countries.
Chiefs of station and case officers will, however, do dog-and-pony shows for congressmen, which have been, over the years, remarkably effective in playing on the patriotic chords of our elected officials. (I must confess that I once did one for senior congressmen visiting "the farm," the CIA's espionage training facility located in the Virginia swamp lands. I came away believing that Lincoln's dictum about fooling all of the people some of the time might need to be revised in the case of congressional intelligence-oversight committee members.)
The CIA has stubbornly refused to move away from stations and bases within official facilities overseas, where most American operatives pose as fake diplomats. Such officers were undoubtedly most of the folks Ms. Harman met. This official-cover deployment, combined with a promotion system premised overwhelmingly on a "head-count" of "recruited" agents, had atrociously poor results during the Cold War, producing hundreds of assets on the books with no real intelligence value, except as means for case-officer advancement and cash performance awards.
Foreign intelligence services, if minimally competent, can identify and track these officers when they choose to focus their surveillance resources, which has happened much more frequently since the end of the Cold War. It is simply absurd to believe that these officially covered operatives, who still represent a preponderant majority of case officers stationed overseas, have much value against an Islamic terrorist target or any hard target protected by a competent counterespionage service (for example, a Pakistani military officer with access to Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program).
The upper mid-level and senior case officers who have left the agency since Mr. Goss's appointment are operatives who prospered in a thoroughly corrupt service. This is not the type of "experience" that you would want to preserve.
If one used Ms. Harman's idea of lost collective experience and soberly assessed the number of operatives now serving in the CIA who offer no real value against any hard target -- they either lack the skill; are permanently compromised by overseas postings with bad cover; are too old to work against young-man targets (which is emphatically the case with the Islamic militant target); or are too encumbered with family to be deployed sensibly as nonofficial cover officers against this threat -- the Bush administration and Congress should want to shed about 15,000 years of "experience" (multiplying the number of years in service by the number of irretrievably mediocre case officers). If this number seems shockingly large, then that only underscores how surreal the discussion has been in Washington about the depth of Langley's systemic problems.
Regrettably, reform at the CIA is now dead. The only real chance opened immediately after 9/11 and closed when President Bush decided to retain the services of George Tenet, who always remained close and sympathetic to the operations directorate. Ms. Harman, many other prominent Democrats, and the anti-Bush press have put another nail into the clandestine service's coffin by rallying around an organization that desperately needs to be radically deconstructed. However tepidly or lazily Mr. Goss approached his work, he and his abrasive minions ought to be complimented for at least firing somebody. Given the history of the CIA, this is not an insignificant achievement.
In the 1980s, it was the Republican Party which was hopelessly lost concerning the supposed value and achievements of the CIA. Today, it's the Democrats who've lost it. This is a pity. The first-rate young men and women at the CIA, who have been quitting Langley quietly in large numbers for decades, deserve better.
Mr. Gerecht, a Middle Eastern specialist with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1985 to 1994, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/10/2006 01:58 ||
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#1
The CIA is a dispirited organization. It should be: The end of the Cold War removed a sustaining sense of purpose and the broad indulgence of the agency's unenviable record of clandestine-intelligence collection, counterespionage and analytical forecasting.
Ouch. And in the Wall Street Journal, no less. Talk about speaking truth to power!
#2
CIA is broken beyond repair. Time to parcel out its assets to other agencies and sell off the building (great real estate values in northern Virginia).
Posted by: Jonathan ||
05/10/2006 9:45 Comments ||
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#3
I suspect that a traditional major corporation reorganization is ongoing. That is, first bring in a hatchet man to eliminate the deadwood, who has just a short tenure; then bring in an expert who rebuilds, and only surgically eliminates the few remaining problems.
#4
"more than 300 years of experience has either been pushed out or walked out the door"
Probably 10 people with 30 years piloting a desk. And I could think right now of just the right 10 people "with over 300 years experience" whose departure would improve things a lot.
If only these peopel knew how politicized and CYA things have become.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the CIA is unsalvagable - its structure is for the Cold War and is inappropriate to the war we now face. We had a monolithic agency with a monolithic enemy (Soviet Union) and monolithic opponent (KGB/GRU).
Those no longer exist - we now have a scattered enemy thats quite malleable, geographically divirse, and well dispersed. In a word, "nimble".
We need to break the CIA up, and make our intelligence system "nimble" in response to the multi-source, multi-spectrum trheats we face today as a nation.
Make it into The analysis branch of DNI - the Central Analysis Agency (CAA) that but does nothign but all-source analysis, splitting off Ops into its own agency of "James Bond" types called the Central Intelligence Service (CIS) which can then more easily interoperate with SOCOM, and HUMINT into its own agency called the Clandestine Intelligence Agency CIA (classic spying - developing networks humint agents, infiltrations, etc), and the rest (Technology, etc) into their own agency Central Support Agency CSA. And last but not least, break the IG office up and send parts of it to live with each of the new agencies, but have it report in to an overall DNI IG.
This would fix things, allow for more rapid changes to be responded to, and keep biases of one department from interfering in the functions of another.
As an example, look at the whole Wilson/Plame mess - Analysis was allowed to screw up HUMINT by sending their lapdog relative on a mission that he should never have gone on because he was grossly underqualified. Anyone complaining to the contrary got ignored by the IG because of their internal anti-Bush politics (Like Sherer and his book). In a split agency, the ANALYSIS agency woudl ahve requested more info in uranium in Africa from the HUMINT folks (as well as other agencies like NSA), and they would have chosen who and how to get that data. Recommending Joe Wilso would have been rejected by the HUMINT pros, becaus they'd already have an area resourc on hand that was qualified. And the Analysis coudl request SIGINT info from NSA or whomever and used it to crosscheck the HUMINT, and produce a better substantiated report to the top-levle analysis at DNI, who woudl then have been able to report it properly to the president.
See? It is possible to fix the CIA by breaking it apart - its already a broken agency with an outmmoded structure and a ton of political institutional rot. Remove the rot while restructuring the agency. The act of restructuring the agency itself will remove a ton of the cross-support for the political rot that exists.
Do that and you've got a winner - an intelligence system that is "nimble" and accountable enough to defend the US.
It is frightening that Hayden is getting great reviews on NPR, in spite of the uniform, he's going to bring Kappas back in the #2 slot and all the unfortunately terminated operatives and analysts are calling Langley to find out how they can get back.
#6
....The current version of this theme, best articulated by Howard Dean of the Democratic National Committee,... HMMMMMM. Personally, I've never thought of the 'Screamer' as being articulate.
#7
Those people wanting back in are in for a surprise if Hayden does to CIA what he did to NSA. The way I hear it, DIRNSA Hayden depoliticised that agency, reorganized it, opening it up and breaking a ton of the political cross-links that were there. He emphsized its function and that it be politically neutral. Even outsourced (well, contracted is a better word) some functions to generate innovation and enterpraneurship that brought in new ideas and methods without putting the central functons of the agency at risk. As a consequence, NSA works like it is supposed to. I have a ton of respect for them.
If he continues as he did at NSA/CSS, those folks in CIA are in for a shock - they are going to be required to be professionals insteead of politicians. And check their biases and old-boy club cards at the door.
Its about time.
(But I still think it needs to be split into several, more nimble, agencies, and to get analysis, humint and specops seperated from each other).
#8
Spook I agree that it can be fixed and maybe (just maybe) Hayden is that person to do it. I have a soft spot for the man because he is an Inteligence Officer and not a flyer, part-time spook, or a desk jockey. He has worked in the field and craft. Mind you, damn few CIA chiefs get down in the weeds but I'll bet that the briefers will think twice about trying to float something past him (ie Niger/Wilson). He knows how things are done and who is supposed to do them. Since the Military does the lions share of the intell work it makes perfectly good sense to have a General officer in charge. I can't wait until the confirmation heaings, the man is well spoken, and very smart (the Dems in the Senate don't stand a chance).
#12
Nope - that part about "uphold and defend" is part of the oath he takes coming in (as did all of us). And those of you who have sworn that oath, remember, it didnt say "Until Im done with my hitch" at the end. It has no expiraiton date.
#13
Can we demand the DiFi resigns first? My read is they are not bargaining from a position of strength and are trying to save face by demanding something ANYTHING!
#14
The CIA is a dispirited organization. It should be: The end of the Cold War removed a sustaining sense of purpose and the broad indulgence of the agency's unenviable record of clandestine-intelligence collection, counterespionage and analytical forecasting.
What a load of hogwash, grab a "dispirited" pink tissue please. You don't hear anything like that coming out the British or French intelligence services. If my failing memory still serves me correctly, I believe they were allies in the same cold war. The've had a counter prolif mission for years and they phueched that up too (see surprise underground booms in Pakland). "Three hundred years of experience" culminating with quitting or being fired, whats the downside to the greater whole? Arlington National Cemetary is chucked full of "indispesible men." I suspect the agency, provided good leadership, will regenerate and do well again. Leadership is the key.
#4
RUSSIA and CHINA, etal. would do it iff they can -they won't becuz they CAN'T. While not to argue America's enemies = competitors won't give thier anti-US ambitions/agenda "the ole' college try", the reality is America's economy is still getting bigger, that America is the only one in the world that can successfully and effectively project power anywhere, that America's ability to do so is unlikely to change in the absence of anything catastrophic, and that Russia-China are so far behind the USA actually have to restrain ourselves just to give them chances to catch up. America's enemies taking over the homes, clothes, jobs, bank accounts, mortages, societies and pet dogs of we Godless Infidels = decadent Rightist Conservative Capitalists-Male Brutes is NOT going to solve the severe ideo- or internal problems of world Islam andor world Secular Socialism.
Noah Shachtman's description of Bobby Ray Inman's latest speechifying about how bad the NSA's current programs are.
Posted by: Phil ||
05/10/2006 10:32 ||
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If I were a betting man and I am! I would wager that the LLL Mo0nb@t fever swamps (Democrats) are keeping this on slow simmer until later this year. They will make a bunch of noise in hopes of making some headway by calling it anything other than a intelligence operation. I would love to see Bobby get in front of a Senate panel and repeat his statements under oath. I suspect he would suffer like Billary does from the I dont recall syndrome. Spying on know or suspected persons engaged in ILLEGAL activity is spelled out specifically in the law governing that activity. Any Intelligence analyst fresh from AIT or Tech School can repeat the passage in Title 18 U.S. Code verbatim because its pounded into them from day one of Intel school (residual from Watergate).
#2
I can tell you from prior experience that Adm Inman is a clusless dick and crappy DIRNSA. Iran Hostages and Afghanistan Invasion ring a bell? Happened on his watch as DIRNSA. Fecking moron.
I wonder if he's going to start his looney "conspiracy" talk again, like what got him shut down when he was nominated as SecDef under Clinton and had to withdraw.
#4
But sitting in a brightly-lit, basement auditorium at the Library, next to James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the surveillance story...
Golly. I wonder who Risen got the story from.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/10/2006 12:19 Comments ||
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#5
"warrantless domestic wiretaps."
Apparently, by 'domestic' we mean calls originating from outside the country. /snort.
As for Bobby Ray Inman, I had the impression that he was regarded as relatively intelligent if only for being able to spell the names of the heads of state of relatively obscure countries.
I do realize that intelligence and competence are two separate things. Perhaps, you have some juicy anecdotes to share, OldSpook?
#9
OS, was that Inman that said all the military people at NSA could wear civvies to work? I forgot about his SecDef nomination and I bet most of the press will overlook his rantings back then as well.
#10
I hope the administration flips this on that silly sailor and sites his phueching statement as proof flag officers CAN speak their own mind.... and a military officer is the right choice for director of Klingons.
Pakistan's intelligence service used to sponsor the Islamists. Now it is trying to prevent them taking over the country. By Hugh Barnes
The headquarters of the Pakistani secret services lie hidden behind towering, beige-coloured walls in the old British cantonment of Rawalpindi. Sweeping, arched roofs and sprawling verandas evoke memories of the Raj, as do the street urchins playing cricket outside the gate.
The languid appearance is deceptive. I have come behind the lines in the so-called "war on terror". One of the world's most sinister organisations, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is often seen as Pakistan's invisible government. It has long operated out of the public gaze. During the Soviet occupation of Afghan-istan it funnelled CIA funds to the mujahedin fighters; in the 1990s it bankrolled the Taliban into power. Its links to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda are a matter of record. Yet ISI chiefs now find themselves cast in an unlikely role as the west's policemen, hunting down jihadists in the lawless tribal areas of northern Pakistan.
The only modern nation founded on Islam, Pakistan is a homeland that has failed to work. Now it is teetering on the brink of chaos. The ISI is largely to blame. Late last month, Islamist militants in North Waziristan ambushed a convoy of ISI-led troops, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22. The attack was a reprisal for the killing in a nearby village of seven Qaeda suspects, including Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah, an Egyptian on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists for his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The figures at the top of the ISI are almost pathologically averse to the glare of the media, so it was with some trepidation that I accepted an invitation from Brigadier A-, head of the counter-terrorism section, to discuss a secret operation to stem the "two-way traffic" of terrorists between Pakistan and Britain in the wake of last July's bombings in London. Once, the only civilians permitted to enter this building were suspects, and not all of them made it out alive.
A dapper man in his late fifties, dressed in an immaculately tailored business suit in spite of the heat, the brigadier greeted me with sandwiches, cakes and tea. A bearer wearing a white waistcoat and black wool Jinnah cap served us from a table piled high with documents and newspaper cuttings, plus a stack of empty notepads and other pieces of stationery. (I am ashamed to say I took one of the ISI pencils as a trophy.) A laptop computer flickered with a PowerPoint slide show of images of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames on 11 September 2001.
The brigadier appeared troubled. Hours earlier, a suicide bomber had set off an explosion at a parade in Karachi, killing at least 57 people. The blast happened not far from the site of another bombing in March, in which a US diplomat was killed. Roughly 45 Islamist groups operate in Pakistan. The best-known are Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami (Movement for Islamic Jihad), Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Muhammad) and Jundullah (Army of God), but with ever-changing names, splits and overlapping ideologies, it is difficult to differentiate between them, let alone keep track of their attempts to replace Pakistan's leadership with a fundamentalist regime.
"There's a lot of work to be done in defeating al-Qaeda," said my host, slumping in his chair. As if to underline the point, helicopter gunships were busy strafing the village, a hundred miles away in North Waziristan, where several Qaeda members, possibly including Bin Laden, are said to be hiding out. Twenty years have passed since Bin Laden led a group of a few dozen men - Saudis, Egyptians, Algerians and Pakistanis, whom he had recruited and trained - out of a cluster of caves in the mountains on the Pakistani frontier. These were the men who would fight the Soviet infidel in Afghanistan.
The brigadier knew every ridge and mountain pass, every CIA trail. He gossiped about these mysterious strangers who have returned to North Waziristan, using a portfolio of disguises and pseudonyms. They still appear to move with ease, travelling between the Pakistani tribal lands and southern Afghanistan - sometimes protected by the Pathan tribes, sometimes by drug barons - in a circle of a few hundred miles, using the same mountain passes and little-known trails as the mujahedin's convoys during the jihad years.
Towards the end of our conversation, Brigadier A- talked of the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan's borderlands. Yet the ISI itself is largely responsible for importing Arab jihadists into the region in the first place. "The United States used to think very strongly that we could just deliver Bin Laden," he said. "But I have been telling everyone, 'We can assist, not assure,' and I think we have been successful in driving that point home."
I asked the ISI chief about his pictures of the twin towers. It seemed odd, given the past role of Pakistan's secret services - no strikes without al-Qaeda, no al-Qaeda without the Taliban, no Taliban without the ISI - that they would peddle this mawkish nostalgia. The brigadier peered from behind his glasses, and smiled. "If you say the ISI alone is responsible for 9/11, I would have an objection to that. I think Pakistan was responsible. I think the free world as a whole was responsible for 9/11. When the Soviet Union was defeated, the money was coming from all over the world, from Egypt, the Middle East, south-east Asia. A lot of these people would have conflicted, but the world just melted away, and we had no choice. We have always supported any government in Kabul, but the Taliban would have come to power with or without the ISI. We joined the train after it had started, but a lot of people thought it was a force that could bring some kind of stability to Afghanistan."
As I left the brigadier's office, I recalled that Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, once called the army his country's "last institution of stability". Yet the tension is rising. After the protests against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, he went on television to declare that his government would stand shoulder to shoulder with the mullahs against the "sacrilegious acts" of the west. "The entire nation and the Umma [Muslim community] is unanimous," he said, but warned that "antisocial and criminal elements" were responsible for torching a KFC restaurant, a Norwegian phone office and other western-linked businesses.
Visibly pale, blinking and sweating, the general looked like a man who knew the game was up. Pakistan is a dictatorship run by the army, whose intelligence wing sponsored terrorism in Afghanistan and Kashmir until Musharraf's 180-degree policy turn in the wake of 11 September 2001. Until now, army discipline has managed to contain opposition to his deeply unpopular alliance with President George W Bush. However, the cracks are beginning to show, and the pact between the US and India on nuclear energy, agreed in March, makes things worse. "Musharraf is on losing ground," a senior figure in the government told me as protests spread to Islamabad, and even the former cricket star Imran Khan was placed under house arrest.
Yet the demonstrations are not quite what they seem. In Islamabad, the most militarised city, a bunch of school students managed to storm the diplomatic compound, where they proceeded to throw stones at European embassies and smash envoys' cars. Musharraf loyalists acknowledge that the government sometimes permits religious parties, including the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, to let off steam. But the complicity may be different this time. So who are the "antisocial elements" stoking the violence? Many leading Pakistani politicians feel that the riots are being orchestrated by the army itself.
"Musharraf is responsible for this violence. He gave the orders for the riots to begin, for political reasons, and the army helped to stage the protests," said Amanullah Kamrani, a senator from the western province of Balochistan. "The general knows that he is losing power and so he's using the riots to send a warning to the west - as if to say, 'Look, I'm the only person saving the country from Muslim extremism.'"
Musharraf's recent behaviour seems to bear this out. At a meeting with Hamid Karzai in February, both he and the Afghan president affirmed their determination to see "enlightened moderation" (Musharraf's catchphrase) triumph over radical Islam, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was beating the same drum to any foreign visitor who would listen. "Pakistan joined this effort to fight terrorism from its own conviction, not to please anybody, because terrorism knows no borders. There are no good terrorists or bad terrorists. Terrorism hurts everybody," the prime minister told me during an interview at his official residence in Islamabad.
The trouble is that the best-laid plans of the Pakistani army and the ISI often go awry. For decades, Delhi has been protesting about Pakistani-backed infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir. Several times the two nuclear-armed nations have gone to the brink of war, but stepped back. At the end of 2001, gunmen allegedly linked to the ISI-funded Jaish-e-Mohammad attacked the Indian parliament building in Delhi, killing 12 people. For six months the world looked on as Islamabad and Delhi traded ultimatums and threats, but then the world's longest unresolved conflict lapsed into paranoid inertia, the signature condition that is just one of Kashmir's many betrayals, as Salman Rushdie notes in his novel Shalimar the Clown.
By supporting jihadist groups in the disputed territory, Pakistan's generals, who have governed the country since a coup d'état in 1999, hope to advance what they regard as a righteous cause, and to pressure India's government to negotiate over the future of Kashmir, divided after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. After the Kashmir earthquake last October, tensions all too briefly took second place to reconstruction efforts.
Kashmir's mountains rise between 4,000 and 7,000 feet above sea level, and mark a tectonic inter-section that was almost visible to the eye as I flew over the earthquake zone in a Puma helicopter. The Pakistani army's sluggish response to the disaster may be explained by the inhospitable terrain, or by its own heavy losses in the area where the quake hit. According to an army spokesman, 450 officers and soldiers died on the road to Muzaffarabad, capital of what Islamabad calls "Azad Kashmir" (meaning "Free Kashmir"), the part that Pakistan controls.
The helicopter zigzagged across the Neelum Valley, where landslides had sealed off the canyons and blocked the only road. In many places, the sides of mountains had fallen away, as if sliced off with an axe. In the villages below, hundreds of people wandered aimlessly between the piles of rubble, clutching photo-graphs of relatives or bundles of food and clothing distributed from the valley's relief depot, which is supplied by air.
For the past 15 years, the Pakistani army has supported rebellion on India's side of the Line of Control by aiding violent Islamist groups, some of them with ties to al-Qaeda, which are seeking to unify all of Kashmir with Pakistan. One of the most prominent of these groups has been Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Pure), which the Bush administration designated a foreign terrorist organisation in 2001.
The feuding in Kashmir goes back a long way. In 1947, Pakistan was carved out of British India, which had more than 500 princely states; one of them, the predominantly Muslim Kashmir, was ruled by a Hindu maharaja who could not decide whether to join India or Pakistan. In October that year, tribesmen from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province invaded Kashmir, arriving in British trucks. That hastened the maharaja's decision to join India, which quickly responded by airlifting troops into the area.
After the quake, Musharraf launched a fresh peace offensive. "Let success emerge from the tragedy," he said. Yet even his main spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, has conceded that efforts to demilitarise the borderlands have failed. "We want to seize the opportunity - open the Line of Control and let people move freely. But unfortunately the movement from the other side is not fast enough. That is what is discouraging for us," he said.
As a result, Kashmir remains mired in conflict. The causes of the 2002 Indo-Pak crisis - jihadist terrorism, mutual suspicion and a relatively young, unstable system of nuclear deterrence - have not disappeared. If anything, the pace of terrorist attacks has quickened. In Kashmir, as in Afghanistan, Pakistan's intelligence services have found that controlling Islamists is an inexact science.
One example is Lashkar-e-Toiba. This was (and still is, depending on whom you ask) a radical jihadist organisation that has carried out persistent and sometimes spectacular attacks against Indian targets, both military and civilian, in Kashmir and elsewhere. Under US pressure, Musharraf banned Lashkar-e-Toiba in early 2002, but he allowed it to create a domestic charity under another name, Jama'at-ud-Da'awah (the Preaching Society), with the same leader. The new group runs conservative madrasas and promotes an austere vision of Islam through its preaching and social work, and, according to a spokesman, it has hundreds of thousands of members throughout Pakistan. Azad Kashmir had been an important base for Lashkar-e-Toiba, offering sanctuary and a convenient launching ground for anti-India operations.
Less than a mile from the main Jama'at-ud-Da'awah camp in the Azad Kashmir capital, the US army has erected a field hospital. US Humvees on a break from chasing remnant Qaeda elements in Afghanistan share the streets of Muzaffarabad with ambulances from the Rashid Trust, a charity whose funds were blocked by the Bush administration in 2001, following accusations that it had assisted al-Qaeda. Musharraf's position has been perilous ever since. In 2003, for instance, a fighter from Jaish-e-Mohammad, a group that the president had singled out, tried to assassinate him. The success of jihadist groups in providing earthquake relief has strengthened their claims to legitimacy in Pakistan.
The difficulty for Musharraf is that a country run by a military dictatorship with tacit links to terrorism does not seem the best advertisement for "enlightened moderation". Now many of the general's backers in the White House also see it that way. The government in Islamabad is becoming an embarrassment to its sponsors in the west.
Tension increased just before Bush's visit to Delhi in early March. Some Pakistani hard-liners fear the US-India nuclear technology deal could lead to Pakistan losing the strategic advantages it gained from signing up to the "war on terror". Among the conspiracy theories swirling around Islamabad was a senior minister's hint that the CIA might even be the hidden hand behind the anti-Musharraf demonstrations. He suggested that Pakistan's nuclear capability was to blame and said the US leadership could not tolerate a nuclear-armed Pakistan that was also stable; it therefore felt obliged every three or four years to do something to destabilise the country. The protests in the streets of Lahore and Karachi were just the latest example of US "dirty tricks".
Pakistan's leaders fear the loss of status that would ensue if others develop nuclear capability. Where Iran might go, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Egypt might follow. "Being a nuclear power bestows kudos in the Muslim world," a leading minister told me. "We don't say it out loud, but it's a fact. The nuclear powers are a club apart and so we don't want Iran or any other Muslim country to become a nuclear power."
Yet the US still sees Pakistan as a special case, thanks to Afghan-istan and Kashmir. The former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has warned of "a large possibility" that jihadist groups will set off a war on the subcontinent. In turn, Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, blames the US for destabilising the region. "Until the west glorified jihad, inviting young men to come and fight the godless communists, Pakistan was a very peaceful country," he argues. "In the process, the border was radicalised, but once the Soviets were defeated, the Americans melted away. Afghanistan was a great theatre for jihad, in the same way that jihadists have found Iraq to be a great theatre."
The more unpopular Musharraf becomes, the less inclined he is to undertake reform or to implement the "true democracy" that he has promised. He speaks the language of a populist: devolving power, taxing the rich and arresting the corrupt. Yet corruption remains rampant, and far from regenerating democracy the khaki leadership has alienated the large majority from the political system. Violence and protest are now the people's only ways of venting their frustration.
Prime Minister Aziz claims that his government is neither "defensive nor apologetic" about its undemocratic nature. Musharraf's 1999 coup was "in the interest of Pakistan", he said, "and I think, with hindsight, it was the correct decision. We are not apologetic about our position. We think it suits our current set-up. We don't need any lectures in democracy but, step by step, we'll get there. It's not that we think democracy is bad."
Pakistan's generals have always been loyal to the army, rather than to such abstract ideas as democracy, Islam or even Pakistan. The country's 59-year history has been a series of duels between the generals and politicians. Judging by years in office, the generals are in the lead. Elected representatives have run the country for 15 years, and unaccountable bureaucrats or their proxies for 11, but the army has been in power for 33 years.
The fate of this military dictatorship is likely to depend on the support of the US. As long as Musharraf is able to play politics with Muslim discontent, however, while discredited former leaders such as Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif continue to divide the opposition, the necessary return to civilian rule will remain a prospect much more distant than a further descent into chaos.
Hugh Barnes is director of the democracy and conflict programme at the Foreign Policy Centre
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 19:48 ||
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#1
A laptop computer flickered with a PowerPoint slide show of images of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames on 11 September 2001.
In 2006, an ISI General is running images of the collapse of the WTC towers on his laptop (as a screen saver?)....
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 19:54 Comments ||
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#2
remembrance of success? I trust no Pak
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/10/2006 20:39 Comments ||
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Four and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan is still highly unstable. And it seems to be getting worse rather than better. Every few days now, the resurgent Taliban carry out another deadly attack on school children, aid workers, or local or international security forces. It is a grim return on the outside world's huge investment in Afghanistan. Yet while the international community has done an enormous amount to help the country recover from its failed-state condition, it has resisted tackling the problem at its very root -- Islamabad. Truth is, Afghanistan will never be stable unless Pakistan's military government is replaced with a democracy.
* * *
Pakistan's primary export to Afghanistan today is instability. On the most basic level, attacks in Afghanistan, including suicide bombings, are often planned and prepared at Taliban training camps across the border. Islamabad claims to be doing all it can to stop this infiltration. But President Pervez Musharraf's protests ring hollow when he has done so little to address the concerns raised by his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, that Taliban leaders are operating out of sanctuaries in Pakistan.
One needs only to look at the military's close relations with religious radicals to understand how unreliable a partner it is in stabilizing Afghanistan. Militant Islamist groups that Mr. Musharraf banned under the international spotlight following 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings still operate freely. Jihadi organizations have been allowed to dominate relief efforts in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake. The military has repeatedly rigged elections, including the 2002 polls, to benefit the religious parties over their moderate, democratic alternatives.
In short, Pakistan is ruled by a military dictatorship in cahoots with violent Islamist extremists. The military has no interest in democracy at home, so why does the outside world expect it to help build democracy next door?
If we are really going to get to the core of Afghanistan's instability, therefore, we must tackle Pakistan. Above all, this means returning the country to democratic rule. After seven years under the military, this is not an easy task, but some institutions are still surviving -- just. The judiciary, for example, has been badly degraded under Mr. Musharraf and his army colleagues; but there is enough left to give hope for some kind of gradual resuscitation.
Moderate political parties are also struggling to hang on; down but not yet out, they could recover relatively quickly if given a democratic chance. Pro-dictatorship voices regularly argue that those parties were highly corrupt and that it was their corruption that justified the 1999 coup that brought Gen. Musharraf to power. But they refuse to condemn or even acknowledge the military's large-scale, institutionalized corruption.
So much has been grabbed by the military that it will take years just to catalog it. The military has acquired vast tracts of state-owned land at nominal rates; its leaders dominate businesses and industries, ranging from banking to cereal factories. Their control of the economy has grown so great it will present an enormous challenge to any future democratically elected government.
That civilian government, when it comes, will also be moderate in character and far more inclined to tackle, in earnest, the scourge of Islamic radicalism. Even in the rigged 2002 election, the religious parties polled only 11% of the vote. A fully free and fair race will squeeze out radical forces that have thrived under military rule and which play havoc with Pakistan's weak neighbor to the northwest. In addition, unlike the military, which always thrives in a hostile environment, a civilian government will have a stronger interest in peace with India. And who wouldn't sleep safer knowing that Pakistan's nuclear bomb was in democratic hands?
Democratic governance would also bring a much-needed opportunity to overhaul the country's education system. As the state system has consistently failed young people for decades, madrassas have taken up the slack, with the most extreme religious schools helping to radicalize tens of thousands of Pakistanis -- and Afghans -- filling heads with intolerant visions of Islam, far from the mainstream of South Asian Muslim society. The country needs a properly funded, state-run, secular education system.
Bringing all this about is an enormous task, but demilitarizing and deradicalizing Pakistan is truly the key to bringing about stability in Afghanistan and the wider region. Governments now working so hard to support Afghanistan will only be spinning their wheels until they make Pakistan a top priority and apply maximum pressure on Islamabad to ensure the 2007 elections are actually free and fair, by applying clearly defined benchmarks and insisting on competent international observers. As long as the military and the madrassas rule just across the border, Afghanistan will never find peace.
Lord Patten, former EU commissioner for external relations, is chairman of the International Crisis Group and chancellor of Oxford University.
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 19:45 ||
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#1
In short, Pakistan is ruled by a military dictatorship in cahoots with violent Islamist extremists. The military has no interest in democracy at home, so why does the outside world expect it to help build democracy next door?
And why does the world expect it to catch Osama Bin Laden?
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 20:00 Comments ||
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Chris Patten - Bush Critic
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/10/2006 21:01 Comments ||
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#3
"What Ails Afghanistan?"
LOL. Lemme take a wild stab at it...
Tribalism, Islam, proximity to insane countries with insane meddling "leaders", and did I mention tribalism and Islam?
#4
It's also "spring offensive" time. Things will settle down considerably with the heat of summer, and then all the pay-per-villains will go home in August-September. Followed by a long, quiet winter.
Four and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan is still highly unstable. Yet while the international community has done an enormous amount to help the country recover from its failed-state condition, it has resisted tackling the problem at its very root -- Islamabad. Truth is, Afghanistan will never be stable unless Pakistan's military government is replaced with a democracy.
Pakistan's primary export to Afghanistan today is instability. On the most basic level, attacks in Afghanistan, including suicide bombings, are often planned and prepared at Taliban training camps across the border. Islamabad claims to be doing all it can to stop this infiltration. But President Pervez Musharraf's protests ring hollow when he has done so little to address the concerns raised by his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, that Taliban leaders are operating out of sanctuaries in Pakistan.
One needs only to look at the military's close relations with religious radicals to understand how unreliable a partner it is in stabilizing Afghanistan. Militant Islamist groups that Mr. Musharraf banned under the international spotlight following 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings still operate freely. Jihadi organizations have been allowed to dominate relief efforts in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake. The military has repeatedly rigged elections, including the 2002 polls, to benefit the religious parties over their moderate, democratic alternatives.
In short, Pakistan is ruled by a military dictatorship in cahoots with violent Islamist extremists. The military has no interest in democracy at home, so why does the outside world expect it to help build democracy next door?
That civilian government, when it comes, will also be moderate in character and far more inclined to tackle, in earnest, the scourge of Islamic radicalism. Even in the rigged 2002 election, the religious parties polled only 11% of the vote. A fully free and fair race will squeeze out radical forces that have thrived under military rule and which play havoc with Pakistan's weak neighbor to the northwest. In addition, unlike the military, which always thrives in a hostile environment, a civilian government will have a stronger interest in peace with India. And who wouldn't sleep safer knowing that Pakistan's nuclear bomb was in democratic hands?
Democratic governance would also bring a much-needed opportunity to overhaul the country's education system. As the state system has consistently failed young people for decades, madrassas have taken up the slack, with the most extreme religious schools helping to radicalize tens of thousands of Pakistanis -- and Afghans -- filling heads with intolerant visions of Islam, far from the mainstream of South Asian Muslim society. The country needs a properly funded, state-run, secular education system.
Bringing all this about is an enormous task, but demilitarizing and deradicalizing Pakistan is truly the key to bringing about stability in Afghanistan and the wider region. Governments now working so hard to support Afghanistan will only be spinning their wheels until they make Pakistan a top priority and apply maximum pressure on Islamabad to ensure the 2007 elections are actually free and fair, by applying clearly defined benchmarks and insisting on competent international observers. As long as the military and the madrassas rule just across the border, Afghanistan will never find peace.
#1
Success in Afghanistan requires the dismemeberment of Pakistan. Pakistan, the land of the Pures has only one thing cementing it: Islam and the more radical, the less its minorities will question its existence. Besides Pakistan has two other reasons for creating difficulties in Afghanistan: the fear that a successful Afghanistan will become attractive to its Pashtoun minority (1) thus starting the implosion of Pakistan and the search of strategic depth in its perpetual war against India (where Kashmir is only a pretext and the complete conquest of India the real goal like evidenced by electoral propaganda of its Islamist parties)
(1) Specially if Pashtuns began dreaming of democracy and education instead of tribalism and being docile soldiers for Islam.
#2
Why I do believe Mr. Patten is volunteering the Eurocorps for a punitive expedition.
/then I woke up.
Posted by: ed ||
05/10/2006 9:31 Comments ||
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#3
I disagree about dismemberment. I would suggest that, for a long time now, we have been strengthening the Pak military, with the idea that over time, Perv will subdue the Waziristans and Pakistani Baluchistan.
Once there is a real, unified Pakistan, with the army in charge of it all, we will want Perv to really start to lean on the innumerble Islamists in positions of power in the country.
This is because Perv really is the only force that can (not necessarily will), make positive change in that country. Splitting up the monster just makes several little monsters.
Clearly, the Islamists have the democratic-political upper hand in Pakistan. For now, democracy without Perv would just result in another theocracy. However, if Perv spends years and years undermining them, negating their power, making them superfluous, then and only then might Pakistan have a chance for real democracy.
And Perv does want to modernize--the dreaded enemy of everything the Islamists stand for. That, more than any good intentions on his part, will finally resolve much of the problem.
#4
Anonymous you don't understand. Islamism is the condition of Pakistan's survival so conting on the Army for destroying it is like counting on your dog to keep a watch on sausages.
#5
According to our Indo-Pak expert john, the official motto of the Pakistan Army is iman-taqwa-jihad fi sabilillah (Faith, Fear, Jihad in the way of Allah). Comforting, yes?
#6
When critics assailed his islamization programme, the then Pak ruler, General Zia Ul Haq retorted with "why else was Pakistan created?" "If you want a secular state, why not migrate to India?"
This pretty much silenced most of the criticism. Pakistan was the world's first "Islamic State of ..".
The state serves the army and the feudal elites whose sons comprise the officer core of the army and who benefit from the military control over the economy (google for Fauji foundation to see how much of the Pak economy is in military hands.. it will shock you).
To maintain legitimacy and control, islamization is needed. Therefore the islamists cannot be hobbled.
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 21:05 Comments ||
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Calling for talks with Iran is just cheap talk.
BY AMIR TAHERI
Something interesting is happening with regard to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Slowly the blame is shifting from the mullahs to the Bush administration as the debate is redirected to tackle the hypothetical question of U.S. military action rather than the Islamic Republic's real misdeeds. "No War on Iran" placards are already appearing where "No Nukes for Iran" would make more sense.
The attempt at fabricating another "cause" with which to bash America is backed by the claim that the mullahs are behaving badly because Washington refuses to talk to them. Some of this buzz is coming from those who for years told the U.S. to let them persuade Iran to mend its ways. They include German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British and French colleagues in the European Union trio that negotiated with Iran for years. Preparing to throw in the towel, they now say the U.S. should "directly engage" Iran. That would enable them to hide their failures and find a pretext for blaming future setbacks on the U.S.
The "engage Iran" coalition also has advocates in the U.S. Over the past few weeks they have hammered the "engagement" theme with op-eds, TV soundbites and speeches. Some have recommended John Kennedy's "sophisticated leadership" during the Cuban missile crisis as a model for George W. Bush. The incident has entered American folklore as an example of "brilliant diplomacy," but few bother to examine the small print. The crisis, as you might recall, started when the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, something they were committed not to do in a number of accords with the U.S. Kennedy reacted by threatening to quarantine Cuba until the missiles were removed. The Soviets ended up "flinching" and agreed to removal.
In exchange they got two things. First, the U.S. agreed never to take or assist hostile action against Castro, offering his regime life insurance. The second was to remove the Jupiter missiles installed in Turkey as part of NATO's defenses. Instead of being punished, Castro and his Soviet masters were doubly rewarded for undoing what they shouldn't have done in the first place. And Castro was free to do mischief not only in Latin America but also in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, often on behalf of Moscow, right up to the fall of the U.S.S.R. Applied to Iran, the "Kennedy model" would provide the mullahs, now facing mounting discontent at home, with a guarantee of safety from external pressure, allowing them to suppress their domestic opponents and intensify mischief-making abroad. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
05/10/2006 12:48 ||
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The second was to remove the Jupiter missiles installed in Turkey as part of NATO's defenses.
Believe me, we got the better part of the deal. First, the call to let Castro stay was contingent on the Soviets never putting long-range offensive weapons there again - had they done so, we would have sunk his tiny little island. I helped write some of the plans to do so.
Second, the Jupiters were fairly short-ranged, inaccurate, and most importantly, vulenrable missiles (they were mounted on aboveground pads - a sniper could have taken one out). Since the first Polaris patrols in the Med were starting at approximately the same time, we lost nothing.
And keep this in mind as well - almost without exception, most analysts consider the 'Kennedy Model' a lousy way to solve a nuclear crisis. One analyst whom I have spoken with about the '62 crisis has said the only reason it did not explode in Kennedy's face was that Khruschev was more rattled than the White House was - and more importantly, Khruschev knew how far behind in missiles and bombers the USSR really was.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/10/2006 14:10 Comments ||
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#2
In fact Mike K. as you well know, it did "blow up in Kennedy's face" at the Bay of Pigs, it's just not talked about much.
LOL, Besoeker, so true. The entire Dummycrap mythology machine works overtime airbrushing away all of the zits, cankers, boils, and tumors. Very convenient selective memories.
#5
All it got the Cuban army was defeat or failure everywhere + AIDS/HIV, while Cuba itself went from being a regional rising star to a perennnial dark hole in US SATWAR photos like North Korea. COMMIE BLOC > "The land area(s) on maps wid few or no lights compared to surrounding countries is them". Besides darkness, food riots, and work riots, now Cuba ala HAM-GATE is slowly but surely going the way of SOLYENT GREEN-happy North Korea -the People + Army can starve but Fidel, D *** YOU, must have his [priority imported] daily or weekly Black Hams!?
By James Brandon | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
AMMAN, JORDAN The three middle-aged men sitting in an Indian restaurant in Jordan's capital scarcely look like Islamic revolutionaries. They are smartly dressed in Western-style suits and sip thoughtfully from cans of Pepsi as they share their plan to reshape the Muslim world. "[President] Bush says that we want to enslave people and oppress their freedom of speech," says Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation. "But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah."
Hizb ut-Tahrir says that Muslims should abolish national boundaries within the Islamic world and return to a single Islamic state, known as "the Caliphate," that would stretch from Indonesia to Morocco and contain more than 1.5 billion people. It's a simple and seductive idea that analysts believe may someday allow the group to rival existing Islamic movements, topple the rulers of Middle Eastern nations, and undermine those seeking to reconcile democracy and Islam and build bridges between East and West. "A few years ago people laughed at them," says Zeyno Baran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the leading expert on Hizb ut-Tahrir. "But now that [Osama] bin Laden, [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi, and other Islamic groups are saying they want to recreate the Caliphate, people are taking them seriously."
Even more moderate Muslim groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt pay lip-service to the ideal of reestablishing the Caliphate, leaving less ideological space for Muslims who want to move toward Western models of democracy. "The Caliphate is a rallying point between the radicals and the more moderate Islamists," says Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. "The idea of a government based on the Caliphate has a historical pedigree and Islamic legitimacy that Western systems of government by their very nature do not have."
But unlike Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir believes it can recreate the Caliphate peacefully. Its activists aim to pursuade Muslim political and military leaders that reestablishing the Caliphate is their Islamic duty. Once these leaders invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to take power - effectively staging a military coup - the party would then repeat the process in other countries before linking them up to form a revived Caliphate. "We spread our ideas by addressing people directly," says Abdullah Shakr, a fluent English-speaker, who, like all three men, spent time in Jordanian jails for membership in the party. "We don't care if the government knows about us, but ... we try not to catch their attention."
The party was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 by a Palestinian judge, Sheikh Taqiuddin Al-Nabhani. He taught that the Muslim world had grown poor and weak ever since the Caliphate was abolished by Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk in 1924. The Caliphate was created after the death of Islam's founder Muhammad in 632 AD. During the following centuries the Caliphate expanded Islam's territories by conquest and treaty to cover most of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. As the Ottoman Turks lost ground to the West, they increasingly donned the cloak of the Caliphate. In the 1920s, Muslims throughout the British empire, particularly in India, used the restoration of the Caliphate as an anti-colonial rallying point. "People look back on the Caliphate and see its success as a poor reflection on the condition of the Muslim world today," says Mr. Ulph.
Hizb ut-Tahrir promises that a revived Caliphate will end corruption and bring prosperity - though the group doesn't say how. It will let Muslims challenge, and ultimately conquer, the West, its followers say. "The Muslim world has resources like oil but it lacks the leadership that will rule us by Islamic law and make this jihad that the whole world is afraid of," says Shakr, a Jordanian member of the group, who says the success of the Caliphate will also encourage more converts to Islam - eventually making the whole world Islamic.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's modern leader is a Jordanian known as Emir Atta Abu Rashta. He lives in a secret location in the Middle East and communicates mainly through the Internet. The party is illegal in all Arab countries as well as Germany. Britain mooted banning the group after last year's London bombings were carried out by members of a Hizb ut-Tahrir splinter group.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's critics rarely see the organization as a direct threat, however. "Many people see Hizb ut-Tahrir's aims as utterly unrealistic," says Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House. "Even their understanding of the Caliphate as a strong, powerful state is questionable. Historically the Caliphate only worked because it was very loose and extremely decentralized."
Many analysts say that real danger is that the group radicalizes its followers who may subsequently graduate into militancy. "People who join won't necessarily end up as violent jihadists," says Shiv Malik, a journalist. "But Hizb ut-Tahrir can provide [them with an] ideological backbone."
Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a mass movement yet, but analysts warn the group has a growing prominence among educated professionals in Europe and the Middle East. "In Europe they tell Muslims that they have to create parallel societies and that they should not follow European laws," says Ms. Baran. "If this happens it will impossible for people like me to argue that Islam can be democratic."
Baran estimates the group has tens of thousands of followers in Central Asia. "They're stronger in places where people know less about Islam and can't read the Koran in Arabic," she says. "They're not as popular in the Middle East because they don't get involved in the Palestinian cause."
Hizb ut-Tahrir takes a more gradual, long-term strategy for spreading the territory under Muslim rule. "Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate - I would not say terrorize - the enemies of Islam," says Abu Mohammed, a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist. "In the beginning, the Caliphate would strengthen itself internally and it wouldn't initiate jihad. But after that we would carry Islam as an intellectual call to all the world," says Abu Mohammed, a pseudonym. "And we will make people bordering the Caliphate believe in Islam. Or if they refuse then we'll ask them to be ruled by Islam."
And after that? Abu Mohammed pauses and fiddles with his Pepsi before replying. "And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam," he says, smiling. "This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light."
Posted by: john ||
05/10/2006 00:00 ||
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"Slaves of Allah ... try not to catch their atention .. jihad the whole world will be afraid of ... ask them to be ruled by Islam" - be it Secular SOcilaism or God-based Socialism, t'aint Socialist Universalist EQUALISM, DIVA-VERISTY, and CHOICE just muchos grande!? MUST BE NICE TO "MAKE PEOPLE" BELIEVE AND SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO RADICAL ISLAM AND THE GLOBAL CALIPHATE A'FORE ASKING THEM IF THEY WANT TO. Radical Jihad + Caliphate > is as "decentralized" as the USSR and Commie International Proletarian Revolution, which was a nice PC way of saying Soviet-Stalinist Russia, AND ONLY SOVIET-STALINIST RUSSIA, will rule the SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH, future Socialist world.
The flash woudl be pretty bright from a multi-megaton thermonuclear warhead over Mecca, and other prime targets.
Folks, this is the war they want - and the war we cannot afford to NOT fight. Islam is a diseased and disordered beleif from a false prophet who promotes violence, lying and hatred.
#3
Totally agree. Islam has nothing to do with religion - it's a hateful brutal ideology unable to coexist with any other and, thus, is worthy of total eradication.
Now I'm curious to see how the moderators will react to plain speech. Normally, they have something of a problem with it.
Look at recent stories... Renewed aid to Hamas? Fluffy bunny offers to Iran to be good? The bizarre case of not classifying the Taliban as terrorists? Absurd objections to Hayden running the CIA because he wears a uniform?
Etc. It's nauseating.
We're losing. On every front which does not have our splendid military already engaged, the politicos are yielding ground, retreating, losing their nerve.
Here in this thread, Oldspook has spoken clearly and plainly. He's perfectly correct, too. No one with a scintilla of honesty can doubt it. No one with a scintilla of honor would redact his words or even threaten to. The truth is sometimes axed here, but not always. Must be a mood thing. I'm in the mood for reciprocating total war against civilization and freedom with total war against those who would destroy or enslave us.
#6
The caliphate didn't stay glued together last time. Why not? How will they put it back together again? All the king's soldiers and all the king's men will be fighting over the pieces of Humpty Dumpty. Like Somalia on a global scale.
#8
"But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah."
I'm not a slave. I will never be a slave. I'm a free man -- you cannot enslave me, you can only kill me. And I guaran-damn-tee a hell of a lot more of them will die before I do.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/10/2006 7:48 Comments ||
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#9
EE, I think that's an unecessary slur against the mods here. I have posted thousands of times at the Burg and I can be abusive and write outrageous things.
My point being, present a reasonably coherent argument backed by facts and you will have no problem with the mods.
And for the record, I agree with OS, Islam as practiced in many places doesn't qualify as a religion.
Disclaimer: I'm a hardline Athiest, but I have no problem with those believe as long as they don't use coercion on others.
#10
We will loose as long as we rely on our politicians to fight for us. Bunch of spineless sellouts. They can't even stand up to Mexico and protect our own borders. I am really starting to think the only way to turn this around is to clean out our own house first.
#11
Ebbeaque Ebberesh5104, re-read OldSpook's post. He called for defeating Islam by destroying prime targets. You call for total war. OldSpook is precise and polite, your post is rude and insulting.
And while I may be just a little housewife who lives in the suburbs of the Midwest, that doesn't mean I am without whatever you conceive to be honour. Scintillas or otherwise. Which has nothing to do with the moderators acting with the agreement of Mr. Fred Pruitt, founder and sole owner of this private site, through which you choose to track with dung-covered feet.
Were it up to me, you would be banned for rudeness and a presumption of entitlement (quite different from a spirited exchange of views. We all know that there are Muslims who aspire to world conquest, and those who support them, actively or tacitly; Fred established this site to figure out what is going on). We know that OldSpook has extensive experience in the military and in intelligence, and a long history of posting intelligent and insightful comments here. I lived abroad for some years as a corporate wife, and spent even more years hearing the tales of a husband who spent the majority of his career outside the U.S.
Pray tell us what your experience is, that we should listen to your heated words with respect.
#12
Actually the Megatons on Mecca is a bit premature - but it must never be NOT an option. These folks have it written in their books that its OK to rape, lie cheat and steal as long as its for the power of Islam over the unbeliever.
Its an remnant of the development of Islam, where Muhammed waged war aganst the pagans in the Arab world, and the Arab culture it absorbed (the mysogynisitc view,the worship of the Kabaa - an ancient pagan center now at the center of Islam).
The "religion" is in dire need of reform, but is apparently incapable of it.
As such, it must be treated the way one woudl treat a rabid dog: out of safety it must be kept away and controlled until it dies on its own, or it is killed by direct action. Coldly, dispassionately, as one would treat a disease.
The fundamental problem with Islam is that it requires slavery - and slavery to earthly authority and power, in the person of the Imam. thier cultural view is liek that of the ancient arab pagans and babylonians, in which man sacrifices others to the gods in order to please them, and there is a haierarchy of persons with only a leader at the top that talks to god. Even thier vision of heaven shows this: beleivers are promised property in heaven, and slaves of all sorts, including sexual ones (houris) as their reward. This is refelected in their political institutions, top-down and dictatorial, and their religion being materialist and divisive - prone to plunder and looting, not production. No others can be allowed to exist in any meaningful way, because Islam and its pagan power structure cannot survive the challenge.
Contrast that to Judiasm where everyone has a relationship with God as their birthright by way of the covenenant. Or even better, contrast that to Christianity where everyone can talk directly and personally to God - and their own PERSONAL relationship choice with God determines their conversion. These world views bring us governments whre individuals matter - and can directly address their government - and governments whose (original) purpose is to serve the people, not rule the people. And its the people's jobs to fulfill thier potential and imitate God as creators of good on earth. Even athiests are allowed - because Christianity beleives its central truths are stong enough to withstand the challenges.
This is our fundamental culture war:
The ancient beleifes of Islam where man is nothing but stepping stones for power structures topped by a vengeful God who enjoys torturing people in Hell (look up the many passages about the torture in hell for unbeleivers and apostates) and has slaves in heaven,
Or a loving God that allow so much freedom that He allows his creation to reject Him and nail Him to a tree. This side says man is God's greatest creation in His own image and should be treated as such, not as means to somone else's ends.
Time to wake up and realize that we are in a fight for the soul of humanity agains this great evil, unreformed Islam.
If we fight it properly now, we will not be forced to nuke Mecca and other places and kill so many innocents who don't deserve to die because they were misled. If we sit back, eventually we will be faced with just that scenario. The only true course for humanists is to fight evil before it becomes so big that it requires drastic measures to destroy.
#13
If we fight it properly now, we will not be forced to nuke Mecca and other places and kill so many innocents who don't deserve to die because they were misled.
Nukes will ultimately be ineffective. They will kill who they kill, and leave the rest untouched but more p.o.ed.
We need to do to them what Sherman did to Georgia and South Carolina. Everyone, regardless of degree of guilt or involvement, must be made to suffer and regret what they have collectively done. Whether anyone is killed is less important than that there be such immense suffering by all that none ever tolerate a cancer like this in their religion again. Make them howl.
#14
The world has gotten way too damn small. Now everybody, even these kooks, dreams of taking over the whole enchilada - or at least a large part of it. Chavez plots the recreation of Gran Columbia, the Mad Mullahs scheme at creating a Greater Persia, Mexico dreams of expanding back to its pre-1951 boundaries, and Russia and China play at empire (again). The dictators and oligarches of the world arent content just to be rich and corrupt anymore. Everybody wants to be a superpower, except that theres one inconvenient nation in the way: namely, the United States.
What to do, what to do....
The world senses weakness from us, and they KNOW the Europeans are weak. All of the worlds creeps and wannabes are going to try their luck in the next ten years. Its 1938 all over again and the question is: are we up to the challenge?
#15
I had a shuddersome premonition watching the South Tower collapse on 9/11: that this would become a war of annihilation-- the West against Islam-- no matter how hard we and others might try to prevent it. Maybe it will, maybe not; we aren't quite there yet. But that's the direction things seem to be going-- and the pace is quickening.
I'm not optimistic.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/10/2006 12:46 Comments ||
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#16
Henry the Navigator led Portugal into ocean navigation incrementally around Africa, BECAUSE, they wanted to RAZE MECCA by sea.
They got side tracked by the money to be made hijacking the spice trade.
#20
This is a microcosm of three unavoidable issues facing the West. I offer my opinion for anyone interested.
1) Is Islam "bad"?
2) Can we fight a "nice war" and win?
3) If not, will we talk ourselves into, or out of, preserving our way of life?
Simple, but complex. Plenty of room in there for a few thousand books, talking-head show appearances and lecture circuit careers. Plenty of grist for the dither mills. Much gnashing of teeth, much hair-splitting and positioning, much ado. The tranzis and politicians and equivalency folks will be frothy with lengthy replies. Some will challenge the questions themselves, claiming it's not that simple. Of course I would disagree, since I think they go straight to the heart and represent precisely what we must determine - or else.
My answers are simple, not at all complex.
1) Islam is no different, in practice, than Nazism, just less honest.
2) No. Anyone saying otherwise has never fought.
3) The rub. Our ability to win militarily is not in doubt, but our will to survive is.
I was infantry and my career spanned Korea and Vietnam. I was a professional killer. You hear a great deal about our souls and the moral high ground these days. From the high ground I discovered you could kill more of the enemy and see the field of battle better. It never helped me sleep better - exhaustion took care of that. You did what you had to do and that was the sum of it. It bore no resemblance to the talk-show nit-picking or book tour posturing that preceded, ran concurrently with, or followed. Endless pointless blather is man's Eternal Golden Braid. If you have ever killed another person, not in hot anger, but with simple calm acknowledgment that it had to be done, you or him, one of us must die, then you understand that 99.99% of what is written and opined is merely pointless hand-wringing or seeking advantage, whether monetary or political. Those who draw lines and stake out positions solve nothing, they just muddy the water and get more good people killed. Eventually, those who aren't professional fools realize what must be done and get on with it - or we, and those we care about, suddenly and very horribly cease to exist. I believe the relatives and friends of those who perished on 9/11 or in the Khobar Towers or onboard the Cole or in Iraq or in Afghanistan would understand with painful clarity.
I'm no sophisticated intellectual and can't debate the merits and minutia of Westphalia. The funny thing is, I wouldn't even if I could, since it would solve nothing. I was, and still am, a plain man. What I know with a stone cold certainty is that when someone is trying to kill me or mine and I can track them back to their lair, then they and all who ally with them, are forfeit. I guarantee you I didn't then, and wouldn't now, lose any sleep over it.
I think that's plain enough.
Posted by: Very Old Leg ||
05/10/2006 16:18 Comments ||
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#21
Time to wake up and realize that we are in a fight for the soul of humanity agains this great evil, unreformed Islam.
The "reformed" Islam will have no more validity as a belief system than the current version has. I agree with everything else that Old Spook wrote, but its time we were all honest with ourselves in regard to the fundamental impossibility of reforming a "religion" that is based upon the rantings of a homicidal madman such as Mohammad. Being violent and crazy (as demanded by the alleged "Prophet") is either the Godly way of life, or the entire Koran is a joke--there is no way for Islam to "reform" its way out of this problem.
Nope - not what I'm advocating either. I've seen war and I've beena triggerpuller. Seen what my 7.62 does to humans. And what 120mm APFSDS does to humans inside a T-72m(export) tank. And what MLRS does in its beaten area to poor dumb cannon cockers who got caught in the open by counterbattery they were never expecting.
Better them and theirs than me and mine. But still not a pleasant thing.
I'm saying fight sooner so they are weaker and we incur less casualties on both sides.
The longer we wait, the shorter that lever-arm gets, and the more force will be needed to move the rock.
#23
"they want to recreate the Caliphate"
Only over the dead body of countless millions like me, with access to the most advanced social, medical, technological and military systems this world has ever seen. Such a dream is doomed to failure, its death will be as quite or as violent as necessary.
#24
"But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah."
To paraphrase Shakespeare, A slave is a slave and slavery by any other name would stink as horridly.
As others here have noted, this one is for all the marbles, just as it was against the Nazis. The world needs to wake up and understand it faces a threat that would just as soon see everybody on earth dead as see them unconverted to Islam. It's that simple.
#25
Once these leaders invite Hizb ut-Tahrir to take power - effectively staging a military coup - the party would then repeat the process in other countries before linking them up to form a revived Caliphate.
Same fatal flaw that's contained in the lust for Communism - complete denial of the human condition.
#26
Certain members of the Democratic Party could be assigned to this Caliphate as part of an "exchange mission," for which nothing would be received in return. It would be a permanent arrangement.
Oil prices are skyrocketing. Iran appears determined to develop its nuclear program, if not weapons. The Iraq war blazes on with no end in sight. Israelis and Palestinians haven't had meaningful peace talks in years. In the middle of this chaos sits Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer. Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, discussed these and other issues last week with USA TODAY editors and reporters. His comments were edited for length and clarity.
Question: With oil prices reaching record highs, what is your sense of today's supply and demand?
Answer: There are enough supplies today to meet world demand. In fact, there is an excess supply. For the last two or three years, we've been trying to sell some of our oil on the market, without any customers. When OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) met a couple weeks ago, they said that not only were supplies available, but also all inventories in all countries are at their highest levels ever. These factors should be bringing down the price of oil. But the issue of security, and the political dimension not just in our part of the world, but in places like Nigeria, and your differences with Venezuela add $15 to $20 to the price of a barrel. The political dimension, really, has overtaken the economic and business dimensions.
#3
Holy Jesus Christ! You're right about that jacket! Either he was dressed for the Derby, or he just got done performing in a barber shop quartet.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/10/2006 16:21 Comments ||
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#4
I watched a documentary on I believe it was Brazil recently. They are almost entirely off of crude oil thanks to manufacturing a type of combustible engine fuel from sugar cane. I can't wait to see the day, hope it isn't far off, when we've achieved the same goal with corn, soybeans, hickory nuts or whatever. When the crude oil revenues begin to plummet, I suspect the muzzies will get a real war on over there.
#5
Brazil has vast tracts of land suitable for sugar cane.
Sugar cane don't grow here.
The other products pack an unimpressive energy punch, plus it's food.
#6
You're right about the suit. That's one hell of of a color war. I got a kick out of this Q&A:
Q: If diplomatic efforts were to fail, should force be used to prevent Iran from acquiring weapons?
A: We are against the use of force in any conflict. The effects would be detrimental not just to us but to the whole area. King Abdullah has publicly stated that war destroys, and what our region needs is to be built up.
Yeah, just like when Saddam took over Kiwait, you guys just sat there on yer fat behinds, and let the US do the heavy lifting.
I also chuckled about the part about having US students go to Saudi universities.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/10/2006 23:04 Comments ||
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After listening to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's talk at Harvard JFK's School of Government this afternoon, I went up to shake her hand and let her know much I admired her. She is physically a slight woman. How can it be that such a small woman is so feared? How can it be that men would kill her for her ideas?
The event was the JFK School's "Profiles in Public Leadership," moderated by Professor Barbara Kellerman. Ayaan spoke for about an hour (I missed the first half hour, dratted day job!), and fielded questions for another half hour. You needed prior permission to attend the event and a picture ID to get in. There were four strong-looking guys in suits in the room, posted up front and at the doors to (a familiar site at local lectures by critics of Islam). About 125 people were there, mostly grad students and professors.
Ayaan spoke of her evolution in thinking about Islam and becoming a politician and activist. She was raised Muslim, but at some point decided that there was no God. Once she was free of the fear of God, hell and damnation, she was able to critically look at Islam and ask questions. After 9/11, she asked, is terrorism linked to Islam or not? Can Islam be refomed? Her answer to the second question: Yes, but it must be reformed by Muslims. And it cannot be reformed without negating (not just ignoring) certain parts of the Koran.
[after hearing rambling incoherent questions and nonsense from the moslem grad students and post grads (the elite of the elite of the Moslem world)
...Here Ayaan asked "I really wonder what you (referring to all the grad students) are doing here" It was along the lines of "What are they teaching you anyway? Do you not know how to debate or discuss an issue?"
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.
AMMAN, JORDAN The three middle-aged men sitting in an Indian restaurant in Jordan's capital scarcely look like Islamic revolutionaries. They are smartly dressed in Western-style suits and sip thoughtfully from cans of Pepsi as they share their plan to reshape the Muslim world. "[President] Bush says that we want to enslave people and oppress their freedom of speech," says Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation. "But we want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves of Allah."
