Filed under: 2-party system, Afghanistan, airstrikes, al-qaeda, Athar Abbas, Barack Obama, bilderberg, bin laden, catastrophic event, CIA, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, George Bush, Guantanamo, Iraq, left right paradigm, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, Musharraf, nation building, national guard, Nazi, Neolibs, New World Order, obama, occupation, Pakistan, Police State, robert gibbs, Ron Paul, Saber Rattling, socialism, sovereignty, Taliban, Torture, Troops, uav, us military, War On Terror, White House, WW3, ww4 | Tags: national service, obama youth, selective service, soldiers, u.s. soldiers, universal civil defense training, universal service
Here we go.. Obama continues Bush’s policy on military force in Pakistan
Obama bombs Pakistan
NY Daily News
January 23, 2009
U.S. Predator drones hit two suspected AlQaeda dens in Pakistan with Hellfire missiles Friday – the first cross-border strikes from Afghanistan on President Obama’s watch.
Pakistani officials said at least 15 people were killed, including three children and four civilians. The attacks signaled Obama had given the green light to the CIA and the military to continue former President Bush’s policy of targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan.
New White House press secretary Robert Gibbs repeatedly declined to say whether Obama had personally signed off on the missile attacks that hit two villages in Pakistan’s lawless northwest frontier zone. “I’m not going to speak about these matters,” Gibbs said.
But U.S. intelligence sources told the Daily News neither the military nor the CIA was authorized to carry out such attacks without presidential approval.
In one of the strikes, “A militant den was successfully destroyed. At least five foreign Al Qaeda militants were killed,” a Pakistani official told Agence France-Presse.
During the campaign, Obama warned that he would authorize cross-border operations to go after Osama Bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, with or without the approval of Pakistan, which complained about the missile strikes.
“It helps us in no way conducting our operations” against Islamic militants, Pakistani Army Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN.
“We face much more difficulty as a result of drone strikes, and we have conveyed our position on that” to the U.S., Abbas said.
Pakistan routinely protests the air strikes as violations of sovereignty, but U.S. sources have suggested that Pakistan secretly supports the tactic to hit militants that also threaten the central government.
The U.S. has carried out more than 30 air strikes on targets in Pakistan since last July, killing more than 260 people.
Among those killed were top operatives planning attacks against the West, sources told The News. The list included:
- Khalid Habib, a veteran combat leader and operations chief involved in plots to attack the West. He was deputy to AlQaeda No. 3, Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri.
- Rashid Rauf, the mastermind of the 2006 British airliner plot.
- Abu Khabab al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s most seasoned explosives expert and trainer, who headed its chemical and biological weapons efforts.
- Abdallah Azzam, also a top aide to Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri.
- Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi, who led cross-border operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
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Abu Jihad al-Masri, an operation planner and propagandist
Robert Gibbs Refuses to Discuss Pakistan Bombing
http://rawstory.com/..raeus_over_missil_01202009.html
Obama ready to deploy 20,000 troops to Afghanistan
http://rawstory..ady_to_deploy_up_to_20_01232009.html
Ron Paul: Obama Will Massively Increase The Government
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-..vernment.html
Barack Obama: it is no longer essential to kill Osama bin Laden
http://www.times..s_and_americas/article5520116.ece
Obama’s orders leave torture, indefinite detention intact
http:/..obamas-orders-leave-torture-indefinite.html” target=”_self
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Benazir Bhutto, blackops, CIA, Coup, decentralization, destabilization, False Flag, George Bush, inside job, Iraq, michael mullen, Military, Musharraf, nation building, NATO, neocons, occupation, Pakistan, Propaganda, Psyops, special forces, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: FATA, Gilani, JUI, Mehmud Durrani, Michel Chossudovsky, MQM, NWFP, Pashtun, PPP, Tehrik Taliban Pakistan, TTP, Zardari
CIA Supports the Pakistani Taliban
Pakistan Daily
September 14, 2008
Now the ball is in General Kayani’s court; will he be the one to blink first? Will he be forced by his civilian masters – Zardari and Gilani not to follow up on his promise and become subject of ridicule? Clearly, the U.S. is stung by Pakistan discovering who is the real enemy. Pakistan has decided to liquidate the so-called ‘Pakistani Taliban’ and is succeeding with popular support. It has become apparent that the insurgency in the FATA and elsewhere in NWFP is aided and abetted by the U.S. It wants to weaken the control of the federal government over the provinces and regions of Pakistan and it does not care whether it is achieved by Islamists or by ethnic nationalists. It supports the BLA as well as Baitullah Mehsud. It maintains its contacts with the MQM, the ANP, Baloch Nationalists as well as the JUI. It came to court the PPP as it concluded it was not overly concerned with ‘national interests’.
Pakistan is nervous; it cannot believe that the United States can turn on its ally so fast and so easy. President Bush has proclaimed a new war theater in Pakistan alongside Iraq and Afghanistan. But President Bush is dead wrong; the nature of the war in the three countries is quite different.
In Iraq, the resistance to U.S. occupation is organized by sectarian militias that are not excluded from participation in politics; they even have representation in government. In Afghanistan, the resistance is carried out primarily by the Pashtun majority, which is represented in government only by traitors and turncoats.
Pakistan is not occupied. In Pakistan, the main terrorist organization – Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – has political aims and it seeks to capture and control territory. The TTP is sponsored by the CIA, which provides it money, weapons and equipment.
All the three countries – Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – are similar in that the American aim is the same: to fragment the nation and impose unpopular/weak governments that will bend to U.S. will.
Although the story came out several weeks ago, the people of Pakistan are still stunned by the revelation that the TTP is CIA sponsored. The public first came to know of this in the newspapers that during the visit of Prime Minister Gilani to the U.S., his staff showed evidence of CIA support to TTP.
It Mr. Gilani some courage to tell U.S. that the ‘foreign support’ to Baitullah Mehsud came from the U.S. One thought it would put the U.S. on the defensive that those being accused and targeted by America for cross-border raids have been trained and supported by the U.S. Instead, the U.S. ratcheted up its propaganda against Pakistan. Baitullah Mehsud moves freely throughout the region promoting terrorism that will justify American actions. His men possess the most-advanced communication and possibly even satellite intelligence.
Pakistan army took a long time to read the signs because it just could not believe that the U.S. could resort to such diabolical stratagem against its ‘ally’.
The Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, announced on September 10 that the coalition forces would not be allowed to operate inside Pakistan. His statement came within hours of the testimony by U.S. Chief of Joint Staff, Admiral Mullen, that the strategy for the war in Afghanistan had been revised and that targets in Pakistan would be struck without prior notice or warning to Pakistan. General Kayani expressed outrage at the U.S. helicopter raid near Angor Adda on the Pakistan Afghan border that lasted 30-minute; three houses owned by the Wazir tribesmen were the target of the raid that killed 23 people, including women and children. What added insult to injury was the report that Prime Minister Gilani’s National Security Adviser Major General (retd) Mehmud Durrani formally wrote to his U.S. counterpart Steven Hadley, on September 5, warning that Pakistan would not allow any foreign forces to operate on its territory. In his letter, Durrani made it clear that the rules of engagement of the coalition forces were well defined and there was no provision that allowed the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan to operate inside Pakistan.
On Thursday, September 11, the Pakistan Army was given permission to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country. The same day, the Pakistan ambassador to the U.S. also met some national security advisers of the Bush administration and got the assurance that the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan would not operate inside Pakistan or launch any strike. As if to rub salt in the wound, the same night the coalition forces launched another missile attack on Miranshah, killing more than 12 people.
What is happening? What is the U.S. up to? More importantly, what can Pakistan do?
Clearly, the U.S. is stung by Pakistan discovering who is the real enemy. Pakistan has decided to liquidate the TTP and is succeeding with popular support. The U.S. should have been satisfied that the Pakistan Army is pursuing the TTP, but it is not. Clearly, the TTP is the excuse not the target. The American objective is to destabilize Pakistan. I refer to the article titled ‘The Destabilization of Pakistan’ by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research, Canada, in which it was revealed, before Feb. 18 elections, that U.S. sees an opportunity in the elections to advance its agenda and is supporting the terrorists inside Pakistan towards that end. He wrote:
“Washington will push for a compliant political leadership, with no commitment to the national interest, a leadership which will serve US imperial interests, while concurrently contributing under the disguise of “decentralization”, to the weakening of the central government and the fracture of Pakistan’s fragile federal structure.”…. “U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence. The official justification and pretext… to extend the “war on terrorism”. Concurrently, to justify its counter-terrorism program, Washington is also beefing up its covert support to the “terrorists.”
It has become apparent that the insurgency in the FATA and elsewhere in NWFP is aided and abetted by the US. It wants to weaken the control of the federal government over the provinces and regions of Pakistan and it does not care whether it is achieved by Islamists or by ethnic nationalists. It supports the BLA as well as Baitullah Mehsud. It maintains its contacts with the MQM, the ANP, Baloch Nationalists as well as the JUI. It came to court the PPP as it concluded it was not overly concerned with ‘national interests’. The economic conditions have been deteriorating so fast that the economy is being described as close to ‘melt-down’. The only remaining condition yet to be met for ‘destabilization’ to become unstoppable is the ‘demonization’ of the Pakistan Army.
That explains why General Kayani’s defiant statement was quickly followed by another Predator attack. Now the ball is in General Kayani’s court; will he be the one to blink first? Will he be forced by his civilian masters – Zardari and Gilani – not to follow up on his promise and become subject of ridicule? But Pakistan has options. First and foremost, the objectives of the so-called ‘war on terror’ would have to be revised; it must henceforth deal exclusively with clearing FATA and Swat of TTP, and pacifying the area.
The approach of the people of Pakistan towards the U.S. has been transformed by the raid on Pakistan’s soil. Until now, they thought that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan was no threat to Pakistan. They had a benign view of the war despite the horrendous civilian casualties. They thought the war brought funds for development and democracy in its wake. Now the support for U.S. presence in the region is zero. The people see the United States as the main enemy; the so-called extremists are the proxies and surrogates of the USA.
Second, the firm forthrightness of the Army Chief has made him popular and brought admiration for the armed forces, instead of being demonized. The PPP, which felt secure in power after the elevation of its co-chairman to the office of the President, is likely to feel threatened. The Prime Minster has already said that his Government would deal with the situation through diplomacy. But if the bombs continue to rain in FATA and more helicopter raids occur, the people would be outraged and demand retaliation. What would the Government do? It is time to be cool and act; diplomacy rarely works when it is mere talk. Since most of the raids are by air, Pakistan needs to deploy anti-aircraft weapons to protect outposts and villages. The U.S. and NATO would need to be informed that violation of air space would be considered ‘hostile’ and dealt with as such.
U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan depend on supply from or transit through Pakistan for a number of things. None need to stop but accidents do happen. After all, the U.S. did not solicit the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; they just let Baitullah Mehsud go through with what he was planning anyway. After deployment of anti-aircraft weapons on the border and ‘go slow’ strike on the tail from Karachi to Khybar, the ball would be in the U.S. court. It could take another step on the escalation ladder or sense might prevail.
However, Pakistan cannot afford to blink first. There will be rows between the civil and military leadership and it is hard to tell if the military advice would be accepted. But the Zardari Administration is already on the wrong side of the public opinion on the issue of restoration of the judges made dysfunctional by General Musharraf. He will be on the wrong side of the public opinion once again if he did nothing in the face of mounting casualties of soldiers and civilians a the hands of the USA.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, False Flag, George Bush, inside job, ISI, jihadist, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Pentagon, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, White House | Tags: National Security Council, NSC
Bush Buried Musharraf’s Al-Qaeda Links
Asia Times
August 21, 2008
Pervez Musharraf’s resignation as Pakistan’s president on Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with US security interests.
It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.
What has not been reported is that the Bush administration
covered up the Musharraf regime’s involvement in the activities of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear technology export program and its deals with al-Qaeda’s Pakistani tribal allies.
The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al-Qaeda “was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army”.
If there was a state sponsor of al-Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Vice President Dick Cheney and the neo-conservative-dominated Bush Pentagon were aware of the intimate relationship between Musharraf’s regime and both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda was not a high priority for the Bush administration.
After 9/11, the White House created the political myth that Musharraf, faced with a clear choice, had “joined the free world in fighting the terrorists”. But as Asia expert Selig S Harrison has pointed out, on September 19, 2001, just six days after he had supposedly agreed to US demands for cooperation against the Taliban regime and al-Qaeda, Musharraf gave a televised speech in Urdu in which he declared, “We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban.”
Read Full Article Here
Filed under: Afghanistan, al-qaeda, army, Baluchistan, CIA, False Flag, India, inside job, ISI, kabul, Media, MEK, michael mullen, Military, MKO, mujahideen, Musharraf, Pakistan, State Sponsored Terrorism, suicide bombing, Taliban, Troops, Uncategorized, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: Khalid Khawaja, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, Stephen R Kappes
’US backing terror networks in Pakistan’
Press TV
August 5, 2008
Pakistan has accused the US of backing militancy within the country, saying this goes against the spirit of so-called war on terror.
Pakistani the News quoted official sources as saying on Tuesday that strong evidence of American acquiescence to terrorism inside Pakistan was outlined by President Pervez Musharraf, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj in their separate meetings with US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R Kappes on July 12 in Rawalpindi.
Pakistani officials with direct knowledge of the meetings said the Americans were not interested in disrupting the Kabul-based fountainhead of terrorism in Baluchistan nor do they want to allocate the marvelous predator resource to neutralize the kingpin of suicide bombings against the Pakistani military establishment now hiding near the Pak-Afghan border.
The top US military commander were also asked why the CIA-run predator did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of militants and mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Army and the ISI since June 2006.
One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA on May 24 when Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post to address the press and returned back to his safe abode. The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.
“We wanted to know when our American friends would get interested in tracking down the terrorists responsible for hundreds of suicide bombings in Pakistan and those playing havoc with our natural resources in Baluchistan,” an official described the Pakistani mood during the meetings.
Pakistani official have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troops’ movement from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence, sources said.
Admiral Mullen and the CIA official were in Pakistan on an unannounced visit to show what the US media claimed was evidence of the ISI’s ties to the Taliban militants and the alleged involvement of Pakistani agents in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
A former official with Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Khalid Khawaja accused the US in an exclusive interview with the Press TV that the Americans had planted the bomb in the Indian Embassy in Kabul to widen the rift between Indians and Pakistanis.
The report comes a day after Musharraf’s warning against the US conspiracies toward Pakistan.
Pakistani political analysts say that the current “trust deficit” between the Pakistani and US security establishment is serious enough to lead to a collapse.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=65345§ionid=3510303
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, George Bush, military strike, Musharraf, NATO, Pakistan, War On Terror | Tags: Dr Hormon Olmen, Rawalpindi, Waziristan, Yousaf Raza Gilani
U.S. missile strike kills 6 in Pakistan
Reuters
July 28, 2008
A suspected U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrasa killed six people, including foreigners, on Monday in tribal lands regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban hotbed, intelligence officials said.
The target of the pre-dawn attack was a house close to a madrasa used by militants near Azam Warsak village, about 20 km (12 miles) west of Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
The attack, one of many in recent months, was launched hours before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was due to meet President George W. Bush in Washington for talks that will focus on the conduct of the war against terrorism.
The United States, alarmed by rising casualties among Western forces in Afghanistan, wants Pakistan to do more to contain the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in its territory.
A Pakistani military spokesman confirmed an incident had occurred in Waziristan, but said he was unaware of details, though intelligence officials in Wana gave a clearer picture.
One official told Reuters the madrasa, or religious school, was a militant base and the owner of the targeted house, a tribesman named Malik Sallat Khan, had ties with the militants.
Pakistan has right to retaliate if NATO attacked: President
Pakistan Link
July 28, 2008
President Pervez Musharraf Saturday said he is concerned over the Nato forces attack in Pakistani tribal areas and warned a U-S think-tank that no such attacks will be tolerated in future, and Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate.
Talking to a senior advisor of the US think-tank Dr Hormon Olmen in Rawalpindi, President Musharaf asserted that the Afghan-based Nato forces are not being attacked from the Pakistani soil nor is any cross-border activity taking place from here.
According to sources, the President reiterated that a stable Afghanistan in the interest of Pakistan and said baseless allegations against Pakistan could affect the war on terror.
Dr. Olmen told the President that the Pak-Afghan border security is a joint responsibility of both the countries and a cooperation between them is the need of the hour.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, al-qaeda, army, bin laden, China, CIA, CIA< ISI, Coup, Dick Cheney, False Flag, George Bush, Hezbollah, Iran, Jundullah, khalid sheikh mohammed, MEK, military strike, Musharraf, neocons, Nuke, Pakistan, PJAK, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Russia, Seymour Hersh, Shiite, Shock and Awe, State Sponsored Terrorism, sunni, Taliban, Tehran, War On Terror, White House, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Darul Uloom Haqqania, Hamid Gul, iwani, jund Kot Kalmat, jundallah, Mirza Aslam Baig, NPR, peshawar
Pakistan’s former Army Chief: Iran and Pakistan under siege of western conspiracies, U.S. backs Jundullah to destabilize Iran
Pakistan Daily
July 8, 2008
Former Pakistan Army Chief General ’’Retd’’ Mirza Aslam Baig on Tuesday said that Iran and Pakistan are under siege of western conspiracies.
He said that intelligence agencies of allied forces are very active in Afghanistan and working against the interests of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia.
“There are set-ups of United States in Jiwani and Kot Kalmat, in Balochistan province from where they carry out different operations in the area,” he said.
He said that the United States is also providing training facilities to the people of Jundallah, in Balochistan so that these people could create unrest in the area and affect Iran-Pakistan relations.
General (Retd) Baig termed the act of the United States as a conspiracy and said that this should be stopped.
He lauded the decision of the Pakistan government for handing over the people of Jundallah to Iran and said that those who are working against the interests of both countries should be dealt with with iron fist.
He said that the activities of people of Jundallah should be stopped and for this Iran and Pakistan have to tighten the security at Pakistan-Iran border.
He believed that in past both Pakistan and Iran had made mistakes but now it is right time to look forward and build strong relations.
General (Retd) Baig said that Pakistan should have supported the stance of Iran during Iran-Iraq war.
He was of the view that Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan should have worked together after the withdrawal of Russian army from Afghanistan.
He stressed the need for making a comprehensive strategy to strengthen Iran-Pakistan relations.
“We should forget the past and make a strategy to guard our national interests,” he said.
He said the richness of Balochistan in mineral resources is one of the attractions for the international powers but the strategic location of Balochistan is more important to the US and its allies.
General (Retd) Baig said that it is the responsibility of both countries to make the area free of danger and take the conspiracies as a challenge.
He said the American policy-makers are very much active in Balochistan since 2001 while India too has gained considerable influence in the province since then.
Former Pakistan General: U.S. Supports Jundullah Terrorists in Iran
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
July 10, 2008
According to Pakistan’s former Army Chief, retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, the U.S. supports the Jundullah terrorist group and uses it to destabilize Iran. Baig knows what he is talking about, as he was on the inside track when the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI created al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Both Baig and former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul were part of the Darul Uloom Haqqania Islamic conference held near Peshawar on January 9, 2001, significant because the conference was hosted by CIA asset Osama bin Laden. Baig rubs elbows with Pakistan’s ruling oligarchs, so he knows something about what goes down in South and Central Asia and the Greater Middle East.
“He said that the US is providing training facilities to Jundullah fighters–located in eastern areas of Iran–to create unrest in the area and affect the cordial ties between Iran and its neighbor Pakistan,” reports Iran’s Press TV. “The intelligence agencies of the coalitional forces are very active in Afghanistan and work against the interests of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia in the region, he said as quoted by Pakistan Daily newspaper.”
In other words, the neocons are busy at work on their plan, active now for well over a decade, to foment chaos in the region and ultimately reduce it to a smoldering ruin. Iran has long figured prominently on the neocon hit list.
“Jundullah is a terrorist group, headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, which operates in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan and Pakistan’s Baluchistan,” notes Press TV. In fact, the Sunni terrorist group is a creature of the CIA, a fact confirmed last May when the Sunday Telegraph reported that the CIA was “supplying money and weapons” to Jundullah as part of Bush’s not so covert black op designed to “achieve regime change in Iran,” that is to say reduce the country to a smoldering ruin on par with Iraq and install a brutal dictatorship, more than likely a return of the the dreaded Pahlavi monarchy, long favored by neocons. Rigi fought with another CIA-ISI spawned group, the Taliban, in Afghanistan.
“Jundullah has close ties with Al-Qaeda,” Tariq Jamil, chief of the Karachi police, told Newsline in 2004. In 2005, according to ABC News, U.S. officials began encouraging and advising Jundullah and in February, 2007, Dick Cheney flew to Pakistan to parlay with dictator Pervez Musharraf on Jundullah operations against Iran. It is said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, supposedly the al-Qaeda operational commander of the September 11 terrorist attacks, headed up the group at one point.
In short, the U.S. is using al-Qaeda to attack and destabilize Iran. However, according to Bush and the neocons, Iran is supporting al-Qaeda. “President Bush yesterday accused Iran of harboring and aiding top al Qaeda terrorists, but he stopped short of charging that Tehran was directly involved in the September 11 attacks,” the Washington Times reported on July 20, 2004. Prior to this, the 9/11 whitewash commission accused al-Qaeda and Iran of collusion by way of Hezbollah, never mind that Hezbollah is a Shi’ite group and al-Qaeda Sunni, thus enemies.
Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation
CASMII
July 9, 2008
In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield’, the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration’s executive power, about the US recognition of Iran’s overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.
Hersh explains that the aim of the US covert operations inside Iran is to create a pretext for attack with the goal of regime change. “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, he said. “Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli’, a reason to attack the country. That is the thinking and it is very crazy.”
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, George Bush, Iran, Musharraf, neocons, poll, putin, Tehran, War On Terror
World trusts Ahmadinejad more than Bush ‘to do the right thing regarding world affairs.’
Think Progress
June 16, 2008
A new World Public Opinion poll of 20 nations finds that just 2 percent say that they have “a lot” or “some” confidence that President Bush will do “the right thing regarding world affairs.” Bush ranks below Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but just edges out Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf:
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, al-qaeda, bin laden, Coup, False Flag, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, military base, military bases, military strike, Musharraf, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, Pentagon, Robert Gates, Shock and Awe, Taliban, Tehran, Troops, War On Terror, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Waziristan
Pentagon planning ‘boots on ground’ in Waziristan
Pakistan Daily Times
June 2, 2008
WASHINGTON: “So alarmed is the Pentagon, that Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to send US ground forces into the FATA are being rapidly advanced,” writes journalist Eric Margolis in his syndicated column read worldwide.
“Apparently, Washington’s criticism of Islamabad’s recent peace deals in the tribal territories has sharply intensified. American conservatives are claiming Pakistan has ‘sold out’ to Al Qaeda and Taliban, and is sheltering Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts.”
US fears: Margolis writes about Washington’s desperate efforts to keep President Pervez Musharraf afloat because it fears that a fully civilianised government in Islamabad would be more responsive to anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and wash its hands of the war on terror at a time when more, not less, Pakistani support is needed to help US troops in Afghanistan confront the Taliban summer offensive.
“Musharraf’s slow-motion fall from power has also wrong-footed Washington because it was counting on using US bases there in the event of an attack on Iran,” reveals Margolis. “The US capitol is again buzzing with rumours of an impending air campaign against at least 3,000 targets in Iran that will be launched sometime before November elections to boost the fortunes of the embattled Republicans. Israel’s American supporters are waging an all-out campaign for war against Iran. This week, they began running TV commercials claiming Iran was attacking the United States.”
Margolis argues that as Pakistan’s economy takes a battering over soaring oil prices and political instability, and faces a punishing recession, if not an outright financial crisis, it will become increasingly dependent on US aid. “That is Washington’s last hope. Pakistan will have the Hobson’s choice of either continuing to support the US-led war in Afghanistan, and incur growing armed resistance in Pashtun tribal areas, or be left in the cold and without US financial aid when its failing economy finally hits the wall.”
He explains that the Pentagon is angry and frustrated over the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and dismayed with Pakistan for being ‘non-responsive’ to US demands. “Washington is so used to getting its way that it cannot abide the natives being insubordinate. The mood in Washington is increasingly warlike and grim as the beleaguered Bush administration enters its final days.”
Filed under: airstrikes, Coup, Dick Cheney, False Flag, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, Israel, military strike, Musharraf, neocons, Nuke, Pakistan, Pentagon, Propaganda, Russia, Saber Rattling, Shock and Awe, Tehran, White House, WMD, WW3
Cheney: Iran seeks weapons-grade uranium
AFP
March 25, 2008
Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday said Iran was developing a uranium enrichment program for military purposes.
“Obviously, they’re … heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons grade levels,” Cheney said in an interview with ABC television transcribed by the White House.
Cheney, however, did not mention on what he based his accusation.
The United States and its European allies have led efforts to pressure Iran into freezing its disputed uranium enrichment work, a process that can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the core of an atomic bomb.
Tehran insists its program is peaceful.
The UN Security Council recently imposed a third set of sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear activities.
Washington has stepped up pressure to halt Tehran’s uranium enrichment program ever since a US intelligence report in December said Iran did have, in effect, a covert nuclear weapons program but that it was stopped in 2003.
The report, which the White House interpreted as confirming its suspicions about Iran’s secret ambition, increased skepticism over Washington’s warnings that began after the Iraq war did not yield the weapons of mass destruction the US had predicted.
Bush: US will show Iran who rules
Press TV
March 29, 2008
The US claims Iraq success will send a ’clear message’ to Iran that it cannot have its way with other countries in the Middle East.
“The reason why it’s … important to be successful in Iraq, is because, one, we want to help establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, the most volatile region of the world,” President George W. Bush said at a White House news conference with visiting Australian Premier Kevin Rudd.
“Two, we want to send a clear message to Iran that they’re not going to be able to have their way with nations in the Middle East,” he continued.
Earlier, Iran advised the Bush Administration to stop blaming other nations for its wrongdoings in Iraq.
“The US is exhibiting clear signs of projection bias and President Bush’s recent remarks show he is desperate to run away from the reality of the grim situation in Iraq,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said Friday.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israe..chance_of_US_0325.html
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, Centcom, Congress, Coup, Dick Cheney, False Flag, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, Israel, military strike, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Pentagon, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shock and Awe, Taliban, Tehran, William Fallon, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Leonid Ivashov, Saudi Shura Council, William K. Polk
Saudi Newspaper: Prepare for Nuclear Strike on Iran
OpEd News
March 29, 2008
According to Chris Floyd at the Empire Burlesque web site:
The Saudi government is now preparing plans to deal with “any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards” that may arise from an attack on Iran’s nuclear reactors. This was reported by a top Saudi newspaper, Okaz, and relayed by a leading German news service, DPA — one day after Dick Cheney paid a visit to the kingdom. As we noted, no one knows exactly what was said at that confab of allied authoritarians — but something sure lit a fire under the Saudis, and convinced them that urgent action is needed to brace for the lethal overspill from a strike on Iran.
Floyd points out that nothing in Saudi Arabia becomes the top news story without government approval. That such a story should be released the day after Cheney’s visit, sends a message to everyone about what’s on Cheney’s mind.
This, combined with the dismissal of Centcom chief, Admiral Fallon, Petreus’ claim to have evidence (which he doesn’t produce) that Iran was responsible for the recent shelling of the Green Zone,
. . and the Egyptian report that a nuclear sub has been ordered by Bush into the Gulf, the bleak picture in both Pakistan and Afghanistan (accelerating collapse of Musharraf’s power and strategy, the coming spring offensive in the Taliban’s announced drive for Kabu),
. . plus the oft-stated desire of Bush and Cheney to attack Iran, and, as noted by former mideast policy official William K. Polk at Juan Cole’s site just a few days ago, the last time Cheney visited the nations he visited this time was right before the Iraq attack,
. . then only a moron would deny that Bush and Dick have nothing but contempt for the will of the people, congress and the courts, and that they crave war like a junkie craves his fix.
Cheney Visits them, and Saudis then Prepare for “Sudden Nuclear Hazards”
One Tick Closer to Midnight . . .
Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed that the Saudi Shura Council — the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle — is preparing “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors,” one of the kingdom’s leading newspapers, Okaz, reports. The German-based DPA news service relayed the paper’s story.
Simple prudence — or ominous timing? We noted here last week that an American attack on Iran was far more likely than most people suspect. We pointed to the mountain of evidence for this case gathered by scholar William R. Polk, one of the top aides to John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to other indicators of impending war. The story by Okaz — which would not have appeared in the tightly controlled dictatorship without approval from the top — is yet another, very weighty piece of evidence laid on the scales, pointing toward a new, horrendous conflict.
We don’t know what the Saudis told Cheney in private — or even more to the point, what he told them. But the release of this story now, just after his departure, would seem to be a clear indication that the Saudis have good reason to fear a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and that they are actively preparing for it.
And they certainly should be bracing themselves. A U.S. attack on Iran will come suddenly, and if it is indeed aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities — a “threat” being talked up again with new urgency by both Cheney and Bush lately — it has the potential for unimaginable consequences.
Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border
RIA Novosti
March 29, 2008
Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
“The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran,” the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran “that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost.”
He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.
A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.
The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.
The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.
US Declaration of War on Iran
Intel Daily
March 25, 2008
March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy. On this date the US officially declared war on Iran. But it’s not going to be the kind of war many have been expecting.
No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George W. Bush from the White House oval office. In fact on this day, reports the Washington Post, Bush spent some time communicating directly with Iranians, telling them via Radio Farda (the US-financed broadcaster that transmits to Iran in Farsi, Iran’s native language) that their government has “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people.” But not to worry, he told his listeners in Farsi-translated Bushspeak: Tehran would not get the bomb because the US would be “firm.”
Over at the US Congress, no war resolution was passed, no debate transpired, no last-minute hearing on the Iran “threat” was held. The Pentagon did not put its forces on red alert and cancel all leave. The top story on the Pentagon’s website (on March 20) was: “Bush Lauds Military’s Performance in Terror War,” a feel-good piece about the president’s appearance on the US military’s TV channel to praise “the performance and courage of U.S. troops engaged in the global war on terrorism.” Bush discussed Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa but not Iran.
But make no mistake. As of Thursday, March 20 the US is at war with Iran.
So who made it official?
Read Full Article Here
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http://www.democraticunderg..rd.php?az=view_all&address=389×501857
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http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/6217
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http://www.smh.com.au/news/worl..n/2008/03/28/1206207408596.html
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http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/..n-that-we-could-have-stopped/
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http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=49183§ionid=351020104
Curious case of the dead scientist and the bomb experiment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/24/defence
US deploys nuclear sub to Persian Gulf’
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4439
Saudi Shura council to discuss plan for sudden radioactive hazards
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=96940
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Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, al-qaeda, Benazir Bhutto, George Bush, John Negroponte, military strike, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia | Tags: Nawaz Sharif, Richard Boucher, Yousaf Raza Gilani
Pakistan To US: We Are No Longer Your Killing Field
Guardian
March 27, 2008
The Bush administration is scrambling to engage with Pakistan’s new rulers as power flows from its strong ally, President Pervez Musharraf, to a powerful civilian government buoyed by anti-American sentiment.
Top diplomats John Negroponte and Richard Boucher travelled to a mountain fortress near the Afghan border yesterday as part of a hastily announced visit that has received a tepid reception.
On Tuesday, senior coalition partner Nawaz Sharif gave the visiting Americans a public scolding for using Pakistan as a “killing field” and relying too much on Musharraf.
Yesterday the new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said he warned President George Bush in a phone conversation that he would prioritise talking as well as shooting in the battle against Islamist extremism. “He said that a comprehensive approach is required in this regard, specially combining a political approach with development,” a statement said.
But Gilani also reassured Bush that Pakistan would “continue to fight against terrorism”, it said.
Since 2001 American officials have treasured their close relationship with Musharraf because he offered a “one-stop shop” for cooperation in hunting al-Qaida fugitives hiding in Pakistan.
But since the crushing electoral defeat of Musharraf’s party last month, and talk that the new parliament may hobble the president’s powers, that equation has changed. Now the US finds itself dealing with politicians it previously spurned.
The body language between Negroponte and Sharif during their meeting on Tuesday spoke volumes: the Pakistani greeted the American with a starched handshake, and sat at a distance .
In blunt remarks afterwards, Sharif said he told Negroponte that Pakistan was no longer a one-man show. “Since 9/11, all decisions were taken by one man,” he said. “Now we have a sovereign parliament and everything will be debated in the parliament.”
It was “unacceptable that while giving peace to the world we make our own country a killing field,” Sharif said, echoing widespread public anger at US-funded military operations in the tribal belt.
“If America wants to see itself clean of terrorism, we also want our villages and towns not to be bombed,” he said.
US officials have long paid tribute to the virtues of democracy in Pakistan. But, as happened in the Palestinian Authority after the 2006 Hamas victory, policymakers are racing to catch up with the consequences of a result that challenges American priorities.
The US has long been suspicious of Sharif, whom it views as sympathetic to religious parties. Unlike Benazir Bhutto, whose return from exile was negotiated through the US, Sharif came under the protection of Saudi Arabia. But now Sharif’s party, which performed well in the poll, is an integral part of the new government.
Yesterday Negroponte and Boucher travelled to the Khyber Pass in North-West Frontier Province, the centre of a growing insurgency. They met with the commander of the Frontier Corps, a poorly equipped paramilitary force that the US has offered to upgrade. The US has earmarked $750m (£324m) for a five-year development programme in tribal areas. At least 22 military instructors are due to start training the corps this year.
The timing of the American visit – before the new cabinet is announced – has offended Pakistanis. “It flies in the face of normal protocol at a time when public opinion is rife that they are making a last ditch effort to save Musharraf,” said Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist.
It is unclear how Pakistan’s foreign policy will be formulated in future. Musharraf’s power may have been cut but the strong army is lurking in the shadows, and the coalition is wrangling over cabinet posts, including that of foreign minister.
Gilani must manage other tensions, particularly over whether to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice who was freed from house arrest on Monday. Chaudhry has become a folk hero but is viewed with suspicion by Gilani’s Pakistan People’s party.
U.S. steps up missile strikes in Pakistan: report
Reuters
March 27, 2008
The United States has escalated air strikes against al-Qaeda fighters operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas fearing that support from Islamabad may slip away, The Washington Post reported on Thursday
U.S. officials, who were not identified, said Washington wants to inflict as much damage as it can to al Qaeda’s network now because Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may not be able to offer much help in the months ahead.
Musharraf, a vital U.S. ally in the campaign against terrorism who has generally supported such strikes, has seen his power wane dramatically over the past year.
Over the past two months, U.S.-controlled Predator aircraft have struck at least three sites used by al-Qaeda operatives, the Post reported.
About 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters have been killed in the attacks, all near the Afghan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials were cited as saying.
Neither U.S. nor Pakistani authorities officially confirm U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani territory, which would be an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.
Many al Qaeda members, including Uzbeks and Arabs, and Taliban militants took refuge in North and South Waziristan, as well as in other areas on the Pakistani side of the border after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
According to the Post, the goal was partly to try to get information on senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, by forcing them to move in ways that U.S. intelligence analysts can detect.
Citing an administration official, the report said the campaign was not specifically designed to capture bin Laden before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
“It’s not a blitz to close this chapter,” a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the newspaper. “If we find the leadership, then we’ll go after it. But nothing can be done to put al-Qaeda away in the next nine or 10 months. In the long haul, it’s an issue that extends beyond this administration.”
Filed under: Abu Laith al-Libi, Afghanistan, airstrikes, al-qaeda, B-52, CIA, civilian casualties, False Flag, FBI, George Bush, michael hayden, Military, military strike, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Taliban, Troops, uav, War On Terror, Washington D.C., White House, William Fallon | Tags: Mike McConnell, Mike Mullen, PPP, South Waziristan
Musharraf Approves US Military Strike in Pakistan
The Times of India
March 24, 2008
The Musharraf regime has indirectly approved the US Drone (pilotless plane) attacks on al-Qaida targets in tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.
Since January, missiles have been fired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated Predator drones and have hit at least three suspected hideouts of Islamic militants, including a strike on March 16 in Toog village in South Waziristan that left 20 dead.
Sources said that the recent wave of Predator attacks are the result of Musharraf’s understanding with the US officials and other top Pakistanis which gave Washington virtually unrestricted authority to hit targets in the border areas.
The surge began after senior US official’s visit to Pakistan including intelligence czar Mike McConnell, CIA director General Michael Hayden and William Fallon, who recently resigned as Commander of the US forces in the region.
Bruce Riedel, a retired CIA expert on the region, said that a new wave of terrorism inside Pakistan (there were 62 suicide attacks last year, after just six in 2006) has forced Musharraf and the new military chief Ashfaq Kiyani to acknowledge that the extremists threatening Americans now also pose a growing threat to Pakistan’s internal security.
Another US strike inside Pakistan’s border region
WSWS
March 19, 2008
An air strike on Sunday on a compound in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan that borders Afghanistan has left up to 20 people dead. While Washington has not acknowledged responsibility, there is little doubt that the US military or the CIA carried out the attack as part of a widening covert war against anti-American militants entrenched in the Pakistani border areas.
Up to seven missiles or bombs flattened the compound just south of the regional centre of Wana at around 3 p.m. “When I heard the explosions, I rushed to the place where it happened. I saw dead bodies scattered everywhere,” a villager Aziz Ullah Wazir told the Washington Post. Local residents and officials claimed that the house belonged to a Taliban sympathiser, Noorullah Wazir, and was frequented by “Arabs”—the term used to denote foreign supporters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Veteran journalist Sailab Masood told the Guardian, however, that local tribesmen were angry that innocent civilians had been killed.
Details of the attack are scanty. According to the New York Times, villagers said a B-52 bomber carried out the raid. Other reports cite locals who claim to have heard the sound of a US Predator drone—an unmanned surveillance vehicle that has been used in previous attacks inside Pakistan. The Pakistani military acknowledged that the blasts had occurred, but pointedly refused to identify the attackers, saying only that the army had no operations in the area.
Both Washington and Islamabad are deliberately playing down the attack, which will only further fuel anger at Pakistan’s support for the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. President Pervez Musharraf’s involvement in the Bush administration’s bogus “war on terrorism” and tacit approval of US operations inside Pakistan were a major factor in generating opposition to his regime.
The issue remains highly sensitive as the winners of last month’s elections—the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)—prepare to form a government. Whatever their limited criticisms of US militarism during the campaign, both parties have a long record of supporting Pakistan’s alliance with Washington and collaborating with the US military. Significantly, neither party has protested against the latest missile strike, an indication that the new government, like Musharraf, will acquiesce to US strikes in the tribal areas.
There are many signs that the Bush administration has expanded covert operations inside Pakistan since the beginning of the year. In early January, the New York Times reported that a top-level White House meeting, involving Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and other senior officials, discussed in detail “far more aggressive covert operations” inside Pakistani border areas.
“The new operations for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the CIA to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials said. Most counter terrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted by the CIA… [I]f the CIA were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputise some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency,” the article stated.
While the New York Times claimed that no decisions were taken at the January meeting, another article last month reported that the CIA had established a base inside Pakistan. “Among other things, the new arrangements allowed an increase in the number and scope of patrols and strikes by armed Predator surveillance aircraft launched from a secret base in Pakistan—a far more aggressive strategy to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban than had existed before,” the Times explained.
In its report of Sunday’s strike, the Times noted that Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence and General Michael Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, reached an agreement in January with the new Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to allow the US greater freedom to strike targets in the tribal areas without specific permission from the Pakistani Army. The article claimed that the US was receiving “better on-the-ground human intelligence” by providing “large cash payments to tribesmen”.
There has been a marked increase in visits to Pakistan this year by senior American military officers, including two by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. During his latest visit on March 4, Admiral Mullen discussed US assistance to expand Pakistan’s Frontier Corps to a force of around 85,000 recruited from tribesmen in the border areas. The Pentagon has already spent around $25 million to provide the Frontier Corps with equipment, including vehicles, radios and surveillance devices, and plans to spend another $75 million over the next year.
At least two other US aerial attacks have taken place inside Pakistan this year. On January 29, a missile destroyed a compound in the village of Khushali Torikhel in North Waziristan, killing 13 people. US and Pakistani officials claimed that Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Al Qaeda commander, was among the dead. On February 28, a missile strike destroyed an alleged Taliban safe house in the village of Kaloosha in South Waziristan, killing at least 10 people. A local tribal leader told the Washington Post that women and children were among the dead, and that at least six others were injured.
It is not possible to confirm the identity of the victims of these attacks. In neighbouring Afghanistan, US officials routinely brand the casualties of US operations as “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda” and deny civilian deaths even in cases where locals have provided clear evidence to the contrary. On-the-ground intelligence provided by paid informants is often unreliable and coloured by local rivalries and animosities. Claims about the outcome of US strikes inside Pakistan are undoubtedly just as uncertain.
Other attacks on targets within Pakistan are taking place from US bases inside Afghanistan. Pakistani officials lodged a formal complaint with the US military after artillery fire from Afghanistan hit a house in North Waziristan last Wednesday, killing two women and two children. According to the Pakistani-based News, last Friday four missiles fell on the village of Botraki, just inside the Pakistani border.
The extent of Washington’s covert war inside Pakistan remains unclear, but such operations are fuelling widespread anger and provoking a rising number of suicide bombings and attacks on Pakistani security forces and other targets. Last Saturday, a bomb blast at a restaurant in Islamabad popular with foreigners killed a Turkish woman and wounded at least 10 others, including five American officials, two Japanese journalists and a British police officer. Four of the five Americans were FBI agents operating in Pakistan.
The escalation of US operations can only have a profoundly destabilising impact, not just in the border regions, but throughout Pakistan, which is already wracked by deep political crisis. While the PPP and PML-N won a decisive victory in last month’s election, in part because of their criticism of Musharraf’s collaboration with the US, the mood will quickly turn as the new government seeks to maintain the US alliance amid ongoing American strikes on Pakistani soil.
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, Coup, Dictatorship, election fraud, False Flag, Martial Law, Musharraf, Pakistan, vote scam, voter fraud
Tape caught Pakistani official saying vote will be rigged
Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
February 14, 2008
A prominent U.S.-based human rights group Friday released what it said was a recording of Pakistan’s attorney general acknowledging that next week’s national elections would be “massively” rigged.
Human Rights Watch said a journalist made the recording during a telephone interview with Attorney General Malik Qayyum when Qayyum took a second call without disconnecting the first, allowing his end of the second conversation to be overheard and recorded.
In the recording, Qayyum, Pakistan’s top legal officer, can be heard advising the caller to accept a ticket he is being offered by an unidentified political party for a seat, Human Rights Watch said.
“They will massively rig to get their own people to win,” Qayyum said, according to a transcript released by Human Rights Watch. “If you get a ticket from these guys, take it.”
The potentially incendiary recording was made the day that elections were announced for Jan. 8, according to Human Rights Watch, which said the Urdu-language recording could be heard on its Web site, www.hrw.org. The polls for the national assembly and four provincial legislatures were postponed until this Monday after large-scale violence ignited by the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
The recording was certain to add to widespread fears that the polls will be rigged in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that supports the authoritarian and hugely unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf, a retired army general who seized power in a 1999 coup.
On Thursday, Musharraf warned the opposition that it must accept the outcome of Monday’s voting, without resorting to massive street protests.
“Let there be no doubt that anyone will be allowed to resort to lawlessness in the garb of allegations about rigging in the elections,” Musharraf was quoted as telling a seminar of government officials in Islamabad by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan. “Let this serve as a warning to all those who think they can disturb the peace of the country. They will not be allowed. Do not test the resolve of the government.”
“No agitation, anarchy or chaos can be acceptable,” he said. “I assure you that the elections will be fair, free, and transparent and peaceful.”
Fears that the polls will be fixed have been stoked by a series of public opinion surveys showing the Pakistan Peoples Party and other parties poised to capture enough seats to begin impeachment proceedings against Musharraf for controversial constitutional changes he imposed last year to extend his grip on power.
Musharraf’s standing, and that of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, also has been hurt by skyrocketing prices, shortages of electricity, gas and wheat, a failure to contain the Islamic insurgency based in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan’s support for the Bush administration’s fight against al Qaida.
“There have been numerous allegations of irregularities, including arrests and harassment of opposition candidates and party members. There are also allegations that state resources, administration, and state machinery are being used to the advantage of candidates backed by President Pervez Musharraf,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch said it had tried repeatedly to contact Qayyum, a staunch supporter of Musharraf, but had been unable to reach him.
In Washington on Friday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he was not familiar with the Human Rights Watch report. But he said the Bush administration has stressed to the Musharraf government that ” the Pakistani people should have a reasonable degree of assurance that their ballot will in fact be reflected in the results.”
“Look, you know, there have been in the past irregularities within the Pakistani electoral process,” McCormack said.
On Thursday, the widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zadari, held a final campaign rally in the same dusty park where his wife gave her first political address in 1977.
Security was intense, reflecting a surge in suicide bombings that’s included attacks on opposition campaign rallies. Police sharpshooters scanned the crowds from rooftops and black-clad commandos stood among scores of security men deployed around the stage.
The stage itself was set far back from fences of steel scaffolding and barbed wire that restrained the flag- and banner-waving crowd of about 6,000. Zadari spoke from behind a podium made of bulletproof glass and steel.
Without mentioning Musharraf by name, Zardari, who assumed joint chairmanship of the party with his son after Bhutto’s slaying, said that it was time “to change our system.”
“Benazir was a martyr. She believed in you, in the brothers and sisters, and I also believe in you,” he proclaimed.
Filed under: al-qaeda, Benazir Bhutto, Brian Kilmeade, Britain, CIA, Europe, Fox News, Media, media fears, Mike Baker, Musharraf, Propaganda, Psyops, United Kingdom
Fox Hypes White Al-Qaeda Army
Raw Story
January 14, 2008
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RgTtL3KcvkI
The hosts of Fox & Friends are all worked up over a claim in the British press that al Qaeda may be recruiting Caucasian members to infiltrate Western societies.
“Have you heard about this new thing going on in Great Britain,” asked host Gretchen Carlson, “[where] Al Qaeda [is] rooting up all these Britons, essentially, 1400 strong, apparently, in a new, what’s being called a new ‘White al Qaeda Army.’ Tougher to detect, potentially …”
“Yeah, because they’re not Muslims,” co-host Steve Doocy commented. “They look just like regular British people.”
“This is what we’ve always talked about,” Carlson went on, “That if you have people in one country transplanting to another religion and they maybe aren’t exactly what you think they are, that can be more difficult to fight.
“Yeah. They’re converting them in prison, to, uh…” “To kill us!” “Yeah, great,” said co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy in turn.
Brian Kilmeade then brought on Mike Baker, a former CIA agent and professional counter-terrorism expert. “Mike Baker’s here — this word that al Qaeda’s building up a white terror army of up to 1500 operatives in the UK:” said Kilmeade. “How soon could they strike us here, and would they be trying to do something similar using convicted criminals?”
Baker told Kilmeade that al Qaeda looks for operatives who can fit in, just as the CIA does, saying, “If they can recruit a Scandinavian, that’s the holy grail for them.” He added, “They need people who can move around freely and do their bidding,” apparently implying that blue-eyed blondes are the people who blend most seamlessly into Western society.
However, Baker dismissed Kilmeade’s suggestion that al Qaeda would be particularly interested in recruiting in US prisons. “To go into a prison and try to recruit individuals — that person’s already tainted. What they really need, they need people who haven’t run afoul of law enforcement in the past. … Their problems are extreme in trying to recruit someone who can go out there and carry out their business.”
Baker also commented on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, saying, “You’re not going to sway the conspiracy theorists, and there are a lot of them, who exist on the anti-Musharraf side. … They just will not be convinced that the government was not involved in this.”
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/011408_new_alqaeda.htm
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, Britain, charles de menezes, CNN, Dictatorship, Europe, Musharraf, neocons, Nuke, Pakistan, Rawalpindi, secret service, special forces, United Kingdom
Ex-Secret Service: Bhutto Killing A “Professional Job”
Government explanation loses all credibility as Musharraf looks for Britain, US to bail him out
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
January 2, 2007
http://youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZmNx3uZHc
Former Secret Service Assistant Director Bill Pickle tells CNN that the killing of Benazir Bhutto was a “professional job” as the credibility of the initial government explanation for her death dwindles into an outright farce.
With the official government explanation for Bhutto’s death (that she died after hitting her head on a sunroof) now completely discredited after footage emerged clearly showing a gunman firing at her before the explosion, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has been forced to bring in London’s Scotland Yard to whitewash the ugly aftermath.
The military dictator was no doubt impressed by the Metropolitan Police’s execution of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, as well as their disgraceful success in avoiding any reprisals for his murder.
Musharraf is so dependent on his British and American handlers to bail him out of this mess that he is even prepared to hand over control of his nuclear arsenal to them, according to a report in the UK Herald.
“US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto,” reported the newspaper.
“The troops, augmented by volunteer scientists from America’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team organisation, are under orders to take control of an estimated 60 warheads dispersed around six to 10 high-security Pakistani military bases.“
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/020108_nukes.htm
Pakistan Accepts UK Help In Bhutto Probe
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-01-02-voa36.cfm
Special forces on standby over nuclear threat
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/for…_standby_over_nuclear_threat.php
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, election fraud, ISI, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Rawalpindi, voter fraud, voting scam
Bhutto Had Proof ISI Was Planning to Rig Polls For Musharraf
Reuters
Janurary 1, 2008
Benazir Bhutto was poised to reveal proof that Pakistan’s election commission and shadowy spy agency were seeking to rig an upcoming general election the night she was assassinated, a top aide said on Tuesday.
Senator Latif Khosa, who authored a 160-page dossier with Bhutto documenting rigging tactics, said they ranged from intimidation to fake ballots, and were in some cases unwittingly funded by U.S. aid.
Bhutto had been due to give the report to two visiting U.S. lawmakers over dinner on December 27, the day she was killed in a suicide bombing.
“The state agencies are manipulating the whole process,” Khosa, a top Bhutto aide and head of her Pakistan People’s Party election monitoring unit, told Reuters.
“There is rigging by the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), the election commission and the previous government, which is still continuing to hold influence. They were on the rampage.”
President Pervez Musharraf’s spokesman Rashid Qureshi dismissed the claim as “ridiculous”.
“It makes one laugh,” he said. “The president has said a free, fair, transparent and peaceful election is essential, which forms part of his overall strategy for transforming Pakistan into a fully democratic (nation).”
“Benazir’s coming back to Pakistan was part of a national reconciliation ordinance,” he added. “Take it from me, it’s going to be perhaps the best election that Pakistan has ever had.”
Khosa said the report, entitled ‘Yet another stain on the face of democracy’, details how the spy agency was planning to issue 25,000 pre-stamped ballots for each of 108 candidates for national assembly seats in Punjab from the party that backs President Musharraf and formed his government.
INTIMIDATION
“They have used intimidatory tactics, they intimidated the returning officers into rejecting nomination papers … they prevented candidates from submitting their nomination papers,” Khosa said.
“This happened in Baluchistan and in the other central areas of Pakistan. It happened in Sindh.”
He said the ISI also had a “mega computer” which could hack into any computer and was connected to the Election Commission’s system.
Separately the commission had tried to manipulate the voting register by leaving millions of potential voters out, he added.
An initial draft list of voters published in June put the electorate at 52 million people, more than 20 million short, triggering a backlash from Musharraf’s political opponents.
The Supreme Court ordered the commission to revise the list, and in October it raised the total to 80 million.
“The Election Commission is completely subservient to the government,” Khosa said.
In the Election Commission’s case, U.S. financial aid had been used in rigging, he added, stressing however he did not believe it was diverted military aid.
“She was going to give the dossier to two U.S. lawmakers simply because they happened to be visiting. It was then going to be made public,” Khosa said.
“Benazir was supposed to hold a press conference. It was going to be distributed to everyone, but unfortunately that did not arise because she was assassinated.”
Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections
McClatchy Newspapers
December 31, 2007
NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.
Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.
Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party election monitoring unit, said the report was “very sensitive” and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.
“It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto,” Lashari said, speaking Monday at Bhutto’s house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her husband and children continued to mourn her death.
The ISI had no official comment. However, an agency official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the subject, dismissed the allegations as “a lot of talk but not much substance.”
Musharraf has been highly critical of those who allege that his regime is involved in electoral manipulation. “Now when they lose, they’ll have a good rationale: that it is all rigged, it is all fraud,” he said in November. “In Pakistan, the loser always cries.”
According to Lashari, the document includes information on a “safe house” allegedly being run by the ISI in a central neighborhood of Islamabad, the alleged headquarters of the rigging operation.
It names as the head of the unit a brigadier general recently retired from the ISI, who was secretly assigned to run the rigging operation, Lashari said. It charges that he was working in tandem with the head of a civilian intelligence agency. Before her return to Pakistan, Bhutto, in a letter to Musharraf, had named the intelligence official as one of the men she accused of plotting to kill her.
Lashari said the report claimed that U.S. aid money was being used to fix the elections. Ballots stamped in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which supports Musharraf, were to be produced by the intelligence agencies in about 100 parliamentary constituencies.
“They diverted money from aid activities. We had evidence of where they were spending the money,” Lashari said.
Lashari, who formerly taught environmental economics at Britain’s Cranfield University, said the effort was directed at constituencies where the result was likely to be decided by a small margin, so it wouldn’t be obvious.
Bhutto was due to meet Specter and Kennedy after dinner last Thursday. She was shot as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi early that evening. Pakistan’s government claims instead that she was thrown against the lever of her car’s sunroof, fracturing her skull.
Filed under: BBC, Benazir Bhutto, bin laden, Censorship, Fox News, ISI, Lockheed Martin, Military Industrial Complex, Musharraf, neocons, Pakistan, Rawalpindi, special forces
Video: ‘The most conclusive evidence’ Bhutto was shot
Raw Story
December 31, 2007
On Sunday, UK’s Channel 4 news broadcasted a new video of the Bhutto assassination which they say “provides the most conclusive evidence yet that Benazir Bhutto was shot.”
Although the Pakistani government officially claims that Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof as she ducked into her car, evidence in the video drastically contradicts that account.
The video shows a large crowd swarming around Bhutto’s car. A clean-shaven man in sunglasses is visibly watching, concealing a gun; behind him stands the suspected suicide bomber dressed in white. As the video rolls, the man in sunglasses moves closer to Bhutto’s car and fires three shots. Directly after, the suicide bomber detonates his device and chaos ensues.
Reporter Jonathan Rugman points out how, as the gunman fires, Bhutto’s hair is lifted and her shawl seems to rise as she falls inside her car.
“These images … apparently [contradict] the official version of events,” Rugman asserts.
“As more such images come to light,” he says, “they will fuel the anger of protesters both here at the scene of the crime and around the country who feel that they’ve been lied to by the government and that there’s been a deliberate coverup of what amounts to a massive security failure to protect this country’s best known politician.”
Authorities initially said that Bhutto died from bullet wounds, and a surgeon who treated her said the impact from shrapnel on her skull killed her. But, Rugman points out, no blood was found on the bulletproof car — and, every other passenger in the car survived. The video clearly shows three policeman to the left of the car, doing nothing to hold back the crowd. Was the government trying to cover-up a security lapse? Those close to the president say that was not the case.
“We do things here [quite differently],” says Senator Tarif Azeem, a friend of President Musharraf, citing Bhutto’s want to “be amongst the crowd” as the reason why she stood through the sunroof without much security around her.
Officials have rejected calls for independent foreign inquiry, although they have offered to exhume her body if requested. According to Rugman, the government’s actions suggest they may be hiding something.
“[The truth] really matters in a country where scores of people have died in protests against Mrs. Bhutto’s death and indeed against the circumstances of Mrs. Bhutto’s death,” Rugman says, adding that the “great fear” in Pakistan is that the assassination will go unsolved.
This video is from Channel 4 News, broadcast on December 30, 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwB8rFmDr6k
Lockheed to supply 18 F-16s to Pakistan
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc04/idUSN3159264420071231
Bhutto Doctors Forced Into Silence
http://www.washingtonpost.com…/AR2007123102493_pf.html
Pakistan backtracks on claim sunroof killed Bhutto
http://rawstory.com/news/200…n_claim_sunroof_killed_0101.html
Washington post-early warning: U.S. Special Forces Head To Pakistan
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/12/29/9219.shtml
“Global Democracy,” Neocon Style
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018057.html
Bhutto’s son takes over party mantle, vows revenge
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/0…s_bhutto_heir_vote_1
FOX News Joins BBC in CENSORING Benazir Bhutto’s Statement That Osama bin Laden Is Dead
http://existentialistc…ns-bbc-in-censoring-benazir.html
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, Big Banks, Britain, Canada, canadian dollar, central bank, China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, Europe, Federal Reserve, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, interest rate cuts, job market, loonie, Musharraf, Pakistan, platinum, pound, rate cut, Stock Market, US Economy, Yen
Gold nears record-high on dollar, Pakistan turmoil
Reuters
December 30, 2007
Gold rallied to a 7-week high on Monday and close to a record high of $850 on speculative buying driven by a weak U.S. dollar and tensions in Pakistan following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
But thin trading in Asia ahead of the New Year holidays meant gold and other precious metals were prone to sharp fluctuations. Platinum dropped but held near last week’s record high of $1,542 an ounce.
Spot gold hit an intraday high of $842.90 an ounce before dipping to $842.00/842.80. This was still higher than $837.80/838.50 late in New York on Friday.
“There’s still a potential for further unrest in Pakistan following Bhutto’s assassination. I guess there’s a potential for us to push higher and test the highs around $847 at least,” said Darren Heathcote of Investec Australia in Sydney.
“I think $847 will be the initial technical point to breach. When London comes in, more stops get taken out,” he said.
Gold hit a record high at $850 January 1980 on high inflation linked to high oil prices, Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the effects of the Iranian revolution. After adjusting for inflation, that level was equal to $2,079 at 2006 prices.
Gold has risen more than 30 percent this year — the biggest annual gain since 1979 — as a number of factors, including a weak U.S. dollar, record-high crude prices, credit market turmoil and falling U.S. rates, boosted its safe-haven appeal.
The latest safe-haven buying was sparked by Bhutto’s killing last week, which plunged Pakistan into crisis. Electoral officials hold an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to go ahead with a January election that is aimed at shifting the country from military to civilian rule.
Bhutto’s killing in a suicide attack on Thursday triggered bloodshed across the country and rage against President Pervez Musharraf, casting doubts on nuclear-armed Pakistan’s stability and its transition to civilian rule.
“I think it’s possible to touch $850 in the near term. It moved in a massive range already in the past 24 hours,” said David Moore, a commodity analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
“It’s possible it might go higher in the near term. It’s obviously been supported by a number factors but probably the thin trading conditions are sort of exacerbating the movements in the gold price at the moment,” he said.
Dollar Heads for Annual Declines Against Euro, Yen on Fed Cuts
Bloomberg
December 31, 2007
The dollar fell for a second year against the euro and declined against the yen, snapping two years of gains, as traders raised bets the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again to bolster the slowing economy.
The dollar traded at a two-week low versus the euro and yen, after weakening against 14 of the 16 most active currencies this year, as the Fed reduced borrowing costs three times to temper the worst housing slump in 16 years. A U.S. report today may show sales of existing homes held at the lowest since the National Association of Realtors began keeping records in 1999.
“Going into the end of the year, clearly markets have taken another bounce of dollar negativity on board,” said Jeremy Stretch, senior market strategist in London at Rabobank Groep, the third-biggest Dutch bank. “The slowdown in the U.S. economy is clearly going to happen.”
The dollar fell to $1.4712 per euro as of 9:48 a.m. in London from $1.4723 in New York on Dec. 28. It has lost 11.4 percent this year, and reached $1.4967 on Nov. 23, the weakest since the euro began trading in 1999. The dollar slipped to 112.11 yen, from 112.28 on Dec. 28 and 119.05 at the end of 2006.
The British pound headed for a second annual gain versus the U.S. currency, rising 2 percent to $1.9986. The Canadian dollar was poised for its biggest yearly advance since 2003, climbing 16 percent to 97.91 Canadian cents per U.S. dollar.
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14582431
Fed Increases Lending To Banks
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/…oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Sudanese Central Bank Switches To Euro
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8TQI9O00.htm
Unemployment May Rise, Factories Slow: U.S. Economy Preview
http://www.bloomberg.com/ap..=a7jgWmHo3ol8&refer=home
Euro Gains On USD In Official Reserves
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e72dfbf…l?nclick_check=1
New Home Sales Plunge 9%
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200712…TNkbItDuhv24cA
Gas Could Be $3.75 By Spring
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/…ory?coll=sofla_tab01_layout
Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn…=moreheadlines
Gold rises above $830 over Pakistan
Oil steady near $97 on lower US stocks, Bhutto
Forex – Dollar falls continue on weak US data; Euro at record high vs pound
Paul Krugman talks to Google on the Recession
Dollar Strategists Predict End of Bear Market in 2008
Wage Slavery For Elderly People
Chrysler CEO: We Are Operationally Bankrupt
US braces for baby boom retirement wave
Bank’s Face Financial Turmoil
Credit Loss Could Hit $1 Trillion
Oil Rises On Inventory Shortfalls
Growing Credit Card Debt In US Prompting Warnings Of Worse To Come
October Home Prices Post Record Decline
No Trial, No Conviction: FBI Steals Millions of Dollars Worth of Gold
China’s New Oil World Order
Denmark Bank predicts Ron Paul presidency and U.S. depression
Saudi Arabia fatwa against the dollar
Goodbye to the $2 pound in 2008
Fed promises as much money as the banks want
Ethanol Blamed For Food Price Hikes
7 economic warning signs: Could a small shock push the economy over the edge?
Zimbabwe Woe As Banks Stay Shut
People & Power – Death of the dollar
Growing number of Americans expect recession: poll
Gold climbs above $800 in London as dollar drops; silver gains
Northern Rock Rescue Cost $100B
US Inflation Soars – Largest Rise in Producer Prices Since 1973!
US foreclosure filings up 68 pct in Nov.
U.S. Dollar’s Credibility Being `Stretched,’ UBS Economist Says
US Federal Reserve’s subprime regulations shield Wall Street banks
Economy teeters on brink, says Resler
GAO Says Government Failed Yet Another Financial Audit
One in Five Americans Must Borrow to Heat Homes This Winter
Morgan Stanley secures $5bn from China
CNN: Ron Paul Says U.S. Going Broke
ECB Offers Banks Unlimited Funds
Overstock.com CEO warns of depression
Filed under: Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Al-Qaeda Tapes, BBC, Benazir Bhutto, bin laden, Censorship, CFR, CIA, False Flag, global elite, Hegelian Dialectic, inside job, ISI, Martial Law, Media, Media Fear, Military Industrial Complex, Musharraf, Pakistan, Problem Reaction Solution, Rawalpindi, Russia, Soviet Union, special forces, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror
Bhutto Killing Points To Pakistani ISI
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
December 30, 2007
The barbaric assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto points directly to the work of the Pakistani ISI. As expected, the establishment media is already blaming Al-Qaeda for the assassination because ever since the attacks of 9/11 the media has blamed every government sponsored terrorist attack on this fictional organization. Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a front for government intelligence agencies that was originally formed in the 1970’s as a database of people who could be counted on to fight the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. There have already been news reports mentioning how the Pakistani ISI has associations with Islamic extremists and members of Al-Qaeda. This is because many of these so called Al-Qaeda groups and Islamic extremists are actually working for intelligence agencies like the Pakistani ISI. Not only this, but it is clear that the intelligence services that work directly for the criminals in the military industrial complex stood the most to gain from this assassination. It has destabilized Pakistan which has given Pakistan’s current leader Pervez Musharraf the excuse to unleash the military on the general population. There’s also talk of delaying Pakistan’s elections which serves the interest of the unholy partnership the U.S. government has with Musharraf. It has also provided an excuse for the increase of U.S. Special Forces within Pakistan. In a report from the UK Daily Mail, Bhutto herself sent an e-mail weeks prior to her death identifying three people within the Pakistan government who she believed wanted her dead. In addition, the government refused to provide Bhutto adequate security even after numerous death threats and a previous assassination attempt that killed over a hundred of her supporters. Police even abandoned their security posts in the general area prior to her assassination. All of this evidence indicates that the Pakistani ISI had involvement in the killing because they had the most to gain and their associations to Al-Qaeda groups is a historical fact.
Due to the overwhelming evidence pointing the responsibility of the Bhutto assassination to the Pakistani ISI, the Pakistan government has attempted to misdirect the discussion of who killed Bhutto by making claims that Bhutto died by hitting her head against the vehicle’s sunroof instead of gunfire. This is just a distraction to change the discussion of who killed Bhutto into a less important discussion of how she died. The Pakistan government continues to claim that an Al-Qaeda group is responsible for the attack which is a ridiculous assertion.
Bhutto herself was an individual with ties to various globalist organizations including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of Women World Leaders. The globalists may have been seeking to install Bhutto into a position of power within Pakistan but her assassination served to consolidate power behind Musharraf which opens up the possibility to delay Pakistan’s elections and continue the militarized police state. Bhutto had also been critical of foreign troops being deployed to Pakistan to deal with the nation’s internal issues. It is possible that she was turning on the globalists and was prepared to take a more nationalist stance on the nation’s affairs which would have been a major problem for the establishment. Regardless of what actually happened, the globalists gained from her death. The assassination also allows the corporate controlled media to continue hyping the need for this phony war on terror right before the start of the 2008 presidential elections. The media pundits are already encouraging voters to cast their vote for an establishment candidate that will be strong on the terror war. This serves the interest of the military industrial complex because the phony terror war has been very profitable for them.
The point is, that Bhutto’s assassination served the interests of the Pakistani dictatorship as well as the military industrial complex. The fact that the U.S. military will be moving more special forces into Pakistan is proof of this. This military action will be sold to the American people as an escalation in the hunt to destroy Al-Qaeda. The globalists have sought to achieve order out of chaos and the assassination of Bhutto will serve to further those aims. All evidence points towards the Pakistani ISI and western intelligence agencies for the assassination of Bhutto. They had the most to gain from this barbaric act and history has shown that major terror attacks like this one almost always point to the work of clandestine government operations.
Pakistani TV shows pictures of Bhutto “attackers”
Robert Birsel
Reuters
December 30, 2007
A Pakistani television channel broadcast on Sunday grainy still pictures of what it said appeared to be two men who attacked and killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Former prime minister Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack on Thursday as she stood up through the sun-roof of her bullet-proof vehicle to wave to supporter as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi.
The government has blamed al Qaeda.
Dawn News Television showed three pictures it said it had obtained from an amateur photographer.
One showed two men standing in the crowd outside the rally ground before Bhutto left.
One was a clean-cut young man wearing sun glasses, a white shirt and dark waist coat. Behind him stood a man with a white shawl over his head, who Dawn said was believed to be the bomber.
Two other photographs showed the clean-cut man pointing a pistol at Bhutto as she left the rally.
He appeared to be about 10 feet from Bhutto, standing on the left of her vehicle, pointing the gun with his right hand as she faced away from him.
Authorities said three shots were fired at Bhutto moments before a suicide bomber set off explosives. As well as Bhutto, 23 people were killed.
Authorities have not said how many attackers they believed were involved.
Senior police and government officials declined immediate comment saying a four-officer team was handling the investigation.
The government said Bhutto was killed when the force of the blast smashed her head into a lever on the sun-roof, which fractured her skull.
Her party dismisses that as “ludicrous” saying she was killed by a bullet in the head.
CIA-ISI Created “Qaeda Network” Blamed for Pakistan Troubles
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1471
BBC CENSORS Benazir Bhutto’s Report that Bin Laden is dead
http://existentialistcowb…red-benazir-bhuttos-reports.html
Bhutto Blocked From Bringing In Bodyguards
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/…7/12/30/wbhutto230.xml
Al-Qaeda denies Benazir Bhutto killing
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22985260-5005961,00.html
Bhutto email named killers weeks before assassination
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live….52&in_page_id=1811
Election in doubt after Benazir Bhutto murder
http://www.telegra…ml=/news/2007/12/29/wbhutto1229.xml
Pakistan ‘in grip of chaos and anarchy’
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/289612
Bhutto’s Husband blames Musharraf
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071228/211/6oyf2.html
In Reaction to Bhutto Assassination, Giuliani Calls for Military Buildup
http://www.jbs.org/node/6751
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, CNN, FBI, Musharraf, Pakistan, Rawalpindi, Wolf Blitzer
In October e-mail, Bhutto said she would hold Musharraf ‘responsible’ for her death
Raw Story
December 28, 2007
In an e-mail sent to a confidant in the US two months ago, assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said she would hold the country’s current leader Pervez Musharraf “responsible” because his government did not do enough to provide for her security.
“I wld [sic] hold Musharaf [sic] responsible,” Bhutto wrote to her US spokesman, Mark Siegel, in the October e-mail, which was reported Thursday afternoon by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions, and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobiles to cover all sides cld [sic] happen without him.”
Blitzer told viewers he received the e-mail soon after it was sent two months ago, but he agreed not to report on it unless Bhutto was assassinated. “It’s a story I was asked to report to the world in — if Bhutto were killed,” he said.
The former Pakistani prime minister was shot twice Thursday just before her assassin detonated a suicide bomb that killed at least 20 more of her supporters.
Appearing on The Situation Room on CNN, Siegel said Bhutto was concerned about her security as soon as she returned from years-long exile in October.
“Benazir was very concerned by the lack of security that she had on her arrival in Karachi on October 18th,” Siegel said. “The circumstances around the attempt on the night of the 18th, the morning of the 19th, was very, very suspicious. … There was no investigation of that horrendous killing which killed 179 people. She had asked that Scotland Yard and the FBI be brought in for forensic help for the investigation. The government of General Musharraf absolutely refused.”
Since October, Siegel said, Bhutto received “some police protection,” but was denied other security precautions such as jammers to prevent improvised explosive devices or four police escorts to protect her from all sides when she appeared in public.
Mahmud al-Durrani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, also appeared on Blitzer’s program. He said it was “naive” to blame Musharraf’s government for the attack.
“Musharraf tried his best, but the circumstances under which she moved, that was a problem,” al-Durrani said. “When she was moving almost in a sea of humanity, so this — this — no system in the world can protect you against that.”
This video is from CNN’s Situation Room, broadcast on December 27, 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR1SFl5Ehdk
Filed under: al-qaeda, Benazir Bhutto, Dictatorship, ISI, Martial Law, Musharraf, Pakistan, Police State, Protest, Rawalpindi, riot, shoot to kill
Pakistan’s troops ordered to ‘shoot protesters on sight’ as Bhutto lies buried next to her father
Daily Mail
December 28, 2007
As Pakistan’s troops were told to “shoot protesters on sight” after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, her body was buried next to her father in her family village.
A procession of thousands of her supporters in Nau Dero signified the beginning of her funeral as she was laid to rest in the village of Garhi Khuda Baksh.
It is the same spot where her father, the former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was buried after he was hanged in a military coup.
Thousands of mourners thronged Ms Bhutto’s ancestral home as her body arrived earlier aboard a military aircraft, accompanied by her husband Asif Ali Zardari and their three children.
People cried and wailed as Ms Bhutto’s coffin was taken to her family home by ambulance.
“Show patience. Give us courage to bear this loss,” Mr Zardari urged mourners as the coffin was borne into the house.
Her burial came as a wave of violence broke out, killing 19 people so far and throwing Pakistan into one of the worst crises in its 60-year history.
It threatens the country’s already unsteady role as a bulwark against Islamic terror.
As mobs looted and set buildings on fire, paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan.
Major Asad Ali, the rangers’ spokesman, told reporters: “We have orders to shoot at sight.”
However, despite fears that the election on 8 January could be put off, the country’s caretaker prime minister Muhammad Soomro announced today that the government had no immediate plans to postpone it.
As the news of the assassination spread, supporters gathered at the hospital where Ms Bhutto had been taken, smashed glass doors, stoned cars and chanted, “Killer, Killer, Musharraf”.
At least 10 people were killed in fighting in several cities. The provincial minister in Sindh said the security forces were given the authority to shoot protesters.
Pakistan Unleashes Police State On Rioters
Channel News Asia
December 27, 2007
KARACHI : At least four people were killed on Thursday as angry mobs took to the streets of Pakistani cities to protest the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, torching scores of vehicles and buildings.
Two people were shot dead in rioting in the eastern city of Lahore and two others were killed in the southern province of Sindh, Bhutto’s birthplace and stronghold, police said.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard echoing around the streets of Lahore where shops and vehicles could be seen on fire.
The markets and shops immediately closed down as paramilitary patrols roamed the streets in an attempt to keep a lid on the violence, a local police officer told AFP.
Meanwhile, Pakistan paramilitary and police forces were put on the highest “red alert” level after the assassination.
“The security was already high nationwide, but we have further alerted police and paramilitary forces,” ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told AFP.
“The security is at red alert level across Pakistan,” he said.
Bhutto returned from exile in October, planning to contest the January 8 parliamentary election.
In the southern metropolis of Karachi police said at least 70 vehicles were burnt by protesters, including 35 trucks filled with wheat. All petrol pumps were immediately closed as knots of protesters blocked many roads.
Witnesses said that as news spread of Bhutto’s assassination in a suicide attack, the streets of Karachi were clogged with traffic as panicked people tried to rush home.
The mood was tense in Bhutto’s home town of Larkana where two banks were set on fire, witnesses said.
In Peshawar in the northwest police used tear gas and batons to break up angry crowds; and in the central city of Multan some protesters fired shots into the air and many shouted slogans including “Musharraf is a dog” and “Long live Bhutto.”
As angry Bhutto supporters looked for a scapegoat for her death, residents in the Sindh town of Jacobabad said shops belonging to the family of interim Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro were burned down.
Portraits of Soomro were set on fire while demonstrators took to the streets, blocking roads and a railway track. The main court, banks and other buildings were also set on fire, an AFP reporter said.
Fearing renewed violence in the northwestern valley of Swat, which has been troubled by months of religious militancy, officials clamped a curfew on the picturesque region, a local official told reporters.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2007/dec/28bhutto22.htmDid the ISI Kill Bhutto?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3100052.ece
Non-Existant Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Bhutto Death
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1710322437
Bhutto’s Party Rejects Al-Qaeda Claim as Riots Spread
http://www.bloomberg.com/ap….v7RmUhVqmbg&refer=home
Media: Pakistan Now A Nightmare Scenario
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/071228100643.f4dbacks.html
The Musharraf Commission to announce that a lone nut killed Bhutto
http://www.attytood.com/2007/12/the_musharraf_commission_to_an_1.html
Opposition Party To Boycott Elections
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8TPV9EO0&show_article=1
Neocons to quick to blame ‘Al-Qaeda’ and ‘terrorists’ for Bhutto Assassination
http://lataan.blogspot.co…quick-to-blame-al.html
Behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
http://www.parade.com/benazir_bhutto_assassination.html
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, catastrophic event, Dictatorship, George Bush, ISI, Martial Law, Musharraf, Pakistan, Police State, Protest, Rawalpindi, special forces, Troops, War On Terror
Benazir Bhutto killed in suicide attack; supporters in uproar across Pakistan
The Canadian Press
December 27, 2007
Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, aides said.
Bhutto’s supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities across Pakistan.
The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, about 18 kilometres south of Islamabad, the capital. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.
Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader from Bhutto’s party, said he was standing about 10 metres away from Bhutto’s vehicle.
“She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chanting slogans in her favour,” he said. “Then I saw a thin, young man jumping to her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away.”
Party supporter Chaudry Mohammed Nazir said that two gunshots rang out when Bhutto’s vehicle pulled into the main street and then there was a big blast next to her car.
But Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told state-run Pakistan Television that Bhutto died when a suicide bomber struck her vehicle.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed terrorists for Bhutto’s death and urged the nation to remain calm.
“I want to express my resolve and seek the co-operation from the entire nation and we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out,” Musharraf said in a nationally televised speech.
He announced three days of mourning and convened a high-level emergency meeting to discuss the government’s response.
In Crawford, Texas, U.S. President George W. Bush said: “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice.”
No one claimed responsibility for the killing.
Bhutto’s supporters blamed the president, but suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban, who hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto’s return to the country from exile in October with suicide bombings.
At least 20 others were killed in Thursday’s blast, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery.
“At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.
The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 election into chaos and created fears of mass protests and an eruption of violence across the volatile South Asian nation.
Musharraf was expected to discuss with his senior staff whether to postpone the election, an official at the Interior Ministry said.
http://yournewreality.blogspot.com/20…-us-special-forces-expected-in.html
Police Officials: Bhutto shot in the neck and chest at rally
http://news.google.com/news/url?s….jeOYqxqVN8UEw
Former premier Benazir Bhutto assassinated in Pakistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071227/wl_afp/pakistanvotebhutto
Suspects in the Bhutto assassination
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2232496,00.html
Benazir Bhutto assassination: the blog reaction
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3099884.ece
Filed under: Afghanistan, al-qaeda, army, False Flag, Geoff Morrell, mercs, Military, Musharraf, Pakistan, Pentagon, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, Troops
U.S. creating gangs of mercenaries to fight Taliban, Al Qaeda
Kavkaz Center
November 19, 2007
The US is considering a plan to create gangs of mercenaries from local population in the border areas of Pakistan to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban, emulating its tactics in Iraq’s Anbar province.
The plan would involve increasing the number of US trainers in Pakistan by dozens from the current number of around 50, and the direct financing of a separate tribal “paramilitary force” that has so far proved largely ineffective. Washington would also pay militias that agreed to fight al-Qaida and foreign “extremists”.
The plan, leaked to the New York Times, comes amid increasing concern over gains made by Islamic rebels in the region of Swat, near the Afghan border. In recent weeks, major battles have left many Pakistani soldiers, rebels and civilians dead.
Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, said one of the main reasons for imposing emergency rule was to deal with the growing threat from Islamic rebels.
The tribal proposal – a strategy paper prepared by staff members of the US special operations command – has been circulated to counterterrorism experts, but has yet to be formally approved by the command’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida, the Times said.
Some other elements of the campaign, approved in principle by the US and Pakistan, await funding.
They include 0m (£170.7m) over several years to help train and equip the frontier corps, a “paramilitary force” that has around 85,000 members and is recruited from border tribes.
In the past, the US has expressed frustration at Musharraf’s tactics in dealing with rebels in the border area, especially a truce, agreed earlier this year, which has backfired, with pro-Taliban forces becoming stronger.
Pentagon: Double funds for Pakistani force
AP
November 21, 2007WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon wants to nearly double the funding to train and equip a Pakistani paramilitary force, saying the locally-based fighters are more effective in the difficult region bordering Afghanistan.
The U.S. military has asked to spend $97 million in 2008, compared with $52.6 million this year, on training and equipping the Frontier Corps, which has personnel of the same ethnicity as the recalcitrant tribes along the border.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the U.S. is not arming the Frontier Corps, but is spending money to build a training center in the region for the fighters while also looking for additional funds to buy them equipment such as helmets, vests and night-vision goggles.
The increased effort comes as violence along the border continues to escalate, raising questions about how long the Pakistanis can continue to battle the pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda militants known to be hiding in the rugged mountains.
“We believe that, particularly in this part of Pakistan, it is more effective to work with a force raised from locals than it is to work with the (Pakistan) army, who is not viewed with the same respect in that part of the country as is the Frontier Corps,” Morrell said.
It is more effective, he said, to deal with the Frontier Corps because it is made up of people who are “locally recruited and have local knowledge, language skills and most of all credibility with the people who live in those areas.”
The 2007 funding is being used to set up eight new Frontier Corps battalions, and the 2008 money would continue the training and equipping efforts as well as set up an additional four battalions. Morrell said the U.S. Army expects to provide the trainers, but some other governments may also participate.
“I don’t think we would be proceeding with a plan of this nature, at this cost, unless we had some degree of confidence that it would be fruitful,” Morrell said, describing the program as a joint venture with the Pakistani government.
Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said his government will provide the fighters with tanks and guns so they can take a lead role next year, allowing the country’s army to take a more supporting role.
Morrell said the Pentagon is also hoping to establish border surveillance centers, and is moving ahead with plans for one on the Afghan side of the border. The 2008 money is tied up in the war funding legislation that has stalled in Congress, he said.
Morrell added that the money will not be used to buy ammunition or weapons for the Frontier Corps, and will only buy equipment that will help them patrol the region.
The retooling of the Frontier Corps is part of a strategy that includes flooding northwestern Pakistan with development aid and propping up beleaguered pro-government elders, dozens of whom have been killed as American spies by militants.
The government hopes that approach will be more effective than a series of peace deals struck in 2005 and 2006 under which tribal leaders were supposed to curb militancy in return for a withdrawal of troops after earlier rounds of bloody fighting.
Filed under: Benazir Bhutto, catastrophic event, Censorship, Continuity of Government, Coup, Dictatorship, free speech, George Bush, ISI, Martial Law, Musharraf, Pakistan, Police State, property rights, Protest, War On Terror
Musharraf Arrests 500 Under Martial Law
MSNBC
November 5, 2007
A lawyer throws a teargas canister back towards police during protest
Monday in Lahore
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Police fired tear gas and clubbed lawyers protesting Monday against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule. The U.S. and other nations called for elections to be held on schedule and said they were reviewing aid to Pakistan.
In the largest protest in the eastern city of Lahore, lawyers dressed in black suits and ties chanted “Musharraf, go!” as they defied the government’s ban on rallies. Some fought back with stones and tree branches.
The crackdown mainly targeted Musharraf’s most potent critics — the judiciary and lawyers, independent television stations and opposition activists. Opposition groups said 3,500 had been arrested, though the government reported half that total.
President Bush urged Musharraf to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled in January and relinquish his army post as soon as possible. “Our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible,” Bush said.
But there did not appear to be a unified position among senior government officials on whether they planned to hold the election as planned. The attorney general said the vote would take place as scheduled but then conceded there was a chance of a delay. The prime minister also left open the possibility of a delay.
The demonstrations so far have been limited largely to opposition activists, rights workers and lawyers angered by his attacks on the judiciary. There does not appear to be a groundswell of popular resistance and all the protests have been quickly and sometimes brutally stamped out.
Former Pakistan PM: It’s a Second Coup
Herald Sun
November 5, 2007
FORMER Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has accused President Pervez Musharraf of staging a “second coup” which will only fuel radicalism in the nuclear-armed country.
Interviewed on US network CBS, Ms Bhutto said Pakistani judges and Opposition parties would not take the military ruler’s declaration of emergency rule “lying down”.
“I’m very disappointed that General Musharraf has suspended the constitution of our country and promulgated a provisional constitutional order,” she said, accusing him of staging a “second coup” after first seizing power in 1999.
“Ironically this is a coup conducted by General Musharraf against his own regime in a sense because he’s acted in his capacity as army chief to suspend the constitution and to declare a new provisional constitution.
“But I know that the judges are not going to take this lying down. The lawyers aren’t going to take this lying down. The political activists and party leaders are going to protest it,” Ms Bhutto said.
“It’s going to lead to an unnecessary confrontation between the regime and the people which only can help the extremists who will exploit the situation to their advantage.”
Speaking earlier on the BBC, Ms Bhutto did not rule out new power-sharing talks with Musharraf.
“I have always maintained that I want democracy and I want the people of Pakistan to choose their own leaders,” she said.
Pakistanis lose rights to free speech, assembly, property rights, lawyers
Raw Story
November 5, 2007
The Associated Press took a look at some of the restrictions of rights suspended by President George W. Bush’s key terrorism ally General Pervez Musharraf Sunday. They follow.
- Protection of life and liberty.
- The right to free movement.
- The right of detainees to be informed of their offense and given access to lawyers.
- Protection of property rights.
- The right to assemble in public.
- The right to free speech.
- Equal rights for all citizens before law and equal legal protection.
- Media coverage of suicide bombings and militant activity is curtailed by new rules. Broadcasters also face a three-year jail term if they “ridicule” members of the government or armed forces.
Former ISI chief Hamid Gul arrested
The Times of India
November 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD: Former chief of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Hamid Gul was arrested here on Sunday in continuing crackdown by the government in emergency-ruled Pakistan.
Gul was taken into custody by policemen who pushed him into a van and whisked him away, Geo TV reported.
“It is not an emergency, it’s martial law. One man has put the country at stake to save his rule,” the outspoken former spy chief said before he was taken away by the police from a public gathering here.
Gul’s arrest came amidst a crackdown by the government of President Pervez Musharraf on opposition leaders, senior lawyers and rights activists following the imposition of emergency on Saturday.
It was not immediately known why Gul had been arrested. The beleaguered military ruler has suspended key fundamental rights and given security agencies sweeping power to arrest or detain people without charges.
In the weeks before the imposition of emergency, Gul had been at the centre of a controversy after media reports suggested that he was one of the persons named by former premier Benazir Bhutto as posing a threat to her life.
Bhutto had named at least four such persons in a letter written to Musharraf two days before her return to Pakistan from self-exile on October 18, but she never publicly identified them.
Thousands Face Down Pakistan Police
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SNO2000&show_article=1
Musharraf plays his last ace
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK06Df01.html
Musharraf invokes Martial Law
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSCOL19928320071103
Musharraf Arrests Hundreds of Activists
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7077443.stm?
Musharraf tries to stifle outcry over emergency
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs…emergency-43a8d4f_1.html
Pakistan’s Musharraf declares state of emergency
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com…eclares-state-of_03.html
Filed under: Censorship, civil rights, Coup, Dictatorship, Islamabad, Martial Law, Musharraf, Pakistan, War On Terror
Musharraf invokes Martial Law
Reuters
November 3, 2007
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in a bid to end an eight-month crisis over his rule fuelled by challenges from a hostile judiciary, Islamist militants and political rivals.
General Musharraf said he decided to act on Saturday in response to a rise in extremism and what he called the paralysis of government by judicial interference.
“I fear that if timely action is not taken, then God forbid there is a threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty,” he said in a midnight televised address, after purging the Supreme Court and rounding up lawyers opposed to him.
“I cannot allow this country to commit suicide.”
There had been increasing speculation that Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, might declare an emergency rather than run the risk the Supreme Court would rule against his re-election as president last month.
The United States, a staunch Musharraf ally, called the measure “very disappointing”. Musharraf’s announcement effectively dashed U.S. hopes that parliamentary elections due in January would mark a transition to civilian-led democracy.
In the capital Islamabad, armored personnel carriers and military trucks patrolled the streets while roadblocks with metal barriers were set up on the main thoroughfares.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan’s internal security has deteriorated sharply in recent months with a wave of suicide attacks, including an assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last month that killed 139 people.
Musharraf Arrests Hundreds of Activists
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7077443.stm?
Musharraf tries to stifle outcry over emergency
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs…emergency-43a8d4f_1.html
Pakistan’s Musharraf declares state of emergency
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com…eclares-state-of_03.html
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