Pakistani troops ‘advance’ in Swat: Video
May 23, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
At least ten people have been killed in a bomb blast in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. The attacker struck a cinema during the evening, when the area was packed with people.
Peshawar is the gateway to Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt -where the army is fighting the Taliban. Al Jazeera Englishs Mike Hanna sent this special report from inside the conflict zone.
Tags: Swat, taliban, war on terror
The Us is Losing the media war to the Taliban
May 23, 2009 Articles
Foreign Policy
By Robert Haddick
May 22, 2009
Losing the media war to the Taliban
On May 20, an investigating team from U.S. Central Command released its interim findings concerning civilian casualties that resulted from U.S. bombs dropped during a battle near Farah, Afghanistan, on May 4.
A 16-day interval may be entirely appropriate for an internal investigation of U.S. military practices. But if this report is an attempt at “strategic communications” to counter Taliban propaganda, the United States is failing and needs a new approach.
A recent Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report on strategic communications highlighted at Small Wars Journal showed how good the Taliban have become at propaganda and how far the United States must run to catch up. The Taliban doesn’t need 16 days to get its message out:
[Michael] Doran [a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense] said that in Afghanistan, U.S. forces carry out an operation “and within 26 minutes — we’ve timed it — the Taliban comes out with its version of what took place in the operation, which immediately finds its way on the tickers in the BBC at the bottom of the screen.”
Taliban information operations are not only speedy — they also reach a range of media markets:
Taliban warlords renovated printing presses; launched new publications in Dari, Pashto, Arabic, and English; and maintained Voice of Sharia, a radio station, for dissemination of Taliban ideas and statements. … By early 2009 Afghan and Pakistan Taliban factions were operating hundreds of radio programs, distributing audio cassettes, and delivering night letters to instill fear and obedience among their targeted populations.
What is the U.S. government doing to improve its strategic communications effort? The U.S. Army is responding by rewriting Field Manual 3-13: Information Operations to give lower ranking commanders more authority and flexibility over local information campaigns. In Afghanistan, the United States is considering increasing the number of radio transmission towers, cellphone capacity, and local news stations to increase the amount of information available to Afghans. The United States might also jam Taliban radio transmissions and block access to Taliban Web sites.
But is the problem the media or the message? CFR senior fellow Stephen Biddle argues that the coalition needs to win the debate with the Taliban:
In places like Kunar Province, we have successfully designed integrated military-politico-economic operations to connect local Afghan populations with the government and create a political narrative that puts the Taliban on the outside, killing innocent Afghans, and ourselves on the inside, defending them.
For this approach to work, U.S. government officials in Afghanistan and elsewhere will need to be as bold as the Taliban when defending their actions in public. In American culture, propaganda is almost a dirty word. Official U.S. spokesmen rightfully fear making a statement that is later proved false. For U.S. strategic communications efforts, these conditions result in timidity rather than boldness.
Irregular warfare is all about achieving influence and legitimacy over the population. Here, perceptions become reality. To win the battle of perceptions, U.S. officials will need to try new tactics if they hope to outfight the Taliban’s propaganda machine.
Pakistan’s hedges are growing wild
On May 17, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared on 60 Minutes and was quizzed by Katie Couric on what can be done about Taliban safe havens inside Pakistan. Living up to his reputation for honesty, Gates said this about Pakistan’s intelligence service:
Look, they’re maintaining contact with these groups, in my view as a strategic hedge. … They are not sure who’s going to win in Afghanistan. They’re not sure what’s going to happen along that border area. So, to a certain extent, they play both sides.
That was not the only Pakistani hedge revealed recently. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on May 14, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen confirmed that Pakistan is expanding its nuclear weapons stockpile. This revelation must be particularly upsetting to Obama administration officials. Pakistan’s nuclear program expansion defies President Barack Obama’s goal of enacting a global cutoff of the production of weapons-grade nuclear material. Even more unsettling should be the realization that U.S. aid to Pakistan this decade has indirectly paid for the expansion of Pakistan’s plutonium production capacity.
Pakistan views its “strategic hedging” (less charitably known as “duplicity”) as rational acts of self-defense. Some U.S. officials might imagine that if the United States can reassure Pakistan’s leaders about the long-term reliability of the U.S. commitment to Pakistan, this strategic hedging would become moot.
It is difficult to believe that such a transformation could come over Pakistan’s leaders. To the east they see a growing India with enormous military potential and rapidly improving commercial and political relations with the United States. Their unease with India will always trump mere promises from U.S. officials.
Thus, Obama administration officials should admit to themselves that Pakistan’s strategic hedging will not stop. This means that Pakistan’s intelligence services will maintain their ties and support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and that Pakistan will continue to upgrade its nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems.
Pakistan’s strategic priority of keeping Afghanistan weak and of little value to India results in a grim prognosis for the U.S. mission there. Gates was deputy director of the CIA when the United States vigorously supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation during the 1980s. Having been on the other side of this battle, Gates knows that Pakistan, through its sanctuaries and support, can maintain the Taliban indefinitely. And contrary to the Soviet experience, U.S. supply lines to its forces all run through essentially enemy territory.
Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan includes more U.S. infantrymen to protect Afghanistan’s population, a larger commitment to train Afghan soldiers and police, and more U.S. civilian mentors for Afghanistan’s ministries. But will any of these measures matter if Pakistan’s vision for Afghanistan differs so sharply from the U.S. government’s?
Obama did leave himself a way out: his own strategic hedge. It’s found right in the first paragraph of his strategy: “a clear, concise, attainable goal: disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens.” Might Obama be able to declare this objective met if he is able to arrange the deaths of Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mullah Mohammed Omar, accomplishments that eluded President George W. Bush?
If that becomes the new definition of victory, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is the perfect man for this mission.
Tags: McCain Obama, obama, Pakistan, taliban, US, war, war on terror
The New World Order: In their Own Words
May 22, 2009 Articles
Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars
May 21, 2009
In the wake of the last Bilderberg conference, we bare witness to a great darkening front closing in on us yet another few inches toward total world domination. The alert observers saw it coming for a long time; the thoroughly indoctrinated are only now beginning to sense that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. How could this have happened without us knowing? And where were the media during our collective comatose suspension? Well, they were busy taking crash courses in ‘educational-operations’ crafted by members of the elite- who are all into streamlining the different media-outlets towards a single purpose, a single hive-mind for us to assimilate into. If you have the misfortune of being born after 1970, you have effectively been put under the spell of this new educational system, dripping into every segment of public life: from broadcasting media and newspapers, to readymade textbooks being used in school and, even, big budget motion pictures flickering predictive programming to be subliminally absorbed.
In a 1968 publication by Louis Francois for the brainwashing division of the UN, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) the author elaborates on the need for a worldwide education-system as opposed to the old, discarded one which still recognised sovereignty of the nation-state (page 18): ‘We are witnessing the establishment of a new world order based upon the system of the United Nations’, Francois explains. He links a growing world population as one of the main obstacles to be overcome in the quest for a global educational system (page 25): ‘(…) not only is the population of the world increasing; it is also growing younger (…). So the first obstacle to be overcome by education is that of quantity. The first problem to be solved by a ministry of education is that of accommodating and teaching these rapidly increasing multitudes of young people.’ On page 32 the author comes to the point, when he arrives at the diabolically logical conclusion of his train of thought: ‘Educational expansion is hard put to it to keep up with the huge growth of population.’ In order to effectively guide the population toward slavery, the number of people should be reduced lest its effectiveness wear off. ‘Wherever we look’, says Francois on page 36, ‘education is striving to forestall the demographic explosion.’ With a sharp sense of foresight when it comes to media matters, the UN-representative describes the future of education and what its ground principles are on which this future should be founded (page 80): ‘Promoting the recognition of the fact that, if the countries of the world are still divided by their interests and their political convictions, they are, day by day, growing more closely interdependent in matters of economics, science, technology and culture. Promoting awareness of the fact that nations must cooperate, that is to say work together for their common good within international organisations.’
‘To sum up,’ the author concludes on page 98, ‘Unesco serves as a catalyst for dynamic ideas. Well placed to hear of what is happening in the world, sensitive to the nation’s needs, Unesco is aware of the very first stirring of ideas, follows their development and can, at the proper time, co-ordinate, harmonize and finally impose them in their full force.’
It would almost be amusing, this notion that Unesco is merely picking up on ideas, if it were not so horribly cynical. This calculated and synchronised move toward a brave new world is not a bottom-up thing, somehow evolving naturally from the grass roots, it is a top-down system, posing as grass roots, to be imposed on as large an audience as it can reach through the use of mass media, schooling systems and other available instruments of propaganda. In 1974, the Director-General of Unesco René Maheu, stressed the importance of gathering all media, irrespective of its medium, under the great wing of Unesco and the globalists. At a banquet of the ‘International Co-ordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere Programme’ in Williamsburg, USA, Maheu starts out by giving some insight in UNESCO long-term vision for mankind (page 2): ‘The rationale behind the MAB (Man and the Biosphere) programmer is to ensure that the physical, biological and other environmental requirements of man are placed in the hands of each of us (present) and remain under our overall control.’ Explaining to his listening audience that the earth will disintegrate if not for ‘a collective effort planned, organized and executed by the international community acting in concert.’, the Director-General goes on to state: ‘I believe that we have now reached the point in world affairs where we must have a systematic reorganization of international relations on all levels.’ He of course favors the UN as the proper body to do the reorganizing before which he gives it its proper name (page 4): ‘I wish to reiterate my firm conviction- together with my hope- that a new world order- political, monetary, economic and social- should now be established.’
Exactly then years after Louis Francois outlined the plans for a new world order, a meeting of ‘consultants’ was organised at Unesco Headquarters discussing ‘the free and balanced flow of information in a new communication order.’ The participants were carefully selected to match the designs of the globalist organisers (page 1): ‘Fifteen consultants and observers from university and professional circles and representatives of international journalists’ organizations attended this meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to review briefly the origins of the concept of a free and balanced flow of information, to analyse the current state of discussions and the components of a new world order, together with its legal, technological and socio-economic implications, and to maker suggestions and recommendations for future action by Unesco and other international organisations.’ One of the aims described in the document, was (page 2): ‘Preparing and carrying out “pilot programmes” of education incorporating these principles.’ Regarding the before mentioned ‘legal implications’, one of the proposals was to ‘Draw up regulations relating to international mass communications (page 3).’ There is nothing like a strong chokehold to force your subjects into submission. When the status of the journalist in this new world order was discussed, the participants agreed that they would first have to ‘assess the feasibility of establishing an international code of ethics which would be adopted by journalists possessing a “universal” sense of mission, that is to say transcending their national origin in the defence of peace and fraternity (page 3)’. When we strip off the Orwellian euphemisms, a code of ethics off course equals an oath of obedience. Among the many disturbing recommendations made by the panel, such as setting up ‘an international fund for the purpose of renting news transmission channels’, the need was expressed ‘to set up a “World Press Council” to help ensure the truthfulness and objectivity of information, in the event of it proving impossible to devise and adapt an “international code of ethics (page 6)”’. A transnational body, in other words, that will decide whether a news item is truthful or not. While the going was good, the participants also called for (page 4) ‘seminars for professionals in order to make them understand the need to broaden the concerns of those who, in the mass communication process, have the responsibility for selecting information, in other words, those who act as information filters (Gate-Keepers).’
At a 1983 Unesco conference, there seemed to be an even greater consensus on the strategies that should be implemented in order to reach a new world order and it appears that those in attendance had a swell time debating semantics (page 16): ‘The participants regarded the new world order as a recognized concept, developing but irreversible, which would be established stage by stage.(…) The establishment of a new world communication order appeared to one participant as a participation, a world response to the communications revolution, whereas another emphasized the importance of the word “new” in describing the concept. Some statements emphasized the importance of speaking of a new order and not the new order since the concept was steadily evolving and also stressed the important difference between a new international order, concerned only with inter-State relations, and a new world order, which took into account all communication problems in a global context.’ Bordering on the ridiculous, this exchange between globalists is nevertheless significant for it occurred long before papa Bush delivered his famous ‘new world order’ speech before the US congress in 1991. It became part of the nomenclature long before that within the seclusion of key globalist meetings. On page 10 some participants of the conference declared that ‘the effort to establish a new world information and communication order in stages could not be separated from the effort to promote a new international economic order.’
Their final idea and plan for a world government is not some magical or mysterious force that can only be understood by an arduous reading between the lines, on the contrary: it’s being spelled out for us word for word by overeager transnationalists. As professor Saul Mendlovitz, Co-Director of World Order Models Project (WOMP) said in his acceptance speech at the award ceremony of the 1990 Unesco ‘Prize for Peace Education’ (page 36): ‘it is my personal belief (not shared by all members of WOMP) that there is an overwhelming surge in the direction of global polity and that a world state is emerging. Indeed, some of the policy élite are beginning to discuss a single world central bank and a single currency.’
This- in their own words- is the endgame of the elite. But the road is not without obstacles, as they themselves are acutely aware of. In the same acceptance speech- champagne glass in hand- the professor expresses his concern about a smooth going in the near future: ‘My fear’, Mendlovitz added, ‘is that we will be put off by notions of centralization and legal form and attempt to realize values ‘at a local level’, thus permitting the centralizing forces of the dominant states and classes to maintain control of both the transition and governance of the global polity. What I believe is called for then is the liberating from within ourselves the idea of specie identity. That is, to cultivate that capacity in each of us to identify, empathize and act with and on behalf of the human specie, and in the end the planet we inhabit.’
In order to further inspire this detachment of humans from their own tribe- and divert this natural inclination towards a sense of world citizenry- replacing the tribe for the ‘global tribe’- a great propaganda-infrastructure was forced into being, with a special seat reserved in it for the mass media to incrementally commence with the brainwashing. The globalists have meanwhile spread their tentacles very wide indeed, in an attempt to suck out our survival instincts ‘stage by stage’, and pumping human creative energy straight into their desired new world order. The question as to whether they will succeed depends entirely on the capability of the ‘target audiences’ to resist the constant stream of propaganda. And this capability of course will depend for a large part on the effectiveness of the information war we are waging.
Tags: new world order, world order
A society misunderstood
May 22, 2009 Articles, Pakistan, pakistan politics
I really feel very bad when the whole world reduces us to a place only inhabited by bearded men and buraq-clad women. True, they exist- but others do too.
Things can get terrible and fear can take over us but people forget that there is a resilient side to us too. Let me tell you an interesting story. There is a woman I know who works in my colony as a maid. She has about five kids and her son and daughter are married. She is very fond of Indian movies and every so often she goes to the cinema. Although she makes sure she covers her face when she goes, she would never sit home scared at the cost of missing her movies!
Now, in Peshawar, when girls go out with boys to cinemas, the Taliban is not what scares them. The bigger risk always is that the girl’s family might find out that she was out with a boy, which is why most of the time this woman is accompanied by another woman who is older but shares her passion of Indian movies.
Many years ago, when there was an official ban in the country on Indian movies, here in Peshawar, the cinemas used to quietly screen Indian movies while cleverly displaying posters and billboards of Pakistani movies outside the cinema on billboards and the lobbies. Everyone knew, even the officials.
For me things were different in those days more than they are now. People on the street used to become uncomfortable seeing a woman in short-sleeves or uncovered. Now, men do stare, but that’s something common throughout the country. For me personally, the most uncomfortable thing is that the bearded men with their tasbihs are the ones who stare at women here the most.
There are three bazaars in Peshawar, of which two are exclusively for women called Meena bazaar and Shaheen bazaar. In Saddar, which is for both men and women, a female is still given her due respect and despite all this militancy we know that if someone tried to touch us and if we started shouting, there’ll be many men coming forward to help us within seconds.
We also have women who wear burqas and observe purdah and that works fine too. I have friends who moved to Karachi. While here they used to be in burqas but in Karachi, they follow a different dress code and their families are fine with that. Interestingly, when they come to Peshawar they are back to their chaddars. Even those women who wear burqas and preach about adopting a more conservative dress, often have henna on their hands, pearls on their burqas and liner on their eyes….
I personally believe that it’s all about feeling sure about yourself. If you do, it makes a huge difference even in places with a war like situation.
Dawn Blog
Tags: Pakistan, Peshawar, politics, war on terror
Help for the IDPs
May 22, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan, pakistan politics
Dawn Editorial
Friday, 22 May, 2009
BELATEDLY, the federal government has woken up to the needs of the civilian population in northern Pakistan that has been displaced by the fight against the militants. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the government’s ‘3R’ approach — relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction — and committed Rs8bn to the effort to help the IDPs. And yesterday the prime minister chaired an international donors conference in Islamabad at which $224m, including $110m committed earlier by the US, of emergency aid for the IDPs was announced.
Even more money may be committed soon, as Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has announced that the UN will launch an appeal for aid today that may net hundreds of millions of dollars more. It is clear that winning the military battle in Malakand division may translate into a strategic loss if the state does not protect the population, so it is a welcome sign that the government is awakening to its crucial responsibility and that the international community is pledging to help the cash-strapped government. With the estimates of the displaced people already topping two million, the task ahead is indeed enormous.
Positively, the government is not just talking about relief operations. It is already looking at the rehabilitation and reconstruction phases, and has sought the help of international and local organisations to draw up plans to help the IDPs rebuild their lives, both in the camps and once they return to their homes. None of this was visible in the case of earlier IDPs from places like Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber and Darra Adamkhel. Fighting a counter-insurgency is a long-term process, one which continues long after the guns have fallen silent and the last IDP has returned home, and by planning for the future the government should be able to more effectively to deal with the nuts and bolts of helping people rebuild their lives when that time comes.
However, a word of caution: the government must ensure maximum transparency in the utilisation of funds for the IDPs. Unscrupulous elements will eye the enormous sums of money that are to be funnelled towards the various programmes and projects and the possibility of mismanagement and corruption are high. Money should only be spent on genuine victims of the fighting in Malakand division and it should be utilised quickly but effectively.
As far as food aid goes, it should be procured and disbursed transparently to the real victims. And as far as spending on rehabilitation and reconstruction projects goes, a list of priorities must be established that takes into account the basic needs of the population. With expert advice readily available given Pakistan’s experience of handling refugees from Afghanistan and the Oct-ober 2005 earthquake, a transparent but efficient effort should not be very difficult to achieve.
Tags: Pakistan, Swat, taliban, war on terror
Zaid Hamid on Swat Operation
May 21, 2009 Brasstacks, Pakistan, Zaid Hamid, pakistan politics
Tags: Ary One Worl, Pakistan, Swat, Zaid Hamid
New Architecture for Mecca
May 21, 2009 Videos
A video revealing Atkins’ plans for the redevelopment of the Masjid al-Haram, the holiest site in Islam, has been leaked on the internet A number of British architects, including Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid have been approached to draw up plans to increase the capacity of the mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Tags: Atkins, Masjid al-Haram, Mecaa, New Architecture, Norman Foster, Saudi Arabia, Zaha Hadid
US arms sent to Afghan forces ‘in Taliban hands’
May 21, 2009 News & Events, afghan war
AFP
May 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Pentagon munitions have leaked from Afghan forces to Taliban militants, enabling them to fight an insurgency for years against materially superior US and Afghan forces, The New York Times reported.
According to a Times study of ammunition markings, of 30 rifle magazines removed from the corpses of insurgents in eastern Afghanistan last month, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, “identical” to ammunition the United States has provided to Afghan government forces.
Although “the scope of that diversion remains unknown,” the newspaper warned that “poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied” in the wake of “only spotty” US and Afghan controls of weapons and ammunition sent to Afghanistan.
Following criticism for failing to account for thousands of rifles provided to Afghan security forces, some of which have been found in the hands of militants, the Pentagon launched a database documenting small arms supplied to Afghan units.
And the US-led Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, which is responsible for training and supplying Afghan forces, has said it has prioritized accounting for all Afghan military and police property.
“The emphasis from our perspective is on accountability of all logistics property,” the transition command’s deputy chief, Brigadier General Anthony Ierardi told the newspaper.
Leakage of Pentagon-supplied armaments to insurgents is an “absolutely worst-case scenario,” he said.
But no similar system of accountability is applied to ammunition, which is more difficult to trace than firearms.
Military officers told the newspaper that US forces do not examine all captured arms and munitions to determine how they fell into the hands of insurgents and whether the Afghan government was supplying — even indirectly — the Taliban.
The reasons for the gap, according to The Times, owed to “limited resources and institutional memory of issued arms, as well as an absence of collaboration between field units that collect equipment and the investigators and supervisors in Kabul who could trace it.”
Tags: Afghan forces, afghan war, Pakistan, taliban, Talibans, Us arms, war on terror
Taliban Leader Brainwashing
May 21, 2009 News & Events, Pakistan
Taliban are in circulation on the internte/shown to kids in their brainwashing sessions. The subtitling and the editing with two cameras is impressive and clearly shows that Taliban are doing some coordinated efforts to produce visual contents.
Tags: Pakistan, Talibans, war on terror
NADRA charging Rs 50 for ID Card Verification from IDP’s in Swat
May 21, 2009 Pakistan, pakistan politics
A brief snapshot of IDP relief efforts in Hatian Village (30kms from Mardan, just off main Malakand road). In this union council there are 11 schools that have been converted into make-shift camps upon the Govts instructions. In all there are 1000 people in the main high school, while the total number of IDPs is estimated to be around 10,000. The local community has taken the lead in organising the school camps, housing people in their own houses and arranging for food. Until now they have not received ANY support from the Government or NGOs and have been functioning completely on self-help (or as they say aapni madad aap) basis. They told us that our contingent of relief goods (three small truckloads) is the first outside support that they had gotten until then…..
Tags: Displaced people, IDP's Swat, mardan, Nadra, Pakistan, Swat
