Why Pakistan will not mount new attacks on militants

With its announcement that it will launch no new offensives against the Taliban in 2010, Pakistan’s army appears to have opened a new innings in its favourite game with the West, says the BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad.

Pakistan’s military thinks it has strong reasons not to attack the militants

For the United States, the statement by the Pakistan army could not have come at a worse time.
Its main intelligence agency, the CIA, is still coming to terms with the death of seven personnel in a suicide attack in Afghanistan by an al-Qaeda “double agent”.

That attack, the worst suffered by the agency in four decades, was apparently planned and carried out by Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Under pressure from the US, the Pakistan army launched an operation there in the main Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan in November 2009.

The army has since been able to secure that territory and push out the militants. Hillary Clinton wants Pakistan to target militants in Baluchistan. While some have been captured, most senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders have fled the region. Intelligence officials say they have now taken refuge either in other nearby tribal regions or the neighbouring Balochistan province.

Mission impossible

Top US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have been calling for the military to go after the militants in these regions.

All this comes at a time when Pakistan’s government is already under a great deal of domestic criticism. This is mainly due to increased missile strikes by the US targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas. These have turned a sometimes ambivalent tribal population against the Pakistan military. Analysts say the tribesmen see the strikes, which have claimed more lives of civilians than of militants, as contiguous with the military operation.

But US officials have continued to press for more action, painting doomsday scenarios for Pakistan. The latest such warning comes from US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who said in India that al-Qaeda was planning to carry out attacks to provoke war with Pakistan. But the Pakistan military appears to have its own views on the subject, and their say is likely to count the most.
Pakistani troops hold their positions at a hilltop post in Shingwari, an area in the troubled Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan (Oct 2009)

Pakistani troops hold their positions on a hill top in South Waziristan. Their latest decision is likely to sends shivers through all Western capitals which have a stake in Afghanistan. For Washington, in particular, the military’s U-turn will have far-reaching consequences. Without Pakistani soldiers pressurising the Taliban in the tribal areas, it will be mission impossible for US forces in Afghanistan.

Diplomatic wrangling

Even with the additional 40,000 troops, it will not be possible to contain the insurgents. With 2010 already being called a defining moment in the current conflict, the military has risked the all-out ire of the US with its decision. But it appears to have thought out the move, given that it has gone public at a time when the US defence secretary is in Pakistan. The military believes it has strong reasons not to move against the militants.

Many senior military officials have been angered by what they see are recent moves by the US and the UK to expand India’s involvement in Afghanistan. They see this as being specifically targeted against Pakistani interests. There is also the matter of promised US aid to Pakistan, most of which has been delayed due to diplomatic wrangling.

US officials say much of the aid has been held up because of delays in processing visas for officials attached to the projects.
US army officer during exit a helicopter during an air assault operation on the town of Oshaky in Afghanistan
Without Pakistani offensives, will it be mission impossible for US forces?

But Pakistani intelligence officials say that many of these officials actually end up involved in activities “beyond their charter of duties”. In common parlance, its means the officials are seen as spies.

Extremely unhappy

The military’s decision has also put the Pakistan government, with which it has been at odds of late, in an embarrassing position.
The military’s unhappiness at the government stems from what it sees as its pandering to US demands at every turn. One example which intelligence officials quote at liberty, is the manner in which US special forces personnel are allowed to enter and move around Pakistan without being documented by immigration.

Officials say the military is extremely unhappy with the interior ministry on this count.
The shaky PPP-led government, for its part, is too busy rolling from one political crisis to another to really take this matter in hand.
On a more direct note, Pakistan’s military has also been demanding that the US give it more advanced helicopters and transfer its drone technology.

They say as the frontline state against the Taliban, such equipment is needed for greater success.
The US has, however, rejected these demands so far.

BBC NEWS

Pakistani Cable Operators To Boycott IPL

LAHORE: As the Indian Premier League (IPL) controversy deepens, cable operators on Thursday announced a ban on the telecast of IPL matches.

Heeding a call by the sports minister, the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP) announced a boycott of the telecast of all the IPL matches after none of the Pakistani players were selected for the league.

The announcement was made at a press conference in Lahore. Addressing the conference, CAP President Captain Retd. Jabbar Ahmad said that the association condemned the attitude of Indian Cricket Board. He said that the decision was taken in a meeting of the cable operators association and it will be implemented across the country.

Pakistan Army Rejects US Demands For New Offensive In North Waziristan

Pakistan’s army has said it will launch no new offensives on militants in 2010, as the US defence secretary arrived for talks on combating Taliban fighters. Army spokesman Athar Abbas told the BBC the “overstretched” military had no plans for any fresh anti-militant operations over the next 12 months. Our correspondent says the comments are a clear snub to Washington.

The US would like Pakistan to expand an offensive against militants launching cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Pakistan on Thursday for his first visit since US President Barack Obama took office last year.

The one-day trip comes at a crucial time in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, with the US planning to commit 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Mr Gates was expected to tell Pakistan that it could do more against top Taliban leaders operating in its territory, some of whom are alleged to have close links to Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service.

The Pakistani army launched major ground offensives in 2009 in the north-west against Pakistani Taliban strongholds in the Swat region, last April, and in South Waziristan, last October.

The militants have hit back with a wave of suicide bombings and attacks that have killed hundreds of people across Pakistan.
In the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday, Maj Gen Abbas, head of public relations for the Pakistan army, told the BBC: “We are not going to conduct any major new operations against the militants over the next 12 months.

“The Pakistan army is overstretched and it is not in a position to open any new fronts. Obviously, we will continue our present operations in Waziristan and Swat.”

‘Trust deficit’

The BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says the comments are a clear brush-off to top US officials.

Our correspondent adds they are embarrassing for Pakistan’s shaky coalition government, and likely to further destabilise already-low ties with its US ally.

He says it also threatens to render ineffective an expanded coalition troop deployment in Afghanistan, as the Taliban over the border would be relieved of any pressure from the Pakistan army.

Before arriving in Islamabad, Mr Gates told reporters travelling with him from India: “You can’t ignore one part of this cancer and pretend that it won’t have some impact closer to home.”

His visit comes amidst a slight cooling in relations between the two allies. In an article published in a Pakistani newspaper on Thursday, Mr Gates referred to a “trust deficit”.

As well as talking with his counterpart, Ahmed Mukhtar, the US defence secretary is expected to meet Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Zardari.

Talks were also expected to focus on US drone strikes against militants near the Afghan border.

Hundreds of people have died in the attacks, which have stoked deep resentment of the US among many Pakistanis.

But he adds that Mr Gates will argue that drone strikes are the only effective measure against the Taliban.

Pakistan has been an important US partner in South Asia since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

Is America a failed state?

By Spengler

Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and then the presidency by offering the same program that Peter Pan gave the Darling children: Close your eyes, think happy thoughts, and you will be able to fly. “Yes we can” in the meantime has changed to “No he can’t,” as America lost five million jobs in 2009 and its effective unemployment rate, including so-called long-term discouraged workers, rose to 22%, a level unseen since the Great Depression.

Within 24 hours, the voters of Massachusetts may turn the freshly-baked president into a prematurely lame duck, by electing an obscure Republican to the senate seat held for a generation by Ted Kennedy. If that occurs, Obama’s veto-and-filibuster-proof majority in the senate will disappear and faint hearts in his own party will hedge their bets on the proposed public healthcare program. The Republicans should be careful what they wish for: no one is voting for the opposition, for the Republican party has noeconomic program and no unifying theme except its objection to Obama. The voters are protesting a radical change in their status for the worse, and will penalize whoever has the misfortune to be in power.

During December, more than 600,000 workers disappeared from the official count of the American labor force, erasing the illusion that the employment situation would recover. But the voters knew that before the economists. The most reliable index of economicsentiment is the president’s deteriorating approval rating. For a by-the-numbers explanation of why the US economy will not recover, see my October 6, 2009, essay, Obama’s permanent depression.

America is the world’s most successful state, and the one with the greatest longevity in its present constitutional form. But neither of the major parties is presently capable of governing it. The Republicans have been hoping that rage against Obama’s failed economic policies would carry the party through the November congressional elections. But it is entirely conceivable that the Obama presidency will implode as quickly as the Obama campaign metastasized during the 2008 primaries, and that the electorate will call the Republicans’ bluff.

Americans understood well enough in early 2008 that the traditional leadership of both parties had led them into a dead-end. As I wrote in January 2008 (Obama bin lottery) after Obama’s surprise landslide in the South Carolina Democratic primary:

People of modest means do not understand thestock market, but they are sly: they can read the panic in the eyes of their leaders. After assuring them for months that all was well, Washington last week offered an emergency interest rate cut for the first time since September 11, 2001, and an emergency economic package which will send a small check to every American family earning less than a certain threshold. Both President George W Bush and [Bill] Clinton proposed essentially the same program. If that is “managerial ability”, thought the voters of South Carolina, we might as well buy the lottery ticket.
That is why at that time, January 2008, I believed America was going for Obama: “America faces not a dip in the business cycle, but the end of a 25-year run of wealth creation. Rising home prices were supposed to provide America’s retirement nest egg, the substitute for the savings that Americans never amassed … Despite massive evidence to the contrary, they still cling to the delusion that 20 years from now, everyone will retire by selling his home to his neighbor at double the price. It is like the passengers on the Titanic selling each other annuities.”

Obama appealed to the voters’ bottom-dollar hope that a new face in the White House would reverse the tide of misery. He did not have to offer specific promises: he only needed to give the voters the opportunity to kid themselves, which they were eager to do considering the unpleasant taste of the alternative.

The electorate is like Archilochus’ hedgehog, which knows one big thing, rather than the fox, which knows many things, in the classical aphorism cited by Russian-British philosopher and historian, Sir Isaiah Berlin. In 2008, the voters knew that the capital gains and home equity cushion gleaned during the Ronald Reagan boom were at risk, and that the likes of presidential candidate John McCain as well as former candidate, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would not make things different. A vote for Obama under these circumstances had no downside from the vantage point of the ordinary household, and they held out the hope that Obama actually might have a magic wand up his sleeve. The voters were not entirely misguided, for the currenteconomic situation almost certainly would have been just as bad under a McCain administration.

The big thing that the American electorate has learned during 2009 is that Obama is all talk. There are many little things that annoy voters: special treatment for trade-union health plans, a Treasury secretary who seems to have given special treatment to Goldman Sachs in the rescue of the insurance giant AIG, and a confusing foreign policy. But the idling of one-fifth of the population overwhelms every other issue. Tens of millions of families that only two years ago felt affluent and secure are now anxious and impoverished. And Obama can do nothing about it.

When Reagan took office in 1981, the baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s, America had a 10% savings rate, the current account was in surplus, and America was the world’s largest net creditor nation. Reagan was able to cut taxes and finance an enormous budget deficit because the world’s demand for US Treasury securities was correspondingly large. In 2010, the baby boomers are in their 50s and 60s, America has saved nothing for a decade, the current account remains in severe deficit and the world is choking on the existing supply of Treasury securities. Cutting taxes to stimulate the economy is not as simple this time round.

Professor Reuven Brenner and I argued in the December 2009 issue of First Things that fundamental changes in Americaneconomic policy are required to emerge from the Great Recession. We proposed that the United States fix the dollar to the Chinese yuan and other currencies in order to re-orient trade flows to the developing world. We added, “We have been borrowing in order to consume; we need now to save in order to invest. We need to shift the tax burden, moving it away fromsavings and investment and toward consumption. We should replace individual and corporate income taxes with consumption-based taxes.”

Americans need to be told that they will need to invest before they can consume, and that the cure will take years rather than months to take effect. It’s not a happy message, and no one in politics is willing to deliver it – if indeed anyone in politics understands it.

Bangladeshi Patriots Incensed At Hasina’s Sell Out To India

london 15 January 2010:The patriots of Bangladesh in general were anticipating the agreements between Bangladesh and India, during Hasina’s visit to India from 10 to 13 January 2010, to be unfavourable to Bangladesh. However, what they actually found in the end was much worse. The 50-point Joint Communiqué was published by the Ministry of External affairs, India, on 12 January 2010, the day when the agreements were signed. The excerpts thereof, and possibly the full Communiqué, were also published in Bangladesh on 12 January 2010. These reports said it all. The patriots of Bangladesh in their utter amazement found the agreements to be absolutely a sell out of national interest and an abject surrender of sovereignty by the BAL government to the gleeful Indian hegemonists.

In exchange, Hasina was awarded a hollow and worthless Indira Gandhi ‘peace prize’ by these Indian hegemonists, who in 2005 awarded the same prize to Karzai, as Karzai and Hasina are both puppets of the US-Israel-India evil axis. Also Indira’s name cannot be associated with peace, without making a travesty of truth.

Save and except for the sworn lackeys of India, the victims of India-influenced media and other propaganda campaigns (like the WMD propaganda campaigns of lies by Bush) and the direct and indirect beneficiaries of Indian bankrolling and influence, the other people of Bangladesh in general are totally unhappy about, and opposed to, these agreements. They whole-heartedly denounce, reject and condemn the agreements and would look forward to the abrogation of these, whenever the right opportunity arises and, for that matter, the sooner these are annulled, the better for them.

The consequences of the agreements and the MOU’s:

Hasina has conceded to India what they have been pursuing for decades. She has conceded the use of Chittagong and Mongla ports and Ashuganj river-port and also offered them road and rail transit. In order to develop the roads for India’s transit (corridor), India has offered a loan of $1 bn. Thus, according to these arrangements, it would be Bangladesh, who would repay the loan with interest, while India would enjoy the transit (corridor). With a puppet regime like Hasina’s, it could not have been better for the Chanakya’s disciples in the South Block of New Delhi!

Out of these agreements, India would be getting sea, road and rail transits. River transit was conceded to them by Mujib and air transit by Moeen. India has offered to sell 250 MW of electricity to Bangladesh, which is not much compared to our requirement of 3000 MW. But, it would allow India to have a pressure lever on the users whenever they want to apply the pressure. India is eyeing control of our power sector, telecommunication sector, transport sector and, in course of time, control of the entire administration. Hasina’s bent-knee policies on the present round of agreements is supposed to be a good beginning for the hegemonists.

With transit through Bangladesh, India is likely to use Bangladesh territory as a supply route for transport of arms and ammunition to North-East India to counter local freedom fighters and to prepare for a possible conflict with China. When these cargos are under any ‘terrorist threat’, whether it is a false flag staged by India or a threat from the insurgents of India or an action of any angry demo by any unhappy Bangladeshi open or secret group, India would send military contingent for the protection of the cargos. Recently they have, according to reports, sent a commando of 50 or more specialist forces for the protection of their Dhaka High Commission, and Hasina kept mum about it conceding it as a diplomatic prerogative.

Once the Indian soldiers start entering Bangladesh, which India would very much like to do, they would virtually control Dhaka. Indian army was stationed in Bhutan in 2003 in the name of flushing out Indian insurgents. The Indian army since then have been permanently stationed there and consequently Bhutan became a dependent territory of India. With the same aim in view, India offered their puppet Moeen a joint military operation in Bangladesh, which because of sensitivity was avoided at that moment, probably postponed for then for the future. But, Moeen offered India military co-operation in exchange for six horses. The co-operation can be, according to many, linked to the rigging of the stage-managed election of 29 December 2008, the action of Indian commando in BDR massacre of 25-26 February 2009 and removal of any resistance to Indian hegemony from within the army, the BDR and the administration in general, in flagrant violation of our independence and sovereignty.
Is Bangladesh now an extension of war-zones of India?

Thus, with the signing of these agreements, Bangladesh has exposed itself to grave security perils and has brought upon itself an extension of the military conflicts of the neighbouring Indian states. On the other hand, if Indian army enters Bangladesh, then almost certainly there will develop an armed resistance from the people of Bangladesh with great geographical consequences, for these kinds of conflicts may well spill over both the Eastern and the Western borders of Bangladesh and can easily get linked to the Indian ongoing conflicts in those areas, inevitably bringing upon us a great scourge of warfare on our soil.

With a treaty on terrorism signed, Hasina has already tied herself with the Indian government against the ULFA, the Maoists and similar such insurgencies in India. This may bring about disastrous consequences for Bangladesh and this is tantamount to joining the conflict, which may invite attacks in Bangladesh.

Thus, the treaties and the MOU’s are not only a sell out of national interest, but also it is an abject surrender of Bangladesh sovereignty to India.

What national interests Hasina did not raise with India:

Hasina failed to claim compensation from India for the desertification and other damages to Bangladesh due to Farakka and Teesta barrages and other structures, which India built on reportedly 53 of the 54 common rivers. When Manmohan assured her that India would not cause any harm to Bangladesh by Tipaimukh Hydel project and the ensuing Fulertal barrage, she failed to unroll the pictures of desertification by existing barrages, failed to produce a list of damages quantified in monetary terms and failed to say that these assurances have regularly been uttered by India since 1972, but India has never been found to keep any promises.

Hasina did not ask India to get out of South Talpatti, to stop claiming our maritime areas, to stop killing of unarmed poor villagers in border areas (according to HR organisation ‘Odhikar’, Indian BSF killed about 100 people a year since 2000 and similar numbers were injured and abducted) and to stop abducting huge numbers of poverty-stricken Bangladeshi children and girls for their inhuman businesses of darkness. She did not ask India to stop arming and training ‘Shanti Bahini’ in CHT, the ‘Bongo Bhumi’ movement in the South West, etc. and to close down the terrorist training camps in India, which are run for sabotage in Bangladesh. She did not say to India’s face that India is suspected to have created the JMB and their strategic-partner Israel to have created the HuJI-B to impart on Bangladesh the blemish and stigma of a ‘failed’ or ‘terrorist’ state and, on this pretext, draw international support for India against Bangladesh.

Hasina failed to charge India for their hold-up on ratification of the Indira-Mujib treaty for the last 36 years. She failed to condemn their non-tariff and para-tariff barriers, which are raised to intentionally jeopardise and block Bangladesh exports to India, thus creating a huge trade deficit for Bangladesh. She failed to condemn India about what they recently did in pretending to extend relief to SIDR victims of Bangladesh. She failed to tell them that all of the above problems remaining unsolved, India can never be a friend to Bangladesh and with barbed wire fences all round its border, Bangladesh cannot have any friendly or normal relations with India.
Both Manmohan and Hasina must know that there are patriots in Bangladesh, who would speak their minds about their national interest and who understand absolutely well that cooperation and subservience are two different things. They also understand that: With a hegemonic friend like India, who needs enemies?

Hasina in her previous term as Prime Minister between 1996 and 2001, when she was duly elected, entered two treaties with India. One was the Ganges water sharing treaty, which was without a guarantee clause and without a mention of withdrawal or diversion of water upstream of Farakka. Some people call it a fraudulent treaty. The other treaty was her peace treaty in CHT, in which she actually surrendered the sovereignty of CHT to India. So, it can be observed that she has developed a habit of conceding national interest and surrendering sovereignty to India and, no wonder, India is so euphoric about her being the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

The imperialist support for hegemonic India is a boost for India’s evil deeds:
The New York Times, the Herald Tribune and the VOA have all welcomed Hasina’s cooperation with India and these media, often influenced by India, have absolutely turned a blind eye to the problems of Bangladesh as mentioned above. They normally turn a blind eye to all the genocides, massacres and plunders perpetrated by the US and their allies. As compatible with this policy, they turn a blind eye to the genocides and massacres perpetrated by India on the Muslims, other religious groups, Dalits and ethnic minorities, in which hundreds of thousands of people get slaughtered in India. So, when the imperialist media try to stand on moral high ground, they sound very hollow indeed! And thus, when they welcome Hasina’s visit to India as a beginning of good relations between Bangladesh and India, they are simply supporting the imperialist-hegemonist evil alliance against us, the victims.

The one-eleven 2007 of Bangladesh was engineered by India with the active backing from the US and their allies, including their rubber stamp the UN. This was done to subjugate Bangladesh, to plunder its natural resources and to trample its national interest. They brought Hasina to power with the same objectives and by using the same methods of rigging in stage-managed election under military deployment, as they did to bring Karzai and al-Maliki to power.
The Obama administration seems to have retained the Bush policies in South Asia. Their half-hearted attempts to change the policies on Palestine and Kashmir seem to have been thwarted by Israel and India respectively. With the US strategic partnership with India and Israel remaining in tact in the perspective of South-, Central- and South-East Asia, India would avail of this power ensemble in order to try and reduce Bangladesh to their vassal state. So, our security is under great peril, as our independence and sovereignty are alarmingly under threat.

So, what should we do?

History has proved time and again that when a nation stands up with its people imbued with patriotism and united as a solid rock, then no external powers, however strong, can defeat them. History has also proved that the people of Bangladesh can unite and fight gloriously. Therefore, we have nothing to fear.

We must immediately build a united front of all the patriots across the political spectrum against the Hasina-Manmohan treaties and MOU’s and launch a powerful movement for the annulment of the treaties and the MOU’s, which have already threatened our independence and sovereignty, our national interest and our national resources. This movement would help the patriots to unite, would help the nation to stand up with valour and pride and would imbue the people with the spirit of liberty.

At present, it seems as though the international community is both blind and deaf to our causes, but as it happens normally that when the public is united and they stand up, the blindness and deafness of the international forces suddenly get cured, so that they begin to both see and hear. We therefore must persist in our political campaigns just as the Palestinians have done since the occupation of their lands.

Israel today stands precariously at this juncture of history, when there are reported CIA assessments that in about 20 years time the state of Israel may not exist.

India today stands precariously at this juncture of history, when according to a Chinese analyst, it can implode and divide into 20-30 states. Obviously this is due to the widespread insurgent movements and the movements of the repressed people and the various nationalities against the mindless genocides and massacres perpetrated on them by New Delhi.

The US today stands precariously at this juncture of history, when the unipolar world between 1991 and 2008 gave way to a multipolar world, which has arisen in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the US has begun to go downhill towards the horizon of setting sun, leaving behind a world fervently hoping to be free from the genocides, massacres and plunders of imperialism.

We shall defend Bangladesh against the hegemonist aggression of India. We shall stand up as a brave people, we shall rise as a great nation and in course of time we shall make advancements to our country in order to join the ranks of the developed ones. Hasina’s sell out of national interest and surrender of sovereignty, “Viewpoints”, Monday January 18 2010 10:00:19 AM BDT By Zoglul Husain. UK, Writer: Zoglul Husain, UK, Email: zoglul@hotmail.co.uk

Black flags greet Gen Kapoor in Nepal

An off-the cuff remark reportedly made last month could overshadow all other issues on agenda during Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor’s four-day Nepal visit that began on Tuesday.
Black flags greeted Kapoor on his arrival at Tribhuwan International Airport and nearly 1200 Maoists staged demonstrations outside Indian Embassy and Singha Durbar—the official seat of Nepal government–to register their protest against his statement and alleged Indian interference in Nepal.
In the past weeks, a lot of media space and political hype has followed Kapoor’s alleged statement expressing reservation on en mass integration of former Maoist rebels into the Nepal Army.
The comment made at an official dinner during his Nepalese counterpart General Chatraman Singh Gurung’s India visit had led Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda to term it as India’s “naked interference” in Nepal’s internal affairs.

The Indian Embassy tried to do a delayed damage control by issuing a statement this month that media reports had “highly distorted” Kapoor’s remark and it didn’t reflect the Indian government’s position, but it failed to act as a balm.
Although External Affairs Minister SM Krishna expressed India’s displeasure at baseless mudslinging by Maoists during his meeting with Prachanda on Saturday, the former prime minister and his party colleagues have not put an end to their anti-India rhetoric.
On Monday, the opposition Maoists, who have launched a national awakening against foreign powers, boycotted parliament seeking a reply from Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on Kapoor’s remark.
Kapoor’s goodwill visit is expected to increase defence cooperation between both neighbours. He will meet the Nepalese Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Nepal Army chief and visit several military training establishments as well.
Kapoor will also be conferred the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army by President Ram Baran Yadav on Thursday as per tradition between both nations. The Nepal Army chief was also conferred the similar title during his India visit.
The Army chief’s reported statement made last month on the need for India to develop capability to engage in a two-front war with Pakistan and China has also led to lot of negative reactions in Pakistan.

SC can call Army if verdict not implemented’

ISLAMABAD: Senior lawyer of the Supreme Court Abdul Hafeez Pirzada on Wednesday said the apex court could call the Army for help in getting its verdict implemented. He said the Army was a part of the executive and was bound to obey the court’s order under Article 190 of the Constitution.

“The apex court can call the Army chief for help to get its verdicts put into action,” he told reporters here in the Supreme Court while commenting over the SC’s detailed judgment on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

“There is an antecedent on this in past, when former chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah called the Army chief,” he said, adding the government was morally bound to implement the court’s decision in letter and spirit.

He rejected the impression that the court’s direction to the Army would seem to invite it (Army) for taking charge of the government. “If the government shows some wisdom, then there is no chance of any clash between the institutions,” he said. He said that it would be necessary for the government to file another petition in the court for seeking immunity for the president.

About the fresh controversy regarding the appointments of judges in the superior courts, he said that junior judges could also be appointed in the Supreme Court.

He also mentioned that the court had already given a decision about that issue in the matter of Justice (retd) Khalilur Rehman Ramday, Justice (retd) Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice (retd) Faqir Muhammad Khokhar’s appointments in the apex court. According to the decision, he added, the chief justice of Pakistan can send recommendations about the appointment of judges in the Supreme Court.

Answering a question about the qualification of any candidate in the election process, the senior lawyer said that under Article 63 of the Constitution, qualification of any person could be challenged even after the election process. He said that the speaker of the National Assembly or the chairman Senate could send references to the Election Commission in this regard.

A Balochi Beating India’s Manmohan

This picture was taken recently in Chaman, the small Pakistani town on the border with southern Afghanistan. While the US and Indian media promote terrorism in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, a terror which is supported by US and Indian intelligence operatives using the Afghan soil, the reality on the ground is far from the image that American and Indian spinmasters wish to convey. [US think tanks are the latest entrants in the psy-ops against Pakistan, promoting the idea of the separation of resource-rich Balochistan from Pakistan.]

In this picture, a Pakistani Balochi is beating a donkey-shaped effigy of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Indians and Karzai’s intelligence, with tacit approval of CIA operatives in Afghanistan, have been luring young poor Pakistani Balochis to training camps in Afghanistan and brainwashing them to launch a wave of terror inside Pakistan in the guise of a separatist ethnic insurgency. As soon as US military and intelligence landed in Afghanistan, a long-dead terrorist group called BLA, created by the Soviet KGB in the 1970s, was brought back from the dustbin of history and reorganized. The Indians helped by bringing agents from India fluent in the Urdu language. These language experts were tasked with composing press statements and sending them to Pakistani media offices across Pakistan.

To turn this into a real separatist war, unknown terrorists were sent to Quetta, the provincial capital, to target-kill non-Balochi Pakistanis in an effort to stir an ethnic backlash. There isn’t much ‘ethnic’ difference among Pakistanis, but inept politicians have been using minor language differences, which do exist, to create the aura of different ethnicities for political reasons.

Unfortunately, former President Pervez Musharraf turned a blind eye to US, Indian and Karzai puppet regime’s meddling in Pakistani Balochistan. The incumbent pro-US government of President Asif Zardari is doing the same. No one in today’s Pakistani ruling structure appears willing to fend off the Americans and their Indian and Afghan poodles.

But despite all these efforts, Pakistani Balochis remain staunch Pakistanis, just like their fathers and grandfathers who fought off the Indian massacre of Pakistani migrants during Pakistan’s War of Independence in 1947.

The biggest proof of this came last June, when the entire Pakistani Balochi tribe of Mari came out for the funeral of Lieutenant Safiullah Mari, who died fighting the Afghan-backed terrorists in the Pakistani tribal belt. Not only did the Maris chant pro-Pakistan slogans, the father of Lt. Baloch announced he was ready to give his other son to defend Pakistan. This was a slap in the face of terrorist feudal leaders like Harbiyar Mari, who enjoys British protection in London, and Brahamdagh Bugti, who enjoys American and Karzai’s protection in Kabul. Both have been trying to radicalize the Mari tribe against their own country.

Govt returns Justice Saqib’s appointment summary to CJP Read more: http://www.pakpoint.com/govt-returns-justice-saqib%e2%80%99s-appointment-summary-t

ISLAMABAD: The government has returned the summary regarding appointment of Justice Saqib Nisar in the Supreme Court of Pakistan to the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Law has said that Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Khwaja Sharif, being a senior judge, has a right forappointment in the Supreme Court.

It further said that the President and Prime Minister have been consulted in this regard.

The office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan has been informed about the review carried out on the summary regarding Justice Saqib Nisar’sappointment, the Ministry said. In the light of Aljehad Trust case, the senior most judge can be inducted in the Supreme Court, it added

France asks Britain, Switzerland for information on Zardari

PARIS: A French judge probing a bomb attack that killed 11 French engineers has asked Britain and Switzerlandto provide whatever information they have on allegations of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, legal sources here said Friday.

Judge Marc Trevidic made the request to help him advance his probe into claims the 11 were killed in May 2002 by Pakistani agents taking revenge after a new French government cancelled illegal commissions on an arms deal.

Last month families of victims filed suit in Paris against supporters of former French presidential candidateEdouard Balladur, who was prime minister at the time, alleging they benefited from the deal.

In 1995, newly elected president Jacques Chirac cancelled the pay-offs, which he believed had funded his rival’s campaign, angering Pakistaniofficers awaiting their share of the graft, according to a report commissioned by France’s state naval construction firm and leaked last June.

The families believe they were deceived by the French state and top ranking French and Pakistani political leaders, and that their loved ones were exposed and killed as a result of a sordid political funding scandal.

One leaked French report on the affair said that the commissions paid to Pakistani figures were ordered by Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

In all, 14 people were killed on May 8, 2002, when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying French naval engineers from their Karachi hotel to where they were working on the submarines sold to Pakistan in the suspect deal.

At first, officials in both countries blamed Islamic radicals at war with the West for carrying out the attack, but French counter-terrorism officers have begun privately to accuse Pakistani spies of ordering it.