CIA provoking Pakistan?

[Ali.009]

Sabotaging Obama? CIA provocations forcing Pakistan to shoot CIA drone?​

There are several players in Afghanistan; there are the ISAF and NATO forces; there is the US Army; and there is the CIA. The drone activity in Afghanistan is mainly coordinated and executed by the CIA. Is the CIA sabotaging peace to destabilize Obama? For the first time a CIA drone attacked Bannu which is in the settled areas of Pakistan and not part of Bannu. Is the CIA forcing the Pakistanis to shoot down the donres in a bid to escalate a war and give the marines an excuse to send in the marines. Several months ago, we wrote that Americans are from Mars. Pakistanis are from Venus.

You have to wonder whether the Bush administration understands what it is getting into. In case anyone has forgotten, Pakistan has a hundred plus nuclear weapons. It’s a country on the edge of civil war. Its political leadership is bitterly divided. In other words, it’s the perfect recipe for a catastrophe.All of which begs the question, is it worth the ghost hunt we’ve been on since September 11? There has not been a credible sighting of Osama bin Laden since he escaped from Tora Bora in October 2001. As for al-Qaeda, there are few signs it’s even still alive, other than a dispersed leadership taking refuge with the Taliban. Al-Qaeda couldn’t even manage to post a statement on the Internet marking September 11, let alone set off a bomb. Washington Is Risking War with Pakistan: By Robert Baer Wed, Sep. 17, 2008. Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com’s intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.

There is a huge disconnect between lame duck State Department, White House and CIA policy. This lack of communication within the outgoing US administration can have catastrophic effects on the long term relationship of the US and its allies. One the one hand is the sane signals emanating out of the Obama transition team. On the other hand the State Department is trying to keep cook heads. The WHite House is working hard to help Islamabad. The CIA on the other hand is pursueing a policy that is detrimental to the long term interests of America.

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Just when the Obama administration was showing us the light at the end of the tunnel, the last vestiges of the lame duck administration are bent upon provoking the Pakistanis to the bitter end. The tension between the US and Pakistan is at fever pitch. The Pakistani people are castigating the Army on its impotence for not protecting the sovreignty and territorial integrity of the country. The politicians are playing games with a reported “wink wink nod nod policy” good cop bad cop. While 30,000 Pakistanis ahve died, anti-Americanism is at an all time high. It is mostly because of the the silly policies of the outgoing government.

There is a growing consensus among the top echelon of the the Pakistani security establishment which thinks that the only language the US understands is the language of threats and actual action. They point to the Bush administrations withdrawal of orders which had allowed actual marines to land in Pakistan. Why did Bush back off attacks on Pakistan & change US policy?

There are reports in the media that the Pakistani army is practicing to shoot down drones. Pakistan does have short and medium range missiles which could be modified to possibly attack the Predators and stop them from attacking Paksitani territory. In an ominous sign, the US is also investigating the possibility of sendig supplies through a long and winding route via Georgia and the six former Soviet republics.

Pakistani soldiers practised shooting at pilotless “drone” aircraft on Friday, the military said a day after the government lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador over drone missile strikes in Pakistani territory.

Anti-aircraft guns and short-range surface-to-air missiles were used during the exercise conducted at a desert range near the city of Muzaffargarh in the central Pubjab province.

“The elements of Army Air Defence demonstrated their shooting skills by targeting the drones flying at different altitudes,” the military said in a statement.

Air defence commander Lieutenant-General Ashraf Saleem praised the “precision and agility” of the gunners.

Pakistan is bristling over a series of missile strikes by U.S. drones targeting al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border in recent weeks.

The U.S. forces have carried out more than 20 such drone attacks in the last three months, reflecting U.S. impatience over militants from Pakistan fuelling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and fears that al Qaeda fighters in northwest Pakistan could plan attacks in the West. (Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Paul Tait):The International Herald Tribune | Pakistan army practises shooting drone aircraft:Reuters Friday, November 21, 2008 By Zeeshan Haider

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The world awaits a different policy from the new American Administration. Obama sees solving Kashmir as the key to Afghan quagmire.The Bush Administration is bent upon leaving a bigger mess for Pakistan. The Obama team is facing its first international crisis. “There can be only one president at a time”. However the current administration by attacking Pakistan at an increased pace is leaving a huge mess for the Democrats to clean up. It is akin to sabotaging the new policy of President Obama.

A U.S. commando raid on September 3 led to a diplomatic storm, and there has not been any subsequent incursion by ground troops.

But the controversy over the drones flared again after the latest missile strike on Wednesday hit a target in Bannu district in North West Frontier Province, deeper inside Pakistani territory and south of the semi-autonomous Waziristan tribal region that has borne the brunt of the attacks.

Protesting the strike in Bannu during a session of the National Assembly, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani voiced hope that the incoming U.S. administration of President-elect Barack Obama would exercise more restraint.

Pakistan says the attacks violate its sovereignty, undermine efforts to win public support for the fight against militancy, and make it harder to justify the U.S. alliance. (Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Paul Tait):The International Herald Tribune | Pakistan army practises shooting drone aircraft:Reuters Friday, November 21, 2008 By Zeeshan Haider

Facing a tough international situation, the Indians are taking advantage of the situation in Afghanistan and raining terror on its old rival and nemesis–Pakistan.

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Reeling from a global economic crisis that particularly affected Pakistan, the Islamabd establishment has gotten some breathing space from the IMF, the Saudis and China. Its next challenge is to keep the Indian terrorists from crossing the Afghan border and raining a trail of blood sweat and tears on Pakistan.

The story of Afghanistan and colonialism begins a long time ago. British tried to take up White Man’s burden in Afghanistan. It suffered badly in Kabul and could not hold it. NATO Lessons: 1880 UK defeat at Maiwand-Afghanistan. Today ISAF is making the same mistakes as the British did more than a century ago. Is NATO committing suicide in Afghanistan? There is a powerplay going on. …the CIA assassination. Juggling all the permutations and the permutations, the US has considered every possibility. However the most obvious one escapes the $80 Billion think tank industry in the USA.

Erase the Durand Line: The inevitable union between Paksitan and Afghanistan. It is time to erase the Durand Line.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Is It PPP & CIA Vs. The Army In Pakistan?

The government’s feeling of helplessness on American strikes (courtesy Husain Haqqani), a botched coup against the ISI, a systematic economic meltdown and secret understandings with the IMF are issues Mr. Zardari and his select group of cronies are responsible for. If this isn’t enough to prove the sinister agenda of this government I wonder what will. The military on the other hand seems reluctant to act overtly against the government but it is clear that General Kayani is now at complete odds with it. The army doesn’t necessarily have to take over the country; it would rather wait for some time to see how the current political quagmire unravels.

By HAMZA GULZAR

Sunday, 23 November 2008.

Ahmed Quraishi-Pakistan/Middle East politics, Iraq war, lebanon war, India Pakistan relations

LAHORE, Pakistan—As the conspiracy against Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal speeds up the country’s most powerful institution is feeling increasingly cornered and agitated with Zardari’s CIA imposed government.
Considerable blunders by Pakistan’s former President Pervez Musharraf backed up by a lethal media campaign against the Pakistani military makes it even more problematic for the world’s fifth largest military to take a decisive action against a government that is bent upon a complete sell out.
If one keeps a close eye on recent developments, President Zardari’s intentions and his agenda seem pretty clear. It all started from Zardari’s refusal to conduct an autopsy on Benazir Bhutto which then led to a suspicious looking ‘will’. Zardari then played the role of an evil genius by sidelining major Bhutto loyalists and embarked upon a vile campaign of backstabbing President Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and other stakeholders to gain the Presidential palace.

The government’s feeling of helplessness on American strikes (courtesy Husain Haqqani), a botched coup against the ISI, a systematic economic meltdown and secret understandings with the IMF are issues he and his selected group of cronies are responsible for. Zardari’s haste in trying to ‘privatize’ the Qadirpur Gas Fields was thankfully met by fierce opposition which led to a postponement of the plan. If this isn’t enough to prove the sinister agenda of this government I wonder what will.

The military on the other hand seems reluctant to act overtly against the government but it is clear that General Kayani is now at complete odds with it. When the Americans tried to test his nerves he ordered his troops to open fire on any invading forces which caught Uncle Sam by surprise. Zardari’s attempted coup against the ISI was met by the military with fierce opposition. The game is now clear; it is the CIA and the PPP on one side and the Pakistan Army on the other.

The CIA began targeting pro-Pakistan elements in FATA and the surrounding settled areas after the CIA/RAW backed militants received a thrashing at the hands of the military. This is being done to spark off a full scale civil war inside the country in an attempt to justify its nuclear weapons as being unsafe. The army’s recent response has been smart. First General Kayani declares openly that there is no military solution for Afghanistan with his Quetta Corps Commander warning foreign elements. Then the Pakistani army’s air defense unit demonstrates its ability to shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles in an exercise near Muzaffargarh. The message therefore is clear: stop the dirty tricks or else!

The army doesn’t necessarily have to take over the country; it would rather wait for sometime to see how the current political quagmire unravels. This is because both Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are facing a dilemma. While it is clear that the war between these two has begun, Zardari wants Sharif’s services in order to complete his homework but at the same time he doesn’t want Sharif to use Punjab as a launch pad against the PPP and is therefore tightly controlling the Sharifs’ election invalidation proceedings. Nawaz on the other hand wants to launch a movement against the present government for his own skewed agenda but does not want to push the President into a tight corner which might produce an unfavorable result in the ongoing court proceedings that could wipe out PML(N)’s ‘Churchill Post’ of Punjab.

The only thing Pakistani nationalists like me can hope for is an immediate overthrow of these useless politicians who are bent upon destroying the country. Let’s keep praying.