Debating Liberal Fascism

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Almeida should stop propagating conspiracy theories. Pakistani intelligence cooperation played a critical role in the US developing intelligence leading to OBL:

US military operation: Military moves to dispel doubts​

By Quatrina Hosain
Published: May 6, 2011

Pakistani media personnel film the building which was used as the hideout by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. PHOTO:AFP
ISLAMABAD:

A senior military official said on Thursday that his first reaction following reports that Osama bin Laden had been killed was an ‘uncomfortable’ feeling. “In fact, I got a bad feeling and my first thought was how do we handle this?” he said.

The military and intelligence officials outlined the sequence of events and said the ingress of US helicopters into Pakistani airspace was not detected, because they (the US) know the location of our radars and have terrain maps. They can make permutations to avoid our radars by flying low and using the mountains. They used a passive technique,” an official said. “If they had jammed our radars, we would have noticed.”

The military sought to dispel domestic doubts and concerns after the American assault on Osama’s hideoutosa over the weekend, saying the military had no prior information at any stage about the impending assault.

The Pakistan Air Force scrambled its jets upon receiving information that a foreign helicopter had been downed in the area, but by the time the jets reached, the helicopters were already on their way back, military officials said.

At a briefing given to television anchors in Rawalpindi on Thursday, officials said the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, was virtually empty at the time of the assault as cadets and instructors were on leave. The only personnel present were the Quick Reaction Force, which guards the academy’s gates. They saw the American helicopter go down and reported it, prompting the PAF reaction.

Military officials said that they had been taken by surprise. Maintaining that progressive intelligence sharing is a two-way process, they said no intelligence agency shares 100 per cent of its information because it can compromise its own ‘assets’. The ISI agency shares information with the CIA as intelligence is gathered.

Officials said that in April this year, they had told the CIA that suspicious phone calls had been intercepted, which could be traced to the compound in Abbottabad. However, they claimed, at no point did they realise that Bin Laden was present there. “If we had known, we would have gone after him ourselves,” said an intelligence official.

One military official also said while the trust deficit between the CIA and ISI may have contributed to Pakistan being kept out of the loop, he believed the CIA wanted to take all of the credit and not share it with the ISI, indicating that a simple turf war may have been at the root of the lack of cooperation in this incident.

“We shared intelligence that helped lead to Bin Laden in August 2010. If, as accused, we had hidden Bin Laden, why would we give information leading to his hideout?” an intelligence officer said.

However, the officials admitted to inadequacies and said an inquiry has been ordered within the ISI. Clearly, the ISI and the military high command are well aware they dropped the ball when it came to following up and linking the dots when it came to chasing after Osama bin Laden.

Intelligence officials reiterated that the ISI will act in Pakistan’s interest and had conveyed to the CIA chief that the presence of their people in the country is not in the national interest. However, they said, the agencies will work together in the foreseeable future as interests converge to some extent.

They said that on the ground, Pakistan’s intelligence agency officials are badly outnumbered by foreign intelligence officials. An official pointed out that President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani had authorised the Pakistani embassy in Washington to issue visas. “Over 7,000 visas were issued without the ISI’s clearance. Many of them were issued to personnel of the Regional Affairs Office (RAO), which is responsible for disbursement of Kerry-Lugar funds,” he said, implying that the RAO could be a cover for American intelligence officials.

They said that there is a huge difference between the technical capacity of the ISI and the CIA. “They [the CIA] can process information much faster,” an official said. “[But] some agency had to get to Bin Laden at some point. The CIA got him. It could have been the ISI or the MI6 or anyone. You can’t say all of them failed,” an official said.

Responding to questions about Pakistan’s sovereignty breach, a military official said that a national response needs to come from the government, its cabinet and its parliament.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6th, 2011.

US military operation: Military moves to dispel doubts – The Express Tribune

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Thread title changed to better reflect the content of most articles posted here.

 

[Currywurst]

I'm only but a silent reader of this forum.. and many a times I have enjoyed the limited but Intelligent and active debate especially within the Pak Expat Intelligentsia and few Pakistani residents..

The above post by the Management of this Board is Very Unfortunate.. Considering the turmoil that that Pakistan is facing today both external and internal..

 

[desioptimist]

What liberal fascist? This phrase itself needs some explanation.
What was the thread title before?

 

[T-Faz]

Better be a Liberal than some Islamist whore (PA & ISI) who appeases America on one hand and lets terrorists reside in this country.

Worst of all is the fact that they both bomb us on a daily basis.

 

[Bhairava]

I will any day prefer liberal fascist nonsense than the Islamic extremism and the establishment being in cohorts with it.

 

[desioptimist]

I would request admins and mods not to contribute to the discussion of the threads.
I know sometimes a referee would love to kick a ball, but that is not what they are for.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Agno, [MOD EDIT] Btw, I am not a fascist, but I am very proud to be a liberal!




Honour and sovereignty

By Editorial
The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2011.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, through his Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) wing, has hit back at the US in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, warning of “dire consequences” if the country’s sovereignty is violated again. He said that “any similar action violating the sovereignty will warrant a review of military and intelligence cooperation with the US”. He has already asked the US to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistan.

The tough reaction is clearly in response to the aggressive opinion in the US Congress and the western press, calling in doubt Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism, with the innuendo that the ISI could have been actually involved in providing a safe haven to Osama. The charge was not accepted in the partial GHQ rebuttal, which was that the CIA had taken the ISI’s initial intelligence on Osama but withheld further developments from the ISI.

More indication of the source of this aggressive stance was contained in two references made in the statement: 1) Pakistan’s nuclear assets were in safe hands, and “unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place”; and 2) any similar attack or raid undertaken by India “will be responded to very strongly”.

The Foreign Office has spoken along the same lines, making it manifest that the government of Pakistan stands together with the GHQ. It warned India about a “terrible catastrophe” if it mimicked US ‘unilateralism’. As if on cue, the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Association (Pesa) has declared its intent to stand firmly with the people of Pakistan who, it said, are “deeply humiliated” by the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the US. Earlier, the Foreign Office, too, referred to the compulsion of the army and the government ‘to stand with the people’. Similarly, the army chief had said that he would not accept “welfare of the people at the cost of national honour”.

Popular obsession with honour expressed through ‘state sovereignty’ is quite manifest. In the aftermath of Osama’s death, the media has given it the hype it did not deserve. While internal affairs have to be dealt with under the law, foreign policy is always allowed some elbow room for realistic adjustment to the exigencies of power relationships in the world. Going with the passions of the people may not be the right course in the current situation. If Pakistan is internationally isolated, any proud assertion of sovereignty will be of no use. Therefore, the Pesa ‘advice’ on the launching of a diplomatic offensive on an already angry world is beside the point.

First of all, when democracy is in place, no direct reference to the people is either necessary or correct. Secondly, if the elected government de facto abjures the domain of foreign policy and is forced to go along with whatever the army thinks, the principle of ‘indirect democracy’ — representative and not ruled by the mobs — is violated. Thirdly, in the eyes of the world, Pakistan’s sovereignty is violated not by the US as much as by the foreign warriors brought in by al Qaeda after 2001.

The army and the Pesa cannot explain why the jihadi militias linked to al Qaeda are operating in Pakistan with their banned publications poisoning the minds of an already brainwashed public. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa, banned by the UN but not by Pakistan, has held posthumous funerals of Osama all across Pakistan — it held a similar funeral for the al Qaeda senior operative Abu Musab alZarqawi in 2006 — while the world accuses the Wahabi outfit of being affiliated with al Qaeda.

Honour is an extremely isolationist concept, like the plight of the Greek hero in classical literature who had to die after completely isolating himself, for the sake of attaining honour. As far as the Pakistani people are concerned, nothing could be more is more dishonourable than being poor. Their welfare should be sought at all cost and honour should not be made to weigh against it.

 

[S-2]

Deleted. Duplication of support. Rabzon doesn't need much help.

 

[S-2]

"Thread title changed to better reflect the content of most articles posted here"

I see your collected opinions hit home a bit too hard for some thought police here.

Rabzon, you've no future whatsoever in the ISPR.

Take care, my friend.

 

[toxic_pus]

Thread title changed to better reflect the content of most articles posted here.

Et tu, Brutus?

 

[Developereo]

What liberal fascist? This phrase itself needs some explanation.
What was the thread title before?

The political dialog in Pakistan is very polarized with both extremes refusing to accept any moderating dissent; hence the term fascist is justified.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Better be a Liberal than some Islamist whore (PA & ISI) who appeases America on one hand and lets terrorists reside in this country.

Worst of all is the fact that they both bomb us on a daily basis.

They are 'whores' on both sides, both the liberal fascists who 'whores' themselves to the West and the PPP, as well as those who 'whore' themselves to the terrorists and Khilafat fantasies.

Let me make one thing clear - just as there is no room for posts supportive of religious extremists advocating in favor of violence against the State, there will be no tolerance for liberal fascists advocating/justifying violence against the state through foreign military interventions.

Both sides are traitors and individuals on both sides should be tried for treason.

This thread will be left open for a little while longer for responses, after which it will be deleted.

Some of you think the current title is not appropriate, well I certainly don't see how the last one was.

 

[T-Faz]

They are 'whores' on both sides, both the liberal fascists who 'whores' themselves to the West and the PPP, as well as those who 'whore' themselves to the terrorists and Khilafat fantasies.

PPP does not have any support amongst real liberals, it only has the support of politically challenged fans of Bhutto known as Jiyalas. Neither does any true liberal want their country to be invaded or besieged by a foreign force, the people who do want that are weaklings on western payroll in this nation.

The people you term Liberal Fascists are in actuality Islamists hidden under the garb of liberalism for the sole reason of getting continued monetary support from the west.

Let me make one thing clear - just as there is no room for posts supportive of religious extremists advocating in favor of violence against the State, there will be no tolerance for liberal fascists advocating violence against the state through foreign military interventions.

Who is asking for violence against the state through foreign military interventions, all that has been asked of our security authorities is to take care of all these terrorists they call 'strategic assets'. No one wants to see Pakistan get bombed by America, this is why we want to see the army itself go after the terrorist and finish them off once and for all.

Both sides are traitors and individuals on both sides should be tried for treason.

You cannot term Islamist sell outs as liberals, take for Hussain Haqqani, he is a ex Jamaati, ex N League Islamist who whores himself out to anyone who is willing to pay him.

Currently he is a PPP whore who supports America more than he does Pakistan.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

T-Faz:

I make a distinction between 'liberals' and 'liberal fascists'. The latter are those 'liberal' Pakistanis who advocate and justify foreign military interventions on Pakistani territory, whether it be drone strikes or ground raids. Farhat Taj and her ilk are a clear example of those who explicitly advocate and justify foreign military intervention in Pakistan. Then there are others who implicitly advocate/justify foreign military intervention on Pakistani soil by denigrating those of us who are against such foreign aggression and hostility. We are denounced as the 'Ghairat brigade' and what not for wanting to see Pakistani foreign policy be of her own making and not of the West. See for example those commentators who have trashed Imran Khan for 'daring' to hold a peaceful protest against Drone Strikes. Regardless of what one thinks of IK's other policies, this particular position of his resonates with a significant majority of Pakistanis, and is a legitimate one.

I see no reason why this forum, or Pakistani media and the courts, should allow free reign to people advocating and justifying violence against the Pakistani State - whether it be the terrorists or the liberal fascists whoring themselves to the West and advocating/justifying foreign military intervention in Pakistan - they are traitors either way. The latter are Pakistan's own 'Chalabi's', and both sets of groups pose a severe threat to the country.