WikiLeaks could be a gam echanger

[chakra]

WASHINGTON: The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.

The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.

In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Obama's choice to head the military's central command, Gen James N Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.

Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the internet by WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort. "We don't know how to react," one administration official said on Monday. "This obviously puts Congress and the public in a bad mood."

Obama is facing a tough choice: he must either figure out a way to convince Congress and the American people that his war strategy remains on track and is seeing fruit — a harder sell given that the war is lagging — or move more quickly to a far more limited American presence.

As the debate over the war begins anew, administration officials have been striking tones similar to the Bush administration's to argue for continuing the current Afghanistan strategy, which calls for a significant troop buildup. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the Afghan war effort came down to a matter of American national security, in testimony before the foreign relations committee two weeks ago.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, struck a similar note on Monday in responding to the documents. "We are in this region of the world because of what happened on 9/11," Gibbs said. "Ensuring that there is not a safe haven in Afghanistan by which attacks against this country and countries around the world can be planned. That's why we're there, and that's why we're going to continue to make progress on this relationship."

Several administration officials privately expressed hope that they might be able to use the leaks, and their description of a sometimes duplicitous Pakistani ally, to pressure the government of Pakistan to cooperate more fully with the United States on counterterrorism. The documents seem to lay out rich new details of connections between the Taliban and other militant groups and Pakistan's main spy agency, the directorate for ISI.

Three administration officials separately expressed hope that they might be able to use the documents to gain leverage in efforts to get more help from Pakistan. Two of them raised the possibility of warning the Pakistanis that Congressional anger might threaten American aid.

"This is now out in the open," a senior administration official said. "It's reality now. In some ways, it makes it easier for us to tell the Pakistanis that they have to help us."

But much of the pushback from the White House over the past two days has been to stress that the connection between the ISI and the Taliban was well known.

"I don't think that what is being reported hasn't in many ways been publicly discussed, either by you all or by representatives of the US government, for quite some time," Gibbs said during a briefing on Monday.

 

[chakra]

The latest disclosure by wikileaks have raised important questions that need to be answered.
We might see some drastic changes in policies of americans regarding the war on terror.

 

[somebozo]

Definately it will be a game changer. Bad days ahead for USA in war and they will try to scape goat it all on Pakistan. They cant secure their average joe documents how can they be trusted with their nuclear designs and secrets. It an open knowledge that all american secret documents and defence tech designs are passed on to Israel, Russia, Turkey and China under table often by some bribes.

 

[BATMAN]

Ex-Pakistan Spy Chief Blasts WikiLeaks Report
Tuesday 27 July 2010

Islamabad, Asharq Al-Awsat- The former head of Pakistan's intelligence service, Gen. Hamid Gul has stated that leaked U.S. intelligence reports about his contacts with the Taliban leadership were nothing but pure lies, fabricated to justify the allocation of funds to private intelligence contractors in Afghanistan.
Gen. Gul was referring to the leaked U.S. intelligence reports that allege close connections between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) and the Taliban. The reports, which were released by the online whistle-blower Wikileaks, raised new questions about whether the U.S. can succeed in convincing Pakistan to sever its historical links to the Taliban and deny them sanctuary along the Afghan border — actions that many analysts believe are critical for success in Afghanistan.
“It is possible that the Afghan intelligence has been planting this false information to get funding from western private contractors” Gen. Gul told Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday.
“It is a widely known fact that Pentagon has given contracts to private groups for intelligence gathering in Afghanistan. The U.S. Pentagon has allocated one billion dollars for this” Gen. Gul said during the interview “They have to do something to justify this huge allocation of funds to the private contractors” he said.
Gen. Gul was head of Pakistani intelligence service in the mid-1980's and oversaw the American military and financial support for resistance forces inside Afghanistan during their armed struggle against the Soviet occupation. It is noted that the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani intelligence worked side by side inside Afghanistan when Gul was at the head of Pakistani intelligence but he became hostile to a great degree to the United States after his retirement and this became apparent in his speeches.
The leaked documents state that Gen. Hamid Gul did not only maintain ties with the Taliban and other Afghan militant leaders like Hakmetyar, but that he was also attempting to bring these groups closer in order for them to have a united front against US forces in Afghanistan. The reports also accused Gen. Gul of meeting with Al-Qaeda representatives in Pakistani tribal areas.
The former Pakistani spy chief told Asharq Al-Awsat that the leaked US intelligence reports were lies similar to the evidence given by former US Secretary of State Collin Powel before the UN Security council prior to the Invasion of Iraq, “They lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and now they are lying about me” Gul said.
"This is not intelligence information. I am an intelligence man and know that these are fabricated lies and not intelligence information. These private contractors know nothing about gathering intelligence information and the only thing they know is justify these large allocations and therefore we see them issuing these fabricated reports."
Gul presented during the interview an open proposal to the American and British Governments to question him and said: "This is a direct proposal to the two governments. I can come to London or Washington and you can question and confront me with the evidence you possess against me." He pointed out that these Western countries have been tailing him and his family for a long time and said: "During last year, I applied for a visa to enter the United Kingdom but my application was rejected. At the beginning of this year, I presented my passport so as to renew an American visa and have not received a reply so far. I am saying this is an open proposal and I am ready to travel to Washington or London and there they can ask me and confront me with the evidence they have. But, Gul asserted, he would not be forced to do anything through these means and said: "I will continue to expose the Americans and their barbaric actions inside Afghanistan. The Americans are facing defeat in Afghanistan and looking for a scapegoat." When asked if he denied his relationship with the Taliban movement and other armed leaderships inside Afghanistan, he answered: "All the Afghan leaderships from both sides respect me. Hekmatyar, Rabbani, and Abdol Rasul Sayyaf respect me."

 

[BATMAN]

India Is Behind The Fake Taliban, Why Are Pakistan Officials Silent?

US embassy involved in secret import of weapons into Pakistan, says report

ISLAMABAD: The United States embassy in Pakistan has been found involved in importing sophisticated weapons into the country without the permission and knowledge of the authorities here, news reports revealed here yesterday.

Daily The News revealed that the Foreign Office and the Commerce Ministry have denied having authorised the US or any other foreign mission to import huge quantity of weapons while the US embassy in Islamabad has brought to Pakistan at least two consignments of modern weapons this year alone.

The Foreign Office, which is the main coordinating federal agency in any such deal of foreign missions, and the Commerce Ministry, which issues no objection certificates for such imports, have no clue as how did and from where the US embassy get the weapons in these two cases uncovered by The News and confirmed.

In one case, the US embassy imported 30 PKM Machineguns and 25 barrel grenade launchers in a shipment coming from Sofia, Bulgaria. The embassy has not offered any explanation where did these weapons go. The embassy spokesman said that he did not have any information about this.

In the second case, the US embassy has admitted importing automatic weapons for Inter-Risk, the banned local security agency, having security contracts with DynCorp and the US embassy in Islamabad. However, there has been no explanation if the arms were imported officially or smuggled from Afghanistan.

However, the most intriguing part of this case is that the Deputy Commissioner Office Islamabad did not confirm the provision of even a single weapon by the US embassy to Inter-Risk. Instead, all the weapons registered in the licences issued to Inter-Risk were gifted by a tribal chief of Bannu. It raised the fundamental question about the whereabouts of the weapons that the US admitted to have got for Inter-Risk.

Background interaction with officials of the foreign, defence, interior and commerce ministries reveal that the government of Pakistan is in the dark about the quantity of weapons brought to Pakistan by the US embassy. There is also no information with the government that where did these arms go.

Repeated incidents of arms display in public by US diplomats and the red-handed nabbing of Dutch diplomats with weapons and bombs have compelled the Foreign Office to issue a letter to all foreign missions, requesting them to declare the details of the weapons in their possession and get authority letters for the arms they want for security.

From Thursday, all US officials and diplomats are being made to go through normal immigration checks at the Islamabad Airport as the government has withdrawn the extraordinary concession offered to them after 9/11 by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Under the concessions, the US officials and their vehicles enjoyed completely unchecked arrivals and departures.

 

[muse]

"This is now out in the open," a senior administration official said. "It's reality now. In some ways, it makes it easier for us to tell the Pakistanis that they have to help us."

So now you need the help of the Pakistanis? Well, isn't that news, presumably you would be willing to help out the Pakistanis too, right? One wonders what policy makers were thinking these last 10 years, well of course the Pakistanis want to help you out, do you want to help them out as well? You do? how about that? exactly how, by breaking up Afghanistan?? By spewing poison that Pakistan is the enemy of Afghanistan?

So interesting Americans have come to town, now everybody has to change whatever they have built - is that so? But now the same US want "help" - is that so?

Well, they certainly can't get any "help" asking through newspapers can they?

Alliances are at least a two way street - Pakistan and US make poor allies, neither trusts the other's intentions - which of course should mean that they should go their seperate ways - alas global village and all that - So, let me see if I've got this right - US failure in Afghanistan has nothing to do with US policy nor the Afghan puppet but every thing to do with Pakistan -- as if Pakistan were some giant killer, first the soviet superpower and now the "friendly" US (read $$) - does that ring true?

Unfortunately until the US comes clean to it's own citizens and those it professes are her "ally", we will not see a responsible shift in Afghan politics -- see, if you don't understand Bonn and how a single faction was supported over the majority population, you won't get the singlke most important source of the problem -- But yeah, sure Pakistan, "sanctuaries", Haqqani, Quetta, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Abbotabad, etc., etc.. -- Pakistan, if it really wanted to support the Talib should simply decline to allow transit for NATO goods or stop supplies of fuel - how now?? but yeah sure, the source of Afghan instability is not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, sure, fair enough; yeah; that will be just the ticket to get you "help".

 

[somebozo]

From Thursday, all US officials and diplomats are being made to go through normal immigration checks at the Islamabad Airport as the government has withdrawn the extraordinary concession offered to them after 9/11 by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Under the concessions, the US officials and their vehicles enjoyed completely unchecked arrivals and departures.

And yet some people wish for Mushraff return to power. American embassy officals often build their own ties witht he defence contractors and fund their own little wars to keep commisions flowing.

They will continue to fabricate lies about ties between their own created menance and ISI. To me it seem more like a credibility campaign, even of 1% is true then ISI has surpassed Moassad and CIA in their own game hence we should be proud of such entity.

Anyway, we are ready to help but here is our wish list.

1. Civilian Nuke deal
2. 75 F16 Jets
3. Patriot air defence systems
4. Four new corvettes
5. ToT for our JF17 avionics suite
6. Some new submarines.

 

[ice_man]

YES EXACTLY THIS KIND OF "AUTHENTIC" ground observers had given 100% ACCURATE information that IRAQ had WMDs!

& the US and UN and the world started drumming the WAR DRUMS and guess what 7 years later USA is stuck in IRAQ along with allies and has made the world unsafer! so please the indians can spare us and themselves the BS about "true authentic rich information"!!!


EVEN the USA state department said we will take days to go over such info to analyze what it says POINT TO ASK IS if they had gathered this info shouldn't they know everything about it???

 

[muse]

Anyway, we are ready to help but here is our wish list.

Please be serious - US is a important country, a great country, we should have the best relations with US - best relations are not arms transfers, but civilizational, neither US nor Pakistan exists in a vacuum, Us does not have any kind of meaningful relations with a single Muslim majority country -- WHY is that the case??

There are communities of Pakistanis living in the US, why not communities of US also living and working in Pakistan? Why buying and selling and doing business? This is really a new world but not it seems from the US perspective - US does not seem to realize how much is changed and how precarious is it's position, not because of anything Osama or Talib or Saddam did, but because of their own policy and actions - they can't even tell friends nor foes.

Deep, even if acrimonious at times, relations between not just Pakistan but all Muslim majority countries and the US is good for both - but this means abandoning hostility, something that is bound to be a problem for the US govt. because it has now gotten comfortable in the new security architecture it has cocooned itself in.

 

[indushek]

Nothing is going to happen. The biggest boon given by god to humans is the habit of forgetting. Once the "time" an important factor passes on, the hype also dies down. Just another hype up in the day of this world. Raise eyebrows and move on with heads held down.