Afghan Mujahideen : NOT FOR SALE

Kabul’s Western allies want to pay Taliban fighters to quit the insurgency. Lots of luck.
Ron Moreau
Representatives from nearly 70 countries showed up in London on Jan. 28 for a one-day conference on how to save Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai was there, gamely offering “peace and reconciliation” to all Afghans, “especially” those “who are not a part of Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.” He didn’t mention why the Taliban would accept such an offer while they believe they’re winning the war. Others at the conference had what they evidently considered more realistic solutions—such as paying Taliban fighters to quit the insurgency. Participants reportedly pledged some $500 million to support that aim. “You don’t make peace with your friends,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. True enough. But what if your enemies don’t want peace?
My NEWSWEEK colleague Sami Yousafzai laughs at the notion that the Taliban can be bought or bribed. Few journalists, officials, or analysts know the Taliban the way he does. If the leadership, commanders, and subcommanders wanted comfortable lives, he says, they would have made their deals long ago. Instead they stayed committed to their cause even when they were on the run, with barely a hope of survival. Now they’re back in action across much of the south, east, and west, the provinces surrounding Kabul, and chunks of the north. They used to hope they might reach this point in 15 or 20 years. They’ve done it in eight. Many of them see this as proof that God is indeed on their side. The mujahedin warlords who regained power in the 2001 U.S. invasion have grown fabulously wealthy since then. The senior Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani could have done the same. Now he and his fellow Taliban are gunning for those opportunists.
Only a few relatively low-level Taliban commanders and fighters have defected, and they rue the day they did. Most of them now live hand-to-mouth in Kabul, exiled from their home villages. Sami has introduced me to some of them. They only wish they could return to the embrace of Haqqani or Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s No. 2 leader after Mullah Mohammed Omar, but they know they’d be killed if they were foolish enough to try. The Taliban don’t give second chances. Even if Karzai and his U.S.-NATO allies offer great gobs of money to defecting Taliban, where could they go with it? They couldn’t go home for fear of being put to death by their former comrades in arms. They wouldn’t want to live in expensive Kabul, where people on the streets would make fun of their country ways, huge black turbans, and kohl eyeliner. They hate everything that Kabul represents: a sinful place of coed schools, dancing, drinking, music, movies, prostitution, and the accumulation of wealth. “Falcons fly with falcons, not with other birds,” the Taliban say. In other words, you can’t negotiate and live with secular people.
Karzai and his regime have practically no credibility anyway. No one trusts his promises, and they regard his government as an evil thing, a heretical, apostate regime. More than that, however, Taliban tend to take offense at the very idea of a buyout. As one fighter told Sami indignantly, “You can’t buy my ideology, my religion. It’s an insult.” In terms of defection, the closest thing to a “success” story is the former Taliban commander Mullah Salam. He quit the insurgency two years ago, was allowed to keep most of his men and weapons, and was given the governorship of his home district of Musa Qala, in Helmand province. Nevertheless he lives under constant threat of assassination, and Musa Qala remains a very insecure place.
Most Taliban feel comfortable only in the backcountry villages, where their world view is essentially shared by locals. There’s a huge and growing disconnect—social, economic, and perhaps even spiritual—between the cities and the countryside. In villages where the Taliban have a strong presence, there is little or no conflict between Taliban virtues and local customs, from the wearing of long beards to heeding the call for prayer, keeping the sexes separate in public, adhering to Islamic law, and not tolerating crime. Especially in the countryside, most ordinary Pashtuns regard themselves as the big losers in the past eight years of Karzai’s rule and foreign military presence. As they see it, accurately or not, their ethnic rivals—the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara—have received the spoils of the Taliban’s defeat, while Pashtun villages have suffered from official abuse, corruption, neglect, and war.

That’s one reason the Taliban aren’t as unpopular in the villages as Western-funded polls appear to indicate. Unlike the Karzai government, they have proved their ability to deliver swift Islamic justice and keep their villages free from crime. The respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid often says there has been no pro-Taliban uprising because most Afghans dislike the movement. On the other hand, though, few Pashtun villagers have mobilized against the insurgents. Perhaps most important, the Taliban’s leadership is confident of the movement’s cohesiveness. Although the insurgency lacks a single, unified command, its leaders all fight in the name of Mullah Omar and his defunct Islamic Emirate. “No one,” they say, “can fly just on his own wings.” The Quetta Shura, its Peshawar offshoot, the Haqqani network in the east, and individual commanders in the north—all different command structures led by different personalities—all derive their spiritual authority and political clout from the “commander of the faithful.” If their ranks remained unbroken through years of being hunted, jailed, killed, outgunned, outmanned, and outspent, they feel confident now that their leaders and lieutenants can’t be bought, as senior Taliban commander Mullah Nasir recently observed to Sami.
Most Taliban seem genuinely convinced that they are carrying out the will of God. One sign of that faith is the apparently endless supply of suicide bombers. The Americans still seem not to have grasped the full import of this. The Taliban are not fighting for a share of power; they want to restore Islamic law throughout the country, with no talk of compromise. They despise their nominal ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has said that suicide bombings are not justified under Islam and who talks of possible power-sharing deals with Karzai. A “son of dollars,” they call him: someone who cannot be trusted, someone who does not share their goal of reimposing Sharia over all of Afghanistan.
Karzai is hopeless. He reads from a script he knows will please his Western patrons: new drives for good governance, transparency, narcotics suppression, the building of the Afghan security forces, economic development, etc. Nevertheless, for the past eight years he and his appointees have been incapable of delivering a fraction of what he has promised, and there’s no reason to think the next year or two will be any different. He’s a nice guy, is not corrupt, and doubtless means well. But he is not a leader or a judge of men, and he has no vision. He promises everything to everyone, as he did in the last election, but nothing comes of it. No one in his administration gets fired or jailed for egregious behavior. The harshest punishment for malfeasance is transfer to a perhaps less lucrative position.
The London conference was a futile exercise. Once again Washington and its allies are looking for solutions that don’t exist: a new Karzai, bribing the Taliban, negotiating with the Taliban. No Taliban leader of any stature seems to have entered into negotiations thus far. U.N. special envoy Kai Eide reportedly met in Dubai on Jan. 6 with Afghans who claimed to represent the Taliban and said they could pass messages to the Quetta Shura, but it’s unlikely that their mission was actually sanctioned by anyone in the senior leadership. (The U.N. says no such meeting took place.) The United Nations has made a big deal of removing the names of five supposed Taliban from its blacklist, but the Taliban couldn’t care less. They’re not itching to travel to Geneva or New York or open bank accounts. They’ve got a war to fight at home.

Source : www.pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com

Blackwater is involved in bombings in Pakistan: Gen. Durrani

Courtesy : PKKH www.Pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com

“My assessment is that they — either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals — do carry out some of the explosions”.

Former chief of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mohammad Asad Durrani sits down with Press TV and talks about the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan. The following is the transcript of the interview:

Press TV: General Durrani, US intelligence officials say that the CIA has cancelled the Blackwater contract but other reports indicate that there are at least three thousand Blackwater agents in Pakistan. What do make of these conflicting reports?

General Durrani: This may be true that the Blackwater’s contract has been cancelled but then this is also understood that such people are under a different name, whether it is Xe or Dyncorp or in any other form of private contractor-ship that they can be employed. In our case, such people have been around for a number of years now. Lately their number has increased. Some rationalization had been made that these people were required to provide security to more Americans coming because of the package they have worked out for Pakistan. But then on ground, there [are] a number of them, some of them in training facilities trying to suggest that they are there to train the police or the army or the air force.

Of course, I can also add that none of these organizations are very happy that they have been offered. Some of them have even refused training because they believe that they can be trained by them. But, in that form they are there. Others are certainly providing security and there is also a third group, which goes around, especially in the frontier area, with the NGOs and bring(s) the intelligence collection. So, the number I am not aware of but there is a contingent which is present in Pakistan.

Press TV: Analysts say that Blackwater agents are involved in bombings and that they are fomenting insecurity in Pakistan. What is your opinion?

General Durrani: My assessment is that they — either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals — do carry out some of the explosions. You see the idea is that there are other groups that are not acting on their behalf, which are acting locally because of so many reasons. They are not happy with our policy. They are not happy with whatever is happening in Afghanistan. The idea is to carry out such actions, like carrying attacks in the civilian areas to make the others look bad in the eyes of the public. Even those groups who are not targeting the civilians or were not going essentially for Pakistani targets … people should turn against them. And the second idea, which I think more or less they have succeeded, is to force the Pakistani [government] to even under take such operations where I was not initially willing to go.

Press TV: CIA officials say Blackwater has been in Pakistan to help with drone attacks. Is this the only reason why the CIA has hired Blackwater agents?

General Durrani: You see I am not aware of this statement as [of] yet. The headquarters, some of them come here to direct or carry out what we call target identification. I doubt it very much that this would be the job of people whom I consider to have been understandably involved with Blackwater operations. These operations of target identification have to be done un-reclusively. They should not look like Americans; they are people who are trained to match with the background. Intelligence work; and I cannot say that the Blackwater’s people are trained in such manner, learning the language, learning the local customs, so that they can go into those trouble areas.

Press TV: Blackwater is known for killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why has the Pakistani government allowed such a notorious US security firm to operate in the country?

General Durrani: You’re absolutely right. I think this is about the best question that one can pose. People either were naive that they did not believe that these were Blackwaters or these people would not get involved in it. The second theory goes around that they may have come with the consent and with the knowledge of some of the people that we have in the government — among which I do not know, I cannot say very much. If it is not the ambassador of the United States who has cleared them, who has sent them, or people here, these agencies, who have accepted them. But that is one of the perceptions. But essentially it is correct that anyone who comes and we allow those people [to] come without proper security clearance, without proper vetting and investigation, then it is indeed our fault.

Pakistan holding up some US visas

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has held up visas for U.S. diplomats, military service members and others, apparently because of hostility within the country toward the expansion of U.S. operations in Pakistan, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.
American diplomats have also been stopped repeatedly at Pakistani checkpoints as part of what U.S. officials say is a wider focus on foreigners working in Pakistan. The U.S. cars are searched, although diplomats are told to open the trunk but to refuse access to the passenger compartment.
The U.S. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive interaction between the two countries, said that the visa clampdown seems to be a reaction to widespread anti-American sentiment, even though many of the affected workers would be doing jobs that bring aid and other help to Pakistan.
The official said the reaction is probably temporary and that the U.S. does not plan to do more than press Pakistani authorities to relent.
The U.S. embassy is already large and expanding, with plans to go from about 500 employees to more than 800 over the next 18 months. Most of the growth is related to the expansion of U.S. aid to Pakistan, some of which comes with requirements for accounting and oversight that have rankled Pakistanis.
The official said that at the embassy, several employees have gone home for Christmas leave and will be unable to return because the Pakistani authorities have not expended their visas. In all, 135 visa extensions have been denied, the official said. Other visa applications have been rejected outright, but U.S. authorities have not collected data on how many.
The official said Pakistani authorities have not provided a comprehensive response to American complaints, and that several ministries are involved. That allows Pakistani authorities to spread the blame, the official said.
The official said that among those whose visas were held up are mechanics who tend to a fleet of U.S. helicopters that supports Pakistani military operations in the frontier areas.
The helicopters stopped flying when there were insufficient mechanics to maintain them, the official said. Some visas were approved after Pakistani authorities inquired about the grounded helicopters.
In October, President Barack Obama signed into law a $7.5 billion aid package for Pakistan. Pakistan’s military criticized the aid as American meddling in the country’s internal affairs.
The measure provides $1.5 billion annually over five years for economic and social programs and comes as Pakistan faces a string of violent militant attacks and bombings as its military orchestrates an offensive into the Taliban heartland.
The law is the Obama administration’s attempt to strengthen the weak civilian government in Islamabad and encourage its fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants operating along the border with Afghanistan, where the United States is fighting an eight-year war.
The stability of a nuclear-armed Pakistan is deemed crucial to U.S.-led efforts to battle extremists in South Asia.
The White House said the law, which was passed unanimously by Congress, is “the tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the U.S.”
The legislation requires the secretary of state to report to Congress every six months on whether Pakistan’s civilian government maintains effective control over the military’s budgets, chain of command and top promotions.
The White House said the requirements are “accountability measures” placed on the United States to ensure that the aid directly benefits the Pakistani people. It said that the law does not seek to micromanage Pakistani military or civilian affairs, “including the promotion of Pakistani military officers or the internal operations of the Pakistani military.”

Courtesy : PKKH ..
www.pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com

TSS with Zaid Hamid and Shireen Mazari

Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan‏

JEREMY SCAHILL
November 23, 2009


At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nationon condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war–knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission.

Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country. Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater’s covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, “From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct,” adding, “There’s no question that’s occurring.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me because we’ve outsourced nearly everything,” said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater’s role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater’s involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. “Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don’t have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it’s that simple. It would not surprise me.”

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said the source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.” The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. “It’s a very rudimentary operation,” says the source. “I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It’s very bare bones, and that’s the point.”

Blackwater’s work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA’s counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a “media-scouring/open-source network,” according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive.

“They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them,” he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater’s classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, “The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you’re doing is really one military guy to another.” Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified “black” operations. “With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above ’secret’–even though you have no business doing so,” said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that “do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust,” he added. “Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That’s exactly what it is: a circle of love.” Blackwater, therefore, has access to “all source” reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. “That’s how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors,” said the source. “We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don’t unless they ask.”

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up,” he said, adding, “They have a sizable force in Pakistan–not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way–but to support a legitimate contract that’s classified for JSOC.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT “was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it.” Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. “Nobody even gives them a second thought.”

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as “Qatar cubed,” in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. “This is supposed to be the brave new world,” he says. “This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it’s meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It’s strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don’t have to deal with that because they’re operating under a classified mandate.”

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. “That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,” he said. “So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?”

Pakistan’s Military Contracting Maze
Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. “The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets,” he said. “It’s not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people.” Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls “Blackwater Vanilla,” and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. “Good or bad, there’s a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That’s probably a good thing,” said the source. “It’s the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they’re the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It’s not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They’re very good at what they do.”

The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, “that’s not entirely accurate.” While he concurred with the military intelligence source’s description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral’s main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.

A spokesperson for the US State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. “We cannot help you,” said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. “You’ll have to contact the companies directly.” Blackwater’s Corallo said the company has “no operations of any kind” in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.

According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues “regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States.” Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.

For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. “Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship,” he said. “They’ve met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another.” Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral’s forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry’s paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as “frontier scouts”). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater “is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral’s folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they’re having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they’re executing the job,” he said. “You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas.” He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. “You’ve got BW guys that are assisting… and they’re all going to want to go on the jobs–so they’re going to go with them,” he said. “So, the things that you’re seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that–in some of those cases, you’re going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house.” Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. “That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, ‘Hey, no, we don’t have any Westerners doing this. It’s all local and our people are doing it.’ But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work.”

The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, “There’s no real oversight. It’s not really on people’s radar screen.”

In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by “a private American security contractor.” The statement said, “Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments.”

Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.

In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at “hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft.” In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.

The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. “Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency,
intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it’s JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”

The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. “Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that,” he says. “Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don’t care. If there’s one person they’re going after and there’s thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That’s the mentality.” He added, “They’re not accountable to anybody and they know that. It’s an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?”

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. “The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?” asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. “Let’s forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren’t about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory.”

JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney’s Extra Special Force
Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal’s elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war–which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan–there is a concomitant rise in JSOC’s power and influence within the military structure. “I don’t see how you can escape that; it’s just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it’s inevitable, I think,” Wilkerson toldThe Nation. He added, “I’m alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command,” under which JSOC operates. “That’s backward. But that’s essentially what we have today.”

From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater’s 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army’s Delta Force, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators–which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater’s alleged contracts with JSOC.

Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. “The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they’ve been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don’t,” said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. “They’re known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they’ve got the experience. They’re very valuable.”

“They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia,” said the military intelligence source. “They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they’re talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It’s a ridiculous revolving door.”

While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. “What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing,” said Colonel Wilkerson. “That’s dangerous, that’s very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don’t tell the theater commander what you’re doing.”

Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. “I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good,” says Wilkerson. “I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions.” He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld “built up initially because Rumsfeld didn’t get the responsiveness. He didn’t get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse’s mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch–read: Cheney and Rumsfeld–wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier.”

Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. “When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn’t tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, ‘Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?’ So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him–we rendered him home.”

As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using “reprogrammed” funds “without explicit congressional authority or appropriation,” according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA’s authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end “near total dependence on CIA.” Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may “conduct clandestine HUMINT operations…before publication” of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.

The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the “darkest acts” in part to keep them concealed from Congress. “Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress,” said the source. “They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: ‘Preparing the Battlefield.’”

The significance of the flexibility of JSOC’s operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA’s is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress,” she said. “If they are not, that is a violation of the law.”

Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan
For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater’s alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater’s operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved–almost from the beginning of the “war on terror”–with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater’s presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, “Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan.” In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater’s rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater “provides security for a US-backed aid project” in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. “We have no contracts in Pakistan,” Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. “We’ve been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there.”
Reports of Blackwater’s alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. “The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar,” he said.

“That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities.” Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are “wildly incorrect,” saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 theWashington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has “found refuge from potential U.S. attacks” in Karachi “with the assistance of Pakistan’s intelligence service.”
In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi’s Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, “The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in.”

The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired “bungalows” in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large gated community established “for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan.” Its motto is: “Home for Defenders.” The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.

The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it’s the contractors’ fault, not the government’s. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. “We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention,” said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. “In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it’s almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations.” Addicott added, “If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That’s one of the reasons we’re not members of the International Criminal Court.”

If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater’s alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. “Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we’re going to go as a nation that are dangerous,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Pakistan Interior Minister Helped US Embassy Import Illegal Weapons Without Telling ISI

By : Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The role of the Pakistani federal Interior Ministry in the issuance of prohibited bore licenses to US defense contractor DynCorp's local partner Inter-Risk appears to be dubious. The US embassy admitted to have imported the prohibited bore weapons but other evidence shows something different.Evidence†available with The News contradicts the US embassy’s viewpoint and shows that a resident of Daryoba Agency FR Bannu had gifted 50 weapons that were reportedly given to Inter-Risk.Documents also show that after US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s letter to Interior Minister Rehman Malik for the issuance of prohibited bore licenses to Inter-Risk, the US embassy continued to influence the Interior Ministry that issued the required licenses to the US-blessed Pakistani security agency without consulting intelligence agencies and the Foreign Office. [continued below]

Following Patterson’s letter, US embassy officials met State Minister for Interior Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi and later formally wrote to him, setting clear deadlines for the issuance of licenses in three phases. The documentary evidence shows that the state minister acted accordingly as per the wishes of the US embassy.



Gerald M Feierstein, Charge dí Affaires ad interim US embassy in Islamabad, wrote to Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi on May 7: “I would like to thank you for meeting with my representative Michael Eicher on May 7 to discuss certain security matters that affect the US Embassy. As Mr Eicher conveyed, the United States and Pakistan share a deep commitment to improving the lives and future of the Pakistani people. However, security concerns have greatly diminished out ability to administer and expand the programmes we would like to support in partnership with the government of Pakistan.




“I order for the Embassy to mitigate the risk associated with some of these security concerns, the US Embassy has engaged with Inter-Risk (Pvt) Ltd to provide armed guards to protect our US diplomatic personnel assigned to Islamabad and Peshawar. Therefore, I would like to request the issuance of 134 prohibited bore (pb) licenses on behalf to Inter-Risk (Pvt) Ltd to accomplish this security goal.




“50 pb licenses are needed as quickly as possible and an additional 50 pb licenses will be needed in June 2009. The remaining 34 licenses will be needed in July 2009.



“I would like to thank you for your personal attention to this matter offer the renewed assurances of my highest considerations.”



Within a week time following this letter, the personal secretary (PS) to the state minister for interior writes a ìTop Priorityî directive on ministerís behalf, ordering the section officer (PB) Ministry of Interior: “The minister of state for interior has been pleased to approve fifty (50) PB arms license in favour of M/S Inter-Risk (Private) Limited.



“2. Arm Section may issue the licenses under intimation to this office by 20-5-2009.”



While the state minister issued strict direction for the issuance of 50 pb licenses to Inter-Risk by May 20, 2009, the deputy commissioner Islamabad received an official communication from office of the district coordination officer/political agent FR Bannu the same day.




The letter’s subject was “Confirmation/Verification of Weapon Gift” and it read as: “The enclosed certificates (consisting 50 no) for gift of weapon, gifted by Malik Khanzada Khan Wazir Daryoba Agency FR Banny dully verified by the undersigned for further necessary action.”



Official sources said that these apparently gifted weapons were provided to Inter-Risk, however, actually the said weapons belonged to the Americans. Why the DCO Bannu did this and on whose order could not be ascertained as despite repeated efforts and telephone calls, the officer did not talk to this correspondent. His staff said that the DCO was sitting in the office but the officer did not even bother to return the call.



Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Amir Ahmad Ali, when contacted, said that he took over as DC Islamabad in June so he did not know as to what was the secret behind the DCO Bannu’s letter. The then DC Islamabad Asadullah Faiz, when contacted, said that he did not remember the case and its details.



US embassy spokesman Richard Snelisry, when approached by this correspondent, admitted for the first time that it had imported prohibited bore weapons for Inter-Risk against the licenses given by the Interior Ministry. He said that it was part of the contract signed between the embassy and Inter-risk. When his attention was drawn to the DCO Bannu letter, he said that he did not know anything about it but insisted that everything on behalf of the US embassy was transparent and within the limits of Pakistan’s laws. He said that it was possible that the Inter-Risk had obtained the gifted weapons for something that had nothing to do with the US embassy. He said that the US embassy was not responsible for everything that the Inter-Risk has done or is doing.


The embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire, commonly known as Rick, said that he had no knowledge of any letter written by any embassy official to the Interior Ministry's state minister and giving deadlines for the issuance of licenses to Inter-Risk following the letter of Anne Patterson.



State Minister Qureshi, when approached, confirmed that he did receive a letter from Gerald M Feierstein but denied that it was part of US embassy’s influence on him to proceed accordingly. Qureshi said that he issued the licenses without referring the matter to the Foreign Office or the security agencies, as it was a routine affair. He said Inter-Risk was a registered security agency and the US embassy wanted prohibited bore licenses to beef up security of its personnel and interests.

The state minister, however, said that he was never informed about the fact that Inter-Risk was a local partner of the American security company DynCorp. He said that he also did not know about the “fishy” affairs connected with Inter-Risk. However, the fact remains that the relationship between DynCorp and Inter-Risk was clearly mentioned by the US ambassador in her letter addressed to Interior Minister Rehman Malik and dated March 30, 2009.

In her two-page letter, Patterson shared her security concerns with Rehman Malik, particularly about the US Consulate in Peshawar. She had referred to the common objectives and shared visions between the two countries for the Frontier province and the tribal areas of Pakistan. She wrote:
“Recognizing that the responsibility of your Ministry and provincial law enforcement is not limited to the Consulate but remains confronting the miscreant elements directly and everywhere, the US government has entered into a commercial contract with DynCorp International and their Pakistani subcontractors Inter-Risk (Pvt) Ltd, and Speed Flo Filter Industries to provide specialized security support for our consulate in Peshawar.

“I feel this contractual arrangement will allow your security forces to focus on their priorities and at the same time allow us the ability to continue consulate operations with an appropriate level of security support. Our security plan will incorporate both the commercial security personnel and the NWFP police contingent already dedicated to supporting the consulate.“To accomplish the goals of our commercial contract, I am requesting your approval for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for Dyncorp International, Inter-Risk (Pvt) Ltd, and Speed Flo Filter Industries to provide security services for the US government. More urgently, we request your intervention to facilitate granting Inter-Risk (Pvt) the requisite prohibited bore arms licenses to operate in the territorial limits of Pakistan and as soon as possible.”

This report was published by The News International on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. Mr. Abbasi broke the story on DynCorp and Inter-Risk. His work, and that of The Nation led to the arrest of the owners of Inter-Risk and the clampdown on the suspicious activities of DynCorp in Pakistan.


Rest of the documents cant be found here : Doc 1 Doc 2

The Jinnah-Iqbal Bill: A Response to the Kerry-Lugar Bill

A PakistanKaKhudaHafiz.com Exclusive

To implement the ideology of Pakistan purported by Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal, to promote an enhanced relationship of this nation with its ideology and for no ‘other’ purposes.

Be it enacted by General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani and the Armed Forces of Pakistan as a Representation of the Will of the People of Pakistan.

SECTION 1:

TITLE

This Act may be cited as the ‘The Sovereignty and Dignity of the People of Pakistan Act of 2009’.

SECTION 2: FINDINGS

We, the people of Pakistan, make the following findings:

(A)

(1) The people of Pakistan have a long history of being used by the Unites States as a pawn in its plans for world domination. It is clear to us now that the Pakistani interest is not well –served by the meddling of the United States in the affairs of our state.

(2) The people of Pakistan will never give up their sovereignty, their dignity and will not let their government sell the country for so called financial ‘aid’.

(3) Despite the fact that Pakistan has been a major ally of the U.S in the so called ‘war on terror’ , the U.S continues to kill hundreds of Pakistani citizens in drone attacks which are seen as a major onslaught on the sovereignty of the Pakistani nation and a violation of our international borders.

(4) The U.S support for terrorist activities inside Pakistan, compounded by the hostile Indian presence on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has led to the deaths of several thousand Pakistani civilians and members of the security forces of Pakistan over the past 8 years and any more of this outrage is unacceptable to the people of Pakistan.

(5) Despite the sacrifices and cooperation of the security forces of Pakistan, the United States continues to support and fund separatist movements in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan.

(6) The continued hostility of the United States towards the Armed Forces and Intelligence Agencies of Pakistan, as well as the spread of disinformation regarding the Nuclear Assets of Pakistan.

(7) The ultimate U.S goals of destroying Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons and to exert complete control over the military institutions of Pakistan have now become very clear from the Kerry-Lugar Bill.


(B)


(1) In the long political history of Pakistan, Pakistanis have often been deceived by corrupt politicians in the existing ‘democratic’ structure. Section 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan clearly define that each candidate applying as a potential candidate for the Parliament needs to be someone who is honest, sagacious, righteous and ameen. It is quite evident that this section of the Constitution has not been implemented in the past as well in the current government.

(2) The current regime has failed to run the country and look after its people and has not been able to make timely decisions in order to protect the sovereignty of the Pakistani nation. Also, this present regime has been found to be in cohorts with elements that are hostile to the Pakistani State.

SECTION 3: OUR MESSAGE TO GENERAL KAYANI AND THE ARMED FORCES OF PAKISTAN: NEW RULES OF ENGAGEMENT WITH U.S AND NATO FORCES

(A)

(1) We support the patriotic elements in both the civilian and military establishments who have demonstrated the wisdom and courage to oppose the Kerry-Luger bill.

(2) We assure Gen. Kayani that he has the unequivocal support of every concerned citizen of Pakistan in taking a firm stand to protect the ideological and physical borders of Pakistan.

(3) The Pakistani nation is not for sale and we once again reiterate the resolve that this nation has had since its inception: that we will eat grass but we will stand on our own two feet and not bow to imperial masters.

(4) Based on the findings in Section 2, it is imperative that the current regime is forced to reconsider Pakistan’s Foreign Policy in terms of engaging with the Americans and other actors in the so called ‘theatre of war’ created by U.S presence in this region.

(5) We demand that the current U.S diplomats in Islamabad including the ambassador be expelled on grounds of interference with internal matters of Pakistan.

(6) We also demand the deportation of U.S contractors and mercenaries currently operating on Pakistani soil.

(7) We demand that the U.S embassy in Pakistan is reduced to 10% of its current size, both in terms of area and personnel.

(8) No Visas be issued to any American citizen without clearance from Pakistan’s security agencies.

(9) Pakistan does not need aid from the U.S or any other country. It is time that we used this opportunity to take a stand against corruption and injustice in Pakistan. The Kerry-Luger bill is a challenge to the Pakistani nation and it shall be met with dignity and honour.
It is time for the Pakistani nation to remember who we really are and our real potential. This bill is an attempt to subdue us into slaves of imperialist forces and is a bait to harness the ‘shaheens’ of this dignified nation.

Aye Taair-e-Lahooti us rizq say Maut achheeJis rizq say aati ho parwaaz mein kotahi
Let us join hands and implement the ‘Jinnah-Iqbal Bill’. This is what the people of Pakistan want and this is what the father of this nation strove for.

Pakistan Payendabad!

Zardari Camp Trying To Undermine Army, ISI

By Kamran Khan

“This is actually an attempt to cripple the Pakistan Army and the ISI and it is not the first or last attempt. There are some elements with clandestine job in all this,” said an informed official, who disclosed that Pakistani security officials were constantly getting information from their sources in Washington that illustrated vast difference between the public and private positions adopted by individuals and organizations representing Pakistan’s national interest in Washington”.

KARACHI: When the top military commanders declared their serious concern regarding clauses of the Kerry-Lugar Bill impacting on the national security, the top brass had knowledge and evidence that a few elements within the government deployed resources to lobby several key United States congressmen for inclusion of anti-military and anti-nuclear programme segments in the controversial US aid bill, informed officials said.

“This is actually an attempt to cripple the Pakistan Army and the ISI and it is not the first or last attempt. There are some elements with clandestine job in all this,” said an informed official, who disclosed that Pakistani security officials were constantly getting information from their sources in Washington that illustrated vast difference between the public and private positions adopted by individuals and organizations representing Pakistan’s national interest in Washington.

In Islamabad, security officials have gathered information, supported by telephone intercepts and other secret recordings that showed tremendous eagerness in the holder of an important office that Pakistan military related clauses should remain included in the bill.

Individuals and friends of the same person were found bragging on “coming jolt to the Army from America” numerous times in private chitchat since early July this year. Informed Pakistani officials insist that the present attempt to undermine the Pakistan Army and the ISI’s area of influence in framing Pakistan’s strategic and national security priorities was the Act 2 of a similar attempt made in July last year.

On July 27 of last year, the prime minister was asked to sign a stunning notification ordering to place the entire financial, administrative and operational control of the ISI with the Interior Ministry. The order was reversed within a few hours when the prime minister detected foul play.

Surprisingly, the Kerry-Lugar Bill revisited the same issue by expanding the scope from just the ISI to the entire military services of Pakistan. The bill dictated an American oversight for the process and made it a condition for an uninterrupted flow of US aid to Pakistan. The bill said: “An assessment of the extent to which the government of Pakistan exercises effective civilian control of the military will be carried out regularly.”

The bill proceeded to demand an effective “civilian control” of the promotion of senior military leaders, military budgets, the chain of command and strategic guidance and planning.

While the military leadership discussed the serious implications of the Kerry-Lugar Bill on national security, military strategists and commanders have also discussed in great length the options, alternatives and opportunities that may need to be addressed, if parliament decides not to accept the bill with its present content.

A growing sense in the Pakistani national security community speaks of a thorough review of Pakistan’s security relationship with the United States, which ran into severe strains weeks before the controversial Kerry-Lugar Bill became public.

With the evidence that has been produced before Pakistan’s top military brass on involvement of some important personalities in bolstering humiliating anti-military clauses on Tuesday, material was also produced to prove unregulated entry into Pakistan of scores of American officials, unauthorised acquisition of weapons and in one grave instance an attempted diversion of a substantial quantity of weapons imported for a Pakistani para-military outfit to the American embassy has secret support of some influential individuals in the echelons of power, officials disclosed.

Kayani Slams US; Rejects Kerry-Lugar Bill

KARACHI: As anger mounts over the degrading language and observations in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on Pakistan’s military services and intelligence agencies, the Army conveyed its part of protest to the United States when Commander of International Forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal met Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at the GHQ on Tuesday, informed officials said.

These officials said that General Kayani told General McChrystal that like the Pakistani people, the military and intelligence services were furious at the observations made on Pakistan’s security establishment in the Kerry-Lugar Bill. Kayani also protested over the controversial statements made by some US officials in recent days.

“General McChrystal returned from the GHQ with an unambiguous message that the terms set in the Kerry-Lugar Bill on the national security interests of Pakistan are insulting and are unacceptable in their present formulation,” according to an official familiar with the content of the meeting.

Informed official sources said that the Army’s strong reaction to the Kerry-Lugar Bill was shared in detail with the government when General Kayani met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday.

In a related development, also on Tuesday, Gilani asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to convey Pakistan’s reservations in his meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and key members of the US Congress.

While Tuesday’s meeting with General McChrystal provided General Kayani with an opportunity to convey the Army’s serious objection to the controversial sections of the bill in detail, he had lodged an initial protest during his meeting with General McChrystal in Kabul, where he had gone last week toattend the tripartite military conference.

The Kerry-Lugar Bill and its impact on national security interests of Pakistan will be a key subject of discussion when the corps commanders and principal staff officers of the Army meet under General Kayani on Wednesday.

While the nation’s response is currently focused at the controversial content of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the government is also concerned about a growing unregulated arrival and stay of American citizens in Pakistan.

Concerns grew when Pakistanís security agencies recorded various cases of illegal acquisition of weapons by security firms connected with the US Embassy in Pakistan. Prime Minister Gilani, sources said, has already ordered a complete record with specific details and pre-clearance of US citizens entering Pakistan on US government business.

The Tale of Haqqanis and Kerry Lugars

Six months ago , the strategy of the Zardari govt was very much clear in its actions ..they tabled one havoc and engaged the nation in other .. some times it was power crisis whilst offering trade concessions in the form of transit trade to India AND THAT TOO signed in the US. People therefore had no time to lodge protest at best what they could achieve is a couple of talk shows on television channels discussing what is going wrong in the Land of Pure.

Suddenly the gear has changed , the goons have found a pace accelerator and a stream of unending skirmishes have channelised and a full fledge ACTION plan is being witnessed endorsed fully and gladly by the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan.


Be it Quetta Shura story , or the Harpoons Missile exaggeration, Black water or Xe , Kerry Lugar Bill or Rental Power projects, Transit Trade to India or hilariously ..a newly RELEASED .i must say COPYRIGHTED film by BBC showing Baitullah Mehsud dead in a video or Pakistan Army questioning [ abusing :) ] the TTP Suspects in swat... the game plan is very clear ...CRIPPLE pakistan completely ..

As for Kerry Lugar Bill the clauses are all objectionable if not alarming ..but the KING has endorsed it fully calling it a win for democracy , i wonder if democracy should be another name for slavery ...or is it always been slavery labelled in the glossy envelope of aid called as democracy ..

The loss to Pakistan’s economy for fighting US war on terror is to the tune of $35 billion.where as the amount we are YET to recieve AFTER CONDITIONS ARE MET ..are 120 million rupees in effect ..and that stuns even a middle class pakistani who can easily calculate how these peanuts can be declined and instead a lot can be saved from the VIP lifestyle of a whole batallion of ministers and their never ending brown nosers.

but what are we talking here ..Mr. Hussain Haqqani , HRH as he may love to call himself in the coming days as he has successfully acquired himself a job for the FRIENDS OF PAKISTAN..suggests to those who criticize the Kerry Lugar bill to go and learn English :)

Pakistan Daily reports that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have submitted their report regarding Xe (Blackwater) to the federal interior ministry. The report includes proofs of XE Services (also Blackwater) presence in Karachi besides shocking story of their nexus with the political party dominating the city.


-Office bearers of the two major political parties are providing [not known whether in their individual capacity or with party lines] to Blackwater besides helping them in getting houses.
Nearly half dozen of the houses are provided by a federal minister who is also helping them in clearing the shipments [weapons and hummer] at Port Qasim.

-Blackwater has also acquired the seventh floor of five stars Hotel in the Karachi which is believed to be the new operational Headquarter. Previously a Bungalow in the Khyaban-e-Shamshir area of DHA was used as operational centre.

-The American School in KDA scheme one has 8 housing units. One house is used by a senior American diplomat while the remaining seven houses are given to Xe Services (Blackwater) for their lodging.

-Blackwater has got seven houses near the houses of Gen (R) Pervez Musharraf and Gen Moinuddin Hayder in the General colony, near Zamzama DHA. Some Japanese and Koreans are hired and accommodated there to doge Pakistani agencies.

-Another house is acquired in Karsaz Area which is situated near the Muslim League House. The street has been blocked.

-Two Vehicles of BB and BD numbers are used by Blackwater in Karachi, the numbers which are assigned to the MNAs and MPAs only. No one will be able to stop them.

-According to Ummat, the plot reserved for children park in China ground [Kashmir Road] is also given to Xe Services (Blackwater)


May Allah Bless Pakistan ..Ameen

US threatens to attack Quetta

Its high time we stopped compromising on our sovereignty and declared US a hostile state. Shut down the US Embassy and consulates, order all US diplomatic staff to leave the country with immediate effect, shut down NATO and US supply routes and respond in kind with a threat to launch a full-scale military offensive on US bases in Afghanistan if Pakistani Airspace is breached.


The United States is threatening to launch airstrikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they find sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan, according to a The Sunday Times report. The threat comes amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists. This weekend the US military was expected to send a request to Defence Secretary Robert Gates for more troops, as urged by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan. In a leaked strategic assessment of the war, Gen McChrystal warned that he needed extra reinforcements within a year to avert the risk of failure. Although no figure was given, he is believed to be seeking up to 40,000 troops to add to the 68,000 who will be in Afghanistan by the end of this year. US Vice-President Joe Biden has suggested reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan and focusing on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Last week Gen McChrystal denied any rift with the administration, saying, “a policy debate is warranted.”

So sensitive is the subject that when US President Barack Obama addressed the UN summit in New York, he barely mentioned Afghanistan.
The Times reports the unspoken problem is that if the priority is to destroy Al-Qaeda and reduce the global terrorist threat, western troops might be fighting on the wrong side of the border.
The Biden camp argues that attacks by unmanned drones on Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al-Qaeda’s leaders are hiding, have been successful. Sending more troops to Afghanistan has only inflamed tensions.
“Pakistan is the nuclear elephant in the room,” said a western diplomat.
It is a view echoed by Richard Barrett, head of the UN Commission on Monitoring Taliban and Al-Qaeda, who believes the presence of foreign troops has increased militant activity and made it easier for the Taliban to recruit.
“If Obama sends more troops, it would better be clear what they are to do,” he said.
“A few thousand more boots on the ground may not make much difference except push the fight into areas which are currently quiet because no one is there to challenge the Taliban. I cannot see any number of troops eliminating the Taliban. Obama has a really difficult decision to make.”

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/28-Sep-2009/US-to-attack-Quetta

Waqt TV report on Blackwater/Xe- Program 'Uncensored'

When Spies Don’t Play Well With Their Allies

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: July 20, 2008.
The New York Times.


WASHINGTON — As they complete their training at “The Farm,” the Central Intelligence Agency’s base in the Virginia tidewater, young agency recruits are taught a lesson they are expected never to forget during assignments overseas: there is no such thing as a friendly intelligence service.




Anjum Naveed/Associated Press

MASTER SPY Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, (with Pervez Musharraf, left) used to run the I.S.I.

Foreign spy services, even those of America’s closest allies, will try to manipulate you. So you had better learn how to manipulate them back.

But most C.I.A. veterans agree that no relationship between the spy agency and a foreign intelligence service is quite as byzantine, or as maddening, as that between the C.I.A. and Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I.

It is like a bad marriage in which both spouses have long stopped trusting each other, but would never think of breaking up because they have become so mutually dependent.

Without the I.S.I.’s help, American spies in Pakistan would be incapable of carrying out their primary mission in the country: hunting Islamic militants, including top members of Al Qaeda. Without the millions of covert American dollars sent annually to Pakistan, the I.S.I. would have trouble competing with the spy service of its archrival, India.

But the relationship is complicated by a web of competing interests. First off, the top American goal in the region is to shore up Afghanistan’s government and security services to better fight the I.S.I.’s traditional proxies, the Taliban, there.

Inside Pakistan, America’s primary interest is to dismantle a Taliban and Qaeda safe haven in the mountainous tribal lands. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan, and especially the I.S.I., used the Taliban and militants from those areas to exert power in Afghanistan and block India from gaining influence there. The I.S.I. has also supported other militant groups that launched operations against Indian troops in Kashmir, something that complicates Washington’s efforts to stabilize the region.

Of course, there are few examples in history of spy services really trusting one another. After all, people who earn their salaries by lying and assuming false identities probably don’t make the most reliable business partners. Moreover, spies know that the best way to steal secrets is to penetrate the ranks of another spy service.

But circumstances have for years forced successful, if ephemeral, partnerships among spies. The Office of Strategic Services, the C.I.A.’s predecessor, worked with the K.G.B.’s predecessors to hunt Nazis during World War II, even as the United States and the Soviet Union were quickly becoming adversaries.

These days, the relationship between Moscow and Washington is turning frosty again, over a number of issues. But, quietly, American and Russian spies continue to collaborate to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, and to secure nuclear arsenals.

The relationship between the C.I.A. and the I.S.I. was far less complicated when the United States and Pakistan were intently focused on one common goal: kicking the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. For years in the 1980s, the C.I.A. used the I.S.I. as the conduit to funnel arms and money to Afghan rebels fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

But even in those good old days, the two spy services were far from trusting of each other — in particular over Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons. In his book “Ghost Wars,” the journalist Steve Coll recounts how the I.S.I. chief in the early 1980s, Gen. Akhtar Abdur Rahman, banned all social contact between his I.S.I. officers and C.I.A. operatives in Pakistan. He was also convinced that the C.I.A. had set up an elaborate bugging network, so he had his officers speak in code on the telephone.

When the general and his aides were invited by the C.I.A. to visit agency training sites in the United States, the Pakistanis were forced to wear blindfolds on the flights into the facilities.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, C.I.A. officers have arrived in Islamabad knowing they will probably depend on the I.S.I. at least as much as they have depended on any liaison spy service in the past. Unlike spying in the capitals of Europe, where agency operatives can blend in to develop a network of informants, only a tiny fraction of C.I.A. officers can walk the streets of Peshawar unnoticed.

And an even smaller fraction could move freely through the tribal areas to scoop up useful information about militant networks there.

Even the powerful I.S.I., which is dominated by Punjabis, Pakistan’s largest ethnic group, has difficulties collecting information in the tribal lands, the home of fiercely independent Pashtun tribes. For this reason, the I.S.I. has long been forced to rely on Pashtun tribal leaders — and in some cases Pashtun militants — as key informants.

Given the natural disadvantages, C.I.A. officers try to get any edge they can through technology, the one advantage they have over the local spies. [Editor’s note: The writer makes the classical error in judgment, acquired from Indian analysts, that ISI is ‘dominated’ by officers from Punjab. That is not necessarily true or accurate. At various times, officers from different provinces serve the agency. Officers from the NWFP make a substantial portion of both the ISI and the Pakistani military. American writers on Pakistan should stop taking their cue from Indians.]

For example, the Pakistani government has long restricted where the C.I.A. can fly Predator surveillance drones inside Pakistan, limiting flight paths to approved “boxes” on a grid map.

The C.I.A.’s answer to that restriction? It deliberately flies Predators beyond the approved areas, just to test Pakistani radars. According to one former agency officer, the Pakistanis usually notice.

As American and allied casualty rates in Afghanistan have grown in the last two years, the I.S.I. has become a subject of fierce debate within the C.I.A. Many in the spy agency — particularly those stationed in Afghanistan — accuse their agency colleagues at the Islamabad station of actually being too cozy with their I.S.I. counterparts.

There have been bitter fights between the C.I.A. station chiefs in Kabul and Islamabad, particularly about the significance of the militant threat in the tribal areas. At times, the view from Kabul has been not only that the I.S.I. is actively aiding the militants, but that C.I.A. officers in Pakistan refuse to confront the I.S.I. over the issue.

Veterans of the C.I.A. station in Islamabad point to the capture of a number of senior Qaeda leaders in Pakistan in recent years as proof that the Pakistani intelligence service has often shown a serious commitment to roll up terror networks. It was the I.S.I., they say, that did much of the legwork leading to the capture of operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

And, they point out, the I.S.I. has just as much reason to distrust the Americans as the C.I.A. has to distrust the I.S.I. The C.I.A. largely pulled up stakes in the region after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, rather than staying to resist the chaos and bloody civil war that led ultimately to the Taliban ascendance in the 1990s.

After the withdrawal, the American tools to understand the complexity of relationships in Central and South Asia became rusty. The I.S.I. operates in a neighborhood of constantly shifting alliances, where double dealing is an accepted rule of the game, and the phenomenon is one that many in Washington still have problems accepting.

Until late last year, when he was elevated to the command of the entire army, the Pakistani spymaster who had been running the I.S.I. was Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. American officials describe this smart and urbane general as at once engaging and inscrutable, an avid golfer with occasionally odd affectations. During meetings, he will often spend several minutes carefully hand-rolling a cigarette. Then, after taking one puff, he stubs it out.

The grumbling at the C.I.A. about dealing with Pakistan’s I.S.I. comes with a certain grudging reverence for the spy service’s Machiavellian qualities. Some former spies even talk about the Pakistani agency with a mix of awe and professional jealousy.

One senior C.I.A. official, recently retired, said that of all the foreign spymasters the C.I.A. had dealt with, General Kayani was the most formidable and may have earned the most respect at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va. The soft-spoken general, he said, is a master manipulator.

“We admire those traits,” he said.

Mark Mazzetti is a correspondent for The New York Times, where he has covered national security from the newspaper's Washington bureau since April 2006. Mr. Mazzetti was the recipient of the 2006 Gerald R Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. In 2008, Mr. Mazzetti won the Livingston Award in the category of national reporting for his series "C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations," confirming videotape evidence of severe interrogation techniques against al Qaeda operatives had been destroyed within the C.I.A.