Brother of Afghan President Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll --- NYT

Brother of Afghan President Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

NEW YORK TIMES, October 28, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.
The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.
The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.
“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with American civilian and military officials, but did not engage in the drug trade and did not receive payments from the C.I.A.
The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike force has been accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai is also paid for allowing the C.I.A. and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s founder. The same compound is also the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. “He’s our landlord,” a senior American official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Karzai also helps the C.I.A. communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s role as a go-between between the Americans and the Taliban is now regarded as valuable by those who support working with Mr. Karzai, as the Obama administration is placing a greater focus on encouraging Taliban leaders to change sides.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.
“No intelligence organization worth the name would ever entertain these kind of allegations,” said Paul Gimigliano, the spokesman.
Some American officials said that the allegations of Mr. Karzai’s role in the drug trade were not conclusive.
“There’s no proof of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s involvement in drug trafficking, certainly nothing that would stand up in court,” said one American official familiar with the intelligence. “And you can’t ignore what the Afghan government has done for American counterterrorism efforts.”
At the start of the Afghan war, just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, American officials paid warlords with questionable backgrounds to help topple the Taliban and maintain order with relatively few American troops committed to fight in the country. But as the Taliban has become resurgent and the war has intensified, Americans have increasingly viewed a strong and credible central government as crucial to turning back the Taliban’s advances.
Now, with more American lives on the line, the relationship with Mr. Karzai is setting off anger and frustration among American military officers and other officials in the Obama administration. They say that Mr. Karzai’s suspected role in the drug trade, as well as what they describe as the mafialike way that he lords over southern Afghanistan, makes him a malevolent force.
These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it,” a senior American military officer in Kabul said. Like most of the officials in this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the information.
“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”
American officials say that Afghanistan’s opium trade, the largest in the world, directly threatens the stability of the Afghan state, by providing a large percentage of the money the Taliban needs for its operations, and also by corrupting Afghan public officials to help the trade flourish.
The Obama administration has repeatedly vowed to crack down on the drug lords who are believed to permeate the highest levels of President Karzai’s administration. They have pressed him to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, but he has so far refused to do so.
Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.
“The only way to clean up Chicago is to get rid of Capone,” General Flynn said.
In the interview in which he denied a role in the drug trade or taking money from the C.I.A., Ahmed Wali Karzai said he received regular payments from his brother, the president, for “expenses,” but said he did not know where the money came from. He has, among other things, introduced Americans to insurgents considering changing sides. And he has given the Americans intelligence, he said. But he said he was not compensated for that assistance.
“I don’t know anyone under the name of the C.I.A.,” Mr. Karzai said. “I have never received any money from any organization. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan.”
Mr. Karzai acknowledged that the C.I.A. and Special Operations troops stayed at Mullah Omar’s old compound. And he acknowledged that the Kandahar Strike Force was based there. But he said he had no involvement with them.
A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Any connections Mr. Karzai might have had to the drug trade mattered little to C.I.A. officers focused on counterterrorism missions, the officer said.
“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”
The debate over Ahmed Wali Karzai, which began when President Obama took office in January, intensified in June, when the C.I.A.’s local paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, shot and killed Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati, in a still-unexplained shootout at the office of a local prosecutor.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Qati’s death remain shrouded in mystery. It is unclear, for instance, if any agency operatives were present — but officials say the firefight broke out when Mr. Qati tried to block the strike force from freeing the brother of a task force member who was being held in custody.
“Matiullah was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Karzai said in the interview.
Counternarcotics officials have repeatedly expressed frustration over the unwillingness of senior policy makers in Washington to take action against Mr. Karzai — or even begin a serious investigation of the allegations against him. In fact, they say that while other Afghans accused of drug involvement are investigated and singled out for raids or even rendition to the United States, Mr. Karzai has seemed immune from similar scrutiny.
For years, first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have said that the Taliban benefits from the drug trade, and the United States military has recently expanded its target list to include drug traffickers with ties to the insurgency. The military has generated a list of 50 top drug traffickers tied to the Taliban who can now be killed or captured.
Senior Afghan investigators say they know plenty about Mr. Karzai’s involvement in the drug business. In an interview in Kabul this year, a top former Afghan Interior Ministry official familiar with Afghan counternarcotics operations said that a major source of Mr. Karzai’s influence over the drug trade was his control over key bridges crossing the Helmand River on the route between the opium growing regions of Helmand Province and Kandahar.
The former Interior Ministry official said that Mr. Karzai was able to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges.
But the former officials said it was impossible for Afghan counternarcotics officials to investigate Mr. Karzai. “This government has become a factory for the production of Talibs because of corruption and injustice,” the former official said.
Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.
In debriefing notes from Drug Enforcement Administration interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants obtained by The New York Times, one key informant said that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the American operation that lured Hajji Bashir Noorzai, a major Afghan drug lord during the time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, to New York in 2005. Mr. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.
Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the D.E.A. in 2006 that Mr. Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after Mr. Noorzai’s arrest.

Speaking of U-Turns...

Pakistan. The country whose political leaders and religious zealots have been milking the cause of disputes such as Kashmir and Palestine in fiery speeches and televised debates on global fora. And now, the news... (the bit in bold is the real kicker!)



UN rights body defers vote on Gaza war crime report-- REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations put off taking action Friday on a U.N. report that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in Gaza, after U.S. pressure aimed at getting the peace process back on track.
The move is an early result of the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama's engagement in the Human Rights Council, which Washington joined in June.
The forum had been expected to adopt a resolution that would have condemned Israel's failure to cooperate with a U.N. war crimes investigation led by Richard Goldstone and forwarded his report to the Security Council.
Goldstone recommended that the Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court if the two sides fail to conduct credible domestic investigations within six months.
But Pakistan, speaking for Arab, Islamic and African sponsors of a resolution, formally asked the forum to defer action on their text until the next regular session in March.
This would "give more time for a broad-based and comprehensive consideration" of the report, Pakistan's envoy, Zamir Akram, told the 47-member-state forum.
A diplomatic source said the move had followed intense lobbying by the United States, which is seeking to restart peace negotiations in the Middle East. "There is agreement to defer given immense pressure from the United States," he told Reuters.
Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of trying to rescue Israel from seeing its leaders, who launched a military offensive on the Gaza Strip in December-January, brought before international courts.
"We insist that leaders of the occupation must be brought before international courts as war criminals and anyone who sought to prevent that from happening would be seen as partner in the crime," he said.
STILL ON THE AGENDA
Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah noted the Goldstone report had not been retracted and was still on the Human Rights Council's agenda. "It was only postponed."
A Palestinian official said the United States, European Union and Russia asked the Palestinian Authority for the postponement until the forum's next session in March.
Formal negotiations on Palestinian statehood have been suspended since the Gaza conflict.
The investigation by Goldstone, a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor, found that both the Israeli armed forces and Hamas militants committed war crimes during the December-January war.
A Palestinian rights group says 1,417 Palestinians, including 926 civilians, were killed in the Gaza war. Israel has said 709 Palestinian combatants were killed along with 295 civilians and 162 people whose status it was unable to clarify.
Israel lost 10 soldiers and 3 civilians in the offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday the United Nations would deal a "fatal blow" to prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace if it endorsed the report -- which was more critical of Israel's military than of the Palestinians.
In a briefing to reporters after the Israeli cabinet met, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Netanyahu's government was discussing the possibility of setting up an independent commission to look into the military's conduct of the Gaza war.Khraishi, asked whether the Palestinians were prepared to investigate war allegations, replied: "Everybody should respect its obligations. We should take responsibility."

Losing Sight of the Moon, One Rock at a Time!

My reworking of an Associated Press story that ran on Sept 15. A good read, if I do say so myself, and I will (conceited, isn't it) :D

How the world is losing its (moon) rocks

A few words about the founder... Jinnah Sb ko SALUT!

Yesterday, I found myself (unwittingly) in the middle of a mini-debate on Jinnah. It was the latest in the series of drawing-room discussions (albeit over Facebook and gmail, the drawing rooms of today and the coffee houses of tomorrow) in the post-Jaswant's-groundbreaking-new-book world. On one side, an Indian professor at Brown University, and in our (read Jinnah's) corner, YLH, my perennial friend and a most vocal (and oft militant) proponent of our great leader. I don't blame him, in fact I admire his courage and commitment. I won't even say I doubt his methods, because they've kept the idiot 'arbit' Indians off our collective backs on blogsites and chowk dot coms worldwide.

So, I have the privilege of posting here the original article, that appeared in the Indian Express, and YLH's scathing reply. Makes for good reading. Enjoy!



What if Jinnah had won
By Ashutosh Varshney
INDIAN EXPRESS
The current debate over partition is radically incomplete. The debate has been framed around Jinnah’s desire for a federal but undivided India, in which the states would have been more powerful than Delhi. In contrast, Nehru’s preference is said to be for a centralised polity, with Delhi given more powers than the states. It has been argued that the latter was responsible for India’s partition.
What is wrong about this way of framing the discussion? Contemporary political theory suggests another perspective on Jinnah. Historical research has not wrestled with a fundamental theoretical question: was Jinnah in favour of what political theorists call “consociational democracy”? It is a term I will explain in a moment. But its grave real-world implications can be stated right away: if Jinnah’s argument was indeed consociational, then partition was inevitable and Jinnah was as responsible for it as anybody else. For the Congress party to accept a consociational argument would have meant denying everything India’s freedom movement had stood for. Nehru could not have possibly agreed. Nor, incidentally, could Gandhi
A consociational democracy opposes liberal democracy on at least three counts. First, according to consociational theory, groups — religious, linguistic or racial — are the unit of politics and political organisation, not individuals. As we know, strategising about groups is a pervasive feature of politics, whether in the US or India. The consociational theory goes far beyond that. It says that the constitution should allocate political power and offices to different religious or ethnic groups — 50 per cent of offices would go to group A, 30 to group B, 20 to group C, etc.
Second, each community would be represented by a political organisation of that community only, not by an organisation that claims to be multi-religious or multi-ethnic. This is the “sole spokesman” idea: that only the Muslim League would represent India’s Muslims. LTTE made similar claims about the Tamils of Sri Lanka.
Third, minorities would have a veto in governmental decision-making, and consensus should be the basis for governmental functioning. If the Muslim League did not like something that others wanted Muslims to consider, the deliberation would not go any further.
The consociational theory is not simply an abstract exercise. In books after books, Arend Lijphart, a Dutch political scientist, has demonstrated that consociational democracy was used in several small European countries after World War I: Holland, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. More controversially, he has also argued that a consociational democracy is much better for multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies, for it allows disaffected groups to develop a sense of security.
Outside Europe, too, there are examples. Consociational versus liberal democracy was a matter of serious debate during South Africa’s transition after apartheid. Lebanon after 1943 opted for consociational democracy. Malaysia today has a semi-consociational model.
A key question about Jinnah is this: was he a consociational or a liberal democrat? We don’t know the answer conclusively, for that is not the frame within which historical research has been conducted. But the hypothesis that Jinnah was consociational, not liberal, is profoundly plausible. Consider three different points in the evolution of his argument.
First, it is after the Lucknow Pact of 1916 that, in a pre-theoretical moment of political exuberance, Sarojini Naidu called Jinnah an “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”. One should, however, note that the Lucknow pact was fundamentally premised upon separate electorates for Muslims, and also on one-third of representation reserved for Muslims in government.
Second, the Lahore Resolution (1940) made the case that Hindus and Muslims were not simply two distinct religious groups, but two different nations that required separate political roofs over their cultural heads. In the words of Jinnah, “Hindus and Muslims belong to... two different civilisations that are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state”. In comparison, the argument of Maulana Azad, a deeply religious Muslim and a Congress leader, was dramatically different. “I am a Muslim and proud of that fact... In addition, I am proud of being an Indian. I am part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality... Eleven hundred years of common history have enriched India with our common achievement. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour. There is indeed no aspect of our life which has escaped this stamp... This joint wealth is the heritage of common nationality.”
Nehru’s view of the nation and politics also departed radically from Jinnah’s. This is what he wrote in The Discovery of India: “There was a fundamental difference between the outlook of the Congress and that of religious-communal organisations. Of the latter, the chief were the Muslim League and its Hindu counterpart, the Hindu Mahasabha. These communal organisations, while in theory standing for Indian independence, were more interested in claiming protection ad special privileges for their respective groups.”
1946 is the third key point in the evolution of Jinnah’s argument. Unless future research proves me wrong, Jinnah by that time was wholly consociational. He was not only talking about a federal India with greater powers for the provinces. He was also emphatic about the Muslim League being the “sole spokesman” for India’s Muslims.
Even if the Congress had accepted the idea of a loose federal state, how could it have agreed that Congress was only a Hindu party, not different from the Hindu Mahasabha, and it could not represent Muslims at all? There were undoubtedly some Hindu nationalists in Congress, but they never took control of the commanding heights of the party. At least since Gandhi burst on the scene in 1919, the Congress was always committed to the idea of a composite nation. Agreeing with Jinnah’s consociational argument would have meant fundamentally denying the ideological commitment to the possibility of a multi-religious politics and a secular Indian nation.
Finally, would consociationalism have really brought peace to an independent India? The available comparative research is quite clear. Consociational democracies have worked well in richer European settings. In lower income postcolonial scenarios, consociationalism has actually been a recipe for endless troubles. Lebanon’s case is the best known. The fundamental problem is that a polity so exclusively group-based only deepens group identities. It does not make groups secure. In the end, it undermines national feeling.
It is hard to imagine a post-1947 India, which had separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims, which allowed only one communal party representing each religious group, which apportioned political offices strictly on the basis of religion, and which nonetheless had peace. Partition was a horrific event, but it is not clear that a consociational India after 1947 would have fared better. Nehru’s critics must confront the consociational puzzles about Jinnah’s ideology and conduct





YLH'S REPLY:

I am afraid this is simply hogwash written by Ashutosh Varshney (whose well researched but badly argued “Hindus and Muslims Ethnic conflict” I have read and found to be rather limited in thought even if thorough in research)… even if it comes from a professor at Brown (which proves my earlier point about American universities sadly).

1. Jinnah was in principle against the separate electorates. He had opposed them when they first came around. He offered to give it up on several occasions… provided other safeguards were met. Even his 14 points speak of eventual discarding of the separate electorates. This point comes out clearly in terms of Jinnah-Gandhi talks where Jinnah says ofcourse joint electorates are the preferable.

2. Consociational Democracy: The concept has worked well in Netherlands, Switzerland and several other nations. But the prime modern example of Consociational Democracy is not in Europe … Ashutosh Varshney will never accept it but all political scientists looking at things impartially will… it is India… yes your so called Modern Secular Liberal India.

The irony is that India post 1947 adopted the consociational model but jettisoned the modernist Muslim leadership that could have given it meaning. Who are India’s Muslim consociationalists today? Darul Uloom Deoband.

I submit that the consociational solution presented by the League was not all that different … indeed it was more democratic. It certainly did not solve the communal conflict by presenting communal solutions… it presented federal solutions and confederal solutions for communal conflict.

Groupings would have created three sub-federations…. in these sub-federations, it was open to the provinces to leave after the legislative elections. The principle of separate electorate was most likely to be given up by Jinnah – who disliked the idea of communal electorates but had accepted the idea only as a necessarily evil given Congress’ refusal in 1929 to accept residuary powers clause which was a sine qua non for settlement according to Punjab and Bengal’s Muslims. The impulse behind Congress’ rejection was not any fear of consociationalism but simply hunger for power and land grabbing instincts.

The consociational argument if any can only apply to CMP and that to by stretching and drawing analogies. And it certainly does not gel with Post-1947’s Modern India which is for all purposes as consociational a state as CMP India would have been.

But what about 1929? What about 1937?

The truth is that Ashutosh Varshney probably knows deep down that he has laid an egg… and we shall expose him for this.

The same old story... [An interlude]

Taking a break from being my usual self, it's time for a little self-extro and introspection. So here goes my little out-of-body-experience. And no... there will be no parallel astral plane bullshit here, all I need to do is read back through my blog... idiots!

I HAVE gotten meaner. Leaner I may not be, but meaner, HELL YEAH! I'm now officially the Dirty Harry of off-the-cuff retorts... something I used to be too scared to be. Even Sam says so, and she should know! She says it was Karachi, I say it was the life experience... same difference!

Spelling mistakes and typos (here and there) stand out. Chalo, at least it proves I'm human and not some copy editor freak (HAH! I crack me up!). Also tells me (and you) that rarely have I re-read a post written in the flurry of words and emotions, accompanied usually by the song that's running in my head at the time, mostly because it's playing on loop in Winamp while I write that particular piece of my life (for inspiration, of course).

The reason why these last two posts are anomalies (i.e. posted in quick succession, one right after the other in the same sitting - something I guess I've NEVER done before) is because just posting someone else's words, however good they may be, wasn't quite enough. I MUST have the last word... resistance is futile :p

I think I've scared the little one with the hateful comments I posted to her last post. If you're reading this Marina, I'm sorry, it just kinda came out, like most of my writing does. Didn't mean any ill will toward you, honest, cross my heart, (almost) scout's honour!!!! But I did MEAN it...

Re-read my first post too. Didn't really accomplish what I set out to do. Sure, it makes for impressive reading if I need to impress the odd-high brow chick, or score brownie sympathy points, but that's just fucking lame. The original, nobler purpose was to allow the jesters in my life to read my so-called 'journal' so they could understand me better. I didn't think that was gonna happen back then, but nothing like the apathy I've seen in the years that I've been running this blog.
So this goes out to all the anonymous voyeurs... feedback BITCHES!!!!! If just to let me know you've read it!!!!! Isn't that hard y'know... just point and click!

*DOUBLE CLICK*

If this post seems profaner than my normal work, don't hide your children and lock on your chastity belts around your ears just yet. Haven't slept in days and can't really get to sleep now. It's Sunday morning, I'm horny, my 'Sana Anonymous' [perverted SMS 'friend'] is fast-fucking-asleep and there's nothing on TV... life's a peach!

Re-reading this blog is really like taking a trip back in time. But here, I can sit and quietly smile at myself and the bad choices I've made, slap my chrome-dome at the idiot I was and generally chuckle to myself about days long gone. Change I CAN fucking believe in!!!!!

Just don't pretend. Please. As a favour to me. Pretty please with a 14-year-old virgin's cherry on top (is this image disturbing enough yet?). DON'T PRETEND, OK? I FUCKING HATE PRETENDERS!!!!!!! Be real, be assholes for all I care... I know I am one... why can't you be? Assholes, that is. I'll believe you a whole lot more!!!

Oh, and if you're listening up there... I will never surrender. Remember that. There are now just two people in the world that I care about enough to sacrifice my life for... the same two that were standing around when I was born. And if you come near them, you'll never see another sunrise again, even if I have to give up my right to do so too...

Have I said enough yet???

I'd rather not say. Download and sing along, all you pieces of SHIT!

"Keep you in the dark
You know they all pretend
Keep you in the dark
And so it all began

Send in your skeletons
Sing as their bones go marching in... again
The need you buried deep
The secrets that you keep are at the ready
Are you ready?

I'm the voice inside your head
You refuse to hear
I'm the face that you have to face
Mirrored in your stare
I'm what's left, I'm what's right
I'm the enemy
I'm the hand that will take you down
Bring you to your knees

I'm finished making sense
Done pleading ignorance
That whole defense
Spinning infinity, but
The wheel is spinning me
It's never ending, never ending
Same old story

What if I say I'm not like the others?
What if I say I'm not another one of your plays
You're the pretender
What if I say I will never surrender?

In time or so I'm told
I'm just another soul for sale... oh, well
The page is out of print
We are not permanent
We're temporary,
Same old story

So who are you?
Yeah, who are you?
YEAH, WHO ARE YOU?"


The Pretender
---- Dave Grohl [The Foo Fighters]

Good Music

Spirit of radio - Rush
Caroline - Status Quo
You and me song - The Wannadies
Strawberry swing - Coldplay
Death - White Lies
Stars will lead the way - Simple Minds
The 59 sound - The Gaslight Anthem
22 - Lily Allen
21 Guns - Green Day
Pictures of matchstick men - Status Quo
Song away - Hockey
Learning to fly - Tom Petty
Night moves - Bob Seger
Candy - Paolo Nutini
Sanctify yourself - Simple Minds
Second chance - Shinedown
Black horse & the Cherry tree - KT Tunstall
Street of dreams - Guns n Roses
Dead end street - The Kinks
Magic man - Heart
The bones of you - Elbow
The fear - Lily Allen
We are the people - Empire of the Sun
Keep on loving you - REO Speedwagon
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - Florence and the Machine
Scooby snacks - Fun Lovin Criminals
Flowers in the window - Travis
No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand
The universal - Blur
Ayo technology - Milow
California Waiting - Kings of Leon
Just because - Raygun
Where Did All The Love Go? - Kasabian
Just like paradise - David Lee Roth
You got me rocking - The Rolling Stones
Since you been gone - Rainbow
Fire - Kasabian
Country girl - Primal Scream
In a broken dream - Python Lee Jackson and Rod Stewart
Listen to the music - The Doobie Brothers
Fly like an eagle - Steve Miller Band
Mr Writer - Stereophonics
Little wing - Jimmy Hendrix
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Rubber Lover - Marmaduke Duke
Ziggy stardust - David Bowie
Oh my god - Kaiser Chiefs
America - Razorlight
She Came Back - Jersey Budd
Life in the fast lane - The Eagles
Nothing Ever Happens - Del Amitri
New divide - Linkin Park
Red Lipstick - Skint And Demoralised
No surprises - Radiohead
Make me smile - Steve Harley And Cockney Rebel
Radar Love - Golden Earring
Get it on (bang a gong) - T-Rex
You really got me - Van Halen
Roll over beethoven - ELO
I won't back down - Tom Petty
Fall at your feet - Crowded House
Centrefold - J Geils Band
Stand by me - John Lennon
King of rock 'n' roll - Prefab Sprout
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
Mrs. Potters lullaby - Counting Crows
Barney Rubble - by The Twang
Band on the run - Wings
Dirty laundry - Don Henley
Hocus pocus - Focus
Howl - Florence and the Machine
Rock and roll music - The Beatles
Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
Who do you love - The Doors
Stay with me - Rod Stewart and The Faces
Gone hollywood - Supertramp
Epic - Faith No More
Hollywood nights - Bob Seger
Panama - Van Halen
Rocky mountain way - Joe Walsh
Backstreet symphony - Thunder
All my life - Foo Fighters
Whole lotta Rosie - AC/DC
Magic carpet ride - Steppenwolf
Turn to stone - Joe Walsh
Jamaica - Led Zeppelin
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - Bachman Turner Overdrive
Good times - INXS
Children of the revolution - T-Rex
Cast no shadow - Oasis
Notion - Kings Of Leon
Monkey Gone to Heaven - The Pixiess
Incommunicado - Marillion
Reeling in the years - Steely Dan
She's not there - The Zombies

"Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun..."

My childhood was an amazing time. Having had no siblings, I found my life a tad bit more comfortable than those around me who had brothers and sisters. After all, what else can we do but measure our happiness against others'.
Never really felt alone then. My imagination would lead me through the dark valleys of loneliness. Imagination, what a beautiful thing. Did you know that imagination is what sets human beings apart from other sentient beings? If only a dog could imagine what it would be like to kill his stupid mutt of a master, he would've wiped man out long, long ago.
But my imagination did not centre around the morbid. No, I was in a universe of my own, where heroes and superheroes from the Marvel, DC and other trademark universes converged. I even had some help from the more real-life characters of Enid Blyton, Bram Stroker, Charles Dickens, Ronald Dahl and H Rider Haggard. It was an amazing time.
Every night, as my father promptly sent me off on my nightly walk back and forth down the 'estate' (sic!), my mind wandered to faraway lands. Flanked by Wolverine, Rogue, Gandalf the Grey and Professor Van Helsing, I would spend my nights playing out a fantasy of accomplishing feats so much bigger than myself, and especially bigger than my then-puny existence.
That was the last millenium. My existence is still puny.

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts,
Ashes for trees,
Hot air for a cool, cool breeze?
Did you exchange
A Walk-on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?
Pink Floyd -- Wish you were here

Vindication is sweet, the consequent loss of life isn't...

For several months now, I've been worrying about Indonesia, and the trouble that's going to stem from there if Al Qaeda establishes a strong foot hold in the world's largest Muslim country. Well, not many people took my concerns seriosuly. so...

Terror stalks Indonesia as hotel bombs kill nine
JAKARTA, July 17, 2009 (AFP) - Suspected Islamist suicide bombers detonated high-explosive devices in two luxury Jakarta hotels popular with foreigners Friday, killing at least nine people, officials said.
Witnesses described grim scenes with bloodied survivors fleeing in panic from the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels, as terrorism returned to the world's most populous Muslim nation after four years without a major attack.
The broad streets of Jakarta's financial district were littered with glass and debris and smeared with blood after the breakfast-time bombings, which sent a huge plume of smoke over the city.
A sombre-looking President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose crackdown on the extremist Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) appeared to have quelled the extremist threat, said the bombings undermined the security of the entire nation.
He said the attackers "have no humanity and they don't care about the damage done to our country with this act of terrorism, which will have wide effects on our economy, trade, tourism and image in the eyes of the world".
Officials said more than 40 other people were injured when two blasts shook the upmarket hotels, and pinned suspicion on a JI splinter group led by Malaysian-born bombmaker Noordin Mohammed Top.
"Based on the evidence at the scene, we found that there were two suicide bombers," national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters.
Grainy security camera footage at the Ritz-Carlton showed a man wearing a backpack on his chest and carrying a suitcase entering the hotel restaurant moments before a bomb exploded.
The flickering footage aired on the TV One station showed the large open doorway to the restaurant erupting with glass, debris and smoke as the bomb was detonated inside.
People in the doorway were engulfed by the blast, while others dived for cover behind furniture and walls. Witnesses described a scene of carnage.
"I was walking outside and I saw three injured people taken to the ambulance," shop assistant Syarif, 32, said.
"They were all foreigners, their faces and bodies all covered in blood. The skin near the eye of one of them was peeling off," he said.
At least one foreigner, a New Zealand businessman, was confirmed dead and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he had "grave concerns" for three missing Australians including an embassy official.
Rudd condemned the "barbaric" attacks, saying they made him "sick to the stomach".
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, condemning the "senseless" attacks as she headed to Asia for a trip starting in India, said the State Department was working to help an unspecified number of Americans hurt in the blasts.
"The attacks reflect the viciousness of violent extremists, and remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real," she said.
Manchester United were due to stay at the Ritz-Carlton next week as part of an Asian tour but they cancelled the trip, denying a sell-out crowd of 100,000 the chance to see the English football giants play an Indonesia XI on Monday.
The Marriott was hit in 2003 by a blast that killed 12 people, and Friday's violence bore the hallmark of past attacks blamed on the Al-Qaeda-linked JI both in Jakarta and the tourism hotspot of Bali.
National police spokesman Nanan Soekarna confirmed at least nine people were killed and 41 were injured, including 14 foreigners, when the blasts struck around 8:00 am (0100 GMT).
Despite security measures in place at Jakarta's top hotels, including vehicle searches and metal detectors, police said one blast hit the basement of the Marriott and a second struck the restaurant of the Ritz-Carlton.
An unexploded bomb was later found and defused by police in room 1808 of the Marriott, presidential adviser Djali Yusuf said.
The room was a "control centre" for the attacks, he said, with police discovering explosive chemicals and bomb-making materials in a potential treasure trove of evidence as investigators piece together the attacks.
Officials said seven people were killed at the Marriott and two others at the Ritz-Carlton.
A South Korean man and a Japanese national were also listed among the foreigners who were injured.
Condemnation poured in from Indonesia's neighbours in Southeast Asia, where JI is accused of plotting to create a pan-Islamic state.
JI's most notorious attack was the bombing of several nightclubs on the island of Bali in 2002 which left more than 200 people dead, mostly foreign tourists.

"Cold as ice, someday you'll pay the price"

I never thought I’d say this. It’s that time in my life. I’ve officially entered a rut. I know its crazy but its true. I feel like that Russian kid from ‘Goldeneye’ who jumped up and yelled out, “I’m invincibole!” (spelling semantically adjusted) just before he got frozen by a spray of liquid Nitrogen. It cracks me up every time.

Not anymore though. That’s me, I point to the screen, my other hand over my mouth. “The Horror, The Horror” washes over me, along with the combined horror of Nabila Kiyani’s novel classes (from which I was mostly, thankfully) absent. No wonder she didn’t like me.

Oh, and I also found out (a little late on this one Sherlock) that I’m not a particularly likeable person. More on that after this story…

Loosing it severely now. Maybe it has something to do with… or, on second thoughts, let not go there yet.

This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
Another prop has occupied my time
FIRE! (she's comin' down on her own, now)
The One I Love -- REM

Power of the people demands power for the people

Why Devdas was so upset...

Counterpoints, a reply to a dear friend

Read the original post entitled 'Myth Busters' at Ali' Malik's blog, http://demopak.blogspot.com/

I must confess that I haven't been one of those who've followed your blog, but this last post reads as a sort of open challenge. I will not dispute the fact that the media has been manipulated time and again, but I believe the accusations you've levelled here need to be answered. Lets take it from the top.

Accusation 1: Mehsood and Taliban are US agents
So you deny that Mehsood and Taliban are following an agenda alien to Pakistan? By that, I mean an agenda that does not originate from inside Pakistan and is aimed at destablising Pakistan as a whole. Turkistan, Qari Zain and every other so-called 'rebel Taliban commander' who seems to have renounced Baitullah insist that he is being funded through Afghanistan by a combination of Mossad, RAW and other intelligence/national spy agencies. But since the ‘fundo media’ reported this too, I guess you will also dispute this assertion.

I am very impressed by this next para. I did not think someone who has watched events unfold before their eyes could have put such a slanted spin on events.

"Pakistan’s fragile federation was in near collapse during last couple of years of Musharraf rule and had it not been for US’s active efforts to save the federation from collapsing even by arm-twisting some of her Mid-Eastern allies, it could well have collapsed."

This, as opposed to the fact that now, separatist elements are openly advocating the creation of more provinces, demanding separate homelands for themselves, and coalition partners are openly negating the very premise of partition. And this seems to me to be a very one-sided view of the time-period you are referring to (the last long-march, if I am not mistaken).

Cases in point:
Najam Sethi’s interview with Altaf Hussain: Altaf admits he has little support in Punjab because he has opposed the two-nation theory and believes that the Musalmaans of undivided India did not gain anything from partition.
Whatever anyone’s personal opinions may be, and no matter what kind of spin you put on this, this one statement implies that Altaf Hussain is opposed to the idea of Pakistan as put forward by Mr Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of my nation. (I say ‘my’ because there is apparently very little support left for Quaid ka Pakistan.
“Yeh uska Pakistan hai jo sadr-e-Pakistan hai.” (Anwar ul Haq, CTC)

The resurgence of separatist parties: Apart from the fact that for the first time in Pakistan’s history, we stand at a point where no one political party commands a majority in any TWO of the country’s four provinces. The governments are, effectively, as of today: ANP in NWFP; PML-N in Punjab; an uneasy PPP-MQM coalition in Sindh and an even shakier PPP, PML-Q and JUI-F coalition in Balochistan. At least one senator (a so-called former Musharraf crony) Mohammad Ali Durrani, has already tabled a bill for constitutional amendments to facilitate the creation of new provinces. He asks for at least 16 more provinces to be formed. The MQM chief has echoed this sentiment, and says there is nothing wrong with such a move.
Secondly, a resurgence of separatist and nationalist (nasal-parast) parties has been seen over the past 12 months. During the ‘tyrannical’ reign of Pervez Musharraf, these elements were silent/had been silenced. However, with a return to power of the ‘People’s kee hukoomat’ these parties have found a new lease on life. They include the ANP (a comparatively more mainstream party); the Balochistan National Party, Balochistan Liberation United Front, Balochistan Liberation Army, Balochistan Liberation Front,·Baloch People's Liberation Front, the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz and many more. Why is it that ethnic tensions, sectarian killings and other such problems are on a rise in Sindh and Balochistan?

Accusations 3, 4 & 5: that We face terrorist threat because we decided to side with US in War on Terror; that Suicide bombers are produced in retaliation to killings by Drone attacks; and, that Drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

I will deal with all of these as one because they all focus on the ‘War against Terror’. I ask three questions in turn.

Firstly, why are all provinces (even the home province of the ruling PPP) willing to support the operation but unwilling to cope with the fallout, or, at the very least, support the IDPs displaced by the military action they voted for? And these are all things that have been reported by the ‘fundo’ media.
Secondly, we have settled that discrimination, resentment and maltreatment at the hands of the majority are the major factors behind the sense of deprivation that plagues our tribal belt and the remote areas such as Balochistan and south Punjab, which prompts men to blow themselves and renowned religious scholars up. However, this current government has done little, if anything, to check that. It seems as if today, one province’s hegemony has been replaced with another’s and the two ‘chotay bhai’ are suffering just as they were before.

CASE IN POINT:
Two-tier treatment in Pakistan's Jalozai camp
JALOZAI, Pakistan (AFP) — Koubad and Azizullah live in the same camp in northwestern Pakistan -- two of the millions of people displaced by a blistering government offensive against Taliban militants.
But while one of them comes from the wealthy Swat valley region and lives in the camp's "VIP" section, complete with electricity and a kitchen, the other, from Pakistan's tribal areas, is living in misery.

Read the whole article at:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5htk7YLmcgcR5zd4Axu6Kh9DehBLw

And lastly, and this is in response to the “US is our guardian angel” argument, when was the last time the United States of America did anything for any other country of the world out of the goodness of its own heart. Yugoslavia? Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Haiti? Mozambique? Somalia? Sudan and Darfur? Palestine? Lebanon?
They have a plan. That plan will unfold, with or without you and me. My job is to make sure I can explain that to everyone in my country who doesn’t understand that. If our interests align today, they may not tomorrow, and this democracy we are all proud of can derail in the snap of my fingers. As you yourself have said, all you need to do to take over is to send three battalions, one to the presidency, one to lock up all MNAs and MPAs and one to PTV. And done. Pakistan is yours.

"Shout, shout. Let it all out. These are the things I can do without..."

Withdrawal is a horrible thing to go through, especially alone. Unfortunately, alone is how you end up if you’re not everything the world wants you to be.

Great thing the human mind is. It can rationalize even the most unforeseen of events, explain the inexplicable and come up with amazing explanations for things it didn’t even dream of in its wildest dreams. And it’s a symbiotic relationship. This allows you to stay sane through the bewildering wilderness you find yourself in when something like this happens.

But last night, as my brain began senselessly rationalizing the past 6 months of my life, I couldn’t help but ask, “Where was all this three months ago?” It answered, “Would you have listened three months ago?”

It was right. I wouldn’t have.

Rationalization # 1: You knew this would happen. This was why your ring tone for her was this song:
“They say that every heavens got a thousand rooms
So take me on that freedom ride
My heart is like a hunters in the silent moon
My nerves just feel electrified
Meet me on the staircase
Outside a darkened room
Light me like a naked flame
The voice of mother nature states
All things must pass
And nothing can remain

You raise me like a building to the very top
Rush me to the end of time
You fill me full of danger
You give me future shock
Then you leave me wasted dying”
She’s a River – Simple Minds


Discovery: I call it ‘Happiness at hundred (kmph)’. It works. You need 5oz of any sedative drug, standard pot will do. Smoke that joint as you accelerate, faster and faster through the night. So disoriented you forget that its Saturday night and start wondering why so many people are out and about at 0200 hours. But as you race through the night, the endorphins rush through your system and you feel like that car’s heading to Mars.

Realization: This is what has become of me. This is what I have become. I wasn’t always like this. And no matter what anyone else might say, it is my fault.

“And I go blind
Wasting my time
The rivers in front of me”

FIN

Aey watan paak watan, paak sadar, paak watan!

Just one of the many shady and inhuman deals our 10% President has been involved in.


Lawyer says 11 French killed in Pakistan over submarine money
CHERBOURG, France, June 18, 2009 (AFP) - A probe into the 2002 killing of 11 French engineers in Pakistan is focusing on France's failure to pay a commission for the sale of submarines to Pakistan, a lawyer for the victims' families said Thursday.
The lawyer, Olivier Morice, said former president Jacques Chirac and former prime minister Edouard Balladur had been mentioned in the decision to halt the payments.
Morice spoke after two French anti-terrorist investigating magistrates had met with families of the engineers killed in the attack on May 8, 2002 in the Pakistani city of Karachi. A car packed with explosives was driven into a minibus carrying the Frenchmen, all engineers working for a French state firm, DCN, that was building submarines for Pakistan. The 11 engineers and three Pakistanis were killed.
Investigators had been looking into an Al-Qaeda link to the attack.
But Morice told AFP: "The Al-Qaeda track has been totally abandoned. The motive for the attack appears linked to the non-payment of commissions."
Morice said the payments were stopped when Chirac became president in 1995 because he wanted to stop part of the money financing the campaign of Balladur, who was his political rival on the French right at the time.
Magali Drouet, a daughter of one of the men killed, quoted one of the anti-terrorist judges, Marc Trevidic, as telling the families that this theory was "cruelly logical".
She added that according to this scenario, the attack was carried out because the special payments were not made by France to Asif Ali Zardari, who is now Pakistan's president but was a minister at the time.
High-ranking politicians would likely be called in to testify, said Morice.
Details of the payments emerged in 2008 as part of an investigation into French arms sales.
Police seized documents from the French firm, now known as DCNS, which discussed the companies used to pay fees in connection with arms sales.
One unsigned document spoke of Pakistan intelligence services using Islamist militants.
It claimed that "the Karachi attack was carried out with complicity within the (Pakistani) army and the office supporting Islamist guerrillas" within Pakistani intelligence.
The document, which has been added to the case file, said those who employed the Islamist group had financial aims.
"It involved obtaining the payment of unpaid commissions" linked to the sale of French submarines to Pakistan in 1994, it said.
A French investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "new elements" had been found in the inquiry, but declined to give details.
Balladur, head of the French government before Chirac became president, said Thursday that he knew of nothing improper in the submarine deals.
"There were indeed agreements made with the Pakistani government," he told French television. "To my knowledge, all of it was perfectly regular. I have nothing else to add."
Two alleged members of Al-Qaeda-linked group Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi were found guilty by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in 2003 over the Karachi attack.
But the high court in the southern province of Sindh last month acquitted the pair, saying in an order that "the prosecution has failed to prove the case against the appellants beyond any reasonable doubt."


UPDATE 1-French probe alleged Pakistani role in bombing PARIS, June 19 (Reuters) - French magistrates investigating an attack in Pakistan blamed on Islamist militants that killed 11 French nationals in 2002 are looking into allegations it was linked to corrupt deals, lawyers for the victims' families said. A coach carrying French naval engineers and technicians was bombed as it left a hotel in Karachi in May 2002. The attack killed 14 people in total. Pakistani authorities at first blamed Islamist militants and two men were sentenced to death for taking part in the attacks, but their convictions were overturned on appeal in 2003. French magistrates Marc Trevidic and Yves Jannier told the victims' families they were now investigating allegations the attack was orchestrated by unnamed Pakistani officials angry with France over the non-payment of bribes tied to a defence deal. "The investigating magistrates told us that they believed this scenario was extremely credible," one of the relatives' lawyers, Olivier Morice, told reporters. According to these allegations, some kickbacks ended up in the campaign funds of then Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, a rival of Jacques Chirac in the 1995 presidential election, a judicial source familiar with the matter told Reuters. President Nicolas Sarkozy was Balladur's campaign manager in the ballot and was also budget minister when the lucrative sales contract for the French Agosta submarines was signed. He rejected on Friday the magistrates' suspicions. "Listen, this is ridiculous," Sarkozy told reporters at a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels. "This is grotesque ... We have to respect the grief of the families. Who would ever believe such a tale?" he added. Balladur also denied any knowledge of wrongdoing. Asked about the allegation by French state television, Balladur said: "As far as I am aware, everything was completely above board. I have nothing more to say. If anyone has any proof, let them speak up." Lawyer Morice said the investigating magistrates had obtained a top secret internal memo in October 2008 from the state-owned shipbuilder which contained the allegations. The memo, copies of which were shown on French media on Friday, says French and Pakistani officials connived to take bribes as part of the sale of the submarines to Pakistan. It says France stopped paying the bribes after the 1995 election, won by Chirac, and that Pakistani officials kept asking for them for several years.
The allegation is that they eventually lost patience and organised in retaliation the attack on the bus full of French engineers, who were working on the Agosta submarine project. Trevidic and Jannier cannot speak publicly about their investigation because the rules of their position forbid it.

"Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again..."

CRACK! A sharp, loud sound reverberates through my whole body. I turn to look at those around me, but none of them seems to have heard anything. Somewhat relieved, I turn and sink back into the state of uneasy acceptance that has become almost second nature. It’s been a sensation that’s stayed with me from childhood, kinda like the hiccups you get after crying for too long. And like a stubborn child, bawling on the inside, I lean back on the head-rest of this ancient bed to write yet another chapter in the tragedy of my life.

Recently, I posted a quote by Ingmar Bergman onto my Facebook page that read, “My basic view of things is — not to have any basic view of things. From having been exceedingly dogmatic, my views on life have gradually dissolved. They don't exist any longer...” I realise now that Bergman quantified this feeling long before I’d even felt it. Now what does that tell you about the human brain? If two musicians sitting in different continents, in different time zones, interacting with different peoples, living in different cultures playing on different scales altogether can come up with the same progression of notes on two separate occasions, how can you deny the presence of a Borg-like collective human thought-bank, secretly planting ideas into the heads of those it wants to empower or destroy.

In this dichotomy, I think I would have to be on the collective’s shit-list. I used to go around telling people to learn from their mistakes. I figured anyone dumb enough to make the same mistake twice, thrice or even four times over was unworthy of respect. And although that belief stays as it is, I have come to value my intellectual prowess (or the lack thereof) much less than I used to.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, according to CS Lewis in ‘The Screwtape Letters’, was convincing men that one is equal to the other, i.e. the belief that ‘I’ am no less than ‘you’, and in some cases, ‘I’ am more than ‘you’. ‘Animal Farm’ talked about how all animals were equal but some more so than others. And, of course, Bertrand Russell told us all about self-centricity, calling it ‘persecution-mania’. By this he meant people who thought all bad things happened to them and that the world essentially revolves around them. Catch 22: only insane men flew combat missions over German cities in WW2, and clinically insane men were not allowed to fly. But if you came and asked to be grounded, you were conscious of your insanity, and hence, not insane. So get back in the cock-pit, flyboy.

Inescapable.

I’ve been unfaithful to this blog for too long now.