Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ???? | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ??????? | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | July 30th, 2008
New strategy ‘can beat al-Qaeda’
Americans are from Mars. Pakistanis are from Venus
The reality of Afghanistan: Breaking the media paradigm. Osama Bin Laden could be hiding in the tribal areas. Hope that the U.S. will get sucked into Pakistan.” Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda can be defeated if the US relies less on force and more on intelligence and policing to find its leaders, a leading US think-tank says.
In a new report, the Rand Corporation suggests the US replace the term “war on terror” with “counter-terrorism“. Al-Qaeda is blamed for the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US and other attacks around the world. Many analysts believe Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Rupee News has been pointing out the reality about Afghanistan in varous articles like Americans are from Mars. Pakistanis are from Venus. Amit Pandya of the Stimson Center mentions the lack of misturst. Comprehending the consequences of the “Do More” chorus. Nasim Zehra in a seminal article also mention it Pakistan to USA: “We are unclear about your intentions and you must know if you do not trust us we trust you even less” . The question that we have asked is pertinent to the current situation. Can PM Gilani make himself heard above the USA “Do More” rhetoric?
Earlier this month, US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said the situation in Afghanistan was “precarious and urgent” and the country should be the main focus of the “war on terror”. Pakistan, a key US ally in the fight against al-Qaeda, is under increasing pressure to do more to combat militants in its lawless border areas.
‘Shift strategy’
“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” said Seth Jones, political scientist and lead author of the study.
“The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al-Qaeda, it just needs to shift its strategy.” The researchers at Rand, which is funded by the US government, studied 648 militant groups which existed between 1968 and 2006 and, based on their findings, the report concluded that only 7% were defeated militarily.
Political settlements helped neutralise 43% groups and an effective use of police and intelligence information helped to disrupt, capture or kill 40% of leaders of such groups, the study says. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is accused of being behind the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
Since then, his al-Qaeda network has been linked with many other attacks around the world. PTI
Americans are good people, as neighbors, as employers and as friends. However as a nation we are gullible, unaware of world affairs and how others manipulate our good intentions. We want to believe in justice and fairplay, but are ignorant of the injustices perpetuated in the name of national interests. Whatever happened to humanity, kindness, and love for fellow man? Whatever happened to the global village? Today the press has given up its role as the 4th pillar of the state. Gone are the days when the major papers in America challenge the painting and shatter the paradigms. Dennis Kucinich made the statement that today’s American media is worse than Izvestia and Pravada which used to present only on side of the picture in the totalitarian USSR. Ron Jacobs has written a prodigiously effulgent piece criticizing the hypocrisy, shallowness ruthlessness and inhumanity of the Rand Papers.
All other arguments fall on deaf ears.
The documents are simply repackaged demagoguery justifying the Banality of Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Rand Papers attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public which has been forced to accept the the only argument that is being repeatedly propagated by a cabal of right wing ideologues. Unable to see the other options the nation is forced to accept the ruthless occupation as necessary and the only way forward. Python swallows alligator and explodes: Lessons from the Peloponnesian War.
The President is once again violating international law by invading yet another nation which has not attacked the United States. Once again, he places our troops and our reputation at risk. Once again, he creates more enemies for America. Pakistan’s objections to the illegal US Predator strikes inside the country’s border should be a clear indication of how Pakistan would respond to another illegal attack upon their sovereign nation.
“Pakistan is a nuclear flash point on the Asian subcontinent. This situation requires intense diplomacy. The United States under George Bush is playing with fire, creating more instability, killing innocent Pakistanis, imperiling our troops in the region and weakening the hold our allies have on their democratic governments. Instead of limiting aggression, Bush expands it.
Congress must intervene legislatively and legally to block Bush from continuing down this dangerous path. US Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Sept 13th, 2008
- The end of an era: The shrinking superpower& the emerging Quad led by China
- It is a document that hides the nature of the US operations in those countries behind an emasculated technospeak, rendering the true nature of the killing and destruction done in the name of the people of the US and the west
- …, the task is to kill those who don’t want you there and convince the others that they are either better off with the occupier
- deciding factor in favor of the US occupying forces is their ability to kill with overwhelming force. Naturally, the indigenous population is aware of this–a fact which causes many to go along with the occupier merely as a means to survive
- report is essentially an analyst’s blueprint for perfecting the occupation of a country with the idea that the eventual result will be domination of the locals’ minds, culture and economy, with the domination of the geography of secondary consideration or of no consideration at all.
- the RAND study ignores the human and creative face of resistance by reducing ever element to a quantitative possibility with only so many possible outcomes.
- The numbers it quotes and the classifications it makes hide the true intent and outcome of the imperial military’s actions much like the statistical sheets maintained by men like Adolf Eichmann hid the true nature of the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the removal of Jewish Germans from the fatherland
- It is repeated in the newspeak of government officials and the sycophantic media that reports their words without challenging their consequences
- The circle of complicity is completed when the public accepts the arguments made by those officials and media as being the only argument that exists.
- Imperial blindness: Another Empire stuck in Af-Pak quagmire unable to extricate itself out of Kipling’s hell.
Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? 
Laden’s secure mountain hideout? 
Osama Bin Laden has repeatedly stated his hope that the US will get sucked into a ruinous debilitating conflict in Pakistan
Consequences of US airstrikes: Trading Short term victory for Long Term Defeat
US war in Afghanistan pushes miscreants deeper into Pakistan spreading destabilization
Gilani for multi-pronged strategy to combat terrorism by 
Sridhar Krishnaswami
Washington, Jul 29 (PTI) Pakistan has stressed on a multi-pronged strategy, involving intensifying military operations and taking steps to change the lifestyle of people in its bordering areas with Afghanistan, to curb terrorism.
Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, who met US President George W Bush here yesterday, did not rule out adding more muscle to military operations in the war on terror while Bush said Islamabad must do “more” on this front.
“Prime Minister Gilani also talked about how do you help change the lifestyle of people in the region so that they have a hopeful future rather than one based on terrorism. They have complex issues on the border there, especially when they have refugees — about 3 million refugees from Afghanistan living in the border area. The president pledged support for that,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said.
Both the leaders talked about counter-terrorism efforts, and especially what can be done to provide training for their military.
“When it comes to counter-terrorism, President Bush feels that all of us need to be doing more. And the prime minister talked about some of the efforts that they’ve been working on, especially in terms of coordination with our military and training that we have provided,” she said.
The US last week announced that it would work towards resolving the F-16 repair and maintenance issue.
“I think they agreed and reaffirmed this is a war that we need to be fighting together. So they talked about it more in broader terms rather than operational details,” she said.
Pakistan’s economic condition and the level of American assistance were also discussed. PTI
Justifying the Banality of a brutal Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Thinktanks attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with 
When Freedom fighters turn terrorist
Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world
Obama’s new strategy as confused as Bush’s was inept
Beyond US withdrawal from Afghanistan 
Can Obama duplicate the Swat peace deal with the “Taliban” (Pakhtuns) in Afghanistan?
Fixing AfPak expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan
2009: Obama’s South Asian policy: A Marshall Plan for AfPak
Will Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZ) make a difference in Pakistan?
Delhi outwitted at its own game
The Rand report and other “reviews” simply regurgitate the ideas which have gotten us into so much trouble.
The contradiction rampant throughout the report can be best phrased in the words of US Army Major Justin Featherstone who told the report’s writers after his extensive work with the urban population in southeastern Iraq: “Humanity is what it’s about, a genuine desire to do good by the good people, which can sit side-by-side with killing the people [whom you’re there to kill].” In other words, the task is to kill those who don’t want you there and convince the others that they are either better off with the occupier or at least not as bad off as they would be without them. Despite the constant warnings throughout the report’s recommendations to avoid killing noncombatants (without every providing a single definition of who composes this element), the report ultimately returns to this statement:
War, however, is the realm of destruction. Here will be instances in which these men and women will have to put innocents and their property at risk. In such cases, there may be no good outcome, no alternative that promises to benefit all desired ends, but rather one only less undesirable than its alternatives. A pilot might select the alternative of engaging only a few rooms instead of destroying an entire building, with the appropriate airframe and munitions being called on for the task. In lieu of devastating a town, a ground-force commander could find that a limited number of enemy concentrations provide the opportunity to wreak destruction over only a few blocks.
In other words, the occupier’s job remains one that depends on its overwhelming force. Even if the suggestions and lessons learned that are described in this report were to be put into place, the deciding factor in favor of the US occupying forces is their ability to kill with overwhelming force. Naturally, the indigenous population is aware of this–a fact which causes many to go along with the occupier merely as a means to survive. This is not a report about operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and their often bloody results so much as it is a review of the perceived success or failure of those operations. The primary intent of the report is to repeat already familiar lessons about how to construct and maintain an occupation of a country that minimizes the occupiers casualties, maintains domination via fear, cajolery, and manipulation of the personal and tribal relationships of the occupied while simultaneously convincing at least a sizable minority of the population of the occupying nation that their military (in league with the occupier) is working in their interest.
Written in what can best be described as something akin to a technical writing assignment, the report echoes the recent statements from US generals in the Iraq/Afghan theaters and is reflected in the recent decision by Barack Obama to reduce the numbers of US troops in Iraq to 50,000 over the next 16 months and escalate the battle to subdue Afghanistan. If there is one thing that this document makes clear, it is that the Pentagon and its civilian enablers have no intention of leaving Iraq or Afghanistan on their own. Furthermore, it is their intention to take the lessons they believe they have learned in those two countries and apply them to Pakistan and wherever else their manifest destiny compels them to subdue.
This is not the Pentagon Papers of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations/wars. It is a document that hides the nature of the US operations in those countries behind an emasculated technospeak, rendering the true nature of the killing and destruction done in the name of the people of the US and the west. The contemporary version of the policy discussions that were revealed in the Pentagon Papers about the US operation in Vietnam are not here. Nor are the cables and directives that sent men off to kill and die. Those documents have yet to be uncovered. The usefulness of this report is in its look into the mindset of a modern imperial machine: a machine that never questions its mission or the human misery it causes but keeps its mind trained only on how to carry out that mission as efficiently as possible. The banality of the evil of modern warfare is contained in every neutered sentence of this document and the thousands of others like them. It is repeated in the newspeak of government officials and the sycophantic media that reports their words without challenging their consequences. The circle of complicity is completed when the public accepts the arguments made by those officials and media as being the only argument that exists. The Rand Papers on Iraq and Afghanistan The Banality of Occupation, By RON JACOBS. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at:rjacobs3625@charter.net
