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Balderdash on Terror

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Among the list of experts on writing on terrorism in India, two names – B Raman and Parveen Swami – stand tall. These two gentlemen have been in the business for some years, and are very swift in penning article after article before, during and after every bomb blast on Indian soil. Through their lengthy details that are focused on exploring the causes and consequences of every terror attack, including the involvement of possible groups, individuals and organizations either with absolute conviction or floral depiction, they have been feeding the readers with a whole new world of terror regime. Possessed with sublime insight into the subject and years of professional experience, the duo has not only been presenting a detailed ‘analysis’ of every bomb blast, but are also making us believe the ‘possible perpetrators’ that we need to take notice of.

Like many other concerned citizens, I have been following these two erudite professionals for long, and I am impressed by their missionary zeal to create an intellectual environment in our country where people ‘must’ be fed with a kind of notion as to who ‘must’ be the men behind the numerous terror attacks on Indian soil, and how ‘these men’ succeeded in carrying out such terrifying attacks. Well, both the exerts do often base their stories on official line of investigations, which have been mired with dubious falsehood duly smashed in the court of law on various occasions, or concocted stories woven into a series of events that seem actual happenings, though which often proved to be far from truth.

My point of disagreement with these two experts on terrorism is related to the recent low-intensity blast outside the Chinnaswami Cricket stadium on 17 April 2010 and acquittal of Fahim Ansari and Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 26/11 case. B Raman, in his piece, ‘Bangalore Blasts’ (Outlook, 18 April 2010), starts thus: “Unidentified elements had planted three improvised explosive devices (IEDs) of low sophistication outside a stadium in Bangalore where an IPL cricket match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers” was going on, which clearly shows his complete ignorance of the perpetrators. Ironically, he contradicts his own assertion when he begins the last paragraph thus: “Locals belonging to the Indian Mujahideen ought to be the primary suspects”. His use of ‘ought to be’ is a forced statement that the readers must take it as true, albeit investigation was yet to begin. And because, he goes on, “The IM had carried out serial explosions in Uttar Pradesh, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi in 2007-08 and tried unsuccessfully to carry out explosions in Surat”, they must have carried out the Bangalore blast as well. I have hardly come across such a blatant example of ‘proposition and inference’ based purely on predetermined intellectual guess. Raman concludes his write up thus: “Like the Bangalore blasts of July, 2008, those of April 17, 2010, would appear to have been carried out by inadequately trained perpetrators–most probably locals.” So, we must believe that ‘locals”, i.e. Muslims, even those who are naïve and new are being drawn into terror acts. This is nothing but a well calculated conjecture, more a fictional story than an analytical article directed towards creating an opinion that only Indian Muslims are involved in terror acts. His use of the word ‘probably’ lessens some degree but not the affect, while the word ‘appear’ proves he is not sure.

Now comes to what the other expert, Parween Swami, has written on the Bangalore blasts. In his article, ‘To Bangalore with Hate’ (The Hindu, 21 April 2010), Swami has created a whole fictional world of personal crime, which is based on a character called Sarfaraz Nawaz. I salute his penchant for creating a fictional world of criminal biography laced with due scholarship, but I object his intention. More than that I wonder how a newspaper like the Hindu offers such fictional details to its readers that are based purely on, as Swami himself admits, “Investigators have pieced together a fascinating account of how multiple jihadist cells formed across the region”. It seems highly unprofessional when Swami writes, “In 2007, Nawaz met Nasir in Kerala and discussed plans for an attack on Bangalore”, as if he is writing a movie script, which has been played before his eyes. His fictional story blends a pan-Islamic bond of SIMI, LeT, and other extremist groups and individuals in India in which IM is a major component.

While giving the biographical details of Nawaz, Swami acknowledges the “disturbing gaps in intelligence; gaps that allowed jihadists to mobilise and recruit members, and prepare for attacks”, he fails to write about the utter failures of our securities agencies in arresting the real culprits, or prosecuting the innocents lots, for example, the acquittal of eight innocent Muslims by the Patiala House Court in January 2010, whom the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested on false charges of plotting terror attacks on Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun in 2005, and who spent five years in jail for no fault of theirs While delivering the judgement, the Patiala Higgh Court also criticized the Special Cell of the Delhi Police for cooking up false cases against innocent Muslims (see Tehelka Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 8, 9 & 10, February 27-March 13, 2010). But neither veteran Raman nor zealous Swami has taken pains to create a write up based on truth, but on mere guesses as was done by the latter in his article, ‘Behind the Batla House Encounter; (The Hindu, 10 October 2008), in which he does not cite ‘locals’, but creates a fictional details how things reached up to the encounter. None of them took a trip to Jamia Nagar to ask the scores of witnesses who watched the ‘Batla House encounter’ on 19 September 2008 live.

In 26/11 case, the acquittal of FahIm Ansari (highlighted as ‘prize catch for Mumbai police by media then) and Shaikh Sabahunddin Ahmed has not only proved Swami absolutely wrong, but it also raises questions over his investigative journalism, at least the official sources he cites for his explanations. In a front page news item “Concerns grow on Lashkar designs” (The Hindu, February 12, 2008), Swami writes, “Fahim Ahmad Ansari, a Mumbai resident who was helping the cell plan attacks on the Mumbai Stock Exchange and Churchgate Railway Station, also held a legitimate Pakistani passport….Mohammad Sabahuddin, who helped execute the 2005 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore before going on to become the cell’s overall commander, used a Pakistani passport to travel between Karachi, Qatar, Dhaka and Kathmandu. Sabahuddin told interrogators he had left his Pakistani passport behind in Bangladesh, fearing it would be detected.” In his other article, “India’s strategic deafness & the massacre in Mumbai” (The Hindu, November 29, 2008), Swami also mentions Fahim Ansari as Lashkar operative, citing the usual “credible intelligence.” But the verdict pronounced by a special anti-terror court has smashed the police version of the story, along with Swami’s line of write up.

Judge M.L. Tahaliyani, while disbelieving the prosecution story of how the duo facilitated the attack by supplying allegedly at LeT’s behest, a hand-drawn map of terror targets to the gunmen and finding the entire evidence against the accused ‘highly doubtful’, observed, “I feel the whole theory of the map being given by Ansari to Sabahunddin in Nepal, then the crude map being found unsoiled in the blood soaked pocket of a dead terrorist’s trousers is unbelievable…especially when the conspirators were relying on advance technology like GPS and VOIP all along ….Why would the LeT commanders rely on crude maps drawn by Ansari when sophisticated versions of the same work are easily available on websites like Google earth and Wikimapia?”

Now that the Karnataka government has come up with the statement that underworld elements and betting lobby were behind the 17 April twin low-intensity bomb explosions outside the Chinnaswamy Cricket stadium in Bangalore, I think these two experts should at least write a corrigendum to their earlier articles, if they have the least professional ethics. And now that the Mumbai court acquitted Fahim Anasri and Sabahunddin, Swami should at least acknowledge serious gaps in his long pieces that are nothing but cock and bull stories. Cock And Bull Stories On Terror, By M Shamsur Rabb Khan
13 May, 2010, Countercurrents.org

Balderdash on Terror

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52% of Americans think Afghanistan 'not worth it'

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The war in Afghanistan is getting more and more unpopular. Most Americans want the engagement in Afghanistan to end. Mose Americans want the troops back home. Though there is a divide along party lines, the resistance to the war is also growing among the Republicans.

Q. All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, or not? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
— Worth it — -Not worth it-
NET Strongly NET Strongly
4/25/10 45 26 52 38
12/13/09 52 33 44 35
11/15/09 44 30 52 38
10/18/09* 47 28 49 36
9/12/09 46 28 51 37
8/17/09 47 31 51 41
7/18/09 51 34 45 34
3/29/09 56 37 41 28
2/22/09 50 34 47 37
12/14/08 55 NA 39 NA
7/13/08 51 NA 45 NA
2/25/07 56 NA 41 NA

*10/18/09 “was” and “has been” wording half sampled. Previous “was”.

Majority of Americans think Afghanistan “not worth it.” According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 44% of Americans believe the Afghan war is worth its costs, while 52% disagree. This ends a brief jump in popular support for the war that occurred after President Obama announced his new surge strategy.

Support for the war is weakest among Democrats, two-thirds of whom agree the Afghan war is not worth it. A majority of Independents (56%) also feel the war isn’t worth fighting. On the other hand, 69% of Republicans surveyed believe the war is worth its costs.

Though Americans seem to be losing confidence in the Afghan war, the poll finds they still approve of Obama’s handling of the war by a 20-point margin: 56% approve, while 36% disapprove.

52% of Americans think Afghanistan 'not worth it'

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Can Syria's hundreds of missiles send Israel back to 'prehistoric times'?

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Can Syria launch 60 long range missiles deep into Israeli cities and 600 short range missiles into the Israeli battlefield? This is a question that is open for discussion. Israel a Nuclear power with hundreds of US supplied weapons can devastate Syria–there is no question about the capability of Israel which is also a Nuclear power.

The question is can Syria retaliate with  chemical and biological weapons that would paralyze the Israeli state? In case of war with Syria, Hizbullah could rain rockets on Northern Israel and possibly on Tel Aviv. Iran too is a unknown factor. Would it join the war? Iran could launch a devastating blow to Israel and get destroyed in the process.

Syria threatens to send Israel back to ‘prehistoric times’

Source close to leadership in Damascus responds to Israeli threats, tells Kuwait newspaper Syria continuously upgrading military capabilities. Hezbollah: We possess arms that can hit deep in Israel.

Syria has threatened to “send Israel back to the era of prehistoric man” if the Jewish state attacks it with unconventional weapons.

A source close to decision-makers in Damascus was quoted by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai on Saturday as saying that “If Israel uses unconventional weapons, we’ll respond in a similar fashion.”

Israeli Threat

According to report in Sunday Times, Israeli minister said if Hezbollah dares to attack with ballistic missiles, responsibility will fall on Syria’s shoulders, Israel will mercilessly attack strategic targets. ‘Assad playing with fire,’ says minister, according to British paper

Earlier this week, an Israeli minister told the Sunday Times that Syria would be “sent back to the Stone Age” if Hezbollah launches ballistic missiles.

The Syrian official said Damascus has upgraded its military capabilities and has prepared for a number of possible scenarios in case a war against Israel breaks out.

“Despite the fact that Syria has been outside the cycle of war since 1973, it did not sit idly by for even one day and is still working to develop its capabilities via missiles,” he was quoted by the Kuwait paper as saying.

The official said Syria has drawn lessons from Hezbollah’s “success” during the Second Lebanon War and has since then developed “advanced methods of warfare.”

‘War could break out tomorrow’

The Syrian source said Damascus’ wartime strategy is based in part on the possibility of opening a broad front against Israel – from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights. In addition, said the official, Syria is capable of launching 60 ballistic missiles deep into Israeli territory if the Jewish state will “dare to try and undermine Damascus’ sovereignty.”

“Syria can also launch 600 short-range tactical missiles into Israel in one day,” he said, while detailing plans to attack Israel’s coastline if a war breaks out. In this framework, he said, Syrian forces would employ sea-to-surface missiles against Israeli civilian and military targets, including ports.

The official did not address claims that Syria was transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah political bureau member Ghaleb Abu Zainab said during an interview with NBN television on Friday that his group does not need Scud missiles to defend Lebanon.

“The resistance possesses arms that can reach deep into Israel,” Abu Zainab said, adding that Hezbollah is completely ready to confront the Jewish state.

According to Abu Zainab, Washington and Jerusalem are using their accusations of the Scud transfer to attempt to divert attention away from Israel’s “violations” in the Palestinian territories.

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said Saturday, “We are ruling out the possibility of an imminent (Israeli) attack, but the resistance is operating under the assumption that a war could break out tomorrow – so that we will not be caught by surprise in any way.”

Another senior Hezbollah figure, Lebanese Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, said Saturday that allegations made by the US and the “Zionist enemy” regarding the Scud missile transfers are aimed at “applying pressure on Syria, Lebanon and the resistance.

Can Syria's hundreds of missiles send Israel back to 'prehistoric times'?

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OBL's popularity wanes: Rhetoric competes with Hamas, Hibz, Iran

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 The message to OBL:  Stop killing Muslims!

Pakistan is the citadel of Islam. Your attacks are hurting the fort of the Muslims.

OBL's popularity wanes: Rhetoric competes with Hamas, Hibz, Iran

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US again offers peanuts in aid. Reject and negotiate up

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Triple Aid to Pakistan is not enough. Aid should be 20 times that number. Compensation for lost opportunities is separate.

Pakistan has lost about $10 Billion per year (DOD calcualtion) plus opportunity costs. That alone in lost money is $100 Billion. The lost opportunity costs is 10 times that amount.

Invoice for Defeating terror, Securing Pakistani Nukes $150 Billion per annum.

Pakistan was unfairly sanctioned during the 80s and this allowed Korea and others to get ahead. Wish list of Pakistani people. More than 1000 Pakistanis have been killed. Pakistani Cheese for Western “Whine”

This aid deal is inadequate. Turkey was offered $38 Billion for attacking Iraq. Egypt’s $35 Billion debt was forgiven. Israel gets Billions.

The USA should wipe Pakistan’s $38 Billion debt, and confirm Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Pakistan needs 1000 hospitals, 100,000 shools, 1000 new universities, 5 new dams, freeways, and nuclear power plants. This open ended war is bad for the country.

Let us hope the PPP and the PMLN does not sell the country’s soul for a few Dollars.

On deconstructing the wrong paradigm of the USA media

Pakistanis want to hear “Thank You” from the ingrate Americans. Nothing is good enough!

Pakistanis to USA: We want “Friends Not Masters”

Pakistan US Relations should be normal not transactional

On inadequate US Aid to Pakistan

US offers Pakistan government $7bn in non-military aid to fight terrorism
· Civilian cabinet told drone air strikes will be curbed
· New strategy marks break with Musharraf and army

This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday April 17 2008 on p17 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:02 on April 17 2008.

The US has promised to curb air strikes by drones against suspected militants in Pakistan, as part of a joint counter-terrorism strategy agreed with the new civilian government in Islamabad, the Guardian has learned. That strategy will be supported by an aid package potentially worth more than $7bn (£3.55bn), which is due to go before Congress for approval in the next few months.

The package would triple the amount of American non-military aid to Pakistan, and is aimed at “redefining” the bilateral relationship, US officials say.

Pakistan will also be given a “democracy dividend” of up to $1bn, a reward for holding peaceful elections and forming a coalition government. Of that, $200m could be approved in the next few days.

The aid package, being put together by the Democratic senator Joseph Biden, will mark a decisive break in US policy on Pakistan, which for much of the past nine years focused on President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military as Washington’s primary partners in the “war on terror”. Officials in Washington said yesterday that the shift had already been made.

“Senator Biden wants to show the relationship is much broader than a military one, and that we are willing to sustain it over time,” one of the senator’s senior aides said yesterday.

A US administration official said: “Each day Musharraf’s influence becomes less and less. Civilians are in control. People aren’t meeting with Musharraf any more … we are very pleased with the new civilian government.”

Pakistani officials say much of the new counter-terrorism aid will be spent on civilian law enforcement institutions, such as the interior ministry, the intelligence bureau and the federal investigation agency, rather than being channelled almost exclusively through the army and the military-run Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organisation.

The new government says it has also won American support for its policy of opening a dialogue with Pashtun tribes along the Afghan border, led by an ethnic Pashtun group, the Awami National party, that is part of the government coalition.

The new understanding on air strikes by US Predator drones is seen in Islamabad as a critical benchmark for the new relationship.

In January senior US intelligence officials flew to Islamabad and struck an agreement with Musharraf to give the American military a freer hand in the use of Predators against targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have become havens for al-Qaida and other foreign jihadists as well as Taliban forces fighting Nato forces and the government in Afghanistan.

The subsequent increase in Predator strikes – estimates of the number range up to eight – caused outrage in Pakistan. Britain also broke with Washington over the reliance on air strikes often guided by uncertain intelligence.

Pakistani officials say they have been given assurances by Washington that there will be close consultation with the civilian government, not with Musharraf, before any future strikes.

However, the use of Predators is held as a closely guarded secret and US intelligence is reluctant to share information about targets, and there is some scepticism in Islamabad over whether the deal will stick.

“We’ll have to take them at their word, won’t we,” said the new information minister, Sherry Rahman, in an interview in Islamabad. She added that Washington’s previous emphasis on ties to Musharraf and the Pakistani military “hasn’t provided the results that were supposed to happen on the ground”.

The US has given Pakistan about $10bn in military aid during the past seven years, but it has not diminished the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, while Pakistani extremism is also on the rise. Some officials in Washington believe most of the money has been used to build up Pakistan’s conventional forces for use in a possible future conflict with India, rather than spent on counter-insurgency.

Furthermore, much of the money being used for counter-terrorism is being misspent, both Pakistan and US government officials say. As an example they say that Musharraf distributed the $25m reward money for capturing or killing “high value” al-Qaida targets in the form of an “inverted pyramid”.

“A few thousand would go to the police constable on the ground who actually spotted the guy, but the millions go to the generals up the chain,” a Pakistani official said. No wonder, he added, that the tip-offs stopped coming in and the number of high-profile arrests dropped.

The New Deal
· $1.5bn a year in civilian aid for at least five years

· $1bn “democracy dividend” as a reward for holding elections and forming a coalition government

· Counter-terrorism aid will be performance-based

· The Pakistani government will be consulted before any further air strikes against militants on Pakistani soil by US unmanned “Predator” aircraft

· More counter-terrorism assistance will be given to civilian law-enforcement and intelligence organisations

US again offers peanuts in aid. Reject and negotiate up

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Landmines kill and maim hundreds in Pakistan

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Landmines have been banned in the world. There should be no use of landmines in Pakistan. It is these landmines that create the terrorists. Pakistan should sign the anti-mine convention and not allow mines on its territories.

Landmines In Pakistan Ruin Lives, Leave Hundreds Dead

PESHAWAR, 4 April 2008 (IRIN) – Palvasha Ahmed and her two younger sisters know all too well the risks posed by landmines.

“Our cousin, Maryum Ahmed, 19, was injured by a landmine nearly a year ago in her village in South Waziristan. She lost her right foot and now goes around on a crutch. No one will marry her,” the 17-year old said in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

For most young women in the conservative NWFP and adjoining tribal areas, most of which lie along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, not getting married could well be the worst possible tragedy in life: Disabled girls are unlikely to be taken as brides and this means a life of dependence on their own family, who often sees them as a burden.

Palvasha, the daughter of a shopkeeper from South Waziristan who moved to Peshawar a few years ago to escape conflict between government forces and militants there, also explained: “My cousin could get only limited treatment because her father refuses to let her be examined by a male doctor.”

This is the norm across much of the tribal areas, with access of women to healthcare gravely handicapped due to the traditional refusal to allow them contact with any man who is not a close family member.

Nearly 50 mine casualties in 2008

According to the Peshawar-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), SPADO, (Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation), which is engaged in a campaign against anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs, there have been at least 48 casualties in Pakistan during the last three months caused by mines. For 2007 the figure stands at 184 and for 2006, 488.

Raza Shah Khan, executive director of SPADO, believes there are upwards of six million landmines in Pakistan, though no official figures are available.

However, according to a 2007 report by the international Landmine Monitor, Pakistan and its eastern neighbour India were the world’s largest producers of landmines; together stockpiling at least 11 million antipersonnel mines.

In addition to areas along the Afghan border, the report said mines were still in place in Kashmir, a territory disputed between India and Pakistan, even though both sides claimed to have carried out de-mining operations along the Line of Control, the tentative border that separates Indian and Pakistani-administered parts of Kashmir.

“Villages in Poonch District here, near Indian-controlled territory, have many mines. The earthquake of October 2006 and also rains since then have caused mines from the Indian side to slip to Pakistani-controlled territory, which is located downhill,” Muhammad Farooq, a social activist based in the town of Bagh in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, told IRIN.

Over 400 killed

The Ottawa-based Landmine Monitor states there have been at least 1,144 incidents involving landmines in Pakistan from 2002 to 2006, with at least 440 killed and 704 injured.

In incidents since then, military personnel have been the most frequent victims, followed by children.

Landmines are being used by both militant insurgents and government forces, in internal conflicts against religious extremists in tribal areas of the NWFP and against nationalist elements in Pakistan’s vast southwestern province of Balochistan.

“We hear regularly of injuries caused by landmines in areas where there is fighting, such as the Kohlu District,” said Farid Ahmed, coordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Balochistan.

“Both militants and armed forces personnel use landmines, often planted along roadsides,” he explained.

According to SPADO, most recent casualties have been reported from the North and South Waziristan agencies and the neighbouring Bajaur Agency.

This is both because the tribal territories lie along the Afghan border, which has been heavily mined since 1979 – the year the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan – and because mines continue to be used by militants battling Pakistani forces.

Settling local scores

Alarmingly, local tribes are reported to have begun using mines as a part of their arsenal against rival tribesmen or to settle personal feuds, adding to the number of mines on the ground in many areas.

Women, who often walk long distances to fetch water, or children, are frequently the victims of such mines. Their growing use by non-state militants, also means no records or maps exist as to where they have been placed.

Pakistan is among 37 countries in the world that are not yet signatories to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, commonly known as the landmine ban treaty.

Organisations within the country continue to demand that it sign the agreement, but there is as yet no evidence this is likely to happen in the near future. Awareness regarding the issue or concern about the risk to civilians posed by landmines is still low, even though hundreds have been killed or maimed by the devices in recent years in tribal areas of the NWFP, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Balochistan

Landmines kill and maim hundreds in Pakistan

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Microsoft buying SAP? Yahoo! $44.6bn deal dead

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Now that the Yahoo deal is dead. Will Microsoft begin looking at SAP?

It is said that Bill Gates was looking at the want ads on the Google site at 2 in the morning. An emergency Microsoft meeting was called to discuss why Google was hiring the same type of people as Microsoft was hiring.

Google is now competing with the desktop space with Microsoft and has its own word processing and presentation software available on the net without having to deal with the software solutions on the desktop. 

The purchase of Yahoo was to compete directly with Google in the search engine space. By attempting to purchase Yahoo Microsoft has conceded defeat and will merge its own search engines with Yahoo technology.

The Yahoo deal would have allowed , Bill Gates to repeat success–acquiring DOS, Windows technology from Apple, Excel technology from Lotus, Word technology from Word Prefect etc. 

Microsoft might just be about to get much bigger. Microsoft’s buying plans have been rumored for months. One of the two hot rumors was just made official. 

SAP is supposedly negotiating with IBM and also Microsoft. The Enterpirse consoldiation between Mocrosoft’s Front Office suite and SAP’s back office suites would create a huge competitor for Oracle still struggling with is own buy spree and fusion project.

Microsoft purchasing Yahoo! – $44.6bn offered. Just breaking on “the wires” right now is schock news for the online world. – it has just proposed a deal to buy long-time internet nearly-company Yahoo! for a vast total fee of $44.6bn – that’s $31 a share. The deal between the two mega-corporations was first rumoured a year ago but is now official.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal would give Google a run for their money.

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February 24, 2008 Digital Domain Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey By RANDALL STROSS
OVER the years, Microsoft has pummeled countless rivals, including the superheavyweight I.B.M. But it has never faced a smaller foe as formidable as Google. The tale of the tape gives Microsoft a $100 billion advantage in market capitalization, but it counts for little: Google appears to be its superior in strength, speed, smarts.

Having exhausted its best ideas on how to deal with Google, Microsoft is now working its way down the list to dubious ones – like pursuing a hostile bid for Yahoo. Michael A. Cusumano, who has written several books about the software industry and about Microsoft, is not impressed with Microsoft’s rationale for its Yahoo offer. He said the bid seemed to be a pursuit of “an old-style Internet asset, in decline, and at a premium.”

Determined to match Google in search and online advertising, Microsoft has managed to overlook a plain-vanilla strategy, the oldest one in the book: build on its own strengths. What it does best is to sell software to corporations, for all sorts of applications, visible and not so visible, at a handsome profit.

If Microsoft thinks this is the right time to try a major acquisition on a scale it has never tried before, it should not pursue Yahoo. Rather, it should acquire another major player in business software, merging Microsoft’s strength with that of another. This is more likely to produce a happier outcome than yoking two ailing businesses, Yahoo’s and its own online offerings, and hoping for a miracle.

For an illustration of how Microsoft could select targets more judiciously, Mr. Cusumano, who is a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed to the Oracle Corporation’s strategic acquisitions and its prudent use of capital to “roll up firms with similar products and customers to its own.” With impressive regularity – 13 strategic acquisitions in 2005, another 13 in 2006 and 11 in 2007 – Oracle has picked up key products and customers while avoiding an “oops” slip, venturing too far away from its core business, or paying too much. At no point along the way has it acted in a fit of desperation.

Last month, Oracle pulled in another major prize, BEA Systems, a leading software company, for about $8.5 billion. You’ve probably never heard of BEA: it’s doubly obscure, producing the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that large companies use to build behind-the-scenes software systems for their entire business, or “enterprise software.” Both Oracle and BEA are based in Silicon Valley, but their side of the street is not lit by klieg lights and does not get the same attention as the Googles and Yahoos.

And, to be honest, it’s not much fun hanging out on the enterprise side of the software business. BEA says its software helps organizations “ensure that business processes are optimally defined, managed, executed and monitored.” Unless you’re playing Business Jargon Bingo, it’s hard to sit still and remain attentive. You have to admire Oracle’s ability to remain focused on the business that serves business and to not be distracted by the buzz of the Web crowd gathered across the street.

Microsoft does business software well. Approximately half its revenue comes from business customers for its e-mail infrastructure, database systems, developer tools, Office productivity applications and other mainstays. It has also assembled, through acquisitions, a fledgling line of enterprise software that it calls Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft would like Dynamics to be viewed as competing head to head with the No. 2 name in enterprise software, Oracle, or the No. 1, SAP of Germany. For the moment, however, Microsoft Dynamics’ parity with those big names is nothing more than wishful aspiration.

Professor Cusumano has a suggestion: Rather than acquire Yahoo, Microsoft should pursue SAP.

It’s not an outlandish idea. The two companies held merger talks in late 2003, and perhaps since then, too. Microsoft is in an enviable position: it is a nearly universal presence in corporate data centers, and large enterprise customers are arguably the best customers a software company can have. Clients pay very dear prices for the complex, semicustomized software that runs their business. And once they’ve got their systems running – a process that can take years to complete – they aren’t inclined to change vendors lightly.

A few dozen well-paying Fortune 500 customers may actually be more valuable than tens of millions of Web e-mail “customers” who pay nothing for the service and whose attention is not highly valued by online advertisers.

Today, SAP’s market capitalization is about $59 billion, and a sizable premium to get a deal done would send its price well north of that. Microsoft cannot put both SAP and Yahoo in its shopping cart, deals that together might run well over $120 billion. Microsoft must pick one or the other.

Suppose that Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, were the head of Microsoft and was doing the shopping. Which deal would he choose? Past experience suggests that it would not be Yahoo. That acquisition would bring little but duplication headaches – and no large enterprise customers.

It’s amusing to note that the most Larry-like choice, Microsoft’s acquiring of SAP and leaving it alone as an autonomous division to avoid a cross-cultural integration fiasco, is the course that would be most discomfiting to Oracle. Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics, an information technology research firm, in Irvine, Calif., said that “a Microsoft-SAP combination would be Oracle’s worst nightmare.”

Google would not be happy with a conjoined Microsoft and SAP, either. It has made a pro forma expression of its own opposition to a Microsoft-Yahoo merger, but we can speculate that it may be cheering that deal on. Working in Google’s favor are the hostile nature of Microsoft’s bid, the colossal potential for integration problems, and organizational paralysis in, and exodus of talent from, Yahoo.

But were Microsoft to turn and head in SAP’s direction, Google would have reason for concern. Whatever strengthens Microsoft is bound to influence, later if not sooner, its continuing competition with Google. For its own part, Google is keen to expand its foothold inside large companies. Last year, it acquired Postini, whose software filters corporate e-mail. Google has not done so well with corporate customers on its own, however. Google Apps has conspicuously failed to win adoption quickly.
If Microsoft is to rededicate its attention to its most valuable assets, business customers, a prerequisite is dropping its ill-advised bid for Yahoo. And to find the best acquisition strategy, ask, “What would Larry do?”

If Microsoft tries to fight Google with wobbly legs, scared witless, it will lose.

Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.

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Microsoft buying SAP? Yahoo! $44.6bn deal dead

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Afghanistan fubar: A crumbling alliance?-Canada and Australia withdrawing?

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Troops in Afghanistan: United States – 15,038, United Kingdom – 7,753, Germany – 3,155, Italy – 2,358, Canada – 1,730, Netherlands – 1,512, France – 1,292, Turkey – 1,219, Poland – 1,141, Australia – 892, Source: Nato

“the greatest threat to Afghanistans future is abandonment by the international community.”The Mayor” of Kabul: Mr. Karzai

“the mission in Afghanistan needed more troops and equipment, such as helicopters, … “too few of our allies have combat troops fighting the insurgents especially in the south.” Mr Boucher

Karzaiistan is shrinking and is confined to Kabul

ISAFistan is shrinking

Talibanistan is growing

The situation in Afghanistan is grim for NATO. They control a few of the provinces mostly in the North. Southern Afghanistan is fully under the control of the Taliban and Mulla Umar. They have now seeped into Waziristan and threaten Pakistani settled areas. However the mercenary splinter group in Wat has been decimated and Mr. Mehsud has been disowned by the main Tlaiban group. That Taliban want to concentrate on Afghanistan this spring America has recently sent 3000 new troops but these are not enough.

Japan withdrew forces in Nov 2007. Australia is withdrawing forces from Iraq and may also withdraw forces from Afghanistan, though no date has been set for the withdrawal. The Dutch are also in the same process. The UK is also under tremendous pressure at home to withdraw forces.

Mr. Gates the US Secretary of State wrote an urgent letter to NATO to ask the NATO forces to move south into “Talibanistan”. The Germens say “No Bid”. “We have agreed on a clear division of labor,” Jung told reporters on Friday. “I think that we really must keep our focus on the North.” Herr Jung-Germany

“ you have a little German Afghanistan in the north, an Italian Afghanistan in the west, Dutch Afghanistan in Uruzgan and a Canadian Afghanistan in Kandahar, and so on. Geographically NATO has been fractured, and also sectorally with equal ineffectiveness–like giving the justice sector totally to the Italians, counter-narcotics to the British, the police to Germans and anti-terrorism to the Americans. Daan Everts, former civilian representative of the NATO Secretary General in Kabul:

A frustrated Mr. Karazi has requested a dramatic increase in the troop level but the NATO response has been feeble.

There are 950 Australian troops (ADF) in Afghanistan. There is a new government in Australia and the new Prime Minister promised to withdraw troops.

• A National Command Element in Kabul;
• Reconstruction Task Force based in Tarin Kowt, Oruzgan Province as part of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Provincial Reconstruction Team;
• a Special Forces Task Group deployed to Oruzgan province as part of ISAF operations against insurgents;
• an RAAF air surveillance radar capability deployed at Kandahar Air Field; and
  a Chinook helicopter group based at Kandahar in Helmand province in support of ISAF operations, temporarily returned to Australia until April 2008.
   

The Canadian government is also under tremendous pressure to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. On the 5th of February, the Canadian Prime Minster Mr. Harper informed Mr. Sarkozi that Canada would withdraw her forces if NATO does not deploy at least another 1000 troops. Sarko the American had promised to join NATO, but now the old fissures are rising again. “What are we doing there?”,” What are we fighting for”

Canada informs UK about possible troops withdrawal, TORONTO: Prime Minister Stephen Harper stepped up pressure on his NATO allies Thursday, cautioning his British counterpart a day after issuing a similar warning to US President George W. Bush that Canada will end its military mission in Afghanistan if the alliance does not assume a greater role in the dangerous south.

Harper, under pressure to withdraw Canada’s 2,500 troops from Afghanistan, spoke to Gordon Brown about an independent Canadian panel recommendation to extend the mission only if another NATO country musters 1,000 troops for Kandahar, said his spokesman, Michael Aubie. Harper conveyed the same message to Bush on Wednesday during a phone call.

Canadians have grown increasingly weary of the conflict in Afghanistan, which has claimed the lives of 78 of their troops and one diplomat. Opposition parties have threatened to bring down Harper’s minority government if he does not withdraw the forces. The mission is set to expire in 2009 without an extension by Canadian lawmaker.

The refusal of some major European allies to send significant number of troops to the southern front lines has opened a rift within NATO.

Troops from Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and the United States have borne the brunt of a resurgence of Taliban violence in the region, with support from Denmark, Romania, Estonia and non-NATO nation Australia.

“Canada should remain in Afghanistan beyond February 2009, but only if NATO Allies supply additional combat troops for Kandahar Province and our troops have additional equipment. Without that, Canada’s mission will end in a year’s time,” Aubie said in a statement detailing the conversation.

The two leaders decided to pursue the issue further in the coming weeks as Harper talks to other NATO leaders and key players before the government delivers its final decision later this spring.

Britain has about 7,700 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 3,600 in2006.

The U.S. contributes one-third of NATO’s 42,000-strong International Security Assistance Force mission, making it the largest participant, on top of the 12,000 to 13,000 American troops operating independently.

Harper has promised to put the future of the mission to a vote in Parliament, where the opposition parties hold the majority of seats. NATO urged Canada on Wednesday not to pull its troops and pledged to help find the 1,000 troops.

We still beleive that the only solution for the Afghan quagmire is to end the ISAF occuption, eliminate Mr. Karzai’s Northern Alliance Government and hand over the Pashtun provinces to Pakistan.

Afghanistan fubar: A crumbling alliance?-Canada and Australia withdrawing?

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Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan on Musharraf, Bhutto, and How the U.S. Has Undermined Pakistani Democracy

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We attended a Tehreek e Insaaf meeting in Long Island, New York and shared lunch with Mr. Imran Khan. It was a remarkable moment. More than 500 people and all major TV channels were present. A fantastic lunch was provided. Even Bangladeshi columnists were there.

Several American Tehrik e Insaf  leaders were present. Shaikh Elahi of the East Coast and the head of the TI International as well as of New York were present. Mr. Dabbir introduced Imran Khan with fantastic poetry.

Imran Khan spoke for an hour with confidence and charisma. The incorruptible politician with integrity defined his mission to explain to the American Congressman and politicians that it was not in the interest of America to support a military dictatorship. He asked for the complete restoration of the judiciary and “rule of law” in Pakistan. He referred to Mr. Dabbir as “the walking talking Tehrik e Insaaf“. Imran Khan spoke about the tremendous potential of the Pakistani nation. However progress was dependent upon building and preserving the institutions. He defended his position on boycotting the elections and said that the army should go back to the barracks. He also praised the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry whom he called one will be described “as a real hero” of Pakistan. He narrated several cricket analogies to the hard working people of Pakistan.

Rupee News: Every politician says that he or she is “L’etat, cest moi” (I am the state). If you don’t elect me something will happen to Pakistan. What do you say.

Imran Khan: We have to build institutions that will save Pakistan 

Rupee News: What do you think about external factors in creating instability of Pakistan?

Imran Khan: If you create a a swamp, the mosquitoes will come. The Musharraf government has attacked the Tribals and is using our armed forces to kill our own people. This must stop. 

Rupee News: Bhutto gave Pakistanis a vision. Imran can you give us a vision of Pakistan for 2010 or 2050?

Imran Khan: Roti Kapra Makan was not a vision. My vision is to have good strong stable institutions and the army back in the barracks. Investment will come by itself.

Rupee News: Pakistan should calculate the amount of expenses and losses incurred by Pakistan as a result of the US “Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Imran Khan: We didn’t know. When we asked the questions in parliament we were not informed. We heard about the $10 Billion in newspapers.

Rupee News: What about Muslim terrorists?

Imran Khan: Every religion has terrorists, why aren’t terrorists of other religions also identified by their religion….

Rupee News: Can you give us your email address?

Imran Khan: Yes! Here it is.

 http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/30/pakistani_opposition_leader_imran_khan_on

Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan on Musharraf, Bhutto, and How the U.S. Has Undermined Pakistani Democracy

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Book Reveiw: The Last Days of the American Rupublic

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Mr. Chalmers Johnson’, is “The Last Days of the American Republic is the third in a trilogy (Blowback and The Sorrows of Empire”). He is the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute. A contributor to the Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper’s, and The Nation, among others, he appears in the 2005 prizewinning documentary film Why We Fight. He lives near San Diego.

From Publishers Weekly: Like ancient Rome, America is saddled with an empire that is fatally undermining its republican government, argues Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire), in this bleak jeremiad. He surveys the trappings of empire: the brutal war of choice in Iraq and other foreign interventions going back decades; the militarization of space; the hundreds of overseas U.S. military bases full of “swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape.” At home, the growth of an “imperial presidency,” with the CIA as its “private army,” has culminated in the Bush administration’s resort to warrantless wiretaps, torture, a “gulag” of secret CIA prisons and an unconstitutional arrogation of “dictatorial” powers, while a corrupt Congress bows like the Roman Senate to Caesar. Retribution looms, the author warns, as the American economy, dependent on a bloated military-industrial complex and foreign borrowing, staggers toward bankruptcy, maybe a military coup. Johnson’s is a biting, often effective indictment of some ugly and troubling features of America’s foreign policy and domestic politics. But his doom-laden trope of empire (“the capacity for things to get worse is limitless…. the American republic may be coming to its end”) seems overstated. With Bush a lame duck, not a Caesar, and his military adventures repudiated by the electorate, the Republic seems more robust than Johnson allows. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From AudioFile
We are, the author contends, headed for monumental economic disaster because of selfish, secret, and reckless military spending. As Johnson outlines the “dangerous path” the United States has forged., narrator Tom Weiner’s steady, deep voice offers comfort to a rocky journey. The book’s only flaw is the extent of the author’s tangential explanations. But the gem is the section on the erosion of freedom of information. The author’s theme is clear early on: “Imperialism requires that a . . . domestic democracy change into a domestic tyranny.” Weiner’s voice of reason resonates as listeners are left questioning our future. M.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine– Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine –This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From Booklist
The third book in a series begun with Blowback (2000), which predicted harsh comeuppance for the post-cold war American “global empire,” and The Sorrows of Empire (2004), which continued Johnson’s thesis with a lambasting of American militarism pre- and post-September 11, this book continues the author’s broad condemnation of American foreign policy by warning of imminent constitutional and economic collapse. In a chapter analyzing “comparative imperial pathologies,” Johnson reminds readers of Hannah Arendt’s point that successful imperialism requires that democratic systems give way to tyranny and asserts that the U.S. must choose between giving up its empire of military bases (as did Britain after World War II) or retaining the bases at the expense of its democracy (as did Rome). Johnson also predicts dire consequences should the U.S. continue to militarize low Earth orbits in pursuit of security. To some extent a timely response to recent arguments in favor of American empire, such as those of Niall Ferguson in Colossus, this account also reiterates Johnson’s perennial concerns about overseas military bases, the CIA, and the artifice of a defense-fueled economy. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Eugene Jarecki, Director of Why We Fight Grand Jury Prize Winner, Sundance Film Festival
“An urgent warning for a country… Johnson is a national treasure. Let’s hope we listen this time.” –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Chalmers Johnson, a patriot who pulls no punches, has emerged as our most prescient critic of American empire and its pretensions. Nemesis is his fiercest book-and his best.”-Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism

“Nemesis, the final volume in the remarkable Blowback trilogy, completes a true patriot’s anguished and devastating critique of the militarism that threatens to destroy the United States from within. In detail and with unflinching candor, Chalmers Johnson decries the discrepancies between what America professes to be and what it has actually become-a global empire of military bases and operations; a secret government increasingly characterized by covert activities, enormous ‘black’ budgets, and near dictatorial executive power; a misguided republic that has betrayed its noblest ideals and most basic founding principals in pursuit of disastrously conceived notions of security, stability, and progress.”
-John Dower, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

“Chalmers Johnson’s voice has never been more urgently needed, and in Nemesis it rings with eloquence, clarity, and truth.”-James Carroll, author of House of War

“Nemesis is a stimulating, sweeping study in which Johnson asks a most profound strategic question: Can we maintain the global dominance we now regard as our natural right? His answer is chilling. You do not have to agree with everything Johnson says-I don’t-but if you agree with even half of his policy critiques, you will still slam the book down on the table, swearing, ‘We have to change this!’”
-Joseph Cirincione, Senior Vice President for National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress

“Nemesis is a five-alarm warning about flaming militarism, burning imperial attitudes, secret armies, and executive arrogance that has torched and consumed the Constitution and brought the American Republic to death’s door. Johnson shares a simple, liberating, and healing path back to worthy republicanism. But the frightening and heart-breaking details contained in Nemesis suggest that the goddess of retribution will not be so easily satisfied before ‘the right order of things’ is restored.”-Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel

“Last fall a treasonous Congress gave the president license to kidnap, torture-you name it-on an imperial scale. All of us, citizens and non-citizens alike, are fair game. Kudos for not being silent, Chalmers, and for completing your revealing trilogy with undaunted courage.”-Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst; co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

–This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

New York Observer
“Fascinating.” –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The San Diego Union-Tribune
“Nemesis is particularly good in sounding the alarm. Johnson’s book is a primer on what needs to be done.” –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kirkus Reviews
“A sobering read.” –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller, Nemesis is Chalmers Johnson’s ‘fiercest book-and his best’ (Andrew J. Bacevich) In his prophetic book Blowback, Chalmers Johnson linked the CIA’s clandestine activities abroad to disaster at home. In The Sorrows of Empire, he explored the ways in which the growth of American militarism and the garrisoning of the planet have jeopardized our stability. In Nemesis, the bestselling and final volume in what has become known as the Blowback Trilogy, he shows how imperial overstretch is undermining the republic itself, both economically and politically. Delving into new areas-from plans to militarize outer space to Constitution-breaking presidential activities at home and the devastating corruption of a toothless Congress-Nemesis offers a striking description of the trap into which the reckless ambitions of America’s leaders have taken us. Johnson confronts questions of pressing urgency: What are the unintended consequences of our dependence on a permanent war economy? What does it mean when a nation’s main intelligence organization becomes the president’s secret army? Or when the globe’s sole ‘hyperpower’ becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all times? Writing ‘as if the very existence of the nation is at stake’ (San Francisco Chronicle), Johnson offers his most ‘bracing’ and ‘important’ (Los Angeles Times) exploration of the crisis facing America.

Book Reveiw: The Last Days of the American Rupublic

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