Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar Al Assad agree on at least one point: Spring must be eliminated; the year should have just three seasons.

The demand for dignity and freedom by those willing to die for those values — that is what they cannot bear, and strive to curb ruthlessly. Gaddafi and Assad are the same kind of people as Saddam Hussein. Like him, they can’t tolerate opposition, and answer it with weapons. Like him, they cling to their positions, which they occupy without legitimacy. Like him, they count on tribalism to fortify their power. Like him, they are afraid of justice. Like him, they are convinced they are right.

Because of these two men, what has been called the Arab Spring is in the process of clouding over and becoming more like a hell.

The Tunisian and Egyptian revolts succeeded because the armies abandoned the heads of state. Without the courage and daring of a few superior officers, both those countries would still be burying their dead.

What happened? Why and how did a dream become reality, even if as I write this reality is riddled with disappointment and impatience? The genius of a people is unpredictable. No one knows why, one day, people took to the streets and courageously confronted the bullets of the police or the army. That remains a mystery. The Arab people are known for their extroverted natures, for their love of peace. The funerals of Nasser and Sadat were spectacular. So were those of Umm Kulthum and Farid Al-Atrash, two singers adored by the public. When you see a mass of people mourning the death of a president, you don’t imagine them someday coming out and demanding the departure of another president, Mubarak — one who had been in power for 30 years.

Humiliation is a common technique with dictators. Scorning, crushing the citizen is a way to govern and to guarantee the consolidation of power. That is why not only Mubarak but also Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, Gaddafi, and Bashar Al Assad blithely confuse their countries and resources with their own property, and present themselves as the fathers of their nations. When they are reproached for this, they appear not to understand what is being demanded of them. This confusion between the money of the state and that of the leader is one consequence of dictatorship. The Mubarak family is said to possess $70 billion, and Ben Ali’s $17 billion.

In the West this notion of the omnipotent father does not exist. Why is it so strong in the Muslim world? In these countries there is one constant: the individual as a unique, singular entity is not recognised; it is the family, the clan, and the tribe that matter. The individual is drowned in this magma, and everything is done to prevent him from emerging from it. The early demonstrations in Tunisia, then Egypt, however, were marked by a new phenomenon: the emergence of the individual. The people in the streets were not calling for an increase in wages, but demanding universal values like freedom, dignity, and respect for human rights.

At present we are in a period of transition. It is a difficult time, marked by the impatience and disappointment of the people in rebellion. How to explain to them that it takes time to rebuild a country and put the state back on its feet when a dictator has pillaged, spoiled, and dishonoured it? Despite the present disorder, though, and the more or less fortunate improvisations in Tunisia and Egypt, the wind of this spring continues to blow over the entire world. It so happens that both countries where the battles against dictatorship result daily in the deaths of dozens of unarmed civilians are in the grips of a system whose roots are ancient and organised. Syria has always been a police state with a solid Army capitalising on the proximity of Israel and Lebanon, a country from which it was chased out in 2005, but which the Syrian regime has sought to keep as a vassal.

As for Libya, Gaddafi has no future. The day his mercenaries grow weary, he will fall. All negotiations for surrender have failed (South African President Jacob Zuma felt that the mediation of the African Union was “undermined” by NATO raids). There have been 10,000 deaths since the beginning of the uprising.

The death of bin Laden is not the end of terrorism. There will always somewhere be a lunatic, a madman, a group of sick people to plant bombs and kill innocent people. Terrorism will experience difficulties simply because the people have become vigilant and the police have made security their priority—unless certain governments decide to manipulate splinter groups in order to thwart democracy in the countries where the revolts took place.

To be sure, the awakening of the Arab people is not over. But fear has changed sides. The dictators in power, men without legitimacy, are now the fearful ones. They will be tossed out. Sooner or later, the Arab world will rid itself of these furious men, who cling to power even if it means multiple massacres. There comes a point where even massacres must die out.

COUNTERING terrorism needs a multifaceted approach that focuses not just on confronting it through the coercive apparatus of the state but also through disengagement strategies.

Disengaging a militant from violence and extremist tendencies is an uphill task because of his or her ideological and political association with the cause. A number of countries have developed de-radicalisation programmes to deal with the issue but the level of success remains debatable, notwithstanding the claims made by the states concerned. The rehabilitation of detained militants becomes an integral component of any such programme as part of the prevention strategy.

The prison holds crucial significance in the de-radicalisation strategy as many of these programmes — including those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom — are run in prisons. The logic for this approach is twofold: first, prisons offer an atmosphere where the detainees have time to think and interact with many influences; second, if the inmates are not engaged in constructive activities, they would be likely to use their time in prison to mobilise outside support, radicalise other prisoners and, given the opportunity, attempt to form an operational command structure.

The Pakistan Army launched an initiative for the rehabilitation of detainees in the conflict-hit Swat region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2009 after a successful military operation against extremist militants there. During the operation, thousands of militants and their active supporters surrendered, were arrested or turned in by their families. They remain in the army’s custody.

In 2010, the army decided to screen detainees in order to identify hardcore militants. A de-radicalisation programme was launched for detainees other than hardcore militants. The initiative is in its initial phase still and there is room to learn from the best practices and make adjustments where needed to improve its chances of success.

The rehabilitation programmes for detainees are usually part of a larger de-radicalisation strategy. Different states use different strategies but there are four major approaches in practice to rehabilitate individuals and vulnerable communities.

These four approaches operate at the security, societal, ideological and political levels, and are based on the concepts of de-radicalisation and counter-radicalisation.

There is general agreement that the best practices on countering radicalisation are a combination of all four approaches, ranging from engagement to winning the hearts and minds of the people. But the objective of most of the programmes is neutralising the security threat. Despite sharing common objectives, such programmes in Muslim-majority states have some characteristics that differ from the models developed by non-Muslim states with a sizable Muslim population.

Programmes in Muslim states focus mainly on prevention and creating an ideological response to radicalisation. The Egyptian, Yemeni, Jordanian and Indonesian models essentially developed as ideological responses and the Saudi model emphasised rehabilitation through psychological and social modules, along with ideological responses.

Pakistan’s rehabilitation programme in Swat is not part of a comprehensive policy and is a counter-insurgency initiative introduced by the Pakistan Army. Yet if implemented judiciously, it could provide the basis for a broader de-radicalisation strategy.

The initiative to rehabilitate detainees in Pakistan was taken in September 2009 with an initial cost of Rs4.4m, which was provided by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. The programme has three main components: Project Sabaoon focuses on juveniles; Project Mishal concentrates on adult detainees; Project Sparlay is for the family members of detained persons.

Rehabilitation efforts have also been divided into four main modules, including an educational module comprising formal education, especially for juveniles, to enable them to continue their education. Another module includes psychological counselling and therapy for developing independent and logical thinking. The social module includes social issues and family participation and the fourth module includes vocational training, such as repairing home appliances, etc., to equip the detainees with skills that enable them to make a decent living. Through the initiative, over 400 individuals have been reintegrated into society so far.

The Swat rehabilitation programme is based on the Saudi model. As is obvious from the difficulties faced by the Mishal project, financial constraints were not considered while designing these initiatives. On the other hand, although Sabaoon is not facing any financial constraints, the absence of knowledgeable and devoted scholars such as Dr Farooq Khan (killed on Oct 2, 2010 by the Taliban) has certainly been a challenge. In addition to these constraints, the initiatives focus mainly on low-cadre militants who come from poor economic backgrounds.

The rehabilitation of this rank is important but the programme needs to be expanded to the mid-level cadre which has more political and ideological tendencies towards radicalisation. If some of them are disengaged from militants and extremism, they can prove valuable assets in the de-radicalisation process, as has happened in Indonesia. Yet bringing about the disengagement of the mid-level cadre is a difficult task and countering its narratives is a challenge. Egypt has a good record in this area.

The Swat model was developed with a post-insurgency perspective and the counter-argument modules focus on defusing anti-state tendencies. However, in Pakistan the militant landscape is quite complex and in the presence of other violent actors, who are involved in international and regional terrorism, this narrative cannot prevent them from joining other groups. The complete denunciation of extremism should be the programme’s objective and a viable ideological anchor needs to be provided in the framework of nationalism and pluralism.

The Swat model can be replicated in other parts of the country after addressing framework deficiencies and intellectual and financial constraints. But at the same time, the civil administration needs to shoulder responsibility. In other countries, such initiatives have been taken by the political government and implemented by the civilian administration. Only a representatives and accountable political set-up can have the credibility, legitimacy and mandate to take on the ideological and political sensitivities involved in the de-radicalisation process.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

While the debt debacle in Washington has preoccupied America, it has also caused jitters in power corridors from Beijing to Brussels. The stewards of the world’s largest economies have been anxious for a compromise, to keep their own finances from suffering collateral damage.

Their worries have stemmed from an inescapable reality: For other governments, there is still no good alternative to holding the dollar, or American Treasury securities, even if the United States gets tarnished by a once-unthinkable credit downgrade.

China, which has the most to lose because it holds the largest amount of those securities – at least $1.16 trillion – offered a blistering attack on Washington on Friday, calling for a show of responsibility and an end to the partisan bickering.

“The ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight,” Xinhua — considered the propaganda arm of the Communist Party — said in an opinion piece on Friday, referring to the standoff between Democrats and Republicans.

The news agency said the “irresponsible” brinksmanship in Washington risked “strangling the still fragile economic recovery of not only the United States but also the world as a whole.”

Officials in Europe were more diplomatic, but archly recalled that American leaders had admonished them just a few weeks ago to straighten out the messy politics of the Continent’s own debt crisis.

“One could now ask why is the US debt treated any better than a country like Portugal, which has about the same levels of deficit and debt,” said a senior European policy maker.

The main concern in Europe is that a Washington failure to lift the debt limit would cause the dollar to weaken further, pushing up the euro and making it harder for Europeans to work out their problems.

That is also among the worries for Japan, the second biggest among US creditors, whose post-tsunami economic problems would only worsen if the yen rose further against the dollar.

Around the world, many leaders seemed to expect the Washington showdown to somehow end in an uneasy truce, given the dire global and domestic political consequences of its failing to do so.

But while no one seemed to expect the United States to default on its debt, governments elsewhere were preparing for the repercussions of the likely tarnishing of America’s sparkling credit rating.

Analysts expected China to continue buying American debt, because China keeps producing big trade surpluses that bring in dollars, which must then be reinvested in a haven, like US Treasury securities.

Except that those securities may no longer seem as safe as they once did. And China knows it.

And yet, that does not mean countries might not slightly reduce their purchases of long-term US debt, as China and some others have already shown signs of doing. Whether that is a temporary slowdown or would prove more lasting is a question that worries Washington.

Some experts say there is room for China to steer slightly more money toward Europe or Japan, and buy up more dollar-denominated stocks, rather than debt, while also pushing ahead with its own financial overhauls to slow its accumulation of dollars.

Like China, Japan has several reasons to be jittery about the United States’ debt crisis. There are concerns in Tokyo, for example, that a possible downgrade could shake investor confidence in Japan’s own mushrooming debt, which is already twice the size of its $5 trillion economy.

In Europe, officials are just as concerned about the impact on their own problems. Stricken countries like Ireland and even healthy ones like Germany can hardly afford the trade impact if the euro gets much stronger against a weakening dollar. Worse, the Washington debt standoff has already made borrowing more expensive for big countries with high debt, like Italy and Spain, fanning fires that could imperil the euro zone.

When Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany visited the White House a few weeks ago, President Barack Obama pressed her on the importance of Europe’s politicians finding a solution to their debt crisis.

Businesses have also braced for a rough ride. Friedrich Eichiner, chief financial officer of the German automaker BMW, paused at a company event in Frankfurt on Friday to reflect on what would happen if no compromise was reached, or the United States got a credit downgrade.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

aoa,
great efforts,
you have done tremendous job its realy very helpful
do share these kinds of articles on contemporary issues in future it will help us out alot
regards

The international community’s military intervention in Libya is a giant failure. Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague may characterize it as a success on the grounds that NATO airstrikes “saved many thousands of lives and stopped the destabilization of Egypt and Tunisia,” but that sounds to me like a politician trying to save face.

The consensus is that the Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi must go because not only does he have little regard for the lives of Libyan civilians that he once vowed to sacrifice until the last drop of blood, he has also threatened to launch terrorist attacks on Europe. However, the revolutionary warhorse has spurned several diplomatic efforts to end the conflict peacefully and has successfully evaded numerous strikes on his compound.

Frankly, I used to believe Qaddafi who travels around with female bodyguards and a luxurious tent, launches flowery insults in the direction of his fellow Arab leaders and makes rambling speeches while waving his incomprehensible Green Book, had morphed into a harmless eccentric once he had decided “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” in relation to formerly hostile Western powers.

I also thought Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam was a modernist eager to make democratic reforms and bring his country into the 21st century. I was wrong in both cases; it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Their sole priority is to hang on to privilege and power even if that means they will be the last men standing and until now they’ve proved to be more resilient than their protagonists.

The UN-backed intervention that was supported by the Arab League was wrong-footed from the start. In the first place, several NATO member states, such as Turkey and Italy, were unenthusiastic while the US, still entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan during a period of economic turmoil, would have preferred to leave Libya in the lap of its European allies.

NATO’s efforts began with in-fighting and since have been largely half-hearted. Worse, UN Security Council Resolution 1973, passed to implement a “no-fly zone,” the freezing of the regime’s assets and a ban on weapons imports, has tied NATO’s hands. It does not allow for ground troops and has led to arms being delivered to the opposition via the backdoor.

It has also led to a situation whereby if rebel forces were to attack a town known to be a Qaddafi stronghold, such as Sirte or, perhaps Tripoli where the volume of support for the leadership is unknowable, in the strictest sense, NATO would be obliged to turn its guns on the rebels to protect the civilians there. Unfortunately, the asset freeze has resulted in the opposition being deprived of funds alone with the regime they are attempting to topple. A new and broader UNSC resolution is required but cannot be obtained due to the obduracy of Russia and China, which feel NATO has already exceeded its mandate.

Another mistake was the UNSC’s rush to send the Libyan leader to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Qaddafi, his son Saif and his brother-in-law Intelligence Chief Abdullah Sanussi prompting complaints that the court is pursuing selective justice leaving other oppressive dictators free to do their worst. It has also further highlighted that until now the ICC’s warrant have been limited to Africans, which undermines the court’s credibility.

The UNSC’s aim was to further isolate regime heads but, in reality, it has had unintended consequences by closing the door shut on the leadership’s negotiated exile to a country willing to accept them. Of course, Qaddafi will dig in when there’s nowhere else to go without fear of being turned over to The Hague.

Now, as the New York Times reports, Britain, France and the US seem ready to throw up their hands in defeat by handing Qaddafi “a get out of jail card” that would sideline the ICC by allowing Qaddafi and his buddies to remain in Libya provided they agree to step down. This would not only an insult to all those who have lost their lives to get rid of them, it illustrates just how impotent NATO is given the constraints of Resolution 1973 and the reluctance of Western publics to approve their governments going full throttle to achieve their aims. Furthermore, what message would this send to others suspected of war crimes? It’s nothing less than an immoral compromise.

In any case, such a deal leaving Qaddafi in place even if he hauls his tent to the desert won’t work. As the man himself says, he has no official position to step down from. He’s not a president or a prime minister, rather an ideological leader who retains admirers throughout the west of the country as well as the backing of certain tribes. Who’s to say he would stick to an agreement with NATO once it’s signed and even if he did, on paper at least, who’s to know that he wouldn’t continue pulling strings from his armchair retirement?

Moreover, he’s known to be a revengeful individual who has already threatened Europe with terrorist attacks. Warning Europe to retreat “before you face a catastrophe,” he said his supporters could take the fight “to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes,” adding, Libyans can move around “Europe like locusts, like bees.”

It seems that those countries that led the charge from the get-go have succumbed to a bad case of cold feet four months into the costly bombing campaign that has achieved little because they entered the ring with blindfolds. The ragtag rebel army may have the resolve to finish the job but aren’t sufficiently trained or equipped to do so and is currently experiencing feuds between Islamists and secularists.

If NATO doesn’t have the patience or the cash to complete what it set out to do and accedes to Qaddafi escaping the ICC’s clutches and being permitted an honorable retirement in his homeland, it will be seen as a paper tiger in the face of a robed desert lion, who despite his ruthlessness, has more guts than the lot of them.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

Balochistan is the biggest province of Pakistan, with almost over 40% of its land mass. In league with the evidence, for the first time Balochistan has come in the radars of western corporate media, the power brokers of the world. Why did this happen? Quite obviously the province is rich in natural providence, uranium, copper, iron, gold, chromite, natural gas and the potential of richness as the 21st century reservoir of oil. The Great Game is about to enter its final phase; the indigo traders, East India Company and opium wars are about to be replayed through the concentric circles of history. Once again the local rulers are inept to grasp the seriousness of situation.

The recent visit of Mr. Cameron Munter to Balochistan is a clear phase line in the current history of the region as well as at the template of Great Game, well come to the ultimate prize the virgin lands of Balochistan. Balochistan is mouth watering, it is east of Iran, south of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and a territory boasting three Arabian seaports along with the Strait of Hurmuz, in fact it is a bastion looking the complete outreach to Arabian Sea, in coming decades anyone controlling Balochistan will control the 80% of world oil. It is not a mere tall claim, it is pure mathematics in which the western corporate world and media is very good at. The proposals of IPI and TAPI pipe lines are pipe dreams without this landmass, people in lighter sense call Balochistan the Pipelinestan.

Gawader even with its present shortcomings is going to replace Dubai because it is at the natural trade and power crossroads. What is going on there which has turned all the spotlights? The BLA, BLF and BRA are trying to stir the hornet net without realizing that the same will result in an uncontrolled anarchy of political chaos as the Baloch society is not naturally designed for such a change, the best, they can evolve through like all the other tribal society. Before drumming of such ideas the societal engineering is required. Merely basing the insurgency on the grounds of Punjabi Chauvinism is a non starter as this is not true; the exploitations are of other natures, there is surely the development differentials and the generic backwardness which is the real cause of some unrest. For Brahamdagh Bugti, Harbaryar Mari and Ghazain it is very difficult to make political waves, not that they can’t do it but because it can’t be done without a political medium in a quasi tribal society. This can be a bottom up struggle but the top down effect is absent which is the sin-qua-non for such sub-national movements.

On the other hand it is cruel statistics which is to be blamed; in the complete province only Quetta and Khuzdar are two cities with a population crossing the figure of one lakh, rest 14 cities have areas bigger than Karachi with population of thousands. This is a plus for anyone who wants to do societal engineering, without which the problem of Balochistan cannot be solved. Harping the melodious tunes of development initiatives without the change in the mores of a Balochi tribesmen will bear no fruit. Mr. Munter is told by the chief minister of the province that taking the same development paradox as an excuse USA cannot be granted the permission to open a consulate in Balochistan. He is also told that nothing like Quetta Shura exists in the province. Both of these things are a difficult pill for Americans to swallow, the coming days are likely to bring more wrath of a friend and ally in the war on terror. Baloch people like that of Kurds are uniquely placed in Afghanistan, they are found in Nimroz province , in Iran they are in Iranian Balochistan – Sistan province and off course in Balochistan they in ideological majority.

This makes them an interesting study. They are politically not as active as Kurds, neither they are conscious of any of their historical endowments and claims, so they are different. This academically proves that present crisis is only a ground swell in favor of separatism and it lacks political direction. This is the plus upon which the Pakistan government and the army should built upon, not the mere development initiative. A friend recently on one of our usual discussions asked me that what I will tell General Kayani if I happen to meet him, I instantly replied that there is a very distant probability of this anyway if it still happens then I shall tell him to go for building 3 to 4 new cantonments in the Balochi heartland, this will prove to be the hubs of change, new towns will emerge in a decades time which will be cosmopolitan in nature, an anathema to sub national groups. Aaghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan should be a social movement rather than being contractor laden physical one, development should follow not lead. Different sub national movements with vague goals are operating in the maze of uncertainty, the most famous is the BLA, a front for armed resistance which has started a systematic campaign of ethnic and target killings, Balochistan autonomous movement which has trans frontier objectives, partisan of national liberation of Afghanistan which is based in Nimroz, the BRA, Balochistan Liberation United Front and Jundallah (a Iranian based organization). There is no requirement to give a full pat –down searches to people by the security forces in the province, the structure of society if enhanced with anthropological vigor will do the job. The sub nationals are trying to take the grandson of nawab of kalat on board; they are perusing him to declare that the nawab was made to sign the ascension documents under duress, instead the grandson on two different T.V channels asserted that his grand father willingly signed the documents whence the holy prophet(PBUH)came in his dream and told him to do so .Divine connections . The anchorocracy is complicating the issue by confusing people at their matinee hours .Big brother India is trying to infuse the ideological colors in these activities , in 2010 RAW sponsored a seminar to draw parallels between Kashmir and Baluchistan ,similarly the observer research foundation organized a baloch conference in Dehli ,IDSA an Indian internationally reputed think tank is at the fore front in providing the intellectual fodder to the baloch movement. Pakistani policy makers should take this is in its complete perspective and work out viable options leading a workable solution, rest assure the divine help will be forth coming .

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

Ties between the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and the United States have been severely strained since the killing of Osama bin Laden in a covert U.S. raid in Pakistan in May.

Both sides have attempted to play down the tensions through public statements, but the expulsion of American security personnel by Pakistan and the suspension of some U.S. military assistance have highlighted the distrust on both sides.

In an interview with VOA, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter acknowledges that the bin Laden raid was a setback for bilateral ties.

“I think in the wake of what happened on May 2, there was a great deal of consternation on the side of Pakistan because of the issue of the sovereignty, the questions that were raised,” Munter said. “There were questions that were raised in the United States because people did not know whether there was a role of Pakistani authorities in him being here. This was a source of great amount of unhappiness on both sides because there were questions that could not be answered.”

But after months of their tense relationship playing out in public, this week the Pakistani military made a rare public acknowledgement that U.S. agents provided key information that helped them plan the successful raid that captured senior al-Qaida planner, Younis al-Mauritani, along with two aides.

Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the authorities watched the group for months.

“We have been on alert we have been following the case since last October when it was surfaced that there is a group which will pose threat to the outside world, ” said Abbas. “We have been connecting dots and therefore when we found out that they are there in the suburbs of Quetta then we conducted this raid.”

The announcement is a sign the relationship is getting back on track, said Hassan Askari Rizvi, a former head of the political science department at Punjab University.

“This shows that the two agencies are now cooperating, and they need to do that because that is how they can produce results,” he said. “Hopefully there will be continued cooperation and they will be able to overcome the differences that had developed between the two authorities.”

The Pakistani military says al-Qaida leader al-Mauritani was mainly responsible for the network’s international operations and was suspected of planning attacks on important American economic interests, including oil pipelines.

Officials have identified the other two detainees as senior operatives Abdul Ghaffar al-Shami and Messara al-Shami.

Although the arrests may help ongoing negotiations between the two sides on how to conduct future joint-operations, professor Askari Rizvi points out that important disagreements remain.

“They still diverge on certain matters whether to take action in North Waziristan and also on the issue of presence of American intelligence and security personnel in Pakistan.”

Map of Pakistan, showing Waziristan region.

Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to mobilize its forces against militants of the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan border region. The militants are believed to be launching cross-border raids on U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani military authorities also have objected to the presence of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operatives gathering intelligence about militant groups inside Pakistan.

In Washington, U.S. officials have long maintained that elements within the Pakistani spy agency have links to Taliban and al-Qaida associates. The allegation is rejected by Pakistani authorities.

But over the past decade the Pakistani agency has dispelled those suspicions by arresting dozens of senior al-Qaida operatives, said former Pakistani intelligence brigadier Asad Munir.

“All those people have been caught by the ISI with the support of CIA, so they have been working together. They have to have good relations. If there is mistrust it is directly going to affect the war on terror and if they cannot work together the [Afghan] exit strategy of [President] Obama I don’t think that it will be materialized,” he said.

President Barack Obama plans to withdraw all American combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. U.S. officials admit they need Pakistan’s support to ensure there is a smooth transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces.

U.S. Ambassador Munter expects the two countries will be able to re-establish their anti-terror cooperation to where it was before the bin Laden operation.

“Even though there may be a broad question, conceptually, where are we going, and what is the relationship, the body of the relationship is there and will remain there and I am optimistic that we are going to make a lot of progress in the years to come,” Munter said.

U.S. intelligence officials have said in recent weeks that the death of al Qaida’s chief Osama bin Laden, followed by the killing or capture of other top lieutenants have dealt a serious blow to the terrorist network.

But they have given no indication of scaling back U.S. drone strikes, which remain highly controversial in Pakistan and a continuing source of tension between the two governments.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

For half a century, the global energy supply's center of gravity has been the Middle East. This fact has had self-evidently enormous implications for the world we live in -- and it's about to change.

By the 2020s, the capital of energy will likely have shifted back to the Western Hemisphere, where it was prior to the ascendancy of Middle Eastern megasuppliers such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the 1960s. The reasons for this shift are partly technological and partly political. Geologists have long known that the Americas are home to plentiful hydrocarbons trapped in hard-to-reach offshore deposits, on-land shale rock, oil sands, and heavy oil formations. The U.S. endowment of unconventional oil is more than 2 trillion barrels, with another 2.4 trillion in Canada and 2 trillion-plus in South America -- compared with conventional Middle Eastern and North African oil resources of 1.2 trillion. The problem was always how to unlock them economically.

But since the early 2000s, the energy industry has largely solved that problem. With the help of horizontal drilling and other innovations, shale gas production in the United States has skyrocketed from virtually nothing to 15 to 20 percent of the U.S. natural gas supply in less than a decade. By 2040, it could account for more than half of it. This tremendous change in volume has turned the conversation in the U.S. natural gas industry on its head; where Americans once fretted about meeting the country's natural gas needs, they now worry about finding potential buyers for the country's surplus.

Meanwhile, onshore oil production in the United States, condemned to predictions of inexorable decline by analysts for two decades, is about to stage an unexpected comeback. Oil production from shale rock, a technically complex process of squeezing hydrocarbons from sedimentary deposits, is just beginning. But analysts are predicting production of as much as 1.5 million barrels a day in the next few years from resources beneath the Great Plains and Texas alone -- the equivalent of 8 percent of current U.S. oil consumption. The development raises the question of what else the U.S. energy industry might accomplish if prices remain high and technology continues to advance. Rising recovery rates from old wells, for example, could also stem previous declines. On top of all this, analysts expect an additional 1 to 2 million barrels a day from the Gulf of Mexico now that drilling is resuming. Peak oil? Not anytime soon.

The picture elsewhere in the Americas is similarly promising. Brazil is believed to have the capacity to pump 2 million barrels a day from "pre-salt" deepwater resources, deposits of crude found more than a mile below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean that until the last couple of years were technologically inaccessible. Similar gains are to be had in Canadian oil sands, where petroleum is extracted from tarry sediment in open pits. And production of perhaps 3 million to 7 million barrels a day more is possible if U.S. in situ heavy oil, or kerogen, can be produced commercially, a process that involves heating rock to allow the oil contained within it to be pumped out in a liquid form. There is no question that such developments face environmental hurdles. But industry is starting to see that it must find ways to get over them, investing in nontoxic drilling fluids, less-invasive hydraulic-fracturing techniques, and new water-recycling processes, among other technologies, in hopes of shrinking the environmental impact of drilling. And like the U.S. oil industry, oil-thirsty China has also recognized the energy potential of the Americas, investing billions in Canada, the United States, and Latin America.

The revolution-swept Middle East and North Africa, meanwhile, will soon be facing up to an inconvenient truth about their own fossil-fuel legacy: Changes of government in the region have historically led to long and steep declines in oil production. Libya's oil output has never recovered to the 3.5 million barrels a day it was producing when Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi overthrew King Idris in 1969; instead it has been stuck at under 2 million barrels a day for three decades and is now close to zero. Iran produced more than 6 million barrels a day in the times of the shah, but saw oil production fall precipitously below 2 million barrels a day in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It failed to recover significantly during the 1980s and has only crept back to 4 million in recent years. Iraq's production has also suffered during its many years of turmoil and now sits at 2.7 million barrels a day, lower than the 3.5 million it produced before Saddam Hussein came to power.

The Arab Spring stands to complicate matters even further: A 1979-style disruption in Middle Eastern oil exports is hardly out of the question, nor are work stoppages or strikes by oil workers caught up in the region's political zeitgeist. All in all, upwards of 21 million barrels a day of Arab oil production are at stake -- about a quarter of global demand. The boom in the Americas, meanwhile, should be food for thought for the Middle East's remaining autocrats: It means they may not be able to count on ever-rising oil prices to calm restive populations.

This hydrocarbon-driven reordering of geopolitics is already taking place. The petropower of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela has faltered on the back of plentiful American natural gas supply: A surplus of resources in the Americas is sending other foreign suppliers scrambling to line up buyers in Europe and Asia, making it more difficult for such exporters to assert themselves via heavy-handed energy "diplomacy." The U.S. energy industry may also be able to provide the technical assistance necessary for Europe and China to tap unconventional resources of their own, scuttling their need to kowtow to Moscow or the Persian Gulf. So watch this space: America may be back in the energy leadership saddle again.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

The European crisis is no longer a European crisis. It has morphed into something that could easily engulf the global economy. Because of its size, because it involves governments and not just banks, and because it comes at a moment of great weakness, this crisis is more dangerous than the one posed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy three years ago this week.

The real problem is Italy, not Greece. Greece is a nano-state, representing 2 percent of the European Union’s gross domestic product. Italy is a G-7 country. Italy’s debt is 1.9 trillion euros, or 120 percent of its economy and greater than the debts of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece combined. Italy’s bonds are trading at 4 percent more than those of Germany, unprecedented in the euro’s history and unsustainable. Italy is too big to fail but might also be too big to bail.
Some have called for the creation of “euro bonds,” which would be a way for Germany to guarantee the debt of Italy, Spain, Greece and other troubled countries. On paper, it is an elegant solution. But it will never happen. Consider: The German people and government are adamantly opposed. Germany’s high court ruled that it is probably unconstitutional. The minute such bonds are floated, Italy, Greece and the others would lose all incentive to make painful reforms; they could borrow all the money they need at German-subsidized rates, so why go through the dreary work of restructuring? The Germans know this — hence their opposition.

Similarly, the idea of coordinating taxation and expenditures from Brussels looks good on paper but will never happen. Governments will never give away core functions such as taxation. There is widespread opposition to ceding these powers to a European bureaucracy, and the courts of many countries would probably rule it a constitutional violation. Even if these obstacles could be overcome, it would take a decade to determine whether a tighter fiscal union was actually happening. Markets need to be reassured now.

Facing a similar crisis in 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson talked about the need for a bazooka, a weapon large enough to scare markets into submission. Europe doesn’t have one. Even Germany — which has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 83 percent — can’t credibly bail out Italy and Spain. Together they need to roll over 600 billion euros of debt before the end of next year. Who has that kind of money?

Today, $10 trillion of foreign exchange reserves are sitting around across the globe. That is the only pile of money large enough from which a bazooka could be fashioned. The International Monetary Fund could go to the leading holders of such reserves — China, Japan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia — and ask for a $750 billion line of credit. The IMF would then extend that credit to Italy and Spain but insist on closely monitoring economic reforms, granting funds only as restructuring occurs. That credit line would more than cover the borrowing costs of both countries for two years. The IMF terms would ensure that Italy and Spain remained under pressure to reform and set up conditions for growth.

What’s in it for the Chinese, who would have to devote at least half the funds and who have already politely demurred when approached by the Italians? China invests its foreign exchange reserves looking for liquidity, security and decent returns. It isn’t trying to save the world. Premier Wen Jiabao made slightly encouraging noises this week, hinting that he would increase bond purchases and asking in return for greater market access to Europe. That’s classic Chinese diplomacy: cautious, incremental and narrowly focused on its interests.

The time has come for China to adopt a broader concept of its interests and become a “responsible stakeholder” in the global system. The European crisis will quickly morph into a global one, possibly a second global recession. And a second recession would be worse because governments no longer have any monetary or fiscal tools. China would lose greatly in such a scenario because its consumers in Europe and America would stop spending.

Of course, China would have to get something in return for its generosity. This could be the spur to giving China a much larger say at the IMF. In fact, it might be necessary to make clear that Christine Lagarde would be the last non-Chinese head of the organization.

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors. After World War I, European nations were battered by debts, and Germany was battered by reparation payments. The only country that could provide credit was the United States. For America, providing desperately needed cash to Europe was its entry into the councils of power, a process that ultimately brought a powerful new player inside the global tent. Today’s crisis is China’s opportunity to become a “responsible stakeholder.”

comments@fareedzakaria.com
Source: Washington Post

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

By mid-2008, the local branches of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had forced out Pakistani security forces and taken power in large portions of Mohmand and Bajaur, the northernmost of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). For three years the militant group exercised open territorial control, levying taxes and administering its own brand of justice in the mountainous areas along the Afghan border. Pakistani military operations aimed at destroying the TTP insurgency came in regular cycles, yet each declaration of success was followed by the swift resurgence of militant power. Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled the violence to reside in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps or with family members elsewhere in Pakistan.

Recently, however, the tide in Mohmand and Bajaur has turned decisively in the Pakistani military's favor. For the first time in four years, militants have lost the territory they once openly controlled. Whether the tide turns back, or whether these tribal areas even matter given the larger challenges Pakistan faces, is another question entirely.

Information from the FATA is scarce, as few independent reporters are fearless enough to venture into the area, and their number is dwindling. Over coffee in Islamabad last February, Asia Times Online's Syed Saleem Shahzad told me, "journalist access in the tribal areas is difficult now, you need strong contacts with the government, the locals, and also with the militants." Tragically, three months later Shahzad's body was found dumped in a canal southeast of the capital. Many blame the Pakistani security services for his death, and interpret his killing as intended to intimidate the Pakistani media.

Given that the military's public relations wing possesses a near-monopoly on information coming out of the FATA, it is no wonder that recent declarations of victory over the TTP in Mohmand and Bajaur have gone largely unnoticed. Military announcements now fall on deaf ears, as U.S. policymakers, not to mention the Pakistani public, have become jaded by earlier declarations of success that later proved meaningless. In this information vacuum the best indicator that security has truly improved is the sustained return of IDPs to their homes.

In June 2011, the Pakistani government declared the entirety of Bajaur safe for IDP return, with the sole exception being Loi Sam, a market town flattened by Pakistani airstrikes in 2008. Jalozai camp near Peshawar has been emptied of tens of thousands of IDPs, many of them families who fled Bajaur two or three years prior and are only now returning home. Additionally, of the two camps established to house Mohmand IDPs, Danish Kol is empty and Nahakki camp is nearly so. While the government has attempted to coerce IDPs to return to their home areas in the past, this has had only limited results, as IDPs have shown they are more than willing to flee insecure areas once again if the security problems have not been resolved. In this context, it is remarkable that IDPs have stayed put since their return to Mohmand and Bajaur earlier in the year.

The paramilitary Frontier Corps, backed by the army, has reestablished its presence in troubled hotspots along the border, including the Chamarkand, Nawagai, and Mamund areas of Bajaur, and the Lakaro, Khwezai and Bezai areas of Mohmand. Local tribal militias, referred to as "Peace Committees" or lashkars, receive nominal government support to police their villages, supplementing the established Khassadar and paramilitary forces whose membership is culled from the local populations. The TTP no longer openly patrols the roads and villages, replaced instead by government checkpoints.

Though they no longer control territory in the area, the insurgency has by no means vanished. Some fighters have chosen to lay low, putting down their weapons and returning to agrarian life, at least for now. Others, including the militant leadership, have fled across the border into the insecure Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Just as North and South Waziristan have served as a safe haven for Afghanistan-focused militants such as the Haqqani Network, the mountainous borderlands of Eastern Afghanistan are now functioning as safe havens for militants expelled from North FATA by the Pakistani state.

Lack of territory inside Pakistan has not prevented the Bajaur and Mohmand TTP from continuing their campaigns of terror and intimidation, however. Pro-government tribal leaders have been assassinated, Frontier Corps checkposts attacked in cross-border raids, and most recently 30 teenagers were kidnapped in the Mamund area of Bajaur. Faqir Mohammed, the leader of the Bajaur TTP, has reestablished an illegal radio station and is again broadcasting propaganda along the border. Local militants who agreed to cease attacks against the state in return for amnesty could easily mobilize again if the TTP appears poised to retake control of the borderlands.

Meanwhile, sectarian violence in the nearby tribal area of Kurram has resisted both the efforts of Afghan militant leaders and the Pakistani government for mediation - with the Shi'a Pashtuns stuck in the area's major city, Parachinar, still deeply suspicious of the true intentions of both would-be peacebrokers. Zones of Shi'a and Sunni control have hardened, as the TTP and other sectarian militant groups such as Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan (and its subsidiary Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) have proved unwavering in their attacks on Shi'a traveling along the main road through Lower Kurram. Pakistani military operations began in July of this year in Central Kurram, a mountainous Sunni-dominated region along the Afghan border long ignored by the state. Tens of thousands of IDPs have fled the area. Though the military declared the operations a success in mid-August, only a small minority of IDPs have since begun to return home, and questions remain about the value of staging operations in Central Kurram, rather than other parts of the agency.

Militants in other parts of FATA also remain strong. In much of Khyber, armed groups such as Lashkar-e-Islam, Ansar-ul-Islam, and the TTP view each other, rather than the government, as their main competition for power. An uneasy truce between Afghanistan-focused militants and the Frontier Corps persists in North Waziristan, even as sporadic fighting between the TTP and the state continues in South Waziristan. In addition, other challenges increasingly overshadow the conflict in FATA, including concerns about tensions with India, extremist infiltration of the armed forces, and escalating confessional violence in Karachi.

Sustaining the state's victory in Mohmand and Bajaur will depend on its ability to provide services and especially security to the returning IDPs. The years-long conflict between the military and insurgents has devastated both the traditional civilian authorities and the tribal leadership of FATA. The military has used the ongoing conflict as a justification for blocking the implementation of long overdue political reforms meant to start incorporating the tribal areas into the mainstream of Pakistani politics and law. Whether the government can maintain security and normalize life in Mohmand and Bajaur will be a crucial test of its ability to succeed in the rest of the tribal areas.

Sean Mann is currently in the Masters of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University. He speaks Pashto, and spent the previous year conducting research on the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins