Tag: pakistan

While U.S. officials prefer to focus on low-level fighters while hoping that an additional 30,000 troops can pummel the Taliban into a weaker negotiating position, President Karzai's government has stressed the need to reach out to the Islamist movement's leadership, the Washington Post reports. "It's questionable why the United States just wants to reintegrate the low level of the Taliban and not the leadership," said Karzai's policy chief. "That's something they are concerned about, but from the Afghan side, we are trying to include everyone in negotiations." In public statements, the Taliban has predicated any negotiation on the departure of foreign troops.

The Fundraising Congress What vets need from the prez How to Get Our Democracy Back The death penalty -- it's unworkable To win Afghan war, isolate the...

Robert Scheer writes that if Glass Steagal worked for 60 years, it probably ain't broken. A book on evolution to help kids get through the confusion caused by the flat Earthers. Where's all that damn oil? is the quetion at Tomgram. Vets urge close of Gitmo at Huff Post, Objectivity is not the Holy Grail at Truthdig and the sad news of our losses in Pakistan in today's picks.

Yes Magazine's Brooke Jarvis brings tells an entertaining and timely story of Murray Hill Inc, the first corporation to run for political office; proving, I suppose, that some Corps retain a sense of the absurd. Haiti's thoroughly inept government is taking increasing fire from her beleaguered citizens and Jim Hightower is back firing away at Corporate personhood in today's picks.

So it was, undoubtedly, with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, who accompanied Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as he stumbled through a challenge-filled, error-prone two-day trip to Pakistan. Gates must have felt a little like a punching bag by the time he boarded his plane for home having, as Juan Cole pointed out, managed to signal “that the U.S. is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated… and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it. In baseball terms, Gates struck out.”

These larger groups are partially divided as Northern Pashtun, Southern Pashtun, Northern Tajik, Western Tajik, Southwestern Tajik, etc., etc, and the list goes on. Further, the many mini-tribes each have their own, independent tribal leaders, tribal laws to fit their local conditions, and a fierce determination to protect their real or imagined boundaries and their real or imagined ability to traverse wherever they wish, whenever they wish.

Shades of Watergate in Louisiana, from Informed Comment, Whats this Pelican stuff? at TPM, America's fictional Democracy, from Chris Hedges, Big Surprise, another lie from the CIA, and Garrison Keillor says "let the uninsured die?" These and other stories in today's picks.

Poverty, misery, dictators, anarchy, Soviets, Mujaheedin, Intelligence Agencies, Taliban, Warlords, and now NATO, a time line, as lengthy as my age, 50 years, was before my eyes, I could hardly recall a moment when Afghanistan was smiling.

Jim Hightower takes on the Supremes' prostitution to corporate plutocracy, Glen Greenwald wants to know whats so sacred about the defense budget, Blackwater (Xe) mercenaries still in the news, Terrible numbers from Haiti, and questions about Afghanistan and Pakistan in todays picks.

Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review -- a soon-to-be-released four-year outline of Department of Defense strategies, capabilities, and priorities to fight current wars and counter future threats -- is already known to reflect this focus

The Greatest Myth: The 9/11 Commission offered insight into the systemic problems of the CIA and the intelligence community. The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 solved the problems that had been exposed by the 9/11 Commission by creating a director of national intelligence, the so-called intelligence tsar. In fact, the 9/11 Commission failed to use the powers it had been given to explore the reasons for the 9/11 intelligence failure.

Hamid Karzai intends to launch the reconciliation and reintegration plan at the start of next week's London conference on Afghanistan, The Afghan president has also pledged to hold a new peace conference, a loya jirga, in the spring, restating a standing invitation toTaliban insurgents ready to swear an oath to the country's constitution.

Jeff Gates outlines how Israel, using game theory, has manipulated America, inflicting damage no enemy could, while acting as our closest ally. Through the careful application of complex game theory, terrorist acts have been planned based on superbly crafted plans meant to use public fear, outrage and the predictability of America to serve the interests of Israel while bringing about the systematic downfall of the United States.

Panetta admits in his own words, “In the past year we have done exceptionally heavy damage to al Qaeda. That’s why the extremists hit back.” Got that? It is extremism for al Qaeda to hit back but it is not extremism for the CIA to launch its drone aerial rocket strikes against al Qaeda---, strikes that a protesting Pakistan government has urged the U.S. halt as they are killing innocent civilians, in aggregate probably in the hundreds.

A declaration adopted at the Jirga said that the US after facing a clear defeat in Afghanistan, was targeting the tribal areas in revenge and the imprudent Pakistani rulers were victim of a conspiracy to chop off this sword arm of Pakistan only to please Washington. History was witness that the Tribal people had never accepted foreign subjugation and whoever dared to challenge them suffered a humiliating defeat and the tribal area proved to be the graveyard of the invader, the declaration said.

The Manipulation of U.S. General Colin Powell and Pakistani Cricket Star Imran Khan  By Jeff Gates STAFF WRITER/Editor Mass media and popular culture are powerful tools of...

A compelling series of aerial photographs from Haiti leads off today's "Editor's Picks." The  damage to "things," to buildings and infrastructure is incredible, the...

By Sherwood Ross As President Obama steps up the war that is inflaming ever wider sectors of the Middle East, USA continues its rapid slide...

To assassinate an American president with impunity requires pre-staging. For Israel to succeed would require an Evil Doer on whom the deed could plausibly be blamed. The emerging fact patterns suggest that such pre-staging is well underway and that a Pakistani could be the perceived culprit. The recent history of Evil Doer branding offers insight into what to expect.

The Israel/India Alliance Below is the fourth installment in a 5-part series on Pakistan by Jeff Gates, author of Guilt By Association. In April 2009, Tel...

Were the seven CIA employees killed in the recent terror attack at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan really CIA? Sources now tell us that some were Blackwater operatives, not CIA at all. Is the CIA and Blackwater one in the same? Are either one or both working for the United States or has the disease of privatization created a culture of greed and incompetence that has left the United States vulnerable and defenseless? Are we simply "out of our depth" in Afghanistan?

NO ENEMY, NO NEGOTIATIONS ONLY THE DEAD ARE REAL By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor When General Petraeus asked for the "surge" in Iraq, he also opened...

PACKED UP AND TOOK THEIR SHOW "ON THE ROAD" "AL QAEDA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING" By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Our intelligence estimates that Al Qaeda...

MEDIA REPORTING IN AMERICA:  FANTASY MEETS SUBVERSION By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Everyone in America agrees that getting honest and accurate news is impossible. ...