What is the truth behind Islamic Caliphate and Western Posturing!

What is the truth behind Islamic Caliphate and Western Posturing!

 

Media, especially corporate and government controlled in the West, whose lies have exposed them as nothing but media pimps and whores, has been full of mostly misleading, diversionary fables about Islamic State /ISIS?ISL, except that people in Western Asia, Shias or Sunnis are paying a very heavy price because of overt and covert interference by many Western governments controlled by military industry complex, energy and other corporate sectors and their puppets in the Gulf fattened on unearned oil riches, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar .The worst situation is for ancient historic minorities like Yedizis ( I visited a home in south-east Turkey ) ,Christians and other minorities. Except for the area that is now occupied by Islamic caliphate in the desert between Euphrates and Tigris, I have a fair idea of the topography, especially all along the border of Turkey with Syria, right up to north Iraq.

 

I am enclosing below few very good articles which I think will help the reader to get some clear idea about the truth behind the fog created by Western media and its counterparts elsewhere.

 

Vijay Prashad now stationed in Beirut, which is a good listening post has written a fine piece for Hindu, except that he is a leftist. For anyone to believe that democracy can come around any time soon in Muslim states of the Middle East believes in mirages. Look at situation in Turkey, the ruling party is becoming more and more authoritarian and Islamist and deeply involved in support of Islamic caliphate, for which sooner or later it will pay very heavy price. Look at Egypt or nearer home in Pakistan.

 

During late Rajeev Gandhi's visit to Tehran in 1990, just a little before the U.S.-led coalition deadline of 15 January ,1991 to expel Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait, he asked Iran's wily President  Rafsanjani. "Who will replace Saddam Hussein?" Rafsanjani's reply, "Saddam Hussein" ie only a military ruler or an authoritarian regime can keep the states created by the WWI victors England and France in control and peace. Because of more terrible weapons of war and communications, it will take quite some time for the suffering masses in West Asia to have a reasonable peace and survival chances.

 

The warmongers in the West, led by Obama after a MAD like situation in Syria last year are now in Ukraine creating a situation like 1962 crisis over Soviet missiles in Cuba. By accident or otherwise a Holocaust or even an Armageddon cannot be ruled out. Only patience and control shown by Vladimir Putin, with tacit support from China and many countries of Asia and elsewhere has arrested inching towards almost a mutual assured destruction.

 

At the end is an article about money role of Saudi Arabia and Tiny Qatar in financing ISIS ,in fact all terror outfits ,in case of Riyadh beginning with Mujahaddin in Afghanistan, to Al Qaeda, Taleban and you name it.

 

These are important articles .Keep them for ready reference. For a map of the region click

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-pendulum-of-the-islamic-state/article6384028.ece

K.Gajendra Singh 7 September, 2014. 

 

The pendulum of the Islamic State

VIJAY PRASHAD HINDU 6914 Oped

 

Only if the social conditions that produced the IS — the inequality and the despair — are altered could it be truly vanquished

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-pendulum-of-the-islamic-state/article6384028.ece

U.S. air strikes halted the columns of Islamic State (IS). Toyota trucks, armoured personnel carriers and howitzers lay flattened on their march toward the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil. Bombardment just north of Baghdad sent the IS fighters back toward the river Tigris. It allowed the Iraqi Army and Shiite militias (Badr and Salaam Brigades) to reclaim Amerli, a largely Shia town. What they did not do was to destroy or even degrade the legions of the IS.

The IS retaliation for these air strikes came in two brutal taped executions of U.S. journalists — first James Foley and then Steven Sotloff. The London-accented IS militant announced to U.S. President Barack Obama, "As your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people. We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone." Beyond these murders, and more that may follow, it is unlikely that the IS can do any more damage to the U.S. directly.

Swinging into Syria

Like a pendulum, the fighters of the IS swung into Syria. They had no intention to face the U.S. bombers. Instead, their columns rushed through the Great Syrian Desert past their "capital" of Raqqa, across the River Euphrates, to take the Tabqa airbase. A fierce gunfight ended with the retreat of the Syrian government troops. Close to 400 IS fighters died in this battle (they are estimated to have at least 20,000 men in arms). In a grotesque scene, the IS forced marched 150 government troops — young men stripped to their underwear — into the desert and shot them. Based on this massacre and another near Tikrit (Iraq) in June, the United Nations has now accused the IS of crimes against humanity.

Capture of the Tabqa base at the crossroads of northern Syria is significant for many reasons. It had been the eyes and ears of the Syrian regime for the northern belt that includes most of the Turkish border. It is across this border that many of the jihadis have been trafficked from around the planet to join the IS — many crossed over between Kilis and A'zaz (where Sotloff had been abducted). Taking Tabqa allowed the IS control of the roads that lead directly to Aleppo and to Hama. Intense fighting along the belt that links Mhardeh and Houla suggests that IS and its allies (including its fractious cousin, Jabhat al-Nusra) have the ability to threaten the western coastal towns of Tartous and Latakia. The Syrian Army was able to block an al-Nusra and IS advance toward the largely Christian town of Mhardeh. Tension remains high as morale in the IS soars.

On the Mediterranean coast, both Lebanon and Israel are threatened as the pendulum of the IS moves toward them. IS beheaded one of the Lebanese soldiers it had captured last month in the Beka'a Valley, and threatened to execute the nine other soldiers that it holds captive. It did not help him that the Lebanese soldier, Ali al-Sayyed, is a Sunni Muslim. Nor did it help Syrian journalist Bassam Raies, also executed by the IS (a death ignored by the world media). Meanwhile, Jabhat al-Nusra took the Quneitra crossing that straddles the disputed Golan Heights claimed by Syria and Israel. Al-Nusra captured 44 Fijian U.N. peacekeepers, while 40 Filipino U.N. peacekeepers escaped with the help of both Syrian and Israeli air cover. Al-Nusra has ambitions to secure this region as a launch pad to Damascus, as the IS makes its move from the northern roadways. Syria's 90th Brigade and 7th Division sit along the road near Khan Arnabeh, blocking access to Damascus. Things are quiet for now, but perhaps not for long.

Contradictions

Discomfort is palpable in the regional capitals. U.S. air strikes cannot destroy IS. The canny IS prefers to swing across the vast territory that it threatens. A proper ground assault against IS cannot come because of the contradictions of U.S. policy in the region. In Iraq, U.S. air power did not only deliver the advantage to the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, but also to the Turkish and Syrian Kurdish fighters (the YPG and the PKK). Turkey and the U.S. see the PKK as a terrorist organisation, although it and its Syrian ally the YPG have been fierce in their defence of what they called Western Kurdistan (Rojava or north-eastern Syria). The Shiite militias of Iraq (Badr and Salaam Brigades as well as the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq) and the Shiite militia of Lebanon (Hezbollah) have also been unyielding against the IS — again the U.S. and the Europeans claim Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and they hold the Badr Brigades, trained by Iran, at arm's length.

Syrian armed power, degraded by its long civil war and by defections to the Free Syrian Army, is still strong enough to seriously damage the long-term prospects of the IS. But Syria's regime has restricted its Army to defend its main corridor between Damascus and the coastline. It will not direct its armies to the north. To do so would leave it vulnerable to the rebels' Southern Front, which continues to be egged on by the West to seize Damascus. The U.S. trains Syrian rebels in the deserts of eastern Jordan. Full Syrian participation against the IS will not happen if the threat to Damascus remains intact. Major U.S. allies in the region, such as Turkey and Jordan also seem in two minds. Jordan has indicated to the U.S. that it will defend its borders, but it does not want to enter the conflict. The King's advisers fear that al-Nusra and the IS have cells amongst the close to a million Syrian refugees in the country, and amongst Jordan's home-grown radicals. Turkey's economy has taken a hit from the emergence of IS – markets in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria are no longer easily accessible. Legitimate trade has been eclipsed by smugglers, including those who traffic jihadis and journalists as well as IS- delivered oil from Syria's Omar oilfields. Despite threats to Turkey, its new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutog˘lu can only bring himself to describe the IS as "a radical organisation with a terrorist-like structure." Options for Jordan and Turkey remain limited, mainly by their commitments to the overthrow of Assad.

Responsibility for the emergence of the IS vests with a number of key actors. The United States' reckless war on Iraq created the reservoir for jihadis, as money from the Gulf Arabs came to sustain them in an emerging sectarian clash against an ascendant Iran. The narrow and suffocating Assad and al-Maliki regimes – which alienated large sections of Sunnis – propelled the disenfranchised to reckless rebellion. In 2007, the cartoonist Ali Ferzat said of the process called the Damascus Spring (2005), "either reform or le deluge [the flood]." It was the flood. Alienated people who measure their alienation in sectarian terms (Sunni) cannot be only defeated in the battlefield. Political reforms need to be on the cards. So too must an alternative to the economic agenda pursued in both Iraq and Syria since the mid-2000s. Under U.S. pressure, the Assad and al-Maliki governments pursued neo-liberal policies that increased inequality and despair. Absent a politics of class, the platforms against neo-liberal corruption took on a harsh sectarian cast. The IS fed on that alienation for its own diabolical agenda. It can be halted by air strikes and degraded by ground warfare. But only if the social conditions that produced the IS — the inequality and the despair — are altered could it be truly vanquished.

(Vijay Prashad is the author of The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (LeftWord, 2013).)

 

The Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-declared leader of Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria proclaims to the whole world his next target is none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin,(below)

 

THE ROVING EYE
Will NATO liberate Jihadistan?
By Pepe Escobar Asia Times 5914

 

Drive your cart and your plow
Over the bones of the dead … 
- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-050914.html

 

Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-declared leader of Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, really sports a mean PR vein. When the show seemed scheduled for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to save Ukraine and Western Civilization - at least rhetorically - from that Evil Empire remixed, Russia, The Caliph, accessing his expensive watch wisdom, intervened with - what else - yet another "off with their heads" special. 

Eyebrows were properly raised until the United States' intel alphabet soup solemnly concluded that Islamic State (IS) really beheaded yet another American journalist on video (US President Barack Obama: "An horrific act of violence"). 

And then, out of the blue, The Caliph doubled down, proclaiming to the whole world his next target is none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Was he channeling the recently ostracized Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush? 

In thesis, everything would be settled. The Caliph becomes a contractor to NATO (well, he's been on to it, sort of). The Caliph beheads Putin. The Caliph liberates Chechnya - fast; not the usual, deeply embarrassing NATO quagmire in Afghanistan. The Caliph, on a roll, attacks the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The Caliph becomes NATO's shadow secretary-general. And Obama finally stops complaining that his calls to Putin always end up on voicemail. 

Ah, if geopolitics was as simple as a Marvel Comics blockbuster. 

Instead, The Caliph should know - even as he is largely a Made-in-the-West product, with substantial input from Gulf Cooperation Council petrodollar cash - that NATO never promised him a rose garden. 

So, predictably, those ungrateful Obama and David Cameron, the British Prime Minister - oh yes, because the "special relationship" is all that matters in NATO, the others are mere extras - have vowed to go after him with a broad (well, not that broad) "coalition of the willing" with the usual GCC suspects plus Turkey and Jordan, bombing Iraqi Kurdistan, parts of Sunni Iraq and even Syria. 

After all, Syrian President "Bashar al-Assad must go", rather "Assad brutality" in Cameron's formulation, is the real culprit for The Caliph's actions. 

And all in the name of the Enduring Freedom Forever-style Global War on Terror. 

Now get me that Slavic Caliph NATO's outgoing secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen was somehow rattled. After all, this was supposed to be the "crucial moment", at the NATO summit in Wales, when NATO would be at its Cold War 2.0 best, rescuing "the allies", all 28 of them, from the dark gloom of insecurity. 

One just had to look at the replica of a glorious Eurofighter Typhoon deployed in front of the NATO summit hotel in the southern Welsh town of Newport. 

To round it all off, that evil Slavic Caliph, Vlad Putin himself, designed a seven-point peace plan to solve the Ukrainian quagmire - just as Kiev's appalling army has been reduced to strogonoff by the federalists and/or separatists in the Donbass. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - who until virtually yesterday was screaming "Invasion!" at the top of his lungs - breathed long sighs of relief. And as an aside, he disclosed Kiev was receiving high-precision weapons from an unnamed country that could only be the US, the UK or Poland. 

The whole thing posed a problem, though. What is NATO to defend Western Civilization from when all that threat embodied by "Russian aggression" dissolves into a road map to peace? 

No wonder the 60 heads of state and government with their Ministers of Defense and Foreign Relations who performed a soft invasion/breaching of the "ring of steel" protecting Newport from protesting hordes were also somehow dazed an confused. 

Over 11 years after Shock and Awe, we are still living in a Rumsfeldian world. It was the former Pentagon head David Rumsfeld under George "Dubya" Bush who conceptualized "Old Europe" and "New Europe". "Old" were Venusian sissies; "New" were vigorous Martians. 

"New" totally supported Shock and Awe, and the subsequent invasion/occupation of Iraq. Now they support, in fact beg, for NATO to stare down Russia. 

"Old", for its part, was trying at least to save a negotiating space with Putin. And in the end dear prudence, especially by Berlin, was rewarded with the Putin peace plan. 

Just in case, not to rattle the Empire of Chaos too much, Paris announced it won't deliver the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier battleships to Moscow according to schedule. And of course NATO strongly condemned Russia on Ukraine, and the European Union followed up with yet more sanctions. 

As for Fogh of War, predictably, he kept juggling his "Mars Attacks!" rhetoric (see Asia Times Online, September 3, 2014). It was all Moscow's fault. NATO is nothing but an innocent force of appeasement - powerful and solid. At the same time, NATO would not be foolish to start depicting Russia as an enemy outright. 

So, as Asia Times Online reported, NATO at best will help train Kiev's forces; the Donbass performance showed they badly need it. But there will be no Ukraine "integration" - for all the hysteria deployed by Kiev and well as Poland and the Baltic states calling for permanent bases. The new element will be the remixed NATO Response Force (NRF) which, by the way, was never used before. 

NRF even comes with a catchy slogan: "Travel light and strike hard". An 800-strong battalion will be able to strike in two days, and a 5,000-strong brigade between five and seven days. Well, by those "travel light" standards it would hardly be enough to prevent The Caliph from annexing larger parts of Jihadistan with his gleaming white Toyota combo. As for "strike hard", ask Pashtuns in the Hindu Kush for an informed opinion. 

So Wales yielded NRF; permanent "rotation" and permanent forward bases to "protect" Central and Eastern Europe; and everybody shelling out more cash (no less than 2% of their GDP each, for all 28 members, from here to 2025). All this in the middle of the third European recession in five years. 

Now compare the astonishing combined NATO military budget of US$900 billion (75% of all expenses monopolized by the US) with only $80 billion for Russia. Yet Moscow is the "threat". 

Needless to add, even under so much sound and fury, Wales did not yield NATO sitting on a Freudian divan - analyzing in an endless monologue its abject failure in both Afghanistan and Libya. 

In Afghanistan, the Taliban basically run rings around NATO's bases and "strike hard" movements, demoralizing them to oblivion. That was NATO in GWOT mode. 

And in Libya, NATO created a failed state ravaged by militias and called it "peace". That was NATO in "Responsibility To Protect" mode. 

NATO liberating Jihadistan? The Pentagon couldn't care less. The Pentagon wants eternal GWOT. US Think Tankland is ecstatic at NATO finding a "renewed purpose" and its long-term survival now assured by a "unifying threat". Translation: Russia. 

So The Caliph is not exactly quaking in his Made-in-USA desert boots. He's even dreaming of taking on the Slavic Caliph himself. How come Marvel Comics never thought about that? 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

(Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) 

 

NATO's Wales Summit and Action against ISIS !

 

What is Turkey's position on Islamic Caliphate, which has been a gate way for Jihadists from the West and elsewhere including Sarin gas for use by Jihadists in Syria in 2013 and anti-Syrian actions from 2012 !

 
Since  June 11, 49 Turkish citizens of its Consulate in Iraq have been kept as hostages at the hands of ISIL, Turkey's hands are tied in committing itself actively or passively to the coalition. Turkey will unlikely mobilize its military against ISIL and will hesitate from opening its military bases and facilities, as well as its airspaces to members of the coalition.

 

Below is an excellent piece by a Turkish journalist Verda Ozer on NATO's coalition of unwilling to take action against Islamic caliphate .Since the Iraqi resistance broke the American army , as admitted  in 2006 by member of US  Congress Committee late decorated Marine Col John Murtha , Washington has no appetite to put GIs on ground in Middle East. Pentagon is opposed to ground troops intervention by USA.

 

VERDA ÖZER

verdaozer@gmail.com

Coalition of the unwilling

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/coalition-of-the-unwilling.aspx?pageID=449&nID=71348&NewsCatID=466

6 Sept 2014 .

 

"Choose your enemies carefully, but be less picky about your allies." This was the title of a piece published by the Financial Times three days ago, which reflects exactly where we all stand today.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levent (ISIL), who now refer to themselves as the Islamic State, remind us all of al-Qaeda terror. Yet, still, the formation of a "coalition of the willing" seems to be a long way off. 

Such a coalition was formed and led by the United States in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The "willing" countries were the ones who supported the military invasion of Iraq and their number had reached 49 by 2003.

It is just the opposite today. There is no one willing at all. Hence, there no real coalition. The result of the two-day NATO summit in Wales that ended on Sept. 5 proved this. It was announced that a "core coalition" of 10 countries, including only one neighbor of Iraq, Turkey, has been formed. However, its objective was declared as "shoring up those who are fighting against ISIL." Hence, it should be named a "support group" rather than a "coalition."

Building up a regional coalition seems to be the only strategy the U.S. has in hand. It was first the chairman of the Chief of Staff, Martin Dempsey, who brought that forward: "Only a broad, long-standing and organized regional coalition composed of Muslim countries can defeat ISIS." He also specified these countries: "I believe that our key allies in the region – Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – will join us in quashing it."

President Barack Obama joined this rhetoric during his visit to Estonia just before theNATO summit, which took place this Thursday and Friday in Wales. During the press conference in Tallinn, he said the main aim of the summit would be to build up a regional coalition and to develop a regional strategy. 

The same message dominated his joint editorial with British Prime Minister David Cameron, which was published in the British daily The Times the very same day. To the same end, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have just started their trip to the Middle East, which will include a visit to Turkey.

There are two reasons behind this: Washington thinks that ISIL is a Sunni problem and therefore its solution lies with the Sunnis. In other words, the U.S. aims to withdraw its support for both the local Sunnis and the Sunni countries in the region. Second, the West has taken enough lessons from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and is trying to put the military load of the current conflict with ISIL onto regional powers. Cameron stated this explicitly in Wales: "Our aim is to help countries which are directly threatened by ISIL in their fight on the ground."

However, the emergence of such a coalition is out of sight at the moment. First of all, the U.S. itself doesn't have a concrete strategy yet. Hence its capacity to convince the regional powers is very limited. Furthermore, the regional powers are afraid of ISIL, especially Turkey, which has citizens that are currently being held hostage by it. Moreover, the Gulf countries believe that attacking ISIL in Syria would only strengthen Bashar al-Assad. These countries also have close links with the Sunni tribes and local governors in Iraq and Syria. Last but not least, a reasonable amount of their public and wealthy class are supporters of ISIL's cause.

Beyond all of these, the status of NATO is also problematic. The collective security institution that was established 65 years ago fulfilled its mission when the Soviet Union dissolved 23 years ago. Since then it has been in a continuous – and unsuccessful – effort in attempting to find a new mission for itself. 

And now the organization is expected to address the ISIL threat. However, it is almost impossible to make this Cold War institution adapt to the new challenges of the 21st century. This is why no concrete step toward ISIL has materialized from the summit.

In short, it seems to be impossible that the U.S. could even form a "coalition of the unwilling" under the current circumstances. Other than the Kurdish peshmergas and the Iraqi government, the only actors who it could ally with seem to be Iran and Syria's al-Assad. This brings us back to the very top of this column. Being picky seems to be an unaffordable luxury today.

 

PAUL VALLELY

Sunday 24 August 2014

Meet the Frankenstein monster of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Or as we know them, Isis

Having spent billions, the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are finding that money can't buy loyalty

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/too-late-the-sponsors-of-ideology-find-they-have-made-a-monster-9687723.html

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Thanks to the immediacy of television, innocent civilians in Syria were writhing from gas attacks before our eyes, with the blame laid on their own government. Yet despite a red line having been crossed by this use of chemical weapons, the international community decided against air strikes on the Assad regime.

Instead we encouraged two oil-rich Arab states, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to continue arming rebel groups to oust the ruthless dictator in Damascus. Now, thanks to those weapons, one of the groups has grown into the Frankenstein's monster of the so-called Islamic State whose brutal fighters have swept through Syria and Iraq, crucifying and beheading like a deadly inhuman tide.

 

Saudi Arabia has been a major source of financing to rebel and terrorist organisations since the 1970s, thanks to the amount it has spent on spreading its puritan version of Islam, developed by Mohammed Abdul Wahhab in the 18th century. The US State Department has estimated that over the past four decades Riyadh has invested more than $10bn (£6bn) into charitable foundations in an attempt to replace mainstream Sunni Islam with the harsh intolerance of its Wahhabism. EU intelligence experts estimate that 15 to 20 per cent of this has been diverted to al-Qa'ida and other violent jihadists.

 

The only other official Wahhabi country is Saudi's Gulf neighbour Qatar, which is, per capita, the richest country in the world. It likes to paint itself as a more liberal and open version of the Muslim sect. Its newest and biggest mosque is named after Wahhab, but this is the fun, football-loving version.

 

The Qataris are Barcelona's shirt sponsors, the owners of Paris St-Germain and, albeit amid allegations of dodgy financial footwork, will host the 2022 World Cup – to which, to the horror of their Saudi neighbours, women will be admitted.

 

In Qatar, unlike Saudi, women are allowed to drive and travel alone. Westerners can eat pork and drink alcohol. There is no religious police force or powerful class of clerics to enforce morality. Qatar's Al Jazeera television network stands in contrast with the region's state-controlled media, and the Qataris are investing in the West, including the Shard, Harrods and big chunks of Sainsbury's and the London Stock Exchange.

 

But that is not the crucial difference. Where the Saudis tend to support restrictive strong-man regimes like their own across the Arab world, the Qataris, throughout the Arab Spring, have backed grassroots Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The tiny country has given $200m to Hamas, which is constantly firing low-grade rockets from Gaza into Israel. It is more open-minded towards the Shia Muslims of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, whom the Saudis see as enemies. It even has good relations with the Taliban.

 

And it has been the biggest funder of the Syrian rebels, with sources in Doha estimating it has spent as much as $3bn in Syria alone – 70 military cargo flights were sent in the past two years – in an attempt to develop networks of loyalty among rebels and set the stage for Qatari influence in a post-Assad era. Riyadh sees its tiny neighbour – "300 people and a TV channel", as one Saudi prince dismissively said – as a troublesome and dangerous gadfly.

 

The result of all this is that Qatar and Saudi have channelled funds, arms and salaries to different groups in Syria. Until last year they were creating rival military alliances and structures. But their efforts at discrimination have been in vain. On the ground the rebel groups have been porous, with personnel switching to whichever was the best supplied. Fighters grew their beards or shaved them off to fit the ideology of the latest supplier. Many moved to whichever group was having most success on the battlefield. Key Qataris and Saudis felt it didn't matter as long as the result was the fall of Assad. But eventually two of the most extreme groups began to dominate, and eventually one of them, Jabhat al-Nusra, lost dominance to the other, Isis – the ruthless and potent force which has declared itself the Islamic State.

 

Only towards the end have the funders realised the error of their strategy. The Qatar government has stemmed the flow of funds. At first it believed it could change the ideology of those it funded once the war against Assad was over.

 

But now it realises it was creating a sleeping monster, as the Saudis had done when they financed the Taliban to fight the Soviets in the 1980s. In April, the Saudis sacked the head of their intelligence services, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who had been responsible for the details of arming the Syrian rebels. His blunders led to the massive empowerment of the kind of grassroots Islamism which is the greatest threat to the Saudi claim to be the leader of global Islam because of its vast wealth and its custodianship of the holy city of Mecca.

 

They have left it too late. The genie is out of the bottle. Some funds continue to flow from wealthy Qatari individuals and from conservative Saudi preachers collecting funds through their television shows. But the terrorists of the Islamic State, who were earning $8m a month from a Syrian gas field where they have established robust logistical lines, have added a further $1m a day from the half dozen Iraqi oilfields they have seized. Worse still, the conflict in Iraq has solidified into religiously defined ethnic identity lines.

 

As Washington has now realised, the Islamic State will have to be stopped militarily. But real progress to re-civilise the cradle of civilisation which was Mesopotamia will require countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar – as well as the West, Iran, Israel and Syria – to make some hard decisions about the hierarchy of evil and where their greatest enemy lies. 

READ MORE:
AIR STRIKES? TALK OF GOD? BARACK OBAMA IS FOLLOWING THE JIHADISTS' SCRIPT AFTER JAMES FOLEY BEHEADING 
JIHADI JOHN AND HIS FELLOW ISIS FIGHTERS FROM THE UK ARE FLIPPANT, FANATICAL... AND DISTINCTLY BRITISH  

.

 

 

Rawalpindi’s ongoing Puppet Show in Islamabad

 

Rawalpindi's ongoing Puppet Show in Islamabad

 

http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2014/09/turmoil-in-pakistan-again-soft-military.html

 

In my recent article  (URL above) on the ongoing turmoil in Pakistan, I had stated that in 'the Book' based polity of Islam, the lines between the Mir and the Pir ,the temporal ruler and spiritual ruler still remain blurred ,contested and changing ,with examples of Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt. Hopefully this tussle will keep on going peacefully and a balance /separation between the military and civilian leadership would be achieved one day .Finally with overall control of the popularly elected representative and accountable civilian administration. This tug of war will take its time depending on the history of the state before Islam was imposed by force, by persuasion or by other means. Saudi Arabia from which Islam emerged might have been Jahiliya, but Egypt, Anatolia aka Turkey and the subcontinent had ancient and flourishing civilisations before the arrival of Islam. Saudi Arabia's billions of petrodollars are keeping the Ummah and Muslim nations away from modern, representative, responsive and accountable governments.

 

As for the role of military in Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, I began my career as assistant press attaché in Cairo in early 1960s spent 10 years in Turkey .An Indian diplomat cannot escape Pakistan, its politics and its anti-Indian profession in any capital .Since Cairo I have maintained close interaction with media throughout my postings abroad and in India. I have a fear idea of the noble profession of journalism, which has changed and deteriorated, especially in the last few decades because of overwhelming influence of American and European corporate money and consequently of their counterparts and ruling establishments in most countries forced to follow neoliberal capitalism.

 

Since retiring in 1996 from Ankara, as an independent journalist I have written scores of print articles on international affairs in top newspapers of India, Dubai, Lebanon, Turkey and elsewhere. And since 2002 many hundreds of articles and blogs .I have expressed many times my poor opinion of Indian media, especially the so-called national TV channels with their obsession with trivialities, celebrities and sports. Among anchors Karan Thapar is OK but he should stop scowling, angry and inquisitorial .Hindu remains the best newspaper.

 

I have great respect for many journalists in Turkey and Pakistan, where they have been hounded by ruling establishments, whether military or civilian and many are in jail. Salim Shazad, to whom I corresponded, was tortured and killed by ISI; others are regularly hounded. We had a few such brave journalists like Kuldip Nayar and Arun Shourie during the Indira Gandhi imposed emergency in 1975 – 77.

Pakistan's democracy;

Throughout the Cold War, the so-called democracy in Pakistan was basically a Western media myth to put its ally on a par with India, which was on the opposite side. Utterances by Pakistan prime ministers against India made good copy in Western media. Barring perhaps Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1972-77), after the military had been totally discredited in 1971 following the liberation of Bangladesh, the Pakistan armed forces have been de jure or de facto rulers of the country. In the 11 years between General Zia's death in 1988 and Musharraf's takeover, Benazir Bhutto and Sharif were eased in and out of power whenever they tried to interfere with the military's autonomy, or their control of nuclear arms, or the policy on Kashmir and foreign affairs.  Constantly squabbling with each other, they nevertheless amassed huge fortunes by corrupt means.  Bhuttos, specially Zulfiqar Ali, and Nawaz Sharif had the opportunity and political support to lay the foundations for democracy, but instead they chose despotic ways to steamroller the institutions that provided the checks and balances in the state. This highlights the inability of Pakistan in general to accept the give and take of a democratic system and administration.  

For all the good copy that Benazir Bhutto provided the Western media, she was perhaps one of the most incompetent administrators in Pakistan's history, with her husband, "Mr 10 percent" Ali Zardari; making it worse (he even became the president and completed his term). She played a seminal role in 1996 in promoting the stranglehold in Pakistan of the Jamaat-i-Islami and other fundamentalist groups.  They remain deeply entrenched in the Pakistan armed forces, the ISI and the establishment, with the potential for full-fledged implosion.

In any case, unlike India, in 1947 Pakistan began with weak grassroots political organizations, with the British-era civil servants strengthening the bureaucracy's control over the polity and decision-making in the country. Subsequently, the bureaucracy called for the military's help, but soon the tail was wagging the dog.  In the first seven years of Pakistan's existence, nine provincial governments were dismissed.  From 1951 to 1958 there was only one army commander in chief, two governor generals, but seven prime ministers.

While the politicians had wanted to further strengthen relations with the British, the erstwhile rulers, General Ayub Khan -encouraged by the US military - formed closer cooperation with the Pentagon.  And in 1958 the military took over power, with Ayub Khan exiling the governor general, Iskender Mirza, to London. A mere colonel at partition in 1947, with experience mostly of staff jobs, Ayub Khan became a general after only four years.  Later, he promoted himself to field marshal.  He eased out officers who did not fit into the Anglo-Saxon scheme of using Pakistan's strategic position against the evolving Cold War confrontation with the communist bloc.  

General Zia ul-Haq, meanwhile, was a cunning schemer, veritably a mullah in uniform who, while posted in Amman, helped plan the military operation, which expelled Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization from Jordan in the 1970s.  But he is more remembered for having prayed at all the mosques of Amman, if not in the whole of Jordan.  He seduced the north Indian media with lavish praise and chicken and tikka kebabs meals.  He planned Operation Topaz, which in 1989 fueled insurgency in Kashmir, while hoodwinking Indians with his goodwill visits to promote cricket contacts between the countries. His Islamisation of the country made the situation for women and minorities untenable, while the judicial killing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 turned General Zia into a pariah.  But the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made him a US darling, restoring and fatally strengthening the Pakistan military's links with the Pentagon. This made the Pakistani military and the ISI's hold pervasive, omnipotent, omniscient and ominous in Pakistan.

I reproduce below two excellent and interesting articles by Pakistani scholar-journalists on the current events orchestrated from Rawalpindi military headquarters and the state which was midwifed  by the United Kingdom to protect its and later Western oil interests in Middle East and to counter India .Pakistan has never come out of the Western grip and Saudi influence with its petrodollars . As a result majority of the people have suffered, only the military, landed feudal and upstart rich like Nawaz Sharif have flourished.

 

.K.Gajendra Singh 4 September, 2014.Delhi

 

Rise of the mob

Written by Khaled Ahmed | September 4, 2014 12:09 am

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/rise-of-the-mob/99/

 

Imran Khan broke into the Red Zone and took his party up to the front of parliament house in Islamabad on August 19, saying that if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif didn't resign he would take his several thousand followers to the prime minister's house and drag him out "by his neck". His agitation was hinged on the accusation that the 2013 elections, which brought Sharif's party to power, had been rigged.

First he had wanted the tainted constituencies investigated; now he wanted the prime minister to go. He also knew that Sharif had fallen out with the army. He charged him with endless corruption, claiming that politicians had taken a sum of $200 billion out of the country. The Old Testament came to the rescue.

 

Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri lead an attack against representative democracy.

Imran Khan said, "We will free Pakistan of pharaohs". The Dawn wrote: "The image of a righteous Prophet Moses (Musa) dethroning a wicked firaun (pharaoh) has often been employed before. It was perfectly effective during Iran's Islamic Revolution. A poster of Ayatollah Khomeini, in the role of Musa dethroning Mohammad Reza, the last shah of Iran, cast in the role of pharaoh. Hosni Mubarak, the erstwhile strongman of Egypt, was also termed by his opponents as a modern pharaoh."

 

Tahirul Qadri, leading another mob assaulting Islamabad, was more detailed, given his religious scholarship. He quoted the Quran in Arabic and then translated the divine message as ordering the two prophet-brothers, Aaron (Haroon) and Moses, to attack the palace of the Egyptian pharaoh. Strictly separated so far, the two cult leaders had brooked no dilution of their charisma. Now they became "brothers" challenging Nawaz Sharif, the pharaoh of Pakistan. Qadri, nursing an old feud with him, knew Sharif had fallen out with the army. Khan was more amateurish in his scriptural expertise. He quoted Ali, the fourth caliph, on corrupt Muslim states that collapse and honest infidel ones that don't. People could collar the third caliph, Usman, in the street and question his acquisition of a new shirt when the common man went without one. The ideal (city) state was an Athens of Islam, with utopian "participatory democracy" in place, "justice coming to their doorstep".

Khan carelessly said he was influenced by "Mahatma Gandhi", but a more canny Qadri stayed clear of such references. Instead of the shower of praise he had expected, Khan got a heavy dose of textbook nationalism by the media, which looks at Gandhi as the villain who dared oppose Jinnah, the father of the nation. Qadri was ideologically correct and stayed away from Khan's next "extra-Islamic" reference to civil disobedience too. The irony was that, whereas Khan's party had been represented in parliament, Qadri was an outsider to democracy, a scholar with a cult following who had "written a thousand books".

 

Both avoided the intellectual fallout of this reference by claiming that democracy had been overthrown by Sharif's corrupt conduct. But the pharaonic palace they were attacking was democracy and the constitution was against them. Rejecting all overtures for "consultation" on "electoral reform", which was Khan's main plank of agitation, the great cricketer signalled war.

The Independence March and Revolution March both rejected the courts of law and their interpretation of the agitation as an illegitimate act. Qadri used political science in his rhetoric but was probably sure that his obsolete reference to "direct" and "participatory" democracy would not be challenged by a population steeped in the already "participatory" city-state utopia of Islam. What man has achieved in the 20th century is democracy that lasts, an order secure against mob attacks. "Direct" Athens was superseded by "indirect" Rome, and Europe today harks back to the "direct democracy" of the city-state of Athens only when it holds referendums, and suffers because of them. Pakistan too has rued all the referendums it has held so far. Today, people choose their representatives and send them to parliament to enact laws on their behalf. If you don't like them, defeat them in the next election but till then, hold your peace.

 

Former World Bank economist Deepak Lal writes in his book, In Praise of Empires: Globalisation and Order (2004): "The underlying theory behind the NGOs' claims, and the source of their popular appeal, is the wholly illiberal theory of participatory democracy. The Western notion of a liberal democracy is based on representative democracy. From the founding fathers of the American republic to liberal thinkers like Immanuel Kant, direct or participatory democracy on the model of the Greek city-states has been held to be deeply illiberal. Subject to populist pressures and the changing passions of the majority, it can oppress minorities. Greater popular participation does not necessarily subserve liberty. The great liberal thinkers have therefore been keen to have indirect representative democracy hedged by various checks and balances which could prevent the majority from oppressing the minority."

 

In India too, there are charismatic NGO-type leaders like Anna Hazare and Arundhati Roy who challenge corruption and other evils of the country's democracy. But Hazare's appeal lay in his power to endure self-mortificatory starvation, not in threatening the prime minister with physical manhandling, like Khan, or giving "advice" to his disciples to kill the prime minister, like Qadri. The Lok Sabha caved to Anna Hazare's campaign and passed the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill in December 2013. In Islamabad, parliament is willing to legislate electoral reform but Khan wouldn't hear of it, saying nothing short of dismissal of Sharif would do — after which "I will do ehtesab (accountability)", which everyone in the street knows will be an act of considerable brutality, in the Muslim tradition.

 

In India, Gandhi's movement of civil disobedience is part of its nationalism. "Participatory democracy" also crops up when Indians feel politicians have distanced themselves from the masses too much. Manish Sisodia, once a close aide of Team Hazare, put his finger on the factor that the movement relied on: "If people actually understood that the country's democracy had lost its participatory nature and had turned authoritarian, then they would once again associate themselves with the issues that the team was raising".

 

The economist, who sees the germ of the "welfare state" and its infamous budget deficits in "participatory" democracy, gets predictably jittery. He knows that the early clauses of the constitution, pledging equality and security of livelihood to all, are only hortatory in nature and the state merely needs to "aspire" to them. It appears that when fathers of a constitution sit down to write it, they consign the "hot air" of their misplaced early enthusiasm to these articles. But if you are a Muslim trying to avoid the obsolete caliphate of history by grabbing its utopia through "welfare", you are defying the global consensus.

 

Qadri and his Awami Tehreek want to revive the 40 "rights"-related opening articles of the constitution. Khan too refers to a falahi (welfare) state in his speeches as his answer to the difficult questions about how a terror-stricken state can survive. Both share the funding-through-charity organisational background exempting them from taxation. Khan is clearly "confiscatory" in his welfare pledge — like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s — while Qadri only hints at it.

Most non-authoritarian Muslim states are either unstable or coming apart in the face of violence. Anna Hazare wanted to die; Muslim challengers want to kill.

 

The writer is consulting editor, 'Newsweek Pakistan'express@expressindia.com

The script behind Pakistan's sit-in By Malik Basharat Awan  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-040914.html Asia Times Sept 4, 2014 Amid ongoing protests to topple a democratically elected government in Pakistan, liberal voices speculate that protest leaders Imran Khan, the chairman of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, and Canadian cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri are acting upon a script written by the country's security agency.  The public relations department of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has categorically rejected any links with the protesters amassed in Islamabad, but the chronology of events before the sit-ins strongly suggest the existence of such a script. A campaign against Geo TV, which has challenged ISI, the sudden decision to launch Operation Zarb-e-Azb against against insurgent groups in northwest Pakistan, Imran Khan's severe criticism of former Supreme Court judges and the recent protests over allegations of vote-rigging in the 2013 polls all appear to be separate events, but if you connect the dots, they seem a part of a well-written script.  Since 2008, the establishment has suffered setbacks in every bid to impose its decisions in matters pertaining to civilian jurisdiction. Three institutions - the media, the judiciary and political parties - strongly resisted moves that could help the military regain its control on national politics. Therefore, it had become necessary to discredit all three.  Two factors in particular had helped the establishment overthrow elected governments: the weak judiciary and the major political parties' ravenous appetite for power. In all the previous military coups, the judiciary always kissed the jackboot, while the political parties were too weak and loosely bonded by political values. It wasn't until the 2007 state emergency that the country's chief judge renounced abasing himself before a military dictator, General Pervaiz Musharaf, and the major political parties refused to give shoulder to a dying dictatorship.  When the dictator sacked the judiciary to save his rule, the strong outcry in the media made the public to come on streets and force the military dictator to retire. So, under the new circumstances, the trio of media, judiciary and the political parties, have become an aegis of democracy and, hence needed to be broken in order to forcefully gain and retain the power.  The establishment's experience with media, particularly with Geo TV, had never been very pleasant. It was the only channel which stood firmed against then-president Musharaf in 2007. While other channels shook hands with the military dictator after a week or two of emergency, Geo solitarily bore the brunt of the dictatorship and suffered broadcast suspension for nearly three months. Since then, its stance on the military's interference in politics had been quite rigid and it decried any move that could have destabilized an elected government.  It is an undeniable fact that Geo is a popular television channel and also an agenda setter, influencing not only the public view but also those of other media houses in Pakistan. Thus, the script-writer knew that to implement its wider strategy, it needed to discredit Geo TV and its owner, Jang Group, in the eyes of public first and create a divide within the media.  In the first phase, the credibility of Geo TV was gradually and systematically destroyed through another private TV channel, acting as a retinue of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Tahir-ul-Qadri. As soon as Geo TV accused the ISI chief of the attempted murder of one of its most vocal anti-establishment anchors, Hamid Mir, rival media groups started an anti-Geo TV campaign, questioning the group's loyalty towards Pakistan.  Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leader Khan, once a partner in Jang Group's campaign to help Pakistani flood victims, wasted no time to jump on the bandwagon and ask people to boycott Jang Group. Meanwhile, to contain the channel's reach, certain elements bribed and threatened cable operators to pull Geo TV from their networks. The government's repeated calls for the restoration of Geo TV fell on deaf ears of operators and as advertisers distanced themselves the channel is now striving for its survival and is in a position where it cannot risk provoking the establishment.  One wonders if it is mere a coincidence that the judiciary, which for the first time in the history of Pakistan had taken up a treason case against a former military dictator - in this case Musharaf - for abrogating the constitution, had faced blistering criticism from Khan since May 2013. A vituperative campaign against former judges, on one hand, was a message for the Supreme Court to refrain from any action against Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, while on the other it was intended to lower the image of the judiciary as an "independent" body.  Another point to ponder here is that Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf had clearly alienated itself from Tahir-ul-Qadri in 2013 and one of its members accused him of pursuing a foreign agenda. However, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leader is sharing the stage with the cleric today. The script writer knows that an elected government cannot be overthrown without gathering a large number of committed workers.  Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf is a popular party with huge support on ground, but it lacks the workers capable of creating agitation. Previously, the establishment depended on right-wing religious parties, particularly of the Deoband sect, to stir political agitation. However, the war on terror has led to a parting of ways between the army and these Deoband-dominated parties. Therefore, Tahir-ul-Qadri's moderate and anti-Deoband stance proved a good alternate for the script writer. For the workers of Pakistan Awami Tehrik, Tahir-ul-Qadri is a spiritual leader and abandoning him is tantamount of inviting God's curse.  Political pundits argue that the establishment did not want to see democracy flourishing in the country and it had assigned Tahir-ul-Qadri with the job of derailing the electoral process before the 2013 general elections. The plot, however, met a deadly fate only because neither the media nor any major political party joined the cleric in his long march. Imran too, was sure at that time that he was going to win the elections and perhaps could afford to avoid getting his hands dirty.  However, as the general election proved fiasco for Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, the sudden decision to launch a campaign against the government in tandem with Tahir-ul-Qadri - and that too a year after the election - validates the idea of existence of a script. Imran Khan's ravenous appetite for the premiership has crossed all limits and in this course he does not seem willing to care if the means are legitimate or not.  Imran Khan's relations with military's top brass are no secret. He enjoyed good terms with former ISI chief Shuja Pasha. He also supported Musharaf in his presidential referendum in 2001, but parted ways when the general refused him the premiership after the 2002 general elections.  The timing of a long-awaited operation Zarb-e-Azb against terrorist also generates certain doubts. To gather massive crowds, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Tahir-ul-Qadri required a clear field, where the threat of a terrorist attack was minimal. Given the bitter history between Tahir-ul-Qadri and the Pakistani Taliban, it was feared that the cleric would fail to gather the support needed for an extra constitutional step, if the threat level was not eliminated.  Most recently the veteran democrat and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf President Javed Hashmi has also parted ways from Imran Khan over the issue of marching on parliament, alleging that the establishment is backing the duo.  The ISI reacted to this by issuing a statement denying any connection with the protesters. That denial, however, seems dubious as the agency's public relations department has a long history of rebuttals which with the passage of time have proved incorrect.  In one such instance, when a US drone fired a missile on a seminary in Data Khel area of North Waziristan in 2007, resulting in the death of over 40 people, ISI had stated that the fatalities occurred when bombs being made by militants accidentally exploded. Follow up media investigations, however, revealed that it was actually a drone attack. During the Kargil war in 1999, statements from the ISI often contradicted realities on the ground.  Pakistan's establishment must realize that smaller provinces have a long list of grievances against the center, and that only a real democracy can address them. Undemocratic strategies to change the central and provincial governments would further aggravate the unrest in Sindh and Balochistan provinces. The army cannot take the risk of losing support of 30 million supporters of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and its allied parties and must put the constitution above the institution to save the federation.  Malik Basharat Awan has an M.Phil in Strategic and Nuclear Studies, a Masters degree in mass communication, and tweets @MBawan.

 

 

In Ukraine; Strategic Contest between U.S & not so willing West against Russia along with Asia

 

In Ukraine; Strategic Contest between U.S & not so willing West against Russia along with Asia 

 

When Barack Obama was elected after having been selected by military industrial complex , financiers, bankers and other corporate interests, a perceptive Afro-American had sarcastically remarked that after the Whites have done shit in USA and all around the world, a black president has been propped up to clean up the mess. It was a vain hope with US leadership across the board with genocide of Native Americans and barbaric treatment of blacks in their blood and DNA. Obama was groomed by the Chicago Jewish political machine, so the policies he has followed are consistent with what the Americans have done since World War II and even earlier. Wherever they have gone, they have brought destruction and misery, looting other countries wealth.

 

Instead of cleaning up the mess, Obama administration has spread it all over the world and believes that it will not touch the US Homeland, never mind what happens to the British poodles and willing and unwilling European allies. Awarding him the Noble Peace Prize was a sick joke by the Norwegian Academy .The prize has mostly been used to prop up and strengthen dissenters against the regimes which Washington does not like and treats them like an Imperial power would the rebellious provinces.

 

Reproduced below is an excellent article by my favourite Brazilian journalist Pepe in his Escobaresque style ie with no holds barred. America is a bankrupt nation living on paper, purchased willy-nilly by countries because of dollar being the reserve currency so far, with China's amounting to over USD one trillion. Curiously in 1960s and 70s Beijing used to describe Washington as paper tiger .Certainly Washington's bankruptcy is dependent on China and other states withdrawing their dollar purchases or selling securities, which of course would bring about the collapse of the dollar regime and the make believe international monetary system functioning like no day after tomorrow casino.

 

Steps have been taken and are being implemented, which will weaken the role of the US dollar, slowly but surely. Asians are coming together along with Russia, which can match US and its NATO in a nuclear mutual assured destruction, which, if not stopped, and many sane people in USA and West Europe are warning, could lead to an Armageddon.

 

Putin has shown great patience and skill. US president John Kennedy was all switched on for a nuclear Holocaust in 1962, because USSR had installed missiles in Cuba. After lying for years that NATO missiles in East Europe and nearer Russia were against Iran (what a sick joke) and after failing to bomb Syria and disrupt Moscow's sea based triad of deterrence from Tartus in Eastern Mediterranean, US brazenly tried to go for Moscow's jugular by bringing in Nazis and Mafia dominated Kiev regime in Ukraine with Crimea to install NATO missiles .It is a situation similar to what Washington's was in 1962. Putin has no choice but to react like Kennedy.  

 

Washington and its willing and unwilling allies in Europe refuse to see that the dominance exercised by criminal powers since the end of the 17th century, when Eastern Ottoman troops had last knocked on the Gates of Vienna are now in an unstoppable reverse gear. Alas a modern day Ottoman pretender, as in WWI, is on the wrong side.

 

K.Gajendra Singh 3 September, 2014.

 

THE ROVING EYE
NATO attacks!
By Pepe Escobar Asia Times 3 September, 2014
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-030914.html

First thing we do, let's kill all the myths. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is nothing but the Security Council of the Empire of Chaos. 

You don't need to be a neo-Foucault hooked on Orwellian/Panopticon practices to admire the hyper-democratic"ring of steel" crossing average roads, parks and even ringing castle walls to "protect" dozens of NATO heads of state and ministers, 10,000 supporting characters and 2,000 journalists from the real world in Newport, Wales - and beyond. 

NATO's summit in Wales also provides outgoing secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen the chance to display his full attack dog repertoire. It's as if he's auditioning for a starring role in a remake of Tim Burton's epic Mars Attacks! 

Fogh of War is all over the place, talking "pre-positioning of supplies, equipment" - euphemism for weapons; boosting bases and headquarters in host countries; and touting a 10,000-strong, rapid reaction "spearhead" force to respond to Russian "aggression" and deployable in a maximum of five days. 

Meanwhile, in a bad cop-bad cop routine, outgoing president of the European Commission, outstanding mediocrity Jose Manuel Barroso, leaked that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him over the phone later last week he could take Kiev in a fortnight if he wanted. 

Well, Putin could. If he wanted. But he doesn't want it. What matters is what he told Rossiya state TV; that Kiev should promote inclusive talks about the future statute of Eastern Ukraine. Once again, the Western spin was that he was advocating the birth of a Novorossiya state. Here, The Saker analyzes in detail the implications of what Russia really wants, and what the Novorossiya forces really want. 

With Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite predictably spinning that Russia is "at war with Europe", and British Prime Minister David Cameron evoking - what else - Munich 1938 (Chamberlain appeasing Hitler), Fogh of War has had all the ammo he needs to sell his Einsatzgruppen. Cynics are excused to believe NATO's spearhead force is actually The Caliph's IS goons raising hell in "Syraq". 

Warmongering, though, is not an easy sell in a crisis-hit EU these days. Not only Germany, but also France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Hungary and even Poland have expressed "reluctance" one way or another to back NATO's strategy of a more "robust" presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic. Moreover, the Empire of Chaos and its Brit junior partner in the "special relationship" want everyone to shell out more cash (a minimum of 2% of GDP). Even as the EU is facing no less than its third recession in five years. 

The bottom line is there will be no more rotation on NATO's Eastern front. Legally, the set up cannot be defined as "permanent", because it will go against a 1997 NATO-Russia pact. But it will be permanent. That applies to Szczecin, in Poland, near the Baltic, and the so-called multinational Corps Northeast - land, air and sea. Estonia and Latvia for all practical purposes are being touted as "Putin's next targets". And defending them from "Russian aggression" is NATO's new red line. 

Additionally, Finland and Sweden may sign NATO Host Nation agreements. This implies NATO forces may use Swedish and Finnish territory in the future on the way to what's hazily referred to as "operations". At least deployment of foreign troops still needs parliamentary approval - and Swedes and Finns are bound to raise eyebrows. 

No R2P for you, buddy 
Even with all this Mars Attacks! hysteria, NATO in thesis won't discuss Ukraine in depth in Wales - or an imminent R2P ("responsibility to protect") Ukraine from the remixed "Evil Empire" (copyright Ronnie Reagan). But there will be "military consultations" and a bit of cash shelled out to the Kiev military - who are having their (bankrupt) collective behind solemnly kicked by the federalist/separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine as much as NATO had theirs kicked by a bunch of Pashtuns with Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan. 

By the way, the latest US$1.4 billion the International Monetary Fund shelled out to Ukraine - the Mobster-style interest will hit much later - will be used by an already bankrupt Kiev mostly to pay for a bunch of T-72 tanks it bought from Hungary. Money for nothing, tanks for free. 

Ukraine, it must be stressed, is not a NATO member. Technically, every NATO bureaucrat in Brussels admits that a candidate country must request membership. And countries with regions mired in an international dispute are not accepted. So Ukraine would only be considered if Kiev gave up Crimea. It's not going to happen. 

Still, Washington's obsessive play to annex Ukraine to NATO will keep marching on (in the matter of accession, by the way, the European Union would issue a firm "no"). Outgoing Prime Minister Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk as well as President Poroshenko, are desperate for a NATO intervention, or at least Ukraine being accepted as some form of privileged ally. Yats expects "monumental decisions from our Western partners at the summit". In vain. 

NATO somehow is already in Ukraine. A NATO cyber center group has been in Kiev since March, operating in the building of the Council of National Security and Defense. So it is a bunch of NATO bureaucrats who actually determine the news agenda in Ukraine - and the non-stop demonization of all things Russia. 

Ukraine is all about Germany now. Berlin wants a political solution. Fast. Berlin wants Russian gas flowing via Ukraine again. Fast.Berlin does not want US missile defense in Eastern Europe - no matter what the Baltic states scream. That's why Poroshenko's latest "Invasion! Invasion! Invasion!" craze is nothing but pure desperation by a lowly, bankrupt vassal of the Empire of Chaos. Of course that does not prevent Fogh of War - who got the NATO job because he was an enthusiastic cheerleader of the rape of Iraq - to keep crying "Invasion!" till all Danish retrievers come home. 

Real deal
And then there's NATO's recent record. An ignominious defeat in Afghanistan. A "humanitarian" bombing that reduced once-stable Libya to a miserable failed state immersed in total anarchy and ravaged by rabid militias. Not exactly fabulous PR for NATO's future as a coalition assembly line with global "vocation", capable of pulling off expeditionary wars all around the world by creating the appearance of a military and political consensus unified by - what else - an Empire of Chaos doctrine: NATO's "strategic concept" approved at the 2010 Lisbon summit. (See US a kid in a NATO candy store, Asia Times Online, November 25, 2010.) 

Since those go-go "Bubba" Clinton years; through the "pre-emptive" Dubya era; and now under the R2P dementia of Obama's warring Medusas (Rice, Power, Hillary), the Pentagon dreams of NATO as global Robocop, dominating all the roles embodied by the UN and the EU in terms of security. This has absolutely nothing to do with the original collective defense of NATO signatories against possible territorial attacks. Oh, sorry; we forgot the attacks by those (non-existent) nuclear missiles deployed by evil Iran. 

The Ukraine battleground at least has the merit of showing the alliance is naked. For the Full Spectrum Dominance Pentagon, what really matters above all is something that's been actually happening since the fall of the Soviet Union; unlimited NATO expansion to the westernmost borders of Russia. 

The real deal this September is not NATO. It's the SCO's summit. Expect the proverbial tectonic shifts of geopolitical plaques in the upcoming meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - a shift as far-reaching as when the Ottoman empire failed at the gates of Vienna in 1683. On the initiative of Russia and China, at the SCO summit, India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia will be invited to become permanent members. Once again, the battle lines are drawn. NATO vs SCO. NATO vs BRICS. NATO vs Global South. Therefore, NATO attacks! 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

(Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) 

 

Turmoil in Pakistan again; A soft Military Coup a possibility!

 

 

Turmoil in Pakistan again; A soft Military Coup a possibility!

A tale of three cities; Islamabad, Ankara and Cairo

 

According to media reports (31August midnight) political turmoil in Pakistan has further intensified with strong likelihood of the intervention of Pakistan Army as violence is increasing in political standoff with police who took action against protesters who stormed Parliament building last night.

 

Pakistan Army has a long history to destabilize democracy and parliament in Pakistan .It is claimed that the army is playing a positive role this time to shun off political crises because the government of Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif and the opposition in Parliament believe that Pakistan is becoming victim of an international conspiracy to destroy institutions in Pakistan like certain powers did in Libya, Egypt and Syria. (This is one view)

 

"Thousands of protesters of Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) ransacked boundary wall of the Parliament House with a crane and one truck and entered into premises after their leaders Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri directed them to take over the control of Parliament House and the Prime Minister House. Around 450 persons were injured including 380 protesters and 70 policemen. Police and protesters clashes are still underway outside Parliament House in Red Zone since last night. At least 3 persons were killed.

 

The fighting continued Sunday between police in riot gear and a few hundred protesters. Many protesters came armed with batons and slingshots loaded with marbles.

 

Shipping containers were set ablaze, several vehicles were torched, and hundreds of tear gas canisters lay strewn on the ground on Islamabad's normally pristine Constitution Avenue after almost 24 hours of battle. By nightfall on Sunday protesters were preparing for fresh clashes, breaking up the road to use chunks as missiles and preparing crude gas masks from cloth and plastic bottles.

 

Opposition groups marched to the capital on August 15 demanding Sharif's resignation, triggering a crisis that has raised the specter of military intervention.

 

Pakistan's top military commanders convened a special meeting Sunday night .They reviewed the situation in Islamabad "with serious concern" and reaffirmed their support for democracy, according to the ISPR. "The conference reviewed with serious concern, the existing political crisis and the violent turn it has taken, resulting in large scale injuries and loss of lives. Further use of force will only aggravate the problem," it said in a statement issued after the meeting. According to the ISPR, the military has urged the government to resolve the situation "politically without wasting any time and without recourse to violent means."

 

The prime minister has also convened an extraordinary joint sitting of Parliament on Tuesday after presiding over a high-level meeting, a cabinet minister told AFP. "The meeting strongly condemned the desecration of state institutions and declared it undemocratic and unconstitutional," the minister said.

 

Opposition leaders claim the 2013 elections that swept Nawaz Sharif to power were rigged, though local and foreign observers rated the polls as relatively fair and credible.

 

Speaking from the roof of a shipping container Sunday, Khan said: "Now I ask all Pakistanis: rise up against this government. This is not a constitutional government—they are killers. We will continue until our last breath. I urge all Pakistanis to come out." The cricketer-turned-politician added that he would file murder charges against the prime minister over the violence.

 

The security situation has deteriorated in the capital.

 

It appears that the climax being built up by Imran Khan, former cricketers and Qadri has obviously been allowed to happen by the Pakistan military, which has ruled directly the British midwifed state then taken over by USA, for 38 years since its independence in 1947, and indirectly through most of the rest of the time.

 

It would be useful and necessary to look at the tussle between military and civilian political parties from the angle of overall changes which have been happening in the Islamic world, especially where the military has played a controlling or a major role. Thus, developments in Pakistan should be looked at along with the developments in Egypt and Turkey, all three Sunni countries.

Historical background of Revealed Religions and parallels
 
Of the oldest of the three revealed religions, Judaism's only state since ancient times , Israel , founded on leftist tenets has since morphed into a rule by Zionist-Military oligarchy. Christians after centuries of warfare in Europe managed to create secular polities which are still underpinned if not haunted by sectional religious ideologies. In the last of 'the Book' based polity Islam, the lines between the Mir and the Pir ,the temporal ruler and spiritual ruler still remain blurred ,contested and changing.
 
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, Shias created the ideal but mythical office of Imam in the person of Ruhoallah Khomeini. The status of the Imam was evolved into the doctrines of intercession and infallibility, i.e., of the faqih/mutjahid .But the Iranians have since found that a system based on the concepts of 7th century AD was inadequate to confront and solve the problems of 21st century. Nevertheless, like the first Imam Ali, Iran is ruled by the supreme religious leader, Ali Khameini, who incidentally is Azeri Turk .The cement keeping Iran united now is its common heritage and Islam.

Prophet Mohammad was both the religious leader and military commander. But the Arab Caliphs lost out on power by 10th century to the Turkish slaves from central Asia who formed the core of their fighting forces .The Turks raised the minor title of Sultan to a high rank who literally became a protector of the Caliph, left with only spiritual powers. Even this role was seized by the Ottoman Sultans ruling from Istanbul.

After the defeat of Byzantines near lake Van in 11th century, the Seljuk hordes established a Rumi Caliphate at Konya in the centre of modern day Turkey But they had to brutally suppress religious leaders' rebellions many times .To keep out the energetic soldiers and freelance militias instigated by fanatic religious leaders, Konya sent them out as Ghazis to harass neighboring Christian Byzantine territories. Out of these freebooters emerged a small band led by Ertugrul, whose small principality was expanded by his son Osman (Othman) and descendents into Europe right up to the gates of Vienna and along South Mediterranean up to Morocco and east up to Iran border and Oman on the Indian Ocean.

Since the turmoil brought by U.S.-led West and Saudi Arabia led Muslim countries, who used Pakistan under its fanatic dictator, Gen Zia ul Huq to push out Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1980s, the people of Afghanistan have paid a very heavy price, which have been mirrored in Pakistan as well .In Islamabad Saudi Arabia and USA play an important role. In fact, I have maintained that the axis between Washington ,Riyadh and Islamabad have brought mayhem and destruction in West Asia and South West Asia with neighboring countries like India, Iran and others suffering from collateral damage. To these three countries can be added US poodle United Kingdom directly, which misguides Washington and picks up the remains of vulture kill, and Israel indirectly.

 

In Egypt, in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, after a spell by Muslim Brotherhood, the army, which has ruled Cairo, has come back to power. Once again, the brotherhood has been outlawed and its leaders imprisoned. Only during Gamal Abdel Nasser regime people's welfare was looked after and it was a proud nation. Since then military has joined the rich and wealthy. It has very little resources to maintain its massive population unless pro-development investment by Russia, already promised and or one day tens of many billions of dollars by China pull this nation out of misery.

 

As for Turkey, Islamist parties first under Necemettin  Erbakan, slowly increased its influences and power though coalition governments with secular parties , and finally his true disciples Erdogan and Abdullah Gul, with massive monetary support from Saudi Arabia, where Gul worked in an Islamic bank for many years, obtained a massive majority in the 2002 November  elections, winning two third of seats with only 34% of votes, because of a crooked threshold system, which deprives parties getting less than 10% votes from getting any seats in the parliament. The other party Republican People's party which got 16% of votes, won rest of the seats. Nearly 50% of votes polled went waste.

 

Since then, AKP, under the authoritarian Islamist leader Erdogan has gained in strength. He has moved away from his partner Fatheullah Gulen, as soft Islamist leader staying in USA .Erdogan is trying to sideline moderate Abdullah Gul, from whom he has taken over as the President on 29 August.

 

In the meantime Erdogan has humiliated scores of senior military officers, including chiefs of armed forces even those who had served under him. I do not think that the armed forces will take it lying down and after some time try to redress the balance. Almost all the internal and external policies being pursued by Erdogan are slouching towards turmoil and unforeseen developments and results

 

I am sure Erdogan is watching what is happening in Islamabad. He was quite cutup after Field Marshal el-Sisi banned  the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and jailed its leadership. The likely changes in Islamabad are not going to make Erdogan very happy.

 

I was in Berlin in 1999 to see my grandchildren when I watched the overthrow of Nawaz Sharif by Gen. Pervez Musharraf... I am reproducing below that article to remind readers what happened nearly 25 years ago.

 

The tussle between the spiritual/civilian /Islamic leader and the military commander will see many ups and downs in major Sunni Islamic countries before some kind of balance is struck and powers separated. The change in Ankara has been too fast and abrupt. Before AKP bulldozed its way to the presidency, the earlier secular leaders had slowly worked out a modus Vivendi and the President before Abdullah Gul was retired Chief Justice of Turkey's highest constitutional court, which still has been able to maintain its integrity and impartiality, in spite of all the efforts by AKP.

 

Watch for this space.

 

K.Gajendra Singh 1 September, 2014

TURKPULSE No: 10 ............................NOVEMBER 21^th, 1999

(Used by Delhi's Pioneer titled 'Uphill task ahead ')

Below is an article by retired Indian Ambassador to Ankara, Gajendra Singh on the latest military coup in Pakistan. As a Turkey expert who has been in this country for over ten years in two different diplomatic assignments and now as a journalist/writer, Ambassador Singh has very interesting observations of the Turkish model in the Islamic world and especially in Pakistan.

NEW PAKISTANI RULER AND TURKISH POLITICAL MODEL
Ambassador Gajendra Singh

Guest Writer

Delhi born Gen Pervez Musharraf, the new ruler of Pakistan, has taken upon a much harder task of rescuing his country from "rock bottom" than that faced either by FM Ayub Khan in 1958 or Gen Zia-ul-Haq in 1977. Ayub had taken over at the peak of the Cold War when the fight against Communism rather than the so-called crusade for democracy was the top priority with Pakistan neatly fitting into US strategy. Zia was a pariah until the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan fell like manna from heaven, allowing Pakistan to complete its nuclear bomb program. Now Pakistan's economic position is desperate and US is more focused on fighting terrorists, who last year bombed its Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, led by the likes of Ben Laden, ensconced among Pak nurtured and backed Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, now detained Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif used his 2/3^rd  parliamentary majority to bully the President, bend the higher judiciary to his will and force Gen. Musharraf's predecessor Gen Jahangir Karamat to resign a year ago, but this time around found the Armed Forces united against him. In mooting a decision making National Security Council (NSC) with a say for the Armed Forces, Gen Karamat was only stating a political reality, which might have avoided the recent unsavory confrontation and the ugly outcome.

The failure now of Sharif, a more representative leader than the professional feudal landlord types and of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto earlier, the two politicians who had the opportunity and political support to lay the foundations of democracy but instead chose despotic ways to steam-roller the check and balance institutions, highlights the inability of the Pakistani mind frame to accept the give and take of a democratic regime.

Gen Musharraf has made it quite clear that the generals are unlikely to let Sharif or Benazir Bhutto back in hurry and it could be quite some time before another civilian gets a chance.

Gen. Musharraf, soon to visit Turkey, where he did his schooling, has publicly expressed admiration for Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, whom he would like to emulate. After the military take-over, the initial broad based choice of his team so far shows similarities with Turkey's situation after the 1980 coup carried out by Gen Kenan Evren who was shrewd enough to give charge of economy to technocrat Turgut Ozal who turned around Turkey's moribund economy utilizing its talented expatriates. Sooner or later the self-styled Chief Executive should move over to the Presidency as did Gen Evren (for 9 years) and then take a couple of years to sort out the mess and usher in a referendum approved new Constitution institutionalizing the role of the Armed Forces which cannot be questioned.

As members of Western Alliances Turkey and Pakistan have maintained close relations since 1950s and Pakistani military brass is well aware of the role of the Armed Forces in Turkey. Like Turkey in 1980 (and earlier in 1960) Gen Musharraf's first step was to create a National Security Council (and not a Revolutionary or Redemption Council).

However, proposals to create a NSC are not new and had been mooted in the past. President Gen. Zia ul Haq tried in the 1980s, it was opposed and hence dropped. Another by President Farooq Leghari on 6 January 1997 through a decree, inspired and patterned on the Turkish model, lapsed after the massive electoral victory of Nawaz Sharif. Therefore, Turkey's experience of military in politics is likely to influence the latest way to "real democracy" in Pakistan and has been so acknowledged by Gen. Musharraf himself.

Article 118 of the 1982 Turkish Constitution provides for a ten member (5 from the military) NSC, chaired by the President and in his absence by the Prime Minister. In Turkish Protocol, the Armed Forces Chief of General Staff (CGS) comes next to the Prime Minister and the two along with the President form the triangle, which rules the country. The agenda of the Council meetings is proposed by the Prime Minister and the CGS and only matters of prime importance are discussed. Though not institutionalised like CGS, the position of the Army Chief in Pakistan, originally based on the British colonial pattern but modified by 52 years of experience since independence, half under military regimes, is not so different. In practice his position has remained decisive and certainly more arbitrary.

The Turkish Armed Forces, rooted in a mixture of Ottoman army traditions, modernised and westernised by French and German staff officers were forged into a nationalist fighting force during the War of Independence by Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk and later to uphold secularism and guard against any tilt either to the left or the right. But Ataturk had ensured that the military men gave up the uniform before joining civilian duties.

After Turkey joined NATO in early 1950s, its Armed Forces have been influenced by the Western practices. Following the first intervention in 1960 when the Prime Minister and two of his colleagues were hanged (as was Bhutto by Gen Zia), in 1971 the Military members of the NSC, egged on by radical junior officers, had forced Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel to resign. A National Govt to carry out radical reform was formed. By the time Army was forced to intervene in 1980, the country was at the edge of an abyss, with more than 1000 people having been killed in left right violence in the previous 6 months. The politicians had literally abdicated their responsibility by refusing to even elect a President of the Republic for months.

Gen Evren sent the discredited political leaders packing and had debarred them from politics, but almost all returned to politics by 1987. It is the general consensus that the Turkish Armed forces have interfered only when things have spun out of control in the Turkish experiment with democracy and after setting things right, have always gone back to the barracks; the Turkish masses also expect them to do so. The Armed Forces enjoy almost total autonomy in their affairs and even the Islamic PM Erbakan had to endure Army's annual (1996) cleansing of officers with suspected religious linkages or proclivities.

Since the 1960 coup, the politicians have slowly worked out a modus vivendi with military leaders with incremental assertion of civilian supremacy. Barring President Celal Bayar, ousted in 1960, most Turkish Presidents had been retired Military chiefs, but first Ozal (1989 to 1993) and since then Demirel have strengthened civilian ascendancy by getting themselves elected Presidents, but have to take note of Military's views in regular NSC meetings.

Unlike the secular Turkish Armed Forces, the Pak Military, though starting with British colonial traditions have become politicised and now Islamised specially at the level of junior officers (as was evident by the bearded soldiers manning the Govt buildings in Pakistan after the latest intervention) with its involvement with Afghan Mujahaddin and terrorist groups and nurturing and bringing up of the Taleban organisation. Many observers fear that instead of the Turkish model Pakistan might end up closer to the Sudanese model with a Turaibi like figure from Jamait-e Islami as an ideologue (Jamait leaders have already expressed their opposition to Musharraf's liking for Kemalism).

Having stoked the fire of Islamic fundamentalism, with its fighters now active all over the world, Pakistan may find that the monster at home can now no longer be contained. In contrast Turkey perhaps closest to the Western perceptions of democracy in the Islamic world had had a long tradition and history of modernisation and westernisation, first during the last century and half of the Ottoman decline with constant interaction and rivalry with European powers, ideas and non Muslim millets. And after the inception of the Republic in 1923 though forced reforms by Ataturk against tremendous odds and religious and conservative opposition. And certainly Muslim religion is an important determinant; for except for Turkey, democracy as understood in West and India has not really taken root in most Islamic countries.

Pakistanis may vehemently deny but the Hindu cultural influence over Pak Islam and psyche is undeniable, i.e. converts from Hindu castes continue to marry among themselves. With a dynamic and aggressive Punjabi (nearly 60 % of Pak population) core personality, in sibling like rivalry, Pakistanis believe that they can do anything better than the Indian Hindus across the border, even in having a democracy. How Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had crowed when Emergency was declared in India in 1975. This remains an important factor in Pak's endeavour to bring back democracy, not withstanding the fact that the movement for Pakistan and certainly the leadership of Pakistan has not emerged from the grassroots like India's Lals and Yadavs. The oligarchy of feudal landlords, bureaucrats, army officers and businessmen still remains the ruling elite, for many massive drug trade profits provide a major source of income from opium grown in Afghanistan and the border provinces of Pakistan (a major chunk of world production).

A complicating factor for Gen. Musharraf is his Mohajir origin (Pakistanis born in what is now India and their descendants, now mostly confined to Karachi and Sindh, persecuted and treated as second class citizens) which coincidentally was a major reason why Sharif had picked him over others. Gen. Musharraf 's two brothers and son have opted for careers in USA and his own father, a former Pakistan diplomat, has become a naturalised US citizen.

Mohajirs in power must appear to be more loyal than the King. An anti-Indian stance if not an obsession, inborn with the creation of Pakistan itself, cultivated and encouraged during the Cold War, should therefore be expected. A silver lining perhaps is Musharraf's greater acceptability by other nationalities of Pakistan, which have felt the heavy hand of Pathan leavened Punjabis.

But Gen Musharraf is no Ataturk, the Gallipoli hero of the First World War and the leader of War of Independence, who after expelling the Ottoman Sultan and abolishing the Caliphate, had concentrated on building a modern nation, totally eschewing all foreign adventures.

 Amb (Rtd) K.Gajendra Singh 6 November 1999, Berlin uras@ada.net.tr,