The power of oil . . .

IRANIAN OIL has all sorts of political complexities, a lot of which are not immediately apparent to those of us who rely on orthodox news sources and commentary. Indeed, as we see, the Iranian nuke project and the posturing over Hormuz is rather a side-show, a distraction for American conservatives to dick-thump over.

ALJAZEERA has a report by Pepe Escobar, who is the roving correspondent for Asia Times, titled "All aboard the New Silk Road(s)", where he believes that Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US are all scrambling to get the upper hand across Eurasia. Add Russia to the mix and we have a three-ring circus here, folks, as the Great Game continues.

In the complex chessboard where the New Great Game in Eurasia is being played, both Kings are easy to identify: Pipelineistan, and the possible, multiple intersections of a 21st century Silk Road.  

Few have noticed a crucial meeting that took place during the recent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, between senior Foreign Ministry diplomats from Afghanistan, India and Iran. Their ultimate goal; a new Southern Silk Road connecting Iran to Central and South Asia through roads, railways and last but not least, major ports.

The crucial Silk Road port in this case is Chabahar, in Sistan-Balochistan province in southeast Iran. Tehran has already invested $340 million to complete 70 per cent of the port construction - a decade-long project.

But with US and EU sanctions biting harder and harder, Tehran expects Delhi to come up with a closing $100 million. India has already invested $136 million to link Chabahar to Afghanistan's ring road system.

One does not have to be Alexander the Great to notice the fastest connection between Kabul and India would be through the fabled Khyber Pass. But that does not take into account the accumulated historical venom between Islamabad and Delhi - their constant promises to increase cross-border trade notwithstanding.

With Chabahar linking Iran directly to Afghanistan and India, in theory Pakistan is sidelined. But it's much more complicated than that.

• • •

Enter Pipelineistan - via the key Iran-Pakistan umbilical cord in the making: the 2,700 kilometre-long IP gas pipeline, from Iran's gigantic South Pars field through Balochistan and Sindh and into Punjab.

According to National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) managing director, Javad Oji, the stretch from Iranshahr in southeast Iran to Zahedan and the Pakistani border is 90 per cent ready. The 900 kilometre-long pipeline on the Iranian side should be active one year from now. It's up to Islamabad to finish its stretch.

Totally in character in terms of interminable Pipelineistan soap operas, IP used to be IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) - but Delhi pulled out, forced by relentless pressure from the Bush and Obama administrations.

And it's here that the going gets really tough - because there's nothing Beijing would love more than turn the former IPI into IPC.

Now, add the confrontation between China and its neighbors bordering the South China Sea and further North over deep-sea oil deposits, and the future has all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Pepe has another article, in Tom's Dispatch, "Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak", which points out that

Iran's relations with both Russia and China are swell -- and will remain so no matter who is elected the new Iranian president next month. China desperately needs Iranian oil and gas, has already clinched a $100 billion gas "deal of the century" with the Iranians, and has loads of weapons and cheap consumer goods to sell. No less close to Iran, Russia wants to sell them even more weapons, as well as nuclear energy technology.

And then, moving ever eastward on the great Grid, there's Turkmenistan, lodged deep in Central Asia, which, unlike Iran, you may never have heard a thing about. Let's correct that now.

Gurbanguly Is the Man

Alas, the sun-king of Turkmenistan, the wily, wacky Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Nyazov, "the father of all Turkmen" (descendants of a formidable race of nomadic horseback warriors who used to attack Silk Road caravans) is now dead. But far from forgotten.

The Chinese were huge fans of the Turkmenbashi. And the joy was mutual. One key reason the Central Asians love to do business with China is that the Middle Kingdom, unlike both Russia and the United States, carries little modern imperial baggage. And of course, China will never carp about human rights or foment a color-coded revolution of any sort.

The Chinese are already moving to successfully lobby the new Turkmen president, the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to speed up the construction of the Mother of All Pipelines. This Turkmen-Kazakh-China Pipelineistan corridor from eastern Turkmenistan to China's Guangdong province will be the longest and most expensive pipeline in the world, 7,000 kilometers of steel pipe at a staggering cost of $26 billion.

So, the players are making plans, but the future will be different from our expectations, it always is. My guess, my stupid opinion is that technology will have some surprises, and that 30 years from now, petroleum oil will be a 3rd world fuel of decreasing importance.

H/T — Daniel

Perspectives . . .

FABIUS MAXIMUS has an article worthy of attention. "A powerful story about America’s dealings with Pakistan, and how the news media hides the facts from us" tells about mysterious murders, and shows the difference between the US press and elsewhere. The murders are like an incident in a Len Deighton novel or a George Clooney flick, it's a hell of a story.

Summary: We remain ignorant about the world because we reply on the news media for information. Recent events provide a powerful case study illustrating not only how the US news media misinforms us but why the American government has a dark reputation in much of the world.

Osama bin there done that

CIA: Finding bin Laden top U.S. priority

(UPI) -- Finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, believed still in hiding in Pakistan, remains a top priority for the United States, CIA Director Leon Panetta said.
Panetta told reporters the United States has people in Pakistan "who are helping us provide targets," the BBC reported Friday.

An unfortunate choice of words, to be sure.

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare

THE SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES has a rather disturbing account of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. Worth the read.

Just last month in Washington, members of the federally appointed bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism made it clear that for sheer scariness, nothing could compete with what they had heard in a series of high-level intelligence briefings about the dangers of Pakistan’s nuclear technology going awry. “When you map W.M.D. and terrorism, all roads intersect in Pakistan,” Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and a leading nuclear expert on the commission, told me. “The nuclear security of the arsenal is now a lot better than it was. But the unknown variable here is the future of Pakistan itself, because it’s not hard to envision a situation in which the state’s authority falls apart and you’re not sure who’s in control of the weapons, the nuclear labs, the materials.”

• • • • • • •

The Pakistani nuclear program owes its very existence to the government-endorsed and government-financed subterfuges of A. Q. Khan, who then turned the country into the biggest source of nuclear-weapons proliferation in atomic history. And while Khan may be the most famous nuclear renegade in Pakistan, he is not the only one. Soon after Kidwai took office, he also faced the case of the eccentric nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who helped build gas centrifuges for the Pakistani nuclear program, using blueprints Khan had stolen from the Netherlands. Mahmood then moved on to the country’s next huge project: designing the reactor at Khushab that was to produce the fuel Pakistan needed to move to the next level — a plutonium bomb.

An autodidact intellectual with grand aspirations, Mahmood was fascinated by the links between science and the Koran. He wrote a peculiar treatise arguing that when morals degrade, disaster cannot be far behind. Over time, his colleagues began to wonder if Mahmood was mentally sound. They were half amused and half horrified by his fascination with the role sunspots played in triggering the French and Russian Revolutions, World War II and assorted anticolonial uprisings. “This guy was our ultimate nightmare,” an American intelligence official told me in late 2001, when The New York Times first reported on Mahmood. “He had access to the entire Pakistani program. He knew what he was doing. And he was completely out of his mind.”

Musharraf on the ropes.

Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf just had his choices limited.

Though there is no decisive victor either at the centre or in any of the four provinces, slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Tuesday emerged as the single largest party in the national elections.

PPP secured 86 seats in the 272-member National Assembly but needs at least 50 more to form the government. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) took the second spot with 66 seats while the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) backed by President Pervez Musharraf trailed third with 49 seats.

Which puts Musharraf in a very sticky position. He had previously promised to step down from his position as president if his party did not win at the polls.

He may have no choice.

According to PML-N senior vice-president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, they would extend "conditional support to PPP in forming the government". He said they would go ahead to cooperate with the PPP if their demands were accepted.

"We want immediate restoration of the Supreme Court and high court judges," he said, giving his first demand about judges who were sacked on Nov 3 last year when Musharraf imposed emergency. Seven Supreme Court and 34 high court judges were sacked for not showing allegiance to Musharraf.

He added that the PPP would have to agree to give independence to the media and move a no-trust against President Musharraf.

"Justice Iftikhar will have to come and Musharraf will have to go," Hashmi told IANS, referring to sacked Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who is under house arrest since Nov 3 when he was removed from his position.

All of that could be moot if Musharraf decides to play a different card. None of the newly elected leaders can become prime minister until they are sworn in to parliament. Even after that, Musharraf has the constitutional power to dissolve the Pakistani parliament before it has the ability to forward a motion of no-trust or commence impeachment proceedings.

If Musharraf re-instates the judges and justices that he dismissed last November, as demanded by both the PPP and Nawaz Sharif, resuming positions on the bench could see them declare Musharraf's election as president illegal.

Musharraf has another problem: General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army Chief of Staff. Kayani made it clear through both actions and words that he would not permit the army to become involved in either rigging the vote or intimidating the electorate. In fact, last month he ordered army officers to remove themselves from political functions.

If Musharraf tries to work around the election results and welshes on his promise to step down he could be faced with Kayani taking more direct action to remove him.

Another turn-around in Pakistan is that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the border with Afghanistan have lost their fundamentalist Muslim influence in parliament. Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal, which was intent on turning Pakistan into a theocracy, lost 75 seats, leaving them with only 3. While there have been some who hail this as a resounding defeat for the MMA, the truth is they actually boycotted the elections. The MMA threatened women away from the polls resulting in a voter turnout of around 30 percent.

While there has been some suggestion that the decimation of the MMA in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan means they no longer have control in those areas. That is not likely to be the outcome. While they no longer have representation in parliament, the ultra-religious groups that make up the MMA will continue to exercise control over the tribal areas. With a means of dialogue, however ineffective, now eliminated, the tribal areas will likely become a greater, not a lesser, problem. Areas like Waziristan, which already presented a major problem to Pakistan's security, could spread a major civil war across the whole FATA and include Balochistan and the NWFP.

The only sure result from Pakistan's elections is that US Vice-President Dick Cheney is kicking puppies and chewing the heads off kittens.

A nuclear arsenal run by drunks

All countries possessing nuclear weapons should be prepared to provide, at the very least, advice to others in that "club" on how to secure and prevent the unauthorized employment of nuclear warheads. This is particularly true where there is a threat that religious extremists stand a chance of coming into possession of a fully developed and deliverable nuclear arsenal.

So, one country has made the offer to assist a nuclear power in dealing with their lax nuclear security and questions the judgment of country which places the authority to deploy nuclear weapons in the hands of drunks.

Via FP, Pakistan offers this on the United States:

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, JANUARY 25--At a press conference in Islamabad today, Pakistani Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman expressed concern about U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons. Iqhman, who oversees the safety and security of the Pakistani nuclear force, said that U.S. protocols for storing and handling nuclear weapons are inadequate. "In Pakistan, we store nuclear warheads separately from their delivery systems, and a nuclear warhead can only be activated if three separate officers agree," Iqhman said. "In the United States, almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons still sit atop missiles, on hair-trigger alert, and it only takes two launch-control officers to activate a nuclear weapon. The U.S. government has persistently ignored arms control experts around the world who have said they should at least de-alert their weapons."

Iqhman then offered to assist the United States with their nuclear handling protocols which received this response.

Pentagon officials said it is Washington's role to give, not receive, advice on nuclear weapons safety and surety issues.

Yes... we've noticed. In fact, we've noticed other events. So have the Pakistanis.

Iqhman pointed out that the August 29 event was not an isolated incident; there have been at least 24 accidents involving nuclear weapons on U.S. planes. He mentioned a 1966 incident in which four nuclear weapons fell to the ground when two planes collided over Spain, as well as a 1968 fire that caused a plane to crash in Greenland with four hydrogen bombs aboard. In 1980, a Titan II missile in Arkansas exploded during maintenance, sending a nuclear warhead flying 600 feet through the air. In a remark that visibly annoyed a U.S. official present at the briefing, Iqhman described the U.S. nuclear arsenal as "an accident waiting to happen."

Unfortunately, Iqhman, who was on a considerable role blew it part way through the press conference.

Jay Keuse of MSNBC News asked Iqhman if Pakistan was in any position to be lecturing other countries given Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's record of selling nuclear technology to other countries. "All nuclear weapons states profess to oppose proliferation while helping select allies acquire nuclear weapons technology," Iqhman replied. "The United States helped Britain and France obtain the bomb; France helped the Israelis; and Russia helped China. And China," he added coyly, "is said by Western media sources to have helped Pakistan. So why can't Pakistan behave like everyone else?"

Hold it right there. Iqhman has a remarkably good case going here and simply drops it. I can answer that last question. Because you clearly know it's wrong and you reduce the legitimacy of your position by trying to make two "wrongs" equal a "right". Having just successfully argued that the US does it wrong, and a good deal of the world would agree with that position, Iqhman justifies the behaviour of A.Q. Khan (and by extension, the Pakistani nuclear weapons program) by suggesting that if the US did it, others are excused in proceeding down the same path. Iqham cannot have it both ways.

Iqham, however, found that his deputy, Colonel Bom Zhalot, had something to add. Apparently Iqham was less than pleased with Zhalot when he went into a rant.

"We also worry that the U.S. commander-in-chief has confessed to having been an alcoholic. Here in Pakistan, alcohol is 'haram,' so this isn't a problem for us. Studies have also found that one-fifth of U.S. military personnel are heavy drinkers. How many of those have responsibility for nuclear weapons?"

John G. Libb of the Washington Times asked if Americans were wrong to be concerned about Pakistan's nuclear stockpile given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. Colonel Zhalot replied: "Millions of Americans believe that these are the last days and that they will be raptured to heaven at the end of the world. You have a president who describes Jesus as his favorite philosopher, and one of the last remaining candidates in your presidential primaries is a preacher who doesn't believe in evolution. Many Pakistanis worry that the United States is being taken over by religious extremists who believe that a nuclear holocaust will just put the true believers on a fast track to heaven. We worry about a nutcase U.S. president destroying the world to save it."

You worry about it?! You mean he hasn't already started the process?

Pakistan People's Party feeding a democratic deficit

Tariq Ali, writing in the Independent lays out the problem that has become evident in the selection of a successor in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. As much as Bhutto was prepared to expose the rigging of Pakistani elections, her own Pakistani People's Party is no shining light of democratic process.

A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts) and two ciphers will run the party till Benazir's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader.

Nothing more, nothing less. Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.

Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive.

Tariq Ali's column goes on to describe the fetid corruption and rot in the inner workings of the PPP. The few principled politicians are outnumbered by shiftless sycophants.

Bhutto herself named her own successor in her Will. A 19-year old, not yet old enough to hold office, whose only qualification is that he is of her bloodline. The appointment of her widower and two others to govern in her name would be nothing short of scandalous anywhere else.

As it should be in Pakistan.

Lacking an inner-democracy, the PPP has put its own faith in an aristocracy on display. Name, not competence, decides who would lead a democratic Pakistan. Even less than two weeks before the scheduled election date, a political party that actually believed in democracy would have been able to draft a consensus candidate. Not a bloodline heir.

The US-brokered deal to create a power sharing arrangement between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf had the appearance of a sham from the beginning. The Bush administration supported Musharraf and his military-led government. It was only the unraveling of Musharraf's hold on power that spurred the sudden call for elections and the inclusion of Bhutto.
The Bush administration has no real interest in a Pakistani democracy. They've dealt with the military with some marked success. Cheney has shutout any criticism of Musharraf within the adminstration and the actions of Musharraf over the past few months have attracted only mild criticism.

In early December US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher:

"It's not going to be a perfect election," he said. He was asked if Pakistan could have a free election if Musharraf lifted the state of emergency as promised.

Which is as much as telling Musharraf that it doesn't have to be a perfect election. In fact, since there is no qualification to what would constitute a "perfect" election, Musharraf now possesses incredible latitude to corrupt a vote, and he can hold out Boucher's statement as a permission slip directly issued by the Bush administration. Because what the Bush administration wants is the illusion of an election. Pretend democracy will do fine - it worked for them.

And now, even if there is an election and the Pakistan People's Party wins, Pakistan will end up with a titular prime minister named Biliwal Bhutto Zardari, and an unelected political triumvirate.

Shades of royal ascension. Except that Pakistan is in such a mess that it cannot afford an Edward VI nor what would naturally follow such a ridiculous idea.

So who exactly benefits from Bhutto's assassination. A lot of people from the look of it.

Newshoggers is keeping up with information surrounding the Bhutto assassination. It is worth a check back from time to time, including something of a friendly debate going on between Cernig and Shamanic as to the possible involvement of Pervez Musharraf.

Two points of interest here. Insiders close to Bhutto are suggesting that Musharraf was either directly or indirectly involved.

A longtime adviser and close friend of assassinated Pakistani ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto places blame for Bhutto's death squarely on the shoulders of U.S.-supported dictator Pervez Musharraf.

After an October attack on Bhutto's life in Karachi, the ex-prime minister warned "certain individuals in the security establishment [about the threat] and nothing was done," says Husain Haqqani, a confidante of Bhutto's for decades. "There is only one possibility: the security establishment and Musharraf are complicit, either by negligence or design. That is the most important thing. She's not the first political leader killed, since Musharraf took power, by the security forces."

Haqqani notes that Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck. "It's like a hit, not a regular suicide bombing," he says. "It's quite clear that someone who considers himself Pakistan's Godfather has a very different attitude toward human life than you and I do."

The thing is, a lot of political opposition in Pakistan has been eliminated through either execution or "mysterious" deaths. Knocking off the opposition is not uncommon.

However, now we have al-Qaeda claiming responsibility.

While al Qaeda is considered by the U.S. to be a likely suspect in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Banazir Bhutto, U.S. intelligence officials say they cannot confirm an initial claim of responsibility for the attack, supposedly from an al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan.

An obscure Italian Web site said Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, told its reporter in a phone call, "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahedeen."

It said the decision to assassinate Bhutto was made by al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al Zawahri in October. Before joining Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Zawahri was imprisoned in Egypt for his role in the assassination of then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

That will certainly get some quarters all riled and jumping in with pointing fingers, but there is something else.

U.S. officials monitoring Internet chat rooms known to be used by Islamic militants say several claims of responsibility have been posted, although such postings are notoriously unreliable.

Which makes the al-Qaeda claim a little less significant but not fully discountable.

One thing is slightly puzzling. Given the tenuous situation in Pakistan over the past few months, and given the October attempt on Bhutto's life, for which al Qaeda claimed credit, it would seem that US intelligence would be paying close attention to any activity involving extremist groups.

I'll go one further. It is not in the interest of the Bush administration not to have had al Qaeda carry this assassination off. Yet, US intelligence is issuing a very cautious "maybe" but "we can't confirm it".

There are two points that arise from that.

The US intelligence community is hoisting a middle finger to Cheney once again. As they did with the NIE on Iran, they are steadfastly maintaining their independence by not immediately giving Cheney the words he would like to hear. Cheney is a solid Musharraf supporter. By not immediately confirming al Qaeda's claim, Musharraf lives under a veil of suspicion.

The second point is that there is obvious skepticism among intelligence analysts. Even if al Qaeda's claim is genuine, there is also the possibility of conspiratorial involvement of other parties, particularly the ISI. Musharraf may or may not have had direct involvement, but given the renewed independence of US intelligence agencies and their recent working out from under the thumb of Dick Cheney, they're not going to be pressured into any easy answer. If they believed al Qaeda's claim they could easily have come out and confirmed it. This is only speculation but what's going on now suggests they have different information.

The move to watch is whether Musharraf cancels elections.

And the jackals descend

That didn't take long. From FOX News, (That's right, because nobody will give you faster access to the terraist take than FOX.)

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," Bush said, speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."

Not bad. Bush seems to know that Bhutto's assassin(s) were anti-democracy extremists. I wonder if the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, falls into that category.

Bush's statement, however, was calm compared to the candidates vying for the Republican nomination for President. They went utterly ghoulish.

The tragedy posed both an opportunity and a challenge for candidates to demonstrate to Iowans their ability to handle an overseas crisis.

Right, here we go then:

Mitt Romney

“This points out again the extraordinary reality of global, violent, radical jihadism,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said at a press conference in New Hampshire. “There’s no question that the violence that we see throughout the world is violence that is not limited to … Iraq and Afghanistan, but is more global in nature.”

“The world is very much at risk by virtue of these radical violent extremists, and we must come together in an effort in great haste and with great earnestness to help overcome the threat of the spread of radical, violent jihad,” he said.

Mitt, the great "seer", sees Bush's extremists and raises with two radical jihads.

Rudy Giuliani

“The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic event for Pakistan and for democracy in Pakistan,” Giuliani said. ”Her murderers must be brought to justice and Pakistan must continue the path back to democracy and the rule of law. Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere — whether in New York, London, Tel-Aviv or Rawalpindi — is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the Terrorists’ War on Us.”

Giuliani, "the man who believes watching airplanes destroy a city is the stuff of future leaders", increases the bet with The Terrorists and the certain knowledge that they going to get you if you don't elect him and Batman.

John McCain

“The death of Benazir Bhutto underscores yet again the grave dangers we face in the world today and particularly in countries like Pakistan, where the forces of moderation are arrayed in a fierce battle against those who embrace violent Islamic extremism. Given Pakistan’s strategic location, the international terrorist groups that operate from its soil, and its nuclear arsenal, the future of that country has deep implications for the security of the United States and its allies. America must stand on the right side of this ongoing struggle.”

McCain, "I used to HEART George Bush", sees Islamic Extremism and raises with a big bet - nuclear threat.

Mike Huckabee

“The terrible violence surrounding Pakistan’s upcoming election stands in stark contrast to the peaceful transition of power that we embrace in our country through our Constitution,” Huckabee said. ”On this sad day, we are reminded that while our democracy has flaws, it stands as a shining beacon of hope for nations and people around the world who seek peace and opportunity through self-government.”

Huckabee, "Pakistan really isn't up to the democracy thing", ignores the size of the pot, calls and let's everyone see a face card, The Constitution. Despite the fact that, under George Bush rules, The Constitution no longer trumps unitary rule, Huckabee keeps his killer card close to the chest - the US Supreme Court.

Fred Thompson

Thompson, late as usual, is still driving around trying to figure out where the game is being played.

There are, of course other takes. It would appear Huckabee managed to actually botch his statement, something FOX missed completely.

He made a bad choice of words when saying the U.S. needs to consider “what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continuing in Pakistan.”

Ah, it's always nice when those "Christian" leaders keep up on world events.

-------

In Canada, Steve Harper remains silent on the whole issue while he sits by the phone and waits for.... the word.

The "Silver Bullet" is assassinated.

You can expect the death today of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto to forever be labeled one which occurred under "mysterious circumstances". Via Buckdog:

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed Thursday in an apparent suicide attack at a campaign rally in which at least 20 others died.

There are a multitude of possibilities here as to who would best benefit from Bhutto's assassination, but among the leading suspects, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency will stand out.

Questions were immediately raised about how a suicide bomber could get so close to Bhutto after previous attacks.

Many observers were left to speculate whether the government of President Pervez Musharraf or Pakistan's security forces were involved in the attack, said Tariq Amin-Khan, an assistant professor of politics and public administration at Toronto's Ryerson University.

"Security has been very lax," Amin-Khan told CBC News in a telephone interview from Karachi. "One could fault the government for what it has not done."

Musharraf himself has been the target of numerous attacks blamed on Islamist militants, who have reported ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

"I find it difficult to believe that Musharraf would be directly involved, but you can't put it past the security service agencies," Amin-Khan said.

Bhutto's security adviser also said the government had ignored requests for beefed-up security, including bomb-jammers, which can thwart signals sent to detonate explosives.

All news reports are speculating that there will be extensive rioting across Pakistan.

I think that's probably understating the problem.

Expect a return to a state of emergency followed by a full-blown civil war.

Musharraf is going to pull another fast one

Pakistan's military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf has promised an early January election, restoring Pakistan to democratic civilian rule. Sort of.

Pakistan was set on a course for troubled elections yesterday after President Pervez Musharraf promised polls by early January but said they may be held under emergency rule.

In his first press conference since he suspended the constitution and assumed sweeping powers eight days ago, Musharraf said a general election would take place by January 9. But he refused to give a date for lifting emergency rule, under which thousands of opponents have been detained and some beaten, and suggested it would remain in place until polling day.

"It will ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections," he said.

Yeah, that'll work. Here's a list of rights which are suspended under Musharraf's "emergency rule".

• Protection of life and liberty.

The right to free movement.

The right of detainees to be informed of their offense and given access to lawyers.

Protection of property rights.

The right to assemble in public.

The right to free speech.

Equal rights for all citizens before law and equal legal protection.

Media coverage of suicide bombings and militant activity is curtailed by new rules. Broadcasters also face a three-year jail term if they "ridicule" members of the government or armed forces.

Yup! You can really have an open election campaign with rules like those. This is the guy the Bush administration just can't help themselves from heaping praise upon.

Bhutto's House Arrest lasts for one day as Pakistan moves closer to civil war

General Pervez Musharraf may well be reaching the end of the tether. He placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest early Friday to prevent her participation in a protest opposing the emergency measures (read: martial law) imposed when he virtually sacked the Pakistani Supreme Court and made any form of dissent unlawful.

That house arrest ended in less than 24 hours, but it creates a new problem. Bhutto and Musharraf were expected, particularly by the Bush administration, to enter into a power sharing arrangement until a president could be elected democratically. What the Bush crowd does not seem to fathom is that Bhutto and Musharraf despise each other.

No matter, you can imagine the screaming that was done into the ear of Musharraf over the phone by the US State department. They consider Bhutto, for reasons they will not explain, to be the best hope for leading Pakistan out of a dictatorship and into democratically elected leadership.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for a single day Friday — surrounding her villa with barbed wire — and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass rally against his emergency rule.

The crackdown dimmed hopes the two pro-U.S. leaders could ever form an alliance. A top American official voiced fears it would obstruct the fight against Islamic extremism — a threat underlined by a suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan that targeted a Cabinet minister, who escaped unharmed.

The U.S. called for the restrictions to be lifted. Hours later, the acting deputy commissioner for Islamabad, Aamir Ali Ahmed, said that they had ended, but her villa remained surrounded by police.

Party members said she would try to leave Saturday morning.

"We'll see tomorrow," said Makhdoom Shah Qureshi, a senior official from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party as he left a midnight meeting at her home. "You can see for yourself the barriers are still up, the police are still here."

Bhutto twice tried to escape in her car during the day, telling police who surrounded her villa: "Do not raise hands on women. You are Muslims. This is un-Islamic." They responded by blocking her way with an armored vehicle. In nearby Rawalpindi, the city where she had hoped to stage the rally, police tear gassed hundreds of supporters who staged wildcat protests and hurled stones. More than 100 were arrested.

Lovely.

The Bush administration's affinity for Bhutto is a little baffling. She is viewed as some form of silver bullet to cure Pakistan's problems. Granted she is pro-US, but she exudes an aroma not unlike that of Ahmed Chalabi did when he was making all kinds of promises about delivering Iraq to Cheney. Even though she now condemns the group, the Taliban in Afghanistan was strongly supported by Bhutto when she was prime minister including the provision of financial and military support.

In the meantime, Pakistan continues to boil over. The situation isn't just unpleasant either. It's extremely dangerous. This is a country where a combination of three factors should have everyone in pucker factor maximum: The spread of al Qaeda, an internal insurgency and the presence of nuclear weapons.

While some give credit to Musharraf for holding Pakistan together, the truth is he has never gained control of the country. Tribal Waziristan remains in the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda and from there they have moved into the Swat Valley.

Pakistan has suffered from army involvement in political decisions from its inception and the ISI, the largest of Pakistan's intelligence services operates as a state-within-a-state, out of Musharraf's control.

Added to the Waziristan problem is a home-grown insurgency taking place in Balochistan. Ethnically different than other regions of Pakistan, Balochistan borders Iran, Afghanistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north which harbour training areas for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Elsewhere in Pakistan there now exists a blurred line between political and criminal violence. The same groups which carry arms for political parties (firearms are readily available) are also engaged in criminal activity. When a suicide bomber attacked the Bhutto arrival caravan in Karachi there was a flurry of discussion about the linkage of the city government to organized crime. To further illuminate the direction Pakistan has taken, Nawaz Sharif, the man ousted by Musharraf, pointed out on national television that there was no such thing as a suicide bomber in Pakistan prior to the 1999 dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is another problem, and it is more complex than many realize. Relying on highly enriched uranium (HEU), Pakistan has created enough fissile material for upwards of 100 nuclear warheads. There has also been some plutonium enrichment which would provide for up to five warheads. Despite the claim that none of the weapons are assembled and components are stored in separate locations, that has never been verified.

Musharraf claimed that the nuclear arsenal had been relocated after 11 September 2001, but there was an unstable faction within the Musharraf regime which caused considerable concern. Musharraf fired his director-general of intelligence, Mahmoud Ahmad, shortly after 9/11 when Ahmad opposed the US invasion of Afghanistan. It was later revealed that Ahmad had provided $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker before the 9/11 attacks.

Pakistan was involved in dangerous nuclear proliferation when Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was discovered to have provided assistance in the development of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Musharraf claimed that neither the government nor the army were involved and had no knowledge of Khan's activities. That underscores a problem. Either Musharraf was lying and Pakistan is proliferating nuclear weapons or Musharraf was telling the truth and demonstrated that he cannot keep Pakistan's nuclear program secure. Further investigation revealed that Khan had been running a nuclear marketplace supposedly under the nose of an otherwise unaware Musharraf.

Now, just imagine this basket-case of a country embroiled in a full-blown civil war.

Bush blusters on and no one questions his words.

George is outdoing himself now.

"We expect there to be elections as soon as possible and that the president should remove his military uniform," Bush said in the Oval Office of the White House.

Well, yeah, because presidents wearing military uniforms does send something of a bad signal.

"Our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible," Bush said.

Restore?!

Jeebus H. Christ on a popsicle stick! Pakistan has been governed by a dictator since the 12th of October 1999 and Bush is just getting around to suggesting that Musharraf restore democracy?

And, what's to restore? Pakistan has a limited exposure to democracy and during those brief times that the people of Pakistan actually did choose their government corruption charges flew fast and furious around the leaders of the time, including the much touted Benazir Bhutto.

Nawaz Sharif, who was elected in 1997, immediately set about consolidating power and changed the constitution by removing the checks and balances which limited the role of the prime minister.

Sound familiar?

It was with the concurrence of the United States that Musharraf took over the government and had Sharif exiled to Saudi Arabia with a guarantee that he would not be involved in Pakistani politics for five years.

Musharraf then manipulated the National Assembly in a vote which legitimized his 1999 coup.

But Bush would not say what the ramifications would be if Musharraf didn't heed the president's words.

"It's a hypothetical," he said. "I certainly hope he does take my advice."

There's a prize statement. Coming from a person who has managed to turn South Asia and the Middle East into a chaotic nightmare, any advice should be weighed against the record.

But Bush, who considers Pakistan a key ally in Washington's war on terror, praised Musharraf for being a strong fighter against extremists and radicals.

Heh. Apparently Bush missed one briefing book somewhere along the line. The extremists in Pakistan have grown stronger since September 11, 2001; not weaker. There are security leaks in the Pakistani military which are reported to be feeding information to al Qaeda lodged in their safe haven in North Waziristan and the ISI (the largest of 3 Pakistani intelligence services) appears to operating without oversight and beyond the reach of Musharraf.

And who are the extremists Bush is so happy that Musharraf is fighting?

"This police brutality against peaceful lawyers shows how the government of a dictator wants to silence those who are against dictatorship," said Sarfraz Cheema, a senior lawyer at the rally. "We don't accept the proclamation of emergency."

Yeah. It's easy to understand why George W. Bush would consider lawyers dangerous. Adherence to the rule of law is not a strong point of the Bush administration. In truth, Musharraf's little state of emergency isn't having any effect against extremists and radicals. Instead, those being rounded up and placed under arrest are mainstream politicians and human rights activists.

The truth is, the Bush administration is interested in one thing.

"What is at stake for the US is, in US perception at least, the stability of the country but perceived essentially as a prerequisite for the continuation of counter terrorism operations," Frederic Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specialising in Pakistan, said recently.

But he added that while the US had considered General Musharraf its best asset in that struggle in Pakistan, in fact he had not delivered what he had promised Washington.

The Bush administration, lacking any depth of knowledge regarding Pakistan, might do well to consult Fredric Grare, one of the foremost experts on the region.

Oh right. He's French.

Cheney owns Pakistan's problem

At about this point it's worth looking at an aspect of the situation in Pakistan and how a lot of the problem emanates from the halls of the Bush administration. It would be easy to pull out one of the news or opinion columns from after Musharraf's imposition of emergency powers, but this one goes back to June 2007.

It is also worth keeping in mind that George W. Bush himself is well over his head when it comes to anything akin to foreign policy, planning, geopolitics and the like. In fact, he's over his head when he gets out of bed. It's also worth remembering that Bush has no background in anything resembling foreign relations and that when asked, back before the 2000 US federal election, Bush was unable to answer a question as to the name of the president of Pakistan. He didn't know much then and he doesn't know much now.

It's also worth noting that in every instance where there has been a problem in South Asia, Dick Cheney has been deeply involved. There have also been indications that the US State Department has allowed all the expertise they once had on Pakistan to atrophy. This was the warning provided by Ahmed Rashid, June 17, 2007:

Pakistan is on the brink of disaster, and the Bush administration is continuing to back the man who dragged it there. As President Pervez Musharraf fights off the most serious challenge to his eight-year dictatorship, the United States is supporting him to the hilt. The message to the Pakistani public is clear: To the Bush White House, the war on terrorism tops everything, and that includes democracy.

That warning was issued after the March 9th dismissal by Musharraf of the chief justice of Pakistan's supreme court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry resulted in Pakistanis starting an uprising against the rule of Prevez Musharraf.

Thousands of lawyers nationwide, looking like penguins in their courtroom black suits and white shirts, braved police batons and the heat to lead marches. They were joined by women's groups, journalists and the opposition. For the first time in two decades, Pakistan's civil society has taken to the streets.

And it all goes back to the deal that was made by the United States with Pakistan suggesting they were an ally in the bumper-sticker called the "Global War on Terror".

The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.

Then we get to the rub, because in June we knew that the US was completely deficit in working knowledge of the region. The Bush administration had allowed its South Asia knowledge base to wither.

The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

And now, the kicker.

Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions. Boucher, for one, has largely limited his remarks on the crisis to expressions of support for Musharraf. Current and retired U.S. diplomats tell me that throughout the previous year, Boucher refused to let the State Department even consider alternative policies if Musharraf were threatened with being ousted, even though 2007 is an election year in Pakistan. Last winter, Boucher reportedly limited the scope of a U.S. government seminar on Pakistan for fear that it might send a signal that U.S. support for Musharraf was declining. Likewise, I'm told, he has refused to meet with leading opposition figures such as former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf has exiled.

[...]

With Cheney in charge and Rice in eclipse, rumblings of alarm can be heard at the Defense Department and the CIA. While neither agency is usually directly concerned with decision-making on Pakistan, both boast officers with far greater expertise than the White House and State Department crew. These officers, many of whom have served in Islamabad or Kabul, understand the double game that Musharraf has played -- helping the United States go after al-Qaeda while letting his intelligence services help the Taliban claw their way back in Afghanistan. The Pentagon and the CIA have been privately expressing concern about the lack of an alternative to blind support for Musharraf. Ironically, both departments have historically supported military rulers in Pakistan. They seem to have learned their lesson.

Once again, the hand of Dick Cheney is found stuck in the middle of a fiasco pie. Instead of promoting scholarship and sound planning at the State Department, Cheney runs the show based on his personal knowledge. He has clearly rejected the expertise of the CIA - again.

Once again, a monumental failure in foreign affairs falls squarely in the laps of Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice. This time, however, they are playing footsie from their offices with a nuclear power. An unstable nuclear power.

While they gazed in the mirror and admired their new shoes...

Ready?

I agree with Cernig. Musharraf took the action he took as a means to prevent a power sharing arrangement with Benazir Bhutto. By engineering a situation which brought about martial law and removing the Pakistani Supreme Court from the bench (installing a loyalist in place), Musharraf has effectively shut down any chance for any democracy in Pakistan.

There is every reason to believe, despite the rhetoric falling out of the mouth of Condoleeza Rice, that democracy was less than attractive to the White House. Musharraf, for all his difficulty, remains at the head of a mostly secular administration. Open the door to democracy in Pakistan and the door opens to possible radical Islamic control. One of the worst possible situations they could imagine would be something similar to the January 2006 Hamas victory in democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority. That was bad enough, but to repeat that in Pakistan, replete with nuclear weapons would be viewed as disasterous.

At least one source feels Musharraf acted with the concurrence of the Bush administration.

A former Indian Intelligence Bureau chief said General Musharraf would have taken permission from the United States before imposing emergency in Pakistan.

Speaking to rediff.com, Ajit Doval said the mute reaction of the United States clearly showed the US could have given permission.

That's entirely possible, however that suggests that the Bush administration actually has a handle on what is happening in Pakistan. Given the poor diplomatic performance of the Bush administration on just about any issue, I think they're standing there holding their crotches waiting for a stall to become available. And I'm not the only one.

Stephen P. Cohen of the Brooking Institution is the director of that group's South Asia program and had this to say.

Cohen when informed that the Bush Administration was essentially scrambling to get a fix on the situation in Pakistan, said it was largely due to its not having a coherent policy on Pakistan or a well-developed and permanent team of experts on Pakistan within the Administration.

"It was always a top-down policy and we dealt with Musharraf and assumed that he would deal with Pakistan," he said. "And from day one, the US government mis-estimated his ability to control events in Pakistan," he added, and argued, "Frankly, I haven't seen much in the way of intelligence analysis of Pakistan. We don't have that much expertise in this country because policy was all made on an eyeball to eyeball basis by the President and Musharraf and that's one of the prices you pay when you have highly personalised diplomacy."

The Bush administration, cheering for the return of Benazir Bhutto, demonstrating its elementary-school understanding of foreign affairs, was possessed of the belief that Benazir would be the silver bullet which caused a democratization of Pakistan. It probably never crossed their minds that Bhutto and Musharraf cannot stand each other.

So, either way, we have another fiasco erupting from the mis-estimation of Condoleeza Rice and the lack of depth in the Bush administration.

So unclear and unaware were they that Admiral William Fallon, Commander of U.S. Central Command, in Pakistan to offer troops to assist the Pakistani army in the Afghan border region and to warn against the imposition of martial law, was not even out of the country when Musharraf issued the constitutional order declaring a state of emergency.

Unless Fallon was carrying a different message we haven't heard about yet.

In any case, Musharraf is going to need more than the imposition of martial law to regain control of Pakistan. And if he converts himself to a pure military dictator Pakistan will probably spin right out of control.

Pakistan now under martial law

Umm, Ms. Rice? Over there. Apparently Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf didn't listen to you. He did it anyway.

The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency on Saturday night, suspending the country’s Constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with police officers and soldiers.

Not that this is unexpected. Musharraf has been threatened from several quarters as to the legitimacy of his presidency - which he first acquired by doing what he just did now. (Does this mean that he just pulled off a coup d'etat on himself?)

The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, civilian political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court was expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president, which opposition groups have said was improper.

Keep very much in mind that this is a country which, as unstable as it now appears, has nuclear weapons.

The emergency declaration was in direct defiance of repeated calls this week from senior American officials, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, not to do so. A day earlier, the senior American military commander in the Middle East, Admiral William J. Fallon, told General Musharraf and his top generals in a meeting here that declaring emergency rule would jeopardize the extensive American financial support for the Pakistani military.

Not that Musharraf appears to have much interest in either the Pakistan constitution or that country's supreme judiciary, but this is germane:

Analysts said the emergency-rule decree in effect was the declaring of martial law, because there were no constitutional provisions allowing for such an order. “This is the imposition of real military rule, because there is no Constitution and Pakistan is being run under provisional constitutional order issued by Musharraf as the army chief, not as the president of Pakistan,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an expert on Pakistani military affairs.

Whatcha gonna do now, George, Dick and Condi? You've been propping this little tin-pot prick up for longer than was healthy.

Want something to worry about? Try this on for size.

Practice saying this:

OH SHIT!

Do it again.

Now go to Global Guerrillas and read the short and very incisive observation made by John Robb. Don't feel like linking out? Allow me:

Fareed Farooqui reports from Pakistan on the effects of a minor electricity outage (unintentionally caused by construction activity and exacerbated by load shedding due to insufficient production of power) in Karachi. Here are some examples:

• Vicious rioting broke out Wednesday evening in several parts of Karachi and continued into the night in protest against long spells of power outages.
• Residents of the affected areas came out on to the streets and burnt tires and other materials. In some areas, the protesters broke traffic lights and damaged fast food restaurants by pelting them with stones. The police resorted to shelling and aerial firing to disperse the crowds.
• Riots also took place in various areas of Lyari Town including Aath Chowk and Shah Baig Lane. Protesters besieged a KESC complaint centre near Aath Chowk, and tried to set it on fire, but the police reached there on time.

Pakistani guerrillas haven't yet (fortunately) adopted systems disruption against Pakistan's crowded cities (Baloch guerrillas have focused on the disruption of regional natural gas deliveries). However, given the example above, it appears that Pakistan's legitimacy is so weak (particularly given recent events) that if they did adopt systems disruption, the returns on investment would be exceptional.

Now, all together, OH SHIT!

If you're not reading Global Guerrillas, you may not understand what constitutes one of the greatest threats in this century.

Don't read it before going to bed. You won't sleep well.

More religious nuts. This time they're Muslim.

Someone must be sprinkling cashew dust around all the religious nuts these days.

The award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, a Pakistani government minister said today.

"This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. "The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."

This from a country that calls itself an ally in Bush's War On Terra™.

Before anyone in Pakistan gets too carried away with their own importance they need to be reminded that they created a safe haven for Taliban and al Quada fighters in Warziristan.

This is the same country playing mumbly-peg with nuclear weapons. Never mind Iran. Pakistan is unstable and on the brink of a coup. Now, religious edicts are being issued... by the Pakistani parliament.

All that aside, this looks like an attempt to deflect attention inside Pakistan from the real problems. Pervez Musharraf is on the brink of being toppled. When he dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry in March of this year, the country erupted in violent protest. Musharraf has placed restrictions on the press and news media, only to have to suddenly lift them when it sparked even more ugly demonstrations.

Musharraf, still commands the army while sitting as an unelected president, a near violation of the Pakistani constitution. He hopes to retain power by holding presidential elections before he dissolves parliament and the provincial legislatures in November. He has also said the that none of the exiled opposition leaders will be allowed to return to Pakistan ahead of the elections.

Add to all of that, Pakistan has been suffering from the worst electricity shortage in memory sparking even more riots by large groups of the population.

But they've got nuclear bombs.

Condoleeza Rice enters the picture with a Bush *hearts* Musharraf message.

U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has signalled the Bush administration's steadfast support for Pakistan's struggling leader but also expressed worry about the country's rising violence and called for stronger rights for opposition groups.

Rice's meeting with Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, yesterday came as Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, faces the biggest political crisis of his eight-year rule, with thousands taking to the streets to demand the President relinquish power.

That won't help Musharraf and should set off a whole new set of riots.

The condemnation of Britain for awarding a knighthood to Salman Rushdie is one of two things: Either the Pakistanis are trying to deflect attention from extreme internal problems or, there is a thought in Karachi that Pakistan can actually lead the Muslim world.

Either way, it highlights the problems of a theocracy. Foreign policy based on religious beliefs. And before any Christian fundamentalists get on their high-horse, don't for a minute think you are any better.

Since Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq has just called for suicide bombings, we can all assume that in the Global War on Terror, he is now on somebody's hit list. Or at least on a no-fly list.

No?

I didn't think so.

H/T Cat

Disorder on the Pakistan border

Carlotta Gall and David Rohde reporting in the New York Times tell a story which has to raise even more questions as to whether Afghanistan can ever be secured without first dealing with Pakistan. Quetta, on the Pakistan side of the border was a major staging and marshaling area for al Qaeda before the invasion of Afghanistan and for the Taliban before that.

The most explosive question about the Taliban resurgence here along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is this: Have Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?

The government of Pakistan vehemently rejects the allegation and insists that it is fully committed to help American and NATO forces prevail against the Taliban militants who were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001.

Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.

More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.

The ISI has long been suspected of not only being in league with the Taliban but using them as a surrogate army.

The ISI has a long history of dealings with the Taliban. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the ISI was the conduit for money and arms, supplied by the US, destined for the mujahadeen. The ISI flew its true colours when, in September 2006, a deal was reached between the Pakistani government and the Taliban lodged in Waziristan. Shortly after that deal was signed NATO and the US operations in Afghanistan reported that the number of attacks by Taliban (or similar groups) tripled.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have for decades used religious parties as a convenient instrument to keep domestic political opponents at bay and for foreign policy adventures, said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to several of Pakistan’s prime ministers and the author of a book on the relationship between the Islamists and the Pakistani security forces.

The religious parties recruited for the jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan from the 1980s, when the Pakistani intelligence agencies ran the resistance by the mujahedeen and channeled money to them from the United States and Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Mr. Haqqani said.

In return for help in Kashmir and Afghanistan the intelligence services would rig votes for the religious parties and allow them freedom to operate, he said.

“The religious parties provide them with recruits, personnel, cover and deniability,” Mr. Haqqani said in a telephone interview from Washington, where he is now a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Inter-Services Intelligence once had an entire wing dedicated to training jihadis, he said. Today the religious parties probably have enough of their own people to do the training, but, he added, the I.S.I. so thoroughly monitors phone calls and people’s movements that it would be almost impossible for any religious party to operate a training camp without its knowledge.

“They trained the people who are at the heart of it all, and they have done nothing to roll back their protégés,” Mr. Haqqani said.

In the region surrounding Quetta, the people are of the firm belief that the ISI is sending fresh recruits to the war in Afghanistan. And when the question arises as to whether the ISI is a loose cannon all answers are the same: President Musharraf has total control of the ISI.

Musharraf, of course, has his own problems. He lives life on the brink of a coup. At any time, a move which upsets any given power group, such as the ISI, could see him removed from power. Is that forcing him to play both ends against the middle?

Probably.

The real problem is that there are troops on the ground in Afghanistan who have every right to believe they are accomplishing something, only to discover that their enemy is being reinforced from an area they cannot enter.

That would piss me off.