U.S. Stirs a Hornet's Nest in Pakistan
"If this continues, at some point patriotic Pakistani soldiers may
rebel and shoot the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington's
payroll. Equally ominous, a poor people's uprising spreading across
Pakistan -- also mislabelled "Taliban" -- threatens a radical national
rebellion reminiscent of India's Naxalite rebels."
By ERIC MARGOLIS
May 17, 2009 "Winnipeg Sun" -- PARIS -- Pakistan finally bowed to
Washington's angry demands last week by unleashing its military against
rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) --
collectively mislabelled "Taliban" in the West.
The Obama administration had threatened to stop $2 billion US annual
cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan's political and military leadership and
block $6.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into
Pakistan's turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier.
The result was a bloodbath: Some 1,000 "terrorists" killed (read:
mostly civilians) and 1.2 million people -- most of Swat's population --
made refugees.
Pakistan's U.S.-rented armed forces have scored a brilliant victory
against their own people. Too bad they don't do as well in wars against
India. Blasting civilians, however, is much safer and more profitable.
Unable to pacify Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes (a.k.a. Taliban), a
deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort
to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far
killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to
Pakistan's media, the rest civilians.
Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world's largest tribal
people. Fifteen million live in Afghanistan, forming half its population.
Twenty-six million live right across the border in Pakistan. Britain's
imperialists divided Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line
(today's Afghan-Pakistan border). Pashtun reject it.
Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947, provided much of
their homeland be autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat
only joined Pakistan in 1969.
As Pakistan's Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in
Afghanistan, U.S. drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad
to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The
result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger.
I have been to war with the Pashtun and have seen their legendary
courage, strong sense of honour and determination. They are also hugely
quarrelsome, feuding and prickly.
One quickly learns never to threaten a Pashtun or give him ultimatums.
These are the mountain warriors who defied the U.S. by refusing to hand over
Osama bin Laden because he was a hero of the anti-Soviet war and their
guest. The ancient code of "Pashtunwali" still guides them: Do not attack
Pashtun, do not cheat them, do not cause them dishonour. To Pashtun, revenge
is sacred.
HAM-HANDED
Now, Washington's ham-handed policies and last week's Swat atrocity
threaten to ignite Pakistan's second worst nightmare after invasion by
India: That its 26 million Pashtun will secede and join Afghanistan's
Pashtun to form an independent Pashtun state, Pashtunistan.
This would rend Pakistan asunder, probably provoke its restive Baluchi
tribes to secede and tempt mighty India to intervene militarily, risking
nuclear war with beleaguered Pakistan.
The Pashtun of NWFP have no intention or capability of moving into
Pakistan's other provinces, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. They just want to
be left alone. Alarms of a "Taliban takeover of Pakistan" are pure
propaganda.
Lowland Pakistanis repeatedly have rejected militant Islamic parties.
Many have little love for Pashtun, whom they regard as mountain wild men
best avoided.
Nor are Pakistan's well-guarded nukes a danger -- at least not yet.
Alarms about Pakistan's nukes come from the same fabricators with hidden
agendas who brought us Saddam Hussein's bogus weapons.
THE REAL DANGER
The real danger is in the U.S. acting like an enraged mastodon,
trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad's military to make war
on its own people. Pakistan could end up like U.S.-occupied Iraq, split into
three parts and helpless.
If this continues, at some point patriotic Pakistani soldiers may
rebel and shoot the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington's
payroll.
Equally ominous, a poor people's uprising spreading across Pakistan --
also mislabelled "Taliban" -- threatens a radical national rebellion
reminiscent of India's Naxalite rebels.
As in Iraq, profound ignorance and gung ho military arrogance drive
U.S. Afghan policy. Obama's people have no understanding what they are
getting into in "AfPak." I can tell them: An unholy mess we will long
regret.
***
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/68315.html?storylink=omni_popular
Cheney said Gitmo detainees revealed Iraq-al Qaida link
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers: May 15, 2009
WASHINGTON - Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of
Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay
prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in
chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn't true.
Cheney's 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely
overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports
that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find
evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein - despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic,
insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular
Iraqi dictatorship.
The head of the Criminal Investigation Task Force at Guantanamo from
2002-2005 confirmed to McClatchy that in late 2002 and early 2003,
intelligence officials were tasked to find, among other things, Iraq-al
Qaida ties, which were a central pillar of the Bush administration's case
for its March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"I'm aware of the fact that in late 2002, early 2003, that (the alleged al
Qaida-Iraq link) was an interest on the intelligence side," said retired
Army Lt. Col. Brittain Mallow, a former military criminal investigator.
"That was something they were tasked to look at."
He said he was unaware of the origins of the directive, but a former senior
U.S. intelligence official has told McClatchy that Cheney's and former
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's offices were demanding that
information in 2002 and 2003. The official, who wasn't authorized to speak
publicly on the matter, requested anonymity.
During the same period, two alleged senior al Qaida operatives in CIA
custody were waterboarded repeatedly - Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times and
Khalid Sheik Mohammed at least 183 times.
A 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report said that the two were
questioned about the relationship between al Qaida and Iraq, and that both
denied knowing of one.
A U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Paul Burney, told the Army Inspector
General's office in 2006 that during the same period, interrogators at
Guantanamo were under pressure to produce evidence of al Qaida-Iraq ties,
but were unable to do so.
"The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . .
. there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce
more immediate results," Burney said, according excerpts of an interview
published in a declassified Senate Armed Services Committee report released
on April 22.
A key proponent of the Iraq invasion and of harsh interrogation methods,
Cheney has become the leading defender of such measures, which included
forced nudity, prolonged sleep deprivation, stress positions and
waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
The Rocky Mountain News asked Cheney in a Jan. 9, 2004, interview if he
stood by his claims that Saddam's regime had maintained a "relationship"
with al Qaida, raising the danger that Iraq might give the group chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons to attack the U.S.
"Absolutely. Absolutely," Cheney replied.
A Cheney spokeswoman said a response to an e-mail requesting clarification
of the former vice president's remarks would be forthcoming next week.
"The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back," he said. "We know for example from
interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to
Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological
weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who
wants to look at it."
No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al
Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.
It's not apparent which Guantanamo detainees Cheney was referring to in the
interview.
One al Qaida detainee, Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, claimed that terrorist
operatives were sent to Iraq for chemical and biological weapons training,
but he was in CIA custody, not at Guantanamo.
Moreover, he recanted his assertions, some of them allegedly made under
torture while he was being interrogated in Egypt.
"No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred,
and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training
recanted his claims after the war," a September 2006 Senate Intelligence
Committee report said.
Although the Defense Intelligence Agency questioned it at the time, former
President George W. Bush cited al Libi's claim in an October 2002 address,
and former Secretary of State Colin Powell used in his February 2003 speech
to the United Nations.
A Libyan newspaper last week reported that al Libi committed suicide in a
Libyan jail.
(Warren P. Strobel contributed to this article.)
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