The Great Debate UK
Pakistan floods show Asia’s vulnerability to climate change
By Lord Julian Hunt and Professor J. Srinivasan. The opinions expressed are their own.
It is more than a year since the devastating July and August 2010 floods in Pakistan that affected about 20 million people and killed an estimated 2,000. Many believe that the disaster was partially fuelled by global warming, and that there is a real danger that Pakistan, and the Indian subcontinent in general, could become the focus of much more regular catastrophic flooding.
Indeed, right now Pakistan is again experiencing massive flooding. The UN asserts that, already, more than 5.5 million people have been affected and almost 4300 are officially reported dead, 100 of them children.
Last year’s calamity, in particular, highlights the vulnerability of much of Asia to climate change, and has helped elevate this into one of the most important and pressing political and social issues in the region. Indeed, an increasingly prevailing view is that the impact of climate change could be worse in the region than all previous social, health and conflict disasters of the past.
In particular, there is growing recognition that global warming is dangerously linked to several significant threats, including not just natural disasters, but also energy, water, and food shortages as average rising temperatures reduce productivity and agricultural land is threatened by sea level rises and salinification of coastal areas.
Following the combination of last year’s Pakistani floods, and the exceptional heat waves in Russia, there is also now greater understanding in the region about the links between continental-scale weather events, and hence global risks to food availability. These linkages are likely to be exacerbated by adjustments in the patterns of atmosphere and ocean movements.
Reflecting this heightened concern, Asian prime ministers, legislators and business leaders are increasingly supporting new climate-related legislation, investments and research. They are also leveraging their growing influence at the United Nations to help secure a comprehensive, global warming deal.
from The Great Debate:
Help Pakistan rein in the ISI
By David Rohde The opinions expressed are his own.
Admiral Mike Mullen’s blunt declaration on Thursday that a Taliban faction known as the Haqqani network acts as a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s military intelligence agency is a welcome shift in U.S. policy. After a decade of privately cajoling the Pakistani military to stop its disastrous policy of sheltering the Afghan Taliban, the United States is publicly airing the truth.
Pakistan’s top military spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), supported the Haqqanis as they carried out an attack on the American embassy last week, Mullen said during Congressional testimony. Last year, they arrested a Taliban leader who engaged in peace talks without their permission, according to American officials. And many Afghans suspect ISI involvement in the assassination this week of the head of Afghan peace talks that did not involve Pakistan.
The airing of the ISI’s links to the Haqqanis is long overdue. To me, the ISI is a cancer on Pakistan. It is vital, though, that American officials punish the Pakistani military--not all Pakistanis--for the ISI’s actions.
Dominated by hard-line ultra-nationalists obsessed with defeating archrival India, the ISI has killed Pakistani journalists who openly criticize it, harassed human rights activists and undermined efforts to establish democracy. A shadow government unaccountable to the country's weak civilian government, the ISI is widely feared by Pakistanis.
The agency is dominated by military officers wedded to a paranoid, antiquated and dangerous mindset the C.I.A. helped foment during the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad, according to American and Pakistani officials. More ultranationalists than jihadists, ISI officers believe they are the true guardians of Pakistan. To them, the U. S. is an untrustworthy and dissolute nation that is in rapid decline. India is Pakistan’s primary threat. And militants are proxies that can be controlled.
Instead of blaming all Pakistanis for the action of the ISI, the United States must help Pakistan reform an out-of-step, out-of-control agency. Military aid to Pakistan should be halted until the ISI stops sheltering the Afghan Taliban. At the same time, civilian aid to Pakistan should be continued and even increased.
Haqqani has been and is CIA operator so Mr.David should ask what if CIA did all this. Fabricating evidence is so easy when you plan the event yourself, who knows who is talking to whom and who knows when and where it is recorded. There is no independent evidence of any event, it is all about what you want to hear.
ISI supported CIA covertly so many times and handed over Talibans and Al-Qaida in thousands so why not Haqqani?
In retrorespect do you remember Raymond Davis, where is this sharp shooter “Diplomat” as declared by Mr.Obama in his public speech. Have you tried him in USA as promised by Senator Kerry, after killing two innocents in Lahore. Mr. Raymond Davis(what ever his real name may be) did not even appeared in any court of Law in USA so are the Americans operatives allowed to freely kill some one in other part of World and return home safely with the help of American Consulate and be free?
Pakistanis are very lucky that Raymond Davis was caught and pubic pressure resulted in media led investigation about CIA contractors roaming in Pakistani cities. ISI helped his legal escape but more pleasant results emerged that suicide Bombings have almost stopped in Pakistani Cities after legal eviction of Raymond Davis and similar gang of contractors hired by CIA. Circumstantial evidence and events indicate that these CIA hired security contractors were the culprits behind arranging suicide bombings in Pakistani cities to frustrate the people and to give excuse to Government to keep aligned with CIA. Mr. Raymond Davis event provided the general public deep insight and forced Govt to (unwillingly) evict contractors like him which saved many lives. Do you know ISI role, they provided the lawyer and money to let Mr. Raymond Davis out !!!
from Afghan Journal:
America in Afghanistan until 2024 ?
The Daily Telegraph reports that the status of forces agreement that the United States and Afghanistan are negotiating may allow a U.S. military presence in the country until 2024 . That's a full 10 years beyond the deadline for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
The negotiations are being conducted under a veil of security, and we have no way of knowing, at this point at least, if the two sides are really talking about U.S. troops in the country for that long. ( The very fact that a decade after U.S. troops entered the country there is no formal agreement spelling out the terms of their deployment is in itself remarkable)
But it does seem more likely than not that there there will be a U.S. military presence, however small, in Afghanistan beyond 2014, and that is going to force the players involved in the conflict and those watching from the sidelines with more than a spectator's interest to rethink their calculations.
Indeed, the talk of an extended force deployment may be an attempt to reverse the perception that America was in full retreat following President Barack Obama's announcement of a drawdown that many in the military believe has only hardened the resolve of the Taliban insurgents and their backers in Pakistan to wait out the departure.
Now with troops, including a sizeable element of Special Forces, backed by the United States' aggressive and unparalleled air power, to be based in the turbulent south and east of the country beyond 2014, the players have to shuffle their cards again. For those elements in the Taliban who may have explored the idea of reconciliation, the plan for a long-term U.S.military involvement in the country has just made their task even more difficult.
For Pakistan, the country most affected by what happens in Afghanistan, the idea that the United States is not going to walk away, sharpens its dilemma and once again goes to the heart of its role as a conflicted partner in the war against Islamist militancy. On the face of it, a U.S. military presence next door means continued pressure on Pakistan to act against the militant groups that operate from its soil. It means the drones will continue to fly in its skies and fire missiles at will.
@Sanjeev
Have you ever given thoughts to the alternative course for the President to follow which is going to provide jobs for the brave american soldiers when they return home sooner than later? This is not stated in your articles and shoul be considered in future articles, just a suggestion. Mr Obama has announced a plan but the republicans are not going to support him simply to retire the afro with a one time presidency. At least he was given a chance to live in white house one time.
Mr Obama could have closed down the torture chambers, the torture bases abroad but for employment problems which the military veterans face due to recession at home. No chance for the bases to close down in Japan, Germany and midddle east either.
Rex Minor
from FaithWorld:
Pakistan’s patchy fight against Islamist violence sows confusion
(A man takes a nap next to a poster of Osama bin Laden at the Chauburji monument in Lahore May 13, 2011. The message written on the posters read: "The prayer absentia for martyr of Islamic nation is a duty and a debt"/Mani Rana)
At the rehabilitation center for former militants in Pakistan's Swat valley, the psychiatrist speaks for the young man sitting opposite him in silence. "It was terrible. He was unable to escape. The fear is so strong. Still the fear is so strong." Hundreds of miles away in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, a retired army officer recalls another young man who attacked him while he prayed - his "absolutely expressionless face" as he crouched down robot-like to reload his gun.
Both youths had been sucked into an increasingly fierce campaign of gun and bomb attacks by Islamist militants on military and civilian targets across Pakistan. But there the similarity stops.
One is now being "de-radicalized" in the rehabilitation center in Swat, the northern region which only two years ago was overrun by the Pakistani Taliban and has since been cleared after a massive military operation. He will be taught that Islam does not permit violence against the state and that suicide bombing is "haram" or forbidden.
The other had attacked the minority Ahmadi sect, declared non-Muslim by the state and subject to frequent attacks in Punjab, where many of them live. Though he was arrested after being overpowered by the retired army officer, survivors said many of their neighbors celebrated his act of violence with the distribution of sweets.
The different responses to the two are symptomatic of Pakistan's compartmentalized approach on counter-terrorism and counter-extremism. In some parts of the country - like Swat - violent Islamists are crushed and their beliefs confronted. In others - like Punjab, the heartland province far more important to the stability of Pakistan than the more talked-about tribal areas bordering Afghanistan - they are tolerated while their ideology of religious extremism flourishes.
from Afghan Journal:
Drone strikes are police work, not an act of war?
Launching an air strike in another nation would normally be considered an act of aggression. But advocates of America's rapidly expanding unmanned drone programme don't see it that way.
They are arguing, as Tom Ricks writes on his blog The Best Defense over at Foreign Policy, that the campaign to kill militants with missile strikes from these unmanned aircraft, is more like police action in a tough neighbourhood than a military conflict.
These raids conducted by sinister-looking Predator or Reaper aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen - and since last month in Somalia - should not be seen as a challenge to states and their authority. Instead they are meant to supplement the power of governments that are either unable to or unwilling to fight the militants operating from their territories.
They are precise, limited, strikes aimed at taking down specific individuals, and in that sense are more like the police going after criminals, rather than a full-on military assault. Ricks writes:
"Police work involves small arms used precisely. Drones aren't pistols, but firing one Hellfire at a Land Rover is more like a police action than it is like a large-scale military offensive with artillery barrages, armored columns, and infantry assaults."
It is a bit of a stretch, though, to compare a police action in a rough part of town with the kind of devastation that the laser-guided Hellfire missile can rain down when fired from unmanned aircraft as scores of Pakistani civilians in the troubled northwest region discovered in the initial days of the programme launched by the Bush administration.
Mr USA special forces went in with stealth helicopters, which could be seen by a naked eye, to kill a long resident of Abbotabad in Pakistan who happened to be Mr Osama, is another white lie which is being aded to thelies comng from the USA spin specialists. They include JFK murder by a lone Lee Harvey, american astronauts landing on the moon, Saddam Hussain in possession of weapons of mass destruction etc. etc.
The question of our time should be; which powerful group was behind the election of the current President who spent most of his time in the Mafiosi city of Chicago? Never mind about the endless dicussion of the Indians preoccupation with its archenemy Pakistan, the question of our time is that are we coming closer to the time forecast by Tommy Franks when the USA military is likely to take over the USA Govt.?
Rex Minor
from FaithWorld:
Pakistan’s booming female madrassas feed rising intolerance
(Covered Pakistani female madrassa students take part in an anti-government demonstration in Islamabad August 27, 2004 after a government raid in their mosque and Islamic seminary/Mian Khursheed)
Varda is an accountancy student who dreams of working abroad. Dainty and soft-spoken, the 22-year-old aspires to broaden her horizons, but when it comes to Islam, she refuses to question the fundamentalist interpretations offered by clerics and lecturers nationwide.
Varda is among more than a quarter of a million Pakistani students attending an all-female madrassa, or Islamic seminary, where legions of well-to-do women are experiencing an awakening of faith, at the cost of rising intolerance. In a nation where Muslim extremists are slowly strengthening their grip on society, the number of all-female madrassas has boomed over the past decade, fueled by the failures of the state education system and a deepening conservativism among the middle to upper classes.
Parents often encourage girls to enroll in madrassas after finishing high school or university, as an alternative to a shrinking, largely male-orientated job market, and to ensure a girl waiting to get married isn't drawn into romantic relationships, says Masooda Bano, a research fellow at the British-based Economic and Social Research Council.
But, like Varda, many students at the 2,000 or so registered madrassas are university students or graduates looking for greater understanding of Islam, as well as housewives who, like others in Pakistani society, feel pressured to deepen their faith.
Asked about the killing of a governor earlier this year because he opposed the country's controversial blasphemy law, Varda, without hesitation, said Salman Taseer's murder by his own bodyguard was the right thing to do. "If people ... call themselves Muslims and they are members of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, then they should not be criticizing this law," she said. "I am sorry to say this, but this is what he deserved."
from Afghan Journal:
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and the bin Laden raid
In conducting a raid deep inside Pakistan to take out Osama bin Laden, the United States pushed the boundaries of military operations, inter-state ties and international law, all of which are the subject of a raging debate in the region and beyond.
One of the less talked-about issues is that the boots-on-ground operation by the U.S. Special Forces also blows a hole in a long-held argument that states which have nuclear weapons, legitimately or otherwise, face a lower chance of a foreign strike or invasion than those without them. Thus the United States didn't think twice before going into Afghanistan within weeks of the September 11 attacks or striking against Libya now because there was no nuclear threat lurking at the back of the mind. Even Iraq was a tempting target because it was not known to have a well-established nuclear arsenal although the whole point of the invasion was that it had weapons of mass destruction. That only turned out to be untrue.
And conversely there is a belief that the United States or some of the other Western powers wouldn't take on North Korea because of the nuclear weapons it holds. It is simply too dangerous and even in the case of Iran those who favour action say the time to do it is now while it is still developing the weapons, not when it has completed the programme.
But the May 2 raid in a compound in a Pakistani garrison town tests that logic and shows the limits of nuclear deterrence, as Elbridge Colby, who served recently in the office of the U.S. Defense Secretary on START negotiations wrote in Real Clear World's Compass blog. Pakistan has a powerful nuclear arsenal, growing at a rate that will make it the fourth-largest in a decade behind only the United States, Russia and China. It has the delivery systems, both missiles and aircraft, to fire these weapons and a huge professional army to support the nuclear programme. Yet all that nuclear infrastructure did not stop the United States from breaching its air space, inserting soldiers in the ground right under the Pakistani military's nose, hunting down bin Laden and his associates in the house and flying away with his corpse. All without Islamabad's consent, according to the version put out by both sides.
Things could have spun out of control, the Pakistani military could have engaged the Special Forces with unpredictable results. The air force according to reports did scramble its fighters, so there was always the chance of a fight. Yet, as Colby says, it is striking - and a lesson for others - that America seemed willing to take its chances against a nuclear-armed power. It shows that nuclear weapons do not provide blanket protection.
"Countries that have nuclear weapons can still be confronted and operated against without escalation to nuclear use, particularly when the objective pursued is limited and discriminate, and especially when that objective is connected to a truly vital national interest," he writes.
@amspock
O’h, really. This is a surprise, all the goodies for India? Do the Indians know about it?
Rex Minor
from Reuters Investigates:
Bin Laden “wanted to be a martyr.” U.S. obliged.
Today's special report "The bin Laden kill plan" is based on interviews with two dozen current and former senior intelligence, White House and State Department officials. It explores the policies and actions of the United States in its 13-year hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in Bush's first term, voiced the view that prevailed through two presidencies. "I think we took Osama bin Laden at his word, that he wanted to be a martyr," Armitage told Reuters.
The U.S. government, he said, would do all it could to help bin Laden realize that goal.
The real breakthrough that led to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden came from a mysterious CIA detainee, Hassan Ghul, according to our sources.
Multiple U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters the real breakthrough that led to bin Laden came from a mysterious CIA detainee named Hassan Ghul. Ghul, who was not captured until 2004 at the earliest, was not subjected to waterboarding, the CIA's roughest and most controversial interrogation technique. It had already been phased out by the time he was captured. But two U.S. officials acknowledged he may well have been subjected to other coercive CIA tactics, possibly including stress positions, sleep deprivation and being slammed into a wall.
It was Ghul, the officials said, who after years of tantalizing hints from other detainees finally provided the information that prompted the CIA to focus intensely on finding Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti, pseudonym for the courier who would lead them to bin Laden.
Much about Ghul remains obscure, including his nationality. Two U.S. officials told Reuters, however, that at some point the CIA turned him over to authorities in Pakistan. The officials said their understanding is that in 2007, Pakistani authorities released him from custody. The officials said the U.S. government now believes Ghul has once again become a frontline militant fighter.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Liveblog: What’s next for Pakistan? Ask your questions here
On Tuesday, May 10 at 3 p.m. BST/10 a.m. EST, Reuters is hosting a liveblog about Pakistan and what's next for it after Osama bin Laden's death. Reuters journalist Myra MacDonald, who runs the "Pakistan: Now or Never?" blog on Reuters.com, will answer your queries and respond to your comments so please leave them below in the "comments" section at the bottom of this post.
More specifically, Myra will discuss the role of the military in Pakistan, and its relations with both the United States and India. Her latest piece, "Pakistan's mixed messages on bin Laden sow confusion", tries to get to the bottom of whether Pakistan was involved with the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. For more of her pieces, click here.
Please join us for what is bound to be a riveting discussion on Tuesday.
Photo: A supporter of the Pakistani religious party Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Islam holds an image of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during an anti-U.S. rally on the outskirts of Quetta May 6, 2011. About 1,500 Pakistani Islamists protested on Friday against the killing of bin Laden, saying more figures like him would arise to wage holy war against the United States. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed
A blind is leading the blind, it would appear that ISI was asked to investigate the residents of the villa who were apparently receiving money transfers from Saudi Arabia. The story goes on and it would seem that ISI provided the villa drawings to the CIA. It took CIA over two years to organise the raid without informing the Pakistan Govt. Is this info more reliable than the moon landing?
Rex Minor
from FaithWorld:
Even without bin Laden, Pakistan’s Islamist militants strike fear
(Supporters of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shout anti-American slogans, after the news of his death, during a rally in Quetta May 2, 2011/Naseer Ahmed)
The death of Osama bin Laden has robbed Islamist militants of their biggest inspiration and al Qaeda itself has dwindled to a few hundred fighters in the region, but Pakistan remains a haven for militants with both ambition and means to strike overseas. Worse, there are signs that groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), nurtured by Pakistan's spy agency to advance strategic interests in India and Afghanistan, are no longer entirely under the agency's control.
Even if the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), under intense pressure following the discovery of bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town, sought to roll up the groups, it may not be able to do so without provoking a major backlash. In Lashkar's case, according to experts, it is not even certain if it is under the control of its own leadership, with many within pushing for greater global jihad. Several others are spinning off into independent operatives which makes it harder for security agencies to track down.
"Lashkar has become international, and no more a Pakistani outfit, per se. It has got its claws sunk in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Arabia, if not in the Maghreb (north Africa) nations. So, Pakistanis may not condone them any longer," said a U.S.-based South Asia expert with ties to the intelligence community.
"Lashkar's jihadi appetite cannot be whetted with Kashmir alone. They are now for the Caliphate (theocratic Islamic state) -- thanks to the Saudi and other Arabian money. The question is will Pakistan's tainted security apparatus be able to quell an organization like that? I hope they will, but I doubt it."
