Re: Pakistan - America Relations
^ yeh maybe!
on monday the americans threaten to cut aid...
on tuesday we have corps commander conference...
on wed ISI chief is in US... :)
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Shuja is probably biggest ch**tia in army after Kiyani. US is hell bent on getting Shuja removed and he heads to US for talks, bravo.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Shuja is probably biggest ch**tia in army after Kiyani. US is hell bent on getting Shuja removed and he heads to US for talks, bravo.
Exactly! Between him and Kiyani the Hijra, the dignity of our Armed Forces has been sold to the highest bidder. At first their was a lack of leadership, now these two are openly prostituting themselves to the US.
Edit: I cut down the profanity :D
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
US Authorities: Do more
Pasha: Yes Sir! What ever you say Sir!
So much for the Corp commander conference, that we can fight the war on our own.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
US Authorities: Do more Pasha: Yes Sir! What ever you say Sir!
So much for the Corp commander conference, that we can fight the war on our own.
Where are the Kiyani/Pasha defenders right now? There some people making that WEAK argument that we should be supporting these two jokers because America wants to get rid of them. Firstly, I don't think that this is the case 2. Even if the US wants to get rid of them, then great, this one area of convergence with the US. Unfortunately we all know that America would not tolerate a true nationalist COAS/DG ISI.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
well the good thing in the army is that no one is indispensible, if they leave there are more capable people who can replace them. Before Kiyani and Pasha, we have seen Zia, Ayub, Musharraf etc, who used to think that without them the army will collapse. These two people have already destroyed Pakistan a lot, but I think they are hell bent on finishing off Pakistan during their tenure (maybe thats the goal set for them).
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
well the good thing in the army is that no one is indispensible, if they leave there are more capable people who can replace them. Before Kiyani and Pasha, we have seen Zia, Ayub, Musharraf etc, who used to think that without them the army will collapse. These two people have already destroyed Pakistan a lot, but I think they are hell bent on finishing off Pakistan during their tenure (maybe thats the goal set for them).
Thats the tragedy then...these two should have stepped down right after OBL raid and given others a chance to heal the damage. I want to make this distinction clear: My criticism is directed towards the leadership of the Pakistan armed forces not the jcos, rank and file etc...The patriots in the ranks should step forward and take the lead.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
No one from our higher army members dashes to America whenever they flaunt our sovereignty with sheer arrogance, but now with the stoppage of military aid it seems someone has stepped on the tails of our army (hence the speed dash this time within 48 hours)...
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
No one from our higher army members dashes to America whenever they flaunt our sovereignty with sheer arrogance, but now with the stoppage of military aid it seems someone has stepped on the tails of our army (hence the speed dash this time within 48 hours)...
Thats why they are prostitutes of the US. The sad part is that our international image is being stained by their actions as well as the credibility of the Armed Forces.
I hope Pasha and Kiyani are humiliated by the US -- that is what they deserve. Thanks to them, all of our enemies have been emboldened.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Thats the tragedy then...these two should have stepped down right after OBL raid and given others a chance to heal the damage. I want to make this distinction clear: My criticism is directed towards the leadership of the Pakistan armed forces not the jcos, rank and file etc...The patriots in the ranks should step forward and take the lead.
Thats the problem by bowing their heads to each and every American demand, they have created a situation where the gulf is increasing between the soldiers and the higher brass, and then the army and the nation. It seems even now for them most important is the $$$, and on the other side the nation is fed up with the fake Pak-American relationship, so the army for the first time is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Thats why they are prostitutes of the US. The sad part is that our international image is being stained by their actions as well as the credibility of the Armed Forces.
I hope Pasha and Kiyani are humiliated by the US -- that is what they deserve. Thanks to them, all of our enemies have been emboldened.
What more humiliation is needed, for the past two to three months at least publicly the army (including the COAS) have been condemning the drone attacks (whats going on in the internal meetings, we will need another wikileaks for that though). But the Americans are conducting them on will, basically putting our army into its position.
We have given the Americans permission to conduct operations in Fata, now they want the area of operation to be increased, their 'trainers' be placed in all corp commander offices and air bases. If in the current Mumbai blasts, any link to Pakistan is established why shouldnt Pakistan allow Indians to conduct operations on the Eastern borders to take out their terrorist camps there?
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Pentagon has linked restoration of aid to Pakistan allowing back US trainers. Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan said if Pakistan takes back military trainers and issues visas to other staff, aid could be restored.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
I don't know what Pakistan's obsession with Afghanistan is, and now the UN has taken 14 taleban members from UN security blacklist so they can travel anywhere and talk to the americans, I think that's good. Pakistan should try to solve it's own prOblems and leave Afghanistan to solve it's.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Campaigners seek arrest of former CIA legal chief over Pakistan drone attacks
**Campaigners against US drone strikes in Pakistan are calling for the CIA’s former legal chief to be arrested and charged with murder for approving attacks that killed hundreds of people.
Amid growing concern around the world over the use of drones, lawyers and relatives of some of those killed are seeking an international arrest warrant for John Rizzo, until recently acting general counsel for the American intelligence agency.
Opponents of drones say the unmanned aircraft are responsible for the deaths of up to 2,500 Pakistanis in 260 attacks since 2004. US officials say the vast majority of those killed are “militants”. Earlier this week 48 people were killed in two strikes on tribal regions of Pakistan. The American definition of “militant” has been disputed by relatives and campaigners.**
The attempt to seek an international arrest warrant for Rizzo is being led by the British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of the campaign group Reprieve, and lawyers in Pakistan. The lawyers are also building cases against other individuals, including drone operators interviewed or photographed during organised press facilities.
A first information report, the first step in seeking a prosecution of Rizzo in Pakistan, will be formally lodged early next week at a police station in the capital, Islamabad, on behalf of relatives of two people killed in drone strikes in 2009. The report will also allege Rizzo should be charged with conspiracy to murder a large number of Pakistani citizens.
Now retired, Rizzo, 63, is being pursued after admitting in an interview with the magazine Newsweek that since 2004 he had approved one drone attack order a month on targets in Pakistan, even though the US is not at war with the country.
Rizzo, who was by his own admission “up to my eyeballs” in approving CIA use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, said in the interview that the CIA operated “a hit list”. He also asked: “How many law professors have signed off on a death warrant?”
Rizzo has also admitted being present while civilian operators conducted drone strikes from their terminals at the CIA headquarters in Virginia.
Although US government lawyers have tried to argue that drone strikes are conducted on a “solid legal basis”, some believe the civilians who operate the drones could be classified as “unlawful combatants”.
US drone strikes were first launched on Pakistan by George Bush and have been accelerated by Barack Obama.
**Much of the intelligence for the attacks is supplied either by the Pakistani military or the ISI, the country’s controversial intelligence agency.
Both have blocked journalists and human rights investigators from visiting the tribal areas targeted, preventing independent verification of the numbers killed and their status.
While Stafford Smith of Reprieve estimates around 2,500 civilian deaths, others say the number is closer to 1,000. US sources deny large numbers of civilian deaths and say only a few dozen “non-combatants” have been killed.**
While killing civilians in military operations is not illegal under international law unless it is proved to be deliberate, disproportionate or reckless, Stafford Smith believes the nature of the US drone campaign puts it on a different legal footing.
“The US has to follow the laws of war,” he said. "The issue here is that this is not a war. There is zero chance, given the current political situation in Pakistan, that we will not get a warrant for Rizzo. The question is what happens next. We can try for extradition and the US will refuse.
“Interpol, I believe, will have to issue a warrant because there is no question that it is a legitimate complaint.”
**The warrant will be sought on the basis of two test cases. The first centres on an incident on 7 September 2009 when a drone strike hit a compound during Ramadan, brought by a man named Sadaullah who lost both his legs and three relatives in the attack.
The second complaint was brought by Kareem Khan over a strike on 31 December 2009 in the village of Machi Khel in North Waziristan which killed his son and brother.
Both men allege Rizzo was involved in authorising the attack. **The CIA refused to comment on the allegations.
**The pursuit of Rizzo will further damage US-Pakistani relations, which are already under severe strain following years of drone attacks and the killing of Osama bin Laden in May. Last week the US suspended $800m (£495m) in military aid to Pakistan.
The US launch its first drone strike against a target in Pakistan in 2004, the only one for that year. Last year there were 118 attacks after Obama expanded their use in 2009, while 2011 has so far seen 42.**
The use of drones has been sharply criticised both by Pakistani officials as well as international investigators including the UN’s special rapporteur Philip Alston who demanded in late 2009 that the US demonstrate that it was not simply running a programme with no accountability that is killing innocent people.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Renewed cooperation between the U.S. and PakistanBy David Ignatius
[
**Intelligence services, similar to the nations they serve, don’t have permanent friends or enemies — but they do have continuing interests. And mutual interest seems to have been the watchword of last week’s meeting between the feuding “odd couple” of intelligence: the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
A senior U.S. official said discussions Thursday in Washington “went very well” between Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI director-general, and Michael Morrell, the acting director of the CIA. “Overall, the meetings with senior Pakistani officials have led to improved intelligence cooperation for a couple of months now,” the U.S. official added.
**
A senior Pakistani official agreed with this account of patched-up relations. **“Neither side wants a rupture,” he said.
The token of renewed cooperation: The Pakistanis have approved 87 visas for CIA officers working in the country, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. That will bring the agency back toward normal operations in Pakistan, after what both sides say was a low point after the January arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis.** He was seized in Lahore after killing two Pakistani surveillants; he was released after the CIA agreed to pay more than $2 million in “blood money” to compensate the families of the two victims.
Under new rules of the road, the CIA — in theory, at least — will share with the Pakistanis more information about what its operatives are doing in the country. Sources say, for example, that joint CIA-ISI counter-terrorism operations have resumed.
A tricky issue is the fate of Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who was arrested by the ISI in May for allegedly helping the CIA try to identify DNA of Osama bin Laden’s family by running a private vaccination campaign in Abbottabad before the May 2 raid on Bin Laden’s compound. U.S. officials are said to have pressed for Afridi’s release. The Pakistani countered that, because Afridi is a Pashtun who works in Khyber Agency in the tribal areas, certain tribal customs for compensation of victims must first be satisfied.
Another explosive issue is the ISI’s alleged role in the torture and death of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad, whose body was found in May after he had reported critically about the Pakistani military’s failure in preventing al-Qaeda supporters from seizing a naval base in Karachi on May 22. A Pakistani judicial commission, headed by a supreme court judge, is looking into the journalist’s murder — which shocked Pakistanis and Americans alike.
The double-game pattern for the CIA and ISI seems clear enough by now: Work together as if you are allies, but at the same time pursue independent operations as if you are enemies; protest loudly in public when the other side does something you don’t like, but keep working together in private because you have no choice — and because that’s what intelligence agencies do.
By David Ignatius | 02:06 PM ET, 07/17/2011](“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/renewed-cooperation-between-the-us-and-pakistan/2011/07/17/gIQADD0AKI_blog.html”)
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/photo-exhibit-shows-alleged-us-drone-strike-deaths.html
Photo exhibit shows alleged US drone strike deaths](http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/photo-exhibit-shows-alleged-us-drone-strike-deaths.html)
ISLAMABAD: A London gallery opened a photo exhibit Tuesday that allegedly shows innocent civilians killed by US drone missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal region along the Afghan border.
US officials do not publicly acknowledge the CIA’s covert drone program, but they have said privately that the strikes harm very few innocents and are key to weakening al-Qaida and other militants.
**“I have tried covering the important but uncovered and unreported truth about drone strikes in Pakistan: that far more civilians are being injured and killed than the Americans and Pakistanis admit,” said Noor Behram, a 39-year-old photographer who has worked with several international news agencies.
Behram spent the last three years photographing the aftermath of drone strikes in North and South Waziristan, important sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan. He managed to reach around 60 attack sites, and the exhibit that opened Tuesday at the Beaconsfield gallery in London features photographs from 28 of those strikes.**
**US officials “don’t see that they target one house and along with it, two or three adjoining houses also get destroyed, killing innocent women and children and other totally impartial people,” Behram told reporters in Islamabad on Monday.
It is often difficult to verify who is killed in the strikes because the areas where they occur are dangerous and off-limits to foreign journalists.** News agencies often rely on local intelligence officials to determine who perished in a strike.
The exhibition is sponsored by the British rights group Reprieve and by the Foundation for Fundamental rights, an NGO started by Pakistani lawyer Mirza Shahzad Akbar to help drone strike victims.
**The exhibit includes a photo showing an 8-year-old boy allegedly killed in a drone strike in 2009 in South Waziristan, his body surrounded by flowers as it was prepared for burial. Another showed a man in North Waziristan holding what is described as a piece of a missile fired from a US drone, with the rubble of several destroyed mud buildings behind him.
Other photos in the exhibit are more gruesome.
A poll conducted last year in the tribal region by two US-based organisations, the New America Foundation and Terror Free Tomorrow, found that more than three-quarters of the residents surveyed opposed the US missile strikes, and nearly half thought they mainly kill civilians.**
But some analysts and activists have suggested people in the tribal region are not free to express their true views about the missile strikes because they fear Taliban reprisal.
**One political and human rights activist from the Khyber tribal region, Lateef Afridi, said last year that he has found particularly strong support for missile strikes among people he has met from North Waziristan, where most of the attacks have been focused recently.
Akbar, the Pakistani lawyer backing the exhibit, has sought to bring lawsuits against CIA officials connected with the drone program. **He filed a report to Pakistani police Monday calling for an international arrest warrant for John Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief counsel. Last year, Akbar filed a similar report against the CIA chief in Pakistan, prompting the spy agency to withdraw him from the country.
Reprieve’s director Clive Stafford Smith said he believes the drone strikes are doing more harm than good in Pakistan.
“I hate to expose the world to pictures of a child with his head blown half off, but that is what the US military calls ‘collateral’ damage,” said Smith.
“This is another terrible US policy in the war on terror.”
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
^
The bad news keeps rolling in.
This is the sad state of Quaid e Azam's Pakistan. Instead being a beacon of hope in the Muslim world, we have become the slaves of America.
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
oh i just read ... clinton jee happy with Pakistan ... cuz of our talks with India!! ... u know whoever i talk to ... be it goras/asian ... anyone ... majority is so anti American ... ppl really really dislike them ... esp cuz they interfere in every country!!! puri duniya unki jaagheer ho jese ...
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
Tit for tat! The first success story of Pasha’s visit I guess.
Washington, D.C., Businessman Arrested on Suspicion of Ties to Pakistan Spy AgencyPublished July 19, 2011
| FoxNews.com
[**Federal authorities have arrested a Washington businessman for allegedly working on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency and other elements of the Pakistani government as part of what the Justice Department described as a “long-term conspiracy” to influence U.S. officials. **
Syed Fai, a U.S. citizen living in northern Virginia, was expected to appear in court Tuesday afternoon to face charges of illegally acting as an unregistered foreign agent and conspiring to cover up the true nature of his work. He was charged in federal court along with Zaheer Ahmad, a U.S. citizen who is still at large and believed to be in Pakistan.
According to the Justice Department, Fai is accused of a “decades-long scheme” to cover up the Pakistani government’s involvement behind his efforts to “influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir.”
**U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement that Fai’s Pakistani handlers allegedly “funneled millions” through the Kashmiri American Foundation he heads to pay for conferences, contributions to elected U.S. officials and other efforts to promote the Kashmiri cause. **
**“Foreign governments who try to influence the United States by using unregistered agents threaten our national security,” FBI official James McJunkin said in a statement. **
Search warrants were executed earlier Tuesday at the suspect’s office in Washington, D.C., and at his home in suburban Virginia. It is believed that he has ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. According to the affidavit, Pakistan’s intelligence agency transferred money to Fai for his work promoting Pakistan government interests.
**“I believe that Fai has received approximately $500,000 to $700,000 per year from the government of Pakistan,” the FBI said in an affidavit filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va. **
The affidavit also noted that Fai denied a relationship with the Pakistani government when approached.
The phones at the Kashmiri American Council office in Washington rang unanswered Tuesday.
The Pakistani Embassy in Washington said it knew nothing about the matter.
“Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case involving him,” the embassy said in a statement.
The case could further strain U.S.-Pakistan relations, which have been particularly rocky following the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound in May.
In addition, some say parts of the ISI have been aiding a terror group active in the region, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai, India, attacks. More recently, there has been speculation the group may have had a hand in last week’s bombings in Mumbai that left 21 dead.
Fox News’ Mike Levine and The Associated Press contributed to this report.](“Washington, D.C., Businessman Arrested on Suspicion of Ties to Pakistan Spy Agency | Fox News”)
Re: Pakistan - America Relations
An American bloggers views on drone attacks
http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/drone-attacks-are-wrong-and-cowardly-regardless.html
Drone attacks are wrong and cowardly, regardlessBY ETHAN CASEY ON JULY 19TH, 2011
[ cantonment is right next to the river, and people used to go out and walk by the river. And now they have bunkers, and it’s very difficult for people from the city to go there. My mother lives there and now, we have friends, and it’s really hard for them even to visit her.” All the displaced people fleeing the drone attacks were disrupting life in Dera, Shahnaz told me. “They don’t have any permanent places to live, and they have a different language, different culture,” she said.
An urbane young businessman I met in Islamabad, Faiysal Ali Khan, echoed Shahnaz. Refugees from the drone attacks, he told me, “have had a huge, huge impact on our culture, our society, our people. All these things got disturbed. They brought in the guns, the narcotics, all the illicit trade. Not that I’m saying that they’re bad or anything. They’re refugees; what are they supposed to do?” I asked him about the loyalties of the general public in Waziristan. “On one side, the drone strikes are happening,” he said. “On the other side, Pakistan Army is also bombing you. Americans also bombing you. International community in Nato, ISAF; they’re also bombing you. Everyone is bombing. They’re bombing, bombing, killing innocent people, everything. Why should we have any feeling towards any of these?”
In Karachi,** I met a 15-year-old Waziri refugee. “Most of these drone attacks kill innocent people,” he told me through a translator. “They ask our government to tell the people that all of the people who are killed are foreigners. But that is not the case. Most of them are innocent people. Every person has now become a victim of the US, from these drone attacks. What the US is doing by these drone attacks is creating more problems for themselves, rather than solving problems. Every person now that did not want to carry weapons, now wants to carry a weapon, because his children have died in these US attacks. They’re just making it worse for themselves.”
That was more than two years ago. Have things gotten better since then?**
I don’t believe there’s any big conspiracy in the US to disregard voices such as these; it’s just that no one here wants to hear what they’re saying. A few of us are trying to get others to listen. I’m doing what I can, through my writing and public speaking, not only for the sake of suffering Waziris and other Pakistanis, but for the good of my own country. America is damaging not only its soul, but also its already badly compromised national economy. And – notwithstanding any circumstances or excuses – attacking people from afar, at no immediate risk to oneself, is cowardly.](“http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/drone-attacks-are-wrong-and-cowardly-regardless.html”)