Reality check: Brinkmanship and trust deficit must end, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Reality check: Brinkmanship and trust deficit must end

By Shafqat Mahmood

Friday, September 19, 2008

This has put the Republicans in a difficult situation and as the fighting has intensified in Afghanistan, it has seemed to prove Obama right. This has prompted Bush to become more proactive and he has not only ordered transfer of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, he has also given the go ahead to attack targets in the Pakistani tribal area. It was as a consequence of this that an American Special Forces raid took place near Angoor Adda and there has been an increase in Predator missile strikes from the air.

This phase will continue until November 4, the date of the American presidential election, despite serious protests from the Pakistani side. It is indeed ironic that on the day that American military chief, Admiral Mullen, was giving assurances to the Pakistani leadership, another drone in Waziristan killed seven people. This just proves that until the American election is over, the Bush administration will continue with these attacks just to show the American electorate how tough the Republicans are on national security.

http://newageislam.com/reality-check--brinkmanship-and-trust-deficit-must-end/islam-and-the-west/d/753

Pakistan’s Double-Cross: Newsweek's opinion and Pakistani response, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Pakistan’s Double-Cross: Newsweek's opinion and Pakistani response

Newsweek Opinion: Pakistan’s Double-Cross

BY Sumit Ganguly

Ironically, the United States is paying a price for its own errors. Contrary to popular belief and hoary statements from the White House, Pakistan's cooperation in the "war on terror" has always been fitful. During General Pervez Musharraf's tenure as president, he proved to be extraordinarily deft in dealing with the United States. He handed over a few key Al Qaeda operatives--he turned over the Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani in August 2004 and Abu Faraj al-Libi, a senior member of Osama bin Laden's circle, in May 2005--but the arrests were suspiciously well timed. They tended to occur alongside either important U.S. political events or U.S. criticism of Pakistan for its apparent failure to make much progress on the counterterrorism front.

Though this sleight of hand was obvious to close observers, the administration continued to rely almost exclusively on Musharraf and the Pakistani military. Little or no effort was expended to nudge Musharraf away from military rule. Not surprisingly, he and his military acolytes came to see themselves as indispensable to the United Sates. Thanks to this American indulgence, Musharraf's 2002 election brought an Islamist coalition into power and, under its watch, the Taliban reconstituted itself in Pakistan's western borderlands while other Islamist terror networks flourished inside Pakistan.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan%E2%80%99s-double-cross--newsweek-s-opinion-and-pakistani-response--/islam-and-the-west/d/800

If you are an Iraqi, how do I kill thee?, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

If you are an Iraqi, how do I kill thee?

By Ramesh Thakur

All of this has been evident with respect to the Iraq War. Much as Senator John McCain might want to trumpet his support for the successful surge (itself an Orwellian euphemism for escalation), the United States press has largely given him a free pass on his statements in the lead-up to the war in which he bought into the neocons’ fantasies of how short the war would be, how few the casualties, and how little it would cost the American taxpayer. On the economic costs, people like Paul Krugman in his New York Times column and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz have done much to highlight the magnitude of the true figures.

With respect to the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed and wounded in the aftermath of the 2003 war and the ensuing insurgency, however, the Bush administration has largely got away with little or no international accountability. The American public has been left dazed and confused with a maze of claims, counter-claims and disinformation campaigns where often if the statistics are damning, the methodology is criticised and the motives of the scientists are questioned. Some of the tactics to discredit the studies’ findings and their authors are lifted straight from the old (and enduringly relevant) ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’ television series.

http://newageislam.com/if-you-are-an-iraqi,-how-do-i-kill-thee?/islam-and-the-west/d/371

Tomgram: Ann Jones, Afghan Women Behind Closed Doors, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Tomgram: Ann Jones, Afghan Women Behind Closed Doors

Despite George W. Bush's claim that he's "truly not that concerned" about Osama bin Laden, the administration is erecting 10 "Wanted" billboards in Afghanistan, offering rewards of $25 million for bin Laden, $10 million for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and $1 million for Adam Gadahn, an American member of Al Qaeda, now listed as a "top terrorist." That's 10 nice, big, literal signs that the administration is waking up, only seven years after 9/11 and the American "victory" that followed, to its "forgotten war."

When I wrote this piece for TomDispatch in February 2007, I'd been working intermittently since 2002 with women in Afghanistan -- women the Bush administration claimed to have "liberated" by that victory. In all those years, despite some dramatic changes on paper, the real lives of most Afghan women didn't change a bit, and many actually worsened thanks to the residual widespread infection of men's minds by germs of Taliban "thought." Today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women outdo men when it comes to suicide.

http://newageislam.com/tomgram--ann-jones,-afghan-women-behind-closed-doors/war-on-terror/d/672

Does Iran have Bush over a barrel?, Islam and the West, Jim Lobe

Islam and the West

Does Iran have Bush over a barrel?

By Jim Lobe

July 2, 2008

But there's little doubt that forswearing military action against Tehran should ease the upwards pressure on world oil prices - which hit a historic high on Monday of more than US$143 per barrel before, falling back to $140 - and thus offer at least some reprieve to the US consumer at a time when record gasoline prices appear to be driving widespread popular dismay with the state of the US economy.

"[I]f this administration truly wanted to spare Americans further pain at the pump, there is one thing it could do that would have an immediate effect," wrote Michael Klare in this week's Nation magazine and author of a new book, Rising Power, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. "[D]eclare that military force is not an acceptable option in the struggle with Iran."

While oil analysts say that prospects of a continuing decline in the dollar no doubt played an important role in Monday's price jump, they also pointed to this weekend's pointed reaction by the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Ali Jaafari, to recent US and Israeli threats to attack Tehran's nuclear facilities, as well as his assessment that those threats should be taken seriously, as a major factor.

http://newageislam.com/does-iran-have-bush-over-a-barrel?/islam-and-the-west/d/167

Pre-election political scene in India and the Muslims, Islam and Politics, NewAgeISlam.com

Islam and Politics

Pre-election political scene in India and the Muslims

By B. Raman

Even the former Tony Blair government in the UK, which was very supportive of the policies of the Bush administration, expressed its discomfort over the conditions in which the Muslim detainees were kept in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and in May 2006 publicly called for winding up the centre and transferring the detainees to the custody of the American civilian authorities from the custody of the military authorities. A similar demand has been voiced by many other democratic countries, by the International Committee of the Red Cross and by all human rights organisations of the West without exception. India's silence in this matter as well as over the repeated airstrikes by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed a large number of civilians, was an important source of anger. This silence was seen as the inevitable outcome of the growing Indo-US strategic relationship.

http://newageislam.com/pre-election-political-scene-in-india-and-the-muslims/islam-and-politics/d/268

A New Openness to Talks With That ‘Axis of Evil’, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

A New Openness to Talks With That ‘Axis of Evil’

By HELENE COOPER

After a weekend in which the Bush administration sent a top State Department official to a meeting in Geneva with an Iranian official, the North Korea meeting may well amount to last rites for the “axis of evil,” the one that President Bush said in 2002 was “arming to threaten the peace of the world.”

The Bush administration began long ago to step down from its vow not to talk to America’s foes. But its recent concessions to Iran and North Korea — and to Iraq, another charter member of the axis — have further muddled the old message.

Mr. Bush has now agreed, in principle, to the idea of a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq, something he has long derided as dangerous.

The State Department sent Under Secretary of State William J. Burns to talk to Iranian and European officials in Geneva, despite having said it would enter such talks only if Tehran suspended its enrichment of uranium, which Iran has not done.

http://newageislam.com/a-new-openness-to-talks-with-that-%E2%80%98axis-of-evil%E2%80%99/current-affairs/d/333

Malaysia: Mahathir under fire from exiled Hindraf leader, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

Malaysia: Mahathir under fire from exiled Hindraf leader

By Ahti Veeranggan

The administrations under both Mahathir and current Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Waytha Moorthy said, have conveniently ignored and swept under the carpet the plight and grievances of Indian Malaysians raised by Hindraf over the years.

"However, Mahathir will continue with his usual antics to divert attention from his wrongdoings which are all being uncovered now," said the exiled Hindraf chairperson.

Waytha Moothy's brother Uthayakumar, Kota Alam Shah state rep M Manoharan, R Kenghadharan, V Ganabatirau and T Vasantha Kumar are being detained in Kamunting Detention Centre, Taiping since last Dec13 last after organising a mammoth rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25 against perceived marginalisation and discrimination of Malaysians of Indian origin.

http://newageislam.com/malaysia--mahathir-under-fire-from-exiled-hindraf-leader/islam-and-human-rights/d/129