dagblog - Comments for "Pakistan under the interrogation lights"

Before 9/11, Pakistan was on

Beetlejuice — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:25:40 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Before 9/11, Pakistan was on the US's oh-shit list of countries. Countries where doing business was restricted so as to punish them for their bad habits that didn't pass muster with what the US expected. However, after the event, Bu$h had no problem with putting Pakistan on the very top of the most-favored-nation list. The thing is, Pakistan didn't do or change anything for the action. So to find out now they have been burning the candle at both ends since 9/11 should come as no surprise ... it's what they do best ... which is why they were on the oh-shit list of countries in the first place.

Ramadan? In Pakistan that's

artappraiser — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 12:09:54 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Ramadan? In Pakistan that's just another reason for jihad:

Death toll rises to 51 in Khyber mosque suicide attack
AFP, August 20, 2011

Mosque Bomb Blast Toll Hits 51: Horrifying Photos
International Business Times, August 20, 2011

Taliban claims responsibility for Pak mosque bombing
PTI, August 20, 2011
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Calls for military action in Karachi as violence continues
‎Reuters, August 20, 2011

Pakistan's government is facing increased pressure from business groups to deploy the army in the commercial hub of Karachi after at least 65 people were killed in a surge of gang and political violence over the past three days....
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Indian army reports deadly gunbattle in Kashmir
Associated Press, August 20, 2011

Indian troops in Kashmir fought a deadly gunbattle with suspected rebels crossing the military Line of Control from Pakistani-controlled territory Saturday, the army said. One soldier and 11 suspected rebels were killed....
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Kabul Attack on British Compound Linked to Pakistan, Police Chief Says
ABC News, August 19, 2011

Kabul's police chief claimed today the brazen dawn terror attack on a British compound in the Afghan capital that killed eight was planned and directed by senior Taliban members hiding out in Pakistan.....

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My commentary: Still wondering when the solution part is coming from that original "two-state solution."

Sense and sovereignty in

artappraiser — Sat, 21 May 2011 23:18:30 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Sense and sovereignty in Kafkastan
by Raza Rumi, Blog.dawn.com, May 21st, 2011

Raza Rumi is a policy advisor, writer and editor based in Lahore. His writings are archived at www.razarumi.com

I just returned from Karachi, where the city was outraged at the unscheduled, endless power cuts. Everywhere, the energy crisis dominated the discussions. In certain areas, there is no power for the last three days!

But for Imran Khan and his supporters, the biggest issue appears to be drone attacks taking place almost a thousand kilometers north of the port city. Banners advising the citizens to join the protests against drones appeared almost surreal in a city where the criminal gangs, safely ensconced within the mainstream political parties, are perpetrating target killings. Even less worrying to Khan’s supporters is the presence of al Qaeda operatives and underground don[s] who allegedly hide well in the multitudes of Karachi.

Are drones and war on terror really responsible for the plight of Pakistan? Amnesia is not uncommon in Pakistan especially when daily doses of violence have almost desensitised the society....

Dawn Presents Wikileaks'

artappraiser — Sat, 21 May 2011 22:47:26 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Dawn Presents Wikileaks' Pakistan Papers @

http://www.dawn.com/pakistan-papers

ARTICLES so far:

Cross-links:WikiLeaks:

artappraiser — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:41:10 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Cross-links:

WikiLeaks: Pakistan Asked for More, Not Fewer Drones

http://dagblog.com/link/wikileaks-pakistan-asked-more-not-fewer-drones-1...

What Pakistan Knows by Doctor Cleveland

http://dagblog.com/politics/what-pakistan-knows-10341

My bold highlighting:The

artappraiser — Sun, 15 May 2011 02:01:29 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

My bold highlighting:

The Double Mirror
By David Ignatius, Time Magazine, May 12, 2011

In the days after the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad — when the whole world was wondering whether the Pakistanis had known all along that he was there — I found myself reviewing my correspondence with officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. That's just one of the unlikely facts about Pakistan's fearsome intelligence service: its top operatives answer their e-mail.

The notes brought back to me the strange duality of the ISI, which I encountered in my first meetings in Pakistan with its senior leaders in 2009. They proved to be passionate correspondents. With their public face, they wanted to be understood — liked, even. But their private face was coldly ruthless, to the point of silently condoning attacks on U.S. soldiers by their allies.

I found that I couldn't capture ISI's nuances in newspaper columns. So my eighth novel, Bloodmoney, is set largely in Pakistan; it centers on a fictional ISI and a CIA whose operations inside Pakistan have spun out of control. I describe the director general of my imaginary ISI this way: "To say that the Pakistani was playing a double game did not do him justice; his strategy was far more complicated than that."

This Janus-like quality is true of all intelligence services, I suppose, but I have never seen an organization quite like the ISI. It is at once very secretive and very open, yet ISI officials get especially peeved at the charge of duplicity....
....The ISI's press cell feeds Pakistani newspapers constantly; presumably, it thinks its U.S.-bashing leaks will hide the reality of the ISI's cooperation. But the puppeteer has gotten caught in the strings. Anti-Americanism has taken a virulent form that threatens the ISI too...

Also see:

Why We're Stuck with Pakistan
By Aryn Baker in Islamabad, Time Magazine, May 12, 2011

....one of Pakistan's best-known opinion writers, summed up the national anguish in a column: "If we didn't know [bin Laden was in Abbottabad], we are a failed state; if we did know, we are a rogue state." Pakistan is a bit of both....

The consequence is what Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in an interview with TIME, calls a "trust deficit" with the U.S. Gilani insists that he can't mend the relationship with a wave of his hand. "I am not an army dictator. I'm a public figure," he tells TIME. "If public opinion is against [the U.S.], then I cannot resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion."....

Flaws in the Foundation

The relationship, in truth, has never been about trust. It was and is a strategic alliance founded on complementary interests: Pakistan's desire for military assistance and its fear of becoming a pariah state, and the U.S.'s need for regional support in the Afghanistan war. While Pakistan and the U.S. share similar long-term goals — economic partnership, stability in the region — their short-term needs rarely intersect....

Report on the meeting of ISI

artappraiser — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:35:17 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Report on the meeting of ISI director with joint Parliament, from leakers

Abbottobad raid: Questions and questionable conduct
Director-General of the ISI was met with a barrage of questions and taunts

By Rauf Klasra, Express Tribune (Pakistan,) May 14, 2011

ISLAMABAD:

Though it was a lingering concern, it still seemed unexpected. The chief of the country’s premier intelligence agency was greeted with taunts right from the moment he rose to brief an incredibly tense special joint sitting of Parliament.

Aside from a barrage of questions, many, including the spymaster himself, must have known it wasn’t going to be easy.

And it wasn’t.

However, the proceedings proved to be more charged than even the most adventurous of estimates – even resulting in verbal clashes between the politicians themselves....

Here's a report on the massive security preparations for the meeting:

Closed-door briefing: As leadership meets, security fears abound
By Asad Kharal / Rauf Klasra, Express Tribune (Pakistan,) May 13, 2011

Also see:

US ambassador meets with PMLN chief, discusses US operation in Abbottabad.
Express Tribune (Pakistan,) May 14, 2011

RAIWIND: US Ambassador Cameron Munter met with Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif at his residence in Raiwind, Lahore on Saturday.

Sources said that both leaders discussed the political situation in the aftermath of the US operation in Abbottabad in which al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed. Ambassador Munter underlined the need to have a better relationship between the two countries . He also said that Pakistan and US should continue to make a joint effort on the war on terror .

Nawaz Sharif accepted the need to have good relations between the US and Pakistan, but said that events like the Abbottabad operation and the drone attacks harm relations between both countries.

PML-N leaders Chaudhry Nisar and Khwaja Asif were also present during the meeting.

According to Express 24/7 correspondent Mohammad Rizwan, the meeting was a move by the US to reach out to various politicians and to take the opposition into confidence....

Whose side is Pakistan's ISI

artappraiser — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:16:27 +0000

In reply to ISI chief leaves for US on

Whose side is Pakistan's ISI really on?

It has been accused of supporting al-Qaida and double-dealing with the CIA. At the same time the ISI, Pakistan's powerful intelligence service, is being targeted by Islamist extremists. In the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, what role will it play?

By Declan Walsh, The Guardian, May 12, 2011
....The answer may lie inside the ISI's headquarters in Abpara, on the edge of Islamabad. The entrance, beside a private hospital, is suitably discreet: no sign, just a plainclothes officer packing a pistol who direct visitors through a chicane of barriers, soldiers and sniffer dogs. But inside, past the smooth electric gates, lies a neatly tended cluster of adobe buildings separated by smooth lawns and tinkling fountains that resembles a well-funded private university. Cars purr up to the entrance of the central building, a modern structure with a round, echoing lobby. On the top floor sits the chief spy: the director general Ahmed Shuja Pasha, a grey-haired 59-year-old three-star general. One American counterpart describes him as "brilliant and extremely intelligent . . . Thoughtful, pensive and extremely well read; if he was in the US military he would be a very successful officer."
Pasha and the ISI are the heart of Pakistan's "establishment" – a nebulous web of generals, bureaucrats and hand-picked politicians (not always elected ones) who form the DNA of Pakistan's defence and security policies.....

Lead up to Abbottabad: Spy

artappraiser — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:07:59 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

Lead up to Abbottabad: Spy chiefs had extensive talks on Osama
By Kamran Yousaf, The Express Tribune (Pakistan,) May 13, 2011

ISLAMABAD: Almost three weeks before Osama bin Laden was killed by a US military raid in Abbottabad, the heads of Pakistan and US intelligence agencies spent most of their meetings talking about the whereabouts of the world’s most wanted man during their discussions at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia on April 11.

At the time, the media had reported that the visit of Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, to the US was meant to repair ties with the CIA, which had then been damaged due to the arrest of an American intelligence operative over the killing of two Pakistanis in Lahore.

However, Pakistani security officials have now disclosed that a large part of that four-hour long meeting between Lt Gen Pasha and CIA chief Leon Panetta was dedicated to the al Qaeda chief and his whereabouts.

When those discussions were taking place, Pasha had little clue that the CIA already knew the location of Bin Laden’s hideout and was planning to eliminate him, they said.

At the marathon discussions, Panetta asked Pasha about the whereabouts of the al Qaeda leader. “He (Osama) could be hiding anywhere,” was Pasha’s reply.

The CIA chief wanted a more specific answer....

It's make or break time for

artappraiser — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:04:21 +0000

In reply to Pakistan under the interrogation lights

It's make or break time for Pakistan
By Thomas E. Ricks, Foreignpolicy.com, May 12, 2011
The remains of the mainstream media earns its keep today with a good piece by Fareed Zakaria arguing that this is the moment for Pakistan to straighten up and fly right. I don't think it is going to happen, but if it did, he lays out how it would.
McClatchy has a story in which an American official goes all Rodney King on the situation....

dagblog - Comments for "Pakistan under the interrogation lights"

Before 9/11, Pakistan was on

Ramadan? In Pakistan that's

Sense and sovereignty in

Dawn Presents Wikileaks'

Cables reveal role of US troops in Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif feared arrest after deportation in ’07

Shahbaz was willing to have CJ removed after ‘face-saving’ restoration

US criticised President’s showdown with Sharifs

Army chief wanted more drone support

Government official urged follow-up drone strikes

Putting together The Pakistan Papers

Our causes leak on Pakistan

The Establishment’s true lies

Cross-links:WikiLeaks:

My bold highlighting:The

Report on the meeting of ISI

Whose side is Pakistan's ISI

Lead up to Abbottabad: Spy

It's make or break time for