Warfare continues to become more professional and dehumanized every day.

The purpose of Extraordinary Edition is being revisited for winter, headed into 2013. U.S. foreign policy, Central Asia and the Middle East remain key focal points. Economics and culture on your front doorstep are coming into focus here.

Friday, October 22, 2010

More US aid to Pakistan, with mild griping in the place of clear objectives

From BBC News by Kim Ghattas in Washington, Oct. 21, 2010

First, an important stat from the BBC ...

"Since 2005, Pakistan has received more than $1bn (£636.4m) of military aid a year from the US - and received close to $2bn for the last fiscal year."

Next, an excerpt ...

A White House report sent to congress earlier this month laments the Pakistani army's inability to hold territory it has seized from insurgents, a failure that means gains are likely to be short-lived.

"The Pakistan military continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda's forces in North Waziristan," the report said, referring to the region in north-western Pakistan seen as a Taliban and al-Qaeda haven.

"This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets."

Full story

The end of the BBC piece references an Oct. 19 New York Times editorial written by By Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan.

Its suggestions are clear and outline a possible future of the US in Central Asia that not only continues along the current self-appointed world police trajectory, but reveals how intricately the pursuit of US enemies fits together with conquest and empire. It's a slight variation on colonialism, but with a much more tempestuous wind at its back. Which brings us back to spending tax money on military equipment and missions.


An excerpt ...

The United States should demand that Pakistan shut down all sanctuaries and military support programs for insurgents or else we will carry out operations against those insurgent havens, with or without Pakistani consent. Arguments that such pressure would cause Pakistan to disintegrate are overstated. Pakistan’s institutions, particularly the country’s security organs, are sufficiently strong to preclude such an outcome.

Nonetheless, this aggressive approach would require the United States to think through a series of likely Pakistani responses. To deal with an interruption of our supply lines to Afghanistan, for example, we must stockpile supplies and start bringing in more materiƩl through the northern supply routes and via air.

At the same time, we should present clear, significant incentives. In exchange for demonstrable Pakistani cooperation, the United States should offer to mediate disputes between Pakistan and Afghanistan; help establish a trade corridor from Pakistan into Central Asia; and ensure that Pakistan’s adversaries do not use Afghanistan’s territory to support insurgents in Pakistani Baluchistan.

More fundamentally, the United States needs to demonstrate that, even after our troops depart Afghanistan, we are resolved to stay engaged in the region. To that end, the United States should provide long-term assistance to Pakistan focused on developing not only its security apparatus, but also its civil society, economy and democratic institutions.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Pakistan arrests 7 militants, foil plot to kill PM

Associated Press story dated Oct. 14 appears on Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Pakistan arrests 7 militants, foil plot to kill PM

By KHALID TANVEER (AP)

MULTAN, Pakistan — Pakistani police arrested a group of Islamist militants plotting to kill the prime minister in a gun and suicide bomb attack at his house, officials said Thursday. The seven men also are accused of targeting other government leaders for assassination.

Militants in Pakistan have frequently attacked government officials, security officers and political leaders as part of a campaign to destabilize the U.S.-allied government and take over the state. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack near Islamabad in 2007.

The conspiracy against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was nearly complete, police officials said.

The suspects are accused of belonging to the al-Qaida-linked group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Their plan included monitoring Gilani's movements and storming his private residence in the central city of Multan with guns and a suicide bomber, police investigator Waris Bharwana said.

"These terrorists were arrested in a timely fashion, and surely we have averted an attack on the prime minister," he said.

Authorities did not offer any evidence to back up their allegations.

Like other top officials, Gilani does not publicize his movements ahead of time and travels with extensive security.

Abid Qadri, a regional police chief, said authorities learned about the plot during an initial interrogation of the seven militants, who were arrested late Wednesday after a shootout near a village in central Pakistan.

The militants opened fire when police tried to pull their car over for a routine check, Qadri said. Nobody was wounded in the shooting, but two men managed to escape, he said.

A judge has ordered the seven suspects be held and questioned in a prison. Their next court date is Oct. 27, Bharwana said.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni Muslim extremist group, has been linked to the Taliban as well as al-Qaida. The group has been accused of attacking minority Shiite worship places and assaulting security forces and other targets.

Some of the suspects are believed to have taken part in an attack last year on the offices of Pakistan's main spy agency in Multan, which is in Punjab province in central Pakistan, Qadri said.

The men were also conspiring to kill Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, also a Multan native, and the minister for religious affairs, who last year survived an assassination attempt in Islamabad, Qadri said. He said the suspects also had plans to attack a dam, a bridge and military installations.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

New America Foundation raises unaddressed issues in U.S.-Pakistan military ops

Video from the New America Foundation, one of the groups taking action to inject debate into the largely closed and classified U.S. military pursuits within the borders of Pakistan presents a legal approach not previously offered on U.S.-Pakistan relations and campaigns.

This legal framework is directly related to the relegated priorities of arresting the occurrences of civilian victims and casualties, the unpopularity among the resident population of the attacks and their value in neutralizing terrorists, Pakistan's sovereign duty to its citizenry, frailty of legal arguments supporting the CIA's drone program and the prosecution of a classified and therefore supposedly covert war inside an overt one. Relegated, that is, beneath the priority of executing leadership in international terrorist cells or organizations (extrajudicial killing being a related issue of separate special importance) and implementing a technology that allows targets (and collateral victims) to be eliminated while soldiers prosecuting the attack operate from safety half the world away.


Featured Speaker
Christopher Rogers
Pakistan Field Fellow, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
BACKUP LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9yQMj289Hg
In the event the embedded video won't work, please use the YouTube link above.






Saturday, October 9, 2010

Pakistan erupts in the news; U.S. rift threatens West's policy in Central Asia

From a possible revision of ally status for Pakistan with the U.S. to the average Pakistani being sick to death of the CIA using robots to kill their children, Pakistani spies insisting the Taliban kill for purposes of intimidation to no chance for suggesting in U.S. media that drone attacks are not the best strategy, Pakistan is in the news and coming undone in America's unending quest to simplify the lines drawn by 9/11 into Us and Them, cowboys and radical religious guys who won't sleep or stop praying to play with their children until every last cowboy is dead.

Should the U.S. Give Up on Pakistan? The Atlantic Monthly online
By Max Fisher | October 07, 2010 4:25pm

Does Anyone Object to U.S. Drone Wars in Pakistan? Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
10/04/2010 by Peter Hart

Blasts kill 8 at Sufi shrine in Pakistan; Los Angeles Times
No one claims responsibility for the attacks in Karachi, which injured 65. Militants have targeted shrines and mosques serving adherents of non-orthodox Muslim doctrines.
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
October 8, 2010

Hamburg mosque which links 9/11 to the badlands of Pakistan; London Guardian
Ian Traynor reports from Germany on an abandoned prayer hall in the spotlight again after US terror alerts
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 October 2010 19.41 BST

Pakistan criticizes drone strikes
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 7, 2010 -- Updated 1709 GMT (0109 HKT)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Oct. 3 report on drone strike at funeral for drone strike victims

This illuminating article posted by the Denver chapter of an autonomous political action group, Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (Denver). Note the lead to these compelling and utterly disturbing source stories:

CIA used 'illegal, inaccurate code to target kill drones''They want to kill people with software that doesn't work'by Chris Williams, TheRegister.co.uk, Sept. 24

And also,

"CIA used pirated, inaccurate software to target drone attacks: lawsuit"by Daniel Tencer, RawStory.com, also dated Sept. 24

Drones kill 28 people, then hit the funeral

www.raimd.wordpress.com

A recent string of bombings, killing dozens in Pakistan, has the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or “drone,” making headlines once again. So-called “Predator Drones” have become one of imperialism’s favorite tools of oppression. Bombing attacks by these vehicles are being carried out consistently and more frequently than ever. (1).

Predator Drones are center stage as the US ups its assault on Pakistan’s northwest border region. At least 28 people were killed as a result of drone strikes in South Waziristan during the week of September 19 (2). The week’s two bloodiest attacks, responsible for more than a dozen deaths, took place on September 22. The initial strike launched two missiles at a targeted vehicle, killing seven. A funeral was arranged for the victims in the following hours; subsequently, this funeral was also targeted by a drone strike, resulting in more deaths yet. This absurd sequence mirrors an incident that took place last summer. On the morning of Tuesday 23 June 2009, unmanned drones killed more than 45 people in a series of bombings including a strike on a funeral procession for victims of the earlier assault (3).

Violence caused by drone missiles has sparked outrage in Pakistan, where drones have killed at least 1,700 people(4). The mutilation caused by the bombings makes compiling a solid count of the deaths all but impossible. Even so, it is clear that hundreds of those killed have been civilians (5). Drones have been a fixture in Pakistan for over five years; however, US officials do not officially comment on any drone activities. The attacks fall under the veil of CIA secrecy. It is clear, nonetheless, that using drones has become particularly attractive to decision-makers in the past two years. Estimated death tolls clearly show drone attacks being responsible for more deaths in 2009 alone than in the four years between 2004-2008 combined (6).

With mounting numbers of casualties, drone attacks have become known for their haphazard destruction. Missiles fired from the unpiloted vehicles are often grossly off-target. This, and general belligerence have contributed to the high civilian deaths which have, embarrassingly for the US, included Amerikan citizens (7).

Part of the cause of the vehicle’s reckless imprecision is being revealed in an ongoing lawsuit. Accusations and evidence depict the as CIA consciously utilizing faulty targeting software in the unmanned vehicles. IISI, a small, Massachusetts-based software company alleges that IT firm “Netezza” facilitated the CIA with a pirated, and knowingly-unreliable, version of their software to the CIA for use in US drone vehicles. The location-analysis software in turn may have produced locations up to 13 meters off target (8). IISI was pressured to meet a quick deadline to provide the software, when the company voiced reservations, Netezza allegedly went ahead and reverse-engineered the program themselves. The IISI Chief Technology Officer summarized his earliest feelings on the situation, stating, “they want to kill people with my software that doesn’t work” (9). The lawsuit aims to halt use of the pirated software by Netezza and its clients, including the CIA. IISI has expressed concern that the buggy software may lead to loss of innocent life. Unfortunately, the host of civilian deaths cannot be declared a mere “software issue.” Such recklessness is hardwired into the logic of imperialism.

Predator Drones are becoming a standard instrument in the oppression of Third World peoples by . As RAIM has noted (xhttp://raimd.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/imperialism-drones-on/), US drones are now deployed everywhere from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently on the militarized US/Mexico border. Israel used US-provided drones in attacks on Gaza in December 2008. The First World is looking to a high technology, impersonal approach of fighting their battles. These machines cause much destruction, but high-tech gadgetry will not defeat Third Wold resistance. As comrade Lin Biao wrote in “Long Live the Victory of People’s War!”

However highly developed modern weapons and technical equipment may be and however complicated the methods of modern warfare, in the final analysis the outcome of a war will be decided by the sustained fighting of the ground forces, by the fighting at close quarters on battlefields, by the political consciousness of the men, by their courage and spirit of sacrifice. Here the weak points of U.S. imperialism will be completely laid bare, while the superiority of the revolutionary people will be brought into full play. The reactionary troops of U.S. imperialism cannot possibly be endowed with the courage and the spirit of sacrifice possessed by the revolutionary people. The spiritual atom bomb which the revolutionary people possess is a far more powerful and useful weapon than the physical atom bomb. (10)

The Third World majority, collectively terrorized by imperialism, must collectively defeat imperialism. The enemy’s extravagant technology cannot hold up against People’s War.

Notes.

1. Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann’s drones database at the New America Foundation
xxhttp://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones
2. xxhttp://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/2010921181212227907.html
3. xxhttp://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/06/200962317958264507.html
3. Ibid. Protest
4.xxhttp://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones#2010chart
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. xxhttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/09/cia_drones_killed_us_citizens.html
8. xxhttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/cia-inaccurate-software-drone-attacks/
9. Ibid.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

UK Guardian: U.S. Military drones lent to CIA program for "covert" ops in Pakistan

At least British newspaper editors believe nation-states are supposed to declare war formally and publicly before breezing into a so-called demilitarized zone (Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA; not unlike its meta-linguistic cousin, the convenient geographic designation, "Afpak") to drop 300-pound missiles on designated combatants and their families. In the place of working out a deal with an unstable regime operating in the militarized shell of a former dictatorship-avec-parliament (in reference to General Pervez Musharraf). Doesn't mean David Cameron's government is going to want to help impoverished people living in rural Pakistan.

A caveat: Extraordinary Edition would like to editorially acknowledge Islamabad's politicians ... are politicians. Thusly shall they slither and writhe between their constituents and unimaginable power offered them by their counterparts in stronger states. Guardian article appears below.


US secretly shifts armed drones to fight terrorists in Pakistan

The Pentagon and CIA are stepping up America's secret war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan by secretly diverting aerial drones and missiles from Afghanistan.

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 5:23PM BST 03 Oct 2010

Predator drones are flown over Pakistan and intelligence gained is passed to Islamabad

Predator and Reaper drones have been lent by the US military to the CIA as part of a shift in strategy that underlines the Obama administration's view that Pakistan is unable or unwilling to target Islamist sanctuaries on its own soil.

Tensions between the US and Pakistan have flared after a key route used to supply American troops in Afghanistan was shut after three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an attack by a Nato helicopter gunship.

On Friday, insurgents attacked fuel tankers in Pakistan in another indication of the increasing vulnerability of Western supply routes.

The additional drones enabled the CIA to increase the number of strikes in Pakistan in September, averaging five strikes a week that month, up from an average of two to three per week.

This increase in drone activity was partly aimed at disrupting a suspected terrorist plot to strike in Western Europe. Americans officials believe Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are behind plots potentially aimed at Britain, France and Germany.

American surveillance drones are flown over Pakistan and intelligence gained passed to Islamabad. But Pakistan has formally banned US military operations on its soil, citing the country's sovereignty.

But the CIA has secretly conducted missile strikes launched from drones with Pakistani complicity. This has allowed Pakistan to condemn the strikes, which are strongly opposed by its predominantly anti-American population.

"You have to deal with the sanctuaries," said John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, told the Wall Street Journal. "I've pushed very, very hard with the Pakistanis regarding that." Mr Kerry discussed the issue with Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, in Washington last week.

The secret arrangement between the Pentagon and CIA underlines the consensus in the Obama administration that safe havens on Pakistani territory near the Afghan border is the major obstacle to success in the war in Afghanistan.

"When it comes to drones, there's no mission more important right now than hitting targets in the tribal areas, and that's where additional equipment's gone," an American official told the Wall Street Journal.

"It's not the only answer, but it's critical to both homeland security and force protection in Afghanistan."

The proposal for the CIA to use military resources emerged during last year's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review. There was resistance from some at the Pentagon who argued that the drones were needed against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Since taking command in Afghanistan in July, Gen. Petraeus has placed greater focus on the tribal areas of Pakistan, according to military and other government officials.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

U.S. agrees to probe of strike that killed 3 Pakistani soldiers

By Karin Brulliard and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 2, 2010

ExEd note: The key significance of these incidents and the story being told is that the U.S. and Pakistan have not been called upon until now to acknowledge or publicly discuss the undeclared U.S. war in Pakistan in a direct way using language that affirms U.S. presence and cross-border operation into Pakistan. Since the victims alleged are said to be soldiers, a new element emerges politically. Between the U.S. and Pakistan, seeming only because a new element emerges between the government in Pakistan and the communities over which it claims to legitimately govern.

An excerpt appears below ...

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, telephoned Pakistan's military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, Friday to discuss the incursion, as the administration moved to calm a potentially critical breach with a key partner in the Afghanistan war. Officials who discussed the sensitive negotiations on the condition of anonymity said that a joint investigation could help soothe feelings on both sides.

Pakistan has said that three of six Frontier Corps soldiers manning a mountaintop post near Pakistan's western border were killed when helicopters launched missiles at them after the soldiers fired their rifles to warn that the aircraft were on the Pakistan side. Pakistan has lodged diplomatic protests and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani told Parliament on Friday that the government "will consider other options if there is interference in the sovereignty of our country."

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, said Friday that military officials have not yet confirmed that Pakistani border troops were killed in the NATO airstrike. Dorrian had previously said that U.S. helicopters had crossed the border but said they had fired on insurgents who were preparing a mortar attack against troops from the U.S.-led coalition on the other side.

U.S. military officials said it was not clear to them whether the same helicopters were involved in both attacks or whether they were separate incidents. A Pentagon spokesman Thursday suggested the aircraft was within its rights to fire after being fired on.

Pakistani military officials have countered that the soldiers were poorly armed and could never have threatened the helicopters with their rifles. The officials have also dismissed U.S. suggestions that the pilots may not have known where the border or the Pakistani military outpost was, saying that detailed maps and high-technology coordination and surveillance established after a similar incident in 2008 would make such confusion impossible.

The deaths of the Pakistani soldiers came amid a sharp escalation in attacks against insurgent strongholds in Pakistan by unmanned CIA drones. Those attacks are highly unpopular in Pakistan, where the government only privately acquiesces to them. U.S. officials said there is also a private agreement that U.S. aircraft can enter Pakistani airspace, within a narrow band along the border, if acting in self-defense against cross-border attacks. Pakistan denies such agreement exists.

Meanwhile, in response to reports of political upheaval in Pakistan, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the United States considers Pakistan a "key ally" and believes that "the government of Pakistan is committed to democracy and to the preservation of civilian leadership."

Adding to the complexity of Pakistan's political situation, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup and served as president until elections in 2008, announced in London that he was re-entering Pakistani politics at the head of a newly formed party.

brulliardk@washpost.com deyoungk@washpost.com

DeYoung reported from Washington. Correspondent Ernesto Londono in Kabul and special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

NATO fuel tankers torched in Pakistan

Related Extraordinary Edition post from May, 2010; a Jeremy Scahill story from his blog atthenation.com

This post created on an alert from AlethoNews, "27 NATO fuel tankers destroyed in Pakistan"

Saturday, October 02, 2010
By Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Armed men torched dozens of NATO fuel tankers in southern Pakistan on Friday, police said, as supply convoys remained blocked at a vital entry point to Afghanistan for a second consecutive day.

Police in the town of Shikarpur said 10 "extremists" shot and set fire to at least 30 NATO trucks stopped at a filling station, destroying the vehicles but injuring no one. Much of the fuel and other supplies bound for coalition forces in Afghanistan arrive at the southern port of Karachi, then are trucked north toward border points at Torkham or Chaman.

In the southeastern province of Baluchistan, a truck driver and his assistant were burned alive in a second attack, which targeted a single tanker in a restaurant parking lot, the Associated Press reported. The agency quoted police officer Mohammad Azam as saying "anti-state elements" were behind the attack. He did not name any particular group.

The Torkham pass, in the northwest, remained closed to NATO trucks Friday, one day after Pakistan blocked their passage in apparent retaliation for recent U.S. air incursions into Pakistan, including an airstrike Thursday that allegedly killed three Pakistani soldiers. The incidents drew a strong rebuke from Pakistan and deepened tensions with the United States, an ally.

Pakistan's ambassador to Belgium lodged a protest over the incursions with NATO on Friday, while Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani told parliament that the government "will consider other options if there is interference in the sovereignty of our country."

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, said Friday that military officials have not yet confirmed that Pakistani border troops were killed in the NATO airstrike. He said the Pakistani border crossing closure has had minimal impact on NATO operations so far. "We're still bringing in a lot of stuff" via supply routes into the landlocked country from the north and south, he said. "There has not been an immediate impact."

A border security official in Pakistan's northwestern region said passenger vehicles and non-NATO supplies were being allowed to pass at Torkham on Friday. The Chaman border crossing remained open to all vehicles, and Pakistani media reported that the NATO trucks burned in Shikarpur were heading in that direction.

It is not uncommon for Islamist insurgents to attack NATO fuel trucks. But the incidents typically occur in the northwestern mountains, where several militant groups are based and wield influence. In the normally placid Chitral district near the Afghan border Thursday, police officials said 200 militants held a dozen policemen hostage and stole their weapons.