Nato soldier, four Afghan police killed in attacks

In Uncategorized on October 22, 2010 by Javed

Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010 font-size small font-size largefont-sizeprint email share Roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are the main weapon of Taliban-led insurgents who have been fighting since being overthrown in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Photo by AFP World Khadr film provokes outrage, calls for his repatriation ARMY CONFIDENT Fear belies Pakistan boasts of becalmed borderlands KABUL: A Nato soldier and four Afghan police were killed in attacks in Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said. The soldier died following an insurgent attack, Natos International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said in a statement, without further detail. The death brings to 598 the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on the independent icasualties.org website. The total for 2009, the second deadliest year, was 521. In western Herat province, four Afghan police officers were killed and another injured when a bomb struck their vehicle, the interior ministry said. The ministry condemned the attack as an act of un-Islamic and inhumane insurgents. Roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are the main weapon of Taliban-led insurgents who have been fighting since being overthrown in a US-led invasion in late 2001. The bombs are detonated by remote control or by pressure as vehicles pass over them. They are cheap and easy to make, but difficult to detect.

They exact a deadly toll on the 150,000 international troops under US and Nato command, accounting for many of the almost 600 killed so far this year. Many of their victims, however, are ordinary Afghans, with the majority of civilian deaths and injuries blamed on the Taliban. A UN report said more than 1,200 civilians were killed in violence in the first six months of 2010, an increase of 25 per cent on the same period in 2009. If you want to follow news on your mobile, click on http://dawn.com/mobile/ and download Pakistans first mobile news application. Currently this application is for Nokia phones only
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The Real Unemployment Level of USA

In Politico-economic status on October 20, 2010 by Javed

When the economy was booming, the government and news media were happy to tell the truth: The world economy is driven by the American consumer and the American consumer is feeling pretty good about his ever-increasing net worth thanks to the red hot market for single family homes. If were facing the opposite of this (and we are), then whats next for the financial system? It should be obvious, but the government goons and their friends on Wall Street cant bear to let the cat out of the bag. The US real estate market which drove the world economy is not only a weak its on the verge of a truly massive collapse. Why? The numbers dont lie Thanks to ever-increasing foreclosures and the numbers are about to get even worse there is a glut of supply on the market. Meanwhile, its been many decades since the American consumer has been in such bad shape.

How bad are things out there? The most recent issue of Barrons magazine (October 11, 2010) puts the real, uncooked US unemployment figures at a sobering 22.5%. That is NOT a typo. You can read this stat in Randall W. Forsyths article Debasement Blues. So who is going to buy this ever-increasing inventory of homes? Theres only one way to sell physical assets that no one wants, and thats to cut the price. As real estate prices go down, the goofy loans written against these things become even more worthless so we get a double whammy of wealth destruction. Homeowners will find their net worths declining and who ever it is who owns all this crazy real estate paper will find the value of their portfolios declining apace. By the way, homeowners are not only facing wealth destruction in the form of paper declines, many are finding themselves with properties they cannot sell yet still have to pay taxes, mortgages, and maintenance charges on. How much wealth is being destroyed right now as the US property market spirals down a black hole? I dont know, but the number is surely in the trillions and far outstrips the puny (and misguided) stimulus. So what does it all mean? If you are a believer in the inevitability of inflation in the short term, you might want to rethink that. If you think the stock market is attractively valued, you might want to rethink that. If you think current real estate prices are attractive, you might want to rethink that. If you think ever higher commodity prices are a short-term inevitability, you might want to rethink that.

The government program of handing easy money to banks so they can play the various markets and keep them propped up is something that is not going to work forever. When the party is finally over, and it will be, youll see a rush for the exit that will make Chernobyl look like a tea party. EVERYTHING will be on sale and buyers will be near impossible to find (just as were seeing in many US real estate markets) Cash ironically, the crooked US dollar will be king again (for short time at least) in a way few people can imagine now. Thats how I see it at least and I think the numbers back me up. http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=UEctjUJT4bU& feature=player_ embedded
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!The Choice is Yours

In Politico-economic status on October 20, 2010 by Javed

World Made by War How Old Will You Be When the American War State Goes Down? By Tom Engelhardt Are you sure that you want your tax dollars to go, above all, into building pyramid-equivalents in Iraq or Afghanistan instead of tunnels at home, or into fighting a multigenerational war on terror planet-wide, instead of into putting the unemployed to work here? http://www.informat ionclearinghouse .info/article266 22.htm === The Choice is Ours By Sheila Samples Is it possible that a majority of Americans can be lured again into the tent of horror to support yet another bloody war? Have we learned nothing from history the blatant lies that catapulted us into Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan?

Its amazing how easily our handlers control us; enrage us; shape our beliefs, our opinions. http://www.informat ionclearinghouse .info/article266 25.htm === Will Abbas Sell Out On Palestinian Right Of Return? With Statehood, Palestine Ready to End All Claims By Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer The Palestinians are ready to end all historic claims against Israel once they establish their state in the lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday, addressing a long-standing Israeli demand. http://www.informat ionclearinghouse .info/article266 18.htm ===
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What is the real crime of Dr Aafia Siddiqui

In Uncategorized on October 16, 2010 by Javed

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui: Why She Was Targeted and Why She Matters to All of Us In the final scene of the 2002 remake of Dr. Zhivago, Lara observes the inevitable black car following her and has just enough time to make up a game with her young son, challenging him to a race. She knows full well she will never see him again. Ill let you have a head start, she smiles at her little boy. He begins running as she is escorted to the car, offering no resistance as she continues watching him from the backseat; the first leg of a journey to an unnamed Siberian gulag. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui had no such warning, no time to distance herself from her three young children during the mayhem of their 2003 kidnapping in Karachi, Pakistan. Neither U.S. nor Pakistani officials admitted knowledge of the familys whereabouts from 2003 to 2008. It was later learned that Dr. Siddiqui was

detained and subjected to brutal interrogations at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan before resurfacing in New York in 2008, answering to charges of the attempted murder of two U.S. soldiers. For years, Dr. Siddiqui did not know whether her children were alive or dead until her oldest son, Ahmed, was released in 2008. Daughter Maryam was dropped off at the familys residence in Karachi in April 2010, speaking only English and Farsi. The fate of baby Suleman, six months old at the time of the kidnapping, remains unknown. Former prisoners in Bagram tell of the tortured screams of Prisoner 650, commonly known as the Gray Lady of Bagram. By all their accounts, Prisoner 650 was Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and she herself later testified that she endured both physical and psychological torture, including being forced to look at a photograph of her baby Suleman lying in a pool of his own blood. It is no surprise that anyone under such unspeakable conditions would seek every opportunity to exact revenge on their tormenters. Yet discrepancies in testimony describing the crime for which Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prisonthe attempted shooting of two US soldiersraise serious doubts as to whether it actually occurred. Furthermore, Dr. Siddiqui was detained and tortured for allegedly plotting terrorist acts and links to Al-Qaeda. Why wasnt she brought up on terrorism charges? The overriding question remains: Why was a brilliant American-educated neuroscientist singled out for such heinous abuses? Zaid Hamid, Pakistani political analyst and host of the program Brasstacks, stated that Dr. Siddiquis novel and unique research in neuroscience included groundbreaking work relating to biology, psychology, perception management and mind control: the latest weapons coveted by governments, militaries and media. Dr. Siddiqui later revealed that an Indian interrogator at Bagram had asked her about her research at MIT, his familiarity with her work leading her to believe he was a former colleague. In addition to her research at MIT, Dr. Siddiqui completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brandeis early in 2001. Her PhD dissertation abstract discussed how people perceive, remember, and enact observations. One of her experiments required volunteers to view and then recreate the movement of a disk across a computer screen in order to study the components of visual perception and memory. She observed that they saw only the momentary

positions of the disc and had to interconnect those positions. She concluded that in a sequence of movements without a visible trail, it became difficult for the subject to form a picture or a story. A May 2010 Greg Miller appearing in Smithsonian Magazine entitled How Our Brains Make Memories, unwittingly ties into Dr. Siddiquis research. In the article, Montreal neuroscientist Karim Nader discusses the flashbulb memory effect surrounding such occasions as 9/11 and his theory that the very act of remembering can alter a memory. Such a suggestion would indicate that if our own memories are altered by repeated remembering, how much easier would it be for some other entitythe government or the media for instance to alter our memories by repeated playback of 9/11 footage, peppering scenes of the attacks with commentaries from their own experts and eyewitnesses? Could it be that Dr. Siddiqui, because of her groundbreaking research in the field, was tapped by the government to potentially help develop a weapon of mass psychosis which would cause a nation to believe that airplanes brought down the World Trade Center and the aerial maneuvering of a novice pilot landed another smack-dab into the Pentagon? Her refusal to cooperate would have been motive enough to discredit her and lock her away, let alone if she had actually been briefed on such a plan. Why, some will ask, was she not killed outright? Why risk the possibility of this information coming to light? One explanation is that she is being used as an example, to frighten and intimidate others who dare to defy the powerbrokers in the War on Terror. Furthermore, the initial injection of an unknown substance followed by years of torture rendered Dr. Siddiqui nearly incompetent to stand at her own trial. Even if connections with 9/11 plots and mind control weapons had surfaced, they would be dismissed as the ranting of an insane woman and her crackpot-conspiracy-theorist supporters. It is imperative that we discover the truth, not just to save an innocent mother of three, but for the sake of our whole society. I have often been told that my western appearance has saved me from the horrors of interrogation, but I wonder, for how much longer? My children and I were harassed by immigration officials upon our return to the United States from Ecuador this summer and recent days have seen the homes of peace activists in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan raided by FBI agents who confiscated laptops, cell phones and bank records.

Do we hold our elected officials and media responsible? Do we organize mass civil disobedience in support of those harassed and detained for speaking out against U.S. policy? Or do we wait for the black cars, wondering if we will have time to give our children a head start? http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/war/426826-dr-aafia-siddiqui-why-she-wastargeted-and-why-she-matters-to-all-of-us
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Americas New Crusade Against Islam

In Politico-economic status on October 15, 2010 by Javed

by Michel Chossudovsky We have reached a decisive transition in the evolution of US military doctrine. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) directed against Al Qaeda launched in the wake of 9/11 is evolving towards a full-fledged war of religion, a holy crusade directed against the Muslim World. US military dogma and war propaganda under the Bush administration, was predicated on combating Islamic fundamentalism rather than targeting Muslims. This is not a war between the West and Islam, but .. a war against terrorism. So-called Good Muslims are to be distinguished from Bad Muslims: The dust from the collapse of the twin towers had hardly settled on 11 September 2001 when the febrile search began for moderate Muslims, people who would provide answers, who would distance themselves from this outrage and condemn the violent acts of Muslim extremists, Islamic fundamentalists and Islamists. Two distinct categories of Muslims rapidly emerged: the good and the bad; the moderates, liberals and secularists versus the fundamentalists, the extremists and the Islamists. (Tariq Ramadan, Good Muslim, bad Muslim, New Statesman, February 12, 2010) In the wake of 9/11, the Muslim community in most Western countries was markedly on the defensive. The Good Muslim Bad Muslim divide was broadly accepted. The 9/11 terrorist attacks allegedly perpetrated by Muslims were not only condemned, Muslim communities also supported the US-NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, as part of a campaign directed against Islamic fundamentalism.

The fact that the 9/11 attacks were not instigated by Muslims has rarely been acknowledged by the Muslim community. Al Qaedas ongoing relationship to the CIA, its role as a US sponsored intelligence asset going back to to the SovietAfghan war is not mentioned. (Michel Chossudovsky, Americas War on Terrorism Global Research, Montreal, 2005) Since the early 1980s, Washington has covertly supported the most conservative and fundamentalist factions of Islam, largely with a view to weakening secular, nationalist and progressive movements in the Middle East and Central Asia. Known and documented, the fundamentalist Wahhabi and Salafi missions from Saudi Arabia, dispatched not only to Afghanistan but also to the Balkans and to the Muslim republics of the former Soviet republics were covertly supported by US intelligence. (Ibid) What is often referred to as Political Islam is in large part a creation of the US intelligence apparatus (with the support of Britains MI6 and Israels Mossad). The Ground Zero Mosque Recent developments suggest a breaking point, a transition from the war on terrorism to the outright demonization of Muslims. While underscoring the freedom of religion, the Obama administration is beating the drums of a broader war against Islam: As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. (quoted in Obama Backs Ground Zero Mosque; Iranian Link Questioned, Israel National News, August 15, 2010) Beneath the political smokescreen, the distinction between Good Muslims and Bad Muslims is being scrapped. The proposed Ground Zero mosque is allegedly being funding by the radical rogue Islamic state of Iran as the United States is stepping up sanctions on the regime in retaliation for its support of terrorism and what is feared to be an illegal nuclear-weapons development program. ( Ground Zero mosque developers refuse to outright reject funding from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad NYPOST.com, August 19, 2010) The rising tide of xenophobia, sparked by the proposed Ground Zero mosque and community center, has all the appearances of a PSYOP (Psychological Operation) which contributes to fomenting hatred against Muslims throughout the Western World.

The objective is to instil fear, rouse and harness citizens unbending support for the next stage of Americas long war, which consists in waging humanitarian aerial attacks on the Islamic Republic of Iran, portrayed by the media as endorsing the terrorists. While all Muslim are not terrorists, all terrorist attacks (planned or realized) are reported by the media as being perpetrated by Muslims. In America, the Muslim community as a whole is being targeted. Islam is described as a religion of war. The proposed mosque and community center are being heralded as violating the sanctity of Ground Zero. ..opening a mosque at Ground Zero is offensive and disrespectful to the city and the people who died in the attacks. The project is spitting in the face of everyone murdered on 9/11. (Plan to build mosque at Ground Zero angers New Yorkers ,National Post, May 17, 2010) Homegrown Terrorists The arrests on trumped up charges, as well as the show trials of alleged homegrown Islamic terrorists, perform an important function. They sustain the illusion, in the inner consciousness of Americans, that Islamic terrorists not only constitute a real threat but that the Muslim community to which they belong is broadly supportive of their actions: [T]he threat increasingly comes not from strangers with rough English and dubious passports. Instead, it resides much closer to home: in urban townhouses, darkened basements anywhere with an Internet connection. Homegrown terrorism is the latest incarnation of the al-Qaeda threat. How terror came home to roost, Ottawa Citizen, August 27, 2010, report on an alleged homegrown terrorist attack in Canada) From a process of selective targeting of Muslims with radical tendencies (or allegedly associated with terrorist organizations), what is now unfolding is a generalized process of demonization of an entire population group. Muslims are increasingly the object of routine discrimination and ethnic profiling. They are considered a potential threat to national security. The threat is said to be much closer to home, within your neighborhood, in other words what is unfolding is an all out witch-hunt reminiscent of the Spanish inquisition.

In turn, Al Qaeda is described as a powerful multinational terrorist organization (possessing WMDs) with subsidiaries in a number of Muslim countries: Al Qaeda is present (with corresponding acronyms) in various geopolitical hotspots and war theaters: -Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) (comprised of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Jihad of Yemen), Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia (Jamaah Islamiyah), Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen in Somalia, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, etc. At no moment is the issue of atrocities committed against several million Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan considered a terrorist act by the occupation forces. The American Inquisition A war of religion is unfolding, with a view to justifying a global military crusade. In the inner consciousness of many Americans, the holy crusade against Muslims is justified. While President Obama may uphold freedom of religion, the US inquisitorial social order has institutionalized patterns of discrimination, prejudice and xenophobia directed against Muslims. Ethnic profiling applies to travel, the job market, access to social services and more generally to socila mobility. The American Inquisition as an ideological construct, which is, in many regards, is similar to the inquisitorial social order prevailing in France and Spain during the Middle Ages. The inquisition, which started in France in the 12th century, was used as a justification for conquest and military intervention. (See Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 and the American Inquisition, Global Research, September 11, 2008). The arrests, trials and sentences of so-called homegrown terrorists (from within Americas Muslim community) on trumped up charges sustain the legitimacy of the Homeland Security State and its inquisitorial legal and law enforcement apparatus. An inquisitorial doctrine turns realities upside down. It is a social order based on lies and fabrications. But because these lies emanate from the highest political authority and are part of a widely held consensus, they invariably remain unchallenged. And those who challenge the inquisitorial order or in any way oppose Americas military or national security agenda are themselves branded as conspiracy theorists or outright terrorists.

Beyond the process of inquisitorial arrests and prosecution, which outdwarfs the Spanish inquisition, an expedient extrajudicial assassination program sanctioned by the White House has been launched. This program allows US special forces to kill American citizens and suspected homegrown terrorists:: A shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing? (See Chuck Norris, Obamas US Assassination Program? A Shortlist of U.S. Citizens specifically Targeted for Killing?,. Global Research, August 26, 2010) The objective is to sustain the illusion that America is under attack and that Muslims across the land are complicit and supportive of Islamic terrorism. The demonization of Muslims sustains a global military agenda. Under the American inquisition, Washington has a self-proclaimed holy mandate to extirpate Islam and spread democracy throughout the world. What we are dealing with is an outright and blind acceptance of the structures of power and political authority. Americas holy crusade against the Muslim World is an outright criminal act directed against millions of people. http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20818 __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) RECENT ACTIVITY: New Members 20 Visit Your Group Please remember us all in your supplication. Ya Allah swt. maneuver us to the right way and give us the firmness to hold the Truth in the light of Quran and Sunnah, and to forsake all things which are in inconsistency to the Al-Quran and Sunnah of RasoolAllah saws. (Ameen)
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The media making a mess of sex on the airwaves

In Politico-economic status on October 12, 2010 by Javed

The media making a mess of sex on the airwaves

How a nation lead by Christian Politicians, which wages wars for Christian values, can fall to this morass ? October 12, 2010 Its one thing for sex to be inescapable on TV sitcoms and topical dramas; we expect it. But now sex is a recurring topic in political campaigns, and hence intrudes on the morning news programs and Sunday conversationals. Nutty candidates for relatively high office, all but ignoring such truly worrisome issues as the economy, ecological catastrophe and bigotry, talk instead about masturbation, Internet porn and Gay Pride parades. Only Monday, that living saint Oprah Winfrey, and her gazillions of faithful followers, breathed sighs of relief when a teacher at Winfreys Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa was acquitted of fondling and coddling students. Naturally the subject had to be dealt with all over the tube. And that meant parents had some explaining to do to naturally inquisitive and curious kids. Complaining about sex and nudity on TV is almost as old as the medium itself. A primeval diva named Dagmar was famous and infamous for the cleavage she brandished on an early precursor of NBCs Tonight Show she was early TVs response to Mae West of early talkies. Even prim Faye Emerson, who traveled from panel show to panel show, was chided for occasionally showing too much skin via one of her gowns. At virtually any point along the way, it seemed valid to chastise television for cheapening and exploiting sex, even if what seemed like a prime example in 1958 would look ludicrous if cited for offensiveness now. Television dealt with sexual issues, if at all, in primarily nervous, diffident, euphemistic ways. But somehow even dark ages of denial may sometimes seem preferable to the letting of it all hang out, which has been standard operating procedure for a few crazy mixed-up decades now. No wonder some of us may feel like starting, or joining, a group called Prude Pride, and wondering if maybe there arent worse things to be called than old-fashioned when it comes to such troubling phenomena as the swapping of nude pictures by teenagers via cellphone and sexting. We all know what happened once the 50s ended (in the early 60s, really); hypocritical repression gave way to wanton liberation. Girls in bikinis danced with

jokes grease-painted to their epidermis on Rowan & Martins Laugh-In, while virtually every one of producer Norman Lears relevant and controversial sitcoms was sure to include a Very Special Episode dealing with homosexuality. ad_icon

Today there is clear cause for encouragement, at least in this particular realm. ABCs intelligently hilarious sitcom Modern Family depicts a gay-male marriage in which both partners are refreshingly dimensional, believable human beings. The writers dare to make them flawed and thus fully delineated, but theyre not flawed in the silly, stereotypical ways that once dominated such portrayals. Carl Paladino, headline-grabbing Republican candidate for the governorship of New York, still has trouble with male sexuality, it appears, and with homosexuality especially. On NBCs Today show and other welcoming venues, Paladino has used gay men as whipping boys, so to speak. There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual, Paladino has grumbled along the old campaign trail. Thats not how God created us. Paladino has had plenty to say on the matter of Gay Pride, the homosexual activists response to decades, if not centuries, in which homosexuals were encouraged in self-loathing. By saying dysfunctional and homosexual are synonymous, Paldino was implicitly urging a return to those Bad Old Days. What the public figures all seem to forget is that Americans get their impressions of homosexuals and their behavior not just from media; they get them from relatives from brothers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, teachers, clergymen, whatever. So it is that they may be repelled by media images of gay sexual flaunting yet sympathetic to demands for equal rights, including military service

without shame and the ability to marry and raise reasonable facsimiles of ordinary families. Nudity or near-nudity, meanwhile, innocuous as it may seem in the larger context of sexual subject matter, continues to be a reliable newsmaker especially on the reality shows where absence of clothing, whether among the nubile teens of MTVs Real World or the physically fit boomers and post-boomers of CBSs Survivor series, is a reliable viewer lure but is also sure to bring forth angry denunciations. Even the festive but brief costumes on ABCs seemingly wholesome Dancing With the Stars have drawn criticism. In some cases, the display of skin has seemed curious. Erin Andrews, the ESPN star who was justifiably outraged when a stalker (subsequently tried and convicted) snapped nude photos of her through the peepholes in the doors of her hotel rooms, nevertheless turned up the sexual heat in her outfits and the dance moves she did with professional dancer Maxim Maks Chmerkovskiy. Was there cause for, if hardly alarm, then confusion? Or perhaps there is nothing mysterious about objecting, on one hand, to a loutish invasion of privacy and celebrating, on the other, physical beauty and fitness (by dancing around in scanty duds on an entertainment show). The term sexual confusion may be a redundancy in itself. Where there is sex, there is confusion but why is it that media, instead of making any perceptible attempt to clear up some of that confusion, seem instead hellbent on compounding it?
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City of Ludd running fast towards its destiny

In Prophecy on October 8, 2010 by Javed

According to a prophesy of prophet Muhammad, Christ son of Mary near Ludd kill the Anti-Christ near an Israeli city which has gained notoriety for its endless crimes, criminal gangs, frauds, murders and sale of body parts of hapless Palestinians. Even Israeli PM has taken notice of the grave crimes rampant in the city. No doubt Israel is the kingdom of wicked to be destroyed in just 45 years from 1967, the year it illegally occupied Jerusalem, with the help of USA and UK.

The murderous culmination of decades of neglect By BEN HARTMAN 10/08/2010 02:42 In Lod, the City of Sin, all red lines are being crossed; Netanyahu: I wont allow Lod to turn into the Wild West. Checkpoints were set up throughout the city of Lod on Thursday, as police and border policemen checked passers-by for suspicious activity, and mounted policemen trotted down city streets. Above it all, a blimp rented by the police filmed the scene below, while Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Eli Yishai met with Mayor Ilan Hariri. The operation to restore public order and rid Lod (population about 68,000) of illegal firearms was launched on Tuesday night, following two murders there in the course of 30 hours. Both killings involved Arab residents of the city with no criminal record who were shot dead in driveby shootings in front of their children. RELATED: Aharanovich vows to fight illegal arms, honor killings Following two murders, Border Police sent to Lod It wasnt the first time that Lod had made headlines after a resident died in a hail of gunfire. Only 20 minutes from Tel Aviv, the ancient Jewish/Arab city has burned itself a place in the Israeli psyche as home to drug dens, or ATMs, selling low-grade heroin hand over fist throughout its poorer districts, as well as the gunfights and blood feuds among its Arab crime families. This time, the murders made the national news and suddenly, for the police, the prime minister and the media, Lod became a national priority, at least for a week. Netanyahu vowed on Thursday that Lod will not become the Wild West, and that the government would invest in its social services and infrastructure, while Yishai added that the country needed to encourage 50,000 people to move there. As the sudden influx of policemen, border policemen and politicians took place this week, locals spoke of decades of neglect by the law enforcement authorities and the national leadership.

According to them, the lack of personal security has been worsened by declining relations between the Jewish and Arab residents, and the loss of a sense of shared purpose that typified the city in past generations. At the Lod branch of the Singor Foundation, which works to improve the wellbeing of residents of the blighted Ramat Eshkol neighborhood, manager Sigalit Givon-Fedida spoke of a local police force that has been all but absent for years. We rarely see police around here; even when people call them to report shootings, they only show up after a very long time, Givon-Fedida said. She pointed to a community police station recently built across the street, where she said police were rarely, if ever, stationed or available, especially at night. Givon-Fedida said the lack of law enforcement in the neighborhood encouraged crime, from graffiti to littering to disobeying traffic laws, leading eventually to murder. Ramat Eshkol, while arguably not as troubled as the predominantly Arab Rakevet and Pardes Snir neighborhoods, bears the marks of a neglected inner-city slum, with trash and burned garbage cans strewn across vacant lots between the decaying apartment blocks. The district is around 70 percent Arab, 20% Ethiopian and 10% elderly veteran Israelis. In addition to racial tension between the Arabs and the Ethiopians, there are schisms within the Arab community among Beduin, Israeli Arabs from the Lod area, and mixed families of Arabs from Israel married to Palestinians from the West Bank. Ramat Eshkol is also home to a large number of collaborators Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who helped the security forces during the first intifada and were relocated to Lod. The latter have often had a very hard time adjusting to their new locale, and cut off from their extended families, they have become one of the most disadvantaged communities in the city. The highest number of complaints deal with the collaborators; police wont touch them, and because they are such a poor community, high numbers of them go into crime. In addition, many of them are unaware of their rights, dont speak Hebrew and dont know how to receive the social services they are owed as citizens, Givon-Fedida said.

The collaborators were mentioned time and again by Lod residents, including a group of three elderly Ashkenazi men sitting outside a kiosk on Wednesday night, two blocks from where Sami Hijazi was gunned down on Sunday. They brought into Lod all of these collaborators and Arabs from the West Bank who married Israelis and moved here. Its no longer safe in the Old City at night, and whoever has the ability to leave the city is leaving. What they need is for a religious mayor, a mayor who is a settler, to come in and deal with this problem, said David, who, like his friends, has lived in the city since 1948. Davids friend Arye agreed. If Id known it would be like this someday, I would have fled this place, he said. Sara, who was born in the city to parents who made aliya from the Republic of Georgia, agreed that things had greatly declined in recent years, saying, Now theyre killing women, killing people in front of their children. All the red lines are being crossed, and people have lost their values. These days, in Lod, there are more guns than in the IDF. Everything has changed. Like others, Sara said the problem was largely due to a lack of law and order. People dont have faith in the law, so they dont pay attention to it. People here do whatever they want. Everything is allowed here. Its why in Lod we call it the City of Sin, she said. Still, Sara expressed a sense of pride common among Lod residents, saying, I wouldnt live anywhere else, though. Even if you gave me a villa in Rishon [Lezion], I wouldnt leave here. This is my home; everybody in Lod feels this way. Aviv Wasserman, who runs the Lod Community Foundation, said that politicians need to know that Lod is a city with great things, not only murders. The police deployment will help deal with the symptoms of the disease, but the disease needs to be treated at the roots, with social projects and investment, not just with a company of Border Police officers.
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Enough is Enough, Pakistan Rejects US Apology

In Politico-economic status on October 7, 2010 by Javed

SLAMABAD (AP) Pakistan said Thursday it has not decided when to reopen a key border crossing NATO uses to ship supplies to Afghanistan despite a U.S. apology for a helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers. Both the U.S. and NATO expressed their condolences Wednesday for the Sept. 30 attack and said American helicopters mistook the Pakistani soldiers for insurgents being pursued across the Afghan border. The apologies raised expectations that the Torkham border crossing along the famed Khyber Pass could reopen very soon. But Pakistans Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said Thursday during a news conference that authorities were still evaluating the situation and would make a decision in due course. The delay could be short-lived since U.S. and Pakistani officials predicted the border crossing would be reopened in a matter of days even before the apologies were issued. Pakistan closed Torkham to NATO supply convoys on the same day as the attack, leaving hundreds of trucks stranded alongside the countrys highways or stuck in traffic on the way to the one route into Afghanistan from the south that has remained open. Suspected militants have taken advantage of the impasse to attack stranded or rerouted trucks. Gunmen torched 70 fuel tankers and killed a driver in two attacks Wednesday. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, said in a statement Wednesday that we extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Scouts who were killed and injured. The U.S. and NATO issued apologies after their investigation found that the Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, likely trying to notify the aircraft of their presence after the helicopters entered Pakistani airspace several times. The head of the investigation U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Tim Zadalis, NATOs director for air plans in Afghanistan said the tragic event could have been avoided with better coordination with the Pakistani military. Both the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, pledged to work with the Pakistan to make sure it doesnt happen again. Please know that the families of the soldiers in this tragic incident are in our constant thoughts and prayers, Mullen wrote in a letter he sent to the head of the Pakistani army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. NATO officials have insisted the border closure has not caused supply problems for troops since hundreds of trucks still cross into Afghanistan each day through the Chaman crossing in southwestern Pakistan and via Central Asian states.

But reopening Torkham is definitely a priority for NATO because it is the main crossing in Pakistan, the country through which NATO ships the majority of its supplies into Afghanistan. Other routes are more expensive and logistically difficult.
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Is America About to Invade Pakistan

In Politico-economic status on October 6, 2010 by Javed

By Eric Margolis A balanced view of Americas history of war and designs about Pakistan and Afghanistan October 04, 2010 Information Clearing House The focus of the Afghan War is clearly shifting south into Pakistan, drawing that nation and the United States forces ever closer to a direct confrontation. This grim development was as predictable as it was inevitable. In fact, this writer has been warning for years that US and NATO efforts to defeat resistance by Afghanistans fierce Pashtun tribes to Western occupation would eventually lead to spreading the conflict into neighboring Pakistan, a nation of 175 million. Last week, Pakistan temporarily closed the main US/NATO supply route from Karachi to the Afghan border at Torkham after the killing of three Pakistani soldiers by US helicopter gunships. Two US/NATO fuel supply convoys were burned by anti-American militants. Eighty percent of the supplies of the US-led forces in Afghanistan come up this long, difficult route. Along the way, the US pays large bribes to Pakistani officials, local warlords, and to Taliban. The cost of a gallon of gas delivered to US units in Afghanistan has risen to $800. US helicopter gunships have staged at least four attacks on Pakistan this past week alone, in addition to the mounting number of strikes by CIA drones that are inflicting heavy casualties on civilians and tribal militants alike. US special forces and CIA-run Afghan

mercenaries are also increasingly active along Pakistans northwest frontier. Pakistans feeble government has long closed its eyes to CIAs drone attacks. Washington does not even seek permission for the raids or give advance warning to Islamabad. Pakistani civilians bear the brunt of the attacks. The failing government in Islamabad is caught between two fires. Pakistanis are furious and humiliated by the American attacks. Each new assault further undermines the inept, US-installed Zardari government. Even Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the governments strongman, protested last weeks US attacks. But Pakistan is on the edge of economic collapse after its devastating floods. Islamabad is now totally reliant on $2 billion annual US aid, plus tens of millions more black payments from CIA. Washington has given Islamabad $10 billion since 2001, most of which goes to financing 140,000 Pakistani troops to join the US-led Afghan war. As Osama bin Laden just pointed out in a new audio tape, the Muslim nations have been derelict in coming to Pakistans aid. He blamed the massive flooding in Pakistan on global warming. An influential former Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, just demanded Pakistans air force shoot down US drones and helicopters violating his nations sovereignty. His sentiments are widely shared in Pakistans increasingly angry military. Pakistans senior generals are being blasted as American stooges by some of the media and are losing respect among Pakistanis. A video this week of the execution of six civilians by army troops has further damaged the armys good name. However, Washingtons view is very different. Pakistan is increasingly branded insubordinate, ungrateful for billions in aid, and a potential enemy of US regional interests. Many Americans consider Pakistan more of a foe than ally. The limited US financial response to Pakistans flood was a sign of that nations poor repute in North America.

Fears are growing in Washington that the nine-year Afghan War may be lost. American popular opinion has turned against the war. The Pentagon fears a failure in Afghanistan will humiliate the US military and undermine Americas international power. In short, just what happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Americas foreign policy establishment is venting its anger and frustration over the failing Afghan War by lashing out at Pakistan and the US-installed Karzai regime in Kabul. Pakistans President, Asif Ali Zardari, is seen in Washington as hopeless and incompetent. Full US attention is now on Pakistans military, the de facto government, and its respected but embattled commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, whose tenure was just extended under US pressure. Kayani is still regarded as an asset by Washington. But like Zardari, he is caught between American demands and outraged Pakistanis plus concerns about the threat from India and Delhis machinations in Afghanistan. The recent upsurge of violence in Indianruled Kashmir has intensified these dangerous tensions. The neoconservative far right in Washington and its media allies again claim Pakistan is a grave threat to US interests and to Israel. Pakistan must be declawed and dismembered, insist the neocons. Pakistans nuclear arsenal is reportedly being targeted for seizure or elimination by US Special Forces. There is also talk in Washington of dividing Afghanistan into Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek mini-states, as the US has done in Iraq, and perhaps Pakistan, as well. Little states are easier to rule or intimidate than big ones. Many Pakistanis believe the United States is bent on dismembering their nation. Some polls show Pakistanis now regard the United States as a greater enemy than India. Now that America is in full mid-term election frenzy, expect more calls for tougher US military action in AfPak. Already unpopular politicians are terrified of being branded soft on terrorism and failing to maximally support US military campaigns. Flag waving replaces sober thought. If polls are right and Republicans achieve a major win, its likely there will be more and deeper US air and land attacks into Pakistan.

The Pentagon is convinced it can still defeat resistance by Taliban and its allies if only we can go after their sanctuaries in Pakistan, as one general told me. Where have we heard this before? Why in Cambodia and Laos, thats where, during the Vietnam War. The frustrated US expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos to go after Communist base camps. The war spread; these two small nations were largely destroyed, but the war was ultimately lost. Victory in war is achieved by concentration of forces, not spreading them ever thinner and wider. copyright Eric S. Margolis 2010 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26515.htm Reply Forward Reply Javed Kaleem to javediqbalkale., P_Se_Poetry, pakistanongoog., pakistan-zinda., pakistanpost, clarion-call show details 1:48 AM (17 hours ago) - Show quoted text Leave a Comment

American Muslims suffer endlessly since 9/11

In Uncategorized on October 5, 2010 by Javed

LINDA HEARD | ARAB NEWS Long-suffering Muslims in US It is a terrible shame that ever since the Sept. 11 attacks on America, Muslims in the US have been viewed with suspicion when they had nothing whatsoever to do with events on that horrendous world-altering day when many Muslims were also killed.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, thousands of Muslims in America were rounded up, locked away without access to lawyers or family members and harshly interrogated. Others were attacked on the street, insulted by passersby and discriminated against when seeking employment. Moreover, Islamic charities were investigated and, in some cases, forced to close leaving those reliant upon them bereft of support. But that was nine years ago and, as emotions cooled, the lives of most American Muslims retuned to some semblance of normalityuntil now. Recent weeks have witnessed a resurgence of anti-Islamic feeling throughout the Home of the Brave due to an Islamic cultural center incorporating a prayer area being constructed two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York. It appears that 70 percent of Americans view the centers location as gross insensitivity to the feelings of 9/11 victims families at best and, at worst, a symbol of victory. The fact that such unfounded views are so widespread is indicative that Islamophobia is still, unfortunately, alive and well in the US. What if the 19 terrorists had been Christians or Jews instead of Muslims? Would a great swathe of the American population be up in arms over the building of a church or a synagogue a stones throw away from where the World Trade Centre Twin Towers once stood? The answer is, of course, self-evident. The heated debate over the proposed cultural center prompted Terry Jones, an insignificant lunatic preacher in the Florida Bible Belt, to announce a Quran Burning Day, denounced by the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, NATO and Interpol, as well as a host of heads of state and religious leaders as being despicable and dangerously provocative. Even Jones own daughter has described him as a controlling megalomaniac and says she begged him not to proceed while a branch of his own church in Germany has dissociated itself from its founder. Thankfully even a deluded ignoramus like Jones, who calls imams imans, couldnt withstand the weight of such powerful criticism and cancelled. But not before his hands were crimson with the blood of Afghan demonstrators. In the event no Qurans were incinerated but the threat and the media brouhaha surrounding it has had negative repercussions. For instance, the proposed events linkage with the New York cultural center has placed the man behind it Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf in an awkward position. He has said that if he had foreseen that the center would cause so much fuss he might have reconsidered the wisdom of its location and it was generally believed that he was open to discussion with a view to changing his mind. But following the blackmailing

tactics of Pastor Jones, who said he would only call off his bonfire in the event the center was moved, Imam Rauf, a moderate who has devoted his life to interfaith reconciliation, cannot be seen as bowing to the demands of an Islamophobic nonentity. I dont envy him. Whatever his ultimate decision will be offensive to many. If he chooses to move it a logistical and practical nightmare in itself that decision could be interpreted as an admission that Islam was somehow the motivation behind 9/11 whereas, in truth, the terrorists were adherents of a warped interpretation of Islam and were driven by anger over US foreign policy. But if he stays on plan, the center is likely to become a magnet for protestors that will require round-the-clock armed security details. It could also inflame antiIslamic feeling and affect permissions for the construction of new mosques around the country. There are important lessons to be drawn from the way an unknown individual with nefarious intentions was able to hold his government to ransom to the extent of receiving a personal telephone call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and public pleas from the president. While I fully understand that Americans cherish their right of free expression enshrined in their Constitution, it seems ridiculous that the White House has no power to prevent an incident detrimental to national security. To avoid similar threats by publicity-seekers in the future, it may be time for laws on religious/racial incitement to be enacted on the lines of those that exist in Britain. Furthermore, the media should be counseled not to aggrandize inconsequential bigots with so much airtime. American Muslims should be congratulated on the way they have handled both the Islamic cultural center and Quran burning controversies. In response to the latter, Gainesvilles Muslim community reacted by donating books to libraries and feeding the poor last Saturday while the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced a Learn not Burn initiative focusing on bettering and greater understanding of Islam among American society as a whole. Some Muslim communities have also toned down planned Eid celebrations for fear that public jollities might be misconstrued so close to 9/11 commemorations. Its infuriating and disturbing that American Muslims have been placed in the invidious position of once again having to defend their way of life and beliefs in the face of ignorance. Pastor Jones has proved that among believers of every great faith there is a minority of extremists who place skewed ideology above the

sanctity of human life. My hope is that America comes to terms with that fact and quits tainting innocent Muslims with a crime they deplore as much as their nonMuslim neighbors. P Think Green