Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ Category

The article by Noam Chomsky reproduced below was published in Guernica magazine on May 6, 2011(http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/) is a master piece analysis on not only the death of OBL but also sheds glaring light on the 9/11 terror acts in USA as well. It is being reproduced below particularly for the benefit of policy makers in Pakistan to charter the future course of nations policy on war on terror.  

                                                      Article

“It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.” (By Noam Chomsky)

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky

The most surprising thing for me was the very unimpressive image of president Barack Obama, sitting in a corner of the meeting room of get Osama Bin Laden operation, on the right side of a uniformed man, who seemed to be the all in all, in the meeting room.

The picture shown above is belittling the presidents image and is very surprising, unusual & revealing.

As they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words. In my opinion, this picture was worth more than a million words.

The subject article by Akhtar Jamal published in the “Pakistan Observer” is reproduced below with link. The questions raised in the article with particular reference to the DNA test results authenticity, needs answers from the concerned authorities.

Observer Exclusive

Islamabad—The claims regarding Osama bin Laden’s death began almost immediately after Sept. 11, 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2010 a website released photo of the body of Osama bin Laden and claimed that he was killed several years ago. But what is more surprising is that the very same photo was being circulated Monday after U.S. forces reported that Osama bin Laden was killed early Monday.

It was not clear why the same photo of “dead Osama” which was available with several regional agencies were released Monday once again to the media.

This led to speculations that “Osama’s body might have been brought in to be later ‘discovered’ from the scene of clash with other Al-Qaeda militants.

The discovery of Osama’s body from Bilal Town, Abbottabad has increased pressure on Pakistani security forces.

Some experts expressed surprise over official confirmation of Osama’s death at highest level in the United States just within a few hours of Osama’s death. Experts say that a DNA test cannot be done within a few hours and professionals cannot be satisfied with DNA tests conducted within three or four hours after death.

American, French, Saudi and even Pakistani leaders Benazir Bhutto and President Zardari had claimed that Osama was long dead.

In 2007, Benazir Bhutto in an interview with U.S. TV channel claimed that the Al-Qaeda leader was ‘murdered’ years ago. In the interview, she identified the man who killed the notorious al-Qaeda leader as one Omar Sheikh. A few weeks after her statement Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

The report that Osama bin Laden’s body had been buried at sea, claiming it was in accordance with Islamic law, has also raised several questions. It is also a fact that burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not determine a timeframe for burial.

Here is the time-line on claims of Osama bin Laden’s death since 2002.

July, 2002 FBI counter-terrorism chief Dale Watson tells a law enforcement conference: “I personally think bin Laden is probably not with us anymore, but I have no evidence to support that.”

August 2002, an American radio host Alex Jones announces, citing high-level Bush administration sources, “that bin Laden died of natural causes and that his family has given the body to the CIA.” Jones added, “they’re gonna roll him out right before the election, he’s on ice right now.”

May, 2003 French military analyst announces that bin Laden was killed in an American air raid in Tora Bora shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

February, 2004 Iranian Radio reports that bin Laden was captured in the Afghan-Pakistan border area “a long time ago”—but the official announcement was delayed because “Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election.”

April, 2005 The Israeli press picks up an account from a radical Muslim London newspaper: “We now report that the al-Qaeda organization has announced the death of Osama Bin Laden.”

September 2006 French intelligence document says that Saudis believe bin Laden had died of typhoid in Pakistan.

June 2008: Citing two unnamed officials, Time magazine reports that a recent CIA study has concluded bin Laden has long-term kidney disease and “may only have months to live.”

April, 2009 President Asif Ali Zardari tells the media that his country’s intelligence services “obviously feel that (bin Laden) does not exist anymore”.

Finally on May 2, 2011 American President Barak Obama announces that the U.S. killed bin Laden in Pakistan.

Link:- http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=90017

Sir, corruption is the biggest danger to the survial of Pakistan. 

Sir, there is a saying of Hazrat Ali RA, that a system of ‘Kufr’ can sustain but not a system of ‘Zulm’. And in my opinion, the biggest Zulm with the poor after injustice is corruption. In fact, injustice stems from corruption. The monumental increase in corruption has tremendously increased poverty which in turn is now breeding terrorism. 

The sudden increase of acts of terrorism with particular reference to the incidents in May 2011 & PIDC house attack on Nov. 11, 2010 in Karachi, highlights the importance of preventive measures to curb the menace of terrorism, which is causing severe losses to men, material and reputation of the country.

In the cases of terrorist attacks on the GHQ, PIDC house & Pakistan Navy air base it was reported that the gang of attackers was residing in a rented house for wuite some time, in an area not very far away from their targets. It was also reported that the neighbors of these houses were although, suspicious of these tenants yet; they kept quiet and did not tip area police about their apprehensions.

Under the circumstances there is a dire need for motivating general public, to remain extra -vigilant in playing their role of defending the motherland, by involvement of entire population of the country, to look out for the stay and suspicious activities of the terrorist, in their near vicinity.

As such, In order to make the stay of terrorists at any place almost impossible, it is proposed to actively involve the entire population to look out & hunt them. This objective can be easily achieved, by the announcement of the Government, that a reward of Rs. 50 millions shall be paid to any person, who informs the Police about the terrorist staying in a house, hostel, hotel, rest house or any such place.

If the war against terror is to be won quickly, the entire population of the country have to be geared up and involved in the task of  watch and vigilence.