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Posts Tagged ‘Barack’

Peace prize and war crimes
By: Jalees Hazir | February 05, 2012 | 0
The Nobel Peace Prize winner and President of the United States, Barack Obama, confirmed last week that his country uses unmanned aerial vehicles to bomb targets in Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Though this has been an open secret, it was the first time that the international crime was publically admitted. He didn’t stop there and went on to defend these attacks that have killed thousands of innocent people in FATA. According to him, the US carries out these attacks to avoid more intrusive military action, that the bombing is carefully targeted and that these precision strikes are carried out to kill Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. He was not put on the spot about the innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly, who have been killed by the US drones; not that it would have made him uncomfortable. Representatives of the wicked superpower have coined a standard term to justify that kind of thing. Very conveniently, they call it collateral damage.
The streets, fields and graveyards of Iraq and Afghanistan would give a good idea about what that collateral damage means. They are not the only examples of countries that have been ravaged by large scale death and destruction at the hands of the US, all in the name of high-flying principles like democracy and human rights and catchily-named fake bogeys like the war on terror and weapons of mass destruction. The badmash superpower doesn’t mind killing large numbers of people in whose name they wage these wars, people whose rights it seems so eager to defend and fight for. It doesn’t mind creating terror for millions of people on a daily basis to wage its spurious war on terror. It spends hundreds of billion dollars waging war in distant lands, killing innocent people, destroying their homes and cities, turning their lush fields to charred earth, but it has no money for its poor, no money for its citizens who might need the help of their country, supposed to be the richest on earth.
It is said that with great power comes great responsibility, but power seems to have produced strange results for the sole superpower that, instead of using it to create a peaceful and prosperous world, is hell bent to utilise that power to ride roughshod over the entire planet. And as it hurtles along on its dangerous mission, killing and destroying everyone and everything that stands in its way, manipulating societies to foment unrest and divisions so that the situation could be used to its advantage, it lectures the world about civilised behaviour and all that comes with it. In the case of the US, great power has brought with it hypocrisy and arrogance. The self-proclaimed torchbearer of humanity and human values has no qualms about saying one thing and doing another. It has the audacity to talk glibly about millions of precious innocent lives lost as collateral damage.
Of course, the US is made possible with more than a little help from accomplices in the targeted countries, whether they come in the form of pliant governments or disenchanted groups that are funded and armed to serve as tools of imperialism. In Pakistan, the most important ally of the US is the so-called democratic government. While we condemn the deaths and destruction, the loot and plunder, perpetrated by the US, it is important not to forget the support that it gets from those in charge of our destiny. According to confidential cables sent by the US Embassy in Pakistan and released by Wikileaks, President Asif Zardari is reported to have told US officials in a private meeting that they should carry on with their drone strikes and not worry about innocent lives lost. He is quoted to have said that collateral damage does not bother him. Officially, our stand is that these strikes are unlawful, counterproductive and unacceptable.
When a CIA agent posing as a US diplomat killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight on a crowded square in the centre of Lahore, our leadership engineered his escape from the country. When US commandos conducted their get-Osama raid deep inside Pakistani territory without so much as informing the so-called ally, our President congratulated the US in an op-ed piece published the very next day in a major American daily. What kind of signals are we sending to the US? The military leadership seems to have come out of the US hypnosis, but the government is obviously still ready to serve the two-faced master. Despite the unwillingness on part of the US to apologise for the death of Pakistani soldiers killed in the attack on the Salalah checkposts, or to even guarantee that it won’t happen again, government ministers are talking about re-opening the Nato supply routes after taxing the containers.
An elderly friend says that we should not blame the foreign invaders and colonialists for their crimes and exploitation, as they could not have been successful without help from local players. He is well versed in history and quotes many battles and intrigues to prove his point; the betrayals and selling out of insiders that made it possible for imperialism to thrive. Naturally, it gets worse if those willing to sell out the interests of their people are not few but an entire political elite, an elite that is so hopelessly sold out that it sees its own country and its people through the eyes of the imperialists, an elite weaned on loans and hemmed in by the framework of those who want to control what goes on in the country that it is supposed to govern, an elite that parrots what the master says and has no narrative of its own. We cannot hope to break the stranglehold of the global badmash with people like that calling the shots in Pakistan.
However, my elderly friend is only partially right. While citizens of Pakistan continue their struggle to rid themselves of colonial stooges pretending to be the leaders of a free country, and to put in place a government that will work for their interests, they must not turn a blind eye to the slithery machinations of imperialism that have been perfected over the years, complete with new divisions that it must sow to rule and new burdens of democracy and human rights that it must carry to the ends of the world. Whatever the crimes of our own elite, it does not absolve the leaders of the so-called free world of their crimes against humanity. President Obama’s drone attacks are a crime too big to be hidden by his Nobel Peace Prize.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com
This is a cross post from PakPotpouuri

As reported by the daily Tribune, President Barack Obama signed a sweeping US defense funding bill on Saturday, which includes new sanctions on financial institutions dealing with Iran’s central bank, and curtailing up to $850 million in aid to Pakistan. Link :- http://tribune.com.pk/story/314833/obamas-new-years-gift-signs-bill-freezing-aid-to-pakistan/

Now, (after President Barack Obama approved sanctions over Pakistan, effective 1st Jan. 2012), it is very appropriate time that Pakistan closes it’s air space for US and NATO planes, on the premise that sanctions are not imposed on friends.

It’s an extremely unfriendly act and sanctions means they consider Pakistan as enemy. So, we must also act in our own interest, in a firm and bold manner. Stand up Pakistan, its now or never.

If the US has no consideration of our enormous sacrifices of men and material, we should also not go with them any further mile in their imposed war on terror. Why should Pakistan suffer eternally, for the intelligence failure of American agencies in preventing 9/11 attacks on America, in which no Pakistani was ever found to have been involved. Moreover, if Osama Bin Laden was involved in 9/11 attacks, he too was a made in America product. All said and done, Pakistan is being  punished continously for the crime of  siding with America, in their imposed war on terror, for which no country on earth has suffered more than Pakistan.  

For Pakistan, enough is enough. America can’t have cake and eat it too.

As reported on a T.V. Channel, British born Pakistani boxer Mr. Amir Khan, who won in July 2011 world boxing light welterweight championship title at LAS VEGAS, by defeating Zab Judah, has been honoured by President Barack Obama with a dinner at White House, which was also attended by the Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and many other specially invited Muslim sportsmen.

Here in Pakistan, we are still awaiting decision from the government on a suggestion (Link:- https://www.snayyar.com/pride-of-performance-for-amir-khan-world-boxing-light-welterweight-champion.html), for awarding Pride of Performance to Mr. Amir Khan who brought so much joy, happiness and pride to the Pakistanis in particular and Muslims all over the world, by lifting  world boxing light welterweight championship title, while specially wearing green and white Pakistani national colour.

Come on Mr. Asif Ali Zardari and Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani act quickly, lest you may miss this golden opportunity to act according to the wishes of the billions of Muslims world over and win their hearts.

An exceptional article publised in the daily ” The Nation ” dated May 22, 2011 titled ‘Osama’s Killing: A Drama or Reality” by Mr. Khawar Munir Haroon, is reproduces below for the benefit of readers who are keenly interested in resolving the mystery of the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Quote. ” According to Dr Steve R. Pieczenik, a psychiatrist who has treated CIA employees, “Osama was dead in 2001” and 9/11 was, in any case, a farce. When a person with the inside knowledge of the American intelligence system says so it is hard not to believe him.

Mr Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. He served on important posts with Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with the first three and also as senior policy planner under Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance and James Baker. The former US Navy Captain still works as a consultant for the Department of Defence and is recipient of two prestigious Harry C. Solomon awards at the Harvard Medical School, as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT. He has a long list of credentials that can be found through the internet. He says: “Osama was suffering with Marfan syndrome”, and he died in 2001, “not because the Special Forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had Marfan syndrome. The US government knew he was dead before they invaded Afghanistan. Bush Jr knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it. CIA physicians had visited bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.”

Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the lifespan of the sufferer.

Then why to dramatise Osama’s capture, his murder and then throwing the dead body in the sea? What is the message sent out? Who gained and who are the losers?

The CIA failed on 9/11 or did it? It is a Zionist plan that is gradually unfolding. It is a pity that the poor Americans are so naive that they cannot read between the lines. They are mechanised robots.

They do not have time to go through the political jigsaw. Most of them only understand what is fed to them by the media, which is primarily owned and operated by the Jews. They are fleecing the people of America who are being practically controlled by Israel. Don’t we know who controls the American economy? Don’t we know about the owners of US gold reserves? Why moves aimed at destabilisation are under way in our part of the world? Who are the actors behind the stage? Who are the supporters of the terrorist groups operating in Pakistan? Are we not aware of the funding channels of these plunderers? The answer is short and crisp. It is the Israeli perpetrators. They are there in the guise of our so-called religious brethren and friends. 

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