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 War
and Terror
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Pakistan militants threaten
revenge
The Pakistan Taliban have pledged revenge for the murder of a prominent
religious scholar, with the insurgents blaming domestic intelligence agencies
for Mualana Shiekh Naseeb's death. The warning comes amid a drastic decline in
random suicide attacks that suggests a deterioration in Islamabad's relations
with Washington has led to a change in the group's agenda. - Ihsanullah Tipu
Mehsud (Jun 27, '12)
US 'dangerously short-sighted'
on Yemen
Increasing US drone strikes against the al-Qaeda network over the past few
months epitomize Barack Obama's short-term and security focused approach to
what many are calling an undeclared war in Yemen. As an open letter sent this
week to the US president lays bare the perils of such myopia, analysts are
saying it's time the White House decided what sort of relationship it wants.
(Jun 27, '12)
Osama's shadow haunts doctor
Pakistani authorities say they cannot protect the doctor jailed for 33 years
over allegations he supplied US authorities with information that led to
identification and killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. As he protests
his innocence behind bars in Peshawar, Shakil Afridi's family have triggered
new debate he hopes will tip the scales of justice in his favor, even as others
call for his execution.
- Ashfaq Yusufzai (Jun 21, '12)
 The
value of American - and Afghan - lives
During its decade-plus in Afghanistan, the US military has bombed weddings,
funerals, and even at least one baby-naming ceremony. Yet such incidents are
barely reported in US media and if they are, it's about an "investigation" that
goes nowhere or, at best, a minor pay-off to the survivors. What if similar
outrages occurred on US soil?
- Tom Engelhardt (Jun 20, '12)
AN ATOL EXCLUSIVE
Waziri oasis of peace braces for
attack
A spate of militant attacks in Wana, headquarters of Pakistan's South
Waziristan Agency, has raised fears among residents that a Pakistani Army
offensive will be launched there similar to Operation Path to Salvation, which
displaced tens of thousands of tribesmen in 2009. Previously an oasis of
relative peace in troubled tribal areas, Wana has suffered as intensifying US
drone attacks break down trust between "good Taliban" and the authorities. - Ihsanullah
Tipu Mehsud (Jun 19, '12)
 THE
ROVING EYE
Drone me down
on the killing floor
Welcome to a bad dose of the blues courtesy of The Drone Empire as it roams far
beyond the delta and Detroit, to precision-scatter lethal calling cards
unannounced, killing unsuspecting targets and maiming hearts and minds all over
the world. All things drone are revealed in Terminator Planet , a book
that presents a fair case for America as a rogue state. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 15, '12)
Congress pushes for war with
Iran
US President Barack Obama's "red line" on Iran - the point at which his
administration would consider taking military action - has been Tehran's actual
procurement of nuclear weapons. However, a US Congress resolution approved this
week significantly lowers the bar, declaring it unacceptable that Iran simply
have "nuclear weapons capability" - not necessarily actual weapons or an active
nuclear weapons program. - Stephen Zunes (Jun
14, '12)
Taliban offshoot targets
peacemakers
Radical Afghan Taliban faction the Mullah Dadullah Front was widely suspected
of carrying out last year's assassination of Afghanistan's High Peace Council
chief Burhanuddin Rabbani. In a video interview seen by Asia Times Online, an
MDF commander confirms his group's responsibility for the attack while vowing
to kill more "local puppets" involved in peace talks. - Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud
(Jun 14, '12)
Syria faces 'all-out civil
war', says Annan
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who has promoted his
"six-point peace plan" as one route to resolving the violence in Syria, now
concedes that his proposals are not being implemented and that the country's
future will consist of "brutal suppression, massacres, sectarian violence and
even all-out civil war" if it continues on its current path.
(Jun 8, '12)
Iran and the US vie in
Afghanistan
Iran is unlikely to succeed in using its extensive influence with the
non-Pashtun peoples of northern Afghanistan to scupper United States plans to
maintain a presence in the country for another 12 years. But it does have
longer-term ways to counter American interests in the region, and most
effectively can use its proximity to capitalize on Afghan economic development
in a manner that upsets US policy to isolate Tehran.
- Brian M Downing (Jun 8, '12)
Praying
at the
Church of St Drone
How far we've come in just two presidencies! Assassination via the remotely
piloted drone program has been institutionalized as a kind of death cult in the
Oval Office, and is being offered as a reasonable solution to American global
problems. Every week that assassin-in-chief Barack Obama chooses the targets,
it's bad news for Pakistan or Yemen - and American democracy.
- Tom Engelhardt (Jun 6, '12)
An unwelcome turn in the Arab
Spring?
The Arab Spring swept out some leaders and frightened others but it has not
lead to the creation of new political systems, least of all ones capable or
willing to respond to the needs of young and increasingly angry populations.
That merely supports al-Qaeda's argument that secular dictatorships are
unreformable and can only be brought down through armed struggle.
- Brian M Downing (Jun 4, '12)
Obama and the generals
Long-held mistrust between the United States' military and Democrat
administrations has deepened following President Barack Obama's defiant
decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. As US military culture increasingly
aligns with political conservatism, Obama is starting to view costly ventures
such as the failed Afghan counter-insurgency program as evidence of his
generals' folly. - Brian M Downing (Jun 1,
'12)
A drone-eat-drone world
Barely a decade after America's drone wars  began,
the unmanned hunter-killers are set to fill the global skies, with initial
dreams of technological perfection giving way to the reality that as their use
soars, so will the number of dead civilians on the ground. But drone warfare is
here to stay, and will escalate as other nation's acquire more remotely
controlled weaponized hardware. - Nick Turse (Jun
1, '12)
The
golden age of special operations
We are now officially in the age of special operations forces, the secret
military that's been growing for years. Special operations soldiers have a
distinct mentality, they have privileged status that provides them with maximum
autonomy while insulating them from the vagaries of politics, budgetary or
otherwise, and they wage a very special kind of war. - Andrew Bacevich
(May 31, '12)
 THE
ROVING EYE
Got war if you want it
Ready, set ... and waiting for US President Barack Obama to fire the starter's
gun to attack Iran. That's how Pentagon head Leon Panetta describes the mood in
Washington, straight from the neo-con play book. Lack of a smokin' nuclear gun
in Tehran or anything else illegal be damned, even though Obama could easily
decide to sue for a nuclear deal to bag a foreign policy victory for his own
re-election race. - Pepe Escobar (May 30,
'12)
THE
ROVING EYE
How Osama re-elects Obama
The release of hundreds of pages of government documents reveal that Kathryn Hurt
Locker Bigelow was given unprecedented access to top-level sources for
the movie she is making on the SEAL raid in Pakistan that led to the killing of
Osama bin Laden. Essentially, this will be a Hollywood 90-minute multi-million
dollar campaign commercial selling President Barack Obama as a macho
commander-in-chief. - Pepe Escobar (May 24,
'12)
NATO agrees to Afghan timetable
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has approved at its Chicago summit plans
to hand over security in Afghanistan to local forces by mid-2013 and to
withdraw combat troops by 2014, pledging that Kabul "won't stand alone" and
that Afghan troops will be ready to battle the Taliban. Scant progress in
repairing ties with Pakistan suggests the withdrawal presents its own
challenges. (May 22, '12)
Fate of Osama informer hangs in
balance
 Dr
Shakeel Afridi admits that a year ago he played an important part in helping
the United States Central Intelligence Agency track down Osama bin Laden to a
compound in Abbottabad, actions that could see him given the death sentence for
treason by Pakistan's courts. Pressure, meanwhile, is being maintained to have
him sent to the US, where a Congressional Gold Medal could await him. - Amir Mir
(May 17, '12)
US punishes Iran for
Palestinian resistance
1983 in Beirut: Islamic Jihad claims responsibility as 241 American servicemen
are killed by a suicide bomber. 2007 in a United States federal court: a judge
rules that Iran should pay $2.65 billion to families of the victims. With the
Islamic Jihad lacking substantial amounts of money in US and European banks,
nobody alive to sit in the dock, and 24 years after the event, Iran proved an
easy target to exact retribution.
- Ardeshir Ommani (May 16, '12)
Fundamentalism at the US's corps
The instructor at a United States military graduate school caught teaching
students that the US is at war with Islam, not terror, was merely expressing
the same neo-conservative ideology and Christian fundamentalist ire that
rehabilitated the US Army after the Vietnam War. When Colonel Matthew Dooley
warned of a "total war" that would see Mecca nuked, he was waving the sword of
the free world. - Brian M Downing (May 14,
'12)
Iran queries Obama's pact with
Karzai
Things were going well for Hamid Karzai when Barack Obama visited Kabul for the
signing of a security pact that both presidents are gambling on to pass tough
opposition in Afghanistan. But Karzai was made to look an incompetent leader
after international forces killed children in an air strike and Iran set a
collision course by querying the implications of the deal.
- M K Bhadrakumar (May 10, '12)
Doubts fly as US envoy to
Pakistan quits
An alleged meeting with Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, one of America's most wanted men,
appears to be the principal (but not the only) reason for the premature exit of
Cameron Munter, the United States ambassador to Pakistan. The career diplomat
abruptly quit his job last week, hours after US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton declared Saeed responsible for the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. - Amir
Mir (May 10, '12)
Between Guantanamo and Hellfire
Coinciding with the start of proceedings of a tribunal in Guantanamo Bay
against five 9/11-era al-Qaeda operatives, another al-Qaeda member, Fahd
al-Quso, was killed in a drone attack in Yemen. Quso's activities had made him
a dead man walking, and a poster child of the US paradigm concerning those
involved in 9/11, the attack on the USS Cole, or al-Qaeda generally -
they will simply be killed.
- Derek Henry Flood (May 9, '12)
Al-Qaeda hostage begs Obama for
help
Warren Weinstein, the first private American citizen taken hostage by al-Qaeda
in Pakistan since journalist Daniel Pearl was killed a decade ago, is seen
pleading for Barack Obama's help in a recently released video, the first
confirmation since his 2010 abduction that the 70-year-old aid worker is still
alive. As Washington repeats its blunt refusal to negotiate with terrorists,
Pakistani security officials say Weinstein may share Pearl's fate. - Amir Mir
(May 9, '12)
More signs of openings in the
Afghan war
The United States' release of Taliban prisoners and signing of a strategic
partnership with Kabul are signals that will unnerve the Pakistan military,
which wants the US and India ousted from Afghanistan and its client groups
installed. Faced with narrowing options, the generals will unleash chaos to
derail Taliban moves for peace and Kabul's acceptance of a long-term US
presence.
- Brian M Downing (May 8, '12)
Obama wins politics of terror
United States President Barack Obama's grandstanding about taking Osama bin
Laden's scalp a year ago fits with his portrayal of politics as the art of
delivering results. Through unusually savvy decision-making on national
security concerns involving Iran, Syria or China, Obama has sunk Republican
attempts to brand him as a wimp and is ahead in the politics of terror as the
US presidential race gets under way.
- Sreeram Chaulia (May 3, '12)
US-Afghan pact won't end war, or
night raids
The smoke and mirrors of the American administration's grand agreement with
Afghanistan allow the United States president to go into a tight election race
on a platform of ending a quagmire unpopular with US voters. But the real story
is in fine print showing that the pact will not end the US war in Afghanistan,
nor give Afghan leader Hamid Karzai control over night raids hated in Pashtun
towns and villages.
- Gareth Porter (May 3, '12)
THE
ROVING EYE
Confessions of an
angry young
drone
I'm a lean, mean, killing machine, the Almighty Predator, unleashing the Will
of the Lord from on high, but I need to see a shrink. Got a case of the blues,
they wouldn't let me get Osama bin Laden. But what the heck, there are still
killing fields - all that virgin land - in Africa on which to unleash my hell.
- Pepe Escobar (May 2, '12)
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ATol Specials
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Syed Saleem Shahzad reports on
the Afghan war from the Taliban side
(Dec '06)
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How
Hezbollah defeated Israel
By
Mark Perry and
Alastair Crooke
(Oct '06)
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Mark Perry and
Alastair Crooke
talk to the 'terrorists'
(Mar, '06)
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The evidence for and against Iran's alleged
nuclear weapons program
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Nir Rosen goes inside the Iraqi
resistance
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Nir Rosen rides with the 3rd
armored cavalry in western Iraq
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Islamism, fascism and
terrorism
by Marc Erikson
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For earlier articles go to:
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