Raimondo: Has Shahzad started a war.

Raimondo considers Shahzad a partly deranged individual who can't make a bomb properly and who probably makes up a lot of the stories he is telling to interrogators. The Obama administration is using them for their own ends to try to pressure Pakistan for even more actions against Islamic militants. Many in Pakistan also have doubts about the U.S. administration spin on the situation and even believe that the whole affair was stage managed by the USA. Shireen Mazari has an article in the Nation(Pakistan) to this effect. This is from antiwar.com. While I doubt that Shahzad has started a war he has started even more reckless drone attacks in North Waziristan. Eventually the reaction in Pakistan may cause the already weak Zardari government to fall. If the U.S. decides to engage in limited incursions into North Waziristan this will be even more certainly cause political chaos in Pakistan.

Has Faisal Shahzad Started a War?
Remember the Maine?

by Justin Raimondo,
The Obama administration is determined to link the Times Square Fizzler, Faisal Shahzad, to the Pakistani Taliban, and isn’t about to let logic, reality, or anything remotely related to the facts get in its way. With the complicity of the Obama-stricken media, they just might get away with it, opening the way for expanded military operations in Pakistan, in “retaliation” for an attack that never even happened.

Attorney General Holder did the talking heads circuit this Sunday, no doubt for the explicit purpose of launching this trial balloon, and he had plenty of help from – for example – Jake Tapper, formerly of Salon, the pro-Obama liberal news site, and currently George Stephanopoulos’ replacement on “This Week.” Asked by Tapper what’s new with the Shahzad investigation, Holder replied:


“Well, we’ve now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack. We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it and that he was working at their direction.”

Pretty incendiary stuff, if true: but where’s the proof? What’s the evidence? One would think the normally inquisitive Tapper would at least make a perfunctory effort to get the facts, but no, he just goes with the flow:

“Is there any evidence that there’s a cell that Shahzad was working with in the United States? Or was it just him operating from directions from Pakistan?”

Holder’s assumption — that it was all a plot hatched in Pakistan – is accepted at face value, without question, and it’s on to the implications.

This is what “liberals” like Tapper and the Salon crowd have learned, after eight years of the Bush administration’s lies, and the entire Iraq fiasco – nothing. They think because their guys are in power that it’s okay, that we can give them a blank check and they won’t walk away with the family jewels. This isn’t mere naivete. It’s collaboration.

Tapper might have asked about the statement of Gen. David Petraeus – who surely has some good connections to US intelligence – to the effect that Shahzad acted as a “lone wolf.” He might have asked about the possibility that the Fizzler acted out of anger at his apparently desperate financial situation, or some problem in his personal life – but no. Instead, Tapper cut to video of Hillary Clinton threatening Pakistan:

“We want more. We expect more. We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.”

Remember how Bush administration officials used to go on the talk shows and rant about Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction” – effectively using the “mainstream” media as a sounding board for their lies masquerading as “intelligence”? Well, as Yogi Berra would say, “It’s déjà vu all over again!”

I’m saying it’s a lie because Holder offered no actual evidence, and because everything we now know points away from the administration’s conspiracy theory, namely:

The ineptness of the “bomb,” which was just a collection of propane tanks, the wrong kind of fertilizer, cheap alarm clocks, and firecrackers. The Pakistani Taliban sure knows how to make a bomb: if they “trained” and “directed” Shahzad, one would think he might have made a better job of it.
The failure of the Taliban to take “credit” for the attack. One could argue they were so embarrassed by the Fizzler’s ineptitude that they didn’t want to be associated with it, or him. However, one has to assume our declared enemies – if they managed to get as close to us as Times Square – would be boasting about it, rather than saying, as the Pakistani Taliban did, that while they admired what Shahzad did, or tried to do, they had no hand in training or directing him.
Signs that Shahzad experienced severe financial and personal problems in the period leading up the Times Square incident. His house had been foreclosed, his bank was suing him, and he was reportedly having problems with his wife – who went abroad before the incident, taking their two children with her. All of this underscores the high probability that he simply went ballistic, as I argued here.
Shahzad insists he acted alone. If he is, in fact, a dedicated Taliban operative, acting at the behest and under the control of the leadership, then surely he wouldn’t hesitate to say so. He’s a fanatical anti-American terrorist, right – so why wouldn’t he use his new-found notoriety to broadcast the Taliban’s message and advertise its reach?
The alleged Taliban connection just doesn’t comport with the known facts. Via “leaks” coming out of the administration, we hear Shahzad claims to have met top Taliban leaders, but as Robin Wright, of the US Institute of Peace (a government agency) said on Tapper’s show: “Well, apparently, he’s singing like a bird, I was told last night. But there are also a lot of tall tales that he’s telling, and they have to keep going back to him over and over and over because a lot of it’s not making sense.”

Of course it’s not making sense: crazy people are funny like that.

Here’s what I think: a deranged individual, who couldn’t put together a car-bomb if his life depended on it, sought to make his increasingly meaningless and unpleasant existence count for something – and he wound up being the equivalent of the Maine. Remember the Maine? It was a US ship parked in Havana harbor that suddenly blew up – and the incident was blown up into a convenient casus belli by a US government (and media establishment) eager for war with Spain.

Years from now, if we go into Pakistan with “boots on the ground,” as some are suggesting, in “retaliation” for this “attack” by the Taliban, Shahzad will go down in history as the nutjob who started a major war. How fitting for a nation that has itself gone crazy – a nation whose elites are now considering abolishing the last of our civil liberties on account of this failed act of mental aberration and alienation. Imagine if Richard Nixon or anyone in his administration had suggested abolishing or even “modifying” Miranda rights when that Weatherman bomb-making factory exploded by accident all those years ago in Manhattan. The ensuing uproar would have deafened the gods on Olympus. Yet Holder suggested the administration is taking this very course – and nary a peep of protest, or even surprise, out of Jake “the Stenographer” Tapper.

Go back to Salon, you hack!

US and Pakistan seek to mend relations

Pakistan also hold Taliban leaders and will not turn them over to the US or Afghanistan. No doubt this will be discussed as well. Pakistan is no doubt concerned that the US is helping India with nuclear technology but not Pakistan. I wonder if there is really any concern about the US drone strikes in Pakistan. I expect that they are condoned or at the very least tolerated. The few bleats made upon occasion about violation of sovereignty are just a bone thrown to public opinion to keep the masses at bay. This is from the BBC.

US and Pakistan seek better ties
The US and Pakistan are beginning a new chapter in relations, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

She was speaking in Washington at the start of talks with her Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Mistrust between the US and Pakistan, a key ally in the war against militants, has reached new lows in recent months.

Mrs Clinton acknowledged there had been disagreements. Mr Qureshi said it was time to look forward. Security, energy and economic ties will be discussed.

"It is the start of something new," said Mrs Clinton as two days of meetings got under way in the US capital.

"Our countries have had our misunderstandings and disagreements in the past and there are sure to be more disagreements in the future."

Mr Qureshi said an improved relationship between the two countries "is good for Pakistan, good for America and good for international peace, security and prosperity".

He also sought a "constructive" US role on disputed Kashmir and "non-discriminatory" access to energy.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan says recent mistrust between the two sides has been fuelled by a surge in US drone strikes near the Afghan border. Pakistan also complains that promised US aid has not been delivered.

For its part the US wants Pakistan to do more to combat militants and says hundreds of visas for US officials have been withheld.

Nuclear issue

The two sides are holding a week-long "strategic dialogue". Pakistan's army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani and the head of the ISI intelligence agency Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha are also taking part, as are top US defence officials.

Our correspondent says one of the main issues for discussion will be possible nuclear co-operation between the two sides.

Pakistan has long wanted the US to provide it with a civilian nuclear deal, similar to the one given to India.

Pakistani leaders say such co-operation would go a long way in helping the country deal with its current power shortage.

While some sort of understanding between on two sides is possible, any concrete accord is unlikely, our correspondent says.

Continued fears over Pakistan's proliferation record remain a major stumbling block. In particular, US officials want to question Dr AQ Khan, the disgraced former head of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

Dr Khan admitted to being involved in the transfer of nuclear technology to countries such as Iran and North Korea, which oppose the US.

Earlier this week Pakistan's government sought court permission to question Dr Khan over what it says is new information which has come to light about his role in proliferation.

The application is being heard in Lahore high court while talks continue between Mrs Clinton and Mr Qureshi.

US Pakistan drone strikes

This is from antiwar.com.



More of Obama's new beginnings, the same old policies as Bush. The Pakistani govt. is being put in an embarassing position just when it is already weak and attacked for being in the pocket of the US. However, a deal with the Taliban in the SWAT area was reached just recently. This will make the US angry no doubt. If the US pays now attention to Pakistan in what they do it stands to reason that Pakistan may return the compliment. Pakistan probably feels it is better to annoy the US than to start a civil war or be thrown out of power by its own people.







US Drone Strike Kills At Least 30 in South Waziristan
Official Says More Buried Under Rubble of Destroyed House
Posted February 14, 2009
A US drone launched two missiles at a large house in South Waziristan this morning, killing at least 30 and wounding seven others. A Pakistani intelligence official is quoted as saying more people are believed to be buried under the rubble.
At least 50 people were in the house at the time of the attacks, mostly Uzbeks and Arabs believed to be fighters for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The compound reportedly was frequented by Baitullah Mehsud, a top Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader, though he does not appear to have been present during the attack.
The timing of the attack sends a clear message to the Pakistani government, which had been hoping yesterday that President Obama would reveal his “new strategy” with respect to the drones soon.
The large death toll will likely also bring uncomfortable attention to the comments by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who claimed that the drones were being “flown out of a Pakistani base”. With the Pakistani government officially complaining about the attacks amid public outrage, such a revelation would likely further destabilize an already floundering Pakistani government.

Copyright 2008 Antiwar.com

Anger confronts Holbrooke in Pakistan

This is from IHT.

It remains to be seen if Obama pays any more attention to complaints about the drone strikes than did Bush. I doubt it somehow. The drone attacks generate absolutely no US casualties while no doubt killing some militants. The collateral damage may do exactly what Pakistan claims namely generate sympathy for the militants but it seems the US could care less. No doubt the drone manufacturers are happy as well. They will not need to worry about the global recession.

Anger confronts Holbrooke in Pakistan
By Jane Perlez
Monday, February 9, 2009
ISLAMABAD: When Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, holds talks with Pakistani leaders on ways to stop a runaway Islamist insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan, he will find a pro-American but weak civilian government, and a powerful army unaccustomed and averse to fighting a domestic enemy.
In a nuclear-armed nation regarded as an ally of the United States and considered pivotal by the administration of President Barack Obama to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan, Holbrooke will face a surge of anti-American sentiment on clear display by private citizens, public officials and increasingly potent television talk shows.
Some remedies offered by his hosts in Pakistan, where he was scheduled to begin a regional tour on Monday, are likely to be unappealing. On almost every front, the country's leaders are calling for less U.S. involvement, or at least the appearance of it.
The main reason for the swell in resentment here is the very strategy that the U.S. government considers its prime success against Al Qaeda: missile strikes delivered by remotely piloted aircraft against militants in Pakistani tribal areas.
To the surprise of many Pakistanis, who had been promised by their leaders that the new administration in Washington would be different, U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles at two areas in the tribal belt just three days after Obama's inauguration. According to the Pakistanis, as many as 21 civilians were killed by the strikes, in North and South Waziristan.
Fury at the continued airstrikes is considered one of the reasons for the poor showing of the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, in public opinion surveys.
Many Pakistanis view Zardari as too close to his American patrons. He is widely believed in Pakistan to have agreed to a request from President George W. Bush for a widening of the drone strikes, which had been conducted far more sparingly before Zardari came to power last September.
In an effort on Saturday to assuage an angry public, Zardari told an audience in Peshawar, a city in the North-West Frontier Province, that he would argue against the drone attacks during Holbrooke's visit. According to the Pakistani state press agency, Zardari said that the drone attacks were "counterproductive" and that the "day was not far away when these attacks will be stopped."
Zardari's sudden appearance, in Peshawar, a city virtually under siege from the Taliban, just two days before Holbrooke's arrival, was his first since he became president.
He was reported to have said that the visit by Holbrooke would give him the opportunity to educate the administration.
"We will tell them fighting was no solution to the imbroglio," Zardari was quoted as having said, "and let us handle it in our own way, as we know better than them as to how best the issue could be tackled."
Pakistani officials said they agreed with the U.S. assessment that the airstrikes had killed some of the senior leadership of Al Qaeda.
But the civilian casualties that have accompanied the attacks have accelerated anti-American feelings and made the Pakistani military appear feeble, they said. They argued that short-term tactical gains were likely to be outstripped by long-term strategic losses.
"Even when the real militants get killed, there is also a high probability that unarmed civilians get killed," said Farhatullah Babar, the spokesman for Zardari. "People get galvanized and become sympathetic to the militants."
The best alternative, Babar and former and current military officials said, was for the Americans to share their intelligence with the Pakistanis, and for the Pakistanis to carry out the attacks. If Pakistan conducted the air raids, they said, the militants could not contend that the battle against them was "America's war."
At the very least, the Pakistanis say, they will drive home to Holbrooke the need for U.S. military aid to help fight the insurgents - in particular, helicopters, as well as night-vision gear.
In a startling example of its shortcomings in counterterrorism, the Pakistani Army has been unable to thwart the FM radio signal of the leading Islamic militant in the Swat Valley, an area just 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, from this capital city. There, an army division of about 12,000 men has lost ground to the roughly 3,000 Taliban. The radio programs of the militant leader, Maulana Fazlullah, have proved a virulent weapon, forcing landowners to flee, terrorizing the police and spreading hatred of the government.
A spokesman for the army, General Athar Abbas, said the militants' radio broadcasts were difficult to track because they "shifted from one place to another." The army is trying to get the technology to jam the transmissions but has so far been unable to do so, he said. In a recent briefing of Pakistani journalists, the army said it had acquired a strong transmitter from China but had not yet installed it.
Those kinds of failures, and that none of the top leadership of the Pakistani Taliban have been killed, have prompted sharp criticism of the army from politicians aligned with Zardari. In an interview on television, one such politician, Hasham Baber, a member of the Awami National Party - which controls the North-West Frontier Province - accused the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the army of being allies of the militants.
Even if the United States increases military assistance for fighting the insurgency, it will be difficult to coax a better counterterrorism performance from the Pakistani Army, in part because deep suspicion about U.S. intentions has penetrated it.
Obama said last week that a central goal would be to prevent nuclear-armed Pakistan from destabilizing Afghanistan. By that, he is widely understood to have meant that the jihadists who use the tribal area as a base to attack American troops in Afghanistan, and to sweep down elsewhere in Pakistan, must be conquered.
Some Pakistani strategic planners, however, interpret Obama's plan to send more troops to Afghanistan as a direct threat to Pakistan, and in particular to its nuclear arsenal.
The belief, according to a senior Pakistani military officer, is that additional forces in Afghanistan would spill over into Pakistan.
"Afghanistan is irrelevant," said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The American troops are designed to create a mess in the tribal areas and in Pakistan, and take the nukes."
Another major irritant in the bilateral relationship that could hamper cooperation from the Pakistani military stems from the decision by the Bush administration to complete a nuclear deal with India, Pakistan's archenemy. The deal permits civilian nuclear trade between India and the United States, even though India has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
This enhanced relationship was interpreted as a serious snub to Pakistan, said Maleeha Lodhi, who served twice as the Pakistani ambassador to the United States.
"The Indo-U.S. deal," she said, "signified to the Pakistani military that while Washington saw its ties with Pakistan in tactical terms, the strategic relationship was forged with India."
To overcome qualms in Pakistan about the United States, Holbrooke is likely to emphasize Washington's plans for a drastic increase in aid to the country's educational, health and judicial systems, all areas that the United States has supported in the past, but to little effect because of deep corruption.
In line with legislation for the assistance written by Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. when he was in the Senate, Holbrooke will insist that the flow of aid depends on Pakistan's determination to act against terrorism.
Pakistanis see that condition, too, as demeaning. "An approach that treats Pakistan from the paradigm of 'hired help,' rather than valued ally," Lodhi wrote in a Pakistani daily paper, The News, "should be unacceptable to Islamabad."
Correction:
Notes:

Copyright © 2009 The International Herald Tribune www.iht.com

US risks overplaying hand with Pakistan strikes

With respect to imperial arrogance and ignoring the sovereignty of other nations there is bipartisan agreement between McCain and Obama. In respect to Pakistan raids Obama is actually more gung ho even then McCain.
One can expect anti-American feelings and exploitation of those feelings by Islamic militants will only grow. What the US is demonstrating is that the only way to deal with the US is through having military power that the US is not willing to challenge. This can only lead to huge increases in military expenditure by countries such as China and Russia and alliances with those countries by countries who cannot defend themselves against encroachment on their sovereignty by the US.

ANALYSIS-US risks overplaying hand with Pakistan strikes
Randall MikkelsenReuters North American News Service
Oct 30, 2008 00:01 EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. strikes at militants in Pakistan are stoking Islamabad's anger at a time analysts say the two countries must work more closely to fight militants in the region along the border with Afghanistan.



Pakistan's government summoned U.S. Ambassador Anne Peterson Wednesday to protest missile strikes by pilotless aircraft in the border region. The protest came two days after a suspected U.S. drone fired missiles that killed up to 20 militants in that area.
"It was emphasized that such attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and should be stopped immediately," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Islamabad.
The United States has shrugged off previous Pakistani protests, including over a raid by U.S. ground troops last month. It says the attacks are needed to protect U.S. troops in Afghanistan and kill Taliban and al Qaeda militants who threaten them.
But the Bush administration may have overplayed its hand by keeping up the attacks after elected President Asif Ali Zardari replaced resigned former U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf in September, analysts said.
"It is clear that the Bush-Musharraf strategy ... has only aggravated the crisis and the Taliban are in a stronger position today than before," said Hassan Abbas, a Harvard University researcher and former Pakistani legal official.
"Some major rethinking is in order," he said.
Said Thomas Houlahan, an analyst at the Center for Security and Science think tank: "If we had a plan to permanently alienate Pakistan, it couldn't be better than this."
The raids fuel an already high level of anti-American sentiment among the Pakistani public, which in turn puts pressure on the fledgling government.
"Washington D.C. needs to realize that the Musharraf era is over and the new democratic government needs public support for its actions," Abbas said.
STRIKES COUNTERPRODUCTVIE
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, criticized what he called "impatient decision-makers" in Washington and said unilateral strikes are counterproductive.
"The new government does not need legitimacy through the war against terror. Its legitimacy comes from the vote it received from the people of Pakistan. Therefore, the new government has a different policy and a different outlook toward the war against terror," Haqqani said on PBS television's "Frontline" show Tuesday.
Pakistan is strategically essential to the United States, and provides key logistics routes into Afghanistan.
The government has little leverage to enforce its demands that the United States curb its attacks. Washington provides billions of dollars in economic assistance and the global financial crisis has hit Pakistan hard.
Nevertheless, greater communication between the two countries would help ease mistrust, analysts said.
"If they (cross-border attacks) are coordinated between the two sides, I think the government would understand and they would not be in a position where they are taken by surprise," former Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said at the U.S. Institute of Peace this month.
The White House has promised this in the past, saying it was working to increase coordination. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, assured Pakistan in September it would respect Pakistan's sovereignty.
But that was followed by the ground raid, prompting Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood to complain of a U.S. "institutional disconnect."
Washington also needs to better reduce and apologize for civilian casualties caused by the strikes, said Karin Von Hillel of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Both candidates to succeed President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, have indicated they would be willing to order strikes against militant leaders in Pakistan. Obama said the United States might have to act alone, while McCain emphasized working with the Pakistan government.
Obama has also called for a stronger relationship. "There is no alternative but to work with Pakistan," said Obama adviser John Brennan, who has held several senior intelligence positions. (Additional reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Source: Reuters North American News Service