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Archive for category Don’t Tread on Pakistan

Strange Celebrations of the UN 75th Anniversary by MAHBOOB A. KHAWAJA

AUTHOR`S NAME MAHBOOB A. KHAWAJA

Strange Celebrations of the UN 75th Anniversary

Leaders Hated and Feared Make False Claims of Global Peace, Security and Justice

“Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Justice in the life of and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.”  Plato

We, the People of Human Conscience and the UNO

Are We, the People of the world trapped in a vicious circle of disingenuous unlearning of the learning inequality, racial injustice and human degradation across the globe? We continued to experience political deceptions in the name of peace and security, phony wars for peace-making, destruction of human habitats, racial injustice and violations of basic human rights and dignity at every step of the UN ladder of convenience for fair and foul narratives.  The UNO and its Charter were empowered by the succeeding nations after the WW2 to protect mankind from another man-made catastrophic war and to come up with workable solution of futuristic human security and conflict resolution. But The UNO and its agencies failed to live up to the hopes of succeeding generations. We have been ditched into a waking consciousness of human degradation as a new normal. Across the globe, people are calling for equality, racial justice and peace and security of all living beings. The European Empires – British, French, Dutch, Italian and American – all infested the societies with racial inequality, class systems and endless systematic discrimination of black and colored masses. The UN could not call for an emergency session to discuss the human losses in both rights and dignity that its Charter claimed to have granted protection. The UN leadership fears President Trump and his volatile reaction psychology – “America First.” American masses are increasingly assuming anti-racism stance and marching for human equality and racial justice. President Trump alleges conspiracy and calls them “extremists’ and ‘thugs” disturbing the law and order. Throughout American history such denials have perpetuated discrimination, violations of human rights and societal violence. When destiny of people coincides with the destiny of political elite, the nobility fears the challenge of change.    

We, the People of Concerned Humanity are witnessing dreadful political apparatus of painful imagination and threats to rational future-making for all mankind. Our enquiries and search for human equality, social justice, peace and global harmony are dashed away like the scum floating on water.  This not a speculative tenets but a living reality recorded by our time and experience. These grave issues concern all the living mankind regardless of nationalities, borders, ethnicities and prides of so many flags. Are these politicians’ pathological liars viewing the humanity as dumb, numb and silent spectators? We are the living conscience of humanity and do know that UNO celebrations are a planned distraction from the challenges of the prevalent world of political misrepresentation, contradictions and falsehood. There is hardly any encouraging evidence to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the UNO plausibly when millions of human beings are continuously charcoaled in Syria, locked up in Kashmir, Yemen, Libya, Myanmar, Iraq, Belarus and elsewhere on this planet. The very essence of human rights and dignity that UNO and the American leadership should have protected against aggression and used its resources to protect life and freedom of all the people. But the leadership professing to be wise and optimistic, fast becoming irrelevant, treacherous and self-centered without any accountability. Paul Craig Roberts (“A New World Is Being Born:  What Will It Be?” Information Clearing House04/9/2020), explains the encompassing truth:

We are hearing from many that the world after Covid-19 will be different.  The question is:  Different in what way?  Will it be better or worse? Elites are working to make it better for them, and worse for the rest of us.  About that the evidence is clear…….The elites by thinking only of their interests are in the way of the opportunity that crisis provides to bring people together.  If we can’t be brought back together, we can forget about unity beyond the boundaries of our own victim or identity group.  In place of community, we will be organized in clans of separate identities.  The absence of unity at home will make us a sitting duck for enemies abroad.

America and Trump Beyond the 9/11 and Genocide in Iraq

After the 9/11, America politics indicate shifting metaphor to wickedness and cruelty against poor and helpless nations. To chase Osama bin Laden, they massacred and destroyed millions of people in Afghanistan. But once OBL was killed, American war did not end its occupation.  The Iraqi invasion with American-British collaboration resulted in genocide of approximately three million civilians. Would American and British leaders ever be held accountable for their crimes against humanity? Robert Scheer, Editor -in Chief, Truthdig (“All Americans Have Blood on Their Hands.” Information Clearing House: 6/09/2019), narrates the first-hand experience of Danny Sjursen, a veteran of the US war in Iraq: 

…Sjursen tells Scheer in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” “but the reality is that I was censoring myself…..adapting to his new life and grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, the former soldier is still profoundly troubled by his experiences at war, not only as he led soldiers to their deaths, but also as he watched U.S. forces devastate Iraq and Afghanistan. ……..”What I saw happen to the Iraqi people [haunted me more] than what happened to my soldiers,” Sjursen says. “Not only the bodies in the street, not only the civil war that was being waged, but I found that more than 90% of the very friendly Iraqis … …That was a big turning point, when I started to say, ‘Wait a second. You know, forget about fighting the war poorly; we shouldn’t be fighting this war at all.’ ” But the blood on Sjursen’s hands, which he remains conscious of long after his last deployment, is on all Americans’ hands…

Could the American society spare more time and opportunity to think rationally of global peace, humanity and racial justice than the pets and daily stock markets listings?  At his last phase of the presidency, Trump is attuned to flatter his friend Israeli PM Netanyahu more than American political capacity could afford to do so. America under Trump is blindfolded by the lobbyists to believe in falsehood, misrepresentation and to compromise truth of the rights of people while virtue of truth has becoming offensive and undesirable as a precept of the US foreign policy. The UNO could have addressed the problem of Palestine- Israel conflict and recognition of two states for almost 70 years.  It seems many false and ignorant leaders occupy the political platforms of the UNO but also in America, Israel and the Arab world. The former Arab tribal agents of the lost British Empire and now prince and authoritarian kings do not represent the masses in UAE, Bahrain or Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. The authoritarian rulers could be phased-out any time. It is a Trump sponsored fantasy to appease one-sided classic ignorance. The Arab and Muslim people have a history of religious affinity and protection of Jews and extending critical humanitarian assistance during and prior to the WW2 when West European persecuted them for ages because of the religious animosity. Now State of Israel is in denial of the rights of Palestinian masses to Statehood and to co-exist in peace. Perhaps Israeli citizens should be conscience of this historic truth and be courageous to protect the Palestinians from a dangerous trend of political cruelty. Arab palaces are guarded by the CIA, not by the people. The leaders and people breathe oxygen in conflicting time zones.  Trump administration is manifested with denial of human rights, human equality and racial justice and looks repulsive to suppose human security and peace to be enhanced by profligacy, malevolence and one-track thinking of peace and security in the Middle East.

To Think of Political Change and Societal Reconstruction for Human Equality and Justice

In its search for change and movement to progressive future-making, the global mankind is oppressed by systematic ignorance, intransigence and arrogance of the few affluent class of people managing the global institutions, militarization and governance – the perverted insanity lacking basic understanding of the Human Nature and of the working of the Universe in which we enjoy coherent co-existence. The mankind continues to be victimized by the cancerous ego and cruelty of the few Western warlords. Perhaps, they view humanity just in digits and numbers, not as the living entities with social, moral, spiritual and intellectual values and progressive agendas for change and development. The oppressed masses in Indian held Kashmir, tormented innocent displaced refugees in Syria, more than half of a million of Rohinga refugees forcible evicted by Myanmar (Burma) military – a genocide in making and stalled in Bangladesh, divided and continuously bombed civilians in Yemen, citizens of Belarus demanding fair elections and besieged Palestinians look for global humanity to help – IF THERE IS ANY STILL INTACT – and call for order of the disorder, equality and justice, they have no tools to challenge the oppressors except endurance and foresight for human identity and peace to rejoice dignity and freedom without any perpetuated animosity. This was the moment for the UNO and Five superpowers should have moved to take a stand in support of human equality and justice.

To change the world, it is incumbent upon the intellectuals, academics, visionaries, poets, philosophers and the thinking people to perceive and articulate new and creative ideas, new political imagination for the 21st century organizations to be functional for the people, by the people and accountable to the supremacy of the people’s will. Thus facilitating opportunities for dialogue and reason to deal with issues of primary national conflicts, competing economic and political discords, freedom, justice, human rights, and to invent new terminologies of diplomacy, peacemaking and co-existence between Man, the Humanity and the encompassed Universe. Peace and global security are not the properties or the exclusive domains of any superpowers, America, Russia, the EU, UNO or the UN Security Council or any American corporation. The global mankind enjoins rational optimism to see the ideas and ideals of peace and human security as its own collectively, not of the few.

The tragic death of black American George Floyd reminds us all of the revulsion against the failure of working democracy, economic evil, subjugation of the people of color, psychological and political evil, and insane evil against black and people of colors. The ‘America First’ claimed by Donald Trump reflects painful temptation and socio-economic and political compulsion of systematic evil embedded in Capitalism and the class of the people who claim supremacy to govern the less fortunate and poverty stricken people of colors. They planned and organized security-police forces to protect the ruling nobility – 1% elite. Facing the challenges of public outcries for equality and racial justice, legislative and systematic legal changes must be formalized to create participation of all the citizenry in making a sustainable future. Public calls for defunding of the police apparatus is not a realistic issue but better education and training of police force could change the human landscape of trust and relationship. All colors matter – All lives matter if we claim to be a rational human being species populating the God-given One Planet – Earth. We, the People, the Humanity are colorful and beautiful.


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Trump triggers new ‘Great Game’ in South Asia BY ADIL NAJAM

Trump triggers new ‘Great Game’ in South Asia

 

 

Speaking at Fort Myer last week, the president promised that “American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically.” In Afghanistan, it is unlikely to. In South Asia, it already has – in deep but disturbing ways and mostly because of what President Donald Trump had to say about Pakistan.

Here’s how the stakes, consequences and options for each of the major players in South Asia have been transformed.

The speech left Pakistan hurt and angry.

The country’s foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, was livid at President Trump’s threatening tone and words, claiming that his country’s “sacrifices” as an American coalition partner were “disregarded and disrespected.” Pakistan’s National Security Council (NSC), which includes both the prime minister and the military chief, echoed the consensus in Pakistan that both Washington, D.C. and Kabul are bent on “scapegoating” Pakistan for their own failures.

 

Remarkably for Pakistan, President Trump seems to have united a deeply divided country. Government, opposition, military and civil society are all equally offended. All point out how Pakistan itself has had to spend many times more of its own resources in fighting America’s war than whatever America may have provided: 70,000 casualties, 17,000 Pakistanis killed; a nation living in constant fear of Taliban terrorism; an economy devastated to the tune of over $100 billion.

Of course, American allegations that Taliban encampments exist in Pakistan are not new. But President Trump has refused to recognize that Pakistan’s struggles to eliminate them are no less challenging than Afghanistan’s or America’s efforts within Afghanistan. This has been seen as particularly disingenuous.

 

 

 

 

Given the timing, tone and especially the fawning overtures toward India, Pakistanis read President Trump’s speech as the newest episode of abandonment from the nation’s longest but most fickle ally.

Privately, Pakistan and the United States have each long considered the other to be equally unreliable. With President Trump signaling that America will now look elsewhere, Pakistan feels compelled to do the same. Both China and Russia have been quick to exploit the chasm, advancing their own deep interests not only in Afghanistan but in greater South Asia.

Even before Pakistan had made any response to President Trump’s speech, the Chinese, already wildly popular in Pakistan for investing heavily in its infrastructure, responded with an official statement calling Pakistan an “all-weather friend” and thanking it for its “great sacrifices” in the fight against terrorism.

Not to miss the opportunity, Russia’s presidential envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, proclaimed that Pakistan is “a key regional player,” the pressurizing of whom could “result in negative consequences for Afghanistan.”

In Pakistan, such statements and the speed with which they came have been viewed as evidence that Pakistan does have choices, i.e., it may be time for Pakistan to move out of the U.S. orbit and seek deeper alliances elsewhere. Pakistan’s foreign minister, for example, immediately postponed his planned visit to Washington. This is not simply to register displeasure, but to gain time to visit other capitals and explore alternative options.

India’s initial reaction, not surprisingly, was to gloat. Its narrative about Pakistan was thoroughly embraced in President Trump’s speech. However, this is a gift horse they are likely to examine more carefully. Being anointed America’s sheriff in South Asia brings with it a new stress to their already-strained relations with China.

It is inevitable for tension to grow between these two Asian behemoths, but India would clearly have preferred to plan out the timing and terms of the escalation itself.

President Trump’s message to India that it “makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan,” is likely to be met with nothing more than a polite smile from New Delhi. There is certainly no likely relieffor the American taxpayer in how much they have to pay to keep dysfunctional governments in Kabul in place even while 40 percent of Afghanistan remains under Taliban control.

But the biggest consequence of President Trump’s South Asia strategy is that it gives India a license to elevate a new proxy conflict with Pakistan in Afghanistan. Pakistan is clearly terrified of being trapped in a pincer squeeze on its eastern and western borders by its arch nemesis, India.

But Afghanistan, as recent statements from its former president, Hamid Karzai, suggest, can also not be thrilled by the prospect of yet another major power becoming entrenched in yet another “Great Game.”

Therein lies what is truly new and frightening in Donald Trump’s South Asia strategy.

For the entirety of the last seven decades – including throughout the Cold War, when India was firmly ensconced as a Soviet ally – the American goal in South Asia was, above all, to maintain regional stability. The aim was to avoid and to actively resist tensions in a region that was a powder keg well before India decided to go rogue with nuclear weapons, and Pakistan followed suit. As of last week, the new American policy is to pit neighbor against neighbor in South Asia.

One day, one hopes, someone will explain to President Trump, like Chinese President Xi Jinping did about why North Korea is “complicated,” why the India-Pakistan relationship really is as fraught with danger as it is.

Meanwhile, an abdication of America’s traditional stabilizing role in South Asia has been announced. Afghanistan that will get kicked around the most, as five of the six largest militaries in the world (China, India, the United States, Russia and Pakistan), all nuclear, jockey for advantage in whatever the new South Asian balance of alliances might become.

Let us all hope that the unimaginable remains unimagined.

Adil Najam is the founding dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Mr.Trump Don’t Miscalculate: US dangerous game with Pakistan: Safe heavens stunt as Weapons of Mass Destruction – Times of Islamabad

-OpEd: US dangerous game with Pakistan: Safe heavens stunt as Weapons of Mass Destruction

Trump Don’t Miscalculate

Trump is dragging the US military, already pretty thinly spread, to enter nuclear armed and China’s ally Pakistan. It can trigger Third World War . Two hundred million Pakistanis will fight to the last man.Vietnam and Gulf War would look like boy scouts jamboree.. And India will be nuclear toast, if it attacks Pakistan from Afghanistan. India’s nuclear weapons are unreliable.

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-OpEd: US dangerous game with Pakistan: Safe heavens stunt as Weapons of Mass Destruction

The US is finding the war in Afghanistan a little too hot for its liking and why not; it was a war that remained in search of strategy and failed to find it. It’s not that I wish to gloat, nor that I want to say ‘I told you so’, but that one is forced to respond when confronted with accusations that the US failed in Afghanistan on account of Pakistan.

  • That we were a tricky two-faced partner. Since I was closely associated with this conflict for a number of years and since I am aware of the things that happened, it is only right that people such as me must speak for Pakistan just as we fought for Pakistan.
  • That a hundred and fifty thousand NATO troops have been overwhelmed by the imagined hoards that Pakistan sent across the border, challenges my professional understanding of the situation.
  • That this is the same border that neither Afghanistan recognises and resists its management or fencing, of course, cannot have escaped US attention.
  • That Pakistan has seven times the number of posts than Afghanistan and the US combined does not seem to make any headway.
  • That Afghan communication systems are functioning despite Pakistan’s repeated requests that they be shut down while Pakistani SIMs are down and out is another moot point.
  • That three Generals of the US Army promised additional border deployment with a US brigade across the North Waziristan Border remains a promise unfulfilled and forgotten.
  • That the US unilaterally up-staked and left Nuristan and the Kunar Valley, one of the most dangerous areas on the border, creating a vacuum is a question that only they can answer.
  • That Pakistani dissidents were given safe havens in this vacuum and encouraged to attack Pakistan is for all to see and take note of.
  • That the MOAB (Mother of all Bombs) accounted for 14 Indians from Kerala amongst the causalities was never a surprise for us.
  • That India is permitted to have so many conciliates along the Border, and none are processing visas is an obvious aberration.
  • That Pakistan suffered horrendous terrorist attacks from Afghanistan through these bands of militants organised and facilitated in Kunar is a no brainer.

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