All posts tagged: Attack Sri Lankan Team

Will Pakistan Army Wake Up Now ? Aey Mard e Mujahid jaag Zara

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Would it be too rude to say that Pakistan Army had it coming? No, I mean, literally. As reported in the media, there were intelligence reports that the attack on GHQ was imminent and had been well planned. Two facts stand out about the armed terrorists who attacked. a. They knew they will not be able to come out alive from the heavily guarded military headquarters. These were highly trained and motivated terrorists who wanted to make a big impact by attacking the nerve centre of Pakistan Army. b. The terrorist must have known that the attack was going to have more of a symbolic value than anything else. In fact this is akin to attack on Pentagon and World Trade Centre. In an irony some may say that GHQ can be seen as representing both the corporate and military interests in Pakistan. This was an audacious attack, whose consequences and implications had been undoubtedly, thought through. However, most probably, where terrorists failed is that they may have hoped to prolong their action and inflict …

How Top Generals May Trap Obama in a Losing War By Tom Engelhardt

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Front and center in the debate over the Afghan War these days are General Stanley “Stan” McChrystal, Afghan war commander, whose “classified, pre-decisional” and devastating report — almost eight years and at least $220 billion later, the war is a complete disaster — was conveniently, not to say suspiciously,leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post by we-know-not-who at a particularly embarrassing moment for Barack Obama; Admiral Michael “Mike” Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has been increasingly vocal about a “deteriorating” war and the need for more American boots on the ground; and the president himself, who blitzed every TV show in sight last Sunday and Monday for his health reform program, but spent significant time expressing doubts about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. (“I’m not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan… or sending a message that America is here for the duration.”)

What’s gone wrong at the CIA, and should it be abolished?

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By Rupert Cornwell   Tuesday, 14 July 2009 Published in ‘ Independent’. Why are we asking this now? The CIA is currently embroiled in two controversies that go to the heart of the problems surrounding the world’s largest intelligence agency. It is accused of keeping Congress in the dark about a secret post-9/11 project, on the orders of the former vice-president Dick Cheney and probably in violation of the law. Meanwhile the Justice Department is moving towards a criminal investigation of whether CIA operatives illegally tortured captured terrorist suspects. A rule of thumb about an intelligence service might be: the less you hear about it, the better it’s probably doing its job. Instead, the CIA seems to be eternally in the headlines.

Who will bell the cat ? And How ?

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Here are three pieces published in daily ‘The News’. These represent a cross section of views. Although they discuss the problem of Swat Operation and IDPs from different perspective, the common theme is ‘What needs to be done and how it should be done?’. However no one clearly comes up with the answer to the question ‘Who’ needs to do this. And if the government is failing, as they all say or imply, how the hell are we going to change this? Is any one listening? Who will bell the cat? On the other side of despair. by Ali Asghar Khan,  No escape from hell by Noreen Haider    and      Winning the peace by Dr Maleeha Lodhi On the other side of despair. by Ali Asghar Khan “Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.” –T S Elliot Amidst the insanity, the brutality, hate and intolerance, there remains an overwhelming desire for peace and security. In the face of daunting issues and powerful actors, many may doubt their …

Pakistan’s war on civilians by Paul Rogers

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This article was published on ‘Open Democracy’. Paul Rogers is professor of Peace studies in Bradford, England. He writes regularly on Open Democracy and for the Oxford Research Group. We do not agree with all of what he says, but he does raise questions we all need to think about and find answers for.  The car-bombing in Lahore of a police station and the local headquarters of  Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency on 27 May 2009 is more than the seventh major attack on the city since January 2008 – and the third since March 2009, when the Sri Lankan cricket team and a police academy were targeted. The bomb, which killed twenty-seven people and and injured over a hundred, is a further indication of the systemic, interrelated and deep-rooted nature of Pakistan’s internal-security troubles. Lahore, after all, is Pakistan’s cultural centre, a sophisticated city that lies close to India and is a long way from the intense fighting currently being waged in the Swat valley in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). If it can …

Attack in Lahore – Qui Bono [who benefits]

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Mar 9, 2009 Azhar Aslam and Shaista Kazmi (Vision21) Pakistan is in a classic ‘cry wolf’ situation. Now that the wolf has come one risks shouting about it at the peril of being called paranoid, liar, crazy or conspiracy theorist. But this unfortunate ‘wolf cry’ of the ‘foreign hand’ may have given a room to maneuver and protection to the external players and handlers. Fourteen ( or twelve) gunmen attacked Sri Lankan cricket team and their guards in a coordinated, well planned attack and got away (until now). But fool may be the one who thinks this was a senseless attack with the aim of terrorising ordinary Lahorites. So let us just look at the facts and let everyone draw their own conclusion. The attack has raised many questions which are pertinent and of utmost relevance and must be answered in a forensic manner.