Sectarianism is the root of all evil in Iraq

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

An US government report says that the Iraqi government has fulfilled only 3 of the 18 benchmarks set for it. There is no oil bill, no resettlement of Baathists, nor any progress towards reconciliation. It clearly lays down the reasons for this. The polarization of Iraq’s major sects and ethnic groups and fighting among Shia factions further diminishes the stability of Iraq’s governing coalition and its potential to enact legislation needed for sectarian reconciliation This has been the bane of post-Saddam Iraqi politics: sectarianism. In the 2005 elections voters cast their ballot on sectarian lines and not for good, capable candidates. The result is that individual merit is lost in sectarian politics. Ministerial and government posts are filled from the various groups after politicking and horse trading. Merit has been the victim. Increasingly Iraqi leaders are saying that the US approach of security first so that the various Iraqi communities can settle their differences has not worked. Instead it should be good governance first; reconciliation will follow. The chasm between different communities is deep. The Shiites resent the fact that the Sunnis under Saddam had slaughtered many Shias. Today they [Shias] are supposed to work with them, while Sunni militants continue killing innocent Shias. That is why they strongly oppose US moves to rope in Sunnis into Iraqi police, especially in Anbar province. Many Shias want that those Sunnis who had committed crimes during the Saddam era should be punished. The Shiites also fear that the minority Sunnis might be still nursing dreams of ruling Iraq again and are wary of them. The Sunnis complain that they are never consulted on major decisions. Salam al-Zobaee, Iraq’s second-highest Sunni official says though he is the minister for security and a deputy prime minister, he is in the dark of all the security operations going on in the country. His is a ceremonial post; he has no powers. It is generally felt that prime minister al-Maliki is too weak or does not want to rise above the sectarian divisions in Iraq and national reconciliation is stagnating. There is hope yet. A fresh attempt is being made to reconcile the communities in Iraq. Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice president, recently drafted what he calls the “Iraqi National Compact,” a 25-point statement of principles that condemns all types of extremism and sectarian discrimination. He has roped in the country’s most respected Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has supported his efforts. MSNBC Image credit

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More fallout from Blackwater mayhem

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

Blackwater is in for more bad news. It is being criticized by the US lawmakers, who want to have all private security contractors answerable in a court of law. FBI and the pentagon are giving them a tough time and tightening the screws on them. The Iraqi government has finished the probe on the shooting at al-Nisoor square in Baghdad last month. Its report is even more damning. It says that Blackwater is lying when it says it was fired upon by Iraqi policemen and civilians. The government spokesman says Blackwater boys were not attacked at all. He was most emphatic and said not even a stone was thrown at them. The Iraqi government is waiting for the US investigation to finish and after that it intends to try the bad Blackwater boys in a court of law. A US-Iraqi commission has been set up to ensure that in future Iraqi civilians are not hurt again by security contractors. The State Department has been criticized for being too lenient on security contractors. Matters further flared up after a private security contractor for the Pentagon, Combat Support Associates, acknowledged it had unknowingly hired the former Blackwater contractor who is the suspect in the Christmas Eve killing of an Iraqi guard. Combat Support Associates said that the company had done the required vetting of Moonen but that the Christmas Eve incident did not appear on his record and that the State Department did not inform the company he was the suspect. Condoleezza rice has moved in for damage control. She has ordered that henceforth all convoys will be accompanied by official monitors from the department’s Diplomatic Security Bureau, and video cameras will be mounted in vehicles. In addition, radio communication will be recorded and will be archived along with the video and electronic tracking data so diplomats can better review Blackwater’s performance. Other private security contractors besides Blackwater are feeling the heat too. They fear that the reputation of all security companies has been tarnished and that is bad for business. On the flipside with Blackwater becoming infamous, they hope they will be able to lay their hands on work which Blackwater will lose. BBC image credit

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Is the global war on terror inspiring terrorism?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

The global war on terror is rapidly failing. That’s the message that has for long been circulating. A number of think-tanks in recent months have been publishing various research and reports on this matter and if anyone needs telling, all those reports have negatively marked the America-led war. So the new study revealed by the British organization Oxford Research Group (ORG) doesn’t necessarily come as much as a surprise as a confirmation of the stark naked truth. And that truth is that the Bush administration has miserable failed in its objective to combat terrorism and has fallen flat on its face in the wake of escalating sectarian violence in Iraq and Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan. ORG’s report, Alternatives to the War on Terror, suggests that the operation to eradicate terrorism from the planet has boomeranged upon the Bush administration. Instead of progressing in its aim, the policy is actually fuelling al Qaeda and its supporters to come out of their dens and wage jihad. The report states that the fundamental structure of the global war on terror has to be changed to break the terrorist network that has spread to all corners of the world in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The think-tank does leave some scope for optimism to seep in too. It says that the crackdown on terrorist and al Qaeda can be made a success should more pragmatic ideas be taken into consideration. Policies at all levels need to be changed and more peace talks and negotiations need to held with Islamic militia to decimate the increase of terrorism. The findings of the report aren’t new and most of the facts have already been underlined before. What the report does is consolidate the belief that the Bush administrative has failed strategically as well as tactically to contain terrorism and is now trapped in its own web. Image Source: ABC Source: Reuters

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Who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Posted on January 17, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

Benazir Bhutto had degrees from Harvard and Oxford. She spoke fluent and unaccented English. Her looks were patrician and she came out as a liberal humanist in a rabidly anti-feminist Pakistan. In other words, Mrs. Bhutto was the only real challenge and alternative to both President Musharraf and the fundamentalist Right Wing. She may have won the upcoming elections in Pakistan. This ex-prime minister has been assassinated. BBC reports her being first shot in the neck and then in chest. Then her craven shooter blew himself up, killing 20 more. Bhutto was addressing a campaign rally at Rawalpindi. It is common knowledge that the Bhutto family is jinxed like the Gandhi family in India. Bhutto’s father and brothers have all been assassinated. Naturally, the needle of suspicion now rests on President Musharraf and her opponents. But it is highly unlikely that Musharraf had orchestrated the murder. At this point of time, Benazir’s death would only make public opinion stronger against him. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which Benazir headed, is now baying for Musharraf’s blood. May be this is exactly what the real killers have in mind. Who are they? As things look, Pakistan is a country overrun by Islamic zealots. Amongst them are the Pashtun and Taliban terrorists. Benazir posed two problems to the fundamentalists. She was a woman and terrorists, like cowards everywhere, hate women in power. Moreover, with her western education, Mrs. Bhutto would have never tolerated right wing extremism. Simply put, she loved Pakistan and her people too much to bow to fundamentalists. She had to be silenced. A light in dark Pakistan has gone out. Now out the dogs of war! She is going to be buried in her ancestral Larkana around noon. Musharraf has been quick to jump into the public mourning bandwagon. He has declared three days’ mourning in Pakistan.

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Turko-American controversy with an Armenian shadow

Posted on January 17, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

A fresh and completely unexpected controversy with the potential of far-reaching consequences seems to have erupted between the United States and its NATO ally Turkey after a bill, recognising the massacre of millions of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey in the early twentieth century as genocide, cleared the House of Foreign Affairs Committee in the US Congress. Turkey never recognises the massacre as a genocide citing inter-ethnic conflicts as the foremost reasons behind the killings. Turkish sentiments run deep when it comes to the Armenian issue and this partial recognition by the Democrats dominated US congress of the elimination of an influential Armenian minority community during the first world war will not go down well with the Turkish leadership in Ankara. Turkey have already issued a strong protest overnight disputing the congressional voting. Turkey being a secular Muslim nation, where strict Islamic practice is banned, is a key ally in President George W Bush’s war on terror and an important global player. With Turkey regularly contributing its armed forces (being a NATO member) in international conflicts, its a major concern for the Bush regime in Washington which was always against the vote and has already come up with a statement terming the vote as “disappointing” to somewhat diffuse the situation. But things do not end here. If the vote is finally approved by the US congress, the situation may take a different turn harming long term US-Turkey relations. With the American armed forces overly stretched in Iraq and some neighbouring Turkish bases acting as a lifeline to those forces, it could be a different story altogether if the final round of voting gets through. Turkey may stop those bases from being used by the Americans plunging the US marines into further trouble. Furthermore, Turkey, a future EU candidate, could be a different kettle of fish for the Americans to deal with in international matters if the vote is passed, which nonetheless would delight the Armenians who then can ask for a huge compensation from the Turks. link:bbc image link:wikipedia

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Man arrested in failed German bombings tells true reason for his actions

Posted on January 17, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

When a Danish news paper first published drawings of Prophet Muhammad in September 2005, it could have hardly known that it would stirring a hornet’s nest. Since its first publication, several other leading European newspapers had picked up the cue kindling widespread protest from the Islamic community all across the world. And one of those protestors was a Lebanese, Jihad Hamad. He couldn’t contain himself to the common acts of burning Western leaders’ effigies and staging demonstrations in front of foreign embassies; he did something rather drastic. His planting of two gas canisters filled with detonators on two trains in Cologne on July 31, 2006 was hailed as an al-Qaeda attack at the time but now the perpetrator says that it was an act of defiance against the European press’ depiction of the Prophet in a distorted form. What Hamad did was extend the Islamic world’s protests against the so-called blasphemy to active harm to the people. This cannot be justified or accepted. The European newspapers did something deplorable indeed since they ought to have been more discreet and sympathetic towards the illustration of the Prophet in cartons and one has to say that the Muslim community all throughout the world was right in protesting against the misleading cartoons. But violence anywhere, anytime and for any reason can never be accepted. Jihad Hamad and fellow suspect Youssef el-Hajdib’s failed bomb attack on German soil has only augmented the increasing drift between Islam and the rest of the world. Since the 9/11 attacks, Islamophobia has taken precedence and the string of attacks in the name of Islam around the world has helped sustain the ghastly phenomenon. A total of five men are suspected to be in the plot and four of them, including Hamad, are standing trial in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. They would almost certainly be charged but the apprehensions would drag on. Image Source: WDR Source: Associated Press

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Britain feeling the strain of war with the Taliban

Posted on January 16, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

According to reports from the Daily Mail, Britain‘s MI6 was involved in peace negotiations with the Taliban over the summer. This is a surprising report given the UK’s tough non-negotiation policy against fundamentalist groups such as the Taliban. If this allegation turns out to be true, not only it would be an embarassment for Downing Street but it would also prove Britain’s frustration with the escalation of violence across Afghanistan. There are two views to the alleged negotiations. Firstly, with the mounting losses among British NATO forces, the government wants to enter into some sort of ceasefires with the Taliban who seem to be growing in numbers and confidence with every passing minute. Harsh terrain and mounting insurgent attacks are having a toll on the British morale. Furthermore, the British public wants to see the troops back home and public opinion suggests that the country is fighting an endless battle with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda which may take a worse turn in the course of time. Secondly, some analysts within the British government say that the negotiations were a part of the wider strategy to persuade some armed rebels to give up their arms in return for hefty incentives. The British and the Afghan government want to disband the Taliban internally by making conservative Tribal leaders aware of the fundamentalist group’s threats to the country’s various provinces. But no doubt, London is concerned about the mounting stress on the Royal army due to the bruising war, particularly after the withdrawal of various coalition troops following domestic pressure and Talibani tactics. It would be of no surprise if the reports turn out to be true and there is every chance that the Afghan government would enter into future talks with the Taliban

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Germany ready to play with fire in Afghanistan

Posted on January 16, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

Despite the recent spate of kidnappings of German contractors and aid workers in Afghanistan by the Taliban, the lower house of the German parliament extended the deployment of the 2,800-odd troops. This was approved completely against the opinion of the German public who wants immediate return of the troops. The German troops were sent to Afghanistan as part of an international peace misson(ISAF) immediately after the fall of the Taliban by the then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. After the unpopular invasion of Iraq by the US and Britain, Germany was considering its committment in any US-led peace mission. But the little known Angela Merkel was appointed the chancellor and on appointment quickly assured Germany’s committment towards Afghanistan. Since the resurgence of the Taliban, the German troops and reconstruction workers have come under increasing attacks leading to widespread call of withdrawing the troops from the relatively calmer north of the country. With a growing closeness to the United States and being a leading member of NATO, Chancellor Merkel was completely against the troop withdrawal. Futhermore a horrific recent event has tarnished the image of the German troops in, both at home and abroad. A German newspaper published a report showing some of the soldiers playing with a human skull at their base. This has further raised calls of bringing back the troops. This decision by the Bundestag will not go down well with the domestic public and a growing fanatic Islamic network already spreading its web across Germany.Germans are now more vulnerable to terror attacks than ever before. The recent memories of bloody attacks on Madrid and London will, no doubt, keep the Germans on toes home and abroad. There’s a growing concern that, much like in Britain, young German Muslim men will be attracted to the terror network getting ready to strike at the heart of the German democracy. Many Germans feel that they are better off without America’s growing unpopular influence. link:google image link:white house

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Is poor leadership the reason behind Iraq failure?

Posted on January 16, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez’s assessment of the murky situation in Iraq is hardly a novel one. His conviction that the Bush administration has been found lacking in strategic and administrative skills to combat the sensitive situation in Iraq, following the ousting of Saddam Hussein, is one that all those who have monitoring the situation would back. What the former US commander’s revelation does is consolidate the widespread belief that US President George W Bush has failed in his objective to purify Iraq. Despite all the political negotiations and military forces stationed in Iraq, sectarian violence is still rife and pro-al Qaeda militants have even started attacking the foreign peacekeepers. The situation in Iraq is fast spiraling out of control and Mr. Sanchez’s assessment is one more reason for Mr. Bush to develop some quick new tactics to save the situation. In spite of a Prime Minster at the helm, the political arena of Iraq is still steeped in uncertainly and the economy is unable to meet with the demands of the common people. More than a million Iraqis have run away from the country to escape the sectarian violence and more are following in their footsteps. Several other key political figures too have been harsh towards the Bush administration. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have already voiced their disapproval about the way Mr. Bush decided to progress with the handling of the war. The White House has been at the heart of the controversy, as it has also failed in its objective to temper the violence that is killing Iraq. These days more and more army personnel and top politicians are coming out of their shells and voicing their disapproval and resentment at the handling of the Iraq war. Yet the procedure and strategies hardly appear to shift towards the better. Mr. Bush is counting the days of his Presidency and this leads one to contemplate whether the US President actually cares about the war in Iraq any more. Image Source: American Progress Source: Reuters

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Internet, Al Qaeda’s new weapon to spread terror: Report

Posted on January 16, 2012 by admin | Permalink 0

The growing influence of Internet all around the globe has also given a weapon in the hands of terror groups to spread their messages to their subordinates and other like-minded people everywhere. More than 100 English Internet sites are reportedly packed with ostentatious videos of car bombings and other terror strikes, occurred in different parts of the world, are available on the net for the viewers. These sites are actually helping the terror groups such as Al-Qaeda to spread the ‘Jehadi’ message to other extremist groups and to common people all over the globe. The terror groups are taking advantages of the anger and condition of the Muslims by repeatedly showing the visuals of Iraq war. According to the report, the Internet websites are being handled by some extremist groups. The militants groups are appealing to young American and European Muslims by taking advantages of their anger against the war in Iraq to come together to stage a war against the anti-Islam forces. These websites are repeatedly saying that the image of Islam is under dangerous threat. Several western newspapers such as The New York Times have also reported quoting terrorism experts several times. The New York Times has reported that the wearisome Arabic screeds are being reproduced into flamboyant English speeches. The militant groups are using multiple languages for different recruitment zones. Recently, a website used a multiple language electronic script, and its English version for Muslim women to join the fight against the West to save Islam. The report says further that several online novellas such as “Rakan bin Williams are also available on some websites that is a story of a band of Christian European converts who embraced Al-Qaida. The Chistian Europeans promised God after embracing Al Qaeda that they will carry the anti-west war to other Muslims and would punishment the anti-Islam forces. Read

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