Tag Archives: Taliban

Guest Post – Asad Khan – When “FATA” Came Calling To Islamabad

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics, Regions

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FATA has been in the eye of the storm for the past 10 years and other than drones, bombs and shells, what pacification measures have the government taken, other than to be scared witless of the terror merchants and their cronies?

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The news to which the commentary responds:Suicide attack on Pakistan court leaves 11 people dead days after Taliban announced month-long ceasefire | Mail Online – 3/3/2014.

On that horrific and too familiar a kind of story, one of my friends in Islamabad, Asad Khan, who states on his Facebook page, “every human has the right to communicate with the creator, in the manner s/he thinks best . . . “, provided me permission to relay his thoughts here.

As an editor in this process, I’ve added paragraph breaks to help ease the reading, question marks to the interrogative statements, and applied rote grammatical corrections (“has” to “have” for example) where needed.

“MPAs” refers to members of the Provincial Assembly; “MNAs” to members of the National Assembly.  There are a few other acronyms sprinkled about (“FC” refers to “Frontier Corps”), but the reader is online too and look-up works fast.

Guest Post by Asad Khan

The Police Service is the most vilified, most underfunded, most politically manipulated, probably most demoralized, and most undertrained of all government services.

With this background of our own home grown “keystone cops”, should we be surprised that the terrorists came calling to the courts and turned it into a shooting gallery, shooting innocent people as if they were sitting ducks.

I think what has happened in Islamabad should not come as a surprise to anyone, least of all to the current political leadership. I have always expounded the view that we should have job descriptions and selection criteria for ministers and other leaders and policy makers. For example what are the qualifications of the interior minister, other than the fact that a whole bunch of nincompoops have voted him to the national assembly on false promises?

The same holds true for the rest of that galaxy of greats and near greats that adorn the corridors of power in Islamabad.

First of all I would like to ask the interior minister to define the roles of the police departments/service, the FC and various other “law enforcement” agencies that he lords over?

Probably he will not know the answers to this/these question(s).

Next what is the internal security policy for the nation as whole, not just Raiwind, Lahore, and Punjab in that order, and not just security for the star spangled generals, judges, ministers and MPAS or MNAS?

Does the interior minister know the shelf life of a cartridge in the bandolier of a Police Constable, or when it was purchased, and to how many rain falls and sun shines that cartridge has been exposed to?

Probably it is beneath the dignity of that snotty, arrogant minister to know such trivia.

Why must the Police Constable die in the line of duty protecting a judge who does not value his (police constable’s) life?

What has the government done for Malakand, post 2009 conflict other than some nicely written fraudulent reports?

FATA has been in the eye of the storm for the past 10 years and other than drones, bombs and shells, what pacification measures have the government taken, other than to be scared witless of the terror merchants and their cronies?

We are adopting the line of appeasement not because of our love for the Taliban, but because we are scared blue of them.

Has the Interior Minister, or the PM or the CM ever been to the funeral of a police constable or an FC jawan killed in the line of duty in KPK?

I don’t think so.

Has a survey ever been conducted to know the views of the police or the FC?

I don’t think so.

If I were a Police constable or an FC jawan I would not throw my life away for the protection of some judge or politician.

Have the powers that be ever stood in the shoes of a police constable and thought of these things?

The post-event inquiries ordered by the Head Judge, the PM, CM and what not make me laugh.

It is a joke on the nation.

Pakistan can only get out of the morass it is in if we have honest, decent men and women at the helm of affairs, but unfortunately this will never be. The West is rooting for parliamentary democracy because they know that this sham “democracy” is our nemesis and will be the cause of our eventual downfall. Robber barons will keep on replacing one another and this game of musical chairs will keep on going, and we will keep on sinking deeper and deeper until the sands of time will cover us and there will be no trace left, and the freebooters will take their loot and head West, to out their miserable lives there.

For the present, this country is being run by mafias and unless their hold is broken, and they are made accountable for their actions, we can bid sayonara to any hope for the better.

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Pakistan – Drones Down, Jets Up!

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Pakistani jets started to bomb the militant hideouts on Monday, January 20.

Is Pakistan finally going after the Taliban? | Asia | DW.DE | 23.01.2014

Islamabad’s share of Washington’s anti-al-Qaeda-type-organization drone program seems to have been premised on the idea that it was the least the west could do in its efforts to diminish the plans of its deeply anti-western and devolutional old enemy.

While drone strikes would take innocents along with targets, they impact would be much, much less than that of any other war fighting method beyond the unfeasible one of sending out a Frontier Corps posse to collect a villain.

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The purpose of this database is to provide as much information as possible about the covert U.S. drone program in Pakistan in the absence of any such transparency on the part of the American government. This data was collected from credible news reports and is presented here with the relevant sources. It was updated with information from the latest Pakistan strike, which occurred on December 25, 2013.

Drone Wars Pakistan: Analysis | The National Security Program – updated to 12/25/2013.

The above cited New America Foundation report notes a steep decline in drone strikes in Pakistan over the past four years, with about 125 operations launched in 2010 and fewer than about 30 in 2013.

The Top Story piece, with which this blog post has started, notes a part of the run-up to Pakistan’s deployment of air power in North Waziristan: “Pakistani officials say that some of those killed were involved in a January 19 attack on the country’s paramilitary troops in the northwestern city of Bannu, and a double suicide bombing on a Peshawar church in September last year, which killed more than 80 people.”

As such, the emerging war would seem to contain two dimensions of interest to most Pakistanis: reprisal for the deaths of innocents; defense and suppression of a force that would commit similar crimes repeatedly until it exclusively held the nation in subjugation.

Compared to this week’s developments, Washington’s drone war — a war vociferously criticized from the Far Left, and claimed it contribute to the growth in ranks of terrorists — starts to look in conflict terms like “lowest intensity conflict” (probably, mafia activity goes lower, but, bear with me, here are some headers from this week’s war in Pakistan):

 Blast kills 20 soldiers in Pakistan, military says – World News – NBC – 1/19/2014;  At least 13 killed, 24 hurt in bomb blast near Pakistan army HQ – World News – 1/19-20/2014 (the event appears to have taken place Monday morning in Pakistan but the story published in the west Sunday evening); More than 20 dead in Shi’ite pilgrim bus bomb in Pakistan | euronews, world news – 1/21/2014; Pakistan bombing is latest in wave of attacks on polio workers – latimes.com – 1/22/2014; Six Pakistani police officers are shot dead protecting Spanish cyclist | World news | theguardian.com – 1/22/2014.

What sovereign government charged with defending its people and the guests of its people would not rise to the occasion?

So: Pakistan bombs militant hideouts in North Waziristan for first time in years – World News – 1/21/2014.

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Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.

Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban – NYTimes.com – 7/29/2009!

Déjà vu.

Pakistan has a problem even as its military prowess improves: it may dampen the brush fires set by the Taliban, but it would seem constitutionally incapable of removing either the motivating variables, however we may parse them, or the intellectual component and cover from which the Taliban design their strategy and tactics.

Instead of solving a security problem, flying jets against caves merely cycles it down to where it may simmer, bubble, and boil over again.  Mix metaphors and call that a Sysiphean Hell.  The Taliban roll out their program; the state rolls it back; the Taliban regroup, revive, and the state has to fuel its jets again for strikes within its own writ.

Top Taliban leader Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, who briefly headed the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud last November, 33 Uzbek nationals and three Germans, were among those killed in the night- long air strikes in North Waziristan Agency since Monday.

Pakistan air strikes kill top Taliban leaders, 33 Uzbek fighters – The Hindu – 1/23/2014.

Islamabad will have to do more than remove immediate radical targets from the field as it seeks to secure the safety of the state’s woefully victimized and terrorized constituents.

Additional Reference

Drones: The West’s Best Ethical Response to Terrorism | Diane Weber Bederman – 10/31/2013.

Drones propel hate in Pakistan for the U.S. Israel News | Haaretz – 12/11/2012.

Voice of a native son: Drones may be a necessary evil – 10/15/2012.

BBC News – Drones in Pakistan traumatise civilians, US report says – 9/25/2012.

Articles: Understanding the Taliban Insurgency: The Cause, Motivation, and Culture of Resistance – 6/19/2011.

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FTAC – Islamic Barbarism – A Note

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics

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The sources was this +18 (graphic content) URL from Pakistan: A glimpse of Taliban’s spectacular reaction to ‘drone strikes’ in their world of love and revenge – 12/26/2013.  It features Taliban playing soccer with the heads of slaughtered police.  Commentary (mine):

People like this may change their affiliations and labels, but . . . it’s them . . . and in their comparative isolation, they do what they do with a minimum of, shall we call, stopping power. If one could have seen the assemblies of Genghis Khan at their first skirmishes, possibly one would have seen much like this. One may wonder how much such crude barbarity grows up by the Age of the Guillotine, not to march on to Hiroshima. What has changed more in the heart may be a change in the status of ideas having to do with humanity and power across a larger sphere of interconnected humanity.

In Israel and in the west, the presence of mortal enemies in life, a fact of life, has been converted largely to a practical matter in defense, and contempt modified or inhibited in favor of helpful service where possible. As regards Syria today, Israel has produced several avenues of humanitarian aid to alleviate at least some refugee suffering — and to other refugees, it has provided for trade throughput, health services, electricity, water, direct trade and employment, effectively addressing anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist cant as a compartmented issue, i.e., something that can be separated from higher-value concerns involving specific economic and quality of living issues.

The world is full of human divisions x language x culture x tribe / clan / family x political x professional x class affiliations, but it is not full of multiple human species.

Those kicking around the skulls and those testing the latest in Advanced Small Weapons are not intergalactic aliens to one another.

Of course, they’re not safe from one another either.

Heads on poles, Msiris Compound, a Masai village, rotogravure, 1892.

Heads on poles, Msiris Compound, a Masai village, rotogravure, 1892.

The primitive may overrun its range given its choice of modern weapons, but it’s not prepared to arrange and manage the productive energies of the technologically far advanced civilizations that may appear to bedevil it.  Such may be cordoned and contained or transformed, and of the two paths, transformation over time may be more kind.

It’s hard to tell.

On any given day online, I may look over many things as they appear on and off the web (via books, in that case, or by way of correspondence or direct talk), so, in a sense, I can overview space; however, I cannot “overview” the top third of time — the future.

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Reference Pakistani Political Attitudes, Taliban, Arab Influence, Heroin, Cash, UAE, and The Marines

11 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Ours is a culture of guilty eschatology: hereafter is real, and here is fake, but we are more here-bound than hereafter-bound; we are not genuine Muslims because we are not Arab. We live in Pakistan, but we belong to the holy lands in the Middle East. Our political-economy is borrowed, stolen, and fake.

Refuge of failures – Abbas Zaidi – 11/7/2013 – ViewPoint.

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We gave those camels [a derogatory Afghan term for Arabs] free run of our country, and they brought us face to face with disaster. We knew the Americans would attack us in revenge.

Haqqani as quoted by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau – The Taliban’s Oral History of the Afghanistan War – Newsweek – 9/25/2009.

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Their base of operations logically became FATA, and they began to establish (or re-establish keeping in mind the 1980s) training camps in Pakistan. These camps included not only Afghans, but also constituted many new Pakistani recruits, and the Pakistani militant groups were actively involved, especially in South Waziristan. The organizing effort also brought an influx of money to the region, coming from various international sources hoping to help the resistance (Yousafzai & Moreau, 2009). Fighting against the foreign troops in Afghanistan and re-establishing Taliban rule served as the primary motivations, as well as profiting from control of drug routes out of Afghanistan (Acharya, 2009)

(30) Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan: Reaction or Revolution? | Muneeb Ansari – Academia.edu – Pp. 5-6 – 5/2/2011.

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The reading, whether for background, retrospective analysis, or, frankly, pleasure proves illuminating.

If you are a BackChannels irregular, 20/20 hindsight rehashes of the Lal Masjid tragedy (2007) and more recent battles in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theaters may summon old memories, directly experienced or mediated.

Web searched first-page reference  to data on the Taliban’s narcotics trafficking seems to trail off for 2013, but relayed at the bottom of this post, there’s combat footage from early 2013 posted just six days ago.

Afghanistan supplies 90% of the opium and heroin global markets.

The Afghan farmer who grows opium poppies could earn as much as $230 for a kilo to opium. Processing the opium into heroin turns it into one of the world’s most profitable commodities, fetching between $175,000 and $850,000 wholesale depending on the level of purity and availability.

The Illicit Drug Economy & The Case Against Cornflakes – 6/7/2013.

Cornflakes?

The authors, Rachel Ehrenfeld and Walton Cook, discuss western attitudes toward “war on terror” countermeasures and high-tech agronomy.

Related Reference

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.  “The Taliban’s Assets in the UAE”.  (WikiLeaks Project, 2012).  Related: US embassy cables: Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network using United Arab Emirates as funding base | World news | theguardian.com – 12/5/2010: “Mendelsohn praised the UAE for its contribution to building a stable and moderate Afghanistan. He thanked the SSD and GDSS for its commitment, per the directive of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, to disrupt any Taliban-related financial activity that can be identified in the UAE.”  The upshot from the IICT piece: organized crime — drugs, extortion, kidnapping, etc. — provides Taliban funding with cash (!) assembled and carried by courier out of the UAE.

Middle East Policy Council | Protecting Jihad: The Sharia Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad – 2013.  “This article analyses al-Maqdisi’s efforts to protect jihad by looking at his actual criticism of certain jihadi militants and, conversely, at his attempts to support and praise “good” jihadis in several countries. The article then focuses on the successful attempt by al-Maqdisi to set up a council of like-minded scholars in order to provide guidance and advice to youngsters dealing with religious questions about a host of issues, including jihad, and what advice this council has actually given. Using mostly Arabic primary sources taken from the internet,11 including the collections of fatwas published by the council, this article argues that these radical scholars may well have an important impact on the future of jihad and as such are worthy of both scholars’ and policy makers’ attention.”

Malhot, Aditi.  “Understanding the Ghazi Force.” Center for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), November 15, 2012: “Pakistan’s once feared terrorist group, the Ghazi Force is back in the limelight. This time for the reported revival of their funding sources and its resurrection to inflict greater damage on the Pakistani state. a recent report from the Pakistani intelligence agency obtained by BBC urdu states that banned jihadi groups are reviving their local and international funding sources, after their affiliates started opening local and foreign currency accounts under pseudonyms.”

TTP— from Deobandi link to Salafi influence – DAWN.COM – 9/7/2013.

WikiLeaks Project — Afghanistan: A Haven for Low-Budget Terrorists.  Related: British troops seize £50m of Taliban narcotics | World news | The Guardian – 2/17/2009.  Related: How Opium Profits the Taliban – United States Institute of Peace – August 2009.  Related: US adds Taliban shadow governor of Helmand to narcotics kingpin list – The Long War Journal – 11/16/2012.  Related: Narco-Terrorism in Afghanistan: Counternarcotics and Counterinsurgency | International Affairs Review – n.d. but 2008 or later (A World Bank paper cited dates to March 2008: “Responding to Afghanistan’s Opium Economy Challenge: Lessons and Policy Implications from a Development Perspective.”

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▶ Marines Storm Taliban Opium Factory In Helicopter Raid | Part 1 – YouTube – Posted 11/5/2013 (from Helmand Province, Afghanistan, early 2013).

Related: ▶ Narcotics and Corruption in Afghanistan – YouTube – video (40:56), Posted by U.S. Army War College, posted 6/24/2012.  Col. Lou Jordan asks, “What is the relationship between the poppy and the money?”

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Cannabis was found to be the most commonly used drug in Pakistan, with by 3.6 per cent of the adult population, or four million people, listed as users. Opiates, namely opium and heroin, are used by almost one per cent of overall drugs users, and the highest levels of use are seen in the provinces which border principal poppy-cultivating areas in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Drug Use in Pakistan 2013 Summary Report reveals high levels of drug use and dependency.

The Whole Business Romanticized

Posted to YouTube by MI5MI6GCHQ February 21, 2015.

 

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Syria Taliban — Brief Aggregation

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Update 7/16/2013

Officials will catch up with the war just as soon as it moves farther away from them and far into the Twilight Zone of Language in which lying may tell more about states of affairs — and the character of motives involved — than truth telling.

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AFP.  “Syria: child among nine executed at checkpoint, watchdog groups says.”  The Telegraph, July 16, 2013.

Al Jazeera.  “Pakistan Taliban says its fighters in Syria.”  July 16, 2013.

PTI.  “Pakistan verifying reports of Taliban fighting in Syria.”  DNA, July 16, 2013.

Roggio, Bill.  “Hundreds of Pakistani jihadists reported in Syria.”  Threat Matrix, The Long War Journal, July 14, 2013.

VOA.  “Pakistan Denies Local Taliban Has Sent Hundreds of Fighters to Syria.”

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So awful has the Syrian melee become, but this precisely in the manner of the Islamic Small Wars’ “hot zones”, that even eagle-eyed satellites probably can’t tell much about who (from where) is fighting whom (from where).

Send in the spies and wish them luck because if any get out information — much less survive — on behalf of any of the interests involved, that data has to come from either direct witness or a additional primary sources that may well be lying themselves.

Main Ramble

Most travellers (STET) must have a visa to enter Syria; the only exceptions are citizens of Arab countries. Obtain a visa before arriving at the border, preferably in your home country, well before your trip. Avoid applying in a country that’s not your own or that you don’t hold residency for as the Syrian authorities don’t like this.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/syria/practical-information/visas#ixzz2Z94ewuqn

Ahmed Ressam, the focus of this FRONTLINE report, was somewhat of an expert in fake passports. He used a counterfeit French passport to enter Canada and apply for political asylum. While living there, he supplied fake Canadian passports to other Algerians. And he used a fake Canadian passport under the alias of Benni Noris in his failed attempt to enter the United States and bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

Zill, Oriana.  “Crossing Borders: How Terrorists Use Fake Passports, Visas, and Other Identity Documents.”  Frontline, PBS, n.d.

Apparently, the lawful go to the bother of obtaining authentic passports and entry visas while the unlawful do much the same in pursuit of inauthentic passports and visas.

🙂

As with proposed firearms laws in the U.S., the lawful are to have the registered and traceable weapons, leaving the unlawful with unregistered and less traceable weapons.

No news here, huh?

😦

The appearance of the Taliban in the Syrian theater underscores the notion (mentioned here several times) that Syria is “dark energy”, an imploding star, the black hole of the Islamic Small Wars: it sucks in energy and plainly burns without end in sight.

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However, one may ask, who has gotten out?

Russia has evacuated the last of its personnel from Syria, including from its Mediterranean naval base in Tartus, in a move that appears to underline Moscow’s mounting concerns about the escalating crisis.

Elder, Miriam and Ian Black.  “Russia withdraws its remaining personnel from Syria.”  The Guardian, June 26, 2013.

Of course, the figures of who has been trying to get away from combat in Syria hovers around four million in combined internally displaced and refugee persons.

If the dead may be considered those who also left, then add about 100,000 to whatever the total figure may be of persons unavailable for fighting.

At the moment, there seem to be about 200 civilians trapped in a Damascus mosque (e.g., Sky News, “Syria: 200 Civilians ‘Trapped in Mosque’,” July 15, 2013).

Gulf News / Retuers reports, “In Qaboun, Republican Guards troops detained hundreds of people in public places to prevent rebel fighters from hitting government troops as they breached rebel defences and entered the district, activists said” (“Syria: Bashar Al Assad’s forces advance on rebel-held Qaboun,” July 15, 2013).

If the above sentence said to you other than “Assad’s forces use human shields,” please remark on the alternative reading.

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Ye know the co-producers by their music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvFdP67mUwc&feature=share&list=TLN8mvNpEiOyc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdAv2bdYRtw&feature=share&list=TLN8mvNpEiOyc

What happens in Syria should stay in Syria.

Update 1/22/2014: the music was Russian, grand, so I recall.  Evidently, the suggestion has been removed.  I’ll leave the pulled-abandoned tiles up for a while. / I believe Mr. Putin holds the keys to Syria, an old Soviet client, now a potential New Russia Secular state because Russians, foremost, and most everyone else have no want of who’s been laying down the law lately in some Syrian enclaves:

Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists impose Islamic rules, ban music, shisha in Syrian province — RT News – 1/21/2014.

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But it doesn’t.

The wounded refugees were kicked out of the hospital by force, thrown on the side of the adjacent roads, despite the presence of seriously wounded and paralyzed individuals.

Nmsyria.  “Wounded Syrians Kicked Out of Lebanese Hospital.”  July 15, 2013.

Related video:

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While many clearly oppose the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his security forces, others appear indifferent. Abu Hamza, a driver, now lives with his family in a dusty canvas tent. “I didn’t go to protests. I’m not political,” he says. “We left because of the shelling and the sniping”.

Sammonds, Neil.  “A visit to the Za’atri camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan: ‘I wish I could invite you into the beautiful house we had back home.”  Live Wire (Amnesty’s global human rights blog), July 15, 2013.

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Syria has become a death camp.

It has become the place between a decayed Soviet-Era dictatorship and a boisterous but malignant and deeply narcissistic global totalitarian religious assault.

Syria has become the place where fighters go to fight — nationalist, Islamists, Sunni rebels, Shiite militants — and the place of catastrophe for four million lives disrupted and uprooted “because of the shelling and the sniping.”

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Additional Reference

AP.  “Pakistan’s religious extremists leave for ‘greener pastures’.”  Dawn, July 15, 2013.

Golovnina, Maria and Jibran Ahmad  “Pakistan Taliban set up camps in Syria, join anti-Assad war.”  Reuters, July 14, 2013.

Leigh, Karen.  “War Comes to a Damascus Private School.”  Syria Deeply, July 1, 2013.

Mobarak, Haider.  Taliban: The Tip of a Holy Iceberg.  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010.

Roggio, Bill.  “Pakistani Taliban establish ‘base’ inside Syria.”  The Long War Journal, July 12, 2013.

RT.  “Syrian rebels’ Damascus chemical cache found by Assad army – State TV.”  July 14, 2013.

Yusufzai, Mushtaq.  “Pakistani Taliban: ‘We sent hundreds of fighters’ to Syria.”  NBC News, July 15, 2013.

ISW: Children in the (War) News

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group opposed to the Syrian regime, says Mohammad Qataa was shot in the mouth and neck a day after being seized.

Khan, Salma Javid.  “Syrian teenager Mohammad Qataa ‘executed by islamists for blasphemy’.”  The Muslim Times, June 11, 2013.

Related Reference

BBC.  “Syrian opposition condemns killing of boy in Aleppo.”  June 22, 2013.

9 News World.  “Child executed in Syria.”  June 11, 2013:

“Where are his rights? He was a child! How could they kill him?

“They killed him right in front of my eyes … May God take revenge on them … I saw his blood streaming down,” she wailed.

Notes Continued

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Taliban militants beheaded two children in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor’s office said.

Popaizai, Masoud and Joe Sterling.  “2 children beheaded by militants, Afghan authorities say.”  CNN, June 11, 2013.

The Taliban have denied involvement in the beheading cited in the above report, but there seems no question that the crime took place.  False flag or true deed, one would be hard pressed to find a more deliberately monstrous crime.

Contempt for an enemy’s life should have limits.

Muhammad Hassan Sultan, a slender brown-haired 12-year-old, became a postwar casualty when the shrapnel from a cluster bomb cut into his head and neck.

Slackman, Michael.  “Israeli Bomblets Plague Lebanon.”  The New York Times, October 6, 2006.

Children not only play or roam around abandoned battle space, they have a knack for getting in the way — or being placed in it.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism features a column on its drone strike page titled “Casualty Estimates” associated with drone and covert activities, and their numbers involving children are, of course, not pretty.

The United Nations tracks the fate of children in armed conflict through the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.  Here’s a paragraph of report from Central Africa:

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 58 children (23 girls and 35 boys between 2 and 17 years of age) were abducted by LRA in 2012. In contrast to previous years, they were used mainly as porters to carry looted goods, rather than to participate in attacks. Children continued to be victims of LRA attacks, however. In two separate LRA attacks, a girl and a boy were killed and a girl and three boys injured in Haut Uélé prefecture between January and May 2012. A case in which a girl was raped by LRA was documented in May 2012, while two other girls who escaped from the group in 2012 reported having been raped while in captivity. In total, 41 children (19 girls and 22 boys) escaped or were released from LRA during the reporting period. Between January and October 2012, LRA also attacked two health centres and three schools.

Back to Syria

This was posted by Today’s Zaman in November 2012:

Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch said that evidence has emerged that an airstrike using cluster bombs on the village of Deir al-Asafir near Damascus killed at least 11 children and wounded others on Sunday. Cluster bombs have been banned by most nations.

Yesterday’s news or today’s, the picture is more than grim, for the image of war in this dimension reflects most directly on the adults whose decisions failed to protect innocents, whether their own or others.

FTAC – CIA, Pakistan, Taliban – It Ain’t Charlie Wilson’s War No More!

10 Monday Jun 2013

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Let’s access some empirical method and policy on this: I believe U.S. officials know that when Pakistan received domestic and military aid funds, those moneys are then managed by Pakistanis, and they may go where they’re supposed to go, or they may go where they shouldn’t. Is that aspect of Pakistani corruption America’s problem?

The CIA is one of a number of the world’s shadowy intelligence compartments — as long as the lingo “Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility” is in use, I’m inclined to use “compartment” too (and, for the record, I ain’t paid by nobody!). It has therefore been easy for the injudicious and paranoid to cite the “usual suspects” — but not from the side intended in the film _Casablanca_ — without having to resort to verifiable records or reports.

Asif Irfan — Americans are not against Pakistan, and by extension, the CIA, State Department, Department of Defense, the whole shebang, isn’t “against” Pakistan either. To place the “locus of control” in the creation and myth of a “Great Satan” may comfort the fearful, but such comprises a false comfort. The truth is people like me, truly just another human being on the planet, speaking English, and hoping to prove more decently so than not over a lifetime, to partner with and provide Pakistan, as need, if needed, with access or insight into every kind of development or ecological knowledge available. We want to help with good things — health, longevity, quality of life, security — not bad ones.

At 9:29, Pakistan becomes an aggressor against all others.

My rabbi notes, “Some people are in a hurry to get to the end of the story.” He was referring to apocalypse. I don’t want to get there? Do you? Does the CIA want to get there?

How about the FSB?

MI5?

Ah, but there’s another to include in this question: ISI?

If you were to feel the energy-developed wealth of the privileged states of the Arabian Peninsula was contributing to mischief in Pakistan at at least sub-state levels — private money, also poppy money, also _diverted_ money — to the literal immediate expression of Islam in the modern world, including the imposition of 9:29 on all others, I might agree with you.

I may also agree that western military hardware manufacturing interests may have interest in continuous conflict, but those especially know they lose if lobbying — or working in underhanded ways — to perpetuate conflicts. The American Fourth Estate — my fellow journalists — would have a field day, and the American people would shut them down by way of elections.

Where else in the world — in cyberspace too — can one have a conversation like the one implied by the above posted fast chatyping?

No one but their overseers or owners know what state secret services may be up to, but that is no cause to fill in the gaps with emotionally-driven suspicions and, worse, assumptions!

At the moment (well, around the moment, lol), I am reading The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB by Andrei Soldatav and Irina Borogan.

Thank God for highest-integrity investigative journalism and the immensely nervy people who work at it!

In any given nation state, constituents may not need nor wish to know operations undertaken on their behalf, but the same have every need to know — and the moral requirement to know — the state policies driving operations.  Without that knowledge, or less than true knowledge, their freedom comes to an end, leaving only ruthless narcissists to fight about who might be prettier in God’s eyes, even if all such may be as unclothed as the famous fairy tale emperor and equally as ugly.

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