Osama bin Laden’s lover Maulana Attaur Rehman, the younger brother of Fazlur Rehman, became speechless on Friday when stunning information was revealed in the in-camera session of parliament that his party had been receiving dollars from Libya and Saudi Arabia.
Upon this information, the entire hall echoed with the thumping of desks, which was the only moment when the house cheered irrespective of party affiliation and association, the sources told The News.
In reply to Maulana’s question whether the Army considered them Muslims and yet the Army conducted operations in his constituency and against the OBL, who was first a Mujahid of Islam and now was an enemy, and whether the Army had turned to parliament because the big boss US was angry, the ISI director general requested him not to get involved in such discussions of history of Mujahids. “If we will discuss it, then things will go very far and everyone will come to know who has been receiving dollars from Saudi Arabia and Libya,” the DG ISI said in response to Maulana’s insistence.
All parliamentarians started thumping their desks and the Maulana in sheer embarrassment staged a walkout from the hall. However, he came back on his own after 10 minutes, the sources maintained.
The sources said General Ahmad Shuja Pasha’s tone was submissive with mild protest that it was a tough time for Pakistan and nations united after such incidents, but Pakistan’s Army was being criticised and parliamentarians were not paying attention to the Army bashing by the foreign media.
The sources said nothing new which the media had not reported had bee n said to the parliamentarians. The sources said the tone of a few PML-N parliamentarians was harsh, while Pasha was confident while replying to the questions.
“Outsiders want a wedge between the Army and the nation, and a few leaders had also bashed the Army,” sources quoted the DG ISI as saying. The sources said the DG ISI told parliament that if the Army was maligned, then there would be an irreparable loss to the country.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
US senator Kerry in Afghanistan
Influential US Senator John Kerry arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, the embassy in Kabul said, ahead of a visit to neighbouring Pakistan following the death of Osama bin Laden.
The White House said it was endorsing the trip by Kerry to Pakistan to shore up badly strained ties over the killing of the Al-Qaeda chief in Abbottabad, just 40 miles (65 kilometres) from Islamabad on May 2.
Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, will be the highest profile US figure to visit Islamabad since elite US troops killed bin Laden.
The covert raid has plunged Pakistani politics into turmoil with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing calls to resign amid growing anti-American sentiment.
The US embassy in Kabul declined to release Kerry's Afghan itinerary for security reasons.
The White House said it was endorsing the trip by Kerry to Pakistan to shore up badly strained ties over the killing of the Al-Qaeda chief in Abbottabad, just 40 miles (65 kilometres) from Islamabad on May 2.
Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, will be the highest profile US figure to visit Islamabad since elite US troops killed bin Laden.
The covert raid has plunged Pakistani politics into turmoil with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing calls to resign amid growing anti-American sentiment.
The US embassy in Kabul declined to release Kerry's Afghan itinerary for security reasons.
U.S.-Pakistani relations may suffer after brutal suicide attack
The twin bombings that killed 80 paramilitary recruits in Pakistan's northwest could deepen anti-U.S. sentiments in the country.
Twin suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 80 paramilitary recruits in northwest Pakistan, in an attack that Taliban militants said was to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. commandos, could trigger new doubts among Pakistanis about the value of Islamabad's already rocky relationship with Washington.
The bombers targeted Frontier Constabulary recruits who had just completed six months of training and were boarding vans outside the training center's main gate to go on a 10-day leave, police and survivors said. The base is located in Shabqadar, a town near the edge of Mohmand, a tribal area in the northwest where Pakistani troops have struggled for years to rein in Pakistani Taliban militants.
The attack is Pakistan's deadliest yet this year, and the first major terrorist strike in the country since Bin Laden's killing.
Pakistanis have grown increasingly worried that they will bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks by militants angered by the May 2 killing of the Al Qaeda leader. U.S. Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden at the compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad where he had hidden for five years. Washington's decision to carry out the mission without Islamabad's knowledge or authorization angered many Pakistanis who saw the raid as a gross violation of their country's sovereignty.
Reacting to news of the suicide bombings, Bashir Bilour, a senior minister for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, questioned whether, despite the billions of dollars that Pakistan receives from Washington in civilian and military aid, the country was paying too heavy a price for its role as a U.S. ally.
"I don't care if someone is giving us money; we are not a purchasable commodity," Bilour told reporters in Peshawar. "We cannot be bought. We can live in hunger, but we won't compromise our national interests."
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was the first of a wave of planned strikes meant to avenge Bin Laden's killing, according to news agencies and Pakistani news media. The Pakistani Taliban, the country's homegrown insurgency, is closely allied with Al Qaeda and is one of several militant groups that have provided the terrorist network sanctuary in the volatile tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.
The bombers struck at a time when recruits appeared to be particularly vulnerable, just as they were leaving the training center in large groups.
Tahir Ali, a Frontier Constabulary soldier assigned to the center, said 62 paramilitary troops were providing security as recruits left about 6 a.m. But though a nearby market was closed, the recruits were exposed to pedestrians and morning traffic. More than 800 recruits were streaming out of the base, bags in hand.
"People shouldn't have gathered in big numbers in such a place," said Bilour, the senior minister.
As the recruits loaded their luggage onto the vans, a man on a motorcycle drove up near the main gate and detonated his explosives. Moments later, a second bomber on foot detonated a larger explosion as onlookers rushed to help recruits wounded in the first blast.
Most of the dead were recruits, police said. More than 100 people were injured.
"I was just four yards from the gate when the first blast threw me to the ground," recruit Ajsam Ali, 20, said from his hospital bed in Peshawar, where he was recovering from wounds to his head, left arm and left foot. "The air was black with smoke and I couldn't see. It was chaos. People were screaming. There were dead and maimed people lying all over the street."
Maroof Khan, a 20-year-old paramilitary recruit, said he was loading his baggage onto a van when the first blast knocked everyone to the ground.
"I was hit in my leg, but I managed to hobble to a nearby mosque," he said. "Everyone was in a panic. Suddenly, there was a second, much larger explosion. I looked around and saw many of my friends dead on the ground."
Poorly paid and poorly equipped, the Frontier Constabulary paramilitary force provides security in Pakistan's volatile northwest where several militant groups maintain strongholds. The average soldier makes $137 a month. The force's recruits are men in their early 20s from tribal regions in the northwest.
"This is so cruel, attacking young recruits like this," Shafiq ur-Rehman, a 21-year-old recruit with a bandaged ankle, said from his Peshawar hospital bed, in a ward filled with recruits in bloodied tunics, some of them wailing in pain. "We're just innocent kids. We've never harmed anyone. These are young boys that they've killed today."
Six Pakistanis charged in US for aiding Taliban
The News PK
US officials arrested three Pakistani Americans on Saturday and charged them and three others with providing or conspiring to provide "material support" to the Pakistani Taliban, the US Justice Department said.
"All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban," the department said in a statement.
Hafiz Sher Ali, 76-year-old man and his two his two sons, Irfan Khan and Izhar Khan were arrested from different parts of the country, the Justice Department said.
FBI arrested Hafiz Sher Ali and Izhar Khan from South Florida while Irfan Khan was rounded up from Los Angeles.
The US Justice Department further said three others including Ali Rehman alias Faisal Ali Rehman, Alam Zaib and Amina Bibi (daughter of Hafiz Sher Ali) had also been charged but, added that they were at large in Pakistan.
US officials arrested three Pakistani Americans on Saturday and charged them and three others with providing or conspiring to provide "material support" to the Pakistani Taliban, the US Justice Department said.
"All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban," the department said in a statement.
Hafiz Sher Ali, 76-year-old man and his two his two sons, Irfan Khan and Izhar Khan were arrested from different parts of the country, the Justice Department said.
FBI arrested Hafiz Sher Ali and Izhar Khan from South Florida while Irfan Khan was rounded up from Los Angeles.
The US Justice Department further said three others including Ali Rehman alias Faisal Ali Rehman, Alam Zaib and Amina Bibi (daughter of Hafiz Sher Ali) had also been charged but, added that they were at large in Pakistan.
Pakistan After Bin Laden
Editorial:
Like most Americans, we have long despaired at the cynicism of Pakistan’s leaders, who accept American “counterterrorist” aid while also sheltering and enabling some of the worst anti-American extremists. But we never imagined that Osama bin Laden would be found hiding in plain sight, a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s leading military academy and an hour’s drive from Islamabad. Pakistan’s behavior since then has only added to the outrage.
Instead of vowing to find out which officials were behind the scheme, Pakistan’s leaders — military and civilian — have tried to deflect all blame and stoke more anti-Americanism. Some members of Congress are asking why the United States should continue to provide billions of dollars in aid to such a faithless ally. For now, at least, an aid cutoff would be self-defeating.
There should be no illusions. We see no sign that Pakistan is ready to stop playing all sides, or will ever figure out that the fight against extremists isn’t a favor to the United States but essential to its own survival.
The equally hard truth is that the United States never would have gotten Bin Laden if it did not have the large military and Central Intelligence Agency presence on the ground that Pakistan has permitted — and American aid has paid for — since 9/11.
There are many more extremists hiding in Pakistan. While Pakistani leaders publicly rail against American drone strikes, they privately tolerate them. Washington needs Islamabad’s cooperation to supply troops in Afghanistan. The best hope for getting out of Afghanistan is some political deal with the Taliban. Pakistan can help facilitate such a deal or undermine it.
There is one other chilling point to consider: the stability of Pakistan’s government — and its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan’s Army might be able to stave off a militant takeover, without American military backing, but we wouldn’t want to bet on it.
President Obama needs to leverage this moment. Many Pakistanis are furious about the raid on their territory. Parliament held an unusual session on Friday, demanding answers from the spy chief who accused Washington of conducting a “sting operation on us.” But many are also outraged by the fact that Bin Laden managed to hide in their country for so long. “Could the self-appointed custodians of the national interest themselves be the greatest threat to national security?” wrote Cyril Almeida of the Dawn newspaper. The television journalist Kamran Khan declared, “We have become the biggest haven of terrorism in the world.”
Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the unilateral attack on Bin Laden as a violation of sovereignty and threatened to close American military supply routes to Afghanistan if drone strikes are not halted. It was not a helpful gesture.
Pakistani leaders are nervous about what more may come out. The trove of computer files seized by the Americans may provide some welcome bargaining power.
The Obama administration also needs to take a harder look at military aid to Pakistan to determine what is vital for counterterrorism and what might be tied to specific benchmarks, like apprehending the Taliban chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and members of the Haqqani network.
In its fury, this country should also not lose sight of the fact Pakistan has the potential to be a far greater nightmare than Afghanistan under the Taliban. Economic aid is the best long-term hope of changing the country’s political culture. The five-year, $7.5 billion package for schools, energy and other projects hasn’t gotten off the ground. Congress must approve trade legislation, which is the best way to develop an outward-looking middle class.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should go ahead with her visit to Pakistan. President Obama should delay setting a date for his trip. Pakistan’s leaders have very tough decisions to make. They need to realize that the days of Washington’s unconditional support are over.
Like most Americans, we have long despaired at the cynicism of Pakistan’s leaders, who accept American “counterterrorist” aid while also sheltering and enabling some of the worst anti-American extremists. But we never imagined that Osama bin Laden would be found hiding in plain sight, a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s leading military academy and an hour’s drive from Islamabad. Pakistan’s behavior since then has only added to the outrage.
Instead of vowing to find out which officials were behind the scheme, Pakistan’s leaders — military and civilian — have tried to deflect all blame and stoke more anti-Americanism. Some members of Congress are asking why the United States should continue to provide billions of dollars in aid to such a faithless ally. For now, at least, an aid cutoff would be self-defeating.
There should be no illusions. We see no sign that Pakistan is ready to stop playing all sides, or will ever figure out that the fight against extremists isn’t a favor to the United States but essential to its own survival.
The equally hard truth is that the United States never would have gotten Bin Laden if it did not have the large military and Central Intelligence Agency presence on the ground that Pakistan has permitted — and American aid has paid for — since 9/11.
There are many more extremists hiding in Pakistan. While Pakistani leaders publicly rail against American drone strikes, they privately tolerate them. Washington needs Islamabad’s cooperation to supply troops in Afghanistan. The best hope for getting out of Afghanistan is some political deal with the Taliban. Pakistan can help facilitate such a deal or undermine it.
There is one other chilling point to consider: the stability of Pakistan’s government — and its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan’s Army might be able to stave off a militant takeover, without American military backing, but we wouldn’t want to bet on it.
President Obama needs to leverage this moment. Many Pakistanis are furious about the raid on their territory. Parliament held an unusual session on Friday, demanding answers from the spy chief who accused Washington of conducting a “sting operation on us.” But many are also outraged by the fact that Bin Laden managed to hide in their country for so long. “Could the self-appointed custodians of the national interest themselves be the greatest threat to national security?” wrote Cyril Almeida of the Dawn newspaper. The television journalist Kamran Khan declared, “We have become the biggest haven of terrorism in the world.”
Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the unilateral attack on Bin Laden as a violation of sovereignty and threatened to close American military supply routes to Afghanistan if drone strikes are not halted. It was not a helpful gesture.
Pakistani leaders are nervous about what more may come out. The trove of computer files seized by the Americans may provide some welcome bargaining power.
The Obama administration also needs to take a harder look at military aid to Pakistan to determine what is vital for counterterrorism and what might be tied to specific benchmarks, like apprehending the Taliban chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and members of the Haqqani network.
In its fury, this country should also not lose sight of the fact Pakistan has the potential to be a far greater nightmare than Afghanistan under the Taliban. Economic aid is the best long-term hope of changing the country’s political culture. The five-year, $7.5 billion package for schools, energy and other projects hasn’t gotten off the ground. Congress must approve trade legislation, which is the best way to develop an outward-looking middle class.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should go ahead with her visit to Pakistan. President Obama should delay setting a date for his trip. Pakistan’s leaders have very tough decisions to make. They need to realize that the days of Washington’s unconditional support are over.
Pakistan Cyber friends’ group launches ‘war’ on political parties
Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian mass movements through an Internet campaign, a Pakistani group of 150 Internet-connected friends have become the first to launch a crusade against all existing political parties and rulers challenging the current system and demanding a socio-political and economic change.
More then two-dozen Internet-connected friends, including female members of the group staged a protest against high inflation, unemployment, poor economic policies, load shedding and the domestic and foreign policies of the existing and previous governments in front of the Lahore Press Club on Friday.
The protesters, led by group leaders Syed Haseeb Akhtar Rizvi, Ghazal Naeem and Abdur Rehman, were carrying banners and placards against the Pak-US alliance in the war against terror, Pakistani officials’ silence on the issues of Raymond Davis, drone attacks, price hike, unemployment, the recent Abbottabad attack, etc.
They demanded the rulers to go in the right direction immediately on the public issues, control the price hike and reduce unemployment in the country. The asked them to be patriotic and show commitment to the people of Pakistan.
Talking about the campaign, Rizvi informed Daily Times, “Seeing the current deteriorating situation of the country, I took the initiative to launch a campaign named ‘Protest by students against corrupt politicians’ on Facebook last Monday.” He said that he had gathered more than 150 like-minded friends on the Internet and they fully agreed with his initiative and endorsed the demonstration to bring about a change at the mass level.
Ghazal Naeem and Abdur Rehman while talking to this scribe said that if an Egyptian man could cause a big mass movement against their rulers for their wrongdoings using Facebook and organise the common man of his country, then why could they not take a revolutionary step to take the Pakistani society out from current crisis using the same tactics.
They said that at the initial stage, more than 150 Internet-connected friends, mostly university going students of the upper class, have joined in for the cause while they had no affiliation with any political party or NGO. The protesters also announced that their campaign would continue until Pakistan was changed into a developed society, and hoped that more people would join their cause in the upcoming days.
More then two-dozen Internet-connected friends, including female members of the group staged a protest against high inflation, unemployment, poor economic policies, load shedding and the domestic and foreign policies of the existing and previous governments in front of the Lahore Press Club on Friday.
The protesters, led by group leaders Syed Haseeb Akhtar Rizvi, Ghazal Naeem and Abdur Rehman, were carrying banners and placards against the Pak-US alliance in the war against terror, Pakistani officials’ silence on the issues of Raymond Davis, drone attacks, price hike, unemployment, the recent Abbottabad attack, etc.
They demanded the rulers to go in the right direction immediately on the public issues, control the price hike and reduce unemployment in the country. The asked them to be patriotic and show commitment to the people of Pakistan.
Talking about the campaign, Rizvi informed Daily Times, “Seeing the current deteriorating situation of the country, I took the initiative to launch a campaign named ‘Protest by students against corrupt politicians’ on Facebook last Monday.” He said that he had gathered more than 150 like-minded friends on the Internet and they fully agreed with his initiative and endorsed the demonstration to bring about a change at the mass level.
Ghazal Naeem and Abdur Rehman while talking to this scribe said that if an Egyptian man could cause a big mass movement against their rulers for their wrongdoings using Facebook and organise the common man of his country, then why could they not take a revolutionary step to take the Pakistani society out from current crisis using the same tactics.
They said that at the initial stage, more than 150 Internet-connected friends, mostly university going students of the upper class, have joined in for the cause while they had no affiliation with any political party or NGO. The protesters also announced that their campaign would continue until Pakistan was changed into a developed society, and hoped that more people would join their cause in the upcoming days.
'Saudi Women Revolution' makes a stand for equal rights
As election centers across Saudi Arabia opened on April 23 for voters to register for forthcoming municipal elections, groups of women turned up asking to take part.
As expected, they were turned away -- women will not be able to stand or vote in September's municipal elections -- but just by showing up they had made their point.
This was one of the first public acts of the newly-formed "Saudi Women Revolution," a movement set up to campaign for the end of Saudi Arabia's discriminatory laws.
Their chief aim is ending male guardianship, which means Saudi women often need permission from their husband, father, brother or even son to work, travel, study, marry, or access health care, according to Human Rights Watch.They also want to be allowed to drive, which is forbidden for women in the Kingdom.The Saudi Women Revolution was started as a Facebook page and a discussion topic, or hash tag, on Twitter in February, by Nuha Al Sulaiman.
Al Sulaiman, 28, said: "I started the Twitter hash tag to allow women to write whatever they are suffering from.
"It wasn't easy to do, particularly using the word 'revolution,' but I reached a point where I just had to do something about our daily suffering.
"In the past I couldn't meet people who have the same ideas as I have, but social media has made that possible."
The Facebook group now has more than 3,000 "likes" and a core of the women have met in person to discuss their campaign.
Al Sulaiman said: "We will do whatever it takes. We will go to the king himself. We will never stop fighting for our rights because it's time for change.
"Women should be able to take responsibility for everything they do themselves. It makes my blood drive high that nothing is changing."
Al Sulaiman said she and 11 other women had tried to register to vote at an election center in Riyadh, while other groups of women went to centers in Jeddah, Dammam and Khobar.
Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia will be held in September for only the second time in more than 40 years. The Saudi electoral commission was reported to have said that women cannot vote because preparations had not been made to keep them separate.
Rasha Al Duwaisi, a 30-year-old mother of two who took part in the protest, said: "The elections are a sham and many men are boycotting them. However, we still want the opportunity to be involved.
"The most important thing is we want women to be recognized as adults.
She added: "The first time I was interviewed in the media I was so nervous I was shaking. I'd never done anything like this before and I didn't know if I had antagonized the government.
"People are saying I'm immodest and against religion, but that isn't true."
Those involved are mostly young university-educated women. They said it took some time before they trusted each other enough to give their real names and to arrange to meet in person.
Not all Saudi women want to end male guardianship. In 2009, a group of Saudi women launched a campaign called "My Guardian Knows What's Best for Me," which attracted thousands of supporters.
But for Saudi Women Revolution, it's a matter of ending discrimination. Another member, Khuloud al Fahad, a 33-year-old mother of two and businesswoman, said: "We are trying to do this in a safe and correct way. We don't want problems with the government, we just want to send a message that we will not keep silent about this discrimination anymore.
"Our freedom is very restricted. I can't move without permission, I can't travel without permission, I can't have surgery without permission, I can't rent a flat without permission.
"When my daughter was in hospital, I wasn't even allowed to sign the papers for her to come home. We are not half human beings, we are human beings."
Wajeha al Huwaider, 49, a veteran Saudi women's rights campaigner who has long campaigned for the end of male guardianship, said the protests at the election centers were the right way to get the campaign noticed.
And the campaign has attracted support from outside the country. Mona Kareem, a journalist and blogger in Kuwait, supported Saudi Women Revolution by collating the most common demands from the group's Twitter topic into a statement to be sent to human rights organizations. She published it on her blog translated into seven languages.
Saudi Women Revolution is planning to publish its own formal statement of demands this week and will then be asking women to sign their names to it.
Even signing their names to the statement will take courage.
Al Huwaider said: "Women in this country don't even have control over their own names. Their husbands or fathers are angry with them if they put their name to something, which is why many are not willing to stand up for their rights.
"Women are just like property, owned by the men in their family."
Friday, May 13, 2011
Pakistan Army Chief Balks at U.S. Demands to Cooperate
New York Times
Despite mounting pressure from the United States since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, seems unlikely to respond to American demands to root out other militant leaders, according to people who have met with him in the last 10 days.
While the general does not want to abandon the alliance completely, he is more likely to pursue a strategy of decreasing Pakistan’s reliance on the United States, and continuing to offer just enough cooperation to keep the billions of dollars in American aid flowing, said a confidant of the general who has spoken with him recently.
Such a response is certain to test American officials, who are more mistrustful of Pakistan than ever.
Emboldened by the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan, American officials say they now have greater leverage to force Pakistani cooperation in hunting down Taliban and Qaeda leaders so the United States can end the war in Afghanistan.
The United States will now push harder than ever for General Kayani to break relations with other militant leaders who American officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, with the support of the military and intelligence service, a senior American official said.
These leaders include Mullah Muhammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Afghan Taliban; the allied militant network of Sirajuddin Haqqani; and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that the United States holds responsible for the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, in 2008, the American official said.
Pakistani officials, meanwhile, are anxiously waiting to see if any new intelligence about Al Qaeda in Pakistan spills from the American raid that could be used to exert more pressure on them, and what form that pressure might take.
But those who have spoken with General Kayani recently said that demands to break with top militant leaders were likely to be too much for the military chief, who is scheduled to address an unusual, closed-door joint session of Parliament on Friday to salvage his reputation and explain the military’s lapses surrounding the American raid.
The American wish list is tantamount to an overnight transformation of Pakistan’s long held strategic posture that calls for using the militant groups as proxies against Pakistan’s neighbors, they said. It comes as General Kayani faces mounting anti-American pressure from hard-line generals in his top command, two of the people who met with him said.
Many in the lower ranks of the military have greater sympathy for the militant groups than for the United States.
To take out the leadership of these groups — longtime assets of the Pakistani Army and intelligence services — would result in such a severe backlash from the militants that a “civil war” in Pakistan would result, said a former senior Pakistani official who was consulted by General Kayani in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid.
The general, who has been courted for nearly three years by the United States’ most senior military officers in an effort to persuade him to launch an attack against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, was even more unlikely to do so now, the Pakistani said.
While increasingly frustrated with Pakistan, American officials would also like to avoid a complete rupture of relations with a nuclear-armed state that is essential to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
With the United States eager to wind down in Afghanistan, Washington needs Pakistan more than ever, a factor that would play into the general’s next moves, said Gen. Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former director general of Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, who met with General Kayani recently.
“Without Pakistani support, the United States cannot win the battle in Afghanistan,” he said. “Now the Americans are saying, please bring the Taliban to the table.”
The army chief was described as angered that the Obama administration failed to trust him enough to tell him before the raid, asserting that in keeping him in the dark the United States had alienated Pakistan’s best friend, General Qazi said.
General Kayani cannot ignore the sentiment of his soldiers, said Riaz Khokhar, a former ambassador to the United States, who met with General Kayani.
“There is a feeling in the rank and file of the army from A to Z that the United States is a most untrustworthy ally,” Mr. Khokhar said.
“We don’t want to be an enemy of the United States, but the experience of friendship with the United States has not been a pleasant experience, so we have to find a middle road,” he said.
General Qazi said hard questions were being asked about whether the American financial support to the Pakistani military was “worth the lives we have lost” in fighting Islamic militants.
Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has granted more than $20 billion in military and development assistance, an amount that does not include covert aid, according to K. Alan Kronstadt , the South Asian Affairs specialist at the Congressional Research Service.
Cutting ties would be extremely costly for the Pakistani military, said Shuja Nawaz , head of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Anti-Pakistan sentiment was hardening in Congress as Pakistan waited for approval of payment arrears for its costs in fighting insurgents, Mr. Nawaz said.
In the short term, however, General Kayani seemed to be more concerned with the blow to the morale of his troops than with further damage to the already eroded relationship with the United States, according to the accounts from those who met him.
General Kayani visited six army garrisons this week in an effort to dispel doubts about the army and his leadership.
During his appearances, according to soldiers interviewed afterward, General Kayani acknowledged an intelligence failure in not knowing that Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. But he added that this did not mean that Pakistan was to be “blamed for everything.”
Despite mounting pressure from the United States since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, seems unlikely to respond to American demands to root out other militant leaders, according to people who have met with him in the last 10 days.
While the general does not want to abandon the alliance completely, he is more likely to pursue a strategy of decreasing Pakistan’s reliance on the United States, and continuing to offer just enough cooperation to keep the billions of dollars in American aid flowing, said a confidant of the general who has spoken with him recently.
Such a response is certain to test American officials, who are more mistrustful of Pakistan than ever.
Emboldened by the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan, American officials say they now have greater leverage to force Pakistani cooperation in hunting down Taliban and Qaeda leaders so the United States can end the war in Afghanistan.
The United States will now push harder than ever for General Kayani to break relations with other militant leaders who American officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, with the support of the military and intelligence service, a senior American official said.
These leaders include Mullah Muhammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Afghan Taliban; the allied militant network of Sirajuddin Haqqani; and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that the United States holds responsible for the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, in 2008, the American official said.
Pakistani officials, meanwhile, are anxiously waiting to see if any new intelligence about Al Qaeda in Pakistan spills from the American raid that could be used to exert more pressure on them, and what form that pressure might take.
But those who have spoken with General Kayani recently said that demands to break with top militant leaders were likely to be too much for the military chief, who is scheduled to address an unusual, closed-door joint session of Parliament on Friday to salvage his reputation and explain the military’s lapses surrounding the American raid.
The American wish list is tantamount to an overnight transformation of Pakistan’s long held strategic posture that calls for using the militant groups as proxies against Pakistan’s neighbors, they said. It comes as General Kayani faces mounting anti-American pressure from hard-line generals in his top command, two of the people who met with him said.
Many in the lower ranks of the military have greater sympathy for the militant groups than for the United States.
To take out the leadership of these groups — longtime assets of the Pakistani Army and intelligence services — would result in such a severe backlash from the militants that a “civil war” in Pakistan would result, said a former senior Pakistani official who was consulted by General Kayani in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid.
The general, who has been courted for nearly three years by the United States’ most senior military officers in an effort to persuade him to launch an attack against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, was even more unlikely to do so now, the Pakistani said.
While increasingly frustrated with Pakistan, American officials would also like to avoid a complete rupture of relations with a nuclear-armed state that is essential to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
With the United States eager to wind down in Afghanistan, Washington needs Pakistan more than ever, a factor that would play into the general’s next moves, said Gen. Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former director general of Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, who met with General Kayani recently.
“Without Pakistani support, the United States cannot win the battle in Afghanistan,” he said. “Now the Americans are saying, please bring the Taliban to the table.”
The army chief was described as angered that the Obama administration failed to trust him enough to tell him before the raid, asserting that in keeping him in the dark the United States had alienated Pakistan’s best friend, General Qazi said.
General Kayani cannot ignore the sentiment of his soldiers, said Riaz Khokhar, a former ambassador to the United States, who met with General Kayani.
“There is a feeling in the rank and file of the army from A to Z that the United States is a most untrustworthy ally,” Mr. Khokhar said.
“We don’t want to be an enemy of the United States, but the experience of friendship with the United States has not been a pleasant experience, so we have to find a middle road,” he said.
General Qazi said hard questions were being asked about whether the American financial support to the Pakistani military was “worth the lives we have lost” in fighting Islamic militants.
Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has granted more than $20 billion in military and development assistance, an amount that does not include covert aid, according to K. Alan Kronstadt , the South Asian Affairs specialist at the Congressional Research Service.
Cutting ties would be extremely costly for the Pakistani military, said Shuja Nawaz , head of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Anti-Pakistan sentiment was hardening in Congress as Pakistan waited for approval of payment arrears for its costs in fighting insurgents, Mr. Nawaz said.
In the short term, however, General Kayani seemed to be more concerned with the blow to the morale of his troops than with further damage to the already eroded relationship with the United States, according to the accounts from those who met him.
General Kayani visited six army garrisons this week in an effort to dispel doubts about the army and his leadership.
During his appearances, according to soldiers interviewed afterward, General Kayani acknowledged an intelligence failure in not knowing that Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. But he added that this did not mean that Pakistan was to be “blamed for everything.”
Is 'Arab Spring' Coming To Kabul?
http://www.rferl.org/
The recent emergence of the first, large-scale Facebook movement among Afghan university students calling for reform can't help but raise the question -- will the wave of antigovernment dissent in the Middle East reach Afghanistan?
Since March, some 1,500 university students in Kabul, and another 3,000 elsewhere around the country, have "friended" the Facebook page "Reformists." There, they meet daily for discussions about how to exert grassroots pressure on the government -- pressure that barely exists in Afghanistan today.
In some ways, the movement is very much like similar Facebook groups in the Arab world.
One of the spokespersons, Asar Hakimi, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, that the movement is inspired by the "awakenings" in the Middle East.
He says the Afghan version, too, is a response to "the existence of corruption in the government, the lack of an active opposition group in the country, and the weakness of the Kabul government in addressing the basic needs of the people."
But in other ways the Arab and Afghan movements are very different.
The Afghan students say that after three decades of constant war and violence in their country, the last thing they want is yet another street revolution that brings yet another force to power.
Instead, Hakimi says, they want to engage in street protests but "keep them as peaceful as possible."
"The reason we do not like to become strict revolutionaries is that in Afghanistan there is always a vicious idea behind revolutions," he says.
That's prudent thinking, certainly. But it also raises the question of how, then, can an Afghan Facebook revolution bring change?
The answer is pending, but the movement's first public actions may provide some clues.
In April, the students sent an open letter to the Afghan parliament, in which they demanded the removal of the minister of higher education on charges of incompetence. This year's final exams were so chaotically administered that 75,000 out of 117,000 students could not graduate and gain access to the country's university system.
At the same time, the students have asked the parliament to remove two other cabinet members -- the ministers of education as well as information and culture -- because of allegations of corruption.
The challenge now, of course, is how to give the movement longevity. In the Middle East and elsewhere, Facebook revolts so far have proved highly effective in mobilizing street power for regime change but have yet to prove themselves as long-term pressure groups.
The Afghan students are trying to organize for the long haul by charging membership fees and establishing planning, communications, and other committees that integrate Facebook "friends" into a working structure.
It being Afghanistan, the membership fees are a sliding structure. Students pay 200 afghanis ($4.6) as membership fees, people with solid government jobs pay 3,000 ($70), and people with dream jobs with foreign NGOs pay 10,000 ($232).
Does all this sound like today's Facebook movement could become tomorrow's new political party? Keep logging on to find out.
The recent emergence of the first, large-scale Facebook movement among Afghan university students calling for reform can't help but raise the question -- will the wave of antigovernment dissent in the Middle East reach Afghanistan?
Since March, some 1,500 university students in Kabul, and another 3,000 elsewhere around the country, have "friended" the Facebook page "Reformists." There, they meet daily for discussions about how to exert grassroots pressure on the government -- pressure that barely exists in Afghanistan today.
In some ways, the movement is very much like similar Facebook groups in the Arab world.
One of the spokespersons, Asar Hakimi, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, that the movement is inspired by the "awakenings" in the Middle East.
He says the Afghan version, too, is a response to "the existence of corruption in the government, the lack of an active opposition group in the country, and the weakness of the Kabul government in addressing the basic needs of the people."
But in other ways the Arab and Afghan movements are very different.
The Afghan students say that after three decades of constant war and violence in their country, the last thing they want is yet another street revolution that brings yet another force to power.
Instead, Hakimi says, they want to engage in street protests but "keep them as peaceful as possible."
"The reason we do not like to become strict revolutionaries is that in Afghanistan there is always a vicious idea behind revolutions," he says.
That's prudent thinking, certainly. But it also raises the question of how, then, can an Afghan Facebook revolution bring change?
The answer is pending, but the movement's first public actions may provide some clues.
In April, the students sent an open letter to the Afghan parliament, in which they demanded the removal of the minister of higher education on charges of incompetence. This year's final exams were so chaotically administered that 75,000 out of 117,000 students could not graduate and gain access to the country's university system.
At the same time, the students have asked the parliament to remove two other cabinet members -- the ministers of education as well as information and culture -- because of allegations of corruption.
The challenge now, of course, is how to give the movement longevity. In the Middle East and elsewhere, Facebook revolts so far have proved highly effective in mobilizing street power for regime change but have yet to prove themselves as long-term pressure groups.
The Afghan students are trying to organize for the long haul by charging membership fees and establishing planning, communications, and other committees that integrate Facebook "friends" into a working structure.
It being Afghanistan, the membership fees are a sliding structure. Students pay 200 afghanis ($4.6) as membership fees, people with solid government jobs pay 3,000 ($70), and people with dream jobs with foreign NGOs pay 10,000 ($232).
Does all this sound like today's Facebook movement could become tomorrow's new political party? Keep logging on to find out.
Diana film slams UK royals as 'gangsters'
A provocative new documentary that made its debut Friday at the Cannes Film Festival claims Britain's royals are racist "gangsters in tiaras" and Prince Philip is a womanizing psychopath.
The movie "Unlawful Killing" revives claims that Princess Diana — adored by millions as the "people's princess" but viewed in royal circles as an embarrassing loose cannon — was murdered by the British establishment. The film was screened Friday for the first time at the festival.
It bills itself as "the antidote to 'The King's Speech'" and depicts the royal family as feudal relics presiding over a network of official cronies at taxpayers' expense. Director Keith Allen says, however, it's "not an attack on the monarchy."
"I don't think it's anti-monarchy," he said. "I think it may be questioning capitalism."
The film takes its title from the verdict of an official British inquest into Diana's 1997 death in a Paris car crash. The jury ruled the princess was unlawfully killed, but deflated claims of a conspiracy, blaming "grossly negligent driving" by her drunk and speeding driver and pursuing vehicles.
But the movie by actor Allen — father of singer Lily Allen — revisits conspiracy theories put forward by Mohamed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi was Diana's boyfriend at the time and died in the same crash.
Fayed, the billionaire former owner of London's Harrods department store, funded the 2.5 million pound ($4 million) documentary. He has long maintained that his son and Diana were killed by the British secret service at the behest of an establishment horrified by her romance with a Muslim man.
The film begins with Diana's prediction in a 1995 letter to a friend that "my husband is planning an 'accident' in my car" and attempts to expose holes in the coroner's inquest.
It poses more questions than it answers. Who was in the white Fiat that witnesses saw in the Alma Tunnel just before the crash? Was driver Henri Paul really drunk or did someone tamper with his blood samples? Why did a French ambulance take so long to arrive?
"I didn't want to make a sensationalist film," Allen said, calling the documentary a "forensic account" of a legal process that "doesn't add up."
The film certainly doesn't pull punches. Critics would say it lashes out in all directions, scattering accusations of royal racism, judicial complicity and media laziness.
It includes an array of high-profile talking heads: talk show host Piers Morgan, actor Tony Curtis, celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley and psychologist Oliver James, who brands the husband of Queen Elizabeth II a psychopath.
Al Fayed spokesman Conor Nolan said the businessman had seen the film and was "absolutely delighted" with it.
Others remain decidedly unconvinced. Martin Gregory, author of "Diana, the Last Days," said the movie was "simply regurgitation of everything Mohamed Al Fayed has been saying since the year 2000."
"Nothing in the film is new," he said, taking Allen to task at the film's Cannes press conference.
The film was screened Friday for journalists and buyers. It's unlikely to find one in Britain, where it cannot be shown in its current form for legal reasons. Allen said he had declined to make any of the 87 cuts recommended by the film's lawyers before it can be shown there.
The documentary already has been criticized for including a picture of Diana after the crash that has never been shown before in Britain.
So does Allen agree with Al Fayed that Diana was murdered?
Not exactly. He said he thought her death was the result of an attempt to scare and discredit her that "went massively wrong."
"I do believe Diana was in a position to rock a lot of boats," he said. "You could argue it's a warning and any statements she made after the crash would be put down to 'She's had a nasty crack on the head.'"
"What I'm saying is, don't necessarily believe the hype," he added.
The movie "Unlawful Killing" revives claims that Princess Diana — adored by millions as the "people's princess" but viewed in royal circles as an embarrassing loose cannon — was murdered by the British establishment. The film was screened Friday for the first time at the festival.
It bills itself as "the antidote to 'The King's Speech'" and depicts the royal family as feudal relics presiding over a network of official cronies at taxpayers' expense. Director Keith Allen says, however, it's "not an attack on the monarchy."
"I don't think it's anti-monarchy," he said. "I think it may be questioning capitalism."
The film takes its title from the verdict of an official British inquest into Diana's 1997 death in a Paris car crash. The jury ruled the princess was unlawfully killed, but deflated claims of a conspiracy, blaming "grossly negligent driving" by her drunk and speeding driver and pursuing vehicles.
But the movie by actor Allen — father of singer Lily Allen — revisits conspiracy theories put forward by Mohamed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi was Diana's boyfriend at the time and died in the same crash.
Fayed, the billionaire former owner of London's Harrods department store, funded the 2.5 million pound ($4 million) documentary. He has long maintained that his son and Diana were killed by the British secret service at the behest of an establishment horrified by her romance with a Muslim man.
The film begins with Diana's prediction in a 1995 letter to a friend that "my husband is planning an 'accident' in my car" and attempts to expose holes in the coroner's inquest.
It poses more questions than it answers. Who was in the white Fiat that witnesses saw in the Alma Tunnel just before the crash? Was driver Henri Paul really drunk or did someone tamper with his blood samples? Why did a French ambulance take so long to arrive?
"I didn't want to make a sensationalist film," Allen said, calling the documentary a "forensic account" of a legal process that "doesn't add up."
The film certainly doesn't pull punches. Critics would say it lashes out in all directions, scattering accusations of royal racism, judicial complicity and media laziness.
It includes an array of high-profile talking heads: talk show host Piers Morgan, actor Tony Curtis, celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley and psychologist Oliver James, who brands the husband of Queen Elizabeth II a psychopath.
Al Fayed spokesman Conor Nolan said the businessman had seen the film and was "absolutely delighted" with it.
Others remain decidedly unconvinced. Martin Gregory, author of "Diana, the Last Days," said the movie was "simply regurgitation of everything Mohamed Al Fayed has been saying since the year 2000."
"Nothing in the film is new," he said, taking Allen to task at the film's Cannes press conference.
The film was screened Friday for journalists and buyers. It's unlikely to find one in Britain, where it cannot be shown in its current form for legal reasons. Allen said he had declined to make any of the 87 cuts recommended by the film's lawyers before it can be shown there.
The documentary already has been criticized for including a picture of Diana after the crash that has never been shown before in Britain.
So does Allen agree with Al Fayed that Diana was murdered?
Not exactly. He said he thought her death was the result of an attempt to scare and discredit her that "went massively wrong."
"I do believe Diana was in a position to rock a lot of boats," he said. "You could argue it's a warning and any statements she made after the crash would be put down to 'She's had a nasty crack on the head.'"
"What I'm saying is, don't necessarily believe the hype," he added.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
HIV and AIDs: Peshawar has most cases in K-P
The Express Tribune
A total of 744 HIV/AIDs cases have been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in which Peshawar District is the most vulnerable with 75 patients, whereas 98,000 people are affected by the disease in the country.
This was stated by Dr Talawat Afridi, Coordinator Hayatabad Medical Complex, while speaking at a seminar regarding awareness of HIV/AIDs held under the auspices of Sarhad University of Science & Information Technology here on Wednesday. Registrar Mohammad Nasir, faculty members and students were also present.
Dr Talawat Afridi said that more than 98,000 HIV/AIDs cases have been detected under the Aids Eradication Programme in the country, adding that patients are being provided free medical treatment and medicines.
He said the most AIDs cases had been reported in Bannu District, but the ratio has declined with the passage of time. There were 30 AIDS cases in Khyber Agency, 60 in Kurram Agency, and 100 Afghan refugees.
A total of 744 HIV/AIDs cases have been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in which Peshawar District is the most vulnerable with 75 patients, whereas 98,000 people are affected by the disease in the country.
This was stated by Dr Talawat Afridi, Coordinator Hayatabad Medical Complex, while speaking at a seminar regarding awareness of HIV/AIDs held under the auspices of Sarhad University of Science & Information Technology here on Wednesday. Registrar Mohammad Nasir, faculty members and students were also present.
Dr Talawat Afridi said that more than 98,000 HIV/AIDs cases have been detected under the Aids Eradication Programme in the country, adding that patients are being provided free medical treatment and medicines.
He said the most AIDs cases had been reported in Bannu District, but the ratio has declined with the passage of time. There were 30 AIDS cases in Khyber Agency, 60 in Kurram Agency, and 100 Afghan refugees.
Big Love in Abbottabad: How Osama bin Laden Kept Three Wives Under One Roof
Osama bin Laden once crowed to an interviewer, "Believe me, when your children and your wife become part of your struggle, life becomes very enjoyable." The late Al-Qaeda chief uttered those words before 9/11, when he was able to keep his four wives and many children living comfortably in separate houses across Afghanistan. Every few weeks or so, Bin Laden would drop in on a wife to fulfill his husbandly duties.
But at the end, his rosy portrayal of being married to the Jihad was sorely tested. His family must have driven him nuts. During his last days in Abbottabad, bin Laden had to contend with three wives and 17 noisy children under one roof. He had no escape from the din, save for furtive pacing around the garden late at night or vanishing into his so-called Command-and-Control Center, a dank, window-less room. Swathed against the Himalayan chill in a woolen shawl, he recorded rants that displayed an ever-widening disconnect with the daily grind of terrorism: his last oddball offerings were on climate change and capitalism.
Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, was also a family man. An Arab woman married to an al-Qaeda fighter told TIME that after 9/11, bin Laden and his lieutenants made provisions for their families to flee the impending NATO invasion of Afghanistan. His youngest wife, Amal, may have escaped to Yemen via Pakistan, while bin Laden's other wives are thought to have fled through Iran. But this terrorist got lonely. After setting up camp in Pakistan and breaking his own orders, he summoned back three wives: the most recent addition, Amal, plus two Saudi women he'd wed in the 1980s. Both these Saudis were mature, educated women - Khairiah a child psychologist and Siham a teacher of Arabic grammar. (They converted a room in the Abottabad mansion into a classroom.) Bin Laden had been their husband for 25 and 27 years, respectively. U.S. counter-terrorism experts, who are eager to interrogate the wives, now in Pakistani custody, will surely want to know how al-Qaeda smuggled the boss's wives and their kids up to Abbottabad to ease his solitude.
Under Islam, polygamy is allowed but only if the husband is able to treat all of his wives equally. Muslim law also states that a man may only have four wives at a time. Bid Laden married six times, but one marriage ended in divorce and the other was annulled. While in Afghanistan, the wives were able to steer clear of each other. According to a 2002 interview that "AS", presumed to be Amal al-Sadah, gave to the magazine al Majalla, "we did not live in one house. Each wife lived in her own house. There were two wives in Kandahar, each with her own house. The third wife had a house in Kabul, and the fourth in the Tora Bora mountains." Even then, a polygamous family is not without its frictions. When Amal joined the growing clan in 2000, "bin Laden's other wives were upset, and even his mother chastised him," according to Lawrence Wright, journalist and author of "The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."
Judging from the blueprints of the Abbottabad house, bin Laden tried to keep his three families separate but equal. Each wife and her children were allotted their own floor, and bin Laden would spend time with each. When Navy Seals raided the compound, they found bin Laden on the third floor with Amal, the youngest. Initial White House accounts say she was shot in the leg while trying to shield her husband.
In all, bin Laden had six wives.
Wife #1: Najwa Ghamen, a Syrian and a first cousin, was 15 when she married bin Laden, scarcely two years older. Back then, bin Laden was a rich and well-connected Saudi youth, and Najwa had every reason to believe she was destined for a cushy life of luxury. Instead, she ended up raising 11 children on the run, struggling to keep her good looks in the scorching deserts of Afghanistan. (Bin Laden didn't believe in air conditioning or iced drinks, say his former comrades.) After 9/11, she fled Afghanistan with a mentally disabled son and is thought to have returned to her native Syria. Still married at the time of bin Laden's death, she is technically his fourth widow, although she is not in custody.
Wife #2: His second wife, Khadijah Sharif, was a teacher and nine years older than bin Laden when they were wed in 1983. She reportedly bore him three children before they were divorced sometime between 1993 and 1996 when they were living in Sudan, and bin Laden fell afoul of the Saudi regime.
Wife # 3: His third wife, Khairiah, whom bin Laden wed in 1985, was the "spiritual mother" of the sprawling family, according to a woman who knew the bin Ladens in Afghanistan. "She was very open-hearted. Everybody went to her for advice," she says. This source claims that after 9/11, Khairiah fled through Iran where she was detained under house arrest before the Iranians allowed her to return to Saudi Arabia. From there, she slipped back to Pakistan to rejoin the al-Qaeda chief in Abbottabad.
Wife #4: Shiman Sabar, who was also captured in the Abbottabad house, wed bin Laden in 1987. Militant sources say that after 9/11 she may have slipped across into Pakistan and remained there in hiding until it was safe for her to answer her husband's summons.
Wife #5: Bin Laden's fifth marriage is a mystery. The Saudi rashly wed a woman of unknown nationality in Khartoum in 1994 but the marriage was annulled before it was consummated within 48 hours.
Wife #6: His last wife, Amal, may have been as young as 15 when a $5,000 bride price was paid to her Yemeni family and she was shipped off to marry bin Laden, nearly 30 years her elder, in Kandahar. Wed in 2000, they had one daughter, Safiya, who was allegedly in the bedroom with her father and mother when Seals shot him dead.
So far, Pakistan has not charged his three widows of any crime. Pakistan has said it will expel the three back to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but will grant direct access to US interrogators when the trio "is ready." As for useful intelligence information, an Arab woman with ties to al-Qaeda, told Time that al-Qaeda militants aren't big on pillow talk. "They tend not to tell their wives anything about their operations," she says. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who interviewed bin Laden back in 1997 recalls: "Osama once told me men should never share their secrets with women." Nevertheless, these three women all have vital stories to tell of how al-Qaeda's network in Pakistan managed to smuggle them back to their forlorn terrorist husband and keep them hidden for so long. As widows, under Islam, they are free to marry again, if they wish. But few suitors are likely to step forward. Marrying the widow of the world's most wanted man has its own complications.
Tim McGirk, a former TIME bureau chief, is a fellow at the University of California at Berkeley's Investigative Reporting Program.
International conspiracy was at work against Z.A.Bhutto SC told
The Supreme Court (SC) was informed on Wednesday that not only the martial law administrator was against former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) but there was also an international conspiracy at work against him as he had succeeded in obtaining nuclear technology from France.
Babar Awan, the federal government’s counsel, said in his passionate style during the hearing that United States was against Bhutto and Dr Henry Kissenger, former US secretary of state, had threatened him in these words: “We will make a horrible example of you.”
An 11-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was hearing presidential reference seeking opinion of the SC on the death sentence handed down to ZAB during the dictatorial regime of General Ziaul Haq. The CJ said that what had happened to ZAB was unprecedented in the history of law, but they needed to have jurisdiction in order to do complete justice to him.
The CJ said: “We will like to decide this case in a manner which is covered by the constitution. The court derives its power from the constitution therefore give us jurisdiction in Article 186, under which the reference has been sent to the SC.”
The CJ remarked all those people who were hanged during the martial law were also citizens of Pakistan and their appeals were also rejected. “Should their cases be reopened? The CJ said: “We have to keep all these things in our mind.”
Babar said if there were thousands of cases of people with whom injustices were done, they should also be reopened.
The CJ stated, “Ask the parliament and pass a law that cases of people who were executed subsequent to the 1977’s martial law and from 1999 to 2008 should be reopened.”
Justice Nasirul Mulk asked what you really wanted from us. You want reversal of the earlier verdict? Justice Javed remarked you were not asking for the court’s verdict but its opinion on the injustice done to ZAB.
The learned counsel stated ZAB’s case was entirely different from others because no one was ever hanged over complicity in a murder case.
Babar explained to the court that the reference was not filed for vengeance or to set aside the earlier judgments, but to highlight atrocities that were meted out to ZAB during the trial. He said just a day before the hearing of ZAB’s appeal in the SC, Ziaul Haq sent the then chief justice Muhammad Yaqub Ali home.
The learned counsel urged the court that the attending circumstances of the then court had to be seen, adding the court also had to see the content of the administration of criminal justice. He said Article 4, which says “Right of individuals to be dealt with in accordance with law,” was violated.
He informed the court there was distinction between process and due process. He said ZAB was condemned unheard.
He said there were two types of laws; one legislative instrument passed by parliament and the precedent law, judgment passed by the apex court. The court adjourned the hearing till Thursday
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
U.S. Reassesses Afghan Strategy
The killing of Osama bin Laden has set off a reassessment of the war in Afghanistan and the broader effort to combat terrorism, with Congress, the military and the Obama administration weighing the goals, strategies, costs and underlying authority for a conflict that is now almost a decade old.
Two influential senators — John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana — suggested Tuesday that it was time to rethink the Afghanistan war effort, forecasting the beginning of what promises to be a fierce debate about how quickly the United States should begin pulling troops out of the country.
“We should be working toward the smallest footprint necessary, a presence that puts Afghans in charge and presses them to step up to that task,” Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at a hearing. “Make no mistake, it is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight.”
Both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lugar, the committee’s senior Republican, said they remained opposed to a precipitous withdrawal.
Still, “the broad scope of our activities suggests that we are trying to remake the economic, political and security culture of Afghanistan — but that ambitious goal is beyond our power,” Mr. Lugar said. “A reassessment of our Afghanistan policy on the basis of whether our overall geostrategic interests are being served by spending roughly $10 billion a month in that country was needed before our troops took out Bin Laden.”
Inside the Pentagon, however, officials make the case that rather than using Bin Laden’s death as a justification for withdrawal, the United States should continue the current strategy in Afghanistan to secure additional gains and to further pressure the Taliban to come to the bargaining table for negotiations on political reconciliation.
And in Congress, a debate is getting under way over the underlying authority used by two successive administrations to wage the post-Sept. 11 fight against terrorist organizations and their supporters.
The House Armed Services Committee is expected to take up a defense authorization bill on Wednesday that includes a new authorization for the government to use military force in the war on terrorism. The provision has set off an argument over whether it is a mere update — or a sweeping, open-ended expansion — of the power Congress granted to the executive branch in 2001.
The new authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda was unveiled by the committee chairman, Representative Howard P. McKeon, Republican of California. The committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on amendments to the bill.
The provision states that Congress “affirms” that “the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces,” and that the president is authorized to use military force — including detention without trial — of members and substantial supporters of those forces.
That language, which would codify into federal law a definition of the enemy that the Obama administration has adopted in defending against lawsuits filed by Guantánamo Bay detainees, would supplant the existing military force authorization that Congress passed overwhelmingly on Sept. 14, 2001. It instead named the enemy as the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Critics of Mr. McKeon’s provision have reacted with alarm to what they see as an effort to entrench in a federal statute unambiguous authority for the executive branch to wage war against terrorists who are deemed associates of Al Qaeda but who lack a clear tie to the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a joint letter to Congress, about two dozen groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights — contended that the proposal amounted to an open-ended grant of authority to the executive branch, legitimizing an unending war from Yemen to Somalia and beyond.
“This monumental legislation — with a large-scale and practically irrevocable delegation of war power from Congress to the president — could commit the United States to a worldwide war without clear enemies, without any geographical boundaries” and “without any boundary relating to time or specific objective to be achieved,” the letter warned.
But Mr. McKeon argued in a statement that the provision did nothing more than codify the Obama administration’s interpretation of its legal authority to address the threat of Al Qaeda in light of its splintering and evolution over the past decade.
“This bill does not expand the war effort,” he said. “Instead, the legislation better aligns the old legal authorities used to detain and prosecute those intent on attacking America with the threats our country faces today.”
President Obama will soon begin considering plans for making good on his pledge to begin withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan in July. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Afghanistan, is expected to submit his options soon for carrying out Mr. Obama’s order.
On Tuesday, the commander of American and allied forces across the violent, contested provinces of eastern Afghanistan said that the death of Bin Laden might weaken the syndicate of insurgent groups battling the Kabul government, although it may take months to determine which might seek reconciliation and which will seek revenge.
The commander, Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell of the 101st Airborne Division, said during a video news conference to the Pentagon from his headquarters at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan that the death of Al Qaeda’s founder might splinter historic ties between Al Qaeda and indigenous insurgent leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan who helped protect it.
The insurgency is made up of a number of groups with different motivations, different goals and different relationships with Al Qaeda. The organizations may still be digesting the news of Bin Laden’s death before deciding on a course of action.
General Campbell said he had not yet seen any increase in the flow of fighters from Pakistan or attacks attributed to revenge for Bin Laden’s death.
Still, the images of Bin Laden living in comfort in a Pakistan safe house may undermine the morale of frontline insurgent fighters, General Campbell said, coming as some insurgent foot soldiers are said to be expressing frustration with their leadership’s commanding from the relative safety of Pakistan.
“I think the insurgents are going to say, ‘Hey, you know, why am I doing this?’ ” he said. “And I think there’s great potential for many of the insurgents to say, ‘Hey, I want to reintegrate.’
Yemeni forces fire on protest march in capital
Yemeni forces opened fire on a crowd of tens of thousands of protesters demonstrating on Wednesday in the capital Sanaa to unseat the president, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding scores, witnesses said.
In the industrial center Taiz, snipers killed two protesters and dozens were injured by gunfire, tear gas and bat-wielding plainclothes security men. Protesters retaliated by torching a police building and sealing off government buildings.
The bloodshed is likely to add to public rage ahead of Friday, traditionally the main day of unrest during a three-month-old revolt against President Ali Abduallah Saleh inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.
Crowds have lost patience with stalled negotiations to end Saleh's 33-year rule, and violence is surging in a country where half the population owns a gun. Wednesday's march in Sanaa saw protesters attempt to reach the cabinet building.
"This is a massacre, they are opening fire randomly," Mohammed al-Qibly, a leader of a youth protest movement in Sanaa, said on Al Jazeera television. "The scene is terrifying in every sense of the word."
A doctor at the scene told Reuters one person was killed. Witnesses said some 40 people were shot and protesters stopped to help treat the wounded, who were rushed away in private vehicles as the gunfire continued.
"Forces opened fire heavily when protesters got around 200 meters away from the cabinet, but the protesters didn't back away at first," Yemeni journalist Abdulsattar Mohammed said. "A number of injured fell and they were carried away to hospital on motorcycles when police stopped ambulances from entering."
Neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia and the United States fear escalating violence could push impoverished Yemen, already riven by tribal and separatist conflict, into chaos that could allow al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing to operate freely.
CITIES PARALYSED
Demonstrators have sought to shut down some of Yemen's major cities and many have called for a daily general strike.
In Taiz, security forces have shot dead six protesters in three days of clashes. Authorities were struggling unsuccessfully to break up a protest blockade on the education ministry, part of a siege of state buildings that has effectively brought Yemen's main industrial center to a halt.
"Stores are closed and the streets are completely empty of pedestrians, only protesters are around in the areas they are confronting (security forces)," resident Wajdi Abdullah said.
Protesters also brought life to a halt in the city of Ibb. "Almost all the stores are shut in Ibb except a few selling basic food items. No one is going to work -- this is unprecedented in this city," resident Ali Noaman said.
Tribesmen aligned with protesters have blockaded Yemen's main oil- and gas- producing province Maarib, causing a mounting fuel crisis. A shipping source told Reuters the government was losing around $3 million a day in blocked exports.
Traders said on Wednesday Yemen was in talks with Saudi Aramco to buy around 2 million barrels of crude oil to send to its main refinery in Aden, shut for weeks due to lack of supply.
The protesters' pressure on oil supplies has made petrol scarce and led to power cuts.
Yemen's fragile economy is struggling to stay afloat as the currency tumbles and prices of necessities soar. A third of Yemen's 23 million people suffer chronic hunger and 40 percent live on less than $2 a day.
Fuel rationing has worsened water shortages in remote areas where trucks have stopped deliveries.
Saudi Arabia, A Few Brave Women Dare Take Wheel in Defiance of Saudi Law Against Driving
BLOOMBERG.COM
Manal, a 32-year-old woman, is planning something she’s never done openly in her native Saudi Arabia: Get in her car and take to the streets, defying a ban on female drivers in the kingdom.
Manal and ten other people are organizing a campaign on Facebook and Twitter urging Saudi women with international driver’s licenses to join them starting June 17, risking their jobs and their freedom. The coordinated plan isn’t a protest, she said.
“I’m doing it because I’m frustrated, angry and mad,” Manal, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said in an interview from the eastern city of Dhahran. “It’s 2011 and we’re still discussing this insignificant right for women.”
The risk the women are willing to take underscores both their exasperation with the restrictions and the infectious nature of the changes sweeping the region. Saudi Arabia, which has the world’s biggest oil reserves, so far has avoided the mass demonstrations that have toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten officials in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
“These events have taught Saudi women to join ranks and act as a team,” said Wajeeha al-Howeider, a Saudi women’s rights activist, in a telephone interview from Dhahran. “This is something they could only have learned from those revolutions.”
Male Approval
Saudi Arabia enforces the ascetic Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam. Women aren’t allowed to have a Saudi driver’s permit, even though some drive when they’re in the desert away from urban areas. They can’t travel or get an education without male approval or mix with unrelated men in public places. They aren’t permitted to vote or run as candidates in municipal elections, the only ones the kingdom allows.
The last time a group of women publicly defied the driving ban was on Nov. 6, 1990, when U.S. troops had massed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for a war that would expel Iraq from Kuwait. The Saudi women were spurred by images of female U.S. soldiers driving in the desert and stories of Kuwaiti women driving their children to safety, and they were counting on the presence of international media to ensure their story would reach the world and lessen the repercussions, according to Noura Abdullah, 55.
Abdullah was one of forty-seven drivers and passengers who stayed out for about an hour before being arrested. They were banned from travel for a year, lost their jobs for 2 1/2 years and were condemned by the powerful clergy as harlots.
Spread the Word
Now it’s “superb” that a younger generation is following in their footsteps, Abdullah said in an interview from Riyadh, the capital. She doesn’t have an international driver’s license, so she will help by spreading the word about the event with telephone calls, text messages and emails, she said.
“Their timing is perfect,” she added. “There’s momentum in Saudi Arabia now and that should help.”
King Abdullah has taken steps this year to ensure regional turmoil is confined outside his borders, pledging almost $100 billion of spending on homes, jobs and benefits. He also has promised to improve the status of women. He opened the first co- educational university in 2009; appointed the kingdom’s first female deputy minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, the same year; and has said he will provide more access to jobs for women, who make up about 15 percent of the workforce.
A change of policy in 2008 allowed women to stay in hotels without male guardians, and an amendment to the labor law allowed women to work in all fields “suitable to their nature.”
‘Largely Symbolic’
Human Rights Watch said in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.” While the United Nations ranked the kingdom in the top one-third of nations in its 2010 Human Development Report -- higher than Brazil and Russia -- its score for gender equality was much lower. On that measure, which includes assessments of reproductive health and participation in politics and the labor market, Saudi Arabia was 128th of 138 nations, below Iran and Pakistan.
The campaign Manal is helping to organize, called “I will drive starting June 17,” is the latest effort by Saudi women this year to express their desire for more rights. On April 23, a group of 15 women showed up at a registration center in the western city of Jeddah, asking to participate in the September election, the Arab News reported a day later. While they were denied entry, they were permitted to relay their demands to Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, the head of the district office, the Arab News said.
Facebook Fans
The protest against the driving ban has attracted almost 800 Facebook fans since it began May 6.
“We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities,” the organizers said on their page. “We are here to claim one of our simplest rights.”
Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a Saudi cleric, dismissed the campaign, saying statements he makes about religious issues that are posted on websites have received more than 24,000 page views in a day.
The plan is “against the law, and the women who drive should be punished according to the law,” al-Nujaimi said in a telephone interview. Driving causes “more harm than good” to women, because they risk mixing with men they aren’t related to, such as mechanics and gas-station attendants, he added.
“Women will also get used to leaving their homes at will,” al-Nujaimi said.
Other Support
Three telephone calls by Bloomberg News to the mobile phone of a press officer at Saudi Arabia’s Traffic Department, which enforces transit rules in the country, weren’t answered.
The campaign has received the support of some Saudi men. Ahmad al-Yacoub, 24, a Dhahran-based businessman, said he’s joined the effort because “these ladies are not fighting with religion or the government.”
“They are asking for a simple right that they want to practice freely without being harassed or questioned,” al- Yacoub said.
Ghada Abdul-Latif, a 31-year-old rights activist, said she will support the effort by filming it and posting it online; she won’t drive for fear of being jailed before her wedding in June.
“It is a courageous campaign,” said Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi historian. “It feels so weird to consider such a human right a courageous movement. But it is in a country such as Saudi Arabia, which is trying to live against the current and life and history.”
Manal, a 32-year-old woman, is planning something she’s never done openly in her native Saudi Arabia: Get in her car and take to the streets, defying a ban on female drivers in the kingdom.
Manal and ten other people are organizing a campaign on Facebook and Twitter urging Saudi women with international driver’s licenses to join them starting June 17, risking their jobs and their freedom. The coordinated plan isn’t a protest, she said.
“I’m doing it because I’m frustrated, angry and mad,” Manal, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said in an interview from the eastern city of Dhahran. “It’s 2011 and we’re still discussing this insignificant right for women.”
The risk the women are willing to take underscores both their exasperation with the restrictions and the infectious nature of the changes sweeping the region. Saudi Arabia, which has the world’s biggest oil reserves, so far has avoided the mass demonstrations that have toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten officials in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
“These events have taught Saudi women to join ranks and act as a team,” said Wajeeha al-Howeider, a Saudi women’s rights activist, in a telephone interview from Dhahran. “This is something they could only have learned from those revolutions.”
Male Approval
Saudi Arabia enforces the ascetic Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam. Women aren’t allowed to have a Saudi driver’s permit, even though some drive when they’re in the desert away from urban areas. They can’t travel or get an education without male approval or mix with unrelated men in public places. They aren’t permitted to vote or run as candidates in municipal elections, the only ones the kingdom allows.
The last time a group of women publicly defied the driving ban was on Nov. 6, 1990, when U.S. troops had massed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for a war that would expel Iraq from Kuwait. The Saudi women were spurred by images of female U.S. soldiers driving in the desert and stories of Kuwaiti women driving their children to safety, and they were counting on the presence of international media to ensure their story would reach the world and lessen the repercussions, according to Noura Abdullah, 55.
Abdullah was one of forty-seven drivers and passengers who stayed out for about an hour before being arrested. They were banned from travel for a year, lost their jobs for 2 1/2 years and were condemned by the powerful clergy as harlots.
Spread the Word
Now it’s “superb” that a younger generation is following in their footsteps, Abdullah said in an interview from Riyadh, the capital. She doesn’t have an international driver’s license, so she will help by spreading the word about the event with telephone calls, text messages and emails, she said.
“Their timing is perfect,” she added. “There’s momentum in Saudi Arabia now and that should help.”
King Abdullah has taken steps this year to ensure regional turmoil is confined outside his borders, pledging almost $100 billion of spending on homes, jobs and benefits. He also has promised to improve the status of women. He opened the first co- educational university in 2009; appointed the kingdom’s first female deputy minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, the same year; and has said he will provide more access to jobs for women, who make up about 15 percent of the workforce.
A change of policy in 2008 allowed women to stay in hotels without male guardians, and an amendment to the labor law allowed women to work in all fields “suitable to their nature.”
‘Largely Symbolic’
Human Rights Watch said in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.” While the United Nations ranked the kingdom in the top one-third of nations in its 2010 Human Development Report -- higher than Brazil and Russia -- its score for gender equality was much lower. On that measure, which includes assessments of reproductive health and participation in politics and the labor market, Saudi Arabia was 128th of 138 nations, below Iran and Pakistan.
The campaign Manal is helping to organize, called “I will drive starting June 17,” is the latest effort by Saudi women this year to express their desire for more rights. On April 23, a group of 15 women showed up at a registration center in the western city of Jeddah, asking to participate in the September election, the Arab News reported a day later. While they were denied entry, they were permitted to relay their demands to Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, the head of the district office, the Arab News said.
Facebook Fans
The protest against the driving ban has attracted almost 800 Facebook fans since it began May 6.
“We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities,” the organizers said on their page. “We are here to claim one of our simplest rights.”
Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a Saudi cleric, dismissed the campaign, saying statements he makes about religious issues that are posted on websites have received more than 24,000 page views in a day.
The plan is “against the law, and the women who drive should be punished according to the law,” al-Nujaimi said in a telephone interview. Driving causes “more harm than good” to women, because they risk mixing with men they aren’t related to, such as mechanics and gas-station attendants, he added.
“Women will also get used to leaving their homes at will,” al-Nujaimi said.
Other Support
Three telephone calls by Bloomberg News to the mobile phone of a press officer at Saudi Arabia’s Traffic Department, which enforces transit rules in the country, weren’t answered.
The campaign has received the support of some Saudi men. Ahmad al-Yacoub, 24, a Dhahran-based businessman, said he’s joined the effort because “these ladies are not fighting with religion or the government.”
“They are asking for a simple right that they want to practice freely without being harassed or questioned,” al- Yacoub said.
Ghada Abdul-Latif, a 31-year-old rights activist, said she will support the effort by filming it and posting it online; she won’t drive for fear of being jailed before her wedding in June.
“It is a courageous campaign,” said Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi historian. “It feels so weird to consider such a human right a courageous movement. But it is in a country such as Saudi Arabia, which is trying to live against the current and life and history.”
President Obama at the Border
EDITORIAL
President Obama went to the border in El Paso on Tuesday and delivered a speech on immigration reform. He didn’t present a bill or issue any executive orders or set deadlines for action. Aides say his goal was to “create a pathway” and “a sense of urgency” to “move forward.” That is a start but not nearly enough.
The speech was right on its merits. The immigration system is a shambles. Millions live here outside the law. Visa policies are too restrictive, cruelly separating families and driving away talented university graduates to other countries. As Mr. Obama dryly noted, “We train them to create jobs for our competition.”
He said our current laws stifle opportunity for exactly the people for whom this economy needs to recover: entrepreneurs, students and low-wage workers. Illegality feeds “a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor,” Mr. Obama said. This isn’t fair to American workers, or to the undocumented — “the overwhelming majority” of whom, he said, “are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families.”
Mr. Obama was also right when he said that the country has heard “a lot of blame and a lot of politics and a lot of ugly rhetoric around immigration.” After listing the many ways his administration has “gone above and beyond” what Republicans had demanded as their price for reform — flooding the border with troops and technology to seal it tighter than ever — he noted that the Republicans were still not satisfied. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he joked. “Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat.”
Mr. Obama’s description of the problem was accurate, and his prescription the right one: a “good-faith effort” by both parties to pass comprehensive measures that combine border security with assimilation, not mass expulsion, for illegal immigrants who qualify.
To move things forward, Mr. Obama will have to do a lot more. He needs to outline legislation, push Congressional leaders — including those in his own party — to back it and make the case repeatedly to Americans.
The president also needs to get his own policies in order. For all his talk of supporting the hopes of the undocumented, his administration has been doubling down on the failed strategy of mass expulsion. It is pressing state and local police to join in an ill-conceived program called Secure Communities, which sends arrested people’s fingerprints through federal immigration databases, turning all local officers and jails into arms of the Department of Homeland Security.
Many lawmakers and police agencies say it erodes public safety by making immigrants, especially victims of domestic violence, afraid to report crimes. They worry about giving rogue officers a convenient tool for racial profiling. And they feel betrayed because what the administration once billed as a transparent, voluntary program aimed only at dangerous convicted criminals turns out to be none of those things. The Homeland Security Department’s own data show that more than half of those deported under the program have no criminal records or committed only minor crimes.
Mr. Obama and the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, should heed the growing calls by lawmakers in California, Illinois, New York and other places to abandon Secure Communities to preserve public safety.
As for the broader issue of immigration reform, Mr. Obama’s aides insisted on Tuesday that he did, indeed, have a plan that interested Americans could read on the White House Web site. If Mr. Obama is really committed to this issue it’s going to take a lot more than that.
President Obama went to the border in El Paso on Tuesday and delivered a speech on immigration reform. He didn’t present a bill or issue any executive orders or set deadlines for action. Aides say his goal was to “create a pathway” and “a sense of urgency” to “move forward.” That is a start but not nearly enough.
The speech was right on its merits. The immigration system is a shambles. Millions live here outside the law. Visa policies are too restrictive, cruelly separating families and driving away talented university graduates to other countries. As Mr. Obama dryly noted, “We train them to create jobs for our competition.”
He said our current laws stifle opportunity for exactly the people for whom this economy needs to recover: entrepreneurs, students and low-wage workers. Illegality feeds “a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor,” Mr. Obama said. This isn’t fair to American workers, or to the undocumented — “the overwhelming majority” of whom, he said, “are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families.”
Mr. Obama was also right when he said that the country has heard “a lot of blame and a lot of politics and a lot of ugly rhetoric around immigration.” After listing the many ways his administration has “gone above and beyond” what Republicans had demanded as their price for reform — flooding the border with troops and technology to seal it tighter than ever — he noted that the Republicans were still not satisfied. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he joked. “Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat.”
Mr. Obama’s description of the problem was accurate, and his prescription the right one: a “good-faith effort” by both parties to pass comprehensive measures that combine border security with assimilation, not mass expulsion, for illegal immigrants who qualify.
To move things forward, Mr. Obama will have to do a lot more. He needs to outline legislation, push Congressional leaders — including those in his own party — to back it and make the case repeatedly to Americans.
The president also needs to get his own policies in order. For all his talk of supporting the hopes of the undocumented, his administration has been doubling down on the failed strategy of mass expulsion. It is pressing state and local police to join in an ill-conceived program called Secure Communities, which sends arrested people’s fingerprints through federal immigration databases, turning all local officers and jails into arms of the Department of Homeland Security.
Many lawmakers and police agencies say it erodes public safety by making immigrants, especially victims of domestic violence, afraid to report crimes. They worry about giving rogue officers a convenient tool for racial profiling. And they feel betrayed because what the administration once billed as a transparent, voluntary program aimed only at dangerous convicted criminals turns out to be none of those things. The Homeland Security Department’s own data show that more than half of those deported under the program have no criminal records or committed only minor crimes.
Mr. Obama and the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, should heed the growing calls by lawmakers in California, Illinois, New York and other places to abandon Secure Communities to preserve public safety.
As for the broader issue of immigration reform, Mr. Obama’s aides insisted on Tuesday that he did, indeed, have a plan that interested Americans could read on the White House Web site. If Mr. Obama is really committed to this issue it’s going to take a lot more than that.
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