UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

stamp: 20 kopeyka

year: 1960

mammal: rabbit

Russia Today
November 28, 2009

If you’re assaulted by a police officer – fight back. That’s the advice of the Russia’s Interior Minister, speaking to students at a police training academy. The Minister’s comments follow a series of incidents of police brutality.
“May a citizen hit back at a policeman who has attacked him?” Interfax news agency quoted Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev as asking. “Yes he may; if he is not a criminal, if he is walking along quietly and breaking no rules.”

Nurgaliyev, whose ministry is responsible for the police, said a Russian law that prohibits the use of violence against police in self-defense should be scrapped.

“We are all equal, and a citizen is doubly equal,” state-run RIA Novosti reported him as telling students near Moscow.

Ok so when the Dollar collapses, or god forbid we have another 9/11 , or they mutate the man made h1n1 virus… what ever the event could/will be…The Police state is upon us… ask any ex-soviet immigrants what is was like…. the simularities are frightening

The Reichstag is the home of the German parliament

The Reichstag in Berlin is the most remarkable government building that I’ve seen so far.

What’s so interesting about it? Well, some of its walls still bear the graffiti written by Soviet soldiers at the end of World War II.

But since I don’t speak Russian, I don’t know what the writings mean. I’m sure though that they’re not meant to praise Germany.

I think it’s a good move to preserve the graffiti.

They give the building character: once you’re inside the edifice you will realize that it’s a place that has gone through so much.
!!!

Hitler and Mussolini, the Axis Leaders Never Developed a Grand Strategy

All modern war is predicated on the full potential of a nation or alliance to fight a war.  This includes what is known in today’s parlance the DIME, or the Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military and Economic factors of national power. During the war the Axis powers almost exclusively fixated on the military dimension, especially at the operational and tactical level never coordinating a national or alliance grand strategy.  On the other hand the Allies were successful in doing so despite competing national interests of the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States.

Early German Success in France Changed the Face of Warfare

The Germans and Japanese were victorious in the early years of the World War Two due to their application of the most modern forms of warfare and ability to exploit weaknesses in their opponents.  For the Germans this entailed the use of the “Blitzkrieg” or lightening war which used the combined arms team of tanks, artillery, and mechanized infantry with close air support coordinated by commanders in mobile command posts who were able to adapt to tactical considerations on the ground and exploit enemy’s weaknesses.  This involved the classic forms of applied mass, speed and firepower to overwhelm enemy defenses at critical points and the encouragement of initiative by commanders, the Auftragstaktik. Led by men such as Heinz Guderian, Erich Von Manstein and Erwin Rommel to name but a few, the German commanders overcame allied opposition as well as the occasional hesitancy of their own senior leaders to defeat Allied forces throughout Europe.  The blitzkrieg involved risk, but the Germans for the most part, with key exceptions such as at Dunkirk during the French campaign took risks and exploited weaknesses in Allied political goals, military coordination and operational art. The Allies were hampered by weak political leadership, an aversion to risk, an outmoded strategy and poor coordination of a force which outnumbered the Germans and included more tanks than the Germans could field.  The German armaments were not necessarily superior to the Allies, but were better used for the most part.

German skill at the operational level was exemplified in Poland, France and the Low Countries, a daring Norwegian operation, which could be described as one of the first joint operations in military history, the Balkans and North Africa as well as the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa.  Each of these operations had flaws, the most glaring being at the strategic level and lack of a Grand Strategy.  The operations also exposed weaknesses in logistics and limits to what the mechanized and tactical air forces could do when stretched too far, North Africa and Russia as cases in point.  The Germans would always be outnumbered and fighting a multi-front war because of their limited naval capability, both in surface units and U-Boats, as well as the lack of a strategic air capability which kept them from eliminating Britain from the war.  Hitler’s desire for German domination in Europe excluded a true coalition effort to make allies with powers in Europe such as Vichy France which shared an aversion to the British especially after the attack of the British Navy on the French fleet in North Africa.  Likewise Germany’s alliance with Mussolini’s Italy was more of a strategic liability than a true partner. Hitler’s aversion to the Soviet State prevented any more than a brief cooperation with the USSR which was ended by the German invasion of the USSR. The Germans also failed in their war strategy by not going to a total war effort until 1943 after the ascension of Albert Speer as the Armaments Minister.  Thus German forces had to fight war “on the cheap” so to speak for the first part of the war, especially in North Africa and in Russia. In Russia the vast expanse of the front forced the Germans to thin out their forces to dangerous levels and whose pathetic road and rail network limited the already limited ability of the Wehrmacht to supply its forces as they advanced deep into Russia.

Admiral Yamamoto One of the Few Japanese Leaders to Understand what the Japanese Faced in Going to War with the United States

In the Pacific the Japanese used fast carrier task forces and naval air power coupled with superior surface warfare groups of fast battleships, cruisers and destroyers operating in conjunction with land based Army and Naval air units to isolate and destroy allied naval forces and outposts throughout the Pacific.   The Japanese exploited their superiority to conduct their own form of blitzkrieg.

Despite Inflicting Crushing Defeats on the Allies in late 1941 and early 1942 the Japanese period of Conquest would be Short Lived

At the same time the Japanese, even more so than the Germans lacked the ability to fight a long war; something that the best and most realistic of the Japanese strategists, Admiral Yamamoto understood and warned his government about before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Likewise they like the Germans failed to develop a cohesive Grand Strategy in their war effort.  Competing priorities and inter-service rivalries between the Army and the Navy over resources, manufacturing priorities and war aims crippled Japanese efforts.  Despite this the Japanese used superior tactical application of forces, exploited Allied command and control weaknesses, numerical and qualitative superiority over dispersed and often obsolete Allied forces. The Allies in the opening phase of the war were often led by officers who had little respect for the Japanese and underestimated the Japanese skill at the tactical and operational level of warfare as well as the individual Japanese soldier and sailor, with tragic results.

USS Pope Being Blown out of the Water at the Battle of the Java Sea

The Japanese were constrained by limited resources and intense competition between the Army and Navy for those resources as well as a long term war in China which drew off the larger part of the Japanese Army and Army Air Forces.  The Japanese effort stalled after they lost much of their carrier fleet and experienced naval aviators at Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign.  The Americans, who assumed the mantle of the Pacific Theater after the initial Japanese success and weakness of British and Dutch forces in the Pacific and demands of the war in Europe began an aggressive defense and opened an offensive against the Japanese long before the Japanese believed that they would at Guadalcanal.

At the heart of the early German and Japanese success lay their superior application of the techniques and weapons of modern warfare on the land, sea and air against opponents who were initially ill-prepared to meet their onslaught.  They both had glaring weaknesses but their weaknesses in the early years of the war were masked by Allied ineptitude at all levels, tactical, operational and strategic.   Thus they were successful and at times wildly so, but in their success lay the seeds of their defeat.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill overcame Significant Conflicts of Interest to Build a Grand Strategy

The defeat of the Axis powers was in large part a combination of superior Allied strategy at the “grand strategy” level and lack of a corresponding Axis Grand Strategy; as well as the Axis powers inherent weaknesses in natural resources, manpower and industrial capabilities to fight multi-front wars, coupled with poor transportation and logistics capabilities for distant operations.

The US Navy Breaking of the Japanese Naval and Diplomatic Codes as well as the Cracking of the German Ultra Code and Capture of the Enigma Machine Greatly Enhanced Allied Intelligence

The cracking of Japanese Naval and diplomatic codes and the capture of the German Enigma code machine and code books aided Allied strategic planning, none or the Axis intelligence services rose to the challenges of the war. The Allied victory and Axis defeat was in fact a combination of what is called the DIME, the Diplomatic Intelligence Military and Economic factors which caused the Axis defeat.  While it is in part due to Allied strategy, Axis deficiencies in each of these areas played a part in their ultimate defeat.

Massive US Industrial Capacity Drove the Allied War Effort

On the Grand Strategic level there was no comparison. The Allies, even factoring in often conflicting national goals were able to coordinate a strategy to first defeat Germany and then Japan.  The Americans, British and Russians began such cooperation even prior to the American entry into the war through the Lend Lease, followed by the British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff, which helped coordinate often disparate British and American strategies in Europe and Asia. Murray and Millett assert and I agree with the thesis that the British and Americans “came closest to designing a global strategy that accommodated their war aims.” (War to Be Won p.584) While close coordination with the Russians was illusory at best, the Western Allies were able to help keep the Russians in war the by helping to supply them (War to Be Won p.388), and on occasion launching operations which assisted the Russians, such as the invasion of Italy. The Italian invasion, though the pipe dream of Churchill to crack the “soft underbelly” of Europe was a key factor in the German decision to quit the Kursk offensive and redeploy Panzer Divisions, including SS formations to Italy and the West. This weakened the Germans in the face of the Russian counter offensive following Kursk which aided Russian success. The Axis powers knew no such coordinated strategic thinking.

Poor Italian Technology, Training and Organization Made them More of  a Burden to Germany than a Help

The Japanese, Germans and Italians ran separate wars based on their perceived national considerations at times which often ran contrary to the common needs of their coalition.  Italian actions in the Mediterranean caused a diversion in German efforts at key times, such as in Greece where the Germans had to save the Italians and delay the opening of Operation Barbarossa.  Italian incompetence forced the Germans to commit forces to North Africa, Greece, the Balkans and Italy upon its collapse which could have been used to great effect in Europe or Russia. The Japanese and Germans never coordinated their efforts to defeat either the western Allies or the Soviets.  The lack of a coherent Grand Strategy on the part of the Axis powers, especially in the early part of the war when Allied fortunes were at lowest ebb, was every bit as much a part of their ultimate defeat as was a coordinated or “superior” Allied strategy.

The lack of a coordinated Axis Grand Strategy was reflected in the way each fought its war, the Japanese were hindered by lack of natural resources, especially those most important in maintaining a war economy, fuels, metals, rubber and even foodstuffs for which they were dependant on foreign suppliers such as the United States.  They were also hindered by a war in China which consumed troops and supplies without a corresponding benefit.  (See Barnhart’s “Japan Prepares for Total War and Toland’s “Rising Sun.) Their inability to produce the machines of war in sufficient numbers to replace losses due to combat operations and their failure to keep up with advances in technology negated their initial success and superiority at sea and in the air.

US Naval Forces Would Dominate the Pacific

The Germans failed to mobilize their economy to a total war footing until after Stalingrad and the accession of Albert Speer to head Reich war production.   They also attempted to fight a multi-front war and were dependant on weak and unenthusiastic satellite states such as Romania and Hungary to hold what they deemed to be less important areas in order free up German units.  Likewise the Germans had not adequately prepared for the war at sea with sufficient surface, naval air or U-boat strength to win the battle of the Atlantic, nor had the Luftwaffe developed a strategic bombing capability with long range fighter escorts to win the Battle of Britain. German industrial efforts, even the great strides made after Speer took over war production were unable to keep pace with the massive production of the Americans and the Soviet Union.  The Red Army ground the Wehrmacht to dust on the Steppes of Russia, a key factor in that helped the American and British successfully invade Western Europe.

B-17s Over Europe

The preponderance of western Air, Naval, war production and natural resources enabled them to field Fleets, Armies and Air Forces which were unmatched in size or technical sophistication for their time in history.  The Japanese and the Germans had no way to win by 1944, short of developing and deploying Atomic weapons and delivery systems before the Americans and British did could defeat.  Murray and Millett note this in regard to Germany which had the Wehrmacht held out longer would have been the first target of the Atomic bombs. (War to Be Won p.483)

Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima, It could Have Been Berlin Instead

In summary the Axis powers were defeated by their own weaknesses in the diplomatic, intelligence, military and economic arenas as much as they were by superior Allied strategy.  This in no way negates the superior way in which the Allies marshaled their resources and coordinated a coherent Grand Strategy.  But even so the Allies by were running out of troops by the end of the European war.  Russian formations while still formidable were operating at greatly diminished strength by the end of the war and their losses “carried political and social consequences that were to burden the Soviet Union to its demise.” (War to Be Won p.483)  The British were bled dry and unable to keep up with losses suffered after Normandy. The Americans too suffered from a shortage of manpower, particularly in Army infantry forces, and had limited their Army to a mere 90 divisions of all types to fight a world war. They had diverted manpower to the Army Air Corps, Naval and Marine Corps leaving the Army chronically short infantry. The Americans were forced into emergency drafts of troops from the Air Corps and other ancillary formations and support units to fill out infantry formations during the winter of 1944-45.  (See Russell Weigley’s book Eisenhower’s Lieutenants.” and Max Hasting’s “Armageddon” for a good treatment of the manpower situation in 1944-45) This is one point were the Americans took a risk that almost backfired on them and could have cost them victory.

Marxism hides its face behind a mask of euphemisms, enslavement is liberation, ruthless totalitarianism is called democracy, and the iron fisted rule by a tiny group of the Commonwealth elite goes by the name of the “Peoples Republic of Virginia”, the newest communist power and socialist state within itself where the wayward rules of democracy and freedom only apply when benefited by the “Red State” itself and its socialist leaders.

Civil commitment, not unlike Marxist terror, is the cruelest of unusual punishment.  In order to legitimize and gain assurance as to a guaranteed prosecution under the Civil Commitment Act, the state has assembled a “Special Inquisition”, a specialized team of prosecutors whose sole job is Civil Commitment cases.

The practice of sorcery is being incorporated in the design of offensive deposition by means of a “Crystal Ball” used to determine recidivism among sex offenders.  This crystal ball is being read by the leading professional of new age occult practioners…more commonly known as Psychologists.  Psychology is a largely pseudoscience compounded with much confusion and contradiction and theorized by literally hundreds of different schools of that that conflict with each other.  Although it is a science of the mind, it is not an exact science by any means, but Virginia court systems are using it as just that.  Virginia is using psychology as a definitive scientific tool to predict if a sex offender who has completed his sentence will reoffend if released.  The supposedly unbiased psychologists who just happen to be hand-picked and contracted by the Attorney General himself to evaluate these sex offenders will make up to $5000.00 per evaluation and $750.00 for each court visit thereafter.  That alone in this “Economic Crisis” seems to be a substantial incentive to please the Boss with an effective evaluation complimentary to the state alone.  In fact, these “Superhuman Psychologists” are well worth the states, I mean the taxpayers, money, seeing as how they can diagnose an individual without even performing tests or a verbal evaluation on the subject.  Other cases are diagnosed in one sitting of several hours, whereas in the real world it may take months for a “real doctor” to diagnose a willing patient with the simplest of illness.

In the early 1980’s, hypnosis, a then accepted and valid tool of medical science by the American Medical Association was barred as judicial testimony by the California Supreme Court  for being “frequently unreliable”.  It was also quoted as being a technique that creates ‘pseudo memories and fantasies’ and just as likely to dredge up false information as true accounts of past events.

Civil Commitment and Hypnosis are not the first accounts of the government and court systems using psychological mysticism at face value as means to condemn men, or women for that matter, for no other reason than to advance in political hierarchy.  Accounts of condemnation and one-sided trials go back centuries and can closely relate Civil Commitment to the Witch Trials, the Nazi Holocaust, Marxism, and even Religious and now Political Genocide.  The following story is a favorite in the Soviet Union but applies equally to the absolute power of Psychiatrists here in the West to rule by labeling:

Two rabbits met on a trail.  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” one asked.

“Haven’t you heard?” replied the other rabbit. “All camels are being sent to

Siberia for seven years of hard labor.”  “But, we’re not camels.” Said the first

rabbit, trying to shrug off a wave of fear.  “Of course not.”  came the quick reply.

“But when they.ve accused you of being a camel, who do you think will dare believe

you’re a rabbit?”

That story sums up the one-sided trial sex offenders are facing in Civil Commitment where destinies of men are being decided solely on the testimony of a psychologist. It is my understanding that to be labeled as a sexually violent predator you must (first) be convicted of a violent crime and (second) one must certainly have to show a pattern of predatorial behavior.  My crime, carnal knowledge, was not a violent crime in 2003 when I, at the age of 20, pled guilty.

In actuality, until Virginia began changing their own laws and statutes there was only about 25% of the sex offenders being identified as there are now.  Therefore, to justify the existence of the new $62,000,000 facility, the RRASOR test, also known as the “Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism” had to be changed to the Static-99 test which incorporates NON-sexual elements which hold no semblance to the index conviction, all in order to identify sex offenders as sexually violent predators.  If that wasn’t enough, in 2006 several non-violent crimes (including mine…carnal knowledge) were repealed and made violent in order to fill the beds in the new hospital.  This act jumped the identification rate up 350% and promised to fill the hospital in record time.

This is but a small note insofar as the preposterous means by which Virginia will stoop to acquire the individuals necessary to satiate their political hunger for sex offender genocide.  Psychology allied with the modern state is at once arrogant and arbitrary, despotic and destructive, and this despotic force is destroying lives under the cloak of medical science.

When the Civil Commitment process starts it is a secret that is cleverly disguised as Civil.  It is designed so that the state is able to assemble a crack shot task force of lawyers, paralegals, and psychiatrists before blindsiding the identified individual and pulling him from DOC and into an inadequate environment with no representation or access to legal services.  Every single civil right granted to us as humans under the Constitution of the United States is being systematically yanked from us and flaunted by Virginia, while we receive NO help from the very organizations that are designed to protect our rights also.  This is the United States NOT the United States and Virginia.  To continue to allow such negligence and moral disregard to occur and let Virginia deny men their rights with no action taken against them is a slap in the face to the very Constitution that governs our country.  That the Commonwealth alone can make up rules as they go and continually break them is ridiculous.  The ACLU will fight to save a man like the D.C. Sniper who killed several people and instilled terror into thousands across several states, but when sex offenders complete their determined sentence and are held unconstitutionally past their release date as political hostages, the ACLU refuses to get involved.

Virginia, with its specialized team is being permitted to pounce unexpectedly onto a court with judges and lawyers who have minimal to NO experience in handling civil commitment cases and some of whom do not even practice civil law.  In most instances they are unaware of what civil commitment even constitutes.  It was designed for the “worst of the worst” but has become a crapshoot of “we’ll take what we can get”.  Virginia has adopted an attitude of “lock them all up and throw away the key” and they are getting away with it.

There is no way to fully explain the extent of the atrocities that are occurring, no one wants to listen to the complaints of sex offenders and we have no way to reach the public to do so.  Whereas the state manipulates the media and raises mass hysteria on a sex offender campaign, we need an organization to speak on OUR behalf, to inform the public of the other side and stop the one-sided war against sex offenders.  Murder has many different categories, from Capital murder through first and second degree murder to manslaughter and more.  The media, however, is painting a picture of a sex offender monster; that sex offender means rapist or child molester and kidnapper only and there is only one category in which we are all placed.  The truth is there are many different variations of offenses, but the Virginia legislation is allowing the manipulation of laws to be bent to the liking of the prosecuting party and subsequently, enabling them to indefinitely commit men that do not meet the criteria.

Now you have read the truth that Virginia has fought for years to keep quiet.  Unfortunately for Virginia, Joshua Curtis refuses to lie down.  And I am determined to speak to anyone who is willing to listen.  I am a man with a family who I love and am loved by.  I have served my time for a crime that was not violent by nature but rather consensual with an underage female.  I am now being held beyond my release date in the wrongful category of the “worst of the worst.”  I fully understand the need for the process but it is not being done based on its original intent.

The ink on the Civil Commitment Act has not even dried and the witch hunt had begun.  The fact of completing my sentence is overshadowed by the threat of never gaining my earned redemption and rightful place back in society, but rather a forced, indefinite internment in a psychiatric hospital.  A onetime mistake and momentary lapse in judgment on a crime that was not violent…not murder, and a “victim” that I can apologize to, is apparently sufficient grounds for being called not only a criminal or sex offender…but an uncontrollable deviant, a violent predator.  A psychiatric hospital is immeasurably worse than prison or even a concentration camp, and this cure for sexually violent predators is a monstrous political distortion, a crime against the very nature of our Constitution, against the right to think, speak, believe and be free…Civil Commitment is a political white wash for what it truly is…spiritual murder.

Joshua Lee Curtis

November 16, 2009

Piedmont Regional Jail

Farmville, VA

Any copies of this blog needs to be linked back to here

Here are 3 sites I urge you to check out :

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

stamp: 10 kopeyka

year: 1977

reptile: snake

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

…was Soviet Union’s staged excuse to attack Finland in November 1939. Soviets claimed that Finland was responsible of the shelling of their village. The following three months of Winter War (see my entry) were the most crucial moments in the history of independent Finland.

Later Soviet and Russian leaders and historians have admitted that the shots didn’t come from Finland. Today is the 70th anniversary of the incident that is still referenced quite often. Less importantly this blog also reached the 500th post milestone today.

The photo is from this summer from a cannon demonstration at Suomenlinna sea fortress. To get the perfect timing, I used something that some purists might consider cheating – but not staging.

More about the Shelling of Mainila

• Wikipedia
• Discussion at Axis history forum
• YLE: Finland Marks the 70th Anniversary of Shelling of Mainila

By: RupeeNews | Moin Ansari

There is a parable in South Asia, mainly Bharat (aka India) which loosely translated goes something like this “All night long, we told you the lengthly and long-winded story of Ramayan–and in the morning you asks was ‘Sita’ one of the main characters–a man or a woman”. Obviously one who has ever read or heard the story of Sita, will never forget the fact that Sita was a woman. In Western terms it would be like reading Shakespeare and then asking whether Juliette was a woman or a man. This is exactly what happened in Washington. Even before Prime Minister arrived in Delhi, everyone know what the agenda would be—Bharati gripes against Pakistan on terror.

Mr. Manmohan didn’t realise that each time he mentioned Mumbai and terror in the same breath, it took millions of Dollars away from business in the commercial capital of Bharat. However he along with Sancho Panza in Delhi persisted in the old story of terror and why Pakistan should be sanctioned, blah blah blah.

After the long discussion, the congratulatory interview paid advertisement (interview) with Pakistanphobe Farid Zakaria and others, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with President Obama, he wanted to hear mr. Obama threaten, castigate, and scold Pakistan–to Bharati chagrin, the exact opposite happened.

After patiently listening to Bharati whining for the years, Washington essentially ignored Bharat, tripled aid to Pakistan, increase military supplies to Islamabad, and is working on construction a Reconstruction Opportunity Zone (ROZ), and a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bharat’s arch-enemy.

Obviously Mr. Singh knew all this before he came to Washington. The Bharati lobby had essentially failed to derail the Biden/Kerry-Lugar bill and the amendment letter attached to it watered down or eliminated the Bharati inspired language in the bill.

This picture is very descriptive and worth a thousand words—as Mr. Singh “stood rapt withal”, his stone faced silence, drooping face and stoic demeanour was unable to hide the disappointment–when he heard President Obama snubbed the Bharati Prime Minister by loudly proclaiming that Pakistan was a very important ally of the United States and that it was doing a lot in fighting terror.

Mr. Singh will have a lot to answer for when he returns to Delhi–the opposition will tear him apart on why he was unsuccessful in his mission–maligning Pakistan

In a press conference with the Indian PM, the US president emphasised that Pakistan was progressing against extremism. —Photo by AFP

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Tuesday re-emphasised Pakistan’s key position in the American strategy for South Asia, telling a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Islamabad had an enormously important role in the security of that region.

His statement, in response to a question about US military assistance to Pakistan, was a calculated departure from the tributes he had paid to India earlier.

In remarks delivered before the news conference, Mr Obama described India as ‘indispensable’ for his visions for the future of the world, ‘a leader in Asia and around the world,’ and a ‘nuclear power’ with which the United States would like to work ‘in preventing the spread of the world’s most deadly weapons, securing loose nuclear materials from terrorists, and pursuing our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons.’

While Mr Obama continued this eulogy in the press conference as well, he paused to stress Pakistan’s importance in the South Asian region when an Indian journalist spoke about the perception that US military aid to Pakistan was misused against India.

‘Obviously, Pakistan has an enormously important role in the security of the region,’ said Mr Obama, adding that Islamabad could fulfil this role ‘by making sure that the extremist organisations that often operate out of its territories are dealt with effectively.’

I have gained confidence that there’s not an important question out there that has not been asked that we haven’t answered to the best of our abilities, the US president said. —Photo by AFP

While acknowledging that Pakistan faced the problem of terrorism, Mr Obama said he also had ‘seen some progress’ in Islamabad’s efforts to fight the militancy.

While Prime Minister Singh was bush playing victim in Washington, his Chief of Staff General Kapoor, suffering from Foot-in-mouth-disease was busy displaying his incompetence by threatening war to its nuclear armed neighbors.

Stephen Cohen a known Indophile who created the now debunked “Cold Start Strategy” has clearly said that the India and the US are strategically moving apart. This assessment comes in the wake of the reality that America’s new banker is not New York—it is Beijing. Prime Minister Manamohan Singh sheepishly mentioned this anomaly during his various conversations in Washington and elsewhere. While the chest thumping on democracy fell on deaf ears, what chagrined the prime minister and Bharati media was the fact that the US has ignored Delhi’s whining on Mumbai. Contrary to the lobbying efforts of Delhi, the US Congress tripled aid to Pakistan, and then some—it is also working on ROZ and a FTA with Pakistan. Unbeknownst to Delhi, the US Army has helped the generals in Islamabad with weapons that are under the radar or press and or media scrutiny.

‘The work that the Pakistan military is doing in the Swat Valley and in South Waziristan all indicates the degree to which they are beginning to recognise that extremism, even if initially directed to the outside, can ultimately also have an adverse impact on their security internally,’ he said.

‘So my hope is that over time what we’re going to see is further clarity and further cooperation between all the parties and all peoples of goodwill in the region to eradicate terrorist activity, to eradicate the kind of violent extremism that we’ve seen.’

Such cooperation, he said, would benefit the peoples of Pakistan and India, and the world community as well.

Mr Obama conceded that in the past the US-Pakistan relationship was ‘single-mindedly focussed just on military assistance’ and that the United States didn’t think more broadly about how to encourage and develop the kinds of civil society in Pakistan that would make a difference in the lives of people day-to-day.

His administration, Mr Obama added, had tried to change this approach by re-focussing its attention on helping the Pakistani people.

Showing more diplomatic skill than some of his senior diplomats, President Obama also nudged India and Pakistan to resume their dialogue without appearing intrusive.

‘One of the things I admire most about Prime Minister Singh is that I think at his core he is a man of peace,’ said Mr Obama before stressing the need for a peaceful resolution of India-Pakistan disputes.

‘Obviously, there are historic conflicts between India and Pakistan. It is not the place of the United States to try to, from the outside, resolve all those conflicts,’ he said.

Pakistan has important role in S. Asia: Obama

It’s no secret that Washington DC is corrupt and dysfunctional.  8th Congressional candidate Marc Savard had a recent posting on this very issue.  He also shares some of what he will be doing over the coming months to distinquish himself in a crowded field, while working to become the candidate residents of the 8th district can trust to represent them Washington.

Voters will have to work diligently to sort through who will earn and deserve their support over the coming months.

In my travels on the campaign trail over the last year talking and listening to residents of the District, one of several common questions arise, and that is how can we possibly change such a dysfunctional and corrupt system in Washington?My answer is that you change it one person at a time.

You don’t support candidates who just  tell you what you want to hear, and who make promises that you know they can’t and won’t keep. You look for a candidate who is living the life that you live with all of the struggles and cares that the vast majority of us deal with every day.You also watch how the candidates conduct their campaigns. What kind of folks do they have on their staff? Who are their volunteers? And most importantly of all, how do they raise and spend the funds needed to operate their campaign. Because how they do all of these things will be a good indicator of the values and judgments they will take to Washington on your behalf. You deserve a candidate who will not only work for you and our country’s well-being, but will also honorably represent you with his behavior when you are not able to follow his every move.

A key indicator of that, from Marc Savard’s perspective is how they raise campaign money.

I believe that how a candidate raises and spends money is one of the key indicators of how he will operate in Washington. Where is he getting his money from. Who is he beholden to for tens of thousands of dollars of contributions. You know as well as I that when Political Action Committees (PACs), or what is generally described as special interest lobbying, gives tons of money to a candidate  ,they expect something in return. It is fundamental to our human nature that when someone does you a favor or gives you something, you are predisposed to return the favor or  give them something in return. You know in your gut for that to be true.

So if “special interest” money is a key to the corruptness of the political system, one way to change that is to not accept such donations.

The only way to break that corrupt Washington cycle between politicians and lobbyists is for a candidate for Congress to not seek out, and not accept, such donations, so that he can go to Washington clean and clear of the attachments such contributions create.

That is something 8th Congressional District candidate Marc Savard is apparently prepared to do.

I will be making just such an announcement in a detailed and formal way before the end of the year. I will also give you the information and tools readily available to you so, as Ronald Reagan aptly put it when dealing with the Soviet Union, you can “trust but verify” my pledge.

So watch my team run in the coming months and see that I will be the candidate who will earn your trust to be your Representative in Washington DC. (Source: Saturday morning on the farm – Savard for Congress)

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Baroness Ashton of Upholland’s past came back to haunt her yesterday when the European Union’s new foreign affairs chief was forced to deny taking funds from the Soviet Union during her days as treasurer for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Mbt Chapa   MBT 

Lady Ashton, a surprise choice for her post, was challenged to deny that she had contact with Russian sources while she was in charge of its accounts at the height of the Cold War.Mbt walking shoes 

The Times has learnt that concerns about her CND involvement are felt across countries from the former Iron Curtain now in the EU and that MEPs plan to question her about it when she appears before them for the hearing to confirm her in her post.

Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party leader, raised the matter on the floor of the European Parliament yesterday, earning himself a reprimand for referring to Lady Ashton and Herman Van Rompuy, the new European President, as pygmies.MBT  

Mr Farage added: “She was treasurer during a period when CND took very large donations and refused to reveal the sources. Will Baroness Ashton deny that while she was treasurer she took funds from organisations opposed to Western-style democracy? Are we really happy that somebody who will be in charge of our overseas security policy was an activist in an outfit like CND? I do not think she is a fit and proper person to do this job.”

Lady Ashton was not present but her spokesman said: “This was more than 25 years ago. She left the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1983 and has had no involvement in the organisation since then. During her time in the CND she never visited the Soviet Union, had no contact with the Soviet Union and has never accepted any money from Soviet sources. The first time she visited Russia was as EU Trade Commissioner.”

All the candidates for the next European Commission must undergo formal hearings at the European Parliament and the European People’s Party, the main centre-right group, has pledged to reject any who have promoted communism in the past. Lady Ashton has denied being a member of the Communist Party. Mbt Chapa

She is due to have an informal meeting with the MEPs’ Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday and a formal hearing in January, although she starts her new job on Tuesday.

Krisjanis Karins, a centre-right Latvian MEP, said: “Some information has been published that she was involved in this Marxist movement. If this is the case it is disturbing. We are especially concerned how the High Representative for Foreign Affairs will conduct discussions with our eastern neighbour.”

Hynek Fajnon, an MEP for the Czech centre-right ODS party, told the newspaper DNES: “There is no doubt that the Kremlin supported CND activities. If Mrs Ashton as treasurer had played any role in that, it would be a great scandal.”

Kate Hudson, chairwoman of CND, said: “Supporters of nuclear weapons have made such allegations over the years, yet not once have they produced a shred of evidence to support them. In the 1980s Bruce Kent offered £100 to anyone who could prove CND had received money from Moscow — the cheque remains unclaimed.”

Ms Hudson added: “UKIP is merely re-hashing decades-old unsubstantiated allegations which have no basis in fact. UKIP cites figures for a year when hundreds of thousands of people joined some of the largest demonstrations Britain has ever seen, during the course of which countless unrecorded individuals would have made contributions of all sizes — quite the opposite of funds coming from the machinations of a foreign power. CND will be consulting lawyers regarding the allegations made by UKIP.”

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

stamp: 40 kopeyka

year: 1959

mammal: squirrel

PKKH

By Shahid R. Siddiqi. Axis of Logic

When the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets President Obama during his visit to the US this week, the two leaders will discuss the framework for strategic dialogue between the two countries.

Singh seeks to solidify a relationship, transformed under the Bush administration from distant friendship to that of a ‘key ally’. That transformation led to a nuclear cooperation deal, increasing trade and investment, educational exchanges and unprecedented security collaboration. He is keen to finalize the civilian nuclear deal and seek Obama’s support for his bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Singh may also seek reassurance that the Indo-US relationship will not be overshadowed by the increasing Sino-US collaboration.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, India’s former mentor and ally, India sought an alliance with the United States who also had interest in wooing it. In the US containment-of-China policy under Bush, India could prove extremely useful to advance U.S. interests, particularly because of strained Sino-Indian relations over regional ambitions and border disputes which led it into a war with China in 1962, though with a humiliating outcome.

But this created a paradox for the US. Pakistan was once a key ally of the U.S., an important link in their strategy to contain communism during the cold war era and a member of the U.S.-sponsored, but now defunct military pacts – SEATO & CENTO. Pakistan became highly suspicious of this U.S. ‘tilt’ towards India. Pakistan had an acrimonious relationship with India mainly over the Kashmir and water and India’s blatant role in the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.

The consistent Indian threat to Pakistan’s security led Pakistan to develop a nuclear response to Indian acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1974 to maintain the balance of power and ward off Indian hegemonic designs. Despite Pakistan’s efforts and calls by the international community, India refused negotiated settlements of disputes. This has kept the pot simmering, maintaining an uneasy peace in the region. In the absence of progress in resolving the root causes of tensions, recent assurances by Obama and Singh, that India poses no threat to Pakistan – were rejected outright in Pakistan.

The US has used Pakistan for its own geopolitical objectives in the past during the cold war, to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and then for its war on terror in Afghanistan after 9/11. While it aided and equipped Pakistan for the role it wanted Pakistan to play, Pakistan’s relationship with the US has swung from being the ‘most allied ally’ to being the “most neglected ally” and then to being the ‘most sanctioned ally’, depending upon how much the US needed Pakistan’s services at any given time. In Pakistan, the US has come to be perceived as most unreliable and is viewed with deep suspicion.

Presently, the deepening U.S. relations with India result from the changing American perspective of the region. India could prove to be a huge market for American high tech goods and weapon systems in the future. Also its growing nuclear and military strength coupled with regional ambitions could be useful to the US as its proxy for policing the region.

Realizing that he cannot maintain a military presence in Afghanistan for long, Obama needs to install a proxy power there too when he decides to pull out, most likely by 2011. India fits the bill. The US expects India to keep the government in Kabul under check, keep peace among warring factions and protect American interests.

India has its own interests too. The nuclear deterrence will not allow India to launch military aggression against Pakistan, but it can work for the dismemberment of Pakistan by promoting an Eastern Pakistan style insurgency in Balochistan and by continuing to squeeze Pakistan on the western border using rogue elements from the tribal belt. It has already begun to position its troops there under cover of “development work”.

The belief that India can hold the fort for the US is a fallacy. If the Afghans, who fiercely oppose foreign occupiers whom they have thrown out unceremoniously in the past and if the U.S. is also on the verge of withdrawal, what makes anyone think that Indian forces would be welcome to stay? Besides, the Taliban, who are bound to gain political influence in Kabul sooner or later, will reject Indian military presence on their soil, as it will represent American interests.

This Indo-US partnership, which seeks to serve divergent geopolitical objectives and is based on taking advantage of one and other, will neither be smooth nor lasting. Above all, it will seriously jeopardize peace in South Asia by alienating Pakistan and adding to its existing tensions with India. This will also ring alarm bells in Tehran and Beijing.

As of now in the current US matrix, cordial Sino-US relations are very important for a variety of reasons, mainly owing to U.S. reliance on Chinese economic support and that will not end any time soon. It is clearly not feasible for Obama to promote relations with India at the cost of its relations with China.

But this will not sit well with a sensitive India, given the history of Sino-Indian rivalry. Only recently the Indian officials, says a Washington Post report, in an outburst of Brahmanic self importance expressed concern that New Delhi has suddenly been relegated to the second tier of U.S.-Asian relations because Obama did not mention India in his speech on US relations in Asia recently. The speech was delivered in Tokyo and focused on the Asia-Pacific region and not South Asia. This, the Indians believe, is Obama’s failure to recognize India’s broader regional aspirations, something that the Bush administration had encouraged. The Indians were upset that “Washington was leaning too closely to China”.

Then to India’s chagrin came a call made through the joint statement on conclusion of Obama’s visit to China, in which Obama suggested that Beijing mediate between India and Pakistan. The statement said,

“China and the United States are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.”

“A third-country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary” to solve disputes between India and Pakistan, was the retort by Indian Foreign Ministry. The influential Times of India headline read “Obama’s China [credit] card casts shadow on PM’s US visit,” referring to the $800 billion in U.S. Treasury securities held by China.

Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment said he detected in India “a sense of exclusion that’s been gnawing at them since the Tokyo speech.” He added: “The joint statement prompted new fears that somehow the United States and China would collude to manage events in South Asia.”

Tellis said this has caused particular neuralgia in India because tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have risen recently over competing border claims. India is also upset over Chinese plans to divert waters of Brahmaputra River that originates in Tibet and flows into Northeastern India, without whose water its plains would lay waste. In addition, Indians are concerned that the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, views India as part of the South Asian problem, which includes the instability in Pakistan.

China’s interest in South Asia, a natural outcome of its regional security concerns in its sensitive underbelly and its very close relations with Pakistan, is unpalatable for India which considers South Asia as its exclusive domain.

These Indian sensitivities will keep the US on the edge. To assure them that India was in its own league in South Asia and of America’s growing closeness, Secretary Clinton spent four days in India in July but refrained from a stopover in neighboring Pakistan.

In a geopolitically sensitive region, where the US has to cater to important bilateral interests with China, even handedly deal with a Pakistan whose cooperation in Afghanistan is key to its success and which is increasingly angry over repeated American betrayals, and to keep the Taliban and Pashtun sensitivities in mind while negotiating a exit deal with them, the tendency to throw tantrums on the part of Indian leadership could make the new partnership difficult to sustain.

Therefore, before rushing into a collaborative arrangement with India and offering highly sensitive nuclear technologies, the US will be well-advised to first test out the prickly world of relations with New Delhi.

Despite tall claims about being the biggest democracy, India remains high on the list of human rights violations and has a long way to go in ensuring equal social status to Dalits (also called the untouchables) who form 20 percent of the population. It has been repeatedly accused of ethnic and religious cleansing of minorities.

If the US could make a political issue out of Tiananmen Square and Obama could refer to human rights issues during his China visit, why should not India be held to the same standard during Singh’s visit.

As for the Indian request for a permanent seat on the Security Council, it is important to bear in mind that India itself is involved in Kashmir dispute pending before the Security Council and whose Resolutions it has refused to implement. At the bottom of the dispute is the issue of exercise of the people’s will in determining Kashmir’s final dispensation. The dispute has led India to fight three wars with Pakistan and one with China. India has stationed several army divisions in Kashmir to subjugate the people and independent sources have confirmed killings of thousands of unarmed Kashmiris and sexual abuse perpetrated on thousands of women by these security forces.

In response to a similar bid earlier, India was advised to first settle the Kashmir dispute. Then the U.S.-India relationship had just begun to take shape with limited US influence over India. But now that the US enjoys greater clout, it could more effectively pressure India for a negotiated settlement, which is in every one’s interest, as well as in the interest of peace.

© Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

What a poignant story written by Marina Lewycka, where to begin?  This book “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” depicts a dysfunctional family in the many layers she produces in this quick read of 324 pages.  For those who know their Soviet history in Ukraine, there will be nothing new about the different locations mentioned and what the Ukrainians underwent during the famine of 1932-33, Great Patriotic War and post war year repressions. 

For those people from the West who know little to nothing about the Soviet period of collectivization, industrialization, famine, purges, repressions, the reader is compelled forward, the author deftly records historical fact.  The reason you read on through the somber details is really the underlying fabric with the bright ornamentation of the character development of the 46 year old daughter Nadia who writes in first person about her Big Sis Vera.  The two sisters team up to help their 84 year old father struggle against the demon 36 year old hussy from Ukraine, Valentina who marries him to improve her lot in life in England.

Meanwhile, the engineer father who is probably certifiably crazy is paranoid and love starved, writes a short history that is woven throughout about tractors.  The eccentric father was the Big Idea guy who was married to the two sisters mother for 60 years, she was the one who had the Ukrainian friends in their community in England. Masterfully composed from beginning to end, this book reminded me once again that I had just finished reading another book (The Help) that was layered with family stories tied up in political big picture drama in the U.S. in the 1960s. 

Not sure I can read too many more of these emotional books about families being so far away from my own family during this Thanksgiving season.  I just learned that a colleague lost a one year old niece to swine flu. The one fear we as foreigners have is losing a loved one while living so far away.  It happens. Family is very valuable and blood does run thicker than water.

Here is one painting at the TENGRI-UMAI art gallery, here in Almaty, Kazakhstan that I enjoyed looking at. It reminds me of my Mom and three sisters, our sitting around the piano making music with singing and stringed instruments.  Looking back, I came from a fairly normal family.  For that I am thankful.

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, 1967
A great example of how an allegory changes and loses its power when divested of its original meaning through time and cultural distance. Apparently, this story of the Devil arriving in Russia with a band of merry demons and causing havoc is some kind of commentary on Stalin’s U.S.S.R. Nowadays it just reads like a slightly chaotic magic realist piece where part of the pleasure lies in the quaint descriptions of Russian life in the early part of the 20th Century and the phantasmagorical tableaux the characters are thrust into. What’s clear is that Bulgakov had no love for the bureaucratic, atheistic society that existed in Russia – especially the one cherished by fellow artists. The initial sadistic pranks played on humans get softened towards the second half of the story when the Devil meets Margarita, a compassionate girl with the makings of a witch who has never forgotten her love for the “master”, a failed writer stuck in a psychiatric hospital (the calmest, most relaxing place in the novel.) Watch out too for the creepy, fat black cat that creeps out most of the people who cross his path (including the reader).

Bulgakov’s novel is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to discuss with others that know the story. Now I’m off to figure out what the hell he was going on about!

Yuri Felshtinsky: Where I see the main problem, of course, is that the government hoodwinks the people and the people go along with it. In other words, the people have no objection in principle to such an approach. I personally don’t like it, but on the other hand I find myself imagining someone who fell asleep in 1988, say, during perestroika, waking up in 2001 or 2008, under Putin, anyway. And this person had slept through the whole of the Yeltsin era, slept and didn’t even know that the Yeltsin era had ever existed. Imagine newsreels where someone just took a pair of scissors and cut out all the Yeltsin-era material from 1990 to 2000. And actually, let’s be honest, the picture we see today is absolutely wonderful, if we compare it with the Soviet era, or the period  of 1988-89-90. There’s no Communist Party, or at least, the CP exists only as one of numerous political parties. There’s no ideology. There’s a market economy, there’s freedom to travel abroad. The elections can’t really be called elections, of course, but that’s only if we compare them with elections in France, or America, or Britain. And if we compare them with the elections there were in the Soviet Union, the elections in Russia nowadays are simply beyond one’s wildest dreams. Both at a local and at a national level.

There is absolutely no freedom of speech, of course, let’s be frank about that. Nevertheless, there is a sort of opposition press, there’s Novaya Gazeta, there are some journalists, there’s Latynina. Yes, journalist are killed from time to time. But even so, we’re not talking about the millions of people who lost their lives in the purges of the Stalin era – we can speak, we can have different opinions, these statistics are always sad, and some of the people who’ve been killed were my very close friends, Anya Politkovskaya, for example (that was a personal loss) but we are nevertheless talking about 200-300 journalists being killed,  not about total political control.

And while there is absolutely no question that some politicians have been murdered, there is no global political terror of the kind there was in the former Soviet Union.

So you know, it all depends on how we compare those different eras. And perhaps we really need to agree that yes, Russia is not capable – at this point in history, at least. and we’re not talking about 10-30 or even 50 years – Russia is not capable of becoming some European, civilized, democratic country, it’s not ready to become that yet.

Russia is still trying to find its place in history and its path in history. Another thing is that, as history shows, Russians must constantly pay for this quest. Russia’s search for its path in history is an expensive venture in the world of today. Of course, I would prefer it if Russia and the Russian people, or the Russians, would calm down and realize that they don’t have a path of their own in history.

Mikhail Sokolov: A special one.

Yuri Felshtinsky: They have no special path.

http://felshtinsky.livejournal.com/2434.html

Mikhail Sokolov: So is Russia continuing to travel along the path laid out by Putin – anti-Westernism, “soft” dictatorship, and so on, or not?

Yuri Felshtinsky: You know, I can’t really call what’s happening in Russia today anti-Westernism, or even soft dictatorship. The people in the government are mostly those who worked for the KGB all their lives, or sometimes for other law enforcement agencies. In addition to the fact that all these people were born and lived in the Soviet era and were trained in the Soviet system, these people have passed through the school of the law enforcement agencies.

I don’t mean to offend the former or current leaders of the KGB, but you and I both know how the selection process for this organization, especially the KGB, worked. In other words, let’s put it this way: there are no good people there. I can’t emphasize this enough. A good person did not go to work for the KGB. I know it from Sasha Litvinenko. I always said to Sasha Litvinenko: “Sasha, you know, there are two people in your organization. One needs to be rewarded, and the other needs to be punished.” He would say: “Who are they?” “The person who should be rewarded is whoever chose you to work in the FSB and the KGB. Because it’s incredible, I mean, you’re a typical KGB officer. And the person who ought to be punished is whoever let slip the moment when you decided to defect from the KGB, because it’s extremely dangerous for the KGB to have you as an enemy.” And as an enemy of the FSB Litvinenko was indeed very dangerous, and so they killed him. They couldn’t find any other way of fighting him, they had to kill him.

To return to our topic: a good person did not go to work for the KGB, so by definition absolutely all the people who served in the KGB were bad people. That may be a naive thing to say.

Mikhail Sokolov: Not very scientific.

Yuri Felshtinsky: No, but it’s true. In everyday terms, you and I and all of us know that all those people are bad people. So what can one expect of the political system of our country, whether present or future, when it’s overwhelmingly led by these same bad people? Of course, nothing good can be expected of it. The fact that from time to time we encounter some anti-Western statements, for example, or some minor wars such as the one in Georgia –it’s all the result of the fact that these people run Russia today. They can’t act any differently, it’s just the way they’re made.

http://felshtinsky.livejournal.com/4745.html

By: RupeeNews

Peace is impossible to be attained in the region unless India stop its support to terrorism in Pakistan, foreign minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi said. In an interview to German news agency Qureshi said, “India is supporting the terrorists in the tribal areas and Balochistan.” “Pakistan is collecting concrete evidences against the Indian intervention in the Pakistani tribal areas and Balochistan,” said Qureshi. He also said that peace and security is impossible to be attained in South Asia unless India changes its hostile behaviour towards Pakistan. India igniting terrorism in Pak: Qureshi. The Nation.

We repeatedly reported the destructive and negative role of the 4 “Indian Consulates” and the 13 Indian “Information Centers”in Afghanistan. Several news stores about the Indian base in Tajikistan shed light on the nefarious Indian designs in building Chahbahar, the support for BLA terrorists in Baluchistan, the infiltration of Indian agents in anti-Pakistan groups like the TTP, and the direct role of the Indian RAW in sending suicide bombers into Pakistan. Rupee News has now once again been corroborated by the statements of one of the most powerful advisers to Mr. Zardari himself. As the level of frustration grows in ISAF, Indian RAW tried to pawn itself off as the stabilizing factor. here is an effort to send massive Indian forces to Kabul. A growing number of Think Tanks and journalists have seen through the facade of India as a world power? and are now looking at dramatically new solutions.

The Rand Corporation in a recent study as well as the Zibig Brezinski and others are now openly opposing the old Indian version of events. Of course RAW activities are not limited to Pakistan.

FINALLY, the US Administration is being told some home truths about the realities on the ground in Pakistan, especially relating to the “war on terror” and the Pakistan-US relationship. It has been evident for some time that the US and its intelligence agency the CIA have had a major falling out with the Pakistan military and especially the ISI. This occurred, it is believed, when the CIA sought direct intervention into ISI dealings in FATA and sought to take out some valuable operatives. But at a macro level, that was simply a reflection of a far larger distrust which was aggravated by the mounting US failures in Afghanistan. Unable to correct course, the easiest option was to target Pakistan and the ISI. Meanwhile, all evidence pointing to Indian covert activities in Balochistan and FATA from Afghanistan were simply being ignored by the US, despite the Pakistan government pointing this out. Some would say the US itself allowed the free flow of weapons from Afghanistan into FATA and Balochistan.

The Pakistani leadership also, despite publicly accusing India and providing evidence to that effect, has tended to downplay it in its interactions with US officials. Now with the visit of the CIA chief to Pakistan, the military through the ISI has directly raised the issue with its US counterpart, the CIA, and given evidence of Indian shenanigans in Afghanistan and possible US involvement in and support of these covert activities. This position has also been reiterated by the Prime Minister, who not only strongly took up these issues with the CIA Chief, but also pointed out the necessity of involving Pakistan in any Afghan strategy being devised by the US.