Pakistan will not be a bed of roses for Hale

Pakistanis have always welcomed the US Ambassadors in Pakistan with the hope that relationship between the two countries will improve eventually. However, the experience has been contrary as the US mantra of ‘do more’ never ends. This often gives Pakistanis an impression that their country has become subservient to the sole surviving super power.
With the US focus shifting away from Arabian Peninsula to South China Sea, South Asia also seems to have lost its strategic importance. Fanning the differences between India and Pakistan, the two atomic powers of the region is playing with fire. The added problem is Afghanistan, where the governments failing in discharging their duties are prompt in blaming Pakistan.
The designate ambassador David Hale has spent some time in Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and at the US Mission to the United Nations, with multiple tours in Lebanon and Jordan. In Washington, he has also worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel, Egypt and the Levant, Director for Israel and Palestinian Affairs, and Executive Assistant to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Designate Ambassador replaces Richard Olson in Islamabad and will also have to work with him closely after his appointment as US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Olson assumes this responsibility at a time when the US and its Afghan allies face resurgent militancy in Afghanistan. Both the diplomats are expected to play a key role in the reconciliation process aimed at ending hostilities between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban.
One may recall that in the recent past Olson has talked about ending proxy wars. After the ISIS attack on France a question has become too loud, who supports this most brutal outfit? Naturally, fingers are being pointed at CIA and all those countries which are buying crude oil from ISIS. People also fail to understand why this phantom can’t be controlled if many of the super powers are busy in bombing ISIS hide out in Syria and Iraq.
It is also to remind the new Ambassador that in various regions CIA intervenes more in diplomatic issues. Olson’s predecessor Munter, who had been an advocate within the Obama administration for reconciliation with Pakistan, resigned in May 2012. People close to him have said he was frustrated that the CIA and Pentagon taking the lead on Pakistan policy.
Pakistan will not be a bed of roses for Hale as he has to face two of US historical rivals in Pakistan. Both China and Russia are making huge investments in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis have strong feeling that the US has never considered their country an economic partner but used their homeland and armed forces in a proxy war in Afghanistan.
I accept my inadequacy in understanding the US foreign policy but often I am forced to conclude that despite fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan, Pakistan had to hear ‘do more mantra’. Three of its immediate neighbors, India, Afghanistan and Iran are annoyed with Pakistan for towing the US foreign policy agenda blindly. Will the designate Ambassador be able to help Pakistan get its due place in the US foreign policy?

US troops to stay in Afghanistan perpetually

I wrote a blog as back as in August 2012 posing a question; will the US pull its troops out of Afghanistan after 2014? While the overwhelming perception was it will pull the troops out, my conclusion was contrary. This seems true as the US troops are still there, with 2015 approaching an end.

Even at that time I had stated very clearly that the US attack was not to liberate Afghanistan from the control of USSR or Taliban but to occupy it for economical and political reasons. Neither presence of Taliban in Afghanistan not its involvement in attack on the world trade center was known to all.

Now, I can attribute occupation of Afghanistan to: 1) valuable metals in the country, 2) geopolitics and top of all 3) the huge quantity of poppy produced in the country. Being the super power the US keeps its troops in almost every region where it has some stake. Afghanistan has an important place in the US foreign policy due to common borders with Pakistan, Iran, China and proximity with many oil and gas rich Central Asian countries.

After the Islamic Revolution, Iran was projected as the biggest threat for the world, especially for Arab monarchs and also to the US and its 53^rd state, Israel. The US also had plans to send its troops to Iran to takeover country’s nuclear assets. It needs an outpost near Iran and Afghanistan is the ideal country.  The two countries share a long mountainous border, which is virtually impossible to monitor and defend.  

China is the second most powerful superpower, which is likely to surpass the gross domestic product of the US by 2020 and become world’s strongest economic superpower. The US already has outposts in Taiwan and South Korea and Afghanistan provides the third base in case any attack o China becomes the ultimate.

Taking Afghanistan as hostage was part of the US foreign policy and military strategy. The USSR believed that getting control over Afghanistan could give it a perfect foot hold in South Asia and the Middle East. The US also believes the Afghanistan is the gateway to central Asian countries.

Over the years China remained focused on its economy. When Russia tried to stretch its muscles sanctions were imposed on it. Now it is attacking ISIS bases in Syria and also trying to establish friendly relations with Pakistan and other strategically important countries

This does not bode well for the US, still adamant at maintaining its hegemony in South Asia and MENA. Therefore, probability of end to the US occupation of Afghanistan is hoping against the hopes.

 

US the worst dictator

The West owes Russia a lot, first a sincere apology and a welcome into Europe. Russia has been and is an extremely important nation and very unjustly denied its rightful place there. What doesn’t belong to Europe is the US, not in any way whatsoever, especially because being a dictatorship.

Why does America’s anti-Russia military club NATO still exist, after the Soviet Union’s equivalent Warsaw Pact disbanded in 1991 when the Soviet Union and its communism voluntarily ended? NATO is nothing but America’s anti-Russia military club, against Russia and against any nation that supports Russia.

The US killed Gaddafi of Libya because he supported Russia in international relations. The super power created a failed state and jihadist mayhem that has virtually destroyed the country. All was done in the name of change of regime and the assault was directly supervised by the US Ambassador in Libya.

The US overthrew Yanukovych in Ukraine only because he turned down the EU’s offer to Ukraine after learning that the price-tag for Ukrainians would be $160 billion if Ukraine were to comply with the EU’s demands. There are some credible evidences that the U.S. was already organizing the coup against him starting a year before the coup, and nine months before Yanukovych turned down the EU’s offer.

The US after failing in overthrowing Assad in Syria, facilitated ISIS to make an entry and now along with many other European countries supposedly attacking ISIS bases but virtually destroying Iraq and Syria. This created worst refugee problem and to close the door for these Paris was attached by ISIS.

The US was also the leader in initiating a war against Iran, after Islamic Revolution, with the help of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The sanctions are there for more than three decades. Now the efforts are to split Iraq in three states. Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war in Yemen.

This is dictatorship and totalitarianism of the US fully supported by the West, against Russia and any other nation that isn’t buckling to the U.S. aristocracy and its allied aristocracies in Europe.       

Let’s start with the results of a 2009 investigation by Germany’s Spiegel, or Mirror, magazine, which is a mainstream German news site, that’s a bit more honest than America’s equivalents. They headlined, very directly: “NATO’s Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?”

They identified what that “promise” was, which Russia claims was violated, and which Spiegel was investigating: “that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification.” The next sentence in Spiegel’s report states unequivocally their conclusion: “Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.”

The question Spiegel’s article discusses isn’t whether NATO’s continued existence is an evil, but instead whether NATO should have extended eastward up to Russia’s own borders — whether, to make this matter quite clear now, if the USSR had won, and its Warsaw Pact and not NATO had continued (though neither should have continued), the Warsaw Pact should have extended itself all the way to including Mexico and/or Canada? 

One is inclined to conclude that the West lies about this history and only the few people with brains and open minds will get the important point:

When the then merely West Germany was negotiating reunification of Germany with the then merely Eastern half of Germany, is exactly in accord with what Russia’s allegations have been saying all along, and exactly the opposite of what West Germany’s Foreign Minister then, Hans Dietrich Genscher, has been asserting to have been the case.

Jack Matlock, the US ambassador in Moscow at the time, has said in the past that Moscow was given a “clear commitment.” Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister in 1990, says this was precisely not the case.

After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, it can be concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia.

Europe remained allied with the U.S. and continues participating in NATO, especially after having been instructed by America to lie, and to have deceived Gorbachev, who behaved honorably throughout and afterward, is Europe’s great shame.

The US is also Europe’s enemy — not merely Russia’s enemy. Not merely the truth’s enemy. Not merely democracy’s enemy.

World must oppose US assaults in Syria and Iraq

I have repeatedly stated in my blogs that a proxy war is being fought in Syria. The objective is not as stated by the US, ‘change in regime in Syria’ but to continuously keep the neighboring Muslim countries in state of war.

The engagement on one hand forces these countries to buy more of ‘Made in USA armaments’ and on the other hand make them ‘war maniacs’ usually termed militants by the western media. Bulk of petrodollars are being spent on purchase of arms rather than on the welfare of people,

Ironically, western media, which once enjoyed the honor of being independent, can at best be termed ‘propagators of policies of hawks’. In the past some of the icons questioned policies of the then US president towards Vietnam, which left him with no option, but to step down, as against Bush and Obama have thrived on wars.

It seems that kind of critics have vanished or have been replaced by the cronies, constantly playing war mantra. The latest addition to the long list is Secretary of Defense; Ashton Carter who recently appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to outline a new US military strategy for the Middle East.

The Secretary admitted the failure of the US “train and equip” program for rebels in Syria, but instead of taking the appropriate lessons from that failure and get out of the “regime change” obsession, he announced the opposite.

According to the Secretary the US military would for the first time become directly and overtly involved in combat in Syria and Iraq. Under this program the US would begin supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIS or conducting such missions directly, either by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.

Direct action on the ground means US boots on the ground, even though President Obama had ruled out that possibility when he launched air strikes against Iraq and Syria last year. But promises are made and broken to achieve the vested interests; no one can deny this harsh reality.

The entire world needs to condemn the US decision at attack Syria in the strongest words, the ill-advised US military escalation in the Middle East. Whoever concluded that it was a good idea to send US troops into an area already being bombed by Russian military forces must be relieved of his duty on ‘medical grounds’ for being completely devoid of rationale thinking.

The fact is those who run US foreign policy don’t have the courage to accept their clear defeat in almost every war. They are so obsessed with their regime change plan in Syria that they are willing to risk the lives of US soldiers and initiate another mega war in the region — or even beyond.

These hawks insist that Russian strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda must be resisted, because these are seen as helping the Assad government remain in power, and the US administration is determined that Assad must go. Why can’t the US just walk out of the Arabian Peninsula, which is no longer a source of cheap oil?

I believe building heat in MENA is just to divert attention of the world from South China Sea, where the US has already started minor encounters with China. I am forced to reiterate my words ‘US is the biggest warmonger’, I deliberately avoided using the term ‘terrorist’ often used by Iran.