Obama cashes Osama bin Laden Cheque

Moeed Pirzada discusses with Naseem Zehra (Journalist), Moeed Yusuf (USIP), Rustam Shah Mehmond (Former Ambassador), Maria Sultan (SASSI) and Prof. Zafar Jaspal (QAU) that what is the significance of Obama's kabul visit to Pakistan.

Not Explaining the Why of Terrorism By Ray McGovern

May 03, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -- John Brennan, President Obama’s chief adviser on counterterrorism, has again put on public display two unfortunate facts: (1) that the White House has no clue as to how to counter terrorism; and (2) (in Brennan’s words) “the unfortunate fact that to save many innocent lives we are sometimes obliged to take lives.”

In a speech on April 30, Brennan did share one profound insight: “Countries typically don’t want foreign soldiers in their cities and towns.” His answer to that? “The precision of targeted [drone] strikes.” Does he really mean to suggest that local populations are more accepting of unmanned drones buzzing overhead and firing missiles on the push of a button by a “pilot” halfway around the world?

Beneath Brennan’s Orwellian rhetoric lies the reality that he remains unable (or unwilling) to deal with, the $64 question former White House correspondent Helen Thomas asked him repeatedly on Jan. 7, 2010, about why terrorists do the things they do.

Brennan: “Al-Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Is it possible he still has no clue? To demonstrate how little progress Brennan has made in the way of understanding the challenge of “terrorism,” let’s look back at my commentary in early 2010 about Brennan’s vacuous non-answers to Helen Thomas. At the time, I wrote:

Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

After Obama briefly addressed L’Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote “must do better” on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas (now 91) to break through the vapid remarks about rechanneling “intelligence streams,” fixing “no-fly” lists, deploying “behavior detection officers,” and buying more body-imaging scanners.

Thomas recognized the John & Janet filibuster for what it was, as her catatonic press colleagues took their customary dictation and asked their predictable questions. Instead, Thomas posed an adult query that spotlighted the futility of government plans to counter terrorism with more high-tech gizmos and more intrusions on the liberties and privacy of the traveling public.

She asked why Abdulmutallab did what he did. Thomas: “And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.”

Brennan: “Al-Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents. … They attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he’s (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al-Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.”

Thomas: “And you’re saying it’s because of religion?”

Brennan: “I’m saying it’s because of an al-Qaeda organization that used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.”

Thomas: “Why?”

Brennan: “I think this is a — long issue, but al-Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.”

Neither did President Obama, nor anyone else in the U.S. political/media hierarchy. All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how al-Qaeda evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable young men.

There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks. More

I started asking a similar question in 2003. I asked at two high-level conferences in the UK "What does Al Qaida want? What are their demands? The replies I got were; (A) from a member of the Council of Europe that they have no demands, and (B) from a senior gentleman from the Ministry of Defence speaking in a private capacity that, "We do not negotiate with terrorists". Sitting besides me on one occasion was the President of the university who leaned over and said to me "He is not telling the truth, I was a senior officer in the British Army stationed in Northern Ireland and we were speaking to the IRA on a daily basis". Editor

A tale of two treaties

Before the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1970, concerned scientists made dire predictions about the rate at which nuclear weapons would spread around the globe. Thanks in part to the treaty, the gloomiest scenarios have been avoided. But many in the developing world question whether their countries have been fairly compensated for their decisions to forego nuclear weapons -- whether the bargain at the heart of the treaty is being honored. Below, Naeem Ahmad Salik of Pakistan, Adel M. Ali of Egypt, and Sunday Jonah of Nigeria grapple with the question: "How can signatories to the NPT ensure that the treaty's provisions are fairly enforced?"

The basic aims of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are fairly straightforward: to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons; to provide assurances, through international safeguards, that peaceful nuclear activities will not lead to the production of nuclear weapons; to promote, to the maximum extent consistent with the treaty's other provisions, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy; and eventually to make progress toward nuclear disarmament.

But enforcement of the treaty's provisions has long been a major challenge -- in part because the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is empowered to enforce the Safeguards Agreements that it establishes with individual nations, is not empowered to enforce the treaty as a whole. That is, the agency has no executive force. In any case, its role as an international promoter of "Atoms for Peace" is as important as its safeguards function.

Limits on the IAEA's authority, particularly in the field of nuclear security, amount to a set of serious deficiencies in the nonproliferation regime. For example, the agency cannot require states to establish systems for nuclear security. It has no authority to verify that nuclear materials within states are accorded appropriate physical protection. Even guidance on these issues is provided by the agency only on request, and though the IAEA regularly publishes recommendations PDF on these topics, following the recommendations is not mandatory. No nuclear security mandate requires that states adequately protect their nuclear materials. More

 

The Elephant and the Dragon

The Pentagon’s Defense Strategic Review, released in January, recommended a “strategic pivot” to East Asia. A turn away from the military conflagrations that have been occupying America in the Middle East over the last decade, the focus of this long-term pivot is of course a rising China.

If the shift is to be successful, Washington needs a strategic partner to bridge U.S. priorities in East Asia with its enduring concerns in Central Asia. Sitting astride the Indian Ocean, democratic India may be what President Obama has called a “natural” ally—but any alliance must be based on mutual interests. What these are and how they translate into points of cooperation for Washington and New Delhi will largely depend on what unites them: China’s strategy.




China’s Military Strategy

There are two key pillars of China’s strategic expansion, the first based on Beijing’s naval strategy. The energy supplies that fuel China’s economic growth must traverse the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Accordingly, a blockade of its economically vibrant eastern coast, launched from bases in the Philippines, Japan, Guam and Taiwan, is Beijing’s primary external threat. This threat compels Beijing to seek to ensure the security of—and its own extended influence in—those sea lines of communication, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. More

Rules of the road for Space - Michael Krepon

Satellites are crucial for national, economic and personal security. They permit quick and secure long-distance financial transactions. First responders, disaster relief workers and lost motorists can find their way using GPS devices. Satellites provide warnings of devastating storms in enough time to take precautionary measures. We depend on satellites for intelligence collection. They help U.S. soldiers in harm’s way and minimize civilian casualties. Satellites monitor the health of the planet. No country benefits more from satellites than the United States.

These satellites are now at risk – mostly from space debris, but also from a growing competition with China and the absence of rules of the road for what constitutes responsible behavior in space. A Code of Conduct can backstop satellite operations, preserve the space environment, and prevent dangerous clashes of interest in outer space.

Satellites are as vulnerable as they are valuable. They are far easier to damage than to defend. Because satellites orbit the earth in predictable paths, potential adversaries can find and target them. Missiles designed to launch satellites, attack distant targets, or intercept incoming missiles can also be used to destroy satellites.

A nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere can disable many satellites. The United States learned this in 1962, when a particularly powerful U.S. nuclear test victimized one British, one Soviet, and four U.S. satellites. The most famous casualty of this test was Telstar, a satellite than allowed the first transmission of television images across the Atlantic. Telstar inspired an instrumental record that topped the charts as its namesake was dying from nuclear weapon effects. More

 

Urgent Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

An Urgent Request on UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel

Recently, former diplomats and experts both in Japan and abroad stressed the extremely risky condition of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool and this is being widely reported by world media. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), who is one of the best-known experts on spent nuclear fuel, stated that in Unit 4 there is spent nuclear fuel which contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount that was released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Thus, if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.

Nuclear experts from the US and Japan such as Arnie Gundersen, Robert Alvarez, Hiroaki Koide, Masashi Goto, and Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, and, Akio Matsumura, a former UN diplomat, have continually warned against the high risk of the Fukushima Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.

US Senator Roy Wyden, after his visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 6 April, 2012, issued a press release on 16 April, pointing out the catastrophic risk of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4, calling for urgent US government intervention. Senator Wyden also sent a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan’s Ambassador to the United States, requesting Japan to accept international assistance to tackle the crisis.

We Japanese civil organizations express our deepest concern that our government does not inform its citizens about the extent of risk of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. Given the fact that collapse of this pool could potentially lead to catastrophic consequences with worldwide implications, what the Japanese government should be doing as a responsible member of the international community is to avoid any further disaster by mobilizing all the wisdom and the means available in order to stabilize this spent nuclear fuel. It is clearly evident that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool is no longer a Japanese issue but an international issue with potentially serious consequences. Therefore, it is imperative for the Japanese government and the international community to work together on this crisis before it becomes too late. We are appealing to the United Nations to help Japan and the planet in order to prevent the irreversible consequences of a catastrophe that could affect generations to come. We herewith make our urgent request to you as follows: More

 

Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

 

Medea Benjamin

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the human rights/fair trade group Global Exchange.




Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan spoke at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington DC on April 30 to mark the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was the first time a high level member of the Obama Administration spoke at length about the U.S. drone strikes that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command have been carrying out in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

“President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts,” Brennan explained.

I had just co-organized a Drone Summit over the weekend, where Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar told us heart-wrenching stories about the hundreds of innocent victims of our drone attacks. We saw horrific photos of people whose bodies were blown apart by Hellfire missiles, with only a hand or a slab of flesh remaining. We saw poor children on the receiving end of our attacks—maimed for life, with no legs, no eyes, no future. And for all these innocents, there was no apology, no compensation, not even an acknowledgement of their losses. Nothing.

The U.S. government refuses to disclose who has been killed, for what reason, and with what collateral consequences. It deems the entire world a war zone, where it can operate at will, beyond the confines of international law.

So there I was at the Wilson Center, listening to Brennan describe our policies as ethical, “wise,” and in compliance with international law. He spoke as if the only people we kill with our drone strikes are militants bent on killing Americans. “It is unfortunate that to save innocent lives we are sometimes obliged to take lives – the lives of terrorists who seek to murder our fellow citizens.” The only mention of taking innocent lives referred to Al Qaeda. “Al Qaeda’s killing of innocent civilians, mostly Muslim men, women and children, has badly tarnished its image and appeal in the eyes of Muslims around the world.” This is true, but the same must be said of U.S. policies that fuel anti-American sentiments in the eyes of Muslims around the world.

So I stood up and in a calm voice, spoke out.

“Excuse me, Mr. Brennan, will you speak out about the innocents killed by the United States in our drone strikes? What about the hundreds of innocent people we are killing with drone strikes in the Philippines, in Yemen, in Somalia? I speak out on behalf of those innocent victims. They deserve an apology from you, Mr. Brennan. How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed?” More