Welcome to the Badlands

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What must never, repeat never, be done is to negotiate a treaty with these elements from a weaker position. A Pathan despises weakness as much in himself as in any one else. Such treaties are not worth the paper these are written on.

By Anwaar Hussain

oie_talibanselected4.jpgThe badlands were not always badlands.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, or FATA as these are more commonly known, are an amazing place with a fascinating history. This unique region of pine-scented vales, tall mountains, deep gorges, harsh topography and even harsher demography has traveled a tortuous path throughout its known history.

Starting from 500 BC to date, the region which includes Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier of Pakistan has seen perhaps more invasions in the course of history than any other country in Asia, or indeed in the world. However, during most of this period when the plains surrounding this region had been dominated by great powers of the times, these hill tracts and the tribes that inhabited these remained fiercely independent.

The people of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and FATA as well as the adjacent eastern regions of Afghanistan are overwhelmingly Pathan, or Pashtun as they are alternatively called, with a total population of around 40 million. About 18 million of these are living on the Pakistani side. Within the NWFP province, geographically, FATA runs north to south, forming a 1,200-kilometer wedge between Afghanistan and the settled areas of the NWFP. The Durand Line supposedly divided Pathan tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. Supposedly because the line has never been effectively able to divide these tribes and since then this delineation has been viewed with great contempt and bitterness by Pathans on both sides of the line.

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1. Energy crisis: Turning-point of humanity : By Rudo de Ruijter, Independent Researcher

2. Your Brain Lies to You : By Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt, The NYT

3. Karzai is telling half-truth : By Jehangir Khattak, The Dawn

4. The grim dangers in FATA : By Rahimullah Yusufzai, The News

5. What Obama should say on Iraq : By Fareed Zakaria, Khaleej Times

6. Islamabad blinks at Taliban threat : By Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times

7. Four paths to Israeli security : By Mohammad Akef Jamal, Gulf News



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1. The Bilderberg “Blackout” : By Jack Shafer, The Slate

2. Interrogation for Profit : NYT Editorial

3. Blackwater’s Private Spies : by Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

4. More Phony Myths : By Maureen Dowd, The NYT

5. America’s Next Chapter : By Gary Hart, NYT Op-Ed



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The Truth Will Emerge

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by US Senator Robert Byrd, Senate Floor Remarks - May 21, 2003

Published on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

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“Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, - -
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.”

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.

But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it — more than I would ever have believed — right on this Senate Floor.

Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein’s direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.

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And the winner is … the Israel lobby

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By Pepe Escobar

logo-aipac.jpg They’re all here - and they’re all ready to party. The three United States presidential candidates - John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Madam House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most US senators and virtually half of the US Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. And a host of Jewish and non-Jewish political and academic heavy-hitters among the 7,000 participants.

Such star power wattage, a Washington version of the Oscars, is the stock in trade of AIPAC - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the crucial player in what is generally known as the Israel lobby and which holds its annual Policy Conference this week in Washington at which most of the heavyweights will deliver lectures.

Few books in recent years have been as explosive or controversial as The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, written by Stephen Walt from Harvard University and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago, published in 2007. In it, professors Walt and Mearsheimer argued the case of the Israeli lobby not as “a cabal or conspiracy that ‘controls’ US foreign policy”, but as an extremely powerful interest group made up of Jews and non-Jews, a “loose coalition of individuals and organizations tirelessly working to move US foreign policy in Israel’s direction”.

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My country, ’tis of shams

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All of a sudden Maulana Fazl ur-Rahman that unabashed political acrobat, a man who somersaults in the name of God and on whom one can spot thick folds of lard even from a distance but nary a spine from up close, has started to appear most angelic by comparison

By Anwaar Hussain

pk1.jpg What a country my country has become. Let us start from the very top.

It is a country where an Army Chief can take over the country, hold its constitution in abeyance, suspend the basic rights of its citizens, beat up and imprison at will an enlightened section of its society, have a sitting Chief Justice of Supreme Court manhandled by lowly cops then fire him from his job, sack dozens of other judges who refuse to play to his tunes, shut down all private television channels daring to show his truth to the nation, compete in bogus elections and address public rallies in full uniform, hobnob with the vilest of the vile politicians to prolong his rule, appoint high school qualified military generals as Vice Chancellors of universities, sacrifice hundreds of his soldiers in the wild goose chase of Kargil, ‘disappear’ scores of Pakistanis in the phony ‘war on terror’, wilt like candle wax on a single phone call from Colin Powell despite commanding a nuclear armed 8th largest army in the world, admit to selling scores of his countrymen to other countries for bounties, claim tongue in cheek that none can undo what he has done and rather than having to pay for his crimes, goes on not only to become the President of Pakistan but also cling to that appointment for dear life.

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An Immodest Proposal: Sink your teeth into this….

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By Jason Miller

mt2.jpg Let’s face it, my fellow freedom and burger loving Americans. It is becoming painfully obvious that our non-negotiable American Way of Life is increasingly under attack. Yet while our meat consumption may be a wedge issue our foes are using against us, it can also be our salvation.

We are facing swarms of terrorists in the Animal Liberation Front, mobs of fanatical extremists at PETA, and hordes of Nazi-like, in-your-face vegans and vegetarians. Like deranged street prophets, they spout all kinds of nonsense about speciesism, the suffering of sentient beings, animal rights, compassion for livestock in factory farms, and other deluded ramblings.

Though we recognize their ridiculous utterances, beliefs, and acts to be those of mentally unbalanced losers who need a ridiculous cause in their miserable lives to prevent them doing the world a favor by committing suicide, how long can we afford to ignore these violent and dangerous individuals? Their numbers are growing way too rapidly for my comfort.

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1. Obama’s Victory? How Big? How Far? : Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global

2. US Concentration Camps? Where? : George Monbiot, The Guardian

3. From Indonesia to the US, governments stand powerless in face of markets : David Blair, The Frost Blog

4. The Greatest Story Never Told : Tom Engelhardt, The Baltimore Chronicle

5. American President Pleads Guilty to Hopeless Idealism : Maureen Dowd, The NYT



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1. Haunted by Spirits : An Introduction to John McCain

2. A Neocon Curtain Call : Rami G. Khouri, Agence Global

3. The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination : J.K. Rowling’s commencement address given at Harvard

4. Interrogation for Profit : NYT Editorial

5. Obama’s Victory? How Big? How Far? : Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global

6. Blackwater’s Private Spies : Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

7. BBC uncovers lost Iraqi billions : BBC News



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No, I Can’t!

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By Uri Avnery

israhell.jpgAFTER MONTHS of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world.

And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.

That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.

IT WAS a triumphalist conference. Even this powerful organization had never seen anything like it. 7000 Jewish functionaries from all over the United States came together to accept the obeisance of the entire Washington elite, which came to kowtow at their feet. All the three presidential hopefuls made speeches, trying to outdo each other in flattery. 300 Senators and Members of Congress crowded the hallways. Everybody who wants to be elected or reelected to any office, indeed everybody who has any political ambitions at all, came to see and be seen.

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


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