Great persian writings

http://ketabcha.blogfa.com/

This is ugly: honour killing

I have very strong feelings against this kind of disgusting “honorable act”: Killing your daughters because they had boyfriends. And you can expect that from a typical Muslim critical of western life style and their values. And this American-Egyptian Muslim did it.

Sarah, 17, and Amina Sayed, 18, were shot dead by their own father.

“Muslim leaders admitted a girl who did not wear the Hijab could bring shame to her family and her parents would be viwed as a failure in the community”.

I hate the gossip-mongering Afghans

I hate the gossip-mongering Afghans who got nothing nice to talk about except all crap. And most of them are that way. Most of them have that 'Afghan' attitute. Afghan attitute stands for gossiping, bigotry, nosy,dump and out of touch with the acadamic world.
If you are an Afghan, no one can save you from the gossips and rumour-spreading attitues of your fellow citizens given that you make the slighest mistake. Your mistake becomes headlines of their conversations and gossips. They continue to humiliate you for as long as they can and they enjoy that conduct. How pathetic bastards?

CFR: India's northen exposure

Council on foreign relations writes

India’s appetite for Afghan nuts and Kabul’s love for Bollywood may be reframing the geopolitics of the region. When Afghanistan joins the South Asia Free Trade Agreement in February 2008, it can start exporting a wide range of products to India at zero import duty. India has offered $750 million in aid to Kabul (Reuters) since 2001, making it the largest regional donor to Afghanistan. Besides helping to rebuild Afghan roads, airlines, and power plants, and providing support to the health and education sectors, New Delhi also seeks to spread its own brand of democracy in Kabul. Not only will future Afghan parliaments sit in a building that India helped construct, but Afghan civil servants, diplomats, and police officials will have received training from their Indian counterparts.
India and Afghanistan historically have shared close cultural and political ties. India supported successive governments in Kabul until the rise of the Taliban in 1992, viewed then—as now—as a front for radical Pakistani interests in the region. Afghanistan holds strategic importance for India in more ways than one. India hopes for transmission lines bringing electricity from Central Asia, as well as a pipeline for oil and gas. There is also an Iranian-Indian venture to develop a port (Economist) in the Gulf of Oman, which will require road links across Afghan territory.
By helping to rebuild a new Afghanistan, India strives toward more regional stability, but also hopes to counter Pakistan’s influence in Kabul. India wants new land routes to be able to move goods to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. “Pakistan is wary of providing a land route to India, since the two countries are competing for the same consumer-goods market in Afghanistan,” says an op-ed in Pakistan’s Daily Times. Pakistan currently allows Afghanistan the transit rights for its exports to India, but does not allow goods to move from India to Afghanistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have a tumultuous relationship owing to their controversial shared border and ethnic populations. Afghanistan alleges militant groups spreading insurgency within its borders receive refuge in Pakistan’s tribal lands. As part of its Afghan policy, Pakistan always has sought to support a client regime in Kabul, explains a new Backgrounder. Pakistan’s military establishment has always approached the various wars in and around Afghanistan as a function of its main institutional and national security interests: “first and foremost, balancing India,” writes Afghanistan expert Barnett R. Rubin in Foreign Affairs.
It is no surprise then that Pakistan sees India’s increasing influence in Afghanistan as a threat. The opening of Indian consulates in Afghanistan was decried by Islamabad, which alleged that Indian intelligence agents in these consulates were funneling weapons and funds to opposition groups in Pakistan, in particular the insurgency in Balochistan. Pakistan is also suspicious (PDF) of India’s placement of troops in Afghanistan, writes Frederick Grare at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (The killing of an Indian employee by the Taliban in November 2005 prompted the dispatch of approximately two hundred Indo-Tibetan Border Police commandos to Afghanistan in March last year to provide security for Indians (RFE/RL) working in various construction projects in Afghanistan.)
Afghanistan now must walk a fine line to avoid becoming a pawn in a new proxy war between India and Pakistan. Given the geopolitical realities of the region, it can neither spurn India’s aid nor afford to antagonize Pakistan. A report by the United States Institute of Peace suggests India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan must “keep the India-Pakistan dispute out of Afghanistan’s bilateral relations with both

Hazaras in Australia: are they true refujees?

Dr. William Malley, professor of political science at university of New South Wales has compliled an excellent report on the set of historical events that has made Hazaras flee their homeland and seek asylum around the world. He focuses on Hazara asylum seekers in Australia. In the end, he concludes that Hazaras have not only been prosecupted in Afghanistan because of their religious affiliations and distint racial features but also by Australia's bureaucrats in John Howard's cabinet.

Enemies of education and peace

Lately, the media has confirmed that Afghanistan's central government is imposing sanctions on how much people are allowed to learn. The government has adopted it arrogant approach in reaction to Jaghori's (a small suburb within province of Ghazni in Afghanistan) outstanding performance in the number of university graduates. Jaghori is a relatively small suburb....Most of people have their income from friends, relatives or family members who live in developed and developing countries. People are financially well-off compared to other parts of Afghanistan. People use the newly-found wealth to send their children to school...indeed Jaghori has one of the highest number of primary and secondary students. An outstanding number of secondary school graduates have enrolled at Afghanistan's top universities, from Jaghori alone. The number of university graduates from Jaghori is so overhelming that even the government has introduced measures to slow down the number of people getting into university. One of these measures include harassing the secondary school teachers for their wages and salaries. It has started paying them on irregulat basis rathar than regular basis...in hope to reduce the number of teachers in active service and therefore make the schools less effective in performance. They also have tried to cut down the number of secondary and primary shcools down from 80 to 25. This is despite the fact more and more children are trying to get a secondary education, at least.

I will write about this more......Is Afghanistan's puppet president a terrorist who wants to deny the public a good education? or is he a progressive thinker who wants to get Afghanistan's economic growth and social harmoney and reconcialliation? i think he fits into the first category. Bastard Karzai.

Hillary Clinton Foreign policy

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, the next most likely president of the United States has published her foreign policy doctrine on foreignaffairs.org :
Title of her thesis is " Security and oppurtunity for 21st century "

To lead, a great nation must command the respect of others. America has been respected in the past as a powerful nation, a purposeful nation, and a generous and warm-hearted nation. In my travels around the world as senator and as first lady, I have met people from all walks of life. I have seen firsthand how many of our past policies have earned us respect and gratitude.

The tragedy of the last six years is that the Bush administration has squandered the respect, trust, and confidence of even our closest allies and friends. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States enjoyed a unique position. Our world leadership was widely accepted and respected, as we strengthened old alliances and built new ones, worked for peace across the globe, advanced nonproliferation, and modernized our military. After 9/11, the world rallied behind the United States as never before, supporting our efforts to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and go after the al Qaeda leadership. We had a historic opportunity to build a broad global coalition to combat terror, increase the impact of our diplomacy, and create a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.

But we lost that opportunity by refusing to let the UN inspectors finish their work in Iraq and rushing to war instead. Moreover, we diverted vital military and financial resources from the struggle against al Qaeda and the daunting task of building a Muslim democracy in Afghanistan. At the same time, we embarked on an unprecedented course of unilateralism: refusing to pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, abandoning our commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and turning our backs on the search for peace in the Middle East. Our withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and refusal to participate in any international effort to deal with the tremendous challenges of climate change further damaged our international standing.

Our nation has paid a heavy price for rejecting a long-standing bipartisan tradition of global leadership rooted in a preference for cooperating over acting unilaterally, for exhausting diplomacy before making war, and for converting old adversaries into allies rather than making new enemies. At a moment in history when the world's most pressing problems require unprecedented cooperation, this administration has unilaterally pursued policies that are widely disliked and distrusted.

Yet it does not have to be this way. Indeed, our allies do not want it to be this way. The world still looks to the United States for leadership. American leadership is wanting, but it is still wanted. Our friends around the world do not want the United States to retreat. They want once again to be allied with the nation whose values, leadership, and strength have inspired the world for the last century.

To reclaim our proper place in the world, the United States must be stronger, and our policies must be smarter. The next president will have a moment of opportunity to restore America's global standing and convince the world that America can lead once again. As president, I will seize that opportunity by reintroducing ourselves to the world. I will rebuild our power and ensure that the United States is committed to building a world we want, rather than simply defending against a world we fear.

We should aim to lead our friends and allies in building a world of security and opportunity. America has long been the land of opportunity. But as we know at home and as we see today in Iraq and Afghanistan, opportunity cannot flourish without basic security. We must build a world in which security and opportunity go hand in hand, a world that will be safer, more prosperous, and more just.

We need more than vision, however, to achieve the world we want. We must face up to an unprecedented array of challenges in the twenty-first century, threats from states, nonstate actors, and nature itself. The next president will be the first to inherit two wars, a long-term campaign against global terrorist networks, and growing tension with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. The United States will face a resurgent Russia whose future orientation is uncertain and a rapidly growing China that must be integrated into the international system. Moreover, the next administration will have to confront an unpredictable and dangerous situation in the Middle East that threatens Israel and could potentially bring down the global economy by disrupting oil supplies. Finally, the next president will have to address the looming long-term threats of climate change and a new wave of global health epidemics.

To meet these challenges, we will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of tools in the fight against terrorism. We must learn once again to draw on all aspects of American power, to inspire and attract as much as to coerce. We must return to a pragmatic willingness to look at the facts on the ground and make decisions based on evidence rather than ideology. [ end of page 1]

Leadership requires a blend of strategy, persuasion, inspiration, and motivation. It is based on respect more than fear. America's founders wrote the Declaration of Independence to explain our actions to the world out of a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. Gaining the respect of other nations today requires that we harness our might to a set of guiding principles.

Avoid false choices driven by ideology. The Bush administration has presented the American people with a series of false choices: force versus diplomacy, unilateralism versus multilateralism, hard power versus soft. Seeing these choices as mutually exclusive reflects an ideologically blinkered vision of the world that denies the United States the tools and the flexibility it needs to lead and succeed. There is a time for force and a time for diplomacy; when properly deployed, the two can reinforce each other. U.S. foreign policy must be guided by a preference for multilateralism, with unilateralism as an option when absolutely necessary to protect our security or avert an avoidable tragedy.

Use our military not as the solution to every problem but as one element in a comprehensive strategy. As president, I will never hesitate to use force to protect Americans or to defend our territory and our vital interests. We cannot negotiate with individual terrorists; they must be hunted down and captured or killed. Nor can diplomacy alone stop the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity in places such as Darfur. But soldiers are not the answer to every problem. Using force in lieu of diplomacy compels our young men and women in uniform to carry out missions that they may not be trained or prepared for. And it ignores the value of simply carrying a big stick, rather than using it.

Make international institutions work, and work through them when possible. Contrary to what many in the current administration appear to believe, international institutions are tools rather than traps. The United States must be prepared to act on its own to defend its vital interests, but effective international institutions make it much less likely that we will have to do so. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have understood this for decades. When such institutions work well, they enhance our influence. When they do not work, their procedures serve as pretexts for endless delays, as in the case of Darfur, or descend into farce, as in the case of Sudan's election to the UN Commission on Human Rights. But instead of disparaging these institutions for their failures, we should bring them in line with the power realities of the twenty-first century and the basic values embodied in such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ensure that democracy delivers on its promises. Gnawing hunger, poverty, and the absence of economic prospects are a recipe for despair. Globalization is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots within societies and between them. Today, there are more than two billion people living on less than $2 a day. These people risk becoming a vast permanent underclass. Calls for expanding civil and political rights in countries plagued by mass poverty and ruled by tiny wealthy elites will fall on deaf ears unless democracy actually delivers enough material benefits to improve people's lives. The Bush administration's policy in Iraq has temporarily given democracy a bad name, but over the long term the value of democracy will continue to inspire the world.

Stand for and live up to our values. The values that our founders embraced as universal have shaped the aspirations of millions of people around the world and are the deepest source of our strength -- but only as long as we live up to them ourselves. As we seek to promote the rule of law in other nations, we must accept it ourselves. As we counsel liberty and justice for all, we cannot support torture and the indefinite detention of individuals we have declared to be beyond the law.

A STRONGER AMERICA

Ending the war in Iraq is the first step toward restoring the United States' global leadership. The war is sapping our military strength, absorbing our strategic assets, diverting attention and resources from Afghanistan, alienating our allies, and dividing our people. The war in Iraq has also stretched our military to the breaking point. We must rebuild our armed services and restore them body and soul. [ end of page 2]

We must withdraw from Iraq in a way that brings our troops home safely, begins to restore stability to the region, and replaces military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's future. To that end, as president, I will convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home, starting within the first 60 days of my administration.

While working to stabilize Iraq as our forces withdraw, I will focus U.S. aid on helping Iraqis, not propping up the Iraqi government. Financial resources will go only where they will be used properly, rather than to government ministries or ministers that hoard, steal, or waste them.

As we leave Iraq militarily, I will replace our military force with an intensive diplomatic initiative in the region. The Bush administration has belatedly begun to engage Iran and Syria in talks about the future of Iraq. This is a step in the right direction, but much more must be done. As president, I will convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all the states bordering Iraq. Working with the newly appointed UN special representative for Iraq, the group will be charged with developing and implementing a strategy for achieving a stable Iraq that provides incentives for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey to stay out of the civil war.

Finally, we need to engage the world in a global humanitarian effort to confront the human costs of this war. We must address the plight of the two million Iraqis who have fled their country and the two million more who have been displaced internally. This will require a multibillion-dollar international effort under the direction of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Meanwhile, the United States, along with governments in Europe and the Middle East, must agree to accept asylum seekers and help them return to Iraq when it is safe for them to do so.

As we redeploy our troops from Iraq, we must not let down our guard against terrorism. I will order specialized units to engage in targeted operations against al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist organizations in the region. These units will also provide security for U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq and train and equip Iraqi security services to keep order and promote stability in the country, but only to the extent that such training is actually working. I will also consider leaving some forces in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq in order to protect the fragile but real democracy and relative peace and security that have developed there, but with the clear understanding that the terrorist organization the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) must be dealt with and the Turkish border must be respected.

Getting out of Iraq will enable us to play a constructive role in a renewed Middle East peace process that would mean security and normal relations for Israel and the Palestinians. The fundamental elements of a final agreement have been clear since 2000: a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank in return for a declaration that the conflict is over, recognition of Israel's right to exist, guarantees of Israeli security, diplomatic recognition of Israel, and normalization of its relations with Arab states. U.S. diplomacy is critical in helping to resolve this conflict. In addition to facilitating negotiations, we must engage in regional diplomacy to gain Arab support for a Palestinian leadership that is committed to peace and willing to engage in a dialogue with the Israelis. Whether or not the United States makes progress in helping to broker a final agreement, consistent U.S. involvement can lower the level of violence and restore our credibility in the region.

To help our forces recover from Iraq and prepare them to confront the full range of twenty-first-century threats, I will work to expand and modernize the military so that fighting wars no longer comes at the expense of deployments for long-term deterrence, military readiness, or responses to urgent needs at home. As the only senator serving on the Transformation Advisory Group established by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, I have had the chance to explore these issues in detail. Ongoing military innovation is essential, but the Bush administration has undermined this goal by focusing obsessively on expensive and unproven missile defense technology while making the tragically misguided assumption that light invasion forces could not only conquer the Taliban and Saddam Hussein but also stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our brave soldiers who are wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq must receive the health care, benefits, training, and support they deserve. The treatment of wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a travesty. Those convalescing or struggling to build new lives after grievous injuries need an expanded version of the Family and Medical Leave Act to enable their families to provide the support they need. Beyond health care, it is also time to develop a modern GI Bill of Rights in order to expand professional and entrepreneurial opportunities as well as access to education and home ownership.

WINNING THE REAL WAR ON TERROR

We must be unrelenting in the prosecution of the war on al Qaeda and a growing number of like-minded extremist organizations. These terrorists are as determined as ever to strike the United States. If they think they can carry out another 9/11, I have no doubt that they will try. To stop them, we must use every tool we have.

In the cities of Europe and Asia -- such as Hamburg and Kuala Lumpur, which were the springboards for 9/11 -- terrorist cells are preparing for future attacks. We must understand not only their methods but their motives: a rejection of modernity, women's rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a mythical past. We must develop a comprehensive strategy focusing on education, intelligence, and law enforcement to counter not only the terrorists themselves but also the larger forces fueling support for their extremism.

The forgotten frontline in the war on terror is Afghanistan, where our military effort must be reinforced. The Taliban cannot be allowed to regain power in Afghanistan; if they return, al Qaeda will return with them. Yet current U.S. policies have actually weakened President Hamid Karzai's government and allowed the Taliban to retake many areas, especially in the south. A largely unimpeded heroin trade finances the very Taliban fighters and al Qaeda terrorists who are attacking our troops. In addition to engaging in counternarcotics efforts, we must seek to dry up recruiting opportunities for the Taliban by funding crop-substitution programs, a large-scale road-building initiative, institutions that train and prepare Afghans for honest and effective governance, and programs to enable women to play a larger role in society.

We must also strengthen the national and local governments and resolve the problems along Afghanistan's border. Terrorists are increasingly finding safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Redoubling our efforts with Pakistan would not only help root out terrorist elements there; it would also signal to our NATO partners that the war in Afghanistan and the broader fight against extremism in South Asia are battles that we can and must win. Yet we cannot succeed unless we design a strategy that treats the entire region as an interconnected whole, where crises overlap with one another and the danger of a chain reaction of disasters is real.

Combating terrorism around the world will require better intelligence and a clandestine service that is out on the street, not sitting behind desks. As president, I will work to restore morale in our intelligence community, increase the number of agents and analysts proficient in Arabic and other key languages, and raise the profile and status of intelligence analysis. Most of the terrorists apprehended for plotting attacks against the United States, both before and after 9/11, were arrested in other countries as a result of cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

To maximize our effectiveness, we have to rebuild our alliances. The problem we face is global; we must therefore be attentive to the values, concerns, and interests of our allies and partners. That means doing a better job of building counterterrorist capacity around the world. We must help strengthen police, prosecutorial, and judicial systems abroad; improve intelligence; and implement more stringent border controls, especially in developing countries.

We must also keep our guard up at home. As a senator from New York, I have long advocated full investment in our first responders and in protecting our critical infrastructure. I have pushed for new strategies and new technologies, such as a new federal interoperable communications and safety system. After years of Bush administration neglect, 80 percent of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on homeland security have now been enacted, principally as a result of the Democratic Congress' work. But there is more to do. We must match the resources to the stakes and help the most vulnerable and at-risk cities prepare for an attack. We must improve health-care delivery systems in order to manage the consequences of attacks. Finally, we must improve the security of chemical plants and safeguard the transportation of hazardous materials so that terrorists do not have easy targets.

SECURITY THROUGH STATESMANSHIP

The Bush administration has opposed talks with our adversaries, seeming to believe that we are not strong enough to defend our interests through negotiations. This is a misleading and counterproductive strategy. True statesmanship requires that we engage with our adversaries, not for the sake of talking but because robust diplomacy is a prerequisite to achieving our aims.

The case in point is Iran. Iran poses a long-term strategic challenge to the United States, our NATO allies, and Israel. It is the country that most practices state-sponsored terrorism, and it uses its surrogates to supply explosives that kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The Bush administration refuses to talk to Iran about its nuclear program, preferring to ignore bad behavior rather than challenge it. Meanwhile, Iran has enhanced its nuclear-enrichment capabilities, armed Iraqi Shiite militias, funneled arms to Hezbollah, and subsidized Hamas, even as the government continues to hurt its own citizens by mismanaging the economy and increasing political and social repression.

As a result, we have lost precious time. Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.

On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives. This will let the Iranian people know that our quarrel is not with them but with their government and show the world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option.

Like Iran, North Korea responded to the Bush administration's effort to isolate it by accelerating its nuclear program, conducting a nuclear test, and building more nuclear weapons. Only since the State Department returned to diplomacy have we been able, belatedly, to make progress.

Neither North Korea nor Iran will change course as a result of what we do with our own nuclear weapons, but taking dramatic steps to reduce our nuclear arsenal would build support for the coalitions we need to address the threat of nuclear proliferation and help the United States regain the moral high ground. Former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn have called on the United States to "rekindle the vision," shared by every president from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton, of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons.

To reassert our nonproliferation leadership, I will seek to negotiate an accord that substantially and verifiably reduces the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. This dramatic initiative would send a strong message of nuclear restraint to the world, while we retain enough strength to deter others from trying to match our arsenal. I will also seek Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 2009, the tenth anniversary of the Senate's initial rejection of the agreement. This would enhance the United States' credibility when demanding that other nations refrain from testing. As president, I will support efforts to supplement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Establishing an international fuel bank that guaranteed secure access to nuclear fuel at reasonable prices would help limit the number of countries that pose proliferation risks.

In the Senate, I have introduced legislation to accelerate and reinvigorate U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism. As president, I will do everything in my power to ensure that nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the materials needed to make them are kept out of terrorists' hands. My first goal would be to remove all nuclear material from the world's most vulnerable nuclear sites and effectively secure the remainder during my first term in office.

Statesmanship is also necessary to engage countries that are not adversaries but that are challenging the United States on many fronts. Russian President Vladimir Putin has thwarted a carefully crafted UN plan that would have put Kosovo on a belated path to independence, attempted to use energy as a political weapon against Russia's neighbors and beyond, and tested the United States and Europe on a range of nonproliferation and arms reduction issues. Putin has also suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism, created a new class of oligarchs, and interfered deeply in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics.

It is a mistake, however, to see Russia only as a threat. Putin has used Russia's energy wealth to expand the Russian economy, so that more ordinary Russians are enjoying a rising standard of living. We need to engage Russia selectively on issues of high national importance, such as thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions, securing loose nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet republics, and reaching a diplomatic solution in Kosovo. At the same time, we must make clear that our ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional interference.

Our relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century. The United States and China have vastly different values and political systems, yet even though we disagree profoundly on issues ranging from trade to human rights, religious freedom, labor practices, and Tibet, there is much that the United States and China can and must accomplish together. China's support was important in reaching a deal to disable North Korea's nuclear facilities. We should build on this framework to establish a Northeast Asian security regime.

But China's rise is also creating new challenges. The Chinese have finally begun to realize that their rapid economic growth is coming at a tremendous environmental price. The United States should undertake a joint program with China and Japan to develop new clean-energy sources, promote greater energy efficiency, and combat climate change. This program would be part of an overall energy policy that would require a dramatic reduction in U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

We must persuade China to join global institutions and support international rules by building on areas where our interests converge and working to narrow our differences. Although the United States must stand ready to challenge China when its conduct is at odds with U.S. vital interests, we should work for a cooperative future.

STRENGTHENING ALLIANCES

It is important to engage our adversaries but even more important to reassure our allies. We must reestablish our traditional relationship of confidence and trust with Europe. Disagreements are inevitable, even among the closest friends, but we can never forget that on most global issues we have no more trusted allies than those in Europe. The new administration will have a chance to reach out across the Atlantic to a new generation of leaders in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. When America and Europe work together, global objectives are within our means.

In Asia, India has a special significance both as an emerging power and as the world's most populous democracy. As co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, I recognize the tremendous opportunity presented by India's rise and the need to give the country an augmented voice in regional and international institutions, such as the UN. We must find additional ways for Australia, India, Japan, and the United States to cooperate on issues of mutual concern, including combating terrorism, cooperating on global climate control, protecting global energy supplies, and deepening global economic development.

At our peril, the Bush administration has neglected our neighbors to the south. We have witnessed the rollback of democratic development and economic openness in parts of Latin America. We must return to a policy of vigorous engagement; this is too critical a region for the United States to stand idly by. We must support the largest developing democracies in the region, Brazil and Mexico, and deepen economic and strategic cooperation with Argentina and Chile. We must also continue to cooperate with our allies in Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean to combat the interconnected threats of drug trafficking, crime, and insurgency. Finally, we must work with our allies to provide sustainable-development programs that promote economic opportunity and reduce inequality for the citizens of Latin America.

Equally important are the growing ranks of democracies in Africa -- some established, some new -- which will be the engines of Africa's future. We should target these countries for aid and other forms of support and work with them to strengthen regional institutions such as the African Union. The AU seeks to emulate the European Union by requiring and supporting democracy among its members, but it has a long way to go. It has thus far failed even to denounce the blatant political corruption and brutality of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. It must also develop the ability to act with sufficient strength and speed to stop mass atrocities, such as those in Darfur.

Our interests in Africa are strategic, not just humanitarian. They include al Qaeda's efforts to seek safe havens in failed states in the Horn of Africa and the growing competition with other global players, including China, for Africa's natural resources. The long-term solution, for us as well as for Africa, is to help Africans develop both the will and the capability to address their own problems and help the continent live up to its vast potential.

BUILDING THE WORLD WE WANT

To build the world we want, we must begin by speaking honestly about the problems we face. We will have to talk about the consequences of our invasion of Iraq for the Iraqi people and others in the region. We will have to talk about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. We will also have to take concrete steps to enhance security and spread opportunity throughout the world.

Education is the foundation of economic opportunity and should lie at the heart of America's foreign assistance efforts. More than 100 million children in the developing world are not in school. Another 150 million drop out before they finish grade school. By failing these children, we sow the seeds of lost generations. As president, I will press for quick passage of the Education for All Act, which would provide $10 billion over a five-year period to train teachers and build schools in the developing world. This program would channel funds to those countries that provide the best plans for how to use them and rigorously measure performance to ensure that our dollars deliver results for children.

The fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other dreaded diseases is both a moral imperative and a practical necessity. These diseases have created a generation of orphans and set back economic and political progress by decades in many countries.

These problems often seem overwhelming, but we can solve them with the combined resources of governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We can set specific targets in areas such as expanding access to primary education, providing clean water, reducing child and maternal mortality, and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. We can strengthen the International Labor Organization in order to enforce labor standards, just as we strengthened the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements. Such policies demonstrate that by doing good we can do well. This sort of investment and diplomacy will yield results for the United States, building goodwill even in places where our standing has suffered.

We must also take threats and turn them into opportunities. The seemingly overwhelming challenge of climate change is a prime example. Far from being a drag on global growth, climate control represents a powerful economic opportunity that can be a driver of growth, jobs, and competitive advantage in the twenty-first century. As president, I will make the fight against global warming a priority. We cannot solve the climate crisis alone, and the rest of the world cannot solve it without us. The United States must reengage in international climate change negotiations and provide the leadership needed to reach a binding global climate agreement. But we must first restore our own credibility on the issue. Rapidly emerging countries, such as China, will not curb their own carbon emissions until the United States has demonstrated a serious commitment to reducing its own through a market-based cap-and-trade approach.

We must also help developing nations build efficient and environmentally sustainable domestic energy infrastructures. Two-thirds of the growth in energy demand over the next 25 years will come from countries with little existing infrastructure. Many opportunities exist here as well: Mali is electrifying rural communities with solar power, Malawi is developing a biomass energy strategy, and all of Africa can provide carbon credits to the West.

Finally, we must create formal links between the International Energy Agency and China and India and create an "E-8" international forum modeled on the G-8. This group would be comprised of the world's major carbon-emitting nations and hold an annual summit devoted to international ecological and resource issues.

The world we want is also a world where human rights are respected. By surrendering our values in the name of our safety, the Bush administration has left Americans wondering whether its rhetoric about freedom around the world still applies back home. We have undercut international support for fighting terrorism by suggesting that the job cannot be done without humiliation, infringements on basic rights to privacy and free speech, and even torture. We must once again make human rights a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy and a core element of our conception of democracy.

Human rights will never truly be realized as long as a majority of the world's population is still treated as second-class citizens. Twelve years ago, the UN convened a historic conference on women in Beijing, where I was proud to represent our country and to proclaim that women's rights are human rights. Since then, women have been elected heads of state in countries on nearly every continent. Thanks to the United States, many, but not yet all, Afghan women have been liberated from one of the most tyrannical and repressive regimes of our day and are now in schools, in the work force, and in parliament.

Yet progress in key areas has lagged, as evidenced by the continuing spread of trafficking in women, the ongoing use of rape as an instrument of war, the political marginalization of women, and persistent gender gaps in employment and economic opportunity. U.S. leadership, including a commitment to incorporate the promotion of women's rights in our bilateral relationships and international aid programs, is essential not just to improving the lives of women but to strengthening the families, communities, and societies in which they live.

REVIVING THE AMERICAN IDEA

Seasoned, clear-eyed leadership can take us far. We must draw on all the dimensions of American power and reject false choices driven by ideology rather than facts. An America that rebuilds its strength and recovers its principles will be an America that can spread the blessings of security and opportunity around the world.

In 1825, 50 years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the great secretary of state Daniel Webster laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument that stands today in Boston. He exulted in the simple fact that America had survived and flourished, and he celebrated "the benefit which the example of our country has produced, and is likely to produce, on human freedom and human happiness." He gloried not in American power but rather in the power of the American idea, the idea that "with wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves." And he urged his audience, and all Americans, to maintain this example and "take care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world."

Two centuries later, our economic power and military might have grown beyond anything that our forefathers could have imagined. But that power and might can only be sustained and renewed if we can regain our authority with the world, the authority not simply of a large and wealthy nation but of the American idea. If we can live up to that idea, if we can exercise our power wisely and well, we can make America great again.

Not everyone agrees with Hillary on Middle East issues.

A few good links from different categories:

History News Network: HNN

Foreign Affairs

I hate politics

Australian navy

Observe Australian navy's movement for a period of one year as it moves throughout the world and around Australia. HeRE

Real Evils

The Field of Battle by Robin Blacburn

It is inherent in the concept of a terrorist act that it aims at an effect very much larger than the direct physical destruction it causes. Proponents of what used to be called the 'propaganda of the deed' also believed that in the illuminating glare of terror the vulnerability of a corrupt order would be starkly revealed. Once corruption and oppression were stripped away, a sacred or natural order--the nation, the religious community, the people--would come into its own.

The instigators of September 11 brought off a far more spectacular coup than any exponent of the propaganda of the deed, threaten more than a dozen of the world's most autocratic and corrupt rulers and aim to summon to arms a religious community of well over a billion people. The resources disposed of by these men transcend those traditionally associated with terrorism and are closer to those of a small state, but a state without boundaries whose headquarters hops from country to country.

Given the extent of the destruction wrought by the September 11 attack it is sobering to realise that the effect aimed at is qualitatively larger, namely that of re-ordering world politics around a 'clash of civilisations', allowing the Islamic world to free itself of all infidel trammels. Whether the strategic director of the Al Qaeda network is Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri or someone else, their aim from the outset was to provoke the United States into a counter-reaction that would alienate Muslim opinion; to expose the hypocrisy of the hereditary and autocratic rulers of the Muslim world; to create conditions in which the forces of Islamic jihad could seize or manipulate power in one or another of the larger or more significant Muslim states.

The new Caliphates at which they aim might appear a medieval fantasy but are to be equipped with the military and financial resources of modernity. They urge believers to consider the awesome power of Muslim leaders equipped with Islamic virtue, oil and nuclear weapons. Given the frustrated or desperate condition of much of the Muslim world, this is a message that has great resonance even amongst Muslims who are uneasy at, or repelled by, terror actions. The message targets the military actions and dispositions of the United States and Israel, especially as they are deemed to encroach on Muslim holy places, but it is also aimed at the existing governments of the Islamic world, seen as pawns of the West.

The September 11 attack invited a response and Al Qaeda did little to cover its tracks. The leaders of Al Qaeda, and those close to them in the Taliban leadership, may have felt that they needed to widen the conflict and escape the problems of famine and drought. The latter were forcing them into dependency on the international aid agencies and the US anti-drug program. In such desperate circumstances the goal of Al Qaeda was probably to draw the United States into the Afghan minefield while boosting its position elsewhere in the Muslim world.

The US president responded to September 11 by proclaiming a global, US-led 'war on terrorism'. Washington sought every conceivable ally or partner but insisted on retaining complete control of its 'war'. The UN and the Security Council were asked to support the US effort, and each of their members to help in whatever way they could, but there was to be no formal anti-terrorism coalition and no supranational organisation to embody it. If this is the new 'cold war', as some have suggested, it is very differently structured. On one side there is the world's most powerful state, with its 20th century weapons systems and a global system of alliances. On the other there is a terror network of perhaps no more than a few thousand men, acting as a self-proclaimed 'Muslim vanguard', but occasionally able to ignite the resentments and frustrations of tens or even hundreds of millions in the Islamic world. At the height of the Cold War the Communist states ruled one third of the world's population, had military means that seemed a match for those of its global competitor and believed that they could beat the capitalist west at its own game of economic growth. Al Qaeda may have the economic and military resources of a statelet but it aims to shape the thinking of a civilisation. Its members are drawn from many nationalities and have been active in Central Asia, the Balkans, Europe, North America, Kashmir, China, Indonesia and the Phillippines as well as the Middle East and Africa. Its ideology is fuelled by a sense of injury and wounded pride rather than material aspiration. It is virulently anti-infidel and misogynist, anti-secular without being at all anti-capitalist, and egalitarian without being democratic. Islamic civilisation has always left great scope for mercantile capitalism. The neo-fundamentalism of the eighties and nineties, forged in a battle with godless Communism and in reaction to royalist bureaucracy and corruption, accentuated this legacy by basing itself on strong and responsible Islamic business and faith-based charity. While prepared to work with a variety of Islamic political authorities the project of Al Qaeda transcends such boundaries aiming to unite the faithful against the infidels who have insulted and oppressed Islam.

In World War II liberal capitalism and autocratic Communism fought as allies against fascism. But in the postwar period the West feared a loss of control in the Middle East and so it allied with the most conservative forces in the Islamic world. The Saudi and Iranian monarchies were chosen as the strategic allies needed to protect Middle Eastern oil resources while secular nationalists like Mossadegh in Iran or Kassem in Iraq were destabilised and replaced. In fact the Western system of alliances is not simply a relic of the Cold War but rather a palimpsest that reflects, layer on layer, a longer history and a colonialism that mummified an extraordinary collection of archaic or pseudo-archaic regimes. This embraces Saudi Arabia with its 30,000-strong Royal Family, the Shaikhs of Bahrein, Qattar and Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman, and the Emirates--boasting the world's longest-serving head of state, Shaikh Sakir al-Qasimi of Ras al-Khaimah, who ascended his throne in 1948. When we add to those the Sultan of Brunei in the South China sea it is as if oil is a pickling fluid akin to formaldehyde projecting into the 21st century simulacra of the Anciens Regimes of former times. Pakistan, with its notorious 'feudals', does not have oil but enjoys an intimate pact with the oil sheikhdoms. The paradox here for liberal, bourgeois and nationalist forces in the Middle East was that the power that should have been their great ally, the United States, actually blocked them at every turn and preferred to do business with royal absolutists.

The US-sponsored Arabian and Gulf regime associates the West with corruption, autocracy and stagnation at a time when there is a yearning for a new start in the Arab world. The dilemma of US policy is that it understandably wishes to avoid a 'clash of civilisations' while remaining fearful of renewal within the Muslim world. It was a tribute to Washington's diplomacy that its assault on Afghanistan aroused so little official censure in the Muslim world, but an indication of the fragility of this success that no Muslim state was willing to play an active and public role in the attack. Notwithstanding continuing corrections and adjustments--dumping the terms 'crusade' and 'infinite justice' for the campaign against Al Qaeda, strenuously cultivating old and new Muslim allies--the US failed to extricate itself from the strategic trap it faces. It prefered to talk of war than of a police operation. And it was planning a new government in Afghanistan based on 'moderate' Taliban and Northern warlords and mercenary tribal elders under the aegis of the former monarch, Zahir Shah. So far as the wider Islamic world is concerned this strategy simultaneously offends the Islamicists and those who yearn for more democracy, autonomy and self-respect. Religious fanatics and bourgeois or petty-bourgeois democrats are not natural allies--in Iran they are at loggerheads--but in the territories where the United States has allied itself with feudal and autocratic reaction these two currents find a common antagonist. The White House may genuinely believe that the interests of global capitalism are best promoted by its pact with the oil dynasties and their Pakistani and Egyptian hangers-on, but this is not true. The pact may deliver slightly cheaper oil, and privileges to Western oil corporations, but it stifles the growth of an autonomous business culture and circuits of accumulation in the region itself. The resulting frustrations create conditions which politicise religious fanaticism, especially in those countries where such fanaticism is one of the few officially-tolerated species of public activity.

The US attack on Afghanistan was certainly anticipated. Just a few days before September 11 Massoud, the commander of the anti-Taliban forces, was assassinated by agents of Al Qaeda, posing as journalists. This action was calculated to both please and strengthen the Taliban, by ridding them of their most dangerous enemy, and to leave the United States with less credible local allies. The warlords of the Northern Alliance are dependent on autocratic governments in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that are seen as stooges of neighbouring powers. With all its failings the Northern Alliance is preferable to the Taliban, but it does not represent a force for democracy and does not shield the invaders from the charge of being alien to Islam. Matters will not be improved by giving key positions to 'moderate Taliban' and royalists. This approach risks the worst of both world--discouraging those who yearn for a more tolerant social order, for secular progress and for an Afghan regime not beholden to foreigners while failing to win over or appease the religious fanatics, or seriously to erode their appeal.

Washington strives not to inflame Muslim opinion, or to allow the conflict to be defined as a war of religions. It hopes that the danger can be avoided by allowing its Muslim allies to adopt a low profile, or even to stand aside. The UN may be handed responsibility for occupied areas of Afghanistan but Iranian and Egyptian proposals that the UN should take charge of the anti-terrorism campaign were rejected. Given the UN's long history giving cover to US military campaigns, from Korea to Kosovo, entrusting it with nominal responsibility post facto will be of limited value in averting the danger of a 'clash of civilisations'. The UN could sponsor an accord against terrorism and the creation of a supranational force to police it. But such an approach would have little legitimacy if credible governments from the Muslim world are excluded. An international and supranational approach would be far more effective longterm at tackling terrorism than a US-led and defined 'war'.but will not easily be accepted in Washington since it would challenge imperial ideology and control. The Bush team see themselves as champions of the American people and US capitalism but in fact neither require direct US control of Middle Eastern oil, as we will see below.

The most difficult thing for the strategists of Empire to perceive, or explain to the American people, is that the best and perhaps only effective coalition against Al Qaeda and the Taliban will be one that they do not lead and do not control. The leaflets dropped on with the food packages carried a message that this was a contribution from 'The Partnership of Nations' in English and Pushtu. The use of this hollow rubric--perhaps sounding like United Nations in translation--testified to a deficit of legitimacy. The United States has standing against Al Qaeda because of what its citizens have suffered at its hands. But nobody really believes that the Taliban ordered the September 11.

While I will focus on Washington's sins of omission and commission I believe it would be wrong to slight the ability of the Bush administration to impose its own definitions on domestic opponents, and on allies and even enemies, abroad. The US president has sometimes been presented as a figure of fun but this has not stopped him having the last laugh on those who ridiculed him. Unlike more brilliant leaders he surrounds himself with a capable and experienced team, and sometimes heeds words of caution. The secret of his strength--and his fatal flaw--may be the instinctive rapport he enjoys with those gripped by US national messianism, the idea that only the United States can tackle the really big global threats and that whatever the US does is ipso facto favourable to freedom. These sentiments are often accompanied by deprecation of international organisations, an unwillingness to consider global complexities, or to contemplate any sacrifice of US sovereignty. The casualties on September 11 were on a terrible scale but our world bristles with these and greater dangers, notably that of encouraging a 'clash of civilisations' linked to weapons of mass destruction.

Jonathan Schell has drawn out attention to what he calls, in a book of that name, The Unfinished Twentieth Century. Schell argues that with the end of the Cold War in 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the huge apparatus of nuclear deterrence became redundant, yet it was neither scrapped or negotiated away. Russia, China and the other nuclear powers were not invited to dismantle--or even to drastically reduce--their nuclear weapons systems. The 1972 treaty against biological weapons was useless because there was no enforcement agency nor mandatory inspection. Sixty major overseas US military bases were maintained in forty countries, backed up by over seven hundred other military installations. What was true of weapons systems and overseas bases also applied to alliances. NATO was not disbanded, nor widened to include Russia. Instead it expanded eastwards and a type of ghostly and surreptitious Cold War against unnamed 'global competitors' (actually Russia and China) was perpetuated.

Also still in place was that palimpsest of alliances inherited from colonialism and the Cold War, so that the United States entered the new century encumbered and compromised by all that was most backward-looking and discredited in the Islamic world. During the Cold war the military confrontation was precariously regulated by the 'balance of terror'. Today not only is this lacking but the 'war against terrorism' will stoke Muslim resentment in a widening arc of states and could eventually give Al Qaeda the influence it aims at in a nuclear state. The dangers of an escalation of terror, and of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, are very much increased if hundreds of millions of people believe themselves to be nursing legitimate grievances.

The imperial role is justified on the grounds that the United States has a special destiny as world leader and champion of freedom. These roles, it is believed, require Washington to meet the threat of rogue states acquiring weapons of mass destruction, to pre-empt 'global competitors', to secure sources of scarce raw materials (especially oil), and to guarantee the personal security of ordinary Americans. Yet the truth is that the empire does not secure these goals, and actually makes 'blowback' more likely, as Chalmers Johnson so presciently argued. A healthier US polity could dispense with the cumbersome and expensive apparatus of empire, set the scene for a broader, more pluralistic global capitalism, and promote the competence and authority of supranational agencies in the fields of disarmament, anti-terrorism and peace-keeping. But the vested interests which stand in the way of these goals are those of a bloated military-industrial complex and re-charged presidency.

Neoconservativism

neo-conservatism:
(abbreviated as neo-con or neocon) is part of a U.S. based political movement rooted in liberal Cold War anticommunism and a backlash to the social liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.They emphasize foreign policy, where they advocated aggressive anticommunism, U.S. global dominance, and international alliances. Although they attacked feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism, "neocons" often placed less emphasis on social policy issues, and many of them opposed school prayer or a ban on abortion. In addition, many neocons supported limited social welfare programs and nonrestrictive immigration policies."

American Enterprise Institute:
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is an extremely influential, pro-business right-wing think tank founded in 1943 by Lewis H. Brown. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and succeeds in placing its people in influential governmental positions. It is the center base for many neo-conservatives.


Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is another neo-conservative think tank with strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute. PNAC's web site says it was "established in the spring of 1997" as "a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership [and military dominance]."

PNAC's policy document, "Rebuilding America's Defences," openly advocates for total global military domination. Many PNAC members hold highest-level positions in the George W. Bush administration.

On January 26 1998 The PNAC sent a letter to then U.S president Bill Clinton calling for him to invade Iraq...The letter said:

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Sincerely,

Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett

Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky

Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad

William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman

Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber

Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

How it all connects: Afg-Pak relations

ABUL - In 1989, the Soviet Army withdrew from Afghanistan. Simultaneously, the West disengaged from the Afghan conflict, which left the Afghans at the mercy of regional powers. The collapse of the communist bloc provoked a shift in US policy in
the region. Because the US lacked a strategic interest in Afghanistan, Washington [delegated the formulation] of Afghan
policy to both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which are two close allies of the US. The Saudis had no other interest in Afghanistan than the desire to create a government in Kabul that was hostile to Iran.

Although Iran shares a common language and culture with Afghanistan, it has historically had a limited influence on the country. This limited influence resulted from the religious differences between the Sunni-majority Afghanistan and the Shi'ite-majority Iran. With the blessing of the both the US and Saudi governments, Pakistan remained the major player in Afghanistan.

In 1992, the communist regime fell in Afghanistan; mujahideen groups entered Kabul, where two alternative options were presented to Pakistan. One option was to stabilize Afghanistan through mediation among major mujahideen leaders who lived in Pakistan. This option would have economically benefited Pakistan with open trade roads to Central Asian countries. The second option was to pursue the strategic goal of Pakistan, which consisted of having a puppet government in place and a fragile economy.

This option would have kept Afghanistan dependent on Pakistan both economically and politically. Ultimately, Pakistan's military elites opted for the second option, even though it went against the conventional wisdom of their own people. The military chose this option because it had always feared that a strong Afghanistan would pose a serious threat to Pakistan.

In fact, the creation of Pakistan is rooted in controversy. In 1947, Britain chose to partition India to create a new country for British India's Muslim minority. The creation of Pakistan was based on the assumption that the Muslim minority could not coexist with the majority Hindus. Currently, minority Muslims living in India appear satisfied with being engaged in the political process through a democratic mechanism.

Muslims who live in Pakistan, however, are denied basic rights by a military dictatorship. It is not surprising that Indian Muslims do not want to emigrate to Pakistan. It is evident that an individual's political and economic inspirations bypass his or her religious affinity; this notion was confirmed with the partition of Pakistan between East and West, when in 1971, the people of West Pakistan chose to become the sovereign state of Bangladesh.

The ethnic issue has indeed shattered the dreams of the founding father of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who envisioned Pakistan as a modern, democratic and pluralistic state. After his death, the domination of political and military power by Punjabis caused a growing resentment among other ethnic groups such as Bengalis, Sindhi, Balochis and Pashtuns.

Very much like Bengalis, who opted for partition from Pakistan, Balochis have also struggled for independence since the creation of Pakistan. They refused to become part of Pakistan until 1948; in that year, the military forced Balochi leaders to adhere to Pakistan. For instance, the current military conflict in Balochistan is the continuation of the Balochis' struggle for independence (like those of Kurds in Iraq).

Similarly, Pashtuns who live in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) will remain with Pakistan until they receive large enough monetary subventions from Pakistan's federal government. Pahstuns and Balochis live across the border in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan's military leaders fear Afghanistan's potential influence over Pashtuns and Balochis who live in Pakistan; this is because Pakistan lost its western territories due to the similar influence of India over Bengalis.

After losing the largest chunk of the territory to Bengalis, Pakistani leaders feared that similar dismembering could happen with the Balochi people in the east, and with Pashtuns in the NWFP. Pakistan is squeezed between two hostile countries - India and Afghanistan.

In addition, Pakistan has always viewed an economically prosperous and militarily strong Afghanistan as a threat to its existence; this is because a contentious borderline between the two countries exists. Upon the inception of Pakistan, the Afghan government resisted the membership of this new country in the UN because the question of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remained unresolved.

The long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has never been officially ratified by the two countries. The existing borderline issue dates back to an old agreement - known as "The Durand Line" - between Afghanistan and British India. On November 12, 1898, the Afghan ruler, Emir Abdul Rahman Khan, and the foreign secretary of British India, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, signed the demarcation line between British India and Afghanistan. Indeed, this border question has remained at the core of Pakistan’s negative policy on Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military has always feared that a strong Afghanistan would dispute the current border between the two countries. In addition, an economically prosperous Afghanistan would become more attractive to Pashtuns and Balochis who live in Pakistan, which is the result of their cultural affinity with the Afghans. Therefore, according to Pakistan's military leaders, a powerful government in Afghanistan would pose an existential threat to Pakistan.

In 1989, the US left Afghanistan at the mercy of regional powers, giving Pakistan an opportunity to accomplish its long-term strategic goal to make Afghanistan dependent on it. In fact, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 helped Pakistan achieve its strategic goals. The Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) had specific plans to destroy Afghanistan's military, economic and social infrastructures.

There are obvious examples of the ISI's clandestine involvement in Afghanistan. For instance, in 1992, mujahideen groups took over Afghanistan and agreed to share power by creating a coalition government in Kabul. As a result, Pakistan immediately ordered its best Afghan puppet, the militant Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to disrupt normal life in Kabul with deadly rocket attacks.

As a result of the destruction, foreign embassies closed; the educated, prosperous people left the country. Similarly, the ISI instructed its agents across Afghanistan to destroy Afghanistan's military hardware, industrial machinery and all other equipment, which had been left by the Soviets.

Numerous poor and ignorant Afghans have collaborated with Pakistani agents to destroy factories military assets such as tanks and airplanes, and other sophisticated equipment. These were then sold in Pakistan for scrap. Eventually, Pakistan's puppet Taliban regime closed schools, universities and public offices in Afghanistan, in an effort to keep future generations in total ignorance and darkness.

Despite the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which led to the liberation of Afghanistan from the ruthless Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist network, Pakistan's policy has not changed in respect to its strategic goal in the country.

Since the arrival of coalition forces in Afghanistan, schools have been torched, economic development has been stalled, foreign experts have been beheaded, suicide bombers have flooded in from Pakistani madrassas, and Taliban and al-Qaeda allies have found a safe haven inside Pakistan.

In recent times, a consensus among North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military and intelligence officers has indicated that some in Pakistan's military turn a blind eye to the activities of the Taliban in Pakistan; further, this consensus has suggested that they collaborate with al-Qaeda.

The path to Afghanistan's stability is through Pakistan; it is the responsibility of the Afghan government and the coalition countries in Afghanistan to respond to the strategic concerns of Pakistan. Afghanistan is not in a position to get involved in the ethnic rift inside Pakistan. Also, the issue of the Durand Line between the two countries should be debated and settled with a plebiscite on both sides of the border.

Pakistan's Strategic Goals and the Deteriorating Situation in Afghanistan

PINR has an excellent intelligence report on Pakistan's strategic goals in Afghanistan and the deteriorating security of Afghanistan:

Pakistan is reeling under a host of problems and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf seems unable to tackle them. With this, the frustration in the West is rising along with skepticism about Pakistan's role in Afghanistan. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has been openly blaming Pakistan for the deteriorating security environment in his country. A few months ago, the BBC acquired a paper written by a senior official at the Defense Academy run by the U.K. Ministry of Defense. The paper alleges that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.), has been indirectly supporting the Taliban. The paper continues to argue that Pakistan's promotion of terrorism cannot be tackled unless the I.S.I. is dismantled and Pakistan moves away from the rule of the military.

While the Bush administration continues to support Pakistan's government publicly, during a recent trip to Islamabad U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney invoked the U.S. Congress' growing frustration with Pakistan by underlining the Democratic Party's threat to make aid conditional on a crackdown of Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, which are located on the border with Afghanistan.

As if this were not enough, Musharraf's decision to sack the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, has ignited widespread public protests around the country and his government's heavy-handed handling of the protests has made his position all the more tenuous. The protests are now acquiring pro-democracy overtones and have ripped off the thin veneer of democracy that Musharraf had given his regime.

Given Musharraf's self projection as a force that stands between the West and a group of nuclear-armed mullahs, he must be keenly aware that this uproar on the streets of Pakistan is not good for his own future as well as for regional stability.

Pakistan's Role as a Western Ally

Musharraf has touted his role as a close ally of the West ever since the Bush administration presented a clear choice to the Pakistani government of either supporting the United States in its invasion of Afghanistan and the larger global war on terrorism, or being accepted as a supporter of radical Islamic extremism.

There was always a perception that he was not doing as much as he could, but with the recent deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and some of the controversial decisions made by him, he is finding it hard to answer his critics convincingly. While Pakistan has apprehended some key al-Qaeda leaders and has acquired actionable intelligence, it has also not done enough to crack down on al-Qaeda's rear base on the border with Afghanistan.

Despite the public pronouncements by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom in support of Pakistan, the sharply rising Western casualty rates in Afghanistan are not only generating skepticism in these countries about Pakistan's efforts to rein in the Taliban, but they are also encouraging a rethink about Pakistan's relationship with the West and its role in the global war on terrorism.

In a clear indication that the United States is turning up the pressure on Pakistan to crack down on its tribal areas, former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte cautioned the U.S. Congress that Pakistan remains a major source of Islamic extremism and that al-Qaeda leaders have found sanctuary in secure Pakistani hideouts. Moreover, according to Negroponte, the Taliban is back to rebuilding itself in Pakistan with full vigor.

Pak-Afghan Tensions on the Rise

Even as Iraq has been the focus of U.S. foreign policy, the situation in Afghanistan, the original target of Washington's war on terrorism, continues to deteriorate. Some five years after the United States went to war to defeat the Taliban, and three years after it declared an end to combat operations, the resurgence of the Taliban is haunting the U.S. military and its allies, and hopes for the emergence of a democratic Afghanistan have faltered. While the political institutions in the form of a constitution, a popularly-elected president, and a national parliament have been in place for some time now, their efficacy is increasingly being challenged by the rising violence and creeping fundamentalism.

Tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan has intensified sharply recently amid growing concern about the implications of Islamabad's failure to crack down on cross-border militancy. Bilateral ties are complicated by New Delhi's growing presence in Kabul, which may have serious consequences for the stabilization of Afghanistan and for India-Pakistan peace talks.

Progress toward stabilization and development in Afghanistan is being influenced heavily by India and Pakistan and the rivalry between them. Pakistan has always been suspicious of New Delhi and Kabul cooperating against it, and as India's influence in Kabul has increased in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Pakistan has stalled in its efforts to curb extremists. Its failure to contain cross-border militancy has been a key factor behind deteriorating relations with Afghanistan.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been complex, with Islamabad's military-intelligence establishment contributing to the defeat of Soviet troops before 1988; the overthrow of Soviet-backed President Muhammad Najibullah in 1992; and the capture of large areas of Afghanistan by the Taliban after 1994. Several long-standing strategic interests fueled Pakistan's involvement in these developments. It has long believed that it can gain "strategic depth" against India by influencing politics in Kabul, something Islamabad felt it achieved during the 1980s and 1990s. The perceived gains of the last two decades, however, have been increasingly under threat since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

After the terrorist attacks in the United States, Musharraf had to choose between support for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and the "war on terrorism," or isolation as a backer of radical Islamic extremism. Musharraf promptly signed Pakistan up as an ally of Washington. This committed Pakistan to supporting efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and to strengthen the administration of President Hamid Karzai. However, there are considerable doubts about Islamabad's capacity, and commitment, to crack down on militants.

Kabul is deeply suspicious of Pakistan, on whom its security is largely dependent. Pakistan's I.S.I. is linked to the resurgence of the Taliban, whose leadership is thought to be operating from tribal border regions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and in the North-West Frontier Province. The rejuvenation of the Taliban has potential benefits for Pakistan in bolstering its role as a frontline state in the war on terrorism, thereby securing engagement from the United States.

Musharraf has been unable to dismantle the infrastructure that has provided funding, training and arms for the Taliban, but the I.S.I. has been brought under more direct control since 2001. The security problems in Afghanistan can be linked to the military's continuing position as the predominant force in Pakistan, an institution that has, since the 1990s, viewed the Taliban as a means of controlling Afghanistan and undercutting India's influence there. Having focused exclusively on the Taliban, it would struggle to abandon it now.

Furthermore, the failure of the U.S.-led coalition to eliminate the Taliban after more than five years of fighting has likely made Islamabad seek to maintain relations with the Taliban in case the movement manages to secure some power in Afghanistan. Pakistan remains keen to prevent its "strategic encirclement" as a result of closer Delhi-Kabul ties. Islamabad is wary of Afghanistan (or India) exerting influence on restive populations in border regions such as Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province.

Kabul has repeatedly blamed Islamabad for a resurgence of the Taliban during the past year. The exchange of bitter rhetoric has intensified, with Karzai warning that a failure to bring peace to Afghanistan would be disastrous for the whole region, and accusing Pakistan of trying to "enslave" the Afghan people.

The deterioration in relations has manifested itself most recently in a dispute over suggestions from Pakistan that it will seal its 2,430 kilometer long border (1,510 miles) with fences and mines. Afghanistan, which does not recognize the border, has reacted strongly against the plan, arguing that it will divide families and will not end cross-border terrorism. Islamabad has insisted that three million Afghan refugees should return home as one way to prevent Pakistan from being used as a haven by extremists. Pakistan also suggested that drug traffickers from Afghanistan (which produces 90 percent of the world's heroin supply) are using their influence to campaign against the border plan.

Indo-Afghan Relations

Meanwhile, as tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan has increased, India's relations with Afghanistan have steadily improved. Unlike Pakistan, ties between India and Afghanistan are not hampered by the existence of a contiguous, and contested, border. Its support for the Northern Alliance (against the Pakistan-backed Taliban) in the 1990s strengthened its position in Kabul after 2001. Many members of the Alliance are members of the government or hold influential provincial posts.

New Delhi is one of Afghanistan's top six donors, having extended a US$500 million aid package in 2001 and recently increasing this by $50 million. Most of its aid is unconditional, directed largely at reconstruction projects, as well as education and rural development. India has also supported police training and the development of electoral machinery.

Kabul wants Indian businesses to take advantage of the low tax regime to help develop a manufacturing hub in areas such as cement, oil and gas, electricity, and in services including hotels, banking and communications. Karzai may not be deliberately crafting a Delhi-Kabul alliance against Islamabad, but he is certainly hoping to push Pakistan into taking his concerns more seriously. India has opened consulates in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Jalalabad, in addition to its embassy in Kabul. Pakistan has accused the Kabul embassy of spreading anti-Pakistani propaganda and views the establishment of the consulates as a way for New Delhi to improve intelligence gathering against it.

Indeed, the development of closer ties between Kabul and New Delhi has placed India's fragile relationship with Pakistan under even more pressure, as well as jeopardizing Pakistan-Afghanistan ties. It strengthens Pakistani fears of encirclement and of the implications of India's rising global status more widely.

As a result, Islamabad is working to prevent India from expanding its influence in Afghanistan. It has refused to allow the passage of goods and aid from India to Afghanistan. Plans to build a gas pipeline linking Iran, Pakistan and India are progressing slowly. In recognition of the role of India and Pakistan on Afghanistan's stabilization, the United States has urged India toward acknowledging some of Pakistan's concerns, and has avoided pushing the Indian military to play a peacekeeping role in Afghanistan to avoid exacerbating Pakistani sensitivities. India, however, is also a key partner for Washington in the region.

Conclusion

Security and stability in Afghanistan are dependent on relations between India and Pakistan and their ties to Kabul. Competition between New Delhi and Islamabad for influence in Afghanistan poses a threat to their peace process and to Afghan development. An improvement in ties between India and Pakistan could help to stabilize the situation, but peace talks are unlikely to yield substantial results in the short- to medium-term.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Harsh V. Pant

Marrying an educated girl

SCENE: First night of the marriage. The Groom approaches the Bride and proposes to Kiss her. So Let us see what would be her reaction…

GIRL FROM DEPT OF PHYSICS:

Well kissing is relative. You can kiss me with Respect to me Or with respect to you. First define how you Are going to Kiss. You can kiss me by treating me in the Same reference frame as You are or treating me in a different inertial Frame by producing Waves of motion through your lips. How do you Prefer?

The guy faints

GIRL FROM DEPT OF MATHEMATICS:

Kissing is fine. You can kiss me provided you Satisfy the Following conditions :
Necessary conditions: You should be close to Me by a distance Delta where delta is greater than zerO and the Limit for delta Tends to zero and you satisfy the closure Property.
Sufficient conditions: You should have lips. Where the number Of lips is neither more than two nor less than Two. You can Also kiss by defining your hand to be me if And only if you satisfy The above conditions.

The guy goes mad.

GIRL FROM Computer Science:

You want to kiss me. That is fine I assume that you know the Algorithm for that very well. But you have to Complete the Process within 56.22 seconds or else Connection will be timed Out. To optimize the timing lets do parallel Processing. As we have to Discuss about our future and other things, let Us do the process of Discussion foreground and why can’t you put The process of Kissing Background?

The guy applies for divorce.

GIRL from Electronics Engineering:

So you would like to kiss me. The process of Kissing is an age Old communication process. The information Content of the Signal transmitted from one pair of lips to The other is more if the Probability of the event (of kissing) is less.
Hence take Care. If you want a successful communication Between us, You should kiss me less often. If the Information content is to be Infinite, you should never kiss me at all!

The guy is found hanging from fan next day.
So my friends get ready if you are going to marry an educated girl

Richard

Richard Branson videos

One of my favorite songs

Cool guys: Jews excercise power over the world

Paul Wolfowitz, then-under secretary of defense for policy, supervised the drafting of a 1992 policy statement on America's mission in the post-Cold War era. Called the "Defense Planning Guidance," it is an internal set of military guidelines that typically is prepared every few years by the Defense Department. This policy guidance is distributed to military leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to provide them with a geopolitical framework for assessing their force level and bugetary needs.
The 46-page classified document circulated for several weeks at senior levels in the Pentagon. But controversy erupted after it was leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post and the White House ordered then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to rewrite it.


Key Points/Excerpts:
· The number one objective of U.S. post-Cold War political and military strategy should be preventing the emergence of a rival superpower.
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
"There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
· Another major U.S. objective should be to safeguard U.S. interests and promote American values.
According to the draft document, the U.S. should aim "to address sources of regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems."
The draft outlines several scenarios in which U.S. interests could be threatened by regional conflict: "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking."
The draft relies on seven scenarios in potential trouble spots to make its argument -- with the primary case studies being Iraq and North Korea.
· If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action.
There is no mention in the draft document of taking collective action through the United Nations.
The document states that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action," but it also states the U.S. "should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies" formed to deal with a particular crisis and which may not outlive the resolution of the crisis.
The document states that what is most important is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that calls for quick response.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html




The Israel Lobby in U.S. Strategy
By George Friedman
U.S. President George W. Bush made an appearance in Iraq's restive Anbar province on Sept. 3 -- in part to tout the success of the military surge there ahead of the presentation in Washington of the Petraeus report . For the next month or two, the battle over Iraq will be waged in Washington -- and one country will come up over and over again, from any number of directions: Israel. Israel will be invoked as an ally in the war on terrorism -- the reason the United States is in the war in the first place. Some will say that Israel maneuvered the United States into Iraq to serve its own purposes. Some will say it orchestrated 9/11 for its own ends. Others will say that, had the United States supported Israel more resolutely, there would not have been a 9/11.There is probably no relationship on which people have more diverging views than on that between the United States and Israel.Therefore, since it is going to be invoked in the coming weeks --and Bush is taking a fairly irrelevant pause at the Asia-PacificEconomic Cooperation summit in Australia -- this is an opportune time to consider the geopolitics of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Let's begin with some obvious political points. There is a relatively small Jewish community in the United States, though its political influence is magnified by its strategic location in critical states such as New York and the fact that it is moreactively involved in politics than some other ethnic groups. The Jewish community, as tends to be the case with groups, is deeply divided on many issues. It tends to be united on one issue -- Israel -- but not with the same intensity as in the past, nor with even a semblance of agreement on the specifics. The American Jewish community is as divided as the Israeli Jewish community, with a large segment of people who don't much care thrown in. At the same time, this community donates large sums of money to American and Israeli organizations, including groups that lobby on behalf of Israeli issues in Washington. These lobbying entities lean toward the right wing of Israel's political spectrum, in large part because the Israeli right has tended to govern in the past generation and these groups tend to follow the dominant Israeli strand. It also is because American Jews who contribute to Israel lobby organizations lean right in both Israeli and American politics.The Israel lobby, which has a great deal of money and experience, is extremely influential in Washington. For decades now, it has done a good job of ensuring that Israeli interests are attended to in Washington, and certainly on some issues it has skewed U.S.policy on the Middle East. There are Jews who practice being shocked at this assertion, but they must not be taken seriously.They know better, which is why they donate money. Others pretend to be shocked at the idea of a lobbyist influencing U.S. policy on the Middle East, but they also need not be taken seriously, because they are trying to influence Washington as well, though they are not as successful. Obviously there is an influential Israel lobbyin Washington.There are, however, two important questions. The first is whether this is in any way unique. Is a strong Israel lobby an unprecedented intrusion into foreign policy? The key question, though, is whether Israeli interests diverge from U.S. interests to the extent that the Israel lobby is taking U.S. foreign policy in directions it wouldn't go otherwise, in directions that counter the U.S. national interest.Begin with the first question. Prior to both World wars there was extensive debate on whether the United States should intervene in the war. In both cases, the British government lobbied extensively for U.S. intervention on behalf of the United Kingdom. The British made two arguments. The first was that the United States shared a heritage with England -- code for the idea that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants should stand with white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The second was that there was a fundamental political affinity between British and U.S. democracy and that it was in the U.S. interest to protect British democracy from German authoritarianism. Many Americans, including President Franklin Roosevelt, believed both arguments. The British lobby was quite powerful. There was a German lobby as well, but it lacked the numbers, the money and the traditions to draw on.From a geopolitical point of view, both arguments were weak. The United States and the United Kingdom not only were separate countries, they had fought some bitter wars over the question. As for political institutions, geopolitics, as a method, is fairly insensitive to the moral claims of regimes. It works on the basis of interest. On that basis, an intervention on behalf of the United Kingdom in both wars made sense because it provided a relatively low-cost way of preventing Germany from dominating Europe and challenging American sea power. In the end, it wasn't the lobbyinginterest, massive though it was, but geopolitical necessity that drove U.S. ntervention.The second question, then, is: Has the Israel lobby caused the United States to act in ways that contravene U.S. interests? For example, by getting the United States to support Israel, did it turn the Arab world against the Americans? Did it support Israeli repression of Palestinians, and thereby generate an Islamist radicalism that led to 9/11? Did it manipulate U.S. policy on Iraq so that the United States invaded Iraq on behalf of Israel? These allegations have all been made. If true, they are very serious charges.It is important to remember that U.S.-Israeli ties were not extraordinarily close prior to 1967. President Harry Truman recognized Israel, but the United States had not provided major military aid and support. Israel, always in need of an outside supply of weapons, first depended on the Soviet Union, which shipped weapons to Israel via Czechoslovakia. When the Soviets realized that Israeli socialists were anti-Soviet as well, they dropped Israel. Israel's next patron was France. France was fighting to hold on to Algeria and maintain its influence in Lebanon and Syria, both former French protectorates. The French saw Israel as a natural ally. It was France that really created the Israeli air force and provided the first technology for Israelinuclear weapons.The United States was actively hostile to Israel during this period. In 1956, following Gamal Abdul Nasser's seizure of power in Egypt, Cairo nationalized the Suez Canal. Without the canal, the British Empire was finished, and ultimately the French were aswell. The United Kingdom and France worked secretly with Israel, and Israel invaded the Sinai. Then, in order to protect the Suez Canal from an Israeli-Egyptian war, a Franco-British force parachuted in to seize the canal. President Dwight Eisenhowerforced the British and French to withdraw -- as well as the Israelis. U.S.-Israeli relations remained chilly for quite a while.The break point with France came in 1967. The Israelis, under pressure from Egypt, decided to invade Egypt, Jordan and Syria --ignoring French President Charles de Gaulle's demand that they not do so. As a result, France broke its alignment with Israel. This was the critical moment in U.S.-Israeli relations. Israel needed a source of weaponry as its national security needs vastly outstripped its industrial base. It was at this point that the Israel lobby in the United States became critical. Israel wanted arelationship with the United States and the Israel lobby brought tremendous pressure to bear, picturing Israel as a heroic, embattled democracy, surrounded by bloodthirsty neighbors, badly needing U.S. help. President Lyndon B. Johnson, bogged down in Vietnam and wanting to shore up his base, saw a popular cause inIsrael and tilted toward it. But there were critical strategic issues as well. Syria and Iraq had both shifted into the pro-Soviet camp, as had Egypt. Some have argued that, had the United States not supported Israel, this would not have happened. This, however, runs in the face of history. It was the United States that forced the Israelis out of the Sinai in 1956, but the Egyptians moved into the Soviet camp anyway. The argument that it was uncritical support for Israel that caused anti-Americanism in the Arab world doesn't hold water. The Egyptians became anti-American in spite of an essentially anti-Israeli position in 1956. By 1957 Egypt was a Soviet ally.The Americans ultimately tilted toward Israel because of this, not the other way around. Egypt was not only providing the Soviets with naval and air bases, but also was running covert operations in the Arabian Peninsula to bring down the conservative sheikhdoms there, including Saudi Arabia's. The Soviets were seen as using Egypt as a base of operations against the United States. Syria was seen asanother dangerous radical power, along with Iraq. The defense of the Arabian Peninsula from radical, pro-Soviet Arab movements, as well as the defense of Jordan, became a central interest of the United States.Israel was seen as contributing by threatening the security of both Egypt and Syria. The Saudi fear of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was palpable. Riyadh saw the Soviet-inspired liberation movements as threatening Saudi Arabia's survival. Israel was engaged in a covert war against the PLO and related groups, and that was exactly what the Saudis wanted from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. Israel's covert capability against the PLO,coupled with its overt military power against Egypt and Syria, was very much in the American interest and that of its Arab allies. It was a low-cost solution to some very difficult strategic problems at a time when the United States was either in Vietnam or recovering from the war.The occupation of the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in 1967 was not in the U.S. interest. The United States wanted Israel to carry out its mission against Soviet-backed paramilitaries and tie down Egypt and Syria, but the occupation was not seen as part of that mission. The Israelis initially expected to convert their occupation of the territories into a peace treaty, but that only happened, much later, with Egypt. At the Khartoum summit in 1967, the Arabs delivered the famous three noes: No negotiation. No recognition. No peace. Israel became an occupying power. It has never found its balance. The claim has been made that if the United States forced the Israelis out of the West Bank and Gaza, then it would receive credit and peace would follow. There are three problems with that theory. First, the Israelis did not occupy these areas prior to1967 and there was no peace. Second, groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah have said that a withdrawal would not end the state of war with Israel. And therefore, third, the withdrawal would create friction with Israel without any clear payoff from the Arabs.It must be remembered that Egypt and Jordan have both signed peace treaties with Israel and seem not to care one whit about the Palestinians. The Saudis have never risked a thing for the Palestinians, nor have the Iranians. The Syrians have, but they are far more interested in investing in Beirut hotels than in invading Israel. No Arab state is interested in the Palestinians, except for those that are actively hostile. There is Arab and Islamic public opinion and nonstate organizations, but none would be satisfied with Israeli withdrawal. They want Israel destroyed. Even if the United States withdrew all support for Israel, however, Israel would not be destroyed. The radical Arabs do not want withdrawal; they want destruction. And the moderate Arabs don't care about the Palestinians beyond rhetoric.Now we get to the heart of the matter. If the United States broke ties with Israel, would the U.S. geopolitical position be improved?In other words, if it broke with Israel, would Iran or al Qaeda come to view the United States in a different way? Critics of the Israel lobby argue that, except for U.S. support for Israel, the United States would have better relations in the Muslim world, and would not be targeted by al Qaeda or threatened by Iran. In otherwords, except for the Israel lobby's influence, the United States would be much more secure.Al Qaeda does not see Israel by itself as its central problem. Its goal is the resurrection of the caliphate -- and it sees U.S.support for Muslim regimes as the central problem. If the United States abandoned Israel, al Qaeda would still confront U.S. support for countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. For al Qaeda, Israel is an important issue, but for the United States to soothe al Qaeda, it would have to abandon not only Israel, but its non-Islamist allies in the Middle East.As for Iran, the Iranian rhetoric, as we have said, has never been matched by action. During the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian military purchased weapons and parts from the Israelis. It was more delighted than anyone when Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuclearreactor in 1981. Iran's problem with the United States is its presence in Iraq, its naval presence in the Persian Gulf and its support for the Kurds. If Israel disappeared from the face of the Earth, Iran's problems would remain the same.It has been said that the Israelis inspired the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There is no doubt that Israel was pleased when, after 9/11, the United States saw itself as an anti-Islamist power. Let us remind our more creative readers, however, that benefiting from something does not mean you caused it. However, it has never been clear that the Israelis were all that enthusiastic about invading Iraq. Neoconservative Jews like Paul Wolfowitz were enthusiastic, as were non-Jews like Dick Cheney. But the Israeli view of a U.S. invasion of Iraq was at most mixed, and to some extent dubious. TheIsraelis liked the Iran-Iraq balance of power and were close allies of Turkey, which certainly opposed the invasion. The claim that Israel supported the invasion comes from those who mistake neoconservatives, many of whom are Jews who support Israel, with Israeli foreign policy, which was much more nuanced than the neoconservatives. The Israelis were not at all clear about what the Americans were doing in Iraq, but they were in no position to complain.Israeli-U.S. relations have gone through three phases. From 1948 to 1967, the United States supported Israel's right to exist but was not its patron. In the 1967-1991 period, the Israelis were a key American asset in the Cold War. From 1991 to the present, the relationship has remained close but it is not pivotal to either country. Washington cannot help Israel with Hezbollah or Hamas. The Israelis cannot help the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the relationship were severed, it would have remarkably little impact on either country -- though keeping the relationship is more valuable than severing it. To sum up: There is a powerful Jewish, pro-Israel lobby in Washington, though it was not very successful in the first 20 years or so of Israel's history. When U.S. policy toward Israel swung in 1967 it had far more to do with geopolitical interests than with lobbying. The United States needed help with Egypt and Syria and Israel could provide it. Lobbying appeared to be the key, but it wasn't; geopolitical necessity was. Egypt was anti-American even when the United States was anti-Israeli. Al-Qaeda would be anti-American even if the United States were anti-Israel. Rhetoricaside, Iran has never taken direct action against Israel and has much more important things on its plate. Portraying the Israel lobby as super-powerful behooves two groups:Critics of U.S. Middle Eastern policy and the Israel lobby itself.Critics get to say the U.S. relationship with Israel is the result of manipulation and corruption. Thus, they get to avoid discussing the actual history of Israel, the United States and the MiddleEast. The lobby benefits from having robust power because one of its jobs is to raise funds -- and the image of a killer lobby opens a lot more pocketbooks than does the idea that both Israel and the United States are simply pursuing their geopolitical interests and that things would go on pretty much the same even without slicklobbying. The great irony is that the critics of U.S. policy and the Israel lobby both want to believe in the same myth -- that great powers can be manipulated to harm themselves by crafty politicians. The British didn't get the United States into the world wars, and the Israelis aren't maneuvering the Americans into being pro-Israel.Beyond its ability to exert itself on small things, the Israel lobby is powerful in influencing Washington to do what it is going to do anyway. What happens next in Iraq is not up to the Israel lobby -- though it and the Saudi Embassy have a different story. The EndSource: Stratfor
URL: http://english.baztab.com/content/?cid=4602

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Jewish officials in American Government: under numerous presidents.
Source: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/bushlist.htm
Richard Perle
One of Bush's foreign policy advisors, he is the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktanks, the AEI. Perle is one of the leading pro-Israeli fanatics leading this Iraq war mongering within the administration and now in the media.
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle's Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz is a close associate of Perle, and reportedly has close ties to the Israeli military. His sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz came from the above mentioned Jewish thinktank, JINSA. Wolfowitz is the number two leader within the administration behind this Iraq war mongering.
Douglas Feith
Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He is a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel. Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work is representing Israeli interests. His firm's own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith "represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturer." Feith basically represents the Israeli War Machine. Feith also came from the Jewish thinktank JINSA. Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, are campaigning hard for this Israeli proxy war against Iraq.
Edward Luttwak
Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq.
Henry Kissinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger's evil past, read Seymour Hersch's book (Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House). Kissinger likely had a part in the Watergate crimes, Southeast Asia mass murders (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), Installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet, Operation Condor's mass killings in South America, and more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor. He consistently advocates going to war against Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Unfortunately, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. It's like picking a bank robber to investigate a fraud scandal.
Dov Zakheim
Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Defense. He is an ordained rabbi and reportedly holds Israeli citizenship. Zakheim attended attended Jew’s College in London and became an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in 1973. He was adjunct professor at New York's Jewish Yeshiva University. Zakheim is close to the Israeli lobby.
Kenneth Adelman
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle, and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supports going to war against Iraq. Adelman frequently is a guest on Fox News, and often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. Through his hatred or stupidity, he actually called Arabs "anti-Semitic" on Fox News (11/28/2001), when he could have looked it up in the dictionary to find out that Arabs by definition are Semites.
I. Lewis Libby
Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. The chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, it helps explains why Cheney is so gun-ho to invade Iraq. Libby is longtime associate of Wolfowitz. Libby was also a lawyer for convicted felon and Israeli spy Marc Rich, whom Clinton pardoned, in his last days as president.
Robert Satloff
U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Israeli lobby's "think tank," Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Many of the Israeli lobby's "experts" come from this front group, like Martin Indyk.
Elliott Abrams
National Security Council Advisor. He previously worked at Washington-based "Think Tank" Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Adminstration, Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year's probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Reagan Administration's State Department.
Marc Grossman
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Grossman is one of many of the pro-Israel Jewish officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush has promoted to higher posts.
Richard Haass
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He is also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the first Bush (Sr) Administration who sat on the National Security Council, and who consistently advocates going to war against Iraq. Haass is also a member of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.
Robert Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He is also one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Bush (Jr) Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of the country in order to set up setting up a Vichy-style puppet government. He consistently advocates going to war against Iraq.
Ari Fleischer
Official White House Spokesman for the Bush (Jr) Administration. Prominent in the Jewish community, some reports state that he holds Israeli citizenship. Fleischer is closely connected to the extremist Jewish group called the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidics, who follow the Qabala, and hold very extremist and insulting views of non-Jews. Fleischer was the co-president of Chabad's Capitol Jewish Forum. He received the Young Leadership Award from the American Friends of Lubavitch in October, 2001.
James Schlesinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Schlesinger also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supports going to war against Iraq. Schlesinger is also a commissioner of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.
David Frum
White House speechwriter behind the "Axis of Evil" label. He lumps together all the lies and accusations against Iraq for Bush to justify the war.
Joshua Bolten
White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Bolten was previously a banker, former legislative aide, and prominent in the Jewish community.
John Bolton
Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton is also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktank, AEI. He recently (October 2002) accused Syria of having a nuclear program, so that they can attack Syria after Iraq. He must have forgotten that Israel has 400 nuclear warheads, some of which are thermonuclear weapons (according to a recent U.S. Air Force report).
David Wurmser
Special Assistant to John Bolton (above), the under-secretary for arms control and international security. Wurmser also worked at the AEI with Perle and Bolton. His wife, Meyrav Wurmser, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, co-founded the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri),a Washington-based Israeli outfit which distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light.
Eliot Cohen
Member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor. Like Adelman, he often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. More recently, he wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal openly admitting his rascist hatred of Islam claiming that Islam should be the enemy, not terrorism.
Mel Sembler
President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. A Prominent Jewish Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries, specifically those with financial problems.
Michael Chertoff
Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, at the Justice Department.
Steve Goldsmith
Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush's Jewish domestic policy advisor. He also serves as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President. He was the former mayor of Indianapolis. He is also friends with Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and often visits Israel to coach mayors on privatization initiatives.
Adam Goldman
White House's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community.
Joseph Gildenhorn
Bush Campaign's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community. He was the DC finance chairman for the Bush campaign, as well as campaign coordinator, and former ambassador to Switzerland.
Christopher Gersten
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS. Gersten was the former Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Husband of Labor Secretary, Linda Chavez, and reportedly very pro-Israel. Their children are being raised Jewish.
Mark Weinberger
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs.
Samuel Bodman
Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.
Bonnie Cohen
Under Secretary of State for Management.
Ruth Davis
Director of Foreign Service Institute, who reports to the Office of Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).
Daniel Kurtzer
Ambassador to Israel.
Cliff Sobel
Ambassador to the Netherlands.
Stuart Bernstein
Ambassador to Denmark.
Nancy Brinker
Ambassador to Hungary
Frank Lavin
Ambassador to Singapore.
Ron Weiser
Ambassador to Slovakia.
Mel Sembler
Ambassador to Italy.
Martin Silverstein
Ambassador to Uruguay.
Lincoln Bloomfield
Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs.
Jay Lefkowitz
Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
Ken Melman
White House Political Director.
Brad Blakeman
White House Director of Scheduling.
URL: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/bushlist.htm

A few quick links

Downlod Economic lectures [mp3]
C++ tutorials
Economic Growth Theories
Introduction to MacroEconomics

Law lectures:

University of EDINBURGH


Economics lectures:
mp3 economics lectures

Sociology lectures:
Some cool lectures on sociology
Introduction to sociology

Only 28 percent of Afghanistan is educated

A news report from The New York Times declares that "only 28 percent of the population is literate...". It quotes no sources. The CIA statistic proves to back the figure up. [if you visit the last link, scroll down to literacy section Or click on Edit menu in th menubar and select the last option find(on this page)...Ctrl +F, type in literacy in the search box]

The evil is dead

I cry. I laugh. The evil, King Mohammad Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, last kind of Afghanistan, is dead. The person who betrayed, sold, raped, wounded and devestated his country dead. The man, the evil, who killed people of certain race because of their facial features is dead. The last dictator of Afghanistan is dead. I laugh. I cry. I have never been so happy in my entire life. I laugh at how the evil surrenderd to death. I laugh at how his dead body was put in grave. I laugh at how an evil of such power could seek help of people he betrayed yesterday, to put him in his grave. I laugh. Lord, thanks for giving a end of life to everyone. i laugh. I scream widly. I have never been so happy in my entire life. Never.I cry. I cry for the innocent men and women, young and old, rich and poor who were murdered by this evil dictator. I cry for those who innocent kids whose parents were murdered by this dicator when the kid was in the womb. I cry for parents who were murdered by this evil because he thought of them as "primitive". I cry for a wounded, sold, betrayed, raped and devestated country he left behind. I cry for the nation he sold so easily. I cry for our people's silence against offering the evil the great title of "Father of nation". That was an arranged dea. I laugh wild. I cry wild. Lord, i thanks thee for giving an end of life to everyone.

Hey dictator, the day i die, i will come after you in hell and chock you to death there. I will..give you the same experience you gave those innocent victims. I will... you will know what.

Excerpt from NEWS announcing death of the evil:

...President Hamid Karzai paid tribute to the former king in a statement today in
Kabul: "On the death of the 'father of the nation,' I announce three days of
national mourning. The Afghan flag will fly at half-staff, and there will be
prayer events throughout the country...."

Three days of national mourning! I think Mr President was mistaken and instead of saying
" three days of national partying ", he said what he did. Me and all friends will hold three days of partying for death of the evil. It is one of the holy days we desired to come. It is here now. We will dance, sing, eat, drink, go to cinema...Hooohoo, lets go for our three days of national partying.... Enjoy your three days of national partying.

John howard accuses an Afghan aslyum seeker of being " ungreateful terrorist"

This is sad but true that John Howard accused an Afghan asylum seeker of being
"ungrateful terrorist". The aslyum seeker is currently living on one of the islands around Australia. Christmas island, maybe. I dont know. The following sentences were exchanged between the two of them...The aslyum seeker asks John:

Dear John, Sorry to whinge mate (excuse this dangerous, asylum seeker speaking your native tongue), but it's been over two years on this Island hell hole and I'm still going to get shot by the Taliban if I return to Afghanistan. Not much of a solution in my opinion. Any chance of getting off Nauru before my kidneys completely cave in, because of the water you serve up here? Australian mate here said I'm going to get accused of being a terrorist again before the next election, and tried to describe the concept of 'pawn'. Could you enlarge? - A

John Howard replies:

A,

God, you terrorists are so ungrateful. You get a whole island to yourselves where you can sew your lips together and throw your kids into the ocean to your heart's content, and now apparently you get internet access too, and you want to leave? Do you realise there are real Little Aussie Battlers™ in this country who have to live in the country and run farms and stuff, sometimes only getting one A Current Affair special about them a year? Not only that, sometimes their phone service is so bad that they can't even ring up talkback radio to complain! And you have the nerve to complain about living on an island paradise where you don't have to work or pay for anything? Some people would give their left arm to have things as sweet as you lot.

Source here [ Search for the word "Afghanistan" on that page using Ctrl+f ].

In response to John's unrealistic accusations, Afghans who are Australian citizens can best battle John Howard by NOT voting for him in the next federal election. Tell your friends and relatives to do the same if they are Australian citizen. On the top of that, tell your friends and relatives to tell their friends and relatives to do the same....friends of your friends should tell their friends and relatives too and so on. Spread the news around to everyone you know. Tell them to tell their friends and relatives not to vote for John Howard. Tell your friends and relatives to do the same.Because Australia has a small population, every vote will have an impact on outcome of the election. Thus, we can undermine support base of John Howard while increasing support for his rivals, like Kevin Rudd.

If you feel a responsibility toward your people, go spread the news about John's remarks and tell your friends and relatives not to vote for John Howard in the next federal election because of his insulting and unrealistic remarks.......By doing this, you are supporting your own community and your own countryman: the dear Afghans.

How to counter racist attitudes of teenages toward Afghans in Australia ane elsewhere in western world

A report by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one of the largest social policy research and development charities in the UK explains why some people in the UK, and elsewhere in the western world embrace a racist attitude towards refujees and aslyum-seekers.Here, i will focus mainly on the cause-of-dislike toward Afghans.

The following are reported as causes of dislike.

• Security fears/terrorism

• "Afghans - Because they hijack planes and kill people "

  " People in Iraq... did horrible non-forgiveable actions! ".

• Dislike of different

• " Coloured people... are different from us. "

  " ASIANS... are different. "

• Tooo many incomers

• " Pakistan... are invading our country. "

There are other causes of dislike like Preferential treatment and Perceived hostility, but i wont list their details because they are not related to what i said i will focus on. Ok, the report also says that personal experience, coverage of local and international afairs by media, and local events are source of creating dislike amongst teenages.

When news of car bombings in Afghanistan or Iraq goes on air, it will directly influence attitudes of teenages toward refujees. In other words, those youngesters who show a feeling of dislike toward refujees, Afghans in this case , justfiy their racist attitude by what they see on TV, or hear on radio or read about in the newspaper. Hence, media paints a bad impression of Afghans amongst the populations. And it does it successfully.

After media coverage, there is personal experience on the list. If a non-Afghan kid in Australia , the UK or elsewhere encouters an agressive or bully Afghan kid, he , the non-Afghan kid will generalize behavoir of the Afghan kid to include all Afghans. Therefor, If one Afghan kid is agressive for some reason (maybe because he is ignorant), the non-Afghan kid will come to beleive that All afghans are the same. Generalization.

Local events influenec teenages's attitudes the same way as other factors. All of the factors, from media to personal experience, create a misconception amongst the crowd. The crowd then justfies its racist attitudes by that misconception.

Now, the important part to this is how to successfully encouter these racist attitudes. Afghans can counter these racist attitudes successfully and if they do, they can change how the dislikers see them. First step by Afghans in coutering the racist behavoirs should be removing the misconception and getting the dislikers to know the reality...that they are not terrorists. It is the Al-Qaeda and other extremists who are terrorists. The best way i think to remove that cloud of misconception is to be a nice gentleman and tell the disilker directly in their face that they attitude has no real basis. Tell them that they have misunderstood things.....If the dislikers point to a TV documentation to justify their feeling of dislike, tell them that those havocs are caused by "extremists", not by mainstream Afghans. To make them believe what you say is true, get them something to read that tells them that difference between extremists and mainstream Afghans....for example, it could be a news analysis by a counter-terrorism expert or something. The main poinnt is it should clearly tell the difference between the trouble makers and the mainstream Afghans.

If they behave agressivly towards you just to show up their feeling of dislike, ignore thir behavoir and move on to counter their misconception. This can be true only if their agression is not triggered by something else...like a fight or something.

There are people who have racist attitude towards refujees even in Australia....just the extend of it is small to that of the UK.

ASPI executive summary on China's growing economic power

Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has compiled an executive summary about China's growing economic power and its implications for Australia...

The rise of China as a great economic power will be one of the great geo-political challenges of the 21st century. After twenty-five years of economic reform, China's nominal GDP has grown to $2.2 trillion and is now the fourth largest in the world. If we adjust for PPP differences, China's real GDP is probably already at $5–6 trillion and thus number two in the world. China has enjoyed robust growth during recent years because of booming capital investment, robust exports, and steady expansion of domestic consumption. China has attracted over $600 billion of foreign direct investment since 1990 and now has the third largest stock in the world after the US and Britain. Foreign firms now produce nearly 60% of China's exports. China's exports are almost $800 billion or the third highest in the world after the US and Germany. In 2010, China will probably be the world's largest exporting nation. China's manufacturing output is now worth over one trillion dollars compared to $1.7 trillion for the US. In another five years, China's manufacturing sector will probably be larger than America's. China's boom has produced a surge in raw material demand. In 2003 and 2004, China displaced the US to become the world's leading consumer of most base metals (copper, aluminium, zinc, etc.) and displaced Japan to become the world's number two oil consumer. But while China now consumes nearly 20–25% of many base metals, her per capita consumption is only about one fifth of America's. The low level of consumption suggests that China could account for one third of global metal consumption in another fifteen or twenty years.China's new economic status is having a major impact on her foreign policy. Her officials are stressing that they want China's rise to be a peaceful process and not threaten other countries. They do not want to be compared to Germany in 1914 or Japan during the 1930s. As a result of China's need for commodities, Beijing is attempting to negotiate free trade agreements with several commodity producing nations, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, and Saudi Arabia. In a recent tour of Latin America, President Hu Jintao committed China to $9 billion of infrastructure investment in Brazil and $15–20 billion of infrastructure as well as energy investment in Argentina. China made a $2 billion loan to Angola last year in order to improve her access to oil exploration permits from the government. During the past four months, Chinese companies have announced over $11 billion of new oil investments in Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Syria, and Nigeria. China is also playing a leadership role in Asia. Beijing is promoting the creation of a regional free trade zone in East Asia. China has joined the ASEAN regional forum in order to participate in dialogues about security policy in the region. China has helped to launch a new regional group in Central Asia called the Shanghai Cooperation Council. Its goal is to promote political dialogue and economic cooperation with Russia and former Soviet Republics in Central Asia.There is great apprehension in Washington, Tokyo, and other capitals about the rise of China as a new power. The US Congress is alarmed about the large American trade deficit with China. The Pentagon is concerned about China challenging American military supremacy in East Asia. While it is natural that traditional powers should be concerned about the rise of new powers, China's capacity to pursue an aggressive foreign policy will be very contained by her new economic circumstances. China's ratio of exports to GDP is now 38% or three times higher than that of the US, Japan, and Europe. It is unusual for a country as large as China to be so heavily dependent upon foreign trade but as a result of low labour costs, good infrastructure, and pro-business economic policies the global corporate community has turned China into a workshop of the world. China has become so integrated with the global economy that she can no longer pursue a high-risk foreign policy without jeopardising her economic prosperity.China is likely to become a threat to other countries only if she experiences domestic political instability which produces an upsurge of nationalism or a search for external scapegoats to blame for local problems. The Communist regime appears to be firmly entrenched and is unlikely to lose power any time in the near future. But when a fifth generation of leadership assumes power in ten to fifteen years, China could become more open and tolerate greater dissent. Such a political opening could then open the door to forces such as nationalism and populism. There is no way to predict exactly how Chinese politics will evolve in a more democratic era, but it is a development which could produce new challenges for the countries of East Asia after 2020. An authoritarian China has been highly predictable. A more open and democratic China could produce new uncertainties about both domestic policy and international relations.

John Howard delivered his keynote speech at ASPI conference in Canberra. In his speech, he discussed key defense issues facing in Australia and its policy response...

Spies who leaked U.S nuclear secrets to USSR

Klaus Fuch, a German Physics theorist, was one of the three spies who passed on U.S nuclear secrets to USSR. An interesting read. I had been puzzled about how the USSR quickly produced nuclear weapons of their own after the Americans. Top nuclear secrets were leaked to them trhough espionage.

Afghanistan, an issue in Australian domestic politics

War in Afghanistan has served to introduce Afghanistan to the world outside. Just a few years ago before 9/11, majority of western populations had not heared name of Afghanistan, let alone know its location. After the war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda was started by the U.S-led coilation forces, there were regular mentions of the "Afghanistan" in media throughout the world. Majority of western poppulations, whether shcool kids or adbults, now know where Afghanistan is and what it is upto. Vietnam war gave rise to popularity of Vietnam as a war-torn country. The same goes for Afghanistan. Many nations of the world are popular because they host international events, like soccer games, cricket games...Afghanistan is famous because it serves as a battle ground for many nations who are fighting against terrorist fictions like Taliban and alike.

Afghanistan is an issue in Australian domestic politics because of Australia's involvement in "War on Terror" in Afghanistan. During these times, because of upcoming federal election, there are debates over what role Australia will play in Afghanistan in the future. Two prominent candiates of next federal election, opposition leader Kevin Rudd of Labour, and John Howard of liberals have two different views in Afghanistan. John Howard, the current Prime Minister, says he will leave the troops in Iraq as they are today (as long as Iraqi people want, he says). In other words, he will stay his course in Iraq. On Afghanistan, he says he will stay the course. Kevin Rudd has a different approach. He stays he will withdraw the Australian troops from Iraq and move them to Afghanistan. Number of Australian troops in Iraq are not that big to be a real boost to Afghanistan's security.

I will update this post as new information comes out...or if position of any of the rivals change.


Untill next time, C yah.

One question from you dear readers...

It has taken me so long to ask this question. Do you read the comments on your comments? i mean when you go to a blog, read an article, post a comment, do you than sometimes later go back to that blog and read what others or the author have said in response to your comment?

American vs Australian accent

Because Americans and Australians speak in two different accents, that can sometimes create a communication barrier and be a tough challenge to overcome. In the video below,
a Chinese-Australian lady goes over to the U.S for some reason and faces the challenges talked about in above.

Enjoy the watch here.

Australia went to Iraq for oil: Australia's defence minister Brandon Nelson

Some one finally came out of little John's (John Howard) cabinet to tell the truth. Australia's defence minister, Brandon Nelson, admitted why Australian troops invaded Iraq: for oil. In an interview with journalists, Mr Brandson said:

"Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the
world, and of course, in protecting and securing Australia's interests."

Well, of course other cabinet members tried to discredit Nelson's revelations. John Howard and Peter Costello were two of them. Little john repeated his fabrication that Australia is in Iraq to "give Iraqi people a taste of Democracy". He said:

" We are not there because of oil. We didn't go there because of oil and dont
remain there because of oil "

Peter Costello, the treasurer, asserted a smiliar fabrication, to discredit the revelation.

" We're fighting for something much more important here than oil,
this is about democracy "

Oh yeah Mr treasurer, it really is about Democracy, about an imported American democracy. By judging his witty tone, it would be fair to say that Mr treasurer tends to ignore or underestimate awareness of Australian mainstream about why the US-led coilation invaded Iraq--including Australia. People had already anticipated the reason for invasion of Iraq and it was confirmed by Mr Nelson's statement. Mr treasurer still hopes for the mainstream to beleive his pretexts and propaganda. Mr treasurer, Australians are not dumpt. If it sounds too good to be true, it sure is.

The federal opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, described John Howard's stance toward iraq as "making it up as he goes along". He said:

" Mr Howard was asked back in 2003 whether this war had anything to do with
oil. Mr Howard said in no way did this have anything to do with oil. This
government simply makes it up as it goes along. "

More details [BBC Persian]

More details [ ABC ]

Education and the Pro-western and pro-Islamic approach

It has been at most 9 years since foundation of the new Afghani communities were laid in Australia. The new communities are outcome of years of immigration and struggle in order to find a safe heaven for themselves and for their future generations. After becoming an Australian citizen, they are referred to as

Afghan-Australian. The same goes for their future generations, to a great extend and with some exceptions.

The new Afghan-Australians are divided in their appraoch to facing Australian society. Some are pro-western while some are conservative and pro-Islamic. Education plays as a key factor in shaping their approach; whether pro-western or conservative and pro-islamic. It holds true that majority of people who were educated when they arrived in Australia, are slightly pro-western. For them, religion and hence, ideology, is a thing of the past somewhat. Moreoever, for conservatives and pro-Islamics religion holds dear. For pro-westeners, integration into Australian society is a prioirity. To do acheive that, they came to accept promoting their Afghani culture while increasing their distance from Islamic beliefs as a solution.

Since that, focus of pro-westerners are fixed on promoting their Afghani culture amonst other Australians while going further away from Islamic way of life. Hence, integration into Australian society. Two films shot in suburb of Griffith, Vic, that show Afghan-Australian boys and girls dancing amongst other aussies backs up this claim.

In rural Victoria, pro-westerners have their own place and conservatives their own. Most of pro-islamics and conservatives live in suburb of Shepparton. Suburb of Griffith is host to majority of pro-western Afghan-Australians. In Shepparton, Afghan-Australian girls are having their headscarfs on where as this is not true for Griffith.

Despite all their differences, majority of parents; whether pro-western or

pro-Islamic, perceive getting university education as the most important step for their children to take. This is far the most positive thing for all of us. If half or more of our future generation is university-educated, I am more than sure that most of the ill-behavoirs in our communities will be gotten rid of. Ill-behavoirs like fighting over location of a mosque, as in Adelaide. Most of the troubles Afghan-Australian communities are facing today, are due to ignorance of their people. Even those who were educated in Afghanistan are sometimes acting ignorant. It is proved in Adelaide.

Beside getting red of the troubles, our future university-educated generations will be professionals in whatever field they will be trained for at University. Hence, we wont have many people working in orchards or doing similar labour jobs. It is grim to see our parents doing such hard labour jobs, but there is no alternative for them yet.

I wish to see our future generation as professionals of this country. Like Businessman, journalist, presenter, health professioanls, computer engineers, any type of engineer......even Senator and politicians. Remember, Steve Brakcs, premier of Victoria is a lebanese Arab.

Although description of Mr Steve Bracks as a "lebanese Arab" is not the most appropriate way to describe him because his grand grand parents came to Australia in 1890, but still it suggests that people of other backgrounds can hold position of an authority in this country.

Link between literacy and Economic Development

THe following report investigates the link between literacy skills and economic development, report by a Canadian agency. A must read!

In today’s technologically-based global economy, considerable emphasis is placed on the contribution made by people, or what economists refer to as human capital, to economic growth. The theory is that the relative contribution of individuals to growth depends on their human capital – the knowledge, skills, competencies and other attributes that are relevant to economic activity. As a consequence, developing the skills and knowledge of the labour force is regarded as a key strategy for promoting national economic growth. Related to this is the assumption that individuals who contribute more by way of their human capital should earn more. Distributional issues are a consideration as well, since increasing access to education and training can help to address inequality in employment and earnings outcomes for more- and less-skilled individuals.
Because we have lacked direct measures for ‘skills,’ indicators of educational attainment have typically been used as a proxy measure, with educational attainment being measured either as years of schooling or as highest level of education completed, ranging from less than high school to having one or more university degrees. However, these indirect indicators cannot distinguish between the acquisition of specific knowledge versus general literacy skills.The development of new surveys that allow ‘skill’ to be measured more directly have permitted researchers to tackle these issues. One such survey is the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) which provides measures of directly-assessed literacy skills for the population aged 16 to 65 years for twenty-three OECD countries.

The link between literacy skills and economic growthA recent study used data from IALS to investigate the relationship between educational attainment, literacy skills and economic growth.1 That study found that investment in human capital, that is, in education and skills training, is three times as important to economic growth over the long run as investment in physical capital, such as machinery and equipment. The results also show that direct measures of human capital based on literacy scores perform better than years-of-schooling indicators when explaining growth in output per capita and per worker.
One of the study’s key conclusions is that human capital accumulation matters a great deal for the long-run wellbeing of nations. In fact, the study suggests that differences in average skill levels among OECD countries explain fully 55% of the differences in economic growth over the 1960 to 1994 period. This implies that investments in raising the average level of skills could yield large economic returns. Furthermore, the study finds that the average literacy score in a given population is a better indicator of growth than one based solely on the percentage of the population with very high literacy scores. In other words, a country that focuses on promoting strong literacy skills widely throughout its population will be more successful in fostering growth and wellbeing than one in which the gap between high-skill and low-skill groups is large.

The link between education, literacy and earningsAlso using data from IALS, Green and Riddell focused their research on individuals, rather than countries, to determine the relative contributions of education and literacy skills to earnings levels, the most commonly used and widely accepted measure of labour market success.2
The purpose of the analysis was to measure the extent to which a number of factors contribute to annual earnings levels. Education is measured in two ways, one being based on years of schooling and the other, based on highest level of schooling completed. Another factor considered was years of work experience, measured as age minus years of education minus six (the latter is assumed to be the age at which formal education begins).
Green and Riddell found that the impact of education on earnings arose from two separate effects. The first was an increase in earnings associated with the development of specific knowledge and skills through rising levels of education. The second was an increase in earnings resulting from the stronger literacy skills that are also associated with higher levels of education. The results were similar when education was measured by level of educational attainment or by years of schooling.
The authors found that each additional year of education raises earnings by approximately 8%. This estimate of the ‘return to education’ is similar to that obtained by other studies. Labour market experience had a large effect as well, boosting earnings approximately 4.5% a year early in the career and by progressively smaller amounts with accumulated experience. Finally, the average literacy score had a large positive effect, separate from the effect of educational attainment, labour market experience and other factors. The analysis found that an increase in an individual’s position on the distribution of literacy scores of 10 percentiles resulted in a 3% increase in earnings.
Figure 1: Annual earnings by literacy level Source: Literacy, Numeracy and Labour Market Outcomes in Canada. Statistics Canada Catalogue number 89-552-MIE2001008.
According to the authors, these results suggest that a substantial amount of the overall impact of education on skills is through its effect on literacy. This is especially the case when looking at earnings of individuals whose highest level of education is high school graduation compared to those with just elementary school.
Without taking literacy scores into consideration, high school graduates earned approximately 50% more than those with an elementary education, while university graduates earned over 100% more. In the case of high school graduates, over 60% of the positive impact of high school graduation on earnings was due to the increase in literacy skills associated with the completion of high school. For postsecondary non-university graduates and for university graduates, slightly less than half of the earnings premium associated higher education was accounted for by increased literacy skills.

ConclusionUnderstanding the factors that contribute to a country’s economic growth has been a long-time objective of economists. In part, this is because a growing economy is one that has the potential to generate prosperity and wellbeing for its citizens while at the same time laying the foundation for a more equitable distribution of the benefits of growth. As the Canadian economy, like other developed economies, has evolved from one based on resources and manufacturing to one based on information, knowledge and skills, growing emphasis has been placed on the role played by human capital – the skills and knowledge embodied in people. Because direct measures of skill have been hard to develop, analysts have relied on indirect measures of human capital, based on the assumption that individuals with more education will also have more knowledge and skill than those with less education.
While the link between education and the knowledge and skill that an individual contributes to the labour market and to society more generally is a strong one, more recent studies have endeavoured to refine our understanding of how education contributes to economic growth. Much effort is being put into the development of new surveys, like the IALS, that measure specific skills directly. Use of these direct measures in analyses of economic growth find that, indeed, a major contributor to growth consists of the literacy skills of a country’s population, broadly defined to include prose, document and quantitative literacy.
It follows, then, that wage returns to literacy tend to be highest in countries, such as Canada and the United States, where the demand for literacy skills is high and where literacy levels are highly variable. In other words, when literacy skills are in high demand, individuals who possess strong literacy skills are more successful in the labour market than individuals whose literacy skills are weaker. Recent analysis finds, in fact, that differences in literacy and numeracy skills explain one-third of the variation in wages in Canada. In addition, further gains in earnings are associated with other skills and knowledge acquired through education.
In May 2005, the first report from the new Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) will compare literacy profiles across six countries. That report will explore the relationship between literacy skills in different countries and indicators relating to labour force outcomes, education and social outcomes. The Canadian report will be published in September 2005. It will provide literacy profiles at the provincial level and for selected sub-populations, including the Aboriginal population, immigrants, youth and seniors. That report will also explore the determinants of literacy skills in Canada.

The trouble with loyalty

The Trouble With Loyalty In politics, ideas are more important than people--or at least they should be.
Peggy Nonnan writes:

It was a sparkling and unusual event, a dinner that was as interesting as a
Democrat's (the talk was culturally broad, if sober-- "life is real and
earnest") and as handsomely done as a Republican's (the flowers were white,
crisp, so expertly arranged they seemed a natural outgrowth of the mirrored
table. Life should be not only grumbled about but celebrated).
In New York, in the Second Gilded Age, the age of the thousand-dollar pizza, wealthy Democrats, when they entertain, seem careful not to have things too physically perfect. It might suggest they're unserious, that their thoughts are not always focused on the oppressed. Wealthy Republicans, on the other hand, will go all
out to make it lovely. "The oppressed? I make jobs for them!" As for being
thought unserious, one senses it does not trouble them. They made money in the
world; they correctly apprehended the lay of the land and moved. That serious
enough for you? We were marking a birthday. I was seated next to a politically experienced businessman, an acquaintance of many years. He kept talking about the presidential race. I asked who he's supporting. He was surprised I had to ask. "Hillary," he said. I nodded. "Tell me why," I said. "I've known her for years," he said. "I'm a loyal person." I waited for him to say more. But he didn't. "Your reason for backing her is that you're loyal?" "Yes," he said. As if that were enough. I was puzzled. You're loyal. So what? You have a virtue, good. But that doesn't mean the person you're loyal to should be my president. That's not enough.
And I said this, in a more polite and less concise way. Which made him defensive. "You should talk," he said. "You were loyal to Reagan." "No, I wasn't," I said. "I
agreed with him." I didn't know Reagan when I went to work with him; I only knew
his views and philosophy and supported them. I wanted him to succeed because I
wanted what he stood for to succeed. In time I came to feel personal loyalty.
But agreement came first. And if, in his presidency, Reagan had turned into some
surprising, weak, tax-raising, government-growing, soft-on-Soviets guy, I would
have stopped backing him. I would have thought him very nice and a bit of a
dope, like Jerry Ford. I wouldn't feel I had to hold high his memory and
meaning. Loyalty has nothing to do with it, not if you're serious.
Or rather personal loyalty has nothing to do with it. But the loyal are all
over the place this year. There is a blight of them, the old friends and
colleagues and neighbors, the former roommates. They're bundling from downtown
to the Bronx. They're leading the cheers in the audience.
The other night at a big Giuliani fund-raiser in midtown Manhattan, when he said, "and if I become the president--," a woman standing in the middle of the audience jumped up and bellowed, "You will!" to great applause, and I thought: I bet she worked with him at Justice. A few months ago I had coffee with a new acquaintance who's a longtime friend of a Republican candidate. He wanted to tell me of his candidate's virtues, offer insight. His guy was honest, a leader. They'd been
young men together. He'd seen him up close. I didn't doubt his sincerity. But so far I didn't see why the candidate's virtues were dispositive. Why, I asked, should he be president? The man was surprised and said, "Well, he's a great guy!"
What does he want to do as president? I asked. What exactly will he do?
The man blinked and looked away. "I want to think about that," he said. He thanked me for bringing it up. In a half hour more of talk he never answered. Why is the Personal Loyalty Blight a problem? One reason is the one Hannah Arendt pointed out, the obvious one. "Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise." But another is that the personally loyal seem more powerful than ever. Money is more important than ever. A big war chest leaves a candidate able to intimidate and communicate. The war chest comes from money raisers. The money raisers are often the personally loyal. And the loyal are driven not by a seriousness about ideas, proposals or policies but by a seriousness about the candidate himself, and what the candidate will do for the contributor once he's elected president. Ambassador Smith . . . No,
FCC Chairman Smith . . . Smith, head of the American delegation told
reporters . . ." It's all human, and traditional, and understandable. But this year of all years it's not enough. And it's certainly not enough for the candidates. It's never enough for them. There is the story of the politician who accused a follower of never being loyal. The follower was nonplussed. "But I always support you when I think you're right," he said. "Anyone can do that," said the politician. "I want people who support me when I'm wrong." They're all like that. And they all have reason for being like that. They're in a hard business.

In the past, personal loyalty has been more a Democratic thing than a Republican one. Democrats used to like politics more than Republicans, so it's no surprise they'd like its practitioners more. Republicans used to be conservatives; conservatives think politics is a duty, not a joy. Democrats took their leaders more seriously as personalities, as people. They emotionally invested more in them. FDR's people gave themselves to the boss, and went on to write the wonderful compelling story: Franklin and Eleanor, he a flighty state rep, she a flutey-voiced duckling, both of them born to and comfortable in wealth, then illness, growth, personal drama; he gets sick and finds his strength, she becomes independent and finds her voice. How many books, films and made-for-TV movies have we seen of it? All written by
Democrats, who were more eager to see the life as a reason for their loyalty.
Republicans used to be a cooler sort. They got excited by the philosophy, by
what the guy would do in office. If he pleased them in these areas, they were
more than happy to find he'd lived an interesting and inspiring life, and tell
you about it in books. It is better to see activists driven by philosophy
than by personalities. Better to be faithful to the cause than to individuals
with whom you merely have a history. Better to have fidelity to principles, and
not to political figures, no matter how interesting or compelling they are.