Government Wins Manmohan Singh Loses

Re: # 139
Izaj....
Pakistan will not get much of the US high tech stuff due the following reason...

1) Tech Transfer to China- the major worry for USA
2) Pakistan administration is vulnerable to be in the hands of Jihadis....

And these worries are not very uncalled for....

USA wants to learn lesson from Iran. During Shah's rule they have sold all the latest arms to Iran. And, when the Govt. changed, they were biting their nails....
Indians are not very much against USA. In any formation of Govt., either BJP or Congress have to be part of the govt. So, USA can trust India in terms of technology transfer. In fact, if India would have sided with USA, India would have seen booming industry in Nuke power equipments, the way India in progressing in space industry, may be 5/6 years later, India will launch US satellites and on behalf, India have to sponsor part of NASA programs....
Those who are talking about proliferation, they are quite stupid. The nuke deal is kind of way ( through hyde act and 123 agreement) they are binding India...

Re: # 138 You have point it is better to be late than never.

I feel PM has gone and their in usa and he is parroting "american line" we are fighing for pakistan. It is quick sand once you enter it sucks and finally kills stuck up animal.

Problem is PM is very intelligent man he understands all or better than all us. As they say a blind can be told of danger ahead but nonblind sees and jumps nothing can be done.
The die is already caste. Reckless things done will take time to get bitter fruits but they will.
I appreciate you put out neck and try to analyse and suggest. I like that, its better to tell what and why you think and speculate. Mistakes do happen who do any thing. Management position is always to try and if wrong correct worst thing is not to anything.
You have practical attitude. Please do not get sisturbed by some little person and his familar antics.
If time permits you can write about past air encounters/ airforce betwwen and Indian and pakistani. Hope fully as pavo puts different points you can put. He does not write about air battles or encounters. Or over long landscape of battle field air action never much affected outcomes as Pavo never mentions air activity.

For your service this little delightful bandish in Shuddha Kaylan. Enjoy and have good day.She recently performed same in Lahore I am told.
http://www.esnips.com/doc/52e39cd2-a416-4a0b-b4f0-d018998a671a/Ashwini-Bh ide-Deshpande-Raag-Shuddha-Kalyan.mp3

Re: # 115
Pak N-diplomacy comes to a full stop




Monday, July 28, 2008

By Shireen M Mazari

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has finally sprung into action to counter the Indian efforts to get a country-specific safeguards agreement from the IAEA and then move on to seeking similar concessions from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

Pakistan has always supported a criteria-based principle for any exception to the nonproliferation norms to be made by the IAEA and the NSG. In this regard, Pakistan had already sent a letter to the IAEA Board of Governors (BoG), which will be taking up the Indian dictated IAEA draft in the coming days, asking for a vote in the BoG on this issue.

There were two reasons behind this move: One, to expose those member states that have been holding forth on nonproliferation but would go along with making an exception to India; and, two, to see how many of Pakistan’s Arab allies, who are presently members of the IAEA Board would vote. The US and India are seeking an agreement by consensus without putting the issue to vote.

In addition to a letter from Pakistan’s ambassador to Austria and the IAEA, as part of the MFA’s strategy on this issue, the foreign secretary also wanted to send a letter to the NSG states asking them to adopt a criteria-based approach for sensitive technology transfers rather than country-based exceptions.

The third leg of the MFA strategy was to send an envoy - preferably a seasoned diplomat - to our ally China to get them to lend support to the Pakistani approach vis-a-vis the IAEA and the NSG.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Pakistani letter was sent to the IAEA BoG, the US got moving and conveyed to Islamabad that Pakistan had already given a commitment, through a previous Foreign Secretary, that it will offer no opposition to the US pursuing India-specific exceptions at the IAEA and the NSG.

As a result the MFA was asked to stop all activities meant to counter India-US moves on safeguards and technology exports at the IAEA and the NSG respectively. The net result has been that all diplomatic efforts by Pakistan have come to a grinding halt and the special envoy’s mission had to be aborted midway.

This despite the fact that many Western IAEA and NSG members are firm adherents to the non-proliferation regime and are uncomfortable with the Indo-US nuclear deal - which is why the US and India do not want to put the safeguards agreement to vote in the IAEA BoG. Incidentally, the halting of the MFA’s diplomacy took place while the foreign secretary was in India for talks.

It is important to remember that Pakistan has been signing the normal non-NPT member states’ Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, seeking no exit clauses or other exceptions. Interestingly, although the US has consistently and publicly stated that it will not sign a nuclear deal with Pakistan on similar lines to the Indo-US nuclear deal, Pakistan’s new de jure foreign minister has naively sought to declare, like his predecessors, that Pakistan will seek such a deal.

Some outsiders inducted in the Foreign service by the present government have been intervening in foreign policy decisions. At international moots, they check and rewrite all speeches prepared by the MFA. They allegedly informed the foreign secretary that the MAF should stop focusing on China as Pakistan’s major ally because now there was going to be a major reorientation towards the US and India. Perhaps that is why the prime minister has chosen to go to the US before visiting our ally in good times and bad, China. Could that also be the reason for negotiating with the Indian-owned Mittal for the exploitation of Thar coal rather than the Chinese companies with whom Pakistan had been negotiating for the last few years?
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16264

ahmedmadani #: "IS is Still time to with drew from WTO or now it is too late...."

it is a bit late now..... but better late than never.....all other countries have more or less withdrawn....there was one explosion in spain and it withdrew....britain is withdrawing....canada is seriously thinking of moving out of afghanistan.....none of the even closest nato allies of usa are willing to put in more than a few hundred to thousand troops.....

turkey was asked for logistics support for iraq, but it refused.....pakistan has done more than its part.....it needs to move out now......tell the usa to leave, and stop providing any more logistical support.....

after that if the usa wants to fight taliban in fata, let the two fight it out.....there isn't much pakistan can do to stop either....

as long as there is peace and quiet in the major cities of pakistan, quite a few entities from china to the middle east will invest heavy money.......and if pakistan improves business relations with india, indian companies will as well.....

the deeper pakistan gets into this violence, the more dangerous a place pakistan will become....america has the luxury of withdrawing back to its distant borders...pakistan does not.....

the longer this war is going on, the more powerful the taliban inside pakistan have become......there wasn't a single suicide bomb in pakistan, prior to 9/11.......and swat used to be a place where people had summer homes, prior to 9/11.......

one need not be a genius to figure out the impact of unstinted support given to usa after 9/11, in pakistan....

infact, prior to the first afghan war, in which pakistan was also a frontline ally of the usa, there were no drugs and klashnikovs in pakistan......

Most probably ISI is stealing from Unkil

The terror email which came just 4 minutes before ahmedabad blasts has been traced to an American-Indian. English media channels like CNN-IBN have censored his identity, as expected.

Neighbours say, they have seen european kids playing in the garden below regularly.

So called truth-seeker CNN-IBN has turned news to sports events.

Interesting thing is, if this guy were some normal Abdul, he would be grabbed by neck by now and dragged into police van in front of media. But, police team has not allowed media teams even in vicinity of the building where this raid is being gone.

In past, there was a report on Zee-news of american special-mission oritented fast reaction time pistols being recovered from Paki terrorists in J&K. But, that news report disappeared within 1 hour and wasn't repeated again on that day.

Nice cover-up of american connections(CIA) in terror blasts.

#134 peon sahib: do you mean "makhhichoos" but are too polite to say that and so say "makhanchoos", sir?

Re: # 133

they are all makhanchoos tahmeedi saab

#129 bulleya: "...i am not sure if it needs to align its goals with the interests of islam......it simply needs to avoid radical islam and not reach out to fight it; specifically in a manner where it ends up killing so many innocent muslims...unless it is, itself attcked first...."

hmmmmmm...you dont say!! I'll be damned!! This why our kakul graduates rule the world - they think such profound thoughts!!

#124 mkamd: "Natzi ( not 'Nazi') "

ahmedmadani: and all your life you have been saying 'Nazi'!! now, thanks to mr. mkamd, you know better.

Re: # 127 Romair I have agreement with you ,that america will declare victory and go home defeated.
What is your feeling moderate political people/ parties/army may not able to withstand general thrust towards settled areas. If usa stops help to army and with no support from people can Our Taliban come to I-Bad as Talibans went easily to Kabul ?
Or they will feel overstretched to do that will go for control of Peshavar but still leaving Pakistani govt with city so it will get supplies ?
The Roman Barbarians did similar things for rome they controlled access for many years before finally took over.Wonder will usa after defeat will just abandon pakistan or still the geocentric position of pakistan will demand full USA attention.
In coming problems will nationalist of B.Stan loose appeal due to fear of P.Taliban and get more cemented to country or they will take advantage to go away? Will usa like independent B.Stan so they can control gas and mineral wealth ?
Too difficult to imagine how things will go.
I think you were saying right for long time to disengage from WOT now army is unnecessarily got lumped with USA army. Problem with usa is they are putting less people in A.stan number of police in karachi. What some body said ( Ayubkhan) enimity with usa is bad but friendship with usa for junior partners is fetal. There quite truth in that.
Any way corroupt practices and sin ful ways and white washing for bhuttos for their money NRO , and people of pakistan have to pay through lives and disunity for american and bhutto elites greedy and unwise ways.
IS is Still time to with drew from WTO or now it is too late.

Good evening.

With unflinching idealism we propose joint ownership with India of Pakistani ISI before any CBM on Kashmir.

Ths will solve most of the problems in the subcontinent.

eklavya #: "The only option for the US, too, is to align its own goals and interests with the goals and intersts of Islam. "

...i am not sure if it needs to align its goals with the interests of islam......it simply needs to avoid radical islam and not reach out to fight it; specifically in a manner where it ends up killing so many innocent muslims...unless it is, itself attcked first....

...this is where the usa overstreched itself.....when 9/11 happened, it should have first concentrated on obl....the taliban were ready to hand him over to a muslim country, if the usa provided public proof.....the usa refused, citing security of its intelligence resources, after which the whole next six years of violence started, which has, had huge negative impacts on the region....

...at that time, the usa should have made its evidence public, called the taliban's bluff and taken obl.....after which it should have stopped supporting the taliban (along with pakistan and saudi arabia, the two other countries that supported them), and should have meticulously dismantled the taliban regime, through money, development and some force if needed......

.......it should have, then, along with the rest of the world invested hugely in development in afghanistan.....with a fraction of the money it put into the iraq war......

and it should not have entered iraq.......or started GWOT...there was actually no GWOT needed.....al-qaeda was a small organization based in afghanistan, which carried out small attacks here and there.....it didn't even claim the 9/11 attacks till three years or so afterwards, and still has been unable to explain how it carried them out from the remote hills of afghnistan.....

...i think there were various other more powerful entities waging this war against the usa, from other parts of the middle east....none of whom advertise themselves.....

however, by starting this GWOT, the usa has now placed itself in a situation where al-qaeda has become an ideology, and the usa is now stuck in a GWOT....

-- i, thus, find it hugely ironic that americans are now arguing that they should back out of iraq, so that the GWOT can be limited to afghanistan........

it was limited to afghanistan to begin with.....the usa, itself made it a GWOT, by taking it to other areas.......now it wants to bring it back to afghnistan!!.....

...some of us had suggested that the usa should keep the war in afghnistan, years ago....the same people who are pushing the ideas of briging it back to afghanistan disagreed with us back then......

i think it maybe a bit too late now for the us to confine this genie back to afghnistan......the usa spread it, all over the place, itself......it has tasted power......and the best thing to do is to just avoid it, as much as possible......

#127 Posted by bulleya on July 27, 2008 12:35:28 am


1. my prediction had been that the usa would be defeated in iraq


And people wonder why you're sitting on a huge stack of t-shirts with paki flags...you actually believe your own BS...

US now winning Iraq war that once seemed lost

* Combat phase ends, new phase focuses on training Iraqi army and police
* Top US commander in Iraq sees early indications Al Qaeda shifting focus to Afghanistan

BAGHDAD: The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the US now are able to shift focus from combat to building the fragile beginnings of peace.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

Focus: That does not mean the war has ended. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President George W Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against Al Qaeda holdouts north of Baghdad. But organised resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to co-operate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Al Qaeda: Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week there are early indications that senior leaders of Al Qaeda may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq’s future.

Militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada Al Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shia extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring.

Al Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shia population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.

Maj Gen Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, says, “Even eight months ago, Baghdad was not today’s Baghdad.� ap

anil #: "Instead I am saying that radical Islam (by that I mean OBL types) would be confined and fought in FATA and Afghanistan border. This will continue until either side wins or looses."

...this seems to be the new buzz line in us politics...i have yet to figure out on what this is based....

...the usa is about to retreat from iraq.....retreat, as in being defeated outrightly in iraq by radical islam and/or nationalistic forces (depending on how you want to look at it)....

...it is, now, also being defeated in afghanistan.....once again, by radical islam and/or nationalistic forces....

...please explain how it will be able to limit radical islam to afghanistan......what is going to happen in iraq, once the usa withdraws?........is it simply going to calm down......and turn into a first world dmeocracy......

1. my prediction had been that the usa would be defeated in iraq, after which it would withdraw and iraq would turn into an afghanistan with oil......if radical islam has won in iraq what makes you think it will, simply, pack up from there, once the usa leaves....

...wouldn't it make more sense for radical islam to use iraq as a base to make further inroads into the middle east, instead of packing up from there, after winning.....

2. what will happen to the usa, once it beefs up in afghanistan.....will the same military, which lost in iraq, demoralized and defeated have more successes in afghanistan than it did in iraq......keep in mind that afghanistan is a far far more difficult terrain to fight in.....and afghanis (radical islam or otherwise), unlike iraqis, have a very long history of fighting invaders....

in addition, usa had clear supply lines to afghanistan from qatar.......if it beefs up in afghanistan, it will have to radically increase its supply routes through pakistan, which will not be accepted by pakistanis and may destablize pakistan further......

3. in terms of political islam (radical or otherwise), it is rising by the day.....the biggest and perhaps only beneficiary of usa policies has actually been iran......it has a potentially client govt. in iraq and a close ally in afghanistan.....it is no longer afraid of usa threats to its nuclear policies.......and it has a client hezbollah fighting the israel......

.....radical and political islam are both on the rise at the moment.....and i am quite convinced these are unnatural political phenomenons, which are rising due to the counterproductive actions of the usa.......the more the usa bombs places, the stronger these two ideas become.......

.......as stated earlier, the usa needs to rethink its policies......either it would need to get out of foreign escapades and ensure, like europe, that internally its domestic society remains protected from radical islam....

the best policy, however, would be to revamp its support of middle east clients and solve the israel/palestine issue in a fair way, and most of all, to stop killing the hundreds of thousands of muslims that it kills there in the form of state terrorism......

if it does the later, i think radical (and political) islam will die a natural death.....

p.s. i don't foresee two many successes for the usa in afghanistan, if it increases troop levels there.....it will be a much tougher fight than in iraq.......

India’s N-deal with US


By Tariq Osman Hyder

THE US-India agreement for cooperation in civil nuclear energy is the high-water mark of the US-India strategic partnership.

Only a few isolated voices in the international arms control community, particularly in America and India, have voiced concerns. George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment perceptively noted inter alia two US objectives: that a more powerful India would balance China’s growing power and influence in Asia, and that changing national and international laws on nuclear cooperation would also help bolster India’s strategic capabilities, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which will further balance China’s strategic power.

India would get access to nuclear fuel, technology and reactors for its ambitious nuclear power development programme which was already facing problems due to limited uranium reserves. The chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Agency, Anil Kakodkar, stated on July 4 that India’s long-term energy security faces a huge gap if India is unable to import nuclear reactors or nuclear fuel under international cooperation. Alternatively it would be required to import 1.6bn tonnes of coal in the year 2050 alone.

The opportunity was missed to introduce a criteria-based non-discriminatory system which would have brought both India and Pakistan fully into the global non-proliferation regime and given both fossil-fuel deficit countries access to civil nuclear energy under IAEA safeguards, while encouraging strategic restraint in South Asia and furthering global non-proliferation objectives. India should have been asked to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. While India has pledged to work towards a fissile material cut-off treaty, the agreement enhances rather than restrains its fissile production capabilities.

Of India’s 22 power reactors, six of which are already safeguarded, only an additional eight will be placed under safeguards, not immediately but progressively up to 2014. If run for that purpose, the eight un-safeguarded reactors can comfortably produce 1,400 kg of weapons-grade plutonium a year, which is sufficient for around 280 nuclear weapons. As all safeguarded reactors would have access to imported fuel there is no economic rationale for excluding these reactors.

Even when run for power generation alone, the un-safeguarded reactors would provide reactor-grade plutonium, in lesser quantities, which could be used for nuclear weapons and for India’s ambitious breeder reactor programme which has also been kept outside safeguards. The first Indian breeder reactor would be able to produce 135 kg of weapons-grade plutonium every year. Four larger breeders are planned which eventually could produce some 500-800 kg of weapons-grade plutonium a year. In comparison, the annual production of India’s existing military reactors is estimated at 33 kg.The Indian separation plan presented to its parliament on May 11, 2006 states that India would include in the civilian list of facilities under safeguards only those determined not to be relevant to its strategic programme. Hence the agreement, while fulfilling India’s energy requirements, frees its limited 60,000 tons of uranium reserves for its strategic programme and objectives, an outcome lauded by India’s leading strategist K. Subrahmanyam. The US justification that the agreement is placing additional Indian reactors under safeguards amounts to scraping the bottom of the non-proliferation barrel.

India is moving fast towards a nuclear submarine-based second-strike capability, as well as an ICBM capability which will require plutonium for missile warheads. Bharat Karnad, professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, is of the opinion that India’s new ‘cold start’ doctrine will give it the ability to wage limited war against Pakistan, secure in the fact that its growing strategic capabilities will neutralise Pakistan’s deterrence. The fact is that strategic stability is under threat and an unnecessary arms race may result.

While the agreement is between the United States and India, a draft umbrella safeguards agreement between the IAEA and India will be examined, as per requirements, by the IAEA’s board of governors at the end of July. It remains to be seen how far it will accord with global non-proliferation objectives. This also holds true for subsequent discussion in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Now is the time for the board of governors and then the NSG to use their leverage to get it right. If the board of governors succumbs to pressure, as is likely, even more responsibility devolves on the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was set up to prevent or at least restrict proliferation. If it is to retain any credibility, the group must do the right thing.

The IAEA has different models of safeguards agreements. Almost all are based on facility-specific agreements, which apply safeguards in perpetuity and extend safeguards on the material produced. There are no conditionalities. The five permanent members of the Security Council have voluntary offer agreements, placing certain facilities under safeguards, which they can withdraw at any time for reasons of national security.

The draft India-IAEA agreement is a hybrid of the two models. India retains the right to take unspecified corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of a disruption in foreign fuel supplies. A high-level Indian team briefing the board members in Vienna recently was unable to clarify what this meant. The agreement would also subsume existing and stricter safeguards agreements on Indian reactors. Moreover, the accord with the US has been brought into the preamble of the draft India-IAEA agreement. Since military nuclear facilities and programmes are mentioned in the former, it is clear that India seeks legitimisation to further its military programme.

India’s concurrence to safeguards is dependent on continuous access to fuel supplies as well as a strategic reserve of fuel over the lifetime of India’s reactors. There is no mention of moving towards an additional protocol with the IAEA, which is another requirement of the agreement with the United States. No list of facilities has been listed, although the separation plan is a public document. There is no safeguard against the transfer or replication of imported nuclear technology to the benefit of the military. In effect the draft agreement is a blank cheque. It should be brought in line with the unconditional permanent safeguards model, with no room for interpretive ambiguity.

The objective of the international community should be to link support for India’s legitimate energy needs with extending safeguards to all its power generation and breeder reactors, leaving a limited military capacity, and to use it as a model for other non-NPT states. To do otherwise would be a grave disservice to non-proliferation objectives, and to regional and international peace and security.

The writer, a former diplomat, headed Pakistan delegations in nuclear CBMs talks with India from 2004 to 2007.