US Ambassador To Pakistan Met With Radical Leftist Group Code Pink, Discussed “Classified” Drone Casualty Counts…

Then again, the Obama regime is packed with Code Pink sympathizers.
h/t @capflowwatch Via Daily Caller:

Richard Hoagland, the acting U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, discussed with Code Pink and anti-Israel activists what he said was classified information, during an October 3 meeting with the groups in Islamabad.
Code Pink, a liberal anti-war organization known for disrupting Republican and conservative public events, uploaded a video of the meeting to an Internet video sharing website on Oct. 5.
“I looked at the numbers today before I came here, and I saw a number of civilian casualties — officially U.S. government classified information,” Hoagland said at the meeting. “Since July 2008 it is in the two-figures. I can’t vouch for you that that’s accurate, in any way, so I can’t talk about the numbers. Alright. I wanted to see what we have on the internal record. [It's] quite low.”
Keep reading…

via weaselzippers.us

#Clinton waives terror restrictions, gives #Pakistan $2 BILLION more US #taxpayer dollars

creeping 
via Pakistan freed of anti-terrorism obligations; U.S. billions flow instead – KansasCity.com.

The Obama administration has refused for the first time to declare that Pakistan is making progress toward ending alleged military support for Islamic militant groups or preventing al Qaida, the Afghan Taliban or other extremists from staging attacks in Afghanistan.

Even so, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has quietly informed Congress that she’s waived the legal restrictions that would have blocked some $2 billion in U.S. economic and military aid to Pakistan. Disbursing the funds, she said in an official notice, is “important to the national security interests of the United States.”

Clinton’s decision illustrates how far the administration apparently has determined that it must go, after a near-breakdown in relations, to ensure Pakistan’s cooperation in the uphill U.S. effort to prevent Afghanistan collapsing into all-out civil war when American-led international combat forces complete a withdraw by the end of 2014.

Some experts, however, warned that the move might backfire. The waivers could encourage a belief among Pakistani commanders that their cooperation is so crucial that Washington will continue overlooking the Pakistani military’s refusal to end what U.S. officials charge is its support for Afghan insurgent groups or to shutter militant sanctuaries, they said.

“The army is going to think that no matter how angry the Americans are at them, they are utterly indispensable and they can violate in any way, shape or form U.S. law and the United States will massage its law to accommodate them,” said assistant professor Christine Fair, an expert at Georgetown University. “That’s how they are going to read this.”

Yep. Just like the Muslim world views the arrest of the so-called Muhammad film maker as Obama enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws.
Comments: In spite of the recent developments in the ME, regardless of the expressed statements by Islamists that jihad is in play, the Obama Administration circumvents the Congress and "doubles-down" on a policy that does not work-what more do you need to have a change in administration? 

via docstalk.blogspot.com

US terminates funding for Pakistani Sesame Street amid reports of corruption

(Washington Post) KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. has terminated funding for a $20 million project to develop a Pakistani version of Sesame Street, the U.S. Embassy said Tuesday. The decision came as a Pakistani newspaper reported allegations of corruption by the local puppet theater working on the initiative.
The organization in question is the Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, a group in the city of Lahore that jointly developed the show with Sesame Workshop, the creator of the American series.
...The Pakistan Today newspaper reported Tuesday that the cause was “severe” financial irregularities at Rafi Peer, citing unnamed sources close to the project. Officials at Rafi Peer allegedly used the U.S. money to pay off old debts and awarded lucrative contracts to relatives, the sources claimed.
Faizaan Peerzada, the chief operating officer of Rafi Peer and one of several family members who run the organization, denied the corruption allegations. He said the U.S. ended its participation after providing $10 million because of the lack of additional available funds.
“Rafi Peer is proud of its association with the project and of the quality of children’s educational television programming created within Pakistan as a result,” the group said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
If the corruption allegations prove true, it would be an embarrassment for the multibillion-dollar U.S. aid program in Pakistan, which some analysts have criticized for lacking focus and not achieving results.

Pakistan attempts to influence US policy, blasts Israel

Wikileaks intercepts Stratfor emails that indicate that Pakistan (Carl) where they love Barack Hussein Obama (and where Korans are dumped in raw sewage canals without any apologies) - attempted to influence US policy toward India and Israel.

Source Code: PK700
ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR security source
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: Former Pakistani intelligence officer
SOURCE RELIABILITY: B
ITEM CREDIBILITY: 3
SOURCE HANDLER: Fred
Pakistan bashing continues. How convenient it is to ignore the huge size of India cocuss and the campaign funding they receive from India through Indian Americans acting as conduits. No one talks about the covert and overt influence israel enjoys through funding American congressmen and the control Israel has on American policies through coercion and fear of Jewish lobby. Since FBI is involved the blessing of US administration is obvious. Unfortunately this PAK bashing is earning hatred for US in a normally pro US country specially it's Armed Forces. This campaign to browbeat or pressurize Pakistan will have an opposite effect in a society where respect is valued and enmities leave memories for generations

By the way, the email was written two months after the United States killed Osama Bin Laden a few blocks away from Pakistan's intelligence agency's headquarters. Maybe there was a reason people in the US were 'bashing' Pakistan?

Another irony with Wikileaks. Assange was a Jew basher too

Chavez running for seat on top UN rights body at View from Geneva

(UNWatch.org)Rights groups to oppose bids by Pakistan and Venezuela for UN Human Rights Council
GENEVA, Feb. 22 – The governments of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Pakistan are slated to run unopposed for seats on the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council this year, reported the independent monitoring group UN Watch, citing sources close to the UN.
“It’s an outrage,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, who announced the formation of an international coalition of parliamentarians and human rights groups to block both candidacies, “due to their poor records on human rights protection at home and on human rights promotion at the UN.”
Last year, UN Watch exposed Syria’s candidacy to the council, and initiated a diplomatic campaign that pressured Damascus to drop its bid at the last minute. The non-governmental watchdog also led a successful campaign of 70 groups to remove Libya’s Qaddafi regime from the council.
Neuer said that Venezuela and Pakistan were among the few states condemned for gross human rights violations at a recent summit of human rights dissidents, organized by UN Watch and 25 other human rights groups. The resolutions adopted on both countries are being circulated to UN diplomats in hopes they will be addressed at the council’s opening 2012 session next week. (MORE)

but looking at the glass half full... Venezuela and Pakistan are a step up from Syria. The problem really is that these organizations matter at all.

US drone strikes in Pakistan over the past 8 years have killed at least 1,715 people, says the New America Foundation

According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan's tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.
The New America Foundation think tank in Washington says drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in the past eight years.
Human rights campaigners have expressed deep concern over increased use of drone strikes. The State Department also confirmed it used surveillance drones to protect US diplomats in so-called "critical threat environments" overseas.
The United States had until now refused to discuss the strikes publicly, but the program has dramatically increased as the Obama administration looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Looks like Obama wants to get re-elected

#AlJazeera: #Musharraf faces arrest in #Pakistan

(aljazeera.com)Prosecutors allege Musharraf was part of a conspiracy to kill Bhutto, but Musharraf has denied the charge & [EPA]

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will be arrested in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto if he returns to the country, a government prosecutor has said.
There is no need for any "fresh arrest warrants" for him as a court has already issued orders for his arrest, prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told reporters on Saturday.
Hours earlier, Musharraf told a Pakistani news channel that he would come back later this month to contest the next parliamentary elections.
Musharraf has been living in London and Dubai since 2008 when the government, led by Bhutto's party, forced him to resign.
Bhutto was killed in 2007 in a gun and suicide bomb attack near the capital, Islamabad, after returning home to contest elections. Musharraf, at the time, had blamed the Pakistani Taliban for her murder, but the prosecution alleges he was part of the plot.
In November, a Pakistani court formally charged seven, including two senior police officers and five suspected Taliban fighters, for their alleged role in Bhutto's killing. Musharraf was not among those charged at the time.
Musharraf now heads his own faction of the All Pakistan Muslim League, a small political party that does not have any major base in the country. Some of his former supporters have quit his party.
His spokesman, Fawad Chaudhry, asserted that the arrest warrant for Musharraf had no legal value.
"We have challenged this arrest warrant in a court," he said, adding that Musharraf would announce a final date for returning home this week, but "he will come back soon to lead the nation".
Ongoing power struggle
Meanwhile, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has said leaving office is not an option and that no one has asked him to resign, responding to speculation that the powerful military wanted his departure.
"No one has asked for it yet. If someone does, I'll tell you," Zardari, who appeared in good spirits after medical treatment in Dubai last month, said in a pre-recorded interview with one of the country's most popular television anchors.
Zardari is facing his biggest political crisis since he took office in 2008 over an unsigned memo to the Pentagon that sought US help in reining in Pakistan's generals, who have ruled the nation for more than half of its history.
Zardari's deeply unpopular government is opposing an investigation ordered& by the Supreme Court into the memo, contending that only a parliamentary committee on national security is entitled to investigate.
Although his position is largely ceremonial, Zardari wields considerable influence as leader of the ruling party and any forced departure would be a humiliation for the civilian leadership and could throw the country into turmoil.
When asked in the interview if "escape" was an option for him, Zardari replied: "Why should it be?"

Do you really think he is going to come back?

Pakistan Says It Will Shoot Down Any U.S. Drone Entering Its Air Space…

...but don't worry... Obama will be sure to give them our drones in working condition

(weaselzippers.us) Or to put it another way, the country we give billions of dollars to annually will now provide ground cover for al-Qaeda, Haqqani Network and Taliban forces on its soil.

(NBC News)– Pakistan will shoot down any U.S. drone that intrudes its air space per new directives, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News on Saturday.
According to the new Pakistani defense policy, “Any object entering into our air space, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down,” a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News.
The policy change comes just weeks after a deadly NATO attack on Pakistani military checkpoints accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistani officials to order all U.S. personnel out of a remote airfield in Pakistan.
Pakistan told the U.S. to vacate Shamsi Air Base by December 11.
A senior military official from Quetta, Pakistan, confirmed to NBC News on Saturday that the evacuation of the base, used for staging classified drone flights directed against militants, “will be completed tomorrow,” according to NBC’s Fakhar ur Rehman. Keep reading…

the positive side to this is that at least Pakistan doesn't get a working one like Iran

Pakistani model’s tattooed nude photo in Indian magazine causes uproar | Vlad Tepes

( Veena Malik Nude sexy naked picture / Vlad Tepes / Yahoo.com)  The Nude picture of her in question here

ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani actress who posed in the nude for an Indian magazine with the initials of Pakistan’s feared and powerful intelligence agency on her arm has triggered fury across this conservative nation.
Veena Malik’s photo on the website of FHM India, in advance of its publication in the magazine’s December issue, has been lighting up social network websites since earlier this week.
Many here anticipate a backlash, as nationalists and Islamists regularly stage rallies against anything they deem an insult to Islam or to the national honour. India and Pakistan have fought three wars, and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency or ISI has been accused of sponsoring terrorist attacks inside India.
Malik has broken Pakistani religious and national taboos in the past. She is a target for conservative ire and a heroine to some Pakistani liberals.
Conservative cleric Maulana Abdul Qawi declared on Aaj TV on Saturday that her latest venture into controversy was a “shame for all Muslims.”
In an interview with Pakistani Geo television broadcast Saturday, however, Malik said the nude photo was published in violation of her agreement with FHM India and she was considering legal action against the magazine.
Malik acknowledged having been photographed for a “bold but not nude shot.” She said the editor of the magazine had promised that he would cover most of the photo with the ISI initials.
The photo was intended to poke fun at the Indian fear of Pakistani spies, she said, adding “whatever happens (in India), people say ISI is behind that.”
Magazine editor Kabeer Sharma said Malik had given full consent for the shoot and the picture.
“We have all the record(s),” he told the Pakistani television station. “Veena was very excited about that ISI idea.”
Zubair Khan, a 40-year-old shopkeeper in the northwestern city of Peshawar, agreed, saying the photo had given rival India another opportunity to insult Pakistan.
“She has earned a bad name for the entire Pakistan nation,” he said.
Others questioned the authenticity of the photo.
“It seems to be an Indian attempt to malign Pakistan by faking her nude pics, or she might have done it to get a cheap publicity,” said Lubna Khalid, 38, a housewife in the southern port city of Karachi.
Twitter commentator Umair Javed however called on Pakistanis to “make copies of the picture and bury it in your backyard. This way, our grandkids will know there were some amongst us who lived free!”
Asked by reporters whether Pakistan would “pursue the matter” legally, the country’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday, “First, let us see whether it is real or fake.”
Malik does most of her work in India. The entertainment sector there is booming, while Pakistan’s is moribund. Her ties to Pakistan’s archrival have landed her in controversy in the past.
During a much-publicized talk show appearance early this year, she lashed out her nemesis Abdul Qawi, who criticized her for having a scripted love affair with an Indian actor on an Indian reality show.
“What is your problem with me?” an angry Malik demanded of the scholar, who had accused her of insulting Islam.

YID With LID: My Former Political Science Professor Is Being Held By Al-Qaeda

(Yid With Lid) In late 1974 I was in the process of selecting which college to attend. My choices were very One choice was staying home to attend Nassau Community College (this was appealing because Nassau was a commuter school so my parents would have to buy me a car) or go away to school. But I decided to forgo the car for the opportunity to get out of the house and go away to college.
Why is any of this relevant to the news of Dr. Weinstein?  The College I chose was the State University of New York College of Oswego, as a political science major, Dr. Weinstein was not only one of my favorite professors but as I was president of the Hillel (officially called the Jewish Student Union) I worked closely with Dr Weinstein who was our faculty adviser.
According to a recorded message by terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri 

"I tell the captive soldiers of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and our female prisoners held in the prisons of the crusaders and their collaborators, we have not forgotten you and in order to free you we have taken hostage the Jewish American Warren Weinstein," al-Zawahiri said in the 30-minute tape, demanding the release of high-profile terrorists as ransom.esponsibility for the August kidnapping of an American aid worker in Pakistan and refused to release the 70-year-old man until a list of demands are met."

It was Dr, Weinstein who first taught me what liberalism did to City University.  He talked of studying with Hans J. Morgenthau at Brooklyn College when it was know as the "Poor Man's Harvard." Once NY City decided College was a God-given right, and everyone was allowed into the school no matter what their grades were, Dr. Weinstein said the school quickly became a sub-standard school.
I remember how Dr. Weinstein gave me advice when a Palestinian colleague, Dr Faiz Abu-Jabbar verbally attacked me in class when I didn't accept his anti-Israel rhetoric as truth. And Warren Weinstein was the guy who would invite students over to his house when they were stuck in Oswego for the Jewish holidays.

Warren Weinstein was taken by armed men from his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Aug. 13.

He'd been working on a project in areas where Pakistani troops were battling Islamists and was just days away from returning home when he was abducted. Dr. Weinstein is reportedly in poor health. J.E. Austin Associates, the company he worked for, provided a detailed list of medications that it implored the kidnappers to give him.

The State Department acknowledged that it's aware of the crisis and is in contact with Weinstein's family in the U.S.

"The United States condemns kidnappings of any kind and we call for the immediate release of the individual and the prosecution of those responsible," said spokeswoman Joanne Moore.

In August, the CS Monitor spoke with several Pakistanis who had worked with Weinstein to enhance Pakistan’s dairy and gem trades.

“I am really shocked to hear” of his kidnapping, said Ehtesham Ullah Khan, a gemologist who knew Weinstein. “He was a very nice person and, to me, he made many friends as compared to no enemies.”
Mr. Khan explained how Weinstein helped him set up scholarships for Pakistanis living in tribal areas to study the gem trade. Twenty students received US scholarships and now have jobs or have started their own businesses, he said.
Weinstein's work also included importing dairy chillers to boost the productivity of Pakistan’s milk industry. His company boasted that the dairy development work resulting in $63 million in new investment to Pakistan, at least 2,150 new jobs, and a 25 percent boost in producer productivity.
“He helped the university in the establishment of dairy facilities, negotiating with colleagues in the Netherlands,” said Dr. Muhammad Abdullah, chair of livestock at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Lahore. “We had quite a professional interaction with him.”

To most people who read the reports of Warren Weinstein's capture, he is an anonymous aid worker kidnapped by the bad guys.  For me, he is a good man who helped to spark my interest in politics which continues through today. He helped to teach me to think and to ask the right questions, and he helped me to get through a year and a half of college life in an school that was not very friendly to Jewish students.
Please join me in praying for his good health for his quick release back into the loving arms of his family.

Cellphone Offers Clues of Bin Laden’s Pakistan Ties

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.

Athar Hussain/Associated Press

Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil
is the leader of a militant group based in Pakistan.

via nytimes.com

The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country, the officials and others said. But it also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years, the officials and analysts said.

In tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts have determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said.

So what if Pakistan was hiding Bin Ladin? What then?

...The Pakistani Army continued its links with the Harakat leadership, in particular Mr. Khalil, Pakistani officials and analysts said. In 2007, Mr. Khalil was used by the Musharraf government as a member of a group of clerics who tried to negotiate an end to a siege by militants at the Red Mosque in Islamabad...

...Another Pakistani militant leader closely connected to Bin Laden is Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. Mr. Akhtar stopped in South Waziristan on the way to Afghanistan just months ago, a militant interviewed by phone said. The presence in Waziristan of Mr. Akhtar — who is wanted in connection with the attack that killed Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, in 2007 — demonstrated that he could still move freely without ISI interference.  A report by the Pakistani Interior Ministry said that Mr. Akhtar had visited Bin Laden in August 2009 near the border with Afghanistan to discuss jihadist operations against Pakistan, according to an account that was published in the Pakistani newspaper The Daily Times in 2010.

It is the only recorded episode showing that Bin Laden’s presence inside Pakistan was known to Pakistani intelligence, until the American raid that killed him.

Harakat has especially deep roots in the area around Abbottabad, and the network provided by the group would have enhanced Bin Laden’s ability to live and function in Pakistan, analysts familiar with the group said. Its leaders have strong ties with both Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, and they can roam widely because they are Pakistanis, something the foreigners who make up Al Qaeda’s ranks cannot do.
Even today, the group’s leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, long one of Bin Laden’s closest Pakistani associates, lives unbothered by Pakistani authorities on the outskirts of Islamabad.
The senior American officials did not name the commanders whose numbers were in the courier’s cellphone but said that the militants were in South Waziristan, where Al Qaeda and other groups had been based for years. Harakat’s network would have allowed Bin Laden to pass on instructions to Qaeda members there and in other parts of Pakistan’s tribal areas, to deliver messages and money or even to take care of personnel matters, analysts and officials said.
Wielding a Militant Tool
Harakat is one of a host of militant groups set up in the 1980s and early ’90s with the approval and assistance of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to fight as proxies in Afghanistan, initially against the Soviets, or against India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Like many groups, it has splintered and renamed itself over the years, and because of their overlapping nature, other groups could have been involved in supporting Bin Laden, too, officials and analysts said. But Harakat, they said, has been a favored tool of the ISI.

Harakat “is one of the oldest and closest allies of Al Qaeda, and they are very, very close to the ISI,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and the author of “Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad.” via nytimes.com

CIA chief Leon Panetta

Defense Secretary nominee, CIA Director Leon Panett

The next great battle America faces is likely to involve cyberwarfare, Leon Panetta, the Central Intelligence Agency director, warned senators Thursday, predicting that “the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples" America’s electrical grid and its security and financial systems.

Panetta – who as CIA director has stepped up the number of US drone strikes on insurgents in Pakistan – said relations with Pakistan remain “one of the most critical – and yet one of the most complicated and frustrating – relationships that we have.” He added, “They are a nuclear power and there is a danger those nuclear weapons could end up in the wrong hands.’
In Iraq, Panetta told lawmakers he believes it would be wise to support the request of Iraqi leaders for US troops to stay beyond their scheduled December pullout date, if they ask. “I have to tell you, there are a thousand Al Qaeda that are still in Iraq,” Panetta said. “It continues to be a fragile situation, and I believe that we should take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that we protect whatever progress is made there.” via csmonitor.com

The Obama administration recently unveiled its proposal for global cybersecurity. Statements from the Pentagon have also indicated that the government will consider cyberattacks originating from foreign countries to be equivalent to acts of war meriting military response.

via huffingtonpost.com

Pakistan arrests 'five CIA informants'

"No country allows any military officer to work for a foreign power. That's one issue," he said. "If the Americans had only consulted with us on this operation, then none of this need happen." Publicly both sides say they are working to restore trust.
The relationship is crucial to American plans to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year.
Washington has kept up pressure on Islamabad to launch a ground offensive against militant bases in North Waziristan.
And Pakistan is also the most important route for channelling supplies to the Nato-led force.
However, American diplomats say they are facing increased levels of harassment and have seen a slow-down in visas being issued.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistani ambassador to Washington, said: "The CIA and ISI are working through some issues." via telegraph.co.uk

these are allies? the are our friends?

A'jad black eyes. Pakis smack talk

you should see what the other guy looks like raped in Evin prison....

The top Pakistani leadership - comprising President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani - have rejected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that the U.S. is planning to sabotage the Pakistani nuclear program, according to an Urdu-language daily.

Image Source
via myrightword.blogspot.com
via thememriblog.org

U.S. meeting with the Taliban to "explore" "peace"

...Taliban fighters stand alongside kidnapped Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak
...minutes before he was beheaded...Reuters photo....

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (NYT) — American officials have met with a senior aide to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, at least three times in recent months in the first direct exploratory peace talks, officials in the region said.
The meetings have been facilitated by Germany and Qatar, but American officials have been present each time, meeting with Tayeb Agha, who is a close personal assistant to Mullah Omar, the officials said. The C.I.A. and the State Department have been involved in the meetings, one official said.
The meetings were first reported by The Washington Post last week and the German magazine Der Spiegel this week. A senior Afghan official and Western officials working in the region confirmed the reports on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to the news media about the issue.
Begun well before the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, the meetings represent a clear shift in the attitude of the Obama administration toward peace talks with the Taliban, first signaled by a speech in February by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Western officials said. In that speech Mrs. Clinton said that previous requirements for starting talks could instead be considered “desired outcomes,” opening the way to exploratory meetings without preconditions. via bokertov.typepad.com

U.S. cable ties Saudis to Pakistan jihad

KARACHI, Pakistan, May 22 (UPI) -- A U.S. diplomat in Pakistan accused Saudi and Gulf groups of bankrolling Islamic extremists in a cable revealed by WikiLeaks Sunday.
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported Bryan Hunt, then consul in Lahore, sent the message to the State Department in November 2008, citing local officials and his visits to south Punjab.
Hunt wrote, "Financial support estimated at nearly 100 million USD annually was making its way to Deobandi and Ahl-i-Hadith clerics in south Punjab from organizations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, ostensibly with the direct support of those governments."
He said local informants had described a "sophisticated jihadi recruitment network" to him.
Muslim "charities" funding a network of radical mosques and madrassas preyed on "families with multiple children" and "severe financial difficulties," recruiting their sons into schools and paying bounties for them, Hunt wrote.
Those youths found most inclined to "martyrdom" would be "chosen for jihad" and sent to "more sophisticated indoctrination camps," which he identified, and eventually off to the North-West Frontier province to launch attacks.
Local officials were doing little to stop the extremists, Hunt wrote.

via upi.com

GOP senator: Torture did not lead to bin Laden death. So one man disagrees.

Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator insisted Thursday.
 
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, the Republican said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and others who back those tactics were wrong to claim that waterboarding al-Qaeda's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, provided information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

via ynetnews.com

go figure, a rhino in the GOP... it is as if anyone is shocked that there are Ron Paul types and others who do not share the opinions of the American public. Most people involved in government now presently agree that Waterboarding was beneficial to the capture of Osama Bin Ladin

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Bin Laden killing 'second biggest' national tragedy

Why is it even a debate over whether we should continue provide them with billions of dollars in aid? They are our enemies.

Islamabad, 6 May (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistani opposition leader Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan reacted to the killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces by declaring the act a national tragedy and demanding the resignation of many of Pakistan's top leaders.

“This is the biggest tragedy in the history of Pakistan after the fall of East Pakistan in 1971 (now Bangladesh)," he said. "heads should roll. Those who breached the sovereignty of the country by the US intrusion in the country, including the president, prime minister, minister of defence and minister of interior should immediately resign,” he told reporters in front of national parliament in Islamabad on Friday.

Much of Pakistan's mood can be described as deeply shocked by the 2 May raid on bin Laden's compound by an American Navy SEAL team in the upscale town of Abbotabad. The operation was reputedly carried out without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities because of the suspicion by Washington that they could tip off the Al-Qaeda leader.

Mass demonstrations in Pakistan were called for Friday to protest the killing of bin Laden, while the country's biggest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, called for protests s against what it said was a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the US raid.

More...

H/t: Weasel Zippers

via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

Activists associated with the social group Muthahida Shehri Mahaz (United Citizens Alliance) are seen through flames of a burning U.S. flag as they shout anti-American slogans during a rally to condemn the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Multan May 8, 2011. (Reuters Pictures)

via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

ALLEN WEST commands attention: RELINQUISH AID TO PAKISAN

I hope America listens to people like Allen West. The Republican party is getting exciting. Allen West and Herman Cain are becoming the voice of the GOP... that is no longer apologizing for protecting us from Islam. Video via themadjewess.wordpress.com

Hamas condemns killing of Osama Bin laden

Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza on Monday...
that although Hamas had its differences with al-Qaida,
his group condemns the assassination of......
"a Muslim and Arabic warrior"
...and prays that bin Laden's "soul rests in peace."

...So much for Hamas being a party that strives for peace...

Bin Laden Loved American Products,
Especially Pepsi & Coke

(Gaza) The leader of the Palestinian militant Hamas government in Gaza has condemned the United States for killing al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says the operation is "the continuation of the American oppression and shedding of blood of Muslims and Arabs."

via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com
Seal Team 6 image via businessinsider.com