Fake News and False Flags

How the Pentagon paid a British PR firm $500 million for top secret Iraq propaganda

The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking US military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.

Bell Pottinger's former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy agreements.”

Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.

Bell, one of Britain’s most successful public relations executives, is credited with honing Margaret Thatcher’s steely image and helping the Conservative party win three elections. The agency he co-founded has had a roster of clients including repressive regimes and Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president.

In the first media interview any Bell Pottinger employee has given about the work for the US military in Iraq, video editor Martin Wells – who no longer works for the company – told the Bureau his time in Camp Victory was "shocking, eye-opening, life-changing.”

The firm’s output was signed off by former General David Petraeus – then commander of the coalition forces in Iraq – and on occasion by the White House, Wells said.

Bell Pottinger produced reams of material for the Pentagon, some of it going far beyond standard communications work.

The Bureau traced the firm's Iraq work through US army contracting censuses, federal procurement transaction records and reports by the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General, as well as Bell Pottinger's corporate filings and specialist publications on military propaganda. We interviewed half a dozen former officials and contractors involved in information operations in Iraq.

There were three types of media operations commonly used in Iraq at the time, said a military contractor familiar with Bell Pottinger’s work there.

“White is attributed, it says who produced it on the label,” the contractor said. “Grey is unattributed and black is falsely attributed. These types of black ops, used for tracking who is watching a certain thing, were a pretty standard part of the industry toolkit.”

Bell Pottinger changed ownership after a management buyout in 2012 and its current structure has no connections with the unit that operated in Iraq, which closed in 2011. It is understood the key people who worked in that unit deny any involvement with tracking software as described by Wells.

Bell Pottinger’s work in Iraq was a huge media operation which cost over a hundred million dollars a year on average. A document unearthed by the Bureau shows the company was employing almost 300 British and Iraqi staff at one point.

The London-based PR agency was brought into Iraq soon after the US invasion. In March 2004 it was tasked by the country’s temporary administration with the "promotion of democratic elections" – a "high-profile activity" which it trumpeted in its annual report.

The firm soon switched to less high-profile activities, however. The Bureau has identified transactions worth $540 million between the Pentagon and Bell Pottinger for information operations and psychological operations on a series of contracts issued from May 2007 to December 2011. A similar contract at around the same annual rate – $120 million – was in force in 2006, we have been told.

The bulk of the money was for costs such as production and distribution, Lord Bell told the Sunday Times, but the firm would have made around £15 million a year in fees.

Martin Wells, the ex-employee, told the Bureau he had no idea what he was getting into when he was interviewed for the Bell Pottinger job in May 2006.

He had been working as a freelance video editor and got a call from his agency suggesting he go to London for an interview for a potential new gig. “You’ll be doing new stuff that’ll be coming out of the Middle East,” he was told.

“I thought ‘That sounds interesting’,” Wells recalled. “So I go along and go into this building, get escorted up to the sixth floor in a lift, come out and there’s guards up there. I thought what on earth is going on here? And it turns out it was a Navy post, basically. So from what I could work out it was a media intelligence gathering unit.”

After a brief chat Wells asked when he would find out about the job, and was surprised by the response.

“You’ve already got it,” he was told. “We’ve already done our background checks into you.”

He would be flying out on Monday, Wells learned. It was Friday afternoon. He asked where he would be going and got a surprising answer: Baghdad.

“So I literally had 48 hours to gather everything I needed to live in a desert,” Wells said.

India is being ruled by a Hindu Taliban

Anish Kapoor

he Hindu god Vishnu has several incarnations, many of them human. The latest of these appears to be Narendra Modi. All over India there are images of the man, right arm raised in the benevolent gesture of good fortune. But this strong-but-enlightened-man image hides the frightening and shrill reality of an increasingly Modi-led Hindu dominance of India.

The country’s openness to social and religious minorities (more than 500 million people) and regional differences is at serious risk. Of late, Modi’s regime has effectively tolerated – if not encouraged – a saffron-clad army of Hindu activists who monitor and violently discipline those suspected of eating beef, disobeying caste rules or betraying the “Hindu nation”.

In the UK, people might perhaps be familiar with India’s cricket prowess, atrocities in Kashmir or the recent horrific rape cases. But beyond that, many of us choose not to know. India’s global image now mimics China’s – a rising global economic power with attractive trade and investment opportunities. As a result, business trumps human rights, with little concern, especially on the part of David Cameron’s government, for the rising wave of Hindu tyranny.

All this is good news for Prime Minister Modi, who flew into London today. He won’t be seriously called to account for human rights abuses or systematic thuggery. If there is one thing that has marked the man’s first year and a half in power it is this: he is not a man who takes kindly to scrutiny or criticism. In fact, he has used the very economic agenda that causes Britain to turn a blind

Modi’s latest move has been the strangulation of Greenpeace India, culminating last Friday with the organisation’s licence to operate being removed. Respect for human rights and environmental organisations is so often a litmus test for the democratic state of a country. Worryingly, the Indian government has been cracking down on all “foreign-funded” charities for the past year, claiming that the national economy is threatened by environmental restrictions and other “un-Indian” activities. Nine thousand NGOs have been “de-registered” in a concerted effort to force out these “nuisance” groups and cast them as foreign enemies.

Of late, many Indian journalists and human rights activists have been harassed and threatened with “sedition” charges: for example, Teesta Setalvad, who still seeks justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002, when Modi was the state’s chief minister; and Santosh Yadav, arrested in September in the state of Chhattisgarh on what Amnesty International believes are fabricated charges resulting from his investigatory journalism exposing police brutality against Adivasis (indigenous people). A few weeks ago, even a musician who sang a satirical song criticising the chief minister and state government of Tamil Nadu over alcohol sales was charged with “anti-Indian activity”.

This alarming erosion of democracy is a slippery slope that may end up targeting not just minorities and “outsiders” but any dissenting “insiders”. What I’ve seen happening is a spirit of fear taking hold, which threatens to silence activists, artists and intellectuals alike. We’ve never known that before.

A Hindu version of the Taliban is asserting itself, in which Indians are being told: “It’s either this view – or else.” A friend told me: “There is huge oppression of anyone who’s different.” Last month, dozens of Indian writers handed back their literary awards in protest, following communal violence against Muslims and attacks on intellectuals.

India is a country of 1.25 billion people, including 965 million Hindus and 170 million Muslims. We have a long tradition of tolerance and, despite differences, have managed to pull our huge country together. But the government’s militant Hinduism risks marginalising other faiths and tearing apart these bonds. Many of us dread what might then happen.

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We in Britain cannot bite our tongues any more; we have a responsibility to speak out. And we need to work on at least two fronts: demand that Cameron not make business deals at the cost of human rights, and press Modi to answer for the Indian government’s abysmal rights record; and recognise and support the many Indian citizens, journalists and organisations that are resisting growing Hindu fanaticism and state authoritarianism.

I’ll be joining protesters outside Downing Street today. Following the lead of India’s opposition groups, we have a duty to speak out for the people Modi is trying to silence, precisely because we are free to do so.

• This article was amended on 13 November 2015. An earlier version referred to criticism of the state governor, rather than the chief minister and state government, of Tamil Nadu.

Similarities between Trump and Erdogan

By Sajjad Shaukat

Despite some dissimilarities, the Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan share several similarities. Having lack of political wisdom, both the leaders are wavering between fact and skepticism. Hence, in one way or the other, even their dissimilarities show similarities.

Renowned historians opine that William II and Adolf Hitler were impulsive rulers, guided by ungoverned temper. Particularly, Hitler’s character and adverse circumstances in Germany helped him to come to power. Hitler was a great orator and his techniques of propaganda helped him to influence millions of people. The more Hitler manipulated the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles, the more he became popular with the public.

Imitating William II and Hitler in the modern era, Donald Trump promised to make America great again. In order to win the presidential race of the Republican Party, Trump had started exaggerating the threat of Islamophobia by manipulating each terror attack in Europe and the US, including shooting at the night club of Orlando, (Florida) and left no stone unturned in fueling anti-Muslim racialism in America and to get the sympathies of a majority of the ordinary Americans.

While addressing a rally, Trump had called for a ban on Muslims, entering the United States. Trump’s opposition to Muslim refugees, especially from Syria is very well known. During his appearance with the National Border Patrol Council’s Green Line radio show on May 15, 2016, Trump has predicted that refugees with ISIS-funded cell phones will conduct another 9/11-like terrorist attack in the US.

In this regard, Khaled A. Beydoun pointed out on the Aljazeera multimedia network on March 13, 2016, “The world brand Trump is becoming synonymous with expansion of racism and incitement of Islamophobia…I think Islam hate us, said Donald Trump, 24 hours before the Republican presidential debate in Miami…is a call to his voting base, to further galvanize them around a disdain for Islam that not only heightens hateful fervour at his rallies, but incites violence on American blocks and pushes bigots to the ballot box…the statement is rooted in the very ignorance and hate which made him the darling of bigots and surged him up the polls…Islamophobia—the suspicion and fear of Islam and its 1.7 billion adherent-is political ideology for Trump.”

Regarding shooting at the night club in Orlando, on June 28, 2016, The New York Times wrote, “The mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on June 12 included a curious phrase: false flag…the victims in the shooting? They were “crisis actors” hired to promote the story as a pretext to impose tighter gun restrictions, the theory goes…the term false flag relates to naval warfare when a ship would fly a flag that would conceal its true identity as a way to lure an enemy closer. Today, it is commonly a shorthand for an act of deception…conspiracy theorists have applied the label to high-profile attacks, including the shootings by a husband and wife last year in San Bernardino, Calif, that killed 14…the phrase has even been used to doubt the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

The Washington Post wrote on June 13, 2016, “Trump’s standards, his comments about the Orlando shooting have been reckless and self-serving. They are also dangerous for the country…the strongest remaining force that propels the Islamic State is the Islamophobia of Trump and his European counterparts, argue senior intelligence strategists for the U.S.-led coalition. Inflammatory, xenophobic statements about Muslims reinforce the jihadists’ claims that they are Muslim knights fighting against an intolerant West. Trump unwittingly gives them precisely the role they dream about.”

Like Hitler, Trump succeeded in mobilizing the electorates and despite the resistance from his own party, he won over his fellow candidates in the nomination race.

On the other side, as a harbinger of ideological revolution in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan who rose to power by the virtue of Justice and Development Party’s Muslim backgrounds, assumed the office as the prime minister of Turkey on March 1, 2003. Like Hitler and Trump, though in some other way, the more he spoke against the Westernization and secular status of his country, the more popularity he gained among the general masses. He became very popular in the Muslims countries due to various decisions and measures such as veto of a proposal to allow the US to use Turkish territory to open a second front against Iraq in order to topple Saddam Hussein, defiance of the US by receiving Khalid Meshaal, the head of the political bureau of Hamas, rejection of an invitation from former prime minister Ariel Sharon to visit Israel, refusal to meet Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli minister of labour and trade’s visit to Turkey, strong stand for the Palestinians during the war on Gaza in 2008 and accusing Israel of committing war crimes.

In January 2009, while addressing Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Tayyip Erdogan told the Israeli president, “President Peres, you are old, and your voice is loud out of a guilty conscience. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know well how you hit and kill children on beaches.”

When Israel started the blockade of Gaza in 2007 by preventing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, in May 2010, Israeli navy stormed the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara—the flagship of a flotilla of vessels, which was carrying humanitarian aid and thus, killed nine Turkish citizens. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told the Turkish parliament, “Turkey’s friendship is strong; and all should know that our hostility is strong too…the international community has to say to Israel enough is enough.”

The Arab world defended the Turkish prime minister who withdrew his ambassador from Israel. Besides, Erdogan was considered by the Western countries as a devoted Muslim whose wife Emine wears a headscarf.

However, Tayyip Erdogan who emerged as leader of the Islamic World surprised the Muslims when his own dual approach and secret strategy was exposed when on September 30, 2015, the Russian-led coalition of Iran, Iraq, the Syrian army-the National Defense Forces (NDF) and Lebanon-based Hezbollah started attacking the US-CIA-Mossad-supported terrorists of the Islamic State group (Also known as Daesh, ISIS or ISL) Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front and the rebel groups who have been fighting to oust the Syrian President Assad’s regime and against the current Iraqi regime as part of America’s double game to secure the Israeli illegitimate interests in the Middle East. Turkish President Erdogan’s real face was exposed. Covertly, he acted upon the policies of the US, Israel and Western Europe, and distorted the image of Turkey in the eyes of the Islamic World, because he was assisting the rebel groups and the ISIS militants.

In the recent past, by setting aside the Palestinian issue and showing silence over the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Turkish president Erdogan has reconciled country’s relations with Tel Aviv.

Notably, Trump who is staunch supporter of Israeli policies, in an interview with the Daily Mail on May 2, 2016, stated that Israel should continue construction of illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank. In an interview with the Fox news on September 20, this year, while talking after the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey and a multiple stabbing at a Minnesota mall, shortly before New York police arrested Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized US citizen born in Afghanistan in connection with the bomb attack that injured 29 people in Manhattan on September 17 for which ISIS claimed responsibility, the Republican nominee Donald Trump praised the Israeli authorities for their “unbelievable” anti-terror policing, and “profiling.”  He elaborated, “Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are. They are afraid to do anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of racial profiling” of the terror suspects…the Muslim refugees…they stay together. They’re plotting.”

Nevertheless, overtly and covertly, both Trump and Erdogan are favoring Israel and double game of the US in relation to ISIS and Syrian war.

In October 2014, US Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that Erdogan’s regime was backing ISIS with “hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons.

On April 26, 2016, RT (Russian TV Channel) documentary with exclusive eye witness reports and documents, abandoned by retreating jihadists and found by RT documentary crew members in a region liberated by Syrian Kurds, pointed to commercial scale oil smuggling operations and cozy relations between ISIS and Turkey. A teenage oil refinery worker told RT, “Of course, they wouldn’t get any weapons from Turkey if they didn’t ship them oil…they…go with the oil and come back with the guns.”

Besides RT, Sputnik, some other analysts and especially the Veterans Today have also shown solid proof by pointing out, “While we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore commodity trading middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State’s terrorist oil-that of Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s son Bilal Erdogan…who owns several maritime companies has signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different countries…ISIS is being fed and kept alive by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish intelligence service, including MIT, the Turkish CIA. ISIS militants were trained by US, Israeli and now it emerges by Turkish Special Forces at secret bases in Konya Province inside the Turkish border to Syria.”

The billionaire businessman Donald Trump is also like Tayyip Erdogan. As regards Trump, while mentioning Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, golf courses in New York and his chain of hotels, violation of the US tax laws, tax-evasion and payment of penalty-taxes, The Washington Post wrote on September 20, 2016, “Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses. Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.”

In this respect, on May 31, 2016, nearly 400 pages of a US court documents disclosed, “Trump University instructed employees on how to play on peoples’ emotions to get them to buy more expensive seminars for succeeding in real estate…it is our job to rekindle peoples’ motivation…to make them once again see the potential of achieving their dream…the documents unsealed in San Diego were part of a lawsuit by customers who say they were defrauded…a judge who has earned Trump’s scorn agreed with attorneys that the public had a right to know what was previously confidential.”

Speaking to The New York Times on July 20, 2016, Donald Trump stated that under his leadership, America would not necessarily come to the aid of a NATO ally under attack, saying he would first consider how much they have contributed to the alliance. Trump also warned that if elected, he would not pressure Turkey or other authoritarian allies to end crackdowns on political opponents or the suppression of civil liberties, following the failed coup.

Trump continued move against Muslims. In this regard, toughening immigration checks for the French and Germans in the US and hinting at an exit from the World Trade Organization, Donald Trump said on July 24, this year, “We have problems in Germany and we have problems in France…they have totally been compromised by deadly Islamist attacks in Nice and last year in Paris…you know why? It’s their own fault…because they allowed people to come into their countries.”

On June 24, 2016 when Britain voted to leave the EU, Donald Trump stated, British voters just shattered political convention in a stunning repudiation of the ruling establishment in a referendum…in November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first…people want to see borders. They don’t necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don’t know who they are and where they come from.”

On the other side, taking note of Turkey’s pro-Israeli policies and against the Syrian refugees, Muslim analysts and a number of human rights groups, particularly Amnesty International in its press release on April 1, 2016 criticized, the controversial Turkish-EU refugee deal by indicating, “Large-scale forced returns of refugees from Turkey to war-ravaged Syria expose the fatal flaws in a refugee deal signed between Turkey and the European Union…all forced returns to Syria are illegal under Turkish, EU and international law.”

Confused owing to his own double game and that of the US-led West, on May 8, 2016, Turkish President Erdogan has kept up his rebuke of European nations, accusing them of dictatorship and cruelty for keeping their frontiers closed to migrants and refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. He clarified that “Turkey would not meet a EU demand for his country to reform its anti-terrorism legislation.” As Erdogan has become target of his dual strategy, hence, a rift has been created between the West and Turkey, the close ally of NATO. On February 10, 2016, President Erdogan lashed out at the US over its support for Syria’s main Kurdish group, saying, “The failure to recognize the Democratic Union Party (PYD) as a terrorist group is creating a “sea of blood”. He explained, “The PYD, on which the US relies to battle so-called Islamic State in Syria, is an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party.”

Following ambivalent policy, in the pretext of fighting ISIL and Kurds, the Turkish military has continued shelling and interference in Syria.

As regards the propaganda techniques, one can easily witness resemblance between Trump and Erdogan who follow Hitler’s tactics. They misguide the general peoples of their countries, who did not have much time to go into depth-analysis to know the double game and have been impressed by emotional speeches, stereotype-statements and false hopes of Donald Trump and Tayyip Erdogan who keep on exploiting the threat of Islamic militants, ISIS and Syrian refugees.

During their emotional speeches, the body language and way of speaking of Trump and Erdogan are not less than those of Hitler. Like Erdogan, Trump managed to consolidate popular support among Republican voters, despite the resistance from his own party. He won over his fellow candidates in the nomination race.

One can note many self-contradictions in the statements of Trump and Erdogan. And Turkish President Erdogan has also been implementing contradictory policies and ambivalent strategy. When on June 28, 2016, more than 42 persons were killed in the simultaneous terror attacks at the Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul, by neglecting American pressure; President Erdogan improved relations with Russia, and stated that the attack at the Istanbul airport should serve as a turning point in the global battle against terrorism.

Report suggests that Moscow had already informed Erdogan about the failed coup of July 15, 2016. Turkey’s President Erdogan and top officials of his government held the US and CIA responsible for the failed coup to topple his regime by replacing Erdogan with the CIA’s “designated figurehead”, cleric Fethullah Gülen, currently living in Pennsylvania in the US.

Criticizing non-cooperation of NATO and Western allies with Turkey in connection with the failed coup, Ankara is also considering a military agreement with Moscow and Russian-Turkish joint operation against ISIS in Syria. Russian President Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met on August 9, 2016 in St. Petersburg to bolster their governments’ ties.

Turkish media reported that the Erdogan told journalists on September 7, this year, that he had agreed with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in China—Ankara to work together to push Daesh terrorists out of their de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. President Erdogan explained that Turkey would join any future operation proposed by the US to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Nonetheless, Erdogan decided to join Russia to fight ISIS militants, while he also ensured Washington to eliminate ISIS terrorists jointly. It clearly displays political follies of the President Tayyip Erdogan.

We can also note self-contradictions in the statements of Donald Trump. In an interview with the Fox News, Republican presidential nominee Trump signaled a reversal on one of his key policy issues on August 23, 2016 by suggesting that he would be open to a “softening” of his positions on illegal immigration. He said, “I had a great meeting with great people, great Hispanic leaders, and there could certainly be a softening because we’re not looking to hurt people. We want people—we have some great people in this country. We’re going to follow the laws of this country and what people don’t realize.”

Earlier, Trump stated tough immigration stance which includes deporting all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US and building a wall along the US-Mexico border, while calling the Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists”. Trump is fueling racism between the Muslims and Christians—the black people and the white people. And like Erdogan, if he becomes American president, he is likely to move America towards autocracy, while American public is already protesting against the curtailment of liberty.

When President Obama hosted the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on March 31, 2016 to check the spread of nuclear weapons, showing concerns about the ambitions of terrorist groups such as the ISIS in acquiring a nuclear weapon or radioactive material, Donald Trump had taken a different stand in his interview with the CNN by saying, “More nuclear weapons could make the world safer…US can no longer afford to bankroll the defense of its allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East…Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia may need arsenals to confront threats in their region on their own.”

At the same time, by pursuing the US double standards, Trump also intends to favour India, while opposing the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. He has brushed aside the ground realities that Indian Prime Minister Narindra Modi led by the ruling fundamentalist party BJP has been implementing anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan agenda, while encouraging Hindutva (Hindu nationalism). He is also silence over the fact that Indian rulers have created a war-like situation against Pakistan in the aftermath of the Uri base terror attack in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, which was, in fact, arranged by the Indian secret agencies to deflect the attention of the recent uprising in the Indian held Kashmir. Therefore, if elected, as the US president, Trump’s flawed strategy could result into atomic war between India and Pakistan in wake of the unresolved dispute of Kashmir.

There are several other statements which display Trump’s cognitive dissonance. For instance, on September 14, 1987, he stated, “I have no intention of running for president,” while on June 16, 2015, he said, “I am officially running for president.’

In the recent months, political character of Donald Trump has become more controversial and dangerous for America, especially, after Trump’s statement against Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim soldier-US Army Capt. Humayun Khan who was killed in 2004 by a car bomb in Iraq, President Obama stated on August 3, 2016, “Republican nominee Donald Trump is unfit to be president, and questioned why his party still supports the New York billionaire’s candidacy… he is woefully unprepared to do this job.”

Noting Donald Trump’s discriminatory speeches and statements, several prominent Republicans and Democrats, including some congressman have decided that they will not vote for Trump by arguing that “he is unfit to serve as president of the United States.”

Taking cognizance of Trump’s political follies—terror-hysteria, religious bigotry and racialism which are well-penetrated in his personality, some writers and researches, including American politicians call him a “crazy person” and some call him, a “mad man.”

So, if succeeded in the forthcoming presidential election, the fundamentalist and impulsive politician Trump will not bother for dangerous implications of the US flawed strategy—America and its Western allies have already been entangled in a prolonged war in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries as part of the phony global war on terror. While, double game of American military and CIA has badly failed in Syria, and Russia is in best position, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has proved his leadership qualities in relation to domestic policies and international strategy, especially by thwarting the sinister designs of the US-led entities in Syria.

In case, Trump is elected as American president, his impulsive and racist approach could cause a civil war in the US.

On May 21, 2016, Kevin Barret, while giving a wake-up call to the Americans, wrote on the Veterans Today, “Donald Trump’s terror hysteria, combined with the ever-growing terrorist attacks around the world means that a dark future awaits America in case the presumptive GOP nominee becomes president.”

Likewise, in the recent years, if we note several acts of terrorism in Turkey, being committed by the militants of ISIS, PYD and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party-PKK, we can see that Turkish President has become target of the US-Israeli double game and his own duplicity.

In this connection, The World Beast Com wrote, “If we take cognizance of the perennial wave of terror attacks in Turkey and failure of country’s security agencies in thwarting these subversive acts…Turkey will surrender to the terrorists.”

Both Donald Trump and the President Tayyip Erdogan lack leadership qualities such as decision-making power in accordance with the situation, cool-mindedness, tolerance etc., as they are guided by emotionalism, ungoverned temper, irrationalism, rashness, self-egoism and unrealistic idealism. Having religious prejudice, they are staunch conservatives, who lack pragmatism, as they have ignored ground realities. They are creating obnoxious chauvinism in their peoples like the Indian Prime Minister Modi. They are power-hunger and wants fame by keeping them in the limelight through media.  

Famous thinker of international relations, Hans Morgenthau points out that external policy of a country should be moulded in accordance “with the exigencies and circumstances of time and place” otherwise, there will be “failure of the foreign policy.” It is quite true in case of Erdogan who has already destabilized Turkey owing to his failed external policy, while Trump will further thwart the American foreign policy goals, because, he does not have political wisdom.

Political characters of Donald Trump and Tayyip Erdogan are amalgamation of the traits of Rasputin, Russian spiritualist, Germany’s rulers William II (Kaiser) and Adolf Hitler who brought about unrest in their own countries and also devastated Europe through World War I and World War II.

We can conclude that Trump and Erdogan who shares a number of negative similarities may bring about a nuclear war between Russia and America in wake of the unresolved issue of Syria. Both can further divide the world on religious lines, culminating into major war between the Western Christians and the Muslims, involving other religious communities. They will take the world to the ‘state of nature’ when there was a war of “all against all” in the sense of Thomas Hobbes.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic_pak@hotmail.com

Courtesy Veterans Today

Indian Journalist Exposed Indian Designs against Pakistan

By Sajjad Shaukat

Indian journalist Ajai Shukla who is a retired Colonel of Indian Army and writes articles on defense policy has exposed Indian designs against Pakistan in the aftermath of the Uri base terror attack.

In his article, under the caption Uri attack: Military Reviews ‘Escalation Ladder’ which was published in the Business Standard on September 21, 2016 also reproduced on the website http://ajaishukla.blogspot.com/2016/09/after-uri-indias-military-reviews.html, Ajai Shukla disclosed the steps which India will take by manipulating the Uri base attacks. In this regard, he wrote, “The strike by jihadi militants on Sunday (September 18, this year) on an army camp near Uri, in which 18 soldiers were killed and 29 injured, has inflamed tensions along the Line of Control (LoC)—On Tuesday, the Army shot down eight Pakistani militants after intercepting a 15-strong group that was discovered infiltrating from” Pakistani side of Kashmir.

He elaborated, “With public opinion and the media aroused, and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to punish those responsible; and the army's top operations officer declaring the military would retaliate at a time and place of its choosing, both sides of the LOC are bracing for what might come. New Delhi has pinned the attack on the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a militia controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a wing of the Pakistani Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh  has declared Pakistan a “terrorist state” and the Indian Army, already grappling with public turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, is evaluating options to extract revenge for Uri…Pakistan presents an easy target for an Indian diplomatic offensive against its terror-friendly ways, in western capitals and multilateral forums. However, a calibrated military riposte would need more careful consideration.”

Ajai Shukla pointed out, “Business Standard has discussed India’s options with senior officers close to the planning process. All of them agree the army  can easily initiate retaliation. But, thereafter, there would be two sides in the game. Escalation would be both inevitable and unpredictable. India's first option is to retaliate through fires (the effect of weapons) without Indian forces physically crossing the LoC. This would involve “fire assaults” on targets across the border, using artillery, missiles, and multi-barrel rocket launchers and Brahmos cruise missiles for deeper-lying targets. A fire assault involves suddenly opening up intense fire with massed weapons on an unsuspecting and carefully chosen target, catching people in the open, and inflicting heavy casualties.”

He revealed, “Besides weapons, all trans-LoC retaliation would require reconnaissance assets, including satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to identify suitable targets and carry out battle damage assessment (BDA) after a strike. The BDA would determine whether the target had been adequately punished, or whether it needs to be struck again. Depending upon Pakistan's response, fire assaults could be escalated through three stages - first targeting terrorist infrastructure, then forward Pakistan Army  posts that facilitated infiltration and, finally, Pakistani headquarters (HQs) and installations in the rear. Each operational level would send a specific signal and require tailor-made diplomatic messaging to manage international opinion. To absorb the inevitable retaliation, the Indian military would need to anticipate and plan appropriately. In keeping with the theory of "escalation dominance", the military would seek to dominate each step of the escalation ladder. This would discourage Pakistan from escalating the exchange.”

According to Shukla, “The next level of escalation would involve physically moving troops—first aircraft and then, if necessary, ground forces—to attack across the LoC. To manage the risks, India would signal a purely punitive intent, with no intention to actually hold ground across the LoC. Naturally, aircraft and troops that cross the LoC carry the risk of being captured. India's military would pre-position “search and rescue” (SAR) units, equipped with helicopters, to retrieve personnel shot down across the LoC.”

He said, “The third level of escalation would involve the capture and occupation of territory across the LoC, such as vulnerable pockets where the border protrudes into India, or enclaves on the Indian side of a river or stream. This would be a significant escalation and a violation of the Shimla Agreement, which prohibits either side from changing the status quo. Deeper attacks would require India to mobilise reserves, including fire support assets, as well as the air force.”

Ajai Shukla realzed by saying, “Longstanding intelligence and military assessments indicate that any Indian capture of significant Pakistani territory would trigger a nuclear threat from that country. The final level of escalation, i.e. Indian offensive operations across the settled international boundary between India and Pakistan—the so-called Radcliffe Line---would certainly violate the Pakistan Army's nuclear threshold, eliciting a threat to use nuclear weapons. Several Indian strategic planners insist a Pakistani threat would be a bluff. However, the diplomatic pressure on New Delhi would be intense, and it remains unlikely that India's leadership would successfully resist it.”

In fact, with the help of Indian intelligence agencies, particularly RAW, India has itself arranged the Uri Base attack not only to defame Pakistan, but also to achieve a number of sinister aims.

In wake of new phase of uprising after July 8, 2016 against the martyrdom of the young Kashmir leader Burhan Wani by the Indian security forces in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), pressure on the Indian government led by BJP Modi has been mounting both domestically and internationally. And war of liberation in the Indian held Kashmir has been accelerated despite continued sieges and prolonged curfew.

Hence, in order to deflect the attention its public and international community from the reality of Kashmir movement and Indian atrocities on the innocent Kashmiris, India has created war-like situation against Pakistan by accusing the latter for infiltration of the militants and role of ISI.

As per leaked plans of Ajai Shukla, India claimed on September 29, 2016 that it carried out surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC in Pakistani side of Kashmir and inflicted heavy casualties.

On the other side, Pakistan Army released identities of two soldiers, who embraced martyrdom in unprovoked Indian shelling on Pakistani border posts along LoC.

In a statement, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) rejected Indian claims, saying there has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India. Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing across the LoC.

The statement said, “The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by Indian to create false effects. This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross border fire as surgical strike is a fabrication of truth. Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, same will be strongly responded.”

And Indian soldier has been captured by the Pakistan army, while Indian soldiers have also been killed in the episode of firing across the Line of Control.

DG Lt. Gen, Asim Saleem Bajwa said on October 1, 2016 that the military was certain of India having suffered casualties and was hiding details of it. He reiterated that the country’s armed forces were fully prepared to respond to any aggression. He further stated that again, Pakistani troops had mounted a befitting response to Indian firing along the LoC early on October 1.

However, India has deliberately creaking war-like situation against Pakistan. Hence, with the SAAR summit scheduled in Islamabad in November has been postponed, under a shadow following a boycott by India, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. On September 30, 2016, New Delhi also shut down the Friendship Bus Service which runs between Lahore and Amritsar. Earlier, following war-mongering diplomacy, Indian also threatened to dissolve the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. Under the treaty, Pakistan received exclusive use of waters from the Indus and its westward flowing tributaries, the Jhelum and Chenab, while the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers were allocated for India’s use. Just two days before the Uri attack, an Indian author, Brahma Chellaney, wrote that, “India should hold out a credible threat of drawing a clear linkage between Pakistan’s right to unlimited water inflows and its responsibility not to cause harm to its upper riparian.” The World Bank is guarantor of this treaty and sets up an adjudicator in case of disputes. However, by stopping the flow of those rivers which take origin from the Indian controlled Kashmir, India wants to use water as a weapon.

It is notable that in his first public address in Kerala on September 24, 2016, following the Indian-arranged drama of the Uri attack, Prime Minister Modi threatened Pakistan of “completely isolating it globally.”

Now, latest report suggests that India has started mobilization of troops near the LoC to wage a limited war with Pakistan, while considering surgical strikes on the Azad Kashmir.

Pakistan has also taken defensive steps to meet any prospective aggression or surgical strikes by New Delhi. Taking strict notice of the hostile narrative, being planned by India in the pretext of the Uri base attack, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif made it clear on September 19 by saying, “Let me reiterate that our armed forces stand fully capable to defeat all sorts of external aggression.”

In this respect, Gen, Raheel Sharif, while addressing a US CENTCOM conference in Germany on September 26, this year said, “India is not serious to resolve the Kashmir issue…India’s premier spy agency of spilling the blood of innocents through an indirect strategy.”

Nevertheless, it is wishful thinking of the BJP leaders that they can wage a conventional war or limited war with Pakistan. While both the neighboring adversaries are nuclear powers, India is neglecting the principles of deterrence, known as ‘balance of terror.’

Many occasions came between Pakistan and India like the post-Mumbai terror attacks of 2008 (Which were also arranged by Indian security agencies) when New Delhi started a blame game against Islamabad in wake of its highly provocative actions like mobilization of troops. Indian rulers had intended to implement their doctrine of limited war in Kashmir.

Islamabad had also taken defensive steps to meet any Indian prospective aggression or surgical strikes. But, India failed in implementing its aggressive plans, because Pakistan also possesses atomic weapons.

In this connection, Indian defense analyst Ajai Shukla has already disclosed Indian steps and sinister designs against Islamabad.

Nonetheless, in the present circumstances, the BJP-led Modi government is badly mistaken, if it overestimates India’s power and underestimates Pakistan’s power. As Pakistan lacks conventional forces and weapons vis-à-vis India, so, in case of a prolonged conflict, Pakistan will have to use nuclear weapons and missiles which could destroy whole of India, resulting into Indian political suicide.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

South Asia’s quest for a future

By Mushahid Hussain

In 2014, when Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister, the noted Indian historian, Pankaj Mishra, wrote that “India is entering its most sinister period since independence in 1947”. In less than three years since he took over, Modi has tried to transform some of the fundamental tenets of Indian polity and foreign policy.

For Pakistani policymakers who are in the process of formulating a comprehensive policy response to India’s aggressive posturing, there is need to focus on two areas: where is Modi coming from, since his political genealogy is different from his predecessors, and how should Pakistan’s India policy go beyond an ad hoc, reactive, moment-to-moment, tactical, approach?

PM presides over high-level meeting as tensions with India escalate

As Pankaj Mishra wrote, ‘Modi is a life-long member of the RSS, a para-military Hindu organisation inspired by the fascist movements of Europe’. Modi was propelled to power from his perch as Chief Minister of Gujrat, where over 1,000 Muslims were murdered under his watch during the ethnic cleansing of 2002. Gujrat is also home to the famed Hindu temple of Somnath, which was destroyed several times by the Muslim conqueror, Mahmud of Ghazni. Given his background and ideological training as an RSS activist for several decades, Modi, like most of his Hindutva comrades, suffers from what can be termed as a deep-seated ‘Mahmud of Ghazni Complex’: viewing Muslims as marauders, invaders and ‘foreigners’ alien to the soil of ‘Mother India’. Fear and loathing of Muslims are part of this worldview.

Three components of Modi’s India need to be understood. First, Modi’s Pakistan policy stems, in part, from an ideological approach, an extension of his domestic RSS base. Being ‘tough’ on Pakistan is also meant as a message of intimidation to the people of occupied Kashmir as well as the Muslims of India in this convoluted congruence between the Hindutva ideology and Indian foreign policy, even if it means cutting the nose to spite the face. For instance, scuttling the SAARC Summit damages Pakistan less as Modi ends up presiding over the slow-motion demise of SAARC.

Second, at home, Modi has bid goodbye to Nehruvian notions of secularism, with Hindutva ideology’s “ugly reality” in today’s India manifested in such acts as the burning of books to the killing of alleged beef eaters.

Third, in the signing of a landmark military pact with the US, Modi has allowed, publicly at least for the first time, the Pentagon access to land, air and naval bases in India.

Although, in the past too, India has “flirted” with the US — Nehru eagerly sought and received American arms against China in 1962, something he had long derided Pakistan for. In 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed a CIA communications base in India, close to Tibet, to spy on China after Pakistan closed the Badaber base.

India pulls out of SAARC summit in Islamabad

However, Modi’s foreign policy changes and aggressive anti-Pakistan approach has had adverse consequences for India itself. Some examples are as follows: Russia is already cosying up to Pakistan, even willing to sell arms, and Moscow even defied Delhi to go ahead with military exercises with the Pakistan Army at the height of Modi’s war-mongering. Modi’s irresponsible comments on Balochistan have evoked concern in Iran as well since that is a sensitive province which Iran shares with Pakistan. It is, therefore, no accident that President Rouhani during his recent New York meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that ‘security of Pakistan is the security of Iran’ and expressed his desire to team up with Pakistan on CPEC as well. Given Modi’s meddling on issues close to Chinese core interests ranging from CPEC to the South China Sea, China’s support and solidarity for Pakistan has intensified ranging from Kashmir to blocking Indian entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and a permanent seat at the UNSC.

While India is pursuing its Pakistan policy as part of a regional and global approach of containment and demonising, Pakistan’s India policy as part of a broader regional approach is found wanting. For example, Indian interference in Pakistan has a regional dimension, which Pakistan has failed to project. In June 2015, India carried out an incursion into Myanmar, allegedly in “hot pursuit”. Pakistan failed to condemn it although it was a violation of territorial integrity of a regional state by India, even when Delhi talked of Myanmar as an ‘example’ for Pakistan.

For seven long months in 2015, Nepal was subject to a damaging blockade by India with concurrent gross interference in its internal affairs, but Pakistan maintained a stony silence instead of expressing solidarity with a smaller neighbour in South Asia.Then, the RAW operative, Yadhav was captured in March 2016, but, six months later, the promised dossier on Yadhav and his deeds is ‘still under preparation’.

‘It is in India’s interest to integrate into CPEC’

For the future, Pakistan has to develop a clear policy towards India based on three key aspects. First, Pakistan remains steadfast on Kashmir, where the bottom-line of any policy should be to ensure change in the status quo that alleviates the sufferings of the people of the occupied Kashmir. Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, has written that, after the martyrdom of Burhan Wani and the continuing uprising, “a de facto plebiscite has already taken place in Kashmir”. Pakistan should also avoid making the mistakes of the Afghan war (“strategic depth” or “playing favourites”). Kashmir is about its oppressed and brave people, not about territorial real estate, and any peaceful settlement must include the three parties to the dispute, namely, Pakistan, India and the Kashmiri people.

Second, Pakistan’s India policy should reflect the emerging reality of a Greater South Asia which is being woven together by a new regionalism driven by energy and economy, roads and railways, ports and pipelines of which CPEC is the major manifestation. This Greater South Asia now includes not just the original seven SAARC states, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives but also China, Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar and the Central Asian republics. Thanks to Indian short-sightedness, SAARC is being replaced by the SCO as the institutional future of this emerging Greater South Asia.

Third, India is not a Hindutva monolith. Indian society’s pluralism and diversity has large segments which would be receptive to an outreach from Pakistan. In April 1984, just six weeks before Operation Blue Star, The Muslim daily organised the first ever Track-II between Pakistan and India and other countries of South Asia in Islamabad. Indian journalists were invited to write in the Pakistan press for the first time which became the harbinger of a new channel of contact, cordiality and communication between the opinion leaders of Pakistan and India and other South Asian countries.

For all its other weaknesses, the Pakistani state and society has shown tremendous strength and resilience at a time when the Middle East has unraveled. Since 1979, Pakistan has been in the ‘eye of the storm’ , facing the fallout of 3 Afghan wars, 3 Gulf wars, 3 near wars with India and one proxy war in the Muslim world. In the process, Pakistan and Pakistanis have developed the ability to reverse wrongs as Operation Zarb-e-Azb has demonstrated. While fighting the biggest and longest inland war against terrorism, Pakistan remains the freest Muslim democracy.

The Quaid-e-Azam had talked of the relationship between Canada and the US as the model for Pakistan-India relations. That vision can still be realised if Modi undergoes a Nixonian transformation: building a better and peaceful tomorrow together with Pakistan rather than being hostage to a tried, tested and failed policy of bullying and browbeating a smaller neighbour.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2016.

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Harassing the diplomats is also a kind of surgical strike!

By Sohail Parwaz

Since yesterday, Indians have started creating panic at LOC in Kashmir followed by harassing the Pakistani diplomatic staff based at Delhi. The panic is in the shape of ceasefire violations, where at least at eight different places the Indian forces did the artillery shelling and pounded the peaceful side of Azad Kashmir. The real joke started in the morning when the Indian army’s DGMO announced on media that a surgical strike was carried out in the late hours of the night and the terrorists’ camps were destroyed. The Indian opposition leadership strongly criticised their government and army’s claim and demanded the proofs. This was another humiliation which the Indians bagged while desperately trying to go for a ‘face saving’.

On the other hand the Pakistani High Commissioner in India received a couple of threat bearing anonymous phone calls and was asked to leave Pakistan. Those who have read my novel “The Cornered Rogue”, will confirm that I have scripted this scenario in the chapter nineteen of my book, though slightly in a different way. The Indians were making tall claims since long and were threatening Pakistan of severe consequences for the latter’s so-called support to the terrorists. They made a blunder when they committed publicly to go for Cold Start but when couldn’t find assurances about the war to remain restricted then bragged to carry out surgical strikes which unfortunately again fizzled out due to lack of courage. On the other side there was immense pressure from the extremist right wing Hindu elements on their government to ‘Punish Pakistan’. Eventually the stage has come where the Indian government and the army have found themselves on the wrong footing.

The following excerpts from my novel like previous one will confirm my analysis of the event, carried out four years back.

“It was second weekend of the month and Gulsher Mehsood was returning from a dinner hosted by Russian embassy on their national day at Hotel Taj Palace of New Delhi. It was early hour of the night; he along with his chauffer was driving on Jesus and Mary Marg. They were just opposite to Maitreyi College when he felt that they were being chased by another car. Although it wasn’t a new thing, because harassing of each other’s staffers is a routine phenomenon in both the countries, yet here in India a constant threat by the radical right wing Hindu organisations was a continuous alert for Pakistanis. His sixth sense warned him of something not very pleasant to happen any moment. This part of the city from where they were passing would usually be less busy at that time. They were almost near the Diplomatic area and he could see the Qatar embassy just on his right near the T junction made by the lateral road Chandragupta Marg, thus he asked the driver to speed up. The driver after taking the left turn took an immediate right turn as Gulsher told him to take Kawame Krumah Marg to pass through Russian staff quarters and the Italian embassy. The moment they took Nyaya Marg from where the Pakistan High Commission was almost three minutes drive away, suddenly a group of about six people carrying steel rods and batons appeared out of nowhere, before Gulsher or his driver could sense the danger they started smashing his staff car. One of them smashed the window, opened the door and dragged Gulsher out who was neither a weak physique nor a coward so obviously he showed strong resistance. Seeing that, two other carrying clubs rushed towards scuffling Gulsher to help their partner. The First Secretary knew that occasion demanded from him to do away with diplomatic decency. His tribal warrior instinct overpowered his friendly side. He realised that he must snatch an iron rod from one of them if he really had to survive so he looked for the weakest of them and managed to snatch one from him. By now four of them converged upon Gulsher, he had a good taste of beating but the moment he got hold of a rod he found himself dominating those four. He focused on their knees and legs and knocked the hell out of them, while this bout was going on; few yards away two of them were giving a brutal beating to his driver. In few minutes the assailants realised that the victim was stronger, energetic and daring, not only giving them a good fight back but had injured a couple of them badly. Probably one of them had a knee fracture as well. Suddenly one of them yelled, ‘Bhaago (run)’. They gave support to their injured friend and rushed towards the dark where Gulsher could see a Maruti Gypsy jeep parked. Instead of chasing them he rushed towards his fainted driver who was badly coughing, perhaps they gave him some rough blows in the ribs. Few cars stopped to witness the scene, Gulsher wanted to avoid that. He put his injured driver on the backseat and quickly drove off to the High Commission. His wife and daughters were quite upset and scared to see him with bruises on his face. He narrated them the whole account and affectionately kissed his wife. The matter was so important that he had to disturb his High Commissioner whom he thought would have reached after attending the same Reception. How could media miss such an important scoop?  Most of the private channels reported it as breaking news; soon it was carried by the people across the border and elsewhere in the world. In about forty eight hours, after the Indian air raid at Muridke this was second major row between India and Pakistan.”