Posts tagged news
مہرین کسانه
Some Al Qaeda text up there.
Then, in August 2009, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, told Mr. Brennan that the agency had Mr. Mehsud in its sights. But taking out the Pakistani Taliban leader, Mr. Panetta warned, did not meet Mr. Obama’s standard of “near certainty” of no innocents being killed. In fact, a strike would certainly result in such deaths: he was with his wife at his in-laws’ home.
“Many times,” General Jones said, in similar circumstances, “at the 11th hour we waved off a mission simply because the target had people around them and we were able to loiter on station until they didn’t.”
But not this time. Mr. Obama, through Mr. Brennan, told the C.I.A. to take the shot, and Mr. Mehsud was killed, along with his wife and, by some reports, other family members as well, said a senior intelligence official.
President Obama and the Secret Kill List
Look at that Nobel Peace Prize winner. Executing people without trials and not even caring about collateral damage (or, as we might call them, murdered innocent civilians.)
(via fearandwar)
In case anyone was confused about how the Executive works (because apparently, according to Tumblr, Obama isn’t to blame but “institutions which can’t be changed”):
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”
[…]
In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.
They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”
Read that last sentence again.
(via mohandasgandhi)
How humanitarian, Obama.
(via mohandasgandhi)
My mum yelled at them. She asked: ‘What do you want from my husband and son?’ A bald man with a beard shot her with a machine gun from the neck down. Then they killed my sister, Rasha, with the same gun. She was five years old. Then they shot my brother Nader in the head and in the back. I saw his soul leave his body in front of me. They shot at me, but the bullet passed me and I wasn’t hit. I was shaking so much I thought they would notice me. I put blood on my face to make them think I’m dead.
11-year-old Houla massacre survivor tells how his family was slaughtered.
Speechless.
Overfishing, global warming and pollution threaten to transform the ocean—and perhaps life as we know it
Disturbing and saddening.
![Maria Toor Pakay becomes the first Pakistan-born woman ever to reach a British Open main draw
World number one Nicol David will have a surprising first round opponent when she begins her campaign to win back the British Open title here on Tuesday.
The legendary Malaysian will take on Maria Toor Pakay who became the first Pakistan-born woman ever to reach a British Open main draw after upsetting the seedings in the qualifying competition.
The 21-year-old left-hander from Peshawar overcame Emily Whitlock, the European junior champion, by 11-5, 4-11, 8-11, 11-6, 11-7 in a 46-minute struggle which ended in the English player’s first defeat in any competition since January.
[x]
I told you Pakistani women are badass. Proof - yet again.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m42z9twl0i1qamcl6o1_1280.jpg)
Maria Toor Pakay becomes the first Pakistan-born woman ever to reach a British Open main draw
World number one Nicol David will have a surprising first round opponent when she begins her campaign to win back the British Open title here on Tuesday.
The legendary Malaysian will take on Maria Toor Pakay who became the first Pakistan-born woman ever to reach a British Open main draw after upsetting the seedings in the qualifying competition.
The 21-year-old left-hander from Peshawar overcame Emily Whitlock, the European junior champion, by 11-5, 4-11, 8-11, 11-6, 11-7 in a 46-minute struggle which ended in the English player’s first defeat in any competition since January.
I told you Pakistani women are badass. Proof - yet again.
The National Assembly on Friday passed a landmark bill for the formation of a National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) empowered to investigate cases of human rights infringement, create much-needed awareness, and ultimately make [secret] agencies and the Pakistani army answerable to the body in the context of alleged human rights violations.
Agencies and Pakistani Military to be held accountable for HR violations.
The commission will be chaired by a judge of the Supreme Court and will comprise one member from each of the four provinces, the Islamabad Capital Territory, Fata and Gilgit-Baltistan, as well as one from minority communities.
This is a colossal demand in Pakistani political history, and highly justified too given how agency-led violence against civilians became almost frequent recently. Let’s hope this works out and the perpetrators are brought to justice.
![On the issue of the transparency of drones program, Pakistani journalist Madiha Tahir says:
When I come to the United States and I talk to human rights advocates, the main concern about drones with respect to Pakistan is that drones in Pakistan are being controlled by the CIA instead of the military. So, the logic and demand is that drones should be shifted from the CIA to the military and this would create more transparency and accountability. And, so, there’s a lot of rhetoric about transparency and accountability as if that is the endgame. But, that is not the endgame.
First of all, it’s not clear that if having JSOC, which is an arm of the military, would be more transparent and accountable. But aside from that, this is a legal problem and an abstract problem from the point of view of survivors and families of drone attack victims. [Pakistanis] simply want to stop having the bombs dropped on their heads and it doesn’t matter if the bombs come courtesy of the CIA or they come courtesy of the military. That is really the issue that the antiwar movement has to be dealing with if it is a movement that cares about and claims to stand in solidarity with the people who are on the receiving end of American militarism.
[via]
Agreed. Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar and Co-Founder of Foundation for Fundamental Rights, an organization representing victims of drone strikes in Pakistani courts was also present and spoke of the human rights violation under drone attacks at the international conference on drone warfare that took place in Washington over the weekend. Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, said: “So many people who spoke out against George [W.] Bush’s extraordinary rendition and Guantánamo and indefinite detention have been very quiet when it comes to the Obama administration, who is not putting people in those same kind of conditions, instead is just taking them out and killing them,” Benjamin says. “So we need to make people speak up and say that when Obama says this [program] is on a tight leash, this is not true, this is a lie.”
Furthermore Mr. Akbar said: “I think people are scared. They’re definitely scared. I’ve seen some people. I’ve seen—I’ve interviewed some neighbors whose next-door house was hit, and I could feel that what—what they’re feeling, because they’re feeling this imminent threat. And they are actually feeling helpless at the same time because they have no other place to relocate, because they’ve—a lot of them have no skills, no education, so they cannot relocate in any other part of Pakistan.”
You can read more about the expanding drone program by Obama here and the full transcript between Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Shahzad Akbar and Medea Benjamin in the lower half of the page. You can follow Madiha Tahir on Twitter.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3jx3bTfhz1qamcl6o1_500.png)
On the issue of the transparency of drones program, Pakistani journalist Madiha Tahir says:
When I come to the United States and I talk to human rights advocates, the main concern about drones with respect to Pakistan is that drones in Pakistan are being controlled by the CIA instead of the military. So, the logic and demand is that drones should be shifted from the CIA to the military and this would create more transparency and accountability. And, so, there’s a lot of rhetoric about transparency and accountability as if that is the endgame. But, that is not the endgame.
First of all, it’s not clear that if having JSOC, which is an arm of the military, would be more transparent and accountable. But aside from that, this is a legal problem and an abstract problem from the point of view of survivors and families of drone attack victims. [Pakistanis] simply want to stop having the bombs dropped on their heads and it doesn’t matter if the bombs come courtesy of the CIA or they come courtesy of the military. That is really the issue that the antiwar movement has to be dealing with if it is a movement that cares about and claims to stand in solidarity with the people who are on the receiving end of American militarism.
Agreed. Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar and Co-Founder of Foundation for Fundamental Rights, an organization representing victims of drone strikes in Pakistani courts was also present and spoke of the human rights violation under drone attacks at the international conference on drone warfare that took place in Washington over the weekend. Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, said: “So many people who spoke out against George [W.] Bush’s extraordinary rendition and Guantánamo and indefinite detention have been very quiet when it comes to the Obama administration, who is not putting people in those same kind of conditions, instead is just taking them out and killing them,” Benjamin says. “So we need to make people speak up and say that when Obama says this [program] is on a tight leash, this is not true, this is a lie.”
Furthermore Mr. Akbar said: “I think people are scared. They’re definitely scared. I’ve seen some people. I’ve seen—I’ve interviewed some neighbors whose next-door house was hit, and I could feel that what—what they’re feeling, because they’re feeling this imminent threat. And they are actually feeling helpless at the same time because they have no other place to relocate, because they’ve—a lot of them have no skills, no education, so they cannot relocate in any other part of Pakistan.”
You can read more about the expanding drone program by Obama here and the full transcript between Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Shahzad Akbar and Medea Benjamin in the lower half of the page. You can follow Madiha Tahir on Twitter.
Mother and wife of man killed by CIA Operative Raymond Davis found murdered in their home in Johar Town.
This is five minutes away from my place.
(via mehreenkasana)
This happened today. More details here. Like they say, the plot thickens. May their souls rest in peace.
Mother and wife of man killed by CIA Operative Raymond Davis found murdered in their home in Johar Town.
This is five minutes away from my place.
You should buy your own drone. Everybody should have a drone.
Clive Stafford Smith at DC Drone Summit.
Live stream here.
Bin Laden family deported from Pakistan
Osama bin Laden’s family were deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia early Friday, officials said, nearly a year after the Al Qaeda leader was killed in a US raid.
Pakistani authorities have already demolished the Abbottabad house and with the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death just a few days away, they will be keen for the deportation to mark a definitive end to what has been an extremely embarrassing episode.
After 10 months in detention, the widows and two of bin Laden’s older daughters were sentenced by a Pakistani court to 45 days’ detention on charges of illegal entry and residency in the country and ordered to be deportation.
Chapter closed? Hope so.
Breaking News: Supreme Court of Pakistan convicts Gilani of contempt
The Supreme Court of Pakistan convicted Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Thursday during the announcement of a verdict in the contempt proceedings against him.
The premier was charged with contempt by the apex court in February for refusing to write to the Swiss authorities to ask them to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
This is going to be intense.
