The Indian Panorama

Tag: Afghanistan

  • Maharaja Dalip Singh’s dinner plate up for auction

    Maharaja Dalip Singh’s dinner plate up for auction

    LONDON: Collectors of Maharaja Dalip Singh memorabilia will be thrilled at the prospect of bidding for a dinner plate that once belonged to the last independent ruler of the Punjab, reports appearing in London newspapers say.

    The plate being put up for auction by Mullock’s auctioneers in the English county of Shrops hire is valued at between £2,000 and £3000 (Rs1.5 to Rs 2.5 lakh). It was manufactured by ceramics manufacturer Mintons who also supplied china tableware to Queen Victoria.

    The plate is nowhere as valuable as other items from Dalip Singh’s estate, such as the Kohinoor diamond, which now lodges in one of the crowns belonging to the British royal family, or the golden throne of Ranjit Singh currently in a London museum, but itis till a reminder of the glory of the Sikh empire that stretched from Afghanistan to Kashmir.
    Inked on the back of the plate is a black ink certificate of provenance which reads, ‘From the collection of late Maharaja Dhuleep Singh. ‘Dalip Singh was only 11-year old when he was removed from his throne by the East India Company.

    He was ubsequently baptized as a Christian and sent to England where he was induced to ‘gift’ the Kohinoor to the Queen. Since his death other family heirlooms have surfaced from time to time and are immediately snatched up by eager collectors. Such was the case with the 12 bore hammer gun made by J.P Urdey and Sons that was offered for sale by Bonhams auctioneers last April.

    The gun commissioned for Dalip Singh’s 15-year-old son, Prince Victor, is thought to have been used for many of the shooting parties that were hosted by the exiled Maharaja at his country estate of Elveden in Norfolk.

    At least as much interest was generated more recently by a gold coin minted during the reign of Dalip Singh’s father, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, which was purchased for more than £10,000 by a mystery buyer from India.

    Although the provenance of the coin is not known, there was speculation that it came from the estate of the late Dr John Login, a Scottish doctor who was appointed by the East India Company as Dalip Singh’s guardian in the mid 19th century.

  • Afghanistan give India scare but run out of gas

    Afghanistan give India scare but run out of gas

    COLOMBO (TIP): Bubbling with enthusiasm and energy, Afghanistan gave India a scare with the ball and a half with the bat, but 20 overs proved to be too long a time for them to sustain that quality and keenness. They could have had India at 79 for 5, but dropped Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina within eight deliveries only for the two to add a total of 53 further runs. They also conceded 16 extras to facilitate India’s recovery to 159 runs, but Mohammad Shahzad, Nawroz Mangal and Mohammad Nabi chased with spirit and with gusto, taking them to within 43 with four overs to go, but R Ashwin dismissed Nabi for a 17-ball31 to kill the chase.

    Two sides turned up at the R Prema dasa, the underdogs who were clearly enjoying their day on the world stage, and the fancied team who seemed to have the weight of the world on their shoulders. With India’s bowling and fielding nearly conceding 160 against an Affiliate team, MS Dhoni surely has the weight of the world firmly on his shoulders. Bigger tests await India, but tonight was about Afghanistan putting up the first show for a minnow in this tournament. It was the tall left-arm seamer Shapoor Zadran who gave Afghanistan an in tentful start. The first ball he bowled, the first of the match, was dug in short even if wide outside off. By the end of that over he was beating Gautam Gambhir for pace. The official broadcasters recorded it at150.3kmph. In his next over he got one to stop a touch, and Gambhir played on. That earned Shapoor a third over at the top, and he finished his job on Virender Sehwag: beaten twice outside off before edging through. At 22 for 2 in the fifth over, Kohli respectfully expressed his inability to do anything wrong, reaching a sixth fifty inhis last six international innings. When he lofted Gulbodin Naib for a straight six in the eighth over, the run-rate crossed six for the first time since the innings first achieved some shape. The spinners, though, put a lid onthat momentum. Yuvraj Singh edged a cut to short third man off Karim Sadiq in the 11th over. Sadiq and Nabi proceeded to exert pressure on new man Raina who soon lobbed straight back to Nabi, but perhapsin his eagerness to celebrate he let it spill. In the next over, Sadiq nearly got his second but the hit burst through Samiullah Shenwari’s hands at long-on.

    From a possible dominating position, Afghanistan had now let indiscipline creep in both their fielding and bowling. Shapoor came back to go for 14 in his last over that included a typical extra-cover drive from Kolhi and a high full toss to Raina. In the next over, Raina was dropped again. Dawlat Zadran came back to get Kohli a ball after he had reached his fifty, but he undid his good work with six wides in the19th over that also incuded three lovely yorkers.

    Nab bowled a superb 20th over full of yorkers until providing Dhoni with two low full tosses that he sent for four and six.That wasn’t about to dent Shahzad’s spirit, who had promised a Dhoni-style helicopter shot in the lead-up to the match. He duly delivered it, off a full ball from ZaheerKhan no less, and Afghanistan were 24 for 0 in three overs,just the rate they needed. L Balaji stopped that rot for Indiaby getting Shahzad with a bouncer, but Afghanistan were far from giving up. Mangal hit Balaji and Irfan Pathan for a six and a four, sending Dhoni to his magic man Yuvraj, who delivered immediately with an lbw off a straight delivery. When he took two in two in the 12th over to reduce Afghanistan to 75for 4, the game seemed over. India’s bowling weakness, though, was about to raise its head. Nabi hit Zaheer’s length bowling for 16 in the 16th over, and if India didn’t quite panic they couldn’t have been far off.

  • Anti-Islam film: Protesters storm diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, army called in

    Anti-Islam film: Protesters storm diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, army called in

    NEW DELHI (TIP): Hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the anti-Prophet Muhammad film stormed the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, Pakistan on Thursday. Authorities were forced to call in the army to control the situation which threatened to escalate into violence. Hotels frequented by foreigners were also attacked by the demonstrators. This was the most violent show of anger in a day that saw smaller demonstrations in Indonesia, Iran and Afghanistan.

    The vulgar depiction of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in an American-made movie has angered Muslims across the world, with many taking to the streets to rally against the film. In recent days, the decision by a French satirical magazine to release cartoons crudely depicting the prophet as added to the tension .Riot police used tear gas and batons to keep stone throwing demonstrators away from the enclave, and hundreds of shipping containers were lined up to cordon off the area. Some protesters were students affiliated with the Islamist hard-line Jamaat-e-Islamic party. The demonstrations are expected to grow in Pakistan on Friday, the traditional day of prayer in the Muslim world. The Pakistani government has called a national holiday for Friday so that people could come out and demonstrate peacefully against the film. That decision drew rare wordsof praise from the Pakistani Taliban, which is usually at war with the government.

  • WORRIED GOVERNMENT MOVES TO BLOCK ANTI-ISLAM FILM

    WORRIED GOVERNMENT MOVES TO BLOCK ANTI-ISLAM FILM

    NEW DELHI (TIP): Apprehending disturbances over a controversial anti-Islam movie that sparked massive anti- US protests in Libya, Egypt and Yemen, the government on September 13 asked Google to block 11 URLs of the popular video site YouTube containing objectionable excerpts from the film.

    The US-based Google, which owns YouTube, is likely to ban these URLs soon. “A request to Google was made acting on the request of the Jammu & Kashmir government which forwarded a court order for getting those web pages removed as soon as possible,” said a home ministry official. He said the request had been sent by the department of telecommunication through the director general of Computer Emergency Response Team India (CERT-In) for immediate action.

    As reports came in of Afghanistan and Pakistan also blocking access to these sites, Google in a statement said, “We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video — which is widely available on the Web — is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries.” Government has already beefed up security at the US embassy and four of its consulates — Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad. The five US diplomatic missions are being provided round-the-clock security

  • US choppers on Osama mission crossed Indian air space?

    US choppers on Osama mission crossed Indian air space?

    New Delhi (TIP): The flight path taken by two American MH-47 Chinook helicopters to Abbottabad in Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden in May last year has triggered a controversy with questions being raised as to whether they flew over the Indian air space.

    A just-published book, containing a first-hand account of the raid on the al-Qaida leader’s hideout in the Pakistan garrison town near Islamabad, contains a map showing the flight path of the two helicopters after they took off from Jalalabad in Afghanistan in the dead of the night on May one.

    The map shows the helicopters crossing Pakistan’s eastern border with India before looping around and approaching Abbottabad from the South East. The book — No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy SEAL — is written by one of the US Navy SEALS Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the operation, using pseudonym “Mark Owen”.

    Questions about whether the helicopters flew over the Indian air space have been raised by a popular US website Redstate, described as a leading conservative news blog. This has set off a debate in the cyber world.
    The blog states that “this apparent use of Indian air space” raises questions including whether the Indian government had advance knowledge about the Abbottabad mission and whether the US had sought and was granted permission to use Indian air space.

    Indian Air Force sources in New Delhi on Wednesday dismissed this hypothesis and said the US helicopters had not crossed into Indian air space at all.

    B Raman, a noted security expert who retired as a senior officer of India’s external intelligence agency RAW, has doubted whether the helicopters would have been flown into Pakistan via India.

    He has written that in planning operations of this nature involving air and missile action, the US is always worried that if the Pakistanis detect the action, they may misinterpret that the action had been originated by India and this could lead to a war between the two nuclear powers.

    The book gives fascinating details of the mission undertaken by 22 SEALS, an EOD tech and a CIA interpreter, who flew in two Black Hawk helicopters into Abbottabad, where Pakistan’s military academy is located, on the night of May 2, 2011 from a US base in Jalalabad. They killed Osama and four others hiding in a house.

  • HAQQANI NETWORK AS FTO: WHAT IMPACT?

    HAQQANI NETWORK AS FTO: WHAT IMPACT?

    By B.Raman

    In a report to the US Congress on September 7,2012, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, intimated it of her decision to designate the Haqqani Network, an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban operating from the Kurram-North Waziristan areas of Pakistan, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

    She said in a separate statement:

    “Today, I have sent a report to Congress saying that the Haqqani Network meets the statutory criteria of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). This action meets the requirements of the Haqqani Network Terrorist Designation Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-168). Based on that assessment, I notified Congress of my intent to designate the Haqqani Network as an FTO under the INA. I also intend to designate the organization as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224.

    “The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against knowingly providing material support or resources to, or engaging in other transactions with, the Haqqani Network, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U.S. persons. These actions follow a series of other steps that the U.S. government already has taken against the Haqqanis. The Department of State previously designated key Haqqani Network leaders under E.O. 13224, and the Department of the Treasury has designated other militants with ties to the Haqqanis under the same authority. We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military, and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States’ resolve to degrade the organization’s ability to execute violent attacks.

    “I take this action in the context of our overall strategy in Afghanistan, the five lines of effort that President Obama laid out when he was in Afghanistan in May: increasing the capacity of Afghan security forces to fight insurgents; transitioning to Afghan security lead; building an enduring partnership with Afghanistan; pursuing Afghan-led reconciliation; and putting together an international consensus to support peace and stability in the region. We will continue to work with both Afghanistan and Pakistan to move these efforts forward and build a more peaceful and secure future.”

    For some weeks now, the State Department had been under pressure from sections of the Congress to declare the Haqqani Network as an FTO because of its role in killing US and other NATO troops in Afghanistan. The State Department was resisting the pressure because US intelligence reportedly believed that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of the US Army, who disappeared from southern Afghanistan in June, 2009, might be in the custody of the Network. They were worried that the designation of the Network as an FTO could hamper efforts to rescue him. The decision now to designate the Network as an FTO would indicate that the US intelligence is pessimistic about its chances of being able to rescue him.

    The Agence France Presse (AFP) reported as follows on September 8,2012:

    “The network’s founder is Jalaluddin Haqqani, a disciplined Afghan guerrilla leader bankrolled by the US to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s and now based with his family in Pakistan.

    “In the 1980s, Jalaluddin was close to the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. He allied himself to the Taliban after they took power in Kabul in 1996, serving as a cabinet minister under the militia’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar.

    “When American troops arrived after the 9/11 attacks, Haqqani looked up old friends and sought refuge in North Waziristan, becoming one of the first anti-US commanders based in Pakistan’s border areas.

    “He has training bases in eastern Afghanistan, is close to al Qaeda and his fighters are active across east and southeastern Afghanistan and in Kabul.

    “Militarily the most capable of the Taliban factions, the network operates independently but remains loyal to Omar and would probably fall behind any peace deal negotiated by the Taliban.

    “Now in his late 70s and frail, Jalaluddin’s seat on the Afghan Taliban leadership council has passed to his son Sirajuddin, who effectively runs a fighting force of at least 2,000 men.

    “The United States blames the network for some of the most spectacular attacks in Afghanistan, such as a 2011 siege on the US embassy and, in 2009, the deadliest attack on the CIA in 25 years.

    “Washington has long since designated Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin “global terrorists” but in July Congress urged the State Department to blacklist the entire network.

    “Supporters of the designation say the financial sanctions will help disrupt the Haqqani network’s fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

    “But Pakistanis fear it could further worsen ties between Islamabad and Washington just as cooperation had resumed after a series of major crises in 2011, particularly the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

    “Any such decision will take the relationship back to square one, ruining the improvement seen in ties between the two countries during the last couple of months,” a senior Pakistani security official said.

    “Last year, the outgoing top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqanis the “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI, although other American officials later distanced themselves from the remarks.”

    The designation of an organization as an FTO impairs its ability to collect funds from the Diaspora in the US. Where an organization does not depend on flow of funds from the Diaspora in the US, it has very little impact on its operational capabilities.

    The US started the practice of declaring foreign terrorist set-ups as FTOs in 1997. Since then, there has not been a single instance of any terrorist organization withering away due to drying-up of funds because of its being declared an FTO. All organizations declared by the US as FTO continued to maintain their terrorist activities without any problem.

    The US declared the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an FTO in 1997. It had no impact on the activities of the LTTE. The LTTE was crushed 12 years later in May 2009 not by the US designation, but by the counter-insurgency operations of the Sri Lankan Army.

    Since 1997, the US has declared the Harkat-ul-Ansar also known as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh as FTOs. The declarations have had no impact on their activities. They continue to be as active as before

    This is because the jihadi terrorist organizations based in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan get their funds not from the Diaspora in the US, but from the Diaspora in the Gulf, from so-called charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and from the intelligence agencies sponsoring them such as those of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They also get their funds from the narcotics trade in the Af-Pak region.

    Unless these real sources of funding are tackled, just designating an organization as an FTO and making it illegal for persons in the US to help it financially will not help.

    The US war of attrition based on precise intelligence, which has been effective against Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, has not been that effective against the Haqqani Network. Al Qaeda is perceived largely as an Arab organization. Some Pashtuns have had no qualms over co-operating with the US against Al Qaeda as one saw in the case of the Pashtun doctor, now in Pakistani custody, who allegedly collaborated against Osama bin Laden. But the Haqqani Network is a Pashtun organization. It has been more difficult to find Pashtun sources willing to collaborate against the leadership of the Network.

    Only the Shias of Kurram, who have been suffering due to the atrocities committed by the Afghan Taliban and the Network, and the Tajik remnants of Ahmed Shah Masood’s pre-2001 organization might be in a position to help in neutralizing the Haqqani Network through ground and air operations. The suspicions between the US and the former followers of Masood have come in the way of such operations. The US has been reluctant to seek the co-operation of the Shias of Kurram because of their reported links with Iran.

    New ideas, new operational methods and new allies are required to neutralize the Network without having to depend on Pakistan. The US has been bereft of such ideas, methods and allies. Designating the Haqqani Network an FTO alone will not help.

    The US and other NATO forces have been facing problems in Afghanistan because of the mix of conventional and terrorist strikes adopted by the Afghan Taliban and the commando style complex terrorist strikes in which the Haqqani Network specializes. Unless an effective answer is found to the capabilities and techniques of the Afghan Taliban, there is unlikely to be an improvement in the ground situation in Afghanistan.

    Only punitive pressure against Pakistan can help in neutralizing the Haqqani Network. The Network operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan and Kurram. It maintains close links with the ISI, which is well-informed regarding the location and movements of its leaders. The ISI is in a position to help the US in neutralizing the Network, but is hesitant to do so as it looks upon the Network as its strategic ally for recovering its influence in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US and other NATO forces from there.

    The US is not prepared to declare Pakistan a state-sponsor of terrorism for its collusion with the Network. Declaration of Pakistan as a State-sponsor of terrorism could entail follow-up steps such as a rupture of diplomatic relations with Pakistan, termination of all military-military and intelligence-intelligence co-operation and suspension of all economic and military assistance. No US Government would be prepared to take such actions. The US has to tolerate Pakistan and find ways of getting along with it whatever the difficulties and consequences of such a policy.

    In the absence of a capability to mount an Abbottabad style unilateral strike against the Haqqani leadership, the only transit option left to the US is to have the Network designated as an FTO. That is what it has done without any illusions that it will lead to the neutralization of the Network.

    (The author is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)

  • Taliban insurgents posing as “attractive women” on Facebook for spying

    Taliban insurgents posing as “attractive women” on Facebook for spying

    Melbourne (TIP): Taliban insurgents are posing as “attractive women” on Facebook to befriend coalition soldiers for gathering sensitive intelligence about operations in Afghanistan, an Australian government report has warned.

    The dangers of social media have been pointed out in a federal government review of social media and defence, which was finalised in March but has not been acted upon, defence sources said.

    The review found an “overt reliance” on privacy settings had led to a “false sense of security” among personnel. It warns troops to beware of “fake profiles, media personnel and enemies who create fake profiles to gather information. For example, the Taliban have used pictures of attractive women as the front of their Facebook profiles and have befriended soldiers”.

    Australian soldiers are now being given pre-deployment briefings about enemies creating fake profiles to spy on troops. Personnel are also being warned that geo-tagging, a function of many websites that secretly logs the location from where a post is made or a photo is uploaded, is a significant danger.

    Family and friends of soldiers are inadvertently jeopardising missions by sharing confidential information online, Australia’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ reported.

    Three Australian soldiers were murdered inside their base this month, allegedly by an Afghan Army trainee.
    Many of the 1,577 defence members surveyed for the review had no awareness of the risk, it said, adding 58 per cent of defence staff had no social media training.

    Surveyed troops said social media open ‘a whole can of worms when it comes to operational, personnel and physical security’. ‘Many individuals who use social media are extremely trusting,’ the review said.

    ‘Most did not recognise that people using fake profiles, perhaps masquerading as school friends, could capture information and movements. Few consider the possibilities of data mining and how patterns of behaviour can be identified over time,’ the review added.

    The review recommended education for family and friends on the dangers of sharing details like names, ranks and locations. Several troop members have argued for a total social media ban. ‘I see too many members who post info/pics of themselves which identify what unit they belong to and where they are serving,’ a soldier said.

    Security expert Peter Hannay, from Edith Cowan University’s school of computer and security science, said geo-tag information ‘can be data-mined and sold to anybody’.

  • Remembering 9/11

    Remembering 9/11

    Pain remains. Fears linger. America is not what it was prior to 9/11. Americans are not what they were before the terrorist strike of 9/11. The dastardly attack on the USA on 9/11 not only took a heavy toll of life and property; it took a heavier toll in respect of a wounded psyche. Today, America feels threatened and Americans live in fear. 11 years after the Al Qaeda strike in the USA, Americans should have faith in themselves, in their capacity and ability to hedge any enemy attack on its soil but fear lurks. Eleven years of absence of any significant terrorist strike should encourage them to have faith that America is secure. Yet most Americans feel insecure.

    The last one year has brought about significant successes in America’s war against terror. Not only has America prevented any terrorist attack on its soil, it has broken the back of Al Qaeda by eliminating the most dreaded Osama bin Laden in a daring operation by US Navy Seals in Pakistani territory. US forces have also eliminated some of the top Al Qaeda leadership, including the dreaded Ilyas Kashmiri and the powerful Atiyah Abdul Rahman, the terrorist organization’s second-in-command who is believed to have been a trusted lieutenant of the slain Osama bin Laden.

    No doubt, America has lost many of its brave sons and daughters in its battle against terror. In terms of money, America has spent trillions to win the war against terror that is 11 years old since 9/11. But the end is not in sight yet which means America will be required to engage itself and continue to fight until it vanquishes the enemy or admit its incapacity to win and surrender.

    America is in a catch 22 situation. US President has declared he will withdraw US troops from Afghanistan in 2012, leaving behind a token presence of a few thousand troops only. How will that help either in the US fight against terror or Afghanistan government the US helped prop is anybody’s guess. On a seeming note, withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan without decimating the enemy appears to be a collapse of US policy of fight against terror. So many precious lives lost and so much drain on exchequer and the end result is humiliation for the nation. Is America ready for that?

    I find Americans overly worried about security of the nation. America should have confidence that it is secure. But, often, the signals are wrong. The emphasis on “a secure America” and on the need to “secure borders” has not always driven the American government in the right direction. Many of the fears of the Federal and State governments have been more imaginary than real and the resultant panic has forced them to take steps which are not always in the right direction.

    On the solemn occasion of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 whereas we all must salute the heroes of 9/11 and pay homage to the martyrs, we must also tell ourselves that we are not weak, that we have nothing and nobody to fear and that we can always overcome. Only then shall we be able to enjoy our liberty which we prize so much and which is a way of life with us. God bless America!

  • Hundreds of Afghan soldiers detained, sacked for insurgent links

    Hundreds of Afghan soldiers detained, sacked for insurgent links

    KABUL (TIP): The Afghan army has detained or sacked hundreds of soldiers for having links to insurgents, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, September 5 as it tries to stem the rising number of so-called insider attacks, says a Reuters report.

    It made the announcement as NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to express his concern over the attacks, in which Afghan servicemen have killed at least 45 NATO-led troops this year, including 15 in August, compared with 35 for all of last year.

    “Hundreds were sacked or detained after showing links with insurgents. In some cases we had evidence against them, in others we were simply suspicious,” Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi told reporters in Kabul.
    “Using an army uniform against foreign forces is a serious point of concern not only for the Defense Ministry but for the whole Afghan government,” Azimi said, adding that Karzai had ordered Afghan forces to devise ways to stop insider attacks.

    Azimi declined to say whether the detained and fired soldiers were from Taliban strongholds in the south and east, saying they were from all over the country.

    He said his ministry started an investigation into the attacks, called green-on-blue attacks, within the 195,000-strong Afghan army six months ago.

    In his call to Karzai, Rasmussen outlined measures taken by NATO-led forces to stop the insider attacks and he urged Karzai to join the efforts, according to a NATO spokeswoman.

    The measures include strengthening vetting procedures, better counter-intelligence and giving troops cultural awareness training.

    NO LACK OF COMMITMENT

    The commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, U.S. General John Allen, said his troops were constantly taking new measures to counter the threat from rogue Afghan soldiers, which have been trained and armed by U.S. and other foreign forces.

    Allen said he detected “no absence of commitment” by the Afghan government to counter rogue attacks.

    “I believe the Afghan government is committed to doing this, again remembering it’s a government that is still building its capacity,” he told reporters during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels where he briefed ambassadors on the Afghan campaign and on the rogue attacks.

    Field commanders in Afghanistan have been given discretion to post more “guardian angel” sentries, who oversee foreign soldiers in crowded areas such as gyms and food halls, to respond to any rogue shootings, officials say.
    “We will seek to create … the opportunity for us if we see something going wrong, in terms of an insider beginning to reveal himself, that we are postured … to be able to take immediate action as necessary to defend the force,” Allen said.

    He denied rogue attacks had shattered trust between Afghan and foreign forces but hinted at deep-seated problems.
    “It’s not at a tactical level that I fear for the relationship, it is at a higher level,” he said, without elaborating.

    In an interview with Reuters this week, Rasmussen dismissed any suggestion that the attacks would lead to more members of the NATO-led force pulling out early from an increasingly unpopular and costly war that has dragged on with few obvious signs of success since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

    But tension is simmering.The killing of three Australian troops by an Afghan army sergeant in the south last week prompted a deadly raid to find the rogue soldier and led to a war of words between Canberra and Kabul.
    U.S. forces said on Sunday they had suspended training new recruits to the 16,000-strong Afghan local police, a militia separate from the Afghan national police, following the spike in insider attacks.

  • Obama accepts Democratic Party’s nomination: Says ‘Our problems can be solved’

    Obama accepts Democratic Party’s nomination: Says ‘Our problems can be solved’

    President Obama assured Americans at the Convention of a better tomorrow. “Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future.”

    CHARLOTTE, NC (TIP): President Obama took the stage shortly before 10:30 p.m. Thursday, September 6 and accepted his party’s nomination. A week after his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, accepted his party’s nomination, Obama promised Americans, wary of giving him another term, that “our problems can be solved” if only voters will grant him four more years.

    “Know this, America: Our problems can be solved,” he told thousands of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. “Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future.

    ” His appeal aimed to build on a rousing speech from Michelle Obama and former president Bill Clinton. The first lady assured disenchanted voters who backed her husband in 2008 but are wary or wavering today that four years of political knife fights and hard compromises had not stripped her husband of his moral core. And Clinton cast the current president as the heir to the policies that charged the economy of the 1990s and yielded government surpluses. “I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have,” Obama told the cheering crowd in the Time Warner Cable Arena and a television audience expected to number in the tens of millions. “You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over a decade.

    ” Obama’s main vulnerability is the stills puttering economy with a stubbornly high unemployment rate at 8.3 percent nearly four years after he took office vowing to restore it to health. In Charlotte, he ridiculed the Republican approach championed by Mitt Romney. “All they have to offer is the same prescriptions they’ve had for the last thirty years: Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!” he said, to laughter and cheers from the crowd.

    And it was with ridicule, too, that he portrayed Romney and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan as heirs to George W. Bush’s foreign policy, and unfit to manage America’s relations with the world. “My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we’ve seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly,” he said. “After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy-not al Qaeda, Russia unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War mind warp, he said. “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally. My opponent said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq, and he won’t tell us how he’ll end the war in Afghanistan. I have, and I will.” (In fact, Romney has supported an Obama endorsed, NATO-approved timetable to withdraw the alliance’s combat troops by the end of 2014.) The speech reflected Obama’s drive to convince voters to see the election as a choice, and not as a referendum on an embattled incumbent whose job approval ratings are below the 50-percent mark, a traditional danger zone.

    “On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America. A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future,” he said. At the same time, he did not spell out in detail his plans for a second term should he get one–even as he acknowledged that he is not the candidate he was when he pursued his history-making 2008 drive for the White House. “You know, I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. Times have changed-and so have I,” he said. “If you turn away now-if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible, well, change will not happen.” Obama’s speech came after an evening studded with stars, from Hollywood’s Scarlett Johansson, who pressed young voters to register and cast ballots in November, to James Taylor, who quipped: “I’m an old white guy and I love Barack Obama” in between renditions of his folksy classics. And he was preceded onstage by Vice President Joe Biden, who gave a long-form version of this memorable reelection slogan: “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”

    In addition to the economy, the president highlighted his support for access to abortion, and offered his longest remarks on the fight against climate change in recent memory. “Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it.” Obama had moved his speech from nearby Bank of America Stadium into the Time Warner Cable Arena citing concerns about the weather. Republicans charged he merely feared not being able to fill the 74,000-seat space. Democrats countered that they had more than 65,000 ticket holders.

  • Democratic convention calls for Obama re-election

    Democratic convention calls for Obama re-election

    CHARLOTTE, NC (TIP): The US Democratic Party launched its National Convention September 4 as it seeks to convince voters that President Barack Obama deserves a second term.
    The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, brought the gala into session with a strike of the gavel at 5 P.M. ET.

    Schultz, who is also the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said that throughout the next three days, “we will demonstrate we need to keep President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden four more years.”
    We will keep tabs on the convention all night. I’ll be joined by NPR’s Liz Halloran, and photographer Becky Lettenberger will bring us some of the sights.

    If Ted Strickland delivered the strongest attack on Mitt Romney, Gov. Deval Patrick delivered the best defense of Barack Obama.

    “If we want to win elections in November and keep our country moving forward, if we want to earn the privilege to lead, it’s time for Democrats to stiffen our backbone and stand up for what we believe,” he said.

    He added:”This is the president who delivered the security of affordable health care to every single American after 90 years of trying. This is the president who brought Osama bin Laden to justice, who ended the war in Iraq and is ending the war in Afghanistan. This is the president who ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” so that love of country, not love of another, determines fitness for military service. Who made equal pay for equal work the law of the land. This is the president who saved the American auto industry from extinction, the American financial industry from self-destruction, and the American economy from depression. Who added over 4.5 million private sector jobs in the last two-plus years, more jobs than George W. Bush added in eight.

    “The list of accomplishments is long, impressive and barely told—even more so when you consider that congressional Republicans have made obstruction itself the centerpiece of their governing strategy. With a record and a vision like that, I will not stand by and let him be bullied out of office—and neither should you, and neither should you and neither should you.”

    First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton are among those who will address the three-day jamboree in Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina.
    A recent opinion poll shows Mr. Obama maintains a thin lead over the Republican nominee Mr. Mitt Romney.

    With November’s election looming, the president will aim to recapture the political spotlight over the next few days, after last week’s Republican convention. Throughout this campaign, there’s been a lot of talk about whether President Obama would be able to rekindle the kind of fervor he sparked in 2008.

    Mr. Obama is expected to answer Republican attacks that his economic policies have failed, and present himself to voters as an experienced and caring alternative to Mr. Romney.Shortly after the convention opened, delegates cheered their backing for the party’s new platform in an open voice vote.

    Among the changes found in the text of the party’s 2012 platform was the removal of language from the Middle East section referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That message was replaced with a passage referring to the party’s “unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security” and Mr. Obama’s “steadfast opposition to any attempt to delegitimize Israel”.

    The change prompted criticism from Republicans and Mitt Romney, who accuse Mr. Obama of “selling out” a key US ally.
    Tuesday’s first session saw a series of Democratic governors, members of Congress, mayors and electoral candidates speak in support of Mr. Obama and his policies, most notably his much-criticized healthcare reform law.

    A video tribute to the late Senator Edward Kennedy included clips from his 1994 Senate debate with Mr. Romney, and independent Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee argued that his former party – the Republicans – had lost their way and had forfeited the label of conservative.

    Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the next president would set the tone for the next 40 years.
    “It will be the president’s leadership that determines how we as a nation meet the challenges that face the middle class. It is the president’s values that shape a future in which the middle class has hope,” he said.
    Mrs. Obama’s address at the end of Tuesday’s session will highlight the president’s character and praise his attributes as a father and husband.

    Her remarks will inevitably be compared and contrasted with those by would-be first lady Ann Romney, who gave a glowing tribute to her husband last week to the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida.
    The Democratic convention is likely to highlight the party’s diversity, with young black and Hispanic party members set to deliver speeches.Julian Castro, the Latino Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, will give the keynote address immediately before Mrs. Obama. But a number of the country’s top Democratic figures will not attend.
    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is missing a Democratic convention for the first time in more than 40 years on account of ethical guidelines preventing cabinet heads from participating in political activities.
    Nor will California Governor Jerry Brown and former Vice-President Al Gore be present, both citing personal commitments.

    A number of Democratic congressional candidates and incumbents have also declined to attend, as they are engaged in tough battles for election in November.

    The Democratic gathering will see Mr. Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden formally re-nominated as the party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates on Wednesday.

    Later that evening, there will be speeches from Elizabeth Warren, who is fighting Republican incumbent Scott Brown in a high-profile race for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and former President Clinton.The convention culminates on Thursday with speeches from Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.The gala also offers the Democrats the chance to make a high-profile pitch to voters in North Carolina, a state that narrowly voted for Mr. Obama in 2008, but is now firmly up for grabs.

    As they did four years ago, the Democrats will take the event outside the convention centre for the president’s prime-time speech, taking over a 74,000-seater stadium in Charlotte for the final night of speeches.

    Organizers are working to ensure a full house for Mr. Obama’s speech. But organizers are concerned that thunderstorms forecast to hit Charlotte during the convention could keep people away.

    Meanwhile, Republicans were quick to seize on a remark Mr. Obama made on Monday, in which he told a local Colorado news station that he would give himself an “incomplete” grade on the economy.

    Vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan told CBS News that the US should be “bouncing out of” the recent recession. “We’re not creating jobs at near the pace we could,” he said.

    A Gallup opinion poll on Monday suggested the convention had given the Republicans only the slightest of boosts, with 40% saying they were now more likely to vote for Mr. Romney but 38% of respondents describing themselves as less likely to.Mr. Obama maintained a lead over Mr. Romney of one percentage point – as he had done before the event

  • As I SEE IT: Don’t be Limited by NAM Anyhow

    As I SEE IT: Don’t be Limited by NAM Anyhow

    If the US/West, despite their attachment to alliance-based politics, actively explore partnerships with India on issues of shared interest, India, despite its antipathy for military alliances and its “nonaligned” predilections, should have no difficulty in responding positively if it is in our national interest. There should be no tension between our reaching out to the West and the value we carefully place on our NAM links: sovereign equality of states; respect for territorial integrity, a peaceful, equitable and …

    (August 26 to 31) provides an occasion for some general reflections on the movement, its salience today and India’s role in it. For those who have always decried the movement for spurning the camp of democracy and freedoms, dismissing it as a collection of countries that still cling in varying degrees to sterile and outmoded habits of thinking is easy.

    GEOPOLITICS

    For others who believe that nonalignment was the right political and moral choice between two excessively armed blocks intent on self-aggrandizement under the facade of ideology, there is lingering nostalgia for the heydays of the movement. For still others, while the movement’s nomenclature may appear disconnected from post Cold War international realities, its spirit of conserving independence of judgment and freedom of choice for its members remains relevant.

    Indian commentators who sneer at nonalignment because its rationale has disappeared with the end of the East-West polarization do not scoff at NATO’s continued existence even after the Soviet Union’s demise, not to mention its expansion numerically and operationally. NATO is now formally present in our neighborhood in Afghanistan. If India does not discard its nonaligned affiliations completely and, at the same time, supports the continued presence of NATO in our region, by what logic is the first deprecated and the second endorsed?

    The Cold War’s end has not eliminated the fundamental distortion plaguing the post-1945 world- its excessive domination by the West. For developing countries the Soviet collapse brought no relief in terms of strengthening multilateralism, more democratic international decision making, more respect for the principle of sovereignty of countries etc. On the contrary, democracy, human rights and western values in general became tools for further consolidating the West’s grip on global functioning. The immediate result was US unilateralism, sidelining the UN, doctrines of pre-emptive defense, regime change policies, military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. Despite the huge costs these policies imposed on their protagonists, the open military intervention in Libya under the so-called right to protect and the covert one in Syria show that geopolitical domination remains the central driving force of western policies.

    NAM, never too united because of external political, military and economic inducements, finds its solidarity unglued further because today many developing countries feel less attached to its agenda because of their improved economic condition ascribed to globalization and the self-confidence gained from a perception of a shift of global economic power towards the East The West has also encouraged the Least Developed Countries to differentiate their problems from other developing countries, and by projecting the emerging economies as a separate category, developing-country solidarity has been further impaired.

    MOVEMENT

    The western policy of sanctioning and isolating specific developing countries for their geopolitical defiance has resulted in greater activism by some countries within NAM to resist the West’s “imperiousness”. This has created the perception that NAM has slipped into the hands of anti-western diehards, diminishing thereby its international image. The West is questioning the credibility of a movement chaired today by a country it reviles like Iran.
    NAM has lacked internal cohesion because many member countries are militarily tied to the US in various ways- military aid, regime protection, military bases etc. Egypt has been the largest recipient of US military aid. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the Philippines are NAM members. The current connivance between Islamic Gulf regimes/Arab League and the West to topple a nationalist, secular Syrian regime, totally ignoring the Israeli dimension, shows how politically confused NAM has become. That NAM in its majority voted against Syria in a recent UNGA resolution underlines this further.

    INDIA

    India’s own experience of NAM in areas of its core national interests has been most unsatisfactory, which is enough reason to shed any undue sentimental or ideological attachment to the movement. India’s NAM leadership did not shield it from US/western technology-related sanctions for decades; in the 1962 conflict with China, NAM did not back India’s position; on Kashmir, India has had to lobby within the movement against attempts at interference; it received no understanding from NAM on its nuclear tests and the sanctions that followed etc. India has therefore no obligation to support any individual NAM country on problems it confronts internationally and should be guided solely by what is best for its own interests.

    While extracting whatever is possible from it, India should treat its NAM membership as merely one component of its international positioning. While being clear sighted about NAM’s limitations, for India it is nonetheless diplomatically useful to mobilize the movement to counter one-sided, inequitable western prescriptions on key issues of trade, development, intellectual property rights, technology, environment, climate change, energy etc, and build pressure for consensus solutions.

    If the US/West, despite their attachment to alliance-based politics, actively explore partnerships with India on issues of shared interest, India, despite its antipathy for military alliances and its “nonaligned” predilections, should have no difficulty in responding positively if it is in our national interest. There should be no tension between our reaching out to the West and the value we carefully place on our NAM links: sovereign equality of states; respect for territorial integrity, a peaceful, equitable and just world order; and the progress of developing countries through socio-economic development.

    As a founding-member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has consistently striven to ensure that the Movement moves forward on the basis of cooperation and constructive engagement rather than confrontation, and straddles the differences of the traditional North-South divide. India’s broad approach to the NAM Summit in Tehran would be oriented towards channeling the Movement’s energies to focus on issues that unite rather than divide its diverse membership.

    (The author is a former Foreign Secretary of India. He can be reached at sibalkanwal@gmail.com)