US on Soviet Union’s Track of Disintegration

By Sajjad Shaukat

The former Soviet Union which had subjugated ethnic and religious communities in various provinces and regions through its military, disintegrated in 1991. Even, its nuclear weapons could not save its collapse. One of the major causes of the disintegration of the former Russian Empire was that its greater defence expenditures exceeded to the maximum, resulting in economic crises inside the country. In this regard, about a prolonged war in Afghanistan, the former President Gorbachev had declared it as the “bleeding wound.” While learning no lesson, in one way or the other, the US has been acting upon the similar policies which led to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Post-Napoleonic era in Europe proves that it is not possible to suppress the wars of liberation through military terrorism. In that context, Prince Metternich, emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire did what he could by subjugating the alien peoples by employing every possible techniques of state terrorism. According to Indian historian, Mahahin, Matternich had to admit that he was fighting for a useless cause, and the empire disintegrated, resulting in the independence of Italy, Bulgaria and other states whose secret societies had been waging wars of liberation. In the recent past, despite the employment of unlimited atrocities by the President Milosevic, collapse of the former Yugoslavia could not be stopped.

However, a recent report points out, approximately $1.7 trillion has been spent by the United States on the global war on terror from 2001 to start of 2016. These are supplemental funds that are in addition to the base budget for the Department of Defense. This different war further added to the $18 trillion US debt. It does not include the expenses incurred by other departments, such as the FBI or State Department, or the cost to run Homeland Security.

Various sources such as the Congressional Research Service and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (May 2015) state, “In the last 13 years, the United States has spent a total of $1.6 trillion  financing military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other theaters of the global war on terror. The U.S. government’s massive spending sum includes the cost of military operations, the training of security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, reconstruction, weapons maintenance, base support, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care...the decade-long wars in the Middle East would eventually cost American taxpayers as much as $6 trillion...training and equipment for Iraqi and Syrian opposition forces” will further increase the US cost of war...the true cost of the War on Terror also added to the lost jobs that could have been created with those funds. Every $1 billion spent on defense creates 8,555 jobs and adds $565 million to the economy...another major share of the long-term costs of the wars comes from paying off trillions of dollars in debt incurred as the U.S. government failed to include their cost in annual budgets and simultaneously implemented sweeping tax cuts for the rich.”

In fact, learning no lesson from the flawed policies of Bush, such as failure of the project of globalization, failure of power factor or force in coping with terrorists, more terror attacks by Al-Qaeda in various regions of the world and demoralization of the US troops in Afghanistan,  President Barack Obama continued state terrorism and extrajudicial killings of the innocent persons through illegitimate drone attacks—assisting undemocratic forces, the return of a military strongman in Egypt by toppling the elected government, and like Iraq, creation of more failed states such as Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. which opened the door for Al-Qaeda and ISIL activists. In these terms, after 14 years of the protracted war, a perennial wave of attacks on the US and NATO installations and ambush assaults on their military personnel by the Taliban in Afghanistan, terror-attacks on Christians in Nigeria and other African countries including Iraq—sectarian violence and some terror-attacks inside America, France and UK deteriorated the global war on terror. Thus, besides reduction of the US bargaining leverage on small countries like North Korea, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Cuba etc. who have rejected American undue pressure on a number of issues and matters, and leakage of Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), (An agreement to suppress sovereign democratic rights in favour of multinational corporations), President Obama caused political and economic instability in the world, jeopardizing the American regional and global interests.

President Barack Obama campaigned on defense reduction, but his spending on war on terror since 2010 is $719.3 billion, as compare to President Bush's expenditure of $921.4 billion. Deficit spending intensified. It was more than $100 billion a year until 2012, and greater than $50 billion annually through 2016. Reducing deficit resulted into to conflict within Congress, and in 2013, tea party Republicans shut down the government. 

A study conducted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies have indicated America’s “wastage of billions of dollars on the reconstruction of Afghanistan, private contractors like Blackwater in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan...linked to bribery, questionable contract awards, and outright theft...those costs have been hidden from public view.”

Besides, support to the rebels, Kurds, Al-Qaeda and ISIS (Islamic State group) terrorists in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the world, including covert operations of the CIA worsened the US financial crisis.   

The Department of Defense has spent more than $2.7 billion—some $9 million per day—since the US began operations against the ISIS in 2013 which reached $14 million per day to combat ISIS in fiscal year 2015.

As the military campaign against the Islamic State expands into Syria, its cost will increase as well. According to one defense spending expert, “The United States’ war on the militant group could now be costing taxpayers up to $1.5 billion a month. The training and equipping the Kurdish ground forces and moderate militants of Syria and those in Saudi Arabia to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will cost more than $ 5 billion.”

Some recent developments have clearly exposed the double game of the US-led West. The Russia-led coalition which have successfully been achieving its objectives have broken the backbone of the ISIS terrorists, Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front and the rebels who have vacated most of the areas of Syria and Iraq. On February 3, this year, Syrian troops backed by Russian warplanes cut the last supply route, linking rebels and ISIS militants in Aleppo city. Aleppo is near the Turkish border from where with the assistance of the US-led west (Especially, UK and France), Turkey has also been supporting the rebels and ISIS terrorists, while Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf countries like are funding them to oust Assad.

Meanwhile, rift has also been created between the US and its close NATO ally Turkey, when on February 10, 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the US over its support for Syria’s main Kurdish group, saying, “The failure to recognise the Democratic Union Party (PYD) as a terrorist group is creating a “sea of blood” in Syria. 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.”

Notably, by concealing their clandestine aims, the US and its European allies were blaming Russia to sabotage Geneva the talks on Syria. Meanwhile, big power agreed on February 12, this year at Munich to seek ceasefire and a nationwide “cessation of hostilities” in Syria. But, Turkey continues its massive shelling against Kurdish targets in northwest Syria. Now, Washington and Paris have called on Ankara to stop bombardment and vacate the Syrian air base recently retaken from Islamist rebels, pointing out that it will disrupt the Munich settlement. At the same time, with the covert backing of the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are planning to start a ground offensive in Syria. In other words, escalation of the conflict will further increase the cost of the US different war.  

Besides, in the post-Paris attacks of November 13, 2015 in wake of the anti-Muslim developments like the propaganda of the so-called threat of Islamophobia, persecution of the Muslims in the US, Europe and some other western countries, exaggeration of the threat of ISIS terrorists etc., America and its western allies (NATO) have united against Russia. Now, as part of their ambivalent approach, American jet fighters and those of its western coalition are targeting the ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria. However, coupled with the double game towards Al-Qaeda and ISIS, such an irresponsible approach of the US-led western politicians will expand the course of the different war—will invite more terror attacks in the US and Europe, giving a larger setback to the economy of their countries, and being the largest economy, the US which have already been facing fiscal crisis will be badly affected.

Taking cognisance of the grievances of the international community, and the sole superpower’s injustices, Russian President Vladimir Putin is rapidly restoring the balance of power in the world. In this context, a new cold war between America and Russia has started in the world. In this connection, Russia which also has China’s support, though Beijing does not openly show, is in better position than the US and its western (NATO) allies who are also entangled in Afghanistan and the Middle East. This cold war will enhance American expenditures by deepening the US momentary problems, while it is already been becoming difficult for the sole superpower to maintain its military bases abroad.   

It is noteworthy that on August 16, 2007, during the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), their leaders displayed strength against the rising dominance of the US in the region, and called for a multi-polar system in the world. President Putin had even proposed defense cooperation among the member states. Participating in the Summit in 2015, Pakistan and Iran got permanent membership of the SCO which is seen as anti-American club.  

While, in case of Afghanistan, there are several groups of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Taliban like the Afghan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Some of them are being used by secret agencies like CIA, Israeli Mossad and Indian RAW to obtain the collective and individual designs of their countries against Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries. India and Israel which want to prolong the stay of the US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan which have become the center of covert activities, are manipulating their dual policy, particularly of America against Pakistan, China and Iran. Terrorists of ISIS and TTP which are strategic assets of the CIA have claimed responsibility for several terror attacks inside Pakistan, including at Charsadda’s university of Pakistan and recent ones in Afghanistan. In these adverse circumstances, especially, American strategy to boost up the defence of India to counterbalance China will fail, as instability in the region will give a blow to the US interests.

On February 2, 2016, US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter announced the US plans to increase significantly its military presence in Europe to (Eastern Europe), saying that it would lead to a quadrupling of funding to 3.4 billion US dollars in 2017 for the US force posture in Europe, and would be a timely and significant contribution to NATO’s collective defence, and security of Europe. 

On the other side, while describing financial problems like sharp decline in stock prices, less available credit etc., the US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made clear in congressional testimony on February 10, 2016 by stating, “The United States have recently become less supportive of growth...she sees an economy that faces increased risk.”

It is of particular attention that there is a co-relationship of the US internal and external policies. In this respect, on January 12, 2016, John W. Whitehead wrote in The Huffington Post, “Only 1 in 5 Americans trust the government...the majority of the people are not quite ready to ditch the American experiment in liberty. Indeed, Americans may not approve the jobs being done by their elected leaders, they are working themselves into a frenzy over the upcoming presidential election, with contributions to the various candidates nearing $ 500 million...the government has shown itself to be corrupt, abusive, hostile to citizens who disagree, as Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House shows...no matter how much hope and change were promised, what we’ve ended up with something worse: an invasive, authoritarian surveillance state armed and ready to eliminate any opposition. The state of our nation has become more bureaucratic, more debt-ridden, more violent, more militarized, more fascist, more lawless, more invasive, more corrupt, more untrustworthy, more mired in war, and more unresponsive to the wishes and needs of the electorate...the government’s arsenal is growing. While the Obama administration is working to limit the public’s access to guns by pushing for greater gun control, it’s doing little to scale back on the federal government’s growing of firepower and militarized equipment. The national debt is growing. In fact, it’s almost doubled during Obama’s time in office to nearly $20 trillion.”

He elaborated, “Meanwhile, almost half of Americans are struggling to save for emergencies and retirement, 43% can't afford to go more than one month without a paycheck, and 24% have less than $250 in their bank accounts preceding payday...over half a million in the U.S. are homeless and half of them are elderly, the American police state’s payroll is expanding. The prison population is growing at an alarming rate...the nation’s infrastructure...railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads...is rapidly deteriorating...the expense of those endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers$ 4 trillion to $ 6 trillion.”

Nevertheless, the cost of these long-term military engagements purely in terms of dollar will accelerate multiple problems of Americans, including casualties and frustration in troops and their families, which will further add to the internal problems of America, especially backfiring on the ordinary Americans.

It is notable that the US is homeland of various communities, divided on ethnic, religious and linguistic lines, having affiliations with their own groups. In this regard, in his book, “Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity,” Samuel Huntington opines, America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture...the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment...the waves of immigrants later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, our national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico might lead to the bifurcation of the United States.”

Returning to our earlier discussion, the President Gorbachev had called Afghanistan a “bleeding wound” which culminated into collapse of the former Russia. In the same sense, global war on terror is likely to prove “bleeding wound” for the US which is moving on the Soviet Union’s tract of disintegration.  

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

India’s Rock ’N’ Roll Approach To Guarding Its Nuclear Sites

By Adrian Levy And R.

On October 8, 2014, Head Constable Vijay Singh awoke before dawn in Kalpakkam, India, and scurried across the ocher gravel outside the constabulary barracks at the Madras Atomic Power Station, “looking like the monsoon was about to break,” as a grounds sweeper later recalled.

Singh was one of 620 paramilitary officers in the country’s Central Industrial Security Force assigned to protect the facility’s nuclear-related buildings and materials. But he did not have his usual tasks in mind that morning.

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By 4:40 a.m., the 44-year-old officer reached the armory, where he signed out a 9 mm submachine gun and 60 rounds of ammunition in two magazines. Singh loaded one clip into his weapon, pocketed the other and entered the portico of a cream and red, three-story residential complex.

He climbed up one flight to the room where a senior colleague, Mohan Singh, dozed and abruptly opened fire at him in a controlled burst, to conserve rounds, just as he had been trained.

Then he jogged downstairs, where he shot dead two more men and seriously injured another two. With 10 rounds left in his magazine, and an unused 30-round clip in his pocket, he prowled unimpeded across the gravel, with no alert called.

A bystander shouted out to him, and suddenly Singh halted and dropped to his knees, an eyewitness recalled later. He was finally surrounded and led away, glassy-eyed, “as docile as anything, a neat guy, his hair still perfectly parted,” the witness said.

The episode was a fresh example of what officials here and outside India depict as serious shortcomings in the country’s nuclear guard force, tasked with defending one of the world’s largest stockpiles of fissile material and nuclear explosives.

An estimated 90 to 110 Indian nuclear bombs are stored in six or so government-run sites patrolled by the same security force, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent think tank, and Indian officials.

Within the next two decades, as many as 57 reactors could also be operating under the force’s protection, as well as four plants where spent nuclear fuel is dissolved in chemicals to separate out plutonium to make new fuel or be used in nuclear bombs.

The sites are spread out over vast distances: from the stony foothills of the Himalayas in the north down to the red earth of the tropical south. Shuttling hundreds of miles in between will be occasional convoys of lightly protected trucks laden with explosive and fissile materials—including plutonium and enriched uranium—that could be used in civilian and military reactors or to spark a nuclear blast.

As a result, the Kalpakkam shooting alarmed Indian and Western officials who question whether this country, which is surrounded by unstable neighbors and has a history of civil tumult, has taken adequate precautions to safeguard its sensitive facilities and keep the building blocks of a devastating nuclear bomb from being stolen by insiders with grievances, ill motives or, in the worst case, connections to terrorists.

Although experts say they regard the issue as urgent, Washington is not pressing India for quick reforms. The Obama administration is instead trying to avoid any dispute that might interrupt a planned expansion of U.S. military sales to New Delhi, several senior U.S. officials said in interviews.

The experts’ concerns are based in part on a series of documented nuclear security lapses in the past two decades, in addition to the shooting:

·         Several kilograms of what authorities described as semiprocessed uranium were stolen by a criminal gang, allegedly with Pakistani links, from a state mine in Meghalya, in northeastern India, in 1994. Four years later, a federal politician was arrested near the West Bengal border with 100 kilograms of uranium from India’s Jadugoda mining complex that he was allegedly attempting to sell to Pakistani sympathizers associated with the same gang. A police dossier seen by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) states that 10 more people connected with smuggling were arrested two years after this, in operations that recovered 57 pounds of stolen uranium.

·         Then, in 2003, members of a jihad group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, were caught in a village on the Bangladesh border with 225 grams of milled uranium—allegedly purchased illicitly from a mining employee—that they said they intended to wrap around explosives. The Indian authorities initially claimed it was from Kazakhstan but later concluded it was more likely from a uranium mining complex in Jadugoda, in eastern India.

·         In 2008, another criminal gang was caught attempting to smuggle low-grade uranium, capable of being used in a primitive radiation-dispersal device, from one of India’s state-owned mines across the border to Nepal. The same year, another group was caught moving an illicit stock of uranium over the border to Bangladesh, the gang having been assisted by the son of an employee at India’s Atomic Minerals Division, which supervises uranium mining and processing.

·         In 2009, a nuclear reactor employee in southwest India deliberately poisoned dozens of his colleagues with a radioactive isotope, taking advantage of numerous gaps in plant security, according to an internal government report seen by the CPI.

·         And in 2013, leftist guerillas in northeast India illegally obtained uranium ore from a government-run milling complex in northeast India and strapped it to high explosives to make a crude bomb before being caught by police, according to an inspector involved in the case.

The paramilitary Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which has a total of 95,000 personnel under civilian rather than military control and a $785 million budget, is supposed to keep all these nuclear materials from leaking from India’s plants. But it is short-staffed, ill-equipped and inadequately trained, according to a confidential draft Home Ministry report about the force’s future, dated November 2013, seen by the CPI.

“Weapons supply is down by 40 percent, and training equipment by more than 45 percent,” compared with what officials running the force had sought, the report stated. Its size should be 20 percent larger, it added. “Morale is low as security levels remain high.... There is a danger of the force falling behind in terms of its level of equipment and also competence.”

A former three-star Indian Police Service officer, who ran a large Indian force under the Home Ministry alongside the CISF, said in an interview that the force’s training, weapons and technical equipment lagged well behind comparable security forces elsewhere in the world.

“From passive night goggles that cannot see in low light to outmoded communications equipment that does not work over long distances, they’re as good as blind and dumb,” said the ex-officer. “The monies promised two years ago to overhaul it...mostly failed to materialize,” he claimed.

This critical account roughly matches what the U.S. intelligence community has stated in its annual classified rankings of global nuclear security risks, based on detailed assessments of safeguards for materials that could be used in explosives or “dirty bombs” laced with radiation, according to three current or former senior Obama administration officials.

They said that India’s security practices have repeatedly ranked lower in these assessments than those of Pakistan and Russia, two countries with shortcomings that have provoked better-known Western anxieties.

In all the categories of interest to the U.S. intelligence experts making the rankings—the vetting and monitoring of key security personnel, the tracking of explosives’ quantities and whereabouts, and the use of sensitive detectors at nuclear facilities and their portals—the Indians “have got issues,” a senior official said. (He spoke on condition that he not be named, due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue.)

Cautioning that Washington probably does not know everything that India has done to protect its facilities because of its obsessive nuclear secrecy, the official said that according to “what we can see people doing...they should be doing a lot more.”

He added that it is “pretty clear [they] are not as far along as the Pakistanis,” explaining that, as with the Russians, Indians’ confidence in being able to manage security challenges by themselves has repeatedly closed them off to foreign advice not only about the gravity of the threats they face but also about how to deal with them.

When U.S. officials made their first visit to the restricted Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Mumbai, a complex where India makes plutonium for its nuclear weapons, their observations about its security practices were not reassuring. “Security at the site was moderate,” a cable from November 2008, approved by embassy Chargé d’Affaires Stephen White, told officials in Washington.

Identification checks at the front gate were “quick but not thorough,” and visitor badges lacked photographs, meaning they were easy to replicate or pass around. A security unit at the center’s main gate appeared to be armed with shotguns or semi-automatic Russian-style rifles, the cable noted, but as the U.S. delegation moved toward the Dhruva reactor, where the nuclear explosive material is actually produced, there were no “visible external security systems.”

White’s cable noted that a secondary building where engineering equipment was stored also had “very little security.” While there was a sentry post at a nuclear Waste Immobilization Plant that processes radioactive water, no guards were present, and visitors’ bags were not inspected. No security cameras were seen inside, White added. The cable was disclosed by WikiLeaks in 2011.

A U.S. nuclear safety official, also on the visit, who still works in the field and was not authorized to discuss it told the CPI in an interview that “laborers wandered in and out of the complex, and none of them wore identification.” He said that “the setup was extraordinarily low-key, considering the sensitivity,” explaining that guards could not see camera footage from other locations. There is little evidence that conditions have changed much since then, officials say.

U.S. and Indian officials also have privately expressed worry about the security surrounding India’s movement of sensitive nuclear materials and weaponry.

For example, an industrialist who provides regular private advice to the current prime minister about domestic and foreign strategic issues said in an interview that due to India’s poor roads and rail links, “our nuclear sector is especially vulnerable. How can we safely transport anything, when we cannot say for certain that it will get to where it should, when it should.”

The adviser said that as a result, fissile materials in India have been moved around in unmarked trucks that “look like milk tankers,” without obvious armed escorts. He called this “urban camouflage,” meant to avoid the clamor that would ensue if a security convoy attempted to navigate traffic-choked roads like the one leading from a nuclear fuel fabrication plant in Hyderabad, in south-central India, to a test center for India’s nuclear submarines on the coast at Visakhapatnam. An armed convoy, he said, might need 14 hours to traverse that 400-mile distance.

Experts say the movement of the vehicles is tracked by special devices and communications. But two recently retired scientists from BARC echoed the adviser’s concern in interviews.

“Using civilian transport is a case of making the best of the worst. Far better not to be noticed at all, if you cannot control the environment you’re traveling in,” one said. Western officials have said that Pakistan uses similar unmarked convoys to move its nuclear materials, without obvious protections.

Official inquiries into the Mumbai attack in 2008, where 10 Pakistani gunmen laid siege to the city after arriving at night by boat, showed that nuclear installations close to the city were staked out as potential targets before the terrorists settled upon a Jewish center, a railway station and two five-star hotels.

But to date, most of the troubling incidents at nuclear facilities in India have involved insiders, making the presence of aberrant employees the most tangible threat and the focus of intensive government efforts, according to a presentation made by Indian experts at a U.S. National Academy of Sciences workshop on nuclear security in Bangalore in 2012.

They said that CISF forces assigned to protect India’s nuclear materials get extra training and are rotated regularly among such sites, possibly to deter corruption. Ranajit Kumar, the head of the Bhabha center’s physical protection system section, told the workshop that anyone who takes a new assignment on any classified project is supposed to undergo a new background check.

But an internal government report about the shooting in Kalpakkam, drafted by officials in the Home Ministry and dated December 2014, warned that many warning signs about Vijay Singh, the perpetrator, were ignored.

It said that despite having an explosive temper and telling a doctor he was suffering from stress and exhaustion—problems that forced his withdrawal from weapons duties—Singh was promoted to the rank of head constable due to staff shortages and sent to Kalpakkam from another nuclear installation without any psychological assessment or records recounting his problematic behavior.

At his new posting, he was given access to a submachine gun even though colleagues considered him unwell, as they told investigators later. He complained of being picked on by another head constable, and as the Diwali festival approached in October, he asked for leave to visit his family. He was refused and instead ordered to serve overtime, due to a public call by Al-Qaeda’s leader to “raise the flag of jihad” across South Asia by targeting sensitive sites in India.

When the CISF officer’s final bid for leave was turned down, he told a colleague that “he would burst like a firecracker,” a colleague told police, in a witness statement seen by the CPI. One day later, he did.

Similar lapses had occurred seven years earlier when an employee at the Kaiga nuclear reactor deliberately poisoned several others, subjecting them to a radiation dose 150 times that in a chest X-ray.

A report completed in December 2009 by the plant’s operator, seen by the CPI, pointed to failures in technical monitoring as well as a “human reliability program” that was “ineffective if not misconceived” by the plant operator. Security cameras were not fixed on the key areas of the installation, and some were immobile and incapable of operating in the dark. It said that the contamination was “an act of deliberate sabotage,” and that the perpetrator had eluded detection and capture due to numerous security lapses.

Asked about these matters by the CPI, India’s Atomic Energy Commission declined to reply, following its usual habit of rebuffing inquiries about sensitive, nuclear-related matters. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board initially pledged to offer responses but then declined, as did the Home Ministry, which oversees the CISF.

Since November 30, 2001, when the CIA began investigating rumors that Al-Qaeda was trying to obtain nuclear materials or finished weapons to be used against the West, the U.S. government has campaigned around the globe—sometimes unsuccessfully—for heightened vigilance in India and other countries with substantial stockpiles of explosive materials.

According to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, an independent nonprofit, India’s stockpile of about 2.4 metric tons of highly enriched (weapons-usable) uranium puts it at fifth place among all nations, and its stock of approximately 0.54 metric tons of separated (weapons-usable) plutonium puts it at ninth place. But its security practices put it even higher on the list of Western anxieties.

For example, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit in Washington, reported last year that India’s nuclear security practices ranked 23rd among 25 countries that possess at least a bomb’s worth of fissile materials. Only Iran and North Korea fared worse in the analysis, which noted that India’s stockpiles are growing and said the country’s nuclear regulator lacked independence from political interference and adequate authority.

It said the risks stemmed in part from India’s culture of widespread corruption—which helped force the nation’s ruling Congress Party from power in May 2014—as well as its general political instability. “Weaknesses are particularly apparent in the areas of transport security, material control, and accounting and measures to protect against the insider threat, such as personnel vetting and mandatory reporting of suspicious behavior,” the group’s report stated.

But India has rebuffed repeated offers of U.S. help. Gary Samore, President Barack Obama’s coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction from 2009 to 2013, said that at preparatory meetings for international summits on nuclear security in 2010 and 2012, “we kept offering to create a joint security project [with India] consisting of assistance of any and every kind. And every time they would say, to my face, that this was a wonderful idea and they should grasp the opportunity. And then, when they returned to India, we would never hear about it again.”

India also refused to collaborate with the NTI project by sharing or confirming information about its practices, unlike 17 of the other 24 countries in the study. India responded ferociously to its conclusions, according to a researcher connected to the project, who was not sanctioned to talk about it. Officials at the Indian Atomic Energy Commission verbally attacked Ted Turner and Sam Nunn, the NTI’s founders, in conversations with Indian journalists, the researcher said.

In countries such as India that are resistant to hearing direct U.S. advice, the Obama administration has tried what an official referred to as a “work-around”—the creation of training centers around the globe where Western experts working in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency can encourage better safeguards. Twenty-three such centers, deliberately named Nuclear Security Centers of Excellence in a bid to get local buy-in, have been created so far.

The Indians “are happy to be in a place to have a conversation about nuclear security that is not judgmental,” a senior Energy Department official said, explaining the concept behind placing such a center in India. But internal U.S. government cables asserted several years ago that while India initially seemed to embrace the idea, it eventually rejected it, to Washington’s surprise.

In a February 22, 2010, cable disclosed later by WikiLeaks, then-U.S. Ambassador Timothy Roemer said that instead of focusing on nuclear security, India finally decided to set up “a research and development center dedicated to the world-wide deployment of [nuclear reactor] technologies” that the country likes but experts in Washington consider dangerous, on the grounds that they could contribute to the use and spread of nuclear-explosive materials.

The center “would be an Indian government body, staffed by the [Department of Atomic Energy], whose primary focus was research and development” on new reactors, Roemer wrote. This approach “did not fully meet the U.S. vision,” he added.

India subsequently renamed the facility its Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership, and it began limited operations last year with closed workshops on the physical protection of nuclear materials and facilities scheduled alongside nuclear advocacy seminars titled “Splitting Atoms for Prosperity” and “Atoms for Progress.”

Despite the celebration of close U.S.-Indian ties during Obama’s visit to Delhi in January, “there is still no deep technical relationship” between the two countries on nuclear security issues, a White House official conceded in a recent interview, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We only hope that this will slowly change.”

At the moment, India is seeking three favors from Washington: It wants U.S. help to gain membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international forum meant to limit the spread of nuclear-tipped missiles, which would give it access to certain otherwise restricted foreign space-launch technologies. And it wants to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, composed of nations that agree to respect nonproliferation rules when they trade in nuclear-related technologies. Both ambitions reflect India’s desire to be accorded the status of a major world power, U.S. experts say.

It also wants to acquire U.S. defense technologies by co-producing weapons systems in India with key Pentagon contractors—an issue discussed between Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar during the minister’s weeklong visit to Washington this past December.

But the Obama administration decided not to use these issues as leverage to force better security measures for nuclear explosives, the senior U.S. official said, because of its judgment that doing so would only prompt India to walk away.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former senior U.S. nonproliferation official said this was a mistake. Washington, he said, “has allowed itself to be put into the position of not wanting to displease India for fear of putting things off-track” in its new, warming relationship, and it has wrongly “allowed the Indians to wall off things they are not interested in talking about” while its ties to the United States grow.

An official in Britain’s Foreign Office, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed a more jaundiced view of this reluctance to press Delhi harder.

“Nothing can be allowed to get in the way of investment in the capacious Indian market,” he said, describing the current American mindset. “India has effectively bought itself breathing space, over a lot of concerning issues, especially nuclear security, by opening itself up for the first time to significant trades with the U.S. and Europe.” The financial gains, he said, are “eye-watering.”

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, trade with India grew from $19 billion in 2000 to more than $100 billion in 2014. U.S. exports exceeded $38 billion—including substantial new U.S. arms shipments—supporting 181,000 U.S. jobs. Indian direct investment in the United States totaled $7.8 billion, while U.S. investments reached $28 billion.

Washington, the British official explained, does not wish to provoke a spat over nuclear security simply because doing so could threaten this lucrative trade, which benefits many U.S. companies.

R. Jeffrey Smith reported from Washington, D.C., and California. Adrian Levy is an investigative reporter and filmmaker. His most recent books are The Meadow, about a 1995 terrorist kidnapping of Westerners in Kashmir, and The Siege: The Attack on the Taj, about the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He reported from India and the United Kingdom.

Organized Propaganda Campaign against Pakistan

By Sajjad Shaukat

If we take note of the US strategy about Pakistan in the past few years, we observe that American policy goals are quite unclear, as America follows a double game. Sometimes, US top officials admire Pak Army’s action against the Taliban militants including arrests of the top Al Qaeda commanders by Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), sometimes, they revive their blame game, ISI allegedly linking it with the Haqqani network, sometimes they accuse that Al Qaeda Shura has been operating from Pakistan, sometimes, they misconceive that Pak nukes are not safe, and sometimes, they held Pakistan responsible for extremism and cross-border terrorism. When in the recent past, Pakistan’s armed forces broke the backbone of the militants by achieving successes against the ongoing military operation Zarb-e-Azb, and particularly cleared the areas of North Waziristan Agency (NWA), while restoring peace in Balochistan and Karachi, the US high officials and those of other countries highly appreciated Pakistan’s war on terror.

The fact of the matter is that US has been acting upon a twofold diplomacy towards Pakistan.  In this context, based in Afghanistan, secret agencies such as American CIA, Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad have perennially been destabilizing Pakistan through subversive acts which have again started in Pakistan, because it is the only nuclear state in the Islamic World. Washington which signed an agreement of civil nuclear technology with New Delhi also wants to counterbalance China by India. Therefore, CIA and Mossad and RAW have continuously been assisting the Baloch separatist groups and Baloch Sub Nationalists to conduct subversive acts—and using terrorist elements in Balochistan to threaten Chinese interest in the development of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). However, Afghanistan has become a hub from where  these external secret agencies have been funding and arranging subversive activities in other parts of Pakistan—especially in Balochistan through their affiliated militant groups at the cost of Pakistan, China and Iran. In the past few years, they abducted and killed many Chinese and Iranian nationals in Pakistan.

In fact, overtly, American high officials remark that they seek stability in Pakistan, but covertly, they continue to destabilize it, especially with the assistance of India. Indo-US lobbies which are well-penetrated in the US administration, think tanks and universities leave no stone unturned in continuing their endless propaganda against Pakistan.

In this respect, as part of the organized propaganda campaign against Pakistan, Georgetown University of the US has launched ‘Georgetown India Initiative’, a forum with the stated aim to strengthen research, teaching, and outreach to India.’ Scholars across Georgetown’s Main Campus, Medical Center, and Law Center explore multidisciplinary issues related to India, and faculty collaborations with institutions on the subcontinent are increasing. In addition to these partnerships, Georgetown students and scholars have the opportunity to engage with key policy institutions and cultural centers in Washington, D.C., which enhance their work related to India. In 2011, Georgetown hosted the first U.S.-India Higher Education Summit. 

Although ‘Georgetown India Initiative’ aims to create a platform for high-level dialogue among American and Indian leaders from government, business, the academy, and society which acknowledges political and ideological divides, while promoting mutual understanding and collaboration, yet its main purpose is to distort the image of Pakistan in the comity of nations. Hence, Irfan Nooruddin, a highly biased scholar of Indian origin, who closely associates himself with C. Christine Faire has been appointed as its director. Reportedly, the forum has been established with the total funding of around US $ 10 million of which large part is known to have come through the Indian diaspora, while a part of it has been funded by US administration. Contrary to the natural objective of fostering closer partnership between America and India, it organized an event titled ‘Re-imagining Pakistan’ on 27 Jan 2016. It featured Pakistan’s most loud critics in the town including Christine Faire and former ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani. This event which was co-sponsored by the Asian Studies Program via the ‘Georgetown India Initiative’ and the Mortara Center for International Studies clearly reflects that the forum is being used as a vehicle to undermine Pakistan through Christine Faire and Husain Haqqani.

It is notable that on January 13, 2016, Farahnaz Ispahani, the wife of Husain Haqqani was invited by Observer Research Foundation (ORF), RAW affiliated think tank in New Delhi to launch her newly written book titled ‘Purifying the Land of the Pure–Pakistan’s Religious Minorities’. A good number of Indian foreign analysts, diplomats, retired defence and intelligence officers attended the launch ceremony. Highlighting the plight of minorities in Pakistan, Indian participants mainly focused on Pakistan’s identity and argued that national identity for Pakistan was not Islam, but their being part of Indian civilization was more realistic.

During her presentation, while exaggerating the plight of minorities in Pakistan and targeting the ideology of Pakistan, Farahnaz said that religious minorities are not safe in Pakistan. Following the foreign agenda against Islamabad, Farahnaz Ispahani totally ignored the plight of religious minorities in India. She did not take cognizance of the  facts that since the leader of the ruling party BJP Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India, various developments like unprecedented rise of Hindu extremism, persecution of minorities, forced conversions of other religious minorities into Hindus, ban on beef and cow slaughter, inclusion of Hindu religious books in curriculum etc. clearly show that encouraged by the fundamentalist rulers, Hindu extremist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism).

It is mentionable that Husain Haqqani who also leaves no stone unturned in distorting the image of Pakistan and it armed forces, while showing Pakistan a fundamentalist state in order to please his external masters. As regards Husain Haqqani, while serving as Pakistani ambassador, he was protecting American interests. He had issued visas to many CIA agents like Ramond Davis to weaken Pakistan. Besides, working at various American institutes, Husain Haqqani developed secret liaisons with Indo-Israeli lobbies and became covert element of anti-Pakistan campaign. Particularly, this could be judged from his book, titled, ‘Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military.’ In this book, Husain Haqqani targeted both military and Islamic ideology. While pointing out relationship of the Pak Army and its primary intelligence agency, ISI with the Islamic militants, Haqqani allegedly wrote, “since September 11, 2001, the selective cooperation of Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf—sharing intelligence with the United States and apprehending Al Qaeda members—have led to the assumption that Pakistan might be ready to give up its long-standing ties with radical Islam.” He advised America, “Washington should no longer condone the Pakistani military’s support for Islamic militants.”

American famous writers and authors exaggeratedly praised the book of Husain Haqqani.as it was in accordance with the hidden agenda and blame game of the US and Indian high officials and their media and which still continue against Pakistan and its security agencies. Especially, Stephen P. Cohen, author of the book, ‘The Idea of Pakistan and The Pakistan Army’ allegedly wrote, “We are in Husain Haqqani’s debt for providing the authoritative account of the linkages between Pakistan’s powerful Islamists and its professional army.”

Moreover, Husain Haqqani also escaped to America to avoid judicial inquiry of the famous memogate issue, which proved his disloyalty to Pakistan.

It is of particular attention that during his briefing to the National Assembly, on January 19, this year, while confirming anti-Pakistan lobbies in the US, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Defence Khawaja Asif revealed, “Pakistan is trying to acquire eight F-16 fighter jets from the US on lease, but Husain Haqqani, the former ambassador to the US is campaigning along with India to malign Pakistan and to block delivery of F-16 fighter jets.”

Nonetheless, ‘Georgetown India Initiative at the Georgetown University is part of the organized propaganda campaign of India and the US against Pakistan, which continues unabated.

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

Positioning Gwadar as an International City

Written By: Ahmed Quraishi

Pakistan today has a distinction few countries have: it is home to one of the most exciting, strategic projects promising to reshape the face of the region and possibly the world.

Think on a grand scale: the Suez Canal, 1869; the Panama Canal, 1914; the Karakoram Highway, 1966; or, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, 2014, the world’s highest railway track, linking Beijing to the heart of Tibet.

And now there is CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, 2019. When completed, Gwadar will do something similar: change the traditional ancient trading routes between China, Central Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Europe. This gigantic project requires vision, determination, political will, and funding. All of these things are available. The commitment of Pakistan and China to this project is solid and unquestionable. However, Pakistan needs one more thing to make Gwadar truly successful: a clear vision for how to position this Arabian Sea port as an international city in Pakistan. To do this, Pakistani politicians, bureaucrats, and the military need to get creative, to dictate the necessary changes to ensure that Gwadar turns out according to plan, and not according to luck.

Gwadar’s ultimate destiny is to become an international city, a hub for trade and finance, a centre of shopping, fine dining, and a cultural centre. A cosmopolitan city that displays Pakistan’s international spirit. To achieve this, Pakistani decision makers need to introduce a set of domestic legal and administrative initiatives that go with such an ambitious project, and simultaneously prepare the Pakistani nation for this new experiment by exciting them about the future.

Pakistan needs to look at a combination of examples of international cities that act as trading, cultural and entertainment hubs: Dubai, Singapore, Bahrain, Istanbul, Macau, Shanghai, London, Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. The idea is not to look like any of these cities. The purpose is to learn from the successes of these cities to design and create a Pakistani experiment of success in Gwadar that resembles no other city but learns from the best practices worldwide.

Why an International City?

There are many types of international cities. The model proposed here is of a cosmopolitan Pakistani city under Pakistani laws tailored to ensure growth and success.

Let us be clear about one thing: Pakistan is late in the game. Countries from Bahrain to Egypt and to Malaysia have created attractive models of international seaport cities that thrive on trade and offer a cosmopolitan experience. And there is Dubai, which has inspired spinoffs in Oman and Qatar. Iran is coming in the race, too. Expect Iran to learn heavily from Dubai, Doha and Bahrain and remodel Chabahar or Bandar Abbas accordingly as Tehran opens up after the successful implementation of the nuclear agreements.

It will be a tragedy if Gwadar turns out to be just a docking yard with cranes, containers, and warehouses. With its beaches, its beautiful weather, and the majestic desert mountains nearby, Gwadar deserves to be Pakistan’s first international city that offers itself as a trading hub, a financial, cultural and entertainment centre and a melting pot.

Pakistan needs to study successful examples to pick best practices. For example, laws in Gwadar will have to be different from the rest of Pakistan for everything from commercial licenses to residency requirements to property ownership.

One of the first things Islamabad will have to deal with is the question of rural-to-urban migration. A new city with vast opportunities will attract rural population shifting from all over Pakistan to the new city in search for blue-collar jobs. To control this eventuality, Islamabad could introduce special Residency Permits for Pakistanis from other parts of the country as well as foreigners who wish to reside or do business in the city. Unlike cities in the West and the Middle East, which are mostly countries with lower population mass than Pakistan, we have to learn from successful Asian examples of internal migration control. The idea is to regulate the flow of people, not to block it.

Pakistan can see the Chinese example. Cities in China have long regulated population movement into cities through family registration or residency permits. China is relaxing some of the internal movement controls from January 1, 2016. Having achieved its objectives of helping major cities grow in an organized way, China is modifying the policy to address some unintended side effects.

The Pakistani government can sensitize the public through an advertisement campaign explaining how organizations and disciplines are key to Gwadar’s success on the international stage. The success of Gwadar can spawn similar urban experiences across Pakistan, maybe not on the same scale but offering a similar level of work and life experiences. This will excite Pakistani citizens, show them a bright future, and help them accept the model of an.

international city in Gwadar.

The Urban Residency system, known as Hukou in China, is not perfect, and is tailored to suit China’s condition and society. But Pakistan can study the examples and come up with something more suitable to Pakistani conditions.

The internal security system of Dubai is very effective. Local police is trained in dealing with locals and foreigners, and has effective mechanisms in place to check crime, smuggling, and other forms of anti social behaviour. Members of different nationalities visiting and working in the city have direct links to the Dubai Police through multiple channels. Dubai’s city government knows that the police force must instill respect and fear in order to maintain the city’s status as a safe place for tourists, visitors, executives and the workforce.

Since Gwadar has great beaches within the city and nearby, Pakistan should study the examples of tourist resorts in Oman, Malaysia, Bahrain, Dubai, and Egypt to develop this untapped potential of Pakistani coastal regions.

Gwadar Government Structure

For an international city that wants to be known as a financial centre and trading hub, and attract talented residents from Pakistan and abroad, Gwadar’s local governing structure should encourage resident businessmen, traders, business owners, financiers, artists, and others to become part of the governing bodies of the city. Those who run the city should have a strong stake in it. The system should be designed in a way that guarantees transparency and participation. What the governing system should not have is political corruption as seen in other parts of Pakistan, which is of a devastating scale. Also, since this is a national project that would benefit all Pakistanis, political parties need to be sensitized to keep our brand of chaotic street politics away from the new city.

The Government of Pakistan and the Provincial Government of Balochistan can work together to promulgate a Gwadar Basic Law, or a Gwadar Constitution, to give the new city a definitive legal character. The idea is to have a strong involvement from the federal and provincial government to steer the governing structure in the new city in the right direction and help the Gwadar local government mature and take charge. One of the excellent sets of governing law in this context comes from Macau. For example in Macau, the local government is headed by the Chief Executive of Macau; he or she is appointed by Beijing upon the recommendation of an election committee. Members of this election committee are nominated by corporate and community bodies in the city of Macau.

Control Controversy

One set of Pakistanis who should visibly feel the benefits of the new emerging city are the original residents of Gwadar and nearby areas. Islamabad can offer to educate their children, offer crash training courses to young adults so that could be the first to work in the new city development projects, offer them housing schemes on long-term concessional rates paid for by family members working in the Gwadar and CPEC projects. Pakistan’s strategic position offers opportunities but also creates enemies. We have seen this happen since Independence in 1947. Though this is an unavoidable reality but one that can be managed.

It is natural that one or more strategic players in the region wants to see Gwadar and CPEC projects derailed. This cannot be done through military means, at least not under the current circumstances, so the next best option is to make it controversial within Pakistan and exploit the weaknesses in our political system [foreign funding, foreign links] to create impediments for Gwadar/CPEC.

The external enemies of this project will exploit existing fault lines. The government of Pakistan must nip any grievances in the bud before the issue grows and takes root. Members of the Pakistani political parties, trade bodies, the media, and civil society can receive regular briefings on the progress. These briefings should be well prepared, and can counter any attempts to make Gwadar and CPEC projects controversial. It is time to get creative about Gwadar and CPEC. These are grand strategic projects and the Pakistani vision about the future should be equally grand.

The author is a researcher, journalist and a public policy commentator. aq@projectpakistan21.org

The article was originally published in The Hilal (English).

Headley’s a compulsive liar … used LeT, ISI, CIA … playing to India now … Ishrat Jahan claim’s a red herring:

By Adrian Levy

Adrian Levy is an award-winning journalist and co-author of The Siege: The Attack on the Taj which researched 26/11. As David Headley deposed before an Indian court, Levy spoke with Srijana Mitra Das about the agent who double-crossed ISI and FBI, Hafiz Saeed distrusting Headley, claims of Ishrat Jahan recruited by Lashkar – and India’s security today:

How much of David Headley’s revelations surprise you?

So far, nothing he’s said differs greatly from what he told the NIA team, FBI, etc.

But the most important thing to remember is that Headley is psychopathic – which means compelling. He thrives in an interrogation room, bonding with even skilled questioners.

If you watch videos of Headley in the FBI holding centre, one thing becomes self-evident – who is pushing whom?

A conniving, convincing sociopath, he trades in half-truths. Since he was first arrested, as a young man trafficking heroin, he always betrayed those close to him. Childhood friends. Business partners. Drug cartels. His wives and girlfriends. There isn’t a single relationship he entered that he has not compromised to better his situation.

What does this add up to? A compulsive liar – who cannot be trusted.

What about his claims of Ishrat Jahan recruited by LeT?

A complete red herring – look at the modus operandi for LeT. This is classic Headley, taking real events – and laminating with an intoxicating story.

Headley says two attempts were made to storm Mumbai before 26/11– what does this reflect about intelligence preparedness in India?

These are facts detailed in The Siege and derived from the Pakistan intelligence inquiry into events leading up to 26/11 – Headley had no first-hand connection to these moments and learnt of them later, trading them now as goblets of intelligence that do not belong to him.

Nor are they valuable on both occasions, the boats leaving Pakistan never got far. Neither event impacts on Indian intelligence as both happened in Pakistan waters.

Headley’s directly named Hafiz Saeed and LeT – will this reshape Pakistan’s response to the 26/11 issue, once dismissed as ‘fiction’ created by India?

Headley named him before – he’s doing so now to play to the Indian audience.

But an interesting coda – Hafiz Saeed rejected Headley, suspecting he was a double agent, which he was, working for the US and ISI.

His involvement in Lashkar was closely monitored – Lashkar suspected him from the start and removed him from close management of the 26/11 operation, sending him on demeaning shopping trips to procure minor items.

LeT was sure Headley would turn on them and protected themselves accordingly.

What he’s now repackaging for the Indian market is second-hand goods. ISI also became convinced Headley was a traitor and stopped seeing him face to face, talking only via email and coded calls, where they sent him on wild goose chases to surveil targets that would never be selected.

Headley’s existence tells us that all sides were played. The US intelligence community probably suffered the most – DEA, FBI and CIA were all suckered by Headley and let him run so long that Mumbai became unstoppable.

Indian failings are self-evident – fed high-grade intelligence on multiple occasions by the Americans that named every target but failed to supply a date, almost no security revisions were made to counter a sea-borne assault, protect the hotels, Leopold’s or the station.

Given the new IS threat, assess India’s security and intelligence situation today.

Well, reading audit reports on coastal security, no advances have been made. Listening to internal debates on nuclear security, the threat here also seems heightened.

Perhaps the only improvements are in intelligence sharing with other nations – but practical application remains doubtful as IB and RAW remain massively understaffed with modernisation plans on hold.

Could you suggest three steps to swiftly improve the situation?

First, enact a charter for IB and give it a mission statement, so it can be held accountable. Remember the Central Administrative Tribunal in Chennai called it a chicken that could not fly.

Second, professionalise intelligence analysts, clandestine agents, etc., as Western powers have, so that it’s seen as a career for graduates and non-graduates.

Third, introduce an internal ombudsman or Inspector General as the outfit is rife with discrimination, chauvinism and bullying – the absence of women is laughable as is the low percentage of non-Hindus who get in or reach any seniority.

Don’t Blame Pakistan for ISIS

To the Editor:

Re “Pakistan’s Hand in the Rise of International Jihad,” by Carlotta Gall (news analysis, Sunday Review, Feb. 7):

The whole world, including American officials and military commanders, is praising Pakistan’s successful military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It is strange that Ms. Gall, instead of acknowledging Pakistan’s sincerity, is somehow blaming the country — itself the worst victim of terrorism — for the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

One has to fly really high on wings of imagination to link the escalating violence in Afghanistan with the presence of a few men hiding somewhere in Pakistan.

Her reference to reports that Pakistan is responsible for the rise of ISIS in the Middle East ignores the increasingly complex regional politics. Likewise, her suggestion that Pakistan was involved in moving 300 Pakistani jihadists to the core of the ISIS fight is far-fetched.

Putting blame on Pakistan for every ill of the world may rather be construed as yet another attempt to undermine the fledgling reconciliation process in Afghanistan, where Pakistan, together with China and the United States, is trying its best to bring peace to the region.

NADEEM HOTIANA

Press Attaché, Embassy of Pakistan

Washington