Obama's robot wars endanger us all

Imagine if, an hour from now, a robot-plane swooped over your house and blasted it to pieces. The plane has no pilot. It is controlled with a joystick from 7,000 miles away, sent by the Pakistani military to kill you. It blows up all the houses in your street, and so barbecues your family and your neighbours until there is nothing left to bury but a few charred slops. Why? They refuse to comment. They don't even admit the robot-planes belong to them. But they tell the Pakistani newspapers back home it is because one of you was planning to attack Pakistan. How do they know? Somebody told them. Who? You don't know, and there are no appeals against the robot.

Now imagine it doesn't end there: these attacks are happening every week somewhere in your country. They blow up funerals and family dinners and children. The number of robot-planes in the sky is increasing every week. You discover they are named "Predators", or "Reapers" – after the Grim Reaper. No matter how much you plead, no matter how much you make it clear you are a peaceful civilian getting on with your life, it won't stop. What do you do? If there was a group arguing that Pakistan was an evil nation that deserved to be violently attacked, would you now start to listen?

This sounds like a sketch for the next James Cameron movie – but it is in fact an accurate description of life in much of Pakistan today, with the sides flipped. The Predators and Reapers are being sent by Barack Obama's CIA, with the support of other Western governments, and they killed more than 700 civilians in 2009 alone – 14 times the number killed in the 7/7 attacks in London. The floods were seen as an opportunity to increase the attacks, and last month saw the largest number of robot-plane bombings ever: 22. Over the next decade, spending on drones is set to increase by 700 per cent.

The US government doesn't even officially admit the programme exists: Obama's most detailed public comment on it was when he jokingly told the boy band the Jonas Brothers that he would unleash the drones on them if they tried to chat up his daughter. But his administration says, behind closed doors, that these robot-plane attacks are "the only show in town" for killing suspected jihadis. They do not risk the lives of US soldiers, who remain in Virginia and control the robot-planes as if they were in a video game. They "undermine the threat to the West" by "breaking up training camps, killing many people conspiring against us, and putting the rest on the run".

But is this true? The press releases uncritically repeated by the press after a bombing always brag about "senior al-Qa'ida commanders" killed – but some people within the CIA admit how arbitrary their choice of targets is. One of their senior figures told The New Yorker: "Sometimes you're dealing with tribal chiefs. Often they say an enemy of theirs is al-Qa'ida because they want to get rid of somebody, or they made crap up because they wanted to prove they were valuable so they could make money."

True, the programme has certainly killed some real jihadis. But the evidence suggests it is creating far more jihadis than it kills – and is making an attack on you or me more likely with each bomb.

Drone technology was developed by the Israelis, who routinely use it to bomb the Gaza Strip. I've been in Gaza during some of these attacks. The people there were terrified – and radicalised. A young woman I know who had been averse to political violence and an advocate of peaceful protest saw a drone blow up a car full of people – and she started supporting Islamic Jihad and crying for the worst possible revenge against Israel. Robot-drones have successfully bombed much of Gaza, from secular Fatah to Islamist Hamas, to the brink of jihad.

Is the same thing happening in Pakistan? David Kilcullen is a counter-insurgency expert who worked for General Petraeus in Iraq and now advises the State Department. He has shown that two per cent of the people killed by the robot-planes in Pakistan are jihadis. The remaining 98 per cent are as innocent as the victims of 9/11. He says: "It's not moral." And it gets worse: "Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially as drone strikes have increased."

Professor of Middle Eastern history Juan Cole puts it more bluntly: "When you bomb people and kill their family, it pisses them off. They form lifelong grudges... This is not rocket science. If they were not sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qa'ida before, after you bomb the shit out of them, they will be." This is why all the people who have been captured or defected from Osama Bin Laden's circle, from his bodyguard to his son, say the same: he is delighted when Western governments fight back by recklessly killing Muslims.

Of course jihadism is not motivated solely by attacks against Muslim countries by the West. Some of it is motivated by a theocratic desire to control and tyrannise other humans in the most depraved ways: to punish women who wish to feel the sun on their hair, for one. Yet it is a provable fact that violence against Muslims tips many more people into retaliatory jihadi violence against us. Even the 2004 report commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld said that "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" was the primary reason for jihadism.

A good example of this is Faisal Shahzad, the 31-year-old Pakistani-American who tried to plant a bomb in Times Square in May. A police survey of his emails over the past 10 years found he obsessively asked: "Can you tell me a way to... fight back when the rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?" The Pakistan drone attacks – on the part of the world he came from – were the final spur for him. When he was arrested, he asked the police: "How would you feel if people attacked the United States? You are attacking a sovereign Pakistan." At his trial, he said: "When the drones hit, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill everybody... I am part of the answer... I'm avenging the attack."

Yet many people defend the drones by saying: "We have to do something." If your friend suffered terrible third-degree burns, would you urge her to set fire to her hair because "you have to do something"? Would you give a poisoning victim another, worse poison, on the grounds that any action is better than none?

I detest jihadism. Their ideology is everything I oppose: their ideal society is my Hell. It is precisely because I want to really undermine them – rather than pose as macho – that I am against this robot-slaughter. It enlarges the threat. It drags us into a terrible feedback loop, where the US launches more drone attacks to deal with jihadism, which makes jihadism worse, which prompts more drone attacks, which makes jihadism worse – and on and on, in a state with nuclear weapons, and with many people in Europe who are from the terrorised region. It could be poised to get even worse: Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars says the US has an immediate plan to bomb 150 targets in Pakistan if there is a jihadi attack inside America.

The real and necessary fight against jihadists has to have, at its core, a policy of systematically stripping them of their best recruiting tools. Yet Obama and the CIA are doing the opposite – to an accompanying soundtrack of the screams of innocent civilians, and the low, delighted chuckle of Osama Bin Laden.

Ex-soldier exposes dirty face of Indian Army

Bureau Report

NEW DELHI - He is no soldier of fortune, but Ashok Kumar Sirohi says he wants what is his due. The ex-BSF constable alleged that he was ill-treated by his department and was expelled on medical grounds. Sirohi claims that he is fit and ready for his job.
So, on Wednesday afternoon the jawan and his young kids marched naked through the heart of the city as a mark of protest. Ashok wanted to meet Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi but the cops detained him while he was walking nude on the Rajpath.
Ashok is from Sahvada village in Nangloi area of Delhi."We detained him as soon as we received information regarding the matter. We are interrogating him regarding the incident," said a police officer. Ashok threatened that if he doesn't get his job back, he would commit suicide, as he has no money left to take care of his family. His interrogation was on till late evening at the Parliament Street police station.
BSF officials refused to comment on the issue saying they didn't have any information about Ashok's termination from the force. "We don't know too many details about this incident. We will investigate the matter," said Vijay Singh, PRO BSF.

Another story from India

A girl in Assam kick ass of Indian army soldier for trying to molest her....

http://www.youtube.com/v/Z1Go6PFIDO8&hl=en_US&

Scannergate: Facts Contradict Heathrow Claim That Naked Images Can't Be Printed

Leaked government documents, as well as actual print outs, prove naked scanner devices can save and distribute images

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Heathrow Airport's denial that Indian film star Shahrukh Khan's naked body scanner images were printed and circulated by airport staff because the devices have no capability to print or distribute images contradicts leaked government documents that prove the x-ray backscatter machines do have the option to store and send images, as well as actual images of the print outs that are freely available on the Internet.

Heathrow today denied that naked body scanner images of Khan were printed and circulated by airport security staff, telling the London Telegraph the claims were "completely factually incorrect" because the body-scanning equipment had no capability to print images.

The BAA spokeswoman "stressed that images captured by the equipment could not be stored or distributed in any form".

Heathrow are trying to avoid any investigation into the incident by claiming it "simply could not be true".

However, leaked government documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and confirmed as authentic by CNN show that the devices must have the ability to store and send images when in "test mode."

"That requirement leaves open the possibility the machines — which can see beneath people's clothing — can be abused by TSA insiders and hacked by outsiders, said EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg," according to the report.

"If you look at the actual technical specifications and you read the vendor contracts, you come to understand that these machines are capable of doing far more than the TSA has let on," added Rotenberg.

Indeed, if there is no capability for the devices to save, distribute and print images, then how on earth have news organizations obtained print outs of such images like the one below?

This picture is a print out of a naked body scanner image taken at an airport. How can Heathrow deny this? Clearly the images produced by the scanners can be saved, distributed and printed. The public has been completely mislead about the fact that this represents a total violation of privacy and a system open to frightening levels of abuse, especially considering the fact that children are being forced to pass through the scanners.

Just like the government claimed the scanner images did not show details of genitalia, they have been caught again in another example of deception.

Journalists who researched trials of the technology reported that the images made genitals "eerily visible".

German Security advisor Hans-Detlef Dau, a representative for a company that sells the scanners, admits that the machines, "show intimate piercings, catheters and the form of breasts and penises".

Images on the TSA's own website produced by backscatter devices also show that genitals are visible.

Indeed, when they were first being installed, Australian authorities admitted that the machines don't work properly if sensitive areas of the body are blurred out – and yet the British government still denies that the scanner pictures show details of genitalia – an obvious attempt to skirt child pornography laws which have been violated with the introduction of the scanners.

With plans being readied by the Home Office in the UK as well as authorities in Europe to introduce mobile naked scanners as well as street scanners attached to lamp posts, it won't be long before we are naked body scanned to get into public buildings, shopping malls, sports events, and even minding our own business walking down the street. Naked body scanners are already being used in courthouses across America.

It seems the only way to make this scandal go away will be for the authorities to convince Shahrukh Khan to retract his story or say it was all a joke – warning him that he might end up on a no fly list could achieve that objective.

People who work in airport security have been caught abusing their power on an almost weekly basis over the last few years. To believe that they will act with the utmost professionalism in dealing with images of our naked bodies is completely asinine. We read horror story after horror story about TSA agents and others acting like thugs on power trips, thinking they can treat the public like animals just because they hold a petty position of authority.

However, unless we vehemently debunk the denials by emphasizing that the scanners do show details of genitalia and such images can be saved, distributed and printed, our daily lives will soon begin to resemble a nightmare that far outstrips anything George Orwell could have predicted.

Pakistan helped Iran nab Jundallah chief

This frame grab released February 23, 2010 from Iranian state TV shows Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi under armed guard following his arrest. – Reuters

TEHRAN: Pakistan played a role in helping Iran arrest its most wanted Jundallah chief Abdolmalek Rigi who was seized onboard a flight from Dubai, Islamabad's ambassador to Tehran Mohammad Abbasi said on Wednesday.

"I must tell you that such action cannot be carried out without the cooperation of Pakistan. I am happy that he has been arrested," Abbasi told a media conference at Islamabad's mission in Tehran.

Without elaborating, Abbasi said details of Pakistan's help to Iran in arresting Rigi would be revealed in "two or three days time."

Rigi, the head of shadowy rebel group Jundallah (Soldiers of God), was captured on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday.

An airport official from Bishkek told AFP on condition of anonymity on Tuesday that the passenger plane Rigi was travelling in was forced to land on Iranian territory by two Iranian jet bombers.

Iran's official Press TV, quoting an unidentified source speaking on condition of anonymity, added on its English-language website that Rigi was seized along with one of his deputies.

It said they "were captured after their plane was brought down by security forces in an airport in the Iranian Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas."

Declaring Rigi's arrest on Tuesday, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi told reporters that the militant had been at a US military base in Afghanistan just 24 hours before he was nabbed.

Post by: Sajjad Ahmad.

India Nurtures Business of Surrogate Motherhood

MUMBAI — Yonatan Gher and his partner, who are Israeli, plan eventually to tell their child about being made in India, in the womb of a stranger, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked from an Internet lineup.

The embryo was formed in January in an Indian fertility clinic about 2,500 miles from the couple's home in Tel Aviv, produced by doctors who have begun specializing in surrogacy services for couples from around the world.

"The child will know early on that he or she is unique, that it came into the world in a very special way," said Mr. Gher, 29, a communications officer for the environmental group Greenpeace.

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India's mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States. That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother, which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby).

"People are increasingly exposed to the idea of surrogacy in India; Oprah Winfrey talked about it on her show," said Dr. Kaushal Kadam at the Rotunda clinic in Mumbai. Just an hour earlier she had created an embryo for Mr. Gher and his partner with sperm from one of them (they would not say which) and an egg removed from a donor just minutes before in another part of the clinic.

The clinic, known more formally as Rotunda — The Center for Human Reproduction, does not permit contact between egg donor, surrogate mother or future parents. The donor and surrogate are always different women; doctors say surrogates are less likely to bond with the babies if there is no genetic connection.

There are no firm statistics on how many surrogacies are being arranged in India for foreigners, but anecdotal evidence suggests a sharp increase.

Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a medical tourism agency with headquarters in California, said he expected to send at least 100 couples to India this year for surrogacy, up from 25 in 2007, the first year he offered the service.

"Every time there is a success story, hundreds of inquiries follow," he said.

In Anand, a city in the western state of Gujarat where the practice was pioneered in India, more than 50 surrogate mothers are pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Fifteen of them live together in a hostel attached to the clinic there.

Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women "free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs." She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.

Under guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research, surrogate mothers sign away their rights to any children. A surrogate's name is not even on the birth certificate.

This eases the process of taking the baby out of the country. But for many, like Lisa Switzer, 40, a medical technician from San Antonio whose twins are being carried by a surrogate mother from the Rotunda clinic, the overwhelming attraction is the price. "Doctors, lawyers, accountants, they can afford it, but the rest of us — the teachers, the nurses, the secretaries — we can't," she said. "Unless we go to India."

Surrogacy is an area fraught with ethical and legal uncertainties. Critics argue that the ease with which relatively rich foreigners are able to "rent" the wombs of poor Indians creates the potential for exploitation. Although the government is actively promoting India as a medical tourism destination, what some see as an exchange of money for babies has made many here uncomfortable.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development said in February that it was weighing recommending legislation to govern surrogacy, but it is not imminent.

An article published in The Times of India in February questioned how such a law would be enforced: "In a country crippled by abject poverty," it asked, "how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?"

Even some of those involved in the business of organizing surrogates want greater regulation.

"There must be protection for the surrogates," Mr. Rupak said. "Inevitably, people are going to smell the money, and unscrupulous operators will get into the game. I don't trust the industry to police itself."

He said that the few doctors offering the service now were ethical and took good care of the surrogates but that he was concerned this might change as the business expanded.

Mr. Gher and his partner, who asked not to be named to preserve his privacy, have worked through their doubts and are certain they are doing a good thing.

"People can believe me when I say that if I could bear the baby myself I would," he said. "But this is a mutually beneficial answer. The surrogate gets a fair amount of money for being part of the process."

They are paying about $30,000, of which the surrogate gets about $7,500.

"Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop," Dr. Kadam said. "This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don't think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other."

Mr. Gher agreed. "You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth," he said. "We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India."

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients' signatures.

Although some Indian clinics allow surrogates and clients to meet, Mr. Gher said he preferred anonymity. When his surrogate gives birth later this year, he and his partner will be in the hospital, but not in the ward where she is in labor, and will be handed the baby by a nurse.

The surrogate mother does not know that she is working for foreigners, Dr. Kadam said, and has not been told that the future parents are both men. Gay sex is illegal in India.

Israel legalized adoption by same-sex couples in February, but such couples are not permitted to hire surrogates in Israel to become parents. A fertility doctor recommended Rotunda, which made news in November when its doctors delivered twins for another gay Israeli couple.

Rotunda did not allow interviews with its surrogate mothers, but a 32-year-old woman at a fertility clinic in Delhi explained why she is planning on her second surrogacy in two years.

Separated from her husband, she found that her monthly wages of 2,800 rupees, about $69, as a midwife were not enough to raise her 9-year-old son. With the money she earned from the first surrogacy, more than $13,600, she bought a house. She expects to pay for her son's education with what she earns for the second, about $8,600. (Fees are typically fixed by the doctor and can vary.) "I will save the money for my child's future," she said.

The process requires a degree of subterfuge in this socially conservative country. She has told her mother, who lives with her, but not her son or their neighbors. She has told the few who have asked her outright that she is bearing a child for a relative.

So far, for the Israeli couple, the experience of having a baby has been strangely virtual. They perused profiles of egg donors that were sent by e-mail ("We picked the one with the highest level of education," Mr. Gher said). From information that followed, they rejected a factory worker in favor of a housewife, who they thought would have a less stressful lifestyle.

Mr. Gher posts updates about the process on Facebook. And soon the clinic will start sending ultrasound images of their developing child by e-mail. Highly pixelated, blown-up passport photos of the egg donor and surrogate mother adorn a wall of their apartment in Israel.

"We've been trying to half close our eyes and look at it in a more holistic way to imagine what she would actually look like," Mr. Gher said of the donor's blurred image. "These are women we don't know, will never know, who will become in a way part of our lives."

____________

When you start, you never stop. If you stop, you will never be able to start again.

Sajjad Ahmad

Freelance Writer & Researcher Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Emails: sajjad_pak@hotmail.com sajjadahmad@markthetruth.com

WebSite: http://www.markthetruth.com

Blogs: http://pakistanfront.blogspot.com http://pakistanisnotsleeping.blogspot.com http://cruisepakistan.blogspot.com http://worldofscienceandtechnology.blogspot.com

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