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India supports terrorism? maybe the US will go after them next. With 1200 mil people they could use some relief.
India, a Threat to the World Security.
India's methods for achieving regional hegemony have not been limited to
supporting covert terrorist activities in neighbouring countries.
Whenever it got the chance, it outrightedly invaded independant
countries, without regard to the international law. Kashmir is not the
only case. The State of Hyderabad, had a population of 14,000,000 and an
area of 70,000 sq. miles. It was over-run in 1947 by the Indian military
to "restore law and order" there, just as it did in Kashmir. It was later
annexed. Then came Junagadh, which had acceded to Pakistan and was
formally part of Pakistan, when it was invaded and annexed despite
protests by Pakistan. The Porteguese colony of Goa followed. The
independant Kingdom of Sikkim on Indo-Tibetan border suffered a similar
fate. In 1971 India organized a major insurgency in the then East
Pakistani province of East Bengal, cut off the air-link between West and
East Pakistan and then invaded to "restore order". During this period it
took full advantage of its military alliance with the ex-Soviet Union.
Even though its military superiority was clearly established v.v its
neighbours, it undertook a major re-armament programme with the help of the
Soviet military. Citing security threats from already intimidated
neighbours India has regularly inducted weapons of mass destructions to
its arsenal. Three years after the invasion of East Pakistan, it exploded
an atomic bomb right next to the Pakistani border "for peaceful purposes".
After introducing atomic weapons in the region it went ahead with the
development of thermo-nuclear devices. It has also gone ahead with a massive
program to build missiles as large as ICBMs, and other weapons of mass
destruction. Now most of the Asian continent is directly
under Indian nuclear umbrella. It has left no stones unturned to acquire
such global weapon systems as Nuclear Submarines and Aircraft Carriers
to further its aims.
Such a massive weapons programme of global consequences, with an
amply demonstrated desire for territory rings the bells when Hitler
embarked on his way to massive re-armament(10). Countries as far as
Australia felt the heat when they were forced to re-think their defense
policies in face of the growing Indian threat.
However, these adventures on the Indian establishment
are not limited to Kashmir and Pakistan alone. The massive repressionary
tactics of the Indian Security Forces in the State of Punjab have drawn
harsh criticism from both inside and outside India. At one stage, the
hatred amongst the Sikh community for the Indian Government had reached
such a stage that the years old trusted bodyguards of the then Indian PM
Indira Gandhi, shot her dead in her official residence. India has
actively organized and funded a proxy civil war in Sri-Lanka
to bring the country to its heels. It is now an open secret
that Rajiv Gandhi, the ex-Premier if India, took personal interest in
the formations and activities of the terrorist outfit LTTE in northern
Sri-Lanka. He used LTTE to blackmail Sri-Lanka in order to bring its
foreign policy in-line with that of India. The violence that followed
destroyed Sri-Lanka's tourism based economy and caused a lot of bloodshed.
Hatred against such activities was obvious when Rajiv Gandhi got beaten with a
stick by a Sri-Lankan Guard, when the ex-Premier was taking a Guard of
Honor while on a "good-will visit" to that country, This happened in front
of cameras for the rest of the world to see. The havoc brought forward by
terrorism in Sri-Lanka eventually resulted by the death of Rajiv Gandhi
in a suicide bomb attack, by the same LTTE he formed and funded.
http://alumni.caltech.edu/~mughal/kashmir/www.humanity
Republican Representative John Cooksey of Louisiana reportedly told a radio network in his home state that: "If I see someone come in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over."
A Cooksey spokesman later told the Washington Post that his boss' larger point - that such airline passengers should be questioned - was valid, saying "Obviously suspicious people should be checked out."
Bush, who has blamed the attacks on Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, has repeatedly and carefully urged tolerance of all US citizens, amid a surge of violence against people perceived by their aggressors as being Muslim or from southwest Asia.
>>>>
maybe it is already too late to change peoples perceptions.
Maybe I get so defensive about rights because I have travelled a lot and seen a lot, it is very easy for the government to abuse its citizens. How do we know the US will be the way it is 10-20 years from now and not end up as a nazi state? far fetched? I had a neo-nazi room mate in college who went to his camp every week end to hail hitler.
I was branded as a minor with a stolen car because I looked young, a drug dealer smuggler because I was carrying 5.25 diskettes in white covers across state lines, breaking and stealling car radios because how could someone like me in his night jammies afford a new car let alone have money or smarts to install a new car stero himself, a terrorist or spy because I was taking pictures of barns and out to do no good because I slept on the ramp or drove into a park at night. Anything that further errords your rights or makes it easier to turn you into a criminal should be looked at very closely to make sure it is actually worth the cost.
Yes if you ask most americans how valuable is life they would find it appalling, but if its in their intrest then loss of life in far away lands is not a concern unless it directly affects their own life's.
And just how valuable is the US constitution? It seems it ca nbe changed to who ever wants to and can weild the big stick. The IRS and DEA for example. Even in a state like CA where the average person can create a vote to pass a law like legal uses of marauana, the FBI and federal fovernment can nullify the will of the people and their laws as being inferior to big bros itrests. And if the US constitution itself can be compromised which it supposedly is very hard ot do, what are the chances of other countries?
Eg US would not let texas to leave the union and it was squashed much faster with oregon. But in the same token the US says the assention of kashmire to india is not legal. Even though Lord Mountbatten says it was valid. Now india has a lot of faults, actually its mostly faulty, but it is one of the few countries that does not force others to agree with its views which some parties in the US seems to do very well.
You know minneapolis is known for police brutality, they think its preferable to shoot a crimila before the act than let him continue to be able to do the crime. The problem is, how do you know he is a criminal in the first place? But they seem to get away with it even though everyone I have talked to dont understand how they can get away with it. Or how about the retard who died in the street in oregon after police prevented his relatives from giving him first aid and waited until the paramedic arrived 15 minutes later? This was in front of hundreds of people. if things like this happen anywhere else in the world it would be classified as a police state in CIA's handbook and how it violates the rights of its citizens. But it seems even in the US there are many types of citizens, those who can enforce their rights and the rest.
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/aug/17arvind.htm
The real terrorist:
the view in the mirror
Black Tuesday should do more than traumatise the most powerful country on earth - this should be a time for introspection, for trying to understand what it is that makes America one of the most feared and hated nations in the world, say Swami Agnivesh and Rev Valson Thampu
September 24
We could respond to the latest and unparalleled outbreak of global terrorism in two ways. The first is that of opportunism. It could be turned to our advantage, say, in reinforcing the case against cross-border terrorism and manoeuvre the US into an anti-Pakistan stance with a beneficial spin-off for our Kashmir agenda. Or we could see escalating international terrorism as a pointer to the pathology of the world order that is being crafted almost exclusively from a Euro-American perspective, with the rest of the world as mere pawns on the chessboard of orchestrated social, cultural and economic expropriation.
President Bush is right in terming the terrorist carnage in New York and Washington as 'acts of war'. But the campaign against terrorism needs to be situated in a larger war against the cult and culture of violence in all its myriad forms. Selective targeting of the 'terrorist outfits' inconvenient to oneself can only degenerate into yet another project of terror, no matter in what ideological or rhetorical costume it is draped and displayed.
As Indians we are inclined to be sentimental. Sentimentality involves a distortion of sentiments and an avoidance of truth. It constructs a one-sided version of reality, leaving out the disturbing aspect of the situation. Many of us are likely, hence, to feel strongly that this is not the time to take an objective view of terrorism as a global phenomenon. Especially in the wake of the terrible Tuesday, the image of the US as the grand victim of global terrorism haunts our imagination so powerfully that any attempt to see the dialogue of terror objectively could seem blasphemous. The truth must be spoken, nonetheless, lest the colossal human sacrifice witnessed in New York and Washington goes waste. And that would be a tragedy worse than the collapse of the World Trade Centre itself.
Our world subscribes to the unwritten dogma that loss of life is more tragic in some contexts and some countries, whereas it is treated as a routine matter in most others. For decades the American foreign policy, especially the war against Communism, has involved the sacrifice of millions of lives in far away lands. Prolonged and poignant suffering has been inflicted on entire nations in order to break down the will of the people. Somehow it was deemed legitimate to sacrifice peoples at a distance to secure the foundations of American hegemony over the world. At the same time, the loss of a single American life has been a matter of hyper-sensitivity. We have all been bought into this specious logic for too long.
It is a mark of the greatness of the American society that not every one there subscribes to this hypocritical dogma. Denouncing the barbarity that was rained on New York, Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, writes, "But this act was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism, the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes, that the US government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism." Only think of the hellish sight that the highway from Kuwait to Basrah (Iraq) presented after the liberation of Kuwait.
A day after the war had ended, thousands of Iraqi soldiers were retreating, virtually fleeing in fear, from Kuwait commandeering whatever vehicles were available. US B52 bombers rained cluster bombs on them killing thousands all along the highway, clearly after the hostilities had ended. That was not branded terrorism, as the pirate who confronted Alexander would have sneered, only because the US had irresistible firepower.
Predictably, Bush has exhorted the democracies of the world to unite in this war against terrorism. Who can dispute that this needs to happen? But who can, at the same time, hope that this would result in the eradication of the cult of violence, as symbolized by this mega terrorism, unless there is an honest understanding of the need to abjure violence as the means to attain one's goals.
How can a nation that sits on stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and is in a position to blackmail and terrorize the world have the moral right to lead a campaign against terrorism? The exclusive right that a few nations claim to use nuclear and hi-tech violence at will is in itself a terrorist idea that needs to be seen for what it is. As long as double standards and injustice continue to plague the global community and vitiate the rhetoric of peace, terrorism will continue to bedevil the human race.
Most people are carried away by the magnitude of the havoc that the terrorists have wrought in New York and Washington. Mind-boggling as that really is, what speaks even louder is its carefully choreographed symbolism. This is, by far, the most vicious blow to the American presumption of impregnability at home. The only other comparable event in terms of its symbolic resonance is the sinking of the Titanic that, according to Joseph Conrad, humbled the pride of an entire civilization and burst the bubble of Anglo-Saxon arrogance. The terrible Tuesday has served notice on the nation that American muscle power may not necessarily translate itself into security for Americans either at home or abroad. America needs to combine her awesome firepower with an inspired commitment to justice and compassion for all. And that should include those miserable wretches who are doomed to groan under the 'dictators' that the US detests.
That is possible only if this great nation learns to temper its geo-political calculations with a sense of universal responsibility and compassion for all in distress. American pre-eminence must not be founded exclusively on American firepower or economic clout, but also on a global commitment to end poverty, destitution, and injustice of every kind. President Kennedy's stirring words to his countrymen, "Ask not what America can do for you; ask what you can do for America and what we together can do for the world," are far more relevant today than they were then.
The symbolism of the event - trade towers collapsing and the nerve centre of the mightiest war machine in history folding up in panic - has not been lost in the torrent of sympathy that people all over the world felt for the victims. The twin towers symbolized a whole civilization that allows wealth to flee from the people at large and accumulate in the hands of a few. Never before in history have mechanisms of affluence left so many destitute as they do in our globalizing world today. Death by starvation, the brooding ferocity of hunger, is the ultimate terror.
It is time the Americans came to terms with the irony of their affluence and preeminence in a world of escalating inequalities and explosive grievances. They have must to lose. Consider, in comparison, the Afghans and the Iraqis. How much damage could a few terrorists have inflicted on these countries with a few passenger planes? That is why the idea of an American retaliatory strike against Afghanistan looks so unexciting, even pathetic. Are we about to witness a re-run of North Vietnam?
It was the rare resolve bred by poverty that humbled the US there. History is moved by those who have nothing to lose. Marx knew this, and so cried out, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose except your chains". Only those who have nothing to lose could have turned themselves into missiles and displayed the suicidal recklessness that portended Doomsday in Washington.
The second thing that the people of America need to note is this: the trigger-happy approach of the US to policing the globe bespeaks a crude unconcern for the cost that this exacts from other people. The mastery of electronic warfare that seems to guarantee negligible loss of life to oneself has been the main reason for the cavalier posturings of the US in this respect. One wonders if rockets would have rained on Sudan and Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on American embassies, and the average American endorsed this effrontery, if the horror of Black Tuesday were anticipated then. The gaping intelligence-and-security lapse writ large over this humiliating event is proof enough that the prospect of a massive terrorist attack in the nerve centre of American finance and defence establishment was never taken seriously by the US.
All on a sudden it is as if Vietnam, Iraq, Baghdad, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Chile and Laos have all come home to roost. For a change, the victims are no longer 'the demonized other', but men and women one has seen and known. And that is a different kind of experience from the CNN coverage of hi-tech war at a distance. Ironically, it is the apocalyptic scale of the devastation in this event that makes retaliation both unavoidable and unthinkable. This explains why a subterranean tremor of popular anger is now sweeping through the American people, for all the outward tokens of solidarity they display. To an extent unimaginable a few days ago, more and more Americans are beginning to see an emerging link between American foreign policy, studded with distant proxy wars, and the hell that broke out in their own backyard.
Third, the American people need to ensure that the seeds of terror that the enemy has rained over them do not penetrate and sprout in their collective psyche either as fear psychosis or as irrational hatred against all and sundry. Terror's first casualty is the capacity for sound judgment. Panic robs people of their capacity for subtle distinctions. Yet all that we cherish - truth, justice, compassion, love, and beauty - stands on this very foundation.
The sporadic outbreak of violence against people of Asian origin, especially mistaking the Sikhs for terrorists, is pathetically ridiculous. Unless this is contained at once, the terrorists will have the last laugh of having infected the mind of America with the virus of terrorism.
There is a lesson in this for India as well. Our precipitous haste in boarding the American bandwagon is clearly based on a naive over-exaggeration of the benefits that can be harvested thereby. In this purblind fixation, we seem to become unmindful of the cost that is sure to come in the wake of this misadventure. What is the proof, as yet, of the genuineness of the American resolve to contain and eliminate global terrorism in a dispassionate and consistent fashion?
We cannot afford to be carried away by the moment. The truth of life and history is that issues have to be faced and justice upheld, sooner of later. The alternative is to walk an unending trail of death and devastation in the foolish hope that a higher degree of counter-violence will bring our adversaries (nee, terrorists) to their knees. While it is true that hardly any terrorist movement has succeeded in attaining its goal, it is also true that very few terrorist movements have been crushed by brute force alone. Look at Sri Lanka, the bleeding island paradise, where sorrow blossoms instead of flowers; no further argument is needed.
Those who believe that terror can be treated or targeted selectively, live in a fool's paradise, as the American did till the other day. Black Tuesday was, in that sense, a moment of truth. But a moment of truth need not necessarily become a moment of enlightenment. For that, the truth encountered has to be internalized and upheld in the hard choices that a nation makes. President Bush could get it all wrong if he persuades himself to believe, against his own better sense, that the war to be one is the war against a particular brand of terrorism. The war of this century must be against the rising cult of violence that turned the last century into a cauldron of cruelty and an abyss of human suffering.
The writers are well known Indian social activists
(Courtesy: The Dawn)
Where men are men and the sheep are scared. No wonder.
New Zealand Is A Nation That Harbours Terrorists - US Congressman
Saxby Chambliss, a US congressman who is part of the congressional intelligence committee, has been visiting New Zealand and he said on the radio that it was a country with terrorist links.
He said that the US government wanted to help New Zeland to get rid of its terrorist problems so long as they helped the US.
However new Zealand politicians have ridiculed his suggestions and say "New Zealand security forces have no such evidence nor have we been provided that evidence from other security forces around the world."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,951603a11,FF.html
There are lots of reasons. One, no one was willing to listen. Just how much world news do you get in the US? How about the train collision in india that killed 300 people yesterday? How much coverage did the earth quakes in mexico get? for get about the earth quake in india that killed over 100000. So things happening in the world are not really news to those in the US. And if nothing else, for sensationalism how about the 30 people who got run over by a train? 15 of them children. Things like that happening in the US or canada would flood the wires for days. The US media is still targetting islam, now if it seems targetting to someone like me who has lived around islamic people and know a lot about them, then to the ignorant its just like saying islam is osama. Even news briefs use weird words like fatwa, which even I had never heard of before and now when ever I see a fatwa I think its some weird islamic command against the western world. I am hoping that enough people question things and not accept things blindly. I know life is cheap especially if they are average americans, let alone average humans. We need to try to understand a lot of things and how and why things happen and not let those in power take even more advantage of us and others.
And them only sane thing I have read osama had said, when you resist american intrests they say its terrorism. But when americans do the very same its fighting for freedom and the evil empire.
I dont mind fighting for american intrests just dont want my sweet being used by the very very rich and powerful to get even richer and even more powerful.
Short sellers targeted
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ranking Democrat of the House Financial Services Committee has asked financial regulators on Monday to consider putting a temporary halt to short selling, saying the practice may be putting further pressure on already fragile markets.
"I am concerned that the confluence of negative macroeconomic forces and possible short selling and speculation in stocks from industries now under pressure may be adding to the downward cycle we are seeing in the markets since trading resumed on Monday," said John LaFalce (D-N.Y.).
"To the extent that short sellers have played a significant role in creating the current market conditions, I request that you consider the appropriateness of certain measures, including inhibiting short selling," LaFalce said in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission head Harvey Pitt.
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/09/24/news/wires/shortsell_re/
Ah so a little bit of the truth starts coming out. Should go with some of the other stuff that what we are being told is not the 'real' reason or truth. When intrests combined with a lota money are involved, anything makes for an excuse.
US 'planned attack on Taleban' The wider objective was to oust the Taleban
By the BBC's George Arney
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.
Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm
Looks like privacy and rights wont exist in a short while. ofcourse all this only applies ot those who cant afford the means and methods to it undetected anyway.
This week, Treasury Department officials expect to ask Congress for legislation giving the center broader powers to request tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service and to capture and read e-mail traffic, all tied to ongoing investigations of individuals suspected of terrorist activities.
A government official said the legislation, which would include measures to facilitate intelligence gathering and use of military forces, would almost certainly include provisions to legalize special tracking measures involving the IRS and the Internet.
"Discussions are under way," said the official, who asked not to be identified, "and [while] nothing has been introduced so far today, tomorrow is not too soon" to expect the proposed legislation to reach Capitol Hill.
There are also discussions within White House circles about the possibility of issuing an executive order containing provisions for the same four areas of concern, said the official.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/WorldNewsTonight/WTC_binladen_money010920.html
Afghanistan: history's crossroads
The US' war on terrorism is not just that - Afghanistan is also a crucial access
to the Central Asian oil reserves, concludes Varghese K George, considering
the country's strategic position and its consequently violent history
New Delhi, September 22
The echo of soldiers marching through the rough terrain of Afghanistan is a sight and sound familiar to the land. From the beginning of the recorded history, virtually no invader has left Afghanistan untouched. These expeditions were never to capture Afghanistan itself - Afghanistan had nothing that attracted invaders to it. It was the gateway for those wanted to plunder the rich Indian subcontinent: this strategic location made the country the theatre of many wars that changed the course of this region's history.
As a historian of Afghanistan writes, "The list of people and conquerors who have touched or influenced Afghan history reads like a roster of nearly every aggressive force that has been set loose in Asia over the past 4,000 years."
Even today, Western countries have strategic and economic interests in controlling Afghanistan. It is the only access to Central Asia, the calculated oil reserves of which will be largely required in the immediate future, given the fact that the West Asian oil wells are fast drying up. The battle that the US will fight on this terrain will not be aimed solely at eliminating "Islamic fundamentalism" but also to ultimately gain access to the oil fields of Central Asia.
Historically, Afghan was a gateway to India. For those who looked with lustful eyes on India's riches, Afghanistan was the entry point for their exploits. Once the British established their empire in the subcontinent, they also wanted control over Afghanistan to prevent the entry of others to the subcontinent. But no invader could, and in many cases did not want to, hold on to the barren mountains of Afghanistan. Scythians, Persians, Greek, Seljuk, Tartar and the Mongols plundered India through the Afghan door. After each wave of fresh invasion subsided, the Afghan territory remained with the Afghans.
At the beginning of the 16th century BC, the first great migration of Aryans swept across the rough terrains of Afghanistan, from their homeland in Central Asia, to the Indian plains. More than 2,400 years ago, Alexander the Great led his army up the valley of the Helmland, crossing the mighty range of the Hindukush into Central Asia. Two years later, he crossed these mountains again to win over Punjab. Mahamud of Ghazni made something like 17 expeditions into India through Afghanistan. Timur the Tartar also walked this way into India, ransacked Delhi and then turned to Central Asia. Babar, a descendant of Timur, overran India and founded the Mughal dynasty - that was in the 16th century BC. Babur's grave is in Kabul.
From this period, Babar's successors were faced with the necessity of maintaining Afghanistan as a buffer state against attacks from the Shahs of Persia to the West, and from the Uzbek rulers of Bukhara to the North. During Mughal times, Kabul and Kandahar were recognised as the keys to India, which they wanted to hold on to. The British, who followed the Mughals as rulers of India, maintained the same policy - to gain and maintain control over the Khyber Pass, a 53-km passage through the Hindukush mountains.
Even the name Hindukush has an Indian connection. Mediaeval traveller Ibn Battuta wrote in A D 1334, "The mountain is called Hindukush, since slave boys and girls who are brought from India die there in large numbers, as a result of the extreme cold." But there is at least one more theory about the origin of the name Hindukush. Soldiers of Alexander the Great termed these mountain ranges Indian Caucasus, and Hindukush is possibly a later corruption of this.
The British fought three wars with the Afghans between 1938 and 1919, all ending in disasters of varying magnitudes. Between 1838 and January 1842, they held on to Kabul. However, intensifying resistance forced them to leave. Assured of a safe passage, the British commander led about 700 Britons - soldiers, wives and children - 3,800 Indian troops, and more than 12,000 camp followers from the city. A trek through the snow- mountains to Peshawar was one to death for them. Only one man - a doctor - survived that journey to tell the tale! Once the British realised that conquering Afghanistan by force was difficult, they tried to set it up as a buffer state by granting extensive military and economic aid to its tribal rulers. In this, they were, to a large extent, successful.
After the end of the colonial period, Afghanistan was the theatre for a proxy war between the world's superpowers. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others supplied and trained the anti-Soviet mujahideen forces. It is interesting to note that then American president Ronald Reagan was using the same idioms as Bush does today. For the US, the fight against the Soviets was one against the "evil empire". Their allies of those days are those they identify as "evil" today - the Taliban, including Osama bin Laden.
The Soviets left in 1989, and the Americans washed their hands off, but the war did not end. Various mujahideen forces began fighting among themselves for control of the country.
However, once the Central Asian oil reserves began to be seen as the possible substitute for the depleting Middle Eastern wells, Western attention in this region intensified again. American and Saudi oil firms wanted assured access to Central Asian reserves of oil and natural gas through Afghanistan. The Saudis and Americans thought Taliban would be the best bet to achieve this objective. They calculated that the Afghan State could be made economically viable from taxes that could come out of oil pipeline projects passing through the country. The state would be merely required to spread oil largesse among the tribes, and thus buy their loyalties, as is the case with all Gulf countries.
The Taliban, however, overturned these plans with its ingenious methods. In 1995, Unocal, a California based oil company, had signed a protocol with the Turkmenistan government to explore the prospects of constructing an oil pipeline to Pakistan through Afghan territory. The company described the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996 as "positive". But the Taliban refused to oblige the company, dashing the hopes of US corporates.
The first war of the 21st century will be as much to gain control of this strategic region, as it is to weed out "evil". But history doesn't favour the Americans - Afghan has remained bloody, but they have hardly lost a war. And they have fought to failure two of the biggest powers of their respective times - the British and the Soviets.
Energy futures tumbled Monday amid worries that a dramatic slowdown in the global economy will lessen demand for crude oil and other products.
NOVEMBER CRUDE PRICES fell $4.02 per barrel to $21.95 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while natural gas prices fell below $2 for the first time since March 1999.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/633166.asp
I woudnt say hogwash, more like grocelly exagerated. The talibans have been flaunting the US and other powers for a while now, even not counting osama and it was only a metter of time before someone found a reason to replace them. It just so happened that the US got the reason first. Afganistan is a very strategically placed important piece of rock.
but another intresting thing is the fiber optic cable connecting the indian subcontinent to singapore is down, guess the 400 mil to fit some US subs with the capability to tap into the cable is not so fail proof afterall.
It's America vs Afghanistan - talk about 'war against
terrorism' is hogwash
The Americans are plotting to install a friendly regime in Kabul, and efforts are
being made to restore a monarchy that was overthrown more than 20 years ago,
says Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr
New Delhi, September 22
It is slowly turning out that the United States is not planning a war against terrorism as much as a war against Afghanistan. The logical pretext for the attack on Afghanistan is, of course, the presence of Osama Bin Laden in that country, and the terrorist training camps of bin Laden's Al Qadain group.
It is clear that the Taliban regime in Kabul has fallen out of grace with Washington. And it would become clear only much later whether it has anything to do with playing host to bin Laden alone, or whether there are other American reasons of state.
The defiant posturing of the Taliban has also to do with the realisation that the US would not any more support them. It will again become evident only much later as to why the US had acquiesced in the Taliban capturing Kabul and the greater part of Afghanistan - about 90 per cent of it - and why the Americans did not support the Northern Alliance.
Even as news reaches of transport planes landing in Tajikistan, of Americans aircraft carriers moving into the Gulf theatre, and commando troops landing in Pakistan, the more crucial movements are being carried out at the diplomatic level. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the three countries, which recognised the Taliban regime along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, has cut off diplomatic relations with the Taliban on Saturday (September 22).
And on Friday (September 21), British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pulled off a diplomatic coup by roping in Iran into the coalition. Blair spoke to moderate Iranian president Mohammed Khatami over phone. Khatami was willing to join the ostensible coalition against terrorism - read Afghanistan. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will be going to Tehran soon. The wily Western politicians feel that it would be useful to pit a Shi'ite Iran against a Sunni Taliban regime.
And the Americans are already plotting to bring Zahir Shah, the king of Afghanistan who was overthrown in a coup in 1978, from Rome, where he has been living in exile. It is interesting that the main target of the Americans is not so much pursuing the terrorist responsible for the September carnage in New York and Washington, but that of imposing a regime in Kabul which would be moderate and, hopefully, pro-American.
The Western conservatives, who have been ranting in the columns of The Daily Telegraph and The New Republic against any talk of reorienting American foreign policy and who have been asking for nothing less than the blood of the terrorists, will be shocked to know that the American government is really back to its old games of displacing regimes in Third World countries, and that all that talk about "war against terrorism" is nothing but hogwash.
It is ironical, then, that the richest and the most powerful country in the world will now take on the poorest and militarily the most vulnerable country. And the American-Afghan war in the making has nothing to with terrorism. It is back to realpolitk, back to business as usual.
If the Americans are serious about terrorism, then they will have to attack targets other than those in Afghanistan. And each of the coalition partners also have to tackle partners in their own territories. For example, it is now a known fact, that Britain, the key partner in the global coalition, will have to some of the radical groups operating out of London and other places.
But the American game plan is something different. They are thinking, as usual, of toppling regimes which they do not like. It is interesting that the Americans have tried to topple regimes in two other contiguous countries in the last decades. First, they wanted to get rid of the Khomeini regime which camen into existence after the popular upsurge in 1979. They froze the Iranian accounts in US banks, and hoped that the economic blockade would weaken the regime. But it did not. The Khomeini regime has survived for more than two decades now.
Then came the turn of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. When Saddam Hussein in a foolhardy fashion invaded Kuwait, it provided a perfect pretext to overthrow the dictator in Baghdad, whom the Americans had supported through the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. But Operation Desert Storm had achieved only one of the two goals - the liberation of Kuwait. The other, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein remains unfulfilled despite brutal and illegal bombing of Baghdad in the last three years.
If the Americans did not succeed in changing regimes in Tehran and in Baghdad, will they succeed in Kabul? The optimistic American view is that the Taliban do not really enjoy popular support in the country, and that it is far easier to replace them. This could turn out to be a miscalculation. Saddam Hussein is not exactly a popular leader in Iraq, but indiscriminate American bombing of Baghdad has only ended up in creating an ironical bonding between a dictator and a people who hated the dictator.
Similarly, the Afghans must be hating the puritanical and fanatical Taliban, but that hatred would vanish the moment American bombs rain on Kabul, and American soldiers march through Afghan territories.
The games that the Americans are playing to revive the old political structures of Afghanistan including the great tribal council of Loya Jigra and the monarchy seem to be feeble and ignorant attempts on the part of Americans to lend credibility to their political machinations.
Ordinary Americans are again being deceived by their government, their political leaders.
The US is slowely loosing support of the Indian public, the saying white man speaks with forked tongue comes to mind. The last 2 times the US came in as a friend they ended up arming Pakistan and secretly supporting the militants to destablise the country. The way things are going it looks like this will be the third time and India would probebally fall into the chinese wing. Latest poll as of friday shows 68% of indian public thinks the US will do things contrary to Indian intrests and damage India and it was less than 25% last week. But if history is a guide then its better to be prepared for the evantuality. Guess some things will never change, just the actors.
If the shiet hadent hit the fan already, this will push it a lot closer. Forget global recession, look out for depression. And I am already depressed alright.
US bans ships from 24 nations, trade hit
Nidhi Nath Srinivas
NEW DELHI
GLOBAL trade and international shipping have hit a rock. The US has a directive ready not to allow entry of ships with crew or flying the flag of 24 identified nations. This means a ship cannot enter US harbours if it belongs to any of these nations, nor will it be allowed to berth if it carries crew from these countries.
They will also not be able to touch these countries as the last port of call before sailing for America.
The directive, proposed by the US Coast Guard, has turning into a virtual nightmare for the shipping industry. It is desperately seeking to make vessels US-directive compliant, causing an upheaval in the industry — routes are being altered, crews changed and vessel contracts are being reworked.
The order will also introduce mind-numbing complications in the movement of cargo which, in turn, means global trade has just become a lot more tedious, if not very difficult.
The 24 countries being named by the US Coast Guard in its proscribed list are: UAE, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya in the Middle East; Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia and Sudan in Africa; Maldives, Malaysia and North Korea in Asia; Yugoslavia in eastern Europe; and the CIS states of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The remaining three are Cuba, Afghanistan and Cameroon.
Indian exports to the US is worth $12 billion, or one-thirds roughly of all exports. The new American law is expected to make life awfully tough for Indian exporters.
For one thing, they will no longer be able to export goods to the US in vessels that touch Dubai — which at present, is a usual stopover. For another, transhipment of Indian goods through Dubai will no longer be possible.
Said a representative of an international trading house here: “We don’t know what has hit us. We are now desperately seeking alternative routes.
Apart from affecting the availability of ships to move cargo to the US, the directive effectively bars exports from these countries to the US unless the goods are sent through another country’s vessel and on a carefully plotted route map which avoids all barred ports. In current circumstances, this is virtually impossible to achieve.’’
The international trading companies fear that other US allies, like its European allies, Japan and Australia may also follow suit in a knee-jerk reaction.
“Even if these allies bar a few of these countries for a short while, the impact on trade and prices would be substantial. In fact, goods from these barred countries will be impossible to move,’’ they said.
For India, the US Coast Guard fatwa could be a mixed blessing. Indian ships and crew can continue entering US ports and it may become the preferred carrier for neighbouring countries, like Malaysia and the Middle East, which are now barred from doing business themselves.
However, Indian exports that reach USA via Dubai could be badly affected by this decision. Basmati rice, engineering goods, machinery, garments, and steel follow this route.
“If the ban is not lifted in the next few months, the resultant impact on Indian trade could become very grim,’’ sources said. Already, Indian importers have begun to feel the pinch as foreign ships are increasingly reluctant to dock at ports on the west coast like Kandla and JNPT.
Havent you studied history? The aryans invaded the indian sub continent. And converted those who were there to their own versions. I think most muslims in india were not converted from hinduism. Just like not many westerners know that the christians in india were christians long before their ancestors were. Dont worry, the aryans now want to drive out the rest of the the original indians. So you have race and relegion on top of everything else. And the bangladeshi's who were so.. liberated from the opressive pakistani regime of the time now dont like the indians either, even though there is like 5 mil refugees form there in india. Now I can never understand why pakistan1 would not like pakistan2.. Oh well..
I also saw some nut posting that he would just nuke everything and be done with it. I was saying the same thing, india has much better nuclear capability, so you loose 25% of your population.. Still 750 mil left.. Maybe use the ones left to take care of another 25% by friendly fire.
Another thing that puzzles me is why the US would support insurgents in india, which is supposedly a democratic country and mostly peaceful. Although not openly and not lately. But they had done it.
And why they dropped afganistan like a bomb after they were done with it. Hey you create a madman and then say ops out of funds, see ya.. And hope they dont know how to swim the vast oceans, leaving the scrounge to feed on other helpless people closer.
Hey I am really a pacifist.. I think we can do much greater things together that benefit ALL off mankind than alone. Just think, let alone in a 1000 years, in the grand scheme of things, we are not even dust. And the second order is going to shove this miserable planet into the sun to create an overpass in the area for their trasglatic freeway and put us all out of our misery.
Nosrta has said the future is not defined, we can change the timeline! But if we dont then his predictions will come true. I DO know the little things can be changed, but not sure how effective the big ones can be changed, eg neapoline and hitler etc.. I am hoping we dont have WW3. Using nukes or unresonable tactics would definetely push us on nostra's path to destruction. What we need is understanding, of other human suffering and to take on some of that suffering ourselves and act as one people. or TRY. Having multiple humans one higher and other lower will bring on the same conditions as slavery. I wont have to worry long about being scared and all this stuff, but I would hope mankind would be around in the end.
Woudnt that be god's purpose?
> Attack on America would go down in the history as one of the worst attack
> on Humanity. Everybody is blaming Osama Bin Laden for that. The
> Mastermind. What perfect example of management can better be than this.
> Osama had actually planned this for India and asked his "Managers" to
> study the same. The "Managers" carried out a real time exercise to get
to
> the basics of it. But, as fate would have it, the results were
frustrating
> for Osama. Days before 11/Sept, Osama had frustratingly thrown a report
> back on his desk after he went thru, what can be said the outcome of the
> exercises carried out by their "managers". Our spl. correspondent had
> somehow got the chance to steal the following extract of the report:
>
> " Sir Osama Assalam Aliekum
> We had carried out the exercise you asked us to do so. We had targetted
> Qutub Minar in Delhi and we had very easily got into 5 Indian Airlines
> Planes flying from Mumbai to Guwahati, with our guns and grenades.
> But the operations could not be carried out because of the following
> reasons:
>
> 1) Plane 1: Did not take off. It developed Technical Diffculties.
>
> 2) Plane 2: It took Off but had a forced landing due to fuel shortage in
> Jaipur. When investigated, we learnt that both the Pilots were Sardarjis
> who came late on Duty. As such they had started the plane on the runway,
> stepped out of the cockpit and stood in front of the engine Fans to dry
> their Hair. It consumed half of the fuel.
>
> 3) Plane 3: It took off and was successfully approaching Delhi. We were
> about to take over the aircraft when suddenly it started descending
> steeply. On investigating we learnt that both the pilots were Punjabis and
> were closely related. During some friendly chat they developed some
> arguments over their parental property and when the matter got
> intense, they started physical fighting leaving aircraft to Allah.
>
> 4) Plane 4: We had taken over the controls of the plane without any
> bloodshed. We paid Rs.5,000/- each to the Pilots who agreed to jump out
> leaving the planes to us and we went ahead to destroy Qutub Minar. As we
> increased the speed for the bang, the plane could not withstand the
> desired speed and wobbled towards one side. It crashed 20 miles east of
> Qutub Minar.
>
> 5) Plane 5: We tried again. But this time by mistake we had a passanger
> named Laloo Yadav on Board. We don't know how he came to know about our
> plans and came straight in to the cabin. Accusing us that we were
> opposition's pawns, we were simply outnumbered by his co passengers who
> were supposed to be his supporters. We were thrown out of the plane and
> right now writing this report from Safdurjung Hospital.
>
> The situation is worse here and nobody cares about us. For Allah, please
> take us from here .......please""
I think the EXDS report was very good. With great forward guidance. And they want to open a very very large data center in santa clara because the current one is out of space. With more than a 100% kump in short intrest in the last month, you got to expect them to pull some stunts to paint the most negative picture. Short intrest was 60 mil end of june, probebally much higher by now.
>>>>By: IhateGreenie $$$
What the he11 is this idiot talking about?
Does this guy know how to read a balance sheet? First of all gross margins, excluding restructuring and asset impairment charges, were 23 percent of revenue or $74.7 million. But that number includes depreciation and amortization of $63.1 million. Gross margins were 43 percent of revenue or $137.8 million if you exclude depreciation and amortization. If this person excluded asset impairment charges then why not depreciation and amortization?
Second, the guy said "these are terrible times for raising money". Uh hello, in the conference call they gave several options for raising more cash. One of the major ones was a sale and lease-back. It doesn't matter what shape the economy is in for a sale and lease-back.
Third, the guy said "With just $466 million in cash, and a cash burn rate of $140 million a quarter, they just don't have much time." EXDS said they had $616 million in cash so I'm assuming he is figuring in the repaying of their $150 million loan that was done after last quarter ended. But, if this idiot would look at the cash burn it's mostly due to capital expenditures. In other words they are spending that cash by choice. But let me also say that that cash is being transfered into assets, it's not evaporating. So even though their cash is going down their asset value is increasing. And they have said that capital expenditures will slow to a halt in the next few quarters. So basically since the company is EBITDA profitable, all they have to do is pay interest of $75 million per quarter on loans. If they have $200 million in the bank at the end of 2001 that would give them 2 1/2 quarters of cash left. But that is only if EBITDA remains around breakeven. They expect to post EBITDA of approximately $65 million in the next 2 quarters, so I imagine next year it will be even higher. Basically they don't need to raise anymore cash. But they are because it's always nice to have a cushion. Assuming their revenue doesn't start rapidly dropping, they have plenty of cash to reach breakeven.
Fourth, "Any rally in the stock is likely to be very short lived, as this is about as dark an income statement as you will ever see for a company with more than $1 billion in revenues." Sorry buddy, I think JDSU is much darker. You are clueless.