World: Bombings in India

A group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen" is claiming responsibility for the 17 bomb blasts that rocked Ahmedabad, the former capital of the Indian state of Gujarat, today. The IM, believed to be a loose coalition of three other groups &mdash SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India), Pakistan-based Lashkar e-Taiba and the Jammu-Kashmir-based Harkat ul-Jihad e-Islami.

The group emailed a 14-page manifesto to the media ahead of the bombings, claiming responsibility and declaring the purpose of the bombings &mdash to "avenge" communal violence against Muslims in 2002 in the state of Gujarat.

According to reports, some 30 people were killed and approximately 100 were injured. Twenty-four hours before the attack on Ahmedabat, the Indian IT centre of Bangalore was rocked by nine, smaller blasts. The IM is believed to be using bombs strapped to bicycles. The explosions were planned to cause maximum disruption, but some also believe that they were targeting Congress Party ministers and the home districts of political leaders who belong to the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), known for its fiery Hindu nationalism.

News sources from India are claiming that the bombs used in the attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad bear similar signatures &mdash rather than military ordinance, they appear to be made with ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer, and utilize quartz timer devices and microprocessors.

Intelligence sources believe that the attacks are being coordinated by Pakistan. They attribute the attacks to Pakistan's desire to distract attention from its own internal problems and the terrorist presence there, now that (thanks to Barack Obama) global attention has shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan and the Taliban. Even the U.S. is finally talking about links between Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani national security and intelligence agency) and the Taliban.

Thanks to George W.'s lame duck status, the truth about the situation in Pakistan &mdash a failed state by every definition of the term &mdash and its role in international terrorism is finally beginning to emerge. Muslims who do not support terrorism really need to speak out, as the IM is actively seeking to recruit "jihadis" for its covert operations in India. Despite the occasional shameful bouts of communal violence, many and varied religions have coexisted in peace for milennia in India. Don't let the death throes of the failed Pakistani state destroy India which has given shelter to so many different groups for so long.

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World: Pakistan - The Beginning Of The End

Raw Story reports that "Islamic militants" overran Sararogha Fort in Pakistan, close to the Afghanistan border, killing seven soldiers. The military claims that, of troops in the fort, 20 are missing, while 15 managed to escape to another military outpost some 22 miles away.

Of course, the Pakistani military is famous for its assertions of success in the face of defeat. The veracity of the military and governmental spokesweasels is such that anyone betting money on them will be lucky to come home in a barrel, sans shoes, at that. The "Islamic militants," for example, could be resurgent Taliban. They could equally well be Balochs or Pathans in revolt against the hideous oppression that's been meted out to them for some three or four decades. Oppression that has intensified recently, as witnessed by clashes in Balochistan.

In a poignant quote, the reporter states about the military spokesweasel's announcements:

It was not immediately possible to verify the army's claim that 50 attackers died in the assault; in the past the rebels have given much lower figures for their own casualties.

With the recent expulsion of an American journalist, it appears other writers must be more circumspect than to outright call the various apparatchiki liars, as such.

Now Musharraf's spokesweasels announce that he is leaving soon on a trip:

... Pakistan's Foreign Ministry announced Musharraf will travel next week to Belgium, France, Switzerland and Britain to meet with European leaders and attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Meanwhile religious extremist and corrupt tinpot Nawaz Sharif waits in the wings. Sharif's primary claim to fame is that he made Pakistan a nuclear power. That should be real reassuring to the idiots in the West who schemed and plotted and pushed Benazir Bhutto into returning to Pakistan so she could be assassinated, even as they propped up their good friend and "gentleman" Pervez Musharraf to the tune of billions of dollars.

A pertinent quote about Sharif's relationship with Musharraf:

There was personal bad blood between General Musharraf and Mr Sharif, added Hussain. The President was angered that Mr Sharif once refused to allow his plane with 200 other passengers on board to land, until it was forced to make an emergency landing with five minutes of fuel left: while Mr Sharif resented General Musharraf for ousting him from power and throwing him into jail.

Will Musharraf suffer the same fate as other unpopular heads of state who have been deposed in absentia?

Pakistan's fractured condition is the definitive pronouncement on Bush's failures in foreign policy.

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Iraq: Bonus Update On Afghanistan

Because we're winning so winningly. In the winningest way. So winningly, in fact, that the poor exhausted soldiers - yes, those very troops whom we support by buying made-in-China yellow ribbon magnets for our SUVs while they lose their brains, bodies, minds, souls, and lives to keep those SUVs supplied with gasoline - are deserting! Those lousy cowards! How dare they refuse to sacrifice for us? How dare they force the Young Republicans on fine college campuses and golf courses everywhere to face the dreaded possibility of a (shudder) draft?

What's the matter with them? Have they stopped listening to Their Masters' Voice? Apparently. At least, Raw Story tells us that the number of soldiers deserting this year marks an 80 per cent increase over 2003. You think these guys might be tired or something? Too many deployments and stop-loss orders? Nah! They're children of the working class. They're used to working. Unlike the rich Republican youth, who've never had to soil their hands with work a day in their lives.

Besides, the Republikids are just following the excellent example of their duly appointed leaders. Didn't Shrubya's daddy get him a plum job in the TANG, so he'd never have to put his own butt on the line? Didn't Richard Bruce the Dork Lord have "more important priorities" than fighting a war meant for the "little people"? Didn't Mittens of Teh Sacred Underroos have God's work to do, instead of getting drafted?

The desertion rate is 42 per cent higher than it was last year.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.

Despite the continued increase in desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they get. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

Well, there you have it, boyz and girlz. That's one way to show your discontent. If enough of you desert or refuse to fight, you can stop the war. Instead of waiting for our political class, who don't have a single testicle or ovary among the lot of them. The Republicans will never cross Shrubya, who is holding on to the war with all four feet and teeth. And the Democrats don't have a veto-proof majority and are too fucking wimpy to rescue you from the quagmire.

If you want out of Iraq, lay down your arms and refuse to go. It's nothing short of horrifying that so many young people, American and Iraqi, are suffering unspeakably for the sake of cheap gasoline. Because, after all, as the AP points out, 2007 was the worst year in Iraq in terms of American casualties.

Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, things are going just swimmingly. Here, for example we show you 59 dead Afghani children, five of their teachers, six lawmakers and five of their bodyguards, the handiwork of some crazed suicide bomber. One hundred other children were wounded in the attack. The population will totally support a war effort that ends up killing them and their children in droves, yeah.

The article goes on to state:

The insurgency being waged by the Taliban and other extremist outfits has gained steam since it was launched in the months after the hardliners were driven from government in 2001 by a US-led force.

More than 5,500 people have been killed so far this year -- most of them rebels.

It does not define how one ascertains that the dead might be "rebels." Given the high number of civilian deaths, one wonders if anybody, the Afghan government included, has the first fucking clue.

Meanwhile, the WaPoo announces that Afghan's opium production last year was a record-breaker. Yay! More street drugs for the average American to get hooked on. [/end sarcasm and disgust.]

Proving once again that the WH has the capacity for humour, the article went on to say:

In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.

White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news "disappointing."

Well, of course they're producing record-busting quantities of opium. It's not like they have health care, education, peace, a working infrastructure, or jobs. Sheesh. The administration claims "a resurgent Taliban" is behind the increase in drug production. Given Shrubya's daddy's peeps' involvement in the drug trade in Nicaragua, one can't help but raise a questioning eyebrow.

Especially when one Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme allied commander for NATO, states that drug cartels with their own armies engage in regular combat with NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan,

"It would be wrong to say that this is just the Taliban. I think I need to set that record straight," he added.

In other news, MSNBC announced that 2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the invasion of that country in 2001.

Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster. More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Meanwhile, we're most decidedly winning in Turki, Reuters reports. The majority of Turks support an incursion into Kurdish territory in Iraq, and are dubious about joining the EU. They also view the U.S. as the chief threat to peace in the Middle-East.

And China just announced that they refuse to attend a meeting with the U.S. to discuss tougher sanctions on Iran. Given that we owe them the house, the car, and one and a half of the children, there's not much we can do about that, huh, Chimpidiot? Because you gave them the keys to the bank, fool, and now they just laugh when we bluster and howl.

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Iran supporting Al Qaeda?

On this morning’s The Morning Show (KPFA in Berkeley, CA), Phillip Maldari interviewed David Barsamian of Alternative Radio. They were talking about the ratcheting up of rhetoric about Iran ... the content of the rhetoric being how Iran is supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq and now the Taliban in Afghanistan. That this misinformation is supposed to pump up the U.S. citizenry and get them ready for some kind of attack on Iran by the U.S. However, Barsamian explains that Iran is 90% Shia and Al Qaeda and the Taliban regard them as heretics. Barsamian finds it incredible that these enemies would now be in cahoots.

Barsamian is on a book tour for, Targeting Iran, which examines the U.S.-Iran standoff. His co-authors are Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, Nahid Mozaffari.

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