Amidst drone attacks & bombings, Pakistan threatens to strand US forces in Afghanistan
by Tony Cartalucci – Land Destroyer blog
After a double bombing in Pakistan’s north that resulted in over 80 deaths, the Western media was quick to report an unverified phone-call made from an “undisclosed location” to Reuters and AFP claiming the Taliban was responsible.
Reuters stated, “Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.” AFP reported similarly, “This was the first revenge for Osama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.” Both Reuthers and AFP never bother explaining who Ehsanullah Ehsan is or verifying their source. Far be it for the corporate-owned media to actually “inform” its audience.
The Mystery Bombing
Ehsanullah Ehsan, the man who supposedly claimed responsibility for the bombings, had been a former Taliban official and had long since left the organization to pursue more constructive efforts for his country’s future. Wikipedia noted this, but was changed overnight, claiming Ehsanullah was now a Taliban spokesman and could potentially take a more “active leadership role.” This all based entirely on a BBC article citing the Reuters “phone-call.”
Wikipedia before May 13, 2011:
Mullah Ehsanullah Ehsan is a former member of the Taliban leadership.[1] Originally, he was the chairman of the Taliban’s Central Bank. Later, Ehsan was the Taliban’s Administrator of Captured Provinces.[2]
Shortly after the Taliban took over major Afghan institutions in December 1996, Ehsan, acting as chair of the Central Bank, declared most Afghani notes in circulation to be worthless and cancelled the contract with the Russian firm that had been printing the currency. Ehsan accused the firm of sending new shipments of Afghani notes to ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani in northern Takhar province.
Ehsanullah’s name appears in the transcripts of several Guantanamo detainees.”
………..
Wikipedia after May 13, 2011:
“Mullah Ehsanullah Ehsan is a current Taliban spokesman[1] and former member of the Taliban leadership.[2] Originally, he was the chairman of the Taliban’s Central Bank. Later, Ehsan was the Taliban’s Administrator of Captured Provinces.[3]
With the recent death of Osama Bin Laden, Ehsanullah Ehasan may once again take a more active leadership role in the Taliban.
Shortly after the Taliban took over major Afghan institutions in December 1996, Ehsan, acting as chair of the Central Bank, declared most Afghani notes in circulation to be worthless and cancelled the contract with the Russian firm that had been printing the currency. Ehsan accused the firm of sending new shipments of Afghani notes to ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani in northern Takhar province.
Ehsanullah’s name appears in the transcripts of several Guantanamo detainees.”
Besides another tremendous torpedo to Wikipedia’s credibility, the poorly cited entry still doesn’t tell us who Ehsanullah is and where he came from. The only other “Ehsanullah” that can be found online is an Ehsanullah Ehsan who has spent his years after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 building schools and teaching. In a 2009 St. Peterburg Times article titled, “Taliban Gaining Unexpected Grounds in Afghanistan,” Ehsan is described as a “a government official in the Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs” who works tirelessly to bring communities together, bridge differences, and solve problems through carefully weighed, culturally sensitive pragmatism. The Toronto Star features an April 2011 piece written by an “Ehsanullah Ehsan” titled, “I can tell you that we are bleeding in our hearts,” in which the school teacher/principal laments that violence and hatred on both sides threaten to undo the work he and his people have done over the years to move his nation forward.
Perhaps Ehsanullah Ehsan is a common name. Perhaps all three are different men. Perhaps Reuters and AFP received a phone call from a nearby CIA station using an outdated Taliban Rolodex. When the media continuously and profoundly fails its duty to investigate, verify, and inform us, we are left to speculate, doubt, and ultimately question the legitimacy of such agencies. Land Destroyer for its part, is currently investigating this matter further.
We are not alone in our doubt. The Boston Globe reported, “Senior police officials said yesterday that a suicide attack that killed 82 cadets from a government paramilitary force was probably retaliation for an army offensive in Pakistan’s tribal areas and not for the death of Osama bin Laden, as the Pakistani Taliban claimed.” Considering that Osama bin Laden, by all accounts has been dead for years, this latest shoddy reporting by Reuters and AFP is most likely a vain attempt to reinforce an already unraveled, unsold lie.
It should be noted that similar unverified claims of responsibility by the “Taliban” have been made via phone calls from “undisclosed locations” including a shooting in New York that claimed 19 lives. Perhaps even more dubious were claims made on an “Islamist website” stating that the “Taliban” was behind the Times Square NYC terror scare. The London Telegraph even conceded in their report that, “it was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.” It would later turn out that the patsy involved was inspired by none other than Anwar al-Awlaki, the US born and educated Pentagon dinner guest/Al Qaeda mastermind, who was allegedly in contact with him before the attempted bombing.
Growing Tensions Reaching a Crescendo
In the wake of this most recent deadly bombing in Charsadda, Pakistan, continued US drone attacks, and the continuing fallout of the US raid into Pakistani territory, relations between Washington and Islamabad have become increasingly strained. Pakistan’s parliament, as of May 14, 2011 has threatened to cut off US access to transit facilities used to ferry troops, supplies, and equipment into Afghanistan if drone attacks weren’t immediately halted.
The cut off of supplies into Afghanistan via Pakistan would leave US troops operating in the region in a semi-Stalingrad style encirclement. Anticipating this very move, globalist co-conspirator Zalmay Khalilzad of the National Endowment for Democracy, and corporate CEO-lined Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated earlier this week that, “the United States should reduce its dependence on supply lines running through Pakistan to Afghanistan. We should expand alternative supply routes through Azerbaijan and other countries in Central Asia.” This of course was in the event that Pakistan did not cooperate fully in the face of America’s new-found political capital it presumes to have gained from the staged “Bin Laden” raid. It seems at this point, Pakistan is not cooperating and has very little reason to do otherwise.
Throughout Khalizad’s article featured in the New York Times titled, “Demanding Answers from Pakistan,” he depends entirely on the fantastical pretense that Pakistan was knowingly harboring “Osama bin Laden” within Abbottabad. Upon this false pretense, Kahlizad, the former US Ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UN under the Bush administration, states that, “with American influence now at its peak and our troops still at full strength in Afghanistan, we have the leverage to force Pakistan to reconsider.” With this leverage Khalizad expects Pakistan to comply fully with all US demands and failing to do so will open the door to “a longer-term agreement with Afghanistan to maintain a small, enduring military presence that would give us [the US] the capability to conduct counterterrorism operations and respond to possibilities like Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremists.”
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Dr. Webster Tarpley has been accurately analyzing US foreign policy for years. He is one of the few geopolitical analysts to decipher and report the US attempt to Balkanize Pakistan as a means to maintain regional and global military & economic hegemony. See more at Tarpley.net
Of course, Khalizad’s veiled threat is referring to fellow globalist Frederick Kagan’s destabilization and “nuke-napping” plan already being set into motion. With the Baluchi insurgency being systematically cultivated by the US in Pakistan’s southwest region, and the Pashtuns being agitated by continued Predator drone attacks in the northwest, Pakistan is faced with the choice to either cut off the US now while it still can, or actively participate in the further destabilization of its own country by aiding and abetting Washington in their imperialist designs. This destabilization is specifically designed to implement the Balkanization of Pakistan and the ruination of Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, and Chinese interests throughout the region. If Kagan’s plans were put into effect, it would also give the US a permanent military footing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Conclusion
What must be realized by all involved, from Pakistan’s neighbors to the Baluchis and Pashtuns within Pakistan, is that any alliance with America is an alliance sure to be betrayed, sure to lead to a divided and weakened Pakistan that will be exploited in full by the global corporate-financier elite engineering American foreign policy. Consider those joining men like Khalizad on the CSIS and NED boards are Carlyle Group members, defense contractors including Raytheon and Boeing, banking interests represented by Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley, and big oil interests represented by Hess, Exxon, and Chevron. These are the same megalomaniacal, warmongering, parasites that have bankrupted the West, morally, culturally, financially, economically, and industrially. They have every intention to duplicate their “success” throughout Asia if given the proper environment of apathy, ignorance, and complicity within which to flourish.
Nations like India must realize that while their grievances with Pakistan may seem important, the US is not helping India out of a sense of charitable solidarity, but as a means to use Indian troops and resources against Pakistan, possibly even against China, thus miring all three nations in unending conflict and effectively hobbling their collective development. At the end of the day, there is no seat at the table for Chinese, Pakistani or Indian elite. They will be divided, discarded, and domineered just as soon as their usefulness reaches an end. As plans to divide and dominate Pakistan become public knowledge, and with plans to do likewise in Iran, China, and throughout the Middle East already matters of fact, India must reevaluate its relationship with Pakistan, as Pakistan must do so with India, understanding that their rivalry serves as the perfect “strategy of tension” from which the forces of globalization will conquer both nations.
