July 26, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Much is being said of US activities aimed at China. Recent protests in Hong Kong together with a US-led propaganda campaign aimed at Beijing's attempts to quell a growing terrorist threat in Xinjiang are aimed at pressuring the nation to fall back into line within Washington's enduring unipolar international order.
The latter of these two campaigns in particular - claims of Chinese authoritarianism as Beijing attempts to neutralize US-backed separatists and terrorists in Xinjiang - has also been spun as China "targeting Muslims."
This ignores the fact that one of China's closest and oldest allies in Eurasia is Pakistan - a Muslim-majority nation. It also ignores the fact that in Pakistan, the US is playing the same game aimed at cultivating violent extremism, separatism, violence, division, and even the dissolution of Pakistan's current borders.
Balochistan - the other Xinjiang
While all the focus has been directed by the Western media on Xinjiang and a supposed "anti-Muslim crackdown" in the region, Pakistan faces the same problem in its southwestern province of Balochistan. In Pakistan - attempts by the government to root out violent separatists surely is not "anti-Muslim."
In Balochistan, the US agencies involved in fanning the flames of separatism and violence instead portray Islamabad and the Pakistani military's efforts to restore order as simply trampling "human rights."
US interference in Balochistan is just as extensive as it is in China's Xinjiang.
Despite the recent move by Washington to list the armed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a terrorist organization - Islamabad has long accused Washington of funding and arming it along with segments of the Indian government aligned with US interests.
US-based Stanford University's Mapping Militant Organizations project admits that the BLA receives much of its financial aid from the Balochi diaspora. The project's profile on the Balochistan Liberation Army notes:
Due to high community support for autonomy and independence from people of the Balochistan, many analysts suspect that a large amount of the BLA’s income and weapons supply come from donations from the Balochi people. Balochi leaders have also claimed that financial contributions from the Balochi diaspora make it possible to procure arms and ammunition through the black market.
Thus, even if the US is not directly arming and funding the BLA, it is openly supporting pro-separatists among the Balochi diaspora who even Stanford University experts admit are - in turn - funding the BLA's terrorism.
The US move to designate the BLA as a foreign terrorist organization holds little meaning. The BLA will find itself beside organizations like Jabhat Al Nusra in Syria which is all but openly funded and armed by the United States and a large cross-section of Washington's closest European and Arab allies.
Arming militants is only half of the overall strategy seeking to destabilize Pakistan. Subverting national institutions and replacing them with those interlocking with US special interests is the other half.
US NED Working Hard in - and Against - Pakistan
The US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its various subsidiaries are busy at work in Pakistan's Baluchistan province as well as China's Xinjiang.
"...the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan."
In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID "Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights" BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a "media-center" for the Baluchistan Assembly to "provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly." It can be assumed that BFID meant reporters are "trained" at NED-BFID workshops and at its USAID-funded center.
December 31, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - In recent months, American, Commonwealth and European media have taken aim at China. From fabricated stories of interment camps with "1 million" Uyghir Muslims being detained in them to a more recent New York Times article claiming to have "secret plans" revealing the military dimension of its One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR), the barrage has been heavy on innuendo and accusations but lacking concrete evidence.
Considering the scale of each accusation, it would be assumed a huge wealth of evidence existed to accompany them. After all, how would China hide a detention network detaining, torturing and executing a "million" people? Or develop complex defence systems with international partners in complete secret?
Yet these stories circulating the West's most prominent newspapers, television networks and online portals aren't simply lacking in a wealth of evidence, they lack any evidence at all.
NYT Cites "Secret Plans," Provides no Evidence They Exist
The New York Times in its article, "China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn," would claim China is pursing decidedly military objectives as part of its wider OBOR initiative. In the article's subtitle, it mentions a "secret plan to build new fighter jets."
The article itself claims:
Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware. The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times, would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarize after decades of playing catch-up. All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion chain of infrastructure development programs stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.
Yet, upon reading the entire article, no evidence, whatsoever, substantiates the claim that the OBOR initiative has taken a "military turn." There is also no evidence at all presented by the NYT that it has any sort of "secret plan" in its possession.
Repackaged Old News Conflated with OBOR = Smear
China and Pakistan have longstanding military ties. China and Pakistan also are working together on infrastructure projects as part of China's wider OBOR initiative. NYT categorically fails to explain why two separate spheres of cooperation have been conflated by the newspaper.
Instead, NYT begins listing possible scenarios in which OBOR projects couldbe used militarily in the future. For example it claims:
A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
This is clearly speculation on NYT's part, not drawn from "secret plans" the NYT reviewed, with the NYT not even attempting to claim otherwise.
Further into the article when Gwadar is mentioned again, it cites "military analysts," not a "confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times." These analysts, the NYT reports, merely claimed Gwadar couldbe used to expand China's naval footprint.
The NYT's conjecture continues, this time regarding navigation satellites:
A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft. The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.
The NYT intentionally adds the word "military" and includes "guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft" as examples for Beidou's use to depict this area of cooperation as sinister and militaristic. Yet even the average NYT reader must not only know satellite navigation has many significant civilian applications (food delivery, ordering taxis, road navigation, etc.) but they themselves probably use such applications on a daily basis.
Originally designed for the Chinese military to reduce reliance on the US-owned GPS, Beidou has turned into a commercial opportunity as its coverage has expanded.
Last month, local authorities ordered 33,500 - about half of all taxis - in Beijing to install Beidou, and the Chinese government has set a goal that all new cars will be Beidou-guided by 2020.
So while Beidou will certainly be used for military applications just as America's GPS is used militarily worldwide, it will also be used commercially, again, just as America's GPS is. The NYT attempts to pass off the straightforward and well-known dual-nature of satellite navigation as a secret military conspiracy pursued by Beijing.
Despite the article's title claiming OBOR takes a "military turn," the article itself ends up drifting off topic and mainly discussing the risk of debt associated with the extensive non-military projects China and Pakistan are cooperating together on.
November 26, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) put together a day-long seminar chastising the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Organised by Jonathan Bullock, a UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament (MEP), it gathered European critics of China's rise upon the global stage along with US and European-funded agitators active in undermining Chinese-Pakistani relations.
The CPEC is a keystone project amid Chinese-Pakistani ties and an integral part of Beijing's One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR). It includes energy and transportation projects developing and connecting Pakistan's Baluchistan province along the Arabian Sea with Chinese territory along Pakistan and China's border.
When completed, the projects will increase both Pakistan's prospects and China's influence not only in Pakistan, but across the wider region. Together with other OBOR projects, CPEC will be yet another step toward the rise of Eurasia out from under centuries of European domination.
For MEP Jonathan Bullock of UKIP, it is somewhat perplexing to see a politician supposedly concerned with British independence so eager to interfere in the sovereignty of Pakistan and China, thousands of kilometers from British or indeed, all of Europe's shores.
A high level panel consisting of Members European Parliament (MEPs), Scholars and Academicians spoke at the event and discussed the construction of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its interrelated legal, geo-strategic, economic and environmental issues, which directly impact the stability of South Asia.
Participants claimed that China would assume unwarranted influence over Pakistan over the course of the projects' construction. Concerns related to Pakistan's Kashmir region and Baluchistan were also brought up by representatives of separatist groups, many of which are funded by the US and Europe specifically to serve as vectors for Western influence in Pakistan and agents of destabilisation not only within Pakistan, but between Pakistan and its immediate neighbours (Afghanistan, India, Iran and China).
The EFSAS' statement would claim:
Mr. Fernando Burgés, Programme Manager at the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), provided his perspective on the negative repercussion stemming from the construction of the CPEC, which goes through the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, part of the erstwhile Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir over which Pakistan does not have any legal right.
The UNPO serves as collective representation for myriad separatist groups backed by Western special interests used to agitate around the globe.
They have included or currently include Chechen separatists seeking to carve off territory from Russia's south, Tibetan separatists backed for decades by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and various groups from Kashmir and Baluchistan. The latter are backed by the US State Department in their bid for independence and the effective end of Chinese access to the Arabian Sea via the recently built Gwadar Port.
It should be noted that Pakistan's claimed portion of the Kashmir region is its only direct access to the Chinese border in the north. Thus it is especially convenient that here, the UNPO has found yet another group to support which seeks independence and would effectively close Pakistan off from China in the north.
While the European Union's various MEPs complaining about the CPEC will hardly do anything to slow down its construction let alone stop it, even augmented with US and European funded and backed separatist groups attempting to complicate security on the ground, it is important to understand the persistent imperial chauvinism that still deeply infects many circles of political elite across the West.
It is also important to understand how it manifests itself politically through various but entirely disingenuous and cynically abused "human rights" causes. Likewise, it is important to see how it manifests itself on the ground where these interests seek to disrupt their geopolitical competitors instead of finding common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit.
Alternative circles of interests both in the US and Europe and elsewhere around the globe will seek common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit with China and its many Eurasian partners. They will ultimately find themselves in prime seats at the table of emerging multipolarism while the instigators and imperial chauvinists find themselves out in the cold.
Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
February 12, 2018 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The US recently included India in its shifting Asia Pacific policy, as part of its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (often referred to as the "Quad"). The Quad also includes Australia and Japan along with the United States itself.
The nascent alliance is openly arrayed against China, with member states openly declaring their intent to contribute toward containing Beijing's activities in the region and compete against Chinese efforts to establish greater ties with its immediate neighbors. This includes Japan and Australia pledging to more aggressively patrol the South and East China Seas.
For India's part, it seeks to become a greater power within the Indian Ocean. Additionally, New Delhi has increasingly postured its military against China against the backdrop of greater tensions along the Chinese-Indian border.
China appears to be pursuing its own strategy to break out of the Quad's containment policy, including measures to place India in check.
Beijing's Pakistan to Washington's India
Part of this strategy includes growing ties between Beijing and Islamabad. This includes a number of major joint infrastructure projects across Pakistan. Collectively known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the ambitious network of projects connects Gwadar port in Pakistan's Balochistan province on the Arabian Sea with the Pakistani-Chinese border near the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Railways and roads provide China with access to the Arabian Sea, eliminating the need to move certain goods past Singapore and through the Strait of Malacca.
CPEC also includes a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Nawabshah which will eventually enable gas imports from Iran.
August 27, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - For those who know from whence real power flows in America's political establishment, the uninterrupted continuation of America's 16 year war in Afghanistan came as no surprise.
For those voters who believed US President Donald Trump represented the public's desire to withdraw from multiple foreign wars and entanglements and place "America first," President Trump's announcement that not only would that not happen, but that these wars would be expanded, must have come as a surprise. However, perhaps it is the first in a long series of hard lessons for the American public to learn - that no matter who they vote for in Washington, it is clear agendas are decided upon and pressed from elsewhere. The Hill, in its article, "5 takeaways from Trump's Afghan speech," touched upon several points regarding President Trump's recent speech regarding Afghanistan, where the US currently has 8,400 troops deployed, and is poised to deploy thousands more. The Hill reported:
Trump is expected to send nearly 4,000 more troops, but he neither divulged a number nor said how long additional U.S. forces would spend in the country. "We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for future military activities,” Trump said. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans. . . I will not say when we will attack, but attack we will.”
This is in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which The Hill noted:
“Why are we continuing to train these Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back? Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home!” he wrote on Twitter in 2012.
The Hill also claims:
The United States has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan now. The forces are on a dual mission of training, advising and assisting Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban and conducting counterterrorism missions against groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
And indeed, that is precisely what policymakers, politicians, and military leaders have stated regarding the Afghan conflict for well over a decade and a half - spanning the presidencies of George Bush, Barack Obama, and now Trump. President Trump would claim that the goal was no longer withdrawal within a certain time frame, but would be dictated by conditions on the ground:
“A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin, or end, military options."
The "conditions" apparently require the US-backed client regime in Kabul "to take ownership of their future," despite claims that the US is not engaged in "nation building" countries in America's "own image." They are conditions that are - even at face value - contradictory and repetitive of promises made and broken by President Trump's predecessor, former President Obama.
Flirting With Further War in Pakistan President Trump - like Bush and Obama before him - also threatened neighboring Pakistan, accusing the nation of undermining its military presence in Afghanistan. President Trump would ultimately warn:
“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change, and that will change immediately,” Trump vowed. “It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order and to peace.”
In reality, the US never invaded Afghanistan nor remains there today to fight terrorism. The organizations that it is allegedly fighting are not funded or directed by Afghanistan, they are funded and directed by the United States' closest and oldest allies in the Middle East - including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Instead, the US is occupying Afghanistan for the same reason the British Empire invaded and occupied it multiple times - in a bid to expand hegemony over Central and South Asia.
Afghanistan conveniently borders Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and even China. A permanent US military presence in Afghanistan and control over the regime in Kabul, gives the US a springboard for direct and indirect geopolitical influence - including military operations - in all directions. Evidence indicates that exploiting this strategic foothold in this manner has already long-ago begun. The US has sought to pressure Iran and Pakistan for decades, with long-drawn plans regarding both nations.
July 1, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Two Chinese teachers based in Pakistan's southwest province of Baluchistan were reportedly abducted and murdered by militants from the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS).
In reality, the terror attack was very precise in terms of location and purpose, and fits into a larger pattern of violence and political instability that has plagued Pakistan's Baluchistan province and China's ambitions there for years.
US Using Proxies to Disrupt China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
Baluchistan, and more specifically, the port city of Gwadar, serve as the central nexus of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It is a complex and expanding system of rail, roads, ports, and other infrastructure projects built jointly with the Pakistani government to facilitate regional economic growth - and an integral component of the much larger One Belt, One Road initiative.
The report states explicitly in regards to a possible "hard approach" toward Beijing that:
There are no guarantees that China will respond favorably to any U.S. strategy, and prudence may suggest to “prepare for the worst” and that it is “better to be safe than sorry.” Is it perhaps better to take a hard line towards China and contain it while it is still relatively weak? Is now the time to keep China down before she can make a bid for regional hegemony? Foreign policy realists, citing history and political theory, argue that inevitably China will challenge American primacy and that it is a question of “when” and not “if” the U.S.-China relationship will become adversarial or worse.
What better way to contain China's regional ambitions than to mire economic development in places like Baluchistan with armed militancy, or obstruct it altogether with a US-backed independence movement in the province?
US policymakers have noted just that. In a 2012 paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled, "Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism" (PDF), it would be stated unequivocally that (emphasis added):
If Baluchistan were to become independent, would Pakistan be able to withstand another dismemberment—thirty-four years have passed since the secession of Bangladesh—and what effect would that have on regional stability? Pakistan would lose a major part of its natural resources and would become more dependent on the Middle East for its energy supplies. Although Baluchistan’s resources are currently underexploited and benefit only the non-Baluch provinces, especially Punjab, these resources could undoubtedly contribute to the development of an independent Baluchistan.
Baluchistan’s independence would also dash Islamabad’s hopes for the Gwadar port and other related projects. Any chance that Pakistan would become more attractive to the rest of the world would be lost.
Not only would it be Pakistan's loss regarding the Gwadar port, it would be China's loss as well.
December 16, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) Taliban militants stormed an army public school in the northern city of Peshawar, killing over 100, including many young students. It is believed up to 10 militants took part in the attack, dressed as soldiers to first infiltrate the school's grounds before beginning the attack. While the details of the attack are forthcoming, the background of the Taliban and the persistent threat it represents is well established, though often spun across the Western media. Who Put the Taliban into Power? Who is Funding them Now? In the 1980's the United States, Saudi Arabia, and elements within the then Pakistani government funneled millions of dollars, weapons, equipment, and even foreign fighters into Afghanistan in a bid to oust Soviet occupiers. Representatives of this armed proxy front would even visit the White House, meeting President Ronald Reagan personally. The "Mujaheddin" would successfully expel the Soviet Union and among the many armed groups propped up by the West and its allies, the Taliban would establish primacy over Kabul. While Western media would have the general public believe the US rejected the Taliban, never intending them to come to power, it should be noted that the Afghans who visited Reagan in the 1980's would not be the last to visit the US and cut deals with powerful American corporate-financier interests. In 1997, Taliban representatives would find themselves in Texas, discussing a possible oil pipeline with energy company Unocal (now merged with Chevron). The BBC would report in a 1997 article titled, "Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline," that:
A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.
A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.
Image: Unocal, now merged with Chevron, had attempted to build a pipeline across Afghanistan in cooperation with the Taliban and with the expressed backing of the US government - then operating under the Clinton administration.
However, it was already claimed by the US that the Taliban had been "harboring" Osama Bin Laden since 1996, and had branded the Taliban's human rights record as "despicable." The Telegraph in an artile titled, "Oil barons court Taliban in Texas," would report (emphasis added):
The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
It is clear that to the West, as they were during the proxy war against the Soviets, and during attempts to forge an oil pipeline across Afghan territory, the Taliban remain a tool, not an ally - to be used and abused whenever and however necessary to advance Wall Street and Washington's agenda - a self-serving Machiavellian agenda clearly devoid of principles.
This can be seen in play, even now as the Taliban serve as a proxy force to torment the West's political enemies in Pakistan with and serve as a perpetual justification for military intervention in neighboring Afghanistan.
October 15, 2014 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - It would seem only natural that the presumed arbiters of the world would see their greetings and congratulations as the natural pinnacle of success for any they deem a global hero. And such is the case of now Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai who has been given an audience with US President Barack Obama (also a Nobel Peace Prize recipient) to be congratulated on for having "inspired people around the world with her determined efforts for girls' right to education."
Malala Yousafzai was thrust into headlines when she was attacked and nearly killed in 2012 by Taliban militants in an attempt to stop her advocacy of greater access to education for children, and young girls in particular.
But even as US President Barack Obama offered his empty words of congratulations to the young activist, the United States military and its intelligence agencies were busy along the Afghan-Pakistani border killing "suspected militants" alongside scores of innocent civilians, men, women and children just like Malala Yousafzai herself. In headlines the very same day as President Obama's meeting with Malala Yousafzai it would be reported that 2 more would be killed in a "suspected US done attack."
Killing Civilians in a War Against Militants of America's Own Creation
Admitted by prominent Washington think tank Brookings Institution, it is estimated that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also die in US drone attacks. This is amid a conflict with militants that had once fought Washington's proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's, a proxy war that saw socioeconomic progress made under Soviet patronage rolled back, including access to education for young girls and women. Such progress was rolled back and replaced by the oppressive, medieval ideology of the fighters the US eventually propelled to victory and power.
So while the US continues the mass murder of Afghan and Pakistani civilians allegedly fighting the very militants it helped thrust into power in the 1980's, the US is "congratulating" Malala Yousafzai for nearly being killed amid danger the West's own media networks knowingly and intentionally put her in to sell news stories.
What if the United States has been waging the wrong war against the wrong enemy for the last 13 years in Afghanistan?
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall, who spent more than a decade covering Afghanistan since 2001, concludes just that in her new book, “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014.”
Gall told “On the Radar” that Pakistan – not Afghanistan – has been the United States’ real enemy.
And while Gall’s “book” might be easily dismissed as irrelevant warmongering, it echoes a narrative that was crafted by some of the most notorious policy makers in the US and promoted widely in 2011 across the Western media. This included the BBC’s documentary, “Secret Pakistan,” from which it appears Gall is deriving her premise.
Unraveling the Propaganda
The documentary “Secret Pakistan” can be summed up with two very telling quotes. The first is from Sherard Cowper-Coles, a British diplomat who served as the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009-2010, before that as ambassador to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and now the international business development director of British defense contractor BAE Systems. He claims during the BBC documentary that (44:00):
“…the real military threat is the Taliban – a serious insurgency that’s got nothing to do with Bin Laden. Bin Laden, in operational terms, is utterly spectacularly irrelevant.”
Quite clearly this contradicts the “war on terror” narrative peddled to Western audiences for over a decade and instead suggests that current US, British and NATO operation in Afghanistan has more to do with Western interests in the region than fighting the alleged perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attack on Washington and New York City.
The next important quote comes toward the end of the documentary where former CIA officer and current fellow at the corporate-funded think-tank, Brookings Institution, Bruce Riedel (57:35) claims:
“…there is probably no worst nightmare for America, for Europe, for the world in the 21st century than a Pakistan that is out of control, under the influence of extremist Islamist forces armed with nuclear weapons.”
This comment, however, is not as straight forward or as truthful as Cowper-Coles’. However, if one realizes that this destabilization Riedel is hinting at is actually the work of the US and NATO done as a pretext to intervene more directly in Pakistan, then it becomes truly telling – and we see the BBC documentary, along with Gall’s recent book, as yet more examples of a corporate-media conjured casus belli.
Baluchistan, Pakistan - long target of Western geopolitical interests, terror wave coincides with Gwadar Port handover to China.
February 18, 2013 (LD) - Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people. According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a "Sunni extremist group," it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran's Islamic Revolution in the 1980's, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran's influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.
The US-Saudi Global Terror Network
While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including Al Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond.
The current unrest in Balochistan centers around
forced disappearances, kidnappings, targeted killings, assassinations
and terrorism. However, these are merely the tactics of a much broader,
more geopolitically complex war in which the United States and its
Western allies are engaged. Though seemingly insignificant against the
backdrop of all the regional and international crises affecting our
world, Balochistan is, in fact, a nexus: the point at which
diametrically opposing strategic interests converge.
The United States views Balochistan, an area that
encompasses western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and a piece of southern
Afghanistan, as critical to the maintenance of US hegemony in the Middle
East and Central and South Asia. Conversely, China regards the region
as necessary for its own economic and political evolution into a world
superpower. Seen in this way, Balochistan becomes central to the
development of geopolitical power in the 21st Century.
Location, Location, Location
Balochistan is located in one of the most
geographically and politically significant places anywhere in the
world. Not only does the region sit astride three countries which have
become central to Western political and military power projection, it is
also central to the development and export of energy from Central Asia,
access to the Indian Ocean, and a host of other geopolitical
imperatives for both the West and the SCO/BRICS countries. Because of
this, the region has grown exponentially in importance to all the major
powers of the world.
Though the land seems, on the surface, to be inhospitable, it also holds great wealth just beneath the soil.
Aside from what is believed to be a large quantity of natural gas
and/or oil, the earth under the feet of the Baloch people holds vast
quantities of minerals necessary for economic development. Because of
this, the conflict raging in the region takes on the added dimension of
being a resource war, on top of a geographical and political one.
Balochistan’s location has another crucial element
that makes it geopolitically necessary: it sits at the crossroads of the
most important trade routes between West and East. Although, in the
public mind, trade crossroads seem to be a thing of the past (one might
imagine the Silk Road being traveled by camel), in fact, they are
essential to development. Land-based trade, something the Chinese
understand to be a linchpin of their economic and political evolution
into a superpower, is impossible without a stable and dependable
Balochistan, and this is precisely what the United States and the West
seeks to prevent.
This focus on land-based access to trade should
always be seen in the context of energy. China’s insatiable thirst for
oil and gas makes the development of pipelines from Central Asia, Iran,
and elsewhere invaluable to them. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline,
and other projects all serve to increase the importance of Balochistan
in the eyes of the Chinese. Additionally, the Chinese-funded, Pakistani
Gwadar Port is the access point for Chinese commercial shipping to the
Indian Ocean and on to Africa. With all of this as a backdrop, one can
begin to see just why Balochistan is so significant to the Chinese and,
conversely, why the United States and its Western puppets seek to
destabilize it.
Western Subversion and Destabilization
The Western imperialist powers have an obvious
interest in preventing a stable Balochistan from emerging. Not only is
the region essential to the Chinese, it is also a major part of the
covert war being waged against both Iran and Pakistan. Terrorist groups
with direct and indirect links to Western intelligence agencies operate
with impunity in Balochistan, a vast area that is nearly impossible to
police. The Pakistani government is not oblivious to the fact that foreign intelligence agencies are behind much of the violence in Balochistan, a fact that was even stated publicly by former President Musharraf.
In fact, Islamabad, though they cannot state it publicly, is aware
that its survival rests on the ability to quell the unrest in
Balochistan, which in turn means they must effectively combat the
foreign-controlled separatism.
In an article published by the Qatari
English-language newspaper The Peninsula, the author cited credible
sources as saying that “the CIA is indulging in heavy recruitment of local people as agents (each being paid $500 a month)”. Additionally we know that the CIA, under the leadership of Gen. Petraeus, has been using Afghan refugees to destabilize Balochistan.
The significance of these revelations should not be understated. The
fact that the CIA is recruiting agents and informants throughout
Balochistan indicates that the US strategy of subversion is
multi-faceted. On the one hand, a network of agents allows for
intelligence and information manipulation while, on the other hand, the
United States engages in terrorism through a variety of terrorist groups
it controls or manipulates either directly or indirectly. As was
reported in Foreign Policy magazine, the CIA and Mossad compete to control Jundallah,
an important fact because it shows the way in which the Western
imperialists use Balochistan, the base of Jundallah, to wage covert war
on Iran, including the assassination of scientists, terrorist bombings
aimed at critical infrastructure, and targeted killings of ethnic
minorities.
Aside from Jundallah, the CIA and its counterparts
(MI6, Mossad, and India’s RAW) are actively engaged in the handling and
manipulation of a variety of other terror groups operating in
Balochistan. The Baloch Liberation Army, headed by Brahamdagh Bugti and
others, has long-standing ties with British MI6 going all the way back
to the early days of Pakistan’s independence. This group is responsible
for countless terrorist actions
in the region, all of which have been aimed at innocent civilians.
This, and other groups like it, illustrates the way in which the United
States and its allies use the weapon of terrorism to create chaos for
the purpose of destabilizing Balochistan, thereby preventing economic
development both for the Balochi people and, by extension, China.
Photo:
In the 1980's US Congressman Rohrbacher (right) would actually travel to Afghanistan
and "fight" alongside the Mujaheddin. It is also reported that he met
Bin Laden and his foreign fighters - making him, like many others
leading the fraudulent "War on Terror,"
quite the hypocrite. The US use of proxy forces to ravage parts of the
world is confirmed, and Rohrbacher's direct role in such ploys is now in Pakistan is
also confirmed. US State Department-funded propaganda front Radio Free
Europe in their article titled, "U.S. Lawmaker Questions Approaches To Pakistan, Afghanistan," memorializes Rohrbacher's role in the US-Soviet proxy war.
....
Political Sabotage
The tactics of subversion are not limited to
terrorism and espionage in Balochistan. One of the most critical
dimensions of this issue is the use of political destabilization through
the US Congress. Lawmakers such as Representative Dana Rohrbacher
(R-CA), who himself has led the anti-Pakistan charge, have argued vigorously for the “right of self-determination of the people of Balochistan”.
Of course, what he means by this is that he, and others who have a
vested interest in the issue, support separatism and the destruction of
modern Pakistan. In so doing, Rohrbacher and other members of the
Congress act, as they always do, as apologists and facilitators of the
US imperial strategy of dividing nations in order to control them.
Rohrbacher, who himself has long-standing ties to Al-Qaeda (former
mujahideen) fighters, is a vociferous proponent of a fiercely
anti-Pakistan agenda, one which treats that nation as a threat to the
United States. Naturally, the only threat Pakistan truly poses is that,
in the course of the development of China, Pakistan has chosen to be on
the side of economic development, rather than allow itself to be
perpetually subjugated to the will of the United States.
The resolution introduced by Rohrbacher, who is the
chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, called for the US to support Baloch separatism and end
relations with the democratically elected government in Islamabad. He
has repeatedly issued threats and other provocations which have been
correctly interpreted by the Pakistani government as meddling in their
internal affairs. The goal of these resolutions and provocations has
been to make the case, both politically and in the court of public
opinion, that Pakistan is a terrorist state which, because of the
twisted logic of the American people, means that the US should be able
to do whatever it wants to them.
The goals of the Western imperialists vis-à-vis
Balochistan have been, and remain, very simple: destabilize the region
in order to block the Chinese from using it to assert their regional
dominance and continue on the path to economic development. Using the
same, tired tactics of terrorism and political subversion, they hope to
achieve these aims. However, unlike the case of the British imperialist
ruling class of a century ago, the United States must contend with a
Pakistan that maintains a strong current of nationalism, one that
rejects the hegemony of the United States in the region, and one that
has friends internationally. Unfortunately for the Baloch people, the
US ruling class has learned nothing from history and continues to use
them as pawns against their perceived enemy in Beijing. Without a
strong, nationalist government in Islamabad, one that is willing to do
more than just protest US actions, there will be no peace in
Balochistan. Instead, the situation will only deteriorate as the US
elites continue their drive for dominance in the 21st Century, whatever the human and financial cost may be.
....
Eric Draister is an independent geopolitical analyst that maintains StopImperialism.com
which hosts his weekly podcast. He has been a guest on Dr. Webster
Tarpley's World Crisis Radio and has provided analysis on Russia Today.
As Pakistan reasserts national-sovereignty, the US responds with arming & backing Baluchi terrorists. by Tony Cartalucci
April 13, 2012 - Carving up Pakistan by fomenting separatist movements along Pakistan's western border has been on the US geopolitical drawing board for years. As reported in December 2011's, "The Coming War With Pakistan:"
"In a 2006 report by the corporate-financier funded think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace titled, “Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism,” violence starting as early as 2004-2005 is described. According to the report, 20% of Pakistan’s mineral and energy resources reside in the sparsely populated province. On page 4 of the report, the prospect of using the Baluchi rebels against both Islamabad and Tehran is proposed. In Seymour Hersh’s 2008 article, “Preparing the Battlefield,” US support of Baluchi groups operating against Tehran is reported as already a reality. As already mentioned, in Brookings Institution’s “Which Path to Persia?” the subject of arming and sending Baluchi insurgents against Tehran is also discussed at great depth.
The 2006 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report makes special note of the fact that above all, the Baluchistan province serves as a transit zone for a potential Iranian-India-Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline as well as a port, Gwadar, that serves as a logistical hub for Afghanistan, Central Asia’s landlocked nations as well as a port for the Chinese. The report notes that the port was primarily constructed with Chinese capital and labor with the intention of it serving as a Chinese naval station “to protect Beijing’s oil supply from the Middle East and to counter the US presence in Central Asia.” This point in particular, regarding China, was described in extricating detail in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute’s report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report means to co-opt and contain China’s influence throughout the region are discussed.
The Carnegie Endowment report goes on to describe how the Baluchi rebels have fortuitously begun attacking the development of their province over concerns of “marginalization” and “dispossession.” In particular attacks were launched against the Pakistani military and Chinese facilities. The question of foreign intervention is brought up in this 2006 report, based on accusations by the Pakistani government that the rebels are armed with overly sophisticated weaponry. India, Iran, and the United States are accused as potential culprits.
The report concludes that virtually none of Pakistan’s neighbors would benefit from the insurgency and that the insurgency itself has no possibility of succeeding without “foreign support.” The conflict is described as a potential weapon that could be used against Pakistan and that it is “ultimately Islamabad that must decide whether Baluchistan will become its Achilles’ heel.” This somewhat cryptic conclusion, in the light of recent reports and developments can be deciphered as a veiled threat now being openly played."
Quite obviously, tensions between the US and Pakistan have only further deteriorated, with the West playing victim accusing Pakistan of "double dealing" them during America's decade-long occupation of neighboring Afghanistan and frequent cross-border murder-sprees in Pakistani territory. Pakistan has more recently passed a resolution calling for the cessation of all US drone attacks on Pakistani soil. Additionally, as noted by geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser of Stop Imperialism, Pakistan has also prepared provisions to ban foreign bases on Pakistani soil and stem US covert terrorist activities inside Pakistan operating under the guise of "security contractors."
US Prepares Armed Uprising
The US had frequently answered the reassertion of Pakistani national sovereignty with random drone attacks on civilian populations, but seems now to be shifting into gear for a full-blown destabilization of Pakistan's Baluchistan province. Violence has notably increased in tandem with calls from Western politicians to support the "Free Baluchistan" movement and the establishment of an independent "Baluchistan" carved out of sovereign Pakistani territory.
The most astounding of these most recent calls is US Representative Dana Rohrabacher's "Why I support Baluchistan" op-ed in the Washington Post. Rohrabacher cites the US State Department and Amnesty International - which in reality are one in the same - while accusing the Pakistani government of "violations of human rights." He then, point-for-point, repeats the above mentioned corporate-financier funded US think-tanks regarding Baluchistan's rich natural resources and the strategic location the province's Gwadar seaport serves for the Chinese before admitting that Baluchistan's brief period of autonomy resulted from the British Empire and the Persians carving it up as a buffer state.
Photo: In the 1980's Rohrbacher (right) would actually travel to Afghanistan and "fight" alongside the Mujaheddin. It is also reported that he met Bin Laden and his foreign fighters - making him, like many others leading the fraudulent "War on Terror," quite the hypocrite. The US use of proxy forces to ravage parts of the world is confirmed, and Rohrbacher's direct role in such ploys is now also confirmed. US State Department-funded propaganda front Radio Free Europe in their article titled, "U.S. Lawmaker Questions Approaches To Pakistan, Afghanistan," memorializes Rohrbacher's role in the US-Soviet proxy war.
....
Rohrabacher entirely reveals his hand and the disingenuous concern he hamfistedly feigns in regards to the Baluchi plight when he cites a laundry list of grievances the US has with the Pakistani government and concludes by holding the threat of developing "a closer friendship with India and, perhaps, Baluchistan" over the head of Islamabad. Clearly, just as the British did before them, the US fully plans on carving out a Baluchistan buffer-state to balk Pakistani-Chinese relations, destabilize Pakistan itself, and provide more pressure on Iran's eastern border.
Video: A proposed Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipeline which would travel through Pakistan's Baluchistan province, would essentially render moot US sanctions on Iran and provide Central, Southwest, and East Asia with Iranian oil. There is now talk of Russia helping to implement the planned project - a project the West is apparently willing to start a war and "Balkanize" Pakistan over to prevent.
....
One point Rohrabacher fails to mention is the planned Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipleline which would in effect render moot all US sanctions and whose proposed path just so happens to pass through Baluchistan province. Such a pipeline would also converge with a planned logistical network being built by the Chinese from the province's Gwadar port in the south all the way to the Chinese-Pakistani border in the north.
Image: Gwadar in the southwest serves as a Chinese port and the starting point for a logistical corridor through Pakistan and into Chinese territory. The Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipeline would enter from the west, cross through Baluchistan intersecting China's proposed logistical route to the northern border, and continue on to India. Destabilizing Baluchistan would effectively derail the geopolitical aspirations of four nations.
....
Just like the US used fighters in the 1980's in Afghanistan to fight a proxy war against the Soviets, the US is now planing to use Baluchi terrorists to wage war against both Pakistan and Iran. Rohrabacher is just the latest peddler of a geopolitical ploy long since predetermined, and echos verbatim of calls by Selig Harrison of the Soros-funded Center for International Policy, in editorials like “Free Baluchistan,” and “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.”
US Already Subverting Pakistani Governance in Baluchistan
As in all neo-imperial 4th generation warfare scenarios, arming militants is only half of the overall strategy for defeating targeted nation-states. Subverting national institutions and replacing them with those interlocking with the neo-imperial unipolar order is the other half. The usual suspects, the US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its various subsidiaries, found all across the theater of 4th generation global warfare, are busy at work in Pakistan's Baluchistan province as well.
Images: In addition to the annual Fortune 500-funded “Balochistan International Conference,” the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy has been busy at work building up Baluchistan's "civil society" network. This includes support for the "Balochistan Institute For Development," which maintains a "BIFD Leadership Academy," claiming to "mobilize, train and encourage youth to play its effective role in promotion of democracy development and rule of law." The goal is to subvert Pakistani governance while simultaneously creating a homogeneous "civil society" that interlocks with the West's "international institutions." This is how modern empire perpetuates itself.
....
NED has been directly funding and supporting the work of the "Balochistan Institute for Development" (BIFD) which claims to be "the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan." In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID "Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights" BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a "media-center" for the Baluchistan Assembly to "provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly." We must assume BFID meant reporters "trained" at NED-BFID workshops.
Image: A screenshot of "Voice of Balochistan's" special US State Department message. While VOB fails to disclose its funding, it is a sure bet it, like other US-funded propaganda fronts, is nothing more than a US State Department outlet. (click image to enlarge)
Image: Far from parody, this is the header taken from the "Baloch Society of North America" website.
....
Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the "Free Baluchistan" movement are the US and London-based organizations. The "Baloch Society of North America" almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The group's founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad.
Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province "occupied" by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments - he and his movement's humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.
Should an escalation in violence spiral out of control and the US commit to the complete destabilization of Pakistan, it is a good bet Dr. Wahid Baloch's face will be omnipresent on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and the likes giving his "expert" opinion on humanitarian violations inside of Pakistan and the need for NATO to intervene. He may even be nominated by his US handlers as "President of Baluchistan" just as long-time US resident and BP, Shell, Total-funded Petroleum Institute chairman Abdurrahim el-Keib was in Libya.
Video: Featured on "Baloch Society of North America's" website, Rohrbacher again openly admits that only now that the US needs a point of leverage against the Pakistanis has the "plight" of the Baluchi people become an issue - an issue that will be used to serve US geopolitical objectives throughout Central and Southwest Asia. Rohrbacher repeatedly states that the Pakistanis were "friends" of the US but are now "enemies." The same could be said of the Afghan resistance he accompanied for 2 months in the 1980's who are now being occupied and killed in droves by the US. The Baluchi opposition might take note of how quickly the US goes through its "friends."
....
There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include "information secretaries" that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West's operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered "Arab Spring."
Image: A screenshot of a "Baloch Human rights activist and information secretary of BSO Azad London zone" Twitter account. This user, in tandem with look-alike accounts has been propagating anti-Pakistani, pro-"Free Baluchistan" propaganda incessantly. They also engage in coordinated attacks with prepared rhetoric against anyone revealing US ties to Baluchistan terrorist organizations.
....
Geopolitical Implications
While Pakistan lies buried in the news and obfuscated with complexity regarding a myriad of tribes, difficult to pronounce names, confusing geography, and a culture many Westerners do not understand or appreciate, it also lies at the crossroads of China, India, and Iran. It represents a convergence of conflict between East and West with potentially catastrophic implications and even the prospect for a nuclear exchange.
China and Pakistan are more than aware of the West's unfolding geopolitical gambit. China in no uncertain terms has declared that they and Pakistan will "stand with each other `in all circumstances' and vowed to uphold their sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs." China by now realizes that what can be done to its immediate neighbors will inevitably be done to China itself. The West's recent attack on Russia, meddling it its elections and attempting to trigger a color revolution within Moscow itself, reveals that Wall Street and London's momentum forward is meant to carry them all the way to the end - into both Beijing and Moscow.
The West will continue to whittle away at nation-states around the world by attacking and dismantling indigenous national institutions and replacing them with their homogeneous "civil society" model. They will continue enticing all interested parties to find a comfortable place amongst their global order, while producing unpleasant penalties for all who resist. Such penalties range from economic sanctions to armed militant groups fighting proxy wars on Wall Street and London's behalf.
What has developed, however, is a subtle but ever more apparent pattern of ultimate betrayal - meaning that many around the world are beginning to notice the West's "carrot" is just as bad as the "stick" and regardless of which one that is chosen, the result is the same. A paradigm shift must be made, one from competing parties seeking superiority over one another, to a paradigm of solidarity. And while organizations like BRICS appear to be moving in this direction, at least for the sake of self-preservation, a paradigm shift toward solidarity must begin at the grassroots.
Individuals must make the conscious decision to no longer pay into Fortune 500 corporations and banks, recognize the consolidation of power for what it is and begin seeking human empowerment not through gimmicks like "democracy" and "human rights" but through pragmatic solutions such as technical education, local industry and agriculture, collaborative research and development, and leveraging technology and our human ingenuity to improve our world through inventions and innovations instead of quotas, policies, and legislation.
