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Ex-Pakistani PM Imran Khan jailed for three years

RT | August 5, 2023

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was issued with a three-year jail sentence by an Islamabad court on Saturday after he was found guilty on corruption charges. The verdict means that Khan, who claims the prosecution was politically motivated, will not be able to contest elections later this year.

In a pre-recorded statement released on X (formerly Twitter), Khan told his supporters: “I have only one appeal, don’t sit at home silently.”

Judge Humayun Dilawar declared in court that Khan, 70, had “deliberately submitted fake details” after he was accused of illegally profiting from the sale of gifts he received while serving as Pakistan’s head of state between 2018 and 2022. After issuing the three-year custodial term, the judge also ordered Khan to be banned from politics for a period of five years.

Following the verdict, Khan, who was not in court, was arrested at his home in Lahore and taken into police custody. The claims against the former prime minister are a case of “political victimization,” according to his lawyer Intezar Hussain Panjutha.

“Khan was not given an opportunity to defend himself and say his side of the story,” he said after the verdict. “We wanted to provide witnesses in his favor but he was not allowed this opportunity. Khan was not given a fair trial.”

Khan’s barrister, Gohar Khan, added in comments to The Dawn newspaper that the court’s verdict had been a “murder of justice.”

However, opponents of the former politician appeared to celebrate the court’s judgment outside the building, with some chanting: “Imran Khan is a thief.”

More than 150 cases have been brought against Khan, the former sports star turned populist political figure, since he was ousted from office last April following a no-confidence vote. He has denied all wrongdoing.

Barring a successful appeal, Khan’s conviction means he will be prohibited from standing in Pakistan’s general elections, which are expected to take place in October or November. Khan, who had unsuccessfully called for early elections to take place, has previously stated his belief that Pakistan’s military authorities have attempted to obstruct his Tehreek-e-Insaf party from regaining political power.

It’s the second time in recent months that Khan has been arrested. Around 100 paramilitary troops were involved in his detention last May in connection with one of the numerous cases against him. Khan has alleged that Pakistan’s military is responsible for attempts to subdue his political influence. He has also claimed that the United States has conspired with Pakistan’s government to prevent him from returning to political power.

August 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

How the Taliban crushed the CIA’s heroin bonanza in Afghanistan

The Taliban has not once, but twice eradicated Afghanistan’s poppy cultivation, the world’s largest source of heroin.

By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | July 7, 2023

In the aftermath of the chaotic US and UK withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir warned in the Washington Post of the dangers of “ignoring one important consequence of the Taliban takeover: the coming boom in Afghanistan’s narcotics trade.”

Mir then boldly predicted that, “in the next few years, a flood of drugs from Afghanistan may become a bigger threat than terrorism.”

This projection of an international drug trade boom seemed plausible, considering the longstanding accusations that the Taliban funded their two-decade insurgency against the occupying forces by controlling opium production. In fact, it was believed that 95 percent of heroin used in Britain originated from Afghan opium.

It comes as a surprise then, that a June 2023 report published by Alcis, a British-based geographic information services firm, revealed that the Taliban government had all but eliminated opium cultivation in the country, wiping out the base ingredient needed to produce heroin. This outcome mirrored a similar move by the Taliban in 2000 when they were in power the first time.

Ironically, instead of praising Kabul’s new leaders for quashing the source of illicit drugs, the international community responded to this development with criticism. Even the US Institute for Peace (USIP), which is funded by the US government, argued that “The Taliban’s successful opium ban is bad for Afghans and the world.”

Such western displeasure towards the Taliban’s efforts to dismantle the global heroin trade may seem perplexing at first glance.

However, a closer examination of events in Afghanistan reveals a different perspective. Under the guise of the “War on Terror,” the 2001 US and UK invasion was driven in part by the desire to restore the heroin trade, which the Taliban had abruptly terminated just a year earlier.

The western powers sought to reestablish the lucrative flow of billions of dollars that the heroin trade provided to their financial systems. In fact, “For 20 years, America essentially ran a narco-state in Afghanistan.”

‘Dollar for Dollar’

To understand the origins of the Afghan heroin trade, a review of US involvement in the central Asian nation is necessary, beginning in 1979 when the CIA embarked on a covert program to undermine the pro-Soviet Afghan government in Kabul.

The US covertly supported an umbrella of Muslim guerrilla fighters known as mujahideen, with the hope that provoking an insurgency would entice the Soviet Army to intervene. This calculated move would force the Soviets into occupying Afghanistan and engaging in a protracted and costly counter-insurgency campaign, thereby weakening the Soviet Union over time.

To accomplish this, the CIA turned to its close allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, for help. Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan facilitated a meeting between CIA Director William Casey and Saudi King Fahd, in which the Saudis committed to matching “America dollar for dollar supporting the mujahedeen.”

The US and Saudi Arabia, with help from Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), set up training camps for the mujahideen in Pakistan, and supplied them with advisors, weapons, and cash to fight the Soviets.

Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the founder of the Hizb-i-Islami militia, was among the most prominent mujahideen leaders, receiving some $600 million in aid from the CIA and its allies.

Journalist Steve Coll writes in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars that Hekymatyar recruited from the most radical, anti-western, transnational Islamist networks to fight with him, including Osama bin Laden and other Arab volunteers. CIA officers “embraced Hekmatyar as their most dependable and effective ally,” and “the most efficient at killing Soviets.”

Caravans of opium

Aid to Hekymatyar and other mujahideen leaders was not limited to cash and weapons. According to renowned historian Alfred McCoy:

“1979 and 1980, just as the CIA effort was beginning to ramp up, a network of heroin laboratories opened along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. That region soon became the world’s largest heroin producer.”

The process involved smuggling raw opium gum to Pakistan, where it was processed into heroin in laboratories run by the ISI. The finished product was then discreetly transported via Pakistani airports, ports, or overland routes.

By 1984, Afghan heroin supplied a staggering 60 percent of the US market and 80 percent of the European market, while devastatingly creating 1.3 million heroin addicts in Pakistan, a country previously untouched by the highly-addictive drug.

McCoy states further that, “caravans carrying CIA arms into that region for the resistance often returned to Pakistan loaded down with opium.” Reports from 2001 cited by the New York Times confirmed that this occurred “with the assent of Pakistani or American intelligence officers who supported the resistance.”

In May 1990, the Washington Post reported that the US government had for several years received, but declined to investigate, reports of heroin trafficking by its allies, including “firsthand accounts of heroin smuggling by commanders under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.”

Rise of the Taliban

When the Soviets did finally withdraw in 1989, the country fell into civil war as the major CIA-backed factions began fighting among themselves for control of the country. Mujahideen leaders became warlords and committed terrible atrocities against the local population while fighting amongst themselves.

It was during this anarchy that religious students from the madrassas (seminary schools), the Taliban, emerged with the help of Pakistani intelligence to take control of the country in 1996, subsequently inheriting the opium trade, which continued unhindered for several years.

In July 2000, however, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered a ban on all opium cultivation. Remarkably, the Taliban successfully slashed the opium harvest by 94 percent, reducing yearly production to only 185 metric tons.

Five months later, in December 2000, the US and Russia used the UN Security Council to impose harsh new sanctions on Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, in which 17 US sailors were killed. Bin Laden had taken refuge in the Islamic Emirate in 1996 after he was expelled from Sudan.

The New York Times reported that US officials sought to impose the new sanctions, despite warnings from the UN that “a million Afghans could face starvation in coming months because of a drought and continued civil war.”

Following the attacks on 11 September, 2001, Bush administration officials demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden once again. Mullah Omar insisted the US first provide evidence of Bin Laden’s guilt, but President Bush refused this request and ordered the US air force to begin bombing Afghanistan on 7 October.

In the wake of the bombing, Mullah Omar dropped the demand for evidence, and offered to hand over Bin Laden to US ally Pakistan for trial. Bush administration officials once again refused.

Journalist and author Scott Horton highlights in his book Fool’s Errand a peculiar aspect of the US campaign: the lack of a clear focus on capturing or eliminating Bin Laden. In fact, President Bush had already stated on 25 September that success or failure should not be defined solely by capturing Bin Laden.

Horton notes further that US planners made no initial effort to hunt down Bin Laden and the foreign Arab fighters supporting him. Instead, head of US Central Command, General Tommy Franks prioritized partnering with Afghan warlord Rashid Dostum to take control of the north of the country, and establish a “land link” to Uzbekistan.

Turning to the warlords

To also capture the capital, Kabul, and other key cities in the south, Alfred McCoy notes the CIA:

“Turned to a group of rising Pashtun warlords along the Pakistan border who had been active as drug smugglers in the south-eastern part of the country. As a result, when the Taliban collapsed, the groundwork had already been laid for the resumption of opium cultivation and the drug trade on a major scale.”

Though US forces were too late to prevent Bin Laden’s escape to Pakistan, the US bombing campaign came just in time for the beginning of poppy planting season. Poppies are planted in the autumn so that the juice from the plant, from which opium is extracted, can be harvested in spring.

McCoy clarified further that, “the Agency (CIA) and its local allies created ideal conditions for reversing the Taliban’s opium ban and reviving the drug traffic. Only weeks after the collapse of the Taliban, officials were reporting an outburst of poppy planting in the heroin-heartlands of Helmand and Nangarhar.”

In December, one of these rising Pashtun warlords, Hamid Karzai, was appointed Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration and later president.

By the spring of 2002, large amounts of Afghan heroin were once again being transported to Britain via daily flights from Pakistani airports. The Guardian observed the case of a 13-year-old girl who was stopped after she stepped off a Pakistan International Airlines flight from Islamabad to London carrying 13kgs of heroin with a street value of £910,000.

Industrial scale

Thanks to the “land link” established by General Franks, heroin also immediately began flowing north from Mazar-e-Sharif, under CIA ally Rashid Dostum’s control, to Uzbekistan and then to to Russia and Europe.

The flow of heroin was witnessed by Craig Murray, the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who explained that Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, facilitated the smuggling of heroin from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, where it was then shipped up the railway line, in bales of cotton, to Moscow and then Riga. As Murray noted:

“Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker… The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.”

‘A hands off approach’

In addition to Dostum, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, quickly secured a prominent role in the Afghan heroin trade.

Credible reports emerged that Wali Karzai was deeply involved in the heroin trade, however, according to the New York Times, the incidents were never investigated, “even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.”

Senior officials at the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) complained that the Bush “White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter.”

The Times later reported that according to a top former Afghan Interior Ministry official, a major source of Wali Karzai’s influence was his control over key bridges crossing the Helmand River on the route between the opium-growing regions of Helmand Province and Kandahar. This allowed Karzai to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges.

Like Dostum and Hekmaytar, Wali Karzai built his heroin empire while on the CIA payroll. The agency began paying Karzai in 2001 to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operated at the agency’s direction in and around Kandahar and to rent a large compound for use as the base of the Kandahar Strike Force. The CIA also appreciated Karzai’s help in communicating and sometimes meeting with Afghans loyal to the Taliban.

Karzai also served as the head of Kandahar’s elected provincial council. According to a senior US military officer in Kabul quoted by the Times, “Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it.”

The blame game 

In late 2004, as reports of Karzai’s involvement in the heroin trade were emerging, Alfred McCoy writes that “the White House was suddenly confronted with troubling CIA intelligence suggesting that the escalating drug trade was fueling a revival of the Taliban.”

A proposal from Secretary of State Colin Powell to fight the heroin trade was resisted by US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and then-Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani. As a compromise, the Bush administration used private contractors for poppy eradication, an effort that New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall later described as “something of a joke.”

Additionally, reports of a 2005 cable sent by the US embassy in Kabul to Powell’s successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, viewed Britain as being “substantially responsible” for the failure to eradicate poppy cultivation. British personnel chose where the eradication teams worked, but those areas were often not the main growing areas, and “the British had been unwilling to revise targets.”

The cable also faulted President Karzai, who “has been unwilling to assert strong leadership.” The State Department nevertheless defended him, saying, “President Karzai is a strong partner, and we have confidence in him,” despite reports of his brother’s key role in the heroin trade.

But the problem went beyond Wali Karzai. A UN report for the World Bank published in February 2006 concluded the Afghan heroin trade was operating with the assistance of many top Afghan government officials and under the protection of the Afghan Ministry of Interior.

As evidence of CIA and Afghan government involvement in the heroin trade grew, the focus of the western media shifted towards blaming the Taliban for using drug profits to fund their insurgency against foreign forces.

However, historian Peter Dale Scott challenged this narrative, citing UN estimates that the Taliban’s share of the Afghan opium economy was a fraction compared to that of supporters of the Karzai government. Scott emphasized that the largest share of the drug trade was controlled by those aligned with the Afghan government.

The surge

In early 2010, the Obama administration announced a “surge” of 33,000 US troops to help pacify the country, with a particular focus on key districts known for poppy cultivation. One such district was Marja in Helmand province, which McCoy referred to as “the world’s heroin capital.”

Despite the surge’s mission, US commanders seemed unaware of Marja’s significance as a hub for heroin production, fueled by the surrounding opium fields that accounted for 40 percent of the world’s illicit opium supply.

In September 2010, eight months after the start of the surge, “unsubstantiated” reports emerged that British soldiers were involved in trafficking heroin out of Afghanistan using military aircraft at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar.

Camp Bastion, jointly operated by the UK and the US, was located near Lashkar Gah, another major center of poppy cultivation. In 2012, it was alleged that poppy cultivation was taking place just outside the base’s perimeter, with British soldiers providing protection to farmers against Afghan security forces.

By late 2014, British and US forces withdrew from Camp Bastion, handing it over to Afghan forces, who renamed it Camp Shorabak. However, according to a UN report, “the opium-growing area around Britain’s main base in Afghanistan nearly quadrupled between 2011 and 2013.”

Despite the withdrawal, opium exports from Camp Shorabak apparently continued, and a small number of British military personnel returned in 2015 in what was described by the Ministry of Defense as an advisory role.

In 2016, Obaidullah Barakzai, a member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan, claimed, “It’s impossible for a few local drug smugglers to transfer opium in thousands of kilos. This is the work of the Americans and British. They transport it by air from Camp Shorabak.”

After US forces chaotically withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban once again succeeded in eliminating poppy cultivation, showing it was far from a “dedicated drug cartel” after all.

Follow the money

In November 2021, an opium merchant claimed that “All the profits go to the foreign countries. Afghans are just supplying the labor.”

Peter Dale Scott noted that according to the UN, some $352 billion in drug profits had been absorbed into the western financial system, including through the US’ largest banks in 2009. As a result, Scott said the “United States involvement in the international drug traffic links the CIA, major financial interests, and criminal interests in this country and abroad.”

In 2012, the Daily Mail reported that HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, faced up to £640million in penalties for allowing “rogue states and drugs cartels to launder billions of pounds through its branches,” and for becoming “a conduit for criminal enterprises.”

The billions in profits flowing from the Afghan heroin trade into western banks have now been eliminated by the Taliban not once, but twice in the past two decades.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s pronouncement in July 2000 that poppy cultivation was “un-Islamic” was, therefore, a more likely cause of the US sanctions imposed in December of the same year, and of the US invasion of Afghanistan a year later, than was any US desire to apprehend Bin Laden and dismantle Al-Qaeda.

In March 2002, just six months after the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan, a journalist asked President Bush, “Where’s Osama bin Laden?” Bush replied, ‘I don’t know. I don’t really think about him very much. I’m not that concerned.”

The Afghan drug trade serves as a stark reminder of the intricate connections between geopolitics, illicit economies, and global finance, and the need for greater transparency and accountability in addressing these complex issues.

The historical evidence also challenges the simplistic narrative that the Taliban largely controlled the Afghan drug trade, highlighting the dominant role played by the US-backed Afghan government and its allies in the CIA.

July 7, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Pakistani Defense Minister Lied To Newsweek About The State Of Democracy In His Country

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 18, 2023

Newsweek published an extended interview with Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Saturday in which this official repeatedly returned to the state of democracy in his country. This de facto theme pervades the entire text since he continually referenced this fall’s elections as supposedly being the key to resolving Pakistan’s economic crisis. Asif insists that they’ll be free and fair without any meddling from his country’s military-intelligence structures, The Establishment, but this isn’t true at all.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) was deposed in April 2022’s post-modern coup precisely because The Establishment’s leading representative at the time, former Chief Of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa, colluded with his domestic opponents to oust him after first securing tacit American approval. Pakistan then entered into a series of cascading crises that continue to this day, with its economic one being the focus of considerable international attention due to the country’s potentially impending bankruptcy.

Political stability is the prerequisite for resolving the economic crisis from which the others have largely stemmed, but The Establishment refused to allow truly free and fair early elections like IK and his supporters requested because then their post-modern coup would have been for naught. Those who carried out that regime change have financial, ideological, personal, and professional stakes in preventing his return to office, which explains why they’ve so passionately opposed him since then.

The approximately 18 months between IK’s removal in April 2022 and the next scheduled national elections in fall of this year were supposed to give The Establishment enough time to meddle in Pakistan’s democratic process to ensure that he doesn’t win. This was first done through indirect means by having their media proxies falsely allege that there was supposedly no basis to the oil deal talks that he claimed to have held with President Putin during his trip to Moscow in late February 2022.

The associated innuendo was that his claim of being overthrown by an American-approved but superficially “democratic” plot as punishment for his independent foreign policy and especially the focus that he gave towards expanding ties with Russia was devoid of substance, thus making him a conspiracy theorist. When that failed to manipulate the population’s perceptions about the post-modern coup, The Establishment then had its media proxies allege that he was embroiled in corruption schemes.

That narrative tactic also failed, which incensed his supporters even more than the preceding one implying that he’s a conspiracy theorist since they regarded it as an unprincipled attack against his personal integrity. They accordingly sought to peacefully march on Islamabad in May 2022 to support the holding of truly free and fair early elections for resolving their country’s political crisis, which they compellingly argued is required in order to effectively address its economic one.

The regime regrettably refused to comply with their request and savagely sicced its goons on them in a desperate attempt to intimidate people into dropping their support for IK’s now-opposition PTI. As is the trend, that also failed and even dramatically backfired as evidenced by the party winning a spree of by-elections from that summer onwards, which proved their genuinely grassroots popularity. These outcomes suggested that PTI would sweep its opponents in truly free and fair national elections.

Instead of the Pakistani people fearing The Establishment, it was now The Establishment that feared the Pakistani people, which is why they then ramped up its persecution of them. This took the form of abducting certain PTI members, assassinating the famous dissident journalist Arshad Sharif, and even attempting the assassination of IK in early November. After failing to kill him, they then employed “lawfare” with the intent of banning him from running for re-election.

This next phase in The Establishment’s Hybrid War on Pakistan culminated in their abduction of IK in early May that then prompted a spontaneous spree of protests, which PTI claims even included false flag attacks against military installations carried out by the regime’s goons in order to discredit the party. Immediately afterwards, hundreds of PTI members were pressured to “defect” from the party while thousands of their supporters were imprisoned, all with a wink and a nod from the West.

The Establishment’s “political engineering” project is now nearing completion since their proxy Shehbaz Sharif just proposed the return of his self-exiled elder brother so that he can resume leading the regime’s most powerful coalition party and thus run as premier for a fourth time. Nawaz Sharif used to be one of The Establishment’s enemies but those two became allies after their proverbial “deal with the devil” that was agreed to with America’s blessing in order to manufacture the “democratic” optics of IK’s ouster.

The Establishment’s reward for the role that Nawaz’s party played through his younger brother Shehbaz in the post-modern coup and everything that came after will likely be the reversal of his lifetime disqualification from political office so that he can rule Pakistan once again after the next elections. The deep-seated hatred that many Pakistanis have for him means that this outcome can only be achieved through defrauding the vote and manipulating the coalition talks that come afterwards.

Absolutely nothing about these upcoming elections will be free or fair, and the state of democracy in Pakistan is nonexistent after everything that’s happened since April 2022’s post-modern coup. This context exposes the true purpose of Asif’s interview with Newsweek, which is the regime’s latest high-profile international media appearance aimed at misleading the global public about recent events. They want the world to give them a free pass for defiling democracy, but many activists will still call them out.

June 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Iran, Regional States to Form Naval Coalition Soon: Navy Commander

Al-Manar – June 3, 2023

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani announced that Iran’s navy and the countries of the region including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq will form a new naval coalition soon.

Irani in a televised program on Friday night announced the formation of new regional and extra-regional coalitions, saying that today, the countries of the region have realized that the security of the region can be established through synergy and cooperation of the regional states.

Referring to the holding of annual exercises of the naval coalition of Iran, Russia and China, he said that the regional coalition is also forming.

Almost all the countries of the North Indian Ocean region have come to the understanding that they should stand by the Islamic Republic of Iran and jointly establish security with significant synergy, he said, adding that Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan and India are among these countries.

Earlier, a Qatari website reported that Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are to form a joint naval force under China’s auspices towards enhancing maritime security in the Persian Gulf.

Al-Jadid carried the report on Friday, saying China had already begun mediating negotiations among Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi aimed at reinforcing maritime navigation’s safety in the strategic body of water.

Since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic has invariably opposed foreign meddling and presence in the region, asserting that the regional issues have to be addressed by the regional players themselves.

June 3, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ongoing Fascist Repression in Pakistan

By Junaid S. Ahmad | Global Research | May 18, 2023

Confirmed and corroborated by at least two dozen of my former students both inside Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus as well as those protesting it. This is the face of fascism, the culmination of a year-long Washington-backed regime change operation against former prime minister Imran Khan.

“Around 7000+ PTI supporters and workers across Pakistan are in illegal custody of multiple LEAs and Police at the moment and not presented in any court after so many days of abduction.

The IG of Punjab himself claimed 3500+ abductions in Punjab. The actual number is around 5000+ for Punjab and 2000+ for KP & Islamabad.

No law permits any custody after 24 hours without presenting the accused in courts. Out of ~5000 abductions in Punjab, only ~200 presented in Punjab’s courts so far.

None of them were not involved in any kind of vandalism at all and arrested just because they are peaceful PTI Supporters/Workers and their families.

It’s the first time in history that political workers’ female family members are also being picked up to pressurise and humiliate them. In one case, an 8 year-old kid was also kidnapped for a few hours.

Hundreds of them are reportedly being tortured and pressurised to give false statements against PTI leadership.”

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Religion and Global Politics, and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decoloniality, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

May 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 1 Comment

Imran Khan and the independence of Pakistan

By Thierry Meyssan | Voltaire Network | May 16, 2023

Pakistan has never been independent. It has always remained a toy in the hands of the United Kingdom and the United States. During the Western war against the Afghan communist regime, it became a rear base for Bin Laden’s mujahideen and Arab fighters. However, for the past decade, a cricket champion like no other has been trying to liberate it, make peace with India and create social services: Imran Khan.

Imran Khan, world cricket champion and former Prime Minister. He is fighting for a modern, more social and independent state.

The Pakistani population is rising up against its army and its political personnel. Everywhere, demonstrations are forming in support of the former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, who has just been released but is the subject of a hundred legal proceedings.

WHO IS IMRAN KHAN?

Imran Khan comes from an illustrious Pashtun family. His father is descended from an Indian general and governor of the Punjab, and his mother from a Sufi master who invented the Pashto alphabet. He was educated in Lahore, then in England at Oxford. He speaks Saraiki, Urdu, Pashto and English. He is a cricketer, the most important sport in Pakistan. He was captain of the national team in 1992 and managed to win the World Cup. During the years 1992-96, he devoted himself exclusively to philanthropic activities, opening a hospital for cancer patients and a university with his family’s money. In 1996, he entered politics and created the Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI). He obtained a seat in the National Assembly in 2018, but was the only one elected from his party.

Imran Khan is not a politician like the others. He recognizes himself in the approach of Mohamed Iqbal (1877-1938), the spiritual father of Pakistan. He intended to break with the religious immobility of Islam and to undertake an effort of interpretation, but he remained prisoner of a communal and legal vision of Islam. Imran Kahn only found his way when he discovered the Iranian philosopher and sociologist Ali Shariati, a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon [1]. Unknown in the West, Shariati proposed to his students to evaluate the precepts of Islam by applying them and to keep only those they found useful. He himself engaged in a reinterpretation of Islam that fascinated Iranian youth. He spoke out against the regime of Shah Reza Pahlevi and supported Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeiny, then in exile and considered a heretic by all Iranian clerics. He was assassinated by the shah’s secret police, the sawak, in England in 1977, just before Khomeini’s return to his country. So he was the one who instigated the Iranian revolution, but he never knew it.

Imran Khan is therefore a Sunni, an admirer of a Shiite philosopher. He proposes to modernize his country, not by eradicating its religious traditions, but on the contrary, by trying to sort them out to keep only the best. He shows himself to be extraordinarily open and tolerant in a country that was the first in the world to be governed by the Egyptian Brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood, a sectarian political party linked to the British MI6 [2]. Like Ali Shariati, he is a revolutionary in the noble sense of the word and an anti-imperialist. In his political life, he never ceased to denounce the Anglo-Saxon takeover of his country. He will therefore logically become the haunt of the British and American imperialists.

When President Barack Obama claimed to have killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan [3], the Pakistani political class accused the army of having sheltered the United States’ public enemy number one. In theory, Pakistan has civilian rule, but it has been rocked by numerous military coups. The military is the only effective administration and has gradually gained control of many economic sectors. During the war in Afghanistan, it supported the Afghan mujahideen and of course Osama bin Laden’s Arab fighters on behalf of the CIA. To put her in her place, the civil power organized the “memorandum affair”. A secret document, echoed by the Wall Street Journal, was sent to the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mike Mullen, to prevent a new coup in Pakistan. Imran Khan is not on the side of either the army or the political class. He calls for early elections. He does not believe a word of either the US, the army or the politicians’ version. He campaigns against both corruption and submission to the US, two themes that concern both Pakistani camps. In a few months, his party emerged from the shadows and his discourse won over his people. He formed a coalition and became Prime Minister in 2012.

A BREAKAWAY PRIME MINISTER

Inspired by the example of Muhammad when he was head of state, he created a free health care program in Punjab, opened shelters for the homeless and implemented a social protection and anti-poverty program.

He clashed with the Islamists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan who demanded the death penalty for blasphemers. During the attack on the former premises of Charlie-Hebdo in Paris and the murder of a teacher Samuel Paty [4] in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, he attacked the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who justified the attacks against Islam provoked by these crimes. In the end, after having negotiated a shaky agreement with the fanatics of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, he ended up banning this movement.

As a symbol of his open-mindedness, he built the Kartarpur Corridor which allows Indian Sikhs [5] to come on pilgrimage to the shrine of their founder Guru Nanak, 5 kilometers inside Pakistan. But the Indian government is not opening an equivalent corridor for Pakistani Sikhs to come on pilgrimage to Dera Baba Nanak in India.

Despite the advancement of the China-Pakistan economic corridor, the situation forces it to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help. As usual, the IMF demanded neo-liberal structural reforms. The result was a drop in living standards and a return to poverty. He went to Russia after the latter had just intervened militarily against the “integral nationalists” in Ukraine. Let us recall that Stepan Bandera was working at the beginning of the Cold War with the Muslim Brotherhood. Immediately, the United States intervened politically in Pakistan to bring down the government of Imran Khan. After a first attempt, parliamentarians passed a vote of no confidence and dismissed the Prime Minister.

AN UNPREDICTABLE OPPOSITION LEADER

Imran Khan, who was in a very small minority in the Assembly but had a huge majority among the population, became the leader of the popular opposition.

He was succeeded as Prime Minister by Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Sharif dynasty is involved in many of the financial affairs exposed in the Panama Papers. It has a number of offshore companies that it has used to organize tax evasion. Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in prison, then to 7 years in prison in another case, before going into exile in London. As for Shehbaz Sharif, he was exiled in Saudi Arabia during the dictatorship of General Perwez Musharaf.

An attack was organized against him on November 3, 2022, killing one person and injuring three others, including Khan himself, who was wounded in the leg. He accused the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, of having ordered the attack. According to a video, one of the two gunmen cited Khan’s playing music during prayers and his agreement to talk to Israel, a “kafir” (infidel) nation, as motives. This shooter is a member of the Tehrik-e- Labbaik Pakistan. In reality, Pakistan’s rapprochement with Israel under Imran Khan was the result of favorable pressure from Saudi Arabia.

The US-based journalist Ahmad Noorani accuses on his website General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who has just retired as Pakistan’s Chief of Staff. He claims that he and his family have become considerably richer over the past six years.

Imran Khan then demanded that what he had stolen be confiscated and raised the question of the power of the army: an institution that defends the country, but also plays a murky economic role.

The Sharif government launched an incredible number of legal proceedings, more than 100, against the most popular man in the country. None of them seemed to be very serious, but all of them had high legal stakes, so that Imran Khan could do nothing but answer to the police and the judiciary. At the same time, one of his followers, Senator Azam Khan Swati, who had criticized the attitude of senior officers, was arrested for insulting the army and imprisoned.

But the man did not react as expected. He denounced the instrumentalization of justice and asked his supporters to be voluntarily incarcerated to saturate the system and discredit it. In front of each prison, 500 members of his party gathered and ask to be arrested. Some of them were arrested, but the government quickly realized the trap and tried to disperse them.

Not knowing what to do, the Sharif government once again considered having Khan assassinated during an attempted arrest by the military. His party, the Justice Movement (PTI), surrounded his family palace and prevented the army and police from entering.

In the latest incident, as Imran Khan was on his way to court to answer charges against him, police surrounded the court to arrest him. As his supporters closed the doors of the courtroom, the police broke them down to seize him.

The Westerners, who presented themselves as defenders of human rights, did not lift a finger.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said, “As we have said before, the United States does not have a position on one candidate or political party over another.

Within hours, spontaneous protests erupted across the country.

The EU commented: “Restraint and composure are needed (…) Pakistan’s challenges can only be met and its path determined by the Pakistanis themselves, through sincere dialogue and respect for the rule of law.

After a few days and several deaths, Imran Khan has just been released.

Translation by Roger Lagassé

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Up to 4.5 Million Dead in ‘Post-9/11 War Zones’ – Study

By Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 16, 2023

The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll.

Published on Monday, the study examines the long-term impact of the “post-9/11 wars” and the “devastating indirect toll” inflicted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia – all nations subject to US military intervention since 2001.

“Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease,” the paper said. “These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health problems have resulted from the post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public services, and the environment.”

Though the researchers acknowledged that the true total figure remains unknown, the study reviews a wide range of factors contributing to mortality. Those include economic collapse and the resulting loss of livelihood for local residents, the destruction of health infrastructure and public services, environmental contamination, as well as other cultural effects of war that can lead to further violence down the line.

“While this research does not ascribe blame to any single warring party or factor, and neither does it suggest the full death count is quantifiable, a reasonable and conservative estimate suggests that at least 4.5 million people have died in the major post-9/11 war zones,” the study concluded.

It went on to stress that “body counts are complicated and controversial,” and that tallying deaths from indirect causes is even more difficult, suggesting its figures are merely a tentative estimate based on a variety of sources.

The researchers found staggering levels of child malnutrition in some of the affected countries, with Afghanistan and Yemen topping the list. In the wake of Washington’s two-decade military occupation, more than 3 million Afghan children are now experiencing wasting, a symptom of severe, potentially life-threatening malnutrition.

Last year, Doctors Without Borders warned of a “worrying increase” in Afghanistan’s malnutrition rates, citing “the suspension of international aid” as among the primary causes. A special representative for the United Nations, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, described the situation as “almost inconceivable,” adding that up to 95 percent of Afghans were “not eating enough food, with that percentage rising to almost 100 percent for female-headed households.”

UN emergency aid coordinator Martin Griffiths has also attributed the crisis in Afghanistan, in part, to international sanctions and the seizure of government bank accounts following the Taliban’s sudden rise to power in the summer of 2021.

The study found that more than 2 million children in Yemen were also suffering from wasting following eight years of brutal bombings by Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have all but crippled the country’s healthcare sector. Riyadh has received indispensable support from the United States throughout the conflict despite countless reports of attacks on civilians and infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, homes, factories, farms and bridges. A UN estimate in late 2021 suggested some 377,000 people had been killed in Yemen since the war erupted in 2015, with 70 percent thought to be children under the age of 5.

The Costs of War authors said the study aimed to “convey the scale of the suffering” in the war-torn nations, stating the “urgent need to mitigate the damage” inflicted by US military interventions and their long-term and indirect consequences. They added that additional research is needed on the subject, voicing hopes such work could “prevent further loss of life,” as America’s post-9/11 wars “are ongoing for millions around the world who are living with and dying from their effects.”

May 16, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pakistan’s top court orders release of ex-PM khan, declares his arrest ‘invalid’

Press TV – May 11, 2023

Pakistan’s top court has ordered the anti-graft agency to release former Prime Minister Imran Khan from its custody amid violent and widespread protests sparked by his detention.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Imran Khan’s arrest earlier this week, which sparked deadly protests across the South Asian country, was “illegal and invalid”.

“Your arrest was invalid so the whole process needs to be backtracked,” Pakistan’s Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial told Khan, who has been in custody since Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, the court directed the the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to present the former premier before the court.

Subsequently, Khan was presented in court amid tight security about 5:45 pm local time. The top court’s order on Thursday came after Khan’s legal team challenged his arrest by the NAB on Tuesday.

The shock arrest has triggered violent protests across the country, prompting the government to call out the army to help restore order.

Tensions remained high on Thursday with paramilitary troops and police on the streets in big cities.

Supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have attacked military establishments and set other state buildings and assets ablaze.

A total of nearly 2,500 people have been arrested so far and at least 11 killed and dozens injured. Authorities have also arrested at least three senior leaders of PTI party as of Thursday.

Footage shared by an Islamabad police official showed military vehicles with mounted guns lined up on the side of a road and soldiers holding assault rifles.

Mobile data services remained suspended and schools and offices were closed in two of Pakistan’s four provinces. Social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram have been blocked.

More than 100 police cases have been registered against Khan by the government since his removal from power in April 2022 after he lost a confidence vote in parliament.

Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi, who is also a senior PTI leader, said he was “alarmed, shocked and deeply disturbed” over the situation in the country.

After his ouster in April last year, Khan accused an unnamed “foreign power” — in a clear reference to the United States — of funding a “conspiracy” to topple his democratically elected government.

Khan insisted that the “foreign power” sent millions of dollars to opposition parties to launch a no-confidence vote against him in the parliament.

The former prime minister has declared he fears for his life if detained, and that authorities want him jailed to prevent him from contesting an election.

Last year, Khan was shot in the leg during a political rally. Previous attempts to arrest Khan from his home in Lahore saw clashes between his supporters and security forces.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Vice President of Imran Khan’s Opposition Party Arrested in Pakistan

Sputnik – 10.05.2023

Fawad Chaudhry, the vice president of the opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Pakistan, has been arrested from outside the Supreme Court premises, Pakistani media reported on Wednesday.

Chaudhry was arrested late Wednesday night after he came out of the apex court premises after having spent over 12 hours inside the Supreme Court in a bid to evade the arrest, media reported.

It was earlier reported that Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the vice chairman of the PTI, and PTI Secretary-General Asad Umar were also arrested in Pakistan.

The Pakistani authorities said Monday that former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had been taken into custody following a hearing of the Islamabad High Court in the Al-Qadir Trust case.

PTI called on citizens of Pakistan to gather for mass protests, demanding Khan’s release.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s authorities said Khan was facing an inquiry by the National Accountability Bureau in the Al-Qadir Trust case, related to a settlement between the PTI government and a property tycoon, which reportedly caused a loss of 50 billion Pakistani rupees ($17.6 million) to the national exchequer.

The actions spurred mass protests across the country, with activists setting police vehicles on fire and damaging government property and the police using tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

Anger spreads in Pakistan as govt arrests nearly 1,000 Imran Khan supporters

The Cradle | May 10, 2023

Pakistani police have detained at least 945 supporters of ousted prime minister Imran Khan in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, since protests erupted on 9 May following Khan’s arrest.

At least one protester was shot dead by security forces in the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday, according to a CNN reporter present at the scene.

“Police teams arrested 945 lawbreakers and miscreants from across the province,” officials said in a statement to the media, adding that 130 security officers were injured, 25 police and government vehicles were burnt, and 14 government buildings were attacked during the protests.

In the face of popular discontent, the interior ministry on 10 May requisitioned the help of the army to “maintain law and order” in Punjab.

On Tuesday, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) deployed dozens of paramilitary troops to dramatically detain Khan under alleged charges of “corruption and corrupt practices.”

The former premier was presented in an Islamabad court on Wednesday morning to face the charges. During the hearing, the NAB requested the court approve Khan be kept under police custody for 14 days, a move his lawyers opposed.

Khan’s lawyers also insisted that the court investigate the irregular manner in which the 70-year old politician was arrested from the premises of the Islamabad High Court.

In a pre-recorded statement released on YouTube by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party after his arrest, the former premier said he was “detained on incorrect charges” and told his supporters, “the time has come for all of you to come and struggle for your rights.”

“I have always followed the law. I am being apprehended so that I can’t follow my political path for this country’s fundamental rights and for me to obey this corrupt government of crooks which has been hoisted on us,” Khan added.

Following his arrest, his supporters broke into the military’s headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi, just outside the capital.

Protesters also blocked one of the main thoroughfares into Islamabad, throwing stones and pulling down street signs.

Authorities responded by deploying internet jammers and disrupting access to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the nation of 270 million.

Khan’s arrest came just a few months before crucial elections in October, where many expect the ousted premier to win the largest democratic mandate ever secured by any politician in the 75-year history of Pakistan.

The former cricket star was ousted from government last year in a US-backed parliamentary coup that saw Shehbaz Sharif – a protégé of the Sharif business dynasty that has governed Pakistan for much of the last three decades – come to power.

Khan previously saw his relationship with the US sour after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. They were also at odds over Afghan state assets frozen by Washington and about US flights over Pakistan.

More pressure started to build against Khan after he criticized western powers for pressuring Islamabad into condemning Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.

“What do you think of us? Are we your slaves … that whatever you say, we will do?” Khan said at a political rally early last year.

Since his ousting, he has been arrested, charged with “terrorism,” banned from running for office, and even survived an assassination attempt.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Imran Khan’s Arrest Will Bring Pakistan’s Year-Long Crisis Much Closer To Its End Game

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 9, 2023

The post-modern coup that removed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from office last April as punishment for his multipolar foreign policy catalyzed cascading crises across the economic, judicial, political, and security spheres that have shaken this South Asian state to its core. The US-backed regime that was installed in his place refuses to hold free and fair elections as early as possible since they know they’d lose after the former premier’s PTI party won multiple by-elections over the past year.

During that same time, the post-modern coup regime viciously cracked down on society by abducting dissidents and censoring the media out of desperation to retain power. Far from pressuring the Pakistani people into silence and forcing them to accept what Khan calls their imported government, they continued peacefully protesting for the right to exercise their democratic will sooner than later. Only upon resolving Pakistan’s political crisis in that manner, these patriots believe, can the other ones then be tackled.

To their credit, they remained committed to this path despite last November’s assassination attempt against Khan that he blamed on The Establishment, the raid on his home in mid-March, and the Interior Minister’s continued death threats against him. Their red line was always that he wasn’t to be arrested on trumped-up charges as part of the post-modern coup regime’s lawfare since this scenario would pose a threat to his life due to The Establishment’s reputation and also likely doom any democratic solution.

That red line was just crossed after dozens of Ranger paramilitary forces stormed an Islamabad courthouse to abduct him on Tuesday in a move that former PTI Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari described “as if (they were) invading an occupied land”. Nationwide protests were organized in response and are still occurring at the time of this analysis’ publication, but the post-modern coup regime might exploit this reaction to justify a conventional military coup in the worst-case scenario.

The Establishment’s latest power play is extremely dangerous since these stakeholders already know very well how polarized society has become over the past year. They could have responsibly exerted influence on their political proxies that replaced Khan after last April’s regime change to organize free and fair elections as early as possible in order to serve as a pressure valve. That could have averted the cascading crises that followed and just risked reaching their breaking point on Tuesday.

Some sort of pragmatic working arrangement could still have been brokered between them and the PTI in theory upon the latter returning to power as expected in that case, yet no such outcome appears possible now after The Establishment crossed the opposition’s red line as part of their power play. They’re practically daring people to publicly defy them and thus put their lives on the line, yet a large number of them are doing precisely that out of patriotic fervor since they fear losing their country.

In their minds, a new dark age is rapidly descending upon Pakistan, which might never restore the sovereignty that it’s losing by the day as a result of the cascading crises catalyzed by last April’s regime change. They can’t in good conscience sit back and let this happen without knowing in their hearts that they tried doing something tangible to stop it. This explains why they’re literally risking their lives right now protesting against Khan’s abduction and all that it entails for their country’s democratic future.

At present, it appears unlikely that The Establishment will relent by releasing him and pressuring their political proxies to publicly agree on a date for holding free and fair elections sometime in the very near future, but that doesn’t mean that their calculations might not change. In any case, it’s clear that Pakistan’s year-long crisis is reaching its end game since there are really only two mutually exclusive outcomes that are possible: a chance at true democracy or continuing to languish under dictatorship.

May 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Former Pakistani PM detained

The Cradle | May 9, 2023

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Geo News reported on 9 May.

Khan was taken into custody by security personnel known as “Rangers” outside the IHC where he had gone to seek bail as a result of graft charges.

According to Fawad Chaudhry, the official spokesperson of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party (PTI), the ex-prime minister has been “abducted from court premises. Scores of lawyers and general people have been tortured.”

Khan was arrested in connection with the allegations that Bahria Town allotted land worth 530 million rupees to the Al-Qadir Trust, owned by the PTI chairman and his wife, according to Islamabad police.

“Khan has been whisked away by unknown people to an unknown location,” Chaudhry said.

According to Imran Khan’s spokesman Raoof Hasan, “He was taken away… before he could appear before the judges, which is in violation of all laws.”

“The party has given a call to immediately start protests across Pakistan,” PTI leader Azhar Mashwani tweeted.

Khan’s arrest was not authorized by IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, however, who requested the attorney general appear before the court within 15 minutes and instructed him to immediately find out who was behind the arrest.

“If an inquiry has to be conducted, action will also be taken against the prime minister and ministers,” the chief justice said.

Security forces previously attempted to detain Khan last March after an Islamabad court issued an arrest warrant to ensure his attendance in court to face graft charges.

However, security forces were blocked by hundreds of the former prime minister’s supporters, who gathered outside his Lahore home to prevent his arrest. The clashes between both sides, in which security forces fired tear gas and water cannons, and Khan’s supporters threw stones, led to dozens of injuries.

The former cricket star, who was ousted as prime minister in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, went to Islamabad to appear before three courts on charges of selling state gifts and failing to disclose assets but failed to appear before the fourth court to face indictment in the graft case, which is a legal process for starting his trial.

Khan claimed the charges filed against him, which include terrorism charges, are an effort by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, to discredit him and prevent him from contesting the upcoming elections.

At the time of his ousting as prime minister, Khan accused the United States of working with a coalition of Pakistani opposition parties to topple his government.

Khan alleged that US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu met with the Pakistan Ambassador Asad Majeed and warned that there could be implications if Khan was not ousted as prime minister.

Khan has long been known for his opposition to US foreign policy. In 2017, Khan organized a motorcade march to Pakistan’s tribal areas to protest US drone strikes against Islamic militants.

In November 2022, Khan was the target of an assassination attack. A gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon on his convoy of lorries and cars, injuring Khan’s leg and killing one of his supporters, and injuring seven more.

May 9, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

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