Testimony of Mansoor Ijaz in London

NADEEM MALIK

OPENING STATEMENT UNDER OATH

I, Musawer Mansoor Ijaz (Ijaz), a citizen of the United States of America, do hereby solemnly swear that the testimony I present in this Witness Statement on oath to the Honourable Commission (the Commission)is the truth as I know it to have occurred based on the evidence in my possession and to the best of my recollection where physical or documentary evidence is not available in reference to the subject matter of this inquiry (the Inquiry).

I submit my testimony as a first person witness to the events herein. I appear in front of this Commission to present the physical evidence in my possession and to allow such evidence as I have to be forensically tested in any manner chosen by competent, independent and unbiased experts retained by the Commission so that the authenticity of these data can be ascertained with certainty. I duly submit this Witness Statement to the Commission as a private citizen of the United States, born in the State of Florida in the year 1961, and bound only by the laws of the United States of America. I state for the record that my loyalties are first and foremost to the national interests of my country of birth. I do not now nor have I ever served in any official position in the US government. I act at the behest of no person in government, outside of government, in any foreign country or in the United States of America.

CONTACT WITH PAKISTAN OFFICIALS

While I maintain high-level political and military/intelligence contacts in nearly two dozen countries around the world, during the past decade, I have had no contact with any Pakistani government official, civilian, judicial, military or intelligence with the following four exceptions (Amb. Haqqani excluded):

(a)2003 when I last interacted with the former director general of Inter-Services Intelligence, Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, shortly before he left the DG-ISI position in 2004; and,

(b)Nov. 2005 when my wife and I visited the prime minister of Pakistan and some military officers during and after our trip to Kashmir as the earthquake reconstruction period began; and,

(c)May 5, 2009 when I met with President Asif Ali Zardari for 45-50 minutes at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington DC at the invitation of Amb. Haqqani(Haqqani)to brief the president shortly before he met with US officials at the White House; and,

(d)Oct. 22, 2011 when I met alone with Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the current DG-ISI, a this request for approximately four hours in London to provide him with the same accounting of facts I provide to the Commission herein.

CONTACT WITH HAQQANI

Over the past decade, I have maintained regular contact with Haqqani through e-mail, BlackBerry chat exchanges, SMS, in-person meetings and telephonic discussions. Often, after the 9-11 attacks, when I was not available for media appearances due to calendar conflicts, I would refer producers to Haqqani as a qualified expert on Pakistan affairs. Haqqani was helpful

and supportive in other important matters, including speaking at one of my charity’s annual

fundraising dinners in June 2009 (please see Exhibit-A for examples of our communications).From the day Haqqani assumed his ambassadorship role, I had no involvement in his Congressional or White House lobbying efforts, no role in his development of the Pakistani-American community or any other aspect of his role as ambassador other than assisting in the ways we were able to after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.

At no time during Haqqani’s ambassadorial tenure have I lobbied anyone for Pakistan, acted as an agent of the Pakistani government or represented any foreign interest lobbying for a particular outcome. I acted in this matter purely as a friend in my private capacity trying to assist Haqqani in communicating his message in ways that only he dictated, characterized and gave authority for, not in any way to be construed as diplomatic or official activity. Other than as disclosed above, I maintain no active relationships of any type electronic, e-mail contact, telephonic contact, BlackBerry messenger contact or SMS contact with anyone living in Pakistan. I have no close relatives living or alive in Pakistan. I have no business interests in Pakistan. I have no political interests in Pakistan. I have never been involved in any political party, political organization or given a single political contribution in Pakistan to any candidate for high office, or sitting elected official. In short, I have no material ties to Pakistan other than my birth parents.

EVENTS OF MAY 9, 2011 UNTIL MAY 12, 2011

The events I describe herein are a factual recantation of my interactions with Haqqani on the dates of May 9th, May 10th, May 11th and May 12th of 2011, and then again starting on October10, 2011, the date on which an opinion piece I authored was published in the Financial Times entitled “Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies.”

The text of this opinion article has already been entered into the record on the date of the Court’s Order.

I had further material interactions with Haqqani on October 28, 2011 and November 1, 2011. At no time did I meet Haqqani in person. All communications were electronic / telephonic.

The events of the three and a half days in May will be summarized in Tabular form in order to show the type of communication (telephone, e-mail, BlackBerry chat, PIN message and handwritten notes), a brief description of each type of communication, and where a communication was evidenced by physical documentation or electronic messages those are attached hereto as labeled exhibits. My recollections of the discussions in telephone calls a replaced in quotations where attributed to Haqqani. Where the dialogue uses coded words or phraseology that may not be apparently clear to the Court, I have put annotations to explain what was intended by the language used.

RESERVATION NOTICE

I reserve the right to amend this Witness Statement at a future date once forensic examination of my electronic BlackBerry device is complete. There are certain messages (PIN, SMS, etc) that may be archived in backup volumes that I am presently unaware of, having not seen any of those messages since June 2011 when the last monthly backup was made. I have chosen not to retrieve these messages from my computer hard drives which normally roll off after a thirty (30) day period in the device until a certificate that my BlackBerry device has not been tampered with and contains original data in it can be provided. The backup data will only be reviewed once the forensic examination is complete. I would also ask the Commission’s permission to spend about20-30 minutes in explaining how BlackBerry handsets work and why the knowledge of BB operations are so critical to the analysis of data in this matter. Finally, certain Explanation comments that I have noted are for “In Camera” hear in gs only because the disclosures are not appropriate for this statement that can be viewed by others. Please note in the tabular formats set forth below, line numbered for convenience, the following legend: BBM = BlackBerry Messenger chat exchange SMS = Short Message exchangeE-M = E-MAIL sent or received CALL = Telephone OUT to recipient or received IN (numbers withheld for “In Camera” briefing)

TBA = To Be Announced (for those messages referenced but held on backup hard drives)All dates are shown in MONTH/DAY/YEAR format. All times given are Central European Time (CET) in military time format.

HAQQANI BLACKBERRY PIN NUMBERS

I submit for the Commission’s records the two PIN numbers that are unique in the BlackBerry system of communications that were used by Haqqani during our communications by BBM Messenger. The first one, 2326A31D, was used in May. The second, 287EF1E9, was used in the October and November exchanges up until at least November 5th or 6th when I noticed he had disabled me as a BBM contact. I wish to additionally inform the Commission that in the intervening weeks since Haqqani once again changed his BlackBerry PIN, I have been informed

by two important official sources (whom I shall identify “In Camera”) that attempts may have

been or are being made to manipulate, erase, delete or otherwise distort data in the electronic devices of Haqqani that could confirm the data I have provided herein as fact. Additionally, it may be noted by the Commission that both the Interior Minister of Pakistan as well as Haqqani have confirmed that some form of electronic messaging and commstook place with me. Yet Haqqani continues to deny the entirety of any exchanges, for example, as those set forth in this Statement. So which is it? Did he communicate with me or not? If so, where is that data and who has access to it today?

TELEPHONE CALL SUMMARIES

CALL #1

–

05/09/2011 IJAZ TO HAQQANI

–

12:35:49

–

DURATION 16:03

I called Haqqani at the London Intercontinental Hotel, Room 430 as he had requested a few minutes earlier by BlackBerry messenger. We had not spoken by telephone for some time, so we briefly exchanged pleasantries. I asked him what he was doing in London he simply said it was a private visit and moved on to the subject matter at hand. There was an elevated stress in his voice. He spoke rapidly, almost randomly at times. Several times I had to ask him during the call to slow down so I could get the notes down from what he was trying to tell me. He explained that the bin Laden raid had created severe stresses between the army/intelligence organs of Pakistan and the civilian branch of government. Referencing some meeting that had

taken place “72 hours ago” between the army chief, the prime minister and the president, he said there was a “collective jute chalak y” [my spelling phonetically because I do not know what these words mean as my
Urdu is quite rudimentary] between the army and ISI to pin the blame of the bin Laden failure on President Zardari’s administration.

He said the US and British were “beating the shit out of us” to get information in the raid’s aftermath about how bin Laden had been on Pakistani soil for so long. He said in clear words that I wrote on my notepad as he said them, “the Army wants to bring the government down”. He then said he needed my help.

I asked in which sense and he informed me that it was urgent to get a message verbally to “the Americans” that the Obama administration needed to back the army down. He said this was a “1971 moment” a reference I did not understand at all at the time he first made it and had to ask him at the end of the call to clarify for me because he repeatedly referred to this phrase during the call. He then immediately stated his preference for the right person to give this as yet undefined verbal message to was Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the US joints chiefs of staff because (a) he was one of the few people who Gen. Kayani would listen to and (b) he was about to chair a meeting with a Pakistani delegation a two days later in Washington (Wednesday, May 11, 2011).I informed him that I did not know Adm. Mullen. I asked him why he needed me to do this for him when he had so many other ways to do it and he said in his official position, it was impossible to get such a message to the Americans without risking the possibility of detection by

ISI or the military officers he had around him at the embassy in DC. He said I was “plausibly deniable” as a conduit and that no one would ever believe if this got public in those days he had come to me for such kind of help. I made it clear that I had long ago given up the role of a back-channel communicator and that I would do it for him as a friend only if I could get someone on the US side to agree to deliver a message to Adm Mullen in the timeframe Haqqani had requested.

I then asked him whose authority he was acting on behalf of. He was vague. Not evasive, just vague. He said there was a like-minded group of people in Islamabad that would be brought on board by “the boss” a reference I understood to mean President Asif Ali Zardari as the new national security team once tensions had dissipated. He mentioned two names I recognized (Jehangir Karamat and Mahmud Durrani) but added that they would be approached once this was all over a point I took to mean they were unaware of this operation in advance. I then asked him what the message was that he wanted delivered and by when exactly it had to be in Mullen’s hands. He dictated a series of points to me, many of which are contained on the two pages of handwritten notes, and the rest were typed into a blank e-mail template at the point I asked him to pause because I couldn’t keep handwritten pace with his verbal speed while holding the phone to my ear at the same time. The balance of notes, typewritten into the blank e-mail template, ultimately became the basis of the first draft of the written memorandum that I sent him at 18:32 on May 9, 2011. The handwritten notes are explained further under EXHIBIT B explanations. We concluded the 16-minute phone call by agreeing to use certain coded words in our BBM chat exchanges during the following two days until the effort was concluded. These are enumerated as each chat took place in the “Explanation” column of Table 1

CALL #2

05/09/2011 IJAZ TO GEN. JONES

12:58:06

DURATION 02:25

I called Gen. Jones at home. His wife picked up and said he was jogging. I explained the importance. As I rarely called at home that early in the morning, she understood it was important and said she would get in touch with him while he was running and get him to call me back in about an hour when he was in. I gave her a brief overview that the matter had to do with a rapidly devolving situation on the ground in Pakistan and that I had been asked to get an urgent message into a senior administration official. I did not go into details. I did not give names.

CALL #3

05/09/2011 IJAZ TO LAWYER #1

13:01:27

DURATION 04:47

As a parallel track, I immediately called my outside counsel, whose name I am withholding pending an “In Camera” hearing on this matter, in Washington DC he is a former senior government official from the administration of Pres. George H W Bush working at one of Washington’s most prominent and largest law firms. I called him because I knew he had a wide array of contacts available for us to explore how else we might approach Adm. Mullen if I was unable to persuade Gen. Jones to pass the message on. I explained the situation at hand inoutline form only. I explained under attorney-client privilege that Haqqani had asked me to assist him, that the tone of my earlier discussion with Haqqani indicated to me that something serious was amiss in Islamabad and that if we could help we should. His principal concern was under whose authority such a sensitive message was being delivered. I explained that Haqqani generally enjoyed the complete confidence of the president in Pakistan, and that I understood the impetus for this operation was coming from Pres. Zardari in the broader sense, if not operationally. He told me there were two options available to us through the law firm, one a senior US political figure now in private life and the other an acting officer of the US government who knew Adm. Mullen well. He told me he would get in touch with both andreport back to me later in the day (it was 7am in Washington at the time I reached him)

CALL #4

05/09/2011 GEN. JONES TO IJAZ

13:54:31

DURATION 19:26

Gen. Jones called me back from his private cell number around 8am his time in Virginia. I recapped the entire Haqqani call (please see summary of Call #1 for details). His first reaction was to say he didn’t particularly trust Pakistani officials (generally, not specifically), and that in his experience through government work with them, they often made verbal promises that they didn’t keep. He said he would not consider taking any message to Adm. Mullen if it wasn’t in writing. Gen. Jones also insisted on having higher political authority than Haqqani, whom he had grown to be somewhat skeptical of over time, if and when he decided to go ahead. We went through the points Haqqani wanted relayed, which took the bulk of the time on the call. He commented that while compelling, it sounded like an opposition group’s agenda. I made clear that it was morelike a change of players under a sitting head of state whose new ground rules and agenda were so diametrically different than the old that it (Haqqani’s desired message) could give off that impression. I gave Jones some background on my relationship with Haqqani and told him that Haqqani would never have come to me if it wasn’t serious because of my past tensions with the senior leaders of Pakistan, no matter whether military, intelligence, political of any party persuasion.

Jones’s skepticism remained throughout the call, but in the final analysis he said he would do it as a favor for me if I could get the message to him in writing with the appropriate political authority. We agreed to be in touch later in the day once I had gotten Haqqani on board with the NO VERBAL, ONLY WRITTEN demand and I had further explained to Haqqani that Jones wanted certain knowledge of the appropriate political authority and consent for this operation before delivering the message to Adm. Mullen.

CALL #5

05/09/2011 HAQQANI TO IJAZ

18:28:45

DURATION 02:34

During this call, I informed Haqqani that one of the three choices on the US side was insisting onhaving the message in writing, with higher political authority than Haqqani alone, to go forward. I informed him that I had taken the precautionary step, given the tight time constraints, to prepare a written draft based on the notes I took in the first call and that I had tried to reach him earlier in the day to let him know about the in-writing constraint. He agreed and told me to send him the draft in writing for his review. I then asked him to clarify what he meant by “discipline” in the nuclear program a point he had made in the written notes earlier and whether the point he made about US Vice President Biden on the “blank sheet” agreement on nukes and Kashmir should be included in the preamble paragraphs. He said no. I also asked him whether he wanted names included in the paragraph mentioning the new national security team he said no. Finally, I asked him whether he wanted any characterization of the army chief, prime minister, president’s meeting included this is when he gave me the information about the CIA station chief’s name being outed and the phraseology about “no central control being in place” as a result of the stresses in Islamabad during the previous days.After inserting a few of the necessary comments into the e-mail draft, I sent the draft to Haqqaniat 18:32. We closed the call by noting my mail to him would come in a few minutes as well as the message’s delivery timing and logistics.

CALL #6

05/09/2011 LAWYER #1 TO IJAZ

23:49:10 & 23:55:21

DURATION 05:28 & 09:58

During these two calls

the first with my outside general counsel, the second a conf call with a third party, we explored the requirements posed by two other possible candidates to deliver the message to Adm. Mullen. My counsel informed me that he had reached a close aide of the active US government officer who knew Adm. Mullen well, and that he wanted to have a conference call with me to listen to how we wanted to do this and what the US official wanted from us as performance parameters before agreeing to our request. We then agreed that the US political personality was out due to slow response. We followed up this call with a 10-minute conference call with the US official’s trusted friend.

We discussed two possibilities the first was to have the US official arrange a private meeting between myself and Adm. Mullen so I could deliver a verbal message as Haqqani had initially preferred. This approach had two problems

I was a nine hour airplane ride away from Washington and there simply wasn’t enough time to match Adm. Mullen’s busy schedule with my getting in the air before the Wed. meeting was to have taken place. The second problem was my personal hesitation to carry a verbal message given what Gen. Jones had told me in his first call about the unreliability of Pakistani officials saying one thing and doing another. The second possibility discussed was for us to have the US official deliver the message, in writing, to Adm. Mullen. This posed two different challenges the US official was unwilling to do it as a “non paper” (a message delivered in writing on paper without signature or letterhead between governments). He insisted on the message being on letterhead with appropriate signature. This conference call made it clear that the 2nd potential US interlocutor was simply not the right solution.

CALL #7

05/10/2011 HAQQANI TO IJAZ

00:30:55

DURATION 01:17

I informed Haqqani that two of the three options for transmission were out, why they were out

and that in order to proceed with the third option I needed him to confirm the memo’s draft form

or send me his changes, and I needed his confirmation that he had the Pakistani government’s highest political authority to proceed. He said he would review the memo during the night. On authority, he said something like “don’t worry about that, I’ve got it sorted out with the boss.”

Haqqani also quickly informed me at the end of the conversation that I needed to remove Point 6on the list because it was already agreed by the Pakistani authorities in the intervening hours since we had last spoken.

CALL #8

05/10/2011 IJAZ TO GEN. JONES

00:33:05

DURATION 01:39

I called Gen. Jones immediately to say that he would transmit the message, that I had confirmation from Haqqani of his authority to proceed from the highest political level and that I would be sending the memorandum over shortly with a request that he hold on to it until I had Haqqani’s final word in the morning (Tue, 10 May). I told Gen. Jones that given the fluidity of events on the ground, it was best that he waited until at least midday on Tuesday before puttingthe Memo in Adm. Mullen’s hands. I recall asking him whether he preferred WORD.DOC files or .PDF files for printing purposes and I sent him both types of files later in the night so that if there were last minute changes and I was not in front of a computer, he could make the necessary changes himself with me giving him Haqqani’s changes by telephone.

CALL #9

05/10/2011 IJAZ TO HAQQANI

09:06:16

DURATION 11:16

During this call on the morning of May 10th, I asked Haqqani if he had any last minute changes to the Memorandum, and then informed him that I had sent it to the US interlocutor earlier in the night so that if there were no changes, we were ready to deliver to Mullen later that day, before Haqqani had planned to leave London .We went through the architecture of the Memo, focusing this time on the opening paragraph and confirming the new signature paragraph (from whom did this document come) that had been added in. We reviewed briefly the six agenda points.I then asked him one last time to confirm he had the authority from the highest political level to proceed with the operation because Gen. Jones (who remained anonymous to Haqqani) would not proceed without that understanding from me and he said, “I’ve got the boss’s approval; go ahead”. I told him we would n

eed to wait until just after lunchtime for me to reach the US interlocutor and give the final delivery instruction.We discussed briefly his schedule for return to the US and next contact time, and when I wouldbe given the time of the Wednesday meeting with Mullen.

CALL #10

05/12/2011 IJAZ TO HAQQANI

01:09 ON MMI US CELL

DURATION 04:00

Haqqani informed me about the results of the meeting with Mullen. He said a “call will go outfrom Washington to Pindi [Rawalpindi?] tonight.” and that he was sa

tisfied the intervention hadworked. We clarified the M remark in my BBMs, he thanked me and the call ended.

RATIONALE FOR WRITING THE Financial Times ARTICLE

Much confusion has been introduced by media analysts, critics and supporters alike about the motivations and agendas that may have led me to publish the initial FT article on October 10,2011. I state for the record that there was no external impetus given to me to write the initial article, neither from any individual, nor from any governmental body US or foreign nor anyother source in any manner whatsoever. Since 1996, when I published my first article in The Wall Street Journal, I have published over 125 opinion pieces in only the most reputable journals and newspapers around the world, and have appeared extensively on television and radio as ananalyst regarding political, security and business issues. I have also had numerous articles written about my citizen diplomacy initiatives in Sudan, Kashmir, Pakistan and elsewhere.In recent years, I have reduced my writings dramatically, writing only a few times a year when a major political or geopolitical event takes place that bears consequence on subject matters thatinterest me. Pakistan generally, and more specifically the struggle to bring a secure and stable democracy to the fore without hidden agendas, corrupt practices and the venality that is so often present in modern day Pakistani rulers military and civilian alike is a major topic on which I have written often in the past. If the Commission so wishes, I am happy to provide a full reference list for my past writings on Pakistan.

I further state for the record that my sole motivation in writing the Oct. 10th FT article was to enunciate a policy prescription I believed was in the best national security interests of the United States about how best to deal with Directorate S of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The impetus for the article, which I drafted the first thoughts for on 24 September 2011, arose from testimony offered by Adm. Mullen in his final appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in which he called the Haqqani network of terrorists a “veritable arm” of the ISI, among other very strong comments.

The reaction in Pakistan’s media to Adm. Mullen’s statement was immediate, and as it has been in my case under the glare of the Mullen Memorandum controversy, was shrill and unabashed in lambasting a high-ranking military officer of the United States who served our country honorably for 43 years. While Adm. Mullen needed no defense from my writings, I felt it was important for US policymakers to know that an effort which involved Adm. Mullen himself back in May had been made to reign in Directorate S of ISI, and it so happened that to source this material for my

opinion piece, I referenced the memorandum as the “peg”

as it is called in journalism to base my opinions on. There was no malicious intent involved in bringing the memorandum into the opening paragraph. The description I gave was the bare minimum of facts that were needed in order to give my opinion piece the authenticity it required for the policy prescription to be given any weight. I had written more or less exactly the same opinion article on June 2, 2011 for Newsweek / Daily Beast Company

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-02/pakistans-isi-spy-agency-s-wing-and-terrorism/

after learning of the death of Saleem Shahzad, without material effect in the inquiry of my arguments. Clearly, introducing the memorandum into the FT opinion article strengthened the argument because it gave it the needed authenticity. Editors at the FT who normally evaluate my opinion columns for publication have tended in the past to choose those articles of mine that begin with some historical anecdote to anchor the article’s policy prescriptions and opinions. This article was no different, other than the anecdote was in the form of a “first person” analysis.

If the Commission so requests, I will make available my internal correspondence with the FT editors to provide evidence of this fact. I would like to note, for the Commission’s interest, that Haqqani sent me the following BBMchat on June 4, 2011 to which I responded and he then wrote a reply please see the following screen shots:

I apologize to the Commission for the frank exchange of language between Haqqani and myself, but this is evidence of the type of relationship we shared together. Message time-stamped 02:18was first message from Haqqani. I replied the next day. Message in second screen time-stamped18:05 was his reply. One final point of note on this subject matter: some sections of the media have questioned why it took so long for the opinion piece to be published in the FT from the date of Adm. Mullen’s

statement. As you are most certainly aware, FT is a financial newspaper whose editorial pages are reserved primarily for finance discussions, not matters of security and foreign policy. As Europe has been engulfed in perhaps the most important financial crisis it has suffered since the introduction of the Euro, the Eurozone crisis dominated the editorial pages of the FT for those weeks, and my opinion article which dealt with matters much further away and unrelated to the major editorial thrust, simply was placed on a date that was convenient to the FT’s editorial calendar. I had no control over that decision and again, at the Commission’s request, I amprepared to make my internal communications with the editors available in this specific regard.

EVENTS OF NOTE AFTER THE Financial Times

ARTICLE APPEARS

Haqqani sent me a BlackBerry message around 21:50 GMT on the evening of October 10, 2011, shortly after my opinion article had been published on the FT’s website. It read: “This FT op-ed of yours is a disaster”. Before I had a chance to see it and respond, he telephoned me at 21:57GMT in a somewhat panicked voice, reiterating what he had just said by BBM message and then asking me whether there were any other “senior Pakistani diplomats” I knew in Islamabad that he could name to throw the “press hounds of my scent”. I responded by querying why the op-ed was such an issue for him and what he was so upset about. He replied simply by saying everyone would now assume it was he who was the brainchild of the Memorandum and that I understood nothing about Pakistan’s domestic situation. It was a short call lasting only 00:45.

At the time of this writing, I do not yet have the hard copy details of my October telephone bills to give the exact time and date of the second call I received from Haqqani

it was about 5 or 6days before I met with Gen. Shuja Pasha in London. My recollection of that call is as follows: Haqqani called to inform me he had just learned that Gen. Pasha was coming to London. I expressed disinterest and lack of knowledge. He expressed some anxiety over my disinterest and said something to the effect of “what’s going on here” a clear reference to his skepticism of my disinterest. He did not ask once during that call whether I had been approached to see Gen. Pasha. His only concern was whether Gen. Pasha would be meeting with the FT editors in London, whether I knew anything about it and whether I would do him the favor of intervening with the FT editors to insure they did not provide Gen. Pasha with a copy of the Memorandum or any other evidence that I had provided the editors when I wrote the opinion piece. I responded by again asking him, as I had on the night of May 10, 2011, why he was so paranoid about the Memorandum and whether we had done something wrong in delivering it to Adm. Mullen. His response was to simply reiterate that I understood nothing about Pakistan’s domestic political situation and that there were some who would say Haqqani “was playing for your [U.S.A.] side” if the content of the Memorandum was revealed in public. I told him that I did not believe the FT editors would take a meeting with Gen. Pasha without a lot of advance work being done about purpose, etc and the call ended.

SUMMARY OVERVIEW OF MEETING WITH DG-ISI LT. GEN. SHUJA PASHA

I was contacted by a person, whose real name I do not know to this day, on or about the 16th of October to see whether I would be willing to meet with Gen. Pasha. I inquired purpose and proposed location. Purpose: to determine the truthful facts surrounding the content of the Memorandum and its genesis (authorship, operational details of the effort to get it delivered to Adm. Mullen, etc). Location: London was the most convenient location for both of us to meet. After discussing the implications of such a meeting going ahead with my in-house legal counsel and my family, I agreed to take the meeting. We met on the evening of 22nd October in London at the Park Lane Intercontinental Hotel, Room210, from approximately 1830hrs until 2230hrs, according to my records. There was one person

I believe the logistics manager of the meeting with Gen. Pasha when I was shown into the room by a member of his security detail and that person shook hands with me and left the room promptly.

I brought my electronic devices and a notepad to the meeting. We both agreed to take batteries out of our telephones while we spoke. The telephones were stored in a drawer near the table we sat at. Gen. Pasha brought a notepad as well. After being seated face to face at a small dining table, Gen. Pasha opened the meeting by stating his purpose in asking to meet me. He made clear he was not there to interrogate but rather to understand with evidence supporting my statements what exactly had happened in the days in question. He made clear he was in London with the consent of the army chief, Gen. Kayani. He made clear he did not know who I was prior to the meeting, and had asked one of his researchers to prepare a dossier for his review. He asked me to give him my own summary of my background, partly to allow me to introduce myself, but also to separate fact from fiction in the dossier he held. Each comment I made was later backed up during the meeting by evidence I showed him on my computer about my background, life, family and businesses. I made clear to him at the outset of the meeting that I had agreed to the meeting on the basis that it was entirely possible in my mind given the adverse reactions Haqqani had shown me on the two telephone calls I had with him prior to this meeting that Haqqani did not properly inform the government of Pakistan of his activities, and that if anything he had done was against the laws of Pakistan, in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan or the rules of international diplomacy as agreed between the US and Pakistan, it was possible that myself, Gen. Jones and Adm. Mullen had become unwitting accessories to these possible wrongdoings. For that reason alone, whether I liked or disliked the ISI, whether I had written against it or the military or any other organ of the Pakistani state, I felt the responsibility to share the facts with him and to understand whether there was any possible wrongdoing on our part collectively as US citizens that had assisted Haqqani in transmitting the message to Adm. Mullen. I also made clear to Gen. Pasha that I did not want to personally be involved in any debriefing of

him that would lead to a disruption of the civilian government’s normal business he responded by making clear that it was his and Gen. Kayani’s deep desire to see a government complete its term, but that the rumors of what was contained in the Memorandum from a content perspective could simply not be ignored. On this basis, we agreed to start the meeting in good faith with him questioning openly without constraints and me answering in the most truthful and complete manner possible. He asked me about my relationship with Haqqani (length, frequency of contact, type of contact, etc). He queried me about my interactions with prior Pakistani ambassadors in the United States, as well as past political leaders (Bhutto, Sharif, Musharraf, etc). After my initial set of answers about 30 minutes into the meeting he went to the door of the room and informed the security person that “this is going to take a while”.

We then began the data debriefing. We went through the information that has been provided in this Witness Statement line by line so that I could explain what had happened in those three and a half days. He asked questions, at times looked a bit astonished at what he was seeing but at no time did he offer any assessment of the data other than to indicate that the records were “clear and convincing” evidence. We took the bulk of the four hour meeting to do the data debrief. In my recollection, Gen. Pasha read the Memorandum itself in about three or four minutes, demonstrated surprise and dismay at times disgust and disappointment over the content of the document. He did not ask a single question about the content of the document other than if I was willing to divulge the names of the others besides Haqqani that he had told me were to be part of the new national security team. I did so with the caveat that I did not believe either Karamat or Durrani knew anything about the plan to deliver the Memorandum, the contents of the Memorandum or the mindset of Haqqani and those behind him in dreaming up the scheme. At the point during the meeting where he learned of the three US people I had approached to deliver the Memorandum to Adm. Mullen, he asked me how I knew each of them, how well and to briefly summarize my requests of them in terms of why, who was involved, under what authority and in which modality such delivery might take place with each person. Intermittently during the data debrief, I would open my computer or my BlackBerry device and point out how the data was stored, transmitted, displayed, etc. He then carefully analyzed dates, times, “properties” of my Microsoft documents to see when the documents were created and how

they fit into the timeline I was stating, looked at the original telephone bill logs, checked the time at which each BBM message was sent or received and reviewed my handwritten notes. Contrary to media reports, at no time did Gen. Pasha try to send a BBM message to Haqqani from my handset. He recorded the PIN numbers that I had for Haqqani, both the old one and the new one Haqqani did not yet have the third PIN at that time that he would ultimately obtain. Gen. Pasha did ask to see how I stored e-mail addresses and to see the ones I had for Haqqani one from his private university mailbox (Boston Univ.) and one for official use at the embassy in Washington. There were no other issues relevant to this subject matter discussed during the meeting. It ended on a cordial note with Gen. Pasha thanking me for providing a clear record of events and asking if it was okay to follow up if other questions arose in the aftermath of his further investigation into the matter.

BBM CHAT EXCHANGES WITH HAQQANI ON 28 OCT 2011

approx 21:55 until 22:33 CET

Participants:Mansoor IJAZ, Husain HaqqaniMessages:

Husain Haqqani: you can keep saying you delivered a message and show bbm convos to prove it Husain Haqqani: Basically you don’t get itHusain Haqqani: You have given hardliners in Pak Mil reason to argue there

was an effort to get US to conspireagainst Pak MilHusain Haqqani: You are a US citizenHusain Haqqani: You are supposed to look after US interestsMansoor IJAZ: I wrote one article. Have not said one word on the record since then to anyone. I think your press isworking both sides against the middle, trying to force something out of anyone they can. Period. I don’t play in thatgameHusain Haqqani: In Pak political situation, getting burned as a US stooge undermines one’s effectivenessHusain Haqqani: I will make sure FO shuts upHusain Haqqani: Let this die downHusain Haqqani: We are in the rightHusain Haqqani: We will still make things happenMansoor IJAZ: Okay, well I know my IQ is pretty low so you are probably correct in saying I just don’t get it.Husain Haqqani: The Pak press be damnedHusain Haqqani: I stand by you as a man of integrity werving his countryHusain Haqqani: You don’t let ppl back home argue I play for your team, not oursMansoor IJAZ: But from my point of view, if there was a real threat, as you stated at the time, it is clear you weretrying to save a democratic structure from those hawksHusain Haqqani: You get to write the book on how you changed US-Pak dynamic and won the war in A’tan (w/ somehelp from a Paki nerd) Mansoor IJAZ: I was happy to get the message in the back door because it served American interests to preserve thedemocratic civilian setup and the offers made, if achieved, were very much congruent with American objectives inthe regionHusain Haqqani: True that, friend. But you know premature revelation ain’t goodMansoor IJAZ: As far as I can see, we did right. Unless there is something I don’t see here. But then I’m sorta dumbfrom down on the farm where them hillbillies liveHusain Haqqani: Hey! Don’t run down hillbilliesHusain Haqqani: Even the smartest can miss a piece of the puzzleHusain Haqqani: You are assuming there are no powerful men in Pak willing to break w/ US. Premature revelationgives those ppl reason to claim ‘conspiracy’, ‘treason’Husain Haqqani: That is all you missed. Period.Husain Haqqani: And no one else might tell you this, you’re becoming irritable and losing your sense of humor asyou grow oldHusain Haqqani: Let this one go. There is much to do. MUCH. And then, there’s the beach where I’ve been waitingto be invited, the slum boy visiting the millionaireMansoor IJAZ: I’m not a millionaire. But I do know a nice piece of beach!Husain Haqqani: I’m not a slum boy either but I know how to make friends with smart people with a sense of history:PMansoor IJAZ: Jesus, then what the fuck are you doing hanging around with me? =DHusain Haqqani: We’ll make things happen and if we can’t, we’ll write a book about itHusain Haqqani: Who said I was hanging around witjh you. A minute ago I thought you were about to hang me Mansoor IJAZ: :OMansoor IJAZ: Really?Husain Haqqani: Look, Isloo is a mess. Journos gone wild. Politicos scared of mil. Mil scared of Yanks.Mansoor IJAZ: Tell me one important thing. Who likes you and who hates you in the US establishment? Who wantsyou to stay and who wants to fuck you up?

Husain Haqqani: The debate abt your oped has caused my detractors to put pressure on my bossHusain Haqqani: In US estab, I can count on Leon and PetraeusMansoor IJAZ: I thought YOU were the boss!Mansoor IJAZ: Who is against you?Husain Haqqani: Folks at State don’t like meMansoor IJAZ: Why?Mansoor IJAZ: Too close to AZ?Husain Haqqani: They think I am too mixed up w/ DoD and others and do not help them cut deals w/ Pak milHusain Haqqani: Close to AZ bit tooHusain Haqqani: They are wrong re DoD and others.Husain Haqqani: It is just that becoz of A’tan, they are more imp than StateMansoor IJAZ: I always thought HRC was one of your fans. She even has a lady from our parts working with herHusain Haqqani: It is folks at State who got pissed off by your missionHusain Haqqani: She may be but I was Holbrooke’s buddy so everyone who hates him hates meHusain Haqqani: I have no time for just pushing paper aroundHusain Haqqani: State likes processMansoor IJAZ: Which mission? Sudan, Kashmir, there were so many they got pissed off about. I showed them howto do real American diplomacy and that was like a big pile of shit on their desk they couldn’t swallowHusain Haqqani: Conferences, statements–with nothing changingHusain Haqqani: The latest oneMansoor IJAZ: Yeah, I got it. You’re right!Mansoor IJAZ: Anyway, State will always hate me because I don’t accept their muddling way of doing thingsHusain Haqqani: I don’t know for a fact but I won’t be surprised if the FO statement was prompted by someone hereHusain Haqqani: Robin Raphel is back as Grossman’s deputyHusain Haqqani: You stepped on her toes w/ Kashmir missionMansoor IJAZ: That would be typical. But Grossman knows me and he knows how serious I am. Raphael still hatesme for the Kashmir intervention where she did everything she could to fuck me upHusain Haqqani: And now they hate me more when folks back home who hate me tell them you and I might havebeen together on s’thing (whether we were or not is irrelevant to them)Husain Haqqani: Grossman is good but he doesn’t like anyone playing a larger than life role. Old schoolHusain Haqqani: That’s why I have been requesting you to let this one goMansoor IJAZ: Yeah I know. Found that out when he was our lobbyist. But he’s a good guyHusain Haqqani: That takes attention off meMansoor IJAZ: Hmmmmmmmmm……. Not sure anything could take attention off youHusain Haqqani: I try and make peace with State and focus on battles at homeHusain Haqqani: HaHa Mansoor IJAZ: Diplomacy at its finest!!!Husain Haqqani: Yeah, right! But at least I shd not be painted as playing for your teamMansoor IJAZ: Why not? You were a good quarterback for those three days!!Husain Haqqani: I want to solve f***ing problems not fight a rearguard action all the timeHusain Haqqani: Husain Haqqani: Let us wait and see if Hillary’s latest foray changes things in any directionMansoor IJAZ: Did we really solve a true problem or was this all smoke and mirrors?Mansoor IJAZ: I mean on those days of stress…Husain Haqqani: View here is that everyone in Isloo sucks!Mansoor IJAZ: That’s pretty much true!!!!Husain Haqqani: Too early to say re solutionMansoor IJAZ: But if they all suck, then what did we save — a sinking ship that was going to sink anyway???Husain Haqqani: And there is a genetic problem at that end, predisposed to going round and round in circlesMansoor IJAZ: Yup!! That’s for damn sureHusain Haqqani: I think we save the situation from an extremely violent outcomeMansoor IJAZ: How can you solve the problems you understand so well from here if all the people in charge overthere are wrong? It’s only one year til we have a change in the US. Then you really won’t like who we have here!Husain Haqqani: I mean, Iran might have done better if the Shah had been saved AND some true reform introducedHusain Haqqani: Actually, I think the new ppl here might be better to deal with

Husain Haqqani: They won’t take lies easilyMansoor IJAZ: Don’t bet on it. We have a lot of extremists cropping up and seeping into the systemMansoor IJAZ: They don’t trust anything PakistaniMansoor IJAZ: Don’t matter what it isHusain Haqqani: Well, in that case find me a cheap piece of beachMansoor IJAZ: Cain, Romney (who hates Muslims), Perry — its all the same crapMansoor IJAZ: Hmmmmm, yes, I can arrange thatMansoor IJAZ: Why is Z such an idiot?Husain Haqqani: But don’t go off writing opeds abt arranging piece of beach w’out consulting first Husain Haqqani: HaHa! Tough questionHusain Haqqani: I have a speech in 20 mins so let’s keep that for laterHusain Haqqani: Bye for nowMansoor IJAZ: Okay. Good luck.Husain Haqqani: Thank you!

BBM CHAT EXCHANGES WITH HAQQANI ON 01 NOV 2011

–

22:06, then 22:31 until 23:03

Participants:Mansoor IJAZ, Husain Haqqani Messages:

Mansoor IJAZ: Hi buddy, I understand you/ your foreign office hacks are commissioning hatchet pieces against me.Unfortunate…. very unfortunate Husain Haqqani: I will enquire and stop them. There’s no need for any of this.Husain Haqqani: You haven’t helped by engaging so much w/ Pak media.Husain Haqqani: What happened to the ‘silent soldier’?Mansoor IJAZ: I issued a statement that was designed to put an end to all of this after Imran Khan’s rally nonsense.But be that as it may,I’m not going to tolerate character assassination in any of thisHusain Haqqani: I agreeHusain Haqqani: Will do my best to prevent itMansoor IJAZ: Roger thatHusain Haqqani: Focus on your policy message instead of who did what and we can turn this aroundMansoor IJAZ: Please remind your boss that his beloved wife, who later became a good friend of mine, tried thesame bullshit tactics in 1996 when Maleeha was envoy — result: her government was dismissed in Nov 1996.Mansoor IJAZ: I’m not someone he can mess around with. He better get that message from me and really understanditHusain Haqqani: My response to Imran was very simple and true: I did not write a treasonous letter and if Imran hasa copy, he should present itHusain Haqqani: I don’t think your threatening helpsMansoor IJAZ: That’s true from my point of view as well. But politicians are politiciansMansoor IJAZ: I don’t make threats. I state facts. Your boss needs reminding of the factsHusain Haqqani: Are you sure your side won’t deny?Mansoor IJAZ: No, maybe they will. But that would also be a mistake. Too much proof on that side as well.Husain Haqqani: But does “proving” help anything?Husain Haqqani: Is it not the nature of a private mission that officials deny it?Mansoor IJAZ: Don’t know. Don’t care. My point is simple — I’ve said what I was going to. Attacks on my personwill not be tolerated. And my statement stands. Stop telling lies about me and I might just stip telling the truth aboutyouHusain Haqqani: If you were to listen to my advice, you would let this blow over and prove yourself afterwards. Youare the one who will outlast the flying shit Husain Haqqani: That is usually my strategy: be there when the others have self-destructed or blown over

Mansoor IJAZ: I’ve kept to my word — if everyone wants to call it a fabrication and make me the fall guy, thengloves come off and it’s not going to be fun or pretty for anyoneMansoor IJAZ: You did something you thought was right outside channels because you felt it would be the mosteffective way to get the job done.I helped you execute. I haven’t thrown you under the bus. But be damn sure I won’t let anyone do that to meHusain Haqqani: I’ll do what I can to keep it prettyHusain Haqqani: I haven’t. I won’t.Mansoor IJAZ: By the way, I know a lot more than you give me credit for about the circumstances that led to May 1and your role in all that. Just FYIHusain Haqqani: Honorable ppl stick with one another. Take care.Mansoor IJAZ:

BBM CHAT FROM HAQQANI ON 02 NOV 2011 at 03:42

Husain Haqqani: I am maintaining silence so pls check with me before reacting if some Pak journo attributes anything to me

This completes my Witness Statement to the Commission. I wish to thank this august body forpermitting me to be heard in completeness. I remain ready to answer any of your questions. Iwish the Commission

God’s speed in addressing the important issues raised by this matter.

Thank you, Chairman and the members of this Honourable Commission, for your time and yourattention in this matter of great national importance.

Submitted for the record this 16th day of February, 2012

Deponent Musawer Mansoor IJAZ

VERIFICATION:

Verifying on solemn affirmation on this 16th day of February, 2012 at London that all content of this affidavit, oral as well as printed in script from blackberry, email and other devices are absolutely true, honest and sincere to the best of my knowledge and nothing has been deposed falsely, ambiguously and wrongly. Deponent Musawer Mansoor IJAZ

NADEEM MALIK

Filed under: CURRENT AFFAIRS

Nokia has launched three smart phones in Pakistan featuring the latest Symbian Belle OS which were unveiled back in August 2011. With the launch of these mass-market smart phones, Nokia is aiming to shift the focus of the masses from feature phones to something most compelling and stylish i.e. smart phones.

The current price of Nokia 603 is approximately Rs. 22,500
The current price of Nokia 700 is approximately Rs. 28,800
The current price of Nokia 701 is approximately Rs. 30,900

Ilari Nurmi, Vice President at Nokia said:

After bringing exciting new features to the Symbian user experience only two months ago with Symbian Anna, we are now driving the platform even further with our most competitive Symbian user experience ever, Symbian Belle and the three new handsets we are launching today show our commitment to continue delivering Symbian products that allow people to choose what is most important to them in terms of user experience, design, functionality and price.  These will not be last products or updates we will deliver on Symbian.

Nick McQuire IDC added:

With this announcement Nokia has made it clear that Symbian will continue to play an important role in its product portfolio along side Windows Phone 7. “There is a sense of urgency in the way improvements and innovations are being delivered to the platform that demonstrates how committed Nokia is to make Symbian products a competitive smartphone choice.

Nokia 700: Nokia’s Smallest Smart Phone

At only 50 cubic centimetres, weighing 96gm and at 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm the Nokia 700 not only becomes Nokia’s most compact smartphone in the Symbian range, it is also the most compact touch-based monoblock smart phone in the world.

Nokia 700′s features include:

• Single-tap NFC sharing and pairing capabilities
• 1Ghz processor
• 3.2 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display
• 2GB of internal memory (with the option of using a 32GB microSD card for a total of 34GB),
• HD video capture and 5MP full focus camera with LED flash.

Nokia 701: The brightest by Nokia

The Nokia 701 is a sleek, slim smartphone incorporating the world’s brightest ever mobile phone display, based on a 3.5 inch ClearBlack display that makes it perfect for indoor and outdoor use.

Based on the popular Nokia C7 design, the Nokia 701 also features:

• A 1GHz processor
• 8MP full focus camera with dual LED flash and 2 X digital zoom,
• 2nd front-facing camera
• HD video capture

The phone comes with 8GB internal memory and the possibility to increase to 40GB by installing a 32GB microSD card

Nokia 600: Fast & Bright

The Nokia 600 delivers a big sound and a big personality in a small package and is Nokia’s loudest smartphone at 106 Phons.

Features include:

• Built-in FM radio antenna for listening to radio without headphones
• An FM transmitter that makes it possible to broadcast music from your phone to any FM radio
• 1 GHz processor
• 5MP full focus camera with LED flash
• HD video capture,
• 2GB of internal memory with ability to increase to 34GB using a 32GB microSD card.

The Nokia 600 as features an amazing 60 hours of music playback time, an incredibly powerful external loudspeaker and the ability to also stream music wirelessly to NFC-enabled accessories, it is the perfect smartphone to get the party started.

Billa & Melinda Gates Foundation has been gracious enough to give a grant of us$ 6.5 million to Easypaisa to fuel the adoption of its services among poorest households of Pakistan. A press conference was held at Telenor Pakistan’s head office in which the grant was announced.

Roar Bjaerum, Vice President of Financial Services at Telenor Pakistan, said

Financial exclusion of the lower income population is a systemic challenge in Pakistan. With more than 85% of population not having access to formal savings or credit products, many households are vulnerable to fluctuations in daily income and unable to absorb economic shocks from unexpected events. Easypaisa’s vision is to serve as a vehicle for financial inclusion for such households. The grant will help us accelerate adoption of Easypaisa services among poor and unbanked individuals

Rodger Voorhies, Director of the Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative, said:

While Easypaisa has seen rapid adoption of its payment and remittance services, adoption of mobile financial services, like savings and insurance, has been slower, this grant aims to accelerate adoption of Easypaisa’s Mobile Account among poor and unbanked households to create a foundation for the delivery of savings, insurance, and other mobile financial services.

Such a significant grant by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation not only sheds light on the philanthropic nature of Microsoft’s founder, but also to his aim to fight poverty across the world. Hundreds and thousands of poor households will be able to access financial services in Pakistan if this grant is utilized effectively for the purpose it is provided instead of marketing the Easypaisa brand.

Kashif. N. Chaudary

Imran Khan is Pakistan’s sports superstar. His philanthropy is also admirable. This, however, does not mean I should not exercise my right to criticize Khan’s politics. Sadly,Imran Khan’s followers do not take criticism all that well. Anyone who calls him Taliban Khan is quickly ascribed a set of views and labeled a “pseudo-liberal” and “fascist”.

In a recent interview, Imran Khan said he believed in engaging the far right and justified being represented at rallies of extremist groups by stating that his was a political party that believed in engaging marginalized groups. Will Imran Khan also engage the ostracized Ahmadi Muslims, Hindus and Christians of Pakistan? Or is his engagement limited to those that preach and execute their killings?

Imran Khan has been represented at rallies organized by banned terrorist outfits such as the Jamaat-ud Dawa and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. His vice president has spoken at pro-Mumtaz Qadri rallies and has been in attendance at anti-Ahmadi rallies organized by the extremist Aalmi Majlis Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nubuwwat. Khan believes this approach of friendship with the radical right will help bring them to the center. It will soften them and with time, allow them to shun their extremist ideology.

If Imran Khan genuinely believes in coherence, he should employ the same approach of engagement with the far left to make them more centrist, right? Surprisingly, he ridicules them openly, calling them “the scum of Pakistan.” He does not stop at that. He also blames all the extremism in Pakistan on the liberals living within. For example, in a recent interview, he said:

“These liberals. I don’t know these liberals, because these liberals back bombing of villages. They back drone attacks. I mean, I don’t call them liberals. I call them fascists. In my book these people are fascists…Because of them we have extremism in this country these liberals, so called liberals, applauded the incineration, where they bombed this mosque when there were children and women in it, students in it. And these liberals were in the forefront. I don’t call them liberals. I agree. I really think these are the scum of this country.”

Let me remind Imran Khan that liberals were not in the forefront at Lal Masjid. It was the Army. Also, drones do not take off from atop liberals’ houses; they take off from army bases. But I understand it is much easier to criticize vulnerable unarmed liberals than take on the Military-Mullah nexus.

I am flabbergasted. I am also confused. Does Imran Khan and his die-hard fans really understand the words he uses? A fascist is a person who is dictatorial and suppresses criticism and opposition through use of force. Scum refers to a low life, worthless or evil person.

I am yet to meet a “so-called liberal” who bombs mosques and attacks shrines. I am yet to see a “so-called liberal” who kills fellow Pakistanis citing differences of faith. I have never come across a “so-called liberal” who persecutes Pakistan’s very own minorities and razes their places of worship. I am yet to come across a “so-called liberal” who delivers sermons of hate against Shia and Ahmadi Muslims, inciting their killings.

Let me remind Imran Khan that it is the religious fanatics he engages that are the real fascists and the real scum of Pakistan. It is they that are responsible for all the extremism in the country.  Lest he has forgotten, it is they that bomb mosques and shrines. It is they that murder fellow Pakistanis they despise, namely the Ahmadi and Shia Muslims, and non-Muslim Pakistanis. It is they that have made life in Pakistan a living hell for everyone, especially its minorities. It is they that spread hate and incite violence against any and all voices of reason and moderation. Many have had to flee after being threatened by these bigots.

Now, why the far left liberals should be considered scum and unworthy of engagement while those who openly carry out and endorse acts of terror be considered worthy of engagement is beyond me!  Why must only the far right be brought to the center and the far left subjected to ridicule and left isolated? Why must one end of our political divide be
befriended and the other rejected? Above all, why must the heavy burden of sins of one be taken off its shoulder and placed on the shoulders of the other?

Is this justice? Is this Insaaf?

Imran Khan’s justice appears to favor the rightist and the strong. Unless he garners courage to blame extremism on those that actually perpetrate it and relieve the “so-called liberals” of unbefitting slander, his party will increasingly be seen as TPI (Tehreek-e-Pseudo Insaaf) and not PTI.

God Save Pakistan!

Here are the most recent updates from four of the eight SAARC nations. For news from the rest of the countries, please visit their respective national pages.
…

MALDIVES – A top US diplomat arrived in the Maldives on February 11 to help resolve a deepening political crisis sparked by the ousting of the Indian Ocean nation’s first democratically elected president.

Mohamed Nasheed, who came to power in 2008, says he was forced to quit on February 7 in a coup led by mutinous army and police officers who threatened him with violence unless he stepped down as leader of the famous holiday islands.

He was replaced by his vice president Mohamed Waheed, whom Nasheed accuses of being party to the conspiracy to topple him.

…

SRI LANKA – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa reached Pakistan on February 10 to Pakistan to further strengthen political, economic and defence ties between the two countries.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka are also expected to sign an agreement during President Rajapaksa’s visit under which the latter would get $200 million export credit facility through the State Bank of Pakistan.

The two countries are aiming to increase bilateral trade to $2 billon mark over the next three years and pledged to support each other at regional and international forums.

The commitment is significant in the light of the forthcoming UNHRC session, which is expected to put pressure on Sri Lanka to address the ethnic conflict between Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority of the island nation.

…

NEPAL – A top Maoist leader on February 10 said the government will finish the key task of concluding the peace process and framing a new constitution, amid a deadlock between the political parties over form of governance and federal structure to be adopted in the country.

“The peace process and the constitution drafting will be completed within the stipulated time frame of May 27,” Education Minister and senior Maoist party leader Dinanath Sharma said on the sideline of the inaugural function of the UK Education Fair in the capital.

The landmark peace process has been stalled amid the failure of the political parties to agree on the form of governance and federal structure.

…

BHUTAN – By the end of 2012 at least 40 locations in western and central Bhutan will have access to 3G or third generation high speed Internet connectivity, which is today available only in the core areas of Thimphu city.
Starting March Bhutan Telecom will start work to expand its 3G network in Thimphu, Phuentsholing, Paro and Gelephu.
3G is the ‘3rd Generation’ technology for mobiles which enhances internet speed and enables features like video calling, faster audio and video streaming and quicker downloads.

In urban Thimphu, six more locations will be added to the 14 existing 3G sites. The other 20 locations will be added in Phuentsholing, Paro and Gelephu and at tertiary institutes like Sherubtse College, College of Science and Technology and the college of business studies in Gedu.

“Many young people at these institutions are in need of these services and they are the people who use these services more often,” the CEO of Bhutan telecom, Nidup Dorji, said.

The present 3G sites in Thimphu are located within a five km radius of Bhutan Telecom head office. For 3G data service the speed range is 7.2 mbps.

- Agencies

Mere days after sobering official ceremonies marked the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, America’s most dubious partner – Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki – charged his Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with aiding and abetting terrorism and sought to remove his Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq from office. In short order, sectarian violence spread rapidly from the capital city of Baghdad, further south into Basra and north towards Mosul. Within a month, nearly 450 Iraqis had lost their lives – one of the highest tolls for short an amount of time in years.

However, the physical violence that rocked the struggling democracy concealed a major political crisis simmering below the superficial horrors of car bombs and death squads. Iraqis now face a new crisis as the fragile government juggles uncertain national unity under pressure of sectarian tension and raw competition for political leverage.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is holding a special forum, “The State of Iraq” to discuss the growing political crisis left behind in the wake of America’s military occupation. Ad Melkert, former UN Special Representative in Iraq, and Carnegie’s Marina Ottoway will discuss the prospects for quelling the gathering storm.

The United States has exited Iraq, stage left, but for the second time since the 2003 invasion disrupted Saddam’s autocracy, the state finds itself on the verge of disintegration. Thank goodness some folks haven’t forgotten our obligation to help clean up the mess we left behind.

A couple of weeks shy of the scheduled presidential elections, Vice-President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi announced in an official ceremony that he would run for president, adding that he hoped Yemenis would entrust him with the responsibility of running the affairs of the state.
On Tuesday, Yemenis across the country woke up to find that a number of posters advocating their electoral participation had been hung throughout their towns and villages, reminding them of their democratic, constitutional and civic duties. But since VP Hadi is the only candidate running for president, and no matter how few people decide to show up to cast their vote the veteran politician will still be pronounced the winner, many Yemenis are wondering whether the whole thing is a farce and if they should indulge in such a travesty of the democratic system.
From Sana’a to Aden, the eastern shore of the Red Sea to the leafy hills of Hadramaut, Yemenis from all faiths and political denominations are asking the same question: “What does this have to do with us?”

Flash Back

At the beginning of it all, when Yemenis decided during the ousting of Egyptian President Husni Mubarak to rise against their own dictator, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they wanted to bring about real democracy, turning their country into a civil state where justice, freedom and equality would be revered notions, not just ink on paper. But as Saleh held on to his presidential seat and as blood started flowing through the streets of Sana’a, the capital and Taiz, a flash point of the Revolution, foreign nations scrambled to save Yemen from the precipice, too aware of its strategic importance within the region.

From that moment on, revolutionaries were put aside, ignored by the politicians, as diplomats and high ranking statesmen worked at finding a solution to the conundrum that had become Yemen. In between its many overlapping conflicts, widespread poverty and the threat of terror groups looming in the shadows, Yemen is unlike any other land. Very much like President Saleh put it himself, ruling over Yemen equates to “dancing over the heads of snakes”. But for one who truly understands the essence of Yemen, there is an order to the apparent chaos.

The GCC proposal that enunciated the terms of the power-transfer and its mechanisms never actually took into account the will of the people, but rather it was tailored around Saleh’s will, ensuring him an honorable exit with the promise of immunity. In other words, the fate of Yemen’s presidency was sealed by a group of technocrats and politicians, while the good people of Yemen were completely put on the back burner for it was “better this way.”

Democracy

VP Hadi, who is a member of the ruling party, was chosen by both the General People’s Congress and the Opposition as the candidate of the coalition, ensuring that no other contender would enter the presidential race.
And if even Western diplomats have argued that the move was intended to preserve the country’s unity and avoid a bitter battle for power from the various political factions, Yemenis saw no sense in it. Revolutionaries actually contested the legitimacy of the power-transfer deal from the very second it was inked in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, warning that they would continue to fight until Yemen power players would acknowledge their demands.

And although there was no further violent confrontation between the armed forces and the revolutionaries, at least not in the magnitude manifested before the agreement, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis across the nation are still demanding to be heard, rejecting as a whole “Saleh tailored plan.”

“Are you seriously telling me that a one-man-election can be called democratic? Are you telling me that after a year of suffering, blood spilled and all around misery, that the best the West and its minions could come up with is Hadi? Are Yemenis so stupid that the West does not trust them to choose their own leader? Why couldn’t we have a normal presidential elections like in Egypt based on the principle of political pluralism? Is it so hard to understand that Yemen wants a real civil state… not a make believe one where the old regime is still present but with a new face?” a leader of the Independent Youth argued.

Another sore point, which Yemeni are finding hard to swallow, lies in the fact that the United Nations, through its multitude of agencies, is currently throwing away several millions of dollars to organize the elections. “Millions of us are going hungry for we have lost everything in our struggle for freedom and rather than pull all the country’s resources together to bring some relief to war-torn areas, the government prefers to spend the UN money on stupid posters and presidential campaign? It is insulting to the nation. We don’t need posters but we need bread. So kindly Hadi, cash out your checks and feed your country,” said an English teacher in “Change Square”, the epicenter of the revolutionary movement.
Yemen is said to have spent 8 million dollars on Hadi’s campaign, with all the funds provided by Japan, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Given that the majority of the population lives on under $2 per day, this money could have prevented 4 million of people from going hungry or could have provided 80,000 families with an average salary of $100 for a month. Many are warning that in spite of the coalition government’s claims that all will be fixed after February 21st with Saleh’s departure from power, one might want to have a look at who is leading Yemen’s military. With his sons, nephews and brother still very much in charge of the nation’s fire power, Saleh might not have yet said his last goodbye to Yemen. In which case, the GCC proposal will only allow the autocrat to regroup and plan his comeback.

Photo: Department of Defense

The notion of asymmetric power–referring generally to the danger of lesser powers resorting to unconventional weaponry and tactics as an answer to the United States’ immense conventional military superiority–has been in vogue among American defense analysts since the first Gulf War; Gulf War II and its aftermath, with the devastating appearance of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), gave the idea more credence than ever. So it’s important to be clear about the root of that asymmetry. It’s a result not primarily of other countries’ weakness but of the wildly over-built U.S. military and the country’s stubborn belief that it’s still its job to be the world’s policeman.

Despite the end of the Cold War, the irrelevance of a global conflict between capitalism and communism, and the unthinkability of armed conflict between what once were called the world’s two superpowers, U.S. defense spending has increased more than 50 percent since 2000. Although the United States is arguably only the world’s second largest economic power (strictly speaking the European Union is the biggest), the United States spends more on its bloated military complex that the next 10 countries combined.

President Obama made just that point in yesterday’s slightly peculiar Pentagon press briefing, which appears to have been staged to get the top brass used to the idea that defense spending cuts are ahead–and to send a message that team players will be expected to act the part of team players. But the president was not suggesting that U.S. defense spending should now be cut 50 percent and then some, which would be the logical thing to do now that the neo-imperialist fantasies of former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and former Vice President Dick Cheney have been discredited and repudiated. No, what the president was evidently doing was positioning the military to accept the $450 billion in defense cuts already mandated by the budget supercommittee, and the additional cuts of $500 billion that will have to be made if congressional Republicans and Democrats are unable to agree on alternative spending cuts. Together, those cuts would equate to about 15 percent of the U.S. military budget, as the highly respected defense analyst Lawrence Korb pointed out in an interesting exchange published in the Sunday New York Times’s Review section on Nov. 13 last year.

Korb argued that the United States could easily go further than that, for example by reducing the number of its nuclear warheads from 5,000 to 311, “as recommended by some Air Force strategists” (as he said); reducing the number of aircraft careers and Air Force fighters by 25 percent; and cutting ground forces by 100,000 to pre-9/11 levels.

Readers reacting to Korb pointed out that the United States could in fact go even further than that, for example by ending its quixotic attempt to develop a leak-proof missile defense system, retiring 50 naval ships and scrapping plans to build up to a fleet of 300 ships, dumping plans to replace the current fleet of nuclear missile submarines, and sharply curtailing the “modernization” of U.S. nuclear weapons. (In that connection, here’s another idea not mentioned by those readers: Shutter one of the country’s two nuclear weapons laboratories, either Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos, and reduce the other’s budget by 75 percent.)

Responding to those readers, Korb said, interestingly, that he basically agreed with them. So what are the prospects of cuts going even further than those resulting from the supercommittee’s mandate? Regrettably, not good.

On the positive side of the ledger, there now seems to be a bipartisan consensus, as The New York Times has pointed out, that defense spending needs to be cut; indeed, the supercommitte’s mandate was an implicit acknowledgement of that consensus. In a poll of its readers the Times published earlier last year, when they were asked where they would most prefer to see U.S. spending reduced, defense spending ranked at the very top. Though some of the Republican presidential candidates have made intemperate remarks about taking military action against Iran, Ron Paul appears to have got considerable traction with his neo-isolationist argument that the U.S. president should first and foremost keep the country out of unnecessary armed conflicts. Whoever the Republican presidential candidate turns out to be, Obama will surely be able to prevail with a position that avoiding new military entanglements will have equal place with preparedness in his second administration.

But on the negative side, there’s no indication that the president is ready or ever will be to confront head-on the country’s military and intelligence establishments, by far the country’s biggest and more fearsome vested interest. It’s hard to imagine that any president will ever have the guts and skill to face that challenge. But until one does, American military asymmetry will continue to provoke other countries to seek an equalizer, whether it’s an old-fashioned nuke or some much more fearsome biological or chemical device.

Dear FPA Blogs followers,

Azeri APA News Agency recently conducted an interview with me regarding the French National Assembly’s decision to criminalize the refusal to refer to the events of 1909-15 as a genocide and how this affects Turkey’s Caucasus policy. This is the transcript of that interview:

————————-

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=163076

New York. Isabel Levine – APA. APA’s interview with Mr. H. Akin Unver, Turkey and Middle Eastern analyst at the Princeton University, New Jersey

- What are your views on Armenia’s negative insistence on international community as the French National Assembly recently passed the bill penalizing denial of the so-called genocides recognized by the law? 

- Events of 1909-15 are a part of Armenian national identity and it is perhaps the only issue that binds the international Armenian Diaspora together, without which, the Diaspora will most probably fall apart. Therefore, the Diaspora’s insistence on the genocide question is linked to its raison d’être – from their
point of view, this indeed, is a victory. On the part of the French National Assembly, on the other hand, I think, this is a failure.

Whether one believes the events of 1909-15 are genocide or not, French National Assembly’s view on the matter extends way beyond legislating on another country’s history, and infringes upon the Copenhagen political criteria for European Union membership, as well as the Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as it relates to freedom of expression.

To that end, I don’t think any observer or scholar would associate French National Assembly’s move as a matter of principle or retrospective legislation on human rights; it is a simple pre-electoral and populist legislation, which is passed by less than 10% of the French National Assembly and therefore, does not represent 90% of the French people. More worrisome perhaps, is that the legislation tramples the founding principles of the European Union and is an inherently undemocratic (and even anti-democratic) move.

- What are the prospects of the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation in conditions when the Armenian lobby does not disavow the global campaign for recognition of ‘Armenian genocide’ by parliaments, as well as by the US Congress? 

- This dilemma was addressed many times between Turkish and Armenian governments; Turkey has been complaining about the Diaspora drawing a wedge between Turkish and Armenian governments, whereas Armenia sees the Diaspora a natural extension of the Armenian consciousness. In return, the Diaspora will not accept any settlement with Turkey that marginalizes the Diaspora’s influence.

I believe the Diaspora’s permanent role in this issue is to assert its weight and influence over the negotiations by using its financial capabilities and large amounts of money sent to Armenia from abroad, which surpasses the Armenian national budget. Armenia is dependent on Diaspora money and therefore, cannot sign bilateral agreements with Turkey regarding the genocide question without the consent of the Diaspora.

I do not believe that the radicalized segments of the Diaspora will give up the genocide issue, nor will it simply disappear from the Turkish-Armenian equation. The only way we can talk about a Turkish-Armenian reconciliation without the influence of the Diaspora is that either Turkey accepts genocide allegations and pay large amounts of compensation (and possibly land transfers) in a protracted legal process, or if Turkey creates an immediate need for the Republic of Armenia (either through trade revenues that exceed Diaspora money, or via a military-strategic necessity) which will create an urge for the Armenian decision-makers to sideline the Diaspora and deal directly with Turkey. Both of these options are quite unlikely at this time, though.

- What should the US do in that case – stand aside (of the reconciliation process) or continue participating in the processes? 

- Even though the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed a non-binding resolution on the genocide issue in March 2010, I think this is the furthest it can get in any American institution as long as Turkey remains a key ally in post-war Iraq and growing Iranian and Russian influence.

While the administration may issue statements calling for Turkey to recognize the genocide allegations, it will refrain from doing anything binding. Even though Turkey and Armenia had signed reconciliation protocols in October 2009, there is very little move towards honoring its principles as Turkey moves closer to Azerbaijan for the future of the Nabucco pipeline deal.

I believe the future of Nabucco is closely linked to the future of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. As long as Turkish-Azeri relations remain close and energy
politics remain the most important issue in Turkey’s Caucasus policy, I believe the United States will support Turkey’s position with regard to Armenia.
Although US Vice-President Joe Biden had suggested Turkey to ‘pursue its protocol with Armenia’ during his recent visit, Armenia is not a priority either for Turkey or the United States at this moment.

- And how will the French National Assembly’s “genocide” bill affect to the Nagorno-Karabakh adjustment process? 

- Most visibly, it will push Turkey towards Azerbaijan and will cause the collapse of the Turkish-Armenian protocols. This is important, as the US leave Iraq, and leaves a massive power vacuum in the Middle East and Russia, Iran and Turkey move in to fill that gap; a conflict is now more likely. There is a possibility that Azerbaijan, benefiting from successive securitizing moves in the region, may engage in a quick military move against Karabakh.

Russia certainly prepares for this possibility. When Russia extended its use of Armenia’s Gumru base, it also signed an agreement to protect Armenia against external attacks. Russia is concerned with the size of its military presence in Armenia because of Georgia’s annulment of the treaty that enabled Russian troops to use Georgian territory to be transferred further south. The necessity to bolster Russian military presence in Armenia may lead Russia to force its way through Georgia, or rely solely on Azerbaijan for the transfer of its troops to Armenia. This draws a strategic wedge between Russia and Armenia, and renders Russia’s commitment to protect Armenia uncertain. Meanwhile, Russia also needs to guarantee its use of the Gabala radar installation in Azerbaijan whose lease ends in 2012. Azerbaijan raised the cost of the installation from 7 million to 100 million US dollars per annum, while hinting at the possibility of negotiating the cost in exchange for Russian support for its position over Karabakh.

In this scenario, Azerbaijan suddenly finds itself in a very advantageous position strategically, having both Turkish and Russian support over the Karabakh question. Sarkozy and the Armenian Diaspora in France put Armenia in an extremely difficult situation over Karabakh; I am not sure they realize this.

- Turkey has already agreed to host radar for the early warning missile defence system being created by the United States and NATO. Do you think the French Parliament’s decision will influence Turkey’s activity as a NATO member, its place and importance in the region? 

- The bill already started to affect Turkey’s relations with France. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced an eight-point sanctions list against France and unilaterally cancelled all military cooperation agreements, including joint training, intelligence sharing and air space – territorial waters restrictions. Furthermore, Turkey declared that it would stop cooperating with France in all European Union projects (which essentially affects Turkey’s relations with the EU fundamentally). In many ways, Turkey’s EU policy is changing to an understanding similar to that of China, which considers the European Union as an ineffectual political entity and instead deal with the European countries individually.

In that regard, I think the NATO missile shield has more to do with Turkey’s commitment to its alliance with the United States and also its concern with growing Russian and Iranian influence in the region. Even though Turkey has cordial relations with both countries, Turkish decision-makers understand that they need concrete balancing power against Russia and Iran and I think missile shield must be interpreted within the context of Turkey’s own security concerns. Of course, Turkey’s NATO commitments will remain, but Turkish-French cooperation within NATO will freeze in the short- to medium-term.

As is the custom for all FPA Bloggers with the year drawing to a close, it’s time for me to give my thoughts on how events fared in 2011. All in all there were a number of defense policy successes, with the most spectacular being the death of Osama Bin Laden, the continued dismantling of Al Qaeda leadership (in 2011 they lost 10 of its top 20 leaders), the halting of Taliban momentum in Afghanistan, the successful NATO operation in Libya, and the end of our military involvement in Iraq. All of these successes coupled with the Obama administration saying our military involvement in Afghanistan will end in 2014 and the continuing economic crisis have many calling for massive cuts to the Department of Defense (DoD) budget.

I don’t believe that the DoD should be untouched, but I have major concerns about the direction and what programs and organizations will bear the brunt of these cuts. When it comes to the topics of crisis and war, the old Yogi Berra quote: “It ain’t over till it’s over” comes to mind. I don’t believe we have yet reached a stage in our human evolution where world peace is possible. Some will say with the death of Bin Laden, major threats to U.S. national security are gone therefore we don’t need a large military anymore. Others say the last few years have shown that future threats to national security will be in areas like terrorism and cyber space, therefore we no longer need a large conventional military force.

I don’t agree. Just in the last day or so Iran has threatened to close the Hormuz Strait, a waterway that around one third of the world’s oil shipments pass through, if new economic sanctions are imposed. The change of leadership in North Korea has also once again bought that nation back on the radar scope reminding people there has never been a peace treaty signed and we are still technically at war with that nation. Both Iran and North Korea are threats that still require conventional military forces to counter.

Some would say are these real threats or simply excuses some who favor a strong military are using as an excuse to avoid major budget cuts? Looking first at Iran as pointed out in a December 28th article in the Washington Post:

“Despite threats to close the narrow waterway if Western nations tighten sanctions on Iran by imposing an oil embargo, the Islamic republic needs the strait at least as much as its adversaries do, Iranian and foreign analysts said…
By undermining Iran’s ability to generate income through oil sales, the United States hopes to force Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, which the Obama administration suspects is secretly aimed at enabling Iran to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies it is trying to build nuclear arms.
The latest furor erupted when Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told students Tuesday that Iran would close the strait in reprisal for any Western sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.
In that case, “not even a drop of oil will flow through the Strait of Hormuz,” Rahimi said, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Iran’s navy commander, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, later said that for the nation’s armed forces, closing the strait would be “easier than drinking a glass of water.”…
‘’Does the West expect us to be threatened and attacked and we just surrender?’ asked Ali Akbar Javanfekr, head of IRNA and an unofficial spokesman for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘What are our options? Be sure, we can find ways to tackle any sanctions’.”

Some will ask does Iran really have the capability to close down the Strait. The answer is yes; they can mine it or use submarines to sink ships. The advantage to that strategy is plausible denial. Ships would be sunk but unless Iran publicly admits to it you have a situation similar to the one we had when North Korea sank the South Korean Destroyer last year. According to official U.S. statements we’re pretty certain the North Koreans are guilty but since they continue to deny it we can’t go out and attack their Navy without causing a serious crisis in the region. Publicly China remains unconvinced the North Koreans did it, so… well you get my drift.

If the Iranians want to openly close the strait in addition to mines and submarines they have land based cruise missiles and small boats armed with cruise missiles that could be used. I believe the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, home ported in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, would be able to successfully counter the threat but that could lead to yet another war in the region.

Back to my budget concerns; historically the U.S. tends to down size its military after a war then build it up again when a new war or major crisis develops. The challenge is predicting and/or recognizing a new threat. Osama Bin Laden declared war on the U.S. in 1996. In 1998 Al Qaeda blew up our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, yet it was not until 9/11 that the U.S. threw its full security apparatus at the problem. Terrorism has always been a threat but one that the security establishment had successfully been able to handle. As has been reported in the media, there were a lot of terrorist related successes the general public was not aware. For instance, I remember when I was stationed in Panama in the 1980’s; some group was setting off pipe bombs in rest rooms of night clubs frequented by U.S. soldiers. No one was killed but it was a cause for concern. It was not just terrorism threats, during the Cold War there were many incidents that could have escalated to a war or major crisis but did not because our military forces were a powerful countering force to potential adversaries.

The challenge will be to make cuts to the Defense budget but retain a national security strategy that can successfully respond to any threat. I know that will not be an easy task but if we don’t do it and just make massive cuts we risk leaving ourselves open to another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor type incident. The November/December 2011 issue of Geospatial Intelligence Forum magazine states:

“Intelligence agencies are bracing for about $25 billion in budget cuts over the next 10 years, and top officials are saying this will increase security risks. ‘We’re going to have less capacity in 10 years than we have today,’ said Director on National Intelligence James Clapper, Intelligence officials and policymakers will have to decide whether to pay less attention to some areas so increased emphasis can be placed on other areas. The days of ‘worldwide emphasis’ are over.”

There are a lot of ways to cut the DoD budget without taking major hits in the size of the military force. In October of this year, General Keith Alexander, the head of both NSA and U.S. Cyber Command talked about how NSA had made a 30 – 40% savings in their Information Technology budget by switching to cloud technology. He stated at the start of the process NSA had 900 help desks, now they are down to 450 and plan to go down to 2.

DoD hired a lot of defense contractors to work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many were former and retired military personnel. I always thought this was weird. If they needed the service of former and retired military personnel why not just reactivate them. I was surprised when going through the military retirement paperwork process and found out I was eligible for recall until the age of 65. If you’re already paying me a salary and then I go work for a defense company and you pay them for my services, you’re paying me twice. Does that make any sense?

Think I’ll end with saying who is my Person of the Year: the U. S. Intelligence Community. You have thousands of men and women, many in their late teens and early 20’s who are working 24/7 at all 16 of the intelligence agencies, 17 if you include the Directorate of National Intelligence. They never gave up on finding Bin Laden and continued to work hard in an environment where you get very few pats on the back and lots of criticism from the media and the public. They are continually screening large amounts of data looking for threats. The most recent statistics I have come from a briefing given at the second annual Navy Information Day conference held on March 2, 2011. They have a slide that says:

“It took two centuries to fill the Library of Congress with: 29 million books and periodicals; 2.4 million recordings; 29 million photographs; 2/4 million maps, and 29 million manuscripts. Today that much information is generated every 5 minutes.”

Not only do you have people dealing with analyzing all of the information you also have people developing new and better ways of doing business and developing new weapons and tools. Speaking at the October 2011 GEOINT conference, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers said the surge in Afghanistan included double the number of intelligence surveillance (ISR) assets we had in Iraq. He said those assets had been nothing short of a game changer and that the Afghan commanders have more ISR capability than any military commander in history. Those assets would be worthless if you did not have capable people operating them and analyzing the data.

That’s it for me. As always my views are my own. Happy New Year!

The year 2011 for Southern Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general, will probably be remembered for what did not happen in the light of the people-powered uprising and protests that swept across the globe.

In the Arab world, in particular North Africa, what is being now referred to as the Arab Spring made 2011 a tough year for the dictatorial regimes of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and of course Gaddafi, who was killed in Libya. In the Western world, a movement that started as Occupy Wall Street in New York stirred up similar protests across major cities in the US, Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Asian countries as citizens fought back against growing greed and inequality. Public anger over the debt crisis brought down Prime Minister George Papandreou and Silvio Berlusconi in Greece and Italy respectively.

Yet, despite the Southern African region’s high level of poverty, unemployment, and inequality, we did not see a wave of public anger similar to what we have seen across the globe. In a case study of five Southern African countries, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa has found that poverty and inequality is tearing apart Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Angola, with many citizens living on a mere US$1 per day. The irony here is that some of those countries, such as Namibia and South Africa, are resource-rich countries with some of the highest GDP in the world.

Amid this global backlash against greed and inequality, why were most Southern African streets (apart from isolated and sporadic protests in Malawi and Swaziland) empty, quiet, and business as usual? What happened to the militant spirit that has sent many young people toyi-toying in the streets of Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa against colonialism, poverty, and social injustice in the 60s and 80s?

One answer given for this widespread citizenry indifference in Southern African has been explained in terms of the belief that some of the governments in the region would not hesitate to use harsh measures if confronted by an Arab Spring-like mass action. True to this, in Zimbabwe some 45 activists were rounded up and charged with treason for watching a Mideast uprising video. In Malawi, the security force launched a violent crackdown on the protestors, leaving at least 18 protestors dead. In Swaziland, pro-democracy activists were banned, arrested, tear-gassed, and sprayed with water cannons.

It is also true that when the uprising was under way in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, none of the Southern Africa governments (well, South Africa maybe did but flip-flopped later to save face with the radicals within the ANC and other hawkish Africanists in the region) picked up a phone to urge Mubarak, Gadaffi, or Ben Ali to exercise restraint in dealing with the protestors. Instead, what we heard from Southern African governments was the usual song of complaint about Western interference in Africa’s internal matters.

But here is another explanation: Southern African citizens’ indifference can be explained in a “been there and done that” syndrome. This is because in some ways Southern Africa is a little bit ahead of North Africa in terms of democratization, meaning that most governments in Southern Africa are products of democracy and came to power through elections. Whereas North Africa might have been stable and economically advanced but did not have democratic governments. However, a distinctive characteristic of the southern African democracy is that not only we have a democracy without democrats but also a democracy without citizens. Southern Africa’s democracies did not and do not produce citizens but subjects controlled by governments due to the hierarchical nature of Southern African politics which demands obedience and loyalty from citizens. Why? Although they claim to have fought for democracy (such as SWAPO in Namibia, ANC in South Africa, MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe), most ruling parties in Southern Africa don’t operate as democrats. Their politics and decision making processes are highly centralized. By the way, the same can also be said about most opposition political parties too.

It is against the backlog of this unquestioning and uncritical citizenry, that we understand why Mugabe is still in power today and why most ruling parties in that region have won elections with landslide victory. This is why the Namibian president can place a moratorium on public discussions about the SWAPO presidential succession. And this is why the ANC-dominated National Assembly in South Africa can pass a law (reversing the gains made against apartheid repressive laws and policies) to limit free speech.

On the flip side, events in North Africa made the world forget (as the international media and world government shifted its attention to the Arab Spring) about Southern Africa, especially with regard to what’s going on in Zimbabwe and Malawi

Here are a few predictions for 2012: The ruling party SWAPO’s 2012 election campaign to replace the incumbent Namibian president when his term expires is shaping up to be between Geingob (who is the vice president of SWAPO) and me Pendukeni Ithana (who is the secretary of SWAPO). One is believed to be a technocrat and the other a populist. But both are insiders, so expect less change here if either of them wins. What is clear, however, is that another potential split (this would be the third split if it happens) from the ruling party is looming as the in-fighting has already started. More is too come as we inch closer to Election Day.

In Zimbabwe, it is clear that the opposition party MDC (MDC has lost the mojo, and has been weakened by in-fighting too) is not the party that will bring down Mugabe (as it was hoped), but expect a potential split within the ruling ZANU-PF party. As Mugabe’s health continues to deteriorate, we expect infighting as members vie for control and Mugabe’s position.

On the other hand, South Africa will continue walking the populist road and of course with less transparent governance. Unless restored, expect the worst from Malawi because its life line support, which is aid from the international community, has been cut off, which is going to make life difficult for ordinary citizens. Angola and Mozambique (riding on oil) will continue unabated because we don’t really hear much about these two countries in terms of international coverage anyway. The remaining question is will Swaziland eventually collapse economically, or has it already collapsed?

Vice President Joseph Biden said on Monday that the Taliban are not United States’ (US) enemy — a statement later backed by the White House.       “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions [...]