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Saturday, 12 September 2009

US Air Force Orders DeTect MERLIN Bird Radar System for Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan


DeTect, Inc. today announced that the US Air Force has ordered a MERLIN(TM) Aircraft Birdstrike Avoidance Radar System for Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. “The Bagram MERLIN system is the first use of bird radar technology in a war zone, another industry first for DeTect,” commented Gary Andrews, DeTect’s CEO.
The MERLIN SS200m system to be delivered to Bagram includes DeTect’s new generation MERLIN SharpEye(TM) solid-state bird radar sensors that provide enhanced detection of hazardous bird activity out to 8 miles, 360 degrees around the airfield and in all weather conditions.
“The fully self-contained, mobile military series MERLIN unit has a number of special features that include a Kevlar hardened electronics/technician cabin, redundant dual-range processors, dual power units, military desert paint scheme and Milspec off-road construction,” added Mr. Andrews.
The system will be deployed and operational by the end of 2009 and will provide, real-time 3-D monitoring of airspace around the airfield for hazardous bird activity providing automated bird strike warnings to air traffic controllers and pilots.The US Air Force purchased its first MERLIN bird radar system in 2003 and has installed six systems at US air bases and ranges to date. The MERLIN system, originally developed for the US Air Force and NASA, is the most widely used bird radar technology in the world with over 50 units operating in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Africa and New Zealand for aviation safety and bird control applications.
DeTect specializes in radar technologies for bird detection, meteorology and airspace/marine surveillance and is headquartered in Panama City, Florida USA with offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas and Washington, DC and in Canada and Germany.

Hindu leaders in America Worried About Keanu Reeves Movie ‘Hanuman’



Hindu leaders in America are concerned Keanu Reeves’ reported portrayal of the incarnation of Lord Vishnu in a new movie will be another awful Hollywood depiction of their religion, belief system and gods.
Top Hindus are still reeling from the way Mike Myers poked fun at their religion in The Love Guru, and they fear Reeves’ new film Hanuman, in which he’ll play Rama, will be another misinformed film about Hinduism.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed tells WENN, “Hindus are concerned. If the makers of this proposed movie intend to base the storyline on the epic Ramayana and make references to it or portray Hindu gods/goddesses in the movie, we would urge the makers to stay true to the story and the spirit of the timeless epic and other Hindu scriptures.”
Gary Oldman is also reportedly part of the cast, as is Lagaan star Aamir Khan, who is slated to play Hanuman.
Shooting on the Chuck Russell film is expected to start towards the end of this year (09) in Rajasthan, India.
Zed, who is president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, adds, “Ramayana is a highly revered scripture of Hinduism. Hollywood is welcome to make a movie about Ramayana but the final product should be the true depiction of it and not a fantasised or a re-imagined version to fit the Hollywood machine, which was likely to hurt the Hindu sentiments.
“Moreover, as Hinduism is largely misunderstood outside India, the distortion would add to the confusion. Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly.
“Ramayana is an integral part of Hinduism and was held in such reverence that Hindus believe that simply reading/hearing of it (sic) showered blessings upon the reader/listener.”
Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit scripture, which explores various themes, including human existence and concept of dharma, among other leading religious and philosophical issues.

Did the US-Israeli Relationship Play in 9-11?


The greatest threat to world peace is not terrorists. The greatest threat is the US-Israeli relationship. In the same way that a decade of pre-staging was required to plausibly induce the US to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the US to invade Iran or to support and condone an attack by Israel, notes Jeff Gates.
What Role Did the US-Israeli Relationship Play in 9-11?
On the day of the 9-11 attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attack would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: “It’s very good….Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel).”
Intelligence wars rely on mathematical models to anticipate the response of “the mark” to staged provocations. Reactions thereby become foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. When Israeli mathematician Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded that “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.”
With a well-planned provocation, the anticipated response can even become a weapon in the arsenal of the agent provocateur. In response to 9-11, how difficult would it be to foresee that the US would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With fixed intelligence, how difficult would it be to redirect that response to wage a long-planned war in Iraq — not for US interests but to advance the agenda for Greater Israel?
The emotionally wrenching component of a provocation plays a key role in the field of game theory war planning where Israel is the authority. With the televised murder of 3,000 Americans, a shared mindset of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for US policy-makers to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible, regardless of the facts.
The strategic displacement of facts with induced beliefs, in turn, requires a period of “preparing the mindset” so that “the mark” will put their faith in a pre-staged fiction. Those who induced the March 2003 invasion of Iraq began “laying mental threads” and creating agenda-advancing mental associations more than a decade earlier.
Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of an article by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilizations, more than 100 academies and think tanks were prepared to promote it, pre-staging a “clash consensus”–five years before 9-11.
Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (i.e., Israel). A member since 1987 of the US Defense Policy Advisory Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001. As a key adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle’s senior Pentagon post helped lay the required foundation for removing Saddam Hussein as part of a Greater Israel strategy, a key theme of A Clean Break – released five years before 9-11.
A mass murder, articles, books, think tanks and Pentagon insiders, however, are not enough to manage the variables in a “probabilistic” war-planning model. Supportive policy makers are also required to lend the appearance of legitimacy and credibility to an operation justified by intelligence fixed around a pre-determined agenda.
That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. Echoing Tel Aviv’s agenda in A Clean Break, their bill laid another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein–three years before 9-11.
The legislation also appropriated $97 million, largely to promote that Zionist agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and by impeachment proceedings commenced in reaction to a well-timed presidential affair involving White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that agenda into law October 31, 1998 — five years before the US-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein.
After 9-11, John McCain and Joe Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Looking “presidential” aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain laid another key thread when he waved an admiral’s cap while proclaiming, alongside Lieberman, “On to Baghdad.”

By Way of Deception
The chutzpah with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11, in a principals’ meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the US invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not yet point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.
Frustrated that President George H.W. Bush declined to remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Wolfowitz proposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By 2001, the Israeli Mossad had agents at work for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda also came from Mosul — reports that later proved to be false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz.
The common source of the fixed intelligence that induced America to war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and, to date, cover up. The two leaders of the 9-11 Commission report conceded they were stopped by Commission members from hearing testimony on the motivation for 9-11: the US-Israeli relationship.
The fictions accepted as generally accepted truths included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last fact was conceded as phony in the relevant time frame. All the rest were disclosed as false, flawed or fixed only after the war began. An attempt to cover-up the yellowcake account led to the federal prosecution of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider.
Did game theory-modeled pre-staging also include the Israeli provocation that led to the Second Intifada? An intifada is an uprising or, literally, a “shaking off” of an oppressor. The Second Intifada in Palestine dates from September 2000 when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount – one year before 9-11.
After a year of calm—during which Palestinians believed in the prospects for peace—suicide bombings recommenced after this high-profile provocation. In response to the uprising, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the plight of the victimized Israelis. Both Israeli leaders suggested that shared mindset (“feel our pain”) would require in the US a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism, the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center—one year later.


The American Valkyrie?
When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving the mark discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction to a well-timed provocation. By game theory standards, 9-11 was a strategic success because the US was portrayed as irrational for its reaction — the invasion of Iraq – that triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences both for Iraq and the US
That insurgency, in turn, was an easily modeled reaction to the invasion of a nation that (a) played no role in the provocation, and (b) was known to be populated by three long-warring sects where an unstable peace was maintained by a former US ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer. As the cost in blood and treasure expanded, the US became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically.
As “the mark” (the US) emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalyzing dynamics that steadily drained the US of credibility, resources and resolve. This “probabilistic” victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment along with a declining capacity to defend its interests due to the duplicity of a game theory-savvy enemy within.
Meanwhile the American public fell under a regime of oversight, surveillance and intimidation marketed as “homeland” security. This domestic operation even features rhetorical hints of a WWII “fatherland” with clear signs of a force alien to the US with its welcome embrace of open dissent. Is this operation meant to protect Americans or to shield those responsible for this insider operation from Americans?
By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage battles in plain sight and on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: Pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder. In this case, the result destabilized Iraq, creating crises that could be exploited to strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another key Israeli goal announced in A Clean Break—seven years before the invasion of Iraq.
Which nation benefitted from the deployment of coalition forces to the region? Today’s mathematically model-able outcome undermined US national security by overextending its military, discrediting its leadership, degrading its financial condition and disabling its political will. In game theory terms, these results were “perfectly predictable”—within an acceptable range of probabilities.
In the asymmetry that typifies today’s unconventional warfare, those who are few in numbers must wage war by way of deception—non-transparently and with means that leverage their impact. Which nation—if not Israel—fits that description?
Treason in Plain Sight?
Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping perceptions and creating impressions that become consensus opinions. With the aid of well-timed crises, policy-makers fall in line with a predetermined agenda—not because they are Evil Doers or “imperialists” but because the shared mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond not to the facts but to manipulated emotions and consensus beliefs. Without the murder of 3,000 on 9-11, America’s credibility would not now be damaged and the US economy would be in far better shape.
By steadily displacing facts with what “the mark” can be induced to believe, the few-within-the-few amplify the impact of their duplicity. By steady manipulation of the public’s mindset, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources by inducing those decisions that ensure defeat.
Intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of widely shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, such wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a people to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom. Thus in the Information Age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, pop culture, think tanks, academia and politics—domains where Zionist influence is most rampant.
Induced beliefs act as a force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the shadows. At the operational core of such warfare are those masterful at anticipating the mark’s response to a provocation and incorporating that response into their arsenal. For those who wage war in this fashion, facts are only a barrier to overcome. For those nations dependent on facts, the rule of law and informed consent to protect their freedom, such insider treachery poses the greatest possible threat to national security.
America is far less safe than before 9-11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations, as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of the settlements. Israel has shown no sign of a willingness to negotiate in good faith or to take the steps required to make peace a possibility. To date, Barack Obama appears unwilling to name senior appointees who are not either Zionists are strongly pro-Israeli. The greatest threat to world peace is not terrorists. The greatest threat is the US-Israeli relationship.
In the same way that a decade of pre-staging was required to plausibly induce the US to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the US to invade Iran or to support and condone an attack by Israel. The same duplicity is again at work, including the high profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer. From its very outset, the Zionist enterprise focused on hegemony in the Middle East. Its entangled alliance with the US enabled this enterprise to deploy American might for that purpose.
Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the US to war in the Middle East while also making it appear that Islam is the problem. If Barack Obama continues to defer to Tel Aviv, he can rightly be blamed when the next attack occurs in the US or the European Union featuring the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a predetermined target. Should another mass murder occur, that event will be traceable directly to the US-Israeli relationship and the failure of US policy-makers to free America from this enemy within.

Friday, 11 September 2009

Qaid e Azam & Mahatma Ghandi

Qaid e Azam ,Freedom of Expression & Jaswant Singh Book

Operation Enduring Freedom: War's End Not in Sight

It was supposed to be swift and decisive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan, launched less than a month after the attacks and designed to destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban government that harbored the group.

Eight years later the conflict continues -- and the endgame seems elusive. Insurgent Taliban forces have gained ground; coalition troop casualties have steadily risen; and Americans have grown increasingly weary of the war, which some critics have begun to describe as a potential quagmire.

Criticism of U.S. policy on Afghanistan from the president's own party, meanwhile, has grown louder. Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold is calling for a "flexible timetable" for bringing the troops home, arguing that "we've become embroiled in a nation-building experiment that may distract us from combating al Qaeda and its affiliates." House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, another Democrat, said Congress could cut war funding in the spring if things haven't gotten significantly better.

And the criticism is not confined to the left. Last week, conservative columnist George Will offered a much-discussed column calling for the U.S. to pull troops out of Afghanistan and instead "do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units."

Other prominent Republicans, it should be noted, have been more supportive of the current policy: On Tuesday, in an illustration of the sometimes upside-down politics of Afghanistan, William Kristol, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and others signed onto a letter backing President Obama's strategy.

Mr. Obama has already ordered the deployment of 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan by the end of the year, bringing the U.S. total to 68,000 and the coalition total to 110,000. The administration has sent signals that a further increase might come in a few weeks following a formal recommendation from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, who last week offered the White House an assessment of the situation on the ground.

"Our goal is clear: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda and their extremist allies," the president said last month, calling the war "fundmental to the defense of our people."

"That goal will be achieved, and our troops will be able to come home as Afghans continue to strengthen their own capacity and take responsibility for their own future," he said.

The prospect of deploying additional troops to achieve that goal, however, isn't going over well with many Americans. Support for increasing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan is declining. A CBS News poll last week found forty-one percent of Americans want troops to start coming home, up from 33 percent in April and 24 percent in February. Support for increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan dropped from 39 percent in April to just 25 percent now.

Poll: Obama's Ratings on Afghanistan Drop

"I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday. 



Watch CBS Videos Online


The Obama administration has argued that its Afghanistan strategy - which places a priority on clearing the Taliban from population centers and establishing effective local government and services - needs time to work. But while that approach has been lauded by many military observers, it amounts, in the words of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, to "State Building 101 in the most inhospitable terrain and in one of the poorest, most tribalized, countries in the world."

It's a country beset by problems related to rampant opium production. Although cultivation is down from last year, 90 percent of the world's supply of the raw ingredient for heroin is grown in Afghanistan, and a U.N. report last week said the country now has drug cartels.

In addition, the U.S.-backed national government is widely believed to be rife with corruption - and Americans arenow trying to determine how to handle allegations of fraud in the recent election where results currently show President Hamid Karzai won reelection by a large margin.

Special Section: September 11, 2001 - Eight Years Later
Exclusive: In 9/11's Wake, Anguish and Anger

It's surely not lost on Obama administration officials that Afghanistan has become known as "the graveyard of empires" - a place where foreign powers have failed to impose order for 2,000 years. A group of former intelligence officials and other experts suggested to Nicholas Kristof that adding troops in the south of the country "may only galvanize local people to back the Taliban in repelling the infidels."

"President Obama and his advisors, both military and political, want to do all that they can to create a democratic government in Afghanistan to prevent it from becoming a center again for terrorism, the home of al Qaeda," said Jere Van Dyk, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council and CBS News consultant who covered Afghanistan as a reporter for the New York Times. "But it's going to be far more difficult, based upon my experience, than anyone can imagine. It is not going to be easy."

Van Dyk said it "will certainly take much longer than one year" for the United States to achieve anything resembling success in Afghanistan. According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, if the U.S. has not shown clear progress by next summer, the public perception will be that the conflict is unwinnable.

"After the Iraq experience, nobody is prepared to have a long slog where it is not apparent we are making headway," Gates said an in interview with the Los Angeles Times in July. "The troops are tired; the American people are pretty tired." The following month, August, was the deadliest yet for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 52 casualties.

As for the Afghans, they're "sitting on the fence," according to Van Dyk. "They're going to go with which side is winning. They want peace, they want security, and that is it."

All this leaves Mr. Obama, whose promises of a renewed focus on Afghanistan during the presidential campaign were often drown out amid the debate over Iraq, in an extremely difficult position. Adding troops may be the only way to secure the country, but there is little public support for doing so - and it could backfire. Bringing them home could mean that Afghanistan again becomes a state sponsor of terror, one capable of unleashing an attack like the one that took nearly 3,000 American lives eight years ago. 




Watch CBS Videos Online

This week the leaders of France, Britain and Germany called for a conference to take stock of the situation in Afghanistan and "evaluate the challenges that lie ahead." Anti-war sentiment is strong in all three countries, especially Britain, renewing questions about how long the current coalition can hold.

At home, meanwhile, the administration has for a list of benchmarks it can use to determine whether its Afghan strategy is working by Sept. 24th. Pelosi said Thursday that the date is "fraught with meaning for us."

"I think what President Obama needs to do is level with the American people," Van Dyk said. "I don't think the United States can win this war in the short term. It's going to take a long time." 

Afghanistan a New Vietnam?


Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks in America, the United States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 43 told the American people that the US strikes were "... designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime ... As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan ..."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan." This approach was taken in order to placate the anti-Iraq war contingent of the American electorate on the left while not leaving candidate Obama vulnerable to the "soft on defense" hawkish argument from the right. As a campaign tactic, this proved to be successful. As American foreign policy, this is proving to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama has made. Could Afghanistan become President Obama's Vietnam?

President Obama has taken ownership of this war and now calls this a "war of necessity" that is fundamental to the "defense of our people." In order to convince the American people that more troops are necessary to achieve the desired result, the president says as President Bush 43 said, the mission is to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies".

What may really be at play here is an attempt to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, thereby providing stability in the region that in the long run could provide stability for its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan. A destabilized Afghanistan that leads to an unstable nuclear Pakistan could have grave results in India and other countries as well. Attacking "al-Qaeda and its extremist allies" is an easier sell to the American people than nation building and the longer term geopolitical strategy of establishing stability in Central Asia.

The problem with this logic or plan is that it does not appear to be working. The increase of American and coalition forces seems to be inciting resistance in many areas of this region, not quelling it. Many Afghan's view the American and coalition forces as invaders and are compelled on a tribal and nationalist level to resist. A combination of organized resistance by Taliban forces coupled with a growing nationalist/tribal resistance will only make defeating the opposition more difficult.

According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, the situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan, "... is serious and it is deteriorating ... the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, and more sophisticated, in their tactics ..." To this end, August has been the deadliest month to date for American troops, with 51 dead. According to the Defense Department, 800 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The top American commander in the region, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, continues to work on a major war strategy review and has yet to request additional troops above those already added by President Obama. There is speculation that thousands more troops will soon be added. Since taking office, President Obama has sent an additional 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan for a total of 68,000 in country, well below what the commanders need to "win in Afghanistan."

So far, because so many Americans have been focused on the economy, health care, and other domestic issues, Afghanistan has not been the focal point of their interest. This is slowly beginning to change as more conservatives and progressives alike are beginning to compare the military escalation in Afghanistan with the failure in Vietnam.

The similarities between Afghanistan and Vietnam may be more perceived than real, but the hearts and minds of the people can prove to be more powerful than military realities. Col. Henry Summers, a military historian, once said to a Vietnamese counterpart, "You never defeated the US in the field." To which the counterpart replied, "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."

In his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", Dr. King called the Vietnam War an "enemy of the poor." It drained precious financial and human capital away from important poverty and other social programs. In this time of catastrophic global economic recession, the Obama administration has requested $65 billion to fight the war in Afghanistan in the FY 2010 budget. Total annual spending in Afghanistan will soon eclipse that of Iraq, draining precious financial and human capital away from unemployment, education, and other social programs needed today.

As with the Vietnam government of President Diem, the Afghan government of President Karzai is viewed by many of its own citizens as corrupt. By his own admission, President Karzai has said, "The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen." Providing foreign aid to a country where the resources are stolen and mismanaged is becoming more difficult to justify....

Pakistan ambassador speaks in Denver Art Museum



Eight years of fighting terrorism has led to recalibration from Washington to Denver, where Pakistan's ambassador Thursday delivered a pointed critique of U.S. tactics.
A lack of focus on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, failure to win popular support, impatience, and relying too much on military force such as the unmanned Predator drones have limited U.S. effectiveness, Pakistan Ambassador Husain Haqqani said in an interview here.
"If the United States cannot get the people on its side, then any number of bombings from high altitude are not going to change the ground reality," Haqqani said.
"This is an ideological war, and it is an economic war. You have to create economic opportunities, because somebody who does not have a future is more likely to become a suicide terrorist than somebody who has a chance to earn a college degree."
Haqqani was the featured guest with Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and counterterrorism experts at an evening public forum in the Denver Art Museum put on by Denver's Center for Empowered Living and Learning, or CELL. The forum drew more than 550 people.
"We can't lose sight of the threat of terrorism . . .," Ritter said. "We must continue to engage Pakistan as a key to stabilizing the entire region."
The local deliberation coincides with Obama administration efforts to chart a new course in counterterrorism. Defense officials are weighing a further buildup of U.S. troops — already increased by 21,000 since President Barack Obama took office — to try to control resurgent Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials also are considering legislation that would send $1.5 billion a year for five years in non-military aid to nuclear- armed Pakistan for improving health care and schools.
Pakistan has come under fire in Congress for not doing enough to root out Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in its mountainous, tribal borderlands.
Haqqani called this unfair.
"When the U.S. government says they've been able to eliminate 13 of the top 20 al-Qaeda leaders in the past 14 months, it hasn't been without Pakistani support," he said.
He defended the performance of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He urged the equivalent of the post-World War II Marshall Plan in Europe to create schools and clinics in Pakistan, where U.S. neglect during the 1990s, after mobilizing legions of holy warriors to fight Soviet occupiers, fostered "deep-seated anti-Americanism."
"I'd rather that people had the opportunity to make boxer shorts for Wal-Mart than IEDs for the Taliban," Haqqani said.
Yet Taliban forces on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border benefit from a $3 billion opium trade and "close to $100 million a year" sent from outside Pakistan "under the guise of charities."
Pakistan still needs more military technology including helicopters and night-vision gear that has been delayed by Congress amid concerns that Pakistan could use the weaponry against India, he said. And Predator drones "need to be operated by Pakistanis" or deployed "with Pakistani participation" to minimize resentment.
Pakistan's government also is trying non-military tactics such as running a radio talk show, using U.S. equipment, in the contested Swat Valley.
"Isn't it sad that the non-military approach is only now starting?" Haqqani said.
After U.S. forces in 2001 helped topple the Taliban, Americans "talked victory" and neglected the region again.
Today, "it's much easier to get support for a quick war than a war that helps change people," he said.
"It's easier to get Americans to support a car industry bailout in this country" than a comprehensive campaign to stabilize the place where 9/11 attackers hatched their plot.

Eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.In Terror's Wake



A service to remember those who died will be held at the site where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre once stood.
Some 2,993 people died when a group of 19 al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial planes, flying two of them into the buildings in 2001.
Both buildings collapsed within two hours.
A third plane was flown into the Pentagon just outside Washington and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
President Barack Obama will visit the Pentagon memorial to those who died and meet relatives of the dead.
He will also lay a wreath.
Aides say he will stress community service as a way for Americans to show their unity and patriotism.
180 9/11 Twin Towers World Trade Centre
An attack which shocked the world
He has already issued a proclamation honouring those who died and urging Americans to mark the anniversary with community works.
Vice President Joseph Biden will attend the commemorative events in New York.
Other services will also be held around the world, including in the UK.
For many Americans, the anniversary is a time to remember US troops serving abroad, including those sent to Iraq and Afghanistan after the "war on terror" declaration.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has acknowledged that Mr Obama is consciously trying to avoid using the "war on terror" phrase.
However, he stressed that the president will remember those serving abroad on Friday, as he does on a daily basis.
"That takes up part of his day and is something that... he's thankful for and I think all of us are thankful for each and every day," he said.

Thousands of people are gathering to mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in remembrance ceremonies planned across the United States and internationally.
On Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, one at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and a fourth in a field in Shanksville, Pa. Almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including 24 Canadians.
Four moments of silence, at 8:46 a.m., 9:03 a.m., 9:59 a.m. and 10:29 a.m. ET, will be held, marking the times when the first and second hijacked planes hit the WTC buildings and when the south and north towers fell.
The memorial ceremony in New York will be held at a park southeast of Ground Zero because construction on the footprint site of the World Trade Center is underway for a new tower, an underground museum and a memorial park.
The names of the victims will be read at the ceremony, which will be attended by U.S. vice-president Joe Biden.

Name added

This year, one new name will be read — a victim added to New York's death toll in January. The medical examiner's office ruled that Leon Heyward, who died last year of lymphoma and lung disease, was a homicide victim because he was caught in the toxic dust cloud just after the towers collapsed.
It's the second time the city has added to the victims' list someone who died long after Sept. 11, ruling that exposure to toxic dust caused lung disease.
Many emergency workers died as they tried to rescue victims from the twin towers, while thousands more say they are still suffering from persistent respiratory problems.
A wreath will also be laid at the Pentagon, where 184 people died. In Pennsylvania, the names of victims on United Flight 93 will be read at 10:03 a.m., the time the plane crashed.
A name-reading ceremony is also scheduled in Boston, where two of the planes departed.

9.11-kilometre run

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, about 1,000 American troops were participating in a memorial run that spanned 9.11 kilometres at Bagram Air Field.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Defence Secretary Robert Gates are scheduled to meet with victims' family members on Friday.